Disclaimer: I don't own Angel.

Author's Note: Cordelia's POV…don't ask me why. I usually avoid 1st person like the plague. I know this has been a long time coming, but I've been having medical issues including problems with my memory. Sorry.

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Gwen: "Okay, then. I'll take Denzel."
Gunn: "Actually, it's Gunn. Not that I mind the freakishly accurate comparison but you will keep your hands to yourself." --"Long Day's Journey"

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Angel sat Gwen the Thief down on the poof and started to explain. She listened intently to the first two minutes of his explanation, then realizing that this was going to take awhile, hopped up and ran outside to dismiss the cab she had had waiting for her. Maybe, if Angel had stuck to the basic outline of what she had missed since the last time she butted into our lives, she could have left in the cab. But he didn't. Perhaps all the talking and crying and loving we had done together over the past two days since I'd brought him back made him want to share everything. Maybe just being human again did it.

I watched them, seated on the bottom step, having put on a pair of jeans underneath Angel's borrowed shirt. Gwen was her usual Super Tramp self—no big surprises there—but Angel… It's mind-boggling to witness what suddenly being human can do to a man. Or maybe it's that he just got laid for the first time in…what? Three years? No, wait, there had been a werewolf while he worked at Wolfram & Hart. Somehow he'd gotten the bright idea that if he didn't love the woman then everything would be fine. They'd just date and sleep together and everything would be peachy. Yeah right, like that would ever work. She probably spent all her time with him wondering just what was so wrong with her that he didn't think he could ever love her. And, if he did, well there's more Angel Tragic Badness for you. The boy seems to just love chasing after disaster and tragedy.

I leaned back and let my gaze wander up to the shadowed ceiling of the hotel. Take here, the Hyperion for example. The first time he stayed here, a mob tried to hang him. The second time he came around, there was a paranoia demon and then a big nasty portal in the middle of the lobby (which, I would like to point out was entirely his doing) and then Jasmine the Evil Bitch Goddess used this as ground zero for her hippie-dippie love-everyone campaign. Now he's back here again, having just died, and showing absolutely no interest in leaving. Personally, if it were me making the decision, I'd think about relocating to Paris. Or maybe New York. If we left now, we'd get there just in time for fashion week. There's just too much bad magical karma built up here, and Angel's never been good about building up good vibes. Too much angst and broodiness.

"Ok, I get that she brought you back by confessing her undying love to you," Gwen said, "But what's that got to do with me?"

That would be my cue to pay attention. I sat back up and looked over at the thief, noticing not for the first time that her hair would actually look rather nice if she didn't put those tacky streaks in it. I'm pretty sure the curl is natural. Now that I think about it, I'm starting to notice a little pattern here with the girls Angel goes for. Either they're blond and Trouble or have brown hair. Darla and Buffy go in the first category; Gwen and I (as reluctant as I am to lump myself in with her about anything) go in the second. Huh. Well, at least he's broken his blond habit. After the whole Darla thing, it was getting pretty ridiculous—meet a blond, go crazy in love with her, and nearly doom the whole damn world in the process.

Back on topic. "Illyria said that'd each of the guys would need a…oh, what'd she call it? 'Life-bringing she-creature'—that's it—to bring them back to life. Obviously, I was Angel's." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that he was looking at me and flashed him a brilliant smile. So he might not be the brightest bulb in the box, but I'm sort of crazy about him. When Jasmine set up that betrayal with Connor and my body, I wanted to move Heaven and Earth to explain to him that it wasn't me. Hell, I would have if the Powers hadn't put the kibosh on anything I tried to do. Moronic immortal politics.

Gwen looked down at the three guys still stretched out on the lobby floor. I'd thrown on a sheet over Spike so I wouldn't have to see his pasty naked hotness every time I walked through the lobby for something, but other than that they were exactly the same as when Illyria had finished with them.

"Well, him I don't even know," she said, touching Spike's shoulder with the toe of her shoe. "That's the British dude who helped us with the whole Beast problem, and then there's Denzel. I'm not in love with any of them."

Angel's brow wrinkled, and I could practically see the gears turning in his brain. "Maybe it doesn't have to be love. Maybe it's just got to be a woman that they know pretty well." He turned to look at me, to see if I had anything to contribute. Angel looking to me expectantly, for advice. My heart did a little flutter over the shock of it—usually I had to hit him over the head with logic and reason.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any good answers for him on this. "I don't know—it's not a form of magic I'm familiar with. Illyria's old—she spent thousands of years asleep in the Deeper Well before being awakened—so it makes sense that some of the things she can do have gone out of fashion. And what's with the 'Denzel' thing?"

Gwen shrugged again. "He's black; he's good-looking."

Please tell me this wasn't Gunn's intended "life bringer". The guy deserved better than this. He deserved a great romance that would defy death and the ages—the kind Angel supposedly had had with Buffy, though without the almost-apocalypse. Gunn was only human, but he'd put his ass on the line every day of his damn life for years. I'm a little fuzzy on how long he was living out on the streets before Angel hired him, but I'm guessing at least a couple of years. And he lost his baby sister out there. But instead of some nice, sweet girl he apparently got a thief who'd fled the country when things got a little rough in LA even though she has powers that just might have been useful. Where's the justice in that?

"Could you just try…please?" Angel asked her, locking eyes with her. It was the puppy dog look. It doesn't work on me, but that doesn't mean it lacks complete effectiveness.

Gwen shifted uncomfortably and then squatted down beside Gunn. Leaning over, so her mouth was close to his unhearing ear, her hair falling forward to shield her face, she said, "Um…I love you?"

Gunn's chest rose and fell just as rhythmically as it had been ever since Illyria had thrust her hand into it. Just remembering the sight of the god-king up to her elbow in Gunn's entrails made the bile rise up in my throat, leaving a nasty taste at the back of my mouth. I let out a breath I didn't even realize I'd been holding. Of course it hadn't worked—Gwen had said it herself, she wasn't in love with him. A certain amount of sincerity has to be included for stuff like this to work. This was beyond retarded—Miss Super Tramp was probably going to be Gunn's only hope to get his soul back. If she couldn't do it, then I'd hate to think of what we'd be forced to do. Either hook him up to life support at some hospital somewhere (which, having had my body go through that isn't something I'd wish on my worst enemy…ok, maybe I would, but only if they'd really done something to piss me off. Jasmine, for instance, I would be perfectly willing to consign to a coma if she weren't dead.) or let him die. We just couldn't leave him on the floor of the lobby forever.

I rested my forehead on my knee, trying to remember what exactly Ancient One had said as she'd brought him back. "Illyria said that Fred had memories of Gunn dying…" I said slowly, trying to recall the conversation. "She said that it would be the one who brought him back that time would be able to it again."

Gwen raised one gloved hand. "That would be me—back when we were all trying to get the Axis. I zapped him to get his heart going again."

"After you stopped it," Angel muttered, but not too grudgingly. I suppose when you've lived for over three hundred years and have been through as much craziness as he has, things like life and death start to look a little different. Sure, Miss Super Tramp may have electrocuted Gunn, but since she brought him back, it was ok, at least in his eyes. Personally, I was wondering why Fred had gone after her with Gunn's battle ax.

"Maybe that's all he needs," Gwen said slowly as she reached up and began to peel the glove off her right hand, "Another good shock." She looked to Angel as if seeking approval.

He just shrugged, but there was hope suddenly in his expression that hadn't been there a second before.

"Tell me you're not thinking of electrocuting him again!" I cried, not quite believing the direction this conversation was going. "We just brought him back to life! You're not going to kill him!" I was on my feet and had taken two steps in her direction before I realized what I was doing.

Angel put out a hand to stop me. "Cordy…let her try. We don't have many other options, and we can't just leave him like this." His dark eyes pleaded with me.

I just stared down at him, letting him know with the look on my face just how much I did not like this brilliant little idea of theirs. I like my friends alive, thank you very much. But Angel did have a point. Right now, Gunn wasn't really alive, and we couldn't just leave him like this. "All right," I said after a moment, sinking down to my knees across the black man's body from the female thief. "Do it." I took Gunn's wrist in both of my hands, feeling his pulse underneath my fingertips.

Gwen nodded and shook her bare hand like you'd shake a flashlight when the batteries had started to go. Little bits of static electricity danced up her fingers. With her other hand, she yanked on the remnants of Gunn's shirt, exposing the skin above his heart. Happy that she had a charge, she brought the hand down on his pect with slap that echoed across the lobby. Gunn's body buckled as she pumped electricity into him, the current making his pulse surge under my fingers. For a moment, it raced wildly, panicking, then began to fade. She pulled back and slapped her hand down again. His pulse surged again…and fell into a regular rhythm.

Gunn's eyes flew open.

Looking over him at me, Gwen flashed me a cocky smile. "Still just like startin' a Chevy."