This Is How It Goes

"Here we go," Buffy whispered. Willow's face was hardening, her mouth tightening.

"Well, I honestly thought I'd have a little more time. I still have a good third left of my epically rousing speech," the Mayor said, frowning in earnest. "But, seeing as I've been waiting 150 years for this moment, I'm not going to complain." He doubled over, gasping in pain. "It's starting," he grit out, face contorted in agony. "My Ascension. Your ... descent. How beautifully complementary."

He clutched at his stomach again, releasing a strangled groan. Buffy clenched her fists, energy and violence rippling through her veins and muscles.

"Come on, you bastard," she whispered.

The Mayor suddenly stood up straight, tilting his neck up to the sky. And then Buffy saw him expanding, his head growing upwards, outwards, his skin adopting a green tinge. There was a tearing sound as his clothes ripped apart, his mouth open and yawning, crying out, and then a sickening stretching noise as his head and body swelled fiercely. His transformation was terrifyingly fast, his body already nearly unrecognizable. Buffy and Willow stood up, watching him with a combination of fear, awe, and steel resolution. The sound of chairs scraping, knocking over as the rest of the assembly followed them, cries of shock and terror slicing through the air. The Mayor's forehead was widening, ridges and scales growing. Buffy could see the elongation of his teeth and pincers growing out of his cheeks. She swallowed the bile in her throat, watched as he began shooting up, 10 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet, until he was towering above them.

The Mayor as a human was officially gone. His body was a long, sinewy rope, green scales glinting. His eyes were huge and black, fangs protruding from his mouth and pincers clicking threateningly. He snapped his jaws and hissed.

"Now!" Buffy yelled, and opened her robe, dropping it to the floor. Everyone around her did the same, bedecked in weapons, armed to the teeth with axes, swords, crossbows. There was a roar in her ears, of anticipation, of pride and exultation. She felt like there should be some sort of melodramatic music, pounding drums and inspirational harmonies. This was a bona fide fucking rebellion. An affirmation of self, of life, a refusal to lie down and wait for one's own demise. They ran out and met it.

"Flamethrowers!" Xander shouted, and there were suddenly streams of fire shooting out from the front row, licking the snake's body. The Mayor howled.

Xander began directing the students, the same animated determination that Buffy felt burning in his eyes. The air was hot, broiling and chaotic, arrows whizzing out from the student body, her classmates gripping their weapons like they were the only connection to life (which they probably were). The Mayor hissed and coiled back. She blinked and he had struck, so fast he was a blur, clamping jaws on a student and lifting him up. There was a nauseating crunching sound and then the body was gone, sliding down the snake's throat.

Buffy felt a soft ripple of heat from behind her as the back line lit flaming arrows. She could feel the spread of tingles on her back as the vampires moved closer, could hear soft growls and footsteps. And then she heard anguished roars, sizzling, those indescribably satisfying pops as vampires crumbled. There was a swell of movement in the student body, a gathering wave as they turned from the Mayor and began attacking his undead employees, war cries echoing.

Buffy looked back anxiously, watching her class surge against the vampires. She saw Xander, barking out orders confidently, standing above the crowd. She caught a glimpse of flaming red hair, saw Willow brandishing a stake and yelling wildly. Heard distant screams as students fell, snarls and incoherent yelling, more soft explosions of dust. Buffy saw the vampires retreat as one, stumbling frantically away from the small army of her classmates, and meet the next wave. Angel, Wesley, and the burlier members of the football team were standing behind them, postures not unlike John Wayne. Buffy couldn't see Angel's expression, but she could imagine it. Eyes cold and narrowed, mouth a tight line. This was the closest he came to brushing against redemption, to turning that violent predator inside him to good. Buffy saw him throw himself in the fray, a small, black figure jabbing and flowing. She felt a hot swell of pride and then swallowed, turning back.

Her turn.

Buffy weaved through the crowd, eyes fixed on the Mayor's gleaming fangs and cold, black eyes. She vaulted over a chair and stood only feet in front of his massive length. She was scared. God, was she scared. He was faster than her, monumentally stronger, a 10-foot-wide cord of pure, lean muscle and an appetite for high school students. Buffy crushed her fear down into a tiny ball, let unadulterated anger and lucid hate take its place. This was it. Everything was on her.

"Hey! You!" she bellowed. The Mayor snapped his head to look at her. She thought, if snakes could smile, he would be. "You think you're set, don't you? You think you own this town. You think it's yours." The Mayor opened his mouth, strange, demonic pincers moving on the side of his elegantly sloping head. "Well, I got some unfortunate news for you," Buffy said loudly, trying to communicate every ounce of contempt, of bitter scorn she had ever felt through her voice. "It's not. It's mine. And you, Mr. Mayor ... you're just another speed bump."

The Mayor was swaying gently in front of her, huge pupils fixed on her. "You think you have control? Over this? Over me? You think I haven't faced a million assholes like you and come out smiling? You may feel invincible now, but you'll be just another dead demon tomorrow." Buffy looked up at him, bright and fearless. "You wanna prove me wrong, Dick?" He hissed softly. "Come and get me."

He coiled back, his mouth wide and eager, a deep, rumbling growl echoing around the courtyard. Buffy felt her blood rushing, hot and fast, as she whipped around and sprinted, hearing his jaws snapping sickeningly close behind her. She ran, pulse pounding in her ears and temples, legs and arms pumping, lungs screaming as she drew breath between her teeth. She ran, lockers whipping past her, all of her concentration focused on her own movement and the sounds behind her. There was a huge, reverberating crash as the Mayor rammed through the doors, as the walls crumpled before him like cardboard. Buffy rounded a corner, shoes skidding, felt the wall just behind her explode as the Mayor smashed through.

She could hear him behind her, hear him hissing and snapping teeth, hear his slick body sliding on the tiles. She kept running. She couldn't think too hard about what she was doing, who was chasing her. She let the rhythm of her feet, pounding against the floor, the rhythm of her own shallow, hoarse inhalations, guide her. Let pure instinct, fight or flight mentality overwhelm any useless emotions. Let fear and anxiety be submerged under unthinking intensity. And she ran.

Buffy turned left and entered the hallway leading to the library. The lockers behind her were crushed into shrapnel. She pushed through the library doors, avoided the 18 metric tons of explosives, jumped onto the table and vaulted over the banister, navigating through the stacks. She heard the walls collapse behind her as the Mayor's head shoved its way through. Threw herself out of the window at the very back of the library, glass shattering around her, and catapulted herself into bushes ten feet below. Made her body tight and compact, absorbing the blow, and rolled out of them, hitting softly damp grass and running again. Giles was waiting for her, kneeling next to a box and a lever. She crouched next to him and met his grim, decisive gaze. He cringed in anticipation and pushed down on the trigger.

"Well, darn it all," Buffy thought she heard someone say in a booming, inhuman voice. And then the school exploded.

She and Giles were hit with a huge, intense wave of heat as the library windows burst. They were forced back, throwing hands in front of their faces instinctively as a surge of hazy, blistering heat crashed into them. Buffy felt the tips of her hair getting singed. Glass blew out in a shattered ripple, flames and looming clouds of debris and ash bursting out of them. The air itself felt like it was on fire, vibrating and scalding. Orange and yellow and angry red clouds licked the walls, shooting up into the sky. They heard echoing explosions as more dynamite was triggered, as the school erupted. Buffy and Giles shielded their eyes and squinted at the rampant destruction. It was magnificent. And she thought, Faith would have loved to see this.

~ — ~ — ~

Buffy stood in the center of the parking lot. Her ears were still ringing from the explosion and everything sounded a little muffled around her, like she was hearing it through a thin wall. She looked around her, distantly acknowledging the sirens, flashing lights, people on stretchers. She felt almost disconnected, as if her mind had detached and was floating around somewhere, jellyfish-style. She hadn't fully absorbed what had just happened. It was too large for her poor, overwhelmed brain to handle.

Buffy stood on the asphalt, dazed and unblinking, and stared at the school. Or what was left of it. Black piles of rubble, parts still collapsing, trees around the campus gently smoldering. She had lived there for three years. Had talked and laughed and gone to class and saved everyone in it from unspeakable evil. Now it was decimated. They had decimated it. Of course, she had also nearly died in there around 346 times, so that sort of balanced out the wistful nostalgia.

A warm hand descended onto her shoulder, and she turned her head around torpidly to see Giles standing next to her. She blinked rapidly, feeling her consciousness settling a little. Giles' face was covered in black soot, streaks of ash in his hair and on his cheeks, but he was looking at her warmly through spotted glasses.

"This school's destruction was rather inevitable, wasn't it," he said, eyes traveling the same path Buffy's had. "Can't imagine how it survived this long." They stared at it for a moment, Giles slipping his hands into his pockets. There was something undeniably weighted, something final about their stances and gazes.

"What just happened?" Buffy asked dazedly, looking up at Giles with a confused, plaintive expression.

"We won," Giles responded simply. "We all got through it."

Buffy swallowed, suddenly feeling grounded. Her brain decided to descend from whatever distant planet it was orbiting. There was a strange sensation of zooming in, of everything materializing clearly, of her body becoming painfully aware of all of its scratches and aches. Almost all of us, she wanted to say, but she couldn't force herself to wipe that serene look off Giles' face.

He took off his glasses, finally acknowledging their lack of cleanliness, and began rubbing them on his shirt. And then stopped, grimacing, as he realized his shirt was resplendent with debris and soot as well. He sighed and put them back on.

"Wesley seems to have contracted a severe case of being knocked unconscious. I suppose I should go see if he's still singing delirious snippets of Carmen," Giles said, voice tinged with amused exasperation. He turned to go and then stopped, putting his hand back on Buffy's shoulder. "I'm proud of you," he said quietly, simply. Buffy looked back at him, feeling a thick lump forming in her throat.

He walked away and she inhaled, eyes returning and searching the wreckage like she was looking for an explanation. They had won. They had defeated the Mayor and saved the town, and done it with minimal casualties. They had graduated high school. Buffy could understand her achievements abstractly, and yet the reality of what they had done, of the futures she had created, still eluded her. She vaguely acknowledged that the accompanying emotions would probably come later, would envelop her in the safety of isolation.

Her heart was making half-assed attempts at soaring, but it was still tethered down, still heavy. Buffy felt her limbs trembling softly and abruptly realized she was painfully exhausted. She turned around, finally ripping her focus away from the school, and saw Willow, Xander, Oz and Cordelia, standing around an ambulance and talking. Xander was sitting on the edge of the van, eyes still bright and glittering, holding a bandage to his forehead. He was smiling, his grin wide and undaunted, as Oz said something to the group. Buffy felt a pure rush of warmth drop into her stomach as she looked at them. Laughing, smiling, reveling in their own survival, their aliveness. This was who she saved. This was why.

She felt her mouth form a smile, a rusty and unthinking grin that cracked through the soot and ash on her face. Willow, whose hand was resting on her boyfriend's shoulder and whose hair closely resembled a bright orange chia pet, suddenly turned her head as if she realized someone was watching them, and found Buffy. Her grin was immediate and shining, and she raised a hand to wave exuberantly at Buffy. The others turned at Willow's expression too, until they were all smiling at her, eyes warm, bright and proud. Buffy raised her arm to wave back and froze.

There was a sensation running up and down her back, a soft and familiar prickling, a line behind her stomach, taut and undeniable, pulling her around. Her smile faltered, an unpleasant, anxious fluttering beginning in her stomach. She knew what was waiting for her before she turned around. He stood 20 feet away, that same quiet strength in his posture, that same resigned weight on his shoulders, that same soft wavering in his eyes. He was watching her steadily.

"Angel," she whispered, and knew he could hear her.

Everything about this moment seemed achingly familiar, as if she had lived it before. His ubiquitous black coat, billowing softly around him in the steam, the tight shape of his mouth, the lights flashing and throwing shadows on his face. They looked at each other and didn't need to say anything, because the look in his eyes expressed everything she was feeling. Her heart was pumping, but it felt constricted, restrained. Everything around her was unfocused, fading away, until it was just the two of them that existed. They stood until the emotion of the moment trickled through Buffy's stomach, until it was just a moment in time and they were simply two people standing. Angel closed his eyes once, opened them, and turned slowly around. Buffy watched him walk away in that languid, loping pace, watched the steam float around him until he was swallowed up. And then he was gone.

She stood, hands hanging limply, feeling her shoulders rise and fall, feeling the acute weight of her feet on the ground. It felt like she had been preparing for this moment, for his departure, forever. And now that it was here, she looked around her and saw that life continued. She slipped out of their encased bubble and saw that the rest of the world hadn't stopped for them. She didn't collapse, or start crying, or fold into herself; she stood and inhaled. She felt the pain, that ache in her stomach and chest, and acknowledged that it wouldn't always be so prevalent. She understood that he would always be there, if not physically, and that they would both survive and thrive. She stood a little straighter and walked back over to her friends, who had been watching her and trying not to be blatantly obvious about it.