Title: Lonely Hearts

Summary: Named after and with allusions to Season One episode 'Lonely Hearts' and set after Season Two episode 'Fredless.' With Fred now an official member of the team, Cordelia feels the need to set a few things straight with regards to their creature of the night employer.

Author: RinoaTifa

Disclaimer: I do not own Angel or any of its characters.

Tact had never come easy to Cordelia Chase. Time was, back in Sunnydale, that she couldn't even see the point in it. Why spend precious minutes that could be filled with shopping and/or boys on pussyfooting around a subject just to spare someone's feelings? No, it was better to get it over and done with. Like ripping off a band-aid. In the three years since her departure from the Land that Logic Forgot, Cordy liked to think that she had learned a great deal. Matured. Grown up. Become her own person. Y'know, that kind of thing you always read about in Me, Myself and I Motivation books.

Even so, Cordelia was well aware that she could still be far too blunt for her own good. And, with an issue as delicate as she was sure this would end up being, equally she knew that she would need to pick her words carefully. But that didn't mean this whole delicate, softly softly approach was going to work out for her. After all, she'd tried that a couple of weeks ago, slowly and precisely explaining the situation like a nursery teacher with a particularly slow child. She may as well have been speaking in Latin for all the good it seemed to have done. In fact, maybe Fred would have understood better if she had used Latin. It was always hard to tell with her.

Yes, that had been a good hour of her time wasted trying to put across the message that Angel is not like other guys, Angel cannot have a normal relationship, Angel is a sexless freak yadda yadda yadda. Or at least, Cordelia had become quite willing to assume it had been a waste of time after hearing the Balled of Angel and the trip to the ice cream parlour for the fourth time this week.

Lord, it was the Bethany situation all over again. Those two should meet, actually, Cordy mused to herself. They'd probably get along like a house on fire. Both head over heels for Mr Emotionally Unavailable Creature of the Night Enigma Man; both stock full of crazy. It could be the start of a beautiful friendship. Honestly, how did Angel manage to attract all the weird, vulnerable damsels walking the streets of LA? Did he give off some kind of scent or did they just all happen to have a fetish for brooding Champions in leather jackets? Still – keep to the point, Cordy – the fact of the matter was, it was time for her to undertake a little 'talk' with Fred, the same way she had with Bethany. Well, at least it probably couldn't go any worse than that one had. She may be obsessed with tacos and enjoy using the walls of her room as a sketchpad, but at least Fred wasn't liable to start hurling stuff every which way with her mind if she didn't like what she was hearing. The worst Fred could probably do was to start crying hysterically or something.

Oh God, she missed Bethany. Maybe she'd been hanging out with Angel too long, but Cordy couldn't help but feel that she'd take a volatile telekinetic over an emotional breakdown any day.

Taking a deep breath, Cordelia descended the great staircase of the Hyperion Hotel. She stood in the ray of sunshine seeping in from the glass doors, content just to take it all in for a moment. Her eyes scanned the lobby, taking in the neglected grandeur of the sweeping ceilings, dusty banisters, and slightly faded wallpaper. All these things that once would have appeared the very height of sophistication had been reduced to discarded relics, slowly loosing their majesty and grace with the gradual passage of time, left to rot as the world moved on all around until Angel had put the building back in use. Looking around at it all gave her this strange, twisty feeling in the pit of her stomach sometimes without her being sure why. Like a half-forgotten memory of something lost a long time ago. It was at moments like that when she understood why Angel had chosen this place specifically as the base of their operations.

The lobby looked the same as it always did, though the slightly ajar door to the weapons cabinet informed her that the others were on some form of mission, having probably left in a hurry. Aside from herself, the only other living thing within the hotel was curled up on the other side of the room. Spotting the familiar slender frame, Cordy inwardly gathered herself and marched over to the reception. Fred, sat in a leather swivel chair behind the counter, had her knees tucked up beneath her, one hand playing with a stray lock of hair whilst the other held the book on which her eyes were so firmly fixed. As always, Cordelia couldn't help but be hit by how vulnerable she looked, how fragile. Which was why the whole tact thing was such a major issue right about now. You're going to be fine, Cordy. Just take your time.

"Let's go out tonight!"

Yeah, because that was just full of subtlety and wit. Bravo.

Deep brown eyes blinked into focus, staring blankly at the young woman stood before her. Cordy smiled in what she hoped was an encouraging, warm kind of way but may have just made her look like some kind of over enthusiastic maniac. When Fred continued to stare back at her uncomprehendingly, Cordelia tried again.

"Y'know, just the two of us. You and me, two workingwomen against the world. Girls of Angel Investigations unite!"

Oh God, she actually sounded like a lunatic. If Fred wasn't scared before, Cordelia really wouldn't blame her if she was now. Inwardly, she scolded herself for her apparent inability to be even remotely subtle, delicate or, in fact, normal. What the hell was wrong with her today?

At least, however, this outburst of lunacy managed to illicit some form of response from the quiet Texan girl. She blinked with her huge, dark eyes before simply asking, "Why?"

Cordelia could see where Fred was coming from with this comment, and the frankness of it cheered her considerably. It was the kind of thing she'd ask if someone she barely knew and who had shown little interest in her up to this point had suddenly come over apparently desperate to be her bestest buddy ever. That, and the fact that the last (and only other) time they had gone out together, a gang had nearly slaughtered them all. In a karaoke bar. Then there was the whole living in a cave for five years thing which would probably make just about anyone jittery about stepping out into the big bad world, even if it was just to hang out in some bar.

It seemed that tact was out the window. Okay, fine. She'd just have to rely on her own maturity and seriousness instead. Easy peasy. Placing her palms on the wooden panelling of the reception desk, Cordelia leaned forwards and put on her best sincere face. Her tone became far more level and genuine as she spoke again, looking directly into the young girl's timid gaze. "Because you are now an official member of our team and so I think it's only right that we have a chance to really get to know each other. And I think it would be fun," she added lightly, grinning in her slightly cheeky way.

"Oh." Cordelia could see the blush creeping up Fred's porcelain cheeks as she glanced down quickly, as though the book still clasped in her lap could offer her some solution. She wondered whether the girl would need yet more prodding but when Fred met her gaze again, she was smiling in that coy, hopeful way that she usually took on whenever Angel… Well, whenever Angel did anything. Cordy felt a little stab of guilt for concealing her ulterior motive for the get together but shrugged it off, knowing it couldn't be helped. Fred nodded slightly, seeming to gain confidence. "Well, when you put it like that… Sure, I'd love to."

"Great!" Still smiling, Cordy turned and began to make her way back up the stairs when the sound of her name being called stopped her short. She looked back over her shoulder to see Fred stood uncertainly in the lobby, fingers twisting the material of her top as she stared back at her beseechingly.

"Cordelia… What should I wear?"

"This place is really nice," Fred said over the pounding music, looking as though she thought it was anything but.

Cordelia nodded, bobbing along to the track. "Yeah, we came here a couple times a few years back when this demon was busy eviscerating a lot of the place's clientele. Don't know why we never came back."

She threw another reassuring smile over at the alarmed looking younger girl and took a long sip of her drink. They had already been at the newly refurbished D'oblique for forty-five minutes and had yet to get past the awkward small talk phase. At least Cordy had managed to stop Fred panicking about her outfit for too long when she'd found a simple light blue dress that complimented the Texan girl's slight frame hiding in the back of her cupboard and after a good ten minutes assuring her that her appearance was just fine, Fred had agreed to wear it. Angel had even told her she looked lovely, boosting Fred's confidence phenomenally but doing nothing to aid Cordy's mission. He'd said nothing when she had announced their girl's night out except throw her a questioning glance to which Cordelia had responded with a winning smile, as if to say 'trust me.' As for Cordelia's attire, she was dressed in a little black dress. Simple, sexy and effective – it had never failed.

Let's only hope it gives me luck tonight, she thought grimly, mentally preparing herself for what was about to come.

"Fred…" Cordy began, raising her eyes to meet those of the other young woman, who met her gaze expectantly. "You're a member of the team now and, really, I'm glad about that but what we do is hard work and to do it we have to make sure we don't let ourselves get – distracted."

"I understand." Fred nodded vigorously. Her pale fingers were wrapped around her glass tightly and she was rocking ever so slightly in her seat. She was still clearly more than a little uncomfortable in the social scene. "I'm good at hard work, I ain't gonna let you down."

Cordelia resisted the urge to let out a sigh of frustration. This was already proving tricky. Oh, how she longed for the days when she could just tell her to back the hell off with no regard for the fragile creature's feelings. Things were so much simpler back in Sunnydale. "You're not getting my point. My point is we're a team, so it's important that our behaviour around each other is professional and no more than that because otherwise things get awkward and people get hurt and…"

She trailed off, aware that this was getting her nowhere. Brushing back a stray strand of dark hair, Cordelia swivelled in her seat so that her whole body faced Fred. "Look, a few years back, there was this guy who used to work with us. All this time I thought we were just co-workers or friends or whatever when really he had all these feelings and by the time he got round to telling me –" She paused, collecting herself. "Let's say, it didn't end well. And the thing is all I could think about after was would things have been different if I'd known sooner? Would we have actually made a good couple or was I just seeing him that way in hindsight? And what if we'd broken up – would it have become too awkward to work together, would there have been divisions? Did he really care about me that much or was I just there?"

Huge brown eyes were fixed on her. From the spark of light dancing in them, Cordy got the impression something was finally getting through. She swallowed hard and shook her head, giving her customary half smile. "And that way only badness lies. It wasn't fair, Fred. It wasn't fair on me or on him and things would have only been more complicated if he was my boss, not to mention an undead creature of the night eunuch."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Fred's mouth quirk up every so slightly in a smile and she placed a hand on her arm. "Are we understanding each other?"

Averting her eyes, Fred nodded slightly. She was silent a moment then murmured, "I just – he was so nice to me and I thought-"

"You aren't the first and believe me, you won't be the last," Cordelia told her, but gently. She smirked. "You know, I had a huge thing for Angel when we first met."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. But even then he only had eyes for Buffy and, hard as it is to work out why, she's still the only one he can see." She looked down into her glass and laughed. "God, can you imagine what it must be like to love someone that much?"

Fred bit her lip. "Sounds kinda scary, actually."

"My thoughts exactly." Cordy twisted back round, leaning her elbows against the bar so that she could survey her surroundings. All around couples were dancing, laughing, chatting away animatedly. She laughed again. "We make a right pair, don't we? Here we are in a fancy nightclub surrounded by all these rather gorgeous eligible young men and all we can do is mope about what we can't have like a couple of lonely hearts."

Fred laughed too and they lapsed into comfortable silence, listening to the music and sipping their drinks intermittently. It was only a few minutes later that Cordelia heard her name being spoken ever so softly and looked round to be met by a sincere gaze. "What was his name?"

She didn't have to ask who Fred meant. A small smile played across her lips as she uttered his name: "Doyle." Cordelia opened her mouth to continue but a beeping cut her off. Fishing in her bag, she pulled out her cell phone and held it to her ear, listened a moment before nodding and stating, "We're on our way."

Her familiar half smile replacing the smaller, sadder one of moments before, Cordelia glanced at Fred. "We got a situation. Drink up, and let's roll!" With that, the brunette was up, wrapping her coat around her frame and already heading for the door. For a moment, Fred just watched her go, marvelling at how much your perception of someone could change in a single night. She'd seen the sorrow in Cordy's eyes, the loss and the grief, and found a new sense of admiration for the other girl who she had always considered a little shallow. Maybe that was true, but it didn't change the fact that an understanding and even a bond had now been forged between the two young women, the only two females to work at Angel Investigations, the two lonely hearts.