Disclaimer: I do not own BtVS, AtS, or any of the characters portrayed therein. They belong to Joss, Mutant Enemy, etc... of which I have zero affiliation. I'm just borrowing them to entertain myself for a little while.

Author's Note: ***These next two chapters are pretty short, I will be posting two this update so don't start in the wrong place!***

I wrestled a bit with posting this next chapter due to some events that occurred in the U.S. this past month. As much as violence is a necessary part of the Buffyverse, I do not condone it, especially on any sort of large scale that ends up hurting innocent lives. Of course, I cannot foresee a way that I could re-write this that would still make sense with everything that I've set up, not to mention that it's been almost a year since I wrote this chapter.
If anyone feels that this chapter is poorly timed, or inappropriate, please PM me and I will gladly delete it until I've had time to make the appropriate changes.

I'll try to end this on a happier note; I want to take a moment to shout out to Ashes At Midnight, for pointing out something awhile back that I was convinced I had fixed, but apparently had not... I was toying around with the order in which the Horsemen would appear, trying to see what would make the most sense with the plot, and ended up realizing that I could make it work in their original order. I thought I had made the appropriate changes in previous chapters, but I did miss one! What I'm trying to say is; you were right, I was wrong, and I don't have time to edit right now but I'll go back and fix everything soon! Thanks!

Chapter 20: War

By the time I awoke the next day, Wesley had already left for the prison. I could only imagine he was uneasy about the whole plan, yet despite how much he'd grown in the past two years, he was still not one to challenge me once I had made a decision.

I retreated immediately to my office, not really keen on butting heads with Cordelia again. I'd managed to get her to relent the evening before, but I knew it would only be a matter of time before she would start pushing for Buffy to be brought in on this again, and I was still in no shape to discuss the tiny, golden haired Slayer that still had the power to undo me.

I flicked on the radio again, filling my head with more reports of illness, more deaths, more dread...

Anything to keep my mind of off her.

I didn't know how long I had been sitting there, lost in the bleak ramblings of the radio announcers, before a knock sounded at the door, and it slowly creaked open.

I raised my eyes to find Cordelia standing there, an uncharacteristically hesitant expression on her face.

"Any word?" I asked her.

She shook her head, "Not yet... but that's not why I'm here,"

I frowned at her, "Oh?"

She sighed, and slipped into the room, her eyes sweeping over everything and anything that wasn't me until she settled into the chair opposite where I sat, "I wanted to make sure you're okay,"

"I'm fine," I answered, a little more sharply than I intended.

She shot me a pointed look, "No you're not. Look, there's something big and awful coming, and you're all... you're all..."

"I'm all what?"

She sighed heavily, "You're all hung up on Buffy,"

I turned away from her, and rose from my seat to pace the room, "We're not talking about this."

"But you need to!" she argued.

"No I don't."

"But you do! What's going to happen when this gets worse and you're still this distracted?" she asked.

"Maybe I won't be by then," I grumbled.

"And maybe you will be!" she retorted, "I'm not sitting around and hoping for you to have another epiphany while the world is on the brink of ending! If you're not gonna call her, then you need to get over it!"

"When the world is ending I'll have enough to keep me distracted," I replied, "As soon as Faith gets here, and we've got some back-up, and we start working on a plan I'll be fine,"

She glowered at me, "I don't believe you," she whispered.

With an unnecessary sigh, I returned to my seat, "There's nothing to talk about Cordy, it's... it's over. I'm just trying to keep it that way."

She watched me uneasily, I imagined she was trying to decide whether she bought my words or not. "Can I ask you something, Angel?" she said finally.

"Sure," I answered, even though I wasn't so sure I was going to like the question.

"Well... why didn't you... when you were with Buffy... why didn't you get all," she hooked her fingers into claws in front of her, "Grrr," she finished.

I couldn't help but smile slightly at her, leave it to Cordelia to reduce me reverting to a blood-thirsty killer to nothing more than a non-verbal.

"I guess perfect happiness is just a lot more elusive after everything the two of us have been through," I answered.

Cordelia smiled sadly, and reached across the desk to take my hand, "Angel, look, I know-"

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything..." came a voice from the doorway.

Cordelia spun around, and I looked up to the door to the office to discover Faith standing there, an uneasy expression on her face as she eyed Cordelia, Wesley's jacket dwarfing her frame, and covering the bright-orange prison jumpsuit she wore underneath.

"Faith..." I muttered, jumping from my chair.

She chewed at her bottom lip, and grinned hesitantly, "'Sup Angel?"

Relief washed over me, seeing her standing there, alive and in one piece. Faith was a strong fighter, if she hadn't been, the Mayor wouldn't have been so determined to get his claws into her all those years ago. She was a good ally to have, and I suddenly felt a little more hopeful about the situation at hand.

"Oh, just the end of the world... nothing out of the ordinary," Cordelia chimed in.

"Of course," Faith nodded, "Should've known you wouldn't have gone breaking rules just cause you missed my face," she quipped with a sideways grin.

I grinned back, perhaps Faith and all her attitude were exactly what I needed to distract myself from Buffy.

"So?" she continued, "You gonna fill me in on this big evil or what?"

"Yeah, of course," I replied, remembering the task at hand, "Where's Wes?"

"Parking the car or something," Faith shrugged, "He wanted me out of sight a-sap, dropped me outside the door,"

"We'll wait for him to get back," I continued, "Cordy, get in touch with Gunn, I want everyone here before we starting planning anything,"

I turned back to Faith, and noticed her still fidgeting uncomfortably, toying with the sleeve of Wesley's jacket, "Cordy? Do you have anything Faith could borrow?" I asked.

I waited for the usual retort, something about how Faith would stretch out her clothes, how she'd get them full of blood or demon guts, but instead she simply rose from her seat, albeit a little reluctantly and started towards Faith, "Yeah, I have a few things here,"

"Thanks," Faith chuckled, "Orange isn't really my colour." she flashed me an appreciative grin as Cordelia began to lead her away.

"We'll meet down here in a bit," I called after them.

I was thankful for the few minutes where Buffy didn't occupy my mind. Perhaps with Faith here, ready to prove herself, ready to make amends, we could finally make some headway.

Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.

All I could tell was that something felt different for the first time in months, whether it was for better or worse, I would just have to wait and find out.

~o~

Once Faith had changed, and the rest of the team had returned to the Hyperion, we settled into my office to fill her in on what was happening. She listened quietly and intently, with an uneasiness flickering over her features every once and awhile before she would shift uncomfortably in her chair and push it away. I wanted to ask her if she was alright, but I knew she would never be honest with me as long as the others were around.

Cordelia was doing her best to be polite, she'd pulled out a change of clothes for Faith without so much as a harsh word, and Wesley was doing his best to hide the judgemental glare that seemed to creep back onto his features whenever he wasn't paying attention. I was thankful that Lorne and Gunn had never had a run-in with her before, the last thing she needed was to feel like everyone was against her.

It was the last thing I needed as well.

"Man, these Wolfram and Hart guys must really not like you," she muttered when we'd finally given her all the details about the situation, "This is a pretty elaborate plan."

I couldn't help but smirk, I could tell she was weary, but she wasn't about to let it show, "I think it's progressed beyond just trying to take me out. If we can't stop this it could spread across the world."

She frowned, "Awesome... and you seriously have no ideas on how to do that?"

"Aside from storming out into the thick of it and kicking some ass? No," Gunn piped in finally.

She smirked at him, "Right up my alley."

"Unfortunately, this 'plan' won't help much during the earlier stages," Wesley added, "Clearly even modern medicine cannot combat Pestilence, and unless we can find a magical cure for this fever, the seals will continue to be broken. I fear that if we wait for War and Death to be unleashed, it may be too late for us to even fight back."

"Thanks for the pep-talk, Wes," Cordelia muttered, leaning against the bookshelf at my side. She was squinting as though the dim lighting in the room was hurting her eyes, and looked suddenly as though she were extremely irritated by the amount of talking that was taking place around her. An uneasy feeling began to stir in my gut, but my attention was pulled back to the conversation at hand.

"I still haven't heard anything," Lorne offered defeatedly, "If any of my patrons know anything they're being tight-lipped, but I'll keep an ear to the ground anyway."

I nodded towards him, Caritas seemed like our best bet right now. No one had been seen entering or exiting the Wolfram & Hart building for months, and I was starting to assume they had already cleared out before the worst hit.

"Yeah, I've got some guys out sweepin' the streets too," Gunn added, "They'll hit me up if they find anything."

A silence fell over the room, and I felt like we were all simply talking in circles now. There were no answers to be found, and I imagined we all felt like sitting ducks.

Faith grimaced at me, "So... I guess that's-"

She was cut off as Cordelia gasped loudly, and slid to the floor. In an instant I was out of my chair, holding her upright as her eyes rolled back in her head and her body stiffened. Wesley was suddenly at my side as well, his face pale.

"This is the worst one yet," he whispered in my ear as her face contorted in pain.

Gunn suddenly rushed from the room, leaving Lorne to peer over the edge of my desk frowning, and Faith frozen in her seat, unsure of what to do. He returned just as Cordelia slumped into my arms, and her eyes refocused with a glass of water and some pills clutched in his hand.

"Cordy?" I whispered, trying to soothe her as her eyes searched the room in a panic.

"Oh my god..." she murmured, trying to push me away, but she was still too weak and disoriented.

"Cordy, it's okay, just take a minute," I calmed her.

"We don't have a minute!" she stammered, "They can't... they..." she clambered to her feet, tripping over Wesley and falling into Gunn, knocking the glass of water from his hands as he tried to catch her.

"Cordy, sit down and relax," he urged her, but she pried herself out of his arms.

"There's no time! We have to... we have-"

She never got to finish her sentence, as a deafening crack echoed outside and the ground shook beneath us. Her eyes widened in horror, and the rest of us just turned to each other at a loss.

"No..." she breathed, "No... it can't be too late..."

In an instant, Faith had launched herself out of her seat and raced out of the office. I jumped to my feet to follow her, "Faith! Faith, wait!" I shouted, as I chased her through the lobby and out the front doors, unaware of what I would find once we made it out into the street.

We both skidded to a halt in the courtyard, as our eyes fell on a giant column of smoke that was billowing in the distance.

"Holy shit... what is that?" Faith asked.

"I don't know," I muttered, unable to tear my eyes away from the mushroom cloud. Dread was coiling in the pit of my stomach, I had no idea what this was, or what it meant, it hadn't happened this way last time.

"It's the Cedars Research Hospital," came a small voice from behind us, and I turned to find Cordelia leaning heavily against the doorframe, angry tears shining in her eyes, "He blew it up..."

"He?" Faith asked, her eyes narrowed, her fists clenched at her side. She looked murderous, like she wanted to dash through the gates and wail on anything that came across her path.

Wesley, Gunn and Lorne came into view behind her as Cordelia nodded, the anger in her expression giving away to fear as she turned to me, and I suddenly knew that the dread I was feeling was entirely justified before the word even left her lips.

"War."

For those familiar with L.A., I obviously did not want to write about blowing up a real hospital, because if you do something like that, you're a monster for real, but I'm sure you'll realize that I kept the name somewhat similar... simply for geographical purposes. Real violence/terrorism is bad... this is just a story.

Please review!