"All salvation lies in the love of the Slayer. She shall love with a heart that beats for two, the warm half of a pair. And it is with this love that the evil shall be destroyed. When the moon waxes crescent, so shall it be. That the Slayer shall take and drink of her lover's black blood, and let such spill on the stone of her lover's fall that none of her former love may be so seen. And as her new love sinks into that pit of oblivion, let the Slayer kiss him upon the lips and say those words which shall summon the breaking of the evil, and as the light of the newfound day breaks upon the horizon, let her do her duty and slay. For as darkness cannot exist in the presence of glorious light, neither so can evil exist where love and hope have sacrificed so unselfishly."

*****

Buffy leaned against Spike's cool chest, sobbing uncontrollably. The blonde-pated vampire held her tightly, rubbing her back and smoothing her hair. No one spoke; there was no need for words.

Eventually, the slayer calmed down enough to pull away slightly from Spike, but not far enough to move from the comforting circle of his arms. "Why are you here, Spike?" she sniffled. "It's still daylight out. It's dangerous."

Her lover glanced over his shoulder at the two Watchers who sat at the table behind them, then looked back to her questioning green eyes. "They told me."

The answer was so unexpected that Buffy could do nothing save stare blankly at him for a moment. When she finally found her voice, it was soft and breathy. "What?"

"They told me about the prophecy." He stroked her cheek. "And what had to be done to prevent it." He gave her a half-hearted grin.

Buffy's eyes had widened with horror. "What? Why did they tell you?"

She stiffened in his arms as he replied. "Because they knew that I was the only one who could convince you to go through with it."

//That's enough!// She broke away from him, staring at his brown eyes with pain etching lines in her face. "No." She backed away, the hurt of losing his embrace dwarfed by the agony of what he was suggesting. "No, Spike, I won't do it! You can't make me!" She turned and fled through the door, letting it slam behind her.

The three men stayed in their respective places, no one moving for several minutes. It was Carrigan who eventually broke the silence.

"She must go through with it, Spike," he said, and there was a touch of something that might have been regret in his voice.

Spike simply nodded, his eyes never leaving the doors which his love had fled through so recently. "I know," he murmured, and there was no emotion in his voice.

*****

When the sun sank beneath the horizon, Spike went in search of his Slayer.

There was only one place she could be: the graveyard. Emotional pain or no, her work ethic was too ingrained to ignore her duties.

He found her where he'd expected her to be: perched on a gravestone, staring vacantly out into the night.

"Pet?" he murmured.

She leapt to her feet and whirled around to face him, stake in hand, and he froze. She relaxed a little when she saw who it was, but did not change her stance.

"Luv, we need to talk."

"No, Spike. No we don't" Her eyes showed the distance she had put between herself and the prophecy. "It's not going to happen, so don't ask me to do it."

Spike looked down, shaking his head. "You don't understand, do you, luv? It must be the hair dye, finally getting to your brain."

Buffy arched an eyebrow at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He raised his eyes to hers again, and saw he had her attention. "Have you ever seen 'The Neverending Story?'"

The question was so off-topic, Buffy just stared at him in confusion for a moment. "What?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "Fuckin' a, Slayer, just answer the question. Have you or haven't you seen the damn movie?!"

"Yes!"

He nodded, satisfied. "Remember the Nothing?"

"Yes, of course I remember the Nothing! I think the peroxide is finally getting to YOUR brain, Spike." Some of her old spunk was back in her voice.

"Good, then you remember what it was. A great, swirling nothingness, that absorbed and destroyed everything in it's path. That left nothing behind. Remember?"

Buffy nodded, not quite sure what Spike was getting at. "Yeah."

Spike took a step towards her. "Now picture that same thing coming here. Only it's not a storm of nothingness. It's a slow ebb. It doesn't come upon a person in a fury or tempest. No, it's a silent killer. It sneaks up on you, quietly and without remorse, taking you completely unawares." He took another step towards her. They were now separated by no more than a centimeter of air. "An all-consuming absence that will take everything and destroy it, leaving nothing but an empty hole in space, with no one to remember earth ever existed, and no one to mourn us after we're gone." He reached out and cupped her cheek. Buffy leaned into the touch, letting her stake hand fall limply to her side as her eyes drifted closed. Spike leaned in closer, so that his lips brushed her ear. "That's what we're trying to stop, Buffy," he whispered. "With Acathla, there would have still been some sort of existence remaining. With this...." He paused, trying to find the words. Finally, all he could say was, "With this, there's nothing."

The dampness of her tears was all that clued him in to the fact that she was crying. There was no sobbing, no begging. Just silent tears that touched his hand like molten silver. "Slayer?"

She looked up at him then, and he saw the torment that racked her. "I can't kill you, Spike," she moaned. "I killed my first love, and I thought I'd died with him." She raised her hands and cupped his face between them. "Now you. When I'm with you, I feel complete. I never felt like this before, not even with Angel." Buffy leaned forward, pressing her cheek against his chest, letting her hands slide down from his face to rest on his shoulders. "I thought sending Angel to Hell was enough to kill me. Somehow I moved on. But if I have to destroy you...." She trailed off, and neither one needed to hear the words that she was thinking.

//If I have to destroy you, I couldn't survive.//

Spike's arms wrapped reflexively around her tiny body. "I know, Slayer. I know." He nuzzled the crown of her head, breathing in the sweet vanilla scent of her, reveling in the sensation of HER. "But you have to, luv. It's all we can do. I told you once I liked this world. That hasn't changed. Just my reasons have."

"How?"

"Well, we still have dog racing, and Manchester United, and all those walking happy meals." He pushed back a little, and tilted her chin up so that his eyes could meet hers. "But now there's you, too. I don't want to think of a universe devoid of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And if I have to die to ensure that you live, even for one more day, then I will do it, happily, and with a smile on my face, because I love you so much." Fresh tears welled up in her eyes at his words, and he gently kissed them away. "I love you, Buffy, and nothing will ever change that. And that's why I tell you, do the ritual, my luv, my dearest one. If I must die, I want it to be for you, by you, so that the last thing I see is your face."

The slayer stared at him for a moment, silence hanging in the air between them like a curtain. Suddenly, her arms flew up and clasped around his neck, pulling him to her with asphyxiating strength. "I love you," she gasped, fighting back the tears that still threatened to fall. "I love you, and I'll do it."

His arms wrapped around her, and he felt tears spring to his own eyes. "Oh, luv, my sweet one, you're doing the right thing."

"But, God help me," she murmured against him, "I don't know if I can live without you."

*****

It was a dry-eyed, much mollified Slayer who entered the library hours later, the only sign of her earlier hysterics being the way she clutched Spike's hand with an almost animalistic intensity. She looked around at the faces of her friends, gathered about the table, Willow, Xander, Oz, Cordelia, and knew that each of them knew what she had to do. The sadness in their eyes and the way Willow's lip trembled as she fought back tears were all the clues Buffy needed.

"Well, I'm going to guess that Giles and Mr. One-Tone there have clued you all in to what's going on," Buffy said valiantly, trying her best to fight back the tears that threatened to burst forth.

Willow choked. "Oh, Buffy, I'm so sorry-"

But Spike cut her off. "There's nothing to be sorry about, Willow. This is how it is supposed to be. Your born, life's a hell on wheels, then you die, right?" The others looked at this newfound member of their group, new respect in their eyes.

Buffy silently thanked her demon lover for saving her the pain of having to respond to Willow's statement. Cleaving to his hand with even greater intensity, she spoke again. "So, there's a new moon tonight. That means in a couple of days we'll have a crescent." She turned her attention to Giles and Carrigan, standing behind the Slayerettes. "So, give me the whos, whens, wheres, and hows of this shindig so that I can get ready." There was no emotion in her voice.

Giles looked to Carrigan, and the stoney Watcher gave the librarian a nod. "Well, we already know the whos, as you put it," Buffy's trainer said. "Those being, of course, Spike and yourself. Yes, um, and the when is, as you said, in a few days, when the moon begins it's cycle again." He cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable with the next part. "Where, as far as we can establish, is the, uh, mansion, where you, um, killed Angelus."

Buffy fixed him with a hard stare. "Why?"

Carrigan fielded that question. "It's in the prophecy, my dear. 'The stone of her lover's fall that none of her former love may be so seen.' You are to perform the ritual in the very spot where you defeated Acathla."

Buffy shuddered, closing her eyes as memories flooded over her. Spike put a comforting arm around her shoulders, and she felt a little strength come back to her. Opening her eyes, she nodded. "Fair enough. What else?"

Giles looked around as though to hand off the next part to someone else. "Well, all that's really left is the how. And, um, well, that means, um-"

"Just get to the point, Giles," Buffy interrupted.

"Yes, well..." He trailed off as though at a loss for words. Finally, unable to phrase his response, he simply laid two objects on the table before him.

One was a dagger with a shining blade and a ruby hilt.

The other was a stake.

Buffy felt her knees go weak, but Spike's arm around her waist held her up, and she silently thanked him for supporting her. "Yes, well, I guess there's no room for argument on THAT front," she murmured, surprised by the strength in her voice.

"I believe we are all forgetting one important question which has not been asked."

Everyone turned to look at Carrigan as he spoke. "Oh, and what's that?" Xander asked.

Carrigan raised an eyebrow. "The, as Buffy would put it, 'whats' of the situation."

Buffy felt her stomach lurch at the thought. "I know what I have to do, Carrigan. I don't need someone else to tell me."

"Courage, luv," she heard Spike whisper into her hair, and she marvelled at his strength. //I mean, he's the one getting killed here. He's the one I have to murder. How can he be so brave?//

"Oh, but do you? Do you really?" He circled the table until he stood face to face with the slayer, his body blocking her view of the instruments on the table. His eyes focused on her. "Shall I tell you?" His gaze flicked to Spike. "Or shall he?"

Everyone's attention suddenly turned to the peroxide blonde by Buffy's side. But the vampire's focus was completely turned on the Watcher before him. "I'll tell her, Watcher," he hissed.

Carrigan nodded, satisfied. "Good. Then we'd best prepare." He turned, and everyone let out an unconcious collective breath, as though a great storm had just been averted. "I suggest we hurry, friends. There is not much time, and we must be sure of all we must do."

Buffy stood beside her demon lover, wishing she could just melt into him. Forget the fate of the world and just join with him once and for all.

"Come on, luv. Let's go." Spike's soft accented voice snapped her from her reverie, pulling her back from oblivion. She looked up into his sculpted face, trying not to think how, in a few days, she would never see it again. She nodded mutely, and they turned.

No one tried to stop them as they left.

(more to come........)