Reflection
Warm. Angel was warm. It was the first sensation he was aware of as he came near to waking. The second sensation was scent.
Angel believed it an instinct among vampires to draw in a breath as soon as consciousness returned. Their heightened sense of smell would immediately tell them at least something about their surroundings. For him, it wasn't ever a conscious decision; his body simply did it. So he breathed in, and he was glad he did. The scent kept him from thinking, even for one wishful moment, that it was Buffy he held.
Cordelia's scent flooded him: the sharpness of hair care products; a whiff of expensive perfume; the salt tang of tears and sweat; the spicy musk of womanhood; and underlying all, the indescribable aroma of her blood. He would have known the scent anywhere.
His arms tightened around her, drawing her warmth closer, feeling her life. His body had warmed almost to her body temperature, a rare luxury. Rarer still was the feeling of skin against skin. He was shirtless, and she wore only a tank top on her upper body. He savored the warmth and smoothness of her. Even rarer than that was the sensation of a heart beating against him. Cordelia's heartbeat seemed to echo through his body, making him feel almost alive, as he had on that lost day . . .
Emotions welled up, threatened to overwhelm him. He allowed them to crest and subside briefly, knowing they would return and perhaps drag him back into deepest grief. Somehow, though, it was all right. He'd been laid bare last night, and he knew he could survive it. He could survive it because he wasn't alone.
For months, he had been. He'd isolated himself emotionally before pushing his friends away physically. The cold had rushed in, and it had stayed. He had been so cold for so long, and nothing could make that better. Not Darla, certainly. Her flesh had been as cold as his.
His epiphany had ended his physical isolation. He'd gone back to his friends, only to find a layer of self-protection between them and him. They had resigned themselves to his absence, learned to live without him, but the open wounds he'd inflicted upon them hadn't healed. The responsibilities he'd heaped upon them by his absence had forced them to harden themselves. But even their distance wasn't as cold as the place he'd been for so long.
Then he'd gotten the news from a reluctant Xander that Joyce Summers had died, and Buffy needed him. He had come to Sunnydale, found Buffy at her mother's graveside. She had taken his hand, and he'd led her to the foot of the tree where she had burrowed into his chest and rested there, laying her fears and needs on him and trusting his strength to be enough to carry them. Her warmth had seeped into him during those hours they'd talked and held each other, and how loath he had been to leave her.
But it had been necessary, for there was other healing to be done. Slowly, he rebuilt the relationships he'd destroyed in his carelessness, and he had once again been warmed by friendship and love.
Then he'd seen Willow, and his soul had frozen over again. He hadn't wanted it to thaw, for the pain had seemed overwhelming. His friends hadn't allowed that, though. Wesley and Cordelia had pursued him relentlessly until the ice had fallen away from his heart. Great as the pain was, the comfort was still greater.
So he held Cordelia and breathed her in, burying his face in her hair, and his soul warmed further.
And then he realized they weren't alone.
***
Xander and Willow walked beside each other in the deepening afternoon shadows, talking.
"You ever think about how things would've been if this wasn't the Hellmouth?" Xander asked. "Better yet, if there were no vampires, no demons at all—just your normal, everyday crappiness?"
"Sure, I've thought about it," Willow said. "I mean, I used to think all the time about how we'd all have gone to school together, you and me and Buffy, and we'd have just been friends without the apocalypses, and maybe, once we graduated, we'd have taken the summer off and gone backpacking around Europe asking, 'Wo ist die Jugendherberge?'" Her brow crinkled. "Or is it 'der'?"
"Do I know German?"
"You took it."
"Must be one of those high school things I repressed once I got out. What's a yoogenburger?"
"Youth hostel. We'd still have been friends, you know. Without the Hellmouthy stuff."
"Yeah, you bet we would." Xander placed an affectionate arm around Willow's shoulders. "You, Buffy, and I would have been the Three Musketeers: the Brain, the Babe, and the Butt-Monkey."
Willow elbowed him in the side. "Cut that out. You were never a Butt-Monkey."
"I so was. Not like my current studly status, of course."
"I always thought you were studly."
They walked on awhile in silence. Then Xander spoke up again.
"Had a thought: didn't Buffy get sent here by the Powers That Be or whatever because of the Hellmouth? I mean, she was at Hemery High in L.A. before—until she burned down the gym, of course. If she hadn't been the Slayer, she'd probably have stayed there."
"That's true." Willow looked troubled. "But say it could've happened anyway. I mean, say she'd have ended up in Sunnydale, maybe after her parents split. We'd still have gotten to know her and Dawnie."
"But would Dawn have been here?" Xander's voice was quiet. "She was technically never born, so . . ."
"We'll throw Dawn in, too. It's fantasy land, after all."
"Okay. Hey, another thought: no Angel. He was born in what, the 1700s?" Xander nodded. "We can leave him out. Spike, too. There's something good."
That earned another elbowing. "That means no Anya, either. She'd have been long gone by the year 1000."
Xander gave her a baleful look. "Point taken. Angel and Anya are in, but we'll leave Spike in England. Of course, I probably never would have dated Cordelia in our alternate universe. That could be taken as a plus."
"I don't know." Willow looked pensive. "She's changed so much, and I can't help it—I've really liked having her around. I mean, part of her is the old Queen C, but there's something new, you know, in her eyes. She's so good with Dawn, and you can just see how much she and Wesley and Angel all care about each other."
"Yeah, I've noticed it, too," Xander admitted. "Cordy's got a good heart. I think I could always see it a little, but you can really see it now. Maybe it's the visions. Getting hit in the head with other peoples' pain has got to have an effect."
Willow shook her head. "The irony. The most insensitive girl in Sunnydale history gets stuck with empathic visions." She thought about it. "She wouldn't have those if all this didn't exist, though. All the demons and vampires and stuff. It all kind of goes together. I guess—I guess I probably wouldn't be a witch, either. No magic."
Xander nodded. "You're right. No magic. You might never have met Tara. Of course, without the werewolf thing, you might never have split up with Oz, either."
"Guess we'll never know."
"Thought of something else: if you hadn't wanted to help Buffy fight the Hellmouth, would you have stayed here and gone to UC Sunnydale, or would you have gone off to Oxford or something? Become a mini-Giles?"
"I don't know." Willow looked at Xander wide-eyed. "Giles! We might never have gotten to know Giles. I mean, even if he'd been here without the Watcher thing, he'd have just been the librarian, and while I'd probably have gotten to know him, you and Buffy were never exactly into the books, you know?"
Xander stopped short. "I hadn't thought about that."
Willow hugged herself, looking at Xander. "Weird, isn't it? Thinking that maybe . . . maybe you can't have the good without the bad."
Xander put his arm back around her shoulders, and they continued walking. "There's been so much over the past five years—a lot of stuff I hate to even remember. But if I'd have to throw the good out with the bad . . . Will, I just couldn't."
"I couldn't, either. We've all changed so much. We've grown. I don't know if I'd want to change that, even to get rid of the pain."
Xander squeezed her gently. "I know exactly what you mean."
They continued walking. "Oh!" cried Willow suddenly. "We should drop by the mansion."
"Why?"
"Well, Tara and Giles and Wesley and I were talking, and the Fang Gangers are planning to leave tonight, and we thought it might be nice to eat dinner with them before they left, so since Angel and Cordy are probably still at the mansion, I was thinking maybe we could stop by and invite them."
Xander looked worried. "I dunno—last night, Cordy said he was going to 'break.' Not sure if he'll want us anywhere around. Did Cordy ever come back to the house?"
"No, she didn't. I kind of feel like I want to check up on them." Willow looked up at her best friend. "I know you and Angel aren't exactly the best of buds, but he loved Buffy. She'd want us to make sure he's okay."
"I can do that."
They steered themselves toward the mansion. It wasn't far, and when they got to the entrance, Willow turned to Xander.
"We should probably be quiet about this. Angel was pretty exhausted after the funeral, and Wesley told me it's best to let sleeping vampires lie."
"That will get no arguments from me."
As quietly as they could, they entered the mansion. Hearing no noise of movement, they decided to check the upstairs living quarters. At any moment, they expected to run into Angel or Cordelia. They didn't. Finally, they found the thick curtain that partially covered the bedroom doorway and pushed it aside.
And saw the last thing they'd ever have expected to see.
Cordelia and Angel were soundly asleep on the bed, she wrapped tightly in his arms. Willow and Xander both had a jaw-dropping moment. Neither could move.
Then Angel moved, tightening his arms around Cordelia and breathing in. For a moment, they could see complex emotions shift all over his sleeping face. He pressed his nose into her hair and breathed in again. Neither Xander nor Willow moved for fear of waking him fully.
Too late. His eyes snapped open and unerringly found them. He looked at them. He looked at Cordelia. He looked at his own shirtless state. He looked chagrined.
"Hi . . . um, hi." His voice was rough with sleep and the aftermath of emotion.
"Hi," the friends said together.
He looked back at the young woman in his arms. "Can I . . . do something for you two?"
Willow spiraled into babble-mode. "Well, Xander and I were thinking, I mean, if you two wanted to, we could all have dinner at the Summers house tonight, because Wesley said something about you guys are probably going to leave tonight, so Xander and I thought we'd invite you guys over if you want dinner, but you don't have to come if you don't want to, I mean, if you've got other things you need to do . . ."
Cordelia shifted and murmured. Angel rubbed his hand along one of her shoulders. "Cordy?"
"Angel, are Xander and Willow here?" Cordelia mumbled, not opening her eyes.
"They are."
"Crap."
"Hi, Cordy," offered Willow.
"Crap."
Xander cleared his throat.
"Crap."
Angel actually chuckled. "It's okay, Cordy."
"Crap." Resolutely, Cordelia opened her eyes and smiled a bit too brightly. "Hi, guys. This is not at all what it looks like." Angel was having to bite his lip to keep from laughing. "And you, fang-face, you breathe one word of this to Gunn or Wesley, and I'll make the coffee with holy water."
"I think it's time we got up," said Angel.
Cordelia disengaged herself from Angel, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and stretched hugely. Angel situated himself on the side of the bed beside her and began to rise.
"No. Stay there," ordered Cordelia. "I want to check those bandages." She stood and began to peel back the bandages all over his chest and shoulder.
Willow stepped forward. "Angel, how are you doing?"
Angel's eyes met hers. They were no longer empty. There was a lot of pain there, but there was also peace. "I'm nowhere near perfect, but . . ." He looked at Cordelia. "I'm going to be okay."
Cordelia smiled at him gently, lovingly, her heart in her eyes again. She removed some of the bandages to reveal freshly-healed flesh.
"These sore at all?" she asked.
"A bit sensitive, but they don't hurt," he told her. "The deep one in back, though—that hurts."
Cordelia checked it. "Ick. Still oozing. I'm going to change the dressing, okay?"
Xander and Willow watched as Cordelia did just that. There was an easy sort of intimacy about the vampire and the Seer, born out of deep friendship. It was something remarkable to see, for neither of them had seen either Angel or Cordelia having this sort of relationship before.
When that task was finished, Angel looked down at his chest again. "I don't suppose I could get you to bring me my duffel bag from my car?"
"Way ahead of you." Cordelia produced a shirt from the pack she'd made up the previous night and tossed it to Angel. He grinned affectionately and pulled it over his head, standing to his feet as he did so. Cordelia ran her fingers through her hair, looking slightly disgusted. "I need a shower in a major way."
"You two said something about dinner?" Angel inquired of Willow and Xander.
"Yeah, at the Summers house," Willow confirmed. "I know you don't eat, Angel, but we were hoping you'd join us."
He nodded. "What time is it? Has the sun set?"
"You've still got about fifteen minutes," said Xander, who'd finally pulled himself out of his shock.
Angel turned to Cordelia. "Why don't you go with them and get that shower in? I'll follow as soon as the sun is down."
"You sure?" Her voice communicated far more than words.
There was a long moment in which no one spoke, but Angel and Cordelia seemed to communicate silently. He laid a hand on her cheek, his expression both serious and tender.
"Okay," she finally said, covering his hand with hers. He kissed her forehead. "How do I look?"
"Fine," Angel said absently.
Cordelia made a noise of impatience as she pulled on her jacket. She turned to Willow. "How do I look?"
"Your hair's a little flippy-uppy in the back, but you're good for a ten-minute walk."
"That's an answer." Cordelia turned back to Angel. "I'll see you back at the Summers place, okay? Warning: Wesley will want to talk to you."
"It's okay." And Angel looked like it would be. They turned to leave. "Cor?" Angel called.
Cordelia turned around. "Yeah?"
"Thank you."
***
Cordelia, Xander, and Willow walked toward the Summers house silently. Cordelia offered no explanation as to why she and Angel had been snuggled in bed together, and neither Willow nor Xander had the nerve to ask her. Willow finally broke the silence.
"How did things go? I mean, after your vision?" she asked. "How is he, really?"
"He'll be okay," Cordelia answered. "It was rough, though. We're talking power-freak there for awhile. I don't think he's anywhere near being really okay yet, but I'm pretty sure he got the worst of it out. He'll be all right." She shrugged. "It's just going to take time."
"Sounds . . . scary," put in Xander, not sure he was liking this.
"Oh, it was scary—for him." At Willow and Xander's looks, Cordelia explained, "Being out of control is Angel's worst fear. Having to face something like this put him within spitting distance of losing it, and that scared him bad."
"You know him so well," said Willow wonderingly.
Cordelia smiled. "That's what happens with good friends."
Xander was still fairly certain he wasn't liking something about all this. However, asking Cordelia was totally out of the question, given his past with her. Besides, he liked the softness shining through her eyes. When they'd been dating, he'd caught glimpses of it once in a while, and it always made him think she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He didn't want her to get defensive around him now.
That only left one option.
"Just remembered something," he said, as if an idea had just struck him. "I've gotta run back to my place—I got ice cream and meant to bring it along. You two go on, I won't be long."
With that, he turned and hurried back the way they'd come. Once Cordelia and Willow were out of sight, he ducked into the nearest Kwickie Mart and bought two quarts of Dreyer's, then hurried back to the street. He knew that if Angel was heading back to the Summers house from the mansion, this would be the quickest way, and the sun was setting.
Sure enough, a few minutes after sunset, Angel's tall, dark figure came gliding down the street. Watching him, Xander had a brief moment of coat envy, but shook it off.
"Angel!" he called. The vampire looked a bit startled, but altered his course to intercept Xander. "Hey. I had to grab some ice cream for dessert, and Giles doesn't like us out after sundown by ourselves. Mind some company for the walk back?" It sounded lame even to Xander's ears, but it was a handy excuse.
Angel cocked his head. "Sure."
They started walking together. Xander felt like he was having to hurry to keep up with Angel's longer stride and preternatural swiftness. Meanwhile, his brain was racing for any way at all to bring up a subject he had no right to be inquiring about.
What the hell was I thinking? Xander wondered. What, I thought it'd be easy to up and ask Angel, "Hey, just incidentally, are you and Cordy boinking?"
"Cordelia and I aren't lovers," Angel said.
Xander literally tripped over his own two feet. Angel's hand caught his elbow and kept him from falling. "Uh . . ."
"That is what you wanted to know, isn't it?" The vampire smiled faintly, but it didn't reach his eyes. "We're not lovers. We never have been. We never will be. She knows it, I know it, end of story. And what happened last night and this morning is strictly none of your business."
Angel's face had closed again, very unlike how it had been with Cordelia earlier. Xander sensed he'd gotten himself into a foot-meet-mouth situation. He felt he needed to explain his motives, which frankly weren't all that clear to himself.
He held his hands out. "Look, Angel, it's not like I'm having idle curiosity here."
"Then why are you asking, Xander?" Angel asked. "Do you really think I'd take that sort of risk with Cordy for my own pleasure?"
"I don't know you at all." The words were out of Xander's mouth before he even thought about them, but they were the absolute truth. "I admit that. I don't know you. Never really tried to. But I know Cordy, or at least I did, and while she and I haven't been together in that way for a long time, I still think of her as—as one of my girls. Not like Anya, but like Willow or Tara or Dawn . . . or even Buffy." He dropped his hands. "I hurt her bad once. I just don't like the thought of her getting hurt again."
For a long time, it seemed, Angel just examined him with those unfathomable dark eyes. Then something in them gave way, and his face opened up again. "The White Knight," Angel murmured. "I guess I was right about you. Chivalry's not dead."
Oddly enough, there was no sarcasm or derision in Angel's tone.
"You and I agree on something," the vampire went on, starting to walk again—a bit slower, to Xander's relief. "I've hurt Cordy, too, through my actions and words, and I don't want her to ever be hurt again. Not by me, not by anyone. I hate seeing her in pain. Sometimes I think it'd be better if I walked away from her, but I can't. The visions bind us together. So does our friendship. Even if it wasn't for my curse, I know it's better that we never become lovers. Not that I've never thought about it—how could I not?"
"She's something pretty special, all right," Xander agreed.
Angel gave a short laugh. "Cordy gets under your skin. She'll take over your life if you let her, and even if you don't. With her, you never quite know if you're coming or going, and I think she likes it that way. She'll turn your world upside-down, given half a chance, and just when you get to complaining, she'll give you a smile and you'll suddenly decide to just sit back and enjoy the ride. She's the irresistible force that never met an immovable object. It's summer when she smiles, and when she's angry, you'd better run for cover. That about cover Cordy?"
Had Angel just said all that? "I-I think so. Just about."
"I love Cordy," Angel said, very quietly. "In a way I've never loved anyone, I love her. Wesley and Gunn love her, too. We do our very best to protect her, but because of who she is—and even besides the visions—she can't be locked away from danger completely. Speaking of which, there are vampires waiting to ambush us up ahead and to the right, in that copse of trees. Got a stake?"
Xander shifted the ice cream bag to his left hand. Angel suddenly crossed over so he was to Xander's right, and Xander realized Angel's coat would obscure his right hand from the vampires' sight. Casually, Xander reached back and pulled out the stake he kept tucked into the back of his jeans.
"Act natural," Angel advised, sotto voce. "An ambush is only effective if the quarry is unaware."
"And if the quarry is aware, it has the advantage." Angel flicked Xander a surprised glance. "Hey, I read military history. Good stuff."
"Fiction or non?"
"Both. I'm reading Gates of Fire by Pressfield right now. Great book."
"Battle of Thermopylae, right?"
"Yep. The Spartans and the Persians. The Spartans were fairly kick-ass."
They conversed in normal tones, just two guys out for a stroll. As they passed the copse of trees, three vampires sprang out, expecting to quickly overpower their prey. Angel thrust out his arm; the first vamp was dust before it even realized it had run into Angel's retractable stake. Xander rapidly twisted his body and swung his plastic grocery bag; two quarts of ice cream struck the second vampire in the head, stunning it long enough for Xander to plunge his stake through its heart. The third vampire threw a roundhouse punch that connected with Angel's chin, but Angel used the momentum to spin around and sweep it off its feet,
drop to one knee, and stake it, all in one smooth motion.
Xander looked at his dented ice cream, then at Angel. "This town sucks." Those words uncorked something within him, and he went for the rant. "I hate this place. A whole town built as a feeding ground for demons. Could there be a suckier thing? Why do we even stick around? If I had my way, we'd evacuate the whole place and napalm it. Just burn it. Burn it to the ground."
"And salt the earth." Angel's soft voice provided agreement and sympathy.
The carpenter nodded. "Yeah. Salt the earth." He took a breath, coming back down. "I swear, sometimes I lay awake at night and dream of taking Anya and getting the hell out of here. Going anywhere else. There's gotta be some place without demons or vampires. Why don't I just leave?"
He didn't really expect an answer, but Angel gave him one. "Because you're not the sort of man who can walk away."
Xander met Angel's eyes fully, for the first time not flinching back from them. There was respect there, and Xander's inner fifteen-year-old (which he would never have admitted existed, even under torture) was doing the Snoopy dance because of it.
"Guess that makes me fairly stupid," Xander said ruefully after a moment.
Angel smiled a little and shook his head. "No. It makes you the sort of man Buffy could call her best friend."
They walked the rest of the way to the Summers house in companionable silence. Except Xander's inner fifteen-year-old, who was throwing a party because Angel had called him a man.