"So ..." Buffy stared blankly at the quiet brunette in front of her. While a part of her could almost immediately absorb the dramatic changes that were evident in Cordelia's features and attitude, another part of her was still mystified at how such a change could have taken place. Try as she might, the memory of the vain and often shallow Cordelia Chase of Sunnydale High still loomed large and unshakeable in the vaults of her mind.

Although ... Buffy realised that she herself had some claims on changing dramatically within these past two years, particularly with the dying and then coming back to life again.

"So." Cordelia's hazel eyes met the Slayer's gaze unflinchingly. "Do you need any help with the cooking or anything?"

Buffy blinked owlishly at Cordelia, still caught in the snare of her thoughts. "Cooking?"

Cordelia suppressed an urge to sigh in exasperation. "You know, cooking the food that we're going to have tonight? I mean, call me crazy, but I kinda assumed we'd have food, it being dinner and all."

"Oh, you mean ... the food." Buffy smiled sheepishly as she faltered in the other girl's unrelenting gaze. She had the uncomfortable feeling that Cordelia was able to sense a whole lot more about her than she had before, and possibly, a whole lot more than what other people in general knew about Buffy. The newly risen from the dead Slayer who wasn't quite as happy to be alive as the people around her generally believed her to be.

"Yeah ..." She trailed off as she grabbed several pots and some uncooked pasta lying from the pantry. "That'd be nice."

Cordelia smiled, the first relaxed gesture she had been able to muster since coming into Buffy's presence. Although she had resolutely determined that Buffy wasn't going to be a factor tonight, she still couldn't help but be wary of the immenseness of the history between her and Angel. On some level she felt the inferiority of hers and Angel's fledgling whatever-they-had as compared to the Romeo and Julietness of the Angel and Buffy saga, but she also knew that on another level she was determined to push this feeling back. It wasn't fair on anyone, least of all herself, to make such comparisons. It was like comparing apples and oranges, and ... well, whatever the saying was. It was just bad.

Which was why she had come tonight resolved to be super-duper nice to little Miss likes to fight. Cordelia Chase was too good of a human being and seer to her Angel to not to put her dazzling social skills to good use.

"I've got to warn you Buffy ... I'm not exactly too good with the cooking." She confessed as Buffy turned around. "Actually I suck. Angel has vamp taste buds and even he gets scared when I get into the kitchen. Wes and Gunn run away when they think I'm going to cook. Even Fred, Pylean refugee that she is, can do tacos. About the only thing I can do is boil water, toast waffles and brew coffee."

Buffy faced her gravely, although her blue orbs were twinkling with amusement. "Can you chop these vegetables?" She pointed to some tomatoes, carrots and other sundry vegetables lying sedately next to a clean chopping board.

"Sure." Phew. Cordelia could do that. The only times Angel had let her near the kitchen when he cooked was to let her chop up stuff. It was something that not even she could ruin.

The two girls prepared the food in silence. The strangeness of the scene wasn't lost on either of them, but it seemed that the domestic setting of Buffy's house, the slow simmering of the pasta and the tranquillity of the not entirely uncomfortable silence had made it possible, however temporary, for them to forget the concerns of their immediate existence. Buffy was simply a young woman preparing dinner for her friends; Cordelia was simply helping her out. Thoughts of demons and resurrections and vision headaches were able to be put aside - for a small fraction of their lives, at least.

It was Cordelia who broke the peaceful silence that had descended between them.

"What's it like?" She asked quietly.

Buffy snapped her head towards Cordelia, somehow aware that Cordelia wasn't inquiring about what it was like to be a Slayer, or to be able to cook, or a million other things she could have meant, but didn't. "Dying?"

"Yeah."

Buffy drew a deep, shaky breath. It was the first time anyone had directly confronted her with her death. Everyone, especially Willow and Xander, had simply taken it for granted that she was happy and glad to be alive. The three months she had spent dead were glossed over simply as the period that she wasn't with them, as if she had just gone on a holiday and they neither wished to know about it, or didn't care. They were just glad that she was with them again. Which was sweet and touching, in a way. In another way ... it wasn't, and never would be.

She dried her hands deliberately, words ricocheting around in her mind. How could anyone put into words what it felt like, being dead? Being ... at peace. In Heaven.

There, she had said it. Heaven. She who had fought demons and vampires and monsters week after week for 6 years had taken the idea of God and Heaven in her stride. Crosses and holy water had helped her to repel vampires and she had always taken a strange, though fleeting comfort that if she did die, she would go to a place that wasn't hell. But that had been it. She hadn't really thought about what it would be like, to be in Heaven. Was it a place where people had ice-cream everyday? Was it a place where you could be with your friends with no vampires or demons to ruin the fun? Or was it simply a place that wasn't Hell?

But now she knew.

"I don't really remember too much of it." She swallowed, eyeing Cordelia as she gave up any pretence of chopping the tomatoes lying in front of her. "All I remember was that ... it was ... peaceful. And nice."

Cordelia's hazel eyes bored into hers intensely, steadily. "What did you feel ... before?"

Buffy looked away hurriedly, momentarily pained by the memory. She gazed out of the window into the inky darkness of the night. "Just pain. But you know ..." she forced herself to go on, "I think it was over pretty quick. After that it was ... nice."

Cordelia's face melted briefly into a warm, sympathetic smile. There was a strange, peculiar kind of pain in Buffy's dark blue orbs that hadn't quite been there before, but which was now strongly evident in every look and stare that the Slayer bestowed. It had struck Cordelia when she had first seen Buffy tonight. She wondered why Xander hadn't mentioned it to her when they had talked this afternoon. It wasn't something that anyone could really miss.

For all her sympathy Cordelia was eyeing the Slayer with a steady gaze, laced with ambiguity and to Buffy at least, also a strange kind of understanding and comfort. When had Cordelia gotten this good at conveying emotion, and when had Buffy gotten this good at receiving it?

Buffy shook off her thoughts and smiled briefly at the ex-cheerleader. She was about to resume straining the pasta when Cordelia suddenly stated matter-of-factly, "I'm dying."

For the second time tonight Buffy snapped her head up to gaze at Cordelia, a chill creeping into every synapse of her body. Her round blue eyes shone in the dimness of the light and shock and sympathy and warmth rolled forth in unsallied waves from its intense depths. Her entire body was locked in stasis while Cordelia continued to gaze at her with calm, steady eyes.

Buffy wanted to rant and contradict, to say the million comforting things that one was expected to say in such a situation. Of course you're not dying, Cordelia, how could you say that? Or, What the hell are you talking about? You're not going to die. You think Angel or Wes or anyone else will let you? Don't talk like that.

But she found herself unable to say the words out loud. Unable, because she could sense that Cordelia herself felt it with a strange certainty. As if being a seer had opened her eyes to another kind of truth, a kind that could only be viewed by those who regularly traversed the paths of some higher power. And Buffy, having fleetingly glimpsed that higher reality in Heaven, had instinctively recognised it for what it was.

"The visions?"

"Yeah." Cordelia's lips pressed tightly together, determined to remain calm and mature about things. She had been vaguely aware for several months now that her health had been deteriorating badly, and not just in an inconvenient to her non-existent social life kind of way. There had been signs that she had been determined that no one else but her should see. The increasing waves of pain after every vision, the increasing amounts of energy needed to maintain her front of 'I'll be okay in a while, I just need some rest.' She vibrated with visions for hours, even days after she had experienced them. And the sign that had finally made her face the truth? Post-vision bleeding - from her nose, her ears, and God knows where else. It was evident that her body wasn't doing too well with the visions; it was going to be a matter of time before it stopped functioning altogether.

She pretended to be engrossed in the lines of kitchen counter as she continued. "It hurts a lot, sometimes. Actually, all the time. Sometimes I catch myself wishing that I could die, just so it'd stop hurting." She smiled ruefully at Buffy, her calm exterior cracking momentarily into vulnerability. "But I'm scared Buffy. I'm scared of the ... after."

Buffy's eyes cast downward, unable to handle the sight of Cordelia's eyes - those honest, intense hazel eyes that she had never thought she'd miss in her high school days, but now would. "Does ... does Angel know?"

"No." She shook her head with determination. "I don't ... I know it's not fair to him, but I don't want him to know yet. He's been through so much this year, what with ..." She glanced towards Buffy, "He seems happier now and I don't want to spoil it for him. I know how he brooded after Doyle died and there'll be plenty of time for that after I'm, well, dead."

Buffy protested at her morbidness and Cordelia smiled ruefully. "Okay, that was a bit cheesy martyr-y of me, wasn't it? I just ... I wanted to be happy a bit before ... you know, if it happens. And God, this may be even lamer than Angel's singing but ... when Angel's happy I'm happy too. Which is total sapsville, but hey, I think I'm entitled to it, and ... Why are you looking at me like that?"

Buffy was staring at her with an expression that plainly suggested disagreement, but in a nice way. "I just ... I just think that maybe you should give some thought to telling Angel, that's all." She paused thoughtfully. "Cordelia, you know Angel better than I do, but don't you think that he'd like to know about this? He'd want to be there for you, and God, as if he's going to take this lying down. He deserves to do everything he could to save you, you know that."

Cordelia did know, and it rankled that she had to hear it from Buffy for its truth to resonate within her. For weeks she had pretended that she was being noble and self-sacrificing, keeping up her facade of normality. It was for Angel's sake wasn't it, and for Wes and Gunn and Fred who were all part of her family? How could she do this to them? Leave them?

Buffy pursed her lips and continued. "I made the mistake with Riley to not let him inside because I thought I was strong and I didn't need anyone to take care of me or to worry about me. But the truth was that I needed to be taken care of." Her blue eyes met Cordelia's hazel ones honestly, imploringly. "Don't make the same mistake I did."

Cordelia rocked still with Buffy's revelation, and it disturbed her to know that the Slayer was probably ... most definitely, right. She wanted to say something back to the petite blonde, who had resolutely taken up Cordelia's task in chopping vegetables, but she didn't know exactly what to say. It was strange enough that she and the oh-so-wonderful Buffy had just had some sort of girly heart to heart; it was stranger still to think that she had admitted all those things to Buffy, of all people, for the first time since she'd felt them. It was liberating, and not at all what Cordelia thought it'd feel like for someone to know her situation. At the back of her mind she had expected pity and tears and hugging but there hadn't been any of that with Buffy, and she was glad. It would've been too much to absorb in one day.