Authors Note: Thanks to kiprusoff34 for sending me the reviews. It's always nice to have a new reader.

Chapter Nine
Ghosts of My Past

Sixteen. Most grownups considered it the age of innocence while all teenagers considered it a right of passage. It was the age when you could get your license, get your first car. Your curfew would change and you were free to run your life a little bit more then when you were fifteen. Some consider sixteen to be the best time of their life because they were still young enough that they didn't have to deal with all the adult responsibilities, but old enough to go and do the things that they couldn't only a year before. Even though I was a slayer at sixteen, that I was out in a graveyard every night trying to save an innocent while still managing to pass my sophomore classes, sixteen was still my time of innocence. Seventeen was the time when hell began.

I don't know how long I had been starring at the wall. Angel hadn't left. The moment my age left his lips I had gone into a sort of trance, not answering to his calls, just starring distantly off at the picture frame that held the smiling faces of my two best friends. At some point in time he had moved me to sit down on the bed as he finally accepted the fact that I wasn't about to talk to him. So he just sat there with me, holding my hand. Something that was foreign to me at the moment.

I knew I couldn't stay like this forever though. Something had happened to me. What though is still completely up in the air. The only thing that I knew for certain was that this wasn't some sort of a dream. Everything was too real, too familiar. Besides, dreams rarely ever last this long.

"Buffy," Angel started hesitantly. "Is there something I can do?" I shook my head sadly. "Do you want to talk about it? I mean you don't have to if you don't want to. I just think it could help or something." He added, remembering earlier words tossed back and fourth over this same subject.

"I don't even know where to begin." And it was the truth. If I wanted to tell him what was going on I would have to say everything. I would have to start with the fact that in a couple years I was going to die and leave him behind to face the rest of the demons and monsters we were constantly trying to beat back. Leave him even though I promised one Christmas day that we would fight these same demons together. That little piece alone would cause him to ask why he wasn't with me when I died, why he couldn't stop my death from ever happening, and I would have to go through the whole story of him leaving me. It was just something that I not only wanted to avoid, but it was just something that I plane old didn't want to even face.

"Did you want to go see Giles? Maybe he could help…" My head whipped around. Giles. Giles was alive. Willow, Xander, my Mom, God even Cordelia, they were all alive. "What's wrong?"

"N-nothing. That's just… It's a good idea. We should probably do that." I got up and grabbed my coat, about to head out the window. If I was Angel at the moment I would probably begin to wonder if I was bipolar with the way my emotions and moods kept bouncing around.

"Buffy wait."

"No Angel. I want to see them now. The sooner the better. So don't you dare sit there
and try to tell me to wait until morning when I have a little more sleep in me, or for me to even rest because I'm going to go see my friends with or without you."

"Buffy," He walked up to me and gently took my wrist. "It's midnight. You can't just walk out the front door; your mom could see you."

"I'm not waiting 'till tomorrow." I said slowly and deadly. Every second I was stuck here was one second to long. I needed to get back to Angel. The real one. Not the one standing before me.

"I just meant that maybe we should use the window."

I looked at him dumbly. "Oh," I'd almost forgotten that I used to have to sneak out at night. After mom found out that I was a slayer I never had the need to hide the reason why I was going out so late. "Sorry," I mumbled. And in a matter of moments we were off to see one of the many ghosts of my past.

By the time we had reached Giles it was nearly one. We had taken a short detour in order for me to take my jitters over this whole matter out on something. I was practically ready to jump out of my skin. I really had no idea why either. It could have been the prospect of seeing the man I considered a father after all these years, or maybe it was the fact that right now my body was lying somewhere in an alley in LA getting God knows what done to it. And Angel? I didn't even want to think of what could happen to him if Leon got his hands on him.

"This better be important." A muffled voice said from behind the big oak door. For the second time tonight my heart stopped as the door swung open. "Buffy? Angel? Is everything okay?" He immediately opened the door with a hurried invitation for Angel. I couldn't even say a word. I felt as if my heart was in my throat.

"Something's wrong Giles." Angel said for me. "She's been like this for the past couple hours and she won't tell me why."

Giles rummaged around for his glasses and gestured for us to sit down on the sofa. "Demon related?" Giles looked at me expectantly, but when I didn't answer Angel had to just shrug his shoulders for me. "Hmm… yes. Why don't I go make us some tea and then we can talk about this."

I couldn't help the smile that came to my face at his words. It's amazing how much you miss the little things when a person is dead. Certain gestures or phrases will just trigger a memory and you'll want to hear them more then anything else in the world. Giles and his tea would always be one of those triggers.

Within a few minutes he had come back with a cup of boiling water for each of us. Without hesitation he added three lumps of sugar and a lot of milk into mine. He always used to tell me that I was ruining a perfectly good cup of tea by doing this, and yet he still fixed it for me like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Silence had overcome the room. No one was really sure what they should say. I had no idea what I was even supposed to do at the moment.

"I'm guessing something happened tonight." Giles said after a moment. "We could start there and then maybe…"

"Why don't you just ask me what's wrong?" I spoke for the first time.

"What's wrong?" He looked a little taken aback at my straight forwardness.

"Nothing." I said standing up from the couch. "Can I go now?" The walls were beginning to feel like they were closing in on me. I was getting to attached. I was under some sort of spell, I had to be. Or maybe even a coma. I needed to keep in mind that none of this was real, that I couldn't start thinking of these people as my family again because that was exactly what my attacker's plane had to be. The way to get to Angel was through me, and if they someone are able to manage for me to not wake up, to stay in this fantasy world where I feel safe…

"It was your idea to come here Buffy." Angel said, pulling me back down beside him.

"I changed my mind."

"Buffy…"

I sighed. I needed to get back to my life. Yes, this was my life. But it wasn't' the one I was supposed to be living. So now the question became, do I tell them what's really going on in hopes that maybe they're enough like the old Giles and Angel that they might be able to figure out a way for me to get home? Or did I keep my mouth shut and just hope that Angel and Connor were currently figuring out a way to get me back. Could I face the questions that they were bound to ask me if I did spill my secrets; their future?"

"Buffy…?"

"I don't belong here." There, I said it. Blunt and straight forward. It was a risk, I know. But I really didn't see any other option.

"What do you mean you don't belong here?"

"I mean just that. I don't belong here. In this time, in this place. This whole entire thing is something that has already happened and…" I looked at Angel. "Didn't you say once that this is what hell is like? A place where you're doomed to repeat something over and over again?"

"What…?"

"I don't belong here. Where I belong is nowhere near here. I live three hundred years in the future, in LA, and right now I need to get back there before anything happens to me."

Both men just looked at me blankly. Who was I to blame them? But I kept going anyways.

"Look, I was fighting in an alley in LA when someone came up behind me and hit me. Now I'm here in Sunnydale, a place that from my understanding is pretty much a nothing anymore, and I'm sixteen again."

"Buffy…" Giles scrutinized me. "Did you and Angel go patrolling tonight?"

"I'm making this up Giles! I swear to you that I'm from the future as corny and cliché as that might sound the fact remains that that's still true."

"Buffy, I know you're not making any of this up but think about," Angel stood up and gently started caressing my shoulders. "It's not possible. You're not a vampire, you're not a demon, you're a human being. Human beings rarely live past a hundred baby."

"I didn't live past a hundred. I'm only twenty." They just looked at me with growing concern. "This is why I didn't want to tell you." I squirmed out of his grip.

"Buffy, where are you going?"

"If you're not going to help me then I need to find somebody who can." I said before I slammed the door behind me.

"Think Buffy." I mumbled to myself. There had to be someone out there who could help me with this. I just couldn't think of who. I mean, Willow wasn't anywhere near being a witch yet, I didn't even know who Tara was, Anya was a demon still, and Dawn? Dawn hadn't even been created yet. The only two people in this world who could possibly help me were the two people who currently thought I was insane. So what do I do now?

Punch.

Kick.

Stab.

Yes, I was back to that mantra as I went in search of something that I could beat into the ground. Fighting tended to clear my head. I was so focused on what I was doing, on staying alive, that the problems that were currently plaguing my brain didn't even matter. All the mattered when you went face to face with a demon was the kill. The anticipation on your opponent's next move, the rush of adrenalin when you stare them down, the whoosh of dust as you plunge the stake into the things dead black heart. That's all it ever came down to when you were fighting. Survival. How you were going to do and what you're next move would be. The thrill of the kill as most would say.

After I had exhausted myself, and was covered in a film of dust, I slowly made my way to the place that had been haunting me in the back of my mind all night. For some reason I knew just where this gravestone would be, even though I had never before laid eyes on it. It felt like it was subconsciously engraved into my memory. Sitting down I leaned against the huge oak tree, feeling the soft grass underneath my fingers. Silently I stared at the now vacant spot. In only a few years time though it would be filled. My body would be laying six feet under the ground with the simple markings to remember me by.

BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS
1981-2001
BELOVED SISTER
DEVOTED FRIEND
SHE SAVED THE WORLD
A LOT

The same markings that I shouldn't even know about but somehow I did.

"Hey," I smiled. I couldn't help it. No matter how mad I was or how alone I felt, he still always managed to find me, come to me when I most needed it. I still don't know how he knew about my mother dying that time. I didn't tell him. But the sun set and suddenly there he was, slipping his hand between mine. "Is it okay that I'm here?"

I laughed. "I don't really have a choice in that now do I? If I say yes, then you'll sit down and start trying to get me to tell you what's going on, and then if I say no, you'll still sit down and try to get me to tell you what's going on."

And right on cue, he sat down. "I'm worried about you." He simply stated.

"I'm fine."

"Buffy, please don't give me that."

"What the hell am I supposed to say Angel? I was living in a time where you and I are together but we can't so much as hold each others hand, and we were fighting in an alley and the last thing I remember is looking at you and hating every ounce of our lives. Then the next thing I know I'm knocked out, then I awaken in a graveyard to find out that I'm in a place that shouldn't even exist any more, and suddenly you and I are acting like a normal couple again and then Willow shows up. And you know, I decided that seeing your dead best friend is highly overrated. So I just ran off, saw my mother who is also dead, then you came and tried to get me to share my feelings, which you knew was something I didn't want to do, and when that didn't work you took me to Giles to try and get me to open up there. But when I finally did open up, finally did share my feelings, you all looked at me like I was insane. So after I ran out and killed about a dozen or so vamps I decided to come here and sit by the tree that in only about four years time, I'll be buried by." He stared at me. "I thought that you might rather hear the words 'I'm fine', then all of that."

I crossed my arms over my chest trying to ward off the cold. "You can leave now."

"You're actually telling me the truth. You're…" he swallowed, out of fear or curiosity I'm not really sure. "You're not Buffy."

"No, I'm her. I'm just not the one you know." I laughed bitterly. "I'm not even the one you fell in love with."

Cold air brushed my cheeks as the leaves started to rustle under the winds feathery caress. I closed my eyes against it wishing that I could be emotionless. I was about to tell him to leave once more when the warmth of his coat was gently laid on my shoulders. Slowly and hesitantly he pulled me into his arms and even though I knew I should pull away, I didn't. All I could do was look up at him, seeing the Angel that I had fallen in love with all those years ago. It wasn't until this moment that I realized how much he had changed. As I look into his eyes I see torment and guilt, but it's an emotion. The Angel in the future, the one that I seem so desperate to get back to, doesn't hold emotion anymore. Since I've been back I can count the number of times I've seen a true feeling in his eyes with one hand. To see the Angel of my past seemed so wrong and yet so right all at the same time.

Choosing not to argue, not to fight anymore, I laid my head on his chest. Leaning down he gently brushed his lips to the top of my head and together we sat and stared at the place I would eventually lay.