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Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

Part VI

“He reaches us by despair,” Kari said.

Cordelia had once been a creature of impulse, but months of hardship and craftiness had hammered that out of her. After her secret reconnaissance, and the fruitless testing of the enhancement lattice, she had spent the following day studying her instructors, renewing her assessment of their characters and calculating the best individual approach. None of them had noticed, Cordelia had been hiding her agenda for so long that concealment was her normal face now …

… until her session with Kari. The observation had come after half an hour of deep sinking-into-self; and, as her training with Kari had prepared her to do, she let it become a part of who she was without giving it the notice that would have allowed it to distract her. When she returned to the world of mundane thought, her uncluttered mind had already placed the knowledge into its proper slot, so that she looked to the other woman now and said, “That’s interesting.”

“I am no longer what I once was,” Kari said to her. “But I remember some of the things I learned when my sight was deeper. Your eyes have turned outward; you would understand us. That is the key.”

Cordelia thought about it. “Despair. To bring us here, or to control us once we’ve arrived?”

“He and this plane of being are one, as you have been told,” Kari answered. “Once we are here, his power over us is absolute. But for his purposes He has sought those with a certain … force of personality. That force must be dimmed before He can bear them past the veil that separates our worlds from his. It is at our lowest ebb that He can reach us.”

That made sense. Cordelia had lost everything, and then been further crushed when she sought to make her own way. Lying in a vampire crack-crib, a near-comatose meatsnack for any passing minion to use for his next suck-high … Even through the huge blank in her memory, she knew that must have been her own personal rock-bottom; no wonder she had been vulnerable to a mystical grab. Still, “Sounds to me like you lost all your hope after you came here,” Cordelia pointed out.

“It may be that He made mistakes with me,” Kari said. “But we will not speak of that now. Despair is how He took us; find the source of despair, for each of us, and that is how you will understand us.”

“I don’t see how,” Cordelia objected. “You just said you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Not at this time, no. Come to me again after you have seen the others.” Which was how the next day’s schedule would go, anyhow. Cordelia stood, ready to depart, and Kari said, “Ask, but do not trust them.” And then, after a beat: “Trust none of us. We all are under his hand.”

Right. Nothing at all foreboding about that.

That evening had one of her command appearances with Roxeim. It was a distraction, for she didn’t consider herself ready to deal with him, and Kari’s recent statements had given her a lot to think about. When the master wanted her company, however, her own preferences didn’t figure into it. She dealt with it by being as aloof as always, unresponsive to his blandishments and unimpressed by his demonstrations of wealth, culture, and endless supply of collectibles.

This time it was blades: Toledo, Damascus, Masamune, thin and massive, straight and curved, basket hilts and sharkskin grips, sometimes in sets (scimitar and dagger, katana and wakizashi, espada y daga). Many of them gleamed with pristine, unmarked luster, others showed the wear of long and bloody use, though all were clean and unrusted. It really was a remarkable assemblage; and Cordelia, studying a miniature, jewel-encrusted poniard suitable for a dainty murder in a lady’s boudoir, ostentatiously smothered a yawn and asked, “Am I supposed to use any of these? Because, in the modern world, full-auto is a girl’s best friend.”

“Hence your education in the employment of such robust implements,” Roxeim replied urbanely. “No, I keep these in appreciation of their beauty.”

The parallel was so obvious that Cordelia didn’t bother to comment on it, saying instead, “If I’m being prepped for special ops, the Museum Shopping Network isn’t going to have a lot of appeal for me. Show me Kevlar and some night-vision goggles and you’ll have my attention.”

That brought a smile. “You are so eager to see combat? Do you, then, believe yourself to be ready for the trial before you?”

She gave him a scornful shrug. “How should I know? You haven’t been big on information about my special mission, it’s all been you deciding when I’m ready. If I am, then what are we waiting for? If I’m not, then what’s next?”

He regarded her at some length, still smiling, before he spoke again. “You continue to be a source of fresh delights. Those I appointed as your tutors are extraordinary, all of them, yet I knew and understood them within a short time of their arrival. You, in contrast, remain ever a surprise.”

High school on the Hellmouth will do that for a girl, Cordelia thought. Aloud she said, “I’m an original. You can’t slot an original into a category.”

“I respect value,” Roxeim returned. “And you have a value that has yet to be plumbed.” He looked to her with a seeming seriousness that he had never shown before. “Soon, sooner perhaps than you can realize, it will be time for you to undertake the task I have set you. I am more than ever confident that you will prevail; and when that moment comes, you will be free, to order your life thereafter as you will. And your success, by its nature, will free me.” He paused, reflected for a slow moment, and then said, “It has been long since I walked in the world of men … since I could be, simply, a man. That world has changed greatly. I will not be poor, but I recognize that my reacclimation to humanity will not come quickly.” His eyes held hers. “I would be … pleased … if, when we both are free, you would favor me with your guidance and your companionship.”

Characteristically, Cordelia’s expression revealed nothing. “Didn’t see that one coming,” she said at last. “And, okay, I’m having trouble getting used to it. Up to now, you haven’t exactly been much for asking, it’s been more an I-could-have-you-flogged type of thing, so excuse me if I wonder.”

“Here I command,” Roxeim said. “Here I must. When we leave, however — as we shall — I will have no hold over you, nor desire it. You will grant me what I wish only if you so choose. I admit as well, it will have no worth to me unless it is given freely. And so I ask.”

This was new, and new was promising and perilous. “I’ll think about it,” Cordelia told him. “No guarantees … but, because you ask, I’ll think about it.”

“I am encouraged,” Roxeim said. “I have not, I think, been cruel as a master. You would find me grateful and generous as a friend.”

Now Cordelia smiled, too, but there was a hard chill in the amusement it held. “Oh, you’d better be.”

*                *               *

Looking back to the beginning, Cordelia could see no evidence that Lynn had ever failed to be honest with her. Honest in her impatience and disdain, honest in her surprise when her pupil at last showed progress, honest in her lack of apology when Cordelia reached the status of equal. Mindful of Kari’s admonition against trusting, Cordelia still felt that Lynn’s personality would have her respond best to a direct approach. And so, as they sparred the following morning (they had taken to mixing weapons; this time Cordelia was using the jo while Lynn wielded a PR-24 baton in each hand), she asked her abruptly, “How did you wind up here?”

Lynn’s reply was accompanied by a blizzard of attacking strikes. “Believe it or not, it was because of a guy.”

For a moment Cordelia was too preoccupied to inquire further. She could see why Lynn liked the jo so much — it was a beautifully versatile weapon — but it still was one weapon against Lynn’s two, and only its greater reach allowed Cordelia to hold her own against multiple strikes. Then she caught an opening, and as Lynn stepped back into a defensive stance, knuckles bloody where she had been a fraction of a second too slow, Cordelia said, “A guy? And did he manage to get away without you cutting off something important?”

“ ‘Get away?’ ” Lynn scoffed, and struck high and low simultaneously. It was a risky move — it left her wide open — but Cordelia couldn’t block both at once, took a crack on the thigh to protect her head. As was her habit when hit, she counterattacked instantly; Lynn jerked her head back, the end of the jo whizzed past her chin with a couple of millimeters to spare, and she continued unconcernedly. “I never saw it coming. You know these guys who are so gorgeous, you just lose all your sense when one of ’em smiles at you?”

“I know the type,” Cordelia said; broke and spun and fired out a series of lightning jabs, the last of which clipped Lynn’s ribs. “They look great next to you in yearbook photos, but you don’t want to trust them anywhere near second base.”

“Exactly.” Lynn’s next words came during retreat; Cordelia had learned, defense against the double-batons was too chancy, they had to be pre-empted by attack. “Gals like you and me, we’re not impressed by the pretty boys, we know the ego that goes along with it.” Another double-strike, with a shin-kick flashing in behind it, but Cordelia had read it coming, opened enough distance to allow a working margin, and tapped the knee of the kicking leg. “Ow, crap. So tell me, what type does slide past our guard?”

The thought triggered a burst of fury that Cordelia used as fuel, so that she was able to tag the woman three more times in the next ten seconds (none of them major hits, though the cumulative effect would soon begin to matter), but she spoke impassively enough. “The type that doesn’t set off any alarms: all big eyes and puppy-dog grin, kind of helpless, you want to take him home and pick out a new wardrobe for him. You let him in because he’s not a threat, and then he cuts your legs out from under you.”

“Got it in one, Princess. Well, except for the wardrobe part.” Lynn had been shifting out to Cordelia’s side, forcing her to adjust her orientation and using each change of angle to get her just a little closer, and for a few moments Cordelia was back on defense. “The guy I’m talking about was as close to zero-threat as you could imagine. Good brain, if you go for the grad-student nerdy-boy type, and more guts than he had any idea what to do with, but past that he was just pathetic.” Another quick flurry, and then she faded back away from darting probes from the jo. “We met on a job; at least, I was on a job, I was sent to get something from him and he didn’t want to give it, so I had to work on him for awhile. I kicked the crap out of him, and then he beat me; lucky shot, plus the guts I mentioned.”

Cordelia had the rhythm now; every few seconds she was able to tap one target or another, wearing down her opponent in increments that mattered only in the inevitable aggregate, and Lynn couldn’t prevent it, even temporarily, except by expending energy while Cordelia conserved her own. Eventually she wouldn’t be able to maintain the pace. Both of them knew it. This particular match was won; Cordelia scaled back just a fraction, asking, “You landed here in limbo because of one fight? Not following the logic.”

“It wasn’t the fight, it was the guy.” Lynn seemed content to allow the sparring to settle back to a less intense level; they continued testing one another, but not so forcefully. “Job still wasn’t finished, so I went back after him. Fought him twice more, and he beat me twice more, and every time it was by a fluke. That was years ago, and I still don’t know how he did it. I can tell when I’m outclassed, and that’s not what was going on. This twerp barely knew the first thing about hand-to-hand; I was faster, better, meaner, almost as strong, and I kept losing. It made me crazy. And then he just vanished.”

Block-jab-sweep. “So? Problem solved.”

“I hate to lose.” Lynn began to strike with one baton while blocking with the other, alternating sides. More energy used up. “Don’t much care for it now, and back then I couldn’t stand it. I spent two years tracking this guy down, finally found him a couple states over, and went after him ready for the final showdown.” She laughed nastily. “It was final, all right.”

“Really? How?” Cordelia duplicated the off-tangent evasions Lynn had used earlier, deflecting the other woman’s probes with easy, economical moves. “He’d been practicing and working out all the time you were hunting him?”

“No. Well, maybe, I don’t know, ’cause it didn’t matter.” Lynn tried the high-low simultaneous attack that had scored earlier, lost her breath with a whoof! as Cordelia faded back outside baton range and caught her in the belly with a direct thrust of the jo. It was a minute or so before she could speak again, at which point she continued as before. “Soon as he saw me, he gave up, threw up his hands and said, ‘You win.’ I wasn’t having it, I wanted satisfaction, but he talked fast and smiled a lot and jollied me out of it. He said he knew he’d got off easy, he’d just been glad to come out of it alive, and he didn’t want to push his luck any farther.”

“Right,” Cordelia said. “And then he nailed you as soon as you turned your back on him.”

“Oh, he nailed me, all right, but we were face-to-face when it happened. Through most of it, anyway.” The amusement in her tone made the innuendo clear, and she smirked at Cordelia’s expression. “You know how charming the nerd-boys can be, all aw-shucks and eager to do whatever they can for you. We went out drinking and dancing — he sucked at dancing, but he knew it and laughed at himself — and then back to his place for Round Two.” Lynn sighed, looked vexed. “Not that much skill in the sack, but plenty of stamina, and dedication you wouldn’t believe. He showed me one of the better nights of my life, damn his treacherous black heart.”

Yet again she tried the double-strike, to shin and ribs, but she was a little too far out and Cordelia had her mouth open to frame a question when one of the batons flew over the parrying jo, Lynn had thrown it with a flicking reversal of her wrist, and as it smacked against Cordelia’s face Lynn dived inside her guard, turned a handspring into a flying scissors that slammed Cordelia to the floor. Then the other woman was on top of her, locking one arm with her legs and immobilizing the other with the remaining PR-24, her forearm across Cordelia’s throat. No escape, no motion allowed, absolutely nothing Cordelia could do from that position except recognize defeat.

“So tell me,” Lynn said. “How did you lose that?”

“I wasn’t ready for the throw,” Cordelia admitted. “I should have been; would have, if you’d been using sai. Next time I’ll know to watch.”

“Bullshit,” Lynn said, and emphasized it by cranking extra pressure onto Cordelia’s arm with the handle of the baton. “Throwing was a desperation move, I never woulda tried it if I’d had any other chance. You lost because you didn’t take me down when you could. You backed off, let me keep working and thinking, and you got your ass handed to you.” She let go, stood up and stood back, watching as Cordelia did the same. “You don’t win by being better than your opponent. You don’t win by having a better weapon, or being in a better position. You win by winning.”

The anger was disproportionate to the situation, but Cordelia thought she knew its source. “Like you should have with this guy of yours,” she said. “So what’d he do to you?”

“Screwed me silly, just like I told you.” Lynn’s expression was unreadable. “And the next morning I wake up lying out in the middle of a prairie, bare as a goddamn Chihuahua, and ringed around me are seven guys with turbans and sabers, sitting on some kind of long-eared antelopes with reins that ran through a nose-ring, looking me over like Christmas just came early and who gets first grabs?”

Know the feeling, Cordelia thought, and said, “So what did you do?”

“Story for another day,” Lynn said. “Right now you’re due for your class with G.I. Jane. Just remember: you got somebody on the ropes, finish ’em. Never leave an enemy standing.”

*                *               *

What Cordelia had learned from Lynn gave her considerably less than a complete picture; but it was a beginning, and Lynn had implied (or at least not ruled out) that more might be forthcoming at some later time. Meanwhile there were other subjects for exploration. Her time with Sam today was devoted to magazine care: how to disassemble and clean them, how often to rotate them so that the internal spring wouldn’t lose tension under constant pressure, how to inspect the lips for warpage or irregularities that might hinder cartridge feed, how to insert short nylon loops (from something Sam called “550” cord, though she didn’t explain why) beneath the bottom plates so the magazines could be more quickly and readily withdrawn from the pouches on a tactical vest. It was basic, undemanding information, easily grasped, so Cordelia let her fingers move through the proper practices automatically as she asked, “How did you wind up here, anyway?”

So far today the byplay between them had been light, comfortable, occasionally teasing; the depth of their relationship had not increased, but it remained pleasant. Now some shadow passed behind Sam’s eyes, and she said, “You needed a combat arms instructor, so I was brought in.”

“Really?” Cordelia said. “What kind of bonus do you get for a tour in the Phantom Zone?”

“It isn’t about choice,” Sam said. “You know what the choices are, here: none.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.” Cordelia shook her head. “Okay, let’s try it this way: what were you doing before you were brought here? Right then, right at that time?”

“Why do you want to know?” Sam asked her. “Why does it matter?”

“I’m just trying to understand,” Cordelia said, with the plaintive note she only used for purposes of persuasion. “Where I am, what I’m doing. Who I’m with.”

Sam looked away. “Right then,” she said, echoing Cordelia’s words. “Right at that time.” She turned back to face Cordelia. “At the moment I got snatched up and pulled here, I was hiding in a field latrine. Crying. I hate crying.”

“Why?” Cordelia asked.

“Why was I crying, or why do I hate it?” Sam shook away her own question. “I was in the training program for a special unit, and I was about to wash out, and it felt like my whole life was over.”

Not able to measure up to the heavy hitters in a combat squad? That brushed uncomfortably close to Cordelia’s own memories, but she had no intention of saying so. “Why was it so important?”

“I don’t fail at things,” Sam said. “I never have. I lettered in every sport I ever tried, I did a stint in the Marines, when I joined the Peace Corps I was at the top of the class they gave us on basic medicine. We went to Honduras. I loved it. Then our clinic was attacked. By demons, dozens of them.”

She looked to see how that was taken — she had made references before, but never used the word directly — but Cordelia was already nodding. “Yes, I know about demons. Been there, done that, got the impalement scar to show for it. Go on.”

“They killed everybody,” Sam said. “Wiped us out. All the people I’d worked with, some locals we had in the infirmary, even the children. I tried, I tried, I fought with, God, anything I could grab: fire, broken glass, I killed one with a garden hoe and the next with the splintered handle. I took out four of them, just pure berserker crazy, but I wasn’t able to save anybody else.

“That’s when Graham’s squad showed up. They cleaned out the things that had attacked us, killed the last one while it was still trying to tear my leg off. They hauled me off for quarantine and debrief — wanted to make sure I hadn’t been infected with anything, and see how cooperative I’d be in repeating their cover story about what had happened — but once they saw my service record, they came back with a different offer.”

“See the world,” Cordelia supplied for her. “Visit foreign countries, observe fascinating local life-forms, and then hose them down with napalm.”

“Napalm’s too broad-spectrum,” Sam corrected her. “Not target-specific enough. But you’ve got the idea.”

“So what was the problem?” Cordelia asked. “You’d already done the military deal, and they’d seen you kill four demons on your own, without even decent weapons. They should’ve been glad to have you.”

“They should have been,” Sam agreed. “And I know Graham thought so, he’s the sweetest man but he never cut me any slack … Their detachment commander, though, he’s the most iron-headed hard-ass you could imagine, everything has to be exactly by the book, no deviations. Every time I showed the least bit of initiative, he cracked down on me. Kept saying it was a team effort, everybody depended on each other, no room for mavericks. I know that, I always covered my lane and held up my end, but it was never good enough for him. On our last exercise I took a shot, technically it was outside the effective range for my weapon but I made the shot, and he hit the ceiling and said I’d broken protocol for the last time.”

“And from there to the ladies’ room for some private weepy-time,” Cordelia said. “All because you were better than he wanted you to be. Don’t you just hate men?”

“Not men,” Sam said. “Him. All the time I’ve been training you, I’ve worked at keeping up my own skills. I didn’t ask to come here, but I’m making use of the time, and when I get back to The World, I’m going to find Major Holier-than-thou Finn and shove that counseling statement up his fifth point of contact.” Her mouth was set hard, her eyes savage. “While I was fighting, all I could think about was staying alive and killing the things coming at me. When it was over, though, and I was lying up with an armed guard at the door and every antibiotic known to science being cycled through me, I remembered the people who died. People I couldn’t help. I don’t fail at things, but I failed them. Getting into the unit, having a chance to make it right … It was the only thing I cared about, and he was about to take it all away from me because I hadn’t done it his way. I’ve never felt such, such —”

“Despair,” Cordelia said.

The word hung in the air, and the two women regarded one another with understanding. “It looks like The Man Upstairs thinks I’m almost ready,” Cordelia said. “I think so, too. Once I carry out his mission, this should all be over. You can go back.”

“I’m just aquiver with anticipation,” Sam said; then, seeming to hear the bitterness in her own voice, she sighed. “Sorry, you didn’t deserve that. Not your fault.”

“I raked over old hurts,” Cordelia said. “No one has ever accused me of being Miss Considerate, but I know how that feels. I’m sorry I put you through it.”

“It’s not that,” Sam said. “I’ve come to terms with all that. It’s …” She seemed to struggle with herself, and then gave in. “It’s all this. It’s being here. It’s you.”

“Me?” Cordelia said, perplexed.

“It’s not your fault,” Sam told her. “I know that. You can’t help it, you weren’t given any more choice than the rest of us … but you’ve had a lot better deal since you got here than you realize.”

“I’m property,” Cordelia said evenly. “That’s been made abundantly clear to me. The training’s been tough — some of it — but I haven’t actually been treated badly. Believe me, I know it could have been a lot worse than it has been.”

“Do you? Do you really?” Sam looked to her again. “I was a soldier. Now I’m a harem girl, and you’re our lord and master’s pet project. You didn’t do any of this to us, but you’re the reason it’s being done.” She drew a sharp breath. “Do you have any idea how hard it is, sometimes, to not hate you?”

For the first time it occurred to Cordelia that the distance that had grown between them — unspoken by her, and she had believed it unknown to Sam — might have some cause other than her own secret reticence. “I hadn’t exactly thought of it that way,” she heard herself say.

“Like I said, it’s not your fault.” Sam still wouldn’t look at her. “Is it okay if we call an early stop today? I’m feeling tired all of a sudden.”

There was nothing to say to that. Cordelia rose and left, closing the door behind her.

*                *               *

What she had learned from Lynn was intriguing, and Sam’s revelations had been unexpectedly disturbing. Cordelia wasn’t truly interested in anything Mandy might have to say; but information was information, and Mandy’s story, though unimportant in itself, could possibly provide context and meaning to things that did matter. And so, during another and deeper review of systems Cordelia already knew thoroughly, she asked the older woman, “What were you doing before you came here?”

Mandy directed a warm smile at her, obviously pleased at this unprecedented quasi-personal inquiry. “I was free-lance,” she told Cordelia. “High-level, hush-hush; not official, but that kind of thing. I only did one or two jobs a year, but they paid well.”

Well, there went the possibility of Mandy being a hooker, her overall sluttiness notwithstanding; no working girl could command that kind of price, and any that came close would want to maximize the cash flow while they still had their looks. Besides, Cordelia had long since decided that few hookers would need such in-depth knowledge of alarms and explosives. Espionage, top-dollar high-tech theft? Many possibilities. “I could have used work like that,” she said. “But what I meant was, what were you doing, right when he pulled you in.” At Mandy’s look, she let herself go flustered and said, “It’s a personal curiosity thing, okay? I’ve been, you know, talking to some of the others. One was locked in a bathroom crying over problems at work. One was in bed with a guy, after a night out on the town. Me, I’d been kidnapped by some low-lifes —” (Un-lifes, actually.) “— and locked in the back of an inner-city shooting gallery: drugged, maybe raped, I’m really not sure. I just wondered. About you, I mean.”

Mandy’s quizzical expression faded into introspection. “I had just finished one of the jobs I was telling you about,” she said after some moments. “I had another one set up for the summer — I hadn’t planned to take it, sometimes you just have to move with events — but I had some time on my hands and didn’t really know what to do with it.”

She had given nothing away by face or voice, but Cordelia knew she was looking for despair — something negative, anyhow — so she said, “You sounded … I don’t know, kind of sad, just then.”

The other woman studied her, eyes pensive and intent and brimming with emotion (or the appearance of it, Cordelia reminded herself; Mandy had considerable control over what she revealed or hid), and said, “I’d had plans. The job had taken time to set up, and I already knew what I wanted to do when it was finished. There was somebody … We were supposed to go away together, afterward. We’d been talking about it for months, everything was going to be perfect. Then … she died.”

Right, personal confidence and manipulative overture bundled together; though it had been obvious by context from the beginning, this was the closest Mandy had come to specifically indicating her preferences. Cordelia widened her eyes and breathed, “Oh, that’s awful.”

“I was with her,” Mandy said. “She was standing next to me, I was holding her hand … and then, just like that, she was gone. There was nothing I could do.”

“How?” Cordelia asked, maintaining the same tone of tremulous awe. “What happened?”

“Heart failure,” Mandy said. “She dropped right where she stood. Never knew what hit her.”

That was not the best phrasing she could have used, but Cordelia showed none of her suspicions. “Did you … were you in love with her?”

“I felt like I was the one who had died,” Mandy said, and for just that moment she actually seemed to be telling the truth, though Cordelia was dubious about the rest of it. Someone’s heart will definitely fail if you put a knife through it; or a bullet, that would fit better with ‘dropped right where she stood’ —

There was no time to give the matter further thought just then, because Mandy was kissing her.

Cordelia had been anticipating something like this for weeks, as her visible independence continued to grow and Mandy’s attempts to establish a personal connection became increasingly less subtle. She had known it was coming, considered all the likely attendant factors and made an advance decision as to how she would act when the time came. She would back away, of course, but first she would respond: pull Mandy to her, clutch her close, throw herself into the kiss and then withdraw, leaving her would-be seductress with an even keener hunger and still hanging onto the ragged edges of hope. She hadn’t expected it at this precise moment, but she wasn’t surprised, she went with it just as she had planned out —

— only something was happening, something stirred inside her that she had never felt before, urgent and electric and demanding, Mandy’s lips were soft and her breath was warm and sweet and the desire that flared inside Cordelia was intoxicating and terrifying and she wanted MORE —!!

She broke away, gasping, and Mandy sagged, her mouth still partly open, her eyes wide with raw yearning. “You felt it,” she whispered. “I knew, I knew it was there in you but I was afraid you’d never let yourself see it. I knew, I always knew.”

“Oh my God.” Cordelia stared at the other woman; she started to raise her hand to her mouth, let it fall again. “Oh, my God.”

“It’s okay,” Mandy said. “It’s all right, baby, I know you’re scared, you wondered but you weren’t sure.” She moved to Cordelia, reached for her. “Now you know. It’s all right, we both felt it, it’s all right —”

“I can’t.” Cordelia backed away, her heart still pounding with need, and for once she made no attempt to conceal how shaken she was. “I can’t, I don’t understand … I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” And, heedless of her dignity, she fled.

She sat in her rooms for twenty minutes, unmoving, thinking hard and furiously. She replayed every moment of the kiss, everything she could remember of what had sprung up within her as their lips met, looked back to other memories and compared them to this new, insistent hunger.

Then she stood, checked in the mirror to be sure she was presentable, and went to see Sam.

When Sam answered the door, she was less than presentable. No red eyes or tear-stained cheeks, but her usual buoyant cheerfulness was nowhere in evidence, and her face was drawn. “What is it?” she asked.

“Can I come in for a minute?” Cordelia asked in turn.

Without replying, Sam moved back to let her step inside. It was so familiar (allowing entry without actually offering invitation) that Cordelia had already crossed the threshold before she remembered that Sunnydale practices might not be so common elsewhere. Did Sam get that from her new unit? or was she an SHS alum, off with the Marines before Cordelia arrived on the social scene?

It wasn’t important. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said to Sam. “There’s something I need to find out. It’ll only take a moment.”

“Look, I don’t want to be rude, but this isn’t a good time,” Sam told her. “If you’ll just —”

No. She couldn’t wait. She stepped close to Sam, took her face in her hands, and kissed her.

Cordelia had been ready for Mandy. Sam wasn’t ready for this. She stood stiff, frozen, shocked and unresponsive. Cordelia didn’t care, she was looking inside herself.

Yes, it was there; yes, it was real. It hadn’t been a fluke or a misunderstanding. She didn’t want to stop. She had to stop.

She let go and pulled away. It had only been a few seconds. Sam stared at her, very slightly swaying where she stood, high spots of color on her cheeks. “What was that supposed to be for?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry,” Cordelia said. “I’m sorry. I had to know.”

“All you needed to do was ask,” Sam said. Her eyes were hard and angry. “I don’t go that way, I could have told you that up-front.”

“It wasn’t you,” Cordelia said. “It wasn’t about you. That wasn’t what I had to know.”

She turned and left. Sam didn’t call after her. She went back to her rooms and sat on the edge of her bed, studying herself in the mirror. Thinking, considering, assessing the new heat that pulsed through her. Trying to understand what had happened to her, work it into a shape that made some kind of sense.

What it meant. What it might mean.

What she was going to do now.
 

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