Willow heard the clang of metal as the door slammed shut, and then a scraping sound as Xander turned the key in the lock. Although why he bothered to lock the door with her and Angel both secured to the wall, the redhead had no idea. She made a few half-hearted attempts to tug at the manacles securing her wrists, but soon stopped, convinced by a combination of the heavy metal locks and the burning pain in her side that she had no hope of breaking free.

She looked at Angel, who was standing silently next to her, his face turned to the side. He was making no sound, nor was he making any attempt to escape. His air of defeat shriveled the fragile sense of hope that Willow had been trying to nurture, that maybe there was a way for them to get out of here.

"Angel?" the redhead asked softly. There was no response. "Angel!" she said more sharply, her tone spurring the dark vampire to turn his head so that Willow could look at his face, although she could glean little from his blank expression. His eyes were half closed; he looked as though he were nearly asleep.

Willow chewed thoughtfully on her lip. She had put the pieces together from the various conversations she had heard. Clearly, Anya had opened a portal, and somehow she and the other Willow, the Willow who was a vampire, had been swapped. But if there were two worlds, both with Willows and Xanders and souled Angels - why weren't there two Buffys? And the more Willow tried to think back to the brief seconds that had passed while Anya did the spell, and the strange jumble of images she had seen, the more she was sure she had seen Buffy fighting the Master.

But how to broach the question with this Angel? Obviously things hadn't worked out quite the same here, otherwise why was the Master still alive, while she and Xander were not? But knowing that Xander, or rather his evil twin, could return at any moment, Willow had no time to worry about bruising Angel's feelings. She was struck by the sudden impulse to laugh - bruised feelings! if only that were all that was in danger of getting bruised! - but fought the bubble of hysteria down and quickly spoke.

"Is Buffy here? Does she know where you are?"

This got Angel's attention. His eyes shot open. "The Slayer? Is she coming?"

Willow had no answer. She was pretty sure her Slayer would not be coming - not any time soon, anyway. No-one knew that she had gone to do the spell with Anya. And if there was an evil Willow roaming in her Sunnydale ... when Buffy found her she would kill her, and think that somehow Willow had been turned. There would be no reason for Buffy or any of the others to ever suspect the truth.

But - surely there had to be another Slayer, for this world?

"This is not my world," Willow said in frustration. Angel seemed to be a few steps behind, as though his mind had slowed down when he lost his desire to fight. "Isn't there a Slayer, a Buffy, here?"

"No," said Angel without inflection. "She never came. Now they're all dead."

"Who's all dead?" Willow asked with a sinking heart.

"All of them, the Watcher and his friends, the ones who tried to resist the Master's rule. Now the only humans left alive in Sunnydale are being kept for food."

Willow's mind tried to process the scale of the horror that had occurred here, but she quickly decided that the dead could be mourned another time. She was still alive, and she and Angel could at least try to save themselves, even if it was clear they could not count on any outside assistance.

"Why are you here?" she asked, trying to understand the dynamics of what was going on.

"I killed my Sire, Darla, while trying to stop the Master rising. She was the Master's childe, so as punishment he gave me to his two newest childer to be punished and killed."

"His childer? Xander and, and ... me?"

"Yes," came the dark reply, and Willow saw Angel scouring her features with his eyes, no doubt seeing in her features the image of his torturer. Willow remembered the state Angel had been in, before he fed from her - she had inflicted some of that damage on him. She was evil, as much as the Xander she had met. What if Xander decided to do that to her, to make her a vampire?

Almost as if he were reading her thoughts, Angel chose that moment to speak. "You don't have to worry about him killing you." Willow had no doubt who the "him" referred to. "You heard what the Master said. He can't kill you or turn you in case it damages the portal reversal spell. He won't risk not being able to get Willow back."

Moving slightly to ease the throbbing in her side, Willow knew that there was a huge "but" in there somewhere.

She looked up at Angel, her green eyes brightened by the tears she had shed, and silently asked him to tell her the rest. Angel hardened his expression, and forced himself to continue.

"He can do plenty of damage without killing you. And he is a true demon, the Master's own childe. He delights in torture, but he's not very inventive. The best you can hope for, he'll lose his temper or run out of patience and just beat you unconscious, and when you wake up you'll be back in your world."

Willow swallowed to ease her suddenly dry throat. That was the best? "And, the worst?" she asked in a small voice.

"He'll feel like playing," Angel said darkly.

He knew very well there was little chance that the girl would get off lightly; the piquancy of having a human version of his mate to torture would be too much to resist. But Xander was very much the submissive in the mateship, and Angel could only hope that he wouldn't want to damage the girl too badly for fear of incurring his mate's displeasure. Willow was very possessive of her mate, and it was only on rare occasions that she would let him play with Angel alone. Xander would be very aware that the idea of him raping or torturing a human version of herself may well set off the redhead's temper - an event that Xander knew well enough to avoid.

But even with the best luck in the world, he knew the girl shivering next to him would be lucky to escape with only repairable injuries. He felt the unexpected desire to comfort her, but his mind was blank when he sought for something to say. He had been in this room too long to hold out any false hope to her.

But despite his words, Willow was not yet ready to give up all hope. "But there must be some way out of here?" she asked softly. "It's two against one, maybe we can overpower him?"

Angel looked at her sadly, seeing her desire to survive and her courage shining in her face. She was so beautiful, it was easy for him to believe this was the human form of his tormentor; she had innocence instead of her counterpart's malice, strength instead of cruelty, compassion instead of vindictiveness. Just so did the best of people become the worst of vampires. Angel mused over the unfairness that allowed such transformations to take place, and wondered if this girl would end up wishing she had simply been killed.

His ears picking up the sound of approaching footsteps, Angel spoke softly. "He's coming."

And Willow held her breath as she heard a key fitted into the lock and slowly turned, before the door swung open on creaky hinges.