“Elizabeth?” Arsenio said gently.

Buffy froze, and Spike immediately reacted. He tightened his arm around her waist and cast a predatory glance at the three onlookers.

“Brother William,” Abbot Peter said, approaching them as if approaching caged animals. “Elizabeth is very ill. Please, for her well-being…”

Spike clenched his jaw, looking from Buffy’s strained features to the three people slowly inching into the room. “I don’t know who you people are, but you will bloody well stay away from us!” he snarled.

They froze at that. They exchanged worried looks.

“Abbot Peter, perhaps it is necessary to contact the Bishop…” Arsenio said softly.

The Abbot nodded distractedly. “And what will become of them?”

“I will fetch someone to take care of them. Cases like theirs aren’t as unlikely as you may think. It will just take some time to cure them.”

Bassa frowned. “But don’t you find it odd how--”

“Bassa!” Arsenio hissed. The young woman colored. “That is not to be disclosed. That kind of information may prove to be harmful.”

Just because Spike wasn’t a vampire anymore didn’t mean he was no longer alert. “What information aren’t you disclosing?” he demanded, narrowing his eyes.

“Brother William,” the Abbot said nervously, kneeling down in front of him. “Have you lost your memory as well?”

“I am not the bloke you’re lookin’ for, Abby,” Spike said curtly. “Now let Buffy and I go and we won’t cause any ruckus, you hear?”

Abbott Peter shook his head, rising to his feet and backing away. “I am sorry,” he said. “I cannot let you go at this time. But perhaps if you tell me more of your predicament, we might be able to help you.”

Spike chanced a glance at Buffy, who glanced back at him with pursed lips. He met the Abbot’s gaze again, looking a bit hopeful. “Uh, any chance we could discuss this over a meal?”

He nodded, giving them a slight smile. “Now that is something that can be arranged.”

Bassa wrung her hands as she watched Buffy and Spike fill their mouths with day old bread and freshly roasted fish. “So it is true that you remember nothing?” she asked softly.

Buffy lowered the piece of bread from her mouth, giving her a sympathetic look. “I-I’m sorry… Bassa…”

She shook her head. “No, you have nothing to be sorry for. It cannot be helped. But we do… I do wish to help you.”

“Bassa, Spike and I need to get out of here,” Buffy said, her voice low. “This isn’t where we belong, and we don’t know how we got here. Well, we do, but… we don’t. Uh.”

Spike chuckled wryly. “What she means is she doesn’t know the technique of it.”

The other girl frowned. “Technique?”

He nodded, biting into a piece of fish. He grimaced and plucked out a small bone from between his teeth. “Fish is not the most convenient thing to eat when you’re starving,” he muttered under his breath. “It was a kind of ritual.”

“Ritual? Like prayer?”

Spike shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah. Except this prayer didn’t produce miracles.”

“Bassa, can you tell us about our… selves? Our other selves,” Buffy said.

The petite girl bit her lip. “I am not sure if I should.”

“Why is that?” she asked, frowning.

“It is odd, really,” Bassa said hesitantly, staring at her hands. She was quiet for a moment, and Buffy and Spike resumed eating. “I guess it would not be too harmful to tell you some things if you truly aren’t… Sister Elizabeth and Brother William. Buffy, before you… arrived… Sister Elizabeth was one of the few preparing to become an Abbess.”

“An Abbess?” Buffy asked, not understanding.

“Like Abbot Peter,” Spike explained, sipping a cup of water. He grimaced at its musky taste.

“Yes,” Bassa said with an affirmative nod. “It is… it was very important to Sister Elizabeth. She’s young, but very devoted.”

“Are you… Are you afraid that you won’t see Sister Elizabeth again, Bassa?” Buffy asked softly.

Bassa hung her head. “It does worry me.”

“I’ll do my best to get out of your hair as soon as I can. Well, Sister Elizabeth’s hair.” Buffy smiled.

Bassa smiled back, but they could tell that it wasn’t genuine. “Sister Elizabeth and Brother William know each other quite well, actually.”

Buffy and Spike sat up at that, exchanging shocked glances.

“I don’t know much about their personal lives,” Bassa said. “They don’t talk about it much. But it was obvious that they were refugees. They probably came from Christian families that were being persecuted by Diocletian. They were hungry for spiritual guidance, and so they placed all their faith in this place. I wonder if it was hard, leaving behind their own lives.”

“And… they knew each other how?” Buffy asked.

“I think Sister Elizabeth was betrothed to Brother William,” Bassa said. “I think they did not have a choice, though, because Sister Elizabeth at the time was already with child. Brother William was very protective of them both. They had become targets of both Diocletian and the church.”

Buffy’s eyes were wide. “And what about the child?”

“Probably oblation, love,” Spike said quietly.

Bassa gave another affirmative nod. “Yes. Sometimes parents must give up their children when there is too great a risk, or too little resources. It is sadly a commonplace occurrence, especially in the monasteries.”

“The child is here?” Buffy asked, her voice hushed.

“Another monastery,” Bassa replied. “It is not far. But I don’t think it would be wise if you mean to visit him.”

“Why?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t think he would know us,” Spike said, glancing at Buffy.

“He would not,” Bassa said softly, touching her hand.

Buffy was quiet throughout the rest of their meal.

When they finished, Bassa brought them back to the room where Spike had been held. Arsenio was there with another gray-bearded man who was a few inches shorter and stouter than he.

Buffy scratched her side through the material of her robe. “These clothes are really itchy.”

“Sister Elizabeth, Brother William,” Arsenio greeted them with an inclination of his head. “This is a good friend of mine and counselor, Luke. He is from the local infirmary and he might be able to help you.”

“We don’t need any help, you git,” Spike ground out.

“Please, humor them,” Bassa said, touching his arm. She blushed when he violently shrugged her away. “We don’t want any negative attention brought to the monastery. We are already the target of church hierarchies.”

“Humor them?” Spike snarled. “And what’s in it for me, huh? Clinically induced insanity? More musty water that’s probably been bathed in hundreds of times before it’s even reached my lips?”

Beside him, Buffy looked sick. “I think I could’ve done without that little tidbit of information.”

“Sorry, luv.”

Beside Arsenio, the counselor looked impatient. “May I speak with them privately?” he asked tersely.

“By all means,” the apothecary said hurriedly, taking Bassa by the arm and steering her out of the room.

Luke waited until their footsteps faded down the corridor before training his gaze on the two bleach blondes. “You must come with me,” he hissed, his voice lowered and his eyes narrowed.

“I think the answer is a resounding ‘no,’” Buffy replied perkily.

The counselor’s eyes darkened. “Come with me if you want to go home.”

The smile slipped off the Slayer’s face. “What?” she demanded.

“I am the one who summoned you here along with other denizens of Sunnydale. It appears that the others have been of no help. Drastic times called for drastic measures.”

“Drastic times?” Buffy asked the same time Spike inquired, “Drastic measures?”

Spike raised his eyebrows at her in amusement. “Together, we ask very important questions.”

Luke’s face had turned red and Buffy and Spike honestly wouldn’t’ve minded if he decided to detonate the time bomb in his head. “I cannot discuss this here. You must come with me.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose. “Is it a far walk? Because these sandals are really biting into my feet.”

It was a far walk, and the sun beat down on them from above, making Spike flinch and sneeze. The terrain was sandy and pebbly and uneven and added on to Buffy’s escalating irritation and discomfort. The wool cloaking her was rough and itchy against her perspiration-slick skin, and her damp hair stuck to the sides of her face. Spike walked two steps behind her, his hand in a bag of hazelnuts that he crunched happily on.

Buffy sighed. “Give me some of that,” she said, digging her hand into the cloth sack. Her hand grazed Spike’s and she grabbed that instead, a look of awe on her features at the warmth it emanated. She swiftly turned her head to Luke with Spike’s hand still in hers. “Why is he human?” she asked.

“He isn’t,” the counselor said with a sidelong look.

“Explain,” Buffy said as Spike dug inside the sack for a handful of hazelnuts and spilled them into her waiting hand.

“Your minds were transported here, not your bodies. You are inhabiting hosts, so to speak.”

“Which brings us to the question of ‘Why are we here?’ I think we’re safely out of earshot now,” Spike said.

“As you might know from your history lessons back in the twenty-first century, the time you are in now was surrounded by religious and political unrest.”

Buffy groaned around a mouthful of hazelnut. “And here comes the history lesson.”

“Not quite,” Luke said in a lilting tone, a smirk upturning his lips. “I’d rather say you were making history.”

“Huh?” Buffy asked unintelligibly.

“Separation of church and state does not exist yet,” the counselor explained. “We’re thinking of going a couple steps ahead and eradicating the church part altogether.”

“What are you saying?” Spike asked, narrowing his eyes.

“God is in the house and we wish He would come out,” Luke said, sounding miffed. “And who better to extricate Him than a vampire and Slayer who live in a secular world?”

“Are you serious?” Buffy asked, gawking at him. “I’ll have you know that my eyes were glazed over during my entire semester of political science and philosophy classes. I’m more with the practical and less with the theoretical.”

“Precisely,” Luke beamed.

“What is this? Some kind of mystical computer game? A time lord sport?” Spike said, sounding every bit incredulous.

“No, and no,” he replied, sounding every bit like he was talking about the weather. “This is very real.”

“This is unreal!” Buffy said. “Are you saying that we’re changing history right now? That when I go home, I might as well be entering an alternate dimension?”

“Oh, but it’d be for the better,” Luke said cheerfully. “You are changing much just by being here, along with the other denizens of Sunnydale.”

“What have you been putting them up to?” Spike asked.

“Oh, just fun things. Rioting and pillaging. Revolutions wouldn’t be revolutions without them. But they got a little out of hand. They were to remain unharmed for their safe arrival back, but I sort of… Well, I lost them.”

“Lost them?” Buffy said, her voice low and dangerous.

“Well, a small few of them went a little mad,” Luke said, wringing the sleeves of his robe nervously. “Some of the hosts housing them were stronger than we expected and schizophrenic-like tendencies began to arise. A lot of them were killed by the knights protecting the monasteries. Things have, uh, really gotten out of hand.”

“I’ll say,” Buffy said. “And I think now is the time that I take everything out of your hands,” she quipped, her hand grasping his wrist and squeezing the bones there painfully. He cried out in pain and she tugged him towards her, kicking him behind his knees so that he folded to the ground. “You’re taking Spike and I home, and I’m going to put an end to your crazy cult.”

Luke forced out a laugh as he braced himself on his arms, shakily coming to his feet. “Not quite sure Sunnydale will give you a warm welcome, Slayer. And I am but one man, and though physically fit I might not be, there are others like me, a mob of them, and you without your supernatural powers cannot squash them. You go home and you may find your Sunnydale in flames. Who knows what your mere presence here has done to the future? You have done more damage than stepping on a butterfly. Either way, you leave or you stay, you lose.”

Spike stomped on his head, hard enough for him to bang his teeth on the hard ground but not hard enough to render him unconscious. Luke howled in pain. “You’re really annoying me, mate.”