Title: Trial Period
Author: Alex Dollard
Posted: 11-28-2002
Rating: R
Email: prague_spring@hotmail.com
Content: A/C, brief mention of S/B
Summary: Time passes. Stuff happens.
Spoilers: Heavy for BtVS (6) and AtS (3) season finales. Also BtVS 5:07 'Fool For Love' and AtS 2:07 'Darla'
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution:
Notes: I've borrowed 'the Arrangement' from Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaimen's 'Good Omens'. 'For The Fallen' is by Laurence Binyon and no copyright infringement is intended. I just think it is a stunningly poignant poem.
Dedication: For Catie because she's amazing.
She was not gone.
She watched.
She saw his grief and rage and the terrible deal that Gunn and Fred made with Lilah to rescue him from his iron coffin beneath the waves. She saw Lindsey return as Angel's seer - and who said the Powers didn't have a sense of humour? She saw Gunn refuse to accept Lindsey's demon girlfriend Hannah and the Warrior/Seer relationship fracture and become damaged beyond reclamation.
She saw Lindsey's untimely death and felt Angel's impotent grief.
*
"Cordelia," the angel nodded politely as the Warrior slipped into a chair opposite her.
The sun was shining over the piazza and the smell of fresh coffee was fairly making Cordelia's mouth water. She eyed Azrael closely. The angel habitually looked like a young student, in scruffy jeans and a t-shirt with the name of some unpronounceable rock band emblazoned across the front. His fair hair was always tangled and falling in his eyes.
The sun was warm on her skin and she closed her eyes for a moment, revelling in it. She could almost be in one of the tiny Italian villages her parents had dragged her through as a child. When she opened them, however...
"It is reminiscent of Italy, isn't it?" Azrael said shrewdly.
"Apart from the fact that it's a war zone," she pointed out swiftly, glancing around the ruins of the city. She was a hundred thousand dimensions away from home on another mission for the Powers and she was sick of Bethcarez already. "This one of yours?"
Azrael shrugged, "How am I supposed to know?" He asked tartly, "I've only been in this business since time began. Why would you think that I'd know what was going on?"
Technically, Azrael was the enemy, but like many isolated agents who run into their counterparts all over the known universe, they'd come to an Arrangement. It was fairly simple and largely involved their not killing each other. Occasionally, a trade in information happened. Logically, Cordelia knew better than to deal with the enemy, but after six years fighting the forces of darkness on Earth, she was all too aware of the many shades of grey involved.
Azrael was sympathetic to mortals. This sometimes led him to unusual acts of compassion.
She shrugged, returning her mind to the task at hand. "Oh, I don't know," she said. "I think I might have to kick some serious ass though."
"Still got the sword?" Azrael asked with a grin.
She scowled. Retrieval of the wretched sword had been her first task for the Powers and how she'd met Azrael in the first place. It was a long, involved, highly unbelievable story that she suspected only Giles and Spike might find appealing.
"Think of a name yet?" Azrael stirred his coffee and looked askance at the silvery blade which she'd propped on the empty chair next to her.
"It doesn't need a name," she said. "Why do men... Okay, men shaped individuals, then, why do men feel the need to name things? Cars, planes, ships, swords. I don't get it."
"Because you're not a male individual," Azrael remarked dryly. "Besides, I hear it's being referred to as 'Nameless'. Go figure."
She rolled her eyes, "Why am I not surprised?"
In the distance a hunting horn raised its voice.
"Ah," Azrael said, standing up and unfurling his inky wings. "That sounds like my cue to depart. I believe we're due to take the Eastern Quarter today," he added offhandedly.
"Oh my," Cordelia responded, equally offhandedly. "Won't that leave the Temple unguarded? How terrible."
They exchanged smiles.
"Until the next time, Warrior," Azrael said formally.
"See ya round, Azrael," she said, picking up the sword.
The blade glimmered even when Azrael's dark wings momentarily blotted out the light.
*
Five years had passed, and she stood beside him when he travelled to Sunnydale for Buffy's funeral. No easier this second time, and she longed to hold him, to reassure him that despite all the evidence to the contrary, everyone didn't leave him.
She watched through a motel window as he cried in the day, tears no one else ever saw. She thought her heart was breaking all over again.
*
"Have I mentioned how much I HATE Lor'Izhaga recently?" Cordelia snapped to her companion. The Deflor demon sniggered.
"Not in the last few minutes," he said, watching with no little sympathy as she attempted to disentangle herself from the sentient vines which were trying to display their gratitude for her killing of the Hell God who had raised itself over them.
"I know you're happy. I get that, I really do but get off the HAIR," she screeched.
The vines hurriedly uncoiled and shot back into the trees.
"Warrior!" And the Deflor's tone was faintly disapproving. "It will take MONTHS to coax them back out."
Cordelia wiped her sword clean of the bubbling acid like blood. As always, the blade was unmarked.
"And I'm having a hard time remembering why I'm supposed to care," she snapped.
Exhaustion was seeping out of her. "I think I could sleep for a decade," she said, stretching painfully. A vision filtered through her mind. "Oh crap," she bit out.
"What?" The Deflor sounded worried.
She glanced up at him, "I gotta go," she said simply. "This world is the hands of those who love it now. Get it wrong and I'll be back to kick YOUR ass."
Using the Nameless, she sliced a hole in reality and stepped through.
*
Ten years on and even Gunn was gone now. Not that Angel Investigations was floundering without them. Cordelia blinked in astonishment. There were a few familiar faces among the new employees. Hannah was still ensconced as Angel's seer, and she had to wonder if it had been Hannah who had been intended for the visions, not Lindsey. Oz and Devon had apparently turned up and never left and she marvelled that the wolf was so little changed by the passage of time.
Ten years on, and she was relieved to see Wes in one piece. The Powers had been concerned by his defection to dark magic, but the former watcher evidently had strength that none of them could have anticipated. He brought himself out of the darkness, although he and Angel would never be friends.
Too many shadows stood between them and while her heart hurt for the memory of Connor, the shade of Fred, she was proud that they'd managed to restrain from killing each other.
For now.
*
"This is not what you want!" Cordelia screamed over the storm.
The young man who had called the fury of hell and magics that he shouldn't have been able to conjure, pulled away from her grasp. The walls of the warehouse were flickering as the dungeon dimensions struggled to break through into Aire. Cordelia was scared this time. Logically, she supposed it was because Aire was so similar to Earth that the lines blurred. She could easily be dealing with this in her homeland.
"Jareth, listen to me!" She caught hold of the youth, tried to swing him around to face her. "This is not what she'd want."
Love's young dream gone horribly wrong. Jareth had watched his girlfriend be sucked into the abyss because he did a spell wrong as, instead of teleporting them to a sunny beach, he'd opened the gate to hell.
"I have to get her back!" The teenager yelled back at her, shaking her hand off his arm and continuing with the spell. Cordelia eyed the Book with deep dislike. She couldn't touch it - not without running the risk of being corrupted herself.
"She's gone!" Cordelia shouted down his ear. "Accept that she's gone and mourn her. She isn't coming back!"
"NO!" Jareth screamed and turned the power of the Book on her.
She flew back, colliding painfully with the wall of the warehouse. The thrumming excitement of the Demon Dimensions invaded her brain like the buzzing of angry wasps. Desperately, she strengthened the walls of reality, praying that they'd hold. On the raised dais that the boy had constructed, Jareth stood, cradling the book in his arms, moving to the final part of the spell. Before him, the yawning maw of the abyss widened to swallow the whole world. Like a vacuum, it sucked at Aire. Everything which wasn't bolted down disappeared into the abyss. Cordelia sent tendrils of magic down into the core of the world, anchoring herself against the deadly pull.
"Jareth, don't!" She begged, unable to go to him.
He ignored her; began the final part of the spell.
And as his voice began to rise and fall in the obscene dialect, she felt all the restrictions placed over her suddenly removed. The Powers filled her; she was their hand, their tool in this time and place.
Shimmering in the reflection of her full power, the Warrior began to make her way inexorable towards the young man. She drew the sword Nameless, its blade as bright as sunshine in this dark and unclean place. The sword flashed once, twice and again before She used it to knock Jareth off his balance and into the abyss. His screams echoed around the warehouse and the last thing he saw was the terrible beauty of the Warrior who had sent him to hell.
Before Her, the abyss gaped and drew closer to take into itself this new vessel of power. She ignored it, concentrating Her attention on the dark Book which Jareth had dropped before disappearing into hell. Like the book which had sent her to Pylea, this could not be taken through the gateway. She surveyed the loathsome tome and frowned. She could not easily destroy it - could not even touch it. Instructions slipped into Her mind and She smiled.
And the Warrior took forth the Sword which was Her right and struck unto the Heart of the Book.
And loud screamed the Book in pain and louder still the cries of the vanquished Abyss as the Gateway was sealed away forever.
And lo, another world became secure from the threat of the Abyss, and the Sword shone brighter than the Sun and the Book crumbled into dust and shadow.
And long wept gentle Cordelia over the death of the boy.
*
Twenty years, and she cannot help but wonder what her life would be if she had remained on Earth. Remained, but without the visions and of necessity, without Angel. She tries not to think about it. She would be in her forties now, getting into middle age and he would still be as beautiful as the day that Darla turned him. The sartorial contrast would be painful to say the least.
Sometimes she found it impossible to reconcile the two sides to him. Not Angel and Angelus, but the two sides of Angel himself. The man and the vampire. He was a deadly killer who kept the streets of LA reasonably safe from supernatural forces and kept Wolfram and Hart from taking over the planet but he was also Uncle Angel who sent Xander's daughter Jessica a cross-bow for her sixteenth birthday.
Sometimes she wondered if she'd really known him at all.
*
Cordelia stretched luxuriously. The sun was baking down over the stunningly beautiful scenery of Damath and all she could hear was the gentle slush-hush of the ocean lapping at the golden beach.
She turned over onto her back. She hadn't had a decent tan in fifty years - and this was her first holiday. She thought she deserved it. The azure blue sky was dotted with little white fluffy clouds and if she kept her eyes shut, she could almost be in Hawaii.
"Catching a few 'rays?"
She opened one eye. The endless beach was completely empty apart from her and, unless she was having flashbacks, an angel who was busy examining his dark wings for any damaged feathers.
"What are you doing here?" She demanded, too blissed out to be more than mildly irritated.
Azrael grinned, "Thought you might want the company," he said innocently, but his whole demeanour was snapping with excitement.
She sat up, "What's eating you?"
"They've found him!" Azrael exclaimed, vibrating with excitement.
"Found who?" Cordelia asked, understandably annoyed.
"The other one," Azrael confided in a hushed tone. "They've found him, but they're not sure what to do with him. I tell you, there's higher beings having kittens right now. I mean, we all knew he was out there. Something like that doesn't go down without causing some major trauma, you know what I mean? But it's like he's been protected, or shielded. Well, the shield's off and there's a new player in town."
"Azrael, I'm only going to say this the once, so please pay attention. The other one what?"
He blinked up at her. "The other vampire with a soul, of course. What did you think I was talking about? Flying elephants?"
"What do you mean 'the other vampire with a soul'? There is only one and that's Angel. Look, pretty much was there for all of it. Angel with a soul, without a soul. He's the vampire with a soul. The one who will shanshu, become human, remember? He's the one written about in all those prophecies," Cordelia snapped.
"That's only theoretical now, I'm afraid." Azrael smirked. "What's up Cordelia dear? You look a little pale."
He was talking to himself, Cordelia had seized the Nameless and gone for a little chat with her employers.
Azrael stretched out on the sand and reached for her tropical drink.
"It'll all end in tears," he remarked.
*
The rain was falling. Great, dirty drops that hurled themselves out of the iron grey sky and down the collar of her upturned jacket. Clusters of slippery leaves gathers in the gutters and the cold wind was straight in from the Atlantic and brought a breath of Arctic air with it. Cordelia shivered, and hunched herself closer into her leather jacket.
England in November. Ugh, she added mentally. She'd visited the country before, with her parents for shopping trips in London, but that had always been at Easter or in the summer, never in winter. Strictly speaking of course, she wasn't supposed to be here at all. She fished the tattered piece of paper out of her pocket and checked the address again.
"Twenty-nine, Lower Church Lane," she brushed her sopping hair out of her eyes and looked at the old road sign. "Well, this is Lower Church Lane," she added to herself, groaning when she realised it was little more than a gravelled path. "Great."
She trudged on, having to check the erratically numbered houses until she found twenty-nine. It sat back a little from the road with a pretty, well tended garden and even a wrought iron gate. She surveyed it suspiciously, but opened it anyway and made her way up the little paved path to the door.
It opened before she knocked.
"Wasn't expecting you," the owner of the house said abruptly.
She sighed. "Hello Spike. Gonna invite me in?"
*
It was warm inside, and Cordelia felt the cold knot inside her begin to ease. She swiftly stripped off her soaked coat and shoes and pulled on gratefully the thick sweater he'd handed her. She padded on sock clad feet into the tiny living room and sank thankfully into the depths of the dark green leather sofa.
He reappeared from the kitchen, bearing a couple of steaming cups. She smiled involuntarily when he handed her the coffee, wrapping her icy fingers around the mug.
"Ohh, that's better," she crooned, feeling the warm liquid slide down her throat and into her belly, the faint touch of whiskey warming her through. "I needed that," she added, curling her feet under her and surveying him closely.
The years had been kind to him, she thought, eyeing him objectively. He wasn't the same vampire who had terrorised Sunnydale during her high school years nor yet the heartbroken vampire who had behaved with unexpected grace at Buffy's funeral. Both of them.
His hair was ungelled, a natural dark blond and there was a certain, indefinable softness about him which was new. Not weakness, never that, but a certain sympathy that she hadn't seen before. He looked tired, she realised.
"So," she said. "Got your soul back then."
He glanced at her from suddenly guarded blue eyes. "More than fifty years now, pet. Your sources must be crap."
She ignored the gibe. "Why?" She asked curiously. "I mean, you asked for your soul. Why? Angelus never would."
"Angelus," Spike said heavily, leaning back in his chair. "Was a sadistic, evil-minded bastard who didn't give a toss about anybody but himself. He could quite happily have stood by and watched Darla, Dru and me be thrown to the wolves and not blinked an eyelid. Hell, he'd probably have enjoyed the entertainment. Even without a soul, I was never like that. Wouldn't have stuck with Dru for so long if I had," and there were shadows of an old pain in his eyes.
"You didn't answer my question," she pointed out, sipping her coffee.
"You're a frigging higher being, pet. Use your higher being spider sense," he snapped. "Why do you think?"
"Ah," Cordelia said, a touch of the old rancour in her voice. "Buffy," she paused. "It's always about Buffy. She's been gone for fifty years and it's still about her."
Spike snorted. "Now you sound like Dru," he pointed out unkindly. "Jealous?"
"Of Buffy? I'm a higher being, Spike. I'm above jealousy." She told him cuttingly.
He smiled suddenly, "Yeah and now I'm asking Cordelia Chase if she's jealous of Buffy Summers. Buffy, not the slayer, Buffy."
Cordelia took a quick gulp of the cooling coffee. "Hell yeah," she said honestly. "But she's gone, Spike. And she's not coming back. So, why?"
"Had it back before she died," he admitted reluctantly. "Just didn't tell anyone. Didn't know about all those screwy prophecies about Peaches until some lawyer came to see me. Offered me a chance to kill the wanker. Told him where to get off. Told him I wasn't in the habit of killing family. British consider it rude to kill your relatives," he added lightly. "Realised it'd mess things up. Didn't know what I wanted to do. Didn't know if I wanted to be Supervamp. Red cast a spell. It ended when she died."
Cordelia's hand shook a little as she put the mug down. "I didn't know about Willow," she said slowly, thinking about her friend.
Spike shrugged. "It was peaceful and painless. What more can you expect these days?"
"The quiet of the grave?" She asked ironically.
He laughed. "Funny, pet. Personally, I didn't find my grave that quiet. There were these three vampires standing over it when I got out for a start."
"An undead welcoming committee?"
He laughed, "Something like that pet."
They sat in silence for a few minutes before Spike spoke.
"So. You left. You ascended. Thought you loved the wanker," he remarked.
She stared into the depths of her coffee. "I do. God, Spike, I love him with all my heart but," she stopped.
"But what?" He prompted.
She looked at him, feeling every one of her seventy odd years. "I had to go. It wouldn't have been safe for me to stay, and I have a job to do. A duty."
He looked unconvinced. "Now you sound like him telling Buffy why he had to leave her. Excuses pet. If you really love someone, you work out a way to stay with them."
"The visions would have killed me," she pointed out.
"You got demonised, remember?" He returned swiftly. "And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Buffy sorta have the most sacred of duties? Didn't stop her falling in love. Didn't end well for her, but at least she had the courage to try."
"Are you calling me a coward?" Cordelia asked incredulously.
He shrugged. "Well, ascending's just another word for running away, isn't it?" He watched a multitude of emotions play over her face and decided to give her one last push. "'Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.'"
She looked at him in astonishment.
He evaded her eyes, "Corinthians," he murmured. "Eight years of Sunday school. Are we going to LA or what?"
"You're... going with me?" She faltered.
He grinned, "Well, yeah. I've done the brooding thing. I'm ready to kill something now."
*
They didn't go straight to LA. Spike insisted on a brief detour to Sunnydale. Cordelia warned him that Xander was in contact with Angel these days, and they wisely kept away from the few people in the town who might remember them.
But, as Spike pointed out, he couldn't travel half a world and not visit her grave. Their graves, as it turned out, because he wanted to lay a wreath for Joyce as well as her daughter.
"I knew she'd die," his voice was hushed, respectful but his eyes were far away. Cordelia kept hers trained on the headstone which simply read 'Buffy Anne Summers. Beloved Sister. Devoted Friend. Rest In Peace'. She wondered if Dawn had been responsible for the last line, a warning to Willow not to try and raise her sister again.
"She was the Slayer," Cordelia murmured.
"I knew she'd die," he repeated, showing no sign of having heard her speak. "But it didn't make a difference. It never made a difference. Just. Every moment with her was brighter. More real. She made me feel alive and I never," he stopped. "Wish I'd told her about my soul. Wish I had the strength. Thought about doing it hundreds of times but," he sighed. "This is me. All I am. Demon, man and soul. Don't think I could have handled her inevitable rejection."
Unbearably touched, Cordelia made an abortive gesture towards him. He turned his head to look at her; in the starlight he looked very young.
"D'you think that maybe if I'm a hero, I'll get to be where she is?"
She smiled faintly, "I'm sure."
His answering smile was blinding.
Her heart broke for him.
*
The hum of activity which usually shrouded the Hyperion Hotel had vanished into a thick, not uncomfortable silence. Cordelia wandered around the lobby, mentally categorising the changes in the years she had spent away.
The changes were slight; a new computer system, fully interactive and top-of-the-range, a larger weapons cabinet and weaponry that had been invented after the cross-bow, as Spike pointed out wryly. Neither of them missed the presence of wooden bullets, nor those tipped with silver.
A small, unobtrusive plaque by the reception desk caught Cordelia's attention.
"'Fallen in the Cause of the Free,'" she read, wondering why the words seemed so familiar.
"Binyon," Spike told her, coming up behind her. "He was Poet Laureate during the First World War."
She looked at the names engraved. "Allan Francis Doyle," she read, her throat closing. "Cordelia Elizabeth Chase. Lindsey Macdonald. Winifred Burkle. Charles Gunn. Hannah Michelle Lewis. Devon Owen. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Daniel Osbourne. Connor..." She stopped. She couldn't go on.
Spike was a reassuring, solid presence behind her, and one pale finger reached around her and traced the words engraved at the bottom.
"'They shall not grow old, as we that left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun..." He paused.
"At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them," another voice finished. Weary beyond words and sad and alone, there was nevertheless strength in the blurred accent and hope in the broken voice.
As one, Cordelia and Spike turned around.
Angel.
Angel coming down the stairs, seemingly unsurprised to see them.
"Cordelia," he said quietly. "You've come back." His eyes flickered to Spike. "And Will too. With a soul. I guess that makes you..." He did not finish. He didn't need to. The sudden twist of Spike's mouth told him that the younger vampire knew what he was referring to. The Boxer rebellion and a blond vampire with the blood of the slayer on his mouth.
"Guess it does," Spike replied, refusing to rise to the bait.
"Angel," Cordelia said, her voice barely above a whisper. She was standing less than four feet away from him now and it felt like forever. "Angel."
He swallowed hard and looked at her, his dark eyes hungrily mapping her body. "I waited," he said. "I waited but you didn't come. And Connor," and for a second his eyes flickered past her to where his son's name was carved in his record of the dead. "And I waited but you didn't come and save me, Cordelia. You didn't come back." He paused. "But you have now. Why?"
She cleared her throat, all too conscious of Spike standing beside her, the third member of this little tête-à-tête and wasn't that horribly familiar? The man, the boy and the girl who sometimes saw the future. Drusilla. Buffy. Cordelia. They were almost interchangeable.
"There are more important things than duty," she said.
"Like what?" He looked desperate. Holding himself in check. Wanting to touch her, to reassure himself that she was back but afraid that if he made a move she would be whisked away again.
She half smiled at him. "Like love," and, because she wasn't sure he was letting himself believe it, she added. "I love you, Angel."
"Love you too," he choked and they moved together and she was finally, finally in his arms and she raised her face and their mouths touched and...
"What the hell?" Angel jumped back from her, his mouth reddened as if he'd been burnt.
Spike looked from one confused face to another and started to laugh, "Oh, this is bloody perfect," he exclaimed. "Who said the Powers don't have a sense of humour?"
He was ignored.
"I can't touch you," Angel whispered, reaching out and almost letting his fingers stroke down her face.
"Guess not," she said, disappointment and rage colouring her voice.
Spike pulled himself up onto the reception desk, "So," he asked conversationally. "What happens now?"
Again, they ignored him.
"I love you," Angel repeated. "I'd give it all up. My shanshu, my mission. Everything. Just to touch you. Just to kiss you once. Buffy might have been the reason I got my feet on this path, but you're the reason I'm still on it. I can't do this without you any longer. I won't."
He held out his hand to her.
Her eyes filled with tears. "I love you," she said, her voice steady. "I would give it all up. My powers, my gifts, the things I've seen, to walk beside you on the path we've chosen. I choose love over duty. Life over immortality."
Spike was looking from one to another, his expression panicked as their fingers touched and interlaced. "Er, wait a minute. The vampire with a soul, yeah, I've heard about the prophecies. He's going to be a major player. You can't quit, Angel. That's not how it works. Right Cordelia? Right? You can't quit either. Why aren't you listening to me?"
They couldn't hear him, locked in a private world.
"I choose redemption over atonement," Angel whispered, the words coming easily to his lips. "I choose love over duty. Life over immortality."
The light blurred. Time ceased and Cordelia, her fingers still laced with Angel's, turned to smile at Skip.
"I'm not dying am I?" She teased, Angel's fingers tightening convulsively on hers.
Skip almost smiled. "No. Not yet." He looked at them gravely. "You have fulfilled the criteria of the Trial," he said formally. Then he smiled. "And passed with flying colours. Have to say, you two had us a little worried for a while there but I knew you'd get there in the end. Even if it did take a little longer than we thought."
Cordelia blinked. "What do you mean 'fulfilled the criteria of the Trial'?" She demanded suspiciously.
Angel was quicker. "This was a test?" He asked incredulously.
Skip looked surprised. "Well, of course." He took in their murderous expressions and wisely stepped backwards. "Life is a test, children. Everyday we make choices which effect the future. You had to realise that there are more important things than duty. Than prophecies. Than what is written. Have to say, the Powers are pretty chuffed with you two right now. No matter what they heaped on you, you got over it, went through it and came out stronger."
"Why would you do that to us?" Angel asked softly.
Skip's expression changed. "The world's in a very dark place right now," he said. "Champions are few and far between. But there will come one girl to stand against the forces of darkness, to fight the demons, the vampires. The Chosen One. She alone can save us. She is the Slayer." He stopped. "Or will be. Of course, this precious little saviour hasn't been born yet. We've been waiting for her for hundreds of years because she's going to have a rather peculiar heritage and some rather extraordinary talents. And she won't fight alone," he paused and laughed. "I have to tell you, this Slayer's greatest ally will be a vampire, and you have no idea how confused we all got when the vamp in question teamed up with another slayer nearly a hundred years ago."
Cordelia glanced at Angel. He was looking at Spike.
"Spike is the vampire in the prophecies," he said slowly.
Skip cocked his head. "Yes. And no. The prophecies never said there was only one."
He shook himself. "And now," he said, crossing over to them and placing one hand over theirs. "I have something to return to you." He glanced at Angel. "Your humanity," and a bright, warm glow moved from Skip's hand up Angel's body.
The vampire's outline blurred for a moment, became almost incandescent, glowing from within until the light slowly faded away, leaving Angel standing there, looking almost exactly the same but completely and obviously. "Human," Cordelia breathed.
"And your mortality," Skip said hurriedly to Cordelia.
A glowing golden light began to pulse in Skip's hand; she could feel the warmth where his hand lay over hers. The light grew stronger and stronger, but it stayed as warm as summer sunshine as it raced through her veins with unbearable weakness. She felt the pulsing warmth in her heart, her brain and lower, deep in her demon pregnancy damaged womb. She felt the healing, the split second of preparation for the precious tenant who would spend nine months ensconced inside her.
A moment. A breath of jasmine and it was over.
Cordelia opened eyes she wasn't aware of having shut. Skip had gone, and with him, the strange timeless place. She looked straight into Angel's human eyes.
"Hey," she whispered.
"Hey," he smiled. Their fingers were still interlaced.
"What the bloody hell is going on here?" Spike demanded, looking from one to another. "I'm hearing two heartbeats. TWO!" He looked shrewdly at his grandsire and suddenly got it. "You've shanshued haven't you? Bloody brilliant. And you," he looked at Cordelia. "You've bloody become human again haven't you?"
She thought hard, using senses she hadn't realised she possessed and searched her body. "Not completely," she smiled.
Spike hopped off the desk, his body snapping with irritation.
"Great," he bit out. "Now what? Who's going to play Batman in LA and save the hopeless then?"
"Help the hopeless," Angel corrected, sliding an arm around Cordelia and drawing her near. "It's 'help the hopeless'."
Spike blinked. "What does it matter? Not like it's my... bloody... problem..." His voice trailed off. "Crap."
"Think about it this way, Spike," Angel said, towing Cordelia off towards the stairs. "Maybe they'll give you a trial period."
End.