Angel and Faith are surprised to find Willow Rosenberg at their front door in London, holding the shattered head of the Slayer Scythe. “Andrew said you wanted to talk. Don’t tell me he confused his fanfiction with reality again,” Willow says, breaking the extremely awkward silence: after all, he did threaten to snap her neck seconds before he knew it was her. Angel says that yes he wanted to talk, he just figured she’d, you know, just pick up the phone and call.

Willow walks into the apartment. She’s clearly been there before. She tells Angel that it sounded like more of an ‘in-person’ thing and she was in the neighbourhood besides. “Ye olde quest to restore magic took me to Stonehenge,” she says. “Which is now just kind of a boring pile of rocks, by the way,” she concludes. With some hesitation, Willow and Faith greet each other.

“Faith.”

“Wil. Everybody good?”

“Still alive, still wacky. You?”

“You know. Brooding. Bad decisions. Violence. Rinse and repeat.”

Angel is already bored with small talk. Never been a fan. He’s interrupted by Lavinia, coming out of a closed room. “Excuse me,” she drawls sarcastically, wearing what appears to be a face mask made with some sort of anti-aging cream. “I think there’s a door somewhere in this house you haven’t slammed!” Angel rubs his head. Sophie sticks her head out of the other room on the opposite side of the living quarters. “Oh, look Vin, it’s that lesbian witch from America. Sunflower?”

“Willow.” Willow corrects her, addressing both aunts by name. She’s met them before when training with Giles in Bath years ago. She’s surprised they’re there though.

Lavinia tells her to cheer up: after all, Angel’s going to bring Rupert back from the dead! As Angel nervously turns to Willow, he promises he can explain, but she stops him. She’s already figured it out: since he can’t use magic to collect Giles soul, Angel is using magical items linked to key moments in Giles’ life and will use it to assemble the pieces one-by-one. Willow knows Giles was holding the Scythe when he died, so knows why Angel has called. “I’m not stupid, Angel,” she says before turning to him sternly.

“You are. And selfish. And reckless. And delusional, if you think this’ll end in anything but disaster.” Angel asks if she’s mentioned his plan to Buffy, but Willow is stunned at the suggestion! “Buffy? No. She’s got enough on her plate. Which is none of your business. The last thing she needs is you bringing back bad memories. She went through Hell after she was resurrected.”

“When you resurrected her,” Angel reminds her. “From a magical death. When magic existed. And I had no idea how much pain it would bring all of us, especially her,” Willow tells him, truthfully. He looks at the witch straight in the eye and asks: does she regret it?

Willow sighs. “Not for a second. But I’m not sure she’d say the same.” Angel looks confused. Did Willow come all the way here just to tell him to go to Hell? Willow turns to him and tells him that she has an idea. “As horrible an idea as I think this is, I’m going to help you, because I need you to help me,” she reasons. “To bring magic back to Earth,” she hesitates, “I need Connor.”

Faith is the first to break this second awkward silence. “His son, Connor?” Willow nods. She needs to leave this dimension to bring magic back. That means going to a dimension that still has magic. “But all the portals are closed. Connor grew up in Quor’toth. The one Hell dimension you don’t reach through portals. You only get there by tearing a hole in reality.”

Willow explains further that creating a tear in reality is doable, but it takes centuries of accumulated dark magic. She shows Angel a piece of paper from her bag. “I found a ritual, a shortcut. Magic items are like batteries – most still have residual energies left in them. The Scythe is one of the most powerful. I think I can use it to open the rift… if I have something ‘steeped’ in the essence of Quor’toth to serve as a compass.”

Angel looks at her. “Like a boy who spent the first seventeen years of his life there.”

Willow nods slightly. But she barely knows Connor and needs Angel’s help to convince him. Faith interrupts the pair. “Listen, Angel and Connor aren’t exactly on ‘take you son to work’ terms. Angel’s been ducking his calls like he’s a drunk hook-up. Which I told him is being a tool, but he won’t listen and Connor finally stopped calling. We don’t even know where he is.”

Angel explains that he’s in school, he has a girlfriend and he’s happy. He has someone keeping an eye on his son. Faith is stunned – “So you’ve decided not to tell me anything now?” Angel shakes his head. “It’s a family matter, Faith. The point is, like I’ve been saying, he’s better off without me. But you want me to find the son I’ve never been there for and ruin the life he’s built. Ask him to go back to the Hell he grew up in because of me. For some wild-goose chase. Something that’s not even possible.” He looks at Willow. “And here I was ashamed to see you.”

Willow suddenly snaps, slapping Angel straight across his face in anger. “Don’t you dare,” she warns him. “Don’t you dare try to say I’m like you. This is all your fault! Thinking you can fix things! Running blindly down any road that might lead to redemption! And you’re doing it again! Never worrying about the consequences until it’s too late!” She’s shouting at him now, yelling in rage. “You ruined everything Angel!”

She grabs the vampire by his collar and takes both Angel and Faith completely by surprise by the intensity of her anger. “Can’t you see what we’re missing? How empty the world is? There hasn’t been a decent new song, movie or book since we lost the Seed! Suicide rates are spiking! All over the world people are losing hope! And it’s just starting! It only gets worse from here! The world is dying and nobody will admit it!”

She lets go of Angel’s shirt and looks down at the Scythe in her hand. “I need to save it. There’s nothing more important.” Her voice lowers to an almost inaudible whisper. “Why doesn’t anyone understand?” Tears are flowing from her face, grief and rage months in hiding, finally laid bare in front of them. Angel gently places his hand on her shoulder as she wipes her tears away.

“Willow. We’ll go and see Connor. You can talk to him, but it’s his choice. Okay?”

Willow nods, “Okay. Yes. That’s all I ask.”

Angel looks at her wearily: he’s not finished. “Quor’toth is a place even demons are terrified of. You get there, you’re fighting for your life every second.”

Willow tells him that she has no intention of staying in Quor’toth for very long. “From there, I can go anywhere I want.” But, she adds, she was hoping Angel would come with her, as backup to keep her alive until the ‘magic meter’ is full, so to speak. If he can do that, the part of Giles’ soul that she knows is inside the Scythe? She’ll gladly pass it along.

“Angel,” she says, not angry now. “We both need help. We’re both chasing something the other thinks is crazy and neither one of us can get there alone. Resent me all you want and I’ll keep resenting you. Later.”

Angel smiles at her. He has to make arrangements and they can be ready to leave by the morning. Faith turns to Willow as Angel walks out the front door and into the night. “We’ve got time. You mind? There’s someone I’d like you to see.”

In Hackney, the other side of London, Nadira is running a solo operation. Unwisely she’s targeted a vampire biker gang, but she’s outnumbered five to one. She yells at them in defiance as she rains blows on them, begging the demons to come and get her! Unfortunately, these zompires are not very talkative, as Faith reminds her as she enters the fray.

She explains to Nadira what they are: mindless and feral vampires, that are really strong. Nadira must have missed the memo. As they take the vampires out, Nadira asks Faith if she honestly expects her to thank her after their last fight. Faith looks at her. “No. You were right. What I asked you to do was stupid and wrong, but I’m not here to talk about that. I brought someone I thought you might like to see.”

Nadira is not impressed. “There isn’t anyone in the entire bloody world I want to…”

She surprised into silence when Willow approaches and says hello. Nadira turns around in shock and explains to Willow who she is and the massacre at the Azores. Willow clicks who she is straight away and pulls an emotional Nadira into her arms. “Oh, you poor thing, come here.” As Nadira finally releases some of her emotional baggage and starts crying, Willow wraps her other arm around her, holding her even tighter. “I know. I know. It’s going to get better. I promise,” the witch tells her soothingly. Faith looks on, a look of relief and pride on her face.

After giving the two some space to talk, Faith tells Nadira that she has to go away for a bit, but that doesn’t mean she’s given up on locating Pearl and Nash. Nadira nods: Willow has explained her mission and that’s enough for Nadira. “But there’s something you should know,” she says before Faith leaves. “I’ve been poking around. Rumour is they’re planning something. No one seems to know quite what, but it’s big. Don’t expect me to stop searching while you’re away.” Faith wouldn’t dream of it, but does remind her that she has a team and she’s not on her own. She would like to be kept in the loop.

As Nadira leaves, Willow waves goodbye and Faith pulls her close. “Thanks. Think you can talk her out of killing Angel too?” Willow chuckles. “Let’s stick with easier stuff. Like resurrections and restoring magic.” Faith sighs. Nadira is a good kid, but she comes with issues. Willow laughs slightly. “Did Giles ever say to you. ‘I hope when you grow up you have a Slayer who acts just like you’?”

Faith turns to look at Willow. “No. But he told me you can’t bring someone back from a natural death. You’re the expert on the crap that Angel’s doing. Is there a chance in Hell it could actually work?”

As they continue their journey on the tube, Willow tells her that if magic still existed then, maybe, on paper, what Angel is doing makes sense. And only for someone who is immersed in magic as Giles was. “But it’s be a lot more likely to end in disaster. Magic always has a price. The bigger the rules you’re trying to break, the more it costs. Without magic, he’ll probably just fail. But if things do start to look like they’re going to go bad, I trust you to stop him. That’s why I went along with this.”

Faith wonders when this became her job, but Willow asks her to name anyone else who could do it. She hasn’t heard Faith’s opinion yet, she adds: does she think Angel can resurrect Giles?

Faith admits that she has gone back and forth. It doesn’t help that Angel is hiding things from her and not answering many of her questions: what if it does go wrong? What if we get a zombie Giles, or worse? What if the soul gets stuck in a rotting corpse? Since Angel hasn’t thought that far, Faith believes he’s not doing this for Giles: he’s doing it for himself.

“I know I’m not the poster child for using magic responsibly, but the situations are totally different,” Willow answers. “Earth’s lost something essential because of what Buffy and Angel did. I’m trying to fix it. No matter what comes of that, doing nothing is worse. We can’t wait until things get really bad because then it’ll be too late.” She looks at her reflection in the window. “This is to help the world, not me. They’re not the same thing at all.”

Later that evening, Angel is double checking they’ve packed everything. Faith asks about weapons. Willow has checked the Scythe in as an antique and everything else will be in Los Angeles, Angel tells her. He looks down at Sophie, who sitting with her feet up, tablet in her hand. He asks the Fairweather sisters if they wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on things in London while they’re gone? Sophie reminds him that they’re over a century old – they can handle it. He tells them that he can always call Alasdair to do it, but Lavinia tells him to get along and go.

Angel, Faith and Willow take their leave with a brief goodbye. As soon as the door closes, a look is shared between the two sisters. They remove their robes, revealing hip evening wear. “Morrissey’s playing Prague tonight,” Lavinia squeals with excitement. “Sod housesitting,” Sophie declares, putting the tablet down. “I’ll go pack.”

At Los Angeles International airport, Angel, hooded and zipped up to prevent too much sunny exposure, is taking the brunt of Willow’s complaints about Twilight. He insists that they were never going to abandon everyone to their fate, but Willow says that Buffy didn’t say anything about that part. Angel asks if she’s ever tried to finish a sentence when Buffy is worked up, to which she replies that his statement is very true. “Sexist and funny and very, very true.” As if embarrassed by their agreeing, the two separate, suddenly back to awkward silence. Faith is ahead of them, smiling, approaching the terminal exit. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she says.

In front of her is Charles Gunn, former member of Angel Investigations. “Ladies, you look as lovely as ever. Angel, you look like Ed Hardy exploded on you.” Angel and Gunn shake hands and hug. “I wanted a trench coat and a fedora, but Faith said I looked like a flasher.” “From the fifties,” Faith adds quickly. Gunn tells him that his car has tinted windows. He asks if they have luggage, and Willow tells him it’s just the Scythe they need.

As they drive through the city of Los Angeles, sun beaming in the sky. Angel asks how everybody is. Charles goes through the list: he hasn’t seen Illyria for some time and hasn’t been able to track her down. The LAPD now have a supernatural crimes unit, run by Kate Lockley. Angel already knows about Lorne. Nina has recently married… “As for the man of the hour,” Gunn smiles, “His psych class ended one minute ago, which should put him right about… there.”

He nods to just in front of the car. Connor is waving a girl goodbye. Gunn tells Angel that her name is Natalie and they’ve been together three months. Angel is surprised by how settled and normal Connor seems. He turns to Willow, the look on his face questioning their plan. “No. You are not backing out on me now,” Willow says, pointing at him. “He’s got his life together,” Angel starts, but Willow gets louder: “We flew across an ocean!” At that moment, Faith has lost sight of Connor. He lands with a thud on the bonnet of the car and peers at Angel inside. “Are you wearing a hoodie?” he grins. Angel can’t help but smile back at his son.

Alone, Connor explains that he called Angel for months, but finally figured that he had his own stuff to deal with and that he needed space. Now, he’s turned up here out of the blue? “I wish you’d make up your damn mind,” he tells Angel, only half joking.

Angel apologises. “You know it’s not that I don’t want to see you, right? I just… let’s face it, the best thing I can do for you is stay out of your life. I mean, look at you. Doing great in school. No demons, or black magic, or elder gods. Just learning how to help people. You’re turning into an amazing man and I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

Connor smiles. He’s never said that before. He pulls Angel into a massive hug. Faith, Gunn and Willow look on, smiling and pleased for them.

Later in a restaurant, Faith asks if any of them had normal parents. At another table, Connor and Angel are catching up. “I figured you were on a guilt trip. I mean, when are you not, right? But still, when your father won’t take your calls, it’s hard not to feel rejected.” Angel apologises and admits that he was putting it off, but Connor isn’t finished.

He tells Angel that he’s right. He is doing well here. His girlfriend is something special. If he can find the right place for himself, then Angel should too – he should have what’s best for him too, undead or not. “But you do not have to hide from me,” Connor tells him “Not now, not ever.” Angel smiles and offers to get another round at the bar.

Faith approaches him. “All grown up, huh?” Angel nods. “Probably more than me. All this time I’ve spent trying to find redemption saving the world, when maybe I should’ve just been trying to be a better man.” Faith smiles. “I know a place you can start. Don’t try to make up for killing Giles by maybe killing Connor.”

Angel looks at her in shock. “Don’t look at me like that,” Faith tells him. “You told me to watch you, let you know if you crossed a line. If you’re going to risk a son who’s alive for a guy who is dead…” Angel stops her. “Of course not,” he tells her. “I’d already decided. We’re not doing this.” He picks up the drinks he’s ordered. “But do me a favour,” he asks her as he turns to her. “It wasn’t that long ago that I had to pull you off your father before you choked him to death. So keep your parenting advice to yourself.” He walks away, leaving Faith stunned by how cruel he was. She watches as Angel returns to the table, asking to talk to Willow. Connor stops him. He already knows about Quor’toth and he’s in.

Angel is surprised by how quickly Willow has told him, but she insists that it’s Connor’s decision and he has made his choice. Angel tells Connor he’s not in, but Connor starts an argument. “She says she can restore magic. The world needs it. I’ve seen what’s out there, on the streets, in the psych ward, and it’s getting worse.”

People out there are losing hope, losing something crucial, he tells his father. Angel is still not willing for him to go, but Connor tells his father that he is not asking his permission. Angel turns to Gunn for help, but Charles raises both his hands in surrender: “I don’t mess with family disputes man.” Faith looks at Angel sarcastically. “I think that’d fall under the category of parenting advice,” she says, not taking her eyes of Angel.

Angel doesn’t want Connor throwing everything he has now away, but Connor says that he can’t stop him. Or he could try, but he’d fail. Connor reminds Angel that he survived Quor’toth as a little kid. Angel tells him that he had Holtz with him. Connor puts his hand on Angel’s shoulder. “And this time, I’ll have my father.”

“You’ll see, Connor concludes, “Everything’s going to be fine.” Faith, still angry, has her back to the others. She’s not so sure.

The Hyperion Hotel, some time later. Angel is being held back by Gunn and Faith and screaming Connor’s name. In the centre of a mystical symbol created on the floor, encircled by lit candles, Willow is slicing Connor’s chest with the Scythe, drawing blood, causing Connor to cry out in pain.

Gunn holds onto him as Angel becomes calmer. “Break the circle now, and who knows what happens.” Angel yells. “She’s killing him!”

Willow stops and looks down at Connor. She apologises. She didn’t know the ritual would be like this. Connor tells her he’s fine. The cuts hurt, but they’re not deep and they’re almost done, right? Willow tells him she just has the final incantation.

Connor smiles. “Let’s hear it then, cause the only way I might die today is of suspense.” Willow smiles. “Your father is right, you’re a pretty amazing guy.” Willow turns to the others. “Cross your fingers. That’s not a magic thing, but it can’t hurt. Here goes…”

She extends her arms as far as she can., Scythe aimed outward. “N’Yar Vresh Quor’toth!” Willow finishes the chant and Gunn looks on as a bright blue light appears before them, almost blinding them. “Son of a…” Gunn starts, but he’s at a loss for more words. Willow is also just as stunned, but relieved. “It actually worked,” she whispers to herself.

She informs them that they have thirty hours until the tear closes. Charles is standing guard in the Hyperion. He tells them that they may all have superpowers, but they’ll also need what he’s brought. A large bag of weapons, all sharp and pointy, is on the chair in front of them. Connor reminds them that tech won’t work in Quor’toth. Angel gathers them around him.

“Okay, here’s how it’s going to be.” He draws a sword from the bag. “We go through, we stand right next to the tear until Willow gets her power back. Things go bad, even a little, and we come back through and close it. Anyone has to stay behind to cover the retreat, it’s me. Those are my terms and they’re non-negotiable.”

Connor nods. “I can live with that.” Angel smiles. “Then come on, son,” he says as he, Willow and Faith head for the tear in reality. Gunn watches as they pass the threshold. “Time I saw where you grew up,” Angel tells Connor.

And then Charles Gunn is left alone. The others are gone.