Even though it's obvious, most of the characters were not created by me, I only borrowed them. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Wendon or something like that but I was unhappy with the ending and wanted to share my own continuation. I do have to give some credit to my kid brother and little sister for helping me come up with ideas of how things might be. Without them the story would be different. Forgive me if I didn't catch the characters true personality, I've tried my best.

This chapter basically reintroduces the characters, explaines their current whereabouts and whats been happening in the past 6 months since the destruction of Sunnydale and it's hellmouth. Buffy wants to keep dawn away from the hellmouth but both know that eventually their friends are going to be done with what they are working on and they'll be living in Cleveland, above another hellmouth. Only more pressure and stress is placed on Buffy's shoulders.

CHAPTER 1--Together Again

The vampire ran head long at Buffy, throwing his arms out and growling. With the natural ease that Buffy had learned after nearly 8 years of slaying vampires, Buffy slid to the side and staked the vamp through the heart. A strangled noise came from him as his face split in wide eyed, open-mouthed pain and shock. His body began to fall toward the ground but before he went to far his body turned to dust and blew into Dawns face as it was carried away by the wind.

"Come on, that's all you got?" Buffy demanded, yelling into the sky. Dawn was busy spitting out vampire dust and picking it out of her eyes but she still managed to glare at her sister.

"Buffy," Dawn said, swishing water into her mouth and spitting it out behind Old Man Wilton's grave stone. "That was your 9th vampire tonight. The last one was stupid and all the others are smart enough to know your in a killing mode tonight. Let's go home."

Buffy made a sound and tried at blowing her sister off as she stood trying to look vulnerable for some stupid and hungry vampire to take a bite out of. "I'm serious Buffy," Dawn yawned and then returned to scowling. "I'm tired and my butt's sore. I haven't seen you like this since…."

Both of them were brought back to their last day in Sunnydale, California, the First, the potentials and Spike. Buffy had taken out vampire by vampire as easily as a baby cried or a person breathed. It had been hard living through another apocalypse and losing more loved ones. Each apocalypse Sunnydale faced was one more way to suck a piece of Buffy.

"Dawnie, I'm anxious. It's been to quiet. Just vampires, no demons, no nothing. Angel isn't saying much about anything to me and I haven't heard from Willow, Giles or the Coven Willow's been staying with. I have a right to feel antsy and I have a right to want to kill. It just so happens that I can kill vampires without facing consequences."

Another yawn escaped Dawn's mouth. "Yeah, we're only sacrificing my much needed and well deserved sleep time." Dawn lay back on her patrol blanket and closed her eyes, hoping to catch some Z's while Buffy negotiated with the empty graveyard in hopes of some vampire taking the bait."

A cracking sound caused Dawn to open her eyes and nearly scream in surprise and shock. Standing above her with a crooked grin and his favorite eye patch was Xander Harris, Buffy's High School friend and a member of their slayer gang, which was nicknamed the Scooby Gang. He had his fingers to his lips and started tip toeing toward Buffy.

Dawn sat up and wanted to call out to Xander, give him a warning but decided against it, wanted to watch the show. The vamps were the same, punch, punch, kick, pun, stake and dust. But Xander would be funny. To bad he had to be hurt to make Dawn laugh.

Xander jumped at Buffy, sticking three fingers in her rip and yelling. Buffy, using her super reflexes shot her arm out and knocked Xander on the ground, did a back flip and landed on a sitting position on his stomach with her knees pinning his arms down and her wooden stake Mr. Pointy jabbing into his chest.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" Xander yelled sucking in his breath and pressing into the ground to get away from the pointed end of a deadly weapon. "Jeez, Buf," He said, "Didn't your mom ever tell you that swinging pointy things would poke someones eye out?" His eye patch had fallen off revealing his closed left eye, and the scare where Caleb's thumb had pressed into his socket. Then the eye opened and a very shiny bluish glass eye looked back at her. "Look what you did."

Buffy made a very girly squeal and tossed the steak, giving Xander a huge hug. "C-can't breath…" he gasped. Buffy had a problem with her super strength, which made it hard to hug people and not squeeze their eyes out and crack a couple ribs.

Xander got up and placed his patch over the glass eye again before turning to Dawn, who was practically dancing for her hug. When they saw each other she stood still for a moment, her lips parted. Then she slowly made her way to him and grabbed his broad shoulders. He held her for a moment burying his face in her hair and she held on tight. Then suddenly the both let go and looked away. Buffy seemed to miss this awkward hello and she and Xander started talking.

"What's been going on?" She asked him as she picked her stake up and put it in her stake holster at her ankle. Dawn had made it for her for to hold her stakes in and look cool.

"Let's head back to Angel's, we've got to talk." Xander said. Then he grabbed Dawn's hand after she gathered her blanket and they walked toward Angel's mansion.

"Giles and I have been getting things set up. I fixed up the broken down chateau in Cleveland. It's one of the biggest buildings there that'll be used for living quarters. It's looking nice."

"Wow, a chateau."

"Yeah," Xander glanced at Dawn, looked away again. "You, me, Dawn, Faith and Willow have our own area of the Chateau that's for only us and those we invite. Giles asked for only a guest bedroom. Says he has a lot of other places to be at the same time."

"Wow, we'll all be living in the same house." Buffy murmured.

"Yeah, well it's kind of like a huge house for us, connected to a larger housing area for the girls. Our section has 3 bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, family room and personal gym plus our bedrooms. By your request I put Dawns bedroom right across from yours."

"Buffy!"

"Dawn."

"Guys!" Xander put his hands up. When Dawn glared at him he smiled. "Sorry, Dawn," He said. He didn't use kid, or kiddo like he use to, both Dawn and Buffy noticed that. "Buffy's boss." He turned back to the previous conversation. "Faith asked to be farthest away from squabbling girls, and Willlow asked for soundproofness. I soundproofed the entire section we'll be living in, and Faith has the room with easy access outdoors. Willow and some guy named Frank, from the Coven spun some wild spell that nearly crashed all my windows, but now nobody can invite vamps into the house except Buffy. No exception. Not Faith, not Dawn and not Giles. Only you."

Dawn grunted. "If we have other girls who are fascinated with immortal men they'll hate you Buffy." She sounded almost pleased, but bit her tongue, thinking of Spike.

"You have your own private workout room, like we had at the magic box. You and Faith have to share that. It's also in our parts. The girls who'll be living with us will have their own, along will a huge dining hall and rec room, since family room might not cut it. There's a lot we've been planning and a lot you need to go through."

"It's like Hogwarts!" Dawn squeeled. "No, it's like X-Men." She laughed. "We're Hogswomen! Buffy, you're like the headmaster… or mistress. You're Xavier! How cool is that. And I'm your sister."

"We'll start getting girls in a couple weeks. I was told to warn you that we'll get girls who aren't the real deal. Tests will have to go through, it'll be flooded. We'll have girls that can't speak English, girls that hate us, girls that love us. Some parents want to check it out, and others are ready to bomb the place. Some are runaways who weren't accepted by their family once they changed. And we went through what you said with Faith and she agrees, though she doesn't know what girl won't want it."

"What?" Dawn asked.

"Buffy mentioned that after something like 5 months of training and living with us the girls will have a chance to leave and try to go back to normal lives. Angel said he's acquainted with some people who can help them change their identity if they want, and Giles is forming a new council—"

"What?" Dawn and Buffy blurted at once.

"Not another council, you saw how the last one was!"

"They tried to kill Buffy and half the time refused to help and—"

"Wronged Giles and—"

"C'mon, hey. Hey. HEY!" Xander shouted and both sisters shut up. "Giles will be the head of the council, and Buffy is the Slayer representative followed by Faith and then Kennedy. One of you three will always be at their meetings, and everybody knows Giles is wrapped around Buffy's finger—"

"What an insulting way to put things, Xander."

Being drawn into the progress in Cleveland Buffy and Dawn didn't realize they'd reached Angel's mansion. At the doorway was Giles, behind him Angel, who was dressed in his tall dark and broody clothes. Dawn ran to him, launching into her hug as Buffy and Xander caught up.

"You have to save me, Giles." Dawn was babbling. "Buffy forces me to go with her when Angel isn't here and Angel is never here because he's always doing God knows what God knows when and she's just—"

"—Right here, Dawn."

Dawn smiled sheepishly and then her eyes grew wide. "Kennedy, Robin, Faith!" Dawn launched herself at Kennedy. "How's Willow, have you seen the place, is it great? Wow, breath, Dawn, breath."

Kennedy laughed and held her back. "Wow, you should have stopped growing a year ago. Is that a third piercing?"

Kennedy saw her mistake when Dawn's eyes grew huge and when Buffy pushed past Xander and Giles and spun her sister around. She pulled her hair out of the way and her eyes bugged out. For a second she couldn't find words to describe the anger that flushed her face. Giles glanced at Xander and Robin stepped in front of Faith to keep her from interfering.

"Dawn, when did this… how?"

"Last week Angel's friend Chadwick was over and you let me stay with Angel since he was s ticking around…" Buffy spun on Angel.

"I had no idea. I had to leave on emergency, Cordelia had gotten into a mess and Wesley was outnumbered."

"It's not his fault. He left but Chadwick and I had already snuck out. He took me to this cool parlor and I got my ears pierced. I was going to do my belly button but the guy got hungry and Chadwick got me out of there before he realized I was human, or who's sister I was."

"It' was a vampire parlor?"

Dawn slinked back into Kennedy's arms as Faith pushed Robin to the side. "C'mon, B," She said. "Give the kid a break. She's as old as you and I were when you were blowing snakes up and I was killing Volcano Professors. She could have gotten a tattoo or pierced her—"

"Faith." Robin said the word, cutting off her next word just in time.

"Yeah, well instead she got another piercing. Plus side, she's alive to tell the tale."

"Thanks Faith," Dawn said at the same time that Buffy grumbled, "Stay out of it, Faith."

Knowing it was to late, and not wanting to cause a scene in front of everybody when they just got in, Buffy dropped the conversation and decided that she'd come back to it later, when she was alone with Dawn and could strangle her. Giles announced that he had an announcement, something only he could do, and everybody gathered toward Angel's company room.