Chapter Two
Sunday, November 10, 2002 – Northern California Women's Facility, Stockton, California; early afternoon:
"Open up for 430019!"
Faith was lying on her bunk, reading a book from the prison library, when she heard the guard's request for her cell door to be opened. Getting up straightaway, she said to the black female guard (whose name was Edie Rhodes), "What's up?"
"You got a visitor."
Faith frowned. "Angel's here? At this time of day?"
"Never said that, Convict. You wanna see this guy or not?"
"What name did he give?" Faith couldn't help wondering if this was a Council plot of some sort. Sure, the Watchers had pretty much left her alone since she'd been jailed for murder-two; but the Chosen One figured that those old men in England might have finally gotten impatient for her to croak, in order for them get their hands on her successor.
"Name on the entrance sheet was Harris. Alexander Harris," Rhodes said, and Faith knew the other woman was bright enough to catch the brief flash of recognition on her face before she'd blanked her expression.
"All right, fine," Faith shrugged. She had no idea why that guy would be here to see her, but what the hell; it beat reading alone in her cell. So she followed Edie to the visitor area, and sat down at the glass-enclosed booth. The Chosen One waited for the guard to exit the visiting space and lock the door behind her.
Then Faith picked up the phone and said, "Long time no see, Xander."
"Yeah," Harris said into the receiver, staring at her as curiously as she was doing at him. Faith knew she probably looked a lot different to the last time he'd seen her – harder, and no longer as thin as she'd been when she'd woken from her coma. And older, naturally. "Over two and a half years." Inclining his head, he studied her for another moment and added, "You look different."
"Ha. As in, no longer looking like B?" Faith said, smirking a bit. She dropped the smirk when Xander gave her a tired glare and waved it off. "Sorry. So: there a reason for this little visit?" she asked, curiously.
"No, not really. Well, actually – yeah, kinda," Xander shook his head.
"Well, hey, that's decisive," Faith replied, starting to grin despite herself. "So, which is it? No not really, or yeah kinda?"
"Truth is, I'm not entirely sure why I'm here. Maybe I just needed someone to talk to." Xander sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, tousling it even more.
"So, what? You drove all the way to Stockton 'cause you were feeling lonely?" Faith gaped at her one-time lover.
"Not so much lonely as... disconnected," Xander shrugged. "Anyway. Yeah – there is something I needed to fill you in on. But it can wait a bit, I guess."
"Best not wait too long," Faith warned him. "They don't exactly give us unlimited visiting time. Unless you put in a request for a conjugal?"
Harris started, then gave her a loud snort and head shake. He quirked a ghost of his old lopsided grin at her, waggling his eyebrows tiredly, before he said, "Oh, if only I'd thought of that, I would have."
"Oh yeah?" Faith smirked at him through the glass, leaning back in her chair. "Do tell."
"Hey, you have no idea how long it's been since... " Xander trailed off, shrugging, giving her a more genuine lopsided smile and another eyebrow waggle.
Throwing back her head, Faith laughed appreciatively. She replied, "Since you did the horizontal mamba with someone warm and oh-so-willing?" She gave him an eyebrow waggle of her own, adding, "Tellin' ya. Go conjugal next time – it'll do us both a world of good."
"Tempting, very tempting," Xander replied, laughing quietly.
Waving her free hand down across her body, Faith snickered and said, "I'd be, like, all insulted, crushed, and heartbroken and shit if it wasn't. My ego would never recover." Shaking her head, the Slayer's expression became both serious and slightly speculative. "OK, so – I know why I've been on the celibacy wagon. You?"
"You mean aside from the whole 'no one in the sighted community would date me' thing?" Harris asked, the lopsided smile turning a bit sour.
"Riggggght," Faith said, drawling the word out into way too many syllables.
Xander shrugged again. "Really haven't had the... interest, I guess you'd say, or even the offers, since my wedding blew up and I left my bride-to-be at the altar."
Faith gaped at him, then closed her mouth and said, "No shit? Really?"
"No shit, really."
"Damn, boy-toy." Quirking an eyebrow at him, Faith leaned back as far as the extension of the phone cord would allow and studied him.
{ Huh. Older, 'natch, } Faith decided. Bigger shoulders and chest than way back when – guy had lost the lean build he'd had in high school and replaced it with some serious muscle along the way. Still with the laugh lines around the eyes, and the grin lines around the wide mouth. Still, bigger shoulders or not, Xander looked smaller somehow... like he'd been ground down a bit.
No – tireder, that was it. Just flat worn down by life.
Faith could relate. She knew the feeling. Shrugging, she finally nodded and said, "OK, so jokes and innuendo crap done with, shoot. I got some time and a crap-load of burning curiosity and shit now."
"How much do you know about what's happened in Sunnydale since you left town?" Xander asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Practically nothing. Not like I get visitors from there. Sure, Angel visits me every so often; or he did before last summer, anyway. But even back then, I could tell he didn't keep in touch with the Hellmouth crowd anymore. Why? What's happened?" Faith asked curiously.
Xander let out what sounded like over half a decade's worth of a sigh. "Better question would be, what hasn't happened... "
Almost spellbound, Faith listened as the man opposite her listed out the highlights of what had transpired since February 2000. Like the end of that cyber-demonoid, ADAM. The destruction of the Initiative base. Dracula. Being split into Cool Xander and Loser Xander. Buffy's boyfriend Riley leaving. Buffy's mother Joyce dying. Glory, Dawn and Buffy killing herself in order for her little sister to live –
"Heard about Joyce dying, and B taking the big swan dive, and the Resurrection Blues," Faith said, holding up a hand to pause the rush of words. "Angel told me all about that." She sighed, and added, "Sucks, seriously. Liked Joyce, and she was pretty high on my list of people to try and make things right with."
Xander nodded. "Buffy's mother was good people. She was like a second mom to all of us, back then."
She nodded back, then... "So. Cool Xander, huh?" Faith said, starting to grin again. "Woulda liked to have seen that."
"A whole new thing to look at, huh?" Xander asked, his expression wry.
Faith laughed and shrugged, then considered the implications briefly. Two Xanders at once? Her eyes crossed momentarily at the mental images that presented themselves... Licking her lips slightly, she waggled her eyebrows. "Who said anything about looking, stud? So, you guys still got that demon staff thing?"
For a moment he glared at her, then Xander's own eyes crossed briefly, and he snickered. "And here I was thinking you'd reformed."
Faith's eyebrows went up again as she stared at him. "Reformed ain't got nothing to do with it, boy-toy. Been stuck away from things of the male persuasion for over two years – don't begrudge a gal something to while away the lonely night time hours thinking about, hey?"
Shaking his head, Xander laughed, which caused her to arch her eyebrows higher. "Don't ever change, Faith."
"Hey, change is what it's all about, guy," Faith said, smirking. Motioning him to continue, she added, "So, you got the mike; finish playing the tune, Xan."
Listening as he ran through the Reader's Digest version of life on the Hellmouth over the past year and a half, Faith let him talk uninterrupted, just nodding or occasionally asking a question, or raising an eyebrow at some of the weirder or lamer stuff. After a while, though, she held up a hand to get a word in.
"Whoa. You mean Spike came back with a soul and shit? What – now that Fang started the trend, all the cool kids are doing it?"
Xander snickered, and then started to laugh in genuine humor. "I'll have to remember to ask him that," he said. "Just to see the look on Spike's face, and watch him huff up like a pissed-off cat."
Faith started laughing as well, "Yeah, gathered from Angel that there ain't no love lost between 'em. But still – you telling me that nobody dusted Spike's ass after that attempted rape thing? Or even tried to? B just let that shit go?"
Xander widened his eyes, put on a vacant expression, and said in a high-pitched feminine falsetto, "But he has a sooouuullll now!"
Faith laughed out loud, shaking her head. "Man. Exact quote from Buffy herself?"
"Damned near."
"Shit," Faith said shortly. "You got a shop vac, right? And he can't fight back 'cause of that chip or whatever. So stake him and dump the ashes in the round file, dude. Give B a confused look and tell her the guy went out one night and never came back – dunno what coulda happened."
Xander snickered again, "Sounds tempting, I gotta admit."
She shrugged and gave him a sour half-smile. "Hey, do what you want; but I actually ran into that vamp back when I was doing the whole wearing B's body thing, ya know? Shoulda staked him on general principles, but decided to get him all wound up instead. Lessee, I told him something along the lines of... "
Pausing for a moment, Faith searched through her memory before continuing, "Oh, yeah: told Spike I could ride him at a gallop until his legs buckled and his eyes rolled up. And something about having muscles he never even dreamed of and how I could squeeze him until he popped like a champagne cork, and he'd be begging me for just a little bit more... " she trailed off, shrugging again.
Xander stared at her for a few seconds, but then shook his head, starting to grin slightly. "Well," he said with a small shrug. "That'd get me wound up all right." Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair again and said, "Anyway... I guess there's some other minor stuff which I haven't mentioned, but that's pretty much the gist of what our lives have been like since you turned yourself in."
Xander then leaned back, slouching in his chair. "And after the bad day I had yesterday, I was thinking I needed to talk to someone – and your name came up in my mind. And since I was on my way here anyway – "
"Why me?" Faith cut him off at once. "And why were you heading here, anyway?"
"Which one you want me to answer first?" At her 'pick one' gesture, Xander shrugged and said, "Well, I kinda figured that someone should drop in and warn you that that First Evil thing seems to be back, and worse than ever. And since it seems to be targeting Buffy, I thought it'd make sense to warn you it might decide to take a whack at the other Slayer, too."
"Huh... First Evil... " Faith said musingly, giving him a puzzled look before her expression cleared up. "Wait – you mean that thing that fucked with Angel's head way back when, and tried to get him to either off B or go sunbathing?"
"Yup. That be the one." Xander nodded and added, "Thanks to all the 'From beneath you it devours' cracks that D'Hoffryn and a few others made, and some other stuff that's happened lately, we eventually figured out how that thing is what's constantly been showing up over the past three months – and messing with Buffy's head."
Faith arched her eyebrows and gave him a curious look. "So, concerned – or just wanting to make sure the Big Evil wasn't trying to recruit me?"
Xander sent her his best 'oh come on', look, but she held her ground and stared him down. After a long moment, that lopsided half-grin spread across his lips and Harris shrugged helplessly. "Six of one, half a dozen of the other, maybe?"
"'Least you're honest about it." Faith snickered, and nodded. "OK. I'll watch out for dead people showin' up and screwing with me," she decided, still nodding. "Thanks. So – the 'why me' now?"
Xander shrugged again, looking contemplative. "Why not you? I mean, Joyce is dead. Giles is still in England – "
"Can't believe Jeeves actually took off and left B to put herself back together, after that whole 'dig yourself outta your grave' thing," Faith interrupted disgustedly.
"Yeah, me neither," Xander replied, nodding. "And I let him know it, too, before he took Willow to England at the start of last summer. But anyway, Dawn is still too young. Willow is still too damaged. Anya is still the woman I left at the altar. Buffy is still too different from before she was resurrected. Spike? I wouldn't turn to him for a sympathetic or understanding ear, even if he was the only other person left on Earth. Cordy? Haven't really seen or talked to her for three years now, apart from when she briefly showed up for Joyce's funeral. And it's not like my work buddies know the truth about that part of my life, so – who? Who else knows the score and all the players?"
Faith simply looked at him, before she cocked her head and said, "What about Angel and the rest of his crew?"
"Huh?" Xander blinked at her.
"Fang and his gang of sidekicks, including your ex-girlfriend," Faith said forcefully, examining him carefully. "Hey, Angel knows the score and the team; plus, he's a good listener and he knows the whole 'messed up life' thing inside and out."
"Me and Dead Boy having a heart to heart?" Xander looked at her askance. "Oh, sure, I can see that ending well. Especially since Lord of the Brood and I can barely stand to be in the same room together. Weasley the Watcher Wonder? Oh please. And like I said, Cordelia... "
"Totally hates your guts, 'cause you cheated on her way back when?"
"I dunno, Faith. I mean, we parted on OK terms up until the big last fight when I drove her to L.A., but I haven't really spoken with her since high school," Xander shrugged yet again. "When was the last time you talked with any of the people you went to school with?"
"Good point, seein' as I dropped out in ninth grade and never went back that decade, or ever." Faith had to give him that one. "But I dunno, Xander. It's not like I was ever best buds with the Prom Queen – "
"You can say that again. Cordy never really liked you, even when you were one of us," Xander interrupted.
"But," Faith said, plowing right over the interruption, "as I remember it, you and the Cheerleader used to do the huge fight thing about once a day, followed by falling on each other's lips and heading for the nearest janitor closet. And while I may not know much about relationships, hell – even I could tell there was more there than just lust and groping."
"That was a long time ago," Xander said tiredly. "Before Cordy found Willow and me swapping spit in that factory basement, and then she got impaled through the stomach by that rebar."
"Hey," Faith said, shrugging. "She apparently forgave you enough to let you drive her outta town."
"There's something extremely well-put about how you phrased that," Xander replied, looking at her askance again.
"It's a knack," Faith said, smirking. "So, you still haven't answered the question."
Xander gazed at her through the glass with a half-curious, half-critical appraisal. "You've changed, you know? I can tell."
"Changed how?"
"The Faith I remember would have made at least a dozen dirty jokes and comments about sex, by this point. Not just the one or two. And by the way, don't think I've forgotten about that 'seven minutes' wisecrack," Xander told her with a slight scowl. "You remember, while you were pretending to be Buffy?"
"Yeah, yeah, moving along," Faith said uncomfortably. "I mean, getting back to you and Cordelia? You guys weren't just bitter ex's by the time I ended up in a coma, right?"
"I guess. Uh, there was that... incident during Senior Prom. And then we skipped fifth period together right before Graduation. And sixth. And seventh. But that was mostly 'oh my God we're both going to die tomorrow!' sex. And that one time after Graduation was – well, I dunno what really happened that night, how we ended up together that way," he admitted uncomfortably.
Faith smirked. "So, you gonna go talk to her? You need someone that knows more about all these people and situations than me, Xander. And a sympathetic ear."
"We are talking about the same Queen C, right?"
"You know, you can quit being an obtuse jackass any time you want to, right?" Faith asked, staring him down again.
Xander glared back, but then sighed. "Yeah, so?"
"So, I think you ought to look Cordelia up and talk to her about all the crap you've been going through since high school ended. And before, maybe. And the sooner the better."
"Why?" Xander looked at her warily, like he was considering whether she might really still be nuts.
Faith sighed. "Because at some point, dipshit, you have to just stop. Hit pause, reassess, and get closure on all that stuff – or it all builds and builds, and then a valve goes pop on the old sanity pressure cooker, and you'll end up just like me." Faith saw Xander's raised eyebrows and added, "State-mandated therapy for the past two and a half years. A must for all the inmates. I know the jargon."
"Huh." Xander looked thoughtful for a moment. "Therapy. Sounds good. Maybe I can recommend it to Buffy, despite the bad experiences she's had with shrinks like Maggie Walsh."
"I wouldn't, if I were you. Hell, even if half of what I've heard is true, it'll only get B pissed off at you. Especially if you bring up her vampire lovers," Faith shook her head, wondering how the other Slayer had ended up preferring men without a pulse to those that did. { Being pulled out of Heaven musta seriously screwed with her head or something... }
"Guess you're right." Xander sighed and shook his own head, adding, "Still, I'm not sure. Like I said, I haven't even seen Cordy since Joyce's memorial service – and even then, there wasn't exactly much with the talking. Uncomfortable for both of us."
"And you have exactly what to lose by trying it?" Faith asked, bluntly. She stared at him until Xander squirmed uncomfortably under her gaze. "Go. Talk to her. Talk to someone, jeez. Don't make me break outta here and kick your butt, fella!"
Faith suddenly saw the guard looking at her watch and gesturing that their time was almost up. Lasted longer than she'd expected, actually – Edie must've given them a bit more than the usual allotted.
Xander also got it, apparently. "Looks like I gotta go," he said, obviously using it as a means of sidestepping the whole 'talking to Cordelia' thing. Not a problem, in Faith's view: she'd handed him the ball, up to him to run with it... "And Faith, thanks for listening to me babble on about all that."
"No prob. Not like I had anything better to do," Faith shrugged yet again. "Thanks for the heads-up, guy."
"Yeah... " Xander paused and then added, "Not a problem, really."
"Sh'yeah, right. Almost a what, five hour drive or more, both ways? I'm thinking it's putting you out more than a little bit, boy-toy," Faith said, shaking her head.
Xander remained silent for a moment, looking uncomfortable. "Uh... damn it." He glanced down at his hand clenched on the counter, and then back up at her, looking her squarely in the eyes. "I gotta ask. Faith, was there... could I have done anything different? That night in your motel room, I mean? Or even afterwards?"
Faith blinked. Then she shook her head slowly. "Naw. Don't beat yourself up over that, Xan. I was already majorly on the downhill slide by then. Couldn't trust anyone enough for them to have made any difference, not in any way that mattered."
"Ah." Holding her gaze for a long moment, Xander nodded abruptly. "All right. What about now? As in: is there anything I can do for you now?"
Faith shook her head again, feeling an unaccustomed tightness and warmth in her chest. Forcing a smirk on to her face, she tossed her hair to the side and said lightly, "I'm tellin' ya, make it a conjugal visit next time. Get our ungh on, relieve that pressure at the base of the skull and elsewhere... we'll both get a world of good out of it."
"Pop like a pair of champagne corks?" Xander suggested, waggling his eyebrows.
"Oh, hell yeah," Faith said, laughing quietly and leaning forward. "What I promised Spike? That's nothing compared to what I'd give someone I actually gave a rat's ass about."
Xander laughed and shook his head slightly, letting it go. "Don't even, Faith. Besides, isn't that only for spouses?" he asked, his tone equally light.
Laughing, Faith shrugged and gave him an impish look. "Hey – common law husband. We shared like a domicile once, remember?"
"Vaguely, yeah," Xander admitted, laughing back quietly, but then he sobered up and looked at her seriously. "Faith, look – are you sure you wanna stay here? I mean, Slayer, and if you're actually rehabilitated now... well, maybe it wouldn't be the worst idea imaginable if you busted out and came back – "
"No. I'm not going anywhere; because I killed people, Xander. Maybe you were right that night I almost strangled you to death, and Finch was semi-accidental; but that Lester Wirth guy, I killed him just 'cause Wilkins asked. Not to mention what I did to you, to Wes, and a lot of other people – including Cordy. I made my choices, and now I gotta live with them," Faith said firmly.
"Twenty-five years to life, though?" Xander asked, as he got up.
"That's what you get for pissing off Wolfram & Hart," Faith said simply, pressing her hand against the glass for a moment and standing up as well. "And hey: thanks again for dropping by."
"You're welcome. And I mean that," Xander said sincerely. "G'bye, Faith."
"So long, Xander." Hesitating for a moment, Faith licked her lips, and added, "Hey," causing him to pause with the phone still to his ear and give her an inquiring look. "I kept the letters," she blurted out.
"Huh?"
"Both of them, the two you wrote me," Faith admitted, slowly turning red because hey, she was almost babbling in embarrassment here and she didn't do that shit. "Never answered but I kept them, y'know?"
"Cool," Xander replied, nodding. "Good to know. Take care, Faith."
"Later, Xan."
Hanging up the phone, Faith turned slowly and faced the doorway, waiting quietly until the guard opened up and came in to get her.
On the way back to the cell block, Edie gave her a curious look and said, way too casually, "Good-looking guy. Yours?"
"Kinda, once," Faith admitted hesitantly. "Thanks for giving us a bit of extra there."
"Slow day, Convict. No skin off my nose for you to have a few more minutes."
Nodding, Faith said, "Yeah, well... thanks."
"Didn't know you had a guy," Edie replied, still looking and sounding curious. "Other than your friend, that night owl who used to come around 'n visit."
"What can I say? Not much on the whole sharing thing," Faith replied. "Common law husband," she added, smirking. "All estranged and shit now, though."
"Ah. Tell him to put in for a conjugal visit next time, then."
"Already did, yeah."
Many hours later – garden of the Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles; early evening:
"I'm telling you, swingers, there's no way this can fail."
Lorne didn't need to be anagogic to be able to read the skeptical look on Angel's face, before the souled vampire replied, "Really? 'Cause somehow, that phrase always seems to precede, uh, what's the word I'm searching for? Oh yeah – failing."
"Oh, please, crumb-cake," Lorne replied, giving his undead friend a hurt look. "That jinxing thing – well, I won't say it never works, but not this time. This is the true goods here," he added, hefting the bottle after retrieving it from Cordelia's hands.
"You really think this will work?" Little Miss Memory Problems asked, her eyes searching his carefully.
"Certainly," Lorne nodded. "My contact – she deals in memory spells professionally. Now she swears up and down that with the right mix, we can stop all this talking and cut to the Cordelia Chase in two ticks of a... ticking thing."
"Watch?" Cordelia said, raising an eyebrow.
Lorne briefly pointed at her, smiling, and said, "That would do it, Princess."
Shaking his head, Angel gave him a still-dubious look. "I don't know," he said. "Spells... I don't trust them."
"Which is funny you should say that," Lorne replied meaningfully. "Considering how many you've used in the course of your work here."
Angel spread his hands, not being able to argue the point effectively.
"Well, I don't care," Cordelia said, standing. "I'm in."
Standing up as well, Angel said, "Cordy, I just – "
"I don't care," Cordelia cut him off at once. "Pain, side effects, this thing turns me into a moussaka... I'm happy. As long as I can remember that I'm a moussaka."
"Don't even worry about it, sweetie," Lorne said reassuringly. "I've got all the ingredients lined up. As soon as we gather the six, we'll be good to go."
Lorne headed into the hotel, with Cordelia turning to follow him. He felt more than saw Angel blink, staring after them, before the vampire said: "Uh... the six what?"
A while later – the Hyperion Hotel, en route to Cordelia Chase's suite; early evening:
Angel was, to say the least, a bit preoccupied.
Otherwise, he might have given a bit more thought to the social niceties than he was sometimes prone to do, even at the best of times. Namely, instead of simply barging into Cordelia's private room, he might have knocked on the door and then waited outside for her to invite him in.
After all, just barging into her room without knocking wasn't something that he would have done back when, say, the Groosalugg was her boyfriend.
However, at the moment, the social niceties were a bit far down the list of things on Angel's mind. Because all he could think about was that Cordelia had lost her memory – and that as part of the plan to 'fix' her, Lorne had asked Wesley to come to the hotel to participate in the magical ritual in question.
That was not something that made him happy, given that he had tried to murder the ex-Watcher last year in a bout of grief-stricken rage – and Angel couldn't be entirely certain that Wes wouldn't try to return the favor at some point, despite how the British man had rescued him from his watery grave a few months ago.
So he simply pushed the door open and walked into Cordelia's room.
A moment later – Cordelia Chase's suite, Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles; early evening:
Cordelia saw Angel enter her room, just as she was stepping out of the bathroom and wrapping a towel around herself. "Oh!" she squeaked.
"Oh! I'm sorry," Angel said at once. He hastily turned around, averting his gaze as she frowned and finished wrapping the towel more securely around herself. "I didn't mean – "
"So," Cordelia interrupted him, "you're perfectly OK with just wandering into my room any old time. That fits the 'we were in love' theory and the sexual harassment theory pretty much equally."
"I just – " Angel frowned, turning back around to face her. "There was no harassment, OK?"
"Oh?" Cordelia arched an eyebrow. "What about that stuff you mentioned about the ballet and the, uh, roundness?"
"Roundness, right... " Angel visibly jerked himself back from wherever his mind had gone and said hurriedly, "There was no harassment, all right?"
"Which brings us back to the 'were we in love' question," Cordelia replied, nodding. "Or do you just wander into all the girls' rooms around here without knocking? Should I ask Fred?"
"No!" Angel practically growled. "No. I, ah, look, I just came up to tell you that Lorne's almost ready for us to start, that memory spell and everything."
"Oh. All right," Cordelia said, nodding. Gesturing down at her towel-encased body, she added, "I just... I wanted to clean up a bit. Connor and I are not exactly staying at the Mondrian."
Angel blinked at the mention of his son. "How is he?" he asked, as neutrally as he could.
Snorting, Cordelia said, "He's eighteen. He's a mess." Going to her closet, she began rummaging through her outfits. "There's a lot of pain in him. I think it helps, having me there."
"Good," Angel said, nodding. "That's good. Well, like I said, we're almost ready. So I'll be, uh, waiting downstairs." Turning away, he started to leave.
"Angel? You still haven't answered my question," Cordelia said, stepping back from the closet, and turning slightly to face him. "The 'were we in love' one."
Angel sighed, again. "I've already given you the only answer I can, Cordy... hopefully, you'll get the answer for yourself soon," he said. Exiting the room, he pulled the door shut behind him.
"Alternately," Cordelia said aloud. "If I wait for you to commit to an answer, I can open an ice-skating rink Down Below and make a fortune while I'm waiting. Men."
Sighing, she stepped back into her closet and chose a low-cut, long-sleeved dark blouse with a delicate floral print, and a pair of cream-colored slacks. After a moment, she also grabbed a complementary shoulder bag.
Getting dressed and finishing up with putting on her makeup, Cordelia set about transferring her wallet and personal items into the handbag she'd selected, before standing up to leave. Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she took one last quick look around to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything.
Seeing nothing in particular, Cordelia exited the room as quickly as she could.
Time to get this show on the road...
TBC…
A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter and thanks again to everyone who's reviewed and sent feedback! It's greatly appreciated, as it does for us what linoleum does for
Xander... okay, not quite, but it does make us happy! So please, keep it coming. OK, the stage is now set for us to get really stuck into the events of "Spin The Bottle", and see just how different it all could have turned out. Hope you stay tuned until next time!
