Cordelia was not happy at being left behind in the Magic Box. She might be thoroughly over Xander Harris, but that didn't mean it was fun to see him all cuddly with someone else while she seemed doomed to perpetual singledom. There was also Willow and the girlfriend she'd mentioned in one of the more excruciatingly awkward phone conversations of Cordelia's life. And then that horrifying robot had shown up, gushing about Spike. On the whole, it felt like everyone else's relationship drama was puking on her. So, pretty much the usual for being in Sunnydale. She couldn't wait to be back in L.A. At least Angel, Gunn, and Wes were all just as single as she was.
In between the mushy crap and helping them cast an anti-eavesdropping spell, she was able to glean that the supernatural side of things was pretty eventful around here too. The Scoobies were under threat of an actual god, some unstoppable lady who made Slayer strength look like a joke and, from their description, had a closet Cordelia wouldn't mind raiding. And this lady was after Buffy's little sister, for some reason. Yeah, she definitely wanted to go back to L.A.
She was on the phone with Wes and Gunn, trying to convince them not to immediately drive to Sunnydale now that the new client's house was ectoplasm-free, when Buffy and Angel walked into the Magic Box, both looking rather beat up. Everyone jumped to their feet.
"They're back, gotta go," said Cordelia, and she hung up before Wes and Gunn could ask questions. She struggled against the relief and happiness that welled up in her on seeing that Angel was still okay. Why was it so hard to stay mad at him? She'd been doing such a good job at it.
"What happened?" said Willow.
"Darla recruited Spike to capture me so they could turn me into a vampire," said Buffy, so nonchalantly that you'd think it happened every day.
"He's dust," said Angel. "She ran off."
Cordelia harrumphed. That was just great.
"Spike's dust?" said Xander. "Hey, you couldn't give a heads up? I would've brought popcorn!"
"Darla got away?" said Giles.
"Yeah," Buffy sighed. "So now we're gonna have to keep an eye out for her too. We need more eyes."
"Oh, that's easy, I'll hook you up with a Skilosh demon," said Cordelia. Angel's lips twitched, while Giles and Anya looked appalled. Nobody else reacted.
"You don't still have that...Buffy robot here, do you?" said Buffy, though she didn't sound like she really wanted to know.
"It's in the back room," said Willow. "I deactivated it." She shuddered. "God, talk about uncanny valley."
"So I guess you're just going to leave now," said Dawn, glaring at Angel. Cordelia was startled by the amount of bitterness in her tone; she never expected to identify with Buffy's kid sister.
"Dawn," said Buffy, plainly not wanting the younger girl to make this harder. "You know he has to."
Watching them, something suddenly clicked so hard for Cordelia that it was like having a vision, only minus the headache. Hell, for all she knew, this was the real reason she'd had the actual vision in the first place. "Maybe you two should come with us," she said.
"What?!" said Giles, Xander, Anya, Willow, and Tara all in unison. Buffy and Angel merely gaped at her, then Dawn, then each other.
"You're trying to protect Dawn from this Glory lady, right?" said Cordelia, eyes on Buffy. "But Glory doesn't know Dawn's the one she's after?"
"Not as far as we know," said Giles slowly.
"Then get her out of town. If the bad guy's too strong to fight, staying put seems kinda silly."
"Don't you think I've thought about that before?" said Buffy, half-laughing in disbelief. "Glory would notice if I left with Dawn. She'd come after us. And I can't just send Dawn off without me."
"Uh, yeah," said Cordelia. "I do know this. Put that robot to good use. Make it look like Dawn's the only one leaving. If the thing fooled these two," she gestured at Xander and Anya, who looked sheepish, "then maybe it can fool Glory."
"I don't know," said Angel. "It was pretty obvious to me it wasn't human. Any being as powerful as Glory won't fall for that for long."
"Maybe right now," said Willow. From her eager expression, she was the only one on board with Cordelia's idea so far. "But I can tinker with the programming and cast a few spells on it. Make it a better decoy."
"We saw it fight," said Xander. "That part was already realistic."
"And if you need an explanation for why Dawn isn't living in Sunnydale anymore, why not use your father?" said Giles. "Frankly, it would make more sense from an outside perspective that a minor would go to live with a surviving parent than remain with an older sibling."
"Guys, this is not…," said Buffy. "Can we really do this? What about all of you? The longer Glory can't find what she's looking for, the more danger you could be in."
"We'll be fine, Buffy," said Willow. "Do what you need to do."
"I want to go," said Dawn suddenly. Everyone looked at her. "What? If Angel can't stay here, then the next best thing is us going with him. I could even go to Buffy's old middle school."
"But Angel and I can't be around each other. Not for as long as it might take to make sure Glory isn't a threat."
"Come on, is it really that hard to keep it in your pants?" said Anya. Then she looked appraisingly at Angel. "Okay, never mind." Cordelia stared at her. Damn. And she thought she had no tact. But Anya was apparently completely immune to shame, because she went on like she wasn't currently the subject of eight incredulous stares, including those of her very indignant boyfriend and a mortified fourteen-year-old. "There's probably a way around that whole curse loophole thing, if that's what you're worried about. Magic might be tricky and prone to biting you in the ass, but it's pretty flexible."
"Really?" said Buffy, but then she shook her head. "Heh, no, I'm so not talking about this with all of you here." She looked at Angel. "Me and Dawn in L.A.? Would this work?"
"There's plenty of room for both of you at the Hyperion," he said, obviously also uncomfortable with the previous topic. He and Buffy then proceeded to do that soul-gaze-y thing they always did for a few seconds, and then he turned to fix Cordelia with one of those penetrating stares. "Why do you want this? You've never been happy about it when Buffy came to L.A. before, and those were just short visits."
"Because I think we can help," said Cordelia. His eyes widened, and she knew he recognized his own words. Good. Because that was as close as she was going to come to telling him she forgave him. She smiled. "But I still get shotgun on the way back."
So that's the end of the pre-written stuff, which is why this fic comes across as a pilot episode to me. I really feel like "Intervention" and "Disharmony" are where both shows started to go off the rails a bit in terms of characterization and logic. Not that there weren't problems before, but these episodes were where the writers clearly started pushing the idea of sympathetic Spike (in the same episode as the BuffyBot, somehow) and dork!Angel, two of the most irritating things about the later seasons for me. I also never liked the way Angel bought Cordy's friendship back with clothes in canon, as funny as that scene is, so I wanted to give her a more interesting emotional arc on the way back to trusting him. (Maybe the writing started going downhill at that point because that was when Firefly preproduction began and divided everyone's attention? Sad thought.)
If I turn this fic into something longer, as you can gather, it's going to keep veering off canon in pretty significant ways. If that sounds like fun, let me know!