Title: From Here to Serenity
Author: Bastard Snow
Rating: PG-13

Summary: Buffy's fall through Glory's portal took her somewhere nobody had ever imagined. Now, it's up to Willow and Xander to get her back.

Disclaimer: I don't own either of these.

Author's Notes: Much, much thanks to Drake, without whom this story would not exist. Also, obviously, thanks to Joss Whedon for coming up with two universes that have nothing to do with each other. Makes it a challenge to make them have everything to do with each other.

Feedback: Yes, please!

"What in the…" Mal trailed off as he entered the cargo bay and saw Xander and Book sparring with wooden swords. The two had worked up a good sweat and had an impressive rhythm going. Their weapons met frequently and viciously.

They both had bruises raising on their bodies, but Book's were more numerous, though none of them seemed particularly painful.

As Mal watched, Xander spun around, blocked a downswing from Book's sword, grabbed the blade and pulled it towards his side and punched Book in the kidney.

"Hey!" Mal shouted. Book looked up at him and took a forearm to the back of the head for his trouble.

"Ah, Mal it was just gettin' good again!" Jayne yelled. Mal looked up to the catwalk to find most of his crew sitting there, watching the fight.

"Again?" Mal asked, pointing to Xander. "He cheated!"

"No I didn't," Xander said, saluting Book with the sword and sitting on a box. He picked up a bottle of water and downed half of it in one go.

"You punched him in the kidney!" Mal pointed out. "In a sword fight."

"So?" Xander asked.

"So that's what the swords are for," Mal said. "It's cheating, otherwise."

Xander laughed.

"I'm a little surprised at you, Captain," Book said.

"Why's that?"

"Because we weren't fencing, we were fighting," Book told him.

Understand blossomed in Mal's eyes. "Oh. Didn't know that."

"World of difference," Xander said.

"What do you mean?" Kaylee called down from the catwalk.

"Captain?" Xander asked, deferring from him.

"It means, Kaylee, that if someone else is fencin' you, and you're fighting them, you maybe got an advantage," Mal said.

"Why's that?" Kaylee asked.

"Because when he parries and thrusts and blocks, you can lean over and kick him in the kneecap," Xander explained. He tilted his head towards Book. "Or punch him in the kidney."

"But wait, ain't that cheatin', like the cap'n said?"

Book shook his head. "It wasn't cheating here because we were both fighting, not fencing."

"If we were fencing, I'd have gotten maybe one hit in. I'm not that good with a sword," Xander told them.

"And in real life, it ain't cheating because when you're trying to survive, there's very little that is," Mal added. He turned back to Book and Xander. "Any reason you chose now to beef up on your fighting skills?"

"I should think that obvious, captain. We are heading towards a war zone. We wish to be prepared," Book told him.

Mal raised an eyebrow at him. "I was under the impression weren't no way to be prepared."

"Not in any real way, certainly," Book said. "Five hundred years is a long time to be without communication. We have no idea what to expect."

"Yeah," Xander said, "but fighting is a pretty good bet."

Mal shook his head. "Anyhow, I come down to ask if y'all got a way to work on finding your friend once we get there."

Seeing the fighting was over for the time being, Jayne and Kaylee got up and walked off to their own chores.

"Work on it?" Xander asked. "Um, I certainly don't. Willow, maybe."

"But your girl's got no… radio tag, or anything that we could track?"

Xander laughed. "No, she's not a humpback whale or anything. Just a girl."

"Well, not just." Book smiled at Xander.

"No," Xander admitted. "But for the purposes of the search."

"Whatever," Mal said. "Where's your friend at? Need to see if she can work on this."

"Why the rush?" Book asked.

Mal rolled his eyes. "You yourself told us that they destroyed the last fleet went after 'em. We're just one ship. I want in and outta there soon as can be. Clean yourself up and find your girl, I'll be in the mess."

Fifteen minutes later, Mal sat in the mess having just listened to Willow's magical reasons why, not only could she not get a head start on finding Buffy (something about that some barrier around Earth) but that once they did get there, it would probably take a couple of days to find her anyway.

"So let me get this straight," Mal said, holding one finger in the air. "Not only can you not do this now, nor even make preparations, but once we get there, we're gonna be flyin' around not far out of atmo, like to be in range of all manner of nasty demonic missiles, for a few days while you look for your friend?"

"Well," Willow said, "we could probably land."

Mal blinked at them. "God, I'm happy."

Willow shrugged. "Sorry. It can't be helped."

"You can't even try?" Mal asked.

"Well, I suppose I could," Willow said, "but I doubt anything will have changed."

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"What's she doing to my kitchen floor?" Mal asked. He was standing off to one side of the mess, near the recently moved table. Willow had drawn a circle in the middle of the kitchen floor, set up a series of five candles around it and was sitting in the middle.

"This is what's involved in her magic stuff," Xander said. He was sitting on top of the table.

"She's gotta ruin my floor for magic?" Mal asked.

Xander rolled his eyes. "It'll come off, it's chalk."

"Why ain't she doin' this in her room? It's not gonna get all… sexy is it?"

"If it were –"

"I can hear you," Willow said, startling the captain. She opened her eyes and looked over at the two of them. "Do you guys mind? I mean, I'm trying to concentrate here."

"Sorry, sorry," Xander said. "We'll go."

"We will?" Mal asked. "I'm not much for taking orders on my ship."

Willow whipped her head around and glared at him. Mal shrunk back into himself and shuffled out of the kitchen, sliding the door shut after Xander followed him out. "She always scary like that?" Mal asked.

"No, she just gets a little intense about the magic, and about finding Buffy," Xander explained. The two men walked down the stairs toward the infirmary.

"Been meanin' to ask you about that," Mal said. "Buffy?"

"Yeah, what about her?" Xander asked.

"No, the name. Buffy. How'd she come by that?"

Xander shrugged. "Her parents named her. That's how most people get their names."

"Yeah, but, a name like Buffy…"

"You've got a girl named River, a guy named Jayne and another girl named Kaywinnit Lee. You're worried about Buffy?"

Mal thought about it for a second. "Fair enough. So what's she doin' in there, anyway?"

Xander shrugged. "Magic stuff. I never got too interested in that section, except for this one time where we had to… join our essences or whatever. Oh, and that time they had to put me back together."

"Put you back together?" Mal asked.

Xander nodded. "This demon had a stick that shot a glowy thing, split me into two parts. They had to put me back into just the one me."

"You lead a very odd life."

"Tell me about it."

Mal sighed. "Any idea how long she's gonna take?"

Xander shrugged. "Anywhere from a couple minutes to a few hours. Just depends on… what she has to do, I suppose."

Mal nodded. "Only got myself to blame for this one."

----------

"So nothing?" Mal asked.

"Absolutely no change from the last time I tried," Willow said. "It's exactly the same. Which makes sense, because when I followed the trail to this dimension last time, it was to this time frame. So… no surprise."

Mal shook his head. "And there ain't nothin' else you can do."

Willow shrugged. "Sorry."

"Damn," he said, heading out of the mess. "Damn, damn, damn."

Xander passed Mal on the way into the mess. "Nothing?" Xander asked. Mal grunted. Willow shook her head. She got Xander to help her erase the chalk on the floor and move the table and chairs back to their proper place. They sat down around the table, and Xander looked up.

"So what do you think we should do?" Willow asked. "I mean, Captain Reynolds is obviously not happy about all this, and we're going to have to figure out something if all these demons are ruling Earth. I mean, if they took out that whole armada, we can't just… assume that they're going to let us in, right?"

She waited a moment for Xander to respond, but he was still gazing upwards. "Xander?" she asked.

"Do you know how to turn off the lights here?" he asked. Willow shook her head. Xander frowned told her to hang on a minute and ran off into the ship. He returned a couple minutes later and grabbed Willow's hand. "Come on," he said.

Xander led Willow up forward through the kitchen, past the crew quarters and into the bridge. "Oh, hello," Wash said. "Fancy seeing you up here. What's going on?"

"Not really sure," Willow said. "Xander?"

Xander grinned. "Wash, can you turn the lights down in here?"

Wash raised an eyebrow at him, but complied.

"What's going on?" Willow asked.

Xander sighed and pointed to the view ports at the front of the ship. "That," he said.

Willow looked out the window and saw nothing. "What?" she asked, turning to look at her friend. "There's nothing there." She saw Xander's eyes glaze over as he stared off into the distance. She looked at Wash, who was smiling.

"There is," he said. She looked at him questioningly.

"I don't see anything," she said.

"That's because you're looking wrong," Wash said. "Don't look with your eyes."

Willow turned back to the view port and looked out. All she saw were a bunch of stars. No ships, no planets, no moons, not even space dust. Just –

Willow gasped.

"There it is," said Wash. He leaned back in his chair, his arms resting firmly behind his head. Willow and Xander stood there in silence for a few minutes, just gazing out at the stars, losing themselves in the vastness of space. Xander grasped Willow's hand, and the redhead jumped.

"Will," he said, his voice filled with the awe of a child, "we're in space. We're on a spaceship, and we're in space."

Willow looked at him and covered her mouth, hiding a smile that was filled with more glee than she cared to admit. She turned back to the view port, and just stood, looking out the window.

Almost an hour later, Mal came into the cockpit. "Hey," he said. "What's going on?"

"They realized they were on a spaceship for the first time," Wash said.

Mal nodded shortly. "Come on, you two. We've got things to discuss."

Neither Willow nor Xander responded.

"Wash, stop the ship," he said. That got their attention.

"Captain?" Wash asked.

"Stop the ship," Mal repeated.

"Why?" asked Willow.

"Y'all best come back to the mess," he said. "You, too, Wash. Seems we got more things need discussing."

"Things?" Xander asked.

"You'll find out once we get there. I don't wanna be swaying minds one way or the other on this. But I do got one question needs answering."

"What's that?" Willow asked.

"Y'all said you don't know where on Earth-That-Was your friend is, but you know she's there. How do you know if she's still alive?"

Xander and Willow exchanged a glance.

Xander turned back to Mal. "We've got confirmation from a… reliable source."

"How reliable?" asked Wash.

Xander sighed. "There's a saying from our time, 'From your lips to God's ear.' Have you heard it?"

Mal nodded. "Sure," said Wash.

Xander shrugged. "Well. Like that, but in reverse."

----------

"If there's one thing we can tell you about demons, it's that they lie," Willow said. "Shepherd, you said that the demons came back here in one ship and said that they would kill all humans if we ever ventured back to Earth right?"

"That is what I was told, yes," Book agreed.

"So, if they could kill everyone, and they'd already driven us off twice, why wouldn't they?" Xander asked.

"Earth was enough, they said," Book told them.

Willow shook her head. "Nothing is ever enough. They want to rule all of creation. Well, the more ambitious ones do. The others are happy enough being minions, or just left alone. But the big ones? The ones that are going to have enough power to wipe out a fleet of well-armed space ships and the knowledge to send them back where they came from? They want it all."

"So what are you thinking?" Mal asked. "That they didn't wipe the fleet out?"

Willow sighed. "No, they probably did. But I'm willing to bet they took huge losses. And remember, when your ancestors evacuated Earth 500 years ago, there were still a few billion people there."

"That's true," Book said. "But the demons were so vicious, and had already killed so many people. Surely –"

"Slayers," Xander interrupted.

"Excuse me?" Inara asked.

"Slayers. Shepherd, you said that in this timeline, every single potential Slayer was activated to be an actual Slayer, right?"

"That's correct," Book said.

"And they were all left on Earth?" Xander asked.

"I believe so."

"Okay," he said, his mind clearly gathering steam. "Well, the Slayers, they're tough. And with all the magic adepts, and just plain scary-ass people in the world, they could have held out a long time."

"But the wizards and witches, mages and warlocks, Slayers, demon hunters and all the armies in the world were already fighting the demons," Book said. "And we had still lost billions of people."

"But it's easier to protect a smaller number of people," Simon pointed out.

"But not for five hundred years," Zoë put in. "There's no way they could have lasted this long."

"But they didn't need to last five hundred," Xander said. "They needed to last sixty. Three billion people… say, cut it by 90 percent, even. That's uh… three million?"

"Three hundred million," Willow corrected.

Xander blinked at her. "Wow. Uh, right. Three hundred million people last 60 years. And then in comes the fleet, blasts the ever loving crap out of most of the demons, but is, in the end, defeated. And some demons get on that ship, figure out how to send it back where it came from, and deliver a warning."

"To cover up that they were hurt," Willow said.

"And then the guys still on Earth fight back!" Kaylee said, glomming on to the idea. She grinned at Simon, who smiled back.

"And maybe there are few enough demons now that they can really make an impact," Inara said, nodding. "There could be millions of survivors left on Earth."

"More than a billion," Xander said, smiling. He was honestly excited at the prospect of finding a rejuvenated Earth. "If they had lots of kids."

"Now hold on a ruttin' minute," Jayne said. "These demonses and what not, they breed too?"

"Uh, typically, yes," Willow said. "Why?"

"Well, then, they had plenty of time to infest the place too. There could be billions o' baby demons down there too. And maybe the Shepherd's fleet didn't know where to aim their weapons, and ended up killin' a buncha human folk, too. Could be we're headed for nothin' but a planet full o' hell and death. Hell, we don't even know any humans survived."

Nobody spoke for a minute as they all soaked in the idea of billions of demons overrunning the Earth, or of Jayne coming up with a logical, plausible argument.

"Could be that's so," Wash said, finally. "But I say we go for it. Nobody else knows that Earth is even really out there. This could be the best thing to happen to the human race since we left Earth."

"Or the worst," said Simon.

"Well, I say it's worth the risk," Wash said.

They all looked around the room at one another for a minute, nobody saying a word, silently taking in each other's moods.

"Little one?" Mal asked, turning to River. "You ain't said a word in this. Seems to me you maybe got more invested here than most. You got any thoughts?"

River looked up at the captain. "Have to find out sometime," she said.

Mal nodded. "That's what I thought. Okay. Wash, put us back on course for Earth. Harris?"

"Me? Uh… yeah?"

Mal looked at him gravely. "Think you can give those of us that need 'em fightin' lessons?"

Xander eyed Mal wearily. "I'm not sure that's a great idea."

"Why's that?" Mal asked.

Xander shrugged. "Well… I'm twenty years old. I'm in what is close to the best shape of my life and I've been fighting pretty much constantly for the past 5 years."

"That's… kind of what I was banking on," said Mal.

"Right," Xander said. "But earlier today, I barely held my own against an out-of-practice 60-year-old man. I just think… I might not be the best guy for this job."

Mal considered that for a moment. "Preacher? What do you say?"

Book sighed. "I still think this trip is foolhardy, and the risks are far more serious than the possible rewards. That said… if we're to have some kind of chance here, we must all be as prepared as possible. Yes," he said. "I will teach you."

"Great," said Mal. "You take the folk as need it down to the hold; we'll get things prepped to –"

"No, Mal," Book interrupted. "You need to come, too. Jayne and Zoë as well."

"Me?" Jayne said, taking offense. "I know how to fight!"

When Book smiled at him, there was a sinister glint in his eye. "Not like this you don't."

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End Chapter 11