Part Nine

I'm not sure why I brought the diaries with me. An impulse, I guess, or some need to hold on to that dimension, to any part of it. Anyway, I was sitting in my bedroom that morning, trying to think if there was anything I wanted to take with me, and my eye fell on the box with the diaries in it. I'd never put it back in the closet. I took the last few, the ones since the dimensions had split, and packed them up with some clothes I'd bought over the summer, just in case something had happened in this dimension and my clothes were gone, some money, a picture of me and Dawn and Angel at the fair that summer.

I sat in the big, empty cavern where moments ago I had stood surrounded by friends, and wondered what the diaries said, and if Angel was still standing right in that spot, and if Dawn was crying. And if I'd made a terrible, terrible mistake.

After I'd steadied myself and stopped crying I stood up and picked up my bag again, heading toward the most easily accessible tunnel out. This was the right thing to do, I knew it was…in a few minutes I would see Dawn again and Willow, Xander, Tara, Giles…and probably have the really strange experience of meeting myself, face to face. This was where I belonged, my world…I emerged to it, marveling that it looked exactly the same as the other. Such huge differences to me, and so little to the world…

I tried to walk sedately home, but halfway there I started to run, unable to help myself. I had to see for myself that was home, to walk into my room and find everything the way I had left it. No strange pictures. And an Angel box in the closet, not scattered around my room…It hurt a little, to acknowledge that, but it was better this way…I would find the other me, and tell her how to go back, and I would at least know they were happy. I would at least have that.

That was what I told myself on the way home, and I dismissed the horrified looks I got from random people as disapproval that I was running on a busy sidewalk. There were no cars in the driveway, and the house looked different somehow, though I couldn't place it. I tried not to think about, and unlocked the door with my key that still worked and walked into my home…

Only it wasn't my home. The living room was bare, empty of furniture. The carpet was new. Pictures were gone from the walls; everything was gone. The hall was empty too, and the kitchen. All the dishes, the silverware, the pots and pans were missing…My heart stopped. I ran up the stairs, and found the same there, of course. The rooms were completely empty. Dawn's room had been re-wallpapered, and the shower was fixed. I checked.

I didn't want to think about what it meant. Of course they'd moved out, sold the house…why wouldn't they? After all, a college student and her little sister didn't need a whole big house, and without Angel's support maybe they couldn't afford it…or maybe it had bad memories, they wanted to leave…I just had to find Dawn. Had to find Dawn. Where Dawn was, I would be, the other me…

I tripped down the stairs, refusing to consider any other possibilities. The emotional strain of leaving everyone was taking its toll on my state of mind just then, leaving me semi-incapable of thought and drained, physically and emotionally.

But I would find Dawn. Dawn was fine, she had to be fine…what could have happened to her?

A thousand possibilities, each worse than the last, presented themselves to me immediately. I ran.

*

The Magic Box looked different. It wasn't anything I could pick up; maybe the trim was a different color, or the writing…It frightened me, the feeling that this was not the place it had been when I left. If this was different, what else?

I opened the door and found it. A soft bell chimed my arrival, and the woman at the counter looked up. Not Anya. A strange woman, I'd never seen her before. Well, maybe Giles had needed more employees. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and walked up to the counter.

"Can I help you?" she asked kindly, her brow furrowing a little. "You look familiar, have you been in before?"

If I was still alive, the other me, she should recognize me…My stomach dropped, but I managed a smile.

"Do you know where I could find the owner?" The woman frowned.

"I am the owner, can I help you?" I blinked. Nothing could have happened to Giles…

"I mean, Rupert Giles. He…he used to own this place…"

"Oh, yes, I bought it from him a few weeks ago. Are you family?"

"I'm his niece," I lied.

"I wonder why he didn't tell you he sold it? Oh well, um, I believe I have his phone number around somewhere…"

"No, no, that's fine," I assured her. "I know where he lives." At least, I used to. I exchanged a few more unfelt pleasantries and then hurried away.

Giles' townhouse had no for sale sign outside I was happy to note (I had noticed, on the way out, that mine had…I'd been too excited on the way in to see it). I was too nervous to knock on the door and wait for an answer. The door was unlocked so I opened it and stepped inside, my throat too tight to call out. Was he there? Was he expecting me . . . the other me? Or was I . . . gone? Dead?

It took my eyes a moment to adjust, and then it took me another moment to recover my breath once they had. The furniture was the same at it had been, but the floor was covered with boxes and every personal touch, every thing that was *Giles's* was gone.

"Wh'is it?" a blurry British voice called and I took two steps forward, enough to see Giles sitting beside his couch, packing. He was holding an almost empty glass and an almost empty bottle of scotch sat beside him.

Giles was drunk. It was the middle of the afternoon, and Giles was drunk. And leaving. There may not be a sign but he was definitely moving . . . he'd sold his store, he was packing his things . . . Even my mind couldn't deny it anymore. Things were not as they should be.

She had to be dead. Me. I was dead.

"Giles," I called softly, working past the lump in my throat. "It's me. Buffy."

He seemed to be having trouble focusing, but he turned his head in my general direction and his face twisted unrecognizably. "No," he said, not exactly to me, "No more."

I took another step, my hands somehow twisting together. "Please, Giles, it's really me, I promise. See, I didn't die. There was another Buffy, from another dimension, she died but I'm all right, I'm here, see, I'm re—"

"Go away!" he shouted suddenly, cutting through my desperate explanation. I jumped at the harshness of his voice, and the pure horror of the situation. Giles didn't think I was real . . . "You're not her, you're not . . . leave me alone . . ."

The pain in his voice was horrific, sprawling as it was through loose sentences. Tears sprung to my eyes and I covered my mouth with one hand, unsure what to do. How could he not recognize me as real? He was drunk, that was how, I'd just have to talk to him when he was sober . . . he'd have to know then that I was alive, he'd be able to tell . . . But I wanted him to be able to tell then. I wanted him to look at me and say, "Buffy, thank god you're home. You did the right thing to come back. We need you. We love you." I wanted it to be *over*. I wanted to resume my life, some life. But Giles didn't believe it was me, and my house was gone, my family, everything was different.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm the sudden hysteria that was threatening to rise up in my throat. Not everything was different. Giles was just drunk. I'd seen him so before. Once he sobered up he'd figure out what had happened, he'd be himself again. He'd tell me where Dawn was. We could get the house back, I could get my stuff, life would start over where I'd left it. It would be all right. This was still my world. I'd done the right thing to come back.

"I can't leave Giles," I said firmly. "I'm not leaving until you look at me and admit that I'm real, I'm alive. I'm not a ghost, or a hallucination. I'm Buffy."

He did look at me then; he looked for a long time, his eyes boring into me, and then, helplessly, filling with tears which spilled down his face unrestrained. "Leave me alone," he whispered, begging, and I closed my eyes and told myself I just had to wait, it would be okay if I just made it through until he was sober again. "Please." I didn't move. His voice broke on the next request, and in a moment he was screaming, "Get the hell out! You're not real!"

When he threw his glass at me and shattered it against the wall behind me, I broke and fled. It wasn't going to be all right.

*

I went to the cemetary, because I had to know for sure. It was there, sure enough, right beside my mother's: my grave. Beneath my name the tombstone said "She Saved the World/A Lot." It would have made me laugh if it hadn't made me cry. I didn't really feel like someone that saved the world. Mostly I was scared, like a little girl that needed a parent to tell her what to do. Over the last three months, if I'd pictured going home it had always been nice, simple. I'd shown up. In the good imaginings another me had been there, had been wanting to get home. I gave her the spell, she returned to happiness and love and I settled back into my life with Dawn. In the not-quite-as-good ones, she'd been dead, but everything else had still been the same. Dawn had lived at home, or maybe with Giles. The Magic Box had still been Giles-owned. They had all been ecstatic to see me, and everyone had cried with joy and then everything had gone back to normal.

It was unrealistic, I'll grant you that. Stupid, even. If I'd thought about it, I would have known that things would have changed without me around, but I really tried not to. I focused so much on how my dimension had been different from the one I'd been in that I never stopped to consider how it *was* different. I think I was always afraid to.

Anyway, I was there at that point, so I needed to find Dawn, and Willow was the next logical place to look. I figured just showing up hadn't been working too well, so I'd call. Unfortunately, I didn't have a house and pay phones are impossible to find now. I was walking down the street looking for one when I passed the one wedding/formal wear shop in town. Anya and Xander were sitting inside on a big couch, pictures spread before them, talking happily. Their wedding. They were planning their wedding. No Buffy to wait for here.

Should I go in? How would they react? Would they believe it was me? I hovered outside, half hiding myself behind the corner of the window, watching them. There was an air about Xander that I'd never seen before; if I had to name it, I would say he looked older. But he also looked happy, at that moment. Content.

Tempting fate I tapped the window lightly and Xander looked up, immediately aware. Our eyes met for a long moment, and then, without expression, he looked away. My eyes closed and I turned away, pressing myself against the wall, hidden from the inside of the building.

"What is it?" I heard Anya ask through the glass.

Despite myself, I peeked back inside. It didn't matter, because Xander was carefully avoiding looking at my corner of the window. He gave a tiny shake of his head and said softly, "Nothing. I like those ones."

I turned and walked down the street, not quite straight, not quite sane, not quite real.

*

Willow's mother was never able to remember the name. It's not surprising she couldn't recognize my voice. "Hi," I said, "is Willow there?"

"I'm sorry, she's in Europe for the summer, who's this?"

Europe? I blinked and recovered myself quickly enough to say, "I go to UCS with her. I was just in town and I thought I'd give her a call . . . she, uh, didn't tell me she was travelling this summer."

"It was kind of spur-of-the-moment. She's always wanted to go and her father and I encouraged her to when she graduated, and again last summer, but she always said she was too busy and she had things to do her. Teenagers, you know, can't detach from their friends. Anyway, one of her good friends died around the end of school—um, Bunny or something, did you know her?"

"Buffy," I corrected, "we'd met. It's really sad . . ."

"The whole thing is so tragic. She'd just lost her mother and she was the only person taking care of her younger sister. I just feel so awful for that girl!" I stiffened at mention of Dawn and gripped the receiver harder, needing to say something but completely frozen. "Anyway, Willow was just devastated. She needed to get away, so we raised some money and sent her with that friend of hers, sweet girl, Tara something-or-other. I think they're somewhere in Italy now, but who knows."

"That's great," I managed. "Do you . . . do you by any chance know what happened to Buffy's little sister? I know Willow was really worried about her…"

"I think she went to live in LA with her father. Yes, yes I'm sure of it. Willow wanted to keep her here, but I think it's better this way. The girl belongs with her family."

"Of course," I echoed hollowly. "Well, thanks."

"Do you want me to tell Willow you called? She's sure to call sometime in the next week or two . . ."

"Oh, no, that's fine. I'll just see her when school starts. Thanks."

"Of course. Bye then!"

"Bye." I hung up the pay phone and slipped out of the booth, starting aimlessly down the street again. Dawn was living with Dad in LA. At least he'd shown up. Did he make it in time for the funeral? I wondered with a morbid bitterness. Well, that wasn't the important thing. The important thing was that he'd taken Dawn in when she needed it, and now I was back and I could go get her and take . . . and take better care of her.

To LA. I turned and started toward the bus station, glad I'd brought some money. I tried not to think what it meant that Willow had finally gotten to go to Europe, or that Xander was going ahead planning his wedding, or Giles was (presumably) going back to England finally. I tried not to think about how much they didn't need me. I tried but . . . but it was a long trip to LA, and it didn't really work.

Part Ten

It amazed me, in a way, that I could still remember my father's phone number. It had been a long time since I'd dialed it; longer since I'd expected an answer. I stood in an LA phone booth with my finger's crossed and prayed he hadn't moved. It rang three times and then someone picked the phone up. "Hello?" Dawn said, normal, even cheerful. I opened my mouth and then shut it again, my throat too dry and tight to force words past. What if she thought this was a prank phone call? What if she didn't believe it was me? How could I tell her what had happened?

"Hello?" Dawn repeated. "Eric, if that's you, I'm gonna kick your ass."

I closed my eyes and tried to find words. I'd been thinking about what to say since I left Sunnydale, but I still hadn't come up with anything appropriate. A voice, far away, asked Dawn who it was, and I recognized vaguely that it was my father. "Dunno," Dawn replied, and hung up the phone. The dial tone rang in my ears even after I hung up too.

The man waiting for the phone glared at me as I walked past, not really watching where I was going. LA. I could get lost there. For one insane moment I wanted to do so, to walk into a place with a Help Wanted sign and get a job, to find an apartment, to go buy new clothes and make new friends and start a new life, a whole new, different life. It was only a second, and I hated the thought after I had it. But I did have it. After all, I'd done so before, it wouldn't be new, or that difficult.

Instead I hailed a taxi and gave them my father's address. I didn't know what I was going to say, but if I showed up at the door I probably had a better chance of being believed than over the phone. Then again, there was both Giles and Xander showing me just how much no one wanted to believe I was alive. But I had to try, didn't I?

My father's name was still on the mailbox. I pressed the bell and hoped they'd let me in. There was no answer, not even a "who is it?" I pressed the bell again. A middle-aged woman in a suit with the collar loosened walked up, giving me a glance as she took out her key. Desperately, I pressed the bell again. She looked over and her gaze fixed on the buzzer I was pushing.

"They always go out Tuesday nights," she offered, "for dinner. They should be back around nine."

"Oh."

She seemed to take pity on me. "Are you a friend of Dawn's?" I heard the unspoken words . . . I seemed a little old for that.

"Her, um . . . her older sister. She died in May." The woman seemed to know this, nodding understanding.

"It sounds like such a tragedy, I'm sorry. I know it hit Hank hard."

It had? I tried to picture my father's reaction, and couldn't, at all. I nodded a little and said, "I was just going to drop off something of Buffy's I thought Dawn might like to have. But, I can send it in the mail . . ." I trailed off and turned away, and then back, as if I'd just thought of something else to say. "Do you know if Dawn's . . . how she's doing? I don't know Mr. Summers, but Buffy used to worry, after her mom died, about Dawn having to go live with him and I just . . . I just wanted to make sure she's okay. Happy, and all . . ."

The woman cocked her head, seeming to seriously consider my question. Her eyes, I noticed, were pale brown, almost golden, the most attractive feature in her tired face. "I think she's doing really well, considering," she said after a moment. "His older daughter's death really hit Hank hard. We've been friends over the years, and I've disaproved of a lot of things he's done, but lately . . . he's changed. For the better. He's determined not to let anything happen to Dawn, I know that much. He's cut down on his hours at work, he's stopped traveling, he's really trying to give her a good life. He's trying very hard, and I think . . . I think Dawn appreciates that. They seem very close, when I see them together. I think all the death was so hard on both of them, they had no choice but to . . . bond, I guess. Dawn's starting school next week, and she's made some friends here. I couldn't say for certain, but yes, I think Dawn's happy. As happy as possible, anyway."

As happy as possible. And how happy would she be if I walked back into her life, uprooted it again, took her away from the father she'd never really known before? How, I wondered, could I even ask myself such a thing? Of course she'd be happy to have me back. Of course I had to tell her.

But I wondered. As happy as possible. How was the other Dawn, in the other world, with only Angel left?

"Do you want to leave a message for them?" the woman was asking. I shook my head, startled, and then found myself more startled that I'd said no. What was I doing?

"Thanks, but I'll just send that thing . . ." I murmured, managing a smile for her. The sun had already long past set but darkness, real darkness was just beginning to take over the city. I stumbled into it, but she didn't wait to watch me go.

*

I love the white pages. Angel was the next person I thought of, but I knew that he'd moved out of his old apartment/office, and I didn't know where he'd moved to. Giles had the address. For one insane second I considered calling him up and asking for it. Instead I found another pay phone, opened the phone book to A and scrolled down. I didn't think I'd really find it, but there it was, neatly printed. Angel Investigations. How many could there really be in one city? I tore off a corner of the page and scrawled the address on it, then found another cab. I really needed to find a less expensive way to get around, I decided, and then wondered how much longer I'd be needing to do so.

Moving through LA's stop and go traffic gave me time to think, which was not necessarily a good thing. I was tired, and hurt for no reason, and yet for a million reasons. My friends and family had all moved on. Oh, I had no doubt they still mourned for me. It wasn't like I was accusing them of not caring. I knew they cared. But they still had lives. They were doing things — going to Europe, father-daughter bonding — that they would never have done if I was still alive. That is, if they knew I was still alive. I knew Dawn had always missed Dad, wanted him to be a bigger part of her life. And now he was. Willow had always, *always* wanted to travel, but we were best friends, and she refused to go without me. Even Xander and Anya…in the world I'd been in, they'd postponed planning their wedding. Even Giles, poor, hurt Giles was going to England, to the home I knew he'd been missing all these years.

Maybe they were all better off without me. But where was I without them? Could I go back to the other dimension? It didn't seem possible, it still felt…felt wrong. That wasn't my world. That wasn't the way things were supposed to be. Not my fate. Not my destiny. But was all this? The world I was in now, was this anymore mine?

Luckily, I arrived at Angel's office before I had to answer that question. It was, I was surprised to find, a hotel. I rechecked the address and found it correct, paid the driver, shouldered my bag and walked inside.

Cordelia was standing at the front desk of what looked to be an abandoned hotel that was no longer abandoned, but wasn't exactly a hotel either. She looked up hopefully when I entered, but when her gaze settled on me the huge smile left her face immediately. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows arched upward. I took a few unsteady steps inside.

"It's really me," I said, regaining my voice. "It's a long story, but I'm not . . . not a ghost, or a figment of your imagination or anything." Cordelia snorted, animation returning to her startled features.

"Of course not. Why would I imagine *you*?"

I smiled, despite myself, feeling some kind of inexpressible relief swelling up beneath my ribs.

She knew why I was there. "He's upstairs. Third door on the left. It took you long enough, I've been putting up with his brooding for months."

"Thanks," I whispered. She shrugged and I started for the stairs.

"Buffy," she called as I put my foot on the first step. I half turned back. "Welcome back to the living and all."

"Thanks," I repeated, with a smile this time. She almost returned it and I took the rest of the stairs quickly, ready to meet . . . whatever was waiting for me at the top. What would Angel say? Would he believe me? Would he cry? Rejoice? Would he throw a glass at my head or pretend I wasn't there?

So maybe I wasn't entirely ready.

The door was already open when I reached it, just a crack, but enough to let the sound of my footfalls through. Would he think I was Cordelia, come to check up on him? I spread one of my hands on the door, stared at my hand for a moment — *my* hand — and pushed.

He was hidden from me, in a large chair near the window, but I could feel his presence. He didn't move when I entered, at least not that I could see. "You can't fool me," he said quietly. "I know you're dead."

I flinched a little, and then made myself walk towards the chair. It was huge, I thought suddenly, big enough to hold two people normally. It enveloped Angel completely. "Then why can you hear my heartbeat?" I asked. "How can you feel my warmth?"

"The mind is a powerful thing," Angel replied. "I want to hear a heartbeat, so I do."

I had the sudden, intense urge to throw something. Would *no one* just believe me? Okay, Cordelia but . . . but no one that actually *cared*? I braced my hands on the back of the chair, and then walked around the sight of it, finally catching sight of him. The first thing I noticed was that his hair was messy, spiking up because of the lack of gel rather than the overuse of it. He was wearing a wife beater and black pants. No shoes. Guess he wasn't planning to go out . . . His eyes followed me as I moved into sight, and I had the distinct feeling he was pulling me into himself.

I put my bag down beside the wall and walked over to him. "Could you imagine this?" I asked, and touched his cheek lightly. His flesh was cold, and for the first time, it was a shock. I hated that. I tried not to let it show, and I have no idea if I succeeded. "I'm real Angel. Flesh and blood."

His expression did not change at all, and I turned away, finally, with a sigh and went to sit in the alcove of the window, facing him. "All right, I understand it's hard to believe. I probably wouldn't either. And God knows you're not the first person to think I'm a ghost or a hallucination or something. Giles thought so too, and Xander . . . If I explain, will you at least listen?"

"You're so beautiful," he murmured and I closed my eyes against the look in his. God damn him. A day before, he could have said that and I could have smiled at him and touched him and he would have been warm . . .

"Listen to me Angel. I never died. Not me. I don't know how much you know about what happened, but basically there was this portal, between all the dimensions. I jumped in, because my blood was needed to close it. And I came out, in pretty much the same shape as I went in. Only I came out in the wrong dimension. Do you understand what I'm saying? I came out in a world almost exactly like this one, but . . . but not. Not this world. And there was a Buffy in that dimension too, and she jumped into the portal too, but when she jumped in, she was *already* dying. So when she came out here, she was dead. *That's* the woman who was buried in Sunnydale. Not me. I never died."

His eyes were a bit sharper now, more focused on my face and my words than on merely my presence. But he still showed no sign of belief. No real change of expression. And I couldn't read him at all anymore. I'd gotten used to an Angel that smiled when he was happy, or looked troubled when he was . . . troubled.

What could I possibly say to make him believe? Maybe nothing. But maybe he would answer one of my questions, help *me* understand . . .

"Angel, the difference in the worlds . . . in the other place, the other dimension that I went to, was you. You were human there. Remember when I came to visit after Thanksgiving . . . what was it, the year before last? In that dimension, when that demon jumped in the window, right when I was about to leave, you didn't know how to kill it. We tracked it down, and you eventually fought it, and some of its blood mixed with yours . . . Angel, I didn't know, I'm so sorry, I wish I had, but that demon's blood is regenerative, it made you human. We got back together and eventually you moved to Sunnydale, and I — Angel?" I stopped, because he had moved finally, and bent his head to bury his face in his hands. It looked like he was crying.

I waited, with my heart in my throat, unsure of what to do, or say. Did he believe? Was he afraid to? Was he mourning my death, when I'd never really died? Or I had, but not *me* . . . her . . . me . . .

He looked up, after a moment, and then stood, taking an awkward step toward me. There were tear stains on his face, and I tried to recall if I'd ever seen him cry before. "You're alive," he said, and then I started crying too, because I was, and someone believed, someone finally believed, and I had, after all, come home.

In a moment I was folded into his arms, and I could not help but notice, as comforting as they were, that they were also cold, and no heart beat in his chest. Still, Angel knew me, and he believed me, and this was, I told myself, where I was meant to be. This was my Angel. My fate, to always find him cold, to be close but never close enough. This was the way it was meant to be.

His hands touched my hair and slid down my back, caressed my face like he was rememorizing every curve of me. "You're alive," he whispered, wonder clear in his voice.

"I'm alive," I assured him. "Told you."

He gave a strangled sort of laugh and drew me close again, kissing my forehead gently. The coolness of the kiss burned. After a moment he released me, and retreated backward a few steps. "You still don't know," he said softly, watching me.

"Know what?" I asked, confused. There was something else I should know? Was it about what had happened after I left? About Dawn? What?

"You came back here. Why?"

I blinked. That was not the question I expected. "B-because it seemed . . . better. I didn't belong there. And I didn't know if the other Buffy was dead, I thought if she wasn't, she had to be there, I had to be here . . ." I faltered, and shook my head suddenly. "Why did that make you believe me? Angel, how did you know to kill the mohra demon? What made this dimension different?"

"I did." I shook my head again, not understanding.

"What did you do?"

Angel looked away, pacing a few steps before turning back. "Buffy, I know you're telling the truth because . . . because it happened here. Everything you described with the mohra happened here too. The difference in the dimensions lays not in if I knew how to kill the mohra or not. It lays in what happens after you did. What happened the next day."

"What do you mean?" I asked quietly, a terrible feeling blossoming inside my stomach, like I was about to find out something I really, really didn't want to know. My voice gained an edge. "What happened?"

"I was hurt, weak . . . I tried to fight the mohra, but I couldn't. You came to save me and almost got killed too. It couldn't . . . it couldn't work. I went to the Oracles and asked what would happen if I stayed human. They said that you would die. So I asked them to take it back. Make me a vampire again. What they did was take back the last twenty four hours, as if they'd never happened. I'm the only person that remembers them. When the mohra came, the same way it had before, I knew how to kill it and I did so quickly, without shedding any blood. Without becoming human."

I sat down on the windowsill again, because I knew if I tried to stand I would fall over. My vision turned strange, and I felt, for a second, like throwing up. It was all a lie . . . Angel *had* been human in this world, and he'd given it up, and never told me, I never knew . . . How could he never have told me? And what did it mean, that this had happened? What did it change? My mind felt like it had been turned over and shaken, and now nothing belonged anywhere anymore. What did this *mean*?

I took a deep breath and reason began to return. It meant Angel had given up his life for mine. He had a chance to be human, and in the other dimension he had taken it, and in that dimension I had died (though not, as it turned out *in* that dimension . . .) In this world, he had given up his life, and I had kept mine. That was . . . that was all it meant, wasn't it? It didn't change the fact that this was my world and that was not . . . did it?

"You were right," I said softly, "to do that. I would have died if you hadn't . . ."

He nodded. "I couldn't let that happen," he said quietly, that fierce, sure tone in his voice.

"Did you ask me?" I inquired, my voice a little shaky. "Did you ask me what I thought?"

Reluctantly, he shook his head and I closed my eyes. More memories I did not. So it was not just in the other dimension I was missing something . . .

"Buffy, why did you come back?" Angel asked again, sitting down heavily in the huge chair. I turned my eyes to him and searched his face. He didn't want me to be there. He seemed . . . regretful that I'd come. That was more painful than Willow being in Europe, or finding Dawn happy with Dad. He didn't want me to be there.

"I thought I'd be missed," I said softly, a hint of accusation creeping into my voice. He gave me one of those 'are you insane' looks?

"Do you think I didn't miss you?" he demanded. "Think I didn't agonize over your loss every second of every day? Do you know how hard it has been to even keep *living* thinking you'd died?!" He subsided into his chair, but the pain in his eyes was real, immediate, terrible.

I didn't know. And even though I hated thinking of him hurt, it was nice to know he cared. "I'm sorry," I murmured. "It's just . . . you keep asking me why I came, like you wish I hadn't."

"I do."

My eyes flashed upward to his face. He was watching me intently, sadly. "Maybe that sounds terrible. But given the choice between having you here, never able to touch you, or be with you, and having you in a world where you're loved and taken care of, I would rather have you there. Happy."

"Oh." His meaning washed over me, sinking into my flesh and bones. "Oh."

He smiled a little, bittersweetly. "Too late now, I guess. When'd you get back? I'm surprised they let you out of their sight to come here."

"Well, they don't . . ." I paused and recollected my thoughts, the long, long day. "Giles was drunk. He thought I was a hallucination or something, and threw a glass at me. He's moving, did you know? Willow and Tara are in Europe. Xander saw me, but he pretended I wasn't there. Dawn and Dad were out to dinner, but their neighbor said they were . . . happy. So you see, no one here really needs me."

He must have heard the pain I was trying so hard not to feel or let in to my voice. He stood up again, and took my hands and pulled me back with him, settling me into his lap. "Buffy, we all need you. Desperately. But we've all, in our own ways, been doing our best to get on with our lives, because we knew that's what you'd want. Willow called me before she left, crying because she still felt guilty for leaving. Dawn comes over at least once a week and tells me how hard it is to go on without you, and how much she misses you. And then she tells me about all the good things that have happened to her that week, the things that make it possible to keep going. Wouldn't it be worse if everything was exactly the same? If three months had passed by and none of us had been changed by losing you?"

Damn him. He made too much sense. I leaned my head against his shoulder and hated that I didn't get the same satisfaction just from sitting in his arms as I once had. Now I expected them to be warm.

"No, I just wish . . ." I trailed off, remembering the night after Mom's funeral, when we'd sat in the graveyard and I'd confessed I had no idea what to do next. In the other dimension, what had we done? Had our conversation been the same? "I just wish I knew what to do. How to convince everyone that I'm really here and if I . . . if I should. There's a Dawn in the other dimension too, and a Willow and Giles and Xander. They haven't had time to get on with their lives yet. They're still waiting to see if they have to. Should I make them go through the same thing the ones here already have, the same things they're going through right now . . . But how can I go back? It's not my world. I believe in fate, and . . . and this dimension is my fate. Not that one."

"How do you know that?" he asked, and I wondered exactly how I did. "Buffy, I was *supposed* to turn human. My own meddling changed that, but that was the way it was meant to be . . . And even if it wasn't, why do you think you ended up in that dimension? There are an infinite number of places you could have ended up. Why that one? Maybe it's the Powers' way of . . . I don't know . . . making things right. So you can live and still find joy. I don't know what's right anymore than you. I do know that if you leave again I will miss you every day for the rest of my life . . . and I will be happy that you went, because I'll know you're better off where you are."

His words made sense, but I didn't know if I could follow their advice. There were still a million things that I didn't know, that I didn't remember. Could Angel — the other Angel — and I ever have a real, healthy relationship, knowing that I was missing a big chunk of it? I could still hear his voice . . . < I know you think it's better this way, and it probably is but . . . but I love you, just you. Whatever dimension you're from. Whatever your memories. You're still you and I . . . well, if you ever wanted to come back . . . >

"I don't know what to do," I whispered and felt Angel's arms close around me.

"It's okay," he assured me. "You don't have to know."

I closed my eyes and snuggled into him, wondering if I would ever stop missing Angel's humanity, or if I didn't need to start.

Go to Part 11