End In Sight: This Is Me
by Phoenix_flight
Buffy stood as the earth trembled around her watching chunks of rock being shaken from the walls and crashing to the ground. She knew the Hellmouth was collapsing and that she would be buried alive if she didn’t move soon and God knows she knew it was no fun digging your way out of your grave with your fingernails…and this one was a bit more than 6 feet deep. Her mind was screaming at her to move but her body couldn’t respond. She was transfixed. Time seemed meaningless, in fact, it seemed to have stopped. Her whole life had been about this moment. Every single thing that had happened to her, all the pain, all the misery, all the heartache and angst…all of it was just another step along the path leading her to this. She felt free, she felt enlightened. THIS is what it was about. People may not like her, in fact, she knew most of them didn’t, but so what? It wasn’t important. This was what mattered, saving the future. This wasn’t high school, not some ridiculous popularity charade…her thoughts flashed back to the childish competition between herself and Cordelia for the title of Homecoming Queen.

“Hey!” she thought suddenly, “Is this what they mean when they say your life flashes before your eyes? Maybe I am about to die…for real this time.”

“Buffy! Come on!”

Faith's words brought her back into the present with a jolt.

“Gotta move lamb. I think it’s fair to say school’s out for bloody summer.”

Spike. She looked at him as though seeing him for the first time. Throughout her turbulent, traumatic life, he had always been there. He had never left her side. Why had she never valued him? Why couldn’t she love him? She stared at him, the amulet around his neck blazing, his blond head thrown back in…agony? Yes, he was definitely in pain but he looked ecstatic. He was glowing. This was his destiny. He looked beautiful.

He looked like a champion.

Her heart flooded with all the love she had held back from him. She wanted him to live. She couldn’t be without him.

“Spike!” she said, moving towards him, reaching out for him. She couldn’t let him go through with this.

“I mean it. I gotta do this,” he said, holding out his hand to stop her coming any closer.

He didn’t want her to save him. She could see that now. He was perfect where he was. She had never seen him look so happy. She loved him, she wanted him, she needed him…but it wasn’t her place to save him.

She wanted to protest, to scream that he was wrong, that he didn’t have to do this, that she didn’t want to lose him…but she couldn’t. Could she ever give him what he wanted, what he deserved? Maybe she wasn’t capable of love. Could she really see herself and Spike getting through this and living together happily ever after? No. The truth was, she couldn’t see herself with anyone. For years she had longed for Angel to come swooping back into her life like a knight in shining armour…and when he did – what did she do? Throw herself into his arms? Well, yes, but that’s the only part that was the same as her fantasies. She had kissed him and felt the passion, felt the flame but not the rest. She no longer felt like she wanted to die when she kissed him. She didn’t lose herself in him. She couldn’t take the comfort from his arms that she had always thought she needed. She sent him away. He was offering her everything she had dreamed of but she had realised that it was no longer what she wanted. She had outgrown dreams of being rescued. She wasn’t a normal girl. She had been the slayer for too long. She was a warrior. Her biggest fear had always been that she would be alone but now she realised that she always had been …and always would be. That was the point. She couldn’t blame that on the slaying. Kendra had been right, slaying was never just her job, it was who she was – right to the very core. It wasn’t something that was just thrust upon her, she didn’t wear it like some sort of uncomfortable dress, it was what she was born for. The whole reason for her being.

She reached out her hand to Spike. How she wanted to grab him, to crush him against her, to hold him, to love him, to protect him, to die with him…but it wasn’t to be. She took his hand and interlaced her fingers with his like lovers – it was the only way she could physically express how she was feeling. As she watched their hands burst into flame together, she knew he understood.

She wanted to stay with him until the end. She felt complete. She could die down here and it would be right. Her job was finally done.

“I love you,” she choked.

Spike smiled at her with such incredible warmth and love that she thought her heart would burst. As buffy looked at his smile, she realised that in that moment, he was the higher being. He had always understood her like no one else ever could.

“No you don’t,” he said gently, “but thanks for saying it.”

She looked at Spike and knew he was fighting the burning. He was so strong. She realised with a shock that he was enduring the torture for her…he was holding off bringing the place down to give her time to get out. And she knew she had to. She couldn’t die down here. If nothing else, she had to give him that – she had to let him save her.

Another, more powerful earthquake ripped through the bowels of Sunnydale and she knew the end of the Hellmouth wasn’t far off. She let go of Spike’s burning hand with an ache that seared right through her.

“Now go!” shouted Spike.

With tears welling in her eyes, she ran out of the Hellmouth just as it began to cave in.

"i want to see how it ends," said Spike as he watched the woman who would never be his run up into the light.


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