Giles looked at his watch. 10:30 p.m. Why did it seem later? He slumped in a chair. Just gotten back for the hospital, he was tired. It was his duty to do what he did. He'd tried to tell himself that. It didn't work. He thought it wasn't possible, but it must be. It happened.

Angel had helped him. He was the only one who could have. Everyone else was at college. Giles didn't want them to help anyway.

It was Angel who found her first. But Joyce had found him. She had escaped, but barely. Found him when she was running away from them.

They knew Joyce was one of her weaknesses. He knew. Thank God Joyce had gotten away. Why hadn't she?

It was too late when Angel found her. The awful deed was done. All he did was take her to the hospital, hoping a blood transfusion would bring her back and stop the evil blood from taking over. It didn't.

The doctors pronounced her dead. Yet Angel knew that wasn't all. He left the hospital dejected. It was his job to tell Joyce.

She was still shaken up when Angel came to her. She questioned him on Buffy's whereabouts. He told her the truth. She sobbed for hours. Angel stayed with her, being strong.

But when he went to tell Giles, the full weight of realization hit him hard. He would never again see her lovely skin. Hear her voice. See her alive. Kiss her. He could enjoy those things no more.

Angel sat down on the curb, crying unabashedly into his hands. Buffy filled his head. Her witty comments. Her laugh. The way she dressed. The way she fought. Gone forever.

Or not. Buffy's worst nightmare come true. And it was done by a vampire he had sired as Angelus. It was his fault. Another death on his conscience. And it was Buffy's. He couldn't live with that guilt.

He hurried off to the library. Giles was there, waiting for her to return from the hunt. Angel gulped, shuddering at what he know had to do. Why did he take it on? Why did he agree to it? Why did he feel like it was his responsibility?

Because it was.

That three word phrase repeating over and over in his mind.

Telling Giles was the hardest thing he'd ever have to do in his immortality. A vampire telling a Watcher that his Slayer was dead. The sick irony of it all.

Giles sat at the table, stunned. Then he did something out of the ordinary.

He cried.

Not even when he found Jenny's body did he cry. Nor when he was tortured by Angelus.

He cried. Because his Slayer had died.

He couldn't, wouldn't accept it. His Slayer could not be dead. He said saying that over and over again.

Then Angel added the more horrifying news: She would rise again.

That was a slap in the face. Some vampire sick enough to turn a Slayer into something her whole life and being was dedicated to destroy.

She would rise again.

According to the Watcher diaries, this had never happened before. Nobody knew if she would have her soul and be like Angel, or if she wouldn't have one and be most powerful.

They came to a conclusion.

She must be destroyed.

Even if she had a soul, they couldn't let her live immortality being something she hated.

She would rise quickly, they decided that. They set off to the hospital. Her body was still there.

Since the morgue was underground, Angel could safely stay there during the day if she didn't rise that night.

But she did.

As Giles and Angel sat on a stretcher next to her body, they saw the sheet begin to move.

Looking grimly at each other, they both took a stake for a big bag of them.

She sat up, a snarling, blood driven monster.

She immediately went for Giles, not even recognizing him. He was just the nearest fountain of fresh, living blood. Angel spun she around off of him and stared fully into Buffy's vampiric face.

Buffy, look what had happened to you! His heart cried out.

She lunged at him, trying to get by to get to Giles. Angel thrust out his stake.

With the practice of many years, Angel hit her heart dead on. She turned to him, snarling. She doesn't have her soul, Angel thought in relief.

Then she crumbled to dust. The stake clattered to the floor.

Angel let out a gasp, then choked on his tears. He took of running.

Giles let out a sigh and gathered up the stake and bag. With one look down at the ashes that had been Buffy, he left.

He got to the library and slumped in a chair. Looked at his watch. 10:30 p.m. It didn't seem that early.

He got up and went to his office to collect his Watcher diary. Might as well add the last entry.

He stopped, startled to see Angel there, sitting on the floor crying. He looked up at Giles, streaks of tears running down his face.

Looking into Giles's eyes, he said, "She didn't have her soul." Giles nodded and knelt to console Angel. How odd it seemed, a Watcher consoling a vampire.

Giles got up and grabbed his diary.

Sitting down at his desk, he grabbed a pen and flipped to the back.

While he was flipping, certain phrases jumped out at him.

"She has killed the Master."

"She saved me from the fire."

"...tortured me for information on Acathla."

"She has returned."

At last he made it to the last page.

Picking up the pen, he wrote:

A vampire overpowered her today. he had her mother captive, but he let he go in exchange for Buffy. He killed her. He decided to play a joke. He changed her into a vampire. Angel came and told me all this. Then we set off to the morgue to stake her. When she awoke, she immediately headed to me, for blood. Fortunately, Angel was there and he pulled her off of me. He staked her. She didn't have a soul. Like I might have thought. But even if she did, I wasn't going to have her live on as a vampire.

Here ends my tale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I hope it will be of use to future generations.

He stopped writing. Glanced down at Angel. He appeared to be listening to something. Then Giles heard it. Running feet. Door burst open.

Giles rushed out to see who it was. Xander.

"Where is she?!" He demanded. "Joyce called me. Where is she?"

Giles told him she was already gone. Xander stared at him for a long second, then sat down on the floor, looking very much like Angel.

They sat like that until almost sunrise. Then Angel came out of the office.

With a look of determination he stood in front of a window. Giles and Xander looked at him in amazement.

Angel looked at them just once, then back at the window. The sun was just rising.

The first ray of sun came in the window. It hit Angel like a knife being stuck through your gut. He cried out in pain. Then burst into flames.

Xander and Giles watched until there was nothing left of Angel except ashes.

Xander muttered, "Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust."

A chapter in Slayerette history shuts its doors forever. Now a new one was just beginning.

The End

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