The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

Note to readers: I do not write other people's stories, ideas, or original characters. Please don't ask.

I fought my way through the last barrier— what I hoped would be the last barrier, anyway— between me and reality, and I made it just ahead of the thing pursuing me. Since it didn't know how to get through the barrier (I wouldn't have, if not for my legacy gift from my mother) and it hadn't been summoned by anyone on the far side of the barrier, it couldn't come through. I heard its screams of rage and hate as the walls between layers of reality closed right behind me, and I collapsed to the ground with a gasp of relief.

Then I realized that I didn't need to gasp, still, dammit! I'd thought this was the way home, to the real world, to Chicago— but I felt no ill effects, physically, of a chase that, had I a normal body, would have left me gasping for breath, fighting off muscle cramps, and a pounding in my head.

I rolled over, sat up— and stared around me. I knew this place, and while it wasn't home, it was close to home, and I knew that I could get home from here… because for the first time since I'd died, I could feel magic inside me! Not a lot, not anything like enough for the kind of fight I so often ended up in, but magic!

"Hot damn, I'm back in the game!" I said aloud. I stood, looked down— the pants I'd imagined a couple of layers of reality back were on me, and the shoes— but the shirt I'd called up was a shredded mess, and it was damned cold here in the realms of the Winter Court of Unseelie Fey. "Of course, I'm severely underdressed, have no staff, no blasting rod, no duster and a serious jones for a can of Coke, but this is a definite improvement!"

I started walking, following the gentle slope I was on downhill, hoping to find either a stream or a path. In maybe half an hour of teeth-chattering walk, I reached a snow-free dirt path, and I punched the air and hissed, "Yessss!" I knew that trail, though not this section of it. It was a major thoroughfare through the Winter lands (hence it being snow-free), and all I had to do was figure out which way to go on it. I had no idea where I was in Winter's realm, and I really didn't want to stop and ask anyone. I might be the Winter Knight, still— I'd made that bargain with Queen Mab in exchange for her healing my broken back and giving me more power to throw at the monsters who'd kidnapped Susan's and my daughter— but I might not be, too. I didn't know for sure how long I'd been dead, and Mab might have found another patsy, or she might not. The trickle of magic in my being wasn't much of a hint, and I couldn't feel that cold power like I had when it was first given to me, but then, I was so cold that I couldn't be sure I'd feel anything if it was there.

I stood beside that dirt road, wishing for a coin to flip, and the decision was made for me; off to my left, a woman screamed, though it sounded more like a shriek of anger than fear or pain. That was it— decision made. I went that way at a run.

I came around a sharp curve in the road— and stopped, staring in plain amazement.

Ten feet in front of me was a dead… uh, something. It was a Winter creature, plainly— lots of white fur covered its ten-foot long— tall?— corpse, so it'd be comfortable in the cold, and the white of the fur would be great camouflage. Past that? It looked sort of like a giant baboon with stag horns and lion's eyes.

Maybe forty feet past the dead creature were three people fighting five more of the things. Nearest me, a well-built guy and a very well built young woman were fighting a pair of the whatsits. Maybe another twenty feet off, one smaller-but-also-very-nicely-built young woman was fighting three of the damned things— and holding them off easily.

She had a weapon of some sort, something like an ax, though I couldn't see it clearly, and she used it, yes— but she also used her fists and feet, and she was actually rocking these things with every blow.

"Stars and stones," I muttered. "Frying pan to fire, that's me."

Then one of the two nearest me managed a sort of pull-the-gut-in dodge of the guy's sword, reached over it and clouted the guy in the shoulder. It was only a graze, really, but it still tossed the man a good twenty feet to the side— and both of that pair turned to the girl with intent to do grievous bodily harm at least.

I couldn't let that happen— so I called up that little bit of magic I could feel, used it in the way most familiar to me to get the most bang for my buck (well, my five cents, anyway). I gathered my power, whirled my right hand in a swift circle, finished with it pointing at the critter nearest the young lady and yelled, "Fuego!"

A thin line of fire leapt from my hand, impacted on the chest of the creature— and, as I'd hoped, set its fur on fire. While it was panicking and jumping back, I repeated the process and nailed its buddy the same way.

Apparently these two had never had that safety lecture about "stop, drop and roll." They both fled into the woods, screaming and spreading the fire over their fur as they ran.

I turned to the three surrounding the smaller woman, picked the one furthest from her, yelled, "Incoming!" followed by "Fuego!"— and sent the last of my scanty supply of magic that way. It hit the biggest of the three whatsits, set its fur ablaze— and the little blond there kicked a second one into it, setting that one alight, too. Damn, she was good!

As I bent over and placed my hands on my knees, gasped for breath— using magic is tiring, and I'd not had a lot to use— and lifted my head to gaze that way, the two on-fire critters fled the scene. The last one bellowed, charged the young woman—

—and died as she spun out of its grasping arms, brought her axe around, and beheaded it in a single swipe.

"Nice," I panted quietly. "She's good. Also strong as hell. Wonder who she is…?"

About that time, the guy and the girl nearer me stepped into view. The guy had black hair and was dressed in black pants, boots and a hide coat that looked way too big for him. The young woman with him had on jeans and a coat, her long brown hair swinging below the collar of that coat (which also looked too big for her) as she bent to look at my face and ask in a slightly nervous tone, "Sir? Are you all right?"

"Fine, or I will be," I said, consciously slowing my breathing and straightening up. "Just… ran myself dry with that, and haven't done anything like it in… well, I don't know how long, but a while."

"I'm glad you did it," said the guy, offering me his hand.

I straightened the rest of the way up, reached for his hand— and finally really looked at him.

Black hair. Black clothes, a turtleneck and cargo pants, almost like a uniform, under the rough-tanned, too-big hide coat. A black eye-patch over his left eye. Regular, even features, handsome, even. I stood there with my hand out, stared at him for a moment, then looked at the girl with him.

Tall, built like a brick house, long brown hair— so long that even in a doubled-up tail, it hung most of the way to her bottom ribs— lush lips, vivid green eyes that I thought should have been blue.

Both of them were familiar. Not perfectly familiar, but damned familiar.

The young man took my hand, shook it, and said, "I'm Xander Harris, and this is Dawn Summers. The blond on your left is—"

"Is her sister, Buffy," I said in wooden tones. "Buffy the vampire slayer.

"Crap! I thought I was almost home, but I can't be, not with you three here!"

"Uh, you know us?" Dawn said, looking wary.

"Not exactly," I sighed, dropping to the ground, suddenly exhausted from emotional letdown and power use. "I… know about you. Some, anyway.

"Damn it, I was so sure that I was almost home, that this was the Way through Faerie… damn it!"

"You're not making a lot of sense, guy," Xander said to me in a 'let's humor the crazy man' tone of voice. " 'Cause to be honest, if this is almost home, I don't think I want to know where you come from. It's about as far from our home as you can get."

"I'm from Chicago," I said, my voice weary and depressed. "It's just that it's a Chicago where you three are part of a television show that later got continued as a comic book."

For a long moment, the three were too stunned to speak. Finally, Buffy herself asked (in a voice a lot like Sarah Michelle Gellar-Prinze's, but not identical to it, just as neither of the other two sounded exactly like the actor who played them, or looked exactly like them), "What… what was the name of this show?"

"It was called Buffy the Vampire Slayer," I said with a sigh. "The comic that came after was called Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight."

"Holy shit," Xander said in a quiet voice. "We're a TV show?"

"Were," Dawn corrected. "And a comic book? And Buffy got the show named after her? God, that's so unfair!" Her voice had an edge of mirth to it that said she was joking, and Buffy's voice, when she replied, had that same tone.

"What were they gonna call it, Dawn?" Buffy asked, her voice a mix of humorous and lightly shocked. "Dawn the Watcher Sister of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"

"I happen to like that title," Dawn said. Then she said, "Okay, wait— mister, are you okay?"

"Tired," I said as my head began to spin some. "Tired and… and I want to go home, I thought I was almost there, and now… god, tired can't even begin to describe it."

I flopped back on the ground, ignoring the cold dirt and the bump on the head I gave myself— and that's the last thing I remember for a while, unless we count the sight of Buffy Summers leaning over me and reaching for my forehead with her hand, probably to see if I had a fever.

"All I'm saying is that I hope they got a good actor to play me," Xander Harris said as I woke up. "Somebody with some chops, to capture my depth of character. And not that guy from Supernatural, Dawn, I don't care how much of a hunk you think he is!"

"Ow," I said softly as I sat up. I felt warm and rested, and part of that seemed to be the fur blanket I was under, part of it the fire. Also, I felt… hungry? "I think I'm… hungry?"

"Not unreasonable," Buffy said, moving into view and handing me a rough-carved wooden plate with a slab of slightly-burned-still-bloody meat on it, as well as a pile of what looked to be baby onions and a half a baked potato that was bigger than most whole potatoes I've seen. "You did do— well, whatever that was back there, and you look like you're having a pretty rough time of late.

"So, what's your name?"

"Sorry," I said, taking the plate and setting it down beside me (which took an effort of will— the smell of food had hit me like a ton of bricks). I offered my hand and said, "I'm Harry Dresden."

"Oh my god, the wizard!" Xander gasped. "No way!"

"Oh, hell's bells," I sighed, and dropped my face into my hands. "Let me guess, I was a TV show on your world?"

"Well, yeah, but—" Xander started.

"Hockey stick!" Dawn said, pointing at me suddenly. "Ghost in a skull! Drumstick!"

"Wait, what?" I said, staring at her.

"Dawn, that was just in the TV show," Xander said patiently. "In the books, he uses a hand-carved wizard staff and a hand-carved blasting rod. As well as some other stuff. A shield bracelet, a ring that stores kinetic energy… some other stuff. Also, Bob's not a ghost, he's a spirit of intellect that lives in the skull.

"Sorry, Mr. Dresden— the show stunk, but the books were awesome."

"My head," I said very slowly, "may well explode momentarily. Can you explain a little bit while I eat?"

"No problem," Xander said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them briskly while Buffy handed me a wooden fork (also looking hand-carved) and a pen knife to use as eating utensils.

While I ate, Xander explained that Andrew, the virtual God of Geeks in the world they'd come from, had walked in on Xander watching an episode of the Dresden Files on a website called HULU, and had told Xander that there were books that the show was "really incredibly loosely based on," and that they were a lot better. He'd loaned Xander the first one, and by the time they'd "got yanked out of [their] world," Xander had gotten through eight of the then-eleven book series (with a twelfth coming), and loved them.

"I had the last three on my nightstand, ready to read," Xander said, his eyes faraway. "I guess they're still there."

By that time, I'd finished my food, and I realized that I could feel a trickle of magic in my innards again. I asked Xander what the books had been called, and only felt a little surprise to discover that they had the titles I'd given the case files about each one for my own use.

"Look, I know this may sound intrusive," Xander said when he had finished with a description of the case that I'd called Proven Guilty, which had landed me an apprentice, "but I have to ask… is Molly okay? She managing to stay on the good side of the line?"

"She's… I think she's okay," I said with a sigh. That had been one thing that had been bugging me since I'd realized I was dead and decided not to stand for that. "Last I knew, she was on a naval vessel for treatment after being injured in a battle with the Red Court, but… I don't know. Things have happened since then, and I don't know…."

"Okay, listen," Buffy said, leaning over to catch my eye. "You seemed to think that this place was close to your Chicago, Mr. Dresden—"

"Harry, please, all of you."

"Harry, then," Buffy said, nodding her thanks. "Listen, would it help if I told you that we got yanked off of our world months ago, and we've got no idea where we are?"

That got my attention. "You got— this isn't your Earth? Or close to it?"

"No, it's not," Buffy said, shaking her head. "We got jerked off of our world— long story, but we'll give it to you later— and we've been looking for… well, people for at least three months. All our watches have stopped at least once, and we aren't sure of exactly how long we've been here.

"So if this is close to your home… can we help you to find your way?"

"Yes, probably," I said, nodding, then told her the rest, rather than making her ask. "And you can come with me. It's not your world, maybe, but… it's Earth. Probably enough like yours for you to make lives there. And it beats the hell out of hanging around in the Winter Courts."

"Winter courts?" Buffy asked blankly.

"Faeries, Buffy," Dawn said. "Winter and Summer courts, or Unseelie and Seelie, depends on who's telling the stories."

"Right, I remember," Buffy nodded. "Never accept food, drink or gifts, make no deals. Right?"

"Right," Dawn and I said in sync.

"Okay, wait," I said. "Look… if I am close to home, you people can maybe solve a problem I think I may have for me. Of course, you should like that— because to do it, you'll have to go to my Chicago, if I can find the way there."

"Maybe you should start from the beginning?" Buffy suggested.

I sighed, opened my mouth— and Xander said, "Hang on a second, Harry— I remember the books really well. Let me tell as far as I read, and you can correct me if you need to. That way, we both find out how accurate the books are."

"Good thought," I said, and nodded. "Thanks, Xander."

He grinned, which made him look a little more like Nicholas Brendan, who'd played him on TV— and somehow made me relax.

Apparently, the guy who wrote the books about me had a really good idea of what was happening to me. From the way Xander danced around certain subjects, I got the idea that the writer, whoever he was, had too good an idea.

Only once did I have to interrupt, and that was when Xander was talking about the Death Masks case, the case where I'd first run across Nicodemus and the Nickelheads, a bunch of fallen angels with a bad, bad attitude— and more power than I had ever seen in any one being, which was bad since there were thirty of them, or potentially that many.

Xander started to skip over what happened between me and Susan Rodriguez when I'd had to seal us inside my apartment magically… and she had lost control of the Red Court vampire side of her being, having fought too long and too hard against the people/fallen angels that were trying to kill us.

"I think you'd better tell them what happened," I interrupted, looking down at my hands, loosely clasped and hanging between my upraised knees. "It's… no need to get graphic, but it's… it has an effect later."

Xander told Dawn and Buffy that Susan and I had made love, after a fashion, and then got on with the tale— but not before I saw Buffy give me a knowing glance that told me she'd figured it out.

Once Xander had caught his best friends up on my life up to the point where I'd taken Molly under my wing, I told them the rest. I told them about the White Night case, in which fellow Warden Carlos Ramirez and I had taken some White Court vampires to task for their attempted (subtle) genocide on wizards.

I told them about the Small Favor case, where the enmity of the Summer Courts of Faerie and the return of Nicky and the Nickelheads had fallen on me at pretty much the same time, nearly resulted in the corruption of the Archive, the single most powerful (technical) mortal on my world, and had nearly gotten my friend Michael killed, had cost him a piece of his health— but had let him retire and become the family man he wanted to be.

I told them about the Turn Coat case, where I'd outed the traitor to the White Council— and how it hadn't helped enough, how I'd ended up joining Ebenezar McCoy, my former mentor, in forming the Grey Council, in order to counter the stupidity of the White Council, which insisted on denying the existence of the Black Council.

Then I bit the bullet, and I asked Xander if he'd known what the next book had been going to be called.

"Actually, yeah," Xander said, looking somber. "Andrew pretty much ran on about it, because it was the first of the novels about you that violated what he called 'the naming convention' of the books. He pointed out— and I hadn't noticed until he did— that all eleven books before that had two word titles, and the same number of letters in each word. So the twelfth book being called just Changes… that had him and some of the other fans around the world freaking out a little."

"Yeah," I said, sighing and dry-scrubbed my face with one hand. " 'Changes,' yeah. Hells bell, there were a lot of those.

"It started in mid-October, when Susan Rodriguez called me one afternoon and the first thing she said was, 'they've taken our daughter, Harry.' "

Dawn's mouth fell open, Xander made a little sound of surprise— but Buffy just looked at me and nodded a little. She'd figured it out back when Xander told them about my last time with Susan, just like I thought she had.

I told them the rest. The things I'd lost, the things I'd had to do, the deals I'd made, the war I'd fought with the aid of the best friends and family that any man ever had— and the price that Susan had paid, that circumstances had forced me to claim from her. I was silent for a couple of minutes after that, and they were kind— they left me to it.

When I could talk again without my voice going all over the scales like a kid in the throes of puberty, I said, "I won a war. I killed every fucking Red Court vampire in existence— but I didn't care.

"I saved Maggie. That was all I wanted— and more importantly, it was why Susan gave up her life.

"I don't remember anything for a while after that. The next thing I remember is sitting on the steps near the top of that temple, holding Maggie. She'd gone to sleep in my arms, and I just… held her. Held her and looked at her, and loved her as much as I could, because… because Susan was right. I couldn't give her the life she deserved. She'd never be safe, not with the number of people and monsters and monstrous people that hate my guts.

"So I held her as long as I could, then came home, gave her to Father Forthill so he could find her a home, and… well, Thomas had left the key to the Water Beetle for me, so I had a place to stay. I went there, put stuff away, cleaned up a little, and tried to sleep. Didn't work. I felt too…."

"Too full of empty," Buffy said into the silence.

"Yes," I said, nodding my respect at her. " 'Too full of empty,' yes, thank you.

"Murphy came by, and she'd been fired. She was too full of empty, too, and we decided to go get food, get blasted, and see what happened after. She went home to clean up and change, I decided to clean up the rest of the way. I went out on the deck of the boat to wait for her— and somebody killed me. Shot me through the chest, took out a lung and maybe grazed the heart, I think, but they killed me. I went into the lake, heard that bastard Cassius say 'die alone,' heard my mother say 'hush now' to him… then I thought I heard a train, and I died."

That earned me some silence and a couple of cautious looks before Buffy said, "You're awfully warm and not-rotten for a corpse, Harry. Also, you breathe— you have to breathe to snore like you did— and you eat, and you went off behind the little boy's tree once already, and you don't seem dead. I know dead, I'm practically professional at dead, we exchange Christmas cards.

"You aren't dead. How's that work?"

"Maggie," I said softly. "My little girl. She saved me— even though neither of us knew it.

"Remember the Soulfire that Uriel gave me to wield?" They all nodded, and I said, "I thought I'd over-used it in that big fight against the Red Court, thought I'd maybe burned out… well, my soul. And I guess I came really, really close, which would have been… well, I'd have died then, or not long after, and that would have been it.

"But I didn't use it all up, quite— and sitting there for an hour, or however long it was, holding Maggie… that replenished it all, and… I'm taking the word of a friend on this, but it sounds right, it feels right, and she… she's got some expertise in the field.

"Holding Maggie, trying to give her all of the love I'd never have time to give her later, then giving her up for her own good, as much as I hated doing that…."

"It supercharged your soul!" Xander said suddenly, sitting bolt upright and looking delighted. "Your soul actually expanded beyond the usual, and that let you… what, work your way back?"

"Sort of," I agreed. "More like… fight my way back. Without magic. Which, frankly, is the hardest thing I've ever done— after letting Maggie go.

"I'm… I don't think I can talk about it yet. I'm sorry, but… it was long and hard and I had more things than usual try to kill me, and… and I'm just not ready yet."

"That's okay," Buffy said, and she reached over and squeezed my hand. "I've been there. I get it."

"Yeah, I guess you would, wouldn't you?" I said, and tried a small smile. I must have done okay, because she smiled back at me.

"So… how can we help you get home?" Xander asked.

"Well, once I find the right place to go through into Chicago— I can find it, thanks to the piece of my mother that came with me into the other side, and is still… sort of with me— once I find that, I'll open it for you three, and send you through. I'll give you a couple of phone numbers and, just in case, addresses— crap, have you guys got any change? I got nothing."

They had almost three bucks in non-pennies between them, and I relaxed after I examined them and found that they looked and hefted just like coins from my Earth. It turned out that they had a little over two hundred dollars in perfectly familiar paper money, too. "Okay, I give you the numbers, you call them, I tell you how to convince the people on the other end that you're bringing a legit message from me, then you get them to… I guess it'll have to be a split group, because when I go through, I'm not sure where I'll come out, though it'll be one of two places. Either the lake near the Water Beetle, or… my grave.

"Either way, I'm probably going to need help to avoid dying again— and I don't think I could ever get away with coming back a second time."

"Okay, we'll help," Buffy said, and stood up. "Right now, though, I need the little girl's tree. Harry, is there any reason not to go right after?"

I thought about that for a minute. I felt pretty well rested, and I had enough magic for what needed doing. I had a full belly, and I was warm enough.

"No, I don't think there is," I said, nodding her way. "All I need is a couple of minutes to meditate on where the Way to Chicago is, and we can get going."

"Oh my god," Dawn said, her voice going dreamy. "Hot showers."

"Cold beer," Xander added in a similar tone.

"Chocolate…." Buffy said as she disappeared behind a tree.

In the end, we were only an hour's walk from the familiar rock wall that led to an alley in Chicago. When we got there, I put my hand on that wall, and— well, I almost cried. I'd had to fight so hard and so long to get here… and now I'd seriously increased my chances of making it, by running into the Scooby Gang and being able to send them through first to make sure I'd have some help if I needed it.

"Well," I said, looking at the wall. "Here we are. You remember the phone numbers? And the messages?"

They all three parroted them back in unison— I'd drilled them on it on the way here— and I grinned in relief. "Okay. Murphy first, then Billy if you can't reach her."

"And we tell them both that they aren't to call Michael, no matter what," Buffy said, nodding. "Why is that, anyway?"

"I don't want anyone in the wizard community knowing I'm back yet," I said. "And last I knew, my apprentice Molly was still living at home. She's… uh, she's likely to be so relieved that she goes a little nuts."

"Gotcha," Buffy said, nodding. She took a deep breath, then said, "Look, I haven't said it yet, but— thanks. For getting us out of here? The little bit we're doing for you is not even enough to repay you, Harry."

"Don't worry," I said, and grinned a little. "I imagine I'll come up with some monster that I need help fighting sooner or later— you can pay me back then."

"Sounds like a plan," Buffy said, and shook my hand. She hefted the Scythe— the weapon made for the Slayer by a group of magically-powered women thousands of years ago— and stepped back to give me room to work.

"I'll wait a day after I send you through," I said as I stepped forward. "Unfortunately, time can be different here, so I'm not sure how long that'll be. As soon as you can arrange it, get a watch on both places I may come through, please?"

"You bet," Buffy said, and the other two nodded.

"Here goes," I muttered. I held my hand a half an inch or so from the rock, passed it from right to left, and made a huge effort of will as I muttered, "Apparturum," and focused my magic.

A rainbow-edged hole opened in the slab of rock, and on the other side, I could see the dingy alley behind what had once been a slaughterhouse in Chicago. I wanted so badly to step through— but it would be crazy. Certain metaphysical laws of magic would interfere, I knew that, and I would end up being shunted to either the place where I'd died— or to my grave, thoughtfully provided years ago by a Red Court vampire who hated my guts. Of course, I'd killed her not long after, years before the rest of the Red Court had died— so I guess I'd come out ahead.

"Okay, go," I urged, panting a little. "One day here— no idea how long there. Good luck!"

"You, too," Buffy said. She waved— and stepped through the door to Chicago.

"Be careful, Harry," Dawn said, and followed her sister.

"See you soon, Harry," Xander said, and tossed me a little salute before he went through the doorway.

Then they were gone, and I could only watch as they looked around in sheer delight for a moment— then moved out of sight, to the right and towards a place where there'd been a payphone not so long ago….

I stared into that grimy, trash-filled alley until the gate I'd opened closed— then sat down to begin the longest wait of my li— of my existence.