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:: D e a d  M a n ' s  R o p e  ::

written by Starlet2367 { e-mail // livejournal }

Dead Man's Rope - Part 3

Chapter 8

"Hey, Cor, it's me."

Cordy clutched the phone between her ear and her shoulder and went back to her dish washing. "Hey, David." Every time she talked to him now she felt guilty, like she'd betrayed him. "What's up?" It just added to the growing pile of lies.

"I have a proposition for you."

Her eyebrow went up. "Really?" She rinsed her plate from lunch in warm water and stood it in the dish rack. "What is it?"

"Well, it's actually more like two. The first is, I'm going by one of the hospitals that got money from the charity dinner the other night. It's a thing, you know, go see the people the money helped? And I wondered if you'd go with me."

Her hands went still. "Really?" The kids she'd helped were just an idea, an ideal. But the thought of them becoming real.... "I-- I'm not sure. I mean, what would I say to them?"

She could almost hear him shrug. "That's not really important. The important thing is to go and show them there's a face behind the money."

"I get that, I guess." All those rich people, listening to Moz art and eating steak. They'd been happy to write checks--but if it came right down to it, would they get their hands dirty for the cause?

Would she? After seeing people's pain and fear for so many years, what would it be like to see kids who were facing a life where pain and fear were the norm? "When?"

"Tomorrow? I know you're going to the doctor over there anyway, and I figured I'd just drop you after and then send Max back to pick you up."

Cordy could never figure out why he was so good to her. Especially when she didn't give him anything in return. No visions, no filing, nothing. The noose of guilt twisted tighter. But that feeling was back, that tingle of intuition. And it told her that, for some reason, seeing these kids was important. "Yeah, that'd be great. What time?"

"I'll pick you up at ten."

She turned the tap on and rinsed her glass and the silverware. "Ten is great," she said, over the sound of the running water. "You said you had two questions?"

"Yeah, hang on. My other line's beeping through."

He switched over, and she was left alone in the kitchen, with nothing but the sound of KLOS playing softly in the background. She dried her hands and walked to the living room, where she'd left the files from the charity dinner.

Finally, she'd gotten all the loose ends tied up, the thank you notes written, and the bills paid. Just as she was putting the lid on the file box, David clicked back over.

"Sorry. That was Fred, rescheduling. Anyway, remember the gal who was handling corporate giving for me? She went on maternity leave?"

Cordy sat on the couch and stared at the blank TV screen. Something about his tone of voice had her bracing. "Yeah?"

"Well, she's decided to stay home, and the position is vacant. I wondered if--and you totally don't have to say yes, but you were the first person I thought of--you'd like to take over."

An electric jolt shot through her. "What?" she gasped. "You want me to work for you full time?"

"Yeah, hang on. I'd like a King Burger and a strawberry shake. No, that's it. Thanks." His voice came back to her full force. "Okay, sorry about that. I'm ordering lunch. Anyway, what were we saying?"

She gripped the phone. "That you wanted me to work for you?"

"Right. No, it wouldn't have to be full-time, unless you wanted it to be. I do most of the face-time myself. I like to see where my money's going. But there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that has to happen. Big donations, determining worthwhile charities, planning events from the little meetings like the one tomorrow to the p art y a couple of weeks ago. It's a whole deal."

"It sounds so...official."

He laughed. "Tell me about it. Some day, I'm dumping the whole thing and moving back into a loft. But the good thing about having money is that I can give it to other people who need it."

It hit her then that David, despite the way his money insulated him, really wanted to connect with people. He put himself at emotional risk all the time, just so he wouldn't be lonely. He'd said it before--that she made him feel p art of a family, just by being who she was.

A quiet humbleness settled over her. David didn't want anything from her except her presence in his life. His cars, his money, his gifts--they were easy because they were just things. Generosity was his nature, the way it was a child's. He liked to give, and he really liked to give to the people he loved.

Her chest felt warm, and she wrapped her arms around one of the couch cushions. "You're an amazing man," she said quietly.

He chuckled. "Yeah right."

In the background she could hear him make the money-for-food exchange, and then the paper bag with his lunch rattled in the car. "No, you are. I don't think I've ever met anyone so free with their money--but it's more than that. It's that you...connect." She smiled. "So, tell me more about this job. What's it pay?"

"Half-time is thirty thousand. Full is sixty. Bennies are adjusted accordingly."

Her breath caught. "I don't want special consideration."

"No, that's how it is for the whole company. The only difference is, that with this job you pick what hours you want. Maybe you could st art half time and see where it went."

She considered the visit to the doctor, the tests they'd run, and the possibility of surgery. "I don't want to take it till after I know what's happening with my leg."

"Ah, take it either way. The hiring process would probably take as long as waiting for you to get mobile again would."

Her smile felt bright for the first time in weeks. "You're really good to me."

"What's with you today? You smokin' crack, or something?"

She thought of Angel, so cold and distant. How he'd been willing to ship her off to a hospital with no one who knew her. "No, just realizing what a good guy I have."

An uncomfortable silence buzzed between them. Finally, he laughed, but he sounded really uncomfortable. "Okay, so, see you tomorrow at ten?"

She'd been trying to make up for something that she could never make up for by sleeping with Angel. And now, she was realizing just how little she could trust him. Comparing him to David, who had been there for her before he even knew who she was, made her realize just how different her life would have been without him.

And she could do what Angel did, and take the easy way out. Or she could st art clean with David and see if they had a chance. Because she really did care about him.

"David, could we, maybe, talk sometime soon? There are some things I need to tell you." Her fingers tensed on the phone.

"Uh, sure. Any time." He sounded like he was the one bracing for something now. That same tone he'd used after the charity dinner, the one that sent up red flags, colored his voice.

"Maybe the day after tomorrow? I could buy you that dinner." Tomorrow was going to be busy. Charity visit, doctor's office. And tomorrow night, she was taking the scroll to Lilah.

"Speaking of eating...."

"Yeah, you should go," she said, fiddling with the fringe on the cushion. "I'll think about that job offer, okay?"

"Fair enough. Talk to you soon?"

"You bet." She hung up and sat, cradling the pillow. Nerves danced through her, tensing her shoulders. She was running the risk of losing him, but she couldn't pretend any more. Not when he was so willing to give so much of himself to her.

She could live her life like Angel did, closed off at the he art and unwilling to openly show his love and commitment. Or she could tell David the whole story and see if he stuck.

It was a risk she had to take.

***

Something was wrong. She knew it as soon as she woke. The doorbell chimed and the sound reverberated through her, sending her shivering to her feet.

Doorbell. Middle of the night.

She didn’t even put on a robe.

Shoving hair out of her eyes, she pressed her face to the peephole. Dropped back down, hand over her mouth.

"Open the door, Cordy," he said, voice pitched to carry to her, but not to the neighbors.

Her he art slugged like a fist in her chest. "You can’t be here."

Silence. When she looked again she saw him pacing, agitated. "Cordy!" He slammed his palm flat against the wood.

She flinched.

Another slam. The door rattled in its frame. Dennis coiled around her, picking up on the live wire of her feelings. "Go home, Ben."

After a minute the pacing stopped. Quiet returned. She let out a puff of air, let her shoulders slump. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he was–

The sound of his foot on the door ricocheted through the ap art ment. She stumbled back as the door slammed into the wall. "Oh, God– Oh, my God–"

His face was like a mask of marble, his eyes flashing dark, crazy. "I keep having these dreams." It shouldn’t have sounded like an accusation. He grabbed her shoulders and yanked her to him. "In them, you fuck me." His smile wasn’t the pretty, easy thing she’d first seen on him. It was rank with betrayal, with violence. "And then you fuck me over."

By now she was standing on her tip-toes, held nearly off the floor by the force of his grasp. "B-ben–"

He shook her. "That’s not my name. Is it?"

There was a noise in the hall. "Let her go!"

Connor dropped her and looked over his shoulder. "Back off." The door stood open, the wood around the lock shattered.

Cordy stood, teeth chattering, mind spinning, in her boxers and tank top, watching as her neighbor, Jack, raised a baseball bat and aimed it at Connor’s head.

Do it, she thought. Kill him now, before he can remember it all. Except that it was obviously too late for that.

The two men stared at each other, Connor in his jeans and over-sized T-shirt, an all-American boy on the way to being a man; Jack, in his rumpled plaid pajamas and his hair sticking up everywhere, defending her.

"It’s okay, Jack," she said. Her voice came out trembling, husky.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "It doesn’t look that way to me."

Connor took a step toward him and Jack pulled his arm back like a batter aiming for the bleachers. "No one asked you–"

She put her hand on Connor’s arm. "Stop it. Sit down"

His head swiveled, a sneer on his face.

"Please, Connor. Sit down."

He flinched at the use of his real name, but he backed off.

Some of the strength came back to her voice and she went to the door. "I’m sorry, Jack." She noticed then that several of the doors on her hall were open, peoples’ heads out, trying to figure out whether or not they should call the cops.

"I know him. He’s–" Looking over her shoulder at Connor, her he art clenched. "He’s my friend’s son and he needs help."

When she looked back, Jack had relaxed. "It looked bad, Cordy."

She tugged her lips into a smile. "It *is* bad. But nothing I can’t handle." Her fingers touched his elbow, feeling the soft cotton of his pj’s. The normalcy grounded her, gave her confidence. "Thank you."

Jack took a step back and glanced up and down the hall. Doors closed and left them alone. "Call me if you need anything."

"Yes. I will." She waved then closed the door. She had to go to the kitchen to get a chair so she could anchor the door closed.

When she got back, Connor was pacing in front of the couch. "You’ve been having dreams," she said, easing past him to sit in the chair at the end of the sofa. "Tell me about them."

Connor snorted. "What are you, my shrink?"

It was like being hit in the face. "No. But I’d like to be your friend." She knit her fingers together in her lap. "I– I don’t think we ever had a chance to be friends."

The night dragged out with him pacing and her sitting. Finally, he spoke. "My whole fucking *life* is a lie."

Cordy met his eyes. "Yes."

Something about the simple, honest answer seemed to defeat him. He sat on the floor, back to the couch, knees in front of his chest. His Tevas showed off tanned feet with haphazardly-tended nails. The jeans were clean and they fit; the T-shirt old but obviously well-loved.

"He changed everything without our permission," she said quietly.

Almost before the words were out of her mouth, he exploded. "It wasn’t his *right*!" He was back on his feet, pacing, a ball of lightning, dangerous and explosive.

Even so, her fear was gone. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her now; he just needed to blow off steam. "No. But it’s typical Angel."

He whirled. "What, fucking everyone over? Taking away their fucking freedom?"

"He thought he was protecting you. Us." She shrugged. "It’s just…. How he is."

"And you’re perfectly fine with that."

She met his eyes. "I made a choice. It was the wrong choice. I can’t condemn him for doing the same."

"What, when you gave me that pity fuck?"

Cordy held his stare but it cost her something. "No. Before that."

"What, screwing your best friend’s son wasn’t bad enough?"

Her laugh was bitter, brutal. "Connor, that was far from the worst thing I need forgiveness for."

"Well, it was the worst thing to me!"

She felt his hackles rise, felt him fight them back, as if he were reviewing all the possible reasons he had to be angry. And there were a lot. "I know. And I’m sorry. I wasn’t– This is going to sound–"

She stopped and looked at her hands, folded too neatly in her lap to belong to her. Something about that struck her as wrong–why was she taking the brunt, here? She’d been hurt just as much as he had in all of this. She’d lost just as much.

And if fate was offering her this opportunity, then she was gonna make a choice. "Oh, fuck it." Cordy stood and got right in his face. "Connor, that wasn’t me. It was Jasmine. I wouldn’t have had sex with you if you were the last man on e art h."

His forehead wrinkled. "What?"

"I knew you when you were a baby. God, Connor, I loved you so much." She bit her lip, waited for it to pass. "But I would never, *never* have had sex with you. Do you understand that?" Cordy clasped his hands. They were hot, callused, like he’d been fighting.

Connor jerked back. "Don’t touch me."

Stunned at what she’d done, she backed off. "God, stupid much?"

His eyes flared.

"Not you, me. Look." She wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. "This whole thing sucks on a scale too big to measure. We set the new record for suckage." He was staring at her, eyes narrowed, but he was listening.

Those eyes, so hard, so full of hatred. She flashed on Darla's face, the same eyes, laughing with cruelty just before she drove her teeth into Cordelia's neck. Connor came from that: life from death, love from hatred, violence from violence.

And then his eyes changed and his whole body sagged. "Fuck," he whispered. He scrubbed his hands over his face, then turned and walked to the door.

"Connor?" She wasn't sure what to say, what to do. He couldn't be leaving, could he?

He stopped, one hand on the back of the chair, the other hanging limp at his side.

"Do you need a place to crash?"

His laugh was dirty, knowing. "Inviting me in, Cordelia?"

Her fists clenched. "What p art of 'last man on e art h' did you not understand?"

He didn't turn around, but he mumbled something under his breath.

"That better have been an apology, bub."

"I'm sorry," he said. When he turned, all the fight was gone, the nasty glint washed out of his eye. "That was uncalled for." His hands found his pockets.

Cordelia sucked in a breath. How many times had she seen Angel make that same move? "You can sleep on the couch while you decide what to do." She walked toward the kitchen, suddenly starving. "Fix the door while you're here, and we'll call it even."

He appeared behind her as she was pulling a pepperoni pizza out of the freezer. "I'm not sure," he said, almost under his breath.

She pulled the kitchen shears out of the junk drawer and cut the box open. Scissors in hand, she turned to him. "About what?"

"Dad-- Angel." His gaze dropped.

"We could cut his head off," she said, clacking the scissors.

His head jerked up, eyes and nostrils flaring, until he saw she was joking. Then he smiled, that brilliant, beautiful flash. "Ha ha. Wouldn't be the first time I've had to cut off my dad's head."

She froze, bent over to put the pizza in the oven, and looked over her shoulder. "Holtz." Cordy had seen that, too, in one of those weird flashbacks. The shovel, raised high over the boy's head; the downward spiral of metal and death; the severed skull, smile twisting gruesomely.

He looked away. "Never mind."

Cordy watched him, tried to read him, but couldn't. She slid the pizza the rest of the way into the oven and shut the door.

"Get us a couple of sodas," she said, throwing away the box and putting the shears back in the drawer.

He reached into the fridge and rooted around, came up with a couple of Diet Sprites. "Too late for caffeine," he said, handing her one.

She laughed, but it didn't feel very light. Then she went to him, raised her hand slowly, and stopped just a few inches short of his jaw.

His nostrils flared, just like Angel's used to when she got this close.

"May I?" she asked, dropping her voice into soothing range.

After a second, he nodded. When her hand cupped his cheek, he closed his eyes, and held perfectly still.

"I remember when you were born," she said, stroking his face with her thumb. A gentle, sad gesture. A gesture of love. "You were so tiny. And we were all so afraid we'd break you." She laughed, and it came out in a quiet huff. "Your dad was a total freak, obsessing about every little detail. It was a full day before he'd let anyone hold you but him. I had to drag him out into the sunlight to convince him to let you go."

His eyes opened. "Guess it worked, huh?"

She smiled. "A little too well. Look, Connor, I fucked up. Not just with you, but with your dad and with myself. I thought I was making good decisions for the right reasons--and maybe I was, who knows? But the bottom line is, we're here, you and I. And now we have a choice."

He leaned his face into her hand. "I feel safe here. Can't I just stay forever?"

It pinched her he art and reminded her of that moment so long ago between her and David. "Don't I wish?" she said, and it wasn't totally out of kindness. "I'm not saying we have to choose one thing or the other. Or even when. All I'm saying is," she took a deep breath, "if you ever want to go see your dad, I’ve got your back."

He made a sound in the back of his throat. "I don’t know what I want."

She pulled him into a hug. "I don't know what I want, either. So let's just eat some pizza and sleep on it, okay?"

They held each other, and she felt Dennis run a soothing hand down her back. "I forgot to tell you, I have a ghost," she said.

"Oh. I thought that was your Sprite can on my back."

Cordelia pulled away, laughing, and looked over his shoulder. "It is." A wind rushed through the room, ruffling Connor's hair. "That wasn't."

Connor smiled, a quirk of his lips. "Ghost. Cool." Then he lifted his hand and cupped her cheek, just like she'd done to him. "I won't let you down this time, Cordy."

She leaned into against his palm. "I wish I could say the same. But with my track record...."

"Just promise me you won't lie to me."

Angel's broken boy, asking for nothing more than the truth. "God, what a relief. I've spent all this time feeling like I was in hell because I was the only one who knew what really happened."

"Now you have a cell mate." He dropped his hand, took hers, and led her to the table. "Tell me where the plates are."

She could tell him about Angel, and how he knew everything too, but it didn't seem like the time. Not now that Connor had calmed down. Instead, she pointed him toward them and yawned. "You need to call your mom?"

He shook his head. "She thinks I'm at Jake's."

Cordy put her head down on her arms. "Okay. Just as long as you call her in the next day or two, so she doesn't worry." She let out a deep breath, feeling her insides uncoil and her shoulders loosen. "Wake me when the pizza's done."

When she woke, she was alone in her bed, buried under the covers. She froze, feeling like something was out of place.

Then a quiet voice came from the door. "It's okay. It's just me."

"Connor? Did you put me to bed?" She remembered pizza and hugging and putting her head down on the table.

"Yeah. You zoned out. I figured you'd be more comfortable in here."

Pushing up on her elbows helped her get a better line of sight on him. He sat, a folded-up shadow, in her doorway. The light from the window angled across him, striping his face. "You all right?"

"I was just--" He paused, stared out the window. "I just needed to be close. Is that okay?"

"Aren't you tired?"

He shrugged. "I don't sleep much." When he turned to look at her, half of his face was in shadow. "Unless you want me to leave?"

She thought about it. "No. You're fine. It's kinda nice to have a guardian angel. As long as you stay on your side of the room."

His laugh was low, bitter. "I think I got that 'last man on e art h' p art . You don't have to worry about me jumping your bones." He paused, awkward. "Not that they're not pretty bones!"

"God, you sound just like Angel when you do that." She laughed. "He could be such a dork."

Connor's stillness made it look like he was fading into shadow.

"Connor?"

"He was your guardian angel. Before I came along and screwed everything up."

Cordelia wrapped her arms around her knees. "That's not true, Connor." Maybe it had been, once, the p art about Angel guarding her. But it wasn't any more true now than Connor screwing everything up. "You were--are--a miracle child. What happened to you isn't your fault. Don't ever believe that."

"Then why did everyone's life go to hell when I was born, Cordelia?" His voice escalated, became thick with tears. "Why? Can you tell me that?"

Drawn by his grief, she got up and went to him. "Shh," she said, wrapping her arms around him. "Shh, Connor. Don't blame yourself. Don't ever do that."

She stroked his hair, kissed his head. "You're a victim of fate, just like the rest of us. And you've been given a second chance. Don't you see?"

It turned her stomach to say it, but she knew it was the truth. And she'd promised not to lie. "Your dad was trying to hit a reset button. To give you the life he always wanted you to have. And now you have it--your mom and dad, your school, your friends."

"Then why do I remember the other life? Why does it feel more real that this one?" His voice broke and his body shook.

Cordy realized he was right. This life had never felt real, not from the beginning. It was like gauze laid over a moth-eaten dress. "I don't know. I wish I did."

He pulled back, and in the pale wash of light, his face was stained silver with tears. "You feel it too?"

She nodded, dropped back, and sat next to him on the floor. "I have since I woke up. I guess it's p art of the spell. If you don't look too closely at it, it works. But st art pulling the edges, and it unravels."

And if it suddenly fell ap art ? David would know everything about her, all those sins she'd worked so hard to keep a secret. What would he say, what would he do, if he knew what had really happened?

Which was exactly why she had to tell him.

"It scares me to think about going back to the other way. I have a man that I...." Was she really going to say this? "I think I might be falling in love with. And he's human, and it's real--in the midst of this lie, it's the only thing that's real."

Connor stared at her. "You're falling in love? Do I need to meet him?"

She banged her head gently against the wall. "Stop with the creepy stalker routine. He's way nicer than you'll ever be."

They sat together in silence and Cordy stared out the window, watching the light shift on the glass.

"So you'd give that up for me?" Connor asked, sounding uncertain.

Cordy looked over at him. "What?"

"You'd give him up? Your love, the only thing that's real?"

She thought about all the things that she'd done, as herself, and as Jasmine. She wasn't responsible for her actions while Jasmine lived in her, but for a couple of months, evil wore her face. And people would remember.

David would remember.

But there was really only one answer. "Yes." Because to right the wrongs, you had to go as far back to the beginning as you could, and st art from there. Maybe she couldn't go all the way back to that moment in the ethers when Jasmine pointed at her soul and said, "that one," but she could st art here.

With Connor. With herself.

Connor shuddered. "You're insane."

She squeezed his shoulder. "No, I love you. And I want you to have the life you want. But Connor, you have to realize--choosing this path, it might mean you die again. Do you understand that?" The thought of losing him for a third time--she wanted to keen with pain. But it was the only way.

They both had demons to face, and they'd face them together.

He stared out the window, totally still. "In one of my dreams, Holtz tied me to a tree and left me." Connor laughed, but it had a nightmarish quality to it. "In another, I looked into Angel's eyes as he raised the knife."

Connor leaned his head against the wall and let out a soft puff of air. "And both times, when my fathers made me face death, I welcomed it. Dying to this life...it wouldn't matter. I don't really feel alive here anyway."

She sat next to him, shoulder to shoulder, a sister in arms. Silence bloomed between them, and it felt more real than any words could

Finally, Connor got to his feet. "You need to sleep." He held out his hand. "You must be exhausted."

She took it and stood next to him. "I've got a busy day tomorrow--today. I probably should." She squeezed his fingers. "Stay?"

In the half-light his eyes were liquid silver. "I'll be here."

Cordy crawled in bed and pulled the comforter up to her chin. When she looked back, he was sitting in the doorway again, staring out the window at the night. "Whatever happens," she said, "I love you."

And then she was asleep.

Chapter 9

Cordy spritzed Souffle d'Issey into the air and walked through the cloud. A last swipe of lipstick and she was out the bedroom door. "Be back this evening," she called quietly to Dennis.

Connor slept on the couch, shoes off, but otherwise fully clothed. His hand was tucked between the pillow and his cheek, and under his parchment-thin eyelids, his eyes flickered. She wondered what he was dreaming.

Crouching next to him, she watched him sleep. Her baby boy, and so much more.

He woke with a jerk, eyes focusing on her, hand coming up to strike. She caught it, mid-air. "It's just me."

His body relaxed back into the cushions. "Sorry," he whispered. She laid his hand gently back down on the afghan. "Reflex."

"I know. I've got a thing this morning, and a doctor's appointment this afternoon. You gonna be okay here?"

He rubbed his eyes and sat up. "Time is it?"

"About ten till ten. I've got to meet David downstairs before he comes up here and finds you." She grinned. "I don't want him thinking I've left him for a younger man."

Connor snorted. "As if. You sure it's okay for me to hang?"

She nodded. "As long as you want." She waggled a finger at him. "Just don't get me in any more trouble with your mom."

"'kay. Is there any pizza left?" His hair was soft, frazzled. He smelled like young man's sleepy sweat, green and untarnished.

"No. I ate the rest for breakfast. But there's another in the freezer, and some cereal and stuff." She glanced at her watch. "Must dash. Do I look okay?" She turned in front of him, shooting a grin over her shoulder.

He nodded. "You look great. I like that suit. Very official."

"We're going to the hospital to see the kids. They're getting the money from the charity dinner the other night."

Connor smiled at her. "That's good." He sat up, letting the afghan puddle at his waist. His T-shirt was as rumpled as his hair. "You got a T-shirt I can borrow?"

"In the bedroom. Dennis will show you where."

"Cool." He stood, scratching his chest. "If I'm not here when you get back, I'll call you."

She picked her purse up off the hall table. "You'd better."

The door closed behind her with a quiet click, and she made her way to the elevator. By the time she got downstairs, David had pulled up in front of the building and was getting out of the car. It was the MGB today.

"Hey. You got it fixed?"

He came around and helped her in, then slid her cane behind the seat. "Yeah. It's a great day. Perfect convertible weather." His head tilted. "That's a nice suit. You look really pretty."

She touched her hair, which she'd pulled into an over-the-shoulder braid. "Thank you. You don't look half bad, yourself."

He had on khakis and a button-down and a Looney Tunes tie. As he settled into the seat beside her, he put on a pair of aviator sunglasses. "The kids like the tie."

They pulled into traffic and he headed toward the hospital. The radio played jazz and the wind ruffled her hair. She leaned her head back and watched the clouds pass, a long strand of pearls in the blue, blue sky.

It was nice to just hang out with David. Easy, free, fun. No brooding or darkness or remorse--except for hers. And for a little while, she could let herself leave it all behind.

They pulled into the hospital parking lot and David got a parking pass from the attendant. He helped her out of the car and handed her the cane. "You ready?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

A nurse greeted them at the second floor desk. He was a tall, thin black man in bright purple scrubs, and he held out his hand for David to shake. "Mr. Nabbit. Good to see you again." His teeth were white and perfectly straight, and his smile was beautiful.

"Hey, Larry. This is my friend, Cordelia. She's the one who organized the dinner the other night and I thought it'd be nice for her to meet the kids."

Cordy shook Larry's hand. "Nice to meet you."

He glanced down at her cane. "You look like a kindred spirit."

"I guess I am." She smiled. "Though they're probably a lot less whiny about it than I am."

Larry laughed and led them down the hall to a large living room. A brightly colored rug covered the linoleum, and toys were scattered around three toy chests. A group of about ten kids sat in wheelchairs or on bean bags, watching TV.

"Hey, guys, Mr. Nabbit's here."

"And he brought goodies," David said. He pulled a bag out of his briefcase--miniature candy bars.

The kids rushed him, screaming, and David sat down in the floor with them and ripped open the bag of candy.

"He's not supposed to do that," Larry said. He shook his head, but his eyes were definitely amused by the sight of the kids crowding David.

"But who's gonna stop him, right?" Cordy asked.

Larry chuckled. "Pretty much. You guys gonna be okay in here? I need to go back to the desk."

"Yeah. No problem."

"Hey, everybody, this is Cordelia Chase. She's my friend, so you should be really nice to her."

One of the kids in the wheelchair eyeballed her. "Those earrings aren't real diamonds."

"Yeah," said a blond boy whose crutches lay abandoned beside him. "And Micayla can tell. Just ask anyone."

Cordy laughed. "Micayla has good eyes." She knelt down next to them, as best as she could. Her hip twinged, and she winced. "Not very graceful, am I?"

"What happened to your leg?" Micayla asked.

"I was in a coma for a long time."

"Can they fix it?" asked the boy with the crutches.

"I don't know. I'm going this afternoon to find out."

He pulled his pants down, showing Superman underwear and a network of criss-crossing red scars. "They're trying to fix mine. It's way better than it was, but I'll never be a hundred per cent." He poked one of the scars. "That's what Doctor Mike says, anyway."

Cordy glanced up at David, who was watching them talk. He smiled at her. "I have really big ears, but the doctors could never fix those, either."

Superman giggled. "You look like that guy from Mad Magazine."

David snorted. "Like I haven't heard that a million times."

Cordy rolled her eyes. "Please, David's way funnier than that guy. Hey, you don't know his name do you?"

"Alfred E. Newman," David said. "All I need is a red bowtie and I'm good to go. And aren't you guys too young to read Mad Magazine? I thought that was just for old people, like me and Cordy."

"Doctor Mike brought a whole stack by one day," Micayla said. "I didn't like them. I like Mary-Kate and Ashley's magazine way better."

"I'll bring one to you next time I come," Cordy said. She stood, trying to take some of the weight off her leg. "You guys mind if we move to the couch? My leg is killing me."

An hour later, she and David walked down the hall to the front desk. "What'd you think?" he asked.

"It was kinda cool. Nice to feel like I'm helping people again."

He slung his arm around her shoulders and they waved at Larry as they passed the desk.

"You guys come back any time," Larry said.

"Will do." David reached into his pocket and pitched a candy bar to him, an extra-big ones.

Larry caught it, shaking his head and laughing. "Thanks."

"Keeps me out of trouble," David said.

"Take a lot more than that, " Larry called.

***

David had an afternoon meeting so he dropped her off at the doctor's office, about two blocks from the hospital. She sat in the waiting room, a magazine open on her lap, waiting for her name to be called. Her stomach clenched and she tried to take deep breaths.

Rita and David had both offered to come, but she wanted to do this alone.

Melissa, the nurse whose name she'd finally learned, opened the door and called her name. She made the now-familiar walk to Dr. Fitch's door.

"Oh, good," he said, looking up from a set of color film. "There you are. It's nice to see you." He motioned toward the chair in front of his desk. "Have a seat."

She sat, and put her cane and her purse on the floor next to her. "So, what's the verdict?"

"Well, it's like we thought. You've got some permanent damage in the left leg." He shook his head. "It's not really scar tissue, so we can't operate on it. And while the nerves responded normally, there are places where the muscle didn't."

She sat, silently. The window behind Dr. Fitch's desk looked out at the tops of the trees. A palm waved against a stand of eucalyptus. Her head felt empty, like the doctor's words had knocked everything out.

"There's some good research coming out of the muscular dystrophy sector that might allow us to do something called muscle patching. Basically, you inject a chemical that we think the body uses to rebuild muscle and hope the body responds. We can get you into that experimental program but it's pretty intense. You'd have to be willing to come for injections regularly, and there are no guarantees."

He leaned toward her, and his voice was firm, but compassionate. "I think the bottom line is, you'll never regain full use of that leg. Even if the muscle injections work, it'll never match the strength of the right leg again."

It wasn't like this was unexpected. She'd been preparing for it ever since their last meeting. But to hear it stated so clearly.... "Can I get another opinion?"

"Of course. I'd expect you to. And anything you find out, with another doctor or online, bring back to me. We're willing to do whatever we can to help. The only thing you'll need to consider is that, over time, the leg will continue to deteriorate. Exercise will help, and proper rest and diet. But the body isn't responding to the muscles' call to rebuild, and eventually it'll put its energy somewhere else."

He took a deep breath. "I really am sorry. I hate to deliver news like this. It isn't at all the outcome we were hoping for, especially since you'd already made such an amazing recovery."

Cordy took a deep breath, then, unable to sit there another minute, picked up her purse and cane. She stood and looked down at him. "Just tell me whether I'm going to end up in a wheel chair."

His eyes were kind in the way you'd be kind to an injured stray dog. Concerned, but unwilling to get too attached. "If you do, it won't be for years and years."

Which only made it worse. A limp, a cane. And down the road, complete dependence. "Thanks, Dr. Fitch. I'll be in touch."

He stood and walked her to the door, patting her on the shoulder. "If you decide to try out for that program, let me know. We'll do everything we can to help you get in."

Her breath left her body. A surge of anger flared. God *damn* the Powers for doing this to her.

The door closed behind her and she leaned against the wall. "Fuck you," she whispered. "*Fuck* you."

***

Cordy sat in the back of the Mercedes, watching the buildings flash past. Her cell phone rang. "Yeah."

"Hey, how'd it go?" David sounded hopeful.

"Great. I'm trying out for the Olympics tomorrow." She swallowed and her throat was thick with tears.

"Cordy? What happened?"

For a minute she couldn't talk. Finally, she wiped her hand over her eyes and said, "My right leg's great. My left leg? Bum."

"What do you mean? They can't repair it? Surely there's something they can--"

"The muscle is degenerating and my body doesn't know how to fix it. They don't know why it happened. He says there's some kind of experimental program, with injections and stuff." She took a deep, shaky breath.

"We can get you into any program you want. I'll call my friend who's the head of orthopedic surgery at Pacific Center . He'll have you in his office tomorrow."

The day she was supposed to tell David everything. She couldn't imagine piling one more thing on top of herself. "Thank you. But I just-- I need some time, okay?"

"Want me to bring you some dinner, or something?"

"No," she said, squeezing the cane handle. "I've got pizza, I think. Or peanut butter. I'll just take a bath and throw myself a pity p art y."

David sighed. "This sucks so hard."

"Tell me about it."

"You can move back in with me. Any time you want. No strings attached. Rita would come back full-time to help you, I'm sure. She loves you. You're her bright hope."

She huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, right. Except for the p art where I'm crippled for life."

They sat in silence, the white noise of the car and the dim flare of the radio the only noise. "You know I don't care about that, right?" David asked. His voice was quiet, and very serious.

She did. And it was the only thing getting her through this hellish afternoon. "Yeah. Thanks."

Max pulled into her driveway. "Cordy? We're here."

"I'm home," she said. "Can I call you later?"

"Sure. Any time. I'll be here."

She climbed out of the car, then leaned in and said, "Thanks, Max. See you soon?"

He smiled at her, a gentle, wistful smile. "I'm sorry you got bad news. Anything I can do, you let me know." His brown eyes were so sweet, so much warmer than Dr. Fitch's.

She was surrounded by people who cared. For the first time since she woke up, she had a family.

"I know. Thank you." The door closed with a thunk, and she walked slowly into the building, letting herself feel the cane in her hand. Already it felt like a permanent attachment, another limb. Better get used to it, she thought. You're stuck with it for life.

When she opened the door, Dennis closed it in her face. "Dennis? What's going on?" She rattled the doorknob again, but it was like a hand, keeping it from turning. "Who's in there?"

The door flew open and Angel stood, looking at her.

This is a no good, very bad day, she thought. "I so don't want you here right now."

He yanked her in and closed the door behind them. "I so don't care. Where have you been?"

She dropped her purse on the entry hall table and glared at him. "Welcome home, Cordy. How was your day, Cordy?"

Angel narrowed his eyes at her. "Don't st art with me. He's been here, hasn't he? My son has been here."

Cordy stomped past him to the couch, with its straightened cushions and carefully folded afghan. "What, your vampy nose sensors going off?"

"That and your guilt." He sat on the chair across from her, lounging his legs out like he owned the place.

"Any guilt you're feeling is yours. Is this why you came? To see if I was harboring your son?"

"I thought we needed to talk. Then I found this." He held up the scroll. "The father will kill the son, Cordelia. Why do you have it?"

Crap. She couldn't give up Wesley. "I bought it at a garage sale. Owner moving, everything must go."

Angel's eyes narrowed. "You really don't want to fuck with me on this."

"Yeah, well, you really don't want to fuck with me, either." She rapped her cane against the floor. "In fact, why don't you leave, so I can get in some quality brooding time? Something I seemed to have picked up from you."

He leaned forward, and his eyes softened. "Why? What's wrong?"

Why hide it from him? He was gonna live forever; he'd figure it out soon enough. "Thanks to our friend, Jasmine, I'm crippled for life."

He flinched. "What?"

"Yup. Muscle degeneration, blah blah blah. So you'll understand when I say, get the hell out, Angel. I don't have the energy to deal with your games today."

It seemed to snap something in him, because suddenly she was looking at him, without the barricades.

Her breath caught. "Angel?"

He rested his forehead on his open palm. "I fucked everything up."

"How?"

"By not paying enough attention to my family. Wes is going behind my back, looking at the prophecies, Fred and Gunn are at each others' throats and they don't even know why. Lorne--did they tell you he had his sleep removed last year and didn't tell anyone until it was nearly too late?"

Cordy paused, not sure whether to tell him what was happening. But it sounded like he was blaming himself for something beyond his control. "I don't think it's you."

He glanced up. "What do you mean?"

"I think the spell is breaking down. It's never worked on us, and now it sounds like it's wearing off on everyone else, too. Which is why I have the scroll, so I can figure out what's going on." She shot him a look. "And if you knew it was Wes who gave it to me, why'd you ask?"

He leveled his gaze on her. "To see what you'd say."

She sighed. "When did you become this person, Angel? This paranoid freak?"

He smiled. "I missed you. No one else talks to me this way." Then he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the chair. "My life is hell. Losing Connor, losing you. Fighting with Buffy. Watching the team fall ap art ."

He ran a hand over his face. "There was a time, at the beginning, where I worried whether what I was doing was going to play into the hands of the senior p art ners." He shook his head. "Now, I don't give a shit. I'm just trying to keep it in the road."

"No one said redemption was easy." She smiled, bitterly. "I mean, look at me, making up for bad decisions by losing my youthful good looks."

Angel stared at her. "You didn't make any bad decisions. Every decision you made was for the mission."

She shook her head. Thought about Doyle. "Not the visions. I didn't ask for them. I wanted to give them back."

"But you kept them. You made that choice, even when it was killing you. And then you took on Jasmine--God, we thought you'd been saved, and really you'd been damned." He laughed, and it was as bitter as her own. "We'd all been damned."

Angel stood and came to sit next to her on the couch. "I'm sorry about Saturday. I-- I broke. And you caught me, like you always do." He put his hand on her leg and rubbed her thigh gently.

She sighed. "Angel, why are you here?"

His eyes softened, warmed. "Because I need you."

She put her hand on his and stopped his motion. "No, you don't. You have Buffy."

His head bowed. "I don't. I screwed it up. She's gone."

Cordy sighed. "Did you go after her, you nit?"

"She doesn't want me. She told me to leave her alone."

"And you believed her." She put his hand on his own thigh and stood, walking across the room to turn on the radio. "Angel, remember what I said the other day? That you aren't willing to stick around for the hard stuff?"

His eyes flared, but all he said was, "Yeah."

"Well, this is the hard stuff. Do you love her?" She leaned against the armoire that held her stereo and TV.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I-- I think I do. But then, there's you, and...." He crossed the room, got in her space. "I know I want you. Maybe that's a good enough place to st art ."

She blocked his reaching hands, put them gently at his side. "Maybe that would have been enough for me before. But I've changed. I don't share your mission any more. And I'm in love with David."

The look on his face would have made her laugh if she hadn't realized how hurt he was. "But-- He's-- He's not your type."

"And you are?" She stepped around him and went to the couch, exhausted from the busy day. "Angel, I love you. I always will. But you're a vampire and I'm not."

He crossed his arms across his chest and stared at her. "That never seemed to worry you before."

"It was my life before. We were linked by the visions. Remember how much I loved Connor? How much time the three of us spent together, like a family?"

He looked so sad. "Yeah. I remember."

"That's what I want, for real. For keeps."

His mouth twisted. "I can't give that to you. I can't give that to anyone."

"You can give it to your son." She leaned forward and held out her hand.

He crossed the room and took it, kneeling in front of her.

"Angel, Connor knows. He remembers everything. It's p art of the spell breaking down, the way everyone else is remembering."

Angel swallowed, hard. "Oh, God."

"I'm trying to find out why, but I need you to do something for me, okay?"

He nodded. "Anything."

"I need you to promise that if all this pops back, like some huge, supernatural rubber band, that you'll let him go this time. Let him die a natural death."

"No. No!" He pulled back. "I can't. Not Connor."

She squeezed his hand. "Yes, Connor. He knows it's possible. He's willing to accept it. You have to be too." She closed her eyes. "We all have to be."

Angel bowed his head. "I can't," he whispered. "He's the only good thing to ever come from me."

Cordy ran her hand through his spiky hair. "Oh, Angel, that's not true. Look at what came from you--all those people you saved, all those people you're still saving."

"I'm not saving anyone, any more. I sit on my ass and watch hockey. Sometimes I kill a client when I get bored. They don't let me go out--they bug my lapels and make the people I save sign waivers. It's a fucking nightmare. I feel like I'm in a fucking cage."

"So, get out. Go back to private investigation. It's what you did best."

He shook his head. "I'm out of shape, out of practice. I don't have a link to the Powers."

"Remember what you said when you found out I had the visions?"

His smile was sweetly nostalgic. "Besides, 'Why me'?"

She hit his shoulder. "No, dumbass. You said, When a door closes, a window opens, or something really cheesy like that."

"So?"

"So, close the door at Wolfram and H art , and see what window opens."

He swallowed hard. "What if one doesn't?"

"At least you'll be able to save people without making them sign a waiver. Heck, the Scoobies did just fine without a link to the Powers. They just walked through graveyards and killed stuff."

Angel chuckled. "Good point. I'll think about it." He sighed. "I don't want to leave."

"Well, I want to take a nap. I've got stuff tonight and I'm worn out."

His smile grew warm, delicious. "Can I tuck you in?"

"No, you may not. You had your shot. And you get extra credit for giving me two happies in one night, even if the rest of it was on the empty side." She pushed him back and stood. "Now, go find your girlfriend and throw yourself at her feet."

"I'll think about it."

She sighed. "Fine. Whatever."

He leaned down and kissed her cheek, pulled her to him in a hug.

His body was cool, and after David's warmth he felt strange, inhuman. But he was Angel, and she loved him, and she hugged him back, hard. "Love you," she said.

"You too." He kissed her forehead. "Don't do anything stupid with that scroll."

"Like what?"

"Go to Lilah. She'll eat you for lunch. She's had a hard-on for us ever since I took over."

She snorted. "Don't be an idiot." She waved him toward the door. "Angel?"

He turned. "Yeah."

"The hardest thing about this world is to live in it."

"Yeah."

Chapter 10

The ringing phone woke her. "Yeah," she mumbled sleepily into the receiver.

"Cordy?"

His voice st art led her awake. "Connor? Are you okay?" She sat up, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

"Yeah. Kinda." The line was staticky, like they had a bad connection ."I need a place to crash," he said, sounding agitated. "This is all-- My mom's coming down on me, and it's freaking me out."

Cordy grabbed the bedside clock and squinted at the numbers. Eight-thirty. God, she needed to be up and dressed so she could sneak up on Lilah. "I've got a thing in an hour or so. You wanna meet me here before, or after?"

"Can I come now?"

She put her feet on the floor and shoved the covers back. "Yeah, I'll wait."

"I'll be there in twenty."

She clicked the phone off and put it on the night stand, then turned on the lamp. Light split the room in half.

Yawning, she got up slowly, putting all her weight on both feet, ignoring the cane. "You're not really gonna do this to me, are you?" She took a step and her leg trembled, threatened to collapse. All those years of walking, strong legs, graceful feet, and now here she was.

She kicked the floor in frustration, then hobbled to the bathroom.

After her shower she wrapped her hair in a towel and threw on her robe. A glance at the clock said twenty-five minutes had passed. She grabbed her cane and hoofed it to the front door. But when she opened it, no one was there.

"Probably stuck in traffic," she said. By the time she was dressed, forty-five minutes had gone by, and no Connor. She hit call-back on the phone, and got nothing but endless rings. Finally, his voice mail picked up. "Connor, it's Cordy. Where are you?"

Okay, so he was late. It was nothing to get excited about. "Dennis, if Connor comes, will you let him in?"

The ties of her robe fluttered and she took that as a yes. The hair dryer blocked out any sound of the doorbell, and when she turned it off and put it back in the drawer, she called into the living room. "Connor?"

Now it had been nearly an hour, and the skin across her shoulders was tight, prickling. She tried his phone again, but no luck. "Dammit. Connor, where are you?"

Maybe he was outside and he couldn't get in. Or he'd met a friend in the parking lot. Not like he knew anyone here but still, it was possible.

She pulled on her jean jacket, tucked her keys and wallet in the pockets. The scroll lay on the table next to her purse, and something prompted her to stick it in the inside pocket of the jacket.

"Come on, come on," she said to the elevator. The doors opened and she rode down, wishing like hell she had her own car.

Her gaze swept the parking lot--nothing. She dialed Angel's cell phone, praying that the number hadn't changed. It rang two times, three. "Hello?"

"Is Angel there?" she asked breathlessly.

"Uh, no. I think you have the wrong number." It was a woman's voice, and she sounded irritated by the disruption.

Her jaw clenched. "Sorry." She pounded her fist on her forehead, trying to remember Fred's number, Wes's. "Oh!" Wes had called her. She arrowed down through the calls received list, and found his number. Thank God she didn't use this phone often. Most of the calls were from David.

"Please be there," she said, as she paced the sidewalk.

A black SUV pulled into the driveway and she let out a relieved laugh. "There he is. Jeez, Cordy. Paranoid much?" But when the driver got out, it was a girl, and she realized then that the truck was green, not black.

"You've reached the voice mail of Wesley Wyndam-Price--" She jumped, st art led by the voice. She'd been so caught up in looking at the SUV that she'd zoned out on the ringing phone.

No Connor, no Angel, no Wes. She didn't have numbers any more for Fred, Gunn or Lorne. And Wolfram and H art was closed, so she couldn't get them that way.

"Cab," she said under her breath. She could go to Angel's, tell him Connor hadn't shown up. She got ready to dial 411, when her phone chirped. "Yeah."

"Hey. What's up?" It was David, sounding cheerful. In the background she could hear his Doors tape cranked.

"David, thank God."

"What's wrong?" His voice rose over the pumping music.

"I need you to come pick me up. There's--it's an emergency."

The music disappeared. "Are you all right? What's wrong?"

"It's not me. It's a friend. He's missing."

"I was about to swing by there and check on you, anyway. I'll be there in ten." He disconnected.

She paced, blowing out a breath, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Another car pulled in the lot and she stiffened.

Dammit, it was a pick-up truck. Two people got out, but they were older, obviously just getting home from work.

She couldn't just stand there and do nothing, so she dialed Connor again and, again, got his voice mail. Dare she call his mother? Four-one-one connected her to the operator. "Maddox on Tanasi Drive ." There was a series of clicks, and the phone was ringing.

After three tones someone picked up. "This is Barb Maddox."

Cordy's stomach clenched. "Mrs. Maddox? It's Cordelia Chase. I'm calling for Co-- Ben. Is he available?" She tried to keep it light, casual. She was pretty sure she sucked.

"I'm sorry, Cordelia. He's spending the night at Jake's. I haven't seen him since this morning. May I ask why you're calling?" She sounded frosty, as always.

Not that Cordy blamed her. She'd never been exactly stable around Barb. "He'd, um, asked David to get him the name of his, uh, landscaper at the p art y, and David asked me to follow through on it."

Clearly she didn't believe a thing Cordy said. "Well, I'll certainly tell him you called." Which translated to, he's never getting this message, and don't call back.

"Thank you." She hung up. "Dammit. Dammit!"

When she glanced at her watch, four minutes had passed. She gritted her teeth. "Come on, David."

Her phone rang and she jumped. "Yeah."

"It's me. I'm hitting green all the way down. I'm almost to your complex."

"Good. I'm here." Cordy's hand tightened as she hung up the phone. What was she gonna tell him? "Remember that conversation we had when I first woke up? It wasn't a dream, what I was telling you. It was real"?

The screech of tires on the pavement had her looking up, and David was whipping into the parking lot in the Mercedes. He stopped right in front of her and opened the door. "Get in."

She hustled as fast as she could and closed herself in the climate-controlled car. "We need to get to Wolfram and H art . Now."

His shot her a look. "Angel?"

"No. His son." It slipped out before she could put any kind of spin on it, so she kept going. By the time they got to the law firm, she'd filled him in on as much as she could tell without getting too deeply into her role. Which basically meant, she told him about Connor being born and getting kidnapped and coming back grown, and that Angel had set a reset button to save his life.

He looked at her like she was half-crazy, but all he said was, "We'll find him." They screeched into a parking space on the street half a block from the firm, which was as close as they could get, and they ran down the block toward the big, glass front doors.

David had his cell phone out and was calling Angel. "Angel, it's David. Cordelia needs to talk to you." He handed the phone over and banged on the door. "Open up!" he yelled at the guard.

"Cordelia?" Angel sounded half-asleep. She could hear a hockey game in the background.

"Angel, get down here, now," she said, pressing her hand to her hip. "Connor's missing." She was out of breath from the run and her leg ached.

Before he could reply, the guard was opening the doors. "Mr. Nabbit? Is everything all right?"

Cordy's stomach churned. "Angel's on his way down. We need to see him right away."

The stairwell door slammed against the wall and Angel flew out to meet them, not even bothering to pretend to go at a human pace. "What's going on?"

"He called me an hour-and-a-half ago," Cordy said, rushing to meet him. "He was gonna crash at my place. He didn't show." She grabbed his arm. "The spell's crumbling. Any of those groups who wanted him before could have him."

His jaw clenched and he looked around the lobby. He had on a half-buttoned shirt, black pants and his boots. "You tried his phone?"

She nodded.

"Hospitals? Police dep art ment?"

Cordy shook her head. She felt kind of stupid for not thinking of it, for automatically assuming that he'd been taken.

Angel whipped a phone out of his pocket and hit a couple of numbers. "It's Angel. I need to find a boy, about eighteen years of age. Ben Maddox, Malibu address, 1823 Tanasi Drive . Five eight, one-fifty. Brown hair, blue eyes. Check all hospitals and police calls in the last hour. And I need it yesterday."

Despite the sense of urgency, she was impressed by his command--of the phone and the person on the other end.

"So, what now?" David asked, looking from Cordy to Angel.

"Now, we wait," Angel said. "Shouldn't be--" His phone rang. "Yeah. No sign of him?" He ran his hand through his already mussed hair. "No, thanks. I'll call you back if I need anything else."

Cordy wrapped her arms around her waist. "Okay, so he didn't show up at my place. Nothing at the cop shop or the hospital. Where else would he go?"

"A friend's?" David asked. "His house?"

Cordy shook his head. "His mom was freaking him out. He was coming to my place to get away. She thought he was at Jake's. Shit. He said he'd only be twenty minutes."

"Did he say where he was coming from?" Angel asked, eyes intense and focused.

"No. Nothing. Just that he was freaked and he'd be over before I went to Lil--" Okay, Cordy. Shut up.

"You were going to Lilah's?" Angel's eyes narrowed. "I thought I told you not to go over there."

"You're not the boss of me," Cordy said.

Angel tensed.

"Why were you going to Lilah's?" David broke in. He looked like he was trying to juggle too many balls and kept dropping them.

"To find out why she had the scroll." She pulled it from her pocket and showed it to him. It was out of its box, and in its clear plastic sleeve. "It says, 'the father will kill the son.' It's the same scroll that Wesley had in the other...reality, I guess you'd call it. It's what made him take Connor."

"If Wes had the scroll," David said, as if he wasn't sure he was saying the right thing, but had to say it, anyway, "Why wouldn't he take him again?"

Angel and Cordy stared at each other. Cordy's mind flashed back to that moment right after she returned. The silent, chilly lobby. Angel's burned out room and burned out he art . From the look on his face, she knew he was remembering it too.

"Shit," Angel said. He pointed at the guard. "Call Wes now. Home, mobile, office, whatever. I want him here."

The guard st art ed dialing. The lobby was dim, the stone walls and floor a deep gray. Everything looked like a black and white movie, the tense guard, the huddled group. Cordy felt like she was circling above herself, looking down on them.

Then David touched her arm. "Cordelia. He'll be all right."

When she looked at him, she could see that, even if he didn't understand what was happening, he believed in her. And if he believed in her after this much of the story, would he still be there after he heard the rest? "God, I hope so." She wrapped her hand around his and held on.

"Sorry, sir," the guard said. "I can't seem to find him."

"I'll take Lilah's office," David said. "What am I looking for?"

"You can't. She's dangerous." He paused, considering, then hit a number on his phone. "Gunn, it's Angel. I need you at the office now. You are? A case at this hour? Whatever--just, get down to the lobby."

He looked at David. "Gunn's coming down now. Stay with him. He'll take care of you."

"What are we looking for?"

"I don't know," Angel said. He ran his hand over his hair. "Anything that looks like it might tell us where Connor is."

The doors opened and Gunn stepped out, his tie askew, and the top button of his burgundy shirt undone. "What?"

"Take David. Go to Lilah's office. My son is missing."

Gunn's nostrils flared. "Angel, you don't have a--"

"Just do it."

"What am I looking for?" Gunn asked, and suddenly he looked more alert, lighter on his feet. The street fighter Cordy first met hadn't disappeared, he'd just been waiting for a reason to appear.

"David will explain. GO!" Instead of waiting to see if they obeyed, Angel grabbed her arm and hauled her down the stairs. "Come on."

They slammed through the stairwell door and ended up in a garage with a fleet of shiny cars. He threw her into the front seat of a black Viper and hit the gas.

It took off like a bullet, fishtailing on the slick concrete floor. They blew out of the garage, almost taking off the door. She held onto the door handle. "Wes's?"

"Yeah."

They passed three cops, and once they got a look at the car, all of them backed off. "You got cop protection?"

He glanced in the rearview. "Yeah. Doesn't suck."

The car squealed to a stop at Wes's high rise, a definite step up from his lower-rent flat of two years before. "Nice place." Her feet hit the sidewalk and she trailed Angel to the front doors.

He hit buttons until someone upstairs buzzed them in, and they ran across the lobby, past the guard, to the elevator. Cordy stuttered to a halt, and stared down at the button pad, and the slot for a key card below it. It read, "Insert key card for access."

"Shit," she muttered.

"Can I help you?" asked the guard.

They turned. "Wesley Wyndam-Price," Angel said. "We're looking for him. Have you seen him?"

The guard, an older man with a long nose and silver hair, shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir, I'm not allowed to give out information on the tenants. If you'd just sign in, I'll be happy to--"

Cordy got in his space. "Look, there's an emergency."

"Are you family?" the guard asked, peering down his nose at her.

Cordelia shook her head. "Co-workers." Leaning in, she pinned him with her no-bullshit look. "We need to find him, now."

Angel muscled her aside and whipped out his wallet. "I'm his boss. A coworker is missing. We think Wesley might be in danger." He handed the guy a card with the Wolfram and H art logo, and the words, "Angel, CEO," underneath.

Cordy's eyes widened. Angel's name on the Big Evil's card. There was something *so* wrong about that.

The guard took the card and arched his eyebrow. "So, you're Angel? I've heard about you." He nodded them toward the elevator. "Go ahead." He hit a button on the console and the doors slid open.

Maybe it paid to be Satan's Toady, Cordy thought as she followed him across the shiny, marble floor.

They rode to Wes's ap art ment in silence. Cordy counted floors, eyes on the numbers above the door. "He'd better be there drinking tea and watching Eastenders."

Angel put his hand on her shoulder. "Thanks for calling me."

She looked over at him. "Why wouldn't I?"

He shrugged. "After what happened, I-- Let's just say, I wouldn't be surprised if you never called me again."

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Angel ran down the hall and Angel pounded on Wes's door. "Wesley. Wesley! Open the door!" He rattled the knob.

Cordy finally made it to Wes's door. "Break it," she said.

He banged on the door again. "Wesley!"

"Come on, Angel. Before you get the neighbors out here."

He squared his shoulders and turned the knob, hard. The door swung open.

The ap art ment was a wreck. Marked up paper like dirty snowfall on the couch, the floor, the dining room table. Broken pencils, half-full mugs of coffee gone stale. A box of take-out going sour sat on the floor next to an overturned dining room chair.

Cordy closed the door behind them and while Angel tossed the front rooms, she went to the bedroom. The bed was unmade, with two indentions in the pillows. It smelled like sex and dirty clothes, which lay in a pile on the floor.

She wrinkled her nose and crossed the room. A smoothed-out dollar lay on the bedside table, with Wesley's name scrawled on it. She fingered it, wondering what it meant.

"Cordy?"

"Yeah, he's not here." She turned to find him standing in the door with a handful of papers. "What's that?"

"Translations. He's been at it for awhile. I can't believe I didn't know--" His jaw clenched.

"Recriminate later. We have to find Connor."

Cordy's phone rang, st art ling them both. "Yeah," Cordy said into the receiver.

"Cordy, it's me," David said. "We didn't find anything in Lilah's office. It actually looks like she's cleared everything out."

"Crap," Cordy said.

"What?" Angel hulked over her. "What is it?"

"She's gone. David, was there anything else? Did Gunn hear anything, or Fred or Lorne?"

"Fred's out with Knox. I think they had a date. Lorne's not picking up either. We're at a loss-- Oh, my God." David's voice rose. "Gunn, are you all right?"

"David?" Cordy clenched the phone.

"Hey, wait! Don't-- Ow!" There was a rustling sound, and then nothing.

"David!"

"What?" Angel had his hand on the phone and was trying to listen with her.

She jerked the phone away from him and hit David's speed dial number. "It sounded like--" She swallowed past the nausea. "Like they were attacked."

Angel grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the room.

"You're hurting me!"

"Sorry! We need to move." He picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, and they flew out of the ap art ment.

"Put me down!" The phone rang and rang. Finally David's voice mail picked up. "Dammit!"

They blew past the guard and out the doors, and she hung on to his shirt and tried not to drop the phone and her stupid cane. Angel unlocked the doors with his remote and slung her into the seat.

"Sorry," he said.

All the blood rushed out of her head and she saw stars. "Whatever. Just get me there."

The drive back to Wolfram and H art took less time than the drive to Wes's had. They jetted into the garage, the huge motor rumbling in the silent cavern. It was like Batman's cave, if Batman had driven other stuff besides the Batmobile.

She wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, of Angel's fat-cat life, of her p art in, it, but all she could think was, "He's only human. Don't hurt him." Connor and Gunn could fight but David was just a guy.

They ran for the elevators. "Go on," she said, nodding toward the stairs. "You can get there faster."

"I don't want to leave you alone," he said, but he was already aiming toward the stairwell.

"I'll be fine."

He stared at her, looking as worried as she felt.

"You're wasting time!"

He ran for the door and disappeared. When the doors slid open, she hopped in and jammed her finger against the button, praying that Lilah's office was the same place it had always been.

***

"Nothing," Angel said, standing just inside the door. "They're gone."

Lilah's office was a mess, the leather desk chair upended, the desk drawers open. The couch cushions lay on the floor, and next to them lay a ripped swatch of burgundy fabric. Angel crossed to it and touched it. "Blood. Gunn's."

"Dammit. Where would they go?"

He righted Lilah's phone and called the guard. "Any sign of Wes, Lilah or Gunn?" The phone hit the cradle and Angel looked at her. "Nothing."

"So they're still in the building, right?"

Angel nodded. "Yeah, the guard can see every access door. And the equipment can't be tampered with."

"Even with a spell?"

He shook his head. "Especially with a spell."

"Think! Where would they go?"

"The basement." Angel's eyes went flat. "We keep the unkillables down there. The demons we don't want out, but who can't be killed. We have storage units--"

"That's gross," she said, as they ran toward the elevator.

He hit a series of buttons and the cab slid down. "I'm just realizing how gross my whole life is."

"You said it, not me." This was how they'd always handled stress, by cracking jokes. It felt good to be back in the groove with him, though the reason behind it sucked beyond the telling.

The doors opened, just as Cordy was wondering how many elevator rides she could take in one day. And there, in the open room, sat David. He was floating about two feet off the floor in a cloud of putrid yellow light, his eyes wide with terror.

"David!" She rushed toward him.

He shook his head and seemed to be shouting something to her but she couldn't hear it. Angel grabbed her arm and hauled her back, just as a seven-foot demon, as yellow as the light, rushed her.

Angel, already bruised and disheveled, threw her aside and whipped a computer off the lab-type desk to bash over the demon's head.

Cordy got up and ran up to the bubble. "Can you hear me?" she yelled. Blood trickled from David's temple, and a bruise marred the side of his face, next to his mouth. "I'm okay," he mouthed.

Relief made her sag. Behind her, Angel and the yellow demon slugged each other. Glass shattered and when Angel growled, she knew it meant he'd gone vamp.

David yelled something.

"What? What about May?" she asked, trying to figure out what he was saying.

He shook his head and pointed.

"Oh! Get out of the *way*!" But it was too late. She hit the floor, trapped by several hundred pounds of demon.

Then, the weight disappeared Angel was standing over her. "Are you okay?"

She sucked in the air that had been knocked out of her, and yelled, "Watch out!"

The demon head-butted Angel, and they went down. Then, Angel changed. It was like he lost patience with the fight, like suddenly he realized why they were really there, and that someone was trying to distract him with flying fists.

He grabbed a lab c art , something with dials and wires, and beat the other demon with it. When the thing stopped moving, he snapped one of the wires off the c art , wrapped it around the demon's neck, and jerked, hard.

The horned yellow head bounced free, the face a grotesque mask. With one last, shuddering breath the body deflated, followed quickly by the bubble.

"I thought you said these things were unkillable," Cordy said, then she rushed to David's side as he fell to the floor.

"Evidently they've never had to deal with Angel," David said, rubbing his butt where he hit the floor.

She ran her hands over him, feeling for broken bones the way she used to do for Angel. "Are you okay?" She touched his head, and he winced.

"Yeah, I think."

"Where are they?" Angel asked, voice just this side of urgent.

David pointed toward the doors at the opposite end of the lab. Angel rushed through, leaving Cordy and David behind.

"Stay here," she said, standing.

"No way!" He grabbed her hand. "I'm going with you!"

"We'll handle it. Just stay here!"

His face fell. "Of course. I'm just a human. Not cool, like Gunn. Or hot, like Angel. Why would you need me?"

The band of tension was so tight she nearly screamed. "Because I love you, you idiot! I don't want you to get hurt!"

His eyes widened. "What?"

"Oh, forget it!" She grabbed his arm and hauled him through the doors.

It was a stand-off. Lilah against Angel.

Gunn lay on the floor, unconscious, his shirt ripped and a dark smear of blood on his head. Behind them Wes held a slumped-over Connor under the arms, right next to a glowing portal. The pistol in his hand was aimed at Connor's head.

She gasped. "Wes! No!"

But when she tried to run to him, David grabbed her arm. "Stay back. This looks bad." Then he shot her a funny look. "Did you say you loved me?"

"We'll talk about it later," she said, vibrating with tension.

Lilah tapped the toe of next season's Prada shoes on the concrete floor. Looked like Wolfram and H art not only got cop protection, they got first dibs on the Fall line. "Hail, hail, the gang's all here."

Wes's face was drawn in grim strokes. "I didn't want it to happen this way," he said to Angel.

"Second verse, same as the first," Angel said, fists clenched. "I should have killed you when I had the chance."

"Stop it, both of you." Cordy took the scroll out of her pocket and threw it on the floor at Wes's feet. "The spell is breaking down."

"No, it isn't," Lilah said, gliding forward on her beautiful shoes. She adjusted the pink scarf at her neck. "Everything's working out just like I'd planned."

Lilah brushed by her, giving Cordy a chill. Her flesh was cool, dry, soft…wrong. "Why are you here, Lilah?" The jolt she’d gotten when she saw the dead woman was st art ing to reverberate through her, and she didn’t like it.

"You’re so sm art , why don’t you tell me?"

Cordy crossed her arms over her jean jacket, wishing she’d worn something a little more upscale in the face of Lilah’s Marc Jacobs. "Connor."

"I can see why Angel kept you around." Her eyes dropped to Cordy’s chest. "Well, knowing him like I do now, I’d say that was probably second or third on the list."

Angel stepped forward. "Lilah--"

"If you have a point," Cordy said, "please feel free to find it."

"Angel gets off on chasing girls around the copier." She glanced over her shoulder. "Oops. That probably wasn’t the point you wanted to hear me make."

"Angel’s a vampire, Lilah. They’re hardly great boyfriend material." She shot him an apologetic glance, then wondered why she'd bothered since it was true.

Little crinkles appeared at the corners of Lilah’s eyes. "That’s not what you said two summers ago." She clasped her hands to her chest. "I’m in love," she said, in a surprisingly good imitation of Cordy’s voice. "With Angel!" Her laughter rang through the room.

David tensed. "I knew you were in love with him."

Cordy squeezed his hand, but kept her gaze pinned on Lilah. "So, how’s the neck?" She remembered how it felt to shove the knife deep in Lilah's throat. She'd hoped it was a nightmare, not one of those flashbacks that came in dreams. But now she knew it was true.

Lilah stopped laughing and fingered the scarf. "Fine, thanks." She tugged the fabric aside, showing a long, thin line. "I know how Marie Antoinette felt."

Cordy stood, tense. Coming face-to-face with Connor had been one thing. But Lilah was dead because of her. Never mind that Lilah being dead was actually a *good* thing.

Or it would have been if Lilah had stayed dead. "Get to the point, Lilah."

Her perfectly waxed eyebrow arched. "Angel’s spawn? Your young stud? He's looking good, by the way. I can totally see why you boffed him."

David whipped around to stare at Cordy. "You had sex with Ben-- Connor?"

"She didn't tell you? And here I thought she was supposed to love you." Lilah leaned forward and said, sotto voce, "She seduced him while Angel watched. It was all very sordid. And then, she got pregnant with his child--with Jasmine, actually."

David's eyes narrowed. "Cordy wouldn't--"

"Oh, please. She bagged Connor *and* Angel." She thrust her chin towards Angel. "Ask her about the night after the charity dinner."

"Cordy?" David asked.

Angel grabbed Lilah's arm. "Enough! Just say what you want, so I can kill you and get it over with."

Lilah looked down at his hand and smiled. "Oh, Angel, you hardly need a visit from Nearly Headless Nicole to tell you what you already know." She shrugged and Angel dropped her arm.

"This whole plan is such a thing of beauty." She clasped her hands under her chin and batted her eyelashes. "There you are, going along, thinking you’re doing the right thing. And suddenly, bam! The world hands you everything you never wanted, on a silver platter. Really, who would complain?"

She leaned in, ignoring Angel, and got in Cordy's space. "You got your reprieve, your happy little family complete with live-action baby, but at what cost? I’ve always wondered, what was it like to be filled by her?"

Cordy felt herself pale.

"Jasmine, I mean. One of the greatest evils ever to grace the e art h." Her laugh was low, smoky, seductive. "The thing I loved about Jasmine was how she pretended to be good. You wouldn’t believe how Angel lapped that up. And Connor? Please. That boy would do anything to be loved." She coughed daintily into her hand. "Kinda pathetic, actually."

"Lapped what up?" Cordy's lips felt numb, her hands cold. She was ignoring the p art about Connor on purpose. If the look on David's face was any indication, the last thing they needed were any more revelations about her relationship with Connor.

"He really believed he’d made the right choice," she said, shooting Angel a look. "To kill her, I mean. And then, when the world went back to its murderous, back-stabbing, beautiful self…." Lilah shivered in delight. "I love guilt. I really, really do. Especially his, you know?"

"You're dead," Angel growled.

"Old news," Lilah said. She trailed her finger along Cordy's shoulder, tangling it teasingly in her hair. Leaning in, she pressed her cool lips against Cordy's ear. The mothball scent of death clung.

"And here we are again--back to where we st art ed. Working for Wolfram and H art has its rewards," she said breathily. "Life after death. Really excellent cinnamon rolls, not that I ever ate them, of course." She pulled back, eyes glinting. "Gotta watch our figures, we girls."

She paused, as if considering something important, her glossy pink lips pursed into a perfect moue. "Oh, and the ability to keep spells running for eternity."

Then she snapped her fingers and a contract appeared in her hand. "David's a real sweetie, you know. A step up from your usual fixer-upper."

Cordy's teeth clenched. "You bitch."

"I thought we established that already." She rocked on her thin, black heels and considered the paper in her hand. "You could come to work for us, though, and all of it would go away. All this?" She waved her hand. "Forgotten. You'd get your pudgy little human lover, and Connor would go back to his normal life."

"You want me to work at Wolfram and H art ?" Cordelia asked, stunned. "For what, the price of my soul?"

"Please," Lilah said, rolling her eyes. "You gave that up years ago. Do the words ‘demonize me, already’ mean anything to you?"

Cordy stared at her.

"Okay, enough," Wes said. "Sign it, Cordelia, or we're gone."

"Why do you care, Wes? You don't even know him." Cordelia asked. She dropped David's hand and walked closer to Wes, who thrust the pistol at Connor's temple and backed up toward the portal.

"Oh, but I do. I remember it all." His gaze slammed into Angel like a fist. "Including the part where Angel decided what I should be allowed to remember, and what I should forget."

"Because I thought it was the right thing to do!" Angel sounded anguished, angry. "It was for Connor!"

"No, it was for *you*!" Wes said. "I lost someone, too, someone I loved. And I was willing to let her go--but you took my memories from me because you couldn't handle his death!" He set his chin and stared at Angel, a cold, blue gaze. "And now, either way, you've lost him."

Lilah smiled, a bright, shiny smile. "Well, there it is. Cordy, you sign the contract and I erase it all, or you don't, and we take him away forever."

"How is that any different than what Angel did? You're still taking everyone's memories," Cordy said, her voice rising. "And how do we know all this won't happen again?"

"I guess it's just a chance you'll have to take."

Connor stirred in his arms, and Wes glanced down at him. "Your choice, Cordelia. But if you don't make it soon, you won't have a choice to make."

She stared down at the contract, then over at Connor, who was blinking awake. She knew he'd rather die than live a lie. Or go back through that portal.

"What about you? Are you willing to lose your memories again?" she asked Wes.

"I won't be." He smiled, a triumphant twist of his lips. "The spell only effects this dimension."

Lilah stepped toward the portal. "And I'm going with them."

"Like hell you are," Angel said.

"Angel, don't!"

But he'd already lifted off at a dead run, taking Connor and Wes down in a flying tackle away from the portal. The gun skidded across the floor.

Cordy slugged Lilah, felt her fist connect with jawbone. Her eyes widened when Lilah's head bounced off. "Oh, ugh!" she said, as Lilah's body fell in a heap at her feet, its head rolling across the floor a few feet away.

"Angel! Watch out!" David yelled.

Wes punched Angel in the face once, twice, and rolled out from under him. Then, like magic, a mini crossbow appeared in each hand. He fired rapidly at close range, and Angel grunted, getting his hand up just in time to stop a bolt from piercing his he art .

Lilah's body scooted across the floor. The head's eyes opened and closed, a deafening shriek coming from the mouth. Cordy grabbed her by the heels and pulled her to the opposite side of the room. "Keep them apart ," she told David, and she went after Connor.

He lay on the ground, slowly coming back to consciousness. Wes backed Angel across the room, and every time Angel feinted, Wes fired. He had a bolt in his shoulder, one in his chest only inches from his he art , and another in his throat. But he was still fighting.

She knelt next to Connor. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah. They hit me with something. Tranquilizer, maybe?" But his eyes were clearing, so she left his side and went to Gunn. "Wake up," she said, shaking his shoulder.

Out the corner of her eye, she saw Angel lunge and Wes dodge. Then Wes pulled a small shotgun from his jacket and fired a round. Cordy flinched as pellets ricocheted through the room, but the sound seemed to rouse Gunn.

"Ow," he said, grabbing his head.

"Stay down. Wes is shooting at Angel."

He jerked in shock. "What?" Then he pushed up, watching as Wes pumped another round of pellets at Angel's back.

Angel grunted, then fell to his knees. His body was riddled with pellets and bolts, blood dripping. Wes stalked him, aiming the gun at his head. "I don't want to kill you," he said, in a cold, tired voice.

"So don't," Connor said, finally rising. "Kill me."

Wes swivelled, and now the gun pointed at Connor's chest. "It would certainly solve a lot of problems."

"No!" Angel coughed, and blood spattered the floor beneath him. "Don't. Don't kill him."

The portal glowed, brighter, and as Cordy watched, Gunn rolled to his feet. "You go all rogue on us?" Gunn asked.

Wes glared at him. "I'm trying to do what's right."

"Well, obviously that isn't working out so well for you, is it? 'Cause you seem to have a gun pointed on this kid, who I think might actually be Angel's son." He looked confused for a second, and then his face smoothed out. The more time slipped by, the less power the spell held. "Seems like we've been here before. Once wasn't enough for you?"

Wes stepped back toward the portal, keeping the gun on Connor. "I'll shoot him."

"Why?" Angel got to his feet. "What will that solve?"

"Come on, Wes, don't do it," Cordy said. "I'm not going to sign the contract. The whole spell is crashing down around us. Everyone's gonna remember sooner or later, anyway. Let it go."

He stared at them. "No." And then, all of a sudden, he turned the gun on David. "Let her go."

David, startled, got decked by Lilah's swinging fist, and went down. Her body scuttled to her head and attached itself, and she stood, smoothing out her scarf and her suit. "Thank you, my sweet."

Angel's head jerked up, and he stared at Lilah. "Jasmine?"

Then she smiled and her eyes flashed, bright gold, and Cordy realized that Angel was right. It wasn't Lilah at all.

She screamed.

The men froze.

Lilah's face and body trembled, glowed, and morphed. And there she stood, tall and regal, with her cafe au lait skin and long flowing hair. "Hello, mother," she said, giving Cordy that brilliant smile.

Rage pumped through her like a fist. "You bitch."

Jasmine laughed and held out her hand, like a minister at benediction. Angel, Wes, Gunn and David, fell to their knees, heads bowed.

Connor and Cordelia stood, unaffected.

"You can't kill me, you know." Her smile widened. "I'm a Power--or, I was. I chose you." She seemed to float toward them, graceful as the wind. But looking into her eyes was like looking into a pit of writhing snakes. "Both of you. To be my parents, to make me flesh."

She held out her hands. "Thank you for making me flesh."

Light flashed out from her, and Wes rose and knelt before her. "My lady," he said.

"My darling Wesley. You've been so good to me."

He kissed her hand. "I could be no other way."

Jasmine smiled, those creepy eyes warming. "He was so good to give you the scroll." She leaned forward, and when she spoke, her breath smelled like grave dirt. "It was my message to you. To let you know I was coming."

"Next time, send a fruit basket," Cordelia said.

Jasmine laughed. "Mmm. Fruit. You've reminded me that I haven't eaten in awhile." She stroked her hand over Wesley's hair, and he smiled at her, that beautiful face glowing with love for his goddess.

Cordelia screamed, but it was too late. Jasmine had already latched into him. In one, great golden gulp, he was drained, his body lying on the floor, pale and useless.

Jasmine burped daintily. "I usually like to eat the whole thing, but I thought you might like something to bury."

"No," Cordy gasped. She knelt beside Wes. "No! He didn't do anything to you! He--" She stopped, choking back her tears. Then she saw Jasmine looking at David.

"Here's one, ripe with love. I bet he'll be a tasty morsel." She held out her hand. "David?"

"Yes, my goddess." He glanced at her, then looked away, as if she was too beautiful to look at. "I am your humble servant."

Cordy's he art nearly exploded in her chest. "Stay away from him!"

Connor grabbed Jasmine's arm. "Leave him alone. Take me if you want someone."

Jasmine pouted. "But father, you know I would never harm you."

"Because you can't," Connor said, fists clenched at his sides. "You can't hurt either of us."

Angel, David and Gunn still knelt, as if they were paralyzed.

It was just her and Connor. Who Jasmine couldn't hurt or control.

Jasmine laughed. "Yes, but you can't hurt me, either. At least, not for long." She winked at Connor then turned her back on him, and like a playful child, held her hand out. David stood and stretched out his arms like a supplicant. Light started glowing, gold and alive, encompassing them both.

"NO!" Cordelia shouted. She knocked Jasmine's arm down with her left hand, and with her right, she swung her fist as hard as she could.

She jerked in surprise when her hand hit Jasmine's chest and just kept on going.

Through the flesh and bone, through organs and blood, to the maggots beneath. She screamed when she felt flesh meet hers, and then, Jasmine's eyes widened in shock.

"What?" Jasmine asked. "That's impossible--"

And then she was melting around Cordelia's hand, like the Wicked Witch of the West. Dripping flesh, peeling off, puddling on the ground. Maggots wriggling, plopping when they hit the floor. Cordy's stomach churned, and she breathed through her mouth as the fetid smell of the grave permeated the room.

As Jasmine's upper body flowed away, Cordelia saw Connor, standing behind her, his hand in Jasmine's back.

She realized, then, that they'd punched through Jasmine at the same time, and they stood, hands joined, in what was once her heart .

As Jasmine's body disappeared, a thin haze of gold floated up. It hovered, formed shape, and for a moment, she thought she saw Wesley reflected there.

She watched, stunned, as it drifted over its body, then into the portal. The portal sucked itself shut.

"What?" Angel was the first one up. "What just happened?"

Connor said, "We killed her."

Gunn sat up, rubbing his head, and soon David was moaning, too.

"You wanna tell us what all that was about?" Gunn said.

Cordy blinked, still reeling. "I think Connor and I just saved the world." She knelt next to Wes and closed his staring eyes.

She thought of all the things that had gone wrong since she'd said those magic words. "Demonize me." She should have known they'd have consequences; that people would pay with their lives, with their bodies, with their he art s.

When she looked up, Angel and Gunn were staring at her, and at Wes's body. They both wore the looks of men who had lost a brother, a comrade. Shock, fear, sadness.

Cordy turned to David. "Are you hurt?"

He pressed his hand to his temple. "My head hurts."

"How much do you remember?"

"Pretty much everything."

She pulled back, feeling that rising sense of panic. "Everything?"

He cut his eyes at Angel. "Did you sleep with him?"

Her heart broke. She knew, by the look on his face, that she'd just lost him. "We had sex, yes. Once. After the charity dinner."

Angel looked down at his shoes. "It was my fault. I--"

David said, "Stop. I don't want to know." He looked at Connor. "You too?"

"It wasn't her. It was Jasmine."

David looked pissed. "You keep talking about Jasmine? Who the hell is Jasmine?"

Connor pointed to the pile of goo on the floor. "That was Jasmine. We just killed her." His face twisted. "After she killed Wes."

"She took over my body," Cordy said. "It's a long story," she said, feeling tears rise up as she looked at Wes's body. "But yes, she used me to seduce Connor so she could be born."

She levered herself to her feet, knowing now that the price she paid was small compared to what Wes, Lilah and all the other people Jasmine killed had doled out.

"I'm sorry, David. I've been-- I've done--" She sighed. " I'm not the easiest person to live with." She wrapped her arms around her waist. "But I do love you."

He didn't meet her eyes. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."

She flinched. "Okay," she whispered. She stared down at Wes, wondering how much more they had to lose before everything was finished.

***

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," the minister said. He picked up a handful of dirt and threw it on the coffin. "May God have mercy on your soul."

Cordelia stared down at the glossy wood coffin with its brass rails and white satin interior. She'd picked it out, and had planned the funeral and the reception after. Wesley wasn't like Doyle; he wouldn't want a wake. He'd have wanted something simple, and without fuss.

And that's what she gave him. An Anglican service, which his parents, though invited, didn't attend. And now, as she walked toward the waiting limos, the little tea for his closest friends.

In the distance, she saw Angel, Gunn and Lorne, all dressed in black suits, heading for Angel's Mercedes. Connor walked in the opposite direction with his mom and dad, but just before they got in the car, Connor yelled Angel's name. "I'll call you," he said.

Angel nodded, and even from here she could see the cautious joy in Angel's eyes.

Behind them was Cordy's limo, and behind her car was a gap where David's was supposed to be. He'd come alone, stood by himself during the service.

She let her gaze travel over the crowd, but she couldn't find him. Her heart twisted.

Most of the other people were from Wolfram and H art , here not because they cared about Wes, but because they were afraid of what Angel would do if he found out they didn't come.

Fred, dressed in a black miniskirt and boots, joined her. "Can I ride over with you?"

Cordy looped her arm through Fred's. "Of course. Does Angel have everyone else?"

"Yeah. I get tired of being the only girl, you know?" Fred paused, turned to look back toward the grave, where the casket still sat, waiting to go into the ground. "He saved me. I always thought it was Angel, but it was Wes's plan that--" She stopped, voice thick with tears.

The driver opened the door for them and helped Cordy and Fred into the car. "We all paid a price," Cordy said. She stared out the window at the sunny June day, with its perfect California sky and the graveyard dotted with palm trees.

"Yeah," Fred said. "Though maybe some of us haven't paid ours yet."

Cordy turned and watched as Fred shuddered. "What do you mean?"

"Me and Gunn. The shoe hasn't dropped. And what about Lorne?"

Cordy stared out at the warm afternoon. "Maybe losing our family was the price."

Fred's lips thinned. "Maybe so." She closed her eyes. "I remember, one day, I was sitting under the card table eating Moo Goo Gai Pan with my fingers."

Cordy smiled, a sad twist of her lips.

"Fork in the road, fork it over.... Anyway, the guys were researching or something, and you came out, holding the baby and singing to him." She opened her eyes. "You can't sing for shit."

"I know," Cordy said.

Fred leaned her head back on the seat cushions. "You were singing to him, and I felt like you were singing to me. That's the only time since I got back that I've ever felt truly safe."

Cordy thought about Connor, his sweet weight in her arms, his milky breath. Those blue, blue eyes. How safe he'd made her feel. How going to sleep in Angel's bed, with the baby between them was the best she'd ever felt.

She wondered whether having a child of her own would be better, or if there was something so magical about that time, so full of love, of bliss, that it would remain, forever, the highest, best moment of her life.

"Yeah," she said, looking out the window. "I know."

Epilogue

David blinked awake, the pre-dawn light filtering through the half-drawn shades. He stretched, scratched his chin, and thought, breakfast, shower, meet with Corporate Giving about the Getty, lunch with the governor.

Then he rolled over and put his feet on the floor.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?"

Smiling, he turned. Cordelia lay in bed wearing the white Egyptian cotton nightgown he'd bought her last Christmas. Her hair, long enough to touch the middle of her back, flowed over the pillows. The gown was unbuttoned, and at her breast their daughter suckled quietly.

Baby powder, Issey perfume and milk scented the air. "Sorry, I thought you'd still be asleep."

She rolled her eyes. "As if. She got me up half an hour ago."

She looked like a painting, something done by Vermeer or Degas, "Mother and Child." He felt the smile she always brought him warm his entire body. "You're so beautiful."

Cordelia snorted. "Yeah, right. Tell me that again after I've showered and dressed and I might believe you."

David felt the pull of her gravity sucking him in. And, like always, he couldn't resist. He tucked his feet under the covers and turned to face her. Under his hand, their daughter's skin was like rice paper, pure and smooth. He stroked the down of her head, the rosebud mouth where it surrounded Cordelia's nipple.

Cordy shivered. "Don't start something you don't plan on finishing."

He smiled. "Who said I didn't plan on finishing?" He leaned down, closer, closer, and kissed her.

She arched up to meet him, moaning against his lips. "Daaaavid," she teased breathlessly. "We have that meeting with the Getty at ten."

"Coooordy," he said back, twining his fingers in her hair. "It's only six-thirty." He kissed her again, loving the feel of her mouth, the dance of her tongue.

When he pulled back, she was smiling, one of those mysterious smiles she wore sometimes.

"What?" he asked, not quite sure if he wanted the answer.

She reached out her hand and touched his face, then pulled it back and stroked the baby's. "Nothing," she said. "Just thinking."

Her eyes were so full of joy, of love, his breath caught. "Good thoughts?"

She nodded. "The best."

END

THANKS: To littleheaven70 for the quick turnaround on the beta. A trick-or-treat bag full of Lindseys to you, my dear. To Cordy'sBitch for the insider's look at comics and anime. Any time you want me to write you a CB/Kristin Kreuk fic, you just let me know. And to Wang Chung's Points on the Curve for providing the soundtrack.

ABBY'S CHALLENGE: Insanity, gross disfiguration, excessive vanity, unwavering pride, and Cacophobia--the fear of ugliness.