The music was loud, much too loud. The Wexler demon on stage was slaughtering Hall and Oates "Your kiss" all in the name of having his aura read. Lorne stood next to the bar with his head in his hands. Apparently the Wexler demon was giving even him a headache.
"Would you come on?" Cordelia turned and urged Angel forward. He stepped further into the karaoke bar rather reluctantly. He had come here at her urging, ok so urging was a rather mild term. Cordy had nearly insisted on bringing him here tonight. She said she was not going to allow him to wallow in his brooding all alone in his apartment. So instead he was here, in his own personal version of Hell.
"Guard this table with your life...eeer unlife," Cordy instructed and pushed Angel lightly toward one of the little round tables. He sat down and watched as Cordy walked over to the bar. The brunette returned to the table a short while later with a fine bottle of Irish whiskey.
She sat the bottle and three glasses on the table. "I told the bartender I wanted the best bottle of Irish whiskey he had. Is this one good?"
Angel picked the bottle up and glanced at it. It was an 18 year old bottle of Jameson. He nodded. "This is good," he said and opened the bottle. He poured a couple of fingers of whiskey in each of the three glasses. He and Cordy both picked up a glass and made a silent toast. Angel solemnly poured his glass out on the floor.
"For Doyle," he whispered so low Cordelia almost didn't hear him. He grabbed the other glass and drained it quickly. He filled the glass again. It had been a year since Doyle had sacrificed himself to save those people, a year to this day. It still hurt, he still missed him. Wesley had made a fine edition to the team and Cordelia was dealing with the visions well, but Doyle had been his first friend in LA. Doyle had in essence saved him from himself. If he hadn't come along...Angel didn't like to think how he would have ended up. He was fairly sure it would have involved rats and alleys, all the changing he'd done for Buffy and it would have been for nothing without Doyle's help.
Angel watched as Cordelia took another sip of her whiskey. He grinned as she made a face.
"Gah, how can you drink this stuff? It's-it's-well I don't know what it is but it's bad," she said.
He chuckled dryly. "It grows on you, gets better with a few more glasses." He topped off her glass and poured himself a fresh one.
"I still miss him. I thought after all this time, I wouldn't, you know?" Cordelia said.
Angel chuckled sardonically and drained his glass. "Almost two hundred and fifty years and I miss the way my little sister used to shout out my name when I'd come home. I miss the way my mother smelled like lemon verbena and my father like whiskey and cigars. Strangely I even miss kneeling in the Catholic church on Sunday mornings with the rest of my family, during that one little slice of life, my father forgot to yell at me, my mother forgot to give me reproachful glances. Kathy would slip her little hand in mine and try not to giggle as the priest said the prayers. I miss them all and I miss them all the time."
"Is that your way of telling me I'm never going to get over this? I'm always going to have this hollow feeling inside and wonder what might have happened between Doyle and me if he hadn't been nobly heroic and died to save all those people." Cordelia asked.
Angel shrugged.
Cordelia smacked him on the arm. "You idiot, your supposed to tell me that time will make it better and one of these days I'll look back and just see the happy memories and not the bittersweet part of it."
Angel took another sip of whiskey and smirked. "In my experience, the bittersweet hangs around a lot longer then anything else."
"You need more whiskey. We're here to celebrate not to be all broody britches," Cordelia said. She was silent a moment, glancing at the empty glass, Doyle's glass on the table. "Okay, here's the deal. We're here to remember Doyle, because it's important that there's someone to remember and it takes a lot more for you to get drunk then me because of the grrr factor. So I drink my drink and you drink your drink and Doyle's drink." She didn't wait for Angel to agree, she just poured some of the amber liquid into the empty glass. She slid it over the table towards Angel.
Cordelia poured three more shots of whiskey. The bottle was leaning toward empty. She slid Angel's two toward him. "Okay, so this is number six or number seven, I forget. You know what I miss about Doyle. Doyle always noticed what I was wearing, even my shoes," she slurred.
"You know what I miss about Doyle?" Angel said, his words a bit slurred. Cordelia stared at him, waiting for him to speak when he didn't she prodded him. "You gonna tell me?"
"Oh, yeah, what I miss about Doyle, only one in the whole world that knew about the most perfect day that never happened." Angel said.
Cordy blinked at him, confused, then she smacked him on the arm again. He rubbed it, grumbling at the nonexistent pain, even if he hadn't been a vampire he'd drank enough whiskey that he was numb and numb was a blissful state when his thoughts lingered on that hellish month that had seen him loose his hope for the future and Doyle.
"You mean your day with Buffy where you gave up your humanity and every bit of happiness you've ever known?" Cordy said.
Angel blinked at her and swallowed what was left of the whiskey in his glass, or maybe it was Doyle's glass.
"You think Doyle wouldn't tell me something like that, Dumbass. Of course he told me," Cordy sounded offended.
"Well, I-"Angel started but words failed him. It was comforting to know that someone else knew about that day, that there was someone else to remember. It assured him that he hadn't dreamed it, and sometimes he was certain that's all it had ever been, a dream.
"I don't think I would have done it. You had everything you've ever wanted in two hundred and some years and you gave it all back for what exactly?" Cordy said. "She was going to die if I stayed human," Angel said.
"Oh for Pete's sake, like she's not gonna die anyway? She's human and the slayer. She's died once already, freak of nature that she is. You were a dumbass, you just don't want to admit it," she said and took a drink of her whiskey.
"Okay, so I was a dumbass, and sometimes I think if I had it to do over again, it would have been different but then I think about a world without her in it and that's so much harder to live with then to know I gave her up. I can live my entire existence without Buffy, if I have too. I can't live in a world that she doesn't exist in. At least somewhere, I know she's breathing and smiling and being so alive it hurts to watch her," Angel said.
Cordelia sniffled a little and wiped the tears that gathered at the corner of her eyes. "As if I wasn't having a hard enough time not going all weepy already and then you go and make me totally get the reason you gave her up."
Angel shrugged. "Sorry."
Cordelia swirled the whiskey in her glass and directed her words toward the table. Angel might not have heard her if it hadn't been for his sensitive hearing. "I'm the biggest dumbass of all. I mean how many mornings did I walk into work and see Doyle and never really see Doyle? Somehow that makes sense in my head. I was so stupid. I wasted my time going out with doctors and stock brokers and rich little boys and all the time Doyle was there. I took it for granted that he'd always be there, that after I'd done my round of the rich boys and matured, Doyle would still be there and he'd still want me and he'd be rich, or at least better dressed. He'd kiss my hand and ask 'What took ye so long, Princess?' then we'd ride off into the sunset in some expensive convertible that he bought with all the new money he got somehow."
Cordy sighed. "I would have gone out with him even without the money he mysteriously makes in my daydream, if you tell anyone I'll deny it, but maybe things would have been different if I'd gone out with Doyle, if I'd admitted that I could have loved him."
"He still would have jumped. He was a hero," Angel said.
Cordelia shrugged. "Maybe, maybe he wouldn't have had to."
"Whoa, stop the presses. Who died here?" Lorne said walking up to their table.
"Doyle," Cordelia said.
Lorne sat down and looked from Angel to Cordelia.
"Angelcakes, Sweetheart, I'm sorry to hear that. He was a friend?"
"He died a year ago, today and yes he was a friend," Angel said.
Lorne nodded. "Why don't you two go sing something for me? Let me get a look at those auras."
"Lorne, I don't think-"Angel started.
"Oh come on, it'll be fun," Cordy stopped him.
"Cordy, you've heard me sing and besides what are we going to sing?" Angel said.
"I'll sing really loud and cover you up. We could sing My boyfriend's back," Cordy said.
"I'm not singing anything called my boyfriend's back," Angel said.
"Oh alright, what do you suggest then?" Cordelia asked.
"I don't know, I'm not good at this kind of thing, shadows, brooding, fighting, that's kind of more my deal," Angel said.
They ended up singing Elton John's Candle in The Wind much to the dismay of every single being in the bar. Angel saw several of them leaving midway through the song. He apologized as they walked off the stage back to the table Lorne sat at.
Angel poured himself another glass of whiskey. He thought he'd earned it.
Lorne decided to start with Angel first, since his aura read a little more positive. "That little blonde and the curse issues you have, don't worry about it, not even a problem. It'll all work itself out."
"Buffy?" Angel said.
"Is that her name? I thought maybe it was a comment on her physical form, which was quite impressive but yeah, that's her." Lorne turned to Cordelia. "Sweetcakes, your gonna take a different path then you ever thought possible and in it's own way, it'll turn out okay."
"What's that supposed to mean. He gets not even a problem and I get a different path. I want the not even a problem path and different path probably means not superstardom, doesn't it?"
Lorne shrugged a bit. He was prevented from actually having to expound when Cordelia exclaimed, "Oh God, I feel sick and no not the vision sick."
Angel had her up on her feet and out side the club before she could throw up. He held her hair back and leaned over her while she vomited on the sidewalk. She collapsed against him, panting. "I hate throwing up, I really hate throwing up."
Angel chuckled. "It's a part of humanity I don't miss," he confessed and hailed them a cab. There was no use either of them walking back to the hotel as drunk as they were.
Once they were at the hotel, Angel settled Cordy into an extra room there and slipped off to his own rooms to finish out the night with some proper brooding, the kind not accompanied by karaoke music or even whiskey.
He stood on the balcony and watched until the sky turned dangerously pink, remembering the friend he'd lost and the woman he'd given everything up for.
The Next Night:
Cordy slipped into Angel's suite of rooms where he was still brooding. Angel glanced up from the book he was pretending to read. He always pretended to read when he was in deep brood mode, it generally kept Cordelia, Wes and Gunn from interrupting him. Obviously it wasn't working tonight.
"I don't wanna bother, I know your like in uber brood mode, I just wanted you to know, this morning, I told Wes about that day, you know in case something ever happens to me. There'll be someone besides you that remembers it happened," Cordy said and then slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Tears rushed to Angel's eyes. Cordelia was becoming an amazing woman. He would have never guessed the shallow girl from Sunnydale would ever get why it was important that he not be the only one left on this earth that remembered he'd known love, happiness and humanity, and he'd given it all up.
Angel closed the book and stood up. He made his way down the stairs and into the lobby where Wes, Gunn and Cordelia sat. Wes looked up at him and gave him a grim, understanding smile. He nodded slightly and Angel nodded back. The Powers hadn't seen fit to give him the only woman he would ever love, at least not now, not yet, but they had given him a family and them someone who would remember when it was all gone. It's important, he knows, that there's always someone to remember.