Chapter 13

The Following Takes Place Between 12PM and 1PM on the day of the Autumnal Equinox.

By now almost all of the good guys had assembled around the three prisoners who had been at the center of the ritual. Buffy and Kennedy were untying them while Angel and Wesley talked to them and the rest of the board. All of them had one thought on their minds.

"Do you think that we stopped the eutrasia?" asked Angel.

"We must have," said Xander, who kept looking around as if he couldn't believe his eyes. "I mean, not to state the obvious--which is something I do very well-- but we're all still alive. And of the world's still here. Right?"

Everyone was looking at Giles and Wesley, the two men who had looked the closest at the prophecies.

"I think," said Giles, "that there are three possibilities. One is that we managed to stop Ethan from completing the eutrasia and that the world is safe."

"That can't have happened," Gunn said. "We never get that lucky."

"Another possibility is that they did complete the eutrasia," continued Giles, "but that whatever they have conjured appeared somewhere else in the city."

"Could that even have been done?" Angel asked. "I mean most rituals end with the thing you want right where you are."

"That's usually true," Wesley said, "but with certain dark arts it is possible to perform a ritual from some distance away."

"That doesn't make any sense." countered Faith. "I mean, if you're going to all this trouble to raise some really funky monster why wouldn't you have it appear where you had raised it?"

"It's a fair point," Giles said. "The only thing that I can think of is that maybe they didn't want to raise Jasmine or whatever evil this is in a public place." He shook his head. "But then you'd think making a spectacle was foremost in their mind."

Something about that caused a tickle in Angel's mind, as if he had forgotten something every important. "What's the third possibility?" he asked, as he tried to concentrate on the crisis at hand.

"That we may have stopped the eutrasia but that the malefactum might still happen," said Giles.

Xander appeared confused. "But I thought that it was a package deal. This raising brings about the end of the world." He looked at Giles. "Don't tell me we didn't read the fine print on this prophecy."

Wesley sighed. "The fact of the matter is that, though these raisings and the people mentioned doubtless play an important role in the prophecy, there is a possibility that the malefactum can occur without them." He looked at the others. "The end of the world can be brought about if there are people committed enough to it."

"Once again this is information that would have been helpful at midnight!" Xander's voice got unusually loud even for him.

"Look, it's pretty simple," said Faith, "Harmony is still at large, Ethan has disappeared and there's no sign of this suit, Thompson. Given what's happened, there is a very good possibility that a lot of bad shit could still go down." She looked at the others. "The question is what do we do about it."

There were a few moments of silence. Finally Angel broke it: "We get whatever information we can find around here."

"Information?" asked Gunn dubiously. "Who do you have in mind, the man on the street?" He gestured at the streets around them.

The others looked around. All the vampires and demons were either dead or had run away. There were a fair number of people on the street, all of whom seemed very calm considering what had just happened. Giles wondered if they were enchanted or that this was just another example of the "See nothing, Hear nothing" attitude that was prevalent in LA. In any case, he didn't think they would be much help.

"I'll call Fred back at Angel-Slayer," said Wes. "See if they have any idea where the three of them might have gone."

"Plus we got that vamp tied up back at base," Faith reminded them. "Maybe he knows something."

Xander nodded. "Yeah, and while we're at it we might just want to mention that we rescued Willow and Dawn." As the others slowly realized that Angel-Slayer probably had no idea what had happened here, he whipped out his own phone and said: "I'm the one thinking clearly? Damn, we're in more trouble than we think."

Giles nodded. "Some of us should probably go back to base anyway. We're probably stretching our ranks a little thin."

"I'll go," Gunn offered. He looked to his left. "Want to ride with me, Patrice?"

The black Slayer shrugged. "What the hell. You know what they say about too many Slayers." She looked back. "You know, considering that Willow and Dawn were, uh, abducted they might want to go back too."

Angel looked to the center of the pentagram. Willow was currently locking lips with Kennedy and Buffy had her arms around Dawn. Trying very hard not to think of the third figure in the center, who had begun walking off, he said quietly: "Give them a little while longer. It's been a long day and it's not over yet." He began to walk out the pentagram.

"Angel, we're still busy here. Where are you going?" asked Xander.

"Someone else needs time to process something." He said as he walked over towards the one person who hadn't moved in the last twenty minutes even while the world was rocking.

Connor.

12:09:33 /12:09:34 /12:09:35/ 12:09:36

When Buffy had seen that her sister and best friend had managed to survive the horrors of captivity and being used in a dark ritual with only a few minor scratches, a huge of wave of relief almost overwhelmed her. For a couple of moments she felt she was going to start crying. Though that feeling didn't last, it pretty much summed up how exhausting the day was. So she had given herself a few seconds to revel in the rescue of her friends and gave Willow and Kennedy a chance to get emotional. Now, however, the time for her to lead had come. But first--

"Dawnie, what the hell were you thinking when you let Justine take you?" she asked bluntly.

Her sister rolled her eyes as if she'd been expecting this. "I was thinking that we were running out of time to stop this big nasty and that this might be our only chance to find out what it is that's going to cause the end of the world."

"Oh good, so lets just ignore the fact that you delivered the last piece of the ritual right to Ethan and Harmony's hands."

Dawn got an indignant look on her face. "Like you've never risked the lives of a lot of people in order to save the world."

Not wanting to concede that that was a valid argument, Buffy continued: "I'm a Slayer. I'm allowed to make those kinds of judgments."

"Well in case you've forgotten, I am also part Slayer. Even if I wasn't, I'm still part of this team which gives me the same responsibilities as everybody else. And if the situations were reversed you would have done the exact same thing and you know it." Before Buffy could interject, she added: "Besides, people that I knew were going to die. They would have killed Kennedy and Cho-San and everyone else in the building to get to me."

Buffy could have argued more but she knew that, at the most basic level, Dawn was right. There was no point in dragging out the conversation. "Did you get any more intelligence from them?" she asked instead.

Dawn took a deep breath. "Whatever it is, this maleforma or whatever the hell they're working on, they've been very quiet about it."

Buffy was a little surprised by that. "But one of the heavies is, I can't believe I'm saying this, Harmony. "

"I know."

"This is a girl who went to Echo Park to hear herself talk."

"Well, either she learned restraint at Villainy School, or she's been hanging around smarter vampires cause she didn't give word one about whatever the hell is going on." Dawn sounded as surprised as Buffy was. "The only thing that we know for sure is that they planned to resurrect Jasmine for this deal."

"We already figured out that much," said Buffy. "Do you have any idea where Harmony is?"

Dawn shook her head. "Right before the big raising began, she and a bunch of vamps disappeared. She said she has some kind of appointment to keep. Maybe she's going wherever Jasmine is, but she didn't give any clue where that could be."

Buffy gave a sigh. "So basically they've performed a ritual to raise someone but we don't know who. They've gone some place to meet who they raised but we don't know where. And there's some big darkness coming because of this but we don't know what." She rubbed her eyes. "Is there anything we have learned?'

"Ethan Rayne was a Watcher," Dawn told her. When Buffy looked at her strangely she added: "You're the one who asked what we know now that we didn't know before."

Buffy put her hands in her hair. "All the most significant information gathering tools and supernatural intelligence, and we're only marginally better off than we had been if we were working out of the Magic Box."

"No we're not."

Buffy looked at Kennedy in surprise. The young Slayer had stopped embracing Willow and was facing them, though she still held the witch's hand. "We had next to nothing on the First and we managed to beat it. We only learned about this thing twelve hours ago and we almost got it. We've got the resources. We can do this."

"You're awfully confident considering what might have happened," said Dawn.

"I know this team. I know that when we're on all cylinders we are as powerful as any demon or vampire or evil entity." Kennedy looked around at all of them. "We're better than them. It's time we showed it."

Trying to draw on whatever optimism Kennedy was channeling, Buffy turned back to Dawn. "All right, then I think we better regroup. Willow, Dawn, I think the two of you need to get back to base." Before they could protest she added: "You've both been used in a big ritual and they've been draining magic out of Will for most of the day. The two of you need to rest and recharge before you try anything else."

"If you're so worried why not just send us home?" Willow asked.

"Because I know both of you and neither of you would go," Buffy said with a small smile. "Besides I think that there's a lot of good that the two of you can still do even if it's at a computer."

"I think I should go back and help Will and Dawn debrief," Kennedy said.

"You'd better not mean what I think you mean by that," said Buffy, a little shocked by how bold Kennedy was becoming.

"I meant business Buffy. This is no time to play games."

The smile on Buffy's face disappeared. "You're right."

"What about you

"Not yet. First I need to have the conversation I never thought I'd get to have."

And Buffy began walking in the direction that Spike had gone.

12:20:04/12:20:05/12:20:06/12:20:07

Angel knew that he had to approach Connor carefully, given what had happened. He now had to deal with killing someone, even if it had been an accident. The Connor that Angel had known might have been able to shrug off Justine's death without much thought, but he wasn't sure that this was the Connor he had known.

He also knew that he was in a fragile state. Like almost everything else that had happened that day, Angel had managed to put aside his shock and anger that his son, against everything Wolfram & Hart had promised, was being dragged into his life and his problems again. It had been easy to ignore with a deadline hanging over his head. Now he had free time and everything that had happened -- the appearance of Ethan Rayne, the resurrection of Spike, and so on -- was staring to hit him.

Which was why he had walked over to Connor, who had been standing by Justine's body ever since she had died. Then something that he had not expected happened. He didn't know what to say. He knew he should be able to talk to Connor, but how do you talk to someone whose memory of his life you erased? Angel had confronted harder obstacles before but this… he wasn't sure he was prepared for this.

So he stood there. He might have done that for a while if Connor hadn't made the first move.

"How did she know me?" he asked.

That was an explanation Angel would have liked to avoid. He tried to keep it simple. "She was a friend of the man who raised you in--" he fumbled mentally "--the other dimension." Then to be complete: "When you came back, she helped you imprison me in a water-tight box and dropped me in the Pacific ."

Connor took this in. "I…I did that?" he said. Angel nodded. An abashed look appeared on Connor's face. "My God. I'm so sorry. How…how long were you stuck there?"

"Three months, more or less." Angel tried to be nonchalant about it but Connor seemed appalled at what he had done. "It's okay. Believe it or not, it wasn't the worst summer I've ever had."

Connor took that in. "So that's why she wanted to kill you so badly."

Angel saw his opening. "Look, Connor, I know that you must be a lot of things about…what happened."

"You mean that." Connor swallowed deeply. "I killed this girl." He bent over her body. "How old was she?"

Angel thought for a second. "Twenty, twenty-one. I'm not sure."

"She's not much older than me." Connor finally got to his feet. "She should have had her whole life ahead of her. And this--"

"Connor. You have to understand. You're probably feeling a lot of things right now. Taking a life, it brings about all sorts of emotions. They can be overwhelming."

"They're not," Connor said absently.

That was mildly surprising. "What?'

"Don't get me wrong, I feel all sorts of things-- guilty, ashamed, angry-- and I'm sorry she's dead but I can handle it. I feel bad but I think I can live with it." He began walking towards Angel. "You want to know what bothers me the most?"

"What?"

"No one's going to miss her." He stopped walking. "I mean I only know what Buffy told me about her, but she didn't have any family or any friends. I don't even know what's going to happen to her body."

Angel hadn't thought about that. And now that he was, it bothered him. Justine Cooper had done everything in her power to end his existence but it seemed wrong that she was probably going to be buried in Potter's Field among the homeless and drug addicts.

"I mean it's not like we're going to call the police or anything, right?" Connor continued.

That struck a nerve in Angel. "Why wouldn't we?"

"Because there's no way we can explain how she died. I mean if I went to the cops and told them about this there's no explanation, not even the truth, that wouldn't get everybody in a lot of trouble." Connor hung his head. "And I don't want that to happen."

Connor's attitude bothered Angel but it took him a few seconds to figure out why. It was the attitude that almost everybody in Angel-Slayer would take. Under normal circumstances he wouldn't have done something to make sure Justine didn't end up alone. But, as everyone kept reminding him, these weren't normal circumstances. Still--

"Hold on a second." He took out his cell phone and punched in a number. As was the case with all Wolfram & Hart services, they promptly responded.

"Final Services," said a business-like voice on the other end.

Angel had never wanted to deal with this part of the business. He found it hypocritical beyond belief that a place that cared so little for its employees' souls would take such good care of their physical bodies. However…

"This is Angel," he said unhappily. "I have a dead woman in the Little Tokyo area of Chinatown. I need her to be taken care of." Then realizing what he just said, he quickly added: "Compassionately."

"Any specific instructions?" the voice asked blandly. Angel wanted to hit the owner anyway. "Her name is Justine Cooper." He thought for a second. "Just make sure that her body is buried next to her sister's."

"We'll be there in ten minutes." They hung up first.

Angel suddenly felt unclean. "Connor, I've made sure that she'll be taken care of. We should probably go."

Connor looked at him. "The end of the world waits for no man."

"I know that you're upset about this, but we've done everything we can for her." Angel hated what he was saying, especially because it was true.

"No, there is one thing that we can do." Connor walked back to Justine's body and bent down. He hesitated for a second, then closed her eyes. "I hope you find peace, Justine." He stayed there for a few seconds, then got to his feet. "Now we can go."

And Angel and Connor walked towards the others without ever looking back.

12:31:18/12:31:19/12:31:20/12:31:21

After giving Spike the cold shoulder for the past twenty minutes Buffy supposed it made sense that Spike would try to ignore her.

Not that the vampire was being nasty about it. Spike had spent the last six hours being bound and gagged, and before that he had been who knew where for four months of her time and God knows how long it had been for him. It made sense that he had spent some time walking around, trying to reorient himself with the world.

Finally when Spike started walking down the street intently, Buffy had to speak: "Did you drop something?" It was inane, but Buffy wasn't sure how to begin.

Spike didn't look up. "I'm out of smokes."

"You really think a cigarette's a good idea about now?" God, she sounded like her mother.

"I'm feeling a bit peckish and smoking always takes a bit of the edge off," he said.

It wasn't a road she was wild about going down. "Well, Spike, and I must be channeling June Cleaver because we can find you something to eat."

Spike finally lifted his head. "Yes, I suppose we could always go to the headquarters of Murder Inc. I'm sure they keep pints of the strong stuff for Angel."

It was not a promising avenue for discussion but Buffy knew she had to go down it anyway. "So I guess Willow and Dawn told you-- "

"-- that after seven years of fighting the forces of darkness, you decided to take their executive offices." Spike was staring daggers at her. "Yes, they told me."

Buffy forgot for a moment what had happened to Spike. "First of all, in case you didn't know, my home and everything I owned, as well as everywhere I worked, is gone, so I didn't have a lot of options. Second, I didn't force anybody to take this job. I presented a case, they agreed with it."

"And I'm sure that your decision had nothing to do with the fact that Captain Hairdo had just taken a parking space at Evil Law." Spike sounded bitter and hurt.

Without thinking, she spat out: "You were gone Spike. Gone forever. Was I supposed to be in mourning for-- "

Spike seemed to become paler which, when Buffy thought about it, seemed impossible.

"Oh God, Spike I'm sorry."

"It's all right," he said softly.

"No it isn't."

"No. No, it's not." he admitted. "There's no way a bloke just gets over being where I was." He hesitated. "You want to know something frightening? I can barely remember the place. I mean I know that it was horrible but I can't remember why. It's like a Swiss cheese effect."

Buffy took that in. "Swiss cheese?" she finally asked. "What does that mean?'

Spike thought for a second and slapped his forehead. "Bloody Andrew! Six months of being with him and that's what sticks? Quantum-frigging-Leap?" He put his head in his hands. "My memory's blanks on almost everything but I can remember Scott Bakula? Oh man."

Buffy thought over the last part of his statement. "You can't remember where you were?" When Spike nodded, she said: "Isn't that a good thing?"

Spike thought it over for several seconds . "I suppose it is. But--maybe it's my goddamn soul-- but I feel that I should remember the pain. It seems wrong not to." Spike shook his head. "Christ I sound like him, don't I?"

It wasn't a conversation Buffy wanted to have, especially not now. So she decided to impart some of her own wisdom. "Spike, trust me on this. After you get resurrected it doesn't do much good to remember where you might have been." She looked Spike in the eye. "No matter where you went."

Spike considered. "Yeah. I guess so." He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "The rest of you, you made it."

Buffy must have looked confused because he continued: "Faith, Xander, Giles…"

"Well we lost four Slayers and Anya was killed," Buffy said. "But yeah, we almost all made it." She looked at him. "Thank you for that."

"I'd do it again, Buffy." A bit of the old Spike surfaced. "Course, I thought that was going to be my stunning exit. Now I'm back in the game again."

"Guess so."

"Why? What did they bring me back for?"

Buffy had been afraid of this. "So Harmony and Ethan didn't tell you what they were raising."

Spike shook his head. "When the hell did Harmony grow a pair? She never had any interest in this end-of-the world crap."

Buffy would have snapped off some kind of petty remark except she didn't know what had gotten into Harmony either. "I know. She never struck me as the Apocalypse bringing type."

"But it's more than that. You know what kind of girl she was. How the hell could she get a hundred vampires to follow her? She couldn't handle five before." Spike looked at the pentagram. "And her attitude. She's become secretive. Old Harm would have told us everything she was planning in five minutes. "

"So she didn't give anything away?"

"Nix. She mumbled some junk about how the heavens would scream and the earth would quake. But, unless I was more out of it than I thought, that didn't happen when they did…whatever."

"No. No it didn't," Buffy said reflectively. "Yet. But maybe what you brought back will."

Spike was puzzled. "You mean that Jasmine bird? But if they really did it-- "

"-- where the hell is she?" Spike winced at Buffy's remark. "Sorry. Poor choice of words. Still she's got to be here somewhere." Buffy thought for a second. A particularly sick idea had just occurred to her. "Spike, you remember two years ago when you were following me around and I ask you how you kept doing it and you said you could smell me."

"N-no" said Spike. "But it does sound like something I'd say."

Buffy looked at him. "Can vampires follow a person's scent?"

A look was coming over his face. "Sometimes. If we know them well enough."

"And you knew…" Buffy's voice involuntary went up as she said 'knew' "…Harmony very well. Do you think you can find her scent?"

"Scent. I'm not a bloodhound-- Well I am, but it's not that easy."

"Why not?"

"Because this is LA. There are thousands of people's scents everywhere."

Buffy kept looking at him.

"And what if she went in a car?"

Buffy stayed silent.

"I'm being realistic here." Pause. "Don't take that attitude." Another pause. Spike threw up his hands. "Give me a minute, I'll see if I can sniff her out. " He used air quotes for the last three words.

Buffy turned around. As she started to walk away Spike said: "You could be a little nicer to me. I did just come back from hell." She kept walking but she still heard his last statement: "Sodding women."

12:43:22/12:43:23/12:43:24/12:43:25

Gunn made the call to Fred and the others at Angel-Slayer about what had happened over the past two hours. It had taken a while because Fred had been extremely annoyed that they had been out of contact for the last hour and a half and had launched into a rambling diatribe about keeping the lines of communication open. (Of course, considering what the others had been doing, calling them and updating them on their progress would have been a bad idea but it wasn't until Fred had finished speaking that she had realized that.)

Fred was as happy as the others that Willow and Dawn were still alive. It was somewhat tempered by the bad guys seeming to have gotten clean away. Furthermore, their efforts to track down Harmony had hit a huge road block. Their surveillance equipment couldn't locate Harmony or any of her vampires, and they had no idea where else to look. And, completing the hat trick, they didn't have a clue where whatever the villains had raised was. There hadn't been any reports of any new magic reports.

With no other leads to follow Fred had taken the one course of action she had left --interrogating the vampire Wesley and Angel. Given the little that Roderick seemed to know, it was a pretty thin straw to grasp but they were just about out of options.

So she had taken slightly different version of the drugs she had tried on Justine six hours earlier, grabbed Cho-San and Ida (neither of whom mentioned what had happened to Regina the last time) returned to the room he was being kept him in and began to work.

Unfortunately Roderick didn't seem to know much more about the master plan beyond it involving bringing back Jasmine. And it took Fred ten minutes to determine that was all he knew. Nevertheless she kept pressing.

"Did Harmony and Ethan give you any indication where they were going to need you after the raising?" she asked.

"For the last time, no. Once the raising was finished they said that they'd call us with instructions." Roderick gasped. "Could you loosen the ropes a little?"

"Why? Last I checked you didn't need to breathe." Fred picked up another vial and prepared to inject it

"Shit, I've told you all I know about this raising!" he said in a panicky voice.

Fred was pretty sure that he was telling the truth. She decided to try another area of inquiry. "This guy Thompson, the guy who hired you. Was he just the money or did he have some other part in the plan?"

That seemed to have struck a chord. Roderick thought for a second. "He was doing more than that, yeah."

"Such as?"

"He said that it was very important that, once Jasmine came back, we take her somewhere on the very outskirts of LA."

"Where?"

Roderick looked at her. "He didn't give us an address." Fred made a threatening motion. "All I know is that it was between the mountains and the Pacific," he said quickly.

Fred considered. It sounded vague enough to be legitimate but she didn't think that they had the manpower to scour the area around the ocean. She was about to press him harder when her cell phone rang. She told Cho-san to move closer to Roderick then she answered her phone. "What is it?" she said abruptly.

"Hey Fred it's me."

She relaxed a little. "What is it Andrew?"

"I just thought that you should know that Gunn's back in the building and he's got Dawn and Willow with him. They're going to be getting back to work as soon as they can, but they needed a few minutes to recharge."

"Well, that's nice and I'm glad that they're back, but was that the only reason you called?" Fred asked.

"No. It took some doing, but I was finally able to tap into Thompson's email account at Wolfram & Hart."

Fred was surprised. "You finally managed to break down the firewall?" There had been an additional layer of security along with the usual Wolfram & Hart codes.

"Yeah. Unfortunately most of the emails he wrote had some kind of auto-delete method so it hasn't been easy to get information."

"Damn it. Did you find anything we can use?"

"There was one email that didn't make a lot of sense. It seemed to have some kind of listing for a convalescent home outside the Elysian Park area. Now I know they work in some strange places, but a retirement home?"

Fred barely heard him. She had gone cold the moment Andrew said 'convalescent home.' She realized that she had been missing the forest for the trees. That they had forgotten the obvious. "Andrew, get as many people as you can together and get a hold of Angel and Buffy. They have to get ready to move now. "

"You know where Jasmine is?" he said.

"No, I know where she was." said Fred grimly. "She never left the place we put her."

12:51:29/12:51:30/12:51:31/12:51:32

Gunn, Kennedy and Patrice had gone back with Dawn and Willow to home base, Spike was off with Buffy trying to pick up Harmony's scent. If Faith had understood Buffy correctly she didn't want to think of what she might have meant. Wesley, Xander and Giles had gone back to the warehouse to see if the bad guys had left some kind of clue as to what was going to happen next. Angel and Connor were trying to track down any stray vampires. Before they had left, Angel had asked Faith and Robin if they would stay around the body of Justine and wait for the funeral workers to come and take it away.

That didn't bother Faith as much as she would have thought that it would-- more than anyone else she felt a fallen Slayer deserved to be treated like a person no matter which side she fought on. What did bother her was why Robin had agreed to stay behind. She knew how the ex-principal didn't like being handed soft work. More than that, on some gut level, she felt that Robin had been acting very strange for the last couple of hours.

So, while the mortuary workers began handling Justine's body she decided to see if she could find out what was wrong with a man she had become very close to over the past few months.

"How its hanging?" she started off with as she walked over to him.

"Not that bad." Genial enough statement but Robin wouldn't look her in the eye.

Here goes, she thought. "Well, it's just that you seemed to have a bit of trouble with that last group of beasties," she said watching him carefully.

"Well, you know these undead have been a little tougher than the average vamp." The remark was amusing but it didn't seem to gel with what she saw on Robin's face.

"I've also noticed that, even though it's not that hot, you're sweating like a pig. And you've been sitting down a lot."

"Faith, I've just been through a rather grueling fight. I'm entitled to--"

The sentence was never finished. Suddenly Robin began to grimace and writhe as if he'd been hit in the chest. The spasm or whatever the hell it was lasted only a few seconds but it seemed endless to Faith as she watched him. She sat down next to him and held him until the trembling passed. When it had, she looked him in the eye and asked: "What's wrong Robin? The truth."

Robin took a few more seconds to gather himself. Finally he turned to Faith and said, "Earlier today, Giles and I found a box that we thought held the Band of Tarquin." He swallowed. "Someone--I'll bet it was that bastard Rayne-- designed the box so that whoever opened it would get covered with some kind of powder."

"What kind of powder?" Faith was getting a sinking feeling.

"Some kind of poison. I--inhaled a lot of it." Robin's voice was cracking.

"How much?"

Robin gathered himself. "A fatal dose."

Faith felt like someone had reached inside her chest and squeezed. She knew enough about poisons to understand the how's and why's of this being possible. "How long do you—" For some reason she couldn't finish the sentence.

Robin understood. "They couldn't say for certain. But given how I'm feeling, the odds are that today's sunset will be the last I ever see, one way or the other."

All kinds of feelings ran through Faith. She seized on the strongest one: stubborn denial. "I'm…I'm taking you to the hospital. Right now."

"Faith--" Robin started.

"You're going to see a real doctor and you're going to get a second opinion." She pulled on his arm.

"They checked me over thoroughly at the clinic."

"Then you're going to get a third, fourth and fifteenth if we have to," she said doggedly.

"They were pretty sure." Robin was trying to be gentle.

"Four years ago I was in a coma with no chance of ever waking up!" Faith said. "The experts can be wrong and you know it!"

"Faith, in case you didn't notice we're in the middle of a crisis here—"

"We're always in a crisis!" Faith shouted. "It's our fucking way of life! The world is always ending. It was in trouble six months ago, it will be six months from now!" For the first time in a long time Faith was losing a battle with her emotions and she didn't care. "Now we always put saving the many over ourselves and maybe we're right to do that but damn it-- " A small tear fell down her cheek. Neither she nor Robin noticed it. "-- our lives should matter."

Robin looked stunned. Faith knew that part of it was the pain but she knew some wasn't. It took several seconds for him to look at her. "You really think that my life should matter more than those of everyone else in LA?"

"Don't get into this 'the needs of the many outweigh those of the few' bullshit." Faith said.

Despite the seriousness of the situation Robin found himself smiling. "I think you've been spending too much time with Andrew."

"Bullshit is bullshit, especially if it's from Star Trek," said Faith. "Some people do have to matter more than others. Sometimes you have to be selfish."

Faith wasn't sure if what she was saying was registering which made her doubly pissed when Wesley ran up to them. "This is a real crappy time to interrupt."

"This can't wait," he said in the tone that Faith knew meant darkness was ahead.

"What is it?" Robin asked, getting to his feet.

"We're pretty sure how they brought Jasmine back."

Despite her concerns Faith knew she had to hear this. "What have they done?"

"Cordelia." There was real sorrow in his voice. "They're using Cordelia."

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