TITLE: Wishes and Paybacks (Or: what happens when you mix magickal powers with too much late night TV) AUTHOR: Lady Raven DISCLAIMER: All characters within belong to Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt (though they both need serious therapy). CONTENT/RATING: PG. Sexual innuendo-lots of it. SPOILERS: Hero. This is an alternate universe where it did happen- sorta. SUMMARY: Cordelia gets an unexpected present. SOUNDTRACK RECOMMENDATION: 'Skin against skin' by DJ Krush (on La Femme Nikita, TV soundtrack). * The occupant of Apartment 1A at the Pearson Arms unlocked the door and stepped through with a weary sigh. The resident ghost, Dennis Pearson, floated a can of root beer through the air. It was accepted gratefully, cracked open with a hiss, and the contents swallowed. "Thanks, pal," Allen Francis Doyle said. Dennis turned on the radio and Doyle slumped onto the couch. The very air about his form started to take on a depressed tinge, and Dennis sympathetically rattled the single photo frame on the mantelpiece. It was a glamorous picture of a classically beautiful young woman with brown hair and eyes, looking at the camera with a professional-looking smile on her face. Doyle had found it in the apartment when he'd first moved in - a 'glamor photography' session had been a present from her father when she'd turned seventeen. At least, Brian Chase had given his daughter some money to get herself a nice present; that was what she'd chosen to spend it on. She'd used the shots as a portfolio. Doyle smiled sadly, and toasted the picture with his root beer - drinking it being another way of remembering the only woman he'd loved besides his ex-wife. "I've been missin' her more than usual, Dennis. Maybe it's because of Wesley goin' on about his days in Sunnydale with her, ever since he talked to that Giles bloke." Doyle sighed and slugged down most of the can. "Honestly, I know his heart's in th' right place and all-which counts for more than you'd think in this game-but we gotta teach him how not to get kidnapped all th' time." Doyle sighed again, slammed back the remaining root beer, and stood up, leaving a trail of clothes behind him as he headed for the shower. As the warm water pounded down on him, Doyle leaned his head against the shower wall, while Dennis obligingly turned up the volume on the stereo. It still couldn't drown out the sound he was hearing in his head. The one he kept hearing in his nightmares. Angel had been about to climb onto the beacon to unplug it, and Doyle had been about to slug him and do it himself. He could still hear himself say, "Ye never know until you've been tested. I know that now." But before he could do anything more, his princess Cordelia had broken in with, "Men always complicate things. Don't you think this would break if it dropped from this high up?" They'd both turned to stare at her, puzzled, as she picked up an axe hanging with the nearby fire extinguisher, and climbed up on the railing. As the two of them had stared like idiots, Cordelia had cut the cables with a few efficient swipes and the beacon had died, the power cut, as it fell. But Cordelia had leaned over too far, and she fell too with a single shocked gasp. As Doyle and Angel watched in horror, she looked up at them and managed a last zillion-watt smile, before she hit the ground, broken glass from the beacon spread around like a glittering carpet. She didn't make a sound. Even when she landed, all that could be heard was the sound of the beacon smashing. Doyle had spent the rest of that night in her apartment, and the next morning decided he wasn't ever going to leave-after all, Dennis had loved her too, in his way. He was in good company. Cordelia's death had shocked him into straightening up; giving up drinking (Well, mostly. To excess, anyway), gambling and most of his low-level lifestyle. He had to be sure that he could join Cordelia in Tir na Og, the land of the ever-young, when he followed her into the valley of the shadow. Doyle heard her gasp again, and turned his head to ask Dennis to turn up the music, before he realized that it had stopped without him noticing. Then he caught something in his peripheral vision, and he turned his whole body to see Cordelia watching him, her hand holding back the shower curtain. In a wave of delight, only slightly tinged with sorrow, Doyle recognized one of his favorite dreams. He couldn't drown in the shower, and Dennis would wake him up if he hit his head or something. So Doyle set out to enjoy his dream to the hilt. Doyle held out his hand, and Cordelia took it, stepping under the water with him. She had a wondering expression on her face, that probably matched the one he'd sported the first time he'd seen her. Cordelia's hair was loose, flowing down her back, and she was wearing nothing but a spaghetti-strap tank top and a tiny skirt. The water soaked through her thin clothing; she might as well have been nude. Doyle started to feel light headed as all his blood rushed to… other places. He pulled Cordelia against him, carefully running his fingers through her now-dripping hair so it wouldn't tangle. Cordelia made a delicious whimpering noise in her throat, and Doyle couldn't hold himself back anymore. He lowered his face to hers and kissed her hungrily. They'd never had this before; he'd never had the chance to taste her. It was everything he'd dreamed of, right down to the trace of the mochachinos she loved so much. Doyle heard himself groan, and he slid his hands down so he could cup that gorgeous butt of hers and press her hips against his. Cordelia's arms were around his neck and she was all warm and wonderful in his arms, and he hadn't been so happy since he was twenty-one- Then the phone rang. Doyle cursed it, even as he braced himself for the jolt as he came out of the dream. Instead, he heard Cordelia's tinny voice on the answering machine. "Hi! This is Cordelia Chase. I must be out achieving my inevitable superstardom, so please leave a message. Depending on how important you are, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Bye!" Doyle frowned and asked, "Why is your voice on me answerin' machine?" Cordelia frowned back, "What do you mean, yours? This is my place! Anyway, shouldn't you have disappeared by now?" "Me?" Doyle asked in astonishment. "You're th' one who's dead, Princess!" "Hello!" Cordelia said indignantly. "You're the one who died, shutting off that stupid beacon of the Scourge's," "No, that's how *ye*-" Doyle broke off. "Somehow, I think that maybe ye should be answerin' your phone." Cordelia, the expression on her face saying she agreed, hurried into the living room, where a woman was saying, "Look, Cordelia, I know that you're there, I made sure of it! Pick up the phone, 'cause I have to explain to you. Xander said it would be polite." Cordelia hit the buttons that switched the phone to speaker, and asked, "Anya?" Meanwhile, Doyle turned off the shower, grabbed a towel off the rail, wrapped it around his waist and followed her. "Finally! About time you picked up-or did you and Doyle have sex already?" "What d'ye mean? And how d'ye know me?" Doyle said, his accent growing thicker with frustration. "Hi! My name's Anya. I used to be the wish demon Anyanka." "Oh, yeah. Wesley mentioned ye once." Cordelia started, "But you've never met Wesley-" "Not in this timeline," Doyle said grimly. "That's what happened, isn't it?" he asked the phone. "I've moved to a parallel timeline somehow." "Not somehow. Me!" Anya said triumphantly. "Look, maybe I'd better start at the beginning." "Just hurry up!" Doyle growled. "I'm not wearing anythin' but a towel. A…" he looked down to check, "a *peach* towel at that! Princess, what possessed ye?" he appealed to Cordelia. "It's a designer color!" Cordelia protested, nonetheless moving closer to him. "Anyway, we're both drippin' here," Doyle finished. "Oooh, did you have sex in the shower? That's so much fun! But Xander and I can't do that too often, or his mom starts bitching about the water bill-" "Anya!" protested the other two in unison. "Oh, right. Look, Giles told Angel how this bunch of toy soldier wannabe demon killers called the Initiative stole his sorta-friend Ethan Rayne. I know because I heard Giles on the phone. And I know that Giles told Angel what Ethan told *him* about the Initiative upsetting the balance. So did Angel tell you?" "Angel told me, yes," Cordelia replied. "What's this got to do with Doyle appearing in my shower?" "Well, the balance is really getting out of hand in Sunnydale, so the Powers thought they'd better up the ammunition on Buffy's side, so to speak. Since I'd possessed magickal powers before, and I never stepped outside the rules that were laid down for me, the Powers decided I was the best choice. Willow is so jealous!" Cordelia snickered, then asked, "Why not her, if she's such a hot-shot Wicca girl-not that I care." "She's not considered mature enough to handle any power outside her own. Ask Buffy sometime how she nearly ended up marrying Spike." After Cordelia's ''Eww!" Anya continued, "Anyway, I got most of my old powers back; on two conditions, since I was technically kind of evil before. I can't use my powers for anything destructive, unless it's in self- defense or defense of others, and I have to do a good deed with my magick every full moon." "Which translates to me in the shower, how?" Doyle asked. "I wouldn't be with Xander if it wasn't for you, Cordelia, so I thought you should have a man of your own, as my first good deed. I heard Giles talking to Angel on the phone about how much you missed Doyle. So I rummaged through the timestream until I found a bunch of timelines where you were the one who died fighting the Scourge instead of him, and switched him to this universe." "How many timelines was in this 'bunch'?" Doyle asked. "Only ten or so. Why?" "Don't think that I'm not grateful an' all, but why am I the lucky winner?" Doyle asked. "Well, you were due to die tomorrow anyway, so I wouldn't be disturbing the timeline much. Don't ask how-it was pretty much instant, but really really icky. The Angel in your timeline knows what's happened, and he's totally happy for you, and the respective dead versions of you are having a very private party in Tir na Og. "But Cordelia? You can't pass your visions onto this Doyle. The Powers won't let you. You were always supposed to be a Seer-if Doyle from this timeline hadn't died, the two of you would have ended up fighting a Ailemdit demon, and both gotten infected from the blood. It would have taken away Doyle's Sight, and given you it's own." "Oh, fabulous," Cordelia sighed, rolling her eyes. "Like I said, I'm glad ye shifted me, 'specially if I was about to die, but why the shower? And what about me bloody clothes?" Doyle asked. "Dimensional jumps that big can only be taken skyclad by partly human creatures. Ask Angel about when he came back from Acathla's demon dimension. As for the shower, it was so Bobby and Pam!" "Who?" asked Cordelia, flabbergasted. "Bobby and Pam! 'Dallas'! That episode was so sweet, when Pam found out that Bobby wasn't dead after all, and that whole season was just a dream. It's on at 3 AM and I like to watch it after Xander and I have sex." "Anya!" the chorus of two exclaimed again. "What? Like you two aren't going to be having sex as soon as I hang up?" "No!" Cordelia said defensively. "Yes," corrected Doyle, pulling her to him and kissing her again. He retained enough presence of mind to disconnect Anya, over her strident protests that she hadn't tried voyeurism yet. Cordelia was already tugging at his towel, and all his blood was rushing away from his head again. Doyle had just gotten her sodden tank top over her head and on the floor, when someone started banging on the door. "Cordelia! I just got a message from Giles-he said I should get over here right away!" Angel called through the door. Cordelia broke away from his lips just far enough to mutter, "First priority: get a dead bolt and chain for that door. Then get you some decent clothes." "Couldn’t we just stay in here for a week or so? That way I wouldn't need any," Doyle muttered back. "I don't think Angel would let us," Cordelia answered, as she broke away to grab a shirt off the back off the couch, slipping it on as she headed for the door. Doyle reluctantly put the towel back around his waist. Just as she was about to open the door, Cordelia paused with her hand on the knob and turned back to face him. "We'll continue this later," she told him. "Count on it, Princess," Doyle replied with a wicked grin. She gave him a zillion-watt smile before she opened the door. It was as beautiful as he'd ever seen it.