Saturday, February 18^th, 2005:

“Fred Burkle, B-U-R-K-L-E” Buffy repeated slowly, trying to keep her temper under control as she stood at the security desk on the first floor of the Wolfram & Hart building in L.A.

The security guard shook his head as he looked at a computer screen. “Sorry, we don’t have any ‘Fred Burkle’ working here, Miss. Maybe you should come back on Monday when the regular receptionist is here …”

“No, I am not coming back on Monday. She works here … she works with Ang … errr, Gunn and Wesley! Try that – Wesley Wyndam-Pryce,” Buffy argued.

The security guard checked the computer again. “Yes, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce works here, but he’s not signed in today,” he informed her, looking up from the screen.

“Gunn … Charles Gunn,” Buffy requested.

“Not here today …”

“Lorne! Lorne … uhhhh … I don’t think he has a last name … L-O-R-N-E,” Buffy requested of the guard.

The guard sighed and typed it in. “Not here today …”

Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed. Who knew ‘Evil Inc.’ took weekends off?

“Buffy, isn’t Fred’s name something else … like Willamina or Frederica or something?” Dawn asked from behind her.

“Oh, God! That’s right! Winifred! Try that!” Buffy demanded of the guard, pointing a finger at the computer on his desk. “Winifred Burkle.”

The guard rolled his eyes and typed in the new name. “Ok, Winifred Burkle is signed in today. I’ll call her down,” the guard informed Buffy before picking up the phone and dialing Fred’s extension.

Buffy turned away from the guard and faced Dawn. “Good work!” she told her sister, giving her a light, ‘atta-girl’ punch in the arm.

“Owww!” Dawn moaned, rubbing her arm. “Remind me to not help you anymore…”

“Ms. Burkle will be right down …” the guard announced.

Buffy didn’t know if Fred actually knew her in this dimension … surely she’d heard of her, but she had no idea if they’d ever actually met, Dawn didn’t think so, but she wasn’t sure either, so Buffy chose her words carefully when Fred met them near the elevators, trying not to sound like she had no memory of anything in this world prior to the last month.

“Buffy! Wow! Angel talked so much about you, I feel like I know you!” Fred exclaimed, pulling Buffy into a hug. 

“I feel the same way …” Buffy replied, before stepping back and introducing Dawn.

“Ya’ll c’mon upstairs to my office. This is such a nice surprise!  I was trying to get caught up on some work, but I’m having the hardest time with this one consonant representation mathematical transfiguration formula, it really has me bumfuzzled! Every time I run it, the microns just implode in on themselves and it all turns into a big blob of blue goo.”

“I hate it when that happens,” Buffy sympathized, giving Dawn a look that Fred couldn’t see that said, ‘what the hell is she talking about?’

Dawn shrugged and scrunched up her nose, she had no idea either.

“So what brings ya’ll to the big, bad city? On holiday? Getting tired of that damp, English weather, come back for some California sunshine?” Fred asked with friendly smile as she led them from the elevators to her office.

“Well, not exactly,” Buffy hedged as Fred motioned to a couple of chairs in her office and Buffy and Dawn sat down as Fred took a seat behind her desk.

Buffy pulled the amulet out of her pocket and laid it on Fred’s desk.  “A messenger of the Powers told me to get this and deliver it to you … do you know what it is?” Buffy asked Fred.

Fred picked the amulet up and looked at it carefully. “It looks like the amulet that Angel …” Fred started, then stopped. Looking up at Buffy with wide eyes she continued, “This is the amulet that Angel wore to close the Hellmouth and avert the apocalypse, isn’t it?”

“Yeah and there’s some way to get him back out of it … he’s like trapped inside or something,” Buffy explained.

Fred’s eyes went wide. “Are you sure? You’re saying we can get Angel back?!”

Buffy nodded. “I don’t know how or what the … you know, mathematical transmografication thingy is, but maybe Wes can find it in one of his books …”

Fred jumped up and quickly moved around her desk to give Buffy another hug, then she hugged Dawn and then Buffy again. “This is … it’s unbelievable! It’s better than sweet-potato pie with marshmallows at Christmas! Oh my God … I have to call Wes!” Fred bubbled, turning her back on Buffy and Dawn and picking up the phone.

“Oh heavens, where are my manners!?” Fred asked rhetorically, rolling her eyes and shaking her head as she hung the phone back up and turned back to Buffy and Dawn.

“It’s ok – we have to go anyway – have some other people in town we need to see,” Buffy told her, waving her hands dismissively.

“Do you need me to show you back down …” Fred started to ask.

“No – I’m sure we can find it – twenty feet that way, get in the magical moving box, then push the button that says ‘1’, right?” Buffy asked, pointing towards the elevators.

“You’re just as smart as Angel said!” Fred gushed, a huge grin on her face. Fred could barely keep still long enough to pick the phone back up and dial Wesley’s cell phone. “Thank you!” she called after Buffy and Dawn as she waited for Wes to answer his cell phone.

“Our pleasure …” Buffy replied before stepping into the elevator and heading downstairs.

“Ok, Doyle!” Buffy exclaimed to the ceiling of the elevator after the doors closed. “I did my part, you better come through!”

**~**

After making a little side trip to Tiffany’s on Rodeo Drive with Riley’s credit card, Buffy and Dawn waited in the garden of the Hyperion for Doyle. Buffy paced back and forth while Dawn sat next to the dry fountain and watched her until Dawn’s neck got stiff from turning back and forth.  Buffy had no idea how to convince the Oracles that they should set the world back on its axis … that it would be for the greater good. The world, as a whole, didn’t really look any different to her; outside of her own family and circle of friends, nothing noticeable seemed to have changed.  Buffy remembered a book she had read in school about someone who went back in time and changed the entire history of the world by accidentally stepping on a butterfly … apparently Spike’s victims hadn’t had any huge effect on history one way or the other, or at least none that she’d found yet. So, it would come down to why the world as a whole would be better with Spike in it … and that really was a very simple argument – wouldn’t the world be better off with one more Champion than without him?  That seemed like a good argument, the old ‘the more, the merrier’ argument – hard to dispute that.

For the tenth time in twenty minutes, Buffy asked Dawn what time it was.  “Maybe we should’ve bought a watch, too …” Dawn suggested as she read off the time from her cell phone.

“Where the hell is Doyle?” Buffy wondered aloud. “So help me God, Doyle, if you screw me I’ll hunt you down like a rabid dog …”

“Will ya now? And just what would a skinny lass like you be wanting to do with this ole dog?” Doyle inquired with a smirk as he walked up from behind Buffy.

“Doyle! Where the hell have you been!? It’s been hours since I delivered the amulet,” Buffy chastised him as she swung around to face him.

“Ah, well … the life of a messenger, busy like a bee, can’t always just drop everythin’ and stick my neck out like a chicken on the choppin’ block,” Doyle defended. “Are ya’ ready?”

“I was born ready – let’s go!” Buffy assured him.

“We’re off, then,” Doyle replied, turning and going into the hotel then down the stairs to get to the sewer entrance.

“Who knew? The Powers live in the sewers!” Dawn observed from behind Buffy.

Doyle stopped and turned around. “Not the Powers, a ghrá,” Doyle started, addressing Dawn.  “The Powers are on a different plane of existence. The Oracles are …”

“Just minions,” Buffy filled in sarcastically. “And, Doyle, don’t call her cute little Leprechaun names … her name is Dawn and you most definitely aren’t Spike.”

“Sorry … no disrespect intended,” Doyle replied sheepishly as he turned around and continued walking.

“It’s ok, Buffy … it just means…” Dawn started.

Buffy turned around and cut her off. “I don’t care what it means – I don’t want him calling you pet names … that’s … that’s... It’s something Spike did and … I just … I don’t like it, not from him – he’s not Spike,” Buffy stammered, not sure how to explain to her that it hurt too much to have someone else calling her sister cute little names.

“Oh…” Dawn said softly and gave Buffy a sympathetic look.  Buffy blew out a long breath, and turned back around and continued following Doyle.

“And the Oracles are more like conduits than minions…” Doyle added when the girls caught up with him.

“Great – we’re going to see the aqueducts of the supernatural world …” Buffy muttered as the continued walking.

After a time, Doyle turned off into a smaller side tunnel and then opened a heavy metal door that revealed a fairly large room. There was another doorway on the other side of the room surrounded by white marble with words engraved in a language Buffy didn’t recognize above it.

“'The Gateway for Lost Souls',” Dawn translated, reading the inscription.

“Well, that sounds like exactly what I need …” Buffy muttered as Doyle began the ceremony to summon the higher beings.

“We beseech access to the Knowing Ones,” Doyle intoned as he ignited the herbs he’d mixed in a large, stone mortar in the center of the antechamber.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light and a portal opened within the marble archway.  “You’re in,” Doyle informed her. “Be quick, get to the point and don’t dilly-dally. They can be finicky and unpredictable,” he warned.

Buffy snorted a laugh and rolled her eyes. “My whole life is finicky and unpredictable,” she sighed before stepping through the gateway.

“Come before us, Warrior,” the male Oracle invited as Buffy stepped further into the room.

“What have you brought us?” the female asked as the two Oracles stopped a few feet from Buffy.

Buffy pulled a ruby and diamond, heart-shaped pendant on a gold chain that she’d bought at Tiffany’s out of her pocket. She would’ve liked to have had the very one that Spike had given her because she thought it would hold more meaning, but she didn’t have that one. This one wasn’t exactly the same as the one Spike had given her in their world, but it was as close as she could find given the time restraints and Riley's credit limit.

“I bring you William Weckerly’s heart and soul … and ask for it in return,” Buffy replied, holding the sparkling heart up towards the woman.

The female Oracle held her palm out and suddenly the necklace was snatched from Buffy’s hand and sailed through the air to the Oracle.  The gold skinned woman held it up and turned it over and over in her hand before looking back at Buffy.

“William’s heart, his soul, is not ours to give. It is not our place,” the woman told Buffy dryly, finally looking up from the bauble.

“The Powers have him, they can give him back – they can set the world back the way it was,” Buffy argued. “It would be for the greater good.”

“The greater good? Or the good of one Slayer … one of an endless army of Slayers?  This is a matter of love. It does not concern us,” the male Oracle informed her and the female nodded her agreement.

“Spike … William is a Champion, a Warrior!” Buffy continued her argument, throwing her hands away from her body for emphasis and moving closer to the pair. “How can the greater good be served by erasing him from history?  Do you have any idea the sacrifices he’s made? The demons he’s killed?! The humans he’s saved? The apocalypses he’s averted? You gave him the Shanshu in the other dimension – you must realize how important he is to the greater good!”

“What is done cannot be undone,” the male stated flatly.

“If it has happened, it was meant to be,” the female added before waving her hand dismissively at Buffy and sending her flying out of the portal and back into the room where Doyle and Dawn were waiting.

Buffy hit the wall on the opposite side of the antechamber hard and fell down onto the floor, but jumped up quickly and ran back towards the portal, but it had already closed. She screamed in frustration and pounded on the now solid wall where the portal had been, before turning back to Doyle. 

“You! You knew they wouldn’t help me! You just used me to get the amulet back! You were working for the PTB the whole time – you lied to me!” she accused, moving menacingly towards the messenger.

“No, no, no – you got it wrong, Slayer,” Doyle defended, holding his hands up in surrender.  “I told you they were finicky … you never know what they’ll do.”

“You know what? I’m tired of playing by everyone else’s rules! I think it’s time that I make a few rules of my own,” Buffy informed Doyle as she wrapped a hand around his throat and tightened down. “I’m going to be gone a little while, when I come back, I want the portal opened again. Am I making myself clear?”

Doyle nodded slightly against her grip and Buffy let him go. “Don’t even think of disappearing … ‘cos you won’t like me hunting you down like a dog – trust me,” Buffy threatened, her voice low and deadly calm.

“Dawn – stay here with our Irish friend, I’ll be back soon,” Buffy instructed her sister as she started out of the room and into the sewers.

“Where are you going?” Dawn called after her.

“To get another offering,” Buffy called back over her shoulder as she began running through the tunnels.

**~**

It was nearly an hour later when Buffy returned, out of breath from running most of the way.

“Ok – let’s go – open it up,” Buffy demanded of Doyle when she stepped back in the room, waving her arm at the portal.

“Where did you go?” Dawn asked, standing up from where she’d sat down on the floor.

“To get an offering they might have a real interest in,” Buffy supplied, pulling the amulet that held Angel’s essence out of her pocket.

“Hey!” Doyle exclaimed. “That’s not the deal – the deal was you give that to Fred and I get you in…”

“Yeah, well, here’s the new deal: you get me in there or I’ll smash this into a bunch of little shiny bits of glass. Think Angel’s spirit can survive that?” Buffy threatened.

Doyle stood and looked at her for several long moments. “You wouldn’t do that to Angel – you love him,” Doyle observed.

Buffy snorted a laugh. “You haven’t been following along – I love Spike. If I have to sacrifice Angel to get Spike back, that’s a no-brainer. Now, open the fucking portal!”

“Buffy, summoning them again so soon can get them testy. It’s really not a good idea to piss them off,” Doyle warned.

“Yeah? Well, you know what? It’s an even less good idea to piss me off. Open the portal!” Buffy demanded, moving closer to the marble doorway.

Doyle sighed and shook his head but mixed the herbs in the mortar, recited the summons, and lit the herbs, as he’d done before, and the portal opened again.

Buffy stepped through, holding tightly to the amulet so the Oracles couldn’t snatch it out of her hand.  Getting it back from Fred had been easier than she’d hoped – she simply told Fred the PTB had sent her back for the amulet, that they forgot to tell her she needed to perform a ceremony with it before it would be possible to release Angel.

“Can’t you do it here?” Fred had asked, not wanting to give the amulet back at first.

“No … it’s a super secret Slayer ceremony … I have to do it alone, in a cemetery at midnight under a crescent moon.  I’ll bring it back right after – you and Wes can do your research then be ready to mojo Angel out of it when I get done,” Buffy had assured her.

“A super-secret-Slayer-ceremony in a cemetery under a crescent moon?” Fred asked with a frown, handing the amulet to Buffy.

“Yep, that’s the SSSCCC ritual – check it out, I’m sure Wes knows about it,” Buffy assured her, taking the amulet back.

“Oh … Ok then. If you say so,” Fred agreed with a bit of disappointment.

“Don’t worry – you’ll have Angel back in no time,” Buffy assured her, heading back to the elevators with the amulet.

Buffy moved into the room and waited as the Oracles made their way down what looked like a never-ending hallway towards her.  She wondered if that hall was the ‘conduit’ to the Powers and what would happen if she went down it…

“Hi, remember me?” Buffy asked with a wide smile as the Oracles approached.

“I believe we were quite clear; what is done cannot be undone,” the female Oracle repeated.  “Our time is valuable, you are wasting it.”

“Yeah, I know it must be really hectic around here, what with the doing of nothing and all – and you’re probably missing Oprah. You know, they have things called DVRs now – you can record it and watch it later…” Buffy sympathized sarcastically.

“You show no respect,” the male Oracle informed her as he pulled his hand back, preparing to throw Buffy back out of the portal again.

Buffy quickly held the amulet up for them to see. “Recognize this?” she asked them.

The male Oracle changed his hand movement and tried to pull it from her grasp, but Buffy held tight and wouldn’t let it go.  “Uh-uh,” Buffy told them. “Not this time.  Here’s the deal … You put the world back the way it was and I don’t smash your precious prophecy boy here into a million little glittery bits,” Buffy threatened as she dropped the amulet on the floor, still holding the chain so they couldn’t pull it away, and pressed the heel of her boot down against it.

“Time’s a-wastin’,” Buffy informed them when they just stood and looked at her disbelieving, as if in shock.

“Count of, what? Five?" Buffy asked, cocking one brow at the amulet under her heel. “Five….four….three….” Buffy looked up at the Oracles, they were just staring at the amulet under her foot, trying to figure out if she would really do it.

“You do realize what comes after I get to 'one', right? Bye-bye-birdie.  Twoooo…..” Buffy pressed down harder on the amulet and could hear it starting to crack under her heel.

“Wait! Stop!” the female Oracle exclaimed, holding her hands up in surrender.

Buffy let up the pressure on the amulet, but kept it under her heel so they couldn’t pull it away, as she looked at them expectantly.

"We don’t have the authority to change the physical world,” the male Oracle told her.

“If it had been just a day, perhaps we could’ve bent the rules, simply absorbed that day … but too much time has passed, the trials are nearly complete, it’s beyond our scope,” the female added.

Buffy looked at them like they were crazy. “’Beyond your scope’?” she asked indignantly. “Beyond your scope!?” Buffy repeated, louder. “What am I dealing with, the door greeters?  Well, I want a refund – put a little sticker on me and let me in to see someone with some authority!”

“It will do you no good,” the female countered. “Once the trials have begun, they can’t be stopped.  William cannot be released without judgment …”

“Whose cockamamie rule is that!? Trials are stopped all the time!” Buffy argued.

“Human trials, perhaps, trials of the flesh,” the male agreed, “but not trials of the soul.”

“It is as it has always been,” the female added.

“Oh, one of those rules … the ‘we do it this way because that’s the way we’ve always done it’ rule,” Buffy said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “Well, there’s a fly in your logic ointment there somewhere … if Willow was here, she could tell you what it was. Oh! I forgot! Willow can’t tell you anything because she’s flown over the cuckoo's nest because Spike wasn’t there!

“Well, here’s a new rule for you: help me or you’re gonna be down another Champion, because amulet-Angel here, he’s going bye-bye,” Buffy threatened, pressing down harder on the amulet with her boot.

“Wait!” both Oracles exclaimed at once.

“Perhaps…perhaps you could speak with the tribunal,” the male Oracle suggested.

“Brother, you know that is forbidden – only the accused can speak in such matters,” the female argued.

“Perhaps there could be an exception. This is rather … exceptional,” the male pointed out.

The female looked back to Buffy. “Give us the amulet and we will see if we can get you an audience with the tribunal.”

“Nice try, but you and your little Leprechaun out there don't inspire a lot of trust, ” Buffy smiled ruefully. “You get me in to the ones that make the rules, and then I’ll give them the amulet.”

Buffy looked at her bare wrist as if checking the time on a watch. “Tick-tock … you have thirty minutes,” she informed them, tapping a finger on her skin.  Buffy pulled the amulet out from under her boot, making sure to hold to it tightly, then turned abruptly and walked back out of the portal. “That’s earth minutes!” she called over her shoulder before clearing the portal and entering the room where Doyle and Dawn were waiting.

“What happened?!” Dawn asked, when Buffy came right back out of the portal. "You're not flying across the room ... that must be a good sign!"

“They’re going to let me talk to the tribunal …” Buffy explained.

“The tribunal?!” Doyle exclaimed. “That’s huge! Mortals don’t get to talk to tribunals … well not live mortals.”

“Yeah, well, I’m exceptional,” Buffy countered as she stuffed the amulet down into the pocket of her jeans. “What time is it?” she asked, looking at Dawn. 

Dawn sighed and rolled her eyes before pulling her cell phone out of her pocket to check the time. “You really should’ve bought a watch…”

**~**