"I'm getting it," Fred said.

"I'm not," Angel said, frowning at the dance floor. "How is Lorne picking this up so quickly?"

In the middle of the line dancers, Lorne was shimmying his way through a flamboyant version of the Achy Breaky to laughter and applause. Angel shook his head. "How do people do that? Just get out there and -- move around like nobody's even watching?"

Fred looked up from her napkins. "You're thinking about dancing?"

"It's the least unpleasant thing I can think about right now," Angel said. "Which says a lot about the day."

"Do you not know how to dance?" Fred asked. She smiled shyly. "Because I could teach you --"

"No!" Angel said hurriedly. "I mean -- I know how to dance, Fred. I used to do it all the time, back when dances made sense."

"Made sense?"

"You had partners. Steps. Patterns. It was all laid out for you in advance, and the rest was just a matter of style," Angel explained. He smiled for a moment, remembering the grand balls of Vienna, then frowned again at the chaos before him. "Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, we had real dances. Waltzes. Reels. Mazurkas. Now, the mazurka, that was a dance. These days people just get on the dance floor and -- flail."

"Line dancing has steps," Fred pointed out. "It has patterns. Lorne's figured it all out already."

Lorne chose this moment to toss an extra spin into the dance; the other dancers clapped their approval, never missing a step in their movements. Fred grinned up at Angel. "See?"

"I couldn't do that," Angel said. "I couldn't have everyone looking at me like that."

"Didn't they look at you back when you did the marimba?"

"Mazurka," Angel corrected her, automatically. "And yeah, I guess they did. But it didn't matter then. I never cared what people thought about me."

"Does it matter what people think?" Fred said.

Angel flashed back to the expressions on his friends' faces as, one by one, they had cast him out of Cordelia's apartment and their lives. "Yes, it does."

Apparently Fred had followed his line of thought; she ducked her head in embarrassment for a moment. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad."

"Fred, no," Angel said, gently touching her shoulder. "You couldn't. It helps a lot, having you here."

She went pink at that and smiled. Angel realized he was on very dangerous ground -- but in an instant, Fred had snapped out of whatever reverie he had inspired. "Anyway, I wasn't actually talking about dancing, before," she said.

Fred began spreading her napkins out on the table; with one wave of her hand, she indicated that Angel should pick up his margarita and get it out of the way of the higher math. He looked down at the equations -- as incomprehensible as ever, and even blurrier, thanks to the effect of damp napkins on ink. But Fred seemed enthusiastic about the results.

"This," she announced, "is a map of Los Angeles."

Angel saw how happy she was with the analogy -- custom-made for the physics-illiterate -- and decided to play along. "So where's the Hollywood Bowl?"

"We have more important landmarks on this map," she said, so proud of herself that Angel could no longer resist a smile. "In mathematical terms, I've laid out what I think is the rough structure of this part of the splinter universe. So far, it suggests as few as two but no more than five active portals in the area --"

"How can you know that?" Angel said, peering at the squiggles on the table as though they would suddenly turn into arrows.

"In layman's terms," Fred said, "portals amplify this universe's inherent instability. If there weren't at least two active portals, we wouldn't have had this many reality quakes. But more than five --" her voice trailed off. When she spoke again, she was grave. "More than five, and there will be nothing approaching reality as we recognize it. No constants of gravity or light or physical composition. We might have a few pockets of comprehensible reality, but the rest will be pure chaos."

"Don't you mean, would be?" Angel said, with little hope.

"I mean, will be. This universe is going to get more and more unstable. By the time it's ready to self-destruct, it's going to be more confusing than I could describe to you. Except mathematically, I mean."

"I thought the plan was for us to be long gone by then."

"Well, now, see, that's sort of the interesting part," Fred said.

While in China, Angel had become familiar with one of the local curses. It went, May you live in interesting times. He leaned forward. "Interesting -- how?"

"It was easy for us to get here," Fred said. "We were moving from a place that was, for lack of a better term, more real to a place that was less real. That's like swimming with the current. But now we're trying to move from a place that's less real to a place that's more real. That's harder. Not as hard as moving from one real universe to another -- but harder than it was for us to get here. Still with me?"

"More or less."

Fred continued, "This universe is going to have to be very weak before we can be free of its influence and move back home."

"We have to let this universe get weak. You mean -- we have to wait for the world to end?"

"Right!" Fred beamed, happy to be understood. Then she paused, considering. "I suppose when you put it that way, it doesn't sound as encouraging."

"I can handle it," Angel said, with significantly more confidence than he felt. "Just tell me how that's going to work."

"Well, first the universe starts falling apart," Fred said blithely. "And then -- oh, no --"

The napkins fluttered as the table began to shake. People started to scream and shout. The lights flickered. At the bar, glasses and bottles began clinked and cracked together; the Miller Genuine Draft sign fell to the floor with a crash.

"We got a shakeup!" the bartender yelled. "Hang on to your hats!"

Angel could see Lorne doing just that as he ducked off the dance floor; Fred yelped and dived under the table. Angel moved to join her, shouting, "This isn't the end of the world -- is it?"

She shook her head, her hair flopping about wildly. "I don't know!" Fred's glasses flew off her face as she spoke, but she didn't even seem to notice. "This is a portal, right? So we can get through if we have to!"

"We can't!" Angel shouted over the din. "Cordelia and Wesley and Gunn -- we can't just leave them!"

"If this is it, we have to go!" Fred cried out.

In one horrible, wrenching flash, Angel realized she was right.

If Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn weren't there when the time came to break through and go home, then he couldn't fight it, couldn't change it. This was the one thing he couldn't control, no matter what.

Unless --

Wesley's words about the ritual to stabilize this universe flickered through his mind, as did an image of what would be necessary. The image was nauseating, terrifying, and not unfamiliar. He could postpone the end of this world if he had to, if that was what it took. He could save them all, make sure they all got home.

At what cost?

The ground lurched, and Angel could hear metal twisting. Quickly, he put a protective arm around Fred. The screaming around them raised in pitch as the ceiling took on a strange, orange-ish glow. Beneath Angel, the floor was suddenly soft; he looked down and saw the wood floor turning to dirt, then saw grass sprout up from it, somehow emerging from the earth already sickly and yellow. Tables tipped over, but when they hit the ground, they changed into stones. No, Angel realized -- into tombstones.

The Longhorn was becoming a graveyard.

Lamps became trees, old and gnarled and forbidding. Some of the chairs melted, solidified and bloomed into funereal arrangements in crimson and white. And deep welts in the earth formed, deepened and became empty graves.

As unnerving as all this was, Angel had spent a fair amount of time in cemeteries and was handling the transformation well -- better, it seemed, than the screaming patrons of the bar, whose ability to cope with changes apparently did not extend this far. Fred hadn't begun saying the words that would open the portal yet, so maybe this wasn't the end of the world after all.

Then the quake intensified, and gravity went insane.

Fred screamed and clutched at Angel as she was pulled upwards out of his arms; he grabbed at her hands with all his strength, but the force tugging at her was too strong. She was ripped away from him, and Angel watched helplessly as she flew -- fell? -- to the ceiling along with another dozen people. Though the ceiling still glowed an unearthly, molten orange, Fred didn't appear to be burning or in pain -- just terrified. Others were towed toward the walls; he saw Lorne go skidding into what had been the bar and was now a marble sarcophagus. Angel was one of the few still able to treat the floor as the floor.

"Fred!" She looked down at him, her face framed by the eerie, undulating orange glow of the ceiling. Fred was clearly panicked but able to hear him; she remained focused on him as though their lives depended on it -- and perhaps they did. "Will you know if it's the end?" he shouted. When she nodded, he said, "Then do what you have to do."

But even as Fred opened her mouth to begin chanting, the quake stilled -- as suddenly as it had begun. Gravity snapped back to normal. Everyone pinned to the ceiling fell; Angel dived for Fred, but she tumbled into one of the open graves. Then the grass turned back into a floor -- an unbroken floor --

With Fred entombed inside.

"Fred?" Angel yelled, pounding on the floor even as the wreaths turned back into tables. "Fred!"

No response. Angel began pounding harder and harder. Oh, no, no, no, he thought. Not Fred, please no. Please don't let her be --

Angel slammed his fists into the floor, putting his strength into it; the floorboards finally gave way. "Fred, can you hear me? Are you in there? Fred!"

He pulled at the wood and metal, desperately digging through the debris, seeking any evidence that Fred was still inside, still alive. She trusted me, he thought. She came with me despite everything, and now she's --

"Angel!" a voice gasped.

Angel peered down into the floor's wreckage; there, beneath still more boards, entwined in wiring, was a very frightened Fred. He breathed in and out, a reflex of relief. "I've got you," he promised. "Hold on."

He kept ripping and tearing at the boards until he was able to get an arm around Fred's thin shoulders and pull her free. She was trembling as he brought her up from the twisted mess that had enclosed her, and her hands gripped him tightly. Once she was finally free, they sank back against one of the tipped-over tables, exhausted. "Are you all right?" he said, hugging her close.

Fred's arms wound around his waist as she leaned against him. "I am now."

She was warm and real as she lay in his arms, her heart beating so hard he could feel it through her whole body. Angel breathed in deeply, trying to calm himself; he took in the scent of her, something delicate and intangible. And it felt so good to be near someone who trusted him, who cared for him -- to be near someone alive --

Fred looked up at him, her face alight with confusion and yearning and hope. And Angel felt a rush of protectiveness and warmth that he'd only known one other time in all his 250 years.

With Buffy, the rush had almost instantly become a bonfire -- something that blazed so hot and strong that it dominated his life from that moment to this, something that blinded him with its light.

He couldn't let himself be blinded again.

"We have to talk," Angel said, taking Fred's arms from around his waist and folding her hands in his. "About you and me."

"Oh -- okay," she breathed. "Is this, you know, the kind of talk where -- do you need a fish?"

Completely nonplussed, Angel stared down at her for a moment. "A fish?"

"You know, the ritual for courtship," Fred said, casting her eyes down at the last word. "Or is that just Pylea?"

"Just Pylea. Don't -- don't start giving men fish, okay? They're not gonna get it."

"That sounded too weird to be from Earth," Fred said. "Then again, so do personal ads, but those are real on Earth, right?"

"Yes, they are -- but, please, I need you to listen to me for a minute." Angel collected himself, then plowed ahead. "Fred, I can't ever be in a relationship -- I mean, a romantic relationship -- with anyone."

Some of the light in her eyes dimmed. Most people, in her position, would have began denying or at least underplaying their feelings immediately; Fred wilted, without shame or artifice, and it pierced Angel's heart to see it. "You -- you can't -- oh. But -- you said something about Buffy --"

"Buffy's the one who had to learn this with me. I already knew I could never marry her or give her children. But I found out that I'm cursed -- I mean, literally, I'll tell you about the gypsies sometime -- and that I can't even make love to a woman without losing my soul."

Fred looked extremely disappointed now. "But -- you said something about Darla --"

Angel shook his head. "I can have sex, if it's just bodies. If it doesn't matter. But I can't ever be with someone that I truly love. And I don't think you should settle for anything less than that, from me or from anyone."

For a moment, Fred glanced away; to Angel's surprise, when she looked back, she was smiling hesitantly. "It doesn't -- why would it have to be about sex?" she whispered. "I mean, if you cared about somebody, you'd still want to be with that person. Even if you couldn't -- you know -- you wouldn't just walk away. Not if you really cared."

Angel couldn't meet her eyes right away. "Oh, Fred. Buffy and I -- we tried that. It didn't work. I know sex isn't everything, but it matters. And the fact that I'm a vampire means I'm always a danger in other ways, too. You're the one person in my life -- the only person -- that I haven't hurt somehow. I want to keep it that way." He looked down into her open, trusting face, her soft eyes. "I'm sorry. I really am. I think you're beautiful, and smart, and brave, and a lot of other wonderful things. If the situation were different -- I'd be very lucky."

She sat there for a minute, taking that in. Then she said, "That must be so hard for you. To be so alone."

"I have my memories," Angel said.

"Are they enough?"

"They have to be."

Angel thought of Buffy, stepping close to kiss him for the first time in a bedroom filled with stuffed animals and schoolbooks. She didn't know anything. He thought he knew everything. Neither of them could ever have guessed what lay ahead. He'd considered that first kiss a thousand times, usually in regret or sadness. Now, though, the memory changed; for the first time, Angel was grateful for all the things they hadn't known at that moment. He was glad that they'd had one instant -- just one -- filled with nothing except anticipation and hope.

That was something he could never have again, and something Fred could only have with someone else.

She slipped her fingers from his; he let her go and sat back. Fred ran her hands over her hair, collecting herself in every way. "I -- I'm just gonna -- freshen up," she said hurriedly.

"The bathrooms were over there," Lorne said, sauntering up and looking none the worse for wear, though his cowboy hat was somewhat askew. "No idea where they might be now. But that's probably an okay place to start. You okay, Miss Winifred?"

"Fred," she corrected him with a frown. "I'm okay. Thanks."

As he got to his feet, Angel watched Fred step carefully through all the debris on the floor as she made her way to the back. She stopped only to pluck her glasses out of the wreckage; she slid them back on carefully, then straightened herself up and went on.

Lorne said, "Well, looks like I broke up quite the little tryst over here." After a couple of moments, he continued, "I said that mostly to hear your outraged denial, which I can't help but notice isn't forthcoming."

"Nothing's happening," Angel said quietly. "Fred and I -- it's not even a possibility. And Cordelia told me I should talk to her about it right away."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Lorne said. "You had the friends talk? You just friended Fred?"

"It's not that I don't --" Angel hesitated, then said, "I can't get involved with her. You know that. And it was best to tell Fred that up front, so she can forget about me and move on."

Lorne shook his head and laughed. "Let me get this straight: Fred's got the hots for you, you might just have the hots for Fred, and you think a little sit-down chat's going to end all that?"

"Cordelia said --"

"This was Cordelia's idea?" Lorne said. "Following female advice is usually a good idea in affairs de coeur, but not today. Cordelia's greatest virtue is she's completely straightforward. She says it, she thinks it, she does it. It's refreshing. But her greatest problem is that she keeps on believing the rest of the world should work the same way. It doesn't. You sure don't. And love? Never."

"But now that Fred knows --"

"What does Fred know? That you're a big, handsome, swarthilicious fella who keeps saving her life at every opportunity, who's as lonely as lonely can be, and would just love to love her if only you had the chance. Oh, yeah, your problems are over."

Angel dropped his head into his hand. Lorne patted him on the shoulder. "C'mon. Let's see if any bottles of the good stuff survived the quake."

Darla was running again. But this time she was fleeing up, not down.

Behind her, a twisting storm of wind and dust howled in the confines of the Hyperion's hallways. The black, roiling mass had writhed into existence just as the most recent, and most violent, shakeup had begun. Now, only minutes old, the tornado had already consumed most of the hotel's lower floors. Darla was certain that if it caught up with her, she would be torn limb from limb in seconds.

There was nowhere to go except up.

Her feet pounded on the stairs as she climbed desperately; she was steadily growing dizzier as she rounded corner after corner at speed. Up was not good. There was nowhere to go after the top floor, nowhere to hide from the bellowing roar at her back. But there were no choices left to her; she was being driven by a force she could neither evade nor fight, and Darla was experiencing her least favorite sensation. Fear.

She had reached the third floor now. Halfway to the top. Maybe if she could get out on to the roof --

Suddenly, her foot caught in the frayed edge of the carpet. Darla fell.

She scrambled to get up and succeeded only in turning around in time to see the full force of the storm bearing down on her. The air was solid with thick black ash; the wind lashed her like a hundred whips; her skin burned and her head was filled with a buzzing that made her brain hurt --

And then it was gone.

Ash and dust rained down on the carpet around Darla. The hotel was silent. As quickly as it had risen, the storm had dissipated.

She clambered to her feet. The faint tremors shaking the building told her that the quake was still going on, somewhere, but its worst effects appeared to be over. Darla shut her eyes.

She'd survived.

Darla opened her eyes, and smiled triumphantly. She'd survived. She always survived. It was what she was good at.

She straightened up and noted with distaste that she was covered in thick black ash. Her attempts to wipe it off using her hands only served to rub it more deeply into her clothes and skin.

Time to get clean.

She walked along the third floor hallway toward the bedrooms. Her narrow escape had left her drained, and by the time she reached the closest room, every step was an effort. Her mouth was dry, and her limbs ached. She was exhausted.

She reached out to open the door, and froze.

The hand resting on the door handle was petite and perfectly manicured. It was also wrinkled and liver-spotted. It was the hand of an old woman.

Terrified, Darla pushed open the door and stumbled into the bedroom. She walked past the musty, unmade bed and went straight to the bathroom. To the mirror in the bathroom.

She saw her reflection and gasped in horror.

The woman looking back at her was growing older as she watched, aging decades in the space of seconds. Darla saw her hair thin, turn gray, then white. Her complexion paled; her skin wrinkled and became translucent, like tissue paper. Her eyes dimmed, then were obscured by thick folds of skin hanging loose around them.

Darla watched her beauty shrivel and vanish.

"This is not possible," she said out loud. "This is -- not -- possible." But her voice was little more than a croak, and in her mind she heard Angelus saying, Everything is possible now. Even the things that aren't.

She sank to her knees; then, when her strength deserted her entirely, she rolled on to her back and stared up at the bathroom's dingy ceiling. Her vision was fading at the edges, and her arms and legs felt heavy and cold.

Was this what dying felt like? Her first death had been so long ago Darla could barely recall it; the sensations of strength and overwhelming thirst she had felt on wakening as a vampire were far more memorable.

This was death as humans knew it, she realized. An intense desire to sleep, lethargy creeping over weighty limbs, a simple hunger for rest. This was what she had cheated her way out of four centuries earlier; this was what she had fought tooth and nail to escape ever since. She should be terrified now. Angry. Bitter.

Darla felt none of those emotions. She was simply tired, and grateful, at last, to rest.

She closed her eyes and waited for the darkness.

It didn't come.

When she opened her eyes again, she was still lying on the cold bathroom floor. Her legs were cramping, and she had to move. The hand she reached out to pull herself to her feet was unblemished and smooth. A young woman's hand.

Darla stood up. The floor under her feet was stable; the quake was over. And, judging by the faint glow coming from behind the curtains over the window in the next room, it was morning.

She left the bathroom and walked through the bedroom and back to the hallway. She felt so light she was surprised when she looked down and saw her feet were touching the carpet. She had thought she was floating.

Something had happened to her, and Darla wasn't yet sure what it was.

The sight of her ash-stained legs and arms jolted her into wakefulness. She was still filthy. Picking up her pace, she descended to the second floor, and the room she and Angelus used most often.

She opened the door and started to pull her dress off over her head as she entered the bedroom. It wasn't until she had shrugged it off completely that she saw she wasn't alone.

Angelus was sitting in the chair beside the bed. His clothes and hands were dark with dried blood. There were flecks of it all over his face. He looked as if he hadn't moved in hours. He looked as if he might never move again.

He lifted his head and saw Darla. She clutched her dress in front of her, feeling a sudden and absurd modesty. One of his shirts was lying on the end of the bed, so she picked it up and put it on.

In a dead, flat voice he said, "I made the sacrifice. Performed the ritual. I stopped it again, for a while. Soon I can stop it for good."

He was still looking at her, as if in entreaty. Darla didn't know what he wanted. Approval, maybe?

She crossed the room slowly and sat down on the edge of the bed. They were so close to each other their knees almost touched. "Angelus --"

"Angel," he said.

Darla looked at him. "What?"

"Angel," he repeated. "He called me Angel. There was a time -- a time when I thought I could have that name. I thought I could be something else. I believed in the possibility of redemption."

"Now we know better, my love," Darla said, shaking her head. She smiled. "And isn't that how we always liked it?"

"We know better," Angelus repeated. He closed his eyes. "They saw me -- they saw what I am -- and I can never go back --"

Darla held his bloodied hands in her ash-stained ones. "Hush, my sweet."

Angelus opened his eyes, and looked at her desolately. "There is redemption, but not for us." Matter-of-factly, he added, "I'm going to save the world."

"I know."

"I'm going to make this all stop. And then I won't have to care anymore."

His voice was faint, almost wistful. Darla leaned closer to him and whispered, "And when you do, everything will be better."

He laughed at that, so brokenly he might have been choking. "No, it won't. But that's okay. That's how it's supposed to be." He stopped, and looked at her. "Promise you won't leave."

"Yours to the end," Darla told him. She stood up, pulling him to his feet along with her. "Go and clean yourself up. And then sleep. You deserve it."

"I deserve it," Angelus repeated. Darla led him to the bathroom, stripped off his bloodied clothes, turned on the shower and pushed the soap into his hands. When she was satisfied he could continue with the mechanical acts of lathering and scrubbing unassisted, she left him and went downstairs to the hotel reception.

She crossed the lobby quickly, barely registering the fact that the bone-tree was gone. Darla needed a drink.

She kept her stash of liquor in a well-padded drawer, and most of the bottles had survived the quake intact. She lifted one at random and unscrewed the lid.

Behind her, a cat mewled.

Darla lowered the bottle without drinking and turned around slowly, afraid of what she would see.

The gray cat stood in the middle of the Hyperion's lobby. Its left ear was ragged, and its coat was mangy; there was no doubt it was the same animal she had last seen broken and dead, suspended inside a cage of bones.

Angelus' magic had changed reality. Brought it back to life.

The cat paid no attention to Darla; it was too busy toying with the small rodent it had caught. She held out the bottle to it. "Hello, kitty. Still thirsty?"

At the sound of her voice, the cat glanced up at Darla just long enough to decide she didn't present a threat. Then it pounced on the small creature pinned down between its claws.

Its fangs, already sharp, thickened and grew. At the same time, its face twisted, hard ridges rippling into existence above its yellow eyes. The cat bit down on its prey and began to drink.

Darla watched it in a mixture of horror and fascination. She had been mistaken. The cat was back -- but it wasn't alive.

Within seconds, the mouse's body was little more than a dry bag of fur and bones. The cat tossed it over twice, then batted the corpse to one side with its paw. Evidently unsatisfied, it began to sniff the air, trying to scent out a fresh source of blood.

Darla understood the hunger it felt. It was a pure and savage need, undeniable, insatiable. The cat would hunt and kill and drink and kill and drink -- it would never feel a moment's peace, never again know real rest --

There was a crash, and the cat fled. Darla looked down, and saw the bottle she had been holding lying at her feet. It had shattered when she had dropped it.

Darla looked back at the stairs which led to the Hyperion's upper floors. Angelus was in one of the bedrooms up there. Maybe he was waiting for her; more likely, he had fallen asleep already.

It would be hours before he woke and discovered she was gone.

The sun was coming up over L.A., heralding the start of a new day. Wesley hadn't yet recovered from the shock of still being alive to see it.

They were driving through the pre-dawn streets in stunned silence, Other Gunn's truck rolling smoothly over the non-cobbled road surface. Wesley wasn't sure why the vehicle should continue to exist when its owner had disappeared -- literally -- into thin air, but he was grateful it did. He was grateful, too, that Gunn was driving, although judging by the way he kept nervously drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, Wesley guessed he was equally, if not more, shaken.

Cordelia spoke first. "Would someone like to explain what just happened back there?"

Neither Wesley nor Gunn responded.

"I mean, that other Gunn just -- he just -- " Cordelia put her hands together, then broke them apart with a flourish, "Poof, all gone! Is he -- dead?"

Wesley thought over the events at the library, trying to make sense of what had happened. "I think he didn't die so much as simply -- stop existing. The effect of the magic was to stabilize this universe, to force it to make sense. Since you can't have two versions of the same person in the same place at the same time, one of them simply -- disappeared."

"But that would mean Angelus just saved the world."

"He did," Wesley said.

"That's not your line," Cordelia said. "This is the part where you disagree with me, and -- " She trailed off. "You're not gonna disagree with me, are you?"

"There's no doubt about it," Wesley said. "By performing the ritual -- cleansing the sacrifice -- he checked the forces which are causing this universe to fall apart. Temporarily, at least."

That much was inarguable: the evidence was all around them. The truck passed a sober office building which only a few hours earlier had been a small tropical rain forest, complete with brightly feathered macaws and grazing okapi. Not everything was back to normal -- the sun, for example, was breaking with tradition and rising in the west -- but there was a sense that imminent collapse had been, if not averted, then at least postponed.

Cordelia took a deep breath. "So we're saying Angelus is the good guy here?"

Gunn stared at the road ahead. Tonelessly, he said, "If he's so damn good, how come my friend is dead?"

Unbidden, his own words from just days before came back to Wesley. You try not to get anybody killed, you wind up getting everybody killed. Was that the decision Angelus had made as well: a few lives in exchange for many?

Wesley had thought he was dealing with evil in its purest form, and he had been horrified. But it was far more horrifying to realize that the actions Angelus had taken in this universe were ones he could understand, if not condone.

"So -- what does this mean?"

Wesley turned around. "Cordelia?"

She shook her head. "This makes everything different, right?"

They had arrived back at Cordelia's apartment in Silverlake. As Gunn parked the truck at the front of the building, Wesley said, "This doesn't change anything. We still have to find a way to get home. We still have to --"

As he got out of the truck, he stopped. Gunn and Cordelia drew up beside him.

Darla was waiting for them. She stood outside Cordelia's door, protected from the morning sun by the partition that screened off the entrance from that of the neighboring apartment.

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "I do not believe this. It's not even eight a.m., and already this is shaping up to be a really BAD day." Picking up her pace, she began to march determinedly toward the building.

Gunn followed her; Wesley hesitated. "Cordelia -- wait. Remember, she's dangerous --"

"It's daytime, Wes," Cordelia said without looking around. "If I stand in the sunlight, what's the worst she can do? Spit at me?"

Something wasn't right here, Wesley thought. Angelus saving the world. Darla making daytime excursions to visit his past victims. He wished something in this mixed-up, maddening universe would just make sense --

"You've got some nerve coming here, lady." Cordelia was standing in the light, just a few paces beyond Darla's reach.

Darla blinked. She looked steadily at Cordelia, then at Gunn and Wesley. She was wincing a little, and it was clear the daylight was making her uncomfortable. "I need to talk to you."

"Hey, that's convenient," Cordelia said. "Because I've been wanting to talk to you too. See, it seems to me this whole mess is your fault. We were getting along just fine until you turned up and starting screwing with Angel's head. And you didn't just do it in our universe -- you did it here too. You screwed him up, and then you just screwed him, and now I'm crazy and Wesley's dead and God only knows where Gunn's gone. And it's all. Your. Fault."

Cordelia stepped forward and jabbed her finger into Darla's chest to emphasize each syllable of the last three words. Wesley wasn't sure, but he thought Darla actually recoiled. Now he could study her up close, he saw she was -- different. Her hair was a mess, and her clothes were mismatched, as if she'd thrown them on in a hurry. But there was something else, something wrong and yet recognizable -- "Cordelia," Wesley began.

"You have to help me," Darla said.

Cordelia moved another step closer, so that she was now half in and half out of the shade of the partition. "Oh, wait, I think I remember this. How did it go, again? Oh yeah -- 'You have to HELP me, Angel. I'm DYING, and gee golly gosh, because I'm human now I can exploit your misguided sense of responsibility.'" She folded her arms across her chest, her stance combative. "Well, tough luck. Because I'm not Angel, and you're not human any more. And I've wanted to do THIS for a very long time."

With one quick motion, Cordelia reached out and pushed over the partition, allowing the morning sun to flood the porch. Wesley half-turned away, expecting the familiar flare of flame and heat that accompanied a vampire's exposure to the sun's light.

Darla didn't move for a moment. Then she opened the bag she was carrying and brought out a pair of sunglasses. She unfolded them and put them on.

"Okay," Cordelia said. "I guess that last reality quake gave you vampires some major SPF protection. Someone gimme a stake."

"Cordelia, wait," Wesley said. He reached forward and grabbed Darla's wrist. She looked back at him, almost uninterested. The truth was inescapable now. "She's not a vampire. She's -- she's alive."

"Oh, yes, I'm alive," Darla said bitterly. "And, God, I wish I weren't."