TITLE: I've Got You Under My Skin
AUTHOR: Jana Kay
EMAIL: jana_kay17@yahoo.com.au
DISCLAIMER: All Angel and BtVS characters belong to Joss Whedon and fellow associates, and Roswell characters belong to others. I don't know who.
RATING: R. However this chapter is PG13
PAIRING: Angel/Cordelia
SPOILERS: Up through to the end of S1 for A:tS, and the end of S4 for BtVS as well. Spoilers up through to 'Crazy' for S1 of Roswell also.
SUMMARY: An Angel/Roswell crossover, where Agent Topolsky's character on Roswell becomes a vessel for Darla's demon, brought back from Hell in the Angel season finale.
NOTES: These: //.....// indicate thoughts.

*****

PART III


After making sure she'd patched up Angel's arm properly, Cordelia packed the first-aid items back into the kit. Standing carefully and maneuvering around the vampire's long legs, she patted his shoulder briefly before moving back to the bathroom to store the kit.

Coming out again, she found Angel standing next to the fold out bed, looking down at Wesley. Sighing, she looked at his profile for a moment before slowly walking closer. Angel was her best friend. She didn't like seeing him guilty at all, though she understood why a little guilt was always necessary. However that didn't mean that he had to have the problems of the whole world on his broad shoulders.

So enter Cordelia to save the brooding hero.

Stopping beside him, she folded her arms as she joined him in looking down at Wesley. At seeing the ever so slight smile on the British man's face, a twinge of guilt ran through her at remembering what she'd done to him, but she consoled herself with the fact that she knew it wouldn't harm him. But just to be sure, she'd make sure they made him truly happy when he woke up, then what she'd done wouldn't matter.

Angel's husky voice broke her out of the thoughts she'd fallen into unaware.

"I shouldn't have taken him with me."

Sighing, she turned to watch the dark haired vampire's face as she replied, "I don't want to have to keep repeating myself here, Angel. You didn't take him with you. He tagged along. He's Wesley! He always does stuff like this. This isn't your fault."

It was Angel's turn to sigh. "But if I'd just--"

Cordelia interrupted him swiftly. "Enough. This isn't your fault. There's nothing you could have done that you didn't already do. Wesley's fine and dreaming of happy things, and now it's time for you to sleep too."

Angel rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms, his shoulders hunching slightly. "Fine. Goodnight. I'll sleep out here."

She was in the midst of voicing her approval when she realised what he'd said. "Out here?" At hearing the sudden loud volume of her voice, she glanced quickly towards Wesley, then dragged Angel back into the kitchen by his elbow. "You are *so* not sleeping out there. You're hurt. You'll sleep with me in my bed."

A raised eyebrow greeted her instructions, and she found to her mortification that she started blushing. Frowning, she slapped his arm softly. "Not like that. But we're both adults. I'm not letting you sleep on the floor, and I personally don't want to sleep on the floor myself. My bed is pretty big, and there's plenty of room for both of us and some spare. We can very easily both sleep in it." Her eyes narrowed as she watched him intently. "You think you can handle that?"

A smile twitched onto his lips, and after watching her for a long moment, he slowly nodded his head. Better to just go along, because there was no way he'd be able to talk her out of this. She was probably the only woman he'd ever met who could easily wrap him around her little finger with just a look. Buffy had come close, but ultimately, the Vampire and Slayer thing was just too deeply ingrained in both of their personas for them to always get along.

And thus he'd left town, leaving him here, about to share a bed with Cordelia Chase. Who'd have thought? Sure she was his best friend and this was strictly platonic, but still. "Since it's obvious you won't have it any other way, I guess I can."

She ran her hands through her hair as she breathed out slowly. "Good."

"Good."

"Good."

"Good."

"Are we going to keep saying good now?"

"No."

"Okay."

And she turned and went back to the bathroom, intent on getting ready for bed.

After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she ran a quick comb through her long dark hair, finishing by pulling it back and securing it into a low ponytail. It was part of her ritual every night, because if there was one thing Cordelia just couldn't stand, it was waking up with a rat's nest full of tangles.

Plus, there was Angel to think about tonight. Sure she was his best friend, but she was also a woman. Whether he was sharing her bed platonically or not, she still didn't want to give him a fright in the morning.

Yes, she was vain, but so was everybody else. Why should she feel bad about her own vanity when she knew Angel was almost as bad as her? And after all, even Wesley had a few of his own beauty secrets, which she'd just barely managed to extricate from him after a full night of drinking at a bar she'd found uptown.

Checking herself one last time to make sure she didn't smell, she walked down the hall and into her bedroom. Looking up from her feet, she stopped momentarily at the sight of Angel already laying down, tucked beneath the covers, seemingly asleep.

Her breath caught for a moment as the soft lamplight highlighted his strong facial features. For the first time since she'd met him, he actually looked peaceful. And without worry and guilt gracing the planes of his face, he also looked remarkably young. Only in his mid-twenties.

Truthfully, during the day he usually looked as though he was mid-twenties going on 40. Or maybe that was just the way he acted.

Either way, that didn't change the fact that at this very moment, Angel looked younger to her than he ever had before. Less a vampire, and more a human. Less a demon and more a man.

Laying on the pillow had mussed his hair slightly, and a solitary lock of hair was gradually working its way down over his eye. Walking softly towards him, trying to be extra quiet because vampire senses were pretty iffy, she bent down and carefully moved it away, her fingers trailing down softly over his sharp cheekbone.

At that moment, Angel opened his eyes, bottomless brown meeting chocolate brown.

Startled, Cordelia froze, a cry half choked in her throat that she was refusing to let go. Smiling at him suddenly, as though she hadn't done a thing wrong, she straightened up quickly and absently patted him on a shoulder, trying not to notice how firm and muscled it felt as the pads of her fingers pressed down on it. She may have patched Angel up a million times before just like she did tonight, but she'd never actually touched his bare skin for no reason before.

It felt ... funny.

"Well, goodnight Angel. I thought you were asleep before but....obviously you weren't." Her arms swung back and forth as she made her way over to the other side of the bed. "Isn't that funny? Haha!" Her uncomfortableness was clearly apparent.

Uncomfortable himself, Angel turned over slightly in the bed, keeping his eyes on her as she carefully sat down and pulled the covers over herself, not willing to get too close to him.

"Cordelia, I can still sleep on the floor you know. This," he looked around the room and raised himself up on an elbow. "This isn't really necessary. This is your bedroom and your bed, and I'm perfectly okay sleeping out there with Wes."

Shaking her head, Cordelia swallowed and resolutely lay down, one hand landing firmly on top of Angel's arm and pushing him down as well.

"No Angel, it's okay. You just gave me a shock. You looked like you were asleep. I just ... wasn't expecting you to suddenly open your eyes like that." She took a deep breath, then moved into a more comfortable position. "We're okay here." She took another deep breath, trying not to breathe in the heady scent of male that Angel suddenly seemed to exude.

Funny, she'd never noticed that before either.

"We're okay here," she repeated. "Go to sleep Angel, you need rest."

Laying his head back on the pillow, Angel folded his hands over his stomach as he watched his friend settle down out of the corner of his eye. This hadn't been a good idea. They were both too uncomfortable. He made up his mind to get up and sleep on the floor outside, but later. He'd let her fall asleep first; no sense in getting into a fight.

Turning his head slightly as Cordelia snuggled into her pillow, he said a soft, "Goodnight."

A small smile twitched onto Cordelia's lips before she could stop it. He just sounded like such a little boy sometimes. "Goodnight, Angel. Sleep tight," she whispered, and it wasn't long after that that she drifted into sleep.

Angel was also just about to drift into sleep when he remembered the curtains. The thought of frying in the sun in his sleep jolted him awake pretty quickly, but it was only after clarity had returned to his mind that he remembered he'd already shut Cordelia's curtains, and either way, they faced north, therefore that meant no direct sunlight coming in and hitting him.

Settling back down again, he pulled the covers over himself a little more and winced slightly as the movement jolted his injury. Looking down at his arm, he took in the sight of the thick bandage wrapped securely around the wound.

Cordelia had become quite the nurse. Not that he really needed bandages, but as far as his friend was concerned, anybody who had a wound should have it patched up, whether they be immortal or human or half-demon. It seemed to make her feel better, as though she'd done something worthwhile in helping.

Angel didn't have it in him to stop her from feeling that way by avoiding being bandaged up. Everybody had something to atone for, he couldn't begrudge Cordelia hers.

It was only after his mind had gone fuzzy again with sleep that he remembered her reaction when she'd first found out about his injury. The look of shock and the insight she'd displayed that he'd never really seen in her before, at least not to that accurate a level. But before he could really think about what that meant, or remember that he'd been planning on getting up before he fell asleep, Morpheus had already wrapped him up in his arms.

*****

Isabel Evans couldn't sleep.

The heatwave had returned, and not only was the temperature so oppressive in her room that it made it difficult to breathe let alone lay down on her bed, she also couldn't get thoughts of Miss Topolsky out of her head.

It had been a week since she'd disappeared, and four days since the news stations had shown the hospital she'd been staying in burn to the ground, supposedly killing her.

Supposedly, because something inside Isabel refused to believe that the woman was actually dead. It was confusing to her to be thinking like this, to care, because it wasn't as though she held any great love for the FBI agent; she'd been sent to spy on them after all. But something about her reappearance in Roswell and then the way she had spoken to Liz and Michael and her subsequent disappearance and death ... it just didn't make any sense.

There was something they didn't know.

Something important.

And it was the thought of what this important thing might be that was keeping her awake, not to mention thoughts of where Miss Topolsky might be now if she was indeed still alive.

Thanks to her disappearance, they never did find out what the communicators did when they were together, if they even were communicators -- which Michael kept insisting they were -- because nobody had any idea what they actually were. The one they had just looked like a gray-blue orb with a mesmerising pattern on it that they all seemed to remember but couldn't for the life of them identify.

Rolling over in her bed again and kicking the covers with her feet, she gave up on sleeping with a sigh, getting up quietly instead. Opening her bedroom door slowly to stop the hinges from squeaking, she slipped out into the hall, silently making her way towards her brother's room.

They needed to talk.

*****

Max Evans couldn't sleep either.

Firstly because of the heat which had made him throw all his bedcovers off, and secondly, because Michael Guerin had decided to sleep over again.

Max knew that Michael didn't really have anywhere else to go, so he didn't begrudge him the use of his floor. Plus, he wanted Michael to stay over with his family because he was his best friend and pseudo-brother, but he just really wished sometimes that Michael would stop asking if he was awake when he climbed through the window, when it was pretty obvious by his own deep breathing that he wasn't.

The only thing that served to do was wake him up and stop him from falling asleep again, because of course when he was awake, Michael inevitably had something to discuss, some half-cocked plan that he was going to do anyway no matter what Max and Isabel thought about it, and no matter how many times they tried to convince him not to go through with it.

Sighing, he turned over onto his side to better look at Michael, who was pacing the room quietly like a caged tiger.

"All I'm saying Maxwell is that it's worth a shot. I mean, what if they left the other communicator somewhere where we'd never find it? This could be our only chance to see if we can somehow get it back. Remember what Miss Topolsky said? They have to be together, and so if we can't get them together we can't see if we can call and make contact, and if we can't do that, then we won't be able to--"

"Michael! Stop. Just stop, okay?"

Sighing again, Max flopped back down onto his bed, sweat from the heat collecting on his brow and skin, making him feel sticky and irritable. Not for the first time, he wished they didn't always want to run their ideas by him first, as if he somehow knew better than anybody just what it was they were supposed to be doing in situations like these.

Michael turned on Max, his pale face a frustrated mask and his body tense. "No Max! Don't you get it? We have to do this. There's no other possible solution for seeing if we can get the second communicator. We have to go and do it tomorrow night. It's our only chance." He ran a shaky hand through his hair as he turned back to the window, staring up at the sky as though the stars could somehow tell him everything he wanted ... no ... *needed* to know.

He paused for a few moments, as though lost in thought, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft, layered with a longing he never let out, instead keeping it buried deep inside of him for fear it would devour him whole if he didn't watch it carefully. "This could be our ticket home, Max. We could finally go home. I could finally go ..."

Slumping suddenly, he turned and sat in Max's desk chair, his head hanging down as he struggled to keep himself still, stop himself from running out onto the streets and doing something stupid.

Max was speechless for a few moments, not knowing what to say. Grand plans and speeches were something Michael was a maestro at, but it was rare for him to voice feelings and emotions that he kept hidden inside himself. It was almost scary to Max to see Michael acting so out of character.

Blinking slowly, he sat up on his bed. Turning Michael's idea over and over in his mind, he came to the conclusion that, while it was foolhardy and stupid and quite possibly incredibly dangerous, there was a wild hope that it might just work if luck was on their side.

Swinging his legs off the side of the bed and moving towards the open window, letting the faint breeze wash over him and cool his sticky skin, Max made a decision that he realised might kill them all if they were caught. But dammit, Michael needed this. *If* they got away with this and *if* they got the information they needed, Max knew that Michael would go back to being himself again.

As his best friend, Max knew Michael better than most people, though not completely. He didn't think he or anybody else would ever know Michael completely, because he was far too stand-offish and suspicious. But as his best friend, Max knew him well enough to know deep inside himself that even if they got caught while doing this, having at least tried would make Michael feel better, as if he'd done something worthwhile. On the other hand, if they got caught anyway without doing anything -- which was becoming a more possible scenario every day what with the Sheriff and Agent Pierce sniffing around -- then Max could say goodbye to Michael ever being himself again.

And truthfully, Max was quickly getting tired of all the secrecy and hiding they'd had to partake in ever since the shooting last year in the Crashdown Cafe as well. He craved the relative normalcy of their lives before it had all been turned upside down -- by him no less. He couldn't begrudge Michael this wild plan, because whatever Michael wanted, he wanted too. And he was almost certain Isabel would want the lives they had before back too; she was constantly worried lately. If they didn't do this, their last chance at finding out what the orb was, and possibly getting the second orb back would be lost to them forever.

They had to take this chance. They just had to.

What had started last year at the Crashdown as a good deed better left untold, had quickly snowballed into a constant need to look back over their shoulders, lie to their parents and the authorities, and concoct one foolhardy plan after another to keep their names as clear as they could get them and throw off Sheriff Valenti's suspicions.

In the blackest of nights, Max sometimes found himself lying in bed and wondering if the three of them, Michael, Isabel and himself, would have been better off if he'd never saved Liz that day. If he'd just let that bullet run its course and allowed her to die when she should have. On those particular nights, he would stuff his face into a pillow and feel like crying and hate himself afterwards, because whenever he made himself think of that crossroads in his life and whether or not he would have changed his decision, his answer was always Yes.

For all that he loved her and had loved her and would likely always love her, Max sometimes thought that life would be so much easier if he hadn't patched up that little hole two inches beneath her ribs. That life would be so much easier if he'd let her die and never called attention to himself from the authorities, because of those damned nosy tourists who were so completely *intent* on finding where the stupid bullet had gone.

It was a futile train of thought though. Max was incredibly thankful Liz was still alive, and he wasn't naive enough to think that if he hadn't saved Liz when he had, that they would never have been found out. It was always a ticking time bomb where the three of them were concerned, and the only thing he'd managed to do with his actions was speed up the clock a little ways.

A movement behind him made him turn his head. Michael was rubbing his face with his hands, his expression tired and a little ragged from lack of sleep. "So?" he grumbled, face as neutral as he could manage it. "What do you say, Max. Do we do it?"

Before he could change his mind, Max sealed their fates.

"Yes."


End part 2