Not mine, Joss's, Not mine, Joss's.
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Part Seven
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From behind them, Cordelia said, "Hold it. No WAY I'm going to be running around the schools at night in my nightgown. I mean, you two might be used to running around in your underwear, but I'm not!"
Angel couldn't believe what he was hearing. "We're not going back to your house, Cordelia, I don't care how embarrassed you are."
"Embarassed? Hardly! Just that wormboy over there's long since lost his rights to see me wearing a nightgown . . . and you blew your chance a long time ago."
As Angel was about to answer, Xander said, leaning heavily against the lockers, "Easier just to take her down to the locker room and get her gym clothes than to argue. Trust me on this one. I'll head off to the library and see what else is in that book. If you ever tell Giles this I'll kill . . . I'll get really mad, but it's actually a kind of fun read."
"Let's go!" Cordelia said brightly. Angel blinked. "Well it's either him or you, and while I don't trust you, I don't LIKE him." Reluctantly, Angel followed the youngster's advice, waited impatiently outside the girl's locker room, and strained to keep from commenting when he found that not only had she changed clothes, she'd put on makeup. Despite the fact that she'd spent nearly a year trying to hit on him, which had frustrated him and Buffy no end, Angel had seen Cordelia grow from the selfish and irresponsible person that she'd been the first time they'd met, to someone who was substantially less shallow, selfish, and irresponsible. Even when the demon had been in charge, he'd noted it.
But since Spike had returned and hurt them worse by accident than he ever had on purpose, she'd regressed, and regressed badly, from everything Buffy'd told him. It was like she was repressing what she'd been, what she'd become, when she was with Xander. Angel understood that.
But right now, that DIDN'T mean her behavior didn't also really tick him off.
Eventually, they went back and found that Xander had managed to drag himself into the library and was looking at the end of Hypnos' biography. Admirable initiative, he had to admit. "What have you found?" He asked as Cordelia went over and leaned against the supply cage, pointedly not looking at Xander.
"Something useful, believe it or not. That symbol Hypnos is building . . . this author, whoever he is, says there are two ways of stopping it, orbably. One involves taking something really big and destroying it in advance, which might be a problem when he has a whole town doing his evil bidding.' He grinned. "You know, I've always wanted to say 'evil bidding' and mean it." Then his face got uncommonly serious. "Unfortunately, I think the other way is the way we're going to have to go."
Before Angel could respond, Cordelia said, "My singing?"
Nodding his head perfunctorily, Xander said, "Got it in one, Cordy."
"TOLD you I had layers," the woman answered snappishly.
To stop any argument from breaking out, Angel said, "Why did you say unfortunately?"
"Problem is, we'd have to let Hypno-dude complete his little symbol o'doom."
"Let me see that . . ." Angel took the book and read over it. "The symbol produces a sound that keeps everyone under his control and permanently asleep, but a CERTAIN tone can disrupt it, if sung with emotion. Guess that's where you come in, Cordelia."
She blinked. "My singing? But why MY singing? Why me?"
Angel handed the book back to Xander, who closed it and put it down on the table. Then he turned to the cheerleader and said, "You probably don't want to know."
"Yes I do!"
Sighing, Angel said, "It needs a BAD singer, Cordelia. A very, very, bad singer."
"Speaking as one who is forever traumatized by Cordelia's rendition of 'Greatest Love of All,' may I just say, the gods could not have made a better choice."
"Shut up, Benedict Harris, you shacked up with your best friend and got me spiked through the stomach. Who the hell gave YOU the right to an opinion?" Then the anger fled her voice as she looked at Angel. "I'm that bad? THAT'S the reason?" Damn! They did NOT need Cordelia being so depressed she couldn't perform.
But as he was about to say something to try to build up her spirits, someone they didn't know walked through the front door. His voice seemed stilted when he said, "I KNEW it was a good idea to have someone scope out this place."
Angel swore, but grabbed the still sleeping man and threw him into the rare books cage, grabbing a book before locking the door. Then he said, "Get up. We have to run, out the back door, now. They know we're here." Cordelia's eyes widened in fear, but she recovered enough to move towards the back of the room. After a second, the obviously weakened Xander followed suit. "Does the stadium have an announcer's booth?"
"A private one," the boy answered, "Benefit of living in a rich area. But why --"
"Let's get there. You'll see why, when."
* * *
She seemed almost detached from the situation, numb, even, barely even sure of who she was any more. She'd been "on the rebound," insulting, nasty to Xander and Buffy and all of them, ever since the incident, and this feeling of near-helplnessness didn't do much to help.
Not to mention that she'd screwed things up by falling asleep, too. DAMN her! Just when she had the opportunity to prove to these people that alienating her like that was a big mistake --
And now, the singing. Fate, the gods, or whichever deity thing controlled the way things went in Sunnydale, must have decided to dole out an extra helping of bad karma to her, because now it was telling her that the only reason she was in line to help this sad sack of a town was because she was completely and utterly talentless, at least as a singer.
She barely noticed their sprint towards the stadium, with Angel strewing people ahead of them liberally along the way, so caught up she was in her self-pity. Angel said, "Xander. Which way is the booth?"
"Not far -- that entrance, and up a flight of stairs."
"Wish we had time to pick the lock," the vampire muttered as he kicked the door in and the three of them, Xander obviously dead on his feet (too bad she had to add those last three words), made it up the stairway and into the booth. That door was unlocked, she noted out of the corner of her mind. "THIS is why we're here, Xander; this way Cordelia's voice will be heard throughout the stadium," Angel added as he braced himself against the door.
Xamder forced himself to his feet and looked down on the field; as far away as she could get, she also looked at the field. It was all dug up, and a five-foot high pattern made out of the dirt -- looking almost like a trumpet -- looked to be mostly done.
A voice came through the door, unfamiliar this time. "Don't know why the three of you bolted up there . . . not going to do you any good though, because the pattern is . . ." and suddenly she felt a click in the air, and a low, moaning sound started to come from the direction of the trumpet's soundy end. "The pattern is done! Still . . . can't do with any loose ends . . . " And then people started pounding on the door.
"Okay, Cordy," Xander said. "Now's your chance to have a captive audience. Go ahead and afflict them with your voice."
"I can't." She couldn't!
"Now,"Angel grunted, "is not the time to doubt yourself. SING, Cordelia."
She looked around, panicky. What was she going to do? She was standing at the edge of the cliff . . . she knew if she could sing, she could save all the people down there. Buffy, Willow, Giles, her mother . . . she took a deep breath.
And then, suddenly, Xander was there next to her.
* * *
Okay, he knew he'd regret this later, but enough was too much. "Cordy," he said almost politely, "Something you never got to find out about me: When I get really sick, or really tired -- beyond being sick and tired of your whining, which I am -- I tend to lose all of my defense mechanisms, all those things that keep me from spouting the truth when I get really annoyed."
"And?" Cordelia demanded?
"And I just thought you should know that, 'cause you are NOT going to like what I say next and I wanted to get my excuse out of the way." Xander could hear the thumps by the sleeping people hurling themselves against the door, but so far Angel wasn't having any diffculty keeping them out.
The vampire shouted from his position at the door, "Xander! Knock -- it -- off!"
Xander ignored Angel and continued. "Here you are. You finally have a chance to save the world, to do the right thing, and all you can think about is your own fears. I've had fears, Angel's had fears. Get OVER them, dammit!"
Cordy shrunk away from the microphone. This time Angel's voice sounded positively pissed as the vampire grunted, "Xander!" But he'd come too far to let even deadboy stop him now.
"Look at them down there, Cordy. LOOK at them. They're asleep, their minds are trapped. And you -- and God must have one twisted sense of humor for this -- ONLY you have the power to stop it. Forget it. I'm beginning to wonder what I EVER saw in you. Your great body doesn't do a damn thing to hide the insensitive, callous, shallow bitch underneath. I think you deserved everything's that's happened to you. So you got a spike through the stomach? So I betrayed you? Big goddamn deal, ice queen. I deserved so much better than you, I have no idea why I settled. " Xander ran on, desperately, barely pausing for breath. "LOOK at them, Cordy: They're going through hell right now. But you know what? You know what? I'd rather let them STAY IN HELL . . . "
Cordelia whispered, "No . . ."
". . . than hear you sing."
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