Present-Day

Los Angeles, California

Wolfram & Hart

Angelus' Office

To be completely honest, Angelus did not want to go back to the loft at this moment. Though they weren't living together, he knew Cordelia would probably be there. She had made it a point to throw as many unsubtle hints at Angelus of them moving in together.

Angelus was fed up. He couldn't take her loving gaze and her willingness to give him pleasure. Angelus also knew how much she wanted him to love her. But he couldn't, not in the way she deserved.

On the drive over to the office, Angelus decided that he was going to end things between himself and Cordelia. She deserved a better man than him. A man who wasn't broken and heartsick for another woman.

Unlocking the office door, Angelus entered the darkened room when he noticed a dim yellow light turned on at his desk.

He looked up and frowned with slight surprise, "Cordelia."

Cordelia sat behind his desk with an open manilla file and papers spread across the table top.

"What are you—" his words died on his lips when his eyes fell to the documents on the table.

She lifted her brown eyes to his. The beautiful brunette appeared livid, with a mixture of confusion and disgust. "What is this?" She held up a document.

Angelus did not respond.

"I'll tell you what this is…" Cordelia stood, still holding the document. "It's a marriage license. And this marriage license has your name on it." She moved around the desk, "It took me a minute to realise who, 'Liam' was but then I remembered you telling me some story about your mother nicknaming you 'Angelus' when you were a child. Mystery solved."

Angelus stayed silent.

"But the mystery isn't solved.'Elizabeth Anne Summers.' That was a harder one to figure out. Who is this… 'Elizabeth Anne Summers'?" She crossed her arms, "That name didn't show up anywhere until the lightbulb went off and I had a hunch. So I did what any self-respecting journalist would do with such a feeling... I dug just a little deeper. 'Elizabeth' is an old name. A name that dates all the way back to the Old Testament. So an old name like that would clearly have a long, long history in the world. 'Elizabeth' has to have some sort of… nickname for it, right?" Cordelia smiled, "Right. There's 'Lizzie,' 'Liz,' 'Eliza,' 'Ella,' 'Beth,'… 'Buffy'…" she looked at him with narrow eyes.

"'Elizabeth Anne Summers' is Buffy, isn't it? You were married to Buffy, weren't you?"

Tightening his jaw, Angelus slowly nodded his head.

"It's so obvious now." She muttered. "Why didn't you say anything before? All of those times I talked on and on about her… Of how great she is… blah, blah, blah… Do you have any idea how stupid I feel? The entire time, you two knew something I didn't. You're the skeleton in her closet."

For the first time, Angelus found his voice again, "It's a little more complicated than that."

"How?" Cordelia asked. "Please, enlighten me. I'm dying to know about this entire other life you've kept just so well hidden—Well, hidden until I started looking for it."

He had no choice. Against all his better judgement, he decided to tell her the truth.

"Let's start with, how long were you married for?" She asked.

"About five years," he listened to the gasp release from her lungs at his revelation. "But we dated for almost two years."

Cordelia arched her manicured brow then asked, "Do you love her?"

Angelus kept his eyes downward as he nodded his head.

"Then why did you divorce her?"

"She…" he began, "… divorced me."

He couldn't bring himself to look up but he knew Cordelia was surprised to hear his response.

"We… had a little boy. And there was an accident… He didn't…"

Cordelia stayed quiet as she listened unable to stop herself from feeling pain from his confession. She was angry and felt betrayed by his lack of honesty but she couldn't help but be sympathetic. No matter how angered she was, no one deserved the pain of losing a child.

"… I didn't know how to… work through the pain. Buffy tried to… reconnect with me but I just… I kept pushing her as far away as possible until she finally stopped. When we weren't fighting, I kept myself hidden from her. I couldn't look into her eyes to see her disappointment… She blames me. And I can't fault her for that." He looked up at Cordelia, who was now letting quiet tears fall from her eyes. "I blame me. I walked out. It's my fault that this happened."

"Angelus, no…" she shook her head with disagreement.

Angelus nodded, "It was my job to protect them. To protect my son—My family and I failed. God," he ran a hand through his hair, "if I just reacted a half a second faster or—or stayed at the stop sign for another minute… I'd still have my wife and my son and… But I don't."

Cordelia watched him, realising just how much he burdened on himself. She wondered if Buffy even knew. She doubted it.

"With the snap of a finger, I've lost the only women I've ever loved and my little boy."

Her heart snapped in half. She knew he was capable of loving. Angelus had so much love inside of him but it would never be for her. It was clear now, Angelus would never love her.

"I'm sorry, Cordy." He told her with genuine sincerity. "I'm a broken man and you deserve so much better than me. You deserve a man who loves you with everything inside of him. It's not me." He painfully admitted.

"It'll always be her?"

Angelus swallowed with a small nod and said sadly, "She's my girl."

They stood in a stand-off silence. Neither knew what to say next. Angelus didn't plan on revealing so much of himself to her but it was now in the open and the weight seemed… lessened, though his heart still felt heavy.

"She loves you, you know." Cordelia suddenly said.

Angelus looked at her, taken back by her words. "She's... she's engaged to Riley. She's moved on."

"She hasn't moved on that much," Cordelia smirked. "She may be trying by playing Riley's dutiful fiancée, but when she doesn't think anyone is looking, I saw her. The way she looks at you… It was a look of longing. I didn't realise what it was then. I thought maybe she was just attracted to you but… it's painfully obvious now."

Angelus listened to her carefully.

Cordelia rolled her eyes, "I don't know why she's engaged to Riley when she is still very much in love with you. Even more so, I don't understand why you aren't fighting for her?"

He frowned. "She doesn't want me. I let her go."

"Then get her back." Cordelia surprised herself with her own acceptance of the situation. "Go to her. Crawl on your hands and knees if you have to. Don't let her marry someone she's not in love with just because you want her to 'move on.' Move on together. You only get to love someone with every bone in your body once—Probably once…" They shared a small smile. "Go to her, Angelus. Instead of seeing her as your ex, who's engaged to someone else, see her as just Buffy, the woman you could never stop loving."

Angelus stood there frozen as he came to an easy decision. He lifted his eyes to her and gave her a sweet but impish smile, "He'll be a lucky man whoever gets you."

Sweetly, Cordelia smiled as she looked away at a poor attempt to hide her blush.

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