She was standing on the beach. For how long she didn’t know. Time doesn’t matter anymore. Now that she is free, she has all the time in the world. And she is. Free. Free of Slayer duties, free of money problems, free of friends’ and Watcher’s disapproval, free of demons, free of vampires.

Yeah, she hates her freedom.

She thought she would dream a lot at night. For the past. She was wrong. She doesn’t need nights to dream, she is doing it all the time, day and night. Even now, especially now, while watching the sea. She is dreaming. With open, tearful eyes. She is alone and she can do that. These days she can only cry when she is alone because there is no one to hold her anymore, and there won’t be, ever again. She knows.

She doesn’t remember exactly how she got out of the collapsing school. It was hard to think of anything after the words “Now go!” threw her in the harsh light of the reality and made her run . She just stood there, next to that hole. Remembering. That first time, “Saturday!” he had said and she had almost believed that she’d die then. God, she had been so scared then. Then the fight. She had lost. Shown herself as mom’s little girl who needs rescuing. She had been so angry then. And everything after. Every cruel word, every punch, every kick, every bad joke, every little touch, every kiss, every time together, every promise, every lovely word, every tender look and then she remembered-“the one”. And she knew.

There might be hundreds, even thousands of new Slayers. Slayers with super speed, super strength and all that goes with the Slayer package. It doesn’t matter. She would always be the one for him. There, infront of the Hellmouth, Buffy had smiled to herself. Now she was smiling through tears again because there were things that time couldn’t change. And she knows.