"it's not even my birthday yet." Xander said. "At the same time the career assessment tests were happened in the other reality, Willow and Oz were meeting and Spike was calling out the Order of Terraka on Buffy. Other Cordy and other me took one out and had their first kiss. Buffy and Angel took out another, they met Kendra, who promptly attacked Angel, something that will always make me cheer and Angel got the contract canceled somehow. Later Oz and Willow decided to date. The only concern other me had with them deciding to date was that Oz had become a werewolf."

"Well, thanks to your warning and my aunt's confirmation of the fact she and my cousin are werewolves, I won't be becoming a werewolf this time around." Oz pointed out. "And Willow has agreed to date me now, rather then later. When exactly did she agree to date me in this other reality?"

"After you told her you wouldn't let her use you to make me jealous and she'd realized it wouldn't work anyway. About two and a half months from now at the end of January." Xander answered.

"Well, thanks to your mind walk I've accepted that much sooner." Willow told him. "I don't love you the way I always thought I did. You can't love someone you don't know and I didn't know you because I wanted you be the imaginary person in my head. He doesn't exist. Oz does and I like him, there's no one to try to make jealous, so I'm free to explore a connection with him without excess baggage."

"Which is good for me." Oz said. "Not a werewolf and a girl I like, this year is ending on a high note. I'm a musician, I can use that metaphor."

Xander grinned. "My counterpart's memories show he trusted her heart to you, it was the worry over the werewolf part that made him hesitate. But other you was just as determined as other me to keep people, especially Willow, safe. That went a long way towards easing his worry. So Cordy turns seventeen in a matter of days, me in three and half weeks and then it's Christmas. We've made a lot of progress, but there's still some potential threats out there that our counterparts had to deal with."

"In the memories I saw in your mind," Cordelia said. "there was one where you went undercover on the swim team. At the time, I was admiring the image of you, or rather other you, in a speedo. But the swim season starts soon, in a matter of days actually. Why was other you going under cover?"

"The members of the swim team started disappearing. Our counterparts found the skin of one the swim team members."

"Their skin?!" Amy exclaimed. "What killed him?!"

"Nothing, he mutated and no longer needed it."

"Mutated, not transformed?" Giles asked. "Because humans can be transformed into demons."

"Definitely mutated. The coach wanted an edge and pumped a steroid mix into the steam room. It had some extras, what I don't know, but whatever it was, the team members started mutating. This one needs to be handled differently. He's human and we don't actually know if he was ever really aware of the extra. Our counterparts never found out for sure. All they found out for sure was that he knew about the steroids."

"What happened to everyone involved?" Jenny asked.

"Nurse Greenleigh was in on it and documented everything, but never reported anything to the authorities. He fed her to the mutated students."

"I take it they lost their human inhibitions as part of the transformation?" Giles asked.

"Yes, they weren't human level intelligent anymore." Xander confirmed. "The coach tried to feed Buffy to them. In hindsight, there was no reason to. He didn't know she was the Slayer."

"Something manipulated him into targeting her." Giles decided. "Another attempt by those other powers that wanted her dead. How did she survive?"

"Other me was undercover, he saw the coach shove her into the pit the transformed students were in. Other me hit him and pulled her out."

"Other you must have really frustrated the beings wanting her dead." Amy said. "Other you kept on finding a way to save her."

"It wasn't always him, but quite a few times, yes." Xander confirmed. "And the theory is that's why they started working on getting Buffy to push other me out. Anyway, the only real thing the coach was guilty of was drugging the team members."

"Which is not something we can do anything about directly." Oz pointed out. "But we could anonymously report him to the police the way you did the bodies you found in that robot's place you told me about."

"Exactly." Xander agreed.

"Damn." Cordelia muttered. "That means I won't get to see you in a speedo."

"I'll make you a deal." Xander said. "You have a pool at your place, next summer, you wear a bikini and I'll wear a speedo. Just us."

"Deal." Cordelia agreed. "You're the only one I don't mind seeing the scars whatever it was that clawed me left me with."

"I won't even see them." Xander assured her. "You'll always be beautiful to me."

"Awww." The other teens teased.

"I have a gig out of town next week." Oz told the group with a slight smile. "I'll make the call from a payphone. Should be anonymous enough."

"I hope so." Xander said. "I really don't like it when humans are the problem we have to deal with."

"None of us do." Giles agreed. So did the rest.