A/N: Spike's POV near the end of "Chosen." Yeah, I know we wouldn't have had him very long in S5 of Angel if he had believed Buffy, but, hey, anything is possible. Another fic, another time, I suppose. Responses, good and bad, are always appreciated and loved - I just want to know someone's reading.

I imagine this taking place after Spike’s line – “I’ve gotta do this!”

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The Last Temptation

by The Power of the Book

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Having learned to work together, his demon spirit and human soul now worked like a team of dray horses to pull the energy down, focus it in a narrow beam. The pain was beyond any torture he'd felt, and he had a wealth of experience... Keeping him on his feet was only the pain and the sheer determination that had seen him through every day...


Bugger. It figured that poetic, poncy William would take over near the end.

Energy poured through his soul in thumping electric jets, burning, sizzling... It's for me to do the cleanup. Was he, in turn, being cleaned? Would his demon spirit travel with his soul to the same place of bliss that Buffy had described? It was too much to consider now, the pain was all-encompassing, and – wait…

Pain now registered from a new quarter - his hand was on fire? and was being held by...?

And, oh, he was glad of it, for there she was, heedless of the burns to her hand, looking at him with her whole heart in her eyes, illuminated by the fire of his soul. So this would be his final sight of the world...and dying was now so much harder. Leaving a world where she still denied him, difficult but not impossible. He knew it before she said it, and if his head wasn't being charred from the inside out, he would have wept in complete happiness.

She was smiling at him; her gaze composed of unadulterated love, as direct a beam as the one lancing his body. She was holding his hand, fingers laced in a grip that he had craved more than her breathless embraces of over a year ago. He could not tell if her intent was comfort or entreaty, but he would take either. Never, never in a century and a half of life and unlife had he been this happy.

Probably looked quite the ponce with his mouth hanging open and his eyes all watery. But, hell, didn’t matter now, so long as she kept looking at him like that.

A tear slipped down her cheek, and she was perfect, even after descending into Hell to fight back an apocalypse. Joined by fire...William the Bloody Awful would have something to write about that.

"I love you."

The words were as sweet to his ears as he always knew they would be. The feeling of completeness went straight to his soul and spirit, warming them, toasting them, making them sing in harmony.

And suddenly he saw himself tearing off the necklace, taking her hand, and running outside together. Shielding himself with his coat, the two of them taking off on the bus. Turning to her in the shade of the bus, sheltering in the warmth of her embrace and the kisses he had missed for what seemed an eternity, heedless of the others on the bus. Hearing her say the words again, being able to say them back as much as he wanted, as they and the stalwart Scoobies and the scrappy new Slayers headed off to...

Where would they go? The Hellmouth would still be there, the angry pit that was Sunnydale would stir back to life. And he loved her in return too much to let her come back to this bastion of filth and trouble. Her life had been almost nothing but torment since arriving here, and his final gift to her would be erasing good ol’ Sunnyhell off every McNally map in existence.

She would stay here with him, heedless of Hell falling around their ears with him. Dying to stop the apocalypse and close a Hellmouth suddenly seemed so simple in comparison with what he had to do now...

"No you don't. But thanks for saying it."