When Angel opens his eyes slowly a few hours later, he has a slight smile on his face. He basks in his moment and then realises where he is — and who he has spent the night with.

His eyes dart open, worry evident in them. He stammers and turns to face his lover. “Um… Illyria? I think we need to talk.”

He comes face to face with Fred. She doesn’t look very happy.

“Then it’s too bad Illyria’s not here, Angel.”

Angel is shocked and horrified to see her, wondering just what she knows. “Fred!” He looks down at his feet, embarrassed deeply. If vampires could blush, he would be beetroot.

“Fred, do you… What I mean is… While you were gone last night… That’s to say…”

She nods, slowly. “Yeah. At least, enough. Kind of hard not to listen in when you share one set of ears.” Angel looks at her, feeling guilty. She looks awkward. Then she speaks, softly. “You know, there was a time when this would have been much harder for me.”

Angel gives her a warm look. “And now?”

“Now, it’s just… I don’t know.” She turns away from him. Her look hasn’t improved.

“No matter what, it’s not what you think,” Angel stutters, almost tripping himself over his own feet.

“Is that reassuring? Because I don’t know what to think,” Fred tells him, her voice slightly raised. She sits on a bale of hay and Angel cautiously joins her, but still keeps his distance, giving her space. “It’s not like there’s a guidebook for this kind of thing. I doubt they’d sell many copies of How To Deal With Your Former Crush Dating The Woman Who Shares Your Body.”

Angel sighs. “Things are just really tumultuous right now. Both of you showing up at odd times, seeing my former self, seeing Darla and Angelus, it’s—”

Fred shoots him a rather angry look. Her tone tells him to listen. It’s slightly scarier to him right now than Illyria’s commanding, booming speeches. He backs off slightly, moves an inch away from the angry Fred.

“Maybe you better stop right there,” she says. “Because not everything is about you, you know. If you think you’re feeling confused and uncertain, how do you think I feel? At least Angelus and Liam are usually just memories for you. Try having them rent new space in your head or borrow it completely.”

Now she stops, silence in the air for a second. The scowl on her face doesn’t change. This will take time.

“Anyway. Good talk,” she shrugs, no longer wanting to discuss it. “But none of it’s going to save the world. I vote we do that first. I’m sure we’ll all feel much better afterward.”

And with that, Fred is gone, swallowed in blue light as the Old One Illyria now stands in her place.

“I second Fred’s vote.“

Angel sighs again. “I really wish you’d both give me a warning before switching like this.”

“Sometimes that is not expedient for us. Besides, Fred prefers I speak with you now.“

“That’s what I was trying to do in the first—”

She cuts Angel off. “Not about that. First things…” She begins to wave her arm in the air. The blue light shines and the portal opens. Dublin 2010 stands before them.

“…must be done first.“

She raises both her arms, that commanding tone ever present. “I have rested. You can no longer sway control of the portal.“

Angel looks guilty again. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Really.”

“Then there shall be no more mistakes.“

“Oh, I’m sure there will still be a couple,” Angel says as they enter the portal. “Maybe not time‑travel related. But that still leaves us plenty of room to make a few…”

Angel sees the Dublin alleyway before them. It doesn’t look any different to him than where they just were. He questions whether Illyria has the right time period. She almost sneers. Almost.

“Fear not. We are home. At least, in the temporal sense.“

They materialise in an alley, filthy and dark. They hear sirens in the distance. It’s almost enough to convince Angel they’re home, but he would like to see more modern evidence. He gets it when a fire engine roars past on the main street.

Exiting the alley, Illyria turns to him, perplexed, her head tilted. “Was there an emergency in this city the night we left?“

Angel shakes his head. “Not that I know of, but I was a little preoccupied.” He looks around. There are police, fire and medical emergency vehicles racing down the streets of Dublin. Police helicopters with spotlights are hovering overhead. “But there certainly seems to be now.”

He looks closer at the emergency — it’s coming from the direction of the hotel they were staying at. The haunted one. Illyria is concerned.

“Yes, but that cannot be. I returned us to a time only seconds after we originally left. If there had been so large a problem so close, we would already know about it.“

Angel thinks they need to have a closer look, and they emerge fully into the street. Suddenly Illyria yanks Angel by the collar and pulls him back into the shadows. As he turns to ask her what she’s doing, he hears Fred’s voice across the street.

“How else do you explain prophecies?”

Peering across the street, they see Angel and Fred, their earlier selves, inspecting the alley across the street. Illyria and Angel listen in on the conversation. Angel bristles as they walk off.

“That wasn’t right. I mean, I remember Fred saying it. But it seems off somehow. I don’t think that’s quite how she phrased it.”

Illyria agrees. “It is more than off. It is completely wrong. I was precise. But if the flow of time itself is not what it was, I can’t be relied upon either. Angel, if that is the case, anything might happen. Anything at all. If we do not fix this, we’ll never take the trip we just took. And that is a paradox.“

He knows the answer, but asks anyway. “Is that good or bad?”

She surprises him by moving away. She looks sad. “I am only capable of making things worse. Never better.“

Her emotion surprises him, but his reaction is instinctive. He reaches out for her with his arms, to comfort her as she did him. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It is the truth,” she states coldly. Without looking at him she bids him goodbye. “Farewell, Angel.“

“Wait, what’s that supposed to mean? Illyria!” But it’s too late. Fred is in her place.

Angel closes his eyes in frustration. “Fred, I wasn’t trying to keep Illyria here because I didn’t want to see you, you know. It’s just that I didn’t want to leave things the way they were and… I’m not making this better, am I?”

She doesn’t look at him. She just moves off, in the direction they need to go. “If by ‘this’ you mean the way we broke time, then no. But if by ‘this’ you mean anything else, then it can wait and we’ll figure it out later, okay?”

Angel watches her walk away. As he slowly follows, he mutters to himself, cursing himself for messing up with both Fred and Illyria. “Right. Save the world first.”

He doesn’t catch up with Fred. He doesn’t need to. Suddenly, she’s brushed aside and thrown into his arms by a force rushing past them. Fred asks what’s happening, but Angel can see something she can’t. A shape. A form that seems familiar. “The poltergeists! They’re free from the hotel?”

Fred disagrees. “But that’s not how they work! Even if the hotel is gone, location‑raised spirits should stay put. Shouldn’t they?”

More spirits rush past them, the wind shrieking in their wake.

“They seem terrified,” Angel says. “What did Illyria say about small spirits trapped between the worlds, fleeing something worse?”

Fred says that whatever is scaring them is what they need to stop. They race towards the hotel where they were staying. As they turn the corner, Fred stops. Angel nearly bumps into her. Looking at the hotel, however, the scientist in Fred is at least grateful for answers.

“Well, at least that solves one mystery. Now we know what happened to the hotel. Never thought I’d accuse the aunts of understatement!”

There’s nothing left of the hotel. It’s buried under debris as a raging plant grows out of control. It’s the same red flower they saw in the alleyway their first night here. Except now it’s bloomed — the size of a house — and makes Little Shop of Horrors look like a nursery tale.

It’s bloomed now, its petals open. Each bud has long, sharp teeth and a long tongue. There are no eyes to speak of. Just a large, very angry plant.

Angel moves towards the creature before Fred finishes her question. “How do we fight something like this?”

They watch as a police officer, armoured up to the nines, fires a stun bolt at the plant, hoping to shock it into submission, but the charge goes back through her, stunning her and allowing the plant to ensnare her in its vines.

Angel barks at Fred. “No offence, Fred, but now might be a good time to let Illyria through.”

“I already tried! She won’t listen! Says we’re better off without her.”

Another sigh. “Then I guess it’s up to us, as usual.” He races towards the officer, pulls her free from the vines. She looks at him with gratitude, but Angel just turns, his vampire features out, and snarls at her to run.

Fred yells after Angel, who’s weaponless against the giant plant. They need a plan, she tells him, but then realises, as usual, they already have one. She sees an old man, struggling to carry a youngster free from debris.

A familiar phrase goes through Fred’s head. We help the helpless.

“Of course that’s what we’re going to do.”

She picks up a large plank of wood and races to the old man. She hits the vines until they let the youngster go and she urges them both to flee. As they run, the vines try to grab hold of Fred and she struggles to free herself. Then a vine heading for her snaps — Angel smiling at her from behind it.

“Looked like you could use some help giving help.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Fred says, rubbing her arm where she’s scratched herself. “But I’m not Illyria, and things are still getting worse. What I’m trying to say is, we’re not gonna beat this thing without figuring out what it is first.”

Angel agrees. They’re not going to beat the plant by punching it. He suggests going after the roots and jokes that someone must have called for a tank of weed killer, but Fred is deep in thought. She turns to Angel, a solemn look on her face.

“Angel, what if Illyria’s right? I mean, not just her. All of us.”

“I have a lot of experience with that kind of thinking. It’s almost never useful.”

Fred shakes her head. “I don’t mean, like, philosophically. I mean literally. You’re already an unusual type of person. Dead, but alive. Vampire, but with a soul. And you probably walked on this exact spot as three different people: Liam, Angelus and Angel. Different but the same. And then you went and met your former self, so there are memories of your future self.”

She knows she’s not making sense. She knows it’s a theory. But she thinks it’s worth thinking about.

“What if it’s all just… I don’t know… a bit too much for reality to bear and it kind of cracked? Like a mirr—”

As if in answer to Fred’s thinking, the ground beneath them rumbles for a moment and then all they hear is a snapping, cracking noise. Then, without warning, the earth below the plant caves in, dust rising in the air the only sign it was there.

Angel peers into the hole. “If that’s the case, looks like reality has a self‑correcting mechanism too.”

“I hope you’re right,” Fred says as she steps closer. She spots one last vine hanging onto the surface. She sees something move. She starts to yell. “But I’m afraid…”

And then a swarm of beetles emerges from the pit. The beetles from the past.

“…that may not be better!”

Fred instantly moves. She sees a civilian in the street, grabs her, throws her into her car and slams it shut. “Shut the door! And try to block the vents!”

The woman is in shock as beetles hit the windscreen. Fred can’t see through them. The civilian is shrieking, asking her what’s happening. Fred tilts the wing mirror and looks behind the vehicle at Angel, still struggling against the swarm.

“Someone I care about still needs help.”

She gets out of the car, the civilian calling her crazy for leaving. She runs towards Angel, screaming his name, all anger forgotten right now. She sees a spade on the ground.

“Angel, be careful!” She gets his attention and tells him to catch the spade. He does, and uses it to break himself and civilians free as more vines exude from the ground beneath them. He hears Fred call his name.

“Hold on, Fred!”

He reaches her and prepares to attack the vine next to her, but she yells at him.

“No! You don’t understand. We can’t kill them that way. Angel—”

Angel looks down at where he sliced the vine. He’s stunned by what he sees. More buds have sprung from it, with more teeth and more beetles emerging.

Fred’s voice pierces the air again. “We just keep making it worse!”