Part II
TWO DAYS AGO, IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE
“Naiura?” Cordelia said. “Am I pronouncing your name right?”
“You are as close as you can be,” Naiura said, “with a human voice.”
Cordelia had suspected that, even if she did have her memories, she wouldn’t remember seeing anything quite as gloriously unearthly as Naiura. Naiura’s skin shimmered right between slate and silver. Her ice-green eyes were large and thickly lashed. A soft cap of white feathers covered her head, almost like some stylish hat. Cordelia had felt slightly awed by her — surely something so beautiful had to be good.
“Well, then, hi there, Naiura,” Cordelia said nervously. “Suppose you’re wondering why I summoned you. What with having been summoned and all.”
Naiura nodded, perhaps a little tiredly, and sat down on the corner of the bed Cordelia shared with Connor. “The spell was clumsy,” Nairua said. “I do not blame you. You did your best. But why do you try something so dangerous when you know so little? You cannot guess at the consequences.”
“Because I don’t know anything,” Cordelia said. She had knelt near Naiura in subconscious supplication. “My memory’s been taken from me, and I have to get it back. Apparently I’m half-demon, and I have visions and a mission, and all this other stuff that sounds kinda important. But I can’t remember it, so I can’t get it back, and nobody seems to know how to help me.”
“So you have helped yourself,” Naiura said, amused.
“I sneaked back into the hotel — it’s a hotel where I used to live, I think — and I snooped around some. I found this book that talked all about you, and how you came here from another dimension long ago, and how you change reality? Well, I thought maybe you could change this reality so I have my memory back.” Cordelia had smiled. “It said all the stuff I had to get to do the spell, and I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did! And here you are. So — can you?”
“Change this reality so that your memory has never been taken?” Naiura had cocked her head to one side. “Difficult. I sense this already. Many forces, many events, have led to this.”
Cordelia had folded her arms. “You mean, you’ve seen that I can’t pay you. Listen, I’m pretty sure we can work something out — I have to have a Visa card or something –“
Naiura’s eyes had gone wide. She put her silver-blue hands on either side of Cordelia’s face and laughed — a beautiful laugh, like bells pealing. “I see it now! I see a way to change it now. Yes, yes, I can get your memory back for you. I can arrange it so that it is never taken at all.”
Cordelia had felt tears springing to her eyes. “You can? You will? I’ll pay whatever you want, I swear –“
“You do not have to pay me,” Naiura said. “This reality is its own reward.”
If Cordelia had had her memory, she would have known to be suspicious. She would have known the kind of rewards demons prize.
But she didn’t have her memory. She had only her fear, and her loneliness, and a warehouse room she shared with a boy who left her for long hours to fight monsters she didn’t understand. And she had a beautiful, powerful creature who held her face and smiled and told her it would all be better soon. Cordelia had met only four demons in the brief few days she remembered — one of them was scary, but two others, Angel and Lorne, seemed like they were helpful and nice. The fourth was, apparently, herself. And so she wasn’t as afraid as she should have been.
“Do it,” Cordelia said.
The world had gone silver, then dark, and then light had returned to reveal —
“And your host for the VH1 Fashion Awards — Cordy Chase!”
She was standing on a stage, surrounded by cheering crowds and TV lights. She was wearing Donatella Versace, which meant she was showing a hell of a lot of skin. She looked good. The camera loved her. The microphones were waiting for her next words.
“Dammit!” she yelled. “Not AGAIN?”
***
HERE AND NOW
Angel pulled the blankets up over Cordelia, plumped the pillow beneath her head. She was all but unconscious on the tiny cot in the library office, mumbling indistinctly. Behind him, he could hear Buffy and Wesley arguing. As usual.
“Buffy, she was exposed to the cold for God only knows how long. And a blow to the head — she could be in serious trouble.”
Angel switched on one of Giles’ old lamps; the light shone dim and golden through a heavy mica shade. Cordelia stirred slightly, and he feared the light would disturb her, but then her head lolled to one side, a lock of dark hair falling across her cheek.
“Wesley, if we try and move her all the way to the hospital tonight, the rest of us are going to join her. We don’t let people travel at night for a reason, remember? It’s late, and it’s dangerous, and if vamps attack our car, she’s not a whole lot better off.”
“If she has hypothermia –“
“–then the hospital would do exactly what we’re doing, which is get her warm and let her rest.”
Angel looked down at the girl lying on the cot next to him; he could hear her heartbeat, too-slow but steady. Her breathing was deep and even. Carefully, Angel lay his palm against her forehead. He couldn’t gauge her body heat well — after a night outside, his skin would be colder than any living human’s for hours to come — but he suspected Cordelia’s temperature was not so low as to require emergency help.
In short, Buffy was right. But Angel found himself wishing that Wesley would argue with Buffy harder — or that either of them would ask him about Cordelia’s condition, show that they cared more about her than about their arguments.
But Wesley just sighed, and Angel knew the question was settled. They would be doing things Buffy’s way, right or wrong. As usual.
Angel curbed his impulse to bitterness — Buffy had good instincts, and Wesley didn’t seem to have many leadership instincts at all, and they all listened to her for a reason, and she really was right about Cordelia’s condition —
But he felt suddenly, irrationally protective of the dazed girl on the cot.
Buffy stuck her head in the door. “We’re headed out. Come on.”
“No,” he said. “Someone should stay to watch Cordelia.”
“That’s what Wesley’s for,” Buffy shrugged.
“Wesley’s for research,” Angel said. “And you guys do have something to research, remember?”
“What’s that?” Wesley said from the other room.
“D’oh!” Buffy said, smacking her forehead. “Way to forget the big honkin’ Initiative clue.”
“Clue?” Wesley sounded more eager than ever, and Angel had to suppress a smile.
Buffy was smiling too. “Oh, I get it now. You’re doing the Florence Creature-of-the-Nightingale act to get out of the latest research party.”
Angel laughed softly. “Wesley told you I was evil.”
She giggled at that, then came forward and kissed him gently on the mouth; Angel tilted his head up to meet her lips, felt himself relaxing more than he had in days. Every once in a great while, they still had these moments — and just these few moments were so much more than he’d ever thought to have in his lonely life. No point in even wondering if it were enough.
Buffy went back to the doorway. “Let me go give Wesley the thrill of his life. Have fun playing doctor.” She waggled her eyebrows as though they were both going to be up to something far dirtier and more fun.
Angel settled back in the chair and took up a book — though he’d never imagined telling Wesley so, the man did have good taste in books — to wait out the night until Cordelia awoke.
***
“They’ve found something?” Wesley said. “What exactly?”
Buffy shrugged, and Wesley felt his hopes and good spirits begin to fade, as quickly as usual. “I dunno. That guy Finn said something about a vampire coffin, a trans-dimensional liquifier or a tub of Parkay. I think the Parkay was a joke. I hope so, anyway. All we need is demonic margarine.”
“Hard to imagine the Initiative taking on so about a vampire coffin,” Wesley said.
“Not in this town,” Buffy agreed. “The trans-dimensional whatsit — maybe. But I’m not sure they were serious about that, either.”
Wesley folded his arms, considering. “They found something. Meaning that they didn’t go and get it, or receive it from the government — it didn’t come to them –“
“You know, with all the books in here, I bet we could find a dictionary. Probably got the definition of ‘found’ right in there.”
“I — of course — I meant only that whatever they found, it, it was something that was already here.”
“Oh.” To Wesley’s surprise, he saw Buffy nodding. “Right. So we start looking for stuff that would already have been here. More people come here to bury their weirdo artifacts, you know?”
“Exactly,” he said, relieved that she understood him and, for once, would cooperate. “So, we have a place to begin.”
***
” — Naiura — ” Angel glanced down at Cordelia, who was stirring on the cot, awakening. He set aside his book and leaned forward, arms on his knees. “Cordelia? Are you all right?”
She opened her eyes slowly, blinked, then smiled an uneven, groggy smile. “Felt — better –“
“I’m sure you have. Do you want some water? Aspirin?”
“No — just need to — rest a little,” she breathed. “I’m so glad you’re here — I was scared — wouldn’t ever see you again –“
Angel frowned. Given that he’d only barely known Cordelia when she was in high school, it wasn’t possible that she could have been scared of not seeing him again. Therefore, Cordelia was slightly delusional, thinking him someone else — and still in poorer shape than he’d hoped.
If she’s not coherent by morning, he thought, I’ll get Buffy to take her to the hospital after all. In the meantime, there was little point in arguing with either of them. “You’re safe, Cordelia. Don’t worry about anything. Just go back to sleep.”
“But this thing — Naiura — I think she was real –“
Naiura? The name was unfamiliar to Angel, but he filed it away to tell Buffy and Wesley later. Cordelia had traveled to Sunnydale for some reason, and these days it was unlikely anyone would come for a purely social visit. “We’ll work that out later, when you feel better.”
Cordelia reached out; her trembling hand wrapped around his, kitten-weak. “She made me dream things — I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I was on TV — and when I went back to the hotel, you weren’t there –“
So, whoever Cordelia thought Angel was, it was somebody she’d visited a hotel with. Faintly amused, he tried to gently disengage his hand from hers. “Shhhhh. Don’t worry about it now. It’s all over.”
“I thought I’d messed everything up — I thought I’d lost you,” Cordelia murmured as he nestled her hand back in her blankets.
Angel wanted to reassure her, but checked himself. He couldn’t promise that she hadn’t lost whoever it was forever — if he’d come to Sunnydale with her, there was a chance he was indeed lost. Silently, he cursed himself for not making a more thorough recon of the area where he and Buffy had found Cordelia. Was there time to go now? He checked the impulse. No need. Anyone who’d been unprotected on the streets of Sunnydale at nighttime for several hours was by now beyond any help.
And then Cordelia gazed up at him — her eyes almost clear, her voice a little stronger, as if she really did know who he was — and said, “I love you so much.” She smiled tenderly. “I never thought I’d get to tell you. It’s worth — all of it — to tell you.”
He shook his head slightly. “Rest,” Angel said. “You’ll do us both some good if you rest.”
Cordelia closed her eyes, apparently having said all she had to say. As she fell back into a deeper, easier sleep, Angel hoped for her sake that she would find the man she sought.
***
The first thing she felt was pain.
Her whole body ached, and in a few places — her left knee, her right temple — Cordelia felt the sharp stabbing pain of injury. She grimaced as she struggled toward consciousness.
Must’ve been a fight, she thought. She’d woken up feeling like this often enough, the past few years —
— fighting alongside Angel (working out with the studio-supplied personal trainer), battling vamps and slime demons and Haxol beasts (waving to the studio audience at the end of a taping), getting banged up by visions before her demon-izing (posing for the cover of In Style) —
She’d gone to Nairua to get back her memories of her life. Now she remembered two lives. Both her own.
Cordelia’s eyes flew open. Immediately, she saw Angel sleeping in a chair next to her, and she smiled. Angel. He was here. She could tell him she remembered him, that she loved him, and that it was all going to be okay —
But then she realized that she and Angel weren’t at the Hyperion. They were in Giles’ old library office, which was looking remarkably not-blown-up. They were in Sunnydale — in Sunnydale —
It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be. She’d asked for her memory back, not for the whole world to be changed. This was a dream, just a bad dream, or a warning from the Powers — a vision! That was it, a vision. Now that she was part demon, the visions sometimes just appeared around her like part of the scenery, and there was no reason in the world for her to have a vision about Giles’ library, and these weird memories in her mind didn’t seem like part of a vision, but they had to be —
She felt her body shaking in terror, forced herself to focus on Angel. On the one thing in the world she knew was real.
As if in response, Angel stirred slightly, then slowly opened his eyes. She smiled weakly at him, grateful that he was awake, frightened of whatever was happening to her bewildered mind —
“Cordelia?” Angel said. He looked worried, the way he did after they’d been in a battle or she’d had a strange vision. No doubt he knew what was going on, and he would explain it all, and then this would finally make sense.
She saw him register her confusion, then he leaned forward to come closer to her. “Cordelia?” he asked gently. “Do you remember me?”
And as she stared up at him, she realized that the gentleness and concern in his eyes — were all. There was no recognition. No understanding. No love.
Cordelia clasped her hand to her mouth, trying to stifle her scream. For a long, long moment, all she could do was try and slow her breathing so she wouldn’t hyperventilate; that, and think: Naiura, you demon bitch.
And then: No. This can’t last. This was done, and it can be undone, and I’m gonna figure out how.
“Cordelia?” The Angel who was not Angel — not her Angel — was still looking at her, patient and puzzled as ever.
It seemed wrong to speak to him — wrong even to acknowledge that he could exist — but she managed to blurt out. “Thanks for the lifesaving. Gotta go.”
She ran from him, through the library, out the doors, and into Sunnydale High —
(graduation day, her cap and gown in the back seat of Oz’s van, taping explosives under the library tables and trying really hard not to look at Wesley)
(graduation day, everyone joking about the commencement speaker who had to fill in for the “missing” mayor, Faith giving Buffy a high-five, Cordelia sobbing as she and Xander finally split up)
The world is different, Cordelia thought. Everything is different. But why? Why? This isn’t what I asked Naiura for — this isn’t what she was supposed to do.
“Cordy!” That was Buffy’s voice behind her. By instinct only, Cordelia half-turned to see Buffy standing there —
(Buffy, the winter of 1998, getting thinner and paler by the day, living in terror, crying every day, looking down and away every time Cordelia and Xander made the mistake of holding hands in front of her, suiting up for patrol every night as though she were going into battle)
(Buffy, the winter of 1998, glowing as though she were lit from within, cutting study hall only to show up two hours later with beard burn on her cheeks and a silly smile on her face, giggling with Willow and Cordelia as they slipped into Victoria’s Secret, giddy with happiness and embarrassment)
“Hey, are you okay?” Buffy said. She was staring at Cordelia very strangely, clearly torn between annoyance and concern. “Should you be up?”
“She did it,” Cordelia whispered. “She said she’d change reality — and I didn’t remember, so I didn’t realize — “
“Cordy?” Buffy was edging closer. Behind her, Cordelia could see Angel and Wesley leaning out into the hall, looking as confused as she felt.
(Angel and Wesley, buying her magazines to read during working hours, cruising Ventura Boulevard with the top of Angel’s convertible down, loving her as brothers and as men, asking nothing, giving everything, coming to blows with each other and tearing her heart out)
(Wesley almost a stranger to her, someone she’d had a secret crush on during those last days with Xander, and Angel only a distant memory of the strangeness she’d left behind — almost nothing to her at all –)
“I have to go,” Cordelia said, to Buffy, to all of them, only to herself. “Just let me go.”
“Cordelia, you aren’t well.” Wesley’s voice. She wouldn’t look at Wesley, because he was standing near Angel, an Angel with no love for her in his eyes. She felt a dizzying rush of blood, draining from her head, leaving her chilled and disoriented and more ready to bolt than ever.
“You’ll try to stop me,” Cordelia said. “You think this world is real.”
“Ohhh-kay,” Buffy said. Buffy’s face was shifting slightly, out of focus and then in again, and the the dim light in the corridor seemed to be getting even dimmer. “Cordelia, what isn’t real to you?”
“I’m going to fix this,” Cordelia said. “I’m going to fix everything. I’m going to find Naiura and make her make it right again. And don’t — don’t you get in my way.”
She turned away from Buffy then, trying to ignore the nauseating swirl in her stomach as her head whipped around. As best as she could, she began jogging toward the nearby exit. All she had to do was get back to Los Angeles, find the books — no, the books were in the Hyperion, and nothing would be in the Hyperion now, nothing but empty rooms and dust and a hungry demon.
“Cordelia?” Oh, God, that was Angel’s voice. She tried to ignore it, to pretend she didn’t hear his footsteps coming up behind her. “You shouldn’t be on your feet. Just stop, okay? Sit down and we’ll talk.”
“Don’t you touch me,” she said without turning around. That wasn’t Angel. Not the real Angel. “Leave me alone.”
“It’s dangerous out there!” Buffy this time. Cordelia ignored her too, put her hands out on the iron bar across the door, only to have it swing open as soon as she touched it. She half-stumbled, half-swooned toward —
“Cordelia?” Jenny Calendar. Alive. Framed in darkness and snowflakes and the reddish glow of the exit sign. Staring at Cordelia. “Are you all right?”
Cordelia sank to the floor, braced her hands against the linoleum. It was better than falling down. “Cordelia?” Buffy said, stepping closer.
“I’m sorry,” Cordelia said, to no one who would understand. “I’m so sorry.”
And then, to her embarrassment and surprise, she burst into tears.
***
Pull yourself together, Cordelia told herself sternly. You have committed the fuck-up of all fuck-ups, but there’s got to be a way out. There always is. The sooner you figure it out, the better.
The little voice on the inside had its act together. Unfortunately, the rest of her was still a total wreck.
Cordelia wiped at her eyes, sniffled, breathed in as slowly and deeply as she could. They’d brought her back to the library, let her sit at the big oaken table and have a cup of hot tea. Buffy, Wesley, Angel and holy Mary mother of God Jenny Calendar were all semicircled around her, looking equal parts worried and bemused. And every time Cordelia thought she was about to steady herself, she would catch sight of Jenny or, even worse, Angel, and the tears welled up again. She had to calm down, she had to think —
But it was so hard, with Angel near her but without even a single memory of their years in Los Angeles. Because she’d wiped them all away. It was like what had been done to her by the Powers, but the Powers had only taken her memory. Cordelia had accidentally destroyed an entire reality.
No, she corrected herself, her eyes filling with tears again, she didn’t destroy it. It was worse even than that. No, instead she had wiped it out of existence. Losing everything you loved was terrible, but it was so much worse to know that it had never been at all. So much worse.
There was something else too, something she couldn’t quite put words to. During her time with the Powers, there was something she’d seen — something important — something yet to come. Eyes, she thought, but she couldn’t see whatever it was she’d seen before. She only had that one word, eyes.
It was a part of that reality’s future, Cordelia realized. And I can’t see the future of a world that doesn’t exist — a world that I ruined —
Pull yourself together, she told herself again, with more force this time. You didn’t have your memory. You didn’t know to be cautious, and you were counting on Connor to protect you, HELLO big mistake. You made this big fake world, and it sucks, so you just have to unmake it. What’s done can be undone, and the only people who can help you are looking at you like you are a crazy person. Time to prove them wrong.
Cordelia sat up straight and focused Buffy, then Wesley in turn. “I’m gonna tell you guys a few things,” she said, choking back her last tears. “And I want you to listen, okay? Hear me out.”
Buffy shrugged. “Okay, but just know, you have to do the walk-a-straight-line test when you’re done.”
Ignoring that, Cordelia stared at Wesley. Think objective, she reminded herself. Think facts. “Wesley — you had a pretty miserable childhood, thanks to the scariest dad this side of Marvin Gaye’s. You like mint tea, and you hate it when they pile whipped cream on your coffee drinks. You play darts really well — anything to do with aiming, whether it’s guns or crossbows or whatever, you’re good at. And you love word puzzles. You’ll play them all day.”
Buffy raised her eyebrows as she looked over at Wesley. He said, cautiously, “Everything you’ve said is accurate.”
Shooting Angel a quick look, Buffy said, “You gonna do the mind-reading thing on me?”
“We didn’t know each other any better in this reality,” Cordelia said. “But Angel –“
Angel, apparently surprised to hear his own name, said, “Yes?”
Think objective. Think facts. Cordelia breathed in shakily. “You loved convents. Churches. Holy places. You went through this way-disturbing phase where you would cut crosses in the cheeks of your victims. That was about the same time you turned a vampire named Penn. But being the Scourge of Europe wasn’t all about mayhem and gore, because you took time out to go to the ballet, the Blitnikov’s version of ‘Giselle,’ and big bad evil you actually cried.”
Angel blinked, clearly trying to fathom how she could possibly know about the ballet. Cordelia fought back the urge to say more — she could say so much more. Things like, You pay so much attention to your hair, to your clothes, to your car, and it’s all because you’re so afraid of what people will see — that if they even find one external flaw, they’ll see the internal flaws too. You can’t sing worth a damn, but you sang to your baby and didn’t care who heard you. You sometimes don’t take the time to slow down and listen, but when you do, you take it all in, every word, every moment, and you make the person talking to you feel like she’s the only person in the world —
“So, you have information about us,” Wesley said. “More than you ought to have. Something has happened to you.”
“Not that much happened to me,” Cordelia said. “But to everyone else — reality’s been totally warped. This isn’t the world I remember. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.”
Buffy and Wesley traded looks; Wesley was trying to hide his skepticism. Buffy didn’t bother. “So this thing you think manipulated reality — what was the name?”
“Naiura,” Angel said quietly. “Right? That’s what you were saying last night.”
“That’s the name,” Cordelia affirmed. “Kinda silvery-blue, tall, thin, attractive if you go for that kind of thing. Ringing any bells?”
“No.” Wesley suggested, “This Naiura creature may only have manipulated your memory.”
“Don’t think so,” Cordelia said tiredly. “I didn’t exactly have a memory to manipulate. I mean, I remember this reality — sort of. But I know which reality is real. I mean, more real.”
“You do remember reality then,” Wesley said. “But you have a set of — secondary memories.”
“It’s so weird, Wes. All the things that happened in this reality — I know them, but they’re like something I read in a book, or memorized for a test. I know they’re facts, but they didn’t happen to me.” She stood up, held a hand out beseechingly toward Wesley. Still she could not look at Angel. “Listen, even if you don’t believe me totally — you know something’s up. I know stuff about both of you guys that I shouldn’t know. So, that’s spooky, right? The kind of things a Watcher and a do-gooder vampire would investigate?”
“Something decided to reprogram your brain, Cordelia,” Buffy said. “I understand the impulse, but still, that’s a lousy thing to do. Worth looking into. But, believe it or not, we have problems that rank a little bit higher on the priority scale. Remember that blizzard you got yourself frozen in last night? The thing that’s responsible for it might just be on the verge of his next major crime, which I for one would like to stop.”
Cordelia looked up at the skylight; no sunlight shone through, a factor of the heavy snow above. In her memory — her true memory — she knew that southern California was as warm and balmy as ever. But in the flat, artificial memory of the past few years that overlaid it all, she knew that, for two years, winter had had ruled an area some two hundred miles in diameter — with Sunnydale right at the center. She said, slowly, “The weathermen call it El Abuelo. They pretend it’s some new weird meteorological phenomenon.”
Wesley, obviously grateful to have something constructive to add, said, “Adam — the underworld overlord here for the past two years — he found a way to harness the energies of the Hellmouth. A spell that not only draws energy from the Hellmouth, but from the world at large — it takes away heat. Plants don’t grow as they ought. Machines break down. The fertility rate in Sunnydale is astonishingly low, though that might be as much a factor of people not wishing to bear a child here.”
“Can’t blame ’em,” Buffy said quietly.
“Naiura didn’t mess with my brain,” Cordelia insisted. “She messed with reality. Adam and El Abuelo and all the rest of it — that’s not supposed to be real. Naiura changed reality.”
“And why would she have done this?” Buffy countered.
Well, this wasn’t going to be pretty. Cordelia tried to edge into it gently: “It’s worth something to her. And I should’ve found out what it was — should’ve found out what the changes were going to be –“
“Wait,” Wesley said. “You mean — you knew this Naiura creature was going to change reality?”
After a moment, Cordelia nodded miserably. Might as well admit it, get it all out now. Wesley pressed further. “So, you were — working with her. You wanted reality changed as well.”
“I swear to God, the only thing I was trying to change was something that really, really needed changing.”
Buffy, apparently unconvinced, crossed her arms in front of her. “What was it you were supposedly trying to change, anyway? What was so awful in your TV-star life that it was worth messing with everybody else’s lives to fix it?”
“I’m not a TV star!” Cordelia said. “At least, I wasn’t. I had lost my memory — I mean, ALL of it, no idea about my own name until somebody told me. And I wanted my memory back. I didn’t know to be scared of demons –“
“How much do you have to know to know that?” Buffy retorted.
“Well, I DIDN’T know, and I was scared — you have no idea how scary it is — and I just wanted my memory back. I only asked her to change reality to change that. But instead, she changed almost everything.” “But not everything,” Jenny said. Just hearing her voice gave Cordelia chills; it was like hearing a ghost speak. Actually, after a couple years of living with Phantom Dennis, Cordelia thought of ghosts as fairly comforting. Hearing Jenny Calendar speak was anything but comforting. “I mean, you still went to high school here, right? Still knew Buffy and the rest of us?” When Cordelia nodded, Jenny continued, “So, when exactly did things change? What’s the point where Naiura altered reality?”
Cordelia sat back and tried to put her chaotic memories into some sort of order. God, it was awful having no memory, but having two sets of memories was almost worse. May Queen — check. Cheerleader — check. Boyfriend killed by vampires — check. Making out with Xander in the broom closets — check, dammit. Leave it to Naiura not to change the embarrassing stuff. Buffy’s 17th-birthday party — check. Flame-thrower in the mall —
No check. Angelus in the graveyard — nope. The attack in the library — didn’t happen.
Angelus never got out.
Cordelia felt the shock all over her body, as though she’d been plunged into icewater. “Your curse,” she whispered. “Angel, Naiura changed your curse.”
“What?” Angel sounded beyond horrified. “The curse — that’s my soul –“
Cordelia shook her head. “It is NOW. But before, it was different. The gypsies had this weird loophole in it, a way you could lose your soul again. If you had — perfect happiness, your soul went away. And you became Angelus again.”
“You mean — this could actually happen?” Wesley said. He pushed his glasses up his nose and drew back, as if recoiling from the very thought. “Good Lord — if Angelus were ever to get out again, to be loosed upon the world — “
“That can’t be real,” Angel protested. “Why would they curse me with a soul to make me stop killing, then make it possible for me to become a killer again? It’s a stupid loophole.”
“We’ve done stranger,” Jenny said.
“What Cordy’s talking about — is that part of Angel’s curse?” Buffy demanded.
Jenny shook her head. “No. The curse is pretty straightforward — well, by the standards of Calderash curses. Which is to say, about as labyrinthine as it gets short of the income-tax code. But there’s no perfect-happiness loophole.”
Angel was clearly, understandably, still in shock. “My soul could be — could have been — impermanent. I could have been a killer again — Angelus again –” He looked across the room at Buffy. “I could have hurt you.” Buffy’s face was pale, and everyone was silent for a long time.
“I know it sounds scary,” Cordelia said. “It was pretty damn scary to live through, let me tell you. But it’s still part of reality, and what’s all around us now isn’t reality. It’s fake. And we have to get back to what’s real. That’s the way it works, right?”
Wesley folded his arms in front of his chest. “Miss Chase — either everything in the world has been affected, or just your memory has. Which do you think is more likely?” Cordelia breathed out in something that was half a sob, and he hastened to add, “I do think it’s important to track down this Naiura creature — find out what’s been done to you, and why –“
“Listen to me,” Cordelia said firmly. She stood up and faced them — even Jenny — and called upon the new memories, the flat and terrible ones, to give her the words she needed. “In my reality, Xander and Willow and Giles are all alive. Alive and well and fighting the big evil here in Sunnydale, where there isn’t any Winter. Never was. I mean, sure, it’s still a Hellmouth, but Buffy’s got it under control.”
Jenny was blinking back tears. “Alive?” she whispered. “Rupert’s alive?”
Cordelia couldn’t bring herself to answer her — to tell her that Giles had lived and leave out the fact that Jenny herself had died. Instead she said, “It’s important for me to prove that what I’m saying is true. You and me and — and Angel, we have to go to LA.”
“Angel?” Buffy was frowning. “What, you want a vampire sidekick on your show?”
“The three of us lived there,” Cordelia said. As she thought about this, forced herself to grab onto those memories, she finally felt her strength coming back to her. She managed to look at Angel — not her Angel, but Angel all the same — and she focused on him as though he were the only person in the library. The only person in the world. . “We worked together. We had a mission. We have to get it back again.”