Three Months Later
It was odd. She could always tell when Angel was bothered by something, someone or he was just mad at the world. But for somehow today, she couldn't read him. His brow was creased, his attention immersed in an ancient scroll along with Wesley and every two or three minutes he kept twisting his head and checking the time. For the past few days, she stayed at her apartment alone and urging for his touch. It was strange not having him there by her side, but then again she just assumed he needed some space. She wondered if she should just come out and ask him if her idea was a good one or not. She had mentioned moving into the hotel with him a few weeks ago and until this day had not heard a peep out of him or anyone else regarding the situation.
"Hey." Fred came up smiling and giggling, blocking her view of the vampire's face and sat in the chair and looking over at Cordelia.
"Hey Fred. What's up?" Cordy pulled her attention back to the pending files in front of her. Mrs. Hansen and Dr. Yoro had still not paid their bills and every call was getting more and more difficult.
"Well, I was thinking..."
"Ask Angel, Fred."
"You don't even know what it is." Fred defended herself.
"If it has anything to do with a certain client that hasn't paid their bills, I'm all ears. But if it has anything to do with Angel and ice cream and all of us together, you need to ask him." Cordelia told her, clutching her budding tummy as she felt the baby's feet nudge into her side. Her expression told Fred what just happened.
"Was that the baby? Can I feel?" Fred perked up and hurried over to Cordy's side, hoping to feel at least one kick from inside.
"Sure. Here." Cordelia grabbed her hand and softly placed it upon her stomach, letting Fred wait to feel the pain this child was causing her. With that, three more kicks came, right in the same place. "Sheesh...this kid has definitely got some strength."
"Wow. That is so cool. I mean, a life, inside of you...it's so amazing." Fred returned back to her chair, grabbing for some of the pending files that Wesley had stacked up for the both of them to go through. "So, have you gone through names?"
"A little. I've already got a boy's name and no one, and I mean no one will change my mind on that one." Cordelia stressed.
"What's the name?"
"Doyle. If this child turns out to be of the male sex, Doyle will be in his name somewhere."
"I like that. Do you know exactly what it means?" Fred asked, looking over Mr. And Mrs. Johnson's file and contemplating why they weren't able to pay their bill when they just bought a new Mercedes a month ago.
"Not really. Doyle was a friend of mine and Angel's. He's the one who gave me the visions. I miss him." Cordelia got a little reminiscent remembering the last time she had seen him. It had been over four years ago when he took that leap to save them all. She missed him, she really did. Who knows, maybe if he hadn't had took that leap, maybe this would be his baby, they would be married and have a house in the suburbs, a ski house in Aspen and a beach house in Malibu, or maybe, just maybe they would be living in Dublin and she would come to know where he came from, what his family was like. She wondered sometimes if he had still been around, would she still have fallen in love with Angel? Or would it be Doyle all the way?
"Cordy? Cordy..." Gunn's hand waved in front of her face snapping her out of the daze and into another. She clutched his hand, steadying herself for the vision up ahead. Demon. Yellow and Orange. Kids. Park. Parents. Strollers. Noon.
"Noon today, orange and yellowish demons attacking kids and mothers. Four maybe three claws. Eyes all over."
"I'm on it."
"Gunn, there were strollers."
"Don't worry, nothing will happen to those kids or the strollers." Gunn squeezed her hand back and headed towards the weapons cabinet. "Wesley!" He yelled for his colleague who came out of the office with his face still deep in a sixth century Niwya translating dictionary.
"Hmmm?"
"Wesley, get yo' head out of that damn book and tell me how to kill this demon."
"What demon?" His head shot up with wide eyes and a question on his mind.
"I had a vision. Orange and Yellow type demon. Three or four claws, coming up to eat some kids and parents in the park at noon."
"Sounds like a Paruklan. Easy to kill. Slice it in half." He responded, going back over to his bookshelf and taking another reference just to make sure. It was. "Need me to go with?"
"Yes, we need to get you and you out of the house." Gunn said, handing over an axe to Wesley and handing Fred a small but pointy and dangerous knife. They left the hotel, purposely leaving her alone with Angel again. Thank you Gunn, she made a mental note in her mind to give him a huge hug whenever the three of them got back. Now was the time to make her move. Getting up out of the chair, she steadied herself before walking into the office and waking Angel from his daydream as well. She tried her hardest to skate around the issue at hand, but truth was that that was all that was on her mind. And why the hell was he checking the clock again? It had only been two minutes since the others left and she knew Angel was skipping around the conversation as well. He looked up and over at her, offering her a smile along the way and then back into a book his head went. She knew he had an obsession with old books but he was never this interested in them. Plus, translating ancient texts alongside Wesley was not what he or she called a holiday. Wesley was nasty when he was translating, usually locking himself in a room for two or three days with mounds of books, Mozart playing on the radio and a bottle of fine wine. She was just now getting up the nerve to ask him about their fight the other week about the hotel when the phone rang.
"Dammit." She muttered under her breath and stalked out of the office and back to her desk. "Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless. How can I help you?"
"Cordelia? Is Angel there?" Lorne's frantic voice was on the phone in urgent need of a champion. Some champion, she thought. The 'champion' wouldn't even look her straight in the eye.
"Yea, just a minute Lorne." She set the phone down on her desk and signaled for Angel as she took a seat, already feeling fatigued by walked two feet and back again.
"Lorne? What's up?" Angel held the phone to his ears as Lorne yelled back, obviously frightened about something. "Wait, just a minute. Slow down."
"Okay, okay. This ghost of a roommate that Cordelia has is psycho." Lorne's voice barely made it past the receiver and into Cordelia's eardrum. What the heck was Lorne doing with Dennis? And why did Angel know about it?
"He's not that bad. What exactly is he doing?"
"Oh nothing, just causing a tornado in the middle of the living room while George and I are struggling to take the last of her suitcases out."
"But didn't we take care of that phantom situation yet?"
"No, not yet. My friend is supposed to be here within the hour."
"Are you sure this is going to work?"
"Positive."
"Okay, but be careful and tell him not to break any more vases or unicorns." Angel hung up the phone next to her and returned to the office. That was it! He was going to tell her something now or she was gone, for good. Well, not for good, she couldn't imagine if she did leave. Where the heck would she go? Well, Tacoma was a possibility but too far away from the things she knew.
"Angel, what's going on?"
"Nothing, why?"
"You're not the only one who has good hearing around here. Please tell me." Cordelia pleaded with him, slowly trying to get up from the chair again. He came back out and helped her out of the chair, his hands trailing down her back for support.
"I guess that I can show you now. But when the rest of the guys get back, you have to act surprised. Deal?"
"Surprised about what?"
"Come on, I'll show you." He kissed her nose and grabbed onto her hand, leading her out to the lobby and up the right staircase. This had better be good, she thought, taking one step at a time behind him. For all she knew it was a trap, probably to lock her in a cage and hold her there until the baby was born. Maybe Wolfram & Hart was after them again. But no, Angel wouldn't do that to her, she hoped, no, she knew he wouldn't do that. Past his room and down two doors to number 217 and stopped.
"Okay, this is it." He told her, still clutching onto her hand tightly.
"What's it?" She asked again, still confused about what the heck was going on. He opened the door to the room unveiling a newly furnished bedroom suite complete with a king sized bed and a new window seat overlooking the courtyard. "Oh my gosh..." She held her hands up to her mouth and entered the large quarters filled with most of her belongings already. She went over to the bed picking up one of her quilts. "This is mine. You've been stealing from my apartment?"
"No, more borrowing then stealing..." Angel told her still standing outside the archway.
"Why aren't you coming in?"
"Because I have to be invited in."
"But this is your hotel and your room." She told him sitting down on the comfy mattress and looking around the room.
"Actually...it's your room." He stated, her head doing a three sixty back around to him. "Our conversation about two weeks ago...well, I kind of took the liberty to..."
"To just transport my stuff over to this room one by one without me knowing about it?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"So you want me to live here, with you and Lorne and Fred?"
"Only if you want to, I mean, you are the one who mentioned it." Angel said, trying to get to the bottom of her meaning of moving into the hotel with them. She smiled over at him, wanting to get up and go over to him but her current state banned her from doing so.
"Then I invite you in." She said as he crossed the threshold and came over to her side. "And this phantom thing you mentioned on the phone with Lorne?"
"Dennis. We're bringing him over here."
"How? I thought he was like permanently attached to that apartment."
"Well, in about twenty minutes he won't be." He watched her, her eyes still darting around the suite that Lorne had designed for her. It was perfect for her and the baby, but that was another surprise that she didn't know of yet. "So, you're going to act surprised when the guys come right?"
"Yes, I will. I'm still in shock."
"Shake on that?" He offered her his hand, hoping she would.
"No. Kiss on that." With that, she grabbed his hand and brought her lips up to his. "Did I mention that I love you?" She asked with her arms still up and around his neck. This was probably the best present he could give her. It was perfect and she could give all the credit to the man...pire in her arms.
"This is absolutely amazing." She said as she lifted her hands up to her mouth again. The room between hers and Angel's rooms was a fully decorated nursery complete with changing table, crib, full supply of diapers left over from Connor's reign as baby of the Fang Gang and some other store bought ones for an infant, and closet full of no-gender specified clothes. The gang had really pulled a funny on her this time, keeping her out of the loop for so long and the bags. The bags stocked full of whatever in Gunn and Fred's arms every day with them, she presumed, going up to Fred's room should've been a hint. She walked in after Fred and ran her hand over the quilt lying upon the rocking chair in the corner and took in the whole of it.
"So do ya like it?" Fred's Texas accent came out to play with a big smile upon her face as the boys stayed quietly behind them, silently watching the expectant mother get emotional over a pack of diapers and a rocking chair.
"Do I like it? No, honey I don't." Cordelia told her, reaching for a tissue from the box on the table next to her.
"You don't?" Wesley asked, coming around her and looking at her with concern.
"You better like it because we spent a hell of a time on this." Gunn spit out next.
"Yo, hold back on the yell-fest on Cordelia." She put her hands up to stop them and wiped the tears from her face. "I love it. I absolutely love it." Cordelia pulled herself up off the rocking chair and gave them all a hug. It was worth it. Now all she had to figure out was this Dennis thing.
note: I couldn't remember the number on Angel's door to his room, so I made a number up for Cordelia's.