Dayshift 31: Sun Room (Shift 2)

[blurred_divide]

[Scoobies + Bella's epic field day: readystartgo]

Taking his pick between sun and no sun wasn't that hard of a choice, really. Angel ended up in the Sun Room on a couch near the back, facing the entrance to keep an eye on anyone coming in. And by the window. The window and its resulting sunlight was important

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[light_wicca]

While breakfast had definitely been fun - for a given definition of the word 'fun' - Willow was happy to learn that they were allowed to go to the library during the day, and that they were allowed to take books out. It probably meant they wouldn't be helpful at all, but it was something, at least. And she wanted to learn more about all these different fictional characters being at Landel's.

She paused in her beeline to the library when she noticed Angel sitting near the back. Near a window. Drenched in sunlight. She should have realized he wouldn't be affected by sunlight here, but... she was not used to seeing him like that.

"Angel?" She walked over and sat next to him, still not taking her eyes off him being in the sun. She smiled, not really sure what to say about it. Hey, you're in the sun. Another statement from Captain Obvious, anyone?

[wishescankill]

"Wait, so I didn't die? But you said Xander didn't kill himself when he found out that I did die. Which is it?" Anya demanded, ignoring the fact that Bella was talking to the other two Scoobies now.

"And Xander didn't commit suicide at all? Not even a little? Was he at least maimed? Or did he lose all his money and spend the rest of his life in a gutter somewhere being a drunken loser!" she said, confident that that had to be the case.

She leaned across the arm of her chair towards Bella. "Did I win the lottery at any point during this 'TV show'?"

[light_wicca]

"Wait. Seasons?" And Anya died? And she was fictional but from a later point in the... TV show... than Willow?

Finding out that millions of people had viewed your entire life since, apparently, meeting Buffy, was a little unsettling. Not to mention that Anya's incessant inquiries after Xander's health weren't helping in the least.

And Bella knew. She'd seen everything Willow had gone through. She knew about Warren.

"Okay, let's say that we are fictional," she cut in right after Anya, her voice staying remarkably steady. "Then... how are we here? Why are we here? With a bunch of other fictional characters?" Did Landel's have the power to do that? Was Landel's a fictional world, created by an author who wanted to see what happened when several other worlds were combined together? Was all of this, right now, a book somewhere in the 'real' world?

Or was Landel's the 'real' world?

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"I, um, remember-I was with Cordelia and...Wesley?" Did Bella know who they were? Well, of course she did, but. "We'd-there was a prophecy."

Although truth be told, Angel wasn't sure if he wanted to know what was in store for him. It probably wasn't anything good.

But Willow raised a good question. Hadn't someone said something about Harry Potter? He was fairly certain Harry Potter was part of a children's book, wasn't he? Who else here was fictional? Or was everyone fictional to at least someone else?

"Maybe it's a complex doppelganger effect. Of some sort." He glanced at Willow. "I mean, we both know that two versions of the same person can exist at once."

[his_singer]

Shit, she had to reply to Anya first. “Um, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant when you were stabbed …” she couldn’t straight out tell Anya that she died in the last episode. She didn’t really WANT to tell someone that they had died, no matter who it was. “He was scared at first, but then you pulled the sword out, if I remember correctly …”

Things were going too fast. Bella had to take in a deep breath before she could answer Anya’s second question, trying to get it all out at once. “No, Xander never committed suicide. You can’t really kill yourself a little anyway. And … uh, I don’t … think you won the lottery? So I’m just going to go with no on that question

[wishescankill]

"So," Anya said loudly, trying to get Bella's attention back on her. "Back to the TV show now. Ya know, the millions of people avidly following every aspect of my life. They didn't show... I mean," the vengeance demon laughed awkwardly, trying to cover up her embarrassment.

"There was a... tiny lapse in judgement in The Magic Box... with. Um. Spike." She mumbled his name quickly, hardly wanting to admit what had happened. "And enough real people were watching that on their TV screens without 'audience' people watching it too. They... they didn't show that, right?"

[light_wicca]

Willow shivered slightly at Angel's suggestion. The idea that she wasn't only fictional, but not the real Willow?... It was possible, but... extremely scary, and not really something she wanted to think about.

"If the entire show is pre-planned, then... we probably are. I mean, the real versions of ourselves are... finishing it out, I guess? And we're copies pulled into this place." She frowned. "Then everyone here's fictional. That..." in any other situation, that would have been the most amazing thing to ever happen to Willow. She smiled awkwardly. "That kind of makes escaping from here sort of pointless, doesn't it? Or do we have to escape to continue the fiction?"

Gah, this was making her head hurt.

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Angel frowned in thought, distracted for a brief moment by Anya's comment before turning his attention to the topic at hand. "I don't exactly mean that we're fake, just that...we're all real. Depending on the reality, we're represented differently. Fiction in one world and real in another. We might've all existed together from the start, we just--never knew. Until now."

Which didn't entirely make sense, either, but really, he didn't think anything about this could make complete sense right now. And if Willow was as confused as he was, they probably weren't going to find the correct answer any time soon.

He looked at Bella. "It resembles America, but I don't think this is the real world. Not the one we come from, at least."

[his_singer]

“Oh, yeah. They showed that,” Bella responded to Anya simply, turning to give the demon an eyebrow quirk. “And the fact that it was videotaped too or something like that. Yep. Saw it all

[wishescankill]

For the first time in her life - her very very long life - Anya was speechless.

"Bu-- ho-- wh--" the vengeance demon stammered. "They showed that?! I don't go looking in their windows when they're having rebound sex because the... their sniveling... pathetic..." Okay, not entirely speechless.

She scoffed. "That's..."

"Perverts!" She shouted finally. "They're all perverts! Aren't they supposed to lock up sex fiends like that, not let them have their own TV shows?!"

[light_wicca]

Willow blinked in surprise. "I never said I didn't want to escape. This place has to be stopped. It's being run by somebody, right?" She gazed off into the distance, thinking. Why was this place here - wherever 'here' was - and what was it doing? If it was the 'real' world, then was it dragging characters from their fictional worlds and somehow making them corporeal? If that were true, then why? What did that accomplish?

It looked like there was still a lot to figure out. Everything they discovered only led them to more questions, and somehow seemed to complicate things more than anything else.

It was still hard to believe everything that happened in Willow's life was made up. Fiction, created for other peoples' entertainment. With a slight shudder, she rose out of her reverie just as Anya was saying something about sex.

...Okay. Willow really didn't want to know.

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"Anya, calm down," Angel said, laying a hand on her shoulder as he eyed the nurses. After what happened yesterday morning, they were probably jumpier than usual and the last thing he needed was one of them getting sedated.

Although if Anya was shown to...did that mean-Buffy and he-?

...Oh God. They couldn't possibly have-no, okay. He really didn't want to even consider that scenario. At all. He shook it off after a moment.

"I'm not sure what's happening, either," he admitted finally. "But we're not going to get anywhere trying to sort everything out right now." He glanced at Bella. "Are you by yourself here?"

[his_singer]

Run by someone? “Uh, I don’t know. I’d expect so … I mean, someone comes on each night on the radio saying things, so it must be him … right?” She was just as in the dark as Willow and the other two were - perhaps she should read the bulletin more often

[wishescankill]

"Oh right," Anya whined. This day was turning out even worse than yesterday. "You've got a boyfriend who loves and adores you and follows you into terrible places like this to protect you! Well Angel's all pathetic and alone and Willow's girlfriend just got shot, but shouldn't my - ha! - boyfriend be coming after me! He said he still loved me! Even after... even after he tore out my still-beating metaphor heart and squashed it in his metaphor hands, he... he said he still loved me. I mean, w-who does that?"

Just like with Luxord yesterday, the thought of Xander was making tears well up in her eyes.

A thought struck her, even worse than the idea of the Spike debacle being on TV. "They... they showed my wedding on TV, didn't they? Millions of people were... oh dear god, they..."

She just wanted to die. All this... this bullshit piling up on top of everything else wrong in her life. It had been bad enough back in Sunnydale, knowing that all her so-called friends hated her for turning back into a demon and forsaking the True Path Of

[light_wicca]

"Anya, please," Willow said softly. The part about Tara had hit her like a punch to the stomach. Maybe the Willow Anya remembered had gotten better, but this Willow still had very fresh memories of that moment. Of that day. She'd been on her way to go get better when she appeared here. "I don't think... Xander knows where we are or how to get here. This isn't something you can just look up in Giles's books."

It was beginnning to hit Willow just what her life being fiction for Bella meant. What that meant people in Bella's world saw. "Does the show... is it only major events, or is it everyday life?" As weird and wrong as it felt, Willow could kind of imagine their life in Sunnydale as a TV show. Just a little bit. It didn't help very much.

"I think we're real," she said as firmly as she could manage in response to Anya. "But I think the fictional thing is... real too. It fits together somehow."

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"Oh." Angel nodded at Bella's response. "That's good."

Anya actually looked honestly heartbroken, but he wasn't sure what to say to her and so in the end, he said nothing. Matters of love...not really his area of expertise. He'd more than proven that to himself.

"Something like that," he said, sensing Anya might have a breakdown (well, more of a breakdown) if he disputed her conclusion. He felt real enough, anyhow, and he didn't think he could believe otherwise even if he'd wanted to. Which he honestly didn't. After all he'd lived through-and everyone he knew, as well-it was too much to consider that everything was actually false. Fabricated. And...used as entertainment.