As the citizens of Hackney, London continue to change, Angel is still battling Whistler, struggling to keep a hold of the demon and stop him from hurling the glowing orb into the night sky.

“I’m done arguing, Angel. Earth needs magic. This baby going nuclear is the only way. Yeah, a lotta people are gonna die. No getting around that. All you did here…” He pivots around, his hand now regrown on his stump, and once again grabs hold of Angel by his throat. “…Is make sure you’re gonna be one of them.”

He raises Angel up, above his head and throws him, hard, into an abandoned car. “It’s all about balance.” He looks down at Angel, still explaining, and doesn’t notice Faith leap behind him.

“Balance this.” Unfortunately for Faith, her voice alerts Whistler and he backhands her away, barely acknowledging the Slayer’s presence. Angel, face dripping with his own blood, grunts and picks himself out of the mangled metal that was the vehicle. “You’re wrong, Whistler.” As he gets up, he picks up the mace. He’s exhausted, but still doesn’t stop.

“It’s all about you.”

Angel slams the mace straight into the back of Whistler’s head and he reacts in shock, fumbling forward, but still holding the orb. As Whistler turns, Angel strikes again, swinging, this time Whistler avoiding the weapon. “Losing magic threw off your balance.” The orb falls from the demon’s hands, finally, and it rolls around the floor, clattering loudly. Angel drops the mace and propels himself over his enemy.

He wraps his hand around the glowing ball.

Whistler, this time, sounds worried, yelling at Angel. “Give it back!”

“That’s the idea.” Angel grabs Whistler’s horns with his left hand and raises his hand up.

“How do you stop an explosion? Release the pressure.”

He cracks the orb on the point of Whistler’s horn and, at first, nothing seems to happen. But then a small crack appears and light immediately streaks from the small object, blinding everyone in view of it.

Whistler raises his arms, pulls the orb from his horns and shrinks back down to his human appearance. As the orb settles in his hands, the light scales back slightly, Whistler regaining control. “Schmuck. I created this energy field. You think I can’t plug a hole in it?”

Angel smiles however, and points at his former mentor’s human form. “I think you just got a dose of concentrated magic. I think you’ve stopped twitching. I think you finally look like the Whistler I used to know.”

Angel wastes no time. He grabs Whistler by his jacket lapel and drags him forward towards the people. Some are on the ground unconscious, others are reeling with strange magical properties springing to life from their torsos. “Look around. Now that the hunger for magic isn’t eating at you. It bothered you before, but your own need was stronger. Now that you got a fix, now that your balance is restored, ask yourself: is this the world you want to create?”

“These are people. Real people you hurt. Is any balance worth this?” As Faith watches Angel talk to Whistler, she hears something from behind her, a voice, weak and fading. She hears her name and she turns. Nadira?

Faith races to the Slayer’s side, cradling her in her arms and helping her sit up. “Stay with me. Hey, you did it girl. You avenged your sisters.”

“I did?” Nadira’s face is too badly scarred now to see a smile. “All that hate and pain for this.” She looks at her mentor, tears rolling. “You were right, Faith… It wasn’t worth it…” With that Nadira slips into unconsciousness.

Whistler is shaking in horror, his every step a stumble, his every word quivering. “Angel, what did I do?”

“You made the orb. You can dissolve it. Let the energy disperse.”

“It’s at critical mass. It’ll blow no matter what.” At that moment, Giles approaches them, confidence in his steps and his face.

“Can you make your mystic shell thicker? Or perhaps a larger one, something to contain the explosion?” he asks Whistler. The demon puts his hands to his head and shakes it.

“That’d take all the magic I got in me. I’d be sucked dry again, jonesing. Right back where we started.”

Angel reaches for his mentor’s arm, to support him. “There’s no other option!”

“Except one.”

Whistler concentrates for a moment and then, without warning, shatters the orb with his bare hands. Angel screams in protest as Whistler brushes both him and Giles away with the stray energies cascading into him from the orb.

“I always said it’s what you do in the big moments that shows who you are. So far, I’m a selfish bastard. But you know me.” The light, now centred on Whistler’s chest, glows brighter and brighter. He looks at Angel, who can see Whistler now, his human form vanishing into the light. Whistler looks him straight in the eye and smiles. He whispers at Angel.

“I gotta have balance…”

“No!”

Angel, still on the floor, reaches out to his mentor in desperation, but it’s too late. An almighty burst of light bursts from Whistler’s form, blinding everybody and showering them in blue cascading energy. It blows out from the demon, like a shockwave.

As the light begins to fade, Giles and Angel stand in the wreckage, the ground charred and smoking. Angel looks for his mentor, and sees him, covered in ash, smoking, lying lifeless on the ground.

He is at his side in less than a second.

“Whistler? What can I do?”

“You already done it kid. Saved me from myself. And those two billion people. That was nice too.” He coughs, his lungs struggling to provide him with the air he needs. His face is unrecognisable and his eyes are swollen shut. His hair is gone.

Angel looks down at his old friend, his blood looking like war paint on one side of his face as the tears form behind his eyes. “I’m sorry. After all you did for me.”

Whistler tries to chuckle, but Angel thinks he’s imagining it. “Yeah. Helped you be more than the rule book said you could. That’s what you just did for me. Helped me stop serving the balance and just do what’s right.”

He takes Angel’s hand in his. Presses them tight. He whispers at him, as loud as he can. “Listen, all the destiny stuff. It ain’t just crap. Well, some of it is, but some of it matters…”

“But if you stare too hard at the brass ring, you forget the whole point is the ride and who’s on it with you. It don’t matter that you get what you were after if you wreck everything that gives it meaning.”

“The planet needs balance. But you figured out something I never did. You gotta find the balance in yourself before you can balance the world. You figured it out for me. Now comes the hard part. Now you gotta live with it.”

“I know you can do it kid. I always knew…”

Then Whistler, the demon destined to keep the balance between the natures of good and evil, to create some sort of order from the chaos, slips away.

Angel looks sad for a moment, but restrains himself. He gets up from Whistler’s side and turns to Giles, Alasdair and Faith, who’s now holding Nadira in her arms.

“Okay. People need help. Let’s do what we can.”

With a steely gaze, and joined by the others as they turn to walk the streets, Angel and his team start to pick up the people, clear the debris and help who they can.

In a hastily set up triage tent, set up in the nearest open space in Hackney, Angel is visiting cubicles as are Giles and Alasdair. The doctors and medical staff are overwhelmed, having never experienced anything like this before. Having knowledge on such matters allows the former Watcher and his friends to advise on some of the new magical issues.

Angel tells one nurse about her current patient: a human who’s hair has transmuted into snakes, transforming the youngster into a Gorgon. “The magic that turns people to stone is in the snakes. You can surgically remove them, but you have to sedate each one or they’ll bite the crap out of you.”

As the nurse looks on, still horrified, Alasdair approaches Angel, looking concerned. “Angel? I’ve spoken to the soldiers. They’ve found no sign of Pearl. When Nash died, it appeared to me she suffered some sort of disruption to the energy they shared. She could be dead, or weakened.”

“Maybe, but in my experience, it’s never that easy.”

Elsewhere, a hand emerges from some water and hooks into rock, pulling itself up to safety…

Alasdair, however, has some good news. “On a happier note, things have calmed down considerably. I can take over here, if you’d like.” Angel smiles, and places his hand on Alasdair’s shoulder. He thanks him, tells him he would like to look in on the others. Alasdair points him in their direction, but, holding Whistler’s hat in his hands, he has one further question.

“One last thing, if I may? You knew Whistler better than any of us. For millennia, he served a crucial function. Maintained the universal balance. With his passing, I can’t help but wonder: who will do that now?”

Angel takes the hat from him and smiles. “No one.”

He hands the hat to Alasdair as he leaves to find the others. “We’re going to have to do it for ourselves.”

Outside, as more people are moved to make-shift facilities, Angel covers his head with a coat and rushes out into the morning sun. As he rushes past, a BBC news crew are reporting on the incident with interest, camera’s flashing and recording everywhere. “Authorities confirm the outbreak was magical in nature. While many victims are being treated onsite as a precaution, they stress that there are no signs of contagion. Being hailed by survivors as true heroes of those first terrifying hours are my guests now…”

The camera man turns his camera from his host and points it at a beaming pair of sisters. “Lavinia and Sophronia Fairweather, You’ve been credited with saving countless lives. How did you manage it? Didn’t you fear for your own safety?”

“Oh, that simply didn’t occur to us. Ask anyone who knows us… We never think about ourselves at all!” Lavinia smiles. Sophie practically curtsies to the cameras.

“People needed help, so we gave it.”

“It’s what we do. It’s who we are.”

Angel, hearing them as he reaches the next tent, looks back and grins with a chuckle.

Inside his destination, Giles is examining Nadira. “The doctor says she should be dead, given the severity of her burns. But her vital signs are stable and growing stronger. Clearly she was affected by the magic plague. She’s changing.”

She’s lying in the bed, hooked up to monitors and bandaged. The burned side of her face is now completely black, with magic green symbols appearing on the now smooth flesh. “Into what, only time will tell.”

Angel approaches them, raising his hands in apology. “Did I interrupt something?”

Faith, her arms folded, looks at him, but doesn’t smile. She’s been bickering with Giles for nearly an hour now. “Nah. Just me trying to give G his house and money back and him being a stubborn son of a…”

Giles, youthful voice sounding higher than it should be, looks at the Slayer in annoyance and sighs. “Faith, while I appreciate not being cast into the street, there is no need for…”

“G. It’s your stuff. You left it to me when you died. You’re not dead anymore.”

“I insist on setting up a bank account for you, at the very least. Or, or, or I shall hold my breath until I turn blue.”

“Fine. Whatever. But I can take care of myself. Always have. Always will.” She sighs, and then folds her arms again.

Angel, seeking to diffuse the bickering, gives them his view. “Hey, we don’t have to figure this out right now. Everyone’s tired. We’ve been in combat mode pretty much from the second Giles was resurrected. Let’s get some rest and then Faith and I can think about where we’re going to… what?”

Giles and Faith look at each other. Both of them have guilty looks on their faces. “What are you looking at?”

Giles takes his cue and moves towards the exit, addressing them both as he walks. “I’ll let the two of you talk.”

Once Giles is gone, Angel looks at Faith questioningly. He already knows the answer before he asks. “Faith?”

The Slayer looks at the ground and exhales. Then, finally, she looks up at her friend. “Angel. I’m leaving.”

“Leaving London? The house?” Noticing her look, he stops. Quietly, he realises. “Me.”

Faith is quick to jump in. “I ain’t mad at you, okay? I owe you big. You pulled me out of the gutter when everyone else wrote me off. No one’s gone to the mat for me like you, ever. I helped you because I wanted to. Every step of the way, with open eyes.”

She looks over now though, with sadness and regret in her posture and voice, straight at Nadira, unmoving in the bed. “But it cost too much. The girls. The Slayers. Things I felt good about. Things that were mine.”

She looks back at Angel, brushing her hair back with her hand. “I don’t let people in easy, but when I do, I let them in all the way. Do what they do. Want what they want. No matter what it does to me.”

She sits down on the bed, holds Nadira’s hand for a moment. “That’s my problem. I gotta learn how to deal with it. Figure out what I want and how to get it. Or I’m gonna end up like Nadira, like I used to be. Empty. Except for hate.”

Angel sits next to her, puts his hand on her shoulder. He smiles. “I get it. And for what it’s worth, I think you’re right. I just want to make sure you’ll be okay. Have you got somewhere to go, or…”

“I got a call a while back, from that chick Kennedy. Willow’s ex? She’s got some kinda Blackwater on Estrogen thing going on. Slayers for hire. She needs a trainer. Drill instructor Type A gig. Pay’s good. Lots of travel, plenty of ass kicking. I might look into it.”

Angel nods at her. “She’d be lucky to have you. Anyone would.”

Faith grins back, playfully digs him in his arm. “This ain’t a bad thing. We save the world. We saved G. We’re still friends, okay? And once I figure things out, maybe…”

He stops her with a look and a soothing tone. “I’ll be here. Always.”

Angel pulls her towards him and she doesn’t try to escape. She lets him pull her into the hug and closes her eyes, allowing the emotion of the moment, as well as the meaning behind it, wash over her in a warm glow.

The glow vanishes as Giles’ young voice echoes back through the tent. “You do realise that no matter where you go, what you do, there is something you will always have: people who care for you.”

“I know. And that means a lot. Just gotta get to a place where that makes me stronger instead of weaker.”

Giles approaches a chair and turns it round, sitting on it the opposite way without realising. Faith smiles. Such a teenager now. Giles looks up at her though with those same eyes that she always knew. Adult and commanding. “Faith, when you go, is there any chance I could come with you?”

“Seriously?”

The former Watcher gets up from his seat and gestures to his side. “Being here, all it does is remind me of my old life. A life I cannot have back in my present state. And while I love my great-aunts – and you’re never to repeat that – the idea of them as my legal guardians makes me want to sell myself to a third-world sweatshop.”

“Like you, I’ve realised I must actively chart my own course going forward. Put myself in a position to act as best I can under the circumstances. And, if I’m being honest, the point in my life when I was at my best, was when I was with Buffy.” Faith’s face changes as soon as he says that, pain written across it, although Giles doesn’t say anything if he notices.

“You want a ride to the states on Kennedy’s private jet.”

“Yes, well, I no longer resemble my passport picture, do I? And what with being legally dead and all, given the sort of connections you say she has, it occurs to me this might be the most expedient method of travel.”

Faith responds quickly, bristling at herself for allowing her anger to snap out. “Fine.”

She strides towards the door, eager to mask her feelings on the subject and walks out the exit, snapping back at Giles. “Pack your things. I wanna get the Hell out of here ASAP.”

Before he leaves, Giles turns to Angel and looks up at him. “Angel, there’s something I need to tell you…”

“You’re going to see Buffy. I figured you would.” Angel smiles.

“And you?”

“I’m hoping you’ll tell me when that’s a good idea. Or if.”

“Yes, of course, but I meant what will you do? Now that the crisis is past and I’m once again among the living. You were in quite a bad state before, if you don’t mind my saying…”

Angel nods in agreement. “I know I can’t make up for the mistakes I’ve made. The things I’ve done. But bringing you back… fixing just one… I think maybe now I can accept it.”

He picks up Giles’ bag and hands it to him. “As for what I’ll do… I figured out a long time ago that if there’s no bigger meaning, the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.”

“And yet you kept involving yourself in big things.”

“Sometimes you have to. And sometimes, it’s like Whistler said. Knowing it is a lot easier than living it. But for the first time in a while, I think I’ve got a shot.”

He looks around at Hackney, at the damage and the smoke still rising. He looks at the people gathered, some helping, some staring, some bullying. “They’re already calling it Magic Town. Thousands of people, changed forever. Some in pain, some with power they don’t understand. But others do. They’ll want to exploit it. I figure those people need someone on their side.”

Giles turns and smiles at him. “Back to helping the helpless?”

“That looks good on a business card, but it’s kinda redundant. Sooner or later, we’re all helpless. And when that time comes, we all need the same thing.” They both exit the tent and walk into the night, heading for the crowd. Angel smiles.

When that time comes. we all need the same thing.

“Someone looking out for us.”

He looks out at the rest of London town, the sirens gone, the calm washing over as the rest of the world wakes from their slumber to a new London, a different one. And Angel now walks with confidence and determination, ready to rejoin the world.

Rejoin it and save it.

One soul at a time.