Winifred Burkle regained consciousness to see the three figures kneeling over her. In the dim light, she could recognize them: Angel, Gunn and Spike. As her eyes gained more focus, she could see stars in the night sky; the rain had stopped and the clouds had cleared. She became more aware of her other senses, and realized she was lying flat on the cobblestones of the alleyway and that she was a little chilly. She looked down at her body and realized why: she was barefoot, and her knit top and skirt were muddy and wet from the rain-- the same knit top and skirt she'd been wearing in her apartment when Illyria had taken over her body, when she felt herself dying in Wesley's arms.
"Oh, God! Wesley!" she moaned, then let her head sink back onto the cobblestones and her eyes roll back into their sockets.
"Illyria!" Angel said.
"Just let me die!" she sobbed weakly. "I want to be with Wesley. I promised him I would... I don't care if Illyria dies with me, she's the one who brought this on."
That raised the eyebrows of the three others. "Fred?" Gunn squinted at her.
"It's me, Charles," she murmured. "I mean, Illyria's still here, inside me, but I have control of my body back. Not that it matters much. Just let me die."
"Fred, if it's really you," Angel said, "don't even think like that!" He turned to Gunn. "We need to get both of you to the hospital." He added ruefully, "A real hospital, now that the one at Wolfram and Hart is no longer available."
"Sounds good to me," Gunn nodded, still clutching at his gut wound. "Mercer Memorial's the closest."
"Okay," Angel nodded. "Spike, you carry Gunn, I'll carry Fred."
"No!" Fred cried. "I said, let me die! Leave me!"
Angel sighed. "If we're gonna move, we don't have much time. Won't be long before sunrise. Spike, you go on ahead with Gunn."
"You got it, Mate," Spike nodded, then turned to Fred, kissed her forehead and held her shoulder. "Fred, if you're really back, thanks again for what you did for me, when I was about to go to Hell. I'll owe you forever."
"You're welcome, Spike," she murmured. "You're a good man worth saving... Have a good life. I hope you find happiness."
Gunn kissed her on the cheek. "Please come with us, Fred."
"No. Goodbye, Charles. Thanks for everything... And I forgive you for the sarcophagus. You didn't know."
"Angel," Spike said, "do what you can to change her mind, will you?"
"I will. Now go!"
"Okay," Spike said as he boosted Gunn to his feet. "Let's go, Charlie Boy!"
Gunn let out a short, sharp grunt as Spike slung him over his shoulder and started working his way over and around the piles of dead demons between them and the street. "It can't be that bad, Charlie," Spike smiled. "Illyria said you wouldn't last ten minutes in that fight. It's been over two hours, the fight's over, we won, and you're still with us!"
"Only two hours?" Gunn mumbled. "Felt more like two days. Besides, she did most of the killing."
Angel watched them disappear down the alley behind the dead dragon, then returned his attention to Fred. "Fred, if you're really back, I can't let you die! Let me take you..."
"No!" Fred moaned. "I want to be with Wesley. You have to respect that, Angel."
"Wes would want you to live. For him."
"I promised him we'd be together. He died thinking he was going where I was... and now he's not." She sniffled. "Angel, sometimes letting someone die is the right thing to do... Letting that person live can be cruel. You know that."
"Yeah," he nodded. "Not that I'm agreeing that this is the case with you. At least tell me where you're hurt so I can make you more comfortable."
"Not sure," Fred replied, then paused. The shock of having control of her body returned to her while still feeling the essence of Illyria within, combined with her grief over Wesley, had been so overwhelming that she hadn't been able to sort out the myriad of emotional and physical sensations. "I'm aching all over, like every fiber of my whole body's been on fire. I feel like I can't move too well. And I'm cold."
Angel looked around the alley. He had the clothing from several assorted demons to pick from, and he didn't have to step too far away from Fred to come back with the cloaks of two Rekrab demons and blanket her with them.
"You don't have any open wounds or I'd smell your blood," he told her. He sat on the cobblestones and then propped up her head in his lap.
"Thanks," she murmured. "I think I'm bleeding to death internally."
"Or maybe you're not dying at all," he tried to sound encouraging.
"Oh!" As weak as she was, her disappointment in that possibility was loud and clear. "Then just let me lie here. If I'm not dying, then it won't matter whether or not you take me to the hospital." After a few seconds' thought, she added, "And Angel, if I'm not dead in half an hour, I want you to drink my blood. Feast on me and let me join Wesley."
"You know I'm never gonna do that, Fred!"
"I'm begging you, Angel. Please. For me and for Wesley."
"Not gonna! Don't even think like that!"
Fred rolled her head slowly from side to side. Angel saw that she first eyed his sword on the ground next to him, and then scanned the assortment of demon weapons littering the alleyway.
"And don't go grabbing for the happy dagger, Juliet!" he said firmly. "Shakespeare be damned! This whole star-crossed lovers' suicide pact thing is way overrated."
She began sobbing.
"Talk to me, Fred. What happened? What do you remember?"
"Everything," she cried. "Illyria burning my body from the inside out, taking over it. I remember going to her temple with Knox and finding her army all dead... I remember her deciding to continue to exist in our world, asking Wesley to guide her... Wesley agreeing to do it because she looked like me... Spike and Wesley draining her powers and fighting her... I was trapped inside my own body without having any control over it."
"Oh, I know what that's like!"
"Illyria tapped into me when she wanted to appear to be me... like for my parents, and for Wesley at the end... She tapped into my soul... but I couldn't cry out for help! She wouldn't let me!"
"So if you're Fred, you weren't in some heavenly dimension?"
"Illyria talked about burning up my soul and some electrical spasms staying behind. But those spasms were my soul. It never left my body. I never really died. But even Illyria didn't realize it... or understand it."
"I want to believe that, but..."
"Then believe it, Angel." She looked deeply into his eyes with her own eyes flowing with tears. "It's really me. Why would Illyria do this?"
"Maybe because you're... she's tired of living without her demon kingdom to rule over. Wants me to kill her mortal coil in this world."
"No. Not exactly... After Wesley died... when we were all here in the alley... she told you and the others that she grieved for him." She sniffled. "She'd never felt anything like it before. That was my grief she was feeling. Or maybe she loved Wesley too... and connected with my love and my grief. That part's all mixed up inside me... It was both of us fighting and killing the demons. We wanted to make sure you and Charles and Spike made it... But now that she's felt real pain and loss... she's sorry for all the pain she's caused us all... So sorry that when we were done fighting, she gave me back my body... even though she knows that I want to die... and that she'll die with me."
Angel stroked her hair. "I'm not going to let you die, Fred!"
"Then you believe it's me?"
"I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. All the more reason to help you to live."
"No. Whether or not I'm really me, either way, let me die and you get to kill Illyria... for all the pain and misery she's caused all of us... And Wesley's waiting for me, Angel."
"I'm taking you to the hospital, Fred."
"No! And don't give me the 'Things will get better, you have a lot to live for' speech. I have nothing to live for here without Wesley... and Illyria has nothing either."
Angel sighed. "Now you're making me doubt that you're really Fred. Look, I can't argue with you all night. If I'm taking you to the hospital, we have to move soon. We're running out of darkness. Dawn's coming."
"Dawn's here!" another female voice interjected, vaguely familiar to Angel and with a bit of a smirk in it. He turned to see a pair of women's boots on the cobblestones beside him, with the point of a broadsword between them. He followed the boot calves, the black jeans and the sword upward until he came to a familiar face. Older and atop a taller and curvier frame than he'd remembered. Then he realized that the last time he'd seen her was three and a half years earlier and from a distance, at her mother's funeral in Sunnydale. He'd waited until she and the others had left Buffy alone at the graveside before coming up to console Buffy and sit with her the rest of the night. Now with the more mature features and some blonde highlights in her long hair, on top of the dark outfit and sword, she looked even more like her older sister than he'd remembered. And now taller than her.
"Dawn?" he squinted at her. "What the hell are you doing here?" As he asked, he saw over a dozen more teenage girls working their way from the street around the piles of demon corpses, and forming up behind her, each holding a weapon of some kind. He recognized most of them as the same Slayers who had accompanied Andrew on his mission to retrieve Dana, the psychotic molestation victim who'd been activated as a Slayer while in a mental hospital. The blond girl closest to Dawn held the red-bladed scythe that he remembered Buffy using to kill Caleb the Evil Preacher.
"We heard there was another apocalypse brewing," Dawn said casually. "Is it over, or are you just taking five?"
"I think it's over," Angel shrugged. He noticed Andrew bringing up the rear of the Slayer contingent, looking nervously into every nook and cranny of the alleyway, and immediately knew why. Don't worry, Andrew. You just missed him, and there's no way I'm letting Buffy's kid sis in on our little secret!
Her head still in Angel's lap, Fred let out a moan.
"What's wrong with her?" Dawn asked. "Who is she?"
"Fred!" Andrew gasped as he saw her.
"I think it's Fred," Angel shrugged again.
"You think?" Dawn raised her eyebrows.
"Long story," Angel sighed. "Fred Burkle, this is Dawn Summers, Buffy's lit-- uh, younger sister. And you remember Andrew."
"Is she all right?" Andrew asked.
"I'm not sure," Angel said. "She could be bleeding to death internally. Or she could just have a broken heart."
Fred's eyes opened wider and she lifted her head off Angel's lap as he continued to explain, "She and Wesley were... Well, Wesley didn't make it."
"Wesley's dead?" Dawn felt her own heart sinking. Even though she'd resented the way the Council had sacked Giles as Buffy's Watcher and had forced Wesley upon them all, she never held it against him and had grown to like him over time. Another loss in her young life.
"Oh, poor Pryce!" Andrew hung his head.
"Oh, my God!" Fred gasped. They'd paid little notice to the fact that she had propped herself up on her elbows and was now squinting as she scanned around the girls now gathered in a semicircle around her and Angel. "It's not too late! We can bring him back!"
"Fred?" Angel asked. "How? What are you talking about?"
Galvanized, Fred sat fully upright and continued looking around, more frantically now. "I can sense-- Illyria can sense an energy of some kind. One that just got here."
"Okay, so she's not bleeding to death internally," Dawn sighed to herself.
"She's not exactly sure what that energy is," Fred continued, breathing heavily and excitedly, "but she can use it to bring Wesley back!" She turned toward Cyndi, who was behind Dawn holding the scythe. "Illyria can't seem to focus on it, but it seems to be around you!"
Cyndi held the weapon out toward her. "Is it this? This is the Slayer scythe. The scythe that gave us all our powers."
Fred stared at it intently, touched it momentarily. "No," she shook her head. "Illyria can sense the energy from it, but it's a different energy. The energy that can bring Wesley back... it can cross dimensions, and that's what we need to pull his soul back!"
Oh, God! She's talking about ME! Dawn realized.
Fred rose up on her feet, rather unsteadily but excited now. "We don't have much time," she said to Cyndi as she draped one of the cloaks over her shoulders. "It's like when your heart stops and you try CPR. Illyria can use some of your energy to reverse the cellular damage to Wesley's body, but there comes a point when it's irreversible."
"My energy?" Cyndi asked.
"Please!" Fred grabbed her shoulder. "We don't have much time. Illyria was wrong about my soul being gone, but she's sure about Wesley's this time. We have to get back to his body before he's gone forever!"
"Where is Wesley's body?" Dawn asked.
"It's in a mansion in Holmby Hills," Fred replied. "Do you have a car? It's a fifteen to twenty minute drive this time of night, but at least an hour and a half walk, and it may be too late by then."
"Cyndi, get in the Hummer!" Dawn said sharply, then turned back to Fred. "I'm driving. Let's go! Amanda, you're in charge here. Keep an eye on Angel and be ready in case there's a Round Two from the Big Bads."
"Got it," Amanda nodded.
"But Dawn, I don't..." Cyndi started.
"I'll explain on the way!" Dawn told her, then as they started down the alley back toward the street, she reassured Fred, "Wesley was my friend too. From a long time ago."
The three of them worked their way around the dead demons toward the street. Fred stepped rather quickly and steadily on the wet cobblestones despite still being barefoot, driven and determined to save her love.
The Hummer and two vans were parked right at the entrance to the alleyway. Dawn unlocked the Hummer with her remote and got behind the wheel, handing her sword to Cyndi who still had the scythe. Fred got in the front passenger seat as Cyndi got in the back with both weapons, then Dawn pulled out onto the empty street and headed for the freeway.
"Oh, Fred, this is my cousin Cyndi. Turns out our grandpa was a legendary vamp hunter back in the sixties and seventies, and apparently the Slayer gene runs through his bloodline."
"Yeah, I've heard of him," Fred nodded. "Willow told me, but I'd actually heard of him even before that. Without ever seeing the TV show."
"Yeah, the Slayer gene's fine," Cyndi said, "but Dawn, I don't have any special cross-dimensional energy. I don't know what she's talking about!"
"I do," Dawn said, then after a beat, she added: "To both."
"What... what do you mean?" Fred asked.
"You don't know exactly what that energy is that you sense, let's keep it that way. Very few beings in the entire universe can detect it at all. I don't like to advertise it, not to the other Slayers, not even to my own cousins who are Slayers. But I'm the one who has the energy. I also have some kind of masking powers which is why even though you could sense it, you couldn't focus on it. But if you think it can help bring back Wesley and we're in a time crunch to use it, okay, I'll give it a shot."
"Thanks, Dawn. It'll work. I know it'll work... Uh, Illyria knows it'll work."
Dawn squinted sideways at her. "Fred, who the heck is Illyria?"
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