Portal

She followed him to a black Range Rover just a couple feet away. She glanced around quickly and saw it was a parking garage. Several black vans and identical Range Rovers were parked all around her. There were no other people other than the man whose name she did not know that led her to the vehicle.

"You'll need this," he said as he opened the passenger door and handed her a key card to the penthouse suite Adelle had mentioned. "I will bring Echo around in less than an hour. Everything you'll need for your engagement has been, as always, provided for you and waiting in the room."

Buffy said nothing as she stared at the key card in her hands for a moment before she climbed into the passenger seat. She looked over at the man behind the wheel, who only briefly nodded her way before he backed the vehicle up and headed for the street. She fumbled with the key card and the cell phone, wondering if she should try calling Xander or Giles. Maybe Willow had lost her phone yet again and had to cancel in case some random stranger found the phone and decided to use it. Maybe she had dialled the wrong number, wrong area code. It had to be something.

She took a deep breath, cleared her head and dialled Willow's number slowly. She put the phone to her ear as she looked out the window, instantly recognizing the city around her. LA. She was in LA. She felt like throwing the phone out the window as the same automatic message played. The driver barely looked at her as he stopped in front of the Hilton just two blocks down and got out and opened the passenger door.

"Thank you."

"Pleasure is all ours, Ms. Summers."

She smiled and watched the man walk back around to the driver's side and he was gone. She looked up at the hotel and shrugged as she headed for the doors and walked into the lobby. She looked at the room number on the card and headed straight for the elevators. She tried calling Willow one last time as she rode to the top floor, again receiving the automatic message. She was about to call Giles, or at least try, when the elevator came to a stop on the top floor. She stepped out as soon as the doors had opened and looked at the numbers on the wall in front of her and headed left to the room that was `hers'.

Staying cool, calm and collected, as much as she could, she spent a good ten minutes exploring the rather lavish penthouse suite. If she'd been nervous before, her nerves just catapulted about fifty feet in the air as she walked into the bedroom. Rose petals littered the floor and the large bed. Dozens of candles sat on top of every surface, already lit. A bottle of wine sat on the small table near the large window along with two glasses and a tray of chocolate covered strawberries. Her eyes went wide when she walked to the ensuite bathroom and saw a bath had been drawn and two white, silk robes hung from the hooks on the wall.

"What the hell kind of engagement is this?" Buffy mused as she walked to the large tub and dipped her fingers into the hot, vanilla scented water. "What the hell is an engagement, anyway? Some kind of a date? I guess it beats being stuck in that dark alley with Faith and that demon."

Buffy chuckled to herself as she walked out of the bathroom and headed for the main room. Anything was better than being where she'd been not even twenty minutes before and with the current situation she was in, she couldn't complain. Much. The sky was darkening and she stepped out onto the balcony to watch as the sun set. The hum in her body wasn't one that warned her of impending danger. It was a familiar one, one she just couldn't put her finger on.

She tensed when she heard the door open, yet she couldn't bring herself to turn around to find out just who this Echo was. She felt soft, warm hands run down her back and she shivered despite the warmth. The touch was subtly intimate. Nobody had touched her quite like that in a long, long time.

"Hello, lover."

Buffy shivered again, the voice familiar but not. Warm, soft, wet lips laid a gentle kiss on the side of her neck and she closed her eyes as the hands slid over her waist and pulled her back. She looked down at the hands, feminine hands, as they began to slowly unbutton her blouse. She had to stop this, figure out what the hell was going on, but the fingertips stroked her skin with every button undone. Her body aching for that intimate touch she'd gone so long without.

Buffy slowly turned around, needing to see the face of the woman behind her. Her eyes went wide in shock and she pulled her blouse closed as she took a few steps back.

"Faith?! What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you want to play games this time? It's a nice change from Echo," she chuckled as she took a step towards Buffy. "Who will you be?"

"Faith, cut it out," Buffy groaned as she quickly buttoned up her shirt. "What are you doing here?"

"It's your birthday," she smiled as she took another step towards Buffy. "I'm always here on your birthday."

"No, this is just..."

"Okay, this is seriously, seriously messed up," Buffy panicked as she tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

"What?" Echo asked as she took another tentative step towards Buffy and reached for her hands. "Do you not want to spend your birthday with me? I had something special planned for you and me."

Buffy shook her head and stared at the woman in front of her. She looked so much like Faith, but there was something different about her. The way she spoke, the soft look in her eyes, and the way she held Buffy's hands in her own. There were no calluses; they were all soft. Too soft. Her body was still humming softly. She couldn't find it in her to figure out what was really going on.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Faith...I mean, Echo," she stammered, quickly correcting herself. This wasn't Faith. She knew it wasn't, but the resemblance to her sister-Slayer was uncanny.

"You can call me Faith, if you'd like."

"That isn't your name though, is it?"

"No," she smiled softly at her, her brown eyes almost sparkling in the dim light of the room. "I can be whomever you want me to be. Do you not remember last year when you wanted me to be Echo?"

"Oh god, why do I feel so dizzy?" Buffy asked herself as Echo moved even closer to her, smiling as she dropped one of her hands and reached up to tuck a stray hair behind her ear.

"They are watching us," Echo whispered, her voice low and husky as she pointed to the camera placed in the corner of the room. "They are always watching us. I can't let them know we know they are watching us."

"What are you talking about? Who is watching us?"

Buffy turned to look at the camera, but Echo stopped her, shaking her head no as she leaned in and kissed her ever so softly. Buffy couldn't stop the gasp of surprise when their lips met in a tender kiss. She was stock still, unable to process what was happening while it was happening. She was standing in a penthouse suite with a very Faith-like woman, kissing her, and she was doing nothing but standing there as if she'd been frozen in time. She should have been disgusted, but strangely she wasn't. The hum in her body was growing intensely by the second.

"What the hell am I doing?" Buffy repeated over and over in her head, still not stopping Echo as those soft, warm hands slid under her shirt and caressed her back, relaxing her even though she was still so tense.

"Are you feeling all right, Buffy?"

"Huh?"

Echo laughed softly as she began to slowly walk backwards, pulling Buffy with her towards the bedroom. "We've only got a couple of hours to celebrate your birthday."

"I..."

"I want to make your night special, just like it is every year," Echo said with a smile as she led her into the bedroom. Buffy resisted a little, her eyes still wide open in shock and surprise at what was happening. "You've been acting strange tonight, Buffy."

"I'm sorry I...this isn't what I expected."

"Are you not happy with what we have planned?"

"I didn't plan this," she whispered under her breath. "I have no idea what is going on!"

"What?" Echo asked, tilting her head to the side. "Are you sure you are feeling okay?"

"This is going to sound crazy, but," Buffy laughed as she shook her head, "I don't think I am from here."

"Of course not. You came from New York," Echo tittered as she began to back Buffy up against the nearest wall. Buffy felt helpless, she felt everything she always felt whenever she was around Faith. "You always come from New York on your birthday just to be with me."

"Do I?"

"Every year for the last three years," Echo smiled as Buffy backed right up against the wall. Buffy bit her lower lip, never having felt more nervous in her life. Echo was sending her thoughts into a tailspin and her body was reacting involuntarily to every little touch. "How do you want me tonight, Buffy?"

"How do I...want you?"

It wasn't until then that she noticed Echo was wearing a long, black trench coat. She watched, eyes wide, breath shaking, as Echo undid the belt and let the coat slip to the floor. If she wasn't already freaking out, which she was, what she felt now was herself about to topple over the edge of a nervous breakdown.

"Oh, God," Buffy breathed, feeling her face flush as she tried not to stare at the very naked woman standing a few inches in front of her.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't...I'm not...can you put the coat back on?" Buffy stammered as she closed her eyes and waited. The blush on her cheeks had crept through her entire body and she couldn't stop herself from shaking. Not even being surrounded by vampires or demons with no way out had made her feel so damn nervous.

She tried to take her mind off what was unfolding and tried to figure everything out. She went through the portal and landed here, wherever she was. She was known here, she was a client of this service that provided her with Echo.

"Is she a hooker? Oh my God, she's a hooker!" Buffy began to panic as she sunk back into the wall as far as she could, still not opening up her eyes. Something was completely off here though, and the more she thought about it, the more she began to realize that she was in a completely different reality, a different version of herself, yet still very much normal Buffy.

And this woman, Echo, who looked too much like Faith, was acting as if this was normal between them. That the intimacy, the intensity of it all was what they always did during these `engagements'. If it was true, if in this reality she did `hire' this woman to have one night with, then it was obvious that in this reality it was what she wanted.

"Oh God. I'm gay in this reality!"

She kept her eyes closed, breathing heavily as she tried to calm herself down. She could handle anything, she knew she could. She faced evil every single day, so why couldn't she handle this? She needed to find a way out of this situation before it got bad, but all those thoughts were lost completely when she felt the soft, warm hand trail up her inner thigh.

Her body was humming, louder now, but it was different. She opened her eyes and stared straight into the pair of brown ones that were staring at her ever so intensely. The green light began to fill her line of sight and if Echo saw it, she made no notice as the tips of her fingers brushed over the edge of her panties. She could feel herself being sucked back into the portal that opened up in the wall and she gasped as she was pulled in with much more force than she had been before.

"Oh, shit. Not again..."

Chapter 2: Buffy Shock

Author: rampantjake

Rated: R

Spewed forth from the portal, the uniquely feminine half of the Chosen Two tumbled inelegantly to the floor sending up a suffocating cloud of dust that immediately clung to her skin and clogged her well-maintained pores. All the grace and dexterity that was inherent to a slayer was nullified by the sudden shock of yet another harsh landing.

She spat at the dust and dry grass that had made its way into her mouth as she splayed on the arid ground in an undignified heap as her bearings fought to re-align themselves. Wheezing as the hard, brittle earth made its way into her lungs, forcing her to break into a coughing fit, she roughly wiped the accompanying tears that sprang from her eyes.

She craned her weary head up to see the ethereal green light that had consumed her fade away, as did her hope that her interminable odyssey had come to an end, as the portal closed leaving her stranded in an unknown place and, more importantly, alone once more.

Buffy frantically wiped her tongue on her sleeve trying to free the small colony of dirt that had taken refuge in her mouth and, she forced herself to her sore feet.

"Oh great, now where the hell am I?" she sighed as she surveyed her new surroundings as the realization that she was no nearer home than before sunk in fully.

Wiping her grubby face, she looked around to see no signs of life, just a cracked dirt trail that wound off into the distance, neatly cleaving field after empty field of wilting yellowed grass. The sun was bright and made the desolate landscape no less inhospitable as she brushed off the dust that cocooned her clothing with its khaki offerings.

"Ewwww," she squawked as she realized that the dirt on her pants was not quite as dry as she had once thought.

'After all those years living with Dawn, you'd think I'd be able to detect crap from a mile away. Oh well, it's not the first time I've been dumped and ended up in deep shit.'

For mile after furlong there was merely tinder dry brushwood, and she toyed with the idea of waiting for the almost clichИd spheres of tumbleweed to roll along, powered by an ill breeze. Her isolation felt stronger than ever with no visible sign of help as she was so tired of this unknown journey. She was as lost as a wordless man in a realm of semantics.

Squinting in the full menace of an unrepentant sun, she could just about make out that at end of the long, unkempt road lay the outline of a distant building. She was unsure as to what nefarious and possibly loathsome creatures such a dwelling could house, but she wanted to be safely inside before darkness descended.

Shaking her head slightly, which loosened yet more dust, she set one foot forward in order to head to the building where she hoped she could find a phone, or at least a mirror.

A silent shriek erupted from her as she trod in the crunchy remains of a dead squirrel, sending up a cluster of flies in its wake, making Buffy swish her thin arms around wildly as they buzzed around her with an unmenacing intent.

"Oh that does it. Hasn't my wardrobe suffered enough? If vultures start circling, I quit," she huffed as she stomped off on her trail as though, despite the fact that sewers and the stench of disembowelment was an aroma she often encountered, she still hated their vile smells.