"Connie, I like you, I really do," Colleen reassured Connor as she reached out and grasped his hands. "You're the first guy in a long time that asked me questions and cared about the answers … and who didn't try to immediately get into my pants."

I actually would have preferred if I hadn't had to drop quite so many hints …

Connor looked a bit sheepish as he interrupted and said, "I mean, I wanted to, you know you look great, it's just I'd been living with cultist vampires for a while, and work has always been …"

She interrupted him with a wave of her hand and a shake of her head. "We're getting off-topic." Colleen took a deep breath and continued. "Like I just said, I like you, but I've been at this slaying business as long as you have, and I can take care of myself. Also, and don't take this the wrong way, but you don't get to boss me around."

Connor stared at her with concern bordering on panic evident in his pale blue eyes. There was no grey yet at his temples, and he was as lean and wiry as a teenager, but the weight of his years was apparent as he struggled for the right words. "Look, Colleen," he finally began, "I'm not trying to be your boss, but Faith's literal last words to you were a warning that you should stay with us and not go wandering off by yourself. Don't you think you should listen to her?"

"Don't drag Faith into this," she warned him. "I don't think Joshua will hurt me if I go alone, but if we come at him with a pack, who knows what he might do." She gestured across the manicured lawn in the direction of Xander's makeshift construction project, the gathered group staring at them, and Buffy and Angel in particular. "Those two tried to kill him and his mom, remember? I don't think he'd be happy to see them."

"You could at least wait for Willow or Giles," Connor urged. "Willow can wear one of those fuzzy sweaters she likes, they're about as non-threatening as it gets."

Colleen's shoulder length brown hair swirled as she vigorously shook her head. "Willow and Giles aren't coming," she reminded him. "Weren't you listening to Buffy? They're taking Illyria to Willow's, and once she gets there, they're going to keep an eye on her."

"We've barely even talked about this," Connor said in his stubborn, mule-headed fashion that she found endearing on occasion, but at the moment was trying her patience. "Joshua can wait until everyone has weighed in."

"No, Joshua can't wait," she snapped. When Connor flinched, she tried to soften her tone before she continued. "We don't know why he's here, and we don't know what he intends to do. Nothing we have planned will matter if Xander can't finish rebuilding that pentagram."

"I don't want you to go," Connor said as he stepped close and reached for her hands. "If not Angel or Buffy, I or literally anyone else can go, just so long as it isn't you." He turned over his left hand so that she could see the ruined stumps of his ring and pinkie finger. "I'm down two fingers because of him, the last thing I want is to be down a girlfriend, also."

She patted Connor's back in what she hoped was a comforting manner, then said, "Connor, I was there when Buffy led all of us slayers into the Hellmouth to battle the Turok-Han, and I was there for hundreds of other fights over the years. I'll be fine."

"He'll kill you."

She shook her head and leaned forward so that he could hug her. She pressed the side of her face against his chest and said, "I think in a twisted way, Joshua thought he was fighting for the right reasons … or at least not for the wrong ones. Faith said as much, and I trust her judgment when it comes to wayward souls. I wouldn't do this if I thought I wouldn't come back." She chuckled, but it was a grim, morbid sound. "He killed two of my friends, and I've earned the right for this to be my call."

Connor leaned back and stared into her dark brown eyes. With such a serious expression on her face, she looked younger than her years, and he couldn't help but smile.

"Something amusing?" she asked as she broke off the embrace and put her hands on her hips.

"You're adorable, do you know that?"

Colleen rolled her eyes. "Look, I get that you're a work in progress with the social cues, and I kind of dig that you're not a polished player, but the last thing I need right now is to be patronized." She moved to circle around him and Connor reached out and grabbed her elbow.

She shot a pointed glance at his hand and he hastily released his grip.

"If I ask you not to do this, will you listen?"

She shook her head. "Like I just said, this is my call." After a moment's hesitation, she continued, "I kind of feel like this moment is mine, if that makes any sense. Like, I've been carried along, helping with the mission, but as weird as it sounds, I've never been quite certain of my place in all of this. This time, I think I'm the one who's supposed to go."

"Please," he asked, and she loved that he cared enough to beg.

She rubbed his arm and said, "God, you're so sweet … but Connor, this is something I have to do." Continuing the conversation would be pointless, so she tore her eyes away from his pleading stare and strode back to where everyone else was waiting.

"You manage to talk any sense into her?" Buffy asked Connor as soon as they approached.

"Hey," Colleen said, "you're the one that trained me to go after vampires, right? Let me go do my job."

"Joshua is different," Angel said as he gazed towards the concrete canal. His black coat billowed in the wind and he shook his head a few times before he turned back to her. "You already fought him once, and how did that go? He took Buffy and me to the razor's edge, and that was before he became a vampire."

Colleen crossed her arms as she responded, "We've already been over this. I'm not going to fight him."

"And if he doesn't feel the same way?" Xander asked, his voice a near-growl. "What then?"

She'd never quite gotten used to the gold-flecked iris and red pupil of Xander's left eye, and the gaze he fixed on her unsettled her more than she cared to admit. "Then I'll portal back," she promised with a confidence she didn't quite feel. She turned back to Buffy. "Every hunch, every plan, every slayer instinct that you have, Buffy, we all go along with it on blind faith, and now I'd like you to have just a fraction of that confidence in me." She grinned. "You were the one who trusted me enough to teach me, to make me a slayer, and now I need you to trust me."

"It's your funeral," Buffy said, and though she tried to sound cavalier, Colleen knew her well enough that she could detect the worry hiding behind her voice. "Besides, even if we told you no, I'm pretty sure Cordelia would make you a portal if you asked."

Nice of Buffy to spare my ego and forego reminding me that I've never been one of the stronger slayers.

They argued some more, but her mind was made up.

When she called for a portal, a glimmering, crackling blue-white gateway appeared out of thin air next to a pile of steel pipes and trenching equipment. Feeling decidedly less certain about her plan than she had a few seconds earlier, Colleen drew herself upright and walked forward.

When she heard grunts and the sounds of a scuffle, she turned to find Angel and Xander holding Connor's arms while he tried to thrash and kick himself free.

Buffy shrugged. "While you two were chatting, we figured that Connor would probably try to follow Spike's example."

"Let me go!" Connor screamed while Angel and Xander tightened their grip. "Colleen, don't you do it!" He turned his eyes upwards and howled, "Cordelia, you owe me. Cordy!"

Turning away from Connor and walking through the portal was one of the hardest things she'd ever done.

. . . . . . . . .

She passed through jagged shards of cold, empty space that paralyzed her lungs and stabbed at her chest, then emerged to find herself standing in water in a pitch black space. For a moment, she felt panic rising, then she remembered she didn't need a flashlight.

Oh right, my phone.

She fumbled her cell out of the pocket of her grey windbreaker, stepped out of the fetid, dirty water in an attempt to salvage the leather of her brown boots and the denim of her dark blue jeans, and turned on the phone's flashlight.

Curved, corrugated steel walls, a flowing dark brown current filled with leaves and effluence she preferred not to think about, and a rotting aroma greeted her senses as she held the cell aloft and moved forward. With nimble, dexterous movements she clambered first on one side of the rounded floor of the tunnel then the other in an attempt to keep her feet dry. She proceeded in that manner for a few dozen yards until she found herself in large, circular room. Gazing upwards, she spotted the outline of a manhole cover. A ray of sunlight emanated from the small opening in the steel plate and pierced the gloom. The water looked deeper here, and while the last thing she wanted to do was wade into it, she saw no other way forward.

"Cordelia, you couldn't have dropped me off, like, right in front of him?" Colleen asked the empty air as she lowered her boot into the water. The sludge reached halfway up her ankles before her heel struck bottom. "This sucks," she murmured as she stepped off the overhanging lip of the corrugated iron tunnel and navigated with hesitant steps towards the center of the room. After a few paces, she realized that she faced an unanticipated problem … she had no idea which direction to go. There were at least half a dozen identical looking passages on the ground floor of the cavern, and a similar number of tunnels were spaced along the walls maybe teen feet above her head.

Well … either the Powers were confused about what I wanted, or …

Before she could finish the thought, a large form trailing a fluttering black coat descended to land with a large splash directly in front of her. She did her best to stand straight and not flinch from the wave of rancid water that washed over her chest and face.

There was no point in fighting Joshua. She'd already tried that, and if Connor hadn't unloaded a .357 magnum into his side she'd have died along with Jess and Dana. Instead, she held her breath, raised her hands in a non-threatening manner and opened her mouth to speak.

He was fast … too fast. Nobody that tall and heavy should be able to move so quickly, but in the time it took her to part her lips, he had wrapped one hand around her throat, another on the wrist that held the phone, and slammed her against the concrete wall of the cavern.

At least this time he's letting me breathe.

Stars swirled in her vision for a moment as she fought to clear her head, but she did manage to hold onto the phone … barely. The light illuminated Joshua's face, and she tried not to stare at him with loathing as she examined his features. The red hair was unkempt and matted, his green eyes were narrowed, and he darted a feral, ferocious gaze in myriad directions as if he expected other opponents to attack at any moment.

"It's just me," she managed to croak as he tightened his grip on her windpipe. Every instinct told her to kick at him, to fight, but she suppressed the urge and instead continued to speak. "I came alone and I just want to talk." She had to strain to speak between wheezing gasps. "Are you really going to kill me? You butchered two of my friends, and you let another be burned alive." Spots were beginning to dance at the edge of her vision, but she resisted the urge to fight against the choking fingers wrapped around her neck. "I'm not a demon and I'm not here to fight you … how many more women do you plan on murdering?"

For a moment, something that might have been regret washed over his features. Before she could be certain of the emotion, it vanished, and the implacable, angry expression returned. Joshua did, however, loosen the grasp he had of her throat. Not entirely, but enough that she could take easy breaths. He released his grip on her wrist with his other hand and then, to her dismay, he began to feel along the sides of her body.

"Hey!" she protested as she tried to squirm away from his groping fingers. "What are you doing?"

Joshua plucked a stake from the waistband of her jeans and held it aloft.

"You just want to talk?" he growled, and for a moment the features of his face rippled. His long black coat trailed in the water as he moved closer to her, and she realized that she only had a few seconds to explain herself.

"I'm a slayer, we're kind of required to always have a stake handy," she protested. "But I wasn't holding it!"

He flung the weapon away and Colleen watched the wood turn end over end until it vanished with a splash into the murky water.

"How did you find me?" he muttered.

At least he's talking.

"The Powers sent me," she explained. With slow, cautious movements, she raised one hand and patted at the arm pinning her by the throat to the wall. "I want to have a conversation with you. An actual, honest-to-god conversation. We both know that you could kill me anytime that you wanted, so is this necessary?" she patted at his arm again.

He looked away for a moment then turned his green eyes back to her. Slowly, almost as if he was fighting against his own nature, he released his grip on her neck.

She rubbed at her throat and waited to see what he would do next.

"Why would you want to talk with me?" he asked after a few moments. "Like you just said, I killed your friends."

She didn't want to feel pity for him. Joshua certainly hadn't displayed any remorse, or mercy, or pity when he severed Jess's arm, or when he'd come a few seconds away from strangling the life from her. Nevertheless, as she stared at his questioning eyes, she realized for the first time just how young he was.

He's just a kid, like I was when I got caught up in this entire mess.

"What we're doing, that construction project by the canal," she explained. "It's important."

He shrugged. "What does that have to do with me?"

"Well, you've been hanging around," she said. As she spoke, a sensation of surreal unease began to settle over her. Standing in front of her, casually chatting as though they hadn't tried to kill each other about a week prior, was the teen that had murdered Dana and Jess. "We're trying to save the world, and I'm here to talk you out of getting in the way." She winced as the words left her mouth.

I sound insane.

Joshua, however, must have grown used to such speeches over the years, as he took her claim in stride.

"You don't have to worry," he muttered. "I'm not down here for any reason that has to do with you."

"Why then?" she asked before she could think better of the question. She had the answer she had been seeking, and part of her screamed that she should leave, but curiosity drove her onwards.

He glanced down one of the tunnels and beckoned for her to follow. "I'll show you," he said.

Without checking to see if she was, in fact, trailing behind him, he climbed into the shaft and began moving forward. She held her cell light aloft, clambered into the passage, and followed at a distance she felt reasonably confident wouldn't alarm him. Joshua had thrown away her only weapon, but even if she had the stake, she was fairly certain that thinking she could catch him by surprise while his back was turned would have been the last mistake she'd ever make.

When she saw a green glow begin to light the rippling iron walls of the tunnel, she knew what he was leading her towards.

"A hellspot!" she exclaimed as they rounded a curve and entered a long, sloping room that appeared to serve as a run-off channel for a number of conduits. Hovering above the water was a green, glowing mass that shifted and bulged in an unsettling fashion while it rotated upon an unseen axis. It wasn't nearly as large as the one she'd seen in the hockey rink what felt like a lifetime ago, but the same rippling, slightly nauseating sensation cascaded over her as she gazed on it. She tore her eyes from the sight and turned back to Joshua. The green light gave his pale skin and dark clothes an ethereal, ghostly quality as he stared at her with an impassive gaze. "What do you want with a hellspot?"

"Demons are drawn to it," he explained. "The ones who survived what happened at the castle, and the ones who came to Moonridge and Wilkins couldn't recruit, a lot of them come here."

"So?" she asked.

He stepped to the lip of the concrete abutment on which they stood and gestured downwards, where the run-off gathered in a pool of water. She kept her distance from Joshua, walked to the edge, and looked down.

Oh my god.

She and Connor had seen the bodies in the other tunnel, but there were far more in the bottom of the pool … maybe more than fifty. The flesh had grown mottled and rotted in the current, and the features were indistinct in the murky water, but the bright hues, scales, and extra appendages gave the corpses away for what they were.

Every fiber of her body screamed at her to run or call for a portal, but with slow, determined movements she swiveled back to Joshua. He stared at her with a curious expression and waited to see what she would do.

"That's a lot of killing," she finally murmured.

"Those demons murdered people," he replied. "Or they did worse … much worse." He glanced at the hellspot then continued, "The creatures that are harmless, that just need the energy to survive, I don't bother them." He pointed at the pile of twisted, mangled bodies. "Those are the ones that weren't harmless."

"Deciding who lives and who dies isn't your call to make," she informed him in what she hoped was a sufficiently stern manner. "You know that, right?"

He laughed, and it was the most human moment she'd ever seen from him. "If it makes you feel any better, most of those demons attacked me on sight." The mirth left his face. "From the beginning, I tried to get all of you to leave. None of this would have happened if any of you had listened."

"Come on," she scoffed. "You know better than to start again with that nonsense. Fighting evil is what we do, and Richard Wilkins? That fucking dragon? Ethan Rayne before them? They were all evil."

He stared at her and made no reply for such a long time she wondered if the conversation was over. Finally, he said, "That truce … the lives of everyone who broke it are forfeit. The Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart will come for you, you know that, right?"

"Probably," she admitted.

"So why not run?" he asked.

Here we go. I'm only going to get one shot at convincing him.

"Like I said, we're trying to save the world." When that didn't appear to impress him, she continued, "You're part of the world, remember?"

He shrugged.

This isn't going well.

"Faith told us that after she was resurrected, you were going to let her go," she said. As she said the words, Joshua appeared embarrassed that she knew. "When Arach … that dragon … turned human, you attacked him instead of us. You said we were just doing our jobs."

"It's time for you to go," he said, and there was a rumbling, ominous undercurrent to his words that she didn't like. He began to move towards her, and she forced her feet to remain planted on the concrete. "Whatever you did to find me, use it to go back."

"What we're fighting now," she continued as he drew near enough that he loomed over her, "it's called the First Evil. Do you know what it is?"

He stopped mid-stride and his eyes widened for a moment. "It can take the shape of anyone, right?" he asked.

She nodded. "It can, and it can do a lot worse than that. Joshua, it's going to destroy everything."

"Doesn't sound like fighting it will do much good."

She shook her head. "We've talked about the First Evil, all of us, a lot. You see, there's this prophecy …"

"Stop it!" he yelled, and her ears rang from the echoing, deafening sound. "Prophecies, the balance of good and evil, fortune-tellers, fate … I'm sick of it. I'm sick of all of it. My mother was a pawn of so many people who had good stories, but all wanted the same thing: power." His face rippled again, and this time she could see his teeth begin to lengthen. "Then I bought into the same line of bullshit, and now, here I am." He gestured once again at the bodies. "I'm done with causes, done with all of that."

She waited until his face had resumed its normal appearance before she resumed speaking. "This prophecy," she continued, "it's called Shanshu, or something like that, and we're pretty sure …"

"What are you doing?" he interrupted her. "Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"I watched you chop off my friend's arm," she informed him, and when he flinched at the words she felt a certain measure of satisfaction at his visible discomfort. "I saw the aftermath of you tearing out the throat of another of my friends. I know you've probably memorized the excuses Wilkins crammed down your throat about how they were assassins who deserved their fates, but save it. All I'm asking you to do is hear me out."

He couldn't meet her eyes, so he looked away and nodded.

"The Shanshu prophecy," she continued, "predicts an apocalypse. Now, there have been so many apocalypses we've kind of lost track over the years, but the apocalypse that's happening right now, this is the apocalypse … the one where the First Evil destroys everything, everywhere, and ends all of reality."

"Sounds horrifying," he asked as he rotated back to her, "but nothing I've heard makes me think that fighting will do much good."

"We think we've learned something about the First," she explained. "When anything that defies the natural, fundamental laws of a reality occurs, we think that the First gets a foothold in that world … and vampires with a soul are about as unnatural as it gets. Maybe it needed an ensouled vampire to cross into our universe or maybe someone like you can hurt it somehow, we're not sure, but the Shanshu prophecy has to exist for a reason."

"This prophecy could be talking about another vampire with a soul," he replied.

She shook her head. "There used to be two others, but not anymore." She pointed at him. "You're the only one left. We thought you should know."

That was your big sales pitch?

"You thought I should know?" he repeated in an incredulous tone. "Why?"

She inhaled deeply, regretted it when the stench of the room nearly made her gag, and stepped closer to Joshua. When he tensed, she stopped and raised her hand in a non-threatening gesture. "I didn't want to be a slayer," she admitted. "I thought it was exciting to be a potential, but then a bunch of us started dying, and I just wanted to leave."

"Why are you telling me this?"

She waved off the question. "I felt like I kept getting yanked one way or another, and I knew … I knew … at the end I'd be dead. You know what saved me?"

Joshua shook his head.

"Friends," she admitted. "If not for my friends, I would have lost my way or died a long time ago."

"But you came down here alone, without any friends," he pointed out.

She nodded. "I trusted Faith with my life so many times that I decided to also trust her about you."

"What happened to her?" Joshua asked. "To Faith?"

"The part of her that belonged somewhere else went back there," she explained. "And the rest of her is gone."

"I didn't want that to happen," Joshua said. "She'd already paid for breaking the truce and there was no reason why she had to die a second time."

She wanted to scream at him and pound her fists in anger against his chest, but with difficulty she steadied the beating of her heart and calmed the rage that threatened to boil over. When she felt sufficiently calm, she announced, "I'm going to reach into my coat." With slow, cautious movements she raised her hand to the side of her body.

Joshua moved to within arm's reach of her so quickly that her eyes barely registered his footsteps.

She froze her hand in place and asked, "I think we're past you being worried that I'm going to attack you, aren't we?"

He considered the question, then nodded and took a step back.

She fished around in her pocket, found the item she was looking for, and carefully withdrew it from her coat. Joshua's eyes darted to her hand as she extended it, palm up, so that he could take what rested upon it.

"A business card for Moonridge Investigations?" he asked as he plucked the off-white rectangle of thick paper from her fingers. "What's this for?"

"I know you and Angel have bad blood," she explained, and when his features twisted in anger she hurried to add, "Okay, maybe it's more than bad blood, but Joshua, this is the end of the world we're talking about." She gestured at the card. "There's a cell phone number on there, and also an office number, an email address … or if you prefer the in-person touch, we can try to meet at …"

He crumpled the card and jammed it into the pocket of his coat. "What, we're going to try to work together and play nice? After everything that's happened?"

"It's the end of the world," she reminded him, feeling like a bit of a broken record as she did so. "And Faith used to always say that nobody is ever so far gone that they can't come back. I mean, the guy I'm dating right now, he's a little inexperienced, and a lot of awkward, but if you knew the kind of heinous baggage that …" when she realized she was rambling about her love life to a deranged slaypire she ceased speaking and cleared her throat. "Anyway, you cut off two of his fingers, and believe me, I am pissed about that along with everything else, but we all may have a part to play whether we like each other or not."

"It's too late," he informed her, and there was a note of wistful sadness in his voice.

She chanced reaching up and laying a hand on his arm. He stiffened at her touch, but he didn't draw away. "People need your help. We need your help. It's not too late."

They stood there silently for a long time, then he turned to stare into the shadows and his eyes widened at something she couldn't see.

"You need to leave," he informed her.

She narrowed her eyes and raised her phone light to try to parse the darkness.

"I mean it!" he screamed, and she was startled to hear him sound frightened.

This time, she didn't try to argue with him. She scrambled into the tunnel, nearly dropped her cell as she stumbled through the ankle deep water, and called for Cordelia's help. The blue-white portal appeared in front of her, and without stopping to ponder why an overpowering sensation of dread had settled over her, she stumbled through it.

. . . . . . . .

"You always know when I'm coming, my sweet boy," the thing that wore the face of Robin Hallett said as it slithered free of the shadows to face him. The tan boots and olive-green athletic wear were of a style his mother favored, the dark brown hair was tied back in the exact way he remembered, and seeing her face and hearing her voice always sparked a pain more fierce than he thought he was still capable of feeling.

He knew, of course, that the thing smiling at him was most definitely not his mother. Every time that it appeared, he loathed it more.

"What, you're not happy to see me?" the thing said.

I have a name for it now … the First Evil.

"I know what you are," he whispered. "I know what you want."

The creature laughed and shook its head. "What I want is beyond the understanding of any mortal, I can assure you of that." It looked away for a moment then back at him. "We'll talk again … soon."

He blinked, and the First Evil was gone.

. . . . . . . .

"I'm glad to see you, too," she wheezed as Connor squeezed her against his chest and peppered the top of her head with kisses. "But you're going to need to let me go."

Connor nodded, gave her a final enthusiastic hug, and released her from his embrace. If anyone else was surprised to see her return alive, they spared her ego and did not reveal their thoughts.

"How'd it go?" Buffy asked.

Xander gestured at her. "I mean, she's still in one piece, so that's good."

"Did you talk to him?" Angel asked. "What was he like?"

"I think he's gone crazy," she informed them in a matter-of-fact tone. "But I'm also pretty sure that while he probably won't be helping us, we don't have to worry about him attacking us."

Everyone exchanged glances and then Buffy said, "Tell us everything."