HEAR YE! HEAR YE! I am now officially extending a formal invitation. Please God, someone out there be my beta reader!!

Alright, now that the groveling is over on to serious business. Disclaimer: I am a student. So any chance you all out there who want to sue me for using Buffy have of getting money is rather on the slim side. Moreover, I am an art student. So the likelyhood of me EVER having money just keeps of getting smaller.

The world out there is a mighty big place, kiddo, and we are but little crill in the ocean.

-anonymous

...

Chapter 4

Buffy sat next to a pine tree, listening to the birds and letting the wind flow her hair, just being. She hadn't done anything like this in a very long time. She thought the last time she'd just sat had been before her mother died, at college. Despite her words to Willow, she hadn't completely hated college. There had been some really good times there. Before the Initiative had gone all wonky on her she'd been having some fun. She had actually felt like she was living a little, growing up some. But, of course, it hadn't lasted long. It was nice now to just take some time and sit under a tree. Here, she didn't have to think about anything other than where she was going to go next.

Her thoughts wandered back to a few days ago, when she had finally left the Scoobies and the rest of the Potentials behind. The Potentials had been confused, but not to sad. They'd felt no special love for Buffy. She was just the crazy lady that had yelled at them and made them fight when all they really wanted to do was run away and hide. The person that had gotten a lot of them killed. Kennedy had actually had the temerity to smirk at her, the little twit.

Of the Scoobies, only Willow and Giles had actually given her a decent goodbye. She and Willow had worked out a lot of their issues that had been bothering them.

(Flashback)

"So you've…got a plan and everything." Willow wilted a little. Buffy was being much too logical about all of this. It made it so much harder to argue with her.

"Sort of," she grinned weakly, "not much else to do in the past few days! If…if I stayed here, Wills, there'd be all this pressure to do other stuff and I'd never really learn, never be safe enough."

"I know what you mean," Willow thought about her own powers and what she'd gone through when she'd gotten back from England. Somehow, there hadn't been anytime for meditation or learning anymore, just the usual fly by the seat of the pants magick. She could feel the power even now, roiling below the surface, wanting to be used.

"You're gonna hafta' go yourself some time soon," Buffy gazed at her with calm eyes. "You've grown too powerful. Gile's can't teach you anymore and you're going to have to learn control over every part of your magick."

"When did you get so smart?" Willow grumbled, discomforted by Buffy's honesty. "Thought you said that was my deal?"

"I've known for a while now," Buffy smiled sadly, "I just didn't want to let you go and then Tara died…and the consequences came back to haunt me."

"I'm…sorry about that, too." Willow sunk back again, "Going all veiny and sorta, you know…"

"Kicking my butt?" The Slayer said wryly.

"I kinda did, didn't I?" Willow grinned a little, then rushed on, "For which I am eternally sorry, of course!"

"I was scared, you know?" Buffy said, "I always knew you were strong, but that…wow."

"I don't want you to be scared of me!"

"I wasn't scared of you, Wills," Buffy looked the red-head in the eye, "I was scared because I couldn't go full out against you."

"You didn't…I always thought…? Wait a minute, are you just saying that?"

"No silly," Buffy smirked, only Willow would be offended. "I'm not saying you still couldn't have beaten me. You were pure magick, Wills. But I might have lasted longer. I'm trickier than you are, remember? But I just couldn't seem to get past the fact that you were Willow and Willows aren't evil."

"Is that a fact?" Willow asked lightly, though her chest hurt.

"I saw a show on Discovery Channel about them once," Buffy joked, "Scientist's have documented proof. You weren't and aren't evil, Willow, you were just hurting. I tried, in my own stupid way, to help. Xander is just better at that stuff than I am."

"Yeah, he'll never let up about that yellow crayon, you know that, right?"

"It will live on in infamy for many years to come." The girl's grinned at each other. "I'm gonna come back." Her voice was desperate and questioning.

"I know," Willow gazed over at her friend. "And I'm gonna be waiting."

As the sun set, the two girls sat huddled on the floor of the hotel room, watching each other, clinging to their promises.

(Present)

Giles had just looked at her for a few minutes and then nodded his head. Buffy was glad he hadn't made a big deal of it. She didn't know if they would ever be able to go back to the way they had been before he'd left. She still didn't fully understand why he'd left. He'd kept going on about how she'd had to grow up and how she'd leaned on him so much. It was true, she'd had to grow up fast and she had been leaning on him, but not in the way he'd thought.

Giles had been, and still was, like a father to her. She didn't think of him as her Watcher, she thought of him as family. And when he'd left it had been like her father leaving all over again. Her relationship with him now was full of confusion and hateful feelings. She hoped that one day she'd be grown up enough to sit down and talk through it like she had with Willow, but it wasn't going to happen right now. Their time would come later and Giles was smart enough to realize that.

Xander would just have come later as well, if he ever talked to her again. Buffy knew Anya's death had hit him hard and she honestly wanted to be around to help him through it, but she had other things to deal with first. Besides, their relationships with other people had never been something she and Xander agreed on. He had hated Angel, looked down on Riley, and despised Spike. She had threatened to slay Anya once or twice and honestly had never gotten the Cordelia thing. About the only thing people they had agreed on were Giles, Willow, Dawn, and Tara. When the time had come for her to leave Xander had just given her a resentful look and gone back into his room, slamming the door. She hadn't even been able to make herself go after him. And Dawn, Buffy shook her head, Dawn was a conundrum as always.

(Flashback)

"I do love you, you know," Buffy let the backpack drop to the ground as she sat down on the patio chair next to her sister. Dawn had escaped to the hotel pool and was currently lounging in her bikini, a towel down to protect her from the hot plastic of the chair. She just sniffed and kept reading her magazine, ignoring Buffy in an obvious manner.

"Oh come on," Buffy whined, "You can't say I'm running away again. I'm right here saying goodbye!"

They sat like that for a few more minutes, Dawn with her head buried in Teen and Buffy looking at her. "Aghhh!" Dawn finally threw her magazine down on her lap. "The puppy dog eyes are not supposed to be used on siblings, you know that. We're only supposed to use them on old people and guys."

"What?!" Buffy scoffed, "You use them on me all the time, or you try to anyway."

"I'm the little sister," Dawn stuck her nose in the air and looked away, "It's like, a privilege."

"Oh please."

"So who are you gonna dump me on?"

Buffy looked sadly over at her sister. Dawn was trying to act to cool and uncaring, but Buffy could see the trembling her hands. Her new sense of smell brought a whiff of fear-smell, it was a little like burned popcorn, to her.

"I've signed some papers giving Giles temporary custody over you while I'm gone. Wills downloaded them from some lawyer site."

"Giles!" Dawn's voice was high pitched and indignant, "Buffy, he's like old and stuff. I can't talk to him about girly things. He just get's all red and polishes his glasses. What do you expect me to do if I want to talk somebody about sex or something. 'Cause I could you know. I could decide to have sex with lots of guys while you're gone!"

"Then I wouldn't talk to Giles about it," Buffy offered, her voice dry, "He about had a hernia when her finally realized why Angel went bad. Besides, you can always talk to Wills."

"I can't talk to her about sex with guys, Buffy, she's gay."

"What do you think she and Oz were doing when he wasn't all wolfy, Dawn," Buffy smirked at the horrified look on Dawn's face.

"Thank you, now I'm going to have that image in my head all afternoon." She flipped her sunglasses to the top of her head. "Why can't you take me with you?"

Buffy winced at the pain in the younger girl's voice and the hurt in her eyes. She sighed, "Look at me Dawn, really look. I had to fight not to snap Kennedy's neck a few minutes ago and all she did was look at me wrong. I can't go make up with one of my best friend's in the world because I'm afraid if he makes me angry that I'm gonna go all psycho on him. There's a part of me that wants to go out and start hunting down demons right now, in broad daylight."

"Buffy…"

"There's a nest of vamps in a sewer about 3 miles from here," Dawn stopped and looked over at her sister in shock. Buffy's voice was flat like she was reciting statistics but her eyes had started to bleed yellow and there was a feral smile on her face. "Two miles to the west there's what must be a demon bar because there's all kinds of things there…" Dawn shivered involuntarily. Then Buffy shook her head and turned to look at her sister with scared eyes. "I'm not really fit for company right now."

"You're never fit for company, Buffy," Dawn tried to make a comeback, but her heart wasn't really in it. Dawn had hated watching her sister after she had come back from the dead. She had wandered around with flat eyes and no interest in anything. She never wanted to see that again. "We can't get a break, can we Buffy?"

" 'Guess not," Buffy gave a little chuckle and then shook her head. "Dawn, I'm not mom. I tried to be after she died, but I'm just not cut out for it."

"I never wanted you to be mom, Buffy. I had one of those and she was great. I just want you to be my sister."

"I want that to," blue eyes looked into blue, "but the way I am now, I can't be. I'm afraid of myself Dawn. The one thing I was always sure of in this world was that I was supposed to protect you and right now, protecting you means leaving."

"Geez," there wasn't really anything Dawn could say to that.

"Giles is gonna be going back to England for a while. He needs to find all the Watchers that he can and try to rebuild the old networks. I need you to keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't work to hard. Also, try to make sure he doesn't make it as stuffy as the last one. Shake things up a little, you're good at that."

"True," Dawn could only nod and slip her glasses back onto her face, settling into the chair again. "I have been known to make a bit of trouble in my time."

"Thanks," Buffy stood up and picked up her backpack from the ground. "He's given me your guy's address over there, so I'll write. Where I'm going there aren't many cell towers."

"Hey Buffy!" Dawn called out to her sister as she started to walk away, looking at her over the top of her shades. "You might wanna look into getting a little concealer," she smirked and pointed to the area underneath her eyes, "You've gotta few bags…"

"Bitch," Buffy protested and almost brought her hand up reflexively.

Dawn's mocking laugh followed her as she walked out of the pool area and into the parking lot. It was about time to start her journey.

"And there she goes, the hero of our story. The fight ended, the enemy defeated, our hero walks majestically into the sunset. Her thoughts are already on the next group of people she can help and the next enemy to be…"

"Shut up, Andrew," Buffy yelled at the ex-super villain as he monologued from where he was hidden behind a car, following her with a camera.

"Right, shutting up now," he coughed and put the camera down.

"I might wanna see that when I come back though," She smiled at him over her shoulder, surprising him, "So keep filming, okay."

"You got it!" Andew squeaked out.

He was still annoying, Buffy thought to herself as she started down the sidewalk, but it couldn't hurt to be nice to him. For the first time in a long time, even though she still had some bad stuff hanging over her head and some tough times ahead of her, Buffy was actually looking forward to what came next.

(Present)

Buffy got up from the ground, dusting off the seat of her pants. It was time to start learning her new powers. Time to get back to basics. She pulled the carton of eggs out from the grocery bags and sighed. This was so going to ruin her manicure.

...

Author's Note:

Not much to say this update. People keep reviewing and so I keep writing. It's like an addiction or something. Next chapter you'll actually get to see where Buffy ended up going and what she has in mind to start learning to control herself. (An actual story, isn't that amazing!) I will be telling a bit of what the rest of Scoobies end up going through as well, but this is a Buffy focused kind of fic. Also yes, there will be action and a bad guy, so don't worry. Thanks for the insight on the writing so far. You keep it up and so will I.