There were a hundred million options open to her and each spidered out from her fingertips. Possibilities. She could chase him and they could find an abandoned corner of a building and avoid every last scrap of the fighting. Or she could fight elsewhere. Or -- Heaven forfend -- she could allow him to fight with her. But none of those possibilities appeared possible to Buffy Summers.

Brusquely, she fumbled with the locket. She clumsily worked its clasp and secured its chain around her neck. It wasn't simply her life, now. It was more than that. It was a future.

"I'll see you on the other side," she said. Voice raised. What she ought to do is pull him back and beg him for a good luck kiss. A hug. Anything. But she was scared that any amount of tenderness -- Jack's gentleness -- would undo her as it always did and ruin every notion of what she was supposed to do.

And so the Slayer turned away as well.