Not Anywhere Specific but Everywhere at Once 

They were in a panic, but there was nothing they could do to stop it. 

Once they opened the book, once they preformed the spell, it was truly all down hill from there. Stupid book and its stupid rules, she thought, looking at her companion in dread. What had they done, what wrongness had happened that they now had no control over? It wasn’t supposed to be like this, nothing was supposed to be like this. 

But when the spell was spoken, it was too late; and the spell could only be spoken once. Once per person, that was the Rule. The Rule, the number one rule they…hadn’t bothered to read. Served them right, her companion noted with a huff that did little to mask her own dread. The two of them had been in such a rush to show they could do this, to show that it was possible for them to do this and that Pfft, it was a piece of cake, that…they’d fucked up and royally. 

What now, she wondered as they read the book over again, hoping for a…loophole or something. But, no, there were no loopholes in this book. This book was entirely too smart for that, unlike certain gypsy clans that shall remain nameless. 

We wait, her companion shrugged, gingerly peering over the rim of their looking pond at the scene below. And we hope for the best.
~~~~~~~~~~
Track A in Track B 

It was three days later that she returned. 

It would have been sooner, but her normally stellar sense of direction had deserted her and she had no idea where she was. 

Stupid foreign countries. Stupid past times with no signage and no maps. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She hated it, hated that she ran, that she came back, but most of all that her time away was filled with lessons she’d rather not have learned. 

Buffy had wandered the streets of London, lost, confused, dirty, and hungry. She’d lived off the food a kind stranger had offered her after Buffy had staked the pair of vamps trying to drain the elderly man. He let her stay the night with him, though he grumbled about the impropriety of it, then pointed her in the right direction of her townhouse. He hadn’t asked questions, and Buffy was eternally grateful for that. He also hadn’t offered any explanation for his own circumstances, and Buffy was grateful for that, too. 

She wasn’t in the mood for story-time. 

She left him once the sun rose, peering carefully out into the watery light of late spring London. Giles had told her once of summer in London, the muggy streets, the heat that rose from the pavement; already Buffy could feel that in the air and wondered what these people did before the invention of air conditioning. Was it already invented? She was so hopelessly out of touch with things like that. 

Leaving the kindly elderly gentleman with strict instructions not to venture out at night and to never invite anyone inside his home, Buffy headed in the direction he’d specified. 

Finding her way back to the section of town the old man mentioned – Buffy had no idea what it was called and didn’t care – she avoided the area she remembered the townhouse being, not yet ready to confront the vampire inside. She’d slept fitfully where and when she could during the next day, and the day after that, trying to block the dreams that plagued her, trying to block the knowledge that she’d left the one she loved. Buffy moved around often, knowing that once the sun set Angelus was bound to look for her. 

He did, Buffy knew he did. She wouldn’t have been surprised had he looked during the day, too, but she didn’t like him putting himself in danger during the sunlight hours. 

And she hid from him. She cried, feeling as if her heart was tearing out, and her world was crumbling. Was this how Angel felt when he left her last year? Was this what he went through? 

Buffy didn't know. But now she understood why Angel had left, why he’d run, in essence. He’d done so not because he hadn’t wanted his life with her – and she was a fool to ever believe that line – but because he didn’t want her life to be with him. With someone who couldn’t live in her world, even if he was a warrior like her. He wanted her to live, wanted her to experience things he never could with her, and if he was there, if he was always with her, then Buffy would place her life in jeopardy to protect his. 

Buffy realized that now, she realized a great many things now. The parallel of the last couple of days with the past year with Angel struck her hard, twisting her stomach into knots and making her mourn the past as she now knew it to be. 

All she knew, all these past three days had taught her, was that she couldn’t live without him. Not again, not ever again. Angelus was her rock, her world. She couldn’t live without him and she didn’t want to. So here she was, standing in front of the ornately carved door that led to the stolen house she and Angelus had shared with William and Drusilla. 

Darla was still out there, planning something Buffy knew, and was a threat to her the more she stayed on the streets. Buffy was under no illusions as to the power Darla did or didn’t hold, the strength. Buffy could easily take her. But Darla didn’t play fair and Buffy was certain that a trap was even now being laid for her demise. 

Ugh, she thought, how very Agatha Christie of her. She really had to stop hanging out with all things British; between Spike and Giles, her American lifestyle was slowly being supplanted with English-isms. 

And still she made no move to enter the dwelling. She had to go in; she couldn’t stand out there forever. And she couldn’t stand not being with him another moment longer. 

Yet all the reasons she’d literally run from him three days ago were still there. He was still a vampire, still killing, drinking, hunting. And she was still the Slayer, still hunting, staking, killing. With Angel there was the slim possibility they could live in each other’s worlds. With Angelus, there wasn’t. 

“Are you going to stand there all day?” A voice asked from an opened window Buffy hadn’t noticed before. The sun was still shinning on the front door, but the windows to the left of the house were cloaked in enough shadows that someone standing there wouldn’t be touched by the harmful rays. 

Buffy turned towards William’s voice. The cultured tones that were so at odds with the Spike she knew, that it’d taken some getting used to. “William,” she said, not knowing what else to say. There were a myriad of pointless questions she could ask. 

Was Angelus in there? Yes. Was he still angry? Yes. Was he waiting her return? Yes. 

“Are you going to stand there all day?” He asked again, amused this time with her lack of decision. The Buffy he knew was all Slayer: decisive, strong and single-minded. Now she seemed lost, broken, heartbroken. What a pair she and Angelus made. 

“No,” Buffy said and opened the door. “No, I’m not.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Track B in Track A 

Angel looked at the courtyard garden in silence. Elizabeth was inside, just inside the doors and waiting for him. 

She wasn’t going to come out to him, that he knew. No, she was going to force the decision on him, force him to decide one way or the other what he wanted to do. It wasn’t that simple and he longed to tell her that. Longed to tell her that he loved her, he just couldn’t be with her. That he wanted her, but couldn’t let Angelus free again. 

Angelus snorted. This was a Buffy that hadn’t yet proven herself to him. To them. And yet Angel was already mooning over her. But then, when she was tested, when he/they, Angel/Angelus did test her, it was going to be glorious. 

‘Such a pansy,’ the smooth Irish tones taunted him. ‘She has not yet been tested, though she has shown remarkable promise. Do you think I’d harm our greatest treasure?’ 

Angel remained silent, though the words both comforted and scared him. Angelus would never hurt Buffy; Angel knew that, not, at least, to the point of irrevocable harm and death. Elizabeth had not yet, according to his demon, proven herself as Buffy had. She hadn’t survived months of psychological torture by Angelus, only to emerge stronger; she hadn’t killed – or tried to kill – Faith to cure him of a poison that was slowly ravaging his body. She hadn’t offered herself to him, offering her body and blood to him to save him when all else failed. 

Angel didn’t care. The souled vampire didn’t care about that, because she had proven herself. She fought with both the Sunnydale and the LA gangs to spend time with him. She didn’t listen to anything anyone said to her about him or them. She fought and fought to get her way because it was what she wanted. Even though she didn’t know Willow and Xander, Wesley and Anya, she hadn’t listened to them; they, on the other hand, had been shocked, scared, and angry. 

Even Giles and Cordelia, whom she did know in her world, whom she loved and cared for, Elizabeth hadn’t listened to. Tara, who knew nothing of the full story behind Angel’s curse, had remained silent, not wanting to get involved between her girlfriend and her newfound friend. 

Buffy always listened to them; it was a part of their friendship. Angel realized that now, realized that no matter what she said or did, in the end her friends were a greater influence on her than he imagined a year ago. Oh, she fought for him, there was no mistaking that and he’d never accuse her otherwise. But she was…Angel didn’t know what he was looking for as he stood in the darkened garden. 

Buffy had always needed her friends as much as she needed him. She needed them because they claimed to support her slaying, they knew her secret and weren’t repulsed or disbelieving about it. She needed them because they all but forced her to see something that wasn’t slaying. Maybe more so after Angelus’ reign of terror. Elizabeth hadn’t ever experienced that, though her trials and life was certainly no walk in the park. 

It was pointless to compare the two, Angel realized as he continued to stand immobile. Buffy and Elizabeth were just two totally different women and he loved them both. But, he realized as he heard movement off to his side. He was desperately in love with Elizabeth. Enough to return to her even knowing the consequences; Angelus hadn’t exactly been silent with what he wanted to do to her. 

The thoughts of the demon’s paralleled the soul’s eerily. Completely. 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to go back inside, knowing that once he did, he’d have to break everything off with her. This was why he’d originally done so with Buffy. That stupid bullshit about a normal life was just his way of telling her how weak he was and how much he couldn’t keep his hands off her no matter how much control he tried to maintain. 

He took another step across the broken stone floor of the garden and again hesitated. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell her – Elizabeth, Buffy, Elizabeth – again that he wanted nothing to do with her. They both knew it was a big lie. 

“Are you going to go in there?” Spike asked from the shadows, blowing smoke into the night.

Angel continued to ignore him for another moment before asking, “What does it matter, Spike?”

“She’s miserable,” the younger vampire said with a grimace. A grieving, heartbroken, and pissed off Slayer was not someone to tangle with. 

“I know,” Angel whispered. He’d heard how she spent the last three nights staking everything that dared come across her path. The patrons at Willy’s were scared to venture even there, eyeing Angel with trepidation as they sat as far from the menacing vampire as they could. Willy grumbled about how Angel had to return to his girl before she destroyed all his business.

Angel had simply nursed the glass of blood Willy had provided him with – at no charge –and said nothing for the three days he’d occupied the same stool. Apparently, his relationship with Elizabeth was always destined to be common knowledge. 

“She loves you,” Spike tossed out, still waiting for a reaction from his GrandSire. This silent stone like image before him was, quite frankly, scaring the blonde vampire. “She’s miserable without you and you’re no better.”

“I know,” Angel said again, eyes still trained on the sliding glass doors that led to the Great Room. When had that been fixed? Hell, when had they been broken? But he distinctly remembered them being broken, Buffy and Faith flying out of them at each other’s throats. Had he done that, fixed them, after Buffy’s fight with Faith, when they tricked the other Slayer into revealing Wilkins’ plans? Or was it later, when he really thought they could make a go of their relationship? 

“If you know, then why are you here?” 

“Things between us,” Angel whispered and Spike wondered if he even knew to whom he was talking to. “Sometimes, they just don’t work.”

”Are you talking about your relationship with Buffy?” Spike asked, “Or Elizabeth?” 

“Yes,” Angel said. 

Spike sighed. This was worse than trying to get Dru to make sense when she had a vision. “Look. You love Buffy. I know that, she knows that,” at least he thought she did. “Hell, every demon in Southern California knows that! But this isn’t your Buffy. This is Elizabeth. Do you know the difference?” 

“Yes,” Angel said again, a growl rumbling from deep within his body. “I know all the differences.”

“And do you know that Elizabeth has never truly met Angelus?” Angel nodded, one short movement of his head. “And do you know that she knows all about him from books and stories?” Another jerky movement from Angel. “And you know that despite the consequences Elizabeth knows, the curse, Angelus, etc, etc, etc, so on and so forth ditto, ditto,” Spike continued as he eyes his GrandSire curiously, “That she still wants to be with you?”

“Yes,” Angel said, quietly, now. He cocked his head to the side as if listening to something. Or someone, Spike thought and wondered if the demon, if Angelus was talking to him now. What must that be like, the younger vampire wondered. What was it like to have two separate voices within you talking around and to each other? The ultimate split personality, he snickered but then sobered. 

Making fun of Angel – while always entertaining – could wait. For a little while, at least. 

“Then what’s the problem?” Spike snapped his fingers as if it just occurred to him. “Oh, I know. You’re afraid of losing your shiny soul and becoming the demon again. Well, boyo,” he said, tired of being the voice of reason. He just wasn’t good at it. “Listen to your demon. Take a look at what the demon did a coupla years ago and think about it. The demon never harmed Buffy, no matter what he did or said. He taunted and tricked and played with, but never harmed. Why? Why didn’t he? Why didn’t…you?” 

Angel knew why. Angelus wanted Buffy. But now…? With Elizabeth? There was a difference. 

“So,” Spike said though Angel hadn’t answered. “What does Angelus think of Elizabeth? The one who wants you even knowing what will happen? The one who needs you possibly more than Fluffy? The one who knows every single thing you did in the past and still looks at you with something approaching amazement. Loving amazement. She loves you, Angel. Loves you enough to take the chance and loves you enough to see that the demon is as much a part of you as the soul.” 

“How do you know all this, Spike?” Angel asked, still not looking at his GrandChilde. Spike said nothing Angel hadn’t already thought of before. But hearing it from Spike, hearing it from someone who didn’t like the soul and who wasn’t too sure about the demon anymore…it clicked something deep within the demon and soul, both. 

“I know. So get in there, ya big poof,” Spike grumbled, tired of all this drama. It was good to a point, but sometimes even he got tired of it. Especially when it led nowhere productive. Maybe he just needed to stir up the action a little, he grinned, blue eyes twinkling with plans. “You love her, she loves you, what’s the problem here?”

“You know the problem, Spike,” Angel said in a tired voice. 

Spike knew all too well but didn’t care. He’d just spent the past three days trying to console the upset Slayer – his already tattered reputation was ruined – and keeping up with her during her ‘patrols’ as she called them. Massacres was what he called them, but, hey, to each his own. Cordelia was equally helpless in comforting Elizabeth, though there was a night of ice cream and crying and…bonding that Spike was only too happy to have missed. 

He idly wondered if there’d been nakedness between the girls, but decided that even the thought of that wasn’t enough to stay in the mansion with the distraught Slayer. 

“Is that the problem, Angel?” Spike stepped into the light cast from the house, forcing Angel’s eyes onto him. “Is that what you’re really afraid of? Or are you afraid to take the chance with her? Afraid that things won’t work out and that idea you’ve got in your head,” Spike tapped the side of his own head, “Is only fantasy?” 

Angel said nothing, so Spike continued. “Afraid that if you did work things out, then it’d only be a shadow of what you always thought you wanted?” 

“Go away, Spike,” Angel told him, eyes dismissing him to refocus on the doors. He could sense Cordelia within as well, and Wesley. Maybe they were working on a case? Had Cordelia received a vision? Did they need his help? Was it even for Sunnydale; did the Powers transfer visions to wherever their Seer was? 

He’d been neglecting that, too, Angel realized, neglecting his mission in LA…all for a girl. His girl, his woman, his Mate. 

“Take the chance, Angel. I know what’s inside of you,” Spike said, his voice dropping, “And I know you want to. The Angel I knew, the one I looked up to, the one I hunted and caroused with all those years ago, would never have let fear cloud his vision. He’d have taken what he wanted no matter what, because it was what he wanted.” 

Spike did depart then, turning into the night to leave the drama to those crazy kids. Maybe he should have offered the same chance to the Seer; no, then he’d just have to listen to the Watcher, and Spike couldn’t abide the stuffy Brit. It gave them all bad names. 

Angel stood outside for another long moment, weighing Spike’s words with what he wanted – Elizabeth and only her – with what he knew to be right. Not true, but right. The ‘right’ thing to do, the ‘expected’ thing to do. The thing others wanted them to do.

Fuck that. 

Spike was right, though it pained Angel to admit that. As was Angelus, which caused his demon to crow in glory. Elizabeth was his – theirs – and it was time to claim her.
~~~~~~~~~~
Track B in Track A 

Dru looked at the letter her Spike had penned once more. 

The developments were interesting to say the least; a Slayer that wasn’t theirs, was that what Miss Edith meant? And her daddy, her daddy loved this one just as he had the other mean one. 

But this Slayer was different, Miss Edith had said so. This Slayer was the one to change everything, she was the one the stars feared and the earth trembled at. 

The train stopped in St. Louis but Dru stayed put, not wanting to hunt and waste more time. She was headed for Sunnydale and her Spike. And her new family.
~~~~~~~~~~
Track B in Track A 

Willow looked at her computer screen with blurry eyes. 

Between school, keeping up appearances with her classes and teachers, researching the latest bad to prey on the Hellmouth, and how to send this imposter back to wherever the hell she came from, the redhead was exhausted. Tara was a huge help, but she seemed to have befriended the imposter and Willow hated that. Her girlfriend insisted it was no reflection on Buffy, that Elizabeth was and was not her, and she was just as lost here as Willow felt without her best friend. 

Tara also reminded Willow that Buffy was with the Giles and Cordelia in that universe and they wouldn’t shun her just because she wasn’t their Elizabeth. 

It grated, and Willow admitted Tara was right, but she still couldn’t work up the will to talk with the imposter. Of course the first step was probably calling her ‘Elizabeth’ and not ‘the imposter’, but hey, whatever. 

Their first attempt at a spell, the one Giles found within days of Elizabeth’s arrival, went nowhere; it wasn’t made for trans-dimensional travel. The spell, strangely called Bring It Back, was more for finding lost things in various places than it was for finding and returning Slayers wrongly and somehow misplaced in another world. It’d taken them weeks to find the new spell, the one they were currently trying to find the last ingredient; a Light made from a Blue Ox Horn. 

This Blue Ox thing was bothering her. She could find only one reference to it, and that was to Babe, the Big Blue Ox of Paul Bunyan fame. Willow doubted that legend was true, but had dutifully contacted a Coven in Alaska Giles knew about. She was still waiting for them to- 

Her email beeped and Willow wondered if it was the Coven or just wishful thinking that the moment she was thinking of them, they emailed her…they had. Wow, talk about coincidences. 

Paul Bunyan was real, a giant who wanted to see what the human world was like, and who spawned a legend as big as he. But he was not in Alaska any longer. They didn’t know where to find him but they did know where to find Babe, the Big Blue Ox; and where one was, the other was sure to follow.

Willow looked at the screen incredulously and just shook her head. Life on the Hellmouth was anything but dull and Willow wondered if a week would go by without something so bizarre happening to them.

Quickly thanking the Coven and looking up the address they’d provided, Willow went to inform Giles they had a way to send Elizabeth back to where she came from, and get their Buffy back.
~~~~~~~~~~
Track B in Track A 

Cordelia slowly hung up the phone and waited a moment before turning to Wesley. 

This was it then, the moment they were all more or less waiting for. Well, the others were waiting; Cordelia was…not. She liked this Elizabeth; the other woman was funny and smart, not afraid to say what was on her mind, and didn’t take anything from anyone. Her kind of woman. Plus, Elizabeth already claimed that she and the Slayer were friends. 

Cordelia liked that, liked knowing she had that with someone, that she wasn’t the one left out, the extra; that she was an intragal part of the something bigger she always envied. That she had with Elizabeth what she had with Angel, only on a much larger scale. Liked knowing that she truly did have a best friend, in the most basic and truest sense of the word. 

Angel had entered the house barely an hour ago, silently leading Elizabeth up to their room. Spike was someplace outside, or was, but didn’t want to tell him this news just yet. Clearing her throat, she looked up at Wes. 

“Willow found a way to get Elizabeth back to her world and Buffy back here.” 

Wesley stared at her in dull surprise. He’d known the redhead was determined to find a way, but thought the chances of finding this fabled blue ox slim to none. He’d been wrong. Eyes automatically moving to the ceiling that separated them from Angel and Elizabeth, Wes wondered if this was for the best. If Elizabeth leaving was the best thing to happen to Angel. 

Vaguely, Wesley wondered why he wasn’t helping more with the research, with sending Elizabeth back to where she belonged and bringing Buffy back here. Where she belonged. Because, he admitted as his eyes fell away from the ceiling, he wasn’t at all sure that Buffy belonged here and Elizabeth there. If so, then why the switch? 

It was a question Wes hadn’t brought up to anyone, and doubted the reception if he should. 

But if Elizabeth stayed, then everyone’s fear of Angelus returning would no doubt be realized. Still, he found the woman engaging, intelligent, and impressive. Not unlike her counterpart here, but different in ways he’d never have thought of previously. 

“When?” He finally asked, saddened but accepting eyes sliding back to Cordelia. 

“A week,” she said, holding herself straight against the not unexpected pain of losing someone who’d become such a good friend to her. “The ox is in Peru those mountains there-” 

“The Andes?” Wes interrupted and Cordelia gave a curt nod and shrug. 

“The owner won’t send the ox any other way than walking – don’t ask, I didn’t bother – and is only willing to go to the Mexican boarder. Something about conspicuousness or something.” 

“And the owner knows what we intend to do with the horn?” Wes asked incredulous. He doubted very much that if they mysterious owner insisted on bringing the animal himself, then he had any idea what they intended to do with his horn. 

Again, Cordelia shrugged. “I guess, Willow said this owner said something about not really needing the horn; he apparently knew which spell they were talking about.” 

“Ah,” Wes said and looked upwards again. “Well, then I guess one of us should tell them, eh?” 

Cordelia nodded in agreement but didn’t budge. “Sure, go on.” At his look she smiled, it was strained and saddened and totally false. “What? You know more about the spell than I do!” 

“Right,” he cleared his throat. “Well then,” he swallowed. 

Picking up his wallet and keys, he asked, “Want some dinner first?” 

Relieved, Cordelia nodded and followed him out. 

“We can always have Spike do it later,” she reasoned with a smile as they left.
~~~~~~~~~~
Track A in Track B 

Darla watched the townhouse from across the street. 

She knew the Slayer had left several days ago and was now returning. Knew that Angelus had searched for her for those days and had been in such a rage that Darla wondered at that and questioned his sanity. She’d seen him angry, angry beyond belief in their nearly hundred and fifty years together. This was different. This was more. This was bordering on crazy obsession and franticness. 

Scowling, she cursed Buffy beneath her breath. 

A month ago things had been perfect. Darla had her lover, her favorite, and her family. She had it all, prey, fine things, and a vampire who knew just what she liked, in and out of bed. That bitch Slayer had ruined it all and Darla wasn’t about to let Buffy get away with that. 

Her own Sire was already on his way here, intrigued by her letter asking for help. The Master would see that Angelus was properly punished as soon as Darla destroyed the Slayer. Pah, like a tiny girl such as she could possibly match over three hundred years of strength and experience. 

That little girl had no idea what she had got herself into when she enticed Angelus into her bed. Darla was about to show her otherwise. And her darling Angelus was going to suffer the consequences as well. 

No one turned Darla out. No one.

Part 14        A href="WWC16.html">Part 16

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