It's all AU.

Romana had fled back to the old town. Fewer people, easier to deal with. She walked the streets, her arms wrapped around herself, eyes roving over the landscape like she expected it to rise up and bite her. When she heard a footstep, she whipped around.

It couldn't be.

It freaking well couldn't be.

But there, it was. Tall, shaggy haired, lanky, unmistakable.

Dean started to run. "Sam! Sammy!"

The city was large enough to get a good run in after she'd slept, and she found a gym a few blocks from where John had gotten her a room over a bar, though she was pretty certain they'd throw her out if she actually tried to put a full-force punch into the bag she was working out against. Places like this didn't like someone breaking things.

She snorted, delivering the next punch with more force than she'd intended, and dodged sideways as it swung wildly on its chain.

River was sitting on a bench at the edge of a playground, eating a plum. Watching children play. Really intently. Especially a boy pushing what looked like might be his little sister on a swing set.

A couple of the mothers were giving her nervous glances. Normal, she was not pulling off.

Buffy wandered out into the warm evening, tossing a stake idly over and over in her hand.

"Anyone seen any vampires that need staking?" she inquired lightly.

Quite frankly, she was bored.

The Doctor was standing in a field at the edge of town beaming with pleasure at the old-fashioned carousel – complete with hurdy-gurdy music and horses bobbing up and down – that he'd just imagined into existence.

Dean was doing better with Bumfuck since his brother was around. More peace of mind, and if he'd only had his car, he'd be a happy man.

At least his Dad hadn't turned up. That would have freaked him out.

Instead, he was pretty content, wandering along the street, kicking at stones on the track. No demons (except that vampire), no time passing, no crossroads, no timescale. Life? Was good.

Sam rubbed his wrist, making a face. The skin was dry, a little patchy. At least it didn't stink anymore- he'd washed the hell out of it when the nurse had said he could after getting the cast off. He twisted his wrist, using his back to push the door into the waiting room open, turning when he got through to be...not in the waiting room. He blinked, looking around the hotel, handing going to his pocket for a protective amulet even as he called out, "Dean?"

It was night. Spike had found his way up onto the flat roof of a warehouse near the edge of the town. (He'd have preferred the roof of the hotel, as it was the tallest building, but there'd been someone else already up there.)

He was standing near the edge, vodka bottle on the low wall that bordered the roof, gazing out over the town. He was deep in his thoughts, wondering what the fuck this place was, and what the fuck was going on with his head.

Jack had recovered from his encounter with the vampire.

All it took was some food, some rest, and a whole lot of water to get him back on his feet and back to normal. Being immortal was handy, every now and then. He was appreciating it more than he had in the past just now. So, recovered and he'd given the place a quick once over, hadn't spotted the vampire and didn't expect to find him again during the day.

He wandered into the park, mostly just biding his time and going over what he knew and what he thought he knew.

When he saw a guy sharpening wood with a penknife he stopped, hands in his pockets and watched. He only watched for about half a second before he retrieved one of his hands. "Blond guy? About this high?" He indicated Spike's height with one hand.

Spike flung open the trapdoor and clambered through, rolling away instinctively as he let it slam behind him and only just managed to stop himself rolling out of the shadow and into the sunshine.

"Bugger." He wasn't going to get very far in broad daylight. He scrabbled backwards till he had his back against a wall and looked around wildly, breathing heavily.

An alley. A pretty clean one, for a change, and not one he was familiar with. And he was familiar with most of the alleys in Sunnydale. It wasn't, after all, a large place and they were good places to hang around.

Oh, and the trapdoor had disappeared.

Standing up and feeling in the pockets of his duster, he discovered he'd also lost his fags.

"Bollocks," he said forcefully.

( Cut for length )

She was in a hallway, carpeted and with several doors leading off it. The few furnishings she could see didn't look particularly old-fashioned. That combined with everything else she'd seen since arriving made her think she couldn't have travelled back far. She wasn't sure whether that was good or bad, but it probably gave her a fighting chance, so long as she didn't talk to the wrong person and blow up the universe or something. Further up the corridor she glimpsed movement, and she stopped and cautiously backed against the wall, pausing to consider what to do. She'd never find out where and when she was if she didn't look, and whoever it was might be able to help, assuming she didn't say anything mad like 'Hello, I've just been sent here from the future by a statue that was really an alien, what year is this?'. She called out, grateful that her voice sounded relatively steady,

"Hello? Excuse me. I seem to be lost. Can you help me?"

Dean was not having a good day.

Of course, any day that involved his baby brother fucking dying and an army of fucking demons trying to take over the earth wasn't going to be a great one, but he was used to the demons, at least. What made this day spectacularly shitty would be the fact that as soon as he'd concluded his deal with the crossroads demon, he'd had just enough time to confirm that Sam really was alive before he'd got caught in some kind of backlash from the hellgate, and dropped - here.

Wherever in the ass end of nowhere here happened to be.

Without his brother.

Without his fucking car.

That one really fucking stung.

Dean picked himself up, dusted off his jeans, glanced around, and tried his usual method of getting information. He yelled.

"Sammy!"