"I didn't expect to see you… this soon," Cordelia smiled brightly appreciating being surprised for the first time since returning. She called into the warehouse, "Gunn and Fred are here!"

Connor stalked over as Gunn and Fred entered. "Is Wesley going to be OK with people knowing where we are?"

"That's the first thing you say to us after sinking your father to the bottom of the ocean?" Fred's disgust dripped off the words.

"He's fine." Connor shrugged. "Wes will be pissed though."

"He won't care. We're moving in a couple days." Cordelia scoffed with a wave of her hand, and Connor rolled his eyes and walked away.

"And give up all this?" Gunn asked. "This looks like how I used to live. Where is Wes anyway? We need to talk to him."

"At work. He left before I got here. But is there something I can do?"

Fred pushed her glasses up her nose. "We wanted to get as many innocent people to another dimension before the big show goes down as possible."

"Willow's already working on it. She's in Wesley's office if you want to help her." Cordy pointed to a room walled off from the rest of the open space that had a huge window. Inside Willow had six books open in front of her. From behind one wall a man with bleach blond hair came into view to look over her shoulder.

"Who's that with her?"

"That's Spike."

"The vamp that attacked Buffy. That Spike?" Gunn asked now suspicious.

"That was before he got a soul. He's harmless as a kitten now."

"I heard that!" Spike yelled from the office.

"And your point?" Cordelia turned back to Fred and Gunn. "I'd offer you something but for how many people live here, there's little in the way of food. But we've got water, straight from the tap of course, but at least it's wet."

Fred bounced to the refrigerator. "I'm sure I can whip…" when she saw the lack of contents her face fell, "nothing up."

"That's OK. We'll just see what Willow needs us to do," Gunn said. The couple went to the office.

"It's not that simple, Spike!" Willow stood, so she was on the same level as the vampire. "I can trans dimensionally shift only about a hundred people at a time without hurting them with just the spell, but the thing about dimensions is that they shift and move, constantly splitting off into new ones. We need a stable form of a mass transportation. Not to mention we'll have to split the population. We can't send them all to one place or we risk them overpopulating their new planet, potentially creating a mass extinction."

"You're the most powerful witch in the world. So make a new spell."

"You really are brain dead aren't you? The mathematical algorithms and quantum science is far above my abilities. That's why there isn't a spell that already exists."

"Then what the bloody hell have we been trying to find for the last hour?" Spike yelled.

"A pattern. Something that unifies the trans dimensional spells, so I have a damn starting point for this hail mary play."

They both yelled, "Idiot!"

Fred cleared her throat when the yelling fell way to glowering. "I can help with the math and science."

Whatever Fred expected it wasn't for Willow to crumble into tears and Spike to wrap his arms around her. "There, there, pet. We're doing the right thing."

"What just happened?" Gunn whispered to Fred.

"I have no idea. There wasn't a chart for either of them."

Giles rubbed his forehead Anya glared at him. "Anya, what do you want me to say?"

"That you'll stop trying to kill me so I can protect Dawn."

"Fine," he said with a sigh.

Dawn squealed and kissed Giles' cheek. "Thank you!"

Angel whistled as he danced up the basement stairs. When he opened the door, Anya was standing there, stake in hand.

"Anya! Good to see you."

"I will not let you hurt Dawn or my plans, Angelus." She punched him in the sternum, sending him flying.

He landed on his back with an oomph. "Uh oh, someone knows my secret."

The sentence was barely finished when Anya jumped down and straddled him. She placed the stake to his chest and broke his wrist without effort when he tried to slap it away. "This is the only reminder you'll get. I'm a vengeance demon. We're stronger than vampires and a lot harder to kill. And I did not spend the last three years of my existence playing a love sick wimp even fooling D'Hoffryn for you to mess up my plans now."

With a full strength she punched him so his head cracked the cement under it, and he passed out.

She blew some blue dust on him. "Or I'll just wipe out your memory and have someone re-ensoul you."

Everyone at the warehouse except Spike and Connor startled when Anya appeared at the end of the kitchen table while they were taking a break and eating take out.

"Goddess, Anya," Willow gasped.

"Angel lost his soul. Put it back."

Willow sighed and stood. "I have an extra Orb of Thesalah in my dresser."

"Unnecessary," Cordelia said. "Hey Anya, I wish Angel had a permanent soul."

"Wish granted." Then the vengeance demon disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

"I like that method way better," Willow said sitting back down. "The Ritual of the Undead leaves you nauseous for days. Pass the Chow Mein, please, ooh and another veggie roll."

Connor passed her the food.

"She eats as much as you do," Gunn said to Fred.

"Don't get any ideas, mister."

Buffy found Angel when she took her laundry to the basement. "Angel!" She tossed her basket over the railing and rushed to his side.

He sat up with a groan, scratching the dry blood off the back of his head. His other wrist shot pains up his arm when he turned it, telling him it was broken. With a jerk, he snapped it back into place then wrapped it with one of Buffy's dirty towels. "Agh, what happened?"

"You don't know?" Buffy saw the dent and cracks in the floor where Angel's head had been. "Can vampires get so head hurt they get amnesia?"

"Only temporarily. Wouldn't last more than a week."

"Except we need to know what happened to you now. Something strong enough to do that to you needs handled fast."

Angel glanced at the head imprint in the concrete and winced again. "Agreed. I need to talk to Cordelia though."

"She left this morning. Not surprising considering how the others took the news of the latest apocalypse." At his blank look, she asked, "What's the last thing you remember?"

"We were in her room, uh, talking. She was crying."

"We'll call Gunn. He dropped her off somewhere this morning. Not that he would tell anyone where though." Buffy picked her laundry off the floor, hiding her face. "Let me get a load in the wash first. Meet you upstairs, OK?"

"OK."

When he was gone, Buffy gasped in pain, knowing that talking was not what they were doing in her room. Tears threatened, but she forced air in to stop them.

The visitation booths weren't something Faith saw often. Occasionally Angel would stop by, but that was it. No one else. So when she got called to talk to her lawyer, she shrugged and took the chance to talk to someone from the outside. Nothing prepared her for seeing Wesley, in a black suit sitting there waiting for her. She thought she'd made it clear when he called that she wasn't interested.

They picked up their phones. "You my lawyer now, Wes?"

"In a sense. I do work for Wolfram and Hart now, which is what I wanted to talk to you about."

"I'm not buying any pitch your selling for those freaks."

"Do you really think they'd help you after what happened before?"

"Point taken. So what do you want then?"

He explained the upcoming apocalypse and what was at stake, and how he knew. "What I need from you is to aid Willow. When she evacuates the innocents, she'll need help when the hammer comes down. We need to keep her safe."

"Red's not exactly my biggest fan."

"She asked for you specifically."

"Really?"

"She said you were the only person who would understand doing evil things without being evil. Given who she lives with, I thought it rather telling."

"What's the timeline?"

"Uncertain but if we're going to pull it off before the curtains close it'll be within the week. We need you as soon as possible."

"Step away from the glass."