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"What do we do now?" Buffy starts from her dream. The voice fades slowly - the
one that isn't really there anyway. "Yeah, Buffy, what do we do now?"

It's been three months, give or take, since she stood on a lonely highway
staring into a canyon that used to be Sunnydale. And what has she done? Almost
every night the dream washes over and through her and almost every night she
climbs the stairs up to the roof to think about the answer. Tonight isn't any
different. She sighs and slips on a light robe over her cotton pajamas.

She moves quietly through the hall to a doorway marked "Roof Access - Authorized
Personnel Only." If she isn't authorized who is? The nocturnal joke brings a grim
smile to her lips. Her slippers slap softly against the concrete steps. She can feel
and hear the grit crunch beneath her soles. It's one thing she looks forward to
each night. She can't really say why.

They had stood on the highway for a while. Suggestions had flown back and forth as
to what they should all do next. Some things were clear - the new Slayers would
have to be found, taught about their powers.

"Sounds like you'll have to change your 'one girl in every generation' spiel, Giles,"
Willow had joked.

Giles had smiled and agreed. He'd also suggested that perhaps training methods
would change, girls might not be taken from their homes as had often been the case.
There would always be Hellmouths - he iterated again that there was one in Cleveland -
but that with so many girls capable of fighting evil, he felt perhaps the tide
had turned. "We must still be vigilant-"

"Of course," Buffy had interjected with a lightness she was already losing.

Giles had grinned. "But we *will* change."

They had bantered back and forth for a while about where to go. Xander pointed out
none of them had any clothes or property of any sort any more. Dawn had added in that
with the unfortunate destruction of the mall they couldn't even replace their things.
Willow had started to remind them that none of them had any money any longer, but a look
at Xander's face had stopped her.

Finally it had been Faith who had said, "The Hyperion."

Xander's face had been puzzled. "The Hi-what-ion?"

"Oh, yeah! The hotel. Angel's hotel!" Willow had been grinning. "It's got tons
of room, right?"

"Yes," Giles had added. "And we can tell Angel and his - associates what has occurred
here."

Xander had shrugged. "I don't know. The fact that the earth - not overrun by the armies
of darkness - probably a good clue to what we did."

"Yes, even so...." Giles had still been smiling.

"What Spike did," Buffy says as she pushes open the door to the roof. None of them had
heard her say it that day, so quiet had been her voice. Since then she'd only spoken of
him once. Faith had recounted what happened in the last few moments - the ones she
saw. No one would ever know - no one but Buffy - how Spike had sent her away, given himself
for her.

Rona had, as she'd recovered, made some remark about the blond vamp. Buffy's hands had
twitched into fists that wanted to pummel the girl into a bleeding mess. Instead,
she had spoken in a voice full of ichor and ice. "Don't you ever, *ever* presume to
say anything about him, again. We are alive - *You* are alive because of him and
don't forget it. Am I clear?"

The girl's lip had curled up at Buffy's words and she'd been prepared to shoot something
back, but Faith had put a hand on her shoulder.

Buffy hadn't seen Rona since then and hoped she never would.

A small red light glows from one end of the roof. Buffy walks toward it and before long
catches the whiff of cigarette smoke.

She pastes a smile on her face as she approaches. "You won't live forever if you
do that, you know."

Xander turns. His lips curve up, but his eyes remain dull and cold. "Aw, heck,
eternal life is overrated anyway." He pats the edge of the roof next to him.

Buffy eyes it carefully, looks at the drop to the ground. She worries about Xander,
sitting like that, facing the street so far below, his legs dangling. She can't tell
him though. The man has shaken off all their concern for him. He's nice about it,
but firm. Buffy can't fault him; she's hardly been more share-oriented about her
own grief. She covers his hand with hers. "I'll just lean if that's okay. Looking down
there - kind of deja vu, you know?"

He nods. They stay that way - Xander seated; Buffy propped against the wall - for
a few long, silent moments. With a motion that is getting too practiced, Xander
flicks his cigarette away and watches it tumble through the night to the pavement
below. He speaks in a burdened voice. "What was it like?"

"What was what - Oh. Heaven? Being dead? Whatever."

"Yeah. That."

She takes a deep breath and sighs as she lets it out. Words and a melody slice through her
soul. No pain, no fear, no doubt. She pushes it aside. "It was... peaceful."

"Did you - I mean - Uh - remember...?"

Buffy squeezes his hand. "I remembered everyone, Xander. And I remembered how I felt
about all of you."

He swallows. "Did you - um - see - uh - I mean, meet - other - oh God, Buffy, I'm sorry.
I shouldn't ask you things like this, it's just that I..."

Buffy moves her hand to his shoulder and draws closer to him in comfort. "No,
it's all right. You miss her."

"Like I lost a body part." He chuckles wryly. "Actually, I can now say from personal
experience, *more* than if I lost a body part. I know she died for the "Cause" and all
and I know she died doing something really noble, but, damn it, I want her back! I
want back all the time I lost with her. I want to tell her all the things I never
did, first because I thought we'd have time. And then because she didn't want to hear them
*and* I was angry at her. And then because - because I'd tried saying them all to her
once before when the world nearly ended and - and - I don't know why I didn't. But I
didn't." He turns his head and looks at Buffy. "I can't ever get her back, can I?"

The Slayer fights back tears and murmurs, "No."

"Do you think - is it possible - did she get to - Heaven?"

Buffy smiles at him. "Yeah. I think so."

"She'd done a lot of awful things."

Buffy shrugs. "But she stopped. And she took it back. She was ready to sacrifice
herself to make D'Hoffryn take that last spell back. She died for Andrew."

Xander snorts lightly. "She was always so - contemptuous of him."

"Well..." Buffy starts, grinning a bit.

"I know," Xander chuckles again. "She always said what she was thinking. You always
knew what you saw - and heard - was what you got." He pauses. "God, I can't believe
I'm never going to see her again, hear her, tell her to be more tactful...." He hangs
his head. "It's been three months and I - I still can't believe it."

"I know," Buffy tells him with more feeling than he understands. "And - it's not forever,
Xan. At least, I don't think so."

He gives her a quizzical look.

"You asked me - before - about other people. And yeah." She licks her lips.
"I was with my mom."

Xander exhales a shaky breath. "Of, Buffy, I'm sorry. What we took you from..."

She shakes her head. "No. I got over that a while ago. I know it took me a long
time, but there were... things that I - I learned because you guys brought me
back. It's good. Really."

Xander nods and sits, thinking, for a while longer. "Why did you come up here?"

The word slips out before she can stop it. "Spike."

"You really loved him?"

She nods. "Not quite like Angel, but - Angel and I - we can't ever be. Not really."

"The Curse?"

She shrugs. "That and ... me." She stops. She doesn't want to go over the cookie
dough analogy with Xander. "I don't know who I am yet. But I know I'll never be
a normal girl with Angel."

"Is that a bad thing?"

Buffy smiles at him. "I mean I'll never have a normal life. Okay, when I was *the* Slayer-
and then one of two - yeah, I wasn't going to have a normal life. Ever. But Willow's
spell - it changed that. Spike knew that. Spike knew I could go be a normal girl."
Buffy shakes her head slowly. "He died to give me that, Xander."

"He died to save the world."

She shakes her head. "Saving the world was a bonus." Her eyes glow with memory and
for the first time she tells someone of it. "In the Hellmouth, at the end,
I tried to get him to go with me, but he wouldn't. He said it was time for me to go,
that we'd beaten them back and he would finish the job. I took his hand and - and
I saw - I saw his soul, Xan. And he didn't care if the rest of you lived or died -
I'm sorry, but he didn't. He wanted me to have a chance at being a normal girl.
That was what he was giving me."

Xander says nothing.

Buffy brushes away a tear. "I told him I loved him." She smiles sadly at the thought.
"He said that I didn't, but thank you for saying I did. But I did - I do. It's
just different. And - I think he knew that. I think he said that so I wouldn't
blame myself, so I wouldn't tell myself I'd let another man I loved die."

"Didn't work, huh?"

She gives a bitter laugh. "Not too well."

"Maybe you need to get away from here."

She nods. "Probably so. You guys don't need me anyway."

Xander smiles at her. "Of course, we do."

She shakes her head. The school they have started - based at the Hyperion and up
and running in only three months thanks to Angel's new "status" at Wolfram and Hart -
will be starting in a few days. Girls - Slayers all - have been invited from around
the world. Wesley used the law firm's connections to find teachers and secure
accreditation for the place. Fred and Willow between them dummied up references
and reports about the school's stellar history. Giles recruited people like
Robin Wood, Xander and even Andrew, saying he preferred people who had been tested
in battle. Some of the Slayers themselves were staying on - while others returned to
their homes - to help function as Watchers. Giles - and Wesley - had early on brushed
aside the idea that the new Slayer academy should be based in England. "That was the
old way," Giles had insisted. He'd smiled fondly at Buffy and proclaimed it was a new
era and new methods must be employed. Buffy had been offered a position, of course,
but she'd declined. Faith, surprisingly, had taken one. With Robin in her life, she seemed
content for the first time.

"No, "Buffy repeats. "You really don't need me."

Xander looks at her and knows what he's known since she turned down Giles' offer
with "Thanks, but I can't see myself becoming all Professor McGonegall on you."
He knows Buffy isn't going to stay in Los Angeles. He thinks she's known it
since then, too. He wonders if she knows that she won't ever come back.

She punches him gently on the arm. "Hey, don't you have that fancy-schmancy
new-student orientation in the morning?"

He smiles as his heart twists within his chest. "I don't know about schmancy, but
yeah, it will be pretty fancy and it is in the morning."

He turns and hops down from the wall, noting the relief pass over the Slayer's
face. He takes an emotional step from that ledge as he sees the love in her eyes.
She leans up and kisses him lightly, platonically. If only they could make
each other happy... but they can't. That's another thing Xander Harris knows.
He leaves her. She is leaning against the wall, staring in the direction of the
ocean. "Buff?"

She looks over her shoulder.

"Will you tell us?"

She shakes her head.

"Not even Dawnie?"

"Not even Dawnie," her voice floats across the roof. "Especially *not* Dawnie."
In her mind, she corrects it. "Professor Summers." Dawn has taught herself
enough about languages - modern, ancient and demon - that she will be teaching at
the academy. More of Will's and Fred's computer skills there to make it look legit.

Xander looks down for a moment. When he looks up, Buffy's eyes trick her briefly
and she sees him whole, unharmed, smiling and laughing. Tears film her eyes and ruin
the image. Xander opens his mouth the say something and then closes it.
He nods.

Four nights later, she is gone. There are no good-byes, no words of farewell.
There are no attempts at persuasion, no tears of recrimination. There is nothing but
the gentle snick as her room door closes behind her. Around her the hotel sleeps,
filled with girls who are exhausted from their suddenly rigorous schedule and adults
who are no less tired from the responsibility they bear. Buffy looks down the hall.
The door marked "Roof Access - Authorized Personnel Only" is ajar. A vague scent
of nicotine drifts toward her.

She turns and walks the other way.

She creeps out of the hotel and to the curb, where a cab awaits her. Angel and Wesley
-using more of Wolfram and Hart's influence - have made sure none of them lack for cash.
Ever. She gets into the cab and murmurs her request.

From the courtyard, Angel watches her. His face is set, impassive. He's spent the
evening at Cordelia's bedside. He whispers to the night air, "Goodbye, Cookie Dough."
It's a silly analogy, but it works at the moment. "Remember, I'm not getting
any older."

The cab speeds away. Buffy sinks into the seat. She is glad Angel did not try to stop
her. She hopes Cordelia will wake up. That - strange as it seemed at first - works.
She is at peace with it.

At the airport, she picks up the rental car she has reserved. When she was seventeen
and ran away from Sunnydale to Los Angeles, she covered her tracks. Now, as she runs
away from Los Angeles, there is no need. She puts it on the credit card the law firm
has arranged. Let them know where she is, that she is all right - at least in body.

Her first stop is Sunnydale. Well, the hole in the ground that it once was. She
reaches it as the sun rises. Tired, but restless, Buffy goes through with her
plan. Not a plan, really, just a feeling, she admits. A feeling that she must
do this.

She finds a path slightly less treacherous than the rest and makes her way into the
pit. The world is silent around her. The birds and insects have not yet returned.
They will. She looks around. So much that was evil was vanquished here. The things that
are good will come back when they believe it is safe. She knows that Evil itself was
not defeated here, but sent into a long and dark retreat. Someday this Hellmouth may
again arise. Or the threat may come from somewhere no one knows about yet. But it will
be a long time from now, when all those who stopped it here are ash, and their memories
faint, the stuff of legend and dreams. There is a rock in front of her. From the satchel
in which she has carried it, she pulls the scythe. With a great blow, she buries its blade
in the stone. The next Slayer who faces world-in-peril evil can pull it from the rock.
The cycle continues.

Her blond hair shining, Buffy strides toward the edge of the canyon, ready to leave.
Something shines in the light, glitters in the dust. Buffy bends down and
picks up the object. She murmurs to herself in amazement. It should be impossible
that she holds what she does, but she thinks sometimes the Powers-That-Be grant
the mortals who wage these wars a few precious baubles. This is one.

It is afternoon by the time Buffy climbs to the rim. Words from another dream come to her
and for the first time, she can answer them. "I do know who I am. I have begun.
And I know there's more to discover." The wind carries them from her - she hopes
they float to the dead, to those who need most to hear them.

She stops in the next small town for lunch and to mail her find. She insures the box
and tucks in a note, telling Xander where she'd found it and that she hopes he can
begin to heal now.

She knows Xander will cry when he opens the box, when he holds the ring he'd given Anya
on the eve of another apocalypse, the ring that should have been buried with her, but
somehow wasn't. She thinks Willow will be there to help him grieve. It hurts, but
somehow it's right that she herself isn't.

*****

Ten years later...

Xander had been right - Buffy Summers never returned to Los Angeles. But unlike the summer
she'd hidden from them all, she has kept in touch. She knows what has happened to
all her friends, to her sister and even to the Slayers - the ones she knew and those
she didn't. Sometimes the names escape her, but she's learned to live with that and
she thinks they have, too. Better that they lived for her to not know their names, than
died with her knowing them all.

Willow has finished her PhD and is teaching at U.C.L.A.

Xander is a respected builder of elaborate luxury homes.

Giles is truly the Dumbledore of the Slayer school.

Dawn speaks more languages than anyone can count and is just now no longer
being confused with the students.

Faith is still with Robin - they have a little boy even - and she's second
in charge to Giles. She doesn't teach any classes, but counsels the girls, especially
the ones who seem to be drifting toward the dark side of the power. She hasn't lost
a girl yet.

Andrew has become a film maker. There are unsettling rumors he's planning on doing a
movie that sounds a lot like Buffy's life.

None of them have ever been back to Sunnydale.

Buffy goes ever few years. The plants
were the first to come back and a small lake - dry in the summer - forms one end of what
used to be the town. On her last two visits, she has seen increasing numbers of animals.
The birds sang to her a lot last time. A vine - the mystical sort - has grown up around
the rock with the scythe. She's never found any more "gifts," from the Powers.

Buffy lives just outside of Cleveland, but she's thinking of moving. As it turns out,
being a normal girl meant being a Slayer and after a year or so of traveling, she
found herself drawn to the fight. Since Cleveland has a Hellmouth....

But being a normal girl meant something else as well. It meant meeting a man, a very normal,
kind man. It meant marrying him and having a little girl. It meant sitting at his
bedside as a tumor destroyed his brain. Buffy had watched with trepidation and
loathing, not only as his life ebbed away, but as she grew more certain in the
knowledge that she was being pulled back into the center of things.

She looks in the mirror; Tom has been gone six months. She sighs. She's tried to
be a normal girl, to finish baking, as she told Angel so long ago. It's never been
easy, but what has? She wouldn't trade any of it.

Well, maybe one thing.

Spike.

The doorbell rings. She grimaces. Probably another well-meaning neighbor with a casserole.
They all worry that Buffy isn't doing well. No one wants to rush her but after six months...

She pokes her head into her daughter's room as she passes. The toddler sleeps soundly.
Buffy scampers down the stairs, calling out, "Be right there!"

She opens the door and takes an involuntary step back. A noise rises in her throat -
part grief, part disbelief, part warning.

He smiles, and her shock turns to amazement and joy.

She doesn't question the Powers, just flings herself into his embrace. He holds her and
strokes her hair, smiling against her ear. When she pulls back to gaze into his eyes,
his grin broadens. "Well, Buffy, what do we do now?" Spike asks.

END