She Don't Let Go
His ears were ringing and he was already suffering a kind of hysterical deafness, what with Cordelia actually standing there and sort of asking him out, or trying to - in her own, very Cordeliaish way, and it seemed all his dreams were coming true and that was just too good to be true and so the blood was pounding away in his ear drums, muffling the sound ... So he didn't really register the noise of the office door opening.
But it must have opened, because Cordelia broke off what she was saying to speak to the person standing there: 'if you're looking for Angel Investigations, this is it. But we're kinda in the middle of something. Could you give us 5 minutes…'
Wow, he thought, she must be really invested in this cup of coffee if she was sending away potential clients. This was madness - but a good madness, and his heart skipped a beat as he turned to see who it was she was talking to.
And then it was like all the air had left his body.
Because there she was, standing in the doorway to his office - and for a moment he felt deflated and empty, as he realised he wasn't getting that cup of coffee with Cordy. But then, immediately behind that, came a great surge of pain; crashing over him, flooding through him.
Just seeing her brought it all back. The anger, the fear, the bitterness, the loss, the grief. Everything he had done wrong, every mistake he had made since she had left, the shame, the misery, the crime … the deaths - all of it welled up inside of him and threatened to break free.
She looked just like she had the last time he had seen her, except … happier. There had been no happiness for them at the end. And that was his fault. He was a demon and she couldn't love a demon - well who could? He was kidding himself if he thought there was a future with Cordy, and this was just proof - the universe reminding him not to ask for more than he could have.
The way she stood in the doorway, looking at him, it reminded him of that very last morning - of their very last moment. He had woken up on the sofa, still not quite sober from the bender he had been on the day before - and she was standing by the door, a suitcase in her hand. And they just stared at each other, like they were just staring at each other now.
His heart, which had been pounding so thunderously with anticipation just a second before, seemed to slow to a stop inside his chest … and then he felt it break. He felt it falter, fragment and shatter apart … but somehow, he was still standing there, still just staring up at the doorway in painful disbelief.
She wrinkled her nose and smiled at him. He had forgotten what it was like for her to smile at him - she had not smiled for months before she left, certainly not at him. Her voice was laced with the hint of apology - it was warm, kind, but sad as well … like maybe she was feeling something of what he was feeling too. Even though it was her who had walked away. And even though it was her who had turned back up out of the blue; seeking him out - the way he had never dared go after her.
'Hey, Francis,' she said.
'... Harri.'