Gunn was pacing the Hyperion lobby with his homemade axe in hand when Wesley and Cordelia led the Scooby Gang through the doors.
"So here it is," Cordelia was saying. "Base, sweet base."
A cloud of "Ooh"s, "Ahh"s, and "cool"s came from the Scooby Gang.
"Cordelia!" Gunn called, striding across the room, not quite allowing himself to run. "Wesley!" He looked them over carefully when he arrived. "Are you okay? What happened?"
"Quite all right," Wesley assured him. "As to what happened, it’s quite a long story—"
"Taken hostage by a true devil." Cordelia said. "But we beat him."
"Maybe not so long," Wesley said as Gunn goggled at them both.
"You’ll have to give me the details later. Where’s Angel?"
"He had to take the sewer route," Wesley answered. "He should be here any minute."
Giles cleared his throat.
Wesley started. "Oh! Yes! I’m sorry. How rude of me. Everyone, this is our associate, Charles Gunn."
"Just call me Gunn."
Wesley then proceeded to introduce the others, and most returned the greeting politely. One, however, saw something that interested her. As the rest of the Sunnydale contingent dispersed to find seats in the lobby, Faith stepped up to Gunn.
"Where did you get that axe?" She asked. "I’ve never seen one like it before."
"Oh, this?" He held it up, looking surprised, as if he’d forgotten it was in his hand. "Some of my boys made it for me."
"They did a good job."
Gunn beamed.
It was then that Angel and Spike came up out of the basement. Spike surveyed the lobby, then barked out laughter. "Nice set-up, Peaches," He said. "How many rooms do you have here to brood all alone in?"
"Spike, your chip would let you fight back against me, so I’m not honor bound to not kill you. Now shut up."
Gunn pulled out a cross and handed it to Cordelia. Perplexed, she took it, and her confusion only heightened when he watched her for a moment, then nodded in satisfaction. "So that’s the real Angel?" He asked, pointing.
"In the pale, room-temperature flesh." Cordelia answered.
Angel and Gunn met each other in the center of the room. Gunn looked Angel up and down. He was right; he had aged. Not much, just a line here and there. A silver hair mixed in among the dark-brown spikes. Not much at all. Except that Angel was supposed to be ageless.
"Man, what *happened* to you?"
"Shot. A lot. Then beat up. Bad. Had to heal really fast, and it taxed my system a little."
"Oh."
Angel raised his voice "All of the rooms are unlocked," He said. "Why don’t you all go settle in, and meet back here?"
*
Angel turned back to Gunn as the Sunnydale group dispersed. "Did you give all of your people the message about identifying the impostor?" He asked.
"Sure, sure. Now what’s this ‘impostor’ thing all about?"
"What message?" Cordelia asked as she and Wesley joined the huddle.
Angel explained his method of signaling to allies that it was safe to approach.
Cordelia looked at Gunn. "So *that’s* why you—"
"Brilliant," Wesley said. "Who thought of it?"
Angel rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Wes." Then he turned back to Gunn. "You’d better get your people rallied and armed. Angelus—"
"Now he’s the impostor, right?" Gunn interrupted.
The other three looked at each other. "I think it’s time to give him those details now," Cordelia said.
Taking turns, they explained all that had happened during their ‘trip’ to Sunnydale, with Wesley throwing in a few explanations about the true nature of vampires.
"So," Gunn said when they were done speaking. "This Angelus is a pure-demon version of you." He pointed at Angel.
"That’s right." Wesley said.
"That sounds bad."
"Doesn’t get much worse," Cordelia agreed.
"And he’s going to start collecting followers," Angel added. "An army, if he can manage it. We may or may not need their help, but your people are definitely going to need to be ready to defend themselves."
*
As Gunn departed, the other members of Angel Investigations turned back toward the lobby, to find Riley Finn sitting at the foot of the stairs.
"I think I’ll go see if my books have any information on pure vampire demons," Wesley said quickly, heading for their makeshift reference library behind the checkin desk..
"I’ll—uh—help him!" Cordelia said, taking off after him.
"Cowards," Angel muttered as he crossed the floor.
Riley was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "Hey, Big Man," he said as Angel arrived.
"Hi, Riley."
"Nice hotel you have here. How much did it set you back?"
Angel grinned. "Careful. That’s the second nice thing you’ve said to me. It might get to be a habit." With that, he sat down on the stairs beside Riley. "And it didn’t cost as much as you might think. It was run-down and abandoned and haunted by a Pseulak paranoia demon. The owner was glad to be rid of it."
They sat in silence for a moment, then Riley spoke up again. "Neither of us knows what’s going to happen, or what we should do, do we?"
"Not a clue."
"So what now?" Riley asked. "Shake hands and may the best man win?"
Angel looked at the floor. "I think we both know who the best man for her is," He said.
Riley looked up at him sharply. "Who’s that?"
Angel didn’t look up. "I left so she could have a chance at a normal life. And if I’d had any say in it, you’re just the kind of man I would have chosen for her. You’re brave. Honest. Compassionate. You’re a good man, and you can even fight at her side."
"Thanks," Riley murmured.
"You can give her sunlight, and children, and everything else that a normal life is supposed to have. All I can give her is darkness and—"
"Shut up."
Angel’s head snapped up. He stared at in shock at the young man beside him.
"How old are you?" Riley demanded.
"Um…counting my time as a human, 274," Angel answered, dumbfounded.
"Then that’s your excuse. But it won’t work again. You run away or chase her off this time, she’ll come after you with a stake. And you’ll deserve it, too."
"Look, boy," Angel bristled. "I’m just trying to do the right thing, here, and—"
"It was the right thing when you had that demon inside you, waiting to get out if you ever..." Riley winced. "If she ever made you perfectly happy. But now it’s time to reassess the situation."
"What’s to reassess?" Angel asked "Most of my reasons still stand. I can’t give—"
"Will you stop thinking about what you can and can’t give her and start thinking about what she *wants*?" Riley snapped. "Bulletin, Big Man, but ‘normal’ isn’t one of Buffy’s options. Whatever gave you the idea that her life with me was ‘normal’? She still sees more moonlight than sun, and as to children—can you imagine how vulnerable a third-trimester Slayer would be? How ‘bout the Slayer’s children *after* they’re born?" He paused, waiting for an answer. Receiving none, he continued: "She’s twenty. That’s a grown-up in any era. In your day, she’d already be married with kids, running a household. Time to let her make some of her own decisions."
"Why are you encouraging me like this?" Angel asked. "If you succeed, I become your rival."
"Part of it’s the psychological training," Riley said. "I like to talk sense into people."
"It worked."
"Good." Then Riley sighed. "The other half is that I love her, and I want her to be happy. It would make *me* happy if it was with me, but if it’s with you, well, I’ll find some way to survive." He smiled. "Just like you."
"What a mess."
"You said it."
"What are you two talking about?"
Both looked over their shoulders to see Buffy standing there, her hands on her hips.
"Oh, just trading death threats," Riley answered.
"And insults of each other’s ancestry," Angel added. "Which is where I have an advantage, because I met most of his ancestry."
"Right," Riley said. "I just threatened to cut his limbs off, shove a red hot iron up his ass, and post him on the west side of a wall so he can watch the sun coming for him all day."
"And I just told him that his great-grandmother tupped every man and most of the horses in three parishes."
Buffy sighed and sat down on the steps above them. "You forgot to mention anything about crosses, or holy water, or cutting off his ears, nose, tongue, and dick," she said to Riley. "And *you* forgot to mention that his great-grand*father* was known as ‘He-Who-the-Sheep-Fear’." She said to Angel. She got up and stepped between them, down the stairs, and into the lobby. "Honestly. Amateurs."
*
Oz heard the shower running in the room as he knocked on the door. Assuming that only one of them was showering, that gave him a fifty-fifty chance.
He was in luck. Someone on the other side of the door turned the knob, and swung it open.
Tara.
Good.
"Hey," he greeted her.
"Oh, Oz. Hello. I’m sorry, Willow’s in the shower."
"That’s okay. I wanted to talk to you."
"Oh," She looked surprised. "Okay."
"Mind coming out in the hall?" he asked. "I’m not at a place with Willow where I can see her naked anymore."
She nodded and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her.
"Sorry I tried to eat you the first time we met," he said without preamble.
"Oh, that," She said, a bit stunned by his directness. "That’s okay. You weren’t entirely yourself."
"Kind of the whole problem."
She smiled. "Seriously, it’s okay. You did your best, and no harm came of it, and now it’s in the past."
He smiled back. "You’re quite the human, Tara."
It was then that he heard the water stop running in the shower. "She’s done," he said. "Better go."
"Oz?" She asked as he turned to walk away.
He looked back over his shoulder. "Hm?"
As always, her nerves showed in her speech: she couldn’t control her stutter. "Wh-when I f-first heard about you, I st-studied up on w-werewolves, and I r-read th-that in s-some ways, you’re like real wolves. Is th-that t-t-true?"
Oz nodded. "More now, since I moved out of Sunnydale. The Wolf didn’t like it there too much. I think it knew how bad a place it was."
She swallowed hard. "D-d-does th-that m-m-mean th-that you m-m-m-" She couldn’t force the word out.
"Mate for life?" He finished. "Yes. But since its still not safe for her to be with me, I’m glad she’s with you." With that, he walked off.
*
Anya dragged Xander into the hotel room, slammed the door behind them, and immediately began to attack his belt buckle.
"What are you *doing*?" He demanded, shocked.
"We are having some form or another of sex. Right now." She said in grim determination, moving from his now-open belt to the button of his jeans.
"This is neither the time nor the place," He argued, his temper starting to rise at her insensitivity.
"Too bad." She unzipped his zipper, and he grabbed her shoulders.
"Anya, I don’t *want* to."
She looked up at him defiantly. "That’s why it’s going to happen."
He straightened his arms and held her out away from him. "No, Anya. That’s wrong. No means no, no matter who says it."
She brought her arms up between his and knocked them away from her shoulders. "I’m not going to sit here and let you wither!" She yelled. "Don’t you think I noticed how little you ate at that McDonald’s? You’re acting like you’ve lost every friend you have!" Xander opened his mouth, probably to answer that he had, but Anya just continued on. "Sure, what you did was bad, but Buffy *said *she’d forgive you if you apologized."
"Maybe," Xander said. "Maybe she will, but it’ll never be the same between us. There’ll always be something broken." He started to slump in on himself, but Anya reached out, gently pushed him against the door, and held him there.
"Maybe," she allowed. "I think you’re wrong, but I really don’t know. That’s why we’re going to have sex."
"Do you know what a non sequitur is, honey?" Xander asked tiredly.
"I was a demon for more than a thousand years," she said. "And I’ve been a human for less than two. I don’t get the subtleties yet. But I know someone whose heart is broken when I see one, and I am damn well going to show you that *I* still love you. The only way I know how."
Xander could only stare in shock as she dropped to her knees in front of him.
*
Knock, knock, knock
"Just a moment," Joyce called as she sat up on the bed and grabbed some tissues out of her purse to wipe her eyes. "All right, come in," she said as she tossed the tissues into the wastebasket.
Giles opened the door, a concerned expression on his face.
"Hello, Rupert."
"Hello, Joyce," he said nervously. "I just thought I should, ehm, check in on you. See if you’re all right."
She opened her mouth and drew in breath to lie, but the words evaporated with a sigh, and her head dropped. "No. I’m not."
"Would you like to talk about it?"
"I guess so."
He nodded, stepped into the room, and closed the door behind him.
"I don’t know what there is to talk about, though," she said as he sat down on the bed beside her. "My daughter hates me. *Really* hates me. I can’t dismiss this as a temper tantrum over a missed curfew. I may have lost my daughter, and it’s my own fault."
Few people ever heard such a declaration of utter defeat and misery. Giles was all too used to it. He’d been there himself, and he’d seen it in each of his charges at least once.
At least he knew how to handle it.
Giles reached out and patted Joyce’s knee. "You haven’t lost Buffy, and she doesn’t hate you. She’s furious with you, that I’ll grant, but she still loves you very much, and she *will* forgive you."
"How do you know that?" Joyce asked, still speaking into her own lap.
"Because Buffy has the most remarkably forgiving heart that I’ve ever encountered," he said. "She’s forgiven Faith, who she *did* hate. She forgave me for a crime *far* worse than yours, and she has never mentioned it again. I have no doubt in my mind that she’ll forgive you."
"Are you sure?" She asked
"I’m sure. She’s forgiven us all, mostly for sins that were far less well-intentioned than yours. But I think she’s grown tired of being the first, and often the only one to apologize or forgive. I think you’re going to have to make the first move."
Joyce sighed. "I just don’t know where or how it all went so wrong. I was always just trying to protect her, to be a good mother."
Giles chuckled bitterly. "Welcome to the family, Joyce. We can’t turn around without hurting each other, and our best intentions always seem to get us in the most trouble." Then he patted her knee again. "Come now. I think we’d best get back downstairs."
*
"Hey, Wes."
Wesley jumped, nearly dropping the book he was holding. He managed to suppress his yelp of surprise, however, and he took a moment to regain his composure and set the book down calmly before he turned to the speaker. She was leaning across the check-in counter. "Hello, Faith."
"Sorry about that. I thought you knew I was here."
"Quite all right."
"Was whatever you were reading that fascinating?" She asked.
"Yes, actually," he answered. "But I’ll discuss it when everyone is together." He fixed her with a shrewd glance. "And I suspect that’s not what you wanted to talk about, in any case."
"You got me, Wes," She said. "Mind if I step into your office?"
"Certainly," he answered. "Come have a seat."
She vaulted over the counter, landed smartly on her feet, and sauntered over to a chair.
Wesley paused for a moment to count the number of people he knew for whom such physical feats weren’t even showing off. It was a depressing thought, and he quickly dismissed it. "So what was it you wanted to talk about?" He asked.
"Well," she began, "It’s no secret that we’re gearing up for a fight that some of us might not come out of, so I was just hoping—"
"To make your peace?" Wesley finished.
"Yeah." She agreed. "See, I figure I hurt you more than anybody except maybe B, so I wanted to make sure I talk to you while I had the chance."
Wesley sat down in the chair across from her with a sigh. "Once a month," he said. "I have a nightmare about what happened in that apartment. That’s down from several times a night right after it happened."
Faith looked stricken.
"Yesterday, when Belial started singing, he sent me back there. That was my Hell."
"Wes, I’m so sorry. I know I can never make it up—"
He leaned forward and put a finger to her lips. "Hush. I’m not finished. What made it my hell was knowing that I deserved it." He withdrew his finger, but she still said nothing. She was left staring at him and gaping. "I failed you in so many ways, Faith. The Watchers’ Council as a whole did—leaving you in that cheap hotel by yourself when we could, at the very least, have provided decent lodgings and supervision for you. But no, the Council doesn’t see the Slayers as teenage girls or even as soldiers, merely weapons. And I was too blind to even think of it. Then you had your accident with Deputy Mayor Finch, and I was more concerned with enforcing the Council’s edicts and proving myself a better Watcher than Mr. Giles than I was with you at all. And I managed to interfere at just the moment when someone might have been able to help. So, in a way, everything that followed was my own fault."
Faith stared at him for a long moment after he finished. "Are you completely ape-shit?" She demanded at last. "I was a big girl. I made my own decisions. I screwed it all up on my own. Ask B: I was all ‘Want, take, have’ even before the shit went down. Even if you did screw up, nothing you did deserved what I did to you. That was just plain wrong."
"And you redeemed yourself last night," Wesley said. "Any debt that you had to me is paid."
"Well, you don’t owe me nothing, either," she said. "If it’s up to me, we’re five by five."
"Done."
"Huh?"
Wesley held out his hand. "All debts are paid and we start at even: five by five."
Faith spit into her own hand and held it out.
Wesley hesitated, quickly drew his hand back, spit into it, and held it out again.
They shook.
Cordelia, who had been watching from the shadows of the shelves, turned away. "Ewww," she said. That was gross.
Still, she couldn’t help but smile.
*
"So where do we go from here?" Buffy asked.
It had taken a little over an hour for the group to settle in and reconvene in the lobby. Now they sat about on the couches and chairs, looking expectantly at the Angel Investigations group. This was, after all, their territory.
"The first thing we need is information," Wesley said. "We have no idea where Angelus is, or what he’s doing."
"Merle?" Angel asked.
Wesley nodded. "Merle."
"Caritas?" Angel asked, wincing.
Wesley nodded again, firmly. "Caritas."
"You mean Angel’s going to have to sing?" Cordelia asked, grimacing.
Wesley took a deep breath. "He may. The problem of Angelus is, after all, a deeply personal one for him."
"Is he really that bad?" Giles asked, amused.
"He once sent a Rinmak demon fleeing from the room," Wesley responded.
"Rinmak?" Anya said. "But they kill people by screeching so loud—" She paused, then turned to Angel. "Wow. You must be really awful."
The group burst out laughing and Angel, glad of the tension breaker—even at his own expense—let it ride for a minute or two before waving it down. "Okay, okay, enough, enough."
"What is a ‘Caritas’ anyway?" Buffy asked.
"It’s hard to explain," Angel said. "You’ll see when we get there."
"Yeah, that’s brilliant," Spike scoffed, lighting a cigarette. "All of us run off and leave the place all empty. Interested in finding out what neat traps Angelus leaves for us when we get back? That the plan?"
"That’s true," Riley agreed. "We can’t leave our base unprotected."
"We can’t split up our forces, either," Buffy said.
"We may have to," Riley said.
Buffy shook her head vehemently. "No. That’s just what he’s waiting for." She’d been tricked that way one too many times. She wasn’t going to leave her friends unguarded again. Not for any reason.
"Actually, I agree with Buffy," Wesley weighed in. "We dare not divide our strength. Angelus would be dangerous enough if he was still just a vampire—"
"But he’s not," Giles continued, straightening in his seat, his face growing grim as he realized what Wesley was getting at. "He’s a pure vampire demon. And of all the pure demons, the vampire demons—"
"Were the last to be driven out," Wesley finished grimly. "And they inflicted a curse on humanity that has lasted from that day ‘til this."
There was a moment of silence as the group considered this.
"Wow," Anya said finally. "And back in my demon days, I always thought of you guys as weak, pathetic half-breeds," She said to Spike and Angel. "I never considered your heritage. I’m sorry."
The two vampires stared at her, utterly at a loss.
" ‘Salright," Spike said at last.
"We may have a solution," Willow said, raising one hand and taking Tara’s with the other one. Everyone turned to look at them. "We found—actually Tara found—this spell." She grinned. "Tell ‘em, honey."
Tara blushed. "It’s a protection spell for travelers," she explained. "It allows someone to just declare the place where they’re staying to be their home."
"That way, vampires need to be invited in," Willow finished. "Maybe Angelus is too strong, but even if he breaks it down, we’ll know." Her face fell. " ‘Cause we’ll both get really big, nasty, excedrin-written-all-over-it headaches, but that’s better than coming home to find him waiting for us."
The rest of the group looked around at each other. There were nods and murmurs of "that works" and "sounds like a plan."
"All right then," Buffy said. "Let’s do it."
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