TITLE: Strange Places 2/6
AUTHOR: Jaydn Michelle
DISCLAIMERS: The characters of Buffy, Giles, Ethan and co. is the property
of Joss Whedon - only borrowing them.
"Anyanka, tell them about the alternate realities," Buffy Summers. "Oh, okay, say you want to live in a world without shrimp…" Anyanka. - "Superstar".
Buffy couldn't see his face but the vampire shadowed her every move. Block, parry, thrust; the cramp in her side screaming that this one was old, powerful. The world was laced in shadows of grey, the pigmentation in his eyes showed red rather than gold…a Master then. Dimly she was aware that there was fighting in the background, but it was like swimming underwater, she couldn't see his face.
But Buffy felt the moment that her balance swayed and he exploited it ruthlessly.
The vampire Master spun her, arms like steel bands as he pulled her tight to his chest. His breath rancid - blood, damp earth - and in the moment before death there was naught but peace in her heart, that finally, it had come to an end.
He snapped her neck like dry kindling…
**********************
CLEVELAND
…Buffy awoke fighting, sheets tangled around her legs as she kicked outward, her heart skipping like a trip-hammer. It was hot in the little room, the back door wide open with the fly-wire snipped shut. Some nameless motel in a nameless part of town. A digital clocked winked at her, flashing 22:10 repeatedly, and every curtain was drawn.
She shifted, lying semi-naked, and then padded to the fridge, eyes squinting against the light as she opened the door. Cold pizza, two beers, and a slice of cheese older than herself. She took the alcohol and closed the door disgustedly, twisting the cap off the beer she flicked it over her shoulder; Buffy really hated it when she died in her dreams.
But it hadn't seemed like a dream, it had seemed…real…Buffy could *feel* the dry flesh of the Masters' hand as he wrapped it around her chin, the quick jerk… Like a memory, or a premonition of something that should have occurred and hadn't. The Slayer took a long swallow and put the beer down, peeling off what was left of her clothing as she headed for the shower; accompanied by a stray thought that she ought to check in with Mark, her Watcher.
She took the shower cold and dried herself briskly, pulling on cargo pants and a singlet. Opening the bathroom door she took two steps and froze, staring into the features of a twelve-year-old boy.
He sat perched on the kitchen counter, sipping the last of her beer, and even if he wasn't a ghoul or goblin, Buffy could have killed him for that alone. The cramp in her side almost doubled her over.
The boy smiled cheerfully: "I'm not what you think I am."
And he wouldn't be, would he, because Buffy wasn't in the habit of inviting in twelve-year-olds, no matter how crazy the solitude and fighting made her. "What are you?"
"Enemy. Friend. Occasional lover."
Buffy stared at his four foot four frame: "You don't look my type."
"I didn't say I was yours," the boy tilted his head and then morphed, side-burns halfway down his jaw and hair in spiky disarray. "How's this?"
She had a stake in hand instantly, and even though Buffy knew he wasn't a vampire, she was twice as determined to kill the blasted thing. That it had selected Pike's features, her ex-boyfriend from Hemery, only made it easier, and it was surprising how many things a stake in the heart could kill.
The demon laughed like chimes on the wind. "Pike got bit, didn't he? Nice scar by the way."
It was like suffocating, a terrible burn as she remembered Pike's crumpled grin, holding him tight as they zoomed away from the dance, Lothos' defeated and she had won. A smile of razors and her parents were dead, Pike crooning 'Bad Moon Rising' as he came at her with a knife.
Pike's eyes were dancing as he stood before her, and Buffy's stake flashed out in a venomous arc. It parted his flesh without resistance, the force of her attack spinning her in a semi-circle, and when she regained her footing, it was the features of the twelve-year-old who blinked at her, his voice almost gentle: "You can't kill what's already dead."
"Bullshit. I do it every night."
"I'm not a vampire."
The cramp subsided, became a dull pressure in the back of her mind, and the confusion only tightened her anger. "What do you want?"
"…I never meant to drown myself…"
Something in the way the boy said it - like a fragment of verse or a forgotten poem - and then he bodily rushed at her, dissolving into mist…
…when it cleared, Buffy was standing in a factory, humans screaming madly as they scattered, and the Slayer spun on a dime. Vampires; vampires everywhere, and she was left staring into a cold mask of familiarity.
She knew that face, woke up to it everyday, kohl make-up and combat boots. "What the HELL?!!!" and back-pedaled quickly before the other Buffy could walk into her, or more accurately, through her, because in backing away, Buffy had already stepped *through* somebody else. A vampire in a white singlet and leather coat, beaded necklace, good looking and no older than herself.
The other Buffy dusted him without pause.
Our Slayer spun, feeling not a little crazed, and spotted the boy sitting on an edge to a platform, feet dangling into space. She made the distance in record time; would have grabbed the ghost by the throat, but she knew it would make no difference. "What is this?"
He met her eyes calmly: "It's the future. Or it would have been…but it's not any more."
"Do I look like a Star Trek fan?" Buffy snarled.
He laughed, an honest sound, completely out of place in this environment of mayhem. "Have you ever heard of a demon named Anyanka?"
Buffy shook her head, eying the happenings warily.
"Her stock in trade is the granting of wishes," the boy smiled faintly, watching as a girl with red hair became speared on a broken shard of wood. "Say you want to live in a world without shrimp, you make the wish to Anyanka and she and her little power source transport you into an alternate reality that features your particular choice. If you turn left in one world, you're bound to turn right in another, and there are many, many worlds out there, child. A girl named Cordelia Chase asked to be sent to Sunnydale…a Sunnydale without *you*, and so here we are."
"But I'm already here," Buffy pointed out logically, eying her doppelganger suspiciously.
"True. Because Cordelia Chase met a man named Rupert Giles and blurted out the fact that she didn't *like* this world. Giles became aware that Anyanka had arrived and had altered reality in some way, namely, by bringing Cordelia here, a girl who never belonged. He sent for you, you arrived, and voila, behold the future."
Buffy rubbed her temple, trying to concentrate, "But you said it never happened."
"Of course not."
"You're not helping."
The boy shrugged, beating his heels against the concrete, "Giles found out about Anyanka, and while your future self decided to play toy soldiers, Giles destroyed the threat. He destroyed Anyanka's power source and nullified the last wish. Cordelia Chase never arrived and never died. She never blurted your name, Giles never contacted you, and you never left Cleveland."
"Okay…I think I'm following, but that doesn't explain why you're showing me this."
The boy gestured and Buffy turned - in time to see her dream become reality. A Master who put the *urg* in ugly, fighting with the other Buffy, block, parry, thrust, and she knew how it was going to end even before the other Slayer lost her balance. The quick spin that flipped her around, and there was nothing but a curious look of peace on her face when the Master snapped her neck.
It didn't happen - Buffy knew that, but… "Who's Rupert Giles?"
************************
There was no getting used to it - the moment when the boy rushed at her and dissolved into mist - like walking blind through cob-webs. Ghost fingers trailing across her body as the world dissolved. An aroma of decaying sweetness and the film of white parted on a wisp of imaginary wind.
Books behind her and books in front of her, a small library that appeared almost deserted. Buffy clenched her teeth and met the boy's stare, determined NOT to say it - 'where are we' - felt like a broken record.
The boy shrugged and provided: "Sunnydale High School."
Buffy circled, feet soundless on the carpet, and tripped lightly down the stairs. Books were sprawled on a long wooden table, occult references and titles she couldn't read. There was a weight of silence, like a church, or…or a library, she supposed, and drifted absently into an office.
A man was in there, asleep at the desk, head pillowed on his arm and glasses just out of reach. Buffy frowned and turned back, seeing the boy standing in the open doorway. There was something unguarded, soft, about the boy's features - seen once and quickly hidden.
"This is…" she didn't really like the name Rupert, and decided on, "Giles?"
"Yes."
"He doesn’t look like much."
A derisive snort, "That's the same error your future self made," a quick grin: "Never judge a book by its cover."
Her eyes grew sharp. "What do you mean?"
The boy folded his arms and tilted his head back, as if deriving answers from the ceiling. "Buffy, this man has been fighting a war against the Master, without benefit of a Slayer, for *three* *years*. You didn’t even last twenty-four hours. Did it never occur to you that there might be more to him than meets the eye?"
"Yeah?… Then why don't you call *him* Giles, the vampire Slayer instead."
Sarcasm, the boy decided, fit her quite well. "Don't get snippy, luv, that's not the way Giles fights. It's a pity you didn't try to work with him for five minutes because you would have known that, and that little fiasco at the factory might never have happened."
"It didn't."
"Don't throw my own logic back at me…it's unbecoming. And it *would* have happened, if Giles hadn't fixed it."
Going five rounds with a wraith was only going to give her a headache, Buffy rubbed her forehead and turned back to the sleeping man. "Okay, so who is he?"
"Why, that's easy, he's supposed to be your Watcher," something mercurial flashed in the boys' eyes, like a glimpse of hellfire.
The man awoke violently, pushing to his feet as the chair was knocked backward, eyes sweeping the office.
Buffy froze, half expecting that he'd be able to see her, but his eyes were fixed to a point off-centre, just behind her shoulder, where she knew the boy to be resting.
//He knows there's a ghost here; or *something* here. What does that make me?// Buffy turned and found empty space, the child had vanished the instant Giles awoke. Unease twisted, coiled like a rope around her solar plexus. The man shifted, hands clenched. He was tall, close to six foot two, dressed in dark slacks and an overly large jumper that nearly hid his hands from view. Broad shoulders and a tapered waist - his eyes were changeable, glinting near gold in the subdued lighting. A five o clock shadow on his jaw line and hair in disarray.
Silently, Buffy revised her first impression - 'not much' had just leap-frogged to 'oh my.' There was a sense to him, something that her Slayer instincts, honed after three years, picked up on instantly.
She frowned, driving the foreign emotion away, and circled restlessly as he headed for the door. Giles disappeared out of the library and Buffy bit her lip.
"Sorry about that."
"Where did you go?"
The boy scuffed his foot against the floor, hands deep inside his pockets. "I think it's best if we leave - I'll show you who Giles is, but not in this world."
Buffy shook her head, anger and exasperation melting down her spine. Something was wrong; beside being shown the future by her own personal ghost of Christmas past, or whatever. Her hostility was gone and with it, her distrust. Buffy wasn't fighting this, whatever this was, and that wasn't *right* - because she had never been a passenger in her life.
"Why should I trust you?"
"Trust doesn't come into it…you have no choice," and the boy rushed at her with stars in the well of his eyes.