"You ready?" Angel asked as he locked the front door behind them. The sun had just risen but the air was still cold. The sight of Angel's breath misting from his mouth reminded her, yet again, that he was alive. He was alive, and they were together, and she would much rather be continuing what they had been up to the night before as opposed to driving to Moonridge University's stadium so that they could confront the source of all that was evil.
"Nope," Buffy replied as she started, out of instinct, to pat her leather jacket to ensure that she had the appropriate number of stakes tucked away. Mid-reach she remembered that there wouldn't be any stakes, not this time. The confrontation with the First wouldn't be fought with guns, or knives, or any weapon that she could hold in her hands.
It suddenly dawned on her that she was gambling not just all of their lives, but everyone's lives, everywhere, not just on a hunch … but on a series of hunches that had come to her while she slept.
Well … maybe they were more than hunches … but I'm still not ready to admit that I had the first Slayer Dream any of us have had since the day Willow awakened the potentials and broke the Slayer line.
"Uhhh … maybe try to be more inspiring?" Angel suggested as he raised an eyebrow in her direction.
She shrugged and replied, "I'm as ready as I'm going to get."
He leaned down, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and whispered, "It's not too late for all of us to use Illy … Fred's … plan and flee this dimension?"
She laughed and turned towards where the car was parked. "Maybe next time."
. . . . . . . . .
Xander tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and kept his eyes straight ahead while he spoke. "I'm going to say this one more time for the record, for posterity, for the sake of my sanity, and then I'm going to let the subject drop … I want you to stay home."
Dawn stopped fingering the envelope in the pocket of her coat and turned to look at Xander. "Noted. Now let's go."
"You're as stubborn as your sister, has anyone ever told you that?" he asked as he started the truck.
"I guess it runs in the family," she replied with a sad grin.
Xander pulled away from the curb. "Coffee and donuts before we meet everyone at the stadium?"
Dawn nodded in reply. "Absolutely."
. . . . . . . . .
"Colleen," Connor said as they lingered by the front door of their apartment, "if anything goes wrong, if this is it, there's something I want you to know."
She hastened to finish pulling on her coat and scrambled over to grab his hands. "Not now," she told him. Her voice was kind, but also firm. "We've got a lot going on today, and we … or at least I … don't need any distractions."
Connor frowned, nodded, and said nothing.
"Hey," Colleen said as she reached up, grabbed the collar of his fleece-lined jacket, and pulled him down for a lingering kiss on the lips. "It's just that I'd prefer to chat about this later, okay?"
"Fair enough," Connor said as he reached back and grabbed the door knob. "Shall we?"
"Let's go," Colleen replied.
. . . . . . . . .
"You ready?" Willow asked. She tried to ignore the two duffel bags … both of which had been borrowed from her … that were packed and waiting by the front door. The luggage was filled with Fred's meager belongings, most of it clothing donated by her, Buffy, or Dawn. Even though neither item would be going with them to the stadium, Willow had a feeling that one way or another, this would be the last time she saw those bags.
Fred smiled her lopsided grin and replied, "I am." She was bundled in jeans, a sweater, and a thick overcoat, yet she still seemed on the verge of shivering. She'd put on weight over the past week, but not much.
"Let's go then," Willow replied.
She'd fallen asleep with Oz's face on the phone screen propped on the pillow by her side, and though she desperately wanted to call him the moment that she woke up, she feared the onset of a weeping spell might disrupt the focus she needed to help cast the most important spell of her entire life. Instead, she settled for a series of text messages to her husband that utterly failed to convey the depth of emotions she was experiencing.
Fred followed her out the door, and when Willow turned the key in the lock, the sound of the tumblers clicking was deafening.
. . . . . . . . .
"Are you sure you don't want me to come?" Olivia asked from the front porch as Giles backed towards his car.
"No," he immediately replied with a shake of his head. "I appreciate you wanting to help, but there are other risks besides the First that I prefer not to expose you to. You'll be safer here."
Olivia fingered the beaded bracelet that Giles had gifted her that morning. A matching band was looped around his own wrist.
"Okay," she said as she smiled at him.
Giles stopped walking, stared at her, then climbed back up the front steps of the house to give her another hug. She embraced him back while he rested his chin atop her head, and the moment lingered a long time, long enough that Olivia began to wonder if he would change his mind about bringing her with him.
"I have to go," he whispered, "but if everything goes according to plan, I'll be back in time for dinner."
She chuckled for a moment. "I don't feel like cooking … maybe takeout?"
They both laughed, and then Giles peeled himself away and gave her a last lingering look, a kiss, and then he forced himself to turn and walk towards the car. After he opened the driver side door, he avoided glancing back at the house until he'd sat down, closed the door, and started the engine. Olivia was still standing on the porch in her light blue, woolen bathrobe and fuzzy white slippers, her eyes were warm and comforting, and he wanted nothing more than to rush back to her.
He rolled down the window and called out, "I love you."
"I love you, too," she replied with a wave.
. . . . . . . . .
If the Moonridge Universty Student Center had been inspired by the Pantheon, Moonridge University Stadium represented Southern California's very own Coliseum. The rows of arches and accompanying columns that wrapped around the entire oval circumference of the structure may have been a façade constructed of plaster and stucco as opposed to stonework, but it made for an impressive sight nonetheless. Willow had assured them that an access gate would be open for their use, that the structure would be empty … purportedly for pest control purposes … and Buffy realized that she was as anxious as she had been in a long time.
She blamed it on the memories and emotions of the sixteen year old version of herself.
She glanced out the side window as Angel parked and noted that the western parking lot lay beneath the shadow of the stadium.
"Are you ready?" Angel asked after he turned off the car.
Buffy closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and replied, "I'm definitely ready for you to stop asking me that … in any case, I hope so. I'm also hoping all those folks we begged to help will actually do their part."
Angel opened his car door and gave her a reassuring pat on the knee. "They'll be here."
She opened her own door and stepped out. While it felt enormously Hallmark-movie-esque to walk hand-in-hand with her boyfriend towards the stadium, that is what she and Angel did. His hand was warm and she resolved once again that if they survived this, which was a very big if, the two of them were going to do some traveling, a lot of talking, and she was not going to let them settle back into a familiar rut.
Giles was wearing a charcoal suit and a long gray overcoat, and while Buffy thought he was perhaps overdressed for the occasion, she let his wardrobe pass without comment. She and Angel hadn't meant to match, but they had both ended up wearing black jeans, coats, and boots, though her jacket was zipped closed while Angel's longer overcoat hung open.
"I am so sorry," were the first words out of her mouth when Giles was within earshot. "You should be enjoying retirement in that little English village, not traipsing around at dawn trying to save the world again."
Giles smiled a wan, thin smile, and replied, "Buffy, after all these years, you should know me better than that. Retirement never suited me."
"I suppose not," she agreed.
Angel and Giles exchanged cordial nods and both men left it at that.
This might be the end of everything … if there is something I should say, now is the time to say it.
She stepped forward and Giles's eyes widened in shock when she wrapped her arms around his chest and held him tight. "I love you, Giles."
He returned the embrace and rested his chin on the top of her head. "I love you, too, Buffy."
She stepped back and looked up at him. "After this, if there is an after this, Angel and I leaving Moonridge for a while … maybe a long while. Promise me that you'll take it easy once we're gone? At least for a bit?"
"Absolutely," Giles replied with a smile. "Someone else can deal with the hellspots."
"I have your word?" she asked, and though her voice was light her eyes were probing.
"You do," Giles assured her.
Angel cleared his throat and asked, "Are we the first ones here?"
Giles's smile vanished as he swiveled his gaze towards Angel. "Everyone else is inside … I wanted to wait for you both."
Buffy nodded, inhaled the cold morning air, and stared at the open gate and the dark, fluorescent-lit tunnel beyond. "Let's go then," she announced.
. . . . . . . . .
"Fred, now is not the best time," Angel murmured as he watched Giles and Buffy retreat further down the tunnel. "Can this wait?"
Fred, who was bundled in a warm looking pink and green sweater that could only have come from Willow's wardrobe, fuzzy brown gloves, a white overcoat, and thick jeans, shook her head. "It can't, Angel."
Angel tore his eyes away from Buffy's retreating form and looked down at Fred. She looked the same as he remembered from so many years ago, with soft brown eyes, a kind, lopsided smile, and lustrous hair that framed her face. Fred had put on weight in the past days, which was good, but he hadn't forgotten for a second that Illyria was trapped somewhere inside her.
Even though Fred had been subjected to the same fate for nearly twenty years, his conscience still panged him.
"You're thinking of her, aren't you?" Fred asked as her smile intensified. She reached up and brushed a lock of hair away from her eyes. "It's okay, every day I feel a bit more normal, and I realize now why you care about her."
"By her, you mean Illyria?" he asked.
Fred pursed her lips in annoyance. "You know that's who I meant, Angel."
"I suppose I did," he admitted as he rubbed the back of his neck and shuffled on his feet.
"I wanted to apologize," Fred said.
Angel blinked in surprise. "If you mean about what you said about the Deeper Well, about my not saving you, you already apologized, Fred. Don't worry about it."
She shook her head. "I mean about everything. Consider this a blanket apology for anything and everything I might have ever done. I wanted you to hear it from me before … you know … it all starts."
There was an evasiveness to Fred's phrasing that felt entirely unlike the young woman he remembered, and it was at moments like this that Angel felt like he wasn't talking to Winifred Burkle at all.
"Thank you, but it isn't necessary, Fred," Angel replied. "Though I suppose if we are exchanging apologies, I should ask for your forgiveness. There is so much I wish I had done differently and so many things that, if I could do it over again, I would have handled better."
"Oh, I don't know," Fred replied, and there was undercurrent of melancholy to her words that made her seem older than she looked. "Lately, I've been thinking about how much I wish I could go back and have things just as they were." She giggled for a moment and became the Fred that Angel remembered. "Working with you in that hotel were the happiest years of my life."
"So far," he reminded her.
Her eyes twinkled as she shrugged. "We'll see."
Angel rubbed the back of his neck again and glanced towards where Buffy had vanished. "I know we have some time before Cordelia and the Powers begin portaling everyone into the stadium, but I think it best if we go join the others."
Fred reached out, grabbed his forearm, and her grip through the cloth of his coat felt stronger than it should have. "Do you want to talk to her?"
Angel's blood ran cold and this time he did not bother to pretend that he did not know exactly who Fred was referring to.
"You can do that?" he asked in a hushed whisper. "Without hurting yourself, or anything?"
Fred nodded. "I'm learning how to control it … or control her, I suppose would be the more accurate term. She wanted to speak with you, and while you may not believe it, I do have some regrets over what happened. Just for a little while, if you'd like, I can hand the reins to Illyria so that you two can have some closure."
The way she said closure rang warning bells in Angel's mind, but he was so eager to speak with Illyria that he dismissed them.
"I'd like to talk to her," Angel admitted, "but this doesn't mean that I'm not happy you're back, Fred. I mean, it was your body first, and …"
Fred waved her hand, shook her head, and cut him off. "We've covered that ground already." She straightened up and closed her eyes. "I have a feeling this is going to feel a bit …"
Fred's eyes snapped open, her posture straightened, and when she finished the sentence, her voice had grown deeper, the cadence more mechanical, and the inflection flatter.
"… weird," Illyria said.
Angel reached out and grabbed Illyria's shoulders. She looked down at his hands, he considered that she perhaps did not want him to touch her so freely, but when he moved to pull back his arms she stepped forward and embraced him.
"How long has it been?" Illyria asked in her calm, emotionless manner. "You look the same, so I suspect that my banishment from physical form has not been for as extended of a duration as I feared."
"Illyria," Angel said as he stepped back. "It hasn't even been close to a month."
Illyria's lips flattened to a straight line as she took in her surroundings. "For me, it feels much longer."
"Are you hurt?" Angel asked as he looked her over. "Is that cave comfortable, as far as caves go? You have those books and a television, right?"
Illyria tilted her head and stared at him in confusion. "Angel, do you not realize that the cave was merely a mental construct, a set of symbols designed to operate within the limitations of human perception? I have not been exiled to a cave because no such cave, as you perceived it, ever existed."
"Sure … uhh … I get that," Angel replied as he narrowed his eyes in thought. "But you do have books, right?"
The edges of Illyria's lips curled upwards in the barest hint of a smile. "I do, and Winifred Burkle has been kinder in many respects than I expected. We speak, for lack of a better term, regularly, and if I accede to her demands she allows me sensory perception from time to time."
"Sensory perception?"
Illyria nodded. "The taste of meals, hot water upon my skin, images upon screens that depict other people's lives and events that did not occur … she has unusual hobbies in many respects, but I welcome any diversion."
"Her demands?" Angel asked as he processed what Illyria had said. "What do you mean?"
Illyria twitched for a moment, her features twisted into something resembling a grimace, and Angel realized that for the first time that he could recall, Illyria was visibly afraid.
"Angel, you must ask such questions of Winifred Burkle, if you so desire." She began to shake, and he fought back the urge to embrace her again. "I have been given specific instructions for this visit and there are certain topics that I am not to discuss."
Illyria's eyes were wide, her back was straight, and it became clear to Angel that Illyria was absolutely terrified of Fred.
"We'll talk about something else," Angel assured her with a grin that he forced upon his features, and he was relieved when Illyria relaxed.
They chatted for a while, pleasantries for the most part, and then Illyria glanced away for a moment, blinked, and turned back to him with a defeated expression on her face. "It is time," she announced. "Soon, I must depart."
"We will find a solution," Angel promised as he stepped forward and embraced Illyria again. "I know that we're rather distracted at the moment, but you know us … you know me, Illyria. I won't forget that you came to help us when we called, and we will figure out how to help you without hurting Fred."
"I am not suffering," Illyria said as she out with awkward hands and hugged him in return. "I am barely anything at all, now."
He reached up and held her head against his chest. "You're something to us, Illyria. I swear to you that I will not forget."
"I am surprised to find that I am glad that you care," Illyria admitted. "That is a foreign and strange thing for me to say, and stranger still for me to feel that way, but it is the truth."
"You said it yourself, you are not what you once were," Angel replied. "And I swear to you, as soon as we …"
The young woman he was holding tapped on his arm and looked up at him. "Angel," Fred said, "Illyria is gone. With practice I can probably keep her around longer, but for now, that's the best I can do."
Angel stared down at Fred and found himself at a loss for words.
. . . . . . . . .
Buffy gave the roughly twenty apocalyte volunteers their instructions, along with a final warning that they were putting their lives on the line to save the world, and then sent them to strategically placed spots around the stadium by the time. As they shuffled across the field and began climbing the concrete steps leading into the stands, Angel and Fred emerged from the tunnel. Fred looked oddly serene as she climbed the concrete steps that led onto the manicured, groomed grass of the field while Angel seemed somewhat shellshocked.
She considered asking Angel what Fred had wanted to talk to him about and then decided that she had absolutely no time or energy to consider anything other than the fight against the First.
"Think that's enough weapons?" Connor asked as he stood next to Colleen and scanned the stadium.
Xander squinted his eyes and slowly rotated in place until he had turned three hundred and sixty degrees. "I sure hope so." Barrels bristling with armaments of any type had been spread at regular intervals in the stands, and next to each barrel sat a folding table upon which were stacked printed sheets of the spell Willow and Giles needed each and every arrival through Cordelia's portals to recite … without knowing what the Klingon gibberish actually said.
Willow and Giles had spread an enormous tarp over the center of the football field, right over the fifty yard line, and the familiar pentagram, occult symbols, the odd gourd or two, and a variety of candles had been arranged just so upon the thick canvas. Buffy noticed that many of the symbols were traced in sand, and she resolved not to tread upon the material unless absolutely necessary.
"How is the spell looking?" Buffy asked.
Willow and Giles glanced at each other, then back at her. "As good as it's going to get," Willow admitted. "We'll make sure the focal point is attuned and the aether is looking all aether-y in the proper aether way, and I'm realizing as I say this that my nerves are getting the better of me and I'm just gibbering information you don't need to hear."
Giles smiled fondly at Willow, rubbed her back, then glanced over at Buffy.
"We'll be ready," he announced.
Buffy glanced up at the sky, then at her watch. "We've got a few hours yet until Cordy's portals show up … I guess maybe we should check on that." She cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, "Cordy, are we good on the transportation front?"
"You don't need to yell," Cordelia's disembodied voice muttered from somewhere within the grass field. "I can hear you. And yes, the portals will all be where and when they're supposed to be."
"Good," Buffy said as she took in the metal bleachers, the shuttered shops along the concourse beneath the gigantic screens, and the goalposts set at either end of the field. "I guess that's it, then. Here goes nothing."
Angel put a hand on her shoulder and with a confidence that she hoped he actually felt, added, "We're ready, Buffy."
Dawn reached out and put her hand on Buffy's other shoulder. "This is going to work."
. . . . . . . . .
As she set the kettle of water on the stove and flipped on the gas burner, Olivia reflected for perhaps the hundredth time over the past few weeks on just how empty the house felt without Buffy living in it. Even though the teen had usually been asleep, patrolling, or … the last few months … at Spike's, the bustle of youth living and moving through their home was a spark of energy that she and Rupert had needed.
How did we ever stay in that sleepy little cottage so long? I realize now that he was dying, bit by bit, but I was just too blind to see it.
Rupert was an early bird, but sunrise was most definitely at least a few hours before her preferred wake-up time. She considered going back to bed, but she was already wide awake, her nerves firing on all cylinders with worry over what would happen at the stadium, and she decided that there was no point in retreating back upstairs. She rummaged through a cabinet above the sink, retrieved a small ceramic container of sugar, and set it on the counter before turning back towards the tea bubbling on the stove.
Someone was standing in the hallway that led to the kitchen.
Panic rose within her, but she forced it back down and tried to control the trembling of her hands as a young man wearing a blue-grey, long-sleeved sweater stepped out of the hallway and onto the white tile of the kitchen. He had long, wavy brown hair, a strong jaw set with a cleft chin, and Olivia was quite certain that he was not what he appeared to be.
"Do you know who I am?" the young man asked as he stepped closer. His grey-blue eyes displayed no animosity and his expression was not one of malice, but Olivia's blood ran cold at his nearness nonetheless.
Olivia shook her head and poured the now-boiling tea into a mug placed at the ready. Her hands shook as she worked, and a few drops of the scalding liquid splashed against the counter and evaporated into steam. "Should I know you?"
"My name is … or was … Ben," the young man continued. "Ben Wilkinson. Has Rupert ever mentioned me?"
Olivia opened a cabinet above the counter and retrieved a small glass vial containing a bright blue liquid. She set it down on the counter next to the ceramic sugar bowl. "I can't say that he has, and I very much doubt that you and he are on a first name basis."
"We should be," the thing-calling-itself-Ben-Wilkinson replied, "he did, after all, murder me."
Olivia paused mid-movement as she spooned sugar into her tea. "Murdered you?"
The thing nodded. "He did. Put his hand right over my mouth and strangled the life from my lungs. I guess you didn't know that you were living with, and in love with, a murderer, did you?"
Olivia set the spoon on the counter without bothering to wipe it off, then replaced the lid on the sugar bowl. With hands that were trembling so violently that she could barely make her fingers work as she intended, she pulled the stopper from the blue vial and poured the liquid into the tea. When she had finished, she picked up the mug and turned to stare at the creature standing in her kitchen.
"Whatever Rupert did, I'm sure he had a good reason," she said as she blew on the steaming liquid. "I imagine that you had it coming … assuming that anything you are saying is true, which I very much doubt."
She blinked, and when her eyes opened again the young man was gone and Buffy Summers … though not either of the ones that she knew … was standing into kitchen.
"You took all the fun out of that," the thing wearing Buffy's face complained as she folded her arms across her chest. "No gnashing of the teeth, no pressing me for details ... and I'd so looked forward to your histrionics."
Olivia shrugged and continued blowing on her tea. "I'd apologize for disappointing you, but I'm not sorry."
The Buffy-thing smiled and the room grew colder at the expression. "You've got some sass to you." It looked her over, then continued, "So you're Rupert's little woman, the pot of black gold at the end of his rainbow, his kept house ni …"
"That's enough," Olivia snapped as she raised the tea to towards her mouth. "I've been expecting you, and I think Rupert has been, too, though he's tried to pretend otherwise."
The creature stepped closer and the walls, floor, and ceiling kitchen flexed from the strain of its presence. "Usually this is when the running and the screaming starts."
"My knees and back hurt in the morning and I've seen and been through too much over the years to work up the effort to scream," Olivia replied. The tea burnt her tongue and throat as she drank half of it in several large gulps, but she suspected that she had no more time to allow it to cool.
"No pleading? No begging? Nothing at all to say?" the thing said as it stepped within an arm's length of her. The air around it sizzled with spiderwebs of darkness and its face had twisted into something inhuman.
"Only this," Olivia said as she set the cup down on the counter. The room had already grown fuzzy and she was beginning to wobble on legs that had lost the strength to support her weight. "Good-bye."
The thing in her kitchen was fast, but not faster than the poison Rupert had given her to drink if the First came for her.
After her soul had departed untouched by the First's grasp, the First raged for a time at having been thwarted in its desires, and then vanished. After it departed, Olivia's body remained on the floor, sprawled where it had fallen, her sightless eyes staring upwards. The beads of the bracelet around her wrist blinked several times with a bright, amber light and then went dark.
. . . . . . . . .
Giles was just about to sit cross-legged next to Willow in the center of the pentagram spread across the fifty yard line of Moonridge University Stadium when the bracelet around his wrist began to pulse with a bright amber light. His face went pale, he staggered for a moment, then he turned to stare into the distance.
"Everything alright?" Willow asked as she peered up at him. She gestured towards his bracelet and asked, "Was that a ward?"
Buffy glanced at Giles from outside the pentagram. "Something happen that I should know about?"
Giles removed his glasses, shook his head, and for a moment Willow thought she saw tears sparkling on his cheeks. He ran the sleeve of his coat across his face and replied, "No, everything is fine." He sat down next to Willow and patted her on the knee. "In a few hours, everyone will be here. Shall we run through the spell one final time?"
Willow hesitated a moment as she stared at Giles's flushed face and guarded expression, then nodded.
. . . . . . . . .
She knew that there was something wrong, something that Giles wasn't telling her, but there just wasn't time.
There's never enough goddamned time.
"You know that something is up with Giles, right?" Dawn whispered.
Buffy nodded while she watched Connor, Colleen, Angel, and Xander mill about the stadium and give final instructions and pep talks to the apocalytes. "I know, she replied with a somber expression, "but if he needed to talk to us about it, he would have."
"I think it's bad, Buffy," Dawn said. "I don't know why I think that, but I do."
Buffy turned to stare at her sister. "I do, too. If we survive this, we'll be here for him."
Dawn stepped closer to Buffy and lowered her voice until it was barely audible. "Are you ready?"
Buffy shook her head. "I absolutely am not."