Chapter four – The Choice

"Now that we've been here for a little while, you've all had a chance to get the know Cherster a little bit it's time to make another choice, whether you want to stay in Cherster, travel somewhere else be it back to where you came from, your hometown or wherever. I gave you a choice to have the power and to be a Slayer and you've gotten this far and survived and now another choice is before you. Thanks to an old friend of mine who works and runs the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram and Hart law firm now, he has donated enough money for all eighteen of us to survive off for food, housing, all the essentials and there is enough money to be shared out equally which will last for the next two and half months which gives you time to get a job and all. We, I can keep you here over your free will, this is your choice not mine. Whether you decide to carry on being a Slayer and the duty it holds that is up to you. It is part of you now though, don't forget that. I know some of you will most definitely be leaving Cherster soon and if you do please just inform me so I know and remember, they are now tons of other girls like you out there with the same power like you and me. They will feel helpless with their new power. They won't understand, how or why. If you run into one of these girls, try and help and guide them like you were. In the long run it will turn out for the better. The more of us out there protecting the world, we can do good, don't forget that. That is all I have to say. Good luck, take care, remember at any time you can contact us for help or to update us on any evil going ons. Will most likely be just here living in Cherster now, so if you do decide to come back to visit we would love that I'm sure. So now you can line up in front of Willow, Xander and Giles to pick up your money packets according to the coloured pieces of paper you got given. Thanks for being part of everything, I mean that. It has been hard but we made it."

Buffy then walked away, down the path of her new home. She looked up at the house as she walked. She thought to herself that she could get used to this. Brand new house, pretty street, no evil, yet and she was with her friends and everyone seemed generally happy. New Slayers weren't hating her, they started being nicer recently and Buffy wasn't surprised, she knew it would take a while for them to get used to the whole deal and in time they would get used to her. Buffy even thought that perhaps some would stay in the town with her and the Scoobies, well at least for a little while longer.

The new house that Angel had paid for was big enough for Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Kennedy.

Giles bought his own small house a few streets away, which was in a quiet street, lots of plants and trees everyone and friendly neighbours and Rupert got along with his two neighbours next to him, Kyle Pulmar and Mrs. Judy Henning.

Xander was stuck with sharing an apartment with Andrew but secretly he didn't mind that much, they did share a few things in common and Faith and Robin shared an apartment in the same block of units as Andrew and Xander. The block of units was only about a street away from where the rest were living.

Robin thought at first Faith would reject the idea of them sharing an apartment since she didn't like admitting she liked spending time with him basically 24/7 but she said yes straight away which kind of surprised him. On the other hand Faith didn't exactly want to say to anyone that Robin was her boyfriend even though she did like him. With Robin he wanted to call Faith his girlfriend but sometimes the way she acted he wasn't sure what to call her, she was definitely different to other girls, but in good ways, in ways that made him like Faith even more at time to time.

Buffy had managed to get herself a job at a local small cafe shop. She had done some waitressing in the past and felt comfortable with this type of job. Buffy had no thought of going back to the fast food industry. That was a job she would never miss.

Robin had applied for a job as a High School teacher and was waiting for a reply. He didn't want to go back to being a principal or even trying, he had had enough after Sunnydale.

Xander and Andrew had accidentally gone for the same job in the small town of Cherster at a comic book store without even knowing it until they both turned up for the first day of their job and found out then. They had only been working there for about a week and half so far.

Willow had some courses at college to finish off and Kennedy had a brand new year of college ahead of her but first she wanted to get a job and her first job in Cherster was at a book store on the main street.

Faith had gotten herself a job without anyone knowing it. She was embarrassed enough that she had a job let alone tell them what it was. Everyone had told her she should go for the position at the local dance club as bartender or the job position at PunK which was a clothes store but Faith always replied maybe, I'll look into it even after she had her new job for a total of nearly a whole month. She was one of the first people out of the eighteen survivors that who had stayed in Cherster to actually get a job but no one had known or found out amazingly. Why was Faith embarrassed about her job? She was a secretary and the thing was, she was good at it. She had found something she was good at and stuck at it. She never knew if you was good at that sort of thing and then she walked in for the interview, passed that and her first trial on the job went fine. The office she worked for did a lot of filing, reports, interviews and questionnaires. The company was called Henry's, and was connected to some other company or someone else who was big but Faith didn't know who it was and didn't really care, she didn't think that information was important.

Dawn wanted to get a job, she actually wanted to help Giles find any surviving Watchers from the Council out in Europe and all over the world but both Giles and Buffy said no and said she should stick to her original plan before hearing Giles's and head in the direction of college. Dawn really did like doing the research work back in Sunnydale for the Scooby gang and they knew this too. Dawn never really thought about becoming a Watcher because she wasn't sure if Giles and Buffy were going to contact them all and Wesley to form like a new and improved council or not. The two of them never spoke openly about it and if they did discuss it, Dawn thought it must have not been done openly or to anyone else for that matter. But Dawn had to concentrate on her school studies anyways, she still had the last year and a bit of high school to complete.

Surprisingly a few new Slayers did stay in Cherster for the next month after Buffy made the announcement about their choice and the money situation for everyone. Only three survivors from Sunnydale left Cherster, either it was because they had other plans most likely in life or they were leaving to forget the weight that was on their shoulders of Slayerhood.