No Choice -A Buffy FanFic- SPOILER ALERT

In every matter, there is a choice. Even if it is not immediately seeable, the choice is there, lurking beneath veils of doubt and deceit. You may be blinded by the law, or your instinct, or simply your morals, but it makes no difference--there is always a fork in the road, two separate paths to take, two separate destinies, fates, endings. You always have a choice.

Or at least, that's what I've always heard, and if you've stuck with me from the beginning, then you know that nothing I hear is ever true.

Crud.

The sword is beginning to quiver in my hands now, jerking spastically into a blurred silver semi-halo above my head. My arm muscles are shrieking as they hold up the saber, which is nearly a quarter of my weight, and I am seized by the horrible temptation to drop the weapon, to let it clatter to the floor, relieving me not only of physical weight, but mental.

Please. There's gotta be some other way. I'm not sure who I'm pleading to; the fact that I'm actually begging is such a staggering idea in and of itself that I can't fathom anything else. My long blonde hair clings to my neck by beads of viscous sweat—I forgot, yet again, to put up my hair—and as the perspiration collides with the blood caking my near-bare shoulders I wince—it stings like heck. My lips tremble, shaping the words I yearn to say, but cannot—will not—allow breath to support. Get up, get up, you have to get up. Run! Fight me if you must…but don't just lie there.

My eyes, watering from the thick smoke that taints the air, zero in on the blurred shape lying sprawled on the stone before me. I focus hard, and the shape leaps into definition—it's a guy, a guy whose lean, muscular body is clothed in black, and whose bottomless black eyes, as they meet mine and the dark head lifts, are so familiar I can almost hear the shards of my broken heart clattering onto the temple's ground.

Because as soon as I see his eyes, I know he's back. And I also know there's nothing I can do about it.

"Buffy." His lips form my name, but the whisper he adopts is almost soundless. His eyes are muddled, clouded, confused. "What's going on? Where are we?"

He lurches to his feet, and for a second I am filled with an overwhelming, unbelievably giddy sense of joy. He's going to make it! But he stumbles as he comes towards me, face slack, and my swiftly mended heart cracks once more. Be strong, girl. You know what you have to do. But the voice in my head does not encourage me—it is just as shaky and uncertain as my thoughts, and after a moment it dissolves, leaving only a whisper of a memory behind.

"I don't remember anything…" He's muttering, but I cut him off.

"I love you." The words leave my lips shakily, and an abrupt sense of déjà vu washes over me with the force of a hurricane. I nearly give in then, remembering when I last uttered those words and meant them just as truly as I do now…but when I catch sight of the monstrous statue, perched behind us with its jaws gaped in a malicious snarl, my resolve steadies, if only slightly. I can't turn back now. The world is counting on me.

My lover looks up in surprise, but upon hearing my words his eyes flood with tenderness. "I love you, too," He whispers back, and when our lips collide I can feel any and all sanity that I still hold drowning in the feel of his warmth. Frantically, I grasp at those threads of knowledge, my mind spinning into a whirl of panic. I can't let go, or all is lost.

Of course, I'm already losing everything by committing this act, but if it's the act to save the world, then how can I ignore it?

"Buffy,I--"

"Shh." I stop his words with two gentle caresses to his lips. I swallow, my gorge rising, but force the next words out through my teeth: "Close your eyes."

He obeys, looking confused, and I step away from him. Everything is changing around me, from a noncommittal thing such as the wind picking up, to a slightly bigger thing such as, oh, the vortex of blackness opening up in front of us, but I barely even notice. Sweat dribbles down the sword hilt as I raise my weapon once more. Tears have begun to gush down my cheeks, so I can only hope my aim is true as I plunge my sword downwards.

A horrible roaring sound, a scream of agony, and then--silence.

I open my eyes, staring numbly down at the bloodied stone flooring—the only thing left of my boyfriend. I'm keenly aware of the sword slapping against my thigh, slickened with crimson.

Sometimes there's no choice. None at all. I had to save the world, and I just did.

But in the process, I destroyed myself.