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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you all so much for giving this a shot. I will endeavor to write this faster than I've written anything over the past few years. Keep your fingers crossed!

Many thanks to Holly for betaing this for me.
Part Two

While wishing that he could have felt her as she whizzed through him and connected head first with the wall behind him, wishes were for fools, something he was very much not. It was a moot point anyway, as the Slayer sailed right through and into a dimensional hole that had not been there a moment ago. Being the First Great Evil, he should have sensed that such an escape hatch for the Slayer existed. However, he hadn’t, and instead of laughing at her collapsed and probably haemorrhaging form on the floor, he was left scratching his head in surprise.

Oh well, if she wasn’t here, she couldn’t stand in his way. Not that she’d had half a chance at stopping him, anyway. It was only a small niggling concern where she’d actually gone. Nothing to make him alter plans. He’d already achieved what he’d set out to do: have her kill Spike. And what an extra fine dust storm that had turned out to be. He’d learned his lesson with that other major screw up, Angelus. These vamps didn’t have the backbone to off themselves, even when they had a soul to make their heads all screwy. If he couldn’t make them do it themselves, who better to enrage and do the job for him than the Slayer, and the one who loved them both passionately.

It was awkward to not have orchestrated this disappearance and thus not know exactly the whereabouts of the Slayer, but he’d make do. It wouldn’t be too difficult to wreak havoc that even she couldn’t repair when she returned. With evil oozing past his fake Spike-skin, the First grinned with immeasurable malice and blinked out of the basement.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The usual, oblivious crowds on the streets of Sunnydale had thinned dramatically in the past weeks. Still relatively busy for a night on the Hellmouth, but totally not comparable to the booming nightlife Buffy now found herself deep within. This crowd was difficult to navigate through, though a piercing scream from a darkened alleyway nearby seemed to spook the hordes a little—just enough at least to finally be able to push her way through without knocking anyone on their ass.

Of course she was only in this new place—that was so much like her old place—a minute before she had to leap into action. Another stupid Sunnydalian at work, wandering down a dark and abandoned alley like vampires didn’t exist in their town, even though Buffy knew for a fact most of them were acutely aware of each and every tragedy resulting from living on the Hellmouth.

A flash of bleached hair stopped her in her tracks. She stood transfixed at the opening of the alleyway, experiencing a sudden ache in her heart as she watched Spike fight a particularly greasy-looking vamp in a too shiny leather jacket and muddy jeans. Fight, and win she amended as a cloud of dust replaced ‘leather and jeans’ vamp and Spike stood alone, dragging on his cigarette and squinting as he pushed the stake back into one of his duster’s deep pockets. His soulless swagger was firmly in place as he turned and started off in the opposite direction to where Buffy stood, and she was immediately struck with the need to grab him. To hold him tight and make sure he was real.

Buffy realised she must have made a sound, for Spike stopped, then slowly turned. His eyes showed momentary confusion and Buffy couldn’t hold back the impulse that had her holding her breath, waiting for the inevitable shoe to drop. His gaze narrowed and he took a step closer, tipping his head to the side as if the angle that he looked at her was imperative to getting an accurate identification.

Buffy always knew Spike had an expressive face, but now, she saw the exact second he recognised her. Her breath escaped her lungs in a rush of relief.

“I know you,” he said, voice curious. “Buffy, right? Haven’t seen you since Angelus got sucked into the big rock.” His eyes sparkled mischievously and Buffy sucked in another breath. She’d forgotten how animated he’d been. “Not that it stuck,” he added.

When Buffy had ever thought of other dimensions—like when she was forced to acknowledge that Glory could well end up opening a rift between them—she’d always imagined them as hell dimensions. It had never occurred to her that there could be another Sunnydale running along, that timelines could be skewed or different outcomes achieved. Really, it should have. Wasn’t that the business Anya was in? Changing realities. That wasn’t other dimensions, though, unless they contained only shrimp. This, was different. This was her world, but with obviously one vital difference. This world didn’t have a Buffy in it.

Almost too afraid of what she’d find out, Buffy tried to work out which words to use to find out what she was both too scared and yet dying to know.

“What year is this?”

Spike smirked and Buffy’s stomach sank.

“You got amnesia, Slayer? It’s 2003. Year of the Sheep, if I remember correctly, an’ I try to remember anything Chinese.”

Oblivious to Spike’s sneer and all-over-Buffy appraisal, she fell within herself and delved back to those dark days when she felt everything was gone from her and that being the Chosen One would award her nothing but pain.

So, Buffy disappeared after sending Angel to Hell. Ran away and never came back.

For one guilty moment, Buffy approved of her other dimensional self. She’d never admit to it out loud but sometimes she wondered if things might have been much better for everyone if she’d stayed in LA. Cleaner somehow. Faith wouldn’t have turned out a power-hungry rogue if she’d had a watcher to admire and instruct her the way a one and only Chosen person was meant to be admired and taught. Dawn may have been created and given to someone who was able to protect her better, and maybe, despite what the others all assured her, the mystical creation of her sister took something from Joyce that her body wasn’t able to deal with.

In Buffy’s world everything was cause and effect. Doubts suddenly flew through her mind and in one moment of clarity, Buffy knew that if she could discover what had happened to her mother in this dimension, she’d finally know the truth of her mother’s death.

“Cat got your tongue?”

Startled, Buffy looked back at the smirking Spike and realised that things could have been very different for him, too. He’d come back for a multitude of reasons, but above all Buffy believed he’d come back to kill her. He was the kind that couldn’t take failure; who wouldn’t have been able to let go of the bloodied image of a slaughtered slayer left bleeding at his feet.

Mouth dry, Buffy tried to form words. “Is…is Giles here?”

The vampire cocked his head to the side in a move so reminiscent of her Spike that tears suddenly formed a pressure in her throat. Fingers tingling to touch his face, Buffy stomped on the impulse and tried to concentrate on the fact that she wasn’t in her world anymore.

“The Watcher?” Spike studied her, wondering what was really going on and having enough instincts to know that his first guess would probably be wrong. “Rupert’s…around.”

“Wow. You’re completely tight-lipped, and so incredibly unlike you.” Buffy stood, hands on hips, glaring at the vampire she’d dusted in her world, and waited. She felt a twinge of regret for playing hardball with someone she should be running to embrace as she sputtered every apology she could think of, but this wasn’t her Spike. This Spike barely even knew her, let alone felt anything more than loathing for her.

And then he dipped his head and looked at her in that smouldering way he had. The one which younger Buffy had found slightly nauseating and current Buffy wished she could experience for the rest of her life.

“Don’t reveal all my secrets to strangers.”

Buffy waited for more, for a bit of elaboration, but after another minute she realised that was it, and suddenly ‘tight-lipped’ seemed a way too generous description for how unhelpful he was being.

“Not sure if you realise it or not, but the definition of stranger is someone you’ve never met. You’ve met me before, and hey, tried to kill me. Kind of makes this stranger thing more than a little far-fetched, wouldn’t you say?” She felt like crossing her arms and tapping her foot, but the image of Dawn doing exactly that flashed through her mind and Buffy decided to try and be a bit more mature. Though this Spike was irritating the crap out of her and being mature might be more struggle than she was worth.

Suddenly the reservation she’d observed seemed to dissolve and the bad boy stance along with it. Spike relaxed, thrust his hands into his jeans pockets and looked down at his shoes. Having come to some kind of a decision he looked back up and burned her with his gaze.

“Lot of people were hurt you never came back.” His voice was curiously devoid of condemnation and Buffy was surprised, knowing how she did the blame and guilt piled on her when she had come back in her own world.

“I’m not her, you know.” She didn’t want to be blamed for this Buffy’s choices. But knowing herself as she did, Buffy couldn’t help but be on her side, knowing that she’d have decided to do the best that she could for everyone involved. A chill raced down her spine. Was she dead in this world? Had she gone to the Hell dimension but never made it out? Had she never met Lily and realised she had to come back to Sunnydale, her mother and her friends?

There was no doubting Spike’s confusion, his face and body language as easy to read as a comic. He looked her up and down, then back up and down again, before finally sweeping her over one last time and fixing on her lips. He licked his own, rubbed his hand over his hair and then flexed his body in preparation of a fight that Buffy had no plans to introduce.

“Funny thing is, you look exactly like her.”

Funny thing was, he was right. There was no doubting Spike’s powers of observation at all.

“What’s even funnier,” Buffy confided, feeling testier than she really should, “is that I just arrived in this exciting and fascinating town from another dimension, and one where less than pleasant things are occurring. Oh, did I mention you were dead? Or that I killed you?” Buffy could never have imagined in her wildest dreams how much those words would hurt her. She had to remember this was a different Spike, an unsouled Spike if she could judge his demeanour accurately, and right now she needed answers and a direction to head to try and find her way home. “Oh, and the real humdinger? When I went to kill you again, I passed straight through you and instead of gaining a concussion from slamming into a brick wall, I find myself here.” She looked around her and grimaced. “Any chance this is Kansas?”

She should have felt repentant, but the look of pure horror on Spike’s face made her laugh. For the moment, she could ignore the truth, that she’d banished Spike from her world forever by turning him to dust. She could grieve later, when she didn’t have the vampire’s face right in front of her.

“Well,” Spike said, staring at her with a new respect. “Welcome to SunnyD. It isn’t much, but I guarantee you’ll feel at home.”





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