"Buffy, what's wrong?" asked Tara.

"She looks ill," Anya bluntly stated.

"No, guys, I-I'm fine. I just - I need space." She fled through the back door and clasped the fence on the porch. This was too spooky, too surreal. She should go, leave before there are any other surprises.

"I don't want you to leave yet," said Joyce behind her, as if she heard her thoughts. "This is too important."

"What is? What is this? Why have you brought me here?" she questioned.

"I can't answer you right now. But please, Buffy, please promise me you'll go back inside the house and stay safe. I know this is hard, but please say you'll try to adjust."

"Where are you going?" Buffy's voice was pleading and childish, but before her mother could answer, the back door opened and she was gone. Willow, Xander, Tara, Anya and Wood gazed at her warily.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Whose voice it was hadn't processed with her, but she found herself answering as reassuringly as possible. These weren't, after all, strangers.

Or were they? How much did she know or not know about these alternate versions of her friends? How different are they? Why are Tara and Anya alive again, Xander's eye in the place it should be? The principal smooching?! Half an hour later, any plausible conclusion was getting more and more distant and fuzzy.

"Um, where's Dawn?" Buffy asked Willow as they sat in the living room together. Her friend gave her a puzzled look.

"In her house, I guess."

"What?! Dawn's got her own house?" Before Buffy could suppress her astonishment, Willow's expression worsened. Then came the dreaded, pitying words:

"Er, Buffy, do you want me to make you some tea? Sugar-free tea?"

And so Buffy retired to her old bedroom, the place she always felt at home. She was fed up with the shifty looks from her friends and the patronizing suggestions that she takes a nap. As she lied on her bed, she tumbled questions over and over in her mind. The door opened and shed light on her. Willow carried a mug of tea over to her.
"Hey," she said, "brought you some tea."

"Thanks."

"So… are you gonna tell me what's going on?"

'How about you tell me what's going on', Buffy thought. She found she couldn't connect with Willow like this. Despite looking like her, sounding like her, even smelling like her… this wasn't the Willow she knew. Buffy fobbed her off, claimed she was sick and needed rest. However, after an hour of restlessness and pacing around her room, she sprang forth when the doorbell rang and the faraway sound of Anya yelling "Dawn's here!" could be heard.

Through the door, across the landing, down the stairs, Buffy rushed. But to her surprise, Dawn wasn't there. Standing in a girlish coat, jeans and horn rimmed glasses, was an auburn-haired girl of about eighteen.

"Hi Buffy," said the girl, her voice unlike her sister's in every way, "I brought you presents. Half Christmas presents, the other half thanks-for-saving-my-life presents."

Buffy forged a smile as she took the gifts. What the hell was going on?

"You feeling better now? Willow said you were sick," came Robin's annoying romanticism. He curled his arms around her waist in a hug. Buffy just wished he would stop!
"Principal Wood, I-I had no idea!" yelped the impostor. Robin slid his arms to his sides again to Buffy's relief.

"Miss Bishop. I hope you've had a good Christmas so far," he said quite bashfully.

As Robin continued to talk to "Dawn", Joyce appeared at Buffy's side.

"It's okay, they can't see me. Or us talking together. Christmas Carol or what, huh?" her mother jollied jokingly.

"Please. Tell me now." This was no joke anymore. Buffy's eyes were glazed; there was a silent panic in her voice. "What is going on, mom?"

"I want to offer this world to you. In place of yours." Off Buffy's puzzled look, she added, "this is a better world. You deserve that!"

"Where am I?!"

"This," gulped Joyce, pausing for a distressed moment, "this is your life - if Dawn had never been apart of it. If she had never been created."