Rating: PG
Summary: When Buffy dies, Angel makes a wish...
Spoilers: Please don't ask me to name them all...
Disclaimer: I so TOTALLY wish I owned them...do you think I could kill him and claim to be his heir? At least that way the storyline wouldn't ubersuck!!!
Note: This is the first fic I ever wrote...so please be gentle...
Note 2: This was written before season 4 and Angel aired, so Doyle is still alive and Wesley never worked with Angel...

Prologue

Have you ever truly loved someone, and known the minute that they die?

Angel looked up from the picture he was staring at on his desk. *Oh, God,* he thought, *no.* Doyle was the one that had the visions, not him, but all of a sudden, he knew. A shiver ran down his spine. The feeling that he always carried with him, was gone.

A tear ran down his cheek and his eyes fell on the picture once again. The picture of the happy sixteen year old of years past. The beautiful blonde girl with green eyes that had once sparkled with love and joy.

He closed his eyes as more tears appeared. One word echoed through the building that was the Los Angeles based 'Angel Investigations'.

"Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!"

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Somehow, she had known that this would be her last patrol. That was why she had told her friends that she would go ahead. She didn't want them dying with her.

Ten minutes later, she was flat on her back with her own stake in her stomach, but before she went, she'd take that damn vamp with her.

He was dust.

The Scooby Gang arrived in time only to hear the last word she spoke, "Angel".

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Part One

She was there somewhere, he thought. He could feel her love surrounding him. As he stood over her grave, he realized that the last few years of her life, she should have spent with him.

He placed the white orchids he was clutching so tightly in his hand on her grave.

BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS
1981-2006
Beloved Daughter, Friend
Chosen One

Tears welled in his eyes as he knelt down and scratched a single message on the tombstone. Only a few people would understand it, just like the last line on the front:

Loved By An Angel

"Buffy, I wish I could go back and change everything that's happened to us..."

From out of nowhere came the word, "Done".

And the world fell away.

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The next thing Angel knew, he was enveloped in darkness.

"Where am I?" Angel whispered to himself.

"Nowhere really." Came the unexpected reply.

"Whistler." That explained everything, and nothing.

"You guys screwed up majorly." Whistler explained. "She wasn't supposed to die yet. She wasn't supposed to die alone."

"What do you mean? If this wasn't supposed to happen, why didn't you stop it? Why did you let her die?" Angel's question was voiced like a plea.

"You're going back, Angel. You have to fix things. Change everything." Whistler disappeared and Angel became aware of his new surroundings.

He was sitting on a desk. In the library, in the middle of a Scooby Gang meeting.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Whoa, extreme Deadboy from nowhere." Came Xander's surprised voice.

"Xander!" Buffy and Willow scolded.

*Buffy*

A very 'alive', Buffy.

"Oh, God, Buffy, you're alive!" he got off the desk and gathered her up in an extreme bear hug.

A *very* jealous growl came from the doorway.

"Get away from her!" It was himself, a younger Angel. Although he didn't look it. But he was in full vamp mode.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The whole gang looked at one vampire to the other in stunned disbelief.

Giles was the first to voice his...whatever it was he was feeling.

"Uh...Angel? Wh-what? Mmm. Would you mind explaining, please?"

Well, as much as he could.

His younger self just growled. "I don't know who you are, I just know that you're not me. Now, get away from her!"

"Well actually, I am you. In about...umm...what year is this anyway?" he asked.

It was Buffy who answered. "It's 1998, and the last major evil was when Spike and Drusilla captured Angel...I mean...umm...you?"

"So, you've met Kendra. Have you come across Ted yet?" He had to find out exactly where he was on the timeline.

"You mean 'Master Chef' Ted?" Came Xander's excited grin.

"I mean, Ted who tried to kill Buffy and her mother after Buffy put him out of commission. He's a very psychotic robot." He explained to the now sober group.

"I knew that guy was dirty." Buffy sounded very happy about the fact that Ted was evil.

Giles broke in, "Could you please finish your earlier explanations?"

"Right." Angel stared at his younger self and spoke. He knew that his next few words would make him trustworthy to the younger vampire.

"Whistler sent me." He continued before anyone else could interrupt. "He's a demon who originally directed me to the Hellmouth years ago to help the untrained Slayer. Buffy. He's one of the good guys." He took a deep breath and continued with his painful story.

"Years from now, I stand over Buffy's grave and wish that I could have changed things for us. The next thing I know, a voice behind me says 'done' and all of a sudden I'm enclosed in darkness and being given a lecture from Whistler."

"Buffy died? When?" Willow worried for her best friend.

"How do we know that you're telling the truth?" Ever the distrustful Xander.

His other self answered for him. "I trust him."

"Thanks. I have to warn you about all of the coming events. Whistler told me that we majorly screwed up between now and where I come from." He then spoke directly to Buffy, "You weren't supposed to die just then and you weren't supposed to go the way you did, alone...without me." His eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

Jenny Calender chose that moment to enter the room. "Uh..."

"Hello, Janna."

"What? How did you...?" Giles quickly explained things to her, then turned to Angel, "Why did you call her Janna?"

It hurt to see her. "She's Romany, sent here to keep an eye on me. Which reminds me...I need you to change the original curse to bind my soul. Willow could never figure out how and I don't want him to sleep with Buffy and then try to kill everyone. Plus, Hell did nothing for mine and Buffy's relationship."

Everyone was still reeling from the 'sleep with Buffy' part of the speech. Everyone except Buffy and Angel#1 looked more than shocked. Buffy looked devilish and Angel#1 was extremely pale.

"I try to kill everyone?"

"Let's just say that losing your soul is bad for everyone who is not Angelus. Jenny here gets killed, so does a girl named Teresa, just to name a few.

Giles retrieved some paper and a pen and sat down, to take notes. He indicated for Angel to continue.

"On Buffy's 17th birthday, Spike and Dru will resurrect the Judge. That's when Buffy and I...well...after escaping from them. They'll be holed up in the factory. Drusilla, at full strength and Spike in a wheelchair. You can defeat the Judge with a rocket launcher. Since I won't be losing my soul, I'm not sure how much it will change but I'll just go ahead anyway. Willow started to date Oz. Tell him to avoid getting bitten by his cousin, Jordy, he's a werewolf. Xander and Cordelia, who later crumbles under pressure from her friends and dumps him." He turned to Xander, "Don't you dare get Amy to cast a love spell unless you want he entire female population of Sunnydale after you, including Dru and Buffy's mother."

By this time, everyone had taken a seat and was listening avidly.

"Wait a minute! I go out with Cordelia?" Xander wore a horrified expression.

"Put it this way, where I come from, the two of you are married and have a two year old son. You still argue like cats and dogs, but you appear to enjoy it. Anyway, after that, Angelus killed Janna after she successfully translated the original curse. He also killed her uncle. Then came the time when Angelus put Buffy in hospital, she also had a severe case of the 'flu. In the hospital was a demon..."der Kinderstod', who was the one who killed Buffy's cousin, Celia, over fifteen years ago. Only those with an extreme temperature can see him. On the night of the Sadie Hawkins dance, a pair of ghosts will possess Buffy and your Angel in an effort to resolve their problems, in reversed roles so that Angel here gets a bullet in the gut and stops the other ghost from killing itself. After that we have swimmers on steroids who turned into fish monsters. Then Acathla..."

"Hey, Deadboy, by the look on your face, this was worse than the others. Uh, how?" Came Xander's worried query.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Part 2

Angel #2 became absorbed in his memories once again, "Angelus was having trouble awakening Acathla. He sent Dru to get Giles while he fought Buffy in the Graveyard, using the Master's distraction tactic. Dru killed Kendra and Xander had a broken arm and Willow was in a coma. Cordelia escaped but the police found Buffy over Kendra's body and...well, you know the Sunnydale police. Anyway, she ran, formed an alliance with Spike against Angelus. He really didn't like Dru and his Sire as a couple. Angelus opened the gate to Hell and during that time, Willow woke from her coma and retried the curse. It worked. Unfortunately, the doorway was already open and only my blood would close it. She sent me to Hell, then skipped town for a while."

Still deeply in thought, Angel#2 failed to see Buffy go to his other self and curl up in his lap as silent tears ran down her cheeks.

"She eventually came back. Her mother had been told about her calling, but Buffy still kept a lot bottled up. Then Faith came to town. She was the next Slayer. She was reckless and inside she resented Buffy and all that she had because Faith had nothing. Her Watcher had died and the new Watcher that was sent here turned out to be evil. Buffy briefly dated a guy named Scott who dumped her before Homecoming. Somehow, I returned from Hell, we still aren't sure how, but we suspected the First.

Around Christmas, it tried to drive me crazy by masquerading as various people that I had killed in the past. It wanted me to kill Buffy. Or kill myself when I couldn't do that. I tried. I waited outside for the sun to rise but Buffy came out after me. We were yelling at each other about the pros and cons of my death, what it would do to her, and it started to snow. Seconds before the sun shone down on my body, Sunnydale went completely dark with clouds. No sun, just snow. I guess I wasn't meant to die that day. Actually, Spike had returned briefly before that. Drusilla didn't want a coward. He captured Willow and Xander. He wanted Willow to do a love spell, she was becoming very good at witchcraft. During that time, Willow and Xander made a mistake, they shared a brief kiss. Oz and Cordy had just entered the room during that kiss, coming to rescue them. They were distraught by what they saw. As a result, Codelia fell and was impaled on a pole. Oz gave Willow another chance a few weeks later, but it took Cordy a year to forgive Xander."

During this, everyone looked at Willow and Xander, who regarded each other with shock. Willow, at the fact that she got to be with Xander and still give it up, and Xander at the fact that Cordelia could care that much for him.

Still lost in his memories, Angel#2 kept on speaking.

"After that came Hansel and Gretel, who tried to divide the town. Buffy's mother set up a group called 'Mother Opposed to the Occult', 'MOO', who tried to burn Buffy, Willow and Amy at the stake, for witchcraft. Then there was the test. Buffy passed, Giles didn't. He had become too much of a father figure to Buffy. He was replaced as Watcher by a sniveling coward who thought he knew everything. Not soon after, came the events leading up to the Ascension. The Mayor was to become pure demon. Faith joined his team. It was to occur on Graduation Day. Leading up to it was Faith killing a person. It was an accident, but it changed her. Later, Buffy was attacked by a demon. She was passed on an aspect of the demon. She could read minds. Soon after, it drove her crazy when she couldn't shut it off. We managed to find a cure. Around the time of the Prom, Mrs. Summers asked me to let Buffy have a normal life and I told Buffy that I was leaving because we could never really be together. I still ended up at the Prom with her. She was given an award there, Class Protector. Everyone had noticed what they wouldn't talk about. As the day of the Ascension approached, Faith hit me with a poison arrow. It was magical, the only cure was for me to drink the blood of a Slayer. Buffy went to kill Faith and feed her to me, but Faith tossed herself into a moving vehicle so that even though Buffy had stabbed her, she still would be unable to cure me. Except for one thing. Buffy made me drink from her. If I hadn't have done, I would have been dead in a matter of hours. Faith was found in a coma, the Mayor tried to kill Buffy while she was unconscious from blood loss and it was time to graduate. We found a way to kill the demon once it ascended. We had the help of the entire Graduating class. It was definitely a moment of triumph. I left for L.A right after. For the next seven years we exchanged letters, phone calls and we ran into each other from time to time. I started up an investigation business with another demon, Doyle, and Cordelia came to work for me. She and Xander eventually got back together and moved back to Sunnydale. Willow and Oz split up in college and Willow was engaged the last I heard."

The group watched on in silence as a stream of tears coursed down Angel#2's cheeks.

"In 2006, just one week before Buffy's 25th birthday, she was killed in the graveyard by a vampire who got the better of her. It killed her with her own stake! I knew the second that she died. Ever since the night we spent together, we had a bond. We could feel each other's presence in our lives. The sad thing was, we were going to get together for her birthday. We did that sometimes when we felt extremely alone and calls weren't enough."

He looked around the room at the people who had been listening to his story for the past two hours. He could tell that his story had saddened them. Maybe he shouldn't have told them everything at the one time.

"Angel? If things had been different, would you have left me?" Buffy asked meekly. I guess it's different when you find out that you are responsible even slightly for so much pain and sadness.

"Never!" he shouted. "That's part of the reason I'm here now. I don't want any of this to happen! I just want us to have a normal life. I don't want to try to turn Buffy into another Drusilla! I don't want to sit back and watch while Angelus tries to destroy everything that I love! I want everything to be the way it was supposed to be. I want Buffy to marry me in 2001, for us to adopt her cousin's three kids when their parents are killed in a train crash and for the two of us to die together after a demon cuts off our heads when Buffy is 107 years old because she was accidentally made immortal! And where the Hell did that come from?!?!"

"That would be what will happen now that they've been warned." Came the statement from that annoying immortal demon, Whistler.

The younger Angel also recognized the demon. "Whistler. Is what he says true?"

"Every word. Both he and his Buffy were devastated by what happened. They were meant to be together for a long time and were destined to die together after living, or not living as the case may be, very full lives, also together. Everything was screwed up when Angelus reappeared." He turned to the older Angel. "It's time for you to go back now, friend. You'll go back to a week before Buffy's 25th birthday. Everything will have changed. It should be the way it was should have been. And by then Buffy will have become immortal and you will have your soul permanently anchored to you. Have a good life."

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Epilogue

The next thing Angel knew, he was in his queen size bed in the mansion he had occupied years ago. As he got up, he saw that the mansion had been fully restored. All of his memories from this life flooded him. As he saw Buffy walking toward him, he gave silent thanks to whomever it was that let him go back. He had three children, an immortal wife. Even though he was still a creature of the night, he had a life. He may have a pulse, but he had everything else, he had all that he needed.

He met his wife half-way and embraced her for all he was worth. He, as Angel, may have had Buffy for several years, but to him, only hours before, she had been dead.

From there on, life was good...

There you go...but before you send any feedback, let me remind you that I HAD NO WRITING ABILITY back then ~ Alicia

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