Cordelia groaned as she realized that Xander was going to be gone for a while and her bladder had just decided to let her know she had to pee. The pain in her leg said moving was a bad idea. Her bladder noted that it didn't care where she went and the bed was perfectly acceptable to it.
Cordelia decided right there and then that she didn't care if her leg was broken, she was not going to have Xander return and find she'd peed the bed!
She tried to stand, but her injured leg turned the pain dial up to eleven and she crumpled to the floor, biting back a scream. It took a minute for her to blink the tears from her eyes and get her breathing back under control. She silently blessed Xander for leaving the bathroom door open and the light on as she crawled toward the bathroom. She was going to use the bathroom and get back to bed if it killed her!
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
Xander peered around the lobby, trying to ignore the desiccated corpse that was curled up on the floor behind the counter. The lights worked, but the computer wouldn't turn on, and neither would the radio. The mini fridge under the counter was working, though the food in it was probably way past its expiration date. He thought about unplugging it and seeing if it was still running, but to do that he'd have to move the remains of the hotel clerk, and he didn't feel up to that yet.
Picking up an old newspaper that had blown off the counter he finally had a date; October 31st, 1990.
Xander looked around the lobby and frowned. It didn't look like it had been abandoned for nearly a decade, he was guessing it had been half that at most.
"Well, if the world hasn't ended, at least Cordelia has the winning lottery numbers for California from the mid to late ninety's memorized," he said with a chuckle.
He found a spare set of passkeys in a drawer and a fifth of whiskey and some Midol in the clerk's purse on the counter. He took that as a sign and decided he'd pressed his luck enough for now, as the sun was setting and he wanted to be behind a nice solid door when that happened. Stuffing the newspaper in the clerk's purse he stepped back outside into the waning daylight of the setting sun. He left the lamp inside so he'd have a hand free just in case, not that he had any weapons, not even a rock.
He used the passkey to open the supply room, just a few doors from where he left Cordelia. He grabbed one of the maid's carts and dumped half a dozen spare pillows and blankets along with down comforters into it. Looking around he found a hotplate and a tea kettle, which also went in the cart, as well as a number of gift baskets for VIP guests. Xander picked up another hotplate and turned it on, not bothering to plug it in, and nodded in satisfaction as it heated up. He'd almost forgotten to check and simply assuming they would work only to find out they didn't later would have been embarrassing.
The cart's wheels didn't squeak or wobble, which he found more unnerving than things working when they weren't plugged in. Opening the door to their room he froze at the sight of the empty bed. "Cordelia?" he called out anxiously.
"In here," Cordelia answered from the bathroom.
"Thank God," Xander muttered, as he pushed the cart into the room and closed the door behind him, throwing the deadbolt. "I thought you couldn't walk," he said, making himself a nest on the floor with the bedding from the cart, making sure not to look in the bathroom as Cordelia had left the door open.
"I crawled," she admitted. "I…I need help."
"With?" he asked cautiously.
"I can't…I can't get myself off the toilet," Cordelia said, and he could hear the tears and frustration in her voice.
"I'll be right there," he promised, grabbing the clerk's purse off the cart and turning toward the open door. He paused as he saw her on the toilet, positioned awkwardly with her legs outstretched and her pants and panties pushed down to her knees. The defeated expression on her face caused an almost physical pain in his chest, even while his libido was trying to get his attention.
"I don't suppose you found any morphine or Novocain while you were out?" she joked, trying to pretend she hadn't been crying.
"I have Midol and Jack Daniels," Xander told her.
Cordelia just stared at him in shock for a minute. "Oh thank God! That's just what the doctor ordered! Gimme!"
Xander passed her the purse and sat down on the edge of the tub and checked to see if the hot water still worked. He wasn't really surprised to find it did.
"You're planning on taking a bath?" Cordelia asked, setting the purse on the sink, but keeping the whiskey.
"A hot bath should relax the muscles and help take the swelling down," he explained.
"I'm going to need a lot of help," Cordelia warned him.
"Yes, but only for a day or two," he assured her. "I doubt it's broken, so once we get the swelling down, you should feel a lot better."
"Did you find out anything?" Cordelia asked, changing the subject.
"I found a newspaper that says it's October 1990 and I don't think this place has been dead for the better part of a decade, so we are probably back in time," he told her.
"At least it's not the eighties," Cordelia replied, taking another slug of Jack. "I am so not wearing that much hairspray ever again."
"Do you want bubble bath?" Xander asked, recalling one of the items in the VIP baskets.
"Yes, yes I do," Cordelia said firmly, after thinking a minute.
Xander retrieved the VIP bathroom basket from the cart and tore open the plastic wrapping, stuffing it in the trash. Aromatic bath oils and bubble bath were poured into the tub.
"Do you have chocolate?" Cordelia asked intently.
"Give me a second to check," Xander told her and started searching through the other baskets, but only found coco mix. Fortunately there was a half-full box of individually wrapped chocolate mints, so he took that and handed it to Cordelia.
"We're in a post-apocalyptic nightmare and you've managed to get me chocolate and a bubble bath in addition to Midol and whiskey," Cordelia said. "OK, you may see me naked."
Xander was about to explain how it was what they had to do, not a privilege he'd been shooting for, when he realized she was probably saving face. "That sounds reasonable," he replied.
AN: Typing by Elrod Albino!