The Blue Room

Chapter 7

Author's Note: With this final chapter, my fanfiction comes to an end. I have left possibilities open for a sequel, though I am unsure as to whether or not I am up to it. If anyone is interested in co-writing a sequel, I think it would be fun. Until then, The Blue Room is closed. I beg you, please review the final chapter. Please, please, please, please, please!

Thanks to: Everyone who reviewed, especially Moonjava, who was always the first to let me know how much she enjoyed my story telling. I hope you are pleased with the ending. Your positive influence made it possible.

Now, onto the conclusion.

"Gunn!" Wesley shouted to his friend to come back, but to no avail. Gunn was charging toward it as fast as he could, sword drawn, eyes fiery. Though as he neared the enormous, leopard-like demon, rather than attack it he sped around it and climbed up the emergency staircase of the closest building. The old hospital. The building was condemned due to a past fire, and was scheduled to be torn down. Gunn knew if he could only lure the beast onto the fragile roof...

"You madman! Come back!" Wesley screamed at the top of his lungs for Gunn to come down, like a worried parent. "For Christ's sake, don't be stupid!" Gunn merely grinned.

"We're gonna kill this bitch!" He cried, raising his sword above his head as though it were a trophy. He was caught off balance when the demon leaped onto the roof, causing the whole building to creak and shake. For the first time, Gunn began to feel fear. But he swallowed it. There was no going back now. He backed away slowly, leading the demon to the middle. He knew it wouldn't hold their weight. The demon swished its tail and uttered a low growl, slowly advancing on its prey.

"Here kitty, kitty..." Gunn taunted his foe.

"Gunn!" Wesley shouted hopelessly.

"Shut up, English, I gotta do this!" Gunn lowered his sword and closed his eyes. Wesley only assumed he was praying. Unsure of what to do, Wesley bolted toward the building, hoping to find some way to help. Gunn was not going on this ridiculus kamakazi mission alone.

Gunn took a deep breath, and shouted to the man below.

"You saved my life once. I meant to say–" But even as he said those words, before Wesley's very eyes as he approached the stairs, the roof gave out. Gunn let out a scream that echoed in Wesley's ears as the two figures fell, the entire building coming down with them.

"No!" Wesley cried. It felt as though something invisable had come up behind him and taken him by the throat, completely blocking his airway.

He couldn't be dead. Heros don't die.

For what seemed like an eternity he stood and waited for Gunn to claw his way out of the rubble. He almost expected him to simply jump up and brush the dust off his jacket, saying something like, "Man, was that thing ugly or what?" But he never did.

Wesley nearly fell over with shock when something began to move underneath the debris. The Ardentious demon had survived! It shook it's fur clean, and then focusing on Welsey, it gave a great shriek of fury, but was suddenly silenced when a sword came out of nowhere and took its head off. Holding Gunn's dropped sword in his hand was Angel.

"Gunn's dead." He said blankly. Wesley felt a lump forming in his throat as Angel walked toward him.

"You're sure?"

Angel's only response was to stare blankly down the alley.

"What?" Wesley questioned him, looking in the same direction Angel was fixated on.

"Fred–" Angel murmured. And with that he ran, following her scent.

Wesley started to follow, but turned back, lowering his head and closing his eyes, honoring a hero.

"Thank you."

As the shot rang out, everybody was frozen in time. The bullet itself seemed to be suspended in the air for a moment before finding its target. Just as Fred's body sunk to the floor, Wesley and Angel ran into the room, Angel immediately taking a blow at Kate, who dived away from his sword and kicked his feet out from under him.

Wesley stopped breathing when he saw Fred. Her hair stained with blood and falling into her face. Her eyes cold and glassy. Her skin getting paler every second. He knew that image would never let him go.

Oz, in his fury, let the change wash over him, lunging toward Lindsey with the intention of ripping his throat out. But Lindsey was faster. In the next second the last five shots had been fired, and with a sharp yelp the great, dark wolf fell in mid-leap, hitting the cement with a thud. Wesley watched silently as the wolf again became the figure of Daniel Osbourne, slain beside his lover.

Angel stood quickly, dodging another attack and swinging his sword toward his enemy with all his strength. Kate ducked out of the way, shouting protests.

"Angel! We don't have to fight. It's not my fault, I never wanted anyone dead! Look, we can just–" She dodged his sword again. "Talk about this, okay?" Angel lowered his sword in thought. Kate took the opportunity to get him with a spinning kick. Caught off guard, he raised his sword again, but not quickly enough. Kate came at him with a pencil from her pocket, ready to strike the last fatal blow. Angel caught her fist before she could bury the wood into his chest, her weight throwing both of them to the floor. Rolling and tumbling over and under each other, throwing punches and dodging weapons, neither of them saw Lindsey. Angel held the pencil inches from his heart, grunting in the effort to avoid death, until he couldn't hold against it anymore. He stopped trying, and let the point fall, except it didn't. It simply dropped to the floor with a light clatter as Kate exploded into dust around it. Lindsey stared down at Angel with a look of terror, dropping the stake and running at top speed out of the vault and away into the darkness. Angel's gaze followed him out of sight. Slowly and unsurely he stood up, brushing dust off his shirt.

Now able to move, Wesley dropped to his knees and gazed open-mouthed at Fred's crumpled body. Her face still held the grief she had felt at Oz's loving betrayal. Wesley knelt over her, leaning forward to close her eyes and kiss her forehead in a quiet farewell. Only when he'd gotten to his feet did he break down and cry.

Angel watched the scene with impossible confusion. He winced at the sound of Wesley's wailing. He'd never known Wesley to cry. This was something completely alien and frightening to him. He didn't like it. Something wasn't right. Something bad was about to happen.

Wesley wiped his face on the front of his shirt, sniffling and blinking repeatedly as he regained himself. He turned to Angel with a distant look and smiled.

"Well. That's it then." He croaked. It was then that Angel saw Lindsey's dropped gun in Wesley's hand. He hadn't even had time to register what it meant before Wesley raised it to his own temple and pulled the trigger. Angel blinked at the noise, and watched Wesley's body fall lifeless into a pool of blood.

It took several minutes for reality to catch up with him. Angel stood motionless, wondering why it was suddenly so quiet. Then it occurred to him. It was because they were dead. They were all dead.

And as soon as this thought had formed in his mind the world began to dissolve around him. The walls crumbled to ash and the floor disappeared into nothing, and he was falling. Falling so far and so fast, that when his feet finally did find solid ground his legs gave out from under him and he collapsed onto the floor of the blue room. He held his head in his hands and shrieked in terror and confusion and the sudden realization of tragedy, his body racked with sobs.

In the distance there was a sound not unlike the hurried scraping of chairs and worried voices, and a moment later Wesley rushed into the room in a panic. He didn't bother closing the door behind him and Fred and Gunn observed from the living room as Wesley took the trembling vampire into his arms and rocked him. Angel buried his face into Wes's sweater and sobbed louder, unable to contain the horror he felt.

"What is it?" Wesley asked softly, but with an urgency in his voice. "What did you see?"

FIN