Six

by Mediancat

It's a sequel to Fiat Voluntas Tua and an Angel and Charmed crossover. Alternate Buffy, Angel and Charmed characters abound. Read the note in the text for more explanation. I know it trails off midway through part 20. My apologies.

Buffy the Vampire Queen and Tara sat together in a graveyard, talking.

"Remind me again why we had to come here," Buffy said.

"I got a mental message. From another witch," Tara explained. "It said to come here at . . ." she checked her watch, "At 11:45, and to bring you. I assumed that meant night."

"Yeah, I'd think that," Buffy said, frowning. "But why did it have to be a graveyard in Los Angeles? Wouldn't Sunnydale have done just as well?"

"My communicant said no."

"Communicant? Ooh, look at the witch with her big words."

"Just because you never graduated from high school," Tara said. "Is no reason to look down on those of us who did."

"You didn't graduate either," Buffy said. "You killed your family the day before graduation and split Bumfuck, Tennessee or wherever it is you come from."

"Picky, picky," Tara said. "I would have graduated."

"Can we hurry this up?" Buffy said. "I'm getting bored and hungry."

"Keep your pants on," Tara said. Buffy waggled an eyebrow at her. Tara laughed, saying "What am I going to do with you?"

"Whatever you want," Buffy said suggestively.

"You keep tempting me like that and one of these days I'll give in."

"Promises, promises." Flirtatious dialogue like this was part of their chemistry, but both knew nothing was going to happen. Buffy was too male- oriented and Tara just slightly too physically repulsed by the idea of doing it with a vampire. Still, it was a fun way to pass the time. Tara bit off her next retort when she heard another mental message. "Gotcha with that one –" Buffy began.

"Shh. Yeah, I got the stuff – okay, hold on." She reached into her backpack and drew a circle on the ground around her, then chanted a specific phrase and blew some gold dust in the air.

"What was that supposed to – ooh! Look!" Buffy said.

A screen-like image appeared in the air in front of them. But the person who appeared on it was, to put it mildly, shocking.

"Willow?!" Buffy and Tara demanded simultaneously, though they noticed that she seemed older than the one they were used to – also, her eyes were jet black.

"My name," the not-quite-Willow said, "Is Will. Never call me Willow. I presume I'm talking to Buffy the Vampire Queen and her pet witch?"

"I'm not a pet," Tara said. "Remember, you contacted ME. If the only thing you're going to do is take shots, you can do it alone."

"Easy, Tara," Buffy said. "She went through the trouble; let's see what she wants." Then, to Will, she said, "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't insult Tara, though."

Will – did she flinch slightly when she heard the name Tara? – said, "Understood. I have a proposition for you."

"I didn't think you'd gone through the trouble to chat about the Super Bowl," Buffy said. "What'd you have in mind?"

The question got Buffy and Tara a five-minute lecture on a future where Will ruled as absolute monarch through the power of a necklace called Fiat Voluntas Tua, and how she'd been cheated out of her empire by that world's Buffy and Charmed Ones. It sounded complex and insane. Buffy mentioned as much.

"I don't blame you," Will said. "But, think about it, I was powerful enough to both find you and set up this meeting."

"That means you're powerful," Tara said. "It doesn't mean you're not insane."

"And again before this gets into a bloodbath – fun as that might be," Buffy said. "What's the proposition?"

Will told them. Whether the woman was crazy or not, it sounded good.

"You think you can handle the spell?" Will asked Tara.

"You must have me confused with someone else," Tara said icily.

Will said, "Probably. Okay then, it's a date."

"Only if you want it to be," Buffy said suggestively.

"Thank you, no," Will said in a tone that indicated she wasn't interested in the least.

"What's with all the lack of adventure among lesbian witches?" the Queen asked theatrically. "It's discrimination, I tell you." Will glared at her. "I think I have a case," Buffy said earnestly.

"Goodbye," Will said, and shut off the communication from her end.

Buffy made a mock harrumph. "And before I could say toodles. How rude." Then she grabbed Tara's arm and they walked out of the L. A. graveyard. "C'mon, girlfriend," she said. "We got contacts we have to make and only a couple of days to do it in."

* * * * *

Late one night, Phoebe Halliwell was writing a note to herself about the Fiat Voluntas Tua incident when she had a vision – the LA skyline, then the outside of a hotel called the Hyperion, then Will, attacking a group of people in a hotel lobby in –

In Los Angeles? Yup, in Los Angeles.

She called Leo. "Can you get into all of Los Angeles?" Whitelighters couldn't go within fifty miles of Sunnydale's Hellmouth; exposure to that much radiating evil killed them within minutes.

"Yeah," Leo said a little confusedly. "It gets a little problematic too far past the northern city limits, but – why do you ask?"

"I just had a vision," Phoebe said. "Involving Will, attacking people in an L. A. hotel lobby."

"Will." Leo said. "You sure?" The Whitelighter didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of encountering the megalomaniac future- witch again, not that Phoebe could blame him. They'd narrowly avoided Armageddon during their last encounter.

"I wish I wasn't," Phoebe said. "I'll go book a flight for four first thing tomorrow morning." Fortunately, this wouldn't involve any long explanations for Paige at work; tomorrow was Saturday. Also, they weren't in the middle of any active demon hunts. "You tell Piper when she comes in and I'll go up and tell Piper and Cole."

"Book three," Leo said. "This'd be Paige's first exposure to the Hellmouth's effects – I'll just take her, orb around the area and meet you in the airport."

"Don't suppose we could all fly Air Leo," Phoebe asked hopefully.

"Much as that would help your bank accounts, I've gotta turn you down," Leo said. "Strict union."

Phoebe laughed and went upstairs.

* * * * *

Piper Halliwell had just entered Casa Halliwell when her husband orbed in next to her. "Hey, sweetie," he said, kissing her. When they broke the kiss, Piper said, "I love it when you do that. Do it again."

Leo said, "Sure . . . in a minute. There's been a vision of an attack at the Hyperion Hotel tomorrow. Just wanted to be sure you knew about it before you went to bed."

"THAT run-down piece of crap?" Piper asked. The Hyperion hadn't been used in twenty-five years, as far as she knew.

"The same," he said. "So we're all going to have to be up extra early."

"Does that mean no . . ." Piper trailed off.

"Of course not," Leo said. "But maybe only once." At his wife's glare of evil death, he amended, "Twice." At the continued mock glare, "Thrice?"

"That's my boy," she said, laughing.

Then her younger sister came jogging up the stairs. Apparently she'd been working out, because she was perspiring heavily. "Nothing like a little workout before bed," she said. "Leo pass on the message?"

"Yeah," Piper said. "What's going on, sis?"

And Parris Halliwell said, "A vampire, a witch, and Belthazor. Prue's upstairs calling in Gunn and his gang now in case we need any muscle."

A voice from the basement said, "A little help for a dying man?"

Parris reached down the steps and yanked her half-demon boyfriend to his feet. "Why do you do this to him?" Piper asked. "You know he's not up to your level."

"Ah, he loves it," Parris said. "Don'tcha, Doyle?"

"Sure," Doyle said, still breathing heavily.



Part 2



"Los Angeles?" Cole asked the next morning. "Isn't that a little close for comfort?"

"Leo says not," Phoebe said, pulling on a pair of jeans, "Though I wouldn't plan any trips northward."

Thoughtfully, Cole wondered, "I wonder if there's anywhere darklighters can't get to?"

"The Vatican?"

Cole laughed. "Hardly. Some of the Popes back in the Middle Ages made today's televangelists look like pikers. I doubt any would go there now but that's not because they can't; it'd be stupid. Kind of like a dairy farmer showing up at a PETA convention."

"It's worth thinking about, though," Phoebe said, slapping Cole's bare back. "Now let's get going. Two hours before the flight, remember?"

Cole shrugged and got out of bed.. "Y'all're the bosses," he said. "I'm just the guy who tags along and isn't allowed to own a gun."

Phoebe spun, but Cole was clearly teasing. Still, it was obvious he was feeling a bit like a fifth wheel at times. They'd have to get him back to training her as soon as they got back from LA.

When they made it downstairs, Piper was already there with a small bag – they all had an overnight packed, in case this took more than a day, and besides Phoebe got a much better price with the Saturday night stayover. Leo, of course, had no packing to do. Breakfast was a grab-and-go affair.

Paige, the lucky half-whitelighter, got to sleep in.

"Plane's supposed to land at 11:15," Phoebe told Leo for the fourth time.

"We'll be there," Leo said. "Don't worry."

"Is it my imagination," Piper said, "Or are you more tense than usual about making sure we all show? It's not like Leo's planning on going off with Paige and taking in a Broadway show." Then she regarded her husband with mock suspicion. "You're not, are you honey?"

Leo sighed. "You've found me out. This is all part of my secret plan to catch the Producers. Today's their special Whitelighters' discount day."

Piper nodded. 'Thought as much." Then, to Phoebe, "What's up with the sudden need for family togetherness, sis?"

Frowning, Phoebe said, "I'm not entirely sure. I've just had that feeling since the vision – nothing I can pinpoint, exactly."

"Don't worry," Leo said reassuringly. "We'll be there."

Then they headed to the airport.

* * * * *

"So why the Hyperion?" Doyle asked the next morning.

"Beats me," Parris said. "But we're just slaves to the visions, aren't we?" Doyle got his own visions of people in trouble; sometimes they coincided with Parris', sometimes not. Between the two of them they kept the Charmed Ones and a good-size gang of demonhunters busy. Of course, there was enough magical evil in LA to keep them, Gunn's gang, and a platoon of well-armed marines working non-stop. Unfortunately, the marines were busy elsewhere.

Parris pulled on a pair of black slacks and slapped Doyle's bare back. "Let's go. We've got some time and I need to practice levitating."

"Or," Doyle said. "We could stay here in bed and practice."

Parris said, "Tempting, but no."

"One of these days, princess," Doyle said, putting on his shirt, "We're going to run across a demon you need to beat by using sex and then you'll be sorry you haven't practiced more."

"When the day comes," Parris said, "You can tell me I told you so. Until then, chop-chop."

"Consider me chopping," Doyle said.

When they made it downstairs, Pipes was there on the phone. "Yeah, Dad," she said. "Can't cover the lunch shift today. Get Jack, okay?" After a pause, "Well, that's why I hired you. I'm the pretty one who gets the glory; you're the big meanie who gets to ruin people's weekends. Bye." She hung up and noticed Doyle and Parris behind her. "Dad says hi," she said. "Now who's up for a new way of eating eggs?" Piper, the executive chef at her restaurant, loved to experiment on her sisters' taste buds.

"Maybe when we're done working out," Parris said.

Prue came downstairs at that point, with bruises on her face. "What happened?" Pipes said. "I didn't see you last night –"

"I caught Shannen Doherty making out with some geek at a cocktail party," Prue said. "Got a couple of good shots but she wasn't very happy with me. Shoved the camera in my face and told me to get lost. When the bouncers showed I didn't feel like arguing."

"Maybe you could consider something a bit less hard on the body than bein' a paparazzi," Doyle suggested. "Like maybe professional wrestling."

Prue simply glared. Before things got messy, Parris grabbed Doyle's hand and said, "C'mon, sweetie. Right now it looks like you've got a choice of being hurt up here or down there. And at least I love you."

Doyle groaned as the youngest Halliwell led him to the basement.

* * * * *

Cordelia Chase sat behind the former check-in desk and idly counted the number of pieces of furniture in the area. Four different times and she came up with four different answers.

God, was she BORED! Angel'd gotten in early last night and was still asleep, Fred was out getting herself a big breakfast, Lorne was still out wherever Lorne went out to, and Wesley and Gunn were off doing an investigation in Santa Carolita and weren't expected back until Monday – they were tracking down a demon who owed Lorne a couple of favor.

Even Connor was asleep at the moment, though at least he was keeping her company.

It had gotten to the point where Cordelia was almost beginning to wish that Holtz would burst through the door with a submachine gun and a platoon of mercenaries; at least it'd be something to DO. She repressed the thought as soon as she had; better boredom than painful, lingering death.

Though not MUCH better, given the way things were going.

She'd just checked on Connor for maybe the forty-second time in the last twenty minutes when excitement of a sort indeed burst through the front door, in the form of a visitor from Sunnydale.

Or at least an old friend. "Willow!" Cordelia said, running up to the redhead and grabbing her by the arm. "How are you? How's it going? Come over here, sit down and tell me everything, and don't leave out any details."

Willow forced a smile as Cordelia dragged her over to sit next to her behind the desk. "So how's the private detective business going?" she asked. Then, noticing Connor, she said, "So bad you've taken up babysitting?"

Cordelia thought a second; as far as she knew none of the Scooby gang had been clued in to Connor's real identity. "He's the son of . . . someone very important," she said. "We're protecting him from assorted nasties. But enough about me and him. How are things in Sunnydale?"

Willow closed her eyes for a second. "Weird." She didn't seem inclined to elaborate. She walked over and looked at Connor.

"You come here from the Hellmouth and make with the one-word answers? What's up with that?" she noticed the expression on Willow's face; it was an equal mix of revulsion and depression. Just then, Connor woke up, and in the manner of most newly awakened babies, began crying. Cordy picked him up and began rocking him.

Fifteen seconds later, Angel came barreling down the lobby steps fast enough to make the Flash envious. "What's wrong?" he said. "And, hi, Willow. Anything wrong?"

"Connor just started crying," Willow said, stepping back. "And hi back. Nothing that can't wait."

"Good," Angel said. "You know, he's probably hungry. I'll go get some formula from the refrigerator."

"I got a business call while you were sacked out," Cordelia said. "Willow, keep an eye on him?"

"Sure," Willow said, though Connor continued to cry while Cordy and Angel went to get the milk.

A trifle annoyed, Angel said, "Can this wait until I've fed my son?"

"No," Cordelia said sotto voce, "And keep your voice down when you answer me. Have you called Buffy or any of the Sunnydale crew and told them about your son?"

"Are you crazy?" Angel asked.

"That's a no, then," Cordelia said. "Neither have I. Haven't even so much as mentioned his name."

As he shut the refrigerator, Angel said, "Willow just called him Connor."

"Yup."

"Which means that's not Willow."

"Yup."



Part 3



Willow and Faith swore as they walked through the streets of Los Angeles. Damn Buffy Vampire Queen was leading them on a chase, they just knew it. She and her pet witch had stolen a couple of dangerous books from Giles' collection; dangerous enough that Giles had told them to catch the Queen and get the books back.

Faith was pretty sure boss man hadn't meant LA, until they called him on a cell and he'd told them, "Los Angeles, Liverpool, wherever. If they hide out at the bottom of Challenger Deep I want you to hijack a bathysphere and chase after them."

What was confusing to the both of them was why the Queen'd hightailed it to LA in the first place. They'd almost caught her last night, when witchbitch Tara had suddenly shown with a red-and-black demon who looked like Darth Maul after an all-night bender.

"Belthazor," she'd said. "The ceiling, if you would?"

This gave Faith a chance to grab her girlfriend and dive out the window, seconds before the place came crashing down around them. After that, they'd scared up a place to sleep and started again early in the morning.

So far, all their legwork had gotten 'em was tired. No sign of the Queen, Tara or even that demon. They had gotten a lead on a demon club called Caritas in the area where a lot of demon types were known to hang out, and by ten they were there at the front door. Of course the place wasn't open, it being midnight for nightclubs, but locked doors posed to no problem for irritable vampire slayers.

A green, horned demon came rushing out of a back area in a light blue bathrobe. "I appreciate your enthusiasm for karaoke," he said. "But we don't open until two. Come back then."

"We're not here to sing," Willow said.

"Well," the demon said calmly, "If you're here to rob me I'm afraid the night's take is already at the bank. Unless you came for the peanuts?"

"We're looking for Belthazor, a witch named Tara and the Queen," Faith said. "We were told you know a lot about where the bad guys go in this burg."

"I do know a few things," the demon said. "Do bear in mind that the evil stops at the door here. I don't put up with any violence in my club. Nor do I rat out my customers." When Willow and Faith advanced towards him menacingly, he added evenly, "Fortunately, none of the three you mentioned have ever been my customers. I don't know about Belthazor, but I did hear a couple of the vampires yesterday mention that they needed to go to a hotel called the Hyperion because some witch and cute lady vampire had a job for them there. I don't know where that hotel is, of course, but –"

"Thanks," Willow said.

"Please do come back at night," the demon said. "But only if you promise not to kill any of the customers."

Faith and Willow smiled, nodded, and left Caritas.

* * * * *

After the Slayer and her girlfriend had left, the Host placed a phone call. "Belthazor?" he said. "Krev'lornswath here. They're on their way."

* * * * *

Paige and Leo met Piper, Phoebe and Cole at the baggage claim area of LAX, not that any of them had actually checked anything anyway. "While you guys were in the air," Paige said, "I did a little research on the Hyperion. It's got a pretty weird history –"

"How much of it is relevant to what we're doing today?" Piper asked.

A trifle offended, Paige said, "Fine. I won't bore you with the murders and mysterious deaths and jump right to the exciting parts about real estate transactions. Place was abandoned until a bit over a year ago, when it was bought by a company called Angel Investigations."

"Private investigators?" Phoebe asked.

Paige nodded. "Yup, though – this is where it gets interesting. Leo?"

The Whitelighter grimaced. "Yeah. Apparently this place has been in conflict with a law firm called Wolfram & Hart. They're . . . well, they're evil."

"Aren't all lawyers?" Cole asked. "And yes, I'm aware of the irony."

"Not like these guys," Leo said. "They SPECIALIZE in evil. They've gotten half-demons and warlocks and assorted nasties off for crimes that'd turn your stomach. Also, they have a high turnover rate among their staff but not many complaints from ex-employees."

"Why?" Piper said.

"Because there AREN'T any ex-employees. This place – we've been working against it for years. Anyway, if Angel Investigations is one of their main pet peeves –"

"Then they're probably good guys," Phoebe finished.

"Or possibly rivals," Cole said.

"Which doesn't tell us why Will would be attacking them," Piper commented.

"I called Buffy," Paige said. "To see if she knew any reason – this Angel guy's her ex-boyfriend. A couple of other people she knows work there as well."

Piper shook her head. "Still doesn't make sense. Will's after her necklace. Why would she waste her time on simple revenge?"

"So . . . maybe it isn't simple revenge? Maybe it's complex revenge?" Phoebe suggested.

"Such as?" Piper asked.

"I don't know," Phoebe said with mild annoyance. "I forgot to check my messages to see if Will had filled us in on her plans."

"Easy," Cole said. "We can worry about motive later. Right now we just need to get to the Hyperion."

They all agreed, and headed off.

* * * * *

Immediately after they'd come to their revelation, Cordelia found herself talking to air because Angel had dashed back out to the lobby. She followed him.

"What's the hurry?" Willow asked.

"Hungry baby," Angel said. They stood by while Angel fed his son; then burped him and put him back to bed. "Now," he said to Willow, "Who the hell are you?"

To Cordelia's surprise, the ersatz Willow didn't protest, act shocked, or morph into some kind of demon. Instead, she said calmly, "It was when I called your son by his name, wasn't it?" Angel told her as much. Nodding ruefully, Willow said, "I knew that was a mistake as soon as I said it. Damn. I'd been hoping there'd be more of you when I did this."

"Did wh—" Angel began, but found himself frozen in place.

As did Cordelia. They could hear, see, breathe (well, not Angel) and think; they just couldn't move.

Connor seemed unaffected, but once again he started crying. "You don't have to worry, Angel," Willow said. "This has nothing to do with your son." She looked down at the bawling Connor. "I do wish he'd stop doing that, though." She muttered a few words and suddenly he stopped crying. "He's asleep, that's all." She sighed. "I suppose you're wondering who I am and why I'm doing this. Well, it's a long story." She sat down and kicked back. "But hey! You've got nothing but time, right? This starts off December 3rd, 2001. Just not quite the one you're used to . . ."



Part 4



Prue got a call from Gunn around eleven.

"Yo, Prue," he said. "Just doing a doublecheck for the time."

"12:15, more or less," Prue said.

"Alright then. I'll have my boys there by noon so we can scope out the turf." After a second, "You weren't planning on bringing Leo along, were you?" Gunn and his gang knew Leo the way the most of the world did: As the Halliwell's handyman and Pipes' husband. Gunn wasn't asking because he didn't like Leo; he just saw him as a civilian, and didn't much like getting civilians caught in the line of fire.

Doyle was okay, because he was a half-demon and could hold his own in a fight besides. "I'm not my brother-in-law's keeper, Gunn," Prue said. "I'll talk to him and Pipes, see if I can get him to stay back, but I can't guarantee anything." Prue would do no such thing, of course. It was getting to be time to think about whether or not they should let Gunn in on what Leo was.

"Do what you can. So it's a witch, a vampire and Belthazor?"

"Yes," Prue said. "Plus a handful or so of innocents. You guys might have to take point until they're clear." The man understood full well about the Halliwells' need to not spread the word about their powers, though in LA it was an even bet whether they'd be captured and studied or offered jobs at Fox. "I couldn't find anything about the vampire but I did find out a bit about the witch. Her name's Tara Maclay, and she's a nasty piece of work. Half-demon, but no one's ever seen her demon form. Not long after her mother died she killed the entire rest of her family and took off. She's vicious, Gunn. If you get a shot, take her down. She's the most dangerous of the three of them."

"Gotcha," Gunn said. "Thanks for the update. See you there in an hour."

Prue walked out to the dining room, where everyone else was sitting around the remnants of the breakfast table. They'd had an omelet-like dish with half a dozen spices and vegetables, and as almost always with Pipes' creations had been delicious. She clapped her hands. "Okay, people," she said. "That was Gunn. He'll be there in an hour, and I know how delicious breakfast was but we have people to save."

Pipes stuck out her tongue, but stood up and went upstairs to change out of her bathrobe. Prue sighed. It wasn't fun having to be the bitch of the family, but someone had to do it. Parris was serious enough, sure, but too easily distracted; and the only things Pipes had ever taken seriously in her life were her cooking and her husband. Not that she'd ever failed her responsibilities as a Charmed One, but sometimes it took the verbal equivalent of whips and thumbscrews to get her moving. Thank god she had Dad to manage the restaurant.

While everyone else scrambled to make their last-minute preparations, Prue yelled out, "Leo!" The Whitelighter – who'd popped out right after sampling Piper's latest creation – orbed in in front of her. "It's Gunn again," she said.

"Still doesn't want me to come along," Leo correctly guessed.

"Exactly," Prue said. "I think it's time we let him know who – and what – you really are. I know it's not by the book, but –"

"It'd be a lot more convenient for everyone, I know," Leo said. "I'll run it by the Elders, but honestly they're not thrilled that Doyle's been let in on the secret."

"I'd appreciate that," Prue said.

A few minutes later everyone was ready to go.



* * * * *

Fred walked back to the Hyperion from a nearby diner, yes she'd been back in LA for over six months but she still liked big breakfasts, three eggs, hash browns, toast, ham steak, orange juice and coffee . . . it'd be better not to tell Cordelia about the coffee, she though Fred was a little too wired already. She was about to walk in the front door when she heard a voice she thought she'd heard before, back right after she came back from Pylea though she couldn't place the name (she was terrible with names). But the girl was talking funny and making threats and there were a couple of demons standing around too and it didn't look like Angel and Cordelia were moving at all; fortunately the girl hadn't seen her yet but if she was powerful enough to make Angel and Cordy not move then what chance would Fred have going straight in? None, of course, which is why she was going to make her way through the sewers and go down the back entrance and maybe kind of sneak up on the girl and knock her out or something.

She hoped she didn't run into any vampires or slime demons or anything while she was down there . . .



* * * * *

Willow and Faith got to the Hyperion a little before noon, but the place looked exactly you'd expect a hotel abandoned for twenty-five years to look – shabby and run down. There were no obvious signs that the place was being used as anything more than a haven for rats.

Of course Willow and Faith weren't satisfied with the obvious. Just 'cause no one had been hanging out in the lobby didn't mean no one was using the rest of the place, and it was a big building.

Once they got upstairs they hit paydirt of a sort; some of the rooms were clearly being used, and by vampires at that. They knew this partly from the trash and dried blood, but mostly from the pair of vamires they found standing out in the middle of the hallway glaring at them.

Willow yanked out a stake and started slugging it out with one of the vamps while Faith took the other. Faith's fight actually took longer, but that was partly because she was trying to beat her opponent into a bloody pulp without actually killing him, while Willow had no such constraints. As she watched her girlfriend fight out of the corner of her eye, Faith couldn't help but smile. Damn, the girl was good. Better than any human being not named Jackie Chan could be against vampires.

But then, why not? She'd been training as long as Faith had, and the only thing Faith had that Willow didn't was superhuman strength.

Once Willow had dusted her foe – which must've taken her all of thirty seconds – she came over to give Faith an assist. Within another thirty seconds, they had the vampire down. "Now we can make this hard, or we can make this – actually, there's just hard," Willow said. "Now where's the Queen?"

"England, right?" the vampire said.

Faith slapped him. "Try again. Where's Buffy?"

The vampire stiffened, and said woodenly, "What time is it?"

"Ten after twelve," Willow said, looking at her watch.

In the same tone, the vampire said, "She plans to meet her allies downstairs in a couple of minutes."

"Thanks," Willow said, staking the prone vamp. Then, to Faith, sourly: "That was easy."

"So who's complaining?" Faith said.

"I just wanted to chance to do some more damage, that's all," Faith said.

When they made it back down the lobby the place had changed. The Queen, Belthazor and Tara – and a half-dozen other vampires – had surrounded a few humans.

They charged down the stairs.

* * * * *

The Halliwells got to the Hyperion right at 12:15 and walked into the lobby. Will was standing there, flanked by a couple of demons Cole didn't immediately recognize. Before the Halliwells could move to the attack, Will pointed to the frozen couple behind the check-in counter and said, "If you do anything, they're dead." Then, to the air, "Are you ready?"

* * * * *

The Halliwells got to the Hyperion right at 12:15 and walked into the lobby. A group of vampires was attacking a handful of normal humans, including two who seemed to be pretty good fighters. Buffy clapped her hands when the Halliwells walked in and said, "NOW!"

All of a sudden the normal humans became vampires as well. Prue yelled for Gunn's group to come in and a melee began.

Tara Maclay shouted out to no one in particular, "Ready, willing and able! Let's get this overwith!"

And in two separate universe, two separate witches began chanting the same spell.



Part 5



The scene in the abandoned Hyperion lobby was little short of chaos. The head vampire was directing maybe a dozen vampires in an attack, and being ably assisted by Belthazor's ball lightning. In the middle of all of it, two women warriors who looked like they could have kicked even Gunn from here 'til next Tuesday fought as hard as they could, and on the outside Gunn and five of his boys did their best to get to the two women.

"Yo!" Gunn called out. "Ain't no normal humans here, Prue! Cut loose!"

Prue did so, tossing a couple of vampires into the air about thirty feet and slamming them into a balcony railing. Parris had started moving as soon as she figured the situation out and was busily fighting her way towards the two women, while Pipes began looking for a clear angle to freeze Belthazor or Tara.

Doing the latter was going to be damn hard; as the fighting started the evil witch had moved back behind a seedy-looking check-in counter. It was an almost impossible shot, given the chaos in the middle of the room.

Doyle hung around the edges of the battle, striking where he could. Despite being half-demon, and despite Parris' insistence on training him, he was a competent fighter, and too smart to take on a vampire singlehandedly without an excellent reason to do so.

Tara continued to chant. Prue, edging her way around the battle – and picking up a couple of vampires along the way, smashing one into a wall and one into Belthazor, who dusted himself and glared at her – picked up maybe one word in three. She couldn't be completely sure, but she thought she heard someone else chanting with Tara, though with the tumult in front of her she couldn't pinpoint who it could have been.

The head vampire grabbed one of Gunn's guys and broke his neck. Unfortunately for Gunn and his people, the two women in the center meant that their best tactic – standing back and softening up the bad guys with arrows and crossbow bolts – was negated. A couple still stood back and tossed holy water, but hand-to-hand was the order of the day. Two of Gunn's people had gone down as well as five of the vampires; and the dark- haired woman in the center was fighting with her right hand only.

Prue grabbed Pipes and pointed towards the female vamp and the witch. "They're hanging back for a reason," she said. "We need to get to them."

There was an odd and distant sound of thunder.

Pipes said, "Yeah, I figured that out. This melee – it's just to distract us. From that dimension crossing-spell, I'm guessing."

Prue grabbed Pipes' arm worriedly. "Dimension crossing?"

Nodding, Pipes said, "Yeah. I've – I've read up on them. It sounds like she's going to transfer people between dimensions, but I can't tell who or what or where we're going to end up."

There was a sound of thunder, closer this time.

Piper said, "And the thunder's a system. We need to get to her, and we need to get to her now –"

Right then, though, Tara stopped chanting and a blast of thunder knocked everyone off their feet.

* * * * *

"So," Phoebe told Will, "You expect us just to sit here while you kill us? Newsflash, sister: Not gonna happen."

Will kept chanting and simply glared at the Halliwells, telekinetically moving first the man, then the woman, into the center of the lobby. She then pointed at the Halliwells and Cole and gestured them into the middle of the room.

They just stood there.

Still incanting her spell, Will pointed to one of the two demons, who went behind the counter and mimed eating the baby.

Cole said, "You wouldn't dare."

Will nodded; the demon picked the baby up.

Muttering under their breaths, Paige, Piper, Phoebe and Cole walked to the center of the lobby next to the frozen couple. When Leo moved to join them, Will held up her hand and made a shooing gesture. Leo stopped where he was, and the baby was replaced in the bassinet.

There was a distant sound of thunder.

Will walked around them, continuing to chant. The oddest thing was, another voice definitely seemed to be chanting with her. Once she'd walked completely around them, she ran back to the check-in counter and stood there.

The thunder grew louder.

"What the hell's going on?" Piper muttered.

"I don't know," Cole said. "Only thing is if she was going to kill us she could do it a lot easier than this."

"That's what has me worried," Phoebe said.

Then a blast of thunder knocked everyone off their feet.

* * * * *

As soon as the thunder ended, with the fighting at a temporary halt, Tara chanted something else, definitely in unison with another voice. It seemed to be closing the portal . . . permanently? Oh, that wasn't good.

Before she could get up, Prue heard the Queen yell, "SCATTER!" and by the time Prue was able to get to her feet, the Queen, Tara and Belthazor were gone.

As were four of the vampires and the two women in the center of the room.

But those were details Prue wasn't concerned about at the moment. Nor, for that matter, were the three remaining vampires; apparently deciding discretion was by far the better part of valor, they ran for the back of the hotel, presumably to jump into the sewers and get out of the neighborhood. Prue didn't mind; they were hired muscle, nothing more.

They could be dealt with later. But six new people had shown up in the center of the room.

Well, one was Pipes. A Pipes. And one was Belthazor in his human form.

She had no idea who the other four were, but she was damn well going to find out.

* * * * *

Fred had run around and through the hotel as fast as she could, but apparently she'd only gotten to catch the tail end of whatever was going on, and she didn't know all of it but what she did know she definitely didn't like. The woman who looked like Willow but obviously wasn't, at least not completely, was casting some kind of spell on Angel and Cordelia and three women and some other guy while the two demons stood around, probably just to provide muscle if anyone tried to get violent or something. The other guy just stood back and looked like he was in a lot of pain, probably how Fred looked right now if she could have looked in a mirror.

Fred had come up and stood there quietly and tried not to be noticed by the demons until she figured out what she could do; she had the fire extinguisher there with her but didn't have a clear shot at the witch and thought all it would do to the demons is make them mad. And then there were three successive sounds of thunder getting closer and closer and finally one seemed to emanate from the middle of the hotel lobby where Angel and Cordelia and the others were, and it was so loud it knocked almost everyone off their feet except Fred.

And Angel and everyone else just vanished and in their place were four vampires and two women, one of whom looked like – another Willow, but with really short hair. The women got up and killed the vampires and looked around trying to figure out what had happened before focusing in on the witch that looked like Willow but wasn't. The witch chanted something, Fred couldn't hear exactly what and then the dark-haired woman said. "Okay, what the hell you doing, Willow?"

"Not Willow," the woman said, shaking her head angrily. "WILL." The two demons came to flank her; the other man, left behind when the spell hit, had apparently sensed as Fred had that the two women were at least in some way on the side of the good guys and moved in next to them. They eyed him warily but didn't say anything

"Willow, Will, whatever," Willow growled.

"Just Will," Will reiterated. "Anyway, get used to your new universe. You won't be leaving." She turned on her heels and prepared to leave, where Fred smacked her in the face with a fire extinguisher, after which the demons snarled and jumped towards her, leaving Fred with the suspicion that maybe she should have thought this through a little more clearly . . .



Part 6



Belthazor was grumpy.

So what else was new?

In the day or so since she'd met Darth Maul's stunt double, Queen Buffy'd been impressed by his power and his intense desire to hurt people. Unfortunately, he had the sense of humor of a vampire slayer and the conversational skills of a rock.

"I wanted to kill them then. There. Why didn't we?" he asked as he, the Queen and Tara made their way back to Caritas. The Queen LIKED Krev'Lornswath. He was quirky, funny and nicely treacherous.

"Because we would have gotten killed," Tara said. "That spell took a lot out of me. Right now I couldn't whistle up enough magic to make a cup of coffee."

"I could have handled it." Belthazor might have been humorless, but you HAD to love the boy's confidence.

"SO not the point," Buffy said. "First we give them time to acclimate, to realize they can't leave. Then to find out about their powers. THEN, when the despair's at its greatest – that's when we kill them."



* * * * *

When they switched universes Cordelia and Angel unfroze. The first thing they did – okay, Angel did – was kill a couple of vampires standing around. Then he noticed Connor hadn't made the trip, and hoped like hell that Will had been telling the truth when she'd said she wouldn't hurt him.

Then it was time to sort things out. They were in the Hyperion, but it wasn't their Hyperion. "We've switched universes," Angel said to no one in particular.

"It's what I'm thinking," one of the three women standing with him said.

And then everyone started talking at once, which lasted about thirty seconds until Angel yelled, "QUIET!" and everyone quieted down. "Look," he said. "Something very confusing just happened. We need to figure out what, and why, and how to fix it – and I think introductions would be a good start. I'm –" he trailed off as he saw a familiar figure. "Doyle . . . "

And Doyle said, "Really, lad? You don't look anything like me."

Angel shook his head. "Sorry. I know – I KNEW – you, on my world. And since we're the interlopers, we'll go first. My name's Angel." Now that he looked he noticed Gunn hanging in the background as well, as well as members of his crew. Or this world's equivalents.

Cordelia said, "Cordelia," distractedly, looking at Doyle.

"Here's where it gets interesting," one of the women next to him muttered. "Piper Halliwell."

"Phoebe Halliwell."

"Paige Matthews," the third said. "Um, Halliwell by birth if not name."

"Cole –" the man began, only to be interrupted by one of the women from the other side.

"You're Belthazor," she said, sneering.

"I WAS," Cole said. "Until I was stripped of my powers. Now I'm just Cole."

"We can sort this out later," Angel said, trying to keep things calm. "And you are?"

Doyle and Gunn introduced themselves, then Gunn pointed out various members of his gang who were busily scouring the place for vampires. Then it was time for the other three women.

"Piper Halliwell," one said chipperly. "But I'm guessing you already knew that, right?" She smiled brightly at her duplicate, who half-heartedly returned the grin. "My friends call me Pipes."

"Prue Halliwell," another one said, glaring at her sister, who simply kept smiling.

"Parris Halliwell," the third said.

"Okay," Angel said. "Now that we know that, what do we do? Because I have a son back in my home universe who's at the mercy of an evil witch right now and I have to say I'm not liking the prospect."

Gunn said, "This isn't my field. We're gonna go scout the rest of this dump, see if anyone's lingering." Then he and his gang took off to go search the rest of this long-abandoned Hyperion.

"Obviously what we need to do is find some way of reversing the spell," Prue said after Gunn and his people had left the room. "Anyone who cares to try to come up with one –"

Within seconds both Parris and Phoebe said, "Got it."

"Let's hear 'em," Angel said.

The two spells couldn't have been more different in everything except aim. "Either one should work," Prue said. "Flip a coin, whatever . . . "

Parris and Phoebe looked at each other, then played an impromptu game of rock-paper scissors. Parris won, breaking Phoebe's scissors with her rock.

But just before the six witches started to speak, Pipes said, "You're wasting your time . . ."

Piper said, "Would you care to share with the rest of the class?"

Pipes said, "Tara – that's the witch who cast the spell in our universe – after you all appeared I heard her cast a spell to seal the doorway permanently. My guess would be that it just ain't gonna be that easy to unstick it." She grinned. "Betcha we try anyway, though. Prue's stubborn." Prue glared at her again.

"There are six of us and one of her," Paige said. "Two, if you count Will – she's the one who did it in our universe. I say we give it a try."

"I wouldn't go underestimating Will, Paige," Piper said. "Still, it can't hurt to try – and who knows how good this Tara is?" Pipes raised her hand tentatively; this time, when Prue glared at her, Pipes stuck out her tongue.

Cole sidled over to Cordelia and Angel. "Do you get the feeling we're not relevant here?"

Cordelia shrugged. "Doesn't hurt my ego any," she said. "I'm with Angel, here. The faster we get home, the faster we can get back to his son."

"My ego's not hurt either," Cole said. "I just like it when I have something to do. Kinda boring being part of the wallpaper."

"Trust me," Angel said. "Wallpaper's good."

Menawhile, five of the six witches had agreed to go along with it, and Pipes said, "Well, I'm not going to ruin our chances by being immature about the whole thing." She didn't sound at all convinced that the spell would work.

In unison, six witches chanted,

"We live in one universe each;

That's one thing there's no need to teach.

For each of these six,

The rift will be fixed,

So their home dimension they'll reach!"

Angel found himself jerking strongly in place, then he staggered. When his vision cleared, three things were clear. One, they were still in the lobby of the abandoned Hyperion. Two, he was the only one of the six visitors who'd managed to retain his feet; everyone else was standing up, dusting themselves off, and muttering cusswords under their breath.

And three, Pipes was smirking and saying, "Told you so . . ."

Angel was beginning to seriously not like her. "Could you please stop gloating?" he asked. "This is serious and you're acting like it's just a game. My son –"

"You'll get back to your son," Parris said. "Pipes, couldja maybe tone it down a bit?"

"Sorry," Pipes said, not sounding sorry in the least. "But I knew it wasn't going to work. Now that we know this isn't going to be ended so easily, maybe we could take some time and actually think about what we're doing? Hmmm? Maybe over some food at my restaurant?" No answer. "Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?"

Phoebe chuckled. Doyle shrugged and said, "Sounds good to me. I didn't get enough of those eggs this morning, and Parris here just wears me out." He put an arm around Parris in a way that clearly indicated they were lovers. Angel looked at Cordelia; for a few seconds there was a look of disappointment on her face, but it quickly vanished.

Finally, Cordelia said, "If it'll get us home faster, sure. But – unless you want to see Angel turned to ashes you could maybe give us a way of getting there through the sewers?" Cordelia snorted when no one said anything. "You mean we've got enough magical talent in this room to sink L.A. into the Pacific and none of you figured out he's a vampire?"

The intervening silence was broken only by the sound of Pipes' amused laughter.



Part 7



Fred backed up rapidly to the stairs until she could back up no further, but right as she thought she was in trouble the two demons were jumped from behind by the Willow-looking person and the woman with dark hair. The pleasant-looking man appeared almost from nowhere and began to try to drag her up the stairs and out of harm's way until Fred said, "Thanks but I'm not going to run away and leave them where they are, they might need help . . . "

The man said, "Look at the way the fight's going, they'll be okay," and sure enough the two demons were getting beaten, the dark-haired woman pounding one single-handedly (literally, her other was hanging by her side) and the Willow analogue was doing a stick-and-move routine worthy of Muhammad Ali himself. Then the man stuck out his hand and said, a little worriedly, "I'm Leo, do you have any idea what just happened here?" and of course since he was standing there watching the whole thing he must have been probing for how much she knew, so she told him what she'd seen and by the way I'm Winifred Burkle but you can call me Fred.

The fight was pretty much over at this point; the dark-haired woman had sliced open the throat of her opponent and while he lay there bleeding she'd moved in to help the short-haired Willow, and soon enough that demon was down too. Then the dark-haired woman said, "Hey up there! Nice fire extinguisher action! Come on down and we'll try to figure out what happened."

"The first thing I'd suggest," Leo said, "Is keeping Will there unconscious." Willow looked up at him. "Not you," Leo amended. "The witch who brought you here."

And then they walked down the steps and – after Fred picked up Connor's bassinet and carried him out to the base of the stairs -- performed the introductions. Thank God he was still asleep. Turned out that this Willow and Faith were lovers and came from a universe where Faith was a vampire slayer but the primary one was of all people Cordelia, and Buffy (the woman who'd died and come back and Angel lad loved) was the queen of the vampires and a lot of weird stuff. They'd been sent here by the same dimension- travelling spell that had taken away Cordelia and Angel and the witches and their friend.

Leo said that the three women were powerful witches he called "Charmed Ones" and that one was his wife and the other guy was Cole and he was Phoebe's boyfriend. Fred said, "Hold on a second – and if that Willow moves hit her with something," and ran to get some of the tranquilizer they kept around in case Angel's vampire ever came out again, then injected the witch with it.

Faith glared at her. "Coulda cleared it with us," she said. "How're we supposed to figure out what to do next if she's not awake to tell us anything?"

"And," Willow said contemptuously, "What would make ME do . . . this. Go evil. And why does she look . . . older?"

Leo sighed. "Fred was right in sticking in the tranquilizer. She's – she's very powerful. And the reason she's evil and looks like this –" and then the nice man spun a tale of an alternate future and a missing necklace and how Will dominated this future with an iron hand but the Charmed ones and Buffy and Willow had beaten her. It was a story that was very complex but at the end Will had lost her future but had escaped swearing revenge and it looked like this was part of it.

"So we keep the bitch sedated," Willow said, "But how do we figure out how to go back? I mean, I'm not like this Willow or the one who belongs here -- what I know about magic you could fit in a thong." Faith agreed, and honestly it wasn't like Fred knew all that much more because after all she was a scientist and not a witch.

"I know a bit more," Leo said, "But I'm not a caster. Fred?"

"I, I suppose I could try," Fred said. "I mean, I have cast spells before, but it's not something I do every day and I'm not sure if I could figure out the rules that quickly."

"What we REALLY need," Faith said. "Is Amy." Willow gave Faith a startled look. "Yeah, sweetie, I know," Faith said, "Gotta be trouble for me to want her around. But stick up the ass though she is, Amy knows magic."

"Seems what we really need," Leo said. "Is someone who actually knows how to cast spells. Or someone who knows how to get in touch with someone who knows how to cast spells."

Willow and Faith looked at each other, then at Fred. "Well, there's a Buffy who's the Slayer here . . . you think this is the same universe?"

"Can't hurt to give it a shot," Faith said.

And so they went to the phone and made a call and by golly it was the same universe Willow and Faith had encountered several times before and Buffy said she really couldn't come up right then and Willow wasn't doing magic anymore but if they could hold on a couple of hours Buffy was fairly sure she could get someone up there who'd be able to help. So for the nezt two and a half hours Faith and Willow and Leo and Fred chatted nervously about their universes and tried to rack their brains about what had happened and Fred fed and changed Connor, and then a young woman with blonde hair walked in the front door and said nervously, "I, I think this is where Buffy told me to go; is one of you Fred?" Then she got a look at the unconscious Will and the other one and quietly said, "Whoa."

And as Fred allowed as she was indeed Fred Faith and Willow began swearing and pointing their weapons and yelling out the name "Tara!" and this was just NOT the way Fred had been hoping things would go.

"Um, um, what's going on?" Tara (as Fred presumed her name was) said, backing up rapidly. "I was told people needed help, not that anyone was going to try to kill me . . . "

And then Fred remembered that Tara had been in the other universe the witch who'd sent them here and said, "Hold it, hold it, remember, different universes, different Taras and all . . ."

Faith said, "Yeah, okay, but I've got my eye on you, don't try anything funny," and Tara smiled limply and walked over while nervously looking around and then she focused on Leo and Fred as somewhat friendly faces. Introductions were performed all around and then explanations were given and Tara was asked if she could maybe do anything to help bring the Charmed Ones and Angel and Cordelia back and send Willow and Faith home.

Tara looked at them and said she'd do her best and said that the first thing they were going to need to do is let Will wake up. This was apparently where things were going to get interesting . . .

And Fred really really really didn't like it when things got interesting.



Part 8

Along their way to her restaurant, Pipes whipped out a cell phone and said, "Hey, dad. Coupla things. First, make sure the basement trap door's unblocked. Never mind why. Me boss. Just when a couple of people come up through it, make sure no one calls security. They're invited guests. Really, really weird invited guests, but invited guests. Then – there's no one using the VIP room, right? Good. Block it off for me and make sure there are at least a dozen chairs in the room. And no one except you comes in without my say-so." After a question. "Yeah, one of those situations. Now if you don't like it you can find another job, mister –" then she laughed. "Of course I'm kidding, Dad. Without you around P3'd be in the toilet and I know it. Hey, you know me; I just can't take anything seriously." Another pause. "You know better than that. We all got our burdens, and if this is mine, then hey! I can live with being wacky ol' Pipes. See you in a few, dad." She hung up and turned to the other people in her car. "That was dad."

Phoebe, sitting next to her in the passenger seat, said, "Never would have guessed."

Pipes burst out laughing and rubbed Phoebe's head. "I like you. You're the little sister with a sense of humor I never had."

From the back seat, Parris – who was sitting next to Doyle – said, "I resent that. I have a sense of humor."

"Well," Pipes said, "You're not a humorless bitch like Prue, no, but compared to me –"

"Compared to you, love," Doyle said. "Johnny Carson was a stick in the mud."

Again Pipes laughed. "He was a regular grumpy-puss, wasn't he?"

Phoebe was extremely confused by the way this Piper acted. They'd agreed to exchange histories at the restaurant, so they weren't asking any questions, but already there were a lot of them. One was who the hell this Parris Halliwell was (of course, they probably had the same questions about Paige Matthews); two was how these Halliwells were based in Los Angeles; and three, was why was Pipes Halliwell such a flake?

These were all less important than how they were going to get home, but on that it seemed Pipes had been right – Prue (and god, it was heart-rending seeing her alive again, so much like Phoebe's own sister) had insisted on a couple of more tries, using Phoebes' spell and then one she'd come up with herself, before finally conceding that the six Charmed Ones (plus the unfortunate Angel and Cordelia) weren't going to puzzle it out on the spot.

This had upset Casper the Friendly Vampire, but Angel understood the necessity even if he was chafing at the bit to get back to his son. Of all people, Gunn had been the one to volunteer to lead them through the sewers; Cordelia had sworn she wasn't going to leave Angel's side, "Not that I don't trust you or anything," she'd told Gunn, "But you tried to kill Angel in my world for a while and seeing as you're on the same mission here I just want to be sure you're not going to take the opportunity to take down someone you think is a bad guy."

"I give you my word it ain't playing out like that," Gunn had said. "But if it did do you think you could protect him?"

"Yes," Cordelia'd said simply, and while Gunn had laughed to Phoebe it hadn't seemed like idle boasting.

Anyway, here they were in front of what looked like an interesting-looking restaurant – with a very familiar sign reading "P3." They drove down a side alley to a private parking lot, with the other car following them in. The eight of them got out of the car, and Pipes went up to Piper and said, "Um, sweetie? You might want to maybe cover your head. No reason to freak everyone out with my suddenly discovered identical twin."

"Uh-huh," Piper said, pulling a coat over her head and glaring at everyone else.

"I know," Pipes sighed. "Shame to cover up that great face and bod, but what choice we got, hmmm? Now come on."

While Pipes led the precession inside, she, Paige, Piper and Cole hung back for a few seconds. "Did you pick up anything?" Piper asked.

"Pipes is a lunatic," Phoebe said. "You?"

"Belthazor's still an evil son of a bitch," Cole said. "And your mother never slept with her Whitelighter."

Pipes poked her head out the back door. "Chop-chop, people. Big revelations later. Food now." The restaurant looked fairly impressive, from what little Phoebe could see of it before they were hustled into a back room. Prue, Parris and Doyle were already sitting down; everyone else grabbed a seat. Angel, Cordelia and Gunn were nowhere to be seen. "I'm presuming this would be the best time to say, LEO!"

And the Whitelighter orbed in, saying, "Yes . . ." and then blinked when he saw the duplicate Pipers. "Which one of you is my wife?"

Pipes walked up and kissed him passionately. Then, to everyone, "Hey, you want to do this, get a Leo of your own."

"Got one, thanks," Piper said.

"Now that we're done showing off," Prue said, "Could we do a compare-and- contrast and figure out what the hell's going on here?"

"Angel and Cordelia aren't here . . ." Paige said.

"Well, then," Prue said with exasperation, "Maybe we could just compare powers?"

"Fair enough." And so they did. It turned out that even the two Pipers' powers didn't match exactly. Pipes had yet to master the art of making things explode; however, she had freezing things down to a positive science. She was even able to freeze only PART of a person, and had once stopped a city bus speeding towards them. Prue was, well, Prue; telekinesis and astral travel, nothing different.

"But you," Prue said to Paige. "You're . . . half-Whitelighter. How – no, that's when we exchange history. But the powers --"

"I can orb, though only in place so far," Paige said. "And instead of moving things with my mind I call them to me. Watch." She concentrated on a salt shaker at the other end of the table. Then, blinking, she tried harder . . . and it orbed away from its place, to about five feet away from her hand and almost off the edge of the table.

"Paige," Piper said. "Have you not been practicing?"

As Paige denied the charges, they went over Parris' and Phoebe's powers: They more or less matched, though Parris had long since fully integrated levitation into her fighting style, and she didn't get quite as many visions –

That was because of Doyle, who received visions of people in trouble from a force of good known as The Powers That Be. "We're all on the same side," Leo said, "Though they're a lot more distant than Whitelighters tend to be."

"You're telling me," Doyle muttered. "I tried to summon 'em once to help me with something and they acted like I was the dirt under their shoe. I'd chuck it all if I could, but –"

"But you can't," Cordelia said from the door. "Trust me, I know that one." Angel and then Gunn followed her into the room. They all looked a little worse for wear.

"What happened?" Pipes said. "You guys look like something the cat would have left on the doorstep."

"Coupla demons jumped us in the sewers," Gunn said, breathing hard. "They tried to make us an offer we couldn't refuse."

"And . . .?" Piper said.

"What do you think? We refused it."

Doyle walked over to Cordelia. "You know something about visions?"

Pipes rapped her fists on the table. "Hey!" she said. "I thought we agreed, no sharing histories until the food comes." Then, "On the way in I took the liberty of having assorted sandwiches prepared, a couple dozen or so . . . vegetarian, meat, and so on, the crab melt's delicious today, actual lump crab meat, no flakes . . ."

"Except the cook," Piper muttered.

"I heard that," Pipes said. "And I resent it. I am not a flake. I'm a kook." Grinning, she looked at Angel, "And what will our friendly vampire be eating? I'm sure I could rustle up some cow blood if you like . . ."

"Coffee's fine," Angel said. "I ate this morning." Cordelia shot him a look so Phoebe guessed the vampire was lying, but as she didn't seem like she was going to argue it certainly wasn't Phoebe's place to do so.

"Right then," Pipes said as a waiter . . .

No, their FATHER . . .

Came into the room carrying a tray of sandwiches. When he saw the duplicate Pipers he did a polite double take, put the sandwiches down on the table, and said, "With what you said I figured I should be the one to bring your food." Then he looked intently at Piper. "Wouldn't have thought this would be the reason, though . . . "

Parris sighed. "You may as well sit down, Dad; this is going to take a while . . ."



Part 9



"I've seen this woman in action before," Leo said. "She's extremely dangerous. If she doesn't have spells or something she can invoke simply by speaking, I'd be very surprised." He was doing his best to keep the situation under control while keeping his identity as a Whitelighter secret. If push came to shove, getting the Charmed Ones and Cole back was his top priority, but so far he hadn't needed to blow his cover.

"So I stand by her head and give it a whack if she breathes funny," Faith said.

"Once, just by blinking, she held Buffy, Cole, another witch and all three Charmed Ones frozen in place. Like she had done to your friends Angel and Cordelia," Leo said. "I don't know if even a Slayer's reflexes would be fast enough."

"The, the problem is," Tara said, "If we don't let her wake up we'll never find out what happened. I mean, Fred, you, you said you didn't hear all the spell, Willow, Faith, you were getting manhandled by vampires, and Leo, you said you don't remember all of it."

"I remember the gist," Leo said.

"Gist is good," Tara said. "But, but there are a dozen different ways of doing the gist – plus this stopper spell. If, if this alternate me is so powerful –"

"She is," Willow said curtly. "She hooked up with the Queen a year and a half ago and she's been giving us grief ever since. Thank god we've got Amy on our side or we'd've been shrimp toast a long time back." Then, unexpectedly, she kissed Faith. When they were done, Faith grinned a little but didn't say anything. This Willow ran a lot more on instinct than her counterpart, Leo noticed.

"All I'm saying is, I might not be able to undo this stopper spell at all. Magic is, is a part of me, but it's not my whole life. I don't think I'm up to their level. But the only way we'd even have a shot is to know exactly what she did. And I'm not a mindreader."

"I know someone who is," Fred volunteered. "The only problem is we'd need to get Will here to sing and I don't know if you know any way of forcing her to do so, plus we'd actually have to wait for him to come back and he's been out since last night partying somewhere."

"If this telepathic musician friend of yours shows up in the next fifteen minutes, great," Willow said. "If not ––"

They stood there for a second and thought until Faith said, "You got a way of scrambling her mind?"

"Huh?" Tara said.

"I remember," Willow said excitedly. "They tried that once on Amy."

"Exactly," Faith said. "Our Tara used a spell when they captured Amy once, to keep her too out of it to cast but not too out of it to ask questions. Then they also rung in a truth spell and –"

"Those, those are dangerous to mess with," Tara said thoughtfully. "But right now – especially since your friend hasn't shown, Fred, and I've never heard of any songs that force people to sing – it may be the only way we have to go."

"And if she still doesn't say what we need to hear," Willow said, cracking her knuckles, "vell, ve have vays of making her talk."

Honestly, Leo was a trifle uncomfortable with coercion. Apparently Fred was too, because she said, "Oh, please, please, no actual torture or anything, I mean, I realize the situation's bad and all but I've been tortured and I wouldn't wish that on anyone, even my worst enemy."

"No torture," Faith promised a little grumpily. "But I'm not saying I won't slap her once her twice."

And Tara thought for a second and said, "I can do them, give me a second," and she pulled out some herbs from the bag she'd brought with her and first chanted one spell, and then another.

Then they slapped her awake.

And to their great relief, both spells worked.

To their great annoyance, they worked for about five minutes.



* * * * *

It hadn't taken them long to get back to Caritas, which is where they'd established temporary headquarters. Krev'Lornswath had graciously (no, really, no threats required or anything) given them use of one of his back rooms and all the food and booze they wanted.

"Always happy to help out allies of the Source," he'd said. "I'm not the right material to be a soldier like Belthazor or powerful independent agents like you two lovely ladies, but I do my part where I can. Just remember, the bar itself IS off-limits, even if big strong hero-types come in. I like their money."

Belthazor had grunted and walked back; Buffy'd performed a deep, elaborate, and for once in her life absolutely sincere bow; while Tara'd just stood there, grinned, grabbed a couple of bottles of soda and followed them back.

Tara and Buffy were watching an X-Files rerun while Belthazor paced irritably. At the end of it, Buffy said, "Hold on. Watch a second." And then, after a long lingering shot of the lake, Big Blue's reptilian head poked its head up from the surface, looked around, and then sank back underwater. "See?" Buffy said. "See?"

Tara said, "No."

Buffy growled. "The ONE time in the early eps of the series Scully was right and they had to go and ruin it with that shot. Why couldn't they have let the minority opinion be right even once?"

Tara gave her an odd look, squeezed Buffy's shoulder, and laughed affectionately. "You're strange," she said. "Getting that upset over an eight-year old TV episode."

"Hey," Buffy said. "I gotta have something to do when I'm not being evil. TV's how I relax; you read; Belthazor – hey, Belthie. What DO you do to unwind?"

"Torture puppies," Belthazor said. "Drink. Why the hell do you care. The Source has expectations of me –"

"The Source," Buffy said, "Has given you as much leeway over the last year and a half as he's given any demon ever, so you could have a free hand to destroy the Charmed Ones. And in that time, you've . . . ."

"Killed off that cop friend of theirs. Lockley."

Acidly, Buffy said, "Well, congratulations. That's something, yeah, but think about it like you were planning to rule the world. So far? Luxembourg."

"I just don't appreciate being left in the dark," Belthazor growled. "I'd heard of the two of you before yesterday and I know this isn't it. But so far if I need to report back to the Source on my progress all I'd have to say is, you know how there used to be three Charmed Ones? Well, we've got a few more right now."

"Exactly," Tara said, smiling.

Confused, Belthazor said, "Exactly what?"

"Think about it, Belthazor," Tara said. "The Halliwells' powers are built around the Power of Three. And what they have right now . . ."

Finally, Belthazor caught on, "Is the Power of Six."

Buffy laughed. "And what the hell is that, anyway?"



Part 10



Before the Charmed Ones compared notes, Angel and Cordelia filled them in on the differences they knew of between the universes. This wasn't as short as Phoebe might have thought, because they'd had prior encounters with the Queen, once when Buffy and this universe's Slayer – who happened to be Cordelia –had switched places, and once when the Queen had engineered another switch for no particular reason they could remember.

Here, Cordelia was the Slayer; Angel was dead; and the Slaying team consisted of Cordelia, Willow, Faith, Amy (a witch, apparently), Rupert Giles (the Watcher) and his girlfriend, Jenny Calendar. The news about their home universe – particularly the fact that their Doyle had joined the ranks of the deceased a couple of years back, and that Gunn was an ally of Angel's – startled Pipes, Parris and Prue a bit as well.

Not to mention Gunn and Doyle. Gunn said, "You guys kick major vampire ass?" Angel nodded. "Then no wonder I back you."

Doyle said, "I felt here I should go to the persons fighting hardest to right the wrongs. That was you, in your universe, and the Halliwells here." After a second, "I have to say, I think I like the way things worked out a little better in this one." Parris grinned and kissed him.

And now for the Halliwells. Where to begin?

With the similarities. Prue was Prue, Pipes was Piper (genetically, anyway), Mom had had to suppress their powers and had died young, Grams had raised them, their powers had come as something of a shock, and Piper had married Leo. Dad was more or less the same, except that he'd been hired by Pipes to run her restaurant, coincidentally still named P3.

The differences, though –

Trivial ones (amazing that they qualified as trivial) included no Darryl and no former boyfriends named Andy or Dan, but instead a friendship with the Lockley family, first the father (but he'd been killed a couple of years back) and now the daughter, both of them police officers. That Pipes owned a restaurant and not a club, and that she owned it by herself, because Dad had co-signed the loan. That Prue'd taken her career in photography and become a member of the LA paparazzi. A lot else.

The first big thing was that a couple of months after Prue had been born, the Whitelighters had gotten Grams, Mom and Dad to move to Los Angeles. The only explanation had been necessity. So instead of a beautiful old house in San Francisco, they lived in a moderne mansion that had allegedly been haunted (and, in fact, it HAD, but Grams had taken care of that within a couple of months after they moved in.)

Angel said, "Check to see if these Whitelighters ever ran into an agent of neutrality named Whistler. He might have told them I wasn't going to be going anywhere in this universe after the big fight with the Master."

And then there was why Dad was so close to them. Turns out here Mom's Whitelighter had been a woman named Barbara, not a man named Sam. And so while they'd had some rocky times, Dad had never had the suspicion that Mom and her Whitelighter were having an affair –

So they'd never divorced, and he'd been part of their lives all along. Yes, Grams had had custody; some things didn't change. But Dad had been there, supporting them emotionally, mentally and financially, all their lives. (Parenthetically, Phoebe noticed this hadn't changed Prue's disposition at all, but could this be why Pipes was flaky and Parris so even-keeled?)

Also, Grams had died about fifteen months earlier in this universe, over the previous summer, while Parris had been home on college break. It had been Pipes and to a lesser extent Parris who'd insisted they go through with the power of three ritual, but since they'd done it earlier they were somewhat more experienced – and had dealt with a lot more in the way of supernatural evils.

Their main enemies at the moment were two: One was Belthazor, who'd shown up as a cop, flirted a bit with Prue, and then revealed himself. The other was a law firm named –

"Wolfram and Hart?" Cordelia asked.

"Yup," Parris said. "Chief tormentors Lilah Morgan and her boss Arnie Becker. The one good thing is that they're not used to facing off against people who have a fair amount of money, like we do . . ."

"Anyone they can bribe, we can bribe better," Pipes translated.

The third one was why there was a Parris and not a Phoebe. Mom –

Well, Mom had miscarried Phoebe. And nothing medicine, or witchcraft, or Whitelighters could do, could save Phoebe's life. And mom, knowing there had to be three Halliwells, couldn't spend much time in mourning. Parris was only a year younger than Phoebe was.

"Wow . . ." Phoebe said, instantly somber. "That's – that's just scary. I never had a chance . . ." Cole put an arm around her.

"Neither did I, on your world," Parris said. "At least here you were conceived. But once you were born – no chance for me."

"I don't think we need to go into a whose-life-sucks-worse fight," Piper said. "We've both had our triumphs and . . ." she looked at Prue, "tragedies."

The Halliwells of this world had in turn marveled over Phoebe, Paige, the fact that they still lived in San Francisco, and the redemption and powerlessness of Belthazor. These Halliwells' Dad had been amazed at the actions of his counterpart.

Meanwhile, the sandwiches – which had been damn good, no question – had vanished, and the afternoon had lengthened, and two things hadn't happened. One, they weren't any closer to finding out how to get home, and two – well, when the rest of the history had been hashed out, Phoebe tentatively raised her hand and said, "Just one more thing."

Since she was looking at Pipes as she said it, Pipes said, "And that would be, Columbo?"

"I think I speak for me, and my sisters, and Cole, when I say: WHY ARE YOU SUCH A LUNATIC?"

Angel threw up his hands; Cole groaned, Piper muttered something under her breath, and Doyle laughed. Prue said, "I think there are more important things –"

"'sokay, sis," Pipes said. "So you want to know why I'm a little touched, huh? Kinda loopy? Sort of kooky? A tad eccentric, a trifle wacky, just a little bit off the wall? Why it seems I'm a few bauds short of a modem and my elevator doesn't reach the penthouse? Why I'm funny and laid-back instead of a stuck-up prig like Prue or a monomaniac like Parris?" Pipes had gradually moved closer to Phoebe as she spoke; by now they were practically face-to-face. Pipes' voice had raised and her eyes had gotten very wide. "Is THAT what's bothering you, bunky?"

"Um . . . well, now that you mention it . . ."

For a second no one moved; Phoebe briefly wondered if she'd pushed this crazy person just a little too far.

Then Pipes laughed, clapped Phoebe on the shoulder, and said, "Fine. Come on then." She dragged Phoebe to her feet and practically frog-marched her out of the room, calling back as they left, "Try to be productive while I'm gone, okay?"

Then they walked through the dining room to an office, where Pipes told Phoebe to sit down.

An amazing transformation occurred. All traces of amusement and lunacy left Pipes' face and she said, seriously, "Do you really want to know?"

Confused, Phoebe said, "Uh-huh."

"You have to promise me to tell NO ONE," Pipes said. "I'm not kidding. Not your sisters, not your boyfriend, not your psychic friend, NO ONE."

"Unless it's necessary to save someone's life, I so swear," Phoebe said. "Now what the hell's going on here?"

Pipes told her.



Part 11



"Okay," the Queen said, clapping her hands once. "Time to get to work."



* * * * *

"Hold on a second," Pipes said. Then she incanted a spell and the door latched behind her and the background noise faded. "That's a privacy spell," she said. "I had it put in a while back. Everyone thinks it's for when Leo comes over and . . . well, they're not entirely wrong. But it's also for those times I HAVE to be alone. No distractions." She took a deep breath. "I'm going to need to show you part of this, I think. But the reason I'm crazy is . . . I'm important."

"Uh-huh." As a dramatic revelation this fell somewhere short of "We're out of salad dressing."

Pipes sighed. "I can tell you're kind of underwhelmed here."

"Underwhelmed and more convinced you're crazy than ever."

"I thought I was going to have to show you." Then she took a deep breath. "As I go through my summary, whatever happened let Phoebe see." Then, "Okay, then, that should do it . . . now, here's why I say I'm important. I've always been a bit lighter than Piper, I think. Nothing major until a couple of months after we got our powers."

Suddenly the room disappeared and Phoebe found herself disembodied, watching a room in an unfamiliar mansion. Pipes, Prue and Parris were eating breakfast.

"So . . ." Prue said.

"Yes?" Parris asked.

"So we saw the letter from Asimov's," Pipes said. "It didn't look like a return . . ."

"It wasn't," Parris said coyly.

"Parr," Prue said, "We know you want to draw this out but if you keep us in suspense one more minute I swear I'll strangle you with this phone cord."

Parris laughed. "That's a cordless phone."

"So it'll take a while. SPILL."

"It was accepted," Parris said. "It'll appear in the March issue – 'The Technopagan,' by Parris M. Halliwell." She held up a piece of paper. "Here's my first check—"

And then there was a sound – like a transporter from the Enterprise being run through a washing machine. The Halliwells spun –

And saw Prue standing there. A vicious, nasty-looking Prue, scarred and pale as death. "And your last," she said, extending a hand. As the Halliwells dove for cover, the table exploded.

"Who the hell are you?" Prue demanded when they finally got to their feet. "And why do you look like me?" Prue slowly floated a vase in the air behind her double.

"I AM you," Prue hissed. "But I'm a smart you. I figured out what was what a long time back."

She turned and the vase exploded in midair.

The picture faded and Pipes' voice came through. "I don't need to bore you with the details of the entire fight – it took a couple of days for us to finally beat this Prue. Yeah, you guessed it, she was from an alternate dimension – one where we'd kept our powers since birth and where she was about as stable as the San Andreas Fault. She'd killed her two sisters, stolen their powers, and had been roaming through worlds killing off her counterparts so they wouldn't get the same idea. We beat her. But something she said had bothered me."

A brief picture of the pale, scarred Prue saying, "I killed Piper, I killed that good-for-nothing Phoebe, and you think after what I've been through . . ."

"Her sister," Pipes said, "Had had your name. Not Parris'. So after we beat her – and we did beat her, killed her, actually, didn't want to but we had no choice – I decided to look into the alternate universe thing, out of curiosity. And you know what I found?" Phoebe was watching Pipes, in a room with the Book of Shadows that looked nothing like their attic, gazing into a mirror where other Halliwells were doing their thing. A dizzying succession of images played out on the mirror; either Pipes could process like Data or she was getting the fast-forward version of events.

And the people in the mirror changed. Phoebe was there, then Piper, then Parris, then someone she didn't know, and so on and so forth. "I looked at thousands of universes in a three-day timespan," Pipes said. "I saw universes where we were dead, universes where we were evil, universes where we were mighty forces for justice and some where we had no idea what the hell was going on."

The images in the mirror continued to dance.

"And what I found was older sisters named Prudence, Patience, Penance, Philippa, Peregrine, Penelope, Priscilla, Precious and Pallas; younger sisters named Pauline, Paula, Paulette, Phoebe, P. J., Patrice, Patricia, Paisley and Pamela; and even mysterious fourth sisters every once in a while, named Paige, Petra, Parker or Perry. But do you know what they all had in common? EVERY universe, the ones where we were dead, the ones where we were evil, the ones where we were good and the ones where we were clueless. Do you know what they had in common? Do you know what was there in every single damned universe I saw over those three days?"

And as the shadow Halliwells kept on moving in that mirror, with Pipes looking on in fascination and horror, it hit Phoebe.

"You," she said.

"Me," Pipes answered. "Every one, every time. And that's what frightens me. The multiverse didn't need Prue; it could have sailed on happily with a Patience or a Priscilla. It didn't need Parris; you or Patrice would have done just as nicely. And it sure as hell didn't need Paige, who didn't even exist in most of them." The images vanished and she sat down heavily in her chair. "But it needs me." She put her head in her hands. "And that's when I lost it. When I told you I was important, I wasn't just blowing smoke up your ass. I AM important. I just don't know why. Maybe it's something I'm destined to do; maybe it's something I've already done."

Phoebe had no idea what to say.

"I couldn't even afford the luxury of going completely insane," Pipes said quietly. "I was a Charmed One. I had a duty, I had to help save the world from the forces of darkness and demons and all that. I couldn't just go off somewhere and quietly gibber in a corner the way I wanted to. Who knows what might happen if I left?"

"So you decided to pretend to go crazy?"

"Oh, it's not really pretending," Pipes admitted. "I readily cop to being non completely compos mentis. I take three things seriously: My cooking, my husband and my duties as a Charmed One. Everything else is out the window. I can't spare the mental effort it takes to deal with them. Because I never know when the multiverse might decide to let me know why I'm important." She closed her eyes and sighed. "I just hope it does, you know? Let me know? I'd like to be able to stop this at some point. It's exhausting."

She clapped her hands and stood up and the last vestiges of the visual spell went away, followed shortly by the effects of the privacy spell. Pipes went, "Anyway, we'd better get back out there before we miss anything. Remember what you promised."

She opened the door . . .

And the restaurant was a wreck. Overturned tables, broken dished, not a customer in sight. They ran to the private dining area to find Leo and Pipes' father rubbing their heads and groaning. They were the only ones in the room.

Phoebe turned to Pipes. "I think we missed something."



Part 12



Will had answered their questions, as nearly as Tara could tell, absolutely honestly. The dimension-switching spell itself had simply been a variant on the old ones, even using the same sound of thunder motif. The stopper spell was something else entirely; it was a spell of Will's own devising, designed to prevent any further cross-universe spells. After fast and judicious questioning Tara had been able to come up with the components for that spell.

Willow had also been able to come up with the motivation, through some fast, efficient, and harshly-worded questions. Of course, Will had been trying to get Fiat Voluntas Tua back; having the Charmed Ones shanghaied off to an alternate universe was simply to get them out of the way, so that Will's search for the necklace could proceed without interference. She'd given up on the idea, apparently, of trying to restore things the way they HAD been in her no-longer-accessible 2009, and was simply trying to get the necklace by any method possible.

The motives of the alternate universe's villains had been similar; get Willow and Faith out of their hair permanently.

Tara was about to ask about some of the details of the stopper spell when all of a sudden Will looked up and said, "OUR REVELS NOW ARE ENDED."

Fred and Leo said at once, "Shakespeare?"

And then she magically broke her bonds and staggered forwards. Faith and Willow charged at her and found themselves flung backwards, though not far. Then, to Tara, "I – I don't know WHAT you did to me. But I'll figure it out and fix it. And then – well, let's just say you've just been added to my shit list."

Fred was creeping up on her once again with the fire extinguisher. Will spun and said, "Nice try," then picked the fire extinguisher up mentally and flung it across the room. "And don't think I've forgotten about you either, missy."

By now Willow and Faith had gotten up and were once again coming at her. Will said, "In the meantime," and vanished –

Replaced by some kind of four-armed demon, with skin the color of the Incredible Hulk and a disposition to match. The demon immediately tried to hit Fred and Tara; Fred stumbled backwards while Tara ducked and came up with the strongest spell she could on the spur of the moment.

Unfortunately, all the dust spell seemed to do was tick the demon off, though while actually in the cloud it couldn't see and Faith and Willow took some shots at it. Willow unlimbered a hand-held crossbow and fired a few bolts in the general direction of the demon's skull, while Faith stood back, waited for the dust to clear, and punched at its stomach a couple of times.

Leo, meanwhile, had run around to Fred to check on her – Fred was not only fine, she was busily rummaging through a cabinet of weaponry that looked like it belonged in a museum. "Can you fight?" she said.

"Not with those things," Leo said.

"Well, then whatever you can do, do, and if you can't, try not to get hurt." Then Fred picked up a crossbow of her own – it looked like it had been modified somehow – pulled out a match, lit the tip of the crossbow bolt and fired it at the demon.

It whistled past Faith's ear – she yelled "Watch it!" but didn't turn around – and hit the demon where the heart should have been.

The burning bolt glowed brightly for a few seconds and the demon yowled in pain; then he yanked out the shaft and threw it to the ground. "Oh," Fred said, "That didn't work like I would have hoped . . ."

Tara tried frantically to come up with another spell, but before she could chant it the demon threw Faith to one side, charged at her, and raked her across the stomach. As she fell backwards she was dimly aware of blood beginning to spill . . .

* * * * *

She woke up, Leo with his hands pressed against her sternum. "She's awake," she heard him say, and he moved his hands away from her stomach. Sitting up, she noticed that her shirt was shredded and bloody . . .

That's right, the demon had ripped her stomach open. Then why didn't she feel hurt?

Answer: She wasn't. She looked around and saw a the demon lying on the floor decapitated, with Fred preparing to torch the corpse, presumably in case it decided to get rowdy. "Hold on a second," Fred said, "I have to take care of the demon here and then I'll go upstairs and get you one of my shirts, I don't think I'm quite your size but I think I can find something, and could someone help me lug this body down to the sewers before I burn it? Because I don't want Cordelia to come back and find a big stain on the rug, she might get mad." Willow was awkwardly cradling a now very much awake and crying Connor, so Faith volunteered. While they were gone, Willow found the refrigerator and did her best to feed Connor; fortunately for everyone, he was crying at least partly because he WAS hungry.

When Faith and Fred got back from wherever they'd gotten to, Fred ran upstairs and got a shirt, then came down and presented it to Tara. Leo graciously turned his head while Tara stripped off her now-useless blouse and put it on. It was a little small, but it was better than walking around in just a jacket and a bra. "Thanks," Tara said a bit bemusedly, "So, anyway, what happened?"

"This guy's apparently a refugee from Touched By an Angel," Faith said. "Did some kind of healing hand-jove on your stomach. Wouldn't'a believed it if I hadn't seen it."

Leo said, very reluctantly, "I'm not an angel – and please don't compare me to anyone on that show. I've seen it and it's about as spiritually deep as a wading pool." He sighed. "But I am, for better or worse, a good spirit – we're called the Whitelighters. We're also not supposed to reveal our existence, so I'd appreciate it if you would keep this to yourselves."

"So why didn't you do something before?" Faith demanded. "I mean, if you're such a big force of good and all, why didn't you just zap Will away – or that demon?" By this point, Willow was rocking Connor in his cradle. Faith looked over and smiled for a second, then once again glared at Leo, demanding an answer.

Sighing again, Leo said, "My powers don't work that way. I advise – and teleport – and heal, and that's about it. I would have preferred to keep what I am a secret, but I wasn't going to stand by and let Tara die."

"Very much appreciated," Tara said. "I'm, I'm just glad you were here when it happened. That's an amazing power to have."

"It's been a lot of help over the years," Leo said simply. "Now, did you get enough information from Will before she broke free?"

"I think so," Tara said. "Fred – are there any spell books around here?"

"We, we have some," Fred said. "But I wouldn't know exactly what you were looking for . . ."

"Any that involve dimensional travel of any sort," Tara said. "If there aren't any like that specifically, bring whatever you can carry. Then I'm going to need some components."

She listed a few items she was going to need for both spells; Leo said, "I know a couple of places I think I can get you some of them. I'll be back in a few minutes." Then he vanished in sparkles of white light.

Maybe that's why he was called a Whitelighter, Tara mused.



Part 13

Buffy and Tara had moved to a small, abandoned two-story office building elsewhere in LA – Krev'Lornswath was fine with letting them hole up in Caritas for a few hours but he drew the line at captives.

"I'm sorry, sweetlings," he'd said. "Torture victims would clash with the décor. And really. How am I supposed to read people's feelings through song if there are screams of pain coming from the back room? I mean, suppose I'm reading a lovestruck vampire and I accidentally foretell anguish and misery? Talk about your faux pas."

So while Belthazor had taken a half dozen of his compatriots off to take down a few Charmed Ones, Buffy and Tara had switched locales and were sitting around the ground floor lobby. Belthazor, when he came in, would be coming through the sewer entrance in the basement.

"So why didn't WE go?" Tara complained.

"Please! I might break a nail," the Queen answered. "I mean, I love a good fight and all but why did you think I had Belthazor ring in all that demonly muscle? We don't run errands; we have other people rum them for us."

Tara sighed. "I know, but still, I would have felt better if we'd been there. Something might have gone wrong."

Buffy walked up to Tara and touseled her hair. "You are so CUTE when you try to micromanage," she said, and despite herself Tara smiled. "I mean, look at me. I have subordinates and I trust them implicitly."

"Like Oz?" Tara asked. Oz had been Buffy's second-in-command a couple of years back, until he'd doublecrossed the Queen and tried to strand her in the other universe. By the time Buffy got back he was dead, so she'd never figured out what had happened.

"Oh, sure," Buffy said. "If you want to get picky about it."

Tara reached forward and played with Buffy's blonde locks. "You're so CUTE when you're frantically backtracking."

Jerking free, Buffy muttered, "Smartass."

Right then they heard voices from down below, and Belthazor yelled up, "We have them. Mostly."

As Buffy and Tara went downstairs, the Queen said, "I'm not sure I like that word, 'mostly.'"

They went to the big room and saw their captives; of them, only the vampire and the alternate Cole were even conscious, though no one was badly injured. Buffy had specified captured and not killed and would have been royally pissed had anyone wound up dead.

The demons chained their various captives up to the wall, leaving two spots open at the end. "Hold it," Tara said, "Who's missing?"

Quickly, Buffy counted heads. "One of the Pipers – and one of the sisters from the other universe."

"No," Belthazor said, pointing to one of the prisoners. "We have her right here. The other one is the Pipes from this world – she'd apparently taken off. We couldn't find her anywhere."

Buffy made a production of looking at the prisoner, then walked over to Belthazor and decked him. "You IDIOT!" she yelled.

Tara blinked. Buffy didn't get angry often, but when she did it was easier to calm down a hurricane. Involuntarily, she took a step back and made ready with the freezing spells in case Belthazor's allies got frisky.

They didn't. When Belthazor got up he stood his ground.

So Buffy decked him again.

"One more time," he said as he once again stood, "And I get angry."

"I've made my point," Buffy spat. "You may be right about Pipes – from what you've told me the woman is a raving loon. But if THAT'S Phoebe Halliwell I'm Tony Danza."

"How could you know?" the demon demanded.

"Because that's Cordelia Chase, you brainless blob of body paint!"

* * * * *

"What the hell happened?" Phoebe said to no one in particular.

Leo answered bitterly, "Belthazor led an army of assorted demons against us. We didn't have a chance."

"That shouldn't have been enough," Pipes said, doublechecking her husband for injuries while Phoebe looked over the groaning form of her father's counterpart. "I mean, it's not like they're NO good without me . . . "

"There was something wrong," Leo said. "No one's powers worked."

"Not entirely true," Dad said. "They just weren't working right." He sat up very slowly with his hands on his head. "Pipes, honey – your double was trying to freeze these demons and it was only working for a split second. And Prue – she was moving things all over the place. It's like she could barely control where anything was going."

Leo said, standing up, "Parris didn't seem to have too many problems –"

"But then, she and I have the same powers, which aren't very active anyway Did she levitate at all?"

Leo frowned. "Now that I think about it, no."

"And –" Pipes' father began. "That other girl. Paige, that was it. She was doing the Whitelighter thing very badly."

"She doesn't have full control anyway," Phoebe murmured. "Still –"

"What about the customers?" Pipes asked abruptly.

"As far as I know they all got out okay," Leo said. "The demons didn't bother with them; they charged straight in to the private dining room."

"Why didn't we hear this?" Phoebe demanded.

"Those privacy spells around my office," Pipes said, sighing. "We could have had a herd of elephants run through here and we wouldn't have noticed."

Before Phoebe could express any righteous indignation, Leo said, "It doesn't matter. You would have gotten captured too. At least this way you're able to try to rescue them."

"With our powers on the fritz?" Phoebe said.

"Easy there," Pipes said. "No time to get hysterical. Besides, that's my job. Get your own schtick."

"One more thing," Pipes' father said. "Cordelia pretended to be you."

"Me?" Pipes said.

"No," he said. "Her. Phoebe. Everyone went along with it. And she was good enough in the fight that no one thought she was lying."

"They did seem kind of annoyed you weren't there, honey," Leo said, "But Prue just said, 'You know what a flake my sister is. For all we know she decided to go pick up some abalone in person.' The bluff worked."

"Yeah," Phoebe said, "But as soon as they get back to the Queen and Tara they're going to figure out at least that Cordelia isn't me. This Belthazor didn't know me; but if this universe's Cordelia's the Slayer then the Queen sure knows what she looks like."

Leo stood up and walked over to Pipes' father. "Hold still," he said, and shortly all of the man's injuries were gone.

"Thanks," Dad said, standing up. "I – I think I'd better go try to do some damage control. See if the servers and the cooks are okay. Also –"

"Yeah, dad?" Pipes asked.

"If you're going to rescue everyone you might want to get going. Once Detective Lockley hears about it she'll try to smooth things over – but it might be a while before she gets here."

"You up for it, sweetie?" Pipes said. "I mean, you don't have anyone to heal your wounds except me." She kissed him briefly. "And I can't do that here." She sighed, then clapped her hands. "Right then. Dad, handle the police. If anyone asks about me or Leo – well, I was just being me, okay? I didn't see anything anyway."

"I think the police are getting a little tired of your crazy woman routine," Dad said.

She laughed. "Who says it's a routine?" Then, to Leo, "Can you get us back to Casa Halliwell?"

"No problem," he said. "You ready, Phoebe?"

"Yeah," she said.

Like she had a choice.



Part 14



Fred thought that it was a lot easier having a Whitelighter around to do errands because after all Whitelighters could jus pop back and forth and they had that healing ability, which quite frankly was the most useful supernatural power she could think of, though teleportation was also pretty cool. It didn't take that long to come up with the exact ingredients for the spell Tara needed, which gave them time to make sure Connor was okay and everything, which being as he was a baby he pretty much was, not having any idea what was going on.

Of course for just a second Fred envied him; after all they knew what was going on and they could deal with while all he could understand it as was a lot of scary noises. But then she figured out that his dad wasn't around and while he liked Fred and all this had to be really confusing and babies really didn't like a lot of scary noises or so she'd heard.

Anyway, Connor was okay and that was the important thing at the moment for when they brought Angel back although Fred really wished Lorne could get there because he sang really good lullabyes and he could take care of Connor and maybe help with this alternate dimension thing somewhat. Though from what everyone had said this was alternate universes and not dimensions so maybe the rules were different.

It looked like Tara had the right ingredients for the spell – Fred had volunteered to help her, since she had after all cast spells in the past even though she'd treated them more like science. Maybe when this was over she could talk over the rules of magic with Tara and see if like she suspected there were rules to magic just like to physics and all the other sciences. But that would be for then and right now they needed to get Angel and Cordelia and the Halliwells back to this universe and that meant she needed to concentrate on what was going on now. Willow and Faith were alternating keeping an eye out for bad guys and keeping an eye on Connor while Leo, his part more or less done, was doing an awful lot of pacing.

"What are you going to do first?" she asked Tara.

"I, I think we need to unblock the drain first," Tara said. "I've tried a few probes and I'm not getting anything – I don't think we could even communicate with that other universe if we wanted, and getting to it is out."

"So make with the transdimensional Liquid Plumber already," Faith said. "No offense – this ain't a bad uni and all, I been here before – but it's not home. And Will and me got some unfinished business with the Queen."

"Right," Tara said. "Fred, are you ready?"

"I think so," Fred said.

And so they did their best to cast the spell, which was very complicated in the set-up (Leo had had to orb halfway around the planet at times, they'd needed crystals and blood donated by a willing demon and the sap from a rubber tree plant and a half dozen other things) but fairly simple in the actual execution. Thirty seconds after beginning to cast it they were done.

"Did it work?" Willow said when they stood up.

"Well, we-we're going to need to test it first."

"Then let's try talking to someone," Leo said.

Tara took a deep breath. "You up for another spell?" she asked Fred.

"You bet," she said.

* * * * *

They orbed into the front room of a house that looked absolutely nothing like Halliwell Manor – except for the furniture. The front of the home was a giant pane of glass, but the Halliwells who lived here wouldn't have needed to worry about anyone peering in; the building was set a quarter mile back from the road, on an honest-to god estate. There was even a swimming pool in the backyard.

"Um," Phoebe asked when she'd finished the gawking routine. "Not to get totally off the track here, but how can you guys afford this place?"

"When Mom and Dad and Grams bought it back in the '70s it was really cheap," Pipes said. "Something about it being haunted with the ghosts of dead actors." She looked up towards the ceiling. "Thanks a lot for filling us in on THAT one," she said sarcastically.

"I take it Grams was less than forthcoming about the place's history?" Phoebe asked.

"Oh, she told us, all right," Pipes said. "But she said the problem had been solved. Imagine our surprise when Charlie Chaplin started waking us up with pratfalls every night." After a second: "It's not nearly as funny as you might imagine. Besides, I always preferred Buster Keaton."

"But the taxes –"

"Grams left us some money, Mom left us some money, and between the three of us we make a lot. And it's not like we have a lot of personal expenses." Then she pointed to the windows. "Of course, we're keeping the Los Angeles glass repair people in business singlehandedly." She took a deep breath. "Okay then, enough of the chit-chat. We need to figure out what happened to our powers, and why. Leo?"

"I don't know –"

"Just tell us once again what you saw."

"Prue was very clumsy in moving things – and it was taking her a lot of effort. Piper – the other one, I mean –"

"I'm Pipes, sweetie; I think everyone figured that out a LONG time ago."

Leo laughed, then said, "When she froze demons it didn't work very well. And she had some kind of explosion power that seemed WAY off. She tried to make one demon explode and only wound up blowing up his clothes." He laughed again. "You haven't seen ticked off until you've seen a naked demon."

"Little light down below, was he?" Pipes asked. When she saw Phoebe begin to sputter, she said, "Never mind . . . "

"Parris didn't seem too bothered. And Paige – because she's half Whitelighter her power manifests as teleportation, right?"

"Yup," Phoebe said. "Objects and, clumsily, herself, though mainly in place."

"Well, she was as off as the rest."

"Okay," Pipes said. "Phoebe, throw something at me." Phoebe reached for a vase. "Not that." She put the vase down and picked up a bowl. "Not that either."

Finally, Phoebe reached for the TV Guide that had come in the morning's mail. "Is this okay?" she asked a touch acidly.

"Well, it does have that cute guy from That '70s Show on the cover . . ." At Phoebe's glare, Pipes said, "Yeah, that's okay. Throw it at my head as hard as you can."

Without hesitation Phoebe did just that. Pipes gestured – and the TV Guide froze in place for a second, then fluttered harmlessly to the floor.

"Again, Pick something else." For the next ten minutes they worked their way around the room, with Phoebe throwing things ranging in size from a marble to a twelve-pack of sodas. Leo had to dive to stop that from exploding when it hit the floor. "Okay. How much does the twelve-pack weigh?"

"Twelve twelve-ounce cans . . . that's nine pounds plus the carton –"

Shaking her head, Pipes said, "Approximate's good enough here, sweetie. Okay, now toss it at me again."

This time, Pipes was able to freeze it in place, although it took something out of her. She walked forward, tapped the twelve-pack, and took it back to the refrigerator.

"You've got a theory," Leo said.

"That I do," Pipes answered. "My powers seem to be at half strength – and I only have half the control over them that I should. They wouldn't affect your combat skills – or Parris's – because those are skills, not powers. But maybe if you tried some levitation --?"

Phoebe was already on it. She tried a kick with some levitation, wound up only raising herself or so in the air, and jammed her foot when she came down. After Leo healed it, she tried again, concentrating harder, and this time jerkily went a couple feet in the air. "Not as easy as it used to be, is it?"

"No," Phoebe said. "What's – hold on."

*Can you hear me? *

*I can hear you, * Phoebe answered. *Who are you? *

*I'm from back in your own universe. My name is Tara -- *

Phoebe laughed. *Nice try. *

*No, * the voice said, *I know I'm evil there. I'm talking now to a Whitelighter named Leo. He said that you're debating whether or not you should marry a man named Cole . . . is that enough? *

*For the moment. Hold on. * Phoebe then explained the situation to Pipes and Leo. "So, do we trust 'em?" Phoebe asked.

"Not yet," Leo said. "See if there's a way they can set up the spell so that I can talk to this other Leo. If it's someone pretending to be a Whitelighter, I'll know."

Phoebe asked. *I'll try, * came Tara's response.

A minute or so later Leo was nodding his head. "It's the real deal, alright."

"This is no fun," Pipes pouted. "Everyone else gets to talk mind-to-mind and I don't."

"Sucks to be you," Phoebe said.

"Well, it shouldn't," was Pipes' answer.

Then they settled down to figure out just exactly what the hell it was they were going to DO.



Part 15



Cordelia felt herself being slapped awake. She opened her eyes –

And found Queen Buffy staring directly into them. "Hello," the Queen chirped. "And how are we feeling today?"

"We have a headache," Cordelia snapped. "We have just been assaulted by demons and taken into an alternate universe for no good reason. And yourself?"

"Fine, thanks," the queen said. Then, turning to her allies, she said, "See? Isn't it nicer when we're polite?" Then she turned to look at Cordelia again. "So why did you pretend to be Phoebe Halliwell?"

"So they wouldn't go looking for the real one," Cordelia said. "Since no one who knew what she LOOKED LIKE was in the room –"

The Queen looked at Belthazor. "Remind me to hit you again later." When the demon looked like he was going to complain, she added, "Don't. Thanks to you we've got TWO pissed-off witches instead of one to deal with."

And then Tara – and Cordy didn't think she'd ever actually met the one from her own universe – said, "Not that Belthazor didn't foul up big-time there, but remember the 'Power of Six.' Their powers are limited."

"Limited," Buffy grumped. "Not nonexistent."

"Excuse me," Cordelia said, "But if all you're going to do is rag on each other would you mind if I just kind of went back to sleep? Not to be all Ebert or anything, but this isn't entertaining."

"She thinks we're here to amuse her," Belthazor grumbled. "Maybe the boys should get this one to play with."

Buffy thought for a second, then said, "No. I might have use for a clone of that damned Slayer."

"I don't torture easily," Cordelia promised.

Laughing, the Queen said, "Who was talking about torture? I was thinking about . . . conversion."

"You're not scaring me," Cordelia said.

Tara faced her. "Babe, I don't think she's TRYING to scare you."

During this little byplay the other demons had waken up the Halliwells and everyone else in the room. Gunn and Parris immediately began swearing; everyone else just glared at their captors. Buffy walked out to the center of the room and said, "I bet you're wondering why I invited you all here."

Angel shrugged and said, "Actually, I just figured you wanted to get a few games of canasta going."

"Angel –" Prue hissed.

Doyle asked, "Whist?"

"Actually," Buffy said, "I'm more a poker kind of gal." She clapped her hands and said, "By the way, if you were thinking of using your powers . . ."

"Already got that figured out," Piper said sourly. "They're not working right."

"No," Tara said. "She meant that in those chains you can't use them at all. They're specially treated to resist witch-magic." She grinned. "Little something I whipped up myself."

Parris said, "Proud of yourself, are you?" In answer, Tara simply grinned malevolently.

"Anyway," Buffy said, "You WILL all be pleased to know that I can't kill you yet – what with two other Halliwells roaming around out there. So just sit tight and relax. You've got yourself an extra few hours of life . . ."

"Of course," Belthazor said, "Once they're captured we're going to kill them anyway."

"Well, DUHHH."

* * * * *

Leo asked, "Should I break contact --?"

"No – no," Tara said. "Two different conversations helps." So far the only conclusion they'd come to is that they were going to send Willow and Faith back. For their parts, the Slayer and her girlfriend were more than willing to give Phoebe, "Pipes –" and the other universe's Leo a hand. Fred was going nowhere; she was firmly determined to stay there and take care of Connor. And Leo couldn't go anywhere – the spells Tara was using weren't built to accommodate Whitelighters. The question was, where was Tara going to end up.

With the Halliwells' powers on the fritz they could use a witch, even one who wasn't the most powerful on the planet, who was at full strength. On the other hand, if whatever they were planning failed, there wouldn't be anyone immediately on hand to cast any kind of return spell. Fred could do it in a pinch, but –

Anyway. What they eventually decided on was for Willow and Faith to go back, but for Tara to maintain her mental link with Phoebe. It was an ongoing spell; it wouldn't wear off unless one of the two of them deliberately broke the link.

The Leos broke off their version; unlike with Tara, there was nothing Leo could do if things in the other universe got hairy.

*Ready? * Tara asked Phoebe.

*As we'll ever be, * Phoebe answered. *Hold on a second. What's the damn good of having them show up in the Hyperion? Kinda out of range there, aren't they? *

*This isn't the spell that Will and – the Tara from that world used. I can send them directly to you because we have a mindlink. *

*I'll take your word for it, * Phoebe said. *Alternate universe spells aren't up my alley anyway. Pipes is backing you as well. *

*Tell her thanks. *

And Tara told Faith and Willow to stand next to each other, and then began the spell.

There was a series of thunderclaps and then they were gone.



* * * * *

Phoebe said, "Okay, standing back might be a good idea . . . " as the thunder began. Pipes and Phoebe flattened themselves along the living room walls; Leo simply orbed out on the second thunderclap.

Two women appeared in front of them, holding hands. One looked like Will's shorter-haired identical twin, the other was dark-haired. They were both loaded for bear, or at least demon-hunting.

As Leo orbed back in the two introduced themselves as Willow and Faith. "So, you got yourselves a problem with the Queen?" The way they checked each other over for bumps and bruises clearly indicated they were involved.

"Oh, a little trivial thing, no bother really," Pipes said brightly. "We were thinking of calling Miss Manners in too, but darn the luck, she was out of town."

They turned to Phoebe. "So, you got yourselves a problem with the Queen?"

Phoebe said, "You could say that." Then she and Pipes gave them a five- minute summary, Leo filling in a few key points.

"And that's when we brought you here," Pipes finished. "So, you guys part of a dance troupe, you do synchronized swimming . . . ?"

"Are you insane?" Willow asked.

Pipes shook her head vigorously. "Oh, absolutely. But I'm cute and that makes up for it." Leo hugged his wife a bit bemusedly.

"You can trust her," Phoebe said in answer to the couple's unspoken question. They looked less than fully trusting.

*How are things going? * Tara asked her suddenly.

*Fairly well. We're doing a search now. Can you hear what I'm thinking when I'm not making an effort to talk? *

*Some of it. Just make sure to keep me up to speed. Oh, also: If you need me to come, just give a mental yell for help. I'm ready to jump. *

"Thanks. *

"Sorry," Phoebe said after a second. "Just filling Tara in."

"Uh-huh," Willow said. "So, what's the what for the assault plans?"

"Well, first we need to find them," Leo said. "Pipes?"

"That I think I can still handle. But Belthazor might have gone human to fake us out. I'll try to track down the Queen." They went towards the center of the house, in a large room with no windows, though there was a big skylight in the ceiling. When Phoebe looked up, Pipes said, "We got a ward on that. Been assaulted by one too many flying demons to make us comfortable."

The room itself was completely unlike the rest of the house. Actually, it reminded Phoebe of nothing so much as the attic where they kept the Book of Shadows. Without wasting any time, Pipes got out a map of Los Angeles and began swinging a pendant. "Quiet," she said. "This is harder than normal and . . . and . . . aha. Got it. They're right here."

"That's not that far away," Leo said.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Faith said. "Hard, fast, now."

"Not with our powers this screwy," Phoebe said. "We need to figure out SOME way to work around this thing."

"But as soon as we get that done," Pipes said. "It's time for some Mortal Kombat. I promise." Then she opened up the Book of Shadows.

Phoebe asked, "What are you looking up?"

"Merging spells."



Part 16



"Merging spells?"

"Merging spells."

"MERGING SPELLS?"

"Merging spells."

"Merg –"

Phoebe was cut off by Faith, who said, "I think we get it. Merging spells." She looked at Pipes quizzically. "What the hell's a merging spell?"

"My reasoning is this," Pipes said. "Phoebe and I here, we're part of what you call the Power of Three. It works because there are, well, three Halliwells, no waiting, per universe. But now –"

"And now we are six," Phoebe said.

"Exactly. That's why our powers are screwy. The world wasn't built to handle so many Halliwells, and there's only so much power to go around."

Leo frowned. "So why a merging spell? I'd be thinking more like a spell to send the Halliwells, plus Angel and Cordelia, back to their home universe."

"So would I," Willow said. "It was easy enough to get us here."

"That's a little finer than I like to cut things," Pipes said. "I'd rather be sure we were all in one place before we try that." And suddenly Phoebe caught onto the real reason. For all her bravado, Pipes HATED alternate universe spells. She'd sooner come up with a suicide potion, Phoebe suspected, than have anything to do with them.

"After REFLECTING," Phoebe said, "I think I understand. Am I right?" Pipes nodded her head. "And with our powers cut in half I don't know if a spell I made up, even if Tara's voice in my head would count –"

*I don't know either, * Tara said. *This isn't my usual style of witchcraft. *

"I don't know if we'd be powerful enough to pull off a transdimensional spell with people in who knows how many locations – if they're even alive –"

Willow barked, "They're alive, all right. The Queen got her notions of villainy from pop culture. She'll keep 'em alive until she has us all. Or has YOU all. She doesn't know we're back yet."

Pipes said, "Good to know. Now I don't have to change my Christmas card list."

Willow looked at her with shock. "How callous ARE you --?"

Pipes looked at her. "Do you want to find out?" And the humor completely left her voice. For just a second, everyone exposed to Pipes' real level of sanity, no jokes, no attempt to smooth over the rough parts of her psyche.

What that proved to Phoebe is that Pipes was a dangerous woman. If she ever let that self-control go, it would not be fun to be in the vicinity. Suddenly Phoebe was glad she was from an alternate universe. No matter that she sympathized with Pipes' circumstances; the woman was not sane, not even as sane as she thought.

"We have better things to do than pick on each other," Leo said, moving in to reassure his wife. At a glare from her, he backed off.

"Right," Faith said. "The Queen's out there. So's that bitch Tara."

"And Belthazor," Pipes said. "And we're not getting any closer to finding any of them with everyone crowding around me. So, Phoebe, maybe you could work on a rhyme or two to see if you can come up with anything to help the merge – Faith, Willow, we have some lovely training areas downstairs . . . that's not a hint, people, that's a firm get lost . . . you too, sweetie. I don't need any distractions right now."

They all got.

* * * * *

*Tara? *

*Yes? *

*Do you think that mindreading spell you did would work between minds in one universe? *

*Why? *

*Well, you know Pipes is going to try merging us. *

*I know. I can't say I like the idea that much. *

*I see her point, though. If we merge temporarily it might bring back the Power of Three long enough to be able to fight back against the Queen, this Belthazor and – your counterpart. *

*I, I get the reasoning. It just seems dangerous. *

*No kidding. But I can't come up with anything else except a frontal assault. At least this way maybe we'll know it's coming. *

*If you need my help, call me. I'll be there. *

*Now, about that mindreading spell . . . I usually do my spells by rhyming. Ritual magic's not so much up my alley. *

*It's not that hard. Really. The first thing you need is . . . *

* * * * *

Parris Halliwell looked around the room. Prue, Gunn and Cordelia looked defiant; Angel's face was a mix of anger and despair; Piper simply looked pissed, Cole was unreadable. and Paige just looked confused.

And then there was Doyle. He was bruised, he'd been beaten, but still, it was the face of the guy she loved.

Man, she thought SHE'D had problems dating a half-demon. From what she'd learned about Phoebe and Cole – well, Doyle had never been evil. That might have been because he hadn't been powerful enough to bother with until he'd developed his premonitions –

God, THAT had been a bear, taking down the Scourge. They'd gotten all the proof they needed right then that the Source was not the only game in town when it came to big-league evildoers. Finding out that Wolfram & Hart simply subcontracted to the Source every once in a while was the final nail in that coffin.

Not that this knowledge had made things that much easier, but occasionally they'd been able to play the different sides against each other.

In any event, she looked around the room. The demons were watching them from the other side, so they didn't have any way to plan an escape.

For some reason, Prue's face went from defiant to worried but determined. How --

*Parris ? * Someone suddenly asked in her head.

*Who is this? *

*Phoebe Halliwell, * the voice said. *I'm back at your place with Leo, Pipes, and some muscle. *

*Good to know. What can we do? *

*Get ready. Pipes has been looking up a merging spell. *

*A merging spell? *

*A merging spell. And don't ask again. I've already been through this. Pipes' theory is that the reason our powers are being so freaky is because there's six of us where there should be three. So merging -- *

*If we merge, the Power of Three should reassert itself. Smart. But these chains -- *

*Have some kind of anti-magic mojo on them. I know. We're working on that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a half dozen other people to tell -- *

*Gotcha. Thanks for the update. * And she felt the presence leave. Quickly, she looked around the room. Prue gave her a wink and a nod, and Piper flinched slightly.

Good. Finally they were going to be able to DO something about this.

* * * * *

Tara laughed.

"What's so funny?" Belthazor demanded.

"I've been listening in to something hilarious," Tara said. Belthazor looked at the radio, which was obviously off. "It's not on the radio. Come here."

Confused, Belthazor walked closer.

When he got within a couple of feet of Tara – voices?

*. . . rn you. Pipes is working on a spell to merge each Halliwell with their counterpart. *

*Thanks for the heads up. But witchbitch Tara told us -- *

*The chains are anti-magic. I know. We've got that covered. *

Despite himself, Belthazor was impressed. "You knew they'd try telepathy?"

"Not exactly," Tara said. "I thought they might try SOMETHING. I had a spell set up to let me know if any Halliwells tried any magic anywhere within a hundred feet of where we've got the other ones stashed."

"Right." Belthazor didn't completely get the fine points but he was still impressed. "But what was that about the chains?"

"They think they can get around the spell."

"And they can't?"

Tara laughed again. "Nothing in the UNIVERSE can get around that spell, sweetie."

* * * * *

In her mental perambulations, Phoebe had gotten a clear picture of how the bad guys had gotten to wherever they were. She gave Willow and Faith the directions and they took off, promising to wait for some kind of signal before they attacked.

*What's the signal? *

*I'm thinking a good yell, * Phoebe said.

Then Pipes walked in. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be, I guess," she said. "What'd you find out?"

"Can't be done by any old rhyme. You need a specific one to do what we need." She showed Phoebe a hastily handwritten spell. "Makes me wonder what'd happen if I tried chanting, say, 'Mary had a Little Lamb. I'll make a note of that." While Phoebe read the spell, Pipes yelled, "Leo!"

"Yes?" he said, orbing in.

"I'll call you as soon as I get there. Orb in where Gunn can't see you and start freeing everyone who isn't casting spells."

"Right." He orbed off.

"Okay then," Phoebe said. "Let's get going."

* * * * *

Tara was like a kid in a toystore with a $1000 gift certificate. "Come on, come on!" she said, practically dragging Belthazor and the Queen down the stairs. "Look what I did, look what I did . . ."

"If this is a fingerpainting you're a dead woman," the Queen said. "What's so . . . holy shit."

One of the chains was empty, and in three of the others were . . .

Two people they hadn't seem before, and Piper Halliwell . . . only more so.

"What the --?"

"They had a merging spell planned. I let them merge," Tara said. "And now they're not going anywhere."

From across the room Cole spat. "I don't know what you did –"

"Awww," the Queen said. "Is this the part where you threaten me with death and/or dismemberment? Been there, done that, ate the guy who sold me the t- shirt." She turned and looked at the rest of them. "So now we have all of them, right? Six Halliwells, no waiting?"

Tara said, "Yup."

"Well then," Buffy said. "I think it's time to –"

All of a sudden the merged Phoebe/Parris Halliwell teleported out of her chains.

Everyone took a step back. Belthazor glared at Tara. "You told me no one in the universe could work magic in these chains."

"They can't," Tara said. "I'd stake my reputation on it."

"Don't worry about that," Phoebe/Parris said. "She, she wasn't wrong."

"What the hell do you mean?" Buffy asked.

"Who are you?" Tara said, eyes narrowing.

"I'm not in this universe." Then Phoebe/Parris yelled, "LEO!" and then screamed, "A little help!"

And as Faith and Willow burst up from downstairs and that damned Whitelighter orbed in, Tara knew exactly who they were facing.

HERSELF.



Part 17



Fred jumped when Tara started talking to the air, yes she did, but jumped even more when she said, "There's, there's trouble. I have to go," but didn't vanish, she simply seemed to go catatonic; she was breathing and not much else.

Leo, who'd been entertaining Conor (and nervous as he said he'd been with children he seemed fine) put Angel's son down and came over to take a look. "What happened?" he asked with a frown on his face.

"I, I don't know," Fred said nervously. "She'd been talking about some kind of merging spell that Pipes Halliwell was going to try, and she didn't like it much but they were going to try it anyway – I don't think Tara thought Pipes was really sane – and they'd just done the spell a few minutes earlier when she turned and said there was trouble and she had to go."

Leo said, not unreasonably, "She hasn't gone anywhere."

"Thus my problem," Fred said. "I mean her body's here but her mind – could she take over the body of someone she's done this mindreading spell on, I wonder."

Leo sighed, "Only under rare circumstances – for one thing, the person on the other end would have to be unconscious –"

They looked at each other. "Tara said something was wrong. It looks like she was right."

* * * * *

Actually for possibly the first time in the whole debacle something was going RIGHT. Tara wasn't sure how she was able to take control of this merged body, but she guessed since the source of her magic wasn't bound by the chains –

Anyhow, that's how she got out.

Faith and Willow stormed upstairs when she called; Leo orbed in a half- second later. Faith and Willow didn't need to be told what to do; they pulled out their missile weapons, got off a couple of shots (killing one of the six nameless demons and injuring two others), and then got to hand-to- hand.

The other two merged Halliwells were still unconscious. Tara quickly told Leo, in the few seconds she had before Belthazot and her bad self recovered their wits, to free the combatants first – Angel, Gunn, etc. She'd have to handle the magic herself.

And now that she was out she felt positively infused with power. It seemed she had access to both Phoebe and Parris' abilities and strengths, at least as long as their minds remained unconscious. She'd have to be careful not to overdo it.

Faith was fighting the Queen; Willow was slugging it out with a demon who looked like he should have been able to snap her in two. She was a GREAT fighter.

As Leo freed first Angel and then Gunn – who gaped at the teleportation but recovered quickly enough – Tara spun and faced Belthazor and Tara.

"That's something," her bad self said, "I never would have thought of. Your source of magic isn't IN this universe."

"Why the hell DIDN'T you think of it?" Belthazor said.

"Well, maybe if you'd actually managed to capture all the Halliwells the first time around –" her bad self said.

"Um excuse me?" Tara said, mentally preparing her dust spell. "If you're going to try to kill me could you maybe make it today? Because, well, I have a life and I'd kind of like to get back to it."

"Your funeral," Belthazor snarled and came forward.

"He means that literally," her bad self said as she looked around, apparently picking out targets. Tara cut loose with the dust spell, aiming it into the other Tara's eyes.

As the spell wore off Belthazor picked her up and threw her into the nearest wall. His right hand filled with a ball of some kind of electrical energy, but he wound up flinging it five feet over her head as Angel tackled him.

Gunn had gone after the nearest demon; Cordelia moved around cautiously, looking for an opening. Doyle ran up to her and pulled her to her feet, saying, "Parr?"

"Not in charge at the moment," Tara said. "I'm . . ." she trailed off, realizing that telling Parris' boyfriend that her name was Tara might not be the brightest idea under the circumstances.

"Phoebe?" Doyle asked. Tara didn't deny it. "Good. What do I do?"

"Maybe you can help wake the other two up," Tara said. Leo had just finished teleporting them out, towards the back of the room, where he and Cole were standing guard.

"Leo could try healing them," Doyle said. "I'll tell him to give it a –" he dove at Tara and knocked her down; a wild blast from Belthazor burned the wall where they used to be.

"Tell, tell him to hurry," Tara said.

"On it," Doyle said.

Stealing a quick look around the room, Tara noticed an even battle. One of the demons was down, but Cordelia, Gunn and Angel were doing fine against the rest. For whatever reason the Queen hadn't entered the battle yet, and Tara wasn't complaining.

Her other self looked like she'd gotten the dust out of her eyes and was making spell-casting gestures. Tara went over and grabbed her by the hands.

"You're not playing fair," the other Tara said. "Ignis verbis."

Tara quickly cast the first fire protection spell she could think of, because a half second later a jet of flame shot out of her counterpart's mouth. She got it off just in time; she felt a slight warmth but nothing else.

Once the fire ended Tara regarded her opposite number calmly. "Are, are you quite done?" she asked.

"I suppose," the woman said, in a voice that was her own but confident and arrogant, "You're some kind of White Hat on your world?"

"Yes," Tara said. "I am. And what, what I'm trying to figure out is how you're not."

She sneered, "With THAT family? Or are you telling me that your father wasn't a manipulative bastard who tried to keep his womenfolk in line by pretending they were demons?"

"No . . . he was. That's why I decided to live up to my MOTHER'S legacy." Tara moved slowly; her counterpart turned, always facing her.

"So did I."

"Oh."

"Oh," she said sarcastically. "Bet your Mom was all sweetness and light and sparkles."

"No, actually she was a tough old broad. I loved her. You know what, what she taught me the most?"

"What?"

"How to distract someone." And with that Doyle clouted on her the base of the skull. "Thanks."

"No problem. How did you get her to talk for so long?"

"Witch stuff," Tara said. "I'm, I'm sure Parris'll explain it to you once we split again."

"Gotcha."

Even with Tara out of the game, it was still something of a holding action at best. Faith and Willow had managed, together, to get another demon down and out, but Belthazor was damn near a one-man gang. Angel was having a lot of problems fighting him, even with Cordelia and Gunn's help, and Faith and Willow couldn't take on the other four or so by themselves.

They needed the Halliwells. Or they needed the demons to cut and run.

What they did NOT need was the Queen saying. "Oh, good god! If you want to get something done you've obviously got to do it yourself!" And she threw Tara and Willow out of the way as she stormed towards Doyle. "You hurt my friend," she said.

"Not feeling too sorry about that, Queenie."

"You will." And Doyle tried to duck, but the Queen caught him and threw him across the room into the wall. He smashed into it head first, went down, and didn't get up. "So, who's next?" Her eyes focused on Tara. "You'll do."

Tara readied a ball of witchfire and backed slowly towards the Halliwells, narrowly missing Cordelia as she flew by. At least Cordelia got up and charged back into the fight – though she didn't look like she was having all that much fun.

She backed into Cole. "How's that healing coming?"

Cole looked back. "It's a lot of work, apparently." He looked up and saw a thoroughly pissed-off Vampire Queen, game face on, charging towards him. "Maybe a bit too much."

"I can help," Tara said. "Try, try to stall her."

"Thanks a lot," Cole muttered as he stepped forward.

"What's going on?" Tara asked Leo quickly.

"Parris – Phoebe – whoever – something isn't working here. There's nothing physically wrong with them. But they're unconscious. How you avoided it – how did you avoid it?"

Tara sighed. "I'm not Phoebe or Parris. I'm Tara. So, so you think what's wrong with them is magical?" Leo nodded his head. "Then, then I'll do what I can."

The Queen was beating Cole, though the ex-demon had given her a better fight than she probably would have expected. Cordelia was woozily sitting up next to Doyle, feeling for a pulse and finding one but apparently not able to get back in the fight.

Tara reached down, not sure what to do. The Halliwells were out of her league, power-wise. But she was conscious and they weren't. Reaching down, she put all six of the Halliwell's combined hands together. "Si svegliano. Si svegliano. Si svegliano!"

And she lost control of her limbs and found herself feeling her own body, back in the Hyperion, in her own Los Angeles. "I'm okay," she told the worried Leo and Fred. "Hold on a second."

*Phoebe ? *

*Phoebe, Parris, whatever. We seem to have landed in the middle of a big fight. What happened? Never mind. We need to get fighting. Whatever you did, thanks. *

*You're welcome. *

* * * * *

Charles Gunn had no idea what the hell had happened to Leo, not that he was going to go and bitch. Somehow dude had gone and gotten himself some magic –-

Or maybe he'd had it all along, and the Halliwells just hadn't felt like trusting him.

Never mind that for now. He and this Angel were double-teaming Belthazor, and having a rough go. The two fighting females were off doing what they could with the rest, and the damn Queen was really taking it to Cole.

They needed some Halliwell magic, and they needed it fast. He went for Belthazor's legs, but the demon teleported and showed up right behind him. Angel swung and Gunn threw himself to the floor, trusting the vampire to be aiming the punch at Belthazor.

He guessed right. The demon went staggering backwards. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that weird Phoebe/Parris combination trying to wake up her sisters –

About thirty seconds later he got his wish for some Halliwell magic.

And almost wished he hadn't.

In the loudest, most frightening voice he'd ever heard, Pipes yelled "ENOUGH!" –

And everyone stopped moving.

EVERYONE.



Part 18

It took Pipes a few seconds to figure out what had happened once Leo managed to wake her up. The merging spell had worked, but she and Phoebe had ended up trapped along with everyone else.

Have to do a doublecheck on what exactly had gotten fucked. The idea was to drag THEM back to Casa Halliwell, not the other way around. Not that she was gonna bitch about the outcome, but still --

Well. Obviously SOMEONE had gotten them free -- God bless those ol' Whitelighter orbing powers – but right now it didn't matter what. Sitting up slowly, Pipes wondered where the hell Piper had gotten off to. She hadn't gotten it ALL wrong, had she?

*No, * her own voice said. *I'm right here. But somehow I'm fairly sure this isn't what you had in mind. *

*It isn't, * Pipes said. *I meant to have us be as one, not two minds arguing it out. You know, I really need to brush up my researching skills. I'd've sworn this would work. * She shrugged mentally. *Oh well. Done's done. Wanna help me kill a few bad guys? *

*Thought you'd never ask, * Piper said wryly. *The one problem is – I'm not in control here. You are. *

*Really. I'm going to raise my arms now. Try to stop me. * And a few seconds later she lifted her arms into the air with no problems at all. *Well. Whaddaya know about that. Wonder if everyone else is having the same problems?

*Don't know, don't care, but right now maybe we could start fighting and we can hash out the experimental protocols when we're not FIGHTING FOR OUR LIVES? *

Pipes laughed. *Picky, picky, * she said. *Now let's see – oh my. *

*What? * Piper asked. *What? *

But Pipes ignored her. *Oh my, oh my. * She laughed again, almost maniacally. *Oh my. Piper squared . . . *

And she raised her arms, concentrated, and yelled "ENOUGH!"

And everyone froze.

Pipes just kept laughing. "Well now. Isn't this interesting."

*WHAT? * Piper demanded.

Pipes ignored her this time too.

* * * * *

She didn't know how the merging spell had been supposed to work but she was fairly sure this hadn't been the intended result. Piper Halliwell was stuck with a madwoman. What was worse, she was helpless. Pipes Halliwell was in complete control of the body, and while she knew the woman could hear her she wasn't paying attention --

*Oh, pish tosh, * Pipes said. *I know you're down there. And don't think I didn't notice that madwoman crack. * An internal laugh; she didn't seem offended. *Don't you know anything? When you're rich or powerful, like we are, you're not mad, you're charmingly eccentric. *

Right. Pipes was so charmingly eccentric she needed a straitjacket. *But what did you do -- *

*Watch. Listen. Learn. This might even be fun! * And the thing is, she was serious. As Pipes looked around the room, she made several grunts of pleasure. Along the way, she grabbed a wicked-looking knife from one of the demon's hands and started slitting a few throats, until only Belthazor, Tara-the-bad, and the Queen were left standing among their enemies.

*Why didn't you kill THEM? *

*Gotta save something for you guys to do. What, I have to do it ALL myself? * But she didn't bother unfreezing anyone, instead walking upstairs.

"What are you doing? * Piper was beginning to feel a bit like a broken record.

*Like I said, * Pipes said perkily. *Watch, listen, learn. Hell, Piper- sweetie, you're coming along for the ride anyway; you may as well relax and enjoy it . . . *

*But -- *

*Shh. Shh. *

Piper shut up as they hit the top of the stairs. The only thing that gave her some hope is that from all she could tell, Pipes was genuinely one of the good guys, for all that she was several bauds short of a modem. Without hesitating, Pipes walked straight to the building's front door and opened it. From the outside, it was a nondescript two-story office building; Piper would have never been able to pick it out of a crowd.

Once more Pipes laughed. "Oh, my." She looked down the road in both directions.

NOTHING was moving as far as the eye could see. The cars in the road may as well have been parked there, and thirty feet away, a pigeon was frozen in midflight.

*Those cars aren't parked, are they? * Piper asked, knowing the answer.

*Nuh-uh. * Pipes sounded positively giddy. *They's frozen. FINALLY. I know what. I know why me. FINALLY. * And the giddiness was triumphal.

Purposefully, she walked back inside and downstairs, where she snapped her fingers and unfroze her Leo. "Heya, babe," she said, giving him a kiss. "C'mere. I got something to show you."

A look of confusion on his face as wide as the Amazon, Leo nonetheless followed his wife upstairs, with the helpless Piper dragged along. She considered trying resisting –

*Better not, * Pipes said. *I think you'll understand what I'm doing and why I have to do this if you just follow along. I swear to God I'm doing this for a reason. * And this time she sounded utterly sincere . . . and a lot less insane.

That was even more frightening.

* * * * *

"Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh," Tara said.

Fred and Leo simultaneously said, "What?"

"This – this is weird. I don't know if it's a good weird or a bad weird, but it's definitely a weird."

Fred said, "I'm talking with someone who's both here and has their mind in an alternate universe, who's eavesdropping on some kind of big fight involving witches, vampires, demons and at least one vampire Slayer, and I'm standing next to a spirit of good who can teleport around the world and heal people just by touching them. I mean, didn't we pass weird a few hundred miles ago?"

Tara simply nodded and said, "This is weirder." She explained what she was seeing through the combined eyes of Phoebe and Parris Halliwell. "And I can't sense their minds, either. Either Parris' or Phoebe's, either together or – merged. And while I can see what's going on I can't hear anything."

"You wouldn't be able to," Leo said. "From all I can tell while things are frozen no time at all passes for them. You can't detect their minds because their minds are frozen between moments."

"That would also explain why you can't hear anything," Fred said. "If the air is frozen than the air molecules aren't moving either, and sound needs a medium to travel in – it's why all those movies in space where you hear the spaceship come whooshing by are wrong, and I know this isn't more than tangentially relevant but I get to use my physics training so rarely these days."

Tara didn't smile, but she did nod. "I understand," she said. "I'm just trying to figure out what I should do – if I CAN do anything. I mean, Phoebe told me that Pipes isn't, isn't the sanest person on the planet –"

"Play it by ear," Leo advised. "That's all we can do right now anyway."

"Okay," Tara said dubiously. "I just wish I knew more about what was going on."

* * * * *

"What's going on?" Leo asked his wife.

"You'll see when we get outside," Pipes said merrily. Then they got there – and as far as Leo could see in all directions, the WORLD was frozen.

"How did this happen?" he asked.

"Piper squared. The revenge of the unintended consequences. Now couldja orb me to Anaheim? I want to see something."

In order, nervously, Leo orbed he and his wife to Anaheim, then to Boulder, Cleveland, Dundalk, Essex, Frankfort, Johannesburg and New South Wales, then back through Christchurch, Honolulu and the bridge of the USS Nimitz.

Things were frozen EVERYWHERE. Humans, demons, vampires, coyotes, zebras and kangaroos. Even the clouds weren't moving.

The only thing Pipes said, stop after stop, was "Oh my," followed by amused laughter. When they finally got back to the nondescript office building, Leo finally turned to her and said, "Okay now, what happened?"

"Piper squared," she said again. "It was Prue plus Paige and Parris plus Phoebe . . . but it's Piper squared. Look at the world, Leo. It's frozen. Completely. Utterly. The pause button's been pushed and I'm the only one with a remote."

"I know," he said uneasily.

"Don't you see?" she said excitedly. "Don't you remember my viewing of all those alternate worlds? This is why there's Pipers, Pipers everywhere. The world's frozen, Leo. All the bad guys, everywhere, are frozen. We can get them ALL." At Leo's apparent look of confusion, she said, "This is why I'm here, Leo! Now – now I finally know why. I AM important. I'm the one. I'm the one who gets to save the world!"



Part 19



Inside and out, Pipes Halliwell was giddy, thrilled, and knew – beyond the deepest shadow of the largest doubt, knew – KNEW that this was why she was here. Leo seemed convinced. And even Piper had shut up. Apparently she'd finally convinced her alternate self.

*You've convinced me of something, alright, * Piper said.

Leo said, "Really? Save the world?"

"Uh-huh," she said. "See, all we have to do is keep the world frozen, and then go around, find all the evil witches, marauding demons, vampires and assorted other nasties, and kill them."

"Um . . . won't that take a while?" Leo asked.

Pipes laughed. "I wasn't planning on us doing it by ourselves, silly! No, we've got a dozen people downstairs just LOOKING for bad guys to maim and/or destroy. It's going to be a little hard on you orbing them all over the planet, but hey, you can do it . . . and you've got some Whitelighter friends who I'm sure would just LOVE to help."

"I'm sure they would," her husband said steadily. "Why don't I go get a few of them?"

"Nuh-uh," Pipes said. "I don't know them as well. Let's go back downstairs and free up everyone else first."

"Okay," Leo said.

*He doesn't sound convinced, * Piper said.

Grinning mentally, Pipes said, *You don't know who you're talking about. *

*Oh . . . I think I have some idea what LEO might be like. *

*Still not convinced? *

Determinedly, Piper said, *In your words, nuh-uh. *

*You will be. *

And Piper muttered *Grr . . . arg * and went silent. Pipes didn't know what her counterpart's problem was, unless maybe – because Pipes got to do all the work and she just had to sit there – it was some kind of jealousy -- *Yeah, that's it, * Piper said bitterly. *I'm jealous. Good call. *

Then they began to unfreeze people.

* * * * *

Prue/Paige was very confused. First they . . . merged, then they went to sleep, then Leo woke them up, now . . .

Now?

Now there were a half dozen people talking at once, and all the questions seemed to be directed at Piper. Pipes. Whoever –

Whatever was going on, she was fairly sure she didn't like it.

"People!" Pipes said. "Hold on a second. I'll show you." She walked around the room and touched all of the demons. One by one they unfroze and died, without time for so much as a "well, shit," as they hit the floor. Then she walked to the stairs. "C'mon, c'mon, chop-chop," she said. "This – it's a good thing."

"Terrific," Cole said sourly. "We go from fighting a bunch of demons to being led around the nose by Martha Stewart."

Angel said, "All I want to do is get back to my son."

No one else said anything as they went up the stairs. Leo, it had to be noted, did not look at all happy. "What's going on?" she whispered to the Whitelighter.

"This isn't good," he said. "Not at all. But you're better off seeing it than having me tell you."

Angel stopped at the doorway – having no particular interest in becoming a big pile of ashes – but even he could see what was going on from his vantage point just inside.

But the world was frozen. Pipes said, and Leo confirmed, that it was frozen EVERYWHERE, from Kentucky to Kuala Lumpur.

"How'd this happen?" Phoebe/Parris -- and THAT little way of thinking was going to get annoying, she could tell -- asked. "I mean, our combined powers here aren't small potatoes but I doubt I could punch my way through a building."

"Pipes to the power of two," she said. "We ARE the same. You guys just share powers – excuse me. I've just been reminded by my tagalong here that I'm not exactly in the running for merged witch of the year. I'm Pipes, pure and simple. Piper's just along for the ride."

"So, Pipes, darlin'," Doyle said. "What were you planning to do with the world stuck on permanent pause?"

"Yeah," Prue/Paige said. "That's something I wouldn't mind hearing myself."

Pipes laughed. "You mean you guys haven't figured it out YET?"

"Enlighten us," Angel said from the doorway.

Again she laughed. "Think about it a second, people. Take those demons downstairs. The ones who WON'T be threatening anyone any more. Now . . . let's do that to the world."

Gunn's eyes widened. "Liking this plan." Cole also didn't seem turned off by it, and Willow and Faith exchanged evil grins.

Prue/Paige, on the other hand, most definitely did not. She exchanged worried looks with first Phoebe/Parris, and then Cordelia, and neither of them seemed overly happy. Doyle was unreadable but she presumed he'd back his girlfriend's play.

Pipes said, "I'm . . . not sensing the enthusiasm I thought I would."

"Hey," Gunn said. "I SAID I liked it. Anything winds us up with a few less demons in the world can only be a good thing."

"Not just a few, ALL of them. At least all of them here." Pipes was practically glowing, she seemed so happy. "But why aren't the rest of you as go-go-go as you should be? C'mon, this is the day we END evil!"

"It's wrong," Prue/Paige said.

"It's dangerous," Doyle said.

"It's EVIL," Angel said.

"It might make the world too unbalanced," Phoebe/Parris said.

"That's what I meant by wrong," Prue/Paige said.

"My apologies," Phoebe/Parris said.

"It screws those of us who don't belong in this universe," Cordelia said.

"My only problem is it'd cut down on the fun," Faith said. Willow nodded in agreement.

"Don't look at me," Cole said. "I think it's a wonderful plan in theory. The demons, unfortunately, are in the details."

"'splain, please," Pipes said with a slightly steely voice.

Everyone started talking at once.

Pipes laughed. "I suppose I SHOULD have said one at a time, n'est ce pas?"

"If we do this," Prue/Paige said. "We might wind up with a horrible unbalance of good in the world. And you know that the world tends towards balance. What kind of evil would we wind up with if we did this?"

"Uh-huh," Pipes said. "Next?"

Faith shrugged. "Like I said, with most of the demons in the world dead girlfriend and I wouldn't have anything to do." Willow elbowed her. "Well, almost anything."

"You're just smarting off, then," Pipes said.

"Pretty much."

"Next?"

"You have three Halliwells, me, and Angel, none of whom belong here," Cordelia said, "All of whom have things they need to do at home. I mean, you've already admitted you're taking Piper along for the ride and that she doesn't want to come."

"Noted," Pipes said. Then, brightly, "Next?"

Gunn spoke up. "Look, I agree it's a good thing. But if we're dragging people who don't want to do this – even though they SHOULD – along for the ride – then maybe we should think it over some more."

Phoebe/Parris said, "Prue – Paige --- whoever, and I don't want to do something silly like calling her Pruge – already said what I have to say. This merging thing was a good idea at the time. It isn't so good now." Pipes looked at her steadily. "Two people, one body. It – it's not natural."

"Yeah, and demons are part of the evolutionary scale," Pipes said. "Anyone else care to share with the rest of the class?"

Doyle said, "That's what I was gonna say. I mean, I'm no magic expert or anything, but I'm thinking keeping all of these spells going so long can't be good for anyone."

"Right you are," Pipes said. "You're not a magic expert." She looked up at the doorway. "Angel? You still get to have your say."

"Is there a point?" the vampire said. "You've made up your mind already."

Pipes shook her head. "Nuh-uh. You can convince me that saving the world is a bad thing, and I'll go along with you. Gotta warn you, it's going to be a tough row to hoe, though. Hmmm. Row, hoe, though. Poetic."

Angel took a deep breath – for the effect, Prue/Paige guessed – and began to speak.

* * * * *

In a well-appointed hotel suite – she might not have been all-powerful anymore, but she had the magical juice to get the most comfy room in all of LA -- Will thought, and cursed, and thought some more.

Just how all-powerful she wasn't was shown to her by the simple fact of Winifred Burkle – whose existence Will had known about, but in her arrogance had forgotten to factor in. So now the barriers between the two universes were back to normal, and she was recovering from a magical whammy from her ex-girlfriend.

She still had enough to do a little eavesdropping, though. Maybe her partners in this were having a better go of it than she was.

But what she saw . . .

Was a frozen world.

If Will remembered correctly, frozen was the field of Piper Halliwell. She looked around until she found the woman . . . and heard her making the case for, essentially, taking over the world.

Well now. THIS could be interesting . . .



Part 20



*Phoebe! Parris! Whoever you are, * Tara said. *Is there a way I can talk too? *

She answered, *Um . . . maybe. Last time we were unconscious, though. * A pause. *I'm guessing you think this is as bad an idea as I do? *

*Yes. Gods, yes. The only reason why I'm not hysterical right now is I'm fairly sure Pipes has good motives. *

*She does," Parris/Phoebe said firmly. "She's crazy, but she's definitely on the side of the good guys. The only problem is -- *

*Yes ? *

*The only problem is, she has this idea that she's really important – that the universe needs to have her around for some reason. And this is it. This is her chance to really kick evil in the teeth and get rid of 90% of the demons, evil witches, vampires and other assorted nasties. She wouldn't have any other motive, I don't think – *

*I'll take your word for it. It still scares the hell out of me. I've come too close to seeing this happen before. *

*Will? *

*In more than one sense. *

*Okay then, * Phoebe/Parris said, *Here we go . . . * And suddenly Tara found her mind sharing the body she'd earlier been in control of. *Don't worry, * the odd conjoined minds said. *We'll do our best to stay out of your way. *

*Thanks, * Tara said. Angel, hanging in a doorway to avoid being struck by the rays of the not-waning sun, was engaged in a long, earnest conversation with Pipes.

It struck Tara, incongruously, that she should have no idea who any of these people were; she'd never met the Halliwells, Angel, Cordelia, or Gunn. But she recognized them anyway.

*You probably picked it up from my mind when you were in control, * Phoebe/Parris said. *Probably not the right time to quibble over the details, though, wouldn'tcha say? *

*No. *

Angel said, "It's not like I don't understand your motives. You want to save the world."

"Yuh-huh," Pipes said chipperly. Then, a bit more soberly, she added. "Not just want to. It's my destiny. I'm sure of it."

"WHY are you sure?" Angel asked. From the tone in his voice, Tara could tell he'd asked the question before.

Pipes sighed. "We've been over this, sweetie. I just am."

"That's not good enough," Angel said. "If you want us to help you, you need to have us trust you. I've seen too many people who wanted to do good wind up . . . not."

Pipes snorted. "I'm not power-hungry. Soon as we kill off the demons, the world goes back to the way it used to. Pinky-swear."

"Pipes –" Angel said.

"Cross my heart and hope to die?" She said. When Angel didn't react, she added, "Stick a needle in my eye?"

"This isn't funny," Angel said.

"Everything's funny," Pipes said. "You just have to look at it right. Is that all you've got?"

"Since appeals to reason, morality, and common sense don't seem to be working, then yes, that's' all I've got. Unless bribery's an option."

"And you said there was nothing funny about this," Pipes said. "Well. I think we've heard from everyone . . ."

Tara said, "No, you haven't."

Pipes looked at her, one hand on her hip, and waggled her finger. "Uh-uh," she said. "You've had your say, missy."

"I'm not Phoebe, or Parris, or the combo," Tara said determinedly. "I'm Tara."

"There's a concept too crazy even for me: that I'd start taking advice from the bad guys. Get out of my sisters, please."

"I'm not the Tara from this universe," Tara said. "I'm the Tara from the other universe. The one Cordelia, and Angel came from.