A/N: Woohoo! I finally finished it. My first completed multi-part story is complete. It sure took long enough though. Thanks for sticking with it. Oh, and the song lyrics are from Gary Jules' "Mad World" and Tracey Chapman's "Telling Stories".
This was officially the most boring staff meeting ever. Dawn thought longingly back to the days of Scooby meetings in the magic shop where there were snacks and jokes and occasionally people even cracked a smile. To be fair, the W&H staff meetings usually also had a pretty casual atmosphere, with Lorne regaling them with celebrity tales or Gunn explaining some bizarre facet of demon law (for instance, a Talahask demon could kill a Fashmat demons without any repercussions if the Fashmat ate an orange in front of the Talahask). This meeting could not be less interesting if it had been called with the purpose of watching paint dry, with everyone trying to avoid thinking about Cordelia by being as professional as possible. Fred was showing a Power Point about God knows what and Dawn was supposed to be taking notes, but just couldn't bring herself to pay attention. Besides, Wesley seemed to be taking elaborate, color-coded notes already. She could always copy his later and tell Angel they were hers. It wasn't like he'd notice. He had spent the entirety of the meeting so far staring out the window.
Dawn needed to do something and fast or her brain was going to seep out her ears. "For the love of all that is not mind-numbingly boring, would somebody just say what they're actually thinking please! Cordelia, yours or mine, would never have tolerated the overwhelming lameness that is this meeting."
They all looked startled and some looked angry.
"Sorry if our regret at losing Cordelia is boring you," Wesley snapped. "We'll try to be more entertaining while contemplating the fact that we never really knew one of our best friends."
"At least you knew the real Cordy at one point," fired back Gunn before Dawn could respond. "Some of us never even met the real Cordy, save a couple of hours of spell-induced wackiness."
"Now come on Charles," Fred offered helpfully. "I'm sure Cordelia in high school wasn't all that bad. I mean, underneath it all—"
"Would you stop being such a fucking Pollyanna for once in your life, Fred?" Angel spat angrily from the head of the table. All heads turned to him, shocked to hear him lash out at Fred like that. Wesley, Gunn, and Lorne all attempted to chastise him, but he wouldn't let them talk, continuing his rant, "The real Cordelia would have hated all of us. She would have terrorized you in high school, Fred, wouldn't have given the time of day to Wesley or I if it wasn't to spite Xander or Buffy, would have screamed and ran the other way if she saw Lorne, and would have assumed Gunn was going to steal her wallet had he talked to her on the street. So let's all stop kidding ourselves and face the fact that there was none of the real Cordelia in our Cordelia. We loved Cordy because she cared for people and wanted to help them and the real Cordy wanted no such thing."
Angel stood up, shoving his chair back so hard it hit the wall that was almost eight feet behind him hard and toppled over. He was almost out the door when Dawn called out to him. "Wait!" He turned and sneered, as if challenging her to try and make him feel better.
"It seems like I'm the only one here who really knew Cordelia then. And I know I said she was totally selfish, but I mean…there was something there. Something good."
"I don't care if she was a good babysitter. She was never a hero; never would have been."
"Maybe. But I remember one night. We were watching Friends and we heard this scream outside. We looked out the window and there was a vampire who had a girl by the throat. He was going to kill her. I wanted to call 911, but Cordelia said there was no point if it was a vampire." Dawn half-smiled. "I'm a little embarrassed about this now, but being twelve years old, I wanted to just stay inside and wait for Buffy to come home. I thought Cordelia would agree with me, since that's what she always said—that she wasn't responsible for all the stupid people who went out alone after dark. And yeah, she rolled her eyes and sighed loudly and all that, but she ended up grabbing a cross and a stake and going outside. Luckily she didn't have to do anything since Buffy came home and took care of it. But she was ready to do it if she had to. Except that she didn't. Have to, I mean."
Dawn looked up at Angel anxiously, worried what she might see and was pleasantly surprised by something resembling a smile on his face. She turned to face the rest of the gang, who all looked considerably lightened.
"So maybe Fred was right," said Gunn pointedly, looking at Angel. "Maybe the real Cordy had the potential to be our Cordy all along."
"Yeah," said Angel softly, still smiling to himself. "Maybe." He looked at Fred, embarrassed. "Look, Fred—"
"I know," she interrupted. "Don't worry about it."
Angel righted his chair and sat back down. "So let's see what we can do about making this meeting more exciting for Dawn."
Dawn smiled nervously, but relaxed somewhat when she saw that he was smiling too.
An hour and a half later, when Chinese food had already come and gone and everyone else had gone back to work, Dawn and Lorne remained, cleaning up the empty containers and the paper airplanes Gunn had made out of Wesley's notes. Lorne was chattering excitedly about some demon cult responsible for making Steve Guttenberg a star, but for once Dawn wasn't paying attention. Instead she was singing softly under her breath.
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places
Worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere
Going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression
No expression
When she finally looked up, she saw Lorne staring at her. "Gary Jules, huh?"
"I was watching Donnie Darko last night," she said distractedly.
"Yeah, yeah, Jake Gyllenhaal—be still my beating ass, right?"
Dawn forced out a laugh. She wished he would stop looking at her like that. It really—she suddenly realized the significance of singing in front of Lorne. She looked up to meet his eyes. "You know."
"What, that you lied? Yeah. Cordelia was exactly who Angel guessed, wasn't she? A high school Heather."
"She had her moments. I liked her. And had that situation actually come up, who knows what she might have done. But she was no champion."
"It was sweet of you to lie."
"I wish somebody would lie to me. I always hated when people didn't tell me things. But I don't like being the one who knows the truth."
"Yeah. Neither do I." He looked so sad when he said this that Dawn was forced to remember that he lived with the secret truths more than anyone. He would probably never forgive her for singing in front of him. "We've all got secrets. Things we have to keep from people to protect them. To give them hope."
Lorne turned, leaving Dawn alone in the room. She could hear him singing, his voice getting quieter and quieter as he moved away from her.
There is fiction in the space between
You and everybody
Give us all what we need
Give us one more sad sordid story
But in the fiction of the space between
Sometimes a lie is the best thing
Sometimes a lie is the best thing.