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Part Four

Spike, the Gentleman, lasted all of two seconds in the face of Buffy’s indecision. He took the risk and gave her a free shot at his back, then stomped to the watcher’s door and flung it open. Before Buffy could cry out a warning to Giles, he’d thumped his way over the threshold—one that he shouldn’t have been able to unless he had at some stage been invited into the sanctity within.

There was a squeal from inside and Buffy found her feet, taking flight through the door to pounce to the rescue. Only once she was inside did she realise that the girly scream couldn’t have been from the reserved man she’d known as Giles—nor could Xander have gotten away with quite that pitch—and she came face to face with Dawn, now wrapped in Spike’s arms and giggling madly.

“Did you hear him?” she was asking, and Spike shook with matching laughter.

“Sure did, Bit. After four or so years you’d think the wanker would learn to back off a tad.”

Giles sat at his table, an ancient tome spread out before him as he nursed a steaming cup of tea even while he eyed off the bottle of spirits he had beside the book.

“The pompous arse.” Giles was yet to look up from his study, sipping slowly at his tea. Buffy stood in confusion, watching the scene and wondering why this relaxed, friendly moment had never existed between these three people in her world. She didn’t want to be petty, but she was beginning to feel a little jealous.

“Rupert,” Spike said, barely glancing at the man as he pushed a still giggling Dawn toward the couch where her things were strewn in the usual Dawn-disorder. “Someone here to see you.”

Giles raised weary eyes, his reluctance to greet anyone obvious. As soon as he realised who she was, his face drained of colour.

“Buffy?”

She could throttle Spike for being so callous. It was going to hurt, admitting to this Giles that she wasn’t the Buffy for whom he’d spent five years searching. Still, it had to be done because as much as she knew this man, she also didn’t. Too much was different here and Buffy could already sense the line that stood between her experiences and the ones this group had travelled.

“Not your Buffy,” she hurried to explain, hand up to hold him back. She didn’t want to deprive him of an emotional reunion hug, one that she herself wasn’t prepared for, but it would feel wrong—for both of them Especially when she was still kind of annoyed that her Giles was yet to return and support her as a watcher was supposed to while this one had never left.

“Not my…then whose Buffy are you?” His voice was hard, like he’d suddenly discovered an evil impersonator in his home and he wouldn’t give an inch in the way of comfort.

“Wow.” She studied him quickly, saw the lines around eyes and mouth that seemed deeper than those owned by her Giles, and felt a clenching in her gut. Undoubtedly her friends had suffered when she’d died, leaving them to control the Hellmouth on their own, but at least they’d known where she was. Well, yeah, they should have known where she was. This Giles, in this reality, had no idea what had happened to her and had obviously lived in perpetual torment for the five years of her absence. She shouldn’t be so surprised, recalling what he’d been like when he’d discovered the prophecy stating that the Master was going to be the one to kill her. How distraught he’d been when he realised there was nothing he was able to do about it.

Other than chewing Willow out for being irresponsible with her magic, he’d not shown this level of emotion when Buffy had returned from the grave. Not even when she’d revealed she’d been torn out of Heaven. Instead of being transparent with his grief, he’d chosen to run. On second thought, Buffy was starting to appreciate this Giles a whole lot better. He might be hardened, but he tipped the balance with his daunting levels of compassion and drive to find her. Rescue her. He really didn’t know what fate this world’s Buffy had encountered, and his determination to find her no matter what was a major credit to him.

Everyone in the room stared at her, waiting, she supposed, for her to actually answer Giles’s question.

“Oh. Yeah. I’m Buffy,” she said, her voice peppier than usual and leaving her with a sickly feeling that she’d turned into the Buffybot. “But from another dimension. Nice to meet you.”

Even though she was used to dropping the odd bombshell here and there, it was strangely disconcerting to have all three of them staring at her as if she’d sprung another head. Not that she wasn’t already the worst doppelganger in Giles’s eyes to appear out of nowhere.

“Another dimension?” Giles asked, but Buffy got the feeling he wasn’t really expecting her to confirm what she’d already said. “How…fascinating.” But his voice was flat, and as soon as he had expelled the words he fell into his chair and caved into the lure of his scotch. Obviously her appearance was anything but fascinating.

No one spoke for at least a minute and Buffy started to feel antsy.

“Gee, and here was I thinking my sudden appearance from another dimension might actually receive a raised eyebrow at least.”

“You’re in Sunnydale…where you come from? You haven’t…been missing?” There was no mistaking the appeal behind those fractured sentences and Buffy took pity on her watcher. She knew this meeting could be anything but easy for him. Or joyful. She didn’t expect him to get as excited meeting her as he would if his own Slayer had walked through that door. Still, it was a bit of a letdown that no one was happy to see her. Even Dawn was yet to treat her as anything but a curiosity.

“I think coming from another dimension is kind of…cool,” said Dawn, and Buffy felt grateful.

“Yes, but you think the whelp’s bomb of a car is cool.” Spike ruffled the teenager’s hair and she squealed and whapped his shoulder. She turned, then, to pick up her things and pack them into a very worn backpack.

Giles hadn’t stopped staring at her, though, so Buffy smiled gently and nodded. “Yes. I mean, I died for a while, but that only took for a few months before Willow dragged me back. But mostly I’ve been in Sunnydale. Council doesn’t pay me to have vacations. Or, you know, pay me at all.” She beamed, and once again had the sensation she was channelling the now defunct pile of fake skin and decimated circuitry that had once made up the irritating bot Spike had had Warren build.

Not so long ago, talking of her return trip from Heaven made her stomach lurch with homesickness. And pain. The kind of pain where you felt your heart had been ripped out and your eyes were going to sting with tears for the rest of your life.

“I’m sorry, could you please say that again?” Giles stared at her, his eyes boring into her with shock.

“Which part?”

Dawn bounced forward, her eagerness to learn more about the enigma standing in front of her obvious. “I think he means the dead part. Were you in Hell? Is that why Willow brought you back? And whoa. Willow isn’t uber powerful witch person here, unless people aren’t telling me things. Which would so not be the first time.” She glared accusingly at first Spike, and then Giles.

“Not so much, no.” And here came the confession that always put people on edge. Not that Buffy had confided in that many. “As far as I know I was in Heaven. You know, warm, loved, et cetera, et cetera. Felt everyone was all safe and getting on with it and I’d earned my rest.”

Spike got over the shock first. “When did this happen? When did you die?”

Buffy turned to Dawn, took in how exactly the same she was to her Dawn and wondered what the story was here with the three of them. If Buffy herself didn’t exist in this world, then who had the monks left the responsibility of Dawn to? Whose little sister had she become and how did they manage to keep Glory from using her to her own ends?

“Did you meet Glory?”

“Hell bitch with the bad home perm? Yeah, she might have crossed our path.” Spike was again with the tight-lippyness and Buffy groaned. She really wasn’t up to doing all the work.

“Okay, long story short. Monks made me a little sister: Dawn. We shared the same blood, I dove off the tower in her place to close the rift. Splat. Heaven. Willow yadda yadda. No more Heaven and many, many more demons.”

Giles’s jaw dropped, then he quickly snapped his mouth shut and took up his glass of scotch, allowing more than a mouthful to slide down his throat.

Buffy looked at Dawn, who looked at her completely stunned. Finally it clicked. The monks had given her Dawn to protect, but in this world she hadn’t been around.

“Is Faith your sister in this world?” Buffy asked innocently.

Spike exploded. “Not bloody likely. Dawn is my daughter.”





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