To Err is Human Part Three - see part one for disclaimers

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"That's not the way it has to be, kid."

All at once, with those words, the world snaps into focus, light bursts through the darkness surrounding him, and the memories that Wolf has had buried for so long retreat to their cages. The cages that he had built for them over the last 10 years of doubt and regret.

With the last scene of death still fresh in his thoughts, and the pain from the silver still causing psychosomatic twinges Wolf looks around the room he finds himself in and comments, "So this is Hell? Must say it's a lot nicer then I was led to believe."

"Nah kid, this ain't hell." As he is talking to Wolf, the man across the table in the really bad leisure suit is flipping through a manila envelope. "By the way , names Whistler." The newly identified Whistler then looks up from the folder and nods to Wolf "You had a good run kid, to bad it ended the way it did."

"That's what you get for playing with demons." Wolf says with a small smirk on his lips. Then his face turns serious and he asks with a raised eyebrow "Now what is this about it not having to be this way?"

Whistler leans back in his chair, steeples his fingers and looks at the ceiling. "Ok, what do you know about alternate realities?"

"I know they exist. As shown by that Vampire Willow thing. Other then that only what I have read in sci-fi books."

"Ok then, let me give you the condensed version. Every decision ever made by anyone results in an alternate reality being formed. Most of these alternates have so little to differentiate them from the main stream of reality that they simply don't have enough… oomph I guess, to keep itself going. They then collapse back into the main and cease to exist. But others, based on decisions more important then which shoes to wear or what to eat for lunch, stick around and possibly become another branch of the stream." With a look at Wolf to see if he is following along and getting a nod Whistler continues. "And every once in a while these streams cross paths further along and merge for a bit before separating again. At these mergers it is possible for things or people to be switched from one stream to the other." With a sigh Whistler leans forward and pokes his finger at the folder in front of him. "Do you realize that you have averted more Apocalypses then any other singular person in recorded history? To give you an idea of the scope of this accomplishment, second in line is Ms. Summers." Sitting back in his chair again Whistler pulls at his earlobe and says "With your death your world has lost it's last Hero, it is destroyed within 3 months. Demons take over and humans become just another extinct species of primate."

"This is a good thing how?" Wolf says as he roots through his jacket pockets. Pulling out a pack of cigarettes he lights one with his zippo and puts the pack back.

"It isn't. It's Game Over, but this game has a reset button. Or to be more specific a New Game button." Whistler opens the folder and pulls out a photograph. "In the space of 5 short years we lost all of our major players for the side of good. The PTB's looked into the events, fondled some chicken guts, read some tea leaves, whatever it is that they do and found that their was one person that was responsible for the whole thing. They could have swung the whole disastrous sequence of events another way, a way in which good prevails." With a flip of his wrist he sends the picture sliding across the table to stop in front of Wolf. Wolf picks up the photograph and then looks to Whistler in confusion.

"Faith? She's serving 115 years for 12 counts of Murder One. How the hell is she supposed to help?"

"Not your Faith, she's to far gone, after the assassination attempts by the Council and the lack of support from anyone in Sunnydale she closed herself off and there is no way to save her." Holding up one finger Whistler states. "In this reality that we have our eyes on, we believe that she can still be reached. The time frames of the two realities are different, while it is 2012 here it is still 1997 there. Buffy hasn't died for the first time. Angel hasn't lost his soul. We have the chance to step in at the very beginning and see if we can mold things in such a way so that most of the major disasters are averted."

"Sounds to good to be true."

"It's not as easy as I am making it sound. Like I said this is the condensed version." With a sigh Whistler scratches his head and continues, "The original 'plan' was for Buffy and Xander to be stabilizing effects on Faith. Buffy was to have influence through their Slayer bond and Xander through their similar histories. But, by the time that Faith got to Sunnydale, Buffy was locked up tighter then a nunnery behind the walls that she raised to deal with the whole Angelus matter. Xander couldn't reach her on his own, unfortunately. Faith needed both influences to make it work."

"So, what am I supposed to do in 1997? Faith won't be called for another year or so. What can I do then that will help her later?"

"Ok, here's the plan." Whistler gets out of the chair and starts to pace behind it. "Buffy and Angel. Never really a useful combo. They worked well together but they caused each other more grief then good. We thought that giving him an emotional anchor in Sunnydale would keep him on the up and up and active in the fight , unlike the previous 80 years where he moped around America. Unfortunately that anchor got cut away and took his soul with it. Bad thing that." Wolf snorts at that understatement. "We're thinkin' that maybe we can bypass that whole… situation, and lay a good ground work for Faith's future stability."

Wolf realizes that Whistler really likes to hear himself talk and decides to cut to the chase. "And this involves me how?"

Whistler starts at the interuption, "Ahh, yes, well… we need you to arrange for Xander and Buffy to get together."

"What? Get together? As in going steady, class ring all that jazz?"

"Yes, It solves the issue with Buffy's emotional turmoil over Angelus, since he wouldn't have been unleashed during the whole Judge thing. So she won't be closed off after having to send him to Hell. This will also give Xander more self-confidence and therefore he'll be more then able to reach out and help."

"That's your plan?"

"Yeah."

"You want me to play matchmaker?"

"Yeah."

"Do you realize how silly that sounds?"

"Yeah."

Wolf sighs and grounds out the cigarette under his heel. "Ok, how do I do this?"