Upstairs, Spirit Angel is telling Cordelia his reasons: even when everything looked bad – Doyle’s death, Jasmine, Fred – it was always worth it, because they were together. Things would always be okay in the end. Even when they all arrived in Hell, they all still thought there was a way out, even Charles. But I was wrong, he admits. Now that he knows his role in the apocalypse, now that he knows he’s going to be on the side of darkness, he knows there’s no point. If he dies now, they can’t use him. It’s the right thing to do. That’s one of the reasons he knows that she really is Cordelia Chase and not an illusion – that’s why she needs him to die and go with her – it will stop the Senior Partners’ plan, and good will prevail.

Unaware of the meeting on the spiritual plane, Gunn is starting to get angry: he orders his men out and Wesley, being non-corporeal, can do nothing as he levels the crossbow at Angel’s head. Wesley jumps in front hopelessly, but Gunn is stopped by Connor. Gwen failed. Connor retorts that Gwen is probably dead too. This rattles Gunn – she wasn’t supposed to die. The plan is changing. Why?

He doesn’t get a chance to think about it. Connor launches at his old friend. Gunn taunts him: it’s all anger with you, isn’t it, kid? All brawn… Connor slams him away – No, he proclaims. I’ve changed. I fell in love. I made friends. Gunn sneers. He didn’t take Connor’s feelings into consideration – hell, he’s not important. Who in Hell does he think he is anyway?

Connor ups his game. “I’m Angel’s son. I’m Gwen’s boyfriend.” Charles crashes through the window and falls all the way to the street below. “And I’m the guy who just did that.” Connor grins. He turns to Wesley, deadly serious. Get my father up, he demands – we don’t have much time. Wesley tells Connor that there’s no hope: Angel is dying and now that he’s seen the future he has nothing left to fight for. “Screw that,” Connor states. He crouches down so that his father can hear him. He tells him about a friend of his, a blonde woman he met. She told him that a friend told her that nothing matters in the end except what we do. He tells Angel that “it doesn’t matter who you were. Doesn’t matter what people think you’re going to be.”

Cordelia smiles at Connor and grins at Spirit Angel, who’s listening to his son, intently, perhaps properly, for the first time. “It’s not all building to something. So we should stop living like it is. All that counts is what you do now. So, if you die, I’m gonna keep fighting. But I’d really like to have my dad on my side.”

Spirit Angel turns to Cordy. He has to get up, doesn’t he? Cordelia laughs – already happening, because she’s fading already. She asks him: you said that everything was going to be okay. You always believed that. But you also said something else proved I was real. What was it? He smiles at her. He has always believed that when he needed his friends, death wouldn’t hold them back – they are always with him when he needs them the most. Cordy is thrilled that he’s more positive and fades away, telling him to behave himself.

Wesley insists that Angel can’t get up – he’s dying, but Connor, as stubborn as his dad, refuses to believe that. He needs to keep fighting. Suddenly, Spike walks into the room, flanked by a trio of heavily-armed Slayers. He says that somehow, coming back from the dead is slightly easier in Gunn’s Hell House.

On the streets below, Charles gets out of a garbage can that broke his fall. How did it come to this? The visions never told him that Connor would intervene. How do they expect him to win this when it’s all stacked against him? What is he missing? He turns and sees Illyria standing before him. She asks if they are supposed to fight. He doesn’t know, but he does tell her that he was broken before and he’s broken now.

He just needs it to stop. He thought he’d found a way to fix all of this, but it wasn’t to do with him, it was to do with Illyria. He understands now. He starts to cry, on his knees in the street. He messed up. As Illyria goes to comfort him, she transforms again into Fred. She puts her arms around him. “How can I help?” she offers sweetly.

Gunn tells her that seeing her face again is a good start. He gets up, swings around and proclaims that he was right after all: Illyria is the key – he just needed her vulnerable.

He fires his crossbow and it hits Fred square in the heart.

As blood starts to pour, Charles races to her side: “Thanks baby,” he says. “Thank you so much. Let’s get to work.”