Buffy paced. Which was really inconsiderate when you thought about it because she, of the Having-a-Body variety over there, was just flaunting the fact that Cordelia couldn’t.
Well, actually, she could. But it didn’t make her feel better.
She could pace and she could walk and she could talk and she could scream but nobody but Buffy could hear her and nothing–Nothing made her feel any better about what was happening here.
“So let me get this straight,” said Buffy, after she’d paced enough to make Cordelia feel sorta dizzy, “Angel, my vampire ex who was previously all up in the business of saving people, is now working for an evil law firm.”
Cordelia nodded, “Heading it up… That’s about the gist of it. He sounds so… Tired.”
“You’ve talked to him?” Buffy blinked.
“Hello, coma,” Cordelia rolled her eyes. Shock or no shock, Buffy really needed to pay attention to the storyline here. “Can’t do much of the talking when you aren’t in control of your basic bodily functions. And I can’t get on his wavelength, remember?”
“Do vampires have a wavelength?” Buffy wondered aloud, then, off Cordelia’s look, “Remember when I was hearing people’s thoughts back in high school? I couldn’t hear Angel’s… He said it was ‘cause he was… Y’know, dead. No brainwaves. Or wavelengths.”
“Well, I’ve done the astral projection thing on him before and it worked,” said Cordelia, thinking back to her 21st birthday when she’d jumped into Angel’s body to get him the message about her vision and the girl she’d wound up saving in her head. “Besides, Fred’s totally human. And, as far as I remember? So are Wes and Gunn… They’re wavelengthed up the wazoo, I just can’t get on it.”
“So you’re here,” Buffy sighed.
Cordelia’s patience, fraying at the edges, had just run out. “Look, I get that you’re all mopey because your saving the world days are over but–Man up! I need your help, Buffy.”
For a split-second, Cordelia wondered if tough-love was the wrong approach.
Buffy’s mouth set in a grim line and she almost flailed about the fact that she may have lost her one shot forever, was doomed to live out the rest of her potentially short life listening to the sad lamentations of a vampire who thought he’d fucked up. Truly.
She was on the verge of begging, literally, and that was really the lowest Cordelia Chase would ever go consciously…
Until Buffy nodded. “Okay. I’ll help.”
***