DISCLAIMER: Characters are Joss's, lyrics are the Beatles' (She Loves You).
TIMELINE: Events talked about are about five years from now.
SPOILERS: Everything.
SYNOPSIS: Cordelia's POV on how she got Buffy and Angel back together.
DISTRIBUTION: Ask and you shall receive.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is just a little fic-ette because I got the compilation of all the Beatles' Number 1s, and this popped into my head when I listened to the words of 'She Loves You'.
FEEDBACK: Yes, please!
RATING: PG

She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Angel and I have gotten pretty close in the past few years. Not close in a physical way, because, well, euw, he's dead, but close in the kind of way that I can call him at three o' clock in the morning and he'll drive an hour to come pick me up. And sure, he's usually awake anyway, but ... well, you get my point.

So this is how I was in a place to know that 1. Angel was still madly in love with Buffy and 2. he wouldn't do anything about it, up to and including not even mentioning the whole shanshu thing, which I told him she just might be interested in, but did he take my advice?

Oh, and he forbade me from dropping anvils, which I guess shows he knows me well too.

It got to the point where he was even seeing people. Women. About three years after the shanshu revelation, he fell into a relationship with a girl named Jessica, mainly because she was absolutely impossible to refuse and she was introducing him as her boyfriend before he had time to realise what was going on. She got mad that he wouldn't sleep with her, and decided to get him drunk (she's quite the nymphomaniac feminist) and ravish him. It didn't release Angelus, so Angel figured the curse would only break with Buffy and that was that.

I'm not implying he screwed his way around LA or anything, because Angel isn't like that. In fact, he's actually kind of a girl when it comes to relationships. Which is why he's only had two since Jessica left, both of whom he has been great to: an attentive, loyal, affectionate, loving boyfriend. (Just the type I'd like to take home, only again, we have the dead thing ... and at this point, I just know too much about him.) Except it's without the love, because the minute it gets to heavy for him, he bows out, in the most kind and gracious way possible, telling her 'it's not you, it's me' and really meaning it. And telling me it's so he doesn't risk the curse. I've never doubted that's part of it - it's just that there's more, and it begins with 'B' and ends in 'uffy'.

Now, I love and adore Angel. I do. But I figured, if he was just going to reject every girl because she wasn't *that* girl, he might as well be with *that* girl, saving the many females who swooned over him much heartache, and me much earache, because naturally I was the one these women came to, tearfully demanding explanations for his inexplicable detachment.

You think you've lost your love
Well I saw her yesterday
It's you she's thinking of
And she told me what to say
She said she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
Yeah, she loves you
And you know you should be glad

And then, when as far as we could figure out the End of Days was about to be upon us, Giles conveniently got married. Despite the fact that neither me, Angel or Wesley had exchanged anything more than maybe two phonecalls a year with him for about seven years, and we'd never met Olivia, the bride, he invited us up to Sunnydale, and I accepted for us all and presented it to Angel as a fait accompli. I then made him spend five hundred dollars on a suit before he had a chance to change his mind.

Sunnydale hadn't changed at all, but the people had. Xander and Anya were married (and we didn't get an invite to *that* wedding), Willow was seeing an occult author named Miranda, and Buffy had grown out the blonde and returned to brown, though thankfully not the same style as me.

Buffy had changed a lot. Not that I knew her so well to begin with, but I've had my impressions and what Angel's told me and she was unmistakeably different. She's always had the confidence that comes with being able to kick practically any ass on the planet, but she seemed more confident in herself. Anya informed me that she hadn't had any kind of steady relationship in a good two years, the normal Joe commando having taken himself back to Iowa, and a spellcaster she then went out with having decided a Slayer for a girlfriend was too much to handle, and I'm pretty certain that wasn't a happy breakup.

We talked for while, keeping to subjects which we figured were neutral, but we really don't have a lot in common, and so eventually our conversation had to go Angel-ways.

She tried not to give anything away - kept her voice toneless when she asked if he was seeing anyone, hid her relief when I tossed her an equally casual no, asked the regular questions about the business, the demons, and the clients. I replied with short, terse non-answers, watching her try to work out how she could phrase her innocuous-sounding questions about him, preferably without saying his name.

She was even more obvious than he is. Hasn't had the same opportunities to practise her poker face, I suppose.

I debated whether to call her on it, but realised that even if I went running to Angel with the news she'd told me she still loved him, he'd want hard evidence - like a recording, or a signed, sworn statement or a message from God - before he believed me.

They've actually seen each other a few times; something will come up in Sunnydale, or we'll get a particularly difficult case, they'll work it out together and part with a cheerful goodbye and tears when they think the other is out of sight.

Some people are so stubborn.

She said you hurt her so
She almost lost her mind
But now she says she knows
You're not the hurting kind
She said she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
Yeah, she loves you
And you know you should be glad

To cut a boring story short, we told Giles about the fast-approaching End of Days (after the honeymoon, what kind of people do you think we are?) and he agreed to lend us the Slayer until she died or the threat was over. Cue many touching farewells, I'm sure, but all we knew was when she got into LA, ready and willing to fight.

She spent the entire waiting period with Angel. Not in that way, though I caught the longing glances they bounced off each other's backs constantly. They trained. A lot. I've never seen Angel in such good condition, and that's saying something because for long periods of time it's been his life. They considerably depleted LA's demon population, but we all knew that all they were really doing was making room for the thousands that would come.

In the absence of Willow and, in fact, any other female company, Buffy and I talked a lot. We became friends, though it was understood that there were some places we just would not go because we'd only argue when we got there (I'm talking metaphorically, not daytrips, though we did those too). Still, Angel was pretty much our sole binding agent, and we talked about him a lot.

I told her about the past few years in LA, she recounted the same years spent in Sunnydale. I told her about Angel's few girlfriends, she told me about her guys. I told her he still loved her, and she told me she still loved him. She said she'd been hoping he would try something - anything - but he'd kept away like the plague. Buffy confessed that she'd resented for a long time that he'd left her, and how he'd left her, but I sensed she spoke truly when she said she'd come to understand why, and there was something noble in the way she admitted she could never have a normal relationship with a normal guy. She begged me to get him to talk to her, and I wished I could, but said he would talk to her when he was ready; but I promised to mention to him that he should.

She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah
With a love like that
You know you should be glad

I did a little more than mention it; I had a downright argument with him about it. He said I didn't understand, to which I replied that I'd seen their whole relationship from the outside and so had a far better perspective than either of them, and that in any case I'd also had her perspective, which was much better than his.

You know it's up to you
I think it's only fair
Pride can hurt you too
Apologize to her...
Because she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
She loves you....
And you know you should be glad

I pleaded with him to reconsider their relationship before the big fight, reminding him that if he lived he probably had a future where the sun was a possibility, and if he didn't, then it didn't really matter what he did now. He didn't buy it. Then I got personal, and I told him some of what she'd said, and reminded him of stuff he'd said, and the rest of what was said is between him, me and her, so I'm not repeating it here. Especially not here.

Suffice it to say it worked, and they had a blissful (though strictly non-sexual) week or so before the first demons came and they were called to fight the good fight. They said goodbye to us, kissed swiftly and lovingly, and left brandishing heavy weaponry and strong determination.

She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah
With a love like that
You know you should be glad
With a love like that
You know you should be glad

Wesley and I left for Sunnydale, on Angel's orders, and waited for a desperate three days while the city of Los Angeles was more or less wiped off the map; the few helicoptors that the news channels sent out broadcast only a roiling grey mass of magickal energy where it used to be and related tales of the millions of people who had been driven away by a sudden, inexplicable instinct to leave the city.

We were actually kept pretty busy; a lot of people suddenly wanted to know a lot of things about demons. We were getting calls from literally all over the world.

I even did TV interviews. Which is why we have on camera the moment when the world's protectors, the Warriors, the Two, came driving down the street, bruised and battered and bloody but smiling. Both in an open convertible to bathe themselves in the rays of the sun they had kept from disappearing.

With a love like that
You know you should....
Be glad...yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I never thought I'd be writing any of this down, but Buffy and Angel's second daughter asked for a story to put in her 'My Family' project. This should cause some ructions on Parent-Teacher Night.

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