This couldn’t be happening!

Cursing, Angel let go of the young woman who had suddenly appeared in his arms. She looked as confused as he felt. One moment, he’d been holding Buffy, in the midst of a spectacular kissing session, and then, with a flash of light, this girl had appeared in his bed.

And Buffy was gone. “Alright,” he said, leaping off the bed when he realised that he was still painfully aroused and the woman was wearing only a thin, old-fashioned shift. There was hay in her hair, a small golden crown sat lopsidedly on her head, and her cheeks were flushed. “Who are you?”

Her eyes widened as she appraised him, then said something in a language Angel had never heard. Puzzled, he stared at her as she scrambled to her feet, clutching the blankets.

“Look,” Angel started hastily when her chin started to quiver dangerously. “I don’t know where you’re from, but…”

“Buffy, are you…” Dawn Summers burst into the room, skidding to a halt in front of the woman, blatantly staring. “Whoa.”
Under Dawn’s scrutiny, the woman drew back her shoulders, the blankets hanging off her shoulders like a queen’s mantle. “Right. Erm… We might’ve…accidentally, of course! Opened this hole in the dimensional walls?”

She scrunched up her nose, waiting for Angel’s reprimand. “So she’s from another dimension?”

“Seems so.” Connor strolled into the room, looking the woman up and down. “Not from Quartoth, though.”

Exasperated, Angel sighed. “Why? How?”

Sheepish, Dawn looked at her feet. For some reason, she was wearing her blouse inside out. “You know how I can, well, open these portals?”

“As the key,” Angel nodded, “But I thought you couldn’t access your powers…?”

Connor cleared his throat. “Yeah. So it seems like…excitement…triggers them.”

“Excitement?” Angel said incredulously.

Dawn blushed to the roots of her hair as he glared at them. “Oh, like you’re one to talk,” she snapped back. “Anyway. Do whatever you were doing with Buffy, and it’ll work backwards…probably.”

“Wonderful,” Angel groaned. Kissing strangers, and just on the second day of his newly-rekindled relationship with Buffy! “You’re both *so* grounded. And Connor, zip up your fly,” he said crossly, stalking across the room towards the woman. Wide-eyed, she stepped backwards, but she wouldn’t understand no matter how he tried to explain, so he just caught her face between his hands and, thinking of Buffy, kissed her full lips.