Angel:  "Burn"

an original fan story by Julie Fortune

This story is a work of original fiction; however, it is set in the universe of Angel, created by Mutant Enemy productions and the Warner Brothers Television Network. I make no claims to any copyrights regarding these characters. This work is written entirely for my enjoyment and the enjoyment of friends. Please e-mail the author with comments.

Please do not reproduce or copy without the author's permission.

Author's note: This story is set between the episodes "Double or Nothing" and "The Price" ... and is Part 2 of a two-part story arc (which begins with "Slightly Darker Than Black").   It also contains, ahem, adult situations.   Consider yourself warned.

DEDICATION:  To the fearsomely talented starlet2367@comcast.net, who not only endured the evolution of these stories but understood them far better than I did, soup to nuts.  It they're good, they're good because of her input.  If they're bad, it's my bad.  Totally.

Check out her work:  http://www.nothing-fancy.com/justfic/index/s.htm - look under Starlet2367.

A new, bright, shiny morning in L.A., and the endless blue sky was making Cordelia claustrophobic. Or whatever the opposite was of claustrophobic. Some kind of phobic, anyway.

Maybe Angel-phobic.

She fought off a shiver and had a sudden thought. What if she got back to the Hyperion and found that he'd taken it out on the others ...? God, she should have called – warned them. No. No, Angel wouldn't have done that. She couldn't believe he could do it, no matter how angry he was.

Cordy wrapped cold hands around goosebumped arms, and walked faster.

"Okay," she said aloud, and regretted it; only skanky homeless people talked to themselves on the street, and even though her outfit wasn't new, she didn't think she was that far down yet. "Think of something else."

Wesley. Damp, urgent, wild sex.

"Not that."

Angel, vamping out, coming after them. Okay, not that either.

Hey, at least it was a beautiful day. Clear skies. Warm, though, that special kind of murky heat that wrapped around you like Saran Wrap. No breeze. No clouds. Just miles and miles of hot blue sky.

She felt cold sweat run down her back and plaster her shirt to her skin. Nope, not thinking about that either. Maybe it was beautiful from the driver's seat of a convertible zipping down the PCH, but it was not so fabulous clopping along a dirty sidewalk, sweating through her not-new clothes.

Okay, there, shopping. She could think about shopping. She needed new shoes, because these Kenneth Cole knockoffs were once more of the yack and made her sound like a Clydesdale besides. And a new swimsuit. Hers was at least three seasons old – completely unacceptable. And purses. She definitely needed purses that weren't made by Jacques of Beverly Wal-Mart.

No matter how hard she concentrated, she couldn't block out the rage in Angel's eyes.

Shopping. Think about shopping.

She was midway through a fantasy credit-card spree at La Perla on Rodeo when she saw the hotel looming up ahead, and something seized up deep in her stomach. Oh God. Oh no. Sweat on her neck, sliding down between her breasts. I can't do this. I can't go in there. He'd scared her so much, and she loved him so much ... I can't.

It was the thought of Fred and Gunn and Lorne that made her move again.

The hotel door swung open and puffed out a breath of cool air. She felt the brutal, heavy sun on her back and felt another shudder work its way down her back, but she stepped over the threshold into Angel's home.

He was standing in the faded-glory shadows of the lobby, tall and strong and dark. She felt her body flash hot and cold. Sweaty palms. She scrubbed them down her short skirt and tried for confidence as she walked toward him across the polished floor.

He turned, and she prepared herself for the shock of Angel's marble-pale face and angry eyes ...

... and saw that it was Groo. Her Groosalugg, her sweet, hunky, lunky demon-warrior. His smile could light up a black hole, and in spite of everything, she felt it blaze away some of the darkness around her.

He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the floor like a toy. "My princess," he said, and kissed her like he meant it. Her mind shorted out and went blank. Here she was, fresh out of one man's bed into another man's arms. No, my life isn't complicated or anything. Having a relationship with a warrior prince from a demon dimension, plus having hot incredible sex with Wesley on the side, and still lusting after a vampire who might just have me on the menu for later today. Even Buffy didn't have this much man trouble.

Groo lowered her to the floor and cuddled her close. He smelled exotic. Groo always smelled exotic, being from a demon dimension where musk oil was actually popular as an aftershave. The scary thing was that she was starting to like it.

And she liked him. Her body fit against his so well, so naturally, and all it took was the brush of his hand across her back to make her skin pay attention in the warmest way. Even now. Even with all of the confusion. What did that make her? Queen Cordelia of Slutland?

"I was so worried, my lady," he said, and bent to kiss her again. She kissed back, melting into his soft, full lips and couldn't help but remember that she'd been kissing Wesley Wyndam-Pryce less than eight hours before. And doing more than kissing, boy, howdy. The memory turned her to hot cream inside. Or maybe it was the kiss.

"I'm okay," she blurted when Groo let her up for air. "Really. It's -- okay."

"Are you?" Groo put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her with those big, dark, searching eyes. "I think you are not."

"Am! Really!" Oh God, she thought, he can tell. I radiate Scarlet Jezebel waves. The worst part was that she didn't want to hurt him, and she knew she was going to; she could see the horrifying future coming just as clearly as if The Powers had handed it to her. Maybe not today. But soon.

"I think you are hungry," he said, and smiled. "And I can take you to your favorite breakfast place."

That was a personal in-joke, because her favorite breakfast place was a quick run to the donut shop and spending the morning eating them in interesting ways. Donut body shots. She wished she could go back to the uncomplicated way things had been in Mexico, where she'd introduced Groo to tequila and lime and salt and all the different ways a woman liked to be touched.

But God, even then, she'd been longing for something else. Closing her eyes and seeing Angel, wanting Angel.

Groo was still standing there, smiling, but the hope was fading from his eyes. "Princess? Breakfast?"

"I can't."

"But there is no case, and Charles is gone fighting demons."

She leaned close and kissed him gently. "I can't, Groo. I need to go to Angel right now. It's important."

His smile held, but she saw the quiet hurt in his eyes. "Yes. Of course. Angel is important."

She wanted to say, so are you, but the words just wouldn't come out. She wanted them to. She did. Instead, she turned and faced the staircase like it was the last mile to the electric chair.

"Princess?" Groo asked. His big warm hand came down on her shoulder. "Is something wrong?"

"No," she lied. "Everything's fine."

She was shaking like a leaf, but she didn't have a choice. She needed to face him, now, while she still had the warmth of Wesley's touch to remind her why.

He was waiting in one of the rooms they didn't use, an anonymous faded hotel room with a bare stained mattress on an iron frame, a dusty dresser, a time-stained mirror. It was a sad room, and Cordelia couldn't remember being in it before.

It felt like a place where somebody had died.

He was at the window, squinting out at a day he could only experience from the shadows. He glanced at her once, then went back to the view; the glow of indirect sun made his skin white as chalk and reminded her – like she needed the memo – that she wasn't talking to some human guy who could do no worse than kill her.

Angel could do much worse, if he wanted to.

She shut the door and it felt as if she was stepping into a scary intimate world where Groo and Fred and Lorne couldn't come to her rescue if she screamed. Just the two of them, locked together, for better or worse.

Might as well get it over with. "If you're going to rip my throat out, I'm right here," she said.

"I know." He kept staring out at the view. "Brave of you to come looking for me."

"Me, brave? Hardly. Stupid, maybe. The jury's still out."

He shook his head. "I don't want to hurt you." And then reconsidered after a second of silence. "Okay, that was a lie. Actually, I do want to hurt you right now. You know that, right?"

Cordelia flinched – literally flinched – and checked the distance to the closed door. She had to fight back the urge to run screaming, and was surprised her voice stayed dry and steady. "I got a pretty good visual earlier."

"Good. So long as we're on the same page," he said, and turned away from the window. His eyes were dark, but they flickered, like candle flames. He was right on the verge of giving her the game face. "I don't want to get personal about this, but I need to know: if it comes down to a choice between me or Wesley, whose side are you on?"

It sounded like Angel, maybe Angel in a bad mood, but still the man she knew and loved. But it didn't feel like Angel. He was vibing hello, I'm an evil demon and I'm going to kill you like crazy.

She had a choice. She could cower and plead and be that Cordelia, the one who'd run screaming from Angelus in high school and left Buffy to fight the battles. Or she could be the Cordelia she was now, who fought her own demons, thank you very much.

The one who loved him and had endured torture for him, and would again if required.

She clung to the memory of her last moment of perfect bliss: she and Angel lying on his bed, Connor between them. But the thought haunted her that if he'd just reached across to her that night, it might all been different. She wouldn't have gone with Groo. She would have stopped Wesley. Connor would still be here. Angel would still be Angel, and not this -- this thing wearing his face.

She had something to fight for. That moment. That possibility.

She would fight for him.

"You want to know whose side I'm on?" she asked. "I'm on nobody's side, because I'm not going to let you two kill each other in some macho display of manly grief. It's just stupid, and it doesn't get Connor back."

His voice took on that velvet-soft Angelus growl. "Well, that's not your choice to make, now is it?"

"Yeah, like you should be choosing anything more life-and-death than Coke or Pepsi. You're not exactly the poster boy for reasonable right now." Her heart was pounding. He was focused the pulse beat in her neck, and the hunger in his eyes made it feel as if he'd put his hands all over her. "I don't want to take sides. I just want to save the people I love."

"By all means, let's talk about love." Angel -- or Angelus -- slid it in effortlessly, just like a knife between her ribs. He always knew how to find her heart. "Or at least hot, sweaty sex, since that seems to be the main point."

"Don't," she warned him. Still steady. Still strong, but there was something with sharp edges caught inside her throat.

He paced back and forth, like a black cat, never looking away from her. "Well, that would have been my advice, Cordelia. Don't. Oh, you mean, don't talk about your little pity fuck with Wesley last night? Come on, that's exactly what you came up here to talk about." He smiled at her, and it was the single most unnerving smile she'd ever seen on him, even as Angelus. "Not that I care, of course. I'm just thinking of Groo. I'm assuming you're not going to tell him, because that would be, like ... well, honest."

No question, this wasn't Angel now, it was what nested inside of him like a spider. It was lashing out, and Angel was letting it happen. Maybe he was just apathetic. Maybe he was so wounded that his human soul couldn't restrain it any longer. Maybe he was just plain mad.

Well, she had some pretty fine rage stored up, too. "What I do or don't tell Groo is none of your damn business. In fact, who I do is none of your damn business, either."

"No, you're right, you can screw your way through the half of L.A. ... wait, didn't you already screw your way through half of L.A. to get that commercial?"

She slapped him. Hard. Right on the face. Vampire that he was, he could have moved to avoid it, but he didn't. The sound of skin on skin echoed too loudly, and instead of a red mark on his face, there was a clear white handprint that slowly faded back to off-white. Other than that, he had absolutely no reaction. Not even a blink.

And then a delighted, evil, childlike smile. "Was it good for you?" he asked. She couldn't stop the goosebumps that shivered over her skin.

He took a step and came right into her space, as close as Wesley had been less than an hour before. She lost her hard-won nerve and tried to move back. He grabbed her wrist and held her in place with fingers like braided steel cable.

"Wesley lied," he said. "He held my son in his arms and lied about what he was going to do. His plan was to take Connor away so that I'd never see him again, and all in all he succeeded pretty well at that, wouldn't you say?" He stared into her eyes. They were turning that sick vampire yellow she hated. "I'm not going to let him take you away too."

She couldn't break free. Until Angel let her go, there was no going. No retreat. No surrender. She looked him directly in those flickering, crazy eyes and said, "Angel, if you ever trusted me, please, trust me now. Listen."

"Don't talk to me about trust." It came from low in his throat, like a rusted growl. He was so big, so full of rage, and so very not Angel. Angel was careful about how he used his strength, his size, his -- his maleness. This was something else, and it loved being bigger, stronger and able to hurt her in so many ways.

She tried to talk slowly and calmly, as if he was still a rational person. "Wesley took clothes and diapers and formula and medical records. He wasn't trying to hurt him. Wes was giving up his future for Connor's."

"Wesley has no future," he said. "But I guess you've answered my question about whose side you're on. I guess the only question left is, were you brave or stupid to come up here alone?"

He squeezed her wrist. Hard.

She didn't move and didn't react. He squeezed harder. Hard enough to snap human bones.

"You forget," she said quietly. "Part demon now. You want to hurt me, you'll have to trash-talk some more or put real muscle into it."

He shoved her back, off balance, into the wall. The whole room rattled with the impact, and she felt bruised and beaten even though he hadn't even used his full strength. He glared at her, showed her sharp descending canines, and she knew it was over. All over.

Then his eyes flickered and faded to human, as if he realized what he was about to do and had, at the last second, flinched. He stood there, trembling, tense with the need to hurt her, and even then she wasn't sure he wouldn't snap.

"Get out of my house," he said hoarsely, then banged open the door and escaped. What he'd done -- or almost done -- stayed with her like a cold, hungry, stalking shadow.

She sank down on the bed, stared at her dim reflection in the mirror, and wondered how long it would take to get her heartrate back under four hundred beats a minute.

God. She couldn't save him. He was going all the way down.

When she came out of the room, fifteen getting-control-of-herself minutes later, she found Lorne lounging in the hallway and trying to look casual. Today, he was in a nice tangelo shirt with pearl buttons and relaxed-fit slacks, very sexy on somebody who didn't have dark green skin and red eyes. The festive blue glitter on his horns saved the whole look from disaster, somehow.

How about that. Even after having her heart gouged out and stomped on by Angel's boots, she still had fashion sense. Maybe she wasn't quite dead yet.

"Cordelia!" Lorne lit up with a smile and opened his arms. "Give me some love."

Which brought back the whole Wesley thing again, and she wondered what Angel had told him. No, Lorne wouldn't be that catty, thank God. She hugged. With her eyes closed, he felt like a regular guy, if you ignored the weird muscle groups.

All of a sudden she wanted to cry. His stroking touch on her hair was so gentle, and his lovely voice brimmed over with compassion. Somebody she could trust completely, at last. "So how are you, sweetie pie?"

"Sick," she whispered, and turned her head to rest her burning forehead against his cool, lightly scaled neck. Lorne had a lot of texture. "I can't get through to him."

"Don't let it get to you, sweetheart," he said. "He's got this whole Incredible-Hulk-you-won't-like-me-when-I'm-angry mojo going. Take it from somebody who's an expert on seeing the downside. You don't want to go there."

She stepped back and wiped her eyes, laughed shakily. "I get my mail there, are you kidding? You know, they say these mascaras are waterproof, and they are such liars."

He produced a silken handkerchief from some pocket, and she dabbed at the damage carefully.

"How's the head?" she asked. Which Wesley had bashed in making his great escape with Connor.

He touched a horn delicately. "Nothing to it. Couple of bandages, some Superglue, I'm good as new. Wish everything else bounced back as quickly around here." He gave her a significant look. "I didn't exactly come wandering up here without a purpose, pumpkin. I was worried about you and him going at it witness-free."

"We weren't going at it -- oh." She had sex on the brain. "Thanks. How did you know -- "

"Where to find you? Vibrations in the force." He threw her a devilish grin when she frowned. "Groo. I don't think he felt too good about you being up here alone with Big, Dark and Depressed, poor baby."

So Groo had probably managed to save her life again. She could only be grateful he hadn't come blundering in between her and Angel. Lorne at least had better sense.

Lorne studied her and lost his smile. "He's not the same guy he was. You need to be careful. Wesley, too. If Angelcakes catches up to him I think the term open mind might end up literal." Lorne's voice dropped just a tone, took on a velvet darkness. "Also, you might mention to Wesley that he won't be walking on sunshine if I see him first, either."

"God, what is it with men? If I'd taken Connor everybody would have just nodded and said, Well, you were probably justified, and that would be the end of it. But let a guy piss you off -- "

Lorne looked at her with big, serious, demonic eyes. "Sweetie, in my world you'd be a stain on the carpet if you'd so much as touched one of our kids, and you know it. Here, you get the benefit of the doubt. But don't go all Norma Rae on us before you think about the facts. Wes could have taken Connor before you left, but he waited until you were gone so there'd be one less person to bash over the head. Forgive me if I'm not running over with the milk of human kindness, but well, I'm a demon."

He was right, Wesley had planned it out. He'd revoked Angel's invitation to his apartment, and he'd done it before all this had happened.

Premeditation.

Still. "It's just that nobody seems to be listening to Wesley's side."

Lorne shook his head. "Not gonna happen. Not yet. Give it time."

"If I give it time, Wesley's going to end up dead."

Lorne kept his polite, friendly, sympathetic expression, but his eyes were glowing with something that wasn't quite in tune. An ask-me-if-I-care was strongly implied.

She handed back his handkerchief, but he shook his head and said, "Keep it. I've got plenty if I catch a blubber later on." She tried for a smile and headed for the stairs. "Wait."

She turned to see him still standing there, looking at her. His head slowly cocked to one side. He had that look.

"Oh dear," he said. "It's like that, then."

"I wasn't humming."

"Sweetie, your whole body is humming. Singing arias, in fact. That must have been some night." He frowned a little. "Hey, if you're happy, I'm happy, but if I can sense it -- "

"Angel knows," she confirmed.

"I'll raise my oh dear to an oh shit. You know he -- um -- " Lorne hesitated, clearly not wanting to say what he was thinking. "Never mind. Just ... be careful. And get out of here. Fast."

Maybe it was the sun, the clear blue sky, but Wesley actually felt better than he had in days. Still nothing approaching human, and light years away from the man he'd been, but ... better. The thought of blowing his brains out had become nearly unpleasant.

He'd also been several hours alcohol-free, which was not as much fun as he'd hoped, but he was determined to sweat the poison out with a nice long walk. Which had turned out to be a drive, followed by a loiter, as he took up a post across the corner from the warehouse that had been Holtz's last lair.

He was waiting for a certain red-haired woman to show up. Justine, he was sure, would still be coming even if there was nothing to see and nobody to talk to. Her ability to obsess dwarfed even his own.

He stood the sunlight for over an hour before he moved into the shade. Was it usually this hot on a clear day? Too many of his days had been spent either researching or recovering from wounds to have much empirical evidence. Speaking of recovering from wounds, his throat itched fiercely. He rubbed at the healing scar and forced himself not to scratch. It would be an incredibly stupid way to die if the wound opened, and this time he didn't think there would be any miraculous last-minute reprieves.

There. A flash of auburn hair catching the sun. Justine looked horrible -- bruised, scraped, limping. The thought he was responsible sent a shiver through him that was either guilt or glee; he preferred not to examine it too closely. He shadowed her in silence for a full minute before she turned on him.

She had a gun. He hadn't anticipated a gun. He slowly raised his hands.

"Playtime's over, Sherlock," she said. A cut on her lip opened and dribbled blood. She wiped it impatiently away with the sleeve of her shirt. "I gave you your chance to get even. You did an okay job. Now go away or I'll finish what I started."

"Tell me what happened," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"How Holtz managed to get into the demon dimension. I need to know exactly. What spells he used, what magical artifacts ...."

"Ask your buddies," she shrugged. "Angel was there."

"You've seen to it that Angel's the last person I can ask."

She lost her crooked smile. "Gonna whine about it now?"

"Not to you," he said. "We can still save the child. You can at least do that much good with the dungheap you've made of both of our lives."

"Want to make me? Oh, wait, you've already played that one."

He took another step toward her. "Tell me exactly how it happened."

"Why would I help you?"

He took a deep breath and said, "We may well be able to save both Connor and Holtz."

"Well, I'm all warm and fuzzy. That's one hell of a suggestion, coming from you," Justine said. She made a decision, and clicked the safety on the automatic. Lowered it to her side. "Tell me something. Why'd you stop? You could have killed me. Ruptured my liver, destroyed my spleen, burst a blood vessel or two -- "

He felt that burning in his throat, that horrible emptiness yawning at his feet. He didn't answer for a few long seconds as he fought off the memory. And then he said, "Because I don't want to become like you."

"You and Daniel," she said, and shook her head. "Just a couple of wacky romantics."

His tone went flat and completely beyond his ability to control. "Compare me to Holtz again and I really will kill you."

She gave him a funny look, as if she actually took him seriously for an instant. And then she squinted up at the sun and said, "Let's go in. It's murder out here today."

The warehouse was, as he'd suspected, deserted. Holtz's employees were not the loyal-beyond-death sort, except for Justine. She led him down a narrow corridor, past a steel wall with manacles and chains. She saw him looking at it.

"Don't knock it until you've played bait-the-vamp for half a day with one hand shackled," she said.

"Are we chatting?" he asked. "Because if we are, shoot me first and spare me the agony."

"Huh. And here I thought you were all about the talking," she snorted, amused, and led the way in silence. They arrived at some rusted alcove that must have passed for an office, because there was an old-style bent metal desk and a chair of the institutional style. Wesley found himself wondering exactly how much paperwork there was to torture, betrayal and murder.

Justine opened a drawer with a shriek of metal, and got out a bottle of vodka. She took a mouthful, swished it around and spat it out on the ground. Took another mouthful and swallowed. The backwash carried blood into the liquor in tiny red streamers.

She held it out to him. He shook his head. She shrugged and took another drink.

"I'm waiting," he said.

"So I see."

"You may be mistaking me for somebody who's rational. That would be wrong."

"You may be mistaking me for somebody who gives a fuck," Justine said. She kicked the dusty chair out from behind the desk and sat down. The breath she sucked in bubbled deep in her lungs. She coughed, spat blood, and had another shot of the mother's milk of Russia. "Whatever. What do you want from me?"

"Tell me how it happened. Exactly."

She spun him quite a tale – she and Holtz on their way to Utah (really? Utah?) with Connor, the arrival of black Humvees loaded with paramilitary, Angel ....

"The woman in charge of the soldiers," he said. "Did you know her?"

"Saw her once, talking to Daniel," she said. "Some kind of lawyer. Dark hair, pretty, good shoes."

"Lilah," he murmured. It explained rather more than he'd expected. "And then?"

"Then Daniel threatened to snap the kid's neck." She said it so matter of factly that he almost missed the blood-curdling significance. Surely even Justine must have felt something. "I really thought he was going to do it. Angel must have thought so too, because he agreed to let us go."

Wesley could not imagine what Angel must have felt in that moment, caught between two horrors. No wonder he'd come unhinged.

"But?" he prodded, and swallowed. His throat wound throbbed.

"Sahjahn had other plans. He wanted the kid dead. Period. So he opened up a portal to this demon dimension."

"Did he say what it was called?"

"Quar-toth," she said. "That's what it sounded like, anyway. Said it was the worst place you could go, and he was going to send us all there unless we killed the kid."

"So Holtz saw it as a chance to escape."

"No. Daniel saw it as a chance to make sure Angel never got his son back, no matter what." Her eyes were hard and bright. She coughed again, this time harder and longer. When she wiped the blood from her lips, she looked at him curiously. "Aren't you going to ask me if I'm okay?"

"No," Wesley said. "Because frankly I don't give a damn. Is that all?"

"That's it. Fuck off."

He turned away from her, had a thought, and faced her again. "Why did Holtz leave you behind?" he asked. And watched the color drain out of her face. "Well?"

"I don't know."

He held her eyes as he said, "Maybe he didn't want you."

Fury swept across her face. She threw the bottle at him. He didn't even have to duck; it sailed past him and shattered against a steel post.

"Party's over," she said. "Get the fuck out."

"You've probably built yourself a nice fiction about how he wanted to save you from a lifetime of suffering or a horrible death. That's wrong. Holtz never cared about anyone or anything but his personal crusade. Here's what I think: he knew you loved him, and he thought it was pathetic, and he just didn't want to be bothered anymore." He didn't look away from her hot, hating eyes. "And I'm sorry about that. You deserved better."

He felt the heat of her stare all the way to the door. She waited until the last possible second to speak, and from the tremor in her voice, he realized it had taken that long for her to find the control.

"I told your little girlfriend I fucked you last night," she said, and laughed. It sounded like metal grating, and it ended up in another long, choking, wet cough. "I think she actually believed me. Doesn't say a lot about you, does it?"

"Or about you," he said. "Depends on your perspective."

Angel sat in the deepest shadows of the brightest day he could remember and looked out at the Hyperion's overgrown garden. When he'd first come to this place, decades ago, it had been for the flowers. The garden had manners back then, neat little rows of trimmed bushes and wide walking paths. He decided he liked the current thorny wilderness better. Beauty should be well-guarded from those who didn't have the strength to take it.

Angel closed his eyes and breathed it in. Yellow roses had a bitter, medicinal smell. Extravagantly ruffled Gallica roses poured perfume like love into the air – roses he remembered from his youth, roses like girls in petticoats and lace.

But he'd always craved the musky, dark smell of red, red roses.

Cordelia had always been, in his mind, a perfect American Beauty. Crimson on crimson, skin softer than petals, heart guarded by sharp thorns of wit and courage.

He closed his eyes and remembered his last dream of her, when he'd still been able to dream. She'd been lying next to him in bed, curled on her side. Her skin glowed like silver in moonlight. She'd been covered in a drift of silken rose petals that fluttered and shifted with each breath, and the smell – the smell had been so real, roses and warm skin and the life pulsing inside of her ....

He had wanted her with an urgency like nothing he'd ever felt before. And he'd known, even in the dream, that he couldn't have her.

But the dream-memory of brushing those rose petals away, kissing the soft skin beneath --

The vision changed to some other man kneeling on her, some other man's hands parting her thighs. Cordelia crying out and arching under him.

He didn't want to see Wesley's face, but it was brutally clear, and it had been clear from the instant he'd seen them together in Wesley's apartment. He'd never seen Cordelia look that way before, flushed and glittering and warm.

He'd never seen her coming directly from another man's bed.

The irony was that he'd gone there to see Wesley, not her. He had honestly wanted to find some end to this agony they were both suffering, he and Wes -- too much hatred, he was drowning in it.

That had all changed when he'd smelled that unmistakable red-rose, humid smell of sex all over her. In her.

He couldn't keep himself from wondering how long it had been going on behind his back. Months? Years? Maybe they'd spent all this time hiding it from him, the way Wesley had hidden his plans to take Connor. Laughing. Maybe Cordelia had known about that, too; maybe the trip to Mexico was just an alibi.

I can't let him take you too, he'd said. That had been nothing but raw honesty. He wanted her, still wanted her, needed her. And the more he thought about her, the less he could control the demon inside, who wanted Cordelia just as much.

No, he couldn't think about her, but if he didn't there was only one other thing in the world left, and it was even more painful. He closed his hand around the tiny knit cap that he'd bought for Connor, and felt the faintest tingle of his son's presence. My miracle baby. Funny. Losing children happened to humans all the time. It had happened to Daniel Holtz -- Angelus had seen to Holtz's infant son personally.

The irony was so thick it sickened him.

Angel opened his hand and looked at the cap. He put it to his nose and breathed deep; somewhere trapped in the fabric was just a hint of Connor's scent. There, the gentlest touch of a baby's soft skin, the memory of his laugh.

He closed his eyes and tried to believe his son was still alive, but all that came to him now were roses, rich dark red roses, and the humid, musky scent of sex.

He heard the door open on the veranda behind him.

"I love it out here," Lorne said. The words were good, but his voice was shaking. "I didn't know you liked gardens."

"I've always liked them," Angel said. His voice was flat and heavy. "I make my best kills in gardens. It's the smell of the roses. Rich and heavy and thick in the mouth, like blood."

Lorne had been moving toward him, but that brought him to a dead stop. Angel turned to look at him. Interesting to see a Pylean go pale.

"Well, that's – a fun fact I'd rather not know," Lorne finally managed. "Uh – can I sit?"

"I don't know. Can you?"

Lorne swallowed and edged onto the bench next to him. "I was upstairs, you know. In the hall."

"I heard." Angel focused back on the garden. One rose in particular caught his attention – a tight sweet bloom, just opening under the caress of the sun. If he concentrated hard enough, he could tease out the smell of that one particular flower from all the others until he could pick out that rose from all the others, even in the dark.

He remembered Lorne was still there. "Are we done?"

Lorne sighed. "I wish. Look, you -- you were going to hurt Cordelia."

"I still could. I could also get up off of this bench and go pick that red rose over there. It reminds me of her."

Lorne squinted. "It's in the sunlight," he pointed out.

"I'm considering that."

"Burning and exploding into dust?"

"It's an option."

Evidently another conversation-stopper. Lorne's spicy-caramel scent racked up a notch; he was sweating. Demon terror tasted different than the fear of humans, not quite as sweet.

"Look, I'm scared as hell," Lorne admitted. "If you picked up a microphone right now and sang 'I Left My Heart In San Francisco' I think I'd probably have to run screaming from the room, and babe, it's not the off-key performance that would do it. What's inside you right now – it's – "

"Bad. I know." Angel wasn't really sure who was guiding the conversation, his human side or his clever little demon. He wasn't sure he cared. "Stay tuned. It might get worse."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Lorne swallowed hard, flinched, and then steadied himself. "Look, don't rip my lungs out, will ya? It would ruin my singing voice."

"Just say what you want and leave."

Lorne huffed in a quick breath, then reached out and whapped Angel on the back of the head. "Snap out of it!"

It was so ridiculous that Angel didn't strike back, didn't do anything but stare at him it flat-footed shock. Lorne's normally medium-green face was more a light lime now, but his expression – ridiculously – reminded Angel of Willow in one of her stubborn moods. It was just so darn – cute.

Lorne let it all out in a rush. "You're the champion of the innocent. The hurt and the helpless. When The Powers want you to become the champion of self-involved angst-ridden crybabies, they'll let you know, okay? So until then, maybe you should just try to pull yourself together." He looked down. "I love Connor. God, I miss him every minute. But if you let him destroy you now, he's not a gift, he's a curse."

"Shut up," Angel whispered. "You don't know how hard this is."

"No, you're right, I don't. I just know how hard it is for everybody else. You're hurting anybody standing near you, not just the ones who deserve it, and if champions get performance appraisals, brother, I think you're going to get graded pretty low." Lorne was insane, but brave. Angel admired that, even while he wondered what the best way would be to kill him. "Look, fighting the good fight is brutal. It drags in our families, our friends, everybody we touch. That's the way it is. You have to make a choice. Either you go all the way down, or you go all the way up. It's the express ride."

Angel didn't respond. He clenched his fist over Connor's cap.

"Okay, let me put it another way. You can hang out here in this gorgeous old tomb and drive off everybody with half a brain and any part of a heart who loves you. Or you can get off your ass and start saving people."

Angel focused past him, on the garden. On the tight red rose, swaying in the breeze like a seductive young girl.

Lorne got up and shifted from one foot to another, as if he was standing on unsteady ground. "That's all, I guess. Thanks for not ripping out my lungs."

"You're welcome," Angel said. "Now get off my porch before I think about it too long."

Lorne slammed the door behind him on the way in, but he didn't go far, and Angel could still hear the frightened, fast rasp of his breathing. Angel closed his eyes and concentrated on the dark, humid, intensely sexual smell of that one perfect rose. He wasn't aware of time passing until he felt the sun slip away.

When he opened his eyes it was night. Cool, kind night. There was no breeze; it felt like the world was holding its breath for him.

The forests of thorns left bloodless scratches on his face and hands, but he hardly felt them; he followed the trail of scent with his eyes closed, accepting the pain, until he stood before his beautiful, perfect flower.

He started to reach for it, but there was something in his hand. Connor’s cap.

He let it flutter silently to the ground as he reached out snapped the rose from its thick, sharp-thorned stem.

Drowning her miseries just didn't have the same charm it used to. After a few more slugs of vodka from her backup bottle, Justine went to work. First, weapons; her life depended on them. She oiled guns, checked and oiled the crossbows, sharpened swords and daggers and wooden stakes.

Maybe tonight she'd hunt. Killing leeches was still the most fun to be had, and the fact that she was wounded and only half-capable made it that much more of a challenge. Justine loved a challenge. Maybe that was why she'd fallen so hard for Daniel Holtz. It wasn't his physical presence; the blue-eyed Brit who'd just left had a hell of a lot more to offer that way. No, Holtz had– intensity. A kind of focused narrow-beam ferocity that she not only respected but adored.

She'd thought that being alone gave them something in common, but she'd been wrong. Holtz was never alone. The ghosts of his family were always with him, driving him past his limits, demanding justice; the specter of Angel was always out in front of him, dragging him on. She was just another face in his crowd.

She'd loved him anyway. That Brit bastard had been right about that. He'd been right that Holtz never loved her, too.

She locked and loaded the crossbow in one fluid motion, whirled, and put a bolt four inches into a straw target twenty feet away. Through the heart. Always through the heart.

"Might as well come out," she said, and fired the second bolt right on top of the first. "What's the matter, Wesley? Forget your wallet?"

"Not exactly," he said. He stepped out from behind the target. Good timing; she was currently between ammunition. "I think you should come outside for a minute."

"Any particular reason?"

"The building is on fire."

He sounded calm enough about it, but she caught the tension underneath. She paused in the act of reloading.

"You're shitting me."

He shrugged. "Believe what you want. That's all I had to tell you."

He turned to go. She cursed under her breath and sniffed the air. Hard to tell if there was any smoke; her nose was broken – again – and she'd been swallowing blood all damn day. No point in taking the chance, though; she unzipped the gym bag and loaded in weapons, shouldered it on the side that hurt less, and followed Wesley to the fastest exit.

By the time she was outside, she could not only smell the smoke, she was choking on it. While she hunched over, racked with bloody coughs, she heard the scream of sirens.

The Brit was already to the corner. She hustled after him, trying not to limp too openly on her strained knee and knowing already that it would be swollen to balloon size before long.

"Hey!" she yelled. "Did you set the goddamn fire?"

He kept walking. She put on a burst of speed and managed to pull even with him.

"Did you?" she insisted. He cast her one of those looks, bored and British and belligerent. They rounded the corner, ducking away from a police car that screamed by, and in the cooler dimness of the alley she sucked in rattling breaths and wished she could sit down for just a minute. Or a thousand.

He must have thought she really cared about his answer, because he gave her an honest reply for once. "No, I didn't set the fire, although I wish I'd thought of it; that pesthole deserves to be scorched to the ground."

"Glad you think so," said a new voice from the shadows. She looked up, saw Wesley do the same. There were eyes in the darkness. Glowing eyes. The gleam of fangs. "We didn't like it much, either."

Vamps. A lot of 'em. And they weren't unarmed – she saw clubs and pipes and knives. No guns. That was such a small relief it wasn't even worth feeling it. For the first time she felt a flicker of doubt about her abilities; maybe it wasn't such a good time to be attempting to fight. Even this gorgeous dweeb could probably kick her ass at the moment without breaking a sweat. The fact that she'd let him do it last night made that more than a little funny, in an ironic kind of way.

"Ah," Wesley breathed. "Molotov cocktails."

"We like the classics," the leader said. "Lucky us, we get to practice a few more. On you two."

"I don't suppose these are friends of yours," Wesley said toward Justine, conversationally. He put on a good show of boredom, but his voice was half an octave higher than before. She shrugged the bag off her shoulder and let it fall to the pavement, edged it over between them. Lucky that she'd left it unzipped in her haste to get out of the warehouse.

"We've met," grated the lead leech. He came closer, and she recognized his particular twisted face. She and Holtz's crew had practiced on him with holy water. He'd been quite the little screamer. "I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you made it out, bitch."

"Me too," she said, and looked at Wesley. "Any brilliant ideas?"

Three vamps between them and the safety of sunlight. Three in front.

"I've narrowed it to fight or flight," he said.

"Well halle-fucking-lujah. Finally, I get to kill something."

And then it was a melee. She ducked a swing from the leader's lead pipe and rammed her shoulder into him, sent him toppling into one of his buddies. Wesley darted the other way, to the open gym bag.

He grabbed a stake and pitched it to her on the fly; she caught it mid-air, aimed and thrust with all the hate in her heart. Dust exploded into her mouth, but she closed her eyes in time. She was already moving to the next victim before the leader's lead pipe clattered to the pavement. Damn, this felt good.

Daniel was gone, but she could still kill things for him.

"Down!" Wesley yelled, but she was at a bad angle, just finishing a dusting and taking the weight on her bad knee. He hit her hard from the side and slammed her out of the way as something sharp hissed past her head. Axe. She hated axes. The force of the vamp's swing carried him off balance and into a wall hard enough to stun him stupid.

Wesley was still on top of her, and he raised his head. Something crazy in Wesley's eyes. Something she liked.

"Well?" she asked. "Are we going to make love all day, or -- "

He rolled off, scrambled back to the weapons bag and ducked another swing from a vamp armed with a club. He tossed her a crossbow and scooped up a hand-and-a-half broadsword. His first swing caught the club-wielder across the throat, and the separated head and body dissolved into bitter haze.

She put a bolt through the next vamp then whirled to put one through the vamp with the axe, who was coming back for more. Two more dusted. She looked around and saw Wesley was battling the last one. He had skills, she admitted. And she liked the way he moved. Nice lines. She found herself watching his ass more than his lunges.

"A little help?" he yelled. She limped over to the weapons bag and looked over the choices. Chose the second crossbow and took her time making sure the bolts were firmly seated. "Sometime this year?"

He backed away as the vamp lunged, then tripped over a discarded beer bottle and landed in a messy heap.

The vamp was on him like a wolf, snarling and going for his throat.

Justine hesitated for a long, luxurious second, and then lined up and fired.

The leech exploded. Wesley choked on the dust. He rolled up to his feet, and leaned on the sword for support, singed and sweaty and trembling.

"Too much excitement for ya?" Justine purred. She swaggered over to him, aches and wounds drowned in the adrenaline flood. "Poor baby. Widdle Wesley can't take it."

She thought -- she hoped -- he would come after her. He looked at her with those impossibly blue eyes for a long few seconds, then offered her the sword, hilt-first.

"Yours," he said neutrally. She took it. "I knew someone else like you once. Her name was Faith. Pain, sex, fighting, dying -- it was all the same to her."

"Oh, and it's not to you?" she mocked. She'd seen the light in his eyes.

"No," he said. "I fight for things. You're fighting for nothing."

"Come on. Deep down inside, you get off on it. Just like me."

He tried to move past her. She put the edge of the sword to his throat and shoved him against the wall, stared into his eyes, looked for that spark.

"You bastard, don't you dare dismiss me," she whispered. "I cut your throat once, and I can do it again."

But he didn't react. After a long, long pause, she lowered the sword down to her side.

Wesley leaned forward and kissed her. Not a desperate after-fight, let's-fuck kiss, a gentle meeting of lips. Almost chaste.

"Learn to get off on that," he said. His voice rasped low in his throat, like a cat's purr. "It may save your life someday."

She stood there helpless and watched him go. When she was sure he couldn't see, she put shaking fingers to her lips and tried to stop the tingle.

When Cordelia got home, Groo was gone. There was a message blinking on the answering machine; Phantom Dennis, after considerately levitating her shopping bags back to the bedroom, left her alone to listen to it. She almost didn't need to. She knew what Groo was going to say. I'm going back to Pylea, this is all wrong, you don't really love me ....

But what Groo said, when she pressed the replay button, was "My princess, I am sorry, but Charles says he needs help in – with -- things. So I am going. Out. To fight. I will be back – " Groo was a terrible liar. She could hear Gunn coaching him in the background. "Tomorrow."

In other words, Gunn had ended up getting an earful of Groo's troubles, and they were going out to bond. Or drink, which was the same thing in guy-land.

She really didn't mind – that was probably guiltworthy, but there it was. If there had ever been a night when a quiet hot bath and some quality Queen C time had been a must-have...

A ghostly hand touched her shoulder. She smiled and said, "It's okay, Dennis. Really. It wasn't – it wasn't going to work out long-term. Because he's, you know ... sweet."

Dennis lifted a half-empty box of chocolates.

"No, I'm not sweet, but thanks for the lie."

She thought about a lot of things while she did homey, comforting jobs like cooking spaghetti and choosing the appropriate cheap red wine; mostly, she thought about Angel, and what to do about him. Go back to work, she supposed. Try to see it through. Hope he pulled out of the dive straight into hell before he took them all there with him.

A plate of pasta and two glasses of wine later, she picked up the phone and dialed the Hyperion. She didn't know what she was going to say, except that there was something to say, there had to be. When she heard his voice, she'd know. Right? I'm buzzed, she realized, but that was kind of a plus; it cut down the shakes and the terror at the thought of facing him again, even on the phone. Her muscles, which were finally feeling warm and loose and relaxed, tensed up just a bit when the rings began to sound on the other end.

Her own perky voice picked up on answering machine. "Hi, you've reached Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless ...." Boy, it was time to change the tape. Maybe we'll try to help the hopeless when we're done feeling sorry for ourselves. Yeesh.

She was trying to think what message to leave when she heard a knock at the door. She jumped and fumbled the phone back into the cradle, suddenly sure he was standing there, dark and broody and back to himself, with that half-smile ready to warm up her heart. "I'll get it!" she called to Dennis, who sometimes like to play butler. She swung the door open ...

And saw Wesley outside.

"Wow," she blurted. Not the same Wesley from before, not even the same Wesley from earlier this morning. This Wesley had on blue jeans and a dark shirt and a leather jacket that made him look dangerous. Or maybe it was the shadow still in his eyes. Shouldn't have had the wine, nope. "You're out. And you look better."

"I feel better," he said, and put his hands in his pockets as if he didn't know what to do with them. Awkward silence. He cleared his throat. "I hope I didn't come at a bad time. I just wanted to – check -- did Angel – "

"Hurt me? No sticks, no stones, lots of words, some of them were harsh." She ran out of things to say, and moved back away from the door so he could come in. He didn't catch the hint. "Um, you want to talk?"

He smiled slightly "Truthfully, the last thing I want to do right now is talk to you."

She felt a surge of blind pain. "Oh," she murmured. "Oh, sorry." So that was how it was going to be. Somehow, she didn't think she could take Wesley's dismissal, not after Angel's cruelty. "Okay then. I understand." She started to swing the door shut.

"No!" Wesley blurted, and held out a hand as if he wanted to grab back what he'd said. "No, I meant – I meant all I want to do is – not talk. There are other things I'd rather be doing with our mouths." She felt her heart stutter and start to pound. He sucked in a breath as if he'd surprised himself. "And I said that out loud, didn't I? Dear God, Cordelia, what have we done?"

"Pretty much everything at least once," she said. "Which is kind of a record for one night."

"Don't. Don't tease. I know it can't be – we can't be – but I just – " He was stammering. He hadn't stammered last night, but then, not a lot of conversation beyond oh, God yes and faster. "I'm making a bollocks of this."

"No, I'd say you're doing pretty well if you're trying to convince me to rip your clothes off."

He didn't laugh, and he waited too long for her to pass it off as a joke.

"Wes?" She felt a lurch of pain again.

He pulled in a shuddering breath she could feel all the way down inside, in places his tongue and lips and other body parts had been, far too recently to forget.

"I would love for that to be true," he said. "But you see, it's just that I'm not Angel."

It felt like the air had been sucked out of her lungs. "No, Wes – " God, what could she say?

"No kind lies. Not now. I think both us needed ... comfort ... last night, and some relief from the loneliness. But the next time, you'll be thinking about him, and I– " He sounded stronger now. "I'd want you to be thinking of me."

He was so right it was scary. "Please come in. We'll talk –"

"No." He even took a step back. He sounded so definite, but there was so much pain in his eyes. "Don't ask me again, Cordelia. This is hard enough as it is."

She struggled for something that wouldn't be a lie. "Oh ... God ... I'm so sorry. I wish –" It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. It just – overwhelmed her. "Jesus! Why the hell can't I be in love with you? A nice, normal, hunky guy with a sexy accent and eyes to die for? Why does it have to be the crazed bloodsucking fiend? What's that about? You know, I used to be normal. Somewhat. For Sunnydale. I at least got the hots for guys who breathed!"

Wesley gave her a heartbreaking smile. "I think there might have been a compliment buried in there. As far as me being either nice or normal, I believe you might have been in Sunnydale a little too long to have a good perspective."

"But hunky," she said. "And don't even argue about the accent and the eyes."

Another silence. This one somehow wasn't awkward, it was full of – well – love. She stepped outside and held out her hands. He took them and after a few seconds of looking into each others' eyes she moved into his arms. He folded around her, warm and solid and somehow more there than he had been before.

"It isn't that you saved my life," he whispered. His words warmed the skin of her neck where his lips touched. "It's that you saved my soul, Cordelia. Truly."

She closed her eyes and let herself relax against him, just – be. "I love you," she said.

"For the rest of my life, I'll work to deserve that," he said, and too soon, let her go. "I'm leaving town for a while. I'll call when I get back."

He wasn't going to do anything stupid, was he? She couldn't tell, couldn't read him at all suddenly. "That's probably good," she said slowly. "Let things cool down. But – come back. Please. And -- call me, if you need – anything."

"Short of what I'd like to have?" His smile was only a little bitter. "Take care."

The kiss have gave her was gentle and sweet and final. She watched him as he went down the hall and finally, when he was gone, regretfully closed the door.

Downstairs, Wesley walked out into the dark and headed for the lot where he’d left his car. He felt lighter now, though sadder. It had to be said. Perhaps, but did he have to say it tonight? Would it have been so terrible to go inside and live in Cordelia’s world just a little longer?

Yes, he told himself. Because it would have been a lie. He no longer lived in that world, and it was unfair of him to complicate it.

That didn’t help the heartache, but with all his experience of wounds he expected he could manage.

The parking lot was uphill, and it faced Cordelia’s windows; he’d chosen it deliberately so that he could see her from a distance, and he could see her now as she walked through the living room. I should have told her to draw the blinds. He was glad he hadn’t.

And for the life of him, somehow, he couldn’t get in his car and leave. Not yet.

He settled down on the hood of his car and lifted his face to the cool night breeze, closed his eyes, and sighed.

I’m going back, aren’t I?

Perhaps he’d just think about it. For a while.

Cordelia checked herself in the mirror, for no better reason that it was there and she was in a pampering mood, and decided it was time for the long tea-rose bubble bath with Vitamin E skin treatment. It wouldn’t do anything for the dark circles under her eyes, but at least it would make her feel better. Then, she promised herself, a movie. Nothing romantic. She couldn’t go there, not now. Maybe one more glass of wine, just to make sure she could sleep without dreaming about Angel, vamped out.

She was taking her silk floral robe down from the hanger when she heard another knock at the door. Everything came to a stop. She stood there, frozen, the weight of silk heavy and warm in her hands, and thought, I shouldn't. He shouldn't. We shouldn't.

It was going to hurt him if she turned him away, but dammit, Wesley's instincts were right, they couldn't just -- just keep giving in to this just because they were both lonely and shocked and sad. It wasn't right for him, or her, or (another hot flash of guilt) for Groo, either.

She put the robe on the bed and went back to open the door, and even when she was clicking the deadbolt back she didn't know exactly what she was going to say or -- God help her -- what she was going to do, either. The need to be touched had exploded on contact with alcohol. Bad combo.

"Wesley -- " she said, and then the dark-haired man in the leather coat turned and it wasn't Wesley at all.

It was Angel.

The impact of her heart hitting her chest almost dropped her; it was followed by a burning tingle of … more shock. Oh my God, I called him Wesley. Yeah, that would help things.

He didn't seem to have caught it, because he smiled. Not one of those calculated, slick, Angelus smiles; this was warm and human, exactly the smile she had been aching to see. In spite of the tentative smile, or maybe because of it, he looked awkward, wounded, and brutally aware of the risk he was taking.

"You probably don't want to see me," he said. "But I -- I had to tell you how sorry I am."

"Angel," she finally blurted. Mouth catching up with mind. Funny, it was usually the other way around. "I -- are you -- "

"Okay?" The smile turned bitter. "No, not really. But I've been doing a lot of thinking and ... well, here."

He held something out to her. It was a single red rose, perfect crimson.

"I’m sorry," he said. His eyes were dark and human and shadowed. "Please forgive me, Cordy."

The burning tingle wasn’t shock. It was something else completely. She swallowed hard and looked at him, looked hard. She couldn't just – assume -- dammit, this was Angel, the original bad boy in sheep's clothing. And he had every twisted reason in the world right now to want to hurt her.

"Okay, this is awkward," he said, and lowered the rose. "Sorry. Maybe I should come back -- "

"No!" She was doing a lot of blurting. "No, I'm sorry, it's just that -- "

"I gave you a scare," he finished, and nodded. "I know. I was just -- drowning. Everything was so cold, and there wasn't anything I could -- I needed you to be my life preserver. I know that isn't fair, you have your own life, I can't expect you to ..."

Yes, you can, she thought, but didn't say it. She would have given anything to have Angel put his arms around her and hold her and let go of all his poisonous grief. Drowning. It was a good word. They'd both been drowning up there in that quiet, sad little room.

She realized she was blocking the door. He hadn't tried to come in. She took a deep breath and stepped back to give him room to pass.

"You're sure?" he asked. "Cordy, I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do. You know that."

"Shut up and get in," she said. She was nervous. When she was nervous, she reverted to old Cordelia, tact-disabled -- the one who couldn't be hurt by something as trivial as heartbreak. He obeyed and went three polite steps into the living room, then waited for her to close the door and turn to face him. She put her hand on the deadbolt, then took it off. Better not cut off the escape route. Except, of course, that there wasn't any escape. Not really. Not if she was wrong.

He was looking down at his shoes, shifting just a little, back and forth. An awkward, big-boned boy. "So, do you want the rose, or -- "

It was something to do with her hands. "Sure."

Stepping closer to him made it more real, somehow; she could smell the warm, earthy smell of his leather coat, the faint cool hint of his skin. She reached out for the rose, and he surrendered it carefully. "Watch out," he said. "Thorns."

It really was beautiful – perfect -- petals like velvet skin, and with that rich, dark smell it couldn't have come out of a flower shop.

"It’s from the garden. The Hyperion's garden," he said, too quickly; it sounded like he was talking to fill the silence, and that made her feel steadier. Nervous Angel was a lot better than crazed stalker Angel. "I thought – I hoped you’d like it."

"It's beautiful," she said. "Thanks."

She looked up and met his eyes, and felt herself go still all over. This morning when he’d looked at her there’d been hunger and anger, but that wasn’t what was in him now. This was – well, she wasn't altogether sure what it was, but at least it was different.

"When I lost Connor I got lost, too," he said. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Yeah, well, you did," she said. She turned the rose in her fingers, careful of the wicked curved daggers on the stem. The warm, sensual smell teased at her; she put it to her nose and breathed it in, more for something to do than for any real enjoyment. "So. Where are we?"

"Where do you want us to be?" he asked.

He got her attention, all of it. Did he really mean --

No. He couldn't mean that. "Friends," she said, finally. Until she trusted him again. Until she really knew this wasn't some temporary relapse to the side of good, until it proved itself real and lasting. "Partners. Warrior and Seer, right?"

"Right," he whispered. He looked anywhere but right at her, walked around the room, touching things lightly with his fingertips like a blind man building up a picture of her life. He touched a framed picture from high school -- all of them together, the Scoobies, with Giles looking stern and professor-like in the back. Buffy was in that picture. Cordelia wondered what Buffy would do now. Stake him, probably. Or fall into his arms. Not much in the way of middle ground between the two of them.

She wondered how exactly she was any different.

"I don't smell him," Angel said. For a second she thought he was talking to the picture, but no, he was talking to her. Indirectly. As if he didn't want to look at her.

"Huh?"

"Wesley." He ran a long, pale finger down the leaves of Arthur, her big green English Ivy. "He hasn't been in here."

"No."

"I thought – "

Okay, now she was insulted. "Yeah, I get the picture. You can go off and celebrate Demon SexFest 2001 with Darla, kick the rest of us to the curb whenever you get your dark midmorning of the soul, but I can't even comfort a friend. Not to even mention what a nun I've been the past three years." She glared at him. "Now. Go ahead, shoot off some nasty little jibe and break my heart and get it over with. 'Cause I'm over this already."

He started to answer, and stopped. That was when she knew, because Angelus never hesitated; he always knew the most perfectly awful thing to say. He really was Angel. Only Angel.

She felt that conviction bloom inside of her, driving out the chill that had been freezing her solid all day.

This is happening. It's really happening. And I almost sent him away.

"I should go," he said. Choked, really. She went to him and put her arms around him, and he was hard and cold and trembling. All that power, fighting itself. She felt her heart break when his arms went around her, because he was so careful that he barely dared to touch her at all. "It's okay. Really."

"No, it's not." So much despair in his voice, as much as she'd heard in Wesley's last night, damn that bastard Holtz, she wished she'd killed him, Angel had, anybody had. She felt an explosion of rage as clean and pure as anything she'd ever felt in her life. The hell with civilization and manners and rules, if he'd been in front of her she would have skinned him alive with her fingernails for what he'd done to them. "You have idea how not okay it is."

He pushed her back just a little, and his hands – cold, icy hands – reached up to cup her face.

"I can't lose you," he said. "You know that, don’t you?"

"Shhh," she whispered, and tried to pour her own warmth into him. He was always cool to the touch, but now it was like touching an ice sculpture. "When was the last time you ate?"

"Don't know. Too long. I should go, it’s probably not safe."

"Yeah, I'm all about the safety. Which is why I didn't put that stinky disinviting spell on my apartment, you'll notice." She managed to smile. "Not to worry. If you go all Hellboy on me, I've got a stake with your name on it." Which was a lie, and they both knew it. "Sit down."

She backed him up to the couch, stripped off his duster and tossed it toward a chair. Dennis snagged it and carried it off to the closet. Angel didn't fight her, but he didn't help her, either.

"Here, hold this," she said, and handed him the rose. "I'll be back. Dennis, don't let him leave."

She didn't wait to see if he obeyed, she just assumed. In the kitchen, she took out the emergency blood supply and microwaved; the smell of warm blood made her queasy, but she controlled that and carried the steaming mug back to him. He was still sitting where she’d left him, holding that beautiful rose; his eyes were closed, and he was smelling the fragrance.

"Here," she said, and sat down next to him. "Try this."

Once he'd sipped, something shifted in his dark eyes and he tipped the mug and swallowed until it was dry.

"You have a blood moustache," Cordelia said. "Which I can't believe I just said. Wait." She grabbed a tissue and wiped his face clean. It was something to do instead of looking in his eyes, which she couldn’t really do at the moment. Not enough control of herself.

"I'm not in love with Wesley," she said. "He understands that. I need you to understand it, too."

There was a little more color in his face. He was still holding the mug in one hand, the rose in the other. She ought to get up and get a vase for that, but she didn’t want to move away from him.

"It looked like love this morning," Angel said. At least he was back to teasing. She made a rude noise.

"Looked like the morning after a night of fabulous sex, is what it looked like, and yeah, that's what it was. But don't tell me you've never just let yourself loose because that was all that held back the darkness. And don't go all double-standard on me, either."

He swallowed, probably still tasting the blood. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him then, and was surprised the thought didn't inspire skin-crawl. In fact, it made her skin feel a little too tight.

"Wesley's not to blame for this, Angel. He hurts just as much as you do."

"In my saner moments I know that," he said, and tried for a smile. "I'm sorry for what I said. Earlier. I was – "

"Crazed, yeah, I got that. But that's under control, right?"

"Totally under control."

She took his hands in hers. They were flushed with a little more warmth now. "So. You got to have the awkward conversation this morning, now it's my turn. You were jealous."

"Was not." It wasn't really indignant, more of an opportunity to play. She jumped on it.

"Were too. Big time."

His dark eyes flashed to her face. "Maybe a little."

"Well, come on, give it up. Why?"

"Because – " he stopped. "I’ll tell you later."

"Because I'm your Seer?"

"Later." His fingers closed around hers, and she felt her breath catch in her throat. Her heart did a funny hiccup, then raced faster. God, his touch was feather-soft ... hands that could break bone and snap steel, and yet could cradle a newborn baby. His sense of control was so -- sexy. "Not now."

Some instinct told her not to let it go. "We'll take this up after I nuke you a second helping."

She went back to the kitchen for another round. Dennis obligingly flipped on the overheads for her. She rinsed Angel's mug out, poured in the syrupy cool stuff, set it in the microwave and considered the control panel. It had been pretty hot last time, and she didn't want it to get clotted. Maybe she should use the defrost setting. Three more minutes, but Angel could probably use the time to get himself together. She sure could.

She punched in the numbers and closed her eyes and thought about – well, nothing, really. For the first time in her life, she wasn't operating on expectations. She didn't know what was going to be waiting for her when she came back out. Maybe he'd be gone. Maybe he'd be distant and polite. Maybe he'd – be something else.

But at least she knew needed her.

A hand touched her shoulder gently. She leaned back and felt arms slide around her waist. "Thanks, Dennis, it's okay," she murmured, and turned her head slightly to smile.

Not Dennis. Angel. He could move like a ghost when he wanted to, and in his current black-shirt, black-pants phase, he looked like one, too. No color to him at all.

When Angel hugged her -- which was not all that often -- it had always been the male-friend-hug, that slightly awkward, I'm-not-pressing-up-against-you hug. This was ... different, close and intimate; the tension was still there, but transformed. He wasn't holding himself back.

Neither of them moved for a few seconds, and then she slowly leaned against him, into his strength. His arms tightened and pulled her closer. She knew his body -- she'd stripped him down for nursing often enough, no secrets between them on that score. But still, this was different. She closed her eyes and just felt him, felt his softness and strength like velvet-covered marble. Her skin temperature was going up, blood flowing faster. He had to be able to sense that.

"Don't turn around," he said. "It's easier to say this if you're not looking at me."

"Yeah?" she whispered. Her throat felt dry, her lips damp. Where his hands pressed around her waist, she felt like she might spontaneously combust. "Okay. Sure." Brilliant. But her brain wasn't exactly in the loop.

He bent and put his head down so that his cool cheek was against her hot one. Oh, God, it felt good, like shade in the desert. She shivered.

He murmured, "You're sure you want to hear this?" and she could feel the vibration of his voice against her skin, feel the phantom brush of his lips.

One of his hands left its place at her waist and moved up, stroking gently along the curve of her cheek. She shuddered and felt herself liquefying inside. All of a sudden she was deeply, agonizingly aware of where he was soft and hard, how his body pressed towards hers.

"Yes," she whispered. Not sure if she was answering his verbal question, or the one in his fingertips.

"It was the smell of you, coming from his bed. Lush, like a garden of roses in full bloom. You have no idea how delicious that smell is. I smell it on you now, because he was here, he left you wanting him – "

He breathed in the scent of her skin, and she had to bite her lip to keep from moaning. Oh God. He wasn't doing anything but holding her, not even moving his hands, but she could barely stand up for wanting him. She let herself press back against him, felt him sway a little and push forward with his hips. She moved a little, side to side, she was dying for the friction, dying to feel that hardness in his crotch grow and grow.

Was she really going to do this?

She put her hands on his and guided them down, over the swell of her hips. A human man would have breathed in her ear; she would have felt his heartbeat rise. Angel was utterly silent, like a ghost. Like Dennis. The palms of his hands stopped over her womb, his fingers pressing down on her pubis.

She managed to whisper, "It wasn't Wesley."

If felt as if she'd crossed some line, but she couldn't look back now. Didn't want to look back. She felt his hands move on their own, exploring her through the thin layers of cloth. Her knees turned to rubber; she grabbed his arms for support. "Oh. Oh God."

"Don't turn around," he said. All she could feel was Angel's hands, pulling up her short skirt in slow, caressing motions. She moved her hips back against him, felt him press in return, God, this was --

His hand curved down and cupped her pubis and her mind sizzled and melted. Nothing but the thin nylon panty – already drenched – separating her from his touch.

And then he moved his hand away, and hooked his fingers in the waistband on either side and eased the elastic down her legs. The cool air made her shiver; she'd never felt so exposed, so completely naked.

She spread her feet enough to let the panties slide down on their own, and felt Angel's lips touch her neck, gentle little touches with only the slightest trace of heat, and then his fingers were back, sliding down over her mound and into satin folds.

She couldn't have stopped herself if the world was ending. She pressed back against his fingers, gasping, losing herself in the sensation of fire and ice. She put an arm around his neck to hold herself steady, to save herself from drowning in it, from falling to the floor and dying of pleasure.

"Angel – "

She felt his fingers slide into her, and this time it was a cry, not a gasp ... it was a plea for mercy. She wasn't sure who was doing the moving, but she couldn't have kept her hips still for any price, the sensation of his fingers was too much, too intense, too real. His left hand moved up her body, under her shirt, under her bra, and the feeling of his fingers brushing her nipple made her almost collapse.

His hips were moving too, dancing with hers, she could feel the solid steel of his erection and she wanted – wanted to –

She couldn't think what she wanted anymore. She just wanted. The sounds she was making were like whimpers, barely audible, and she could feel Angel's hands trembling. "Please," she whispered.

"Please what?" Three fingers inside her now, his thumb caressing her clit. "Please do this?"

He drove in deeper, and she moaned now.

"Tell me you'll stay with me," he said. "Tell me now. Now. Now."

"Oh God ..."

"Tell me, Cordelia."

"Oh God! Yes!"

"Say it."

"I'll – stay – " And there it was, a molten eruption locking every muscle in her body, her heart pounding; she could feel the silken muscles in her vagina clenched around his hand, trapping it there, God, the sweet frenzy of it made her want to keep his fingers in her for the rest of her life, and just when she thought she couldn't climb higher his thumb moved and pressed and she came again, harder, shuddering, crying out.

And then, at that instant she was most vulnerable, most his, she felt his whole body shift. It wasn't much, wasn't anything, really, but it woke something screaming inside of her.

He moved her hair and smelled her neck. She could feel that triumph radiating out of him. Cold, evil, corrupted triumph.

No.

She felt the barest scrape of teeth as the smell of hot blood washed over them. The microwave dinged.

NO! She tried to scream it, tried to wrench herself away from him, but it was too late, she'd crossed the line, she'd made the choice.

"So beautiful," he whispered, and before she could draw breath he buried his teeth in her neck, brutal, primal. She screamed but his hand was across her mouth to hold it in. Spider. A spider, nesting in the heart of the rose. Oh God, no, please –

She felt her blood spraying out into his mouth, pumping and pouring as if it was as eager to go into him as her body had been thirty seconds ago, and her mind screamed through a thousand images, Buffy’s stricken face, Xander, Giles, her mother, Connor, Angel, Wesley, Wesley –

And then The Powers That Be sent her a Vision that hit both of them with the force of an exploding bomb. She and Angelus drowned in

"No," Angelus said, and took the child from her arms. Cradled him like the child they had once held between them in love. "Allow me." That evil, dark, thrilling smile warmed her.

The Powers had never spoken to her, but they spoke now, and it wasn't words, it wasn't images, it was like being trapped inside a huge ringing bell, being the bell, shivering in waves, in meaning.

Without words, she understood that she was facing the future. She and Angelus, soulmates, walking in darkness. Perverting all the gifts they'd been granted. Perverting love and strength into the ultimate power to destroy.

The pressure of it was overwhelming. She knew that even her demon-reinforced strength was about to fail and the terrible force of this would shatter like glass.

And then her soul rang with one more metallic blow, and what shivered through her was knowledge. Who she was. What she had to do. What had to be done to stop this awful future.

She came out of it screaming, her throat raw with the force of it, and fell face down on the floor as Angel went to his knees and toppled to his side.

She crawled away from him and huddled in the corner, pulled her knees up to chest and buried her screams in her hands while hot tears burned like acid down her cheeks. Invisible hands wrapped around her and held her -- Dennis, trying to protect her. But nothing could protect her now. Nothing.

Angel was still thrashing, silently screaming, his fangs glittering like razors; his face pulsed as if the demon was trying to claw its way out of him. He was trying to get to her, but his body was in convulsions. She understood intuitively that the deafening voice of The Powers had disabled him; it wouldn't kill, but it would slow him down. For a few moments.

Time to escape, if she chose, but all that would buy her would be moments. It wouldn't stop what was coming.

He threw out a hand toward her. His nails scratched gouges in the linoleum. She pulled herself into a tighter ball and tried to stop herself from shaking, from screaming, from remembering. The Powers were still inside of her like a storm of golden light, showing her the rich, blazing strength they'd given her as a shield against the visions. It had saved her life, but it was meant for more.

It was meant for him.

The hardest thing she had ever done was to reach out and grab Angelus' sharp-taloned, demonic hand. His eyes flashed open, beast yellow, ready to hurt and hate.

I can't! But she could. It was who she was, and The Powers knew that.

She poured love into him, hot as burning metal. Her power. Her gift. Her curse.

Waves of it crested in them both, trapped and drowned them, and her whole body shuddered and spasmed in a pleasure so extreme it made the orgasm Angelus had given her seem like a distant memory. He'd perverted pleasure.

She'd perfected it.

Angel cried out, and his eyes weren't yellow now, they were gold, bright gold, full of her. It spilled out of him in a hot gold flood, stars spinning from his core, glittering and flashing and vanishing like fireflies into the dark. Endless, shaking, hurtful love, love stronger than pain, stronger than Angelus.

It was the shining, uncompromising love of the eternal made flesh, and humans weren't made to endure it for more than seconds.

It felt like an age to Cordelia.

When it finally stopped it was quiet, so awfully quiet. Cordelia heard herself making small, human, whimpering sounds. Angel was only inches away, and his eyes were dark and human and brimming over with --

The crash of the front door kicking in seemed far, far away. She was caught in Angel's eyes. She pulled free of Dennis' restraining arms and reached out --

Something grabbed her, not Dennis, not Angel, warm human arms that grabbed her and dragged her out of the kitchen. They wrapped around her and held her in a fierce, desperate embrace.

"Oh God, oh my God ... " Wesley kept repeating it, like a chant, as he stripped off his shirt and wadded it up to press it against her neck. What was wrong with her neck? She looked past his pale, stricken expression to focus on Angel, who lay there still as a corpse. "Can you hear me? Cordelia?"

It was such a long way to come to say, "Yes," but it was worth it. She saw the stark terror in his eyes melt into relief.

And then the relief transformed to something else as cold and inhumanly angry as anything she'd ever seen in Angelus.

He put her hand up to hold the makeshift bandage in place, and pulled a stake from his coat. He turned to where Angel lay on the scarred kitchen floor.

"No!" she screamed, and used raw animal strength to lunge forward. She fell on top of Angel like a mother protecting her child and waited for Wesley to drive the stake through both their hearts. Angel's open eyes glittered with tears. She watched him focus on her face and saw the agony in him, the desperation, the overwhelming guilt, and she knew he wanted the mercy of that stake but she couldn't let it happen. She felt raw inside, stripped empty.

The Powers had poured that love out of the core of her, and she had nothing left to give.

"Move," Wesley whispered. Rage in the word dripped on her like acid. "Cordelia, move. Don't you dare protect him now."

She turned her head and looked at him. "I won't let you kill him," she said, and her voice was clear and absolutely steady.

He took a step back from her, and she wondered what it was he saw in her face.

"You're insane," he said. "He's done something to you. Don't do this." She knew it was a warning as much as a plea, and she felt her heart break for him, but she had nothing left in her to give. Wesley's wound went too deep, bled too fiercely.

She said, very simply, "I love him. And I'm in love with him."

It went through him like a blunt, bloody knife, and she saw the light in him turn to ash. I'm so sorry, she wanted to say, but there wasn't enough sorrow in the world to fill the emptiness inside him now. And she was empty, too. Nothing left.

He let out a sound as primitive as the rage in his eyes, and lifted the stake over her. She closed her eyes.

She waited for the end, but it didn't come.

When she raised her head to look, he was gone.

"Cordy," Angel whispered. His voice sounded wounded and desperate. She moved off of him and hauled him up to lean against her, both of them still sitting on the cold, blood-spattered floor, and held him. He was completely limp. Only his eyes held any life at all, and that life was suffering.

"Shhh," she murmured, and held him in her arms and rocked him.

"I saw it. I saw it all."

"I know." She put her hand on his cold, cold face.

"What I did -- what we did -- " His voice just faded away. It was a long way back from where Angelus had taken him. But he would heal.

They would heal.

"I'm here," she whispered, and put her burning cheek against his cold one. "I'll stay. I won't leave you."

She'd said that to Angelus, but that had been about the flesh.

This was about the spirit.

Wesley didn't remember walking out. Didn't remember anything until he was standing at his car, staring down at the door and his hand on the handle, and then he thought with a flash of sheer horror, I left her there with him.

But that passed, and there was nothing to take its place.

Someone was watching him in the dark. He looked up and saw Justine leaning against the lamppost a few feet away. If anything she looked worse than before; the bruises had had time to settle in and darken, and she looked sickly yellow in the glow of the sodium light. Her knee was swollen, ballooning against the fabric of her blue jeans. He couldn't imagine how she had managed to walk on it at all.

Funny. He didn't really care.

"Did you kill them?" she asked.

"No," he replied.

"I would have." Her voice was quiet and steady and not quite the same as it had been. No taunting in it now. Maybe she recognized total desperation when she saw it, she'd seen it often enough in her own mirror.

He was drowning in burning waves of rage and betrayal and self-pity, and there was nothing to grab onto. Nothing but Justine, who was a rusted, barbed anchor to carry him straight to the bottom.

"Go away," he said tonelessly.

"Can't walk."

"You walked here."

"Cab," she said. "Followed your car. Not that it matters."

He looked up and saw her staring at him with bright, strange eyes. Was it pity? He didn't want her pity.

What he wanted ... he stopped himself from even thinking it.

"Do you think I'm your new messiah, Justine? I'm not. I'm just another one in a parade of men who find you entirely repulsive." Which he did not, entirely, mean. There was something about her that woke an uncomfortable response in him. She was like Faith, fey and fragile and doomed. "Go home."

She shrugged. "Don't have one."

"Then go to a shelter. I'm not interested."

"I'm not looking for a date," she said. "I need somebody to watch my back while I hunt."

Tempting. So very darkly tempting.

"There's a nest of leeches in the Valley. Word is that they're preying on the local kids. Don't tell me you don't want to drive a stake into a vampire's heart right about now."

She was so eerily accurate it made him want to hit her.

He fished keys from his pocket and unlocked the car, driver's side only. He started the car, stared into space for a few seconds, and saw that Justine was still there in his peripheral vision. Not moving. Just – waiting.

He unlocked the car doors with a flick of the power switch. She opened the back door and tossed in her weapons bag, then slid into the passenger seat.

The stake he'd carried for Angel he laid aside, on the console, within easy reach. Her eyes flicked to it, then to him. The sharp wood could kill a human heart as effectively as a vampire's. He wondered, in an academic way, which of them would pick it up first.

"Where?" he asked.

She smiled tightly. "Just drive. We'll find them."

He put the car in gear and said, "There is no we, Justine."

Justine shrugged and turned to look out the car window at the lights in Cordelia's apartment. "You know, I'm going to kill that bastard someday."

Wesley thought of Cordelia's face, alight with joy as she moved her hips against Angel's hand. All he had to do was touch her and she exploded. Angel had almost killed her, and she'd still chosen him. Still wanted him.

He heard the dull leaden weight in his voice when he asked, "Is this the part where I'm supposed to care?"

She smiled out at the night, and they drove, two enemies together, into the dark.

-- end --

(Did you miss the first part of the story?   Slightly Darker Than Black ...)

Email:  juliefortune@attbi.com