• *sniff.**

This is very true to their voices, Connie. I'm enjoying it.

Connie, man, the last person to break my heart like that at least bought me coffee first.

Hopefully the muse will cooperate and I can finish this today.

That's so sad. I like your Xander.

Still Kay, talking things with Cordy.

I know Munchkin used to say the country was looking the same and losing its soul and stuff, so it could be a coincidence, but the building in this ad could be the spitting image of the Waterfront.
“What’d he say?!” Cordy said.

“I think it was more what he didn’t say, huh?”

“What does that mean?”

“Hello, roomie.”

“Why is it that everybody who’s about to die comes to my house? No offense.”

“Maybe you’re just lucky, hon.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it. If we had to get a guest from Baltimore, why couldn’t it have been Barry Levinson. I’ve got things I could show him.”
“I’ll bet you do. Maybe I’m lucky too...”

“Well, I’m gonna go home for lunch today...pick up the place. “ I looked over at the disaster area that is Cordy’s desk.

“Don’t trust me, huh? I’m a decorated police detective...”

”With a perfect clearance rate...” Cordy finished, sounding bored. “And really tragic cuticles.”

I looked down at my hands. I don’t see anything. Cordelia acts like she can’t look. “Actually, I’m locking up the Bailey’s. I heard about that little strip show you put on at Lorne’s.” She looks satisfied, like that’s the best thing she’s heard all year. Definite ex-cheerleader. Those girls never could resist picking on me.

“It was *not* a strip show. A little sexy, maybe.” Why do I let this bug me? Before I can stop it, I’m thinking about that night again...especially that crazy kiss. Damn.

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Well, if you’re gonna believe a bunch of demons...”

“At least demons aren’t shaking me up for dimes every day.”

“Down,” I say, “Shaking you down. You couldn’t say that wrong with Levinson, huh? I hear he’s looking into police drama these days."

If we had to get a guest from Baltimore, why couldn’t it have been Barry Levinson.

BWAH!

Thought you'd like that. And, hey, shoutout! Later, Kay's gonna finally meet Phantom Dennis. But he's her second ghost, of course.(Joss Bless whoever wrote that Agnes Saunders thing. I wouldn't have done this without them.)

There. I missed my usual bus home, but it's worth it.

Angel was still trying to feel some sort of jealousy, maybe just so he'd have something recognizable to feel. All he had, though, was wistfulness. He couldn't even come up with the usual annoyance at having Xander around. Maybe he'd grown up. And why did Angel hear Cordy's voice in his head saying, "Yeah, one of you grew up. I wonder which one?"

"Did you want to see the others?" he asked.

"What?" Xander glanced towards the doorway, as if expecting to see people returning. "Wesley and them? No, no need. I've got nothing to say to them. Say Hi if you think they'll care."

"Harmony will be disappointed. She gets a kick out of seeing people she used to know."

Xander smiled. "Harmony. What is my world coming to when I think of unsouled vampires and I don't automatically look for a stake?"

"Well, it is Harmony."

"Yeah." He studied the floor for several moments. "No. I don't want to see them. I won't be coming back here, no reason to talk to them."

"Not coming back? At all?"

Xander raised his head and stared at the casket. "Nothing here I care about anymore. My hometown is a smoking hole. Cordy . . . It's all gone now."

"So what will you do now?"

Xander glanced at Angel curiously. "Back to Africa, like I said. We've kind of split up the world between us, and I'm driving around the Dark Continent looking for Slayers and trouble. Which is a whole lot less in the way of wacky roadtrip hijinks than I was expecting." He shook his head. "But that's the job. At least I'm getting paid."

Angel tried to ignore the suggestion that was poking him in the soul like a well-manicured finger. He got the feeling that if he did ignore it, the urging might take on the force of a Prada-shod kick.

He cleared his throat. "You, um, don't have to go just yet, if you don't want to. I can get you back where you need to be quicker than an airline could. If you, you know, wanted to spend some time in civilization."

Xander turned completely to face him. "Angel, why the hell do you want me to hang around? Me? Xander Harris, never a member of the Angel fan club, you know."

"I know. I just thought--we could talk."

Xander blinked several times. "About what?"

Angel glanced at the casket in its tomb. The suspicion faded from Xander's face to be replaced by a rueful smile.

"I don't think so," he said with something close to friendliness. "What good would it do?"

"It's something people do when they say good-bye to a friend." Angel grimaced. "You're the only one around here who remembers her as well as I do. When you leave, when I walk out of here, she'll really be gone."

Xander's face went blank. "No use holding on. She is gone. First her, then all our memories of her when everyone who remembers is gone."

Angel nodded slightly. "Then she'll last a long, long time."

The smile he got from Xander held a bit of the old mockery. "So vampires are like elephants?"

"Yes. We never forget."

The smile went away, leaving pain. "That's too bad. Letting the memories go is the only to make the hurt stop."

Angel knew that look. It told of a man who had endured too much, who had decided that the only way to cope was not to care anymore. A man like that had lived in the Hyperion in the early 50s, and it was nearly fifty years before he larned otherwise. Xander Harris probably didn't have fifty years to get better.

"Something she told me, before--before she finally left. She asked me why I ran Wolfram and Hart, why I kept doing what I do. I said it was to help people." He very carefully didn't look anywhere other than a plain slab of marble, not wanting to see either the man with the distrustful gaze or the metal box containing his hopes. "She had to remind me that I was people, too, and that I need help sometimes, too."

"So?" The voice was a lot closer to the sullen, resentful tones of that young man who was having a hard enough time dealing with his life without having vampires messing with it.

Angel hesitated, then shrugged. "If you're too stupid to get the point, then never mind. Go back to Africa, lose yourself in the wilderness, forget everything that ever hurt and everything that ever made you you. At least you probably won't be driven to eating rats to survive." He gave Xander a straight look. "But even with everything else, I never thought you were stupid."

Xander started to speak, then shook his head and walked towards the door. After a few steps, though, he stopped. "She told me not to take it out on you. I suppose that means I should at least listen to you when you start making speeches. At least yours are shorter than Buffy's."

The name sparked uncomfortable silence, but that evened out after a couple of moments.

"How is she?" Angel asked.

Xander shrugged. "Fine the last time I talked to her, which was a couple of months ago."

"You should call her."

"Yes, mom. But there aren't a lot of cellular towers in the bush."

"Thousands of them in L.A."

"I've got a plane to catch."

"The offer of a ride back still holds."

Xander shook his head. "You have a private plane."

"I've got three. I've even got a helicopter." He managed not to smirk at Xander's look of disgruntled amusement. "I also have business cards, with my email address and my phone numbers."

"Numbers, plural."

Angel shrugged. "Harmony answers them. I can work my own email, though, finally." More memories hit, of Cordelia throwing up her hands and declaring him incapable of working any technology past the Steam Age. He shook himself, pulled a business card out of his pocket and held it out. "Go on, take it. There's a garbage can right outside you can drop it in if you like."

After a moment, Xander ste

After a moment, Xander stepped forward and took the card. He studied the printing. "So, you want me to pass these numbers on to anyone in particular?"

Angel grimaced. "They know how to reach me if they want."

"Yeah. Funny how those calls seem to get lost, huh?"

"Yeah."

Xander tapped the card on a thumbnail, then tucked it into the back pocket of his slacks. "Thanks for the offer of a ride, but I've already got my ticket. They're showing the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy on the flight, and I don't want to miss that." He nodded and headed for the door again. Just as he reached the doorway, he paused. "Thanks," he said, not quite looking over his shoulder. Then he was gone.

Angel listened to the footsteps going down the drive to the street, then getting lost in the sounds of the city. He nodded to himself, then pulled out his cell phone to call for a car to pick him up. Before he hit the buttons, he looked one more time at Cordelia's resting place and smiled.

"You're welcome."

Le Sigh