Chapter Eleven
Here Always

"Buffy calm down." Angel said as he followed me around the library. Now that I had something, something that could quite possibly be the answer to my prayers, I wasn't about to sit down and explain myself. I knew that gem had looked familiar. I just couldn't figure out what it had to do with the situation I was in. But that didn't matter. Visions like that don't just pop up for no reason what so ever.

"I can't. I have to find it."

"Find what Buffy? You're making no sense."

"Angel just trust me and start pulling out any books that might contain something about a ring." I started searching madly through the stacks of books that were already piled around the library.

"Do you know the name of this ring?" Giles looked at me curiously but joined in my quest for a certain book.

"Yes… well no. I don't remember it. I know what it is though. It's the gem of something or other."

"Gem of Merthow?" Giles asked curiously.

"No."

"Gem of Bajarse?"

"No."

"Gem of Lextintoh?"

"No! Giles stop playing twenty questions with me and just find a book with a lot of gems in it."

"What's with the sudden urge to find this thing anyways?" Angel's voice came from my right.

"While I was passed out… dead… whatever the hell I was, I had this image of this ring. It could mean something and I want to find it before I forget what it looks like."

"What did it look like?"

"I don't know. Green, smallish. It kind of sat on this gold band with little strips of gold going over the top of it… It shouldn't be too hard to find. I mean, how many little green rings are there in the world?"

"Do you want me to start with Sunnydale alone?" Giles intoned sarcastically.

"Don't start with me Giles."

"Buffy, this ring could be in anyone of these books."

I groaned. "Don't you have like an 'Ancient Gems A-Z' book or something?"

"I'm sorry, I sold that at my last garage sale."

"Giles, now is not the time to be sarcastic with me." I flopped down in the nearest chair. He was right, it could be anywhere. I might not even be in a book he owned yet.

"Do you know what the ring does?' Angel continued to look through books. But I jumped up in triumph.

"I can be such an idiot at times." I muttered. "It's for vampires. If they put it on then they're indestructible."

"The Gem of Amara?"

"That's it! The Gem of Amara!"

"Buffy, that's just a myth." Giles sat down looking almost a little deflated from coming so close to solving the puzzle and yet losing at the last second.

"It's not a myth Giles. It's buried right here in Sunnydale."

"How do you know this?"

"Because Spike digs up practically the whole damn town looking for it and when he finally finds it he and I have this huge fight in the courtyard at the college."

Giles sat up. "This is something that's going to happen?"

"Yes. In like…" I stopped and mentally calculated the dates. "two years. Maybe a little bit more."

"Do you remember where it was buried?"

I slumped in my chair, my wonderful plan suddenly going down the drain. "No. I wasn't exactly with him when he found it. We have to find this though Giles. I can't really describe it, it's just… I know it's important."

Giles gave me a curt nod. "Alright. I'll see what I can do. You should probably head home though. It's getting late. I don't want your mother to start worrying."

I glanced up at the clock. It was close to midnight by now. I just had to pray that this was one of those nights where mom was out at the gallery 'till late. "I just want to go and talk to Willow and then I'll head out."

"She's resting." Xander entered the room somberly. "She finally passed out about a minute ago. I think the spell did her in." He turned towards Giles. "I called her mom earlier tonight and told her that she was helping me with my term paper. Can she just crash here tonight?"

"Certainly. You best be getting home though."

"Come on. I'll give you a ride." Cordelia offered. It almost took me by surprise. I rarely could remember a time when she was anything but bitchy or sarcastic. I died before she became the woman Angel had known.

Xander nodded once, looking at me with a small sad smile. "You okay."

"I'm fine. The whole dying thing isn't all that bad once you get used to it." I tried to joke. He just came up and gave me a tight hug though making me realize how much I missed him.

"Night." I watched him and Cordelia walk away until the doors swung shut. It began to hit me that one of these times it was going to be the last time I was ever going to see them again. The thought of the decision that I would soon have to make popped back up into my head. Stay or leave. Two words had never scared me more in my life.

"You want me to walk you home?" Angel handed me my coat.

"Yeah." It barley came out. My voice was hoarse with emotion that I was going to have to face sooner or later. Without me even knowing it Angel steered me out of the Library and into the cold night air.

"You okay?"

"I don't know."

"Anything you want to talk about?"

I shook my head. "Not yet. But maybe later."

"I'll be here when you need me."

I looked down at the ground trying to hide the pain that I know what crossing my features at the moment.

"Hey," He stopped and turned me to him. "What was that about?"

"What was what about?" Maybe if I beat around the bush enough he'll forget about it. At least that was the lie that I was currently telling myself.

"That look that you just gave."

I shrugged my shoulders. "I didn't give a look."

He was silent, realization dawning on him. "I'm not exactly there for you in the future, am I?"
"It's not your fault."

With the tip of his finger he tilted my head up towards his. "That's no excuse."

"There's a lot of things that have happened between us that you won't understand. You and I not being close to each other isn't because of anything we decided really. At least not most of the time anyways." I tried to defend his future self. I don't really know why. It was just really beginning to hurt to see the old Angel all over again.

"So we're not together at all in the future." It wasn't a question so much as a statement.

"That question is more complicated then it seems." I began walking again. "We say we're together but…" He took my hand in his and I had to bite my lip to hold back the bitter laughter that was welling up inside me. "Like right now, we're holding hands and walking along. We don't do that later."

"Why?"

"Because we're afraid we're going to hurt each other again. Before I came here you and I went though a pretty tough time. You were doing things that hurt me to protect me and I was over reacting on some issues. And when we finally sort of worked things out we just…"

"Shut down?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Just seems like the easy way out I guess."

I sighed, not quite sure why I was telling him all of this. Maybe it was because I knew that he wouldn't go and make it all publicly known. He'd take it with him to his grave. "We promised each other that we were going to start over. Go back to the beginning where we didn't keep secrets and we made an effort to have some semblance of a love life. But you know what we do? Nothing. We don't kiss, we don't touch, we barley come within two feet of each other all because we're afraid that it'll just lead to more hurt down the road."

He was silent. It was my guess that he had no idea how he was even supposed to respond to that. In his eyes we were going to be together forever. Our biggest problem that we had gone through was the whole situation with the master so far. He had no idea what was even to come.

"Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that stuff…."

"No. I told you that I would be here for you and I am."

"Angel…"

"Buffy, I'm not there for you in the future so let me be there for you now."

"You're sweet. But it's not just your fault that things are the way they are later on. It's partly my fault and a huge amount of it also falls on the Powers That Be. I swear they must get off on our misery or something." He just raised an eyebrow to me. "Never mind."

By the time these words had come around we were already at my house. Thankfully it was one of those nights where mom was out late. I wasn't sure if I was happy about this or sad. Even if she would just spend the next hour yelling at me for being out past curfew, I would still get to see her. Right now I would take as much of her as I could get. Even if that meant me getting grounded from here to eternity.

"Thanks for walking me home."

"No problem." Leaning down he brushed his lips with mine, kissing me slowly and with warmth. It was the kind of kiss that you feel from you head right down to the tips of your toes. So when he pulled away I kept my eyes shut just a little bit longer, savoring this moment because I had no idea when the next one like this would come along.

I couldn't help but smile though when I opened my eyes and was greeted with the fact that this wasn't a dream. "I better get inside. Tomorrow should be interesting." He nodded his head in agreement but still kept a hold of my hand.

"Night." I turned to walk away, our hands still connected, but at the very moment that I was about to let go he pulled me to him.

"Wait. You being from the future and all, maybe you could help me with something."

"What?" I asked wryly.

"What did you want most for your seventeenth birthday?"

I froze. "Wh-Why?" Please no. Please no. Please no.

"Because it's only a week away and I still don't know what to get you."

Tears stung my eyes because I had no idea what I should tell him. In one week my whole entire life was about to change and the stupid tragedy of our lives would be set in motion.

"Buffy?" He brushed away the tear that was currently falling down my cheek.

"I already know what you'll get me." I managed to whisper. "And it's perfect." And that's all the more I could say before I ran inside the house.

"I don't know Giles. That all sounds a little fishy to me." Willow was saying when I entered the library the next morning. "Buffy!" She smiled and waved brightly to me. I quickly ran over to give her a hug when I noticed that she was still pretty pale. I don't think she would have been able to get up even if she wanted to.

"Are you alright?" I cringed at her appearance.
"I'm fine. What about you? I mean you're the one who… well you know."

"I'm fine. Didn't even feel a thing. Besides," I sat down in the chair beside her. "It's not like it was a waste of time. I got that nifty little dream thingy from it."

"About that," Giles looked at me. "I may have found a way to find the ring. There is a shaman who owes me a favor. He'd be able to call fourth the ring from wherever he is pretty easily."

"Did you by any chance introduce this Shaman to his wife?" I hated knowing what our options were but at the same time knowing that they would work.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"You can't use that favor yet." I said dejectedly. "Something more important comes up later on down the road."

They both looked at me, the question of what exactly was more important then this was sitting on their lips, but I knew they wouldn't ask it. "Then we go to option B which is a little more risky. We do it ourselves."

"No," The word was out of my mouth before I even thought of it. "I'm not putting Willow through another one of these spells. She's already been though enough."

"It's okay Buffy. It's really not that big of a deal."

"Willow, you can barely even stand. I'm not going to put you through another spell."

"Buffy, she wouldn't be doing it alone. I'd be helping her this time around."

"Giles."

He nodded his head knowing I was right. It's just that we were running out of options. Willow didn't seem to keen on fighting us on this either.

"So do we have any other options?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Damn. There's got to be something else that we haven't thought of yet."

"What if we just did a locater spell? We can find out where it is and then dig it up."

"Time's not exactly of our side here Willow. We need something faster then that."

"So basically we're sitting her waiting for a miracle…." My eyes widened as I jumped up from my seat. A miracle. It was worth a shot. I wasn't to sure if it would even work but as Giles said earlier we were pressed for time at the moment. "I think I just figured out how to solve both of our problems."

"What are you talking about?"

"I know someone who can get me both the ring and a safe passage back home."

"Who?" Giles looked at me curiously.

"Let's just say it's someone who owes me. A lot."