Chapter 14

The Following Takes Place Between 1pm and 2pm on the day of the Autumnal Equinox.

Though Giles hadn't heard Buffy's remarks about the perks of Wolfram & Hart leaving them only marginally better off, he was beginning to feel the same way. Even though having this morally ambiguous organization at their beck and call had helped immeasurably today, he was now thinking if, in their ultra-organized approach to every detail, they had forgotten to deal with the most obvious methods and had missed things they needed to know. They had gotten involved in a futile (and, in Robin's case, fatal) search for the artifacts. They had divided their number so much that they had been vulnerable to attack. And they had gotten so wrapped up in finding out who was behind the raisings that they hadn't managed to stop either of them. Now they had gotten so locked on finding Jasmine they had missed the obvious answer as to where she might be. If they had still been at the Sunnydale-level they might have been excusable lapses. For people who supposedly had the best of everything, it was nearly suicidal.

"How the hell do we keep fucking up like this?" asked Angel angrily as he and Connor walked into the warehouse where Giles and Xander had been looking for a lead. "The reason we took this deal was so that we could be on top of the situation. How come we keep blowing it?"

I'm thinking like Angel now, thought Giles. We're neck deep in it, if there was any doubt. Aloud he said: "I think our problems with the law firm are secondary to stopping the apocalypse."

"Angel we couldn't have foreseen this," Wesley said, few feet behind him with Faith and Robin in tow. "We all thought that after Jasmine left Cordelia's body that there would be no way for her to return. There was no way for us to know—"

"There was no way to know that Spike could be brought back from hell," Robin said. "And there was no way to know that Jasmine could be brought back at all." He grimaced for a moment. "We're supposed to specialize in the unknown. We haven't done it."

"Now is not the time argue over who lost China." Angel was speaking tensely but the anger was gone. "We have a job to do, let's do it." He turned to his left. "Wesley what do we know about -- Cordelia?" Angel's hesitation was brief but everyone noticed it.

"According to Fred, Harmony and a small squad of vamps walked out of Cordelia's recuperative center with her less than an hour ago," Wesley said.

"How sure are we that Cordelia got out of her bed on her own?" asked Giles.

"We're not."

Angel looked more pissed. "There were three people from our offices watching that home. How is it that they-- "

"They're all dead." Wesley spoke so curtly that it took a moment for it to register. "So are a receptionist and two nurses. "

"Harmony could have done that," Robin said.

"One of them was standing just outside Cordy's bedroom. She must have done it"

"You don't know that:"

Everyone turned left, towards Xander. He had been very quiet ever since Giles had told him that Cordelia might be awake. Part of Xander's quiet had been brought on by guilt. He had been one of the people who decided to move Cordy from her room in the building to the place near Elysian Park. But most of it had to do with a far more primal reason. A reason that was shared by at least one other in their party.

"Xander." said Angel. "I know what you're feeling right now. I know it's hard to take in—"

Xander's face grew darker. "I don't needheartfelt advicefrom someone whose own heart isn't beating." He turned back to Wesley. "We don't know anything for certain. For all we know maybe Cordy is the one who's awake. I wouldn't put it past Harmony to go to all this trouble just to bring her bestest best friend back."

"That's not happening."

Now everyone turned to the right. Faith had been quiet herself and Giles, feeling guilty because he had almost forgotten about Robin's fate during the upheaval of the last few hours, thought that he knew the reason for that too.

"We have to face some brutal facts today, Xan," Faith went on. "And we all know that Jasmine's back and Cordelia's got her." She was sounding pretty grim herself. "If you can't deal with it, then you're going to have to go home," she said looking right at Xander, " 'cause we all have to bring our A-game today. No matter what."

Xander considered. Then he walked towards Faith. "Well I'm glad to see that you've got that kind of group think that comes to the Army. But not all of us were built with Slayer bravado. Some of us have feelings."

"That's absolutely not what I meant."

"Could've fooled me." He pushed Faith who fell back more from surprise than Xander's strength. "If I ever develop an attitude like yours, I hope I end up taking a seven month siesta from the world too."

And he stormed off. Faith started after him.

"Faith--" Wesley began.

"I need to talk to him. The rest of you need to get to work figuring out how we're gonna find Cordelia and Harmony." She left before anyone could stop her.

Angel recovered first. "What do we do now ?"

1:10:33/1:10:34/1:10:35/1:10:36

There were a lot of things happening that day that were stretching even Buffy's normally high threshold for finding unbelievable things today. Harmony actually being a capable villain. Ethan Rayne becoming the equivalent of Voldemort. Willow being used as a vessel for powerful magic against her will. Now, however, she was dealing with something she hadn't thought possible: Spike walking down the street in broad daylight -- without a Gem of Amara -- supposedly tracking Harmony by smell alone. Yet even that wasn't the freaky part. The freaky part was that something that something Spike had told her during what amounted to pillow talk was actually true.

"How the hell are you doing this so easily?" she asked Spike as he stood at the intersection of two roads.

Spike didn't turn around but his voice was filled with disdain. "First of all luv, this is not easy. It isn't just Harmony that's giving off a fragrant aroma, it's every bloody person who has walked down the street over the last several hours. It takes a bit of work to pick one in particular out, and that's without counting all the thousands of normal smells that you find in the largest city in the country." Now he turned and gave her a hard stare. "I'm guessing Angelfish didn't let you in on that particular tidbit."

Buffy didn't have time to deal with this so she ignored it. "But you can find Harmony's."

Spike had been standing on the north branch of the intersection now he turned around to the south branch. As he did, he said without looking at her, "I spent a rather considerable part of two years around that particular bint. It would be pretty hard to forget that."

Spike spoke without any tone at all when he said it, nevertheless it stung. Again she decided to set it aside. "Can you tell what direction she went?"

Now Spike turned around, an exasperated look on his face. "What did I just get through telling you?" he asked, aggravated.

"Okay, okay, you're not Toucan Sam. I get it," she said backing off.

He turned back around. He stood there for nearly half a minute before turning back to the north branch and saying: "I'm pretty sure she went this way."

Buffy turned around herself. "Then let's go before the trail gets cold."

The two of them began walking. Spike was quiet for a few seconds before saying: "I'll tell you what I find interesting."

Buffy was quiet before going: "All right. What?"

"I find it odd that with all the evil—sorry, marvelous technology that you must have at your disposal—satellite cameras, computer trackers or whatever James Bond stuff they're using these days—you would leave your friends and colleagues in order to rely on my small, broken, just-spent-the-last-few-months-sniffing-brimstone nose to track down Harmony." Spike still wasn't looking at her but she knew him well enough to detect the air of smugness in his voice. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you came up with this idea just to spend time with me."

Buffy managed to avoid blushing but it was a near thing. "You're right Spike," she said firmly, "you don't know me. Before I left I had a talk with Giles and Willow about the best possible way to track down the bad guys. We're going to be using the most sophisticated methods to track down Ethan and Harmony. But the fact is, after some of the crap that's happened today, I don't really trust the stuff our new friends got us. So Giles and Willow decided that while they try the high grade stuff, we'd try an old school approach. Now Harmony's the easiest one to find and you are the most capable one to find her. That's the only reason that we are doing this."

She delivered her spiel in a tone that she hoped sounded calm and self-assured. Apparently it wasn't because Spike gave a small laugh and said: "That's your story and you're sticking with it. Fine. Whatever."

It was getting rather repetitive. "Christ, Spike, you've only been around me an hour and already you've brought us back to our holding pattern. What the—"

"Hold it." Abruptly Spike had become all business. "Her smell's getting stronger." He began moving faster. Buffy had to move quickly to keep pace until he stopped suddenly.

Buffy soon saw why. Less than fifty feet ahead of them was a building where several uniforms were milling around in front—as well as a couple of vans with 'Morgue' on their sides.

"Well this has the sign of Harmony on it," Buffy said softly.

"Yeah, but I don't know why she'd tear up an old folks home," Spike replied just as softly. "I mean, she never struck me as that— Buffy?"

Buffy was very quiet. Spike was about to nudge her when she finally spoke. " She was here to visit an old friend.."

"Excuse me?"

Buffy gathered herself. "This is a Wolfram & Hart establishment," she exhaled. "We were using it to care for Cordelia."

1:19:09/1:19:10/1:19:11

"Xander!"

Again she got no response. Faith had spotted Xander three minutes ago and had yelled at him but the young mans only response was to move faster and ignore her. If she had been running after him she would have caught up to him by now, instead she was keeping her distance because she knew Xander was in a particularly fragile state. That wasn't a new problem—so was she.

"If I'd known you had this much endurance I would have come back for seconds," she said. That sounded enough like her normal tone to get him to stop and turn around.

There was a smile on his face but it seemed more false than not. "You're the one who can't catch me? If I didn't know better I would say that you were losing it."

The remark, while relatively innocent, hit Faith in a place that she wouldn't have thought it would. She tried to wear the same poker face she used on evil doers and companions alike but some of her tension must have shone through because Xander said: "If I didn't know better I'd say something was bothering you."

"Turns out you know me a lot better than you think," she said sadly.

"What's wrong?" Xander said walking back to her.

Faith put her hands on her face. "I'll tell you, but right now we're dealing with your problem."

"Which is?" Xander said, giving away nothing.

"First you walk back with me." When Xander hesitated she said: "Please."

It may have been the first time since she had become a Slayer that she had said that word to anyone. And it sold Xander because he walked back to her and said : "Let's go."

As they walked Faith starting talking. "I know how upset you are about what's happened to Cordelia."

Xander glanced at her. "What do you mean by that?"

Faith shrugged. "Hell if I know. I don't know what Cordy's role is in whatever's going to happen but I don't think there's any way that she comes out of this all right."

Xander looked straight ahead. "I don't think she will either," he finally admitted. "I think that no matter what has happened to her, she's not going to make it through the day."

"I'm sorry, Xander."

He gave her a look.

"I mean it. It's just wrong what happened to Cordy. Sometimes I think whoever's behind this is dealing from the bottom of the deck."

"I know what will probably have to be done. I just wish I didn't have to see it."

"You don't."

Xander stopped walking.

"I'm serious. There's no reason that you should have to come for that part."

"You want me to go back to base and let—"

"No. That's why I wanted to talk to you."

"What do you want, Faith?" Xander sounded a little curt.

"I need someone to do something and I didn't know who else to ask." She took a deep breath. "Earlier today Robin inhaled some kind of poison. Some Watcher looked at him and said—that it was enough to kill him."

A look of genuine shock appeared on Xander's face. "But he's still—"

"--here. I know. What's with you men and playing through pain?" Faith was stunned to find that she was on the verge of crying again. "He—he needs to get to a hospital and he won't go. And I'm the damn Slayer so I can't take him."

"How long does he have?" Xander asked gently.

She swallowed. "Could be hours. Everyone else won't hear anything that isn't about stopping the bad guys. You're the only other person who's thinking emotionally."

Xander kept walking for a few more seconds. "What makes you think he'll listen to me?"

"He won't," she said honestly. "Trick him if you have to. Just get him there."

Xander looked at Faith. "Do you love him?"

"I still don't know," Faith said truthfully. "But if there's any way to save him, I want to do it. He means a lot to me. Maybe as much as Cordelia means to you."

Xander pondered her words for a long twenty seconds. "Okay. I'll do what I have to."

"Thank you, Xander. I mean it," she said grateful.

As they walked the remaining blocks Faith realized that was probably the first time she'd used that phrase too.

1:27:59/128:00/1:28:01/1:28:02

Considering that, over the last ten hours, she had been trussed up like a turkey and been used twice as a vessel of energy to help bring about not one but two powerful magical events, Willow wasn't feeling that bad. She was a little worn out, of course, and she didn't think she was going to be able to tap into her powers for any major spells for a while, but otherwise she felt fine.

So when Andrew called the office where she and Kennedy had been resting for the last half hour and said that he could really use her help she told him all right.

Kennedy, however, didn't seem to have as much confidence. "Are you sure that you're up to this?" she asked as they walked to the tech room.

"I'm not going to run the four-minute mile, Kennedy. I'm just helping Andrew go over some satellite photos," Willow said calmly. "This is the kind of thing that I could do in my sleep even before I became Miss Wizard."

"I know it's just, and maybe I'm channeling my mom…I don't know but you've just been through a rather big deal," Kennedy said. "I think everyone would understand if you decided to take it easy for a while."

Willow stopped walking and raised her eyebrows skeptically. "You sure that you don't have any personal reasons for asking?"

Kennedy had the grace to look away.

"Look," she said more seriously." You and I know that we're in the middle of a hurricane here. I don't know what Ethan and Harmony are planning now that they've raised Jasmine, but they didn't bring her back to have tea." Willow started walking again.

"Will, this isn't your responsibility—" Kennedy started.

"Yes it is." Willow kept moving but her voice went up a notch. "I may not have directly caused these raisings but I didn't stop them either. Darn right its my responsibility." She lowered her voice. "And even it wasn't, this is still my job. Yours too."

They were outside the tech room.

Kennedy clearly didn't like it, but she knew Willow was right. "Do you need help?" she asked.

Willow put her hand on Kennedy's shoulder. "Go the center of operations. Find out who else needs assistance." Willow smiled. "I think there are pretty good odds someone will."

"One more thing." Before Willow could ask what, Kennedy had spun her around, pulled her to one side and laid an Adrian Brody kiss on her. Then nearly as quickly Kennedy released her.

"For good luck." she said with a smile.

Feeling a little dazed Willow managed an: "Uh, yeah." before she fumbled for the door knob and went inside.

Andrew was looking at a monitor. "It's about time you--" He looked up at Willow. "You sure you're all right?"

Willow realized that her face was a little red. "I'm fine."

Now Andrew had a small smile on his face. "And Kennedy? How's she doing?" he said with a touch of lechery in his voice.

Suddenly Willow was all business. "What did you call me for?"

Andrew sobered up. "All right, you know that Ethan and Harmony were raising Jasmine?"

"I figured that out," she said with a slight bit of irony.

"Did you know that they raised her in Cordelia's body?"

Willow was surprised—but not as much as she thought she would be. "No, but in a sick way that makes sense." She then made the logical leap. "They took her from the place near Elysian Park?"

Now Andrew looked a little annoyed. "Yes, and may I just say that you could have kept me in the loop on these kinds of things? I mean if I'd known that she was there, I might have been able to move a little faster with tracking her down."

"Why did you ask for me Andrew?"

Andrew shook off his mood. "Since the convalescent home is a Wolfram & Hart property it has extensive security cameras. Unfortunately, they also have a complicated coding system that makes it hard to hack. I was hoping that you could maybe…"

"Use my superior computer skills to bail your ass out of trouble?" Willow said sweetly.

"That's not quite how I'd put it but—"

"Step aside kid, and let a pro show you how it's done."

Willow walked to the keyboard.

"You're in a good mood considering what's going on." Andrew sounded a little perplexed.

"What can I say," said Willow as she began typing, "suddenly I feel…inspired."

1:35:27/1:35:28/1:35:29

Having been to a hell dimension or two in his long life, as well as specializing in suffering for more than half of it, Angel knew that what was happening to him today didn't really rate on the level of terror or pain. But on a purely selfish level it was coming close to a nightmare scenario. The son for whom he had taken on an enormous burden was in grave danger. The woman whom he had once thought he was in love with was very likely the vessel of the great evil that was threatening the world. And the woman he had once considered his soul mate was currently trying to stop the apocalypse-- with her last boyfriend.

Angel knew that these were minor complaints compared to the threat of an apocalypse. But somehow the personal problems were disturbing him more than the possible end of the world. So, after Wesley had received a call from Buffy telling him that she knew what Harmony and Ethan had raised and where it had happened, he went with his gut reaction and said that he would go over to the facility with Wesley and Connor. Giles had demurred, for some reason, electing to stay with Robin and come up with another plan of attack.

"Aren't you concerned about Connor's safety?" Wesley inquired.

"Considering what might have been started today, I think being with us may be the only way to keep him safe," Angel said honestly.

So they took his car and drove to Elysian Park and Serenity Place. Connor had been very quiet on the ride (as he had during earlier discussions) but he spoke up as they rode the final mile.

"This Jasmine, the monster that the bad guys have been trying to raise," Connor began slowly. "Why would I be so important?"

This was a topic that Angel had been hoping to avoid. He chose a half answer. "Because you managed to kill her the first time she came into being," he said.

"How exactly did I do that?" Connor asked, perplexed.

"You-- sorta smashed her face in."

"Really?" Connor considered this. "One blow?"

"Pretty much." Angel spoke with the barest hint of pride.

"Wow, I am strong." Connor thought for a moment. "But if I was so deadly to her, why would she want me alive?"

"I can only think of one reason," Angel said hesitantly.

"Which is?"

"She wants to kill you herself."

Both Angel and Connor glanced back.

Wesley hadn't spoken in a while. His expression was neutral. "Revenge can cause you to do unthinkable things."

Before any of them could say anything else Angel saw that they had reached their destination. "We'll finish this later," he said as he pulled up.

As they got out of the car Angel noticed that there were still some police in front of the building. In his early days in LA that would have been a cause for concern, but one of the advantages of being in charge of a business that bends the law was that it gave you a certain amount of leeway with those who enforce it. All Angel had to say was: "Major Ralston said we could be here," and the officer in charge let them through.

Of course that kind of behavior could be read a different way by some people. "Wonderful. " said a hostile voice from a few feet away. "We tell the cops who we are and we still have to wait until they show up and do the bloody secret handshake."

"Knock it off Spike," Buffy was beginning to sound aggravated herself. Angel took it as a good sign.

"Have you found out anything relevant?" he asked Buffy.

She shook her head. "The police wouldn't let us in to talk to the staff and Andrew hasn't gotten anywhere on the cameras inside the building."

Angel sighed. "So we're nowhere."

"Not quite. Fred called a few minutes ago and said she found something strange from the computer readout. She says there was some weird electrical activity around the building."

"That could have been magical force from the raising," said Wesley.

"No, she said that this activity began around three a.m." Buffy chose her words carefully. "She said it seemed like someone was trying to put a force field around the building."

"You mean someone was trying to protect this place?" Wesley asked. "Who besides us would know how to do that?"

They all contemplated this but no one could even make a guess.

1:43:29/1:43:30/1:43:31/1:43:32

"Goddamn it!"

Lorne looked up from the computers in surprise. In the two years he'd known her – years in which there had been a lot of intense situations -- he didn't think he'd ever heard Fred swear or sound so frustrated.

He approached Fred slowly. "I take it you're not having any luck finding Harmony?" he asked.

"My goodness, Lorne, such a penetrating insight and I didn't even have to sing 'Over the Rainbow'!" Fred practically spat out.

She was being snarly. It was almost as distressing as the possibility of the apocalypse. He backed away.

"Lorne, I'm sorry." Fred sounded it too. "It's just I'm so frustrated. I mean all this technology at our disposal and its still like looking for a needle in a haystack." She thought about it. "Although it might be easier to find a needle. I mean if it were made out of steel, a simple magnet would be able to—"

"I get it." Lorne was actually relieved to hear Fred rambling, it gave a certain sense of normality to this. "So there's nothing from any of the cameras at the home."

"No, the cameras were very helpful. They show Cordelia coming from her room, talking to someone and walking out. Alone."

"And because you can't see a vampire on a videotape, there's no way to tell how many of them are helping her," Lorne said, feeling some frustration himself.

"Right." Fred rubbed the edge of her nose. "How about you? Have any of your contacts in the demon part of the city got anything?"

It was a sign of their desperation that Lorne had spent most of the past few hours trying to talk with some of his connections. Ever since he had begun working at Wolfram & Hart most of his old contacts had evaporated. The evil demons didn't trust him because he was working with Angel, and the neutral demons didn't trust him because he was working for Evil Inc. He'd been trying to forge some new ones but it had been difficult for the same reasons.

"They're not eager to talk to me, which I can understand. Most of them say that they want see how this malefactum things plays out."

"Even if it ends up destroying the world?" Fred asked skeptically.

"You'd be surprised how many of them would consider it an improvement." Lorne was walking towards the computers when an idea struck him. "Maybe we're going at this the wrong way."

"I'm listening."

"As far as we know Cordelia and Harmony are together." Lorne said as he walked back. "But Ethan and Thompson didn't leave to pick her up. They must have arranged to meet up with them somewhere."

Fred shook her head. "It's a good idea. The only problem is we have no idea how to find them either. Ethan Rayne disappeared in a cloud of magic and Thompson is too smart to have left a trail."

"That's true," said Lorne. "Except Thompson couldn't just disappear. He had to drive away. "

Suddenly it clicked for Fred. "And he had to use one of the cars that we saw on the traffic cameras!" She leapt to her feet. "Lorne, you want to consider taking my place as the deep thinker at Angel-Slayer?"

"Let's not trade jobs yet. We still haven't found him."

"This could work. Keep your fingers crossed." Fred then looked at Lorne then looked at Lorne's hands and blushed. "Or—I mean--I-- "

Lorne let her off the hook. "They're fingers, honey, even though they don't fing." And as Fred ran over to the computerized projection screen ignoring the bon mot, he crossed them anyway.

1:50:05/1:50:06/1:50:07/1:50:08

Giles and Faith had never been entirely comfortable around each other. Maybe it was because, when she had first met him, he had Buffy and he was always comparing her to the charge that he had grown fond of. Or maybe it was because her first Watcher had died and she didn't trust authority figures generally. Whatever it was, they'd had a cool relationship at best even before Faith had gone down her path of darkness. They had both grown a great deal over the past five years but they were still very awkward around each other.

Which was why, after half their number went to meet up with Buffy and Spike in Elysian Park, Giles had become very ill at ease. The feeling grew when Faith suggested that they go back to the building where Dawn, Willow and Spike had been originally held. This didn't bother him so much as the fact that Xander insisted that Robin should ride with him instead of going with Faith. Giles had a pretty good idea what was going on but he said nothing—then or on the drive to the warehouse.

When they got out of the car and there was no sign of Xander or Robin, he knew he was in for it. When he turned around to face Faith she looked about as pissed at him as she'd been in a very long time.

"You know why Xander and Robin aren't here, right." she said quietly.

Giles looked at her. "I think I do."

Faith walked up to him. "If this had happened a couple of years ago, I would have ripped off your arms. As it is I'm seriously considering beating you to a pulp." Faith's voice was still very quiet.

"I understand that you're upset."

"No, you obviously don't. If you did you wouldn't have allowed a man who's probably dying—" Faith stumbled over the phrase "--out on the streets fighting vampires that could take what little time he had left!"

"It was his decision to keep going," Giles said quietly

"That's bullshit!" Faith was getting louder. "He was in no condition to make that choice and you fucking knew it!"

Faith was walking away from Giles now which was probably better for him. "This is not a typical situation and you know it, Faith--" he started

"And don't use the goddamn apocalypse card!" she shouted. "Dying for the good of the world isn't gonna cut it anymore, so drop the stiff upper lip crap!"

Giles knew that there was no way that he could win this argument so he tried his only defense. "I urged him not to do it. I told him that this was no way to end his life. He told me that he had no one else to spend his last hours. He told me he wanted to spend them with the people who mattered most to him. And he didn't want his death to be for nothing. Now maybe this was the wrong choice, but it was still his. And I decided to respect his wishes, even if you won't."

Faith stared at him for what seemed like a long time but was probably less than ten seconds. Finally she began to speak in a quiet tone. "We don't have time to waste yelling about what should have been done. And obviously we still need you today. So for now I will let this go." She was right in Giles' face. "But when this day is over I am going to the board and demand that you be fired."

Despite himself Giles was stunned. "Faith, I…"

"I don't want to hear it." Faith walked away. "Now let's go and see if we can find where these damn scum are."

Giles took a moment before following her into the warehouse. And as he walked, he tried to forget the look in Faith's eyes, the look that said they were done.

He wasn't surprised he couldn't.

1:56:12/1:56:13/1:56:14

Most of the people who worked at Angel-Slayer had long since adjusted themselves to keeping long hours and having odd schedules. Unfortunately, Leonard hadn't been working there long enough to build up any kind of internal mechanism to adjust to this kind of lifestyle.

As a result Leonard—who hadn't stayed up for thirty six straight hours since college -- was beginning to feel the effects of sleep deprivation.

He felt as if he was moving in some kind of fog. Walking was very difficult. He had trouble maintaining his balance. It took a great deal of effort for him just to look at the screen shots of the traffic cameras as his vision kept fading in and out.

He decided to get another cup of coffee. It was his sixth in the last eight hours and it had long since passed the point where it was helping, but he hoped that the act might rouse him. No such luck. It took him nearly thirty seconds to walk from his station to the break room and it was less than twenty feet away.

"Leonard, my man, you'll pardon me for saying this but you look like crap." Despite his words Gunn sounded sympathetic. "You need this more than I do." He handed Leonard a mug.

"I don't know why I'm bothering it's not like this stuff worked for me when I didn't need it too. " He swigged down half the mugs contents anyway. "How do you guys do it?" he asked curiously.

"Survive without sleep?" asked Gunn. Leonard nodded even though his head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. "For me it's pretty simple. Adrenalin. When you're fighting for your life your body has to give you a boost or—" Gunn made a throat slash gesture. "Eventually your body produces enough for you to keep you going under normal circumstances."

Leonard tried to look at Gunn—it was getting hard to focus again. "And for those who spend most of the battles on the sidelines?" he said doubtfully.

Gunn shrugged. "The body can manage to adjust to a lot of things. Couple of months—provided we get through this—and you…"

Whatever he was going to say died on his lips when he looked at Leonard. The young man was standing erect and had begun to shake. The mug quivered until it had fallen out of his hand.

Gunn had thought that Leonard was having a vision and moved forward to steady him. Which is why it shocked him when he found himself pushed back to one of the walls.

He didn't pick himself up because his memory had just clicked as to when he had seen this happen before. A month ago in a bar he had witnessed what could only be described as an evil spirit possessing Leonard's body.

It was unnerving enough but he didn't get frightened until Leonard began to speak.

At the exact same time in the convalescent home, Buffy, Angel, Wesley and Connor were freaking out as well. Because ten seconds earlier Spike, who, as far as they knew had no psychic powers to tap into, was doing the exact same thing as Leonard.

"What the hell is going on?" said Angel.

Before anyone could answer Spike opened his mouth.

"Hello, pals of mine," said the voice of Cordelia. "Bet you never thought you'd hear me talking again."

1:59:57/1:59:58/1:59:59/2:00:00