When You Least Expect It Chapter 1: This is Not My Beautiful Reality, a buffy: the vampire slayer fanfic

This story takes place slightly after the end of Angel Season 5, which itself begins shortly after Buffy Season 7 finished. Thus it is slightly post-series but has very little (if any) alignment with post-series comics. It was written for the 2022 Elysian Fields Mystery Month Challenge, where each chapter was written in a week based on prompts posted by the site mods. Given this schedule (and the lack of a beta) there may be errors. Each chapter's prompt(s) are noted at the chapter's end. It is complete at five chapters.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 1: This is Not My Beautiful Reality

"Baby, I'm going to miss you," Willow murmured against Kennedy's full, warm lips. They might not have ironed out all their relationship problems during this idyll away from everyone else, but it had been a good start. And, goddess, what Ken could do with her lips. And that tongue stud. Mmm. She dropped her cellphone on the doorway table as she leaned in to renew the kissage.

Desire began to rise within her yet again as their lips, their hips, their hands, and their souls entwined them into living passion rooted in the ground and spiraling toward the sky. It was the Goddess' blessing of the Earth expressed in their very beings. But as Ken began to back them toward the bed, headlights splashed the drapes closed against the night's darkness, warning of a car approaching their little country inn.

Kennedy pulled back. The hand that had been cradling Willow's head loosened until only the tips of her fingers remained. As she teased strands of her girlfriend's red hair back behind her ear, she said, "Hey, Witchlady. That's my limo. I gotta bounce to get to the airport on time. I got the latest flight to Barcelona that would let me still get to the Slayer dojo by seven tomorrow morning."

"I know you did. It's just hard giving up our 'us' time." Willow knew she was pouting, although she'd told herself several times this past week that she was not going to be the needy one. Absolutely not.

"Come on, even if I stayed, missing my flight and all, it wouldn't have been 'us' time anyway since you agreed to meet Buffy at Stewart's Pub right after I leave."

Ah, and there was the jealousy that probably Kennedy had schooled herself to not show. Although Willow had really tried to include her girlfriend in everything important, the Scooby bond had always been rather exclusive. Further, nothing would change the fact that Buffy was senior to Kennedy as a slayer. Nor could anything alter that Willow had known Buffy and also Xander long before she'd met Kennedy. No amount of her dark-haired beauty's asides or pressure would change that.

"Come on Ken, you know she just got back from LA and she said she had something important to tell us. Xander thinks she's back with Angel, which hopefully doesn't involve any groininess leading to dead goldfish in our future." Kennedy rolled her eyes. References to the Scoobies' shared trove of bizarro stories was another point of contention.

Ignoring all of that, Willow kept trying to explain. "Arranging to meet Buffy after you've left wasn't me trying to exclude you. It was me reserving the most time for you and me to be all together in our little hideaway."

"Well, hideaway time is over, babe," Kennedy replied with a cool shrug. She slung her duffle-bag over her shoulder, freed her dark hair from under the strap. Then she picked up her suitcase from the bed, which was still heartily rumpled from their most recent time under the sheets. And, oops, the side lamp was a bit smashed into smithereens on the cracked night table.

Willow sighed. Being girlfriends with someone so athletic and strong meant that loving sometimes came with a side of broken ceramics and accidental kindling. She was grateful yet oddly sad that she herself, at least, didn't throw literal sparks from her fingertips anymore.

While she'd been contemplating the tableau that was suspiciously like a metaphor for her and Kennedy's relationship, her mercurial, sensual lady had returned to her side by the cottage door.

"Hey, I'm sorry I'm being a bitca." Kennedy reached up again, this time tracing Willow's cheek with her free hand. "I'm crap at saying goodbye. You know that, right?"

"I do, baby," she replied as she reached for her lover, enfolding her in a goodbye hug. Before she could say anything further, a car horn interrupted from outside.

"And that's my cue. I'll call you when my flight lands. If you're back by then, we can pick up where we left off here. We can use our sexiest words, our own hands, and our favorite toys, like that time a month ago, if you get my drift." Kennedy slowly moistened her top lip with her tongue and somehow the motion, coupled with a glimpse of her tongue stud, gave Willow a sudden, incongruous, reminder of Spike when he'd still been a roguish thorn in all of their sides.

Would Buffy have liked it if Spike had a tongue piercing?

Oh, bad thoughts. Bad Willow. Bad, bad. A blush bloomed up to her cheeks. "Okay, I'll count the minutes until your call," she managed to say. She tried to sound seductive but suspected that the squeak in her voice made her sound more like a bashful teenager.

With a smile and a peck on her lips, Kennedy said goodbye and opened the door. With a quick wave, she turned to jog toward the limo. At the same time, another car pulled into the inn's main driveway. It was briefly backlit by the window of a building on the other side of the lot, revealing Xander in the driver's seat. For once in his life, Xander was on time.

Willow waved, feeling a bit guilty that Kennedy probably thought she was waving at her. Well, maybe she was. Maybe it was a two-person wave. Obviously it was. That was her story and she was sticking to it.

She grabbed her courier bag and was about to reach for her phone when a gust of air from the still-opened door reminded her of the frequent, damp chill of Scotland's evening weather. Setting her purse down, accidentally covering her phone, she wrapped herself in a lightweight, woolen stole. Then, as Xander strolled up the path toward the door, she half turned to pick up her bag before closing the door behind her.

"My Willow-est of friends," Xander called out jovially as he pulled her into a hug. Half consciously, she realized how her childhood buddy had filled out and become more muscular over the past year or so. She wasn't attracted, anymore, but nevertheless felt the warm, generous comfort that being in his arms still conveyed. "Missed you," he added while she burrowed momentarily against his shoulder.

"Xander, I can't believe you're here. Well of course I'd heard you'd gotten in from Nairobi, with the coming back for debriefing with Giles and all. But still, you're all persony and here now." She returned his hug and then shrugged slightly, which was enough signal for him to release her.

"And you're still all with the words, Will," he chuckled. "But I know what you mean. It's weird to be back here in so many ways. But at least I've recently been in countries that drive on the left side of the road, so driving in Scotland isn't quite so strange. I think that's the only reason Giles let me use one of the compound's cars." He tilted his head toward the silver sedan in which he'd arrived. "He tried to give me keys to the Vauxhall hatchback, but Andrew let slip that its transmission needs work, so I haggled and got the Honda."

"You're such a dealmaker," Willow said while lifting the strap of her courier-style bag over her head.

"That's me: Dealmaker Man Extraordinaire and chauffeur of friends." He unfurled his hand in the direction of the car, which was a bit further away than Kennedy's limo had been, since the latter car had been in their cottage's driveway when he'd parked. As they strolled toward it, he asked. "Okay, why are you out here at an inn a few miles from the Watcher compound? I thought you had an apartment— or ooh, let me be all British and say a flat— next to Buffy's."

"Just here for a getaway with Ken before her stint down in Barcelona to help train the new Slayers there."

"And that was her driving away. But you're still here," he said with a sideways glance.

"Yup. Still here."

"Trouble in Willowland?" he paused, gently pulling her to a stop as he gazed thoughtfully into her eyes. "Need to talk about it?"

"Maybe later." her gaze drifted from his eyes to over his shoulder. With a breathy exhale, she explained, "Sometimes it's so easy with Ken. But sometimes, like this past week, it's as though we're role-playing at being a happy couple. But it's too much to go into right now."

After a moment, he nodded. "Alright. Let's go to the pub where Buffy's waiting for us." Resting his arm around her shoulders he nudged her into resuming their stroll to the car.

As they reached the vehicle, Willow felt her balance shift and suddenly Xander's car wasn't there. She blinked and the entire scene in front of her had changed.

Meanwhile, still on the table inside the door of her get-away cottage, Willow's phone sat forgotten.

—ooOOoo—

Willow blinked again. Not only had her balance shifted, but she was now sitting in an armchair facing a room full of people staring up at her. There was a man sitting next to her, on the other side of a small table, but Xander was nowhere in sight.

It took her a moment to figure it out, but then… holy crapdoodle, she was on a stage. This was like one of her high school nightmares, except without the frogs and spiders and Principal Snyder. Thankfully, it was also without the nakedness. But wait: she wasn't wearing her own clothes. She had on a pencil skirt and a preppy duck scarf. Seriously? What the frilly heck?

Her hands gripped the chair's upholstered arms when a young man standing at an audience microphone spoke up. "Dr. Rosenberg, isn't there an inherent contradiction between cultural expectations when considering social competence and achievement differences in adolescent milestone evaluation?"

"Huh?" She frowned. "Where am I? Who are you?"

The man seated to her side leaned her way. "Dr. Rosenberg, are you alright?" he murmured. Of course, since he had a little mic clipped to his collar, his question hushed its way throughout the auditorium.

"Okay, I get it. This really is a dream. It's like that one after the enjoining spell to fight Adam, where I didn't know my lines. But I'm ready for Sineya, this time. So don't try me." She squinted her features into her strongest 'resolve' face.

"Dr. Rosenberg?" The fellow at the audience mic was staring at her with wide eyes. Other people murmured to each other between skittish glances toward the stage.

"Dr. Rosenberg is my mother," Willow replied. "But she's here, or at least her perfume is. And her clothes." She waved her hand from her neckline on down. Then, brightening, she exclaimed, "Oh. Oh! I get it. I felt like I was role-playing with Ken, not being myself, so now I get to be dream-smashed with my mother. Because inauthenticity in intimate relationships was a whole big thing in her graduate work, which I heard about my whole childhood."

She stood up, elevating her voice to speak to the imaginary rafters. "Okay, I get it. Psychological lesson learned; we can stop this. Crappy hallucination over, now."

Seeing everyone staring at her, she readied a spell and snapped her fingers to initiate a teleportation spell. It was worth getting a possible nosebleed or crushing headache if it got her out of this stupid situation.

Nothing happened. The quick "end magic influence now" spell she'd recently worked out met with similar failure.

While she stared at her hand, which was not her hand after all, the man to her side stood up. Walking toward the front of the raised area, he announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, this session is concluded. We're going to take a break until the next topic on the agenda. Thank you for your understanding."

From the side, a twenty-something, muscular blond man took her arm to lead her off stage. In a quiet yet chipper voice, he asked, "Sheila, are you alright?" He took her down a short hallway and into a room with a set of stackable office chairs arranged in a horseshoe. With a huff, she sat, figuring that she might as well be comfortable while she tried to puzzle out what was going on.

A young woman with hair even redder than Willow's usual tint had followed them from the stage. With concern telegraphed on her freckled face, she was now trying valiantly to pass Willow a glass of water.

She batted away the redhead's hand. "Who are you people?" she asked. She was getting more than a little bit concerned. How long was she going to be trapped in this dream, or simulation, or hallucination, or whatever it was?

Oh no. Had someone accidentally invoked a vengeance wish so she was now stuck permanently as her mother? She didn't think that was how it worked, but this situation could certainly count as vengeance. Or punishment.

"I'm Andrew, your assistant." the young blond who'd led her to this room said. While speaking, he stepped discreetly in front of where she was sitting. No doubt he expected her to bolt, so planned to block her with his body. He'd likely succeed, she admitted. After all, her mother wasn't much larger than Willow, while Andrew here was easily six feet tall and built like her newly buff, Xander-shaped friend. He vaguely reminded Willow of Buffy's ex-boyfriend Riley.

Andrew took the glass of water from the hovering redhead and said it was okay for her to go mingle in the atrium. He firmly put the drink into Willow's hand. Which was her mother's hand, with her mother's prominent veins and her wedding ring. As Andrew wrapped her fingers around the glass and covered them with his, she noticed that her own hands were shaking.

"Take a sip, Sheila," he said quietly. She brought the glass to her lips, arching her eyebrow as it finally registered that her mother's hunky young assistant was on a first-name basis with 'Doctor Rosenberg'." Huh.

The water had actually been a good idea, she decided while pausing for another sip. It was such a normal thing to do in the midst of wackiness that she had to wonder how messed up her life really was. As her breath began to even out, she glanced up at her self-identified assistant. "Who was that woman with the red hair?" Goddess please say she wasn't a daughter stand-in. Her stomach did a minor heave at the thought.

"That was Greta. You're her thesis advisor," he answered calmly as though dealing with a stressed-out, amnesiac Sheila Rosenberg was an everyday occurrence. And, who knows, possibly it was. On one hand, she was wickedly curious to find out if that was true. On the other hand, she truly didn't want to know.

Shaking her head, she handed the empty glass back to Andrew, who turned to put it on a bookcase. Ah, this would be the perfect time to do the 'knock him over and run' thingy that had been one of her stock-in-trade moves in high school vampire slayage. Proud of her restraint, she stayed seated and asked, "So where's my purse? And my phone?

They're back in the green room. I'll go get them in a sec. But first, do you think you'll be okay to go to the reception in about an hour?"

She frowned. Apparently her mother's assistant was also her handler. "No Andrew. I'm obviously not in a mood or mental state to attend a reception. Where's my phone?" She suspected there was a bit of growl in her voice. Hmm, her mother actually did that better than she did, go figure.

And hey, apparently it worked. "Stay right here, I'll be back in a jiffy," tall, blond Andrew said as he scurried toward the door.

True to his word, he returned moments later with an obviously expensive leather handbag, like a Versace or Fendi bag that Kennedy's mom might own, along with a cellphone. Oooh, nice iPhone, Mom. She'd heard that some of the former Sunnyvale residents had done quite well insurance-wise. I'm any event, Ira and Sheila Rosenberg were certainly not hurting in the 'fat stacks' department.

Her mother's phone was password protected. Fortunately that wasn't a problem since her mother had been using the same password for at least ten years. She typed in the digits, aware that she was probably the only person her age who knew the psychologist Jean Piaget's birthday.

Surprised to see her own number listed in her mother's address book, she tapped to call the number. It rang until she reached the option to leave a message. While she was telling whoever got this message to call back, Andrew the studly assistant's phone dinged.

Peering up from his screen, he said, "Your car is here to take you back home. I'll offer your regrets to the conference hosts. Then Greta and I will manage questions." After a moment where she continued to stare at him, Andrew extended his hand and said, "Come on, I'll take you to the car."

He led her through what was obviously a food service corridor and exit and delivered her to the awaiting car in an alley. "The driver has your address. Oh, and I already arranged for payment and tip, so there's nothing you need to do when you get home."

She paused while angling herself into the backseat. She was halfway into the backseat when she paused to glance at the man who'd gotten her this far. "Thanks Andrew. You're good at the managing-wackiness and secret exit-y things. I appreciate it."

"Why, thank you Sheila," he replied with a hint of pleased surprise as he closed the door.

She squinted. If she ever got back to something more like reality, she was going to brave her mom's wrath by telling her to give the man a bonus. He deserved it for helping to make Willow's day-suckage a little bit better. And she should give him a raise, because he was obviously good at the Sheila-wrangling thing.

The car pulled onto the street, which was bathed in sunlight and featured flowering shrubs, pine trees, and occasional palms. Hoo boy, she was definitely not in Scotland anymore. In fact, for the first time it dawned on her that she was probably half-way around the globe in California where her parents lived.

She was starting to suspect that this was the type of kerblooey that was, somehow, all real.

She pulled up her mother's phone and again dialed her own number in Scotland. And once more the call ended with the "leave a message" voice. Why wasn't she, or Xander, or anyone answering her phone? She tried Kennedy's number, but she didn't answer; probably her girlfriend was flirting with the stewardesses on her airplane by now.

Meow, she thought with a sniff. But, on reflection she suspected it was true, so she didn't feel the need to take it back like a good Willow would. She was apparently Sheila right now, so why not enjoy a bit of cattiness?

As they passed a "Welcome to Palo Alto" sign, she tried dialing Giles, whose British home number she knew by memory. She left a message. She tried both Buffy and Xander, but their numbers were out of service. Because, yeah, they'd all had to get new numbers and SIM cards when they left the States.

And she totally didn't know Robin Woods' number. Nor could she reach anyone from Angel's team since, according to Buffy, he'd recently brought the entirety of a demonic law firm down on his head.

She tried another spell, this time to see if she was able to mentally reach the coven at Devon. But there was nothing, not even her usual connection with the earth's energy that should be overflowing due to the ley line that just a few miles to the west. Talk about screwage.

She hoped her parents still had a computer at home. Shortly after that thought, the car turned onto a street like one featured in some pictures her dad had sent after they'd moved near Stanford. The car stopped, and she blinked at the view. They really did seem to have the smallest yet only Eichler-designed, architecturally significant home on the block. Exactly like he'd said. Go Dad, with the real-estate knowing-ness.

She got out of the car after a very personal struggle with her mother's stupid pencil skirt. Grabbing her mother's purse, she went up the walk to their house. She'd already found the keys so she let herself in.

"Hello," she called out from the neat-as-a-pin foyer. Then she eeped as she saw herself for the first time in the full-length entryway mirror; a very Sunnydale piece of home decor. She really was in her mother's body. Behold the distinguished-lady wrinkles and tasteful frosted hair. She got closer and… eep again! She, well Sheila, had chicken skin between her boobs.

From somewhere inside the house, she heard her father's voice. "Sheila, is that you? You're home early."

"Um, yeah I'm home, sort of," she replied as her voice rose well into question territory at the end. As she spoke, she'd trailed into the house, attempting to find her father. And there he was, at a large brown desk in an office to the side of the dining room. His diplomas hung on the wall in their huge brown frames, along with his black-and-white photo of the Western Wall, between floor-to-ceiling bookcases. His Rhodesian teak desk set— a graduation gift from an uncle who'd settled in southern Africa— was proudly arrayed.

As he glanced up from his books and writing pad, gazing at her over his half-glasses, she could imagine him being still in Sunnyvale except that his hair had gone gunmetal gray.

"What does this mean, that you're 'sort of home'?" His voice was practically without inflection, just as she remembered it.

"Well, I'm here, as you can see. But I'm having a bit of an identity sitch."

"Hmm, okay." He blinked a couple of times and then dropped his gaze back to his desk. "Katya left lunch in the kitchen, if you're hungry."

"Katya?" she heard herself ask, as though the mystery name was what was important.

His eyes refocused on her over his half glasses. "Katya, our housekeeper who we've had since we moved here."

"Ah, okay." She'd forgotten how much talking with her father was like chatting with a computer bot. While she watched him return to whatever he was working on, she tried her phone again. And once again, she reached the "leave a message" prompt.

"Hi, whoever picks up this message, please call back this number." She read out the digits to ensure they'd know the number to call. "This is Willow, but I seem to be in my mother's life. Call me!"

She ended her message and saw her father gazing at her, again.

"Ah, role play. A mother identifying with her daughter from a deep perspective. That sounds like an interesting therapeutic direction, dear. Is it part of your work with Zweig and Brownlee?"

"No, I'm actually Willow," she replied while raising her hands in the air. "I'm somehow in my mother's body." She resisted the urge to stomp her foot like she was back in grade school, aware that getting all emotiony with the parentals had never been a good strategy.

"I think you're overdoing it. Willow was never quite that excitable."

"Dad, you're even more clue-minus than I remembered."

"Dear, that's very random." He returned his attention to his work. "Perhaps it's your blood sugar. Katya said that she'd made some chicken salad. You could have a sandwich and some tea."

With a head shake, she left his doorway and went in search of a computer. She saw her reflection, masquerading as her mother's face, in the glass of a curio case as she passed it in the dining room. "My parents really are whack jobs."

Then a new thought hit her. "Oh my god, it's like I'm in Freaky Friday but without the electric guitar. This is the type of thing we expect to happen to Dawn! Not to me." Just in case, she recited what she remembered from the movie, "Save me Earthquake, and bring me a fortune cookie!"

Goddess! The only thing that would've been weirder would have been if she'd traded places with her mom at, like, a vampire drag show or Demon Disneyland with fyarls. Although, as Willow, those were scenarios she'd probably be better able to process than where she actually had found herself.

She turned down a hallway, finding a row of picture frames that contained first pages from Sheila Rosenberg's published articles. And one very small picture of Willow after her Bat Mitzvah reading.

She pulled out her mother's phone again, noticing the extremely low battery charge. Dialing again, this time trying Kennedy's number, she felt her jaw clench in irritation. "Why isn't anyone answering?" This time, she did stomp her foot. Clomping her way down the hallway, she continued her search for a computer. And for a frigging phone charger.

—ooOOoo—

At the same moment that Willow found herself in an auditorium, Sheila Rosenberg staggered and almost fell against a car in the parking lot of a bucolic Scotland inn. Her hand shot out to rest on the unfamiliar vehicle as she regained her balance.

Wait, why was there a car in front of her? It was nighttime and actually a bit chilly. Where on earth was she? Who was that woman waving from the departing limo? And who was this tall, hulking young man who'd just put his hand on her arm to steady her?

Shrugging off his grasp, she squinted while asking. "Did Andrew send you?" The young man's eye patch was startling, but otherwise he resembled other strapping youths in her assistant Andrew's circle of colleagues.

"Not specifically, although he does keep that whiteboard of upcoming meetings, eclipses, prophecies, and Star Wars showings. Vi worries that he's the grand wizard behind the curtain of our multiverse and is why things actually occur. But I say: I have met the great and multi-color-haired Oz, and Andrew isn't him."

While he'd been speaking, he'd opened the car door. After a moment, he evidently noticed that she wasn't moving. "Hey I know you're probably already deep in Kennedy-missage, with the waving from the limo and the working over a thousand miles apart thing. What better time for a good old fashioned Scooby meeting at a pub with a Slayer mystery to be revealed? The Buffster, you, and me, like old times. So, Lady Rosenberg, your chariot awaits." He waved his hand toward the open door, as though he could waft her in by creating a sufficient breeze.

Honestly, she had no idea what the man's word salad had meant, although he evidently knew she was Doctor Sheila Rosenberg, to be picked up in a car. That all tracked. She peered into the vehicle. It seemed relatively normal, although usually her drivers were aware she preferred the back seat. Well, this fellow was more than a little different from Andrew's usual pick.

But questions remained. "Why are we going to a pub?"

"It's one of the regular ones, so I guess it seemed a logical choice. Away from everyone else." He was giving her a quizzical look.

Well, okay, possibly she'd lost some time. Perhaps she was having a post conference meeting with Dominick Zweig or Shannon Brownlee from her department. The paper they were jointly authoring had the potential to be groundbreaking, so it was good to be away from any department hangers-on. One of those two might have chosen such a place to meet. Most likely Dom. She certainly hadn't; she knew that much.

She was about to get in but stopped as she noticed something odd. "The steering wheel is on the British side."

"Uh, yeah. It's a car made for the British market. But I'm driving, so not to worry. So much easier to drive here than in Nairobi. But here, why don't I help you get in."

"I'm not ancient. I can get into a car without help," she snapped.

"Well okie dokie, then," he replied slowly, backing away with his hands up as though she was the potential threat in this situation. At that thought, she glanced down. She didn't have her own purse with its tethered whistle or pepper spray. And what was this absolutely Bohemian hodge-podge of clothing she was wearing? She felt her nose scrunch. Since when did her nose scrunch?

She must be having a dissociative episode. That would explain a lot.

"Are we really going to a pub? Not a hospital?"

"Yeah, we're absolutely going to a pub. If I never see another hospital for the rest of my life, I'll be fine with that."

She evaluated his face. He seemed genuine and also vaguely familiar. Perhaps the eye patch was recent. Well, she wasn't a practicing therapist and had no interest in spending time helping this young man though his trauma. It was obvious that there was something in her subconscious that had led her to this episode, and she needed to focus her attention on that.

As one of her colleagues had attempted to explain once to her, the journey itself was sometimes the whole point in some practices, especially ones informed by mythic structures or indigenous thinking. Perhaps the fact that her driver tonight had an eyepatch was a signal that he was leading her on a journey of adventure, or at least to lands unknown. She was well aware that the brain communicated in symbolic shorthand at times.

She shrugged, deciding to get into the car. Why not? She could either be stuck here alone at night, with no idea where she was or go somewhere that was apparently supposed to be her destination. With little ado, they began driving through a dreary, dark countryside. It seemed like farmland, which was not something that was near her home.

"Young man, where are we?"

"Young man, huh?" he chuckled. "A new manly title for the Xan-man. We're not too far from Tyndrum. Not to worry." He smiled in a way she suspected was meant to be reassuring. It wasn't. But that wasn't his problem.

"Tyndrum," she repeated. She didn't know a town of that name but it must be significant somehow. Perhaps she could look it up on her phone. She'd been amazed at what was possible to do on her newest one. Ira had certainly been right about that.

She started digging in the truly ghastly, hobo-styled purse she seemed to be carrying. She found sharpened pieces of wood along with baggies of indeterminate and probably illegal substances, and there went her nose wrinkling again. Oh, and there was a book that might be there to help her with clues. She pulled it out, but it seemed to be in Latin and, yikes, it was full of pictures of disgusting, Hieronymus Bosch creatures, along with faces with that PCP facial disfiguration people had back in the '90s.

With a huff, she tossed it on the floor of the car. Digging deeper, she found some pens, one of which she palmed for impromptu self-defense. She found keys, a makeup bag with a sparkly hairbrush, a PEZ witch, and bubble gum. But there was no phone. Fighting with the seatbelt, she wrestled the bag over her head and down to the floor of the car. As she did, her hair fell over her shoulders and shrouded her face, meaning it was much longer than it had been this morning. A car's headlights showed it to be as red as her daughter's hair, not the Clairol-enhanced brunette color she had chosen as her professional coif.

"This is unacceptable," she exclaimed. "What is happening? Where's my phone?" Her voice was petulant and higher than her own. And yet, so hauntingly familiar from years past when she'd wasted so much time arguing with and trying to tame her daughter. Who had red hair and had started dressing like a thrift shop advertisement in college at the same time she'd gone through her self-indulgent sexual experimentation phase.

"You must've left your phone back at the inn." The young man slowed for a turn as he spoke. "I'd lend you mine, but I didn't switch my SIM card from Africa to Britain yet, so my cell doesn't work here. But I'm sure you can borrow Buffy's phone if she remembered to bring it. If not, you can use Andrew's or Giles' phone, assuming either of them shows up."

She was trying to figure out who the extra people were. Buffy? Giles? Were they people she'd met at the conference?

The car slowed and then stopped. Peering out the window she saw that they'd parked outside of a two-story, white building. "Well, here we are," Xander announced.

—ooOOoo—

Buffy was going to do things differently this time. As though saluting her decision, she raised her glass of rum and Coke in the air ceremoniously before taking a sip.

And yeah, she knew that the bartender was side-eying her, but whatever. Courage-drinkage was absolutely of the necessary this evening; see the "doing things differently" point just made. Beer, of which there were several types on tap, sadly proved to never be a good idea in Buffyland; refer to the still discussed Cave Buffy incident for copious reasons. Beyond that, she'd learned that asking for a whiskey mixed with anything apparently constituted a sacrilege of high proportions in certain Scottish pubs.

Perhaps most importantly, in her brief time in Scotland she'd discovered that bars tended to go light on rum and heavy on soda. It was both less alcoholic and sweeter than the local drinks favored by Giles and the Watchers.

And, speaking of, she'd already spotted Roderick Baker and winner of the "most likely to be considered a mummy" contest Arthur MacCallan over in the corner trying their best to not appear to be... well… watching her. They were even more fascinated by her than the Slayer-minis who lived in the Council compound. Perhaps they expected her to suddenly transform into a dragon and needed to be ready to defend.

She snorted. No, she knew why they watched her and it was one of many reasons she'd told Giles she planned to move out of the compound. She had no intention to remain their slayer case study forever.

Her senses alerted her of company, and not of the vampire kind. She turned her head to see Xander coming in the door with Willow. She called out from her table. "Hey guys, I'm over here." As they approached, she had the guilty realization that it still shocked her every time she saw Xander with his eyepatch. Perhaps if he spent more time in Scotland with the rest of them, she'd get used to it.

Yeah, who was she kidding? She'd been the one who'd just spent a few months in LA cleaning up after Angel, so even Andrew's not-new pornstache had been a surprise. Even if Xander had been tucked away in the Scottish compound, it would've been as far away as the somewhere-in-Africa where he actually had been. And, he probably wouldn't have gotten as muscular with a notable tan, which actually looked good on him. Go Xander, for the growing-uppage into a surprisingly handsome man.

Not that she had eyes for anyone other than her surprise, bleach-haired guest for the evening currently hovering in the pub's dart room until announced later in our program. At which point possible audience pandemonium might follow.

"Hey Buff-Meister," Xander called out with a jovial wave. Willow lingered a few yards behind Xander, having stopped to take in the scene. Now at the table, he leaned in to whisper, "Willow is acting all with the non-Willowness today. She says her name is Sheila, like that burn-out in high school. I wonder if she hit her head or something."

"Huh," Buffy murmured with a squint. Willow was standing with perfect posture, her purse held in front of her stomach with one hand and, oddly, a pen clasped fiercely in the other. Although the appearance of being ready to write or poke pen-sized holes into something at a moment's notice was plausibly Willow-esque, she had a decidedly non-Willow stance.

With a shrug, she said, "Sit down guys, the wait-dude will swoop in momentarily." At least, "momentarily" in Scottish pub time. Since she'd chosen a table toward the back, it actually might take a while.

"Hey, come on Wills," Xander reached a long arm to Willow and herded her toward the table.

Willow shrugged him off. "My name is not 'Wills'," she enunciated with disdain. Peering at Buffy, she said, "You're familiar, like one of those girls my daughter ran with. Bunny or Cornelia. Or was it Tina… Tamara… Tara?"

"Um, no, I'm Buffy. But wait. Bunny! I remember this. Are you channeling Willow's mom?"

"Channeling is a fair term. I'm Doctor Sheila Rosenberg." She stomped her foot and then, with a vaguely horrified expression said, "Oh, that was one of those extremely childish gestures our daughter used to do. This is surely significant in my journey."

She lifted her chin. "Perhaps you can provide some clarity, since that's in short supply. Why is this happening? How are you people involved?" She was still standing with the pen-as-dangerous-weapon clutch-age. Her lips pursed while her eyes darted between Buffy and Xander.

Buffy was relieved that she resembled Dawn having an accusatory tantrum more than a witch about to unleash world-ending chaos from her fingertips. She stood up from her chair and stepped slowly toward their Willow-looking companion. Being about the same height as the other woman, she didn't loom the way Xander had a tendency to do. This was probably a good thing given the very non-Willow, skittish expression on the redhead's face.

"Okay, I get it," Buffy began as she slowly moved closer. "You're Sheila Rosenberg, who's somehow swapped into your daughter Willow's body. And I bet Willow is in yours. We'll help you figure this out." She lightly encircled Willow-Sheila's purse clutching arm with her hand and led her to the table.

Sheila balked. "I don't need your help to figure this out. If I had my phone, I'd get a taxi and go home."

Buffy took a deep breath. Releasing her grip on Willow's arm— no Sheila's arm, ugh this could get confusing fast— Buffy said, "You probably should sit down. Because I think you live in California, but you're in Scotland right now."

"That's not possible," Sheila snapped.

"Listen to the people talking around us. We're totally in Scotland."

After a pause, Sheila sank into a chair. "They're all speaking with a brogue."

"Hence the 'being in Scotland' sitch."

Xander finally also sat down. Appearing gobsmacked, which was one of Buffy's favorite new words, he blinked a few times. "Wait, she's Willow's mom?" He darted a glance at Sheila and then blurted, "I totally wasn't the one who broke the weird vase with the naked wrestling men on it."

Sheila blinked as though he'd just suggested that he wasn't the person who built the pyramids. "No of course it wasn't you," she snapped. "It was one of those annoying gentile boys that my daughter hung out with. Jamie and Sandy, or Josh and Ander. Oh, I don't recall their names. They were both rambunctious and ill mannered, like so many boys."

Xander sat back with a grimace while Buffy hid her smile. At that moment, the aforementioned wait-dude stopped by, wearing a Cocteau Twins T-shirt. In a thick accent, which Buffy suspected he was layering on solely to mess with them since it seemed heavier than before, he took their orders. Xander requested one of the local beers, of course, earning a grudging nod of approval from Cocteau Twin dude. Sheila ordered a single-malt scotch after announcing that Buffy, or whomever had dragged her to this cliché watering hole, was paying for her drinks tonight.

Although Buffy's inner voice said "Bitch much?" her out-loud voice said "Fine." She was beginning to understand Willow's issues with her mother at an even more deep level than she had while living in Sunnyvale.

In the lull after the Cocteau Twin meandered back to the bar, Buffy asked, "Sheila, what's the last thing you remember? I mean, before you got all Willlow-fied?"

"I'd finished my presentation at an important professional conference. It was groundbreaking, by the way, and about to take questions. I can only assume that this dissociative episode… this hallucination is part of a journey to better understand some particular aspect of transference during the transit of adolescent development."

"Huh. Um yeah. It's totally not that. This isn't a hallucination because we're all having it too."

"If you're part of my hallucination, you'd say exactly that," Sheila replied acerbically, eyebrow raised.

Okay, she had a point. Before she could reply, the waiter reappeared and delivered their order. And, wow, Cocteau Twin was actually quick with the order bring-age when he apparently approved what had been requested. That kinda sucked but, yeah, so not important right now.

Xander picked up his beer, but before taking a sip from the frothy glass, he asked, "Is this a moment for Giles and his glasses-cleaning fetish? Should we go back to the compound?"

"No," Buffy replied, lips downturned. She was more on the outs with the man than she had been during the battle with the First, and that was saying something. Even if she didn't actually say it, so that expression was of the weird, but whatever.

Xander sipped his beer with an almost ecstatic expression on his face and Sheila knocked back a healthy sip of her scotch in a way that showed she'd definitely done that before. Nevertheless, she made her sip appear so dainty that she might have been sipping tea at a garden party.

The woman was a bad-attitude-y contradiction wrapped in Willow clothing. And, if Willow were here, she'd probably be able to help solve the puzzle. Oooh, but if Willow was in Sheila's body, maybe they'd get Willow if they called Sheila's phone. Finally something that made sense

"Xander, my phone battery is dead. Can we use yours?"

"No can do. Wrong SIM for Britain."

"Alright, can you go ask one of the Watchers for a phone?" She rolled her eyes in the direction of Baker and MacCallan in the far corner where they were so busy acting clandestine that they stood out like a… big thing that stands out. But as she glanced back at Xander, she spotted a much closer likely source for a phone. And she was less likely to be all about the judging.

With a sigh, she said, "Or better yet, ask Lydia Myles, who's trying to act casual next to the huge Caledonia Beer poster." Mumbling to herself, she added, "And of course Little Miss 'I wrote my thesis on William the Bloody' is here tonight."

The prim Watcher in question followed Xander to their table. Based on the woman's sideways glances at Xander and the way she scootched her chair closer to him after sitting down, Buffy had a sneaking suspicion that tweedy Lydia might be considering whether to write another thesis on Xander the Mysterious.

RIght now, Xander's Watcher admirer was peering intently at Buffy with her tortoiseshell glasses barely containing her curiosity.

Time for Scooby-style summary. "Okay, we think that Willow, here, is actually Sheila Rosenberg, who is Willow's mother. The transitive property of things being all weird says that Willow is probably in Sheila's body at the moment." She continued talking over Sheila's mumbled objection, concluding. "Sheila, I think that if we call your phone number, we'll get Willow. Based on that, we can figure out how to get each of you back to where you belong."

"That's absolutely ridiculous," Sheila objected.

"That makes some amount of sense," Lydia chimed in at the same time. Both women glanced at each other, and then back at Buffy.

Taking Lydia's phone from the Watcher's outstretched hand, Buffy turned to Sheila. "Do you want to call your phone, or do you want me to?"

"If I say no, you'll continue with this body swapping charade, won't you?"

Buffy nodded in the affirmative. "Yup. Think of it this way: if I'm right, calling will help us start to clear up the problem. If you're right, and this is a hallucinated journey to understand something, we're probably guides on the journey. And this is what we're saying you should do. Either way, the phone call is of the good."

Willow's mother exhaled with a huff. Looking at the phone, she said, "I'll call. And it's Doctor Rosenberg to you."

"Fine," Buffy said again, rolling her eyes.

Sheila called her own phone number, which apparently went to voicemail. In a put-upon tone, she said, "Hello me. I'm hallucinating that I'm Willow calling myself. But obviously I'm not answering because I'm here and this is an internal journey." She put the phone down with a scowl. "Satisfied?"

"Not yet," Buffy replied with false cheeriness that anyone who knew her would immediately spot as Stage One Bitchy Buffy. "Try calling your husband."

"Oh, for the love of cats and dogs," Sheila grumbled while picking up the phone and typing in her husband's number. This time it picked up. Her eyes flicked briefly to Buffy, with something like surprise, as she said, "Ira, it's you. I'm… I guess you might say I'm Willow. But that's not important."

Her brows knitted while she ignored Buffy's request to put the phone on speaker. Focused only on her husband, she asked, "Am I there?" She paused. "No this isn't a prank call. I meant, is your wife there?" Another pause. "Okay, I need you to take this phone to her right now. No, don't hang up." Her eyes half-crossed under lowered brows in a very non-Willow gesture. "Just do it, Ira. I'm with people who say they need to talk with her."

She put her hand over the bottom of the phone as though that would mute it. "He's taking the phone to me, Sheila Rosenberg, in our house. I still say this is stupid."

Then she returned her attention to the call. "Hello, is this me? You're who? Willow? Why? How?" Her annoyance quickly turned to shock.

"Here, let me talk for a minute," Buffy said as soon as it had become apparent that time and reality had stopped momentarily for Sheila.

She pulled the phone from the other woman's slack fingers and said, "Willow, you there? I'm here with Xander and a few others and am putting you on speaker, okay?" With Lydia's helpful pointing finger, she speaker-fied the phone and said, "Okay, so I hate to ask this, but did you do something, because we think we have your mother here, but in your body."

"Oh, blessed be!" Willow exclaimed in a not-Willow voice. "That's what happened. I've totally been body swapped with my mother! I have absolutely no idea how it happened."

In the background, a man's voice said, "Sheila, you may be taking this role playing too far."

With an audible sigh, Willow said, "Dad. I'm not kidding, I'm Willow."

"Give him proof," Xander urged. "That always works on TV."

"Good idea," Willow replied. More muffled, she said, "Dad, let's see. When I was a toddler, you read articles from the Journal of Accountancy to me at bedtime instead of stories because you thought it was stupid to teach children fiction when they needed facts. Or wait, here's one I'm sure Mom doesn't know. I hated Bubbe's brisket, so when nobody looked you'd switch plates with me so it would seem like I'd eaten it all when I hadn't."

"I don't understand how, but you're Willow," Ira said in the phone's tinny distance.

From across the table, Sheila interjected, "You did what with my mother's brisket?" Her arms were firmly crossed in front of her.

"Okay, that answers the body-swappage question," Buffy said, trying to move them along.

Sheila wasn't ready to move along. "Why do you people all act like body swapping is normal?"

With a shrug, Xander said, "Well, it's kinda normal for us, Mrs. R."

That was the wrong thing to say. With eyes slitted in accusation, Sheila turned toward him as quick as a snake, "Wait, you are one of those boys who broke that vase. It was a genuine antique. The insurance didn't even cover half the value." Her lips pressed together in fury and she looked ready to storm away from the table.

Willow cooled Sheila's snit by commenting, "Mom, forget about the vase. Even I remember that it was a gift from Uncle Myron's wife's cousin. And it was under-insured because there wasn't any paperwork and it probably was imported illegally."

"Fine," Sheila grumbled because it was evidently her turn to surrender with barely hidden annoyance. At least she relaxed her arms, although the pen of danger had made a reappearane.

"Anyhow," Willow continued talking. "Back to the important point. It's possible a general reversal spell would work. But I can't do magic right now in my mother's, um, body. Is Giles there?"

"No," Buffy replied as glacially as before. "Lydia, you don't happen to do magic, do you?"

"Not even a bit of it," the tweed-clad woman replied.

Willow made "hmm" noises over the phone. Then she spoke up, "Well, if my mother is in my body, we could try having her recite the spell."

"Magic is merely the informed, anthropocentric leverage of optical illusions and known mental processing anomalies." Sheila sniffed primly.

"Mom, just repeat the words I say. I'll never tell anyone you did it."

With a sullen frown, Sheila complied, phrase by phrase until she said "So mote it be," which everyone at the table knew as the big "make it so" for Willow's magic.

And nothing happened. As though underscoring the point, Sheila proclaimed, "See, I told you that magic is a fraud."

"Well that's a bummer," Xander helpfully observed.

"Good try, Mom. Let's try it a different way. First pull out the pennywort bag from my purse…."

"I am not touching any of the substances in this purse." Sheila's lips wrinkled as though she'd bitten into a lemon.

Xander leaned over to speak into the phone. "Will, I don't think it would work anyway. She didn't get the blowy hair thing or even the eye color thing while she recited, which you always do these days."

"Huh," Willow replied.

Buffy looked around, admitting that this situation did require more than their current Scooby brigade to resolve. Even including Lydia, who was still leaning forward across the table with rapt attention. They were going to need Giles. Sometimes being a responsible Slayer sucked balls, as Spike might say.

She decided to jump directly to the point of her meeting tonight. "Okay, while we have Willow on the phone, there are a couple things I wanted to cover, which is why I invited you to join me tonight. After that, I guess we do need to involve Giles."

She clearly had everyone's attention, so she continued. "Most of you are aware I went to LA to deal with my dad's crap, and got pulled into Angel's crap. It was a fully 3D crap-o-rama fest that turned into a whole apocalyptic battle thing, which honestly I should've expected."

Xander raised his hand. "We should have Bingo cards with 'I should have expected an apocalypse' printed in one of the squares. And, okay. Shutting up now."

Buffy cleared her throat. "Anyway, after playing mop-up to Angel's stupid and, might I add completely unnecesary fight against interdiemensional lawyers— and do not even ask me to explain that— I made a discovery. It's one that Giles and Andrew both hid from me, so you can imagine they're the doggiest dogs in my personal doghouse.

"That's not right. They shouldn't hide things from you." Willow volunteered loyally over the phone.

"Thank you. But, on that topic, Willow, please dissuade me if I ask you to actually turn them into dogs, because I'm really, really tempted."

"Wiccan honor, Buffy, No spells of a dog-like nature will happen," Willow's unfamiliar voice earnestly promised over the phone.

"Can we turn Angel into a dog? Arf arf," Xander mumbled, then shrugged with faux innocence.

"No. In so many ways, no." She ignored the snort she heard from the darts room.

She took a deep breath, shifting her gaze back to that room's doorway and saw a reassuring profile of dark leather and white hair hover briefly in the opening. Oh, Lydia was going to love this. Probably she'd be the only one at the table who would. But then, pursuant to the goal of doing this differently this time, if the Scoobies objected they could stuff themselves into the doghouse with Giles and Andrew. After that she'd totally find a different witch to cast a dog-i-fication spell.

Lifting her chin, she resumed, "So, long story short, I found someone I didn't expect to see and brought him with me. And no matter what any of you think or say, he's my partner. My boyfriend. He's mine and I'm his." She gestured toward the darts room and watched as Spike, William the Bloody, and her lover goddamn it, strolled casually through the door as though he'd never dusted in the Hellmouth in a flame of glory and saved the world.

…

To be continued...

END NOTES

This first chapter fulfills the following two Challenge Prompts for the 2022 Elysian Fields Mystery Month Challenge.

1. Side Character Prompt: Include Willow's parents

She put her hand over the bottom of the phone as though that would mute it. "He's taking the phone to me, Sheila Rosenberg, in our house. I still say this is stupid."

2. Season/Episode-Related Prompt: Someone(s) body swaps

"Oh, blessed be!" Willow exclaimed in a not-Willow voice. "That's what happened. I've totally been body swapped with my mother! I have absolutely no idea how it happened."

—

I also claim "fun points" for referring to a vampire drag show in text, but even I can tell it's not enough to claim as a full prompt match.