aired on: November 28, 2000

written by: Tim Minear and Douglas Petrie

directed by: Bruce Seth Green

Angel apologizes to Cordelia and Wesley for how crazy he's been about Darla. She needs help, but he knows he can't do it for her. All he can do is let go. No sooner has he said "let go" than Gunn busts in - he's found Darla at a cheap motel. Angel decides he better get to her before Wolfram & Hart do. But it's too late - Lindsey has already found her. He takes her back to the W&H offices, where Holland doesn't want to talk about Angel; he wants to talk to her about her.

Flashback, France, 1765: Angelus and Darla are on the run from a lynch mob, led by a vampire hunter named Holtz. They find a barn and think they're safe, but the mob finds them. Then Darla knocks Angelus across the barn, and steals their horse. "I hope you survive this, Angelus," she says. "If you do, maybe we'll meet again in Vienna." She rides away, leaving him behind to face the angry mob.

In the present, Darla visits a vampire bar, looking for someone to make her a vampire again. She finds a candidate, but before he can do the deed, Angel slays him. Darla is angry; she just wants Angel to leave her alone. Angel says she's only been human again for a few months, and she should try it a while, to see what it's like. But she says she doesn't have that kind of time - she's dying, and only has a few months left to live.

Angel brings her back to the office. W&H have told Darla she's dying, and shown her medical reports, but Angel doesn't trust the lawyers. So he pays a visit to Lindsey to get the truth. Lindsey confirms the medical reports; Darla is dying from a terminal syphilitic heart condition - what was killing her the last time she was human. Lindsey wants Angel to turn her into a vampire and save her, but Angel won't do it. He says he'll find another way.

Angel realizes that he needs additional insight - the kind that can only be gained from karaoke. Darla sings, and the Host tells Angel that there's one thing he can do, but it will probably kill him. Angel wants to know anyway. The Host writes down an address. Darla and Angel arrive at an empty swimming pool. Angel, knowing he's being tested, jumps in. A portal opens, transporting him to an underground chamber where a man in a tuxedo greets him. Darla is there as well - the man explains she is his collateral. If Angel completes the trial, she survives. If he doesn't, she'll die instantly.

The trial will consist of three separate challenges - but the man has never seen anyone survive the first one.

He and Darla disappear, and a gate opens up with the first challenge, a nasty-looking demon. Angel slays it, and passes through the gate to a new chamber, where the floor is covered with crosses. Angel races across it, his feet burning the whole time. After retrieving the key to the next door from a bowl of holy water and unlocking the door, Angel is ready for the third challenge.

In the next chamber, shackles shoot out, clasping Angel's ankles and wrists. The man comes forth to explain the final challenge - a wall full of stakes, and death. He explains that in order for Darla to live, Angel must die. But he has earned a choice - he can accept his death, so that Darla may live, or walk away, and she will die. Angel accepts death.

But the third challenge was accepting death - and Angel has survived it. The stakes crumble, and Angel appears in a new room, alive, where Darla awaits. But when the man puts his hands to Darla to save her, he says he can't help her - she's been given new life before, and is already living her second chance. There's nothing he can do.

Back at Darla's motel, she and Angel sit in the room quietly. Maybe she would be different if he turned her, Angel says, because he has a soul. But Darla now knows what he's going through, and sees how he cares about her, the way no one has ever cared before. For her, that's enough, and maybe this is her second chance - a chance to die the way she was supposed to die the first time. Angel promises to stay by her side every moment she has left, so she never has to be alone again.

At this touching moment, the door breaks down, and Lindsey breaks in, with two thugs who zap Angel, and bind his hands. "How did you think this would end?" Lindsey says. Then Drusilla walks through the door. She turns vampire, and turns Darla.