The silence that hung over them as they fled from the fight made Giles feel as if he were suffocating. He couldn't speak, didn't have any words he could say that would make the situation better, or even just more bearable. Guilt at not only abandoning Ian, but at making Ethan abandon him also, choked off anything Giles could try to articulate. He didn't have the strength to fight through it; all his strength had been taken in simply doing what he had to do, no matter how despicable it was.

At least Ethan wasn't fighting him now as they ran through the seemingly endless chamber. The sounds of combat had faded behind them; their own footfalls and heavy breathing now seemed to fill their space. Ethan was still holding Giles' hand too, although that may have had more to do with the fierce grip that Giles was maintaining almost involuntarily.

Dear God, was that a wall ahead? Were they finally to the other side? Not that that necessarily meant anything good at all.

Ethan squeezed Giles' hand suddenly. 'How much time do you think we have?' he sent, presumably not wanting to spare the breath to talk aloud.

'I don't know,' Giles replied the same way. 'Not much, I think.'

It was a wall, and unless his eyes were fooling him, there was a door too. As they got closer, the door became clearer and with unspoken accord, they adjusted their course and headed directly to it. 'Step into my parlour...' Ethan sent when they got there, even his mental tone sounding breathless and weary.

'I think we've been in the parlour since we entered this thrice=damned maze,' Giles sent back, reaching for the doorknob and finding with no surprise at all that it was unlocked. 'About time we got to the centre of this web.' He didn't mention the horrible cost they were paying to do so.

But there was only another bloody corridor beyond, endlessly long and straight, with no doors that they could see. Ethan made a whimpering noise, but Giles couldn't afford to let them rest, not now. They'd stopped running only long enough to get through the door, and now they were off again, jogging more than sprinting, but as fast as they were able. Neither looked back.

About three minutes after entering the corridor, Ethan suddenly gasped and fell to his knees.

"Ethan?" Giles knelt beside him, frantically running his hands over him looking for any damage. Ethan was shuddering under his touch; his mouth was open, and he was making little gasping noises as if he couldn't breathe. "What is it? What's wrong?" Giles felt frantic and helpless, as he watched Ethan in the throes of whatever attack he was going through.

Eyes filled with horror met his, and Ethan managed a single word, "Ian..."

Damn. Giles' grief and guilt surged up as potential became fact. They would have done so for Ian's fate alone, but even more so with what this was doing to Ethan.

Ethan bit the knuckle of his thumb hard, hard enough for a small drip of blood to run down his chin. But as Giles moved to pull Ethan's hand away from his mouth, Ethan was already staggering to his feet. "Demon's dead too," he said with a dull tone. His eyes seemed equally expressionless. "Better hurry, eh?"

Ethan was right. They needed to keep going, but Ian's sacrifice and Ethan's pain –and Giles' own for that matter– deserved a moment's acknowledgement at least. "I'm sorry," Giles said softly.

"Don't be. Not yet." Ethan gave him the tiniest of smiles, although his voice remained flat. "Or I'll fall apart, which would be somewhat inconvenient currently. I need my hard-as-nails Ripper."

Giles nodded, pushing his feelings away for now. Get the job finished. Do what had to be done, no matter the cost. "Let's go."

If anything, Ethan ran faster now as if trying to escape something terrible. There was, Giles' eyes just made out, a door ahead. Another corridor or a final destination? He slowed them down when they got near to it, not wanting them to run headlong into more trouble. 'Carefully,' he sent, pulling out his pen and murmuring the word to turn it into the blade.

Ethan... was not looking quite himself. There was something fixed and almost dangerous about his eyes. Giles could feel Ethan's magic working between them, binding them together more tightly than ever, granting him that extra-sensory perception he'd come to expect from the bond. 'This is it,' Ethan sent. 'Feel out beyond the door, feel the Chaos. We'll have to act as one.'

Giles could feel it, a writhing mass of wrongness that made his bad leg ache, his stomach churn, and his senses try to reel. He took tighter hold of his dagger, channelling his magic into it to bring it to the length of a sword. As he did that, Ethan was drawing on Giles' magic, creating a shield of Order around them.

Giles looked at Ethan, drinking in the sight of his lover in this moment. 'Ready, love?'

Ethan's smile was feral. 'For Ian, for Dawn, and for us, yes?'

'Yes,' Giles replied, feeling his mouth stretch in a similarly feral expression. He leant in and quickly stole one fast, hard kiss, then opened the door.

It was another big chamber, but that was all really that Giles noticed about it as in the centre there was a wrongness so vast that his mind could not grasp it. There was a... a hole, like a huge tear in the reality of the maze, and within this hole writhed something monstrous. It was a giant, ever-changing morass of Chaos in which red eyes and white claws appeared and disappeared apparently at random.

"Vaurtain," Ethan whispered.

Giles stared at it in horrified fascination; this was the entity who directly or indirectly been the cause of so much pain and loss in his life and who knew how many others. It was, he realised, as dangerous as a Hellmouth.

Only Hellmouths didn't, as a general rule, speak. "...took your time..." the words, spoken in a voice that sounded like dead leaves and scuttling insects, seemed to come from everywhere at once.

Giles had to suppress a shiver at the sound; it felt foully wrong as it fell on his ears. It took a large effort of will to respond in anything close to a normal tone when he said, "We would have been here sooner if we hadn't kept running into... delays."

The voice surged and receded like gusts in a storm. "...hope you haven't... the entertainment... too strenuous."

"I must congratulate you on your stage presence," Ethan said from beside Giles. "Your voice projection on the other hand requires some work."

"...lost son..." said the voice of Vaurtain, and if possible, he sounded almost fond. "...back to the fold..." A smiling mouth of fangs briefly appeared in the crackling, swirling Chaos.

'Why doesn't he attack?' Ethan asked Giles mentally.

Giles was wondering the same thing, but a moment watching Vaurtain offered a clue. 'I don't think he can. Watch the way he moves; it's ever changing but for one thing, his position in that... hole.'

'He's stuck?' Ethan chuckled in a way that boded ill for Vaurtain. 'I believe you are right.'

"...aware that I... a joke..." swelled the voice. "...joyed at your return to..."

"I never worshiped you, bear," Ethan told it harshly, walking to one side, but staying out of reach of even the longest projections of Chaos. "I was never yours."

"Indeed," Giles added, watching their enemy and doing his best to provoke a reaction so they could gauge the exact limits of its reach. "Ethan's mine. He's was never yours because he's always belonged to me, from the moment he was born."

That won him a quick intense glance from Ethan, who was circling further around Vaurtain. "Having a spot of trouble, are we?" he asked the Chaos beast, smiling in that sly way he had once used habitually. "Maybe you need to go on a diet. You know, Rupert, doesn't this remind you of a story? Now what was it? Ah yes. You need to cut down on the honey, bear of very little brain."

The Chaos beast writhed, tendrils thrashing about, but even stretched to their limit, they couldn't touch Ethan, and he laughed. Giles had kept his eyes on the place where Vaurtain seemed mired in the hole in reality. The edges of the hole had pulsed and shaken in response to Vaurtain's anger as if the rip was trying to do something, but failing.

'The hole there,' he sent to Ethan. 'I don't think Vaurtain is the only thing stuck.'

'What do you mean?' Ethan asked, studying their foe.

"...means the hole.... unfortunately stuck open... you, Watcher?..." So Vaurtain could hear their thoughts, just as Doc had intimated. "...you know what... behind me?"

Only one answer made sense. "Chaos," Giles replied.

"...juicy and... pouring it in... eating your green and pleasant... our Jerusalem..." There was a terrifyingly loud noise like a rockslide in a hurricane. Vaurtain was... laughing.

It was hard to think while the cacophony continued, but after it stilled, Ethan said in a strong voice, "So greedy. No wonder you can't move. Foolish bear. Interesting keyhole to the side of you. Can't think what might fit it."

Giles manoeuvred closer to where Ethan was standing until the keyhole, the existence of which Ethan had so thoughtfully announced, became visible to him. He slipped his hand into his pocket and closed it around the key-shaped Matrix, which seemed to be vibrating with the same nervous energy that ran through Giles himself.

It was obvious what they had to do now, although Giles did not delude himself into thinking it would be easy.

"... really think I... welcome to try... rather bored here, to tell..." Vaurtain seemed to be drawing himself in, taking up a smaller space. "...free the prisoner, I suppose..."

Free the prisoner in the Void – it was part of the prophecy, and Giles suddenly thought he understood it. Vaurtain was trapped, holding the portal to Chaos open with his essence and constantly recharging his own power from the boundless source behind him. To close that portal, to stop the influx of Chaos that was infecting reality like a cancer, they were going to have to remove the obstruction.

They were going to have to free Vaurtain.

Ethan was staring at the shrinking Chaos Beast suspiciously. "What are you up to, bear?" Giles could feel Ethan manipulating the shield protecting Giles, strengthening it considerably.

"...polite... a little bowing and scraping be too much to ask?"

"Yes, actually," Giles replied, shifting position so he was closer to the disembodied keyhole. Closer also to the pulsing wrongness obviously, but that couldn't be helped. "It is too much to ask." He glanced at Ethan, hoping he'd be able to pick up on what Giles was planning without words.

The appalling noise that was Vaurtain's laughter blustered around the chamber again. "...hurry up... too late to free... shame to miss out on your reward... enjoy eating... meat left on her old bones..."

"Exactly what's going to happen, Pooh," Ethan asked, "when this limited time is up?"

Giles continued to drift in the direction of the keyhole as casually as he could manage. Ethan, he was pleased to notice, had begun to drift around the other side of the reality rip as he conversed with Vaurtain, hopefully keeping the Chaos beast's attention focused away from Giles as much as possible.

"...booby prize..." Vaurtain said, a chattering mouth appearing briefly in the swirling Chaos. "...way, I win..."

"Do you?" Ethan asked, apparently able to work out what Vaurtain meant; maybe he could hear more of the words than Giles was able to. "Will you get a nice medal?" He had circled around to be quite the other side of Vaurtain now.

Ethan had always been quite good at distractions, and right now, he seemed to be keeping Vaurtain engaged enough for Giles to be able to sidle up right beside the keyhole without attracting obvious notice. The black tendrils and eyes were all directed towards Ethan currently, although the proximity of living Chaos made Giles hurt terribly even through the thick barrier around him.

Giles pulled the Key out of his pocket, and with a brief prayer that things would work out, fitted it to the keyhole. It slid in smoothly, with an almost inaudible click. There was a twitch from the Chaos morass, perhaps also one from the tear itself, but Vaurtain's attention remained apparently on Ethan, which was unexpected. From the clues Vaurtain had let drop, the Chaos beast knew what it was that the Guardians were prophesised to do here at the centre of the maze. Giles was beginning to suspect that Vaurtain knew full well where Giles was currently and was deliberately holding back. He wanted to be free.

Ethan suddenly tugged on Giles' power, creating some effect with it that caused Vaurtain to laugh again."...greatest disciples... use Order against me... child playing with building bricks... tumbling..."

"Well," Ethan replied in his 'reasonable' voice. "I could hardly use Chaos, could I?"

Giles had to give this a chance to be easy; he tried to turn the key in the way that he somehow instinctively knew would close the portal, but of course it wouldn't budge. So freeing the prisoner it was to be then.

The only way they were going to win this was if they hit Vaurtain with everything they had as soon as Giles turned the Key, and then didn't let up until he was beaten down and contained if not destroyed. Preparing himself, he sent a wordless thought to Ethan, a sense of alertness and readiness, waiting for Ethan to glance his way and grasp what it was they had to do.

In response, he felt a sensation much like being strapped into a moving carriage of some kind as Ethan tied them together at a level that even Giles could sense was deeper than ever before, deeper than he'd ever thought possible. They were one being divided by space.

"Want some more honey, pooh bear?" Ethan asked Vaurtain. "All you have to do is come and get it."

Giles took that as his cue; taking a deep breath and one last long glance at Ethan, he turned the Key, opening the portal just that much further and freeing Vaurtain.

A huge mouth of ice white fangs appeared grinning in front of Giles and then the stuff of Vaurtain was surging forward, outward, filling the chamber and threatening to submerge Giles. His shields buckled and cracked, and his body filled with an appalling, disabling pain. He fell to his knees.

Then Ethan was there, behind Giles, rebuilding the shields and expelling the Chaos that had touched him. Giles felt himself fill with Ethan's wild magic, with his pattern senses, and he pulled himself up tall and ready to fight.

Feeling more comfortable with at least the semblance of a mundane weapon, Giles gripped his pen-cum-sword and sent his magic throbbing through the enchanted metal. So armed, he struck out again and again, swinging the bright blade through the swirling mass of darkness that surrounded them on all sides.

The gold-glowing blade cut though the Chaos, causing tendrils to peel back and mouths to appear and wail in protest, but there was so much of Vaurtain. Afflicted areas were withdrawn and replaced immediately, the Chaos beast immediately replenishing himself through the open doorway to the Chaos source.

Giles and Ethan were tiny within the towering mass of life-stealing Chaos, which was above them and to all sides.

Ethan was a warm and comforting presence against Giles' back, maintaining their shield, keeping it strong and bright, but there was only so much energy they could pour into the shield, and at the moment, Vaurtain had an endless supply of Chaos to draw from. If they were going to survive and defeat their enemy, they needed to cut that off. They needed to shut the portal.

But Vaurtain had driven Giles back from the Key. It was only a few feet away, but it might as well have been on the other side of the world. With the ferocity of attack they were dealing with, they would be lucky to make it more than two steps.

They could, Giles felt confident, defeat Vaurtain if they could just close the rip. After all, hadn't their victory been foreseen? Not that, he knew, this was any guarantee. He sliced through the Chaos blanketing them until the screams from fanged mouths made his ears run with something he rather hoped wasn't blood. Ethan seemed to be pushing their shield forward, millimetre by millimetre, towards the keyhole, but Vaurtain responded. A rush of heavily condensed Chaos surged into them, knocking them back several feet further away from the Key. Giles cursed with desperation, and that was when the very strange thing happened.

Through the thinner patches and breaks in Vaurtain's substance, Giles watched a cloaked and hooded figure emerge from the thick darkness of the rip in reality and walk into the room.

Giles wasn't able to give the figure his full attention while he was busy keeping up his attack on Vaurtain, but he saw enough to discern that the figure was heading for the keyhole. Having no way to discern if the figure was on their side or Vaurtain's –or a third as yet undiscovered side– Giles didn't know whether this was a good or bad development.

One thing seemed obvious, Vaurtain didn't know he or she was there.

Ethan suddenly did something that caused Giles' sword to flare like a brand. 'Cut him to ribbons, dearheart.' Vaurtain howled like the spirit of death around them. Giles redoubled his attack, spinning and slashing at the Chaos Beast, Ethan staying at his back no matter how Giles moved.

At that moment, Giles felt something happen. It was as if a loud noise he'd been hearing so long he'd forgotten it was there had suddenly stopped, or like a room that had grown dark as the day grew long without him realising it had suddenly been illuminated. The stranger had closed the tear.

There was a crackling explosion of laughter from many throats and then Vaurtain was gone, dissipating from around them like evaporating black mist. Why or where he was going was unclear. Ethan slumped heavily against Giles' back and then grabbed him as floor beneath them shuddered. Giles turned around to grab onto Ethan in return, trying his best to steady both of them in the suddenly unstable room. "Earthquakes are never a good sign," he muttered, knowing that Ethan would pick up the words from his mind even if he couldn't hear them.

"The maze... it's... bugger." Ethan clung to Giles as the floor gave way beneath them, and they were falling, surrounded by a cloud of dissolving white dust. Giles braced himself for the worst...

***

Ethan staggered as suddenly their feet were touching ground again. Without letting go of Rupert, he looked around in confusion. They were surrounded by people and barking dogs. The people were grabbing him and asking urgently if he was all right.

And the answer was no, he wasn't. He'd had to spend so much energy in the fight against Vaurtain that his cache protections had failed. The pain was considerable as his body's defences moved in to try and oust the alien matter from his flesh. The time had run out; he had to remake Dawn now or let her die, but where the bloody hell was the Bachian matrix holding the Key?

Ge felt out for its pattern, but Rupert didn't have it. It wasn't on the gorund near them. Ethan was just starting to get frantic when a hooded figure pushed through the crowd and placed the crystal key in his hand. The figure might have said something, but Ethan was quickly moving beyond the point where he could understand words, his focus sinking more and more into his body and the vital trace of Dawn that his natural defences were trying to obliterate.

Faces blurred around him. Even Rupert's essential presence moved further out and away as Ethan pulled energy from the Bachian matrix and began to twist it with his mind. "Stay back..." he thought he managed to say. Perhaps he shouted it. He fell to his knees and using the blueprint he'd stored within himself, began to weave the energy back into the shape of Dawn, using the dead organic matter in the room as a base.

It was the most complex pattern that Ethan had ever attempted, but it wasn't the complexity that worried him, it was the amount of energy he'd need to complete it. He wasn't even half done and already he could feel his sorely put upon reserves faltering.

Trying to do this directly after the fight was insane, but he'd no choice. He could see her now, hazily naked on the floor in front of him, wavering in and out of existence, in and out of her pattern. His magic was running out, and he didn't think he'd have enough even if he started to add his own life force to the mix. "Rupert..." he tried to say. Rupert's magic would be useless for remaking Dawn, but it could keep Ethan alive enough to do this.

But there was no answer, and Ethan strongly suspected the word had never left his mouth.

Then, suddenly, there was an influx of power, and with it a very familiar presence, one that Ethan hadn't thought he'd feel again. It was impossible, wasn't it? But possible or not, Ethan grasped the power he was being given, a power he knew so well. "Crow..." he muttered, forcing solid reality on the shape before him.

'Didn't think I'd leave without seeing you through this, did you, young fox?' Ian's voice seemed to come from somewhere inside Ethan's skull, just as the extra power seemed to come from somewhere inside his own soul.

Ethan didn't know if he was hallucinating in his extremity, but he didn't care. He made Dawn's body real and solid and then worked on transferring her memories back before they corrupted. "We can do this. Can do this, Lord Crow..."

'Of course we can,' Ian replied with utter confidence. 'It's part of what you were born to do, my boy. Why you have such a penchant for shapechanging spells. It's all brought you to this moment, this act.'

She was back, whole and breathing, she looked perfect, but she wasn't Dawn yet, wasn't truly alive. Ethan roared as the faceless crowd moved in again, shoving them back with magic he couldn't spare.

Quickly, he grasped everything that was left in the Bachian matrix. "One last push then." Using every bit of power he had been given and pulling hard on his own life force, Ethan forced the stuff of the Key back into the girl's body.

The last thing he was aware of was Ian's presence wrapped around him and then slowly fading away; Ethan wasn't at all sure that he wasn't fading away with it.