The Two
by acs
I Don't think we're in Kansas anymore.
[reviews]
TITLE: The Two (1/24)
AUTHOR: -Andy- (see2go4me@yahoo.com)
RATING: R overall (For future violence and Adult situations) - (though Parts 1 thru 12 just barely make it to a PG-13)
STATUS: A WiP.
DISCLAIMER: This is a derivative work. All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox Television, and others. I don't own any of this, just the words gluing my story together.
SUMMARY: Buffy meets a different kind of Willow in an alternate universe. (It really is gonna be a B/W folks. Eventually. But not right away.)
SPOILERS: All seasons of BtVS. AU after "Chosen". Pretend Angel Season 5 never happened.
DISTRIBUTION: buffywantswillow, ikoly, and my blog fanfic pages. Anyone else, e-mail me please.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
[1] Inspired by (but not based on) something that was quickly covered in a flashback in a Willow/AU fanfic except with Buffy as the main character.
[2] Alternate Title: "The World Without CoWs"
[3] Feedback/Comments always welcome/appreciated.
[4][Revised:11-Dec-2005] (A note on the revision - I haven't seriously worked on this story for almost a year now. I just finished a two month revision of the first 12 chapters in preparation of continuing the story. No major changes in the plot. Mostly subtle tweaks. Hopefully people will like the changes. Or not notice them.)
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Chapter I: "I Don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
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She woke up abruptly, not knowing where she was or how she'd gotten there. Sitting up, she noticed a dim purple glow in the air around her that quickly faded. Cautiously looking around, she notice that she seemed to be lying on a bed in her old room back in the house in Sunnydale. There was just enough moonlight shining in through the curtained window for her to be able to see that, as she suspected, she was fully clothed in one of her newly favorite slaying outfits. It was all green khaki and black leather; the light leather jacket she was wearing and the soft leather boots on her feet giving her a fleeting sense of security.
Sitting there, her senses inexplicably raw, a faint reminder of her first few days after Willow had resurrected her, Buffy tried to get a feel for her surroundings. Reflexively clamping down on her senses, she vaguely felt that there was something slightly off about the room. Something was missing from it. Some element that would have made this her room wasn't there. It felt different at some subconscious level she couldn't explain. The room seemed to possess a subtle tone or aura that indicated to her subconscious mind that even though it looked like her old room, it wasn't. It was telling her that she didn't belong here, in this place.
And then there were the obvious differences that jumped out at her. The smell was different. No matter how much she'd tried over the years, with different perfumes, oils, and deodorizers, she had never been quite able to get rid of the faint metallic smell of the knives, swords, and hand axes she'd kept in her weapons chest. It was noticeably absent from this room.
The bed was also different. This was the kind of soft, fluffy, comfortable bed that her mother had always had. It hinted at a gentle person, not someone hard like herself. It was not the bed of a slayer, a dealer of death and defeater of prophecy. It hinted at things she thought she'd lost long ago. Parts of her soul she'd hidden away and forgotten. And if it had been daylight she was confident that she would see more of the differences she was sure were hiding in the shadows.
While sitting there, another very important fact quickly intruded upon her consciousness. This couldn't possibly be her room. It had ceased to exist two years ago, along with the rest of Sunnydale. It and the house it was in had fallen into the ground when they had fought their last battle against the First Evil. As much as she would always miss it, there was no going back to 1630 Revello Drive. It was now at the bottom of a large lake.
It was then that she realized that she wasn't alone. Someone else was sharing this bed with her. And from the unfamiliar sounds and smells, it was an unknown female someone.
She'd shared her bed with very few people over the years, both men and women, for a multitude of reasons. Most of them were long gone, some their choice, some hers. While she didn't remember falling asleep the previous evening, the lonelier she became the more she seemed to crave being alone. She was certain that she wouldn't have spent the previous night with a stranger given a choice.
Luckily, she was able to get off of the bed and onto her feet, without waking her unknowing bed mate. Looking over at the slight, blanket shrouded figure, all she could see in the faint moonlight were a few stray blond hairs poking out from underneath the pillow covered head. Quickly checking her clothes, she was dismayed to find that the only weapon she had in her possession was the slim, razor sharp boot knife that had been a gift from her sister on her previous birthday.
Silently debating the wisdom of staying there until her unwitting roommate woke up and asked for an explanation of her presence, or exploring and trying to figure out what was happening on her own, true to her slayer roots, Buffy chose the active option and quietly snuck out of the room, pausing briefly in the door to ensure that she hadn't woken the room's slumbering occupant.
In the two years since she'd last seen her house she'd forgotten what it looked like without dozens of energetic young women occupying every possible nook and cranny. Looking around, it took her a few moments to orient herself and to determine that yes, this place was very much like her old house, with a few minor cosmetic differences.
The carpet was softer under the thin soles her leather clad feet. The wallpaper less dingy. And the stairs hadn't seen as much wear as she dimly remembered. If she looked harder, she was sure she would find all the spots where she remembered Xander's handiwork, repairing some fixture broken in a fight with some demon that managed to get in the house, missing. Yes, on the surface it looked like her house, but it really wasn't.
Wandering down the upstairs hallway, Buffy stopped, curiosity getting the better of her, and looked in what would have been Dawn's room. From the boy band posters plainly visible on the walls it was obviously the room of a teenage girl but in the faint light there were no pictures or other clues that she could see that revealed the identity of the occupant of the empty room. But standing just inside in the doorway, Buffy could feel herself relax slightly. There was something about this room. Something within it that she found more welcoming than the room she had woken up in.
The room seemed to speak to her and she found herself thinking 'This is what a slayers' bedroom feels like.' She'd lived with enough other slayers in the years since Willow had performed her spell to recognize the signs, to feel the subtle presence of a slayer. If she could, she would stay here all night. But she knew it really wasn't a good idea, no matter how familiar and comforting the room felt to her raw senses. Poking around in the dark in a slayer's house was a guaranteed recipe for getting hurt, even for another slayer.
Standing at the top of the stairs, she took a deep, calming breath to center herself. Stretching out with her enhanced senses, the only sign of life she could detect in the house was the sleeping woman in the bedroom she'd just left. But the house had the appearance of being occupied by at least two persons, not the one. It was definitely something to be concerned about.
Like most predators, slayers had a tendency to be very territorial. If this one was out patrolling her hunting grounds Buffy really didn't want to be found wandering around this house when a potentially wired slayer got home. Especially if the other person in the house was a member of the slayer's immediate family. She vividly remembered how she'd reacted to Faith when she'd first shown up in Sunnydale and had no desire to provoke this slayer, unintentionally or not.
The only real question was whether to wait for her to come home or to find somewhere else to go to that would be seen as less threatening and least likely to cause a violent reaction. While going downstairs, away from the currently sleeping occupant, was a good start, staying in the house wouldn't be good and could also be seen as confrontational. Not the message she wanted to get across.
But she also wasn't prepared to run away. She'd learned over the years that she functioned better with the direct approach. While it was risky to just wait and see what would happen, Buffy's instincts were telling her to do just that. Once she'd dealt with the local slayer, made her presence known, she could start worrying about where she really was and how to get home.
And there was the added bonus that hunting for the slayer on her home turf without an understanding of the local demon population could possibly get her into trouble she couldn't easily get out of, even if, as she suspected, it turned out to look a lot like her Sunnydale. It had been a while since she had intentionally done something that foolish. Especially without any backup. And the results from that fiasco still haunted her, even if Xander had forgiven her long ago.
Given the situation, the best place to wait, she decided as she looked curiously around the dark kitchen, seemed to be the back porch. Sitting on a porch was a friendly thing that enemies rarely did. Well, anyone except for Spike and he'd always been an exception, even before becoming an important part of her life. And even now she still missed him, two years after she'd lost him for good.
Turning thought into action, Buffy went through the kitchen door and out onto the porch in search of the most visible part of the porch, a place where she didn't feel vulnerable. She found a porch swing near the door, and perched on it while she waited. The events of the past few minutes ran through her mind as she sat there quietly meditating, a habit she'd picked up following the destruction of Sunnydale. It was only now that everything really hit her.
Giles and Willow would be so proud of her restraint. She was thinking and planning before acting. She just hoped she would have a chance someday to tell them.
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Walking into her backyard after a quiet, uneventful patrol, Dawn detected a nearby presence long before seeing anything. What she felt wasn't the same sensation that she normally got along her spine from the rare vampire that occasionally visited the local closed hellmouth. That could only be described as something like the feeling cause by a sharp metal object being dragged across a chalkboard. This was more like the feeling that someone was massaging the back of her neck and pulling on the hair there at the same time. Not the most pleasant feeling, but not exactly painful.
Looking at her house, she could see what appeared to be a small woman sitting on the back porch, watching her approach as if waiting for her to get home. Hopefully it wasn't her sister, though the chances of it being someone else were very slim so close to dawn.
To add to her nervous feelings, something large had been following her since leaving Restfield. A something that was giving off that vampire-like vibe with just a faint hint of danger.
She had managed to keep her late night excursions a secret for months. But she knew that eventually even her oblivious sister was bound to discover how often she wasn't in her bed for large parts of the night. Even fighting a master vampire in her back yard would be preferable to her sister finding out about her secret life. But both happening on the same night? That would not be a highlight of her brief career as a slayer. Even her Guide, a member of the local coven, wouldn't be too pleased if that happened.
From the sidewalk the appearance of the woman sitting there was enough like her sister that she was startled into saying her name -
"Beth. . . ?"
The woman cocked her head at her in a manner eerily reminiscent of her older sister but after cautiously approaching the porch, and examining her from a slight distance, the next thing she knew she was blurting out "You're not my sister!" in surprise.
While at a distance she could have been mistaken for her sister, up close this woman appeared older and harder in some undefinable way. Something in her life had stretched her being in ways that her bubbly, ex-cheerleader sister couldn't match.
Standing up and flashing her a faintly predatory grin, the woman replied - "No, I expect I'm not. "
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While waiting for the slayer to return from patrol and keeping herself busy carving stakes from several pieces of wood she'd found near the porch, Buffy had plenty of time to gather her thoughts, come to a tentative conclusion about her situation and make a few decisions. From the appearance of things around her; the almost but not quite the same look to the house and the yard; in fact, that the house was here at all; she could only assume that she had somehow fallen into some sort of parallel universe or dimension.
Wherever she was didn't seem to have that oppressive, dark feeling to it that she had always gotten near active hellmouths and the other distinctly evil places she'd visited since becoming a slayer. There was still a slight background hum but it wasn't clear to her if it was coming from a hellmouth or some other mystical artifact that she was able to sense in her current state.
A few years ago, following the Vampire Willow incident, she had spent a little time discussing the idea of parallel universes and dimensions with Giles and her friends. She could no longer remember most of their discussion or even the differences between the two but what had stayed with her was Giles' advice on what any of them should do should they ever end up in a similar situation.
Giles had advised stealth and observation and more than a little caution, especially when dealing with people who would seem to be people she knew but wouldn't really be them. Just because they looked similar, forgetting they weren't the people she knew could be fatal. And the most important part of surviving in such a situation was staying alive. Back then she would have just ignored such advice but she'd grown a lot since then. As long as she were alive, anything was possible.
Once she had made some sort of accommodation with the local slayer she would need to find a place to stay and some sort of job. What little money she had, assuming it was usable here, would have to last until she was able to get a firm grasp on the way this different world worked. She had no desire to end up on the wrong side before she even knew what the sides were and what they were fighting for.
Once she was settled in she could focus on finding out how she got here and how to get back to where she came from. Hopefully this slayer had access to sources of information that she could use to help figure it out.
With a mental grimace, she hoped she could find something better than her last entry level job at a Double Meat Palace. And that she didn't have to fight her way back to her home universe. Once was enough.
It was at this point that she became aware of a slight tingling, almost like the subtle feelings she had always felt when she was around Faith. It could only be the slayer returning home. From a distance, she appeared to be the same size her sister had been that year before Sunnydale became an advertisement for a poorly done urban renewal project. But Dawn had still been at that awkward stage of adolescence back then. This girl moved with the ferocious grace of a small wildcat.
"Beth. . . ?" the girl asked hesitantly.
Obviously this girl thought she was someone familiar. Her next words and the way she looked as she cautiously approached confirmed in Buffy's mind that she was in an alternate universe of some sort.
Stopping a safe distance away, "You're not my sister!" said the girl. She could almost have been Dawn's twin, if that twin had spent the past year training to be a slayer. And if Dawn had started wearing leather hand-me-downs from the local demon bikers club or getting fashion tips from Faith.
Buffy's first automatic reaction was to attempt to explain why she happened to be sitting on that porch. That idea lasted for less than a second, squashed before it had become fully formed. Volunteering too much information about herself before knowing the local situation was a potentially bad idea. Gracefully getting to her feet, Buffy decided to answer with as much confidence as she could muster in the circumstances. How she acted now was very important and would set the tone for any interaction she might have with her in the future.
"No, I expect I'm not." She told the girl, with a fierce smile that she hoped was only a little intimidating.
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Continued in "Getting Down to Business"
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