DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don't sue.
TIMELINE: Angel season 3
SPOILERS: The proposed A/C relationship and Heartbreak (one of the few episodes I'm actually familiar with!!). Uhh... Connor, too? That they keep wrecking Caritas?
SYNOPSIS: Angel proposes to Cordelia (wait! Don't run yet!) but then a surprise ensures...
DISTRIBUTION: Want, take, have. Just let me know!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Waaaiit!! Just because it starts out A/C does NOT mean that it'll end that way!! I was stomping around my house in rather PMS-y mood, ranting on the top of my lungs about how horrible the entire Angel s3 sounds and how *wrong* everything is when I came across this idea. And I just had to share!! It's pretty terrible, but the idea was my therapy and thought that others might just want to share in it.
AUTHORS NOTES PT 2: This was all written *before* I heard about 'Birthday', which totally reinforces my belief that the shows ended with 'Plrtz Glrb' and 'The Gift' and that THERE IS NO SPOON!!! Hence the lack of demonyness in Cordy and... what the feck is all that?!?! I'm just leaving it. There is no spoon.
FEEDBACK: If it makes you happy

"I love you, Cordelia," Angel said, staring deeply into his lover's eyes. "I try not to, but I can't stop."

The couple was sitting in a crowded restaurant, their features illuminated by the soft glow of the candles alight on the table.

The restaurant violinist came over and started to serenade the lovers as Angel stood and knelt at Cordelia's feet, taking a small velvet box out of his coat pocket. "Cordelia," he opened the box to reveal a diamond-encrusted claddagh, "will you marry me?"

A smile began to bloom over Cordelia's face, tears misting her vision. As the violinist reached a crescendo, the couple stood as one accord and sealed the moment with a passionate embrace, heedless of the crowd around them----

"HOLD ON!!!!" The roar came from the door to the restaurant, a shadowy figure who stormed into the room. "What the *hell* is going on here?!?!"

The DarkFigure continued over to the table where Cordelia and Angel had been startled out of what Cordelia might once have called their extreme PDA. The mystery figure stepped into the light, revealing

"Angel?!" Cordelia gasped, looking from her fiancé to his double in surprise.

"You!" snarled fiancéAngel, glaring at DarkAngel (and no, I don't mean the TV show), "I thought I got rid of you at the monastery."

"He's one of the demonic monks?" Cordelia asked. "Wait, there actually *were* demonic monks? And they all looked like you? Wow, there's the female population of America's idea of hell..."

DarkAngel gave Cordelia a 'could you be more stupid' look, and took out a piece of paper.

"Dar van fonapal jamerok aku!" he cried out, and watched as fiancéAngel's skin fell away, to reveal a demon monk.

Finally revealed, the monk shoved Cordelia out of the way, straight into the desert cart, and attacked Angel. But our Heroic Angel was prepared, and responded easily.

One wrecked restaurant later (Lorne will be pleased that his is not the only property that suffers from association with this group), Angel was driving back to the Hyperion with a shell-shocked Cordelia sitting next to him.

"So it wasn't you?" Cordy kept saying. "How could we have thought it was you? All that time... I mean, when was the last time you went all brood-boy on us? It was so obvious... Oh God!" she realized, "I slept with you! I got *engaged* to you! Ewww!" She yanked the ring off her finger. "What was I thinking?! Incest!"

They pulled up at the hotel, Angel marching up the stairs with his black duster billowing behind him. He swung open the doors to the darkened room and----

"SURPRISE!!" The lights came on to reveal Wesley, Fred, Lorne and Gunn standing under a big banner with the words 'Congratulations On Your Engagement' stretching across the foyer. They were all wearing party hats, blowing noisemakers and throwing streamers. Wesley opened a bottle of champagne and pressed flutes into Angel and Cordy's hands before they could move.

Cordy promptly downed hers, and went back for a second glass.

As Fred, Gunn, Wesley and Lorne burst into a spontaneous chorus of 'for they are jolly good people', heedless to Cordelia's mussed appearance and Angel's glower, Angel took the piece of paper out again.

"Dar van fonapal jamerok aku!" he cried again.

Wesley, Gunn and Lorne trailed off, leaving Fred to warble on heedlessly. The men gazed around, disorientated, as the baby carrier in the corner disappeared into a puff of smoke.

"What on earth--" Wesley asked, gazing around.

"A spell," Angel responded, deciding to actually talk for once. "The person who came back from Sri Lanka wasn't me."

"So everything that happened..."

"Was a spell," Angel assured them. "Everything that's happened... the birth of Connor," he felt regretful on that part. After all, it isn't often that a vampire gets to have children, but then, his body was *dead*. He couldn't work for telephone companies, volunteer for the Red Cross, or have children. "All of your actions have been influenced by this spell. I've been kept prisoner in that damned monastery for the past four months, forced to watch the farce that monk was making of my unlife along with some guy called Joss."

"Joss Who?" asked Gunn, intrigued.

"I don't know," Angel shrugged. "But when we escaped, he said that we could look forward to some improvements in our lives, whatever that means. Some people named Marti and David wanted him out of the way for a while."

"Spell or not, we should have known!" Wesley exclaimed. "That we would have accepted you and Cordelia... the mind boggles. And the way we managed to circumnavigate the loop-hole in your curse seemed rather easy in hindsight. A half-demon indeed! Perfect happiness is perfect happiness."

Angel paced into the kitchen, and returned again. "I just can't believe you guys would believe that I would spend three months trying to come to terms with my grief, and then come home and start flirting with Cordelia -- and once again I say, *CORDELIA* -- when the love of my unlife had just died. She DIED. And I start to flirt with Cordelia. With *Cordelia*."

Everyone turned around to look at the lady in question, who was finishing the bottle of champagne. "What?" she asked, "You don't have the memory of *sleeping* with your -- like-- *brother*! I mean, EWWWW!!"

"But -- But--" Fred stammered, lost for words for the first time in her existence. "You had moira! You shared kye-rumption! You are shared souls -- you're soulmates! It's destiny! Two heroes who are drawn together in an epic romance! A gut physical attraction!" Fred started to hyperventilate.

"And can anyone *else* say 'Ballad of Buffy and Angel'?" Cordelia snarked.

"So if that was a false Angel..." Wesley realized slowly, "that means... Angel, you should know, they resurrected Buffy."

Angel stopped still in his tracks, whipping around to face Wesley, eyes wide. If he had circulation, he would have passed out. "What?"

"Willow... she bought Buffy back," Wesley said, watching his friend's face.

Angel turned and ran out of the building, not stopping before he reached Sunnydale, networks and stupid producers be damned. Who could be bothered with phone calls when in two hours he could be in his mate's arms once more?

"Now *that's* Angel," Wesley said in satisfaction.

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