Part 5
He watched as her eyes shifted in the darkness, trying to focus on the negative in his hand. He felt himself swallow hard as her fingers timidly stretched out, searching out the truth that he was offering. Everything depended on this. This moment. This two-inch square of hope. His only proof that something in this crazy world he’d been released into was wrong. She had to believe. If she didn’t…. She would. Deep inside she knew him too. Loved him as much as he knew he must her.
It seemed like forever as she slowly reached for the item in the quiet darkness. Even to him the silence in the room was deafening, painful as he waited for her reaction, waited for her response to the image burned into the small plastic square. His muscles tensed when he felt the brush of her hand in his as she touched the negative. But just as the shock of her touch tightened his body, it was gone. She pulled her hand back and looked up at him as if she didn’t know him. Hadn’t called out to him in the darkness.
***
Cordelia stared at the shiny object as she reached out for it. It was small, only slightly bigger than a stamp, but for some reason it felt like the most important thing to her. Why? She knew the answer even before she questioned herself. It was important to him. And, whether she was prepared for it or not, he was important to her. More so than anything or anyone in her life. That realization hit her just as she touched the slick, brown square. Guilt and fear shot through her body sharply, painfully at that strange and unseen comprehension of just what this stranger meant to her, causing her to jerk her hand away as quickly as she could. What was happening to her? His presence threw her. Shook her already imperfect world into something impossible and beyond comprehension. Even through the visions, the pain, the mission, she had always made sure that she kept some semblance of control, of loyalty to her surrogate family here in L.A., but not now. Now, she felt like a traitor. Completely over her head and utterly out of control. She’d never met this man, or whatever he was, in her entire life yet she felt as if she’d turn on anyone, Wesley, Gunn, even Dennis, if they harmed him.
Dennis. “Dennis?” she called. “Dennis!”
Angel watched in confusion as Cordelia became frantic, her breath coming in short panic stricken gasps and her heartbeat racing. Now? She’d seen him on the beach, taken him in to her home when he truly looked the monster he was and NOW she was afraid of him.
Cordelia backed up to the door of her room and looked at him accusingly. “I don’t know you,” she whispered.
“What?“
“What did you do to him?”
“Who?” he asked, unable to comprehend her sudden change.
“Dennis you idiot!” she bit out. When I brought you home the other night he barely let you in the door. How else could you get in here so easily unless you did something to him?” her voice rose as she opened the door and hurried to the living room, her eyes frantically searching for a sign that he was still there.
“I didn’t…” he followed her to the other room. “I didn’t do anything to him,” he tried to grab at her sleeve. He didn’t know what had happened to her phantom watchdog and it was all he could do to keep himself from shoving the negative, the truth, in her face.
“Oh yeah? Then where is he?” she turned her attention fully to her intruder, tapping her foot and waiting for a response. She loved Dennis. More than this outsider. She knew she did. And she would prove it to herself whether she wanted to believe it or not.
“How the hell should I know?”
“Dennis means a lot to me,” she stated loudly.
“I’m sure he does,” Angel tried a calm voice, taking in her posture, her threatening tone. He relaxed. She wasn’t afraid of him. He could smell fear radiating off of her but it wasn’t directed toward him and that gave him a small hope of defusing whatever spark that had set her off. Suddenly a forgotten knowledge crept up on him out of nowhere and he forced the small smile away from his lips. This was Cordelia. Cordy. And this is exactly the way she reacted anytime she was thrown a curve. She had a certain set of standards, loyalties. An inner circle that only a select few were allowed to enter into. It was her system, her way of protecting herself and the ones she loved from the cruelty of the world. Cordelia Chase lived behind a stone wall and he had demolished it with his very presence. She didn’t even know how or why and that made it all the worse, but he had the answer right in his hand.
He stalked across the room with the confidence of his predatory side and was surprised when she didn’t flinch away as he lifted her hand and placed the negative in her palm with great gentleness. “Dennis,” he called softly, his gaze never leaving her burning and furious glare. “Give Cordy a sign that you’re alright so she’ll stop this nonsense.”
Cordelia was enraged He was acting as if he knew her. As if he had some right to just barge into her apartment, into her life and start barking orders. And he called her Cordy! She closed her fingers around the plastic square and pulled her hand away. “Dennis?” she looked up and around the room. A soothing breeze brushed across her face and the lamp beside the sofa switched on. “I don’t understand,” she looked at the space between herself and the lamp and then back at Angel. “Why?” she asked the question to her invisible roommate still staring at the man in front of her, a look of defeat on her face.
***
Dennis answered her by floating the negative from her hand and placing it against the shade of the lamp.
“Maybe he knows what we both do deep down,” Angel gave the answer words. “That I’d never hurt you. That I’d give up my existence for you. That from this moment on I want my future to be filled with you,” he took her arm gently and led her to the lamp so she could see the tiny image. “As much or more even than it seems my past was.”
***
Richard paced his apartment like a caged animal. He’d done everything they asked. Watched over her. Spied on her every move. Covered up his average to mildly handsome looks with coke bottle lenses and hair oil that belonged on an eighty year old just to hide what he was from her. Followed her until he knew her routine better than she did. Not that he was complaining. Not in the least. The assignment had just turned out differently than he had expected it to. It was complicated now, and he hated complications. He’d never thought in a million years that when Mrs. Morgan told him that his services were needed, told him that there was a demon-loving human that needed to be watched, never in his wildest dreams did he believe he would feel this way. That he’d fall for her. He stopped pacing and threw the unneeded glasses on the coffee table as he fell back onto the cushions of the couch. Sighing, he pulled his arms roughly through the sleeves of his unbuttoned, oversized shirt, and crumpled the offending item in his hands, flinging it to the corner of the room and revealing his wiry but muscular frame.
He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his greasy hair, remembering things he wished he could forget. His mother. The thing he had caught her with. The way she begged him to understand, tried to tell him that the world wasn’t just black and white, right and wrong. An hysterical chuckle escaped his throat as he remembered her explanation of the thing that stared at him from the corner of his dead father’s den. A ‘good’ demon she had called him. One that fought for some ridiculous entity called the ‘Powers That Be’. He remembered the way she fell to her knees and sobbed when he called her a demon whore, spitting on her as he fled his boyhood home turned den of evil. His stomach turned now as it did then when he had looked back one last time to see the disgusting manlike creature comforting his mother as if he really cared, as if he were capable of such a human emotion as love.
That was the night he had found his destiny, his calling. He was an assassin. More than that, a self appointed warrior against the demon filth that littered the streets of L.A. and the human scum that dared to help them. And he was good at what he did. Enjoyed it even. Trained himself on the small, weaker evil ones until he was strong enough, skilled enough to take care of the powerful ones. He had sacrificed a lot for his calling. Always living alone, taking the odd job here and there. He had no friends and no living relatives, at least not after the night he had gone back to his mother’s home and rid the earth of her and the abomination that had stayed by her side. Those two kills had been numbers seventy-two and seventy-three. He stopped counting after that night.
Pushing memories of his past away, Richard stood and crossed the room, leaning his head against the wall, turning his mind to more pleasant thoughts. Cordelia. She wasn’t the same as the others, as his mother. She was innocent. Beautiful and clean. He’d seen her with the rest of them, the humans and the demon she called her friends. Seen how the so called ‘Powers’ had cursed her, how her companions had tricked her into thinking she was doing what was right, that she had no choice. She had been convinced that she was on some sacred mission to help rid the world of evil. On that point she wasn’t much different than himself. She had just been led astray, an innocent lamb lured from the safety of the righteous, readied for the slaughter.
He was an assassin. He had killed so many of the unclean. It was what he did best. It was what he would do to convince Cordelia that she didn’t belong with the evil monsters in her life. She belonged where her talents could do true good. At his side.
***
Cordelia blinked and focused harder on the images that stared, smiling at one another. “This isn’t… it’s not…”
“Yes, it is,” Angel placed both hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Somehow, someway, our memories of each other have been erased. When you found me on the beach that night, I had just escaped…” he paused, wondering in her shocked state how much he should reveal. “I had been tortured and held captive for I don’t know how long. I was wandering that beach with no past, no memory of who I was or why I was even there in the first place. For what seemed like an eternity I was chained inside a steel, coffin shaped box and the only thing that kept me sane, made me want to escape, was your face,” he reached up to caress her cheek, reveling in the fact that she was real and feeling the pieces of his sanity slipping into place because of it.
“I don’t understand. I mean, I had dreams but…they must have been visions.”
“Memories,” he corrected, his attention slowly shifting to the softness of her skin as he continued to stroke and caress the side of her face.
“Then, you’re Angel. Aren’t you?”
“Well, I don’t know if I’m an angel…”
“No, stupid. Not AN angel. Angel. As in that’s you’re name.”
“Oh,” he paused in thought. “Are you sure. I mean, I know I don’t know myself very well yet, but it really doesn’t seem to fit.”
“I think it’s sort of like ‘Tiny’ or ‘Slim’,” she gave a halfhearted smile when he didn’t seem to understand. “Ya know, they’re names usually given to big huge guys, sort of as a joke.”
“Oh”. Well then, if she put it that way it made perfect sense.
“So,” she backed away a small step, suddenly feeling awkward and embarrassed by his attention. “We knew each other.”
“Know,” he corrected her for the second time and closed the space between them, unable to keep his hands from touching her.
Nervously, she dodged his hand as it attempted to touch her hair. Circling around him and avoiding eye contact, she sat herself firmly on the couch. “So what now? How do we fix it?” she used the problem at hand as a scapegoat to the building electricity between them.
“Well,” he surrendered. “First, I think I find out just who’s responsible. And then…”
“No,” she interrupted.
“I think it’s the only way to…”
“No!” she screamed and pressed on her temples as the vision began to rack her body.
Instantly he was there, cradling her in his arms, wishing he could take on her pain and cursing the visions, no matter their good.
When the last spasm melted away she focused in on him, her eyes glistening from the pain of the vision and the horror she had seen. “It’s a little boy,” her voice quivered.
“Don’t worry,” he smoothed back her hair, his touch as soft as his voice. “He’ll be alright. I’ll make sure of that.”
“I’m glad you’re real,” she whispered as a tear trailed down her face before she could stop it. He was real. And her vision or dream or whatever it had been of the girl they were unable to save hadn’t been something made up by her guilt ridden mind. It had meant something. It had meant that there would be no more unfulfilled missions, no more innocents lost during their battles. It meant that as long as Angel was there, fighting beside them, they had a chance to accomplish the very thing the visions were sent for.
“I’m glad too,” he gave her what she thought must be an attempt at a smile.
“The others will be happy too, to know we have you on our side. I wish I could call them over, explain what‘s happening, but I think I should wait until Wesley‘s feeling a little better.”
The small smile faded from his face. In his desperation to show her his evidence, he’d all but forgotten Wesley. At least he knew now that the man was alive.
She notice the change in him immediately at the mention of their friends. “Hey,” she tried to get him to look at her but failed. “If this is what it seems, what we think it is, then you’re their friend too.”
He stood then and turned away from her, unable to look at her trusting face. Friend. He guessed if he could be called Angel when he was really a demon, he could be called friend when he was an enemy. “How do you know I’m their friend. That picture doesn’t show them. It’s just the two of us.” And silently, selfishly, he almost wished that were true.
Cordelia sat up straighter on the sofa, even though her head pounded out a warning to lay back and rest. “There is no way, Angel, that you could be in my life and not be in theirs.”
“The picture…”
“It’s not just the picture, Angel. Deep down I knew you the moment I saw you on the beach. You were mangled and broken and no more than a beast, but I looked at your eyes and I knew you. That picture just confirms what our brains…and our hearts…were already telling us. You’re important to me. More than I think I can admit or face right now. And if that’s true, then you’re part of my family. Our family.”
He closed his eyes, his back still to her. He had to tell her. She had to know what he had done. Turning, he began to confess his terrible secret. “I….I….I need to know about the vision.”