Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing, especially the characters in this story. I'm merely borrowing them for the pure pleasure of messing with their lives.

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Buffy's eyes barely had to adjust to the light shortly thereafter, because the place they emerged into was nearly as dark as the darkness had been. She knew where she without seeing. Sunnydale High, just outside the ruins of the library. She could hear chanting from inside and they entered quietly through the already open doors. The chanting was the seven Kasha'ra demons themselves, who were beginning a ritual to open the portal. A ritual that apparently involved the sacrifice of several small children currently bound and gagged near the Hellmouth entrance. The demons were only about Buffy's height, but looked quite nasty with several rows of jagged teeth in their overly large mouths. They were steel gray over most of their bodies, but with nasty red tails that likely held some kind of toxin. Shark-demons, Buffy mentally dubbed them.

"Where are Will and Giles? It looks like they're cutting it pretty close to the wire here," Buffy asked, just as the two burst in, Willow holding a shining silver sword as if she'd been born to it.

"You started without us. I'm disappointed," Willow smirked with bravado. As the first demon moved toward her, she held the sword at the ready, only slightly trembling. The demon held a sword of his own in his claw, and twirled it expertly as he talked.

"You are not the s-s-Slayer," the creature hissed. "You will die."

"That's what they all say," Willow answered, and Buffy could hear an echo of Faith in her tone.

"The spell must have worked. Go get 'em, Will!" The two began clanking swords, and it was clear that Willow was moving with Slayer strength and speed. This was clear to the Kasha'ra demons as well, as they began to speed up the ritual. Willow dispatched the demon with a blow to the heart, then took on another one. Giles, in the meantime, had quietly slipped past the distracted demons and was attempting to free the children. He was so intent on untying and calming them while keeping half an eye on Willow's movements that he never saw the humanoid figure sneaking up behind him. Buffy screamed as Giles was grabbed and turned, a large knife plunging into his stomach. The demon smiled at him mildly as the Watcher gaped at the hilt protruding from his stomach, then back at the smallish man who had delivered the blow.

"Sorry, can't let you to do that. I didn't go to all this trouble, getting the Kasha'ra here and all, to have you spoil it again." His eyes began to glow black as his expression darkened with anger. "You may have destroyed the magnificent Glorificus, but she will be avenged. Know that all humanity will suffer in torment for your sins." He pulled the knife from Giles' stomach, and as Buffy screamed his name again, Giles sunk to his knees, looking up at his killer with the breath for only one final word.

"Who..." The demon smiled as Giles collapsed to the ground, blood beginning to pool around him.

"I'm sorry, we never were introduced, were we? The name's Doc."

"Giles...oh God, not Giles, please," Buffy moaned. She watched powerless as Doc stepped nimbly over Giles' dying form. He held out his hand, and in it was a small globe that reminded Buffy of the infamous Orb of Thessula. He spoke a few guttural words, and Willow suddenly cried out and fell to her knees, dropping the sword. She glowed briefly with a pale green light, then the same light glowed from the globe in Doc's hand. Willow looked up fearfully as Doc chuckled.

"Really, I can't believe you thought you could be a Slayer. You're a third rate witch whose time has run out." He dropped the globe, watching it shatter, then grinding the glass shards into powder with his foot for good measure. He looked up at her and grinned. "Looks like time's up for the real Slayer, too. And, by the way, for your whole stinking race. The human plague that has infested this plane of existence for far too long will end tonight."

Willow's eyes began to glow black, and she lifted both of her hands in front of her and pushed into the air. Doc's body flew backward through the air and exploded through the wall. Buffy heard further crashes and realized he had burst through at least two more walls besides. Willow's agonized scream brought her friend's attention back to her in a hurry, and Buffy saw that the Kasha'ra she had been fighting had lashed at her stomach with his tail. Her shirt had ripped away and the skin where the tail had touched it turned black and bubbly. She fell onto her back, her eyes blinking in shock.

"Willow!" Buffy cried and ran to her friend. She couldn't touch her, but she kneeled beside her anyway. Her friend's body was convulsing and her breathing was shallow and rapid. Willow's eyes seemed to focus suddenly and she struggled to speak.

"Buffy," she rasped, reaching out almost to where Buffy was kneeling beside her. Buffy tried to take her hand but the invisible barrier again was in the way.

"I'm here, Will." she replied, fairly certain she wouldn't be heard but unable not to speak. Willow began to cry.

"I'm so sorry, I tried my best, I really did. I wanted to be your big gun, but I failed. I failed you. Please forgive me, Buffy."

"Will," Buffy whimpered, her voice filled with pain. "I'm so proud of you, you didn't fail me. I love you Willow, please hang on." Willow smiled through her tears and pain, like sunlight through rain, and her convulsions subsided.

"Love you too, Buffy," she whispered as her eyes closed and her breathing stopped. The earth trembled, and Buffy knew the Kasha'ra had won. The Hellmouth would be opening soon. Willow was dead, Giles was dead or dying, and the others would lose their lives soon as well. She knew it like she knew her own name. Buffy felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up into Thing Two's familiar green eyes, looking at her with concern. "Our time is up, Buffy. We need to go back." Buffy stood, allowing the being that looked like Willow to support her. She closed her eyes to block the sight of the Hell before her until the darkness claimed her for real.

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Buffy opened her eyes. White on white again, back in Between. She looked around and saw that she again seemed to be alone. She knew better, so she began to speak tearfully to the intense whiteness around her.

"Do you know how long I've wanted to have a normal life? From the moment I found out what I was. Being the Slayer, it's pretty much no fun. Do you know what it's like, trying to live between apocalypses and monsters. Of course you don't, you don't live, do you? Not the way we do down there. It's horrible. It's beyond horrible. It's almost beyond tolerable." She sank into the chair, burying her face in her hands. "But what I just saw...what I just saw is worse. Willow...Giles...and the Hellmouth will open. I can't allow my friends, my sister, even Spike to suffer that way, not to mention the rest of the world, knowing I could have done something to stop it. And if what you're showing me is what's going to happen, I couldn't ever have a normal life anyway, could I?"

"Don't agree 'til you know the particulars, pet." Buffy looked up, shocked, into Spike's eyes. He was the last form she had thought that the beings would take. He nodded at her in cool amusement. "It's 'Thing Two,' Buffy. By the way, lovely name, that, thanks so much."

"Buffy," a low voice called, and Buffy sighed. She knew it was probably Thing One, but she marveled at how like Angel he sounded. He could pack so much meaning into just the sound of her name. "It's time for your decision. You know what you need to know."

"She needs to know everything, and you know it. Keepin' secrets from the girl, it's wrong and we both know it. You can't let her get this far and not have the whole story, it's bloody criminal." At the guilty look on Angel's face, Buffy knew something was up. She looked the Spike double in the eyes, knowing she could trust him to tell her the truth.

"Tell me. What am I missing?" "If you choose to go back, pet, it's not going to be easy. The loophole we spoke of in the rules? Well it's a very tiny, knotty little loophole. In order for us to get you back as the Slayer, something has to be sacrificed. Something big. And you're the one who has to do the sacrificing." Buffy sighed.

"Of course I am, who else? I'm always the one making with the sacrificing...let's see, there was me, you," she pointed at the Angel visage, "me again...what is it I'm supposed to sacrifice now?"

"If we send you back to be the Slayer, we can never call another one. Not when you die, not when Faith dies." Thing One explained reluctantly, his brooding countenance uncomfortable. "Every time a new Slayer would have been called, it will be you from now on, Buffy. You'll be the Slayer until the end of days." Buffy blinked, stunned. She could not get that to compute.

"I'm sorry, but huh?"

"Instead of adding the Slayer essence to the girl, we would be adding your essence, your personality, your being to every sweet young thing called. Every Slayer will be Buffy Summers, at least in spirit," Thing Two continued.

"Forever?" Buffy asked weakly.

"Until the end of days." Thing One repeated.

"And the end of days would be when, exactly?" The two beings looked at each other and shrugged.

"Couldn't say, exactly," Thing Two replied.

"And what about my mom? My friends? I would never see them again?"

"Yes, you would, eventually, but it might be a long time. Others would help you in your different incarnations, other Watchers, other family, other friends." Thing One responded.

"We know it's a pisser, Buffy. If you say no, what you saw happen is what's gonna happen. Hell will be brought to earth and all will suffer. The only one who can stop it is the Chosen One, and you are the only one we can choose." Thing Two's voice and visage began to change as he was speaking and by the end Buffy found herself again looking into her mother's eyes.

"The choice is yours. We know it's not an easy one." Giles' voice in her ears told her that Thing One had changed as well. As she looked around her, she saw other figures approaching out of the blinding whiteness. Xander smiling with Anya at his side. Cordelia walked in as stylish as she remembered her from high school. Wesley entered with Faith sauntering at his side. She saw Oz and Tara with Willow standing between them. Dawn hand in hand with Spike, and Jenny Calendar oddly standing with Angel. She sensed that these were beings like the ones she had been journeying with, not figments of her imagination. They formed a kind of half circle in front of her, their expressions all earnest, almost worshipful. None spoke except for the two who had been there all along. They were still masquerading as Giles and Joyce.

"If you choose to go back, you won't be alone. We'll be watching you always, and you'll be strong, Buffy. You're the most powerful Slayer there's ever been, and if you go back you'll be even stronger," Thing Two offered gently.

"But I will be alone. I'm always alone," Buffy answered. She looked at them each in turn. "I won't really know you're there, will I? I mean, will I hear a bell ring or pick up a feather? I didn't think so. I'll be alone."

"Your friends, your sister, they'll be with you, Buffy. This time, this one time, we can give you back the body you knew. You will return to Sunnydale in time to defeat the Kasha'ra, and you will be Buffy Summers until you die. And then you have another form, but you will still be Buffy Summers. It's just that only you will know." Thing One once again was polishing his glasses as he spoke, unwilling to meet her stare. Buffy almost smiled at him.

"And they say you can't live forever," Buffy quipped half-heartedly. The truth was there was no choice. She couldn't let Willow and Giles die as she had seen, and she couldn't let the others either. She could still hear her sister's screams from when she was on fire, and if it was in her power to save her that kind of pain again, she would do anything. She had died to save the world and her sister, because it was her gift. She just hadn't realized it was the gift that keeps on giving.

"Send me back. Give me my body. I'll do what you want, I just can't let them die like that." The glowing smiles on the familiar faces brought it home for her. She needed to do this as much as they needed her to.

"Thank you, Buffy," Her mother's voice was filled with pride. "We know the sacrifice you make is more than any one person should have to bear. You are a credit to humanity and you will not be forgotten." Buffy blushed in embarrassment as the gathered beings erupted in impromptu cheers.

"Yeah, yeah, I rock. I just have one request. I ask a question, you answer it. With the truth. You don't even have to let me remember the answer, I just want to have it, okay?" After a quick non-verbal communication amongst the group, Giles nodded. Buffy looked at him and grinned. "Who are you? I mean who are you really?" He smiled back at her.

"We don't have actually call ourselves by names, you know that. You call us by many titles, including, I believe, The Powers That Be. But really, we are...who we are. Tell me, who are you?" Buffy spoke her answer firmly as she vanished from Between, on her way to continue her journey.

"I'm Buffy, the Slayer."

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