Chapter Two
"What the ..."
She tried to take it in. Tried to shake the fuzziness out of her head. Tried to let the slayer half take over because clearly the Buffy half had gone cuckoo. Me ... that is me. And there's Angel and Giles and Willow ... and she came back to the thought, what the ...
"What the hell are you?", other Buffy said to her ... and she tried to reply but she seemed to have lost the ability to form a coherent sentence and just came out with further nonsense along the lines of "wha .. how ... you ..."
She felt Spike get up behind her and saw the shift in the stance of the people in front of her, ready to attack should things get violent. Spike put his hand out and grabbed her arm, gently pulling her towards him and helping, half dragging her to her feet. The group in front of them continued to view them as hostile apparently because the other Buffy lifted a stake from her hideous coat and she once again randomly thought, what the hell was I thinking? Fluffy and purple? Really Buffy? She remembered that coat, this was definitely her ...
"If you don't start talking, I'm going to lose my patience", Alt Buffy said to them and she felt sense slam into her like a freight train. She turned to face her.
"Who are you!" Alt Buffy demanded.
"Well isn't it obvious?" she slowly replied. "I know I'm not the brightest star in the sky but surely you recognise me? I sure as hell recognise all of you."
Alt Buffy shifted her stance into slayer and glared at her. "Okay, you look like me but what with me being me, I'm pretty sure you're not me".
"Luv, I'm glad you're finally being faced with the kind of nonsense you've been throwing at me for years", Spike drawled and Buffy turned to give him a glaring look.
"Okay, okay. Just .. let's stop for a minute", she started, trying to calm the situation down. She looked around at them all, trying to take it in ... and started blabbing at them in a rush. "My name is Buffy Summers, I am the slayer and not 5 minutes ago I was sitting in my living room in my house at 1430 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, California. All of a sudden there's a bang, a flash of light and I wake up on the floor of a building that it's not possible to be in and I'm staring at a younger version of myself and my friends who are looking at me like I'm the one who's lost their mind?" ... she finished and looked at the group facing them, being met with some looks of doubt on their formerly hostile faces. Giles looked to the other Buffy and she met his gaze with a is this possible look on her face and he did the Giles shrug - saying who knows, hellmouth, mystical energy, blah, blah.
Alt Buffy turned back to them, still wary but lowering her stake. "Okay, prove it" she said. "Prove that you're me from the future" - her face twisting with distaste at the ridiculousness of the phrase.
"Prove it ... okay. What date is it?" Buffy asked, mind whirling.
"January 30th 1999" Willow offered, looking apprehensive.
"Okay, let me think ...", desperately trying to think of something ... and then, "Oh! On my birthday that year I had to do the crustation thing ..."
"Cruciamentum", Spike offered with a smile in his voice.
She went on - "... yeah that, and Quentin Travers fired Giles and I had to kill that vampire in the boarding house".
"How did you kill him?" Alt Buffy immediately questioned.
"He had to take these pills and I replaced the water with holy water" Buffy replied without a pause. She looked Alt Buffy in the eyes and the younger girl got a cautious expression on her face, looking to Angel for reassurance. He looked at the older slayer with a question behind his eyes and then turned back to past-Buffy and silently said ... your call.
"You could have figured that out a lot of different ways. The Council, for one. Tell me something else, someone no-one would know", Alt Buffy challenged.
"God, I'd forgotten how mistrustful you were back then luv", Spike said to his Buffy and Angel looked at him with a growl which he returned with force. Buffy put her hand on Spike's arm, giving him a warning glance which he took, backingdown. This was not lost on the rest of the group.
"Okay, how about this?" - Buffy said with a challenge in her voice - "When I went to LA for the summer after running away, I called myself Anne and worked in a crudy little diner. I helped a girl who called herself Lily to find her boyfriend Ricky, who had been sucked into a hell dimension where decades passed as easily as hours do up here. Me and Lily got sucked down into hell, I kicked the ass of Ken and his minions, rescued the slaves and came back home to Sunnydale", she finished.
"What about Lily?", Alt Buffy countered. "What happened to her?"
"I gave her my apartment and she took on the name Anne", Buffy replied. Buffy knew she'd never told that to anyone, she'd never seen the point and so she knew that Alt Buffy knew there was no way she could know that without being there. Which would mean ...
"You're me", she said ... but it wasn't a question. "You're me from the future?"
Buffy slowly nodded at her and was sure they were wearing matching expressions of disbelief at their current situation. She started to smile a little to herself. And I thought things were getting too boring.
"Okay, so we're accepting this right? This is Buffy from the future?" Xander asked the group and Buffy looked at him for the first time, noting how much younger he looked. How much younger they all looked. Fresher somehow. Less haunted.
"There's no-one else that knows about that stuff in LA" Alt Buffy said, looking confused but resigned to the fact that this was in fact her future self. "It must be me" she mused.
"Okay, I'm on board for that. But if that's true, what the hell is Spike doing here and why is he standing with you like you're BFFs?" Xander asked, directing his question to both Buffy's, unsure which would be better suited to answering his question. Same old Xander, she thought fondly. He looked more freaked out about the fact that she might be friends with Spike than at the prospect of a future Buffy.
She gathered her thoughts and was about to answer, when something occurred to her. "It's a long, long, loooong story and to be honest, if Giles was here" - at which she looked at old Giles sheepishly and winced - "no offence", she said to him. She continued, "if Giles was here he'd probably be giving me some speech about not giving away the farm. If there's one thing I learned from The Butterfly Effect it's that you shouldn't travel back through time and start mouthing off about everything that happens in the future. Oh and never give Ashton Kutcher a dramatic role", she finished.
"That's two things - again", Spike said to her smiling. "Maths really isn't your strong point is it pet?"
"Whatever. All you need to know is that I'm Buffy from 2003 and Spike is 100% on my side and part of my team", and off the look both Angel and Alt Buffy gave Spike she said, "and if anyone messes with him, they're messing with me ... and that's not the best idea", she finished with a note of threat in her voice. That drew looks of confusion and disgust on a lot of faces in the room and she felt a pang of guilt over how Spike must be feeling right now. Back in our future he's finally an accepted Scooby and after everything we've all just been through, he's just been slammed back into a world where he's treated like dirt by people who are friends to him.
The group looked at each other, lost as to their next action. She couldn't really blame them because so far she'd been focusing on not getting into a fight with her 18 year old self and now that that seemed to have calmed down, she was starting to realise that they were back in 1999 with no prospect of getting back as far as she could see. Their normal route would be Willow and the Willow standing in front of her was not an all-powerful wicca yet. No, she wasn't incapable but Buffy very much doubted that floating pencils was the key to time travel. She turned to Spike to voice this but he was already there apparently.
"Was Red a wiz back then ... now?"
"Not so much" she replied, looking at him looking at her with her feelings about their situation all over his face. Great, his face said to her, we're screwed.
"Buffy ... um, new Buffy", Giles started, "why don't you come and sit down, you must be very disorientated after your .. eh trip" he smiled at her then and suddenly she felt a little lighter. Okay so we don't have the current team but we're not screwed. We've got the Scooby gang circa beating Angelus, the Master and Spike and Dru - not too shabby, she thought. She turned to look at Spike and silently tried to tell him not to worry too much, they would figure it out with the gang. She slowly moved over to the table. The gang, including Alt Buffy, backed away a little as they approached, wariness still in the air from all corners and as she sat down she saw Spike had opted for hiking himself up on the counter instead of approaching the gang. She turned to look at Alt Buffy and watched her cautiously sit down next to her at the table, the two of them glancing at each other with interest and wariness. Willow did the same opposite Buffy and Giles and Xander hovered around behind Willow, staring at her with confusion and wonder. Angel hovered closer to Spike, the two occasionally shooting distrustful glances at each other.
"Now eh Buffy, tell us what happened before you woke up here?", Giles said.
"Okay. Me, Dawn and Spike were in the living room. We heard a noise, like a thud, something falling on the floor but then Dawn said it would be Willow, who had come home in a rush while we were downstairs. Dawn went upstairs to get something, Spike and me were talking and then bam, blackness."
"Who's Dawn?" Alt Buffy asked.
Buffy turned to her with an incredulous look on her face, about to ask her if she was the one who needed medical attention, when Spike half shouted "Buffy! They haven't .. met Dawn yet. She's not .. you know", he fixed her with a knowing look, willing her to understand that supplying any information about Dawn being her younger sister would only add weight to the whole she's not really Buffy theory they were no doubt still considering.
"Right, of course" she covered. "Sorry, it's just ... this is weird, that's all."
"Yes, quite", Giles said, taking off his glasses to clean them, a gesture so Giles that she again got that feeling of it's okay, we're in the bosom, s'all okay. "So there's nothing you can think of that could be the cause of this .. time jump?"
"Nothing I can think of. No demons wanting us dead, no hell-gods hunting us down, no Big Bad vamp covens in town. Sunnydale was in one of its off-again phases. I mean Willow ... she could've ..." she glanced at Spike, "... but only accidentally. And if she did do it, then she'll be able to undo it. Dawn will come down the stairs, realise we're not there and go get Will. In which case we'll be going back in no time ... right?" she hopefully suggested to Spike.
"What if it wasn't ... accidentally?" he replied quietly, eyeing her in a way that let her know what part of Willow he was thinking of.
"Wait, okay let's slow down. One, how could I send someone back in time? Two, why would I do that on purpose? And three ... uh hi Buffy", Willow smiled at Buffy shyly and Buffy felt a rush of affection for the girl. God but she's different now. So much more but in some ways so much less. But I guess we all are. Isn't that what growing up is all about? Losing parts of yourself so you can gain others? Whatever the case was, no matter what had happened over the years - the spells gone awry, the turn to the blackness, Warren - nothing made Buffy believe that the girl in front of her was gone completely and that meant that there was no way Willow intentionally did this to harm them.
"If Willow did this on purpose then it must be for a reason. Maybe there's some bigger picture here we're not seeing?" Buffy finished speculatively.
"Well is there something that happens round about now that .. needs changing?" Angel said, speaking up for the first time and she turned to glance at him. His voice, god I remember getting goosebumps every time I heard it ... he looks different now ... she knew that wasn't possible - he's an immortal, he can't change - but he had just the same. She tried to view him as she did back then, as the Buffy beside her viewed him ... but it was like looking at a picture of yourself as a child you didn't know was being taken and trying to remember what you were thinking at that exact moment. You knew at the time what it was all about but years later it's like a ghost of a thought. That feeling filled her with an emotion she couldn't quite place. Sadness? Nostalgia? Closure? She couldn't tell. All she knew was that the Buffy that was sitting next to her was about as far away from who she was as it's possible to get. She came out of her reflection to notice Angel looking back at her with a curious expression on his face. She could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on her, including Spike. She chanced a glance at him and he quickly looked away. Shit - so much for no more insecurities. Her heart sank as she answered Angel's question ...
"Not that I can think of but like I said, what good could come of changing things from the past? It would alter the future we go back to and ..." she fixed her gaze firmly on Spike as she finished, "... there's not one thing I want to change about my life there". She faintly smiled as his eyes got bluer and she got that jolt of feeling again - he gets it, he gets me. He returned her gaze with fervor. Just a momentary flutter Slayer, his eyes said and satisfied she turned back to the group.
"So plans? Suggestions? Anyone?"
"Is there anything on your end that could be the cause of our Marty McFly?" asked Spike. "Maybe something from this time sucked us back here".
They all looked quite taken aback to be addressed by Spike in a non-threatening way and Buffy suppressed a giggle. They glanced at one another, thinking of what could be behind that - what would require the presence of Buffy and Spike from 2003.
Giles spoke up at that. "But that would require whatever is behind it to have the gift of foresight. From what Buffy said, it doesn't sound random. There were people other than the two of you in the house and yet only you were taken".
"I can't think of any reason why someone from this time would need or want the presence of two slayers in this time - actually three, including Faith", said Angel.
"Faith ... god, right" Buffy said before she could stop herself and Alt Buffy glanced at her with a worried, questioning look on her face.
"What do you mean? What about Faith?" she asked, suddenly far too interested for Buffy's liking. She started to hedge an answer when Giles interrupted her.
"Buffy is right, eh .. Buffy", Giles stammered, "I think the less we know of our future activities the better".
"I knew you were going to say that", Buffy quipped and he looked at her like he would his Buffy and it warmed her heart a little.
"Well .. I'm rather flummoxed, this is somewhat unexpected even for a town on a Hellmouth", Giles said. "Perhaps ... perhaps the best course of action is for us to do some research on time travel and see what could be behind this. Even if you're correct and Willow ..." and at this he glanced down at their Willow as if trying to imagine her with enough power to accomplish something of this magnitude, "... will be able to help you from your time, it can't hurt to find out for ourselves regardless. No?" he directed the question to Alt Buffy.
"Sure, why not. Hit the books" Alt Buffy said, glancing at Buffy with curiosity shining in her eyes ... my eyes. God this is weird. "But if I can be excused for that particular activity? Patrol, sacred duty, yadda yadda..."
"Oh so the Xand man has to stay and read but you get to punch things? How's that fair?"
"Sorry Xand, chosen one and all" she smiled, loving her get out of jail free card.
"Actually" Buffy cut in "I'm also kinda antsy. Can we eh .. come along?", she looked to Alt Buffy and watched her glance at Spike and back into her eyes with that curiosity, that look that said I never thought I'd make it to 2000 nevermind 2003.
"Sure, why not?"
"Cool", Buffy said meaning it. She got up and turned to Spike getting off the counter at the same time as Angel made a move to follow Alt Buffy and the four of them shared a moment, a look of awkward that was almost as funny as it was surreal and it wasn't lost on the rest of the Scoobies.
Xander snorted behind them at the stares of awkward being shared and was rewarded with four deathglares before the unlikely foursome turned to head out of the library. As they headed through the door Buffy heard him say quietly, "She may be older but she's just as scary". She smiled and glanced at Spike, loving her old friends almost as much as her new ones.
AN: And I've edited this chapter now. It's way harder than you think switching the narratives lol. I hope it won't annoy anyone who's already read it. If it does, leave me a review and tell me what to change or how to improve it :)
