Darla lifted the skirts of her gown higher in a futile attempt to keep the mud off them. But the path they were following through the forest was barely a track, and her ballgown was ruined. Everything, she thought bitterly, was ruined.

"If you're not going to tell us what's going on, at least say where we're going," Spike said, holding his chest and grimacing a little as he tried to keep up with her.

Darla didn't answer Spike because, for once, she didn't have the answers. Confused and disconcerted, she was acting on little more than instinct, and her instincts told her that in desperate situations, the best response was to buy time to think, to hole up somewhere safe and dark. "We need a place to gather our strength," she said, explaining what Spike should have known long ago. "A place far away from the others."

"A cave!" Drusilla squealed joyfully. "A lovely cave, damp and cold, with spiders and little crawly things. I know a lovely cave for us to play in. So close, so close."

"The closest one will do," Darla said. Sure enough, they came upon one very soon, and despite Drusilla's protests, she was able to herd her unruly charges inside.

"I liked it better when we were planning on holing up in a luxury hotel suite," Spike said.

The cave's interior was indeed damp and cold. Darla sat down on a low outcrop of rock and rubbed the sides of her head with her fingertips, willing the last few hours to make some kind of sense. But it was impossible to concentrate, because Drusilla had started to spin around and around in the middle of the cave, her arms outstretched, tunelessly singing one of her made-up songs. "Blood on the dance floor, blood on the knife, Drusilla's got your number, Drusilla says it's right..."

Spike folded his arms resolutely across his chest. "I'm not moving until I get some ANSWERS."

Darla raised her head and looked at them, loathing for both Spike's tantrums and Drusilla's ravings welling up within her. They were like children, she thought with disgust. No, they were worse than children, because at least children eventually grew up. Spike and Drusilla were eternal infants, artlessly and clumsily savage, more often hindrances than helpmeets. Right now, Darla could imagine no greater pleasure than to rid herself of both of them, permanently. She imagined the grit of their dust beneath her fingernails with a kind of grim delight.

But she clenched her teeth and then balled her one uninjured hand into a fist. It was hard to admit, even to herself, but Darla needed them. Without Spike, she couldn't keep Drusilla. Without Drusilla, she couldn't get Angelus back again. And that was not a possibility Darla was prepared to consider. Just a few days more, and she could wash her hands of them. Just as soon as she had her darling boy back once more.

Maintaining a civil tone with difficulty, she said, "What answers do you require, Spike?"

For a second, Spike looked a little shocked that his outburst had produced a response -- usually, Darla simply ignored him. Then, recovering himself, he raised a hand and started to list points on his fingers. "Well, let's see. I want to know where those two stake-wielding harpies back there came from, for a start. I want to know why Angelus was siding with THEM against US. Above all, I want to know -- what the HELL is nail polish?"

Drusilla broke off singing and took Spike by the hands. "Pixies' paint pots, tiny little brushes for fingertips. I'll paint mine red like blood and you'll paint yours black like your black, black heart."

Spike laughed. "Damn. I was hoping it had something to do with nails of the metal variety. Preferably being hammered into people."

Drusilla shook her head at Spike, chastising him with a teasing grin and a waggling finger. Darla narrowed her eyes. There it was again -- that same strange lucidity Dru had been displaying lately. Darla had noticed it when Dru had called her bracelet 'hollow' back at the villa, and again when she saw Angelus at the ball. In fact, Darla thought suddenly, almost all Drusilla's instances of near-sanity seemed to relate to Angelus.

Spike stopped laughing and draped one arm casually over Drusilla's shoulder. "Pixie paint -- that's one question answered. How about the rest?"

"The women at the ball are of no consequence," Darla said, although as she said it she could not help but recall the girl in the orange gown and the way Angelus had looked at her. "They'll die soon enough. Angelus is -- not himself at the moment."

"Not himself," Drusilla repeated, and giggled. "Not himself, he's someone else. He's Angel."

In a second, Darla had covered the ground between them. She struck Drusilla so hard she flew backward, colliding with the cave wall with an audible crack then sliding down it until she was sitting on the cave floor. Darla leaned down so that she was nose to nose with Drusilla. "You will never, ever call him that. He is Angelus. He is Angelus, my Angelus. His name is feared on three continents, and it always will be, or I --" Darla broke off with a choke, abruptly aware that Drusilla's face was wavering before her through a haze of tears. She blinked them back before they could well over.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and Spike's strong grip spun her around so she was facing him. His face shifted, showing his demon's aspect, and he snarled, "Lay a finger on Drusilla like that again and I will rip out your throat -- and somehow I don't think Angelus or Angel or whatever he wants to call himself will show up to stop me."

"Spike..." Drusilla's voice was soft. "Don't be angry with Grandmummy. She's sad because he's gone away."

"My heart bleeds," Spike muttered, but he changed back to his human face and relaxed his grip on Darla's arm.

Darla cared nothing for Spike's bluster; typical, she thought, that he'd threaten her with something messy and showy that would actually harm her not at all. She was still looking at Drusilla. In a quiet voice, she said, "You know, don't you? These things you've been prattling about -- pixie paint and hollow bracelets -- they're not things you've seen in fugues and dreams, are they? You're describing things that are real. Everything you've said about Angelus, about those accursed gypsies --" Darla broke off, aware that Spike was listening intently. "Tell me, Drusilla, how do you know?"

"I came back," Drusilla said simply.

Darla felt anger mount into rage within her. The truth, she was certain, was locked up inside Drusilla's head, as jumbled and unintelligible as the rest of her thoughts. "You never went away, you stupid, demented idiot --"

"The future," Drusilla whispered. "It's all metal, you know. It was in the book, it was all in the book!"

"What book?"

"The book I found. The book I will find." Drusilla held her hands up as if in a shrug. "I was digging in the loveliest tomb. Faded flowers and dried skin like little sheets of paper. Gray as doves, and when I breathed on them, they rustled like silk." This was just the sort of thing that made Darla long to slap Drusilla's face, but she forced herself to listen in silence. "The hands held a book. I peeled back the fingers. Snap, snap. Then I had the book. That man who died had wanted to take the book with him. He didn't want anybody else to read it. Naughty man. He didn't want to share his time machine."

Spike groaned. "Oh, not THAT cheap penny dreadful."

Darla's head snapped up. "You know what she's talking about?"

Spike shrugged and looked just a little embarrassed. "I wouldn't even have started reading the bloody book except that the bloke I got it from was so engrossed by it he never even twitched until I had his throat out. I figured anything that absorbing had to be worth a couple of hours. Turned out to be rubbish, though."

Darla felt the faint, flickering hope she had been nurturing start to die. She had almost been prepared to give credence to Drusilla's stories -- but that was all they were: stories. And not even Drusilla's.

"What was this book?" she asked tiredly. "Who wrote it?"

"Some talentless penny-a-liner called Wells. It's called The Time Machine." Spike scowled. "If I had a time machine, I'd go back and stop him ever putting pen to paper."

"Is it true?" Darla asked Drusilla. "Is this all just a story?"

"A story," Drusilla said happily. "Not THAT story. A different one. But the same. The same and different too. Spike's story isn't supposed to be true, but it is. My story's supposed to be true, but it's not." Her face clouded a little. "Not yet. The pages are changing."

Darla turned around and started to walk away.

Behind her, Drusilla's voice softly added, "It's Angelus' story. I came back to change it, Grandmummy. We have to make my story true."

Darla stopped. She looked around.

A time machine, she thought. Then: Drusilla came back. She knows because she came back.

A time machine. It wasn't possible -- but it would explain so much. It would explain the Angelus with whom she'd danced at the ball, who had grown so used to the soul the gypsies had given him that he scorned Darla and lavished his affections on a human woman. Was that how Angelus' story ended?

But it could still be changed. Angelus could be restored. And once he was, with command over time itself -- what power they would wield together!

Trembling with excitement, Darla looked at Spike. "You know where the gypsy camp is, don't you?"

He brightened immediately. "Yeah, I found them. Are we going to do some real killing tonight?"

"Soon," Darla said. "Very soon. But there's one more element to put into place first. Go and find Angelus, Spike. Bring him here."

"Bloody hell!" Spike exploded. "Make up your mind! We just LEFT Angelus, or have you forgotten?"

How to explain it without giving too much away? For a second, Darla was at a loss, until Drusilla helpfully said, "That wasn't Angelus, silly."

"It bloody felt like Angelus' fist in my face," Spike said sourly.

"It wasn't," Darla said. "I spoke to that creature. It wasn't Angelus. It was some -- some wraith or phantom that merely looked like him."

"Well, if that wasn't Angelus, where is he? And how do you expect ME to find him?"

Losing her patience, Darla snapped, "With a divining rod, if you have to! You're of his line, Spike, you can find him. And when you do -- no matter how he behaves, what he says -- BRING HIM TO ME."

Darla shouted the last words with such vehemence that Spike actually took a step back. She smiled to herself, satisfied that she had reasserted her dominance. For now, at least.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, I'm going." Spike leaned down and kissed Drusilla lightly on the crown of her head. "See you later, love."

"Bye-bye," Drusilla said. As Spike left, she lifted her hand and waggled her fingers, waving after him like a small child. She looked up at Darla and smiled. "The boys aren't here, and it's just us girls."

"That's right," Darla said. "And you can tell me stories to your heart's content."

"I have a ring," Drusilla said, holding up her hand. A golden band glinted on one finger. "Aren't I a pretty bride? We can go to my cave and see the fire on the ceiling. The fire's a door. Ding-dong! Avon calling. Doorbells ring. My ring."

Darla wanted to snatch the ring from Drusilla to make her concentrate -- but then she thought, could the ring play a part in this too? What did she mean by a ceiling of fire? Nothing Drusilla said, however bizarre, could be ruled out.

Hunkering down next to Drusilla, Darla repeated, "It's just us, and you're going to tell me everything you know about books and time machines and the future. And, believe me, this time I am listening to every word."

The night was cold, and Fred shivered as she crouched behind a fallen tree trunk, watching the entrance of the cave where they had seen the three vampires go in.

Charles looked at her in concern. "You cold? You want to borrow my turban?" He meant it sincerely, but there was something so funny about the idea of Charles Gunn offering to lend her a bright red turban made from strips of curtain to keep her head warm that Fred couldn't help but giggle. He smiled back at her. "Seriously. This thing's toasty. Add some earflaps, and you're talking about quality protection from the elements."

"It's okay. But thanks anyway." She looked at the cave entrance and became serious again. "I don't understand this. Why would they come all the way out into the forest to hide out in a cave?"

"It doesn't make sense," Charles agreed. "But as long as Darla and the rest of Angel's vampire relations are hiding in a cave and not doing any history-changing gypsy killing, I ain't gonna complain."

Fred looked at their surroundings, suddenly realizing the clearing where the cave entrance was located wasn't completely unfamiliar. "Yes, except that the portal that the time machine made -- the one that links 1898 to the future -- isn't far from here."

"No way," Charles said. "That was, like, miles away. Ten miles or something."

"I keep telling you, it wasn't nearly that far. I can't tell exactly in the dark, but we're pretty close." An unpleasant thought struck her. "Charles, do you think that's why they came here? Maybe Drusilla told Darla about the time machine."

Charles' face was grim as he said, "I really hope not. The twenty-first century only just got rid of Darla; it doesn't need her back again. Besides, Darla knew there was a time machine around here, she wouldn't be near it -- she'd be in it." He put his hand on Fred's arm. "Someone's coming out."

They tensed, and watched as a shadowy figure emerged from the cave entrance. Even in the darkness, it was possible to tell that the silhouette was distinctly male. "That's Spike," Fred whispered. "Should we follow him?"

Charles nodded. "Darla might be sending him to find the gypsies."

They crept forward, treading as lightly as possible on the soft earth. Following a person unseen was hard, Fred thought, but following a vampire with heightened senses of hearing and smell and perfect night vision was a different magnitude of difficulty again. To be certain of remaining undetected, they'd have to stay so far behind Spike they'd probably lose him before they knew where he was going --

"Bloody hell," Spike said and turned around.

Fred and Charles ducked behind a dense bush. Fred held her breath and put her hand over her chest, as if she could muffle the sound of her heart beating. Spike must have heard them, or somehow sensed them --

But Spike was looking back at the cave entrance, not Fred and Charles' hiding place.

"Should just go right back in there," he said in a low voice. "Tell the stupid bint she can't order me around." Raising his voice to a simpering falsetto, he said, "'You're of his line, Spike, you can find him.'" Then, in a more normal tone: "Even when he's gone it's Angelus this, Angelus that. You'd think the whole bloody world revolved around him. Well, fine. If she wants him, she can damn well have him. They can be happy making each other miserable, and Dru and I can have some fun."

Abruptly, Spike turned and set off back along the forest track at a brisk pace.

"She's sent him after Angel," Charles said.

"No..." Fred said slowly. "I think -- I think Darla's sent Spike after the other Angel, the one who's just been cursed. And there's only one reason she'd want him."

Charles looked at her. "She's gonna do it -- she's gonna make the gypsies lift the curse. Come on." He started to run -- but in the opposite direction to the one Spike had taken.

Fred hesitated, confused. "Aren't we going to follow Spike?"

Charles shook his head. "If we're going to stop this, we're gonna need supernatural help -- injured or not."

Too bad, Cordelia thought tiredly. I kinda liked that wig.

The image that faced her in the mirror now was a far cry from the glamour of a few hours ago. Instead of a crown of long, dark hair, she had her old Golden Shimmer crop, somewhat flattened by a night of wearing the wig. Instead of the correct, regal posture she'd had earlier, she was slumped over as far as the corset would allow. Her puffed sleeves had been mashed down in the melee and now reminded her vaguely of a collapsed soufflé she'd seen once at a dinner party. Her gloves were bloodstained and crumpled on the floor. Only her earrings, still dazzling and bright, had the same glitter.

"You're sure nothing's broken?" Cordelia could hear the concern in Angel's voice, was aware of his physical presence next to her, but the mirror only showed one weary, slightly bruised face, and that was hers. For once, she envied Angel's lack of a reflection.

But when she turned to look at him, she saw his condition had already visibly improved in the hour since they'd stumbled up the hotel stairs to their suite. At first they'd been able to do no more than collapse (Angel on the floor, Cordelia in a nearby chair) and try to recover. But Angel's vampiric regeneration kicked in quickly. He was already moving more comfortably; the blood that soaked his tuxedo shirt might as well have been shed by someone else.

"All I need is some sleep," she said tiredly. "I need to get undressed, Angel. And I can't really do it myself." She half-lifted her injured arm -- wincing as she did so -- by way of demonstration.

Angel looked completely flustered for a moment. Before Cordelia could even wonder why -- it wasn't like he hadn't seen her in her underwear before, for Pete's sake -- he had collected himself. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have thought."

She turned away to give him better access to the back of her dress. She felt Angel begin unfastening the buttons that ran along her spine, surprisingly deftly for a man with such big hands, she thought. Then she half-smiled, realizing Angel had probably done this many, many times before.

His hands worked their way down to her painfully constricted waist. "You probably want to get rid of this corset, too," Angel said. She felt his fingertip catch in the ribbons that bound it so tightly closed.

"The word 'duh' is so appropriate, and yet it just doesn't say enough," Cordelia said. When Angel hesitated, she laughed a little. "That means yes. Take this evil, evil contraption from hell off my body."

Angel pulled her sleeves down her arms, going slowly, careful of her injured shoulder. Cordelia winced, and he hesitated. "I'm not hurting you?"

"A little," she admitted. "But not as badly as this corset. Keep going."

Angel slipped the dress down over her hips, and it billowed to the floor, a flash of color at her feet. Then he began unfastening the corset, loop by loop, and Cordelia felt her grateful ribs expand outward. She took in a deep breath that filled her lungs for the first time all night. The rush of oxygen hit her bloodstream, and the room wavered around her for a moment.

"Cordy?" Cordelia realized that she'd swayed on her feet; Angel had caught her around the waist, bracing her against him. She leaned against his chest gratefully; he seemed like the only still, solid thing in the room. "You're hurt worse than I thought --"

"No, really, I'm all right," Cordelia protested. She covered his arm with her own; the motion sent jabs of pain through her arm, but she forced herself not to groan. "It was just a whole lotta air all of a sudden. Felt nice. Hey, I guess I'm one of the natives now -- I swooned."

"I should have thought to lay in a supply of smelling salts." She could tell Angel was smiling as he said it. As she'd hoped, he stepped back a little, reassured, and finished loosening her corset. She thought he would remove it immediately, but instead he gently took off her earrings and dropped them on the bedside table, where they glinted in the faint light from the oil lamp. Then he ran both of his hands through her matted-down hair; it was surprising how refreshing that felt, to have her hair fluffed back up again. Finally, he pulled the corset away from her and tossed it aside. Cordelia would have thrown it very, very hard, but he had the basic idea. She took a few more deep breaths, relishing her body's relative freedom. But she could still feel bands of pain where the corset's boning had been.

She looked down in dismay to see that her camisole was stuck to her skin from sweat and pressure; the lines of the corset had dug into her flesh the way the seams did on too-tight jeans, only far more brutally. Carefully, she took the fabric in her uninjured hand and peeled it away from her sore skin. "Owww. And ow. Every crappy thing I ever said about feminism? I take it back. Any movement that got rid of these things is A-OK by me."

"You'll have marks for a while," Angel said. He paused for a moment, then said, "I can help a little. Lie down."

Cordelia sat gratefully on the bed and carefully worked her way into a reclining position. As Angel moved toward her, she grimaced. "Angel, you have got to take that off." She gestured at his shirt. "I think we have freaked out the hotel management enough without getting blood all over the bedspread."

"Oh. Right." He quickly stripped off the shirt; though she'd seen him without it countless times, Cordelia realized it had been a while since she'd been called on to bandage up his wounds, or chatted with him after he got out of the shower. She smiled a little as he half-turned to toss the ruined shirt on the floor and let her glimpse the gryphon tattoo for the first time in months. Angel moved as though he was going to sit beside her, saw her smile, then paused. "Cordy?"

Feather mattresses were beautiful things, Cordelia thought. Down pillows. The bed was so soft, so welcoming. "Yeah, Angel?"

"I've been thinking -- I mean, I was wondering --" He gave her a look that was far harder and more searching than she'd expected. "You haven't mentioned Groo at all. This whole time. I was just -- aren't you worried about him?"

Groo. Cordelia remembered his sweet grin in a flash of memory that was gone as soon as it came. Angel was right: Not only had she not mentioned Groo, he hadn't even entered her thoughts. Guilt stabbed at her briefly, but it faded in an instant. "If you were evil, I never ended up working with you in L.A.," she reasoned. "That means I didn't get sucked through to Pylea, so Grooie and I never even met. In the altered reality, he's in Pylea, being a champion and loving life. In other words, Groo's the lucky one."

"Yeah," Angel said, looking down at her. "I guess he is."

Something about the look on Angel's face made her feel suddenly embarrassed. What would Groo think if he could see her like this -- undressed on the bed, waiting for Angel --

Well, Groo couldn't see her. But Cordelia rolled over on her stomach, all the same.

She felt the mattress sink slightly as Angel sat next to her. He began rubbing her back, his fingertips massaging the angry lines where the corset had been. It hurt -- but in a good way. Cordelia could feel the indentations along her back begin to soften as he went. "How's that?" he said.

"Good. Better than good. Keep going." He did. The muscles of her back, strained from her injury and the fight, began to relax beneath his touch. "God, that's terrific. Where did you learn to give such a great massage?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Cordelia smiled into the pillow. She'd have to beg or bribe that story from him sometime -- sometime when she didn't need him to keep going as much as she did right now. Then she reconsidered their situation, and the smile faded from her face. "I guess we kinda blew it tonight."

"It's not over yet," Angel said quickly. "They got away from us, yeah. That doesn't mean we're not going to catch up with them in time."

"But that was our best shot," Cordelia said slowly. "You said so yourself." Angel's hands were still for a moment, and she knew he was struggling to find a way to console her. When he said nothing, she felt fear settle over her, more overwhelmingly than at any other moment in their journey into the past -- because this was the moment when she finally had to face that they could be trapped forever. She'd avoided thinking about the worst-case scenario all this time, but she could avoid it no longer.

Quietly, she whispered, "You can't stake the past you, Angel. Even if they uncurse him. You can't."

"I'll have to."

"If you vanish -- Angel, if you die, if you're not in the world for the next 100 years, that could be as bad as Angelus being around. Maybe worse." It felt worse. Panic was flooding Cordelia's heart.

Angel, perhaps sensing her fear, began stroking her back again. "Shh. Cordelia, that won't happen. If I have to stake Angelus -- well, we know from Drusilla's example that I won't just vanish --"

"Unless you try to come back with us," Cordelia said. Then she glanced over her shoulder. "You mean -- you wouldn't come back with us?"

Angel shook his head, some of his old tiredness back in his face again. "I know what I did the past 104 years. What I didn't do. If the only way for me to protect the world is to do it all over again, then -- I guess I'll have to do it."

"All of it? Just repeat the last century?" Cordelia's mind was whirling at the very thought.

"It might not be that bad," Angel said, entirely unconvincingly. "Lots of great things in the 20th century. Jazz, and V-E Day, and, uh -- Jack Nicklaus' last Masters."

Cordelia sighed out heavily. "I can see right through you. Angel, you do NOT want to go through all that again. The Dust Bowl and Vietnam and, and -- " She half-turned onto her side, ignoring the cramp in her shoulder. "Angel, would you go find Buffy like you did the first time?"

"Of course," Angel said. "That would be part of making everything come out right again. A pretty big part." He gently guided her to where she was lying flat on her stomach again, then went back to work on her aching muscles. His strokes were strong, almost painful as they bore down upon her back, and yet her body went warm and liquid as he touched her.

She whispered, "Would you fall in love with Buffy again?"

Angel was quiet for a moment. He finally said only, "I don't know. I couldn't know. A hundred years from now -- it's a long time." Then he patted her back, almost playfully, and with forced cheer said, "Do you think you're going to avoid working for me in L.A.? You're not getting out of it that easily. I won't let you."

Cordelia smiled, snuggling down into the soft pillows and mattress. She could see Angel's silhouette on the far wall; the warm, golden light of the oil lamp traced around the shadow of his body, as well as hers, stretched on the bed beneath him. His chin was low, his eyes perhaps focusing on the small of her back. For some reason it was interesting, watching him watch her.

"Of course," she murmured, "we might have completely botched things up, and then we'd have to stay here with you." The prospect should have terrified her; it did quicken her heartbeat, make her fingers curl along the edge of the coverlet. But what she felt wasn't really terror at all. "Maybe we'll all be together."

"I want you guys to be able to go back," Angel said. "But -- Cordy -- I'd miss you. A lot."

"Of course you'd miss us," Cordelia said. "I'm just saying, you might not have to. We might be stuck here together." It was too much to be scary. She couldn't do anything but smile. "What kind of a suffragette do you think I'd make?"

Angel paused, but then she heard him laugh a little. "I think women might get the vote a lot sooner."

Cordelia made up her mind, with the firm resolution best brought about by fear, that being stuck in the past with Angel wouldn't be like being stuck at all. These corsets wouldn't be in style too much longer, and at least she'd have her friends with her. The mission -- well, there'd still be plenty of vampires and demons around to be stopped, right?

She relaxed further, letting go of the last vestiges of worry. The massage was definitely helping with that. God, Angel had great hands.

Then she remembered those same hands clasping Darla's as they'd circled one another on the dance floor.

"Angel?" she said. "Seeing Darla -- that must have been freaksome."

"In some ways," he answered. He continued working on her back, smoothing away the pain. "She's changed for me, because of Connor."

"She hasn't really changed," Cordelia warned. "You can't think of her as Lady Madonna. I did, and remember where it got me?"

"I understand that very well," Angel said, in a tone of voice that suggested he understood it a lot better than Cordelia did herself.

"It's not that I don't trust you to do what you have to do," Cordelia said. "I trust you more than anybody, Angel. But I don't want to see you get hurt any more. You've been hurt enough."

Angel was silent for a moment, and his hands stilled on her back. Cordelia wished she weren't on her stomach, so she could see his face; was he upset? Was he angry? Was he doing his stoic non-emotional thing?

Then he started laughing -- very softly, but laughing all the same. "Cordelia, you have to stop."

"Stop?" She turned her head so that she could see him; he was still sitting beside her, his hands on her back, a half-smile on his face. "Stop what?"

"Stop trying to take care of me all the time," Angel said. "You were just attacked by Spike and Darla, you hurt your arm badly, and the corset alone almost finished you off. And you're still worrying about me." He brought one hand up to her injured shoulder. "Speaking of which, let me look at this." He brushed the strap of her camisole down from her shoulder, baring some of her back to his cool fingertips.

Stop trying to take care of Angel? Cordelia wasn't sure how to take that at all, so she just lay there in silence, obeying Angel's requests for her to wiggle her fingers, make a fist, shrug, and so on. Finally, he said, "You were right earlier -- nothing's broken. You've probably got a sprain, but no worse."

"Okay," Cordelia said, still unable to think of what to say. Angel resumed his ministrations to her back, his touch cool through the thin cotton of her camisole, and they were quiet together until she blurted out, "Why don't you want me to take care of you?"

"Cordy -- no. It's not that. Roll over."

"Huh?"

"Your stomach's got to be hurting too, right?" Angel helped her roll over onto her back. As his hands began massaging her belly, he said, "I'm glad I have you to take care of me. I need you."

"So true," Cordelia said. "Glad we're clear on that. But then why do you want me to stop?"

"I don't want you to stop. Not ever," Angel said. He was watching her in the faint light, his look softer, more open than she was used to seeing from him. She'd seen it before, but so rarely. Too rarely. She liked it. "But you don't have to do it all the time. I can take care of myself occasionally. And sometimes you need me to take care of you."

"Not hardly," Cordelia protested, then realized that she was splayed out in bed, letting Angel massage her skin back into inhabitability. "Well, okay, when I'm being attacked by vampires, you do kinda come in handy."

"Thanks," Angel said dryly. His palm brushed along the side of her waist. "But -- I don't just want to take turns between being your bodyguard and your therapy case. You're there for me a lot, Cordelia. I just want you to know I'm here for you too. You can let me take care of you, sometimes."

"Like now," Cordelia said. His hands felt so good, and she felt herself relaxing still more. She smiled. "I think I like you taking care of me. You know what? Being stuck in the past might not be so bad. I bet you know all the places to be and not to be. All the best stuff to do. We'll travel all over the place, and you can show me the sights. We'll have adventures. Have some fun for a change. You'll have to act like my husband, okay? I'm not having anybody write me off as a 21-year-old spinster."

Angel's voice was slightly uneven as he replied, "Your husband. Okay. I -- okay."

"What?" she said, trying to make light of the sudden dismay on his face. "Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?"

"Never." His hands stilled on her belly, and she thought he would pull away. Instead, he slowly took one of her hands in his own. "I like taking care of you," he said quietly.

The intimacy of the moment struck her in a flash, and Cordelia awkwardly felt as though she ought to pull her hand away, or make a joke, or something. Something that would make it clear that this was just their same old thing, hugging and joking and talking and thinking nothing of it, Angel and Cordy, best friends 'til the end. Not make it clear to Angel, because he knew that, and not clear to her, because she knew that, but it seemed like it ought to be clear all the same.

Instead, she felt her fingers closing around his, as if of their own volition. Angel glanced down at their clasped hands for a moment, then looked down into her eyes. "Cordy?" he whispered.

"CORDY!" Gunn's voice rang out from the corridor. Cordelia and Angel both jumped, startled. "ANGEL!" Gunn was definitely running toward their door. Angel squeezed her hand quickly, then got up from the bed just as the door was flung open.

Gunn's turban was slightly askew. "We got serious trouble going down. Can you guys move?"

"I'm fine," Angel said. "Cordy?"

Cordelia sat up. Somehow, she felt a lot more undressed in front of Gunn than she had in front of Angel; she pulled one of the coverlets over her. "I can if I have to," she said. "Don't ask me to turn any cartwheels. What's going on? Where's Fred?"

"Fred is downstairs stealing us a horse and carriage," Gunn said, shaking his head in something that was both dismay and admiration. "That girl woulda done okay in my old gang. We gotta hope she gets away with it, because we have to get back out into the woods, and fast. Darla's sent Spike out to look for you, Angel -- not YOU you, but the old you. We figure she's going after the gypsies tonight."

Cordelia's heartbeat quickened, and the pain in her shoulder seemed to dim.

Angel began to go toward the next room where his clothes were, but stopped on the way to search through the trunk where they'd hidden their small cache of weapons. He pulled out a couple of hurriedly made stakes and a dagger Cordelia had lifted in the museum in Rome and somehow not lost in the race to get back to the time machine when that future self-destructed. Handing her the knife, Angel asked, "Cordy, can you get dressed?"

"I can put on my jeans and sweater," she replied. "It doesn't matter what I look like now. Either we're about to get back to the future or blow the past to smithereens."

Gunn growled, "Just HURRY."

"The future is made of boxes," Drusilla said. "So many boxes! They live in boxes stacked on top of one another, and sit in boxes that float on roads like rivers. And there are boxes for pictures and boxes that make music, and little boxes that hold a thousand voices and make a sound like --" She closed her eyes in concentration and made a noise that sounded, to Darla, very much like a frog being tortured: "Brrrp! Brrrp!"

"Very nice, Drusilla," Darla said impatiently. "Now tell me more about this time machine. What exactly does the ring do? Can you show me if we go there?"

"I'll take you to it, if you're a good Grandmummy and wait," Drusilla said, sternly wagging her finger. Was it her imagination, Darla wondered, or was Drusilla enjoying this sudden shift in the balance of power between them? "You're going to love it in the future. So many wonderful things! Arbeit macht frei, Agent Orange, final solution, ethnic cleansing, and best of all, they say the world will get hotter and hotter until we all melt," she finished with an air of authority.

"The end of the world," Darla said. How lovely, to boil away the mortal flesh of this world and leave only the blanched bones. She felt herself beginning to believe in Drusilla's dream-visions -- more than believe. She already knew they were true, but she was beginning to long to see them for herself. To take Angelus to them.

"And oh! Another secret, one that sparkles and bubbles and shines on every street." Drusilla leaned forward very close, so that their noses were almost touching, and whispered, "Coke is it."

"Hey! Anyone want to give me some help, here?"

Darla and Drusilla both looked around; Spike was standing at the cave entrance, supporting with difficulty some filthy, half-dead wretch. Darla felt a flash of anger: How dare he disobey her when she had told him to find Angelus and not to return without him --

The figure Spike was supporting raised its head, and looked at Darla through rat-tails of unkempt hair. It was Angelus. Spike had brought him, just as she had asked.

The night she had driven him from the villa, Darla had thought it wasn't possible for him to look more pathetic, more repulsive than he had as he had wept before her. Now she knew she'd been wrong -- he still looked just as pathetic, but now his clothes were filthy and torn, his face muddied, his hair matted. He must have been sleeping in ditches, she thought with disgust. And he was weak, leaning on Spike for support; he clearly hadn't fed since she'd thrown him out. He couldn't bring himself to kill, Darla realized, and felt renewed revulsion.

"Darla," Angelus said. His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper, but the note of entreaty in it was unmistakable. "Darla."

Darla said nothing. She didn't move.

"Found him cowering under a hedgerow. The devil only knows what's wrong with him," Spike said. His face twisted into something that was half-grin, half sneer of contempt. "He certainly smells like hell. You wanted him, so here he is." And with that, he roughly shoved Angelus toward her.

Darla stood, rooted to the spot, as Angelus stumbled toward her. His arms were held out to her, his gaze fixed on her. He didn't seem to be aware of Spike and Drusilla at all.

In a voice so low only Darla could hear her, Drusilla said, "Here he is, neither fish nor fowl. But foul! He could be one or both or something else again. Choose a door, Grandmummy, and take him through it."

Exhausted, Angelus sank to his knees in front of Darla, his arms still outstretched. "Darla. Darla, please. Please..."

He was begging her to help him, she thought with distaste.

And then: He was begging her. He needed her.

Darla remembered the Angelus she'd danced with earlier that night, the one whose attention had wandered from her and to the human woman in the orange dress. The one who'd walked away from Darla without looking back. Suddenly, in spite of his filth and degradation, there was something desirable about the man on his knees in front of her.

Darla sank slowly to the ground and, controlling her distaste, opened her arms. Angelus all but fell into her embrace, clinging to her like a frightened child seeking its mother. Which in a way, Darla thought, he was.

"Forgive me," he mumbled. "Forgive me, help me, please, I'm sorry, help me --"

Spike was right: Angelus did smell. Darla wrinkled her nose, but otherwise concealed her repugnance. After all, what must the Master have made of her when he found her? She'd been only a frail, enfeebled mortal, rotting from within. Sometimes greatness began with humble materials. And Angelus already had greatness within him; it was just shackled by his curse in chains she had the power to cast aside. She lifted one hand and gently caressed his hair, brushing it out of his eyes. "There, my sweet boy. Everything will be well again, soon. Soon you'll be restored to us."

Angelus looked up at her, his face feverish with gratitude. "You'll make this --stop? Make it go away?"

"I will, my love."

"Thank you," Angelus whispered. "Thank you, thank you, thank you..." He continued to mumble barely-coherent words of thanks as Darla rocked him, childlike, against her breast.

In the century and a half Darla had known Angelus, she had been in turns his teacher, his lover and -- as reluctant as she was to admit it -- sometimes his slave. Now, for the first time, she was his savior, and Darla found she was enjoying the role not simply because it was novel.

Drusilla clapped her hands together joyously. "See, we're a family again, all hugs and smiles!"

"Pardon me while I retch," Spike said.

The vampires were near, and the force of their proximity was almost overwhelming.

Angel closed his eyes, attempting to concentrate. Four vampires, so close, so familiar. Spike's energy was sharp and swift, a red-hot dart whirring through his consciousness. Drusilla's was diaphanous and unformed, a veil that clouded his thoughts. Most familiar of all was Darla's -- cold and hard and beautiful, cast-iron scrollwork that formed a cage.

And then the fourth -- alien and familiar at once, himself and yet not himself. Angel felt as though he ought to be able to read his former self better than any of the others, but the reverse was true; all he could sense was distant pain.

"Angel, this would be a bad time for a fugue state," Cordelia said.

"When would a good time be?" Fred said reasonably. She was unharnessing the horse from its carriage, so that it could run back to its stable and master. One way or another, they wouldn't need it again.

"I'm fine," Angel said. He peered through the night, hoping his other self would mask his proximity from the other vampires. "They're headed deeper into the forest. Come on."

"Not trying to be negative here," Gunn said as they began making their way through the forest, "but what exactly are we supposed to do when we catch up with them? We weren't doing so hot against just the first three back at the ballroom, and with one more -- that one being you -- it's gonna be tough."

They were so loud. So loud. Fred's footstep shattered a twig. Gunn's sleeve caught against the branches of a bush, sending rustling echoes throughout the woods. Cordelia stumbled on a tree foot, and it seemed as though the sound of it thundered. Angel knew his senses were at their most acute, ready for battle, but there was every chance the other vampires' were as well.

"Be quiet," he murmured. "We stop them however we can. But --" This was too important not to say out loud. "Nobody kills Darla. No matter what."

"Angel," Cordelia said. Her face was pale in the night, her voice low enough that even he wouldn't object. "If it comes down to it --"

"It won't," he whispered back. "I won't let it."

"I recognize this tree," Fred said. She stopped in her tracks. "Angel -- this is near the cave with the portal back to the time machine. Really near."

Cordelia's eyes went wide. "Please, for the love of God, tell me that the vampires aren't headed toward the time machine."

"I love God just fine," Fred said. "But that's where they're headed. Do you think Drusilla might have -- could have --"

"She's told them," Angel said. He had thought it impossible to be more desperate, but he had been wrong. He began running after the vampires, not caring about the noise. The others were right behind him, their weapons at the ready. As they made their way up a slight hill -- not far from the cave at all, Angel realized -- he was convinced that they'd finally reached the most desperate moment of this entire journey.

Then they got to the top of the hill, and he saw the torches.

"What the hell?" Gunn said. They were all frozen in place, staring at the lights coming toward them in the distant forest. Perhaps eight or nine torches -- the sound of footsteps so much louder now -- more than a dozen people -- Angel squinted, using his night vision to see just who was approaching.

"It's the gypsies," he said.

"I thought Darla was going after them!" Cordelia protested. "Since when do they come after Darla?"

"Since now," Fred said. "When we changed the time stream, let them know what happened -- they could have figured out more than they knew the first time around. So maybe they're attacking Darla before she can get to them."

The truth settled around him, heavy and dark. "That's one possibility," Angel said, though he couldn't bring himself to believe it was true. "But that's not necessarily what they're doing."

"What, you think they're out for a midnight stroll?" Gunn said.

"They might not be after Darla," Angel repeated. "They might be after us."