A/N: Um, this is something that just kind of popped in my head and wouldn't leave. Middle of Chosen, and it's the night before they face the First.

Disclaimer: Definately not mine. If it was, things would have gone differently than how the Joss-Master drew it out.



I watched my feet descend to the next wooden step. And the next. And the next. As I did, my mind felt strangely full of spinning thoughts and completely empty all at the same time. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew my feet were moving.

When they stopped, I found myself at the bottom of the staircase leading into my basement, staring into his eyes as we stood there, silent, across the room from each other. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even think. I could only look at him. And I couldn’t break away from his gaze.

Still, my mind felt overwhelmingly crowded and absolutely blank, and I didn’t know what to say. But just before he broke the silence between us – I knew he was about to, I could feel it – I spoke first.

“Spike?” I paused immediately after shooting his name into the air, unsure of what I wanted to say, of what I wanted.

Neither of us could look away, and even from across the room, I could fell his eyes search mine as he breathed – didn’t he know he didn’t need to breathe? – out softly, “Yeah?”

Suddenly I felt shy, insecure, embarrassed. My finger toyed with the hem of my shirt. I dropped my eyes to the floor between us.

“I… Can we… In case this is… If…” I paused, swallowing the sentences I couldn’t finish and biting my lower lip before continuing, this time returning my gaze to his, where it was waiting for me.

“Can I have one last dance?”

My pleading whisper must have been much too quiet for any human standing as far away as he was to hear, but the vampire, my vampire, heard it. And it was like an ice beam had shot across the room instead of my words. For a fraction of a second, he froze. Then, ever so slightly, his head tilted his lips parted, his eyes filled with wonder.

Slowly, the corners of his lips drew into a half-smile.

“Yeah, I think I could do that.”

Never looking away, we began to gradually grow closer, step by step, until we met in the middle of the room. When we were two mere feet apart, he raised his hands, one about the height of my waist, the other a little higher, a little off to the side. A smile tugged at my lips at the sight. Ignoring his outstretched arms, I placed my own hands on his shoulders and memorized the joy in his eyes at the motion, blushing lightly at its purity. I looked down, but his hand cupped my chin, and guided my face back up. A gentle smiled claimed my face before I let my eyes drift shut as I closed the space between us and laid my head on his chest. As I felt his arms curl around my waist, his fingers already starting to run up and down my lower back soothingly, I let my own drape around his neck, letting a sigh of contentment escape my mouth as his head rested against mine.

In that moment, the sensation of thousands of chaotic thoughts twisting through my empty head ceased, and I felt at peace.

I can imagine his face as we danced to the music the world couldn’t hear, both of us more relaxed in this possible last hour of our lives than we had been in a long time. His deep blue eyes – windows to his soul long before he even had one – would be closed, his cheek pressed into my hair as if engraving the memory of my scent into his very being. Soft sighs would leave his parted mouth like mystical mist, and his soft lips would constantly meet and curl – as if he was trying to keep himself from crying – when they weren’t forming my name and promises of love. His expression would only be able to be described as one of awe.

He must have thought he was dreaming.

To me, I finally let the walls fall and collapse into a complete pile of rubble. I let myself get lost in the feel of his t-shirt against my cheek, his hair between my fingers, his arms encasing my body, pressing mine into his own, his smell of distinctly Spike surrounding my entire being, his heart and soul joining mine for the very first time in our long, complicated relationship.

For the longest time, we danced barely moving from our spot in the center of my basement as we swayed to the notes of our song so full of complex emotion and unspoken feelings that the world could never even try to play to our ears.

But our hearts listened and obeyed the music of our last dance, and for once, for a moment, nothing else mattered.