Posted: November 3, 2002
Rating: PG
Email: florrie59@yahoo.com
Content: C/A
Summary: Angel finds his heaven.
Spoilers: Up to ep 4, season 4
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss
Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution: Nothing-Fancy and By Sun and Candlelight only.
Notes: I haven't written anything in what seems a very long time and what I have written now, isn't much. It is just a quick sketch that came through while doing the dishes the other night. Dishes are so inspiring. I hope it is self-explanatory. If not, please ask.
Feedback: Cherished.

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Her breathing came out in long soft sighs. A drawn out moment of tingling anticipation followed before the air around her pillow was drawn quietly through her sleep-limp lips.

Occasionally there was a tiny grunt as she moved to ease her limbs.

Long and soft. He counted them. Eight each minute. Deep, easy sleep.

Did she dream of him? As he was in the has been of her forgotten memories? As she had been? Did she dream of loving a long-dead man and wake in sweaty confusion? Or did she dream of a malformed face and razor sharp fangs and burning flesh and wake in breathless fear?

He wanted to climb inside her slumbering head and into her ceaselessly thinking brain. Would he see the pictures of a lifetime ago? Laughing and scolding, admiring and mocking. He’d take it all over this bleak confusion his mind grappled with, yesterday, today and tomorrow.

He stared at a shape evolving patch of peeled paint on the wooden door. At first it was a shadowy blob, then a glistening tooth in a rosy smile and after a hasty glance over his shoulder at the scutterings of a rodent, back to an anonymous blob. He narrowed his eyes and willed the return of the vaguely Cordelia-like lips.

The mark was better than the stuffed dead polar bear, rearing up behind him as though defending it’s young or loved one. A silent roar from long suppressed depths. Did bears have loved ones?

He knew the feeling. He’d like to do that now. Rear up, charge in, slick drops of web-like saliva sliding off his teeth and drag her away, to his world, to keep her safe. Cordelia would never forgive him, a sure-fire way of destroying whatever hope there might be.

But whatever happened, he wouldn’t be able to give up the Cordelia in him, that was part of him. Not now, not when he had been so close; close enough to touch the pulsing tenderness of the almost of it…. of, of nothing. There had been nothing. She was pulled away, he was sunk to the depths and there never had been anything except some vague allusion in a rushed phone conversation and three months of bitter-sweet hallucinations. Now there might not be anything, ever, and he had no right to force her anywhere. Still, he clung to the almost of the nothing.

She grunted again, a quick catch of breath, a hushed rustle as she rolled… where… towards Connor, away from him? Were his hands entwined in her flesh, melting into her, reaching for her soul? Is that why she protested in her sleep? The tiny whispers of silk on skin. No silk sheets in that bed - but - she, her skin, soft wafting silk in a summery breeze, the smell of fresh morning sun.

When he saw her again, alone in the middle of the of the Hyperion lobby, he thought he had found his very own earth-bound heaven, but now, this was his tormented and twisted heaven, listening at a door, waiting for a breath.

He had nothing left to give, what could he cut away, mutilate, denigrate; what did he have left to swear away on a plaintive “please, if you would make her whole again…”

And what about his young? Hadn’t he already lost his son? Did he really believe that Connor would one day look at his father with eyes brim-full of laughter and love? Too many questions and no answers.

Connor for Cordy… Connor for Cordy. God, no. Connor would, without hesitation; Cordelia could, without knowledge.

Could or would.

He wondered if Connor could detect his presence, did he relish in his father’s pain. His son. Does he reach for Cordelia out of loneliness or revenge? Does he also crave the warmth of flesh and the sweet-sour morning breath on his cheek?

Angel looked out into the shadows slowly forming and sensed the lightening of the horizon, the dusky pink imaginings of a new day. He closed his eyes and willed a kiss onto Cordelia's smooth forehead. Silently he mouthed a “be safe”, ran his forefinger over the smiling lips of the paint peeled door and walked away from his heaven.

Disclaimer: The characters are Joss Whedon's, Mutant Enemy's and probably a heap of other people about whom I know nothing.
I lay no claim to ownership of the characters, I simply like to ask them out to play now and then.