CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Buffy is shaking her head, slowly as the walls around her seem to be not only closing in, but crashing down on her as well. She speaks in a low growl deep from within, “No.”

Spike begins to approach her. “Darling---

“Don’t even start with the comforting thing because it’s not true. It can’t be!” Buffy retorts, eyes flashing.

“Buffy, it is true,” Giles says plainly.

“Then why didn’t you ever say anything about it to me?” Buffy puts to her suddenly silent Watcher. “I was with Angel for three years and you never said a word about any prophecy of Aurelius.”

His spectacles are not enough to shield Giles from Buffy’s hurtful glare. The guilt fists itself inside of him, pounding his heart. “I know I should have told you long ago,” Giles says. “I meant to tell you when things were becoming serious between you and Angel. Then Angel promised me he would tell you right before he lost his soul.”

“What, before I stabbed him in the heart with a sword and sent him to hell, you expected him to say something like, ‘Oh, this is sooo Prophecy of Aurelius.’”

“I should have told you myself. Even after you…even after Angel died. I should have informed you that his death had been foretold. When you and Spike became a couple, it didn’t even occur to me that the prophecy might still be unfulfilled. But I forgot one component of the prophecy. The vampire who would sacrifice himself to save the world would do so willingly, for the sake of humanity.”

“No,” she pushes from her lips. “I can’t…I won’t believe it. Giles, you’ve brought your books with you. You need to…you need to research this. There’s something that we’re missing here, some fact that we’ve overlooked because this just can’t be right.” Giles stance remains fixed as he lets his eyes fall defeatedly to the floor. “Giles! Your books! Open one, at least one. One might tell you about what’s going on and how we can stop it.” Buffy bends to the coffee table and flips open the closest tome. “Here, you can start with this one. We can all take one. We can all read together, just like we always do. If we all read one of these, or just skim it for the details, we might find something. That’s how we do things. There’s a problem, we research it, we deal with it.” Suddenly it feels as though she is the only one who can hear herself speaking. “Come on. What’s everyone just standing around for? It’s the end of the world again. It’s not like we haven’t seen that before. Please just take one book. Just one. One that might say something different. One that might tell me that…” Tears are beginning to burn at the back of her throat as she speaks. Daniel pushes his foot into her rib cage and she is reminded that she is carrying her child. His little face becomes a blur of pink and white as moisture glazes her eyes. “One that tells me I don’t have to give up the father of my child.”

Familiar arms encircle her and cold lips slide against her cheek. She turns in her lover’s embrace, the child still silent and comforted by the re-acquaintance with his mother’s surely hold on him. She finds a skiff of moisture over her lover’s intense blue stare, but something else as well. There is purpose there, a steadfast knowledge that what has been put before him has to be done. His hands catch in her hair and he strokes her long locks, all the way to the ends. She can feel the coolness of his touch on her scalp as he begins each caress. She feels the warmth of his words as he begins to speak to her.

“I knew about the prophecy when I fell in love with you,” Spike says softly. “That’s one of the reasons why I was so terrified when I started to have feelings for you. One of the many reasons.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” she asks reproachfully.

“As Giles said, I thought that when Angel died, the prophecy was over and done with, love. But apparently there was a little more to it.”

Being in his arms, she is more acutely aware of his strength and how much she had come to rely on it. She feels a sob building in her, so intense in its construction she weakens and falls towards her lover. “Oh God, Spike. Oh God. I can’t live without you. I just couldn’t!”

Spike motions for Dawn to take Daniel. Dawn cannot meet his eyes as she shifts the baby into her arms. Silently and without being asked, the group disperses, herding themselves into the next room.

Once the last retreating footfall is heard, Spike speaks again.

“Buffy, you’ve always wanted me to do the right thing. And this is right. You know it. So do I.” He smiles, letting a droplet of his emotion spill down and sequester itself in the deep trench of his left cheekbone. “I promised you a long time ago that I would do anything to protect you and Dawn and Daniel. So if I have to die to keep the world from ending, then I have to.”

For a moment she wishes that there were just a few traces of the old Spike still lingering, the Spike who would say, “Hell on earth might be interesting. And I’m certain that I’ve racked up enough points with Old Scratch to secure a cabinet position at least.” But the world is different now for him. It’s not just an endless forest where many creatures roam waiting to be poached, drained and killed. His world is the woman he holds in his arms and everything that touches her. She is his home and hearth, his reason for waking, for being, for getting through the day. She is a divine gift that was bestowed on him during one of God’s moments of extreme benevolence. She is beyond precious to him; she is everything precious that was ever created. Whatever evil in him was worn away years ago, she is certain. Whatever good in her has been made better, just by knowing him.

What she remembers now is Spike’s own promise to her, many months ago, when their affections for each other were new and whatever they were in the grand scheme of things wasn’t nearly as relevant as the words, “I love you.”

“You told me you’d never leave me,” she says.

God, Spike thinks. In the dearth of a stake driven into his heart, she extrapolates a bit of his own sentiment and slays him just as well. He could never leave her. Even now, with her skin flowing under his touch like bolts of golden silk, it seems impossible that he could even leave the room, let alone leave behind this life they have created together. She invited him into her arms and he has spent so many heavenly months right there in the cloud soft embrace of her acceptance. Just going through the day has become an exercise in passion. The normalcy of their lives is made extraordinary by their polar opposite preternaturalness. It wasn’t long ago that he called a crypt home and slept on a stone sarcophagus. With this woman he shares a bed in a small room, in a shoebox of an apartment that has a refrigerator, a TV, a shower with hot and cold running water, a microwave, and a tiny cradle.

He lifts her chin with the crook of his index finger, his dormant heart making a mockery of his dead flesh as he feels it splitting in two. “Darling, we have had exactly 468 days together and that’s about 468 more days than I ever imagined we would have together. You’ve given me so much, Buffy. You’ve given me another chance at life. You’ve made me a man, the sort of man I could have never been if I had never known you. And you’ve made me a father. Yeah, you’re right. I did tell you that I would never leave you. And I never will. Because of Daniel. As long as you have Daniel, I’ll be with you, love. I think that’s why he was born, love. Which makes him our miracle and not anyone else’s. Here.” He closes his hand over the watch around her neck. Springing it open, he reads his own words. I’ve got all the time for you, love. “You give this to Daniel one day, when he’s ready. When he’s curious about his old man. You sit down with him and tell him about me. You don’t have to tell him everything, not all at once. But I do want him to know that his father loved him right up until the second he died.”

“I’ll tell him,” she promises, pulling him closer to her

He takes her face in his hands and pulls her gently toward him. Kissing her fleetingly, he then places his forehead against hers. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me,” he says, “but I want you to know what wherever I am, in whatever dimension I find myself in, I’ll never stop loving you.”

Fresh tears puddle and then flow down her cheeks. No amount of telling herself not to cry will work and she is so glad he is not telling her to be brave. “I’ll never, ever stop loving you,” she whispers to him. She draws him closer, pressing her hands against his muscular form, needing to feel how solid he is, needing to know his substance. She clutches at the lapels of his duster, thinking that if she holds on hard enough, he won’t disappear.

He feels in her arms a sudden dip in courage, as though she is claiming him forever in her embrace.

“Buffy, I have to go,” he tells her.

“I know,” she whispers into his ear. “I’m going with you.”

He jerks her away from him, holding her at an arm’s length. “Buffy---

“I’m going with you to the church,” she says, tears sliding down her cheeks. “You should have someone you love beside you holding your hand before you…I’m going to be there to hold you hand.”

He kisses her again, this time letting his lips linger on hers, hoping that wherever he is going, he can take with him at least the memory of her mouth.

“Darling, the first time I saw you, you were dancing. The next time I saw you, you were fighting. And I never want you to stop doing either, do you hear me?”

“Yes,” she says, but just barely.

“Swear it.”

“I swear.”

Satisfied with her pledge, he wipes a few of her tears away with the dull blade swipe of his thumb and takes her by the hand. He puts her curled fist to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. “Till death do us part, love.”

She nods, tightening her grip on his hand. “Till death do us part.”

In the next room, Dawn is rocking Daniel very gently. He has drifted off to sleep and she could put him back into his carrier, but she doesn’t want to. She wants to hold him and remember how close she came to never holding him again. She pauses to consider the little person in her arms. The protrusion of flesh on his upper lip catches her eye. A month of nursing has produced a callous. He is such a hungry baby. She is surprised that he wasn’t yowling for Buffy’s milk when he was first brought back. But he has been silent and accepting of all that has been raging out of control around him. If only she could be like him, Dawn thinks for a moment, reliant only on the impulses to feed and sleep. If only the chloroform could have knocked her out completely for the entire evening. To drag herself through this unending night has been an exercise in courage she didn’t know she had and even she is mystified by the power she exhibited when she pummeled her boyfriend over and over. Those events seem distant now that the sweet and warm baby is nestled in her arms. He is safe from harm, but there is someone else who is not so lucky. Someone she loves will be going away from her. It won’t be the first time. But it feels like the first time all over again.

Travis still remains in their midst, though if the glares he his receiving could be translated into weapons, he would be a charcoal smear on the Singleton’s unblemished beige carpet. He has never stopped looking at Dawn, still hopeful that she might offer him something other than a punch to his jaw.

“Dawn, I’m---

“Shut up!” she orders as she continues to escort Daniel around the room in her arms. “Just shut up!”

Undaunted by her surly response, he tries again. “Dawn, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Yeah? Well I did! And I could hurt you again if you don’t keep your mouth shut.”

With his swollen eye still stinging from her last jab, Travis decides that doing as he is told is a much better alternative than having the rest of his shit kicked out of him.

At this time, Spike and Buffy stride hand-in-in into the living room. Dawn looks over at the pair and automatically looks away after seeing the resolve in their faces and the traces of tears they have shed while reaching their final, unalterable conclusion.

“We’re off,” Spike says casually as though the two of them are departing home for the night.

“Oh,” Giles says as he rises from his position on the sofa. “Do you need anything?” And a second after he says that, he is mentally proclaiming himself as the ass of all time.

“Got everything I need right here,” Spike replies, holding tight to his lover’s hand. All that’s left are the good-byes, Spike adds to himself. He often wondered what it would be like to he finally said sayonara to Sunnydale. He thought that the jubilation would rival that of the worldwide welcoming of the new millennium. But judging by the sorrowful expressions on the faces of those gathered before him, the mark he has left on this place isn’t one of the sort of treachery the Spike before him would have liked to be remembered for. Instead, the people here are pre-mourning the passing of a man they have come to know very lately as a brother and a friend. They line up sullenly like aged professors at a commencement ceremony.

Giles is the first recipient of Spike’s farewell. Giles is stiff and composed as he shoves his hand forward begrudgingly and Spike takes it, giving it a firm pump. When the youthful vampire inclines his head towards his, Giles instinctively shrinks away and Spike has to laugh a little.

“Watcher,” Spike says in a sharp whisper.

Giles thinks Spike is calling him by his title, but in a brief mental recap of the moment, Buffy’s caretaker dissects the two syllables into Spike’s true meaning. Watch her, is what the vampire has said to him. Giles nods and smiles, not even aware that his hand is still in Spike’s until the vampire’s fingers slip away from his. His eyes brim with emotion Spike never thought he would find behind those ever-present specs of a man who has been such a vocal adversary of his throughout the years.

Next is Willow, whose chin nearly rests on her chest as she lifts her eyes to him. A handshake will not do for this lovely red-headed coven maven and Spike wraps his arms around her. Her arms envelope his shoulders and he remembers a time when she gave him strained comfort with the words, “there, there.”

“Fuzzy pink with lilac underneath,” he intones in her ear.

“Huh?” she says.

As he pulls away he is smiling. “That sweater you once wore. Find it. Wear it.” He takes her by the chin. “Life is much to short and you are too pretty to dress like a depressed member of the proletariat.”

She didn’t really expect fashion advice to be his parting words to her, but she didn’t count on being hugged either. She will miss him and she feels she should tell him this, but the lump in her throat prevents her from saying anything. Her eyes shimmer with tears as she nods her farewell.

Tara stands beside her, and she receives not only an embrace, but a kiss on the cheek as well. Willow reasons that this is only right, since she is quite visibly the femme in their relationship. The witch has also always acknowledged the gentle bond between the two as outsiders of the group and has heard her lover speak of Spike with a familial tone in her voice. It was Tara who felt Spike’s protective shield over Buffy long before he made his presence known when he returned to Sunnydale after his desert sojourn. She knew that something powerful would come out of his love for her and it has; something strong enough to save the world.

Xander rocks on his heels nervously as Spike comes to rest in front of him. No matter what hateful, heated exchanges the two men have shared over the years, the two have been friends, though neither have them has affixed that label to their relationship. To do so would imply that the ice had broken somewhere along the line and they both like to think of themselves as gliding along as mutual enemies who occasionally have a thing or two in common.

Their hands come up at the same time, forging not so much a handshake as a hug they can’t go through with.

“Xander, Daniel’s going to need a strong male influence in his life. Someone to look up to, someone to emulate,” Spike says.

“And you want me to make sure Buffy finds such a person,” Xander finishes for him.

Spike puts his fingertip to his nose. “Only at the last do we understand each other.”

The two men stand a part for a short time, just one minute hand sweep on the clock until their arms to find their way around each other.

“I’ll look after him,” Xander says with a firm squeeze, realizing the slightness of Spike’s shoulders and the magnitude of what has been placed on them.

“You’d better,” Spike with a gentle warning in his voice.

Anya stands beside him, straddling the line between being exceedingly bored and exceptionally affected.

“I don’t know why this is so hard,” she says, folding her arms around her torso. “You have admittedly stolen from me and you always refer to me as ‘Demon Girl.’ But here, I’m going to use the vernacular of a family that has a popular and therefore profitable show on MTV.” Anya smiles. “You’re fucking forgiven.”

“And I’m fucking thankful,” this Prince of Darkness replies as he hugs her.

Now it is Dawn’s turn.

She has been counting the people in front of her, knowing that her time would come eventually and hoping that it wouldn’t. It’s too late to sneak off and hide and play pretend that this is not happening. When her father left she spent many days behind her closed bedroom door pretending that he was still in the house. She told herself they were playing and extended game of hide and seek and she just couldn’t find him. She counted all the numbers she knew, crying out “ready or not, here I come!” when she got to the place where she was making up sixty two-eth’s or seven-fiveths. She knows all her numbers now. She can even divide them, make them into integers, combine them with letters and plug them into theorems. What she can’t do still, after all these years, is say good-bye.

The teenager, so mature in her carriage and so tall in stature, shrinks away to the girl she was a year a half ago when she hears Spike call her “Sweetbit” and after that she can’t stop the tears.

“Oh, baby girl…please don’t cry,” he tells her uselessly as he sifts her hair through his fingers.

“Oh, Spike…” is all she says. Her body is shaking and she knows she is losing her hold on the baby that has been entrusted to her. Luckily, Buffy shifts Daniel into her arms just before the bough breaks Dawn falls into Spike’s arms.

Whatever tethered hold Spike was using to leash his own tears is tested when he feels the young girl tremble helplessly against him.

“You were the first human in 128 years to tell me that you loved me, remember that?” he asks her as he tugs her closer.

She does remember this. She told him she loved him in Giles’ living room when her sister was lying close to death in the hospital. It was his love for Buffy that had brought about the fever that nearly killed her, and his love for her that struck her down with the ailment as well. But it was this affliction that told her his affections towards the both of them were true. She has loved this man for a long time, longer than her sister has, she knows. She once told him in anger that he wasn’t her father or her brother, that he was just the guy who fucked her sister. She is cursing herself for every argument they’ve ever had, but especially for hurting him so when she knew in her heart he was more a father to her than her own father and more a brother than any imaginary brother could be. He has been to her, plain and simply, the best of everything to her.

“I’m so proud of you, Dawn. So proud of what you’ve become,” he tells her. “One of my greatest pleasures has been watching you grow and become so beautiful and strong. I don’t have to worry about you, Bit. You’ve proven tonight you can take care of yourself. But there’s one thing you have to do for me. Your sister’s going to need you and you have to be there for her. You have to.”

“I will,” Dawn manages to say.

He leans into her, his eyes becoming twin indigo beams drilling into hers. She feels his lips fall on hers with just the most polite pressure. With this kiss she feels very small indeed, small enough to disappear, small enough to die and not be remembered. His eyes resurrect the memory of herself as he backs away and she knows she has to be, just be. She has to be there for Buffy.

The baby is squalling, a feeding needed at last. Buffy opens her blouse and sits in a faraway corner. Spike sits by her, watching his girlfriend feed their baby. After Daniel is filled with the sustenance of his mother’s milk and drifts towards sleep, Spike takes him into his arms.

“Hey, little warrior,” Spike says. “Don’t nod off just yet. Your Daddy needs to speak to you. You know that lovely girl there. That’s your mummy. I’m leaving you with her.” Daniel coos in a mock understanding of what’s being said. It’s as though sometime Daniel is being born all over again when he notices something different about him. “I love you, Daniel. Daddy will always love you.”

Spike kisses his son before passing the infant back into Dawn’s arms. His son will never know his love for him, but in the witness of the people around him, Spike hopes someday Daniel will know his father loved him, just by the very fact that he is alive.

At the doorway, clutching his love’s hand, Spike surveys the group in front of him, all sad-soaked and blistered from his departure. He gives a final wave. And then he opens the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

At Saint Catherine’s Chapel, the bell in the clock tower peals the quarter hour ‘til midnight. There is a sound arising from the hole in the sanctuary like that of metal scraping against metal; the voices of the demons below growing increasing restless to be unleashed and set free to roam about the earth. Flames from the open pit shoot skyward, igniting the rafters above. In minutes the entire church will be soot.

At the altar, Reverend Estey is loath to let his congregation lose faith. As their pastor, he has led them to this, the ultimate test of their belief, and now, with the ceiling falling around them in snowflakes of red embers, he comforts them with a final word.

“It is God’s will,” he tells them with a bowed head.

“No!” Samantha Singleton cries, unlinking her hands from the circle. “Travis will be here!”

“Samantha, it’s almost midnight,” Steven Singleton tells his wife. He stares down into the pit and says in a near whisper. “The demons have won.”

“But Steven! Travis knows what will happen if the sacrifice doesn’t take place. He knows the world will end! The Slayer and the vampire would have had to have killed…” Samantha Singleton cannot finish her sentence. There is something so horrible that she has never even considered, even though she has been the mastermind behind sending her only son into the house of a demon and his warrior human companion. Somehow it has never occurred to her that something might have gone wrong this evening to prevent her son from carrying out his mission. Slowly, she lifts her eyes to her husband. “Steven, you don’t think…”

“Samantha, you’ve said it yourself over and over. Travis knew how important it was to bring the child here tonight,” Steven Singleton says with an unblinking stare.

“Oh, my God,” Samantha mutters, her thundering heartbeat now competing with the din of the encroaching hell. “No,” she now says, resolutely, “My son isn’t…they wouldn’t have killed my son.”

“Darling,” Mr. Singleton says, taking his wife’s hand in his. “If you had had the chance to throttle whatever it was that took baby Michael from us, I know you would have. I know I would have.”

Samantha Singleton shakes her head violently, jerking her hand away. “No! Don’t say that! My son is alive! H-he’s coming with the baby tonight. He won’t let us down. I know he’s coming. Our son will be here!”

Just now comes a crash as the Rose Window shatters above their heads. All eyes are on the fine spray of jeweled glass. Falling in the midst of the multi-colored rain shower is a platinum haired man and a blonde-headed woman, both landing on their feet at the altar.

Reverend Estey quickly sizes up the pair in front of him as his eyes instantly register recognition. Slayer and vampire…

“The sacrifice?” Reverend Estey sputters.

Spike shakes his head. “No son of mine is going to die for anything.”

He looks at the opening, the flames rising, chewing away at the rafters above them, dissolving everything around them. Although he has given some thought as to how the gateway to hell would appear, for some reason he hasn’t imagined it being so hellish.

Or so familiar.

His mind begins to work at a furious pace. His head is full of echoes now, words spoken, words read, words meant. The Slayer and a demon shall combine and raise for you a savior…the Slayer and a demon shall combine and raise for you a savior…you’re the love of my life…and you are mine…till death do us part…till death do us part…the Slayer and a demon shall combine and raise for you a savior.

The floor beneath him is rumbling and he stumbles, recovering his footing while braced by the arms of his lover. The flames are growing near and he can feel the intensity of the heat infiltrating his clothing. The noise from below is rising in pitch, blistering his ears. He is surrounded by familiarity, like he has been placed into a photo negative taken from his own life. He looks at Buffy and sees the silent entreaty on her lips and in her eyes. Please don’t go…please don’t leave me… He is stirred now by an inner voice that refuses to be muted by the deafening howl from the pit.

“Buffy, this is my dream!” he says. “Our dream!”

“What?” Buffy asks.

“The dream I kept having! It was here. You were standing right there, begging me not to go, but knowing I had to,” he says. “And I knew what I had to do to keep from leaving you.” He knew that night, not too long ago, when she lifted the veil of golden hair from her neck and invited him to feed. Again, the need to drink long and unabated overcomes him and he remembers the thought that came into his head that night as he fought with everything he had to keep from truly making her his for all eternity; he had to marry her. “We have to get married, Buffy,” he says. “Right here. Right now.”

Buffy looks from her lover to the pit of fire in the floor. She sees the flames, she sees the destruction the fire is bringing. She feels the tremor in the earth beneath her feet and for the first time this evening something makes sense.

“‘A Slayer and a demon will combine and raise for you a savior,’” she says to herself and it is as though she is hearing it for the first time. She guides her vision back to Spike, gripping his shoulders as the floor begins to slope towards the open pit. “Yes,” she says as though under hypnosis. “Yes, let’s get married.”

Spike smiles and kisses her, holding her tight as he turns to the Reverend. “You heard the lady,” he says. “Marry us. And we’ll need you to hit fast forward on this ceremony too like you did with the last one we saw. The world is about to end, you know.”

The ground is shaking so that the entire structure around them is being thrown about. The chandeliers above sway and knock together like pendulums of time running out. The clock in the tower rings wildly. The congregation clings to the walls, the frames around the windows, the aged radiators jutting from the walls. Their wailing now forms a screeching descant with the moans of the tormented souls in Hell.

“Hurry!” Buffy screams, clutching at Spike to keep from slipping away.

With Hell belching a great deal of fire, Reverend Estey’s feet are forced to the flames. He nods towards the Slayer and her vampire fiancé.

“Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the Holy Estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

“I will,” Spike answers as his feet plow against the slanting earth.

“Wilt thou have this Man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the Holy Estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honor and keep him in sickness and in health, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

“I will,” Buffy answers, struggling to right herself as gravity continues to work against her.

“Do you take this woman to be your wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”

“I do,” Spike has to shout.

“And do you take this man to be your wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”

“I do,” Buffy says, nearly falling to her knees.

The Reverend is holding onto the cross at the altar as though commandeering the mast of a rapidly sinking ship. He says in a hurried stream of speech, “Forasmuch as this man and this woman have consented together in holy wedlock and have declared the same before God and in the presence of this company, I pronounce them Husband and Wife. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

From the ground now comes a hideous bellow, made up of all the cries of a million wretched souls. It is a wail of protest, an angry response to the Reverend’s disdainful liturgy. Those standing above ground cup their hands over their ears as the noise continues, growing to such a level that the windows begin to shatter. All at once, the sound begins to dissipate and the earth’s movements become the focal point. The ground is not so much shaking as it is moving…together.

The hole that seemed so immense, widening with hell’s turbulence, is now speedily diminishing. Now the size of a dinner plate, now the size of a silver dollar, currently no bigger than the eye of a needle. All around, the fires which were so ferociously laying claim to everything in their path are being extinguished as though doused by invisible waters. The chandeliers still swing, but gently now as though stirred by a stiff breeze. The bell in the clock tower chimes the midnight hour.

Buffy bends to feel the earth and finds it as cool to the touch as her lover’s hand.

The sudden closure has put an end to the voices below. She can only hear her voice as she says, “It’s over.”

Spike, still dazed by all that has happened, his pallor given a fresh coat of white by his near death, finally manages to say, “Buffy, if this doesn’t tell you that the two of us were meant to be together, you’re completely hopeless.”

Buffy gets to her feet and rushes into his arms. Once enclosed in his embrace, she is filled with such a sense of love she is nearly crippled by it. She finds the strength to stand in the sturdy, undying, undeniable affection of her partner, her one and only, her eternal love.

Her husband.

They hold each other, standing firm together in the ruins of the once noble structure of Saint Catherine’s Chapel. Through an opening where the ceiling gave way to the thundering rumbles of hellfire, the moon requests sanctuary and, once admitted, tithes its pale beams on the pair, giving them a dream-like appearance. All around them, the fires are burning themselves out, leaving in their wake halos of smoke, circling the newlyweds in a nebulous glow. To those looking on, it is as though they are seeing love in a tangible form, so real that if they extend their fingers they can touch it, crease the silk of it, feel its warmth and its light.

Buffy feels the vigor of their victory and pulls Spike closer to her. His hand comes up around the small of her back and presses gently against her flesh. The hand that once battered her, conspired to curl about her throat, endeavored to rip her to shreds, comforts her now, holds her, keeps her strong. On this night she took this hand in the sight of God, on a cleft overlooking the realm of Satan, and promised to be his forever.

“Oh God, Spike, we’re married,” she says in a near sob.

“Yeah, we are,” he says, finding it hard to believe as well. “It was a bit rushed, but I think at one point the Rev declared us husband and wife.”

“He did. And I’m so glad he did,” Buffy says, crushing her mouth against his.

Spike returns the kiss while penning a thank you note to Angel in his mind. Thanks for fulfilling the Prophecy of Aurelius. I married your ex. We’re registered at Neiman Marcus. Cash is also welcome. Your pal, Spike. “So was it everything you ever dreamed of, love?”

Buffy scrunches up her face. “I’d be lying if I said it was. But you’re definitely the man I always dreamed of marrying.”

“We could have a redux if you like. I reckon since I’ve asked you to marry me twice, it would follow that we should get married twice.”

Buffy smiles as she traces his left cheekbone. Her husband’s left cheekbone. With a giddy inflection in her voice, she says, “Well, we wouldn’t want to disappoint Dawn. I mean, she’s made all these plans and has practically booked the New Kids on the Block tribute band for the reception.”

“Then I say we have another. Do it up right. With pretty bridesmaids all in a row and you in a long, flowing white gown coming down the aisle to the tune of Trumpet Voluntary.”

Buffy laughs. “And then you’ll be spending the wedding night alone after I’m laughed off the planet for wearing a white gown.”

“Oh no,” Spike says, smoothing a thumb over her lips. “I’m never spending another night without you.”

Oh God, I love him she squeals to herself as she brings his face to hers for another kiss.

“Did you kill my son?” someone says behind them.

Spike and Buffy turn to find Samantha Singleton standing there, looking decidedly frail, her face pinched and careworn as though witnessing the fires of Hell have layered the age on her.

“Travis? Did you kill him?” she asks again.

For a moment Buffy sees in this woman something very familiar. It disgusts her briefly to connect with this woman in any manner, but when the momentary sickly sensation passes, she is able to see what is drawing her to this woman: the look of loss. Her expression is so haunted Buffy sees ghosts in the woman’s eyes.

“We didn’t kill Travis,” Buffy says. “Travis brought Daniel back to us.”

Samantha Singleton’s eyes fill with tears. “He did?”

Buffy nods. “Your son is very brave, Mrs. Singleton and I think now that he’s a good person. But let me tell you this. If you ever find yourself facing an Apocalypse, ask the experts before going it alone. An innocent life was almost lost tonight. Many innocent lives were almost lost tonight.”

“I know,” Samantha Singleton says softly. “I’m so sorry---

“Mrs. Singleton, it’s over, OK? Satan’s in his Hell and all is right with the world. Now I’m going to go home with my husband and we’re going to spend some time with our son before he goes to sleep. You should probably do the same.”

Mr. Singleton sidles up next to his wife, putting a comforting arm around her. “I think we will,” he says. “We have a lot to celebrate tonight.”

Buffy and Spike begin to move away from the altar, still arm-in-arm. Halfway to the door, it occurs to Buffy what the Singletons might find in their home when they return. She imagines that the Scoobies might still be there, waiting for her or hanging onto each other while waiting for the end.

She turns to the Singletons and says, “When you get back to your house, there could be some people there that you’ve never seen before in your life.”

Samantha and Steven Singleton stare back at her quizzically.

“They’re our friends and you can tell them for us that…” What can they tell them? Buffy thinks carefully about what she would say, measuring each phrase for impact and style. She only has to look at her new husband and brush his cheek with her hand before she knows what is ultimately the right choice of words. “Tell them that Buffy and Spike are forever.”

Phyllis Wright unspools another stream of tape from the dispenser and puts the finishing touches on another sealed box. She scans the tiny floorspace of the shop which she has tended to and has nearly gone broke for on several occasions. With an economic downturn and her hopes dashed on the city on the Hellmouth, she is leaving town. The stock, some of it very new and popular with the masses, is being shipped back to the manufacturers. Her everything must go sale came and went and she unloaded a lot of merchandise during the weeklong purge of her inventory. She bagged all of it with the same care and decorative tissue paper as ever, but she didn’t say, “Come back and see us again” because she knew that wasn’t true. She simply said, “Thank you for your business. It’s been great.”

And it has been great for her. In her guise as Helene, the owner of the House of Herbs, she likes to think she has helped many a bland meal become bountifully palatable and maybe she has spiced up a sagging love life here and there, but in the end, she is just a woman, well into her forties, saying goodbye all alone to a livelihood she has by turns despised and adored.

She reaches into her apron for the black magic marker she has been using to label the boxes and scratches the words “Legal hemp product” onto the surface of the cardboard. Thinking better of what she has written, she blacks out “legal hemp” and replaces it with “Miscellaneous.” When capping the marker, she turns to look for the other box that is ready for stuffing and finds a man standing there instead.

Crying out, she drops the marker to the floor. The blond man in front of her bends to retrieve it for her. As he places it into her hand, he says, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Well, you did!” she says, hoping somehow to slow her heartbeat with external pressure from her shaking hand. “How did you get in here?”

“Vampire, remember?” Spike says. “We have our ways.”

“Oh,” she says, coming to her senses. “Oh. Spike.”

“Yes, Spike,” he says, hopping up on the counter and extracting a cigarette from the pack in his pocket. He lights the end with the flick of his Zippo and takes a drag. Her skin prickles. Suddenly she knows the purpose of his unannounced visit. The vampire must have seen her that night at the church. They have a history together, one that includes a chapter in which the creature solicited help for her in creating a child, a child whose sacrifice was supposed to have saved the world from Satan.

She smoothes her hands down either side of her jeans, merely blotting the flow of perspiration coming from her palms. “Look,” she begins. “I know why you’re here.”

Spike cocks his head to one side and exhales a billow of thick smoke.

“I-I know you think that I had something to do with all that happened last week. A-and I do, but not in the way that you think. Just being a member of the church puts me in the guilty party. But a year ago, you came to me a man afraid, afraid that you were going to lose someone precious to you. A-and I said a prayer, I invoked the Goddess of the Earth to bless Buffy’s womb. That’s all I did. I didn’t do any spells. I don’t even know any spells that would create a life. That’s something way over my head. So if you think for one minute that I said some incantation and made a pact with some dark forces so that you and Buffy could make a baby, you’re wrong. I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t do that. Whatever brought your baby into the world was completely natural, or as natural as it could possibly be, since you’re technically a dead man and don’t have…well, you know. We talked about that. I-I’ve heard that it only takes one and you had at least one that still had a little life---

“Oh, will you please stop nattering on, will you?” Spike roars. “If there’s one thing that exhausts my patience, it’s a girl who won’t shut up.” He sighs and regards the glowing red cherry at the end of his cigarette. “I know I’m Daniel’s father, you silly bint. I’ve known that since the first time I heard his heartbeat. I didn’t come here for amateur DNA detective hour. All’s I was curious about was why you’re shuttering Ye Olde Herbalessence Shoppe.”

“Oh,” she says, relief nearly turning her into a puddle on the floor. And then thinking that Ye Olde Herbalessence Shoppe might not be a bad name for her next business venture. “Oh. That.” She gives a nervous laugh as she pretends to be mired in thought over which items to pack next. “It just seems the right time to make a move. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.” She takes in a breath and heads over to the row of fresh thyme that just arrived the day before she decided to close. “I’ve always hated this town,” she admits wearily. “I was born and raised here. I went away to college for four years and still I came back here after I graduated. I don’t know why. I guess I was just scared of being away from something that was familiar and comfortable.”

Spike nods, taking another puff of his cigarette. “I know. I’ve seen this place in my rearview mirror half a dozen times at least and I always manage to find myself back here for some reason.” He says this, although he knows why the City on the Hellmouth has fashioned him into such a hapless boomerang of a man: Buffy, always Buffy. If she had lived in Cleveland, he probably would have been drawn to that outpost of hell as well, but it had to be Sunnydale. Always Sunnydale.

“You’d think we would have learned our lesson by now,” Phyllis Wright says. “I think now I have, though. I can’t live in this place anymore. Especially after what happened last week at the church. I’ve known those people all my life. And this town is too small to avoid them.” She brushes pinches the firm and green stems of the fresh thyme, hoping that the shipment will withstand the trip back to farm where they were grown, but dismally she thinks they won’t make it. “They’re like me. They’re finding it hard to live with what they almost did. I see the guilt in their faces whenever I see them. It’s too much for me to bear. We almost killed a child.”

Spike feels his insides convulse as though feeling the panic of finding his baby’s cradle empty all over again. Then he quickly comforts himself with the recent memory of kissing the child’s mouth and taking in the sweetness of his wife’s milk on his lips. The night a week ago that could have seen father and child banished from the earth instead espoused Spike to a woman who nourishes them both with all the love she can give.

He remembers too Buffy’s level-headedness when confronted with the Singletons that night. How he wanted to strangle them for what they had done, for turning their own son into a monster and, in the process, making him, his wife, his son and the girl he loves like a daughter suffer such horrible anguish. They needed to be punished. But from what Dawn has told Spike, they are getting some comeuppance: Travis is looking into applying at a college in Virginia that has never even been ranked by Newsweek as one of the top colleges in the US.

“Yeah,” Spike says with a deep sigh, “But as Buffy said, many people could have died that night. But no one did.” Not even me, he finishes to himself.

“Thank God,” Phyllis Wright says, sniffing the thyme before bandaging it up in bubble wrap for its journey home. “So how is Buffy?”

“She’s great. She’s out shopping for a wedding gown right now with her sister.”

“A wedding gown? But you two just got married. Isn’t it a little soon to renew your vows?”

Spike blows out another curl of Smoke before dropping the spent cigarette to the floor and stomping it out with the toe of his boot. “We decided we wanted a ceremony in which Satan didn’t try to play gatecrasher. We’re getting married on Christmas Eve at the place where we met for the first time.”

“Oh, how romantic! And where is that?”

“The Bronze.”

“But isn’t that a bar?”

“It is.” When Phyllis Wright seems less than impressed with the venue they have chosen for their nuptials, Spike says, “Don’t be such a sodding snob. It is where we met.”

“Was it love at first sight?” Phyllis Wright asks.

“No. I wanted to kill her. But I got over it.”

“Oh,” Phyllis Wright says. “Good thing you did.”

“Yes, a very good thing.” Spike shoves off from the counter and begins to approach the shop girl. “Would you like to see the rings?”

“Sure,” she replies, not even beginning to back away. They seem like old friends now.

Spike fumbles with the tiny velveteen box before springing it open to reveal a tiny platinum ring encrusted with swirls of pave diamonds and an unadorned band, also in platinum. “I think they’re what she wanted. I had only a description to go by. And a print out from the DeBeers website that her sister gave me before I left the house.”

“Oh, any woman would love to have rings like these,” Phyllis says admiringly. “Myself included.”

“Really? I hope she’ll be pleased. She’s going to be wearing them for a long time. The rest of her life, you know.”

“I feel like I should give you something,” Phyllis says. “Something from my shop. Is there anything that you want?”

Spike thinks a minute. His mind rewinds to a time, almost eighteen months ago, in Giles’ living room, during an extended Scooby brainstorm in which they were not trying to save the world; they were trying to save Buffy. There was one ingredient that was missing, one that Spike wracked his brain all night for. And when he remembered it, Giles brought it to him from his garden. It had been under their noses all the time.

“Columbine,” Spike says. “Have you any columbine?”

Phyllis shakes her head. “No I don’t. It’s a wildflower and it doesn’t grow at this time of year, I’m afraid.”

“No matter. I’ll find it. A sprig of columbine in Buffy’s bouquet for her something blue.” He smiles down at the dazzling delights he has purchased for his wife. “Buffy told me she loved me when she was on her hospital bed after she got over her fever. She wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t found the ingredients in your shop. The columbine was just the coloring for the elixir. Everything we needed to bring Buffy back was in this shop, so you’ve already given me the world.” He closes the ring box in his hand with a muted snap. “All I ever wanted.”

“You did break my plate glass window, though,” Phyllis reminds the vampire with a daring she didn’t know she had.

Spike shrugs. “So we send you an invite to the festivities and call it even.”

“Even,” Phyllis Wright says with a smile.

Spike pockets Buffy’s tiny parcel and walks away, the tail of his leather duster billowing behind him. “So long, shop girl.”

“Thank you for your business,” she says. “It’s been great.”