Little Bitty Puzzle PiecesBy PJzallday
Reason
"Time travel." Buffy's brow furrowed. "Can we even do that?"
"There's been a lot of debate among physicists about the possibility of time travel," Fred interjected. "There are those who support the idea of traveling back in time. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, Thorne's algorithm, the Casimir effect, Gott's Cosmic Strings, Kerr holes…" she rattled off with a nod for each point, "they all suggest it's possible to time travel even into the past, given certain specific circumstances. Of course, most of those are pretty unlikely or require an awful lot of energy." She frowned. "And even if those circumstances could be achieved, no one's been able to prove that it's possible to go back to a specific moment in time — and we'd want to be pretty specific to be sure we could fix whatever it was that caused the current situation so those variables would have to be considered." Bobbing her head to the other side as if she were speaking to someone else, Fred continued, "And Hawking has completely discounted the idea of travelling into the past based simply on the fact that the Earth hasn't been over-run with 'tourists' from the future. But then, if you were a visitor from the future, would you really want people to know?" she asked, more of herself than anyone else in the room. "I mean, you could 'invent' successful products from your own time in the past and make a fortune, provided you figure you could live in the time before a lot of other things were invented. But hey you could probably-" Fred noticed that all eyes were blankly staring at her. "I guess that's really not relevant…"
"Is it just me," asked Dawn, "or is the room spinning?"
"I thought it was the Sea Breeze," Buffy muttered while blinking deliberately, trying to refocus.
Hitting on another thought, Fred added, "Then there's the 'Many Worlds Interpretation' which suggests that at any specific point in time when a choice is made, all possible choices are made, creating multiple dimensions, so it could be difficult to ensure that we would be going back to the right point in the right timeline to correct this particular problem. It's kinda like a tree and we'd need to find the root cause of the problem in order to reverse the negative effects in all the timelines that branched from it."
"Ye-ah…" Buffy asked, "So Fred, was that a 'yes' or a 'no'? I can't deal the vague right now."
"Um… from the perspective of physics, time travel is still only theoretical and I'm not sure we can do it," she stammered, "at least not now. On the other hand, we could start working on the theories, narrow the variables and attempt to align the factors, and since we'd be going back in time, it wouldn't matter if this took us years to do since we'd be going back anyway — unless of course we all got killed before we got the chance to-" She stopped herself. "I'm doing it again, aren't I?"
Rolling her eyes, Buffy turned to the rest of the group. "So what about mystical alternatives? Will? Wes? What've you got?"
"I think it's possible… We did open that portal back to the Shadow Men," the witch replied optimistically before considering, "but for that we had the shadow caster. It gave a focal point- an invitation to their time and space."
"Yes... An object present at the time to which we'd need to return would be helpful," Wesley hypothesized.
"We could use the scythe," suggested Dawn. "Not much else came out of the Hellmouth."
"That may pose a problem," Wesley indicated. "Being a mystical object from the distant past, we might be drawn back to the time it was created rather than the time it was used."
Raising a pointed finger, Willow countered, "But its mystical energies have been released."
"Which is brings us back to this problem," grumbled Buffy.
"I think we're getting ahead of ourselves," Wesley cautioned. "As great a potential threat as the Turok Han posed to humanity and as important as Spike's sacrifice was to saving the world from being overrun, I was rather under the impression that the real problem- the real enemy in that situation was the First."
The Sunnydale survivors nodded.
"Well, I should think then, that we would need to examine points before the First began to… manipulate the Slayer situation." Leaning back contemplatively in his chair, he asked, "Do we know what caused this rise of the First?"
***
Based on what she'd learned from Anya and Giles' visit to the oracle, Beljox's Eye, Willow explained the circumstances surrounding the rise of the First in its attempt to seize upon the imbalance created in the Slayer line.By the time she'd finished, everyone sat quiet and stoic until Buffy harrumphed dramatically. "OK, so I'll say what everyone else is thinking: I have to go back and stop Willow from doing the resurrection spell."
"But…" Dawn choked.
"Well, on the bright side," chirped Buffy flippantly, "if I go back to before you brought me back, you won't have to bring me back to cause the problem that I have to go back to fix because I'll already be there."
Everyone sat and stared, trying to figure what Buffy had just rattled off — except Fred, who had no trouble following the run-on sentence or the train of thought.
"Um… Buffy? Not to be all pessimistic or anything," said the young woman hesitantly, "but… um… back to physics. There's ah… a theory, the 'Grandmother Paradox' — it's actually one of the most basic theories illustrating the complexity of time travel."
"Uh huh."
"The idea is that if someone travelled back to meet his grandmother in a time before his mother was born — you know, like for one of those grade school 'When my grandma was my age'-type reports — and the traveller did something inadvertently — or intentionally for that matter — to cause the death of the grandmother, that person would cease to exist because the grandmother wouldn't have lived to give birth to his mother who wouldn't then give birth to him."
"Uh huh." Buffy looked sideways at Fred, not having the first clue what the woman was saying.
"So if you were to go back and prevent Willow from doing that spell, at the moment you convince her — or… um… stop her whatever other way you might have to," she noted grimly before swallowing hard, "you wouldn't exist anymore because Willow never brought you back from the dead to go back in time."
"But it worked for Michael J. Fox," Buffy grumbled.
"Well, not exactly, he started to fade as the likelihood of his parents meeting decreased," Fred corrected then she tossed back her shaking head, unimpressed. "But don't get me started on the scientific improbabilities of that movie — not to mention those sequels. I mean, really… Who's going to believe-"
"Fred? Back to the business at hand," Wesley encouraged, eliciting a blush from his colleague and a heavy frustrated sigh from the Slayer.
"You can't not bring Buffy back!" Frustrated, Dawn stamped her foot. "If it weren't for Buffy, there wouldn't have been a Slayer protecting the Hellmouth."
Faith slumped guiltily in her chair.
"We're still only discussing possibilities," said Fred in a calming tone.
"But right now, that's looking like the best option," Buffy pointed out, clearly resigned to her own demise and sobered by the acceptance. "Bringing me back caused the problem with the Slayer line and trying to fix it, I only made things worse by letting the scythe's power loose. Sure, it seemed like a good idea at the time but…"
"But didn't somebody say you died twice?" asked Gunn. "Isn't that how Faith got… called?"
"That's true," Willow acknowledged.
"So how do you know it's this second resurrection you gotta stop?"
"Buffy's first 'death' was by natural means which were also naturally — and quickly — reversed," explained Wesley. "Several years ago, she drowned. She stopped breathing and her heart must have stopped thus… aligning the mystical circumstances needed for a replacement Slayer to be called. She couldn't have actually been dead in a present-day medical or legal sense — she had to still have some brain function — otherwise CPR wouldn't have been successful in resuscitating her." The man stroked his jaw as he pondered aloud, "It's a wonder the Council never capitalized on this idea; as we now see, it is entirely possible to have multiple Slayers. If the Council had simply thought to simulate a Slayer's death-"
"Um Wes?" Faith waved. "Not likin' the sound of this. I may not be the sharpest knife in the block, but it sounds to me like you're sayin' the Council shouldda tried drowning me to get a replacement that would walk the straight-and-narrow and do what she's told."
"Only discussing possible courses of action," Wesley insisted, holding his hands up defensively.
"OK, so it was the magic thing not the CPR that caused this breakdown in the Slayer line?" Gunn reiterated.
Willow and Wesley nodded in agreement.
"And they gotta have a Slayer- Buffy, to protect the Hellmouth…"
"Right."
"So what?" Gunn shrugged. "We go back further, right? To before Buffy-"
"You have to let me die," Dawn blurted.
"Don't be ridiculous," scolded her sister. "Nobody said you have to die."
The girl scowled, gritting through her teeth, "But you said you do. I was the one that was supposed to die. I was the Key!"
Without a word, Spike stormed out of the room leaving the others bewildered.
Buffy wanted to follow, but couldn't — not with Dawn in such a state. "Nobody has to die. We can take a stronger force back. We won't let Glory get you; we can protect you. Everything will be just fine."
"Um… Buffy?" Fred, who'd crossed to the now open office door following Spike, interrupted. "Remember the 'Grandmother Paradox'." With an awkward smile and nod, she left the room.
"OK, what was that again?" the Slayer asked.
"Well, in this case, I think Fred's point is that if we took a large group back to protect Dawn," Willow explained, "we might mess up other stuff that's key to the success of this plan."
"I should think that the larger the group, the greater the likelihood for a negative impact on the past," Wesley theorized.
"So we could end up makin' things worse?" asked Gunn.
"The less we need to do in going back, the better," Willow stated, "so the group should be pretty small — assuming we could even get back to the right time."
"We're going around in circles," Buffy complained, raking her fingers across her scalp, tangling them in her hair.
"I think, perhaps, this would be a good time to break for the night," suggested Wesley. "It's been a long and emotional day. We should all try to get some sleep. Perhaps things will seem clearer in the morning."
***
"Spike?" Fred called down the corridor to where he sat on the floor outside his room.Glancing briefly in the direction of the voice, he turned away to wipe his eyes. "Yeah?" he said hoarsely. "What can I do for you, pet?"
She slowed her approach as she came down the hall. "I was kinda hoping I could do something for you."
"No. Just fine here, thanks."
"Um… not to push or anything, but are you OK?" she inquired sympathetically as she knelt beside him.
"Think I just need a good night's sleep. Been a long… few weeks." He was quiet for a time then he turned to her. "Do you think it'll work?" he asked. "Will you lot really be able to change the past?"
AUTHOR'S NOTES: some of the physics details were found at the "How Stuff Works" website. In addition to lots of episodes of ER, if found some Brain death stuff and Near drowning stuff on the internet.