Spoilers: BTVS: up to season 7, SG1: up to season 3, but not that spoiled 'till later in the story

BTVS: After season seven
SG: early season three














Maybe she should’ve listened to friends; yeah, she definitely should’ve listened to them. If she had she wouldn’t be in this mess, she wouldn’t be crouched on her bedroom floor looking under the bed. She wouldn’t be trying to coax a young boy from under the said piece of furniture.

It wasn’t quite what she’d expected. But then again her magic usually backfired on her. Okay, right now she needed to do a little damage control; she tucked some red hair behind her right ear and peeked under the bed again. Her green eyes connected with the boy’s brown ones; “Come on, you can’t stay under there forever,” she said bringing up some much-needed logic to hopefully draw the kid out.

He couldn’t have been more than eight years old, his longish brown hair hung in his eyes as he stared at her with no small amount of fear from where he lay flat on his stomach.

Exasperated, Willow sighed, “I’m not gonna hurt you, okay?” she’d been in this position for almost an hour, maybe she should call Buffy.

The redhead immediately threw that suggestion out the window; the blonde Slayer already had a lot on her plate; this was her fault so she’d put this right. Too bad she didn’t quite know how to deal with kids. Teenagers, she could; but not little kids.

“Are you a w-witch?” the boy said in a small voice.

Surprised, Willow nodded; did the boy see her casting the spell? He had to have done, there was no other reason to ask that question. Maybe the blinding flash of light hadn’t stopped him from seeing her; only stopped her from seeing him at first. At first he’d just looked at her bewildered and then had dived under the bed after dropping a gun.

Willow shook her head, what the hell was that kid doing with a gun in his hands? She looked back at the object which was on the floor behind her looking harmless and docile.

“You’re not going to turn me into a f-frog, are you?” he asked fearfully.

Frogs? Ew! The horrified and revolted look must have shown on her face because the eight year old frowned in confusion. “You don’t like frogs?”

Frogs? Slimy, disgusting, green, bug-eyed, squelchy frogs- heck no! “No,” she said.

“But you’re a witch,” he said looking puzzled and less scared. “Witches like frogs…and broomsticks too!”

Willow smiled, “I’m not THAT kind of witch! I’m—” she thought for a second. “Have you watched ‘The Wizard of Oz’?”

The boy gave her a blank look, then screwed his face up in concentration, “No, I don’t think so.”

“O-oh, well--” Willow thought for a second. “I’m a good witch, and frogs are just icky.”

He nodded eyes wide, and said, “I thought only evil witches went black like that.”

Willow looked confused, “Huh?” Black?

The boy nodded, “Your hair was all black- I thought that meant that you were evil.” He looked down uncertainly and then looked back up at her. “But you’re not evil, are you?”

Willow shook her head, “No, there was an evil-me that I met a few years back—well, that’s a different story for another time.” Best not to confuse the already-confused kid.

She decided to change the subject, “So, um, I’m Willow- that’s my name….what yours?”

He opened his mouth to answer and then faltered, “Uh, I dunno…I DON’T KNOW WHAT MY NAME IS!”

Willow looked stricken, “What did I do?” Pulled a little kid into her room and wiped his memory, said a little voice in the back her head.

She frowned and looked down averting her eyes away from the scared- almost hysterical- child under the bed. Right now she needed to calm him down.

“Maybe you’ve got your name written on the insides of your shoes,” she suggested helplessly. He stopped panicking but still looked frightened.

“Why don’t you come out from under the bed,” she said hopefully. “You know I won’t hurt you.” At least she hoped he did.

He nodded slowly and started moving towards her, she moved back from the bed to give him room; as he came out from the bed she put a hand on his shoulder and helped him up to his feet. She smiled and brushed some hair away from his eyes, “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

He shook his head looking a lot less scared than he was an hour ago, he looked down at his shoes and then knelt down to take them off; the witch helped him untie his shoelaces before he pulled them off to check inside.

Willow wondered how on earth her spell could have turned out like this; she had gotten a call a while ago from the Fang Gang back in LA, their friend ‘Gunn’ was missing and they were hoping that she could bring him back using her magic. The spell was foolproof- at least she thought it was. She just had to do the right things in the right order, use the right ingredients and say the right name.

And she had. So what had gone wrong?

“Charlie!” the boy said happily. “My name’s Charlie.”

Willow smiled, “Nifty.” Her smile faltered a little. “Um, Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

The redhead gestured over to the firearm lying on the carpet a little away from them, “Why were you holding that gun?”

And with that question it suddenly dawned on her what had gone wrong, she groaned, “Figures.”

She’d said the right name, ‘Charles Gunn’ but for some reason it backfired and she got a kid named Charlie holding a gun. “Wow, and here I thought I had my magic fully under my control…guess not.”

chapter 2



Willow gripped the firearm firmly while making sure not to touch the trigger; she had hoped, after the Warren Mears incident, that she would never see a gun again. She hated them.
She opened the cupboard above her head and pushed the gun onto the highest shelf, so high that even she could barely reach it and had to stand on the tips of her toes and use her fingertips to put it there; away from Charlie’s eyes and reach.

It had been two hours since she’d coaxed the boy from under her bed and he was now sitting at the table in the same room she was in, the kitchen, and was scoffing down a bowl of Froot Loops. She had decided that Charlie should try to sleep at half nine; at that moment it was only eight-forty-five, she was pretty sure that that was the time eight year old kids were sent to bed by their parents.

She turned to Charlie and said, “When you’ve finished the cereal we’ll find you some night-clothes, ‘kay?” then she was going to have to figure out where he was going to sleep…he could take her room, or maybe the spare room where Xander or Buffy sometimes slept. She’d let him choose.

Charlie grinned around his mouthful of cereal and nodded before plunging his spoon into the bowl’s contents, Willow smiled slightly. As soon as Charlie was up in his temporary room she could search on her Laptop and find out if there were any ‘missing persons’ files, though she wouldn’t be surprised if there were. He’d only been missing for a few hours.

If only Charlie could remember his last name, it would narrow down the search.

Willow plodded up the stairs slowly wondering where she could find Charlie some night-clothes, her best friend had lent her one of his shirts once when they were in their early teens; she never remembered to give it back to him.

She pushed open the spare-bedroom door and made a beeline for the chest of drawers; she riffled and rummaged through the old clothes that she hadn’t had the time to throw away and eventually she saw the illustration of ‘Snoopy’ on a shirt; she pulled it from the drawer and shook it out from it’s folded state.

With her tongue caught between her teeth she smiled, Xander had loved ‘Snoopy’ when they were kids; shaking her head of the thoughts she examined it. It was a little too big for Charlie; it would come down passed his knees. But it didn’t matter, he was only staying for a night.

She doubted that Charlie would mind.

Speaking of ‘mind’, how would she get his memories back. She couldn’t sent the boy back with amnesia, his parents would freak…well, it wasn’t right that Charlie should have no memories of the last eight years of his life.

She’d talk to Giles in the morning.

The redhead folded the shirt in half and draped it over her right arm before making her way out the door; she turned back briefly and looked around the room. Nodded, and then continued out.

She hoped Charlie would like the room.


“I’m finished now!” chirped the young boy enthusiastically as she walked into the kitchen. He jumped down from his seat and gazed at her expectantly.

“Okay, well…um,” she thought for a moment. “You can use my toothbrush if you want and um…ah, here’s your night-clothes.” Yep, she sucked at kids, not teenagers though.

Charlie grinned, “I like ‘Snoopy’, but not as much as ‘Homer’.” He took the garment from her.

Willow smiled at him feeling relieved, score: one for Willow!

“I guess it’s night-time for you, mister,” she said. “Do you want a drink before you go up?” Charlie nodded.

“Have you got any apple juice?” he asked hopefully. Willow nodded and went to the refrigerator; she pulled open the door and pushed some of the items out of the way to get to a carton of juice.

She finally withdrew the juice, shut the refrigerator door and handed it to Charlie. “When you’ve finished that I’ll show you the room you’re sleeping in for tonight.”

Charlie stopped what he was doing: which was piercing the small, silver, circular film on the carton with the straw and looked up at her surprised, “Just for tonight?”

“You wanna go home, don’t you?” she asked surprised. “Back to your family.”

Charlie looked down, “I don’t know, I can’t remember them.” He shifted feeling embarrassed and slightly hurt. “You do want me here, right?”

Willow thought for a moment, “Of course, but I’m not your mom, so whether or not I want you here…which I do…i-it’s not up to me.”

“Oh,” Charlie shuffled his feet. “Will you take care of me until we find my mom and dad?”

It would depend on how long it would take for her to find the parents and also how long it would take the police to list Charlie as a missing person; if they listed him before she had a chance to find them then she’d have to call in to say that the boy had been found and she’d have to make up a story.

But she didn’t want to do that, she wanted to find Charlie’s parents and have them reunited without any trouble from the law or the supernatural.

“Willow?”

Oops, she’d zoned out. “We’ll have to wait and see, sweetie.”

He looked at her for a few seconds, brown eyes boring into her own green ones and then he said, “’kay.”

Willow smiled to break the tension and said, “So, you like ‘The Simpsons’ huh?”

Charlie grinned and eased up.



~Alternate Reality, 4 hours earlier~

Date: Late 1995


Sara O’Neill sat at the foot of the stone steps outside in the front garden in a button-up dress and looked up as she heard the car door slam, she smiled brightly as her husband, Jack, jogged towards her enthusiastically and came to join her on the steps.

Jack wrapped his arms around her and their lips met in a long kiss, “How was your day?”

“Fine.”

“Oh, look what Charlie brought home from school today,” she bent down slightly and withdrew a framed photo of a grinning brunette boy from her bag.

“Is Charlie ‘bout ready?” he asked as he looked at the photo of his son.

“Yeah, he was running ‘round here a couple of minutes ago,” she said looking around the garden.

Jack looked away from the photo and saw that his son wasn’t in the garden at all, he sighed; “I’ll go look for him.” He wondered if Charlie was still mad at him for not getting him that water gun he wanted.

It had been two weeks since then and they still hadn’t made up.

Jack jogged up the steps to the house door and went inside, “Charlie!?” he called he waited for the sounds of his son’s footsteps on the stairs.

Silence.

“Oy, that boy can really hold a grudge,” shaking his head he went upstairs.

His son’s door was closed when he got to it, he twisted the door knob and went inside, “Charlie—the hell…”

The room was completely deserted aside from him, he heard his wife come into the house and he ran out of the room, “Sara! Have you seen Charlie?”

“No, isn’t he in his room?” she called back up.

“Ah, nope.”

After searching the house both he and his wife had come to the distressing conclusion that their son was missing as well as Jack’s gun which he had put in his bedroom drawer.



~Higher Realms~



The Powers That Be looked down at what was happening in the Alternate reality, the reality was one of hundreds where the Stargate may or may not exist. It was a reality that was not as important as some of the others.

One other reality was extremely close to the Witch’s reality; one with a Stargate, one where the boy’s father had joined the fight against the Goa’uld after his son shot himself accidentally. The year in that particular reality was 2001, over six years after the Stargate was used to go to Abydos.

The reality that the boy was taken from alive just before he pulled the trigger was one that was of less importance to them, they rarely took any notice of it as it was not at all close to the reality with the supernatural.

Still, they were not as cold-hearted as lower beings sometimes thought; they observed the parents of the child that had disappeared from his bedroom and decided that it would be best if the O’Neill’s forgot they even had a child.

It was best that they just had the boy’s existence erased from their memories completely as well as everyone else who had had contact with him.