AUTHOR: Goddess Isa
EMAIL: goddessisa@aol.com
SUMMARY: While Buffy is off killing Glory, Angel is given a chance to change the future, and he takes it even though it may cost him everything
SPOILER: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE END FO S5 BUFFY! Read at your own risk. Also contains minor ANGEL S2 spoilers.
DISTRIBUTION: Sure, just email me & lmk where it's going - I like seeing my name in print =) http://planetslaythis.homestead.com is my website.
FEEDBACK: Please, I'd hate to have to Slay for it. =P
RATING: TV-14
DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon, David Greenwalt and UPN own the characters in this fic that you know. The characters that you don't, like Elisabeth and Joseph for instance, are all mine. I love it when I can say that.
"Are you sure they can handle this?" Joseph asked.
Elisabeth nodded. "They are strong. They have the power to fight."
"I don't know. He may be weak."
"He is a Warrior!" Elisabeth stomped her foot and the entire cave shook. "He will be strong enough to sustain everything thrown at them over the coming months."
"What about her?" Joseph asked.
"What about her?"
"She is the Slayer."
Elisabeth was growing bored with this. "And your point would be..."
"What if this is a mistake?" he asked, panic in his voice. "She is only a Slayer. She's practically a *mortal*."
"Don't insult her intelligence with such ridiculousness," Elisabeth ordered. "And don't keep voicing your opinions like that in public. You're liable to embarress yourself in front of the other Elders."
"And we wouldn't want that now, would we?" he asked sarcastically.
"Do you want to be sent back?" she asked. "Because it can be done," with a wave of her hand, a portal to his other life opened up in front of him. "Gonna jump, Joseph?" she asked.
"No," he said firmly, turning away. "It is different this time."
Another wave of her hand and the portal was gone. "I was hoping you might say that."
"Just how do you expect to reach her?" Joseph asked. "When given directions, she is known for going the other way."
"I'm not going through here," Elisabeth changed the image in her viewing window. "I'm going through him."
"The Warrior?" Joseph asked. "That will not be approved by the others."
"It already has been," she smiled. "It's going to work out beautifully."
"You little pet project is going to be a lot more trouble than it's worth, if you ask me."
Elisabeth headed for her office to put the wheels into motion. "I didn't ask you."
*****
"Angel Investigations. We help the--Giles? Wait, slooow down. She what? Oh God. I am SO sorry. No, I don't know where Angel is. No one's seen him all day. Of course I will. I'm really sorry, Giles," Cordy wiped a tear from her eyes. "I'll be sure that he comes right to Sunnydale when I find him. I'm coming too. Bye."
Cordy hung up and looked at Gunn and Wesley with a somber expression.
"Buffy's dead," she said quietly.
And then she woke up.
Cordy was drenched in sweat, and her heart was racing as she tried to recover from the nightmare. She got out of bed and padded into the kitchen where she poured herself some juice and kept repeating that it was only a dream. It felt so real that she called Giles in Sunnydale and woke him up out of bed not once but twice.
"Sorry," she mumbled before returning to bed.
"That almost felt too real," she said quietly as she pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her eyes. "Almost like a vision."
*****
The next morning at work, things progressed as they usually did. That night, Wesley and Gunn were busy buying supplies when it happened.
A vision.
Only it wasn't what Cordy had been dreading. It wasn't a horrible image of Buffy dying, or even of her own self getting the call.
Instead she saw a beautiful woman in a flowing gown made of tulle and little else. She was in a cave not too far from the hotel Angel owned, and she was kneeling at an alter.
Angel had to get there. Cordelia didn't know why, she just knew that he did.
So she sent him, without realizing that with hoe gone, there would be no one there to take care of her while she recovered from the mind splitting headache.
Closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair, Cordy prayed for a reprieve from the Hell that was her life.
*****
"You'll get your release soon enough," Joseph promised from his special place. "Very soon indeed."