ETA: Big typo uncovered thanks to reviews. It should be Keiko (Anya's slayer) not Lieuko (Jess's dead slayer) in the last scene. Oops!

Epilogue


Buffy woke up in a peaceful silence. When she turned her head she saw Xander hovering over her. He smiled wide at her and squeezed her hand. There was what looked something like a halo around his head.

"Did it work?" she asked quietly.

He nodded, and she realized it was just the morning sun behind him. "We're still here among the living," he reassured her.

Buffy turned her head to the singed patch of grass to her right. A little pile of dust and a false grave in Los Angeles were all that was left of Faith. But the world would go on. Sirens sounded as Xander helped her to her feet and guided her to the little alley where Spike and Bianca were starting to stir.

She ran her fingers through Spike's hair and watched as Xander gently nudged Tashi awake.

"Did we win?"

Buffy looked down at the sardonic smile on Spike's face and leaned in to kiss it away. "We're still here anyway," she assured him. "And it's a beautiful day."

Xander steered Tashi over to the group and clapped his hands together. "Alrighty. Another apocalypse foiled. So, who wants donuts?"

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"So she did it?"

Anya made an impatient sound into the phone. He really could be so slow sometimes. "Yes, Angel, Bianca and Faith were successful. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we?"

He just sighed heavily. "Well, good then."

"Now that the mother's vision has come to pass, will you be moving her out of Sunnydale?" she asked tersely.

"No. She seems happy there. They'll take good care of her."

Anya tapped her nails against the desk and watched the girls play in her living room. They were supposed to be training, but she hadn't been able to keep as tight a rein on them since her exhausting trip to California. "You didn't seem to think they were taking adequate care of the other impossible child. As you might recall we went to a great deal of trouble and expense to fake her death and extract her from what you considered inadequate protection."

"At the time, yes."

Buffy, she realized suddenly. Willow's hare-brained scheme had brought Buffy back into the equation and that still meant something to him. "Fine. But no more favors, Angel." She knew better than to ask him about his own impossible child. As far as Angel knew, the Council was ignorant of Collin and she wasn't about to disabuse him of that notion.

She rang off and turned to face the girls. They were supposed to be doing their exercises, but instead Anne was just pretending to be a vampire while Keiko chased her around the living room, screaming and giggling. Anya smoothed her tweed skirt and stood, clapping her hands together. "Now then girls, there is a lot of work yet to do."

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Fin


Thanks to everyone who stuck with me on this one. I feel it rather limped to its end, but I’ve got some new projects in the works. In fact I already have a chapter drafted for one of my challenge stories and the first scene written for the other. At least one of them should be a shorter story as well. I think I need a bit of a break from the sagas. Hope you’ll be back for more!

(For more about the challenges, see msclawdia.livejournal.com)