Author's Note: Two of Jenny's Five Things were changed so that she would have more of an arc. If you haven't read the new version, doing so will result in this chapter making more sense.

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Chapter 5: Five Things That Never Happened On A School Bus.

Thing #1

As the bus trundled through the darkness, Jonathan stared out the window, even though there was nothing to see.

"Hey. How're you feeling?" Andrew's voice was soft besides him.

Jonathan turned slowly, glared at Andrew for a moment before answering, "How do you think?"

He was surprised by the quaver in his voice. He thought he'd sound cold and empty. He'd been so numb for the past few hours – even the pain in his side had disappeared – he'd wondered if it was possible that he had died and simply not noticed. Then he thought that that was a stupid idea, and he was stupid and worthless and why did he live when Amanda had died? Why couldn't he die too? Now Andrew was looking at him with sympathy. It was insipid, and stupid, and why couldn't Andrew be dead instead of Amanda? Dead Andrew he could deal with. Then he was so sick with himself for wishing his friend dead that he let Andrew sit next to him and continue looking at him with his insipid, stupid sympathy.

"Pretty crappy, huh?" Andrew answered.

Jonathan looked out the window.

"I think…" Andrew began. "I think, years from now, you'll look back on this, and you won't remember the pain."

Jonathan turned to Andrew, who was staring ahead, as though he was looking into the future.

Andrew continued, "Instead, you'll remember that you had a beautiful thing with Amanda. That in the few short days you had together, you loved a lifetime's worth–"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jonathan interrupted. He felt like crying, or maybe hitting Andrew, but he couldn't summon the strength to do either. "I didn't love her." Andrew looked stunned. Jonathan went on, "I never had the chance. Maybe I could have. But I'll never find out now, will I?"

There was a long silence. Jonathan could tell Andrew was uncomfortable. He was glad.

"I'm sorry," Andrew finally said, softly.

Jonathan didn't want to look out the window anymore. He couldn't see anything except his reflection in the glass. But he turned towards it anyways.

"Just leave me alone."

Andrew left silently.

Jonathan had been left alone with a new jumble of thoughts for only a few moments, when he felt someone sit next to him.

"What do you want now?" he asked sourly.

"I know that nothing I can say will make you feel better right now -"

Jonathan turned to face Mrs. Summers, surprised at her presence and embarassed that he had snapped at her. She had always been so nice to him, and now, here she was, being nice again. He wished she wasn't; it made it harder for him to be angry at everyone else, as angry as he was with himself.

" - but I think you should know that you made her happy."

Jonathan blinked. He hadn't thought of that yet. How Amanda had felt before she... Was she thinking of him? Maybe of how they were going to celebrate after the battle, how they were planning to see the new Matrix movie together. Jonathan wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"How do you know?" he asked softly.

"I know a thing or two about teenaged girls," Mrs. Summers answered kindly, "and I know that over the past few days... well, considering the circumstances, she couldn't have been happier."

With sudden, vivid clarity, Jonathan could see Amanda's smile, hear her laughter. He wished he wouldn't, but the moment the memory faded he wished he could hold on to the image forever.

Jonathan turned away from Mrs. Summers, confused.

Thing #2

Joyce watched Jonathan with concern, wondering if she'd done the right thing in talking to him. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he didn't seem to notice. She watched him for a moment longer before rising and walking two seats up to where Dawn was curled up on the seat, her eyes softly closed. Joyce reached down to smooth her daughter's hair, and Dawn's eyes opened.

"I didn't mean to wake you," Joyce apologized.

"'Sokay, I wasn't really sleeping anyways. It just seemed to be what all the cool kids were doing." Dawn sat up, making room for her mother to sit besides her, and gestured around the bus, where new Slayers were sprawled across the seats, passed out and snoring. "Actually, I'm not even tired. Weird."

"I don't know how you can't be." Joyce yawned. "I'm exhausted, and I was on the bus the whole time."

"Yeah, but you were looking after Ani. She's like a two-foot-tall tasmanian devil." Joyce smiled. Dawn continued, "No, I'm... excited. This is a new beginning. Anything's possible."

Joyce saw the brightness in her daughter's eyes, and she felt lighter than she had in months. "A fresh start," she remarked. She had tried that once, but this time, they might actually make it. "We can go anywhere, be anything..." Buffy might even be able to put this all behind her, now that there were hundreds of slayers. She turned to Dawn. "So, what do you want to do with that wide-open future of yours?"

Dawn answered immediately, "I think I'll be a Watcher." Joyce's face fell. "I'll have to finish school first, of course, but I can help with the rebuilding of the Council on the side. I probably won't even need much training, 'cause, hey, growing up in Sunnydale is pretty much a crash-course."

"Are-are you sure that's what you want to do, honey? You decided awfully quickly. You don't want to limit your options."

"What else could I do?" Dawn was getting worked up. "All the old traditions have been blown sky-high - literally. We have the chance to create something a hundred times better, that'll really help Slayers. Think of how many girls are out there, with no idea of what happened to them. We're more important now than ever."

"We?"

"We. Us. Think about it: we are the Council now. It's our move; the ball's in our court. We'll seize the day and do whatever we want with it, make our mark, make our names feared by the underworld, and do some real good - and maybe I've been hanging out with Andrew too much - but don't you get excited just thinking about it?"

Joyce could only stare at her daughter for a moment. "Right now, I just feel kind of nauseous." Dawn's excitement changed quickly to concern. "Don't you want to do something, you know, safe? For a while, at least? Maybe be a-a doctor, or a lawyer."

"Mom, I want to fight evil, not join it's ranks." Dawn took her mother's hand. "I could do something else, but it wouldn't feel right, not after everything I've seen. I could be safe, but I'd rather be making the world safe."

At that moment, Dawn looked so resolved, so calm, that it was impossible to feel scared for her. All Joyce was, was proud.

Joyce gathered her daughter in a tight hug.

"You'd think by now I'd be used to the idea of my daughters fighting evil," she said, the apprehension not entirely gone from her voice.

"Summers girls save the world, mom," Dawn answered with a grin. "It's what we do."

"Can I save the world too?" came a small voice from the aisle

Joyce and Dawn turned to see Ani standing by their seat, looking hopeful.

"Of course you can," Dawn answered.

The four year-old broke into a wide grin. "Daddy always says I have to go through eighteen years of school, weapons training, and a lot of bloody tiresome bureau-see before I can help."

Dawn raised her eyebrows and nodded. "Well, maybe you should go ask him about it."

Ani shook her head. "He said I should come sit with you." She leaned in and whispered. "Daddy and mommy need to talk."

Thing #3

"So, what's all this about?" Jenny asked.

"I think you know."

Giles was right about that. Jenny just intended to give him a hard time. She crossed her arms and stared blankly at him, waiting for his answer.

Giles gave a long-suffering sigh. "You were supposed to stay on the bus with Ani."

"Considering how the fight went, it's a damn good thing I didn't," Jenny replied easily.

"I'm not saying your assistance wasn't helpful --"

"Strage how it sounds like it."

"-- but if anthing had happened to us, then Ani --"

"-- would have been safe on the bus with Joyce."

Giles made an effort to keep the tone of his voice down. "She would have been an orphan."

"But she wouldn't be alone," Jenny said reassuringly. "She has family who would look after her."

"She's scared of your relatives. Even more than I am."

Now it was Jenny's turn to look long-suffeing. "I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the people on this bus."

Giles looked abashed. "Be that as it may --"

"Rupert, you can't keep shoving us off to the side because we might get hurt!"

"You will get hurt hanging around, and you know it! We agreed --"

"No, you decided and I went along with it." Giles stared, surprised. Jenny sighed, and explained, "I go where I'm told to go and do what I'm told to do. In case you haven't noticed, it's kind of my thing. But I can't keep on living like this. I can't run and hide while everyone I care about is out risking their lives. Not anymore."

Giles looked like he had had the the wind knocked out of him. Yet he continued his argument. "Anastasia --"

"-- will be surrounded by people with superpowers."

"It's still not safe."

"She's never going to be as safe as either of us want. Especially not if she's going to be a Watcher."

Giles felt himself losing ground. "I-I-I can't believe we're actually discussing this!"

Jenny was getting frustrated. "You didn't argue this hard when we came back to Sunnydale."

"That was different," he said defensively.

"How?"

"Because..." he glanced away. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper. "Because I thought I might never see you again."

Jenny watched him, but he didn't meet her gaze. She knew he was ashamed for having allowed his family to be in the line of fire. They has come awfully close to losing this time. So much of what had happened had been caused by fear and panic on everyone's part, but Giles had become so adept at burying his feelings that it was easy to forget that he had been afraid as well.

Jenny moved closer, and almost reflexively, Giles put an arm around her shoulder, though he continued to avoid looking her way. She studied his face. He looked tired.

"These past couple of months were kind of nice, weren't they?" she said softly. "I mean, apart from the housing violations and the looming evil and everyone driving eachother crazy... well, I guess it hasn't been nice at all. But the part where we were together, that was good, wasn't it?"

He almost smiled. "It was..." The almost-smile quickly faded. "But I don't want to lose you, or Ani."

"You're losing us anyways," Jenny said it gently, but his expression was still deeply wounded when he turned to her. Part of him knew what she said was true. She continued, "When we got here we hadn't seen you for eight months."

"That will change." A note of desperation was creeping into his voice.

"It will because we're not going to run away anymore."

"But --"

She sat up straight, drawing away from him. The discussion had gone on long enough. "It's not your decision. Rupert, Ani belongs with her family. With you. And I don't want to be anywhere else. From now on, we stick together."

Jenny watched as his resolve melted, to be replaced by a look of resignation. Giles closed his eyes and nodded. Anyone looking at him would have thought that the battle of Sunnydale had not been won.

Jenny was relieved. She slid a hand along his shoulder to play with hair at the nape of his neck. He glanced up at her.

"We'll make this work, you'll see."

He gave a wan smile. "It will be nice, not to miss you anymore."

"Mm hm." Jenny tried to remember when the last time had been that they had a moment to themselves, when she has last been able to look into his eyes like this. She found she couldn't recall. "Try not to worry too much, okay? We won."

He nodded. "After this, I think we all deserve a good long break from apocalypses."

"Mm... although, there is at least one good thing about them."

Giles looked at he askance. "And what exactly would that be?"

Jenny leaned in and whispered the answer in his ear. His eyebrows shot up.

"Oh. Well..." Jenny pulled back, grinning. "Th-that is, um..."

Giles saw Jenny smiling at him, and his stammering ceased. He just looked at her -- to Jenny, it seemed like forever since he had looked at her that way. A moment later, they were kissing.

Thing #4

Now Jesse knew why bus drivers were always in such bad moods. From the front of the bus you could hear most of what was said, and the rear-view mirror over the windsheild let him see everything that was happening. At the moment, he was trying not to pay attention to the clear view it offered of Giles and Jenny's make-out session. Xander, leaning over the seat behind him, was also keeping his eyes glued on the road ahead. Willow, on the other hand, kept glancing up at the mirror with a sly grin.

"Think we should break things up back there?" Xander asked.

"Nah," Willow answered with a smile, "let them be for now."

"The windows had better not fog up," Jesse commented. "It's hard enough to drive this thing as it is."

"That's good," Xander said. "Driving takes focus. You're paying attention to the road, instead of the awkward, yet morbidly fascinating drama of the lives around us. Someone could make a TV show out of this."

"Who'd watch that?" Jesse asked sceptically. "Anyways, we're trying to avoid voyeurism, remember?"

"Mostly, yeah."

"It was kinda nice to hear what Jenny said, though," added Willow. The boys stared at her. "About us being family? And sticking together? I thought it was nice."

Jesse smiled. "It is a good idea. The sticking together."

Willow nodded "Been a long time since we did the BFF thing."

"Well, I think that makes us due for a reunion tour!" Xander said.

She broke into a wide grin. "Is it decided then? We go on the road, take the world by storm?"

"Sounds like a plan." Jesse smiled out the windsheild. This was good. This was the way things were supposed to be.

"Scooby World Tour, 2003: London, Rio, Cleveland."

Jesse raised an eyebrow. "Getting a bit ambitious with that itinerary, Will?"

"Not at all. I mean, there's Slayers all over the world now, right? And they all need help, or at least to be told what's going on. And who else is going to find them but us?"

Xander groaned. "It's too early to be talking about work."

"Hey, I'm just talking about getting a chance to travel, and have Giles pick up the tab."

Xander perked up. "That's right! Will, you schemer."

"Teresa always says how she'd like to see East Asia," Jesse said with a frozen expression. Really, he knew Teresa would have reservations about getting involved again, if not outright oppose it. At the same time, being with the old gang felt so natural, like Willow and Xander were a part of him. Maybe Teresa could be convinced.

Willow smiled. "Yeah, that'd be fun."

There was an awkward silence.

Or maybe Xander and Willow could take a break from the supernatural stuff. For a while, at least, so they could take some time to just be friends.

"Of course, it won't be all sun and sight-seeing," Willow continued. "I'm sure Giles is going to have lots of stuff for us to do. I've already started thinking about how to do a locator spell to find several hundered Slayers at a time, without any mistakes like what happened with Dawn."

No, Willow giving up magic would be a physical impossibility.

"Uh, Will?" Xander cut in, "You're talking about work."

"Sorry. It's just, y'know, a challenge. My brain gets all excited."

Xander sighed. "I, on the other hand, prefer not to consider the exciting life prospects tht lie before me as someone who is single, homeless, and eyeless."

"Xander, don't talk like that."

"Yeah, you're not eye-less, just one-eyed," Jesse said lamely. He wondered if it was a good time to tell Xander he was planning to open a second location of his autoshop, and that he was in need of a manager. The shop had done so well, so quickly. Jesse'd been surprised and pleased with its success, but now it seemed to be binding him. But he didn't want to leave it either.

Willow gave Jesse a not-funny look for the one-eyed comment, and turned to Xander.

"You know how important you are to all of us. And there's a lot of good work you can do."

"Yeah, I've got madd whittling skillz."

"I mean do-gooder skillz. Giles'll make all of us Watchers if he has the chance. Even if there wasn't a critical shortage in that area."

Xander appeared heartened. Jesse wondered if he was included in Willow's statement. He wondered if he wanted to be.

Jesse shook those thoughts from his mind. "Anyways, you have at least one fantastic option ahead of you." He nodded out the windsheild: "the open road."

Willow grinned. "Reunion tour!"

Xander cracked a smile. "Sticking together."

"Being best friends," Willow nodded.

Jesse added, "forever."

Thing #5

Buffy had watched what was once Sunnydale get smaller, disappearing into the distance; had watched the cloud of dust hanging over the sinkhole become more and more indistinct on the horizon. She imagined Spike's ashes mixing with the remains of the town, and thought it poetic. Maybe it was just the mood she was in. Now it was too dark to see anything except the oblong patches of light from the bus' tail-lights, running along the pavement behind. It was strangely hypnotic, making Buffy feel like she was thinking of everything and nothing all at once.

Buffy blinked. How long had she been sitting there? Remembering, not remembering, letting go... It was time for a change of view.

Buffy rose from her seat and started towards the front of the bus. New Slayers were passed out in the seats, some of them snoring gently, a couple murmuring conversations. Buffy was surprised to see that Jonathan was in the seat in front of her; she hadn't noticed him at all. He was staring out the window with an empty gaze that Buffy imagined she must have worn for the past couple of hours. She considered talking to him, telling him she knew how he felt, but quickly dismissed the idea. Knowing how he felt, Buffy knew any attempt would be hopeless at that moment. But maybe later.

Buffy wondered, just when she had started to care about Jonathan anyways? Then she realized she was staring, and moved on before he noticed.

She passed Andrew and Anya, both asleep, him with his face smooshed against the window pane, her with her head on his shoulder, drooling away.

She heard Dawn's voice.

Her sister, mother, and Ani were seated together, Dawn telling the enraptured girl about the day's battle in gory detail, while her mom wore a strange look, like she would be horrified if she wasn't so exhausted.

"Was there lots of blood?" Ani asked eagerly, causing Buffy to once again stop and marvel at the weirdness of her Watcher's kid.

"Hey guys," she interrupted, sitting on the edge of the seat next to them, where a slayer was curled up, asleep.

"Hi Buffy," Joyce answered, turning to her daughter tiredly. "How're you feeling?"

"Well, so far I've been through pensive, reflective, and thoughtful. I'm about pondered-out. I guess that leaves me kinda mellow. You?"

"Tired."

"I'll bet," Buffy commented with an amused glance at Ani.

"Dawnie's telling me how she killed the Tur-rok-hans," the girl informed her, pronouncing the vampire's name with careful precision. She turned back to Dawn expectantly.

Dawn smiled, enjoying the appreciative audience. "Well, they turned to dust before they could bleed. But then these Bringers came in, and they bled a lot -- "

Buffy noticed the look of distress on her mother's face, which seemed to be caused by the fact that there was actually more story to tell, rather than the content. Even though she herself wanted to hear about how her sister had managed, Buffy decided that it was time to intervene.

"Tell you what: why don't we leave the rest of the story till tomorrow, when we can all gather round and listen to Dawn's feats of heroism and violence, and let Dawn get some rest."

"I'm not tired," Dawn said. Buffy gave her a stern look and nodded towards their mother. "Oh, I mean, boy am I bushed! All that fighting really wears you out."

Ani looked disappointed.

Buffy really wanted to talk to her mother -- it had been such a long time since they'd last had a real discussion -- but that would have to wait as well.

"I'm just gonna go see how the guys are doing," Buffy said, indicating the front of the bus where her friends sat. She rose to her feet. "Talk to you in the morning?"

Joyce nodded, smiling gratefully.

"G'night, then." Buffy kissed Dawn on the head, and held her hand out to Ani. "C'mon, let's get you back to mommy and daddy."

The child slid off the seat reluctantly, protesting, "They had something important to discuss."

A few seats up, Giles and Jenny were making the most of the moment of calm and reletive privacy, due to the unconscious state of those around them.

"Ew!" Ani cried, loud enough to wake Faith, who was sleeping across the aisle. She sprang into battle position, before realizing where she was.

"What happened?" Faith asked groggily, looking to Buffy, and then Giles and Jenny, who were now sitting rather awkwardly.

"Mommy and Daddy were kissing!" Ani told her.

Giles turned red. Jenny stared at the roof. Buffy thought she could hear some muffled snickers from the front of the bus.

"'Sthat all?" Faith sat back down, shoved Robin, who was still deep asleep, against the side of the bus so that he took up as little room as possible, and went back to sleep.

Buffy turned back to Giles and Jenny. "Sorry to interrupt your 'discussion'," she said, "but your kid's keeping my mom up with her constant demand for horror stories."

Jenny smiled fondly as her daughter clambered onto her lap. Giles continued to look mildly embarrassed.

"By the way," Buffy added, "I think you might need to explain the concept of 'horror' to her. Especially the part about being horrified."

"Unless something in the story poses an actual threat, there's no reason for her to be scared," Giles explained. "Her responses are far more rational than those of most children, and of a large proportion of adults, for that matter."

Ani beamed, as if taking her father's words as a great compliment.

Buffy raised her eyebrows, and shifted her gaze to Jenny, who merely shrugged, as if to say, "what ya gonna do?"

As had happened in the past, Buffy was unsure as to whether Giles, Jenny and Anastasia were a light at the end of the tunnel, or a cautionary tale about what happened when Scoobies did the family thing. She decided not to think about it too much. They looked happy together at any rate, which was nice. Buffy smiled and nodded.

She moved to the front of the bus, squeezing in with Xander and Willow in the seat behind Jesse. "Hey guys." Jesse yawned. "How're you holding up with the driving? Tired?"

"You offering to take over?"

Buffy shrugged. "Guess so."

Jesse immediately straightened his posture and made an effort to look alert. "In that case, I'm bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

The Slayer glared.

"We'll be in town soon anyways, and then it won't be far to my place, so I might as well stay at the wheel," he added hastily.

She seemed appeased. "Ah, so that's where we're going. Your place?"

"For now, anyways," Jesse answered mysteriously.

Buffy looked at him inquisitively.

Jesse turned to Willow, "Tell her about the plan."

"Plan?" Buffy was confused. "Why are we planning? I thought we were plan-free?"

Willow grinned. "We're going on a reunion tour!"

"What?"

"The four of us," Xander explained, "reunited, travelling around the world --"

"-- courtesy of the unsuspecting Watcher's Council --" Jesse cut in.

"-- i.e. Giles --" said Xander.

Willow continued, "-- finding Slayers, fighting evil --"

"-- but most of all, sticking together --" Xander interupted.

"-- being friends --" Jesse added.

"-- family," Willow corrected.

"Family."

The three of them turned towards Buffy.

"So, whatd'ya think?"

Buffy smiled. "I think that's the best plan I've heard in a long time."

She turned to look out the windsheild at the view ahead, the road clear before them, the lights of the city twinkling, getting ever-closer.

THE END