The bright sun of early morning had deepened into a steady glare behind the blinds in the outer office. Angel sat behind the desk regarding Cordelia with an unreadable expression. It had taken some convincing to keep him from retreating to his sanctuary below where, Cordelia knew, he was planning on being able to suffer in peace. Reluctantly, looking distracted, he'd turned from the elevator and followed Doyle into the outer office as Cordelia lowered the blinds. His own office, naturally, would have to have the windows and shades replaced before he could use it again without bursting into flames. Cordelia wasn't actually sure how he'd managed to avoid being turned into a giant, flaming vampire ball of death when the demon came crashing in, letting in the deadly sunlight.

In the outer office, he'd sat behind the desk, using it as a barrier between them as he listened impassively to what she had to say. Cordelia couldn't even tell if he'd been listening or not.

Doyle, on the other hand, showed that he'd at least heard – even if he didn't believe her – by turning to Angel and saying "Remind me later to find a new hidin' spot for my whiskey, eh? She's obviously tumbled on ta' my current stash."

Angel said nothing, and Cordelia was dismayed. She looked from Angel to Doyle, and then back again. "You guys really don't believe me at all?" she asked, surprised at the hurt she felt. A moment later she realized why. She'd been relating to Angel this whole time as if he were her Angel. Two years from now Angel. On some level, she'd been counting on the trust of their friendship to help him see she was telling the truth, and take this situation seriously. The only problem was, the vampire sitting across from her now didn't know her as well as the 2001 version of himself did. Add in the fact that he was exceedingly preoccupied at the moment with the loss of the love of his life – again – and she could understand his unwillingness to give her dilemma serious thought.

And then there was Doyle. He half leaned, half perched comfortably on the edge of the desk, regarding Cordelia with open incredulity. She realized that at this particular time in her own history, her bond with him was not as deep as she'd previously thought. There had been potential, yes...definitely. But his untimely death had robbed them of the chance to ever really become more to each other than friends and co-workers at the world's most bizarre job. She realized now that the bond she'd always felt she shared with him had been due in part to the visions he'd passed on to her through their one and only kiss aboard the Quintessa, moments before his death. The visions had quite literally changed her life, and they were something that Cordelia had always treasured as a gift from him. Okay...well, not always. There had been a couple times when she'd really, really wished that he'd kissed Angel instead...but in the long run she was grateful to Doyle for entrusting her with his sight.

"I'm never going to forgive him for doing this to me."

"For what? Choosing you? Trusting you with an enormous responsibility? Believing that you were the only one worthy of such a rare and important gift? I get the impression Doyle didn't have much by way of possessions?"

" No. No, he didn't."

" Seems like he gave you the most valuable thing he had."

True, the demon who'd pointed this out to her was a liar, and a shifty little eye thief, and would've killed her had Angel and Wesley not intervened...but the truth of his words had not been lost on her, and afterward she had done the best she could to live up to the responsibility Doyle entrusted her with. And, she liked having a part of him always with her.

At this point, however, Doyle hadn't yet passed his visions on to his Cordelia. He had little more reason than Angel to believe her wild tale. "Ooh!" she exclaimed suddenly, struck by a thought. Her hand flew to her hair again. "What about my hair? Fifteen minutes ago the me here had long hair, didn't she? How do you explain that?!" She ran her hand through her own short tresses for emphasis.

"You had an attack of G.I. Jane in the bathroom?" Doyle suggested.

"Oh please," Cordelia started, but then stopped suddenly, insecure and dismayed all over again. "Oh God, does it really look like I could have just cut it myself in a bathroom somewhere? My hairdresser is so fired."

The two men across from her continued to give her blank looks, and Cordelia sighed. "All right, it's clear that you guys aren't buying it, so I'm going to have to play hardball." She looked at Angel seriously. "Ten minutes ago you killed a Mohra demon in there when it attacked you, and Buffy left. But there's more to that story, isn't there? There was a whole day more, where you were made human again, and you and Buffy were back together."

"Okay, now I really do think you've gotten into my stash," Doyle said, half concerned. He shook his head in mock disappointment. "An' all those times you got on me for drinkin', too." He turned to Angel, smug. "Looks like Miss High and Mighty just fell off 'er soapbox." The words died on his lips, though, when he saw how shaken Angel was. The vampire's pallor was ashen, and his astonished expression was fixed on Cordelia.

Doyle straightened, concerned. "Ya'll right, man? 'Cause yer face just turned a whiter shade of pale."

The joke fell on deaf ears as Angel continued to gape at Cordelia as if he'd just seen a ghost. She leaned forward, sympathetic, hating to cause him more pain, but determined to drive home the undeniable proof that she was telling the truth. There was no way she could know any of this, if she were the Cordelia from his time. "And then you found out that your role as Champion was over, and that people would die – including Buffy – without you to protect them. So you had the Oracles take the day back, to save her. You gave up your humanity for her, and no one remembers it but you."

Doyle's jaw had dropped at the word "Oracles". Now, seeing how shaken Angel was, Doyle felt an icy tendril of doubt slither through his skepticism, settling in a cold pit in his stomach. If she was really...If what she said was true...

"Okay, I'm officially startled," he cracked, trying to lighten the mood and failing. He looked again at Angel, whose shock had melted into an even more disturbing despondence. "This really happened?" he asked, disbelief still coloring his voice.

"Still don't believe me?" Cordelia asked brightly...too brightly. She gave him a knowing glance, and Doyle had the sudden unnerving but distinct impression that he'd been foolish to doubt her, because now she was going to tell him something really awful and embarrassing. Like the time his uncle Joseph had caught him smoking out behind the tool shed, and had made him smoke cigarette after cigarette until he'd puked his brains out in front of Kathleen O'Leary, the neighbor's daughter. Or the first time he'd gone out and gotten really plastered, and had awakened the next morning in the garbage strewn parking lot of a male strip club with absolutely no memory of how he'd gotten there. He couldn't imagine any reason why he would have told her things of such a nature, whether she was really from the future or not, but from the look on her face he knew she had something big on him. He cringed in anticipation. "Hey, take it easy on a fella', will ya?'

"And how easy should I take it on half a fella?" she asked crossly, her old annoyance at being left out of the loop on his demon side sneaking into her voice.

Doyle flushed, thoroughly off balance and unprepared. Trying to stutter out a response, he risked several "help me!" glances at Angel, but the vampire was lost in thought. No help there. He cast about frantically for an explanation, but he couldn't think of one fast enough, and tried to stall. "I'm uh…cough….not sure I know…swallow…exactly uh…clear throat…what ya mean? By that? Exactly?" Hopeful / Innocent look.

"Don't give me that wounded puppy dog look, Mr. 'I'm-so-sweet, I'm-so-honest-even-though-I-didn't-tell-you-about-the-whole-half-demon-thing-for-three-months'!"

He sputtered some more, but when she glared at him he knew well and good she had his number and gave up. He winced, "Are ya angry with me?"

Cordelia sighed, letting it go. "I've known for two years, Doyle. If it bothered me at all, I'm sure I've gotten over it by now."

"Two years," Angel finally said quietly, looking up. He seemed to have shaken off his grief and surprise for the moment. "Is that how far you've come back?"

Cordelia met his gaze, relieved to finally be believed. "I think so," she said. "I think I didn't just get here, though. I mean…I don't know how this time stuff all works, but it was night when I…left. When I was two years from now. And it can't be coincidence that the moment I got here was the same first moment for everyone else in the repeato-day the Oracles gave us." Her tone grew thoughtful as she went on. "I think…I must have actually gotten here last night. Well…the day that was yesterday, that never really happened. But when that day was reset, I lost my memories of it just like everyone else."

Angel seemed to accept this, and steepled his fingers underneath his chin pensively, but Cordelia thought Doyle looked as if he was still having trouble with the whole concept.

"I'm still having trouble with this whole concept," he said, startling her. "How would this even be possible? Isn't this a…a paradox, or somethin'?"

"I don't know how it's possible, but it's happened," Cordelia said matter of factly. "And, I got a good look at the demon that did it."

"So we'll start where we always do," Angel said, rising. "With research."

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

When Wesley returned to the Hyperion he found Fred and Gunn sitting on the floor in the lobby. Fred's long legs were crossed at the ankle as she leaned forward over something that rested on the floor, her long brown hair falling in a cascade past her shoulders. As Wesley moved toward her he saw she was tinkering with an instrument. It looked very much like a cross between a Geiger counter and a metal detector. Considerably shorter than a traditional detector, the "dish" at the end was turned up to face outward, rather than down at the ground. There was also some sort of screen attached above the handle, in addition to the usual gauge. Gunn sat a short distance away, watching and handing her tools as she called for them. Intrigued, Wesley stepped nearer to the device to look it over. "What's this new venture?" he asked.

Gunn didn't look up from Fred's work. "A time demon tracking…thingamajig," he said, gesturing toward the instrument. "Don't ask me how it works…I have trouble replacing the batteries in my Gameboy."

Wesley looked at him, and Gunn confessed "It's the positive and negative things," he said, bringing his hands up and mincing them back and forth as if holding a battery. "I always get 'em in wrong the first time."

Wesley blinked and turned to look over the device with interest, as Fred finally straightened and handed a clamp back to Gunn. "It's a Temporal Anomaly Registration Device," she said, picking it up and looking it over critically.

"Yes of course it is," Wesley said, still mystified, but unwilling to appear as if he didn't know. "And what inspired you to invent one?"

Gunn answered, as Fred continued to fidget with the instrument, making adjustments. "Well we found our demon in the books; they call themselves Time Keepers. There actually wasn't much in there we didn't already know: they can manipulate time, blah blah. Gauntlet, blah blah."

Wesley was disappointed. "Nothing we could use?"

"Actually, there were two points of interest," Fred said, standing. She stepped away from the two men slightly, surveying the lobby, and Wesley looked on curiously as Gunn continued.

"First off, according to the book, these time demons aren't supposed to like disorder. In fact, they call themselves Time Keepers because they consider it their job to keep time in its natural flow. They're pretty strict about it, too."

"So why would one of their number seek to not only kill Angel, but do it in such a way as to permanently disrupt the current timeline?" Wesley asked, bemused.

"That's the million dollar question. Too bad Regis didn't give us any lifelines." Gunn replied.

"And what was the second point of interest?"

Fred aimed the modified instrument toward the office and flipped a switch. A high pitched whine sounded as the device powered up, and when Fred adjusted a dial slightly it started beeping. It was slow and steady, but it sped up when she swung the instrument toward the center of the lobby, where the demon had spent the most time during their brief encounter. The beeping continued to speed up until it was just one steady tone, and Fred looked excited. "The second point of interest was that a lot the Time Keeper's life energy is used up when it uses the gauntlet for displacement purposes. Until it's back up to full energy, it won't be able to create any new displacements. And that gives us a window to track it."

"Excellent." Wesley said. "But I'm still not clear on how your device is able to tell where the demon has been."

Fred explained. "Well, it all comes back to the gauntlet. The Time Keepers themselves are the power sources, but the gauntlet is what's actually manipulating time. Einstein's Theory of Relativity says in part that space and time are two aspects of the same thing. When one is affected, the other can't help but be. The same with matter and energy. So I took that a step further, to mean that on some level, there should be a physical result from the time travelling, even if we couldn't see it with the naked eye."

She flipped the final switch on the side of the device, and the screen mounted above the handle came to life. It showed the lobby in vibrant hues of blue, and Wesley could see there was a large concentration of some sort of glowing, swirling particles of a lighter blue in the air. He looked up sharply, but could see nothing above near the circular sofa the device was aimed at. He resumed looking at the screen, and watched as the particles continued to spin around with no apparent purpose. Fred watched too, pleased with her work. "Using the gauntlet leaves a wake of temporal displacement behind it, like turbulent water after a ship. All we have to do is follow the trail while it's still all churned up."

"Go Go Gadget Girl," Gunn said, awed.

Wesley stared at her in frank admiration. "Fred, that's astounding. Truly commendable work."

Fred blushed and ducked her head. "It's nothing, really. Einstein did all of the real work…I just built the practical application that could really "see" the metric tensors after displacement."

Gunn grinned. "See, now you could have just let it go at 'Thank you,' but the gushing's good too. It works for you." He glanced up at Wesley with a knowing smile. "Doesn't it, English?"

Wesley was still staring at Fred in admiration. "Quite," he said absently. Then suddenly he started as he realized what he'd just said. "Er…I mean…"

Fred smiled shyly, and Gunn laughed. "I'll get Angel," he said, "and we can go track this thing." He bounded up the stairs, leaving Wesley and Fred alone in the lobby. Fred powered down the instrument.

"How's the other Cordelia doing?" she asked.

Wesley sighed. "She's confused, but that's to be expected. She's also not very happy with her confinement. Which she made clear to me numerous times on the way over to her apartment." He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It had been getting late before all of this started, and they were all growing tired. But this can't wait until the morning, he thought. The longer she stays here, the more opportunity she'll have to find out things she shouldn't. Time is of the essence.

"I left her with Dennis," he went on, "and instructed her not to watch the television or listen to the radio."

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Cordelia sighed as another quick, demanding knock sounded from the wall, but she didn't stop exploring the apartment. Phantom Dennis was becoming increasingly frustrated, she could tell, at her refusal to follow Wesley's instructions. "Well, what does he expect?" she said. "I'm not the one who left you in charge. I don't know what kind of submissive freak I've turned into over the past two years, but you and Wesley both have another thing coming if you think I'm just going to sit here and wait for everyone else to figure out what's going on. I am the original Cordelia Chase, and I sit idly by for no man! Especially one who can't even get a decent car! I mean really, what is he trying to compensate for with that motorcycle?"

In the background the television and radio continued to blare as Cordelia prowled her apartment. When she moved toward her bedroom, however, a startled knock issued from the wall and she suddenly felt a presence before her, barring her way. Cordelia's temper flared. "You listen up, Dennis. Remember what happened when your mother tried to bully me around with her spooky ghost stuff? That's right, she got disintegrated!"

Silence answered her, but she still felt his presence between her and the bedroom door. She arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms, shooting an icy glare in the general direction of where she thought Dennis might be. "Move it or lose it, Buster." she added threateningly. There was an almost audible sigh, and she felt him turn aside with a tangible air of resignation.

Battle won, Cordelia entered her bedroom and flipped on the clock radio there as well, mostly just to spite Wesley. In truth, she wasn't really even listening. She was looking for information.

It hadn't been lost on her that everyone had conveniently turned aside her questions about Doyle, and she wanted to know what they were hiding. As one third of the original Angel Investigations team, she felt that she was entitled to know. Imagining some fallout, she wandered into the bathroom. She started to reach for the medicine cabinet when a truly horrible thought struck her, and her hand came to rest on the mirror. What if he'd gotten back together with Harry? She wasn't marrying her demon fiancée anymore, and what better rebound than her ex-husband? Especially when he was obviously still in so much emotional turmoil over her?

"Well there will be none of that when I get back," Cordelia muttered, annoyed at the idea that she might not even get a chance to give Doyle a chance. She pulled at the cabinet and her reflection flew past her as the door opened.

The prescription bottles caught her attention immediately. In fact there was no way she could miss them; they were scattered over each shelf. There were at least a half dozen of them, and when Cordelia peered at the labels she found that most were painkillers. She picked one up, tracing a finger over her name on the label. " Junkie submissive freak," she breathed, horrified.

Replacing the bottle, she shut the door to the cabinet and her reflection stared back at her from the mirror with haunted eyes. "I don't know what's going on, Dennis," she said. She could hear the vulnerability in her own voice, but she couldn't seem to retain her usual bravado. "Nothing feels right here. I'm glad you at least are still here...everything else is so different. Even Angel is different."

She paused. "Dennis, where's Doyle?"

There was no answer from the wall, and the sense of foreboding she'd been nursing since she'd first arrived in this godforsaken time began to grow into full-fledged dread.

"Look," she said finally. "I know I'm not supposed to find out anything that could contaminate the timeline, but he...he's my friend. I need to know."

She took a deep breath. "Dennis...please. Do you know what happened to him?"

From the wall there was a single, solid, reluctant knock. Yes.

"Where is he?" she whispered.

Movement drew her attention to the top of the dresser and the jewelry box that rested there. The bottom drawer pulled out seemingly on its own, and a small gray piece of paper floated up and toward her. It stopped and hovered in midair before her, and she realized Dennis was waiting for her to take it. Suddenly, though, she wasn't sure she wanted to. Surprised to see a slight tremor in her hand, Cordelia quashed her trepidation and took the slip of paper. There was type on it, and as she started to read, she realized it was a clipping from the newspaper.

It was an obituary.

Doyle was dead. Finally it was just too much…all of it. When she read the date at the bottom of the painfully brief eulogy, Cordelia couldn't hold back the tide of emotion anymore, and stinging tears sprang to her eyes.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

"I still can't get over this whole thing," Doyle said.

"Well get over it," Cordelia snarked. "I've been here for hours, now, and from the utter lack of progress, it looks like I might be staying awhile."

They had been researching ever since she'd finally convinced them she really was from the future, and they still hadn't found her demon. Having pretty much exhausted the material available in the offices, Angel had gone downstairs to peruse his private collection and see if he had anything else they could search through. With a sigh of exasperation, Cordelia snapped shut the book she'd been looking through and tossed it onto the pile of volumes on the desk. Choosing another one at random, she opened it angrily. "All this staring – not finding – is giving me a headache," she complained. "Why can't it ever just be in the first book we pick up? Why can't we ever just turn the first cover and go 'Oh my God, Weeeeee! There it is!'?"

Doyle was leafing through his own book, but his thoughts were still distracted by the time traveling, and the chances it presented. "Ya know," he went on after Cordelia's comment, "somethin' just hit me. If yer here, then where's our Cordelia?"

Cordelia looked up, startled at the possibility. "Living La Vida Loca in 2001?" she guessed. Interpreting his concerned expression, she hastened to add "I'm sure she's...I'm...she's fine. If I'm here, and I'm the future version of here, my past self has to be okay, right?"

Doyle nodded reluctantly. "I s'pose that's true." he conceded. Then his face suddenly cleared. "Ya know, this could open up a whole world of opportunities. I mean, think about what we could accomplish with the information inside your head. Think 'a the good we could do." He cast a sudden hopeful glance at her. "Say, ya don't happen ta' know how Satan's Steed does at the tracks this weekend, do ya?"

Cordelia leveled her trademark glare at him. "Like I keep track of the races. Please. I've never even gone."

Doyle grinned. "C'mon, Princess. Yer tellin' me that over the next two years I don't manage ta' drag you even once ta' the tracks?"

Cordelia was taken by a wave of sadness. "No." she said, suddenly subdued. "You've never taken me to the races."

Something in her voice alerted Doyle to the sudden downward turn of her emotions, and he tried to regain the joking atmosphere. "I find that hard ta' believe."

Cordelia was suddenly uneasy, and something told her to watch what she said here. Deciding that sarcasm was the best defense, she said, "I don't even want to know about what you find hard. But I've never been to the races, nor do I plan on ever going."

Doyle cocked his head and studied her. Subterfuge and untruth didn't come easily to Cordelia...she was pretty straightforward by nature. Having been the butt of many of her blunt, and sometimes even tactless remarks, he above all people knew that Cordelia Chase did not pull her punches. So her evasiveness now was obvious to him, and a sudden urge made him want to press the issue. His eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he stepped closer to her. "What aren't ya tellin' me, here?"

She warily tracked his approach out of the corner of her eye and tried to conceal her nervousness. This was the moment she'd been dreading. Questions of these kind were the ones she didn't know how to answer. She couldn't tell him the real reason they'd never gotten the chance to go anywhere together....could she?

Struck dumb by that sudden, forbidden thought, she was barely aware of Doyle's voice as he went on. "I have ta' admit to a certain amount of healthy curiosity here, ya know." He glanced at her, trying to keep his expression nonchalant, but watching carefully for any reaction. "I mean, there's things I've planned on doin', and now I can't help but wonder if...ya know...if I ever did 'em."

He stopped again, risking another glance at her. She looked deep in thought; he wasn't even sure if she'd heard a word he'd said. He steeled himself up anyway. A fella had to try, right? "For instance," he said, "one might wonder if we ever –"

"Stop," Cordelia suddenly commanded, distressed. She'd realized almost too late where he was going with his wonderings. He'd almost asked her a direct question about the future and, if pressed, she didn't think she could lie to him. "Don't ask me...anything. I don't think you can ask me anything. I mean...it's like the rules, right?"

Convinced now that she was hiding something, he pressed her. "Look, I'm just sayin' that –"

"Doyle," Angel said from the doorway, "she's right." Cordelia started; she hadn't even heard the elevator come back up to this level. Angel entered the room silently and placed the books he'd gathered from downstairs on the desk. He looked at Doyle. "We can't know anything from her time. Anything we learn could change her past." He indicated Cordelia with a slight nod of his head. "Which would change her present. And we don't know what that would do to her."

Subdued, and more than a little concerned that his questions might have jeopardized the chances both Cordelias had to get back to their own times, Doyle shut up. He tossed his book aside and grabbed another one from the new stack, joining Cordelia and Angel in the research.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

"Eureka!" Cordelia exclaimed.

Angel looked up, surprised out of his research by her outburst. Cordelia met his gaze a bit sheepishly. "You'll get that in two years," she assured him. "But look!" she said, sliding her book over so the others could see. "I found my demon!" She snatched the book back, thwarting Angel's attempt to actually get a look. She read silently from the text as the vampire waited impatiently. Doyle, already standing, walked over behind Cordelia's chair and peered over her shoulder at the illustration.

"Interestin' look," he noted.

"I hear you," Cordelia said. "With the horns, and the gauntlet, and the shiny glowy scales." She tilted her head, remembering. "Actually the scales were kinda neat. He wasn't bad looking, for a demon."

Doyle straightened, unsure whether or not to be offended. "Fer a demon?" he asked.

Cordelia looked at him. "Come on, Doyle, I said I was okay with it. I never said you'd win any beauty pageants."

Angel cleared his throat. When they both looked at him, startled, he said "Cordelia? The demon?"

"Oh, right." Cordelia bent her head again to the book, and flipped through the pages as she skimmed the information. "Yeah, I knew that....oh, ew. That's what the horns are for? Ouch. Ooh...here's something. Time Keepers, they're called." She frowned. "Hm. They're supposed to be really set on not messing with the timeline in any way..." She looked up, puzzled. "So then why did he send me back here?"

"Well, why would he 'a been after ya in the first place?" Doyle asked. "Owe 'im some money?"

Cordelia looked askance at him and matched his questioning tone. "Is my name Allan Francis Doyle? Of course I don't owe him money. Besides, he wasn't even aiming for me, I just jumped in the way when he fired at – "

She broke off abruptly, glancing up at Doyle and Angel with an expression near guilt on her face. "When he fired at...someone else, who was not me." she finished lamely.

Doyle observed her silently, his arms crossed. She was being evasive again, just as she had been when he'd tried to find out if he'd ever worked up the nerve to ask her out. What was going on here? What was she hiding from them?

Angel leaned across the desk and lifted the book from Cordelia's hands. He flipped through it briefly. "There's not much in here to go on," he said. "We're gonna have to pick up more volumes on this subject, and this kind of demon if we're to have any hope of reversing this."

"Well, at least we know what we're lookin' fer, now." Doyle said.

"Right," Cordelia agreed, standing up. She held out a hand to Angel. "I'll take your car."

Angel regarded her dubiously. "My car?"

"Well yeah. I mean it's daylight, hello? Unless you'd like to coat the sidewalk in a fine, ashy layer, you'd probably better stay out of the sun. And since we don't have a Demons 'R' Us within walking distance, I'll need to borrow the car."

An edge of possessiveness crept into the vampire's voice. "But...my car?"

Cordelia made a sound of incredulous disgust. "Oh come on! I've borrowed your car lots of times!" He stared at her blankly, and finally Cordelia got it. "Just...not by this point in time. Right. Well, suck it up and deal, Mister." She held her hand out again, and stared at him until Angel finally sighed and reached in his pocket for his keys.