Part 7
Angel stared at Buffy who looked at him with confusion from across the room. “What is she doing here Lilah?” his eyes never leaving the stunned Slayer.
“What do you mean ‘What is she doing here?’?” Buffy mimicked his tone. “Dawn and I were finishing a visit with my Dad. We were just about to leave, catch up with the others when this,” she pointed toward Lilah, “woman shows up on the doorstep and said that you were in trouble, said that you sent for me. She said that if I didn’t come and help you that you could lose your soul.” Buffy’s arms were crossed over her chest defensively, suddenly getting the realization that she had just entered a game to which she didn’t understand the rules.
Angel took a deep, exasperated breath and gave Lilah an evil glare, “Everything’s fine here Buffy. I’ve got things under control. Go home,” he realized that his anger and hatred for Lilah were making his voice tight and harsh. He softened himself a bit and turned his eyes toward the Slayer again. “Please,” was his gentler plea.
“Ah,” Lilah smiled and sauntered to Angel’s desk, leaning back against the edge, “but you do need her, and your soul is in jeopardy,” she smiled. “Like I said, she’s your new assignment.”
Buffy, unable to stand the smug grin or the taunting tone of the other woman, began to advance toward Lilah. “I don’t know who the hell you are and I don’t really care for that matter, but I’m the Slayer and this is Angel. He doesn’t take orders and neither do I.“ Angel’s outstretched hand stopped her before she could reach the dead lawyer. “Angel,” she said with annoyance and frustration but let his touch stop her movement.
Angel closed his eyes, reigning in his own anger. He tried to think of Cordy, he had to play along for her, just until he could find a way out of this mess. Opening his eyes he looked at Lilah, ignoring Buffy’s growing irritation and fury at being thrown into a situation that she knew nothing about. Before he could beat Lilah at her own game, he had to know the rules. “What do I have to do?” he asked, defeated.
“The Senior Partners have been pleased with your work over the last couple of months. You and your little team have really gotten us back on our feet, but our organization is being threatened by a new presence and we need the kind of help that we believe only the Slayer can provide. Your assignment is to get her to work for us, help us, and you, with a little project.”
“No deal, Lilah,” he answered decisively. “I’ve already brought too many innocent people into this. I’m not going to add her to the list.”
“Oh no? You do realize that if you fail any assignment given to you by the Senior Partners that that line in your contract…how does it go?” she looked off as if reciting a classic poem. “Oh yes, I remember now. If you fail any assignment, direct command, or breach your contract with Wolfram and Hart in any way, you owe us one soul extraction. Not word for word, but that’s the gist of it anyway,” her smile widened as she enjoyed the barely restrained fury evident on the vampires face.
“What are we negotiating here, Lilah?” Angel became all business.
“Wait a minute. I don’t work for anyone, and since when do you?” Buffy turned to face Angel.
“It’s a long story. Short version, this law firm is evil. They gave me the amulet I brought to you and offered me some things I felt I couldn’t turn down at the time. In return, I had to make a deal with them.”
“What kind of a deal?” Buffy asked, horrified at just what Angel had done.
“Takes her a minute to catch on, doesn‘t it?” Lilah interrupted. “His soul, dear. He signed over his soul to us as a condition of employment,” she explained as if Buffy was mentally impaired.
“You gave up the right to your soul to come and help me?” Buffy knew she shouldn’t be touched by such a thing, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Signed it right away when he knew you were in trouble.”
“That’s not exactly true Lilah.”
“Isn’t it?” she looked at Angel as if daring him to tell Buffy the real reason. “Anyway, we want you to come and work for us,” she began her sales pitch again. “The two of you have worked together before, it shouldn’t be that difficult to do it again.”
“I told you,” Buffy matched Lilah’s earlier condescending tone, “I don’t work for anyone. Not now, not ever. The answer’s no. I have a responsibility to fight evil, not join with it,” she turned and started for the door.
“If you walk out that door, Angel loses his soul.”
Buffy paused, some distant and long ago feeling told her she should turn around and help him, but she thought of Dawn, of Giles and the others, and of Spike’s sacrifice. She closed her eyes, fighting back tears at the memory of Spike’s face before she left him there, in the mouth of Hell. She loved him so much and had never told him until it was too late to save him and too late for him to really believe. She couldn’t betray him and the others, what they expected of her. They had all just battle hell on earth together, they were a family, one that held no place for Angel. The truth was that it never had. She had to take care of them, even if it meant abandoning her ex-love. Her hand reached for the office door and she paused, “Angel can take care of himself,” she stated quietly, hoping he would understand.
“And if he turns?” Lilah asked innocently.
“Then I’ll do what I was born to do,” she turned the knob.
“Like you did before, when he turned?” Lilah’s taunt made Buffy’s hand drop away from the door. She stood still, frozen with the memories of her failure to stop him before he could terrorize and kill. “How long did it take you to kill him last time?” Lilah continued. “Three, four weeks? Oh well, we are talking about Angelus here, the Scourge of Europe. I guess I’ve gotta hand it to you, at least you managed to get him in the end, after he had killed, tortured, and terrorized members of your little group of do-gooders that is. Who do you think it will be this time? Xander? Willow? Giles?” she paused for effect, before delivering the real blow, “Dawn?”
Buffy swallowed and finally turned, her eyes blazing in anger and fear. “I won’t do it. I can’t.”
“What do you think Angel?” the dead lawyer turned her antagonizing words toward the silent vampire. “What would a big bad demon do to a little girl like that? I bet he wouldn’t kill her, at least not right away.”
“That’s enough Lilah,” Angel growled a warning.
“Of course you wouldn’t visit the sweet little Jr. Miss Summers alone now, would you? Because she wouldn’t be your first stop.”
“I said, that’s enough,” Angel crossed the room at inhuman speed, his hand clutching Lilah’s scarf covered neck.
“Come on Angel. You can’t tell me you’ve never wondered what kind of vampire Cordelia would make. It’s in your profile, you’d turn her in an instant if you lost your soul.”
Angel wanted to deny what she said, but deep inside he knew that every strangled word was true. Reluctantly he let go of his hold on her and took a tentative step back, ashamed that his enemy knew him so well. She knew his weakness, just where and how to strike at him to bring him to his knees in defeat. Cordelia would never be safe from Angelus. She would be his first victim, turned out of need, want, and lust. “Why bring her into this?” he motioned his head toward Buffy, who stood quietly near the door, trying to process all the information that was unfolding before her.
“Because she’s in love with your understudy. Or I guess we could call him your replacement now that you’ve switched teams.”
“My replacement?” Angel’s strong brow furrowed, then relaxed. “The Powers. They called a new champion,” his questioning face was now etched with realization. Spike’s soul, the amulet, his return, it all made sense now. Suddenly a thought began to take shape, a question to which he feared he already knew the answer. “You said ‘understudy’”, he began to reason out the unasked question himself. “He wasn’t sent here to replace me, he was sent here to learn from me. Wasn’t he? He was going to take my place when I….” he couldn’t say the word, not now, not after he had ruined everything. “How close was I?” his voice was just a whisper of sound.
“Closer than you think,” Lilah’s eyes were bright at the hint of pain in Angel’s words. “A couple more years and you could’ve been picnicking at noon with the lovely Cordelia in the bright California sun. She had such faith in you, thought that you were so good, so strong. Of course we know the truth, don’t we? Without her you’re nothing, just some demon that borrowed her goodness and light, pretending that a little bit of it existed inside of you. But that’s all it was, Angel, just pretend. You could never be that good. The way you abandoned ship as soon as she was out of the picture is proof of that.”
“I did that for her, to keep her safe,” he argued.
“Really? Are you sure you weren’t just falling back into your natural behavior? It’s tough to pretend your something you’re not, isn’t it? Without her to lean on, to believe in you, it hardly seemed worth it, did it?”
Angel stared off as Lilah’s words twisted painfully around his still heart.
“Don’t worry about her, Angel,” Lilah’s voice dripped with sarcastic concern. “She’s in good hands now. I’m sure Spike will take good care of her.”
“Spike?” Buffy barely breathed the name. She had stood silently in the room, working through the realization of Angel’s feelings for someone she had thought of as only an old snobby classmate and friend and coworker to her ex-boyfriend. For some reason it bothered her that it HADN’T bothered her. It should. Cordelia and Angel just didn’t fit somehow. She’d been lost in the process of piecing together just how and why something like that could happen, when she heard his name. “Spike’s alive?” she held her breath for the answer.
“Yes, well, maybe not alive, alive, but he‘s here,” Lilah provided. “Seems he’s been deemed worthy of a soul and a mission himself. That’s why we need you.”
“I won’t hurt him,” Buffy’s emotions began to get the best of her at the thought of Spike surviving the battle in Sunnydale. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and fought the tears swimming in her eyes. “No matter what you say or do, I can’t hurt him. I won’t.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Lilah slowly rounded the desk and gracefully sat in the black, leather chair. “We don’t want you to hurt him. We want you, both of you, to run them out of town. Spike and Cordelia are tilting the scales. We want the balance back in our favor, but if we kill them or turn them over to our side, the Powers will just replace them with a new warrior and his connection to life. If you think about it rationally, it’s really a win, win situation. You get what you want, them safely away from us, and we get what we want, their influence out of this town.”
“I’ll go to him. He’ll leave with me and you won’t have to worry about him again,” Buffy hated the desperate words that left her mouth, but that was what she was, desperate to save Spike from anymore pain.
“No, he won’t. He’s bonded with Cordelia, feels a certain loyalty to her,” Lilah leaned forward and rested her elbows on Angel’s desk. “He’s vowed to protect her and he won’t leave her if he thinks she’s in danger.”
“I won’t work for you,” Buffy raised her chin defiantly.
“Think about the worst thing you can imagine happening to that little sister of yours,” Lilah rested her chin gently on top of her hands. “Now multiply that times a hundred and you will come just short of what Angelus has actually done to countless young girls in the past, without the motive of revenge to spur him on.”
Buffy trembled slightly, unable to control the fear for her sister, or the anger at the decision she was being forced to make. “If I do this, help drive him out of town, will I be free? Can I go after him?”
“You’ll be free as a bird,” Lilah’s saccharine smile made the Slayer’s stomach turn. “You can chase him to the ends of the earth for all we care, as long as he is far away from us.”
“If Cordelia leaves, I want out,” Angel tried at striking a similar deal.
“Umm, sorry,” Lilah faked an expression of pity. “You, I’m afraid, are locked in an ironclad contract. We have too many important plans for you in the future. You’ll just have to rest assured in the knowledge that the person you love is far away from us and the type of pain we can cause her.”
Buffy and Angel looked at each other, both ready to surrender to their mutual fate in order to protect the ones they loved. They looked back to Lilah and her expression of triumphant arrogance. Both knew that they would fight, try their best to battle their way out of the deal they were about to make, but ready to step across the line in order to stave the unknown ‘plan B’ that Wolfram and Hart was sure to have.
Angel’s jaw clenched and for the second time in just a few short months, struck a deal that Cordelia would hate him for to save her life. “What do you want us to do?”
Part 8
The smell of bacon permeated the air making Cordelia’s stomach growl as she rubbed her sleepy eyes and scooted across the bed to peer at the clock. “Noon!” she scolded herself and thought it almost funny that someone just out of a coma could sleep so late. Of course she had a valid excuse. Angel had kept her up most of the night. She blushed at the thought of their night together, of the things he had done and said. She was no virgin. She’d had sex before. Maybe not as many times as most people that knew her probably thought but still, she knew what it was and how it felt. And it never felt like last night. And last night wasn’t even sex, sex.
“Oh God,” she whispered to herself. Just what would real sex with Angel feel like? If last night was any indication she wasn’t so sure she could handle it. That is if she ever got to ‘handle’ it at all. She swallowed and twisted the sheet in her fist as her mind switched gears from afterglow to reality check. She thought about the curse, about Angel and his deal with Wolfram and Hart and his promise to leave the firm and come back to her. What if it didn’t work? Had she been too hard on him? Demanded too much, too soon?
Cordelia sat up straight in the bed, squared her shoulders and took a deep calming breath. Everything would turn out fine. She wouldn’t, couldn’t let her doubts defeat her. Not after last night. She had to believe. If she didn’t, the others, especially Angel, never would.
Dressed and ready to face whatever disasters awaited her and her family today, Cordelia hurried down the stairs to the small kitchen off the lobby. When she entered the kitchen she spied the plate of freshly cooked bacon on the stove and smiled. Well, it wasn’t his special scrambled eggs but it was a sweet thought all the same. She just hoped his endearing gesture of cooking her breakfast hadn’t made him too late. Although she certainly didn’t relish the thought of him going in today at all, she was a realist, she knew that it was necessary to find a way out, and the sooner he did that the sooner he’d be home.
Trying to keep a positive attitude, Cordelia picked up the plate loaded down with meat and sat at the small table, crunching on the first crispy strip.
“What the blazes are you doing!?”
Cordelia looked down at the plate and then back to Spike who stood in the doorway, a towel around his waist and an angry scowl on his face. “I thought…” she began.
“Oh what? Now not only am I your office boy and flunky sidekick, but your bloody personal chef as well?“ he barked as he crossed the floor and snatched the plate from the table.
“No,” she said in a slightly sarcastic and extremely embarrassed voice. “I thought it was for me. Angel used to cook me breakfast after every mission. I just thought …..”
“That I would automatically provide the same service. Well, if you haven’t noticed I’m not the great and powerful poof,” he dropped the plate down in front of him, making sure it hit the table with a dramatic thud before sitting in the seat opposite Cordelia.
Cordelia stared, mouth agape at the nearly naked vampire as he began to pick up each piece and crumble it back onto the plate. “What do you think your doing?”
“Getting ready to eat my breakfast,” he continued his task without even a glance in her direction.
“You don’t eat,” Cordelia stated simply, her face flushing out of frustration for the obstinate and rude vampire and over her embarrassment of thinking it had been Angel who had left her breakfast. And because every time Spike shifted in the vinyl seat she could swear she got a little peek of …. “Shouldn’t you get dressed or something?”
That finally got his attention. He laid the second piece he was working on down and looked up and gave a little wicked grin. So, his state of undress bothered her did it? He could work with that. Making people uncomfortable was what he did best and the way that little pink blush was creeping up Cordelia’s neck and into her cheeks was just too adorable and tempting to resist. Stretching his arms over and behind his head, he gave her a generous view. He would see just how far he could push before her true colors started to show.
Cordelia bolted up out of the chair so fast that it nearly fell over. “I’m…ah…going to the diner down the street to get a bite to eat,” her voice echoed in the small room.
“Relax,” Spike couldn’t help but smile. He suddenly felt as if he had uncovered a secret, found out who Cordelia Chase really was. Sure, she had a sharp wit and quick tongue, and most of the people who had crossed her path in life may have labeled her a bitch, a slut, a snob. But he knew the truth. Truth was the one thing that always came sharp and clear for Spike.
The truth was that all those people who thought they knew her had mistaken her upfront, honest attitude as bitchiness. Her way of carrying herself, of knowing who she was, seemed to the unobservant as snobbery instead of pride, self-discipline, and confidence. As for a slut. He shook his head and smiled again. No slut would blush at the sight of a little skin. Standing up and making sure that he was fully covered, he gestured to the table. “I’ve got plenty to share,” he grinned and raised his eyebrows, turning his comment into a double meaning.
“You’re a pig, Spike,” Cordelia looked at him a little calmer, realizing he had baited her.
“Come on, luv. I know you need the nourishment. I mean, you must have worked up quite an appetite after last night. I know the sounds coming out of your room kept me … up… most of the night,” he teased as she sat back down at the table.
“Spike, one standard rule around this place is that all vampires keep the private things they hear with their supernatural ears to themselves,” she advised and took a piece of bacon from the plate he had pushed in the middle of the table.
“Hate to embarrass you, pet. Actually, that’s not true, it’s kind of fun and adorable, but there was no supernatural power involved.”
“Spike, I think I don’t want to talk about this. Especially with you.”
“Can I help it if you screamed like a banshee half the night.”
“Spike,” she warned.
“Alright, alright. Just warn me next time. That could have been Angelus who walked down those stairs this morning.”
“But we didn’t…”
“Hey, you almost brought the demon out in me with all of that delicious noise you made.”
Cordelia answered him by biting into her breakfast and looking at anything in the room but his frank and blunt face. She was beginning to understand something about Spike. He was a lot like her. He liked the truth. He liked to find it, dissect it, study it, and shove it right back in your face so you couldn’t run from it. Wow, for the first time in her life she understood why some people couldn’t handle her frankness.
“Hey,” he caught her attention and surprised her with the deep sincerity in his voice. Reaching across the table he laid his hand on hers. “Just be careful.”
“Don’t worry. Angel knows his limits. He’s lived with them long enough,” she answered back quietly.
“It’s not Angel I’m worried about, luv.”
They both sat in silence for a moment. A bond of friendship forming and strengthening between them in the moments that passed.
Spike, ashamed of revealing so much of his true self to her, was the first to break the spell. He stood sharply and sauntered to the microwave, dawning a cup of blood that had obviously been cooling there. He walked back to the table and sat down, dropping the pieces of bacon he had crumbled earlier into his cup.
“What are you doing?”
“I told you, eating breakfast. The bacon gives it a little texture and surprisingly really brings out the flavor in this disgusting swine juice.”
“How did you figure it out, Spike?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just tried it one day. Saw this commercial on the tele for ….”
“I don’t mean your little concoction there.”
“Oh,” realization hit him and he sat down the cup. “You mean the soul. How did I get a permanent soul.”
“Yeah,” she breathed and couldn’t keep the look of hope for what his answer might mean for Angel out of her eyes.
“Well, I saw a man. More specifically, a Shaman. He told me what to do and I did it.”
“So, Angel could go. See this man I mean,” she could feel her heart racing.
Spike couldn’t stand to hear the hope in her voice. He wished Angel wasn’t such a selfish bastard. “It’s not as simple as it sounds. There is a test. A challenge of sorts.”
“Like a test of strength? Bravery? He could do that. He’s done it before.”
“Well, there is that. A test of strength and bravery. Three in fact. But simply defeating those three challenges is not how you get the permanent soul.”
“Then how, Spike? How exactly did you get your soul?”
“When I left Sunnydale, I wanted a soul so bad I could taste it. I was willing to go to the ends of the earth to get one. For her,” he took a sip from his cup before continuing. “Turns out I only had to go to Africa. When I got there, they put me through three trials of strength. At first I thought that that was how I would get it. Complete the challenges and earn the soul. But after it was over, and after I’d been beaten to a bloody pulp, the Shaman looked at me. I don’t know what he did or how, but I felt the bugger poking around, up here,” he pointed to his head. “When he was done, that’s when I got what I came for. After the pain had eased a little, he told me. The challenges, the tests, they were just a deterrent. Something to scare off the ‘unworthy’ he called them. He said what won me my soul was because I didn’t want it, not for me anyway. That I wasn’t only willing to fight for it, but to give the possibility of it and my existence up if it would be the best thing for the people I cared about. An unselfish sacrifice. I tried to laugh at the crazy bloke but it hurt too much. I told him that he was a bloody fool. That I might not have wanted the soul, but I got it to get something in return. The love of a woman who I knew could never really love me. If that isn’t selfish, I don’t know what is.”
“What did he say?”
“He just smiled. Said he’d seen me. The real me. ‘The only fool here, is the one who does not see his own path, my friend,’ he said. ‘The one who does not recognize his own heart when it speaks to him. You did these things not only for her, but for the other ones as well. You care for them. You have walked beside them, done good when it was against your nature.’”
“Then what?”
“Then,” he took another sip. “I gave him two chickens and what amounted to thirty-two dollars and I left.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“So Angel could…”
“No. Angel wants a permanent soul, but only to end his own suffering, to be free of the worry and guilt that the danger of turning into Angelus causes in him, and after last night I‘m sure he wants one because…”
“Spike.”
“All selfish reasons.”
“He’s not like that. He’s not the same Angel you knew in Sunnydale.”
“No? He just completely quits fighting when the person he wants is gone, turns over his friends to a hell based law firm to suit his dark mood.”
“That’s not fair, Spike.”
“It may not be fair, luv. But it’s the truth.”
***
“Damn it!” Angel threw the desk chair, shattering it against the closed door that had just served as Lilah’s exit.
“Angel, what are we going to do?”
Angel paced back and forth like a caged lion ready to pounce. He seemed oblivious to Buffy’s presence in the room. “I‘ve got to find a way out of this. I can‘t do this to her.”
“Her? What about Spike? If he finds out I’m here with you, working with you…. I tried to tell him that I loved him but he didn’t believe me. He sure as hell won’t now.”
Angel continued his pacing, working on the unsolvable problem in his mind. Everything was so horribly wrong. He wished none of this had ever happened. That he had never given up on the mission, that he had never lured his friends down into the murky depths of his depression when Cordy lay in her coma. It had all been so horrible, so selfish. What had happened to him? He used to protect the people he loved, his family. He used to do anything and everything to keep them out of harms way. Even when it pissed them off. He stopped pacing. “What did you say?”
“When?”
“Just now. You said something.”
“I said Spike would never believe…”
“No, before that.”
Buffy thought a moment. “I asked you what we were going to do.”
“No,” he tried not to be impatient. “Somewhere in the middle there you said something about working ‘with’ me.”
“Yeah, well, I’m certainly not working ‘for’ you.”
“No,” a light bulb seemed to go off. “You’re not,” he began to walk purposely to the office door.
“Angel, where are you going?”
He paused at the door, “To start taking care of the people I love again.” He left before the next question could cross her lips.
***
Cordelia and Spike spent the largest part of the day chatting about nonsense, deciding that it was the best way to stay clear of the subject of Angel and his worthiness of a permanent soul. Spike tried to keep the atmosphere light. Teasing her, getting a rise out of her over certain subjects and his views on them, but he could sense the change in her as the morning turned to afternoon. She was worried and afraid. And it was tearing him up. He walked over to the sofa where she had planted herself about a half hour ago, trying not to look as if she were staring across the lobby to the basement door.
“He said he’d come back and he will,” he offered gently as he sat beside her.
“Oh really? You weren’t so supportive of his character earlier today,” she bit out, taking out her worry, frustration, and anger on the closest person possible.
“Hey,” he raised his hands in mock surrender. “I didn’t mean the poof didn’t deserve a soul. I just meant he wasn’t ready for what it took to get one yet. That’s all.”
Cordelia sighed and crossed her arms, her waves of depression and hopelessness crashing into him.
“Tell ya what. Why don’t I go and see what’s keeping him?” he stood, helping in the only way he knew how.
“You’d do that?” she looked up at him and he had to shake himself out of the trance her look of trust put him in.
“Well, I can’t bloody well stay here with you all day talkin’ about the weather now can I? I’m a man of action,” he emphasized and puffed his chest out with a grin.
“What am I going to do with two of you?”
“Two of who?”
“Two of you souled idiots walking around here without a clue,” she smiled back. “I’m not sending you over there. I’m worried sick about Angel as it is. I don’t need you thrown into the mix as well.”
Cordelia’s comment touched Spike. He couldn’t remember the last person in his life that had actually worried for him. “Well, there’s no need to worry, pet. I’ll simply say I have an appointment,” he explained lightly as he walked toward the basement door.
She stood but she didn’t argue. Yes, she should badger him into staying and yes, she would worry about him. But she couldn’t help the tiny part of her that wanted him to go. Wanted to know that Angel would have someone there with him. An ally. She watched him walk to the door before stopping but not turning.
“The only souled idiot around this place is the one that left you in that bed this morning,” he admitted before leaving the room.
Cordelia just stared at the closed door, letting the comment sink in.
A few seconds later the basement door flung open, “Where the bloody hell is this place anyway,” Spike asked.
***
Cordelia paced the lobby. When Spike had left, she convinced herself that everything would be alright, but that had been an hour and two chewed nails ago. She had been a little annoyed at some of Spike’s nonstop banter and endless teasing earlier in the day, but now, without it, she realized he had just been trying to keep her mind off of everything. And it had worked in a way. She had still worried and prayed silently in her mind for Angel, but there was no desperation, no frantic and chaotic thoughts. Like now.
She paced to the office and sat down at the desk, staring at the phone. She wished she had thought to give him her cell. Maybe something happened to him. Worse, maybe something had happened to Angel and …. Crap, she had to quit thinking this way.
The slam of a door roused her from her thoughts and instantly her seat as she raced to the lobby and turned her eyes to the basement door only to find no one there.
“Hey Sugarplum,” Cordelia heard Lorne’s voice from behind, causing her to turn toward the front doors.
“What happened?” she asked the group of four who stood in front of her, boxes in tow.
“He fired us,” Fred whined.
“Again,” Wes and Gunn said in unison.