Summary: A slayer barters with a demon to rescue her lover, and finds herself unwittingly projected nearly three hundred years into the future with no memory of the life she left behind.
“Oh, but she did,” Xander replied woefully, sinking back against the Summers’ living room sofa and shielding his eyes. “Please don’t make me say it again, Will. It’s bad enough that the entire night’s stuck on repeat in my head.”
“Complete in techno-color with added surround sound,” Cordelia added, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “Seriously, what is her trauma?”
“W-well,” Willow said, her wide-eyes searching the group, imploring them for understanding. “S-she said she was trying to find William. Maybe…whoever she, ummm, turned into was all…with the…knowing-of-Spike pre his…being…grrr?”
“No,” said Angel, who was seated archetypically in a dark corner.
Xander thought he might look more appropriate if he was stroking a furry white cat. As it was, he, Willow, Cordelia, and Angel had simply congregated in the living room at Revello Drive and were currently waiting for a shell-shocked Buffy to emerge from her bedroom, which didn’t look to be happening any time soon. In the meantime, they had evidently settled upon discussing the night’s bizarre twist of events, intent but not hopeful on figuring out when things had become even stranger than usual.
Had become a little too strange for the Hellmouth.
“No?” Willow repeated numbly. “J-just…just no?”
“Spike didn’t know anyone like her before he was sired.”
“And you would know this how?” Xander demanded. “And did you ever clarify on what sire meant?”
The redhead waved dismissively. “It means being made into a vampire…or so Giles’s books tell me. A vampire’s sire is the one who made them into…well, you know.” She mimed pointy teeth, earning a dry look from the one vampire in the room. She quickly averted her eyes, blushing. “Were you…Spike’s…you know?” she asked timidly.
“He said he was,” Xander declared. “Spike did.”
“He was speaking figuratively,” Angel all but growled.
“Figuratively?” Xander spat. “You can’t speak figuratively about being a sire!” He paused, shuffled uncomfortably, then turned to Willow for guidance. “…can you?”
She offered a decidedly unhelpful shrug.
“Spike was technically made by Drusilla,” Angel said, gripping the arms of his chair so hard it was a wonder they didn’t snap off. “She was too…crazy to raise him properly. I took over.”
A long pause settled over them.
“Whoa, back up,” Xander snapped.
“Who’s Drusilla?” asked an equally-confused Willow.
Cordelia shrugged, fighting off a yawn. “And more importantly…who cares?”
A long sigh rolled off Angel’s shoulders, his head drooping downward as though a wave of pure depression had just crashed over his tired body. “Drusilla is Spike’s…well, sire,” he explained slowly. “She’s also the woman he loves…crazy as she is.”
Willow and Xander exchanged another long glance.
“Vampires can love?” the latter demanded.
“Is she in Sunnydale, too?” the redhead asked at the same time. “’Cause with the way you guys talked it up…Spike was all…into Buffy. Did he and this…Drusilla person…break up?”
Angel shook his head. “Not a chance.”
Willow sagged, frowning. “Oh.”
“Vampires can love?” Xander demanded again, frustration marring his brow at the way no one had leapt at this rather stunning piece of information.
For his part, Angel was staring at Willow in bewilderment. “Oh?” he repeated. “What does that mean?”
She blinked. “It means…umm…oh.”
“Did I mention the part where you said vampires can love?”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Oh, drop it, Xan.”
“Bite me, Cordy.”
“There was so much in that oh,” Angel argued. “You couldn’t have just meant oh.”
Willow pursed her lips and shrugged. “And yet, see how I just did.”
“Ugh,” Xander moaned, evidently dropping his indignation at the suggestion of vampires-in-love for the more important task of willing away a sudden headache. “Every time I close my eyes, I get this X-Rated vision of Buffy and Spike and the wrongness that is Buffy and Spike.”
“Okay, let’s forget Buffy the wonder-slayer and all her bloodsucking friends. There are much more important issues at hand.” Cordelia paused dramatically, tossing Angel a dirty look. “I’ve been crushing on a vampire!”
The room fell silent.
“You’ve what?” Xander demanded, his skin turning an interesting shade of green.
Cordelia blinked and glanced around, perplexed. “What?” she demanded. Another beat passed before some inner light snapped on, and her face contorted into a mask of pure disgust. “Oh. Not Spike. Ew. I mean him.” She gestured to Angel. “Why did you have to be a vampire?”
Angel just looked at her. “Sorry to be an inconvenience.”
“You should be! I was really considering giving you seven minutes in Heaven.”
“Also known as three hundred years in Hell for those of us on planet earth,” Xander muttered.
Willow rolled her eyes and waved. “Guys, point. Buffy. You know, our friend who was macking on Spike earlier tonight? Spike as in Spike?”
“No need to remind us,” Angel all but growled.
Cordelia nodded. “Yeah, tell me about it.” She glanced up thoughtfully. “Buffy really is a vapid vampire whore.”
Again the room fell silent. Again three pairs of eyes focused on the self-obsessed cheerleader. Again she didn’t seem to care.
“Yeah,” Xander mused thoughtfully. “This is a good time to remind you that you are surrounded by Buffy’s friends…one of whom, as you’re so keen on pointing out, is a vampire.”
The brunette rolled her eyes. “No, I’m serious.”
“Not helping,” Willow moaned, sinking further into her seat.
“Well, how do you explain her being so gaga for Angel this morning—a vampire.” Cordelia emphasized the last word in case anyone had forgotten. “And then her weird spell-girl fixation on that walking Ken doll tonight?”
“That wasn’t Buffy,” Angel practically snarled.
“I don’t know,” the redhead replied slowly. “She gave us a name. And she was the only person who seemed to know anyone.”
“You knew us,” Xander pointed out.
“That’s because I didn’t change. I was just…ghost me.” Willow shifted uncomfortably. “Buffy…well, she wasn’t Buffy, but she had a name. And she knew where she wanted to go. A-and she was still the Slayer.”
Xander shook his head. “You’re reading way too much into that.”
“Plus she wanted to find a guy called William,” Cordelia observed, nodding as though trying to solve a complicated word-puzzle. “Not Spike.”
“Once again,” Angel said slowly, his voice rung with irritation. “Spike is William. His name…his real name is William. Why is this so hard for everyone to remember?”
“We remember,” Xander and Willow chimed together.
Cordelia shrugged. “I just don’t care very much.”
Willow nodded slowly, her brow furrowed as she struggled to piece facts together. “Well…she wanted to find William,” she mused thoughtfully. “She wanted to find William and she found Spike, who she identified as William.” She nodded to Angel. “Who you say is William.”
“A William,” the vampire stressed. “Just a William.”
“I think after the way we found them together that we can safely conclude he’s the William she was looking for,” Cordelia pointed out.
“That’s impossible.”
Xander shook his head. “Look, none of us are particularly thrilled with it, but there’s really no denying what happened tonight. As much as I wanna take a big scrub-brush to my brain and get all the thoughts of ick out for good, the fact remains that Buffy wanted to find Spike—or William—or whoever…and it wasn’t slaying she had on her mind.”
“And she did say he was a vampire,” Willow observed. “Remember? That’s how the whole Angel’s a vampire thing came up. A-and Angel…your name was Liam, wasn’t it?”
Angel shifted uncomfortably. “Never really stopped being Liam,” he said. “I just…Angel’s…Liam was my human name. Angel—”
Xander rolled his eyes in a random fit of exasperation, throwing his hands in the air. “What is it with you guys and changing your names the second you’re…ummm…”
“Sired,” Cordelia and Willow supplied together.
“Right. That. You became Angel—”
“Technically Angelus,” Angel murmured, his voice nearly inaudible.
Xander leveled another glare at him. “So you have three names.”
“Liam was my human—”
“And Angelus was his…grrr name,” Willow supplied, nodding. “I guess when you became all…soul-guy, you wanted to change again.”
“I couldn’t be Liam again. Angelus had killed Liam.” Angel licked his lips, his eyes growing distant as he sank further into his seat. “So I became…I just switched from Latin to English, and…why are we talking about me? Shouldn’t we be worried about Buffy?”
“We need to figure out who William is,” Xander said.
Cordelia snickered noisily. “Oh for crying out loud, it’s Spike! No!” She raised a hand as the two males’ jaws dropped to rebuke her claim. “Look, I don’t know how or why other than my Buffy is a vapid vampire whore theory which, by the by, seems to be gaining more support the longer you guys spit at each other. She wanted to find a vampire named William. She found Spike, whose name, coincidently enough, is William. Why is this such a mystery to you losers?”
“Because there’s no way Buffy could’ve known Spike as William!” Angel practically snarled.
A look of pure condescension washed over the brunette’s face. “Two words, precious: and yet.”
“She wasn’t Buffy, though,” Willow said. “I mean she was but she wasn’t. She said her name was Elizabeth—”
“Buffy’s real name is Elizabeth,” Angel murmured, sinking even lower into his seat.
Xander frowned. “Do I even wanna know how you know that?”
“No.”
“Okay then.”
This revelation had the frown on Willow’s face deepening. “So…” she said softly. “Buffy’s real name is Elizabeth. And she said her name is Elizabeth. A-and Spike’s real name is William…and she wanted to find William.”
“You’re reading way too much into that,” Xander protested with a weak, nervous chuckle. “Angel…tell her she’s reading way too much into that.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes again, springing to her feet. “I can’t believe I’m still here with you social cretins,” she drawled. “You wanna waste what’s left of a perfectly good holiday talking yourself into circles—fine. But this seems pretty open and shut to me.”
Willow raised a hand. “Except for the part where—”
“No. Stop. I seriously think my head will explode.”
“Then by all means, keep talking, Will,” Xander prompted with a smirk.
“Buffy will make sense of this,” Angel said softly, casting a gaze heavenward as though he could see through the ceiling and into the upper-level of the Summers’ home. “Once she comes down here—”
“Presuming she has any idea what happened to her,” Willow added. “I mean, she was macking hard on her mortal enemy. That has to…” She met the vampire’s eyes and shriveled. “Okay, so she’s done that before, but this is different. Spike’s very much of the Unsouled and Proud Nation.”
“He didn’t try to kill her tonight,” Cordelia pointed out, assuming her seat again. “Maybe he wanted to find her, too.”
“There’s no way,” Angel insisted, shaking his head. “No way. I knew the woman Spike was obsessed with before Drusilla killed him. I watched her beg him for mercy…which he granted, because he…well, Spike’s always had…” He paused and glanced up when he realized he was digressing and cleared his throat. “Point being, she wasn’t anything like Buffy. And her name wasn’t Elizabeth. Her name was Cecily, and she was an aristocratic snob. She wasn’t the Slayer. She wasn’t…anything.”
Another still beat settled through the room.
Xander shifted. “So…”
Willow nodded, leaning forward and rubbing her hands together. “So Buffy wanted to find William, who’s Spike…”
Cordelia heaved a long, suffering sigh and leaned back, propping her cheek upon her fist and looking as bored as Giles at a computer convention. “Oh great,” she droned. “Here we go again.”
*~*~*
She barely recognized her own face.
Her hair was too short—too bright. Her skin was too tan. Her face was too youthful.
But then, this was the face she’d known for almost seventeen years. She’d known this face as long as she’d known the face she’d left behind. The face buried some three centuries in the past. Ostensibly, there was nothing different but a few cosmetic changes. Her once-brunette locks were now blonde. Her eyes were painted with make-up, and her lips were a ruby red. She presented the picture of a girl born into the twentieth century, rather than a slayer from the eighteenth. She presented the image of a girl who only now knew who she was. Who she truly was.
She was Buffy Summers. She knew that. She’d been Buffy Summers all her life.
And before that, she’d been Elizabeth Travers.
The orphaned daughter of Henry and Joyce Summers.
The only reason she was here at all—that she wasn’t some footnote in history—was due to a bargain she’d made with a demon.
A King of Hell.
There was no doubt in her mind. No second-guessing. No thinking it might be a dream concocted by the night’s bizarre twist of events. No, Buffy knew her purpose. She knew everything. Her memories of the past were as fresh as her memories of yesterday.
The things she remembered. Oh God.
Spike—William. Will. Her William. The way he touched her. The way he smiled. The life in his eyes. The way he held her at night and kissed her tears away when she woke up crying. The way he loved her.
Now he didn’t know her. He didn’t know her at all.
Just as she hadn’t known him. Not until tonight.
She’d come into a future she’d wished for herself—wished for them—without remembering a damn thing.
Paimon had deceived her.
Buffy met her reflection’s eyes and laughed herself insane.
Of course Paimon had deceived her. He was a King of Hell. His job was to deceive. To lie. To take.
To take…
Buffy glanced down, rubbing her arms and fighting off a shiver.
He hadn’t taken anything yet. Perhaps the terms of the bargain hadn’t been met. Perhaps he’d forgotten.
Only such was impossible. She knew it was impossible.
Bargains made with Hell were written upon unbreakable stone tablets and signed in blood. She knew it because she’d watched Paimon carve out the details of their agreement with a hardened quill. He used the last of her blood to verify her signature, then wished her a happy death before leaving her in oblivion.
No, Paimon hadn’t forgotten her or her debt.
He just hadn’t collected.
Buffy released a long, pained breath, tears prickling her eyes. She glanced up again and gazed into the face of a stranger.
She’d lived a decade and a half not knowing who she was. Not really.
Now by the grace of some cosmic accident, she had an answer.
She was here because of William.
William, who went by Spike.
Spike, who didn’t remember her. He was drawn to her—she’d seen it in his eyes. He was drawn to her but he didn’t know why. He couldn’t know why. He just was.
Paimon hadn’t intended for them to ever reunite. He’d made sure they were both reborn, sure, but he hadn’t intended them to find each other again.
He hadn’t intended for any of this.
Only now Spike was here. And he was drawn to her, as he’d always been. And she was drawn to him, as she’d always been. Buffy understood now—she understood the way her heart had stopped the second he stepped out of the shadows at the Bronze. The second their eyes clashed. The second his voice tickled her ears.
It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Unlike any response she’d had to another vampire.
It was a response built on recognition. She’d met his gaze, and she’d known him.
She just hadn’t known how. Not until today.
Tonight.
Buffy sniffed and wiped her tears away. She’d tasted his lips and felt his hands on her body. He’d stroked her clit and murmured things he couldn’t have meant—couldn’t have known to mean. He’d been drawn to her. He hadn’t known her, but he’d been drawn to her.
William always had been drawn to her. He’d barreled into her life and nothing had ever been the same. They’d fought for months before giving into the dance, and then her love for him had gotten him killed.
Had killed them both.
She’d watched him dust. He’d died right in front of her, love in his eyes.
Love she might never see again.
And then she couldn’t help it—Buffy couldn’t help it. The pressure on her chest exploded into a thousand tiny shards of pain, and before she could catch herself, she’d slumped forward in a storm of tears.