When the world was visible again, Angel realized he was in an elevator.  Going up.

Then he realized just which elevator he was in. He was leaving his apartment - the downstairs apartment, the one he hadn't seen in years, and rising up to -

"Angel Investigations!" Cordelia chirped into the phone. Her long, dark hair fell halfway down her back, and she twirled a strand of it around her finger. "We help the hopeless. Is that you?" She paused, then frowned. "We don't make pizza. And if we did, we wouldn't deliver." The caller apparently wasn't happy with this, because Cordelia retorted, "Well, if we did deliver, we wouldn't deliver to YOU."

"Cordelia," he whispered.

"Hey, Angel!" she said as she hung up the phone, smiling at him brilliantly. She had the most beautiful smile when she was happy and carefree - and Angel hadn't seen that smile in years.

He stepped out of the elevator, looking around the office as though he'd never really seen it before. Certainly he'd never appreciated just how beautiful it was: the weathered wooden boards beneath his feet, the battered desk Cordelia sat behind, even the way the shades let in just the minimal glow of sunlight he could bear.

And he'd never noticed the way the light made Cordelia's hair shine.

"Are you okay?" She cocked her head. "You're acting kinda weird. More weird, I mean, seeing as how weird is kind of standard operating procedure around here."

All he could say was, "Your hair is beautiful."

She laughed, flipping it not-so-casually as she did so. "I can't believe you noticed." Then she frowned. "Wait. I really can't believe you noticed. Are you SURE you're all right?"

"They said that Samson lost his strength when Delilah cut his hair," Angel murmured. "Not when she cut her own."

"And with that, you're definitely not okay." Cordelia stood up and put her hand on his forehead, gasped in alarm, then said, "Oh, duh, right. You're ALWAYS clammy."

"Don't think clammy, Princess," said a voice from the doorway. "Think cool."

Angel knew the voice instantly, but it still took him a moment to say the name. "Doyle."

"Yeah, I know I'm a bit late," Doyle said, tilting his hat further up on his head. "But I had a tip on a filly, and it would've been criminal to let it slide by. Criminal!"

"Is it just me, or does 'tip on a filly' sound dirty?" Cordelia asked.

Doyle grinned. "It does when you say it. Say it again."

The same garish shirt. The same beat-up hat. The same smell of cheap beer and bar peanuts. Angel hadn't thought the reappearance of anyone he'd lost could hit him harder than Cordelia, and Wesley and Fred and hit him hard enough. But Doyle - it had been so many years -

He pulled Doyle into his arms, wrapping him in a hug. Doyle, unlike everyone else, just hugged him back and laughed. "Is this a very special episode of Angel Investigations?"

Cordelia wrinkled her nose. "Since when does Angel have huggy moods?"

"He's learning to be more human!" Doyle said. "I figure that involves hugs sooner or later."

"It's more than that! Look at him, Doyle! People don't hug and get all mushy and talk about the Bible unless they're - they're - Tammy Faye Bakker! And, well, Angel's not."

How could he possibly explain this? Angel couldn't think of an excuse, but he knew he wasn't going to be able to hide his reaction, not for a long time. Right now he felt as though he wanted to do nothing more than sit in this room with Cordelia on one side and Doyle on the other for hours. Days. Maybe years.

"Say, now that you mention it, there is an uncharacteristically thoughtful look upon his brow?" Doyle squinted at him. "Angel, what's going on?"

And then it came to him - the solution, rushing in like sunlight that couldn't burn.

Angel blurted out, "I've just arrived here from the future, and I've spent the last few days traveling backwards in time."

Cordelia stared at him. Doyle shook his head like a cartoon character who'd just run into a door, then grinned. "Well, why didn't you just say so?"

**

They sat on the office sofa while Angel spilled it all out - every bit of it, every detail Angel could remember, relevant or not. He held nothing back. He told them about the explosion of the offices. He told them about the transfer of the visions. He told them about Darla's return from the dead. He told them about Connor. And he told both of them how they died.

As they listened, Doyle took Cordelia's hand, and for once, Angel didn't think the guy was looking for an angle. Cordelia blanched beneath her Santa Monica tan, but she said nothing.

"It doesn't have to happen this way again," Angel said. "We know when and where the Scourge is going to appear, and we can stop them. Doyle will keep the visions, and so Cordelia will never be in danger. We have to let Wolfram & Hart bring Darla back - Connor can't be born any other way - but we'll figure out how to handle it better next time -"

"Next time?" Cordelia shook her head. She started laughing, but it was a strange, quiet little sound, not like her laughter at all. "Excuse me, but what about the huge tremendous waste of all our lives you just described calls out for a 'next time' to you?"

"None of it," Angel said. "Except Connor. That's what I'm saying, Cordy. We can fix it -"

"Yeah, we can. I intend to fix my part of it by not showing up." She rose to her feet and began throwing her various knickknacks into her tote bag. "I am absent and unaccounted for. I am AWOL. I am something else vaguely military that means I am getting the hell out right now."

Angel had never considered this. "Cordy - the fight - it's our fight. Yours as much as mine."

"In some parallel universe where everything sucks!" she said. "But not here. Why? Because I have other options, thank you very much. I still have an agent. Did you know he called me for an audition the other day and I turned him down? Some stupid thing called 'CSI,' but you know, right now, I'll take it. Thanks for the cool apartment and everything, and it's not like I don't wish you luck with the whole do-over thing. I really do."

"You can't go!" The only thing more unthinkable than trying to live centuries after the year 2004 without Cordelia was trying to live centuries after the year 1999 without Cordelia. "I - I don't know how to do this without you."

Something in his voice made her hesitate, and as she paused there, his heart filled with hope. But tears were welling in her eyes as she said, "Angel, just answer one question for me, okay?"

"Anything," he said, and he meant it.

"Can you really tell me - knowing what you know - that I wouldn't be better off walking out this door right now?"

Angel looked down into her young, lovely face and remembered what it was like to see her crying, bleeding, even dying. "No. I can't."

"Well, okay." Now that the moment had come, she was hesitating. But Angel knew her well enough to know that she would go.

He put his arms around her for the very last time. "If you ever need me," he said. "Anywhere, anytime. Even if it's 50 years from now. Got it?"

"Thanks," Cordelia said, wiping her eyes. "But the whole point of this is for me not to need you." She walked toward the door, paused, then looked down at Doyle. "For what it's worth, I really hope you don't get killed by the demon Nazis."

"I appreciate that," Doyle said, tipping his hat as she walked out of Angel Investigations forever. As Angel leaned back against the desk, weary with exhaustion and loss, Doyle said, "Just a guess, but I think maybe you hit her with too much too soon. As in, any of that miserable crap you just told us, and ever."

"She deserved the truth," Angel said. "And there was a time when Cordelia wouldn't even have let that drive her away from our work. But - she's not that person yet."

"And now she's never gonna be. Ah, well. You know what they say about omelets and eggs."

"No, I don't."

Doyle started to explain, then said, "Honestly, you're not missing much." He spoke more gently when he rose from the couch. "Here. Let me see this Tardis doohickey you've got." Angel tossed him the device, feeling strangely naked without it in his palm or his pocket. Turning it over a few times, Doyle whistled. "Everything about this says expensive. And important. One-of-a-kind, I'm guessing."

Remembering Doyle's usual habits, Angel said, "No, you can't pawn it."

With a disappointed scowl, Doyle tossed it back. "Listen, you're flummoxed. You're poleaxed. You're possibly even flabbergasted. In other, shorter words, you shouldn't be trying to deal with this all on your own."

"That's why I told you."

"Flattered though I am, this is beyond my ken. But I have an idea who we could discuss this with -"

Doyle was clearly uncertain about the suggestion, but as memory kicked in, Angel smiled, knowing they'd just hit on a plan. "I bet I know the way."

**

"Powerful," said Sister, holding the device up and inspecting it as though it were some overripe fruit. Her metallic skin glimmered in the eerie, wavering light. "No small magic gave you this."

"Perhaps too powerful," Brother added as he stepped to her side.  "Few could be trusted not to misuse such magic."

"I suppose that includes me," Angel said, thinking of every blunder he'd made since he began rewinding through time.

"You have tried to use this power for good." Sister almost sounded kind, at least for her. "That is more than some would do. But the use of such power requires - objectivity. And this you do not possess."

"You seek answers we cannot give," Brother said, taking the device and holding almost reverently for a moment, before giving it back to Angel. "And this is not your destination."

"What do you mean, this isn't my destination?" Angel glared at the device in his palm as though it had started all the trouble - which, of course, it had. "You want me to use this AGAIN?"

The Oracles shared a smug, knowing smile. "Your path winds in many directions, Champion. But it winds forward as well as back."

This just got more confusing. As a last attempt, Angel said, "Can you at least tell me how to use this thing?"

Sister lifted her chin haughtily. "The answers are revealed to those who seek patiently."

One corner of Angel's mouth lifted. "You mean you don't know."

"Your time with us is short," Brother said. "Go now. And never reveal the future to those in the past again."

Remembering Cordelia's flight from his life, Angel sighed. "Believe me, I won't do that again."

When he stood at the very brink of the portal, Sister said - more quietly than Angel had ever heard her - "We thank you for the warning about Vocah."

"Yeah. Good luck with that," Angel said, plunging back through to Los Angeles in 1999.

Doyle had taken a seat on a nearby crate and was scratching his Lucky Pix tickets with a quarter when Angel appeared beside him. "Any luck with the Oracles?"

"They were as clear and precise as they always are," Angel said.

"No luck at all, then." Doyle held up a Lucky Pix ticket, on which none of the numbers matched. "That makes two of us."

Something about Doyle in that moment - perpetually hopeful, always looking for luck in a horse or a lotto ticket or a garbage bin - struck Angel in a way it never had before. Why hadn't he seen it, this unquenchable belief in better things?

Hadn't he realized that nobody but an incurable optimist would ever take him on as a friend?

"You look funny," Doyle said. "Not funny ha-ha. What's going on?"

"They want me to go back again," Angel answered.

"Again? How far?"

"No telling. They don't know how to use it either." They both stared down at the golden sphere in Angel's hand.

"Well." Doyle shifted from foot to foot. "I suppose this would be a good time to mention that it's been nice knowing you."

After everything he'd been through, particularly in the past few days, Angel no longer had any time for awkwardness. "You were the first real friend I had in centuries, Doyle. Maybe ever. I made other friends later but - if it hadn't been for you - I'm not sure I would've remembered how."

"You did get better at the humanity part, didn't you?"

"Not much," Angel sighed. "But I wasn't going to get much worse."

"Well," Doyle said again.

"So," Angel said.

And then it hit him - he had a FUCKING TIME MACHINE.

"I'll go tomorrow," Angel said.

Doyle blinked. "Back in time?"

"Why not go tomorrow?" Angel was grinning now. "Same difference, right?"

"Which means that tonight -"

"Tonight, my friend," Angel said, feeling more relaxed than he had in - well, in years. "Tonight, we are going to go out and have fun and spend money like there's no tomorrow."

Doyle laughed. "Because there isn't!"

They started out at a steakhouse, where a $140 bottle of wine complemented both Doyle's sirloin and Angel's steak tartare. Then they went to the dog track and bet on every name that sounded good, that sounded funny, that made them laugh. They went bar-hopping afterward, sending drinks over to every girl Doyle thought was cute, which meant pretty much any female between the ages of 18 and 48.

A few of them - well, most of them - were more interested in Angel. It occurred to him that casual sex would never be easier than on a night without a morning after, but with the memory of Cordelia's face so fresh in his mind, the thought was no more than fleeting.

He knew where he really wanted to be. And he knew he would never be there again. The question was figuring out what would come next.

As Angel steered the Plymouth along the road, Doyle shouted over the radio, "This is the only place in the past - time in the past - pit stop, whatever, where you've actually taken a little time to hang out, yeah?"

"Yeah. I should've done that before." If only he'd had the time, he would happily have spent months with his infant son.

"So, what makes this time in your life so wonderful? Aside from yours truly, of course."

Angel glanced up at the brilliant city lights all around them. "I'd spent a long time trying to start over," he said. "But this was the first time it ever really seemed like it was going to happen. Like anything was possible."

"Except me hooking up with Cordelia, tragically." Doyle grinned wolfishly, and Angel managed not to add, me too.

They ended up at Doyle's place, watching old movies until Doyle passed out - or, more charitably, fell asleep - on the sofa. Angel watched him for a couple of minutes, listening to the adventures of Errol Flynn on the TV.

Waiting until morning was an option. They could hang out a while longer, and maybe he could even treat Doyle to breakfast before they said goodbye.

But then they'd just have to say goodbye.

Angel took out the device and walked to the window; it wasn't sunrise yet, but he could feel it coming on. He wondered if Cordelia was asleep and knew, suddenly, that she wasn't - that she was lying in her bed, hugging her pillow, wondering if she'd done the right thing.

He wished he could believe that she hadn't.

Then he closed his eyes, closed his fist around the device and gave it one more twist.

**

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