Chapter Text
Anya Jenkins was a lot of things. She was a human now, not exactly of her own will, but she had made the best of the situation. She was the girlfriend of one Alexander LaVelle Harris. It was interesting to be someone’s girlfriend after spending hundreds of years torturing, maiming, killing, and exacting vengeance against other somebodies of other scorned girlfriends. But as far as boyfriends go, Xander had done a commendable job at not making her want to curse his genitals, so she considered herself quite fortunate. Anya Jenkins was a shopkeeper for the Magic Box and made the store considerable amounts of money, which meant she was succeeding at being human since humanity revolved around goods and services. She recently realized that she was an American, and therefore her love of money was also proud patriotism since America was known for its capitalistic enterprises.
Anya was also a former vengeance demon, spending over a millennium in dealings of the occult. She understood vengeance better than most people; she knew how feelings of pain and fear congregated into something sharp and powerful. How true vengeance was perfected out of a sense of irony, out of targeting what someone held dearly and making them lose it, or by corrupting it, or a number of other ways to exact long, creative, detailed suffering. Anya had been a maestro of vengeance back in her day. And therefore, she could smell out weaknesses and flaws and loopholes in contracts, unlike anyone she had met in the human world – which again made her excellent at capitalist business.
But for the moment, Anya’s focus was not, in fact, on money. It was on Glory, the bitchy Hellgod who was threatening her boyfriend and her friends, the only people she had since becoming a mortal human again.
Glory had recently kidnapped Spike and tortured him into telling her about the identity of the Key she needed to return to her hell realm. Spike had refused to tell Glory because he had soft feelings for Dawn and Buffy, and he had been well-tortured in the aftermath. Anya knew that if Glory wanted that information, she would start seeking it from the other Slayer allies next, including her and her boyfriend. Anya wouldn’t let Xander get caught up in Glory’s skanky grasp. He wouldn’t withstand or recover from torture as well as the vampire, and she quite preferred it when all of Xander’s limbs were functional. Also, an acute pit of pain flared in her stomach and chest whenever she thought about Xander being in danger. She knew she loved him, but the power that love had always surprised her.
So Anya took it upon herself to look back at the resources provided by the Council of Watchers about Glory the Hellgod to find something that maybe Giles had missed. The rest of their Scooby gang were interested in finding ways to defeat the Hellgod, which seemed like a lost cause, in Anya’s opinion. What if there was a way they could escape her instead? Or protect themselves against her? It wasn’t the valiant heroics that Buffy preferred, but Anya had spent quite a lot of her life as a vengeance demon running away from apocalypses, and it always worked well for her.
And of course, Anya’s avenue of research opened new specifics that the Council of Watchers’ and Giles’ readings of the texts completely missed. For example, the spell performed on Glorificus by her fellow Hellgods to banish her from their hell dimension and back to Earth tied her to Earth. The human vessel she wore was dimensionally locked, like a metaphysical ball and chain. That’s why she needed the Key and couldn’t settle for any other run-of-the-mill interdimensional portal. She needed to completely rip reality to shreds, the walls between dimensions decayed, something strong enough to free her from her humanoid prison, as well.
Which meant, and this was the important part, Glory couldn’t leave this dimension.
Beings that hailed from a dimension and had never visited another one tended to be incredibly single-minded when it came to dimensions. From the standpoint of a formerly interdimensional vengeance demon, born on Earth but ascended to Arashmaharr, dimensions were like islands. Traversing the space between them was very difficult if you didn’t have the right vessel; the storms and the currents would batter you off-course at best and kill you at worst. But with the right ship or plane, the journeys became less dangerous, and visiting multiple islands became fun and interesting. It would be hard to find the right island and ship to travel there, but they could leave this dimension until the date of convergence passed, while Glorificus could not.
Anya thought it was a brilliant idea and immediately rushed to Xander and Willow, where they were… well, Xander was reading comics, and Willow was studying for one of her college classes. Anya thumped her research down on the table, excitement coursing through her. This was almost as good as making a transaction that required the big bills, so she got to use her little pen to check the bills weren’t counterfeit.
“I know how we can defeat Glory!” Anya pronounced. Willow and Xander both looked up at her in surprise. Even Giles, over by the register with his tea, looked up in interest. “We run away!”
Xander and Willow let out twin sighs, both looking immediately dismissive of Anya’s plan.
“Anya, honey, we’re the good guys. The good guys don’t run away when things get difficult,” Xander explained.
“Well, maybe that’s why they historically die terrible, painful deaths,” Anya said, crossing her arms and looking at him fiercely. “I’m not saying we run away forever. I’m saying we run away temporarily. I was re-reading the information about Glorificus given to us by the Watchers and cross-referenced it with some interdimensional astrology charts. The spell that was done on Glory to trap her here in human form literally binds her to this dimension. That’s why she wants to use the Key to get home rather than opening a less expensive portal. On these dates of mystic convergence, the dimensions are in alignment. Not only does travel between them become easier, but the membranes between dimensions become weaker. That’s why she needs to use the Key, to temporarily rip apart reality so all the dimensions meld into each other and she can travel freely. And meanwhile, basically, everyone else dies a terrible death because ripping apart dimensional reality has severe consequences to everyone who isn’t a Hellgod.”
“So you think if we manage to escape Glory long enough that the convergence passes, she won’t be able to cause an apocalypse anymore?” Willow asked.
“Exactly!” Anya exclaimed. “Mind you, we’ll still have an angry Hellgod on our hands, but there’s zero chance of her using the Key to open the dimensional doorways and destroy life as we know it in multiple universes!”
“So we leave Sunnydale?” Xander asked.
“We leave Earth,” Anya corrected. “Glory is bound to this dimension. We aren’t. We go to another dimension; there is a zero percent chance of her chasing after us. I think. Okay, some very rare artifacts would allow her to… there is a two percent chance of her chasing after us.”
“Better odds than we have now,” Xander said, offering her one of his I’m-proud-of-you-we’ll-have-great-sex-later smiles.
“Can you show me the research you used to come to these conclusions?” Giles asked, fixing his glasses and coming over with his tea, looking interested.
“It’s all right here,” Anya explained, pointing to the books and notes she had laid out on the table. “You have fun reading; I’m sure you’ll realize that I’m correct. I’m going to get those old fogies to go buy something. They’ve been ogling the merchandise for fifteen minutes; it’s very unpatriotic.” She turned around and walked toward the shelf-perusing couple.
“Unpatriotic?” Willow questioned.
“You don’t want to know,” Xander answered tightly. He was probably still upset that she withheld sex until he listened to her explanation about American capitalism two nights ago.
While Anya was partway through finagling a sale, the door jingled open. Instead of customers, it was Buffy and Dawn.
“Hey, look, it’s Dawn Giovanni and the Buffster!” Xander exclaimed brightly. Willow nodded. Giles didn’t look up from Anya’s notes.
“That will be twenty-four ninety-nine,” Anya explained, pointing to the herbal remedy mix she recommended. “But there is a ten percent discount when you sign up for our rewards card!” She smiled brightly at the couple – old, trying to revitalize their sex life but calling it ‘wanting to deepen their connection’ because humans were so squeamish about sex. That couple had to have been doing it for decades, at least. One would think they’d be adjusted.
“Everything go okay with dropping out?” Willow asked.
“Yep,” Buffy said, looking apprehensive and embarrassed.
“Well, good on you,” Xander said. “Welcome to the real world. Lots of fun to be had on the outside, you’ll see.” While Xander was trying to be supportive, Willow gave him a death-glare for invalidating the academics she made at least twenty percent of her personality and self-worth.
“Well, it’s just for now,” Buffy said. “I’m thinking that I’m probably gonna go back next semester.”
“And that’s cool too,” Xander said. “Whatever you choose, you’ve got my support. Just think of me as… as your… you know, I’m searching for supportive things, and I’m coming up all bras. So… something slightly more manly, think of me as that. Seriously, whatever you need.”
“Thank you,” Buffy replied. “Actually, I need to talk to Giles alone for a minute.” She turned to her Watcher, nose-deep in research. “What is he…?”
“Oh,” Xander said. “Yeah, Anya thinks she might have a solution to our Glory problem, and Giles is double-checking her research.”
“It’s incredible,” Giles said, looking around. “I think this may actually work. It’s not a – a perfect solution for stopping Glory, but it will severely mitigate the threat she poses.”
“Enough that I can beat her?” Buffy asked, eyes lighting up.
“Well, it won’t weaken her, necessarily,” Giles said. “But it will prevent her from being able to use the Key,” he nodded to Dawn, who looked down at the ground. “To cause an apocalypse. I – I can explain it in more detail later, or Anya can. Anya, can you look for potential, er…”
“Vacation destinations?” Anya answered with a wink. She understood that terms that obfuscated the true meaning of something deserved winks to indicate their falsehood.
“Yes, one of those,” Giles nodded.
“Um, Dawn, you should get started on your homework,” Buffy said to the moody-teenager-slash-interdimensional-ancient-energy-conduit. “Wil, if she needs help, can you-” Willow nodded. “Great,” Buffy said, leaving for the training room with Giles to discuss Anya’s brilliant plan and then whatever she wanted to talk to Giles about.
Apparently, it had something to do with Dawn getting in trouble at school. Buffy got very upset at Willow for not respecting that she wanted to treat Dawn with discipline and couldn’t shirk from her sisterly duties for entertainment. Anya did her best to ignore the interpersonal drama and focus on possible dimensional destinations for them to travel as soon as possible – since Giles had managed to convince Buffy that idea was the best. In fact, Buffy seemed receptive to it immediately and appreciative that Anya’s solution could protect Dawn even if it didn’t necessarily let her fight Glory. It was clear that Dawn was Buffy’s foremost priority, even if Willow didn’t quite understand that.
The proper dimensional vacation destination required three things: a dimension feasible for the survival of humans (and possibly a vampire, since Anya had a suspicion after he protected Dawn despite Glory’s torture, Buffy was more receptive to letting Spike help protect her sister), a dimension which traveling to wouldn’t take up too many resources and had a stable interdimensional throughway, and a dimension that would have the civilization and resources on the other end that would make traveling back equally possible. All things considered, there was tremendous difficulty in achieving these three things. Especially since Giles’ collection regarding interdimensional metaphysics was quite lacking.
Willow came back mid-research party, moping now about an argument she had with Tara, who had come to Buffy’s defense. Their argument had apparently spiraled into a larger argument about Willow’s magic use, which Anya was grateful for. Perhaps if someone as wise and well-mannered as Tara could explain to Willow that her behavior and arrogance in magical matters tended to get out of hand, the amateur witch might change her behavior. It was a slippery slope, magic. Amateur spellcraft and a personality flaw led most girls into becoming vengeance demons, Anya should know, having walked that road.
What was more impressive was Giles’ ability to learn they were being spied on by a leprotic hobbit – one of Glory’s minions. Learning that they were being watched scared Anya because what if they knew about her plan to run away and stopped them from getting a viable means of escape? Or worse, what if they knew about her true weakness? Anya would like to think she’d last maybe long enough to be rescued if Glory tried to torture her for information about Dawn, but if there were bunnies involved, all bets were off.
It turned out that Glorificus was already after the Key but again mistook her identity, and therefore was after Tara. Willow rushed off to save her girlfriend, but it was too late. Tara’s brain had been sucked like all the crazy hospital people. A difficult task for a perfect vacation destination was becoming more difficult as her time frame was shortened considerably. Buffy declared once Tara was out of the hospital, they had to leave. And otherwise, Glory would come after them one by one until she found the Key, sucking their brains in the process. The only reason she couldn’t do that to Spike was that he was a vampire.
So, Anya had to modify her definition of a dimension feasible to human survival to something merely biologically and physically safe for humans and not necessarily culturally safe. There was a possibility, a dimension she’d visited before and enjoyed. But, well, it was one of those out of the frying pan and into the fire situations. Reminding Anya that she should probably bring a large frying pan to make cooking easier if they were going camping.
It was hard to see Tara, sweet and nice and responsible Tara, act crazy and babble nonsense. And Willow was devastated. Full of shame and guilt.
“I don’t think I can sleep without her,” Willow said mournfully to Xander after Tara left for overnight observation in the psych ward.
“You can sleep with me,” Anya offered helpfully, earning a few blank looks. “Well, that came out a lot more lesbian than it sounded in my head.”
“Wil, you just have to rest,” Buffy assured, leadership and confidence pouring out of her. “Okay? Right now, there’s nothing you can do.”
“Yes, there is,” Willow said, running off to fight Glory despite all the protests from Buffy and the rest of them that it was suicide. Although maybe, since Willow was guilty about their fight and was accepting the risk out of pain. Out of a desire to suffer in Tara’s stead. Buffy ployed her not to do it, not to put herself at risk, to wait until after they had time to reconvene and had a chance, so they wouldn’t lose anyone else before the convergence came. Willow didn’t listen. Buffy had to rescue her, but the vengeful witch had apparently made a dent in the Hellgod, which was heartening.
Although she used dark magicks, which was less heartening.
“We’re leaving in the morning,” Buffy told Anya once she had brought Willow back from Glory’s apartment, the witch stinking like dark magic and bleeding from the nose from exertion. But she was alive, which was impressive. “Do you have all we need for a spell?”
“Almost everything,” Anya said. “I have the ingredients to open a portal, but the way interdimensional portals work, we need to be bound by steel, or else once we land in the other dimension, we’ll all scatter, end up in different places.”
“So we need a bunch of handcuffs?” Buffy asked.
“No,” Anya said. “A steel enclosure. A motor vehicle would do it. A large car or a van would fit us all. Of course, since we’ll be camping, it will also be something with storage space-”
“I’ve got an idea,” Buffy said finally. “Thank you, Anya, for – for finding a solution.”
“That’s what friends are for,” Anya smiled.
Buffy went over to Spike, who was loitering in the far corner of the room. He was more than halfway healed after his beating from Glory; just a limp and a bruised face remained. They kept their heads bowed low, Spike hanging off of Buffy’s every word. She asked him for something, and he nodded, agreement clear. Then he took off to the night with a swinging black coat. It was funny how much his coat resembled bat wings, considering vampires and some species of bats were connected by a sanguinary diet.
They had the night to pack – Anya brought a frying pan – and were all scheduled to meet at her and Xander’s apartment at noon. Anya had all the ingredients and the spellbook that would allow them to open a portal to Pylea. She could do it herself if necessary since there was no telling how long it would take Willow to recover from her God-fighting attempt.
Of course, the fact that Glory attacked Willow, Tara, Buffy, and Dawn that morning at the university dorm housing and chased them across campus until getting hit by a truck really didn’t help spirits. What’s more, Tara accidentally revealed to Glory that Dawn was the Key in her craziness, and it was only a matter of time before the Hellgod came after them again. Waiting outside Xander’s apartment for Buffy and Spike, whatever vehicle the vampire was able to acquire, was really stressful, even for Anya, although this was her idea. Xander tried to keep her calm, but she was a long way from cool and collected.
A huge, steel, rusted Winnebago then screeched to a stop in front of them, all the windows covered in tinfoil.
Anya was very impressed with Spike’s ability to steal a camping vehicle since they would likely be camping. There was a small kitchen, a booth around a dining table, a bedroom area in the back, and a bathroom! She didn’t think she’d get to pee in a toilet in Pylea. She was prepared for outhouses and trees. It was also full of camping equipment, most of it still with the price tags, clearly stolen. Spike must’ve gone on a crime spree the night before. Anya would’ve been upset at him if it were her store he robbed, but since it wasn’t, she was just glad to have supplies.
Spike was also sitting at the driver’s seat, tinted goggles strapped to his face. Buffy was sitting shotgun beside him and turned to watch the rest of the crew, and Dawn, file in.
“What’s he doing here?” Giles asked sharply.
Anya was surprised. Had none of them noticed that because of Spike’s loyalty to Buffy and his strength and general fighting prowess that Buffy would understandably seek protection for Dawn and aid from him? It was just logical, even if he had romantic feelings for her. Especially so, in fact.
Sure, the thing with the robot was unusual, but as far as solutions for unrequited feelings, there were worse ones Anya could think of and had seen. Anya recognized the taboo of the situation but found it preferable to the alternatives. And it seemed like he wanted more than just sex. The Buffybot was nice to him and cared about him. That stank of loneliness and desperation.
Spike had also eaten recently and eaten well because his bruises were all but gone. But without his chip, he couldn’t eat from a human the normal way… was it hospital blood or mortuary blood? The large leather satchel Buffy had brought when visiting Tara last night seemed all the more conspicuous. Anya wondered if it was just human blood that had given Spike such a turnover in health.
“Just out for a jaunt, thought I’d swing by and say howdy,” Spike said.
“Out!” Giles ordered.
“He’s here because we need him,” Buffy snapped to Spike’s defense.
“The hell we do,” Xander said, also protesting. Anya wondered if Giles and Xander had so many objections to Spike because of some territorial behavior, necessitated by being the men in Buffy’s lives. Certainly, neither of them was romantically challenged by Spike’s presence since neither was romantically interested in Buffy.
“If Glory finds us – or there’s something dangerous in this dimension we’re running to - he’s the only one besides me that has any chance of protecting Dawn,” Buffy said.
“Anya wouldn’t send us somewhere dangerous!” Xander explained. Anya made a regretful face. “Honey?”
“I didn’t have a lot of time!” she protested. “It’s human-habitable. Maybe the civilization is more medieval than you’re used to, and there are many dangerous species, but it’s not more dangerous than being here with Glory after us.”
“See, it’s not as bad!” Xander exclaimed, clearly only hearing what he wanted to. “We can get rid of deadboy-”
“This isn’t a discussion!” Buffy shouted, rising to her feet, hackles raised. “He stays. Get over it.” She sat down with a heavy, full-bodied sigh in the seat beside Spike. He was smiling smugly at Xander and Giles. She caught his grin and only rolled her eyes. Interesting.
“Buckle up, kids!” Spike said, jovial to have been defended by Buffy to Xander and Giles. “Daddy’s putting the hammer down!”
The engine revved, and the entire camping van took off, axles screeching and engine roaring. Giles and Xander, still standing, rocked and swayed, stumbling for balance. Tara and Willow gripped each other tightly. Anya quite enjoyed the bounciness; it was like a rollercoaster.
“So, how does this portal work exactly?” Buffy asked.
“Well, it needs to be activated by siphoning energy off of an epicenter of psychic power,” Anya explained. “The good news is that there are a lot of places like that in Sunnydale. The best place, however, would be as close to the Hellmouth entrance as we can get.”
“We’re opening the Hellmouth?” Giles asked.
“No, of course not. It’s just the Hellmouth is magically radioactive. All kinds of energy spit out of it constantly, including large amounts of psychic energy. All we’re doing is collecting that energy and concentrating it at a fixed point in time to cut a hole between dimensions. Psychic energy is the densest, after all.”
“Can you drive to the old high school?” Buffy asked Spike. He nodded sharply, once, and wrenched on the steering wheel, sending everyone gripping for purchase as they careened sideways. “What happens when we get there?”
“I recite the spell,” Anya said, picking up her spellbook. “And it opens the portal.”
“It’s that easy?” Buffy said skeptically.
“Well, the spellbook is tied to this dimension as well, so it won’t come with us,” Anya said.
“So, how do we get back?” Willow asked.
“Well, Pylea has magic and books; we’ll have to find a spell there,” Anya said. “All interdimensional spellbooks are dimensionally locked. You can’t find a spell to travel to our dimension in our dimension because attempting to do so would create a paradox. It’s the same everywhere else. We’ll find one in Pylea, I’m certain.”
They were almost, almost at the high school when they were then under attack. The fight began with an arrow bolt hitting the side of the Winnebago, ripping through the wall and poking near Anya’s head. She screeched and ducked, holding the spellbook to her chest.
“What is it?” Buffy asked.
“Can’t sodding check my mirrors without getting burnt up, now can I?” Spike argued.
“Oh, for God’s sake, let me,” Giles said, practically throwing Spike out of the driver’s seat and ripping the foil of the windshield and side window. Spike retreated to the back of the Winnebago, away from the sunbeams, sitting next to Dawn. “It appears to be knights on horseback.”
“Those assholes again?” Buffy cursed.
“Don’t hurt the horsies!” Willow cried out.
“Aim for the horsies,” Buffy ordered.
The Winnebago swerved dangerously, a thud coming from one side.
“Hey, Gramps, step on it!” Spike shouted unhelpfully.
“Step on what? I’ve ridden bloody tricycles with more power than this,” Giles said.
The window behind their heads exploded in a shower of glass as another arrow went through it. Spike ducked and cursed to avoid the sunlight, retreating toward the back room. Something thudded on the roof.
“Are we close enough yet, Anya?” Buffy asked desperately.
“I’d like to be a little bit closer to the school-”
“Anya!”
Anya thumped the book on the table and prayed to the old Norse gods of her childhood.
“Krv Drpglr pwlz chkwrt strplmt dwghzn prqlrzn lffrmtplzt!” she exclaimed. Ahead of them, a swirling blue-purple portal began to form as they drove toward it. “It’s forming too slowly-”
Dawn had a glazed look on her face as she stared at the portal. She reached for a piece of shattered glass from the table and cut her palm with determination. Green flashed across her eyes as her blood dripped onto the book Anya was using, and the portal flared green like a supernova as they drove into it, swallowing them up completely.
Anya had never been human during interdimensional travel before, and it was much less pleasant when all your pieces were soft and squishy and not magically sealed. For a moment, it felt like her intestines were in her nose, her ears were between her toes, and she could taste colors.
Then they landed hard in a forested area, the entire RV rocking and shaking even more as Giles swerved to avoid trees, the landscape uneven and grassy. He slammed on the RV brakes, and they finally pulled to a stop right before crashing into a dense grove of trees.
Xander promptly stood up, rushed to the sink, and vomited into the sink.
“He doesn’t travel well,” Anya reported brightly as she got over the ringing in her ears. “He’s like fine shrimp.”
“You’re hurt,” Spike said, immediately standing and rushing to Dawn’s side while everyone else was still recovering from the dizzying effects of interdimensional travel. Tara was squealing and sobbing while Willow looked drunk. Giles was slumped and holding his temples like he had a headache. Buffy was recovering slightly better, blinking around with mild disorientation.
The vampire grabbed a towel from the kitchen area and pressed it into Dawn’s palm, staunching the flow. His hair looked particularly white in the pale midafternoon sunlight, which was weird for some reason, but Anya’s brain still felt a bit spaghetti-like.
“There’s two of them now,” Tara was babbling. “They dance across the sky together, but they don’t have the right credentials. The right credentials. And – and without them, the light is warm, but it’s not too warm. It’s a different light; it tastes like strawberries.”
Spike looked down at his hands in the sunshine and immediately backed away, acting like he was in pain and then pausing. Waiting. Sticking his hands back into the light. He looked like he was in awe.
“Well, what do you know, Glinda? You’re right. Light tastes completely different.”
Tara smiled widely and patted Willow’s hair.
“Oh, right,” Anya said, things finally connecting. “The suns of Pylea don’t harm vampires. I thought it was convenient in case you came with; you would be more useful if you didn’t have to hide all day.”
“You picked a place that was Spike-friendly?” Xander asked, sounding betrayed. “How did you even know he was coming?”
“It’s the strategic decision,” Anya said plainly. “He’s the second-strongest one here, he cares about Dawn, and he’s survived Glory before.”
“Ta, love,” Spike replied. He had turned his focus back on Dawn and was now wrapping up her palm with bandages he had pulled out of… somewhere.
“Do we really want the vampire to do first aid? He’s probably gonna suck the dirty napkins later,” Xander said.
“Nibblet’s not food,” Spike said gruffly. “Shrimp.”
“What happened?” Buffy said, pushing past Spike.
“Bit cut herself when the window exploded,” Spike said. “Sliced her palm. It’s not deep.”
Buffy looked to Dawn for some sort of clarification, but her sister looked… tired.
“She did it intentionally,” Anya said. “She powered the portal up.”
“She did what ?” Buffy asked.
“I don’t know what I did,” Dawn said, her voice croaking. “I just saw the portal, and I knew what it needed. And I could feel the heat in my hands, but I had to let it out from beneath my skin.”
“She bled all over my book,” Anya explained. “Of course, the book is gone now, but she powered the spell.”
“Well, er, considering that Dawn is the Key,” Giles said. “Formerly a ball of cosmic energy, it makes sense that there is some way for her to still harness the interdimensional energy in her human form.”
“But why her blood?”
“Because it’s always blood,” Spike said simply. “Blood is energy. Blood is life. That’s why undead folks like me need it to keep going.”
“Which means the ritual that Glory wanted to do-” Willow began, looking morose.
“Would’ve been to bleed me dry,” Dawn guessed.
“Well, we’re here now,” Buffy said. “And Glory can’t get here, which means we’re safe…r. We’re safer. How long until the convergence?”
“Four days,” Anya said.
“So we camp here for four days, and then we find a way back,” Buffy said.
“If I was able to get us here, maybe I can get us back,” Dawn said optimistically. Buffy looked pained at her sister’s enthusiasm. “You guys are all doing this for me, and I want to do something, too. I want to help!”
“You did help,” Buffy promised her sister. “And we’ll let you help more if we know that you won’t get hurt in the process. You’re the priority Dawn – my priority.”
Dawn nodded in agreement, although she looked slightly sad at the prospect of not being able to bleed over more books.
“Will Dawn still be, you know, portal-y after the convergence?” Xander asked.
“Dawn will always be the Key,” Anya said. “It’s her makeup; interdimensional energy literally flows through her veins. Just now, it has more hemoglobin.”
“Could I learn how to control it in other ways?” Dawn asked. “Maybe I could learn how to teleport or stuff?”
“Well, I tried to make a teleportation spell, Dawnie,” Willow said. “It was really hard for me, but maybe we can practice really basic transportation magic? You might have a knack for it, and if you can do it with a spell instead of bleeding on a book…”
The light lit back up again in Dawn’s eyes.
“Sparkly,” Tara whispered, stroking Dawn’s injured arm.
“Wait, do we know that four days here and four days there are the same four days?” Xander asked.
“I did my research,” Anya said. “I picked a dimension that was chronologically synced with ours. Even the day-night cycles will be similar.”
“Even with two non-vampire-roast-y suns?” Buffy asked, looking out the broken window, sunbeams still not hurting Spike.
Something lit up in Spike’s face when he fully processed that he was immune to sunlight in this dimension, and he was rushing toward the exit, jumping out into the sun like an excitable puppy or something.
“I’m not on fire!” Spike cheered. One by one, the rest of the crew unloaded from the camper and into the sunny clearing they had landed in, sparsely populated by trees. The denser groves filled the perimeter, pale wood and dark green leaves, a dense forest on all sides. The ground was a mix of grass, peat, and bits of woodland detritus.
Anya considered it convenient that they landed in a perfect spot, away from civilization, perfect for a long camping trip. She looked sidelong at Dawn, wondering how much of that was the Key’s intention.
“We should set up camp while we still have the energy and the light,” Buffy said, looking skyward.
“I can help!” Spike offered, prancing in the sunlight. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him drop on the ground and roll around in the grass. “Because I’m not on fire.”
“Yeah, it’s a shame,” Xander snarked.
“What are you gonna do, toss your cookies at me?” Spike challenged.
“Well, we’re in a forest, and there’s wood everywhere. You wanna see if this dimension’s wood also works on vampires? Let’s find out.”
“If you wanted me to touch your wood, Harris, all you had to do was ask-”
“Knock it off,” Buffy snapped. “We don’t have time for your macho whatever. We need to unpack our camping supplies and set up.” She turned back to the camper. Spike sent Xander a triumphant smirk and followed behind Buffy. Anya understood that Xander was protective of Buffy, but in the vampire’s defense, he was helpful at pitching tents.