After everyone had decided to go to get some sleep for the night leaving Illyria alone and free to wander around the hotel. Eventually she was bored of starring at the dilapidated old walls and dingy carpets of the hotel hallways. So instead of sticking around she headed out into the dark, dank LA streets. She strolled along under the cover of night, encountering only a few awkward stares, until she reached the door of Gunn's hospital room.

And now she stood at the thin hospital curtain that separated her from his hospital bed, wondering what exactly she was doing there. She realized that in some way she felt like it was her responsibility to keep an eye on him mostly because some part of her felt that is what Wesley would have wanted her to do. Something caught her a bit off guard. She did not ever expect to actually care about what anyone else wanted, never mind act on behalf of it.

She pulled back the curtain to his room and walked next to his bed peering down at him. Looking at Gunn laying there, unconscious and near death gave more credence to her fear that the humanity she was now seeing in herself would end up being her own weakness.

She allowed her mind to wander back to Wesley. Marveling at what a different man was from the Wesley she met here. She had lived for more years than anyone in this dimension could image and was dead almost as long as that, and when she woke she still felt the same. It fascinated her to think that in a matter of years the man she knew was barely unrecognizable from the man he once was.

She stood alone in the room with her thoughts for a long while without any interruption. It was late, nearly 3 in the morning when she heard the door to his room creek open. She looked up to see Angel entering. Their eyes met with some surprise. Neither of them expected the other to be there.

"What are you doing here?" he asked quietly so as to not bring attention to them. It was clearly past visiting hours and he did not want to get kicked out. And he seriously doubted if he could make any of the hospital staff believe that he was a family member.

"I don't know." She answered honestly

"Does he seem better?"

"He hasn't moved, but I can sense that he is stronger than before."

"How long have you been here?"

"I'm not sure. An hour, two, maybe more." She looked confused and pained when she spoke.

"Do either of you two ever sleep?" came a voice from behind them breaking the serious mood between the two. They turned to see Spike standing in the door way. Angel brought a finger up to his lips to shush him.

"No, I have no need for it." Illyria answered simply. "Although I could if I choose to."

"What are you doing here Spike?" asked Angel

"Nothing." He looked over to see Angel starring at him "I mean…I couldn't sleep, there is too much going on up here, you know?" He gestured to his head.

"I do." Answered Illyria much to the shock of both of them.

The three of them stood in the room silently until the sun threatened to rise forcing them to leave their friend behind and return to the hotel.

It was early morning when they returned to the Hyperion. They stood in the lobby for a moment silently, no one exactly sure of what to say. All three felt a bit broken and lost.

Finally Spike spoke up "He will get better you know."

"Will he?" Angel replied, a bit distressed

"I believe he will" Answered Illyria.

"Hey, and she's a god, so she knows." Said Spike, again trying to lighten things up.

The stillness of the large hotel lobby was broken suddenly when the phone rang. The three looked at each other, unsure if one of them should pick it up. Spike nodded his head and motioned to him in a 'go ahead and answer it' fashion.

"Angel Investigations, we help the helpless." Angel answered. The words felt good leaving his lips again. He almost wanted to smile. That was, until he heard the voice on the other end of the line.

"I…I…it's early. I'm sorry for calling. I was going to come down there, but…I'm sorry it's so early." Replied an anxious voice on the other line.

Angel's heart sank. "Willow?" He looked over to Spike who also looked like he was ready to fall apart.

"Yes. I wanted to wait until later to call you, but well…I'm sorry it's so early."

"It's ok, Willow, what's wrong." He asked the question full well knowing the answer, which only made it harder.

"It's Buffy…" She trailed off; he could tell her voice was straining to stay at a normal level.

"What's wrong Willow, what happened?" He felt sick to his stomach and quickly found a chair to sit down in. 'This shouldn't be this hard' he thought. He knew what was coming, he had this conversation before. But none of it registered. It felt like the first time. Even though he was sitting his knees were weak and his hands were shaking.

"There was a fight, a big one. And Buffy, she…she…"

"She didn't make it did she?" he finished for her. He felt tears well up in his eyes. He looked over to Spike and saw him sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. He was holding his knees up to his chest and had his head buried in-between them.

"I'm sorry Angel, I am, I'm so sorry. I should have come there. It wasn't right to do this over the phone. She was so brave. She saved the world, she saved everyone…you would have been so proud of her." He could hear her crying over the receiver of the phone. "I would have come there. But Dawn… I couldn't leave her."

"It's ok, I have to go, I'll talk to you later." He mumbled incoherently into the receiver. He didn't wait for her response. He clicked the receiver down and walked into the office and shut the door behind him without saying a word.

Illyria looked over to Spike "I recognize this." She said to him.

"Do you?" he asked looking up at her tears falling freely from his eyes.

"Yes. Grief." She paused "Is it any easier the second time?"

"No, it's not" he answered harshly, but then thought for a moment. "Actually…" he stood up and made his way towards the office door. "Angel! Angel!" he screamed into the door. He tried to turn the handle, but found that it was locked. "Get out here, NOW!" He stopped for a moment to listen and see if Angel was heading his calls, but heard nothing, so again he began to scream and bang at the door. "Angel, I saw you go in there now OPEN THE BLOODY DOOR!" Suddenly the door flung open in front of him.

"What do you want?" barked Angel. His face was red and stained with tears. His eyes were glazed over.

"Don't you see?" Spike asked like a madman "We can change it; we can change all of it. The things we know, they haven't happened yet. We can prevent them from happening now."

Angel just starred at him through watery eyes.

"Buffy died, I was there when it happened; I saw it all right in front of me. I would have given my life to take those moments back. I would have given anything."

"It is not your place to change what has already come to pass." Noted Illyria

Spike shot daggers at her "I don't think you are one to be talking."

"You should take heed from the lessons I've learned." She responded

"Well, no offence, pet, but you are just one glaring example of we shouldn't." If Spike didn't know better he would swear he hurt her feelings. Illyria retracted herself from the conversation and fell back into the shadows of the room.

"You can't save Buffy, Spike. Neither of us can, she is already gone." Cut in Angel.

"Your right, I can't, but I can prevent her from coming back. It was hell for her Angel, it wasn't right to do that to her. I can go and talk to Willow, she'll listen to me. I know what they will be planning to do, even before they do. She'll have to listen to me." He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.

"So, what, you think you are just going to march into Sunnydale and say, 'Oh, hi everyone, I'm Spike from the future. Now I know you all trust the current me so much, that I would make a quick stop by to say don't resurrect your dead friend?' Oh, yah, they'll buy that alright." Angel was near yelling at Spike

"And what is your suggestion? Do nothing, just let our friends suffer and die?"

"No, of course not, it's just that we don't know what kind of effect making changes will have. What if by trying to make it better we make it worse? I don't want my friends to die, but I also don't want to change their future into some kind of weird hell place cause we decided that things need changing."

"Well, I can't just do nothing, regardless of how much reason you put behind it. Right or wrong, I have to at least try."

A voice came from the hotel lobby "I think someone should explain to me what is going on before I have to figure it out on my own."

They turned to find the other Angel standing there. Angel stepped away from Spike and walked over to him. "You might want to take a seat for this. Something happened…." He paused taking time to look his other self right in the eye "its Buffy…"

TBC.

A/N - I know that I said I was going to ignore Buffy's death, but frankly I figured that just didn't make any darn sense in the long run, so I just found a differnt way to work it in. I hope it worked out well, I had a hard time figuring out exaclty what to do with it. So I appologize if it seems a bit all over the place. Thanks for reading and as always, questions or comments are always welcomed and appreciated.