A bird fluttered down and settled on the windowsill of the high rise apartment building. The sun was setting behind the trees, tinting the sky a rainbow of pinks and reds. The bird pecked around on the sill, fluttering its blue wings on occasion.

The man that stood in the window gazed out wistfully, reminding himself what it was like to live across from a park. What it had been like to go to a park in the daylight.

The bird let out a cheerful whistle and the man glanced down at it, cocking his head. If this had been any other day, a normal day, the man probably would have grabbed the bird off the sill and broken its tiny neck. But he couldn't do that anymore, he didn't have the determination to kill anything.

"I've turned into a bloody mouse." He spat angrily at the bird, causing it to fly away then he turned and walked away.

He opened the door to the apartment and stepped into the hall, locking the door behind him. It was a pointless tradition, he didn't have to worry about anyone trying to break in other than vampires and they couldn't enter unless they had his permission. It was just so hard to break the habits he had once had as a human. Even after one hundred and twenty six years, so many things stuck with him, making him more like a human than he could have possibly imagined.

In his mind, he was a monster and that was all. He was a cold blooded killer, nothing more. He'd never be a man and he hadn't been one for a good part of his long life.

As he walked down the hall, he angrily yanked his leather duster over his shoulders and stamped his feet further into the dusty boots he wore.

It was freezing in the hall but he took no notice to it. When the sun went down in this place, it got cold, very cold. But it made no difference to a vampire. The heat or the cold, it felt all the same to him. Like cold marble hands pressing down all over his body. He felt nothing else unless someone still alive happened to brush against him. Then his body stiffened for a moment as heat spread through the small patch of skin that had been touched. He relished the feeling, standing at attention until the warmth faded and the small amount of happiness faded with it.

"You're so bloody bitter." He muttered to himself, thumping loudly down the stairs and into the lobby of the apartment building. Then he laughed, it wasn't as if he could feel much else. Bitterness was really the only thing that remained in the dark recesses of his dead heart. No other feelings dared to live or even rest there. It was a heart that felt nothing but bitterness and the instinct to live. It scared all other feelings away.

And why shouldn't he be bitter? He had, had that goddamned chip in his head for so bloody long and when he had finally removed it, himself so less, he had wanted so badly to feed. He craved the feeling of a warn neck under his mouth and the feeling of hot and bitter blood filling his mouth.

* * *

After digging the chip out of his head he left the room in search of a meal. The first person he had come across was the first to die. It was too bad he hadn't stopped to look at the face before grabbing the person and burying his fangs in their neck. As he dropped the corpse to the hard ground he stared into the face of his first victim in so long and a sickening sense of his own impending death had rushed into him. It was Xander. The slayer would kill him if she knew.

Instead of running like he should have, he collected up the young man's body in his arms and had set across the campus, toward the elderly Watcher's house.

Giles had answered the door, pulling off his glasses, preparing to greet whoever was standing there. Spike had already been invited him and he pushed his way inside carrying Xander's stiffening body in his arms.

Buffy, Willow and Anya had been sitting on the couch and they looked up in surprise when he came into the room and set the body down on the dining room table.

"Xander!" Anya cried and rushed to the body.

"He's dead." The vampire said, his eyes rushing to the floor. "I did it."

Buffy was at his throat in a second, tearing at him with her fingernails, and trying desperately to rip out his eyes. Giles held her back after a moments hesitation and pulled her sobbing, away from the calm vampire.

"Why did you bring him here?" Giles asked.

The vampire looked up and met his eyes. "Would you rather I had left him in the park to be found tomorrow morning?" He asked. "I didn't mean to, I swear, I didn't know it was him."

"Get the hell out of here Spike." Willow said, advancing on him menacingly. "Get out and never come back."

"I-I didn't mean to." He said again.

"She's right." Giles removed his glasses and rubbed them on a cloth. "Leave now."

"But I," Spike protested.

"Leave!" Giles roared. "Now!"

Spike turned his eyes to Buffy who was staring at him unforgivingly, then to Anya who was crying over her dead boyfriend's body.

He turned and left. Left Sunnydale and left his old life behind.

* * *

And now here he was, wherever here was. He wasn't even sure. It depressed him being here, the snow would come soon and he would have even less to eat.

It was hard to watch the humans walk around after dark, not knowing that he lurked in the nearby shadows ready to pounce. But he never did.

When he had left Sunnydale, he left his craving for human blood with it.

Pigs blood now, out of a novelty mug. He sighed and shook his head. Like the slayer had fed him not too long ago.

Now she was after him. She had followed him from city to city, tracking his every move. She wanted to kill him, he knew that. He knew it and he understood it. He had killed one of her closest friends and now he had to pay. It was as simple as that and he knew she was right. He knew deep in that withered and dead heart that she had every right to kill him and that maybe he should just submit to her.

But that would be suicide and he was frightened of dying. He would go to Hell, he knew it. That thought scared him to no end. He didn't want to die and he definitely didn't want to see what Hell had in store for him. He deserved its worst punishments but he was afraid.

"So there's a little fear in your heart along with that bitterness, is there William?" He asked, letting himself out onto the street.

The sun had set fully now, hiding behind the curve of the earth in the distance preparing to come up on the other side, perhaps trying to sneak up on him. It would be all in vain, he would be inside before the sun could get its chance to surprise him.

He roamed the streets every night, trying to remember what it felt like to have human emotions. He knew the fear, he knew the bitterness, he even knew the pain but he had forgotten all the good things. His love was gone, as was his happiness and small amount of compassion that had saved him from becoming a completely evil creature. But know that it had abandoned him, it had only scared him, not turned him into an even darker being. Now all that lived was fear and bitterness. It was all he could cling onto to keep him from going over the edge. The only part left that reminded him even slightly what being human had been like.

He missed it. God, how he missed it. He remembered being in love and he could even dig up the memories of his first love's face and things that had done together. But when he thought of her, the empty place in his chest ached with an unsatiable pain. There was a void there, it had always been there but it was one that could never be filled.

It didn't matter it he tried to seek redemption for his actions, he would never feel as he had when he was so much younger.

Everything was gone from that small organ that had once pumped life to every part of his body. The small organ that now lay dead and useless in his chest.

Dead and useless, much like he was now. There was no point to him being alive, he should have been killed long ago. It wasn't by his own skill that he wasn't a pile of dust but by luck. That was the only thing that had kept him alive.

"I'm pathetic." He decided, and people that walked near him stopped and glanced up when he said this.

"I'm so bloody pathetic!" He repeated and shivered. It wasn't the cold that affected him, it was his own inability to feel anything.

And then his decision was made. He would go to her and he would let her kill him. He had nothing left in the world, why should he bother to stay alive? The rest of his days would be spent running from the slayer until she eventually found him and put a wooden stake through his chest. At the moment, the thought of being nothing was much more welcome than being what he was now.

He turned suddenly, going to the place he knew he would find her. She was staying with an old friend. Pike, was his name if he recalled correctly and he knew where this person lived.

Spike turned down an empty street and started toward the apartment he had seen her enter the night before. Yes, he had been spying. He had been wondering if he should let her kill him then, but he hadn't had the courage to turn himself over to her.

He did now.

* * *

He pressed the buzzer that connected to Pike's apartment and waited for an answer.

"Yeah?" Came the voice.

"I'm here to see Buffy." Spike said into the small intercom.

"Who is it?" Pike asked.

"It's Spike." He heard Buffy say in the background.

Spike cleared his throat. "I used to be a friend."

He heard Pike laugh. "Sure as hell not what you are anymore."

"I know."

"She's on her way down." Pike said, then cut him off.

Spike waited patiently for the slayer to come down to the lobby. He was sure she wanted to meet him down here because she didn't trust him. She had every right to feel that way and he understood why she did.

"Spike." Buffy said, pushing the door open and coming out onto the sidewalk.

He nodded. "Yeah."

"What the hell are you doing here?" She asked. "I'm tracking you, I'm trying to kill you or do you not get that?"

"I get it." He said.

"Then what? What could possibly bring you here?"

He slowly took off the leather duster and placed it on the ground beside him. Then he removed the red shirt he had on and folded it before putting it on top of the duster. Last came the broken and dusty leather boots that were on his feet, those thumped to the cement beside the other things.

Finally, he stood in front of her wearing his black tee shirt, black jeans and black socks.

"Kill me." He said and waited.

Buffy's eyes widened and she opened her mouth to speak but it didn't work. She finally found some words and opened her mouth again, "You had to take off your clothes to tell me to kill you?"

He looked at the pile of clothes that sat near the curb and he nodded. "That duster and the boots cost me quite a bit. It'd be really nice if they didn't just burst into oblivion with me. Maybe for proof that you did kill me, or you could start a vampire museum. I don't know, they were expensive."

Then came her real question, "You want me to kill you?"

He nodded again, "Just do it. Please."

She shrugged. "All right."

Her stake came up in her hand, something Spike hadn't even noticed she was holding and it stayed there for a moment. He watched it quivering in the air before it began to arch down and suddenly he wondered what he was doing.

"Bloody hell." He muttered before spinning out of the way. Buffy looked surprised when her stake met nothing but air, but she wasn't about to give up this offering. He was in her territory now with no help around for miles, he was as good as dead.

She spun into a high kick that caught him in the throat and knocked him backward. Her hand followed that, slamming her knuckles across his high cheekbones and he gasped as the sudden blare of pain through his face.

Spike retaliated by delivering a savage backhand across her face, probably shattering her nose. He suddenly felt the demon rear up in him again and his face turned. His brow hung slightly over his eyes, bumped and ridged. His eyes were glowing a brilliant yellow and his teeth were long and sharp.

Buffy stared up at him, blood dripping from her broken and already bruised nose. He stared back, blood dripping silently from the place on his cheek where she had broken the skin.

For a moment they dared each other to make the first move. His yellow eyes stared into her green ones, trying to make her attack him, trying to make her let down her guard.

She was the first to move. Her foot connected with his stomach before he even realized what was happening, then another foot met with his groin.

He groaned in agony and doubled over, waiting for the pain to subside. It was time he didn't have. All it took was a heartbeat for her to swing the stake down. It had barely pierced his back when he moved away again, making her drop the stake in his movement.

She cursed under her breath then stood up to face him. Spike met her with an uppercut to her jaw, then a kick to her stomach. The slayer doubled over and he punched her in the face.

She fell backward onto the sidewalk but was up again in a flash. One of them was going to die this night and they both knew it.

"It won't be me." Spike promised himself aloud, then let his fist slam into her face. Buffy stumbled backward, her arms wheeling but before she could fall she regained her balance and returned Spike's attack. Her right fist hit his face, then her left pummelled his stomach. He gasped, then realized he didn't need the air and he spun away from her then swiped his legs under her feets causing her to fall onto her back.

Buffy groaned as she hit the ground and her breath went out of her in a swift gasp. She struggled to regain it before Spike could get the upper hand, then realized he already had it.

His fist met her stomach in a hard ball and she curled into the fetal position, ready to give up.

*No!* She commanded herself. *He came to you ready to die. This isn't the way you're supposed to go.*

His foot came down on her head next and Buffy's vision blurred as his socked heel dug into her temple. His foot lifted and she sprang up with it.

Spike looked surprised, he hadn't expected her to get back up.

"Nice to see you too." Buffy said, then kicked him in the face. Spike stepped back a few steps, then spit out a tooth on the sidewalk.

"That's my favourite tooth slayer, you'll pay for that." He hissed, his teeth broken and his mouth full of blood.

"Somehow I doubt that." Buffy snarled.

"I wouldn't be so confident if I were you." He said, then grabbed her by the throat and hauled her toward him.

Buffy fought as well as could be expected but all that had kept Spike sane before was gone. The human feelings had disappeared, even if only for a moment. That moment was enough. Buffy's hand connected with his jaw one last time before Spike grabbed both sides of her head and twisted. He heard a satisfying snap and the slayer's eyes rolled into her head. She groaned in pain, took her last shuddering breath, then fell to the ground beside his duster and boots.

He stared at her, a sneer marring his already terrifying face. Then it was gone. Everything that had drive him was gone. His face melted back into it's normal shape, his eyes turning from yellow to blue once more.

He picked up his clothes and stared at the slayer's fallen body for a moment longer. He heard Pike's feet pounding down the stairs inside the apartment Spike turned to leave. He didn't get very far before the arrow from a crossbow sliced the air beside his head. He didn't turn to look, he just kept walking away. Another arrow flew by him, missing him entirely but causing him to jump slightly all the same.

Buffy was dead, he had killed her. They would send another but that wasn't what Spike was so suddenly terrified of.

It was the others. The Watcher, the witch, the vengeance demon and the other vampire that loved her. They would come for him next and maybe he was now ready to die. He had done what he had come to do. He had killed Buffy Summers.

This would be the end.

Spike grinned as he turned the corner, then stopped to put his clothes back on.

Then again, maybe not.