"Vampires are barren," Mother Yanna insisted. "Everyone knows this."

From her elevated position, floating at the rear of the cave, Cordelia could easily look down on the old woman and the group of gypsies -- and one vampire -- standing around her. Mother Yanna had followed the attack party; now she was angrily demanding to know why neither version of Angel was dust yet. The other gypsies were explaining, with occasional comments from Angel. Mother Yanna might be old and frail, but it seemed like she could cause them serious trouble if she chose, and Cordelia was still a little concerned. But she was more concerned about how she was going to get down from the ceiling.

"I'm sure you stayed down longer last time," Fred said to Cordelia's knees. "Come on, let's give it one more shot."

"Okay. But this time, if I start to bob back up, just put rocks on my feet or something. It's boring up here." Fred tugged Cordelia's feet back down to the floor again, and for a few moments she felt as though she could go either way -- up or down. But then gravity settled in once more, and she breathed out heavily as she felt her feet firmly plant on the ground. "Sometime, I want these demon powers to actually be convenient," Cordelia said as she brushed herself off. "And understandable. And to come with an instruction manual."

Demon powers, Cordelia thought to herself for the thousandth time. What does that mean? Where is it going to lead me? Hovering wasn't so bad so far, but she still had no idea how to control it. The glowing thing -- if she really had been glowing, and it hadn't just been some weird light from the time-machine portal -- was new, and even if it was harmless, it was frightening.

Why didn't I ask Skip more questions? Why didn't I make him explain what he was doing before he did it? She knew the answer, of course; the sight of an anguished, insane and possibly dying Angel had frightened her past the point of rationality -- and the only other option had been her own death. She'd thought she'd get less freaked about becoming part demon as time went on, but the feeling of uncertainty was only becoming more acute with each change she saw in herself. If a new power had really appeared tonight, others would probably follow.

Cordelia sighed. She'd think about it some other time. Not now.

From the floor, Spike let out a low groan as he struggled toward consciousness. Gunn, who was standing guard, simply took up a rock and whacked him in the temple, hard. Spike slumped back on to the ground. Gunn shook his head. "We can't just keep knocking them out over and over again forever," he said. "I mean, sure, it'd be fun, but eventually, we gotta return to the future and leave them here knowing way the hell too much. What are we going to do?"

Cordelia stared down at the unconscious vampires, then glanced over at Angelus. He'd regained some measure of calm in the last several minutes, but he was still a hollow wreck of a man -- and still listening to every word. "It doesn't matter if they know about the time machine," she reasoned. "We take the ring with us and close the door --"

"-- And then they go find the time machine wherever it is in 1898," Fred pointed out. "Even if they couldn't find it, just this knowledge about the future is probably too much to preserve our timeline. That doesn't even start to touch on Drusilla; even if she is mentally unstable, she remembers a lot about the next 104 years. Who knows what she might decide to do, and when, and what effect it might have?"

Cordelia groaned. "This is just not good."

The gypsies fell silent as Mother Yanna raised her hand and stared coldly at Angel. She held up a small stick of something and snapped it, releasing a blue, fragrant cloud. Slate-colored trails snaked all around Angel, then turned white. Mother Yanna scowled, but she folded her arms in front of her and said, "He speaks truth. He may leave our time and take his human companions with them. But if you ever again return, vampire --"

"This is the end," Angel said. "It has to be."

"How can it be?" Cordelia said, gesturing at the vampires. "These guys know way too much about the time machine and the future. You, version 1.0, is probably too shell-shocked to do anything about it, but that doesn't apply to those three."

"We do not care for your troubles," Mother Yanna spat. "We care only that you leave and cease to remind us of our own."

Angel looked down at Darla's still face, and Cordelia couldn't help feeling a strange twinge of uncertainty as he knelt by Darla's side. His fingers brushed a lock of hair from Darla's cheek, so tenderly that he might have been lying beside her in bed, then took one of her hands in his. Oh, please, Cordelia thought, he's been doing great, don't let him go all soft now.

Then Angel stood up and came to Cordelia's side. She was confused when he took her hand, but only until she saw that he was slipping her hologram bracelet back on her wrist. Cordelia looked into his face and saw he was smiling a little. "Now you won't have to tell Groo you lost it."

"Thanks," she said, smiling back. "What's that?"

Angel held up something else he'd taken from Darla, a gold ring. Cordelia realized this second ring must be the one Drusilla had used to time-travel. "Here, Fred," Angel said, tossing it to her. "You're the one holding the keys."

"Well, that's one loose end taken care of," Fred said with a sigh as she pocketed the ring. "Now, if we can just think of a way to tie up the other hundred billion loose ends, we might just get to go home."

Gunn gestured at the unconscious vampires. "Think we could just politely ask 'em to forget about all this?"

Angel stared at Gunn for a moment, then said, "That's exactly what we're going to do." Cordelia frowned, but before she could ask Angel what he meant, he had turned back to Mother Yanna. The old woman peered at him, narrow-eyed, as he said, "You tried to steal my memories of my son, a few days ago."

"Was it your son you mourned?" Mother Yanna said. She smiled a cold smile that showed her yellowing, cracked teeth. "A pity I did not succeed."

Cordelia wanted to smack the old woman's few remaining teeth out of her head, but Angel's only reaction was an almost imperceptible hesitation before he spoke again. "You still have a chance to show your skill," he said, pointing at the other vampires. "Instead of stealing my memories, you're going to steal theirs."

Fred grimaced as she stumbled away from the gypsy wagon, dragging Drusilla roughly along the ground behind her. Fred was pulling Drusilla by her ankles, causing her arms and hair to fan out behind her on the damp earth. "Okay," she huffed, "I know she looks bony and all, but still, very heavy."

"Hang on," Angel said, dropping Spike on the ground. He helped Fred haul Drusilla underneath the small outcropping of stone they'd found at the edge of the forest. If the vampires were still unconscious at daybreak -- which Angel thought likely -- they'd be trapped in place for a little while, giving Angelus time to burrow deeper into the shaded depths of the woods. In order to recreate history, Angel said, it was important that Angelus not encounter the other vampires for a few years to come.

Charles settled Darla beneath the outcropping, handling her more carefully under Angel's watchful eye than Fred suspected he might have done otherwise. "That got us?"

Angel, instead of answering, turned back to Mother Yanna, who was descending carefully from the wagon. Cordelia sat in the back with Angelus; either of them might have helped the old woman, Fred thought, but it was highly unlikely she would have accepted aid even if it were offered. Angel said, "I know you can erase the last couple of days from Spike and Darla. But what about Drusilla? That's more than a century of memory."

"Do you doubt my abilities?" Mother Yanna said. "You of all creatures should not."

"Believe me, " Angel said, "I don't. But it's a hundred and four years, and not just the memory of one person or place."

Mother Yanna stared down at Drusilla's pale face for a moment, then shrugged. "I have never attempted such. Neither has any other. I believe it will be done as you seek. But perhaps there will be -- pictures. Moments. Pieces of her memory that will remain in her mind, but with no anchor to hold them fast."

Cordelia said, "So that means Drusilla's going to be perpetually confused, occasionally seeing glimpses of the future, and -- and exactly like she was before." Her face lit up. "Angel, do you think, just maybe -- the reason we remember Drusilla like she is that we remember her still screwed-up from this memory spell? If so, then, that means we've already pulled all this off, right?"

"No, Drusilla was confused for a long time before this, thanks to me," Angel said. "But you're right; the confusion won't mean as much to her or the others as it would with anyone else. It's still the best shot we've got at restoring history to the way we remember it."

"Then withdraw," Mother Yanna said, "and let me begin."

Charles clambered back into the wagon, and Fred made a move to follow. She hesitated as she saw Angel looking down at Darla -- for what was, she realized, the very last time. Darla's cheeks were smudged with dirt and blood, her dress rumpled around her. Even in sleep, her patrician features carried a hint of the cruel disdain Fred had seen so often on her face. Yet Angel looked at Darla gently, with an expression Fred recognized. She had seen it once before, as the three of them crouched in an alleyway and she and Angel tried to shelter Darla from the rain. "Goodbye," he said quietly.

Fred took Charles' hand as she climbed back into the wagon. Angel, however, walked a few steps away, not looking back at the vampires or his friends as Mother Yanna began to chant softly in a language which was neither Romanii nor English. Angelus hugged his coat around himself, looking from person to person uncertainly, but he said nothing.

Fred glanced at Cordelia and saw that she was watching Angel, a faint smile on her face. With a hint of pride in her voice, Cordelia said, "He's really been strong through all this, hasn't he? I kept thinking he was going to fall apart, but he didn't."

The battered and beaten alternate-future Wesley might disagree, Fred thought -- but even that Wesley had lived to tell the tale. Well, until his reality collapsed seconds later. "I guess if Angel made it through losing Connor, nothing else is going to knock him down ever again."

"Connor --" Angelus said. His voice startled everyone; next to her, Fred felt Charles go tense, and Cordelia whipped her head around to stare. Angelus actually flinched, but he said, "You said -- a son -- was Connor my son?"

Fred didn't answer him, and she thought nobody else would either. But then she saw Cordelia's face soften with compassion as she leaned toward Angelus. "Yeah," she said. "He was."

Charles opened his mouth to protest, but Fred took his hand and squeezed it. When he glared at her, she whispered, "The memory spell works or it doesn't. If it doesn't, the damage is already done. If it does -- then let him have a little comfort, okay? It's the last he's going to have for a really long time."

From the dubious expression on Charles' face, Fred could tell he didn't much care about Angelus' comfort. But he didn't interfere as Cordelia began speaking quietly to Angelus. Instead, he wrapped his arm around Fred and cuddled her close. "We've been on a hell of a ride," he said. "I don't think I'm gonna believe it until you and me are back at the hotel, wrapped up in our bed, same old drippy faucet keeping us awake, same old crappy reception of Telemundo on the TV set."

"I never thought I'd be grateful to see Telemundo again," Fred sighed. She thought back over the past few days, an almost-forgotten enthusiasm bubbling up inside her. "Do you realize how many principles of theoretical physics we've proved and disproved the last couple of days? I can't exactly share our time-traveling stories as empirical evidence, but I bet I'm going to get a couple of papers out of this. Winifred Burkle, published physicist." The old dream gleamed even a little brighter for having been set aside for so long.

"Sounds mighty nice," Charles said, snuggling against her. "You know what theory I think we proved?"

"What's that?"

"That I should get to come up with the plans more often."

The wagon jolted as they went back toward the cave with the time machine, driven by Fred's increasingly sure hands. Next to her, Mother Yanna sat, shawl draped around her, stern face looking resolutely ahead. Gunn was stretched out in the hay, exercising his uncanny ability to catnap anywhere, at any time; Angel remembered him explaining that once you learned how to fall asleep in a juvenile detention hall, you could fall asleep anywhere. For his part, Angel sat next to Gunn, deliberately breathing in the lost scents of another century -- pine and straw and horses and leather -- and silently watching Cordelia and Angelus.

Angel wondered what he should say to his former self and came up with nothing. The other's presence was profoundly disquieting on both supernatural and psychological levels; more than that, in some ways he seemed more a stranger than anyone Angel had ever encountered. He remembered what it was like to be that man, how he had felt, what he had thought. All of that was preserved within himself, dried and pressed, fragile and faded but eternal. But Angel could not think of how to talk to that man -- the best of what he had to say would, he knew, be drowned out by pain. It would be like enunciating clearly for the benefit of a deaf man.

Cordelia had no such qualms.

"You're a good detective!" she was telling Angelus. "Well, an okay detective with a really good staff. And you help a lot of people who really need help, and we only charge the ones who can comfortably pay."

Her voice bubbled on and on as she marshaled evidence for something Angelus would be decades in learning to accept. For his part, Angelus huddled near her, listening in disbelief.

"You've saved my life -- how many times, Angel? -- he doesn't know. We don't keep track. You're my best friend. The best friend I've ever had. Ever will have, probably."

Angel smiled and spoke for the first time in a long while: "Thanks."

She glanced back at him, suddenly abashed; apparently it was easier to say some of what she'd been saying to an Angel who wouldn't respond. But she was smiling as she curled her knees up to her chest. "Almost over."

"Yeah," Angel said. "Hopefully. Are you feeling okay?"

"Just tired," Cordelia said. "Can't wait to go back to my apartment and get some sleep. Assuming, of course, that the future we're going back to has my apartment in it."

"We'll think about that when we get there," Angel said. "Don't worry about it now."

"Easier said than done," she said. Then she thumped Angelus on the arm. "See? This is just the kind of relaxed, friendly repartee you have to look forward to. Plus the invention of leather pants."

Angelus finally spoke. "We've had leather pants for centuries."

"Millennia," Angel added. "For as long as there've been cows."

Cordelia made a face. "Of COURSE this is what you can both talk about."

"We're there," Fred said, half-turning around as she slowed the wagon.

Angel peered around in the darkness; he had expected the gypsies to stay behind, awaiting Mother Yanna's return, but none of them had remained. Mother Yanna, unfazed, carefully lowered herself out of the wagon. Angel followed suit. Angelus hesitated for a moment, visibly uncertain, and Cordelia quickly hugged him. "You'll be okay," she said. "Not right away. But someday. And I'll be waiting."

Angel felt absurdly jealous for a moment. Then he realized: She's still taking care of me. He smiled at her as she, Fred and a drowsy Gunn headed into the cave, to the portal to the time machine.

As Mother Yanna walked down a different branch of the cave, Angel and Angelus walked side-by-side after her. Angelus kept glancing back at the way Cordelia had gone, then at Angel. At last he whispered, "What she said -- is any of what she said true?"

"It's all true," Angel said.

"Then -- then it must get better." Angelus looked at Angel, entreaty in his face. "Tell me it gets better."

For a second, the contempt Angel had felt for his past self returned, stronger than ever. He had caused so much suffering, committed so much evil -- and yet he still saw his punishment only in terms of his own pain. It would be almost a century, Angel knew, before he learned to see past self-pity and bitterness and despair, before he started making amends.

Angel remained silent. Beside him, the hope faded from Angelus' eyes, and he stumbled on, his body curled over in what looked like physical pain.

No, Angel remembered suddenly -- it was physical pain. In the hours and days immediately after the curse he had clawed and beaten and torn at himself, driven by desperation to try to drown out the mental and emotional anguish with physical pain. All he had succeeded in doing was breaking several ribs, splintering the bones so badly that even with a vampire's recuperative powers they had taken days to heal. In the meantime, his tense, exhausted muscles had cramped almost constantly, stabbing him somewhere deep inside with shards of bone, invisible knives buried in his chest.

The memory of that pain was suddenly more real, more vivid to Angel than it had been for years. Watching Angelus stumble next to him, he remembered how heavy his body had felt, as if waterlogged, sodden with guilt. He remembered the pain in his side, the bloody crescents his fingernails had made in his palms. More than anything, he remembered how it felt to be sure that eternity would hold nothing but pain.

In a few minutes, Angelus' memory would be wiped clean of the past couple of days, of every event since Darla discovered he had been cursed. Nothing Angel said or did right now would exist for Angelus after that.

But even this moment mattered.

Angel quietly said, "It will be better than this, someday. Not for a long time. But someday you're going to have a life worth having."

Angelus stared at him with wide, bewildered eyes. "How?" he whispered.

"You -- you're going to find people who believe in you," Angel said. "People willing to give you a chance. And you're going to try to deserve them. You won't always get it right, but you'll learn to keep trying. When that happens, everything you're going through now, everything you'll go through later -- you'll know it was worth it."

Angelus considered that for a moment; though the anguish did not leave his eyes, his posture almost imperceptibly straightened. His voice was steadier when he spoke again. "It would help, if it all meant something."

"It will," Angel said. "It always means something. It's always going to be worth it." Angelus nodded, for one instant allowing himself to believe.

When they reached the cave, Angelus sat on the ground as Mother Yanna instructed, calmly listening to her chant the spell that would remove his memories. He remained focused on Angel's face until the moment Mother Yanna was done, when he slumped, unconscious, onto the ground.

Mother Yanna sighed and began shuffling away. "It is done. He will awaken soon, and we must be gone from this place."

"We'll have gone through the time machine in a few minutes," Angel said. "And we won't come back. We've done all we could do to restore this timeline. I don't know what we'll find when we go ahead, but we'll have to accept what it is."

"See that you do," Mother Yanna said. "You suffer because your son is dead, vampire. And I am glad your son is dead, so that you can suffer. But it is not enough for me." Her glassy eyes narrowed. "You cannot suffer enough for me."

The words echoed in Angel's mind -- glad your son is dead, GLAD -- and for once the instincts of demon and father were in perfect accord. He felt hot rage flood his mind, and his hand curled into a fist. For a moment it was as if he had already done it, as if he'd heard her fragile old bones shattering beneath his blow. Only the sheer depth of his fury kept him from striking; it paralyzed him for a few seconds -- but not, he knew, for long.

Mother Yanna, perhaps oblivious to his rage, began hobbling toward the mouth of the cave. "Do not think you will find the others," she said. "They have gone to a place you do not know. We shall not meet again."

She was so certain, and so wrong. With a jolt, Angel remembered that in the history they had fought to restore, the gypsies would be found. Even without Drusilla's suggestion, Darla would eventually hit upon the idea of attacking the gypsies and ransoming his soul. Spike wouldn't have been properly warned. And so he would still kill them, and they would all -- even Mother Yanna -- still die.

She was smiling at him cruelly. "You do not like what I say?"

Angel forced himself to relax. "I don't take pleasure in the thought that innocent people have to die," he said. "But you do. And no, I don't like that."

"So noble," Mother Yanna crooned. Then her face was more serious. "I know how wretched it is, this hate inside me. I know it for the wicked thing it is. But then what do we think of the one who put this hate there? Hmmm?"

Angel thought, all the evil that flows from Mother Yanna flows from what I did to her. Cycle after cycle.

"Evil never dies," Mother Yanna said. Then she turned and hobbled away, leaving Angel alone in the cave.

Cordelia stared up at the mouth of the time machine. "This looks less red to me. Like, way less red. Shifting to orange. Bordering on a kind of tangerine."

The pool of light overhead was dimmer and more sluggish, too; it had little of the eerie energy it had possessed before. Next to Cordelia, Fred was chewing on her fingernails. "The door's gotta still be open, though, right? Or else the phenomenon would be completely absent, instead of continuing to manifest."

"It ain't closed," Gunn said from his place nearby, with a confidence Cordelia was sure he didn't really feel. "It's just -- closing."

"That's so reassuring," Cordelia said, then yelled, "ANGEL!"

"I'm right here," Angel said. The moment after she heard him, she saw him, walking toward them in the gloom. His face was shadowed, somehow -- darker and more withdrawn than she'd seen him in the past few days.

Cordelia ignored the pain in her shoulder as she went to him and took his hand in hers. "Hey," she said. "You okay?"

"I'm good," he said flatly. "It's done."

So Connor would live again. They'd get the Hyperion back. All good things. So why was Angel back in despair mode? Cordelia chose her words carefully. "I thought that would make you happy."

"It does. It's just --" Angel turned his head from her, clearly searching for words. Although Gunn and Fred's impatience was visible -- and Cordelia's wasn't far behind -- they both remained silent, looking up at the orangey glow overhead. When Angel spoke again, he said, "I told Angelus it would all be worth it. And then I remembered how much evil I've done here, how far into the future the repercussions go. Evil never dies. It all goes so far past me, Cordy. I don't know that I have the right to say it's going to be worth it someday."

Cordelia brushed his cheek with her hand. "Maybe the evil you do never dies," she said. "But the good you do doesn't die either, does it? The repercussions of the good things you do keep going too." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "The ripple effect works both ways, you know."

Angel smiled at her, and the darkness had fallen from him again. He spoke -- not to her, but to Fred and Gunn. "Let's go through this thing."

Gunn clapped his hands. "All right. Last one out's a rotten egg. Or something else skanky."

They all gathered around Fred, who pulled one of the rings out of her pocket. Immediately, the portal above them began to spark and shimmer anew, which Cordelia figured was very good news.

Fred didn't hold up the ring. They stood in silence.

Cordelia spoke first. "What if we didn't get it right? What if we show up back in Rome, with the world on fire?"

Angel said, "That's not going to happen. I think we've stopped that reality from coming to pass." Cordelia hoped he was as confident about that as he sounded.

"I'm on board with that," Gunn said. "Question is -- did we start our reality up again, or are we gonna find some other freaky-ass future waiting for us?"

"It's got to be better than the one with the world on fire," Cordelia reasoned. Everyone looked as though they agreed. But Fred still didn't hold the ring up, and nobody was rushing her.

At last Angel said, "No matter what -- we can't return here."

"The damage is done," Fred said. "We affected this timeline. We know that much. We won't find out just how until we go back. So -- I guess we should return and take it from there."

"Got it," Cordelia said.

"Agreed," Gunn said.

"Okay," Angel said.

They all paused for another moment, and Cordelia reached out and grabbed Angel's and Gunn's hands in her own. Both guys grabbed hers right back, and Gunn swung his free arm around Fred. "Let's see what kinda world we made," Gunn said.

Fred took a deep breath, straightened up and held the ring above her head. And then Cordelia was falling upwards, gravity in reverse, her friends around her as the world spun away.

Darla was spinning, clinging to a raft that twisted and pitched dizzyingly on a stormy sea. Her mind was a vision not her own -- painted by Gericault, voiced in screams. Phantoms rose up out of the spray around her, faces she recognized but couldn't name speaking fragments of sentences that seemed to be important but somehow slipped from her mind immediately. Only one apparition was more memorable than the others -- Angelus rose out of the turbulent waters, wearing a look of sadness unlike anything Darla had seen on his face before. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry." He started to sink back into the darkness, and Darla reached out a hand to grab him back --

-- And cried out in pain.

Darla snatched her hand back and opened her eyes. Immediately the glare of hated sunlight bombarded her and the ugly smell of her own scorched flesh filled her nostrils. Now fully awake, she sat up, cradling her burnt hand to her chest.

She was sitting beneath an rocky outcrop, its shadow protecting her from the sun. She started to shuffle backward, as far into the shade as possible, and stopped when she bumped against another body. It was Spike, curled on his side, one arm slung protectively across an equally unconscious Drusilla.

Angelus, Darla thought. Where was Angelus?

His name triggered a flood of unpleasant memories -- the gypsy girl, the clan's revenge, the curse. Angelus, her glorious lover, her creation, turned into a sniveling and tearful wretch, a caricature of himself. She had thrown him out of the house. And after that --

After that, her memory was fragmented, unclear. Music, dancing, mayhem. The forest on fire and a flame-colored ballgown. But, as hard as she tried, Darla couldn't marshal the scattered impressions into something coherent, and she couldn't remember how she'd come to be laid out unconscious under a rock.

She put a hand to her head, and winced in pain. Her skin was unbroken, but her hair was matted with blood -- she'd suffered a bad wound which had healed while she'd slept. Spike and Drusilla bore the marks of similar injuries.

Spike groaned and rolled over on to his back. Immediately he winced and threw his arm over his eyes. "Too bright..."

"Wake up," Darla said. When that didn't work, she slapped him hard.

Spike groaned again and started to stretch his limbs; straight away he discovered, as Darla had, why that was a bad idea. He sat up, pulling his legs up to his chest and grimacing at the brightness around them. "I've been burned," he coughed. "Drusilla's been burned. What the hell happened?"

"I don't know," Darla said. She hated to say no more than that, but it was as much of an answer as she had.

"Well," Spike said at last, "I don't know how we got here, but it must have been one hell of a party. Wonder how long we've been out?"

"We've all been asleep for a hundred years," Drusilla's voice lilted. As she sat up, a faint flicker of confusion passed across her face. "Or -- we will sleep a hundred years. Like the princess in the story. I'm a princess, aren't I, Spike?"

Spike put his arm around Drusilla's waist, drawing him closer to her and kissing her languidly. "You're my dark princess. My wicked fairy."

The sun, Darla noted, was low in the sky. It wouldn't be long before dusk fell and their temporary prison dissolved into shadow around them. That was a source of relief -- the prospect of spending interminable hours cooped up with no escape from Spike's posturing and Drusilla's jabbering was wholly unpleasant. Already, Darla could feel her patience beginning to fray as Drusilla prattled on.

"I'll sleep a hundred years, while the tall buildings grow like grass and all the lovely wars are fought again," she said, her frown of confusion deepening. "Is this the end of the story, or the beginning? It's all a ring, a circle, a merry-go-round. We go round merrily, and round and round and round, back where we started." She tugged Spike's sleeve urgently. "I can't remember the story, Spike."

"There, love," Spike said soothingly. "If you've forgotten the story, we'll just make up a new one. Like this: Once upon a time, there were two vampires called Spike and Drusilla, and they killed everybody they met and lived happily ever after. The end."

"Happily ever after," Drusilla echoed softly and, perhaps, a little sadly.

Happily ever after, Darla thought sourly. For Spike and Drusilla, maybe. But not for Angelus. And not for her.

The sun dipped behind the tree-tops, and the pool of shadow widened into a black expanse. Darla got up and stretched her cramped limbs. The night settled around her, dark and refreshing.

Not far from the outcrop, she found a track, rutted by the recent passage of a cart. The cart had come from deep within the woods, stopped, then turned around and left at speed back the way it had come.

Darla was trying to make sense of this when the noise of someone approaching along the track made her look up. Spike and Drusilla had heard it too, and stopped exploring each others' throats with their tongues long enough to join her. A man was walking purposefully toward them, and for an instant Darla was certain she knew him.

"Angelus?"

"Beg pardon?" the man said in a pronounced English accent which was distorted somewhat by his fangs. Now that Darla could examine him more closely, she realized his accent was the only pronounced thing about him. He was short and unremarkable and wore glasses that sat awkwardly on his ridged nose, magnifying his yellow eyes so that they looked foolish instead of terrifying.

"You're a vampire," Darla said.

"Oh," the man said. He seemed pleased. "Is that what I am? How splendid!"

"Bloody hell," Spike said. "Whoever turned this idiot didn't make a good job of it."

"Actually," the vampire said with a polite cough, "that would be this lady." He nodded at Darla.

Darla stared at him. "I don't think so. I have better taste."

"I must beg to differ, ma'am." The vampire made a stiff little bow. "Allow me to introduce myself -- Percival, Lord Dalton, at your service. I woke up with a headache, a terrible thirst and a remarkably strong desire to find your good self. And, well --" He gave an apologetic shrug. "Here I am."

Had she actually turned this pathetic creature? Without any clear sense of memory for the past few days, Darla had to admit it was possible, if extremely unlikely. Perhaps they'd been drugged, or ensorcelled. That was no doubt it; the gypsies hadn't just punished Angelus, but devised some vile -- though thankfully more temporary -- revenge on the rest of them.

"He smells like Grandmummy," Drusilla said, leaning close to Dalton and sniffing him. "Dead lilies and poison ivy. He's a little puppy. Can we keep him? He will amuse Daddy --" She broke off suddenly, her face clouding again. "Where is Daddy? Something happened, and I don't remember --"

"Angelus --" Darla began. "Angelus has --"

She stopped.

She had shared one hundred and fifty years with Angelus, had been there to welcome him as he clawed his way up through the cold Irish earth and into the waiting night. The pathetic, miserable cursed creature she had cast out was not the man who had enthralled, amused and delighted Darla with his inventive cruelty for more than a century. She could still bring back that man, and they would laugh together as they killed the gypsies, one by one.

Darla could not explain it, but she was filled with a sudden and absolute certainty that her history with Angelus had not ended. The future was a ripe fruit hanging heavy on the branch, theirs to claim. Darla intended to pluck it down and devour it.

"Angelus went to find us new sport," she lied. "He told me of a camp of gypsies, ripe for a slaughter."

"That's more like it. What are we waiting for? Let's get to the killing," Spike said. He threw a fraternal arm around Dalton's shoulder. "Dalton, my boy, you're going enjoy this..."

"Dalton, is it?" Darla said coolly, appraising the newcomer. He stared back raptly, with all the adoration of the newly-turned. Even in this ridiculous creature, it was vaguely gratifying. He'd be useful for running and fetching, she supposed, if nothing else. "Very, well, you'll come with us. And you'll obey our rules. Meaning that you'll obey me."

Spike added, "And when you're not obeying her, you'll obey me." Dalton nodded happily, accepting it all as gospel.

"Gypsies?" Drusilla repeated uncertainly. Then a slow smile spread across her face, overtaking her confusion. "Slaughter..." She followed Spike and Dalton.

Darla smiled. Then her lips curled into a sneer of hatred as she thought again of the gypsies, their peasant mobs, their cheap little magic tricks they substituted for strength.

She'd show them who could hate the most. She'd show them who could write in blood.

Angel felt the wall of the pyramid knock against his head a split second before he heard Cordelia yelp. "Owww! Ugh. Somebody's gotta find the brakes on this thing."

The others were all crowded up against him, confined by the narrow interior of the time machine. Gunn was groaning from the nauseating trip back through time, and Fred sounded a little queasy as she said, "Let's open the door. No matter what future we find out there, it's got to be a better place to barf than in here."

"Seconded," Cordelia said quickly.

Angel, closest to the door, pushed it open carefully. The faint lighting showed him a room lined with dark wood paneling, a floor covered in threadbare carpet. An old sewing machine stood in one corner, and next to them was an early X-ray machine. Barely daring to hope, he climbed out of the pyramid; as the others followed, he checked the sign above the door. It read "The Old Curiosity Shop: Victorian Inventions and Curios."

Just as it had before.

"This looks like the Museum of Victoriana," Fred said. "I mean, looks just like it --"

"Smells like it too," Angel said. He breathed in again, checking it: the same musty smell of old lace and older books, the stink of industrial cleaners, and still hovering in the air, just a little, the familiar scent of Drusilla. "This is it. This is where we left."

Gunn was the last to stumble from the pyramid. As he stretched his limbs, he said, "Sounding real good so far. Now, let's just hope we don't find out L.A.'s on fire too."

"Wait," Angel said, tensing. "Someone else is in the building." He said it the moment he sensed it, and he sensed it even before he heard it -- footsteps coming down the hallway, directly toward them. The others heard the sound a few seconds later, and they all drew closer to one another, protecting each other's backs.

"Only bad thing about showing up in the museum we originally left?" Cordelia said. "Not so many weapons in the curio shop."

"I think I could do some damage with that X-ray machine if I have to," Gunn said grimly. "Show some monster just what bones I broke in his ass."

Angel motioned for quiet, and they all stood there in total silence until the through the doorway came --

"Groo?" Cordelia said, her face melting into a smile.

Groo grinned back. "Indeed, my princess. How goes your quest for the Drusilla beast?"

Angel looked at the others, then at Groo, then back at the others. Finally Fred said, "Groo -- just go with this for a second -- what do you remember about earlier today?"

The Groosalugg, ever eager to help, nodded and smiled. "Cordelia was helping Angel with -- was helping Angel." The pause was slight, just enough to tell Angel that Connor was still dead, that Cordelia had still been helping him box up Connor's things. He had been expecting it, but it stung nonetheless. "Then Angel realized the vampire Drusilla was near, and you all came here to seek her. Lorne and I went to the airport, where great metal birds go into the sky and a fine selection of perfumes can be purchased, and we killed a Velga demon that had gone into the baggage area and sent many people's luggage astray. We defeated this evil and reunited the travelers with their belongings. Then we came here; Lorne remains in the car, ready to speed us toward a quick getaway if one is necessary." Groo's pleasant face shifted into a worried frown. "Is such a getaway necessary?"

"No," Gunn said. Then he started laughing. "Hell, no. We are RIGHT where we want to be! Yes!" He grabbed Fred up in his arms and spun her around.

Cordelia was beaming, and Angel was sure she would run to Groo. Instead, she flung her arms around Angel, holding him close. "We made it," she whispered. "We gave Connor his five months."

Angel hugged her back, taking comfort from her words and her touch. Five months. He remembered holding Connor, and for the first time the memory brought him joy instead of anguish. The words he'd said to Angelus echoed inside him -- so much so that he wondered if the memory had always been within him. It was worth it. It will always be worth it.

At last, Cordelia let go of him. Groo seemed confused, perhaps dismayed, until she ran toward him and hugged him too. "This bracelet you gave me?" she said, holding out her wrist. "Best. Gift. Ever. You're not going to believe the story."

"Speaking of jewelry," Fred said, "we should probably get those rings out of the time machine."

Gunn stared at her. "What, one crazy, reality-bending trip through time wasn't enough for you? You want frequent-flyer miles with this thing?"

Angel understood her. "We have to deactivate the time machine," he said. "We've seen what can go wrong. If Dru was able to find out about it, then others might find out eventually, and then anything could happen."

"Grabbing the rings now," Gunn said, quickly ducking inside the time machine. Fred held out her hands to accept the handfuls of gold rings as Gunn shoveled them out.

"You have had some great and worthy adventure," Groo said. "I look forward to hearing your courageous exploits."

"We'll tell you all about it," Cordelia promised. "But first, we are going to enjoy some 21st-century luxuries, like warm showers and dry-cleaned clothing." Her voice was dreamy as she added, "Take-out pizza."

Angel accepted the last handful of rings from Gunn. Fred was peering down at them. "What should we do with these?" she said. "My first thought is to find the local equivalent of Mount Doom and toss them in."

"We should probably check and see if they're under a specific enchantment we could remove," Angel said, looking down at the rings. "If we can't, then we should destroy them. But we might be able to disenchant them."

Cordelia caught on first. "And if we can disenchant them, then we just came into a big chunk of gold that we are ethically obligated to steal. And sell. And make some money off of."

"Could fix up the Hyperion with that," Gunn said, lifting one of the rings. "I know this guy --"

"We could buy you another bracelet to match this one," Groo said to Cordelia.

Angel watched her face shift from dismay to a tact as she said, "I'd rather try some of those perfumes you found at the airport."

"They are duty-free," Groo reported solemnly.

Cordelia gave him a proud smile. "You're really growing as a shopper." Then she laughed and clapped her hands. "I can't believe it! We did it! We fixed time up like we never left!"

"Maybe," Fred said. She was staring down at the gold in her hands, a little sadly. "It's more likely that we did change reality. We must not have changed anything major, or else Groo wouldn't remember the same day we do. But somewhere, somehow -- things changed because Drusilla went into the past, and because we followed her."

Angel considered that for a moment. "The changes are going to be small things," he said. "At least, to us. Maybe not to the people who felt them. But we'll never know."

"Probably not," Fred said. "The differences will be -- in the details. On the margins. A few turning points where it just took one tiny sliver to make a difference, and we did."

"Guys, chill out," Cordelia said. "The world's the world we remember. Today's the day we remember. And if the world's a teeny bit different -- well, so what? We're not in Rome, the streets aren't on fire and, at least as far as we knew this morning, the world's not ending. Maybe we switched something here or something there. But we didn't have any choice. We did what we had to do, and I think we did it pretty damn well."

Fred sighed. "When you put it that way -- yeah. We did our best and, really, we did okay. If you leave out the wrong-Dru mixup and the stampede in the theatre and lemur-kabobs, I guess we were fine."

"What's wrong with lemur-kabobs?" Gunn protested. "I was winging it!"

"It's easy to say the changes don't matter now," Angel said. He could tell the others' spirits were lifting, but he couldn't quite feel the same. "We don't yet know what they are."

"We'll deal with the changes just like we deal with everything else," Cordelia said. "I only ask for a few constants in this universe. As long as the Nehru jacket is still out of style, Ben & Jerry still went into the ice-cream business and Al Gore's still president, everything's okay by me."

Everyone smiled, and Angel let himself relax. "Let's get back to the hotel," he said. "I think we could all stand to be home."

"Amen to that," Gunn said. He slid his arm around Fred's shoulders, and the two of them followed Cordelia and Groo out. Angel could hear Cordelia's merry voice, telling stories to Groo even as they started down the hall.

For one moment, he looked back at the time machine, black and solid and now forever still. He thought of Connor again, wondering for an instant -- for only one instant -- if he was a fool not to take even this desperate chance to get his son back.

But then he thought of a world on fire, and Wesley's crumpled body, and of what he had said to himself so long ago. The pain that had happened all served a purpose -- just because he didn't see it now didn't mean he never would.

Angel followed the others out through the museum, listening not to their words, but just to the happiness in their voices, the laughter that echoed from the walls. He felt himself begin to smile.

It was time to stop thinking about the past. Time to face the future.

They were laughing and laughing, and something was terribly funny, and Angel didn't think it was funny, but he was smiling too. It was all very strange, but then everything was very strange, and none of it mattered, so long as they came back inside when she needed them to.

Drusilla was pretty sure they'd come back inside if she started screaming.

It would be easy to start screaming -- she wanted to scream. Of course, she always wanted to scream, because it was fun, but now it would be easiest of all. Because now was when she was going to go back and write the story all over again. She would change the ending, and this time it would end well.

The story had ended very poorly this time, in Drusilla's opinion. Spike had gone away. They put metal in his mind, and now he couldn't drink. It poisoned him from the inside out. Then Darla had crumbled into dust. As far away as Drusilla had been she had still felt it -- Darla dying with remorse in her heart.

"And little feet in her hands and belly," Drusilla whispered. She knew the story. She had told it to herself many times before, hoping it wouldn't be so sad the next time. But this was the first time she knew she could change it. This time it would all come out right.

Drusilla was very certain about this -- more certain than she was about most things. She'd learned that it was very difficult to be sure about much of anything: which person was least likely to scream loudly, whether or not Spike truly loved her, if the tulips in the wallpaper were really speaking to her or just whispering among themselves. Thoughts got all tangled up sometimes -- tangled up like thread, if you weren't very careful with your stitches, and that kind old voice always told her to be careful with her stitches.

Now all the sewing was coming out straight. An even hem. When she'd found the book, she'd been able to understand it -- she'd understood so well! It was as if she'd read it all before, as though her clever plan was there in the pages too. Dru knew it backwards and forwards. Find the time machine. Trick Angel and his friends into coming after her, so they could kill the one she used to be. Then let them go home, all alone, wagging their tales behind them. That would leave her with Spike and Grandmummy, and they could make those nasty gypsies bring Daddy back the way he was supposed to be. Drusilla could see it all in her mind, out-of-focus, the sound all tinny, like a drive-in movie from the very back row. But she could see and hear it all the same.

It seemed like a story she had heard before, somehow. That made Drusilla happy, made her sure it would all come out just the way it did in her dreams.

All she had to do now was make sure the time machine would work -- it had to be exactly the way it was in the book. The story had to begin right for the ending to be right. If she found the time machine just as it should be, why then she would scream and scream, and the others would run back in, and wouldn't they be surprised when she rolled inside and went away?

Laughing to herself, Drusilla skipped to the time machine. It was big and black, just like the book said. Hieroglyphics danced across its surface. "And the Chinese know," she whispered. "They're walking like an Egyptian."

She pushed open the door, and there were all the lovely switches, and --

Drusilla's face fell. She stamped her foot. "Where are the rings?" she whimpered. "Can't go anyplace without the rings!"

But the rings weren't there. The nasty book had lied. All the visions had just been dreams, stories, like the ones on television. Dru had thought she could write it all over again, but she couldn't. She couldn't at all. The tulips probably weren't talking to her either.

She felt the tears running down her face as she slumped to the floor. The tears were cold. She remembered that they used to be hot, and she didn't know why that made her cry harder than ever. "It's ended all wrong," she sobbed into her hands. "All wrong, all wrong. I haven't any dollies at all."

Dollies?

Drusilla lifted her head, considering. It seemed as though, on her way in, she had seen some pretty dollies --

She tiptoed down the hallway until she found them. A very silly man had gotten himself killed, too long ago for her to enjoy the leftovers, but he had a nice bear tucked under his arm. Such a fluffy little bear. Just the sort of bear she would choose for herself.

Drusilla lifted the bear up and hugged it close. Then she chose a baby doll, and another, and then the prettiest doll of all, one with long black curls, like her own. "You can be my dollies," she said. "And YOU can be Miss Edith. Won't that be fun?"

They all thought it would be great fun indeed.

Dru laughed and laughed, spinning around the room with her new dollies in her arms. They could dance and sing, and then they could play hide-and-go-seek, and tell each other stories. She would always be able to find new stories to tell.