Forty-five years later:
It's a moonless night in the graveyard and Buffy finds it fitting to be standing in darkness; after all, the last of the light from her life has died with all the rest. Buffy's face is somber and she stands before the grave marker still as stone. For a moment Buffy thinks that she should have brought flowers. That is, after all what people were supposed to do in situations like this, it's what Dawn did when they buried Giles, what Willow did when they buried Kennedy, but something about doing that just felt trite. It's strange, even after all the funeral's she's been to this still feels sudden and unexpected.
Just then the statue carved of stone starts to crumble. Buffy falls to her knees and a softness returns to her skin as haggard breathing trembles her lips and salty pools of liquid stream down her face. Her tears blur the name of the headstone before her, but she is still able to read Alexander Lavelle Harris across its granite surface.
Even in his nineties Xander had been the same boy she met sophomore year in high school, and nothing, not even the wears of time could change the way he looked to her. Not wrinkles, nor cataracts, brittle bones or dark blue veins made Buffy look at Xander, or any of her other friends as they aged, any differently. And his personality had stayed just as intact and vibrant as always.
Even in his dying breath Xander had managed to crack a joke. 'Don't fret Buffster,' he had said in a hoarse voice, 'I'm ready… and I'm kinda hoping for seventy-two virgins to be waiting for me,' a raspy and choked laugh escaped the dying man's lips and Buffy's eyes welled up but she still managed to smile. 'Although just seeing Anya's face again would be more then enough to make me a happy man for all eternity,' he grabbed her hand then and Buffy squeezed it tight. 'We're all gonna be waiting for you Buff… don't have too much fun with this whole immortal thing, we'll be… we'll… be waiting,' Xander's eyes started to flutter closed and his breathing slowed. Signs that death would be coming soon, signs Buffy knew all too well.
Buffy snaps herself out of her memory; she doesn't want to remember how it ends. Sitting in the grass before his head stone Buffy traces his name carved in the rock before her. They're all gone now, everyone but her and Spike. She knew this day would come, she'd always known, but knowing about this day hasn't lessened her pain any. After Giles had passed she had a good number of years before she had to witness another death. The next to go was Kennedy in her late seventies and Willow followed a few years later. A few years after that Dawn and her Husband Holden were in a car accident passing away at the age of seventy-eight. Anya had held her own into her eighties as did Xander and their kids were a big part of their vitality, but eventually she passed of natural causes as well.
With each death Buffy has felt a mix of emotion, in part there is sadness for the loss of those she has loved and then there is also resentment for the peace they will feel after they have moved on; a peace that she was dragged out of, and a peace that she will not return to for a long time coming. Just how long she doesn't know. When Tara had visited them after the defeat of the First, her angelic presence filling Buffy with peace, she had told Buffy to prepare herself. Buffy understood what she meant; she knew that life as a vampire would be hard. Watching her friends grow, have families, and then die; she knew it would be hard, but now that it has happened, she finds that she never realized just how hard it would be.
Buffy traces Xander's name set in his stone once again and thinks about going back home. Just the thought of being in a place that is so filled with memories of them hurts her unbeating heart. Pale fingers wrap around Buffy's shoulder. She turns her neck and looks up at Spike with watery eyes. Slowly she stands and faces him. Spike runs his fingers down her cheek and offers her all the love he has through a kiss to her forehead.
"I want to leave," Buffy says softly.
"Come on pet, let's go home."
"No… I don't, I can't go home… I want to get away for a while. Can we just disappear for a little while, get out of Sunnydale?" Spike looks deeply into Buffy's eyes, he understands. It's easier for him, sure he got close with all of her friends, especially Dawn, but he lost his family long ago and dealing with the deaths of the scoobies has been easier for him then for Buffy. Spike knows how it works being a vampire; he understands that the world around him will continue to change as he remains the same.
"Sure pet, we can go anywhere you want."
Spike intertwines his fingers with hers and they walk across the empty field of the graveyard. It's one of the newer cemeteries in Sunnydale and still remains mostly empty. Buffy and Spike pass beneath a young willow tree where more graves of the scoobies lie and they continue into the darkness. Buffy and Spike disappear into the black moonless night without even the thought of looking back, for now.
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Lord Byron