The strange combination of witch, vampire and slayer, entered the
living room.  Their faces bore conflicting looks of joy and
puzzlement.  Willow looked at the four people waiting for them.  It
was evident that neither Anya nor Xander had been told about the
Buffy clone.  Anya gasped sharply and slumped into Xander's side.
Xander stood, mouth agape as if unable to breath.  A better reaction
than anyone else had come up with.  Xander's lips moved slightly and
Anya managed, "Buffy, is that Buffy?" She directed a sharp glare at
Spike, "Or have you been threatening that poor, idiot Warren again?
Besides, why do you need another Buffybot? Willow gives you orgasms
now."

Dawn giggled and wormed her way back into the vampire's protective
embrace.  Her face was a picture of both fear and hope as she looked
into the snarling blond's face.  "I didn't make anyone make her,
she's the real thing.  God alone knows where she came from, but she's
a  slayer."  Spike threw a hard glance toward the watcher.  "Until we
do figure out who she is and where she's from; she's staying with you
mate.  Not having her here.  Not `til I'm sure my girls'll be safe."
He hugged Dawn to his side and slid his free arm around the redhead's
waist.

"Well, Spike while I concur with the sentiments, I hardly have the
room to put her up.  Should she stay with me ... "

"She can always occupy the palatial quarters, you so generously
provided me with."  The blond smirked at the watcher as he remembered
cold porcelain making his backside even colder than usual.

"But, Spike, you were chained in the bathtub.  I so do not intend to
sleep in Giles' tub."

The group looked at her in amazement. "Buffy, what is the date
today?"  Anya asked with no preliminaries.

The blonde looked at her like she was nuts.  "It is late May, why?"
The Scoobies looked at one another with shock.  Giles and Anya
stepped to the front of the group, making hushing motions behind
their backs at the rest.

"Buffy,  what do you remember about the last year starting from,
approximately 6 months ago?"  Giles question was carefully phrased to
give her no current information.

"Let's see.  Six months ago, that would be around the time I fought
Glory for the first time.  And found the Dagonsphere.  I  was still
dating Riley then."

She shot an amused smirk at Spike. "In my universe, Spike was living
with this skanky ho' of a vampire."  Looking at Willow curled into
Spike's side, she grimaced apologetically, "I'm sorry, Willow, but he
was living with one of Cordy's sheep.  Harmony Kendall.  Who by  the
way sucks at the job of vampire.  Mostly, she never got staked cause
we all felt sorry for her."

"Let me think, then I discovered that Dawn was a supernatural key and
she was sent to me for protection.  Mom got sick with some kind of
brain cancer.  They operated on her and it seemed to work but not
really.  She died not long after that.  Just before she died, Riley
took off for South America to be commando boy again."  She glanced at
the watcher.  "Well Giles, how am I doing so far?"

"I shall tell you when you are done, er ... Buffy.  I shouldn't want
to influence you with erroneous data.  Suffice it to say, you are
making a reasonably clear report."

"Well, Glory was a problem, but there were other little problems
along the way.  Harmony went to L.A. and nearly got Angel and the
gang there killed.  Some former schoolmate of ours made a robot and
abandoned her.  She came looking for him.  It wasn't fun.  Spike got
a crush on me."  She shot another apologetic glance at the red
head.  "He seemed to be obsessed.  Even offered to stake Drusilla if
I would give him a chance.  All in all, the last six months have been
really bad.  As usual, my birthday sucked sour grapes.  This year,
Dawn ran away from home and with Spike's help found out she was the
key."

"Finally, we went on the road with Spike to try to get away from
Glory.  We had a run in with these screwy knights and Giles got
stabbed in the side.  Glory came and took Dawn away.  We managed to
find her by following Tara.  Glory had kinda sucked Tara's brain out,
and she went where Glory was automatically.  We followed and with a
lot of hard fighting and some really neat tricks we managed to beat
her.  But one of her followers had managed to cut Dawn.  She was
bleeding and the skies were strange.  I realised the only way to stop
it was for someone to die.  I couldn't kill my sister, so I jumped
off this tower and into the light show.  Then a few hours ago, I woke
up on the floor of the warehouse that I had faced Glory in, but I
realised I had to be in an alternate reality, `cause there was no
tower and the place was way older than it was when we faced Glory."

"I thought the thing to do was come to my double's home.  She would
be able to help me.  I had no idea that your Buffy was dead as well.
So I came here.  And ... well ... here we are."  She shrugged
helplessly.

Giles looked around the room.  He focused his gaze on the pretty
brunette.  "Well Anya, what do you think?"

"Giles, I don't know what to think.  I have some ideas, but we need
to keep Buffy unaware until we can perform a divination spell.  I can
teach it to Willow and assist her with it, but that is the only way I
can think of to find out what we need to know.  It will take at least
twenty-four hours to set up and prepare for the spell.  She will have
to be isolated until then."  She looked at the tiny blonde.  "I'm
sorry, but there is no other way."

Giles gathered everyone with his eyes.  "Are we all agreed that this
is the way to deal with this dilemma?"

A chorus of nods came at him from all sides.  "Then, that is what we
shall do."
 

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