After the Fall: Chapter XVI

Issue 16
Story by Joss Whedon
Written by Brian Lynch
Pencilled by Franco Urru
Coloured by Fabio Mantovani with 2B Studio

“I love my friends and I love this city. I’d die a thousand deaths to save any of them.”
Angel

Angel remembers the moment Darla died, leaving baby Connor behind in her ashes. That was the day he knew true love for the first time. But it’s gone now: his son is dead, nestled once again in his arms. Angel is numb.

People start to ask him what to do. Gunn shuts them up – “Give him room to breathe, the man is mourning” – but even Wesley knows they have no time for grief. Spike growls at the Watcher – “Let them be.”

The Senior Partners, speaking through their conduit, approach Angel. They ask if their point has been made. Angel knows they’ve won. There’s nothing left to do – he could find them, kill every single one of them, but what would that change? They continue to taunt him: you can keep the hotel. We’ll have the offspring carcass cleaned up and delivered. Angel knows that his next move won’t save Los Angeles. But he doesn’t care anymore.

He’s going to kill the bastards anyway.

They’re all going to suffer now.

As he works out his aggression, Wesley urges him to stop, but Spike dismisses him. The Senior Partners need Angel alive. They cannot kill him. Let him go crazy. Wesley realises that he’s right – and therein lies their answer.

He confronts the conduits: “You won’t let him go. He dies, this is all for nothing. You can kill everyone important to him, you can slaughter every living being in the city, but Angel has to stick around.”

The Senior Partners confirm his statement is true: “Angel won’t die. The minute he has so much as the sniffles, we’ll simply pull a better him out of the timeline.” They address Angel: kill us if you wish. We’ll always create more minions.

Wesley turns to Angel with a glint in his eye. Did you hear that? They’ll reach into his timeline! Angel gets what he’s hinting at. Spike, clueless, misses the beat. Wesley weighs up the options: Slayers or Gunn? Angel reckons Gunn. Wes looks at his friend, sincerity in his ghostly eyes: “It really has been an honour,” he states. Angel looks after him as he walks away. “Thank you,” he sadly whispers, “Rogue Demon Hunter.”

As Angel starts parting through the demon crowd, he asks Spike to have his back. Spike takes the order, even though he has no clue what’s going on. He asks Betta George for help.

As people watch, Angel goes to where Charles Gunn is still on the ground. He picks him up by his hoodie – get up, he demands. He tells Gunn that his son is dead because of him, but he’s about to make it right. He attacks Gunn with a ferocity that takes all involved by surprise. The look of shock on Gunn’s face is palpable – Angel is trying to kill him. The Senior Partners and Spike both look up. The Partners demand that Angel stop what he is doing.

They start throwing everything they have at Angel and Gunn. Lava starts to fill the streets. The fireballs start raining down. The sky is falling. And yet, Angel continues battling Gunn, although by now, Gunn is taking a beating – he’s not fighting back.

Angel tells him what he’s learnt here: Okay, so you were lied to, Charles. Your future seems hopeless. You know better than that. That’s when we stand up and fight back. He stabs him with his own enchanted blade. Angel pulls Gunn closer to him, the blade through his chest. “Rise up, Charles.”

Gunn yells at him: “Two seconds after Angel figures it out, Angel dies.” Pulling the blade out of his chest, Gunn swings the blade and Angel, taken completely by surprise it seems, is beheaded.

The Senior Partners scream. It’s all been ruined. Spike races for what’s left of Angel, confused. Wesley tells him that the Hell they’re in is a pocket dimension, trapped between moments of time, all as part of a plan of turn Angel to their side. They need him alive for that. Spike smiles. But if they need him alive then…

Wesley smiles at him. Yes. “They need to return to the very last moment before all this started. Exactly how it was. Exactly as we were.” Spike realises that that means Wesley will already be dead. He starts to fade away. “Yes,” he replies. “But so was she.” With that, he vanishes for the final time, telling Spike to take care of Illyria. Spike asks where the Hell he’s going and raises his arm to stop Wes.

He finds a blade sticking out of the side of his wrist. Huh? He looks around at the mayhem around him. We were there for months, I remember it. But… Illyria comes out of nowhere, back in the familiar form of Fred’s shell, blue tinted hair flowing, strength restored.

They’re back in the alley way. Before the Fall. The night it all went wrong. He looks after Angel and spots him: he’s revelling in the chaos, fangs bared, and ripping demons apart. The prophecy fulfilled. Spike asks if he’s okay. Angel says that he’ll live.

Angel continues to fight. The Senior Partners need him alive. So they went back to before they made him human, to try again. But he remembers it – every moment of Hell. They all do. Everyone. Illyria is enraged at the events they have experienced. She also feels guilt for Fred’s death. Both Angel and Spike point out that, suddenly, she’s showing more emotion. Spike is concerned, but Angel feels sorry for the bad guys – and besides, she won’t be alone.

With those words, Cordelia the dragon, still with the memories of Angel from Hell, switches sides, taking out a cadre of demons as Angel focusses – forget the fight. Find what I need.

There. The only human in the alley. Spike tells him to run. Angel runs through flames, and finds Gunn dying – the vampires about to take him with them… They’ll get it right this time, now that they know where they went wrong. Angel dusts them. Gunn remembers it all too and tells Angel to leave him there – he deserves it.

Angel ignores him, picks him up and tells the others that Gunn needs help or he’s going to die. Illyria declares that they can stop the rest. Angel suggests the Wolfram & Hart offices should still have the healing artefacts there, now that time has been changed back.

When they arrive, they find no offices. No sign that they’ve ever been there. There’s a Doublemeat Palace in development there. Wolfram & Hart’s presence on Earth, at least as far as Los Angeles is concerned, is gone.

Angel boards Cordelia and the dragon flies him to Cedar Sinai Hospital. He misses his heartbeat. He walks in, asking for help from the nurses, but they know who he is. They recognise him from his defence of them from the Lords in Hell. The people remember it as well. Angel gives Charles to them and they make a start on working on their patient.

Angel steps outside and places his head in his hands for a moment, overwhelmed. He senses someone next to him: it’s Connor, alive and well, albeit with some rather horrific memories. Angel has no words. He pulls his son close into a hug. Connor asks him, as tears stream down Angel’s face, what it’s like to have a happy ending?

Angel tells him that he doesn’t know. He hasn’t had one before. A civilian interrupts the tender moment. He wants to thank Angel for saving his life in Hell. Angel hasn’t a clue who the guy is. There’s going to be a lot more of this, he thinks, as more and more people start to recognise him.

As people desperately try to get to him, to take selfies with a Champion, Angel sighs. When he thought Los Angeles was back to normal, he was very, very wrong.

As the crowds gather, he realises that his new-found fame may take some getting used to…

CONTINUITY

Darla dusted herself, and left Connor behind, in Loyalty.

Angel refers to Wesley as a ‘rogue demon hunter’ – a title Wesley used in Parting Gifts.

Wesley and Spike both refer to Wes’ death at the hands of Vail in Not Fade Away.

Filled with emotion, Illyria, for the first time, actively feels guilt for Fred’s death in A Hole in the World and her occupying her body since Shells.

Buffy previously worked in a Doublemeat Palace in season six, first seen in the episode of the same name.

COVER GALLERY