Part 26
“Cordy?”
“What are we supposed to do with him?” Cordelia paced. “We can’t send him to his time, this is his time. Kill him. I’d like to, but what would that do? But we got to do something.”
“So, you agree with Lorne.” Gunn pointed to the green demon.
Lorne coughed. “Actually, I’d say that I agree with the Princess, she called it before I even got here. That’s not one happy vamp in there. Even before all this playing patty cakes with the time line. He’s present wasn’t a happy place. Dark, alone, sad.”
Cordelia swirled. “Don’t even try to make me feel sorry for him.”
“I wasn’t princess, it just what it was. He has the soul, the desire to be what he could be, he just doesn’t have the patience or the know how to get there. He could learn, though. He’s has the soul.”
“You keep saying that has if it means anything to me.” Cordelia flashed her eyes at demon.
“Princess, the Angel cakes that you love is gone, but this one is a champion, he can be taught and he does love you.”
“He killed my ‘Angel Cakes’ and Wesley is dead. I’m not teaching him how to tie his fucking shoes.”
“I’m with Cordy.” Gunn nodded.
Fred cleared her throat. “We have to do the spell again, fix it.”
“Kitten, honeys, friends, sweeties, from what you’ve been telling me you’ve been playing a spectacular game of twister with the time line, making it worse as the game progresses. It could be time to cut your losses and carry your chips home. We have Cordelia and a vampire with a soul, who for all extensive purposes is Angel. Or will be with some good old family loving and understanding.”
Lorne flinched back at the trio of glares. “Or not. Don’t kill me, just voicing another option other than playing Russian roulette with more futures. So, what is the plan?”
“I’ll go.” Gunn nodded. “Do the spell that we used with English, with any luck, I’ll get there at the same time. The two of us….”
“No.” Cordelia interrupted.
“Girl, you ain’t going. You’re the focus of all of this. We ain’t giving two Angeluses and a crazy Angel another Cordy to focus on. I’ll chain YOU up before that happens.”
Fred cleared her throat again, looking apoplectically at Cordelia. “I’d help him. Sorry. You can’t go. For one thing, you’re already are there. Not the body but the soul. It…I don’t know…you shouldn’t. It’s too dangerous. I’ll go with Charles.”
“Fred, you can’t go.”
“I can.” Her eyes sparkled in indignation through her glasses. “I can use a crossbow, I can be there as back up.”
Cordelia slumped her shoulders. “We need Angel and Wesley.”
“Girl, we don’t have them that is why were in this shithole.”
“Let’s go get them.” Cordelia said.
“That’s what we’re not agreeing on.”
“No, let’s go.” Cordelia waved her hand in the air,” a year from now. Let’s go get our Wesley with his brains, and the Angel that we trust. Just before all this time traveling stuff started to happen.”
Gunn and Fred looked to each other and started nodding slowly. “Fred, could you do another spell.”
“Yeah, it’s just plugging in the numbers now. Still, some leeways with exactness but, yeah, give me a date.”
Cordelia looked to Gunn, her face scrunched. “I don’t know, the parameters should be definitely LA -Angel and Wesley here working together – so at least 1999. No, make it at least 2000.”
“Hell, make it four months ago.” Gunn suggested.
“Good,” Cordelia nodded.
“I don’t know if I can. Not like that. The spells have always had a cushion between the time departed and that to go to. It’s like a built in warning system that too close is too dangerous. No, jumping back to yesterday. We know that we could send from here to 1998, I wouldn’t suggest going much before that. Wesley did know, I think he did, I mean, when he sent he and Gunn back to warn Angel, it couldn’t have been that far in the future, but I don’t remember if he put in precautions. He gets all of the time cause and effect dynamics. I only get the math. But, I would say close to 1998 but with Angel and Wesley in LA, but not yesterday.”
“Four months ain’t yesterday,” Gunn grumbled.
Cordelia scrunched up her head. “No earlier than 2000, better yet, 2001. By then, Wesley had gone from clumsy rouge demon hunter to awesome brain guy, with the ability to remain on his feet as he killed nasties and Gunn was working here too. Sorry Fred.”
“That’s okay, any specific…”
“Pick one.” Cordelia shrugged. “As long as we can get an Angel we trust and a Wesley that will know what the hell we need to do.”
Part 27
Gunn jumped first, Fred and Cordelia followed soon after all rolling on the floor catching their breaths as they stood. They had all agreed to go together or rather they all disagreed about who would go alone. Lorne agreed to stand watch over the bound Angel B.
Gunn grunted looking around, his expectant expression turned to a scowl as he turned to the slight brunette that was brushing off her jeans. “You were supposed to put us in the past, but not the friggin far past.
“I didn’t.” Fred pushed at her glasses.
“This,” Gunn wiped his hand over the dusty counter, looking at the dark and dank surroundings. “Isn’t…”
“Gunn,” Cordelia called. “We screwed up.”
Fred stood arms crossed. “I know I did the spell right, exactly in the parameters you gave me.”
Cordelia gave a soft smile. “It’s not your fault Fred. Gunn and I forgot.”
“Girl.”
She swished at the dust and debris on her abandoned desk. “We forgot that there was a vampire with a soul in our past that we didn’t trust.” She held a chipped coffee mug that had once held pencils and pens. “We’ve been fired.”
“Fuck.” Gunn rubbed at his baldhead. “Will he even listen to us?”
“My guess is a big fat no.” Cordelia leaned her head back. “We need to get to Wesley.”
“I told you to get out of here.” Angel’s deep voice, brittle in its starkness, echoed into the lobby from the direction of the basement.
Fred squealed and jumped at the voice ready to go towards the vampire, but was held back by Gunn’s strong hand. “That ain’t an Angel you want to know.”
“Uh.”
“Post Darla mind fuck, pre Darla fuck, useless to us.”
Fred slapped Gunn’s arm. “I told you…”
“Sorry, but that doesn’t change the fact this version is a worthless bastard.”
Cordelia sighed. “Gunn.”
“Girl, you know it better than I.”
“Just be quiet.”
Angel stood his eyes narrowing at Gunn’s words and protective action towards the unknown female. He looked towards Cordelia. He had been surprised to sense her in the lobby. Hell he hadn’t believed it at first. Angel had stopped himself from running up the stairs, forcing down the relief and hope that had sprung up. She had been so indifferent, biting, and cold when he had seen her in the hospital. She had said in loud clear terms that his family didn’t want or need him. She had cut him off completely. After all turn about was fair play.
Going to the hospital had been a weakness just as the unfettered hope that he hogtied and shoved back down was when he had sensed her. Emotions, the feelings that Cordelia, his family allowed him made him too weak to face Darla, Drusilla and destroy Wolfram & Hart. He couldn’t allow that. He needed to get Cordelia out of the hotel, out of his life. She was his biggest weakness.
He looked down at the woman that faced him. “This is my hotel. You are trespassing. You don’t belong here. I don’t want you here. You agreed.”
“I did?” Cordelia stepped back. “When did I say okay, Angel act like an asshole, go bury yourself in your obsession with Darla and Wolfram & Hart, forget your soul, our mission, leave me. Did I, really?” Cordelia thought back, shaking her head. “Gunn?”
The black man shrugged his shoulders. “You might’ve been a bit verbal in your venting good riddance to the vamp. Hell, we all were.”
“But that was to you and Wesley, when did I tell him?” She pointed over her shoulder to Angel.”
Gunn shrugged. “I heard you yell about the evil-ex bitch a couple of months ago and Angel whimpering. I was a little bummed. You almost got us the boat.”
Fred raised her hand. “I heard it too.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “That was just,” she waved her hand in the air, blowing it off. “Not then, but now, is what I’m talking about. Hmmph.” She turned to the vampire. “What did I say?”
Angel narrowed his eyes, wondering at Cordelia’s new tactic to get to him and why she was doing it. The woman he saw in the hospital would never want to be there.
“I believe you told me, that you didn’t need me, that none of you needed me before you told me to leave. Now I’m telling you, all of you, to leave my hotel,” his eyes as cold and mechanical as his voice.
“Fuck.” Cordelia turned again to Gunn. “We really screwed up.”
Angel blinked. Cordelia didn’t curse not like that. Her expressions of damnation were more imaginative than common profanity. That wasn’t the reaction he expected but he didn’t expect any of what was happening.
“Cordy?” Gunn asked.
“Wesley,” she turned back to the vampire. “How long ago? Is Wesley still in the hospital?”
“Aw, shit.” Gunn rubbed he head furiously.
Fred’s eyes widened. “Was he blown up or shot? Wait, the blown up bit happened before the what’s her name bit.” Fred’s eyes blinked rapidly towards the vampire. “Where’s Wesley? We have to go to him.”
Cordelia shook her head. “Fred, you can’t go. We can’t even go. Maybe…” She faced the vampire again. “Is he still in the hospital or is he home?”
Angel stared. “Hospital.”
Cordelia closed her eyes.
“Cordy, we have to go.” Fred urged.
She nodded. “Yes, but not to the hospital. Gunn and I are already there. Wesley can’t help us. But we do have to go.” She went to her desk. “Damn’t.” she brushed at the papers and trash that no longer meant anything. She went straight into the enclosed office. “Angel.” She yelled.
Angel almost refused to move but the whole thing was becoming so surreal that maybe he was dreaming and in his dreams he could be in the same room with Cordelia for a short time at least, before he woke up in an impossible sweat and more determination to push her out of his being.
“What did you do…. nevermind, the desk calendar was Wesley’s.” She slumped down in the chair, her hands covering her face. “I don’t know what to do.”
Angel had to ignore the tremor in her voice otherwise he would be drawn from his course. She had to go. “I want you to leave. Don’t make me do it the hard way.”
Cordelia looked up all signs of distress gone in the dangerous glint of her narrowed eyes. “The hard way? Would be that be using force? Glad to see that it would still be “hard,”” she quoted in the air,” to pick me up and throw me out on my ass. But before you get all ‘hardy’,” she quoted again, “give me a minute before I ‘make’ you be even more beigey and unbearable. If my presence bothers you so much go to the sewers, go stalk out where the dangerous duo are, go stare at Wolfram & Hart and try to figure out how to destroy it, or at least go back to the basement and turn yourself into more of the vamp terminator. I’ll leave, don’t worry, I just need to think for a minute so go into your deep silent brood cold mode and shut up.” She glared for a moment and then yelled for Gunn.
“Yeah,” the black man was in the room in an instant with Fred following close behind. “Is the vamp giving you trouble.”
“Don’t worry about him, I lived through it once, I can stand five minutes of the asshole. We need to figure out what to do. We can’t bother Wesley. He has…we just can’t and I don’t see recruiting the past you or me. It would’ve taken an apocalypse to get me to leave Wesley and our crazy problem just won’t cut it-too much other crap going on in this time frame and not much sympathy for Angel.”
“What about Angel, I mean him,” Fred nodded to the vampire at the door.
“Yeah, right.” Gunn rolled his eyes as Cordelia Pfft loudly.
“What, he is Angel, he has soul, he…”
“Girl, so did the other one and he killed Wesley.”
Fred bit her lips. “Cordy said Angel B said Angelus did it.”
“Do you remember her saying that she believed him? I don’t.”
“Cordy,” Fred looked to the young woman behind the desk.
Cordelia took a deep breath. “It doesn’t make sense otherwise Fred, Angel did send Angelus 1 back or no Angels with souls. The other Angelus, well, maybe, but he was the least threat because he didn’t know who Wesley was yet or what he would mean to Angel or to me. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we stop it. We won’t do it from here. We’re going home and then I’ll go.”
“Cordy.” Gunn shook his head. “You ain’t going anywhere near the Angeluses or Angel B.”
“I’m already there, so what.”
“No,” Fred ran up. “Maybe if Wesley said you could but otherwise, no.”
“I have to. This is my fault. Two times I was faced with him and I… No, I’ll go. I’ll stop it.”
“And if you don’t.”
“Will it really be any worse? Angel is already dead. If I fail, so what, at least I won’t be here alone.”
“Cordy, you aren’t alone, we’re here. We love you.”
“Girl, you aren’t going on a suicide mission, not without us.” Gunn said forcibly.
Angel moved from out of the shadows. He had wanted to believe that this was some elaborate scheme of Cordelia’s to get him to listen to her. But, that reassurance was leaving rapidly as the name Angelus was thrown around too easily and she hadn’t even looked at him since she told him to get lost and neither had Gunn or the unknown young woman.
“What suicide mission.”
Cordelia blinked up. “Oh, the wall speaks. Go away. I told you we would be leaving soon, in fact, we might as well leave now. At least at home, we have some semblance of cleanliness.”
“Why are you here?” Angel asked no longer believing that her presence had anything to do with him rehiring them and everything to do with the bizarre notion that she wasn’t even the young woman that he had so recently seen standing guard over Wesley’s hospital room.
“It was a mistake. We forgot. How I don’t know, but we did. And you don’t care so why waste your time.”
“I want to know why you and Gunn are here, why she’s here,” he pointed to Fred, “Why you didn’t know that Wesley is in the hospital, why you think he’s dead, why you think I’m dead, I want to know what Angelus has to do with any of this.”
“And if I don’t tell you then what? You’re going to fire me, cut me out of your life? Ooh, are you going to threaten me? Did it, done it and Pfft to you.” Cordelia glared.
Fred stared at Gunn. The black man was also glaring at Angel. And the vampire was standing there taking it in and giving his own cold glare in return. Shivers ran up her spine. She ran to Cordelia, pulling at her arm. “Cordy, this is Angel. Not a version that you don’t know, one that you can’t trust, one that you can’t love. He is Angel. I’ve read the files. This is Angel just before his epiphany. He can help, you have to remember that, both of you.” Her intense stare and words encompassing Gunn also.
“He doesn’t care.” Cordelia shook her head. Gunn nodded in agreement.
“Cordy,” Fred held the other woman’s face. “You don’t believe that, you couldn’t have, you never would’ve still loved him if you’d truly believed that. And Charles, you do trust Angel and so does Wesley. If you couldn’t forgive, understand and believe then you never would’ve saved me and become my family. Stop thinking in the past and how he hurt you. We can if we have to search for another version, but Wesley never liked us sending Angel back.”
“He did quick enough, he went quick enough.” Gunn shook his head.
“Yes, but only because he had to. We talked about it when devising the different spells. He was always concerned. Wesley just couldn’t allow the changes to remain. It was simply emotion over logic and reason. None of us are completely sure of all of that happened. But, I do know that Wesley warned against using the Portal too many times without a justifiable reason because each time there was the risk that something would change making things even worse. And he was right- it is worse. Wesley did,” looking to Cordelia and Gunn. “Cordy, we did talk about it, right after it happened the first time, Charles you were there.”
The black man slowly nodded.
“Talked about what?” Cordy glanced at her two friends.
Fred took a deep breath. “When you came back from 1898, after we knew what you went through. Wesley debated going back again at a time before he and Angel went- in an attempt to stop Angelus from ever seeing you. But he decided that we knew the outcome of the first trip, you were safe and even though things changed slightly, they were inconsequential to the risk.”
“Inconsequential, my ass.” Gunn snorted.
Cordelia glared at Gunn and then narrowed her eyes at Fred. “Where were Angel and I in this little group office meeting?”
“Indisposed for a good three days, making things more ‘inconsequential’.” Gunn shot back.
“What is your problem?” Cordelia asked harshly.
“My problem? Damn’t girl. Between Wolfram & Hart, multiple Angeluses and Angels all who seem to have the need to make your pretty ass into a vampire or a piece of property has gotten Wesley killed.” Gunn yanked at the shirt Cordelia was wearing. “These damn things that you wear so proudly will be the death of us all.”
“Charles,” Fred yanked at the black man. “Stop it. Wesley understood.”
“He didn’t, he just let it be.”
Cordelia stood straight. “So what do you want to do, Gunn? What Lorne suggested. Let that vampire take Angel’s place.”
“Like that will happen, you’ll kill him as soon as we let him loose.”
“He deserves to die. I can’t believe that you think otherwise. He killed Wesley and Angel.”
“Right now, I’m half in to forgetting all of them – Angels and Angeluses. Even with his soul bound, we get the evil fucker showing up on our doorstep. If it wasn’t for Wes, I’d say let them all die. That would stop Wolfram & Hart. No vampire with a soul, no whacked out schemes every five minutes.”
Cordelia’s voice got cold. “Gunn, Angelus doesn’t even know who you are. Wolfram & Hart could care less about you. You have no say in this. None of you do. It’s my decision.”
“Your decisions have gotten Wesley killed and Fred offered up as your after sex breakfast and that is MY business. But, then again, it’s all about Angel for you isn’t it.”
Cordelia reared back and slugged the black man, her fist carrying the force of her every feeling of anger, sadness, and guilt, dropping the strong man to his knees.
Cordelia blinked looking at what she had done. “Oh god.” She ran.
Angel stayed still, but his eyes followed the fleeing girl, targeting where her pounding heart was going. Satisfied for the moment he looked back to Gunn and to the young woman kneeling next to him.
“Charles, you shouldn’t have.”
“She hit me.”
“Charles, we all are hurting right now. But, Cordy had a point, a valid one. Not once during any of this did she have a choice. Wolfram & Hart threw her into the 19th century for Angelus to kill her. They sent him to the future to kill her when that failed. They sent her to Sunnydale to face two Angelus. This is about her, Angel, and their bond not us. Angel died because he had to go and save her. Wesley died because he chose to go after them. If we die, it will because we choose to put ourselves in the position to be in danger. She hasn’t asked us to go though, she wouldn’t. The only ones she will agree to send back is her or an Angel she can trust. She won’t risk anyone else. You saw that when she chose to kill Angelus and die rather than put us in danger.”
“She sent Wesley back.”
“She asked him to go because she had no choice, she couldn’t go. She didn’t have a soul. She told us that she was afraid that she would just destroy our Cordy and kill that Buffy girl. And Wesley would’ve gone anyway. He had just killed Cordy and Angel was dead. He would’ve gone whether Cordy the vamp asked or not. Just like you would’ve or I would’ve. Together, Charles, that is the only way we will survive this.”
Gunn pushed up from the ground. “You sound like Cordy.”
“I’ve been listening to her. She rubs off on people.”
“Damn straight, okay, so what I go and apologize.”
Fred looked around. She scrunched up her brow at the departing dark figure that separated from the wall. “This might not be a good time.”
“Nope. I guess we’ll be sitting here for awhile.” Gunn jerked up. “Shit, what if he forgets that he doesn’t the have sex free card.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about that. They didn’t seem to like each other very much.” Fred sat on the chair nervous and sad at the tension between her friends, even if Angel was from the past and didn’t know her he still was her friend.
