Disclaimer: I own nothing. Refer first chapter…for a completely different statement regarding this.

A/N: So, I was done with this, had no intention of revisiting whatsoever. And then RL and three deaths popped in and smacked me in the face, demanding I write some silliness as something to take my mind off it. I make no apologies – no, those'll come with the other and far angstier divergence-fic I've been writing to purge, assuming I ever actually post it. (Hint – it's not the one I wandered into near the end…)
While I'm here, I'd like to thank Starway Man (well, hopefully I didn't mangle X/C too badly here then…), NarutosBrat (thanks too for the ideas!) and WBH21C for their reviews, as well as anyone who sees fit to leave comments and/or concrit following this final instalment.

Gratuitous Trope Warning: Because I somehow, unaccountably happened to miss some tropes in the previous three chapters, I decided to throw in a few more. Also, just the one nowhere-near-accurately-portrayed crossover wasn't enough, so I mangled two or three extra just for kicks. Oh! and since Xander didn't get quite enough nookie yet, a few more pairings. (NarutosBrat? Starway Man? I'm looking at you two here…)

To Grind the Organ of Divergence

Epilogue: For Time Is My Gimp

—ox-oxo-xo—

As above… (2192 A.D.…or so)

It had become something of a tradition, in the patchwork of realms known collectively as 'heaven'.

He supposed some form of this was inevitable. With the technological advancements of humanity over the past few hundred years, and the resulting increases in (mis)communication and (flawed, yet often genuine) attempts at understanding between cultures and paradigms, an increasing number of its inhabitants had come with their own preconceptions of what their time here should be like.

God listened, and considered each one. Humans could come up with some really good ideas. Such as tequila. He still considered that one right up there in the top ten innovations.

Time was an ephemeral thing here, but it did pass – mostly to be tracked in the arrivals (and the odd departure of a reincarnationist, though that was unusual outside of the Oriental-natured realms, heaven being essentially The End of that journey). For those who had served here longer, or for those few who were inclined to spend great stretches of their time watching these realms instead of the one(s) below, several of the previously isolated heavens of since-evolved cultures had been observed to drift closer as new entrants expressed their desire for some element of that nostalgically distant resting place.

Of late, this had led to some excitement as explorers travelled between the realms.

He supposed the denizens of Valhalla had something to do with this. It was certainly something they had approved of, once they heard of Valentine's Day – something to make it more satisfying to them. But then, it was so much easier to blame him. Not to mention, more politically correct – for all his good qualities, he practically existed to annoy people in small, harmless ways.

Horns sounded as an army of men (and some few women) crested the meadow-hill before them.

Most of them weren't actually Vikings, merely dressing as them for the occasion. Certainly the shiny weapons were fake, having about as much cutting power as a fluffy pillow. Apparently the logic was that it just wouldn't be as much…fun without the provided ambience.

The army looked down at the valley, striking poses and leering comically. Squarely at the vanguard stood several dozens of That Plague Upon (the) Heaven(s), Xander, pointing and directing crude gestures at their chosen targets.

The meadow's current occupants looked up at the army, hiding behind each other and mock-cowering. A collective exception to that rule clustered at one point, vigorously debating tactics to deal with the threatening, uppity horde. It did not escape his notice that of the women (and some few men) dotting the valley, those in the cluster were notable in having been connected in some fashion with some re-issue of Xander Harris.

At an unseen signal, the invaders cheered, and then came charging down the hill.

At the sight of the oncoming assault, the invadees screamed and began milling about in a 'panic' – apart from the ones in the cluster, who pulled out their own shiny weapons and assumed skirmish positions for the counterattack.

Sighing with exasperation as the latest re-enactment of the Valentine's Day Battle once more made a tacky farce of heaven's tranquillity, the Metatron mourned, "Why did we ever let him in?"

Not really expecting an answer, he nonetheless turned to regard the One True God.

Who was not there.

However, there was a dead ringer for Alanis Morrisette running alongside two women he recognised as Buffy and Joyce Summers, the trio grinning like giddy children as they waved their shiny fire axes (another part of the tradition, it seemed) and chased a cringing, wailing Xander.

"Ah. Of course. How could I have forgotten," he deadpanned.

The Metatron glumly sprouted wings and flew away to find somewhere less embarrassing, pointedly ignoring the plaintive cries of another Xander as he was dogpiled by a dozen-plus pre-pubescent girls and one of their great-grandmothers. After all, he had brought it on himself.

—ox-oxo-xo—

…So below. (2209 A.D.…kinda)

Andrew Wells wore a beautific smile as he entered the bar. He was well aware that his mood didn't really fit the circumstances. After all, this was technically still Hell. You were meant to suffer here. If you were enjoying it, there was something wrong with you.

He definitely hadn't enjoyed it. There had been absolutely no enjoyment of the suffering. He shuddered at the memories. Poor Andrew had been passed from owner to owner like a party favour. He'd been forced to do so many things, such horrible, horrible things… No. No enjoyment. None!

Xander, who had been passing through and bought his old acquaintance after eventually recognising the blond slave on the end of a spiky leash (and had categorically not forced him to do anything but shut the hell up and let go), rolled his eyes and ignored the growing lump in the freed slave's loincloth, not unkindly pushing him in further so that he wasn't blocking the entrance. Blinking and looking embarrassed, Andrew walked towards the counter, his good humour returning as another Xander sitting there toasted him with a frosty beer in his hand and a cheerful, "Oh! Hey, Andy. Death been treating ya well?"

"Eh, not so bad," Andrew nonchalantly replied. "Though I was in dire straits, until Xander busted me out like Luke Skywalker busted Lei—"

"Shut up, Andrew," the Xander who'd rescued him interrupted. "Hey, Bruce. Found this little monkey on the way back. No dice on the mission though, too early yet – give it a few months. We got any visitors in?"

"S'up, Bruce. Lessee… Hallie got back yesterday – good news there, the Hoff's sending a rep over. Harm finally tagged outta the Pit – didn't quite hit her record, but thirty-seven days is still nothing to sneeze at… Least, not unless you're Anya." (1)

"Damn straight!" Another Xander had slid two frosty ones over, the one who Andrew privately called 'his' Xander toasting to that.

Andrew hesitantly tried the beer, still trying not to stare in awe at the bar full of Xanders. For hellish beer, it was surprisingly good. "I heard about this place. My mast— I mean, the demons who I talked to spoke of it in whispers…"

"Yup, our own little corner of hell." The sitting Xander (the Xander to Sheila Bruce, a Slayer who had stuck with him for nearly three months before they were overrun in an alley in Atlanta) grinned proudly. "Just 'cause we didn't hang round long enough to get into heaven, doesn't mean they can keep us down."

"We've already carved out a good chunk," added Xander the bartender (the Xander to a witch of the Tierra del Fuego coven, who had been killed only six weeks afterward in a fairly humorous jet-ski incident). "Give it another few centuries and watch the Big-Big Bads start sweating!"

The three Xanders laughed. Andrew laughed along with them. It seemed the thing to do, and he felt like laughing anyway.

Xander (the Xander to Jamie Bruce (no relation), an Australian Slayer who'd been unable to stop her Xander from succumbing to a redback spider of all things just short of five months in existence) drained his beer with a satisfied sigh and commented in all fairness, "Gotta admit though, it would've been trickier if we hadn't started out in the Limbo realms. Anyway – I suppose we'd better set ya up with the Mayor."

"Who's he?" Andrew eventually asked as he was led deeper into the bar, up the stairs and across a long covered walkway that led over to another building formed into a series of offices.

"He's in here," Xander Bruce said, pushing open a door. "Hey, Bruce! Got a newbie for ya!"

Yet another Xander (this one in fact having nothing to do with anyone named Bruce, but well-familiar with the little joke the Bruce 'twins' liked to play on newcomers) looked up from his desk and nodded genially. "Hey… Andrew right? Rockin' the gimp outfit there…" At another, wider desk off to the side, Lindsey MacDonald and Eve tried not to snicker as the indignant and embarrassed Andrew tried to glare at their Mayor and, technically, boss (though Xander was pretty relaxed about that sort of thing unless it was important). It was particularly devastating given the utterly ridiculous hat that Mayor Xander was wearing, just because he could. "Been a while. I'm guessing you're wanting to claim refugee status?"

"Um, yes! I'd very much like to—"

"Right…" Mayor Xander's lips twitched. Then he assumed an air of regretful authority, which was made more difficult with the hat. "Well, I'm sorry to say it, but you contravene Rules One, Three, Five and Seven through Sixty-four inclusive of The Hell-Nation Formed For the Endless All-Xander Gang-Banging of Anya Jenkins's Refugee Conventions."

"What!" Andrew squeaked. "I mean, what?"

Mayor Xander held the regretful expression for nearly three seconds. Then he fell out of his chair laughing, where he was joined by Xander Bruce. Lindsey snorted with amusement, kinda seeing their point (he'd witnessed this skit a number of times, though they usually fell afoul of Rule Two instead of half the others), and went back to his Council paperwork with a chuckle.

Eve stood and handed Andrew a citizenship form to fill out, giving him a sympathetic smile that didn't reach her eyes. "We're in hell, Mr. Wells. Were you expecting something different?"

(1): Re. 'Harm': whether this is Harmony or the vamp that took her place is up to your interpretation. Mine is that this was the human Harmony Kendall, who ended up in the Limbo Realms and didn't initially do so well as the Xanders…or, quite possibly, ended up in the 'Chinese Amazon' hell where she took citizenship, became a succubus and now periodically visits THNFFtEAXGBoAJ for vacations. As far as vamp!Harmony, I figure she stupidly went for the backstab and Xander just staked her, his patience for yet more treacherous soulless vampires at a definite end.

—ox-oxo-xo—

What was…what will be… (2311 A.D., or 1 A.E.)

"Hey, Xander!" Willow smiled and meandered over to greet the Garden's newest visitor.

"Hey, Willow. It's been a while," Xander replied, unfazed by Willow's lack of clothing as she came over and embraced him. "Hi, Xander!"

The First Xander smiled back and gave him a little wave. Drogyn the Battlebrand, if he wasn't mistaken (it had been a while), spared him a nod before resuming his conversation with the (also naked) demigod; Xander was pleasantly surprised at getting even that much out of him. The long-serving Guardian of the Deeper Well was always going to get along excellently with a guy who saw no need to ask questions because he could already See the important answers, but he'd never worked well with the other Xanders – too much irrelevant babble, he remembered the man saying once.

And this Xander in particular was a sore point for Drogyn – he was famous in the supernatural community for travelling at the side of the God-King Illyria, who stood as the Guardian's deepest failure.

Goddess could that man hold a grudge. It had been three hundred years already!

Not that Xander cared to wait for another hundred years for him to let his guilt go. He had places to be.

Xander turned back to Willow. "So, I was thinking… You know how I started out planning to do something else, back when all this kicked off?"

Willow nodded knowingly. "Oh, so it's back to that, is it?"

"Yep. 'Cause honestly…" He gave her a wry little grin, tinged with satisfaction and a hint of loneliness. "I'm done here."

It had been a long and mostly boring three hundred years for this Xander Harris. Not that there were any other Xander Harrises left living on this Earth to be confused with any more. As the human race had completed its final preparations and emigrated en masse to the stars to leave behind their increasingly inhospitable planet of birth, the other two long-lived duplicates of Xander 'Harris' had joined the exodus to follow their… 'significant others' was technically accurate, but more than a little offputting when it was applied to Dracula's manservant and friend of centuries. And only slightly more offputting than it was thinking that way of Spike, who had reunited with Drusilla and her Xander after the End Times of the Shanshu prophecy had finally rolled around, less than two years ago.

Xander had laughed long and hard after that one. It hearkened back to the very first prophecy the original Xander had unwittingly played like an organgrinder – true in a sense, inescapable in a sense… but only in a sense. Even less of a sense than the Pergamum Codex's mousetrap for the Master, because even for the greatest of prophecies, their wiggle-word strictures had been dramatically loosened following the Great Shut-out and its shift of the 'Balance' dynamic.

It was inevitable, once word finally got around of what the American and Chinese governments had decided in response to the ever-worsening dual crises of climate change and overpopulation. The N.S.W.X.C. had mostly eradicated the more hostile and evil of demons (and completely eradicated all but seven vampires at that point)… but mostly wasn't good enough when most of humanity was picking up sticks and leaving. Amidst the mostly orderly upheaval of the exodus, one well-hidden enclave of ex-Scourge offshoots deep beneath Erebus had, essentially, dialled home and proposed a Earth-wide hootenany to celebrate the occasion. The U.S. and Chinese governments, deep in protracted negotiations over the details of how their power-sharing deal (and eventual merger, if things played out) would actually work, had written off the ye-olde-style throwdown that resulted as 'earthquake activity' due to climate change and the near-total loss of the Antarctic icecap. Some things never changed.

A new Slayer had since arisen – bizarrely, though, it was a half-Brachen girl who had been activated. A sign from on-high if ever there was one.

Angel had been rendered human, briefly, at the hands of a trio of Mohra demons during the final battle (dropping the vamp-count to six). (2) In the end, he'd been the one who, mortally wounded, had been left with the dead man's trigger. The dying man, guarded for just long enough by the last human Slayer, had blown the rest of the horde back to their hell as their compatriots (at least, those who had survived thus far) got the hell out of dodge…pun intended.

Most significantly for Xander, though, was the revelation that the New Scourge had somehow managed to get its hands on the power that Wesley and his Mutari Generator had siphoned away from Illyria all those years ago. And the being who yet occupied the body of Fred Burkle had snatched back that power with both hands, helping herself to the containment assembly that the demons had cobbled together to restrain and harness it.

Since then, the remnants of the Council strike team that had, long ago, been known as Angel Investigations… had each gone their own way. Spike had walked away, tracking down his sire as the exodus continued unabated. The team's supporting crew had linked up with the new Slayer, and were representing the newly-evolving N.S.W.X.C. amidst the new confederation of supernatural denizens, the vast majority of who had either decided to stay behind or were in no condition to pass as human in order to leave. Amongst the forming patchwork of territories, the Council would be little more than just another faction of the loose, laissez faire governing body that was already entering into its own scattered rounds of negotiations. (And celebrations, too. Looked at the right way, their patience had won out.)

The last ship had left two weeks ago. As of now, on a planet that had held almost fourteen billion not a decade past, there remained approximately seven million humans. Humanity now made up only a quarter or so of the remaining sentient life on what one departing mother had told her crying child, as they were ferried aboard onto the penultimate wave of outgoing ships, could be thought of as 'Earth-That-Was'. Give it a few millennia, and humanity would mostly be just another flavour tossed into the genetic DNA-stew of your average demon – humans were adaptive, and interbred surprisingly well with many of the larger demonic clans. One only had to look at the new Slayer for the proof of that.

The number of mostly-human population centres left on Earth, the ones with more than a few thousand people left in them, could be counted on two hands. The metropolis formerly known as Salt Lake City was the largest, a small but sizeable portion of the Mormons joining in with the Amish and deciding that they were going nowhere. Nowadays they were calling it Garden's Return.

If you were looking for a more accurate rendition, though, you'd be better off looking at this Garden. Verdant and bursting with life as few other places left on the planet could boast without micromanaged greenhouse arrays, it was far closer to the traditional picture of Eden…which was ironic, because its two sole permanent occupants were not even in the ballpark of being Bible-thumpers. This one could glean from the other name for this place: the Gaia Seed, that which would still be lovingly nurtured, spreading to regenerate the rest of the planet, long after its former fleeing inhabitants had left it forgotten in their legends.

Looking around, and breathing in the moist, almost jungle-like air, Xander looked down at the smirking woman who'd mostly called it The Garden because that's what it was (and also because of the nudist connotations).

"It's a fine place you've made here, Will. But I've got someone to catch up with."

Willow agreed, "That you do, mister. I'm guessing you brought what you need?"

"Nya-huh," Xander replied, rooting around in his pocket and pulling out something looking a little like a baseball might if the stitching consisted of tail-biting serpents made out of liquid crystal and the skin looked like it had been painfully peeled off a screaming New Scourge demon. Funny coincidence, that… "Illyria's parting gift. That and Dawn's help should do the rest."

Willow carefully examined the potent 'artefact'. "Wow, that's neat! But yeah, should do it. Just give me a little time to see if Dawn's up to it, and we'll have you on your way in a jiffy!"

It had taken some work, but Illyria had eventually managed to reverse-engineer the New-Scourge-That-Was's crude containment assembly into something she was mostly happy to use for herself. Even now she was off invading Glory's old hell-dimension, having already conquered Pylea and taken command of its forces, the last he'd heard. Illyria had not outright made the offer, though they both knew that it was there if unstated – but she had given him a boon for his efforts in making three hundred years trapped on this wretched, stinking, human-infested mudball of a realm a little less tedious. (Apparently Pylea was little better, but it would do for a start to build from.)

The clearing's sky lit up a brightly, shimmering neon-emerald, and Xander looked over to where Willow was grinning. "Well, she wasn't that busy."

"Shut up, you," a grumpy feminine voice called out from the majestically swirling, green-hole portal that hovered over the quartet. "Hey, Xander!"

"Hi, Dawn. How's Xander?" he called up.

"Oh, he's still tied up." The ethereal Dawn's tone turned mischievous. "Fancy popping in on the way through?"

"Nah," he answered, trying not to snicker, "I've kept her waiting long enough. Enjoying yourself in there, Xander?"

The sound of something being comically spat out echoed down to them. "Oh, you know. Just standing around…"

"Well, part of you's standing…" Dawn teased her captive Xander. "Speaking of, can we get on with this? He keeps trying to wiggle loose."

"See," Xander turned to address Drogyn, "this is why it's a bad idea to deny sex to young Keys. It warps their impressionable little minds, and even reverting to green balls of energy doesn't get them off the subject…" The Battlebrand rolled his eyes at his sally.

"Shut up, you. Hey, Xander!"

"Yeah, hey Xander, hi Will, s'up Boss-Man, how's tricks Droge." Drogyn scowled. "But seriously, hurry the hell up people. We've got things to be getting back into."

"Truer words were never spoken, Summers," Xander quipped as Willow smirked and her husband tossed a brown-eyed wink up (not that brown-eye, you perverts) at the green-hole singularity that represented Dawn Summers-Harris's brief protrusion into the earthly realms. "Let's be at this."

Willow gave him another hug goodbye. His originator ambled over and shook his hand with a beaming face that somehow made him think that a prank was in the offing. Even Drogyn was moved to offer a half-bow of farewell as the departing Xander looked around at the world and its Garden once more and savoured the last seconds of his life.

It was probably time for some Famous Last Words.

"Now…when was I?"

And as tendrils of Key reached down to swallow him and as glittering metallescent snakes began to tunnel under his skin, the First Xander reached out with one hand and twisted—

…

Willow stopped, and slowly turned around to stare at her husband as their visitor left this time, place and life for his next grand adventure. "What was that?" she asked (out loud for her other visitor's benefit), with Resolve Face squarely planted.

Xander shrugged and tried to look innocent. Then he grinned as Dawn's voice called out, "Ooh, reinforcements! Thank you Xander!"

"And didn't he say he wasn't going to visit?" Willow rejoined, still glaring at the unrepentant demigod.

"Oh, he didn't send him here," she told the redhead, ignoring the First Xander for the moment as he thoughtfully snapped his fingers and went darting off into a storeroom tucked into the bole of a very large tree. "He just twinned my Xander! Oh, I so owe you for this one, Xan!"

Xander grinned back up, having just returned. But now he was holding out a lantern-like cube up to the centre of the emerald vortex, its inner glow tinged with green under the greater light source.

"Oh? What's with this?" Dawn asked.

Xander stared up into Dawn's singular form. His left eye glittered in messages unspoken as it met its progenitor, telling silently of what he had Seen in a place and time far distant in more than one way.

"Huh, okay," Dawn eventually responded. "Well, I think there's just enough energy left from Illyria's thingamabob to get it where you want it. And I owed you for the extra Xander anyway. So consider it done and done! … only later, when I'm done."

And with that the portal that was Dawn snapped shut with a lecherous giggle.

Willow and Drogyn stared at Xander. He shrugged, and turned back to Drogyn with a gesture that broadcast without words, '…you were saying?'.

Willow huffed in fond exasperation. She'd get it out of him later…

(2): Those seven/six would be: (Angel), Spike, Drusilla, Dracula, and his three wives. Refer (1) for Harmony's fate.

—ox-oxo-xo—

…What is… (late 2004 A.D.)

"Well it took you long enough, Harris. What'd you do, stop off and smell the flowers? Six months I've waited. I practically signposted the way here, you know!"

Xander blearily came to full awareness, stowing away the remembered agony of being disintegrated at the atomic level while traversing three hundred years in rewind. It was just like Illyria not to mention how damn painful the return trip would be.

The other side of the life/death coin was… in some ways, not what he'd been expecting. But only in some ways. The one-woman greeting party was thankfully not one of them. He stared up at her, drinking in a…sight? he'd deprived himself of for far, far too long.

"Oh, I see. You thought it'd be a fun idea to bring a friend with…you…?"

The irate spirit stuttered to a halt as she stared past him. Rolling over on a glowing floor of nothing explainable, Xander turned…and met the stunned gaze of a Xander he could swear up and down he hadn't left that mortal coil with.

"So this is what Bossman was smirking about…" his twin murmured, eyes wide with realisation and bogglement.

"…Oh, that cheeky magnificent bastard," Xander marvelled.

Xander Harris (or Xander Chase, as they privately liked to think despite the centuries with certain god-kings), both of them, turned to stare at the dearly departed Cordelia Chase.

Who had lips. And was licking them, even if she looked too flabbergasted to realise she was doing it.

She shook herself. "Don't think you're off the hook for this one, Alexander LaVelle Harris. You've got a lot of grovelling and explaining to do before I'm done with you, busters!"

"And this is a chore…how?" a Xander snarked at her.

—ox-oxo-xo—

…and what could be. (mid-2000 A.D., and a little ways off to the Side…) (3)

He was thankful later on, when he had the chance to think about it, that the 9mm he'd been cleaning at that moment had been disassembled and thus not in any condition to fire. As a general rule, little green vortexes a foot across did not pop into existence for just long enough to drop rare magical artefacts on his couch. And he tended to kill things he didn't expect.

The cropped-cut brunet uncoiled from his armchair and stalked over, snagging a loaded crossbow to train on the glowing glass-paned cube. His eyebrow rose, as memories from long ago and a time far away threw up an index card as to the cube's significance.

It was an Orlon Window. With a Post-It note stuck on one of the edges.

He carefully approached, and read the Post-It. The ink, he noted, was in a glittering green that seemed to sparkle wetly up at him.

Hi there! Xander Prime thought you might need this. Cheers!
Dawn Summers-Harris

He considered this, as the note disintegrated into little green wisps of mist that dissipated to nothing. Or he tried to, given the massive lack of sense it made.

The ostensibly twenty-year-old demon-hunter had heard of Dawn Summers, in passing. The reportedly barely-pubescent younger sister of Buffy Summers, who had hunted the Hellmouth as first the Slayer, then as the elder of two Slayers. Not people he'd ever really met, for all that she and several of her friends had attended the same high school, and even some of the same classes, and despite the fact that they actually shared a common…job, and even a couple contacts (Clem being the main one, the Magic Shop assistant Tara Maclay another). He didn't know that he approved of the way Summers, Lehane and their crew of fluctuating size operated – far too showy at times from what he'd heard of them, too eye-catching, their superpowered heavy-hitters luring in the big-time challengers like moths to a flame. But then, they did have their uses. If nothing else, it made it far easier for more professional hunters – hunters like him – to operate under the radar and do what needed to be done.

Mind you – he was more a follower of the 'under the radar' philosophy than most other hunters you'd find just about anywhere. If there were others more undercover than he was… well. You wouldn't be finding them. That was the whole damn point.

He glanced around his apartment's living room, hard features smirking at the tribal-like glyphs painted on the walls and over the door – mystically imbued inks that were matched in form and function under his shirt. The anti-surveillance wards had taken a massive hit yesterday, almost failing, but they were still operational. A few hours meditating, a couple good energy-rich meals, and they'd be right back how they were.

'Although…' As he looked down thoughtfully at the Orlon Window, he realised it was becoming increasingly obvious that something had made its way through in that brief moment of opportunity.

As far back as he could remember, there had been little gaps and inconsistencies in his long-term memory. They weren't as bad as they could've been; while he might not remember some of the details of the mental stresses that had forced him to have that shaman in Botswana develop his mindscape, that same mindscape had made dealing with the disarray over time far easier. As of now, the demon-hunter knew enough to be going on with.

There had been a time and a place, less than two decades from now, where something had happened. Something so horribly wrong, that a thirty-seven-year-old Al Harris had found himself blasted back without notice or permission, all the way back into his four-year-old body. From what he remembered of his second round of being that age, he gathered that the week-long coma his peremptory return had caused the overloaded four-year-old brain to suffer had somehow itself fixed the main problem. (The intermittent flashes of foggy dissonance, and an associated sense of disaster averted, he'd had sometimes when he laid eyes on one of Chase's sheeple through most of his school life might have had something to do with that.) But since he was still here and now, he'd long decided that he might as well keep a quiet eye on some of the other disasters on the horizon. Make sure they didn't lead back up to the same result.

Such as the stormcloud approaching Sunnydale now. The Slayers and their 'Slayerettes' – which at the moment was Summers and Lehane, the ex-librarian/watcher Giles and his techno-pagan lover Calender, their apprentices Levinson, Madison and Ross, and an outwardly naïve gopher by the name of McNally (though if what Al had heard on the demonic grapevine had any credence, McNally was actually the group's equivalent of him, at least insofar as taking full advantage of being underestimated) – had done well so far, dealing with most of the major catastrophes with a little help from absent members and peripherals. The Master, the Judge, Acathla, the Mayor, Adam – all dealt with handily, and with only a minimum of casualties. But this one was a whole different kettle of piranhas.

A castle had suddenly appeared on Sunnydale's outskirts, from one night to the next. Dracula was making his appearance.

From what his spotty memories of a 'past' yet to occur informed him, that meant the Hellgoddess Glorificus was also coming to Sunnydale. She was looking for the Key to returning to her home dimension. And whatever the grey patches in his memories were obscuring, all he needed to know was that if she found that Key, the Slayers and their group would face disaster… and, quite possibly, unleash something far worse than even Glory down the road.

Or at least, that was all he'd thought he needed to know.

Al wasn't the arcane powerhouse that Madison, or even Levinson, might claim to be. In terms of potency he was about up there with Michael Czajak – and that was if most of his energies weren't already tied into the wards that hid him from damn near everything but the Goddess Gaia, which made most spell-casting impossible for him. But in esoteric knowledge, only Giles might outstrip him.

He knew about Orlon Windows.

Someone or something had pulled a reality shift. Someone was monkeying around in alternates, and probably the Key if that portal – apparently courtesy of either a Slayer's kid sister with a crush on someone she'd never met, or some other analogue of both her and Al – was anything to go by.

And if someone was screwing with reality, then just maybe his memory hadn't just fallen victim to his young brain's inability to cope with a re-write. Maybe his memory had also been screwed with.

Al was a careful man, though. So he dug out and checked the telltales he'd planted in the apartment back before even the wards were in place, and ran through both one of his periodic cleansing rituals, a diagnostic on the artefact, and another cleansing ritual, before finally bending his Sight on the Orlon Window.

…

…

…

"…Well. Nice try, shitheads."

That was all he said before setting about reinforcing those wards as quickly and thoroughly as he could. Because if he was going to have to go to all the trouble of kidnapping one of Sum…Buffy's friends or family, again, in order to lure them all here and properly introduce himself to them, again, then any other interested parties getting the least look-in on this was the very last thing Al Harris wanted happening.

Those grey spots in his memory, at least the ones post-time travel, had been explained. Any direct contact with the Slayers and their support crew had been erased, and any hints of it obfuscated.

He'd apparently been working with them for years, hidden in the shadows of obscurity as they attracted all the attention. Of particular interest to him was a number of side-incidents which McNa…Jesse had been known to get the credit for – turned out, Al had done most of it. Which made him curious as to what exactly Jesse did within the group. Was he as useless as he looked? or was something deeper and less easy to identify through glimpses into a magic lantern going on here?

At least the Orlon Window made things easier. Of course he'd have to make sure Dawn wasn't there when he smashed the thing and restored everyone's memories prior to the rewrite, but it was one hell of a short-cut. Maybe Clem would be willing to look after her for a little while… Yeah, kidnap Mad…Amy too this time, she had enough power that he didn't want her throwing it around outside trying to pull off a rescue – as well as enough mystical know-how that she could look into the Orlon Window herself, make convincing her to lure the rest here easier.

And at least the 'attack' hadn't been an actual attack, much less deliberately done – just those damn Dagon monks pulling off their Key-made-flesh trick, unaware of his wards so unaware of him. Although he'd have to somehow ensure Angel and certain members of his L.A. crew were included in the breakage – because while his involvement with the Sunnydale Slayers had apparently gone unremarked, Al wouldn't put it past some of the more powerful players to have slipped their own subtle edits into the script.

Al himself would need to wait until the Orlon Window broke to see whether he'd managed to successfully negotiate the second obstacle in his goal. But in the meantime, there was hope.

He'd need it. Because from here on out, the stakes just got higher… and he wasn't in a position to trust in the benign motives of mysterious benefactors – let alone trust that they weren't the only ones who might have snuck a glimpse at his true purpose…

(3): In the Ending A/N for the previous chapter, I mentioned a few ideas I had for more divergences. This was one of them, the longest in fact at around 50K words written – and also no-where near complete, because it looks to be a novel-length work. This section would be something of a prologue of a sequel to the as-yet-unnamed fic. For the moment, I just wanted to put out the idea of various Powers, Partners, Jasmine, the First, etc making their own subtle adjustments to their own scenarios as massive reality shifts (esp. Wishverse, Dawn, Connor) take hold. (Letting Cyvus Vail pull a reality shift: quite possibly one of Angel's most outright stupid mistakes…)

Ending A/N: And now I'm really done. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this latest and last instalment. I'll close by once more thanking anyone who reviewed, messaged, faved, followed, C2'd or just read this and found it entertaining. Bye for now.