I own none of this. Please don't sue me as I am a college kid and have barely enough money for Ramen. This is written for fun, not profit.


Cordelia was rising to another plane of existence. Angel was sinking into the ocean. Both of these events had nothing in common except for the speed of their journeys.

Cordelia starred up into the light. She had been doing so for the last half hour. Her neck was tired and, frankly, she was starting to get a little cranky. "Why does ascending have to take so long? You know at this rate I could have driven to Angel, told him I loved him, asked him if he loved me, and have time to bask in the schmoopyness that would have ensued." she gloomed. She thought about that for a little while. Would Angel actually have professed his love for her on the beach? Was she just imagining that his face would light up every time he saw her? Was there something to the way they would both pause longingly on the stairs when they passed? She sighed heavily and looked down to her feet. They were the only things that she could really look at. There was the golden light, which hurt to look at, above, but other than that she was surrounded by darkness. Cordelia snorted back a laugh. "Forced to look behind, even though I'm ascending. That is so appropriate."

Angel looked into the darkness. Well, maybe looked is the wrong word for it. To say looked is to imply that he was searching for something or expecting to see anything. A better word for what Angel was doing was moping. His son had betrayed him, his love had not shown up, and on top of that he was somehow sinking in a box full of air. Angel strained at the cables that held him down. "You know I'm not so pudgy that I am so dense as to make an air filled coffin sink! That is just bad physics! What, is the weight of the world on my shoulders so heavy as to make me as dense as lead?" he exclaimed. Angel was a rage of emotions. Why was life so unfair as to take away both Cordelia and Connor? He stopped himself. Maybe Cordelia just got hung up in traffic. Who knows maybe she tried to call and say that she was late, but because he didn't have his cell phone she couldn't call and... Maybe she went back to Groo. Angel was in the dark. He tried to wiggle free once more before considering his last thought. "In the dark, how appropriate."

As we all know, Groo was not with Cordelia reconciling their relationship with a little cumshuking. No, at that exact moment Groo was watching a pirated copy of Neon Genesis Evangelion and comparing himself to Shinji. This lack of backbone endeared Groo to the author, who at that moment crashed through the fourth wall. "Sorry", the author said as he picked up his typewriter and left Groo in peace to watch the disturbing cartoon.

With the mood of the piece ruined the author desperately attempted to regain control of the story.

Cordelia continued to ascend. (You didn't think she'd get there when we were visiting Angel and Groo, did you?) She was still in her frumpy mood and she still doubted Angel's love for her. She stopped her doubting to chastise herself for doubting her feelings and then she began to doubt that she doubted her feelings. This doubt spiral continued on for some time, until Cordelia decided that she would try and put it on the back burner for a while. She knew that would never work and that she would have to talk to someone she loved about her doubts. It is quite funny how people who are perfect still need others to help them. It is not a sign of weakness, but rather a huge strength. If one never examines their feelings, how can they know that they are true? Cordelia felt a little better after this thought. But then she remembered Fred and her seemingly endless devotion to Gun. Did she ever doubt her love?

Perhaps Fred was a bad example to pick because at that moment she was digging through the refrigerator. After her dinner of a brat, some awful dill flavored chips, and a carton of yogurt she was looking for the perfect dessert. Needless to say Fred was thinking of one thing and one thing only: Blue Moon Ice Cream.

A better example of love would be found in a man desperately trying to cauterize a gaping neck wound with some forest weeds and the sleeve of his jacket. Wesley's cut neck was keeping his mind fixed on three things:
1. First and foremost, stopping the bleeding
2. Second, living long enough to tell Fred how much he loved her
3. Finally, how glad he was that he bought the large jacket instead of the medium since it had more sleeve to cover the wound, even if it wasn't fully paid for.
Wesley stopped himself. Reason number three had a miss placed modifier in it! He had to go back and change that later on. Perhaps he would do it after work. Wesley was no stranger to working after hours. He had done so when he was creating the web site of doom for Narf, the evil hell beast from the ninth circle.

Ok, maybe Wesley wasn't the best example. Lets try...

In Romania, a wolf howled at the moon. To be more precise a florescent orange colored wolf with brown roots gave a halfhearted yowl at the full moon. His mind was on other things, like how much he wanted Willow to be his bitch again. You have to forgive Oz. Werewolves think in different terms than us humans.

Willow looked over the valley he was busy farming. He hopped that Mad Martigan would come to visit. They were old adventuring pals and...(Sorry, wrong Willow)

Willow flopped to the other end of her bed and checked the clock. Great goodness! She had been reading for the last four hours. She closed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and thought about how Hermione and Ron would live happily ever after if Lupin would just bite Ron. After that thought she opened back up the literary crack and proceeded to read for another few hours.

See! I knew we could get back to lovey dovey stuff! I guess it is time to check on Angel.

"...out walkin' after midnight, out in the moon light..." Angel was singing a horrible rendition of Patsy Cline in the best music-of-pain tradition.

I think it is best that we left Angel on his own at least until he gets that song out of his head.
....................................Three hours later.......................
"...too good to be true. Can't take my eyes off of you. You feel like..." Angel moved on to butchering one of the greatest songs of all time. For that, we will leave him all by his lonesome and check on another vampire.

His gigantic biceps shown with water as Spike toweled himself dry from his shower. You just can't get the chlorine out of undead hair with out using allot of shampoo after swimming. After Spike was clothed (sorry ladies) he stepped into the kitchen for his usual spaghetti with pig's blood sauce. He always ate heavily after exercise. After he had dished himself a large plate full he began to dig in. Wait! Something was wrong. This wasn't right. You always have garlic bread with spaghetti. Spike went back to the kitchen, fixed himself some garlic bread and then sat down with his meal to watch the West Wing. After the meal and the show Spike returned to his coffin to find it destroyed by some vindictive vampires. Shrugging his shoulders Spike lay down on the cold floor and went into food coma. During his sleep he dreamed about a certain high kicking slayer. Something startled Spike out of his bouncy dream, but after finding nothing wrong with this last paragraph, he went back to sleep.

That was disturbing. Let's check up on that slayer.

The shinny piece of foil was held tightly in Buffy's fingers as she gazed at the reflection. "How did they put a tiny me in a gum wrapper? How do I get mini-Buffy out? She looks emaciated." Buffy paused at that word as the author hit his head with his hand for going too OOC. Buffy shrugged it off and went to find Giles. He would know what to do.

You know we haven't checked up on Cordelia in a while.

Cordelia stared back at the golden light. She knew what she had to do. She had to get back to Angel. He loved her. She loved him. There were up and downs. He had his faults. She didn't since she was a perfect being ascending, but that was beside the point. They loved each other and wanted to be together more than anything. "Put me back. Bring me back to Angel", she yelled up to the light. "Let me go back!"

"Let you go back where, Lady?" the light asked. What, this wasn't right. Now there were two lights and those ascended beings were talking to her like truckers. Cordelia's mind gave a sudden lurch when she smelled a whiff of diesel fuel. "Are you an ascended being?" she asked the pair of lights. "Lady, I'm just some poor guy who stopped his rig to help you change a tire or what ever. I mean you did pull onto the side of the road. If you aren't in trouble then I'm off. I've got to make a delivery of 4000 ugly khaki hats and 3000 XXXXL see-through polo shirts to Gordon Commons. See you lady." With that the pair of lights move to the left and disappeared only to be replaced by hundreds more lights zipping by to the left. Cordelia finally caught on that she was back on the hi-way. As she got back into her jeep to go find Angel she found two slips of paper on the passenger side seat.

The first one was addressed to her. It read:
Cordelia,
You passed.
The Ascended Guys

The second slip of paper was folded in half. Cordelia opened it cautiously and read it to herself. She then shrugged and looked up at the sky. "Happy One Year Anniversary, Erica. John loves you very much." she repeated as per the note's instructions. She then hopped in the jeep and sped off to find Angel.

The End