"I suppose you had to tell Rona about the hell-hounds at the Prom," said Dawn to Xander.  She gestured angrily with the steel rod she'd swiped from the construction site near the school.

        "That was Andrew," he replied, keeping a safe distance from her. "I think it was family pride or something.  Anyway, they're all dead now."  He looked over his shoulder and shifted his grip on his sledgehammer.  "I hope."

        "It seems so," said Giles, turning off his chain saw and staring with distaste at the mangled body lying at his feet.  "Is everyone all right?"

        "As all right as possible when covered with hell-hound entrails," said Anya, wiping at her shirt as she stood up in the high school corridor.

        Willow, still exhausted from dispersing the insect swarm, only nodded. 

        "We have to get down to the basement," said Dawn.  "The sun's rising."

        Ignoring the Bringers standing near the opened door, Spike carried Buffy across the basement floor to where Rona stood next to the huge goat's head seal.  The girl's eyes were bright with excitement and the assurance of victory. 

        "At last," she said.  "Did you know, Spike, when you're in a body, time moves in strange ways?  This night seemed longer to me than the eons I spent planning this.  Is it like that for vampires, or just humans?"

        Spike ignored her, only looking up from Buffy's face when footsteps echoed down the corridor.

        "Sounds like your Scoobies broke through my barriers," said the First.  "I liked Rona's ideas, but I guess they were a little too predictable.  It doesn't really matter.  I've won already."

        "Buffy!"  Dawn was the first to arrive.  She and Xander stopped in mid-stride, their gaze fixed on the small body in Spike's arms.  Dawn's eyes, still full of hope, sought the vampire's.  What she saw there crumpled her expression into despair.

"Sorry, Bit," said Spike, as he laid Buffy on the seal.  He straightened her limbs carefully, as if trying to make her comfortable.  "Don’t worry, pet, it will all be over soon."  His left hand twitched the set of Buffy's high collar before brushing her hair away from her eyes.  Dawn couldn't tell if he were talking to her or to her sister's body.  He seemed completely resigned to what was going to happen next.

        "What?"  Giles and the others caught up with Dawn and Xander, taking in the situation in a horrified glance.

"Oh, come on, Mr. Giles, you must've figured out 'what' by now," said the First.  "Kinda late, though.  Anyway, just in case you're as stupid as Rona thought you were, I'll tell you.  In just a few seconds, the sun will touch the horizon, and all the Power will begin to flow into the blood of the Chosen One."  She looked over the bedraggled crowd of would-be rescuers.  "And you're out of ideas, your witch is out of power, and none of you is strong enough to fight my Bringers.  Even the vampire must be all tuckered out by now.  I know that he never got up to full strength after the last time I played with him."

"Rona," whispered Giles.  "If there's any of you left in there—"

"Oh there is," said the First.  "The bits you promised to protect and didn't.  The bits you scared so much with tales of hell that she decided to go there in her own way.  The bits you kept telling that she could be the next Slayer."

Dawn gasped.  The others were staring at the First, but she couldn't take her eyes off Buffy.  And she could have sworn that the body at Rona's feet twitched once, almost imperceptibly.  Her head ached with terror and hope.  She leaned forward, praying for another small movement—

        And her stomach lurked violently as Buffy, fangs bared in game face, surged up from the floor in one fluid movement and snapped Rona's neck.

        "Did I hear someone mention the Chosen One?" asked Buffy.  "Here I am—dead and kicking."

        For the second time, Buffy entered the foyer of the mansion.  She looked around the main hall, seeing that the buffet table was still there, surrounded by a crowd of people dressed like they were at an elaborate—and drunken— historical costume party.  The reception desk was there, and she could see some of the wingless angels in their severe black suits.  They seemed to be arguing again.  But they didn't look at her at all.  If any files had been lost or any forms had been filled out wrong, they didn't seem to have anything to do with Buffy Summers.

        Well, why should they?  She knew that this time, she belonged here.

Her eyes found one special corner.  William’s favorite chair was empty.

        "You’ve come back."

        She turned to see Drusilla coming toward her.  The woman held a half-eaten piece of fruit in her fingers, and red juice stained her mouth and fingers. 

        "Where’s William?" asked Drusilla.

        Before Buffy could answer, a man strolled over, eyeing her in a way that set her teeth on edge.  He smiled and opened his mouth to speak, but Drusilla interrupted.  "Don’t waste your time," she told the man, giggling.  "I don't think this pretty lady will stay long enough to dance with you."  She turned back to Buffy and held out the fruit.  "Unless you’ve decided you like it here.  Pomegranate?"

        "Of course," said Buffy to Rona's corpse, "you're dead too, but I don't think you'll be doing much kicking."  She looked around and laughed at the huddled group of Bringers near the door.  "And look at your minions!  I guess a certain someone doesn't even have enough power to keep them running around blind any more."  She turned away from the collapsing forms to find an angry face staring at her. 

        This new vision made her laugh more than ever.  "My mom?  You think pretending to be my mommy is going to hit my heart strings now?  Get lost.  'Cause that's what's happened—you've lost."  Contemptuously, she turned away from the fading illusory body the First had borrowed. 

Her expression lost none of its scorn as she turned and kicked Spike across the room just as he rushed towards her.  His attempt to take her unawares foiled, he skidded to a stop at Dawn's feet, staring up at Buffy in anger and grief.  Dawn bent to help him, and he struggled to sit up.

"And you've lost too, my Sweet William," Buffy said.  "I've just instituted a slight change of plan.  Or do I mean a major change of plan?  Damn, I've never been good at this speechmaking stuff."  She shook her head in irritation. "And this Power thing seems to be taking its time.  I feel stronger, but—"  She grimaced again.  "Damn evil masterminds.  I wish they'd get their stories straight."

        She moved forward suddenly, backhanding Willow and flinging the witch to the floor.  "Sorry, Will," she said with intense sarcasm.   "But I saw your lips moving with the mojo.  Anyway, just take that as my sincere 'thank you' for all those favors you did me.  Like pulling me out of heaven and making me feel like one of the walking dead before I actually became one.  Not to mention all your other stupid magic tricks.  You should have stuck to floating pencils."

        "She's unconscious," said Xander hoarsely.  He had dropped to Willow's side and was checking her pulse.

        "Oh, well, I'm sure you'll give her the message when she wakes up, Xander.  You're slow, but not too slow for that."  In spite of her arrogant tone, Buffy was maneuvering around the room cautiously, keeping a close eye on Spike; she was clearly worried about his next move.

        "Buffy—"  Giles said hoarsely.

        "Oh, it's my father figure!" Buffy was edging her way towards the exit.  "Hey, Giles, remember how you left me when I was all in despair mode?  Pay back time.  And you can just wait, and wait, and worry, about what will happen when I come back."  She laughed raucously.  "And worry about who I'll go after before I bother with you."  With a meaningful but contemptuous glance at Anya, she was gone.

        Spike stood up and pulled away from Dawn's arms.  "She's playing for time," he said.  "Hoping the Power inside her will increase before I can catch her.  I need to take her on alone.  The rest of you see to the witch."

        "Spike, do you know what to do?" cried Dawn, still on her knees on the hard, dirty floor.

        "Yeah.  Problem is, she knows too—everything Buffy and I talked about."  He cast his eyes around the room, found a broom, and picked it up, breaking off the business end and leaving a jagged, splintered spear.  "Maybe the part of Buffy that's left in her won't make sense of it all, though.  If she was listening with her soul, and—it doesn't matter, Bit.  I can't count on Plan B."  He started for the door.  "So—Plan A."

        "Wait!"  Dawn had no idea how she managed to get across the room fast enough to grab his arm.  He stopped for her.  She knew he wouldn't have for anyone else. 

Her eyes were fixed on his.  She was trying not to look at the thing in his hand.  "Plan A?"

        "You already know, pet," said Spike, his voice unbearably gentle.  "She’s weakened by the change.  And I've just fed.  Now’s my best chance.  Once she’s made a kill, it will be harder."  He touched her cheek, looking unbearably sad.  "Stupid thing to say.  As if anything could make it harder.  Buffy and me, we didn't want to do this, Bit.  Neither of us.  Maybe if we'd had more than a few minutes to think it through—but there was no other way to stop the First."

        There was no time to rage about that now.  Dawn went back to the first part of his speech.  "Your best chance to do what?"  she whispered, pretending for one last precious second that she didn't know the answer.

        Spike entered the maze of tunnels that led eventually to the surface.  "To honor her last request."

        Giles spared a moment to instruct Xander to stay with Willow and call for medical assistance before he, Anya, and Dawn made their way to the main corridor of the school, only to stop there, suddenly indecisive.

        Buffy and Spike were battling in front of the principal's office, hissing and snarling, striking at each other with ferocious violence.  He had already lost his weapon; Dawn almost tripped over the abandoned broomstick.  The vampires' bodies were flying through the air, crashing through glass and wood, sending debris swirling dangerously in their wake.

        Buffy lunged towards Spike, but he caught her in the stomach with a vicious kick, and she staggered back into a classroom.  The others tried to follow, but were driven back as a desk and two chairs smashed against the doorway in quick succession.

        "How do we stop them?" Dawn sobbed.  She grabbed Giles' arm.  "What do we do?"

        "Well, they keep finding a lot of wooden things to hit each other with," said Anya.  "Sooner or later, one of them is going to stake the other."

        "Thank you, Anya, I had figured that out!" spat out Dawn.

        "No!" cried Giles.  "I believe I'm starting to understand what's happening, and it is absolutely imperative we keep Spike alive.  We must save him, at all costs."

        "Save Spike?" said Anya.  "Okay, I can see that being on the to-do list, but it seems to me that killing Buffy is the number one item.  If she's going to get all that Power, on top of being the Slayer, and on top of being Buffy, she's going to be more dangerous than the First would have been."

        "Precisely.  But I am very afraid that killing Spike is specifically what will give her unfettered access to the Power."  He paused for a moment.  "Considering what Buffy told me of her reasons for returning from heaven, this is really a somewhat ironic plot twist.  However—"  He abandoned that train of thought to duck away from an airborne football trophy.

        Anya gasped in realization as she dodged a flying chair leg.  "Of course," she said, as she crawled behind a trophy case for safety.  "That's the piece I couldn't quite figure out.  Now the ritual is over, she has to destroy all the other links to the Power."

        There was a huge crash, and Buffy's body came slamming through the classroom wall and back into the corridor.  She rose from the floor, fangs bared, shaking off bits of drywall.  The moment that Spike, also in game face, emerged through the gap, she launched herself at him, and the two of them disappeared down another hallway.

        Dawn stared helplessly.  It would have been pointless suicide to throw herself between those two.

        "One of the texts indicated that the vampire must be alive at dawn to begin the transfer," said Giles.  He was making his way down the hall, stopping at a fire alarm, and staring in frustration when he realized the fire axe had already been removed from the wall.  "But I very much fear he is intended to be dead by twilight."

        "Do you think Buffy knows that?" asked Anya.

        "I pray not," said Giles.  "If we are lucky, she may just flee, leaving the fight for another day, after she's had a chance to feed."  He grabbed the fire extinguisher.   "This might slow her down a bit," he said doubtfully.

        Dawn, who had been staring down the hallway as the sounds of battle receded, spun around to face him.  "How can you?  How can you talk like this about her?"

        Giles seemed struck by the anguish in her voice, but Anya was impatient.  "Dawn, she isn't Buffy any more.  You know that."

        "We can't give up on her! Anyone else, but this is Buffy.  There has to be a way to get her back!"

        Dawn turned and raced down the corridor.

        Buffy and Spike were fighting in the stairwell now, in front of a huge window.  The morning sun was slanted away from the glass and Dawn had trouble making out their features.  She had less trouble hearing Buffy’s words.

        "Come on, Spike.  You know I’m just trying to do poor William a favor.  The one Buffy didn’t have the stones to do herself."

        For an answer, Spike threw an angry blow at her face.  She blocked it easily and kicked him in the ribs, but he turned aside in time and was barely thrown off balance.

        "She came back from heeaaaven to put you out of your misery.  A mercy killing.  But she just wasn’t merciful enough."  Buffy dodged his next, reckless attack with ease.  "But it's your lucky day.  Because there’s no mercy in this new me at all."

Spike pulled back, moving up a few steps, his back to the wall, while Buffy stayed on the landing.  They were gauging each others' ground, planning the next assault. 

Dawn, shrinking against the opposite wall a half-floor below them, had a clear view of Spike's face for just a moment.  It was covered with tears, and he was visibly trying to control his rage and horror.  "She should have asked me what I wanted," he growled.  "That stupid git William may have wanted to die, all right.  Go beyond the door into the bleeding light and the rest of that shite.  But I’m not William.  There was enough demon left in me to want to keep fighting."

"Fighting for what, Spike?"  It occurred to Dawn that she hadn’t heard Buffy laugh like this in years.  Carefree, as if she were truly enjoying herself.  "No, death wasn’t your goal.  I know what you really wanted.  You wanted to be a real boy.  Poor little Pinocchio.   But, guess what?  Instead of getting life for yourself, you gave me death.  Feeling a bit of a failure, Spike?"

        "Not yet," gasped Spike.  He launched himself towards Buffy just as she moved to the attack.  His furious momentum carried both of them through the huge plate glass window and onto the sunny lawn below.

Gentle reader, here you get to choose your own adventure.  If you want a bittersweet but romantic ending, you can assume that Spike and Buffy vaporize in the sunlight, and that William and Buffy go through that door together, and are happy in heaven.  Definitely not a walk-off-into-the-sunset closing, but very Ghost and Mrs. Muir-ish.  On the other hand, if you have any curiosity left to see what my imagination can come up with, you can go on to the next chapter.

Chapter Sixteen