"Cordelia, you look smashing."

"Thanks! Can't say the same about you." She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. "Between you and me, I think that Billy Idol hair is about 30 years past its use-by date. But hey, at least you're less with the black and more with the colours, which for a vampire is always of the good ... Are you wearing khaki pants?"

The blonde vampire looked down self-consciously, shuffling uncomfortably under Cordelia's amused gaze. "So what if I am? What's it to you?" He looked around and grinned suggestively. "Speaking of which, what are you doing here? Don't tell me nancy boy's gone and left you all lonesome for company."

Cordelia shrugged nonchalantly. "He's out with Dawn. He should be back soon, so you might want to start shaking in your faux Italian designer boots."

"Hey!" He inspected his boots and said indignantly, "I stole these off a guy who was ..." He trailed off at the look on Buffy's face. "... who was nice and gave them to me because I saved him from some very, very bad men and ... bloody hell, since when can't a vampire go and rob some poor pathetic loser? What's the world coming to?"

Cordelia gave another shrug of her small shoulders, giving Spike a 'whatever' look. Buffy rolled her large blue eyes and was about to retort when the sound of the front door opening disturbed her train of thought.

"We're back!" Dawn's voice drifted into the kitchen a second before Cordelia, Buffy and Spike saw her enter the room with Angel in tow, looking distinctly uncomfortable as if he had been having a distinctly uncomfortable conversation with the Slayer's teenage sister. His eyes searched Cordelia's for comfort and she beamed sympathetically back at him, understanding flowing from her hazel eyes. After all she had been 15 once and knew what a trial she had been at that age, all perky and willing to say anything shocking. She had always had success giving her conservative relatives hell whenever she had the displeasure of visiting them over the holidays.

Angel was about to unleash a rare smile when his gaze caught the presence of Spike, the blonde vampire's eyes twinkling insolently at him.

"Angel."

Angel's jaw rippled, and Cordelia knew he longed to take that bleached head and stick it where the sun did shine. "Spike."

There was a tense silence.

"So ..." Spike glanced at Buffy, noting the commanding expression on her face, half pleading and half threatening for him to not rock the boat tonight.

He sighed, and a moment later said resignedly, "What have you been doing with yourself, you great ponce? Prancing about saving lives and all?"

Angel visibly gritted his teeth and fought to retain his composure. "Something like that."

Spike grinned fiendishly, pleased to see Angel's irritation grate so visibly on his pale features. "What it must be years since I last saw you prance about in that coat of yours, overhanging brow and all."

"Two years actually - you nearly had me tortured to death, remember?"

"Oh, right." Spike's brows creased and he offered Angel a cigarette. "Well, hope there are no hard feelings, yeah? Wasn't personal anyhow ... Except for the part where I wanted to see my grand sire cry like a girl."

"Spike, I need you to help me in the ... in the garden." Buffy burst out in a high pitched voice, desperate to separate the two vampires before any actual fighting broke out between them. She did not want blood shed in her house and besides, she had washed her carpets just last week and it had cost her a fortune and she didn't want to clean any blood out of her carpets unnecessarily if she didn't have to.

She yanked the brazen blonde vampire after her, leaving Angel and Cordelia alone with a smirking Dawn.

"You guys want something to drink?" Cordelia shook her head in response as Dawn shrugged and climbed the stairs up to her room. Angel continued to stare after Buffy and Spike.

It was hard for Angel to even contemplate - let alone understand - the role Spike played in Buffy's life at the moment. Although he had been reassured over and over again by Buffy that afternoon that she really was doing okay, he just could not grasp the fact that Spike - a vampire with no soul - had earned Buffy's complete trust in so short a time. Although Angel was acutely aware that he was not actually unbiased in the matter (owing to the hot poker 'incident' in LA), it was still a stretch in anyone's imagination that Buffy ... his Buffy ... welcomed Spike's help and support so clearly and so often ... and so fully.

Angel had not born yesterday. Despite his bumbling social ineptness, he had read between the lines as Buffy was telling him about her life earlier in the afternoon. 'Spike was good now, he really was.' ' Spike protected Dawn when I was dead, he kept a promise to me before I died.' And, the most telling of all - 'Spike's the only one who understands who I am now - really understands.'

Angel prided himself on being somewhat of a Sensitive New Age Vampire - so he left the scary visuals for a later day, and hoped that Buffy's trust in his bleached blonde progeny was completed deserved and warranted. He also tried to thrust the thought to the back of his mind that Spike might one day get that chip out of his head and kill everyone that Angel cared for in Sunnydale ... all because Angel had trusted Buffy who had in turn trusted Spike.

And so Angel was going to at any rate, attempt to keep himself from ripping Spike's throat open with his bare teeth and yanking his insides out by force ... all because he was trying to do the human thing and trust his friend. Trust that Buffy knew what she was doing.

"Angel ...?" Cordelia's soft, sympathetic voice pulled him out of his brooding thoughts and Angel came back to the present, confronted by a pair of clear hazel eyes. "She's okay you know."

"What? I wasn't -"

"Yes you were." She smiled. "You had the 'I'm going to descend into a vortex of brood' kinda look. Not gonna happen on this trip - not while I'm around anyway."

He sighed ruefully and ran a hand through perfectly sculpted hair. "I worry, that's all. She doesn't know Spike like I do -"

"Like you used to -" Cordelia corrected.

"Like I used to." Angel conceded. "I can't help it. No matter what he's done, he's still a vampire. Who can kill ..."

"Buffy's going through a lot of ... stuff at the moment. I mean, if you came back to life which ... you have ... you'd be all messed up too." Seeing Angel's face, she hurried on. "Not that she's messed up ... But you know, she's got issues - issues that she'll work out on her own. And besides, she's still Slayer gal. If anything goes wrong she'll slay him dead, 'cause that's what she does."

"How do you know all this?" Angel came forward, gently enfolding her in his arms and smiling down at his Seer's sparkling eyes.

"It's in my job description." Cordelia replied cheekily before continuing. "Trust me Angel, she's going to be all right."

"I trust you." He whispered, his voice sinking to a husky baritone as he leaned in, dipping himself into the crook of her shoulder and inhaling her sweetness. "What will I do without you?"

Cordelia started, confusing colouring her features and thanking her lucky stars that Angel was not in a position to see her expression at that moment. Buffy's earlier advice echoed in her mind, duelling with her earlier determination to keep the whole dying thing from the knowledge of her best friend, her champion, her warrior.

Was it selfish of her to keep the news from Angel? She had told herself that it was noble and right that she keep the news to herself, and not inflict any more pain on Angel - he who had already gone through more unbearable pain in his life than most people could even imagine, enough to last him a dozen lifetimes. He had just gotten his life straightened out ... well, as straight as a 248 year old vampire could anyway. She didn't need to rock his boat now.

But had she ever thought how he would feel when she actually died? If Wes or Gunn or Fred had died, and she hadn't done anything to stop it ... how bad would she feel? How guilty would Angel feel, seeing her in her grave, beating himself up over and over again about the thousand little signs that he had missed, all pointing to that one irrefutable fact? The post-vision bleeding ... the frequent naps that she now had to take to recover from each vision ... the medication stashed at the Hyperion ... at home ... Would it be better or worse for him, if he had known? If he knew now?

She gently disentangled herself from his embrace. She took a moment to absorb those piercing chocolate brown eyes, those eyes that were so intense and searing and seemed to be able to see into her soul so clearly without effort. She had worked beside him for three years and yet she had never ceased to be surprised at the amount of emotion that he could express in those eyes or the emotion he could hold in check.

She would miss those eyes.

"Cordy ... what is it?"

She almost jumped, so intense had been her contemplation of Angel's eyes. His beautiful, expressive ... questioning eyes.

She took a deep breath. "Angel, I have something to tell you."

"What? What is it?"

"I ... I'm -"

"We're here! Sorry about the late, but Anya insisted on driving and then we had to pick up Wil from campus -" Xander, Anya, Willow and Tara stopped short when they saw Angel and Cordelia in front of them. "Angel, Cordy you made it! Hey, is the Buffmeister around? I'm starving. I'm dying to eat something."

Cordelia gave them her patented Queen C smile, as bright and as false as she could muster. Talk about monumentally bad timing. She ran a hand through her mid-length locks nervously, trying to not appear too anxious. "I think she's out back. I'll - uh, set the table."

Cordelia excused herself while Xander charged past her, eager to find Buffy and start eating. Anya stared openly and unabashedly at Angel, curiosity shining in her wide eyes, while Tara hovered indistinctly behind Willow, shyly trying to avoid Angel's astute gaze.

"Hey Angel." Willow beamed in greeting, no longer the shy and soft spoken girl that Angel had known her to be. Instead her large and confident eyes stared back at him, and Angel felt a prickling sensation creep up his spine and lodge firmly just at the top of his head. It took him more than a moment to register that what he was sensing - very clearly - was the sort of power ancient powers killed for ... and that Willow now had in abundance.

He almost had to shake himself out of shock. Willow was now clearly an extremely powerful witch. His brow creased as his concern peaked, but his concentration was disturbed by the banging of the side door as Xander trooped in, with a confused looking Buffy and a less insolent Spike in tow. They seemed to be having an intense discussion of sorts and both looked slightly off-coloured.

"Go ahead guys, I'll bring the food out." Tara glanced shyly away from Angel and offered to help Buffy bring out the food, which Buffy gratefully accepted. As she passed the stairs, she hollered, "Dawn! Get your butt down here and help out! Dinner's ready!"

They entered the dining room where Cordelia was busy placing the last of the utensils on the long table, and Angel was careful to select a place as far away from Spike as possible. Spike seemed to be reciprocating the favour by choosing a seat at the exact opposite end from Angel, where he slumped gratefully waiting for the meal to begin. Cordelia slipped herself neatly in a seat beside Angel, while Anya and Xander sat opposite them. Willow sat down next to Cordelia.

When Buffy, Dawn and Tara were finally seated, an awkward silence descended on the room, an untimely reminder of all the complex and myriad changes the group had endured since they had last seen one another. Angel cleared his throat conspicuously, while Spike kept his smirk in check. Buffy looked decidedly uncomfortable now that everyone was in such close proximity - especially the two vampires - while Dawn looked around curiously to see how everyone would get along.

The awkward stillness hung in the air until Xander couldn't take any more of it. "Well, can we eat now or what?" He burst out.

The awkwardness hung for another moment or so before Buffy suddenly grinned, blue orbs sparkling in the dim light. "We eat."

 

(c) February 2002