Fic: What The Hell(mouth) Happened?

Author: mkcrl120

Disclaimer: All the characters mentioned in this story belong to Joss Whedon or Mutant Enemy or some other people. I own nothing and wrote this just to get it out of my system.

Summary: I'm writing some of these, as I've come up with ideas that I honestly don't know what I'll be doing when the Ultimate series gets that far. In the meantime, these won't go away from my brain unless I do something with them. Warning: It may be a standalone it may be spoilers for something later; only time will tell.

Rating: 15 by English standards (mainly for language)

Setting: Season 3 - I think you'll recognise when.

What The Hell(mouth) Happened? - 9/?

Cordelia sat there thinking, while the rest of the group looked on. She was trying to concentrate, trying to think of anything to give them more information to go on. She'd been relatively fine with most of the changes. Sure she was boyfriendless, but that could soon be rectified. And yeah, she wasn't a part of the Scoobies, but they'd been quite accepting of her so far. It was other things that were driving her insane.

Like her parents, they'd tried to spoil her rotten, something she'd have been quite pleased about in her own reality. But they kept bringing home sons of friends and so on. Suitable suitors for her, in their opinion anyway. Apparently they were quite worried about her lack of dating. She was beginning to realise how much freedom from parental interference dating Xander had given her. Even if they had treated it like she was just trying out a piece of rough for a while. Wherein her mind, it'd been the first worthwhile relationship she'd had.

Also cheerleading in her reality had been a part time hobby. An extra-curricular activity that looked good when she'd sent off for college applications. Something that had kept her in touch with her 'old' friends and allowed her to get attention off a lot of the boys; least until the Xander fiasco anyway. Now it was supposed to be her main hobby, and the losers that were attracted to the cheerleading set bored her within minutes of meeting them. She'd watched the other girls swoon over guys from the football field, whenever they spoke to her she had to cut herself off from making biting comments about needing body armour to run around a field with a ball. My last boyfriend risked his neck to keep everyone safe, but thanks to Buffy being a secret she wasn't able to tell anyone. That'd been something that annoyed her the most in the last reality, not Xander's overall lameness cos what he did overcame that; it was the fact that she couldn't tell anyone about the things that made him worthy of her attention, and as a result had no real defence against the accusations from her former friends. And now she was in a reality where she was supposed to be impressed with these morons again, and her former-friends were her current-friends again and she kept occasionally feeling bitter about things they hadn't done.

"I hate Fairy Godmothers." She said aloud, shocking the rest of the group with the first break in the silence since she'd began her internal rant..

"As I said, there is no such thing as a Fairy Godmother." Giles re-iterated.

"She said she was." Cordelia responded.

"You'd think she'd know." Faith added sarkily. "What..?" She said looking at Cordelia. "I'm on your side."

"Unless..." Giles drifted off. Taking his glasses off, he gave them a quick polish waiting til he had everyone's attention. "Explain it to me again slowly this time... do not leave anything out."

"Why..?" Xander asked, getting tired of everything going around in circles.

"Because if I'm not mistaken, it might be possible that we're both right."

"Huh?" Buffy and Cordelia said at the same time.

"It could be that Fairy Godmothers do exist in Cordelia's old reality, but not in this one."

"Shit..." Faith swore.

"So I'm trapped?" Cordelia asked. "I mean, in some ways it's better than my reality, but in others... this isn't my reality." Cordelia broke down in front of them.

Once she'd composed herself, she began to tell the story again. This time including everything she could remember on the day that she'd somehow went dimension hopping.

Once the story was complete. Giles ran off in search of some more books.

The others looked at one another. None knowing quite what to say.

In an attempt to lighten the atmosphere and a way to avoid the silence, Jesse piped up with, "Let's just go... while he's lost in the bookshelves. He's happy there."

Not even Faith was in support of that suggestion. "Hey... I like this Watcher."

Cordelia smiled at her.

"She sounds scary..." Willow stated, getting back on topic.

"Yeah." Buffy agreed. "Definitely demon-y to me. Not how I'd imagine a Fairy Godmother to look."

Cordelia nodded her head in partial agreement, "But she sent me here... where... admittedly... some things are better. I mean it's not so much an overall improvement as just a change."

"So she doesn't seem evil... or that good..?" Xander asked.

"Tricky..." Jesse said, then turning to face his girlfriend. "Maybe it's to do with that yin and yang stuff you tried to explain to me once."

"You mean Balance..? Of course that could explain a lot... she cannot alter the universal balance so she just sent you somewhere where it might be better for you... pity for some of the others like Jonathan, but I'm sure if you made an overall comparison some people are alive who weren't in yours and vice versa."

"Playing with who lives and who dies..?" Buffy added, "I don't like the sound of that. Still not sounding that good a person."

"She did let you choose the reality you got moved to." Willow argued.

"Maybe they all existed..." Xander mused aloud.

"Eh?" Cordelia asked. Looking around she could see confusion on all other faces except for Jesse's.

"The parallel worlds theory? Yeah... that could explain it." At their looks he decided to expand. "What Xander's suggesting is that this Fairy Godmother didn't play with who gets to live or die afterall. Xander's saying what if both possibilities and a whole lot more, already existed."

Buffy was still confused, "I take your 'Eh?' and raise you a 'Huh?'"

Willow came to her aid. "They're saying Cordelia's wish didn't change anything. They're saying all that changed was which universe Cordelia happens to live in. Given all the possibilities, this universe might probably be the best one for you... depends on the criteria the Fairy used... you still being alive, narrowing down to those that agree with your wish, etc."

Faith raised her hand, "Still a little lost."

"You remember Sliders?" Xander asked, at her nod, he continued. "Like that. But instead of random jumping, got sent to a reasonable one, that the wisher should like. As you'd expect from a Fairy Godmother."

"Gotcha."

"So my universe is still out there?" Cordelia asked hopefully.

"If that is this case." Willow responded. "That's a scientific theory so I'm not too sure how it applies to Fairies."

"They'd just be taking advantage of it." Xander guessed. "To get the most for the wish, with the least amount of effort."

"Lazy Fairies. Right..." Buffy commented, thinking she had a grasp on it now.

"Back to the important stuff." Cordelia silenced them. "If it still exists then I can go home if I want to right? And what happens to the me that was there?"

Willow scrunched her nose up, deep in thought. "It's only a theory, no-one's proved it's possible so far."

"You may be looking at her, Will." Xander stated.

"I'm just saying... as it's only a theory, the explanations of reverse travel or what happens to the you in the other dimension are at best more theories. She could have disappeared, and that Cordelia kinda 'overwrote' the one here. As to what would have happened to this one could be anything to no longer existed, to her being transported to your universe, to you two simply swappi..."

"Too much info." Cordelia stated. "I'm not writing a physics book on the subject. Important things only. Can I get back?"

Willow, Jesse and Xander all looked at one another. "Assuming that we are talking about the parallel universe theory... then the fact that you got here would suggest that travelling between realities is possible."

"That's all I needed to know." Cordelia beamed back at him.

Faith thought about it some more. "But in Sliders aren't they compl..."

Xander silenced her with a look. Luckily Cordelia hadn't heard the statement fully. She'd been distracted by Giles' return.

"I knew it." He said as he walked down the stairs, placing the book open on the table for the others to read he continued. "The veiny face you mentioned... I knew I'd heard about that before. It seems that Witches of a certain power level start to show the attributes you described. This Fairy Godmother could have merely been an extremely powerful witch."

Cordelia started reading, while the others discussed it further.

"Maybe Fairy Godmother's are all powerful witches." Willow suggested.

"Or it was just a powerful witch that Cordelia helped in some way." Faith commented, "And she showed she was grateful by giving her one wish... very genie-being-freed-from-lamp-esque."

"Hmmmm." Giles mused those points over.

"This isn't right..." Cordelia stated, pointing at a passage in the book. "It says she was evil... and that the veins were black."

"You said she was covered in veins." Jesse argued back.

"But not black ones... hers were red. And I don't believe she was evil."

Buffy shrugged, "Maybe if you're a good witch your veins go red?" she suggested.

The Old Master's Lair

"Cordelia knew what I was." Jonathan informed the group around him. "That may mean her little group of bitches also know. And if they know, then it'll be all around the school in days, they couldn't keep a secret to themselves if their lives depended on it. Be extra careful when hunting tonight."

The others nodded.

"So..." Trick called from where he'd been watching. "Cordelia's the new hottie you're after." Trick held his hands in front of him and motioned a pair of breasts by pretending to hold them.

"Yeah."

"I thought you said she was a nobody with delusions of power."

Jonathan thought it over, "She used to be... something's changed."

Trick shrugged not really interested. "Something's coming... something big... and this town doesn't know about it yet."

"Most of the people in this town don't know shit." Jonathan explained.

"Not that... something we are overlooking. There's a power here, something working behind the scenes for it's own goals."

"You sure..?" Jonathan thought back, "I know you seem to think that Balthazar is coming here, but I can't see the point."

Trick realised this was an old argument. "Balthazar isn't coming here to take over, he seems to be fairing okay in Cleveland... he's coming to take care of something."

"How well do you know this Balthazar anyway?" Jonathan thought.

"Not well... Kakistos knew him. He asked Kakistos to check on something when we were coming here. Kakistos never told me what it was."

Jonathan looked lost, "What could happen here that could affect him up there?"

"Other than the end of the world?" Trick commented.

"Other than that."

Trick sighed, resigning himself to look into it more as more information became available. "So you giving up on this Cordelia girl... gonna get something easier?" He hoped.

"No... Cordelia knows as much about how the school set works as I do... and she's probably gonna know a fair bit about the upper classes too."

Both Jonathan and Trick thought about what they could achieve if they managed to get some wealth behind them.

"No." Jonathan continued. "Cordelia's gone up in the world, throw in her knowledge of the supernatural and she's a keeper. I think Miss Chase deserves more of our attention than I previously thought."

End chapter nine