Title: Breathe Again
Author: Califi
Posted: In the process of rewriting/editing …
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Rating: R
Category: Angst.
Content: C/A
Summary: Angel finally returns after three months in Tibet to find that everything has changed – and none of it in a good way …
Spoilers: This is set the morning after Angel returns from Tibet [Heartthrob].
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution:
Thanks/Dedication:To Helen, who betared most of this fic, before commitments elsewhere took her away. *mwah* And to Lysa who was wonderful enough to take on the last several chapters, and help make the ending turn out as I’d hoped. *mwah again* & Christie for a line of Angel dialogue she suggested & I just had to use. She knows the one 😉
Feedback:would be nice.
PROLOGUE
Cordelia
Sometimes, as I sit at my desk, I wonder just how I got to where I am now when doing nothing much.
So much has happened. So very different from the life I had planned, but you quickly realize that expectations have to change when there’s an abrupt reversal in your fortunes.
What if I hadn’t gone crawling to Russell Winters that night? Would I have ever meet up with Angel again? A large part of me doubts it.
I have to shove down the wave of nausea as I think of where that one night of desperation may have led. And what if that majorly ugly vamp hadn’t turned out to be a vamp? Would I have ended up a kept woman- or a one-night stand that pushed me further down the zero rungs of fame I was on? I shudder at the all too true possibility. The guys would look shocked and deny that would have ever happened, I know, but you have to wonder where such circumstances lead you.
But that didn’t happen, and Angel never once asked me why I was at that creep’s mansion that night. That makes me wanna sometimes hurl; ‘cos God knows what he thought of me then.
Maybe that’s why he looked so surprised when it came out that Wilson Christopher, the demon spawn donator, was my first attempt at the horizontal tango – not that I was a prude, mind. I made out with guys like everyone else. There was probably was a little scepticism in Angel’s eyes, although I didn’t pick up on it, and yeah, I looked – hard.
I thought I’d worked Angel out. But he never ceases to knock me on my ass- and not always in a good way. He saved me. He took me in and accepted me, warts and all …and that made me care about him; a lot. Opening up to him over time seemed so easy—big mistake.
Let’s think about his Beigyness. That sure was an eye-opener. Being hurt was an understatement. Abandonment is an ugly word, and I’ve had plenty of personal experience with it.
The night Angel fired us; I couldn’t get my head around it. Even as we sat in Caritas and drank ourselves blind, it didn’t hit me until the following day when I woke up with a killer hangover, followed rapidly by a vision that almost took me over the edge. Almost.
Through my struggle to keep yesterday’s lunch safely in my stomach, it took a while for me to realize that I hadn’t shared the news with my phantom. The edge was breached when Dennis automatically picked up the phone and dialled the hotel. The answering machine kicked in, and the sound of my own, oh, so cheery voice sent jackhammers raging through my fragile head.
Then I fell over the precipice.
Luckily for me, Dennis disconnected the line before the sobs wrenched from my throat. That would have been a bit embarrassing, my ex-best friend hearing the beginnings of my meltdown. I’m such a lucky gal.
All the attention and the gifts of clothes afterward, to be honest, made me shudder inside. Was that all it took to get me back on Angel’s side? I played his game and whee-ed and whooped as I held armfuls of new clothes, deliberately ignoring Wesley’s expression of disbelief at my turnaround. God, neither of them understood why.
It wasn’t the clothes. It was never the clothes. I didn’t want to admit it at the time, but I needed to get back to that place with Angel. I needed him in my life. Does that make me weak? Probably. His attention was a balm to my insecurities, and I let him in.
Then he left me again.
Oh, he had good cause for needing space; I get it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t feel abandoned all over again. Three months; three long months, he left us- me.
Just beginning to feel secure around him again, and then the love of his life dies. The fact he was rescuing me at the time made me feel like crap too. Reaching out to him that night was brushed off without so much as a look. When Angel ascended the stairs to his room, I let him go, too hurt by his abrupt reaction to my soothing embrace. Add the whole Willow-silently-crying to the mix, and I didn’t think to follow him immediately, as I would have usually done.
After keeping the redhead company until the early hours, we three finally trudged home. The following day we returned, finding Willow had left. Angel, we saw neither hide nor hair. I had shoved my hurt feelings down deep, as it wasn’t the time to be selfish, and finally went to his room with a mug of hot blood. I knocked several times, and silence greeted me. After five minutes, I placed the cooling mug on the floor and returned to the lobby.
The following day, we returned to find a note from Angel on Wes’ desk.
Need some time to myself. Blah blah. I cursed myself for my immediate reaction of hurt yet again and agreed with the others that maybe it was for the best. God, I’d felt so mean and selfish being upset that he hadn’t even taken the time to say goodbye. But the wounds were still relatively raw, and I had this pathetic idea that I mattered enough in his unlife for him to at least say something. Especially when I later found out, he’d taken the time to talk to Gunn. Does that make me a bad person? Probably.
Now, as I look at him talking to the guys, I find that hurt rushing to the surface along with the guilt. Always the guilt. My selfish streak lingered, not gone as I’d stupidly imagined. I don’t know who I dislike more right now, him or me.
Oh, I gave a stellar performance last night; well, it was wonderful to find him on the other side of that door. But as the hours went by, the euphoria wore off, and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Then I cried for most of the night. He was back, but things had changed in the interim. Me? I realized I hadn’t changed that much at all.
Mostly, I buried all the feelings I had for Angel. No one would ever be able to abandon me again, I decided, a few nights after he’d upped and left. Each day of absence strengthened the wall around my heart, and except for my little slip when first laying eyes on him last night, I had settled back behind my wall and ignored the confused looks he eventually sent my way … like he was doing right now.
“So…” Angel cleared his throat before continuing, and I knew he wanted me to look up. I didn’t. I turned my head and concentrated on the open file in front of me when he finally walked over, ignoring him when he perched on the corner of my desk and just stared.
So, how have you been, Cordy?” I flicked him a glance and an equally brief smile.
“Good. You?” Answering a question with a question kept my response to a minimum, and at the long pause before he replied, I knew he’d pretty much picked up that I wasn’t in chat mode.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as he shifted, his thigh sliding a little nearer. Moving the file out of the way, I also moved my chair further from him. His thigh stilled, and I could feel his dark eyes boring into my throat as I nervously played with the silver pendant I wore; then it occurred to me, he was probably wondering why I wasn’t wearing his gift.
“Good,” he finally replied, and his voice was as subdued as mine was cool. “Shall I get you a cup of coffee?” A tinge of hope coloured his tone, and it took all of my new determination not to look up and ease his way with a smile.
I pointed vaguely towards the drink Gunn had brought over. “Nope, I’m good,” my tone so flat I almost cringed. The silence stretched until I could hear the muted conversation of Wes and Gunn clearly across the lobby; then, the thigh shifted again, and Angel finally straightened up. But I could still see him hovering from the corner of my eye, his hurt confusion almost eating into my soul.
“Okay…good,” and didn’t I feel like the biggest bitch known to man? So I glanced up and smiled blindly towards him before ducking my head back down- but not before seeing the hurt shimmering in those chocolate eyes. “I’ll just…” his voice petered out, and his large hands pushed into his pants pockets, and he rocked a little.
Don’t bail now, Cor … this is for the best, I inwardly reminded myself, forcing my body to remain in the chair when he finally turned and walked away.
0- -0- -0-
Angel:
I’m back.
But as I walk away from my best friend’s desk, I feel like I made a detour and ended up in an alternative dimension, one where my best friend refuses even to look me in the eye.
When that basement door had abruptly opened last night, the vision of Cordelia’s beautiful face glowing with a blinding and joyful smile made me want to hold on to her and never let her go.
I did attempt to, but she had other ideas, and I was released far too soon for my liking. Linking her fingers with mine had eased part of my disgruntlement, but that didn’t last long either.
Easy smiles lasted a little longer, but as the hours drifted by, those dimmed too, and all too soon, Cordy had made her excuses and left the hotel. My thoughts on her almost cold behaviour before leaving faded when I visited our new occupant, Fred. By the time I went to my room, showered, and made my bed before sliding between cool sheets to sleep off the long journey home, I was too tired to think about the last few hours.
The following day brought it back all too unpleasantly.
Cordelia was already at her desk when I descended into the lobby, refreshed from a good night’s sleep, and I immediately approached her with a pleased grin.
It had taken three months of being without her to realize just how much I needed her in my life.
The grief I’d experienced over the loss of Buffy had lessened, but would never go completely. However, the sabbatical had helped me sort out my head. To a degree, I was finally at peace. Once the pain had eased, I’d realized it wasn’t the loss of my ‘true love,’ but of someone dear, that would always have a place in my heart.
Without even being consciously aware, my heart had moved on. By that final month, I came to the startling conclusion that it had not only moved on, but was full of feelings for another. That had been the moment I knew I had to return. The knowledge that the real monks had secured my soul as a reward for killing the demons that had taken over the monastery gave me that extra push.
Before I had even got to her desk, Cordy had already risen to her feet. Muttering ‘bathroom,’ she click-clacked away from me. I stood there watching her until she disappeared around a corner, and then fidgeted as I waited for her to return.
Ten minutes had passed, and I’d continued to stand there gradually feeling like an ass, then the main doors had swung open, and my boss entered briskly.
“Morning, Angel. You’re up early,” he’d commented, glancing up from the paperwork he was holding to grace me with a vague smile before dipping his head back down. How he didn’t trip over or walk into furniture or walls always amazed me. Wesley Wyndham Pryce could walk around with his nose stuck in a book and hand out drinks and still somehow avoid having an accident or collision.
Although seeming more into his reading material than looking at me, Wes’ whole body language cried out absorbed interest rather than the avoidance I’d earlier picked up from my seer. I glanced once more towards the direction of the bathroom. I hesitated, then the door behind Wes opened again, and Gunn entered with a casual greeting, strolling over to the checkout counter to offload the tray of drinks he’d brought with him.
With an inward sigh, I turned and walked over to join him. Wes vanished into his office for a moment before exiting to come over and grab a cup of tea. The general conversation began shortly after Cordy finally emerged and called out a warm greeting before sitting back at her desk.
Gunn grabbed a drink and strolled over to her, pausing to chat quietly and hand over her coffee. I watched as she laughed lightly at something he’d said, her lovely face split with the warmest smile, then turned back to her work when he walked away to rejoin us.
I half-listened to the chat between my friends before finally walking back over to her desk. Taking a steadying breath, I perched on the edge of her desk, my heart sinking a little when her shoulders and spine visibly tensed. It seemed I hadn’t read her slow change from happy-go-lucky to Miss Cool last night.
I shrugged it off and spoke, then had to clear my throat before continuing in an upbeat tone. “So… So, how have you been, Cordy?” Her abrupt reply and returning my question threw me for a second. I shifted a little, my thigh inadvertently touching the edge of the open file on her desktop. Instantly, Cordy moved it away and then slid her chair further, too. As she did so, a hand rose to her throat and well-manicured fingers curled around a silver pendant that rested just above the neckline of her silky blouse.
“Look how it brings out my breasts!” the cheeky remark she’d made last night echoed through my head, even as I wondered why she’d chosen to wear a rather plain necklace instead of the one that had made her eyes glow with pleasure; the one I’d taken so long to decide.
” Shall I get you a cup of coffee?” I asked, hoping to breach the gap that seemed to be widening by the second. Her shoulders tensed a little more, and I swallowed thickly with a surge of self-annoyance as she pointed vaguely towards the one Gunn had brought over a few minutes earlier. I’d forgotten due to my need to get her to talk to me in more than two-word sentences. Could I be more obvious?
“Nope, I’m good”, her voice so cold I almost cringed. The silence stretched until I could hear the muted conversation of Wes and Gunn behind us word for word; all too aware that, still, she hadn’t even looked my way. I finally straightened up but found myself unable to walk away.
“Okay…good”, then Cordy glanced up and smiled, her shadowed eyes locking with mine for an instant before she ducked her head back down. But although I’d caught a flicker of what looked like regret, the coldness I’d heard in her soft voice was enough for me to retreat.
“I’ll just…” my mouth dried up, and for a moment, I had the insane urge to reach out and pull her out of the chair and shake her; to demand she tell me what I’d done so, I could fix it.
Only the awareness of our friends’ presence several feet away put that idea into the ground. With deliberate care, I shoved my hands into the pockets of my pants in case she noticed the way they slowly clenched into fists. I rocked on my heels for a moment longer and then turned to walk away and join the others.
0*0*0