Better Buffy Fiction Archive Entry

 

She Bruise Easy


by Tesla


Spoiler: Angel season one, Buffy season four
Disclaimer: Mutant Enemy, Joss Whedon, Fox, yadda yadda, no profit from this story
A/N: This is an entry for Hepcat's Jossverse birthday ficathon; the birthday really is in there, somewhere.



It's the funniest little things that matter. The whole butterfly flapping its wings in China causing...something, Cordelia couldn't remember now, because her head hurt and the only thing that helped was lying very very still.

Dennis had virtually shoved Wesley out the door, when he'd brought her home after the last vision. They were killing her. She knew they were.

She wanted to resign. She wasn't a hero, she wasn't Doyle, and she couldn't
believe that Doyle ever wanted her to have this. Doyle had been fond of her,
aside from wanting to go out with her, and he would have been horrified at
what it was doing to her. They. Them. The visions.

She knew why Doyle had drunk so much. She thought about doing it, herself.

And it was kind of neat, being Vision Girl, and Angel was uncharacteristically sweet to her about them, but. But. They were getting worse, and she was afraid she'd throw up in public, or even worse, pee in her pants. The whole snot thing was bad enough. Maybe you could get away with that kind of thing in Sunnydale, but not LA. Hah. Even in Sunnydale, it would draw a crowd.

Her hair hurt. Her fingernails hurt.

There had to be a way to get rid of them. There had to be.

But when there wasn't a problem, she forgot how bad it was between times,
until the next time her spine was arcing and she threw coffee in the air and got dirt on her hands and knees and drool on her blouse.

Cordelia was on the phone to Willow when a vision hit. Willow was carefully talking her through un-freezing her computer, and broke off to ask, "Cordy? Cordy?"

Cordelia could only whimper, as she saw a yellow-skinned demon come right up to her and sink its fangs into her throat. Her throat was flooded with salt, with blood, with a bitter taste, and she fell out of the chair onto her knees, the receiver flying. She could hear Willow saying, far away, "Cordy?"

She smelled vinegar, and got on her hands and knees, before the vision repeated, and she saw the address before she threw up her Power Shake into the trashcan.

"Cordy..." said Willow's voice, very faint.

There was no one else in the office, no one to pick Cordelia from the floor or put the receiver back. She couldn't remember where the guys were or how long they were supposed to be gone. She couldn't do anything but scrabble on the desk for a pen, and write down the address before the nausea took her over and she smelled the vinegar again. She lay back under the desk.


Someone was pounding on the office door. Cordelia sat up, aching all over. It was daylight. Angel must have gone to his apartment through the sewers, and Wesley forgot his key. Oh, crap. She'd lay in the dust under her desk all night. The phone receiver was dangling by the cord on the other side of the desk. That accounted for the beeping. She hauled it up and put it back in the cradle. The pounding continued.

As creakily as if she were ninety years old, she got up, and stiffly walked to the door. "Hold your bran muffins, Wes, I'm coming," she called, unlocking the door.

It wasn't Wesley. It was a tall, broad-shouldered, dark young man she'd not seen in over a year.

"Xander Harris," she breathed.

He frowned at her. "Willow said you started---she said you were having a vision? She could hear you crying. We couldn't find Wesley or Deadboy."

Cordelia could barely keep from hugging him. "So she sent you?" She gestured him inside, and closed the door.

"I was there when it happened." He looked around the office. "So this is a detective agency, huh? I thought it would be more noir-ish. Plants. Colorful plastic folders."

"This is my office, " Cordelia said, proudly. "If you want noir, you should see Angel's office. His apartment is---well, actually, he has good taste."

"Well, if you're okay...you really scared Willow." He looked at her with his honest brown eyes. "Me, too, actually. We could hear you whimpering."

Cordelia wrinkled her nose. "It's the visions." Her head was killing her. She looked for the note she wrote the night before. "It kind of hurts until Angel goes out and kills the thingy."

Xander looked down, sniffing. "And you accessorize with vomit, too?"

"Ew," she said. "Well, I went to sleep down there."

"Passed out, you mean?"

"No, that's not--" she rubbed her head. "I didn't pass out."

"And your head still hurts," Xander said.

Cordelia dropped her hand from her forehead. "Yeah, but it's...listen, I can handle it. It's what I do. I'm the vision girl, Angel's connection to the Powers That Be. Willow must've told you that."

"She didn't say that you lie on the floor and cry," Xander said. "I heard you."

"Well, it's all copacetic, now, okay? Angel and Wesley will go to this address and kill a yellow demon that smells of vinegar, so it won't tear people's throats out. Thanks for checking on me, though." The smell from the trashcan wasn't too bad, but it was getting to her and she tried to edge Xander away from it.

"I don't know, Cordy, you look terrible."

Cordelia was aware that she wasn't on solid ground with that, so she summoned up a bright smile and said, "Yes, because I slept on the floor. I'll go home and take a shower and it'll be okay." She wrote, "Yellow. Vinegar smell. Demon" on the note and took a strip of tape. "See, I'll tape it to Angel's door, and go home, and it'll be okay. "

Xander cut his eyes at her. "Do you have a car? No? I can take you home."

She may even have succeeded in convincing Xander all was well, until she had another vision of the yellow demon in the car, and had such a migraine that she couldn't see and couldn't tell him where she lived. She pulled her jacket over her head and lay back against the seat. She couldn't answer Xander's questions. She couldn't even translate the sounds he made into language. All she could do was breathe through her mouth and count the breaths.

When she was finally able to open her eyes, it was past noon, and they were on the highway.

"Where are we going?" she asked Xander. It didn't come out as Queen C as she intended. She could barely pull her jacket away from her face. She patted the pockets and got her sunglasses out. She rolled her head against the back of the seat and looked at Xander's profile. "You're not taking me back to the office."

"I'm taking you to Sunnydale," Xander said. "And I noticed that neither your boss nor anyone else has called to see what's happened to you."

"Dennis is a ghost, he can't call, and Angel doesn't own me, and it's daylight..." she trailed off, holding her head. "Xander. Why are you taking me to Sunnydale?"

"Cordy, I'm taking you to Giles. You haven't looked at yourself."

Cordelia flipped the passenger side visor down, and was horrified to see black circles under her eyes, her eyes red-rimmed, her hair flattened and dusty, her face yellowish with fatigue. There was a bruise on her forehead and a reddening spot on her chin, where she hit her face on the side door during the second vision. She leaned forward. Was that dried drool on her cheek? And of course, no make-up bag, no change of clothes.

She said, "I'm as willing to do good as the next girl who barely escaped being sacrificed to an ascending mayor, but losing my looks is another thing, entirely!" She tried to sound jaunty, but her voice was kind of thin.

"Losing your health is what I'd say," Xander said. "You need to make a pit stop, get something to eat? My treat."

"Yes, please. " Her stomach woke up and reminded her that it was empty.

In the Hawaiian Burger restroom, the pitiless light showed that Cordelia had apparently rolled in the dust, scraped her knees and elbows, and laddered her stockings. She started crying at her beaten expression.

She wasn't a cry-Buffy. She wasn't.

"I'm Cordelia Chase," she hissed to the reflection. "And I'm tired of you Powers pushing me around. I don't want this! "

Fortunately, she didn't have another vision, because she couldn't have borne to have been found laid out on the nasty restroom floor. By Xander.


"I have to call Angel and Wesley and tell them where I am," Cordelia told Xander. "Don't make that face every time I say his name."

"Wesley?" Xander said with false cheer. He pushed a plate of fries across the table to her.

"You know who. He's my friend," she said sternly. She got out her cell phone.

There was no signal.

"We can call from Giles'," Xander said.

Giles. Cordelia found herself yearning for him, for his books and his certainty that they contained the answers to any mystical problem.

Even for involuntary visionity?


With truly impressive timing, the same vision hit her again as Xander was knocking on Giles' door.

She opened her eyes to Xander's concerned face, as he and Giles leaned over her. "Phone," she said. "I gotta call Angel."

"Angel Investigations," Wesley said.

"Hi, Wes, it's Cordy. Did you find my note? Because I've had the same vision four times."

"Cordy, where are you?" He covered the phone, but she could hear him say, "Yes, it's Cordelia."

"Wes, did you find the note with the address?"

"Yes, we're going as soon as it's dark. Where are you?"

Suddenly, there was another voice. "Cordy, are you okay? What happened, last night?" Angel, in his best Boss Man voice.

"Vision," she said. "It keeps coming. It's worse every time." His silence was palpable through the receiver. "You found the trashcan."

"Yeah. How long have you been throwing up, with the visions?"

She didn't reply.

"Cordy?" Angel said. "Cordy, have you been hiding other things? Headaches?"

"I'm at Giles'," she said finally. "I'm going to see if he has any ideas to help."

"You're in Sunnydale," Angel said, very quietly. "Okay. Keep in touch. We'll kill it. Call me if I can answer any of Giles' questions." He paused. "Did you call Xander to come get you?"

"How---never mind. No, I had a vision while I was talking to Willow and she sent him."

"Cordy---" he began. "Never mind. Just, let me know, okay? How long are you going to be there?"

"Not long," Cordelia said. It was a promise. She was going to be out of Loserdale and back to the bright, bright concrete of LA as soon as possible. Because this, this was hell, being back at Scooby central, but without her convertible and her clothes and palomino.

"You poor child," Giles said, kindly, when she hung up. "Xander and Willow filled me in, but I need you to tell me everything about the visions." And maybe there was something about having a father-figure, because she thought about her Daddy, briefly, and how he had looked at her when she was in the hospital.

Not gonna think about the parents. They sure as hell weren't thinking about her.

"So Doyle kissed me and then he jumped up to---well, he died. And then, boom, I got the visions. It's like someone cracks your skull open and pours lava in it. I smell it, I feel it, I see it, and I get the place. Angel fixes it. He goes and saves the people or kills the bad thing, and it stops hurting."

"Until the next one," Giles asked. "But the residual effects have started lasting longer and being more severe, haven't they?"

Cordelia nodded. She suddenly grinned, relieved. "It's taken care of. It's starting to stop." She picked up her cup of tea. "Doyle was half-demon, but he used to drink a lot. I thought---God, I was so snotty---I thought he was just a drunk. He did it because it helped his head." She put her teacup down. "I wish I was a drunk." She saw Giles staring at her. "What? It does hurt that badly."

"Nothing, my dear girl. There are some references to seers, visionaries, and the like, but I'll have to look them up. I don't quite recall the history. There must be many other occurences of such things, if the powers for good were to be of any effect at all."

"I hope you're right," Xander said, making Cordelia start. She had forgotten about him. He was holding Cordelia's jacket. "I got this out of my car, and I picked up the stuff you'd dropped." He opened his hand to show the prescription bottle. "Pretty heavy duty migraines."

Cordelia took the bottle. "Yes," she said quietly. And not refillable.

She didn't want to stay in Giles' apartment. Xander looked defensive, but Cordelia was too grateful to accept his loan of tee-shirt and boxers, and clean towels for the shower, to say anything about his basement.

"You should have seen my first place in L.A.," Cordelia called through the bathroom door. "This is heaven in comparison."

She came out, brushing her hair. "The place I have now is perfect, " she said, in a challenging tone. Xander just grinned over at her from the washing machine.

"First time I heard this place called heaven," Xander said. "I never thought you'd be here. I never thought we'd ever talk to each other without the snark."

"Hey, I've seen some things that make high school betrayal and heartbreak just not important." Cordelia curled up on the couch. "Now, that is."

"Yeah." Xander had put on some muscle, and his hair was longer, but he was reassuringly the same. She didn't want him to be different. It was awful enough being back in Sunnydale, a wreck, with chipped fingernail polish and scratched knees, without the whole world being changed.

"What?" Cordelia asked. She hadn't been listening, as she looked at her nails.

"I said, you can wash your stuff and hang it up here." He came back with a first aid box. "Let me look at your knees. I have the no-sting stuff."

She sat down in the ugly recliner. "Good. Angel has the definitely-stinging stuff. I think he still believes it has to hurt like fire to heal." She studied her right knee. "There's a whole redemption sub-text there."

"Gah, I can't get over you talking about Deadboy like you're old pals."

Cordelia sat up as erect as wearing her ex-boyfriend's underwear permitted her to do. "He's my boss, and he's good, and he helps people," she said. "He's my friend." She raised her hand to her eyes. "I thought you said it wouldn't sting."

"Sorry," Xander said. "Okay, I won't snark on Deadboy."

"It was Angelus who did those things," Cordelia said sternly. "Not Angel."

Xander held up one hand in mock surrender. He wiped the long scrapes on Cordelia's palms, and then blew on one.

She laughed, despite herself. "What's that for?"

Xander smiled. "It's what I do with Willow. We non-slayers still get pretty banged up."

"Yeah, I remember that part," Cordelia said, examining her cuts. "Doesn't stain, either."

She slept on the pull-out couch and Xander on the recliner. Giles called the next morning and said it would be some time before he finished his research, and he asked for all of Cordelia's phone numbers.

"I may as well take you back today, while I'm off," Xander said equably. "This time, we'll try to actually make it to your apartment."


They did make it to the apartment, but a vision hit Cordelia almost before she could tell Dennis about Xander.

There was blood all over the hardwood floor of a store. There was demon with cat-pupil eyes and a tail peeking out from its trousers. There was blood on the bindings of the books, blood on the wall, on the table...on Wesley.

Cordelia moaned, reaching blindly for the phone and a pen, which flew to her hands. She wrote the address down on a flyer for Chinese carry-out, and tried to dial the phone. "Call Angel," she said, hardly able to see. "Wesley. He's going to go buy some moldy old books and---the guy is a demon. He'll sacrifice Wesley."

"Jeeze," Xander said, but did as he was told. Cordelia was beginning to curl up like a salted snail, but she could hear Xander saying, "Never mind why I'm calling, Angel, just go find Wesley."

Cordelia put her hand to her face, to wipe away the tears, and found her hand covered with blood. She shuddered, and curled up tighter.

When she came back to herself, Xander was bathing her face with warm water. She tried to speak, and Xander shook his head. "Sh," he said. "Weird that you got one has soon as you got back in Los Angeles."

"Wesley," she wept. "It was trying to cut his throat, and he fought---"

"Wesley is with Angel," Xander said. "He's coming here and I'm going with Angel to check out this thing."

Her head was pounding, pounding. She wanted silence. She wanted it to stop.

On cue, the door was pounding, and Dennis opened it. Angel came in, a smoking blanket over his head. "We're here," he said unnecessarily. "It's a rare book shop. Wesley's been there for demon research."

"I've only dealt with a human clerk," Wesley explained. "Hello, Dennis," he said absently. "Cordelia, exactly what happened?" He and Angel came to sit beside her on the couch.

"The demon looked normal, but his eyes were like a cat's--the pupils. He had a tail. And I didn't see his feet but I got the idea that he had hooves instead of feet. He didn't care about his shop, or whatever. He kept slicing at you, and it was all Forensic Detectives with the blood spray all over. On the spines of the books."

"Did you---" Wesley began, but Xander stood up.

"Don't you have enough? Look at her. Her nose started bleeding. Look at her. She looks like she's thirty, not twenty."

"Hey," Cordelia tried to say, holding a tissue to her nose.

"Look at her," Xander said quietly. "She's not just a messenger."

Cordelia lifted her head. "It's to help people, Xander. It's to help people."

"Who's helping you?" he asked. "Sorry, but Wes, Angel, can't you see that it's getting worse? It's going to kill her."

Cordelia felt the thick tears block her throat. "Go kill it," she choked. "Go."

Her head thrummed with pain at the very vibration of their footsteps on the floor-boards. The door closed. Presently, she heard the faint whistle of her tea-kettle, and the clink of her tea-things.

"Thank you, Dennis," Wesley whispered. The couch bent under his weight at her knees. "Cordy, can you sit up and drink some tea?" She winced, and uncovered her face. Dennis had drawn the curtains, and left the lights off.

"Do I really look thirty?" she asked, taking the tea cup in shaking hands.

Wesley's thin hands covered hers, steadying her hold. He smiled down at her, shaking his head.

"But not twenty," she said, taking a sip.

Wesley smiled again. "Much as it actually pains me, Xander is---"

"Don't say it, it's one of the signs of the apocalypse," Cordelia sniffed. "Whichever one is coming up this week."

"---not far from wrong," Wesley finished. "The last time I saw him, he was acquitting himself quite well in the fight at the high school. That would be before I got stamped upon into the gravel."

"He bought the dress I wore at the last prom," Cordelia said. She handed Wesley the tea-cup. "I wish I hadn't been so hateful. That's all I've been doing this weekend, thinking about what I've said and done and wished I could take it back." She leaned back. "You can't, of course. You can't un-do it."

"So you're sorry you said I was a boring wishy washy cross-eyed idiot?" Wesley asked.

Cordelia opened one eye. "I'm not dying, that I know of."


Xander and Angel returned, both of them much mollified by the simple joys of killing demons, probably in as noisy and bloody fashion as possible.

Xander hadn't wasted his time, as Angel came straight to Cordelia and said, bluntly, "Xander says that you're throwing up as well as having nose bleeds."

"Yeah, and she's passing out, and having seizures," Xander added.

"Xander, shut your mouth," Cordelia said.

Angel's mouth settled in a thin line. "I'm going to the Oracles."

"No, Angel, don't---there's a reason---it's not so bad."

"Not so bad?" Xander asked, unbelievingly. "Did you hit your head this morning?" He turned to Angel. "She couldn't even see. She had a vision when she was on the phone with Willow, and Cordy couldn't even talk. We could hear her crying on the phone. When I got here, she couldn't even tell me how to get to her apartment. She let me take her to Sunnydale, to Giles. He's researching." He gave a half-smile. "For a change."

"I'm going to the Oracles," Angel said. He strode out the door, all Dark Avenger.

Wesley stood up, too. "I'm going to call Giles, and see if I can't lend a hand in the research." He hesitated, then bent and kissed Cordelia on the forehead before leaving.

Cordelia tried to lift the tea cup to her mouth, but she couldn't hold it, and dropped it. She stared down at the pieces, and felt her mouth twist.

She refused to cry. She was Cordelia Chase.

Xander got up from his chair and went to the kitchen. "Oh, thanks," he said, as a dish cloth floated out to him. He knelt and mopped up the spilled tea and broken china. He pretended that he didn't see Cordelia's shaking hands. He came back with a wet dishcloth.

"I'm not going back until I know you're going to be all right," he said. He sat down beside her on the couch and began wiping the blood from her face and hands.

"When did you get to be such a nice guy?" she asked.

"No quoting Terms of Endearment to me," Xander said, frowning. "Not my favorite Nicholson."

Angel came back late that evening. "The Oracles wouldn't answer me," he said. "In fact, they wouldn't open the gate at all." He looked as sad as when Doyle had died. "We'll have to see what Wes and Giles find out. I'm sorry, Cordy." He looked over at Xander. "Are you staying tonight, Xander?"

"Yeah. I'll hang."

Cordelia's head still hurt from the visions on top of each other, and she got up to get her migraine tablets. Xander was sitting on the couch, the television on very low.

"Hey," he said. "Feeling okay?"

"Head still aches a little. Actually, all of me aches."

"So you and Wes, you never got together, huh?" he asked, sitting up and making room for her to sit down.

"Huh? No!" She put her hand on her forehead. "I can't even believe I had a thing."

"You've changed," Xander said. "You're such a fighter. Well, you always were, though. Remember those patrols we used to do when Buffy was gone?"

"Yeah, after she sent Angel to hell for a hundred years and ran off to Los Angeles," Cordelia said. She wasn't that enamored of walking down memory lane. "Xander,
don't you have a job?"

"Oh, I think pizzas can get delivered without me," he said easily. "Actually, I can get my job back. The delivery boys in Sunnydale who don't carry stakes, don't last long."

Cordelia closed her eyes. "Xander, you're better than that. Why aren't you going to U of Sunnydale?"

"I'm fulfilling your predictions for me," Xander said.

"I said all those things to hurt you, and you know it," Cordelia said.

"Well, let's agree that neither one of us---"

"No, Xander, listen. I went a little crazy. I feel bad about telling everyone your father was fired."

Xander shook his head. "It was true. And now I live in his basement."

"You're not your father," Cordelia said.

"Who are you and is there a pod in the closet?" He took her hand and clasped it, to show that he was kidding. "Never mind, Cordy."

She leaned her head back on the couch. "But Xander, you can't spend your life chasing around and staking vamps with Buffy and Giles. What's going to happen to you? You're not a superhero, you can't do this."

"You can't do this, either," Xander said. "Chasing around and getting knocked down by visions."

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" she said wryly.

"C'mere," Xander said gruffly, and put his arms around her, pulling her head on his shoulder. "You've got two ex-Watchers and the original vampire with a soul working on it, not to mention the longest-surviving pizza delivery guy in Sunnydale."

"Thank God for him," Cordelia said. And she kind of meant it.

There was a vision that knocked her out of her bed, and made her scream for Xander. There was heat, and chanting, and red powder...red powder in a circle, and Anya. She couldn't see anything else, just the heat, and the light, and Anya, calm as always, holding her hand out. "Anya...."

"Anya? Our Anya?" Xander asked, kneeling on the rug with her. "In Sunnydale?"

"I don't understand them, I just get them," Cordelia said, her voice ragged. "Oh, God, my nose--" she put her hand up to keep the blood from dripping on her nice rag rug.

"I guess we have to go back to Sunnydale, then," Xander said. He swiped at her nose with the tail of his undershirt. He pulled her up to sit on her bed, and then came back with a wet wash-cloth. "I'm thinking that bloody noses aren't good. In our life, blood---not good. It's always blood."

The headache was a band of fire around her forehead. "I think this vision was for me, but I don't get it."

"I do," Xander said. "Chanting, red powder, heat? A spell. The G-man. He's got the mojo."

"Well, I wish---" she felt the tears coursing down her face, and she was glad the light was off. Xander must have felt them, too, because he knelt beside her, pulling her hair back from her neck and knotting it.

"Lie down," he said. "I'll call---I'll call Angel, shouldn't I?"

"I don't know, there's nothing for him to do, and my head won't stop---"

"We need to go to Anya, then," Xander said. "She held her hand out to you, and there was chanting---Sunnydale. If I understand these visions, you get them, and you don't get any relief until you do what they say." He stood up. "So, we go to Sunnydale?" He gestured south with the telephone receiver. "I should tell Angel what we're doing---"

There it was, the instant replay, the whole thing playing out in her head with the sudden blow of an axe-murderer's stroke: Anya, chanting, red powder, heat, heat, Anya holding her hand out, with no expression on her face.

Xander was pinning her on the bed, holding her body down with his, her head in his hands. She looked up at him in the mock-twilight of her bedroom, the light from the street in stripes, through the mini-blinds. She couldn't talk, and they just stared at her. He had her hair clenched in his fists. Visions, she thought dimly, were like a parody of sex. There was the thrashing, and the screaming, and the aching sensitivity to touch. There was a joke in that comparison, somewhere, but she couldn't find it yet.

"That was another one," Xander whispered. "Do they come this close together?" He looked at his hands, and carefully let go of her hair. He pulled the washcloth from her clutch, and wiped her face.

"No, just lately."

"All of a sudden?"

"They always hurt," she sighed, "But it's worse. Much worse."

Xander got up, and hung up the telephone. "Dennis, what does she take---thanks, man." He helped Cordelia sit up and swallow more Tylenols. "Anya," he said thoughtfully. "You saw Anya, both times."

"Yeah," Cordelia said, "and with the chanting and the heat---" she swallowed.

"Anya knows about portals," Xander said. "These Oracles that Angel goes to, he has to open a portal to get to them, doesn't he? She was a vengeance demon for a thousand years, and they treat portals like the rest of us do the bus. So she could get to them, since Angel can't get through."

Cordelia put her head on her pillow. "You have to have an offering for them, Doyle told me. Angel always had an offering."

"Yeah, Angel's good with the sharing. What kind of offering? He just came back and said that they wouldn't open up."

"I don't know---something valuable. Only I don't have anything."

"Giles will know," Xander said. "Oracles. We'll tell him." He raised his head. "Dennis---I guess---is running water in the bathroom. Do you take a bath after these?"

"Yes, sometimes it helps," she sighed, and pushed herself off the bed.

Xander looked at her. "Don't lock the door," was all he said.

This time, she packed for a couple of days, watered her plants, and took her newest audition-y clothes. Just in case she and Xander went to the Bronze, because what else was there to do in Sunnydale? And that last was so wrong, so wrong, there was no she and Xander.

"So, you've been dating Anya, right?" she said, suddenly. "What's she going to do about me staying with you, again?"

Xander didn't look away from the road. "We're on and off. She's a strange, strange girl. We're already off for me coming to LA in the first place."

"She's not going to go all vengeanc-y on me, is she?"

"Nah, she'd go after me, first, but hey, she already broke up with me." He did glance at her, that time. "But she loves being consulted. Personally, I think she has a thing for Giles." He looked back on the road. "Well, maybe not. But she does like it when he asks her to draw on her demon expertise." He said the last in a British accent.


"Well, portals, " Anya said. "You have to know who you're asking for, really, before I can help you." She seemed pleased to be consulted, just as Xander had predicted.

"Doyle and Angel just called them 'the Oracles.' There was a place they went, and burned some kind of dried weed, and threw incense. Doyle told me. That's all I know."

Giles sat back in his chair, a mug of tea in his hand. "Did anyone ever describe them to you?"

"Silver skins, I think. Greek looking. Like silver Greek statues."

Anya leaned forward, her hands on her knees. "The Powers That Be, huh? They're the connection? Cordelia, did you feel anything when that guy kissed you?"

"No, but I knew, I knew he was going to die. I've tried and tried to remember, but nothing. I didn't feel anything. I didn't know what would happen."

Anya sat back, smoothing her skirt over her knees. "I think you'd better call Angel and ask him about the Oracles." She suddenly looked over at Cordelia. "Were they brother and sister?"

Cordelia wrinkled her forehead. "I can't remember. They really didn't talk about what they looked like, just what they said. They were all cryptic-like."

Anya said, "Well, I don't mind helping you, but what about the offering?"

"Oh, crap," Cordelia said. "I don't have anything rare or valuable."

"I, um, have some ideas about that," Giles said. "Very well, Anya, you can eliminate the possibilities as I find them."

"Keep you on the right track," Anya nodded. "I like being able to correct you, Giles."

"Yeah, so when you look at it, we're doing you a favor," Xander
said. "What can we do?"

"You can find Willow for me, and see if she's free," Giles said.

"No need," said Willow from the front door.

"God, do people still not knock around here?" Cordelia whispered
to Xander. Her headache was about at level five.

"Hey, the vampires still can't come in," he whispered back. He rubbed
her shoulder. "Want to go---well, it's washday, but want to go upstairs
and lie down?"

"Nah," Cordelia said. The thought of lying on Giles' bed gave her
the wiggins, which was odd, since she'd slept on Angel's bed,
and hello, vampire as well as her boss. But Giles was Giles,
and anyway, Angel's bed hadn't seemed like anyone had been there.

She couldn't figure out how she had gotten the peanut butter on the
sheets, though.

"What?" Xander asked.

"Talking in my sleep," Cordelia said.


"We think we know how to open the portal, but we can't do it until
the new moon," Giles was saying. "Which, fortunately, is tomorrow
night."

"Okay, Vision Girl and I are going to go catch a nap, for now," Xander
said, standing up and pulling Cordelia to her feet. Oddly enough,
she didn't mind. Of course, the three nights with hardly any sleep
made her a little slow, plus the vision-ache.

"Where are your folks?" she asked, as they pulled up in Xander's
car to the side door.

"Las Vegas," Xander said. "It's the old man's birthday. C'mon. You look like you're about to drop, and I know my youthful beauty can't stand another
minute without some shut-eye. The place'll be quiet all weekend."

They both went into the dim basement, and Xander pulled the sofabed
out. Cordelia despised herself for her shaking hands and for being
so weak-kneed.

"Hey," Xander said, and bent and gently undid her sandals. "You've
been having a hard time. You're all in."

"I can't come back here and live, and the acting career isn't quite
on target," she said. "If I don't have my visions, then Angel isn't
going to pay me to stick around."

"He did, before, didn't he?" Xander said. "Plenty of people in offices
waiting for the big break." He lifted her feet onto the mattress.

"Yeah, but I kinda think I did. The visions, and now I can't do that
</i>, so phooey." She was a failure, like her father.

"Cordy, you're more than your visions," Xander said.

"And you're more than pizza," she said.

"Maybe we both need to get out of the hero business," he said.

"Looks like I haven't got a choice," she sighed. "Don't go."

Xander untied his sneakers. "All right." He lay down beside her and
it felt familiar and comfortable. She put her hand in his.

"Hey, Cordy, if I hadn't fucked up, senior year, do you think we'd
still have gone together?" His tone was light, teasing. "I mean,
do you think you'd still gone to LA?"

"Maybe not, if we'd still...but I hated being here. After I was
the queen, to be a peasant? So not my thing. And admit it,
part of the attraction was my convertible and my daddy's money."

Xander kissed the crown of her head. "Partly. The rest was you."

"I should have picked up the phone," she sighed.

"How's your head? he asked. "Any better?"

"Maybe," she said.

Xander squeezed her hand.


"If this isn't the right portal, what happens?" Xander asked
apprehensively. They were sitting in Giles' living room, with Willow,
Giles, and Anya.

"We get sucked into a hell dimension," Anya said cheerily. "Ha, ha!
What, I can't make a joke? Oh, fine. Nothing happens. No one answers."

"What have we got for the offering?" Cordelia asked.

Willow held up a bottle of California wine. "Fruit of of native vines,"
she said. She didn't quite look like herself, and her obvious Oz-less
state kind of told Cordelia what she needed to know. As for Buffy,
Cordelia figured that the whole "ex-boyfriend's secretary" deal
was kind of off-putting. Not that they'd ever been close.

"All right," Giles said. "We're ready." He shook what looked like
cinnamon over a flame, and Anya reached for Cordelia's hand.

And it was hot, and there was the vision. Red powder. This time,
though, Cordelia felt the headache immediately stop. And more, she
felt the power leave her, torn out by the roots, almost, because she
did like being Vision Girl, as much as she liked those five
trophies and her rhinestone crowns, as much as she liked being Queen
C. And it hurt, it hurt not being Vision Girl.

"Too late," said a voice.

Anya sat up, looking surprised and more than a little annoyed.
"I have them," she said. "I have the freakin' visions!"

"What?" Willow asked.

"I have a vision right now of an Nguage demon that wants to eat
a day-care in Silverlake. In two days." She tilted her head. "Am
I supposed to call Angel, now, or something?"


After much argument and long-distance phone calls, Angel and Wesley
came down to take Cordelia back, and for Anya to ride back with them.
"It's going to be very inconvenient, phoning in all the time," she
had decided. "And, I'm tired of Sunnydale. I'm ready for more
professional relationships."

"I'm scared to ask what that means," Xander said out of the side of
his mouth to Cordelia, in Giles' kitchen.

"No danger of Angel finding a moment of perfect happiness, though,"
she said. "Aren't you, you know, kind of upset that she's ditching you
so quickly?"

He shrugged. "Some other beautiful, strong-minded woman will come along
to make my life a living hell. It's amazing what I'll do for sex."

"So why didn't you try something, last night?" she asked. "I think
I'm offended."

"Cordy---" he smiled. "Never mind."

"Don't tell me it never even crossed you mind."

"Well, of course it crossed my mind. I'm not that good a guy."

"Kiss me," she said imperiously.

"I hear you can get visions, that way," he said. He pulled her into
the corner by the refrigerator, and kissed her.

"Wow," she said. "Have you ever thought about the opportunities for
pizza delivery in Los Angeles? Because I could use someone to show
me the ropes."

He touched her lower lip. "Much as I hate to say it, I don't think
Angel's gonna fire you."

"He won't have to. There's not enough room in that office for two
women, and I should know because we've already got Wesley." She
hugged him, and whispered, "Come to LA," in his ear.

"Maybe, if I had a place to stay," he whispered back. "One with a
ghost, 'cause I'm from Sunnydale and I'm used to stuff like that."

As they kissed again, they could hear the door open, and Anya say,
"You're still very glowery."

****