Previously on Angel, Fred disappeared, Cordy was sucked into another dimention, Angel rescued Fred, the Host read their souls, Fred sings Crazy, Gunn's buddies trash Caritas.

Wesley and Cordelia argue about the organization of the weapons' cabient. Fred anxiously asks what time it is. Cordy tells her it's 6:24, three minutes after the last time she asked. Fred explains her theory that the more you are aware of time, the slower it moves, which might make time travel possible. She asks if Buffy and Angel are going to get back together. Wesley and Cordelia answer her by acting out the 30-second version of the Buffy & Angel romance -- interrupted by Angel, back from seeing Buffy back from the dead, acknowledging that they have it pretty accurately. But, as punishment, he isn't going to tell them exactly what happened.

Meanwhile, Angel and Fred go for ice cream and chase a monster down to the sewers and Fred loves it. She wants to build a condo in the sewers because they are so cool and bleak and oppresive. Dursa beasts don't usually come above ground, Angel says, reassuring her. Fred says that she's plain-boring-nutty-old-goon-hiding-in-her-room-mooching-off-of-Angel Fred, and Angel tells her he doesn't think she is boring. She doesn't understand how they can all put up with her since she practically needs flashcards to keep up... and gets distracted by pretty crystals on the wall. They are both distracted by a snarl from the Dursler beast. Angel sends her back to the hotel while he deals with it.

Act One

Meanwhile, Cordelia, Gunn and Wesley have two people, Roger and his wife Trish, arrive on Angel Investigation's doorstep looking for their missing daughter. The trio question them about monsters, demons and ghouls, before determanining that A) They are unaware of the weirder side of life and B) They are Fred's parents. Fred, coming up from the sewers, sees them in the office and freaks, running up to her room before they can see her.

Fred's parents say that she wrote them a letter saying she was fine but not telling them where she was. Their investigator tracked her to the Hyperion, and the Burkles came looking for their daughter. Angel comes in carrying a demon head, babbling before he sees Fred's parents.

Upstairs, Fred starts scrubbing off the equisions she wrote on the wall, and begins cleaning.

Cordelia covers for Angel carrying his trophy by explaining that Angel makes monster movies and that the head is a prop. Gamely, Angel tries to clue into what's gonig on without knowning what's going on. Gunn is just amazed that the investigator found her without an address. Angel et al take her parents up to her room, but she's not there. Fred's parents are disturbed by the crazy scribblings, and Angel, Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn worry about Fred being out of the hotel alone.

Act Two

Cordelia frets about Fred's parents, who seem strange. Gunn frets that Fred is on her own. Angel frets that Cordelia thinks he's fat. Wesley is paranoid about Fred's parents somehow trying to trick them. They put their heads together and try to figure out where Fred could have gone, but she's left the hotel so rarely that they can't imagine where she'd think to go (other than the local taco stands). Angel goes to the sewers to find her, Wesley goes to the library where she used to work, and Cordelia worries about Fred's parents.

The Host grumps out of his private rooms to the sound of insistant pounding on Caritas' door. It's Fred, who needs his help, and sings Row Row Row Your Boat at him to make him read her aura. Loren tries to fend her off, saying all her fear and panic is blowing out his fuses. Fred asks for cash, and starts singing again. Loren says that she's in a bad place, and she thought that she was free, but the old monsters are hunting her down. He understands why she was running away, and tells her she hasn't run far enough.

Angel searches the sewers for Fred, and trys to talk her into coming out. As he searches, a thing with glowing eyes peers out at him. At the library where Fred used to work, Cordelia makes awkward chitchat with Fred's parents. Fred's father is acting protective of Fred. Wesley and Gunn report that they can't find her anywhere. Cordelia continues to think that there is something weird about Fred's parents.

In the sewers, Angel gets a call from the rest of the crew, and groans that they didn't think of Loren's place. As he walks off, a big bug stares at him.

At Caritas, Loren snarks at the group that has descended on his trashed club. Roger and Trish stare at the green-skinned man and assume that he works with Angel in the moster movie business. Loren disagrees when Cordelia explains that, mostly because he's just pissy. Angel drags him off to explain, while Trish snarks that they don't really know where Fred is. Angel talks Loren into telling them where Fred's gone.

Fred sits in a bus station, pep-talking herself, and calculating pi to calm herself down. Even the homeless people are edging away from her in fear. Scary Bug Vision (tm) shows her sitting in the lobby. As she plans to move to Las Vegas, Angel, her parents, and C, W & G come in. Fred's parents see her and she runs as they chase after her. Fred freaks out in front of them, and it becomes obvious that she's been running from herself, not them. As long as she doesn't hav e to tell them what happened to her in Pylea, it doesn't have to be real to her. But if she has to explain, then she has to face it, and grieve for it, and grieve for her parents' worry. Fred's mother takes her in her arms and holds her tight, and Fred and her parents have a very damp reunion in the bus station until a really big bug pops out and screeches at them. Fred's father demands to know if that's something from the movie. Cordelia says no, that's something that's going to kill them.

Act Three

At the bus station, Angel orders everyone out6 to try to fight the big bug, They all run outside, and the bug throws Angel through a window. Ev eryone else runs for the trunk of the car, while Roger demands to know what happened to Angel's face. Wesley explains that he's a v ampire with a soul, and he'll explain better later if they don't all die. Wesley, Gunn and Cordy tear into someone's sports bag, and Gunn shots it with a bow and arrow. Cordelia beats it with a driver from a set of golf clubs, but it knocks her over. Her club slides across the ground and lands at Fred's feet, who stares at it. She picks it up and whacks the bug with it, and the bug knocks her down. Roger picks up a garbage can and starts beating the bug around its head and shoulders. He helps Fred up, and they come around the corner to see Angel struggling with the bug out in the parking lot. Angel gets thrown away from the bus lane, and a bus comes barrelling through and smacks the giant cockroach to bug goo. While everyone watches, Fred's mother comes out asking if she did it.

Back at the Hyperion, Cordelia is doing first aid triage, bandaging up Fred's arm from where it got slashed in the fight, and Fred's parents ask about their line of work, and since they now are in the know, everyone can give them direct answers. Fred notices the head of the Dursler beast that Angel killed earlier, and sees the crystals on it like the crystals in the sewers. Fred's father is impressed that she knows how to track demons, but Fred demurs. Angel and Wesley comment on how Fred's parents love her, and they didn't expect this to turn out like this. Cordelia calls Angel over for his first aid session. Fred realizes everyone at Angel Investigations has their place, but her. Angel and Roger bond over golf strokes. Fred decides she wants to go home. She wants to go home where it's quiet and safe.

Up in her room, Angel comes in to see how she is. Fred runs the gamet of human emotions, which boils down to being happy and confused. She points out her walls as the story of her time in Pylea and afterwards, when Angel rescued her. After Angel left, Fred locked herself in her room like it was the cave in Pylea, waiting for Angel to rescue her again. But she knows this tme, he can't save her.

Downstairs, Cordelia and Trish are talking about monster movies. Roger's always loved the Alien movies, except for that last one, which was boring. Trish is trying to take in the fact that it is real. Roger shows his wife the invention Fred made, that is either a decapitation device or a toaster. Fred and Angel come down the stairs, all packed. Fred goes around and gives everyone a hug, and Cordelia admits that she's almost a little jealous. Fred thanks Angel for everything, and leaves.

In the taxi, Fred notices that her shirt with the bug blood on it has solidified into crystals, and she insists that they turn around. Back at Angel Investigations, everyone's moping in the office about how much they are going to miss... Fred's parents. Wesley overshares about his bad parents, but everyone pretty much agrees that Fred has cool parents, and they want them.

While they aren't looking, the head of the Dursler beast starts... rippling.

Act Four

Angel muses that it's nice to have someone around who was a nice, quiet kind of crazy (say, as opposed to Dru?) but Cordelia insists that she's thrilled Fred is gone, until Angel offers that she might come back to visit and Cordelia begs, "Do you think so?" Cordy decides to go home, eat some comfort food, have a nice cry and crawl under her big fluffy... giant bug. Actually, there are several, all around the lobby of the hotel. They make a quick dive for the weapons cabinet. Fred comes running in, and adjusts the aim on her decapitation machine/toaster so that the axe splatters the Dursler beast's head -- and larve start crawling out. The biggest bug gathers up the nest and leaves quietly. She figured out that the crystals were dried up bug goop, and connected the Dursler, the sewers and the bugs. Since Angel killed the Dursler and took the head away, the bugs had lost their next generation and had to track it down.

Fred realizes that her place is in LA with everyone, helping fight the good fight in her own, inimitable, more-words-than-any-other-human-can-squeeze-into-three-seconds way. Fred's parents understand and support her decision. (Fred's parents rock.)

Upstairs in Fred's room, everyone is chipping in to paint her walls white, while Angel and Roger discuss Spiro Agnew's identity as a Brechnar demon. Trish scolds Gunn and Wesley while they bicker. Cordelia offers everyone pizza, and Fred quietly paints over her drawing of Angel rescuing her on his horse.

THE END