Cordelia looked round at the others, amused. Two days ago, they had defied a god, and seen the deathgate sealed. Now, they were back at school, living a thoroughly normal life.

Well, almost normal. Everyone was sitting round the library table, comparing notes about the last week's weirdness, but then it was the first time they'd all met up since that Sunday night.

'There was a fight,' Willow said, 'which must be when the hyenas got me. After that, it's all a blur.'

Cordelia looked thoughtfully at her bandages. 'So, you and Buffy don't remember what you did? Rhona seemed to.'

Caught out, Willow looked down at the library table.

Cordelia smiled sympathetically. She could understand why Willow had tried claiming amnesia, her behaviour in the pizza parlour would not be something she'd want to talk about, but if she denied remembering they couldn't give her any help getting over the experience. She didn't deserve any help, of course, not after the way she'd hurt Cordelia back in the original history. Still, she wasn't acting like the Willow who had seduced Xander. Looking into her troubled eyes right now, Cordelia could only see a girl who desperately needed help, not the arrogant witch that girl would become.

Well, Cordelia was one of the good people. She had always helped people who needed her, without having to be asked, and having Willow owe her a favour should prove useful. Besides, Xander was too clueless to realise what the pizza parlour incident meant.

'I remember bits,' Willow eventually said. 'I know we did ... bad things.'

'You don't have to talk about them,' Buffy said, glaring at Cordelia. 'Tell her, Giles.'

'It would be best not dwell on the memories,' Giles agreed, 'but a man was killed. I will need to know if you ... were involved. Acts like that can leave you more vulnerable to certain forms of black magic. You-'

'I wasn't there,' Buffy said quickly. 'I spent the night in the sewers, and they were new shoes too.'

Giles frowned. 'You didn't eat any of the demons you killed, did you?'

Buffy shook her head. 'They smelled ... wrong. I broke into a butcher's.'

'I, we, um-' Willow began.

'It wasn't you,' Xander said, smiling reassuringly. 'You don't wear miniskirts.'

Willow blushed faintly. 'It feels like me, in my memories, only not.'

Giles nodded. 'I may be able to help with that. I will need to know exactly what you and Buffy remember doing, but it's not something that should be discussed in public. I'll talk to you both in private later.'

'What about the others?' Xander asked, rubbing at the bandage on his forearm.

'Remember what the doctors told us,' Cordelia said, slapping his hand away, and Willow frowned.

'We're encouraging their families to leave Sunnydale,' Giles said, looking at Xander. 'Putting some distance between them and their memories should help, and it will reduce the risk of exposure to black magic.'

'What,' Willow asked abruptly, 'did you and Xander do while we were ... you know?'

'Not much,' Cordelia said, shrugging dismissively. Most of what they had done, they couldn't talk about.

Buffy frowned. 'You said that big explosion, Saturday night, was you.'

Xander smiled. 'That was Margo. There was this giant evil hand sleeping under Cordy's house. She blew it up with a magic cup.'

Cordelia nodded. 'All we did was watch.'

'And the next day you decided to fight a army of demons. I saw you,' Willow said, smiling. 'Why? I wouldn't have thought you'd do that, not because you're not brave enough, but because you're not very good at fighting, not good compared with Buffy that is. You didn't have any help apart from that magic circle, which didn't stop the demons getting inside it, just burned them a bit, and there were hundreds of demons out there, some of them very powerful, as far as I could tell. To fight alone against such odds you'd have to be, um, ...'

'Brave?' Cordelia suggested icily, then smiled. 'Not really. Margo gave me a magic tiara.'

'She did?' Willow gasped. 'What did it do?'

'Made her look stronger,' Xander said. 'Didn't you notice?'

'She did feel different,' Buffy said slowly. 'She still does. Both of you do. You feel ... safe, like home, like Giles.'

'They would,' he said. 'Dame Margo persuaded them to attend a remembrance ceremony that night. As a slayer, you can feel its lingering effects.'

'You let her cast a spell on them?' Willow said, looking at Giles. 'What did it do?'

'It wasn't a spell,' Giles said, then lied. 'It didn't do anything useful. It just marked us as good people, which is what Buffy can sense.'

'Oh,' Willow said, then looked at Xander. 'Margo didn't force you to do anything else?'

'She persuaded us to guard the funeral home,' Cordelia said, then smiled as if in fond reminiscence. 'She was a difficult person to say no to, though she did you'd managed to.'

That should divert Willow into boasting about her success rather than probing to find out what else Margo had done. They'd tell Willow eventually, of course, but it wasn't safe for her to know yet.

'I did,' she said, taking the bait. 'I shouldn't have. She'd have exorcised the hyena if I hadn't.'

'You mean she knew and didn't do anything?' Buffy said. 'But-'

'She knew about me,' Willow said. 'She can't have known about you, and I think I said no to too much.'

'This would have been on Friday night?' Giles said, nudging his glasses.

Willow nodded. 'After we'd 'accidentally' got separated from you and Buffy, Margo 'accidentally' did something that suppressed the hyena, then started talking about how she could help me. I told her that I didn't want her meddling with me at all, ever, that she should stop 'helping' me, and leave me completely alone.'

Buffy scowled. 'She could still have gotten rid of the hyena.'

'If she could have,' Giles said, 'she would have, but she had sworn a binding promise to respect free will. Doing anything to Willow in the face of her blanket forbiddance would have broken that promise. Even continuing to suppress the hyena spirit would have done that.'

'That's what I thought,' Willow said. 'The moment I said that, she let the hyena come back, then knelt down in front of me and apologised. She said she'd made a dreadful mistake, but she hadn't. I made the mistake, and people died, because I outsmarted myself.'

That must really rankle. Willow didn't have Cordelia's natural beauty and charm, or her money; her only asset was her mind, and now that too had let her down. On Friday night, she had tried to think her way out of a problem, and failed. She would be feeling even more insecure than normal.

'You couldn't have known,' Giles said quickly. 'You can't blamed. You weren't exactly thinking clearly.'

Cordelia nodded thoughtfully. In the original history, Xander had soon recovered from his possession, but he used laughter as his mental shield against the horrors of the hellmouth, and the hyena spirits wouldn't have dented that. Willow had not been so lucky. Her shield seemed to be a belief in the power of knowledge to keep her safe, a belief which had now been obliquely challenged, hindering her recovery. Cordelia would be able to help her, but not before she'd had time to think about how. Until then, the best she could do was change to a less sensitive subject.

'Blame Margo. She could have found a way,' Cordelia said firmly. 'Are there many more people like her in the council? They could kill the Master for us.'

'One Margo was enough,' Xander said lightly. 'She made me wear a suit.'

Giles smiled fondly. 'Dr Erich Thonius would have insisted you wear the traditional costume of a slayer's auxillary, and not just for the ceremonies.'

'Let me guess,' Willow said, her smile clearly forced. 'Tudor, with big collars and lace?'

'Nothing so modern,' Giles said. 'It is much like the slayer's ceremonial costume.'

'He'd want us all to walk around with seagulls on our heads?' Cordelia said. 'What century is he living in?'

'These costumes are said to pre-date the pyramids, but only Buffy would get a seagull. As her watcher, I'd have the supposed privilege of having a pewter owl mounted on my helmet. ' Giles smiled. 'You three would get brass sparrows, but all of us would have to wear the leather skirts.'

'Skirts?' Xander echoed, his eyes widening. 'I don't think we want him here.'

'Not unless there's an apocalypse,' Buffy said, then smiled at Xander. 'Grey is not your colour.'

'He will not come here for anything less,' Giles said. 'None of the board will. They've assured me that they're not sending anyone else here until the skies rain blood and the oceans boil, until the hellmouth opens and the demon armies march forth.'

'Another apocalypse?' Harmony said, sidling through the library doors. 'Already?'

Giles looked sharply at her. 'Hypothetical only. Why? Were you-'

'I don't have to explain myself to you,' Harmony said. 'Cordelia, we need to talk.'

'Now?' Cordelia said, glancing dismissively at her younger self. The girl did need her advice, but she wouldn't be willing to listen yet, and none of her problems were urgent enough to justify coming into the library.

'Is anything weird happening today?'

'Apart from you being in here?' Buffy asked, scowling at Harmony.

'Thought not,' Harmony said, paused, then looked directly at Cordelia. 'You can hang with these losers and save the world, or you can live a normal life. You cannot do both.'

'She can,' Buffy snapped. 'We all can, and we're not losers.'

Harmony sighed. 'You're in a school library at half seven in the morning. That makes you-'

'-dedicated,' Giles interrupted. 'And you? What's your excuse for being here so early.'

'I care about my friends. I don't want them to get hurt, but they will be-' Harmony turned to face Cordelia. '-if you don't get off the fence. Being near you is dangerous now.'

'Living in this town is dangerous. I won't-' Cordelia froze, remembering what had happened to the real Harmony.

'Let them get hurt?' the fake suggested. 'The weird stuff wants to kill you.'

'It wants to kill everyone,' Cordelia said flatly. But, as Giles had warned, she had made herself into a target. Harmony was right about that, and that alone.

'But with you, it's personal.' Harmony glanced at Xander and Willow. 'They've only known Buffy a month. How many times have they been almost killed since then?'

Too many, but all the narrow escapes had been worth it. Without their help, and Cordelia's, Buffy would soon have died. The vampires and demons would have killed everyone in Sunnydale, however deep in denial they were. Still, none of them had probably had quite so many near-death experiences before they got involved with Buffy.

'They volunteered,' Giles said. 'Cordelia's other friends have not.'

A comment which cut both ways. On the one hand, her normal friends weren't seeking out danger; on the other hand, danger was seeking Cordelia out, placing all those near her under threat. They might be safer if Cordelia cut them off, committing herself wholeheartedly to fighting the weirdness, as she had vowed she would, for her mom's sake.

Talking about shoes with Aura would not help Cordelia get vengeance for her mother's death, nor would it do anything to end the slaughter of the innocents, however much it helped Cordelia's sanity, and Harmony needed space. No, there was only one choice.

'Let's talk privately,' Cordelia suggested reluctantly, glancing at Giles's office.

Harmony nodded. 'I'm sure your freak friends won't mind if we talk behind their backs,' she said, oozing insincerity.

'We won't,' Giles calmly agreed. 'We trust Cordelia.'

'Cordelia,' Harmony said, closing the office door behind her, 'you will listen to me. You-'

'Harmony,' Cordelia said slowly 'have you forgotten who you're talking to?'

'You're wearing my face,' Harmony said softly, 'the face you stole. How could-'

'Then why are you talking to me like I was Aura?' Cordelia said, radiating insouciance. 'I-'

'You-' Harmony began.

'You will not interrupt me,' Cordelia snapped. 'I am older and wiser than you. You will-'

'No,' Harmony said, 'You-'

'You will never get anything out of me that way,' Cordelia said, loudly overriding Harmony's objections, 'but we're both sensible people.'

'So,' Harmony said meaningfully, 'we should sit down and listen to each other?'

Cordelia smiled, glad Harmony had picked up the hint. Neither of them would lightly concede anything, it'd make them look weak, but sometimes tactical adjustments had to be made.

'We should,' she said, then dropped to a whisper. 'Giving up the weird stuff isn't an option. Dame Margo made us swear oaths. I have to fight the monsters, or my soul will get eaten.'

'Isn't that black magic?' Harmony whispered back. 'I though-'

'No. That shadow thing in the funeral home did something to us. The oath protects us against it, but don't tell Willow. If she finds out, it would be bad.'

The oath wasn't the main reason for staying in the fight, of course, but if she mentioned vengeance Harmony might want to join in. Her mother had died too.

'I'm sure you don't want to endanger your friends,' Harmony said, smiling insincerely.

'I'd never knowingly put them in danger,' Cordelia agreed,'but just living in Sunnydale is dangerous. I can't protect everyone, but--'

'You can protect your friends,' Harmony said, 'from random attacks.'

Cordelia nodded, ignoring the implied caveat. 'But I can't protect you from yourself,' and while she certainly could protect her friends from non-random attacks, whatever anyone said, but she had other priorities now. Her mom's killers had to die, and the slaughter of the innocents be stopped for all time. Hanging out with Harmony and Aura wouldn't help her do that, so she would have to deny herself that pleasure, for now.

Besides, she had let her mom die. She didn't deserve to enjoy herself.

'Cordelia?' Harmony said softly, looking almost concerned. 'I said, why would you need to?'

'Something Margo said,' Cordelia whispered. 'The things you've been through pushed you to the edge of madness. You need space to recover, and peace. When you're no longer mentally unstable we can do something about your body, not before.'

'I'm perfectly sane,' Harmony said firmly. 'I'm not unbalanced, and I'm not leaving town.'

Cordelia looked sceptically at her. 'She also suggested you need to get away from me. I remind you of things best forgotten.'

'Looking in the mirror does that,' Harmony whispered sourly, 'but watching you living my life is ...'

'Bad for your sanity,' Cordelia replied.

Harmony smiled triumphantly. 'Then we'll have to avoid each other.'

'Only temporarily,' Cordelia said. 'While you recover.'

'Of course,' Harmony said. 'I'll try not to let your reputation suffer too much.'

Cordelia shrugged, going to the door. 'Social death isn't as final as real death. Fighting my way back to the top might be fun.'

Harmony opened the door, then turned and looked at Cordelia. 'The future's looking better already.'

Cordelia watched her leave, then walked over to the table, studying the expressions of her friends. Buffy looked both sympathetic and indignant, Willow looked thoughtful, Giles was unreadable, but Xander looked amused. He must have spotted Harmony's double meaning.

'You staying?' he said, redundantly.

'With friends like you, who needs her?' Cordelia asked, sitting down. 'This is where I belong,' not forever, just until evil was defeated. A few months should be enough, once Buffy accepted her leadership, two years at the most, and then Cordelia could collect her well deserved rewards. Everything she had ever wanted would be hers for the taking, everything.