Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy.

A.N.- This story dose not follow the events in the comic books and I play around with the events that happen in the last few seasons of Angel to the point that they are irrelevant. I like making Angel irrelevant; it gives me warm and fuzzy feelings. I am not going to Angel bash in this fic. I don't think. So if you LOVE Angel or his hair then never fear, I will not tarnish them (probably). Spike might, but I will do my best to refrain.

--"You think you know... what's to come... what you are. You haven't even begun."

"What are you saying to me exactly? You want me to go back in time or something?"

If an all knowing Oracle for the Powers that Be could be annoyed Garret suddenly knew what that would feel like. "No… not go back in time. You have lived your life—"

"Yeah, about that. It really sucked! Thanks for nothing!"

"You're being unreasonable."

"I'm mad!"

"In all senses of the word I'm afraid…."

"Hey!"

"Then listen to me for a moment!" Garret didn't glare. All knowing oracles didn't do things like that, they just stared intently. "I admit that your life was not…pleasant. I know that you hit several…uh…speed bumps."

"Speed Bumps! I have known Hell gods that had better lives than me!"

"Right. We empathize. That is why you are here."

"No, it's because you need me, yet again. You can't just let me be dead! You have to keep resurrecting me!"

"Well, in all fairness—"Garret tried.

"I just want to be dead! Can't you respect that for once! Let me die!"

"Let me at least expla—"

"NO! I said no! N. O. I don't want to play this game anymore! I have absolutely zero to live for. I finally have a death wish. Let me be dead!"

"Spike!" Garret said. As he suspected this got the warrior's attention.

"What about him?" She asked warily.

"Where I want to send you he is alive."

"Spike is alive! Where do you want to send me?"

"Sunnydale. I want to send you to a parallel world."

"Another dimension? Why?" Garret suspected that she would have had her hands on her hips had she had a body.

"Because there have been some problems there. Despite our best efforts the divine plan has been altered slightly. You see, this dimension is almost exactly like the one you lived in with only one exception. Well, two exceptions but the second one is mostly irrelevant to your timeline."

"What are they?"

"This world is exactly ten years behind your own. Things were meant to progress the same way that they did in your own timeline but something has unbalanced things. We can fix the balance though, if we have your help. Without your help this world will soon be completely destroyed by the forces of darkness."

"Ok… and what do I get out of this. This little fun-filled trip down memory lane? Ten years ago was one of the worst years of my life. What could you possibly want me to do?"

"I want you to take Buffy's place."

"What!?"

"She is about to be killed. I simply want you to take her place."

"For how long?"

"Indefinitely. You will inhabit the body of your younger self and relive your experiences. That is the only way to fix the balance."

"Like Hell! I'm not reliving anything!"

"Spike." Garret pointed out.

The warrior fell silent. "Low blow."

"We are desperate." He admitted.

"Then I'll do it. But I won't be a pawn. If you need this so badly then you will let me play things out in my own way."

"Changes?" he asked warily. He had expected as much.

"Among other things."

"Such as?"

"I want three things. I want my Scythe, my engagement ring, and all of my memories."

Garret heaved a sigh, or he would have if he was not an Oracle. "You may keep you memories but the Scythe can not be given to you. It must remain with its protector until it is truly needed. Giving it to you would create an unbalance."

"And my ring? It was destroyed in the Last Battle of Sunnydale. I want it back."

"Why?" Garret was truly curious. It was not as if it was a true engagement ring. It was only a trinket that she had been given during a spell. She had never worn it after that.

"Because it is a reminder of him, something tangible for me to look at."

"Very well. You may have your memories and the ring. Time is now running short, so we must hurry."

"How does she die?"

"Watch." Garret waved his hand and a pool of water appeared on the ground. For a moment there was nothing to see, and then the surface clouded over to reveal a girl. She was fighting a vampire in a familiar graveyard. "Do you remember him?"

"No." the vampire seemed to be little more than a fledgling. She had killed so many that they rarely had memorable faces. In the end they were all just dust.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't. In your timeline this is just an average patrol. You slayed this vampire, but she will fail."

"Why?"

Gabriel shook his head but did not answer her question. "Watch."

The Buffy in the water seemed to be tiring. Suddenly her stake was knocked out of her hand. Before she could react to this change the vampire grabbed her head with both of his hands and snapped her neck. Buffy crumbled to the ground, dead.
"Oh!"

"It is time."

Buffy tried to answer him but suddenly she was jerked away from the place of light where the oracle lived. Pain seared through her body. She was falling. Her mouth tried to scream…but she didn't have a mouth. And then suddenly the pain was gone. It was like sliding a burnt finger into cool butter. Her eyes opened. She could see the stars. She could almost never see them in London. She could smell wet grass and she could hear the growls of a vampire. She was home. She smiled.

Sitting up she scanned her surroundings. Oh, right. Grave yard. Vampire. With a flip she rose to her feet, pulling her extra stake out of her boot and slammed it into the heart of the very surprised vampire who had killed the younger her only moments before.

Several hundred feet away, hidden behind a row of bushes, another vampire watched in awe.

*****

It had started out as a way to pass the time. Dru was still sick; she spent most of the night in bed or staring at the ceiling seeing things that were not there. So it had become his habit to find the slayer after he ate and watch her patrol. She was inexperienced, and not nearly as devoted to her calling as the other slayers that he had known but even Spike could see that she had potential, she had a certain spark about her. That was one of the reasons he had let her live that night at the school. He hated to kill her when she was so unworthy. He could wait, a little while. Some nights she would patrol with his sire. He still watched on those nights but at a greater distance. He often had trouble deciding which one of them he hated more. They would slay and play kissy face and he would watch from the shadows, disgusted with them. It was all very pathetic.

Tonight had been a pleasant surprise. The slayer was alone and clearly in the mood for a good fight. She had staked two vampires, minions of his, without breaking into a sweat. It wasn't until the third that she had any trouble. She was loosing. He could tell that she was wearing out. He could smell her sweat; it coated her skin, driving him wild with excitement. Soon there would be blood. For a moment he was torn. He could let the Bitch die or he could save her so that he could kill her himself. The choice was taken out of his hands when the other vampire cracked her neck. Spike watched her collapse, boneless, to the ground. "Bloody Hell." He said quietly. He almost regretted her death. It would have been more fun if he had gotten to kill her; it almost made him want to dust the vamp that had done her in. Except that she beat him to the punch.

Despite being very dead, she was up a moment after she fell. A stake plunged effortlessly into the vampire's chest. The look of triumph disappearing into shock and then falling away, just another vamp on the breeze.

*****

Buffy brushed dust off of her sleeves. She was starving.

"What is it about dying that makes me so hungry?" she asked the pie of dust at her feet. It didn't answer. She sighed dramatically and looked down at her clothing. She as wearing a pair of large overalls and a pink sweatshirt. She would have to do something about her fashion sense. She plunged her hands into her pockets. No money. She smiled as her hand connected with a familiar skull ring. She slid it on.

As if summoned by the ring he had given her—would give her?— Buffy felt a tingle on her neck that only one vampire's presence had ever produced. Her first impulse was to throw herself at him but she quickly rejected this idea. She had to do this right. He couldn't know that she loved him. Not now, maybe not for years. Of course, that didn't mean that she couldn't play with him. This Spike loved games.

With this thought in mind, Buffy walked slowly in his direction, a predatory smile on her face. "Hey Spike, Wanna come out and play?"

Spike looked at the girl in shock as she walked towards him, very much alive. He noticed the difference immediately. She was different. The way she walked, even that sexy little smile that she was giving him as she strolled slowly towards his hiding place. Clearing his head of these thoughts, he jumped out at her with a growl.

"Slayer!" he vamped out.

Buffy didn't attack. She wanted to; she wanted to dance with him. In her twenty-six years on earth, she had never found another so closely matched with herself. Spike was her equal. He would someday be her soul mate—he just didn't know it yet. He didn't know what a fight with him meant to her. He didn't share her memories, all of the years of battle, the brutal sex that had left them both broken, or the clarity that had come with his death. She wanted to kiss him, fight him, make him forget his bitch sire, but she knew that she couldn't risk it. Their future was too important. It would be cheating if she forced him to feel things that he wasn't ready for. She could wait for him. God knows that he had waited his fair share for her. And so she did what she had not done in years, she looked at him. Only looked, took him in with her eyes, remembering him without touching him. It was painful but it was all she could have.

"Stalking me, vampire?" Buffy asked, letting her voice go husky and flirty in a way that she knew he liked.

Spike forced himself not to gape openly like an idiot teenager. His mind raced to find some kind of sense in what he had just seen. "You're a little less dead than you should be." He said. His voice sounded angry, accusatory, but his mind was just trying to find a little sanity. A slow smile stretched across the slayers face.

"If I had a nickel…." She trailed off, stepping closer to him.

Spike didn't like the look in her eyes, the way that this little girl seemed to be measuring him. She was very different. She was nothing like the little chit he had fought that night at the school. That girl had been inexperienced; her eyes had looked at him with determination, desperation, and not a small amount of fear. This slayer was that girl's polar opposite. She looked at him without fear. He couldn't smell it on her, it just wasn't there. She was the predator, and Spike had not felt so much like prey in years. An unbidden shiver of excitement ran up his spine.

"What's that supposed to mean? He snapped your neck like a twig. I can smell death on you!"

Buffy's smile faded, she stepped closer to him. Mocking him, daring him to move away, to break her gaze. He didn't. He knew what she was doing, and despite his unease he responded to the challenge automatically.

"Slayers always smell like death." She said in a low voice. He found himself watching her lips.

Spike wanted to deny it but there wasn't a point. She was right, Slayers smelled enticingly like death. They always had that a faint smell of blood hanging around them, clinging to their skin and hair. To a vampire it was like a sirens call. "What do you want, Slayer?" he hated how uncertain his voice sounded.

Buffy didn't answer; instead she grabbed him by his collar and threw him against the wall of the nearest mausoleum. Like the huntress that she was she stalked towards him, pressing herself against him. For a moment she allowed herself to feel him. Buffy knew that he would not respond to her kiss yet, this Spike needed violence. He was looking at her in shock, but she could sense his anger just below the surface. She had a matter of moments before he came to his senses and tried to kill her. Buffy was tempted to answer his question. The word hung on her lips. You. She wanted to say it. Instead she did something that she would never have done to anyone else. Something that bubbled up from a primal place deep within that she had only had glimpses of before. She grabbed his face, jerked it to the side and bit down viciously on his neck. Her blunt human teeth slid into his flesh, blood filled her mouth. He gasped and his body stiffened beneath her. The predator in her smiled. She didn't try to prolong the bite. She took one drag of his blood, feeling it slide down her throat. Then she flung him away.

Spike looked up at her and growled. Bitch! His mind seemed to be existing in a fog. The Slayer had just bit him!? The thought had all of his blood flowing in the opposite direction of his head. He shook it ineffectually.

Buffy smiled at him, she licked her lips slowly, and then walked away.

Spike blinked. "What the bloody hell was that!?" He trembled as he stood to his feet. He watched her walk away, his mind reeling. How had this happened? One minute he was watching her die, the next she was pressed against him drinking his blood. Spike couldn't even summon up anger. Instead his mind played what had happened over and over again. The pain that had been masked with an intense pleasure the likes of which he had not felt in years, the way her little, warm body had felt pressed up against him, the way she has smiled at him, his own blood on her lips. He had felt dominated, taken, and what frightened him was how much he had enjoyed it. Only when she disappeared behind a row of trees at the edge of the cemetery did he remember Dru. Guilt washed over him. He felt as if he had betrayed her. Shivering with emotion he ran a finger through the fresh blood on his neck. The Bitch had marked him over his sire's mark! She had erased Drusilla's bite with her own. Quacking in anger, and more desire than he would have ever admitted, Spike turned away from the graveyard and nearly ran back to the factory. He needed to escape this night and whatever else it would show him. He needed to hold Dru and pray that she would rid him of the emotions that were currently overwhelming him.

June 21, 2003

Cleveland, Oh.

Buffy Summers was done. She wasn't alone; her gift was no longer death. She was free, freer that she had been since she was fifteen. She was no longer the only girl standing against the forces of darkness. If there was an apocalypse, it could be averted without her. She could do anything now. Be anyone and go anywhere. No responsibilities.

She had never felt so lost.

She had never cried so hard.

She had never felt so utterly and completely alone.

She grieved for her lost friends, lost home, lost innocence; she grieved for her broken friends. Mostly she grieved for Him. She didn't know how to live in a world without him in it.

Buffy slumped down on a park bench the moment that she could no longer feel his signature. What the hell had she been thinking?! She hadn't been thinking. Something else, something deeper, had responded to her need. She had needed to mark him. Still, she felt horrible. It felt like a kind of rape. She was sure that he would see it that way. This Spike was very much in love…just not with her. Buffy sighed, falling back against the bench. Ten years had changed everything.

"Understatement."

She had been a completely different person in this time. She had been young, inexperienced, she had been in love with Angel. Angel. Thinking of him here, as a vampire, was odd. The last few times that she had seen him he had been human. He was in love with Cordeilia now, they were married and still helping people in L.A. At least they had been the last time she had spoken to them. She hadn't had much time for socializing lately. Buffy chuckled. How stupid was she? She had actually assumed that she could take a break once the Hellmouth was gone. All destroying Sunnydale had done was to force the demons to go elsewhere. She spent half of her life on a plane these days. Well, until she had been killed and sent to an alternate dimension.

She forced herself to think about something more relevant. She was here, again.

"Good things, I can save Spike and my friends. Bad things, I have to relive High School and I'm back on the Hellmouth."

Though she hated to admit it. A small part of her had missed the Hellmouth. It was simple here. Deadly and full of demons, but simple. Living here had been her life. She had missed her life. She had missed her mom. With that thought, Buffy jumped up and sprinted towards her house. Her mom was alive!