Disclaimers: No sex or violence, some angst and talk abut lesbians. All characters belong to Mutant Enemy, pity they ran out of imagination about what to do with them.

Spoiler warning: Up to and including the events of the series finale "Chosen"

Prologue

by Poto

"So, what are you going to do now?"

Faith's words rang in Buffy's ears as the plane touched down on the tarmac at Heathrow airport. It was her first time here since the operation had swung into gear 18 months ago.

It was also two years to the day since what the newspapers had called the great Sunnydale earthquake of 2003. Of course, Buffy and everyone else who'd been involved in the fight knew otherwise. Even the former residents of Sunnydale knew there'd been more to it than just a simple-yet-devastating quake - but if there was ever any proof to support their suspicions it was long buried beneath the dirt and rubble of what had once been the town on top of the hellmouth.

The vampire armies had long turned to dust. The First was still licking it's wounds and was banished to linger in shadows as it always had - still sometimes plaguing them in the forms of their long-dead loved ones, but no longer a threat.

Loved ones. She knew that the First had visited Xander. The collapsed hellmouth was now Anya's tomb, along with Amanda and so many other potentials - or Slayers - who had fallen on that day. She knew Willow grieved for the physical loss of Tara's grave. Giles still smarted over return visits from Jenny Calendar. Faith admitted to seeing the mayor in her darkest, weakest moments. Robin saw his mother.

And Buffy? The First made sure that Spike still plagued her dreams. But that was almost a comfort now, since it proved he was dead and not suffering some eternal living torment at the hands of the evil he'd sacrificed so much to hold at bay.

"Thank you for flying British Airways. Please ensure you collect all your personal belongings from the overhead lockers. On behalf of the captain and cabin crew we welcome you to England and wish you a pleasant stay."

Buffy smiled. Finally, after such a long time apart, she'd see her friends again. Dawn was back in LA at the apartment they shared together. She was a little late finishing high school - that was what came of taking time off to fight the ultimate evil - but she was finally almost finished her senior year and making preparations for college. To Angel's horror she had decided to become a lawyer. Law schools all over the country were begging to accept her.

An almost motherly pride welled up inside her and she almost laughed out loud. The college buzz around Dawn was akin to the fuss that had been made over Willow back in their senior year. Buffy remembered well how dizzying the options had been, how difficult it was for Willow to really focus on what she wanted rather than what was being offered. She'd tried to use that experience to help Dawn. More than once she had wished that their mother had lived long enough to see it.

Shuffling her feet, she joined the rest of the slow moving trail of passengers departing the aircraft into the main terminal. She remembered her first few international trips and how she'd been intimidated by the newness of everything. For so many years she hadn't seen a single thing beyond Sunnydale and LA. What she knew of the outside world came mainly through unwelcome visits from the council.

But now, she was road-trip girl, funded by the almost overwhelming resources of the council to travel the world looking for, talking to and training those new Slayers who had been activated. She had almost limitless authority; she was the original and still strongest Slayer. What they now supposed was that the line that ran through her and Faith would still always produce the most powerful Slayers. A pure line. Buffy thought it made them sound a little like pure-bred poodles.

That was Willow's theory anyway. It was the best theory they had and nothing they had witnessed so far had contradicted it. It wasn't like there was a precedent for all this.

Because there were now so many active Slayers, the pool of potentials that had been created had almost quadrupled. Just like always, whenever a Slayer died a new potential would be activated in her place, so there would always be hundreds of Slayers from this point on, protecting almost every country on the planet. But with greater numbers came chaos too. Buffy had heard just yesterday that one of the untrained Slayers who had been activated had fallen to a vampire attack in western Africa, and an unexpected girl had been activated in her place. Kendra's younger sister Mali, that the deceased Slayer had never met, was now a Slayer.

Next stop, Africa, Buffy mused. That would be exciting, and different. Actually everything was exciting and different, and nothing was as she would ever have imagined it would be.

Her excitement levels kicked up a notch as she waited her turn in the long queues at customs. Who might be there? Xander perhaps - he was in London overseeing the rebuilding of the Council headquarters. He'd accepted the job with pride - it was a far step up from using his formidable skills to fix and re-fix the Summers family lounge room window. And his eye didn't really bother him that much. In some ways, from the way he talked about it, it was almost a point of pride with him. It served as kind of a memento of the long fight in which the love of his life had died.

She knew he was happy to be near Willow too. Willow had transferred her degree to Oxford, graduated with obscenely high merit and immediately set to work making the Watcher Council a slick, sophisticated and modern operation. While Giles busied himself collecting and salvaging as much of the arcane knowledge that he could to restock the Council's knowledge of the past, Willow worked to take the Council into the future. Between them they were rebuilding the Council brick by brick, and with hundreds of Slayers needing guidance now, the organisation had never been more necessary.

Buffy smiled when she thought of Willow. Her best friend had a Slayer girlfriend who never left her side, an occupation that affected the lives of thousands, a power possibly greater than any witch or sorcerer in history... and yet, she was still Willow. Coffee still made her antsy, sugar highs were the key to good thinking and she still carried herself with that understated grace that was just so unmistakablyher.

If tinges of sadness marred her beautiful features now and then it was only to be expected - they'd all lost people in the seven-year bloody battle of good versus evil in Sunnydale.

At least Willow had Kennedy now, Buffy thought happily. Kennedy adored Willow, would protect her with her last breath if she had to. Often Buffy had wondered exactly what it was that Willow saw in the young Slayer; after all, Kennedy and Tara could not possibly have been more different. Buffy thought it may have been the desperation of the times that had brought them together, more for solace than any real passion.

Willow herself had wondered too, Buffy knew. What would Kennedy do when she had powers and freedom and could be anywhere she wanted? Their best guess had been that Kennedy would run off around the world, experimenting, experiencing... but she'd been wrong. They'd all been wrong. Kennedy was strong willed, courageous, and utterly besotted with a certain red-haired, super powerful witch.

Well, Buffy mused. She had been the one who once said to her best friend that when someone falls for Willow, they stay fallen. And she had been so right; with Oz, with Tara and now with Kennedy.

Her happy smile burst into an all-out grin the second she set foot through the arrivals gate. From the ceiling dangled an enormous banner that screamed "Welcome Buffy!" in bright yellow orange, with all of the people she wanted desperately to see standing restlessly under it, waiting for her to appear.

Willow squealed in delight and ran forward, scooping Buffy up into a a huge hug. Buffy returned the embrace tightly, relishing the familiar feel and smell that was Willow.

"Oh my God Willow, your hair is so long." Buffy exclaimed, checking out Willow's now waist length, perfectly straight hair.

"Yeah well, a certain Slayer convinced me that long hair didn't look so dorky on me after all." Willow smiled and Kennedy stepped forward, also wrapping Buffy in a bear hug.

"Hey boss. How's things?" Kennedy asked.

Buffy grinned. "Super." She spotted Xander approaching and took in his tall, lanky frame.

"You've lost weight." She observed, and he wrapped his arms around her.

"Yeah well, it's the British air. And a maddening lack of twinkies."

He held on so tight it almost took the breath from her lungs, but she didn't care. It was Xander, and he was here - so solid and real. She'd imagined this moment for months and she had every intention of revelling in it.

Behind Xander a familiar figure hung back, smiling as broadly as the others but surrounded by an air of pensiveness, uncertainty.

Buffy understood his nervousness. There was so much that happened in those last days in Sunnydale, and so much that she and Giles had never talked through, despite the work they'd each done in their own ways since it all happened. She looked him over and was relieved that he didn't look even a day older. His clothes looked the same, his glasses were newer and slightly more modern, but not so much that they overly changed the way he appeared. He was still just Giles.

She held out a hand for him and he approached, taking first the offered hand in his and then pulling her forward into a fatherly hug.

"Gosh, Giles, do you never change your cologne?"

"Well yes, actually, but for some reason when I woke up this morning I thought I'd wear this one."

"It's perfect." She said, breathing him in. "I've missed you."

"I missed you too." He replied, his voice catching. "Where's Faith? I thought she was coming with you?"

Buffy's smile slipped a little bit. "She couldn't."

"The parole hearing didn't go well?" Willow asked.

"Oh it did. She's out. We just couldn't get permission for her to leave the country." Buffy explained. "But it's OK, she and Robin are planning some romantic thing or something to celebrate." She put emphasis on thing, as if she couldn't quite imagine what Robin Wood and the impetuous, former rogue Slayer would call romantic.

Buffy wandered back to fetch her suitcase. "Funny how lenient the prison board got when we managed to find ten or so people willing to swear that she thrown herself in front of falling buildings to rescue them from the Sunnydale quake. Also, the guy in charge of the parole board seemed awfully convinced Faith wasn't a menace to society any more. Then there was the miracle of all the murder charges being dropped…" Her voice trailed off and she looked up at Giles suspiciously "You've still got some pretty awesome contacts, I have to say."

Giles chuckled but tried to look innocent. "Will wonders never cease?"

"Well, I hate to break up the party, but a bunch of Americans standing around in an airport tends to make the British nervous." Xander joked. He pulled on the banner and the tape holding it up tore away, allowing him to roll it up and tuck it under his arm. He ushered Buffy towards the car park"Your chariot awaits."

Buffy pulled at the rolled up fabric. "Whatya gonna do with that?"

"We thought we'd save it for the next time you come into town. You know, like banner recycling."

"Can I keep it?" Buffy asked.

"Sure. It's yours. Trade you for the suitcase."

She held on tight to the banner as she watched Xander head off towards a rack of luggage trolleys, returning with one large enough to fit her possibly over-packed suitcase.

But hey. A travelling Slayer needed shoes. And sweaters. And jackets. And more shoes.

And most of all, she thought as she looked around her, a Slayer needed family.

THE END

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