IN THE INTERREGNUM- HOME OFFICE

The word came down from the Higher Ups. The request had been granted, and Holland was incensed. The Senior Partners had spent centuries trying to control the anomaly. He’d even been party to the operation for a time.

It had been so deceptively simple. Control through manipulation, something the Home Office had perfected over millennia.

If there was a prophecy foretelling of a vampire with a soul playing a role in the Apocalypse, then the answer was simple. The Home Office had seen to it that the one vampire with the most potential for corruption and be certain that one, is the one the prophecy speaks of. After that vampire has been laden down with guilt, you extend a hand and build him up again, in your image.

Through the use of a misplaced scroll, the vampire’s guilt is eliminated. He’s given a destiny and it doesn’t matter anymore. The grey is gone. The world is strictly black and white. There is only one way to think, and it is your way. All other ways of thinking are flawed. All others are in error.

There is no right or wrong. You are the one. You will be rewarded.

It was a tried and true formula, and it worked. It did work. Their Champion had been eliminated before he could isolate the cure, and Angelus was prevented from continuing the work the Champion had started.

Prophecies can be tricky things. But something even trickier is the power of grief. It can be a powerful weapon for the Home Office. Or it can be a destroyer. Grief could have the power to stop an Apocalypse, just as Holland feared it was about to do here.

A little girl’s grief and love for her parents, a second chance and the house of cards was about to fall, “Damn,” Holland hissed as his fist slammed down in anger.
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SEPTEMBER 17, 2027-

Buffy stared at Willow, her eyes narrowing in disbelief, “What do you mean you won’t? You use magic all the time! Magic is what got us into this mess in the first place,” Buffy felt the ache rising in her chest as she watched Joni holding her father’s hand.

The look of bereavement that she saw on her daughter’s face led Buffy to nod her head toward the door. Willow nodded in kind and they slipped silently out into the small hallway outside the door. Buffy turned to Willow with tears in her eyes, “Willow,” she begged, “part of this is my fault. If I hadn’t asked…”

Willow sighed, unable to look at the hurt in her friend’s eyes, “I know. Spike and I had this conversation when you first got sick,” Willow’s voice became tight as the memories washed over her, “And again after Kennedy died. I said no then, and I’m saying no now.”

Buffy’s eyes flashed in anger and she laughed bitterly, “Oh isn’t that funny!” her face held a look of disgust, “Now that my husband is dying, now you have ethics? Now you have a conscience?” Buffy raised her chin in an effort to hide her pain, “Willow, I’m not asking. I’m telling. You do what you can to help,” she pointed a shaking finger at the closed door, “You tell me what he can’t,” her voice became barely a whisper, “I don’t want him to be alone.”
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OCTOBER 29, 2005-

“Are you sure?” Giles asked.

“Yes. You keep the Nibblet and Blue working on the ‘How and Why.’ I have a feeling that time is a critical factor here. And the Hellmouth is closer than Rome is. Wolfram and Hart has an office there too. Besides, this kind of information gathering requires a finesse that you just don’t have, Watcher.”
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“That’s right, Love. You and Joni have some girl time, and I’ll be back in a few days. Just in time to take our little girl home.”

Buffy looked up at him in confusion as she tried not to let her feelings affect the tiny baby she was holding in her arms, “But where are you going?” she asked, keeping her voice calm so as not to frighten Jonina.

“Angelus and I are going on a little trip…to the Hellmouth.”

Buffy’s eyes widened as realization hit. She shook her head, “You’re not,” she said as she unconsciously held her daughter closer to her, “Tell me you’re not. Please.”

He nodded, his eyes steeled with determination, “Afraid so, Pet.”

“You mean to tell me Angel just offered to go? Because you asked him to?”

“No. That’s not what I’m saying. He didn’t offer. And, I didn’t ask.”
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The nameless workers in the cubicles of the Cleveland, Ohio office of Wolfram and Hart tried to ignore the two men as they strode with purpose to the elevator, but it was difficult to do. Perhaps because the taller of the two men wore a shirt that was torn, exposing a tattoo of a ring of thorns. That, and he seemed to be being led bodily toward his destination by the smaller man.

Once inside the elevator and away from prying eyes, Spike hissed as he jerked Angel’s ear to his lips, “Come on, Angel, we’re off to see the wizard.”

Standing in the void of the White Room, Angel looked down in shame as the form of the Conduit came into view. Spike smirked watching Angel squirm. He had to admit, he was a bit flattered, “Well,” Spike said casually, “ ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall.’ I didn’t realize I was that short.”

The Conduit smirked and shrugged, “It’s all in the attitude,” blue eyes glinted at Angelus, “The user chooses the form I take. Feeling a little guilty, are we?”

Angel nodded wordlessly.

“What do you have to be feeling guilty for?” Spike asked, “Other than the obvious reasons, I mean?”

The White Room rang with a familiar laugh, “Oh, is that a loaded question,” the Conduit howled, “So many things,” the Conduit prowled closer to Angel, eyes burning with a cold fire, “Thousands of dimensions. How does it feel? All that carnage, and all to protect one child,” the Conduit’s eyes drifted in Spike’s direction, “by killing another.”

Spike’s eyes met his own spectral reflection and his throat felt ragged as he hissed, “What?!”

The Conduit looked nonplussed, “Oh, Angel, you didn’t tell him about your son?”

Angel said nothing as the Conduit continued, “Yes. Angel has a son. And, in order to protect him, and give him a ‘normal’ life, Angel decided that it was best to alter perception. The people who raised that child and helped to protect him don’t even remember him. The child was special. He had special abilities,” the Conduit crossed his arms, “He still does have those abilities. And they make him vulnerable to certain… opportunistic infections that might come along,” the Conduit looked menacingly between the two vampires, its eyes settling on Angel, “We gave you Wolfram and Hart. We gave you power and influence. All we asked in return is that you stop one child from being born. Now,” the head was shaking as if in pity, “so many will die. So many already have. I think now,” the form began to slowly back off and disappear into the ether, “I’ll let you two gentlemen,” it smirked as it slowly faded from sight, “work this out.”

Angel was forced to the floor with lightning speed. The room reverberated with an animal growl. Angel heard his bones crushing loudly under Spike’s fierce blows. First his nose, then his cheeks, then his jaw were snapped like twigs. The blows kept coming, and he welcomed them. His ribs, legs, kidneys and liver all were punished. He’d forgotten how swift justice could be.

Angel barely registered the torrent of anger that rushed by his ears. He couldn’t hear it all for the blood that was quickly pooling in, and spilling out, his ears, “You son of a bitch! Power and influence in exchange for my daughter?! It’s the details that matter, isn’t it? The devil is in the details. Oh, you sadistic son of a bitch!!”
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THE INTERREGNUM- HOME OFFICE

“Persephone,” Holland said casually, “we have a simple retrieval assignment for you.”

“Yes, Sir.”
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LOS ANGELES

Beating Angel to a pulp made Spike feel better, elated even. But the feeling quickly left when he saw the empty look in his wife’s eyes.

He knelt down beside her as she sat on the floor, in the middle of the empty nursery, “Love?” he ventured as the fear climbed up his limbs and into his throat, “What happened? What’s happened? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tried. Couldn’t find you,” her voice and face were flat, smothered by fear.

Spike’s thoughts were racing. The White Room, he thought, the one place that exists, yet does not. The one place he couldn’t be reached. He closed his eyes in dread and heart-clenching fear, “What happened? Where’s Joni?”

Spike watched tears slide down Buffy’s face as she stared at the bright paint on the wall, “Gone.”

The useless heart in his chest was squeezed with terror, “Dead?” he asked, fighting back the storm of grief that was going to drown them both.

Buffy shook her head, “No,” she whispered, “Someone took her.”
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As Angel nursed his wounds, he spat his venom at Holland, “I did what you wanted! I led him to the White Room so that you could snatch her away. Now leave me alone!”
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