This is my late Christmas present to all my friends - and all Cordy/Angel fans. Sure, it's a couple days behind, but you can blame my muses for that. So to Christy, Kay, Stef, Kylen, Zeph, Eli, all the rest --- this is for you. I love you all like family. Weird psycho family. D Please read and review!

Underneath the Mistletoe by Esperanza Fuega

She did not own the most beautiful voice in the world, but Cordelia Chase knew what on-key was, and managed to be so most of the time. She danced around putting garlands on everything garlandable, singing along to the radio. Decorating on Christmas Eve was new to her, but Angel had no tradition. Angel needed a Christmassy tradition, something to try to boost his flagging faith in the human race.

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be bright..." She jumped on a chair, throwing streamers around the upper reaches of the Hyperion's lobby. Due to some Christmas miracle, most of them managed to stay.

"From now on all your troubles will be out of sight..." Cordy hummed the next few lines. Did anyone even know these songs from beginning to end? "So have yourself a merry little Christmas now..." Throwing her hand out in an operatic fit, she teetered on her chair, switching positions from one breath to the next. How did I get on the floor? She stood up, rubbing her backside with a confused frown on her face. The rickety chair was in splinters.

"Stupid chair!" she snarled, kicking at the remains with a bare foot. "Ow! With your stupid splinters, and your stupid..."

"Cordy?" Angel's voice came behind her. "What happened?"

"I'm decorating, it's not that bad!" Cordy glanced around at her handiwork. "...Is it?"

"It's fine, but the chair, what happened to the chair? Are you okay?"

"I fell when I was decorating. No bones broken. I think the chair is fixable. We just need some glue and tape and--"

"Forget the chair. The chair is a chair. Or it was. I'm not mourning the chair. Let me clean that up." He strode toward the mess she was attempting to pick up.

"Uh, no, boss. You're not getting anywhere near this stake factory." Cordelia dropped a heavy piece of seat on her foot. "Take it!" He swept the mass from her arms, depositing them expertly in the trash bin.

"See? Non-staked. I can handle myself, you know."

"All accidents happen within ten miles of the home," Cordy stated. "Now get over here and help me decorate." She laughed and tossed a pack of ribbons at him.

"...What do I do with these?" He held up the package, gawking at them. "Do I hang them, or..."

"Get up in the rafters and streamer them down. It'll be a cute effect." Cordy shrugged, flitting over the place with another armload of garlands.

"...cute?"

"Do it!" He jumped up into the rafters, hurriedly meeting her demands.

"Is that fine?" Angel called down.

"It's perfect!" Cordy gushed. "Come down here and see!" He jumped down. Cordy finished tying her addition to the central ribbon. "So, what do you think?"

"Mm, it's all right." He turned to walk away. "I'm going back downstairs."

Cordy sighed and turned her back to him, revealing the clump of mistletoe she'd attached to the ribbon. "Fine."

"Oh, and Cor-" Angel turned back, cutting himself off as he saw his employee standing alone beneath the mistletoe. "...You know, in the old country, we used to put this stuff up to ward away demons."

"Isn't that rowan?"

"Well, we were drunk." He trailed off, slipping up beside her. "We used it for other things, too."

"Typical Irish," Cordy snorted. And then she couldn't say any more. Because he was kissing her.

Underneath the mistletoe.

----

Angel sat in his chair, head in his hands after a particularly blasé day at the office. It was Christmas Eve. Not even the bad guys worked on Christmas Eve. But the good guy did. Was he even a good guy any more? Angel couldn't remember. It had been so long ago since the Hyperion, and Christmas Eve with Cordelia and Wes, amid broken chairs and decorations. But Cordy was dead, and his days were now filled not with the three of them together, but with names and faces he couldn't remember, making executive decisions and sending others to the front lines.

It was damned depressing. But that was his tradition.

"Through the years we all will be together

If the Fates allow

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now..."