Part 7

"This is useless; utterly useless." Giles tossed yet another book on the already heaping dining room table. "We have seen no references of demons who use music to torture their victims...and even if we were to stumble across such a tidbit, none of us can sustain a thought long enough to..."

// Well you go your way,
I'll go mine.
I don't care if we get there on time //

"To ascertain the remedy," he finished through grinding teeth. "This abominable music grows stronger by the minute."

"Every time I find something good, someone starts humming and I lose my place," Willow grumbled.

"The humming helps me," Tara offered shyly. "At least for a little..."

// I couldn't stop, so I swerved to the right
I'll never forget the sound that night //

"...while," she continued, "it breaks up the song in my own head." Her fingers absently wound through her hair, twisting a lock so tightly that the skin started to pull away from her skull.

"Me too." Xander tossed his own book on the pile next to Giles'. "And at the moment that would help me do research even more than a jelly donut. If we had jelly donuts, that is." He eyed Buffy speculatively.

"Sorry, Xander. We have party leftovers, but no donuts."

"We also have the breakfast Buffy didn't eat," Angel said, carefully not looking at his beloved. "We have plenty of that."

"I'd better not be hearing the beginning of a lecture on good eating habits from the man who won't let me send out for blood." She wrinkled her nose. "That sentence sounded a lot better in my head."

// I could hear the distant drums
And sounds of bugle calls were coming from afar //

"Actually it was the only thing that sounded good in my head."

Angel reached out across the table and covered her hand with his. "We're going to figure this out, I promise."

"Not at the rate we're going." She sighed as Angel pulled his hand away; experience told her he wouldn't even look at her for some little time to come, until he had forced back the twin demons of desire and guilt.

"So far, all we know is that we're the only one affected. I'm afraid that means you're outvoted by the hummers, Will. Except..." Buffy glanced around the room. "I think it would work better if there were actual words instead of just the melody. So who wants to volunteer to sing?"

There was a sudden, and overwhelming, silence.

"Oh come on, guys," she protested. "I'd offer, but I can't catch all the words; they just come in spurts."

"Well I'm not sure if mine are all right either. And, umm, I have a sore throat." Xander ostentatiously rubbed his adam's apple.

"Since when?" Buffy raised an eyebrow at him. "You just don't want us to know what your song is."

He nodded enthusiastically. "That too."

"Any other brave volunteers? Willow?"

Her best friend offered a watery smile instead. "I don't think mine has many real words; mostly they're just gibberish."

// Christmas day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp //

"And the ones I do recognize don't make much sense; at least not for me."

Buffy sighed again.

"Anya is in no shape to sing; that's pretty clear." The Slayer gestured to the former demon in question, huddled miserably on a chair in the corner of the room. "And I'm assuming Angel won't grace us with whatever little ditty is running through his mind." She turned to Wesley. "How about you, Wes?"

"Me?"

// Her name was Lola
She was a showgirl.
With yellow feathers in her hair
And a dress cut down to there //

"I think not," he answered, shuddering slightly at the thought. "I refuse to hold myself up to ridicule for a song that is in no way my responsibility." He looked pointedly at Angel. "Perhaps I should write it out the parts I can remember so that the person who made me listen to it in the first place may sing it. No doubt he already knows all the words."

Angel stood up abruptly. "Wesley, can I talk to you?" he asked tightly. "Privately."

Wesley almost leapt to his feet; the cacophony in his head was driving him wild and only the prospect of battle seemed a likely vanquisher.

"Guys!" Buffy called after them as they walked quickly towards the kitchen. "We don't have time for...oh this is ridiculous!" she snapped. "Whoever made up the phrase 'with a song in my heart' should have his tongue cut out with his own sheet music."

* * * * *

As soon as they reached the privacy of the kitchen, Angel grabbed Wesley's arm, spinning the Watcher around to face him.

"Would you mind telling me where all this hostility is coming from? I did not create this situation."

Wesley pulled his arm free of Angel's grasp. "I realize that, but you are responsible for the particular tune that has been running through my head all morning. You and your excuse for a karaoke act."

Angel looked confused. "What act? I don't..." Suddenly he drew a deep breath as an explanation occurred to him. He shot a quick glance at the closed kitchen door before leaning towards Wesley. In a low voice, he asked, "It's a Manilow?"

"Yes, blast you." Wesley swung away from Angel and began circling the room. "I couldn't have a rugged fight song in my head, or even something patriotic. No, thanks to you I have this...lounge music...running non-stop."

// But Rico went a bit too far
Tony sailed across the bar //

"It's not lounge music," Angel protested. Another covert glance at the door. "Which...which one is it, anyhow?"

Wesley stared at him, appalled. "Does it matter?"

"Well you know he's had his good periods and his not so good periods, like everybody else. I mean take 'Weekend in New Engl...and you probably don't want to hear this," the vampire trailed off. "But you know you could have gotten it from anywhere; it didn't have to be me."

"As though this is the type of music I am likely to run into anywhere but Caritas. No Angel, it's time to take responsibility. This is your fault."

// And then the punches flew
And chairs were smashed in two //

"Say that one more time and I'm going to add a nice ringing in your ears to accompany whatever tune you've got playing there, Wes."

Buffy glared at the Watcher from the now open doorway as she made her threat.

"Buffy, it's all right," Angel said, his own aggravation fading in the face of hers. "Wesley is tired and hurting; we all are. And we're going to say some things we don't mean," he looked hard at Wesley, "because we can't think clearly enough not to."

"Well I'm tired of him laying everything at your feet." Buffy switched her angry gaze to Angel. "You sugar-coated it last winter when you told me about the Darla mess, but I could read between the lines. You needed them to take care of you for once, and they couldn't handle it. And then they made you feel guilty because they couldn't handle it. But I won't let them get away with it again."

"This has nothing to do with last winter," Wesley protested. "We've all made our peace with that."

"No, you buried it when they buried me, because suddenly it didn't seem that important. But it is important," she insisted. "And it won't stay buried, any more than I did."

Wesley flinched at her imagery. "Buffy, please."

"Don't look at me; Angel is the one you need to do the 'pretty pleases' to." She lifted her chin proudly, seemingly calm and in control as words she couldn't stop spilled out of her mouth. "Go ahead and ask him for forgiveness. He'll give that away to anyone...except himself."

"Wes, I think we've said all we need to say," Angel said. His jaw tightened as the drumbeat in his head assumed more martial rhythms. "Could you please go back to the dining room; we'll be with you in a minute."

Angel was quiet as Wesley walked past Buffy into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Leaning hard on the back of a kitchen chair, the vampire clutched the wood as tightly as he clung to the edges of his fraying temper.

"You didn't have to do that, you know. I understood where he was coming from; I just wanted to get it out between the two of us."

Buffy approached him slowly, wary of his obvious strain. "A few hours ago you jumped down Xander's throat to defend me, but I'm not allowed to do the same for you?"

"Wesley knew what he was saying wasn't fair..."

"And that makes it better somehow?"

"And he would have apologized for it," Angel continued, his voice steadying. As long as he focused on Buffy's troubles and not his own, he could deny the voices some of their power over him. "Xander didn't realize, and he would have done it again. Will do it again if you don't call him on it."

"And so will Wesley if you let him get away with it often enough," she countered, stopping in her tracks. "He's only human, Angel; and that's not always the good thing you make it out to be. If you let him walk all over you too many times, he'll carve 'welcome' on your forehead."

"I can stand up for myself, Buffy. I have been for a very long time."

"But you don't," she said, slapping the palm off her hand on the kitchen table in frustration. "If someone tries to split your head open with an axe you'll defend yourself, but not if they throw your past in your face; then you just sit back and take it like you were caught doing 70 in a school zone." Her hand clenched into a fist on the tabletop. "Stupid me trusted your friends not to use that against you."

"Wesley is my friend," he said. "We don't always agree, and sometimes we even fight. That has nothing to do with my past." Her anger at his blindness wavered, submerging beneath hurt and worry. "Everything has to do with your past, Angel. Everything including why you were so eager to confront Wes...and get away from me."

Angel's grip on the chair loosened as he stood up straight to confront Buffy's accusation.

"I was a little bugged by Wesley blaming me for the song in his head, like this demon, or whatever it is, was my date for the party. It had nothing to do with you."

// I don't know what I'm up against
I don't know what it's all about
I've got so much to think about //

Buffy nodded, slowly starting to move around the table towards him again. "So the fact that you were holding my hand, and being so sweet a minute before that had nothing to do with it?"

"I don't..."

"You've been doing it since you got here," she said flatly, still stalking him.

Her hands were extended, reaching out for the other half of herself. Angel fought the urge to back up, but Buffy could see the way he folded into himself. Head bent in shame, shoulders bowed with guilt; it was all distressingly familiar. She stopped moving, unwilling to drive him still further away.

"You're doing it now," she pointed out. "One minute you're there with me, almost like we used to be, and then you realize it and you start to back away. Like the dancing last night. You held me so tight on that dance floor, I almost couldn't breathe. But when we got outside...you wouldn't even take my hand. And when you'd forget yourself and touch me, three seconds later you'd be backing up into a wall or something."

"I'm sorry...I didn't realize," he stammered.

Buffy nodded, blinking back yet more traitorous tears. Angel always had given her mascara a run for its money.

"I know. It's reflex. Or actually, I think touching me is reflex, and the backing away part is learned behavior." She looked down at her outstretched hands, a twisted smile distorting her mouth. "Good to know those psych classes weren't a total waste."

"I don't want to confuse the issue," he insisted. "You, me, what we can't do or have...that's settled and there's no going back. But I want to be here for you."

// I only wanna make you happy and if you say 'hey go away' I will //

"To see me through this crisis, you mean?" Her mocking tone could not hide the pain in her eyes. "And then what? Angel runs back to LA just as Buffy was getting used to depending on him again?" She swallowed hard, hoping to dislodge the lump in her throat. "No thanks. I'm tired of chasing after you to get what I need from you."

Angel laughed harshly, her words stoking the anger that had dwelled so intimately with his guilt all these years. The music was building again, faster and louder as it pounded through his veins.

"You're tired of chasing after me? That's rich. What did I ever do but run after you?"

"What for?" Buffy's voice came out in an indignant squeak.

"To apologize, to set things straight, to make sure you were okay. It didn't matter who started the fight; I had to be the one to make the first move to end it."

She spun on her heel and walked over to the sink, leaning heavily on the stainless steel at the edge.

// They were closer now, Fernando
Every hour every minute seemed to last eternally //

"What can I say, Angel? You're good at ending things."

Angel stared at her, the music sounding dimmer against the tears he could hear in her voice. He tried to trace back in his mind to where things had started to fall apart, but all he could remember was that she came after him to defend him and ended up dealing far worse blows than Wesley could ever dream of rendering.

And he had given back every bit as good as he had gotten.

"Buffy, what's going on?" He ran his hand through his shock of dark hair as he tried to clear his mind enough to speak. "All I came in here for was to ask Wesley to quit it with the smart-ass comments, and somehow you and I end up raking over things we settled months ago."

She hunched over the sink, drawing deep breaths before she turned on the water and splashed her face. Angel hurriedly crossed over to the cupboard below the drain board and pulled a clean towel from the top drawer. Wordlessly he offered it to her.

"Thanks," she murmured before burying her face in the protective mask of cotton.

"Buffy..."

"It's the songs," she said clearly as she abandoned her hiding place. "It has to be. Like you said; they're making us all crazy. There's stuff I want to say to you...but then the voices in my head start whining about Fernando, whoever he is, and I just get so confused. I can't think; all I can do is...react."

"And our reactions aren't exactly nice, quiet ones," he agreed. He leaned against the counter, tugging the damp towel from her fingers to press to his own aching forehead. "We're warriors; all of us here are, in our own ways. We attack where we sense a weakness, and we don't pull punches."

She gulped as she nodded; there had been nothing soft or temperate about their exchange. Angel was not the only one for whom the jugular was the preferred target.

"Angel, if you and I are doing the snake and mongoose dance, then so is everyone else." She looked at him in alarm. "We need to get out there."

* * * * *

Part 8

Buffy had to marvel at the solid construction of her old house. She and Angel had only heard each other in the kitchen when they had the door closed, but as soon as they opened it and stepped into the hallway, a full-scale battle could be heard erupting in the dining room.

"Stop saying that, Anya! Tara's punch was fine." Willow stood menacingly over the former vengeance demon, but Anya was not cowed by the witch's fury.

"You don't know that. We're all experiencing side effects, and the punch was the only thing we had in common. I mean, sure, Angel said he didn't have any...but he probably had too much of that skanky beer Giles brought and doesn't even know what else he drank."

"Anya, you couldn't be more wrong," Angel protested as he and Buffy walked into the room.

"You want to watch how you talk to my girl, Angel? I thought you eighteenth-century guys were supposed to be so big on manners. She's way older than you, so you should show her some respect." Xander looked to Anya for his rightful measure of praise, but encountered only a frigid glare in receipt for his inspired defense of his true love.

"First of all, it couldn't have been the punch because we eight were the only ones affected," Angel said, gritting his teeth as a tambourine jingled in his inner ear. "It must have happened after we got back here to Buffy's house. Secondly, and more importantly, I did not have too much to drink last night."

"Then why didn't you try anything with Buffy after we all left?" Anya looked at him with bleary, but skeptical, eyes. "Ever since I came to Sunnydale, I've been hearing about all this hopeless passion that's supposed to be between you two. But when you have the house to yourselves for a whole night, you don't make move one? If that's true, I don't think it's the passion that's hopeless."

"Must everything always come down to Angel's love life?" Wesley asked peevishly. "He's not even supposed to have one, and yet somehow that's what the conversation always revolves around."

"We could discuss your love life instead," Xander suggested. "That is, if you've ever tried going on a real date, instead of hanging around high schools hitting on the cheerleaders."

"And that remark naturally brings us back to Angel's love life." Giles pitched another book at the table, sending three other careening to the floor when they collided. "I do wish you would all stop your childish tirades and get back to work."

"Gee, Dad," Willow said mockingly, "Practice what you preach."

// Welcome, welcome
Fah who rah-moose //

"I am not your father." Giles glowered at her, hurt by criticism from such an unexpected source. "Though I have been obliged to act in that role for the past several years, with little appreciation for my efforts, I am not, thank providence, anyone's father."

// All I want to tell you, all I want to say
is count me in on the journey.
Don't expect me to stay //

"Guys, quit it!" Buffy's order, loud though it was, garnered little attention. When she placed two fingers in her mouth and gave forth a piercing whistle, however, she found greater success.

"We have to stop...take your hands away from your ears and listen to me," she commanded. When she could see they were all listening, she continued, "We have to stop fighting. I know it seems like it distracts you from the music, but the more we fight the louder the voices get. Am I right?"

Seven heads reluctantly nodded in agreement.

"Okay, so we can't fight any more. We have to...fight the urge to fight, I guess."

"And we have to get some help." Angel looked around the room, at a sea of tired faces lined with pain. "Outside help."

"Whom do you suggest?" Wesley asked dryly. "Dick Clark?"

"Hey!" Buffy's hands clenched as they rested on her hips, but she forced herself to speak calmly. "I said no fighting, and that means no snippy little Cordelia-type comments and no..."

"Cordy; that's it," Angel breathed. "She can do the research for us. Well, she and Gunn and Fred. Between the three of them they should be able to figure out what's causing all this."

"You mean between the one of her," Wesley corrected him, this time only weariness coloring his voice. "Gunn was taking Fred to her family reunion in San Francisco this weekend; don't you remember?"

Buffy glanced quickly at Angel, searching his pale face for signs of distress or discomfort.

"So, Fred is dating Gunn?" she asked, hoping she sounded only casually interested. "You never mentioned that."

Angel shrugged, not understanding the significance of the gossip.

"They've been dating for a little while. Does it matter, other than it keeping them busy this weekend?"

She blinked her eyes and wondered how a man so innocent had managed to survive all these years without feminine assistance.

"Well it would have been nice if you'd mentioned it, say, last night. You know, when I was asking about her and, umm, you." She flushed and looked away.

Angel reacted without thinking, reaching out to run a hand up and down her back. When he realized what he was doing, his next instinct was to jerk his hand away. But even through the din in his head, he could still remember Buffy's words. Trying to focus on her rather than the taunting refrain, he continued his soothing rhythm after only the briefest interruption.

"Would it have made you feel better if I said she was unavailable, rather than that I wasn't actually interested?"

"Both would have been nice," she mumbled.

"And we're back to 'The Young and the Possessed' after that brief message from our sponsors." Xander's sarcasm had a sharper edge than usual as the level of his frustration, and the pitch of his tiny serenaders, increased. "Can we drop the mating calls long enough for an actual phone call? Say to Cordelia?"

"You're right, you're right," Angel muttered. "I'll go call her."

"I'll come with," Buffy volunteered. She turned slightly and took Angel's hand as it slipped away from her back. "She's not going to react too well if the music starts to get the best of you and you go on the offensive."

Angel smiled at her, forcing his mind to function over the tumult of his internal concert. "And you're so famous for keeping your temper with Cordy?" he asked lightly.

"No, but that's why it makes sense. Me she expects to be hostile." She squeezed Angel's hand as she started to lead him to the hall and the telephone. "It's our little way of communicating."

* * * * *

"Cordelia will call us back as soon as she knows anything," Angel reported a few minutes later. He laid the handset carefully back into the cradle and rubbed the back of his neck. "She's going to try and get a hold of Gunn and Fred too; I know they'll help if they can. Maybe they can do some net surfing from San Francisco and Cordy can use my library."

Buffy's hand covered his, her warm fingers nudging his cooler ones out of the way as she took charge of the massage therapy.

"They'll take care of it," she said soothingly, despite private reservations. "You're always saying how much smarter Cordy is than we gave her credit for being...not that I exactly want to hear you praising other women you understand, but I suppose in this case it's to the good."

He slid around on the wooden chair until he could face her. Deliberately keeping his tone neutral, he asked, "And how much of the time we've had together in the past few years have I spent praising other women?"

She could feel the song digging a trench in her brain from sheer repetition; it scattered her thoughts and muddled already fragile memories. Still, her own struggles made her realize her how hard Angel must be fighting against the tide to stay so calm, and she was determined to meet him halfway.

Cordelia...and Fred...and Faith...and Fernando, for that matter, be damned.

"More than is healthy around a slightly jealous Slayer who happens to also be an unwilling ex." Her smile removed the sting from her words, but Angel still took her grievance seriously.

"I'm sorry," he said gravely. "Maybe I just needed...maybe I needed to prove I could see something in my life besides you. Since you weren't a possibility anymore."

For the briefest of instants, the music in Angel's head lost cohesion; its grip on his mind loosening to allow for free thought. Then, as suddenly as it had occurred, the moment was over and the song returned full force.

// I think I love you - isn't that what life is made of?
Though it worries me to say that I never felt this way //

"Angel," she said slowly, her hand still resting just above his collar. "I know when this is all over you'll probably want to get the hell out of Sunnydale as fast as that old clunker of yours can go, but...could you maybe stick around just a little while? We've done more fighting than talking since you've been here..."

// Though I never thought that we could lose
There's no regret //

She clung fast to her own thoughts, as the music tried to brush them aside.

"And I really don't want...well, I don't want you to think that every time you come back it's got to be some major deal. I mean crisis." Her hand fluttered away from his neck as she nervously corrected herself. "It is kind of a major deal, I guess...I mean I know...but I don't want it always to be about bad things when you come here."

"Here?" Angel asked softly, watching her face with great care.

She met his dark eyes steadily, hoping she wouldn't frighten him away.

"Home," she said firmly. "When you come home."

* * * * *

Angel smiled at Buffy, a faint and guilty pleasure piercing his heart at the underlying plea in her brief words.

"I wasn't sure you still thought of Sunnydale as my..."

// Do you think I have a case? Let me ask you to your face
Do you think you love me? //

Xander stumbled into the hallway, a fretful Anya clinging to his arm.

"Did you get hold of Cordy?" he asked, unaware of other questions still hanging in the air. "Is she going to do something about all this?"

"Can she do something about all this?" Anya asked, feeling that was more to the point. "I don't remember her being very bright, or particularly good at thinking things through. She got mad at Willow, so she wished Buffy away instead, and ended up killing all of you, even..."

// I'll give you three chances
and if you don't behave,
I'll turn you into a goon //

"Even herself," Anya finished with a groan. "Xander. Aspirin. Many, many aspirin. Now."

"Cordelia can handle this," Angel said. "There's a lot more to her than you know." He quirked a half-smile at Buffy as he continued, "And I say that freely admitting a certain brotherly prejudice."

"Brother?" Anya blinked at him. "Just how old is Cordelia?"

"Xander, take Anya upstairs; there's aspirin in the medicine chest." Buffy took Xander by the arm and turned him to face the staircase. "Then why don't you guys sack out in...in my mom's room...until Cordy calls back."

Angel stood up quickly, ranging himself by Buffy's side. "That's a good idea. Tara and Willow can take Dawn's room, Giles can have yours, and Wes can take the couch."

// I'm sleeping and right in the middle of a good dream
like all at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking at my brain //

"We can...I don't know...hang out in the kitchen or something." He looked pointedly into the living room. "We need to stay in small groups, otherwise it's too tempting to fight to distract ourselves."

"And lack of consciousness would only help the situation," she agreed. "But why should we bother with the kitchen? We can't sleep there, and if we're going to end up fighting anyway, why don't we put it to good use? We can go to the Magic Box and train, just like we talked about."

He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her. "The question didn't occur to me last night, but...how am I supposed to get there? It's broad daylight."

Xander took his hand off the banister long enough to wave away the vampire's objection. "Oh Spike did it all the time. A blanket over the head until you get to the car, tinted windows on said car, and then in through the carport at the shop." The sound of his voice faded as he and Anya rounded the corner at the top of the stairs. "Piece of cake."

"Sounds like Spike had it down to a science," Angel commented, as one black eyebrow arched in a mute question.

Buffy carefully avoided Angel's eyes, but she could feel them boring into the side of her skull as she forced herself to explain a situation she had been hoping to bury unmentioned.

"He kind of hung out here for a while last year," she said, "and umm, the year before that. " She winced in anticipation of an outburst. "Both the house and Giles' shop, I mean. He had...that is he thought he had, a little crush on me."

Silence; she heard nothing but silence. Unnerving, but still better than yelling, especially with the shape her head was in today.

"It took me a while to figure it out," Buffy admitted. The past replayed before her mind's eye as she spoke, with an unusual soundtrack accompanying it. "I know it didn't start with the big 'O;" he was perfectly normal, well, normal for Spike...playing the usual game of trying to kill me without getting his chip dirty...for the longest time after his little nip and tuck. But then Mom started getting those awful headaches."

She paused, trying to control the slight tremble in her voice; this was about Spike, not her mother. Tears had no place in this story.

"You know how Spike is," she resumed a moment later, concentrating on the question at hand. "It turns him on to have a helpless female around the crypt, like your favorite psycho and mine, Drusilla. So with Mom sick...and then later, when Glory amped up the Dawn patrols...I guess he thought I'd feel right at home in the china doll cabinet where Dru used to stand." Buffy looked down at her twisting hands; she wasn't proud of the next part. "And, for about ten seconds...he almost had me convinced too." Angel could feel the borrowed blood in his veins start a metaphorical boil, but he wasn't sure how much was due to the endless round of pop music reverberating in his head, and how much was good old-fashioned jealousy. Add in an honest dislike of the childe who had repeatedly tried to try to kill him, and Buffy, and the demon within him was almost tap-dancing with glee. It took every ounce of the self-control he had learned in the past 100 years to hold back the anger, but he blessed that restraint when he recognized the uncertainty in Buffy's voice.

"I find that hard to believe." His voice was soft, but assured. "You would have kicked out the glass, and a few of his teeth, before he got the cabinet door closed."

She took heart from his faint smile; it contained an element of pain she attributed as much to Dru-guilt as the musical free-for-all in his cranium, but she could handle either one of them if he'd let her.

"Says the man who always knew enough not to put me in one."

Angel tried to shrug off the compliment, though he couldn't suppress a tiny flare of pride. "What can I say; I was never one for playing with dolls."

Buffy balled up her fists and assumed a fighting stance, taking a mock jab at his shoulder. "Any interest in fighting with one? You know, the fun kind of fighting."

He rubbed his tight forehead as the instrumental break began anew. "As long as you promise not to whistle a happy tune."

* * * * *

Buffy unlocked the door to her house, pushing it in slowly as she listened for any unusual noises. The first floor seemed comfortably quiet, but she could hear a creak from one of the upstairs floorboards that signaled movement in her mother's bedroom. Since she had offered that room to Xander and Anya, she wasn't exactly anxious to investigate, but she would never forgive herself if the music had led their usual squabbling to injury, rather than make-up sex, and she failed to save them out of squeamishness.

On the other, oddly brighter, hand, it was possible there was some other creature in the room with them making that noise. A demon perhaps, checking on his handiwork...

"Buffy, can we hurry this up please?" Angel's voice was somewhat muffled by the blanket over his head, but his anxiety was coming through loud and clear. "I'm not really wild about tan lines, you know."

"Oops, sorry."

She quickly pushed the door open all the way and walked into the house, turning back to pull Angel in as well. As soon as he was safely inside, she kicked the door closed and yanked the blanket from over his head.

"I just wanted to listen for battle cries," she explained in a low voice as she reached up to smooth the unruly spikes of his dark hair. "We've been pounding on each other for the past few hours, or at least trying to. I just wanted to make sure they haven't been too. None of them are really built for it."

"If they were lucky, they slept through it." Angel peered around the corner of the archway into the living room. "Looks like Wesley did at least."

"No he didn't," came the weary contradiction from the sofa. "He tried to read and he tried to watch television, but mostly he hummed." Wesley sat up slowly, blinking his bloodshot eyes at the couple in the archway. "And waited for a call from Cordelia of course. No luck there either."

Angel glanced at Buffy, sharing a worried frown. "She should have at least called by now. Even when she doesn't find anything she calls in every hour or so to let us know how hard she's working while she's not finding anything." He checked his watch. "It's been almost four hours now."

"Maybe she had to go to an actual library or something. They kind of frown on making frequent phone calls." Buffy slid her gaze back towards the staircase. "Any word from the rest of the crew?"

"No one has come down, if that's what you mean," Wesley answered. "But I've also heard a television going up there, and a great deal of pacing. I think we've all been trying to avoid each other as assiduously as we're avoiding our own thoughts."

"Great world, isn't it, where you're trapped in your own skull?" Buffy began drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair, stopping only when she realized she was doing it to the beat.

"So now what do we do?" Angel looked back at the scattered piles of books covering the dining room table. "Do we try to research again while we're waiting for Cordy or should we start calling around for some more help? Maybe it's too much for one person after all."

Buffy's quick ears caught the sound of footsteps on her front path at almost the same time as Angel's did. She walked over to the door before the bell rang, pulling it open to reveal a surprised Cordelia.

"Jeeze, and I thought Angel had bat hearing. You really know how to spoil a grand entrance, don't you Buffy?" Cordelia looked pointedly at the Slayer as she continued to block the doorway. "Excuse me, do you want help or should I just drive two hours back to LA and leave you to your free concert series?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry." Buffy backed away from the door, gesturing for Cordelia to come in. "We weren't expecting you, that's all. We thought you'd call."

"And spoil my moment of triumph?" She raised a hand to flip a lock of hair off of her face as she strolled into the living room. "Cordelia to the rescue, against all odds? Not on the likely."

"Then you found something?" Angel was at her side in an instant, tugging on her arm. "Is it a demon or a spell?"

"Or both?" Wesley chimed in.

Cordelia sauntered around the room, pausing to lift the corner of a comforter from atop the chair where Wesley had flung it. "Love what you've done with the place, Buffy. Nothing says home like a blanket fort in the living room."

"Cordelia," Angel growled.

She raised her hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. But I think I deserve an audience to appreciate all my hard work. Where's the rest of the choir?"

"I'll get them," Buffy said quickly. "You two get her ready to explain."

A few minutes later Cordelia faced her tired, grumpy listeners, in a disheveled suburban living room, to present a discourse on demons. It wasn't exactly the acting break she had been dreaming of, but she did relish the chance to be the acknowledged star of the show for a change.

"Let me see," she said, pacing back and forth at the end of the room. "Where to begin? My hours of tireless research? The rehearsal time I sacrificed to save you from the Up With People monster?" She tilted her head to the side and tapped her chin as she luxuriated in the attention from her captive audience. "The eyestrain? The..."

"The money spent on a dialogue coach for this spiffy opening scene?" Buffy asked tightly. "How about we just shortcut to the part where you tell us how to kill it? Assuming it is an it, of course, and not an...it."

"It is," Cordelia answered serenely. "And you can't."

Willow frowned at the unsatisfactory answer; it sounded to her like Cordelia had a lot to learn about being Research Girl.

"Why not? I think we've pretty well established it's not trying to do us any favors."

// Welcome Christmas, fah who rah-moose
Welcome Christmas, dah who dah-moose //

"Killing it won't do any good," Cordelia explained. "It's already infected you."

"Infected?" Angel started to pace. "It infected all of us? At the same time? Or did we infect each other?"

"That point is still a little less than pointy." Cordelia shook her head regretfully. "Lorne didn't say...I mean the books didn't say...I mean, umm," she ground to a stop, casting a guilty glance at Angel.

"Lorne told you about the demon?" the vampire guessed.

"Well..." she said slowly, "you said it had to do with music...cheesy music to be specific, and I figured, who knows cheesy music better than Lorne?"

"I can think of a few," Wesley said tartly.

Angel shot Wesley a sour glance before turning back to Cordelia. "So what exactly did he say it was? And what are we supposed to do about it?"

"It's called a Glissanderous demon. And the only way to, umm, disinfect yourselves is to sing your songs through to the end."

"What did you say?" Giles was aghast at the highly unscientific, and unmagickal, solution. "We sing...and that makes everything all right?"

"Well not for those who have to listen," Cordelia snapped. "But yeah, that's the only way to banish the demon's touch from your brains."

"But that's preposterous," Wesley protested.

"And impossible," Xander piped up. "I don't know all the words to my song." He looked quickly around the room. "Because it's so unfamiliar to me. Because I wouldn't try to commit something like that to memory even if..."

"We get it, Xand." Buffy halted his defense of his manhood with a gesture and a meaningful look. "I'm stuck too, though. The song is starting to feel familiar to me, and not just from the past eon or so of listening to it circling my brain cells. But I know I don't remember all the words."

Cordelia nodded, though it was not without a heavy sigh.

"That's why I came, and why I brought a van. We're going to Caritas." She wrinkled her nose and turned to stare pointedly at Buffy and Angel. "After those of us who've been playing gladiator a little too hard take a shower."

"Caritas?" Wesley asked. "But why?"

"Where is Caritas?"

"What is a Caritas?"

Cordelia held up her hands to ward off the chorus of questions. "Hey, hey, hey; this is not my idea. Lorne thought you might not know all the words; otherwise you would have been able to dig yourselves out by now. Most people do, you know," she said with a sniff. "But he has those little tele-prompters at his club for karaoke, and he said he would round up the music if I could call him with a list."

"So you mean we're all going to a karaoke bar, and sing these songs to each other?" Xander asked faintly. "Gulp."

// Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small world after all //

"Well, that's actually only part of it," Cordelia said hesitantly. "The rest Lorne is going to have to explain himself."

* * * * *

Go to Part 9