Author's Chapter Notes:
I'm glad the first chapter of this story was intriguing! I probably won't update again for a few days, at least, my creativity is currently totally focused on "Crystal". But I'd lovelovelove to get reviews and hear what you're all thinking! Fic title from a song by the Weepies. Chapter title from a song by Sick Puppies.
This time, when Buffy awoke, she was on something soft and comfortable, with a cool, wet cloth on her forehead. She sat up quickly and took in her surroundings.

“Okay, I’m in Giles’s office,” she mumbled to herself. “This is good. Just a dream. The weirdest dream ever.”

But as she looked around a bit more, she realized everything was all the same, but different. The office had just as many books and weapons as it usually did, but was far messier than Giles would ever let it be. Empty coffee mugs were scattered about, and various files and papers were sitting everywhere. She glanced down at herself, finding that dressed in the same clothes she’d been wearing when they’d been casting the re-ensouling spell. She touched her head, and found it free of any bumps that would signify a head injury, which would mean memory loss.

There was only one explanation.

“Stupid magic,” she moaned, trying to suppress her natural reaction to scream her head off in fear and frustration. She considered her options, and decided first and foremost, she needed to see if she could find Giles. He’d know what was going on.

She stood up on shaky legs and moved to leave the office, when Spike, or whoever he was, stepped through the door. Buffy jumped back in fright, and the man raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and said, “Buffy! I’m not going to hurt you, okay? Don’t…freak out.”

Her Slayer sense was telling her this man was not a vampire, despite looking exactly like Spike down to every last muscle and scar. She didn’t know what was going on, but decided if she was ever going to figure it out, she couldn’t just run away. And her gut told her that, whoever this was, he wasn’t her enemy.

She nodded. “Okay. No freaking out. For now.”

“Alright, good,” Spike—or not Spike---said, gesturing to the couch she’d been sleeping on. “Let’s sit down, yeah? Are you feeling better?”

“Fine. A little headache-y,” she admitted, sitting cautiously on the far end of the couch and watching the man who was not Spike with wary eyes.

“Drink your water,” he gestured to the bottle sitting next to her.

“Thanks,” she said quietly, opening it to take a gulp. They sat in silence for a moment, and she finally blurted out, “So who are you and what am I doing here?”

He looked surprised and worried. “You have no memory of who I am?”

“Well, I have a memory of who you are,” Buffy tried to explain. “But the you I remember can’t be you, because you’re not…the you I know. Does that make sense?”

“Not at all.”

Buffy sighed and tried to figure out what was going on, and how to explain it to this Spike shaped person. “Look, can you tell me your name, at least?”

“You don’t remember? Right, sorry. William Pratt. But you called me Spike earlier, which was strange, because I…well, I used to be known by that name when I was younger, and I don’t think I’ve ever told you that.”

Narrowing her eyes, Buffy said, “So I know you?”

William nodded.

“And you’re not…evil?”

He shook his head, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Okay. Thousand dollar question, for all your points. So are you now, or have you ever been, a vampire?”

William burst out laughing, but stopped as Buffy glared at him. He sobered up and looked carefully at the girl in front of him. Something mystical had clearly taken over her, because she was still Buffy, right down to her glare, just clearly without any memories. This was troubling. But she looked the same as he’d last seen her, for the most part, except she was obviously tired, and her green eyes were perhaps a touch older, more knowing. “I---uh—no, no, I haven’t. Ever been a vampire.”

“See, that’s weird!” Buffy exclaimed, jumping up from her seat. “Because for the past few months I’ve been fighting a vampire who looks exactly like you, no, IS you, named William the Bloody. Spike.”

“But…” William couldn’t seem to respond to that.

“So is this some weird alternate reality?” the blonde wondered, hands shaking. “Because, you’re not you, and Angel and Drusilla---“

“What do you mean alternate---” William tried to interrupt.

“I really need to find Giles, he’d be able to explain this---“

“RUPERT Giles?”

“You know Giles? Oh thank GOD, something is right in this crazy universe—“

“Buffy, you really need to—“

“---because obviously that spell went completely wonky---“

“I don’t understand what you---“

“---I am really freaking out and---“

“STOP!” William roared. Buffy slammed her mouth shut and stared at him in surprise. “I’m sorry, but please, bloody hell, you’re giving me a migraine and I still have no idea what is going on.”

“Look,” Buffy sighed. “I don’t either, all I know is I really, really need to talk to my Watcher.”

William stared at her. “Buffy…I’m your Watcher.” He said slowly, as if speaking to a small child.

She gawked at him. “You’re my what now?”

“Your Watcher,” he repeated. “You really don’t remember anything at all?”

“NO!” She pouted, throwing herself back down on the couch and crossing her arms angrily. “I don’t understand. This is just…how are you my Watcher? Where’s Giles?”

“By Giles you are referring to Rupert Giles?”

“Yes, Rupert Giles. British, stuffy, hair on top?” Buffy said. “Duh. Where is he?”

“We clearly are thinking of two different people, or creatures, really,” William said slowly. “The only time I’ve heard the name Rupert Giles is in reference to Ripper.” At Buffy’s blank look, he said, “The vampire?”

All the color drained out of Buffy’s face. “But…no,” she shook her head forcefully. “It must be someone else then, because Giles…Giles is not a vampire.” He couldn’t be. This was all just some sick dream brought on by exhaustion, and depression, and she’d wake up at any time. Yes. Any time now.

She shut her eyes tightly, and waited. When she opened them again and found everything to be the same, she let out a groan of frustration.

“Buffy,” William sighed, removing his glasses and rubbing his temples. “Why don’t we just try and figure this out logically. What is the last think you remember before…before you woke up on the library floor?”

She bit her lip. “We were casting a spell to give Angelus, or Angel, back his soul.”

“Angel didn’t have a soul?”

“He was a vampire with a soul, but then he lost it. He had a Gypsy curse.”

“Ah,” William nodded indulgently, coming to the conclusion that something must have given Buffy some very vivid and confused hallucinations. That, or she’d gone mad.

“I’m not crazy! Don’t look at me like I’m crazy,” Buffy yelled as if she could read his mind. “I’m telling you, this is some imaginary hell dimension, and I’d really like to go home, please.”

At the panicked tone in her voice, William reached out to brush her hair away from her face, “I’m sorry, pet. We’ll figure this out, yeah? I’ll help you.”

Buffy glanced up at him, and their eyes connected. There was a tenderness, a kindness within William’s blue depths, two things Buffy had never seen in the eyes of the vampire with this same face. And suddenly, she felt this warming where he touched her. She pulled away quickly, surprised at the immediate rush of affection she felt towards this stranger.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, dropping his hand as if her face had been on fire. “Okay, so you were casting a spell?”

“Yeah,” Buffy sighed. “And I got like, totally hypnotized by this stone we were using, a stone of…something, and then I was being jerked through some sort of abyss and it REALLY hurt, and woke up here, the same spot I’d been in before, but it was day. And well, everything’s weird.”

“You don’t remember what the stone was called?”

“It was red?”

“It would help if you could be a bit more specific.”

She concentrated. “Um…the stone of Filter? Finley?”

“Filenia?” William supplied.

“Yes! Filenia.”

He frowned, rose from his seat and headed out into the main part of the library without a word.

“Um, Spike?” Buffy ran after him. “Or William, whatever. Do you know what I’m talking about?” Hope began to creep into her heart and mingle with the fear.

He stood in the book cage and started looking through a stack of tomes. “I have a book here somewhere that speaks of the various uses for those stones, I just…ah, yes,” he pulled out a huge volume and carried it over to the desk. He was surprised that Buffy even knew the name of this kind of magical artifact to incorporate into her delusion.

Buffy watched him curiously. Aside from being identical in almost every way to the vampire she knew, he reminded her so much of Giles. The clothes, the bookish attitude, the glasses. Younger, cuter (did she just think this Spike like person was cute?), but definitely Giles-like. It was eerie, really. Were all Watchers exactly the same, regardless of the dimension they were in?

“Stones of Filenia,” he read. “Used in spells spoken of in the Black dialogues, primarily for inter dimensional transportation or, yes, re-ensoulment.”

“See? I’m not crazy,” Buffy insisted happily. “Willow must have screwed up the spell. So we just have to figure out how to undo it---”

“Willow?” His eyes widened.

“Yeah…is there a Willow in this world too?” Buffy asked eagerly.

“I…probably not the same Willow.”

“Red hair, really smart, aspiring witch?”

“And a vampire,” William added.

“Are you KIDDING me?” Buffy cried out, her heart falling again. “What kind of nightmare place is this? Next you’re going to tell me Xander’s a vampire too.”

“Xander?” Drusilla said weakly from behind her, having just entered the library. Buffy spun around to see the girl’s eyes filling up with tears. Buffy instinctively backed up, although again, without that immediate onslaught of terror, she could tell this girl wasn’t a vampire.

“Dru, it’s okay,” Angel put one arm around the girl’s shoulders and glared at Buffy. “Why would you bring him up, Buffy? What the hell wrong with you today?”

Buffy felt his words strike her like a knife, and had to avert her eyes from his too familiar face in order to keep herself together.

“Angel, stop,” William said firmly. “Something very strange is happening.”

“Gee, you think?” Buffy snapped. “I don’t know what is going on, but I want to go home!”

“Buffy, I don’t know what to tell you,” her Watcher said slowly. “But you ARE home.”


“So let me get this straight,” Angel said slowly. The group had finally calmed down enough to talk out this strange situation, and Buffy had just finished relaying the basics of what she knew was different between this world and her own thus far, and how she ended up here. When she’d gotten to the part of her story about who Angel was to her, she’d almost broke down crying, but managed to keep it together. He’d stared at her as if she’d turned into a frog or something, and it was embarrassing. “You think---“

“No, I know!” Buffy exclaimed, again averting her eyes so she didn’t have to directly look at this…boy who wasn’t her Angel. It just hurt too much.

“Okay, you KNOW,” he repeated condescendingly. “In this other whatever world, I was your vampire boyfriend who lost his soul, Drusilla was a bat-shit crazy vamp, William, or ‘Spike’ as you keep calling him, which by the way Pratt, dorky nickname, was her boyfriend, but you were still the Slayer.”

Buffy nodded.

“And all your friends from this other world are vampires in this one?” He was clearly mocking her.

Buffy chose to ignore it and sighed. “At least Giles and Willow are, apparently. Everything is upside down.”

Just then, Cordelia Chase entered the library, yelling, “I need a book on Marie Curie, pronto!”

“Cordelia!” Buffy shrieked in happiness, running to throw her arms around the girl. At least SOMEONE was where they were supposed to be.

“Um, get off of me, freak,” Cordelia said, gingerly removing Buffy’s arms from around her neck with a look of disgust on her face. “In what world do we hug?”

“Apparently not this one either,” Buffy muttered, stalking back to her seat. “Yeah, she hadn’t changed at all,” she said to a wide-eyed Drusilla.

William directed Cordelia to the appropriate area of the library, and signaled to the three students to cease conversation while she was present. Buffy sighed and dropped her head on the table, exhaustion suddenly hitting her body like a ton of bricks.

How could she fix this? How did this even happen? How long was it going to last? What kind of mistake did Giles and Willow make to create this strange hallucination—because it had to be a hallucination, right, or was she really in another world, or she was dreaming a very vivid, sense-filled dream—and why would Angel and Drusilla be alive anyway, even if they hadn’t been vamped they’d be dead hundreds of years ago—and WHY was William Pratt, Spike, her Watcher, he should be dead too! And Cordelia was still Cordelia and she was still, her, the Slayer, was anything else the same? It was all too confusing to think about.

“My head hurts,” she moaned pitifully.

When Cordelia finally left, Drusilla spoke for the first time since Buffy had begun telling her story. “What about Xander?” she asked tentatively.

“Xander’s my friend too,” Buffy said. “Dating Cordelia, as totally weird as that sounds. Why, where is he, here? God, that’s confusing.”

Drusilla stayed silent, and William cut in, “The story you presented in regards to the, well, other Angel, is rather analogous to the situation we are currently dealing with in regards to Xander.”

“I was dating Xander?” Buffy squealed in disgust.

“No,” Drusilla said softly. “I was.”

“Oh. OH!” Buffy understood. “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely, as she suddenly realized the full ramifications of that. If everything in this weird universe was comparable to something in her world, she knew exactly how Drusilla was feeling.

“Yeah,” Drusilla nodded sadly. Buffy felt an uncomfortable sympathy for this girl, a girl who wore the face of a vampire she hated. It was unsettling.

Angel patted Dru’s shoulder comfortingly and turned to the librarian. “So, Pratt, how do we fix Buffy’s crazy?”

“I’m not crazy!” Buffy insisted. “What we need to research is how to get me back home.”

“Uh, Buff,” Angel said. “No offense, but I’d say you crossed the line into crazy a long time ago. You may think you’ve been transplanted from some other universe, but you’ve been here the whole time.”

“You have, Buffy,” William insisted. “You were perfectly normal this morning, then all of a sudden you collapsed on the floor and woke up thinking you were, well, someone else, in a way.”

“Does that mean maybe our Buffy is now back where this Buffy came from?” Drusilla asked helpfully.

“Two Buffys?” The Slayer said in shock.

“It could very well be,” William mused. “I’ve done very little study on alternate dimensions specifically, but of course they exist---“

“I still maintain Buffy’s just crazy,” Angel said.

“Thanks, that’s really supportive,” the blonde snapped.

“Look, we’re all tired, it’s getting dark, perhaps we should just pick this up tomorrow,” William interrupted. “You two should get home,” he gestured to Angel and Dru. “If you’d like to help with research tomorrow, I’m sure Buffy would appreciate it.” He looked at the scowling girl pointedly.

“Yeah, I would,” she sighed. “Help get me out of this freak show, please.”

Angel rolled his eyes and stood up. “Yeah, I’d like normal non-crazy Buffy back now. See you tomorrow, Pratt. Come on, Dru.”

The girl waved cautiously at Buffy, who smiled weakly at her before she departed.

“So I have a home in this world, I guess?” Buffy sighed. Clearly, she wasn’t in any immediate danger, and if she was stuck here until tomorrow, she needed the comfort of her own bed. “It’s going to be fun to try and seem normal to my mother, I swear, the woman…” She trailed off at the stricken look on William’s face. “What?”

“Buffy…” William seemed to be gathering the strength to speak, and a dread began to build up in the girl’s chest.

“Spit it out.”

“Your mother died a few months ago. Vampire attack. You live with me,” he rushed out the news quickly, hating that he had to remind Buffy of this.

“….oh,” she whispered, tears welling up in her hazel eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Buffy,” William said softly. He had no idea what to do in this situation, if it wasn’t already after midnight in London he’d call the Council straightaway. Clearly whatever had infected Buffy to cause these hallucinations, or if she truly was from an alternate universe, it wasn’t going to right itself. And he felt for the girl, because regardless of where her memory loss and materialization came from, she was obviously scared.

Buffy took a deep breath and said, “No, it’s okay. It’s okay, because this isn’t real. This is some…screwed up spell and when I get back home, it’ll be fine. Because it’s not real. It’s not.”

William sighed, and decided perhaps it was best to allow that line of thinking for now. “Why don’t you grab your bag, and we’ll go home?”

She nodded, and followed him out of the library.





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