Asking
Cordelia ran to the door as the three men entered, her eyes fearful. Wesley and Gunn hovered anxiously on either side of Angel, ready to catch him should he fall, obviously wanting to help but unable to violate the bubble of personal space Angel's glare demanded.
Angel's black shirt was plastered to his side with blood and his armm was wrapped around his stomach, keeping pressure on his wound. Or keeping his guts from falling out, Cordelia found herself thinking, imagining the depth of cut it would take to cause this much bleeding in a vampire.
With one last warning glare at Gunn and Wesley, Angel stepped out from between them and slowly walked to the elevator. Several drops of blood marked his path.
"Angel wait, I need to…" Cordelia began only to be cut off
by the closing elevator doors. "How'd
it happen this time?" she asked the guys angrily. "You were supposed to be watching out for him!"
"I don't know," Wesley said. "He appeared to have his opponent beaten and then the next thing I knew Angel was on the ground."
"This has to stop," Cordelia said as she retrieved her first aid supplies. "I mean he's five for five. He's gotten seriously hurt every time I've had a vision since Buffy. How long is it going to be before all you two bring back is a pile of dust?"
"What are we supposed to do?" Gunn demanded. "This isn't a game we're playing. English and I can't be watching him every second, if we do one of us 'll get hurt instead of him. It's not that he can't handle himself anymore, like English said, one moment it's like old times, the next he's just standing there like he doesn't realize where he is or what he's doing."
"Maybe we shouldn't let him fight," Cordelia suggested hesitantly. "We've done it without him before."
"No," Wesley said. "Without responsibilities to tie him to reality we may loose him altogether."
"Well we've got to think of something," Cordelia insisted summoning the elevator back. "So think. I'll go force medical attention on him."
She stepped into the elevator and fidgeted nervously as it rose.
Fred was crouched outside of Angel's door staring at the blood on the floor. "He's hurt again," she said accusingly.
"I know," Cordelia replied. She felt the prickle of tears in her eyes but forced them back. Cordelia Chase didn't sit around crying, she did something to fix the problem.
With new determination, Cordy pushed Angel's door open, hating the reminder of how bad things were in the form of the dismantled lock, but glad that he didn't have the option of closing them out.
As always Angel had retreated to sitting in his chair, brooding, although he was listing heavily to one side.
Cordelia dumped her supplies on the small table in the kitchenette and pulled out a straight-backed chair then went to Angel.
"Come on, lets get you patched up," she said, trying to pull Angel to his feet, completely disregarding the glare that had kept Wesley and Gunn from approaching him.
"Go away," Angel ordered hissing in pain as Cordelia tugged him toward the kitchenette. They'd gone through this before and he knew the only way he was getting rid of Cordelia was to let her tend to his injuries, but he protested anyway. "Why do you bother? I'm a vampire, I'll heal."
"Sure, after bleeding all over the place for a week," Cordelia said. "And it's not like you eat enough to replace what you lose."
As she spoke Cordelia peeled off Angel's shirt. A fresh stream of blood welled up as the cloth pulled free of the wound, taking the beginning scab with it.
Cordelia wrinkled her nose. "And yet another reason for actually treating wounds. I mean I know you like the color, it's all you wear, but if you'd left that shirt in your cut much longer it would have been a permanent part of you."
Angel endured her ministrations and comments silently; passively allowing her to move him as she saw fit; staring over her head blankly.
"There, doesn't that feel better?" Cordelia asked with a forced cheer when she'd finished.
"What do you care?" Angel said and Cordelia slapped him.
For several moments they just stared at each other. Angel looked stunned, Cordelia, horrified.
"I'm sorry," Angel said.
"No," Cordelia replied. "I guess I deserved that after how I acted over your and Groo's fight."
With a sigh Cordelia perched on the table beside Angel. "We're both pretty rotten at this being friends thing you know. You don't say a tenth of what needs to be said and I run on at the mouth and say things I shouldn't. Neither of us is any good at trusting people."
"We're a pair," Angel said with a darkly ironic infection to his voice.
"Yeah, we really are," Cordelia replied. "You're my best friend, one of my first real friends and way closer to me than my family ever was Angel. That's why it hurt so much when you went away. I just got you back, I don't want to lose you forever."
"I don't get hurt on purpose," Angel said.
"Then why does it happen every single time? You didn't get hurt like this before." Cordelia replied.
Angel looked away from her as he spoke. "It's been two year since Buffy was been an everyday part of my life. Sometimes, when I get involved in what I'm doing, I forget. It's like always, I'm here in LA and she's in Sunnydale because I had to let her go. But deep down I still believe that we're going to be together again someday, once all the battles are over. Then I remember that she's gone and it feels like that night all over again."
Angel paused, drifting off until the weight of Cordelia's gaze brought him back to the here and now. "I loose track," he finished. "Whatever I'm doing goes away and all I can do is realize she's dead. I never even knew how it happened."
"You took off before Willow could say anything except the bare bones," Cordelia said. "Afterwards no one knew how to breach the subject."
"At first it didn't matter," Angel said. "I was going to get her back, then everything would be right again. That's not going to happen is it? She's really gone isn't she?"
"I'm sorry," Cordelia said.
"How did Buffy die?" Angel asked, his voice catching in his throat.