Thaw. 7

Part VII

“I cannot believe you people dragged me halfway ‘cross California to go back to high school,” Gunn said as the group walked into Sunnydale High, their footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. “This is the weirdest-ass truant patrol I ever saw, and I’ve seen a bunch.”

“Nobody really goes to this school much anymore,” Angel said. “We use the library as our headquarters.”

Our headquarters, Angel thought. It was true, and yet he’d never thought of it that way, not once in all the time he’d been around the school. He’d been in Sunnydale High more regularly than just about any student for the past few years, and yet he’d always felt like an intruder in this space. The surroundings had taunted him — posters about pep rallies and the dangers of driving drunk, the locker smells of gym clothes and broken pens and hidden cigarettes. All things that had nothing to do with Angel, as alien to him as if they’d dropped from another world.

But it was different now. It was his. Theirs. And it had been for years, even if he’d never known. Cordelia had made him see it. For one instant, he was taken by the funny image of her in an optometrist’s office, wearing a white coat and a professional bun, carefully sliding a pair of glasses onto his face and bringing the world into focus.

Angel turned toward Cordelia — not to share the private joke, but to better envision her in it — and saw that she was still as grave and uncertain as she had been in the SUV on the way back. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he said.

It was a token question, and he expected a token response, maybe “fine” or “hanging in there.” Instead, she seemed to think it over, and then shook her head and said, “No. Not sure of that at all.”

But for Wesley’s words of warning, Angel would have taken her hand then. He felt the temptation to be nearer to her, physically and emotionally, and knew the wrong of it: he would not only be betraying Buffy and her love for him, but Cordelia and her love for someone who wasn’t quite him. Angel knew he had to comfort her, but he decided he could do that best by doing it a little less. “We’re going to get this figured out now,” he said. “We can convince Buffy and Jenny, dive back into the research. And it looks like Lorne and Gunn and Doyle all know a lot that might help.”

Cordelia held up her hand to shush him. Angel expected her to say something, but for a few moments, she was silent. The only words echoing in the hallway were the voices of Lorne, Gunn and Doyle, arguing about who was really the greatest diva of Motown. She must have heard them bicker like this a hundred times, Angel thought. So it can’t be them she’s listening to.

Finally she looked over at him, her eyes dark with emotion. “This world is real,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, surprised. “I thought you understood that all along.”

“I knew it from the beginning,” she said. “But I didn’t understand it — like, deep down inside me — until I couldn’t talk Gunn down, and you could.”

“I think I understand what you mean,” Angel said carefully as they turned a corner. “But why was that the thing that convinced you? I would have thought getting knocked on the head by a vampire would be real enough.”

She half-smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Before that, I thought I could change it all, if I needed to. I could drag you guys to L.A. I could convince you I was telling the truth. It just seemed like a matter of time before I snapped my fingers and poof, the world would be back to the way I knew it. The way I wanted it to be.”

At least she’s still a little like she was in high school, Angel thought. He said only, “And when you couldn’t talk Gunn down, you realized it wouldn’t be that easy.”

“That’s part of it,” she said. “But it’s less that I couldn’t talk him down and more that you could. See, back in L.A. — I mean, in the L.A. I remember — you were the one who got through to him first. When Wesley and I thought he was some kinda street thug, you listened to him and brought him in and gave him a shot. He listened to you when he still laughed at us. When I saw you talk to him, I realized — that connection you guys made, whatever it was that let him listen to you, and let you talk to him — that’s as real here as it was there. And it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with me.”

“It’s only fair,” Angel said. When she raised an eyebrow, he explained, “You made me believe in your world. So I’m glad I could make you believe in mine.”

“I’m not,” she said flatly. “It was easier, before — before I realized that what we do here has consequences.”

Angel wanted to talk to her about it more, but they were about to enter the library, and somehow, he felt odd about continuing this discussion in front of Buffy. Then, as he opened the door, he saw who was inside, and everything else — even Cordelia — fell away. He whispered, “Faith?”

“Dead man walking!” Faith said cheerfully. She was wearing blue scrubs, and her hair was almost to her waist, and she was older, and she was alive. Alive.

He went forward and hugged her tightly, feeling the agreeable crush of her powerful arms around him. Over her shoulder, he could see Buffy smiling — no, beaming, radiant with energy he hadn’t realized she still possessed. Angel smiled back at her, and for a moment, it was as if many years had fallen from them both. For one moment, he liked this world even better than the one Cordelia knew.

Then he saw another figure in the back of the room, and he straightened up, getting into fighting stance automatically. “Buffy –” he said in warning.

Buffy glanced over her shoulder to see who he saw, then shook her head. “Believe it or not, he’s okay,” she said. “Angel, let me introduce you to Riley Finn, ex-Initiative leader and Faith’s new best friend.”

“Maybe ours too,” Jenny said, emerging from Giles’ office. She then turned and saw all the people coming in behind Angel and Cordelia. “Speaking of making new friends, wow. That must have been one hell of a mixer.”

“Faith!” Wesley cried, hurrying forward to hug her as well. “You’re alive? How –“

“Initiative had me,” Faith said, her voice muffled from being nestled against Wesley’s shoulder. “Lee got me out.”

“I take it you’re Lee,” Wesley said to Riley. “We’ve not been on the same side for some time now, but for this — on behalf of the Council of Watchers, and for myself — thank you.”

“I did it for Faith,” Riley said, but he smiled. “I guess it’s high time we stopped fighting and met each other.”

“Introductions, right,” Angel said, grasping at one of the few social rules he was good at. He gestured at each person in turn, “Buffy, Jenny, Faith and, ah, Riley, this is Doyle, Gunn and Lorne.” For Riley’s benefit, he added, “And this is Cordelia.”

Doyle raised his hand in a half-wave. “Charmed, I’m sure.” He looked over at Cordelia. “So, Hotlips, did you know this Faith girl in the other reality too? Because I’m hoping for a much warmer and more endearing introduction in the near future.”

“Yeah,” Cordelia said. Angel realized that Cordelia looked disoriented and afraid — more so than she had since she’d first awoken on the cot almost ten hours ago. “I — I need a minute here.”

Wesley said, quietly, “I suppose you must have heard what Doyle said about the other reality –“

“We know,” Buffy said, startling Angel deeply. “This Naiura chick made a stop by Initiative headquarters earlier tonight. She’s making big buddies with Adam, and whatever they’re up to can’t be good.”

“I must say, you’re rather cavalier about finding out your entire reality’s as fake as Britney’s breasts,” Lorne said.

Buffy blinked at him, then said, “It’s not fake. It’s just — new. That doesn’t make it not real.”

Her words were an echo of what Cordelia had said before, and Angel looked at her once more to see if she caught the resonance. Cordelia was still trembling and uneasy; he noticed that, for some weird reason, she was staring at Jenny Calendar. It was almost as though she were forcing herself to do so.

“Who gives a shit about this shifting-reality crap?” Faith said. Angel had forgotten just how quickly she could get to the subject. “This is my world, new or used, and I’d like to keep it from getting sucked into hell.”

Angel said, “Wait — what? Sucked into hell?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Jenny said. “But you remember how we were trying to figure out if the Initiative had just found something major? Turns out that’s a big, fat yeah.”

Riley stepped forward, obviously still feeling ill-at-ease in what had been the lair of the enemy. “What they found — that’s what Naiura’s after. What she changed this reality to get to. It’s some kind of sleeping demon, something called Acathla –“

Acathla. Acathla, awakening from his unnatural slumber to drag the world down into hell. Acathla, sworn to Angel’s own blood. It was here. Now.

“– and they’re planning on using it to make this reality more real. The fact that they’re going to let any amount of creatures from hell into our world doesn’t seem to matter,” Riley finished grimly.

Buffy said, “We’ve been trying to look this Acathla thingy up in your books, Wes. Does Acathla not start with an A? Because it seems like it would, but we can’t find jack.”

“I’ve only heard of it once,” Wesley said. “And that was from Cordelia, in the car before.”

Faith raised an eyebrow. “Queen C’s the one with the knowledge?” she said. “I figured this reality was kinda weird, but that totally takes it, right there.”

“Cordelia?” Gunn said. “You mind fillin’ the rest of us in on just what this Acathy thingy is?”

Cordelia clapped her hand to her mouth; she didn’t scream aloud, but Angel felt as though he could hear it, high and shrill and cutting. He knew the scream because he was holding it back too.

She backed away from them all until her back was against the wall, then slumped down to the floor. Angel went to her side and sat heavily beside her, supposedly to comfort her but also because he needed to sit down just as badly.

Gunn said, “So, I’m going out on a limb and saying this is a bad thing.”

“Oh, God,” Cordelia whispered, her voice so low only Angel could hear. “Two worlds, and I’m going to destroy them both.”

***

Cordelia had to excuse herself to the bathroom twice to cry out loud in the stalls and then splash cold water on her face. The fragile bubble of conviction she’d built around herself to stay sane in this warped reality had been shaken when Angel talked Gunn down from his rampage. It had cracked when she’d walked in to see Faith hugging Angel, then Wesley, like they were the greatest pals of all time. But it hadn’t shattered until the moment she’d heard the name Acathla.

Acathla. Angel was explaining to them what it was. He knew better than she did in either reality — but Cordelia knew enough. Acathla had taken Angel to hell for centuries of torment. Acathla would have borne them all down to hell, given the chance. And Cordelia’s blind, unknowing, desperate clutch for her memory had not only erased one reality in favor of this one — it had put this reality, perhaps all realities, in danger of being destroyed.

She felt like she couldn’t keep walking, keep standing. She wanted to throw up, pass out, scream until she couldn’t speak or hear or think ever again.

Instead, Cordelia looked in the mirror and took a deep breath. The reflection she saw was different. Her skin was waxen and soft from years of better sunscreen and skin-care products; her flat, two-dimensional memory of this reality included dermatologists and facialists laboring over her to make her complexion perfect. The diamond studs that glittered in her ears had been a gift from the network, a present to celebrate her sitcom’s move to Thursday night. She’d gotten better hairstyling advice in this reality; her hair was still long and dark, just like it had been before she started messing with it and screwed it up. The reflection was one of a pretty, pampered, wealthy creature — except for one thing. Her eyes, the expression in them — that was the same.

“Acathla didn’t get the world last time,” she muttered. “Didn’t even get Angel, not for good. So we can stop it this time.”

Cordelia squared her shoulders and went back into the library. The others were gathered around the big table, talking animatedly, putting together what Riley and Faith and Angel and Wesley had all told them about Acathla, Naiura and Adam’s plan. She’d heard enough, between crying jags, to get the gist of it. “Hey,” she said, pitching her voice to carry. It worked; the others all turned toward her. “Bear with me while I recap, okay? I want to make sure I’m clear on this.”

“As do we all,” Wesley said encouragingly.

“Naiura wants to go home,” Cordelia said. “Naiura needs Acathla to get home. For whatever reason, she couldn’t get to Acathla when it showed up in my reality. So when I went to her with my request, she seized on the idea of changing Angel’s curse to create this reality. She could give me my memory back and end up with a world that would show her Acathla at a time she could use it, also known as now.”

“That sounds about right,” Riley said. “It matches what I heard her say.”

So this was Riley Finn, Cordelia thought. She had heard his name only once before, on a night almost three years ago when Angel came back from Sunnydale and got really, really drunk. She’d sat by his side and tried to match him drink for drink, listening to stories about some grand new love in Buffy’s life. Riley looked nice enough, but Cordelia had imagined someone a lot more — well, MORE. “Moving along,” she said. “Only certain people can wake Acathla up. Angel’s one of them, and Adam’s about to be the other one.”

Angel said, quietly, “The spell where you swear fealty — where you get the ability to awaken Acathla — takes the better part of a day to take effect. He won’t be able to do anything until tomorrow night, I mean, tonight.” The sun had risen an hour or two before; Cordelia was used to staying up all night in her own reality, but to judge by her exhaustion, her body didn’t do it often here.

“Adam’s planning on waking up Acathla and opening up the gateway to hell, which not only sucks people from our side in but can spit stuff from the other side out,” Cordelia said. “Then he’s gonna shut it, which has the double-whammy effect of giving him loads of new demons to serve him AND freezing this reality in place forever.”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Faith said. She shrugged. “Since when does the Homecoming Queen lead the meetings?”

Cordelia’d won the crown in this reality. She’d forgotten.

She looked down at Faith — who looked every bit as rude and as dangerous as she’d been in the original reality. And yet, in her two-dimensional memories of this reality, Faith hadn’t gone rogue. She had always been Buffy’s friend, their ally, a fighter. Sure, she was suspicious at first, but she’d believed in Buffy and Giles ever since she went and reported her worries about Gwendolyn Post, and they’d believed her —

Of course, Cordelia realized with a jolt. Faith fell for that evil-bitch Watcher in the beginning, but in my reality, she found out the hard way — because Angel had come back from hell. In this reality, Angel didn’t go to hell, and Faith got to figure out Post’s act on her own. That first thing hadn’t seemed to push her so far away from them all, but now Cordelia realized just how important the first damage to Faith’s relationship with Buffy had been.

“Quit starin’ at me,” Faith said, scooting back in her seat. “You’re creeping me out.”

“Sorry,” Cordelia said, pulling herself back to the here-and-now. “So, we gotta stop Adam. No question about that.”

Buffy pointed at the drawings on the table: Riley’s schematics of the Initiative compound now had arrows, lines, paths of attack drawn on them. “Ergo the battle planning,” Buffy said. She squinted down at the drawings again, then shook her head. “You have no idea how bad we’ve wanted these plans. If we’d had them three years ago, Adam never could have taken over.”

And that answers another question, Cordelia thought. She plowed on: “Angel, does the same person who opens Acathla have to be the one who closes it? If we don’t get there before Adam awakens Acathla, are we just doomed?”

“I don’t think so, no,” Angel said. “Anybody who’s sworn fealty to Acathla should be able to close it. Even if Adam gets started, I should be able to end it.”

“And the person who closes it — their reality is going to be the permanent reality,” Cordelia said. “Come hell or high water, and I speak literally as well as figuratively.”

“That sounds most likely,” Wesley said.

“Is all this talking actually getting us somewhere?” Gunn said. “Because my night was pretty much sucking until we started talking about this major bad-ass battle going down here. And now we ain’t talking about that anymore.”

Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Gunn, be patient for once in your life, or I’m gonna have to tell all these nice people what your middle name is.”

“Shuttin’ up now,” Gunn said quickly.

“Okay,” Cordelia said, taking a deep breath. “Angel — could we do a spell here? Fix it so — so that I’ve sworn fealty to Acathla?”

The impact of her words hit different people at different times, in different ways. Angel and Wesley got it first, and their reactions were the hardest to read. Jenny was next, her eyes brightening with excitement. Then Doyle, whose head drooped just a little, making Cordelia’s heart contract painfully. Riley and Faith each narrowed their eyes in distrust.

It was Buffy who spoke first. “You mean, you’d want to be the one to shut Acathla. To restore your reality in the place of this one.”

“I just want to know if it’s possible,” Cordelia said evenly.

“Yes,” Angel said. “It’s possible. The spell is pretty simple. You wouldn’t be able to do anything until tonight — a few hours after Adam –“

“We could possibly think of a way to stall him,” Wesley said. “Delay Adam’s actions, so that we have a chance to let the spell work on Cordelia –“

“We could,” Riley said. “If we wanted to. But why would we want to? We want to save this world, not destroy it. Right?”

Jenny said, quietly, “Rupert Giles — someone who meant a lot to me, a lot to Buffy — he’s alive in that other reality. That’s the only reason I need.”

“There’s also a mission, apparently,” Wesley said. “Some important work Angel and Cordelia and I are meant to be carrying out in Los Angeles.”

“You guys don’t know the whole story,” Cordelia said. “You need to know the whole truth, before you decide.”

For one moment, she imagined she could feel each reality like a weight in her hand — equally heavy, equally fragile, equally precious. One of them would have to be smashed; it would slip from her hand like a glass sphere and drop, splintering into so many shards that it could never be made whole again. Cordelia knew what she wanted — her real life, her life with Angel, and she wanted it so badly it made her body shake.

But this reality, and the people who sat before her now — their desires mattered as much as her own. Their destinies were no less important, their love no less desperate. Cordelia could not treat them as lesser any longer. The price might be everything that had ever mattered to her, but she knew that she had to pay it.

“In my reality, I work with Angel in Los Angeles. Wesley’s there too — but he’s not exactly working with us right now. We had a falling-out.” She decided the details weren’t as important as the spirit of the thing. “Pretty serious falling-out, as these things go. I think — I hope we all still care a lot about each other. But Wesley, I’m pretty sure you’re in a bad place, psychologically speaking. I know that there was something in the future — that reality’s future — that was seriously scary, something we were all going to be up against.” Cordelia tried once more to remember what the eyes that stared at her had looked like, and she failed again. “I can’t figure out what it was, though. Apparently that future was erased along with that reality, so I don’t know what we might be battling when I return. Until then, though, Gunn and Lorne are with us and help out, as well as this girl Fred, who right now is probably in serious need of rescue from Pylea.”

“Pylea?” Lorne said, turning a paler shade of green. “Oh, no. Not going back there.”

“We’re getting off-subject,” Cordelia said. “In my reality, yeah, Giles is still alive. So are Willow and Xander –“

“And Mom?” Buffy said, her voice tiny. “Is my mom alive?”

Cordelia closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see Buffy’s face when she said it. “I’m sorry. No, she’s not. She died there too.” When she opened her eyes again, Angel’s hand was on Buffy’s shoulder. Buffy wasn’t looking at him, just looking straight ahead, into a distance only she could see.

“So that makes two of us,” Doyle said. When the others stared at him, he shrugged. “Seems as though I died a courageous, heroic-type death in her reality. Just goes to show you the kind of stand-up guy I am beneath this polyester exterior.”

“You’re not the only one,” Cordelia said. This was the hardest, but she forced herself to say it. “Jenny — a few years ago — you were killed.”

She couldn’t bring herself to say who had done it.

“What?” Wesley half-stood, his hands on the table, his entire body tense. “Jenny — she was — my God. You weren’t going to tell us that changing reality meant — meant killing her?”

Jenny said nothing. She stared up at Cordelia, her black eyes unreadable.

“I’m sorry,” Cordelia said. “At first this all seemed like some kind of bad dream. It didn’t seem to matter what happened here. I — I know better now. I’m sorry. Jenny, I’m sorry.” Jenny only nodded.

“Anybody else kick the bucket that we oughta know about?” Gunn said.

Cordelia considered that for a moment, then said, “Nobody died permanently. We had a couple of resurrections.”

“I miss Iowa,” Riley said suddenly. He ran one hand through his hair. “I never had conversations like this in Iowa.”

“No shit, Lee,” Faith said. “You were too busy talking about crops and cows and all that jazz. So, Cordelia, only one thing I want to know about this other reality. I didn’t spend years locked in a cell in that one, did I?”

“Actually, you did,” Cordelia said. “You kinda made some major screw-ups in my reality. You’ve got your head together now — at least Angel says you have — but you’re in jail for a long time.” Faith swore under her breath.

Riley said, “Did you even know me in this other reality?”

“We hadn’t met,” Cordelia said. “I heard about you, though. Apparently, after Buffy and Angel broke up –” Buffy’s eyes went wide, and Cordelia grimaced. “–you and Buffy had this major romance for a while.” Riley and Buffy looked at each other, completely nonplused, then looked back at Cordelia. Faith laughed in disbelief. Angel didn’t look at all happy.

Doyle grinned. “So that’s what freed up Angel there to fall in love with you, eh, Cordelia?”

Cordelia felt her cheeks flush scarlet even before Buffy stared up at her, mouth open, eyes accusing. Then Buffy whipped around to look at Angel, who didn’t quite seem able to meet her eyes. Lorne chuckled, “Doyle, buddy, you have no idea just how faux your pas just was.”

“So now you guys know,” Cordelia continued, hoping her voice wouldn’t crack. “You know the other reality isn’t all peaches and cream. Some things that seem important here — they aren’t as important there. But I can tell you that the Winter never happened. Giles and Willow and Xander all lived. And those of us who were in L.A. had a mission of our own, an important one I wasn’t ever supposed to mess with. We’re only in this situation because I did. And I’d like the chance to change it back.”

For a moment, they were all silent. Then everyone began talking at once, arguing and pointing and gesturing. After only a few moments, Wesley stood up again. “We’ll get nowhere like this. As astonishing as it seems, it appears that we have different points of view on this.” He sighed heavily. “As the obvious thing to do isn’t obvious to everyone, we should probably put this to a vote. The saner majority should prevail.”

“Just us?” Riley said. “We’re supposed to make a decision for the whole world?”

“We do it every day,” Buffy said irritably. She was still agitated and angry, glaring at Cordelia every moment she wasn’t glaring at Angel.

“It’s only fair,” Jenny said, her voice low but steady. “This affects us all. We should all have a say.”

“Not me,” Lorne said cheerfully. “Ixnay, no way. I don’t vote.”

Gunn said, “Why not? You not registered in this dimension?”

“The answer to that question is sort of a ‘yes,’ actually,” Lorne said. He sat back in his chair, relaxed as ever. “I have my own connection to the Powers, compadres. That connection tells me I’m a receiver, not a transmitter. I help other people along their path, show them which way they ought to go. But I don’t take them there. I’m supposed to advise people, not make up their minds for them. Doing that would be abusing my abilities. It would take the music right out of the songs, forever. Does that make sense?”

“No,” Wesley said shortly, “but that’s fine. Your abstention prevents a tie, assuming a question this simple could possibly be close enough for a tie.”

“So, are we voting now?” Cordelia said. When nobody disagreed, she took a deep breath and said, “You know my vote. Yes. I mean, yes to changing reality back to the way that it was before. I’ve already explained why.”

Wesley said, “My vote is, of course, no. Nobody regrets the loss of Rupert Giles more than I do. Or Willow Rosenburg, or Xander Harris. Nobody has fought harder against Adam’s Winter. But no matter how this reality came to be — as of now, it is reality. To change it is not to undo past deaths but to create new ones.” His eyes were on Jenny as he again said, “No.”

“Speaking as one of the dead,” Doyle said, “I appreciate the thought. Very civilized of you, Wes, old man. But I vote yes.”

“To your own death?” Wesley protested.

“We talked about this in the car, remember?” Doyle said. “I know my mission as well as Lorne there knows his. I got a vision of Cordelia. I’m supposed to help her do what she needs to do. If she thinks that’s changing reality, well, then, we change reality. Besides –” he hesitated for a moment, then continued, “I’d rather die a hero than live a coward. Obviously, living as a hero would be choice number one, but that doesn’t appear to be an option. So I vote yes.”

“Put me down for a no,” Faith said. “At least in this reality, I escaped from jail. I did three years in a cage, and I about went crazy — and you want me to switch back to some reality where I’m stuck in the pen for life? I’m commuting my sentence to time served. In fact, change my vote to ‘Hell, no.'”

“No offense to you and your jail time,” Gunn said, “but I’m voting yes.”

“Really?” Cordelia blurted out. She couldn’t quite believe Gunn had sided with her — his distrust and wariness were still evident on his face.

He just looked down at the table and shrugged. “My life ain’t gettin’ no better here,” he muttered.

“No,” Riley said. “This is the only world I know. This is the world I’ve been fighting to save. These are the lives I’ve been trying to save. I can’t throw them into some reality I don’t understand. I sympathize with what you’re saying. But I have to vote no.”

Jenny Calendar lifted her head, and Cordelia forced herself to meet her eyes. Surely she wouldn’t just vote no — she would vote no and then lash out at Cordelia for lying, for not warning her right away about her fate. Cordelia braced herself for the lecture she knew she deserved.

Then Jenny said, quietly, “I vote yes.”

“What?” Wesley stared at her. “Jenny, what are you–“

“Rupert’s ALIVE,” Jenny said. “In Cordelia’s world, he didn’t die. Some vampire didn’t rip his throat out and leave him in an alleyway. In Cordelia’s world, Angel didn’t have to saw the head off the man I loved to make sure he wouldn’t rise again. What happened to me — dammit, I don’t care what happened to me.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “I would have died for Rupert before, if I could have. I won’t do any less for him now.”

Wesley looked as though he might cry. Cordelia wasn’t sure she wouldn’t join in.

Buffy spoke next. “Jenny — I loved Giles as much as you did — not the same way, but as much. And I loved Will and Xan so deeply –” She looked up at the ceiling, blinking back tears. “But I had this dream last night. One of my Slayer dreams. I was supposed to go find Faith, and I went out and found her. I still don’t understand everything that dream meant, but I know it had something to do with this world. Walking in it. Not hiding from it — or throwing it away. I vote no.”

Four and four, Cordelia thought. That means it’s all up to Angel.

She looked at him, along with everyone else. Angel first looked up at Cordelia, his dark eyes meeting hers. Cordelia remembered every moment they’d been close to each other — in the hospital after the attack by Vocah; in Pylea when he’d come to rescue her; when Connor was first born and they would sit up all night with him, napping on the same bed between feedings; the night at the ballet when they’d come as close as two people could to making love without crossing the boundaries. The memory of his kisses made her skin flush, and she hoped some fraction of what she was feeling — love, desire, need and hope — was in her eyes, telling Angel what he needed to know to make the right choice.

Then he looked at Buffy, who had tears running down her face. Cordelia saw him smile at her, very slightly, very gently. She recognized the expression from long ago, in another reality. Angel was looking at Buffy with all the love he felt for her — all the love he didn’t feel for Cordelia. Tears began to flood her eyes, and she prayed for the strength to hold together until the vote was over, and she could leave to be alone and mourn what she’d lost in peace.

Angel finally looked down at the table, drawing away from both of them, drawing into himself. He thought about it for what seemed like a very long time. Nobody spoke.

At last, Angel said, “If the Powers gave me a mission now, I wouldn’t refuse it. I couldn’t. Knowing what I’ve done, being what I’ve been, I don’t have the right to turn away. They gave me a mission in Cordelia’s reality, and — and I can’t turn away from that either.” He paused, then said, “I vote yes.”

Cordelia felt the tears she’d been holding back begin to roll down her face; relief and shock did what pain hadn’t been able to do, shattering her composure. She managed to choke out, “Majority rules, right? You guys will go along with this?”

Riley nodded, then Wesley did likewise. Faith rolled her eyes and shrugged. Buffy’s hands were gripping the table so hard her veins stood out, but she finally nodded too.

“We gotta do that spell, right?’ Gunn said. “Get Cordelia all sworn over to that Acathla thing. Work out some logistics. Keep on with the battle plans.”

“And then we could all use some rest,” Angel said soothingly. He spoke for Buffy’s benefit, but Buffy would not look at him.

“I’ll be back,” Cordelia said as she stumbled toward the door. “Give me a second –“

“I think we could all use a few moments,” Wesley said faintly.

Cordelia got into the hallway before she began to sob. Thank you, she prayed, to God or the Powers or whatever might be listening. Thank you for giving me another chance.

Part 8

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