Stepping out of the steam filled bathroom, Angel neared his bed, his thoughts still focused on Cordelia but determined to give the woman the room she demanded… at least for the evening. After all, how much trouble could she possibly get into in a single night?
Drawing the sheets back from the bed, his motions were stilled by the clamoring of the telephone. Even the most determined telemarketer wouldn't call so late at night. He picked up the receiver after listening the trilling noise for several minutes and finally deciding to answer it. Cordelia must have disconnected the answering machine before she left or else it would have taken the call without his assistance.
"Angel," Wesley said even before the man in question had the opportunity to say hello.
"Wes? What's wrong?" There was something in the ex-watcher's voice that set Angel's senses on full alert. The normally calm tones had elevated to an almost frantic quality, very un-Wesley-like.
"Angel, you need to come to Cordelia's." After running several possible scenarios through his mind, Wesley had decided that waiting was the best alternative. Although the vague summons was sure to cause the man distress, it was more reasonable than explaining over the phone why his presence was required. There was no telling how Cordelia's predicament would affect Angel and Wesley preferred to be near by when the time came that he found out.
"What happened? Let me talk to Cordelia." Angel's grip on the receiver threatened to crush the rigid plastic.
"I'm afraid she's indisposed at the moment…"
"Wes," Angel warned.
"Angel, please, just come. I'll explain once you arrive."
Staring at the far wall, his thoughts in whirling turmoil, Angel at last agreed and returned the receiver to its cradle. Dressing quickly, he breezed down the sidewalk to his hulking convertible, cranking the engine and tearing down the street toward Cordelia's apartment building.
The drive that normally took fifteen minutes was shortened to five as he drug the car around corners and through traffic lights in an attempt to arrive quickly and have the mystery of Wes' phone call cleared up. He wanted Wesley to have exaggerated the seriousness of the situation, to walk in to the sight of Cordelia happy and well and yelling at Wesley to leave her alone for a few minutes before she resorted to drastic measures.
Up the stairs of the Pearson building in a flash of black, he came to a stop in front of the door and softly knocked, calming himself lest he bang the door off its hinges and spend the next evening shopping for a new one to replace it.
The door swung open noiselessly, answered by the spectral Dennis, and Angel strode purposefully into the darkness that waited behind it. The lack of lights was unusual. Cordelia spent most of her time at the Hyperion opening draperies and turning on lights so that the dreary interior would be exposed to some amount of light. It wasn't like her to leave her home in shadows.
She wasn't in the living room or kitchen, he knew, she was still in her bedroom. She was in her bedroom and something was horribly wrong, he could sense it, smell it on the wafting air. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck, and sent prickly fear charging through his heart. Had his heart been beating, it would have stopped out of sheer fright of what might be behind the door to Cordelia's room.
Then he heard it. That faint, barely there, voice from the room he didn't want to enter. It was unmistakably Cordelia's voice although it sounded as if she'd managed to contract a pretty bad cold in the short time since he had last seen her. Scratchy and hoarse, he could hear her telling Wesley she would be fine. She was trying to convince him to leave, to leave and let her be alone.
No. Angel didn't know yet what was going on or why Wesley had relayed such a cryptic message but he did know that Cordelia had no business being alone. His resolve settled, he strode toward the door, unsurprised when it opened before his hand reached the knob.
Inside the room, the scent of fear and shame intensified. Cordelia sat huddled on her bed while Wesley perched on the edge, his attention riveted on the young woman. The opening door drew the young seer's attention and Angel gasped at the condition of her face. He'd never seen her so bruised and battered, not after any of the battles she'd been drug into, not even when the fakir had sent her all the violent visionary side effects in the Wolfram and Hart's quest to get Billy out of hell. Wesley turned when Cordelia raised her head, nodding silently to Angel and reaching out to Cordelia, his hand stopping just before it touched her knee.
"I'll return in a moment, Cordelia. Would you like something to drink?"
"No," she whispered, ducking her head from Angel's view.
Wesley rose, motioning for Angel to follow him into the living room. Angel was torn. He wanted to talk to Wes and discover what had happened, but he didn't want to leave Cordelia's room.
"Angel." Wesley's voice was rife with concern and he knew the inner battle his friend was fighting, he felt the same way but knew that Cordelia would never be able to listen to the conversation they were about to have.
Turning on his heel, Angel looked back at his friend where she crouched on the bed. "We're going to be in the living room. I'll be back." He waited for her to slowly nod her head in understanding before he stepped out of the room.
"Angel," Wesley repeated once they were in the dark interior of the outer room. "I don't know exactly what happened. When I came by this evening Dennis opened the door and led me to her. She's obviously in shock but refuses to go to the hospital or speak to the police. I suppose we can suspect the worst-case scenario and proceed from there. She'll speak about it when she feels able to do so." He paused and looked up at his friend, seeing the anguish on the man's face. "She didn't want to tell any of us, Angel, but there are some things even Cordelia Chase needs help with. I need for you to convince her to go to the hospital. She needs a doctor to make sure she hasn't sustained any internal injuries."
"When she tried to walk home," Angel said, his voice whisper-soft, "this happened after we left and she tried to walk home."
"Yes, it would make sense…"
"We left her."
"Yes."
Angel turned and left the room, returning to the bedroom and Cordelia. He needed to assure himself that she was in fact all right, that she wasn't in imminent danger of dying due to her sustained injuries. He also needed to convince her to go with him to the hospital so that someone could have a look at her injuries and assure him that she would be okay.
She knew when he walked back into the room. She could hear his soft footsteps against the pile of the carpet. She could feel the tension in her own body increase with every step closer he came to her bed. Her fear of her friends, of her own family, was ridiculous. These were the men who stood up against demons for her, who battled heartless lawyers and creepy producers. They would never hurt her, would do anything in their power to see to it that she never got hurt.
Part of her head told her to get a grip and let them comfort her. Allow herself to be wrapped in strong arms and cry on their shoulder. But one lone voice cried out that they hadn't saved her this time, that when she needed them to protect her the most, they hadn't been there; that she would never be as important to them as the quest for Angel's redemption was, and that she wasn't more important, not even to herself. It was that one voice that was loudest and rang out above all the sensible thoughts that ran rampant through her mind.
They had told her to wait for them at the hotel, had asked her to stay with Fred and make sure she was okay. Cordelia had chosen to leave, had given Fred her phone number and walked out the door just as soon as her feet would support her. Anything that occurred once she set foot outside the hotel was her own fault. They had tried to tell her to stay in the Hyperion where she would be safe.
Angel neared the bed, dropping down slowly to sit on the opposite edge Wesley had occupied when he had arrived. He watched Cordelia's muscles tense beneath her skin; he saw her slide a fraction of an inch away from where he had chosen to sit. This wasn't Cordelia, at least it wasn't his Cordelia. His Cordelia didn't let fear rule her actions; she stood up to the demons that filled the city's sewers and alleys, fought for the betterment of others…
But this was his Cordelia.
He stared at the hair that cascaded across her cheek, obscuring his view of her bruised face. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to back track, go back in time a few hours and make different decisions. How he could have disregarded Cordelia's safety as readily as he had done, he didn't know… nor could he forgive himself.
"Cordelia," he whispered, his hand aching to reach out and brush aside the curtain of glossy hair and he full extent of her battered face. "Cordelia?"
"I didn't…"
"It's not your fault, Cordy."
She chuckled at his words, her anxiety clearing for a split second as she mulled over the fact that he was so sure he knew what she was thinking. Generally he could easily read her thoughts, it was almost freaky how well he knew her. But this time he had missed the mark. "What I was going to say," she said softly, drawing a deep breath and taking in the familiar scent of his leather coat, "was that I didn't want you to find out. None of you."
Angel nodded and finally gave into the base need to touch her. His hand gently brushed aside the silken strands of hair that hid her face from him.
At his touch, she tensed, then forced her body to relax. This was Angel after all, her very own dark avenger, not some human scum that lurked among the shadows waiting for an easy target. "I guess it just couldn't work that way, huh"
"No," he murmured. His hand touched her chin lightly, tilting her face up so that the pale moonlight could throw illumination across her pale skin. The bruises were darkening, casting angry red blotches of normally flaw across the expanse of flawless skin. The knowledge of what those marks signified made Angel's borrowed blood boil.
At the sight of her widened eyes, he realized what had happened and relaxed his own muscles, slipping back out of 'vamp mode' as Cordelia would say. The last thing he wanted to do was cause her any more distress than he already had.
"Is it that bad?"
He looked at her with shocked eyes. How could she not know how he felt; that any time she as much as got a splinter in her finger, he felt wholly responsible. She had definitely not spent any time in front of a mirror since her arrival home. He hoped she didn't have any auditions lined up, but then he couldn't remember her mentioning any since they had returned from Pylea.
"It's bad."
"Oh, I was kind of hoping… I don't know what I was hoping."
He leaned forward, forcing her to make eye contact. "Cordelia, you know you have to go to the hospital."
She shook her head savagely from side to side. "No… no, I don't."
"Yes, you do, and you know it." He sighed needlessly. "I mean, you need to be sure you don't have any internal injuries. And you need to talk to the police…"
"But…"
"But nothing. This guy… what if he goes after another girl, Cordelia? What then?" Angel hated what he was forcing her to do. He knew that privacy and pride above all else were important to the woman who had become his closest friend. But she had to be reasonable and let others help her.
Perhaps he could get Kate to come talk to her, she could write up the report. Kate and Cordelia had never been friends, or even friendly to one another, but he felt that Kate would be better than a total stranger. "Come on, Cordy, please come with me to the hospital. I won't leave you alone, I'll be there with you the whole time if you want me to."
Sagging back into the headboard she looked up at him slowly. She hated the idea of leaving her apartment now that she had finally gotten there, and she was terrified by the notion of having to talk to someone about what had happened and being examined in a brightly lit room. But she knew too well the look of determination on Angel's face; he wanted her to go because he was worried about her and that wouldn't change until she had been checked out by someone in a white coat and cold hands.
"I don't want to," she said, a single tear tracing a wet path down her cheek.
Angel didn't dare brush it away lest he hurt her by doing so. "I know."
to be continued…