Buffy, Willow and Faith approached the city cautiously. They had told the girls to stay down by the ocean as they slowly mad their way back up the beach towards the boardwalk. The city was glistening in the moonlight. If they hadn't known any better they wouldn't have known that just seconds ago it had been in hell. When they made it over by the pier, they were surprised to find nobody there. The battle, which had been used as a distraction would have gone down over by the pier and they had been half expecting to find their friends here, but then again nothing ever was that easy. They always had to do things the hard way.

"I think we are going to have to search the city in order to find them." Willow said.

"I agree, but I haven't the faintest idea as to where to start looking, do you?" Buffy asked.

"Not really" Willow replied

"I do." Faith told them. "I can think of two places right off the top of my head."

"Do share" Buffy told her

"I think the most obvious one is the offices of Wolfram and Hart. If that is where Angel was when this all went down, then its possible that they ended back up there. The only other place would be the Hyperion. Someplace where they would feel safe." Faith had spent more time in Los Angeles than the other two, and was the only one who had actually been to both places.

"All right. Where do we start?" Buffy asked her.

"The Hyperion is on the way to Wolfram and Hart, so we should start there." Faith told them.

"Works for me." Willow said.

As they made there way back down to the beach they began to notice that people were beginning to come out of their houses. Some of them seemed a little disoriented, but for the most part it was as if nothing had happened. When they reached the girls Buffy filled them in and then motioned for Faith to lead the way. Buffy and Willow followed her in silence. All of them were wondering the same things; what happened, will people know about the demons now, who survived?

"This way." Faith said suddenly. They had been walking down one street now for a while, but Faith now motioned for them to follow her. "The Hyperion is that large building there on the corner." As they approached it, Buffy seemed to get more anxious. She hadn't said anything since they had left the beach, but now she looked like she was about to break out into a flat out sprint. So far they hadn't met any demons, but Buffy wasn't sure whether that was a bad thing or not. At least demons may have some idea where their friends were.

It seemed like forever before they finally reached the Hyperion. Halfway down the block Buffy felt like someone was watching her and Willow heard her whisper "They're here. They're in the alley behind the hotel. I can sense them." Willow hadn't heard Faith or any of the other slayers mention being able to sense anyone, but then again Buffy had always been more highly a tuned then the other girls, so she took her word for it, and told Faith to lead them to the alley behind the hotel.

When they turned the corner into the alley behind the hotel they could not believe what they saw. Four people were in the alley. Two of them were standing over the other two who were lying sprawled out on the ground. One of the two that were standing was definetly a demon. She had bright blue hair, and a skin tight red suit. Both Willow and Faith thought that she looked oddly familiar, but neither one had any idea as two why. The other person standing was a man with bleached blonde hair. Buffy, Faith, and Willow all recognized him instantly. They couldn't see the other two very well because they were lying down presumably unconscious.

"SPIKE!!" Buffy yelled, and went running up to him. She motioned for Faith and Willow to stay at the entrance of the alleyway with the other slayers. She wasn't sure what condition they would be in, and she wasn't sure what sort of stories Spike would be blurting out. Most importantly though she didn't want to have to explain to the girls why they weren't going to slay a vampire that in their dreams had gone around killing slayers. "Are you okay? Are you alive? What is going on here?"

Spike suddenly turned around to face her, and saw Buffy, Faith, Willow, and the slayers all staring at him. Illyria also turned to look at them. She clenched her fists and prepared to fight them. "Don't blue!" Spike told her. "They're with us. Their here to help us."

"I don't need their help. I don't need anyone's help…"

"Yeah I know. You're Illyria. God king yadadad… I get it. Just don't start pummeling them okay?" Spike cut her off before she could finish. "Slayer!" He yelled. "Am I ever glad to see you!"

When Buffy reached Spike she hugged him "I'm so glad you're alive. You have no idea how hard its been…" and then she hit him hard in the jaw. "That is for not telling us that you were alive." Then she hit him again. "That is for not calling and letting us know that you guys needed help." Faith saw that Buffy was pummeling Spike, and she knew that wasn't the best idea, so she quietly told Willow to wait with the girls, and ran up behind Buffy to top her. Buffy was about to hit him again when Faith came up from behind her and grabbed her fist.

Faith stopped her gasped and said "Buffy look!" That's when Buffy noticed the other two men lying on the ground unconscious. Buffy looked like she had just been hit by a car. There lying on the ground was Angel.

"Angel?" she asked. "Spike, is he…?"

"Alive?" he finished for her. "Depends on what you mean by alive. He's not alive in the traditional sense… or at least no more alive than I am, but if you mean walking, talking, not breathing, can't go out in the daytime, has to drink blood alive? Then yeah. He's alive. As alive as he ever has been… or at least in the last 200 years."

"So he's a vampire again?" Buffy asked him, before walking past Spike over towards Angel.

"Peaches? Of course he's a bloody vampire. What else would he be?... and what do you mean by again?" Spike said turning to watch Buffy as she walked past him.

"Is Gunn okay?" Faith half whispered, and then motioned for Willow to come forward with the girls. She knew that Willow would want to see this, and she knew that if Gunn and Angel weren't okay that Willow may be the only one able to help them. Willow followed her instructions and slowly led the girls farther into the alleyway. Who's Gunn? Buffy thought to herself.

"Charlie-boy? Oh he'll be fine. He's just recovering from the trip back from hell. He was a vampire back in hell, and I think he's just adjusting to being alive again." Spike explained, while still watching Buffy. "Buffy. What do you mean by again?"

"Who is she?" Buffy heard one of the slayers ask. She hadn't really been paying attention to Spikes little rambles. She hadn't heard anything after "he's alive". She went over and kneeled down beside Angel. He didn't have a pulse or breathe, but then she hadn't really expected him to, especially after what Spike had just told them. Her slayer senses were telling her that he was a vampire, so as long as he wasn't a pile of dust, that pretty much meant he'd be okay. He's a vampire again. I can live with that. It's certainly an improvement over dead… well dead in the final dust sense… come on Angel wake up!

"Oh! Blue here?!" Spike asked, his attention turning once more towards Faith, Willow, and the other slayers. "This is Illyria."

"Is… is she a demon?" one of the smaller girls asked. She was one of the newer girls and had only been living with them at the castle for the past two weeks or so. This was her first field assignment, and she was pretty scared. Buffy had only brought her with because she wanted her to get some field experience, and she had a feeling there wouldn't be too many problems on this mission.

"Yes. She's a demon." Spike replied.

"I am more than just a demon. I am Illyria God King of Earth. I may allow you to accompany me as my pet, but that does not mean I will tolerate disrespect from a leech like you." Illyria spat.

"Wow. She's a real friendly one you got there Spike." Faith told him. "Wait a minute… she looks an awful lot like…"

"Fred?" Willow finished for her. "Spike, Why does she look like Fred? Where is Fred? I see you, Angel, and Gunn, where are the others? Where are Wesley, Lorne, Connor, and Fred?" Willow was suddenly very worried. She knew from what Buffy had told her that Wesley had been in hell with Angel, but she didn't know whether he was still alive. She also hadn't heard anything about Lorne, Connor or Fred, mostly because Buffy really didn't know who they were.

"She is referring to the shell. The shell has memories of these two women. They came to help when…"

"The SHELL?" Willow cut her off. She was getting angry now. If this Illyria was talking about what she thought that she was talking about that meant that Fred had died. "The SHELL? Spike?"

"How dare you interrupt me you insolent swine!! I am Illyria god king of earth, and you and your leeches need to learn a little more respect!" Illyria was obviously upset. "I have a great desire to do violence to things right now, and while doing violence to you will be easy and will give me little joy, it might just have to do."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. You may be strong Illyria, but these are slayers. I don't think they had slayers in your time, did they?" Spike warned her. He knew that Illyria was strong, but even she, the god king of earth, would have trouble taking on thirty of the girls at once.

"Besides, you do not want to mess with Red here." Faith added.

"Um Faith?" one of the girls asked.

"Yeah" she responded.

"Is there something wrong with Miss Summers?" It was then the Faith and Willow noticed that Buffy hadn't moved since she had first noticed Angel lying on the ground. She was kneeled next to him staring at him and seemed to be whispering something.

"B!" Faith said trying to get Buffy's attention, but Buffy didn't even turn to look at her.

"Hey Red. You think there is anything you can do to help Angel and Charlie-boy here. As much as I love all this catching up, it's late, and we really should get going. We still have to find Wesley."

"Sure. I can try something. Maybe a healing spell might help." Willow told her and then went over towards Buffy and the two men lying on the ground.

"Wesley…" Illyria mumbled and then began to stare off into space.

"What's her deal?" Faith asked.

"She's in love with him, Faith, or at least Fred was in love with him and she is feeling those memories. We're not exactly sure which." Spike explained.

"That's Fred?! I know she looks like her, but the last time we met she wasn't all 'I'm a god king' if you know what I mean." Faith was seriously confused now, and a little angry. She didn't like it when people messed with her friends. She may not have known Fred very well, but she had liked her. She seemed like a nice person, and besides she was Angel's friends and that made her okay in Faith's book. "What the hell happened to Fred?!" Faith asked Spike. Unless he had a really good explanation, she was going to start pummeling him too. Does Angel know about this? He has to have known about this. Why didn't he call us?

"It's a really REALLY long story that I'm not gonna get into just yet…" Faith was glaring at him, and even Willow had looked up from trying to help Angel and Gunn to glare at him too. "It's not MY fault ya know. If peaches here hadn't gone off to Wolfram and Hart… oh don't give me that look… You people aren't exactly blame free either what with the 'we don't trust you any more, we're too good for you' bit. You should of seen the look on peaches face here when Giles told him that he wasn't going to help because we weren't to be trusted… not to mention what he did to the phone." Spike was clearly amused by the image of Angel throwing the phone after talking to Giles. "There is a whole lot of blame to go around here, and I'm just not ready to get into it just yet… so if you don't mind lets drop the subject."

"Is he going to be okay willow?" Buffy asked her friend.

"He's going to be just fine Buffy. He's just unconscious right now which is to be expected… I'm not sure how, or why he's here, but from what I can tell he'll be just fine. Gunn here on the other hand… he may need some time."

"What do you mean?" Faith asked concerned after overhearing their conversation. She turned to face Willow. She too had been worried about Angel, but like Willow was more concerned with Gunn, who was now kneeling beside him. After all, he was human, or at least he was the last time she saw him.

"Physically he seems to be okay, but if he remembers anything like Spike here seems too… well it may take him a while to adjust to the idea of having been a vampire." Willow explained.

"Oh. Yeah. Last time I heard, he wasn't too fond of vampires… well at least vampires who aren't Spike and Angel." Faith looked defeated. The last thing she wanted was for another one of her friends going down the path that she had. It didn't matter if he was a vampire when he did those things, because it would still bother him. He would still see them in his mind every single day. It didn't seem to make a difference to either Spike or Angel that it hadn't really been THEM that killed those people. To them, they did it. That's who they saw kill those people. That's who they remember killing those people… and because they were still vampires deep down, a part of them still enjoyed watching those people die. Hopefully Gunn wouldn't have to deal with that. Hopefully, since he was no longer a vampire he wouldn't have to deal with the pain of still enjoying it. Then again, she was human too, and as much as she hated to admit it there was a part of her that had enjoyed watching those people die too.

"Buffy?" Faith heard a familiar voice say weakly behind her.

"Angel" Buffy responded.

"Did we do it? Are we still in hell?" Angel asked her as he sat up looking around.

"Yeah. We did it. You're not in hell anymore." Buffy told him. "Are you okay? I thought you were… You're supposed to be dead?"

"I don't know. It doesn't seem like anything has changed. It's like we never even went to hell. Maybe it just restored everything to the way it was before hell. At least that would explain why I'm here." Angel finally noticed the thirty or so girls standing in the alleyway by Spike and Illyria. "Who are they?"

"Those are some of the new slayers." Willow responded "Hey there sleepyhead. I wasn't sure how long it would take you to wake up. How are you?"

"I'm fine. Where is everyone? Spike, Gunn and Illyria are here, where is everyone else?"

Angel asked her. "Is Gunn okay? Is he… alive?"

"Well, Red here says he is, but he sure doesn't look very alive." Faith told him. When he looked at her she added. "He's human Angel. As long as he wakes up soon, he's going to be fine." She knew that she was half lying to her friend, but she figured it would be best if he didn't worry. Besides they had no way of knowing before Gunn woke up how he would be affected by his recent stint as a vampire.

"Spike, Where are the others?" Angel asked.

"I don't know peaches. You're guess is as good as mine. Although since we ended up right back where we we're before we got sucked into hell, my guess is that the others ended up where they were when we got sucked into hell." Spike explained turning to face the other vampire.

"We have to find them. Now." Angel said trying to stand up.

"You aren't going anywhere mister." Buffy told him, while forcing him back down onto the ground. "Not until we know what is going on here. There could still be people from Wolfram and Hart after you guys, and I'm not going to risk you all getting hurt just because your impatient." She told Angel firmly.

"Buffy, I have to find them. It's my fault…" Angel began to explain, but before he could finish Buffy slapped him lightly and said "No. We are not going down that road. You're damn right about it being you're fault that the Senior Partners were pissed off and sucked the city into hell, but you had no way of knowing exactly what they were going to do. Yes. You should have asked for help, but you didn't. So there is no point in dwelling on the subject. Right now I need you to focus so that we can gather everyone up and get the hell out of here. It's late. I'm tired, and we still have a lot to get through before I am going to get any sleep. So before you go all 'It's my fault' on us, just stop." Buffy had had a feeling he was going to blame all of this on himself. He always did. That's just Angel. "Now the theory seems to be that everyone ended up where they were before you guys got sucked into hell, so who is it that we need to find, and where were they when the city got sucked into hell?" Buffy asked them.

"Illyria, you left Wesley where he died right?" Spike asked her trying to be helpful

"yes. I saw no point in moving his body." She responded.

"Good. Well at least we know where he most likely is. Angel, Do you know where Lorne went?" Spike asked now turning back towards Angel.

"No. He wouldn't tell me where he was going." Angel told him dejectedly. "Connor can't be to far from here though. I last saw him back at the office, where I told him to leave because it wasn't safe. Looking back on it, I guess it really didn't matter where he was since we all ended up in hell anyway."

"Angel. What did I just get finished saying? I told you. We really don't have time for you to go all broody on us…" Buffy said, but was cut off when Gunn started to wake up.

"Whoa! Where the hell am I?" Gunn asked.

"You're in the alleyway behind the hotel." Faith told him. "Is that you Faith? Man are you a sight for soar eyes! How did you get here? Did you get sucked into hell too?"

"No. You're not in hell anymore. Look around." She told him. Gunn sat up. At first the world seemed to spin as all the blood went rushing back to his head, but once he could see straight he noticed that none of the buildings had mouths, and the sky was dark. The sun was gone, and the moon was shining brightly in the clear black sky. The next thing he noticed hit him the hardest… he couldn't smell blood anymore… he didn't have any urge to kill anything… his heart was beating… "I'm not a vampire!" He said with a big smile on his face. "I'm alive. My heart is beating!" Then he turned and looked at Angel and suddenly being alive didn't seem quite as fun. "You're a vampire again. Aren't you?"

"Hey. I'm just glad to be walking around… or I will be if someone hear would let me get up." He told his friend before turning to look at Buffy grinning.

"What is up with all this again crap?" Spike asked. "You people are talking about Angel aren't you? He's a vampire, just like me. Always has been as long as I've known him."

"He's a WHAT?!" They heard one of the slayers yell. All of a sudden all of the girls had spikes in their hands and were getting ready to start staking things.

"Can I do more violence now please?" Illyria asked Spike.

"NO!" Spike, Faith, Willow, Angel and Buffy all said at once.

"Uh guys? As much as I hate to admit it, letting Illyria 'do more violence' may not be the worst idea cuz I don't think those girls look to happy." Gunn pointed out.

"There with us." Buffy explained before turning and addressing the girls. "Put those down! All of you! There is going to be no staking tonight unless I say so."

"But Miss Summers, they're VAMPIRES." One of the girls argued. "The blonde one said so, and don't we usually stake vampires?"

"Yes" Buffy answered, "But not these vampires. Look it's a really long story, which I will explain once we get back, but for now there will be no staking of either Spike or Angel here. If you see any other vampires though, have at it."

"Okay… it's your call…" the girl responded. "… but that doesn't mean that we have to like it."

"You're right. It is my call and…" but before she could finish there was a large noise at the other end of the alley by the street. They all heard some fighting and yelling. Angel leaped up and he, Buffy, Faith, Illyria, and Spike all got to the ready and began making there way to the other end of the alley. They couldn't see what was going on at first with all of the girls in the way but when they finally made it out into the street they saw a teenage boy and a green demon with red horns taking on three of the slayers. Well, actually the boy was taking on two of the girls while the demon was cowering in a corner trying not to get beaten to badly.

"Everybody Stop what you're doing RIGHT NOW!" Buffy yelled. Everyone obeyed and stopped fighting. The boy and the demon looked up.

"Angelcakes?" Lorne asked.

"Dad?" Connor asked.

"Oh this is sooo going to be good." Spike said aloud.