Death of a Star

Here

"And now back to our main story. A lorry has overturned in downtown Santa Monica, causing mile long tailbacks. At the moment, three people are said to have died and many others are injured. Our correspondent –"

Angel does not look up when the newsreader disappears, the picture fading into an inky nothingness that reflects only the carefully creased knees of his black trousers.

He feels the edge of the bed sink, but keeps his gaze stubbornly fixed on the blank screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a hand lift to touch his knee. But it hesitates and falls back on the bed.

Angel isn't sorry. He doesn't want comfort. He doesn't want empathy. He wants Cordelia.

"Angel."

In his mind, it's Cordelia's voice. Soft, but firm, telling him to snap the hell out of it.

In reality it's Wesley's voice. Tentative, broken, telling him he's needed.

Damn being needed. Let someone else comfort Fred, reassure Gunn that Cordelia couldn't have been saved. Let someone else tell Wesley they missed her too and tell Lorne that they weren't sure what they were going to do next. Angel is done with all of it.

"Angel, please."

He's pleading now and that's enough to make Angel's gaze waver and finally drift towards Wesley.

Wesley looks like Angel feels. He's pale, making his look cheekbones sharper than usual, his nose red and raw. He has shadows under red-rimmed eyes and his hair stands on end. The only tidy thing about Wesley is his suit – which already looks slightly loose on him – and it's this suit that makes Angel's stomach baulk in a way it hasn't done since he started on his medication. Wesley might as well be the Grim Reaper because that suit could never be mistaken for a wedding suit, or a suit for a posh dinner or important meeting, it's a funeral suit through and through. It makes Angel glad he can't look in a mirror and he tells himself not to look down at himself now.

"We're ready to go, Angel."

Wesley keeps saying his name. Like it will somehow make it better, like it will remind him that there are still people who know him and who care. It makes no difference.

"I'm not going," Angel replies finally.

"Angel –"

"I can't go."

"You have to," Wesley's fingers clench in the sheets on the bed and his voice is strangled. "You can't not go."

"Why not?"

"Because this is Cordy," Wesley says and finally his voice is normal and he says this like it's the simplest thing in the world.

And he calls her Cordy. Not Cordelia, because anyone could have been Cordelia, but not anyone could have been Cordy. Cordy was funny, beautiful, kind, soft and strong. Cordy was theirs.

And he uses the word "is." As though she's still here. They both know the proper word to use is "was," but Angel knows they're both wondering whether they'll ever be able to use that word in relation to Cordelia. Their Cordy.

"She would have wanted you there," Wesley goes on, "I realise that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. She said goodbye to you, didn't she? It's only fair you show her the same courtesy."

Angel gulps, remembering her goodbye.

"One for the road?"

"And it's not just her," Wesley's voice cracks again, grows shriller. "You and I… We knew her longest, didn't we? We knew her best. We were there from the beginning. We saw it all. It can't just be me, Angel. We all need you there."

"She loved you," Angel says and his voice is hoarse.

"I loved her too and that's why I'm going," Wesley smiles grimly. "Anyway, she loved you too. She loved you more."

There's no bitterness there. It's a simple fact and maybe it's true. Or maybe it's just that she loved him differently. Guess he'll never know.

He shrugs.

"If you don't go, what then? You'll look back and you'll hate yourself for never having said goodbye to the woman you loved. I'm not blind. I know what was going on with you two. And if it weren't for her, maybe you'd be in some psychiatric unit. You owe her, Angel. Come on."

Angel looks away, out of the window. It's late afternoon, they wanted the ceremony to be around dusk so it was quiet and calm. From his apartment he can see LA spread out like a magic carpet before him, the lights starting to go on one by one.

That was going to be her world. She had intended to be its darling, but he had sidetracked her. If she'd had that world, if she'd been the famous Cordelia Chase she always thought she'd be, she'd still be alive. God knows what would have happened to them – him – without her, but Angel thinks it would have been a small price to pay to know she was safe and well and happy.

"I don't know how to say goodbye to her," he says softly and he hears Wesley gulp hard.

"You think there's a handbook?" Wesley asks, getting up and smoothing his suit with quick, agitated strokes. "No one knows, we just have to do the best we can. Coming?"

He extends his hand and Angel looks at it before taking it and allowing himself to be hauled to his feet. Wesley shoves his hands in his pockets, bunching the insides in his fists and puckering the fabric. He leads the way out of the flat, into the lift and outside, where Gunn is waiting with Spike and Fred in the car. Gunn starts the car slowly, as though he has to think through every action and eventually they pull away.

"One for the road?"

There

"… And now back to our main story. Today is the funeral of award-winning actress Cordelia Chase, star of the Emmy winning show Cordy!. Although Cordelia Chase has been in a coma for the past six months after a helicopter stunt whilst filming went wrong, her death has still come as a shock to her fans and the industry alike. At the moment, her funeral cortege is making its way to her final resting place in LA, hundreds of fans lining the streets wanting to pay their final respects –"

The newsreader disappears and Angel's gaze immediately moves to Wesley who has lowered himself into a crouch, steadying himself with his one hand on the TV.

"Are we going now, Wesley?" Angel asks.

Wesley almost sighs in relief. It is one of Angel's more lucid days. Since Cordelia Chases's first visit, Angel had improved. But since she had been taken into hospital, Angel had spent most of the time staring at the wall and muttering. Wesley had assumed he was praying.

"Yes, Angel, we're going now."

"To say goodbye to Cordy," Angel adds and gets up, helping Wesley to his feet.

He always called her Cordy. He was the only one that did. Wesley tried it a couple of times, but the familiarity of it made him uncomfortable and he stuck with Cordelia. He didn't feel that "Cordy" belonged to them.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Wesley asks. "It won't be pleasant, Angel. We'll have to wait in the car 'til everyone's gone. We don't have to go."

"We do," Angel squeezes Wesley's shoulder a little too tightly. "She was our friend, Wesley. We have to say goodbye."

Wesley is silent for a moment. It's at times like this that he wonders what Angel sees, what Angel thinks he knows. She wasn't really their friend; she wasn't part of their world. He wonders vaguely if there are other planes of existence in which she was their Cordelia and was part of their world. It would be nice to think so. Nice, but pointless.

"I suppose you're right," Wesley replies, shrugging off a chill-like certainty that things were different in another life. He nods firmly. "Yes, she was good to us. A good friend."

"The best," Angel corrects.

"Ready?" Gunn is at the front door, waiting for them, uncertain. He doesn't think it's a good idea taking a fruitcake to a funeral to watch someone he adored get swallowed up by the earth. And Gunn hates scenes.

He doesn't believe for one moment that Angel can handle it and he almost had Wesley convinced, but Wesley has a little more faith in Angel than that.

Gunn opens the door and waits until both Wesley and Angel are strapped in. He climbs in, turns on the child-lock and revs the engine. He turns sharply out of their road towards the graveyard where the best part of the film and TV industry is making its way to say goodbye to Cordelia Chase.

Here

There's no church service. No one even suggested there ought to be. The men carry the coffin – the best money can buy – Angel and Wesley on one side, Spike and Gunn on the other, the two grave-diggers helping them out.

The priest is waiting at the grave. It's already dug and Angel finds this slightly shocking. As dusk darkens around them it looks deep, black and forbidding. He has the insane notion that she might be cold down there and he's unwilling to let go of the coffin when it is rested on the wooden planks above the hole in the ground.

Fred takes his hand and pulls him gently away, whispering his name. He looks up. The grave-diggers have moved a respectable distance away, their heads bowed. Standing on the other side of the grave, in a little black dress hardly appropriate for a funeral, is Eve.

"What are you doing here?" Angel asks, awestruck at her audacity.

"The bosses thought there should be a representative of Wolfram and Hart here," she replies primly.

"She hated for Wolfram and Hart. She hated you most of all," Angel starts towards her, but Spike catches his elbow.

"Not here," he says. "Not now."

Angel looks back at the grave and stares in horror as Fred lays a bouquet of stargazer lilies on the coffin. Wesley lowers a bouquet of red roses, with a tiny bunch of white roses at its centre. Gunn offers a hastily tied bunch of daffodils.

"They were bright," he muttered. "Kinda cheerful. Reminded me of her."

Spike feels Angel tremble and keeps his hand on his arm as he leans forward to add his Michelmas daisies to the pile.

"I didn't get any," Angel murmurs.

Wesley looks at him and Angel looks away, unable to meet the pity in Wesley's eyes. Wesley carefully tugs the small bunch of white roses from his bouquet and puts them in Angel's hand, closing his fingers around the stems. Angel clasps them tightly and doesn't even notice when Gunn nods at the priest to begin.

Angel looks up when the melancholy voice of the priest trembles through the air. Eve is staring at the coffin, having finally seemed to realise that this is no laughing matter.

"… He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake…"

There are nine people at her funeral. Only five of them actually knew her.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff they comfort me…"

There

Her coffin is white, gleaming in the mid afternoon sunlight. They watch from the tinted windows of Gunn's van as it is carried from the church by six men, only two of whom they recognise – her producer and her co-star.

Her mother and father follow. Her mother's hair is stiff beneath the black hat, her face hidden by a vast pair of black sunglasses. Her father's face is grim, stoical, patting her mother's hand as it lies loosely over his arm and he nods politely at the people that pass them, with a thank-you-for-coming smile.

There is a sea of flowers and what looks to the men in the car like an endless collection of black-clad mourners. A slender woman is supported by a male companion as she sobs hysterically. A man they dimly recognise from a blurred photograph as her boyfriend lifts his sunglasses for a moment to dab at his eyes. He does not look at her grave.

In the crowd, Wesley can make out the familiar faces of three of Cordelia's schoolmates from Sunnydale High. They look overwhelmed. He wonders who invited them.

"Man," Gunn gives a low whistle and cranes his neck to look skywards through the closed window.

Wesley suddenly becomes aware of the steady thump of chopper blades and sees a helicopter hovering almost directly above them. It doesn't take a genius to work out it's a news crew.

"Jesus."

Angel takes no notice. He wonders if they should have brought flowers. He would have brought daffodils because they're cheerful. Red roses because he loved her, white roses because she loved him. Lilies, because they smell so beautiful and she would have liked that and daisies too, so white and clean.

"Ashes to ashes," the priest intones, "Dust to dust."

Gunn blinks away tears. He hates to hear that – it reminds him of his sister. Hell, those words alone are enough to bring tears to anyone's eyes. They're so removed, so cold. They convey too well that life is too short and death is too long.

The words are like a school's final bell. There is a moment of hesitation before the first mourners on the fringes of the crowd peel away, sniffling and clinging to each other in a flamboyant display of grief. The others follow, women gripping the arms of men as their tears dry on their cheeks.

Soon the place is deserted. The priest lingers longest, shaking his head, then he too turns his back on her and the grave diggers start to pile earth on top of her, watched only by Angel, Wesley and Gunn.

"Ashes to ashes… Dust to dust."

Here

"I'm…" the priest pauses and closes his Bible. He feels compelled to say this, but unable to say it to the men, especially the tall, broad man who looks so shattered. So he avoids the men altogether and reaches for the slender girl's hand. "I am sorry," he tells her. "I am sorry for your loss."

Fred has heard this before. She has never really believed it. But this priest, with his sparse grey hair and stoop is looking at her with real sincerity and squeezes her hand in what he knows is useless comfort.

"It was a beautiful service," she says. "Thank you."

It was true. After the 23rd Psalm there were no more religious references, though she has no idea who planned the funeral. Whoever it was, she was glad the "Ashes to ashes" part was left out; she doesn't think Angel could have handled that.

The priest hobbles away through the rickety graveyard to his little church and Fred slides her hand into Angel's, trying to pretend he doesn't wish her hand were Cordelia's.

"I'm sorry, Angel," Eve says, barely audible above the scrape of shovels. Her eyes glisten slightly and Angel thinks she might just mean it.

No one answers her and she goes without another word. They all stand and watch the grave-diggers at their work and Angel realises he's still clutching his bunch of flowers.

Wesley is the first to move. He starts to back away slowly. He hasn't got the strength to watch them bury her. Gunn follows him and Spike drifts away too.

"Angel?" Fred asks, looking up at him.

"Are you coming?" Wesley asks for her, clearing his throat.

"You guys go," he pulls his hand out of Fred's and pushes her gently towards Wesley who takes her hand and slips an arm around her shoulders. "I've still got to say goodbye."

Fred opens her mouth to protest, but Wesley tightens his grip on her shoulder and steers her back to the car.

Angel stares at the grave. He remembers other funerals, the ones of his victims that he would occasionally gatecrash. They never really touched him. He would look at the people crying and comforting and not understand what all that had to do with the box and the hole, because for him there was no change, no loss, no absence. This is so much more final. He knows Cordelia's gone forever. Forever. And all he has are memories.

"… And I would like to thank you all, because you've all been so – so –""What are you doing?""Nothing.""You're practising your Oscar acceptance speech again, aren't you?""Little bit."

"Bite me!" "Why don't you both bite me?"

"Well, judging by the outfit, I guess it's safe to come in. Evil Angel would've never worn those pants"

He doesn't know what to do, what to say, what to think or what to feel.

He loved her, you see. He loved her because she loved him and he can't believe she ever wanted to leave him. It hurts. It hurts and God, he feels so lost. But there's nothing he can do.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

"She's gone! You can't get her back. But she'll always love you. Always. Always. Always."

There

It's almost dusk when the gravediggers finally leave and Gunn and Wesley climb out of the van, checking the graveyard is deserted. Angel gets out of the car and heads right for the grave. Wesley and Gunn hang back; they feel this is something perhaps he needs to do alone. Then they see Angel's shoulders shaking in the pearly light of the moon.

"Angel," Gunn says, reaching out to touch his shoulder. "It's ok. It's gonna be fine."

"She saved me," Angel mutters. "She saved me. She pulled me out of that… that hole. She brought me back to life; she gave it all back and now…"

"I know," Wesley agrees softly. "But you're all right now. You're you again."

"I'm lost," Angel replies, shaking his head, "I'm lost, Wesley. I'm getting more lost with every minute."

Gunn shakes his head and gives Wesley a look. He knew this would be a bad idea. Angel wipes his eyes.

Wesley sighs. Perhaps he had been wrong to insist they bring Angel. He had to admit he wasn't enjoying himself. All those people and not one of them seemed to really, truly care. No, this most certainly hadn't been one of his better ideas.

"I loved her."

Gunn and Wesley glance at Angel, as his ramblings become a little louder and they can hear what he's saying.

"I loved her and I never told her. I thought she was going to be all right. I thought I'd be able to tell her. I knew she wanted to live… She didn't want to leave… She kissed me, you know. Kissed me… I loved her… I miss her. She can't be gone… Not Cordelia… Don't you remember, Wesley? The way she would tease you? She loved you, y'know. And you too, Gunn… Oh, God, what are we going to do without her. We'll get lost. We'll get so lost…"

Wesley closes his eyes against this and clenches his teeth.

"Stop it!" he snaps. "Stop it, Angel. You hear me? She gave you your life back, she got you the help you needed and this is how you repay her?" he grabs Angel's shoulders. "She's gone. But you're still here! For God's sake, man!"

"She wanted to say goodbye…" Angel says and the tears are coursing down his cheeks. "She wanted to say goodbye… But I didn't know it was goodbye… one for the road… Oh, can't I just have one more for the road…?"

Wesley looks over Angel's shoulder at Jason who shakes his head.

"Come on," Wesley says and he's gentle this time. "Let's get you home."

He takes Angel's arm and Gunn takes the other and they help him back to the van. Suddenly, Angel twists in their lax grips and stares back at the deserted, flower piled grave.

"She's gone!" he calls. "You can't get her back. But she'll always love you. Always. Always. Always."

Wesley and Gunn ignore him. They had grown used to these outbursts a long time ago. They suppose they'll have to get used to them again. He was lost again and they had no way of helping him. No rich actress to get him the best help money could buy. Once inside the van, Angel presses himself against the window as they slowly pull away.

And watches himself fall to his knees beside a full grave strewn with lilies, roses, daffodils and daisies.

The End.