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Meanwhile, Back at the Hellmouth..... by slaymesoftly
 
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AN: This fic is part of an ongoing series that begins with Prologue to Life/I Know You. It’s in response to a request at the fundraiser for Spikeslovebite that we look in on the Spike and Buffy of the alternate Sunnydale dimension to see how things are going there for “our” (more or less canon) Spike and Buffy. Other fics in the series are I Know You II, Knowing and Watching, and Pop Goes the Weasel” All of which are set in the alternate dimension of Winterset and revolve around the Spike and Buffy sent there to make room in this early version of Sunnydale.   Summary of events up until now (feel free to skip if you don’t need or want a summary): The Prologue is a short, just-post Chosen ficlet that sets the stage for future Buffy and Spike in I Know You, in which, a good bit of time later, post Chosen Buffy is still grief-stricken over Spike’s “death” in the Hellmouth and Dawn, Giles, and Willow are worried about her and want to cheer her up. Willow figures a spell is the way to go... with predictable results....  “Our” Buffy finds herself back in her sixteen-year-old body in season two Sunnydale. She tries to adjust, and when season two Spike appears, he finds a very different slayer waiting for him.  Much drama and sex later, after “our” Spike has “died” again in the battle of NFA, he is given the choice of going to a version of Heaven or being returned to “his” Buffy in Sunnydale.  Not a difficult choice for him and the story ends with our Spike and Buffy happily together again, but in a world in which most of the events they’ve already lived through have yet to take place. .   The rest of the fics in the series have followed Winterset’s Spike and Buffy as they adjust to life in a very different sort of world where they develop their own relationship that includes falling in love and fighting evil. Dawn has discovered she has the ability to go back and forth between the three dimensions, and she is the only way they can communicate with each other. This story takes us back to Sunnydale to see what “our” Spike and Buffy have been up to there.... 


Meanwhile, Back at the Hellmouth....
 
We begin with the last few lines from Pop Goes the Weasel – in which we left Winterset’s Spike and Buffy too busy to notice they had received a note from “our” Spike and Buffy.
 
“ Well, this delectable body might have somethin’ to do with it….” He pushed himself up on his arms and gazed down at her.  “Might have a whole lot to do with it now that I think about it….”
 
“Prove it,” she challenged.
 
“Oh, you’re on, Slayer.  Hang on to your hat.”
 
“Rather hang on to you,” she said as he skimmed out of his clothes and pressed himself against her.
 
“That works too.”
 
They never heard the tiny pop that was the note from Sunnydale’s Buffy appearing on the kitchen table.
 
 
~~~~~~~Back in Sunnydale.....
 
 
“So, where’s the answer? I thought you took the note yesterday?”
 
Dawn rolled her eyes. “Contrary to what you guys seem to think, I have other things to do besides pop in and out of dimensions delivering messages. It wasn’t anything important, so I—”
 
“Not important!  What do you mean, not important!” Behind Buffy’s back, Spike was making throat-cutting gestures at Dawn and shaking his head vigorously. When Buffy whirled to glare at him, he adopted an air of innocence that did nothing to fool her. “Don’t you think it’s important?” The look on her face had him sending a quick glance around the room to be sure there were no pointy wooden objects close by.
 
“Of course, I think it’s important, love. How can you doubt it? Took you out for a romantic dinner, got down on one knee, gave you a ring... Didn’t I do it up right when I asked you to marry me? How can you doubt how important it is to me?”
 
“Well, you aren’t being very supportive about it,” she muttered. “Every time I try to ask you something important, like... like what color the tablecloths should be, you go running off on some stupid errand. I don’t think you really care if we have a nice wedding or not.” She crossed her arms and tapped her foot as she waited for him to defend himself. 
 
Spike took a deep breath and stepped close enough to put his arms around her unyielding body. Ignoring her frown, he held her close and nibbled on her neck before taking her earlobe in his teeth and biting it gently. His grip tightened as he spoke, ignoring Dawn’s presence.
 
“Buffy, Slayer, love of my life, I don’t care what color the tablecloths are. I don’t care about anything except that the woman I would have been happy to get a crumb from is willing to marry me.  That you said yes when I asked you to be mine in the eyes of the whole bloody world – not to mention two other worlds....  that means more to me than any trappings that go with making that happen. And I know this is important to you, and that you want to be all girlie and bride-like about it, but you have to know, the most important thing to me is that we’re going to be married. Anything else is icing on the cake.  Don’t bloody care what color the icing is, or who else is there to eat cake. All I care about is you.”
 
He kept his grip on her arms until she nudged his chin with her head. “Are you holding me because you love me, or because you think if you let go I might beat you to a pulp?”
 
“Bit of both,” he admitted, smiling down at her in what he hoped was an appealing fashion.  “Just don’t want you brassing off your sister over something we’ve got plenty of time to sort out”
 
“I’m turning into a bridezilla, aren’t I?” she said, sighing and relaxing against his chest. She remained there for several minutes while he murmured in her ear and left kisses all over her face. Finally she exhaled and pushed him away. Turning to Dawn, who had begun clearing her throat impatiently, she smiled.  “I’m sorry, Dawnie.  Of course there’s no rush. All I did was ask them to save the date and tell them the invitation would be there later.”
 
“No problem,” Dawn replied, giving Spike a grateful smile.  “I’ll let you know as soon as we get a reply.  I’m sure they’ll be all excited for you.”
 
“I wish they could step out of those bubbles,” Buffy said. “How awesome would it be to have myself as my maid of honor?”
 
“Hey! I’m your maid of honor!”
 
“Of course, you are,” Buffy soothed, backtracking quickly. “I was just saying...”
 
“You were just saying you’d rather hog all the attention. I’m leaving now. Tell Mom I said hi.” Dawn tossed her hair back, waved at Spike, and stepped into her waiting portal.  In the time since she’d first learned how to travel between dimensions, she’d perfected her ability until she could pretty much come and go as she pleased.  She no longer needed her blood to open the portals; now she just spit on the ground where she wanted one to open.
 
Buffy watched it wink out of sight and sighed heavily. 

“Well, that didn’t go the way I planned it to....”
 
“She’ll be alright, love. I imagine it’s a bit of stretch even for Niblet to be bouncing back and forth tryin’ to help plan a wedding.”
 
“For a bridezilla,” Buffy said, giving him a look clearly meant to elicit a denial. Being Spike, he ignored her hint to lie.
 
“Doesn’t help, that.”
 
Her eyes narrowed.
 
“You’re supposed to tell me how impressed you are with how well I’m handling all this stress.”
 
“Buffy... sweetheart... darling girl....” He sighed and shook his head.  “There is no stress except what you’re creating by wanting everything to be so perfect.  You’d think it was your bloody first Thanksgiving dinner or something!”
 
“My wha—? Oh. It went so well this time around, I forgot you were there for that disaster.” 
 
“Was. Tied up nicely in a chair, as I recall.  While you ran around smashing potatoes and making pies and bears.”
 
“Don’t remind me.” She shuddered. “It was awful! Xander with his syphilis, you showing up wanting me to help you because Harmony threw you out. Stupid Indians and their stupid curses and magic, bear-making knives...”
 
He put his arms around her again and pulled her into a tight hug.  “And you handled it all. Killed the bear, got rid of the curses, and still put a right nice meal on the table. If you could handle all that, I’ve got complete faith in your ability to handle this wedding. It will be perfect... or near enough to that nobody but you will know.”
 
“You know you’ve probably just jinxed the whole thing, right? Whatever goes wrong will be all your fault!”
 
“Never doubted that for a minute,” he said, bouncing away from her indignant attempt to hit him and laughing at her. Buffy did her best to remain angry, but the adoration in his eyes and the grin on his face made it difficult.
 
“Just so you hold that thought,” she said in a face-saving grumble.  “Let’s go find some vampires for me to work out my stress on. Otherwise it might be you.”
 
“One stress-relieving slaying, coming right up,” he agreed, grabbing his coat off a chair and walking to the weapons chest. He opened it and surveyed the contents. “What’s your pleasure, love?” He gestured at the assortment of stakes and swords.
 
She frowned into the chest and thought.
 
“Stakes, of course. But probably swords too? Or maybe a rocket launcher?”
 
The reminder that in spite of Buffy’s knowledge about the Initiative, and Giles and the Council’s ability to bring it to the attention of the US Government, the operation had not been shut down yet, and that they hadn’t been able to prevent Adam from becoming viable brought a growl from Spike.  Without her relationship with Riley—and hadn’t that been fun, trying to be friendly enough to get Riley to trust her, without making Spike so jealous he got himself captured while stalking them everywhere they went—Buffy hadn’t had enough access to the Initiative facility to interfere with Adam’s creation.  As a result, evening patrols were just as apt to encounter hard-to-kill cyborgs as they were vampires or demons. 
 
So far, those they ran into were usually alone and not as invulnerable as Buffy knew Adam to be, but they still required something stronger than a stake to their non-existent hearts.  Spike laughed, but left the one-shot weapon in the box and handed Buffy a sword.
 
“Long as we can lop the head off, we can slow them down enough to take out the power supply.”
 
Buffy nodded and put the sword in its harness on her back.  “Yeah, I know. But fighting these guys every night – not to mention all the vampire and demons minions he’s collecting – is putting a serious crimp in my wedding preparation time.  If the Council doesn’t light a fire under the Army pretty soon, we’re going to have to go after Adam ourselves.”
 
~~~~~~~~~~
 
Adam’s continued successful attempts to increase the size of his army eventually made it imperative that Buffy take Riley into her confidence – at least insofar as what she knew about Adam was concerned. But only when some of their friends had been turned into minor cyborgs, had Buffy felt comfortable bringing Riley and Graham to a Scooby meeting where Giles could tell them what they knew about the organization and what could happen if the lab wasn’t shut down quickly. Their refusal to tell the soldiers exactly how Buffy knew so much about them wasn’t going over well.
 
“Let me get this straight... you are something called ‘the Slayer’, and because of that, you know all this stuff about our... projects?”  Riley was dividing his attention between Buffy and the man leaning against the wall in the back of the shop. The man who never took his eyes off Riley, except to glare at Graham occasionally. There was something about that cold stare that made hairs on Riley’s neck stand up.
 
“I’m sorry, Buffy. I mean, I’ve seen you in action. I know you’re not the average Sunnydale U coed, but I truly don’t see how in hell you could know anything about what’s going on in our labs—” A full-throated snarl from the “man” against the wall had both Riley and Graham reaching for their guns.
 
“We both know more about your torture chambers than you can imagine,” Spike said, pushing off the wall and stalking toward them. “So shut your trap and listen to the woman who’s trying to clean up your mistakes.”
 
Buffy had gotten between Spike and Riley as soon as she heard the snarl, putting a hand on his chest and halting his progress toward the two men just realizing what he was.  “Not helping, Spike,” she said. “Now I have to explain you.”
 
“Explaining why somebody who calls herself a ‘vampire slayer’ has one in her little gang of vigilantes might be a good thing right about now,” Riley said, having replaced his gun with a stake. “Is there a reason why I shouldn’t stake him?”
 
“Because I won’t let you,” Buffy said, simultaneously with Spike’s “Bring it on, Captain America. I’m not so toothless now.”
 
The standoff was interrupted by the loud pop that always announced Dawn’s arrival. While Riley and Graham gaped at the girl who had just appeared in their midst, Buffy rolled her eyes and Giles groaned.
 
“Oops?”  Dawn noticed the two strangers and gave Buffy an apologetic shrug. “Sorry?”
 
“No worries, Bit,” Spike said, giving her his usual greeting hug as she stepped out of the portal. “You probably just kept the toy soldier from having his head ripped off.”
 
“Hi, and ewwwww!” She looked around at the still gawking soldiers.  “Riley? Hey! How are you?”
 
“D... do I know you?” Riley shook his head, absently filing away the information that only he and Graham seemed surprised to see someone arrive in a bubble that disappeared when she waved her hand.
 
“Oh – well, no... I guess you don’t. But you will... or maybe not,” she added, remembering that Buffy was very much with Spike in this dimension.  She sighed and looked at Buffy. “Is this not a good time?”
 
Giles answered for Buffy. “I suppose, given that it seems we’re going to need to provide more of an explanation than what we had hoped to get away with, the arrival – in such unusual fashion – of someone who can vouch for what we’re going to share, has to be considered a beneficial surprise.” He turned to Riley and Graham. “Gentlemen, this is Buffy’s younger sister, Dawn. Please sit down and keep your minds open to what you are going to hear.”
 
Sending suspicious glares at Spike, who at Buffy’s urging had retreated to his place against the wall and was talking to Dawn in low tones, they reluctantly pulled out chairs and sat. They were careful to remain closer to the door than anyone else in the room, but when everyone except Spike and Dawn had found a chair around the table, they gradually relaxed.
 
“So, what don’t we know?” Graham tried to take over from a still shocked Riley, and addressed his question to both Buffy and Giles.
 
Buffy waved her hand at Giles. “You tell them. You can use big words and make it sound all scientific and stuff.”
 
Giles nodded. “I’ll do my best.” He focused on the two men looking at him expectantly.  “You do understand what Buffy is, do you not?” They nodded uncertainly.
 
“She has some kind of enhancements that make her stronger than normal girls. So, she hunts vampires and demons, just like we do. She’s a demon hunter – or vampire slayer, I guess.”
 
“Well, that is her title, but the job is a bit more complicated than that. She is, for want of a better term, the world’s protector. Not only is she charged with slaying vampires and demons—”
 
 “Evil demons!” Buffy interrupted.
 
“—evil demons, but she also thwarts attempts to take over or end the world – regardless of the source of those attempts. For whatever reason, no doubt related to the Hellmouth...” He waited for them to acknowledge their familiarity with Sunnydale’s least popular tourist attraction. “... some sort of potential world-ending event seems to occur every spring. We refer to them as apocalypses – and Buffy has become quite expert at preventing them.”
 
“How ‘expert’ can someone who is younger than we are be?” Clear disbelief was on both faces.
 
There were groans all around the table, while Spike and Dawn snickered from their place in the back.
 
“See,” Buffy said. “Here’s where it gets really... really weird.”
 
Riley gave a cynical smile. “Are you planning to tell us that you’re really a hundred-year-woman in a nineteen-year-old body?”
 
Buffy cocked her head at him, her demeanor changing until, in spite of the youthfulness of her face, it was obvious she was not a teenager.
 
“No. I’m not a hundred – and I doubt I ever will be.  That kind of lifespan doesn’t come with my job description—“ She paused to smile at Spike who had muttered a protest. “Although I’m doing way better than most slayers, thanks partly to all the help I’ve had.” She waved her hand around the room, including not only Giles, but everyone, including Spike and Dawn.
 
“What I am,” she continued, pulling their attention back on her, “is the Buffy who lives—lived in Sunnydale in a different dimension from this one. A dimension in which it’s already 20...”
 
She raised an eyebrow at Dawn who responded, “2006. I don’t know why you can’t remember that....”
 
“2006,” Buffy said. “So, the me that I am...inside... is a lot older and has already lived through three apocalypses here, four more there... and had people I care about die in one more somewhere else.” She glanced at Spike briefly, smiling when he waved.
 
“And we’re supposed to believe that?”
 
Buffy heaved a sigh and began to describe to them as much as she could remember of layout of the Initiative, Lowell House and it’s secret entrance, Adam and his cyborg assistants, and his plan to dominate the world and fill it with his own creations. She paused only long enough to take a deep breath and then told Riley some personal things about himself that the Buffy he thought he knew could not possibly have known.
 
“You both watched Dawn come through the portal. That’s how she goes back and forth between here and the dimension I... left.”
 
“You’re from another dimension too?” They both looked at Dawn who had approached the table when she heard her name.
 
“Yep. When Buffy disappeared, it took us a long time to find out where she’d gone, and then when we found her, we didn’t know how to bring her back. Turned out I have some... skills... that allow me to hop through dimensions. So, I lost my sister in my world, but I can visit her whenever I want to here.  Works out okay – except that I can’t borrow her clothes anymore.”
 
“You couldn’t borrow my clothes anyway, you freak of nature,” Buffy muttered at her now much taller sister. Dawn just stuck out her tongue and sat in one of the chairs.
 
“I don’t understand how you know all that stuff...” Riley shook his head in disbelief, while Graham nodded.  “Not just the stuff about the Initiative, which is supposed to be top, top secret, but about me. How do you know all that stuff about me?”
 
Buffy bit her lip and glanced at Spike who was staring at them with a carefully blank expression on his face. She turned back to Riley and blushed as she said, “In the other Sunnydale, the one where it’s much later than this, we were... together... for a while. Like boyfriend/girlfriend together.”
 
He perked up and smiled at her. “Well, that’s encouraging. It’s not like I haven’t been trying to get you to go out with me. What did I do differently in your... world?”  He choked out the word and shrugged. “Sorry. I’m still trying to wrap my brain about that whole idea of another dimension.”
 
“Actually, there are three dimensions – that we know of right now.” Dawn grinned at Riley when he gawked at her.
 
“Three?”
 
“Well, yeah. But one of them isn’t much like here. It’s kind of the anti-Sunnydale. It’s where the Buffy and Spike from this dimension got sent when my Spike and Buffy got put here.”
 
Riley rubbed his temples and frowned. “So, every dimension has it’s own Buffy... and....” He waved his hand at Spike.
 
“No.” Dawn’s face fell. “My world doesn’t have either one of them anymore. Spike was dust, and Buffy just got whisked away to here. I can only talk to them when I visit. Same thing for the other Spike and Buffy. Although they don’t care as much, because they didn’t know me until I showed up in their front yard....”
 
“I’m sure there’s an explanation for that, and I’m also sure my brain probably couldn’t take it just now.” He smiled at Dawn to show he wasn’t dismissing her, but then turned back to Buffy.  “Same question, though. If we were together in your world, why aren’t we dating now? What’s different?”
 
Buffy met his hopeful eyes firmly and said, “I am. And Spike is.”
 
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