Chapter Five
"This is so bad, " Buffy moaned, letting her head fall on the dining table with a dull thump.
Willow and Faith exchanged grins.
"Late night?" the brunette Slayer drawled. "All that paperwork sure sucks up the time, don't it? That's why I leave that crap to you and Wood, while I stick to the ass-kicking part of the curriculum. Regular hours, and lets me work off lots of energy so I can sleep like a baby."
"Shut up, Faith. I'm trying to sleep, here," her co-headmistress mumbled into the pillow of her folded arms.
Willow took a long sip of her tea, trying (and failing) not to sound smug as she asked, "Up all night talking to Angel?"
Incoherent grumbling came from the slumped figure beside her.
"Must have been one Hell of a convo," Faith put in, "You were cracking up like a speed freak every ten seconds."
"I'm cracking up all right," Buffy sighed as she sat up and reached for her coffee. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I reverted into the same kind of giggling, drooling, squealing moron we work with every day."
"Hey!" one of the eavesdropping students further down the table cried in protest.
"Eat your cornflakes," Buffy muttered.
Willow leaned in closer, and couldn't help the pang of nostalgia the two of them sitting there dishing about Angel brought to her heart. "You really talked all night?"
A hesitant smile crept across her best friend's face, brightening it in spite of her shadowed eyes. "Yeah. It started out as shoptalk, you know? Where the monsters were, how we were killing them, what the time-freakies were all about. And by the end, we were arguing about reality shows and the best brand of hair gel."
Faith beamed. "So it was cool."
Her sister Slayer rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it was cool. At least... maybe we proved we can get through this without ending up in straight jackets. Or killing each other." Her confident expression became more apprehensive. "But we didn't really go to the bloodier places, so... the jury's really still out."
"Give it time, Buffy," Willow encouraged. "You'll get there. I mean... you guys have hardly spoken in years. A lot's happened, like you said last night. You can't expect to be best friends again in one conversation. Even a seven-hour one."
"I still can't figure out what you'd talk to a guy about – even Angel – for seven hours," Faith remarked, "I like keeping the verbal to a min."
"A truer truth hath never been spoken," Wood commented as he took the seat next to his lover, brushing an absent kiss to her cheek and reaching for the coffee.
The other women smirked, but refrained from giving Faith a hard time about the way Robin made her blush like a schoolgirl. They had learned a long time ago that things tended to get broken when they teased her too much.
"Don't hear you complaining, Champ," Faith muttered, turning her full attention to shoveling cereal into her face.
"So, what'd I miss?" the school's principal and de jure administrator asked.
"Buffy finally talked to Angel," Willow reported dutifully.
Robin arched a brow. "That's the... *other* vampire lover, right?"
All three women's gazes fell on him in various degrees of chastisement: Willow and Faith's to remind him Spike was a taboo subject, and Buffy's because... repressing. Delicate art form.
"Sorry, but I'm still pretty new to the whole saga. I have to use what reference points I have," he pointed out in his own defense.
"Yes. Angel was my... is a... used to be..." Buffy stammered, unable to find a succinct term to explain what Angel was to her. She went with the simplest. "He's a friend."
Faith coughed, "Understatement."
"Didn't we already cover the 'shut up' thing?" Buffy snapped.
"He's the head of Wolfram & Hart now," Willow explained. "The prophecy says he and Buffy..." she cut herself off at the latter's glare, "Um... that we need his help."
"You can say that again. Wait," Wood cut in, "Isn't Wolfram & Hart evil?"
"Not anymore," his girlfriend corrected him, "Big A's running things now. They don't get much not-eviler than him."
Wincing at Faith's characteristic slaughter of the English language, he went on incredulously, "A vampire."
"With a soul," Buffy amended.
Robin unconsciously touched the scar below his right eye – a present from Spike, who had also, ostensibly, had a soul. "Which always guarantees goodness and light."
"Jesus, Wood," Faith bitched, "Let go of the Down With Vamps riff already. It's old. Angel's got a hundred years of soul-practice under his belt. And he saved my life -- all our lives. Completely different animal than the-bleached-blond-who-shall-not-be-named."
"Animal being the operative term," the principal reminded them.
"Spike saved all our lives too," Buffy murmured under her breath.
"Fine," Robin interrupted, deciding to wrangle the conversation back to safer ground – Armageddon. "So Angel's in the game. Do we have a plan on how to stop what's happening?"
Buffy shrugged. "He's got his people on it. He wants us – ALL of us – to work together on this."
"Hey, I'm not gonna say no to being sponsored by a big corporation with bottomless buckets of cash, that's for sure," Faith said, "We're holding half our weapons together with rubber bands."
"They're not *sponsoring* us!" the blonde Slayer shouted, "We're *consulting*! Big difference!"
Faith slammed her cereal spoon on the table. "Whatever! The fact is, he's in it, and that's all good, as far as I can see. We need the money, and we *really* need the backup! So, though it's way cool that you and Angel are patchin' up your... whatever... let's not forget why you're doing it." She gestured at the weary breakfast crowd filling the dining room, dropping her voice to avoid their attention. "They're wiped, B. The rotating shifts aren't so much rotating anymore as cramming together into one big shift. They can't keep doing this."
Buffy closed her eyes. "I know, I know. It's just..." she glanced from one of her colleagues to the other. "This is really hard. You guys just can't understand. Angel and I need to work together, but... Oh, forget it." She shoved out of her chair and stomped from the room.
"Your diplomacy skills never cease to amaze me," Wood commented to Faith.
"Shut up, Cueball."
Willow rose. "I'm going to talk to her."
Faith grabbed her arm. "Leave it alone, Red. She just needs some time to chill."
The Witch hesitated and then retook her seat. "I guess. I just hate seeing her this upset."
"She'll get over it. Angel's just a tough subject for her – you know how she gets all spastic over him. He's the same way."
"I really need more backstory here," Wood complained.
"I'll fill you in before class – for the next hundred years," Faith offered, their tiff already forgotten. Sniping was, after all, her and Robin's preferred method of communication. Right behind screwing each other into the mattress... or whatever handy surface was around.
Which was, in her opinion, way preferable to the "noble", ulcer inducing deny-repress-avoid method of her two closest friends.
"Can vampires get ulcers?" she wondered aloud, eliciting a strange look from her companions. "Probably not, huh?"
~
He had planned to get some sleep when he and Buffy finally (and to his surprise, hesitantly) rang off. But after four hours lying in bed with his mind reeling, Angel finally gave up.
Showered, dressed and fed, he ducked back into the tunnels, choosing to avoid any human contact, even with his driver, in favor of some quiet time to think. And there was no quieter, more peaceful and solitary place in the city than the private hospital where Cordelia was currently being cared for by the finest specialists his now-endless resources could provide.
He had come here at least once a week, for all these years. Brought her flowers she couldn't smell, CD's she couldn't hear, clothes and magazines she couldn't see. Sometimes he just sat and thought, or watched her for some sign of life. Sometimes he'd talk to her for hours.
Even in her pampered stillness, Cordelia Chase was still his closest confidant. He missed her... the way they'd been before... everything. When she was the surrogate sister, the tactless sayer of truths, and he at last, the decent big brother. He recalled how her sharp-tongued honesty had kicked him back into shape when he got too stuck in his own head, too bound up in guilt or self-pity to see things clearly.
Back before the manipulations... the twisting of emotions by outside forces, the lies, the wounds inflicted and the self-delusion.
Before Connor...
He'd learned to let some of that go, now. The longing and the resentments. No one remembered except him anymore, anyway. So he could come and sit beside her and tell her anything, everything, because even if she remembered, wherever she was, she wasn't about to judge.
He eased into his customary chair with a tired sigh. Checked the latest notes on her medical chart... which still showed no change.
"Hey, Cor," he began, as he always did, tucking the thick binder back into its clip. "You look great. The new hairdo really flatters your cheekbones. I, uh... I brought the new 'Vogue', and that 'Delerium' disc I was telling you about the other day. Fred can't stop raving about it, but... you know me. Anything made after '75's just noise."
He trailed off, just staring out the window for a long time, gathering his thoughts. But wasn't that why he'd come here – to talk it all through until something made sense? Until the fact that a single conversation made him feel better than he had in years no longer seemed so... incredible?
What would Cordy say to all this? The former Queen C would likely roll her eyes, snort derisively, and continue on to bitch about his therapy–worthy, unending, Buffy-obsession of course, and probably end with some snide comment about Buffy's taste in clothing, makeup, or hair.
"I talked to her last night. Or... she talked, and I slid comments in edgewise whenever I could," he chuckled affectionately, "It was... good, Cor. Really good. I'd forgotten how comforting it felt to just... hear her voice. Share things with her. It's been so long." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Feels like four or five lifetimes, at least. I'm not really sure how to handle it. These... emotions. They shouldn't still hit me like this, should they? Shouldn't all this time – all the things we've been through – faded it? We hardly know one another anymore, and still..."
He closed his eyes, reliving the soft music of Buffy's laughter. Her stories about what she referred to as her "crazy hormone bomb brigade". Her certainty that the radical, cosmos-altering action she, Faith and Willow had undertaken was the best thing for the world – and for themselves. All the exciting and exotic places she'd gone, collecting Slayers for training. All the good she felt they were doing.
"She's grown up so much. Become this... amazing, strong, self-assured woman. But she's still... Buffy. I can still see that little girl I fell in love with in her eyes. The way she laughs. She still says my name with that exact same tone she always did. And she still makes me feel..." He swallowed back his unaccustomed tears. "Full. I didn't realize just how much I missed her."
And this would have been the cue for more snorting, eye rolling and bitching from Cordy, he was sure. And then he could almost hear her shouting, 'What the Hell is the problem, then! Why are you acting like she ate your puppy? God, you and your self-flagellation! Get over it already!'
He smiled sadly, his lip trembling. "I miss you, Cordelia. I really wish..." he shook it off. "Yeah. If wishes were shoes, right? I just don't know what to do. There's so much... pain. In us, between us. So many walls to climb over. Wesley and Willow think we have to do it to stop what's happening. But why? That's what I don't get. We've both moved on. What's the point of forcing us back together now?"
'Maybe the *point*, Brain Trust, is that you *haven't* worked it all out. Maybe the universe going all kerplooey is a hint that you can't ignore no matter how hard you try!'
He shook his head. "Come on. Why should the Powers care whether Buffy and I work through our issues? We loved each other. It didn't work. End of story. That's hardly dimension-altering stuff. It happens to people every day. How many people actually end up spending their lives with their first love?"
'Yeah. Typical first love. I'm sure teenaged vampire Slayers fall in love with emotionally crippled vampires with souls – and vice versa – every day. Don't you read the singles ads? 'SWVS seeks future Champion of humanity for GWA and fighting the forces of darkness, while not having hot monkey sex because of the stupidest gypsy curse in human history!' And let's not forget those time-honored rites of passage like sending your first love to Hell, or drinking her blood to save you from a mystical poison, or you giving up a chance to be human for her, or that having sex with her made you lose your *soul*...'
And there was that long-forgotten caveat. One he'd hardly thought about in... forever, it seemed. His heart and soul hadn't been an issue when he was busy repressing them. All of his energy had long been diverted into external pursuits, leaving his internal state of being comfortably moot.
Was this another problem he would be obliged to face now? Along with the fact that, no matter how much he tried to tell himself that what he and Buffy once (still?) shared was merely one stop in his long journey, albeit the foundational one, and was long and permanently over... that never turned out to be the case when she stood before him.
Maybe the curse, and all it's collateral damage, were just another set of countless things he deluded himself over so he didn't have to invest the resources needed to really understand.
"Maybe," he replied to the Cordy-voice in his head. "But then... maybe the reason I'm fighting this is because I'm just not ready to know these answers. No matter what the universe thinks."
'Or maybe you're still the biggest drama queen jackass in any dimension. And maybe you've gotten so good at playing Denial Boy, you don't even know how to stop when you should.'
He took her strangely warm hand and squeezed, willing her to open her eyes. To shout at him in person and not just from the twisted wreckage of his psyche.
"Give me a sign, Cordy," he pleaded, "Tell me what I should do."
His cell rang, nearly scaring him out of his chair. Hands shaking, he answered, "This better be apocalyptic."
"Angel?" Willow cried, "You need to get over here right away. It's definitely apocalyptic."
~
TBC...
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