Well, this is it. With this chapter, the story's all over. Thanks to those of you who kept reading despite the long periods between updates. I hope it was worth it. I think it was. So go on, read the final chapter. I'll have some more things to say at the end.

Chapter 7- Never Gonna Fade

Buffy heard a crash and the quiet tinkling of glass breaking from the other room. Spike's head shot up and he said in sync with Buffy, "What was that?"

"I don't know. You?"

Spike only shrugged. He took a deep breath through his nose and said, "I can't smell any blood though." Buffy smiled and laughed slightly at his blood comment. "What?" he demanded to know.

"You're not able to anymore, remember? Human, not Vampire?"

"Balls. Knew there had to be a downside to this whole being human thing besides not living forever," Spike muttered. He clumsily got up off the bed and nearly fell flat on his face. Buffy caught him though, so he was able to salvage the small thread of dignity that he was so desperately clinging onto. He shook off her help and rose to stand on shaky legs. "Let's go see what the noise was then, shall we?"

"Can you walk that far?"

He smiled. The action caused his whole face to light up. "Won't know unless I try, now will I?"

When the two entered the room Angel was in, they were surrounded by complete and utter chaos.

"Giles, did you call upon that Janus dude again?" Buffy wanted to know.

"No, I did not. Gave all that up a long time ago," he replied.

"Then what happened?"

"Buffy? Look down," Spike said quietly. She did and saw her feet were in a large pool of blood. Not that large pools of blood were new for her or anything. She jumped back and started wiping her feet on a clean part of the carpet. "Ewwww. Okay. Last time I EVER wear new shoes to an Apocalypse area," Buffy said jokingly.

"Whose blood?" Spike asked casually, as though this was an everyday occurrence.

"Mine," Andrew said from the blood soaked bed.

"What happened?" Buffy repeated.

It was Dawn who answered her. "Andrew brought in a glass of blood for Angel. He leapt up and attacked him. Willow and Cordy managed to break them apart, but only by using major magicks," she explained to her sister in a low voice.

"Why didn't anyone else do anything?" Buffy snapped.

"It went down in less than a second. There ain't no one able to react that fast, not even me. So give it a break," Gunn snarled at her.

"You wanna break? Name which limb and I'll give you one."

"Children, please," Giles ordered. "I would greatly appreciate it if you all calmed down as I'm sure everyone else in the room would. Everyone involved is going to be fine. Andrew has survived, as I'm sure you can tell. Willow and Cordelia are good as well. I myself have seen to that."

"What about the Ponce?" Spike wanted to know.

"Your Leader will survive," Illyria said. "His son is seeing him."

Spike went over to one of the few open chairs in the room and sat down in it. "So, what now?"

"What do you mean?" Illyria asked.

"Exactly what I said Blue. What are we going to do now? Cordelia's back from the dead and all, the world's safe and sound forever, and we found out who gets to be a real boy. What's next?" Spike elaborated.

"We had the same problem when we destroyed the Hellmouth. We ended up rebuilding the Watcher's Council and training all the new Slayers," Dawn said.

"But you still had the occasional Apocalypse to worry about. Now, there's not even that. We got nothin'. So, what we supposed to do now? Go and live normal lives? I haven't had even the semblance of one for as long as I can remember. I've kinda forgotten how," Gunn said.

"You'll never lead a normal life again mate. Remember? Vampire now. Go live with Blue or something," Spike paused for a moment before continuing on. "You know, someone should really write a coffee table book about this. 'What to do after the final Final fight.' I'm sure it'd be a best seller."

"I'll write the sequel. 'What to do with your life when the prophecy you thought was about you wasn't.'" Angel said entering the room. He saw Spike sitting in the chair and felt the demon inside fighting for control again. He fought it back though, and won this time. As long as no one brought any blood into the room, he would be fine. "Spike," he nodded to him as he said the ex-Vampire's name.

"Angel," he replied, nodding his head in turn. It was clear to the room that there really was no love lost between these two beings. More so now than ever considering that Spike was now human.

"Well," Angel said, returning to their conversation from before regarding what they were going to do now, "LA is still teeming with demons. Needs someone who knows the territory to start and finish the clean up job. I hear New York is just chock full of 'em too."

"I got LA. Been here all my life. Can't see no good reason not to spend my unlife here as well," Gunn said. "Besides, I'm more apt to find one of those Orb thingys that'll bring back my soul here."

"The Scoobies and I got a weddin' in Texas to attend. Most likely, we'll all be going back to whatever we were doing before," Spike said.

"You're coming with us?" Xander exclaimed. At Spike's nod, he said, "And here I was hoping to get rid of you."

"Are you two ever going to get along?" Dawn asked.

"No," they both replied at the same time.

Then Illyria broke in. "I shall remain here as well. Gunn may need assistance in fighting the demons here. I wish to use the faculties that the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart may have left behind as well to find a way to bring back Wesley." Caught completely off-guard, Gunn nodded his acceptance at Illyria's staying.

"Quick question here," Dawn said. "What about Conner? Shouldn't he have a say in all of this?"

"As soon as we're done here, I'm heading back off to collage. I want to finish that before I decide what to do with my life," he said as he entered into the room.

"I guess that settles that then. Only one thing is botherin' me though," Spike said.

"What's that?" asked Buffy.

"We just saved the world. Again. No one's gonna know about it though. We'll just fade away. Another bit of history that'll be forgotten because no one recorded it."

"Well, if I had my camera…" Andrew said. The room laughed, then the occupants drifted apart to go and pack their bags to prepare for a new life. One without the impeding threat of Apocalypse.

On the plane ride back to Italy, Spike and Buffy were talking about where he was going to stay.

"Are you sure you've got enough room in that apartment of yours? I've seen it, and it's fairly small," Spike said.

"I know. But Dawn and I have been thinking about buying a house in Italy for a whole now. We have enough money saved up to buy a small, four-bedroom house on the outskirts of the city now. So, when we landed, we were going to head over to the bank," Buffy said.

Spike looked over at Dawn and Andrew, both blissfully asleep. Andrew had the headphones on so that he could listen to the in-flight movie, but they were slowly slipping off of his face. The movie was the original Star Wars too, so it showed how tired he really was.

He found his thoughts wandering to Willow, Cordelia and Xander, who were all currently under Giles' supervision in Texan, finishing up the clean-up job from the demon attack at Faith's wedding. He didn't know where Cordelia and Xander would be heading off to next, but he had heard Willow mention something about seeking out three major Witches who were living in the San Franscian area.

He turned back to Buffy. "Hey," he said as she turned to look at him, "remember how Gunn said that we would all have to live normal lives now?" At her nod, he said, "Well, he was wrong again. Our lives ain't never gonna be normal." Their laughter rang out over the entire plane.

Illyria was back in the Burkel persona again. Honestly, she didn't really know why she kept returning to it as she worked. It seemed to somhow be directly linked with her ability to think though. It was close to midnight, and Gunn was out making his usual sweep of the LA area as he looked for demons. Illyria was back in the small lab she had managed to find untouched by the final fight.

She plugged the final equation from the whiteboard into the large machine in front of her and closed her eyes. Praying for the best, she hit enter on the computer beside her that would allow the machine to start up. Instantly, the room becaame as bright and as hot as the sun would have been had it been in the same room with her. Then, as suddenly as it arrived, it faded away, leaving a darker dark in it's wake.

Afraid that something had gone wrong, Illyria carefully opened her eyes. They were barely open when a familiar voice said, "Fred?"

For a moment, the Burkel persona wavered, her true form being revealed. It was gone in a second though. Still, it was enough for the new arrival to know who she was. "Hi Wes. I brought you back! Told you I'd find a way."

Stepping off the plane, a man in a worn leather duster walked into the bright lights of downtown Ney York at night. Carrying no luggage, he made his way over to a phonebank full of pay phones.

A conversation he had taken part of before he had left his home was still replaying in his mind. He was going to fade away. Fade out of history. Out of time. Fade into obscurity. After all he and his friends had done for this world, no one would rememberexcept them. He smiled thinly; it looked out of place on his face, like he didn't do it often. He pushed those thoughts out of his head and replaced them with a new one: Not if he had anything to do with it.

He walked over to an empty phone and dialed the operator. Asking for a name, the operator dialed that person and connected him. There was a moment or three of ringing before someone answered.

"Hello," sounded the voice at the other end.

"Lorne, it's me. Heard you were on Broadway now," the speaker said quietly.

"Angelcakes?" Lorne asked, not beleiving his ears.

"Yeah, it's me. We survived. All except Wes that is. I guess our demon god friend is going to try and bring him back. I don't know how well that's going to work out though."

"Sorry to hear that. So, you just call to tell me that much, or for a different reason? You still in LA?"

"Actually, no. That's Gunn's territory now. I'm outside the airport in NYC. I asked the operator for your number."

"Don't you have my cell phone?"

"Yeah, but I didn't know if you had it changed after you left."

Lorne laughed over the phone. "Still as sharp as ever, Angelcakes. So, why'd you call?"

Angel thought for a second on how to phrase his next sentance before answering. Finally, he said, "Lorne, I'm afraid. I don't want to fade out of history. I want the world to know what we did for them. I want the to know about the lives lost trying to keep the world safe for them. I want the world to know our story."

"So go write a book. I don't see how I could help with this."

"Lorne, I... I ... I want you to write a broadway play about it." Angel said quickly before he lost his nerve.

Lorne was silent. Then, he spoke, "Here's my address. Meet me here to tell me everything." Then he disconnected. Angel hung up the now silent phone from the hook in the booth and exited outside. There, he managed to flag down an empty taxi and gave the driver the address.

Sighing, he settled himself in the seat and allowed himself something he hadn't in a long time: A contented smile. This time, it didn't look at all out of place. If anything, it looked as though he should do it more often. So, we're gonna fade away, huh, he thought. Not if I have anything to do with it. And he was right too, for they were never gonna fade.

That's all folks. Just a few more things I have to take care of.

1- I would like to thank all of you that submitted reviews to my story. They made me keep writing this long thing on the internet.

2- In the course of writing this, I came up with several different challenge ideas. So, now, I'll share them, and you can go ahead and respond to them if you want.

Challenge 1- Broadway Play
I think we all know where this one came from. Still, there are a few guidelines for it.
1-Angel and Lorne must first meet to talk about it.
2-Tryouts for the parts must be held (and read about)
3-Angel on stage is played my the actor, David Borenz
4- Must write the entire thing on 5-Songs are not required (so, it donesn't have to be a musical), but it would be nice if there were some.
6-Angel must find out that Nina is living there and the two can or can not hook up.

Challenge 2-Wesley
This story is about what happens when Gunn finds out Wesley is back.
1-Wesley is non-corporal
2-Gunn can not kill him or Illyria
3-Wes can not kill Illyria
4-Illyria is refrained from killing anyone

Challenge 3- Weddin'
Exactly what does happen at Faith's wedding?
1-No one of the Scoobies can die
2-Demons must attack at one point in the ceremony
3-Faith and Buffy must work together to stop the demon attack
4-Wedding must go through
5-Buffy is bridesmaid

Ok. So, I really hope that you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed typing this. There is a sequel that I am working on right now. It'll be called Willow in the Winds, and will be under the Buffy crossover section of the site. One last little tidbit of information now. When I first started to write this, I wasn't planning on bringing Wes back. But when I saw how much Illyria missed him, and how everyone else got the one thing they wanted (or close to it), I felt bad for her and had to bring him back. So, please excuse that part if it's a little akward. It was hard to write.

Once more with feelin now- Please R&R!