Buffy woke up to find her Watcher's hands hovering over her, surrounded by trees and bushes, twigs and leaves sticking to her clothes, hair and skin. She took one look at the man beside her and sighed, once again finding herself in her personal Hell; life.

"Ugh, I'm still alive." She didn't know what came to her, what made her say it. She had kept those thoughts to herself since she'd been back, only letting Spike know in a moment of weakness. And surprisingly enough, he kept his word of not telling the others. Not even Ally, although he had been quite freaked, thinking his girlfriend had been dragged out of Heaven, anguish clearly painted in his face.

She snapped out of her memories, realizing her Watcher was talking.

"Yes-yes. We were all very worried something worse had happened to you when Spike only found Ally. Let me help you." He held one of her arms to aid her in standing up, looking her up and down. "How are you feeling?"

Again, her mouth seemed to have a life of its own. "Like Hell."

"I'm guessing you got a pretty hard hit, for you to have flown all the way to the trees. You will recover soon, I'm sure." He half-smiled, thinking her words applied only to her current situation, and not the whole time she'd been back. "Come on, we should get you back home. Your sisters should be awake by now, and everyone will be worried about you."

Afraid of spilling any other well-kept truths, she decided to keep her mouth shut. It felt like once she opened it, she lost control of what came out of it. She couldn't allow herself to let her secret out anymore. She couldn't let them know.


When the senior Slayer and Watcher arrived home, they found the witches and Xander waiting anxiously for them, all of them jumping at the sight of the blonde girl. They flittered around her, asking her where she had been and why it had taken her so long to get to them, only for Buffy to avoid answering, not trusting her own words. She raised a hand to stop their questions and pointed upstairs, trying to let them know she would like to have a shower and change clothes. However, they didn't seem to understand.

"Dawn? She went after Ally, with Anya. Alls just... kinda freaked out and ran out, saying she had to see Spike. I don't know what got to her." The redhead explained, only for the Slayer to shake her head and huff.

She pointed upstairs once again and then gestured for them to wait, sprinting to the upper level and into her room.

Right around the time Buffy went back downstairs, the phone rang, Tara hurrying to answer it, soon joining the group once again. It was Dawn on the phone, informing them of their situation and telling them to meet the other girls at the Magic Box as soon as possible. What was going on?


Meanwhile, the odd couple outside of the coffee shop resumed their make out session, Ally sliding one of her fingers into one of the loops of his belt and pulling him with her towards a nearby alley, away from any watching eyes. Lost in their moment of passion, Lindsey hoisted the girl up, her legs locking around his waist as he carried her the rest of the way until her back hit a wall again, his lips moving towards her neck and biting down gently, a shuddering breath escaping her lips.

How many times had he thought about her just like that? Had she ever imagine themselves in that situation? She must have had, he told himself, thoroughly pleased with her reaction at seeing him again. He might have a chance, away from L.A., only the two of them with no idiots to get in the middle.

Then, a voice coming from the entrance to the alley made Lindsey pull away from her enough to turn his head, wondering who would have the guts of interrupting an obviously busy couple.

"Ally!" A young brunette girl ran towards them, glaring at the man holding her sister. "What's wrong with you? Let her go!" She screamed, taking him aback.

"Dawn? Ally?" Another blonde woman joined the brunette, Dawn, fixing the man with a death glare. "Get away from her!" She screamed, grabbing his arm and pulling, Lindsey dropping the girl in his arms as she pouted. What was going on?

"What...? I wasn't forcing her!" He complained, his gaze moving back and forth among the three women, sending a questioning look towards the only one he knew. Could someone explain to him what the hell was going on? Why did they so determinedly separate them?

"You don't just start making out with strangers in the street, no matter how willing they seem to be!" The ex-demon shouted, bringing the Slayer behind her and away from the unknown man.

"She's not a stranger! Ally, tell them!" He defended himself, face flushed from the make out session and the shame from being caught in the middle of it, as well as the anger that had started simmering in his chest.

"You know him?" Dawn turned toward her sister, eyebrows high up in her forehead.

"Yeah, it's Lindsey, now please just let us..." She begged, trying to get back to the man.

"No. You are not in your right mind, we have to get you to Willow." Anya cut, her gaze finding the man again. "Are you two friends, or lovers, or...?"

"Friends, from L.A. I think." He frowned, not very sure what their current situation was.

The blonde girl struggled with the Slayer, pushing her back again before Ally launched herself on the man once more. "Then help us get her to another friend. She's under the effects of a lust spell. We have to get her back to normal. And don't you even think about taking advantage of her!"

He felt like he had been showered with ice cold water. Lust spell. That explained her behaviour. Of course, why else would she act like that with him? After such a long time? If he hadn't been so caught up in the moment, he might have realized something was wrong.

He nodded, his face setting into a firm expression, jaw clenching. "Lead the way." He strode forward and roughly grabbed his old time friend from the arm, keeping the rest of her body away from him. It seemed to convince the other two, who did as he told, heading out of the alley as the bewitched girl whined at the lack of intimate physical contact with her interest.

Trying to make the walk towards the magic shop as nice as possible for the man whose affair they had interrupted, Dawn looked back towards him and her sister, her voice turning much nicer that before. "I'm Dawn, by the way, and this is Anya."

"Nice to meet you. Lindsey McDonald." He nodded once again, watching Ally from the corner of his eye as she tried to curl herself on his side. "I take it you are her friends?"

"Yup. So you met her in L.A.?" At his nod, she took her opportunity to find out more about her sister's past, as the eldest brunette didn't seem to mind much right then. "Long ago?"

It seemed an eternity of frustration and endless anger to him, only lightened by his brief encounters with her. "Almost three years, I'd say." Three years since the first moment his eyes landed on her. He remembered it as if it had been the previous day.

"Were you close?" She had fallen into step beside him, letting Anya take the lead, who was also paying attention to their conversation.

Lindsey was soon lost in his memories, thinking back to the times he had spent with Ally back in L.A. Not many and not very long, for the most part. "Not much. Not until a bit before she left, anyway."

"But you fancied her." Anya chimed in, not realizing that was an uncomfortable subject for most people, specially those you had just met.

He frowned once again, not really wanting to answer that, before sighing and confirming her statement. "Has she been here long?"

"Around nine months." Dawn answered, walking around him to approach her sister, wanting to be close to her once again, like before Halloween.

"She must have come right after leaving L.A." He mused, thinking about the penchant for danger he was sure his friend had. Of all the places she could have gone to, she had told him she'd visit, she had to end up in Sunnydale. He knew what that place was, he knew about the Hellmouth. But he knew that saving people was what she really wanted to do, what she felt like she had to do. He knew about her story, he knew how she ended up in L.A. There really was no taking her out of that world, not that he was going to try to. It was something he liked about her. She was the epitome of selfless courage, quite the opposite from him, he had always thought. It was part of her charm.

"Why did she leave?" The teen wondered, trying to grab Ally's attention, divert it from the man she was close to eye-fucking, as hard as he tried to avoid her gaze.

"Things got complicated with her... friends." His voice turned strained, hands turning into fists at the memories. However, he fixed the teen with a firm glare, aware of what she was trying to do. "If she hasn't told you, I don't think I should. Ask her when she's back to normal."

The teen's eyes moved to the ground, ashamed of herself, not wanting to make her sister angrier with her. She just wanted to know her better. To go back to how they were before.

They walked the rest of the way in relative silence, only broken by the half-whines of the Slayer, still in hopes of getting back to the make out session with the frustrated man.


The group got to the Magic Box just in time to meet the rest of the Gang, who stared at the new man suspiciously as he pulled the girl inside the shop, taking in her strange behaviour. Well, Buffy hadn't uttered a word since she'd arrived home, so they weren't all that surprised. They were spelled by the same witch, after all.

"So, who's the new boy?" Xander asked, following the man, not wanting to let the girl out of his sight with the stranger.

"Lindsey McDonald. I'm a friend of Ally." He sternly informed the new arrivals, not letting his friend go, holding her at arms distance. "Who can fix her?"

"That would be us." The witches approached, looking rather shy, and took the girl from him, leading her and the tiny blonde one towards the middle of the store, the brunette squirming, her eyes still set on Lindsey. "Ally, do you have the stone I gave you last night?" The redhead asked, the junior Slayer barely focusing enough to take the round rock out of her pocket. "Buffy?" The other one copied her sister, handing the stone over and holding Ally as she started moving towards McDonald again.

"Alls, stop it." Buffy snapped, applying more pressure to make the other look at her.

"I just want to..." She tried to wriggle her way out of the blonde's grasp, only to fail. "Oh, come on! I can't find Spike, I need it!"

Her eyes got harder than Ally had ever seen, feeling her fingers tightening their hold. If she had been a normal human, that would have hurt. "You don't. Now stop or I'll tie you to the chair. I'm not the biggest fan of Captain Peroxide, but I'm definitely not letting you throw yourself to the first man you can find. I'm fed up of this world as it is, I don't need you to make this Hell any worse with domestic issues."

She shut her mouth a second later, when she realized what she had just said, noticing the silence that followed her words. No, fuck, no, no, no, she half-screamed in her head, wishing she had kept her mouth shut. But she was fed up, truly done with the situation, with seeing her sister act like a whiny mess. That was not Ally, as she was not going to let her keep it up anymore. She had lost a good man for stupid reasons, she was going to prevent her sister from doing the same thing. Except, the vampire wasn't exactly 'good' or a 'man'. Yet, she couldn't deny the bleach blond was absolutely in love with Ally. The 'die for you' kind of love that was so rare and so precious.

"Buffy?" Dawn approached her, worried about her eldest sister then, even Ally stopping her movements. "Hell?"

"We left Hell behind, Buff." That was the first sentence Ally had accomplished that day that didn't make her sound like a needy-horny woman.

"I left Heaven behind." The words were out of her mouth before she could do anything to stop them, even achieving to cool down her hormonal sister, who stared at her in horror.

Silence ensued, even Lindsey realizing something big was going on right there and then, stepping back to let them deal with it. His eyes moved to his friend once again, taking in her slightly rumpled appearance, messy hair and wrinkled clothes, from they kissing or something else, he didn't know. The tiny blonde girl, Buffy, had mentioned a 'Captain Peroxide', and he began to realize Ally had to be somewhat romantically connected to him, judging from Buffy's words.

"What?" The redhead sobbed, Buffy's revelation starting to sink in.

Knowing there was no going back, the senior Slayer looked at her friends, aware that she had to tell them the truth. Not because she was, probably due to the spell that had hit her, forced to do it, but because she had already dropped the bomb, she might as well finish what she started.

"I'm not sure where I was, but I wasn't in Hell. I am in Hell. You dragged me out of Heaven. There's so much pain, and everything is hard... Now, do... do something. Rid us of the spells. Please." She hadn't meant for her words to be that... true, she didn't mean to make her friends feel so bad.

Tara was the first to react, collecting herself, taking Ally's stone in her hand and muttering a few words, making it glow, then taking a book from one of the nearby shelves and a jar from behind the counter and approaching the brunette Slayer. Her girlfriend soon followed, trying to not let her emotions get in the way of helping her friends, if only long enough to free them of the magic that partly controlled them.


An hour or chanting and burning herbs later, both Slayers were clean of any magic the dark witch had attacked them with, and suddenly aware they were many things they had to fix. The blonde looked towards Willow as the brunette approached the blue-eyed man who had kept quite for some time then. She gestured outside with her head, him taking the lead. She looked back once at the group she was leaving behind, knowing they were going to have to talk for a while.

She had some talking to do too. Heck, she'd practically assaulted him. She so had to explain things to him.