Sunnydale - The Year 2004
He was too late. The moment he stepped across the threshold he knew it was over. He closed his eyes and prayed for the first time in three centuries. Prayed to a God he no longer believed existed.
And then he heard it. A sound so faint, human ears would never have noticed it. He raced towards the main room and found her.
"Buffy?" He could barely believe it was her. The tiny, blonde beauty he had loved for so long was virtually unrecognizable. He sank to the floor beside her and pulled her bloodied, broken body into his arms. She shuddered and he gasped out loud. "Buffy? Thank God! You're still alive. I thought I was too late."
"No, you're right on time." Buffy whispered softly. She had been in so much pain but now she could feel it starting to fade like everything else. "I knew you were coming. I could feel it. I waited for you."
He knew what she was telling him. And a part of him knew she was right. But he refused to accept it. "I'll get you out of here. We'll get you some help. Cordelia went to find the others-"
"NO!" She cut him off. "You and I have had so many lies between us. Let's not fill our last moment together with them too. Please, Angel, I know I'm dying. And there's so much I need to say to you."
"I'm sorry. I just can't bear the thought of losing you." He strokes her golden hair, now matted with blood.
"Believe me, the idea of dying isn't giving me a happy either."
He smiled then. That was his Buffy. Irreverent until the very end. "I love you. I have from the moment I first saw you and I will until I leave this earth."
"I love you too. Only you. And I want you to know that I don't regret it. Not a moment of it. All the pain and the craziness and the tears it was worth it, Angel. Loving you and being loved by you was the best part of my life. It was the thing that kept me sane, it made me a stronger, better person."
"I never knew what I did to deserve you. I still don't. Your love is the greatest gift I have ever known. Even when we were apart, I could feel it and be thankful for it. I was on this earth for over 200 years and I never understood what it meant to live until I met you."
"Don't blame yourself, Angel. Promise me no guilt. I made this choice. No one could have changed the ending. It's my time to go. I can feel it."
He swallows back the tears that threatened. "No guilt I promise."
Her voice was growing fainter. "Tell everyone, tell my mom I'm sorry. I know this will be hard on her. Giles, he was more than a Watcher he was my dearest friend. Tell Xander and Willow oh God, I don't know- tell them that I loved them." She pauses for a moment and then smiles slightly, "Think of something cool tell them that I said it."
Angel could feel her slipping away. The tears now flowed unchecked across his face. "Please don't leave me."
"I have to go now. Remember the book of poetry you gave me? 'But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.' Eternity my Angel, that's how long I will love you."
And with that Buffy Anne Summers drew her final breath.
Angel picked her up in his arms and carried her to the atrium. He flashed back a moment to the first time he came here with Spike and Druscilla. Spike had said, "It'll be perfect when we want the sunlight to kill us."
"How right you were, Spike." Angel sits down, leans back against the fountain, Buffy's lifeless body cradled in his arms. He can feel sunrise coming. Just a few more moments and it will be over.
"Angel! Buffy! Where are you?" The voice is getting closer. "Oh no! Angel, is she-gone?" Willow kneels down next to Angel and reaches a tentative hand out to touch her friend.
"I got here too late Willow. She died in my arms."
Willow begins to cry. "No! Why did this have to happen? Why couldn't she have waited?" Her body racked with sobs, she continues in a small voice. "We could have figured out another way. A way that she didn't have to die." Suddenly, Willow realizes it's almost sunrise. She jumps up. "We have to get you inside."
"No. I'm not going anywhere."
"Angel, it's almost sunrise. If you stay out here, you'll die."
"I know. That's why I came out here. This ends now."
Willow's eyes widen in horror as comprehension dawns. "You can't do this! I have already lost one friend tonight. Please don't make me lose another."
Angel smiles faintly. "Thank you for that Willow. You always were the one person who tried to make me feel like I wasn't an outsider. But I have to do this. I can't go on without her."
"How do you know? You haven't even tried!" Willow looks around helplessly, hoping for a solution. "Do you think this is what she wanted? For you to just give up?" Then suddenly Willow spies it. She picks up the large rock and moves quietly behind Angel. "Please, Angel, reconsider this."
"I'm sorry Willow. This is what I have to do. Please understand?"
"I understand, Angel. Do what you have to do. And I'll do what *I* have to do."
With that, Willow brings the rock down hard on the back of Angel's head, knocking him unconscious. She drags his and Buffy's bodies back inside the mansion. She curls up on the floor next to them to wait for help.
And that's how they found her. Sobbing uncontrollably on the floor next to her friends' bodies.
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