Despite the situation that was getting worse by the moment, Angel had to laugh. "Aren't you? As I recall, you first impressed her by beating off a demon and asking her if she was all right."
"I never wanted to be combat guy."
"I know."
They headed back into the lobby of the Hyperion. It was a lot quieter, even if it was still chaotic by anyone else’s standard.
"Cordelia is being led into Wolfram and Hart, and she fully expects us to back her up," Angel said. "We need a plan. Let's hear ideas."
"Since when are you back in charge," Gunn said, but Wesley cut him off.
"Angel is right," said Wesley. “We have a larger problem than our own leadership issues.”
Giles took his glasses off, rubbed them, and put them back on. "Like us all at the moment, Willow has two prophesied futures, and I suspect the decision will come down to her attachment to the power that has twice threatened to claim her," he said.
"Shouldn't we be worrying about getting her back here, and then we can help her get in touch with herself?" said Gunn.
Giles ignored him. "The longer the lawyers hold her, the more traps they will put on her power until she finally trips one. She has held off thus far, I suspect, only because they try to force her to make a choice."
"W--what will she choose?" said Tara.
Giles put a hand on her shoulder. "Tara, you have to understand that Willow thinks her power is the reason you stay with her."
Tara sputtered, if someone who looked so lonely and so sad could be said to sputter.
"You and I know that is not true, Tara," Giles said softly. "As her power grows, it takes its own life and threatens to take her away from you, to consume the Willow you know."
"How can she--"
"That is why we have to rescue her," said Wesley. "There is something else that Giles and I decided. If you are willing--I mean you both, Tara--Giles knows of a group in England who might be able to teach Willow control. You--well, we both know Willow would not go without you--and you could learn about your own abilities, your own heritage, during the time."
"A--anything that would bring us back together. Willow would r--really not go without me?"
Giles laughed gently. "You are a treasure, Tara," he said, and then he put his arm around the blonde girl.
Wesley suddenly looked at Angel. "If you, that is--"
"You're not going away because of Doyle? Because if anything, you took my role and Cordelia took his, and I--"
"Lead, Angel. I'll be back."
Buffy chose that moment to get out of the corner and back into the center of the lobby. "If Cordelia is leaving a trail, you--" Doyle-- "can help me follow it, and stay out of sight. I'll just use a whole lot of violence and bring home my best friend. We should hurry; we'll be only paces behind Cordelia."
"No," said Angel.
There was steel in Buffy's eyes.
"It's actually a good plan," he said hastily, "but you're not familiar with the type of mind games that Wolfram and Hart plays."
"I fought Adam while Spike was playing mind games, trying to split me apart from my friends."
Spike, evil? Good. But she still didn’t understand Wolfram and Hart. "This is in another league, Buffy."
"He's right," said Fred suddenly. "You saw the little girl at the firm, Buffy, she offered me a life without Pylea ever happening. It's like they know everything we've ever done and everything we've ever planned, and they pretend not to know and play with us."
"What if we gave them a fake plan?" said Giles.
"Fake a prophecy..." Wesley said slowly. "Would we have time for the print, to make the paper look ancient?"
"Like this?" Angel said, and in the time it took him to say it, he had withdrawn a pad from his desk and written "now" in perfect Sumerian lettering.
"Yes, like that," Giles said, a touch frostily. Oops--Angel had forgotten that Giles had been indirectly on the receiving end when he was using his drawings to torture Buffy. He had to apologize. Maybe he could draw a nice portrait of the whole Scooby gang.
Fred grinned suddenly. "I could write something in Pylean. Some kind of gibberish..."
"More than gibberish," said Angel. “For this to do any good, it has to lead them off track.”
"We'll make up a clock, something mystical about the nature of Willow's magic, and we'll make Wolfram and Hart think we have this deadline for getting her back, and then we pop in right after that moment when they think there's no point in our rescuing her."
Wesley's eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of his head.
Angel snickered. "I'll take it to the white room, pretend to offer to trade it for Willow and let the kid take it by force. I'm sick of sitting around here."
"You shouldn't get close, Angel," said Buffy.
"Willow hasn't done any long-distance magic on me for most of the night," said Angel. "They're focusing on getting her to change the timeline instead; get Tara to fill you in."
"Well, Willow was never supposed to have magical power at all," said Tara. "That came from love, Buffy, the friendship-kind."
"Because she wanted me to have Angel back. And then she wanted me to come back," Buffy said softly. She looked as if she'd been hit by a board.
"Hey. We all have to live with the things our loved ones do for us," Angel said, crossing the room to put his hand on Buffy's shoulder. She relaxed for one moment, murmured, "thank you, Willow," and then stood up straight again.
"You're sure it's safe, Angel?"
"Yeah. Let's get started. Once we have Wolfram and Hart thinking they've put one over on us, you and I can be the strike team, Buffy, with Doyle guiding us. Just like the plan you came up with."
"You'll need a diversion to get past the vampire detectors," said Gunn.
"Let's finish the plan while we draw the prophecy," said Angel. "Fred, Wes, Giles?, over here." He arranged all of his drawing supplies.
"What time should I make them think we're coming?" said Fred.
"Make it tomorrow night," said Giles, over Doyle’s protests. "That's the earliest they'll believe.”
Everyone got to work, with Giles supplying an occasional Hebrew or Latin phrase as Fred made up weird syllables as she went along. Angel had his hands full, but as he only copied the letters written by the others, his mind was free.
"Tomorrow night?" Doyle hissed. "Angel, Cordy thinks we're coming in after her right away."
"Can you tell her--"
"Speakin' in my head through the link from the visions? It only goes one way, from her to me because the visions went from her to me. I passed the visions to her almost two years ago, and I never really had the chance to use that link."
Angel shuddered to think of anything Cordy might have received that day. He hoped that Doyle hadn't been conscious long.
Doyle jumped. "Those lawyers of yours, they sure have a lot of dungeons in that plush office of theirs," he said. "The path is burned into my mind. Cordy thinks we're right there, already following her."
"You know if we did that, we'd just get killed. They know every move we make almost before we make it."
"Yeah."
Angel kept his hands moving. "Doyle, to choose this life is to choose to be alone," he said, finally. "I have to get Cordy back. Even if it weren't for you; I need her back. But she has to fight alone first. She's strong."
"Bein' the leader means you're alone," Doyle muttered.
"Among other things."
"Want me to leave you alone and let you work?"
"No," said Angel. "I really don't."
Angel was alone.
That was the way he liked best to work, anyway. Alone.
He harbored no illusions about getting through Wolfram and Hart's front door unmolested, but, through the protection of the haze just before dawn, he broke a storm window and sprinted for the elevator before anyone could stop him.
Angel knew the white room very well. He'd never wanted to return, but he knew how to get back. Not all vampires had photographic memories--actually, Buffy sometimes said that getting vamped subtracted IQ points--but Angel had been an artist, among other things, as the human Liam. Artists developed perfect visual memories. It was one of the few things from his long-forgotten past that Angel was actually proud of.
He hit floor buttons, seemingly randomly, but actually in the coded pattern: "18, 23, 20, 28, 27." The white button appeared. He pushed it.