Xander groaned as he regained consciousness, and opened his eyes. Raising himself up he looked around and found himself in his old bedroom. 'Old' as in he hadn't seen it in over twenty years. His parent's house in Sunnydale was a lifetime and several continents ago, out of his life. Not to mention it shouldn't exist anymore, especially like this.

"What the hell?" Xander's frown deepened at the sound of his voice. It was a lot higher than he was used to.

Swinging his legs out of bed Xander got up and went to look in the mirror, and almost started hyperventilating at what he saw. It was him all right, just a teenaged him. A young teenaged him. He swiftly walked over and looked at the calendar and found that if it was right he was only fourteen. A whole year before he even met Buffy.

Searching his memory, he found the last thing he remember before waking up in this apparent past.

He had been in Paris, never his favorite city to begin with, checking on some things, when he felt someone messing with some major magic's. Following the trail, it had led him to a middle-class apartment.

When he had gotten in he had found a man in the middle of performing some ritual that Xander wasn't familiar with after over twenty years as a demon hunter. It seemed the man had managed to somehow mix technology and magic together to achieve whatever his goal was.

The man had lost control of the magic before he even had a chance to notice the intruder and an unstable vortex had opened up. Reacting on instinct Xander had grabbed onto the flailing energy tendrils and wrestled them into some semblance of balance.

The man finally noticing Xander grabbed onto him, "Give it back to me! This is my only chance!"

"Chance to what? Kill yourself and a lot of other people?"

"No! To save them! Give them a chance!"

"What is this spell supposed to do? It's fighting me!"

"It's supposed to send me into the past. But now it'll take you unless you give it back."

"What? I'm not going to give it back to you. Time travel is bad stuff."

"Just let me go. I have to try."

Xander growled as he felt himself being drained by holding the vortex from doing what it was intended. He could feel himself slipping; the vortex dragging him inch by reluctant inch towards its goal. "Tell me how to stop it!"

"I can't. It's too late. It won't stop until it sends something into the past. Let me go."

"Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?"

"Of course I do. Let me go." Desperately he grabbed onto the energy tendrils, causing them to flair with even more power. With a soundless explosion the vortex backlashed and Xander found himself falling into darkness as something hit his head.

Grabbing a piece of paper and a pen Xander sat down and began listing out what facts he could. If the man had succeeded then Xander had gotten himself caught up as well. He would have to confirm it first though.

Setting down the list Xander stood up and began to gather the supplies he needed for a minor spirit summoning. Thankfully it appeared to be an early Saturday morning, according to the clock and calendar.

After carefully drawing out the arcane symbols in chalk he sat himself in the middle and lit the candles. Chanting softly he gently poured power into the spell. He didn't want to draw unwanted attention in case what he suspected was true.

Suddenly the candle flame turned white and there was a writhing sprite dancing before him.

//Who? Who?// a burning voice asked.

"Can you tell me if I am really in my younger body?"

The sprite darted forward and around him, inspecting him as Xander held as still as possible for the procedure. //Yes! Yes! Hyena-child, past yours! Met? Talk?//

"Yes I've met you before. We've talked. That's why I summoned you." Xander smiled softly at the hyperactive, minor sprite. It might not have been very good at communication, but it had proven to be a good friend, and incapable of lying. "Thank you, for coming."

//Nice! Nice!// The sprite bobbed in front of his face.

Reaching forward he carefully poured a little beer into a bowl and watched as the sprite darted down and began to greedily devour the offering. Darting back up again the sprite flew around him once more before stopping in front of him once more.

"Is this permanent?" Xander asked softly.

//Yes! Yes! Past now present! Change! Change!//

"Mortals always bring change. It's our nature. Thank you again. May you ever burn bright." Reaching forward he gently cupped his hand over the sprite and pushed it down to the candle and snuffed it out gently, sending it back to its home.

Thoughtfully, Xander cleared up his spell. He didn't know of anyone who would be able to fake a fire sprite. They were strictly neutral, and impossible to fake to those who had actually linked with one. They were all part of the 'Great Fire' as Xander thought of it. Some sort of sentient fire that predates even the First Evil, it gives some of itself to all fires, or is all fire; he was never really clear on that point. What he did know though was that fire sprites or embers, could always to be trusted as far as their nature went.

Having decided to tentatively treat this as true, he headed back to his messy room and began to clean up the mess, and sort what he could vaguely remember having.

Xander stared at the couple in front of him in shock. "This is your doing?"

Dawn sighed, "Yes, though we didn't mean for you to get caught in it."

"So you were trying to what?"

"Have our own lives and see if we can make things... better for lack of a better word." Connor shrugged, "In the future we could never be together because of what we are, but here no one knows."

"Alright I can understand that, but why am I fourteen while you look the same?"

"Because we aren't born yet I think." Dawn shrugged. "Are you going to help?"

"Why over a year before Buffy came?"

"Because this time around things won't be about her, it'll be about helping as many people survive this place as possible."

Xander signed and leaned back on the ground looking up at the branches above them in the park they were sitting in talking. "So it's more general."

"Yes, we can help more people. Recruit more."

Xander sighed and looked over at the couple. "You're pregnant?"

Dawn flushed and nodded. "We managed to get together at the last get together. So many people with destinies around shielded us enough so that the PTB didn't know. That's why we did it then. I put on a stasis spell, but it was broken a few months ago."

"We have identities here and memories because of the spells that were done to place us in the future. The magic was still clinging, and we used it to insert ourselves now. I'm a cop and Dawn's a CSI in the local PD. Her new parents were killed young, and she was raised by an eccentric rich grandfather. Mine are poor Irish immigrants, thus my accent. We met through my work," Connor explained to Xander.

Dawn picked up were he left off, "We live in my grandfather's mansion and we're in the middle of adopting Faith."

Xander nodded, "She deserves a chance at a good family. So how are we going to play this?"

"We were going to play it as best we could, thus our particular jobs. You have any suggestions?" Dawn asked.

Xander thought for several minutes thinking over what he knew and was told. Finally he sat up and assumed a more commanding pose. "We tell them what we're doing."

"What?" Connor asked in surprise.

"Well, there's this wonderful group called the SCA, we can use that as our cover. That will allow a ready excuse for the weapons. Also, we... you can set up a self-defense thing for the bullied kids." The other two nodded.

"We can get your mom to help with that. She does have Slayer training, though she wasn't activated until the spell. If it's angled right, she'll have a paycheck too," Dawn pointed out.

"It'll also give the bullied kids more of a chance; a cause," Connor pointed out. "That should head off some problems. The weak kids ganging together in common defense against those that would hurt them. Set up like the future Council, placed with their strengths."

Xander nodded slowly. "We're going to have to let them know what's going on. It'll help them, like it did me and Willow in school. Also we're going to have to set up things so there's not problems like last time with the magic. Those that want can learn more than the basics as far as their talent take them, but supervised. Which means recruiting a competent adult magic user."

"I can do that, and we can recruit Jenny when she gets here," Dawn said.

"What about the Key?" Xander asked.

"No worries, it's protected. The monks were given a message that the Key has gained a consciousness and went to protect itself," Dawn answered.

"Good. So first off, we should get Jesse, Willow and my parents and tell them at least some of what's going on. Make mom the offer." Xander stood up and brushed the grass off his jeans.

"I'll be gone tomorrow recruiting," Connor said as he helped Dawn to her feet.

"Who?" Xander asked looking over at the blond.

"Richie Ryan. The one McCloud told us about. He could be helpful, and deserves a chance."

Xander nodded, "Good idea."

"This is so cool!" Jesse exclaimed from where he was bouncing on Xander's couch.

Jessica nodded thoughtfully. "You really think I can help?"

"We're trying to give people a better chance, so that means that the kids learn to defend themselves, and you do have the training." Dawn turned her glass in her hands. "So will you?"

"Can I think about it a couple days and get back to you? Anthony and I will need to talk it over anyway."

"Go ahead; we need to pitch the idea for the self-defense classes to our superiors anyway. These three can recruit kids for it as well as keep an eye out." Dawn gave Jesse and Willow a stern glare, "No hunting on your own. Not until you've at least trained a little while, and never alone."

Jesse and Willow gave reluctant nods of agreement. Xander nodded as well. "We're going to need your help to set up the computers anyway."

The two teens perked up at that. "What do you mean? How will computers help with demons and stuff?"

"We're going to be doing reports like the police do when hunting. It's so we have good records of what and how many things we'll run into. As well as setting up a database. It's going to be off the internet, we don't want it hacked. Another system is going to handle that stuff," Connor explained.

"Were will you get that many computers?" Anthony asked worried.

"Police auctions. We can get them cheap that way, so we can get more," Dawn answered.

"Which means we're going to need more computer people," Xander spoke up. "Which helps the self-defense idea as well; at least even if they don't join they'll know the score."

"Where are you going to set these systems up?" Willow asked excited.

"At the mansion, it'll be more practical. It's a private residence so vampires won't be able to enter, and we can defend it better than the high school library."

"Why would you use a high school library as a headquarters anyway?" Jesse asked.

"It just happened that way." Xander shrugged.