It was like one of those slapstick comedies. We had to transport the orb thing out of the car somehow, but we knew we shouldn't touch it. Giles, Dawn and I had already felt its effects first hand, but William hadn't. He was driving, so he couldn't reach back and touch it, but he kept giving me looks in the rearview mirror. I looked away whenever our eyes happened to meet.

He just looked too much like Spike. Looking in his eyes, I could almost delude myself that he was Spike, and that would lead to nothing good. So I did the avoidance thing and shifted my gaze whenever I saw his blueblue eyes on mine.

When we got to the hotel again, we all got out of the car, but left the orb there. I didn't want to touch it again. Dawn was looking at it like it might explode in her face. Giles looked confused.

William was the last to get out of the car. He pushed his way through the rest of us and reached into the car to get the orb. As soon as he touched it, he jerked backwards, bumping into me and knocking me to the ground.

I was stunned. I sat there, on my butt, on the asphalt while William stared at his hand. Dawn started giggling. Giles sighed loudly. In a way, it almost felt like I was back in Sunnydale, with my family.

Because, whether the knew it or not, these people were my family.

Dawn walked over and offered her hand to help me up. We joined Giles and William, who were now looking down at the orb, which had also fallen to the parking lot. William was still looking stung. Dawn chided him, "God, don't be such a baby. I touched the thing a lot longer than you did."

"Well, um, I," he stammered.

"People, could we please wait until we've safely transported this thing inside before we start with the bickering?" I used my best grown-up Buffy voice. It was, I still sometimes forgot that I was, in fact, a grown up, though I'd been one for most of my life.

"Yes, let's do that," said William, obviously glad that he didn't have to defend his manhood to a snitty nineteen-year-old.

"How?" asked Dawn. "I mean, we're not gonna touch it again. So what do we do? Kick the into the hotel and down the hall?"

I considered that for a moment.

"Oh, come on, Buffy! I wasn't serious!" Dawn looked mortified at the possibility of having to use the orb like a soccer ball.

"Are there any other suggestions?" I asked.

We all thought for a while. Giles was the first to speak.

"I think, if we got something under it… cloth, perhaps, or paper… that we could hold it between two of us."

Dawn sighed in relief.

"That does sound better," I said. "So what do we use?"

"Would my jacket work?" asked William, taking said jacket off.

"I think so, I said." I took the jacket from him, and crouched back down near the orb.

I stared at it for a while, almost afraid that just looking at it would zap me back into a grave in another dimension. I wrapped the jacket around my hand, like it was a oven mitt, and tentatively touched the orb. It still felt strange, but there wasn't the shock like quality that the others had experienced with direct contact. I scooped it up, and held it as far away from my body as possible.

"Someone grab the other end!" I called.

William came to my aid. We walked, three or so feet apart, arms stretched out to the center. It was pretty awkward. We had to match paces to each other, and we also had to walk very carefully so that the orb wouldn't fall out of its cradle. Dawn and Giles walked ahead to get doors for us.

Several passersby gave us strange looks. I wondered what I would think if I saw two people walking the way we were. What would I think we were carrying? Something distasteful. Maybe a dirty diaper. I giggled at that, and my arm wavered a little. William stopped walking and gave me a dirty look.

That only served to make me laugh harder. "Sorry!" I said between giggles. I didn't know what was wrong with me. It wasn't even that funny. "I think it's just nerves," I told William. "I mean, I'm not really insane. Despite the being in an institution thing."

He cocked his head, and it was such a Spike thing to do that my heart did a little pinging thing. He smiled. I smiled in answer.

"Come on, guys! I can't hold this door forever!" Dawn was now a good fifty yard in front of us, holding open the door to our room.

"Just a sec!" I called back. Then, to William. "I'm better now. Really. Let's go." Then I giggled again.

Okay, maybe I was insane. But I wasn't going to let him know that.



* * *

"What do we do now?" asked Dawn. The orb was sitting safely on the bed, still wrapped partially in William's jacket. It looked innocuous, not glowing.

"Um," I said, trying to think as I spoke. "I hadn't really thought about it. I mean, I just thought, orb, need to get it. Now that we have it…"

"It's pretty," said Dawn. "We could use it for decoration."

"I'm not sure that would be very helpful." That was Giles.

Dawn sighed dramatically. "I was kidding. God, doesn't anyone have a sense of humor?"

"I thought it was funny," said William, and smiled at Dawn.

"Thanks."

Giles was now leaning over the bed, his face dangerously near the orb. He studied it from every angle he could without actually picking it up. Then he straightened up and said to me, "Buffy, I'm sorry for not being your Watcher. But, as I said before, I don't have a bloody clue about things like this. If this were an Indian artifact, I would be your man but…"

I nodded. "I can be pretty self-sufficient when it's called for."

"You don't need to be," said William. "We're all here. We may not know what we're doing, or how we can help you, but you can rely on us to do what needs to be done. The trouble is finding that out. That's where you're mostly on your own."

"Have you seen anything like this before, Buffy?" asked Dawn.

"I've seen orbs. The Orb of Thessula is used to house a human soul. It's pretty powerful. I've only seen one once. This is different. I don't think its purpose is the same. It seems to be some kind of conduit into other dimensions."

"It switches bodies."

We all looked at Giles, who had spoken. He was sitting down now, on the bed that didn't hold the orb.

"Buffy felt like she was in the grave when she touched it. I saw myself in that other world. I felt myself moving, floating away from here, and towards it. I'm sure that if I had held on longer, the transfer would have happened."

"So," said William, "If I held on to that thing long enough, I'd transfer bodies with Spike?"

I stared at him. I'd been so wrapped up in thinking of myself, I hadn't even thought of it. It could happen. I was stuck here; I knew that. It was either here, in this body, or there, in a corpse. But Spike… Spike could come here. And I wouldn't be alone.

No, I thought. That was wrong. It was beyond wrong. I couldn't do it. William wouldn't know the first thing about Sunnydale, or about being a vampire. If he went there, I couldn't predict how he would act.

Still, I was tempted. I didn't know how to answer William. "I don't know," I said. "I mean, maybe you would. But he's a vampire, and you're not, so that may throw off whatever's doing this."

William nodded. "I'm not Spike, either. You, Dawn, my father – you all are the same people in both worlds. Spike, as you know him doesn't exist here. William Giles does not exist there."

He was right. I hadn't really thought of that. But there was a connection. There had to be some reason why Spike's human twin was in this world, and Giles's son. Thinking about it made my head hurt, though, so I tried not to. Instead, I turned to Giles.

"So we know it switches bodies. And it switched me as I was dying. Does that mean I'm stuck here?" I thought I already knew the answer. I knew that he wouldn't know any more than I did.

He'd taken off his glass, and now he put them back on. Giles to the core, I thought. Only without the magic know how. "I… I would suspect so, Buffy."

I didn't know how to deal. I wasn't dead. I was grateful for that. And a guilty portion of me actually felt relieved. This was a bit like heaven, wasn't it? I was done with the Slaying. No more late nights in grave yards and smelly demon stains that just won't come out of leather. I had my loved ones – or reasonable facsimiles – and they, too, were safe.

But. The world I left behind, how would they cope? There was another Slayer. The whole saving the world gig would go to her; she could handle it. The other part, though, I wasn't sure about.

It wasn't like I really had a choice. They all thought I was dead. No one would mess with trying to bring me back; we'd all learned that lesson hard and fast. As hard as I thought, I couldn't come up with a way of getting me back from this end.

"Buffy?" said Dawn, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Dawnie," I said automatically, not thinking of the words as they came from my mouth.

"You want to go back, don't you?" She sounded so hurt. I remembered the way Dawn had acted that first year I'd been back from the dead. It wasn't unlike this.

I didn't lie to her. "My life's there, Dawn. Yeah, I want to go back."

She nodded, pressing her lips tightly together, then turned her back to me. From the shaking of her back, I could tell she was either crying, or trying very hard not to. I got up and touched her shoulder, but she jerked away.

"Dawn, I…"

She cut me off. "I understand, Buffy, okay? I do. But can I just be alone for a while?"

Instead of waiting for an answer, she ran to the bathroom and shut the door. I slumped down onto the bed, beside Giles. William stood, watching us.

Giles hugged me. "Give her some time," he said, "She's been through a lot in the past few days, and she's still very young."

"I know," I said. "I wish I could help her. Anyway, I'm not going back, so it's kind of moot that I want to, anyway."

"It isn't to Dawn," said Giles.

"You're right," I said, and then fell silent.

"Ahem." William cleared his throat, and we both looked up at him. "I hate to be the bearer of bad… things, but something's happening to the orb."