Cordelia stuck her head tentatively inside the mansion and peered cautiously inside. The main living area was deserted, the battered couch and the coffee table where Angel should have inevitably sat brooding after such an intense session with Buffy was strangely abandoned. The hollow fireplace hunched in stony quietness at the far side of the room, shrouded in a thick blanket of shadows.

Cordelia breathed a sigh of relief. All in all things seemed relatively normal. At least there wasn't any overturned furniture or dust piles - that she could see anyway.

The ray of light that had been let into the room slithered away when Cordelia closed the heavy wooden door softly behind her. The interior returned to its inky darkness, the grey stillness of the walls and the cold stone floor accentuating the dramatic silence of the cavernous room. Almost tiptoeing, she crossed the room and dumped the bag of blood she had just gotten from the butcher on the coffee table and sighed.

This was eerie. Even during his record breaking intense moments of brooding boringness, Angel had never been this quiet. The place seemed deserted, which wasn't really all that possible given his extreme allergy to sunlight and the whole bursting into a flamy death thing, and - well, that was reason enough for his Broodiness to keep to the shadows. It was a very compelling reason for him to stay inside.

Cordelia huffed in exasperation. Where was the undead brooding vampire? She walked around the room, suddenly shattering the stillness with a single cry. "Angel!"

There was no response. Suddenly a new, more exotic fear began forming in her mind - namely that Buffy, Slayer from the dead extraordinaire, had somehow staked her undead former boss without so much as a by your leave, without destroying any wooden furniture to speak of, without consulting anyone first - namely Cordelia, who depended on his undeadness to solve cases, to kill big bads so she could get paid and dammit, to protect her in times of visiony danger.

She screamed for Angel again, fear gripping her voice and making it shake slightly.

"ANGEL!"

She unconsciously held her breath and waited, and only the painful tightening of her chest reminding her of her need for air. The deceptive calmness of the room began to grate on her nerves as precious seconds dragged by, the only sound audible being the palpable beating of her own heart.

She walked to the well-worn couch and was about to plonk down when she spied something directly under it. Puzzled, she shifted it sideways slightly - and stared.

There was a pile of dust. A pile of dust. A pile of -

What?!

Bending down quickly and hastily reminding herself over and over again that Buffy would never ever stake Angel, she examined the dust. No matter how annoying and stupid she thought the Slayer was, she knew that Buffy would never ever stake her former boyfriend, not in a million billion years, not even if they had gotten into a really huge fight and started belting each other like they sometimes did which in their twisted universe constituted friendly bickering and God - what if it was an accident? What if she had staked him by accident and ran out of the mansion, and -

"Cordy, what are you doing?"

She let out a shrill scream as Angel suddenly appeared behind her, towelling off his damp hair and making it stick out outlandishly in all directions. "What-?"

He was cut off as Cordelia launched herself into his arms with ecstatic relief, hugging him with all her might. Beads of water dripped off his chin and onto her hair as he stopped all movement but she didn't even notice, burrowing herself if possible even deeper into his arms. "Thank God you're safe."

Confused but admittedly happy that Cordelia seemed in no hurry to move from her comfortable position in his arms, he held onto her until she finally disentangled herself from him.

"Where were you?" She demanded, annoyed at him for giving her such a scare.

Angel frowned. "I was taking a shower." Sensing her distress he asked quickly, "What ... what's wrong Cordy?"

"What's wrong?! What's wrong is that I thought you were gone. Like ... poof, in a big grey cloud of dust! Like ..." She gestured inarticulately. "Gone!"

Angel blinked while trying to determine what exactly he had done wrong. He looked down at her worried hazel orbs, her annoyed pout and the frown that briefly marred her delicately chiselled face. His gaze followed hers down to the floor and to the couch next to him.

A small smile hovered on Angel's lips as his eyes caught the dust lying near his feet. He looked back at his now embarrassed looking Seer, her full lips formed into a defensive pout. "I see. You thought ..." He gestured at the pile of dust.

"Yes! I thought Buffy went mental okay? As if it'd be the first time."

Angel smiled at her embarrassment, a mischievous twinkle gleaming in his chocolate coloured orbs. "Ah Cordelia ... you know she would never do that."

"Do I?" Cordelia pouted determinedly, still embarrassed at the mind-numbing fear she had been experiencing just moments before. "I mean duh - she's the Slayer and in case you've forgotten you're a vampire, and - can I really be sure that she just wouldn't, you know, stake you ... accidentally or something?" She crossed her arms defiantly.

Angel reined in his smile somewhat and looked down at her indulgently. "Cordy, you know she'd never do that. I mean, we might fight ... a lot - but she wouldn't, you know -"

"Yeah, yeah I know." Cordelia sighed resignedly and threw herself on the couch, feeling really really stupid now. Of course Buffy would never stake Angel - like she'd ever stake the 'love of her life'. They were the star-crossed lovers of all time; she was Juliet to his Romeo and would Juliet ever do anything to harm her precious, precious pretty boy lover? Of course not.

Cordelia bounced back up, her mood deteriorating rapidly. Her head hurt like there was no tomorrow and Angel wanted to discuss the finer points of little Miss likes to fight? Oooh Buffy can slay vampires. Buffy's so strong and athletic. Buffy can come back from the dead. Huh.

"Forget it, I was just being stupid - as usual. Feel free to ignore poor little clueless Cordy." She huffed acidically as she started walking out of the room.

"Cordy, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, okay? Does something always have to be wrong?" She huffed irritably. "And does something always have to be wrong before you show any signs of concern - about me?"

Angel reeled back in astounded confusion. "What ...What do you mean?"

His handsomely clueless face made Cordelia want to strangle him in frustration. He was such a clueless idiot sometimes! Did she have to spell everything out to him?

God. She already poured his blood, listened to his insane rambling, coaxed him out of serial broodiness, bought him underwear when he had none, patched up his wounds, made sure he had fun sometimes, made him talk to people like a normal person, single-handedly brought the concept of colour back into his wardrobe, dusted his stupid hotel suite and the most tortuous thing of all - had actually listened to him sing. Didn't that qualify her for some 'caring about Cordy' moments? Was it too much to ask of him to show that he cared about her just a little? Not just in a 'she's just had a vision and now her brain's threatening to explode' kinda way, but in a 'she's my bestest friend in the whole world and let's not always compare her to perfect Buffy' kinda way?

The more she thought about it the more annoyed she became. She was always playing second fiddle to Buffy's orchestra in his eyes and always will. Sure Cordelia was vision girl ... so what? It would always be the same tune with Angel. Buffy would always be this gloriously bright, shining light in his past, and what was she? His annoying gal Friday - occasionally witty, occasionally funny personal messenger from the Powers That Be.

Look how he had totally ditched her when Buffy had dropped by this morning. And it wasn't just Angel. It was Xander and the Scoobies who had always thought she was a brainless, insensitive cheerleader. It was everything and everyone about this stupid town, and why did the Powers have to land her in the only place in the entire country that made her feel insignificant and worthless?

Cordelia's angry hazel eyes bored into Angel's placidly uncomprehending face, making him cringe unwittingly. "What do I mean? Do I have to spell out everything for you?" She shoved her hands on her hips, her voice rising.

"Cordy, what's wrong? Are you okay?" Angel asked in confused concern.

"If I hear you ask me 'what's wrong' or 'are you okay' one more time I'm going to - I'm going to scream!" She began to pace about the room frantically. "Can't you just for once show that you care about me? About how I'm doing and not because of some stupid vision that makes me want to throw up and choke at the same time?

"Cordy you know I care, I always care."

"Of course you do!" The irritated girl said, pointing an accusing finger into his chest. "You always care. You care about your precious vision girl, you care about Wes and Gunn, you care about pretty, cute little Fred - you care about Lorne, you care about everyone in L.A and argh! You probably care about everyone on this whole damn planet! You even care about that stupid mangy dog that's always hanging around the hotel and don't think I haven't noticed you feeding him scraps - but that's not the point." He opened his mouth to protest but she smoothly continued, oblivious to his confusion. "The point is that you care about the world, I'm technically part of the world and hence - yeah, you care about me. But you don't care about me."

She looked at him as if daring him to retaliate. Heedless of the angry jutting of her chin, the brilliant fury in her bright hazel eyes and the hostility radiating from her being, Angel drew a long breath and attempted to formulate a reply.

"Cordy are you crazy? Of course I care." He gulped as he saw the fury in her eyes burn even brighter and realised that he probably shouldn't have called her crazy. "Um, what I mean is ... Of course I care ... about you. I've always cared. You know ... I let you put cinnamon in my blood sometimes."

Cordelia remained immobile, her face still one of barely contained fury.

Angel plunged on, his hands running nervously through his drying hair. "And um, I've started wearing more colours. You know that light blue shirt you picked out for me last week? I ... I actually wore it last week ..." His mind desperately searched for more examples. " ... And I tried to surf the ah, the net last week like you showed me. And um ... Basically I care. I do care about you Cordelia." He finished off sincerely.

There was a dramatic pause before Cordelia saw fit to repel his arguments. "That puppy dog look isn't going to work for you this time broody boy - so you may as well drop it. I'm tired, my head hurts and I'm angry. The least you can do is to take me seriously!" She paused before adding quietly, "Of course you may not be able to take silly little Cordy seriously."

Suddenly Angel felt a stab of irrational anger pierce his relatively light mood. "Cordelia." He said sternly, "Don't ever say that about yourself."

"Say what? Say that I'm silly? That no one ever takes me seriously?" She asked him, her tone defiant. "Why not? It's true isn't it?" She looked up into his slightly angry eyes. "Look what you've just said to me. I put cinnamon in your blood. I buy you clothes. Is that all I am to you? A maid? ... a personal assistant? Is that -"

"Cordelia you know that isn't true." Angel could feel his anger beginning to spiral out of control. How could she even begin to think those things? To think that he thought nothing more of her than ... than a maid? A personal assistant? How could she ...? "You're my friend. More than that - you're my family." He gritted his teeth to try to keep his anger from seeping into his words. "You were the first person who saw me for what I was - for what I am - and accepted me. You ... you help me in ways you'll never know." He wanted to shake her, to do something to emphasise the force of his emotions but he settled for gripping her shoulders firmly with his hands. "You're like the light I can never touch ... the perfect happiness I can never feel. When you're around me I know I'll never be lost. Cordy you're everything I need to live - can't you see that?"

His beautiful words made her eyes tear up with happiness but she quickly shook herself out of the feeling. She wanted so desperately to believe him, to believe that everything he had just said was true.

But it was only a dream ... a wonderful, intoxicating dream.

"Angel ..." She said, anguish erasing the anger from her voice. "You don't feel that way about me, not really. I'm just ... it's just because I'm there all the time, that's all. If I'm ... if I'm not there you'll find others ... other people that can be all those things to you."

He swallowed, barely able to absorb her words. It was all Angel could do to keep from tearing the nearby coffee table apart in frustration. He had practically bared his soul to her - hell he had bared his soul to her - and she hadn't even believed him!

"Cordelia - you're so stubborn sometimes!" He gritted his teeth and plunged on. "I think I know better than anyone else how I feel, don't you? And if I say I care about you and that you're everything to me, I mean it."

She tried another tack. "Well how do you expect me to believe you when you're reserved broody guy all the time? You never say anything to me - well, except just now but that's beside the point - and you never let it show. And don't give me that 'you find it hard to show your true feelings' sensitive new age vampire crap. I've seen you with Buffy, all making with the smoochies."

"Don't bring Buffy into this." He was fighting a losing battle on his irritation. Why couldn't Cordelia just accept that that was the way he really felt about her? Why was this annoying, passionate, gorgeous beauty in front of him so damn stubborn about things?

"Cordelia, can't you just accept that that's the way I really feel?" He felt his irritation mounting as he saw the disbelieving pain in her eyes. "What do I have to do to prove it to you?" He grabbed her shoulders roughly, his dark eyes boring into hers with sparkling intensity. "What do I have to do?"

"Angel ..." She wrenched herself out of his painful grasp. "You can't do anything. It's not about proving anything ... I don't blame you, I really don't."

He let out a small growl in frustration, feeling the familiar primal stirrings of his demon. "You don't blame me?" He looked down at her, his dark orbs suddenly smouldering as his voice descended into a dangerous whisper. "Here I am, telling you everything that I feel about you. The way you make me feel ..." His hands crept languorously through her hair as he stepped closer and closer to her. Cordelia remained still as he nestled his face into her hair and luxuriated in her soft tresses, before slowly descending down the side of her face and settling into the crook of her neck, leaving her skin tingling as he inhaled deeply. Inhaled her deeply.

Whoa. Now Cordelia was the one confused. This behaviour was ... new. Very new. So new in fact that she had never seen him like this before - well, except for that time with the Darla-induced craziness. And she knew how well that had turned out.

His hands wrapped around her body, caressing her back gently ... almost sensually. Okay this was getting freaky. What the hell was he doing?!

"Ah ... Angel?" She tentatively spoke into his soft brown hair, her voice uncertain. "Bestest vampire buddy? What are you doing?"

He withdrew his head from her shoulders, but not before brushing his face briefly against the top of her chest. He grinned innocently at her, hanging his head boyishly as if caught doing something wrong.

She felt a long moment of blind panic. He was milking the puppy dog expression as far as it would go and ... was Angel pouting? Pouting with those utterly kissable lips and God - she had to stop thinking right there.

Okay, this was definitely new.

"I'm trying to show you how much I care about you Cordy." His eyes were alight with ... with something. There was a glimmer of feigned innocence as well as a glint of steel, but Cordelia for once couldn't read Angel like an open book - and she didn't like it one bit.

The worst thing was that now all her energy, all her anger at him and at the world - albeit irrational - had completely disappeared. Dissipated into thin air. She couldn't even continue the fight.

Cordelia Chase had been bested by a socially inept 248 year old Irish vampire!

Her attention returned to the present as Angel continued, his look of boyish innocence replaced by one of feigned casualness. "You know Cordy, I've been doing all the talking here. But what about you? How much do you care Cordy? Really care?"

Angel had skilfully manipulated her and there was nothing she could do about it! With sudden clarity Cordelia realised that no matter how kind and gentle Angel normally appeared to be, he was, after all, a vampire - one who wasn't above a little manipulation to get something he really wanted. She was annoyed at being manoeuvred, yet at the same time she found herself intrigued. She had always known that there were layers to her friend that she hadn't seen before, and now that she was exposed to yet another side of his already complex character - she found it quite thrilling. Although technically she could've lived without being introduced to the 'brooding about Darla until he went insane' Angel.

"What do you mean?" She spluttered. "Were we having the same conversation? I clearly care about you."

He nodded thoughtfully, his face returning to its normal gravity. "Do you? I mean ... Do you care about me more than you cared about the Groosalug?"

"Huh?" Cordelia blinked and looked at him blankly. What did Groo have anything to do with it?

"The Groosalug." He said, as if that in itself totally clarified the situation. "You cared about him, didn't you?"

"Yeah. For those three days we were stuck in Pylea." She tried to reign her sarcasm in but her frustration made her want to scream. "Plus he was really nice to me. What does he have to do with anything?"

"You said you loved him." Angel replied in a small, subdued tone.

Cordelia was reduced to blinking blankly again. "I do - I did." She absently corrected herself, feeling her frustration build. "So what? What does that -"

She stopped abruptly as she caught onto his train of thought. "Oh God. Do you actually think that I - that I care more for Groo than for you?" She half-laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea, making his face darken.

"Well, we were fighting to the death and you did stop me from hurting him so I'm thinking - yeah."

"That's stupid." She retorted peevishly, annoyed at his utter stupidity and cluelessness. "How could you think that after all the stuff we've been through?"

"Well what was I supposed to think?" His voice was rapidly turning into a shout. "You always say what's on your mind and you said you loved him. How was I supposed to know I was stupid in believing you?"

"Well," Cordelia blustered. "You should actually try thinking before you become sensitive martyr guy. Don't blame me if you're too stupid to realise that I love you, you dumb ass!"

"Well - I love you too!" Angel blustered, before he registered what she had just said to him.

Tension hung thickly in the air and for a full minute neither of them could formulate a thought. The silence in the room was punctuated only by the heavy and erratic beating of Cordelia's heart until she shifted slightly on her feet, the impact of what he had just confessed to her making her suddenly blush crimson.

She tried to alleviate the tension with a nervous giggle. "Wow. Did that qualify as an intense bonding moment?"

Angel rubbed his neck sheepishly, his erratic mood dissipating. "Yeah. I think it more than qualifies."

She swallowed, trying to not notice the dryness in her throat. Her head still hurt from the headache that had assaulted her at the Espresso Pump and she really needed to lie down. Her emotions were veering so wildly out of control that she didn't know what to think - couldn't know what to think, except for one thing.

Angel loved her. Angel loved her. He loved her?

"You love me?" Her mind was jerked back by Angel's incredulous and uncertain voice. "You shouldn't. I'm dangerous." Her face darkened. "You shouldn't ... care."

"Oh please. Don't tell me that I can't care." A hint of steel crept back into her voice. "That ship's already sailed mister. It's sailed so far out of the harbour it's out at sea now. It's drawn anchor and people on that ship are fishing."

"Well ... okay." He surprised her by giving her a slightly cheeky grin. "I can deal with that."

"Good." She smiled in spite of herself. Pain shot through her head and she realised that she really needed to lie down for a while. Having the vision yesterday, fighting those calamari demons, not getting enough sleep and dealing with heavy emotion issues were taking their toll on her.

Angel noticed her flinching with pain and automatically braced her against his taller frame. "Cordy?"

"It's nothing." She smiled wanly up at him, the tiredness in her eyes suddenly betraying her fatigue. "Just a headache that's all. I just need to lie down for a while."

Angel nodded silently, controlling the irrational anger and fear that inevitably coursed through him every time he saw Cordelia in this condition. In so much pain because of her visions ... because of him. And because he could do nothing to alleviate her suffering.

"Okay." He helped her to the bedroom and onto the large, soft bed, tucking her in and pulling the comforter until it shrouded her lithe frame. "Need anything? Tylenol? Water?"

She looked up at him, her eyes shining. "I'm good." She paused, sleep already half claiming her as he kneeled beside the bed. "Love you." She mumbled before closing her glorious eyes.

He gently brushed his lips against her forehead. "Love you too Cordy."

He leaned back in the shadows to simply gaze at Cordelia's slumbering form, the smooth contours of her face, her delicate, passionate features. He had finally admitted the truth that he had inwardly denied for so many months - the truth he had feared for so long. Feared that she wouldn't feel the same way, and feared that she would.

But he realised that it didn't matter now. They had admitted their feelings for each other and it had been accepted so quickly, so simply - as if they had both known on some level about their feelings for one another. It was ... it was the most natural thing in the world.

Angel gently brushed tendrils of Cordelia's dark brown hair off her face. He had admitted to himself and to her that he loved her - and the world hadn't ended. Maybe there was hope for them yet.

 

(c) Vivian Ngan September 2001