A/N: This chapter turned to be longer than I had hoped. So, strap in. There were no Smartphones in 2001 to the best of my knowledge but the contents in my bag are from the present. Just bear with me on that for now.

I woke up the next day and you know did what a normal human would usually do. I went to the washroom, brushed my teeth and bathed . Then I came by the dining room and found some French Toast on the dining table. Elena was making some pancakes. While I usually had Idly or Dosa with Sambar for breakfast in my real life, this wasn't exactly a bad change of pace.

"Good Morning!" Elena said and she smiled at me.

"Good Morning to you too.." I returned her morning wishes.

"Do you want some pancakes?" she asked.

"I'll have some. I am particularly hungry after yesterday." I replied.

Yeah. I knew Elena's cooking wasn't particularly good in the show but I decided to risk it as I was very hungry and personally, I am even more bad at cooking.

"Well where did you get the ingredients for these anyway?" I asked her because as of yesterday we didn't exactly have any ingredients suitable for cooking.

"I decided to do some shopping in Maple Court. Well, by shopping I mean compelling people to give away items for free. I wish these bags really came with some money though" She replied.

"Well, Elena that was unethical but thank you for doing this. I am hungry. Let me calm my stomach and let's talk before we visit the Scoobies in Magic Box for help" I said as I digged into the French Toast and pancakes. While they were not great, they were not particularly bad either. Maybe they were a bit bad but I was too hungry to notice. I'll never know. Anyways after eating we decided that we talk it out.

"Ok. JD. Who are you? How do you know so much about me? How do you know about Katherine? Spill! Now!" she ordered but did not compel me.

"Elena I do not know everything about you. There is one tiny bit of information I need before I start telling you everything that you need to know about me. Can you tell me what do you last remember before you woke up in this universe?" I asked her.

"Hey! Not fair. I asked you first. You need to reply to my question." Elena protested.

"Elena. Please." I requested her with puppy eyes.

She rolled her eyes and then started thinking.

"Well I was running out of Katherine's tomb as she was trying to take over my body and then I found Damon and hugged him and.. that's all I can remember before I woke up here in this universe" Elena finally yielded to my determination with an answer(Ok, Ok she saw my puppy eyes and decided to answer. Same difference). Then her face started looking troubled, confused and terrified at the same time.

Now it all made sense. I mean sort of. This Elena is from season 5. May be the episode after the 100th episode of Vampire Diaries. And Katherine being here made sense too.. Kind of. I remember the episode where Katherine actually died in Season 5(Well, she came back for the series finale). I now have a theory as to how Katherine may have been here. It was a long shot. But I needed to ask another question from Elena but before that I needed to give her some answers. I really didn't know how to start. Can I like just tell her that her life was a TV show in real life. Again she may feel a little hurt by that. But I had to reply now.

After a long hard pause, I said "Ok. Elena. This is going to be crazy and you asked for it. Well, I am from an universe which is completely different from the one you live in and the one we are in right now. And well your life has been chronicled into a fictional collection of story books". Well that should do it. The TV show was inspired from books anyway but I've heard that the show was very different from the books even though I haven't read them. She need not know this much info but I prayed and hoped that it should be enough.

In spite of what we were through the past day, this was clearly too much for Elena.

"So, I am just a character from a story book or as you put it 'a fictional collection of story books' ?" she asked clearly a bit confused and annoyed.

"You see, it is all a matter of perspective. In my Universe, yes you are a fictional person. But I've always connected with you and your story more than I'd like to admit. You have had a huge impact on my life in a really positive way and may be helped me through one of the toughest phases of my life. So, you are every bit real to me as I am to me." I smiled after one of my longest comforting sessions in my life at Elena.

"That was very touching. Who knew an alcoholic can be so emotional." Elena who was a little emotional by now decided to snap out of it by taking a dig at good ol' me.

"I see you are all well now. So, what happened yesterday night? Did compulsion on Dawn work?" I decided to ask away the uncomfortable question as Katherine's return was bugging me.

"I was just trying to convince Dawn that I just have to talk with her. But before I could try my compulsion, Katherine came by and she had snapped Spike's neck and literally took out my tongue with her bare hands and decided to torture me by holding my nose and gauging my eyes out and squishing them. Then Katherine snapped my neck and when I woke up, I heard you asking for help and you know what happened after that." Now that Elena told her side of the story things made more sense. Katherine, a person who did everything only for survival was a bit cranky yesterday. Imagining the torture though, it was cruel to say the least. She may have been a bit too vengeful on Elena.

"So, Elena I have a theory as to how Katherine may have been here. Bear with me alright. So, you said that the last thing you remember before coming to this universe was running towards Damon when Katherine was trying to take over your body and then so were here. This ideally means only one thing. Katherine must have managed to take over your body permanently." I theorized based on my knowledge of the Katherine arc in season 5.

Elena's eyes widened but I continued "Wait. Now is not the time for you to go into shock mode. Your friends must have identified that she took over your body and killed her with the Traveller's Knife. That must have been why Katherine was in this universe. But you have to be back to your universe to take back your body and we so need to scram to Scoobies for help."

Elena was processing that flow of information. Obviously things were way a bit too twisty and messed up even by the standards of her universe and the Buffyverse. Saying that info obviously made my own head spin. But things were urgent now. So, we decided how we were going to talk with the scoobies and then we decided to leave. So, instead of walking, it was decided that Elena was to carry me, my bag and her bag and super-speed to magic box and we found ourselves at the front of the store.

Now that we were at the front, Elena decided to use her vamp superpower of opening the door in a sneaky fashion. I followed her in and there was a conversation going on at the counter which was a bit after a big table and a lot of magical stuff that was at the display in front. Seeing they were too busy talking we decided to let them finish their conversation.

"This isn't about her. It's about Dawn. She deserves to know where she came from. She needs to know. Or it's just gonna eat away at her." Buffy was talking anxiously with her friends.

"How did she find these? How did she get in here?" Giles wondered as he was looking at his notebook and papers on the counter.

"Ew! Who's been using the urn of Ishtar as an ashtray? " Anya meanwhile registered her disgust by holding a piece of smoked cigarette from some sort of urn.

Seeing that their conversation was over, I decided to register a weak "Hi".

"Oh! You! How nice of you to show up now." the blonde slayer was her furious charming self. "I have to take care of something but you two stay here for now" she added.

"Right! You are going to Spike's crypt right? Can we come?" Me and Elena asked together. Well, both of us found out during our little discussion that our favorite Buffyverse character was Spike. I found him to be cool while I am guessing Elena may have seen some traces of Damon in him.

"You guys know Spike?" asked Buffy with a surprised and disgusted look.

"Well it's more like we kinda met him yesterday." Elena said with a sheepish smile.

Buffy became thoughtful for a moment. "Ok. You two come with me." she said.

Well we decided to tag along with Buffy to take a walking trip to Spike's crypt. Buffy was having a surprised look at Elena and an angry look at me. It was a long awkward walk to Spike's crypt. As the blonde slayer burst into the vampire's crypt, we decided to follow.

"Morning, sunshine. If you've come around for eggs or sausage, I'm fresh out" Spike greeted Buffy and added, " I see you've also brought some guests. The brown bloke and 'heartache' chick from yesterday".

Me and Elena smiled awkwardly. Buffy grabbed the lid of the coffin on which he was sitting causing him to fall into the coffin. I decided to control a laugh that was almost about to escape. "Hey, careful! These are wet." Spike protested and held his left hand up.

Buffy decided to slide back the lid of the coffin and slam Spike's chest effectively pinning him on the opposite side of the coffin. "How could you let her find out like that? From books and papers? You hate me that much?" She asked Spike in an angry tone.

"I was just along for the ride. Not like I knew she was .." Spike paused looking at me and Elena. Cleary he was about to say something about Dawn being the key or something I guess. But then he continued "Nobody keeps me in the bloody loop, do they?"

Buffy banged the lid and stepped back and said "You could have stopped her." with a tinge of sadness in her voice.

"Oh, yeah, here it comes. Something goes wrong in your life, blame Spike. News flash, blondie." Spike heaved the lid and tossed it aside and continued "If kid sis wants to grab a midnight stroll, she'll find a way sooner or later. I just thought she'd be safer with big bad looking over her shoulder. Speaking of midnight strolls, You! What was your business trying to talk with the little niblet yesterday night eh?" Spike now looked pointedly at Elena.

Buffy also now had a stone cold look in her eyes at both me and Elena by now. "Well, we'll explain everything after this conversation between you two is over in Magic shop" Elena said, clearly with the look of 'Why is this happening now?' in her eyes.

"No. Just no escape for you now because immediately after you appeared, someone snapped my neck." Buffy's eyes widened at this revelation from Spike. Buffy and Spike looked at Elena like they were going to rip apart her soul.

I decided to intervene "We know that Dawn is the Key." and immediately I cringed. Elena visibly face palmed. Buffy had a very suspicious look on her face.

"Looks like you should now question the bloke and the chick, Buffy. The round of Kick the Spike can wait for later" Spike remarked with a mocking tone.

Buffy decided to drag us both and stormed out of the crypt. The little slayer almost looked too small to be dragging a fully grown man and a supernaturally strong vampire but she did anyway. I thought to myself that the show seriously downplayed her strength. Well, Buffy took us back to the magic shop where Xander, Willow, Anya, Giles and Tara were there by the counter. Well, me and Elena were offered 2 chairs and so we decided to take a seat first.

"Hi, Mr. Giles,Willow it is nice to see you again." I tried to kind of, sort of break the ice.

"Nice to see you two again too.." Giles said with a stoic face. Willow being herself just did not say anything.

"Hi Xan-man, nice to meet you too.." I tried to greet Xander.

"Do I know you?" Xander just asked plainly.

"No! You don't. But me, Giles, Willow and Tara do. This guy punched Dawn yesterday and this girl here was trying to talk about something suspicious with Dawn according to Spike." Buffy answered Xander's question with a tinge of anger in her voice.

Xander in a fit of rage decided to punch me and Anya joined too.. "You punched Dawnie!" they said in a chorus and continued the onslaught.

"Ah! Ah! valikuthu!" I screamed as face became very reddish after the back to back punches.

"Ok. Stop. Please. Xander, Anya please. The man is here to talk. Let us first listen what he has to say." Willow suddenly became a voice of reason.

"Thank You Willow" I said and looked at Buffy nearly breaking down in tears "Ok. First off, I am extremely sorry about punching Dawn the other night. I was out of line and I am sorry".

"You did save my sister's life and risk yours. I am not forgiving you yet mister! This is just a truce" Buffy said non chalantly.

"Truce is good enough. Thanks Buffy. Elena now can you start?" I tried to smile at Buffy. She didn't exactly frown so that was an improvement. I shifted a little bit of my burden to Elena.

"Well to put simply a) We are from the future, myself, Elena from 2012 and JD here is from 2020. b) We are both from different universes" Elena so easily summarized a very complicated concept. I was thankful that I decided to let Elena speak. I was not particularly good at expressing myself to strangers. Let alone a time jump and a universe jump.

After hearing this, Giles did his usual shock mannerism. Oh come on, you know what it is. He removed his glasses and started wiping them. Buffy, Willow and Tara had their mouths wide open.

"Different universes? Like other dimensions? I haven't heard of any dimensions other than demon ones and hell." Anya just blurted out with an expression that was too crazy for me to understand.

"Multiverse is real? Like in marvel and DC comics?" Xander asked excitedly.

"Yes. Xan-man. It seems so. I didn't know they existed but apparently they do. And we are both here because we really need your help in going back to our worlds. Elena here needs to go back more so than me" I managed to fit in a reply as well as inform the scoobies of the purpose of my visit.

"JD? So your name is not John?" Buffy who was now out of her processing stage decided to grill me.

"Well, my full name is John Durairaj. In short, you can call me JD though. But, to be really honest, I don't really remember my real name and this body is from a tamil movie in my universe. I am not sure if I possessed this body or if my body transformed when I came to this universe." I kind of cursed myself for dropping that extra bomb. I haven't even informed Elena of that little info. Elena was clearly shocked.

"Time travel, Multiverse and now a possible possession or shapeshifting. Wow! This is crazy. Even for us." Xander remarked.

"JD! We need to have a talk later." Elena gave me a passive aggressive warning.

"Ok." I said with the best innocent face that I could muster.

"Yes. This is crazy indeed. So, what was the first thing that happened when both of you came to this universe?" Giles decided to start his investigation.

"Well, we woke up next to a big hole in the high school. Immediately after coming out of the school, we met you." Elena replied with a small smile on her face. His eyes widened. So did the eyes of everyone else in the room. Other than me. Dumb me.

"Both of you woke up next to the hellmouth?!" Willow asked with a searching look on her face. Well, now it all made sense. The way of transport was through the Hellmouth. There must be some kind of portal there.

"Yes. That seems to be the case." I replied and noted that I did so in an unbelievably Giles way.

"Wait. Elena. You are a vampire right? How are you able to walk in sunlight?" Buffy questioned Elena.

"Well, this little gift from my witch friend in my universe helps me with that." Elena just showed the ring on her right hand and added "And the other person who looked like me and who is nothing like me is Katherine. She is my really bitchy vampire ancestor who tried to take over my life by taking over my body."

"Another possession. How incredibly basic." Anya remarked. Elena gave an exasperated look to Anya.

"Elena, you know she is like that." I tried to calm down Elena.

"What do you mean she's like that?" Anya protested.

"Well, you are you. You are unique and I am not falling for this trap from an ex-vengeance demon" I managed to diffuse the situation, I think. Xander had a 'now you know how it feels like' look.

"So magic exists in your universes?" Tara decided to speak up after a long time.

"In my universe, yes." Elena replied.

"No magic in my universe. No vampires, werewolves, demons, zombies or superheroes even. Only technology" I showed my smart phone after my little speech.

"But, that in no way makes my world normal. It is still crazy as hell." I continued. There was also a raging pandemic and there is a possibility of third world war but they didn't need to know that.

Well, after that it turned into a basic Q&A session about Elena's powers and if I have any powers. Elena told that she drank only animal blood and human blood if it was from a blood bag when asked about her feeding habits. The obvious question on holy water and crosses came up. Elena was not comfortable sharing her vervain weakness so we decided to leave it out of the conversation with the scoobies.

"What do you know about the key?" Buffy asked her question. I could deduce that she had the question for a long time.

"Well, the actual origin of the key is unknown. All we do know is that draining the key of it's energy can be used to open a portal to all dimensions at the same time. The key is a mystical ball of energy. But now The key was made human in the form of Dawn by the monks in Order of Dagon. They used your blood to make Dawn. So, for all practical purposes, you and Dawn are both biological sisters." I decided to become a wikipedia and blurt out all the info I knew on the key while looking at Buffy. "Also keep Dawn always away from mentally ill people. That's what people outside reality means. They can identify Dawn as the key".

"Thank You JD. that really clears up a lot on Dawn." Buffy heaved a sigh of relief.

"Buffy, a small request. I need to talk with Dawn and possibly apologize for the unfortunate error from my part. Please." I asked with a puppy face.

"Fine. You can meet us tonight. Bring Elena too. I believe her but I still don't believe you." Buffy replied with a playful smirk. Frown to smirk. This tell-all session has gone really well. "Ok. Now before leaving, please be careful to minimize your interactions with others. As you are from a different time and different universe, we really don't know how the flow of time and reality in itself may be altered. We will let you know about the way home for both of you after research." Giles gave us a final warning before we left. "We will!" Me and Elena smiled and came out of Magic Box. After coming out, Elena carried me and superspeeded to 1628 Revello Drive AKA our house in this universe.

"Why didn't you tell me JD? About your body being different? How were you able to resist my compulsion?" Elena had a look like I had betrayed her or something.

"Woah! Woah! Elena. Look, I didn't mean to confuse you too much alright. Even I myself was processing the entire information of being in the body of a character from a Tamil movie. The last thing I remembered from my real world was running into a lorry with my bike. Also see, I couldn't exactly resist your compulsion. I just used the loophole in your compulsion. You asked me only for my name. Not for my real name." I explained to her.

After I guess glaring at me for a rock solid 30 seconds she asked "Lorry? what is a lorry?".

"Bloody Americans. You people call them trucks." I said with a mock disgust.

"Ok. Enough of that now. Let's eat this late lunch" Elena ordered. I decided to dig into the big chicken pizza and burger in front of me and munched on them. Elena decided to drink from some of the blood bags she had in her bag luckily. All that was left to do was to watch the 13th episode of season 5 of Buffy in my laptop. Elena also joined so that we could understand where in the series we were actually. And we played some games in my laptop. And the night was upon us very quickly.

Well, what else, time to meet Dawn and apologize for me. Elena gets to know about the updates on research for her to go home. "Hi, JD, Elena." Buffy greeted us.

"Hi Buffy" Elena and I replied in unison. I happily went in but Elena was stuck at the border.

"I am still a vampire and you have to invite me in." Elena said a little embarrassed.

"Come in. But if you plan to do any funny business, I'll drive a stake through your heart." Buffy threatened with a playful tone but I could see that she was utterly serious with the threat. We sat down comfortably on one of the couches in the living room.

Joyce was looking at us with a bit of apprehension but Buffy reassured her. "Mom it's fine. They are just here to talk." and called out for Dawn "Dawn! We have guests please come down".

Dawn came down and after looking at me screamed "Why is he here? Did you bring him so that he could punch me again?". Well after hearing this I didn't know what to say.

Thankfully Buffy stepped up "He is here to apologize".

Dawn being the brat that she was, continued "And You! you wanted me to invite you in and when I rejected it, you snapped Spike's neck".

"Well Dawn, the person who wanted you to extend an invite was me but Spike's neck was snapped by Katherine, my evil ancestor. I am the good one and I promise I won't bite." Elena totally schooled Dawn but with a polite smile.

"Dawn, I am very sorry for what I did yesterday. I did what I did to distract Katherine and save your life who was having you by your neck. But that does not excuse me punching you and for that I am very sorry" Finally, watching a lot of English movies and TV shows helped me come up with a decent apology.

"I guess you kind of risked your life to save mine. But I am not worth it. Blobs of energy don't deserve a life" After saying that Dawn started crying profusely.

"Oh Dawnie!" Joyce and Buffy both decided to console her. Looking at crying Dawn and her family, well I really started to feel sorry for the little brat.

"Well Dawn, I'll tell you everything that I know about you. But you have to stop crying." I decide to contribute to the cause of 'Stop the little brat from crying'.

After a solid two minutes, she stopped crying but her cheeks still had the tear marks. "I am ready" she said.

"I don't know how much Buffy told you or else if she told you at all. So, I am going to start from the beginning. You are as old as this world. That puts your age at approximately 4 billion years old. Almost for this entire time, you were just a green ball or as you put it 'blob' of energy. But around 6 months ago, three monks from Order of Dagon decided to give you human form by using your sister's blood by performing a ritual called 'Key embodiment ritual' to protect you from hell goddess Glorificus who you know as the 'not so tough' girl who was bothering Buffy. So, as of this moment and for the last 6 months, you have been a living, breathing human being. Sure, you were made to be human but that does not mean you are not a real person. You are as real as people who were born as test tube babies. They were created by science, you by magic. You are bound to Buffy by blood. This effectively makes you both biological sisters and an actual human being. You are a true miracle and you deserve to live and you have to live." Well, that pep talk was damn exhausting but Dawn was starting to have tear well up in her eyes again.

"Sorry Buffy. Sorry Mom" Dawn apologized and they had a family hug.

"Wait. How do you know all this?" Dawn asked after finishing the big hug.

"I am probably violating Giles' warning but I don't care. You deserve the whole truth. I am from the future and I know that you were planning to meet some mentally ill people in the Sunnydale hospital. If I weren't here, you probably would have done that by now." I couldn't stop talking. I was in the zone.

Well, all the Summers' eyes widened. "Dawn!" Buffy was onto the little brat.

"What? I didn't. He stopped me you know from doing crazy things. He really is from the future" Dawn replied to her sister clearly happy at making her annoyed.

Dinner was ready. Joyce had done some Dosa and Sambar for me. Buffy must have told her I am an Indian Tamil guy. Well, I was so happy at looking some south-Indian cuisine and had tears of joy while eating them.

"Is something wrong?" Joyce asked with concern.

"I'm sorry . I started to get memories of my home while eating this Dosa. Thank You for this." I replied with tears of joy welled in my eyes.

Well, after a sappy dinner eating session, Elena finally asked, "Buffy, do we have any update on me and JD here going back to our universes?"

"Yes. We do. Willow and Giles found something. Will discuss with both of you tomorrow in magic shop. I for one, am happy to get rid of you two." Buffy replied and decided to take a sly dig on both of us.

After that, me and Elena said our byes to the Summers and went back to our house. Once we went into our house, we found Glory there.

"Otha!" was all I could muster. Elena too was not doing so well as her eyes widened and she froze. We are truly screwed.

A/N: And.. Glory's here. Next chapter will be the final one. This chapter took a lot of time and effort to write. Leave your reviews and suggestions or PM me. Thank you for reading this chapter. Stay tuned until the next one. 'Otha' means the F-word in Tamil and 'valikuthu' means I'm in pain or It is painful.

Also, some clarifications. We are in 2022, so I am considering that my actual self-insert is from 2022. That was the reason for the third world war reference(My sympathies go to all people affected by the Russia-Ukraine war on both sides). The Tamil movie Master was released in 2021 but all shooting for the film completed at around Jan-Feb 2020 if I remember correctly. That was why Elena says that JD was from 2020. I am also assuming Elena is from 2012 because Elena was 17 at the start of the show which aired in 2009. She was 19 years at the start of the season 5 which aired at 2013. and we are looking at an Elena half way through season 5. So, I thought may be 3 years would have passed from 2009 and thus she came from 2012 in this story.