The Second Coming
by WesleysGirl and Wolfling
Part 1
Eternal bliss didn't last as long as it used to.
That was the one thought that floated through Doyle's mind as his being was suddenly torn from the peace and contentment that he had floated in for a timeless instant.
He was caught in a sickening dizzying whirl, feeling simultaneously like he was being ripped apart and pressed together into a smaller and smaller space, until suddenly he was shoved into a... container that was impossibly small and confined.
Gradually he became aware of old but familiar sensations: heart beating, air moving in and out of lungs, the heavy feel of gravity pulling new-found limbs down against the soft surface beneath his body.
He was solid again. Alive.
He realized that he could hear voices close by, one familiar and one... not.
"There," the unfamiliar voice said, and Doyle would have flinched from the oily, sibilant sound if he had been able to move. "We have fulfilled our part of the bargain. The half-breed is returned. Now you must honour your end."
"Is he --? He's not conscious." That voice Doyle knew almost as well as his own and even in his current state he was able to put a name to it.
Angel...
"Coming back to life is not an easy thing," the first voice replied. "He will wake in time."
"But he's going to be okay, right?" Angel asked in such a hopeful, hesitant voice that Doyle wanted to reassure him immediately, but he couldn't move, or speak or open his eyes. All he could do was lie there and listen.
"He may be changed by the ordeal he has gone through, but he will recover. Time grows short. We must go."
"I know," Angel replied and the soft defeat that voice held sent a frisson of alarm down Doyle's spine. "Just -- I need a moment to say goodbye."
That alarmed Doyle even more, an alarm that was quickly building into panic as he felt cool fingers touch his cheek gently. "I'm sorry, Doyle," Angel murmured to him in a soft voice. "I never meant for you to suffer in my place. If I'd known what was happening, I never would have waited this long. But it's fixed -- you're back where you belong and I'm... I'm getting what I deserve. Take care of Cordy -- I know she'll take care of you. Don't... don't hate me too much, okay?"
Doyle by this time was struggling for all he was worth to speak, to move, to open his eyes -- to communicate with Angel in some way. What he was hearing was wrong, and he knew with an uncanny certainty that it was about to get even wronger if he couldn't stop it.
But try as he might, he was unable to so much as twitch an eyelash as Angel's lips pressed against his own lax, unprotesting mouth.
"All right," Angel said. "I'm ready."
Doyle didn't hear anything else, but knew the exact moment when they disappeared, leaving him alone to be dragged down into the darkness of his mind.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Wesley was sitting in front of the computer when Cordelia opened the door, and he looked at her reprovingly as she came into the office.
"You're late," he said, making a show of checking his watch. "It's after eleven."
"Yeah, well, I had an audition." Cordelia set her bag down on one of the chairs and sighed. "And before you ask how it went -- which I know you were going to do, right? -- it didn't. They took one look at me and then it was all 'you don't project the image we're looking for.' It was a commercial for breath mints, for crying out loud. What kind of image are they looking for that I don't project?"
Wesley had already gone back to typing at the computer. "Someone with bad breath?" he suggested. "You should be flattered. And you could let us know if you're going to be late."
"Because we have so many clients, you mean? In case you'd forgotten, I'm the early warning system. It's not like something exciting's going to happen without me knowing about it. And I did tell Angel that I wasn't going to be in on time. Where is Mr. Tall Dark and Broody, anyway?"
"I haven't seen him."
"Oh, right, so you're reading me the riot act for being late when the boss hasn't even bothered to drag his sorry ass out of bed yet? I'm gonna go down there and give him a piece of my mind." And ignoring Wesley's half-hearted protest, she stomped down the stairs to Angel's apartment.
There was a light on in the kitchen area, and the refrigerator was making a humming, gurgling sound, but otherwise the apartment was very quiet. It was so still and peaceful that Cordelia felt her irritation fade somewhat. Was Angel even home? He was probably still in bed. Quietly, she crept through the apartment to the doorway of his bedroom and peeked in.
There was one small light on in the corner, and the slightly yellowed cast of the bulb fell across the body lying on the bed. Which clearly wasn't Angel's, as the man lying on the bed was too short and too slight. He had one arm thrown up across his face, but something about the curve of the shoulder -- the hair, dark and sticking up in haphazard spikes -- was familiar. Cordelia moved silently over beside the bed and gently took the man's sleeve between her fingers, using it to slide his arm away from his face so that she could see who on earth was lying on Angel's bed.
"Oh my god." Her fingers flew to cover her mouth in utter shock. Was this real? She reached out again and shook Doyle's upper arm gently. He was limp and warm and breathing. He was real. "Doyle? Doyle? Come on, wake up."
He groaned and tried to roll away from her grip, then confused green eyes blinked dazedly up at her. "Cor-- Cordelia?"
His voice was just as dazed as his expression, but it was the sweetest thing she'd ever heard.
"Oh my god," she said again. "It's really you. Are you okay? How did you get here? Where's Angel, and why the hell didn't he call me when you..."
She trailed off as Doyle continued to stare at her, heartbreaking confusion clear on his face. "Cordelia?" he repeated, reaching out a trembling hand to touch her cheek.
Cordy grabbed Doyle's hand and held it, seeking a connection with him. "It's me, Doyle. It's okay. Everything's gonna be okay." She stroked his hair gently with her free hand, trying to soothe him. "Are you hurt?"
He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. "Was pulled... dark, everything was dark. Couldn't move... couldn't scream..." He swallowed hard, gripping her hand tightly, and Cordelia could sense the panic just underneath the surface.
"It's okay," she repeated. "Just... take some deep breaths. It's gonna be fine." She squeezed his hand back to reassure him that she wasn't going anywhere. Her fingers smoothed Doyle's brow, then traveled down the side of his face to stroke his cheek. He was clearly on the edge of freaking out, and she didn't know what she'd do if he did.
But he seemed to calm under her touch, his breathing slowing to almost normal, his grip on her hand relaxing from white knuckled. "Thanks," he said, and his voice was stronger and his gaze, when he opened his eyes again he was just more... there.
Cordelia smiled encouragingly at him. She had a dozen questions crowding her brain as they waited impatiently for their turn to be asked. Doyle's eyes were locked on hers, and she'd forgotten how very green they were, and oh god, she was staring at him. Flustered, she dropped her eyes to their linked hands. "Are you hurt?" she asked again.
Slowly, carefully, Doyle pulled himself into a sitting position, keeping hold of Cordelia's hand the entire time. "Everything seems to be in working order."
"Good." Her sense of control slowly returning, Cordy looked around the room. "Where's Angel?"
"You're asking me?"
Cordelia focused on Doyle again. "Doesn't he know you're back? I mean, I just figured... Well, we've got to find him and tell him." Her hand tightened on his for a moment. "You're really here."
"Yeah. Though where I was before..." Doyle's voice trailed off and his eyes got distant; Cordelia could almost see his thoughts drifting off.
"Doyle!" she said sharply. "C'mon, stay with me here." She was finally realizing how out of it he was. It was finally beginning to sink in that he'd been dead and somewhere else. Her voice softened. "Where were you?"
His gaze focused back on her again, and she could almost feel his attention coming back to her and the moment. "I... I think I was in heaven." The corners of his mouth curled up in a heartbreakingly familiar sardonic smile. "Hard to believe they'd take someone like me, huh?"
"No, not so hard to believe," she said softly. "You did that hero thing, didn't you?" She could still imagine the last few moments of his life, in painful detail. "Do you remember?"
Doyle nodded, expression turning a bit more serious. "Yeah. It's not the kind of thing that's easy to forget."
Cordelia hesitated. Did he know about her having the visions? She'd never been sure whether or not he'd passed them on to her deliberately. If he had, then she had every right to give him hell for it. But if it had been an accident -- and god knew she wanted to believe that his kiss had meant something more than just some quirky vision-transfer -- then she needed to break it to him gently. "Do you... do you remember kissing me?"
The smile was back, even wider than ever. "That's not the kind of thing you forget either."
Unbelievably, she could feel herself blushing. And with all the memories that brought to the surface, Cordy decided that even if he didn't know about the visions, she wasn't ready to tell him. Not yet. "We should go tell Wesley that you're here -- maybe he can help us track down Angel. He's not gonna believe you're back! Oh, Doyle, I... we really missed you."
"Angel..." Doyle frowned and he shook his head in frustration. "There's something... I know something, but I just can't..."
"Hey, it's okay," Cordelia said, stroking the back of his hand. "I'm sure everything will come back to you. Let me go upstairs and get Wesley. Okay?"
Once again her touch seemed to reassure him. "Okay," he said, relaxing back against the pillows again and releasing her hand with obvious reluctance. There was a pause and then he frowned again. "Who's Wesley?"
"Oh -- he kind of works here now. He's that British guy that was Buffy's Watcher in Sunnydale -- for a little while, after Giles got fired -- I told you about him, didn't I? He's even more annoying than you, if that's possible, but he's good with the books." Cordelia stood up and gave Doyle a stern look. "Stay right here. I'll be back in a minute."
She went up the stairs slowly, feeling a little bit as if the tilt-a-whirl that was her life had spun out of control once again. Just when she and Angel had been able to get some perspective on Doyle's death, just when she thought she'd be able to move on, here he was back again. Had she done something really, really awful in a previous incarnation to deserve this swirling mass of chaos?
Wesley glanced up from the book he was reading when she came in and immediately set it aside with a frown. "What's wrong?"
Cordelia didn't know how to say it with any kind of subtlety, and that wasn't her style anyway. "Doyle's downstairs."
Wesley blinked at her. "Doyle," he repeated slowly, as if testing the feel of the name on his tongue, "is downstairs. Doyle, your former colleague. The one who's dead?"
"Uh-huh. I went downstairs to yell at Angel, and there's Doyle lying on his bed. He's all confused -- and he says he was in heaven -- and I don't know where Angel is -- and Wesley, what the hell is going on?" Cordelia could hear her voice rising to a near-wail and she had absolutely no way to stop herself.
"Cordelia..." Wesley got to his feet and quickly moved to her side, reaching out and resting his hands on her shoulders. "We'll sort it out, all right? Take a deep breath and try to calm down."
"Yeah... okay," she said, feeling herself trembling in delayed reaction. It wasn't every day that she found dead -- well, previously dead -- friends in her employer's bed. Thank god. She didn't think she could take many days like this one. "We need to find Angel. And can you come back downstairs with me? 'Cause if I go back down there by myself and Doyle's not there, I think I'm gonna totally lose it."
"Of course," Wesley agreed instantly. Cordelia suspected there was certain amount of humoring happening, but there was also genuine worry as well.
"How could this happen? How could he just... come back?" She started slowly, almost reluctantly, back toward the stairs.
Only to stop when she saw Doyle standing at the top of them. He was white as a sheet, leaning against the wall with one hand, the other grasping a piece of paper. "It was Angel. He sold his soul for me."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Doyle:
I hope you can forgive me for not acting sooner. If I'd known, I would've gotten you out right away, wouldn't have let you take my punishment in the first place.
And it was my punishment -- don't ever think otherwise. Don't think for a second that you deserved to be there. You might have made mistakes, but you're good, Doyle, really. You deserve good things, deserve to be in a good place.
Me, I'm not good. I deserve... well, you got a taste of what I deserve. God, I can't tell you how sorry I am for that -- there's no words, you know?
But it's all taken care of now. You're back and I'm... where I belong.
I know how you must be feeling, but it'll get better. Just take it slow and things will start making sense. Cordelia will do everything she can to help, I'm sure.
You've always been a good friend, Doyle. I'm sorry what that friendship brought you to. I always knew that I was bound for Hell again; I never meant for a friend to be condemned to it in my place.
I know you and Cordy will take care of each other, and that you'll be okay. That makes it easier to face where I'm going.
- Angel
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Half an hour later, Doyle was still trying desperately to pull himself together as they all sat around Angel's kitchen table figuring out what to do next.
He was still reeling from just being alive, having a body again. Everything was bright and sharp and loud, every sense seemed to be set on high. It left him feeling simultaneously exposed and closed in by the limits of his flesh and senses.
It was difficult to concentrate, to focus on any one thing for any length of time. His attention kept wandering, getting caught by the smallest, most inconsequential of things: the way the light glinted off the fall of Cordelia's hair as she moved her head, the feel of the warm wood of the table under his hands, the sound of the kettle boiling as the stranger -- Wesley, he remembered -- made some tea.
He felt like he was adrift in a sea of random stimuli and desperately he tried to hold onto the important thing: Angel. Angel was gone. Angel was an idiot, but one whose current idiocy had been a misguided attempt at rescuing Doyle from what the vampire had thought was a fate worse than... well, just death.
They had to get Angel back. Doyle doggedly held onto that one truth in the chaos that his reality was currently made of.
"How could he do this?" Cordelia asked, not for the first time. "I mean, why would he get it into his head that Doyle was in hell?" She was pacing the room again, back and forth in a way that was making Doyle rather dizzy.
"That's a good question, of course," agreed Wesley. "It's hardly the sort of thing he would have come up with on his own, out of the blue -- I have to wonder if someone might have approached him."
"The Powers That Be?" said Cordelia, doubt evident in her voice. "But Doyle wasn't in hell. Why would they tell Angel that he was?" She looked over at Doyle, who was staring at his hands on the table. "Doyle? What do you think?"
Doyle started at the sound of his name, silently cursing himself for having drifted off again, despite his best efforts to pay attention. "I..." He looked up at Cordelia, fighting the tendency to get lost in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Princess, I can't... What do I think about what?"
Cordelia took a mug of tea from Wesley, smiling her thanks at him, and stepped closer to Doyle in an obvious attempt to keep his attention. She put the cup down on the table in front of him and deliberately wrapped his hands around the mug. "About any of this. Why would someone tell Angel that you were in hell when you weren't?"
"Simple," he replied distractedly, the words coming in the same slow pace that his thoughts seemed to be stuck in whenever he tried to concentrate it. "Because whoever it was wanted Angel to sacrifice himself. It was a scam and Angel fell for it." The warmth of the mug felt good in his palms; Cordelia's hands against his own felt even better. The touch helped ground him, and he turned one hand to intertwine his fingers with hers, holding onto the mug with the other.
"But then why bring you back at all? Why not just tell him they were going to make the switch, and then leave you where you were and take him to... wherever?" Cordelia looked angry, and then the expression on her face crumpled into misery. "Do you really think he's in hell?"
Memories of Angel saying goodbye and another voice that had clung to his hearing like an oil slick teased the edge of Doyle's mind, substantial as smoke. "Yeah, I do," he said softly.
After a moment's silence, Wesley offered with diffidence, "As for why they -- whoever they are -- brought Doyle back, perhaps Angel refused to go along without proof that Doyle had been... released?"
Cordelia stared down at her fingers, which were still linked with Doyle's. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you're right." She was clearly responding to Wesley and not Doyle.
"We have to get him back," Doyle murmured. Saying the words seemed to help him focus, and the fog in his mind cleared enough for him to think of something he could do. "I need to see the Oracles." He stood and would've gone right then if Cordelia's grip on his hand didn't hold him back.
"Yeah, that's a great idea for a guy who can't follow a conversation for more than twelve seconds at a time," she said. Her voice softened at the expression on Doyle's face. "You're right -- we're gonna get him back. But you aren't doing this alone."
He looked down at their joined hands. "No, not alone," he murmured, the words a mantra to help focus his thoughts. Shaking himself, he raised his gaze to meet Cordelia's. "We need to see the Oracles," he repeated, modifying the statement to include her.
"Okay," she said, tugging on his hand so that he'd sit back down. "But first, drink your tea. And tell me about the Oracles -- I want to know what to expect." She glanced up at Wesley in case he had something to share, but Wesley just motioned at Doyle in a gesture that encouraged the other man to speak.
Oracles. Right. Forcing himself to concentrate, he began to relate what he knew. "They speak for the Powers, and never give a real straight answer. They don't like to be bothered with things they consider beneath them -- which is pretty much everything. And they can be right cranky when they get annoyed."
"It's probably safe to assume that they're not just gonna hand him back over to us," Cordelia said thoughtfully. "They didn't before, when Angel went to see them after you..."
"When Angel did what?" Doyle asked, eyes wide. "Angel went to the Oracles about me?"
Cordelia sighed. "Of course he did. It's not like there was anything else that might have worked. But they... they said something about you having to die so that Angel could keep saving people. They wouldn't bring you back." She looked at Wesley again. "Wes, is there any point in going to see them now? I mean, won't they just tell us to go to heh -- " She cut herself off and finished lamely, "To get lost?"
Wesley put his own mug of tea down on the counter top and leaned back. "Perhaps. On the other hand, even if they won't bring Angel back, they might be able to tell you something useful. Doyle, since the Oracles are the voice, so to speak, of the Powers That Be, they must at times simply provide information, mustn't they?"
"Yeah. That's why so many people go to them. Which is why they're so freaking cranky all the time -- because people keep bothering them with 'petty' stuff."
"This isn't petty!" Cordelia protested loudly. "This is... oh. You weren't talking about us, were you. Is there something we can do so they aren't all pissed off at us before we even get a chance to see them?"
"Most people bring a gift of some kind." Doyle shrugged. "Not that it seems to do much good. But they'll answer us." He stared at the mug of tea, that had somehow ended up back in his hand. "They damned well owe me that much at least."
"Yeah, they owe me big time, too," Cordelia said darkly. Her eyes fell on Angel's letter again. "God, I can't believe he fell for something like this! How could he be so stupid?"
Wesley looked at her reproachfully. "Cordelia, I'm sure whoever it was was very convincing. Can you honestly say that if you had been approached and told that Doyle was in Hell, suffering eternal torment, that you wouldn't have wanted to do something to save him?"
She glared at Wesley, eyes flashing. "No! I mean, yeah, I would have tried to save him! But... I just don't know how all this happened."
"How this all happened?" Doyle repeated. "It's simple -- someone told Angel it was all his fault and he believed it. That's not exactly out of character. The big moron."
Cordelia turned her glare on Doyle. "I know that. I just can't believe he didn't come to us --" She gestured between herself and Wesley for clarification. "To tell us what was going on. He must have known that we would have made him figure out some other way to get you back..."
Wesley coughed politely. "That quite probably is the reason he kept it a secret. If he believed sacrificing himself was the only way to rescue Doyle, he wouldn't want to deal with any arguments."
Doyle nodded. "Like I said -- the big moron."
"Okay, so we're all on the same page, right? Angel's a moron, and we're gonna get him back." Cordelia looked at Doyle a bit doubtfully. "Are you sure you're ready for this? I mean, up until a couple of hours ago you were dead."
"I remember. Brain's still a little... scattered," Doyle admitted, "but I'll manage. Angel needs us." Glancing down at Cordelia's and his still clasped hands, he added, "Having you near seems to help me focus."
She squeezed his hand. "You'll be fine. So -- where do we go?"
"The entrance to their dimension is under the post office." He looked at Cordelia. "Does that mean we go now?"
"Unless there's something else I need to know, I'm thinking the sooner the better," she replied. "Because doesn't time in hell pass a lot more quickly than it does here?"
"Not just in hell," Doyle said, thinking of what had felt like a lifetime that had passed since he'd died. He suddenly realized he had no idea how long it had actually been. Long enough for someone new to become a part of Angel Investigations, he thought, looking at Wesley, but short enough that Cordelia still looked the same as his memories.
"In... in heaven, too?" she asked, hesitantly. "What was it like?"
Doyle thought about it, trying to come up with the words to describe the indescribable. "It was... perfection. Love and light and acceptance and... It all sounds a lot more trite than it was."
"Sounds like a commercial for The Church of Latter Day Saints," Cordelia agreed. "But if you had to be dead, at least you were somewhere pretty, right? Which is definitely not where Angel is, so I think it's time we stopped with the avoidance and got down to business."
"Right." Once again, Doyle climbed to his feet, then hesitated as he caught sight of the mug still sitting on the table. "Uh, do I still have to finish my tea first?"
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The underground chamber was cool and dim and smelled like somebody'd taken a pee up against the wall. Great. The Powers-That-Be couldn't afford a cleaning service? On the other hand, they probably didn't deal much with money, but still -- a little magical wave of one hand, and the place would be all roses and sunshine, right?
The heavy pendant that they'd brought as an offering swung against Cordelia's breasts as she moved. Wesley had tried to insist that they find something else to bring -- had said something about this pendant being some kind of artifact, Etruscan bicon-thingee -- but she and Doyle had pretty much ignored him. It wasn't like Angel could complain, assuming they managed to rescue him, and if they didn't -- well, then he wouldn't be needing some really ugly piece of jewelry that he'd jammed into a kitchen drawer where normal people would have kept forks and spatulas.
Cordelia took a deep breath and looked around again. There was an arch in one wall, with some words carved into it that she couldn't read, and the place felt... heavy. Like all the weight of L.A. was pressing down directly over this spot, making it hard to breathe. And okay, not the best thing to think about, because as soon as she did she started feeling kind of claustrophobic.
"Okay, so what next?" she whispered to Doyle.
"Now we knock," he told her with his old familiar smile, pulling out the container of herbs he'd brought with him and dumping them in the urn. "We beseech access to the knowing ones," he murmured over them, then lit them on fire.
Doyle stepped back as they burned, seeming to automatically reach for Cordelia's hand again.
Cordelia grabbed onto Doyle as the space under the arch suddenly filled with light, as if someone had flipped a switch. He motioned with his hand, so she let him lead her into the light.
In a flash they were somewhere else entirely -- a chamber room that glowed white, cold, hard. Two -- people? -- a man and a woman, were standing in front of them. They seemed mostly human, other than looking like they'd missed out on the Surgeon General's announcement about too much sun causing skin cancer. They were shiny and glittery like gold.
"You are lower beings," the man said. "You are not welcome here."
"I'm not welcome a lot of places," Doyle shot right back, "but that's never stopped me before."
The man frowned forbiddingly. "Insolence will not be tolerated."
"He's not being... well, maybe he is." Cordelia said quickly, trying to regain control of the situation even though she didn't think they'd ever actually had control. She could just picture what might happen if Doyle pissed the Oracles off, and she didn't like it. "But... look, we brought you a present!"
She took the chain from around her neck and held the pendant out tentatively.
The woman reached for it, but stopped in mid-reach, frowning suddenly at Doyle. "This is wrong. You should not be here."
"Yeah, we got that the first time -- lower beings, not welcome. Can we move past that, please?"
She shook her head. "No. You should not be here, on this plane of existence. You had Ascended."
Cordelia threw her hands up in the air, realized that this might be taken as a threat, and brought them cautiously back down to her sides. "Shouldn't you guys know all this? I mean, aren't you supposed to speak for the Powers? Please tell me you know why we're here."
The woman held her hand out, and the pendant flew from Cordelia's grasp into her own. "You seek the warrior."
"Yes," Doyle said. "Can you tell us where he is?"
The woman still seemed nonplused by Doyle's presence as she answered. "You already know that."
"Okay, so he's in Hell," said Cordelia. "We need to get him back. Heck, the Powers need him back, don't they?"
"If he is gone from this plane, he is released from his fealty," the man replied. "He no longer serves the Powers-That-Be. He is no longer our concern."
"So what about me, then? Do I still serve the Powers?" Cordelia knew her eyes were flashing with anger, and was beyond the ability to restrain herself.
"The Seer's gift is not dependent on the Champion's presence," the woman answered calmly.
Doyle's reaction was anything but calm. "Seer?!" He turned to search Cordelia's face. "You're... the visions...?"
Cordelia felt her face flush. Crap. Maybe she should have said something earlier, because now was not the time to get into this. Already being pissed off was not conducive with having a conversation that wouldn't leave Doyle wracked with guilt. "Yeah, okay?" she said to him, and then turned her attention back to the Oracles. "So you're telling me I'm stuck with the visions even though Angel's not around to do anything about them? How is that fair?"
The man regarded her coldly. "The tasks are sent. How you undertake them is not our concern."
"Back up a moment here," Doyle said, stepping forward to face the Oracles toe to toe, bristling. "I understand why I got the visions -- it was a fitting consequence for what I did. But Cordelia doesn't deserve the kind of torture the visions give. Why her?"
"We were not the ones who gave her the gift," the woman told him, with a touch of compassion.
"Doyle, would you just shut up a minute?" Cordelia said. "Right now we need to figure out how to get Angel back. We can deal with the whole vision thing later."
But Doyle was already following the Oracle's statement. "If they didn't, then..." he trailed off, eyes widening in horror as he turned to stare at Cordelia. "Me? I gave them to you?"
"Yeah, right along with that kiss you're so fond of remembering," she snapped. "But again, not why we're here."
The shell-shocked look on Doyle's face told her that it wasn't going to be that easy to push this subject aside. "Cordy, I-- I never meant--"
She hadn't known, not for sure, but it was pretty clear now. "Doyle, focus. Come on." Remembering what he had said before, she stepped forward so that she could take his hand. Looked at the woman, who seemed a bit more approachable (and how often in her life had Cordelia thought that about another woman?) and asked, "Can you tell us how to get Angel back?"
The woman looked at them for a minute before answering. "We cannot interfere in a bargain struck and fairly carried out. The Champion made his choice. It cannot be unmade."
"Can't be unmade, can't be unmade," Cordelia repeated under her breath. There was something there, she just knew it. Her hand squeezed tighter on Doyle's as she realized what wasn't being said. "We can't unmake the bargain Angel made. But we can strike a new one." She glanced at Doyle to see his reaction.
Doyle looked grim and determined and there was something about his eyes that set warning bells off in Cordy's mind; she made a mental note to remind him as often as possible that the object was to get Angel back without losing anyone else. But then Doyle smiled just a little, challengingly. "We'll make them an offer they can't refuse, Princess."
Cordelia turned back to the Oracles, and addressed both of them. "So if it wasn't the Powers That Be that Angel made his bargain with -- who was it?"
"That is not our concern," the man said coldly. "It is not our place to become involved in the petty problems of lower beings."
"You've probably managed to screw with us enough for one lifetime, anyway," Cordelia said bitterly. Not their place? What did they think they'd been doing all this time, then? "Come on, Doyle, they're not gonna help. Let's get out of here."
Doyle was looking at the Oracles. "You're right, Cordy," he said suddenly. "They can't help. They didn't see this coming, didn't know I was back, didn't know Angel was gone. They're as clueless as we are." He turned to her. "Yeah, let's get out of here. We'll find Angel another way."
Cordelia let Doyle lead her out through the archway. There was a flash of light, and when she turned back around the room they'd been in was gone. The urn still held a few smoldering ashes and now the chamber smelled more like burnt grass than urine, which was definitely a big improvement.
"I can't believe we came all the way down here so they could tell us a big fat nothing!" she complained. "'Speak for the Powers, my ass."
"At least we know for sure it wasn't the Powers," Doyle replied, then glanced sideways at her. "And some of us found out other information that we didn't know."
"Yeah," she said awkwardly. Crap. Until he'd reacted with such surprize, she hadn't been sure that he hadn't given her the visions deliberately. Now that she knew he hadn't had a clue, she wished there had been a way to break it to him more gently. He'd probably been given enough to deal with in the past few hours without throwing a bunch of extra guilt into the mix. "I guess... I mean, from what we can figure, when you kissed me... that's when it happened."
"Fuck." He stopped and turned to face her, green eyes full of anguish. "I-- I didn't know. I never would have... Christ, Cordelia, I'm sorry."
"I know," Cordelia said. "I mean, I didn't. But I do now. It wasn't your fault." She moved over to the urn and ran her fingertips over its edge, looking for anything to distract her from the expression on his face. It was too painful to see the look in his eyes.
"You must hate my guts." Doyle sounded like the comment could be applied to himself as well.
"Actually, no," she said. She still couldn't look at him, but she could talk. She could always talk. "For a while, I kind of did. I thought you'd done it on purpose, you know? Which I could understand, because Angel needed the visions. But then I started to wonder if maybe it was an accident. And geez, Doyle, we missed you so much..."
"Yeah, I'm sure. Every time you got a screaming migraine with Technicolor pictures."
"No," said Cordelia sharply. God, what could she say so that he would understand? She didn't have the patience for this kind of coddling. "Damn it, Doyle, you don't know what it was like -- Angel wouldn't talk to me, and I didn't have anyone else because you were dead. You have no idea..."
The sharp, bitter laughter startled Cordelia. "Don't know what it's like? Believe me, Princess, if anyone knows, it's me."
"What? What the hell are you talking about?" Okay, she was officially confused now. Unless... "Oh! Oh my god, Doyle, how is it possible for you to be so completely dense? I wasn't talking about the visions!"
Now Doyle was just as confused. "You're not?"
"No, stupid! I was talking about you being dead. And..." She was running out of steam fast. "And me."
"Oh," Doyle said faintly.
"I really missed you," Cordelia said, and she couldn't keep the misery from creeping into her voice, even though she knew it would make her sound like a little girl.
She started at the hand that came down on her shoulder, and then she was being turned and pulled into Doyle's embrace. "I'm sorry," he murmured against her hair.
Her arms came up automatically and tightened around him. Her chin was tucked over his shoulder, which was warm and solid. She wanted to say something, anything, but for once words eluded her and she couldn't do anything but nod against him in some kind of agreement. The back of her throat ached and her eyes prickled with unshed tears. "I know," she managed to say finally, and her voice broke. "Me, too."
"I didn't want to leave you," Doyle told her, his own voice thick with emotion. "But I couldn't let Angel..."
She nodded again. "I know." She thought that if he didn't say anything else nice and comforting she could probably keep from crying.
He tightened his embrace, his hands stroking her back soothingly. "I'm here now."
Cordelia shifted her grip so that she could bury her face in Doyle's neck as the tears welled up and spilled over, trembling in her attempt to hold the sobs in. He was really here and he was holding her. It felt better than she could have possibly imagined, so why was she crying? "I don't..." but she couldn't finish, because as soon as she opened her mouth to let the words out, the sobs came too.
"Hey..." Doyle hugged her tight, holding her while she cried.
She abandoned herself to it for a few moments, and then clamped down -- this was ridiculous. She would not cry over nothing. Well, not nothing, but... As the sobs tapered off, she managed to talk between them. "I am... not... crying," she said indignantly. She pushed far enough away from Doyle to look at him, and then immediately threw herself back into his arms as the tears started again.
"Of course you're not," Doyle agreed, even as comforted her.
His embrace was strong and protective, but after a few more minutes Cordelia's chest and throat started to hurt. Enough. She pulled back, did her best to glare at him, and swiped at her eyes with her hands to remove the worst of the evidence.
"That... wasn't... crying." It would have been more convincing, she thought, if her breath hadn't hitched.
He pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her. He was watching her, his expression made up of equal parts concern and something that looked like wonder. "No one's... I mean, I never thought that someone would... not cry over me."
"Definitely... not crying," she repeated, and dabbed at her face with the square of cotton. She wasn't going to blow her nose in the thing -- that was just too disgusting to contemplate. Equally disgusting was how she must look now -- she was glad there wasn't a mirror around, because she knew what she looked like after a crying jag, and it wasn't pretty. "Don't start thinking everything's about you," she said. "I mean, I was... not crying... about me, too, you know."
"Yeah." He grimaced. "The visions. God, Princess, I don't know if I can ever say I'm sorry enough."
"You probably can't," Cordelia said flatly. "But since it's going to get old real fast, I think we should move on. I don't want to keep listening to you apologize for the next... however long."
"I'm --" Doyle began, but cut himself off. "Right." His eyes though were sad and Cordelia knew he was going to continue blaming himself.
Time for a change of subject. "Can we please get out of here?" she asked. "This place really stinks."
Doyle looked away, staring at the alcove that had led to the Oracles. "Yeah," he said with evident distaste. "It does."
"So what do we do next?" Cordelia stuffed Doyle's damp handkerchief into her pocket as they started back up the stairs to the post office. "How do we find Angel if the Powers That Be won't help?"
"We go through all of Angel's things, see if we can find a clue of who, or what, we're dealing with."
She shook her head. "Oh god, the last thing I want to do is go through Angel's stuff. I don't even wanna think about what he's got stashed around that apartment." She brightened. "Maybe we can get Wesley to do it."
"Yeah, Wesley... You've known him for a while?" Doyle asked almost too casually, glancing sideways at her.
"Since Sunnydale. He used to be a Watcher, but he got fired, and he just kind of showed up on our doorstep one day, a little while after you... you know. He didn't have any money and he's really good with the research, so Angel asked him if he wanted a job."
"So you're good friends?"
Cordelia shrugged. "I guess. I mean, yeah, he's a good guy. Annoying most of the time, but he means well. I trust him."
Doyle nodded absently. "That's good -- that you and Angel found someone to work with, that you can trust."
"Well, he's no you. I mean, tall! And human -- can't forget that." She gave him a quizzical look. "Why all the interest in Wesley?"
He shrugged. "Just curious about my replacement."
"He's not your -- " Cordelia cut herself off. "Well, I suppose he is, huh?" She reached out and pulled on his sleeve so that he'd stop walking and look at her. "Hey..."
He turned to face her, but his gaze didn't quite meet her own eyes.
Oh. She'd hurt him, and wasn't that just like her to say whatever came into her head without thinking about how it would sound. Most of the time the tendency served her well, but every once in a while she regretted it. This was one of those times.
Cordelia cupped Doyle's face in her hand, his chin against her palm and her fingers curled against his cheek. When his eyes met hers they were pain-filled, bleak, beyond desperate. "Hey," she said again, more softly this time. "Don't listen to me, okay? I didn't mean it like that."
Doyle shook his head. "You've moved on, I understand, really. And I can't blame you for preferring someone who's... well, human."
"Preferring... oh, my god!" Cordelia's hand flew up to cover her mouth, and she giggled. "Me and Wesley?"
"You mean you're not...?" Doyle asked hesitantly.
"Not! So not. Wesley's a great guy, but... no."
"You used to say that about me, 'cept maybe the great guy part."
"Well, it's not like there was time for anything else to happen between us, was there? I finally found out about the whole demon thing -- half demon thing -- and then..."
"Yeah." Doyle looked at her intently, head tilted to one side. "So if I were to ask you out now..."
"If you were -- which you're not going to do, because we have more important things to worry about right now -- but... if you did..." Cordelia glanced down.
It was Doyle's turn to lightly touch her cheek, until she looked up and met his gaze. Whatever he saw there made him smile widely, seeming totally happy in that moment for the first time since she'd found him on Angel's bed.
She found herself smiling back. Weird how he could take all of her words away from her; she threw out the only one she could find. "Okay?"
"Getting there. You?"
Cordelia nodded. "I think so. Or -- I will be. Once we find Angel."
"Yeah. I've a few things I want to say to him when we do."
"And I'm in line right behind you. Normally I'd insist on being first, but since you're the one he went to..." She shook her head. "I'm having one of those days where everything's coming out wrong."
"Not everything." He reached out and squeezed her hand, hesitated a moment and then leaned in, eyes focused on her lips, moving slowly enough to give her the chance to stop him.
Cordelia's first reaction was to let him kiss her, so she did. His lips were soft and warm and gentle, and the kiss reminded her of their last -- first -- and that thought was immediately followed by her second reaction, which was to push him away. So she did. "You really... you didn't mean to give me the visions? It was an accident?" She was pleading with him, looking for reassurance.
He held her gaze, absolutely serious. "Cordelia, I swear on my soul, I would never deliberately do that to you."
She took a deep breath, then nodded. "I know," she said, just as seriously. "I do. Sorry."
"I'm the one that should be apologizing," Doyle said. "I'll do whatever it takes to make it up to you. Whatever you need, Princess."
"It might be nice if you could stick around this time. You know, not go jumping onto beacons, getting yourself killed? Unless..." she faltered. "I mean... it must have been pretty nice, in heaven."
"I..." Doyle's eyes grew distant. "It was," he finally said, softly.
Damn. She should have known better. "If you think I'm going to spend all my time removing sharp objects from your immediate vicinity, you're wrong," she snapped. "I'm not gonna do this again, Doyle, not if -- "
Doyle cut her off by kissing her again. "There's one thing Heaven didn't have. You."
A little bit stunned, Cordelia took a moment to recover. That had taken the wind out of her sails pretty nicely. And god, he had a nice mouth. Dragging her eyes away from his lips and back up to meet his own, she asked, "You're planning on sticking around, then? Because seriously, I... I don't want you to go. And I'm not gonna keep saying that, so you'd better make up your mind."
He smiled a little. "As long as you want me, I'll be here."
She let her breath out all in a rush, not having realized until that second that she'd been holding it. "Okay," she said, feeling a grin spread across her face. "Now come on, we've got a job to do."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
There was something invasive about going through a friend's private and personal possessions, but Doyle quelled any slight feelings of guilt with the knowledge that he was doing so to try and help his friend.
That and the fact that if Angel hadn't been an idiot he'd be here to stop it.
Of course if Angel hadn't been an idiot, Doyle probably wouldn't be here to be going through his things, but that was beside the point.
The point was, of course, Angel, idiot, full stop. The goal was to rescue Angel from his idiocy and it wasn't one that Doyle was likely to lose sight of.
Not that he was finding it difficult to focus anymore -- or at least any more difficult than he ever had.
That much good had come out of their visit to the Oracles, though Doyle couldn't say if it was something they had done or some sort of side effect of going through the portal to their realm. All he knew was since the visit his mind was clear and his attention no longer prone to wander as random stimuli distracted him every few seconds.
The other thing that had changed since visiting the Oracles was his memories of the immediate past. Doyle knew he'd been in heaven, knew that he'd been happier and more content there than he'd ever been alive, but he could no longer remember specifics.
Which was disappointing, but probably for the best. If he could remember clearly, how long would it have been before being here began to feel like hell in comparison? How long would it have been before he would've become desperate enough to try anything to escape reality and get back there?
Doyle knew he was stronger than he ever used to give himself credit for, but he knew with absolute certainty he never would have been able to survive that for long.
But with the memories blurred, with only the sense of contentment and the knowledge that he belonged and was accepted remaining, where he had been did not overwhelm the world around him now, and he could see this as the second chance at life that Angel had meant it to be for him.
A second chance with Cordelia.
There was a time when he wouldn't have let himself believe it, back when he'd been spending all his time hating himself.
But now, with the way Cordelia's eyes kept seeking him out as if to make sure he was still there, and the way both of them seemed to always be reaching out to touch each other, Doyle hadn't a single doubt that Cordelia felt the same way about him as he did about her.
If you ignored the momentary certainty he'd had about Cordelia being involved with the new guy at least.
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce....
Doyle glanced over at the man who was helping him go through Angel's things, since Cordelia had maintained her refusal to do so.
Wesley hadn't said anything beyond what was necessary to divide up the searching, but Doyle caught him watching him more than once. It was obvious that the man had questions, but he remained stubbornly silent and just kept watching.
It was beginning to get on Doyle's nerves.
The next time he glanced over Wesley was looking at him again, thoughtfully, and when their eyes met the other man flushed and turned his attention back to the drawer he was sorting through.
"I'm sorry," Wesley apologized after a moment. "I don't mean to... I'm just intensely curious, you see."
Doyle snorted laughter, the sound a bit more bitter than he had expected. "Noticed. Guess it's not every day you get to gawk at someone who's come back from the dead. Vampires with souls not withstanding."
"It's not that," said Wesley with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I'm curious about you, the man." He flushed as he apparently realized how this sounded, and continued on, "What I mean to say is, I've heard so much about you, and it's difficult to reconcile the myth with the reality."
"Not living up to my reputation?" he asked. It was still a bit of a shock to realize he had a reputation.
Wesley removed some loose papers from the drawer and flipped through them, setting each one into a pile next to him as he discarded it as unimportant. "It's just that I would have thought I'd known what to expect -- had I known to expect you -- and I've found that you're rather different. Although I'm sure it was quite a shock to suddenly find yourself here."
"To put it mildly, yeah." Putting his own papers aside, Doyle turned and studied the other man. "What did you expect?"
"Well. As you know, Cordelia has a... colorfully descriptive way with words, so your physical appearance is generally what I expected." Wesley bent over to look into the depths of the drawer, shuddered, and closed the drawer with the tips of his fingers as if trying to keep himself as far away from it as possible. "Otherwise, I suppose it's mostly that you're a real person, whereas the Doyle I had pictured was... the hero."
Doyle shifted where he sat, uncomfortable with the title. "I'm not, y'know. Always considered myself a bit of a coward, when I thought about it at all." The memory of his very first vision, of the lives his cowardice had cost, was still with him and always will be.
"That's not the way they think of you," Wesley said quietly. "It's not the picture Cordelia paints, no matter how often she complains about the visions."
He wasn't going to ask, he wasn't going to... "What does she say about me?"
Okay, maybe he was.
Wesley smiled ruefully. "She tends to say that you were -- are -- short, and annoying, and have a bad fashion sense. It isn't so much what she says as how she says it, if you know what I mean. And then there's Angel, of course."
"Angel talked about me?" Somehow that surprised Doyle. Brooding silently had always been the vampire's style.
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that." Wesley started to go through a pile of books, opening each one methodically as if to see if there was anything tucked inside. "I know that Cordelia did try to get him to on at least a few occasions, although I'm not sure she had much success. But he did... well... " Wesley looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Once, when Cordelia and I were arguing, he... he called me 'Doyle.'"
"Oh." Doyle could picture it -- Cordelia and Wesley sniping back and forth and Angel finally snapping and telling them to stop -- except getting the wrong names. "Cordy and I, we used to argue about as often as we breathed. Angel breaking it up got to be sort of a reflex." He regarded the man he'd been considering his replacement, suddenly realizing that Wesley must have been thinking of himself the same way.
"Yes, that's what it felt like at the time, as well," said Wesley. "As soon as he realized what he'd said, he corrected himself. But it was... well, very awkward."
"Yeah, it would be." Doyle hesitated, then asked, "Is my being back... awkward for you?"
"No, no, of course not." Wesley opened the book he was holding very carefully, checked inside, and put it down with the others he'd already looked at. He glanced up at Doyle and then away again. "No."
"I could understand if you were. I mean, I know it's awkward for me."
"Is it?" Wesley looked interested despite himself. "How?"
"Well, aside from the whole Angel sacrificing himself for me, there's just coming back from the dead and finding that life's moved on. My apartment's gone, all my things, the place I'd made for myself..." Doyle's voice trailed off and he looked down at the books he was going through, afraid he may have said more than he had intended.
"Your apartment and things may be gone, but your place is still here," Wesley protested. He looked around as if searching for something else to sort through, and seemed to settle on a small bookcase in the corner. He crouched down on the floor next to it and started to move things around. After a moment he looked back at Doyle, and his expression was serious. "It's not as if they forgot about you."
"I know that. But..." He sighed, starting to flip through the sketchbook he'd found. "Guess it's just something of a shock how well life went on without me. Angel still brooded, the visions still happened, and Cordy found someone else to fight with."
Wesley stopped whatever he had been doing and looked at Doyle, really looked at him in a way that was a bit disconcerting. "You seem like too decent a fellow to have wanted things to fall apart for them after you were gone. Surely you sacrificed yourself the way that you did because you wanted them to be all right?"
"Of course!" Doyle replied, appalled at even the suggestion that he would want his friends to be hurting.
"So you wanted life to go on well in your absence, and yet you find it awkward that it did." Wesley didn't seem to be trying to goad him, but rather was looking for clarification.
"Well, I wasn't expecting to be coming back, was I?"
"True enough," said Wesley. "I suppose after we get Angel back and some time has passed, things will return to normal for you."
"God, I hope not," Doyle muttered fervently, then noticing Wesley's surprised look explained, "Normal for me wasn't all that pleasant before. Other than having Cordy and Angel as friends."
"Ah." Wesley turned his attention back to the bookshelf. "Well, just give yourself some time to adjust."
"Can't really do anything but, can I?"
He was still flipping through the sketch book, which was mostly pictures of Angel's love Buffy, until he turned a page and found a sketch of... himself.
He must have made some kind of sound because Wesley looked up. "Have you found something?"
"I...." Doyle stared down at his own face. "He drew me."
"I beg your pardon?" Wesley came over and looked over Doyle's shoulder at the sketch. "Oh, I see. He's quite good, isn't he."
Doyle nodded mutely and turned the page to find another picture of him. Another page, another picture. And another and another... With increasing speed and agitation, he flipped through the sketchbook to find nothing but pictures of him -- in human and demon faces, happy, sad, scared, determined -- each one different, but every one a drawing of him.
"Well," Wesley said softly after a time, startling Doyle out of his reverie. "He certainly seems to find you a most... agreeable subject."
Doyle stared at the pictures, unable to look away, unable to find his voice.
A hand covered the page he'd been staring at and he glanced up to find Wesley looking at him with what seemed to be concern. "Are you all right? Should I... can I get you anything? A glass of water?"
"I..." He shook his head as he struggled for words. "No... I... can you give me a couple of moments?"
"Of course. Why don't I go and see what Cordelia's up to?" Wesley didn't wait for a response, but turned and after a minute Doyle could hear him going up the stairs to the office.
He didn't look up, unable to tear his gaze from the pictures he was flipping through, unable to stop thinking about Angel drawing them. Hours he must've spent to have so many.
"Hey," Cordelia said. "You okay?"
Startled, Doyle looked up to find Cordelia standing beside him. How did she...? He hadn't even heard her approach. "Wha-- what?"
She put her hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?" she repeated. "Wesley thought maybe you were kind of upset."
Doyle shook himself, forcing himself to focus on something other than the image of Angel drawing him over and over. "I'm okay." He tried to give her a reassuring smile and failed miserably. "It's just..." He gestured down at the sketchbook.
"Yeah, Wesley said... here, let me see," she said, mercifully taking the book from his hands and flipping slowly through the pages. She paused a time or two, seeming to look more carefully at certain drawings. "Huh."
"Yeah. Did you know that he was..." Again he gestured at the book.
Cordelia closed the book and held it against her chest, hugging it as if to keep it from Doyle if it upset him so much. "No. I mean, I knew he could draw... I saw some things he'd drawn before, but they were loose, not in a book or anything. But I didn't know he was drawing you! Geez. Weird."
"Not weird. Obsessed. With me."
"What? What the hell are you talking about?" Cordelia tossed the sketchbook down onto a nearby table, where it landed with a dull slap. "Look, Doyle, no offense, but maybe you haven't, you know, completely recovered yet from coming back from the dead. Angel, obsessed with you? Just because he -- "
"Sold his soul to bring me back? Nah, that's not a sign of obsession." Doyle got up and paced, as if he could outdistance the knowledge.
Cordelia moved out of his way, giving him the space to move. "Okay, maybe you've got a point there," she agreed. "But that's not a reason to get all worked up, is it? I mean, it doesn't change anything."
Doyle stopped and turned to face her. "If that was a book full of drawings of you, how would you feel?"
She seemed to consider this for a moment. "I don't know," she admitted finally. "Kind of freaked out? Because, you know, the whole vampire thing. And after what happened with Buffy... but you don't think Angel likes you, do you? I mean, likes likes you?"
"I don't know." He started pacing again, running his hands through his hair in agitation. "He obviously spent a lot of time thinking about me. And considering the detail of those drawings, he had to have been watching me pretty close before...."
"But that would mean that he liked you before you died." She took another step away from where Doyle was attempting to pace, freeing up some more room for him as if she didn't dare get in his way. "And again, what does that change? As far as us needing to go get him means?"
That stopped him dead. "Nothing." He sighed and moved back to the couch. "Nothing at all," he repeated. "We need him back. Then we can deal with whatever this means."
Cordelia watched him for a minute, and then moved over to perch on the arm of the couch, not close enough for him to touch her. "You guys didn't find anything?" she asked, gesturing around the room with a flick of her wrist. "Other than, you know, Vampire-Van-Gogh's little obsession book?"
"No." Doyle sighed again, this time in defeat. "He must've known we'd look and probably got rid of anything we could have used."
"You give him way more credit than I do," Cordelia said dismissively. She looked at him with a thoughtful expression on her face, and then slid down off the arm of the couch and onto the cushion next to him. "You sure you're okay?" she asked, offering her hand, palm up.
Doyle looked at it for a second, then placed his own in it, entwining his fingers with hers, marveling at just having permission to do so. "Yeah," he answered. "Just, y'know, threw me for a moment, finding that."
She nodded. "Don't worry. As soon as we find him, you can smack some sense into him."
That pulled a laugh from him. "You hold him and I'll smack him, eh?"
"Yeah, well... maybe we'll have to wait until we get him back here before you smack him. What if he's... you know, different? I mean, if it's been a long time where he is, and it's really bad there -- what if he's all Grr?"
Doyle leaned his head against the back of the couch with a weary sigh. "I don't know. But we'll figure something out. We have to."
"Maybe we should bring some handcuffs with us," Cordelia said. "Or no -- how about some chains? So that we can, you know, restrain him. I don't -- " She stiffened suddenly beside him, her hand gripping so tightly onto his that it was painful. "Uh-oh."
"Uh-oh?" Doyle raised his head to look at her -- just in time to see Cordelia spasm like she had been hit by lightning and cry out in pain. "Cordelia!" he yelled, as he automatically moved to hold her against the painful looking spasms.
Her neck was arched, every muscle clenching so tightly he thought it was a miracle that her bones didn't break. It almost seemed like she wasn't breathing -- but she flung out one arm and gripped onto the fabric of the couch, her fingers blanched with the force of her grasp. She made little pain-filled noises that ripped right into his chest.
There was something familiar about those noises, about the taut bow of her body, but the noises were supposed to be in his voice and it was his muscles that were supposed to be clenched tight against the pain.
He knew what a vision felt like; he'd just never seen one from the outside before.
Cordelia's hands flailed to her sides as if searching for something, and one of them caught onto Doyle's shirt and took hold. She gasped and then blinked her eyes, and the unfocused look gradually became focused again as her body relaxed and then curled in on itself. "Ohhhh," she moaned softly.
Doyle shifted them both until she was leaning against him, raising one hand to brush her hair back and massage her temples right where he knew the pain would be the worst. "What did you see?" he asked softly, hating himself.
She pressed the side of her face against his chest, hard, her hand still coiled in his shirt as if she had no intention of letting go. "Angel," she said, and her voice was hoarse. "And... something dark, and in the shadows... I knew it was something bad, but I couldn't see -- and then a book. It had a brown cover, it looked like linen, maybe. Why would --?"
She pressed even harder against him like she could hide there, so close that no one would see where he ended and she began.
Doyle tightened his embrace, wishing there was more he could do to comfort her. "I'm sorry."
Cordelia twisted her hand in his shirt fabric, but shook her head against his chest. "Just..." She shook her head again. "Need a minute," she whispered.
"Take whatever you need," Doyle told her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
She stayed there for nearly another minute, just hanging onto him, and then slowly pushed herself more upright. "Shit," she said distinctly. "Okay, that was so not helpful."
"Can I get you anything?" He knew that he always found a finger or two of scotch helped with the lingering pain, but somehow couldn't picture Cordelia downing the hard stuff after every vision like he had.
"A new brain that doesn't come with these handy built-in psychic videos?" she suggested, with a combination of bitterness and humor. "Um, no, I'm okay. I'll take some painkillers in a little while, when I can remember where the hell I left my bag."
"I'm sorry." He couldn't seem to stop apologising, the guilt rising up to cut off any other words. This was his doing. He'd done this to her.
"It's okay," she said. "I'm -- okay, what the heck was that all about? A book? We need Wesley; if anyone knows about books, it's him."
"Should I go get him? And your purse?" Doyle asked, but was reluctant to let go and move away from her.
"No, let's both go upstairs. Most of the books are up there anyway." Cordelia let go of his shirt and managed to get her feet under her through what looked like sheer force of will. Seemingly reluctant to lose contact, she reached for his hand.
Doyle willingly took it, then gave into the irresistible urge he had to pull her into his arms and hug her tightly once again.
Cordelia seemed to melt into the hug, her own arms wrapping around his waist. "This is nice."
"It is," Doyle agreed, trying not to get lost in how right it felt to have her this close.
"We really should go upstairs and find Wes," she said, without loosening her hold on him or moving away. She actually snuggled closer.
"Yeah. Look for this book." He didn't move either, except to rest his cheek against her hair.
Cordelia sighed and he felt her hand on his back stroking in small, gentle circles. For a long moment neither of them moved, both content to take comfort in each other's touch. Finally, she sighed again and lifted her cheek from his shoulder. "We're good," she said. "Time to get a move on."
Doyle sighed, knowing she was right. "Yeah." But he couldn't resist touching his lips to hers, so close were they.
She leaned into the kiss just enough to tell him that she wanted it as much as he did, and then moved back and pulled at his hand. "Upstairs."
"Right." He forced his mind back to business. "Angel, something dark, a book."
"I really hope Wesley can make some sense of this book thing," Cordelia said as they started up the stairs. "What do you think it means?"
"Hopefully, that when we find that book, it'll help us find Angel." Doyle tried not to wonder if he would've been able to make more out of the vision if he had had it. It was an insane thing to be jealous over and one that he wasn't going to let himself indulge in.
"I think maybe that dark thing, I think maybe... it might have been, like, someone, you know? Or... or maybe multiple someones. Do you think they could have been the ones that took Angel?"
Vague memories of a soft voice that dripped darkness while Angel apologized for leaving him went through Doyle's mind. "Yeah, I do."
Cordelia shuddered. "Oh. I definitely don't think that's a good thing. It was.. really icky. I think."
"I... I remember a little from when I was first brought back. I think. It was there."
They reached the top of the stairs and Cordelia started straight for her purse. "Had a vision," she flung over her shoulder at Wesley. "Something about Angel, and a book -- it had a linen-looking cover on it, kind of brown and fabric-y. Ring any bells?" She took a small bottle out of her bag and dry-swallowed two pills.
Wesley was reaching for pad and pen, writing down what he'd been told. "Did you see any writing?"
She appeared to think about this. "No. I don't... well, maybe. Some kind of symbol?" She closed her eyes for a minute. "Yeah. Kind of like..." and she gestured in the air, drawing what looked to be a half-circle with a swooping line through it.
"Like this?" Wesley sketched quickly, then held up the pad with a symbol like the one described on it.
"I think so. Do we have any books like that?"
"Not here, but I think I should be able to track it down." Wesley was already pulling out volumes and going through them.
Doyle had been watching, from his place leaning against the wall. "If you don't need us then, I thought I might take Cordy home," he said, knowing what the aftermath of a vision was like and wanting to do what he could to take care of her.
Wesley nodded. "Yes, you should go home and get some rest," he said to Cordelia. "I'll call you if anything turns up."
Cordelia had her fingers pressed against her temples. "There isn't anything we can do to help? Because I don't want to leave Angel wherever he is any longer than we have to."
"None of us do," Wesley replied seriously. "I promise, if there's anything I need help with, I'll call."
"Okay, then." Cordelia turned to Doyle. "Let's go home."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Cordelia unlocked the front door to her apartment with Doyle standing close behind her. It was beyond weird to be back here with him -- she could remember the first time they'd seen the apartment, together.
She pushed the door open and went inside, Doyle at her heels. The overhead light flicked on.
"Thanks, Dennis." She put her bag down on the couch where she usually left it, and gestured to Doyle. "Sit. Is it weird? To be back here, I mean?"
Before Doyle could respond, a teacup floated into the room from the kitchen -- it was kind of a ritual she and Dennis had developed -- he brought her tea, she told him about her day. It was... social. The teacup paused suddenly in mid-air, and then crashed to the floor.
"Oh, yeah," Cordelia said to the silence that followed, rubbing again at her temples to soothe the headache that the crash of shattering china had aggravated. "Doyle's back."
"Hi, Dennis. How's death treating you?" Doyle looked around the room as if trying to catch a glimpse of the ghost, his eyes finally dropping to stare at the slowly spreading puddle of tea on the floor. "Err, sorry about that, mate. Guess you're not used to being the scaree, huh?"
The bits of teacup and saucer gathered themselves together and floated back out of the room into the kitchen, and a few seconds later a dishcloth ghosted its way in and dropped down onto the puddle. "Sorry, Dennis," Cordelia said as she crouched down to mop up the spill. "I should have warned you or something." It hadn't even occurred to her that Dennis might react -- let alone react badly -- to Doyle's sudden reappearance.
"It's a good thing you were in heaven, and not a ghost," she said to Doyle. "I don't think there would have been enough room in the apartment for you and Dennis."
Doyle grinned at her. "You would've asked me to move in with you? I'm touched."
"Oh, please. Tell me I wouldn't have had to get someone to do some kind of spell to keep you out."
This time he pouted at her. "You wouldn't have done that, would you, Princess?"
"Probably not. But you and Dennis would have had to work something out between you, and I know he would have kept you in line. Right, Dennis?"
In response, a beer floated out of the kitchen, over to where Doyle sat. Doyle took it with a rather smug smile. "Thanks, pal."
Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Great. Just what I need, the two of you ganging up on me." She had to fight a smile; it felt amazingly good to be there, even despite the knowledge that Angel was missing and they didn't know how to get him back. "I'll have you both know that this is my apartment, and anyone who gives me a hard time is going to get kicked out. Or banished, or exorcised, or whatever's most appropriate."
Doyle put on a wounded expression. "Oh, that's harsh. You'd throw me out on the street, Princess? Leave me to fend for myself?"
"Somehow I think you could handle it. You managed okay before I came along... actually, come to think of it, you didn't; your clothes alone are proof of that. Okay, you're right -- you obviously need some looking after if we're going to keep the streets safe from walking fashion disasters like yourself. You can stay."
"Thanks. I think."
"Are you hungry? I haven't been to the store for a while, but I think I have some soup in the cabinet." Cordelia wrinkled up her nose. "It's not great, but it's, you know, fast and easy." She was already moving toward the kitchen, wondering if she had any crackers or enough bread for toast. They'd both been going all day -- they'd be dead on their feet if they didn't eat something.
Doyle got up and came over, reaching out a hand to touch her shoulder and stop her. "Let me. I know your head must still be pounding from the vision."
"I'm okay," she said, meaning it. Her brain still felt kind of sore, like someone had been tenderizing it with a mallet, but it wasn't that bad. "Although, if you'd like to cook -- assuming we want to consider heating up soup to be, you know, actual cooking -- feel free."
"I'm an expert in heating up soup," Doyle teased. "And in the making of a sandwich. Not much beyond that, though."
"I can imagine. I pretty much max out my abilities at spaghetti."
Doyle laughed. "It's a sad thing that out of the three of us, Angel's the one who cooks the best."
"Yeah, you're right. We're pretty pitiful, aren't we." She gestured with a toss of her head. "Come on, let's see what we've got."
They went into the kitchen and Cordelia rummaged around in the cabinets until she found a couple of cans. "Chicken and rice, or -- ew, did I even buy this? -- cream of celery. I must have thought I was going to make a casserole or something."
Doyle chuckled, and when Cordelia looked over, she caught him giving her an openly affectionate grin.
"What?" She couldn't help but smile back at him. "It's not like you didn't know I shop. You can't picture me at the grocery store?"
He shook his head, still smiling. "Just realizing... I missed you, even where I was."
The drawer next to Cordelia's hand opened suddenly, and a can opener floated out.
"Um... thanks, Dennis. Are you trying to tell us something?" She took the can opener and handed it and the chicken soup to Doyle. "Open?" Without waiting for a response, she turned and took a pan from a low cabinet, putting on the front burner of the stove.
She heard Doyle sigh behind her, but when she looked up he was opening the can of soup, expression carefully blank.
"I think Dennis is jealous," she said in a loud stage whisper. "He probably wanted me all to himself."
The cabinet door behind her opened, and then closed with a loud bang.
"I know you can hear me, Dennis," Cordelia continued in her regular voice. "Don't forget what I said about that exorcism. I'm happy for you to stay, but if you're going to do something every time you think Doyle and I might be having a moment, it'll be 'so long, thanks for the servitude.'"
Silence greeted that pronouncement and Cordy could almost hear the ghost sulking.
Doyle handed her the open can of soup. "I could go back to the office if my being here is causing problems..." he offered diffidently.
"No," she said, again addressing the air. "Dennis is the one with the problem, but he's going to behave now." She took the soup and dumped it into the pan, added a can full of water, and stirred it until some of the lumps dissolved. "It's really weird how disgusting the soup looks before it gets heated up. It's like you can see every little glob of fat."
She felt Doyle come up directly behind her, close enough for her to feel his heat. "I've seen grosser stuff," he said, and she realized he was looking over her shoulder at the pot of soup. "I think I've probably eaten grosser stuff too."
"Well, it's better than nothing. And anyway, once it heats up it looks normal. It's just while it's cold that it's all... globby. Is globby a word?"
"Mm." His breath tickled her ear. "I believe so, yeah."
"This is so weird," she said quietly.
"What, me?"
"Yeah. I wasn't expecting this. I mean, obviously I wasn't expecting this. Obviously you weren't expecting this. I'm all... stunned. It doesn't seem real." She tried to focus on stirring the soup, but he was being so distracting, standing there behind her.
He chuckled, again sending warm breath past her ear. "Tell me about it. I keep expecting to wake up and find... I don't know. Guess I expect to wake up dead."
"That's not very cheerful," she complained, shivering. She wasn't sure if it was because of the idea or the way his breath was making her hair tickle against her neck.
"Sorry." One of his hands came to rest on her waist.
"No, I meant... oh." Cordelia shivered again. "I'm trying to concentrate, here," she said softly, and this time she really wasn't complaining.
"And I'm bothering you?" She could hear the amusement in his voice.
"Well, yeah. You're being all distracting."
"Sorry," Doyle said again, sounding anything but. In fact, he sounded absolutely smug. "I could go wait in the living room if you want."
"No, stay." She felt stupid, but she knew with complete certainty that she didn't want him sitting in the other room.
"Okay." His other hand went to the other side of her waist.
Soup. Right, she needed to stir the soup. The feel of his hands on her was more than distracting, but she was going to concentrate on this soup if it killed her. And conversation -- shouldn't they be talking? "So..."
"So... What have you been doing since I died?"
"I think we're back to uncheerful topics," Cordelia pointed out. "But since you asked... well, not much, really. I mean, other than the almost getting my eyes cut out and the... oh, yeah, you don't want to hear about that."
"Almost getting...." She could practically hear the wheels turning in his head. "That was my fault too, huh?" he finally said softly.
"No, that was this weird psycho-demon's fault. Or I suppose you could blame greed, if you were willing to be less specific, since it was all about money. But it was fine." She turned halfway around between his hands and blinked her eyes at him in demonstration. "See? Two eyes."
Doyle smiled a bit sadly at her. "And very pretty eyes they are too. But they were after Seer's eyes, weren't they?"
"Yes," Cordelia admitted finally. "But that doesn't make it your fault." She wanted to turn back the clock a few minutes, back to the place where stirring the soup had been the big chore.
"Still..."
"I have an idea. Let's just pretend -- just for a little while, a couple of hours? -- that there's no such thing as the Powers That Be. Or visions. Let's just be two normal -- well, in your case almost normal -- people, who are going to eat soup and talk about normal, everyday things. Okay?"
Doyle pretended to think about it. "Would the normal everyday things involve flirting?"
"Sure. As long as they don't include flirting with, say, giant snake demons."
He blinked. "Not going to be a problem, unless there's something you haven't told me about your family tree..."
"Okay, then. The code word for the evening is 'normal.'" Cordelia stirred the soup one more time and then put the spoon down on the stovetop. She took a deep breath before turning in Doyle's arms until she faced him, their noses almost touching.
"Cordy," Doyle asked, his eyes focused on her lips, "would normal include kissing you right now?"
"I think kissing might be normal." There was a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, and for the first time in ages it was a good feeling instead of a bad one. She let her hand slide around to the small of his back, where the muscles were tense, and moved forward the tiniest bit.
He smiled, one hand coming up to rest lightly against the side of her face as he leaned in and pressed his lips against hers.
The kiss held less desperation than the ones they'd shared earlier; it was slower, more circumspect. His lips were still warm and his hand on her face was gentle, cradling her as if he wanted to protect her. Cordy felt her hand on his back tighten, gripping onto his shirt to make sure he didn't go anywhere. She thought that she just might be able to kiss him all night.
Doyle's fingers slid back under her hair to cup the back of her neck as he opened his mouth, deepening the kiss, tongue darting out to lick at her lips.
She moaned a little bit into his open mouth, surprised at how right it was and thinking that if this was how good just kissing him felt, she was in a world of trouble. She pulled back far enough to speak, but then she didn't know what to say. "Doyle..."
He smiled, the hand not still tangled in her hair, moving to slide around her waist. "I know. Me too."
"Is this real? You're really you, right?"
He kissed her again. "It's really me, Princess. It's real."
"This is kind of freaky."
"Appropriate, considering what I am..."
"What? No, I didn't mean that!" Cordelia dug her thumb into the small of his back for emphasis. "I meant, you know, because you were dead."
"Yes, because that's a whole 'nother level of freak." The amusement in Doyle's eyes gave away the humor that his deadpan tone did not.
"I said freaky. I didn't say bad."
"So it's a good freaky?" He leaned in, lips hovering just over her own.
"I think when you say freaky too many times it starts to sound like a foreign language," she said, and her mouth brushed against his as she spoke. "Can we move on to some other word, do you think?"
Doyle's lips curled up into a teasing smile. "Any word in particular?"
"Just pick something," she said, and moved forward to press against him.
He kissed her again, making a thorough job of it, leaving her breathless when he pulled back. "How about 'bedroom'?"
"Oh." Cordelia rubbed some little circles on his back with her fingers, trying to think of a way to say this that wouldn't hurt his feelings or give him the wrong idea. "Bedroom's a really, really good word. I like it. I'm just not sure... it's a little soon. You know? And don't take that the wrong way, because it's a great word, and I'm really glad you suggested it, and..."
But Doyle smiled at her, eyes kind and knowing. "And I'm moving way too fast."
"I made soup," she said helplessly, not wanting their embrace to end but, at the same time, needing it to.
"And it should be un-gloppy by now." He kissed her again, this time a brief peck, and moved to let her go.
Trying not to sigh with relief, Cordelia slipped out of Doyle's arms. She managed to get the soup into bowls without spilling any, and gestured at the little table. "This is good," she said as they sat down. "It's bad for your metabolism to go too long without eating."
"I've probably done far worse to my metabolism." Doyle sat down at the table as directed.
"That's for sure. I wonder what condition your liver was in before you died? Do you think it's better now?"
He shrugged. "Dunno. Though I was in better condition than you might think. Legacy of being half Brachen." He seemed... subdued, compared to how he'd been earlier.
Cordelia wondered if she should just shut up and let him kiss her, since otherwise she seemed to be constantly saying stuff that upset him. "Am I being a bitch again? You should just tell me, if I am. It's okay -- I won't get offended or anything."
That earned her another quick glimpse of his smile before it faded again. "You're not. I was just... trying to figure out if I owed you an apology."
People didn't surprise her often, but this did because she knew he wasn't talking about the visions. "An apology for what?"
"For... being freaky. I didn't mean to pressure you into anything, you gotta know that Princess."
"I know that," she said, waving his apology away with a flick of her wrist. "Trust me, Cordelia Chase does not get pressured into anything she doesn't want to do."
Doyle still looked worried. "Sure?"
"Do I look unsure?" She widened her eyes and stared directly into his.
"Not now," he admitted.
"Well, good. Eat your soup and then maybe we can make Dennis jealous some more." Her lips twisted. "Sorry, Dennis," she said. "There, see, I am being a bitch. At least Dennis is used to it."
Doyle ignored the last bit of what she'd said in favour of the earlier part. "So you still want to..."
She smiled. He could be such an idiot sometimes, even though it was pretty nice that he was so gentlemanly and concerned. "If you still want to."
"I'm sure you know the answer to that," Doyle teased with a sudden grin, mood once again swinging towards happy.
"Eat. Soup." Cordelia pointed with her spoon toward his bowl. She rolled her eyes at the ceiling dramatically. "After all the trouble I go to, slaving over a hot stove..."
Doyle snorted. "For all of ten minutes. And I kept you entertained."
"Are you telling me you don't buy my oppressed housewife persona?" she demanded. "Because I thought that was a darned good imitation."
"Ahh...." He paused. "This is where I'm supposed to compliment your acting skills?"
"If I have to ask for the compliments then forget it." She ate another spoonful of soup. "You know, I'd really forgotten how awful canned soup is."
"I don't know." Doyle ate some of his. "I kinda like it."
"Our housekeeper used to make this amazing soup," Cordelia said, aware that her eyes were probably glazing over as she reminisced. "With a real chicken, and kale and carrots. It was sooo good." She sat up straighter in her chair. "Of course, that was when we actually had money."
"My mum used to make soup when I was little," Doyle offered. "I used to love the way it made the kitchen smell."
She just managed to stop herself from saying something potentially stupid like "I guess it doesn't take money, then." She grinned at him, and instead said, "Too bad we don't know how to cook for real."
"Once we find Angel, maybe we can see about learning."
"Yeah. In the meantime, though, this stuff has got to go." She carried her bowl over to the sink and poured the rest of the soup down the drain, and then leaned against the counter and looked at him thoughtfully as he spooned up the last of his soup. "Do you want some crackers, or something?"
He shook his head. "I'm good."
"I don't know why Dennis got so weird," Cordelia said. "He never used to do that when you were over here."
"I never came back from the dead before. Which, when you are dead, could seem unfair."
"Oh. Good point. I hadn't thought of that." She grinned at him. "I can't believe you're in my kitchen eating soup. I keep saying that, don't I. Not about the soup... I mean, that I can't believe you're here."
"You keep saying that."
"Isn't that what I just said?" She started to wonder if she was losing her mind. She had to keep reminding herself that Angel was missing, and probably in big trouble -- that didn't seem any more real than Doyle being in her apartment did. All she wanted to do was keep touching him, to reassure herself that he was really there and wasn't going to go away.
"Yeah." Doyle winked at her. "Was just confirming the fact."
"I keep thinking I'm going to turn around and when I look back you're going to be gone."
"Hey." His smile disappeared and he got up and came over to where she was standing, reaching out to take her hands in his. "I'm here. I'm real. I'm not gonna disappear."
Cordelia took a deep breath and let it out all at once, leaning in to rest her forehead against his shoulder. That was one good thing about shorter men -- it was really comfortable. She took her right hand out of his and wrapped that arm back around his waist where it had been earlier. "Promise?"
Doyle's free arm wrapped around her, pulling her closer. "Promise."
"What if... I mean, that deal that Angel made, to get you back? What if we find him and get him home and that cancels out the deal? What if we're just trading you for him?"
"Cordy..." He sighed, resting his head against hers. "If it comes down to that... I can't let Angel sacrifice himself for me."
She responded fiercely, before she could even think. "No. We can't -- that's -- we won't do that. We'll figure something else out, trade something else. Tell me we'll figure out something else."
"Cordy --"
Cordelia tore herself out of his arms, turned away from him, taut with sudden anguish. "Then -- just go away now. Go on. If you won't -- " She knew she was going to cry, and was equally determined not to in front of him, not if he wasn't even going to try to stay. But her mouth betrayed her again, speaking for her when she didn't intend to, spilling her secret truths. "Please don't leave again."
She heard Doyle take a step towards her. "Cordy, if you let me explain --"
"Fine. Explain." Her voice was tight and clipped. "But you'd better make it good."
"I want to stay, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure I do. You think I'm not going to do my best to find a way to be able to do that and get Angel back? If there's a way, we'll find it." She could hear the determination in his voice.
"We'll make a way," she said, and her own voice sounded shaky. "We -- I'm not going to let you go again, no matter how annoying you are."
"I won't make you a promise I'm not sure I can keep. But I will promise that short of sacrificing you or Angel, I'll do whatever I have to, to stay." Doyle paused and then asked, "Do you still want me to go?"
"Yes." Cordelia shook her head. "No. Don't go."
"Am I going to get hit if I try to hug you?"
She shook her head again, wordlessly this time, wanting desperately to be in his arms but ashamed to admit it.
Without another word, he put a hand on her shoulder, gently urging her around where he was able to wrap his arms around her tightly.
Her own arms were wrapped around her stomach, holding herself together, so she couldn't do anything but let him hold her and try not to tremble. In her head she was begging him not to go, telling him that she'd do anything if he'd promise to stay, but she kept her teeth firmly clamped onto her lip to keep herself from saying any of the things that she was thinking. She knew that he could probably feel her shaking, but she didn't know how to stop.
Doyle just held her tightly, murmuring, "It's all right, everything's going to be all right," over and over.
Eventually his words started to sink in, and she could feel the trembling ease off. "Doyle?"
"Yeah, Princess?"
"Do you remember... that word we were talking about before?"
She felt him freeze for a moment. "Yes..." he finally responded cautiously.
"Do you think you might... still...?"
He pulled back enough to grin at her. "Oh yeah."
Cordelia leaned in to kiss him, just once. "Come on, then," she said, and took his hand to lead him to the bedroom.
Doyle followed, uncommonly quiet.
In the doorway she paused and kissed him again, long and slowly, letting her hand trace down his back, feeling the smooth muscle beneath the soft fabric of his shirt. "Is this okay?" she asked, brushing her lips against his ear.
She felt him shiver and he chuckled. "Better than okay."
Walking backward, she continued to kiss him while heading for the bed. She sat down on the edge and pulled Doyle down to join her. "I don't think I ever had the chance to tell you," she said, "that you're a really great kisser."
He smiled, quick and sunny and kissed her again. "You inspire me."
"That's me," she agreed. "An endless source of inspiration." Then his tongue started doing that little licking thing again and she forgot that she was supposed to be the one who was good at talking.
They spent the next few minutes necking like teenagers, losing themselves in each other's touch. The next thing Cordelia knew she was lying on her back, Doyle lying beside her, his hand sliding underneath her top, caressing the bare skin of her stomach.
Her own hands were also busy, one clutching his arm and the other up in his hair, which was way softer than it looked. Despite how good everything felt, she was starting to get a funny feeling in her stomach, a nervous feeling like she was doing something wrong. Which was totally stupid, since this was Doyle.
Doyle's hand slid up further, cupping her breast, lowering his head to nip at her throat, not hard, just sharp enough to send little zings of sensation along her nerves.
And that was familiar somehow, not in a Doyle-way but in a been-there-done-that kind of way. Wilson. That's what this was reminding her of -- not of the sex, which had been good, and she'd been so careful -- but of the end result. Of waking up and discovering that she was way more pregnant than was possible... And oh God, she needed to tell Doyle. She couldn't just let him do this, without knowing how she'd been...
She was suddenly very, very convinced that she was going to scream. Cordelia shoved Doyle off of her and bolted for the bathroom, slamming and locking the door in place behind her.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
For a moment all Doyle could do was stare at the doorway Cordelia had bolted through after shoving him away like... well, like she used to in his nightmares.
Stomach clenching, he got up and knocked tentatively on the bathroom door. "Cordy? Did I -- Are you all right?"
For a minute everything was quiet. Then he heard her say, very softly, "I'm -- I'm okay. I just need a minute. Okay? Don't -- don't leave."
Doyle frowned. Cordy sounded.... "I'm right here," he told her, trying to sound as reassuring as he could. "I'm not going anywhere, unless you ask me to."
More silence, lasting longer this time. Doyle was just about to say something, anything, when he heard Cordelia move. There was a very soft sound on the other side of the door, and he could imagine her leaning her head against it. "After you died, I did something really stupid."
"Yeah?" Doyle asked softly, leaning his own head against the door. It was the closest she was letting him get right then.
"There was this guy." She paused, and then said the name reluctantly, like she wasn't sure she should. "Wilson. And he was... I thought he was a nice guy. He drove me home and I invited him in and we..."
"Oh." He almost said is that all, but stopped himself before the words could pass his lips. He didn't need to work at being insensitive after all. "The bad one night stand is almost a right of passage," he said instead. "I take it this was... particularly bad?"
"Understatement of the century," Cordelia answered. "It wasn't -- I mean, it was fine, as far as it went. And I was careful, you know?"
"You would be," Doyle replied, absolutely certain that she wouldn't take any chances in such an encounter. Fighting demons and vampires was enough risk for anyone.
"But it didn't matter. Wilson and some of his friends were in cahoots with some huge demon, and they got me and bunch of other girls pregnant." Her voice was growing stronger as she spoke; it was as if just telling him made her feel better. "So -- it's not you, you know? I just -- sorry. Sorry. I got kind of freaked out for a minute there, but I'm okay. I was... kind of scared to tell you."
Doyle seemed stuck on the words "demon" and "pregnant." Cordy -- his Cordy -- violated that way. He just couldn't... "What happened?" he asked, voice coming out strained and hoarse.
"Oh, you know, Angel and Wesley to the rescue. They killed the bad guy and that was the end of the... problem." He heard her take a deep breath. "This is stupid. I'm coming out."
There was the click of the lock, and then she opened the door and stood there, the expression on her face a mixture of embarrassment and pride.
Good, he thought, wanting to see her eyes. He'd be able to tell if she was really all right if he could look into her eyes. He backed up a couple of steps to give her space.
Cordelia tucked her hair back behind her ears and glanced at him. "Sorry," she said again. "I would have warned you in advance if I'd known I was going to have a big spaz."
"S'okay." He reached out a hand to touch her, but let it fall before he made contact, unsure of his welcome. "At least you came back. You never --" Doyle cut himself off before he could start exposing some things that were probably better left unsaid.
She leaned against the door frame, tucking her hair again self-consciously even though from what he could see she had it under control. "I never what?"
She was going to make him say it. Not quite able to meet her eyes, he admitted, "You never came back. In my dreams... nightmares, really. When you found out what I was."
"You mean... Doyle, I told you that didn't matter to me." She sounded exasperated, but her voice was gentle. "This thing with the... with Wilson, it was completely different."
"Yeah. That's why you had 'the big spaz.'"
Cordelia stood up straighter and crossed her arms defiantly. "I'll have you know that that had nothing to do with you being part demon. I'm not racist or... species-ist or whatever. I wasn't thinking about that at all. I was thinking about..." She faltered slightly, and then went on, "About how I couldn't do anything without telling you. About what happened. Because you might not want to... if you knew."
"What?" Immediately he moved forward, reaching out and resting his hands on her arms. "That wasn't even a possibility. Especially for something that was done to you..." He trailed off. "You really thought I'd reject you? For any reason?"
"Oh, come on. It's icky -- admit it." She raised her chin. "I don't want to play all these games where you say it doesn't make any difference... it does. And if it doesn't make enough of a difference to matter, that's cool. Great, even. But it happened, and I'm not going to pretend it didn't."
Doyle shook his head. "It doesn't make a difference, not to how I feel about you, or how much I want you."
"Really?" She gifted him with a tiny smile and put one hand against his chest. "Are you sure?"
Trying to put all that he felt into his gaze, he nodded, sliding one hand up to caress her cheek. "Never surer about anything."
"Good," she said. And kissed him.
Like every time before they'd kissed, he lost himself in the feel, the taste. Doyle knew he'd be happy to just keep doing this the rest of the night. The rest of his life.
Cordelia was pressing up against him, one arm wrapped around his waist. She made a little happy sound in the back of her throat and moved back. "And just FYI," she said, and kissed him again, "I've just established a new policy against my having spazzes."
"Good to know." He nuzzled her jawline. "But if I do anything that makes you... uncomfortable..."
"Angel always says to go for the groin," she said thoughtfully, as if she were seriously considering it. "But hey... I'm not worried. Don't you be, either, okay?"
"Don't worry, she says. After talking about going for the groin."
"I was kidding. Well, kind of." Her lips were doing distracting things to his ear, and her breath was warm against his skin as she spoke. "I don't think this is what Angel was talking about when he said 'go for the groin,'" and to illustrate her point, she moved her hips forward into his.
Doyle couldn't quite repress a groan at the motion; he was already hard and only getting harder. "That kind of groin action I can work with."
Cordelia's hand slid down to his lower back and then still further, just resting there lightly as if she were testing him. "I'm glad. Doyle?"
"Yeah, Princess?" he breathed, kissing her neck.
"It's okay for you to touch me. Touch me however you want."
He groaned again, pulling her tighter against him. "Do you know how much I've dreamed of being able to do that?"
She shifted her weight forward onto her toes and it was like heaven all over again. "Do it," she urged. "If you want to. Show me."
He kissed her again breathlessly. "Bed?"
"Bed," she agreed, and took his hand to lead him back to it. She gave him a gentle shove so that he fell onto the mattress, and this time she was the one in charge of what was happening, and she was on top of him and pressing against him. Those little happy noises were back, and her hand had slid up under his shirt and was smoothing over his ribcage.
He shivered, her simple touch against his bare skin more arousing than he had imagined it could be. He reached up, sliding his own hands under her top again. "I wanna see you."
For a few seconds he wondered if that had been a good idea, since it required her to shift her weight and the end result was her straddling him. He took a deep breath for control and then another as she pulled her shirt up and over her head, her hair falling back down in glorious waves around her shoulders.
Doyle froze, staring at her. Then he reached up and stroked a hand down her side. "Beautiful."
She smiled and leaned back down, kissing him again, her tongue sliding against his lower lip slowly as if they had all the time in the world. "You're really here," she said gently, speaking into his mouth.
"Yeah." He felt his lips curl up into a smile, still pressed against hers. "I am." He felt giddy, lightheaded, wanting to laugh out loud.
She went back to kissing him, lingeringly, her lower body shifting on his in ways that made him gasp and ache. Her warm palm was under his shirt again, sliding over his stomach, caressing him.
Doyle wrapped his arms around her, palms flat against the warm skin of her back as he pulled her closer. He slid his fingers up until he reached the fastenings on her bra and deftly undid them.
Cordelia made a little gasping sound as he slipped the straps from her shoulders. Her hand clutched briefly at his upper arm, her mouth returning to his urgently. Her earlier slow, lazy touching was replaced by something closer to desperation. "Doyle," she said, and it wasn't a request for his attention as much as a statement of immediacy.
"I'm here," he replied, the words swallowed by her desperate kiss. He shifted his weight, rolling them over until Cordy was lying beneath him, losing himself in the way their tongues were tangled together.
Cordelia's left hand was sliding up under his shirt and her right moved down to cup his ass, pulling him more tightly against her. Her breath was warm and her mouth tasted sweet, and when he lowered his lips finally to her perfect breast she gasped again and arched into him with a small noise of pleasure.
He teased her nipple with teeth and tongue, brushing his thumb over the peak of her other breast, listening to the soft gasps of pleasure Cordy was making. He pushed his hips against her in an instinctive attempt to ease the growing ache, frustrated by the layers of clothing that still separated them.
She seemed to sense something because she was pulling at his shirt, trying to get it off over his head. He did his best to help and when she tossed it onto the floor and pulled him back down onto her she sighed and ran her hands over his bare skin. "That's a little better," she said, right before lifting her head to press her lips to his shoulder.
Doyle gasped at the feeling of her skin against his own. "Yeah," he replied, arching his neck and back, giving her mouth better access to more of his skin. The movement also pressed his erection more firmly against her and he groaned.
Cordelia's tongue was tracing along his collarbone and leaving a hot moist trail, and then her lips fastened on his throat and she sucked gently, drawing his skin into her mouth. He could feel the blood rushing to the surface there, attracted to the pull of her lips like a moth to a flame. She moved back slightly then and said, with an apologetic grin, "Sorry -- I'm gonna give you a hickey if I'm not careful."
"Don't be," he blurted. "I mean... you don't have to worry about it. I'm good with hickeys. Really." He realized that he was babbling, but couldn't seem to stop. "I want you to do whatever you want to."
A little gleam flashed behind her eyes. "Anything I want?" she asked, with a flicker of a smile that looked -- dare he think it -- slightly evil.
It sent shivers of arousal down his spine and made him smile back, quite probably like an idiot. "Yeah. Anything."
Grabbing onto him hard, she rolled them back the way they'd come, putting herself on top of him again. Skin on skin, she slid down slowly, licking and nibbling at him from throat to chest. She focused on one nipple for a few seconds, scraping it gently with her teeth, and then moved lower to kiss his stomach with little brushes of her lips.
Doyle caught his breath at something that was halfway between a gasp and a laugh. His nervous system couldn't seem to decide if the light touches tickled or were the best thing he'd felt since... well since a minute ago when Cordy had kissed him.
Cordelia's fingers hooked into the waistband of his slacks, her fingernails resting just underneath the fabric as her tongue slid lower to tease the line of dark hairs that started below his navel. Her hand traveled over to the fastenings on his pants, moving tantalizingly across his skin, and stopped when her fingers had settled on the button. "What if I wanted to do this?" she asked, and slipped the button free.
Doyle darted his tongue out to lick at his lips, trying to keep still when all he wanted to do was thrust up against her. "Please."
She pressed another kiss onto his stomach just before she slid his zipper down, so slowly that he thought he could hear each individual bit of metal as it separated from the one next to it. "And this?"
This time he was utterly incapable of not arching into her touch. "Cordy..."
"I know," she said, and slipped her hand inside of his slacks and underwear, wrapping her fingers around his cock. Doyle made a strangled sound and threw his arm up over his eyes as she stroked him gently and her tongue traced circles on his rib cage.
Doyle dug his hands into the sheets and concentrated on not coming then and there.
Slowly, Cordelia worked her way back up his body with her tongue, licking up the side of his neck to breathe warmly into his ear before kissing him again. At no point did her hand falter in its careful movements. "So this is okay, then?" she asked, looking as if she already knew the answer.
"Better than okay. It's..." he broke off in a groan as her thumb swirled around the head of his cock, then moved away. "Oh god, do that again."
She made a little sound of amusement and repeated the motion, taking his groan into her mouth as she kissed him. Her hips shifted and she threw one leg up and over his, her breast brushing his chest as she rocked against his thigh.
Getting a hold on his arousal, Doyle moved one hand to her breast, while the other he slid down her body, fingers pressing between her legs, touching her through her pants.
Cordelia whimpered and kissed him harder, pushing against his fingers. She pulled back from his lips and her own were slightly swollen and reddened, her face flushed with desire. "Doyle..." she said helplessly.
He leaned up to place tiny nipping kisses all around her mouth. "I want to touch you," he murmured against her lips. "All of you."
"Show me," she said, in echo of her earlier words.
He kissed her hard, his hands moving to undo the pants she wore and push them down off her hips.
She wriggled out of her pants and shoved them down the rest of the way, and then moved forward, pressing against him again. The feel of her, naked next to him, was nearly overwhelming, and when her hand closed over his erection he thought he might die again right then and there.
He sought out her lips, kissing her with all the urgency that was building. He slid a hand down to rest on her hip, pulling her closer.
"Doyle?" she murmured.
"Yeah, Princess?"
"Um... don't you think you might be a little, you know, overdressed?"
"Huh?" He blinked and looked down at himself, only then realizing he still had his trousers on.
"Yeah. I'm feeling kinda silly here, all naked all by myself." She released her grip on him and trailed her hand up across his skin to rest over his heart. "Think you might like to join me?"
"Oh yeah." With a few quick wriggles and movements, he'd kicked the pants off onto the floor.
Tugging on him gently until he rolled onto his side to face her, Cordelia ran her hand down the length of his body, starting at his shoulder and ending on his thigh. "There. That's better."
"Yeah," he repeated, kissing her again, then pausing, just resting his forehead against hers. "Do you know how many times I dreamed about being here?"
She took his face between her hands and kissed him on the mouth, then on the end of his nose and both eyelids. Her eyes were dark and serious, but there was a hint of a smile around her lips as she asked, "A lot?"
He felt himself smiling back. "Only every night." He kissed her again, pulling her close, rolling her underneath him.
Cordelia made a soft sound of pleasure and one of her long legs came up and wrapped itself around his, her ankle hooking behind his knee. "God, I want you," she said. "Doyle..." It sounded as if she was repeating his name for the pure joy of being able to say it.
"Been dreaming of that, too," he said with a grin, then began to trail kisses down her body.
He felt her slim fingers wind their way into his hair as he used his mouth to love her, licking and kissing her throat and then her breasts and still lower to the soft skin of her belly. She was panting, little light breaths that sounded sweet, and then, even sweeter, she breathed his name again. "Doyle..."
If she kept saying his name like that, Doyle was going to be in serious danger of losing it. He kissed her stomach again, sliding his hand between her legs, her wetness slick against his fingers.
Cordelia gave a little cry and moved into his touch, her grip on his hair tightening for a few seconds before relaxing. He marveled at her warmth, at her desire for him which was so obvious as he touched her, and she moaned and shifted and her eyes were closed.
"God, you're so beautiful." The words slipped out without conscious thought. He moved his fingers, watching her face closely to see what movements, what touches, had the most effect.
She arched beneath his hand, moaning again. "Doyle... please..."
He had to taste her. Pushing her legs further apart, he shifted downward and ran his tongue over all the places his fingers had just explored.
With his hand on her thigh, he could feel her trembling, shaking beneath him, all for him. It was such an incredible thought that he felt light-headed, and he doubled his efforts. Cordelia twisted her free hand into the pillow behind her and gripped at it, and then suddenly she stiffened and cried out, her hips making small rocking motions as she came, hard, sobbing his name.
When she had calmed, he moved back up her body, kissing her deeply, letting her taste herself on his lips.
"Wow," she said finally, pulling back and looking at him with wide eyes. "That was... wow."
Doyle laughed, the joy bubbling up from inside him, falling from his mouth. He kissed her again. "Yeah, it was."
She grabbed onto him then, pulling him closer so that she could kiss him with more determination. Her tongue teased his lower lip, and then her teeth nipped at it gently. She thrust upward with her hips, her skin warm and smooth beneath him.
"Oh god," he groaned, he pulled away, panting for air, closer to coming than he wanted to admit. "Princess, I need..."
Cordelia rolled over gracefully, away from him, but he was only confused for as long as it took her to rummage in the drawer of the little table next to the bed and produce a small foil-wrapped packet. "One of these?" she asked, holding it up between thumb and forefinger.
Doyle reached for it, the reality of the situation suddenly hitting home again. Cordelia was... He looked up and met her eyes, his own serious. "Are you sure?"
Her fingers caressed his gently as the condom exchanged hands. "As long as these things work as barriers against half-demon sperm, then yeah. I'm sure."
He leaned in and kissed her, it quickly turning passionate again.
Cordelia's arm wrapped around his waist, her hand rubbing at his back. She scooted closer and her breasts brushed against his chest, and her other hand came up to cup the side of his face. When he continued to kiss her without making any other move forward, she moaned. "Please," she said, and he thought he could hear desperation in her voice. "I need you. Inside..."
Doyle swallowed a groan at the plea. "Yeah," he said, kissing her again, then fumbling with the condom.
She lay back against the pillows, her hair in chestnut waves, one hand resting on the smooth white skin over her hip. The other hand stroked at Doyle's thigh, tickling gently over the hair there. "You look so good," she said, a little smile turning up the corners of her lips.
His fingers were trembling by the time he got the packet open. He wanted this so badly... With a ironic smile, he held the condom out to Cordy. "Get me ready?"
Cordelia took it from him, and then he had to close his eyes as her fingers touched him gently. She didn't seem to have a lot of experience at the task, but after a minute or so she managed to roll the condom down over his erection. "Come here."
He didn't need to be told twice, settling between her legs, pushing teasingly against her, but not entering, not quite. "Cordy..." he murmured, meeting and holding her gaze as he slowly pushed into her.
She whispered "Oh God," very quietly, and then her hands were clutching at him, and he felt her fingernails graze the skin over his shoulder blade. Her eyes closed and her teeth came down into her lower lip, biting on it to stifle the sounds she seemed unable to stop herself from making.
Sounds that she was making in response to him. That in itself was heady enough; coupled with the feeling of being surrounded by her warmth, being held by her, being in her... he felt like he was back in heaven.
Cordelia's hands and voice urged him on, the repetition of his name like a song in his ears. As he thrust into her, she rocked her hips up to meet him, and then to his delight he felt one of her long legs come up to wrap itself around him. "Oh God," she whispered again as he moved forward once more.
He tried to keep his pace slow, lingering over each thrust; he wanted this to last, wanted to hear Cordy make those sounds for as long as possible, wanted to feel her moving against him, around him.
The way that her breathing was speeding up, the way she was gripping onto him, the way her eyes were starting to look unfocused -- all of these together told him that he was definitely doing something right. He bent his head to take her mouth with his, and she made a little sound of surprise just before suddenly tightening beneath him, and he felt her soft warmth clench around him enticingly.
It was Doyle's turn to groan, as the sight of Cordelia's pleasure brought him closer to his own. He lost the slow measured rhythm, thrusting hard and fast, feeling it building inside him.
He was gasping now, small involuntary whimpers mixed in with the panting breaths, tremors going through his muscles as he hovered on the edge. "Cordy..." he gasped, needing something to push him over but unsure of what.
She wrapped her other leg up around his waist, pulling him closer, allowing him greater access to her warm depths. Arching her back under him, she brought her mouth up next to his ear and licked at it delicately. In a low, aching voice she said, "I want to feel you come. Please..."
That was more than enough. Doyle exploded, yelling Cordy's name as the pleasure poured over him.
For what felt like minutes he shook in her arms, finally collapsing down against her, his cheek resting above her breast. One of Cordelia's hands was at the back of his neck, playing with his hair, and the other was idly stroking the small of his back.
He turned his head, lazily placing a kiss on the skin beneath his lips. "That was..."
"Wow?" she suggested.
"Heaven," he said, lifting his head enough to meet her eyes. "It was heaven."
The implication of this sank in and she smiled, her lower lip trembling. "That's good to know," she said softly.
Doyle kissed her gently. "Hey, you're not going to cry on me, are you?"
"No," she said, and kissed him back. "Nope. Just a whole lot of happy here."
"I take it that it was 'wow' for you too?"
"Are you kidding? Any more 'wow' and I wouldn't be conscious."
Doyle grinned, knowing it must be at least a little smug.
Cordelia stroked his hair again, lingeringly. "Hey," she said with a grin, wriggling underneath him pointedly. "You're heavy."
"Sorry," he said, though he wasn't able to actually able to sound apologetic. Too busy sounding happy and smug. But he pulled out, and rolled over to the side, taking a moment to dispose of the condom in the wastepaper basket by the bed.
As soon as he had settled himself back on a pillow, Cordelia snuggled over into his side, her hair a soft cloud against his shoulder. "Are you good?" she asked, stifling a yawn with her hand.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" he teased, his arms automatically going around her body, pulling her closer.
"I'm good," she sighed. Her eyelids were already starting to close, her breathing warm and slow across his chest.
Doyle watched her as she drifted off to sleep. "Yeah, you are," he murmured.
Continue on to Part 2