Serenity From Hell
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HARMONY (shrugs) Everyone's otherwise occupado, boss. Wesley's stuck baby-sitting miss "I used to rule the world, bow down before me, minion scum." (puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head) Why aren't we killing her, again? ANGEL Gunn. HARMONY (sighs thoughtfully) Maybe... (leans on the back of a conference table chair) ...if we had a really big one. ANGEL (impatiently) Where is Gunn?
SPIKE My first official parley as a very loosely affiliated member of the... what are we? (puts his briefcase on the conference table) Tell me we're not Scoobies. (unlatches the briefcase) ANGEL We don't have a... SPIKE A name? Well, that's probably for the best. You'd want to be "Angel's Avengers" or something.
ANGEL (stares at his feet) Handsome man, save me from the monsters. (scoffs) SPIKE Exactly! Or? What's that now? ANGEL That's the first thing Fred said to me. In Pylea. (paces behind his chair) She was trapped, hiding, afraid. Nearly crazy. Crazy. But brave. I should never have let her come here. Bad things always happen here. SPIKE Hate to break it to you, mate, but bad things always happen everywhere. Besides, she wanted to be here. It was her choice.
BARTENDER I was wondering, about the possibility of a Carlos Junior? What do you think? (smiles widely) LORNE What do I think? I think I'm tired. I think I'm sick and tired of wearing bells on my toes and making like everything's gonna be OK. I think it's pathetic that lately I'm too scared and sad to tell people the truth so I just say what they wanna hear instead. Most of all, I think the term "Happy Hour" should be banned from the English language. There's nothing happy about this hour or any other. BARTENDER (shrugs) Oh. LORNE What I know is I started drinking the moment that I found out that a girl I loved was gonna die. Every time I get to the bottom of the glass, I hope that that last drop is gonna take me the distance. (sips) BARTENDER (raises his eyebrows and nods while busying himself with tidying the bar) OK. LORNE A simple plan that failed utterly, which is why I'm gonna heave my tuchis off this stool, strap the bells on, and with a smile and a quip, go back into the belly of a very ugly beast and pretend like I can help. Hmm. 'Cause that's what the green guy does. (pays the bartender and exits)
ANGEL Call security, put 'em on red alert. Nobody gets in this building without clearance from me. I want a guard at every entrance, every elevator, every stairwell. Cover the whole building. HARMONY (shrugs) OK, but you know how that never works?
GUNN I'll make a call. ANGEL Good. (starts to walk out, but stops at the door) Listen, Gunn... I know you feel bad about your part in what happened to Fred. And you should. For the rest of your life, it should wake you up in the middle of the night. And it will...because you're a good man. You signed a piece of paper, that's all. GUNN But I knew. Not about Fred, but... when I signed, I knew there would be consequences. ANGEL You know, the thing about atonement is, you never run out of chances... but you gotta take 'em. You can't hide in some hospital room and pretend it's all gonna go away... 'cause it never will
FRED (kisses his neck from behind him) Whose fault is that? (walks around to kneel in front of him) Tell me a joke. WESLEY (softly) 2 men walk into a bar. The first man orders a scotch and soda. The second man remembers something he'd forgotten, and it doubles him over with pain. He falls to the floor shaking.... and then through the floor and into the Earth. He looks back up at the first man, but he doesn't call out to him. (looks down at Fred) They're not that close. FRED Yeah. You always know where you are.
ILLYRIA You drank a great deal of that poison. (Wesley holds his hand to his head, rubbing his eyes, pained) You called me a lot of names meant to hurt feelings I no longer have, and then you sat there for hours making noise with your nose. WESLEY I was dreaming, you twit.
SPIKE This isn't hell. It's the 'burbs. Close enough.
ILLYRIA I traveled all of them as I pleased. I walked worlds of smoke and half-truths, intangible. (turns away) Worlds of torment and of unnamable beauty. (looks into the mirror, Wesley's reflection over her shoulder) Opaline towers as high as small moons. Glaciers that rippled with insensate lust. And one world with nothing but shrimp. I tired of that one quickly. WESLEY Then why stay in this world? Surely there's a world more appealing, maybe not the shrimp one, but one where you'd be welcome like you never will be here. Why don't you go? You can go. Why don't you go
EVE Close the door! LORNE (rapidly pressing the button over and over) I'm not doin' the polka, beanpole. What do you think I'm?
GUNN This is where...I was... I... (the gate in front of the fire closes) I belong. I was? What was I doing? Why am I down here?
EVE (sees the lights of one car flash as Lorne presses the button) There! Hurry! (runs toward the car) LORNE (runs after her) What do you call this? (they both get in the car) You'll like Canada. Lots of deserters
ILLYRIA (looking over the skyline) Your world is so small. And yet you box yourselves in rooms even smaller. You shut yourselves inside... in rooms, in routines. WESLEY There are things worse than walls. Terrible... and beautiful. If we look at them for too long they will burn right through us. Truths we couldn't bear. Not every day. ILLYRIA (sighs) We are so weak. WESLEY Yes. Yes, we are.
LINDSEY Not an apocalypse. The apocalypse. What'd you think, a gong was gonna sound? Time to jump on your horses and fight the big fight? Starting pistol went off a long time ago, boys. You're playing for the bad guys. Every day you sit behind your desk and you learn a little more how to accept the world the way it is. Well, here's the rub... heroes don't do that. Heroes don't accept the world the way it is. They fight it. ANGEL (sits back) You're saying everything we do... it's a distraction... to keep us busy from looking under the surface.
HARMONY (shrugs) Everyone's otherwise occupado, boss. Wesley's stuck baby-sitting miss "I used to rule the world, bow down before me, minion scum." (puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head) Why aren't we killing her, again? ANGEL Gunn. HARMONY (sighs thoughtfully) Maybe... (leans on the back of a conference table chair) ...if we had a really big one. ANGEL (impatiently) Where is Gunn?
