A Different Life

By Lady Callista

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss, the WB, Mutant Enemy, (the evil)FOX, and whoever else came up with them.

Timeline: starts during S4's "Who Are You?" and continues from there

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Author's Notes:

This story was written circa 2002 in response to a challenge from a friend, I'll post the challenge at the end of the fic. It's not my usual style, but it was an interesting challenge.

Warning: If you like Riley you might not want to read this. He's completely OOC for reasons you will understand if you do read this. And let's just say he's not a nice guy.

Warning 2: Although this starts during S4's "Who Are You?" it completely deviates from the canon after that, meaning several characters have very different personalities and the Initiative is even worse than it is on the show. Like most of my stories, it cannot be inserted into the show and have the show still work out the same way. I know that's true of almost all fanfiction, but one reader of one of my stories felt the need to private message me, telling me that if I'm going to write something midway through the series that changes how things are going to happen afterwards I should mention that at the beginning. I'm not sure why, because as I said almost all fanfiction does that, but I digress. Consider it mentioned.

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Tara watched Willow closely. Willow had been under a long time, and Tara was beginning to worry. The girl was deeply in trance, deep into the other world looking for answers to what had happened to her friend. If they couldn't find them...

Suddenly, Willow started awake. She sat up, looking around the room shakily. "Whoa..."

"Are you okay?" Tara asked quickly, getting her something to drink.

Willow took it gratefully and took a sip. After a second, she spoke. "Well, you were right. It's not Buffy. Somehow, her and Faith have switched bodies. Faith's soul is trapped in our friend's body while Buffy's soul is trapped in Faith's body."

"Wow. That wasn't nearly what I thought had happened, that...wow."

"But there's more. The Buffy I've been living with the past months, that's not Buffy either. Cause I sensed Buffy's aura in two places. A very weak one in Faith's body and her true soul in her own body somewhere else. But Faith's full aura is definitely in Buffy's body, so somehow Faith is switched with a clone or something and the real Buffy is who knows where. Who knows how long it's been like this..."

"Well, when did she start acting differently? Not Faith-like, just not acting like herself." Tara asked.

"I'm not sure. I haven't hung out with her much…" Willow trailed off as she went into panic mode. "Oh, gods, I've been such a bad friend. Someone kidnapped Buffy, someone must have taken her and replaced her and I didn't even notice, I've just been living my life, la, la, la, without even knowing that my best friend…"

"Calm down, Willow." Tara said as she took both of the girl's hands. "We need to fix this. Somehow. Just think, when did she start acting differently?"

"Thanksgiving, I guess. After she came back from L.A. I thought it was just something with Angel. But whoever took her must have gotten her on the way back; I figured it was Angel related, and pretty much left her alone after that. Plus, she was almost never here, she was always with Riley..."

"Riley? Do you think it was his group that did this?" Tara offered hesitantly.

"The Initiative? But Buffy said they were trying to have her killed. Well, Professor Walsh was at least. They wouldn't do that if she was a clone working with them. Goddess, this doesn't make any sense." Willow closed her eyes in defeat.

"We need help."

"Yes, we do. We've gotta go to Gile's. He's experienced enough with magick that he'll believe us, and maybe he can help us figure this whole thing out. First things first though. We've gotta get Faith and clone Buffy back in their right bodies. Then we can worry about finding the real Buffy."

With those words, Willow and Tara headed out the door to find Giles.

When Tara and Willow reached Giles's house, they were glad to find him alone.

Willow quickly explained the situation to him, upon which he simply stared at her in puzzlement.

"You're certain of this?"

"Yes, I am. Of course if you don't believe me, you can always go to the Other World yourself..."

"No, no, of course I believe you." Giles quickly cut in. "It's just that I've never heard of anything like this. The body switching thing, yes, I have a rather simple spell that can reverse that."

Both girls sighed in relief.

"But as for what you call clone-Buffy, I have no clue what to do." Giles pulled off his glasses, absently cleaning them as he tried to think of what to do. "Of course, our first duty is to get Faith in Buffy's body to come here. Once she's here we'll have to somehow knock her out to perform the spell. We only need one of them to perform the spell I have in mind. Then Faith will be back in her real body, under arrest, and we'll have our clone-Buffy, which has to be better than Faith at least. So, we switch them back, and then not a word to "Buffy" that we know she's a clone. If she finds out who knows what she'll do. We'll need to watch her very closely however to try and find out who she's working with. Once we find that out we'll know where the real Buffy is."

Willow looked at him with a blank stare for a moment, still processing everything that he had said. Then it all clicked in to place and she said, "Okay, that sounds like it will work. What about Xander and An..."

"No." Giles said firmly. "Don't tell either of them. Or Spike. The less people that know about the clone thing the less chance there is of somebody slipping up. There's no way they could help us anyway."

"Okay, I guess. But what about..."

"No one Willow."

"But there's someone who could help." She nearly yelled.

"Who?" Giles was afraid he knew what she was going to say.

"Angel." Willow said simply. "He's always been able to sense her. Maybe he could help us find the real Buffy. Plus you know how upset he'll be if we don't tell him..."

"But won't t-the clone Buffy react to seeing him? C-cause they broke-up, right?" Tara asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, they did." Willow said. "But he's been in town before without her knowing. And that was the real Buffy. If she didn't even know when he was around, it should be relatively easy to hide him from the clone. Of course we'll have to hide him from Xander and Spike as well."

"Well, he can stay here." Giles offered. Willow knew how much it took for him to offer that. "It'll be easier to hide him. None of you ever go upstairs, he can stay in the extra room up there."

"Yeah, that would be perfect. I'm gonna call him now." Willow went into the other room and dialed a phone number from memory. Angel had given it to her in case of an emergency, and since she didn't want Buffy to find it laying around she had memorized it.

"Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless."

"Cordy, it's Willow. Is Angel there?"

"Yeah, sure Willow. Is everything okay?"

"Not by a long shot."

Cordelia handed the phone to Angel, who had charged over to the desk as soon as he heard Willow's name. "Willow? What's wrong?"

Willow explained everything to him, including how they hoped he could help.

He listened attentively, growing more concerned by the second. He told her that he'd be in Sunnydale as soon as he could be.

She reminded him to go to Giles's apartment, but to check first and make sure clone-Buffy wasn't there.

He agreed and hung up. Quickly explaining the situation to Wesley and Cordelia, he grabbed the bag he kept packed for emergencies and headed for Sunnydale and his soulmate.

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"Well, "Buffy" is on her way." Giles said after hanging up the phone an hour or so later. "She seemed rather surprised that we wanted her now, something about she had plans with Riley, but she's coming."

"I can just imagine what Faith's been doing with Riley. Buffy's so going to kill her." Willow said.

"Well, clone Buffy will kill her. The real Buffy b-barely knows Riley, remember?" Tara told her.

"That's true." Willow said thoughtfully. "So much more stuff makes sense now, you know. I couldn't believe how fast Buffy got over Angel and all, I mean she just jumped right in with Riley. But it makes so much sense if it's not really her. But the clone's gotta have all of her memories, otherwise it wouldn't be able to fool us. Granted, she's not around very much, but when she is..."

"When who is?" Faith in Buffy's body asked from the door.

"Buffy!" Willow jerked up ramrod straight and stammered, "Uhh..."

"Just a-another girl f-f-from that W-wicca-group." Tara cut her off. "We're t-trying to find a few ot-others to help us w-w-with spells, but..."

"Yeah, whatever." Faith cut the stuttering girl off. "You wanted me Giles?" She walked toward the Watcher.

He gave a slight nod to Willow, who moved into position behind Faith as she removed something from behind a chair.

"Yes Buffy, we have a new problem, if you could come look at this." He sat on the couch and put a book on the coffee table in such a manner that Faith sat across from him to see it. This gave Willow the clearest shot she could have.

She raised the gun to eye level, aimed it as she had been forced to do several times, and shot the tranquilizer dart into the Slayer's shoulder.

Faith felt the impact and jolted upright. Before she could even make a comment she was out cold. Giles caught her as she fell forward, laying her down on the couch.

"Now, quickly. The tranquilizer will only last for an hour or so with the small amount we put in. We must work quickly to complete the spell before she wakes up."

Willow and Tara nodded, removing the items that had been hidden for the Slayer's arrival. They placed the magickal objects in their places in a circle around the couch where Faith/Buffy lay.

Then the three of them knelt around the circle and began the spell to restore clone-Buffy and Faith to their proper bodies.

They called a circle and Quarters together, then Willow began an invocation:

"Hail almightly Hecate, Queen of all Witches.

We invite you to come to us tonight.

Earth, Air, Fire, and Water are under your control.

These four elements bring balance to the world.

We need your balance now.

Help us to right a great wrong."

Tara continued:

"Goddess Hecate, we feel your presence now.

We know that you are with us and protect us.

We call upon you for justice.

All things must be set right.

We ask for your power now.

Help us to right a great wrong."

Giles picked up the chant:

"Great Hecate, our thanks for your presence.

We invoke now a consort for you.

Great Baldar, God of truth and light, come to us.

Shine your light upon our problems.

You know all truths, and know of our problem.

Bring your truth to these girls."

All three of them took up the chant now, in Latin, holding candles up to the heavens.

"Hecate, Baldar, we feel your power now.

Every soul has a body. Every body a soul.

Let truth and justice have free reign in this circle.

Return all misplaced souls to their proper places.

Seek out where this soul belongs.."

Willow placed a talisman over Faith/Buffy's heart.

"And return it.

Let the soul that belongs here return now.

Return!"

The three candles they held abruptly went out. They saw a flash of bright light around the Slayer's body, then it left. A moment later, a very dim light settled into Buffy's body.

"See, it's just a fragment of her soul. It was stolen to help give her personality is all I can think. But it's not really her." Willow whispered, noting how dim "Buffy's" soul was.

The others nodded in agreement, quickly going about thanking and bidding farewell to the powers they had called. Then they closed the circle together.

"Let this circle be cleansed in the physical

But remain in the astral.

In no way shall this spell reverse.

Or place upon us any curse.

With love towards all and harm to none

This is our will let it be done."

They then settled back to wait for clone-Buffy to wake up, wondering exactly what they were going to do now.