relieving their lives and homes of demons...or whatever they need to be ridded of. Are you getting all this or do I need to type it up in a memo for you?"
"Oh, I'm hearing you quite well, Queen of the Glammed," Wesley replied with a surly expression. "And I will have to decline on that memo since I've seen you hen peck before and I'd like to get a few things done before the sun goes down today."
Angel walked out of his office and stood next to Cordelia's desk. "Is it possible for us to go one day without the two of you arguing?" he asked.
Neither Cordelia or Wesley broke eye contact with the other.
"Angel, I was just elaborating on what we do here at Angel Investigations to Wesley since he seemed to be confused about..."
"I beg your pardon. Being that I'm the one out in the field doing most of the assisting with the demon killing that we get paid for, I was about to explain to Cordelia here that if she got to work on time now and again to answer the telephone herself, we might have more clients."
Angel felt his aggression mounting and tried to repress it. "Cordelia, prior to the customer hanging up from being on hold for so long, I picked up the line and took his information for you. Wesley, here's the client's address," he said, while handing Wesley a slip of paper. "Go there. Check it out. If you need me, call me. If you'd rather pretend whatever you find is Cordelia and kill it on your own, be my guest."
Wesley pocketed the slip of paper, adjusted his glasses and smirked at Cordelia. "Well, I'll be on my way then, Angel," he said as he walked away with a sense of obvious triumph. He paused by the entrance of the office in order to put on his suit jacket.
"Excuse me! I wasn't the one advising the client to blow up their own attic," Cordelia told Angel. "I saved that client. If it wasn't for me there wouldn't have been anyone on hold for you to talk to."
"I can still hear you," Wesley said, standing in the open entrance to the office.
"I said it out loud, Mr. Suck Up."
Entering his office, Angel decided he'd had enough, "Cordelia! That's enough!" he growled. "Wesley is not your employee and you are not his boss. I am."
Wesley, satisfied that he wasn't in trouble with Angel, closed the office door behind him and left to check out an attic.
Angel continued, now somewhat calmer, "Wesley was attempting to help in your absence. There was no reason to insult his efforts."
"I'm sorry, but did I interrupt a Men Supporting Men group meeting? Last I checked, we had an answering machine."
"Close the door and sit down."
"Yes sir," Cordelia snipped. She shut his office door and plopped down in one of the two chairs in front of Angel's desk.
Angel took the chair opposite of Cordelia with a loud sigh. "Wesley has been dealing with something rather disturbing these past couple of days. Something that I just found out about this morning."
"And how does this affect me?"
"Depends. Have you been having any strange dreams lately?"
Part Three
Buffy stumbled through her morning routine of showering and getting dressed. It was hard enough co-habititating with four other people in Xander's cramped basement. Severe lack of sleep wasn't helping matters any.
One major question was still haunting her. Since Willow had nothing to do with the dream, why did dream-Faith mention expecting what happened to happen with Willow?
There was a knock on the bathroom door.
"Come in."
Her watcher Giles entered with his hand over his mouth, barely containing a yawn. He leaned against the sink feeling exhausted but still managing to notice that Buffy looked worse than he felt. "You look tired, Buffy. I realize you're dealing with an abundance of loose ends at the present time but you do need to rest once in a while," he told her. Giles was concerned that with Adam loose, Riley locked away inside the Initiative compound and being uprooted from her home, that Buffy was in over her head.
"I was out late patrolling. No big," Buffy replied in a casual tone while pulling her blond hair up into a ponytail. Over her life span, she had fought werewolves, vampires and demons. There was no reason to tell everyone that a dream had managed to effect her so much. Especially a dream in which she had been encroaching on the new world of lesbianism with a rouge slayer.
"Right. Patrolling. So...the bags under your eyes are just overnight luggage? Because they appear to resemble a five.... or possibly even a seven day holiday," Giles remarked, while running a hand through his hair.
Hanging her towel on the door hook, Buffy said, "I'm good, Giles. I just need to come up with a plan. Riley may or may not be in serious danger and a man made killing machine that has no discernible weakness is wandering the streets of Sunnydale where he recently killed a small child. This may not be apocolyptic but I'd rather not sit back and wait for it to get any worse."
"I share your concerns, Buffy. However, the reoccurring dreams about Faith..."
"Faith? How do you...?"
"Willow told me that you were having dreams about Faith and that you accused her of...."
Buffy cut him off again, "I didn't accuse Willow of any thing and I told her about some very private things in confidence. Also known as confidential." Buffy couldn't believe Willow would tell Giles about this.
"I don't care if you accused her of anything. My priority is you, Buffy. You have been under a huge amount of pressure. It is possible that the dreams..."
"I can deal, Giles. I'm the Slayer, right? I just need a plan. And this bathroom is really not big enough for two people," Buffy said, as she gathered her things and left.
Willow was sitting on the fold out mattress of Xander's couch