The night drug by with the pace of a tortoise, each second extending into an eon filled with uncertainty and guilt. Wesley had watched Angel as he boomeranged between the bedroom and the basement, alternately comforting Cordelia and releasing pent up aggression in the basement below. He was still amazed to watch Angel emerge from the basement door just fractions of a second before Cordelia cried out in her sleep. Whether he was detecting something unnoticeable to the rest of them, or was just in possession of remarkably good luck, Wesley couldn't be sure.
None of them slept with the exception of Cordelia, but her rest was no better than their wakefulness. The phone rang intermittently with calls from Kate who had promised to keep them informed. Those calls were nothing more than attempts to calm the rough waters she knew were churning in the wake of Cordelia's attack. The last thing she needed was vigilante justice mucking up her investigation.
Kate was also concerned about the group she had thought were at last out of her life, worried about the girl who had endured the actuality of the assault more so than those who felt responsible for it, but knowing that they were all suffering. She was also determined to pay a visit to Cordelia; while they had rarely associated before, she was fairly certain the other woman would be unable to turn to the men in her life to help her through the tumultuous emotions she would surely be experiencing. If Cordelia talked to Wesley or Angel, they would just become angry and while their anger wouldn't be directed at Cordelia, she wasn't sure the girl would understand that in her current state.
In the Hyperion, silence hung heavily in the chilly rooms. Cold and lonely, the hulking hotel hunched over its inhabitants in grey company to their heavy moods; only the soft jangling of the phone and startled cries of Cordelia in her sleep disturbed the otherwise thick stillness.
Slowly Angel retraced his steps from the basement stairs to the bedroom door. Cordelia would be waking up again soon; he could feel the almost electric charge that hung in the air, preceding her awakening from her latest nightmare. Just as his hand brushed against the icy metal of the knob, he heard the first strains of her distress and hurried his movements, gently easing the door closed behind him.
She lay, wide-eyed in the middle of the bed, staring unseeing at the ceiling as she struggled to control her breathing. Taking great gulping breaths, she wondered how the dreams could have such a monstrous effect on her since she knew she was safe in the hotel. Even during the attack she had never lost her head, never panicked or lost control of her thoughts. Sure she had been scared, but fear and panic were two wholly different things.
"Cordy."
She turned her head to the whispered call for her attention. Angel. Her dark protector who just missed the mark every time. Her best friend.
"Cordy?"
She met his gaze, seeing the concern he had for her, seeing the guilt that gilded his eyes and lined his brow, seeing it without wanting to acknowledge that she was the cause of it all.
He knelt down next to the bed, waiting for her to allow him a place on the mattress. When she shifted slightly to the side, he eased down onto the mattress, sinking into the softness there.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Cordelia shifted her gaze to focus on the far wall.
"You can talk to me, you know? If you want to. It might help."
She remained silent for a long time, just studying the cracks on the wall with detached interest. Finally she spoke, "I don't know, Angel."
"What?" He kept his tone light, his voice barely more than a whisper.
"Anything, I guess. I must have been a horrible person, worse that I thought. I mean, I know that I was terrible when I was in high school, but recently I thought… I…" sighing, she let her voice trail off.
"You're not a terrible person, Cordelia. You don't deserve this, you didn't do anything to deserve anything like this."
"But…"
"No, Cordelia. You didn't do anything, even back when you were in high school."
She watched him, thoroughly unconvinced but not wanting to squelch his rising hope that he was getting somewhere with his pleas. Her mouth creased into a frown as she tried to put some semblance of reason to her life. "I was pretty petty… back before I knew Sunnydale was on top of a hellmouth. Even after I found out… I wasn't a very nice person. And the fiasco with Xander and Willow, and…" her voice hitched as she fought to control her emotions. "There's a lot of stuff I'm not proud of, a lot of stuff I've done that I wish I hadn't…"
Angel watched her. "We all have regrets, Cordelia, but that doesn't mean we deserve to have bad things happen to us. Well, at least for most people it doesn't."
"I just want to know how much more is going to happen before I've paid for everything I did. Haven't I paid for it all already? I was impregnated with demon spawn, I have these scratch and sniff visions that're gonna end up killing me, I have no money, no family… everyone I love dies or leaves me…"
Angel placed his hands on either side of Cordelia's face, forcing her head up so that he could see her eyes. "No. I won't leave you."
Her eyes darkened, an unreadable expression falling across her bruised and battered face. "You leave me all the time, Angel," she replied, a sob catching in her voice.
~~~
Gunn walked across the polished tiles toward the entrance. "I'll be back, Wes. Jus' gotta get the 411 on that Hacklar demon who was trashin' the old 'hood last week."
Wesley nodded absently. "Yes, yes, of course. Do keep us informed. And if you require assistance…"
"You're the first one I'll call, man. And, English, give me a ring if anything happens with vision-girl in there." Gunn grinned grimly, his extended finger indicating the concerned Englishman.
Wesley agreed silently and watched Gunn disappear through the doors, turning quickly away when a movement on the far side of the room startled him. He turned the rest of the way to observe Fred rise from the couch and approach his seat at the table. "Fred, are you alright?"
"Better 'n Cordy, huh?"
"Yes," Wesley replied, watching the woman take a seat near his chair, "I suppose that could be said for us all. Are you hungry at all? We could dash out for a spot to eat if you are."
Fred's face crumpled into bafflement. "Not really, maybe later though. It's hard isn't it? Not knowing exactly what to say… I mean, I never seem to say the right thing anyway, but now it's worse."
"Yes, it is," Wesley commiserated. "But perhaps that will change soon. All we need worry about now is helping Cordelia come to terms with her current state."
"That would be easier if she let us in the room."
Wesley nodded in agreement. It was difficult indeed to be supportive through the solidity of a closed door. "I'm sure it's only temporary, Fred. She merely needs a bit of time to recuperate before we begin to beleaguer her with our offers of assistance."
"It's funny."
He cocked his head at Fred's seemingly out-of-the-blue comment. "What's funny?"
"Well, not laugh out loud funny, more of a sick to your stomach kind of funny, like when you first found out there wasn't a Santa Claus." She shook her head rapidly and forcibly returned her strain of conversation back to the proper place. "I mean of all the people who you would think were safe from danger… Wouldn't you think Cordelia was the safest? She works for Angel and she's his best friend; she has you and Gunn around her all the time with all those weapons… it just seems like she'd be safer than anyone else in the city but she still got hurt anyway."
"Yes, she did. It would seem that we aren't as good at protecting her as one would have thought."
"But it still isn't your fault."
Wesley returned his gaze to peer into Fred's guileless eyes. She believed what she said, why couldn't he?
~~~
Gunn walked slowly down the sidewalk toward the Hyperion. He'd spent four hours in his old neck of the woods, getting all the information he could on who might be responsible for Cordelia's condition. The leads all petered out without anything useful to go by and he quickly determined that there were just too many human bad guys to differentiate between on any given night of the week. None of his old informants had seen or heard anything that could be directly attributed to the man who had gone after Cordelia.
While his questioning sessions with the seedy characters had allowed him an outlet for some of his building anxiety, it hadn't completely alleviated it. Still on edge and wary about returning to the hotel that was sure to still be thick with worry and foreboding, he drug his steps along the crumbling cement sidewalk.
He'd been staking vamps and hunting demons for so long that he had almost forgotten about humanity's own bad guys. Sure rapists, drug dealers, and thieves were a dime a dozen in a big city like LA, but when you spent your nights chasing down nasty monsters and your days researching how to kill 'em, you tended to automatically lump all humans into the 'nice' category. It was a little hard to change gears so quick without getting whiplash.
He slowed his steps as a tacqueria's neon sign flashed brightly at him, reminding him that not only had they not eaten all day that he knew of, but Fred might appreciate a bag of tacos after a few solid nights of take-away Chinese. Glancing into the shop, he recognized the girl at the counter and smiled in greeting, grateful for some amount of normalcy in his day.
"Charles Gunn! The sky must be falling!"
"Hey, Marissa-girl, it hasn't been that long, has it?"
The attractive woman smiled broadly. "Long enough. So tell me, how are things for you and all those demon hunters you work with?"
Gunn shook his head slightly. "Things could be a lot better, Marissa, a lot better."
…to be continued…