A/N: I guess it took the series premiere of Supernatural to finally get some gears turning on how I would finish this. I think I may have written myself out of the corner with this one. Sorry for the unacceptable delay- getting my groove during the first quarter of a new teaching job takes a lot of energy and effort. Hopefully, this chapter puts me in the homestretch for this story. Thanks for being patient, my wonderful readers. And please, please, please, reward my return with a shower of praises in the reviews! I'll be waiting... and by waiting, I mean refreshing every thirty seconds.
Warmth. She could feel it envelope her, pulling her towards… well, she could not really tell where here or there was exactly, but she knew she was leaving her body. She remembered the feeling from her previous departures, but wherever she was, it was not Heaven, and it was not Hell. But, then again it was not Purgatory, and she knew this was definitely not Earth. It was like she could perceive all of them. Then she realized she was not somewhere, she was everywhere. Every second of her life from every possible moment in every possible scenario played out before her in real-time like an infinite number of funhouse mirrors, each containing another window into an unlived life.
A life where her parents never divorced. One where she never moved to the hellmouth. One where she defeated The Master and never died the first time. One where she went to Northwestern after high school. One where her first watcher never died. One where the key had never been transformed into her baby sister, never having to leap into a portal to prevent the dimensions from leaking together, and never dying the second time.
Out of these infinite, unlived possibilities, the only reoccurring theme was the presence of Dean Winchester—the only element that had been unlived in this current lifetime, until presently.
"We have tried everything, Buffy," a feminine voice spoke from behind her left ear, and suddenly she registered the presence of others in the ether where she now resided, "Every possible scenario, and nothing works."
Turning around, three women stood behind, faces solemn, and hands clasped together at their backs. Each looked similar, yet had some differing characteristics—each stood a different height, and their hair colors were distinct to each. It was the blonde one, Atropos, who had spoken.
A long sigh was the only response to Atropos as her red-haired sister, Clothos, also spoke, "There's only one of two ways in which you can come out of this chaos alive."
"Either we let Dean die, and become the Sword of Michael," the last fate, the brunette Lachesis finished her sister's thought, "Or, we take him out of the equation completely."
"But, even if we save you, it does not realign your fates. Zachariah has done too much irreparable damage, changed too much of the past," Atropos spoke again.
"Then take us back to the point when it all went to hell!" Buffy pleaded, "Wipe our memories, make it right."
"We have," Clothos frowned.
Lachesis gestured dramatically to the bevy of infinite universes unfolding around them, "Even after 732,549,136 times, it can't be fixed."
Atropos came forward and took Buffy's shoulders, squeezing them sympathetically, "Zachariah has found a way to corrupt your destinies every single time."
"Take me out of the equation instead," Buffy demanded, frustration coloring her voice.
"That's impossible—you're the lynch pin," Clothos replied, "You're the one who will close the gates of hell forever."
"That's why Zachariah sees you as a threat," Lachesis approached, standing just behind her sister.
"He designed this so I would be the seal, and he could get me out of the way?"
"No, Buffy, Zachariah meant Faith to be the seal. With the gates to hell closed permanently, Zachariah could never have had his war. That required you to be out of the way," Atropos corrected, moving her hands from Buffy's shoulders to her face to emphasize the severity of her next words, "That's why he trapped you in heaven."
"Trapped?" Buffy scoffed nervously, eying the Moirae like they were all in on some joke she was not, "I would hardly use the word trapped-it was not exactly a rough time."
"No," Lachesis shook her head, "the rough part came in the after, in the time when you would have done anything to return."
"When one is prevented from walking the true path of their destiny, it wounds them," Clothos touched her own chest with a spread hand, "When a human being misses a vitally significant moment which validates their existence, the weight of unlived potential is so heavy it leaves a scar on their soul."
It was like an epiphany. The words rang in her ears once again like Spike had only just spoken them—You came back wrong. At the time it had enraged her, terrified her, but all that time, he had been right.
"Heaven was my reward for saving the world… again—" she protested, fighting to keep her voice from breaking in half, "-for the sacrifice of my own blood in the place of my sister's."
"No, it wasn't Buffy," Atropos moved her hand from Buffy's left shoulder to brush away the fugitive tear fleeing the rim of her eyelid, "it was a means of separating you from your destiny."
"A means of separating you from Dean," Clothos added.
"To ensure the war would come, Zachariah needed to keep the savior and her paladin as far apart as possible," Lachesis moved her hands in opposite directions, holding one up towards her face and dropping the towards her waist.
"Which meant trapping you in heaven, and sending Dean to hell," Atropos slid her hands back to cradle Buffy's shoulders supportively, "where he would be weakened by his own scarred soul, and eventually fracture under Alastair's torture, resulting in the breaking of the first seal. Every step of his plan has been contrived to undo the work my sisters and I had done when we spun your fates, tethering you together."
"We had to attempt to stop the war," Clotho said, voice hardening with fervor, "which is why I sent Castiel to retrieve you both."
Lachesis half smiled, "We believed all we had to do was bring you together, and destiny would right itself, and avert the war even if events had not occurred exactly as they had been intended."
"Every time I try to rewrite your timelines together, Zachariah goes back further, disrupts more of your past to alter the future," Clotho spoke again with the fire still in her words, perhaps the most angry of the three because it was her job to weave the lives of man.
"Now it's impossible," Atropos face also hardened into a stern resolve, "Your timelines have too much scar tissue now to be mended."
"War is inevitable," their voices echoed together, harmonizing in a spine tingly note.
"That's it?" Buffy nearly choked when they said nothing else, "That was the Hail Mary pass? Throw us back together- hope for the best?"
"What else were we to do?" Atropos voice edged on indignation, "After all our interventions, all avenues had been explored. Even when left to your own devices fate could not prevail. That is why I am here to assure you that we will take care of you and Dean when you return to heaven. We will make sure you have the shared eternity you deserve."
"If there is one thing I have learned in all the years I've been slaying, it's that there is always one more unexplored avenue! There's always, always something—a lost sword, a last minute spell, a rare potion, an amulet—" Buffy eyes darted back to Atropos', "What about the amulet!? It makes me uber, right? Why don't I-"
"We already tried that, and look at the result," Clotho interrupted, shooting down Buffy's idea before she had even fully expressed it, "Lilith is wearing you like a designer dress and now has control of the amulet."
"But, I'm still in there!" Buffy shouted louder than she intended, mostly out of unvented frustration, "So, get me control for five minutes!"
"To do what?" Lachesis asked.
"Burn the bitch out."
"I hate to sound overly optimistic," Clotho directed her words to her sisters, not Buffy, "but, that may work."
"Yes!" Lachesis nearly cheered, "The trigger mechanism is very specific- the cage only opens if the blood of the first demon is spilled."
"If the demon is exorcised from within, she perishes without a drop spilt," Clotho was trying not to beam.
"Sisters," Atropos spun around, intensity etched in her down turned brow, "you forget that Buffy may also die in the process."
"Whatever," Buffy shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, "Rinse and repeat like before."
"Not this time," Atropos intense stare returned to Buffy, drilling into her the severity of the consequences that faced them, "Your soul is already too frayed at the edges. If you thought coming back last time was dark—"
"What's the alternative?" Buffy countered harshly.
"The Apocolypse," chimed Clotho and Lachesis, this time without their older sister.
"Story of my damn life," Buffy heaved her chest with a deep breath, "I just need to know that it will work—that I will come back from this, that Dean will be safe. That we survive this so that we can slam the fucking gates for keeps—no takes backsies. That we die when we are supposed-ta-die, and for real stay that way."
"If it works…" Atropos hesitated while she weighed the billion and a half (or more) outcomes she was capable of processing, "Then yes, barring a handful of easily remedied outcomes that can fixed if necessary."
"Then Make It So, Number One."
"I'm warning you," Atropos raised her hand, staying Buffy's enthusiasm for a second, "if we do it this way, there will be consequences. Maybe not today, but eventually… people you both love will be lost as a result."
"That's a risk we always take."
"It's not a risk—it's certainty."
Buffy tried not to bite her lip and reconsider, "You promise the doors will stay shut? None of this "We died in vain", crap?"
"I promise," she assured, "as long as you can stop her before her blood is split."
"There's always a price for doing what is right," pursed her lips hoping she did not regret her decision tomorrow, "Just get me five minutes."