Title: Then Beggars Would Ride
Rating: PG
Author's Note: It's pretty much an explanatory companion piece to "Sometimes" -- neither story will really make much sense without the other, so. I'm not very happy with it, but there you go. Am considering writing a story from Daniel's point of view, but I'm not sure if I'll ever actually get around to it.
Summary: Wesley gave them normalcy. He wondered if Cordelia would ever forgive him.
Even Wesley, whose wish it was, couldn't have predicted the way things turned out.
All he wanted was for Connor to be safe. Drunk and far more talkative than he usually was, he'd said as much to Halle (subtle, damn it, he should've known). I wish he was safe, he'd said, and he regretted it now. Should've known better than to utter the words 'I wish' -- Cordelia could've tell him that, she at least still had her memories of highschool.
Most of the time, it wasn't as bad as all that. He had a decent job now, friends -- he'd even let Cordelia set him up with one of her friends, much to Daniel's amusement.
Daniel. Daniel Holtz. If Wesley could've chosen anyone to be Connor's new father, it probably wouldn't have been him. But they were a family now, Cordelia, Daniel and Stephen. A little family of three. Hell, they even had a white picket fence. Cordelia was talking about getting a puppy. Normalcy.
He'd given them that. Inadvertantly, but it was still him.
He wondered if she'd ever know, and if she ever did...he wondered if she could ever forgive him.
Cordelia didn't remember the life before. Cordelia Holtz never worked for Angel Investigations -- Wesley wasn't even sure that it existed now, and he could never quite bring himself to find out. Though, there were days...days when he'd visit them for coffee, or offer to babysit, or he'd bring something from work to go over with Daniel (a historian, and why didn't that surprise him?) and Cordelia would look at him, moments away from asking a question...
And then the moment would be gone, and he could breathe again.
Cordelia looked as though she wanted to take her life apart to see what made it tick.
Wesley prayed she never found out.