Sorry this chapter is a little short, I'll make up for it in the next chapter.
Gunn and Lorne neared the Wolfram & Hart building as night was just starting to fall. They just came back from finding Anne and finding out she was alive. Gunn was still ecstatic from the news, and Lorne was also quite happy, although he didn't really know Anne. Sure, he'd heard of her, but he never met her, so he didn't exactly know who she was. Lorne did have a suspicion, though, about why Gunn felt so strongly about finding her.
Lorne placed a hand on Gunn's shoulder before they entered the building. He turned and looked at Lorne, wondering why he was stopping them from going in.
"I know why she mattered," Lorne flatly said to Gunn.
He frowned. "What?"
"I know why you cared so much about finding that girl."
Gunn looked down at the ground and shifted nervously from one foot to the other. "So what?"
"Its okay, Gunn, it really is. Nobody's mad at you. You don't have to feel guilty about what you did to bring the sarcophagus here, and you don't have to fill that void of guilt by searching for people you know, hoping and praying that they're alive. What happened with Anne; that was just luck. Chances are that won't happen again."
"Why wouldn't they be mad, Lorne? Wes was mad, and I'm sure Fred was a little peeved. Angel's got other crap to worry about, so maybe he's not mad. But I figure, hey, maybe I come in and say 'Guess what?! Not everybody we know died.' Then, maybe I'm not just some fool who almost traded his friend's life to be smart."
"We don't think you're a fool, Gunn. We love you."
"And if Illyria had taken over Fred? Would you still care about me?"
"Of course. There is no universe where our gang doesn't make it through whatever we may go through together."
"You sure 'bout that?"
Lorne nodded with more certainty than Gunn ever saw before. "I'm positive."
Gunn trusted Lorne, and he knew to listen to him. Lorne was very insightful and Gunn felt better knowing that, no matter what, all of his friends would be there with him.
Fred took a deep breath. She, Wes, and Spike were outside of the lab door. It was all her decision to come here and see Knox, so she knew she shouldn't be nervous. The thought of facing a man, a monster who would do that kind of thing, though, was just indescribable. She could do this. She just had a few things she wanted to say to Knox before he was gone. Then, Spike would do whatever it was he was going to do to kill Knox, and that would be that. That part of her life would be over.
"Are you ready, love?" Spike asked her almost impatiently. He was ready to get this over with. Then he could go back and…and what? Do what? What could he do? Help with the Connor business? Sure, but for how long? How long could he help these people, just ignoring the fact that he wanted to talk to Buffy now that she knew he was alive? So many thoughts were racing through his mind they were hard to keep under control.
"I'm ready," Fred said as calmly as she could. She felt Wes put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.
Spike opened the doors and they walked inside.
Knox was still sitting in the chair, tied up, looking straight forward at nothing. The moment Fred walked in and he saw her, though, his face brightened and a smile formed. He seemed almost excited to see her.
"Fred," he whispered in what she found to be a creepy voice.
"Knox," she responded without emotion.
"You're alive. At first I didn't think it was true. I thought for sure Illyria would take over. And yet here you are. Wow, this is a first."
"Knox, why would you do this to me? To anyone? Nobody deserves to be taken over like that."
He laughed. "Fred, why are you accusing me? Don't you understand you should be honored to receive the gift of being special enough for a god to manifest in you? No one is that special, and I chose you because you were the perfect shell for her. Perfect."
"I'm not just a shell, Knox, I'm a human being!"
"Is there a difference?"
Fred sighed. "I used to think you were a nice guy. Now I know you're just a monster."
"I'm a savior, Fred, not a monster. I saved my god from a life inside a sarcophagus. Well, I tried to, anyway. If only your pesky friends hadn't gotten in the way."
She closed her eyes tightly. This was ridiculous. There was no talking to Knox, not anymore. In reality, there never was any talking to Knox. The whole time she knew him he was just searching for someone to fit his god's needs, and that had, unfortunately, been her.
"Just do it," Fred told Spike and then stormed out of the lab without taking one last glance at Knox.
Wes stayed in the lab with Spike, though, like he planned to, because Fred wasn't the only one with resentment towards Knox, with something to say to him. Knox was a horrible, evil man. Everybody could agree on that. So why shouldn't Wes be able to do what he wanted to Knox?
"How are you going to do it?" Wes asked Spike.
Spike shrugged. "Doesn't matter, really, as long as he's gone. I'll probably just snap his neck so we don't have to deal with this nonsense anymore."
"No."
"No? Listen, Percy, I-"
"He's evil, and snapping his neck would be too quick."
Spike folded his arms over his chest. "Then what do you suggest, your Highness," he said sarcastically.
"Shoot him. In the stomach. He'll bleed out."
He was actually a bit surprised. "You've got a sick side to you, huh? Didn't know that, not exactly."
"Is it sick to want someone who tried to murder someone I love to die slowly and painfully?"
"I guess not."
"Can we do this already, then?" Knox spoke up. "As fun as listening to this is, I'd rather just die by now. You know, if that's okay with you guys, if that fits your schedule. I know how many important things you have to take care of."
Wes pulled a gun out of the waist of his pants.
"You always carry that around?" Spike wondered.
"Not until lately."
"I keep learning new things about you every day."
Angel, after speaking with Connor/Illyria (he didn't know what to refer to his own son as since he clearly wasn't himself most of the time), went to Wes's office to find if him and Fred found anything in any books that would tell them if there was any way to fix what was happening. Unfortunately, he walked into the office to find that neither Wes nor Fred were there. He felt himself getting angry. It was all just his luck. This was all revenge, or something, for doing what he did to the world. He saved his friend, one of his closest friends, and in return, not only did millions of people die, but he was losing his son from the thing that he saved his friend from. This wasn't fair. It made him…
No. He shouldn't say it.
It made him wonder if he made the right choice. At this point, it seemed like it wasn't a choice of Fred or the world, it was a choice between Fred and Connor. And if it really came down to it, if it was a life and death situation, he knew all of the risks, and he could only pick one, who would he have picked? Fred or Connor?
"Angel?" a girl's voice with a Texan twang appeared behind him as the office door opened.
"Fred," he said as he turned around and looked at her.
"What are you doing in here?"
"Oh, me? I'm just…nothing." Angel lost track of what exactly he was doing here, he was so wrapped up in his thoughts. Thankfully, he remembered. "No, I was looking for you and Wes. Did you guys find anything that could help Connor?"
Fred sighed. "I wish I could say we've found something, anything, Angel. We just haven't. I don't think anything like this has ever happened before."
Of course not, Angel thought. I should've known that an impossible child bred from two vampires being taken over by an Old One never happened before.
"Angel, don't take this the wrong way, but you look terrible. What's going on?"
"He woke up."
"Oh my God. Is he-"
"No, he's not. He confirmed that it is Illyria inside of him. She, or it, or whatever, is taking control over him like I've never seen before. I'm scared."
"You should be scared. I'm scared now, too. Is he contained? Is there a way he can escape?"
"No, the chains and everything will hold him, I'm pretty sure. It's only a small fraction of Illyria, as far as I know, so he doesn't have all powers Illyria has."
"Well, good," Fred conceded, attempting to look at the good side of things, although from Angel's point of view there were probably zero good things about this situation. "I wish there was some way we could help. I wish there was a solution, or anything."
"There has to be." Did Angel really believe that? He wasn't so sure. "We'll have to keep looking. Maybe Lorne could ask around and…no." Angel shook his head, feeling angrier with himself than he ever did in all his life. "Lorne can't ask his recourses, because he probably doesn't have any left. They're probably all dead. Everyone."
Fred noticed the tears forming in Angel's eyes. "I hate seeing you like this."
"No, it's fine." He wiped the tears away. "I have to go lie down. I'm tired. Too tired. I need to get some sleep. I need to try."
"It's barely night," Fred observed. "Are you sure? What about Connor?"
"I don't know what to do. Maybe some sleep will help clear my head? All I know is I can't just stand around waiting for solutions to pop up in front of my face."
"Angel, if you need to talk, it's not like you don't have anyone to talk to. I understand completely. None of this is easy for either of us. It's hard. Extremely hard to live with this. That doesn't mean it's the end, though."
"I know it isn't. Trust me, I know. I'm going to go lie down now, Fred. I'll see you later."
Angel didn't bother waiting for a response; he turned around and left the office.
Later, Spike walked over to Harmony's desk and laid his elbows on it and rested his head on his hands. Harmony looked up at Spike, confused. He just stayed there and stared a little in her direction, but past her, at the wall, as if avoiding her stare.
"Umm, do you need something?" Harmony asked, clearly annoyed with him. She didn't understand why he was here. Didn't he know that she didn't want to talk to him, because she didn't? He was such a disgusting jerk; a freak, really. What kind of vampire slept with the Slayer? The Slayer! How revolting.
"Nope," Spike said. "I'm just thinking."
"Yeah, well, can you go be all thoughtful and creepy somewhere else? I'm trying to do some work here." Her words dripped acid.
"Work for what, exactly, love? Because last I checked there weren't many clients left."
She snorted. "I do more work than you do. I mean, what have you done in the last, like, ever that was useful to anybody?
"In my defense, I did just watch an evil man die and make sure he stayed dead. That must count for something, right?"
"No. It doesn't." Harmony flipped her hair over her shoulder.
"Okay, Harm, come on. Work with me here."
"Ugh, what do you even want from me? I'm not your precious Slayer or anything, so how could I even compare? How could I work with you here in any way possible, Spike, how?"
"I miss her. The Slayer, that is. But I'm pretty sure that's done with. She won't want to see me again. And look, I've had a stressful day, and I'm sure you have too. So, yeah. Please just…work…with me here." He put a lot of emphasis on "work."
"I hate you," Harmony said to defend herself. Still, despite her hatred towards her Blondie Bear, minutes later they were kissing in an empty office room, and soon they were doing a lot more than just kissing.
Wesley came back into his office to find Fred already waiting there with one major difference. The lights were off and multiple candles spread around the office were lit. There were plates on the table and food from somewhere in the building on those plates. Fred was on the side of the table facing the doorway with a smile on her face. Her glasses were off and her hair was down.
"You said just the two of us, right?"
Wes smiled brighter than he ever had before. "Yes, I did."
"Well, come on. Sit down and let's eat. I'm sorry about the food, by the way. Leftover spaghetti probably isn't the most romantic meal of all time, but it's what I could find."
He walked over, sat down, and looked at Fred. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. So…it's done?"
"It is. Now no more work talk. It's just the two of us; we could talk about anything in the world."
Fred pulled out a bottle of wine she had found and poured a few glasses. They were normal cups, not wine glasses, so it looked a little strange, but in a funny way. They shared a laugh. And when they began to eat, they had nice, normal conversation. At the end of their "date" they even kissed, like a normal couple on an actual date. They were both sad when their little date had to actually come to an end.
"I don't want this to end," Wes told her.
"Me neither. I guess that means we'll have to do this again?"
"Oh, certainly." They kissed again.
Sometime during the night, after waking up from a few nightmare-filled sleeps, Angel managed to fall asleep and remain that way, without any nightmares.
Spike left Harmony sleeping and went to walk around, but eventually fell asleep inside a different empty office.
Wes and Fred both fell asleep with Fred locked inside Wes's arms yet again.
Gunn and Lorne fell asleep inside their own seperate offices, each with different thoughts and questions about what tomorrow may bring.
And sometime during the night, a boy named Connor who had extra strength due to part of an ancient demon inside of him broke the chains that were surrounding him and keeping him in place.
To be continued…