Disclaimer: Joss owns ‘em, I just play.

Author’s note: Beta’d by BTL. I would be lost without her.
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Chapter 20: Dimension

Spike and Buffy were staring at their front door again.

After what Willy had told them, they were more than a little nervous about what was waiting for them in the house.

“So, a, there are a bunch of demons camping out in our house, waiting for people to come home, or b, there’s something wrong with our house,” explained Buffy.

“I don’t think I like either of those options,” Spike responded.

“We still have to go in though,” she sighed.

Spike nodded his head in response. Grabbing her hand gently, he raised it to his lips for a moment, silently expressing his feelings at that moment.

“I don’t think you need to worry Spike. I’m gonna make sure you are taking care of a very elderly slayer one day,” she said smiling.

“But one with her own teeth…”

“Damn straight,” she said grinning. “Shall we?”

Spike slowly dropped her hand and stared at the house again.

With determined steps, the pair strode towards their house, mounting the porch and pushing the front door open in silence.

“So far so good?” Buffy laughed nervously.

“Now you’ve jinxed it, pet,” Spike noted, looking annoyed at his mate.

“Maybe it needs to be jinxed. It can’t be as easy as just opening the front door,” Buffy responded wisely.

Spike looked into the house, casting glances into the living room, dining room, and up the stairs. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but it didn’t feel right.

Her guard up, Buffy passed over the threshold of the house, a stake in her hand.

“It’s times like these that I wish I still had that fun slayer sense thing. Maybe we should have brought Molly along,” she said nervously.

“No, it’s better that the chit is where she is. New to the slayer gig and all that. ‘Sides you’ve got me for that fun demon sense. I don’t feel that there are any demons in the house, love. Not saying that it feels quite right though. Something’s definitely off.”

Buffy nodded in understanding. She stood in the hall assessing the options. She reached over to the light switch and illuminated the building.

“I say we tackle upstairs first. Plus, I want to get some new clothes on,” she decided.

“Love, demons have been disappearing into the house, and you want to change your clothes?” he admonished.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, annoyed. “I’ve been wearing the same pair of underwear since this thing started. You can’t possibly understand how icky that feels. Mr. I-go-commando.”

“Right, I’ll just wait for the beasties to come out of the woodwork while you change then.”

“Oh, it’ll take me three seconds, worry wart.”

And with that, Buffy bounded up the stairs towards their room. With a roll of his eyes, Spike followed up behind his fiancée. She was going to be the death of him.

The stairs creaked with familiarity, the house smelled like the military had been through every room, through every closet. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had cameras all through the house. It didn’t take long before he found two of the blasted things.

His girl was probably giving the gits a good show, while she changed her unmentionables.

Spike’s docs clunked down the hallway as he made his way into Dawn’s room. Nothing out of place, as far as he could tell. He couldn‘t remember if Dawn had cleaned her room lately or not. It was immaculate, which was odd; Dawn’s room was always in some state of disarray. Continuing down the hall, he walked into Molly’s room. Again, no sign of demons, or military. Just a clean room, everything in its place.

The bathroom was next.

He couldn’t understand what exactly was going on. If Willy was right and demons had decided to trash their house while they were gone, wouldn’t the house be a disaster? It seemed untouched, with the exception of the cameras.

Buffy appeared in the doorway of the bathroom, clad in new clothes with a concerned look on her face.

“Someone’s done my laundry,” she stated bluntly.

“What?”

“I had half a load of laundry in my hamper. It’s not there, but the clothes that were in it, they’re clean and put away. I wanna know what business the military has doing my laundry.”

“It seems they tidied up in the Bit’s room too,” Spike added.

“Good, I thought I was going to have to hire a maid to tackle that mess,” Buffy joked. “We should probably see what else they did. And where all these demons are.”

Heading down the stairs, Buffy walked into the living room trying to see something out of place. Spike noticed first.

“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed his gaze fixed on the vast collection of Cds that he’d accumulated since moving in to the Revello Drive house.

“What?” Buffy asked, worried.

“They’ve bloody alphabetised them!” he ranted at the meticulously arranged Cds.

Buffy took in the scene. All the Cds they had, Dawn’s, hers and Spike’s were all together, punk and pop nestled between two shelves.

Sympathetically, Buffy patted Spike on the arm. When they’d first moved in together, he’d spent a whole sunny Friday morning arranging the Cds for easy access, and by genre.

“Sid Vicious is bloody turning in his grave. Sex Pistols do not belong beside Sclub7!”

“Are you going to cry?” she asked, mockingly.

“No, bloody well am not going to cry. I’m going to tear off the head of whatever did this. This is a bloody violation, buggering up my music.”

“Do you think it’s odd that there is no evidence that we were having a party before we left?” Buffy observed.

“It’s like a bloody maid service paid a visit.”

“And you’re complaining?” she said eyeing him.

Truth was, he’d been the one cleaning up after the three girls and Andrew.

“Look what the bloody hell they did to my Cds!”

“Okay, I’m sorry I brought it up. Geeze. Let’s go look at the basement. Let’s hope the demons are all down there.” Buffy left her sulking mate in the middle of the living room, looking dejectedly at his Cds. There were times when he was just too cute for words.

Buffy opened the basement door and flicked on the light, illuminating the dank hole that Andrew had been inhabiting. With cautious steps, she made her way down, noting with a careful eye, that nothing was out of place. In fact, as with the rest of the house, things had been carefully put back to where they were supposed to be. There was not one thing out of place. Buffy was willing to bet that all of Andrew’s comic books were alphabetised too.

The master slayer shook her head confused. If what Willy said was true there should have been scores of demons waiting for them in this place.

Spike clunked down the basement steps noisily after her.

“This is wrong,” Buffy noted. “I know for a fact that I knocked over a few action figures on our way down here that night.”

“Except for the cleaning, nothing seems to be wrong with the house,” added Spike unnecessarily.

Buffy nodded, her brain trying to come up with a logical explanation. “Maybe they felt bad about ruining our party that they decided to clean up?”

Spike gave her look like he didn’t believe her.

“Ya, I got nothing,” she said, giving a shrug. “I’d like Willow and Tara to give this place a once over though before Dawn comes back. I still have this weird feeling.”

Buffy turned and headed up the stairs, pulling out her cell phone as she reached the main level of the house.

“That’s weird,” she commented looking at her phone’s display. “I don’t have service.”

Spike reached the kitchen and brushed past Buffy to get to the phone. Picking it up, his ears at once noticed the missing dial tone.

Their eyes met, each holding a worried look as they turned towards the back door. Buffy’s hand got there first, and she tugged open the door, which opened easily.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Buffy smiled and stepped in the direction of the back yard. Except she didn’t quite make it. Buffy bounced back off of a barrier that wasn’t there before.

“Oh, this isn’t good.”
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“They should have called by now,” noted Tara with a worried tone, looking over at her lover with concern.

“They were probably so happy to be back in their own house that they are going at it like bunnies,” Cordelia noted, ignoring the flinch from Anya at the mention of bunnies.

“No, Buffy would have phoned,” Molly added. “I wonder if something went wrong?” she continued looking at her watcher.

“Miss Summers would have phoned either way, Molly,” Nate concluded.

“I agree with Mr. Bradford,” added Giles. “Unless something happened that prevented her from using her phone...”

“Great. So, Buffy’s dead in a ditch somewhere,” muttered Dawn, standing up. “Ditches are always bad. Mom always talked about the ditches. I’m going.”

“Dawn!” Xander cautioned. “You can’t just go after them, you could get hurt.”

“The whelp is right,” noted Anya, borrowing Spike’s moniker for Xander. “You are still recovering from the last couple of jumps.”

“Plus, Buffy would be really angry if something happened to you,” added Willow.

“Well, someone has to find Buffy and Spike. If Buffy is dead in a ditch somewhere, then Spike’s probably dust, ‘cause there is no way that he’d ever let Buffy die, without dusting first,” Dawn ranted.

“Anya, perhaps…” Giles started, gently suggesting what everyone was thinking.

Anya stood from her position curled up next to Giles and faced the group. “I suppose I am the only one that can go,” she began before turning to her erstwhile cuddle partner. “If I end up dead in a ditch, I’m gonna haunt you,” she threatened.

“Make sure you don’t then,” Giles added with a smile.

In a puff of smoke, Anya left the confines of the Hyperion Hotel and found herself in the living room of 1630 Revello Drive. Buffy and Spike were sitting on the couch, watching TV.

“Do you realise that Dawn is ranting about you being dead and dust in ditches?” Anya chastised looking at the two beings on the couch. “Don’ t you think it’s time you called?”

Buffy looked up from the rerun of Passions that she and Spike had been watching. They had found that they didn’t get a cable signal into the house either. It was an eternity of taped TV for them.

“Hey Anya, grab a chair, we’ll be here for a while,” Buffy greeted. “We’re stuck in the house. This abnormally clean house.”

“What?” Anya asked, not comprehending what was going on.

“There’s something keeping us in the house, can’t get out,” Buffy explained further.

“The bloody phone’s cut off too,” added Spike.

Anya put her hands on her hips and stared at the two of them. “You are stuck in the house and you are watching Passions? Shouldn’t you be trying to get out of the house? Have you tried teleporting out?”

Buffy just rolled her eyes. “Yes, I tried teleporting Anya. I’ve tried everything I can think of. And I can think of a lot. And no, we didn’t just decide to watch TV, we had sex first. But I don’t feel particularly sex kitten-y when I know I’m stuck in a self cleaning house.”

“So we’re watching the telly,” finished Spike.

“We were thinking about playing strip poker next,” added Buffy. “But now that you’re here, Monopoly?”

“Good grief!” Anya exclaimed. “Well, I’m going to go tell Giles you’re stuck.”

Buffy and Spike looked at the demon with eager eyes, but nothing happened.

“Damn it!” Anya finally said, flopping down on the couch beside Buffy. “You don’t happen to know where the Game of Life is do you?”
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An hour later, Anya had beaten the two of them at Life, and was collecting up game pieces and money, putting the game away.

“Do we have any idea what is keeping us in the house?” the demon asked.

“You don’t need to put that away,” Buffy offered, settling down beside Spike on the couch once more. “The house cleans itself.”

“Huh?”

“Come sit on the couch and watch, demon girl,” Spike ordered, gently motioning her over to the couch.

The three mystical beings sat still on the couch, watching the Life board intently. Slowly, the game began to collect itself, money and game pieces moving into the box by themselves.

“Now, that’s neat. I need this at my house. Or the Magic Box! Customers are always moving merchandise around!” Anya declared excitedly.

“It’s neat. I don’t think it’s what’ s keeping us here though,” Buffy started, a perplexed look on her face. “I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been going on. Willy told us that demons had been coming into the house, but there are no demons. Spike says that the house smells like the military, but there’s no evidence of them, except a few cameras.”

“Well, any witch could have placed the self cleaning spell,” offered Anya.

“What about the fact that we can’t leave the house?” asked Spike.

“Are you sure that this is your house?” Anya asked back.

“All of our stuff is here,” Buffy countered.

“It is possible that you are in another dimension. A small one. New dimensions are created all the time, someone, some demon, is always messing with reality. How do you think that there got to be a dimension with no shrimp? It looks just like this one but without the shrimp,” Anya explained.

“So this is a dimension, where the house is always clean? A dimension that only holds our house?” asked Buffy sceptically.

“No, I’m saying that the house is the dimension,” Anya countered.

“Then how do we get out of here?” asked Spike.

“Whatever, or whoever, created the dimension has to close it,” answered Anya.

“Dawn created it,” sighed Buffy.

“Love?”

“It’s the only explanation. Dawn, and three witches, portalled out of the house, right in front of the front door. We passed through the entrance to this house dimension when we walked into the house,” Buffy explained.

“And I teleported to your location, because you seek vengeance. I teleported into the dimension that you are inhabiting,” continued Anya.

“And ‘cause the Bit left with witches…that’s why there is a self cleaning spell? Seems like a long shot, pet,” Spike noted.

“Well, it’s all we’ve got at the moment. The trick is, how do we get Dawn to close it?” asked Buffy.

“I don’t think she knows it’s open,” Anya explained. “But it’s draining her.”

“Then we have to get out before this kills her, Anya,” noted the Slayer seriously.
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Tbc…