Cordelia was putting the morning coffee on when Angel emerged from the elevator. It was a fortuitous piece of luck that 1999 Cordelia had already planned on replacing the cheap coffeepot that 2001 Cordelia had broken immediately upon arrival. The spare had already been stored in the microwave cart. She supposed she and Doyle could have picked one up the previous night after stopping by their respective apartments, but after impatiently waiting for over a half an hour for Cordelia to come out of her room, Doyle had reached the limits of his anxiety. He'd taken her back to the offices like a mother hen riding herd on its chick. Slightly amused, a little exasperated, and with more than a few lingering reservations about what she'd just done, she'd let him.
As her boss leaned his weight back against the desk and sighed, Cordelia shoved aside her second thoughts and examined his haggard appearance. His eyes were shuttered and dark, and Cordelia doubted he'd slept much at all the night before.
While it was true that vampires could – and did – function just as well in the daytime as in the evening, most by far preferred to utilize the dark shadow of night for their waking hours. Since the sun was to be avoided at all costs, it made sense to sleep during the day so that they could wake with the night, to feed. That was the nature of the beast.
But the path that Angel had chosen for himself - the path to redemption - didn't always allow him to accommodate that nature, and so he slept little as a result.
Which was all well and good as far as explanations went, Cordelia knew, but it wasn't the reason for Angel's latest sleepless night. She'd shown up literally moments after Buffy had walked out of his life – again - and she knew he was hurting from that. Knew he was devastated and miserable all over again at the loss of the future he could have had.
A sudden pang of pity struck her and she realized how selfish she'd been. From the moment she'd arrived here she had monopolized everyone's time and attention, too focused on rectifying her temporal displacement to see how hard it was for Angel to hang on, to put his pain away so he could help her.
True, the concept of Angel in emotional agony was about as new and shocking as earwax, but that didn't make his pain any less real. And she realized with a stab of guilt that she'd done absolutely nothing to even try to comfort her friend.
Cordelia scurried to the microwave and retrieved the mug of blood she'd had warming for him and placed it in his hands. She'd seen those hands punch and pummel…they'd broken necks and hauled her back from the brink more times than she could count. But now those same hands were listless, and he held the mug absently, lost in thought. "Where's Doyle?" he came out of his stupor enough to ask.
"I don't know…out checking the final score on last night's game or something," Cordelia answered. She glanced around, looking for something to occupy herself with, a little uncomfortable as always when trying to verbalize meaningful emotions. Finding nothing to straighten or fidget with, she finally folded her arms and settled for not meeting his eyes. He didn't notice.
Okay, this is just getting pathetic, she thought. Just say something…Anything.
She was opening her mouth to do so when Angel at last became aware of the mug in his hand. He took a hesitant sip, and a little of the melancholy seemed to lift from his shoulders as he looked at her. "Thanks," he said.
"It's Buffy," Cordelia blurted in response.
Angel blinked, and Cordelia squinched her eyes shut and fought the urge to smack herself in the forehead. "Not like that," she recovered quickly, opening her eyes again and approaching him earnestly. "I mean, it's not Buffy's blood, of course not. I just was thinking of Buffy, then you were drinking the blood, and I just said the first thing that popped into my head, and…" she trailed off as Angel continued to stare at her warily. "It's good blood. Not Buffy's in any way, I swear," she reassured him. "Go ahead. Drink it."
Angel looked down into the mug in his hands and then – in an exaggerated motion - carefully set it down on the desk a foot or so away from him. Cordelia sighed. "I just meant that it's Buffy that's got you down. The whole 'swallowing the day' thing. I just…wanted you to know that I understood."
The vampire just looked at her, saying nothing, but Cordelia forged on. "I can't tell you whether or not you did the right thing. And really that's up to you to decide on your own, anyway. And I can't tell you that I know what you're going through, because I don't. I've never been put in that kind of situation, thank God." She paused. "But what I can tell you is that with one possible exception, you and Buffy are the most noble, self-sacrificing people I've ever known. You always try to do what you see as best, no matter what it costs you. And I know it's probably worth next to nothing right now, but I do admire you for it. And I pity you for it. And I'm sorry." She finally looked down. "For what it's worth," she added softly, mentally berating herself for rambling. She almost didn't hear him when he spoke.
"Thank you."
Cordelia looked up to find Angel's solemn gaze on her. "And," he continued, a ghost of a smile on his lips, "it's worth something to me."
Her own lips curved in response, and then the smile grew as Angel picked the mug back up and drank again. When he'd finished he looked a little…well…a little more alive.
"So who's the other?" he asked, catching her off guard.
"The other what?"
"The other noble, self-sacrificing person you know," Angel said.
Cordelia's attention was caught suddenly by the front door opening as Doyle entered. "Uh…" she said, looking quickly back at Angel. "Just someone I used to know." She glanced back at Doyle, feeling conflicted when he offered her a tentative smile. His spirits were high this morning; his outlook was bright.
And today was the day he was going to die.
Harsh reality crashing back in on her, Cordelia swallowed, steadying her rising anxiety. She hadn't gotten much sleep herself last night, due to the hard decision she faced. She knew that this morning was her last chance. After this final moment, this last opportunity, her decision would be irrevocable. Glancing at her watch, she took a deep, steadying breath and faced the two men as Doyle joined them in front of the desk.
"We need to talk," she started.
They looked at her expectantly, and she paused one final time. Last chance…
Cordelia exhaled. "We are in a unique position," she finally said. "There's…um, stuff…that's going to happen today. And it's important. Very important," she emphasized, looking at them meaningfully.
"And you want to change something," Angel surmised.
Cordelia felt her insides knot up in a fit of nerves. "Well," she rationalized, "I know what's going to happen, and I have a choice. I can either sit back and let it all happen again, or I can try to make it better. I don't know what would be the right thing to do in the grand scheme of the universe or whatever, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about consequences. But I've just…I've got to try to help."
She bit her lip in the gloomy silence following her proclamation and waited for the inevitable question. Doyle didn't disappoint her.
"So…what's goin' ta happen?"
"Right now?" Cordelia asked, looking at her watch again. She took a step to the right and gripped the edge of the desk with tense fingers. "Now would be the migraine from hell."
On the very heels of her last word the vision crashed down on her, crushing her and rending her open to the pain.
Pain, pain…a rolling thunder of it that burned all independent thought from her mind. The visions seared her with their violent intensity and she reeled back, knuckles white as she reflexively clutched the edge of the desk to keep from falling.
Angel started toward her, his immediate, instinctive reaction to help propelling him forward. He was suddenly halted by a crash behind him, however, and whirled to see Doyle pressed against the wall. The Irishman had stumbled into the mini fridge and knocked the brand new glass coffee pot off onto the floor, smashing it. He pressed the palm of one hand against his forehead as if to push back at the wave of images that assaulted him; his other hand tightly grasped the corner of the wall in a mirror image of Cordelia's reflexive clutching of the desk.
Angel stopped indecisively, abruptly claimed by inaction as he was torn between both of his suffering friends.
Finally the shared vision ended, releasing them from their misery. Doyle slumped and rested, panting against the wall. Lacking the half-demon's more effective resistance against the worst of the pain, Cordelia had less control over what happened to her body and nearly fell. Recognizing now who needed his help the most, Angel rushed to her side and grabbed her before she could tumble to the floor and led her to the couch.
Sinking down gratefully, Cordelia reached into her pocket for the bottle of extra-strength Tylenol that she'd brought back from her apartment the night before and Angel fetched her a glass of water. Tossing the pills back, she glanced at Doyle's face over the rim of the bottle of Scotch he'd nabbed from the microwave cart.
He took a long swig – his own personal brand of pain reliever – and met her troubled eyes with foreboding. His own eyes were grim, he was sure, because he finally knew. Beyond the pain, beyond the vision's revelation that they would have to face the Scourge…the simple fact that Cordelia had suffered from the images too told him everything she wouldn't when he'd asked.
Angel was once again torn. "What the hell was that?" he asked Cordelia. He turned to Doyle. "What did you see?" Turning back to Cordelia, he interrupted himself. "And did you just have a vision?"
Cordelia broke eye contact with Doyle, not wanting to confirm the dawning of understanding she saw in him. "I wasn't sure if I'd still get them here," she said.
Angel was brimming with questions as he watched the unspoken exchange, but he ignored them all now in favor of repeating the most important one: "What did you see?"
Cordelia nodded to Doyle, and as he told the story she remembered hearing about his first encounter with the Scourge from Angel…after. How his life had fallen into disarray after his discovery that he wasn't completely human. How one of his own kind, a fellow Brachen demon, had come to him needing help, and how Doyle had turned him away out of fear and not understanding.
And how, later, his first vision had been sent to him to show what the Scourge had done to those he'd refused to help.
"We've all got somethin' to atone for," he'd said to Angel once. The demons they would face now may as well have marched straight out of Doyle's own private hell.
When it was silent again she leaned forward, sitting on the edge of the cushion, hoping to inspire a level of intimacy she'd need to exist between them all if this was going to fly. She took a deep breath. "Okay, this is where things need to deviate from the original scheme of things," she said. She looked at them both and went on. "I know you guys have questions. And reservations. And probably every other kind of 'tion' there is. And you're probably thinking…'why should we listen to Cordelia? She's an ex-cheerleader, actress-turned-lame-o-commoner. What does she know about anything, unless it involves shoes, or color coordination?' And I know we haven't really had a chance to bond or whatever by this point, but I'm asking you to trust me anyway based on the stuff we will go through together, and what we've become to each other by my time." She looked at them sincerely, willing them to be moved enough to go for it. She absolutely could not do this without them.
The two men glanced at each other…an evaluating, "what do you think?" kind of look. Cordelia watched them anxiously…then less anxiously. Then impatiently as their silent deliberations stretched on. Her patience waned and then finally snapped. "We are on a bit of a schedule here, you know," she reminded them.
"Give us a chance," Doyle defended. "This is a big deal. We're not debatin' what color to re-paint the office, ya know."
"It's big," Angel agreed, "and there could be unforeseen consequences. Things could go bad…"
"Note to self," Cordelia interrupted, "never go back in time, because the people there won't listen to you even though you're FROM THE FUTURE!" She stared at Angel, frustrated but trying to remain calm so he'd take her seriously. "I'm telling you, Angel, things will go bad. I know. Okay? I was there. What this is, is an opportunity to make it better. Isn't that what we're here for? To help people? To save lives? We can save lives today."
Angel looked down, unwilling – or unable – to argue that point. "Besides," Doyle reminded him, beginning to be swayed, "wouldn't the Oracles 'a told her not ta change anythin' if it was goin' ta turn out badly?"
Angel mulled it over. His first inclination was to nix any changes to the timeline. How could any of them really guess with any degree of accuracy how even the smallest change might impact the future? For all they knew, 2001 Cordelia's presence here could have already had such an effect. Her arriving here in this time was like a stone thrown into a still pond. The ripples could already be spreading outward.
Despite all of that, the vampire found himself wanting to trust her as she'd asked. Sharing the office with Doyle and Cordelia these past four months had been…educational, to say the least. And to an extent, they'd both managed to chip away a little at the stoic wall he'd built around himself. Over two hundred and forty years, and he realized the only true, meaningful relationship he'd formed had been with Buffy. And it had become painfully clear that their love could never be. Was it any wonder a part of him longed for the future that Cordelia alluded to? One in which he had not only partners, but friends? He tried to think rationally, reminded himself that if he could give up the love of his life for the future, he shouldn't allow friendship to influence his decisions either. His choice with the day-that-wasn't had been obvious, though, even though it was painful. If he'd remained human, Buffy would die. And so would many others. Confronted by that truth, his path was clear, though it ripped his heart out to walk it.
But what Cordelia was proposing could conceivably better the future. It was still a risk, he knew, but suddenly he wanted to go along with it. To offer a second chance at life to whoever it was Cordelia wanted to save. And maybe – just a little – to give himself something to look forward to. He nodded at Cordelia, and her grin of excited triumph almost made him smile back.
"Okay!" she said, ecstatic. They were going to do it! She jumped up, suddenly full of energy, her headache forgotten. Angel and Doyle watched her, bemused, as she began pacing back and forth in front of them like a drill sergeant. When her mouth opened again she was firmly in charge, and she dispatched her orders like a veteran. "Angel, there's a ship at the docks called the Quintessa. You should know the captain, and he owes you, right?"
Angel nodded, surprised, and she went on. "Okay. You're going to head over there – you'll have to take the tunnels, unless you've got some SPF 10,000 – and convince him to head out this afternoon with a hold full of passengers. By the way, he'll do it for half of what he owes you. Oh, and find the First Mate and…I don't know, lock him in the brig or whatever. He's the one who goes to tell the Scourge what we're doing." Angel blinked at the rapid-fire of information and she grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from the desk as she addressed Doyle. "You need to go to this address," she said, scribbling quickly on the paper, "and find the Lister demons hiding under the floor. They're gonna be pretty spooked at first, but just tell them you're the Promised One, and they'll follow you around like a bunch of groupies. Then just wait for me."
"But I'm not a promised anythin'," Doyle protested.
Cordelia shook her head. "It doesn't matter. What's important is that we get them going. Oh, and there's this kid, Rieff. Keep an eye on him, 'cause he's gonna take off. And going after him is one of the things that delayed us last time, leading to a chain of events that…didn't work out so well."
Both men noticed her hesitation. "And what will you be doing?" Angel asked.
"I'll be renting the truck we'll need to transport the Lister demons," she answered, preparing to move out. "And I'm gonna get a better deal on it for us this time, too."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
She could hear voices. But that was wrong, because she was sleeping, and she shouldn't be able to hear anything. She didn't want to hear anything. She wanted to just shove her head under the pillow and let sleep drag her back down again, away from this world where people she cared about were dead, and people she'd never met before yesterday called themselves her friends, and she didn't want to care about them, damn it. But the sounds of anger and worry pulled at her, rudely yanking her back from oblivion.
Cordelia awoke to pandemonium.
"Where is she?" Angel was saying. "Where would she have gone?"
"Nowhere," a higher, more cultured voice responded. That was Wesley. "She wouldn't have just left."
"Then they got her." The voice was fatalistic. Angry. Gunn.
Cordelia rolled over and blinked her eyes open. The three men were standing at the foot of the other bed. Well, Wesley and Angel were standing; Gunn was packing one of the duffel bags they'd brought with them from the Hyperion the night before. "What's going on?" she asked.
Angel glanced at her. "Fred's missing. She went out this morning and hasn't come back."
"I'm tellin' you, they got her," Gunn insisted. "And she knows where we are. It's only a matter of time before they come knockin'. We gotta get out of here."
"We can't just leave her with them!" Wesley said, anger coloring his voice for the first time.
"We're not going to," Angel interjected. "Everyone else is going to leave, and I'll find Fred."
Cordelia felt very small and very not-part-of-the-group, sitting on the bed. "How?" she asked.
"The way I see it, they'll come right to me," Angel answered.
Wesley shook his head. "Angel, that's playing right into their hands."
Gunn agreed. "Look. Let's all get out of here, and I'll call up Rondell. He can get the crew together and we can go after her with some backup."
"Ah yes, because your gang has proven how highly they value life." Wesley replied hotly.
"Last time I checked it was still okay to take out the bad guys," Gunn bit back.
Angel stepped between them, holding up his hands for a truce. Tempers were running hot, fueled by self-preservation and worry for Fred, and it was going to get them nowhere. "It doesn't matter. I'm not bringing anyone else into this to get hurt." He glanced meaningfully at Cordelia.
Wesley backed off a little. "I understand. But remember that if this child is born, if it truly does bring about the end of humanity, it will affect everyone. Maybe they've taken Fred to where they're holding Darla. If we can find her, we might be able to end this whole thing."
Angel looked uncomfortable. "Wesley…remember that we realized the baby…it has a…"
"A soul, yes," Wesley confirmed. "I remember. But remember this: Not every creature with a soul fights on the side of good. And you know the prophecy."
Angel nodded, unhappy; reluctant but knowing what had to be done. He looked at Gunn. "All right. Give them the call.