"You're a very stupid, stupid little girl for a demon goddess!" Cyvus Vail snarled at Fred. The head of the red-skinned, red-robed sorcerer-demon had somehow regenerated and he had arisen. He was holding the same Gurkha-style knife he had used to gut Wesley initially and was stepping toward them. "You should know that using magic to bring back the de--ARRGH!"
Before it even registered in his mind, the other dark-haired girl had whipped out a curved Bringer's knife from her jacket and thrown it into his heart with such force that only the handle and hilt protruded. He dropped to his knees as Dawn approached him, sword in hand.
"You were about to tell her that she should have known that using magic to bring back the dead has consequences, and that demons can hitch a ride back with the returning soul," Dawn smirked. "Well, I can't vouch for her knowledge, but when you grow up with the Slayer for a big sister, you pick up a lot of stuff." The shock was frozen on Vail's face as, with a single swing of Dawn's sword, he lost his head for the second time in one night.
"Awww!" Cyndi said as she stepped up behind her cousin, waving the scythe. "I wanted to split him vertically from the crotch up, like Buffy's been teaching me!"
Dawn reached down and pulled the headless demon corpse by its bloody collar. She held it up in a standing position as she retrieved her Bringer's knife. "Have at it, just to play safe with this guy."
Cyndi adjusted her grip on the scythe and swung it in a downward and then upward arc. Dawn let go and jumped out of the way as the blade connected with Vail's crotch and ran upward, the carcass splitting and falling two ways, the way Buffy had described her killing of Caleb the Evil Preacher to them countless times.
Dawn leaned over and picked up Vail's severed head by his long, wispy strands of white hair, then held it so it was face-to-face with her. "And if you ever get another opportunity to reanimate, quit while you're ahead!"
Fred, Wesley and Cyndi all groaned loudly.
"You and Buffy!" Cyndi rolled her eyes. "Dawn, please tell me the bad puns aren't part of the genetic thing too!"
Cyndi rode shotgun on the way back to the Hyperion; she and Dawn were both sure their spider senses were clear of any impending threat. Wesley and Fred sat in the back seat.
"I told you to stop looking like her!" Wesley said coldly.
"No!" Fred's sorrow and anguish had given way to resentment. "I don't care if you don't believe it's me, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I've got my body back and I'm keeping it. Illyria and I have a new understanding."
The two of them remained quiet for the rest of the drive; Wesley turned his back to Fred and stared out the window, while she kept fighting the urge to reach out to touch him.
It was getting light and the streets were starting to awaken with activity by the time they returned to the Hyperion. Once inside the lobby, Wesley was embraced fiercely by Angel, Andrew and a pretty young blonde woman whom Dawn had never seen before. Amanda and the rest of the Slayers were seated in the waiting area.
"It worked!" Angel cried out. "Welcome back, Wes, old buddy!"
"Yes, thank you, Angel," Wesley said distantly.
After hugging Wesley, the blonde did the same to Fred and her eyes began to water. "Fred, if it's really you, I'm glad you're back too!"
"That's the problem now," Fred sniffed. "Wesley doesn't believe it's me either."
"Gotta be honest, Fred," Angel said. "I'm not a hundred percent either." He put his arm around the blonde's waist in a way that raised Dawn's eyebrows. "Excuse me. Dawn, Cyndi, this is Nina."
"Hi!" Dawn smiled, quietly assessing the situation and trying to figure out how much of this to tell her sister.
Fred stepped over to the nearest empty couch and collapsed onto it, weeping quietly. Wesley made a point of sitting in another couch at the other end of the area, averting eye contact.
"Wes," Angel came up to him, "for whatever it's worth, before Dawn and the others showed up with this energy or whatever it is that brought you back, Fred asked me to drink her blood and kill her if she didn't die of her injuries. She wanted to be with you. That doesn't sound very Illyria-like to me."
"Maybe what she said is true about Illyria feeling guilty and being willing to die to make up for the pain. That doesn't make her Fred."
"What's the harm in giving her the benefit of the doubt?"
"Harm? It would make a mockery of the memory of Fred's soul."
"Wesley, it's me!" Fred cried, her voice weak and exhausted. She pointed to her chest. "Fred's soul is right here! What will it take to convince you?"
"Nothing will convince me. As I've said before, you've always been a convincing liar, Illyria."
"Wes," Dawn said, "you said when you were in your afterlife dimension, Fred wasn't there. Isn't it possible...?"
"That doesn't mean she isn't in some other afterlife dimension."
"Too bad Lorne isn't around anymore," Angel shook his head. "He could read her soul and we'd know for sure."
"Oh," Andrew lowered his head as he spoke up. "He didn't survive?"
"I'm pretty sure he did," Angel replied. "We gave him a relatively safe but unpleasant task. But he said he was out after this. Not to try to contact him."
"But this is an unforeseen development," Andrew brightened. "Maybe he won't mind. He was a Deathwok from Pylea, right?"
"Yeah," Angel nodded.
"What was his full name?"
"Krevlornswath."
Andrew looked around. "You guys have a piano or other keyboard instrument around?"
"In the cocktail lounge. Right through those doors."
"You're going to try to summon this guy Lorne?" Dawn asked Andrew.
"Hey, sometimes old skills from past careers can come in handy," Andrew smiled.
Fred stood slowly as Andrew, Dawn, Angel and Nina started toward the lounge. "Better have all the Slayers around for this," she said as she followed after them. "If anything goes wrong, the rest of the Pylean Deathwoks aren't anything like Lorne."
Dawn nodded and turned toward the Slayers. "Ladies..."
They arose and followed. Grudgingly, Wesley got up and joined them.
Andrew sat at the dusty old baby grand, lifted the keyboard cover and played a chromatic scale to check the tuning. Then he began playing a series of chords in a repetitive pattern and chanting along with them. Dawn recognized the words as Babylonian, with "Krevlornswath" thrown in occasionally. After a few moments, the air shimmered beside the piano and then a handsome, green-skinned demon with red horns and eyes, and dressed in a leather sports coat, materialized.
"Oh, it's you!" Lorne glared at Andrew with irritation. Looking around and seeing where he was, he turned to Angel. "Angel-babe, I asked you not to look for me!"
"This is an emergency, Lorne. Hopefully a happy emergency. Something's happened with Illyria and Fred's body."
Lorne looked at Fred's bare feet and the demon cloak. "I'll say!"
"Lorne, it's me! I'm Fred! My soul never left my body and Illyria's given me control back. But Wesley won't believe me. He thinks Illyria's pulling some kind of trick." Her eyes watered again. "Could you please read my soul? Prove it's really me?"
The irritation disappeared from Lorne's face. "If there's any chance at all that you're telling me the truth," he smiled, "how could I refuse?" He turned to Andrew. "Move!"
Andrew got off the piano bench and Lorne took his place. "Pick a song," Lorne said to Fred.
Fred thought for a few seconds. Somehow her mind went back to the desperate, seemingly hopeless moment in the alley the night before, when the hordes of demons from the Wolf, Ram and Hart descended upon them. She smiled and whispered in Lorne's ear. He began a series of recognizable chords, which would have been even more familiar had they been played on a banjo, as Fred started singing shyly and nervously:
Raindrops keep falling on my head,
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed,
Nothing seems to fit!
Those--
Raindrops keep falling on my--
"Fred!" Lorne cried out. He immediately stopped playing, got up and had his arms wrapped around her as he tearfully kissed her on the cheek, with Wesley staring in open-mouthed disbelief and Angel smiling. "Fredkins! It's really you!"
Fred sobbed wordlessly in Lorne's arms and into his shoulder as he turned to Wesley. "Wes, you horse's patoot! How could you even doubt her?" He separated and held Fred at arm's length by the waist, his voice choking with tears. "This is Fred! Yes, Illyria's still inside too, but this is Fred's soul singing and talking to us! Everything she says is true!"
"OHHHH!" Wesley moaned loudly as he rushed over and wrapped his arms around Fred. The two of them sobbed loudly as they kissed each other on the lips several times, and then he slid to his knees, keeping his arms around her and pressing the side of his face to her abdomen. "Oh, Winifred, Winifred, my love! Forgive me! I'm so sorry! I was such a fool! I didn't dare hope it could be true!"
She dropped to her knees as well, and then they resumed their sobbing, passionate kisses. "It's okay, Wesley. You were trying to honor my memory, and I love you for that! I was just so scared that you'd never believe me!"
"Oh, Fred! My Fred! I thought I'd never kiss you or hold you in my arms again in this life! Or the next!"
"Me either! Oh, Wesley! Wesley!"
"I love you, Winifred Burkle!"
"And I love you, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce!"
They clung to each other as they slowly stood up, still sobbing, and then both hugged Lorne. "Thank you, Lorne!" Fred whispered.
"My pleasure," Lorne kissed her cheek again.
The couple then turned to Dawn, whose own eyes were streaming, as were those of Amanda, Andrew and most of the Slayers, none of whom even knew the couple. "Thank you, Dawn," they said simultaneously as they hugged her.
"Sure. Anytime," she sniffled.
"Andrew," Fred leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Thanks for summoning Lorne! You're a lifesaver!"
"Glad to be a part of this," Andrew cried, his voice breaking up.
They headed back to the lobby. Angel stood back and held Lorne's shoulder, then waited until the lounge was empty except for the two of them. "Just so you know before you go back," he said softly, "Gunn and Spike are alive too."
"Oh, thank God! I thought it was just the three of you left."
"Spike took Gunn to Mercer Memorial just before the Slayer team arrived. I called a little while ago. Gunn's still in surgery but is expected to live. Spike apparently bugged out as soon as he dropped him off." He smiled. "Any luck at all, he's on his way to Rome on a fool's errand." He tilted his head toward the crowd. "The girl in the black with the long hair, that's Buffy's kid sister. She and Buffy still don't know Spike's alive."
"And we ain't telling them!" Lorne laughed.
"Obviously you're not, since you're heading back to dimensions unknown."
"Nope," Lorne smiled and let a tear run down his cheek. "Now that Fred's back, I think I'll stick around a while. No sign of any happy endings where I was heading. Not this kind, anyway."
"There weren't any signs of that here either when you left last night."
"So I was wrong! Sue me!"
"Can't! My law firm just went out of business!"
Fred and Wesley had seated themselves on the nearest couch in the lobby and continued kissing and caressing. It wasn't so much sexual contact as sensual, feeling each other's bodies and expressing their love. They were oblivious to the crowd still in the lobby with them.
"Hey, you two!" Angel said as he came out of the cocktail lounge with Lorne. "Slayers or not, they're still a bunch of innocent and impressionable teenage girls. Get a room!" Then he added: "You've got your pick of over a hundred upstairs!"
They both laughed. "Shall we?" Fred smiled.
She and Wesley kept their arms around each other with her head resting on his shoulder as they got up and headed for the stairs. "I'd carry you up," he smiled at her, "but I'm pretty worn out. Recently dead, you know." They both giggled like kids.
As they started up the steps, Dawn, Amanda and some of the Slayers began clapping lightly. Fred blushed with embarrassment, then looked down at herself which made her blush even more. "God, I'm such a mess!"
"You are as beautiful a sight to me as you've ever been!" Wesley smiled tearfully. "But if you like... I boxed up all your things and put them in storage in the basement here. I couldn't part with them." He paused. "So all your clothes and shoes are downstairs. I'll go get you some."
"Later," she smiled. "I guess I won't need them for a little while."
"Good, then!" he laughed. "No further delays."
They reached the stair landing, out of sight of the others. "Wesley," Fred looked at him, "Illyria wants to tell you something, and I'm going to let her say it herself. Okay?"
"Okay."
She separated from him and stood straight, then her eyes and hair glowed blue, sending a chill down his spine. "Wesley," she said without expression, "it pleases me that you are alive again. You have been a kind and very helpful guide..." Her voice trailed off, her lips trembled, and then she let out an old, familiar goofy snorting giggle. She threw her arms around him and squeezed him tight. "Aw, screw it!" she drawled with Fred's voice. "I can't separate Fred's feelings and memories from my own anymore, and I'm never, ever gonna want to!"
She pulled back and placed her arms over his shoulders. She now had Fred's tearful smile, her eyes-- despite the glowing blue--having Fred's softness. "Wesley, I'm so sorry for the pain I caused both of you, and I'm so happy Fred and Dawn and I were able to bring you back. I also love you, Wesley. And I love Fred. I never felt or understood human feelings and emotion before last night, but they're the most intense and beautiful things I've ever experienced. Especially love. I'm going to enjoy being inside Fred from now on, instead of the other way around."
They both closed their eyes as they kissed. When he opened his, she was still glowing blue for a moment and then she was Fred again.
"You both kiss the same," he noted with a smile. "Fred and Illyria."
"That's 'cause she's learning from me," she smiled back, then blushed again. "And whatever I don't know, we'll learn together."
Dawn had laid her sword on the floor, pulled off her jacket and boots, and stretched out on the bed. A cell phone call to Buffy and Giles brought confirmation from the Westbury coven: the Senior Partners of Wolfram and Hart had indeed been driven into deep remission by the wholesale slaughter of their demon horde, by some blue-haired demon goddess assisted by an ensouled vampire and other fighters.
"So Angel hadn't gone over to the other side after all," Buffy said, sounding very relieved if not proud.
"That was an incredibly risky ruse for him and the others," Giles added.
"Well, as Andrew figures," Dawn replied, "it wasn't so much a ruse as a naive hope that they could change things from the inside. But I didn't think Angel could be that naive. God, even George Bailey knew that Henry Potter was trying to get him on his payroll so he could take George's power away."
"George Bailey?" Buffy asked. "I don't remember him. Was that in Goblet of Fire or Order of the Phoenix?"
Dawn laughed, although she could never be sure if her sister was kidding or not. "Henry Potter. The rich old bad guy in It's a Wonderful Life! George Bailey was Jimmy Stewart's character."
Silence from Buffy didn't resolve her doubts.
"So when Angel and company didn't sell out," Giles spoke up, "it came down to a confrontation to the death with the higher-ups of Wolfram and Hart."
"I still don't have all the details," Dawn said, "but yeah."
"Still incredibly dangerous in any case, from what we know of Wolfram and Hart's Senior Partners," Giles said. "So where does this blue-haired demon goddess fit in?"
"She took over Fred Burkle's body a few months ago."
"Oh, dear Lord!"
Dawn could practically hear Giles turning white, over the long silence that followed.
"That call we got from Angel," Giles finally continued. "Asking for Willow's help because Fred was dying. That was a legitimate life-or-death call for help. It wasn't some plot to use Willow's powers for the benefit of Wolfram and Hart."
"No. It wasn't." Dawn was answering truthfully. Despite her love for and loyalty toward Giles-- and even their own biological father conceded that he was the preeminent father figure in the Summers sisters' lives-- she decided it wasn't going to kill him to stew in his own guilt, at least for a couple of minutes.
"That poor young lady!" his voice shaking, loud and clear over the cell phone. "I'm responsible. I helped to kill that girl!"
"Wait a second, Dawnie," Buffy whispered. Dawn heard her hanging up her extension.
"Giles," Buffy spoke up again after a few seconds, a little fainter and echoey. Dawn figured she had been talking from her own office but had stepped over to Giles' and was now coming over his speaker phone. "Remember, you were the one who spent days and days telling me that the great Generals of history have always had to make tough decisions, for the greater good."
"Yeah," Dawn added with fake somberness, continuing the game. "From what he told me, Angel had a tough choice too. Fred's life or that of tens of thousands of other innocents." That, too, was true.
"It's cold comfort," Giles said. "Knowing you've done the right thing does not lessen the pain of the choice any." After a pause, he continued, "Dawn, the seers tell us that after the Wolfram and Hart Senior Partners went into remission, the demon goddess did as well. Can you confirm that?"
"Yes," she replied. "The demon goddess is no longer a threat."
"What does that mean, exactly?" Buffy asked.
"Well, that's part of the main thing I wanted to tell you," Dawn's voice brightened. "We're not coming home until tomorrow or Friday. We're all staying over, here at the Hyperion."
"Well, that is prudent," Giles acknowledged. "No telling how deep the remission of the Senior Partners really is. Or if this this demon goddess may reappear as a threat in another body all of a sudden."
"Actually, we're staying because Angel's throwing a big party tonight!"
"Rather callous of him, isn't it," Giles said quickly. "Considering how recently it's been since they lost Miss Burkle. And how much everyone seems to have loved her." Dawn knew that Giles could never really separate Angel from his evil Angelus persona, and therefore never forgave him for the killing of Giles's true love Jenny, so the comment didn't surprise her.
"Actually," Dawn smiled to herself, "he's throwing the kind of party I always wanted to throw for you, Buffy, a couple of years ago. But your mood and the timing for it were never right."
"And that kind of party is...?" Buffy asked.
"A Welcome Back From the Dead Party!" Dawn giggled girlishly.
After the drama of Fred and Wesley's reunion had subsided, they'd divided the Slayer contingent into three shifts to maintain a constant guard against a sudden resurgence of the Senior Partners, four Slayers per shift with Dawn, Andrew and Amanda each supervising a shift. Andrew and four of the Slayers on his team took the first shift in the lobby of the Hyperion while the others either took rooms upstairs and slept, or went on a munchie run.
After her phone call to Buffy and Giles, Dawn went to sleep, but didn't need too much. It was a combination, she figured, of a Slayer's ability to go without sleep when she had to, the fact that she was in charge of this whole expedition, and her exhilaration and adrenaline rush at having been part of bringing Wesley back from the dead. By the time she awoke sometime mid-afternoon, she was fully rested. She got dressed, took her broadsword and went down to the lobby, where she saw that Amanda had also awakened, and had joined Andrew and the four Slayers on his shift around a Dungeons and Dragons gameboard.
"What's up, guys?" she said. "I presume no news is good news."
"Hey, Dawn!" Amanda smiled. "We're starting a new game. You want to join us?"
"No, thanks," Dawn replied. "I could never get into that." After a pause, she smiled and gave a more diplomatic addendum: "Although I understand this is what got you two lovebirds bonded together."
"Maureen's new to D and D, too," Andrew said. "We can teach you."
"Nah," Dawn said. "I noticed a mini-mall a couple of blocks down when we came back from Holmby Hills this morning. Thought I'd pick up some stuff. Anybody want..."
She stopped short as she heard footsteps coming from the direction of the basement stairs. The four Slayers did, too, and they rose from the game board and went for their weapons.
"There's someone in the basement," Maureen noted.
"Or some thing!" Dawn added.
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