Not for the first time, it occurred to Angel that he had brought nothing but death and destruction to the ones he cared for the most. Cordy, hijacked by Jasmine, ending her days in a hospital bed, dying far too young. She should have had a brilliant career, Angel thought, not for the first time. His thoughts turned to Wesley, once the Watcher's Council's Golden Boy, now a lump of meat rotting in Vail's lair. Gunn, street-smart and fighting until his last breath. Spike, long-time enemy turned unexpected ally - he was now a pile of ashes. Lorne, former proud host of Caritas, now a broken shell, racked with guilt over killing Lindsey. Even Lindsey, who might have been on the path to redemption before Lorne struck him down, filled Angel with regrets.
The one that gave him the most pain was Fred. Brave little Fred, who had suffered so much. But I did save her from Pylea, he thought. That's right, I saved her. I saved her, then Illyria used her for a shell. Well, that worked out great, didn't it. Did I really do her any favors? Sure, she lived a couple more years, but were they good years? I don't think so. Poor Fred spent that time constantly being attacked by various demons, treated like a prize in a contest between Wes and Gunn and ended up being used as a shell by an ancient god.
What good was she anyway? Angel asked himself. Admit it, she was useless. She couldn't fight, she didn't have any special knowledge of demons or magic, and her custom-made weapons were nothing special. Gunn's hubcap ax had been more useful.
Oh sure, she was a nice, sweet kid, Angel thought, remembering Fred's generosity and kindness. Yeah, a nice, sweet kid who was more destructive to my team than a nest of vampires. Think about it, if it weren't for Fred, Wes and Gunn would have stayed friends, Wes wouldn't have been isolated from the rest of the team, and maybe Wes wouldn't have kept the prophecy to himself and kidnapped Connor, Holtz wouldn't have gotten him, poor the whole Jasmine mess would never have happened.
Think of all those innocent people killed by the beast, he thought. What about their lives? They'd be alive today if Fred hadn't been there to drive a wedge between Wes and Gunn. Besides, if we hadn't been there, the Pyleans might not have captured her. She might still be alive, maybe she would joined up with the rebel group, or she could have created a portal and returned to LA on her own. Either way, she would have been better off.
Face it, we all would have been better off, especially Connor. And of course, no Pylea means no Groosalugg interrupting me when I tried to tell Cordy how I felt about her. Without him getting in the way, we would have gotten together, I know we would have. Come to think of it, if Cordy had been in LA when Wes read that prophecy, she would have noticed something was wrong and wormed the whole story out of him.
Angel continued to replay the events of the last three years in his mind. He sighed. No matter how he tried to rationalize things, no matter how many times he tried to re-write history, it always came out the same. Fred, sweet, innocent, Fred, had been the downfall of Angel Investigations. And Fred had been sweet and innocent, almost a little too sweet and innocent considering her age and life experiences.
How could anyone who had been a slave been so, well there's no other word, sweet? Angel mused. It must have been a horrific ordeal especially since Fred was such a pretty young girl. I can only imagine the abuse she must have suffered, it amazing she was so little affected.
Angel frowned. For the first time, it occurred to him that something was a little 'off' about Fred; not the bizarre behavior she had exhibited after her return from Pylea. The craziness made sense, no one would be sane after all she went through, Angel mused, although she sure snapped out of that once her parents showed up. Yeah, that was odd, the way she recovered almost instantaneously from ' One day she's writing on walls and talking to plants, the next, she's basically normal, albeit a little spacey.
And just when did she turn into the femme fatale anyway? Angel thought. For such a naive little thing, she sure managed to twist both Gunn and Wes around her little finger. How long did that take? A couple of weeks? Weird, when you think about it. It's almost as if she'd cast some kind of spell over them. Nah, that's ridiculous, he thought. What did Fred know about magic? When would she have had the time or opportunity to learn the art of love-potions? Maybe during those five years she spent in Pylea? Angel thought. Do we really know what happened to her there? She never spoke much about it, and none of us ever pressed her for details. She could have been up to anything.
Angel jumped slightly. Where did that come from, he thought, 'up to something', that's nuts. Fred wasn't up to anything, she couldn't have been, he thought.
Angel got up and stared out at the night-time sky. Unpleasant memories and half-formed suspicions filled his mind. I must be crazy myself, he thought, I can't seriously suspect Fred of being a double agent. But then how can I explain her miraculous, instantaneous, recovery from total insanity without any professional help, her charming both Wes and Gunn, two completely different men who had very different tastes in women, and last but not least, the way she replaced Cordy as the 'heart' of the team? And all this in the space of a few months.
Angel began to pace back and forth. This is nuts, he thought. I can't believe I'm even thinking this. Fred as a senior partner plant? It's impossible! No, not impossible, he admitted to himself. Pylea is one of the domains of the Senior Partners, Wesley proved that when he found the Wolf, Ram and Hart books. Why is it so hard to believe that they could have manipulated us to go to there? All it would have taken was to send the vision of Fred to Cordy, and then open the portal in time to send Lorne's cousin and that beast through. It would have been child's play.
Angel sat back down and put his head in his hands. Just how did Cordy get sucked into Pylea in the first place? She was standing with the rest of us, she was nowhere near the portal entrance. Did Lorne's cousin pull her through? And wasn't it convenient that Fred just happened to break cover to 'help' Cordy, not that she actually helped Cordy, getting herself caught in the process, which led her to befriending me? Was it all just a hoax? Angel thought despairingly.
If it hadn't been for her, all of them might be alive, Gunn, Wesley, Cordy, even Lindsey. Lorne wouldn't be broken, Connor would still be a child, Jasmine would never have gained a foothold in our world, all those people murdered by the Beast would still be alive; everything would be better, Angel thought. If I could go back and change one thing it would be to stop Cordy from going to Pylea in the first place.
"Well, its about time," a familiar voice said. "I was wondering if you'd ever figure things out, you great eejit."
Angel literally jumped three feet into the air. "Wha?" he said, gasping at the sight of one Alan Francis Doyle, who stood before him.
"Is that the welcome you have for an old friend?" Doyle said, smiling.
"How? Why?" Angel managed to choke out.
"Why the Powers sent me. Who else?" Doyle said. "I'm here to get you back on track. You made some bad decisions, Angel, you've been on the wrong track for many a year now, and it's my duty to rectify matters."
"The Powers are giving me another chance?" Angel asked, barely daring to hope.
"That's the thing of it," Doyle said. "After much discussion, it was decided that because you had been deliberately led astray, bamboozled you might say, you, and incidentally, everyone else, including the fair Miss Chase, deserved a second chance."
"Bamboozled?" Angel said, chagrined. "You mean I was right about Fred?"
"Don't be so hard on the lass, Angel. She was in a difficult situation," Doyle said. "Poor little thing, trapped in a hell-dimension, no way to get home. You can't blame the colleen for making a deal with the devil."
"Why didn't the Powers tell me this earlier?" Angel demanded. "Why didn't you?"
"If I had, would you have believed me?" Doyle said dryly. "No, Angel, some things you must discover for yourself. There's also the issue of free will. However, the Powers decided that matters had gone too far, the balance of good and evil was out of whack as it were, and things must be set right."
"How?" Angel said.
"By granting your wish to go back, back to that one moment before everything went bad. Speaking of wishes, don't even think of me as your fairy godmother," Doyle said, smiling once again.
"Could I . . " Angel said, his voice trailing off.
Doyle smiled at him. "No," he said regretfully. "My time is long done. Tis my fate to stay on this plane of existence."
"Ah well, time to return to Tir Na Nog. "Farewell my friend, try to get it right this time, and take care of Cordelia," Doyle said as he disappeared in a beam of light.
Angel found himself in Caritas. Casting a surreptitious glance around the room, he saw Gunn, Lorne, Wesley and Cordelia standing, just as he remembered them. Wesley was chanting the words to open the portal, Lorne's cousin, whose name Angel couldn't quite recall, was preparing to return home. As the portal opened, Angel swiftly grabbed Cordelia's arm and pulled her close.
"Hey, watch it," Cordy said. "You're crushing my arm."
"Sorry," Angel said. "Cordy, about those headaches you've been having."
Cordy looked puzzled. "How did you know about those?" she said.
Angel said, "Never mind. First thing tomorrow, we're going to call Willow and see what she can do for you. I don't care about the visions, I'd rather have you well. If the Powers want to send me a message, they'll just have to figure out another way. Then I'm going to track down Darla immediately and Drusilla too. Gunn, Wesley, find out what Lindsey is up too, he may be on his way to Nepal. If so, stop him from leaving the country, don't hurt him, he hasn't done anything - yet. Lorne, you need to beef up your security system, don't ask me why, just do it."
They stared at him in amazement.
Angel continued, "Lastly, I just want to tell you guys how much your friendship means to me."
Cordy gave Angel one of her million dollar smiles; Wesley, British to the core, looked embarrassed, shuffled his feet and muttered "quite", while Lorne and Gunn merely seemed befuddled by Angel's uncharacteristic emotion.
Angel grinned. "Okay, let's go out and celebrate."
"Celebrate what?" Gunn asked.
"Oh I dunno, how about another day of living?" Angel said.
Lorne beamed. "Sounds good, seabreezes on me," he said.
The End.