LOS ANGELES

MID-AUGUST, 2003

In what had been Wolfram&Hart's in-house ICU, Angel watched Xander Harris caress the face of the comatose Cordelia Chase. A secure facility had finally been found to care for her, at least to Angel's satisfaction, and this would be her last night near her friends for a good long while. He mumbled words from a song, older than some, not nearly as old as others.

*The Powers-That-Be; That Force Us To Live Like We Do; Bring Me To My Knees; When I See What They've Done To You.*

Xander looked up at him.

"Pretenders, right? That group that releases an album every billion years or so?"

Angel had of course seen quite a bit in his time, and done perhaps even more. Still, the sight of Xander's lost eye made him wince inwardly.

"Yeah. 'Back On The Chain Gang'. Most of Chrissie Hynde's old band had just died, I think. Personal apocalypse turned Classic Rock staple."

It was a stretch for Angel to call Harris a friend of any sort. But it was not an impossible stretch. That two friends of varying degrees now occupied the same room in such obviously savaged form made the ensouled vampire very angry inside.

"Do you blame me for this?"

Harris at first just slowly shook his head. Since his arrival, Angel had heard nary a threat, pop culture reference, or even one of the dreaded eye-jokes Buffy had warned of.

"You were up against a Power. Who knows just how long or deep the fix was in? Maybe she even made it so you killed Jenny Calendar without vamping her. We'll never know."

"I guess we never will."

Both kept looking over longingly at the woman who might well never wake up. Xander asked a question while they did.

"Did you do what I asked?"

Angel had thought it a damned odd favor, until the results of the research had come through, explaining it all.

"Wes said that the group of assassins working for D'Hoffryn were pretty unrelenting, and very large. Even a whole army of Slayers would have been hard-pressed to stop them all."

Xander closed his remaining eye.

"She knew, didn't she? She preferred death in a last battle to letting D'Hoffryn have the last laugh."

Angel had only heard limited accounts of the Hellmouth's sealing, and the battle that preceded it. Yet somehow at that moment he could see clearly the images of Anya's death, slashed nearly in two by a Bringer.

"We have some resources, now. You want me to talk with Buffy, about maybe taking D'Hoffryn out?"

Xander smiled.

"Done."

The one word was spoken so much like a vengeance demon would have, Angel nearly started.

"How?"

Xander half-shrugged.

"Let's just say I sent him off to see the lizard, and leave it at that."

"Which--lizard?"

"Think Drive-In Movies."

At that, Angel actually did chuckle. He had never liked vengeance demons much. Angelus actually thought of them as competition and interference.

"Xander, mind if I go someplace I probably shouldn't?"

Harris stopped his own mild chuckling.

"Is this about me and Buffy?"

Angel waved a hand in the air.

"Her choice, and yours. No. This is about your eye. Ready?"

"I guess."

Angel began asking several questions.

"Your best friend is a very powerful witch. Why not try to restore it?"

Xander tapped the eyepatch.

"But what would the eye come back as? Mine? A demon's? A precog like poor Cordy? Or would someone be able to spy on all of us through it? Nah. For now, I only ask Willow to keep the socket viable and infection-free. When she hits her regular rhythm and stride again someday, then we'll talk."

Angel only tread on the sore subject one more time.

"Why the hell would that loser target your eye?"

Xander raised a finger.

"Mister Phony Southern Preacher just looked at me, said some gobbledy-gook about me being the one who sees things, then...pain. Pain."

Angel rolled his eyes. Trying to figure out a psycho was quite pointless.

"What sort of things were you supposed to see?"

"Who the hell knows? Can we drop this whole line? I mean, trying to trig out anyone like that could make me nuts even if it was someone else's eye. Which, by the way, it wasn't."

Angel tried to move to a better subject, and quickly found that there was none. The two could be at each other's throats over just about anything, at any given moment. Which, once again, didn't in and of itself preclude their being friends. Wes and Gunn were best proof of that.

"Is there anything you gave her that you want back?"

Xander stared at Angel, quite flabergasted.

"Its really like that?"

Angel looked down.

"Xander, I'm not just trusting Lilah or anybody else on this. I have some safeguards I'm putting on her that even Angelus couldn't get through. But I think that Jasmine down here and The First up your way pretty much proved that precautions can be driven around. So for now--yeah, its really like that."

Xander formed a fist, but unclenched it before punching the wall. His lip twitched as he again looked at Cordelia.

"My Dark Towers. She bought them, back when we were still going together. She said she wanted to understand my world. Plus, one of the minor characters in Book Four was named Cordelia. Not a nice or stable individual, and a bit too obsessed with doing well for her own good."

Angel smiled.

"Probably made our girl feel nostalgic."

A few moments' silence was interrupted by Angel again pushing the red button.

"About the eye..."

"Eye? BYE!!!"

Angel stopped him as he began to storm out.

"This isn't morbid curiosity, Xander! I need to figure something out about this."

"Why? You have a perfectly good psycho living inside you. Ask him."

"We're not exactly on speaking terms, doncha know. Now let me make my point."

Harris sat back down.

"So?"

Angel started doing his best Umberto Eco.

"Two people separated by the greatest caste system ever to hit any democracy--high school-- still manage about a year of happy smoochiness together. His hurting her coincides with the loss of her social and financial position-the three-way wreck of her future. The new future soon has her seeing visions that threaten to kill her. Either by design or by happenstance, these visions put her in the pocket of a renegade Power."

Xander blinked a few times.

"I'm--pond-scum."

Angel shook his hand in the air.

"That's not where I'm headed. Now, back in Sunnydale, this woman's old flame falls in with a woman whose power once actually created another reality. A vision made real--by his ex-girl's thoughtlessness. They almost get married..."

"I'm pond-scummier---iest?"

"Quiet. But a false vision of another future scares him off. A year or so later, his vision is under assault by the main servant of The First--who, if not a Power, has to be nearly their peer or something close to it. All because he supposedly sees things. Two big powers—two former high school sweethearts, and now between them only one eye is opened. Xander, by the time you were attacked, Cordy was comatose. I think there's still a connection between you. Maybe like Doyle passed what he had to Cordy, she maybe passed something of it to you. Maybe Caleb's words were more than just gobbledygook."

Xander grabbed his head, massaging his temples as Angel finished up.

"Can we just go down to that in-house karaoke bar? I'll even let you sing Manilow without grabbing a stake."

Angel gulped.

"Buffy told you?"

Xander kissed Cordelia on the cheek, wiped away a tear, and shook his head.

"If I ever had any special sight, I might have seen all this coming. No more eye, sight or visions talk?"

Having said his piece, Angel nodded.

"No more talk of eyes, and you even get to ask me an awkward question."

Xander looked around as they entered the decontamination hallway outside of the ICU.

"You want an awkward, non-visions question? Okay."

Xander's next words almost did for Angel what only Gwen Raiden had thus far been able to do. For they proved his earlier point and nearly restarted his heart.

"So how are things with your son?"