Bright side of life

Xander sat down on the floor of the closet and sitting crossed legged he patted his lap. "C'mere."

Cordelia looked down and trusting that he had an idea she slowly sank down and sat in his lap. She was mildly pleased as he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her into his chest and then let his head rest on her shoulder, leaning against her own head.

"I think you are wonderful. I think you've been wonderful for a long, long, loooong time. Long before whatever that entity did to you." Xander kissed her cheek.

"I'm a horrible person." Cordelia spoke softly, barely above a whisper. "The thing from beyond actually made me be a better person."

"Not true." Xander shook his head. "You buried it deep, doing the things your parents told you to, doing the things your friends told you to and doing the things our society told you too. But at the core of you is a good person. Might not be a perfect person but still a good person."

"You don't know that. Look at all I've done. I'm vain, I'm selfish, I'm-"

Xander pulled a hand free and wrapped it around her mouth muffling Cordelia. "Cordy, not another word. You got handed a shit sandwich. That is true. Now you can either mope about it or look on the bright side of life."

Xander dropped his hand from her mouth. She looked back at him skeptically, "The brightside?"

"You have a pretty cool boyfriend, if I do say so myself, you know about and have access to a magic genie, and one of the true friends you would have made in that screwed up future is here now just waiting to be your true friend again."

Cordelia's eyes went wide, "Fred! Oh, god, Fred is here!" She smiled at Xander. "If she's here now... then there's no way she dies and get possessed by that weird demon thing now. Xander, you saved her life! You saved my life! AGAIN!"

"Happy to be of service. See what I mean. Brightside of life." He turned his head from the happy girlfriend to his genie who looked a little shellshocked.

"We okay?"

Anya blinked and slowly nodded her head.

"Not about to be smoten by the Powers on High?"

Anya shook her head from side to side.

"What did happen?" The silent treatment was kinda getting to Xander.

"We got an... inspection, I guess you could call it... they reviewed us and everything we were doing and just let us be. I, uh, I have some new restrictions... things I'm not allowed to do. We kinda got off light because we tipped them off to what their former associate was up to." Anya looked at him with haunted eyes, "It could have been much worse."

"Right. Well, we will have to talk about that later. Right now I think Cordelia needs to make friends with her old friend, again, for the first time." Xander gave Cordelia a hug.

"Yeah, I really need to see Fred."