NOTHING'S GONNA CHANGE MY WORLD
It was like something out of an episode of Sliders. A big blue vortex ripped open the sky above Sunnydale and Willow Rosenburg fell out of it. She lay on the ground, the wind knocked out of her. "Ow," was all she managed to say when she had air back in her lungs. Timidly, she sat up and looked around. Where were Buffy and Xander? She remembered being with them on patrol and then Buffy had yelled "Look out!" Willow stood to get a better appraisal of her surroundings. That's when she heard growling.
Oh, no. She felt her pockets. No stake. No Slayer. Oh, no.
William was on his way home; he figured he might as well cut through the cemetery and see if there were any fledglings that needed dusting. He was making his way between two mausoleums when he smelled it. Fear.
This is so not good. Willow couldn't think about how she ended up by herself in the cemetery where Buffy and Xander had been with her only moments before. She had the much more pressing issue of the vampire who was approaching her with dinner in mind. He was a big one, too.
"Didn't your grandmother ever tell you to be in before dark, Little Red?"
Cute, Willow thought. She'd play along if it bought her any time. "She also told me not to talk to strangers, so perhaps I'd better be going."
The vampire just grinned at her, an awful I'm-gonna-eat-you-up kind of grin. And then he made a noise half between a purr and growl. She hated it when vampires did that. He took one more step closer and Willow blurted out -
"Do you know which one is Cassiopeia?"
She caught him off guard and the hulking vampire actually looked up to the sky where she was pointing. Willow fled. She made it about fifteen feet before smacking straight into somebody. She screamed and fell. After tumbling to the ground, she pushed her hair out of her eyes in time to see a guy in a long dark coat running a stake through the vampire that had been after her.
Willow's heart was still pounding a mile a minute; one doesn't just immediately trust a stranger at night in Sunnydale even if they did happen to dust a vampire. The stranger came over and helped her to her feet. "Are you alright, Miss?" he asked gently.
"Well, situation considering, I -" Willow stopped and gaped at the man before her. She was suddenly very sure that something very wrong was going on. She took in his light brown hair. She remembered his accent when he spoke. Neither of those things unsettled her as much as looking into his soulful blue eyes.
William held the girl's arm as she started to sway on her feet. "Miss?" he prompted again.
The girl looked at him with big green eyes. She said one word and then fainted. He caught her easily. But it was with growing unease that he supported her in his arms. She'd called him by a name he hadn't gone by in 100 years. She'd called him Spike.
"What do you mean it got away?" Buffy was frantic. The demon they had chased into the cemetery had hit Willow with some sort of blue beam and she'd vanished. In the panic of seeing Willow get sucked into some sort of vortex, the gang had let it get away.
"We have to find it. We have to find out what it did with Willow."
Buffy started delegating tasks. "Xander, Anya, you guys get to Giles. Find out about this thing. I'll keep looking for it."
"Should someone tell Tara?"
"Not yet. We will get her back."
WHAT IN THE HELLMOUTH IS GOING ON
When Willow came to, she realized she was on an unfamiliar couch under an unfamiliar blanket. She looked around the room. He was seated in a chair at the foot of the couch. The Spike who didn't look like Spike. Her muscles tensed. What was going on here? Where was she?
"Spike?" She sat up slowly.
"Why do call me that?"
Willow blinked. "What do you call yourself?"
"William."
"Oh."
"Who are you?"
Something flickered over her face. "I'm Willow."
Silence.
"Where are we?"
"My place."
She took a good look at her surroundings. They were in the old mansion on Crawford Street. The last time she was here, Angel had been poisoned. "Angel," she breathed quietly.
William heard her. He sat forward and narrowed his eyes. The little redhead on his sofa seemed innocent enough, and he tried to help the innocent. But first there was her calling him Spike. And now her mention of Angel. He needed to know more about her.
"Why were you in the cemetery tonight?"
Willow looked at him evenly. Did this Spike have a chip? Or had she really seen what she thought she saw earlier; did this Spike have a soul? She needed to know more. "What were you doing there?"
"I asked you first."
They could play this game all night. Willow decided she would be the one to go out on a limb. He had saved her life, after all. She dove in. "Look, before we can really get into any Q and A, I just want to let you know I feel a little uncomfortable, what with you being a vampire and all. And I feel sort of bad for asking you this since you saved me from that other vampire earlier, but I know you can't always trust someone's actions, so..." She paused. "Are you gonna bite me?"
The second she started babbling, William knew this girl was no threat. He smiled. "I don't bite."
Willow relaxed a bit. Somehow, she just knew she could trust this guy. "Well, William, I don't know about you, but I think something Hellmouthy is going on here."
"I'm inclined to agree."
She nodded carefully. Where to go from here? "I'll tell you my story if you tell me yours."
"Deal." William sat back and relaxed into his chair. "Ladies first."
Willow gave him a semi-frown and tossed the blanket aside. "My name is Willow Rosenburg. I'm a student at UC Sunnydale. My best friend's name is Buffy." She gave him a measured glance. "She's a vampire slayer."
William couldn't hide the look of shock on his face. "Buffy? The Slayer?"
"Yes."
William stood up. "I need to call Giles."
AND YOU WERE THERE, AND YOU WERE THERE
Willow didn't know what sort of urgency flag William had given the situation, but it was less than ten minutes before Giles arrived at the mansion. He was still Giles. He was still a Watcher, and he'd brought his slayer with him. That slayer was Faith.
"Good Lord," Giles said when he saw her.
Willow didn't know how to react. She wanted to hug him, but it didn't seem appropriate for some reason. The looks she received from Faith weirded her out, too. There was no recognition in the slayer's eyes when she looked at Willow.
I'm in a parallel universe, Willow thought. She dared not say the thought aloud. That would make it real in a way she wasn't prepared for it to be yet. She looked from Faith to Giles to William. "If Faith is the Slayer," she took a breath and steadied herself for what she was about to ask. "What happened to Buffy?"
Giles had a pained expression on his face. "We don't know."
For a moment, Willow lost the tenous hold she had on herself. "What do you mean you don't know?" she said, her voice rising with every word.
And so the three of them explained as much as they could to Willow about Buffy's disappearance. It was a lot to take in. The basics remained the same. Buffy came to Sunnydale. Angel came to help her. They fell in love. He lost his soul and became Angelus. Angelus tried to open Acathla. Buffy and Kendra stopped him, but Kendra died in the battle. Buffy left Sunnydale and never came back.
Willow sat on the couch and rocked back and forth. A world without Buffy and Angel in it, saving it, was some sort of hell, or at the very least a sick, sick joke, right? And how did she get here? How would she get back? She shot off the couch. She swayed on her feet; this was all too much.
William watched the redhead. She was about to lose it. He went to her and pulled her into his arms. She mumbled incoherently into his chest. "This is, I, it's too, I can't..."
"Shhh," he murmured into her hair. He rubbed comforting circles on her back.
Giles and Faith watched in a little bit of awe. They had never seen William like this with anyone. Willow alone could have told them this was a little something he probably picked up with Drusilla. Little by little, Willow calmed down.
Xander had gotten Faith's message to be at the mansion for an impromptu Slayage meeting. He was late because he'd stopped by to pick up Amy. They entered the mansion with Xander saying "Hey, guys, sorry I'm late. What's the wha..." He stopped when he saw her.
Willow turned in William's arms at the sound of his voice. "Xander?"
He was frozen. It couldn't be. She was - it couldn't be. Amy followed his gaze and her mouth dropped open as well. "Is she a ghost?" the witch whispered.
Faith heard her. "She's no ghost. She's - Her name's - "
"Willow," Xander breathed.
"Ghost?" Willow asked hesitantly. She pulled herself out of William's arms. Her voice rose again. "I'm dead here?" She looked to Giles. He answered gravely. "Our Willow Rosenburg was sired by the Master."
Xander came over. "I staked you myself," he said numbly. His eyes roamed over her. He reached out to her, like he wanted to make sure she was real. Tears started to form in Willow's eyes. Here was someone who knew her. Okay, so yeah, no Buffy, no Angel, Giles and Faith didn't know her and Spike was called William. Things were still very not okay, but here was Xander and he knew her and he cared. She mattered. When their eyes met, they both started crying. The next thing she knew, she was crushed to her oldest friend. He held her so tightly and spoke into her hair.
"You were dead, Wills. And here you are." He pulled back to look at her. "And I know something Hellmouthy is going on for you to be here, alive. But, God! Is it good to see you." And then he leaned in and kissed her, right on the mouth. Then he hugged her again.
Giles noticed Faith and William straighten their backs. The Watcher cleared his throat. "Xander, perhaps you could give Willow a little breathing room..."
"Oh, right, yeah. Sorry." He pulled back from her but didn't move away.
"'s okay." Willow wiped the tears from her cheek. There was kind of an awkward pause in the room. Amy broke it.
"So this Willow is like from another dimension?"
"Something like that," Giles responded.
"How did she get here?" Xander asked.
"And how do we get her back?" It would figure that Faith was the only one with the guts to ask the question none of them wanted to think about. Nobody answered.
"It's late. Nothing more can be done tonight. Rest and discuss this tomorrow." William was right. It was late, and Willow's situation would no doubt not have an easy answer. Xander and Amy began trying to decide whether Willow would go back with Amy to the dorm or with Xander to the basement. The basement idea was about to win when Faith asked "Why can't she just stay here with William? She could have her own room."
Willow liked this plan best, though she wasn't sure why. "Would that be okay with you?" she asked William. He gave her a slight nod.
As everyone who wasn't a souled vampire or from a parallel universe left, Xander told Willow he'd come by in the morning and they could get breakfast. "If you're anything like my Xander, how about we make it noon?" Xander gave her a goofy grin before Faith pushed him out the door.
Willow lingered at the door when they were gone. William stayed across the room from her. "You didn't want to go with either of them, did you?" She shook her head. "Why?"
She turned around to face him. "I don't know. I think maybe because they're so familiar, but I know they aren't really the people I know. It'd be too weird, y'know?"
William knew weird alright. He knew it was weird how happy the idea of Willow staying the night made him. He knew it was weird to feel a sense of loss when she had left his arms to embrace Xander. "And I'm not strange to you?"
"Well, you're strange in a completely different way. You're not like the Spike in my world. I mean, I think," she kind of gestured with her hands to show she didn't know what she was trying to say. "I think you can be trusted."
Instead of responding to the issue of trust, William began walking to the stairs. "I'm sure you're tired. I'll go get -"
Willow interrupted him. "No, not yet." She sat back down on the couch and arranged the blanket around her legs. William looked puzzled. "You said you'd tell me your story if I told you mine. I think I'll have lots of questions." Then she patted the spot next to her, as an indication of being both willing to listen and unwilling to let the matter go.
William hesitated; he didn't know what to make of this girl. He ended up on the couch, as far away from her as he could manage. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything."