Willow dipped her toe into the steaming water, careful to keep her other foot on the mat at the foot of her tub. After her run-in with the First three months ago, Willow was extra-careful whenever she had anything to do with water. Also, she'd had her bathroom remodeled. Others thought she was just being vain, tripling the size of her bathroom, but Willow being practical. If she ever slipped and fell in the bathroom, she wanted the chances that she hit her head or neck on something reduced greatly. Who wanted to spend the rest of their lives as a paraplegic just because she couldn't keep her footing?

Also, Willow had taken the bathroom's remodeling as an excuse to so a little bit of redecorating around her apartment, too. She'd changed the walls (ochre to a rust color, accented with golden leaves) and had taken up the carpeting to replace it with hardwood floors. In her bathroom, she'd taken stone carvings she'd found at ancient temples from around the world and set them as tiles in the floor, sealed in magicked glass. Her tub was actually a stone basin made from curved markers found in the tomb of Netjerykhet in Egypt. Out of all the luxuries she'd allowed for herself (and gods new she needed them), this tub was her favorite. Whenever she laid in it, the healing powers from the mystical stones would soak into her body, rejuvenating her so that she always came out fresher than a full night's sleep.

And she needed a rest. She hadn't slept much since that day that she'd seen her best friend killed by reciprocal telekinesis. That fact that she'd gone down saving the world again didn't soothe the hurt that permeated every thought she had about her best friend. The fact that this time, the last time, Buffy's death was inviolable broke something inside of Willow that she didn't even know was there. If the circumstances were different, if just one thing had been happened in a different way, the Willow would never have been able to see the truth of it. But no—standing there at the edge of the square, she'd been forced to watch as the best woman she'd ever known give her life by sacrificing her head. That was the ultimate death, and Willow knew that Buffy knew that as well.

And now she'd never be able to tell her. No, it wasn't a surprise that she'd loved Buffy. Anybody who ever spent any amount of time alone with her loved her too, with all of their heart. Willow never would have acted on her feelings for her, though. They were too close. Sex would have been a divider between them that Willow did not want or need. They were sisters, and that was what Willow had needed from her best friend after Tara had died, and a friend when she and Kennedy were having problems. But what kind of friend had Willow been when Buffy needed her? She could help but to wail at the injustices she had caused her friend over the years. Buffy had selflessly given her all, her life for her friends and her family—not to mention the entire world—and Willow, in a moment of selfishness, yanked Buffy out of Heaven so that she could come right back and face Hell all over again. Alone.

iAnd yet,/i she thought as planted her foot on the trench of the tub and lifted her other in as well, settling down to lie back against the curve of the warm glass, iI'd do it again if I could./i Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the molecules in the wicks of the candles she'd placed about the room, causing them to vibrate at a higher frequency. Within half a second, all the candles were lit, and Willow, with a giddy smile, lifted her hands out of the water and clapped her hands three times. The Clap-On/Clap-Off turned off the lights instantly, leaving the bathroom drenched in the low glow of candlelight. iI don't care who you are—The Clapper is always fun./i

Willow was seriously contemplating conjuring up a rejuvenation mask for the bags under her eyes when the water in the tub exploded outwards, drenching the candles and leaving the room pitch black. Willow, wary of jumping to her feet in a bathtub with just enough water left in it to cause her to slip and fall, stayed where she was and formed a plasma bolt in her left hand while calling forth light from the other. What she saw when her hand lit up scared the shit out of her.

Standing there, between her legs, was a blonde woman with a cut over her right eye and a katana in her hand, the point of which was mere centimeters from Willow's neck. "Ωηερε αμ Ι? Μορε το τηε ποιγτ, ωηεγ αμ Ι?"

"Huh?" Willow asked, surprised. It sounded like this girl was speaking ancient Greek. With a really, really thick accent.

"Ωηο αρε ψου? Αρε ψου τηε Ωιλλοω?"

Willow struggled to remember what Greek she knew while this strange woman—who'd somehow teleported through a mystical barrier that iWillow herself/i had put into place—held a very sharp-looking sword at her jugular. "Ummm. . ." she squeaked, trying to get her phrasing just right. "What did you say?"

The girl gave her a strange look and asked, "Why do you speak with such a strange accent? Who are you and where are you from?"

Willow, pretty sure she understood everything that this girl was saying, replied: "My name is Willow Rosenburg, and I am from Sunnydale, California."

The girl frowned but dropped the tip of her sword, bringing it to rest on the glass between her legs, the threat unmistakable. If Willow so much as looked at this woman wrong, she'd be dead. The woman's eyes flickered to the plasma bold still simmering in Willow's left hand, and Willow, for some reason trusting this woman to not kill her without provocation, quenched it in her fist. The woman seemed satisfied at this, and sheathed her sword. "Where is that?"

Willow forgot for a second and spoke in English. "Where is what?" The look from the woman told Willow that she hadn't understood her. She repeated her question in Greek.

"Enough. I do not have time for this. Are you the Willow that summoned the Oncoming Storm?"

Willow was very confused now. "Um, my name is Willow, but I have no ide—" Then it hit her. The Oncoming Storm was what the First had called the Doctor. The Doctor who was now dead. "Yes, I—called—the Doctor, but he was destroyed saving the world."

The girl's face fell, and she looked around, surveying the room with the dim light available from Willow's hand. "Shall we not light a torch, or one of these candles?" Willow, forgetting herself, had not thought to turn on the lights. Standing up, she clapped her hands twice, and the lights came on. Seeing this, the woman seemed impressed. "You are a powerful witch."

Willow grinned, but didn't correct her. She iwas/i a powerful witch, even if she'd only used technology to turn on the lights. "Who are you?" she asked as she stepped out of the tub.

"My name is Gabrielle. I was sent here by my best friend to help the Oncoming Storm save the whole of existence." Willow, now standing and not laying on her back with a sword in her face, could see that the woman was trying to act brave—and indeed she was—but she seemed uncertain of herself, and confused at the room around her. "What is this place?"

"It's where I bathe," Willow said, suddenly very conscious that she was standing in her bathroom naked with a strange attractive blonde warrior staring her down like she'd seen it a million times. It kinda hurt Willow's feelings, the other girl not even noticing her indecency. "So where are you from?" Willow asked, trying to sound nonchalant as she crossed an arm over her breasts and moved her other to cover her sex.

The girl idid/i notice, however, and blushed a little as she answered. "I apologize for my rudeness. I was supposed to arrive in the Circle of Heb-Sed, but instead I landed in your bath."

"Actually," Willow replied, "you did arrive in the Circle of Heb-Sed." The girl's eyes widened as she looked back at the tub. "Yep," the witch grinned guiltily, "I brought it over because of the healing properties they once gave the pharaohs of Egypt. By the way, would you mind handing me a cloth?" Willow asked, nodding toward the towels behind her.

The girl handed a few over, which Willow quickly used to cover her nakedness. "How far are we from Saqqara?" she asked as Willow wrapped her hair with an extra towel.

"Ummm, we are about 1,333 miles from there, in Rome, Italy."

"Rome? Is this Caesar's palace?"

Willow tried her best not to snicker. She was unsuccessful. "Um, no. . . That's in Vegas. And there hasn't been a Caesar in, like, sixteen hundred years."

"Really?" Gabrielle mused. "Then that means I am very, very far from home."

"Why? Where are you from?"

"Well," Gabrielle sighed, "it's more of a question of iwhen/i I am from."

"What do you mean?" Willow asked, sure she knew the answer. After all, why were they speaking in ancient Greek?

"Because I've moved forward in time at least a few millennia." Looking at Gabrielle's face, she knew that she was telling the truth. Why would she lie about moving forward in time?

Before she could even formulate a question to ask her, the door to her bathroom burst from its hinges, narrowly missing Willow and causing Gabrielle to dive out of the way. In the dust cloud that formed from broken sheet-rock, Illyria stepped through the door. Willow, surprised and not knowing why the god-king had come kicking down the door to her bathroom, raised her palm and pushed outward, creating a moving force-field. When it hit Illyria, she slowed down for second, but did not halt her progress to the blonde warrior standing by the sink.

"Illyria, wha—"

"Stay out of this, witch, or I will not forget your trespass against me," the former god warned.

"What? You're the one who's trespassing here!"

Illyria stopped a few steps away from Gabrielle, staring her down with all the iciness that she could muster. Not once taking her eyes off of Gabrielle, she answered her. "I was searching out Hellspawn in the lower dimensions when I felt a temporal vortex coupled with a spatial displacement. I came as fast as I could, as it could only be the Lonely One."

"But why the hell did you break down my door?" Willow half-screamed.

"I tried to open a portal at the source of the disturbance, but your mystical barrier caused the portal to not connect. I opened one to the outside of the barrier and opened it the hard way." Willow was about to say something to her but Illyria cut her off. "Ware, witch. Just because you hold the Spark of Creation does not give you the ability to not be crushed like the insect you are." Turning her attention back to Gabrielle, she spoke in English, the same language Illyria had been speaking to Willow since she'd entered the room. "You are not the Lonely One. Do you serve him, worm?"

To Willow's surprise, Gabrielle answered her back in English. "I serve no one's purpose but that of the Fates."

Illyria did not like this answer. "WHO IS YOUR GOD?" she screamed at the girl.

Gabrielle stood her ground and squared her shoulders. "I serve ino/i god! The gods of Olympus tremble before the might of Xena and Gabrielle!"

Now it was time for both Illyria and Willow to be taken aback. iWhy is she risking her life talking about some television show?/i Illyria raised her fist above her head and glared at Gabrielle as the air around it grew dark. "You will pay for deposing me, insolent worm! I will make a trophy of your spine!" She brought her fist down on empty air.

Gabrielle, having seen an attack coming, was moving so fast that Willow had a hard time following her. Running around Illyria, she picked up Willow's statue of Bast from the toilet tank and swung it with inhuman speed at Illyria's head. Illyria, slowing down time, was able to dodge it, though just barely. Gabrielle, using the follow through with the swing, brought her left elbow around and caught Illyria in the nose, staggering her back in pain. "You. . ." Illyria began. "You are a Slayer?"

"For a couple of weeks now, yes," Gabrielle answered, slowly unsheathing her sword. Reaching between her breasts, she pulled out a necklace with a red vial at the end of it. "Do you know what this is?" she asked, her voice cold as she held it up for the god to see.

Illyria's confident demeanor changed in an instant as Gabrielle brought the vial close to the edge of her blade. "You would kill me, a god?"

Gabrielle smirked, and it scared the hell out of Willow. "It wouldn't be the first time, bitch."

Just at that time, a phone started ringing from the basket that Willow put her things in when she took off her clothes. Gabrielle and Illyria both looked at her, not understanding the sound coming from the basket. "Um, I'll get it!" Willow spoke up, hoping she sounded cheery. Walking over to the sink, she took the ringing phone out of the basket and could not remember whose it was. It certainly wasn't hers. The ringing stopped, and Willow was about to put it back down when it started ringing again. Nonplussed, Willow opened the flip-phone and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Bloody hell, it's about time, isn't it? Ring up the Doctor for me, love."

Willow stopped cold. The Doctor. She had picked up his phone on the catwalk from that underground complex in the alternate universe. And it got great reception. "May I ask who this is?"

"Hey, now, missy!" came the grating voice on the other line. "I don't have time for games. Now, hand over the phone to the Doctor so he and I can go about saving the universe once again."

Willow didn't know what to say, so she told the truth. "Um, m'am, I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but the Doctor's dead."

"Okay then, fine," came the fussy voice, "just let me speak with the Doctor."

"M'am, I don't think you understand! I saw the Doctor die right before my eyes!"

"And how did he die?" she asked hesitantly.

"He was disintegrated in an alien machine called the Rift Manipulator."

"Oh, my. My, my, my, my, my. . ." the voice drifted off. Suddenly, as if she had had a thought, the woman on the other end exclaimed, "But that's okay! We'll get him back, don't you worry. Trust me, I'm the Doctor Donna!"

hr/ Please review! Let me know what you liked about it, what you think could be better, or any ideas you have for it!