"What was the vision for, anyway?" She spoke aloud, allowing her voice to echo off the concrete walls. "She wants to die." Cordelia paused, feeling a chill dance up her spine and raise the tiny blond hairs that stuck to her tan skin. "I can't blame her."
"Nor can I," Wesley frowned, looking up from his book long enough to descend the staircase. "It says here that a slayer in Germany at the turn of the last century threw herself from a bridge on her nineteenth birthday. By that time, she had been a vampire slayer for three years. Vampires had killed most of her village, her family, and even a man she had taken an interest in. She was tormented by dreams and could no longer sleep. She knew the fight would continue; that another Slayer would be called."
"Buffy's been a slayer for almost ten years." Cordelia frowned, counting the years on her fingers. "And she's died twice."
"Yes. She's continued fighting the same fight, over and over, probably longer than any other vampire slayer in history." Wesley sat down on the arm of the sofa, precariously balanced on the edge. Closing the volume of Watcher Diaries in his arms, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small vibrating device.
"Has he been calling you as well?"
"Constantly. He's really mastered the technology," Cordelia frowned. Wesley's phone finally stopped buzzing, but automatically, Cordelia's started up again. Reluctantly, she clicked a green button on the left hand side of the screen and placed it against her ear.
"Why haven't you been answering?" Angel nearly screamed into the phone. A melody of 80's pop hits played in the background, much louder than was necessary for elevator music.
"Where are you?" Cordelia asked, responding to his question with one of her own.
"I'm at the grocery store around the corner."
"Um…why?"
"I wanted to get her something to eat. She looks like she hasn't eaten in weeks. Why didn't you answer?"
"Wes and I were studying these Watcher Diaries and I guess we got distracted."
"Do you think she'd like oatmeal?" Angel asked, though his voice was distant, as though he were speaking through a tunnel.
"What?" Cordelia squeaked into the phone.
"Oatmeal! With little chunky things in it. It says strawberry. Freeze-dried strawberry."
"It sounds terrible."
"You know, when I was alive, food was much more normal. If you wanted oatmeal, you had oatmeal. And it wasn't…why does this one have a dinosaur cartoon on it?"
"Angel, I'm hanging up. I can barely hear anything you're saying."
"Wait! Cordy!" He paused, fumbled with a box of donuts, and then returned his attention to the conversation. "Has she woken up? Have you talked to her?"
"No."
"You lied," Wes commented quietly, re-addressing the German volume. He flipped through the old pages of hand written text until he arrived at an entry he'd been studying.
"What was I supposed to say? Her story hasn't changed? She didn't ask for you? Come home right now, with your oatmeal, and sit over her, worrying!"
"Relax," Wes frowned, lifting his eyes. His glasses slid down to the end of his nose, so that he ended up peering over them at her, squinting to get a better look at her. "I wasn't accusing you of anything. I was commenting. You lied to him."
"Maybe we'll get lucky and I'll get another vision about another woman we can't really help. Then we can distract him and let this whole thing blow over."
"I guess it couldn't hurt to close your eyes and blow out some birthday candles."
"You know, I was really looking forward to another chance to celebrate my nineteenth birthday."
The sounds of crinkling plastic were effectively diminished by the whistling of an abandoned tea kettle on the small stove set up in Angel's underground apartment. Frowning, the vampire reached out a massive translucent hand and retrieved the kettle from the burner, swearing through clenched teeth when the aluminum pot scalded his palm.
"Angel?" Buffy's voice drifted out over the remaining echo of the teapot. She shuffled between the sheets and slid out onto the floor. The door creaked as she pushed it open, exited the bedroom, and padded across the uncarpeted cement to stand quietly beside the kitchen table.
"Sorry, I…maybe you should sit." Angel paused, fumbling over the words he couldn't express. His eyes traced Buffy's malnourished figure, the way she leaned over slightly and held a palm reluctantly against her ribcage. The clothes Cordelia had dressed her in hung loosely like sails in the doldrums. And he could swear that her skin was even more pale than his own.
"I've been lying down all day." Buffy answered plainly, minus the spirited quips and quick wit that he associated to her speech. Her hands dove into the plastic bag on the counter, expecting to fish out a few pints of pig's blood. Instead, she pulled out an assortment of junk foods. "What's all this?"
"I thought you might get hungry while you were…uh, recovering."
"Ooo, did you know that these snack cakes can survive an apocalypse?" Buffy chuckled half-heartedly, pulling out a saran wrapped package of pink cakes coated in coconut.
"I had no idea." Angel smirked, pouring hot tea water into a coffee mug.
"You know, I always thought milk was the only kind of drink that could go all…lumpy. Ew." Buffy frowned, crinkled her forehead, and finally stuck out her tongue. A clot of coagulated blood plopped into Angel's mug, making a loud, hollow splash. Buffy pushed the mug away in disgust, then tossed the plastic container into a trash can beside his counter.
"It's really okay. I can pour it. And you can eat this…why did I buy this?" Angel held out one of the snowball pink cakes, turning it over and over in his hand. It was lighter than a ping pong ball, and, he thought, about as edible.
"Beats me. But I think you should be the first to eat it. I don't want to die consuming something that looks like one of Cordelia's old pom poms."
Angel stopped, dropping the cake. It rolled across the table and onto the floor, finally coming to rest against the leg of a chair. Sensing a disturbance in the quiet air of the small room, Buffy set down Angel's empty, blood-soaked mug. It echoed for a moment, and then the sound petered out completely.
"I…sorry. I didn't mean to…" She frowned and let the words die out.
"I can't let you die, Buffy." The reply was obvious, unnecessary. She'd known it from the moment she'd awoken in his bed. "The Powers…Cordy's vision…they wouldn't have brought you here…"
"Willow woke me when she shouldn't have." Buffy began steadily. She leaned back against the counter, crossed her arms uneasily over her chest, and darted her eyes to the floor. "Spike once told me that I came back wrong, different somehow. And he was right. I came back incomplete." She stopped, lifting her eyes to catch his face. Angel had stopped looking at her. His gaze drifted over to the sad little snack cake resting on the floor. "For five years, I've been living day to day, trying to fix myself. I thought if I just kept moving, fighting, slaying, that eventually I'd just figure out what was wrong. What's wrong is that I'm living and I should be dead. I should be watching over you, not standing beside you. Maybe the Powers, whatever they are, maybe they brought me here so that I could say goodbye. Maybe they led me here because you're the only one who can send me back to where I need to go."
"You're asking me to kill you, Buffy." Angel spoke so softly, she wasn't sure at first that she'd heard him at all.
"I'm asking you to kill me, Angel. I'm asking you to save me."