"Yeah, maybe this one time, I would have appreciated you trying to talk me out of coming," Buffy exclaimed as she and Angel surveyed the nightmarish, sprawling hellscape surrounding them.
Angel turned to stare at her with narrowed eyes. "I thought you didn't want me to do that anymore?"
"Generally, I don't," she conceded, "and our relationship is in a much better place when you're not trying to be my guardian angel, but still …" she gestured towards the rivers of molten magma that wound their way between jagged, black basalt rocks that stretched like angry, skeletal fingers towards a scorched red sky, "… this sucks."
"You could always head back," Angel offered as he stooped, picked up one of the black stones that made up the landscape, and then tossed it aside. "Maybe help Willow and Giles keep an eye on Illyria? Find something useful for Andrew to do?"
She sniffed derisively, an action she immediately regretted as the stench of burnt ozone, sulfur, and charred rock assaulted filled her nostrils, and replied, "And look like a scaredy cat? No thanks."
"A scaredy cat?"
She put her hands on her hips and stared at Angel. "It's a legitimate phrase. Besides, I can't leave you here by yourself … this looks dangerous."
"You heard Cordelia," Angel reminded her, "nothing here can hurt us unless we believe it can."
"So where do we start looking?" Buffy asked as she took in the fractured, kaleidoscopic landscape. "Maybe down in that crater that looks like the funnel of a volcano?" she gestured towards a sloping depression in the black hardscape filled with pulsing, steaming pools of yellow-green water. "Or we could try that plateau that kinda seems to have enormous knives sticking out of it?" She next pointed at a rocky escarpment crowned by a flat, slate gray slab of rock from which obsidian protrusions jutted.
"This must have been what the demons made of the world before humans arrived," Angel mused while he eyed a boulder-rimmed opening the recess of which appeared to stretch into an abyssal cavern. "Not very pleasant."
"You can say that again," Buffy said as she stared at the sky and tried to imagine eking out a life beneath the red and orange stained clouds. "I'm glad the Old Ones lost."
They both scoured the landscape for any signs of life, and when she finally spotted something growing along the side of a trail winding its way up a cliff a hundred yards from where they stood, she had to blink a few times to convince herself that what she was seeing was real.
"Angel," she said as she pointed at the trail, "is that a cactus?"
Angel's eyes swiveled to where she was pointed, and he grunted in agreement. "That it is. Let's go check it out."
They picked their way across the splintered stones and hardscrabble terrain until they reached the trail carved into the side of the cliff. Trail might have been too generous of a term, as there wasn't sufficient room for the two of them to stand abreast and the loose shale and sliding rock beneath their shoes provided only treacherous footing. Keeping one hand on the side of the cliff for support, they climbed until they reached the improbably growing plant. The arms of the cactus were green and between the thorns, small yellow flowers bloomed in the shadows.
"Prickly pear," Angel said.
Buffy grinned and replied, "I told you I hate that pet name."
Angel chuckled, then his brow wrinkled and his expression darkened in thought. "This type of cactus grows in Texas."
"Where Fred was from?"
Angel nodded.
Buffy tightened her grip on a crack in the rock face of the cliff, leaned out, and peered up. The trail wound out of sight, but she estimated the trek to the top had to be at least a mile. "I'm guessing we climb," she said without much enthusiasm.
"Buffy, please don't lean out like that," Angel asked with a grimace and a concerned look on his face.
"I thought nothing could hurt us here unless we believe it could?" she reminded him.
"Yeah, well … let's not test that theory?"
"Fair enough," she agreed as she beckoned him onwards. "After you."
It was after the second or third switchback that Buffy began to have the unsettling sensation that the world around her was not quite solid. She put a hand against the rock wall, focused on the back of Angel's black coat and then stopped and turned around.
They'd walked out of a vista of shattered black stone, but when she stared in the direction whence they'd come, red sands the monotony of which was broken only by the occasional dune stretched as far as she could see. "Angel …" she started to say.
"I know," he replied, "maybe Illyria's mind isn't exactly stable?"
"Let's walk faster," she urged.
Angel's only reply was to increase the pace of his steps.
The floor beneath the trail fluctuated in elevation as they climbed … at points, it felt higher than the Grand Canyon Buffy had visited once as a child, at another, it looked as though they'd barely climbed at all. The most unsettling moment, however, came when she recognized the glittering lights and gaudily painted towers of the hotels that dotted the state line between Nevada and California.
"You saw that, right?" she asked.
"I did," Angel confirmed.
She blinked and the casinos vanished, to be replaced by what appeared to be a forest consisting of enormous, pale-white, leprous mushrooms.
"Why would an Old One who I'm pretty sure has never driven to Vegas be thinking of casinos?"
Angel stopped walking, his head bowed and his shoulders slumped in a gesture so slight that she was fairly certain that nobody besides her would have noticed, and he replied, in a low, mournful voice, "You have to remember Buffy, it isn't all Illyria in here … Fred's soul, her mind, it's in here, too."
"Oh," was all she managed to say in reply.
Angel resumed walking.
The end of the trail simply happened ... one moment she was gearing up for the next curve, then with a flicker, she was standing atop a flat-topped mountain that had been hewn so flat it was as if an enormous razor had sheared through the granite and left behind a smooth mesa. The red-hued storm clouds were low enough now that she could see the streaks of purple-white lightning lacing their way through the interior. What color the sky might be, she had no idea, for the clouds stretched in every direction as far as she could see.
"I'm thinking we should go in there," Angel announced.
Her inquiry as to what he was referring to died on her lips when she refocused on the plateau and realized that an enormous temple had flickered into existence perhaps fifty yards from where they stood.
"Vahla Ha'nesh," Angel said in a tone mixed of equal parts repugnance and reverence.
Buffy tilted her head and frowned at the sight. "I'll take your word for it."
They made their way across the granite of the mesa and climbed the steps to the temple, the seat of Illyria the Merciless's power in the days before history, and were startled to find yellow rosebushes blooming in a neat, orderly row in in front of the dark gray steps that led upwards into the interior.
"Let me guess … Fred was fond of yellow flowers?" Buffy asked as she leaned forward and tentatively sniffed at the blooming foliage. The sweet floral aroma masked, for a moment, the miasmic, sulfuric stench that permeated everything.
"Actually, I don't remember," Angel admitted. "Though I'm thinking that's a pretty good guess."
The steps were so tall that they ended up leaping moreso than climbing. Before the waters of Mimisbrunnr had restored her powers, Angel would have had to carry her aloft, but thankfully those days were now in the past. When they reached the top, they found themselves confronted by a pitted stone floor stained with ochre and crimson that stretched as far as they could see. The ceiling of the temple was high enough that she could make out no details, and black stone pillars stretched at regular intervals from floor to ceiling. Torches set in twisted black iron sconces attached to the pillars lit the space, yet the interior seemed darker than it should have been. Something enormous, hunched, and gigantic slithered at the edges of her vision and then vanished.
Angel turned to look at her, she looked at him, and then they strode into the temple.
"I'm guessing that was Illyria?" she whispered.
Angel nodded. "It literally couldn't be anyone else."
"I thought she'd be, you know, the purple-skinned, cuddly version?"
"I never really thought of Illyria as cuddly."
"In comparison, though?"
"Yeah, that's true," Angel admitted.
They stalked forward, and despite Cordelia's promise that nothing could harm them except their own thoughts and beliefs, Buffy decided that she felt particularly susceptible to harm. There were no decorations of any kind within Vahla Ha'nesh, not tapestries, not paintings, not furniture, not … anything.
Reality flickered, and for an instant … just an instant … she thought she saw the familiar neon logo of a Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor pop into existence and then just as quickly fade into nothingness.
"Yeah, I saw it," Angel confirmed before she had a chance to say anything. "I'd say that it's pretty safe to conclude that Illyria's mind isn't stable."
"Is that why she's having those convulsions?" Buffy asked.
Angel nodded, opened his mouth to reply, but before he could utter a word an enormous, purple-black mass of a thing slithered from behind a pillar and directly towards them.
"Illyria?" Buffy asked as her brain attempted to make sense of the jumble of armored tentacles, chitinous body, and grasping feelers of the creature approaching them at a disturbingly rapid pace.
"The one and only," Angel said as he stepped forward and raised a hand. "Illyria, it's me, Angel. I'm here with Buffy … we just want to help you."
Two of the larger tentacle stalks raised stone weapons barbed and bladed at both ends, and Buffy realized that any confidence she had in her physical safety within Illyria's mind had utterly vanished. "Angel, run!" she screamed as she dodged behind a pillar. She turned to make sure that he had followed, and to her horror she saw him striding forward towards the thing. "What are you doing?"
He ignored her, raised both his hands, and called out, "I know that your recognize me. Illyria, you aren't well. Let us try to help. Please!"
She gathered her feet beneath her, leapt from behind the pillar, and wrapped her arms around Angel's waist in a ferocious bear hug. As she did so, she realized that the serpentine monstrosity had vanished. In its place, looking rather smaller and frailer than she recalled, stood the human form of Illyria. The purple eyes, dark hair streaked with the same shade of purple, red armor with braided vambraces that seemed to be made of twisted rope, and the placid, calm expression were a welcome site compared to the Lovecraftian horror confronting them a few seconds earlier.
Angel staggered from the ferocity of Buffy's embrace, Illyria tilted her head and stared at her in curiosity, and Buffy immediately moved to unwind her arms from around Angel's body.
Illyria continued, "I do not wish to harm Angel, or you." She glanced around. "This place … it is not real, is it?"
Angel shook his head. "You had another episode, Illyria. You're still in Willow's apartment, unconscious. This is a construct, a way for us to interact with your mind and try to figure out what is wrong."
"Why can I not awake?"
"We don't know," Angel admitted, "that's what we're here to discover."
"Clever," Illyria said as she stepped closer. Her steps seemed uneven and her gait ragged, and if Buffy wasn't mistaken, she had difficulty standing upright. "That you would go to such lengths in an effort to aid me is … is …" Illyria hesitated with her mouth agape as she sought for the right words.
"You're welcome," Buffy said.
Illyria closed her mouth and nodded. "Yes, I offer you thanks."
"Illyria, what is wrong?" Angel asked. "I know having the demon part of you First'ed away was traumatic, but you seemed sort of … fine … with being mortal? Then you started having these fits, and now we're here, and this place," he extended his arms and gestured, "this isn't what I expected."
"My mind is clinging to old memories because the new ones have become unsafe," Illyria said matter-of-factly, as if she was discussing the weather.
"Unsafe?" Angel asked with confusion evident in his tone.
Illyria nodded. "Now that I am here, I can sense more clearly that I am not afflicted with an illness, I am being attacked."
"By what?" Buffy asked.
Illyria considered the question, turned to stare off into the distance, and then shook her head, "Whatever is cracking the foundations of my mind is hidden from me. I cannot sense it, not directly, but I know where we can find it."
For an instant, Buffy thought she detected a lurking, quavering fear behind Illyria's words.
"Can you lead us there?" Angel asked. "Maybe if we know what it is, we can figure out how to stop it?"
Illyria stepped closer to them, and her breath wafted not hot, but cold upon their skin. "I think it might be better if I were to die."
Buffy gasped and Angel stiffened in place.
"You can't mean that," Buffy said. "I mean, you're just starting to live … to really live … without having to worry about that Old One baggage. I kind of thought you'd start to like it more and more."
"I think I would have, as well," Illyria said with an uncharacteristically sad and forlorn note in her voice, "but I do not believe hope is an emotion I am entitled to feel. After all, what have I ever brought to the world besides pain and grief?"
"Angel," Buffy whispered through gritted teeth, "this doesn't sound like Illyria at all."
Angel glanced down at her, nodded, and then stepped close enough to Illyria that he could lay a hand on her shoulder. "I had to learn some hard lessons in life, but the hardest one for me to accept was this one: we are not condemned to let our past define us. You were there for me when I needed you, and you deserve a chance at life … at real life. Let us help you."
The moment hung for several long seconds, and then Illyria reached up, patted Angel's hand, and flashed one of her rare half-smiles. "You have laid hands upon my person yet again without my leave, but I thank you for it." She turned and pointed in a direction that seemed identical to all the rest. "Something is exerting pressure upon me. It is relentless, and it burrows deeper by the second. It makes it difficult to think, to act, and if you wish to help me, that is where we must go."
Illyria began to walk, Angel and Buffy followed, and mid-stride the world flickered and they found themselves standing in the middle of a deserted street in a familiar-looking city.
"Los Angeles," Angel said as he eyed a rundown hotel perhaps half a block away. "Illyria, why are we here?"
Illyria wobbled on unsteady legs and Buffy, without thinking, stepped forward and grabbed one of her arms. Angel, with a worried expression on his face, moved to the other side of her and offered his elbow. Illyria snaked her arm through his and Buffy was fairly certain that they were supporting nearly all, if not all, of her weight.
"I do not know why we are here," Illyria admitted, and this time the fear in her voice was audible and all-too-human. "I am unsure what is …"
The world flickered again and this time they were standing beneath a bright blue sky in front of a crumbling, yellow, adobe-bricked structure. A dark wood door led inside the ruined structure, but metal chains and stanchions cordoned off the entrance from tourists.
"The Alamo," Illyria said in a voice that sounded not at all like Illyria, "I did a report on this once … I found it sad. All those people, dying for nothing." Illyria shook her head, and the flat, monotone manner of speaking she usually affected returned. "Angel, I fear that …"
Flicker.
They were in a woman's … no, a girl's bedroom. The walls were painted an orange-ish ochre, fluffy rugs covered much of the floor, and the bed had orange blankets and sheets with yellow flowers printed upon them. Stuffed animals, posters, and a book bag slung over the backrest of the wooden desk chair reminded Buffy of her own high school days.
"No," Illyria said as she wrenched her arm free of Buffy's grasp and covered her eyes. "Not this place … please …"
Before Buffy could say anything the world flickered again, and this time they were standing in a grassy meadow strewn with pitted, gray boulders and surrounded by a line of thick bushes and oak trees. The air was cool and carried with it a faint scent of clover, the ground was soft beneath their feet, and the light emanating from the twin yellow suns was warm upon their skin.
"Wait, I know this place," Angel exclaimed. "This is Pylea."
Illyria nodded her head, stood straighter, and pointed towards a shadowed gap between two strands of oak tree. "Whatever we seek is down there."
The world shuddered this time, instead of flickering, and Buffy braced for them to change vistas yet again. Instead, reality solidified and they remained standing in the meadow.
"That was weird," she noted.
Before Angel or Illyria could respond, the shudder returned.
"I'm thinking that isn't going to stop," Angel replied. "Let's go. I know where we are, I'm pretty sure I know where we're going, and I also have a pretty good idea about what we're going to find there."
As they began to walk, Buffy asked, "Want to fill me in?"
Angel widened his eyes, glanced meaningfully at Illyria, and shook his head.
"This is my mind, Angel," Illyria said, "and I also suspect what waits for us."
The shudders continued at regular intervals as they walked, and with each wrenching impact the world danced, shimmered, and then re-solidified. Soon, she and Angel were supporting Illyria between them once more, and by the time they reached a partially hidden, moss-covered opening to a deep, gray-stoned cave, Illyria was unable to walk at all.
"Oh, no," Angel said as he stared in horror at the sight waiting for them in the mouth of the cave.
Fred's body was wasted and emaciated, and the protruding ribs and visible knobs of her joints gave her a skeletal appearance. Her pale, ghostly skin was scored and bleeding from countless scratches and cuts, and it did not take Buffy long to guess what had left those marks. A purplish white rope … no, a tethering cord of some kind … was wrapped so tightly around her ankle that blood welled from torn skin whenever she moved. Fred had in her hands a thick shard of gray stone and periodically, with every bit of energy she could muster, she brought the sharp edge of the implement down upon the tether. With each blow of the stone, the world shuddered and spun.
Countless severed cords lay upon the stone floor of the cave, and Buffy had fight back the wave of nausea that assaulted her when she realized that the binding cords must have been twined and secured over nearly every inch of Fred's nude body. Her neck, her wrists, her ankles … there was scarcely an inch of skin that had not been left ripped and bleeding by her efforts to free herself.
"Now you come," Fred said as she stood naked without a hint of shame and stared at Angel. "In those fleeting moments when I could think, when I even knew that I once was an actual, living person, I always hoped that you'd find a way." She gestured at the sole remaining cord still fastened on her body. "And now that I've pieced myself back together again and have almost hacked my way free of this prison that she …" she gestured with anger at Illyria, "… locked me in, now you arrive? Great timing, Angel."
"He didn't know!" Buffy yelled without thinking. "None of us knew. We thought you were gone, Fred."
Illyria shook off their hands and wobbled closer to the mouth of the cave. "She has always been a part of me."
"Yeah, but we didn't know it was like this!" Angel said as he bowed his head. Buffy caught a sight of his chest heaving and she realized that he was on the verge of weeping. "Fred, you've been here the entire time?"
"She tore me apart," Fred replied, and her brown eyes were filled with a sadness that belied the young woman she appeared to be. "She tore me apart, stuffed me here, and when it suited her, she bled off my memories, or my feelings, or my me to make herself more human."
"I am not what I was," Illyria whispered. "I think only now do I fully understand why."
"But she made a mistake," Fred growled, and it seemed to Buffy that a shadow crept over the twin suns, a chill wind blew through the grotto in which they stood, and the darkness of the cave grew deeper. "She drew on me too deeply, and eventually there was enough … just enough … of me in here to start chipping away." With the rock, she gestured towards the restraint wrapped around her ankle. "And now, after so many years, I'm almost free." A cold smile flittered across Fred's features and Angel flinched at the sight. "If she hadn't become human, I think this never would have worked."
"You're killing her, and yourself," Angel said as he held up an imploring hand. "In the real world, she's dying, Fred, and when she dies, she will …"
Fred shook her head and cut Angel off mid-sentence. "No, once I'm free all of that will stop." She looked away for a moment, closed her eyes, and once again resembled the frightened young woman she had been when she died. "So many years I've been a shadow, a prisoner in the mind of the demon who stole my body." She opened her eyes and the cold look returned. "But not for much longer."
"I am sorry," Illyria announced, and the sentence stunned Fred so profoundly that she nearly dropped the rock she was holding.
Fred blinked a few times, opened and closed her mouth as she fluttered in search of the right response, then finally asked, "What?"
"I am sorry," Illyria repeated. "Now that we are here, like this, much that I felt only vaguely is clear to me. I have felt your loss, I have grieved your hurts, and I know what I took from you. I say again that I am not what I was, and if I had a choice in the matter, what was done to you would not have been done."
"You're sorry?" Fred repeated an incredulous, disbelieving tone. "Well, golly-gee, everything is forgiven then. Let's be pals." She raised the rock high and prepared to smash it upon the cord.
"Wait!" Angel screamed. "Cordy! Cordy, please, we need you!"
"This is not my place, Angel," Cordelia's voice rang out. "Fred will have to choose."
Fred lowered the rock and stared in the direction that the voice had emanated from. "Did you know, Cordelia? Did you know what the last twenty years have been like for me?"
"No," Cordelia replied, and her disembodied voice was filled with pain. "I think … I think the Powers knew that I wouldn't have been able to live with it. I think they kept it from me."
"Well, that's just great," Fred growled.
"A choice," Buffy said as she raised up her hands. "Cordelia said you had a choice. What choice?"
"She has three choices," Illyria said as she stared with sad, purple eyes at Fred. "She can stay as she is."
"Fuck that," Fred replied.
Angel winced again at both the vulgarity of her word choice and the harsh delivery of the sentence.
"And the other two choices?" Buffy asked
"She can free herself and resume control of her body," Illyria continued.
Fred smiled and the shadows in the cave deepened again. "I like that option. We'll see how you like being a helpless passenger for a while. I'll need some help with dead languages or casting a spell or two, and maybe when I'm asleep you'll drift through some pleasant dreams. Your time in this cave will be more pleasant than mine, I can assure you of that." Her voice grew frightened and small as she stared at Angel. "You remember what it was like for me in there," she gestured with her head into the recesses of the cavern behind her. "Delusional writings on the wall, almost no light … now imagine being trapped in there with these …" she gestured at the cords strewn on the floor of the cave, "wrapped around every inch of your skin. Every once in a while, when she wanted to use a part of me, they'd tighten hard enough to draw blood."
"I am so, so sorry, Fred," Angel said, his voice breaking with every word.
"Everybody is sorry," Fred replied with a broken, dispirited voice. "I just want to go home. Of course, my home is gone. Wesley is dead. My parents died thinking that the monster wearing my face was me. Charles … everybody is gone."
"I hate to go all nursery school ethics on everyone," Buffy interjected, though she was on the verge of tears herself at the grim fate Fred had just described, "but two wrongs don't make a right. Doing to Illyria what was done to you isn't justice, it's vengeance." She turned to Illyria. "What was the third option?"
"We become one," Illyria said. "Both cease to exist, neither cease to exist, and there is no more sharing."
"Buffy Summers …" Fred said with a wistful look on her face. "Angel always talked so much about you, incessantly, in fact. Particularly if he was being mopey, which was often."
Angel rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't see how this …"
Fred cut him off and continued, "I had kind of a crush on Angel once upon a time. Did he tell you that?"
Buffy shook her head while Angel stiffened beside her. "No, but he talked about what a good person you were, Fred. About how you were the kindest, the nicest, and the best-hearted of everyone he ever worked with. He told me about how saving you from Pylea was one of the best things he had ever done, and that losing you almost broke him. I know we never met until now, but I do feel like I know you, in the ways that matter. The Fred that Angel cared about wouldn't condemn anyone to live out their existence as a prisoner, as a fragment of memory locked away somewhere. I know you've been through a hell I can't even imagine, and we are all sorry, we are so, so sorry, but look at Illyria. Really look at her." Buffy gestured at the purple skinned demon who was staring with a mournful expression at Fred. "She saved us when she didn't have to … she's saved the world in fact. I have no doubt that you changed her for the better. I know that your goodness changed her, that the best parts of you rubbed off on her in the just the right ways. I guess the question now is whether the wrong parts of her rubbed off on you."
Fred's gaze turned to Angel, and she said, "You had better not say one word in defense of the monster that murdered me and then stole my body to wear as a flesh suit."
"Buffy is telling the truth, Fred," Angel said. "There's a way forward for you to leave this place, to be whole …"
Fred raised the stone high, her thin muscles bulged on her emaciated, bloody frame, and with a final, wrenching blow she severed the cord wrapped around her ankle.
The world spun, shuddered, and when it stabilized, Fred was standing next to them, and Illyria was standing inside the cave.
Buffy blinked a few times in shock, and then her eyes fluttered from one figure to the other.
Fred was wearing a pale yellow dress, a red, baggy sweater over a white top, and the wounds on her skin and flesh had vanished. She was still thin, but not the emaciated, wasted, piteous figure that she'd been a few moments ago. Illyria red armor had vanished, and she stood naked within the cave while chains slithered from the shadows to wrap and coil around her limbs, throat, and body. She did not fight them as they wound tight, and when they began to press hard enough for skin to tear, the only sign Illyria gave of the pain she must have been experiencing was to tighten her lips into a thin, hard line.
"Cordy, there has to be another way!" Angel shouted.
When there was no reply, Buffy answered for Cordelia. "It's her choice, Angel, even if we think she's making the wrong one." She turned to stare at Fred. "Look at her." She gestured at Illyria, who was being drawn slowly back into the darkness of the cave by the ever-tightening chains. "Is this what you want? Feeding off the memories and power of a captive demon instead of making peace isn't going to do wonders for the state of your soul, Fred."
Fred ignored her and moved to stand directly in front of Angel. "What I said before, about you letting me die, I'm sorry about that."
Angel blinked in surprise. "That was you? I thought …"
"That it was Illyria pretending to be me?" Fred grinned, and Buffy could tell that Angel was on the verge of instinctively grinning back. "No, it was me … I could peek through now and then, just briefly, when she wasn't paying enough attention. But letting those people die, just to save me, that wouldn't have been right." Fred hesitated, folded her arms across her chest, and then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I'll have to work a bit on my temper."
"Fred, you never had a temper," Angel reminded her as he sidestepped and gestured towards the cave. "And Illyria …"
"Stop!" Fred snapped, and her eyes flashed for a moment with anger. She took a deep breath, then in a normal tone said, "I get it. You owe her one. That doesn't mean I'm not pissed that you are defending her right now, but I do get it." She turned to stare at Illyria. "She and I will chat from time to time, and who knows, maybe we'll work something out." She shrugged. "But I'll be the one who decides."
Illyria had almost fully vanished into the darkness lingering in the back of the cavern, and when Buffy approached the entrance to try to pursue her, an unseen force kept her back.
"My mind, my rules," Fred admonished Buffy.
"Angel," Illyria called out. "I would prefer death to this."
"No, not that option," Buffy interjected. "Fred, at least give us a chance to try to figure something out."
Fred again ignored her, a habit which Buffy was beginning to find immensely irritating, and said to Angel, "I died in Wesley's arms after that thing hollowed me out like a shell. What are you expecting from me, mercy?"
"Yes!" Angel cried out. "It's your mind, your body, and even if I don't agree, I'll respect your choice. But does it have to be like this?" Angel also tried to enter the cave, and he, too, was stopped by an unseen force. "Do you have to make it so terrible? You know her, you know that Illyria isn't what she once was, not anymore. The Fred I knew wouldn't chain someone up in the dark."
Fred's eyes flashed in anger, then she took another calming breath, closed her eyes, and the world shuddered.
Within the cave, soft-glowing lamps appeared, and to Buffy's astonishment, rows of books, a television, a bed, rugs, and items of furniture materialized to decorate the gray stone interior. The chains around Illyria loosened … not entirely, but enough that she appeared to have enough slack to move freely within the confines of the hollow.
"Happy?" Fred asked through gritted teeth. "If I've ever watched a television show, now she can watch it, and if I've ever read a book, now she can read it. I'm being nicer to her than she ever was to me. Also, like I said, there are some things she knows that I need to learn, so maybe we'll work something out. Eventually." Fred shrugged. "Or maybe not."
Buffy turned and grasped Angel's arm. "Angel, we have to try to think of something."
"You know what I think?" Fred announced, "I think it's time for everyone to leave my mind."
A shimmering blue-white portal appeared next to Fred, and she smiled and gestured towards it. "Thank you, Cordelia."
"Angel …" Illyria called out in a sad, soft voice from deep within the cave.
Angel glanced with pain-filled eyes at the purple-skinned Old One staring at him, but before he could turn back to Fred the world lurched and both he and Buffy found themselves propelled through the portal.
. . . . . . . . .
Dawn felt it difficult to keep from crying as she sat in her car and waited. The spot she'd chosen had a clear view of the interior of Moonridge Investigations … thankfully the blinds were open … but she'd parked far enough away that she doubted Xander would spot her. Besides, if he did, she'd just make up some excuse about wanting to surprise him.
What am I doing? I should just talk to him.
He'd already lied to her about Emmy calling, if she asked, he might just get better at lying. He'd been with Emmy for a long time, a long enough time that despite what he said, he couldn't have just forgotten. Not that quickly. This way, she'd know. If it was nothing, she'd know it was nothing. And if it wasn't nothing … well, she'd know that, too.
In a way, what Buffy had asked of her to defeat the First would be infinitely easier if Xander left her for another woman, because then she would no longer care if she died.
. . . . . . . . .
Buffy and Angel had no sooner emerged, stumbling and off-balance, through the portal into Willow's living room when Fred sat bolt-upright on the couch, blinked her eyes, and then raised her hands in front of her face. She flexed her fingers a few times, then put a hand on the arm of the couch and levered herself upright.
"Fred?" Angel asked as he stepped nearer, "Are you okay?"
"Well, other than what happened to me over the past few decades, I guess I am," Fred announced. A lopsided grin appeared on her face and she reached up to brush away a brown lock of hair that had drifted in front of her eye. "It's good to be back in the world of the living."
Giles, Willow, and Andrew exchanged confused glances for a few moments and then they turned towards Angel and Buffy and in unison exclaimed, "What?"