The group sits inside of the Hyperion Hotel, exhausted. The apocalypse isn't anywhere near being over with, but for now, they deserve a rest; the Powers That Be owe them that. They've used a few of Lorne's contacts to put up a barrier around LA, their information having been wrote down and stashed away before the demon did his final job for Angel. The hotel's first story windows have all been boarded up and the doors have been sealed off. Now they sit, all gathered in the lobby while the city falls around them.

Illyria paces past the windows, showing as much concern as she'll let herself. Even she is tired, but it's not from the fighting. She has used one of her abilities for the very first time, and it has taken its ware on her; she had scoffed that back in the day, it wouldn't have caused her to even bat an eye, but that had just led to Spike making a snarky comment about her not really knowing that because she had never bothered to use it before, and then they both were chastised by Angel. Her leader-though she didn't realize she thought of him as such-then cut her off from making another remark, this one about her being reprimanded. He had called them "children," and somehow even managed to make her feel like one. Of course, it didn't affect Spike at all.

The platinum blonde is also pacing, though at a much more unnerved pace. He wants to go out and kill more, and if Illyria wasn't hell bent on watching over Wesley until him and Gunn wake up (and healing herself), she would agree. Him and Angel are arguing (bickering like a married couple, she once heard Wesley call it) over it; Angel didn't appreciate it when she asked him if it was he who was behaving like a child now. Spike seemed to though, and it reminded her of why he is one of the less annoying-and more annoying at the same time, oddly enough; something she would have to ask Wesley about when he wakes-beings she's grown to know.

"I'm telling you, Angel, I will be FINE. I've seen plenty worse in my day. You should know, you've been there for a lot of it. Hell, you thought you WERE a lot of it."

They have an odd relationship in her opinion, the vampires. Its dynamic is different from any other that she's seen so far. She asked Wesley about it once, if it's simply because they aren't human. What he told her only intrigued her further: "They have history."

"Look," Angel's frustrated, and it's coming out in his tone; it's harsh and Illyria hasn't heard it from him since Fred's death. "I can't-" He pauses and shifts in his seat; he uses many motions with his hands sometimes when he talks that she doesn't understand the point of. "It's been a long day, okay? We can't lose anyone else."

That seems to shut the group's one blonde up, which is impressive considering it's Spike. He looks as if he's going to say something at first, but he ends up just gaping for a few seconds and then a quiet "alright." He thinks back years, back to the woman he loves, back to her speech saying she loved the people she was leading. Sometimes he thinks that her and Angel really do belong together, sometimes he sees something in Angel that reminds him so much of her. He doubts he'll be telling the older vampire that he's a hell of a man any time soon though. The idea of it makes him scoff-or, at least it would if it wasn't for the sudden coughing.

All three of them move to Gunn. He's been patched up, but it isn't guaranteed that he'll survive. Illyria could only use her ability to resurrect once every hundred years, and she had chosen Wesley. Gunn had been fine with it, saying that he owed the man for what happened to Fred, even though before he had died, Wesley had been a living man without life because of her death. But Gunn was sure that he would survive, that Wesley was one of the strongest people he knew. Surviving isn't living, but he was also sure that in the days coming, they would need the Brit. They could have taken him to a hospital outside of the city before the barrier went up, but he prefered to rescue people until he couldn't and hope for the best, in case the group needed him and whoever would have had to carry him to an ER-but hope doesn't seem to be cutting it this time going by the blood he's hacking up.

"Easy there, Charlie boy."

Spike's hand on his shoulder is no comfort. He's scared. His vision is dimming, and he has to wonder if the next thing he's going to see is fire and brimstone. He didn't like it the other time around, and he isn't looking forward to it now. Even as the darkness starts to take him though, he knows that there's something worse than Hell, that Wolfram & Hart always has something worse, especially for people like him.

"Angel-" His hand reaches out, grabbing his friend. Angel squeezes it, and then he's just . . . gone. The light fades, his head slumps back, his sentence, like his destiny, remains unfinished. Charles Gunn is dead.

At the same time Gunn takes his final breath, Wesley has his first.