First, a little reminder:

The Unexpected Universe has gotten so long and complicated, even I have trouble remembering things at times, so a small refresher to make the next section make sense (I hope):

Back at the end of the very first story, the Buffy in the ‘Whedon-verse’ (aka: Canon) dimension had a decision to make: stay with Spike in the Hellmouth and make him believe that she truly loved him, or do as he said and leave him there alone to ‘see how it ends’.

One Buffy left him and the Whedon-verse continued unchanged; another part of her, however, decided to stay with Spike, and a new dimension was created at that point. Both Spike and Buffy burned up and died together in that world. Their bravery was rewarded by the PTB, and their souls and memories were folded into our Spike and Buffy at that time (reference: Unexpected, For Love, Chapter 53). At that decision point, where Buffy had to decide whether to stay or go, a new dimension was spun off in the universe. This new dimension had neither a Buffy nor a Spike in it. This left Dawn an orphan (again). Let’s call it the OrphanedKey Universe.

A portal to this universe (as well as one back to the Whedon-verse, which Buffy used later to change things and create the Rome Universe, (reference: Life Goes On section: Danger Across Dimensions)) was created in the Hellmouth near the stairs leading out, where Spike was standing when the amulet activated and Buffy made her decision.

Bottom line: There are portals that can be opened between the Rome Universe and the OrphanedKey Universe just at the foot of the stairs that led down under the high school basement and into the Hellmouth.

Click here to see a Universe Map that might help … or might not.

(A few days after Sue-Ann and Sammy left) Saturday, September 3^rd, 2011:

Faith, Spike, Buffy, Xander, Anya, Willow, and Tara walked in silence through the empty hallways of Sunnydale High. It was always a little freaky being back in the high school for all of them, but especially for Buffy, Xander, and Willow. The school was like an old friend … that tried to kill them on several occasions. Yeah, it was freaky. It was probably over-kill to bring so many people on this fairly simple mission, but no one had been in the Hellmouth in years and Buffy didn't know what to expect; she wanted to be ready for anything. 

The group made their way down into the basement and to the locked room that held the Seal of Danzalthar:  the doorway into the Hellmouth. Xander produced a key to one of the padlocks on the door and Buffy pulled out a key to a second lock; together they unlocked the door for the first time in several years. Everyone held their breath as Xander swung one of the heavy doors open and Buffy shone her flashlight into the darkness. Everything looked just as they had left it – the Seal was tightly closed.

Buffy blew out the breath she’d been holding and forced herself to start breathing normally again as she led the way into the room.  The small group stood around the Seal, each with their weapon of choice in hand.  Buffy sat the flashlight down and took out several pints of Willy’s best O Neg from a bag she had slung over her shoulder.

She looked around at the group a moment, then asked, “Everyone ready?”

“No,” Anya answered her immediately. “I don’t like this one bit. I don’t understand why Xander has to go with Spike … I mean, why don’t you go with Spike. He’s your husband.”

“Ahn,” Xander cajoled. “We’ve been over this – I want to go. It’ll be fine – it’s not like we’re going to some hell dimension. It’ll be just like here except… well, with a big crater instead of a town.”

Anya harrumphed and crossed her arms angrily over her chest. “If you don’t come back, I’ll hunt you down and make sure some of your favorite parts start falling off, Xander LaVelle Harris … and yours too, William,” she added, shooting Spike a warning glare. “It won’t be pretty and it will definitely involve lots of pustules and searing pain.”

Xander and Spike both shifted uncomfortably in their spots as their dangly bits tried make themselves as small as possible and suck up into their bodies.

“Ahn, everything will be fine,” Xander managed at last, trying to sound unconcerned. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

Anya rolled her eyes and sighed in resignation. “Fine, but the next time I want to go somewhere unusual, I don’t want to hear one word from you, buster.”

“When have I ever stopped you from going anywhere you wanted, Anya?” Xander demanded angrily.

“I wanted to go to Baker Beach and you absolutely refused,” Anya reminded him.

Xander’s jaw dropped open. “That was … ten years ago! And I had good reason to not want to go there!”

“Says you,” Anya groused.

“Says any straight guy in the whole world! It’s a gay beach … a gay nude beach! Hello! Earth to Anya – not gay … not dropping m’ skivvies on a gay beach!”

Anya rolled her eyes. “Trust me, Xander, I love you, but you’re no Billy Bean. The most that would happen is you might not’ve gotten asked out on a date.”

“Demon bird’s got a point, Harris. Got a bit of a muffin top, you do,” Spike interjected with a smirk.

Xander frowned and look down at his less-than-flat abs. “I just haven’t had time to work out lately with all the work at the Council,” he offered as an excuse. He looked back at Spike with confusion. “They don’t call it a ‘muffin top’ on men, do they?”

“Prefer dough-boy, then?” Spike wondered, cocking a brow at the younger man.

Xander scowled at him and turned his attention back to his wife. “I don’t even know why you wanted to go there … I mean – they’re gay!”

Anya tsked her tongue and sighed heavily. “Well, to look, of course!  Where else can you find a sea of naked men who don’t care if a woman is looking at them?”

“Anya, that’s what they invented the internet for!” Xander contended.

“You look at naked men on the internet?” Anya asked, sounding a bit jealous. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

“What! No! No! No naked men on the internet!” Xander objected, waving his hands adamantly. “Only naked wo…mbats … wombats are just … whoa … very interesting when they’re … naked,” Xander stammered as Anya’s eyes grew wider with each word.

Anya rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Xander, you are such a homophobe. You really need to come into the twenty-first century.”

Xander sighed and shook his head. “I am not a homophone...phobe,” he objected. “Two of my best friends are gay,” he pointed out, waving a hand at Willow and Tara, who were remaining unusually silent on the subject.

“Oh, please! They’re women – you just think that’s hot! You have no gay men friends at all,” Anya insisted.

Xander held his hands up in surrender. “Fine … when I get back, we’ll go to a gay nude beach. Maybe I can get someone to gay me up. It might be nice to have another man around the house. At least I’d know what the fuck he was talking about and wouldn’t have to worry about him bringing up something I did ten years ago and tossing it in my face.”

“Word o’ advice, Harris. Be sure t’ pick one that shaves close – that stubble can leave a bit of a whisker burn on sensitive spots. Painful, it is,” Spike advised with a smirk.

“Thank you – I needed that visual,” Xander moaned, rolling his eyes. “Please never tell me how you know that.”

“See?” Anya accused, pointing a finger at her husband. “Homophobe.”

"Hey, Ahn, I'll go with you to Baker Beach ... I might be able to convert one of them," Faith offered with a smirk. "I don't seem to be having any luck around here, anyway. If it weren't for very expensive, long-distance phone sex with Lindsey I wouldn't be getting any at all."

Anya brightened considerably. "Well, I'm certain they aren't all gay. I mean, it stands to reason that some of them are bi ... Xander's a 'bio-phobe' too ... unless it's a woman. Do you know he wouldn't even consider a three-way unless..."

“Ahn! Ixnay on the exsay alktay already!" Xander demanded, cutting her off. "Can we please just do this?” he asked in exasperation, looking at Buffy.

“Just waiting for the touching send-off to be over,” Buffy sighed as she began dumping the blood onto the Seal of Danzalthar.

The Seal began to glow and shift, then sections began to fold to reveal the stairs that led down into the Hellmouth itself.  The group stood with their weapons at the ready in case anything emerged from below, but only stale air came out of the opening.  When the Seal stopped moving, Buffy led the way down the stairs, followed closely by Faith, then the witches, the Harris’, and finally Spike behind them all, bringing up the rear.

Buffy walked over to the precipice and shone her light down into the depths of hell from which The First’s uber-vamps had ascended all those years ago.  The dust from all the Turok-han that had been killed with Willow and Tara’s magical sun was still evident. It was still clogging the Hellmouth, but it had settled, or dropped, by a good bit since Buffy had last seen it. It was hard to judge distance in the cavernous space, but Buffy guessed it was now about a hundred feet lower than it had been about eight years ago when The First Evil had tried to rise to power.

Spike walked up behind her and scanned the layer of dust that filled the bottomless pit, beyond what Buffy’s light could actually illuminate. He could see fissures and cracks beginning to form in the packed vampire dust. It would only be a matter of time before it opened again; how long was hard to judge. Ten years? Twenty? There was no way to really tell.

“All quiet on the southern front, then,” Spike offered as he looked over the edge with Buffy. A couple of the others had come up to check it out too.

Buffy took a deep breath and nodded. “Looks that way.”  She turned her eyes away from the pit and over to her husband. “You don’t have to do this – I could go,” she offered.

Spike shook his head. “Got the Gem, I’ll be fine,” he contended. “Plus – got Harris backin’ me up … what could possibly go wrong?”

Buffy snorted a laugh and rolled her eyes. “I wish you hadn’t said that. You do realize you just totally jinxed it.”

Spike shrugged. “No worries, luv. We’ll be careful. Don’ want demon girl tracking me down making m’ favorite bits fall off,” Spike joked.

“You and me both,” Buffy agreed, giving him a wry smile.

“But, seriously – if anything goes wrong, just forget it and come back, ok?” Buffy admonished him.

Spike nodded. “Got it, no worries.”

“And don’t forget to show her you’re not The First – touch her if you can … she thinks you’re gone … well … you are gone, we’re both gone,” Buffy continued.

“Got it, Slayer.”

Buffy nodded and rolled her eyes. “I know you do.  I wouldn’t even have suggested it but … I think it would do Annie a lot of good to be able to talk to her. I think it would make her feel less … freakish … less alone.  She doesn’t show it, but it’s there – I saw it.”

“Reckon that’s true enough,” Spike agreed with a nod.

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Ok, you ready to go find Dawn?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Spike asked with a grin.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “If a bear shits in the woods, but there’s no one there to smell it, does it have any odor?”

Spike frowned and furrowed his brow a moment. “Reckon I better get goin’ ‘fore you start asking about astronauts and cavemen, pet.”

Buffy laughed and pulled him into a hug. Spike wrapped his arms around her and dropped his lips to hers, savoring the taste and feel of her for several long moments.

Finally breaking the kiss he whispered, “I love you, Slayer,” against her lips. “You’re a good mum.”

Buffy gave him a small smile, his lips still hovering over hers. “I love you too. Be careful.”

“Middle name, pet.”

**~**

With backpacks on their shoulders full of every supply they could think to bring, Xander and Spike waited for Buffy to open the portal that led back to the dimension where both Spike and she had burned in the Hellmouth, leaving her sister, Dawn, alone.  Since regaining her memories of the Gift-less dimension, Buffy had been thinking about Dawn more and more, and thinking about how much Annie had really wanted to talk to her. 

Buffy well remembered the feeling of isolation she’d had when she’d been Called – being the one and only Slayer in the whole world – but at least she knew that other Slayers had come before her and would come after her. Annie was the one and only Key in the entire world … in the entire history of the world. 

No one could tell Annie what that would mean for her as she grew older. Would she always be the Key? Would her blood always open portals? Would any other powers come from the ancient Key energy that was within her? What would happen to that energy when she died? No one knew.

If Dawn had survived the collapse of Sunnydale, which actually wasn’t a certainty, she would be twenty-five; thirteen years Annie’s senior. Buffy hoped that, if she had survived, if Spike and Xander could find her, and if they could convince her to come back with them, that she might have some answers for Annie. At the very least, Dawn could show Annie that she wasn’t alone in the universe … and vice-versa for that matter.

Since Buffy didn’t know what they’d face when they opened the gateway to the Hellmouth, she’d waited for Labor Day weekend when Willow and Tara were visiting, for extra magical muscle.  So far, though, things seemed to be going smoothly – that was almost certainly a very bad sign.

Despite Anya’s objections, Xander had volunteered to go with Spike on the mission. Spike insisted he could do it alone, but Buffy liked the idea of someone going with him. Faith said she’d go, but Buffy didn’t know if the police were still looking for her in the other world. That could get very complicated very quickly if they were.

Xander seemed excited by the prospect of an actual mission that didn’t involve fixing broken pipes, patching holes in walls, or ordering pastries. It had been a while since he’d been on a real mission, and this didn’t sound like it would be all that dangerous. Find a girl who was presumably like Annie that could be living anywhere in the world, who may, or may not still be named Summers. Ask her nicely if she’d like to go with two strange men, one of whom had been dead to her for eight years, to another dimension for a visit. Piece of cake.  The hardest part Xander anticipated was getting out of the crater that Buffy said would be all that was left of Sunnydale, and then walking for several hot, dry miles to the next nearest town.  Maybe he should’ve taken some time to train a bit before this. Oh well, too late now.

Maybe I can lose this muffin-top while I’m gone. It'd serve Anya right if I start getting propositioned on gay, nude beaches and she didn't, he thought brightly as he stood next to Spike and watched Buffy open the two portals at the base of the stairs.

One portal led to the ‘Rome’ dimension and came out in the demolished Wolfram & Hart building – or, at least, it had been demolished the last time any of them had seen it. They didn’t want that one – it would be a very long and deadly first step if there was no building there.  They wanted the other portal, the one that led to a dimension none of them had ever actually been in, but Buffy and Spike remembered. The souls and memories of the Buffy and Spike from that dimension had been folded into their own when both warriors died closing the Hellmouth.

As the two portals began to blaze brightly and grow in size, Anya came up and wrapped Xander in a tight hug and kissed him deeply. “Be careful you stupid, idiotic man. I want you back all in one, undamaged piece,” she admonished him harshly when the kiss broke.

Xander smiled at her. “I love you too, Ahn.”

“Right, then – ‘ere we go,” Spike announced as Anya backed up away from Xander.

With a last glance at their wives, Spike and Xander jumped forward into the portal that would lead them into the dimension where Buffy chose to stay and die with Spike in the Hellmouth.  They’d no sooner passed through the bright, swirling light than they both fell backwards onto their asses on the floor of the Hellmouth, right at Buffy and Anya’s feet.

“Bloody hell!” Spike exclaimed, rubbing his split lip. 

Xander was wiping blood from his nose and cursing under his breath.

“What happened?” Buffy exclaimed, stepping forward.

“Ran into a bloody wall,” Spike informed her, standing up.

Buffy stepped up to the portal and pushed her hand through gingerly. She was met with something hard and solid. It felt like a concrete wall.

“Shit,” she muttered, pulling her hand back.  She turned to Willow and Tara. “Can you guys like … blast it out of the way?”

Willow shrugged and stepped forward. “Ummmm … eradicae!”  Willow tried, extending her hands through the portal. The wall cracked a bit, but didn’t crumble or move.

The red witch blew out a frustrated breath. “Ok … back up, we’ll have to really blast it,” she told everyone as she took a few steps back herself.  Everyone moved back and away from the portal, which had already started growing smaller.  Tara stepped up next to Willow and took one of her wife’s hands in hers, then the two witches extended their outside hands towards the portal.

“Ventas servitas!” the two witches exclaimed as one. At once, a fierce wind whipped up from nowhere, flowed from their outstretched hands, and into the portal. There was a sound of concrete being smashed as the wind slammed into the wall like a sledgehammer and blew a hole through the obstruction.  Concrete dust filled the air inside the Hellmouth as the wind subsided. Everyone began coughing and waving their hands in front of their faces to clear the air so they could breathe … well, everyone except Spike.

“Thanks, Red!” Spike called as he ushered Xander forward before the portal closed completely.  It had gotten so small that they had to crawl through one at a time.  Buffy had more Key blood to reopen it, but Spike figured why waste the blood; every vial meant another donation from Annie.

Xander was still coughing and squinting against the fog of debris as he clambered through the opening. On the other side, he fell about three feet and landed in a bed of sand and gravel. Spike fell on top of him.

“Get off!” Xander demanded, pushing against Spike. “Geez – I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come on this mission.”

Spike stood up, readjusted the backpack on his shoulders, and looked around as he waited for Xander to get up off the ground. “Quit yer bitchin’,” Spike admonished his traveling companion. “Could ‘ave worse things on top of ya than my hot, tight little body.”

“Please don’t start that shit again,” Xander growled as he stood up and tried to clear the dust from his eyes and nose.

“Hey! Is someone down there!? What happened? Are you hurt?” someone called from above them.

Xander and Spike looked at each other questioningly. They thought the Sunnydale crater would be deserted.  Suddenly, a ladder slid down next to Xander and a man with a yellow hardhat descended into the slowly-clearing dust storm.

“Uhhh … hi,” Xander stammered. “We’re alright, thanks.”

“Man – that was wild! Never seen anything like it! The ground just exploded!” the man exclaimed, looking around. “Damn – fucked up the catch-pit! Shit, this is gonna take another three days to fix. We’re already two weeks behind schedule! This is just what I need!

“What the hell happened?” the man demanded as the dust finally settled. “What were you doing…” the man stopped talking abruptly. “Harris? Xander Harris?” the newcomer asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“Mr. McNally!” Xander exclaimed, recognizing his old boss from the construction company that had gone out of business back home. “Uhhhh … we were … ummm … inspecting!” Xander lied, inspiration striking him like a bolt from the blue. “I’m with the building department now and … I gotta tell ya, this catch-pit was substandard. The concrete obviously wasn’t cured long enough and didn’t have enough reinforcement. The tensile strength was well below minimum requirements.  How many more of these do you have on this job?” Xander asked, giving the man a stern glare.

“I … uhhh …” Mr. McNally stammered, looking at the demolished sewer catch-pit.

Before he could say anything else, Xander, who had now fully gotten into his role an as inspector, barked at Spike, “Let’s go – I’ve got the plans in my truck. All the concrete in all the sewer pipes needs to be tested. I’m shutting this job down until there’s a complete and thorough investigation. Where’d you get this concrete, McNally? China?”

Spike didn’t hesitate. He started up the ladder and out of the hole that Willow and Tara had blown in the ground, and Xander followed quickly behind him.  Mr. McNally was still standing there dumbstruck in the bottom of what used to be a large catch-pit for the new sewer system for the planned city of New Sunnydale.

“This area needs to be flagged – I don’t want anything touched until I can get my concrete strength testing technician out here with his equipment,” Xander ordered down at McNally from the rim of the hole.

“But … but … I can’t just close down the whole job! We're on a schedule! It'd be my job if I fall further behind on this project,” the foreman began to complain as he clambered up the ladder. “Geez, Harris! Give me a break! You know how these things go. I’m sure we can ... work something out here,” McNally proposed as he reached the top of the ladder and gave Xander a knowing look.

Xander scowled at the man. “Rope. It. Off,” he demanded, pointing at the small crater. “Don’t touch it. Don’t fix it. Don’t fill it in. If I come back here and see that one speck of sand has been shifted, I’ll close your whole job down so fast it’ll make your head spin,” Xander threatened. “Is that clear?”

McNally frowned deeply. “What about the other pipes? I’ve got the asphalt company coming in tomorrow to start paving the roads.”

Xander looked around them, turning in a slow circle. The crater that Buffy said would be here had been filled in and there was a skeleton of a town forming, as if slowly regenerating from the ground up. Curbs and sidewalks had been laid and the limestone base for the asphalt was in place around the area they were standing. Footers for buildings had been poured and the bare-bone forms of houses stood in various states of construction up and down the unpaved roads.

Xander turned back to the foreman, still keeping his air of authority. “You can keep going, but don’t touch this one,” he ordered. “Like you said, I’m sure we can work something out.”

McNally let out a relieved breath and wiped a layer of sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. “You got it,” he agreed eagerly.

Xander took out his smartphone, brought up the GPS app, and recorded exactly where the crater, and the portal back home, was.  Still looking at his phone, as if checking his schedule, he said, “I’ve got some other appointments this afternoon. My assistant and I will be back with the concrete tech in a day or two to check this one,” Xander told him, pointing at the hole in the ground. “I’m not sure why there isn’t any yellow tape around it yet, though…”

Xander looked at Spike solemnly. “Didn’t I tell him I wanted this roped off?”

“’Bout four times, by my count,” Spike agreed dryly, exaggerating slightly.

Xander pulled his top lip between his teeth to keep from laughing as the foreman started scurrying around. Mr. McNally barked at some of his men and they all started helping him. They grabbed several flashing barricades and some bright orange flagging tape, and they began roping the area off.

“See you in a couple of days … a week at the most,” Xander called over his shoulder as he beckoned for Spike to follow him away from the harried foreman.

“We’re goin’ the wrong way,” Spike growled under his breath as he followed Xander.

“Trust me,” Xander rasped back, keeping his voice low, as he headed for one of the construction trailers.

The pair ducked behind one of the trailers, out of sight of the foreman, and Xander led the way down a long row of white pickup trucks that were parked there.  Xander stopped by the one that looked newest and cleanest, and shrugged out of his backpack, handing it to Spike. Once free of the supplies, Xander quickly dropped down onto his back and shimmied under the rear bumper of the truck.

“What the bloody hell are ya doin’?” Spike asked in a low voice, squatting down next to him and looking around nervously.

After a moment, Xander emerged from beneath the truck with a small, plastic box. As he stood up, he slid the cover off it and revealed the spare set of keys for the truck. “Why walk when we can ride?” he asked with a victorious grin, holding the keys up and jangling them in front of Spike.

Spike swiped the keys from Xander’s hand and headed for the driver’s side of the truck.

“Hey!” Xander protested. “My plan – I should drive.”

“You drive like m’ soddin’ nan,” Spike informed him tersely as he opened the truck, tossed the backpacks in, and got behind the wheel.

“I do not!” Xander argued, climbing into the passenger’s seat. “I’m an excellent driver! I’ve never had a ticket, never been in an accident…” he continued to object as Spike started the truck.

“Like I said, ya’ drive like a bloody granny woman!” Spike asserted, backing out of the space. “Be faster t’ walk, what with the way you putter along.”

“I don’t putter! Just because I don’t see if I can break the sound barrier with my car doesn’t mean I putter!”

Spike checked the gas gauge; the truck had nearly a full tank. He pulled out onto the unfinished road, taking the long way around to avoid being seen by the foreman. Once he was sure they wouldn’t be spotted, he worked his way over to the haul road the construction company had made, and turned west towards the interstate.

“This is the thanks I get,” Xander continued to grouse. “I got us out of that sticky situation. I got them to leave that gaping hole open so we could get home. I even got us a truck, and this is the thanks I get.”

“What the bloody hell do ya want, Harris? A soddin’ medal?”

“A little appreciation once in a while would go a long way. I actually saved our asses back there. Me. With no help from you,” Xander asserted as Spike sped along the unpaved road, leaving a billowing trail of white dust in their wake.

Spike rolled his eyes. He would’ve probably just decked the foreman and left him there. Would’ve had the same result … basically. No way was Spike gonna admit that having the area roped off was pretty quick thinking on Harris’ part.

Sounding like a cartoon damsel in distress, Spike intoned in a high falsetto, “Oh, Xander … you’re my ‘ero.” Then, looking at Xander and batting his lashes coquettishly, he continued in the same tone, “Whatever could I do to repay you, you sexy hunk o' man?” Spike narrowed his eyes seductively, pursed his lips exaggeratedly, and kissed the air in the direction of his hero.

Xander sighed heavily, shook his head, and rolled his eyes. “This is gonna be a long trip.”

Spike smirked and turned his attention back to the road. “Be a good sight longer if you were drivin’, Rainman.”

**~**