"The unfortunate reality, Willow," Giles said as he slid his glasses back over his nose and fixed the sleeping Illyria with a pensive look, "is that whatever affliction is harming her, it isn't magical, and that means it's out of our realm of expertise. Besides, dealing with the First takes priority … I certainly hope you agree on that last point.

Willow frowned and stared at the sleeping Illyria. The former demon's already pale skin had gone chalky white, the luster had faded from her hair, and in only a few days it seemed that she'd lost ten pounds from her already thin frame. The blood-soaked blankets, sheets, and pajamas had been thrown away, new bedding found, and Illyria had passed out the moment she'd laid back on the bed.

"I don't know how much longer she can survive this, Giles," Willow said, and worry dripped from her voice. "The convulsions are getting worse."

Giles laid a hand on Illyria's forehead for a moment. "Perhaps a human brain cannot contain the years of experience and knowledge that Illyria possesses, or maybe the destruction of her demonic essence caused physical damage to the human shell … or it's possible that she has a nut allergy. We simply do not know."

"We need to make time to figure this out."

Giles sighed, and Willow could sense his exasperation building beneath his coiffed and polished exterior. "Illyria aided us in our time of need, and we owe her for that, but Willow … every hour that we're not recruiting we need to be spending on research so that the spell Buffy wants us to cast doesn't kill us."

"We'll share the strain," Willow said with a confidence that she didn't quite feel. "It'll be fine."

"Willow," Giles said, and his voice grew more firm, "nobody has tried anything like this on such a massive scale … it should work, in theory, but we need to take time to practice, to make sure everything is just so, to …"

"Stop," Willow said as she raised a hand. "I get it, the First takes priority." She gestured at the sleeping form lying in front of them. "On the other hand, there's a real live person in that bed, and I think she's going to die if we don't do something."

"And what should we do?" Giles asked, and for the first time that Willow could remember, he sounded old. Not tired, not weary, but old. "We're not doctors, and we can't find anything wrong with her that has anything to do with the mystical arts."

"Freeze her till we have more time?"

Giles laughed. "I'll give it some thought."

They retreated from the bedroom, closed the door behind them, and proceeded to the living room. The sun had just begun to rise, and empty coffee mugs and a second pot brewing on the stove revealed the necessity of a heavy intake of caffeine in order for them to be productive so early in the morning.

"Should we Cordy-portal to Arashmaharr?" Willow asked with a reluctant look on her face. "I'm worried they might not react well to uninvited visitors."

Giles gave a quick shake of his head. "You have a standing employment opportunity with D'Hoffryn, as I understand it, so you may as well take advantage of it and summon him."

Willow could not help but detect a faint note of both reproach and regret in Giles's voice. While the wounds left by Tara's death and her subsequent spree of evil-doing had long ago scabbed over and healed, the scars remained.

"Hey," she said as she reached out to rub his arm. "I lost my way for a bit, and I know you guys sometimes blame yourselves, but that was all on me. That's my burden to bear, not yours."

Giles sighed and did not meet her gaze. "Still, I cannot help but think that if I had done things differently, if I had stayed in Sunnydale instead of leaving for England, then …"

Willow cut him off with a shake of her head and a curt wave of her hand. "Stop. Really, Giles, just stop. We've been over this before … many times, in fact. It wasn't your fault, and if you hadn't come back, who knows what I would have done."

Destroy the world … most likely.

"Fair enough," Giles said, though his voice was still thick, and his words hoarse.

"We might as well get on with it," Willow said in an attempt to change the subject. "Waiting isn't going to make this any less unpleasant."

"Agreed," Giles said with a nod of his head.

Willow retrieved from the pocket of her thick, comfortable, purple sweater a small, roughly circular object.

Buffy's right … there's always a talisman.

"I think I remember how the Invocation of D'Hoffryn goes," she said as she crinkled her nose and forehead in thought. "Blessed be the name of D'Hoffryn … I know it starts with that."

A compressed, tightly whirling ball of lightning appeared on the far side of the room, and with an explosion of wind, currents of crackling electricity, and an ear-splitting noise that would surely result in irate neighbors slipping notes under her door later that day, the Lord of Arashmaharr appeared.

D'Hoffryn, of course, looked the same as he had when Willow saw him last. It had been roughly twenty years ago that Anya, in a rare show of righteous nobility, offered to sacrifice herself so that victims of her vengeance-wish could be restored to life. D'Hoffryn had killed another vengeance demon, instead, but it was the thought that counts. The demon still had the long, elf-like ears, the horns jutting from the crown of his head, the leathery skin, the unnecessarily long goatee and mustache … it was nice to know some folks never changed.

Then again, he had swapped the brown robes for red, which seemed an ominous sign.

"Ms. Rosenberg … excuse me, Mrs. Osbourne," D'Hoffryn said with a bow of his head. "I thought you might reach out to me. Tell me, are you reconsidering our offer in light of what has happened to you?"

Willow blinked a few times in surprise. "You know that something has happened to me? What … exactly?"

Giles removed his glasses, and Willow was fairly certain that he began to curse at himself under his breath.

D'Hoffryn laughed, and it was a hoarse, horrible sound. "A witch as powerful as you comes along once every hundred years, if that. When you were disfigured," D'Hoffryn gestured towards her waist and thighs, "I suspected that your inner nature would cry out for vengeance."

Giles half-turned away and clenched his hands into fists.

D'Hoffryn paid no attention to Giles as he continued, "Matrimony and maternity may have softened your rougher edges, but I imagine that a good maiming has stoked the hellfires lingering in the corners of your soul to a roaring blaze." He rubbed his hands together. "You'd answer directly to me, of course, I would never subject someone of your talents to middle management oversight. We offer competitive compensation packages, you'll have your own little corner of Arashmaharr in which you may bend reality however you see fit, and our childcare center employs only Norland College graduates. Little Elizabeth will be well looked after while you're in the field."

Willow pressed her legs together, hoped that the maneuver didn't appear as self-conscious as it felt, and drew her face into what she hoped was a suitably stern expression. "It seems to me like way too many people are taking an interest in my nether regions. My plumbing is doing just fine, thanks, and I'm not angry, or vengeful, or anything like that."

"Oh." D'Hoffryn said in a petulant, aggrieved tone. "What, then, did you want of me? Just a run-of-the-mill vengeance wish?"

"No!" she and Giles answered simultaneously.

"Mrs. Osbourne," D'Hoffryn said as he stepped nearer. His tone was still genial, but Willow was fairly certain that there was a faint crackling sound in the air as he spoke. "The talisman I gave you was not for social calls."

"This isn't a social call," Giles said. "The First has entered our reality."

"In the flesh," Willow said. "Or, whatever passes for flesh when you're evil incarnate."

D'Hoffryn uttered a noncommittal grunt. "Impossible."

"It is very possible," Giles said.

D'Hoffryn's eyes narrowed. "Very well, I shall make a few inquiries, but if this turns out to be a joke of some sort, I shall be quite cross."

Somehow, D'Hoffryn made quite cross sound like the direst of threats.

The demon's eyes rolled back, lightning crackled over his form, and Willow and Giles glanced at each other with uncertain gazes as they waited for the vengeance demon's consciousness to return from wherever he'd sent it.

A minute or two later, the demon's eyes rolled back into their proper orientation, and he stared at them with a wide-eyed, panicked expression.

"Well?" Willow said. "You find what you were looking for?"

Several minutes later, Willow was rubbing D'Hoffryn's shoulder in a comforting manner while the demon sipped at a cup of hot cocoa and blew his nose loudly, and repeatedly, into Giles's handkerchief.

"You hear about the prophecies, of course," D'Hoffryn moaned, "but you figure the end of creation could never happen on your watch. Now that the apocalypse is here, I find that there is so much left to do. There are entire epochs of human history where I haven't overseen so much as a single vengeance curse, and I've scarcely taken advantage of the travel opportunities afforded by our satellite offices."

"Yes, that must be difficult," Giles said as he reached out and plucked his handkerchief from D'Hoffryn's clawed hand. You have our sympathies."

D'Hoffryn stopped his whining long enough to fix Giles with an unhappy expression, and Willow chose that moment to interject.

"Not all hope is lost, and you can mentally insert whatever other cliches are comforting here, it's way too early for me to remember all of them, because we have a plan to defeat the First."

D'Hoffryn stared at her, and skepticism dripped from his scaly hide. "A plan? To fight the First-made-flesh? Unless that plan is to flee through time and space for however long it takes for creation to be destroyed, you might as well not bother."

"You know, Buffy deserves a bit more trust," Willow complained. "I mean, seriously, is everybody we talk to going to immediately react with it's impossible, the First can't be fought?"

"Yes," D'Hoffryn said with a nod.

"Well, it's not impossible," Willow said.

D'Hoffryn set the mug on the coffee table and stood up. "Your optimism will lighten your spirits in the days to come, and I wish you well. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some packing to do. If I'm lucky, perhaps I can eke out a few millennia in a forgotten dimension."

"Now hold on a minute," Giles said as he raised a palm towards the demon. "You're a vengeance demon, the leader of the vengeance demons, and perhaps you could show just the teensiest bit of a backbone?"

D'Hoffryn's back straightened, his eyes narrowed, and Willow stepped between him and Giles. "Let us explain," she said. "If you'll just listen, the more we talk, the more what we're saying will make sense."

"So, you have a plan?" D'Hoffryn said. "So what? What does that have to do with me?"

"We need help," Willow replied, "and not just from you, but every demon you know, vengeance or otherwise, in every reality you can reach."

"And as I understand it, you can reach quite a few," Giles added.

D'Hoffryn shrugged. "Satellite offices, like I said."

Willow explained, Giles jumped in at times to explain further, and while D'Hoffryn was skeptical at first, eventually he began to nod.

"I can't inform any of my people about your ultimate intention, you understand that, right?" D'Hoffryn asked. "I'd tell you that it bothers my conscience to trick them, but as you both well know, I don't have one."

He laughed long and heartily, Giles and Willow tried their best to join in, and when the mirth died down, D'Hoffryn reached into a pocket of his robe and handed over a business card. Willow glanced down, took in the card's subtle coloring, tasteful thickness, and watermark, then squinted in surprise at the email address.

"Yes, I need to migrate from aol eventually," D'Hoffryn explained when he noticed her surprise, "but according to our IT guys the existing email addresses are built into the structure of our servers." He reached out and tapped at the card. "Let me know when and where, and a veritable medley of demons will be there." He drew himself up. "I won't be, of course, but you can be assured that I will be rooting for you all."

D'Hoffryn spared them the theatrics of a vortex of lightning and wind when he departed.

"I thought that went well," Willow said.

Giles nodded, then turned to her with a serious, grave expression on his face. "Willow, you and I should maybe talk about what happened … about what I did to you."

She shook her head and darted forward to wrap her arms around his waist. "Do not let anything these evildoers say bother you, Giles. I'm the one who made that call, not you, and I would have done it with or without your help. If I had been laying around at Xander's bleeding and half-comatose, Wilkins and Arach would be two more items to add to our list of problems, and I have you to thank for getting me back on my feet."

"I should have said no," Giles said he hugged her back. "I should have stopped you."

She looked up at him. "Not everything that has happened to us is your fault, Giles. We make our own choices."

Giles pulled out his handkerchief, likely to blow his own nose, then remembered that a vengeance demon had been already put it to that task. With an expression of distaste, he tucked the cloth back into his jacket pocket.

"I suppose we could check on Illyria again," Giles suggested. "Perhaps find some time to take her to an actual hospital?"

Willow frowned. "I don't think we can take Illyria to a hospital unless she can get a hell of a lot better at pretending to be human. The last thing we need is for her to blurt out the wrong thing and get placed on a psychiatric hold … or even worse, they start running checks on the name Winifred Burkle."

Giles sighed. "We seem to be acquiring folks in need of our aid at a prodigious rate."

"Andrew?" Willow asked.

Giles nodded. "Andrew. He's likely still occupying my couch, as he was all last night, and Olivia is likely still plying him with tea, as she was all night."

"His husband did turn out to be a complete scumbag," Willow pointed out. "Like, Dante's ninth level of scumbaggery, scumbag."

Giles nodded in agreement.

"It was nice of you to put him up at your place," Willow sadded

Giles frowned at her. "The rest of you refused."

"Well," Willow said in an apologetic tone, "Xander and Dawn need their space, Buffy and Angel don't have the room, and I've already got Illyria."

"Connor and Colleen have a spare bedroom," Giles grumbled.

Illyria chose that moment to creep, with hesitant footsteps, out of the hallway and into the living room. "I heard noises that sounded like weather phenomenon," she said as she glanced around. "I assume that was a spell of some sort?"

"In a manner of speaking," Giles replied. "How are you feeling?"

"The sensation of hunger has returned," Illyria answered. "Willow, you were not in my bed when I awoke. Does your decision to cease being alongside me while I sleep mean that you have grown less worried about my condition?"

Giles rotated and fixed Willow with an inquisitive look, while Willow correspondingly felt her face turn beet red.

. . . . . . . . .

"You brought a gun, right?" Colleen asked.

Connor nodded and pulled up his hoodie to reveal a large, gleaming revolver tucked into

the waistband of his jeans.

"And here I thought you were just happy to see me," she said with an impish grin.

He laughed, then turned towards her, pressed in close, and kissed her long and deeply.

Colleen patted him on the arm until he broke off the kiss, then she gestured at the corrugated iron, fetid, dank water, and shadowy recesses of the storm drain tunnel through which they crept. "Not really the time or place, lover."

"I guess you're right," he replied.

They moved forward, cellphone lights shining ahead, and listened for the sounds of anyone stalking towards them in the darkness.

".357?" Colleen asked.

Connor shook his head. "That didn't slow Joshua down enough last time … I went with a .44 magnum."

"Dirty Harry," she said in an appreciative tone. "I used to watch those movies with my dad, we loved 'em."

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," Connor replied with a smile as with deft steps he sidestepped a particularly large puddle lying in the middle of the tunnel.

"Only liked?" Colleen teased.

"Well," Connor said in that far-too-serious tone that he often affected, "let's see if we can stand each other when the world isn't ending and go from there."

Fair enough.

She started to laugh, then they navigated around a bend in the tunnel and pulled up short at the sight in front of them.

"Joshua's been busy," Connor said.

The tunnel opened into a large, high-ceilinged room with walls of slime-covered concrete. In the center of the space, a pile of twisted, shredded bodies lay in the water. They stepped forward, shined their lights about, and confirmed that perhaps a half dozen other tunnels branched off from the room.

The bodies had begun to rot and decay, but the smell had not yet become overpowering.

"These corpses are fresh," Connor said as he gestured towards them. "A day, maybe two."

Colleen crouched down and examined the twisted, unmoving forms. "These are demons."

Connor stepped into the water, and Colleen scrunched her nose in disgust as he waded through ankle deep effluence. When he reached the corpses, he pointed down at one of them. "This demon is wearing a construction wor kbelt."

"I'll take your word for it," Colleen called out. She was a slayer, and yet fear coiled around her heart and near-strangled her lungs. She found that she desperately wanted to be gone from this place, to be gone from Moonridge entirely, in fact. "It might not have been Joshua," she said, mostly to convince herself.

Connor pointed at another demon. "This one with the horns, it's a Taurine Demon. They're big, mean, and fast, and this one has had its head twisted around backwards and its throat ripped open." He sloshed back to her and stepped into the tunnel. "It's Joshua."

"We found what we came to find," Colleen said in a hopeful tone, "so can we leave now?"

Connor seemed on the verge of disagreeing with her, she was certain that they were about to have their first serious fight as a couple, then he nodded in agreement. "These tunnels probably go for miles, and we're supposed to be watching Xander's back," he replied.

They turned and headed back the way they came, and Colleen found the urge to break into a dead sprint for the tunnel exit nearly overpowering.

A splash sounded behind them.

Connor stopped, turned, and drew the gun from his waistband. Colleen began to pull a stake from beneath her jacket, then thought better of it. She laid a hand on Connor's arm and shook her head. "We were just taking a look, remember?"

"Joshua," Connor called out.

"What are you doing?" she hissed. "Are you insane?"

"If he's here, he already knows we're here," Connor whispered. He raised his voice again and called out, "Joshua, listen, Faith didn't think you were so far gone that you weren't worth talking to, and her opinion meant a lot to all of us. If you want to talk, we'll be here."

Yeah, I'm sure that'll do the trick.

"Connor," Colleen said after perhaps a minute, "we're leaving now."

Thankfully, he voiced no protest.

. . . . . . . . .

Buffy swung open the steamed and fogged shower door so that Angel could better see that the expression on her face was one of encouragement, not disappointment. "Look, I'm offering constructive feedback, not criticisms. I am not … again, most definitely am not … saying that I didn't enjoy myself. I did! It should have been obvious from the noises I was making how much fun I was having! Besides, you should know me well enough to realize that I wouldn't fake anything to spare your ever-so-endearing fragile ego."

Angel, to his credit, spared only the briefest of downwards glances in the direction of her bare, shower-damp breasts and crotch before locking his gaze upon her eyes. He'd somehow managed to style his hair and throw on his customary long black coat, black slacks, shoes, and a grey button-up shirt during the few minutes she'd spent shaving her legs in the shower.

"Then what exactly are you saying, Buffy?" he asked. "Cause it sure sounds like you're telling me that it wasn't good for you."

She put her hands on her hips and tried to keep her voice as soothing and non-confrontational as she could. "Angel, I'm a slayer again. That means I'm tough … really tough … okay? I know this past year when I was just a middle-aged woman you got in the habit of taking it easy on me, and hey, sometimes sweet and gentle fits the mood, but trust me, I'm not going to break."

The kitchen counter I was bent over might break, but I'll be fine.

Angel took a deep breath, and she imagined that she could hear the grinding sound of gears in his head turning as he tried to decide whether his manhood had been insulted. Thankfully, he seemed to conclude that he could escape the conversation with his masculine dignity intact. "Fine," he said with a nod. "I get it. More vigor … I can do that."

She smiled at him, leaned out of the shower while standing on her tiptoes, and he obediently craned his neck down so that they could briefly brush their lips in the lightest of kisses. "Vigorous is good," she told him as she retreated beneath the stream of scalding hot water and closed the shower door. "More vigorous is even better," she called out.

When she'd finished her ablutions, she threw on jeans, a simple white shirt, a black windbreaker, and considered whether it might not start her and Angel's conversation with the next group of recruits off on the wrong foot if they brought weapons. She grabbed a stake from her cabinet-drawer-full-of-stakes, turned to Angel to inquire of his opinion on whether they should arm themselves, and the inquiry died on her lips when she saw him tucking matching pistols into twin shoulder holsters slung beneath his jacket.

Armed it is.

She tucked the stake into the back of her belt and headed to the living room. Angel followed a few moments later, they glanced at each other and nodded, and she called out in a loud voice, "Alright, Cordy, we're ready." A few seconds later, the familiar sight of a crackling, blue-white portal appeared on the far side of the space.

They stepped through the gateway together.

She'd never visited Angel's office at Wolfram & Hart, but the style was much as she'd imagined it. Dark, glossy wood likely harvested from some rainforest teetering on the edge of ecological collapse, neutral beige carpet, rough-hewn stone wall inlays and dark wood paneling, red couches and chairs, and a large, cherry mahogany desk perched on the far end. Statues on pedestals lined the walls and hanging from shelves behind the desk were an endless assortment of unicorn figurines. Porcelain, wood, metal … and quite a few plushies.

Unicorns?

The person seated at the tall, dark green chair behind the desk sat upright, stared at them in wide-eyed shock, and gasped in surprise. "Boss!" She immediately shook her head and waved off her own comment. "Wait, what am I talking about, you're not the boss, I am." The blonde vampire waggled her finger at the two of them. "Because we're old friends, I'll forgive the lack of an appointment, but really … next time, call ahead."

"Harmony," Angel said. He muttered only her name, but to Buffy's ears the sound conveyed a universe of pain and irritation. "Why are you sitting in my desk?"

"Your desk?" Harmony asked with a giggle as she stood upright and spread her arms wide. "Maybe you haven't been checking your emails, but they made me branch manager over a decade ago." She smiled, and her bright white teeth glittered in the overhead lights.

"They gave you my job?" Angel spluttered. "You?"

Buffy tugged at Angel's sleeve then gestured at the sunlight streaming through the windows. "Why isn't Harmony bursting into flames?"

"Wolfram & Hart uses special, vampire-safe glass," Angel replied.

"How thoughtful of them," Buffy muttered.

Angel stepped forward, leaned over, and put his hands on Harmony's desk. "You!"

I think we've covered that, dear.

"You never had any confidence in me, Angel," Harmony retorted, "but just a teensy bit of confidence is all I needed to soar."

"You?!" Angel sputtered again.

Harmony folded her arms. "I'm not just doing your job, Angel, I'm straight up, killing it. Abyssal metrics are way up, manpower shrinkage in operations is way down, and we've beaten projections for forty-nine straight quarters." Her smile intensified and she giggled before continuing. "I've had six people that wanted my job beheaded."

Angel began to splutter nonsense, and Buffy decided that it was time to interject.

"Harmony," she said, "it's been a while."

The vampire moved around the side of the desk, and Buffy couldn't help but reach a hand towards the stake tucked into her waistband.

Harmony made a clucking sound and shook her head. "Buffy, really? We've known each other, for like, ages. Since the bad old days in Sunnydale." The vampire looked Buffy up and down. "Wow, you look amazing." She turned to Angel. "Did she get turned, or something?"

"Not quite," Buffy replied.

Angel sat down in one of the red chairs and put his face in his hands. "This is a nightmare."

"Pookie, why haven't you come to see me before now?" Harmony complained to Angel. "Or blondie-bear, for that matter … how is he?"

Angel peered up from his hands. "Harmony, I was exiled from Los Angeles by your bosses, remember?"

"Oh, that's right," Harmony said with a shrug of the shoulders. "Still, with what you and I had, I thought you'd at least have called."

What?

Buffy kept Harmony in view while she craned forward to catch Angel's eye. "Angel … you … and Harmony?"

"No, no, NO!" Angel replied as he sprang to his feet and shook his head. "Harmony was just my secretary, that's it."

"Just your secretary?" Harmony asked in an aggrieved tone. "Angel, I've always considered you my mentor, and I thought you saw me as your protege." She glanced away and Buffy realized that the vamp's lower lip was trembling. "More importantly, I thought we were friends."

Angel scrambled over to Buffy. "I'm serious, nothing happened between me and Harmony, nothing!"

"He's telling the truth," Harmony interjected. "Angel was kind of a stickler for keeping his professional and personal lives separate." She pursed her lips and placed a thoughtful finger on her chin. "Except when it came to Eve … and Nina … and Gwen … and Cordy … and …"

"Stop!" Buffy yelled as she raised an imploring hand. "Harmony, that's not why we're here."

Harmony affected an expression of grave, serious contemplation as she strode with deliberate steps back behind the desk, sat down, and steepled her hands on the wood. "I know why you and Angel are here, Buffy." She leaned forward and grinned. "Everybody is talking about the First! Oh, and about how we're going to go absolutely biblical with vengeance on Illyria when we find her, but mostly about the First."

"You know?" Angel asked.

"What does Wolfram & Hart intend to do about the end of creation?" Buffy asked.

Harmony pointed at a black, silver-bezeled monitor on her desk from which several unicorn keychains dangled. "It's all in the emails, Angel. Seriously, open up your web browser once in a while."

"I don't work for Wolfram & Hart, Harmony, and I haven't for a long time," Angel reminded her. "I'm not being cc'ed on anything."

Harmony tapped at the desk. "Well, I suppose that's fair."

"Harmony," Buffy tried again, "as much as it pains me to admit this, if any of us want to survive past the next few weeks, we have to work together."

Harmony interlaced her fingers behind her head, leaned back, and nearly toppled over when the chair's front wheels rose off the ground. With hurried gestures, she lowered her hands, leaned forward, and stabilized herself. "We're not any happier about having to work together than you are," Harmony confided. "I think the three big guys have burnt through two conduits in the last twenty-four hours they're so angry, but hey, there won't be anything to fight over if we don't try to cooperate, right?" She smiled again, but this time something malevolent lurked behind the vacuous stare.

"Wolfram & Hart intends to screw us over when this is done, don't they?" Angel asked.

Harmony nodded and smiled. "Of course."

The rest of the conversation was just logistics, and apparently the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart already knew much of what they intended from the missive Buffy had sent to the slayers and Watchers using Todd Wells-Clarke's phone. Harmony's blithe indifference to the seriousness of the situation combined with her irritating cheeriness resulted in Buffy's hand reaching for a stake on more than one occasion, but she managed to rein in her instincts.

When they'd finished, Harmony hit send on the lengthy email the three of them had crafted, Cordy opened a portal, and the blonde vampire was circling from the desk for a goodbye hug when Angel and she rushed through the gateway. They stumbled into their living room, the portal vanished, leaving behind an acrid, burnt aroma, and Buffy turned towards Angel.

"That could have gone worse," she admitted.

Angel tossed his coat across the back of the couch and stared at her with sad eyes and a mournful expression. "They gave Harmony my job, Buffy."

She held up a hand. "Look, I know this is a sore subject that you and I have beaten to death, but I just have to say this one more time for the record: I know you've got that whole fight-back-the-darkness-inside thing going on, and god knows how hot I used to find it, but Wolfram & Hart, Angel? Really?"

"I was in a bad place," he admitted. A smug grin crept over his features. "And I'm pretty sure you still find it hot."

She ignored his innuendo and continued, "A bad place? Yeah, I'll say you were, you were in Wolfram & Hart!"

Angel rubbed his brow. "Haven't you guilt-tripped me enough over that for the last twenty-ish years? Do we have to talk about this again?"

"We could talk about Eve, instead," she offered as she began walking towards the hallway that led to their bedroom. "Or Nina, or …"

Angel grabbed her arm, roughly spun her around, then grasped her hands.

"You're the only woman I think about, Buffy." He intertwined his fingers with hers, held her arms by her sides, and lowered his mouth. She parted and lifted her lips, and their kissing was hungry in a way that it had most definitely not been earlier that morning.

That's more like it.

When they separated, she squirmed her hands in Angel's grip and arched her back to stare up at him. "Are you considering what I said before to represent a personal challenge as to how rough and manly you can be?"

"Maybe," he said with a shrug. His dark eyes glittered as he flashed a vulturine grin.

"Go with that," she breathed in a hoarse whisper as she stepped closer. "Let's see what you've got."

. . . . . . . . .

"Wow," Dawn said as she watched Xander set down a several hundred-pound pipe and tried to ignore the obnoxiously primitive frisson of excitement she felt while watching him work.

"What wow?" Xander asked as he glanced about.

She gestured at the pipe. "It's hard to forget about the eye, it's kind of staring me in the face all the time …"

"Har dee har har," Xander said as he picked up the brown paper bag in which Dawn had been kind enough to pack lunch.

Dawn continued, "But it's easy to forget about the whole demonic-transplant-made-you-super-strong deal."

"Just the left arm," Xander explained as he pulled an apple out of the bag and sunk his teeth into it with gusto.

Dawn surveyed the worksite and was shocked at how much progress had been made in only a day. Burnt, shredded pipes had been extracted from trenches dug in the ground, new piping had been laid in orderly rows along the grass, and Xander was wearing his construction hat and was all muscley and sweaty and goddammit she needed to keep her mind on business.

Xander caught her staring, winked at her, and said, "I missed you, too." He smiled and held up the apple. "And thanks again for lunch."
She nodded and, as was becoming a habit of hers, felt at the ring finger of her left hand. She'd worn the engagement ring Xander had given her for many long months, then the wedding band of the monster who had mind-raped her for over a year, and now the digit felt empty. She didn't need anything fancy, not again, but it was growing increasingly important that she have some confirmation of their impending nuptials adorning her finger.

Maybe I'll worry about this when reality isn't about to eaten by some primal force of darkness.

"What did Buffy want?" Xander asked.

Dawn blinked a few times and feigned confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Last night," Xander said. "You talked to her on the phone for nearly an hour before coming to bed."

"Just catching up," she lied, and as the words left her mouth, the guilt of lying to her fiancé made her want to crumple into a ball and hide beneath the dump truck Xander was leaning against.

I need to change the subject.

"Where are Connor and Colleen?" she asked. "Aren't they supposed to be watching your back, or something?"

"They're crawling through a sewer," Xander said in between mouthfuls of the homemade meatball sandwich he was busy cramming into his jaws. "You put the peppers in here that I love!"

She smiled at him. "Yes, I remembered how much you liked them."

Xander grinned at her.

It was a nice moment, spoiled only by Xander's cell phone buzzing in his pocket. He fished it out of his jeans, thumbed the screen, and scowled at the message.

"What is it?" Dawn asked.

Xander shook his head and tucked the phone away. "Angel and Buffy managed to crack their kitchen countertop, and they're hoping I can fix it once the world isn't on the brink of ending." He rubbed his chin and furrowed his brow in thought. "I installed that countertop myself, it's solid tile stonework. What the hell were they doing?"

"Sparring?" Dawn asked.

Xander shrugged and resumed eating the sandwich. "I guess," he mumbled between mouthfuls.

. . . . . . . . .

"You're not Buffy, are you?" Harmony yelled through the din of alarms that resounded throughout the corridors of Wolfram & Hart. The blonde vampire had her hands pressed to her ears to drown out the sound and through the windows of her office armed security guards and dark mystics from a variety of cults, temples, and forgotten creeds huddled and stared.

The Buffy Summers standing across from Harmony folded her arms, shook her head, and for the first time since she'd lost her humanity, Harmony felt cold.

"She kind of is," Angel said as he stepped out of the shadows. "But kind of isn't." There hadn't been a portal, or a burst of energy, or anything to signal his arrival, he was simply there. Harmony felt nausea rising … another sensation she hadn't experienced in decades … at the sight of him. It was as if reality was warping and bending around his form as he walked, almost like the world could not contain the power that rippled off him in waves.

Angelus.

"I'm not afraid of you," Harmony said in a terrified, squeaking manner as she retreated behind her desk and began pushing frantically at the panic button installed on the underside of the wood. "I mean, aren't we on the same side?"

Angelus's eyes were dark holes in his face as he smiled at her. "The same side?" He laughed, and the sound of it could have peeled flesh from bones. "I don't want, or need, anyone on my side." He gestured towards the lobby teeming with security of one form or another. "You know, if you and your bosses hadn't pissed me off, I might have given them their own corner of nothingness and let them amuse me for a few billion years. Now? Let's just say disbarment isn't what I have in mind for the lawyers of Wolfram & Hart."

A thrashing, roaring noise began to sound in the lobby beyond, and Harmony watched as the employees parted to allow whatever was tearing its way up the stairs to emerge.

"The failsafe, right?" Angel asked as he pointed towards the glass. "Dear, could you take care of that?"

"I'd love to," Buffy replied as she walked through the office door. A few seconds later, the sound of screaming filled the air.

Skeins of shadows trailed from Angelus's form as he walked behind the desk and loomed over Harmony. "I'm glad I took this time to come see you myself."

"Why?" Harmony asked as she pressed herself against the stone of the wall.

"Because I never liked you," Angelus replied, and darkness seeped from his skin and reached for her.

Though Harmony opened her mouth to scream, the emptiness twisted through the air and took her before she could utter a sound.

"Then again," Angelus admitted as he stared at the burnt, twisted, shrinking hole in creation that had once been the vampire known as Harmony Kendall. "I don't like anybody."