The night before, after Gunn saw the body, he didn't know what to do with it. It was the body of a young woman, and she was clearly dead. He figured he could bring it to the hospital, but how much help would that really do? She was already dead. So, he brought her to a morgue that was just down the street from where he lived. No one was in there, or at least not anyone that he saw, and he laid the body down. What else could he really do? He made a mental note to go back there tomorrow to talk to somebody and find out who this woman was and why she was lying in the middle of the road, dead.

There were, of course, other bodies lying around. In Gunn's state of mind the night before, though (and the fact that not any others in the extremely short drive were laying in the middle of the road, nor where there any cars with dead people behind the wheel), he hadn't noticed.

In the morning, Gunn got dressed in a nice suit, and got ready to leave. As he was getting ready, he noticed something that was extremely strange. He didn't know what exactly was odd about the morning; he just had a feeling like something was missing. He couldn't place it.

He decided to just ignore it, and completed getting ready. As he was leaving, he finally realized what was wrong. There was no sound. He didn't have TV or a radio on, so that added to the silence, but things were more quiet than usual. Eerily quiet. Usually he'd hear a faint sound as cars passed by his place, or maybe a plane up above, or anything. Today, there was no sound.

Gunn grabbed a briefcase and hurried out the door. He rushed outside to see if maybe he was just going crazy. No, he wasn't going crazy. There was no sound. Nobody was walking by or driving by. Instead, across the street, in a direction he hadn't looked last night, he saw multiple bodies lying on the ground.

Gunn jumped in his car, and hurried to work as fast as he could because he knew something was going on, and if any place knew what it was, it would be where he worked.

Wes and Fred walked outside her apartment together. They were planning on driving over to Wes's place so he could get take a shower and get on a change of clothes.

They drove to his place, which was farther than the distance from Fred's and where they worked, and they both saw something that alarmed them both. There were bodies lying on the ground. There was a car with a body behind it that had swerved and crashed into a building. Much farther down, there was a fire that was just starting to grow.

"Wesley…?" Fred started.

"Turn around," Wes said slowly. "We need to get to Wolfram & Hart and find out what's going on."

Lorne was already there when Gunn arrived. The first thing both Lorne and Gunn had noticed when they walked in was that the building seemed empty. Not quite, there were still people walking around, but it was less full than it had been yesterday. Plus, people were freaking out, rushing around with papers in their hands and clicking at computers as if there were some type of emergency, which there was.

"Lorne!" Gunn cried, and the Pylean demon walked over to Gunn as quickly as he could.

"Oh, sugar, we've got a real problem here," Lorne said. He looked worried, more worried than he ever had before. His bizarre green suit, which was darker than his skin, was poorly thrown on himself, like he had rushed to work, like Gunn had.

"I saw bodies," he said.

"Yeah, I know. Listen, there's-"

"Gunn, Lorne!" a different cry came from the entrance of Wolfram & Hart as Wesley and Fred busted in, having sped to work due to the severe lack of traffic.

When Gunn and Lorne saw Fred, they momentarily forgot about the huge problem at hand. Lorne almost attacked Fred in a savage hug, squeezing her as tight as he could.

"Oh, Fredikins, it's good to see you! I thought—oh, jeez, I can't even say it. I'm so glad you're okay."

"It's good to see you too, Lorne. I'm okay, really, I am."

Lorne pulled away from Fred, allowing Gunn to step up and envelop Fred in his own warm hug. "I don't know what we would have done if…well, you know. I'm so happy you're okay."

He pulled away and Fred gave them both a small grin. "I'm glad to be here, with you guys. The pain was horrible, but it's done. I'm okay."

"And we couldn't be happier that she's okay. Now, I don't want to ruin this reunion, but we have an emergency," Wes got right down to business. "There are-"

"Bodies?" Gunn suggested.

"Well, yes," Wes stated plainly.

"Yeah," Lorne broke in, "and as I was just about to tell Gunn here, is that people have died. A lot more than we know." Lorne had to stop to wipe a tear away from his eye. "I just love people and I thought everything would be safe here and now here we are surrounded by so many dead bodies because…" He tried to contain himself. "Everybody's gone guys. Almost all of America excluding some of L.A. and parts of a few other cities in California. Canada, Mexico, and South America are gone. So is half of Africa and…well, it stopped in England, somewhere. That's all I know."

Gunn, Fred, and Wes had absolutely no idea what to say to this information. How was it possible? How could so many people have died? Everybody was alive yesterday. There wasn't…it wasn't possible. Wes was trying to wrap his mind around it. What could have killed so many people in such a short amount of time, and why? So many people…

"I heard about it when I got here," Lorne continued softly. "I saw a story about it on the news and I had to come here as soon as possible."

"There are no people," Wes said more to himself. When the others looked at him, though, he elaborated. "You said some of L.A. and parts of other cities survived. Then where are those people? I saw nobody alive out there."

Lorne nodded. "The small fraction of California seems to think it was some kind of disease thing. Like it was undetectable and then when it was finally detectable it was too late because all of the side effects just kicked in and they were so deadly people just collapsed. We Wolfram & Hart employees know something more is going on here, though."

"Something supernatural?" Wes asked.

Lorne nodded. "Exactly, sweetie. They haven't figured out exactly what, yet. We just have to hope they will. Until then, the remaining people in California are in a sort of quarantine. They're all staying inside, locking all their doors and windows until they know they can come out. They got these ideas from a remaining news cast that's still around."

"I need to get to work," Wes said, running a hand through his hair. "Maybe there's something in these book that would explain what…what would do such a thing. I can't believe so many people are just gone."

Fred was thinking, connecting some dots. When she was infected, everyone was alive. And when Illyria was somehow magically cast out of her body, suddenly people started dying. Could it be possible…? No, Angel and Spike wouldn't have done that, she was sure. They wouldn't have.

Gunn was thinking, also, but about something different. He wasn't just about to stand there and think it was a coincidence that in the span of twenty-four hours one of his closest friends fell ill and nearly died and then probably millions of people died soon after she was saved. Gunn didn't believe in coincidences. There had to be an explanation, and only one thing was on Gunn's mind. He wasn't thinking in Fred's direction, towards Angel and Spike. Instead, in his gut he knew whose fault this was. It had to be the same person who, hours before so many people died, attempted to let an innocent woman be possessed by an ancient, powerful demon that he worshipped. Knox.

Dropping his briefcase, Gunn started making his way towards the lab, uncaring that he was leaving in the middle of their conversation. He needed to speak with Knox.

"Gunn, where are you going?" Wesley called after him, but Gunn kept going.

"What's he doing?" Fred questioned.

"I don't know," Lorne admitted. "Should we go after him?"

Without answering, they started following Gunn as fast as they could. Fred recognized when they were going towards the lab, and she told Wes and Lorne and they hurried up.

Gunn slammed the doors to the lab open and saw that Knox was untied, but he was lying face down on the floor, unconscious. A guy Gunn didn't recognize was inside the lab, sitting on a seat with a magazine and occasionally glancing at Knox.

"What happened?" Gunn demanded to know, pushing the guy in the seat to the ground. The seat fell over also and clanked many times on the floor, making some noise.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't do nothing!" the guy shouted. "Sometime last night he went crazy and tried to escape. They had to inject him with some kinda anesthesia and put him to sleep."

"When will he wake up?"

Fred, Wes, and Lorne ran into the lab. Wes and Lorne moved towards Gunn, but Fred made her way to her unconscious worker and almost friend. She gasped when she saw cuts running up and down his arms and blood on the floor.

"I-I don't know, another hour, maybe two?" the guy who had been keeping watch answered.

"Gunn?" Fred said worriedly. "What happened to Knox?"

Gunn turned towards Wesley, Lorne, and Fred. Lorne already knew mostly about Knox, but Wesley and Fred didn't.

"Wesley, Fred," Gunn began. "There's something I gotta tell you."

Angel and Spike were in the plane, sitting in seats across from each other and facing each other, staring out the windows. It was light outside, but the windows had the same type of glass the buildings in Wolfram & Hart did, so they were safe from any sunlight. The plane was going fast, or so the pilot assured, and they were planning on arriving back in L.A. very soon.

"Are you afraid?" Spike asked, almost out of nowhere. They had been silent most of the flight home.

"Afraid of what?"

"Don't act all broody and then pretend to not know what I'm talkin' about."

Angel glared at Spike. "Afraid of what, Spike?"

"The aftermath," Spike said in an icy tone. "Are you afraid of what everybody will think?"

Angel thought for a minute. It wasn't a difficult question, really. He had to think, though. "I'm not afraid, really. I'm more worried. Especially about Wolfram & Hart. I don't know if this is what the Senior Partners would have wanted. I'm not usually concerned with the Senior Partner's wants, but they could easily punish me for this in ways I can't imagine. Of course, maybe this is what they wanted all along. They always wanted to release Angelus. I'm still Angel, but I've done more damage than Angelus ever did overall. Then again, a huge amount of our clients must now be dead."

Spike knew what Angel was saying was true. "And what about them? Are you worried about what Gunn, Percy, the Pylean, and Fred will think?"

"I think I know what they'll think."

Spike didn't ask any more questions. He had a good feeling about what Angel was going through because he was going through some of it too. He was uncomfortable with the amounts of people that had to die. It hurt him to think about it. Although he didn't have to deal with the worry that something like Angelus would come out of him, which just added more worry to Angel's mind.

In all honesty, he felt a little bad for Angel. Angel had so much more on the line, so much more to worry about than Spike did. Spike wouldn't tell him that, though. No, because Angel and Spike had a sort of relationship that they had to stick to. They argued and rarely got along. Spike felt like he wouldn't be giving Angel too hard a time for a while, though. Angel did something he wouldn't forgive himself for. Spike didn't want to have to add to his guilt, or have to be bothered by arguing with Spike, because Spike knew he would've hated to be in Angel's exact position. He'd still mess with Angel a little bit, occasionally, because he just couldn't stop himself, but he'd try to tone it down for a little while.

His thoughts turned to Buffy. She knew he was alive now, no doubt. She hadn't wanted to talk to him. That was probably bad.

"We'll be arriving shortly," a voice came out through the speakers in the plane. "Prepare for landing."

"Yippee," Spike mocked. "Almost home to the land of the dead."

"Spike, be quiet."

Spike smiled.

Connor was back in front of the Wolfram & Hart building, although he wasn't exactly sure how he got there. He didn't remember coming here, not at all. He wasn't sure what he was doing in front of the building until he saw the plane landing near. He knew without a doubt who was in that plane. For some reason he could feel him, feel his presence, and it was powerful. When he saw Angel step out, his heart nearly stopped. He felt the urge to attack him.

There he is, the voice inside Connor's head spoke. Kill him.

A part of Connor, the part of Connor that was still himself, found a little bit of strength left to fight what the voice was saying. He stood there as the voice exploded in his head, telling him to attack.

Before he could, Angel and a blond headed guy stepped into the building under the shadows so as to avoid the sun.

Connor fell to the ground, weak. How had he found enough strength to fight?

It's okay, the voice said. We will kill him soon.

Fred, Gunn, Wesley, and Lorne sat in Angel's office. They heard he would be back soon, and they moved up here after Gunn told them about Knox. Gunn told them everything about Knox. He left out the part where he was really the one to sign the papers to bring the sarcophagus here. He just wasn't ready to share that part. He was afraid of how they'd react, especially Wes and Fred.

Nobody had asked why he hurt Knox, even if it was just a few scars. Even if some didn't necessarily agree with what he did, they didn't have it in them to speak up about that yet. Too much information was coming at all of them in too short of time.

They sat there in silence for several minutes.

Finally, Angel came into his office with Spike behind him, and Harmony trailing behind Spike. Harmony was talking, like usual.

"…and boss, I'm so glad your back because it was a mess when you were gone. It was only for, like, a day, but still. And Blondie Bear, I guess I'm glad you're back too, although you don't have to be so rude. I mean, I thought you'd miss me and-"

"Harm, not now," Spike shushed Harmony. Angel stopped in front of the table where Fred, Gunn, Wesley, and Lorne were sitting. They also stood up, unsure of how to react.

"Fred," Angel said slowly and gave a smile. "You don't know how happy I am you're okay."

Fred moved forward and gave Angel a hug. "You rescued me again, just like in Pylea. I don't know how many times I can thank you for saving my life, despite my desire to not be the girl that always needs saving."

She let go of him and backed up a few steps. The remaining members stood there, staring.

"Not much of a happy reunion," Spike quipped to the side.

"Angel, I don't know if you've heard-"

Wes started, but Angel stopped him, knowing what he was going to say.

"I've heard. I know. In fact, I should tell you right away, because there isn't really a reason to put this off." They all looked around the room. "It's no secret that we found a way to save Fred, obviously. There was a price."

"No," Fred cried, placing a hand over her mouth, tears forming in her eyes.

Angel swallowed hard. "To save Fred, some people had to die. Everyone between her and the Deeper Well."

"Angel," Wes said, flabbergasted. He never would have thought that Angel was the reason so many had died.

Gunn was silent. What could he say? This was his fault, because he signed the papers.

Lorne simply stood there, mouth open.

"I had to make a decision," Angel went on. "I couldn't lose you, Fred. Not after everything we've been through. Not after everyone we've lost."

Fred shook her heads. Tears were streaming down her face. "You shouldn't have done that. I… Angel, are you kidding me?" she yelled. "I'm not worth this, the death of millions! Oh my God. This is what you did. Angel, how could you?"

"Fred, I'm sorry." The sincerity was astoundingly evident in his voice. "But if Illyria had escaped, we may have had a bigger problem on our hands, an apocalypse. We don't know what she may have done."

"I don't care. I can't live like this. What about all those people?" she gasped. "What about my parents, Angel? They've never done a single bad thing in their lives. What about them? Did you even think about this?"

Angel's mouth fell open. He never thought about Fred's parents. "Fred-"

"Stop! I feel…I don't know. I can't do this."

"Fred, please, he saved you," Wes said. "It may have been by unspeakable ways, but he saved your life."

"So you agree with this? With mass murder? This is not okay! How do you expect me to live with myself? How are you going to live with yourself, Angel? You've…I need to get out of here." She moved to run out of the office.

"Wait!" Gunn spoke up, speaking for the first time. Fred turned towards him and so did everybody else. "I can't just sit by and let this happen. I need to get this off my chest. First off, Fred, stop blaming Angel. This isn't his fault."

"Gunn, he-"

"I know. Just listen. Angel, Spike, there's something you don't know. Knox was the one who made plans for Illyria to come here. He was the one who wanted Fred to be infected because he thought she was the perfect body for his god. He worshipped her without a doubt in his mind." He let the information sink in for a minute. "Everyone, there's something I need to say. I haven't told you all this yet, and I can't stop now. Fred, you can't blame Angel. If it weren't for me, you would've never been infected by Illyria in the first place."

There it was. The words were out. Everyone was silent.

"What do you mean?" Angel finally had the nerves to ask.

"I was losing it. I was losing my brain power. And I needed it. You don't understand, none of you do. I finally felt like I was being useful, like I wasn't just the idiot muscle. So I wanted to be smart again. In order to get it back in my head, I had to sign some papers. I had no idea what those papers did or what they were. They were the papers that delivered the sarcophagus here. Fred, Angel, everybody, I swear I didn't know. I had no idea. I just…I wanted to be smart. I wanted to be useful."

Silence. Fred looked down at the ground, horrified. This was too much. Angel, Gunn, everybody doing things they didn't need to do. She was crying, and it wouldn't stop. She was alive, but in her place millions have died. She would never be able to live with herself, she already knew.

Wes took a step forward and before they knew what was going on, he punched Gunn right in the face.

Gunn cried out and took a few steps back, bringing his hand up to hold his face, where he was punched.

"You did this?" Wes said to him. "You were responsible and we could've lost Fred?"

Wes stepped forward again, but this time Fred yelled for him to stop. He looked up at her and saw how sad, how terrified she looked. She was visibly shaking and tears were falling down her face.

"I wasn't responsible," Gunn fought. He backed away a few steps from Wes. "I mean, I was, but I wasn't. I didn't know, okay. I never would have signed anything if I knew."

"Gunn," Angel said forcefully, stopping him from speaking. "Did it work?"

Gunn was confused. Everyone in the room was either staring at Gunn or Angel, everyone but Fred. She was looking sort of off into space, trying to think, trying to wrap her mind around this.

"W-what?"

"The brain boost. Are you as smart as you want to be?"

Gunn gulped. "Angel, I-"

"Answer the question."

"I… Yeah, I guess. I have all the information I need. Still, I never would have gotten it if I knew. You have to know that."

Angel took a few steps towards Gunn. Unexpectedly, he grabbed Gunn's clothes and lifted him off nearly a foot off the ground. "Then you better be glad she's alive." He let Gunn down with a thump. Angel turned back to everyone else. "Don't blame him for anything. His actions, however wrong they were, are not the reason so many people died. That's on me."

Wes still had an angry looked in his eyes, Angel noted. He knew that look. He'd seen it before, many times before. Wesley just didn't remember those incidences thanks to a nifty memory spell.

"I hope you're happy," Fred spoke up sarcastically, still crying. She was speaking directly towards Angel. "I hope you understand what you've done." Before anyone could stop her this time, she ran out of the room. Wes chased after her, determined to calm her down. He had his own feelings towards what Angel did, and they weren't all good, but on some deeper level, he was grateful. Fred was alive. That was all that mattered.

Back in the room, Angel spoke to who remained. "We have to find a way to stop some of what's going on. Along with all these deaths, there are bigger consequences. Hundreds of houses across the world are probably on fire now because of the sudden deaths. Things could've been in the oven or candles could've been lit or whatever. If we don't try to stop all of them somehow, everything could burn up, not to mention all the smoke."

"How exactly do you plan to stop that?" Harmony asked. "There are no more firemen anymore." They all shot her obvious looks. "What?" she shrugged helplessly. "Like I was the only one who realized?"

"Harm, I need you to go find Wes or anybody who works in his apartment. Maybe there's some kind of spell to stop fires across the world?" Angel said weakly. "Gunn, we've lost a lot of clients, no doubt. The Senior Partners are probably angry. And since you have a long-running relationship with the White Room and you have all those smarts, maybe you should go there and try to explain and calm them down, if they're angry. And Gunn?" Angel called as he started walking away. "I hope your brains were worth the pain you put them through." Gunn left. "Spike, I don't know exactly where Knox is right now or if he's even alive, but-"

"On it," Spike responded and left going to look for Knox. Gunn hadn't had the chance to explain to Angel and Spike where he was, but it didn't take Spike long to find out what happened to him. Spike would wait for him to wake up.

"What do you want me to do?" Lorne asked solemnly.

Angel walked up to Lorne. "Nothing, really. I just want to talk to you. You haven't said a word since I came back."

"It's a lot to take in, Angelcakes. First I find out you kill pretty much a huge chunk of the world and then I find out Gunn inadvertently tried to kill one of our closest friends."

"It wasn't all Gunn's fault," Angel stood up for his friend.

"I know. Now sing for me."

"What?"

"Come on, Angel, I'm Pylean, not an idiot. Although based on some of my kind, I could see why you'd confuse the two. You want something from me. You want me to read you. So what are we waiting for?"

Angel slowly opened his mouth and began singing his usual song: "Mandy" by Barry Manilow. It only took a few words for Lorne to hold up a hand and stop him.

"Hm," Lorne exhaled noisily. "Interesting." Lorne looked at Angel in the eye. "We're going on a crazy ride."

"Wait, wait, wait, you're telling me she thinks Angel's responsible for this? All-hero, redemption-seeking Angel? Did she forget who Angel is?" Faith was outraged. Giles was telling her just what he had heard from Buffy. He knew no solid facts, but Faith was getting angry anyway. "Come on, you know Angel didn't do anything."

"I don't know," Giles admitted, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with his shirt, mainly to avoid Faith's icy gaze. "Angelus did some horrid things." One I'll always remember, Giles thought to himself as he remembered the too-short life of Jenny Calendar.

"But he's not Angelus."

"Well, apparently we can't be sure."

"Nuh-uh," Faith crossed her arms and shook her head, blowing some dark hair out of her face. "I don't believe it," she said like a stubborn child.

Giles and Faith were in London. They heard about what happened—of course they had, the entire world knew—but they knew more than any ordinary person did. More importantly, Faith knew who wasn't to blame.

"Faith, Buffy-"

"I don't care what Buffy says. She's not in L.A., she doesn't know." Then Faith's face lit up, an idea forming in her mind. "Angel needs someone to defend him in all this."

"Faith, no," Giles said sharply. "We are working here. We don't have time for you to leave."

"Oh, really?" Faith tempted. "Because I thought a week ago you were informing me I had some vacation time I could catch up on."

Giles knew he'd regret saying that. "Still, you can't just leave."

"Oh, I think I can. See you later, Giles. I got a plane ticket to buy." She started to walk away.

"Are you kidding me? You think they'll let you buy a ticket to L.A.? There's an emergency going on. They won't let you in. L.A. is in some kind of quarantine state, and soon the rest of the world will be too, unless they figure out it wasn't some disease that did this."

"True," Faith thought for a second. "Then I better get to where I need to go before the world goes crazy. Tell Robin I'll be back when I can."

Giles gave up fighting. What was the point? Faith was Faith, and she'd do what she wanted.

To be continued…