A STITCH IN TIME

"This isn't right."

Angel could hear his own words echo hollowly in the great hall of the museum. He could hear the quick, shallow breathing of Cordelia, Fred and Gunn, all standing appalled by his side. Beyond the museum's walls, he could still hear the screams.

"Boy howdy, it's not right!" Cordelia pressed her palms against the door, as though she were willing the outside to change into the world they'd left. "Oh, my God, what happened? Where are we? I mean -- when are we?"

"We must have overshot," Gunn said. His voice was toneless, dead with shock. "We've landed in the middle of World War III."

"We didn't change any of the settings on the time machine," Fred said. She was twisting her hair nervously, bouncing slightly on her heels. "Logically, it should have taken us back to when we left. Unless -- unless this is another dimension. A hell dimension, like that place where --" She looked at Angel and stopped.

Quartoth, Angel thought, and for an instant felt an insane kind of hope. He'd welcome a return to hell, if there was any chance he could find his son there. But even that flickering dream was swiftly crushed when he realized he'd recognized the one of the structures outside. "No. This isn't another dimension."

"Angel, I'm sorry, but that is NOT Los Angeles," Cordelia said.

"Not our neighborhood," Gunn said. "Compton, maybe."

"No," Angel said. "It's Rome."

By way of demonstration, he opened the door again. For a few moments, they all stared at the ruined city. In some places fires raged in the hollow shells of buildings, while in others flames dripped from low, sulfurous clouds. Everywhere he looked, Angel saw a devastation so total nothing had escaped it. But the city, although dead, wasn't deserted. The debris teemed with creatures that slithered and scuttled, pouncing on each other with cannibalistic glee. In the streets and on the corners lay the bodies of those who had tried to flee and failed. In the far distance was the unmistakable silhouette of the Colosseum.

Angel shut the door again. Fred said weakly, "Now, see, I was wondering when they built a football stadium downtown."

Cordelia whispered, "Angel -- we screwed it up." Her face was pale as she stepped closer to him. "Didn't we? When we were in the past, we did something wrong and -- and we -- oh, God. We did this."

"That servant girl!" Gunn's eyes were wide. "The one I kept from going into y'all's vamp hideout. She must've been supposed to die. Instead, I saved her, so she could live and give birth to the Antichrist."

"We don't know that," Fred said. She was trembling now, and her voice was slightly higher-pitched as she continued, "The ripple effect means that it could have been anything we did that was different to what was supposed to happen -- some tiny change we caused had unforeseen effects, which in turn had unforeseen effects, growing more and more cataclysmic as time went on, eventually rendering the reality we once knew null and void --" Suddenly she slapped herself across the face. As Angel and the others stared at her, Fred took a deep breath and said, "It could have been anything. I doubt we could ever figure out what we did wrong."

Angel considered what she'd said for a moment, then felt himself tense as the implications sank in. "If we don't know what we did wrong -- then we can't return to the past and fix it."

Fred nodded slowly. "We might even make it worse."

"Worse?" Cordelia gestured in the general direction of the door, and by extension, at the wrecked world beyond it. "How, exactly, could it get worse?"

"Nuclear fallout," Gunn said. "That's just off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's more where that came from."

"We still have to try," Angel said.

"Yeah, I know," Fred said. "I'm just saying -- we can't go back blind. First we have to find out what happened here and what led up to it. That's our only hope of undoing this."

Cordelia tried to smile. "So, I guess that's ixnay on just going back to 1960 to discover the Beatles."

It wasn't much of a joke, but Angel was grateful for it all the same. He quickly squeezed Cordelia's hand, borrowing courage as much as giving it. "All right. We have to figure out what happened. We might as well start here."

"Right," Fred said, brightening marginally. "Museums are usually about history, after all."

Angel breathed in deeply and concentrated, searching for the scent of smoke in the air. After a moment, he said, "This building's not on fire yet. We've got a little while, I think."

"This building is stone, right?" Cordelia said. "Looks like it, mostly. I mean, sure, lots of flammable stuff on the inside, but those stone walls ought to buy us some time."

Angel thought about what she'd said and felt his body tensing up yet again. "You're right. Trouble is, you're not going to be the only one to think of it."

"Meaning --" Cordelia's jaw dropped. "Something else could try and get in."

Fred hurriedly said, "Why don't we see if this museum has a weapons and armaments section?"

A rack of pamphlets and museum guides yielded a version in English, which informed them that they'd left the time machine in a sculpture hall ("I wasn't the only one who thought it was a statue," Cordelia said pointedly). Better yet, the guide pointed the way to an extensive exhibit of medieval weaponry, both European and Asian. They made their way there quickly, and Angel smashed through the cases without any thought to the alarm system. He doubted anyone remained to hear it.

He said nothing, and his friends said little. Fred was too busy studying the various museum guides for clues about the time they'd found and the history they'd changed; he, Gunn and Cordelia were testing their weapons. Cordelia seemed briefly interested in a scimitar, but Angel was relieved to see her choose a classic sword. No time for experimenting, he thought, casting an appraising glance at a mace. We need to carry what we're best at, no more.

Angel found he needed to concentrate on only the most immediate, pragmatic aspects of their situation. Sharpen Cordelia's sword. Check the grip on Gunn's axe. Lead everyone back toward the time machine; best to figure out their next move while simultaneously protecting their means of transport.

If he let himself think of anything else at all, then Angel found himself thinking about the history that hadn't happened in this world. He still didn't know exactly when they were or what had changed, but he knew this much -- thousands, maybe millions, of people had suffered horribly because they'd made a mistake. The further damage they'd wrought, they might not ever know.

And worst of all -- Angel was pretty sure that in this reality, Connor had never been born.

As they made their way through the darkened museum, headed toward the sculpture hall, Cordelia said, "That pamphlet telling you anything yet, Fred?"

Fred shook her head. "So far, it doesn't look like anything is different. I mean, this museum has a lot of antiquities -- things we wouldn't have changed anyway -- but they have some modern things too. Warhol still painted some soup cans. Picasso still had a blue period."

Gunn said, "Yeah, I'd hate to think we stopped some paintings from getting made on our way to destroying the world."

"Charles, it's as good a way as any to know a lot of things were still the same, at least until very recently."

"Then what happened?" Cordelia asked, directing the question at no one and everyone. "We changed God-knows-what in 1898, the whole twentieth century happened just fine and then -- kablooey! It all goes wrong a century later? It just doesn't tie up."

Angel stopped walking. The others froze immediately; when he half-turned around, they were staring back at him. Slowly, Angel lifted his finger to his mouth, warning them to silence. Fred clutched the pamphlet to her chest, and Cordelia adjusted her grip on her sword, bringing it to the ready.

The footsteps were ordinary -- human weight, regular walking speed, no special caution about noise. How many people? Angel thought. Maybe four -- no, five. He held out his hand and unfolded his fingers deliberately, silently counting them off for the others.

Cordelia nodded. Gunn mouthed the word, "Where?"

Angel listened to them for another few moments. They were one level up, a few feet over -- he concentrated, then murmured, "Sculpture hall."

"The time machine!" Fred whispered.

Angel ran toward the hall, moving as quickly and quietly as he could, leaving his friends falling behind. That didn't matter. If someone or something -- maybe the thing that was more directly responsible for the mayhem outside -- was trying to get the time machine, then Angel had to stop them immediately or die trying.

He leapt up the stairs to the next level, where he could hear their voices -- men, mostly, but one woman -- and charged through the doors. Amid the statues, Angel could see five people standing there. They looked like ordinary people in ordinary clothes, yet each was armed with a sword. A few of the intruders were in the shadows, but on the face of the man closest to him, Angel saw shock, recognition and disgust. "Angelus," he said, in a cool, clipped English accent. "We ought to have known."

"Known what?" Angel said, stalling for time. He was pretty sure he could defeat five humans, but with the stakes so high, "pretty sure" wasn't good enough. The others were on their way to improve the odds. "My name?"

"The entire world knows your name now," said the woman, stepping forward. She was sick with fear, so acute Angel could smell its intoxicating fragrance wafting from across the room. Yet she stood her ground. "As you intended they should."

The full meaning of her words hit Angel hard, making him weak, almost nauseated, in an instant. He rasped, "You mean -- the carnage outside -- what's happening -- I did that."

"You've come here to brag?" said another of the men. He was the tallest, and probably the strongest of the group. There was a militaristic stiffness to his bearing. "No. We know what you're here for."

"The same thing you're here for!" Cordelia came striding through the door, Gunn and Fred close behind. Angel didn't turn to face them, but he could see the surprise on the English people's faces as, one by one, his friends flanked him. Cordelia continued, "You want to hijack our time machine? It's so not happening. Sorry about the sucky week you guys are having, but I'm afraid you're stuck with it."

"Until we change it!" Fred added helpfully.

Gunn brought his axe into position. "Until then, we suggest you step outside. Make yourselves comfortable in the rest of the museum. I understand there's a snack bar."

The fourth of the invaders, almost the furthest back, came forward into the dim emergency lighting. He was older than the others, with white hair and a salt-and-pepper beard. "We know what's at stake here," he began. "So do you. That's why you know we won't be stepping aside."

"They're human," whispered the woman to the white-haired man. "Basil, the three with Angelus -- they're not vampires. They're human beings."

The white-haired man hesitated for a moment, but then he stepped closer to Angel. "It doesn't matter what they are," he said. "It only matters what they want to do."

"How did they know about the time machine?" said the tall man. "That is among our most guarded secrets --"

"Hey, we're not DEAF," Cordelia said. "If you guys want a battle, you can have one." Her bravado was half bluster, Angel knew; Cordelia had become a fighter in the past year, but she wasn't yet hardened enough to easily face the prospect of hurting or killing human beings. "But we don't want to hurt you."

They all stared. Then they all started to laugh -- harsh, bitter laughter that Angel could tell unnerved the others. To Angel, the sound of it was like razor cuts; he knew the intruders were laughing because of the pure absurdity of the idea that Angelus didn't want to hurt anyone.

The gypsies cursed me, Angel thought. I remember it, and this time, I saw it, too. It happened. We stopped Dru. Cordy staked Dru. What went wrong?

As the intruders stopped laughing, the fifth and final member of the group stepped from the very back of the room into the light. "On behalf of the Council of Watchers," he said, "we decline your demand for surrender."

Angel stared at him, knew his friends were doing the same. As one, they each whispered, "Wesley?"

Wesley Wyndham-Pryce -- suit-clad, sword-wielding and somehow looking younger than Angel remembered -- stared back at them in shock, his earlier cool forgotten. "I beg your pardon?" he said, clearly astonished.

The other Watchers were staring at Wesley, who looked both bewildered and desperate to deny knowing Angelus or anyone who would consort with him.

Cordelia choked out, "Angel, they're people -- it's Wesley -- "

"They're not real," Angel said. He could only see Wesley, his white-linen suit seeming to glow in the dark. He looked like a boy. He looked the way he had the day Angel had offered him a job. "None of this is real. Tomorrow it won't exist. This reality doesn't matter." The sword was heavy in his hand, and he could anticipate the power of his blows. Angel's human mind, confused and overwhelmed, suddenly seemed to shut down; his vampiric mind took over, sizing up the situation and seizing the instant. "Nothing we do here matters."

Angel slammed the broad side of his sword into the head of the white-haired Watcher closest to him. The man fell, and the female Watcher screamed. Cordelia silenced her by leaping forward and punching her hard across the jaw.

"Take them!" yelled the tall man.

Angel could see the battle going on around him -- he knew that Basil was getting up from the floor, that Gunn was tackling another of the men, that Cordelia was wrestling with still another in earnest. He could smell the blood trickling from the woman's mouth, staining Fred's hand as she punched the female Watcher back down.

But only one figure in the room mattered. His prey.

Wesley was fumbling with a crossbow, trying to get it loaded. The Wesley that Angel remembered was good with a crossbow, but he'd only become so after he'd begun working with them in L.A. He'd needed so little practice to become good -- practice he hadn't gotten with the Watchers -- practice he didn't have in this reality.

Nothing we do here matters, Angel thought. His face shifted, and his fangs slid into his mouth, sharp and strong and familiar. He knocked one of the other Watchers into a Renaissance bronze, saw the man slump down, semiconscious. We can do anything here. Anything at all.

"Stop him!" It was Basil's voice. Angel whirled around, swinging his sword toward Basil's head with all his might. Something made him turn his wrist, made him use the broad side once again. Angel could do whatever he wanted. He didn't want to kill at random. That didn't mean he didn't want to kill.

Basil fell. The female Watcher moaned as she toppled to her knees. One of the men fell on the floor in front of Gunn, stunned or dead or unconscious. Wesley had the crossbow ready. He pointed it at Angel and fired --

("Sleep tight," Angel had said, and he kissed his son's face. Connor was cradled in Wesley's arms. It tore Angel's heart to think of Connor being gone for one whole night.)

Angel turned to the side, preternaturally fast, and the arrow whooshed by him to thud into the far wall. He leapt forward, relishing in the panic on Wesley's face as he scrambled to reload. Angel's sword swung upwards, its tip catching the crossbow and sending it flying.

"Angel!" Cordelia's voice. Not afraid. Not needing help. He could ignore it. Angel tackled Wesley; he felt the human's chest buckle, his balance shifting and falling. They tumbled to the ground, hard marble beneath them. Angel caught a glimpse of Wesley's ashen face and sent his fist smashing into it.

"Angel!" Not just Cordy now. Fred too. And Gunn. Still not important.

Wesley put his hands up, less in an attempt to attack than in a futile attempt to shield himself from the blows. Angel punched him, again and again and again, and every time his fist made contact with flesh, he said his son's name. Out loud, he realized, hearing the gasped words more consciously than he spoke them: "Connor -- Connor -- Connor --"

"Angel, please! Please stop! Just look at me, please -- Angel --" Cordelia was crying. Why was she crying? The danger was past. The other Watchers were all unconscious; Angel could tell without even looking.

Wesley shoved himself away from Angel, gaining no more than a few inches of space. Angel grabbed the sword he'd dropped and swung it toward Wesley's neck --

And froze.

The point of the sword was at Wesley's throat. Wesley lay there, bleeding and terrified and helpless. The cries of the others seemed to be very far away. Nothing he did here mattered.

Wesley's face looked so young. The white-linen suit was just like the one Wesley had been wearing when Angel offered him a job.

Angel dropped the sword. He stared down at Wesley, who stared up at him.

"Why did you do it?" Angel said, knowing this Wesley couldn't answer. "Why couldn't you just tell me? I would have listened to you." His throat grew thick, but Angel kept on, the words spilling out of him, slurred by his fangs. "I trusted you. I trusted you more than you trusted me."

"Angel." Cordelia's voice was closer now, and when her hands touched his shoulder, the world shifted again. Angel felt his forehead smooth, and his fangs retracted. The haze of killer instinct faded from him, leaving only the smell of blood.

Wesley shook, apparently in a shock that was half terror and half relief. Angel said again, "I trusted you." He let his head fall backwards so that he could see Cordelia's face; she was looking at him through her own tears. "If he had told me --"

"I know," she whispered. "Come on. Let's step back for a minute, okay? We can -- we can check out the paintings in the hallway, huh?"

Gunn and Fred walked up, each with weapons at the ready. Angel knew they would watch Wesley. He got to his feet, but his body seemed too heavy for his muscles to support. He slumped against Cordelia, who slid her arm around his waist. "We'll be right back," she whispered. Fred nodded.

Wesley took a deep breath. "BytheauthorityoftheCouncilofWatchersIcommandyou --"

"Shut UP," Gunn said, poking his sword in Wesley's general vicinity. Wesley shut up.

Angel let Cordelia walk him to the hallway, but once the door swung shut behind them, he slid back onto the ground. Cordelia didn't slide with him, but she stroked his hair, guided him until he let his head rest against the side of her leg. "You stopped," she said quietly. "You didn't have to stop, and you did."

"I would have listened to him," Angel said. "If he had told me."

"It's all right," Cordelia said. "It's over. It's all over."

Angel thought of Connor, drowsy and small, cradled in Wesley's arms as they went out the door. "It's all over," he echoed.

"Are you gonna be okay?"

"Yeah," he said. He wrapped his arms around Cordelia's legs, not hugging her tightly, just leaning against her. "Give me a couple of minutes."

Cordelia laughed weakly, her voice hoarse from unshed tears. "Angel, for once it's true -- we have all the time in the world."

According to Cordelia's watch, the date was April 26, 2002, and the time was just after seven in the evening. She stared at the numbers, trying to make them mean something, but no matter how hard she tried, the winking display was irrelevant nonsense. She took the watch off and put it in her pocket.

The sound of footsteps approaching made her look up. Gunn and Fred were returning, their shoes echoing noisily on the stone floor. "All done?" she asked.

Gunn held up a large bunch of iron keys, and jangled them. "Locked 'em up separately in the Egyptian rooms. But it's gonna be a while before they start hollerin' to get out -- the other four are still out cold. They're sleeping like babies --"

He broke off, and visibly winced as he realized what he'd said. Cordelia cast an anxious glance in Angel's direction -- in the wake of their arrival in this apocalyptic future and the encounter with Wesley, her concern about his emotional state had ratcheted back up to DefCon Four. But Angel didn't seem to have heard; he was sitting by the small fire they'd started using Gunn's lighter and a collection of guidebooks, watching the fire's smoke twirl up to the high roof. He seemed calm, at least for the moment, and Cordelia was grateful for that much. The fire cast the shadows of both the time machine and Angel on to the wall, elongating and distorting them into monstrous shapes.

Suddenly, a noise that was half-howl and half-shriek pierced the silence. Cordelia didn't recognize it, but she was pretty sure it wasn't the kind of sound made by a fluffy, gentle-natured creature that just wanted to be friends.

Angel looked up. "That came from outside. They're not in the building yet."

"Ya had to go and finish with 'yet'," Gunn muttered.

"We're not going to be safe here for much longer," Fred said. "We have to figure out what's going on." She looked over at the obelisk in the far corner. "All of us."

"If you think -- for one instant -- that I would ever help you, you are mistaken," Wesley gasped, his voice thickened by his broken nose. His hands were tied around the back of the obelisk with Gunn's belt, immobilizing him. It also prevented him from wiping away the blood from a deep gash on his forehead, which was hardening in a sticky trail on his cheek.

The last time Cordelia had seen Wesley this badly beaten up had been after Faith had tortured him. Then, she'd wanted to scratch Faith's eyes out, to show her what happened to people who messed with Cordelia Chase's friends. But Angel had done this. Angel's grief and rage were written on Wesley's face, in blood and bruises, and was Wesley still her friend?

"My name is Wesley Wyndham-Pryce," he said. "I am here in the service of the Council of Watchers and the greater good. And that's all you're getting out of me."

Angel began, "We're not trying to --" He seemed to catch himself, and broke off abruptly. "Someone else had better talk to him." He got up and walked to the other end of the hall, his back to Wesley.

Cordelia realized instantly that, as untrustworthy as she and the others might appear in Wesley's eyes right now, they were probably going to stand a better chance of dealing with him than the Scourge of Europe, a.k.a. the guy who had just broken Wesley's nose. She glanced back at Wesley; he was trying to mask his fear, and with some success. Only someone who knew him as well as Cordelia did could have guessed at the depth of terror he was trying to hide. She walked over to the obelisk where Wesley was tied up. "We're not going to kill you."

Wesley looked -- justifiably, Cordelia had to admit -- skeptical. "Aha. And I suppose you've given my colleagues tea and crumpets and sent them on their merry way."

God, she'd forgotten how annoying he could be when he chose. "They're all tied up in the next room -- which is a pretty good deal for them, since it's a LOT safer in here than outside," Cordelia told him, putting her hands on her hips.

"You'll also notice that we haven't killed you yet, which is kind of a point in our favor," Fred said from where she stood beside Gunn. "Also, remember how we were yelling for Angel to stop hitting you? That's all non-murdery, right?" Cordelia shot her a look, and she shrugged apologetically. "Just tryin' to help. I'll hush up now."

Wesley tried to raise an eyebrow, before pain from his swollen, battered face prevented him. "You've undoubtedly kept me alive only so that I could -- enjoy the pleasure of Angelus' company." At the other end of the hall, Angel glanced over his shoulder slightly, not quite enough for Cordelia to read the look in his eyes. Wesley looked at Cordelia curiously, then Fred and Gunn in turn. "None of you are vampires. What kind of deal have you made with him?"

"Things ain't the way they look to you," Gunn said. "And I know this is gonna sound crazy, but we're trying to fix whatever went wrong here."

The look on Wesley's bruised and swelling face in response to that was easy to read. He was clearly incredulous. "FIX it? Angelus -- trying to FIX this?"

"This isn't Angelus!" Cordelia said, increasingly disconcerted by Wesley's presence and the unnerving sounds from outside. "Wesley, that time machine -- we came out of it. We know how it works because we used it. We're from --" She hesitated, unwilling to tell Wesley the whole story at once, "-- another time. A time when Angel has a soul."

"A soul?" Wesley repeated. Cordelia nodded and folded her arms across her chest. That would change things, make Wesley understand this was different.

Then Wesley started to laugh.

The sound of it echoed off the marble floors, the high ceilings, the statues that framed them. It wasn't a cruel sound; he wasn't mocking them. Cordelia almost wished he was. Wesley was laughing from sheer surprise and disbelief. She glanced over to see that the others were equally unsettled by his reaction. Gunn muttered, "I'm getting the feeling this is gonna be a hard sell."

"That's rich," Wesley said at last. "And, I must hand it to you, an ingenious attempt. You've obviously got sources deep within the Council. The level of betrayal --" He trailed off for a moment, then regained himself. "Honestly. You're all standing there in blue jeans and T-shirts, using modern slang, as American as Mickey Mouse. Did you really believe I'd think you'd come forward in time from 19th-century Romania?"

Cordelia's mouth fell open. "How did you know that?" Wesley looked away, unwilling to continue the conversation and obviously regretting his indiscretion. "How could you possibly know that?"

At the other end of the hall, Angel turned around and came back to join them, all reticence to speak to Wesley overcome by something more urgent. "I didn't have a soul in 19th-century Romania," he said as he came to stand beside Cordelia. "Not until the end --"

"Wait a second," Fred said. "What Wesley's saying is, in this reality, there was a time when Angel had a soul, but -- but he doesn't anymore, and hasn't for a while. Not since Romania? Wesley?" He shifted slightly; Cordelia realized that he looked uncomfortable, even aside from all the swelling and bleeding. The angle of his arms had to hurt, at least a little.

She went to the obelisk and loosened the belt the tiniest fraction. Wesley lunged forward, but the bonds didn't break; he could, however, stand a little more upright. As she'd hoped, the gesture got Wesley to make eye contact with her as she came around. "Just tell us about Angel having a soul," Cordelia said. "And how he lost it. That's all we want to know. That can't do any harm, can it? The world's ending. It's not like it's going to get any worse than that."

For a moment, Wesley hesitated, but then he said, "There's not much more to know. What your source told you is really all the information there is. Watcher legend has it that, in late 19th-century Romania, Angelus murdered a young gypsy girl. As revenge, the gypsies cursed him with a soul, so that he might know the horrors he had wrought. But Darla -- and don't pretend you don't know who she is --"

Wish I didn't, Cordelia thought.

"Darla somehow forced the gypsies to remove the curse and restore him to his former amorality. They did so -- and were promptly slaughtered for their pains." Wesley was clearly exhausted and, quite possibly, concussed; he leaned his head back against the obelisk. He glared unevenly at Angel, who stared back in mute horror. "The Watchers' records said that Angelus' memories of his conscience only spurred him to greater viciousness and brutality afterward. He began hunting down family members of his past victims. He'd apologize -- and then kill them, too."

"Darla did try to reverse the curse," Angel said. He closed his eyes for a moment, deep in thought. "Dammit, what did she say?"

"Angel?" Gunn said. "You know what he's talking about?

"My memory right at first -- right after the curse -- it's confused," Angel said. He began pacing, nervous energy evident in every step he took, every line of his body. "For a long time after it happened -- years -- I was barely sane. But once, when I was with her in China, Darla told me something... she told me she found the one who performed the curse. She was going to threaten to kill his family unless he reversed it."

"True love," Gunn noted dryly. "Why didn't it work?"

"Spike missed the 'threaten' part," Angel said. "He ate them."

"Something we did must have changed that," Fred said. "We have to think of everything we did in 1898 that could have changed that."

There was a silence as they all considered this. Cordelia guessed the others were thinking the same thing she was -- no matter how hard they had tried not to interfere with the past, once you started making a list, it was clear they'd changed a lot of things. She glanced over at Wesley to see how he was taking it, but he'd either passed out or gotten close to it.

"We went to the gypsies," Angel said at last. "They knew we were from the future."

"We talked to those English people on the road," Gunn added.

"I staked Drusilla," Cordy said.

"No, that one doesn't count," Fred said. "You staked our Drusilla, the one from the present."

Angel stopped pacing, froze and turned around. He stared at Fred, then Cordelia. "How do we know?"

Cordy looked at him. "Know what?"

"How do we know that the Drusilla you staked was the one from 2002?"

"Well --" Cordelia frowned. "She was wearing the same dress she had when we found her in the museum in L.A. You know, the red floaty one from Saks, with the layer hem and the little straps --"

Angel held up a hand, cutting Cordelia off in mid-flow. "But are you SURE it was the Dru from our time?"

"Of COURSE I'm sure," Cordelia said tartly. But, almost immediately, doubt crept into her mind. "I told you, she had on the dress from before, and it's not like they could have swapped dresses -- I mean, I guess they could have, but we don't know that." Then she hesitated. "And -- and -- well, she didn't recognize me. But that's hardly weird by Drusilla standards, right? It's not like we've spent a lot of quality time together, so she might not know my name --"

"She knows your name," Angel said. "Back in Sunnydale, when Xander did that spell, the one that made all the women in town fall for him --"

Oh, God, Cordelia thought. Xander's mojo spell, the one that made Willow run after us with an axe and Buffy's mom come on to him. It seemed like a memory from another life.

"-- Drusilla was infatuated with him, and she was furious at you for being the one he wanted." Angel hesitated. "I, uh, may have told her your name. And where you lived. And when cheerleader practice let out."

"Angel!" Cordelia smacked him hard on the arm. "You could have gotten me killed!"

"That was the idea." Angel looked thoroughly miserable. "Cordy, I'm sorry. Believe me, I've thought about it, and it makes me --" He stopped, looked away and, after a second, continued, "Her anger wore off with the spell. But Drusilla knew who you were. She wouldn't forget."

Fred said urgently, "Was there something, anything else she said that would identify her as our Dru? Or as not-our Dru? Anything at all?"

"She was really confused, no surprise there, and she didn't seem to realize I would know what she was or how to stop her..." Cordelia trailed off and swallowed. "She didn't know me. She asked me who I was. Uh, guys? I think I might have staked the wrong Dru."

Gunn swore under his breath. Then he said, "We left her there. We thought we'd won, so we came back home and left 2002 Dru in 1898."

It was all so obvious, now, that Cordelia couldn't believe they hadn't worked it out sooner. Angel said, "Drusilla never intended to stop the original curse. Her plan was to change what happened afterward. To make sure it was reversed. That was just as good for her purposes, and easier for her to pull off, because she knew exactly what had gone wrong. And we just came home and let her do it."

They remained silent for a few moments, taking that in. Gunn raised his hand like a student asking a difficult question in class. "Not to look inside the dark cloud and find an even darker lining, but -- are we sure that's all that changed?"

Cordelia wheeled around and smacked Wesley gently on the cheek with her palm. "Wakey-wakey, Wes. We gotta talk."

He half-opened his eyes and looked woozily at her. "Ah. You're not all dead yet. Shame."

Cordelia ignored that. "Would you mind clarifying, for those of us just tuning in, just how it is Angelus destroyed the world?"

"Not Angelus," Wesley said. He was slurring his words a little. "Not technically, I mean. The majority of the murdering and incineration is the work of the Judge. But Angelus helped Drusilla and Spike put the damned thing together, and he's the only one pure enough in his evil to command the Judge's allegiance." He laughed brokenly. "But why do you ask me things you already know?"

"The Judge," Cordelia's thoughts were spinning now. "Angel, that was that loser from the mall that time, wasn't it? The one Buffy took out with a rocket-launcher?"

Wesley's jaw dropped. "A rocket-launcher! Of COURSE! Not forged by the hand of man --"

Angel nodded. "That's the one. And what we saw outside -- he could do that. But the clues to finding the pieces of the Judge were discovered years ago -- wait. Wesley, what year is this?"

Cordelia could see Wesley's hesitation, his reluctance to answer Angelus. But perhaps the sheer triviality of the question made him shrug and say, "It's 1998, of course."

"This is four years ago!" Cordelia said, indignantly. "Fred, I thought we were going to go back to where we came from! Or when!"

"We should have," Fred said. "I don't know exactly how the time machine works, but it doesn't make any sense for it to choose a new exit date at random --"

"No," Angel said suddenly. "Not at random." The others all looked at him. He said, "Don't you see? It brought us as far forward as it could. It couldn't go any farther than this."

Fred put her hand to her mouth, then nodded. "Because -- 1998 is where this reality ends."

Wesley's left eyelid -- the one that wasn't swollen out of recognition -- was fluttering open and closed. Cordelia shook him back to wakefulness. "Why didn't you use the time machine sooner? Why'd you let it go this far?"

"Too risky," Wesley mumbled. "Last resort. We knew about it for a long time... let it stay hidden, just another museum piece... For the best. Too tempting, too easy to change things..."

The killer part, Cordelia thought bleakly, was that he was right. Between Drusilla's interference and theirs, history had somehow been well and truly screwed.

"What were you going to do in the past?"

"The simplest, most obvious thing... We were going back to drive a stake through Angelus' heart. Stop him... before he had a chance to awaken the Judge to murder the world. But you've put paid to that, and I've failed. I've failed again." He looked up at Cordelia, and she saw a peculiar, desperate pleading in his face. "Kill him. If you have any shred of decency, of humanity, kill him. If the world can't be saved, at least let it be avenged."

His one open eye stared up at her, a bloodshot rim of white visible all around it. Cordelia could see her revulsion reflected in the dark circle of the pupil. Yet more vengeance.

Then Wesley's eye fluttered shut, and his head slumped sideways on to his shoulder.

Another memory popped into her head, one that was so vivid and real it made her eyes prick with tears. She remembered eating breakfast with Angel and Wesley, the three of them sitting around the table in the kitchen of Angel's apartment underneath the old office. Angel had made eggs, and Wesley had devoured them as if he hadn't had a proper meal in days. Cordelia had teased Wesley that someone so scrawny shouldn't be able to eat so much, and Angel had smiled for the first time since Doyle had died, and Cordelia had thought that maybe everything was going to work out okay, after all.

She looked again at the marks of fury Angel's fists had left on this Wesley's face, and she tried to feel some measure of sympathy for him. But all she could think of was Connor, tiny and helpless and gone for good.

This isn't the only future that got wrecked, she thought.

From somewhere else in the museum, there was a crash, followed by a pounding, drumming sound that swiftly became deafeningly loud. "They're in the building," Angel said.

Cordelia leapt up. "What are? No, wait, on second thoughts, I really don't want to know."

"The time machine," Angel said. They ran to it, the pounding, screeching sounds growing closer all the time. Beneath her feet, Cordelia could feel the ground shaking, as if something massive were trying to push its way up from below. "Fred, can you take us back to 1898? Right after we left?"

"I think so --"

At that moment, the museum floor split open, a jagged crack splitting the exhibition hall in two. Gunn and Fred were on one side, with the time machine; Cordelia and Angel were on the other. From deep below, the crevasse glowed red-hot, and Gunn and Fred appeared to waver through the heat-haze.

Angel looked at the widening gap, then at Cordelia. "We have to jump."

"I was SO hoping you weren't gonna say that," Cordelia said. Angel's face looked strange, and for a second she thought it was purely the effect of the ghastly red glow coming from the crevasse. Then she realized it was something else. He's scared, she thought. He's scared we're not gonna make it.

Angel took her hand, and together they backed up as far as they could. As they ran toward the gaping crack, Cordelia could feel the floor growing hotter with every step until, as she put her foot down at the edge of the chasm, she felt the soles of her shoes squelch slightly as they melted. She gripped Angel's hand as tightly as she could -- and they jumped.

For an instant, they were suspended in a blast of heat so intense it felt as if the air itself were on fire. Cordelia looked down and saw beneath them a shaft that seemed to sink endlessly, plunging through layers of red and white heat to a source that was blacker than any night. And she saw that the walls of the shaft were crawling with hordes of screaming, grasping demons, every one of them climbing toward the world above, ready to claim it as their own.

Then she landed on the far side of the chasm, losing her balance and tumbling awkwardly. Hands grabbed her and hauled her to safety. When she opened her eyes, she saw Gunn. "Angel --"

"It's okay. You made it. You both made it."

"Angel --"

Gunn twisted Cordelia's head to one side. "It's okay. Look. You never even let go of each other."

Cordelia looked and saw her hand was still wrapped around Angel's. He was lying beside her, smiling unevenly. She tried to grin back. "I think we just won the Olympic gold for Hellmouth Leaping," she said hoarsely.

Fred was looking past all of them, to the silhouette of Wesley's body tied, unconscious and helpless, to the obelisk as the demons swarmed nearer. "You know what you're doing, leaving him there," she said, blinking hard. "You're killing him."

"No, I'm not," Angel said. Some of the shadow that had haunted his eyes since his attack on Wesley seemed to fall away from him. "I'm saving him."

He pulled the others to the time machine, leaving the dying world to burn behind them.