Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel.....or any of the characters.

Hey guys!

This is a pretty fast update, huh? For me at least. There's a reason though. My internet isn't working too well.....so....I thought I'd update before my internet decides to stop working again.

So....I can't promise when I'll update again. Hopefully soon!

Thanks for all the great reviews! Glad you all like this fic!

Some of you had some questions, here are the answers:

Thelionessrules: You're absolutely right. The real battle occurred during the day, but I kinda made some changes....and as you can read in chapter 3 (I think), in this fic, the battle takes place during the night.....So Angel could come too.

Melanie: Okay, you had three questions: The first one about the amulet has kind of an easy answer. First of all, you are right: since the thing with W&H didn't happen, it shouldn't be possible for Angel to have the amulet. And I know I should have brought that fact up earlier in the story so I could have fixed it, but.....when I started this fic, I hadn't seen how Angel had gotten the amulet yet (I had seen the Buffy finale though....twice), so when I started this fic, I didn't know about the whole W&H thing. But I fixed it though. It'll probably come up in the upcoming chapters, but.....Angel found the envelope with the files and the amulet on his desk, but he didn't know how it got there and his main priority was to get the amulet to Buffy......and later on it turns out it came from W&H and then that story-line starts.

You're other question is a bit more difficult, cos: Good point! It is indeed very unlikely that Buffy knew about Connor. But....let's just say that they talked about it before. After he had arrived or something. Maybe they did some catching up and I didn't write about it.....But that was indeed a mistake. I do know why I made that mistake though....I wrote a one-parter in which Angel comes and tells Buffy about everything and stuff (it's called There will never be a last goodbye), so...in my fanfiction-mind Buffy knew about Connor, when she really didn't.....So please forgive me for that. :-s

And the third question is the easiest: Yes, Jasmine is still Connor and Cordy's (gross btw....that story-line was really disturbing!)

Chapter 7

They had almost reached L.A now. Buffy looked at Angel who was sitting next to him in the car. Xander had fallen asleep in the backseat and Faith was trying the best she could to keep pushing his head away every time he tried to rest his head upon her shoulder. Buffy smiled. After they had gotten back on the bus, they had driven to the nearest hospital in the next town. As it turned out, none of the Potentials, or Slayers now, had been too badly injured, but some of them had to stay at the hospital for a few nights. They had treated Faith's injuries as well and luckily, the cut above her eye hadn't been as bad as it first appeared. They had been able to fix it with a few stitches and although the doctors ordered Faith to take some rest for the next week or so, Buffy knew that wasn't going to happen.

Buffy had talked to Giles and Giles decided he would stay with the Slayers until they were recovered and then he and Willow and Dawn, would take them to England, where they would start up some sort of Slayers school. Buffy had promised Giles she would come to England as soon as they had dealt with the situation in L.A. Suddenly Buffy felt how tired she was She hadn't realised that until now.

"You okay?" Angel asked.

Buffy nodded.

"Yeah, fine. I could just use some sleep......for the next 8 days or so"

Angel smiled.

"And I'm hungry" Faith announced.

Although they had heard her, nobody reacted. Suddenly Angel stopped the car in the middle of the empty road.

"What are you doing?" Faith asked.

Xander was slowly waking up. He rubbed his eyes and looked around.

"Where are we?"

"L.A, dumbass. After all, that was where we're going" Faith said.

"Oh yeah, Ms Smarty Pants? Let me tell you something. I might not be the brightest of all of us, but I can tell you that this is not L.A! L.A has.....big buildings....and stuff. This here, is nothing. An empty road with a few trees here and there" Xander said, clearly awake now.

"We're almost in L.A. Fred said we should go through the sewers and that we had to make sure no one would see us. Because of the mind controlling thing." Angel said.

He opened the door of the car and got out. Buffy looked at Faith and Xander.

"That makes sense" Buffy said, while she got out of the car, slamming the door closed, leaving Faith and Xander in the car.

"And it's not L.A!" Xander added, looking at Faith with a satisfied look on his face.

"Yeah...so you want a cookie now or something?"

"Actually, that would be pretty nice....I'm pretty hungry" Xander said.

"Well, join the club" Faith murmured, then she got out of the car.

Xander did the same thing.

The four of them were standing on the deserted road now, looking down at the hole in the road that would led them into the sewers.

"I hate sewers" Buffy complained. "They're smelly and I never know which way to go. I always walk around in circles and of course I never know that I'm walking around in circles until a few hours later.....They're just really not my thing"

"And not to spoil the big sewers-adventure we're about to start, but....How are we ever going to find Fred down there?" Faith said.

"I know my way down there and Fred told me where she would be. We once killed a group of demons there" Angel replied.

"Okidoki then" Xander said. "I say, let's get into the smelly sewers and party!"

A few minutes later they were all walking through the dark, creepy sewers. Angel was leading the other three, since he knew the way and he could see the best in the dark.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Xander asked.

"Yes, I'm sure" Angel replied, trying to hide how annoyed he was by all of this. He just wanted to get to Fred as soon as possible, to find out what was going on with everybody. With his son....and with Cordy.

For a while, no one spoke and the only thing that could be heard were their footsteps and the sound of water coming from somewhere around them.

"Oh...hey, I found breath mints in my pocket! Don't know how long they've been in there, but they're breath mints, so there can't be much wrong with them, right? Anyone want one?" Xander asked.

"Me, please" Buffy said.

Xander tried to find Buffy's hand and when he had, he handed her a breath mint.

"Thank you" Buffy said.

Xander was surprised she was still this happy and....active, after the exhausting battle and after losing Spike. But then again: he was still his happy old self too. And he knew Buffy well enough that the shock and emotions would kick in after a while. Just like they had with the Master.

Maybe it was like that with him too.

"Hey, give me one too" Faith sorta asked.

"Of course, my lady" Xander said and gave Faith a breath mint.

"Is a certain creature of the night also interested in a breath mint?" Xander asked Angel.

Angel didn't respond. He was too caught up in his own world, trying to figure out if they really were going the right way. And he was worried. About his friends and about his son. Xander decided not to ask any further and they kept on walking in silence, for what seemed like hours.

Suddenly they saw some light right ahead. It looked like a flashlight or something, but the light didn't move.

"What's there?" Xander whispered.

"Fred" Angel whispered back.

"Finally" Faith murmured under her breath. She had enough of walking through the sewers. And she really had to eat something.

"Fred!" Angel said out loud.

They heard some moving and then someone stepped into the light. It was Fred.

"Angel!" Fred said, not able to hide how glad she was to see him.

They had reached her now. And Fred immediately hugged Angel.

Xander immediately looked at Fred with a weird look on his face.

Then Fred let go of Angel and looked at the other three.

"Oh...hello everyone....Faith...and two people I don't know"

"Hey, you're female! With female....parts and all!" Xander suddenly said.

Everyone looked at Xander.

"It's just....Fred...I thought...Fred.... male...And now you're....female." Xander tried to explain himself.

Fred wasn't sure how to react to that. Luckily Buffy stepped in and held out her hand.

"I'm Buffy. Buffy Summers"

Fred shook Buffy's hand and looked at her in amazement.

"Ehh...I'm Fred. Fred Burkle. Winefred Burkle actually, but everyone calls me Fred."

"Well, it's nice to meet you Fred" Buffy said and flashed her one of her charming smiles.

"And it's such an honour to meet you! Angel talks about you all the time."

"He does?" Buffy asked surprised and gave Angel a look.

"Well, not all the time....but he talks about you sometimes."

"Huh....that's nice to know" Buffy said.

Then Xander pushed Buffy a little aside.

"Hi, I'm Xander......Harris......Xander Harris." Xander stuttered.

Before Fred could say anything to do this, Angel said:

"Or you could just call him dumbass. Seems to work really well too"

Faith chuckled. Xander gave Angel a fake smile.

"Thank you for that introduction, pointy-teeth" he said.

"My pleasure"

A little silence fell and everyone stared at each other.

"So.....got some food around here?" Faith suddenly asked, looking at Faith.

Fred hesitated before answering.

"Eh...yeah. I brought some food with me. It's not much though.....It's in there"

She pointed to the big hole in the wall. Fred hesitated, then she went inside. The others followed. They came into some sort of round room. It was dark, but Fred had taken the flashlight with her and there were candles all over the room and Fred took some matches out of her pocket to light them. Angel placed an iron plate in front of the hole in the wall and turned around.

"I knew this place would come in handy at some point"

Fred had lit all of the candles and she looked around.

"I know it's not much, but......There are some blankets over there and I brought my sword...it's over there...And there's food over there...."

Faith immediately walked up to the where Fred had pointed at and looked through the food. She immediately started to eat something. Xander looked at Faith.

"How are you doing, mrs Selfish?" he said.

Faith looked up from eating and sighed. Then she threw a package of chocolate cookies his way.

"Thank you"

Xander and Faith sat down on the floor somewhere and enjoyed their 'food'. Buffy realised she wasn't hungry at all.

"Fred...how are you really doing?" Angel asked.

"Not too good" Fred answered truthfully.

"Why don't you tell us everything that's going on?" Buffy asked and she smiled at Fred, trying to make her feel a little bit more comfortable.

Fred nodded and sat down on the cold floor. Buffy and Angel hesitated, then they sat down too. Fred began her story.

A/N: I'll try to update asap! Please review! Would really appreciate that!

Steffanie (a.k.a Nice-one)