“The sun is up,” Buffy announced to the two slumbering lumps on the floor. They were both buried inside their sleeping bags blocking out the sunlight that shone through the stained glass above the front door.
Mumbles and groans sounded and one after the other, Willow and Xander emerged from their makeshift cocoons. “Is it morning already?” Willow yawned widely, her eyes still closed.
Xander glared squint-eyed toward the light. “Nope. It’s a really bright porch light. Go back to sleep.” He dived back under the covers.
“Get up,” Buffy nudged him with her foot. Sending Willow a look of frustration, she tried again, “Wakey, wakey.”
Willow rolled onto her side, not quite ready to leave the warmth of her sleeping bag. “Try the zipper.”
Following along with the suggestion, Buffy unzipped it and let the air rush in as she tossed the cover aside. Xander squirmed in half-sleep rolling into a fetal position. He hadn’t bothered changing into his pajamas last night. They’d all stayed up waiting for Angel and Cordelia to come back downstairs. When that didn’t happen, there was still the matter of guarding the front door.
Around three a.m. both Xander and Willow looked like they’d had enough for the night. Their eyes were closing and their vigil was more of a cat nap than guard duty. Buffy figured she could always wake them if trouble presented itself. They had removed their shoes and crawled into their respective sleeping bags without complaint.
Reaching down, Buffy tried shaking Xander’s shoulder, but he only mumbled at her. Tickling his ribs brought a sleepy leer to his face that had her backing off fast. Willow was now fully awake and grinning at her efforts. “Try his feet.”
Buffy’s eyes widened as she stared at Xander’s sock clad feet. One sock was half off, down to his ankle and hanging from his toes. Wrinkling her nose, “I don’t think so.”
“You kill vampires and deal with gore everyday,” Willow pointed out, “and you can’t deal with Xander feet?”
Standing, Buffy crossed her arms and held her head high. “A Slayer’s gotta draw the line somewhere. We can let him have another ten minutes while we get our stuff ready to go.”
“We’re leaving?” Willow shucked off the sleeping bag and reached for her shoes. “I thought we needed to be here in case—”
Buffy informed her about her decision to contact Giles. “It’s daylight now. Should be safe enough. If the demon hasn’t tracked Cordelia to the mansion by now, I don’t think it’ll happen.”
“Crosathnam demons are nocturnal,” Angel’s voice sounded from the top of the stairs startling them both, “but they’re not restricted from sunlight. Cordy is still in danger.”
Xander woke up instantly. “Where is she?”
“In the shower,” Angel told them.
Buffy saw that Angel’s hair was damp, too. He was fully dressed. Different clothes than last night: a dark blue shirt, black pants, clean boots. He looked gorgeous and a lot more relaxed than before. Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she said, “I need to talk to Giles.”
Reaching into his back pocket, Angel pulled out a familiar looking cell phone. Buffy realized it belonged to her Watcher. “Call him to come over. We need to strategize. And Cordelia needs him today.”
I need him today, thought Buffy glumly. “What for?”
“To take her to the police station to make a statement,” Angel’s jaw tightened up at her tone. “She also wants to see her grandmother and doesn’t want to do it alone.”
“Oh.” Buffy realized that she hadn’t even thought about that. Still, she didn’t want to face Cordelia yet. Looking at Angel was hard enough knowing he had spent the night with her. She wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that they’d had sex last night. The things she’d heard might have totally been her imagination. Being ninety-nine point nine percent certain left her a tiny bit of room for denial.
“She won’t be alone,” Xander was on his feet now. “I’ll be there.”
Angel stared at the boy for a tense moment before saying, “Thanks. Just keep her safe.”
“I will,” promised Xander feeling a little more manly than he had a minute ago. “It’s killing you not to go, isn’t it? I mean— if you could actually be any deader.”
There it was, Xander clamped his mouth shut, that glare that suggested he’d said too much again. Angel hadn’t budged an inch, but somehow seemed to loom even larger as they faced each other. “Don’t push it, Harris,” he gritted his teeth. “Cordy needs to do this. Otherwise I wouldn’t let her out of my sight.”
Buffy held her breath as the ache in her chest turned to stabbing pain. It wasn’t fair. Now that his soul was permanent and they could be together…he was with Cordelia. How was that possible? Her brain just couldn’t wrap itself around the concept.
“She’ll be fine,” Buffy snapped. Grabbing Willow by the arm, she glared at her other friend and nodded toward the door. “Xander…keys. Let’s go.”
“Hey! What about Cordelia?” Willow asked as she was shuffled forward.
Angel barked out her name stopping Buffy in her tracks. “I need you to deal with this.”
“I’ll deal,” Buffy’s head tilted up a notch. Her lips closed into a natural pout, eyes wide with determination. “Don’t expect me to pretend to like it.”
Angel found it hard to look at her. The pain showing in her eyes actually made him feel like howling triumphantly. She’d sent him to hell, dumped him, all but pushed him at Cordelia and now she acted as if she had a right to be upset that he’d fallen for someone else.
“I don’t expect you to like it, Buffy,” he lifted his gaze to hers. It wasn’t exactly the apology she was looking for.
“We’ll send Giles back to pick Cor up,” Buffy told him as she moved toward the door again. “I—I just need a little downtime first.”
Xander had left the keys to the Plymouth next to the ice chest in the middle of the foyer floor. “We’ll just borrow the car again.”
“Not so fast.” Angel put a hand on his shoulder before Xander could step out of the indirect light into the sunny open doorway. He took the Plymouth keys away. “I have a job for you.”
Gulping, Xander hated the idea already. “A job?” He looked down at the new set of keys Angel placed in his palm. His jaw dropped open at the news that he was to return the DeSoto parked out front to its owner.
“I know you’ll be careful with it,” Angel clapped Xander on the back. “Spike won’t take kindly to any new dents.
“Spike?!”
Angel gave him a little nudge toward the door. “Just take it to the Factory before nightfall. I think you’ll remember the place.”
They’d left the door wide open on the way out. Angel edged the shadows to the far side and closed it. He was about to head back up to check on Cordelia when the bedroom door opened and closed. Waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, he felt a smug smile form as he saw her swathed in his robe.
It was huge on her, doubled over across her chest and knotted at her waist it still gaped invitingly. “My stuff is still downstairs,” Cordelia told him. “And that reminds me—”
“They’re already gone.”
“Damn,” Cordelia growled exaggeratedly. “Just like them. Escaping before I can lecture them on the perils of putting designer clothes into trash bags.”
Angel glanced at the stuffed green bags. Wondering if it would help mollify her, “I have an iron.”
Rolling her eyes, Cordelia padded down the stairs barefoot. “Of course you do. What vampire doesn’t these days,” she added, grinning.
Before she reached the bottom step, he swept his arm around her waist and pulled her to him for a lingering kiss. Finally, Angel set her on her feet letting her body skim down his before letting go. “Now the real question is…do you have food of the non-piggy blood variety?” Cordelia moved out of his arms and headed for the ice chest.
Flipping it open, she found snacks galore in a tray on top of the ice. Angel peered over her shoulder as she fished through the sodas, Ho-Ho packages and Twinkies. “There are no Fruit Roll-Ups,” Cordelia huffed. “How could they forget the Fruit Roll-Ups?”
“Is that a breakfast food?” Angel cluelessly inquired.
Straightening up, Cordelia told him, “Absolutely.”
“I don’t have any of those,” he looked almost downfallen. Angel had bought a few things since Cordelia and the others started coming over. He knew how to cook, but had not done so in years. It was not necessary to keep food in the place. After Cordelia made him eat fries at the Deli, he had been experimenting a little, but the experience was not the same without her there.
Taking the unopened Twinkie pack out of her hand, he tossed it back in the chest. “How about some scrambled eggs?”
“You’ve got eggs?” Cordelia didn’t bother to hide her surprise as she walked with him toward the kitchen. Seeking clarification, “Eggs from chickens. Not demony eggs, right?”
Angel just raised a brow.
“Just asking.” Cordelia shrugged and then looked suddenly sad. “Bev used to make great scrambled eggs.”
After a heartbeat, Angel cupped the nape of her neck, glancing down into her grief stricken eyes. Wishing he knew what to say, he silently pulled her into his embrace. Cordelia wrapped her arms around his waist, rested her cheek against his chest, and sighed deeply.
Scene 102
It seemed like a different world this morning. Buffy kept her eyes on the road as the car zipped by familiar sights. It all seemed like a dream somehow. A strangely wrong kind where Angel loved Cordelia and she was sitting in the passenger seat of Spike’s beermobile.
“God, it stinks of beer and smoke,” Buffy groused sinking lower in the seat. “I hate this car. And I hate Spike.”
Willow was the one in the back seat with the rest of the empty beer cans. She was the one who should be complaining. At least Xander got to drive. That goofy guy grin was back on his face as soon as he got behind the wheel. It was a lucky thing that the drive from Crawford Street to Giles’ place only took a few minutes in the early morning traffic.
She closed the door behind her and followed Buffy and Xander to the courtyard entry of Giles’ small condo. The iron cross design on the door had already existed before the Watcher moved in. Willow hadn’t really thought about Giles selecting the place because the door acted as a vampire deterrent. She wondered if the architect knew about the vamps when he designed it.
They did not have to wait long after ringing the doorbell. Faith answered the door in a matter of moments looking irritated that her sleep had been disturbed. Her tousled brown hair could not hide the shiner darkening the skin around her left eye. There were scrapes and bruises everywhere. And the thought that this was after several hours of super-fast healing only made it worse.
Faith stood there wearing a plaid pajama top. “Are you coming in?”
Gaping in surprise, Willow gasped, “You’re here—”
“As in not in the hoosegow,” Xander’s attention dropped to her bare legs.
Willow finished, “and you’re wearing Giles’ pajamas.”
“Normally I wouldn’t bother,” Faith shrugged, “but I wouldn’t want to keep Wes or the G-man up all night. I don’t like to tease.”
“What are you doing here?” blurted Buffy completely surprised to see her. Faith was supposed to be in jail.
“Nice to see you, too, Summers,” Faith mocked as Buffy and her cronies filed past. “I could ask you the same question.”
“No doubt Miss Summers is here to check in with her Watcher,” Wesley stepped up from behind Faith, his hands closed around the lapels of his robe, “an excellent notion albeit at the crack of dawn.”
As he prattled on about a Watcher’s duty and his endless vigil, Buffy called out at the top of her lungs, “Giles!”
“As a matter of fact, I have a number of lessons for you to master.”
Faith turned to stare at Wesley who looked far less starchy than he had last night. Now rumpled with bed hair and his early morning stubble shadowing his jaw, he almost looked kind of hot. If only he would keep his mouth shut. A smirk appeared on her mouth despite the twinge of pain it brought.
“Talk like that just makes me hot,” Faith leaned in close enjoying the instant look of panic in his eyes. “What kind of lessons did you have in mind?”
