"Wes!" She blinked, sitting straight up and nearly falling out of her seat. "Wow, I actually own that stuff?"
"Huh? Oh, Dennis recommended, or should I say threw, them at me."
"I don't know if Buffy has any relatives except her Mom. And I think Mrs. Summers passed away,"
"Oh, yes, right. Well, there was a woman on the phone earlier…"
"Hold on," Cordelia held up a finger and rushed back to the door, pressing her ear against the wall.
"What? What's happening?" Wes asked, leaving the clothes on a sofa cushion.
"You came to…I don't understand." Angel murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. Something in his voice seemed to shiver. His hands reached down to pull one small, thin palm against his chest.
"I can't live like this anymore," Buffy replied, though her energy was fading fast. She couldn't remember the last time she'd sated her hunger or thirst, the last time she'd slept for longer than an hour, the last time she'd stopped running and fighting and tempting death. "That is, if you call this living."
Her breasts, clamped tight within the soiled brassiere, rose toward Angel's chest as her lungs filled with air. By the time she exhaled, releasing the air through her nostrils, she'd fallen back into unconsciousness. Her eyes, ringed with blue violet circles, had fallen closed. The hand Angel had clamped between his fingers fell limp. Frowning, he placed her palm down against the sheets, lightly smoothing her skin with the tip of his thumb. Buffy made no move to response, no stir, no recognition at all. As quietly as he could, Angel lifted the antiseptic and another cloth. In silence, he resumed cleaning her wounds, sticky with clotted blood and grime.
"You heard everything," Angel frowned as he stuck a strip of medical tape to Buffy's flesh, securing a large square of sterile gauze over the wound that sliced her abdomen. Behind him, Cordelia hovered in the doorway, holding the clothes Wes had brought from her apartment.
"Yeah," she replied, sinking into the room and carefully shutting the door behind her.
"Tell me what to say, Cordy." At last, he turned around, slumped off the bed, and faced her. Though it wasn't obvious to the naked eye, every part of him trembled. In all the time she'd known him, all the times they'd fought and come too close to death, Cordelia had never seen him terrified.
He shuffled the soles of his shoes against the cold cement floor, skirting past Cordelia and falling into a straight-backed chair that creaked beneath his weight. Instantly, his heavy skull dropped into a pair of large, pale hands, strained with empty blue veins. His back arched forward, straining the silky cloth of his shirt, threatening to tear through the seams and expose the soft translucent skin beneath.
"How do I comfort her?" He begged. "How can I ask her to go on living?"
"I…" Cordelia sighed, placing a delicate palm on Angel's slouching shoulder. It was unusual to be speechless in times like these. For years now, she'd known just what to say to offer him comfort, even in the face of Buffy's tragic death. You're a living, breathing -- well a living, anyway -- good guy who's still fighting and trying to help people. That's not betraying her, that's honoring her. But what do you say when the person you love wants to die? "I don't know."
"Being chosen is a difficult path," Wes murmured behind them, lifting his eyes from the pages of a stout volume. "Buffy has dealt with a slayer's burden for much longer than any woman before her."
"What are you saying, Wes? She's due to expire?" Cordelia snapped. Beside her, the brooding vampire seemed to droop even closer to the floor.
"I'm not saying that. I just mean…perhaps we should just try to make her comfortable."
"She's not going to die," Angel growled, his voice taking on a vicious quality. "Not again." It was abrupt, how he got to his feet, when only a moment ago he'd been sinking into the hard, cold floor.
"Buffy isn't just another vampire slayer." He paused to linger in the bedroom door frame, to stare for a moment at the young woman lying between his sheets. "She's a champion."
"Even champions die, Angel." Wes spoke softly, though he closed the book and placed it calmly back on the shelf.
"Dig up the Watchers' diaries. Every single last one you can find, I want them on my desk by tomorrow night." Angel barked out, staring intently at Wes beneath a heavy, shaded brow. "Cordelia,"
"I'll get her cleaned up," Cordelia offered glumly.
"Thanks Cordy. I need to…I have some errands I need to run." Leather slapped against his spine as he heaved a jacket on, stretching the fabric out over his wide shoulders. "I'll be back soon." He paused at the stairwell, only half-listening to the sound of footsteps as Wes trekked around the office upstairs. "Call me if she wakes up."
Cool rivulets of water trickled down her skin, digging into imperfect crevices to erode away the dirty crust that had caked her flesh. Humming faintly, Cordelia dipped a small wash rag into a basin of water on the end table. Squeezing it in her fist, she wrung out the excess and swiped the cloth once more against Buffy's bare skin. Chunks of dirt, mixed with rust-scented dry blood wiped away, revealing the soft radiance of the Slayer's white skin.
Discarding the cloth, Cordelia bunched up either edge of the tank top Wes had brought from her place. Lifting Buffy's head gently, she slid the top over her crown and pulled it down around her neck, as though she were dressing a doll.
"I don't think he can watch you die again," she murmured, pulling out one of Buffy's spindly arms into its hole. "I know you came to say goodbye, but…Buffy, I've never seen him so scared."
"I didn't know where else to go," Buffy whispered hoarsely, peering up through half-lidded green eyes. Cordelia stared back down, blinking rapidly, brushing hair out of her eyes to get a better look at the corpse-like woman staring back at her.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."
"I thought if I ran far enough, I'd eventually feel alive again." Buffy continued, sitting up slowly. She pressed her hands into the mattress, squeaking the springs beneath a layer of quilted fabric. "But I'm just tired."
"Death isn't the answer, Buffy." Cordelia sighed, swinging her legs off the edge of the bed. She contemplated continuing with her thoughts or getting up to dial Angel's cell. He'd want to know she was up and talking. "I had a vision. The Powers that Be wanted Angel to find you, to rescue you."
"The only thing I want to be rescued from is this…this life."