Coming Around Again
by Rob Morris

MAY, 2001

"Crap!"

Which is just what Willow swore she would say if she ran into the image of Buffy putting away a book in the magic shop, even one more time.

"Buffy, stop fighting me."

She was in a kind of psychic cul-de-sac. Neither the 'civvied' Buffy in the magic shop, the pig-tailed anachronistically blonde little Buffy, nor the 'present-day' leather-jacketed grieving older sister were responding to her at all. But as the book-placing finished up, Willow at last noticed something new.

"There's an open space behind the bookcase."

She moved towards it, and as she did, the three Buffys said the same thing, one after the other.

"Wouldn't."

Perhaps this egged Willow on in some fashion, for she pressed on even quicker. But at first, it surely seemed if Buffy's defenses had once again mislead the ever-more powerful Wiccan.

"Not again."

Once more, five-year-old Buffy awaited her parents arrival with the newborn Dawn, an event that never actually occurred.

"Hold-up. Her hair is dark brown now?"

The little future Slayer folded her arms.

"When are they gonna get here?"

The front door opened, but Joyce and Hank Summers were not the ones who emerged. Instead, it was a beaming, dark-haired little boy.

"Buffy! They're here!"

Willow tried to place his face. Was this Luke? If so, why hadn't he been part of all the previous replays?

"Not finding a whole lotta sense, right here."

Little Buffy grasped the boy's hand.

"Scotty, what if they like her better than us?"

"No way. I saw her as they got out. She's really neat."

Willow ran through the list of what she knew about Buffy's pre-Sunnydale life.

"Maybe Scotty is the brother of the cousin that died in the hospital? Scotty? Who are you?"

The little boy glanced at her and answered sarcastically, but it was a famiiar sarcasm.

"Hey, Will, you're the one who decided to play Professor X-or Jean Grey. Let's really hope you don't get to Phoenix."

The answer almost clicked, but some part of Willow refused to let it. The new baby came in with its parents. But neither Joyce nor her husband reacted to the boy's presence as an oddity. When a tiny hand touched Scotty's face, Hank smiled.

"Scotty-boy. I think your little sister likes you."

Willow stepped back.

"What in the great googley-moogley is going on here?"

Had someone cast another memory/reality spell while she'd been in there? But then, the monks and the Byzantine Knights were all dead, and Giles would just never do that kind of thing.

"I told you not to go here."

It was leather-jacketed Buffy. Willow looked at her.

"When did all this happen?"

Present-Buffy remained grim.

"It never did. It has even less reality than my memories of Dawn, this far back. This is way suppressed. This is prime coulda-woulda-shoulda territory."

"Then who is Scotty?"

Present-Buffy responded in tandem with her younger counterpart.

"You know who he is."

Willow decided to play rough for a moment, and pushed her way back to Buffy's memories from shortly after her birth. From a baby's POV she saw Scotty, lying contentedly next to her. Willow smiled.

"Oh, Buffy...you have a twin!"

But perhaps such heaven was not Buffy's lot. Sweaty hands reached down and grabbed Scotty away. Buffy began to cry.

*I got the boy!*

*See here, you animals! Get back from that child!*

*Didja get the girl?*

*Brit bastard ran off with her. I would so love to see Joy's face when she hears.*

*Don' worry, little guy. You get a real -HIC- man for a daddy now-BELLCH.*

*Hey-lemme hold im*

*Hey! If I wanted to give him to a woman-I'da left him with Hankie-poo!*

The kidnappers were known to the Summers. The kidnappers were reeking and blottoed. The kidnappers were selfish, vicious bullies. And Willow knew them. She knew them from a kitchen that was never once clean, a house that people preferred to drive past, and from all the tears on her shoulder as the years went on. Suddenly, five-year-old Scotty was standing behind her.

"Do it."

Willow summoned most of her spare courage, and aged Scotty forward fifteen years. But she already knew what he would look like. Before Tara. Before Oz. It had been him, and in many ways, it still was. He looked into her eyes. With those eyes.

"Do you know what happened to Scotty? Do you know what happened to Buffy's brother?"

Willow hugged the image of Xander Harris.

"Yeah. He became my brother. And a whole lot more."

But Scotty/Xander moved away from her, and towards Buffy. They stood palm-to-palm. Willow had never seen either of them so happy. Willow felt something ugly kick up inside her. There were too many questions. Why had no one ever brought this up? Had Joyce known, while she was alive? Did she move to Sunnydale to be near her son? That the Harrises could sink this low was not even a consideration for her.

"Maybe this is just a fantasy. Maybe I slipped into one of Buffy's dreams."

But Buffy's fantasy imagery had been stark, like Joyce's grave. So this mundane thing was real. And it was killing Willow inside. She yelled at the images.

"Listen up! Xander Harris, you made my childhood bearable. Your friendship was the one thing my folks couldn't withhold or regulate. And I can't even think about how many times I let you onto my back porch so you could sleep out one of their summer binges. And you, Buffy. We've been friends since you first clued in that Cordelia wasn't Miss Nice, at least back when. I love you so much, I'm risking my own mind to pull yours back. You two can't be brother and sister. I'm the only same-age sib either of you have..."

She sniffled.

"...but when you find out, you won't need me. No one will. Maybe not even Tara."

Still smiling, the twins held up their other palms, raising a wind that blew Willow away. When she landed, Buffy was again placing the book on the shelf in the magic shop. Again, she saw the space behind the bookshelf. She decided to merely follow Buffy through the loop til she could force a break.

"Cause we're never going there again. I'm the sister-person. As for the rest, noper. Uh-uh. Ain't gonna be-"

She bit her lip, then finished up.

"-never gonna happen."