Angel didn't want to wake up. He didn't want his senses to begin processing and not smell her, to open his eyes and not see her, to sit up and put his hand beside him and not feel her there, not even feel the evidence that she had been there at all. He lay there in the hazy place between sleeping and waking and wondered why it felt like Buffy had fallen asleep in his arms just last night, when last night hadn't even happened.

Technically though, it should have been last night, or was it the night before last? Anyway, it shouldn't have been two days ago, and Cordelia was dead.

He didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to think about anything.

In Montana in the 1930s, he had met a Native American who had learned a technique that forced sleep onto the body. The Indian had used it to commune with his guardian spirits. Angel had learned the technique, thinking it would calm his fitful slumbers. After the first three times he had used the technique on but rare occasions. Angel had found out he didn't want to be visited by his guardian spirits. They were the same as his nightmares, and the nightmares were what made his sleep so restless in the first place.

He used it now, though, because memories of the day that wasn't and Cordelia's death at the same time was too much. Hopefully, his spirits would only include Cordelia. The memories of Buffy from that day were the stuff dreams were made of—not nightmares. He didn't think the spirits could twist them into something more damaging than the obliteration of those dreams already had. And so, he slept.

Twenty-five minutes later, he shot up in bed, groggy and aware that something was seriously wrong. This wasn't right. How had he ended up in his . . .

Raking his hand through his hair, Angel got out of bed. The covers fell away, and he realized he was naked. He'd gone to sleep—on the floor—in sweats and a wife-beater last night. He remembered now. But how had he gotten . . . He seriously doubted anyone would want to strip him—well, Buffy might but she . . .

She wasn't even here.

She'd gone to sleep with Willow in his bed last night, but she wasn't here. And Willow wasn't either—which was good, because waking up naked beside Willow would've been just plain weird. And Giles wasn't on the futon and Xander wasn't on the couch. It was as if they had never been here at all.

As if yesterday hadn't happened.

Angel jerked open a dresser drawer and pulled out some loose-fitting clothes. He almost didn't bother. As it was, he was tripping over himself to pull the garments on. He didn't even bother buttoning up the shirt by the time he was rushing up the stairs.

She was there, talking to Doyle, sitting next to him and chatting and smiling as if nothing had ever happened. Apparently, nothing had. Angel had never thought Cordelia looked more beautiful.

She stopped talking as she saw him, and Doyle turned to him, concern in his eyes. There was anxiety and criticism in Cordelia's, but—no death. No despair and no bliss, no resurrection. Just . . . Cordelia. Upturned lips and mole on her jaw-bone, doe eyes and perfect make-up. Cordelia.

Angel didn't like hugging people. Or, it wasn't that he didn't like it, but rather that the demon in him liked it too much. Buffy had been different, of course. Touching her had inflamed his vampiric senses, yes—but touching her had also inflamed his soul, filled it with so much hope and light that most of the time, it had been easy to subdue the demon. In fact, being with Buffy had pushed the demon down further than he was usually able to manage on his own. Touching her made him feel like a man, never a monster.

Not so with other humans. Feeling warm flesh and blood pumping under his hands spiked the bloodlust like nothing else could—except maybe the scent of blood itself—and it was better if he reminded himself of what he was and what he could never be by holding himself away from the human world, even from physical contact.

But seeing Cordelia whole and alive and in front of him stirred something rare in Angel, and he wanted desperately to touch her to make sure she was real. She and Doyle had stood, and he walked the remaining steps between them slowly. He touched her shoulder, and then found her pulse.

"Um, Angel? You're still Angel, right?"

"Cordelia. You're—you're—" Without trying to make sense of it, he pulled her to him for a brief moment, and then let go.

"Whoa, that was—" Cordelia stopped talking as he ran his hands over her arms, as he pulled her a little closer again to look over her shoulder at her back, as his hands moved to her waist and skimmed up her chest to her neck, to make sure it was unbroken. "Hey!" Cordelia snapped. "Hands off my—Angel, did you do it with—Buffy!—'s here . . . in town . . ."

Angel hastily stopped touching Cordelia and turned around. Buffy was standing in the door way, wearing the same skirt as yesterday and the same expression she had worn when she put the sword through his stomach—though this time she looked as if he had put it through hers. Angel glanced back at Cordelia, then back to Buffy. "She's alive," Angel said, by way of explanation.

"Of course she's alive," Cordelia said, swatting him and stepping away. "You were in Sunnydale these past three days so you could save her? Hello? And what's with the feel up? Have you been stroking the talking stick again? Because that's not all you were just strok—"

"This," Angel said, gesturing at Cordelia futilely, "this isn't—wasn't—it's not what you think."

Buffy backed up a step, looking more nauseated than anything else. "You actually think I can form a thought right now?"

"Buffy—"

Cordelia was looking from Buffy to Angel, and suddenly, her face twisted in revulsion and amusement. "Wait, you think I—"

"Can it, Cordelia," Angel said. He was just standing there, watching Buffy.

"I think," Buffy said, swallowing. "I think I'll just come back later." She waved hazily in Cordelia's direction and walked out of the office. Angel quickly followed.

"Oh great," he heard Cordelia say behind him. "Here comes Hurricane Buffy."

A tiny part of Angel that wasn't Angelus at all wondered why he'd been so glad Cordelia wasn't dead after all.

"Buffy," Angel said, sticking his hand into the shafts of sunlight streaming through the windows on the front door of the building. He ignored the burning flesh and sting of smoke in his nostrils and jerked the Slayer back, pinning her against the wall of the hallway so that they both stood in the shadows. "Buffy," he repeated, more gently. "You don't honestly think I . . . with Cordelia."

Buffy's eyes met his, searching his. "No," she said finally.

Angel blinked. "Good." He should have let her go, then, but somehow his hands could not stop holding her.

Buffy looked away again, and said suddenly, "I don't know. I don't . . . People do . . . crazy things on the rebound."

It was true, people did crazy things. But not him, and not . . . her? Angel's hands convulsed on her, his grip suddenly tightening. He wondered vaguely whether he was hurting her. People did crazy things. People. Buffy?

Abruptly, he let her go. She still refused to look at him, which told him almost as much as her eyes would have had she been able to meet his. "Yes, but . . . Cordelia?" he asked at last, softly.

"Well, I heard she works for you," Buffy said, shrugging, relaxing. "I mean, that's at least a little crazy, isn't it?"

Angel gave her a little more space. "Yeah," he said, raking a hand through his hair. "Yeah, it is." He paused. "She's good. She's different. You'd be surprised."

At last, Buffy met his eyes, and smiled. It was a resigned smile, an understanding smile, a smile he didn't remember high school Buffy having. It was a smile you smiled when you'd known the person in front of you all your life and you'd both just made a foolish error. "Better watch out saying she's good," she said at last. "Because apparently, previously unbeknownst to myself, I have the capacity to be a real hypocritical bitch when the jealous whim takes me."

Angel gave her a wry, half-smile back, but it didn't come as easy as he knew it looked. Hypocritical? Had it been hypocritical of her to think that he might be involved with Cordelia? Or had the hypocrisy been in being upset because of it? Because she had said people did crazy things . . . while on rebound.

It had only been a couple months. Had Buffy . . . Already?

The possibility of it made both the demon and the soul roar in jealousy within him, but the emotion that capped it, that burned through even hotter than both the demon and his own inner darkness could protest, was remorse. Had he really left her so . . . needy? If what he was reading from her responses was true . . .

Damn him, she was just a child, and sometimes she made it so easy to forget that. No—not a child, a young woman, he corrected himself. Of course she would want . . . Dammit, he had left her so she could have a normal guy, a normal life—so she could be a normal teenager and have a normal college experience and have normal sex.

But . . . Already?

For the first time, looking at her standing there and realizing that she would throw herself into the life he'd left her so she could have—because Buffy never let herself be a victim of anyone, even of the man she loved—Angel doubted his motives. Hadn't he left expecting that she'd secretly spend her life waiting for him; hadn't part of him wanted her to pine away for him? Hadn't he secretly hoped that they would die without each other just to prove to the rest of the world that they should never be apart?

Angel went to touch her cheek, and then, remembering, dropped his hand. "It's alright," he said simply. "I get taken by the jealous whims too."

Buffy's smile widened, even the chagrin falling away now. She knew that it was going to be alright between them, and he knew he did want those things he had left Buffy so she could have. It just wasn't going to be easy. "Yeah, but you're right," Buffy was saying. "I mean . . . over Cordelia?"

Angel's lips quirked and he lifted a brow. "Xander?"

"Well, there was that," Buffy ceded, rolling her eyes. "But I did dance the nasty with him. Cordelia . . . well, you only . . ."

"Copped a feel," Angel suggested.

"Yeah," Buffy said, her nose wrinkling. "Lots of them. With your shirt unbuttoned. Come to think of it, what were you doing?"

Suddenly, reality came crashing back down from wherever it went when he got to touch Buffy, and Angel glanced down at her skirt again. It was much easier to figure out this time. She wasn't the First Evil, and she wasn't just committing a fashion repetition faux pas. And if she was, Cordelia was alive to point it out to her, which meant, quite obviously . . . that today was yesterday. Again.

Angel sighed, leaning into the wall beside Buffy. "It's a long story," he said. "I think we need to—"

"Maybe we shouldn't," Buffy said quietly, taking a step away. "I mean, I only came to see you—"

"—To tell me face to face—" Angel began to finish for her, when a crashing of glass sent him dashing into his inner office.

He was seeing the events he hadn't seen yesterday play out in slow motion. Doyle was rushing into the office; Cordelia was running away. The Mohra was waving the sword wildly at Doyle, and his half-demon co-worker was . . . falling and hitting his head on a desk. Cordelia was screaming, turning around to rush back in—

And Angel was there, picking up his clock—

—hey, it'd worked before—

—and smashing it into the demon's forehead.

There was a flash of white light, and Buffy, in fighting stance beside him, dropped her fists, turned to him, and said, "That was unreal. How did you know how to kill it?"

Angel brought the clock down slowly and placed it on the desk. The face said nine o' three. "Like I said," he murmured, "it's a long story."

It was then that Cordelia screamed.

To Be Continued . . .
Disclaimer: Lines stolen from AtS S1.8 "I Will Remember You" and S1.someteen "Sanctuary."