--

Buffy laid her head against Spike’s shoulder, smiling as past!Buffy and Xander danced together. “They look like they’re having fun.”

A rumbling growl vibrated through Spike. “He’d just better keep his hands off of her,” he said darkly, eyeballing Xander. Past!Buffy saw it, and sent a conspiratorial eye roll Buffy’s way. Men.

Buffy smirked. “You two are doing well?”

Spike nodded. “She’s finally stopped playing hot and cold with me. A bloke can only take so much of it before-“

“Before you become her willing slave?” Buffy asked, raising her eyebrows.

Spike snorted. “You know me far too well, ducks. Was I that bad with you in the future?”

“Worse,” Buffy said without thinking. She froze. “Wait. What?” Spike knew. Oh, crap.

Spike laughed gently. “Can’t imagine I ever left Buffy, not as long as she’d have me. What happened? After she… Is that how we got together?”

Buffy sighed with relief. “Spike, we were barely a thing. One night, we were both drunk and depressed…”

“Ah.” He seemed disappointed.

She twisted to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” He shrugged. “Thought we had more of a connection than that.”

They were interrupted before Buffy could respond, Xander and past!Buffy finished with their dance. Past!Buffy smiled warmly at Buffy, but moved between her and Spike with a proprietary glint in her eye. “Hey, Anya. How are you?”

Buffy grinned, moving to the side to expose the hand of past!Buffy’s that Spike was rubbing with his own. Past!Buffy scowled at her and pulled the hand away before Xander could see it. “I’m fine now. One blood transfusion and I’m good as new.”

“I was worried,” Xander said softly, extending a hand to rest it around Buffy’s shoulder. Buffy leaned into it, enjoying the feel of friendship with no additional burdens. Wow. I really took Xander’s lack of interest in me for granted… She turned to smile at him. He returned it tentatively. “Do you…want to dance?”

Aand we’re back into uncomfortable-land! She shook her head. “I think I’ll sit this one out. Hey!” she said brightly, nodding to where Willow and Tara had just joined them. “Why don’t you all pair up? I’ll stay here with Tara, you dance with Willow, and Buffy can dance with Spike!” Spike looked amused at her blatant attempt at matchmaking. Past!Buffy gave her a death glare.

Xander laughed. “Buffy’s not dancing with the Evil Dead!” He frowned at how close the two were standing. “Right?”

Past!Buffy blinked, staring up at Spike and then back to Xander. She started to shake her head, but blanched at the hurt look on Spike’s face. “I…I guess one dance wouldn’t kill me,” she said finally, letting Spike pull her to the dance floor.

“You never know,” Xander said darkly.

Buffy pointed at Willow, who was being accosted by a large, beefy guy. “Hey, is she in trouble?”

“Looks like!” Xander headed off in that direction, forgetting his dancing friend in favor of playing the hero.

Buffy turned to watch past!Buffy and Spike dancing together to a slow ballad that had past!Buffy’s head resting against Spike’s chest with a blissful look on her face. They might not have been ready to “come out” yet, but the vampire and the Slayer had definitely built something lasting together. Xander had mostly stopped with the overtures. Glory hadn’t made any appearances lately.

All in all, things were very good.

“Hello!” The pretty girl in front of her jerked her from her thoughts with a bright, robotic smile. “Have you seen Warren?”

So now, of course, they’d be getting much, much worse.

--

She knew what would happen the next day, knew the hell past!Buffy would enter once she returned home after finding Warren Meers. She remembered it with the sharpness that only a life-changing event could foster, seven years later. And she still mourned. So for the first time since she’d been sent into the past, she decided to put her own needs before past!Buffy’s.

She’d called Giles that night, asking him to give her the day off from work. When morning came, she waited until past!Buffy was certainly taking care of the robot and Warren, and Dawn was off in school.

And once she was positive that her mother would be home alone, she headed for Revello Drive.

Joyce opened the door, looking puzzled at her appearance. “Hello, Anya. Are you looking for Buffy?”

She shook her head, feeling the tears well up in her eyes, and launched herself into her very perplexed mother’s embrace.

~

“I was so alone,” Buffy remembered, curled up beside her mother on the couch. “I’d been taken from heaven and everyone expected so much of me. But no one really understood.”

Joyce stroked her hair comfortingly. “Oh, Buffy…” It had taken a few minutes to explain to her mother who she really was, but just telling her secret had taken a load off of Buffy’s shoulders, and now everything was spilling from her, all at once. “I’m so sorry.”

Buffy closed her eyes. “Spike got it, more than the others. He was really…he took care of me. Especially when I wouldn’t take care of myself. And I hurt him…we hurt each other. A lot. Then, when it became too much for him, he went and got a soul.”

“A soul?” Joyce frowned. “Spike doesn’t need a soul. I see the way he looks at Buf- at the other Buffy.” She smiled suddenly. “I think she’s his soul, in a sense.”

“What do you do when your soul is damaged?” Buffy said quietly. “You get a new one.”

Joyce reached for her, but she sat up suddenly. “But enough about the future. Can we…can we just talk?” She touched her mother’s arm. “About happy things, memories?”

“Sure.” Joyce smiled fondly at her daughter. “How about I make you some hot chocolate and I’ll tell you some stories. What do you want to hear?”

“Tell me what I was like as a kid,” Buffy suggested, getting up to go to the kitchen. “Or when Dawnie was born. Or-“ Her voice caught. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t pretend that everything was okay when she’d just scraped the old wounds raw again. Suddenly, she was that terrified girl sitting outside the room in the hospital again, wondering if her mother would make it. And she already knew that one of them wasn’t going to survive the night.

“There’s just one thing I need you to tell me, Buffy.” Buffy stopped short at her mother’s tone. Knowing. Understanding. Joyce stood up, her eyes belying her weariness. “Do I go peacefully?”

“Mom?” Buffy whispered, her eyes watering up again.

“I’m going to die today,” Joyce murmured. “Why else would you be telling me all this?”

She turned tentatively to face her mother. “I didn’t-“

But Joyce held up a hand to stop her. “Thank you. You’ve given me…most people aren’t lucky enough to know that they’re going to die.” She guided her daughter into the kitchen, calmer than Buffy had ever seen her. “Do you know what time it happens?”

“Sometime before the afternoon,” Buffy said at last. “Dawnie was still in school.”

“Oh.” Joyce inhaled deeply. “I’m going to- I want to write them letters. Something to keep with them. Unless…will I be getting you in trouble?”

Buffy nodded through her tears. “Write the letters, Mommy. Please.”

She sat nursing her hot chocolate at the counter while her mother sat beside her, scratching out a brief letter to each daughter. If I’d gotten a letter, something from my mother…would it have made things easier? Would things have been okay?

When Joyce was finished, she turned to Buffy. “Dear Buffy,” she read, and Buffy sniffled loudly.

“Please don’t be angry at Anya. There was nothing she could have done.” Joyce frowned suddenly. “There is nothing, right?”

Buffy nodded. “It was an aneurysm, probably. They weren’t sure. It was so sudden…”

Joyce rested a hand on her daughter’s arm as she continued. “But she did give me the opportunity to write this letter to you, and that means the world to me. There’s so much I want to say before I go, so much I wish I could tell you…” She took in a deep breath, touching her stomach suddenly.

“It hurts?” Buffy asked quickly, jumping down from her seat.

“I’m alright. Just a little nauseous.” They made their way to the sofa again, holding onto each other tightly.

“I love you so much, Buffy. And I’m so proud of you. Other people your age dream of making a difference. But you…you’ve been able to change the world, to save thousands, maybe millions of lives… I’m proud to be your mother. I look back sometimes and wonder how I was able to raise someone so special-“ Her voice cracked, and the tears, so evident in Buffy’s eyes, started to spill from hers, too.

“Anya tells me that it’s not going to be easy on you from here on out. But I have faith in you. I know that you can do anything you try. The hardest thing, sometimes, will simply be to live. Be strong, Buffy. For me.”

Buffy wept again then, remembering the words she had said to Dawn on the tower, so similar to what her mother said now. Will past!Buffy be able to stop it? Or will another Summers woman fall with the same words?

“Take care of Dawn. She’ll need you now, more than ever. Your friends, Spike, and Giles? They’re your family now, and I know that they’ll be there for you. I can leave this world knowing that my girls will be safe. Oh!” Joyce whimpered, rubbing her head.

Buffy jumped up, pulling a blanket from under the table and helping her mother lie down properly. “Tell me about when you met Dad,” she whispered, sitting beside the couch, clutching her mother’s hand.

“It was my freshman year at college,” Joyce remembered, “And I didn’t have a date to prom, but I decided to go anyway. I don’t know why. Hank had a girlfriend, someone he’d been seeing only for a few weeks, and…” Her voice trailed off, and she squeezed Buffy’s hand in reassurance.

It took almost three minutes for her grip to loosen. It took another two for the breathing to stop. There was a muffled moan, and then-

-Nothing.

“Mommy!” Buffy cried for her mother as she lost her for the second time. “Mommy!” But there was no answer from her mother. No pulse in the wrist Buffy held. No up-and-down motion as Joyce breathed. Nothing.

When all tears had been exhausted, Buffy gently raised the hand she’d been holding and laid it across her mother’s chest, tucking the two letters underneath it. She closed her mother’s unseeing eyes and slipped out the back door.

Some things just couldn’t be changed.

And she awaited the ramifications for what she had known.

--

The news came in the late afternoon from a somber Anya.

Spike had just woken up from a very enjoyable dream that had involved himself, Buffy, and an absurd amount of massage oil. The best part of which, he decided as he got out of bed, was that dreams like that weren’t so far from reality anymore. All he needed was to go patrolling with Buffy…and by the end of a properly strenuous night, she’d be ready for anything he tossed her way.

Although it would probably be difficult to find a pool’s-worth of massage oil like he’d dreamt.

Humming the theme to Dawson’s Creek, he cleaned himself off in his shower- okay, displaced pipe- and got dressed for patrol. It would be a few more hours, but Buffy had said that she’d drop by beforehand with some fast food. And that was as close to a date as they’d gotten to so far.

Well, except for two nights ago, when she’d decided to go to Willy’s with him to beat people up for information. That had gone well. Thirteen demons had been killed. Six of Willy’s tables were now beyond repair. Willy had politely requested that they never return. To be fair, though, he usually shouted that after Spike at least once a week, Slayer or not. And as pathetic as it was, he actually had more street cred now that he was hanging out with the Slayer than when he was all alone with a chip in his head.

Plus, the brawls were far better now.

He smirked to himself as he settled down to catch up on Passions. He’d missed a few shows this week, but he suspected that he could skip a week’s worth and still be just as confused as he was after skipping only one episode. As it was, he tried half-heartedly to focus on the episode, but his mind was on a certain blonde Slayer…

The door to his crypt creaked open slowly, and he jumped up warily. None of the Scoobies were ever so tentative when they came by. So who was visiting him now?

“Anya?” Spike murmured, moving toward her. She looked terrible. She’d been crying, long black streaks of mascara jumping out at him from her cheeks, and she was shaking so violently that for a moment, he’d thought she was having a seizure. He ran to hold her in his arms. “What’s wrong?”

She looked up at him, her eyes empty. “You have to go to her.”

“What?” He frowned, lifting her head with his hands to face her. “What’s going on?” A cold dread ran through him. “Is it Buffy?”

She shook her head. “It’s Mom- her mom. She’s gone.”

He seized her by the shoulders and shook her. “Anya. What are you talking about? Gone where? Not Joyce!”

Anya started shaking again, this time with repressed sobs. “She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s-“

“No!” Spike pulled Anya close, hugging her tightly as he shed his own tears for the eldest of the Summers. “What happened? Was it Glory?”

Anya shook her head again. “An a-aneurysm. Spike, you have to go to her. She’s in the hospital.”

“Joyce?” Did she think Spike could save her? Was she already gone?

“Buffy.”

He was halfway across the room to get his duster before she finished the word. “I’ll go through the sewers. I should be able to get in through the parking garage. You go aboveground, I’ll meet you there in-“

“Spike!” She cut him off. “I’m not going.”

Spike stared. “What do you mean, you’re not going, pet? She’s going to need all the support that she can get. You’ve got to-“

“I can’t,” Anya whispered, looking away. “She won’t want to see me. Not now.”

And then it hit Spike like a dash of cold water. “You knew.” He forced himself to stay calm. “You knew that Joyce was going to-“

“Please, Spike.” Anya held up a hand. “Go to Buffy.”

He turned on his heel and stalked off, not saying a word to her. The stupid bint! She knew everything, was playing with them all along! What gave her the right to decide what to change? To choose who lived or died? How dare she play god with them?

The betrayal carried him through about half the trip before he finally conceded that Anya might not have been that cruel. It was possible that it was sudden. That there was nothing that could have been done. That Anya was only trying to spare Buffy the dread of knowing that she was about to lose her mother. But she could have told Buffy, given her the chance to say goodbye… Unless if she hadn’t known when it was going to happen, in which case this was also a shock to her…

He emerged from the sewers and stepped into the hospital just in time to see the Scoobies arrive right in front of him. He gave them a moment before he followed them in, unwilling to let Xander’s hatred of him get out of hand so soon. Buffy didn’t need that.

She was hugging Xander when she caught sight of him, and she melted, right before his eyes. Uncaring of her friends’ wide-eyed stares and her Watcher’s worried frown, she raced into his arms, letting him encase her in the comfort of his embrace.

“You came,” she whispered, raising her face to kiss him chastely on the lips, even as tears flowed freely from her eyes.

“Of course,” he murmured, kissing away the tears as they came. “I’m so sorry.”

He was aware of her friends behind her, talking among themselves as they focused incredulously on the lovers. He knew that there might be a staking in his future and an intervention in hers, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not for either of their sakes.

His beloved needed him, and he was going to be there for her.

--

“Go away,” Xander said disgustedly, glaring at the vampire as he approached the house on Revello Drive.

“Brought flowers for Joyce,” Spike said, holding them up. He’d picked the daisies and the ragweed in the cemetery, for lack of a better place. Somehow, he’d known that it would be a disservice to Joyce to steal flowers in her memory. Soul or not, he wasn’t stupid.

Xander scowled. “You’re kidding. First you take advantage of Buffy’s grief to manipulate her for your own warped purposes, and now you’re going to try worming your way in again through the most pathetic bunch of flowers I’ve ever seen? You’re sick.”

Spike glowered at him. Had it been any other day, he would have gladly exposed his and Buffy’s relationship. But not today. “Fine. Just bring these in, will you? I didn’t leave a card, so there’s no worming today. I just liked the lady.”

Willow took the flowers, her gaze thoughtful. “You and Buffy…”

“Spike?” Buffy opened the door to her house, poking her head between Xander’s and Willow’s. “Are you coming in?”

“Buffy, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Xander said cautiously.

Buffy met his gaze evenly. “Pretty much, yeah.” She motioned for Spike, with a hand that was clutching a folded piece of paper and he followed her in, grabbing the flowers from Willow with smug confidence and not a small measure of wonder. Never had he imagined that Buffy would stare down her friends for him.

“Wait up!” Xander said suddenly, following them back into the house.

Buffy frowned at him, puzzled. “I thought you were going home.”

“I changed my mind,” he said shortly, his eyes on Spike.

Willow glanced back and forth from the Slayer and vampire to her other best friend, worried. “Maybe I’d better stay, too.”

“Fine. Whatever,” Buffy said finally, turning away from them. “I’m going to go get the laundry.” She opened the basement door. “Spike? You coming?”

He followed her down, reveling in the dark look on Xander’s face just a bit. “I shouldn’t have come,” he said, trying to sound noble. “I’ve caused some trouble…”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, you’re loving this, Spike. Sticking it to the Scoobies is, like, your dream come true.” She sat down on the cot in the room, settling into Spike as he followed her lead.

“True,” he acknowledged. “But right now…”

“It’s not ideal,” Buffy admitted, curling up next to him. “But I need you here with me more than I need peace right now.”

She needs me. He grinned like an idiot until he remembered to school his expression into something more somber. “What is this?” he wondered, frowning at the paper still clutched in her hand.

She looked down at it as though she’d forgotten that it was there. “A letter. From Mom.”

“Ah.” He kissed the top of her head. “I loved your mother, you know.”

She turned to squint up at him. “Not like you love me, though, right? Because that’s kind of squicky.”

He snorted. “Not quite. Just…she was decent to me when the rest of you lot weren’t. Always had a cuppa for me.”

“In our defense, you were trying to kill us,” Buffy retorted. But she clung tightly to him and pressed a kiss to his chest. “Thank you.”

“For trying to kill you?”

“For being here for me,” she murmured.

They sat in silence until Xander finally called down the stairs, wondering if the laundry was done. Right. Because the boy’s so worried about the LAUNDRY…

“Forgot about that,” Spike said apologetically. “Is the laundry done?”

Buffy shrugged. “Probably not, since there’s nothing in the washer.”

~

Buffy waited anxiously as past!Buffy and Spike came up the stairs. There was a good chance that Spike had clued her in, or that past!Buffy had read the letter, in which case Buffy probably wouldn’t be welcome in the house anymore.

She didn’t blame past!Buffy at all.

Past!Buffy came up the stairs, her arm entwined with Spike’s and looking more relaxed than Buffy remembered being the first time around. “Hi, guys.”

Then she caught sight of Buffy and froze. “You.”

Spike stood back expressionlessly, his eyes fixed on the scene before him. Past!Buffy stalked forward. “Get out of my house.”

“I’m sor-“

“Don’t you dare!” Past!Buffy snapped, furious. “Don’t you dare apologize and think it’s going to be okay! You killed my mother!” She slapped Buffy across the face with a resounding crack!

“Buffy! I don’t think-“ Xander started.

Past!Buffy rounded on him. “She knew Mom was going to-“ She stopped, and Xander looked down.

She turned back to Buffy. “And you have the nerve to come back here? You knew, all along! Every time I asked you, I gave you the chance to warn me…You could have stopped it. You could have told the doctors, or said something!” The rage and the sorrow were mixing together in her voice, and she was crying as she shouted. “YOU KILLED MY MOTHER!”

Buffy bowed her head, feeling her own tears springing up again. “I know. I’m- I just wanted to-“

“Shut up,” past!Buffy hissed. “You don’t get to talk. Get out of here.”

She rose numbly and headed for the door. She’d known past!Buffy would be angry. She’d expected recriminations. But it still hurt to be expelled from her circle, to see her friends looking at her with disgust as they-

-Blocked the door? “Xander? What are you doing?”

“Wait,” he said firmly, and turned back toward past!Buffy. Spike was trying to reassure her. She pushed him away, and he stalked out of the room, stung. “It’s not her fault,” he said finally. “She couldn’t have done anything. And it sounds like all she did was make sure that you got one last message from your mother.” He gestured at the letter, still in Buffy’s hand. “She didn’t make it happen. She just lived through it.”

“She could have said something,” past!Buffy said softly, the anger still there, but contained.

“Would you have wanted to know?” Xander asked gently, moving to enfold past!Buffy in his arms as she cried. Buffy wept with them, until Xander had her, too, and the two Buffies were crying together, holding onto each other for support.

--

Spike didn’t come back that night, and Buffy wasn’t surprised. She’d been harsh with him when she’d meant it for Anya, and as much as it sometimes surprised her, he was so sensitive when it came to love…

He’d come over to comfort her, and she’d responded with vitriol. “You can go now,” she’d snapped at him. “I’m not going to sleep with you tonight, anyway, so I don’t need you.”

As if that was all she needed him for! She missed him more than she had thought she would. When he could have been holding her as she slept, or comforted her before the funeral, or come now, while she was standing all alone, preparing for a vigil over the grave…

A cold hand slipped into her own as the sun set in front of her mother’s grave for the first time, and she leaned against him in relief. He’d come.

Or maybe not, she realized, when she noticed that the frame of the man beside her was much bulkier. In fact, it felt like… “Angel?”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t come sooner.”

She felt a rush of warmth for him. He wanted to be there for her, to take care of her again, like he had so many times before. She envisioned a night, just the two of them, talking and reconnecting near her mother’s grave.

But then there was a flicker of doubt. Because she knew that Spike wasn’t going to approach if Angel was there. And right now…Right now she wanted Spike.

“I’m sorry,” she echoed his words back to him. “I really do appreciate you coming. It means a lot to me.”

“But?” He frowned, confused. “I’m sensing there’s a ‘but’ here.”

She smiled half-heartedly. “But…but I’ve got people who I can count on here, and it wouldn’t be right to them to leave them for the night.”

“You mean Dawn?” Angel said, blinking. “You think that she should stay in the cemetery for vigil with you? Is that such a good idea?”

I mean Spike. But she couldn’t tell him that, not now. He’d never go then. Instead, she hugged him tightly, feeling tiny and warm and safe next to him. “We’ve been apart for a while,” she murmured. “We’ve both changed, and for the better.” She parted from him, and gave him a sweet smile. “We’re not who we used to be anymore. But I’m glad that we’re still friends.”

“What happened?” he said, sounding bewildered. “Why don’t you love me anymore?”

“I’ll always love you,” she said finally. “But I’m not still that sixteen-year-old who was in love with you.” She felt old suddenly, as though it had been decades since she’d first been in a love so untainted and unreal. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, turning away from him and waiting.

After a few minutes, new arms came from behind and embraced her. Lean, pale arms. “I love you,” Spike murmured.

She turned to kiss him. “I sent him away,” she told her lover.

“I heard.” He settled them down in front of the grave, leaning against the marker. “Hullo, Joyce,” he said. “I’m sure you’re not thrilled about this. Well, you’re probably happy that it’s not the Great Poof, at least, but ‘m still a vampire.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “But I promise, I’m going to take care of your girls.” At Buffy’s skeptical look, he amended, “Well, I’m going to take care of them some of the time. But it seems like most of the time, they’ll be taking care of me.”

“Forever,” she whispered, pressing her cheek to her mother’s tombstone.

--

Buffy woke up the next morning in Spike’s crypt, snuggled up next to him on his big bed. “How did we get here?” she wondered.

He yawned. “You fell asleep sometime in the early AM. I carried you back here at sunrise, woke you up to come down here…you really don’t remember?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. How did we get here, you and me, like this? A year ago, we hated each other.”

He shrugged. “A year and a half ago, we were in love and getting married.”

“That was a spell! And it’s not like we’re getting married now…”

“But are we in love?” Spike wondered, suddenly fully alert, his eyes probing into her.

She looked away. Were they? “I don’t know yet. It’s…it’s too soon.” But not unlikely…

“Right.” He patted her arm, sleepy again. “Best get home now. The Bit will worry.”

“Probably.” Reluctantly, she got out of bed, pressing a kiss to Spike’s lips before climbing back up the ladder into the main room of the crypt. Dawn. She’d hardly spoken to her in the past day, even though she was one of the foremost matters on her mind. How could she take care of her alone? What about Glory? Would Dawn be sent to her father? Would she be safer there?

She was so immersed in her thoughts that she didn’t realize that Anya was there until she’d bumped into her. “Oh! Sorry.” Her eyes darkened as she realized who it was. “Anya.”

Anya shifted awkwardly. “Buffy.”

She sighed. “Look, I’m still not happy with you. But the truth is, we need you. Especially now. Glory…”

“Right.” Anya bobbed her head up and down. “Glory. I can help you there.”

Buffy sat heavily on a stone bench along the path, gesturing for Anya to join her. “I guess the first question is, what goes wrong? We beat Glory, but I die? Who stops her, then?”

Anya closed her eyes. “Dawn gets taken eventually. She’s tied to the top of this tower Glory’s people built… Spike goes after Dawn, but he gets thrown off the tower by one of Glory’s minions. This little old guy, he cuts Dawnie open…you get there just as the blood starts dripping…The only way for Dawn to live is if someone else with the same blood closes the portal.”

“And so I jump,” Buffy realized, finally understanding. “Rather than to lose Dawnie, I kill myself.”

“Yeah.” She looked down. “I didn’t tell that to the others. They wouldn’t understand.”

“I would do it again,” Buffy said fiercely, thinking of her sister.

“You can’t,” Anya said swiftly. “Not this time. Not with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.”

“If it’s Dawn or me-“

“Stop.” Anya held up a hand. “We just need to keep that situation from happening at all. Go to Spike, ask him if he knows who this guy is. I think his name was Doc. If we get rid of him, hopefully, the bloodletting won’t even start.”

Buffy nodded. “What about everyone else? Where were you, and Giles, and Willow and Tara and Xander while this was going on? Can any of you back Spike up on the tower, stop that Doc from getting to Dawn…?”

For the first time since they’d sat down, Anya looked uncomfortable. “I don’t remember. I guess we were caught up with the minions. It’s all kind of fuzzy.”

“Oh.” Buffy accepted that with some regret. Her head shot up again. “Wait a minute. You remember, in detail, everything else that happens, but you don’t remember where you were?”

“It was traumatic!” Anya protested. She perked up again. “But I remember that you pretty much beat Glory to a pulp with the troll hammer. And the Buffybot distracted Glory first with the Dagon’s Sphere. And-“

Anya continued on, oblivious to Buffy’s rising suspicion. Anya knew a lot about the ritual. The important stuff. What had gone wrong. But something was off.

Well, something had been off for a while. Anya wasn’t as prone to unexpected, blunt remarks, usually concerning sex, as she used to be. She never mentioned her vengeance demon days anymore, and Buffy hadn’t seen her kiss Xander even once. Maybe she’d changed in the future seven years.

Or maybe Willow had been right all along, and she was possessed. Maybe she was a demon determined to sabotage them, and had invented a plausible-sounding story so they’d be unprepared for the real deal. Maybe she was a spy for Glory, and was only biding her time before she took-

“Dawn!”

Anya stopped, puzzled. “What about Dawn?”

“Nothing,” Buffy said, thinking rapidly. “I’m just worried about her.”

Anya nodded vigorously. “You should go to her. She probably needs her big sister.”

The doubt rose in Buffy’s mind again. Because if Anya was possessed by an evil demon, why would she care about Dawn? Or her and Spike, for that matter?

Well, there was only one way to tell. “Yeah, I’m thinking that maybe we should get a pet or something. I hear they’re therapeutic in grief counseling.”

“A pet?” Anya raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

Buffy shrugged. “Just something cuddly for her to take care of. Maybe a cat, or a hamster…” She paused, as though she was thinking some more. “Ooh! Or a bunny!”

“Bunnies are cute,” Anya agreed.

Buffy’s heart was racing with fear for her sister. “You’re not Anya. Oh, my god. You’re not Anya at all.”

The-thing-that-wasn’t-Anya-at-all’s eyes widened. “Wait. Wait, Buffy, stop thinking! Now!” she said, clearly panicked. Her eyes darted to the ground, where they both could see a large stone. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this!” she said tearfully, grabbing it and smashing it towards Buffy’s skull.

Buffy dodged it easily with Slayer reflexes, and seized Anya’s wrist before she could try again. “What I don’t get is why you haven’t told Glory about Dawn yet,” she said, shaking her head. “Or are you just biding your time?” Another horrible thought occurred to her. “Is Spike working with you?”

“Of course not!” not-Anya said indignantly. “And I’m not working for Glory! I’m trying to stop her! If I wanted to help her, I would have let her find out about Dawn when she had her alone in the hospital!”

“But you’re not Anya!” Buffy repeated.

“Maybe I got over my fear of bunnies, huh?” Anya retorted, but Buffy’s brain was churning, thinking back to a thousand little slip-ups that “Anya” had made.

Anya, revealing herself two weeks before. “There was a guy who makes robots. We had him make one of m-Buffy!”

Anya, coming into the Magic Box two hours late one morning, walking into the training room before she suddenly remembered where she was supposed to be.

Anya, sounding unusually like a Scoobie sometimes. “Fine. I get it. You’re just going to stick to the talkage.”

Anya, not quite desperate for sex with Xander. “You know what? I really don’t feel like ‘going back to the apartment’ tonight. I’ll find somewhere else to go.”

Anya, understanding her better than anyone else seemed to. “This is Riley making you feel like you’re the villain. He’s been basically cheating on you, and then he turns it all back on you? If he can’t handle his own insecurities, then maybe he’s not what you need.”

Anya, coming to see her mother before she died. The mug of hot chocolate still on the kitchen counter when Buffy came home, the little marshmallows that Buffy had always loved barely melted at the top.

Anya, in a cozy scene with Spike, staring into his eyes…

In love with him…

“You’re in love with Spike, and all you do is push us together,” Buffy accused. “No one’s that selfless. You had to have gained something from it.”

Something like…Spike?

She saw the terror in not-Anya’s eyes an instant before she put the pieces together.

And then she knew.

--

There was no swirl of energy, no sudden shock to her system or speedy repeat of everything from her past. There was only an instant of horror before Buffy was unceremoniously thrown back to the future.