Chapter 8

After Cordelia took Doyle home everyone went to their offices to get a little more work done before they went home. Xander, Oz, Willow, Dawn, Andrew and Giles went exploring the empty building. Buffy however stayed behind so she could talk with Angel. She politely knocked on his door before entering.

"Hey Buffy." Angel said looking up from his work. "Not going exploring with the others?"

"No, I thought I stay behind, kinda tired ya know?"

Angel nodded; he went back to his work, thinking Buffy would continue the conversation as he worked. When she didn't say anything Angel knew something was up. "What's up?" he asked casually.

"Angel, are you alright?" Buffy said, she went on hesitantly, "I mean with this thing with Doyle and stuff. Are you sure you doing ok?"

"I'm fine." Buffy knew he wasn't fine just by him saying he was. She went over and sat down on he's desk, facing him. "Buffy…" but she shushed him.

"Don't say anything unless your gonna tell me what's wrong, ok?"

At first Angel didn't say anything, then a single tear slid down his face, when Buffy whipped it away he looked up at her. "Everything's going to be fine." He said as if to convince himself, "Everything's ok with Doyle…he's fine. We're not…we're not gonna lose him again, right?"

Buffy pulled Angel into her arms, "Of course, everything's going to be fine, don't you worry." And she just sat there holding Angel letting him cry silently in her arms.

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In Wesley's office not much work was being done, Fred had been catching up on everything that had happened when she was gone. They had been cuddling, and somehow ended up in a make out session. Fred giggled the giggle that Wesley loved so much; he pulled her closer to him.

Reluctantly she pulled away, "We really should be working Wes."

"We can always finish up tomorrow, there's no big case to work on right now." Wesley replied, again trying to pull her closer to him, she resisted.

"What about Doyle?" She said looking him in the eye; she could see how tired and stressed he became when she mentioned this.

Wesley sat up a little in his chair, "I can't find anything that'd help us, and he'll go back to normal as soon as he wants too, which could be never. But we can't push him or he'll go crazy. I'm not sure if bringing Harry here will help at all, Doyle has a lot of bad memories with her."

"But it's the best we've got." Fred said, leaning her head against Wesley's shoulder.

"Yes, it's the best we've got right now… It's getting late, I think we can head to our rooms." Wesley replied they all were staying in rooms at the office, with the exception of Cordelia and Doyle, until they could find their own places.

"Ok, we'd better check in on Gunn, tell him he should go to bed too." Wesley nodded and they walked down to Gunn's office hand in hand. Fred knocked on the door, "Gunn?"

They heard rustling inside before he said, "Come in." Wesley and Fred stepped inside his office.

"We just wanted to check on you and let you know we're going to bed and you should probably too." Wesley said.

"Ok, I'll go in a few minutes, got to finish up here first." Gunn replied.

"Told you we should of finished first." Fred whispered to Wesley.

Wesley smiled, "Gunn it'd be fine if you finish that up tomorrow." Wesley walked over to the desk, "You look exhausted… what's this?" Wesley pulled a high school graduation test from underneath one of Gunn's books.

"It's nothing really…" But before Gunn could finish Fred had walked over too and pulled out a college application.

"Gunn why do you have all of this?" Fred asked.

"Cause…well I just…" Gunn took a deep breath before answering, "I want to go to college and I can't with out a high school diploma. So I've been taking classes over the internet and they send you your test in the mail. I want to have an education, like everyone else." He said all this very fast, as if he'd wanted to tell someone for a long time, but had been too ashamed.

"Gunn that's wonderful, there's nothing wrong with wanting to go to college. You should have told us sooner." Wesley said.

"Yeah Gunn, there's nothing wrong with going back to high school and all that. Hey, we should tell Angel, that might cheer him up." Fred put in.

Gunn shook his head, "It might upset him more, if I get into this college then I will have to go there full time. That means I won't be able to work here for a couple of years. So lets just wait 'til later to tell him ok?"

Fred and Wesley looked at each other before pulling Gunn out of his office toward Angel's office, ignoring his protest.

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Cordelia had thought it had been an accomplishment just to get Doyle home, but getting him to go to bed was harder. She finally convinced to change into his pj's and after several minutes of waiting in the hallway she started banging on the door telling him to open up. Doyle opened the door; hand on his head, and looking as if someone had just hit him in the head with a hammer. "G…geez Delia do you have to be so loud?" he asked her.

Cordelia walked passed him into his bedroom, "If you hadn't gone and gotten so drunk everything wouldn't seem so loud. Now come on get into bed." She pulled up a chair next to his bed and took out a book.

"What are you doing?" Doyle asked not moving.

"I'm making sure you don't hurt yourself, now get in bed now!" It wasn't a suggestion. Doyle hurried up and climbed into his bed. Doyle sat up and stared off into the distance, Cordelia was worried. "What's wrong Doyle?"

Doyle shook his head, and then after a few minutes he spoke, "I miss it sometimes."

Cordelia put down the book she'd been pretending to read. "Miss what?"

"Heaven." Doyle said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Funny, when I was there I'd missed everything down hear. The old office, my apartment, pubs, Angel…" He looked over at Cordelia, "And you. Now that I'm back here I miss up there…but not all the time."

"Doyle…" she stopped not knowing exactly what to say.

"Did Angel say Harry's coming here?" he said as if he hadn't just talked about missing heaven.

"Yes, we think she can help us…" again Cordelia trailed off.

"Help you with me." Doyle saw the look of surprise and shock on Cordelia's face and gave a small laugh. "Don't you think I've figured some stuff out myself darling? Something's wrong with me, and even I'm not sure what."

"Doyle its ok, everything's gonna be ok." Cordelia leaned down and hugged Doyle tight. She drew back and left the room a tear in her eye.

Doyle stared numbly at his hand; he was getting dizzy from all the alcohol. He remembered a time when he didn't drink as much, when alcohol was still a foreign substance. He drifted off to sleep lost in his thoughts.

The next morning, when Doyle woke up, he found Cordelia and Harry talking in the kitchen. When Cordelia looked up she smiled at him, but worry was written all over her face. "Good morning Doyle, sleep well." Doyle nodded and sat down, carefully avoiding both girls' eyes.

"Hey Francis, how you feeling?" Doyle was surprised at the concern in her voice. He didn't want her concern; he didn't want her to be here, he liked it with just him and Cordelia.

"I'm fine Harry, fine as can be." This time he only avoided Cordelia's eyes, she would think now that his confession last night, about knowing that something was wrong, was a drunken statement that didn't mean anything. He just wanted Harry to leave.

Harry just nodded and drank her coffee that Cordelia had given her. "I'm only staying for a little bit right now," she said, "Angel wants me to go to the office and talk to him…"

Cordelia nodded, "I'll call you a cab." She got up to call, leaving Harry and Doyle sitting there in an awkward silence.

Doyle, not being able to stand the silence, broke it. "So you and Cordelia pals now uh?" he asked casually.

Harry looked confused, "We'll I guess we're friends," she said hesitantly, "but I'm here to help you get better."

"I told you Harry I'm fine, just a little headache that's all."

"You really shouldn't drink all the time, Francis…"

Doyle cut her off, "I'm a grown man Harry, there's no need to tell me what's good for me and what's not. And I've told you before…its Doyle, just Doyle now." At that time Cordelia came back into the room and Harry only nodded. Cordelia escorted her to the door and came back looking troubled.

She sat down at the table and didn't speak for a minute. She watched Doyle try to open childproof aspirin, and then suddenly wrenched it out of his hands.

"Hey! Someone's not a morning person, huh?" Doyle said shocked at her sudden burst of anger.

"Really Doyle! She's just here to help why did you have to be so rude!" Cordelia responded opening the bottle and getting him a glass of water, she slammed the glass of water and the aspirin down on the table in front of Doyle. "Come on take your stupid medicine!" she sat down at the table and glared at him from across the table.

Doyle quickly swallowed the pills, afraid of another outburst from Cordelia. After she had calmed down a bit Cordelia said softly, "She's just worried about you, so are we! We want to help you and she does too…"

"Who said I wanted her help!" Doyle said angrily, "Who said I wanted anyone's help!"

"Doyle you said so yourself, you know something's wrong."

"But to bring Harry into this! I don't need my ex-wife involved in any part of my life anymore! Have you even asked me what I wanted, maybe if you asked me I could tell you what you need to make be better!" Doyle was shouting now.

There was a small look of fear on Cordelia's face; she had never seen Doyle so mad, "Doyle, please…you didn't have a problem with this last night. We didn't know what else to do, we just want you back…"

"I was just realizing last night why you wanted to bring Harry here, I wasn't even really thinking about her at the time! And want me back to what! The way I was, you know after dying and coming back to life a person changes a little!" Doyle took a deep breath, "I…I can't handle all this, I…I need to get out for a bit." He got up and started walking to the door.

"Doyle I don't think that's such a good idea." Cordelia called after him, but he didn't listen. Cordelia stood there, dumbfounded, as she heard him slam the door shut.