Authors Note: No, I have not died. I'm still here. Finals had just been killing me though so I'm so sorry I couldn't write. I've come to learn to absolutely hate the last week of school. But hey, guess what? SCHOOLS OUT FOR SUMMER! In the words of one of my readers Legen, those hamsters are finally in over drive. 

As to Bre, thank you so much for the review. Don't worry about your friends calling you obsessed, I don't know how many times I've heard them say that when I'm going on and on about how "I can't believe Buffy said that to Angel" or" it's so sad that they're not together and if in the end they don't end up together I will personally hunt Joss Whedon down and make him write a reunion." I'm not obsessed though, I'm passionate. I like the sound of that one. I'm definitely going to have to tell them that I'm just passionate the next time they tell me I'm obsessed.  Thanks so much for the review! Now what are you guys doing reading this, get going with the story.

Chapter Fourteen

Breath of Past

"Mind running that by us again luv?" Spike leaned forward a little in his chair looking at me pensively while Angel just sat with his arms crossed, looking like he was yet again in deep thought.

"It's from Giles. Right before I left I gave him the exact location that I would be looking at when I got back, and then left it up to him to figure out what exactly we would need to defeat Leon."

Angel and Spike exchanged a look of confusion, disbelief clearly shinning through both their eyes.

"Stop it."

"We didn't say anything." Angel said defensively.

"Yeah but you're both thinking it. Look, I know this sounds strange and everything but trust me, this is going to help us. If it turns out that I am totally insane and that this little piece of paper is just… well, a little piece of paper, then fine. But at the moment what do we have to lose? We're coming down to the point where we either make a gutsy decision or sit back and wait for death to come knocking on the door.

"Buffy, you said so yourself, that dimension wasn't real. It doesn't exist. How the hell would Giles be able to send you something if the plane you were on is fake?"

"It's not fake."

"You said so yourself that it was…"

"I know what I said but I'm telling you now that that's not true."

"Then why'd you tell us it didn't exist in the first place?"

"Because it doesn't."

"I need a drink."

"I second you on that one mate." Angel and Spike both got up reaching for a bottle of whiskey.

"Look, you guys are going to have to trust me on this one. When I saw the Oracles they told me that they control all of the realms, even the non existent ones. So on some level that plane has to exist if it needs controlling over. I think that all they meant was that yes the realm doesn't exist, but in our reality only. I was in a completely different place. So far away in fact that anything I did there wasn't going to affect the future here. It wasn't the same realm of our life that we've already lived. It's just another realm, with another Buffy and Angel and unfortunately another Spike…"

"Hey…."

"…That's currently making all the same mistakes we already did. But now that part of that realm is a little different since I came there. The Oracles told me that nothing I did in that place was going to affect the future because it didn't exist. Angel, I'm telling you, it does exist, but not in our minds. They were trying to make it easier on me and not get me really confused and more irritable then I already was. It's so hard to think of lives out there other then our own. We don't tend to stop and think about what other people are doing when we're not around. We can't see what's going on outside of where we are. Subconsciously our brain just thinks that everything kind of stops moving when we're not around because we can't see, feel, or touch something that's thousands of miles away. Without even knowing it, humans think they're the center of the universe because they are. They're the center of their own universe. It's hard and headachy to wrap your brain around the fact that at this very moment billions of other things are going on that you can't see. Do you get what I'm saying?"

Angel was quiet for a moment going back through my words. "Yeah, I suppose. The place you were in could exist but in our minds it doesn't because that's already happened to us and it's hard to think of people living in the present in our past."

"Exactly."

"That was just a moving lesson there Buff but the only problem is you just said the Oracles told you that nothing you do there could affect our future. So how the hell would that piece of paper get into our possession?"

I sat there for a second. "Well, think about it. Every single decision you make, no matter how small, changes your future some how. Now what if there was a reality following each different path you could take. When you get up in the morning you could sit and wonder whether you want to wear a blue shirt or a yellow shirt. So you're reality splits off into two, one following the path of wearing a blue shirt and the other a yellow one. There are so many different realities out there, more then anyone would be able to count, all branching off of something as simple as what do I want for lunch. Me telling you this right now already made a different reality. There's one that's coexisting at the moment of me sitting here and being quiet, not even thinking about telling you this for fear that you guys might think I'm crazy."

"I came to that conclusion a long time ago."

"Shut up Spike," Angel took a big gulp of his whiskey, grimacing as it went down.

"I know this is hard to wrap your head around. I'm not even sure if I just understood what I was saying. But it makes sense to some degree and it's got us a boost up in this war."

"Again though I ask, how the hell could this thing come into our possession if that reality can't affect us?"

I was so hoping they would forget about that one and move on. "I told Giles something and he followed through with it."

"What'd you tell him?"

I looked at the two of them, disbelief slowly starting to ebb away from their faces. "I told Giles about Glory. Told him that I was going to die and that he wasn't allowed to stop it. He needed to just use it to his advantage instead."

"What?"

"He used the portal that opened up Angel. He must have said what I told him too because somehow I've gotten this piece of paper from him. The only thing he had to do to get it to us was jump in that portal once and hide it in the spot that I wanted him too."

"And then what? He just stayed there? Let you die? Somehow I doubt that happened."

"I don't know what he did. I wasn't there. But somehow he got that message here for us and that's all I care about. We may be able to do something now so I'm not really about to question the how's and why's of this whole subject. Giles knows what's right and somehow I don't' think that something as little as me dying is going to stop him from saving the future."

Spike shook his head. "You weren't there when you died Buffy." My head automatically snapped to him. I rarely had ever heard him use my name in that way. It was… normal. It wasn't full of hate or some sort of lust; it was my name, not slayer, not love or pet, but Buffy. That's what caught my attention. Maybe Angel was right to start trusting Spike. Maybe he really had changed. "Giles was beside himself with grief. You were a daughter to him. He would have given his life for you. Somehow I don't' think he just sat back and let you die."

"So you're telling me he somehow managed to breach realities in order to help me and save the life of his Buffy all at the same time? Giles isn't stupid Spike. He wouldn't let feelings get in the way when it comes to something like the fate of the future."

Spike ignored me and continued. "I can tell you right now that there is a reality out there somewhere where you never died, there's one where Giles wasn't about to help us now, and there's one where you came back from the dead more screwed up then you already were. I know this because I was there during the aftermath of that whole damn thing. I saw your friends try to be strong, I saw Red go down the path of dark magic to try and bring you back, I saw your sister nearly destroy herself with the grief of losing her mom and her sister in the same exact year, and I saw Giles close in on himself more and more until he was nothing more then a shell." Spike stood lighting a cigarette. "Say all you want, but in all the realities that contain a Giles knowing how and when you were going to die, the results were all the same. He either saved you, or died for you. There's no in-between. That paper may have gotten to us, but don't you ever start thinking that he chose saving the future over saving you." Spike looked at my shocked face for a minute, taking time to take a drag on his cigarette, and then walked out of the room.

I just stared at his retreating form not really sure what I was supposed to say to that. Never before have I had more respect for Spike. True emotion had just shone through and that was something that I had rarely seen except for when it involved himself.

"He's right you know." Angel said from his position on the other side of the room. "When you died everyone took it hard, especially Giles. He was probably the only sane one of us though. He kept all of us together and stopped us when we tried to bring you back."

"You tried to bring me back?"

"Plenty of times. Willow even went as far as to resorting to black magic. Tara left her for a while after that and the only one to pull her out of it was Giles." Angel shook his head. "I still don't get how he suffered the most out of all of us and yet he was the only one that kept things together, got us back to some semblance of our own lives as he let his go to hell."

"It was that bad?"

Angel shrugged. "Yeah."

I got up and walked over to him, sitting myself down on his lap. Part of me wanted to cry at the thought of what people went through when I died, what people were still going through because I died. But then at the same time I was almost happy about it. I knew my friends loved me, and I knew Giles loved me like I was his own, but to know that we were so intertwined like that, to know that when I died they didn't just grieve and move on was somewhat comforting. I hated to admit that I actually felt happy about my friends grieving, but in a way it was almost like a compliment. Then at the same time I found myself wishing that they hadn't cared about me so much. That none of us had become close, because all it seemed to do was ruin parts of their lives. For the first time I found myself wishing for Spikes words to be true.

"Do you think he's right?"

"Who?"

"Spike. He said that there's a reality out there were I'm alive, where I lived past Glory or got brought back."

"I think he is." He shifted me a little in his arms so he could see my face. "Somewhere out there there is one perfect reality. One were I'm not cursed, you and I are together with dozens of little kids, and everyone lived happily ever after."

I laughed. "A fairy tale huh?"

"Buffy, if what you say is true. If every single decision we make makes a different reality, then I know that there is one out there where we're alive and together."

"One where you're human?" He tensed a little bit, that day coming up in his mind once more and the hateful decision he had to make. The decision where they had specifically told him that if he didn't make then I would die, and what do they do? Kill me a little over a year later.

"One where I'm human." He sighed.

Silence took over the room leaving us to our own thoughts. Thinking of a time that would be so much simpler then the one that we were living now. But those were the cards we were dealt and you can't change your luck around no matter how hard you try.

"One day we'll have that. We have to. After everything we've done, how could we not?" I tried to be optimistic, but the truth was, we didn't even know if we were going to make it past this night alive. Leon and his men could come storming in here any minute and that would be it.

"So what's the piece of paper got to do with giving us that life then?" He asked.

"Honestly? I have no idea." I replied sheepishly. "I just kind of wrote a note to Giles explaining what was going to happen and that we needed the help. Before I left I just whispered in his ear to go look in his mailbox when he got home. I was just lucky that he took me seriously and followed through with it all."

"What does it say?"

I reached over for it and let in unravel. It was fairly small and yellowed, making the words a little difficult to make out but still legible all the same. It was Willows loopy hand writing that met my eyes, making me smile at the thought that it wasn't just Giles who was helping me at the moment, it was the whole gang.

"It looks like a spell of some sort."

Angel nodded. "It's Gaelic."

"Can you read it?"

"Maybe. I haven't really spoken that since I was practically in grammar school." He leaned forward a little bit and stared at the paper, practically willing his child hood teachings to come back to him. "Breathe of wind cross this time. Let the…. Let the dust come forth and show the path. Give the strength of many to one. Breath of wind your time is past."

We both sat there holding our breaths, neither one of us moving in case we missed what was happening. But nothing came. Not a single sound rang out after Angels words had stopped. "Maybe I read it wrong." He said hopefully.

I got up from my position on his lap. "No, I think you read it just right."

"What are you…?" And then he saw exactly what I had seen. Standing before me was the answer to our prayers.