Chapter Six

"Piper, please get hold of your self." Phoebe once again pleaded to her sister who seamed to be lost in a trance. She hadn't moved since she had made the realization of killing Faith's baby. Even though neither of them could make sense of what had happened, both Paige and Phoebe knew that now was not the time to get updated. They needed to get Piper out of her trance and break the barrier spell.

"How the hell are we supposed to know if we even broke the freaking barrier?" Paige said in frustration.

"I'll check." Phoebe volunteered.

"No don't." Tara said as she got up and moved toward the invisible border.

"It's ok. Someone has to do it. And how painful could it be?" Phoebe said as she stood right in front of Tara and readied her hands.

"The jolt almost killed Faith and she has slayer strength." Tara wanted Phoebe to be ready for it.

"Well, if worse happens you can always heal me right?" Phoebe tried to find a ray of hope.

"Not, really. Not if the barrier is still up." Tara said sadly.

"Well, regardless." Phoebe said and raised her hands to her chest. "Here goes nothing."

"The spell is broken." It was Piper's voice that spoke just as Phoebe's hands crossed the invisible air and landed on Tara's chest. Realizing the inappropriate physical contact Phoebe withdrew her hand quickly. "Oh! I am so sorry." Her reaction was so automatic she failed to see the blushing white lighter who for a split of a second rejoiced the contact.

Meanwhile Phoebe turned to her eldest sibling who was now staring at her, "You couldn't have said that sooner."

"Yeah. And when did the spell break." Paige added to Phoebe's inquiry.

"The spell broke when I realized what I had done. But I just figured it out." Piper said as though she was talking to herself. She took a moment to gather her thoughts, and then she wiped her not dried tears and faced her awaiting audience. "I think I got it figured. Everyone follow me inside." Willow was just about to say something, when Piper stopped her, "No, not a word. Not till I get to say what I think first."

Everything was still all around. There wasn't a sound to be heard. It was as though with her the entire world was sleeping. But she wasn't sleeping. She tried to remind her self of that. No, she wasn't sleeping she was lying there. Just lying still. Just lying still she was. She was lying still because…. Oh god she could not even bring her self to say it. Because she was dead. She finally admitted and knelt down to let the letters of the grave stare at her. 'Buffy Summers' it read. Even though written grimly it seemed to be screaming at her. As though it was trying to make sure she knew that, that's all that was left, a named craved on a stone.

"I can't believe this is really true." She said it aloud when she felt a familiar presence behind her. "When Xander called me, I really didn't think it was true. I thought it was just one of her stories. All those about demons and vampires."

"They were all true." Giles said as he put his hand on her shoulder to let her know he was there.

"I know." She confessed. "And this is true too."

It took her a long time to get up, but when she did, she faced the man she was still party angry with. "Why didn't you let her come with me?"

"Diana, she made the choice to stay, not me." Giles once again found himself defending himself.

"She was all ready to move on. Move on and out of here. Out of Faith's life. But you just could not see that happen. She had fulfilled her destiny. She had closed the hell mouth. But it wasn't enough. You and the council could not let her live in peace." She shot back.

"I was against reforming the council, as much as I was against Buffy's decision, you know that." Giles reminded the red head FBI agent.

"If you were so against it, why did you have to tell Buffy about it?" Agent Scully certainly was not convinced.

"Diana, if I hadn't told her someone else would have. They had already planned it, they would have approached her. I just thought that if I did it, I would be able to tell her how risky it was." Giles tried to remember his thoughts when he had agreed to be the messenger. "The Buffy I knew would never have agreed. All I needed was for her to say 'No'. I knew once she said 'No', there was no way Faith would agree to it."

"You never got it." Agent Scully put it as grimly as she thought it.

Giles had no response to that.

"She was a slayer. She always was. You made sure that she remembered that every step of her life. She lost everything because of it. And not once she looked back. Yes, she craved a normal life, but when she finally got it, what did she have. Not to mention the fact that she lost Faith too, the one person she thought she would have. She had to let her go and sit back and smile as Faith played house with Piper." Scully remembered the pain her friend went through as she continued. "When she was given a chance to have slaying back into her life, why didn't you think that she would have not agreed to it.?"

"Because the root of it was evil." Giles replied.

"According to council the first slayer was empowered with the strength of the evil, too." Scully replied back.

"Yes, but Buffy never felt proud of that. She didn't even listen to the council when she was a slayer." Giles tried to reason with Diana like he was actually talking to Buffy.

"Damn it Giles. I am not Buffy. She is dead. Regardless of what you thought she would do. She decided to stay here and have the baby and you were the one who came to us with the idea. So, please don't, don't try and allude from acknowledging your guilt, especially not in front of me, and especially not in front of her grave."

"But I never told her to go to Faith." Giles was still trying escape guilt.

"No, you didn't. But the baby was already in her. Faith was the only option."

"Why weren't you here?" It was Giles's turn to find guilt.

"I had to leave. That's why I asked her to come with me. She was willing till you came knocking."

"Like you have to leave right now?" Giles looked towards her partner Fox standing in a safe distance waiting for her.

"Yes. I have to leave." Diana admitted.

"Why?" Giles asked.

"Because this is not my story. I was just a visitor. I tried to be a part of it. But it's not my fight." She too turned towards her partner. "Goodbye Giles. Let Zander and Willow know I came."

Giles nodded as he watched the older woman who even for a little while had showed Buffy that a normal life was beautiful. The woman who refused to let him believe that it wasn't him who pulled her back into the world of slaying. He shook his head and told himself that it wasn't him. But like Scully he knew better, no matter what the council decided it was him who had bared the news.

"We cast this spell." Piper informed.

"Well of course. It's a power of three spell so no one else but we could cast it. Tell us something we haven't figured it out yet." Paige retorted as she was getting more and more impatient.

"Well not just the memory spell, even the protection spell, we cast it." Piper tried to speak her mind but was once again interrupted.

"How can that be? There was no spell this morning. We orbed to Sunnydale. Even Tara and Faith was in here." It was Phoebe who spoke.

"No, this is our spell. I think we have cast not just couple but a few spell to protect us, when the time came." Piper assessed.

"Protect us from what?" Paige asked.

"Hear me out before you say another word." Piper requested her sisters who were the only ones whose impatience was interrupting even her thought.

Fred's feet stopped themselves outside Faith's door. A lot had changed since the time they worked side by side in LA. Faith had tamed her wild side. She had actually sustained a relationship with Piper. Who would have thought that beer chugging, one night stand loving Faith would have actually been the one to carry a baby and convert her own apartment into a nursery with her girlfriend. It certainly wasn't like Faith, but she had done so. Fred prepared herself to greet the new vulnerable Faith as she turned the knob of the door.

When she opened the door, she was surprisingly surprised. She had to be surprised as what she saw was not a distraught Faith but rather a very busy one, was not exactly disassembling the crib but was just about finished breaking it and had moved on to bringing down some wooden birds that were hanging on the ceiling directly on top of it.

"I should have figured the Willy boy would call you." She said when she saw Fred standing.

"You are not jumping on me to kill me too, so I figured you have calmed down." Fred assessed as she braved to move a little more inside the room.

"You were never for killing by baby." Faith told her as she yanked the last of the bird from the ceiling.

"Its wasn't your baby Faith." Fred had only uttered those words when Faith was right on her face with a fist made for her. "Don't you ever say that again." Faith voiced it through her greeted teeth.

"I feel that we cast spells to protect us, I still don't know from what. But the spells get broken at a pace when we get ready for it. Or get ready to face the consequence of the truth." Piper assessed her thoughts.

"Whatever you just said right now, that doesn't make sense to me." Phoebe confessed.

"I got it." Tara volunteered. "First thing first, the only counter for your memory spell is for you to come to terms with what is happening right now to remember what caused it. If any of the outside sources tries to give you the past in the nutshell, your spells will protect you from it."

"You mean like when barrier spell." Willow asked.

"Yes, it came into affect as soon as the Wesley guy was here and told us that we lost our memory. As, soon as he left the spell must have taken into effect, so that no one else could tell us anything else. It was only when I realized that it was Faith's baby, that the spell was broken. By that time I had also realized that we should not be asking you all for what happened." Piper completed.

"You mean we wrote such an intelligent spell." Paige tried to sound proud.

"It is our spell. What baffles me is how it's getting cast and un cast?" Piper questioned her own thought.

"We must have attached it to our emotion, just like our powers." Phoebe figured

"Ok, but why me?" Piper asked no one is general.

"Because you killed an innocent baby." Paige blurted.

"Ok. I am really biting my tongue so that I don't tell you about what you don't remember but because you already met Wesley and you keep mentioning him. Where is he?" Willow asked trying to mellow the tension from Paige's remark.

"We don't know. He went to pick up Fred." Phoebe said and stopped in her tracks.

"What?" Tara asked as she saw the expression on Phoebe's face change.

"I said Fred. When I could have sworn Wesley didn't mention a name. That's a good sign I am remembering too." She beamed a smile.

"Good for you sis but he has been gone for hours when the airport is only 20 minutes from here." Paige had only said those words when the door bell rang. Paige walked over and opened the door to Welsey. "You sure took your time." She said.

"I got lost. It was very weird." He answered and entered the room.

"Lost as in long road of highway with nothing in site, not even an exit." Phoebe asked.

"Exactly." He said as he greeted the new faces in the room.

"The lost spell from the book." Piper told everyone. "So we are right."

"What are you right about?" Wesley asked as he was one who seemed off the loop.

Willow took hold of Wesley and took him in the kitchen. Once there she filled him about the sisters theory. They were standing silent when Tara entered. "What are you thinking?" Tara asked as she entered. "We think that they are wrong." Wesley voiced their joint opinion.