The door to the oracles chamber opened. In stepped three people. A slayer, her Watcher and her friend.
The golden man looked down at them,
"Ah a champion has come to us seeking our help, our advice, our guidance."
It was Xander Harris who responded, "Actually we here for one of the three, so not a bad guess on your part."
Giles removed his glasses and stared straight at the face of the female oracle. "My Lady you will have no doubt heard of the recent battle with the demon Acathla, which almost brought this earth to a hell dimension."
"Yes we have heard of it, it was not as we hoped, but well when we are dealing with humans it rarely goes as we hope. Why are you here? You succeed."
It was Buffy this time who spoke, "yes we closed the portal after it was opened. However the following day one of my friends was shot. This girl had at the vital moment cast a spell which allowed me to seal the gateway."
"What do you wish us to do, she was killed by mortal means, there is nothing that we can do to interfere."
Xander moved forward and stood toe to toe with the female oracle, "I want you to send me back in time, I want o be able to save Willow Rosenburg. We have saved this world on at least two separate occasions, let us save Willow."
"Done" There was a bright flash. Buffy and Giles found themselves out in the entrance way to the oracles place.
It was Buffy who spoke first. "How long till we notice a change?"
It was a dark night; the whole world was slightly out of balance. Just hours before the world had almost fallen into hell. Now it was safe, but it was still slightly unbalanced. These allowed things to happen that were normally impossible.
One of these impossible things happened in the library of the local university; UC Sunnydale had never really been high on the list of places where weird things happened. However it was still in Sunnydale and so weird things could still happen.
The room was quiet, the guards had done the rounds and so the room was dark. However at midnight this changed. A single point of light appeared in the room.
It hung there just a metre off the floor. The point slowly expanded up and then till it was a line of about two metres in height. It started spinning so fast that it became a circle.
The light became more and more blinding and it became difficult to make out anything in the room. A shadow stepped out of the circle at the centre of the light. Just as suddenly as the light appeared the entire light just vanished and the room was once again dark.
The shadow moved through the room to the stairs that led out of the library. The door was locked so the shadow kicked the door out. The blaring of the alarm caused the shadow to run out of the library and out of the building that housed it. He quickly vanished into the dark that is the UC Sunnydale campus.
When the Shadow finally stopped moving, he was at the mansion that had recently being the home of Angelus the master vampire. The shadow moved forward to the statue of Acathla.
"You know Dead boy, I never thought I would be happy that you would try and send the world into hell. If it wasn't for that there would be no way that I could come back and stop my willow"
With that Xander Harris turned and left the mansion.
The sniper had a great position. He had a straight shot at the entrance to the high school. He sat there waiting for his target to arrive. Before Jonathon had tried to kill himself here he had never really thought about the bell tower, however when he realised that he would have to kill Willow Rosenburg he knew this was the place he had to do it from. It had everything a sniper position needed.
Smiling to himself the sniper looked at his watch, he had fifteen more minutes to wait before Willow and her group would arrive, plenty of time.
The sound was so unexpected that he spun around without his rifle. It was then that he saw the most unexpected thing. The sniper, Xander Harris, was looking in the eyes of Xander Harris, whom looked as surprised as he did. He felt the gunshot as it entered his stomach.
Xander Harris stood there with his pistol in his hand. He had succeeded; his Willow wasn't going to be shot. The problem was apparently it was him that had killed her in the first place.
Xander looked closely at the sniper who was lying there. The sniper was older, but he could see similarities between this face and the one he had seen in the mirror that morning.
The man looked as though he was in extreme pain, holding his stomach, Xander could see the blood slowly spread out from where the man was lying.
"Why, why did you want to kill Willow? Tell me you bastard why did you shoot her?"
The man looked up; he seemed to call on something within himself to ignore the pain.
"I did it to save the world. 4 years from now 'your Willow' will cause the a Gateway to hell to open and this entire world will sink into a hell dimension."
Xander was surprised by this, he knew his Willow there was no way she could ever do something like that.
"What! Willow would never do that, she can barely do magic, I mean she hasn't cast any spells, well except the Soul restoration spell, to go from that to a world ending spell in four years is impossible."
"You have no idea how powerful she is do you? Right now she has barely tapped that ability, the spell she cast last night wasn't a soul restoration spell, it was a 'calling', she called forward the spirit of a dead witch and had her cast the spell, Willow did this without a spell, she did this because her first attempt failed. If she wanted too she could wipe out every living being on this planet."
Xander felt fear enter his heart, it couldn't be true, but what if it was, what if his Willow had gone crazy.
"You're lying, who are you? Why do you look like me?"
"I am you, I came back in time to stop Willow becoming too powerful, this is the only time I could come too; with Earth in hell I needed the Acathla portal to make it here."
"Man, I travelled back in time to stop someone from killing Willow. Which, by the way, I have done, so I guess I win and you loose."
"It's not just me; it's every single person living on this planet in four years time. Remember Spock 'the good of the many' that's what this is, Willow or the world, because you sure can't have both."
Xander stood there glaring at this man, this future version of himself. This person who was trying to turn him against his Willow, and was succeeding
"If you are me what was the name of my invisible friend, the one I stopped talking too after I met Willow."
"His name was Dr. Pilot, and you stopped talking to him when you met Jesse. You knew Jesse before you met Willow."
Ok so he had passed his test, he had to prove that this guy wasn't him. However first he had to find out why.
"You have done some research on me. What made her do it, what made her open this portal?"
"God when I think about it; it makes me cringe. 6 years we had fought, in that time we lost Jesse, Jenny and Buffy. Then we brought her, Buffy, back, I didn't know it but that spell requires more than Willow ever let me know about. That year was quiet enough on the evil front, the odd vampire.
Buffy, no he couldn't loose Buffy too.
"How did she die, I mean Buffy, who, what killed her?"
"A hell Goddess named Glory was going to open the Hell-mouth so she could return home. She had to do it at a certain time or else she would end up in the wrong dimension.
"The Magic Willow used in that battle was so strong; she stood up to a hell god and traded magic's with her. This allowed Buffy to sneak up behind her and stab Glory with a stake, Mr. pointy, covered in hind's blood. Glory was mortally injured; her last action was to release a magic ball into Buffy which killed her."
"Oh god, she died for the world, and you brought her back. Why?"
"Willow was convinced that the last blast transported Buffy's soul to Hell, she had nightmares for months.
"I didn't know it, but Willow had started to mess with Dark magic's, she was convinced that she could have killed Glory without Buffy having to get near. The spell needed to raise Buffy took the life of two young children. Willow didn't tell us she killed two innocents to bring back Buffy. I only found this out hours before Willow ended the world.
"Willow's Ex-Girlfriend was the one who found"
"Sorry Willows ex-GIRLfriend!" Xander interrupted his doppelganger. This was a surprise to say the least, Willow was his best friend and she had never given any indication that she might swing the other way.
"Oh right, yeah willow and Oz broke up about 2 years from now, and Willow fell in love with Tara, she was a witch too. They broke up after Willow brought Buffy back. Tara felt that she had gone too far, that she needed to learn control.
"In the end, it was Willows jealousy of Tara and her new Girlfriend that ended the world. She went to visit Tara, to talk. She walked in and found Tara in bed with another girl. In her anger she destroyed the other girl, wiped the mind of Tara, and turned her into a mindless slave. She then organised her elevation to power, by opening the gateway to a Hell dimension."
Xander knew that when Willow got angry she got irrational, but this was slightly worse than usual, but he had never seen her when she felt someone had cheated on her.
"It was unexpected. Neither the 'powers that be' nor the 'powers that want to be' were expecting this wild card. So there was no warning, just the end of days."
The man lying on the ground began to cough; he finally got it under control.
"The Demons had being planning what to do to earth for a very long time, and so this was there chance. Faster than I would have thought possible; so many people where dead. It was then that Giles and this coven, in LA, he knew decided to send me back to stop her.
"So here I am, from the future to kill a girl who is going to end the world."
Xander stood there for a moment. Looking down at this man who looked like him, he realised that he was stuck in a science fiction story.
"I stopped you, that mean's you have failed, and if you are telling the truth then the world shall end, and the me that is about to arrive with Willow will become you, where if you had shot her he would become me."
The other him smiled up at him, through the pain, and joked, "thank god I read so many Sci-fi stories, otherwise I might actually not know what was going on."
"Do you have any proof of what you have told me?"
"No. nothing, except I can prove I am you, I know everything about you, past and future."
"Ah this is interesting, do you know everything because you are me, or is it because you have done your homework. Is there anything that I can ask you that only I could ever possibly know?"
"I could suggest things, but anything I suggest is immediately invalidated. However one thing, look at me, why would I look like you? If I was going to kill willow why would I make myself look like you? Do you understand its Willow or the World? How many times can you save the world, you have to do it."
Xander moved past the man on the floor and looked out the window of the Bell tower. He looked out over the Sunnydale campus. Willow, Oz and himself would arrive shortly and he still wasn't sure.
"You had no problem lying to Buffy, you condemned Angel to hell. Why is willow any different? I always thought that I had said nothing to Buffy because I wanted to save the world, but what if I was jealous."
"Willow is different, because you haven't proved that she is going to try to end the world."
The younger Harris had a look of shock cover his face, he turned from the window and faced his doppelganger.
"How did you know about the lie? I haven't told anyone about that, and I have no intention of ever telling anyone."
"As I said I am you. I know everything you have done up too 5 minutes from now."
Xander realised that he believed this other copy of himself. He knew he might be a demon, but he knew it wasn't a demon. It was him. He had a choice.
Looking down at the courtyard he saw Oz pushing Willow being followed by himself.
Xander Harris took up the rifle his future self had brought with him. Looking through the scope he picked out a past version of himself. He moved the gun to the left and placed it over his best friend the love of his life, his Willow.