Disclaimer: Angel belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, not me.
Author's Note: Thanks to –J and ShinodaBear for the reviews. In case you're curious, there's another fic by me running parallel to this one called "Dea Ex Machina". It focuses on some of the other characters affected by the events of "Not Fade Away" like Lorne and Lindsey. As for this chapter, it was disgustingly hard to write. Making Angel and Cordy jive isn't easy, babes…maybe that's why they never got together on the show. Please review this chapter and let me know how I did. :bites her nails:
"Well, even without a flight plan, bucko, you are still a stealth bomber." –Lorne, "The House Always Wins"
"My heart is beating! What's going on? Is…is this the Shanshu?"
"I don't know—probably," Cordelia answered, "Though it means that, once again, we've been interpreting it wrong."
"What? Why?" He pulled away and scooted back some. Then, she realized with a stifled giggle, he noticed that the only thing saving him from being completely naked was the shirt she had so casually tossed over him earlier. "Er…what happened to my clothes?"
"You were dead, Angel—like ash. Illyria had all of you in a little box that Wesley's checks came in," Cordy explained. She frowned, "What happened to the box?"
Angel pulled the squashed box out from underneath him. She couldn't help but giggle then. He tossed the box away. "What do you mean, if this is the Shanshu, then we interpreted the prophecy wrong? I thought if I fulfilled my destiny, then I'd get to be human—I took down the Circle of the Black Thorn and here I am, human. What is there is misinterpret?"
"Well, for one, Spike's human too." She pointed over to where the blond vampire lay naked on the floor only a few feet away. "And, for another, I know you're destiny hasn't been fulfilled since the Powers That Be sent me back to help you get yourself straightened out so you can fulfill it."
"Spike…Spike's human too? How could he possibly deserve the Shanshu?"
Cordy rolled her eyes. "Maybe because he's fought just as hard and just as bravely for good as you have—the whole averting the apocalypse by sacrificing himself in Sunnydale thing." She grabbed hold of Angel's face with both hands and turned his head so she could look him in the eye. "You are missing the point, bucko. You have more work to do, so why don't you go upstairs and get dressed. I'll wait down here for you." She kissed him tenderly on the lips. He tried to deepen the kiss, and, as much as she wanted to, she refused to let him, pulling back. "I mean it—work. Now move!"
He stood awkwardly, trying to hold the shirt in front of himself as he retreated backwards up the stairs. Part way up, his heel caught on a step, and he sat down hard. She ducked her head, hoping he wouldn't be able to hear her giggling. When she lifted it again, he was gone.
She rose and moved to sit on the pouf.
"I have summoned the life-bringing she-creature. She will come and call the soul back to the body."
Illyria's words echoed in her head. "'Life-bringing she-creature'," Cordelia repeated out loud, "Not the most flattering of titles, though I'm glad I was able to bring Angel back. I wonder why it wasn't Buffy. I mean, wasn't their love supposed to transcend the ages or some crap like that? He's human now, so, yeah, soul intact and not going anywhere…lots and lots of guilt-free boinking if they wanted it." But, it wasn't Buffy, it was me, and all I had to do was tell Angel that I loved him. She leaned her chin on her hand. Obviously, the Powers hadn't given her the whole scoop before they sent her back. How typical of them…
Angel coming back down stairs roused her from her reverie. He had found the pair of his slacks that she'd worn pre-shopping spree as well as the plaid shirt she'd bought for him. Angel in plaid…now there was a sight she'd never thought she'd see even though it had always been on her "Angel Shanshus To-Do" list, right before taking him to the beach to get a tan because, you know, deathly pallor only looks good on the dead. "This better?" he asked as he reached the bottom step.
"Much." She patted the pouf, and he came and sat down next to her. "So, tell me what was up with the kamikaze attack on the Circle of the Black Thorn? Because, yeah, not really seeing the genius there."
"It was supposed to be one big, final blow against evil," he explained, looking down at his hands. They were the same hands that he'd had when she'd visited him at Wolfram & Hart right before she died—the calluses, the scars—they were all there. Illyria had recalled him exactly as he had been before he died…except for the whole dead part. "If we took out the Circle…"
"Evil would continue on, exactly as it has since the beginning of time," Cordelia interjected. "You may have tipped the balance a little, but trust me, evil will recover disgustingly soon. No, Angel, I think you had other reasons for throwing yourself on the stake…so to speak." She brushed a soothing hand over his brow. She didn't know the whole story, but she knew Angel. Knew him so well that he couldn't hide from her, even when he was trying to hide from himself. That was why she had gone to Wolfram & Hart, to try and warn him that he was headed down a path she couldn't see the end of. That's why she'd pleaded with the Powers so strongly to get the chance to come back this time. He really was lost without her.
Angel took her hand in his and kissed the back of it. "It's all been spiraling away from me…everything…ever since I lost Connor. When Wes stole him and gave him to Holtz, I thought I was going to die. And then he came back, but not as my little baby boy, you know? But as this kid who wanted to kill me. Me—his own dad." He dropped her hand and looked across the lobby. "I thought Wes's betrayal was the worst I'd ever experience. He died horribly, didn't he?"
Cordy couldn't look at the fallen Watcher, his torso covered in blood that she knew had to be his own. "I don't know. I missed the end—your attempt to bring on your own stupid little apocalypse. But, yeah, I take it that there was general badness all around." She put a hand on Angel's knee and squeezed it. "I bet Connor and I, or rather that bitch who took over my body, managed to one-up him in the betrayal department."
Angel nodded.
She felt her cheeks go warm just at the memory of it. "Listen, Angel, I can't say how sorry I am that about everything that happened. You have to know that I would never sleep with Connor unless something icky took control of me—he's like a son to me. I changed his diapers, for Pete's sake!"
"I know." But he still wouldn't look at her, and that hurt more than anything.
After a few moments of awkward silence, she squeezed his knee again. "Hey, you never finished telling me about your oh, so brilliant plan."
"Fred was dead, Cordy." He finally turned back to her, and the look on his face was so lost, so broken, so desperate that it nearly broke her heart. "Wes was trying so hard to drink himself into joining her. You were gone. Gunn wasn't Gunn anymore—he'd turned himself into a lawyer lackey. He betrayed Fred, Cordy—Fred—so he could keep his head full of legal nonsense, then he sentenced himself to hell to try and make up for it. I didn't realize it until I was sitting in his hospital room, giving him the same damn atonement speech that I'd given Faith…that I gave myself every single damn day…I didn't realize until then how screwed up everything had gotten."
She slid over on the pouf and into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, pulling him to her as tightly as she could. "People change," she whispered comfortingly, wishing she could take his pain away and knowing that she couldn't. This was his pain, his cross to bear, and he would have to deal with it.
"Not like this," he murmured into the side of her neck. "Not like this—they wouldn't have changed like that if I hadn't led them into Wolfram & Hart."
"They chose to go too. You may have led them, but any of them could have said "No, not me" and walked away."
"Cordy, I gave my son away…" Then the dam broke, and he began to sob into her neck, soaking her hair with his tears, and all she could do was hold him and let him cry.