Part VIII
Another world, Buffy thought.
From the moment Riley Finn had told her Naiura was real, not a figment of Cordelia Chase’s fevered imagination, Buffy had felt as though she couldn’t trust anything — anything at all. The ground beneath her feet. The grey-clouded sky above her. The bed she and Angel shared. Jenny Calendar. All of it could be gone in an instant.
In other words, Buffy felt more or less the same way she had for years. Ever since she’d reached into a coffin to put a lily in Willow Rosenberg’s dead hands, her reality had seemed — less than real.
Buffy had heard that this world was in danger, again. She was prepared to fight and die to defend it, again. She didn’t ask herself questions of right or wrong anymore, if it was worth it, if she could face the worst-case scenario. She already had. At least, so she’d thought.
And then Angel had chosen to end their reality — in effect, she thought, killing them all — in favor of another one, where he lived and worked far from her. Where he loved Cordelia Chase, cheerleader and homecoming queen and all-around bitch. He’d looked into Cordelia’s eyes, then looked into hers, and he’d still chosen Cordelia.
Buffy tucked her feet up under her; she was curled in Giles’ chair in his little office, trying as she so often did to conjure up some fragment of his spirit — his wisdom, his courage — that would make her able to face what had happened.
As she often did, she was failing.
“Netquereu — levitaph — Acathla — quereu –” Wesley’s voice chanted from the next room, and the entire library was thick with incense. In the center of the library, Wesley, Angel, Jenny and Cordelia were performing the spell that would bind Cordelia to Acathla, freeing her to end Buffy’s world and resurrect her own.
Giles will be alive, she told herself. Willow and Xander, too. She tried to imagine what they would all be like, a little older, a little wiser. Would Willow still be with Oz? After a few moments, Buffy decided she probably would. They’d been good together. Xander would probably still be bombing out in love, still flirting with her, waiting for his chance. With a jolt, she realized that maybe, just maybe, she would have given him that chance. With Angel out of her life — but no. Apparently she was destined for a romance with stiff-necked Finn.
Frustrated, Buffy went to the window and looked outside. It was midmorning, but the sky was as grey as dusk. Gusts of wind scattered sleet and snow against the windowpane, thrashed the branches of the shrubs beneath. She tried to remember what it had been like before. Did the shrubs ever flower? What had that tree’s branches looked like? She’d never taken the time to notice.
“Hey.” She half-turned to see Angel standing in the doorway behind her. He looked uncertain of his welcome, which showed some understanding of the situation. “We’re finished. Cordelia — she, uh, she’s sworn to Acathla. She’s going to get herself a hotel room to get some rest.” He held out his hand. “We should do the same. I mean, we should rest for tonight.”
Buffy tried to imagine lying next to Angel in bed again. Right now, it seemed as unimaginable as lying in that bed without him had seemed only a day before. “Yeah, tonight. When we end our world so you can go off to a better one with Cordelia.”
He winced. She was glad to see it. “Buffy — that’s not why I voted the way I did. You know that.”
“I don’t know anything anymore.” It was frightening how true those words were.
“If I didn’t believe this was the best thing for everyone, I wouldn’t have voted the way I did,” Angel said. He stepped a little closer, and she could see him trying to decide whether or not to touch her. He chose correctly and didn’t. “You know that I love you. That I always will. Even in that other reality — Buffy, if we’re not together, if we’re with other people, I know that deep down, I still love you. That couldn’t ever end. Not ever.”
Buffy ran her hands through her hair. “I’m sure you still love me,” she said dully. “Just like a sister. Maybe we go out for dinner and give each other relationship advice. Maybe I sent Cordelia some naughty lingerie for Christmas. Maybe I just LOVE it that you’re fucking someone else. Hey, you think you gave Riley Finn some tips on going down on a woman? Hope so. Hate to think about Cordelia being the only one enjoying your expertise.”
Angel opened his mouth as if to snap at her, but hesitated. After a moment, he said only, “You’re angry.”
“And you’re perceptive.”
Angel stepped away from her — or from the window, it could be either — and leaned against the wall. Buffy could see the hurt in his eyes, but she couldn’t stop herself. It’s the end of the world, she thought, at least this world. No future. No consequences. All we have is what happens right now.
So why am I hurting the man that I love?
As a pang of guilt stabbed her, Buffy looked away, out the window once more. Why am I doing this? Why am I making it hurt so much worse? So it will be easier to let go? She tried to remember the last time she had felt happy, and it seemed so long ago —
Then her eyes lit on the horizon, where it was just a little bit brighter. She remembered her dream. She remembered what it felt like to fly.
“Buffy — let’s not do this, okay?” Angel’s voice was hoarse. “I know I hurt you. I’m sorry. But if this happens the way we think it will, this is our last day together. I don’t want us to spend it fighting. I just want to be with you.” She could feel something melting inside her, going warm and soft and fluid, as he whispered, “Let’s go home. If I could just — hold you — it would all feel so different –“
She opened her mouth to say yes. And yet, she heard herself saying, “No.” She glanced over her shoulder, and the look on Angel’s face nearly destroyed her resolve. But she realized what she wanted to say. “I’ve spent the last five years of my life being terrified of being alone. I know I’m not gonna die tonight, not technically. But it feels like I am. And I’m not gonna die afraid.”
“Buffy –“
“What was it you said to me yesterday? One day won’t kill me. And it turns out one day is all I have left.” Buffy lifted her head, blinking back tears. “I only have one day to learn to stand on my own two feet. So that’s what I’m gonna do.”
Angel opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Finally, he said only, “Kiss me goodbye?”
A sob lodged in her throat. Buffy forced back the tears, then shook her head. “I can’t,” she choked. “If I do — then I won’t be able to — Angel — ” She looked at the ceiling, blinking fast. “Please go. Just — go.”
She didn’t look down, but she heard him leave. And then it was finally safe to cry.
***
“This is fucked-up,” Faith said. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know,” Riley said. Everything that was happening still seemed surreal to him — his world not real? Erasing the past several years? Dating Buffy Summers? He shook his head as he set the small bag of clothing borrowed for Faith on the edge of the motel bed. “Guess that makes sense, though. I mean, the way we’ve lived — it was wrong in so many ways. I ought to feel better that it’s not real. I mean, as real.”
Faith snorted unattractively as she peeled off her shapeless coverall, revealing her shapeless blue scrubs. “So are we actually gonna do this? Help these guys erase this world, send me back to jail? And sentence you to dating B, which, let me tell ya, would not be a cakewalk.”
“Of course we’re going to do this,” Riley said. “We said we would.”
“Yeah, I know,” Faith said. “I was wondering if we were maybe lying.”
“Well, we weren’t!” Riley folded his arms across his chest. “Majority rules, Faith. Anything else would betray the democratic process.”
Her mouth twitched, and she bit her lip. Riley realized how he sounded, and they burst into laughter at the exact same time. Faith clutched her sides as she slumped against the wall, and Riley flopped over on the bed. As soon as he could get his breath, he gasped, “I’m sorry I’m such a square.”
“Square!” Faith said, laughing again. “Don’t worry about it, Lee. If you weren’t so — square — you wouldn’t be you.” The smile on her face was more brilliant, more free, than he had ever seen. “Not sayin’ that would be a bad thing. Just sayin’.”
The cheap bedspread smelled like cigarettes, and Riley frowned in distaste. “Why did you pick this place?” he said, sitting up.
“Usedta live here,” Faith said, shaking out her hair. “Some kinda swanky, huh?”
“We could have afforded someplace nicer,” Riley said. “It wouldn’t matter if I maxed out my credit card.”
“Sure wouldn’t,” Faith said, stripping off her top.
All Riley could think was, I guess the quartermaster never issued her a bra.
“You doing okay there, Lee?” Faith said, a wicked smile flickering across her lips. “You look a little pale.”
She pushed down her pants, and Riley was positive they’d given her underwear, but apparently she’d chosen to do without.
Faith — naked, beautiful and completely matter-of-fact — strolled toward the bed, still smiling. Riley tried to think of something to say, but he couldn’t do much of anything but look at her. He’d imagined her naked before — no denying that — but all his frustrated fantasies hadn’t come close to the truth.
“Today is the last day of the rest of my life,” Faith said. “I haven’t taken a real bath or gotten well and truly fucked in three years. Before we blow this reality, I intend to change that. I can run my own bath, but I could use some help with the fucking. You up for it?”
“I — uh –” Riley took a deep breath and said, “Yeah. Definitely. I mean — yeah.”
“Looks like it.” She grinned as she glanced downward, then turned around and headed for the bathroom. Lazily, she said, “Gonna get all that nice, hot, steamy water running. Say, Lee?”
“Uh-huh?” Riley began unlacing his boots as quickly as he could.
“How long can you hold your breath underwater?”
He started laughing even as he kicked off the first boot. “We’re about to find out.”
***
“It’s not too late,” Wesley said. “You could still change your vote.”
“I don’t want to change my vote.” Jenny was sitting in her classroom, staring at the bulletin board. In lime-green foam letters, it read, “Computer illiteracy bytes!” Wesley remembered helping her put it up. He’d cut the letters from the foam. Did she remember that? Probably not.
“Jenny — please –” Wesley knew he was begging, hated the sound of it in his throat, but couldn’t stop. “You don’t have to martyr yourself. Your life is as important as anyone else’s. Even Rupert Giles’. It is to me.”
She shrugged. “It isn’t to me.” Jenny tried to smile at him a little. “I guess that sounds pretty awful, huh? But it’s true.”
Wesley turned away from her and began to pace in frustration. It frightened him to think how easily he’d been willing to throw this world away, so tempted had he been by Cordelia’s words of a mission, a destiny, a purpose. He’d selfishly thought only of his own good. Never once had he asked himself if this reality was the only one with Jenny Calendar in it.
He glanced back over his shoulder at her; she wasn’t looking at him, just at her various ZIP disks and CD-ROMs, all methodically organized in a way nothing else in her life was. Wesley had felt her wrath when he’d filed a CD of Calderash spells in with her technopagan research. Now he knew better. Now he knew her.
She was wearing a red cashmere v-neck sweater, and he knew she’d bought it from the Land’s End catalogue via their website. Her hair was pulled back in a clip, because she’d had to cut it herself — most service professions had cleared out of Sunnydale since the Winter — and she hadn’t done all that good a job. On her desk was a coffee mug from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and it had a chip off the handle from when she’d been startled by a vampire and knocked it into a doorjamb.
Wesley knew all of that. He knew her favorite flavor of ice cream (dulce de leche), her favorite musician (Bjork) and the reason she kept a teddy bear in the trunk of her car. He knew that, at this moment, she was looking down at her careful files, thinking of the futility of it all. He knew that her feelings of futility mirrored his own. And he knew that she had no idea that her desperation was echoed in his heart.
She would give up any reality for one with Giles in it, he thought. Just as I would give up any reality for this one, with her in it. I can’t condemn her for that.
And yet he wanted to. Anger and desperation and his final, ultimate loss made him angry — not at Jenny, but at fate. He’d sworn to obey the wishes of the majority, and he would. Perhaps he was moving on to a better life. But it was a life without Jenny.
When have you ever had a life with Jenny? Wesley thought. She never loved you, and she never would have done. Her heart died with Rupert Giles.
Jenny’s voice broke through the silence. “Do you think you’ll have your memories of this world in the next one?” she said. “Like Cordelia does. Will you remember both realities?”
“I don’t know,” Wesley said. “It doesn’t seem likely, but then, none of this does. Perhaps.”
“Will you do something for me?” She got up from her desk and walked over to him, and the proximity of her was more intoxicating, more frustrating, than it had ever been before. “Will you tell Giles that — God, what should I tell him?” Jenny was blinking back tears as she clutched Wesley’s arm. “Tell him that I got to live a few more years here. Tell him that I always loved him. That wherever I am, I still love him.”
Wesley couldn’t deny her. He couldn’t even want to. “I’ll tell him if I can,” he promised. “But — Jenny –“
She cocked her head. “What is it, Wes?”
Maybe it was a solid day of listening to Cordelia Chase. Maybe it was knowing that he was alone with Jenny for what seemed likely to be the last time. Maybe he’d just remained silent as long as he could, and could do so no longer. But in one instant, Wesley felt his timidity and fear drop away from him, felt courage flush through him in a surge of blood.
“Your life didn’t have to end when Giles died. You have — you had reasons to be here. You had things to live for. You could have had so much more, if you’d only taken it.” Wesley knew he was speaking to himself as well, and it only made him angrier. “You could have had a life worth living. You could have had love.” And he grabbed Jenny and kissed her, a long, slow, intense kiss unlike any he had dared give a woman before.
Her arms went around him, perhaps only by reflex, but he held her even tighter, pressing her body against his own as he slipped his tongue inside her mouth. Wesley was still astonished at his own behavior when he felt Jenny begin to respond. Surprise and desire nearly overwhelmed him as they kept kissing, on and on, making the moment last.
Their lips parted. Jenny stared at him in undisguised shock. The courage that had flooded his spirit a moment ago seemed to fade to black, leaving only the realization that he had just —
Wesley pulled away. As Jenny kept staring at him, speechless, he said, “I — oh — beg pardon.” Then he hurried out the door before he could do anything else, or before she could.
***
Cordelia was surprised that Sunnydale’s one bed-and-breakfast was still open; to judge by the proprietor’s delight when she arrived, they were kinda surprised too. What with Adam’s Winter, she was probably the first paying guest they’d had in months. They asked for a head shot of her, one she could autograph so they could put it in the hallway. Cordelia promised to send them one, feeling more remorse than she should have for making a promise she couldn’t keep.
Business is probably better for them in my reality, she thought. See? Just one more reason I’m doing the right thing.
She lay flat on her back for a while, waiting for sleep that didn’t come. Instead she catalogued the furniture (cherry wood, canopy bed, armoire, real antiques from the look of them), the faint patterns of flowers on the embossed wallpaper (big, droopy, extravagant blooms, like hydrangeas), and the patterns on the Tiffany lamp (water lilies in green and pink and cream.) She tried to think of the lines for the episode of “Cordy” she was supposed to tape next week and realized, to her surprise, that she still knew every word, the timing, the blocking, the whole bit. She tried to remember which of her mother’s friends had had boob jobs and which ones had just had boob lifts.
In short, she thought about absolutely everything besides the fact that she was spending her last hours in a world she had created and would, later on that night, destroy.
Doyle, she thought. Jenny Calendar. I’m not killing them, I know that. But it’s almost worse, what I’m doing. If they died tonight, at least they’d have had the last few years. It’s better to have died than — than never to have been.
But then what about Giles? And Willow, and Xander? Or even Connor — in this reality, Connor had never been born.
Cordelia remembered Connor as a baby, and then as a man, and then it was time to count the flowers on the wallpaper again.
At last, in frustration, she decided to go out and have a drink; maybe after a glass of wine she could relax and get a few precious hours of sleep. Then again, she thought, can I do that at this hour? It’s, like, noon, and I don’t think I could face eating alone in a restaurant. Where could I get a drink?
***
Cordelia smiled. At least the Bronze was still the same — ratty pool tables, cast-iron chair hanging from the staircase, and bartenders who didn’t care about time of day or legitimacy of ID. She got a glass of the “house white,” which was the quality of alcohol usually used as an antiseptic, and prepared to sit down in the cast-iron chair when three more people came through the door.
“It’s the last day of me life,” Doyle said. “If you think I’m spendin’ it sober, you’re a madman.”
“I’m with you there,” Gunn replied. “You think they got Colt 45 in this joint?”
“A likelier bet than a good draw of Guinness,” Doyle said.
“And a decent Sea Breeze?” Lorne chimed in. “Forget about it. We’ll be lucky to find a Michelob Light — and a lovely, reality-shifting movie star waiting for us.”
The other two looked over at her; Doyle grinned and Gunn just sort of shrugged. Cordelia smiled back and waved; she’d thought she wanted to be alone, but the sight of them warmed her more than she’d thought possible. They came and sat around her — a circle of attentive men, just like the Bronze in the bad ol’ days, she thought.
“Well, darlin’, see you couldn’t sleep either,” Doyle said. “Now, me, I’ve only got a few hours of consciousness left to drown in beer, so you can see why I’d be awake. But you?”
She sighed. “This isn’t that much easier for me, believe it or not.”
The waiter wandered up and looked at Lorne in alarm. “Your face –“
“I lost a bet,” Lorne replied smoothly. “The darkest beer in the house for the two gents here, and I’ll settle for a vodka cranberry.”
Gunn looked at Cordelia, an odd expression on his face — as though he wanted to talk, but was unsure of himself. He hadn’t held back his words with her in years. “So — so you like being a demon-fighter better than being a celebrity. What’s up with that?”
“Look at it this way,” Cordelia said with a shrug. “You could face down crazed vampires in a back alley or Joan Rivers on the red carpet. Which would you pick?”
Lorne winced. “At least you can kill the vampires.”
“Exactly.” Cordelia hesitated, then held Doyle’s hand in her own. “Doyle, there’s some stuff I never said to you before –“
“Outstanding!” Doyle grinned. “Are these words of undying love? Confessions of hot, sweaty, secret desire? I’ll settle for finding out you owe me a lot of money.”
She laughed. “No such luck. But — you were a great guy. More than that. You were a good man. I didn’t appreciate you enough while you were here. I wish we’d had more time together, and I’m always going to miss you.”
Now, see? Cordelia thought. That was simple. But her eyes were welling with tears all the same.
Doyle’s eyes had the soft sparkle that she knew meant he was moved, but she also knew he’d never admit it. “That has a nice ring to it,” he said. “But hot, sweaty desire would have been even better.”
“Speaking of hot, sweaty desire,” Lorne said, “when I read you, sweetie, I’d swear I got a flash of you in a liplock with Wesley Wyndham-Price. Did my third eye deceive me?”
Cordelia blushed. “That was just — nothing. I mean, a crush. We’re both over it. SO over it.”
“And here I was thinkin’ I was something special,” Doyle protested. “You and me nearly had a thing, and you and Angel apparently still have a thing, and now it turns out you’re lockin’ lips with the English ponce, too? Are you from some magical universe where everyone’s in love with you?”
“No!” Cordelia protested, pointing at Gunn. “He’s not in love with me.”
“Damn straight,” Gunn said. “I don’t go for white girls.” He glared at Cordelia. “Why are you laughing?”
Cordelia grinned. “You don’t know everything about yourself –“
Lorne cut in, “Speaking of love and desire and the end of the world, look who’s brooding.”
She followed Lorne’s gesture up to the Bronze’s skywalk. Angel stood there, looking down — not at them, but at a spot on the dance floor where nobody stood. He seemed lost to the world, an outline of black on black, no more. Cordelia somehow felt as though she were intruding, watching him, and yet she couldn’t turn away.
Gunn said, “Is anybody gonna fill me in on this whole vampire-with-a-soul concept?”
Lorne shook his head. “It would take more time than this reality has left. Besides, Cordelia’s about to go have a chat with him, and that’ll free us up to return to our Motown divas debate.”
“I’m not,” Cordelia said. “I mean, not unless he comes down here — or if he –“
“If people had not already run the phrase ‘queen of denial’ into the ground, they would have had to invent it for you,” Lorne said. “Face it, sweetcheeks, you have two paths open to you. You can sit here debating about talking to him for an hour before you go talk to him, or you can just go talk to him. Which one should you choose? Remember what I said earlier about this reality only having so much time left.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then just lifted her glass and drained the rest of her wine. “I’ll see you guys at sundown,” she said.
“Take care, princess,” Doyle said as she started up the stairs.
Princess. Cordelia waved goodbye to Doyle one more time, then went up to Angel.
He didn’t turn as she approached him, but she knew he was aware. Sure enough, as she came to his side, he said, “This is where it happened the first time.”
“Yeah,” Cordelia said, surprised he remembered. “This is where I first saw you. I didn’t think you noticed me.”
Angel looked over at her then, his eyes both sympathetic and pained. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh. Right. Non-Cordeliacentric universe. They tell me it’s real, just having trouble believing it.” She pushed past her own embarrassment. “Where what happened the first time?”
“This is where Buffy and I broke up.” He said it so simply, and yet she knew him too well not to know the deep undercurrents of pain in his voice. “I guess — we weren’t exactly dating before, but we’d gotten involved, and then she found out I was a vampire, and it seemed like the only thing we could do was let each other go. We didn’t want to, but we thought we had to. She kissed me goodbye, and the cross I gave her burned my chest. I thought that was it. I thought it was the end.”
Cordelia had never known that Angel and Buffy originally meant not to get involved. She could hear the yearning in his voice, and she hated herself for the way her envy burned and twisted inside her. “You said — the first time. I thought, in this reality, you guys never split up. Again, I mean.”
“Today,” he said dully. “She wants to go out of this world on her own terms. Independent. And that means without me.”
“Oh, God.” Cordelia felt her body going cold, and she clutched his arm. “Is this because of me? I’m sorry — I didn’t want to hurt you –“
“It’s not you,” he said. His eyes flickered over to her briefly, then went back to the spot on the dance floor where, no doubt, a shadowy Buffy and Angel still stood in memory. “Not only you. She didn’t like finding out that we were — are — in love, in that other reality. But that’s not why Buffy broke up with me.”
Angel was hurting so much, and Cordelia was torn between her own selfish resentment of his pain over losing Buffy and the simple urge to take him in her arms, comfort him any way she could. She settled for resting her hand on his. “Do you want to tell me why?” she whispered. “It’s okay if you don’t.”
He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Things haven’t been right for us for a long time. I don’t know why it changed for us, but it did. It seemed like I couldn’t help her anymore. Like I could only hurt her. I never said the right thing or did the right thing — maybe, after a while, I quit trying.” Angel grimaced as he shut his eyes, unable to look at the shadows of the past any longer. “I thought she needed me. What if she didn’t? What if I just held her back all this time?”
“Angel, no,” Cordelia said, squeezing his hand. “You don’t hold people back. Don’t you know that?” He finally turned his head to face her as she whispered, “You have this way about you — you can just look into my eyes, or say a few words, and all of a sudden, it’s like — like I’m stronger, and smarter, and better than I ever was before. And it’s not just me. You have this gift, Angel. You make people see what they are, and what they can be. You make them believe in themselves. So we all believe in you.”
She expected him to doubt her. Maybe to ask her questions. On his best day, to thank her. She wasn’t expecting him to kiss her.
Angel, she thought, her mind’s voice speaking where she could not. Angel’s mouth was on hers, his lips cool, his body close. Her head was tilted back, and her blood whirled inside her head, and she couldn’t see, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. There was only the name Angel, and the man who was holding her close, kissing her, making her feel as though she could never get close enough to him.
When his lips parted from hers, he whispered raggedly, “I’m sorry.”
“No — don’t be sorry.” Cordelia took a deep, shaky breath. Their eyes met. She could see his regret, his pain, his anguish. She knew, with a conviction that pierced her to the core, that he hadn’t kissed her out of love. He still loved Buffy. But he wanted to feel like somebody who could matter, somebody who had something to give. Buffy couldn’t give him that. She could.
She thought about the reality she would return to, the problems of it, the complexities. She felt his hands, still tight on her waist, and remembered how they’d felt against her bare skin one night at the ballet. She weighed the right and the wrong of it, made her decision, and looked into his eyes. “Come to my hotel with me.”
Angel shook his head no, responding automatically. But his hands didn’t leave her body. “I shouldn’t. You — Cordelia, you deserve to be with the man you love. That’s not me. We’re a lot alike — but it’s not me. I’m not the man you love. I’m not the man who loves you.”
“Shhh.” Cordelia put her fingers over his mouth. “We don’t love each other. But we can comfort each other. And Angel — the man who loves me — he has a curse. He can’t make love to me, not really — not without risking losing his soul forever. Eventually, he’s going to feel all bad and burdensome about that, like he’s taking something away from me. Like the way we fell about each other couldn’t possibly matter more than Tab A in Slot B.”
“You mean — we never — we haven’t –“
“Never got past the kissing phase,” Cordelia said. She figured mentioning that their one petting session had been the result of ghostly possession would be completely beside the point. “We couldn’t. We can’t. Do you understand? But here — Angel, you and I could — ” She swallowed hard, kept going. “If I could tell him that we had made love — that I knew what it was like to be with him, that he’d given me everything he could give me in bed, that I only needed him to love me — it would help, I think.”
“You could never make love to your Angel,” he said. “But you want to make love with me.”
Just the words — make love with me — made Cordelia want to reel. She murmured, “Yes. Just once, Angel — just to be with you once –“
He kissed her again, clutching her tightly against him, so tightly it almost hurt. So much of this is wrong, Cordelia thought. But so much of it isn’t.
Roughly, Angel said, “Let’s go.”
***
Cordelia’s room was a frilly, feminine place. Brocade wallpaper and lace coverlets. It made Angel feel even more out of place than he already did.
He was betraying Buffy (no, Buffy broke up with him, she didn’t want him anymore, she hadn’t wanted him in so long and Cordelia wanted him), and he ought to be resting before the battle (how could he sleep, how could he think, how could he do anything other than feel the pain of losing Buffy?), and he was about to go to bed with a woman he didn’t love.
A woman he wished he loved.
“Well,” Cordelia said. She appeared as uncomfortable as he felt. She pulled off her parka — no, Buffy’s parka that Cordelia borrowed — but otherwise, she made no move to undress. She didn’t even look exactly at him. “Not even a little awkward here, huh?”
“I’m sorry,” Angel said. He took off his own coat, wished for a hanger for the leather, then thought about the end of the universe and just let it drop. “I ought to be doing something manly. Ripping off your clothes or throwing you on the bed. Something.”
“Those sound okay,” Cordelia said hopefully. But she was as uncertain as he was. Their eyes met for a moment, then they both looked away again.
“Cordelia — before we do this –” Angel took a deep breath, then plunged on. “I just don’t want to take advantage — I don’t want to do something stupid because I’m hurting –“
“Angel,” Cordelia put her hands on either side of his face. “You’re not taking advantage of me. I’m not taking advantage of you. You need to feel loved. I need to know what it is to make love to you. We can be there for each other, just for today. If you want.”
Her hair was long and soft and dark. Her eyes were shining with love and desire. Angel felt the last strands of his resolve pull and break. “Okay,” he whispered.
“Okay,” she said. But they still stood there, staring at one another.
Angel broke the moment by taking her hand as he sat down on the foot of the bed, pulling her after him. “Your Angel — the one you remember, the one you love — what do you think he would have done?” He brushed one hand through her hair. “How — how would he have wanted it to be? Your first time together.”
She hesitated, then hugged him close, resting her head against his chest. Angel held her, rocked her softly back and forth. He stroked her hair, feeling the soft curve of her neck. Her muffled voice said, “I think — I think he would have wanted it to be slow. Gentle. Sweet.”
“I can do that.” Angel pushed her back just far enough that her face tilted up to his. “I can go slow.” Gently, so gently, he lowered his mouth over hers again.
This kiss was nothing like the one at the Bronze — so full of pain, so hard, so harsh. This time, he let himself feel; Cordelia’s mouth was so soft, her tongue so warm, the taste of her so sweet and so real. He brought his hands up to her face, traced along the line of her jaw as they kissed each other deeply.
Her hands pulled at his shirt, her fingers tense, his collar taut against his neck. He had forgotten what that felt like — to be grasped so desperately, held so tightly. Wanted so much.
Angel slid one hand up her back to the base of her neck, so he could hold her face up to his, keep her from breaking their kisses for even an instant. With his other hand he began touching her — soft, gentle brushes of his fingertips against her back, her belly, the deep well between her breasts. As she arched against him, inviting him to touch her more, Angel felt himself swelling, going hard, getting hot. “Cordelia,” he murmured against her lips. She tensed slightly, and he looked at her, surprised and dismayed. “What — did I do something wrong?”
“It’s just — could you — call me Cordy?”
He’d call her anything. Do anything. “Cordy,” he said. “You’re Cordy.”
She kissed him again, even more deeply this time, and her trembling fingers began unfastening his shirt. His body seemed to flush with almost living heat, the warmth in her body transferring to him, calling something from him that had been quiet for far too long. Her hands slid along his shoulders, removing his shirt in a soft brush of fabric. Her fingertips left tingling lines of sensation on his shoulders, his arms. He imagined her touching him all over, and something inside him melted and gave way.
“Cordy,” he whispered again, calling her by the name she wanted, the name given to her by the man he could have been. Angel pulled up her sweater, and she quit touching him just long enough to lift her arms and help him. She was wearing a bra of seafoam-green lace, expensive and alluring. Cordelia was staring back at him, as if torn between her physical desire and something that could only be — “Are you shy?” he murmured. “Haven’t I — seen you before?”
“You’ve seen this much,” she whispered. “So have I. But this — this is kinda where –“
“I want to see you.” Angel kissed the corner of her jaw, the long line of her neck, the small hollow at the base of her throat. “I want you to see me.”
Cordelia sighed out, a long, shuddering breath. Then she shifted away from him slightly and pushed her slacks down, letting them fall at the foot of the bed. Her panties matched the bra. She had curves — hips you could hold on to, breasts you wanted to taste —
Angel’s memory flashed to Buffy — tiny, reed-thin little Buffy, so fragile, so delicate — and for a moment the cold had settled over him again, chilling his heart and his desire.
But then he looked into Cordelia’s dark eyes, wide and uncertain. She didn’t know how he would feel about her — whether he would want her, and in an instant Angel understood that her worry was for the other Angel as well. He saw her need and fear as clearly as he felt his own. Only then did he know that what happened between them in this room, in this bed — it would be theirs and theirs alone. It wasn’t about his losing Buffy, or trying to lash out at her. This was about Cordelia. It was about two frightened people taking their only chance to be close to each other. To give themselves to each other.
He owed Cordelia that much, just for making him believe.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “You know that, don’t you?”
A shadow of her old smile flickered over her face. “In this reality, I won the Maxim ‘Hottie of the Year’ award. That kinda clued me in,” she confessed. “But those — those were other guys. You’re the only one that ever mattered.”
Cordelia’s fingers hooked into his belt; when Angel didn’t resist, she unbuckled it, then began unfastening his pants. The heat flooded back into his body as she tugged at the waist; he stood up, breaking contact just long enough to let his pants and boxers drop to the floor. Naked, he stood before her for a long moment, reveling in the way her eyes followed the length of his body, the way her lips parted slightly as she let herself stare at his hardening cock.
She was shivering, and Angel realized that her physical reaction might not be entirely arousal. “Come here,” he murmured, stepping around the side of the bed and pulling back the covers. He slid into the bed, making room for her beside him; she crawled up to him — her breasts spilling almost out of the cups of her lacy bra — and curled by his side. Angel draped the covers over her, saving her body’s warmth for the both of them. “That’s better.”
“Oh,” Cordelia breathed as his hand settled on the slight swell of her belly. “Yes.”
Angel kissed her again, long and wet and slow. Her mouth was so warm, so wide. She tasted like cheap wine and something else — something so much richer —
Cordelia’s fingernails scraped lightly along his back, making him arch against her and groan. Encouraged, she scratched him a little harder, kissed him more deeply. He pushed his knee between her legs — oh, God, soft skin and the lace of her underwear, damp and musky against his thigh. Cordelia moved against him, rubbing herself against his leg, and he watched, aroused, as her face registered the pure, carnal satisfaction of the contact.
Angel caressed her breasts; she filled his hands, warm and soft, and he could feel her nipples tightening against his palms, even through the lace. He tugged at one of the straps, pushing it off her shoulder. “This is beautiful,” he said. “And it’s got to go.”
“Gladly.” Cordelia half-sat up, breaking the contact between their bodies for a few seconds that felt far too long. But he watched as she bent her arms behind her, unhooked the bra and let it drop. The sight of her full breasts, her wide, dark nipples, made Angel even harder, blood flowing into his already-thick cock so fast it almost hurt.
He pulled her back down, pushing her shoulders down against the bed. Cordelia cried out as he took one of her nipples into his mouth, plump between his lips, soft against his tongue. He sucked at her gently, loving the way she twisted beneath him, searching for both escape and release. Angel lifted his head away only long enough to whisper, “Cordy,” before he moved to the other breast, to tease her once again into the same arousal. She cried out again — oh, God, she was loud, and he liked loud, and he hadn’t even gotten started yet — and his cock was rubbing against one of her legs as she writhed, and this was already so damn good —
“Angel,” she breathed, “please — I want –“
“Tell me what you want,” he whispered, hoping his breath would be cool against her tight nipples. She shivered, and he smiled. “Anything you want.”
“I want to taste you.” Cordelia kissed him hard, her tongue doing things inside his mouth meant to suggest everything else she wanted to do. Angel’s cock pulsed so hard that for a moment he thought he might come right then, right there, spilling out onto her thigh.
His face must have registered the excitement he hadn’t been able to voice. Cordelia smiled knowingly as she shifted him onto his back and began kissing her way down the center of his chest. Angel grabbed the edge of the headboard with both hands; the lacy canopy over them shook. Just as her tongue dipped into his navel, she paused. After a moment, Angel gasped, “Oh, God, don’t stop now.”
“I — it’s just –” She looked up at him, almost comically dismayed. “I wasn’t ever with an uncircumcised guy before. Is it different? I don’t want to do it wrong.”
“You’re not going to do it wrong,” Angel said in a rush. “Anything you do is not going to be wrong.”
Cordelia still looked uncertain, and Angel — forcing himself into whatever patience he could muster — let go of the headboard. He took her hand in his and folded it around his cock. Just the touch of her warm, soft skin made him grimace, and it took him another few moments to be able to speak. “Do this,” he gasped, using her fingers to smooth his foreskin back. “Just like that.”
“Just like that,” she whispered, her breath warm against the exposed head of his cock. “Got it.”
And then her mouth was on him, so hot and wet that he thought he would explode. Angel grabbed the headboard again, so hard he should have broken it. Her tongue flickered around the ridge, pressed against the indentation right at the tip. He fought the urge to pump into her, but he couldn’t keep himself from moving his hips just a little, just the faintest imitation of thrusting. Then Cordelia started sucking — sucking hard, so much pressure that it felt as though his cock had never been so hard, so tight, so desperate to come —
“Stop, stop,” he gasped, pulling away. Her lips made a slick sound as he slipped out of her mouth. When Cordelia looked at him in confusion, he managed to say, “Inside you. Want to be — inside you.”
“Then be inside me,” she murmured. Cordelia’s long hair trailed along his skin as she crawled up to kiss him on the mouth once more. Angel pulled her panties down, the two of them fumbling to get them off without breaking their kiss. They were wet in his hands, and the scent of her was thick in the room.
As she straddled him, Angel gazed at her naked body for the first time. She was curved and golden in the room’s faint light, a fantasy woman, but so real, so near, he could hardly stand it. He touched her gently, quickly, everywhere — breasts, back, collarbones, knees. “Cordelia — Cordy –“
“Yeah?” Her breath was shallow, and Angel could hear how fast her heart was beating. He looked up at her and saw her entire — her body’s beauty, her spirit’s courage, her humor, her fierceness, her impulsiveness, all of it.
“He loves you,” Angel said quietly. “I know he does.”
Tears — whether of grief or joy, he couldn’t guess — filled her eyes. “I love him too.”
He dipped his fingers between her legs, felt the soft folds of her slick against his skin. Then she took his cock in her hand and guided him, just where he needed to be — and then she plunged down onto him, living heat, so tight, so good.
Cordelia moaned, and Angel grabbed her right at the waist, pulling her closer, going in even deeper. When he had sunk completely into her, for a long moment he couldn’t move, couldn’t think. He could only feel the pulse of her heartbeat against his cock, could only watch her as she caressed his chest, then brought her hands up to her breasts, Angel could take a hint. He took one of her breasts into his hand, circling the nipple with his thumb. She made a low, humming sound of satisfaction. He brought his other hand to the joining of their bodies, searched and found —
“Oh, oh, oh God, Angel –” Cordelia gasped, then cried out incoherently as he began massaging her there, just there.
“Cordy,” Angel whispered. Cordelia began to move atop him, twisting her hips in a way that was half thrust, half circle. He caught the motion immediately, spiraling with her, thrusting into her as they went. His fingers pressed into her just as he was deepest inside her, again and again, both of them feeling the heat and pressure of each other at the same moment, in the same rhythm, building in tempo and pleasure as they went.
She threw her head back as she moaned again, a sound so deep inside her that he could feel the vibrations against his own body. Her long, dark hair stuck to her skin with her sweat. She was alive with heat — she was heat, and he was buried in her so deeply that it felt like he was on fire.
Angel massaged her just a little harder, a little faster, and her moan turned into a cry of pure pleasure. Cordelia’s body tensed, and then he felt the contractions of her orgasm tight around his cock. He felt it then — that lockslide shift in his brain and his gut that told him he would come at any moment, any moment —
Then there was nothing but heat and light and sensation, pulling him inside himself until he was just one glimmer of sensation — then exploding, outward and outward, better and better, flowing out of him, out of his skin, spilling into her in a rush that wiped away everything else.
Cordelia collapsed atop him, her breasts heavy against his chest. When Angel thought he could move again, he managed to take hold of the covers and pull them back up around her, cocooning the two of them together. She was breathing hard, her body sweat-slick and warm. He embraced her as tightly as he could; his muscles didn’t seem to want to obey. He was shaking from emotion and pure release, and she was too. For a long time they said nothing, just held each other as the tremors passed from them.
Finally, he murmured, “He’s a lucky man. That other me.”
She didn’t lift her head from his chest, but she turned so that her cheek was against his skin and their eyes could meet. “He’ll never have this, you know. What you and I just shared — I can’t ever give that to him.”
“He has your love,” Angel said. “As incredible as this was — I think your love is worth a whole lot more.”
She smiled gently. “I’ll tell him that.”
He looked down at her face — so beautiful, so frightened, so lost — and touched his fingertips to her cheek. “Tell him — ” Angel closed his eyes for a moment and searched his memories. Then he smiled at her once more. “Tell him that once, back in Ireland, as a boy, he climbed a mountain. Not much of a mountain, I guess, but it was a hard day’s work. His father forbid him to do it, and so there was that thrill to it too.” He played with the dark strands of her hair. “When he — when I got to the top, I could look down over the countryside. I was tired, and my heart was pounding, but it was so beautiful. I was so proud — of being able to climb that far, of knowing that the country I was looking at was my own. And I was up in the sky, so it felt like heaven was all around me.”
Angel kissed Cordelia gently, then whispered, “Tell him, that after we made love — that was how it felt. Just like that.”
“Oh, Angel.” Cordelia took a deep, shaky breath. She said, “You shouldn’t say stuff like that.”
“Why not?”
Her smile was faint. “You’ll make me fall in love with you, too.”