Waking Up From the Past
Chapter 2: Floating a Nuisance Call
by Hollywood Phoenix
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Spoilers: 3rd season ep. "Provider"
So far: Angel and Cordelia woke up after falling asleep together. Cordelia had a nightmare, developed a really painful headache, and went home for some R&R. Angel brooded in light coloured clothing, Lorne played guidance counselor, and Wesley wisely holed up in his office. All while Fred and Gunn enjoyed a fine breakfast at the local diner. Oh, and Kate popped up for a bit too.
~~*~~*~~ @ ~~*~~*~~
The Hyperion Hotel, January 22, 2002
Wesley Wyndham-Pryce sat at his desk in his office at Angel Investigations. Scattered around him on the desk were masses of books and papers; there were so many, the desk's surface was completely obscured. Despite his seemingly fussy demeanor, he was exceedingly untidy. He knew that he should really clean up his mess, but at the moment, he had more important things to consider.
Holding his hand over the phone, he paused. Most likely he would get shot down. After all, he always did. Maybe it was time to forego the whole experience; avoid the hurt and confusion which would ensue.
Out of self-disgust, Wesley stiffened his upper lip. This would not do. Almost a year as the head honcho and he still couldn't manage a simple phone call. Determinedly, he gripped the phone and picked it up. The next second, it was back on the hook.
Sometimes he loathed his lack of backbone.
"Sometimes I hate it too." a voice broke in smoothly. Wesley looked up and saw Lorne leaning against the doorjamb, one leg crossed over the other. Half embarrassed, the other half peeved, Wesley looked away.
"If you don't try calling the girl, you'll never know." Lorne said, "We have a saying back in Pylea..."
"Well, we're not in bloody Pylea, are we?" Wesley broke in, impatiently.
"Keep up an attitude like yours, and you'll never get her." Lorne smirked. "She spent five years there. So most of it was spent in a cave fearing for her life. Some of her time there must have meant something."
Wesley sighed, slouching in his chair. He looked up and almost laughed at the irony. Almost. "I was trying to call my father."
"Yeah, sure." Lorne shrugged and turned away. "Whatever makes you feel good about yourself."
***
Cordelia's place, January 22, 2002
Cordelia walked around her apartment, a towel wrapped around her head, another one around her body. The clock in bedroom read 2:05 but she was in no mood to return to the Hyperion Hotel any time soon.
Dennis floated a few items of clothing in front of her as she walked into the kitchen. A red silky shirt. A black chiffon blouse. A slinky purple top. Ignoring him, she headed to her cupboard and pulled out a box of crackers.
Leaning against the counter, she opened the box, took out a cracker and started munching in thoughtful silence. Giving up, the clothes floated back towards her bedroom.
When Dennis returned, Cordelia was still lost in her thoughts.
The unseen phantom was having a hard time determining exactly what was putting her in such a funk. Since her visions had stopped hurting her, she would usually return from a long day or night of work, tired and dirty, grab a quick shower and then head right back out again, looking for the next adventure.
But if he had to put an invisible finger on it, he would guess it had to do with a certain unnaturally broody vampire.
Not that he minded. Dennis knew the realities of his situation. Sure, he would be eternally grateful that Cordelia was willing to share her humble abode with him, pun intended. She was his ideal companion; funny, smart and an adept one-person conversationalist, she also knew the art of getting him to do things for her without making it seem like a chore. It didn't hurt that she was a real looker either. But she was alive. And very solid.
It wasn't as if he disliked the vampire. Hell, if he could choose to come back as someone else, he'd come back as the dark Angel, cursed soul or not. After all, it would be the only way to ensure that Cordelia would really stick around.
Those living solids were so thick sometimes.
A loud crunch caught the ghost's attention. Cordelia was chewing more furiously now, still not focusing on him or her surroundings. She frowned, put her box of crackers down, and then padded back out into her living room.
Suddenly, she stiffened. Dennis sensed her distress and moved towards her, not knowing what he could do to help.
Cordy threw back her head slightly as a barrage of new images bombarded her mind. Her SAT scores. The blinding sun. Spike, in his game face, cornering a lady in a shop. Willow being taken with Xander. Spike mocking Buffy and Angel.
She opened her eyes again and saw the ceiling, realizing that she had actually closed them when her latest vision hit. Her head wasn't hurting, and she sighed with relief. Then, her eyes widened when she realized that she wasn't standing anymore.
She was in fact floating 3 feet off the ground.
Almost delirious with delight, she reveled in this new sensation. This had happened right after she had been demonized, but not after that. For a while, she had consciously tried to float off the ground again, but the more she concentrated, the more frustrated she became. She gave up, attributing it to a one-time fluke.
But now, it was happening again!
Analyzing this new situation, she noticed that she was in a different position than last time. This time, she was floating length-wise parallel to the ground. When a breeze flew past her, she giggled. "Dennis," she shouted between giggles. "Will you stop your pacing, already? This is fantastic!"
As she felt the air around her warm up again, the initial fascination wore off and she started thinking about how she should get back to the ground. She couldn't really remember that last time, since she hadn't been thinking too clearly. However, if she wasn't mistaken, one minute she had been floating, and the next, she was back on solid ground again.
She closed her eyes and mid-air, clicked her heels three times. She opened her eyes again and looked around. No luck. "Silly... you tried that before. That never works." she chided herself.
The minutes kept ticking away. Cordelia was getting bored. Lifting her arms, she tried waving them around, hoping to swim mid-air or at least move somewhere. Still, she didn't budge an inch. A little peeved, she flapped her arms more vigorously. The towel around her head fell to the ground.
"Think," she ordered herself. "There's got to be a way around this." But she couldn't think of anything.
She giggled again, a little more hysterically this time. "This is so ridiculous," she sighed. "I'm feeling so stupid just floating here and I can't think of a single way to get out of this. To make things worse, I look a mess."
She paused, then spoke to the air, "But, you're not telling anyone, right Dennis?" In response, the phone went off the hook. Cordy shook her head.
"Dennis, this is my problem. I'm going to fix this" she said determinedly.
The phone was replaced on the hook again, and she breathed an inward sigh of relief. But remembering that she was still stuck in limbo, the feeling didn't last long. She stared at the ceiling and started counting invisible cracks.
***
The Hyperion Hotel, January 22, 2002
Gunn and Fred entered the Hyperion Hotel together, having just dropped Kate off outside her apartment building. Fred had been silent during the drive to Kate's apartment, much to Gunn's chagrin and discomfort. However, as soon as Kate had gotten out of the car, her natural demeanor returned and pretty quickly, she had started prattling again.
Gunn had tried to remain engaged in their conversation, but he couldn't help feeling a smidgeon guilty over running away from Kate like that. True, he didn't particularly like her, since she had never bothered to say so much as a hello to him when she had hung out with the gang. And he couldn't imagine her batting one of her pretty eyelashes to get him out of a jam. Besides, she hadn't asked him to help her with anything other than getting her out of the diner. Which he had. If there was one thing Charles Gunn knew and lived by, it was to keep his nose clean and out of other people's troubles when it wasn't called for.
But, remembering the smell of alcohol lingering on her clothes and breath, the tough exterior she put up to cover her underlying confusion, and the fact that she couldn't remember her address until she looked in her wallet, the guilty feeling refused to go away.
He felt a light touch on his arm. Fred was looking up at him expectantly, a worried frown marring her delicate face. He automatically smiled at her reassuringly and gently covered the hand on his arm with his own. She searched his face a second longer, and then brightly smiled back at him. It was a lopsided smile, but it was so refreshingly her that he remained rooted on the spot, knowing he probably looked like a moron.
For once, Gunn didn't care about that at all.
The sound of footsteps behind him caused Gunn to turn around. Wesley was coming out of his office, reading an open book and softly muttering to himself. Fred's hand fell from his arm as he felt her step away from him. Gunn looked back to where Fred had been standing and noticed her shuffling towards the stairs. He silently watched her as she skipped up the stairs, her hand sliding lightly over the staircase rail. When he heard Wesley give a startled, "Oh, hello there," he held his breath for a moment.
She paused at the voice, looked out into the lobby, and gave them both a shy smile.
***
Cordelia's place, January 22, 2002
Cordelia had never been more bored in her life.
She didn't know how long she had been just floating in her living room, but she didn't care. She had tried everything she could think of, including getting Dennis to douse water on her but nothing had gotten her back on the ground again.
She had run out of options.
Turning her head towards her window, she noticed that the sun was just about to fade into sunset. Feeling Dennis' disapproval around her, she said one word, "No."
Silence was his response.
She restated for the fifth time that day, "I'm not calling for help."
A cold breeze whizzed past. In only her bath towel, she shivered. "Angel would be here in a second." the breeze seemed to say.
It's not a choice, she reminded herself.
She looked around the room, trying to focus on something to keep her mind occupied. Outside her apartment, she heard laughing voices and immediately recognized one of them as belonging to her new blond neighbour, Dave. He was cute, funny, helpful when Angel wasn't loitering around her place, and attended classes at the nearby college three days a week.
An all-round yummy prospect for her, if she was so inclined for a treat. But for some reason, she wasn't. She settled on envying him.
Every time she ran into him, he told her amusing anecdotes about his nutty professors, his blustering classmates, and the college life. With a pang, she realized that she was missing out on an important milestone. She had gotten amazing SAT scores and been accepted to her choice schools. Plus, she had always liked school. Alright, she admitted, she had lorded over her school, but partaking in a good education had been her right from day one. Just like her looks, Queen C status, and family money, she had taken them for granted and used them well.
But with the exception of her looks, they'd been whisked away.
Then again, she mused wryly, running her hand through her now dry, very uncombed hair, maybe that was gone too. What happened to her perpetually good hair days?
And she sunk into mild depression.
Snap out of it, she reprimanded herself. Quit with the broody and think of pleasant things.
But her mind wandered back to her high SAT scores. She remembered being very pleased with them, as well as the look of surprise that had crossed Xander's face when he had snatched her score out of her hands and taken a peek at them. He had made a joke, as usual, and in his adorable Xander-like fashion, had put himself down. But an unmistakeable look of pride had shone in his eyes.
Cordy probed her memory deeper, remembering that Willow and Buffy had also been there. As she recalled, Buffy had gotten a pretty high score as well. And Willow had been in bad spirits because she didn't score perfectly. She remembered the nervous way that Xander and Willow fluttered around each other that day.
On second thought, he hadn't been all that adorable. That two-timing skunk had probably been hung up over that red-headed fashion nightmare already.
Cordy sighed. So much for thinking happy thoughts. She shrugged, chalking it up to one weird day. She'd woken up with a massive hangover-like headache and ended up floating in the middle of her living room for practically the entire day. And all that without even the help of a little magic or flying carpet.
A thought was niggling her brain. There had been something else... she'd also had a vision. But, remembering the setting of her vision, she was confused. Her visions were supposed to only show her possible future events. Not the past. And, she huffed to herself, Buffy and Angel being in the same room, much less the same city, was very much in the past.
That's when she felt herself falling.
The next minute, she was sprawled on the floor, the towel amazingly still wrapped tightly around her body. Stunned at her new position, she gaped at the ceiling in the middle of her floor.
It was then that the phone went off its hook and a familiar number was dialed.
***
The Hyperion Hotel, January 22, 2002
The sun had just set outside the Hyperion. Curtains in a room upstairs billowed from the gentle breeze filtering through an open window. Angel paced, agitated. One look and it was clear he had a lot on his mind. As ever, he was clueless as to how to express it all. Eventually he stopped his nervous fidgeting and opened his mouth.
"Cordy, look. I'm just going to come right out and say it." He began, placing his hands on his hips. "We've been friends for a long time. We've learned to work together. Or so I thought. I can't understand why you keep shutting me out like this. We all want you to be a functioning part of the Angel Investigations team. If you keep doing this, you're not working with us, but against us." He turned, facing his audience. "Am I making myself clear?"
The only response he got was Connor's wide-eyed stare looking back at him.
Angel let out some pent-up air, which resulted in a half-sigh, half-growl. "Okay, change tactic." He started his pacing again. "Cordy, over the last few years, I've gotten closer to you, and in ways I've never imag-, uh, experienced before. So you'll understand that we're concerned about you. We want to help you, even if we have to tear through every post office or shopping mall to find The Powers That Be and get them to take back the visions. Because no way are we letting them hurt you, much less kill you." He turned back to Connor's silent observing look. "How's that?"
Clapping broke the silence and Angel immediately knew who'd been listening. "Lorne," he said, annoyed. "This was a private discussion."
"Sure it was," the green demon grinned, humouring him. "But I give you a 9 on takeoff for the barely restrained passion and 2 for what's going to be your sorry carcass on the landing." He put his hands up and braced himself as Angel growled loudly and started towards him. "Okay, okay, how about a 10+ for the passion and no comments on what Cordelia will do to your hiney?"
Angel opened his mouth to respond, when his cell phone rang insistently. He flipped it open and started to say a greeting, when he heard an irate female voice on the other end.
"Dennis!" it shrieked, "how could you?" Then he heard a crash and the frighteningly dull ring of the dial tone.
~~X~~X~~ * ~~X~~X~~
A/N: Hi, finally got this one out. It's longer than I first envisioned, but it's doing what I want it to. :) When I'm coherent again, I'll revise it and the previous chapters (spelling mistakes that I missed are bugging me!) Anyway, please R&R!
Disclaimers: Nope, still not mine.
(c) March 13, 2002
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