Buffy sat crossed legged in the middle of an enormous circle of disgusting smelling powder with Xander sitting opposite. Willow and Giles walked round the interior in concentric circles, waving sticks of even more disgusting smelling herbs. Buffy grimaced.

"Is this gonna take much longer cos I'm starting to feel queasy over here…"

Willow paused her chanting in Latin to throw Buffy a silencing look.

"Ok, non-magical person with no idea what's going on shutting up…"

A strange purple haze began to cloud the Slayer's vision as the vapours filled the room. Xander looked like he was desperately trying not to vomit.

"Woah, I know I only got the one eye these days but is it just me or is this room full of purple smoke?"

Buffy waved the lilac tendrils away from her face, trying not to cough, while Xander just stared around them wide-eyed.

"So, erm, we're about to do a spell that's going to send us flying through space to the other side of the world thanks to a mystical message from a dead man?"

Giles' shot him a withering glare and Xander raised his hands in defence.

"Yeah, sure, I'm full of confidence about this. Really! I'm confidence guy over here."

The purple haze began to swirl around the circle faster and faster. Giles and Willow held their bundles of smoking herbs above their heads, chanting louder and louder. Buffy closed her eyes to steady herself and felt Xander shuffle closer to her. Her skin began to prickle, goosebumps cascading down her arms as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

Buffy felt like her body was being pulled in a thousand directions and pushed in a million more. Opening her eyes, she caught Xander's terrified expression before he screwed his eyes shut and started mumbling to himself. Buffy swallowed hard, trying to repress her gag reflex as the four of them seemed to spin faster and faster, in time with the chanting.

There was a deafening 'pop' and Buffy was being slammed in to the ground, the others falling around her. Groaning, they each brushed themselves off and looked around, taking in the large building they had landed in. Willow frowned.

"This is…"

She trailed off, shaking her head in confusion, as someone cleared their throat loudly and purposefully behind them.

"Can I help you?"

The four turned to face the young man. Although he seemed surprisingly calm at having just watched four strangers drop out of the sky, there was a look of deep suspicion that worried Buffy. She knew this lad could be trouble if he wanted to be. And yet, there was something so familiar about him.

He folded his arms, his eyes narrowed.

"Who the hell are you lot? And what are you doing here?"

Giles took a tentative step forward.

"My name is Rupert Giles and we've just, well, travelled here in an effort to fight the upcoming apocalyptic battles."

Buffy rolled her eyes.

"And if you believe that…"

The young man scanned the group from beneath a deeply furrowed brow. The way he was standing, the look in his eye, Buffy couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity as the lad directed his questions to Giles.

"Are you from another dimension?"

Willow moved to Giles' side.

"No, no, we just came from Italy. We were able to do some magic to get us here quickly. We're both pretty handy with the wicca. We were worried about our friends."

The young man raised an eyebrow and pointed at the redhead.

"You're Willow, aren't you?"

She nodded, open mouthed.

"And this is the Hyperion Hotel, right? Where Angel was holed up until about a year ago. So… who are you?"

"I'm Connor. I'm Angel's son."

Giles' eyebrows shot through the roof and Buffy felt like she had just been kicked in the gut. Xander just shrugged. Willow stepped forward, looking at him with her head tilted to one side.

"I… I've met you. When you all still lived here, I remember you."

Buffy turned to her closest friend with a look of disbelief, the pain obvious in her eyes.

"You knew? You knew Angel had a son and you didn't tell me?"

Connor took a step forward and sighed heavily.

"What's your name?"

"Buffy, Buffy Summers."

He looked surprised for a second.

"The Slayer, yeah? The one that died but got brought back? That seems to be a bit of trend round here."

She just stared at him, and his cheeks began to flush.

"Yeah, ok, well when Angel went to work for Wolfram and Hart, they did some magic on everyone's memories. I was raised with a whole other family way out of town. I had a whole other group of friends, whole other interests. At least until I got rundown by a car and absolutely nothing happened to me. Not a scratch. My parents brought me here to figure out what was wrong with me and I ended up meeting Angel. When the spell was broken, it all came back to me. That whole other life. Living here, Quortoth, the things I did, Cordelia…"

The boy looked utterly heart broken for a moment before he swallowed hard and continued.

"Think about it Buffy, you already knew."

She opened her mouth to argue with him but she knew he was right. She slumped on to the circular sofa in the middle of the lobby feeling lost and confused. Willow sat down beside her, a reassuring hand squeezing her knee. The wicca looked up at the boy.

"So how'd you end up here again? I mean, the news said that there was a huge battle going on. We came to help."

Connor shrugged and sat on the counter in front of them.

"When Angel suddenly appeared at the coffee shop… Well, he's not exactly a bright sunny daytime kind of guy, right? I knew something was up. I went back to Wolfram and Hart, and it was totally empty. I got upstairs to where Angel's office was and he was fighting this big dude. They were really going at it, you know? So, I tried to help, but I got knocked out for my troubles. When I came to, Angel was ok and the big guy was dead. He sent me away, told me to get the hell out of dodge, and I planned to. But, I couldn't. I went back. All that fighting, I couldn't just leave him."

He looked up at Willow, almost like he was seeking her reassurance that he had done the right thing. She just smiled and he smiled back shyly.

"Anyway, Cordelia ended it. Big bright white light, all the baddies just disappeared. And I came back."

Giles frowned.

"Came back from where?"

Connor paused, obviously thinking.

"I don't know. I was dead and then I wasn't. Weird…"

Xander took a step forward, an incredulous look on his face.

"Hang on, I'ml stuck on the whole 'Cordelia ended it' part. I mean, I don't want to sound cruel here or anything but Cordelia died right?"

Connor shrugged.

"As far as I know, yeah. You'd have to ask Angel about it, I wasn't around. But she's some kind of higher being now. The Powers That Be recruited her I guess."

Xander looked around the group open mouthed.

"Is anyone else scared that Cordelia is a higher being? I mean, Cordelia? She's the best they can do?"

He looked at Buffy for some form of support but there was nothing she could say. Her mind was elsewhere. Connor was right, she had known about him. She'd been forced to forget and now she just felt… Cheated. She felt cheated. The hope was starting to slip away again.

Buffy turned her eyes to Angel's son.

"How is everyone else?"

Connor cleared his throat and stared at his feet, his voice suddenly quiet.

"Wesley was killed. And Gunn. My dad's out the back right now."

His dad. Buffy felt like she'd been winded again. Angel really had a son. He called him dad. She got to her feet.

"Out the back?"

He jerked a thumb towards the doors to the garden. Staring, Buffy could see that all too familiar silhouette ahead of her lit by some kind of bonfire. She turned to Connor, pointing towards the flames.

"That's them, isn't it? The fire? That smell…"

He nodded silently, unable to look at her. She turned slowly and made her way outside, standing next to the love of her life.

Buffy knew that he knew she was there. Both of them always did. Not that he made any effort to register her presence. She followed his gaze down to the pyre, the flames licking the edges of the shadows. She felt his grief. Even though she had not met Gunn, she had heard a lot about him from the others. Angel always spoke highly of him whenever they talked. And Wesley…

She knew that he had changed a lot since hooking up with Angel in LA. He was not the Watcher she had loathed and laughed at when they first met. He had grown up and fought as hard and as passionately as the best Champions she had ever seen. She mourned his passing.

She wanted to tell him how she felt and she wanted him to do the same. All she wanted to do, all she'd ever wanted to do, was to have him turn those deep dark eyes on her and bear his soul. Buffy wanted him to tell her how he was feeling so she could help him, so she could tell him how much she still loved him.

Buffy knew that it was never going to happen so she resisted, instead choosing to just stand beside him and watch the flames. Minutes passed and, without turning her eyes away from the pyre, Buffy slowly reached out to Angel and grasped his hand. She squeezed it reassuringly but he made no indication that he had even noticed.

They stood there in silence, the minutes ticking by, until Buffy decided she should just leave him to his grief. Suddenly, just as she was about to withdraw, he squeezed her hand back, rearranging their grip so their fingers were intertwined.

She looked up at him and a few moments later he turned to look back down at her. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. She offered him a supportive smile and he responded with a slight nod before turning back to watch the fire. She stared at his profile, wanting nothing more than to pull him towards her and tell him just how much he meant to her.

Instead, Buffy turned back to face the flames, resting her head on his shoulder and feeling him gently kissing her crown. Despite the grief, she felt a new sensation rising within her.

She had hope.