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Chapter 77- Break XV

The past and future Scoobies arrived in the dining hall to see Buffy sitting on the table, glaring into a wall, and if looks could kill the wall would be destroyed by now due to how angry she looked, and she was still taking deep breaths, trying to calm herself down from what she'd just witnessed.

Angel had lost his son, and she hadn't been there for him! He'd come for her when she'd lost her mom, but she couldn't be there for him when he'd lost his son, because she was wallowing in her own depression and sleeping with soulless Spike (and it had taken that moronic Riley of all people to snap her out of it), and had even tried to kill her own friends and sister a week later.

All the while, Angel was having it worse than any of them (up until that raping scumbag bastard Warren had shot and killed poor Tara, making Willow go dark), and he had still taken it, gritted his teeth, and tried to move further on.

"How are you feeling now?" Dawnster asked as she sat next to her sister. "Please don't hit anything."

"It's very tempting, but I won't", Buffy assured her. "I should have been there for him."

Willow started. "Buffy-"

"He came when we lost mom", Buffy scoffed. "And I didn't even try to be there for him when he lost his son. I didn't even know he existed!"

Tara assured. "You couldn't have made it any better for him. And like you said, he never revealed his existence to us."

"I could have been there for him", Buffy said in self-loathing. "Instead I was wallowing in my own self-pity, and even tried to kill you guys like a week after this had happened."

"Stop hating yourself! It doesn't help!" Summers snapped at her younger self, making her look over at her. "Maybe we could have been there for him, maybe not, but after Connor got taken away, we couldn't have changed a thing."

"Tell me Holtz and Sahjhan paid for it", Buffy snarled.

"Holtz got off easy", Rosenberg said, and Buffy was even more angered. "But Sahjhan got his."

"Well, at least that was good", Buffy muttered to herself.

"And what about Justine?" Giles asked.

"Let's just say she gets hers too, though I really don't know if I should hate her or pity her", Dawn shook her head.

"When she sliced Wesley's throat and took the baby from him, she stopped being a victim", Buffy said, not feeling any sympathy for whatever was gonna happen to Justine from now on either.

"And what's Angel gonna do now?" Xander asked, though he had a feeling he knew already.

"Try to get Connor back somehow", Harris told them matter of fact. "But well, it goes badly.

"He failed", Willow said sadly.

"There was so much he wanted to see his son do, that will never happen", Tara said, her heart going out to Angel as well as Connor.

"Guess he needs Cordy now, she's the only one who can help him through this", Dawnster realized.

"Right you would be", Summers told her younger sister's younger self. "She helped him come out of his depression when she came back from her vacation. If Angel had told her earlier, she'd have dropped everything and come to him right there and then, because she cared about him a lot, she loved him in a way I never could."

"He still has her then", Dawnster sighed in relief. "Good."

Once more, the future people wondered how their past selves would react on finding out what exactly was gonna happen to Cordy from now on. Angel may have her for year's end, but he was going to lose her soon too, and would only get her back for one day, where she had come to put him back on his path, and then left to be a Higher Being once more, while he had turned dark again after her death and made bad decision after bad decision (as understandable as it was), and that and a lot of other stuff eventually had led to what they were doing now to fix all of the mess that had happened.

Angel needed Cordelia, because he was lost without her, and he had said it himself to her on her last day.

She and Connor were the two people he cared about most, and nothing could ever change that.

"Want to eat now?" Rosenberg offered.

"Yeah, guess so", Buffy sighed.

"All right then", Maclay nodded as she and Rosenberg got up and took out some food, putting it on plates, and then put all the plates down on the table for them all.

All of them slowly started eating, putting morsels of food in their mouth. There was a lot more they all wanted to say, lot more they wanted to talk about, but they couldn't bring themselves to talk much after what they had just seen, it was really emotionally draining, and they had an idea of what would happen in the very next recording as well.

In about ten minutes, all of their food was finished at last, and so they sat silently for about at least one more minute.

"You are going watch the next one with us too, right?" Giles asked just to confirm.

"Yes, this will be the second last one of this year that we will watch with you", Summers told him.

"So there are more you're gonna watch with us?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah, last recording of this year, and some more of next year as well", Harris said. "Since a lot of other stuff happens in those too."

"More messes?" Willow asked.

"More messes", Rosenberg nodded.

"Take rest for now, tomorrow it's gonna get even worse", Summers warned, and the past Scoobies could only dread what they were going to watch next as they got up and retired to their bedrooms for the night.

And this break is done, next one will be 3x17. The ending of that episode haunts me to this day.

Don't worry Buffy, the reason you don't know Connor exists is because he's wiped from everyone's minds, which you'll find out later.

Anyway, hope all enjoyed and see you all next time with another chapter. Stay safe from the coronavirus ya all!