---

Later that night Buffy sat in the garden, staring at the sky. One hand unconsciously rested on her stomach where she had been stabbed.

"You okay?" a voice from behind her asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. It should heal in a couple days." She didn't turn to face him as she talked.

"I wasn't talking about your wound."

"I know," she said quietly and looked down at her feet. Angel rested his hand on her shoulder and sat down beside her on the bench. "You should have seen him. He was like a hero. He saved the world." Angel stroked her hair and she leaned into him. "It's just… it's not fair. Why did he have to die now? He practically just got his soul; he could have been a good man… I'm not ready for him to be gone. He told me would never leave."

"I know. It's not fair. But the PTB have a reason for everything they do. Maybe by sacrificing himself he was making up for all the evil he had done. Maybe now he can finally be at peace."

"I just miss him so much."

Angel continued to comfort Buffy as best he could. They stayed there for what seemed like forever, just sitting and thinking. Angel hadn't exactly gotten along with Spike in the past few years - and that was the understatement of the year - but Spike was his childe. They had spent over a lifetime together, and he had loved him, even though he would never admit it. It was just starting to sink in that he was really gone.

---

Late at night, there was a slight movement at the bottom of the crater that used to be Sunnydale. A piece of debris was pushed aside revealing a dark figure beneath it. The figure opened his eyes and found himself staring up at the stars. He rolled to his side and attempted to rise, but was very weak and only made it to his knees. Running a hand through his white-blond hair, Spike looked around and all he could see was walls of earth and debris that rose for what seemed like miles around him. He was disoriented and confused at first, but slowly everything started to come back to him.

There was a fight. The army of turok-han had attacked them. He remembered fighting, seeing the potentials change and start to overpower the vamps. He remembered the necklace starting to glow and the light killing all the vampires. Then the school was collapsing and he couldn't remember much after that. Oh wait; Buffy… she held his hand and it started to flame. She said she loved him. Then the necklace was killing him… Hadn't he turned to dust? Well he must not have, he was still alive after all; well, un-alive anyway.

But how was he still alive? It looks as if the whole bloody town collapsed, he thought as he looked around. Well, who knows what time it is? If I don't get out of here before the sun comes up I won't have to worry about why I'm still here. After he regained some of his strength he stood up and started to climb.

---

Back in LA, the Scooby gang was sprawled out in one of the hotel's many bedrooms. Buffy, Xander, and Anya sat on the bed, Giles leaned against a desk, Andrew stood next to him, and Willow and Kennedy sat at a small table holding hands. Faith was still at the hospital with Wood.

"Ok, everyone is all showered, fed, and rested. Now can we talk about what we're gonna do?" Dawn asked as she flopped onto the bed beside her sister.

"Yes, I think that's a very good idea." Giles said.

"Well, we've just saved the world for about the billionth time, I say we all deserve a good vacation. Or a party, or something," Xander added.

"I agree," she said and gave him a smile.

"Well, just because we closed one hellmouth and averted another apocalypse doesn't mean that the world is free from evil. We still have a lot of work to do," Giles told the group. "All of the potentials that were turned into slayers need to be found and trained, and, and we are all homeless and jobless now, and let's not forget the hellmouth in Cleveland…" Everyone in the room groaned, or sighed, or rolled their eyes.

"There are, like, a billion slayers now. There's no way were gonna be able to find them all," Dawn replied.

"Well, no, of course not. Not all of them," he told her. "However, those girls now have this great power and they aren't going to know what it is or what to do with it. They'll need guidance and resources, just like Buffy and Faith and every Slayer before them had."

"So, what, we're thinking like rebuild the Council?" Buffy asked.

"Uh, yes actually, that's what I was thinking. Only it would be more of a school; a place to train and educate the Slayers."

"I could teach them witchcraft!" Willow exclaimed.

"And I could teach them how to fix windows," Xander added.

"I could teach them vengeance!" Anya said a bit too enthusiastically, which earned her looks from Buffy and Giles. Xander just shook his head. "Or not."

"Rupert Giles' School for Gifted Youngsters," Andrew commented to no one in particular and received weird looks from the others in the room. "Like in X-Men…" he tried to clarify. They just ignored him.

"And how exactly are we gonna pay for all of this?" Kennedy asked the group. "I mean, I hate to be Reality Girl here, but none of us have jobs anymore and we all need new homes and…,"

"Clothes," Dawn cut in.

"And cars," Buffy said.

"I could use another eye," Xander supplied.

"Well, now that you bring it up," Giles started taking off his glasses. "The Council has a rather large bank account that every Watcher has access to. It was established for situations, much like the one we're in, so that if anything should happen to the Council there would be resources available to restore it. Being that I am currently the only member of the Council living, I am technically entitled to the entire contents of that account. There should be enough in there to not only rebuild the Council Headquarters, but to get us all back on our feet as well."

"Well, that's great," Willow commented. "So now we need to decide on the specifics of this new Council-School thing, right? Like what to call it, how we'll run it, where it will be…"

"What do you mean, 'where it will be'? It'll be in England, of course, just like the old Council," Giles interrupted.

"Says who?" Willow countered. "Why should we have to go halfway across the world? We can have it right here in California." This started a heated debate between the two. Finally Buffy broke in and stopped them.

"We'll just have to vote on it," she told them. They all voted and, much to Giles's dismay, they decided to stay in California. They then decided on the rest of the specifics about the school with surprisingly few arguments.

---

When he finally reached the top of the crater Spike walked down the road until he found an abandoned, boarded up gas station. He kicked the door open and stumbled in. In the back he found a room with no windows and threw himself down onto a pile of folded boxes that would serve as his bed for the night.