Charlie blinked down at the floor. It was, unsurprisingly, just past her knees. It was a shiny, dark, polished wooden floor decorated with weird looking black symbols. Charlie didn't remember painting the floor. She thought she remembered the floor being carpet. She inhaled sharply as her memories started coming back to her. Accompanying those memories was the acute discomfort associated with being tied to a chair while unconscious. Charlie felt her heart rate pick up.
"Calm down, don't panic," she thought to herself. "What would Hermione do?" Slightly calmed, Charlie slowly raised her head and looked around. She seemed to be in an empty circular room with wooden floors and white plaster walls. There were windows intermittently along the walls but they had were closed and shaded so there was no way to tell where she might have been dragged to or what time of day it was.
She realized that what she had originally taken for squiggles were actually a large pattern of magical looking sigils forming a circle underneath her on the floor. Charlie also noticed with a startled delay that there were two people in the room. An older man and a sexy looking redhead in a hippy-esque skirt and corset shirt that did her many, many favors. They were both staring at her with cool detachment.
"I see you're awake," the woman observed.
"Where am I?" Charlie demanded, glancing between the two of them.
"We're asking the questions here. And, in case you didn't realize it, that's a truth circle you're sitting in." The man said in a soft British accent. Charlie looked down at the circle, surreptitiously testing the strength of her bonds.
"And those aren't ordinary restraints," Willow said, catching the movement. "You won't be going anywhere until we're satisfied."
Charlie couldn't resist.
"And how might I satisfy you?" she asked with what she hoped was a roguish grin. Willow's eyebrows furrowed. She did not appear impressed.
"Why do you look like Violet?" Giles demanded.
"Double!" Charlie burst out almost immediately. She shook her head in confusion. "Whoa, weird. Is that what the truth circle does, forces me to projectile vomit the truth?" she asked, looking from one to the other. They stared back at her stonily. Charlie pouted. "Fine, then, be that way," she muttered bitterly.
"Explain yourself. What do you mean when you say double?" Giles pressed.
"Multiverse! I come form another universe! I'm the Violet from that world! This is the worst!" Charlie yelled, noting that with every expulsion of truth she felt a violent contraction of her diaphragm, almost like a hiccup. Giles and Willow shared a look.
"Why did you come here?" Willow asked.
"Cap! Need the cap to send the monkeys home!" Charlie screamed. Before Willow could ask any demanding follow up questions she chose to elaborate. "I was in Oz for a while, and I promised the winged monkeys that I would find the golden cap and set them all free. I managed to track the cap here."
"You have to know how ridiculous that sounds," Willow said thoughtfully. Charlie glared at her.
"Hey, it's your truth circle, sister."
"You don't seem particularly powerful," Giles mused coolly. "How is it that you were able to punch through the dimensions?"
"Angel!" Charlie yelled. Then she clamped her mouth shut. She didn't want to say anything that could endanger Castiel. Giles noted her hesitation.
"Tell us about the angel," he pressed. Charlie's entire body shook, the contractions of her stomach muscles becoming more painful and violent as she refused to answer. Neither the Willow nor Giles so much as stirred. Eventually she couldn't hold back anymore.
"Castiel! His name is Castiel and he came with me and he's dying and he's back at the motel!" she yelled. Willow frowned in confusion.
"The angel is dying?" she repeated.
"Yes!" Charlie yelled, hating herself for not being able to fight the compulsion. Hermione could have fought it, damn it!
"What did you want with Andrew?" Giles cut in, wanting to make sure that they got the answers they needed before the girl passed out from the strain.
"Cap! He was the last to have it!" she yelled. Willow and Giles shared a look. Although the Scoobies weren't the ones to thwart the attack on the school play by winged monkeys, they had heard enough to piece together the fact that some sort of attack had occurred; however, they had all assumed it was some form of demon. It certainly seemed more logical than the tale this girl was spinning.
"Is there anyone else with you?"
"Cas!"
"Besides the angel," Giles clarified.
"No!" she yelled. Giles nodded in satisfaction.
"What do you know about the shadow creature?" Willow asked sternly.
"Just what Sai told me!" Charlie gritted out, glad that the pressure on her abdomen seemed less intense when she didn't have a clear answer. "For the love of Pete, people! I come in peace!" she snapped, nearing the limits of her endurance.
Willow felt an involuntary twitch of amusement which she hoped was hidden by the shadows.
"Forgive us if we don't take you at your word when we found you infiltrating a highly classified facility while impersonating a slayer." Charlie rolled her eyes.
"To get to Andrew! To get to the cap! If you just tell me where it is I'll gladly get out of your dimension and out of your hair."
"Do you know of anyone else traveling to this dimension?" Giles asked curiously. Neither he nor Willow believed that there could be two unrelated sets of interdimensional visitors at the same time seeking the same man.
"No! Just Cas! And will you stop that already?" she yelled at Giles.
"The interrogation will stop when we are satisfied that you pose no threat. Then we will expel you from this dimension and send you back where you came from," he said calmly. Charlie glared at him.
"I can't go back without the cap. I made a promise!"
Willow stared at her hard. Then she nodded to Giles and started walking toward the door. Charlie looked out into the hallways as they left but it just looked like a hallway to her, maybe in a big house or a hotel. And then the door shut and she was alone. She yanked on the ropes but it didn't do any good. She leaned back in the chair and stared up at the ceiling, which offered her no answers. She closed her eyes tiredly. She felt the minutes ticking away, although the passage of time was impossible to mark without a working clock or access to sunlight. After what felt like an hour she sighed. Charlie knew she was screwed. They were probably going to throw her into some sort of dimensional void, if they didn't just kill her outright. She opened here eyes.
"If I'm gonna die, I'd rather not die alone," she mused. Then she smiled grimly. "At the very least Cas and I could die together. I wish he was here right now."