Chapter Thirteen
Necessary Moves

"What happened?" After long minutes of crying and holding each other we finally were able to calm down enough to answer each others questions. Neither one of us let go of the other though. Time had already been wasted enough.

"I don't know. You just passed out. One moment you were standing there and looking at me and the next you were on the ground."

"You didn't see who hit me?" I was fit tiling with the Gem of Amara that was still firmly placed on my finger. I was afraid to take it off. I had no idea if it would suddenly transport me back to Sunnydale or not.

"Buffy," He looked at me seriously "No one hit you. There wasn't anyone even near you."

"That's impossible. Why would I just black out like that?"

"I don't know. We had someone come in and look at you and she said that you were in a coma. They didn't think you were going to wake up Buffy. They pretty much told us there was nothing we could do. It was your choice on whether or not to wake up."

"It still doesn't explain why I would suddenly just go into a coma. Something had to have triggered it." I muttered. Nothing seemed to come to mind though that could answer that question.

"Do you remember anything?" He asked after a moment. "You weren't… you weren't in pain or anything like that were you?"

I shook my head. "No, I didn't even know I was gone at first." He looked at me questionably. "I was in Sunnydale."

"That's impossible. Sunnydale's practically non-existent now."

"My thoughts exactly. But it wasn't now a days Sunnydale. It was the Sunnydale I remembered. It was almost as if I was sucked back in time or something. Every little detail was the same, not a single leaf was out of place. It was just so… so surreal almost. Everyone was there and alive and healthy. I was sixteen again." I shook my head slightly. "I was pretty much in the happiest time that I ever had in my life. It was before Angelus, before Acathla and the Mayor, before Mom dying. Before Glory. Dawn wasn't' even there yet since she didn't get created until a few years later."

"So you were happy then?" There was something about his tone of voice as he spoke.

"In a way I guess you could say that. I mean, I saw all the people that I've ever loved and cared for. I got to see my mom again." I looked down, part of me wishing that I hadn't figured things out so soon. That I was still back there in my old house, watching old movies and eating home cooked meals with my mom by my side. "I just… I don't think I realized how much I had missed them all." Tears started to fall down my cheeks. "I mean… I feel like I'm losing them all over again Angel. I only had a couple minutes to say goodbye and…"

"Hey. Shh…" He pulled me into his arms. "At least you got to say goodbye this time."

"I know. It doesn't' mean that it hurts any less." I buried my face in the crook of his neck.

"I'm sorry." He whispered.

Pulling back slightly I frowned. "Why do I think that that apology wasn't a sign of empathy or comfort?" He looked down abashed. "Angel?"

Sighing he leaned back a little bit. "When the doctor told me that it was your choice on whether or not you'd wake up again, I didn't accept it. I looked everywhere, trying to find a way to bring you out of the coma, to show you that we could make this all work. I didn't want you to go without knowing that I… that I still loved you."

"I know you love me." I frowned

He ignored me though and continued. "I… I found a spell. It was supposed to kind of rip you out of there. I swear Buffy, I didn't know that you were happy… If I knew…"

"Angel," I looked at him in complete shock, hoping he wasn't thinking what I thought he was. "You couldn't possibly think that I wanted to stay there could you?"

"You said so yourself Buffy. Sixteen was probably one of the happiest times for you."

"I've lived that part of my life Angel. Do you know what I kept thinking when I was there? How can I get back here? How can I get back to you? Despite all of the things you and I have gone through these past couple of weeks I still wanted to get back here to you."

"But if you were sixteen, technically weren't you and I still together? You hadn't turned seventeen yet. We were happy, thinking we had the whole world at our feet. Why would you want to come back here to a man who hasn't shown you love in…?"

"Stop it. You don't get to do this. I made my choice Angel. A spell didn't rip me out of that world, I did. I sought out how to get back here. I'm not going to lie to you and say that the thought of staying there and changing my life around, preventing Angelus from ever surfacing hadn't crossed my mind. Because it did. Do you know how many things I could have changed? We could have been together, my mom wouldn't have died, the mayor never would have gotten a chance, Faith wouldn't have gone rouge, I would still be alive, and the list just goes on. But I didn't do it. Instead I fought to get back here tooth and nail. Instead I'm sitting here right now not even regretting my decision."

"How did I ever get someone like you?"

I smiled. "I have no idea."

He pulled me towards him and kissed me once again. It seems like in the past hour we've kissed each other more then we had in the past couple months. "So how did you get back here?"

"The Powers. I simply told them that they owed you and I something after everything we've done for them."

"How'd you know even where to find them?"

"You told me once a long time ago that they used to be located under a post office in LA. I just went with the assumption that they were still there. After that it was simple. They gave me what I needed to come back here."

"Why though? I mean at that point in time you had been the slayer for only about a year and I was still considered evil to them."

I smiled. "Here's where it gets confusing."

I told him everything that had happened there up until the last five minutes. I told him about the Gem of Amara and that the universe I was actually in wasn't real, and yet the PTB still managed to be real and have power of who knows how many dimensions, and I told him that there is where I made my decision to come back. What I conveniently neglected to say though was about me remembering. It wasn't time yet. I didn't want to spoil the moments of comfortable companionship with the feeling of guilt by talking about the day that never happened. In time it would come out. In time I would talk about it. But now wasn't that time.

"So what now?" We lay on our bed just wrapped in each others arms.

"Not to sound corny or anything, but we go get the bad guys."

"Buffy, we're still on the same page as when you left. We have no way of killing Leon, no way to get an upper hand. We're running out of ideas here."

"Are you still hearing the voices?" I whispered.

"Yeah. Off and on."

"Are they getting any louder?" I didn't know if I even wanted to hear the answer to that one.

"At times. It's mostly while I'm trying to sleep. It's like if I don't keep myself busy then they start talking. I try to keep myself distracted as much as possible, but it doesn't always work."

"What if I told you that I might have a way to make these voices stop, and maybe in the process defeat Leon?"

"I'd say you're a little delusional from your temporary coma still."

"I'm serious."

He sat up and turned me towards him. "You're serious?" He repeated my words, checking to see if the content of them was true.

I bit my lip. "I'm not sure it'll work. I'm not even sure if it ever happened seeing how I was in a made up reality, but… It's worth a shot isn't it?"

"Buffy, what are you talking about?"

The air was cold, the kind of cold that just chills you right down to the bone. I stepped lightly through the streets, afraid almost to even breath. If what I was hoping for, what I was searching for, was here, this whole future could be turned around in a snap of a finger. I was running a lot on faith here. It was a shot in the dark that I was currently taking, but it was a shot all the same.

"You're insane. You know that right?" We came to an alley close to the outskirts of town. A place where most humans didn't even dare wonder, knowing full well that if one of the many guards of demons and vampires alike that stood out here caught them, they would be dead in an instant.

"Just shut up and help me look alright." I was running my fingers across the paved floor of this alley, looking for the one little reminder that the past was real. "Come on Giles. Come on." I muttered.

"What exactly am I looking…? Damn it!"

"What? What happened?"

"Nothing, I just ran my hand on some broken glass." He looked at his fingers in the moonlight, watching the borrowed blood drip down his wrist.

I didn't even blink an eye though as I ran over to where he was and dropped down on my hands and knees. "Yes!" I squealed as I saw the jagged piece of rock, not glass like Angel had thought, protrude out of the ground. I quickly pulled an old rag out of the back of my pocket, wrapping it around the sharp piece of rock and started to pull.

"Buffy what the hell are you doing?"

"Help me with this will ya?"

He gave me one of those looks before gently pushing me aside and pulling at the rock. After a few minutes it came up to expose the soft dirt floor beneath it. As Angel just looked at this small patch of dirt with a bit of annoyance I flung myself at it and started digging with my fingers, feeling the soft pebbles scratch the skin under my nails. It didn't matter though because things were suddenly turning to the bright side.

"Buffy…?"

"Ah ha!" I yelled out triumphantly. A small metal box, about the size of one of those engagement ring boxes got pulled out and into my hands. Smiling brightly I looked up at Angel and scrunched my nose. "We have a winner."

He was about to smile at my behavior at the moment, really having no idea why I was suddenly so happy, but the sound of footsteps could be heard in the distance.

"We need to get out of here." He grabbed my wrist and started pulling me along and into the shadows. It was to late though. The vampires had already seen us.

"Well well well. What do we have here? If it isn't the great Angelus." One of them sneered. I rolled my eyes. He would be the first I'd kill. "I must say, I didn't think I would get to kill you tonight. Business has been kind of slow lately."

"Please. You guys have been telling us this for how many years now? What makes you think that you'll succeed in beating us now?"

And as if on cue, a dozen more of them appeared simply out of no where. "And who the hell are you?"

"She's nobody." Angel said hurriedly, cutting me off before I could yell out who I actually was. "Now fellas, do you think killing me is your best move? I mean, Leon's been trying to kill me for years. How do you think he'd feel if he found out that you all did exactly what he couldn't? If I was in his shoes, I'd be pretty pissed."

"He never has to know." They started advancing towards us forcing us to back up against the alley wall with no where left to go.

Angel genuinely laughed. "He's not that stupid."

"Obviously he is if he hasn't killed you yet. You're nothing but a threat around here."

"Well, I'm glad to see that even after all this time I still have a name in this city."

"Not for long."

"You guys really need to come up with some better one liners." I kicked out and with the heal of my boot managed to send the one spouting all the bad movies lines across the alley. Then all hell broke loose.

In one fluid motion both Angel and I laid into the vamps before us. Kicking and jabbing as best we could, but we were severely outnumbered. After only six of them down, Angel was favoring his right side while I was practically nursing a head wound. Both of our hands were bloodied and raw from the punching, and sweat dripped down us like it was nothing. I was beginning to tire but I couldn't see a single way out. If something could only distract these vampires for a few minutes, enough time for Angel and her to get away, everything would work out. We just needed one little chance so we could make a break for it. Looking over at Angel I realized he was thinking the exact same thing.

Thinking fast, I kicked the feet out from under the vamp I was currently fighting. "Hey," I yelled, jumping up onto an old crate. "You really don't want to do this." It was a desperate attempt, that I knew. But if it worked, we'd live through tonight.

The three vamps that currently were holding and pummeling Angel stopped and laughed at me. "And why not?"

"You mean you don't recognize me?" I feigned shock and surprise.

"Buffy don't." Angel said dangerously.

"Wait, what?" The vamp closest to me asked dumbly. "Are we supposed to recognize you?"

"Well, I probably died long before you were sired." I just smiled broadly at all of them, trying to hold the nervous laughter out of my voice. Angel was going to kill me for this.

"Fine, we'll play along. Who are you?" Angel started struggling frantically trying to prevent me from saying anything else. But there was no way we were going to get out of this alive without taking some drastic measures.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer," I bowed dramatically as all of them just starred at me, not quite sure what they were supposed to do. It almost shocked me a little when I realized that after all this time, each and every one of them still knew my name, still remembered who I was.

Moments of silence passed before one of them just burst out laughing. He was beginning to laugh so hard that he had to hold onto his side. Soon all of his cronies followed his league. "You're a funny little bitch aren't you?" He said through his laughter. "You might actually scare us if we didn't know that the slayer's been dead for hundreds of years."

I wasn't discouraged yet. "You're right. She has been dead. Just because I talk like her, sound like her, fight like her," I laughed a little bit, "And have the exact same boyfriend who she was so desperately in love with for so many years, doesn't mean I am her. You know what?" I hopped off of the crate "You guys are right. Leon's not going to really care if you kill a look a like of one of the greatest and most powerful slayers in history. Okay," I put my hands up in a fighting stance. "Continue."

They all stood around looking at one another for some sort of hint of what they were supposed to do. Angel took that as his cue and immediately pulled out of their grasps and managed to stake two. Both of us were off and running before the dust even hit the ground. They were close on our tails. But at least now I knew that they couldn't kill us if they managed to get a hold of us. If they did, they'd just be signing their own death warrants.

"In here." Angel pulled me around a corner and led me into an abandoned warehouse. Before I could say anything he dragged me to the far end of the room and crouched down behind a couple of barrels. Two or three of the vamps came into the room, checking to see if we had stopped in here, but apparently they didn't sense or see us because they were gone within a minute.

Sitting silently, neither one of us dared to speak, I barley even dared to breath. When we were positive that the vamps were long gone Angel sat up and walked to the middle of the room, running a shaky hand through his hair.

"Okay, I'm trying really hard to understand this but… What the hell just happened back there? No, you know what? Don't answer that. God Buffy! Are you insane? I'm mean seriously, did you hit your head during the fight?"

"Angel…"

"Buffy, they're running back to Leon right now and telling him that there's another slayer wondering around out here! Not just another slayer either, a slayer who has gone down as one of the strongest forces to reckon with in history! Buffy, Leon's not going to ignore that! He's going to search for you 'till he finds you. And then he's just going to use you like he has all the rest of the slayers! God! How could you be so stupid?"

"Oh, I'm sorry! Here I was thinking that I just saved both of our asses! My mistake!" I got up and brushed off my jeans. I knew he would be upset with me for this one.

"It was a dumb move Buffy."

"It was the only move Angel." I looked at him defiantly. "We both know that if I hadn't had done what I'd done then we'd both be lying in that alley dead right now."

He leaned against the stone wall, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. "That doesn't make this any easier." He whispered.

I smiled suddenly. I had completely forgotten that he didn't know what the two of us had just done. "You forget though. We now have a secret weapon."

"It better be a damn good one seeing how it almost got us killed." I pulled the box out and held it out in front of me. "What?" He looked wryly at the ring box. "You going to propose to me now?"

"No, that's your job." I smiled letting that one sink in for him. "This is going to tip the scales in our favor." I flipped the box open showing him our prize.

"It's a piece of paper." He looked at me like I had gone insane.

"Yup."

"A piece of papers going to save our lives and the worlds?"

"Uh huh."

His face had gone from the previous expression of complete insanity to now looking at me like I'd grown a second or maybe even a third head. "Mind explaining this one to me?"

"If you're nice maybe I will." I looped my arm through his and led him out the door. Things were finally starting to look up. Now the only question was, could I pull all this off before Leon got near me.