Title: If Only in Dreams
Author: Nobody's Angel
Posted: 08-23-2003
Email: lilyana_vamp@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13
Category: Angst
Content: C/A
Summary: How Angel deals with his pain now that Cordelia isn’t there to help him.
Spoilers:
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution: AO and JF. Anyone else just ask!
Notes: Just me being angsty again. Hope you like!
Feedback: Yes please
Thanks/Dedication:Her fingers twisted themselves around his longer hair and she smiled. “I like this. Gives me more to hold on to.”
He smiled back at her. “I’m glad you like it. I like yours longer too you know.”
“I know, I know,” she laughed and rolled her eyes. Her smile faded and she pulled him back to her, embracing him tightly. “I don’t want this to end Angel. I don’t want to go away again.”
“I know. I don’t either.” His voice was low and painful.
“Then don’t let it end. Don’t wake up Angel, please. Don’t leave me here all alone again.” She was pleading with him, her hazel eyes glassy with unshed tears.
“If there was something I could do, you know I’d—“
“You’d what?” She pulled away from him, the hurt apparent in her eyes. “You’d go back to Sunnydale? Oh wait, you can’t. Sunnydale doesn’t exist anymore. You’d leave me lying in that room, all by myself for eternity? You’d make me ‘live’ for what? So you could say that you were trying to find a way to bring me back? I don’t see any trying here!”
“Cor, I’m still looking,” he tried to reassure her, but the look on her face told him that he wasn’t successful.
“When? When have you been looking? When you’re making a deal with the Devils themselves and running Wolfram and Hart? How could you do that Angel?” Her arms crossed over her chest and her head cocked to one side. It was the stance that always told Angel that his ass was going to be handed to him. “How could you make a deal with them after everything they did to us? They tried to kill us how many times and you just say ‘Sure, I’ll run your evil law firm!’!”
“Cor, it was the only way—“
“Only way to what? ‘Save’ Connor? Oh, so you’re going to try pulling that card on me? Sure, you gave Connor a new life with a new family and no memories of any of us, but did you really do that just for him?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, his own voice rising slightly.
“Come on Angel, I may be in a coma, but I’m not dead. I know as well as you do that you wiped his memory so that you didn’t have to be reminded of what happened. And since no one else conveniently remembers, the sorrow of it is all yours to bear. That’s what you always want, isn’t it Angel? You don’t want anyone else to sympathize with you, to be able to help you through your broodiness, so with me unable to light a fire under your ass, you wiped everyone else’s memories too. Typical.” She rolled her eyes and glared at him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied and glared back at her.
“You’re a horrible liar in your dreams Angel. You’re the one who’s dreaming me here, I can tell when you’re trying to pull something over on me,” she pointed out smugly.
“I made the deal with Wolfram and Hart to try and save you too.”
“Oh, and see how well that’s worked! I’m still lying in a cold, sterile room with no friends, no one to visit me, has anyone even mentioned me?? And dead to the world, pun definitely intended! How can you trust them Angel? How do you know that they aren’t the cause of me still being in a coma?”
“Why…what…”
“Think about it Angel! Just try and think through all of that extra hair gel for one damn minute!” She walked back over to him and held his face between her hands, the softness of the action a complete contradiction to her tone of voice. “All that time when Jasmine was still a threat, did I need tubes and IVs to keep me alive? Did I need Life Support to keep my lungs working? Did I need medication to keep my heart beating?”
“Cor, they said that—“
“I don’t give a crap what they said! They’re Wolfram and Hart! They can’t be trusted! You used to know that Angel! You also said that you’d protect me!”
“I am protecting you Cordy. I’m protecting you the only way I know how now.”
“Then figure out another way because putting me at Wolfram and Hart’s mercy is not protecting me. Who knows what experiments they’re performing on my body!” She shuddered at the thought and then looked into his eyes.
Angel was momentarily lost in the deep hazel pools staring back at him. He remembered how those eyes used to see through to his soul. He missed her smile and her laugh, and of all things, the ways that she used to get under his skin. Her tactlessness. Her sporadic reversions to shallowness. He missed his Cordelia.
And then she was gone. Angel rolled over on the bed and looked at the empty pillow, the familiar lump in his throat. He was alone again, and he felt even more alone than he had before he had gone to sleep. Every day it was the same: he’d work his ass off, losing himself in his work. The others would worry about him and he’d brush them off, act like he didn’t care. He couldn’t care because if he cared, then he’d hurt. When work was through though, it all changed. He couldn’t hide from his pain when he was alone. It all rushed back at him when he sat in the dark room by himself.
It had been so long since he had been to visit her. The pain was worse when he saw her lying on the bed. He couldn’t feel that pain because he didn’t have her to make it better. So he avoided her. He avoided facing the pain, but it still didn’t go away. He couldn’t run away from the pain when he was alone.
And he couldn’t run away from her when he dreamed. Every time his eyes closed, she was there waiting for him. And it was always the same. Things were great in the beginning. They were friends again, and then they were more. There were the sly touches and the excuses to press against each other. And then there were the kisses.
He closed his eyes, willing the kisses to be real. They had never once shared a real kiss together. He had avoided that until it was too late, too afraid that he’d end up hurting her. He didn’t want to hurt her. ”Great job on that front,” he told himself sarcastically.
After the kisses always came the pain. He always saw the betrayal in her eyes. He had betrayed her in so many ways and he was beginning to think there was no way to ever make things right with her. Time was running out.
Time.
Time was such a tiny word, yet it held so much power over him. Time was his fiercest enemy. Time was what he endured so much of in his immortal life. Time was what had brought him so close to his Seer and time ripped her away from him. And now time was rapidly slipping away, possibly faster than he stood a chance against. What if time disappeared, taking her with it forever?
Angel stood and shook the sleepiness away. He walked to his closet and pulled out his clothes, pulling them on carelessly. It was time to get moving. It was time to put his mask of stone on again. It was time for work.
A small smile crossed his lips as he looked back at the bed. No matter how empty the day was he knew what he could look forward to that night. He’d come back and it’d be time for them again. It would be time for him to be kept company by his pain. It would be time for him to brood. It would be time for him to see her, touch her, taste her again, if only in dreams.End.