Splicing help due to no power
Stop. Now!
Honestly, the follow up questions you've been asking lead me to believe you really don't understand how this works and I'm growing concerned that you could seriously hurt yourself!
I'm all for you learning to do this yourself, however, electricity can be deadly if you don't know what you're doing, and I don't want your family coming here after you're gone to blame us.
Wait until your buddy gets back from vacation and learn from him with hands on experience. Have him explain things to you, show you how to do it right, and how to avoid doing it wrong.
Waiting 2 weeks is far better than being dead or burning down your house. When he gets back, have him read this (and other answers) to your question, and show you how it works.
Seriously heed Harper's advice from a comment on your question:

Don't experiment. There are many combinations that you'll stumble upon, that will work (mission accomplished, button it up) but will kill you.


You've got 2 circuits in (A and B) and 3 outbound &quot;circuits&quot;* (1, 2, and 3).
Assuming that you want:

lines 1 and 2 to be on breaker A

put one wire nut each on all 3 White, all 3 Black and all 3 Ground wires from each of the 3 cables


line 3 will be on breaker B

Put one wire nut each on the 2 White, 2 Black and 2 Ground wires involved



If your desired connections are different, then rearrange them to match to suit your needs.
You should not need any pig-tail wires anywhere in this box. In no case will you need more than 3 wires nutted together, so, using the correct size nuts, there is no need for pig tails at all. It appears that there's a white pig tail from the nut at 12 o'clock connecting to the nut at 4 o'clock (though it may just be the angle causing confusion). If you can find ANY path between breaker A and breaker B you've done it wrong.
While you have the box open and things are fresh in your mind, I would strongly urge you to label the cables so you know which is which next time you open this up for repairs/modifications. A Sharpie applied to the white cable housing (Breaker A, Ceiling Lights, etc.) or a fancy label maker will do the trick.
* No, they're not really circuits - a circuit is based on the breaker and you only have 2 involved - but you're probably thinking of it as 3 &quot;circuits&quot;.