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Part 3:

Buffy just stared at the outside of the Wolfram & Hart building or where it had once stood. The building was now a large collection of dust and debris. What the hell happened here? Angel what the hell was going on? But the shattered building held no answers. Its secrets buried under tons of concrete and steel, and Buffy didn’t have the time or resources to begin to search through it. Are they all dead? No, Angel would not have made his last stand here. The Hyperion? Buffy thought.

The Cab was long going, and Buffy had no desire to wait for another one. So she ran. Moving with all the speed as a slayer she could. On the night Riley Finn had left her and Sunnydale behind Buffy had run across Sunnydale to try and reach him. Yet, she always felt that despite how hard she had run that some part of her had held back. Now there was no hesitation, all her body’s resources were focused on one objective, and nothing would get in her way.

Buffy ran through alleys, side streets, and over fences without slowing down. She didn’t avoid traffic, but instead simply leaped over it. She reached the Hyperion in less then twenty minutes a record she believed even for a slayer. The old hotel was dark with no signs that anyone was inside. Then she felt something. A dark presence like she hadn’t felt since Sunnydale. Could the first be back so soon? No, this wasn’t the first. The first didn’t set off her slayer senses, this was something else, or a lot of something elses.

Buffy slowed herself down, and began watching the shadows for any movement. Shit, I wish I had brought some back up, Buffy thought as she made her way into a dark alley behind the Hyperion. In all her life Buffy had never expected to see so many dead bodies, demon or otherwise in one place. What the hell has happened here? Before she could make another thought Buffy heard a soft moan from down the alley.

Moving quickly Buffy began pushing aside the dead bodies to find the one who was still alive. At that moment Buffy got the shock of her life. Lying there half burned, with many open wounds was Angel. “Angel?” Angel laughed.

“What is so funny?” Buffy asked. Angel tried to answer, but suddenly he seemed to be choking.

“Angel? ANGEL!” Buffy watched Angel die in front of her, too shocked to realize he didn’t dust, and that vampires can’t choke on their own blood.

“He is dead?”

Buffy turned and found herself looking into a woman in a leather body suit with blue hair. “Who are you?”

“Is it not human custom to answer a question before you ask one?”

“Angel is dead.”

“Then I am alone once more. I must find more demons to kill.”

“Well good for you, but I answered your question. Why aren’t you answering mine?”

“I am Illyria. I was once a god, now I am not. I do not deal with death well especially those Wesley considered his friends.”

“Wesley? Where is he?”

“He & Charles Gunn are dead.”

“Do you know where Spike is?”

“I tried to find him, but he is not here. I fear my pet is dead as well.”

“Spike is not a pet.”

Illyria said no more, and she was gone. Then Buffy saw something on a crate. It was covered in demon blood, but Buffy’s heart leapt as she saw Spike’s coat.
---

Xander wondered if he had ever been this angry at Buffy? How could she just rush off like this? Dawn was currently taking out her frustration on Andrew. Willow was talking with Giles to get a plane for them, and rounding up slayers to fight whatever was going on in L.A. At this moment though he had nothing to do, and for that he was grateful. Because then he wouldn’t have to say anything. Then he wouldn’t have to say how upset he was that Buffy kept getting her lovers back from the dead when the woman he loved was still in the ground.

How could he tell them that he was jealous of his friend, that he was angry with her because somehow death kept kicking her pet vampires back? Just then he felt someone’s hand on his shoulder. “You’re thinking about Anya,” Andrew said without a hint of it even being a question.

“Yeah.”

Andrew let his head drop for a second. “I do to.”

Xander had to smile. Andrew might be an annoying and recovering from a stint as a comic supervillian, but when it came to Anya, Andrew, was the about the only one he could talk to. The two said no more. They really didn’t need to. The most important things Xander had realized too late don’t take much to say.

---

Buffy wasn’t thinking. All Buffy felt was numb. When she been younger when she found the coat she would have turned and run from the alley. Now she moved Angel and Gunn’s bodies out of the alley, and into the Hyperion. Only now did she realize that just before his death Angel had become human. What that meant now that he was dead, she had no clue. She did know Spike was gone. He had fought for the salvation of this world before he had a soul, then gotten one for himself, and then died for this world but he didn’t get redemption?

Now she clung to his jacket like it was a life raft. She had realized until just this moment that he really hadn’t believed her. That he didn’t think she loved him, and so he had chosen to fight, to die, and never let her know he was back. He still thought he had to prove himself. Prove he…She couldn’t think anymore. She just cried. She cried over the body of her first love for the man who had become her true love.

She had not cried after Sunnydale because she didn’t want to believe that Spike had not believed her last words to him. Now she realized he hadn’t. He had loved her, and she had beaten him down for it. Broken him and used him. Even after he’d gotten his soul she had used him, and he had let her. But he had given up on her loving him. Accepted he could be no more then a tool to her, but that had not dimmed his love for her. He died for her, and instead of believing in her love. The love that had been there, but she refused to admit. Spike simply took it as a statement that he was done. A tool she no longer needed or would use because its function was over.

---

Staggering as far as he could from the blood loss Spike looked around for protection from the sun. He couldn’t remember much of the fight or how he’d gotten out alive…undead. All Spike knew was that for the second time in a year he was alone, and everyone he cared about was gone. At that moment for the first time since he almost…Spike staggered not just physically, but in his determination to keep going.

His right arm hung useless, dislocated, and broken. He hadn’t been this badly beaten since Glory, and his legs weren’t much better. Before he could stop himself his legs gave way and he feel to the bottom of the sewer. The force of the impact nearly knocked him unconscious. Just before he passed out he remembered the sight of Angel getting slashed by a sword, and the sudden realization of his restored humanity. Spikes last conscious thought was, “It wasn’t me, it is never me.”





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