I changed a few things in the past chapters... i didn't notice i mentioned Wyatt and he's not supposed to be born yet :P
Paige orbed in the Summers' living room, it was almost 3 am, but the lights where on.
"Dawn?" she called.
"Up here," Dawn answered coming down the stairs.
"What happened… where's Buffy?" Paige asked.
"I just checked on her, she's sleeping," the teen answered and motion Paige to sit down, "I'm not sure what happened, all I know is that Willow, Tara, Anya and Xander did a spell."
"What kind of spell?" Paige asked already thinking on the consequences.
"They didn't say anything else, they just came here looking for Buffy, bombed her with questions and they left after Buffy went upstairs," Dawn said not quite understanding everything either.
Paige sighed and stood up, "I want to see her."
They headed upstairs to Buffy's room, she wasn't sleeping anymore, she was just staring at the pictures in her room.
"Buffy?" Dawn called softly getting no response, "hey, look who's here," she said hoping to get any reaction.
Paige slowly approached her, and gently placed her hand over Buffy's shoulder, "Buff, how are you feeling?" she asked in a soft tone.
"The pictures…" Buffy said not looking away from said pictures.
"What about them?" Paige asked smiling lightly seeing that amongst all the pictures of the Scoobies there were a couple of herself with Buffy too.
"They're dead… we're all dead," Buffy said with confusion in her voice.
Paige gently pulled her back to the bed, "Dawn. Help with the covers please."
Dawn rearranged the bed sheets for her sister.
"You comfy?" Paige asked as she tucked her friend in the bed but got no response.
"She's been like that since I found her," Dawn said, "she barely speaks, is like she's not present, her mind is somewhere else."
"Tell me everything," Paige said.
They went to Dawn's room.
"Spike came over to baby sit me," Dawn said as if ashamed of still being watched over, "then this demon gang came and started to trash the city, we fled, and found the BuffyBot destroyed… it mentioned something about the other Buffy being there, and I ran, hoping to find her, and she was up in Glory's tower… I think she wanted to jump," she said sadly and Paige listened carefully, "she asked me if this was hell… I tried to reassure her that she was home now… are you sure she wasn't in hell?" some tears started to form in Dawn's eyes.
Paige talked to Dawn right after the Halliwells summoned Buffy, and she told everything Buffy said, Dawn at first got mad for not being able to see her sister, but then she was happy that Buffy was ok wherever she was.
"I'm sure, you know she told me so herself," Paige said, she knew Buffy was in some kind of Heaven.
"I brought her home," Dawn continued, "Spike knew she dug up from her grave… because her hands were hurt, then the others arrived and I called you when they left."
Suddenly they heard glass breaking, they looked at each other and walked out the room, they heard Buffy talking in Willow and Tara's room.
"What did you do? Do you know what you did?" Buffy was saying as Paige and Dawn entered the room, the witches where on the bed staring at Buffy, "You're like children! Your hands smell of death! Bitches!, filthy little bitches rattling the bones, did you cut a throat? Did you pat its head?" by this Buffy was almost yelling, she grabbed a crystal ball off the dresser and threw it at Willow and Tara who managed to duck, it smashed against the wall.
Buffy continued yelling, "The blood dried on your hands, didn't it? You were stained, you still are… I know what you did!"
"Oh God…" Tara said scared.
Paige turned on the lights, as soon as the room was lit, Buffy was gone, the crystal ball was complete in its original place.
"The glass, there's no glass," Tara stated looking for glass over the bed.
The four headed to Buffy's room, she was there sleeping, "Ok, what in the frilly heck is going on?" Willow asked confused and frightened.
"Maybe we dreamed it," Tara thought out loud.
"Right, right… wrong! Different brains," Willow reasoned.
"And we were wide awake," Dawn said.
"Yeah right, you were, we all saw it," Willow was trying to find a reason and then for the first time noticed Paige was there, "Paige! Hi, what are you doing here?"
"I asked her to come," Dawn said.
They noticed a shadowy distortion rippling across the wall and then disappear.
"What was that?" Willow asked.
"There's, there's something in the house," Tara answered.
"What is it? Could it hurt Buffy?" Willow wondered.
"I don't know." Tara said.
"I'm gonna call," Willow grabed the phone and dialed, "I hope Xander's up."
The next morning, Willow, Tara, Xander, Anya and Paige were at the backyard. Xander just told them how last night Anya was possessed by something.
"I bet it's a hitchhiker," Anya said after hearing what happened, "standard way to travel between alternate dimensions. Some thing-ama-demon sees someone moving between worlds, and grabs on for the ride."
"You mean some Hell beastie rode back with Buffy. Like ... we're responsible for this," Willow said a little regretful.
"What makes you think it's a Hell thing?" Paige asked, she had doubts on the hitchhiker theory knowing that Buffy wasn't in hell.
"What else could it be?, Buffy jumped to a portal to some Hell, we pulled her out," Willow answered.
"I think we shouldn't have brought Buffy back, I knew it was going to go badly, I should've said something." Anya said.
"Hey, you know what, yeah! You should've! At least you could've mentioned the highjackers so we could stop 'em!" Willow ranted.
"They're hitchhikers, not highjackers, and I thought you knew! It's basic stuff! You're supposed to be the all-powerful witch," Anya defended herself.
"She's got a point," Paige whispered receiving a glance from Willow.
"Which raises the question," Anya continued not having heard Paige, "why are you having us skulk around and meet in the backyard like like conspiracy squirrels? Sitting on this arm is making my buttocks hurt."
"Buffy's still asleep," Willow said
"We want her to get all the rest she can," Tara explained.
"Okay, fine. But what are we going to do? I mean, I'm feeling the need for some vigorous doing, you know?" Xander said still shaken.
"It's okay. We kill the beastie and all is good, we're rolling in puppies!" Willow said cheerful, "Right?"
"Can we do that? Kill it?" Xander asked.
No one noticed Buffy coming out from the kitchen,
"We killing something?" Buffy asked them.
"How are you feeling? Are you okay?" Tara asked her.
"It's all right if you're still plagued with nightmarish visions of Hell," Anya said trying to be sympathetic but with the wrong words as usual.
Buffy smiled lightly, but Paige notices her smile is fake.
"Uh-huh. So what are we killing?" Buffy asked.
They briefly explained the situation, and Buffy was all business, the others thought it was a good sign, they still though she had been in a Hell dimension.
They decided to go to the Magic Box to do some research. Paige said she was going to look in the book of shadows.
"Buffy, can we talk?" Paige asked her quietly when they entered the house.
Buffy didn't reply, her glance was empty, she showed no emotions at all. Paige sighed and took Buffy's hand and orbed away.
They appeared in a green area in Los Angeles, "remember this place?" Paige asked Buffy, who just looked around not realizing what just happened, "remember when we used to come here after classes?... or during classes?" Paige let out a small chuckle, but still didn't get a response from her friend.
Paige guided Buffy to sit under a tree.
"Buffy," Paige said in a more serious tone, "do you remember where you were?"
The blonde stared down at her bandaged hands, her eyes started to fill with tears but refused to let them free. Buffy knew she didn't have to pretend around Paige, she could just be herself around her. She lightly nodded, "I… I remember you bringing me back… but felt nothing like… like this," She said trying to find the words.
"We summoned your spirit," Paige explained, "but never pulled you out of there."
"Can you… take me back there?" Buffy asked softly.
Paige understood what Buffy was asking, but knew she couldn't do it, "it's a lot to ask… you could end in Limbo, or some place different from where you were, I'm not so sure how afterlife dimensions work," she said reassuringly.
"I want to go back," Buffy said staring blankly at the sky.
Paige feared that she might try to hurt herself to go back to heaven, she wasn't sure of what to say.
"Don't worry… I won't kill myself," Buffy said as if reading her friend's mind, "everything is so… mixed up," she continued as she rubbed her temples, "I've got memories of things that weren't supposed to happen… but yet they happened."
"What do you mean?... memories from up there?" Paige asked
Buffy shook her head, "I remember… Living without Dawn most of my life… the Master free, in a factory… Angel being human… I, I don't know what's real and what's not," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Alter realities," Paige said after a beat, "it could be possible you somehow moved… or were moved through realities, but Buffy I think there's a reason for you to be here… I know your friends' intentions were genuinely good…"
Buffy didn't say anything, she just lean on Paige's shoulder and cried softly. "I'll always be here for you when you need," the charmed one said as she held Buffy.
"Don't tell them… where I was," Buffy said, "things would get… uncomfortable."
"You still hate to be patronized," Paige said with a small smile, "see? You are still the same deep down, you just need time to readjust, take all you need, you don't have to rush into things."
"Thank you," Buffy said softly, her tears drying.
Later when the sun was setting, Paige orbed Buffy back to Sunnydale, to the Magic Box where the gang were researching the threat. Paige joined the research.
After a while Buffy left, saying she had to patrol, Dawn wanted to go with her but she refused.
"Thaumogenesis!" Willow said after more time of research. Startled the others looked at her.
"She's possessed!" said Anya, who was woken up by Willow's voice.
"Thaumogenesis," Willow repeated.
"You're right," said Dawn to Anya.
"I'm not possessed. It's just, I think I figured it out. This isn't a demon we let out. This is a demon we made," she explained holding the book she was reading.
"We made a demon? Bad us," Xander said.
"Thaumogenesis is when doing a spell actually creates a being. In this case it was, like, a side-effect," Willow explained to them, "think of it like, the world doesn't
like you getting something for free, we asked for this huge gift, Buffy, and the world said, fine, if you get that, you have to take this too ... and it made the demon."
"Sounds like a personal gain side effect," Paige said.
"If you made a demon how come we don't see it? I mean, we just see us, doing stuff." Dawn wondered.
"I think it's out of phase with this dimension. Its consciousness is here, but its body is caught in the ether between existing and not existing," Willow kept on reading from her book, "the demon it's going to dissipate, the only way it can survive on our plane is if it was to kill the subject of the original spell."
"It would live if it kills Buffy?" asked Paige fearfully.
"Thanks for the tip!" said the demon in a possessed Xander who collapsed on the floor and the demon fled.
Xander, Anya and Dawn were soon on Xander's car on their way to the Summers' house.
Willow, Tara and Paige stood behind to perform a spell to make the demon solid so Buffy could slay it.
Tara and Paige looked in awe as Willow's power grew, the redhead wasn't chanting along them anymore, her eyes turned black and a light surrounded her.
"Solid," Willow said with a deep voice.
No longer after that, Xander called to the magic box, to let the witches know that the spell worked and the demon was dead.
Paige said her goodbyes to the gang and orbed back to San Francisco.
"Paige! We were starting to worry," said Piper as she saw her orb in.
"Sorry, I left in a hurry this morning," Paige said.
"I asked Leo to keep an eye on you… in case he sensed you were in any danger," Piper said.
"Everything ok?" asked Phoebe
Paige poured herself some coffee and sat on a chair in the kitchen, "I went to Sunnydale… Buffy was brought back to life," she said with a sigh.
"What?!" Piper asked shocked, "how? Why?"
"I'm not sure how, all I know is that Willow, Tara, Xander and Anya did a spell to bring her back," Paige told them.
"How's Buffy taking it?" Piper asked, the memories of when she tried to bring Prue back rushing to her head.
"She seems so lost, she's not happy to be here… and the spell backfired."
Paige told them everything that happened during the day, and how Willow finished the spell.
"We have to talk to Willow," Piper said, "it takes a really powerful witch to bring someone back to life."
"And only black magic can make that possible," Phoebe added.
"We should keep an eye on her," Paige said, the memory of how overwhelming was being close to Willow's power made her fear the wiccan witch.