PART THREE - SMALL TALK
Dreg peered into Glory's room. Seeing that it was empty, he picked up the dress Ben had dropped on the floor. Then he began to tidy things up a bit.
Jinx wandered into the room just as cautiously. Dreg ordered, "Find a suitable mortal for her Excellency's next meal."
"Yes, Dreg," Jinx answered before leaving the room.
Another of their kind entered. "Dreg, I have news concerning the transfer spell."
"Yes?" Dreg asked, slightly impatiently.
"It worked magnificently. Buffy is now in an alternate universe, and two vampires were taken there as well to keep her busy. Only a powerless mortal girl has been brought here. There is no way either girl will switch places again unless Glory wishes it."
"Good," Dreg said, smiling as he always did. "Continue your search for the Key. It should be easier to find now that the Slayer cannot protect it."
"Yes, sir." The demon left the room.
Dreg carried the dress over to the small dressing room connected to the bedroom. He picked up a hanger and put the dress on it when an arm reached around and grabbed him by the neck.
"Hello, Dreg," he heard Ben say. Dreg felt instant fear, although he tried to calm down. If Ben turned him around, he did not want to give the god satisfaction of seeing fear on Dreg's face. If he did, his future job as a courier between Ben and Glory would be fruitless, and Glory would have no more use for him.
"My lordship sounds displeased," Dreg said. "Perhaps there is something I may offer him?"
The razor-sharp blade of a knife pressed against his neck. "Yes, there is. Tell me how to reverse the transfer spell."
After attempting to talk to Buffy's friends and failing, Lara decided to try a different front. She recalled from her many conversations with Lyra what Giles' address was. Because she always watched every episode five times and had been to a few Buffy conventions, Lyra had managed to find out little facts like that. The problem was, Lara didn’t know where in the town of Sunnydale the street was, so it wasn't a very good option to have. She'd stop the car and buy a map if only she knew where to find a map. Asking for directions was out of the question, since most of the town seemed to be indoors. The only people still out at the moment would be the teenagers at the Bronze, people walking their dogs in the park, or the homeless. She recalled that Weatherly Park was a normal place to find vampires. Well, that and the graveyards. Lara figured it would be best if she avoided going to those places, or any other place if her run-in with those vampires earlier was any indication. This town is definitely dangerous. Why are people so oblivious to it?
She decided to find downtown and look for the Magic Box. Hopefully, Giles would still be there. If not, she'd at least know where to look the next morning.
She glanced at her watch as she sped towards the center of town. Her watch, as it turned out, was not broken. It was simply displaying the current time in her world. Over there, it was now eight thirty. She'd been in a television show for three hours now. No, not a television show. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is real here. But if so, where was the Slayer? Either she was out on patrol, or they switched places. Lara hoped it was the former, but anything was possible in this town.
She glanced at the storefronts as she drove by. She couldn't find it on this street. She turned the corner. At the end of this street, she found it. It was a blue building with a sign that said "Magic Box," just like in the TV show. Lara breathed in relief, and then saw the sign on the store right next door. It read 'A Sunnydale World: The Place to go for local and regional maps and for vacation planning.'
"Well, that's just convenient," she muttered as she parked the car and got out. Her eyes traveled back to the magic shop. Although the 'closed' sign was out, there was a light on inside. She said a quick prayer and walked up to the door. Hopefully, she wouldn't become a babbling idiot and Giles would listen to her.
She went to the door and knocked.
A few minutes later, she saw a dark shape behind the door. Giles, in his English accent, called out, "We're closed. Please come back tomorrow."
"Giles!" Lara called. Realizing that may be a bit too personal, she added hastily, "Mr. Giles! I need to talk to you. It's about something supernatural. Sort of like that incident with vamp Willow."
There was a pause, then a lock turned and the door opened. Rupert Giles leaned out. "Who are you and how much do you know?" he asked, his face set in an emotionless mask.
"Please, Mr. Giles," Lara said, "I'll explain it all if I could I come in?"
Giles pushed the door open even more and Lara stepped in. She looked around. The actually shop looked different than it did on a TV screen. It still had blue-painted walls, a wide staircase in the middle of the floor leading to the second level, and everything else she'd seen before on screen. It just looked less like a TV set and more like an actual store now.
"So," Giles began, gentler now. He must have notice how nervous she looked. "What is it that you want? And may I ask who you are?"
Lara turned back to him and held out her hand. "Lara McIntyre."
Giles shook it and seemed relieved. He must realize my body's warm, meaning I'm not a vampire. Although he's probably not impressed by the coat of sweat on my palm.
"Rupert-"
"-Giles. Yes, I know."
Giles looked at her curiously. "So, Ms. McIntyre," he said, indicating the table. They sat down. "What brings you here? And what is it that you wanted to tell me?"
"What brings me here?" Lara repeated. "I'm not sure, really. Because I'm not from this world."
She told him everything that had happened that afternoon, or evening, or whatever time it was. Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them several times in those few minutes. Used to seeing it every Tuesday night in her living room, it relieved Lara a little to see the habit again here.
"So you know me in that world?"
"Not exactly," Lara said, uncertain if she should tell him everything. She decided she'd better tell him some of it and continued, "But I know all about you. I also know all about Buffy being the Slayer, and Dawn being the Key, and Tara and Willow being a couple and witches, and Xander being a carpenter, and Anya being an ex-demon, although I've never met any of you personally in my world."
"And how could that be?" Giles asked, a little wide-eyed and excited. Lara remember that the last time he'd encountered someone from an alternate universe was vamp Willow in 'Doppelgangland,' which was too years ago, so it was no wonder that he would be excited by it now.
"Well…" Lara said, still uncertain if she should tell him. Finally she gave in and said, "You're one of the main characters-
" -on a TV show named Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Leon repeated. He, Buffy, and Jake were in the latter's car, driving toward Lyra's and Kristin's apartment complex. Jake had been unsuccessful in reaching Lara, and hoped to be able to reach her at their destination. He hoped she hadn't decided to drive herself to the restaurant and wait there for him, because even though he was concerned for her, he didn't want to let Buffy out of his sight. He felt that if he did, he'd be able to convince himself it was all a dream, so he clung to the only evidence he had. Well, not the only evidence. He could always look under Leon's car's hood again and see all the pressure the vampires had put on the engine. Or he could just look at the hood or the top of the car and see the dents. That was why they weren't in Leon's car.
In the back seat, Leon explained to Buffy for the tenth time, "You're played by Sarah Michelle Gellar. Spike is played by a human actor. He eats normal food and can go out in the sunlight without any special rings, Oracles who turn back time, or Mohra Demons. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show you star, is on every week. This last Tuesday's episode was when Dawn told you that Spike had a crush on you and then, later on in the episode, we saw Spike tie you and Dru up."
"How do you know all that?" Jake asked him. "You haven't even seen it."
"Lyra told me."
"And you thought that was entertainment?" Buffy said, the disbelief and disgust in her voice. "My life gives you thrills?"
Both Leon and Jake winced. Jake answered, "We didn't know it was real. We thought it was fake, that no one died because they were really actors who got paid to do that stuff and went on to play other roles on other shows afterwards. That was why we were entertained. Now we know that a world exists where Slayers and all the other things are real and it's starting to get scary."
They turned onto a highway and saw several police cars and other trucks parked everywhere. Two officers were telling traffic to turn around.
"What's going on?" Buffy wondered.
"It looks like a tree fell on the road," Leon answered. A few people were chopping the tree into several pieces, because it was too long to drag off the road intact. A car with a smashed-in hood sat not far away. Part of the tree still rested on top of the car's hood. An ambulance was nearby. Its medics were treating the survivors of the car wreck, but they didn't look like they were injured badly.
There were a few officers talking to pedestrians. From the looks of it, the pedestrians were recalling an outlandish story.
"Pull over," Buffy said. "This looks bad."
"Why?" Leon asked. "The tree was probably hit by lightning. We should just go down a different street."
"Just trust me," she insisted. "There's something about all this that is making my spidey-sense tingle." She considered her words and added, "Um, you have Spiderman in this world, right?"
"Right." Leon smiled. "The comic exists here."
Jake parked the car on the curb and they got out. They approached one of the witnesses an officer had just left. "Excuse me," Buffy asked, "but we're curious as to what happened. Could you tell us?"
"What's the use," the woman replied. "The cops already think I'm crazy. I'm already bound for a mental institution. Why feed the fire even more?"
"We won't judge you," Jake said honestly. Now that an entire world had opened up to him, he doubted there was very little he wouldn't believe. Well, he may be an X-Files fan, but he didn't really believe in aliens. He froze. Didn't Lara mention an alien appearing in a Buffy episode?
"Yeah," Leon agreed. "Just tell us what happened, please."
"All right," the woman said, resigned. "But you'll think I'm a raving lunatic when I'm done. I was out walking when that lightning storm started. Then, all of a sudden a bolt hit that tree over there. A few cars managed to swerve around it but that car over there didn't. Then one of the cars that had swerved out of its way began to glow. The light covered the entire car before it and the driver just disappeared."
"Disappeared?" Leon questioned.
"I told you that you'd think I was crazy."
"Did you see what car it was, or did you recognize the driver?" Buffy asked.
"I didn't recognize the driver, but she was about the same age as all of you, and she had brown hair and eyes." She told them the type of car it had been and then left them.
"That's the kind of car that Lara has," Jake stated, worried.
"You think it was her?" Leon asked.
"I hope not."
"The light show was what happened to me," Buffy added thoughtfully. She looked up at Jake and smiled reassuringly at him. "If that was Lara, she can find Giles and then she'll be safe."
Jake looked back at the wrecked car as the tree was removed from the hood and a tow truck was attached to the car. Buffy's comment did not reassure him as much as he would have liked.
PART FOUR - WORKING TOGETHER
Spike walked back to his crypt, saddened but determined to win Buffy's heart, no matter what it took. He didn't understand why she wouldn't except the fact that he loved her.
Suddenly, a waft of something horrible blew by his noise. Demon breath. Spike waved the air in front of his face. "Yuck. Hasn't anyone heard of breath mints?"
He turned to the smell and saw a demon appear from the bushes. She looked very human, with blonde hair and a green cotton shirt only covering her breasts and short leather skirt barely covering her underwear. The stench wasn't coming from her, but from the giant and ugly demon behind and to the left of her. "You, vampire," the woman said. "We're looking for a Buffy Summers. Do you know her?"
"What's it to you?" Spike asked.
"Well, if you don't cooperate, Johnny here will tie you to a cross and pour holy water on you every two hours. But if you do, I'm willing to give you lots of human blood."
"One thing," Spike said, "Why are you looking for her? Going to give her a gruesome death, because a lot of demons and mortals come here to do that and end up being the garbage."
"I don't want her," the woman answered. "I want the Key."
Lara wandered around the Magic Box, looking at and sometimes touching some of the objects on display. It was certainly different than seeing it on a TV screen. For one thing, she hadn't known that Giles kept a bowl of incense burning at all hours. She also hadn't known that the chairs around the table weren't too comfortable. She hadn't wondered into the back room yet, so she didn't know what differences she'd find there. Lara doubted if she would go back there. Giles kept glancing at her after he wrote every few lines in his journal. She doubted he wanted to let her out of his sight.
She glanced at her watch. She'd reset it to the time zone in this California. It turned out that this world was five hours ahead of hers. It was around eleven thirty here, while it was only six thirty in her world. Jake could be driving to my house to take me out on our Valentine's Day date, she thought, worried. She hoped, when he found her house was empty, that he wouldn't think she didn't love him anymore. Although it would be very hard to explain that she'd been transported into a world where the Hellmouth is real. Even now, Lara was still having trouble excepting it. So was Giles, if she could tell be his glances. He couldn’t believe that an American played him anymore than she was trying to accept the fact that this was not a dream. At least she knew she was doing better than she had earlier that evening.
She looked at her watch again. "Buffy and the others promised to come by here after they had a pleasant enough time at the Bronze," Giles had said around eleven. "They will be here shortly, I'm sure."
True to his words, the door opened a few minutes later. In walked Xander, Anya, Willow, and Tara, but there was no sign of Buffy, just like earlier.
"Hey, Giles," Willow said.
Xander looked at Lara. "We saw you at the Bronze. What are you doing here?"
"Where's Buffy?" Giles asked them.
"She didn't show up," Tara answered. They seemed worried with Lara included.
"When did you last see her?" Lara asked. Everyone looked at her and then at Giles, not sure if they should answer her question.
"What is she doing here?" Xander asked again.
"It's an interesting story, actually," Giles said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them for the tenth time in the past hour. He motioned to the table with his glasses. "If you'll have a seat?"
Anya, Tara, Willow, and Xander sat down, and Lara and Giles joined them. "Well, then," Giles said, "Um, Lara? Would you care to explain?"
Lara cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "Well, um…I'm not from this world."
Xander, Willow, and Tara stared at her. Anya, having made thousands of universes through the power of the wish, wasn't impressed. "What?" Xander asked.
"I'm from a different world," she rephrased. "I don't know any of you personally over there, but I know all about you."
"How?" Anya asked, now seeming intrigued.
"Well, in my world, you're…um, you're all characters from a TV show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
Everyone looked stunned except for Anya, who simply said, "Oh, that universe."
Spike glared at the woman sitting on his couch. Her demon pet was standing in a corner on guard.
They had decided to use his crypt as a place to crash. He'd already given them the Magic Box's address, so now he wanted to leave. Besides, Passions was about to come on. The annoying woman was sitting in his chair, flipping through his TV's channels. He'd tried to take the remote away from her, but a confrontation with her pet had stopped that attempt.
She stopped flipping through channels. "Haven't you got anything good on this piece of junk?"
Spike tried to keep his cool, but it was getting more difficult every second. "Shouldn't you be out looking for the Key?" he asked. They could be on the moon as far as Spike cared, just as long as they were away. He had no doubt that Buffy would kick their asses, anyway, and right now he was looking forward to it.
The woman glanced and titled her head, seeming to hear something no one else could. "You're right." She stood up. She nodded at the demon, who then came forward and headed toward the door. "There's someone I want to talk to first, but afterwards I'll go get the Key." She tossed the remote to Spike, who caught it on reflex. "By the way, you should get some new décor. This place will not attract any of your dates. If you happen to have any dates, that is. And if you find out who the Key is, be sure to let us know."
They left, slamming the door behind them. Spike threw the remote onto the chair. After a few minutes, he grabbed his coat and headed out, too. He really wanted to see them get creamed.
