This is set during the second half of season 1 of Angel/season 4 of Buffy. Cordelia never met Anya during season 3 of Buffy and 'The Wish', 'Doppelgangland' etc. never happened as she never saw Xander kiss Willow and dated him happily until she left Sunnydale and they were forced to break up.

DEATH WISH

Cordelia sat in Angel Investigations, feet up on the desk, yawning. She glanced around the room. Everything was exactly the same as it always was - coffee machine, desk, a few files. And no cases. That was one thing she wished would change. Angel paid her a percentage of the profits the company made and unless there actually were any profits, her bank balance stayed low. Too low. She'd seen this divine red dress in the window of her favourite shop yesterday. It had this gorgeous beading on the bottom, which was sooo in this season, it was just to die for. Cordelia smiled, twirling pencil between her fingers as she thought how wonderful she would make it look. But, it was too expensive, even Wal-Mart was too expensive since her move to LA. She frowned and flicked the pencil over the other side of the room. She watched with uninterest as it hit the wall and landed on the floor by the bookcase, bouncing along the carpet. It wasn't as if she hadn't been trying to increase her income. Dating as many young, rich and successful LA men as she could had been a start, but none of them had worked. They'd either been too boring, too busy or so unbelievably full of themselves, she'd wanted to be sick. The last one, Tom, had been different though. Or at least she'd thought he had. They'd been going out for 3 months and everything had been going great. They weren't about to get engaged or anything but Cordy had been sure that they'd be a long-term couple and things were getting quite serious. Not only was Tom rich but he was also handsome and had a great sense of humour. Cordelia smiled just at the thought of the time she'd spent with him, the places they'd been. But, one evening about two weeks ago, when she'd been out late-night shopping, she'd seen him in a restaurant with a curvaceous blonde (although Cordelia was sure that neither her hair colour nor her bra size were what nature had given her.) She'd been devastated, even though they hadn't been going out that long - just that everything about him fitted her idea of 'the perfect man'. Leaning back on her chair, Cordelia stared at the ceiling, suddenly finding the stains extremely interesting. The doors of the elevator opened and Angel walked into the room. Cordy immediately snapped her feet away from the desk and gave a half smile in Angel's direction.

"Good morning Angel.I was just.um.checking if the new desks were.um.durable?"

Angel just looked at her, silently.

"You know, If you had some foot rests in here, life would be far more comfortable." Still aware of Angel's stare she resigned, defeated. "Okay, okay, I know they're new. Posts over there." She said, nodding towards the table by the door.

Angel walked towards the door and picked up the letters flicking through them.

"Cordelia, I need you to look up some specifics on this Bharra demon I killed in the sewers last week." Angel said, sitting down on a chair in the corner.

"Sure. What do you know already?" Cordy asked.

"It's tall. About 7 foot tall. Green skin, scaly. Eyes are red, 2 pairs of horns. Seems to have made its home underground so probably feeds on either waste or rats."

"That's all, in fact more than, I need to know" Cordelia said, shuddering at the thought of anything, demon or not, feeding on rats or, even worse, sewage. "I'm on it."

She logged onto the net and looked at the sites she always used for Demon research. None of them seemed to have any information on a 'Bharra Demon' or any demon that matched Angel's description. After flicking through some of Angel's reference books, she decided that researching this demon might (unfortunately) take more effort.

"Great. More time looking for excrement eating evil." She thought to herself. "Sometimes I forget why I do this."

Cordelia picked up her keys from the peg near the door and grabbed her coat.

"I'm going to the library on Galton and West. I'll be back for lunch." She yelled to Angel who was now in his office. With that, she left.

Whenever they had a tricky demon to research, they went to the Galton and West library. It had a huge archive of virtually every book on demonology of note that had been written since the 13th century. It often took hours just to locate a specific book but the results always brought up what was required. Cordelia arrive and immediately walked over to the computer index in the corner. She always used the computer, it was far faster, but Angel always used the card index. Once she'd suggested that it might save time to use the computer to Angel, but, despite the fact that that specific research trip had taken six hours solely to find one book, he still had to do things the way they did it in the dark ages. After half an hour or so of browsing through the list of books the computer had brought up using the keywords of 'green scales' and 'sewer habitat' Cordelia left the book she was reading for a moment to give her eyes a rest. She massaged her lids and then pulled the hair back from her face. Glancing at the door for a second she noticed a man walk in. She studied his profile for a second and gave an approving look up and down.

"Maybe this trip wasn't such a bad idea" Cordy thought as the man swiveled round to face her. "he looks kind of familiar..Tom!"

Instinctively, she ducked under the table she was at and observed Tom in the fiction section browsing through the crime novels. She looked back at the door and in came the blonde that Tom had been with in the restaurant. She walked up behind him and slipped her arms around his waist. Tom turned round and lifted her head, kissing her lightly on the lips. Cordelia struggled to hold back tears. It had only been two weeks and she was still very fragile. She was leaning against the leg of the table as she hid and suddenly, it gave way, sending Cordelia sprawling flat on the floor as the table collapsed.

"Please don't let him see me, please don't let him see me." She repeated to herself. She brought up the courage to lift her head but, to her horror, the noise had attracted the attention of all the people in the library who were all staring at her, including tom and his girlfriend.

"Tom...um, hi." Cordelia said, still on the floor, limbs spread out. She tried to feign a smile.

Tom just started at her, wide eyed.

"Cordelia." he said feebly. It was barely audible.

The blonde was less shocked and just stared at her, giggling. Cordelia picked herself up and stood by the broken table without the slightest idea of what to do.

"I think we ought to go." Tom said, grabbing the wrist of the girl. Hurriedly, he turned and fled, picking up the pace once he got through the exit doors. Trying to muster up as much dignity as she could muster, Cordy brushed herself off and, picking up her bag, left the building.

Halfway along the walk back to Angel Investigations, Cordelia's resolve finally faded and she burst into tears. Walking along a small backstreet sobs escaped as she stopped and leant against the wall of a building. She brought her hands to he face, covering her eyes and shook with her sobbing. Sinking to the ground with her back against the walls, her tears raged.

"Why do these things have to happen to me?" Cordelia thought. "My life's such a mess since I moved to LA. I haven't got any money, I haven't got any friends and the guy I really thought was for the long run prefers a blow up Barbie to me."

"Are you okay?" a voice asked.

Cordelia snapped up to look at the stranger standing beside her. She was a girl, looked about 20, slim, and had shoulder length brown hair. Her dress appeared to be a little old fashioned and she wore a rather large pendant around her neck that was very '98, but she had a friendly face.

"ur.yeah, I'm okay," Cordelia said, wiping her tears away with her sleeve, feeling embarrassed at being seen in such a state.

The girl offered Cordelia her hand to help her off the pavement and she took it, pulling herself onto her feet.

"Do you want to talk about it?" The girl asked. She had a look on her face that showed genuine concern.

Even though she didn't know the girl, Cordelia felt a strong feeling of trust for her and, contrary to her instincts, she accepted.

"There's a coffee house just around the corner that does an amazing frappe, we can go there if you like."

"Yeah.that'd be nice..I'm Cordelia by the way" Cordy said.

The girl extended her hand.

"Anya."

TO BE CONTINUED.