I own nothing. Sigh.
She's Back, And It's About Time -- Part II
Buffy frowned. “Wait a minute. Shouldn’t you remember what you told us? Back when you were me – this is confusing.”
“I know what you mean,” Anne grinned. “Tara told me English just isn’t set up right for talking about time travel. Not enough tenses, or something. She’s become an expert. Okay, let me try to remember how she explained it.”
Anne came back into the living room, and leant against the wall. She bit her lower lip, concentrating. “Time isn’t just a line. The past influences the future, but the future can influence the past too, in a way. Something’s gone wrong in my past. I can go back and change it – well, I hope I can. But because I wasn’t there the first time around, everything is different. My memories will change, but we think I’ll remember the way things were in both versions.” She blinked. “In fact, you guys might remember both versions, too. So I have to be careful not to give you too much information, because it might change everything in your future, and make it even worse.”
Giles nodded. “So, you think that if you were to alter your past – such as writing yourself a letter and placing it inside your diary – you would remember opening your diary many times without finding a letter, but if you were to go to your diary today, you would find it?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“How do you know you’re back at the right time, though?” Buffy asked. “How do you know that this is where things changed?”
Anne wrinkled her nose, frowning uneasily. “We’re not sure. We found a couple of disturbances in the timeline – well, Tara found them. The spell was calculated to make me follow the disturbances. Eddies in the space-time continuum.”
Buffy was mystified. “Oh, is he?”
Anne grinned. “Not that sort of Eddie. Sorry. Tara spent the last year studying this stuff, and she taught me a lot. I forget I know more than other people. Um. Think of time like a river. The disturbances are like large rocks. I threw myself in, and washed up on one of them. But we don’t know what happened, exactly. I should be able to tell when I see it, because I’m not from this time.”
Giles scratched his head, then yawned abruptly. Startled, he waved a hand apologetically in front of his mouth. “If nothing else, the knowledge that something bad is coming will assist us.”
Willow walked through the door and said cheerily, “Hi guys!” Tara followed, and waved a greeting at everyone.
Anne’s eyes widened, and a relieved, wistful smile grew on her face. She swiped surreptitiously at her eyes. Xander’s heart sank.
Willow and Tara did a near-simultaneous double take. “Wow, this is weird,” Willow noted.
“Nearly as weird as that Christmas where we were fourteen, and Principal Flutie dressed up as Santa, but got so drunk he sat on everybody else’s knee?” Xander asked eagerly.
Willow raised an eyebrow and said, deadpan, “Yes, Xander, that’s exactly what I was thinking of.” She stood awkwardly in front of Anne. “Um, hello.”
“Will, Tara, this is Anne,” Buffy said gently. “She does understand English, you know.”
“Barely,” Anne grinned. “No more than before.” She rose. “Do you mind if I-” Willow moved around the coffee table. Tara hung back uneasily, until Anne grabbed her hand, catching the two girls up in a three-way hug.
As they released, Tara winked at Xander. “Are we sure she’s not a robot?”
Xander spluttered. “Yes. That would be stupid.”
“Kind of like a bread sandwich?” Willow piped up suddenly. “Because that, that would be dumb,” she trailed off, when she noticed everyone’s looks.
Anne wobbled. Xander was by her side in an instant, putting an arm around her waist. “Are you all right?”
She lurched again, then focused on him, trying to smile. “Yeah. Sorry. The spell took a lot outta me. I just need some fresh air.”
Giles waved towards the doorway. “Xander, perhaps you could escort our guest outside. Buffy and I can explain to Tara and Willow.”
Xander nodded, and helped her outside.
They sat on the low bench. “You okay? You looked awfully green.”
“Some, thanks.”
They stared at the stars for a time, in companionable silence. Finally, Xander couldn’t take it any more.
“Willow, too?” he asked softly.
Anne grimaced. She took a deep breath, then told him quietly about the final battle, though she obviously left out a lot of painful details. She told him about finding Anya dead, and what it had done to him. About… not finding Willow at all.
“We didn’t know what had happened to her,” Anne said softly, a wealth of sorrow in her eyes. “Those bastards… they took her, Xander.” He put a hand on her arm, a mute expression of horror and comfort. “We tried to get her back, but we couldn’t. It was down to you, me and Tara at that point. Tara was weak. She was able to tell us where they were, but that was it. You and I went spying three or four times, but there were too damn many of them. We nearly didn’t come back, the last time.”
Xander asked reluctantly, “What did they do to her?”
“He – the leader wasn’t interested in ransoming her. The gang wasn’t interested in using her skills, or in using her to force us to do something. They weren’t interested in her as a person, at all.”
Silence.
“When, um, when did you find out what happened to her?”
“We were hiding in the woods. In a cave. A cave, Xander. The great Slayer was reduced to living in a cave, with a few supplies, sleeping on the ground,” Anne shook her head bitterly. “We thought we’d done such a good job of hiding. Covering our tracks.”
“But-?” Xander prompted gently.
“Late one night, I heard something outside. I crept out to see. It was Will, Xander. They’d left her in front of our damn cave, like they’d known where we were all the time and didn’t give a damn.” Anne dragged one hand over her eyes, trembling. “She was dead.”
“Oh, God,” Xander whispered, putting an arm around Anne, feeling the tears well up. He drew her into an embrace. She was stiff, resisting. His heart skipped a beat. He cupped a hand around her cheek, trying to get her to look at him. “What else?”
“Nothing,” she murmured, refusing to make eye contact.
“There’s something else. I know you too well, Buffy. What happened? What happened to Willow?”
Anne’s face crumpled. “She was naked.”
Xander shook his head slowly, reluctant to accept the implications.
It all came out. “You dragged me away from her – from the body. I couldn’t face it, y’know? I’m supposed to be the Slayer. I’m supposed to be the one who rescues people at the last minute, if not before. But I couldn’t help her. It was Will, Xander. Anya’s death was bad enough, but that was quick and painless, and this was Willow.” Her voice lingered over the last word.
They held each other then.
Anne said softly into his shoulder, “Tara woke up when I started screaming. Tara and I were total wrecks after that. Me, because I’m the one who saves people. The one who looks after everyone. Tara, well, that’s obvious.”
Xander asked, “What did I do?”
Anne moved back. “You?” A smile edged with pain crossed her face. “You were amazing. You forced us both back inside the cave, until we calmed down a little. You told me to look after Tara, because she needed me. Of course, you told Tara the same thing, but I didn’t know that at the time. Tara stopped me going over the edge. I knew I had to stay there, to stay – sane – for her sake.”
“And then what?” Xander massaged the back of his neck.
“You grabbed a shirt of mine, and a skirt of Tara’s. We nodded that you could take them. You cleaned her wounds, Xander, you dressed her, and you buried her. You didn’t come back for hours.”
Her voice trembled. “I don’t ever want to see that look on your face again. You looked like everything that was good had gone out of the world, and you were continuing to breathe only because it would be too much trouble to stop. Then you found us a new place. You organised supplies. You moved us.”
She paused. “You stayed sane for us. I got a little stupid for a while, and took some dumb risks, but you always brought me back.”
There was a knock on the door, from the inside. Willow pushed it open slowly, mindful of their privacy. “The coffee’s ready, if you want to come back in.”
“Okay,” Anne responded. Xander wiped his eyes quickly, then followed her inside.
Two steaming mugs sat on the coffee table, along with more biscuits. The others had their mugs in hand already. Anne picked up a mug, warming her hands gratefully.
A familiar voice said from the kitchen, “Rupert, what happened to the rest of the donuts that were on the counter?”
Anne looked up. “Miss… *Calendar*?!”
