Title: Return To The Hellmouth Part 4
Author: Bert
Posted: 08-26-2006
Email: therealalexcall@hotmail.com
Rating: PG13
Category: Time-Travel
Content: C/A
Summary: Cordelia wakes up back in Sunnydale with no memory of how she got there
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution: Just Fic
Feedback: You have it. I want it. Don’t make me get violent…
Part 4
"Don't let him corner you, don't give him a moment's mercy. He'll rip your throat out." Buffy looked at Angel for a moment.
"Ok, I'll give you improved marks for that one. Ripping your throat out, it's a strong visual, not cryptic."
Angel gave no reaction to her flip remark. "I have to go."
He turned and walked off, feeling her watching him as he went.
"Why are you like that with her?" Cordelia asked him as he turned the corner and passed her hiding place.
"Like what?"
"Oh, you know what you're like." Cordelia said, striding after him. "You're rude, you barely say anything to her. You're not... fun with her, not like you are with me."
Angel smirked. "You think I'm fun?"
"Best fun I've had with a dead guy, all year." Cordelia smiled before crinkling her nose. "That didn't quite come out the way I meant."
"I know what you meant." He smiled. "And thanks."
"You're welcome, but that doesn't anwer the question."
"What question?"
"Ugh! You're impossible sometimes! Buffy! Why are you like that with her?"
Angel stopped and faced her. "Look, to be honest, I don't really like her all that much."
"What?!"
"What? I just don't. Look, just because we work together, doesn't mean that we have to get on."
"It's hardly an office job. You don't have to help her."
"Yes," Angel replied, "I do. It's my penance."
"Your punishment for two hundred years of mental and physical torture, murder and being a general pain in the ass is to spend time, hanging around with a girl you don't like all that much?"
"No, and it's not so much a punishment as a way to undo some of the damage. I'm going to spend the rest of my unnatural life helping people, stopping evil forces, and she can help me do that.!
"I can help you do that. Let's go to LA and kick some evil booty together!" Cordelia grinned at him, completely genuine in her suggestion.
"Why LA?" Angel asked resuming his stride.
"Why wouldn't you go to LA?" Cordelia asked.
"Right. Well, maybe one day I will, but not today. I'm staying in Sunnydale at least until The Master is gone."
"So," Cordelia started to fish for gossip, a habit she'd slipped back into easily since finding herself back in Sunnydale, "what don't you like about Buffy?"
"I don't know, maybe it's because she's a Slayer. A natural instinct that I don't like her."
"Like how cats don't like dogs?"
"She's not a dog. That's the other thing I dont like about her, she's kind of pretty. And she knows it."
"So?" Cordelia frowned at him.
"Well, I dont know, it's just the way she is with it, you know? I mean, you're pretty, and you know how to make that come across, but with her, it''s like 'Notice how pretty I am, or I'll plunge this wooden shaft through your chest - vampire or not.' Whereas with you it's more like 'Hi, I'm Cordelia, I'm pretty, and if you want to tell me, that's cool, and if you don't, then that's cool too.' You know?"
"You think I'm pretty?" Cordelia smiled and linked her arm with his, leaning on his shoulder as they walked.
"What are you doing out here anyway?" Angel asked, deftly avoiding having to answer. "I thought Giles had said you weren't allowed to go out?"
"I'm not. I'm rebelling."
"Is that what that smell was?" Angel joked.
"Was that supposed to be a joke?" Cordelia frowned at him, as he nodded. "It didn't really make any sense."
"I'm kind of new to it, give me a chance. I've been on my own for nearly a century."
"So, where are we going now?"
"Slaughter house. My throat's a little dry and I need something to quench my thirst."
Cordelia removed her arm from his and started to move off in the other direction. "And I'm done rebelling. Have a night night!"
* * *
Cordelia eased open the front door to Giles' apartment and looked around for signs of life. There were no lights on and Giles' briefcase wasn't on the table where he usually worked from it of a night.
He must still be at the library, a big night for demon fighting or something, she told herself as she began to rack her brains for what big bad had been wandering around seven years previously.
Now, she told herself. Whatever big bad it is, it's wandering around now.
The problem was, she hadn't really been all that aware of the various monstrous residents until she'd started to spend more time with Buffy and the others the following year. The other part of the problem was that she had lost track of time since her return, unable to really determine what day it was.
At first she'd tried to keep a tab on what her other self was up to so she would be easier to avoid, but she found she didnt have as good a memory as she thought. And every time she thought about the whole situation, it gave her a headache and so she tried to avoid it.
She settled down onto the couch and turned the radio on the fill the void in the background. She'd found herself listening to more and more music since she'd returned from the future, more for the comfort than anything. As much as she enjoyed Giles' company, when it was the only company you had, it got very stale, very quickly.
Which was why she often found herself hoping that she might bump into Angel should she ever go out. She would have still been with him if he hadn't suddenly declared that he thought she was pretty. She didn't quite know how to deal with it, especially as she knew what was supposed to unfold between him and Buffy. Perhaps he didn't know, but to her, it felt like cheating.
Just then the door creaked open. "Cordelia, are you awake?"
"Evening, Giles." Cordelia smiled at him as he made his way through the door, before exaggeratedly checking her watch. "And what time do you call this young lady?"
"I, err, I was researching."
"Big evil monsters?"
"Err, no, actually," he smiled, setting down his briefcase on the table, "I was researching your little predicament."
"Oh, that." Cordelia rolled her eyes. "I thought I told you not to worry about it? We know I'm here for another few months at least. That thing I remember happening hasn't happened yet."
"Yes, well, that may be true, but you can't deny the fact that your presence here is a little... abnormal."
"So, I'm abnormal now?"
"No, no, no. Not you, just... your presence."
Cordelia glared at him for a moment and after a short while, Giles pulled off his glasses and started to clean them.
"Forty five seconds!" Cordelia cried as she checked her watch. "A new personal best!"
"I do so wish you'd give that little contest a rest. Sometimes, I just need to clean my glasses."
"Uhuh. So, what did you find?" She asked, picking up the magazine from the coffee table in front of her.
"Not a lot, I'm afraid." He said sitting down on the couch next to her. "I thought I'd found something about a man who used to jump randomly through time to fix things that had gone wrong. Of course, when I realised it was called The Science Behind Quantum Leap I knew that perhaps it was time to come home."
"Quantum Leap? How did that end up in your library?"
"I would imagine Mr Harris had something to do with it?"
"Any book with the word Science in it, is a little bit upmarket for Xander."
"To give him his due, 'Science' was spelt wrong. Listen, Cordelia, I was thinking, perhaps if I knoew more about the details of what you were doing before you... arrived, maybe I could figure out exactly what is going on."
"You told me I wasn't supposed to talk about the future." She murmured as she flicked through the pages of her magazine.
"Yes, well, I'm not asking for a second-by-second account, just some hazy details."
"Even hazy details could change the future, Giles. You said it yourself, who knows what kind of damage we could cause?"
"Yes, Cordelia," Giles said through gritted teeth, "I'm well aware of what I said, but you just being here in itself is - "
"Giles," Cordelia interrupted him, putting the magazine down, "I'm not ready yet. Please, leave it be."
Giles nodded and sat back on the couch as Cordelia absently twiddled a strand of hair and stared into the middle distance.
"So, what do you want to talk about?"
"You're a man, aren't you?"
"I... believe so."
"What does it mean when a man accidently tells a woman he thinks she's pretty?"
* * *
Something tells me that Giles didn't have that hanging in his closet." Angel smirked, looking at Cordelia's extremely clingy dress. "And now I'm suddenly picturing him in a tight black dress. Please, tell me it's not his."
"Of course it's not Giles'. It's mine." Cordelia smiled, doing a little spin, to show her hair pulled into a small tight bun.
"I thought you didn't have any money?"
"I don't. I borrowed it from the other me. I know where I keep my spare key."
"That belonged to you seven years ago and you still fit into it? That's impressive."
"Promise not to tell anyone if I tell you a secret?" Cordelia asked.
"Of course."
"It never used to be this clingy." She whispered, tugging at the fabric on her hips as Angel laughed.
"I thought you were supposed to be going incognito, anyway?" He asked her as she sat at the stool in front of the Bronze's bar. "I think more than one person will notice you in that. Especially if you continue to sit like that."
Cordelia crossed her legs on the bar stool and picked a pair of dark sunglasses from her hair, gave them a quick wipe and then set them across her face, making it look like she belonged in a French film from the fifties. "That may notice me, but they'll be too intimidated to approach. And they won't know that it's Cordelia Chase, we have totally different styles."
"You do?"
"Absolutely, I wouldn't be seen dead in some of the outfits she wears. They're so last century." She added as an afterthought and caused Angel to laugh again, this time a small snort escaped his throat. "You're such a dork."
"Ooh. Showtime." He stopped laughing and let his face set into an almost gargoyle-like stone expression. He stood up and doubled back towards the door, before approaching the bar again, this time landing at Buffy's side, who was sat a little further down from Cordelia.
"I heard a rumour that there was one less vampire hanging around, making a nuisance of himself."
Cordelia smiled into her drink at the sudden change that had occurred in Angel. It was nice that he could be himself around her, in a way that he couldn't around Buffy. It was nice that he could let himself be a dork. She watched him as he gave, short, non-commital answers to Buffy's comments and questions.
It was a shame that he was so uncomfortable around Buffy, and Cordelia wondered if perhaps her friendship had ruined what might have so occurred between Buffy and Angel.
"Well, anyway, you can have your jacket back."
"It looks better on you."
As Cordelia watched Buffy watch Angel walk away, she suddenly realised that she hadn't changed a thing. The chemistry was still there between the two of them, and what she had mistook for him being uncomfortable, was actually Angel trying to play it cool, trying to impress Buffy.
Something in the way he walked told her that she wouldn't be seeing him again that night, and she quickly downed her drink and slipped out a side door.
At another doorway, Angel had already forgotten that he was having a drink with Cordelia. His thoughts had drifted to Buffy, about how she could even make his leather jacket look good. And the fact that she was a Slayer, he had decided, excited him more than it frightened him.
Perhaps he did like her after all.TBC