Points to all the people

I'm back!! Thanks to all my reviews, I love you all! Keep 'em coming, it's what gets me through the lonely writer's block hours!

I love all the suggestions. I haven't even worked out myself what's going to happen.

To my wonderful Beta-Reader ZoeCB, who knows all Buffy and Angel and always checks to make sure everything is in check. Long live Lemons!

End of ramble, onto the actual story!

Where do we go from here: Apology

9.45 pm

BUFFY: Willow, where are you?

WILLOW: Where am I? Oh I'm still in LA?

BUFFY: What? LA? What are you doing here? You're supposed to be here helping is fight the first. It's getting tough. The Potentials are just getting uptight and it's hard with Spike not around. What are you doing in LA?

WILLOW: It's a long story.

BUFFY: Then shorten it.

WILLOW: Well, I kind of had to help ensoul Angel again. There was the slight problem here of bringing out Angelus again.\

In the background—Andrew: Buffy, can you tell Amanda to stop taking the last of the breadsticks. There's nothing else to eat.

BUFFY: Not now, Andrew. Willow? Angelus was back?

WILLOW: Yeah, don't worry, it's okay now. But there's something else you should know. Faith is out of prison. She's…well, not as psychotic as she used to be. I think she should come back to Sunnydale with us…pause…And Spike is here as well, Buffy.

BUFFY: With Angel?

WILLOW: Yes. With all of us. We kind of have an apocalyptic crisis here too.

BUFFY: Does Angel know?

WILLOW: He does now. But…but don't worry, Buffy, it's fine. No one got staked, hurt or anything. But I'm going to have to stay here a few days longer, just until this thing clears up.

BUFFY: Willow, I need you here. This situation could get bad.

WILLOW: We're needed everywhere, Buffy. The world is going to end and it is here too. Only not as bad, if you see what I mean. It'd be a few days.

BUFFY: But…

WILLOW: Buffy…

BUFFY: sigh Fine. A few days. Then I want you back.

Buffy put down the phone and sighed. She turned round, surprised at the unexpected news. More seemed to be happening in LA then it did in Sunnydale. She turned back towards Xander who was sitting on the couch. The potentials were training in the garden, Wood had returned to the school and Andrew had gone off to the kitchen to find back up food.

"She's not coming back?" Xander said, as though he half expected it. "Why does that not surprise me? Evil's here and she's miles way. I bet the first strikes now!"

Giles came from down the stairs. "The First could strike at any moment. We must constantly keep our wits about us. But what amazes me is the lack of signs anywhere, suggesting the First's plans, his supporters or anything."

"If they're quiet, that's good," Xander said.

Giles shook his head. He took off his glasses and rubbed his temple. "On the contrary it's rather bad. And worrying. We should be expecting more signs of evil and a much higher paranormal activity in the Hellmouth. It's almost as if the First has moved off or gone into hiding somewhere else."

Buffy shook her head. "I don't like it. It smells too weird. Willow is staying in LA, Angelus has returned—but Angel's back now—Spike is now in LA and Faith has come out, also to join LA. Does this seem odd to you."

Xander frowned. "Yes, they're having a party and didn't invite us."

"They have an apocalypse of their own," Buffy stated. "And they need help. If Willow says this is going to finish as quickly as she says it does, then fine. But any longer than a few days, then I'm going up there myself to get her."

*  *  *  *  *

Gunn looked around the lobby. All was silent again. Only Lindsey was in the lobby, sitting on the banquet, frowning at the ground. Gunn thought he seemed even more distant than before. In fact he looked like he was meditating. "Where he everyone?" he asked.

Lindsey looked up. "Angel's gone upstairs with Willow, so has Spike. Faith has gone to slay some vamps. Wes is in the office. Some random woman walked out earlier in a hurry."

"Fred?" Gunn asked, panic arising.

Lindsey shook his head. "No, messed up woman. Matted hair, old clothes…"

Gunn sighed. "Justine. Don't worry about her. She's trippin', coming and going as she pleases. Hope the visions make her slam into the sidewalk." He walked off and headed to the office. He looked quietly at Wes for a moment and noticed how he seemed to be looking at a book but his eyes didn't move, didn't scan the page or go onto a new line. He was just staring at the page. "The book had pictures?"

Wesley jumped and then looked up. "Gunn," he said quietly. "You startled me."

"Obviously. What're you doing?"

Wesley sighed. "Trying to find out how an evil from a different dimension could pass through into ours. Obviously through Conner but how." He sat back and stretched. "I'm afraid I don't have the books or the knowledge of where to look."

"You weren't even reading the book." Wesley looked up. "I know that look on your face. I've seen it before but I didn't know what it meant at the time. It's confusion, possibly hurt, mainly love…" He paused. "Is it Fred?"

Wesley chuckled. "God, no." He stopped and looked down. "I can safely say that there will never be any form of mutual attraction between me and Fred. It's purely…balanced at the moment. You don't have anything to worry about."

"Who is it then…" Gunn stopped. "Faith."

"I'm surprised Angel couldn't smell it."

Gunn raised his eyebrows. "Whoa! You got one. You certainly have a thing for the bad girls, Wes. Well, maybe except Fred but I give you credit, you sure no how to pick 'em. You got some…"

"There was no time to 'get anything'" Wesley said. "Angel, Spike and Lindsey returned by the time we had even resolved the fact we had feelings for each other." He smiled dreamily and then laughed. "Strange."

"What is?"

"How you can hate someone so much, and vice versa and yet all these changes have made us come closer. We've swapped situations, felt how the other felt, understood and grew to an understanding between us…so much so it can evolve into a relationship. There was a time where I thought she wanted to kill me because there was pure hatred in here. I didn't believe in her reformation. And yet, here we are."

"Does anybody else know?"

"No, I believe you're the first. Unless Angel smelt it."

"I gotta ask," Gunn said slowly and quietly. "I know this is hard. It's been hard on both of us, what with all that's been happening this last year. But did you love, Fred, as in really love her?"

Wesley paused for a moment. "I…I can't even remember the feelings I had. I cared for her certainly, especially what she had been through but I'd been too confident of myself and did not notice you had the same feelings. In the end, Fred made her choice and I just…wasn't fair."

"But it's over?"

"I believe it is for both of us. I never really had anything with Fred anyway."

"No, you were too busy swimming with the sharks." Wesley looked down and Gunn swallowed nervously. "Sorry, man, it wasn't supposed to come out like that. I just…"

Wesley shook his head. "It's okay, I understand."

*  *  *  *  *

Angel slammed down the pad of paper. "We have nothing. We have something evil coming, presumably from QuorThoth, brought through by my own son and roaming around somewhere. We don't know what form it's in and what it plans to do, apart from destroy the world and now I have this to deal. It's just too much."

"Angel, I think you should calm down…" Willow said.

"You knew!" Angel shouted, glaring at her. "You know about Spike and Buffy. You kept it quiet, though and I don't understand why." He stopped pacing. "I don't know why Buffy did it."

"Love is strange," Willow said. "That's true. It never runs the way it's supposed to. Hey, look at me, I'm gay."

"Yes but…" Angel turned to look at her. "You're gay?"

"Yes," Willow replied with no shame. "I had a girl friend…she died, I turned evil but that's beside the point. I'm going off track. The point is that you can't make Buffy chose who she loves, Angel."

"But Spike? My Spike? Of all the people…You think you can trust him?"

"Angel," Willow said, "There were times where we doubted you as well. You turned evil, which was hard for us to accept, especially after all those people you killed. Spike has always had no soul until recently. He's learnt to control his vampire instincts and he became a fighter with us. We didn't trust him either. Things were complicated, just like with you."

"Is it over?" Angel demanded quietly.

Willow shrugged. "I don't know, Angel. I've lost track of Buffy's love life as well. So much had happened. But I think…we have an apocalypse coming and we all need to work together. You and Spike are two of the strongest vampires around. You have to get along if we want to get anywhere with this battle. If there's one thing I learnt about being with Buffy, it's you need to stick together to do you battles."

Angel smiled. "When did you get so smart?"

"Hey, I've always been smart." Willow said down in a chair. "I know It's hard, Angel. Forgiving isn't easy. I should know. I killed people because I was angry when my girlfriend died. You and Spike have a dark history, that's for sure. No one expects you to abandon that in a few minutes. But…make an effort."

Angel sighed and looked down at the ground. "You're right. It is hard. I'm the reason for the way he is. I am the reason he's like this."

Willow shook her head. "You were the reason initially, Angel. Not any more. Spike has changed. Can't you feel it?"

Angel nodded. He looked out into the garden where Spike was standing. He was smoking and pacing restlessly. Obviously something was bothering him. "I know he's changed. I can feel it too. I just didn't want to think about it. I suppose I should somehow."

Willow smiled. "That's the spirit."

*  *  *  *  *

Wesley sat up on the balcony with Faith. They were sitting down, leaning against the barrier that prevented them from falling three floors into the garden below. They knew Spike was down there, pacing somewhere but at the moment, that was not their concern. Faith looked at Wesley. "You seem nervous."

"Aren't you?"

Faith screwed up her nose and shook her head. "Nah. I gave up being nervous a long time ago. It gets you nowhere in life or in fights. It's probably the whole slayer thing."

Wesley laughed. "And I'm just a lowly demon fighter and researcher."

Faith shrugged. "You have other…hidden talents. C'mon, Wes, what's bothering you. You don't need to hide it. From what you've told me, everything you've hidden has one way or anything come back to slap you in the face so you can tell me."

Wesley sighed. "I'm worried about us. What we're getting into…it could be dangerous for both of us. I'm not much worried about other people knowing…"

"I don't care who knows either. No one can question it, Wes. The council doesn't exist anymore and you've had much worse in terms of girls. I mean, come on, evil lawyers, secret relationships…I'm a just a reformed rogue slayer."

Wes nodded. "I know, I just…I wouldn't know what to do if anything happened to you." He leaned forward and brushed Faith's hair back.

Faith looked down. "I know. I suppose I wouldn't either." She pulled away and sat against the barrier, wrapped her arms around her knees. "It's strange. I haven't had someone care about me so much like this before. Well, Angel did. But he soon stopped. I guess he had other things to worry about. Darla, Conner and people like that."

"He still cares, Faith. Vampires are complicated creatures but he does care, believe me. And I care." He kissed her lightly. "Who would have thought? The slayer and the watcher."

Faith shrugged. "No different to the slayer and the vampire. I just want you to be comfortable with this, Wes. I haven't had a relationship for…well a very long time. I can't remember the last time. If anything I'd want this to work out. I mean, we've had too much of a past for this to fall apart, you know?"

Wes nodded. "I understand. And I'm sorry." He leant closer.

"For what?"

"You. Especially the parts that I was involved in…well, up until now anyway. And believe me, I want this to work out, every much you do." He kissed her again but the kiss was broken off by a sound coming from outside. Both turned round and looked down to see Angel enter the garden. Wesley reached down and pulled out a tranquilizer gun.

"What're you doing with that?" Faith hissed.

"At the moment, it seems necessary."

Angel quietly entered the garden. Spike put down his cigarette and butted it out and Angel thought now wasn't the right time to tell him not to do that. "Hey, Spike." Spike didn't say anything. He just glared at him. "I was thinking…we could talk."

Spike just laughed bitterly. "Why? So you can go and punch me into the sodding ground some more. No thanks." He began to walk back inside but Angel grabbed his shoulder. Spike roughly pulled it off, suddenly furious. "Don't touch me!" he shouted. "I have nothing to do with you anymore."

"Except for the fact I'm your sire."

Spike's eyes blazed. He pushed Angel away from him. "So much fucking good that did me. So much bloody, sodding good! I was your sire and for most of your unsouled life you bloody hated me. You couldn't stand me and you always showed it by making my life a misery. You kept dragging Drusilla away, making me jealous, taunted me…torturing me!"

"I had no control over what I was doing then. It was the demon," Angel admitted quietly, the guilt building up. "Is that it? You had your payback. You tortured me as well, you almost had me sacrificed several times. All for Drusilla."

Spike laughed and sank to his knees on the ground. "Drusilla was all I had! Your fucking soul got in the way of everything. You disappeared. You staked Darla. All I had was my Dru and even when she went…I was a mess, you know that. You were there! I bet the demon in you was having a bleedin' party!"

Angel sat down. "You know what it feels like now, Spike, to have a soul. You know the guilty feeling, the good feeling which you demon hates you for."

"My demon grew a bit soft over the years with a chip in the head."

"But you still feel it. If you didn't have a soul. You would go mad with feeding. I did when I came back as Angelus again. It's that feeling which makes us vampires do the things we do."

"Did that feeling ever make you love Buffy."

Angel suddenly remembered the reason he had come here. It was in fact to talk about Buffy as well. "Buffy and I…we loved each other, Spike. I thought we still did."

Spike put his arm on the bench and put his forehead down. "She still does. That's the point. She's always going to love you, mate. You're like…bound by destiny or something like that. Nothing's every going to stop you having feeling for each other no matter how many guys she shags or you think you love. And that's what I know kept her back from me."

Angel took a deep breath. "And the other times? When guilt wasn't weighing her down. What about then?"

"Mad passion. Desire. Possession possibly. Hey, you should know about that."

Angel smiled. "Do I know about possession and love? Yes, and depending on the circumstances it can go down pretty badly."

"It just happened, mate," Spike said. "You'd left, you'd done. She thought you weren't going to come back. It was pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain you weren't going to get back together the way it was. You constantly fight and it ends in sex and we all know where sex takes you."

"It takes you to that place now," Angel warned him. "And you don't have any back up like a chip. Listen, Spike, we need to put this behind us."

"You can't just shove aside a hundred years in a short space of time."

"I know. But I want to make an attempt to put things right…everywhere. It's the type of thing you tend to do when you have a soul. I just want this apocalypse to come out with minimum causalities…physically and emotionally."

Spike smiled. "Souls really do make you soft, don't they. I'll give you a chance, Angel. But I can't do anymore."

*  *  *  *  *

Fred couldn't see over the mound of towels that covered her. She almost tripped and fell as she walked across the corridor but was steadied by a pair of arms. She cried out in surprise and dropped the towels and looked to see Gunn holding her.  "Oh…hi," she said timidly.

"What you up to?"

"Well, I was putting towels in all the rooms. We have quite a few visitors now. Spike, Faith, Willow, Lindsey—occasionally Justine. Then there's Cordy and Conner who haven't shown their faces around lately. I just thought I'd do a few rounds."

"Oh, okay. You want any help with that?"

"No, I think I'm okay," Fred said, dodging to the side slightly to get out of the way and continue down the stairs.

Gunn sighed sadly. "When are you going to stop running away from me."

Fred turned around to look at him. There was slight worry in her eyes. "I'm not…"

"Yes you are," Gunn said, looked back towards her but not moving from his spot. "I can tell you are. Don't you want to be with me any more, is that it? Or every time you look at me do you see a murderer?"

"Charles, you know…"

"No, I don't know, Fred. All I know is that I still love you and you keep running away. It hurts, Fred. I can't stand for you to think of me that way. I did worse things in my past. But I've never done them for a girl. I saved you from a burden because I loved you."

Fred's eyes began to well up with tears. "Charles please…I know why you did it for me. But it's still difficult. Things…they've changed now. It's a lot harder. And with everything that's going on…"

"Do you still love me, Fred?" Charles interrupted again.

Fred shrugged. "I don't know."

Gunn moved towards her. "Let's find out." He learned forward and kissed her. It took Fred momentarily by surprise but soon she was kissing back. She abandoned the towels and wrapped her arms around him and for a few moments the apocalypse and right and wrongs didn't matter. There was only here and now and the reality. But it was Fred that backed out first. "What? Don't you miss what it felt like, Fred?"

Fred nodded. "Of course I do. I always did. But this is going to take a while, Charles. We can' just expect it to come back just like that. It will come back." She began to walk round the stairs.

"I love you," Gunn said.

Fred turned round to smile at him as went down. "I know."

Their reunion was broken by the rumblings below the earth. Fred and Gunn looked at each other worriedly. "What was that?" Fred asked.

Gunn shrugged. "I dunno, but it's too much of a coincidence for Mother Nature to be calling now. Fred!" He lunged forward as Fred began to topple back and fall down the stairs. He lurched forward and pulled her back but not before his momentum could send him sprawling. He fell down the stairs, tumbling over and over before lying motionless at the bottom.

"Charles!" Fred cried, peering over. She screamed as parts of the Hyperion began to crumble. It felt like the building was going to collapse. Pieces of rubble began to fall from the ceiling down to the ground.

"Fred," Angel said as he and Spike came into the room.

At that moment, the lights suddenly turned off. The lobby was plunged into complete darkness and no one could see where they were going.

"Angel," Lindsey's voice suddenly came from within the lobby as he tried to keep his balance and make his way towards Angel. Without body heat, Lindsey found this quite a task. "What's going on? Is this supposed to be some kind of sign of the apocalypse?"

"I'll bet. Lindsey, do you know where everyone is."

"The benefits of super powers," he remarked sarcastically. "Fred's on the stairs. Gunn's on the floor at the bottom. I think he's been knocked out. Willow's in the office. Conner and Cordelia are in their rooms. Faith and Wesley are on a balcony on the third floor. This whole building could collapse."

"I doubt it. The hotel's been through worse. But that doesn't stop it from crumbling. We need to get everyone together."

There was the sound of crumbling. Spike felt something crash into his head and he toppled to the ground wordlessly. Fred too was hit and she fell, sprawled on the stairs, unable to keep her balance.

Outside, Faith held onto Wesley. "What's going on?"

Wesley shrugged. "I have no idea. But it's not safe. We need to get back inside and find Angel." They heard a scream, that sounded particularly like Fred's. As they began to move inside, the balcony began to break apart from the force of the earthquake. Before they knew it, it seemed to give way beneath them and both Faith and Wes grabbed onto the edge of the entrance to the room to hold on.

"I can't hold on, Wes," Faith said. "There's two much movement."

Wesley looked down. The ground seemed far away but they might be able to risk it. "We will have to just drop. Either way we're going to fall." Faith looked uncertainly at him. "Ready? One…two…three…" Both of them let go and headed towards the ground, landing on the rubble that had once been the balcony. Both were unconscious.

Lindsey remained the only one standing in the lobby, protecting himself from falling concrete, lights and wood by propelling them away—or at least the ones he could see. In the darkness, it was impossible to tell where the pieces were. Eventually he too was knocked.

Only Conner and Cordelia remained upstairs. Cordelia looked around at the earthquake and smiled. "Conner," she said. "This is a sign. We have to leave now."

Conner looked at her, confused. "Leave now? What about everyone else downstairs?"

"How else do you plan to escape? Think Conner, they don't know about our baby. If they did, they would only try and destroy it. They would think it was evil. We have to get out now whilst they are all distracted downstairs. Trust me, Conner, my sweet boy. It's all going to be fine."

Conner looked around. From the nearby table, he grabbed a stake and a dagger. "You're right. They'd only harm us. That's all they've been trying to do. We have to go." He grabbed Cordelia's hand and pulled her out of the room and down the stairs past the fallen bodies. Neither of them had any idea where they were going but as long as it was away from the Hyperion it didn't matter.

They left behind a wave of destruction.