AN: I haven't seen Buffy in forever. Don't kill me if I did something wrong.
Disclaimer: Don't own Buffy, huzzah.

Blood starts it, blood stops it. A few drips of blood fell daintily over the edge and it started. The beginning of the end of the world started before everyone's eyes and she realized it. It came in a flash, in one serene moment. Buffy Summers would have to save the world one last time. She's done so countless times but this time there was a catch. Risking herself.

So she jumped. No regrets.

All the while, falling down, she felt peaceful. Like an angel. Ascending to the heavens. Well, she was descending, technically. To a portal, a something caused by those who reign freely in hell.

Relaxation coursed through her and she felt dead even before she was.

("Dawn, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I will always love you.")

It was peaceful yet at the same time, it was painful. Oh God, the pain. But mostly the pain was from knowing that unless there was an afterlife, Dawn was the last person she'd ever see. The depths of this portal was the last thing she'd ever see. That was she was twenty years old and she'd never been a normal teen. She'd been a fucking vampire slayer and all that ever happened was that those that she loved and gave pieces of her heart to, pieces that were so hard to get, had to be taken away.

("But this is the work that I have to do.")

Blood makes us who we are. It ties us, it bonds us and it breaks us. It's the ultimate source of existence. We need it to live, we need it to die. Vampires, they feast on it. Mortals savour it. We all do in one way or another.

Glory. To her, it wasn't just... the blood. It was the power. The knowledge that ultimately, everyone's fate depended on her. They could live and die. She feasted on power through blood. It all runs back to blood.

(" Tell Giles ... tell Giles I figured it out. And, and I'm okay. ")

And Buffy knew it. She knew the powerful bonds of blood, that although Dawn technically was not her sister, they shared blood. They loved each other like sisters do. Sisters. Despite birth, despite details. Buffy loved her more than anyone in the whole world and she was willing the sacrifice the precious gift of blood for her. For everyone.

Her friends would go on, of course. It's what humans are trained to do. They live, laugh, suffer loss. Sometimes they're broken but despite popular belief, what is broken is always fixed. Maybe not completely but fixed enough to move on. To look back and smile, think back and cry, look up and hope. Pray. Take what you have and stop dwelling. It's what she would have wanted and she knows they'll try to honour her memory as much as they can.

("And give love to my friends. You have to take care of them now.")

They'd be upset, there is no doubt. They would need help in the beginning at least. A nudge in the right direction, a comforting caress of a whisper telling them It's okay, I promise.

But even those who say the words break down as well. But they would survive if they did it together. If they stayed together.

Love often is the greatest defense in life. No, love cannot move mountains. No, love cannot take all of your troubles away. But it can ease it, soften it. Make the world just a little more bearable. The power of friendship and love is unimaginable.

("You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong. ")

The colors seemed to envelope her, suck the remaining shards of her sanity while bringing her to her senses. A haze of all colors. She felt cold to the bone and yet half of the sensation seemed as if it originated from a pool of flames. But then again, she wasn't really feeling.

It's a moment where the moment seems so surreal and the more you think of it the more you are amazed that life truly is what it is. Just life. How far you've come, what you're doing, how you are the way you are. A moment where millions of thoughts are running through your head, except you're blank. It's a moment designed to make you feel but you're heavily in thought. You're not trying to think you just are.

It's a life changing moment. A life ending moment.

Life is cruel in so many ways. It's as if it were designed specifically to cause you misery. But we beg for our lives in regardless, we plead for it.

("Dawn, the hardest thing in this world ... is to live in it. ")

Life is a tricky game and we all fall prey to it, we have no other choice. The trouble is playing it right. Living it right. Especially if everything you ever do is one fuck up afer another. That's life. It makes allowances for no one. It handles us like a deck of cards. Maybe we'll get a good hand, maybe not. But it's up to you to win. It depends on how you play the game.

("Be brave. Live. For me.")

When one life ends, another begins. Another slayer to be born into the world, the existing people carrying on for life. They still had one so they had the power to do whatever they wanted. She hoped they didn't take what they had for granted.

She knows now. Her time has come. Her eyes are shut and she allows whatever is in store for her to take over, to claim her body. Spreading out, she sacrifices herself and in one quick moment, she's done. Her soul has left but her body remains crumpled in a heap where the portal once was. Eyes closed, body still.

And she's gone.

She wouldn't have had to do it if it weren't for blood. If it weren't for all the evil in the world. If she wasn't Buffy Summers, vampire slayer. But is and so she did.

Because it was a gift.

Her gift.

The gift of life. The gift of death. The gift of blood.