Disclaimer: I don't own Btvs or Ats. Or any of the characters...Don't sue!

Pairings: Mostly BA.

A/N: Another chapter! Not a very long one, but hopefully an entertaining one.

MBB: this question has been asked before, but let me just tell you that you will find out in one of the upcoming chapters. Hopefully that answers your question for now. Thank you for liking my fic and I might use your idea about C/X pairing...so Angel and Xander can fight over Cordy and Buffy. That's actually a pretty entertaining idea!

Tariq: Hopefully this chapter will satisfy you since I used some of the other characters! Sorry I haven't done that a lot until now!

Goddessa39: As you can imagine I'm not going to give you the answer to your question now...You're just gonna have to keep on reading to find out! Thanks for your kind words!

----

Chapter 13

Fred moaned as she tried to sit up. She brought her hand to her head. It felt big. It felt big and it felt as if somebody was knocking on her skull with a hammer. Very unpleasant. She tried to remember what had happened, but it took while before it all came back to her. Jasmine and their plan to get Cordy's blood. The plan that obviously backfired. The last thing she remembered was the others falling under Jasmine's spell. That, and Connor hitting her on the head. God, she felt horrible. She sat up and looked around the dark room. She was in one of the smaller rooms on the second floor. These rooms were never used and they were close to empty. Fred just noticed a desk standing in the left corner. It was dark and it took her a few seoncds before she had figured out where the door was. She tried to get up her feet as she leaned against the wall. The dizziness immediately kicked in and she had to sit down again. Crap, she thought. She decided to give herself a few more minutes of rest before trying again. I have to get out of here. She tried to get up to her feet again. This time she was a little bit more succesful. However, she still had the wall to lean on and she wasn't sure she would make it to the door all by herself. Damn that Connor for knocking her out. When she finally let go of the wall, she immediately realized she wouldn't make it to the door. After a few steps she sat back down on the floor again. Just until the room stops spinning, she told herself. When she came to the realization the room wasn't going to stop spinning any time soon, she decided to crawl to the door. Just as effective. Crawling went much better than the walking and she made her way to the door.

"Don't bother. It's locked." A voice suddenly sounded.

Fred turned around and it was then she noticed the dark figure sitting on the floor in a corner.

"Connor!" Fred stated.

He got up from the floor and walked up to her.

"Connor, what's going on?" Fred asked.

"Did I hurt you?" He asked her.

"You knocked me out. That's never painless." Fred answered as sat down with her back against the wall.

"Sorry." Connor apologized.

"I'm more than willing to forgive you, if you let me out."

Connor sighed.

"You know I can't do that." He said impatiently.

"Why not?" Fred asked, already knowing the answer.

Connor didn't answer her. Fred looked at the expression of his face. He seemed very unhappy. His eyes were empty and he stared down at the floor.

"Look, Connor. I know you're trying to do the right thing, but Jasmine is not who you think she is. She is not..."

"She's wonderful" Connor interrupted her.

"No, she's not. She's trying to make you think that, but she's not. You have to believe that."

"I don't." Connor simply replied. "She makes it stop."

"Makes what stop?" Fred asked curiously.

"The fighting. The pain."

"Maybe she does make it stop, but the way she's doing it is wrong, Connor. You have to see that. She takes away the ability for people to think for themselves. To make their own decisions." Fred tried to explain to Connor.

"So?...No one seems to mind."

"Because they can't. They can't feel those things. They don't feel anything anymore."

"They feel happiness." Connor tried to prove Fred wrong.

"Because she wants them to feel that. It's not real Connor and you know it. You know what she's doing is wrong!" Fred spoke up.

"No, I don't!" Connor yelled.

Fred saw the anger in his eyes and she realized she had to stop here, before he would get too mad. She needed him. She needed him to help her. He was the only one. It seemed to her Connor wasn't exactly under Jasmine's spell either. His behaviour was different from the others. But somehow he was loyal to Jasmine anyway. It didn't really make sense to her, but she knew Connor was her only chance.

"Why are you here?" Fred whispered.

Connor looked at her.

"What do you mean?"

"The door is locked. You don't have to stay here to watch me. I can't go anywhere."

"Jasmine wants to know where the others are."

"The others?" Fred asked, since she was under the impression they had all fallen under Jasmine's spell.

"Dad and the girl that was with him."

"Buffy?"

"Yeah. They got away."

Fred felt a flicker of hope. She wasn't all alone after all. Buffy and Angel were out there somewhere. They had gotten away and they would come back for her. For the others. They would try to solve this. There was still hope.

"Why would I know where they are?"

Connor shrugged.

"Jasmine thought you might know."

"Well, I don't." Fred told Connor. "I don't know. So now what? Now you're supposed to kill me? Is that what she said?"

Connor didn't reply.

"That should tell you that what she's doing is wrong, Connor. If she wants you to kill people, then how can what she's doing be a good thing?"

Connor stared at the floor, still not saying anything.

"Think about it. What makes a world with her in it better? She kills too. She eats people! I'm not saying our world was so perfect, but at least we got a say in all of it. We made our own decisions. We didn't always make the right ones, but at least we got the chance to decide for ourself. Don't you think that's better, Connor?"

Still no reply.

"She can't make it all better. She won't make it all better. In the end, she'll make it worse. Please realize that."

She paused as she studied Connor's face. She knew he was confused. She knew he had always been confused and when Jasmine came it had only became worse. She felt bad for him, she really did. But right now he had to listen to her.

"Come on, Connor. Talk to me." She pleaded.

Connor looked up at her. Fred thought she saw tears in his eyes, but she couldn't be sure.

"I'm going downstairs." He announced and he walked up to the door.

"No, Connor, please!Don't..." Fred started.

"Shut up!" Connor suddenly yelled as he turned around to face her. "Be quiet, okay?!" Don't let me make you. I don't want to hurt you, but it doesn't mean I won't."

Fred nodded slowly. The look in his eyes scared her now and she knew sheshouldn't push him over the edge. He turned back to the door and unlocked it with a key. Then he opened it. The lights from the hallway lit up the room for a few seconds, until Connor left the room and closed the door behind him. Fred sighed. She waited for the sound of Connor locking the door and was surprised when it didn't come. She listened carefully and suddenly heard voices. One of them was Connor's, the other was a woman's voice, but Fred wasn't sure she recognized it. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but Fred could tell it was a pretty heated discussion. Then the voices stopped and it became quiet. Fred waited. Were they gone? The door still hadn't been locked. Would she be able to escape? She realized she wouldn't be able to escape when the door opened again. A female figure appeared in the doorway. Fred stared at her. Great, she thought. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse.

"Fred" the woman said out loud as she entered the room.

Fred closed her eyes. This wasn't going to make things better. This wasn't going to make things better at all...

----

Buffy came out of the bathroom and walked up to the mirror. Her hair was still wet, but she put it up in a bun anyway, since she always hated the loose strands in her face. She sighed. She looked exhausted. She felt exhausted. She knew she couldn't stop now though. Her friends and Angel's friends were counting on her. Other people were counting on her. She couldn't let them down. She had to keep going. She turned around and took the globe from the floor. She would take it with her so when Angel would come back with Jasmine's real name, he would be in the hotel where Jasmine was. She wanted to walk to the door, when she saw the small box on the floor. She immediately recognized it. It was the box with Cordelia's blood in it. Angel must have lost it. She picked it up from the floor. She looked at it before putting it in her pocket. It might come in handy. She left the room and made her way to the staircase. Suddenly two men came from the stairs and walked up to her. Buffy immediately knew something was wrong when she saw the looks on their faces.

"Hello Buffy" One of them spoke, but his voice wasn't his own voice. It was Jasmine's.

Buffy's eyes grew big. Okay, that's new.

"You really thought you could get away?" The other one spoke with Jasmine's voice.

They walked up to her and tried to grab her. Although Buffy was a little shocked by what was going on, she quickly recovered and kicked one of the guys in his stomach. He collapsed to the floor, but laughed. Jasmine's laugh. Buffy stopped her fighting and stared at the guy. This was freaky. This gave the other guy the opportunity to grab her. She fought her way free and started to run away from the men. She walked down the stairs and heard one of the guys call after her:

"Go ahead. Run. Run all you want. But you can't hide, Buffy. You know you can't."

"Watch me" Buffy whispered.

She made her way down the stairs, through the empty lobby and she left the motel. Everybody on the street looked up and Buffy knew she was in trouble when they walked up to her.

"I would start running by now if I were you." Jasmine's voice came out of a little girl's mouth.

Buffy didn't know what was happening, but she gladly took Jasmine's advice. She ran as fast as she could. Away from the motel, to the hotel. The people followed her, but Buffy knew she was fast. Faster than most of the people. However, the people were everywhere and she wasn't sure she would make it all the way to the hotel without getting caught. She knew she didn't have a choice though. Running was her only chance.

----

Connor approached Jasmine who was standing on the balcony, waving at smiling at the people downstairs in the lobby.

"What is it Connor?" Jasmine asked, although she couldn't even know it was Connor who needed her attention, since there were other people standing around her too. Like Wesley, Gunn, Faith and Xander.

"I talked to Fred" Connor said.

"Don't worry about it" Jasmine said, not turning around. "I found Buffy. She'll be here shortly. Thanks for the effort though. Did you take care of Fred? And the body?"

"You found Buffy? What about Angel?" Connor asked, dodging Jasmine's question.

"Angel. Good old Angel. I haven't tracked him down yet. But trust me, he won't get far. We'll find him." Jasmine assured her father.

"That doesn't make sense." Faith suddenly spoke up.

"What do you mean Faith?" Jasmine asked. She stopped waving and smiling for only a second, curious about Faith's answer.

"Angel never would have left Buffy alone. And vice versa. If you found Buffy then Angel should be there too."

Jasmine thought about that for a second.

"He wasn't." She eventually said. "But if what you're saying is true, then we should be able to find Angel soon. Thank you, Faith."

Faith smiled. Jasmine went back to the waving and smiling. Connor frowned. He had a bad feeling about all of this. He knew what his father was capable of and he was afraid the others were underestimating him. He thought about Fred's words for a second. Was there a chance she could be right? No, he told himself. She isn't right. I can't go back to the way the world was before. It was worse. This world is better. It has to be.

----

Buffy stopped running when she realized the people were no longer chasing her. Some of them had gone back to doing nothing. Others started walking in the opposite direction. She frowned. It was like they had suddenly changed their mind. Like they had realized they were chasing the wrong person or something. She didn't allow herself to think about it for too long though. If the people had enough of chasing her, then she wasn't going to argue with them. She went back to running and made her way to the hotel.

----

A/N: This is once again not the longest chapter, but...well...I thought it would be best to end the chapter here. Please let me know what you think and I'll try to update asap.

Steffanie (a.k.a Nice-one)