Giles didn't immediately say anything when Willow emerged from her bedroom with red eyes and a running nose that she had to wipe twice with the sleeve of her sweater before she'd even reached the living room. Instead, he stood from the dining room table, walked over to her, and pulled her against him for a hug.

"It's so hard," Willow whispered as she pressed her face into his chest. "I miss them so much."

He rubbed her back and said, "I know. I'm sorry, Willow. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Ellie already looks bigger," she said through sniffling wheezes as she tried to keep from sobbing, "and Oz and I had to talk about what formula is best. I don't know if I'm ever going to see them again."

"You will," he assured her with as certain of a tone as he could muster.

By the time Illyria had managed to finish showering, Willow had sufficiently composed herself to set a pot of water boiling and to fish a box of tea from the cupboard. Giles frowned for a moment when he saw Willow place instant tea packets within ceramic mugs, but quickly resumed smiling when Willow glanced towards him.

Illyria, clad only in a towel wrapped around her body, stepped out of the guest bedroom and eyed them from the entrance to the hallway. Her color had improved, and though she'd needed help to walk from the car to the apartment, after a few hours she'd been able to move about on her own and felt well enough to bathe.

"Willow, I find that …" mid-sentence, Illyria seemed at a loss for words, a strangely human moment quite in contrast to her normal near-robotic manner of communication, "… Willow, I need help."

"The drawer," Willow said as she scrambled out of the kitchen, "I completely forgot how hard they are to pull out." She glanced back at the tea. "Giles, could you keep an eye on the water?"

"Of course," he said.

Willow joined Illyria in the hallway, and Giles quickly averted his eyes when Illyria dropped the towel mid-stride and vanished into the guest bedroom while a blushing Willow following close behind.

Giles had no sooner poured the steaming water into the mugs, and sweetened the tea with enough sugar to hide the "instant-iness" lack of quality, than a knock at the front door indicated that Buffy and Angel had arrived. He pulled open the door to find that, along with the two expected guests, Andrew had also made the trip.

"Come in," Giles said as the corners of his lips turned down in the slightest of frowns at the sight of the Todd Wells-Clarke's soon-to-be ex-husband.

He gave Andrew a perfunctory pat on the shoulder when the younger man approached with his arms outstretched, all the while fixing Angel and Buffy with an unhappy glare. They both at least had the decency to look sheepish.

"Is that tea?" Buffy asked when she eyed the mugs set on the kitchen counter.

Giles made a gesture of equivocation by waggling his hand back and forth. "More or less."

"One for me?" Buffy asked. "I could use the caffeine."

Giles nodded and they both headed to the kitchen while Angel. Behind them, in the living room, they heard the sound of renewed conversation as Willow and Illyria exited the guest bedroom and joined Angel and Andrew.

"Colleen is okay?" Giles asked as they sipped at their mugs. "Are you sure she told you everything?"

"Yup," Buffy confirmed with a nod of her head as she pursed her lips and blew on her tea in an attempt to cool it down. "And I told you everything that she told me. Hellspot, horrible charnel pit of sunken bodies, scary-beyond-belief slaypire with perhaps a guilty conscience, the conversation she had with the aforementioned slaypire about that damned Shanshu prophecy that I never want to hear Angel blather about again, et cetera, et cetera."

Giles nodded. "If I had been there, I would have counseled against Colleen going alone."

"She was right, though," Buffy pointed out. "Maybe Faith and I underestimated her all these years … maybe she has slayer instincts after all. She got through to Joshua … somewhat … while the rest of us never managed anything except to fight with him. Or worse."

Giles nodded, sipped again at the tea, and peered over the rim of his glasses at her. "Buffy," he whispered, "why did you bring Andrew?"

"Giles," she scolded him as she also lowered her voice to a whisper, "be nice." She narrowed her eyes, wrinkled her nose, and frowned at him.

He stared at her for a time with a flat, unhappy expression. "Need I remind you that we have work to do? Illyria is ill and Willow and I need to bring you up to speed on research involving an enormous spell for which Xander is currently rebuilding a large pentagram. Andrew will be a distraction and a nuisance."

"He's our friend, Giles," she reminded him.

He eyed her, sipped at his tea, and said nothing.

"He is. Come on."

Giles set the cup down, folded his arms, and continued to stare at her in silence.

"Fine, he's my friend," she muttered. "Sort of. Also, Olivia wanted him out of the house for a bit. He's been a bit mopey, apparently. Something to do with his husband being a traitorous asshole who I am so going to track down when all this is done."

"So, Andrew coming was Olivia's idea," Giles mused as he unfolded his arm, picked up his mug, and resumed sipping his tea. "I should have known."

The two of them walked into the living room and found everyone clustered around Illyria. The former Old One was wan, pale, and thin as she slumped on the couch. Willow had managed to help Illyria slip into grey sweat pants and a voluminous, warm-looking pink sweater, yet she nevertheless sat with her arms folded close and her legs pressed tightly together as if she was freezing.

"But you're feeling better now?" Angel asked Illyria. "Since you got back from the hospital?"

"You gave us quite a scare," Buffy added.

"I am feeling better," Illyria confirmed in a manner that actually sounded somewhat reassuring. "Your hovering about makes me feel like a fledgling Grrz'alkian and all of you my mother." She glanced around the room, then extended a hand and pointed at Andrew. "I recall you. Many found your mannerisms strange and offputting but nevertheless counted you among their acquaintances. I found it puzzling that they would tolerate you given that …"

"Hey now!" Andrew interrupted loudly while clapping his hands together. "Illyria, I see you're still the charmer."

"You look older," she said. "The gray hair suits you."

"Thanks …" Andrew said with a strained expression on his face. "I think." He gestured at Illyria. "You look exactly the same, but less purple. It's like you haven't aged a day."

"My kind do not age as you mortals do. Now that I am shackled with mortality, I suppose I will find myself a dried, withered husk soon enough." She looked at her hands. "I wonder what I will look like with wrinkles."

"Yup, same old Illyria," Andrew said as he turned away. "What's going on over here, Will?" He gestured towards the dining room table stacked with books, legal pads filled with jotted notes, and various items of occult paraphernalia.

Buffy turned towards the dining room table and cringed at the prospect of having to research literally anything that Willow and Giles were reading. "You might as well tell us your spell project is going."

"Not well," Giles admitted. "Willow and I have looked at this problem every way possible, and there's no way around it … everyone assembled within the boundary of the pentagram that we intend to make part of the spell's effect will need to speak the words of the spell."

Buffy gave Willow a comforting pat on the shoulder. "They won't be willing to do that, so we'll have to find another way."

Giles shook his head. "Buffy, what I'm telling you is that there is no other way."

Buffy rubbed her eyes as she replied. "So what you're saying is that every single demon, person, whatever, who is showing up at that stadium is going to have the recite this magic invocation at the same time? Is that really what I'm hearing. None of them are going to be willing to do that!"

"C'mon, I'm sure there's another way," Angel hastily added. "Right Giles? Willow?"

"There might be another way," Willow admitted.

Angel folded his arms and nodded. "See! There's always another way."

Willow continued, "We give them words written … phonetically, of course … in a language they don't understand. That way, they won't know what they're saying." She tried to force a reassuring grin. "That's assuming we can find a language that none of them speak. Cause if even one of them figures out what we're up to, he's going to tell all his friends."

"Okay, we can work with that," Buffy said. "Just find a kinkos, print a trillion copies, and tell them the spell they're reciting will turn them into superheroes, or something. I like this."

"There's just one problem, Buff," Willow said.

"Here it comes," Andrew moaned.

Giles fixed Andrew with an irritated gaze and said, "We've considered every possible language we could think of. Thousands of demons, occultists, and mystics of every sort will be congregated at that stadium next week. If even one of them can read the words of that spell, it's over."

Angel scratched at his jaw, then looked at Buffy and said, "If I'm hearing this right, we need to find a language so weird and forgotten that the kind of folks who specialize in weird and forgotten won't know it."

"That sounds impossible," Buffy admitted as she stared at the piles of books. "If you guys have a book to translate a language, so might anyone else."

"We're stuck, Buff," Willow admitted. "What's our plan B?"

"Convince all the people we've shanghaied into helping us to cooperate willingly in reciting the spell?"

Giles shook his head. "What's plan C?"

"We all die," Buffy said with a cheerful smile and a tilted head.

"Back to plan A, then," Willow said as she sat down, propped her elbows on the desk, and put her head in her hands. "We need a language none of these people will know."

"I've got one!" Andrew said as he raised a hand with his index finger held high. "I guarantee you it will work."

"Andrew, this is serious," Giles said as he sat down at the table across from Willow.

Andrew cleared his throat, craned his head forward, and proceeded to voice a series of barking, guttural sounds." When he finished, everyone stared at him perplexed expressions. "I just told all of you that today is a good day to die."

"I've never heard any language that sounds remotely similar," Giles said as he stared at Andrew in shock. "The words are clearly syllabic in nature, but the sounds match up with no root dialect that I'm aware of. What language was that?"

Moans, groans, and muttered epithets were heard around the room when Andrew told them.

"We need a real language, Andrew," Willow informed him, and it was obvious to Buffy that her patience was being put to the test. "Not something made up for a television show."

"I mean, all languages are made up, aren't they?" Andrew asked with a frown and a thoughtful expression. "They're not in our genetic code or anything. It's a language with letters and a dictionary and people speak it. Weird people. Weird people even for the kind of people that go to comic-con."

Willow and Giles looked at each other, and finally, after a few seconds, Giles removed his glasses and stared at Buffy. "Remarkably enough, Andrew has a point. All forms of human communications are made up."

Buffy stared upwards in thought for a few seconds, then said, "We could tell all our volunteers and voluntolds that it's some language so old and powerful that's it's been scrubbed from the history books and forgotten. They'll be impressed."

"Play upon their arrogance," Giles said. "That could work.

"Make sure it fits on one-sheet of paper and I'll arrange a kinkos run," Buffy said. "I like this idea. This will work."

The voice that sounded from the living room couch was high-pitched and light, with just the barest hint of a usually-carefully-hidden Texas accent reminiscent of the suburbs of San Antonio. "Angel …"

Angel flinched, his eyes widened in shock, and his black coat whirled as he whipped around to stare at the young woman sitting on the couch. "Fred?" He stepped closer. "Fred, is that you?"

"You let me die."

Everyone who had been walking into the living room to join Angel froze in place in response to what Illyria had just said, and the room grew silent and still.

"Fred," Angel spluttered, "how is this possible?"

The young woman on the couch ignored the question and continued, "Wesley held me in his arms, and I wasted some of my last seconds with him asking for a stuffed toy, and all the time you could have saved me." Her eyes were narrowed and her face twisted into an accusatory stare as she sat up straighter in the couch. "Illyria knew that you decided to sacrifice me, so I know it too."

"If we'd drawn Illyria back into the Deeper Well, thousands would have died, Fred," Angel said, and Buffy had seldom heard him sound so uncertain. "We didn't think you'd want that."

"That's what you assumed might happen, but you didn't know," she said as she stared at Angel with sad, betrayed eyes. "Not for sure." As Fred spoke, blood began to drop from her nose, but she didn't seem to notice as she sat straighter yet. "If it was Cordy or Buffy, would you have let them die?"

"Fred, I …" Angel started to say.

"Or Connor?" she asked, and her words whipped through the air sharper than any razor, and now there was an Illyria-reminiscent, clipped and terse edge to Fred's tone "Would you have ... would you have …" The drops of blood turned into a stream, her eyes rolled back into her head, and her body began to shake and vibrate.

"Put something in her jaw," Willow urged as she scrambled for the couch. When she reached Fred's side she crouched down and rested her arms across Fred's lap to keep her in place. "Someone help hold her down."

"How long do these usually last?" Angel asked he held down Fred's shoulder with one arm while with the other he inserted a length of coat sleeve between her teeth."

"It varies," Willow informed him, "but they've been getting worse."

"Sadly, I was never able to meet Ms. Burkle," Giles said to Angel, "but from what I've heard of her, I would not have expected an outburst such as what we just saw. Was that perhaps Illyria speaking in Fred's voice?"

"I don't know," Angel admitted. "But Buffy has an idea about how we can find out."

"This can't go on," Buffy announced. "Illyria gave us her permission days ago and we've waited long enough." She stepped to the middle of the room, chose a random ceiling corner to shout at, and called out, "Cordelia, we have to talk. Also, I don't want to hear about how what we're doing might not be on-task for saving the universe, because Illyria is our fri … our ally … and she would be a lot more helpful if she wasn't dying on us."

A few seconds went by, and then the increasingly-familiar bright white light flashed in the corner of the room and Cordelia's voice echoed throughout the space. "Buffy, are you sure you want to do this?"

. . . . . . . . .

"Honestly, Xander, I was hoping that you would call me," Emmy said with just the slightest hint of disappointment in her otherwise cheerful-sounding voice.

Xander winced in the direction of the speaker phone blaring Emmy's words, searched for the right response, then finally said, "Honestly, Emmy, this actually is end of the world type stuff."

"I get it," Emmy said, "but what else is new? I still want to meet. Can you take some time?"

Her voice was calm and endearing … almost too calm and endearing … he would have found Emmy easier to deal with if she had inexplicably grown mean and unpleasant during their months apart. He glanced around the work site. The trenching had almost filled, the heavy equipment had been driven offsite, and after another few hours of clean-up, he'd be done.

"How about my office in a few hours?" he suggested. "After I finish here, I need to go fake some work completion permit records."

"Perfect," Emmy said, and he could tell that she was trying not to sound overly eager.

. . . . . . . . .

I shouldn't have eavesdropped.

Connor and Colleen were deep in conversation close to the canal on the far edge of the green, well-manicured lawn that had a now-filled trench running through it, Xander's back had been turned while he was engrossed in a conversation, and the speaker of his phone had been on. It had been so tempting that she couldn't help herself.

That was Emmy. Xander just agreed to go meet Emmy at his office.

She waited until Xander disconnected the call then forced herself to call out a cheerful-sounding greeting as she neared. "Your second lunch … or is it early dinner … is here." She held up a brown paper bag filled with hand-prepared deli meat sandwiches, bottles of water, and sliced fruit and tried to ignore the fact that her hand was trembling.

It might not mean anything.

"So, who was that?" she asked in a deliberately casual tone as she leaned in close and gave Xander a warm hug. As her arms wrapped around him and he returned the embrace, she ran her left thumb along the ring finger of her left hand. Right where her engagement ring would be, had Xander ever gotten around to replacing it. They all had worlds to save and people to mourn, so she hadn't given much thought to replacement jewelry, but at the moment the ring's absence distressed her quite a bit.

"Nothing important," Xander replied in a rather hasty fashion.

She closed her eyes, hugged him more tightly, and tried to ignore the stabbing pain in her heart.

. . . . . . . . .

"Buffy, are you sure this is safe?" Angel asked. "Where did you even come up with this idea anyway?"

"Hey, it's safe!" Cordelia's disembodied voice protested.

"Safe for us, perhaps, but not necessarily safe for Illyria," Giles pointed out.

"Giles is right," Willow added. "How do we know Illyria won't go crazy when strangers show up in her mind?"

Buffy pointed at the pale, fragile form of Illyria lying on the couch. "Those convulsions lasted nearly ten minutes. If they'd gone on any longer, her heart would have stopped … we don't have a choice."

"I suppose you're right," Giles admitted.

Andrew raised a hand. "I'm sorry, but I can't get past the notion that you're going into Illyria's mind." He spread his arms wide. "What?"

"Not her mind," Buffy corrected him, "not exactly. Cordelia is creating a construct."

"A what now?" Andrew asked.

Buffy sighed, then explained, "You see, when I drank too much of the water of Mimisbrunnr …"

"Gesundheit," Andrew interrupted.

Buffy ignored him and continued, "Cordelia created a construct within my mind to keep me from going insane. She's about to do the same thing for Illyria, and we're going to visit her there. I mean, not all of us, just me and Angel, but you get the idea."

"You are about to peruse the contents of an Old One's psyche," Giles mused aloud. "Who knows what sorts of memories she might have accumulated over the years. You and Angel may see parts of history that predate the arrival of humans by millennia."

"Yay," Buffy said in a flat, monotone voice.

"I guess it's time," Angel called out.

After a pause, Cordelia's voice rang out again. "You're sure."

"We're sure."

Another blue-white, sparking, rippling portal appeared, and Buffy and Angel stepped through it.