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Author's Chapter Notes:
I'm a big fibber. I say the story ends here. But it doesn't. It continues in Part Two - Regrets, which I will begin posting soon.

To everyone who read this, I give most heartfelt thanks. The story means so much to me, as do Mr. Whedon's unforgettable characters. Much love and hugs. You're the very best.

Song lyrics by The Sundays
It’s that little souvenir of a colourful year
Which makes me smile inside
So I cynically, cynically say, the world is that way
Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise
Here’s where the story ends
Ooh here’s where the story ends

Here’s Where the Story Ends, the Sundays


“Hey, Bonehead,” Buffy said.

She found William alone in the garden when she returned from her vision quest with Ea.

“Hey,” he said, feigning offense. He lacked the energy to supply any real venom to the response.

“Did you find your special purpose?” she asked.

“Part of it, yeah,” he said. He held up an odd triangular dagger that rested in the palm of his left hand. The shape of it reminded her of a thorn on a rosebush. Its double-edged blade gleamed as he turned it.

“Shiny weapons usually indicate bigger fights a-coming,” she said.

William looked away from her. The pallid moonlight washed him with blue-white luminescence that made him seem like an apparition in the darkened courtyard. The slashes in his shirt and deep hollows beneath his eyes only heightened the ghostly-ness. But something else troubled her, something in the way he struggled that set off flashing red lights of concern.
Buffy cut across the yard to stand with him. “Hey,” she said. “Look at me.”

He did. He stared down at her face, not at her eyes but near enough. She reached for him, but he pulled away.

“You should rally the troops,” he said hoarsely. “Get Rupert on the horn to his Watcher wannabes. The world will witness...”

Buffy was nodding. “I know. I saw her too. Ea of the Old Women, or whatever. You were right.”

“I am right,” he said. He nodded, firmly. “And I will be in this fight with you. All the way. To the end, as ever. Even if I don’t stay here.”

He lingered for half a heartbeat, watching her eyes, before striding past her toward the house.

Buffy reeled. A pulse of adrenaline surged through her. It was the first time that had happened since she came to London. Blood rushed in her ears and boiled behind her eyes. She whirled around.

“You can’t leave,” she said, much louder than she intended.

William halted on the step, but did not look back. He said, “Why not?”

Buffy faltered. “Where would you go?” she asked in a small voice.

Now William did turn. “I walked this earth one hundred and thirty years before I met you. I don’t think finding my way’s an issue, luv.” The muscles in his jaw clamped down in an expression of scorn and pain.

“But,” Buffy sputtered. Her breath caught in her throat. “You... can’t go,” she said.

William closed his eyes. “But I can, Buffy. Don’t you see?”

He was moving again, bound for the door. He was leaving, and all the words she knew she had known had fled the country, possibly for Spain. She had nothing. Nada. And he was leaving.

“You came back,” she said, overloud again and nearly fumbling the words.

He turned again. “And?”

“So you have to stay back,” Buffy said. She blinked. Her brow crimped like the edges of a piecrust. “Wait. I mean, don’t stay back. But do...” Buffy pressed her fingers to her temples. She drew a trembling breath. “Don’t go,” she said.

William walked a few steps in Buffy’s direction. He looked non-amused.

“If you’re hanging on to me out of some twisted sense of obligation, don’t bother,” he growled. “I’ll walk right out that door.”

“It’s not that,” she protested. She set her chin, but could not continue.

The lines in William’s face softened. He said, “Why can’t you say it?”

“I did say it.”

“Yeah. Once. When I was dying,” he said.

Buffy huffed. She folded her arms. William looked skyward, at the quarter moon that skated under layers of buttermilk clouds. Part of his head encouraged his legs to keep up with the forward momentum of moving out. The rest of him remained focused on the faint creases around her eyes...

Buffy lifted her eyes as though she sensed him watching her.

“You don’t get it yet, do you?” she said, quietly.

“We have always been honest, pet. Blood-to-bone honest with each other, if not with ourselves. I know you don’t love me,” he said.

“You’re wrong.”

He ignored her. “I know that given the chance, you’d have wished for Angel. And he’d be standing here, 'stead of me.”

“No,” Buffy said firmly. “You died, William. Get it?”

“Get what?” he asked, his voice rising.

Buffy crossed the distance between them. “In your last big fiery showdown, you and Angel versus untold legions, you died. You were killed halfway around the world, and I felt it. Part of me... felt it.”

William kissed her then - a rough, unexpected kiss on the mouth. Unexpected for him as well, when he had intended to kiss her temple and walk away.

In that moment, William felt the tumblers of all the locks roll back. The pieces they had fought so hard to understand finally fit into place...

He parted their kiss and found her eyes.

“See?” she said. She shoved his shoulder in an I-told-you-so kind of way.

“It didn’t make sense, of course,” he said.

“No. Couldn’t...”

“Not until I got my soul back,” William mused. “Which means...”

“We’re idiots...?”

“Complete,” he said. He laughed, lightly.

“So,” Buffy said. “Stay.”

Without hesitation, William folded her into his arms. He rested his chin on top of her head.

Buffy felt almost wild with exhaustion and exhilaration. They survived another day. All of them. And that was the overall goal, was it not? Short checklist, all things considered. Save the world. Don’t get killed. Gold stars all around. At least for tonight.

So what if bigger bads were London-bound? They had seen worse and made it through. What couldn’t they face, the lot of them, if they were together?

Buffy and William sat side by side on the flagstone step, watching the wind ruffle the grass and trace distorted shapes in the ashen clouds. Buffy found William’s hand. She laced her fingers with his. She felt the pulse thrumming beneath his skin, and it thrilled her.

She whispered, “Whatever happens. Whatever is coming. We survive. We make it through, okay? We get to see the end.”

William squeezed her hand, then lay his head against hers.

“All right,” he said. “To the end.”

~*~

They should have known, but they did not. They should have guessed. But new lovers see so little of the world beyond their bright circle.

They did not see the shadowed figure looking down at them from the hall window. They could not known that Angel watched, expressionless, motionless, and in stunned disbelief. Outside, looking in.

Something inside him twisted and writhed. The mark on his chest, the symbol of the Black Thorn Circle, blistered like a brand. Angel bit back the urge to scream. He could not stay here. He could not stand by and watch... them.

And so by morning, Angel had gone.





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