Summary
On a routine patrol, Angel stakes a female vampire. Just before she crumbles to dust she calls him Angelus and he recognizes her from his soulless past. Now, her grief-stricken lover, Angel's old hunting companion, is out for revenge for both the present killing and for a betrayal Angelus committed over 200 years ago.
Plot
The episode begins with Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn returning from killing a Murite demon. The gang talk about their obsession with demons, Angel's current vacation in Sri Lanka, and the fact that Fred has barely emerged from her room in the hotel for three months.
Meanwhile, Angel's relaxing spiritual journey has turned into a battle with demon monks. He makes quick work of them all and confesses to a non-demon monk that he should have taken Gunn's advice and gone to Vegas.
Later, Cordelia goes to set out the rat traps and opens the door to find that Angel has returned. After hugs go all around, Angel presents them each with a gift and then heads upstairs to see Fred. She has been scribbling on the walls and nearly has the entire room covered. She is very excited to see him yet is still having trouble controlling her babble. He tries to convince her to come out of her room and is assuring her that the hotel is safe when Cordelia suddenly screams.
Cordelia has a vision of vampires crashing a college party, killing, and taking hostages. As the boys leave, she cries and lies down, apparently in pain from the vision.
When the boys arrive at the campus, they find corpses and the trail of the vampires. Angel jumps on the vampire gang's getaway car and frees the hostages. Angel, Wesley, and Gunn fight and dust all but one of the vampires. Before she turns to dust, one of the vampires recognizes Angel as Angelus and he ends up with her locket in his hand.
Cordelia is at her apartment and apparently still in a lot of pain from the vision. Phantom Dennis helps her draw a bath. She takes some medication and makes the comment that the visions are getting worse every time.
FLASHBACK to Marseilles, 1767 Angelus and Darla are with two vampires who seem to be madly in love with each other. All four of them are on the run from Holtz. The new male vampire, James, breaks a window and takes out a locket for the female, Elizabeth. It is the same locket that Angel now possesses. The authorities show up with Holtz and the female vampires flee as the men appear to be caught.
Back to the hotel, Angel stops the tale and holds the locket. Gunn and Wesley decide to check their sources to see if James is aware that Angel killed his girlfriend.
James has heard about what Angel did to his girlfriend from the vampire that got away, whom he kills.
While Wesley and Gunn are out, Cordelia tries to talk to Angel about Buffy's death. He remains silent on the matter, but she tells him that he shouldn't blame himself or feel guilty for her death. She then demands that he finish his story about Holtz.
FLASHBACK Holtz wants to know where Darla is. Angelus tells him where to find her and Elizabeth. Enraged, James attacks Angel. In the midst of the confusion, Angel gets hit with arrows but manages to steal a horse. He and James ride away. However, James is disgusted at how quickly Angelus betrayed the woman he was supposed to love and shoves him from the horse, leaving him to fend for himself while he goes to find the women.
Back in the present, James goes to some kind of demon doctor and insists that he give him "the cure." The doctor says that there is a price and James says that he has already paid it. The scene then shifts to James on a table with the doctor cutting into his chest with a scalpel.
At The Caritas, The Host sings while Wesley and Gunn wait to meet Merle. He arrives and confirms that James is in town, knows that Angel killed his girl and plots revenge. Merle also tells Wesley and Gunn that James went to see a demon doctor that specializes in collecting things.
At the Hotel, Angel and Cordelia argue over whether or not she should stay or go home. James arrives before she can leave and they fight. Angel stakes James, but nothing happens. He throws James into some sunlight and nothing happens. Cordelia and Angel then retreat to the sewers.
Wesley and Gunn call Cordelia on her cell phone and tell her that the demon doctor took James' heart and made him invincible, but that it only lasts for six something. She could not hear the measurement of time before her phone lost the signal.
James finds Angel and Cordelia in the sewer and chases them onto the subway train. While fighting them there, James finds out about Angel's love dying three months ago. He doesn't believe that Angel really loved her with all his heart because he was able to go on without her. Angel defeats James in the fight, and James accuses Angel of never really living before he turns to dust as his time runs out.
Back at the hotel, Angel and Cordelia talk again. Angel confesses that he's okay with Buffy's death and that is what is not okay. He feels like he is betraying her by continuing to live and moving on. Cordelia assures him that he is not and that he's honoring her by continuing to fight and trying to help people. The whole group then leaves to fight some Nester demons.
The scene then shifts to Puerto Cabazos, Nicaragua. Darla is at a bar. A man approaches her, hands her a piece of paper, and comments that the shaman isn't easy to find. The man implies he wants something physical from her and she kills him. When she stands up and moves away from the bar, it is readily apparent that she is very, very, pregnant.
Dialogue
True. Who's got time for love when you're out there doin' it with the demons? Didn't that come out sad and wrong. I need to get out more.
Angel groupie, I get that, he rescued her from Pylea.
I miss Pylea.
I would think you might. You were there a week; they made you their Queen.
Don't say the "B" word.
The "B" word was the love of his life -- and he's what, two hundred and fifty? - that ain't a short life. This grief-work's gonna take more than a vacation in Sri Lanka.
It's not a vacation; it's a spiritual retreat, at a monastery.
Angel and a buncha monks in the middle of nowhere: there's a party. He shoulda got hammered and gone to Vegas like I told him.
He doesn't need a lap dance; he needs some peace and quiet so he can work through this.
You guys amaze me. You'll fight hell beasts but you're scared of rats.
Hate rats. Their beady eyes -
And their beady teeth --
-- and their tails all woosha-woosha-woosha -
Well the point is, you worked on things, it wasn't like a holiday where you'd come back home…to your friends…you know, with some small mementoes of your trip.
Are you fishing for gifts?
Yes.
It's gorgeous! Look how it brings out my breasts! Like you weren't all thinkin' it.
I say we stay and fight the bastard.
Yes, but you're an idiot.
As to James, Gunn and I'll hit the streets; see what our sources can tell us.
Uh-huh, see? We've got sources now.
Wow. You're almost like real detectives.
Why are people always riding off and leaving me? Am I a bad bloke…?
I don't either! I go home, he'll come after me 'cause I live alone and that's what they do, they come after you when you're alone. Oh sure, "Cordy go home and be a hostage!" With the torture and the fear and the torture...
The ring of Amarra, when you had that, you were invincible. Does he have a ring? Hmmm. Did the Amarra people make cufflinks or belt buckles?
There was only one.
And you had to smash it.
Why don't we recriminate later, okay?
But if you've changed…if you're not the same man who screwed Darla and couldn't care less what happened to her…
Where'd you hear…? Oh, you mean back in the day, right.
The woman I love is dead.
Who are you talking about?
It happened three months ago, we try not to say her name too much.
How's Fred?
All right, considering. We talked over what happened and I think she'll be coming out of her room any decade now.
That I'm okay. That losing Buffy didn't kill me, that I could deal with it. In all those years no one ever mattered, not like she did. And now she's gone. Forever.
Yeah. And it feels like I'm betraying her somehow.
No. If you were a loser, if you were a sick obsessed vampire, you'd go to a snod demon or whatever and get your heart cut out. But you're not. You're a living, breathing -- well a living, anyway -- good guy who's still fighting and trying to help people. That's not betraying her, that's honoring her.
Ya' think?
I'm Cordelia, I don't think, I know. Okay?
Okay.