"Did you hear Sahjhan say that the Quor'Toth could only be opened once?" Gunn asked as he paced Fred's room. He couldn't sit still after seeing Angel go after Wes like that. "And I'm not getting used to Wes not being around anymore any time soon."

Fred lit up like lightbulb. "Sahjhan didn't say that the Quor'Toth could be opened once, he said he could only open it once. What if we found someone else to open it for us?"

"Like who?"

"That girl that restored Angel's soul. Wesley said that it was the first spell she learned, and if she's that powerful, she has to be able to do it, right?" Fred, without waiting for an answer, torpedoed downstairs. Wesley left his address book behind and she found a current number for Willow.

Not caring about the middle of the nightness, Fred dialed. The sleepy hello was cut short by Fred asking, "Is this Willow?"

"Hold on." The scream of Willow's name made Fred pull the phone away from her ear for a moment. Then a shaky voice answered. "This is Willow."

"Willow, my name's Fred. I work with Angel. We need your help real bad. Angel's son was kidnapped to a hell dimension, and you need to help us get him back."

"I can't help you. Hold on, Angel's son? Which one? Spike's here, so it has to be Penn or Lawson. And why would you want to save them?" Willow sometimes hated her eidetic memory after reading the Watchers' Diaries about Angelus.

"No not a vampire childe, a human child. Angel has an infant son named Connor. He's human and in a hell dimension and we have to get him. He's so small and in hell. We have to… you have to help us get him. Please. We'll do anything. He's just so tiny and helpless and in hell." Fred's hysteria took over and Gunn took the phone off her.

"What she means to say…"

"Is that there's a human infant in hell that needs my help?" Willow asked as she yawned. "Please tell me you've at least tried everything else under the sun before calling me?"

"The sun, moon, and stars. Even tried a law firm." Gunn watched Fred regain composure only to lose it again. "Look, we need the big guns, and you're it."

"I'll call you back as soon as I can. Where can I reach you?" Willow asked as she took the cordless with her down the hall.

"We're at the Hyperion."

"This may take awhile. Sleep with the phone."

"There's no sleep to be had." But Gunn was talking to a dial tone.

"Well?" Fred asked with all the hope in the world shining out her eyes.

"She'll call us back."


Willow knocked on Buffy's door with her hands shaking with withdrawal. "Buffy it's an emergency. There's a baby's life at stake. As in helpless infant in a hell dimension."

The door opened and Buffy stood there looking like she hadn't slept in two weeks and hair a rat's nest of tangles. But she had her blubbery face on. "A baby?"

"Yeah. They need me to get them into the hell dimension and I don't know what to do. Please tell me that I can use magic this one last time. It's a baby, and I don't think I can say no. Tell me it's OK?" Willow asked as another wave of shivers ran through her.

"We'll bring you back from this. You know we will. But if we're going into a hell dimension, we'll need all the firepower we can get. Let's get ready to go. Call them back and tell them we're on our way." Buffy doubled back. "Where are we going?"

"LA. The baby's Angel's." Willow waited to see Buffy's reaction.

"Angel has a baby? But he's a vampire and celibate."

"I didn't get all the details, but I'm assuming something mystical happened. We should get moving." Willow knew that a big spell all of a sudden would rip her in two, but she had an idea how to avoid that.


Buffy and Spike entered the Magic Box both curious what Willow needed from here. The table was full of books… blank books. They didn't even have titles. "This doesn't bode well." Spike peered through the gloom.

"Willow?" Buffy opened the training room door and found a woman in the middle of a candle circle. If the hair weren't black, she'd swear it was Willow standing there, but it looked like they had their own crisis here. "What'd you do with Willow?"

"Buffy," Spike said. "That is Willow."

When Willow turned to face Spike and Buffy, her black eyes had them taking several steps back. "We need to go. The child's in Quor'Toth and time moves differently there."

"We need to get to LA first. We need to get Angel." Buffy held her cringing at Willow's dark etherealness inside.

"Take my hands." Willow's voice echoed through both of them and they did as bade.

A nauseating moment later and the three of them were in the middle of a hotel lobby. "What the?"

"Welcome to the Hyperion. Angel lives and works here." Willow pointed to the office where a glimpse of Angel caught their eyes before he stood in front of them.

"Willow? Ah Buffy what are you doing here? With Spike? Who you're sleeping with?" Angel straightened himself. "You know what, I don't care. We need to get my son. Willow, Fred said you can rip reality and get us into Quor'Toth?"

"Something like that." Willow held her arms out and the four of them were surrounded by a red glow. And the Hyperion melted away. Replaced by charred earth and red skies. "Welcome to Quor'Toth. Connor's this way, but it might take time to find him. He's been here for years."

Buffy threw up on Spike's boot. "Sorry. Two teleporting trips back to back didn't sit well in the tummy."

Spike rolled his eyes but said nothing, and any smart ass comment he wanted to make to Angel died. Angel looked like he'd kill at the slightest annoyance. "Let's just find the little nipper and get back home, yeah?"