disclaimer in part 1

Swan Song
By Diane
-----
THE SECOND HOMECOMING

"No. NO!" Wesley cried.

Gunn took his hand off the steering wheel and raising it in
front of Wesley's face to silence him. "Cordelia said left
at the light!"

Growling, Wesley swatted the hand away and snatched the
barely legible directions from his friend's hands. "Not at
the light," he pointed to the paper. "The sign! I did
actually live here, once..."

Gunn just shook his head. "I know what I'm doing..." The
truck shot forward as he jammed his foot into the
accelerator, its motor screeching in protest. Wesley leaned
back and closed his eyes, praying that police officers and
various other things, like houses, wouldn't get in the way.

Fred tapped him on the shoulder. "Thanks for the tacos..."
She gave him a wide grin, holding up her large bag of booty
from Taco Bell. Gunn had obliged her and stopped on the
way. She didn't seem to be too particularly disturbed that
Gunn was driving like Angel usually did.

"You're quite welcome," he mumbled, turning back towards the
road with a pale face.

And then, he saw it approaching. The sign. Revello Drive.

He glanced down at the paper. End destination: 1630 Revello
Drive.

"LEFT. LEFT HERE!" Wesley cried, as Gunn showed obvious
signs of intending to cruise on down to the next light,
ignoring Wesley's insistence that it was a stop sign, and
not a light that they were supposed to be turning at.
"GUNN!!!"

Finally, he gave in, darting his truck across two lanes of
traffic, fishtailing around the corner as the tires gripped
frantically at the pavement. Wesley could hear the weapons
trunk crashing against the side of the truck bed in back,
and he winced.

And then they were there.

The truck screeched to a halt, Gunn with a big grin
slathered across his face. "Oops. Sorry, English. I guess
you were right," he said, and then hopped out of the
vehicle, leaving Wesley sitting there with his index finger
pointed in accusation, and a wide-open mouth.

After a few seconds, Wesley recollected himself and stepped
out of the car, helping Fred out from the crammed, sardine
can of a backseat.

After Fred was safely to the ground, he hopped across the
grass median and his foot hit the sidewalk. The first time
in two years.

Buffy's house was quiet. Peaceful. The lights were glowing
from the inside like one of those decorative lighted houses
people got to sit out on their mantle.

Taking a deep breath, he inhaled the soft scent of
Sunnydale. Fresh. Clean. Very unlike the smog choked air
that hung lazily over the streets of Los Angeles.

And yet so much more hostile...

He squared his shoulders, realizing that he would be
entering a place where his antagonists were far more
numerous than friends. Everyone in Sunnydale remembered the
man he had been before Angel Investigations had become a
part of his life. And, even now, Wesley found himself
admitting that that image was something he didn't like.

Gunn clapped him on his shoulder. The gesture was so
unexpected, it nearly sent Wesley sprawling into the dew-
covered grass. "So, do we bring in the artillery yet, or
leave the chest out here?"

"Let's bring it in and get it over with," he replied.

Gunn nodded, and they began to hoist the coffin-sized wooden
crate out of the truck. "Fred, why don't you go knock on
the door for us," Wesley suggested as they strained with the
over-sized box.

Fred stole quietly away, up the steps.

Wesley and Gunn followed, muscles heaving. "Jeez, English,
how much stuff did you pack? Angel's entire collection?"

"I wasn't sure what kind of weaponry Buffy has, but if her
high school days were any indication, it will be beneficial
to have all of this," he answered.

"Her, meaning the Slayer chick, right?" Gunn hoisted the
box onto his shoulders and began making his way up the
steps, breaking out in a slight sheen of sweat as the weight
started to get to him.

"Yes," Wesley huffed. "Buffy. The one that Angel stole my
motorcycle to get to before visiting hours were over..."

Gunn turned his head slightly, and Wesley could see the grin
developing.

Fred knocked on the door, which opened very shortly after.

Cordelia. "Hi, guys," she said, her voice quiet and
strained, pain bleeding off of her face and into the air
around her. She backed up and held the door open for them
before retreating back to her seat.

Gunn and Wesley struggled into the house and collapsed as
they dropped the crate onto the ground. Wesley stood,
cracking all of the cricks out of his strained muscles, and
looked around. The Sunnydale crew was all staring
openmouthed at them.

Despite the spotlight he was in, his eyes trailed to Angel.

Angel.

He was staring silently off into space, arm clasped
possessively around a rather pale-looking Buffy. But
definitely not all there. Wesley creased his brow with
worry, wondering if Angel's perception of events had finally
caught up and registered Shanshu.

Cordelia sighed, lifting her arm weakly from the armrest of
her chair. "Wesley. Gunn. Fred," she introduced them,
pointing jerkily with her index finger at each one of them
before letting her arm collapse back onto the chair. She
leaned into the soft leather of the chair and closed her
eyes.

Giles took their coats and cleared his throat. "Tea?" he
offered.

"Mr. Giles. I regret we're meeting again under these
circumstances," Wesley replied, sincere, adding a, "But yes,
please," after some consideration.

Giles nodded curtly, and disappeared back into the kitchen.

"Cordelia, do you require your pain medication?" Wesley
asked, quietly.

She shook her head. "No. I don't need to add overdose to
my list of things to do today..." she replied.

Silence.

Angel blinked once or twice, until finally, Buffy smiled,
her pale lips turning upwards ever so slightly. "Hi.
Welcome back to the Hellmouth," she whispered.

Wesley smiled back. "Always ready to stop another
apocalypse..."

For a moment, more silence.

"So... What did you bring the coffin for?" Xander asked,
his curiosity finally overwhelming his reluctance to break
the awkward silence.

"Yeah, it's not... It's not for a person, or anything?"
Willow asked, soft and quiet.

Wesley shook his head. "Goodness, no... It's--"

"Weapons. Angel's weapons. We didn't know which ones he
would want, so Wesley just picked out a bunch. That, and
some of our stuff... What _did_ you bring, English?" Gunn
asked.

Wesley bent down and opened the case as Giles walked in with
the tea. ""Well, this is your axe. Angel's claymore. My
crossbow. My mace. Your other axe. My quarterstaff. Your
bo. Angel's axe... Cordelia's axe... And I could have
_sworn_ I put your falchion in here, I'm not--"

Willow was peering cautiously over the edge of the box.
"Big fan of axes?" she asked, although she sounded slightly
disturbed.

Wesley shrugged. "Angel and Gunn are the ones who use them.
Cordelia doesn't fight very often in combat that would
require an axe -- hers is mainly for emergencies."

"You mean Cordelia actually fights at all?" Xander's
eyebrows were practically raised into his hairline.

Cordelia glared at him. "Yes. I fight. I could kick your
ass, if you want," she growled.

Xander was about to rebut, his mouth open, a little bit of
sound already falling, when Angel stood abruptly and walked
over to the chest. He stared at its contents.

"You only brought one of my swords..." he whispered.

"Only one? Gosh, and I so would have liked to see your
other instruments of mayhem..." Xander joked, but went
silent when he saw Buffy glaring at him. "I'm not very
popular with the women, tonight, am I?" he whispered as he
backed down.

Anya smiled. "You are very popular with me..."

"Thanks," Xander replied.

Wesley narrowed his eyes, noticing now that Angel looked
slightly flushed. Little dots of sweat were scattered
across his brow, and he looked rather trembly. "Are you
all right?" Wesley whispered.

"I'm fine," he replied, reaching down for his claymore.
Wesley saw the wince as he bent over.

Angel picked it up, swung the blade in the empty space
before him, tried some moves. The weapon sparkled in the
dim light, behaving like an extension of Angel's straining
arms. Graceful, like ballet, Angel made a swift jab at
some invisible opponent before stopping to inspect the
blade, the hilt...

His fingers ran across the base of the blade, on to the
center of percussion, and stopping at the middle of its
length, Angel's arms not long enough to reach the tip.

Gently, he set it down.

"That will do," he whispered, and then he went back to his
seat.

Wesley stared at him, trying to figure out just what was
running through his friend's mind. But, after several
moments of trying, he simply couldn't think of anything.
Angel, when he wanted to be, was quite the closed book.

Giles began to inch forwards towards the blade, the look of
admiration in his eyes overpowering the neutral glance he
had been wearing for some time. "This is a beautiful
weapon," he whispered.

Tara smiled hesitantly, making her presence known for the
first time. "It looks like it's straight out of
B-B-Braveheart..."

"And it's big," Xander grumbled.

"Fifty-two inch blade. Sixty-four inches in length, I
believe," Wesley replied, seeing that Angel wasn't going to
offer any information. He was communing with oblivion
again, it appeared. "I prefer smaller, one-handed weapons,
myself. But Angel seems to like the great swords."

Giles nodded in appreciation. "Yes, well, great swords are
a quick means to an end."

Buffy raised her hand. "You feel like keeping us in the
discussion, or are you going off into watcher talk?" she
asked, her other hand beginning to rub Angel's back,
although whether she was aware of it or not, Wesley couldn't
tell.

"Sorry," Wesley corrected himself, surprised to find that
the slayer was reminding him of Cordelia, "Great swords like
this are meant to be used quickly. They're not meant for
the long parry fights. Just a quick kill. Come to think of
it, I probably should have brought Angel's broadsword, just
in case..."

Angel shrugged.

So, he was, at least, listening.

Buffy looked at him strangely. "What's wrong?"

Angel just shook his head. "I think we should worry about
the demons first," he replied.

Despite his growing concern, Wesley felt himself snap into
action. "Yes, I was thinking about this on the way down
from Los Angeles, at least, I was as best as I could, what
with Gunn's complete disregard for traffic laws."

Angel blinked.

"Um, yes, well, anyway," Wesley shuffled his feet, suddenly
apprehensive under everyone's expectant stares.

"We can't kill them," Angel said, seemingly at random.

Wesley took a deep breath. "Pardon?"

"We can't kill them. For every one that falls..."

"Ten shall rise," Buffy finished for him, a strange look
crossing her face.

Xander jumped up. "Well, what _I_ want to know, is how the
Powers managed to botch this up so badly! I mean, jeez.
Buffy is told that death is her gift, so she goes swan-
diving into a portal to close it, which it does, but it also
shoe shines Angel, all due to the freakiness and multiple
sources of confusion that is our language. And then, what's
all this with repeating timelines? Couldn't they just go
*poof*? Everything's fixed? I don't get why these
supposedly all-powerful mojo masters let the universe get
all screwed up, and THEN they fix it. But not really, cuz
we still have monster-beast thingies from Hell coming to
kill us all."

He sat back down, seeing that every one was staring at him.
"Sorry. This rant has ended. You may exit the vehicle --
please be sure to take all of your personal belongings with
you. Thank you for flying with Xander tantrum. Buh-bye
now..."

"No, actually, Xander, I don't believe what we had was a
timeline that reset," Giles replied. "I don't believe it
really started over, ah... per se. There was a... ah... a
little offshoot so, so that they could keep Buffy suspended
for the few seconds necessary to generate ah... to generate
enough power. But they needed more than a few seconds, so
they just extended time in Buffy's own little... ah...
little... little bubble thing..."

Wesley nodded in agreement. "Yes, precisely. The Powers
have not shown any evidence that they are omnipotent, nor
omniscient. What little contact Angel has had with the
Oracles in the past has merely led to a lot of confusion.
This could be, quite possibly, the only way They saw fit to
address the situation..."

Willow shrugged. "But you guys are still saying that there
were TWO timelines going at once. One that was moving way
faster than the other one -- the one where Buffy died?"

Wesley shook his head. "I'm not entirely certain that what
Buffy and Angel experienced was an altered timeline of any
sort. And not a shared dream either. Something between the
two," he hypothesized.

Giles nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. Yes. I was considering
that as well. Perhaps a partially prophetic scenario was
played in their heads. Like a movie, if you will."

"A movie, who's entire moral was, basically, Buffy shouldn't
be dead?" Anya asked, her eyes an array of disbelief.

Wesley stared at Angel. At Buffy. Back at Angel. Both of
them looked rather shell shocked. "No. I think there may
have been something more important than that. Something
meant for Angel and Buffy to decipher themselves."

"Together you are strong. Alone, you are dead," Buffy
mumbled.

Angel blinked.

"Perhaps," Wesley conceded.

"But the fact remains," Giles added, "That we have ten
Mohras, highly trained assassin demons, coming to wage war
with us. And if what Angel and Buffy have told me is true,
the more that we kill, the more will come."

"Perhaps we should be trying to approach this from a
different angle," Wesley suggested. "Have we considered why
these portals may be appearing?"

"End of Days," Angel said.

Wesley turned to him briefly, but thought better of asking
him, once again, if he was all right. "But there have been
no portents," he continued. "No warnings. Scheduled
apocalypses are generally precluded by a certain
pre-specified number of signs..."

Xander collapsed backwards into his chair. "So, you're
saying this is an unscheduled apocalypse? We simply _must_
speak with the registrar..."

"Or," Wesley growled, trying to keep from launching himself
at Xander. "Perhaps, it's scheduled, but it's early?
Something triggered it?"

"What could have possibly been monumental enough to trigger
an apocalypse? We would have seen--Oh my..." Giles stopped
short.

Everyone in the room turned to Buffy and Angel. Giles was
wiping his face with his hanky, looking suddenly very
worried as Willow's mouth fell partially open and Xander
just said, "You gotta be kidding me... Together for not
more than a day and already an apocalypse..." under his
breath.

Wesley swallowed harshly. "Perhaps the Hell portal that
Angel's Shanshu closed, wasn't as closed as we thought..."

"The indirect death was imperfect for the closing ritual!"
Giles said as he leapt up from his perch on the arm of the
sofa. "It must have created--"

"Tears!" Wesley finished for him, seeing almost immediately
where the watcher was going. "Tears in the dimensional
hotspots... The Mohras are coming through the fractured
areas..."

"So, what's the sitch? How do we close 'em?" Buffy asked.

Everyone exchanged glances.

"Research!"

And everyone but Angel's group and Buffy launched off in all
directions.

continue