Part 7
It was finally over. Tears had been cried… Blood had been spilled… And Cordelia’s parents were truly gone. And Angel brooded… For he couldn’t believe what he’d done. Alara had mourned for her husband, while Cordelia had met the ‘tragedy’ with a quiet acceptance, being strong for her mother’s sake. It had started out so simply. Sure, there’d been times when he’d wanted to strangle Cordelia’s father but had never wanted this to happen… It had started with a hammer… And ended in tragedy…
***
“You’ve had your hands on MY daughter?”
Angel could almost hear Cordelia’s ‘pfffft’ in his head, could see the rolling of the eyes as she shook her head. “Dad, you have to calm down,” Said the brunette, frowning, “It was pretty much a given that Angel would’ve had his hands on me if Connor was my son. Unless of course he was the immaculate conception…”
Her eyes flashed mischievously at Angel as she said this, for Connor, while he had been created from Angel getting groiny with his skanky blonde mother, he wasn’t really supposed to be here… So, see? The immaculate conception.
“…Which I was,” She continued, “But if I remember rightly, that’s what you told my Grandfather to escape death by his shotgun, right?”
“Don’t get smart with me, young lady…” Growled her father, glaring at Angel.
“Don’t call me young lady! I’m not 15 years old anymore!” Yelled Cordelia, standing protectively in front of Angel, her hands on her hips. This, struck Angel, as wrong. Cordelia, *his* Cordelia was protecting HIM from her father.
Wasn’t he a champion? He’d faced minions from Hell by the thousand and he was scared of a man who vaguely represented the only roadblock other than the curse in his relationship with Cordelia.
Well, Angel was a champion and he wasn’t going to let a man who wore pink shirts (through no fault of his own) spoil his relationship with Cordelia.
“Okay, Mr. Chase, I think this has gone far enough…” Started Angel.
It was then, that he turned. Angel noticed that, for a man of his age (which okay, wasn’t very old) he was pretty damned scary. He could only have been in his early 40’s, but it was evident in a family like Cordelia’s, that looks were everything.
Maintaining that youthful edge, even if, for her parents, it was achieved by a surgical knife was all important. So this obviously meant that Mr. Chase, concerned with keeping his looks, would only be confident with weapons of some description. Shotguns… Shovels…
“OWWW!”
Or the first that he’d just shoved unequivocally into Angel’s face.
“DAD!” Yelled Cordelia.
“Aaron!” . . . Alara’s cry screeched through the hotel and it was then that Mr. Chase broke into a run. Angel maintained his dignity (by refraining from shrieking like a girl) and started running too. I
t wasn’t that Mr. Chase scared him, not in the least. It was just that if a brawl started, could Angel honestly stop himself from… Well, putting it bluntly, killing the man? Yes, of course, that was the reason…
“DAD!” Yelled Cordelia again, something akin to a petulant teenager this time…
“Mr. Chase, I can explain…”
“What the two of you went upstairs and she fell onto your penis?!”
“DAD! Overreact much?” Cordelia was sick and tired of all the yelling, she was getting hoarse… And besides, ewww, hadn’t she put up with the scary notion of sex that one time those sick noises had been coming from her parents bedroom? “I’m a grown woman!”
“That still doesn’t mean he can have his hands all over you!” He barked.
Angel, being a vampire, had the advantage of vampiric speed and agility on his side… Most of the time, anyway. Lately, Cordelia noted, when he’d gone into full dork mode, his stealth advantage had been slipping – he no longer had the edge of sneaking up on her without her knowing he was there.
Cordelia went forward as Angel slipped on something and went his length across the room into a door. However, the thing that he’d slipped on (which had provided hours of fun for Connor) skidded backwards, right into her father’s path.
The hammer in question was a large, soft toy squeaky thing that Gunn had won for his nephew when he’d taken Fred to the fayre over at LaFayette park. He’d cursed his decision, however, only twenty minutes later, when the squeak and the constant banging against his head had drove him, quite literally, nuts.
He’d wanted to pop the damned thing – but to slaps from both Cordelia and Fred, Charles Gunn was forced to endure his fate… At being slapped around by a one year old with a toy hammer.
“Daddy!”
“AARON!”
“Mr. Chase!”
<<< Crunch >>>
At first, it sounded like a demon… Crushing its prey between its fingertips, but when Angel turned? The fate he was about to experience was worse, much, much worse…
***
“Doctor, can we see him?” Asked Alara, sniffling loudly – she’d deliberately kept her eyes away from Angel at *all* times. Even those times when he held her grandson back at the hotel.
Now, they stood at the hospital, Angel, Cordelia and Alara. Fred, Gunn and Wesley had agreed to keep watch over the baby while they waited… It had seemed like a lifetime in which Angel brooded, Cordelia sat there in reserved silence and every so often a fresh burst of sobs would escape Alara’s lips.
“He’s asked to see his family…” Nodded the Doctor, “Including his… Son in law?” The way the Doctor hesitated made Angel look up. Okay so the words had obviously come out of Aaron’s mouth himself but the way the Doctor said them?
Angel had a feeling it spelled uh and most certainly oh…
He wasn’t even aware they’d shuffled forward until he heard the “Oh, honey…” From Alara’s mouth. There on the bed, a mask covering his face, lay Aaron, barely able to breathe. Angel shuffled again, glancing at Cordelia who was successfully keeping her eyes away from his too – this was bad, very bad.
“Son, we need to talk…” He rasped, breathlessly.
Oh God, not another one of Cordelia’s father’s TALKS! Angel frowned and simply nodded, “Yes, Sir.”
“First of all… That place is like a damned death trap waiting to happen, you saw what happened to me back there. You’re bringing my Grandson up in that?”
Cordelia frowned, “Daddy, Connor is a child. He plays with things, just because you don’t watch where you’re going doesn’t mean the place is a death trap. Besides, exactly how old are you? Chasing Angel round the hotel like it’s some kind of cat and mouse game!”
Angel looked at Cordelia, surprised. He’d thought she was pissed at him.
“And another thing, I’m 20 years old, if I want to sleep with every man in LA, I will, it’s none of your business. As it so happens, the only man I ever want to sleep with is standing right next to me but if we do, he’ll turn evil and kill us all so I’m thinking maybe… Hmmm… Not.”
Angel frowned, “Hey!”
“Well, it’s true. Doesn’t mean I love you any less, does it?” She asked.
*She loves me?* Thought Angel, his mouth falling open accordingly.
“B-but look at my nose!” Said Aaron, “How can I go in for the office photographs looking like this?” He was a man who prided himself on his looks – but, fact being, he’d been the one chasing Angel round the hotel, he’d tripped over the damned hammer and it was him who’d flown into the stairs head first.
Angel at least, even in his less than stealthy mannerisms, had managed to hit a door and not break his nose. “Look at my nose!” He said again for effect.
“Dad, it’ll heal.” Said Cordelia, “The doctor said the swelling should go down in a few weeks, you’re going to be fine. You can even go HOME tonight!”
“WEEKS? WEEKS?!! But… But…”
“For God’s sake it’s only a bunch of photographs!” Said Cordelia, shaking her head.
“For the past three hours I’ve heard you call me crazy, lay down a bunch of stupid rules to my 250 year old boyfriend, think a demon was from the projects and ask why Tom Cruise didn’t look like Angel when he went all ‘Grrrr’. There’s only so much a girl can take, even if she is from Sunnydale!”
“What are you saying?” Asked her father, his voice muffled under the protective mask.
“I’m saying… GO AWAY! Be normal parents! Only come to visit me and piss me off on Christmas, and birthdays… I’m saying… I love you but for the love of God you have to leave before *I* kill you, never mind Angel!”
“B-but…” Started Aaron, frowning, “I’m not letting him…”
Smiling sweetly, Cordelia stepped forward, “Dad. My loving, wonderful father. I fear I should warn you. When Angel and I get home tonight, there’ll be a LOT of touching. In fact, Angel’s hands will go places no other mans have been before… And there’s not a thing you can do about it. If you try, which I’m sure your not stupid enough to do, because after all, you had me and I’m pretty darned astute when it comes to certain things… To jeopardise any of my happies with Angel tonight? I’ll do a lot worse than the stairs did. I’m a demon, I know stuff…” She nodded.
“You don’t wanna piss me off…”
Aaron paled… And Alara snickered behind her hand, coming over to kiss her daughter on the forehead, “So that’s a date, for Christmas then?”
Cordelia breathed a sigh of relief, “As long as you’re not cooking Mom, I think I can handle it.” She said with a grin, then leaned over, kissing her father gently, “Anything else to say Daddy?”
He scowled looked at Angel, “Remember Rule Number 7?”
Oh God, what was this? Pop Quiz time? Was that the one with the shotgun… Or the Golden Gate bridge or…
“It still stands.” Said Aaron firmly, “If you make my daughter cry, I will in turn make YOU cry.”
Relaxing considerably, Angel took Cordelia’s hand in his, “I promise, Mr. Chase. I won’t ever make your daughter cry.” With another kiss to both her parents from Cordelia, they left…
Walking in silence until Cordelia looked up at him, “Y’know, no one likes a kiss ass.”
“What?” Taken aback by her comment, Angel half-turned to look at his beautiful, wilful friend as they neared the hotel, “I’m not a kiss ass!” He intoned, indignantly.
“Oh you SO are! You told them, for one, that Xander wasn’t up to my usual standard and then you won’t show them your Grrr face for fear of what they’ll think of you!” She laughed, “You’re a kiss ass!”
“Cordelia, I’d like to not have your parents wanting me dead every time we visit,” Said Angel, rationally.
“Angel, my father could hand pick me a guy who’s stalwart and true from a bunch of guys that he handpicked because of their morals or some other such crap and still want to kill him every time they met. You’re no different. Well, you are…”
“How’s that?”
“Because I happen to have the hots for you,” With that, Cordelia ran up the steps into the Hyperion and up the stairs past a bemused Wesley and Lorne, sitting playing a card game.
Angel followed to a point from Lorne and found Cordelia standing over the crib, a silly, sweet grin on her face. “Look.”
Angel stepped forward and smiled, Connor’s fist shoved in his mouth as his little chest rose and fell with each breath he took. “Cordelia?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure…”
“About this Christmas and birthday thing… Can we… Be out of the country when they come around?”
Cordelia started to laugh, “Are you kidding me? My Dad would have his shotgun ready quicker than you could blink…”
“Well I had to at least try…”
Cordelia turned and kissed him, grinning, “I’ll think about it,” She whispered, “Promise…” With that, the two fell on the bed, kissing and laughing accordingly.
And from the crib, a child who was supposed to be asleep opened one sleepy eye, grinning…
Mom happy + Dad Happy = Nice
Oh yeah, that boy was a genius.
End
