Gunn's apartment. Cordelia has been missing for eleven hours.

He'd been getting paged all night. He could still feel the vibration of his beeper, though he'd turned it off nearly an hour ago. Despite that, the sensation stayed with him like a thorn, low, in his side. Irritating. Uncomfortable. He had two--two beepers, and the second he kept on, willing to attend any request it made from him, but it sprang to life infrequently anymore. He was not sure he had noticed when that had changed, when the two units had swapped precedence in his life--when the text-pager Cordelia had handed him (along with news of his salary) had become the tone he listened for, the buzz he anticipated. He only knew that now, sitting here in his crib, it seemed wrong to him. And so he had turned it off.

He was weary from Wesley's calls, coming so close on the heels of George's death, the Englishman frantically trying to relate that Cordelia was gone--disappeared into some sort of a portal somehow. Gunn hadn't retained the particulars--he didn't seem to have enough room for anything more in his mind. And Wes' number had kept flashing up at him, as the other man had paged him again and again--sending text asking where he was and when they could expect him to arrive and help out. Gunn was too weary to respond--to even read them after awhile. And once there was a page from the line on Angel's desk. Just the digits sent, that time. He didn't know if it was still Wes or not. He'd found himself tempted to return that one--just to see if Angel had better news--that they wouldn't need him after all, she'd been spit back out, unharmed--and maybe with an attitude adjustment.

The ability for action--something he usually possessed without effort--had left him. He felt like he was being forced to choose, and rather than do that he stood from the ragged sofa that he had found it impossible to part with even when he had found better digs, and sent his fist into the nearest plasterboard. The walls were cheap and the space between studs caved easily so that his hand didn't even suffer.

Did they even know if she was alive?

He didn't think they could. There had been no mention of any communication between where Cordy was and where they were standing. And it was a one-way trip--Wes hadn't put the gloss on it for him. There wasn't much of a chance for coming back.

The risk was too great and the reward was too--too what? Unknowable? She could be dead, she could be transformed into something terrible. She could be in pain. It was easier for him to imagine her dead, he realized. Death was something he couldn't change--couldn't be expected to change. He looked down at his knuckles, felt the pain slipping in from the blow he'd dealt the wall, and thought about the first time he'd seen her--really seen her--that time in the hospital, what? a year ago?

She had been strapped down like a psychotic, not a speck of make-up on her, wrapped up in one of those gowns they gave you. And he could have been anyone and she wouldn't have known he was there she was in that much pain, that much torment. He hadn't kept a very good watch-out for Wesley that time. He had found himself too intent on Cordelia. The times he had wanted to go over to her bedside from where he had stood his distant vigil, thinking (however foolishily) that if he could touch her, his hand to her face, her cheek--like his mother had with him--it would have--what? Been better for her? She had fits almost constantly, wrenching her arms in the restraints, tearing out of them four, maybe five, times. She had looked like a saint to him, a martyr on the rack--something you read about in Sunday School, saw in cathedral windows, or on brothers' tattoos.

It was pain like that that he imagined her in now. Alone. Not dead. Maybe dead. Unknown. One way. All bad words. He couldn't go. He told himself he didn't know what such a decision made him, but he did. He told himself that that time in the hospital, he hadn't really been needed at all, his presence had been no more than cursory. If anyone could find her--should find her--it was Angel and Wesley, she was theirs--part of their world, their responsibility (he knew she would not like being thought of as anyone's responsibility).

It was their place to go, to bring her back. It made sense that they would risk everything for her. Who was he to Cordelia? No one in particular, he thought. Who was she to him? He told himself the answer to that was irrelevant. He avoided answering it. He avoided asking it again. There were people here who depended on him, people to whom he had pledged himself. George's death had gotten his attention back on the greater good and he could not abandon the others now. He would not.

He would drive to the hotel, speak to Angel face-to-face. Angel would understand, that they asked too much. He would tell them to find her.

Gunn swallowed as he closed his apartment's door behind him. Every decision he had made in the past two days left his stomach curdled.

*****************************

Back at Gunn's apartment. Cordelia has been gone for nearly twenty-five hours.

The message played, the turning of the tape's spindles recorded in background to Angel's voice. Gunn's Code-A-Phone was far from new and little used. He could not recall a message from Angel ever having been on it.

"So as soon as Wes solves our scattering problem, we'll probably be leaving. Don't know if we'll be coming back...It's eleven-sixteen...Cordy's been gone for almost twenty-four hours, now. I think I covered everything. Oh, the mortgage for the hotel...is under the company name. The lease is up in six months, at least that's what they tell me. So...I guess that's it. Take care of yourself."

Gunn's watch showed him the time, he had looked at it after each playing of the message. He hadn't seen the movie, but he imagined that Angel sounded more than a little like the captain on the Titanic going down with his ship. He'd made his choice--which Angel obviously respected or he wouldn't have called--but he didn't feel settled. Maybe he'd listen to it again. At the least it passed the time. It was a long message, full of information and instructions. He stood from the couch where he had settled during its last playing--the fourth (he nearly had it memorized now, right down to the sighs and pauses), and pressed rewind.

Gunn had trouble with the last line. "Take care of yourself." He kept hearing Miss Lyyah's voice behind it. "And the Good Lord look after the rest." Yeah, he'd been doing great at that. If only hisself was all he was expected to care for.

There was a knock at the door and he went to answer it. It was George's girl, Poniya. She had been with him--and Alonna--from almost the beginning. She was not someone he wanted to face just now.

Angel's message had rewound and was starting up again, and not realizing Gunn had heard it before, Poniya entered silently, waiting for it to finish before she spoke.

"Gunn, this is Angel, here. I've, uh, got some things I need to tell you--in case. I--if--I--things don't turn out for the best, I'd like you to take something to Buffy for me. There's money here at the hotel for the trip--I'd like you to take it in person. No harm, no foul if we make it, but if not I've put an envelope in the safe with the petty cash, it more than explains things for her. It'll be easy to find, it's got her name and address on it."

Poniya made eye contact with Gunn, clearly curious, but kept silent. Gunn had re-seated himself on the sofa next to her.

"...if you...could visit Faith maybe once or twice--just to let her know what happened. That I didn't--. If you can find the time. And Cordelia's family--her parents. I...don't know what they should be told, you could maybe--" Gunn had risen--knowing this part was coming--and keyed the stop button.

Poniya turned in her seat. "What was that about, G?"

"Nothing."

"I was coming to get you to come down to supper. You haven't eaten all day."

He was surprised she (or anyone else) had noticed. He hadn't. "Haven't been hungry," he grunted. He thought about telling her of the feeling in his gut--the one that put a damper on things like hunger. The one that felt like battery acid every time he listened to Angel's message. Every time he thought about George. Or Poniya, or the rest.

"Well, I'll tell them downstairs you won't be coming."

"How's that?"

"Well, your message. Sounds like he needs your help."

"Yeah, so what?"

"So that's what you do, ain't it, Brother?"

"It's a one-way trip, Poniya. You don't understand what you saying."

"It's always a one-way trip, G. We all knew that the day we signed up."

"Yeah, well I'm here now. I won't walk out on my responsibilities again."

Her eyes began to tear up but she held it back. "There's those downstairs that blame you, sure. I won't lie to you. But life's about change and that's really more what they're kicking against. And if you think your responsibilties don't stretch more than one way here, you haven't been feeling from your heart."

His mouth had turned dry. It was one thing to hear such words, but another to hear them from George's girl. "I been feeling it so much I been sick."

She stood up and grabbed him for a hug. "It's good to know you still know you got one--before all that feeling blindsides you. Things here will go on. I'll see to that--the others will see to that. And we'll all use more caution, I think. I'll see to that."

He reached for the Code-A-Phone and popped the cassette tape out, deciding. "If I don't come back, see that Anne gets this. I think she'll know best what to do with it." He extended it to her.

She spoke in a voice of warning. "If you're gone too long, you're gonna miss out on a blessed event of my and George's making."

"Excuse me?"

"That's right," she re-iterated, chiding him. "I haven't told the others yet, but I wouldn't want you to be too surprised when you get back from--wherever."

A jumble of feelings falling on him at once, he kissed his congratulations onto her forehead, even as he saw the tears of mourning for George start to spill out from her eyes. "Take care yo'self," he directed.

"And Good Lord look after the rest," Poniya added, seeing him to the door.

He could not let himself believe it would be the last time he would see her.

***************

DISCLAIMER: The characters/plots/etc. of Angel are not my property, nor should they be, though they would make an excellent Solstice gift. No harm or monetary profit is intended or anticipated by their use here.
This is set during the episode Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
I wrote this (sort of) for chrysophyta, who was so terribly upset that Angel called Gunn and not Buffy (not that she would have been at home, anyway).