Author: AbbyCadabra

Posted: 04-27-2003

Email: yankeesnabercrombiechick@hotmail.com

Rating: R

Category: Angst, AtS3, pre-Connor

Content: C/A

Summary: The night was hers and tonight she was a fucking star.

Spoilers: TVT, TOGOM (general stuff)

Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.

Distribution: Nothing Fancy. Anybody else just has to ask.

Notes: 1. This is a series, made up of standalones, and this is the first part (in case you hadn't already figured it out). I was totally clueless on where to post this, so if it's in the wrong section, I trust one of our beautiful mods to do that move thingy. 2. Lyrics are by Enya, "Paint the Sky with Stars".

Feedback: It WILL make me write more, so leave some if you like it.

Thanks: Elisha. My girl and partner in crime. This wouldn't have happened without her. Kelvis. 'Cause she's the queen of the beta-ing kindom and takes my shite piece of fic and turns it into something readable. Katy. For being Katy and crazy and showing interest in this. And Shirley for her words of encouragement.

- -

“Some by virtue fall.”

– Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare

- -

Suddenly before my eyes

Hues of indigo arise

With them how my spirit sighs

Paint the sky with stars

- -

"Star Light, Star Bright"

“A toast! To many more years of demon, vampire, and all around baddie slaying!”

“Here’s hoping that POS truck of yours starts tomorrow, Gunn, ‘cause with that thing you don’t never know.”

“To playing your cards right… And only losing when you can kick the other guy’s ass.”

“To… um…”

The raised champagne glasses, sparkling and twinkling ever so prettily in the bright light of Caritas, teetered and then sank. The air of celebration was thick in her throat and blocked her words. She felt like all of the eyes in the room were focused solely on her, staring at her choked silence and the champagne glass she still held high.

“To…” Cordelia started again and then stopped. There was nothing left for her to say. Her mind was a blank of well wishes and jesting teases and god knows what else people were supposed to toast to these days. She didn’t know, couldn’t have bought herself a clue with all the money her daddy used to not-really-have, so she leapt at the first thing that popped out of the white expanse that had become her brain.

“To happiness.” Her voice was bashful, a little stern, and a lot loud. She remembered, offhandedly, that she had always been the best in her acting classes at projection.

The room suddenly turned quiet, mouths shutting and grins fading and, oh yeah, she so did that. A throat cleared somewhere near the back, along the wall, and Cordelia fidgeted. Hand to hair, other to hem of shirt, feet up and then to the side and then down. She felt uncomfortable, corny as all hell.

Have too much fun lately? Need someone to kill your buzz? Just call Death-of-the-Party Cordy.

Cordelia wanted to hack at the awkwardness with an ice pick or ancient blade or, better yet, something witty and charming enough to knock Prince Charming himself on his fat, royal ass. But nothing came to her, and she could feel eyes, Angel’s and Gunn’s and everyone else’s, on her. And then there was that feeling of heat, the one that crept along her cheeks and up her neck, hot and horrible and very fucking obvious. Pretending that there was something in her eye, she dipped her head to the side so that her hair fell like a thick, split-end-free curtain over her deepening blush, and she began to quietly count away the seconds of humiliating silence.

“You can never have too much of that,” a voice said on the fifth second, soft and cool and so very, very uneasy that it brought a smile to Cordelia’s face.

She lifted her head in a flourish of near ebony shine, a smile of dangerous voltage flashing on like a light bulb, and beamed at Angel. He returned her smile, a small gesture when compared to the one that she sent to him in waves, all uncertainty and reservation, but still a success.

Cordelia could literally feel the awkwardness evaporate from the drunken atmosphere of Caritas in the way the sting of hot water on a fresh wound turns cold almost instantly. The sounds of laughter and glasses clinking buzzed through the air again until it reached the highest point of the ceiling, filling Caritas to the brim with delight.

“True that,” Gunn said, the night’s prior tequila shots and pitchers of beer slurring his speech. “Well, not unless you’re you, ‘ngel, because happiness and you don’t mix, bro.”

Cordelia missed the slump of Angel’s proud shoulders at the mention of his curse. She didn’t see the brief shift of light when the shadow he had tucked himself into darkened, a black hole in a field of stellar brilliance. She wasn’t looking hard enough to see it.

“But that,” Gunn continued, pointing to Cordelia as golden bubbles sloshed over the edge of his champagne glass, “is the best damn toast I’ve ever been toasted at. Ganks, thirl.”

Cordelia turned her smile to Gunn. “You’re welcome.” Her arms fit around his wide shoulders easily, his own wrapping around her waist with some alcohol induced difficulty. “Happy birthday, Charles,” she whispered warmly into his ear, tightening her hold briefly before releasing him.

“You too,” he said, the skin around his eyes crinkling with the force of his grin.

“This is a happy birthday, isn’t it?” Cordelia asked, meaning every word like she never thought she could.

She felt happy. Like she could inhale the happiness with every breath she didn’t have to think about taking and drink the happiness from her champagne glass and live within the happiness and die there too. The joy enclosed by the magical boundaries of Caritas was almost tangible in its entirety, like she could just collapse at any moment and land safely on a cloud-like mass of happiness, soft and fluffy like the clouds on diaper commercials.

And she loved every second of it like she loved nothing else.

“Well, there is one thing that could make me happier, sugar plum,” Lorne said, his voice silver-tongued as ever.

“What would that be?” she asked, the champagne bubbles fizzling in her stomach fueling her bravado. She dared him with her eyes, waiting to see if he would pick up on the curious light she felt.

He motioned to the empty stage, the spotlight shining on a bare wooden stool and microphone. “To hear your surely marvelous rendition of Mrs. Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive.’”

She wrinkled her nose at his suggestion. “Ah, I don’t think so, Lorne. No karaoke tonight, okay?”

“Yes, karaoke tonight. You, sugarplum, are the only one who has yet to sing from my gathered collection of Angel Investigations employees, and I need the complete set.”

“And it’s going to stay that way.”

Her words were stern, but her manner spoke otherwise. The bold gleam in her eyes, the curiously quirked corners of her lips, the empty champagne glass hanging from her swaying fingers, begging to be filled. All so daring. All just waiting for the right challenge.

The Host sighed deeply. “Yeah, you’re probably right, cupcake. I really don’t think this group is that rude, but I don’t want people walking out. Makes for bad business. You understand.”

She smiled and nodded, her eyes rolling knowingly. “Reverse psychology. Not going to work.”

“I’m not trying to reverse your psychology, hun. I like you and I think it’s an absolutely conniving thing to do to someone who you respect.” He looked at the stage, vacant and uninviting and exposed in all the worst ways. “Some people just don’t have the courage to take on the mike. It’s something you learn in my business.”

Cordelia half scoffed, half snorted, a sound that prompted her into checking her surroundings to be sure that it hadn’t traveled too far on the sound waves. “Lorne, it’s the fact that I can’t sing that’s keeping me from going up there, not stage fright. Or rather, my lack thereof. Okay?”

“I see what you’re saying, dumplin’, but the aura doesn’t lie, and I’m detecting some serious wiggage in your stage fright department.”

“You are not!”

Lorne patted her on the back gently. “Don’t kill the messenger.”

“Message this,” she declared, standing away from the booth she and Lorne had shared, strutting to the stage.

The spotlight was brighter than she had expected, shining and blinding and much, much more welcoming than she had remembered. Heat borrowed from the steady stream of light pounded her skin in rivulets. Small. Quick. Enthralling. Like a precious drug that was only legal because no one fucking knew about it yet. The microphone was cold to her touch, heavy in her hand, a sum that came to nothing when compared to the marvel of a shining spotlight in her eyes.

“Gunn, you pick,” she said into the mike, smiling down on the table he was seated at.

She laughed as he stumbled to the stage, uninhibited and full and like she hadn’t done in what seemed ages ago. She scanned the crowd flippantly, a blur of people and demons, stopping on Angel. Her gaze was stuck on his like feathers to honey, lassoed in and then secured with rope and knots.

Another roar of applause for Gunn erupted as he fell awkwardly into his chair, ripping her eyes from Angel’s. “What’d ya pick?”

“Is a surprise,” Gunn said.

Cordelia thought that maybe he had tried to wink at her, the way someone might do when referring to an inside joke, but it came out as more of a wince of pain than anything else, and she had to stifle back the laughter bubbling in her throat.

The wide grin on Gunn’s face was unsettling. It was too wide, too cheerful, and she began to worry. She tried convincing herself that Gunn was a good guy, a great friend, not the kind of person who would take pleasure in the embarrassment of their friends. But as the beat began, loud and obnoxious and ever so familiar, she knew that that was exactly the type of person Gunn was.

“I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world,” she sang reluctantly, her voice low, quiet, horrendously bad. “Life in plastic, it’s fantastic…”

She wanted to get off the stage and drink herself into forgetting this ever happened and to wring Gunn’s neck and to go home, pull this CD down from her secret stash on her closet’s highest shelf, and stomp on it until the pieces were so little that she would have to clean them up with the Dustbuster.

“You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere. Imagination, life is your creation…”

And then she suddenly realized somewhere around the first verse, something about blondes and making it tight, that she didn’t have to treat this moment as if it was a cold metal rebar through her gut. Didn’t have to be something that would be remembered only because of its sheer terribleness. Didn’t have to fucking make her feel like she was God’s gift to MTV’s box set collection of The World’s Worst Karaoke Singers Ever. She couldn’t make herself sing like Whitney, but she could have fun with this, dammit.

And that was just what she intended to do.

“You can touch, you can play. If you say I’m always yours!” she sang into the mike, her voice loud and commanding and damn high, her best imitation of the squeaky voice she remembered so well. “I’m a Barbie girl in a Barbie woooorld. Life in plastic, it’s fantastic. You can brush my hair, undress me everywheeeere. Imagination, life is your creation.”

Cordelia flipped her hair and giggled in a way she would never do again, sashaying from one side of the stage to the other like a supermodel, trying her hardest to make Barbie proud. She worked the crowd and worked her ass and worked Angel into a jealous fit.

“Come on, Barbie, let’s go party! Ah, ah, ah, yeah! Come on, Barbie, let’s go party! Uuoooh, uuoooh…”

She shone on the stage like a nearby star, the closest and the brightest in the sky. The one that people always pointed to and said, ‘Look at that one, it’s so pretty.’

As the spotlight beamed down on her, Cordelia felt worshiped by its light, as if it adored every inch of her skin and begged for its love to be returned. Light reflected off of the fallen gold confetti and echoed around the stage, scraps of flickering gold dancing over her eyes and toes and everywhere in between.

It was like a movie set, so perfectly arranged. The careful and accidental perfection of the lighting, the almost tangible atmosphere, the girl. A scene so perfect it could only be a dream or something scripted and rehearsed from a high budget, A-list movie. And she was living it.

“I’m a Barbie girl in a Barbie woooorld! Life in plastic, it’s fantastic! You can brush my hair, undress me everywheeeere! Imagination, life is your creation!”

When she finished she was short on breath, her cheeks flushing a flattering crimson, and smiling an ear-to-ear grin that hadn’t scene the light of day in far too long. On stage she blinked the light out of her eyes, listening to the silence of Caritas, and expected nothing. She expected looks. She expected crickets to chirp and a long, long cane—the ones with the curved handle—to come out, snag her by the neck, and drag her out the nearest exit. What she hadn’t expected was applause, and would have never dreamt of expecting a downright rowdy standing ovation. So she just stood there, speechless and awestruck and ec-fucking-static, when exactly that happened.

She couldn’t see the crowd, didn’t know if she really wanted to, and didn’t care. This was her moment. She wanted to possess everything in that second, take it home with her and put it on her mantle so people could ask about it later, and then she could relive it for them. She wanted it to never end, to last as long as time and temptation and death. She wanted nothing else.

The night was hers and tonight she was a fucking star.

Acknowledging her ovation, Cordelia bent at her waist. Her hair flung over her head, one hand curled around her stomach and the other daintily in the air, her legs crossed at the knees, bowing as if she was accustomed to doing so, and the cheers became louder and louder. And that moment, when the clapping and whooping and hooting was at its absolute peak, and her heart had swelled into a mess of sweet, saccharine happiness, a vision rolled over her, whole and violent and unrelenting as a vampire’s teeth in her neck, draining and taking.

With the spotlight following her every move, she stumbled backwards, still crouched, causing her hair to flutter with each long step she took in a panic. Her hands flew to her head, grasping and pulling and hurting like hell. The mike fell to the floor with a deafening boom that played out over the speakers, and a collective gasp seemed to ripple through the crowd. Some were too drunk or too evil to do anything other than laugh and clap some more, some ignored her, but most stared on in horror, their mouths hanging open and splashes of confusion painted across their faces. One raced to her.

Cordelia cried out in pain, her scream piercing the shocked silence of Caritas like a knife blade dragging over skin, long and agonizing. A woman screamed with her, Cordelia’s pain so affecting that the woman thought she could feel it herself. The pain in Cordelia’s head traveled like a shiver over her entire body again and again until her knees buckled and her legs gave out from under her and she was on the ground—no such soft and fluffy cloud of happiness there to catch her—crying and screaming and pleading for it to stop, to “Please! Make it stop! Make it STOP!”

“Easy, Cor. I’ve got you,” a voice said in her ear, distinctly cold and warm at the same time, distinctly Angel. She felt his arms wrap around her like a steel clamp, cold and immobile, drawing her into his arms. “I’m here.”

Cordelia’s body heaved with sobs and jerked unpredictably, making if difficult for him to keep her still within his hold.

She wailed again, a sound that was dyed black with pain, and tears slipped from her tightly shut eyes in a brook of pain. Her hands balled into too tight fists, droplets of blood trickling from the coiled flesh of her hands and down her wrists. She twisted in his arms, wanting to be free and embraced all at the same time, but mostly wanting for it all to just stop.

“Make it stop! Please…”

Angel held her closer, steadying her head against his chest gently with his hands. “I wish I could, baby,” he whispered.

Cordelia could still feel the hot radiance of the spotlight shining down on her as she lay, tangled like a broken rag doll, in Angel’s arms. It’s dazzling light had been transformed into something else, something ugly. It took no pity and had no decency, shining its perverted light on her so all the rest could witness her suffering. And witness they did.

“I wish I could.”

- -

The night was beautiful. The sort of navy that Crayola could never quite mimic perfectly, deep and mesmerizing and unbroken. It reminded Cordelia of being on her father’s yacht, no more than ten years old, looking over the railing and trying to see the bottom of the ocean. She never was able to, but she remembered thinking that maybe, if they kept moving and she kept looking, that there would be this one spot. Just one pocket in the ocean that would allow her to see straight to the bottom.

As she lay on her back, arms spread wide at her sides, Cordelia searched the night sky, scanning the stars for that one, extra bright and extra special star that would hold its hand out to her and pull her into heaven. But there were so many stars. So many hiccups of hope in the dense blanket of the night who all held their white-light hands out to her. So many choices and so many wrong ones and only one that was right.

She wondered if, were she to pick that one star and take its offered hand and allow herself to be lifted into the sky, would she become a star herself? Would she be another star or another sun or another moon? Gazing at the stars, so massive and fiery and so very, very beautiful it could make her weep, she decided that she would very much like to be one.

But stars told the story of a tragic splendor. They all held a death sentence in their shining fingers, twinkling brilliantly in the sky for so many years you would almost call them eternal. But one day the star will explode. And the explosion will be visible from galaxies far, far away and it will be the most beautiful thing to come along in centuries, and people will etch it onto blessed slabs of gray stone and handwrite epic stories about it on parchment and they will call it a supernova. People will remember the star’s death as bewitching and catastrophic, and it will affect the way they all lived their lives afterwards, because supernovas leave black holes in their wake.

Cordelia found the life and death of a star alluring in its glamour. She held her hand out to no one star in particular, beckoning them to her. She wanted to have them all and she wanted to be a star and she wanted the sun to stay set forever because the stars were too beautiful to be drowned out by its powerful rays.

She started when her hand was grasped, gently but unexpectedly. Her gaze broke away from the stars quickly, searching the darkness erratically.

“Shh, It’s just me.”

Cordelia sighed with relief. “Angel.”

He placed a quick kiss on the back of her hand, letting the sweet taste of her skin graze across his lips. “How are you feeling?”

“Lie down with me, Angel,” she said, ignoring his question.

Her voice was so soft, so utterly gentle and stripped, that Angel wasn’t able to stop before he found himself on his back beside Cordelia, her hand still fastened in his. He looked at her carefully.

“How do you feel?” he asked again.

“Fine, fine,” she said distractedly. Her mind was somewhere else, and he wished he could go there with her. “Angel, aren’t the stars beautiful?”

He answered her without looking away. “Yes.”

She laughed quietly, entirely, in the special way she did only around him, and said, “You didn’t even look, Angel.” She raised the their joined hands, pointing them at the sky. “There.”

He looked up; taking in the sight of their clasped hands, following the imaginary path they formed, and swallowed down the sudden ache in his throat. “Yeah. They’re amazing,” Angel said, his voice thick and sad.

He watched her, waiting for her to say or do something. When she didn’t, only continued staring upward, a barely-there smile playing the corner of her lips, he spoke again.

“Don’t you want to know how it went?”

“How what went?” she asked, looking back to him.

“The vision.”

“You’re here. It went well.”

“But you didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t need to.”

“You should have.”

“I didn’t want to.”

Silence overcame them, solid and static and stubborn. Angel liked silent. Liked the way her hand felt enclosed by his. Liked the way she looked at him, open and trusting. Liked the moment.

“They’re dying, you know,” she said suddenly, intrusively, shattering his moment.

Caught off guard, he could only manage, “Who?”

“The stars. They’re dying. Every second that ticks by they come closer and closer to their death.”

“That’s true with everything.”

She considered this, thinking. “Not you.”

“I’m different.”

“Right. You’re going to live forever.”

“Not forever,” he said, referring to his shanshu.

She beamed at him. “Someday you’ll be a star, too.”

He smiled. “Like you?”

“Like me.” Her voice was plain, the smile suddenly going empty.

A beat. “Cordelia, these stars…”

“Are beautiful. Aren’t they beautiful, Angel?”

“I’m sure they are, but—“

“Angel?”

“Yes?”

“Hold me?”

He didn’t answer, just slipped an arm around her slender form and softly pulled her to him. She curled around his body, laying an arm over his chest and resting her head on his shoulder, the crown of her head brushing against his chin. Innocent and intimate.

She sighed heavily, a painful whisper sweeping over Angel’s skin so softly he knew it must have slipped. A private, fugitive thought of Cordelia’s that had escaped on the wings of her breath. Something he wasn’t meant to hear.

“I’m so tired, Angel.”

And it was in this moment of contentedness, of overwhelming serenity, that sleep gently claimed her. It crawled over her, slow and certain, like the transition from day to night. It stole her thoughts and brought colorful dreams wrapped in stars and fairy tale rhymes. It brought peace from a demon that disrupted her grasp on sanity.

His smile faded ever so slowly. Ever so completely. He broke his gaze away from her sleeping figure and stared upwards. He stared at nothing and he stared at everything and he stared at the ceiling of suite 217. He wished with everything in him that there were stars there to meet his gaze, the very ones that Cordelia said she had seen, but there was only white plaster, an endless amount of plaster, and no stars.

Angel stared and hoped and wished for the sake of his best friend, for himself, throughout the better half of the night, waiting for Cordelia’s stars. But the ceiling never diminished, and the stars never appeared.

End.

Rating: R

Category: Angst, season three, pre-Connor, minor crossover

Content: C/A

Summary: A day was just that. A day. Twenty-four hours and then done. Start again, please.

Spoilers: TVT (general stuff), The Gift (BTVS)

Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse and BTVS were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made. Distribution: Nothing Fancy. Anybody else just has to ask.

Notes: Lyrics are by Enya, "Paint the Sky with Stars".

Thanks: Kel for her beautiful beta job.

Feedback: It WILL make me write more, so leave some if you like it.

Paint the sky with stars

--

"Running on Empty"

Cordelia had heard emptiness described as many things. As an insincere gesture, or as an overlying silence, or as nothing. But she knew all of these to be false. Empty was not insincere. It was not silent. And it was not nothing. Empty, she thought as she poured the last of her milk onto her cereal — something unsweetened with oats and not enough raisins, making a mental note to herself for later (milk, cheese, tampons) — was all of those things.

It was true. Deafening in its intensity. It was everything.

She had always heard emptiness described as a black void, and knew this to be accurate. Empty was that feeling she had after auditions, when producers would say, “We’ll be in touch,” as they blacked out her name with a thick marker on The List. Empty was a vision, full of meaning and importance, and never hers. Empty was the bottom of everything, black and waiting. A well, pit, heart or soul.

Every.

Fucking.

Thing.

Her spoon dipped beneath the milk, searching below the ever-white surface for raisin and oat treasures. It resurfaced slowly, mostly milk held in its silver groove, some oats, and three raisins — lucky her. She chewed her prize mechanically, and realized that emptiness too was hungry. It ate at things lush and beautiful, things scorched and ugly, leading all of them to the black. It ate its way up the walls, clawing and chewing like rats, until everything was devoured — that was what made emptiness inevitable. It let nothing escape, and took everything.

She was empty.

Her cereal was not. It was full of vitamins and proteins and calcium. It made her body feel a little less empty. It had a purpose, one that was moist and cold on her tongue, not at all sweet, but still good. She took another spoonful of cereal, and quickly realized it was no longer any good. Too much time had passed between spoonfuls, and now the cereal was soggy, squishy. Disgusting.

She didn’t want it anymore.

Cordelia moved to the sink slowly, her bare feet crossing the length of the kitchen under their own power, one before the other and repeat, repeat, repeat. She liked the sound of her exposed skin on the linoleum flooring, soft and natural and rhythmic. Shoes, as absolutely stunning and precious as they could be, were not necessary. And she suddenly felt the urge to go without them today. To free the aching balls of her feet from the stiletto prisons she committed them to. To make some bold statement about shoes to the rest of the world — “No Shoes, You Can Choose!”

But as she washed the contents of her bowl down the sink, the unpleasant assortment of milk and limp cereal splashing along the rise of cream porcelain, she was already planning her outfit for the day. Mentally tallying which ensemble had gone the longest without being seen by any of her immediate friends. Processing which pairs of pants were clean and what tops matched what skirts. Figuring and figuring and figuring, because wasn’t that what life was? A goddamn problem that needed figuring?

She placed the rinsed bowl into the dishwasher, cringing as the rim scraped across the blade of a stacked cutting knife, plated silver crying out against the fine china — the same china she’d had to steal from her own fucking house — in a jagged shriek, loud and sharp.

She hadn’t worn the orange skirt lately, the one with the yellow fringe, but, then again, hadn’t done laundry in weeks, so it was probably still crumbled in her dirty clothes’ hamper. As she reached for the handle to her medicine cabinet and pulled out three orange bottles, their white caps overly bright in her dark kitchen, she wished she’d had the money to buy that one really cute dress she saw at the mall last Saturday.

And then she wished that she had all of the clothes in the world, and would never have to worry about a monthly rotation of skirts and blouses ever again. And then she wished that she would win the lottery — no, better than that- she wished that she were a rich and famous and highly pursued actress with a trend setting, fan-fucking-tastic wardrobe.

She wished for a lot of things, but they never came true either.

She pressed her palms over the white cap of bottle after bottle after bottle, pushing and turning and pulling. She laid a colorful array of whites and reds and purples across her kitchen counter. Purple. Now there was an idea. Grasping her water glass between long fingers that would begin to shake and tremble uncontrollably if she didn’t take those goddamn pills already, she calculated how many weeks it had been since she wore her purple skirt, the one with the black beads that dangled from the hem. Four weeks? Five? Either way, plenty of time.

The pills slid smoothly down with the water, one and then the other and then some more, until all of them were inside of her. Breaking apart. Dissolving. Seeping into her blood. She paused, waiting. She waited for the ever-present ache in her head to dissipate like the stars in the dawn. She waited for a vision, or for an increase in pain, or for her head to explode. She waited for anything. For a difference in the hurt.

She reached again for the smallest bottle, the black V in Vicodin staring up at her from the label, ominous and tragic and fucking beautiful, and drew another white tablet out of the cotton wall it had fixed itself in.

“Another won’t hurt.”

It seemed to Cordelia that her voice sounded too loud in the small confines of her kitchen, alone and abandoned and fucking empty. The high pitch of her voice, whole and invisible like the air, carried on the oxygen, covering and consuming and casting itself to everything in its path. It stopped at the far wall, the one with the big window that would have been bright and sunny during anyone else’s breakfast hour, but wasn’t — keeping Angel’s work hours could do that — and then bounced back to her and the long, thin capsule poised in her fingertips.

Cordelia placed the pill in her mouth; its bitter taste dull on her tongue, followed quickly with a wash of rapidly warming water, and tipped her head back. Blood rushed from the front of her brain to the rear and then back again with the movement, forcing her vision black for a moment.

She chose to ignore it.

She automatically replaced the white caps to their orange counterparts, pushing and twisting each slowly around the spiraling grooves until they were securely fastened. Her hand guided the cabinet door shut as a fleeting, chronic thought occurred to her, something that she had always ignored before, but somehow couldn’t gather the will to block out today. Something she might have laughed at because, dammit, it had always been funny before. But suddenly wasn’t.

She should hide it. All of it.

Should take all of her prescriptions and steadily increasing number of CAT scans and especially those tranquilizers she stole from the hospital after Vocah fucked her up royally. Hide it all. Angel would freak if he knew that she… Yes, hiding it was vital.

She made another mental note (milk, cheese, tampons, a big plastic container for hiding) and let the concern slip from her mind. She had to get ready. Had a shower to take and a skirt to iron and a day — night? — to get through.

Just another day.

--

“Cordelia, are you—You look a little under the weather.”

“I’m fine, Wes. Just a little tired.”

“Do you need to take a sick day?”

“No.”

“You haven’t taken one in months.”

“I feel fine. Right as rain.”

“Well, if you begin feeling ill, don’t hesitate to take leave. I’ll understand. And if you need anything, you know where I can be reached.”

“Thanks, Wes, but I’m not leaving. I’m all right.”

--

“Cordy—you don’t mind if I call you that, do you? Cordy, I was, um, just watching you at your desk from over there, from behind that plant, and thought you looked a little sad. And you’re not doing much work here- at your desk. And I wasn’t watching as in, you know, stalking, just observing in general. And you look tired. Are you okay? I saw you looked sort of down, and you weren’t doing any work or anything, and thought I’d come over and see how you were. Are you okay?”

“Fred, I’m just sitting here.”

“I know. And that’s why I’m concerned. You’re usually all over, eating the doughnuts or reading a magazine or going over files or eating something else—“

“Are you trying to call me fat?”

“What? No! Not at all. You’re not- fat. And I know fat. I was a slave to fat for five years. Fat is ugly and stupid and very, very demanding. Fat asks for hot milk and foot massages in the middle of the night. You’re not fat at all.”

“Thanks.”

“… So you’re okay?”

“Fine.”

“But you look so tired.”

“I'll be okay, Fred.”

“You—“

“I’m fine.”

“Well, okay- if you’re sure.”

“Very sure.”

“Are you sure?”

“Fred! Jesus fucking Christ — I’m sure! I’m fine! Go. Away.”

“O-okay.”

--

“You look like shit.”

“Shut up, Gunn.”

--

“Cordy?”

At the mention of her name, Cordelia considered snapping. Considered yelling and screaming and kicking her legs all around like a furious, spoiled brat. And then the voice clicked into place, sudden and jolting like a realization of love, and all she wanted to do was melt into its evident concern.

A smile crossed her lips, fast and bright as lightning, gone just as quickly. “Angel.”

He slid a chair across the floor, scratching and scraping and very goddamn loud over the hard tile, gooseflesh prickling over Cordelia’s skin. He took a seat beside her, close to her, silence absorbing the air.

“You look nice.” He didn’t give her the once over or allow his gaze to wander from her eyes. A gentleman.

“Thank you.”

“A new skirt?”

“No.”

“New shirt?”

“Nope.”

They were dancing. Waltzing and tangoing and two stepping around something important. Something neither of them wanted to touch. And it was starting to piss her off.

“New—“

“Get to the point, Angel.”

He sighed, glancing at his shadow on the floor, dark and formless under the soft light. “The others are worried.”

“About what?” she asked, brows knitting together in a confused mask.

“The visions.”

She pffted him away with a wave her hand. “The others are paranoid.”

He grasped her flailing hand and brought it down to rest within his own. “I’m, worried.”

She looked away. “Then I guess you’re paranoid too.”

“I’m too old to be paranoid.”

She didn’t answer. There was something about the moment, about the way he spoke to her, and looked at her, and touched her hand that made Cordelia bite down the sarcastic comment tickling her tongue. A thought occurred to her that maybe, yes, perhaps, she wanted to hear all of their reasons for concern.

Then she would know exactly what to cover up.

“What are they saying?” Her voice was like a whisper in the winter morning, soft and cold and distant.

“Just that you’re- different. That you seem more… tired.”

“Well, yeah. Angel, everyone’s tir—“

“That you’re not all there.”

Her mouth shut instantly, making a funny popping noise that neither of them found very funny. “Not all there as in just not there? Or as in crazy, delusional not all there?”

He paused. His eyes shifted to the side and back again. “I don’t know.”

It was a lie. And she knew it. She could read his heart and eyes like an autobiography, left to right, up to down. And he was lying to her about this.

“Yes you do,” she bit out, her act of vacuity wearing thin.

He sighed and it sounded heavy, like there was too much to say and not enough breath. Danger: maximum capacity exceeded.

“Angel, tell me,” she demanded. He looked at her sideways, eyes showing shock at her tone, cold like his hand. She rethought her approach, forcing herself to swallow her anger. “Please, Angel,” she entreated softly.

He took a moment, his eyes never leaving hers. She felt like he saw more than just her eyes. Like he saw deeper, saw her pain, and she prayed that he couldn’t.

Angel closed his eyes and ran a moonlight pale hand over his face. He sighed. “I really don’t know, Cordy,” he said, and the anger fell on her again.

Lie, lie, lie. There were too many lies being told. Her. Him. Their clasped hands. All of it. Lies. Honesty had passed on the wind and left her wondering if it had ever really stopped by.

And the funny part, she thought, was that all this lying, all this dancing, was being done to protect. She protected him and vice versa — through the lies. Sweetly ironic. Tragically considerate. Fucked up.

“I have to go,” she lied.

She pulled her hand out of his and piled various articles into her purse. A nail filer, a few papers, a cell phone; it was all junked together in her bag. She stood quickly in a burst of sudden haste, her expensive perfume clouding the air, heavy and musky as fresh sex.

“So soon?” he asked, standing after her.

“Yeah, I’m not feeling so hot.” She slung her purse over her shoulder. “Wes already okayed it. Just let him know I’m gone, and tell him I don’t think I’ll be in tomorrow either. Will you do that?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“’Kay. Thanks.”

“Bye.”

“Later.”

--

A day was just that. A day. Twenty-four hours and then done. Start again, please.

Some were easier than others. Some passed quickly. And other felt as if they’d never end. Some were uneventful, others too much so. No two were ever the same, like fingerprints or waves. Always similar, always different.

This was what Cordelia Chase knew as she shuffled around her kitchen, feet bare, motions empty, depositing her newly bought groceries in their place. Milk in the refrigerator, beside the orange juice and behind last night’s Chinese. Cheese in its own compartment with the butter. She would have to go to the bathroom to put away the tampons; she left those out for now.

Her head hurt. A soft pain that was barely there, yet always there. Just below her shopping list and everyday concerns, right above the emptiness, there was that pain. Pounding softly into each of her thoughts and molding them into something that wasn’t right. Something that wasn’t this reality. But her head always hurt, so she did her best to ignore it.

The big plastic container came next. It was discreet, flat and long and filmy white, not opaque. She thought opaque would be too this-box-is-for-hiding-things-don’t-look-here.

“It won’t fit,” a voice said suddenly, brazen and definite, startling Cordelia.

She glanced at her kitchen table, covered with papers and x-rays and prescription bottles old and new, where Buffy was seated in a stiff, uncushioned chair. Her legs were crossed, her back straight, head high.

“Oh. It’s you,” the seer deadpanned.

“You’ve got too much stuff,” Buffy continued as if she hadn’t heard her, nodding towards the collection on the table. “Too many problems to fit into that tiny box.”

“It isn’t tiny,” Cordelia said, holding the box up. It wasn’t. Slightly more than a foot long, six inches deep.

“Too tiny for you.”

“You just wait,” she said, taking the seat opposite Buffy.

“I’m telling you, Cordy. Your problems are too big to fit into that box.”

“You’re one to talk. You’re dead.”

“Exactly. That’s why I don’t have a problem anymore. My problem’s been solved already.”

Cordelia ignored her, wondering which way would be best to pack the box. Should she put the prescriptions on the bottom and the papers on top, or the other way around? If the papers were on the bottom, would they get wrinkled? Would the x-rays get scratched?

“Life’s just a big fucking problem, Cordy,” Buffy said, staring at the seer. “You know that. And each day is another chance to solve it.”

But if she put the prescriptions on the bottom, the papers and x-rays would sit awkwardly on top, and maybe get wrinkled or scratched anyway.

“You almost got your problem figured out, donchya, Cordy? Time’s getting close. Your head hurts right now, doesn’t it?”

“Shut up, Buffy.”

The blonde laughed, sweet and full, not at all condescending. “Right, right. You’re trying to think. My bad,” Buffy said, falling quiet.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

Cordelia plucked a bottle from the tabletop; pills rattling against the orange plastic, and gently positioned it against one of the interior corners. She placed the next prescription against that one and so on and so forth, until they were all piled together in that corner, taking just enough of the box to leave room for the files. Then she organized her papers and x-rays into manila folders, securing them closed with rubber bands, and filled the other half of the box with those.

“How was your day?” Buffy asked, straightening out of her seat. She ambled to the refrigerator and opened the freezer door.

“Shitty.” Cordelia’s voice was directed elsewhere, towards her printed grievances, distracted.

“Why?”

She sighed, leaning back in her chair, giving Buffy her full attention. “Everyone is all, ‘Are you okay, Cordelia?’ ‘What’s wrong, Cordelia?’”

“And what do you say?”

“I tell them I’m fine. That I’m just really tired.”

Buffy reclaimed her seat, a carton of Ben and Jerry’s in one hand and a large spoon in the other. “That much is true.”

Cordelia considered this. “It doesn’t really count as lying if I’m doing it for their benefit, does it?”

Buffy shrugged.

“You know, I’m glad you stopped by. Now I know for sure that infinite wisdom does not come with death, and can stop fooling myself,” Cordelia said dryly.

Buffy snorted, the Chunky Monkey in her mouth pasting her lips shut. Cordelia laughed too. The darkness in the kitchen seemed to brighten, and the ache in her head maybe lessened. It was a good moment, light and honest, like the window just behind her, the one that she never saw the daylight shine through.

The brunette picked up the lid to her new hiding box, now filled with her deepest secrets and lies. “Still think it won’t fit?”

“There’ll be more to add later,” Buffy said, and her words sobered the moment. Brought it crashing back down from the clouds. Painted a red ‘fuck you’ on it.

“But do you think it will fit now?”

Buffy looked straight into Cordelia’s eyes. “No.”

The confidence in her words, blunt and hard as the point of stake, made Cordelia do a double take. She glanced quickly at the plastic container, at the medical evidence of imminent death found there. She was scared now. What if it wouldn’t fit? What if her problems were too big to fit into a six-inch deep box? Where would she be then?

“Just put the top on already and see,” Buffy said, rolling her eyes.

Cordelia nodded hesitantly. She lowered the slab of plastic slowly, as if afraid it would shatter like glass in her hands at the first contact, until it collided gently with its counterpart. She continued to press down until she heard a satisfying snap of plastic and could push no more. It fit. The lid fit fucking perfectly.

“Ha! I told you it would fit!” Cordelia yelled in triumph.

Her eyes traveled across the table, past an expanse of ash-dyed wood and condiments and napkins, landing on an empty chair. Buffy wasn’t there.

“Buffy was never here,” she told herself.

There was a throbbing in her chest, gone as quickly as a passing heartbeat. It was violent in its existence, fast and hard, like a gunshot through the hand. And after it was gone, and left nothing behind, she still thought of it. Wondered what it could have been. Questioned why it had come when Buffy left, and hoped it would never return.

Shaking her head clear of such thoughts, Cordelia picked up the container by its handles, sections of orange and white visible through the plastic, and carried it into her bedroom. She dropped it on the floor and kicked it under her bed.

She stripped her clothes off, layer after layer until she was nude and natural, feeling oddly overexposed. Her skin was uncomfortable, a little too loose for her liking. She pulled an old t-shirt out of a nearby drawer, put it on, and almost immediately felt relieved to have hidden her skin, naked and real, from view. Hers, Dennis’, anybody’s.

She crawled on top of her bed and under the covers, smelling clean and manufactured. There was nothing signature about the scent of her sheets, about herself. She wished they smelt of green apples or roses or sex. Or maybe Angel.

“He wouldn’t mind,” Buffy said.

The slayer climbed into bed next to Cordelia, the sheets lying undisturbed in the wide space between their bodies, smooth and calm, like the gray of an open sky before the storm. Her presence brought no lasting scent to saturate the cotton threads of Cordelia’s sheets, no warmth.

“He’d climb right in if you let him,” Buffy continued.

“Maybe if you’d shut up I could imagine you were him.” Cordelia intended for her words to be laced in thorns, but an advancing sleep invaded the malice she had aimed for and turned her words soft. Pliable.

Buffy chuckled. “Even your pillow talk is bitchy. I like it.”

Cordelia ignored her. “’Night.”

“’Night, Cordy,” Buffy echoed, her lips stretching as she yawned widely.

Silence stilled the air of Cordelia’s bedroom as Buffy fell quiet, her green eyes fluttering shut. The image of the blonde faded gently with each breath she took as sleep wandered over her consciousness slowly, completely.

Cordelia settled into her usual position, on her back and facing the ceiling. Fatigue seemed to be engraved on her bones in sharp calligraphy, tedious and deep. She was worn, and with this exhaustion came an indifference that bordered on suicidal. She didn’t care if the sky and all of its stars were to collapse on top of her at that second. Didn’t care if slits were to suddenly appear on her wrists, grave and fatal, and slowly bled her dry. Didn’t care if she never woke.

She was tired. Running on empty.

Her eyes drifted closed, and an empty, dreamless sleep claimed her just as the beginning rays of dawn began to peek through the thick drapes covering her windows.

End.

(But still TBC.)

Rating: R

Category: Angst, season three, pre-Connor, minor crossover

Content: C/A

Summary: She just kept falling and falling and falling.

Spoilers: TVT (general stuff), The Gift (BTVS), Carpe Noctem (specifics)

Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse and BTVS were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.

Distribution: Nothing Fancy. Anybody else just has to ask.

Notes: Lyrics are by Enya, "Paint the Sky with Stars". Also, this takes place just after the case ended in Carpe Noctem, not the entire episode. Thanks: To my two beautiful betas who rock far beyond all rockability. Kel, who really got a brain work out with this chapter and came through for me, and Katy, who is my guardian angel (fondling aside). And to Lish, who I haven't talked to in too long, but still thinks of me and this dopey little fic. And, finally, Emma for her lovely screencaps, which are all over the cover art.

Feedback: Makes me all giddy.

Now who will paint the midnight star?

- -

Break the Sky

“Hello? Hell-o? Is anybody there?” Cordelia’s voice traveled through the shadowed hallways of her apartment. Laughter suddenly erupted, lost in the dark, ricocheting over pale yellow plaster. “Don’t you just hate it when people leave answering machine messages like that? It’s so rude. At the beep, you know what to do. And have a nice day.”

“Cordy? Are you there? It’s me, pick up.”

Nothing stirred, still as death.

“I guess you’re still not there. Or not answering. Call me. You were supposed to be here over two hours ago.” Angel sighed. “We’re worried.”

He hung the phone up softly, an almost inaudible click on the other line. The dial tone rang out over the speakers of Cordelia’s answering machine, blaring and uniform, through empty corridors and open doors, settling on deaf ears. The line finally went dead, silence draping the darkness like cheap curtains, thin and incapable of hiding what lie beneath.

Emptiness. It was in the shadows, thickest where it was blackest. It settled on top of the air, more and more of it swallowed with every breath she took. It was inside of her, growing and spreading, not quite like a disease or infection, but spilled water, flowing everywhere so slowly. So peacefully.

Cordelia lay in her bed, sheets a rumpled mess at her feet, motionless. Arms stretched above her head, folded on top of each other at the headboard. Her left arm was asleep, numb in an almost delicious way. One leg was stretched straight, the other bent at the knee. Pillows were scattered on the floor.

She hadn’t moved since that morning, when her knees had hit the bed and buckled from fatigue, and she had collapsed on top of the washing machine-softened quilt, it’s flower and plaid pattern almost as loud as the silence. She had been so tired, so very, very over all of it. Of the visions. Of her visions. Of demons and vampires and old, perverted men who switched bodies with Angel and then molested brunettes on Wesley’s desk.

She thought she had reached that point, that final notch. The bottom of the chasm—where there was nowhere else to go but up. And then something would happen. Something that would knock her further down, deepen the hole. And she was tired of that, too.

With all of this tiredness, with all of this goddamn emptiness, she had thought sleep would come fast and easy, and take her some place far away where everything was happy and cheerful and just fucking perfect. But she couldn’t sleep. All day, when she should have slept, she had watched as the shadows came to life with the sun. And she watched as they slowly died, growing longer as the sun grew older, perishing when the stars came out.

The phone was ringing again. She could hear it dimly. Distantly. It would be Angel. He would say the same thing, wonder if she was perhaps there now, and then maybe insert a little more concern into the, “We’re worried,” than last time. Maybe two sighs.

She rolled over on her side, tucking one arm under her chin, leaving the other, now tingling in the extreme, splayed on top of the crumpled sheets. She rubbed her legs together, cold. She thought about how her walls looked almost navy in the dark. Wondered where the cheerful yellow went during the night.

“Not going in today? They don’t need you anyway,” a voice said into her ear, warm like the breath on the back of her neck. Cordelia shivered as an arm slipped around her waist.

“What are you doing?” she asked sharply.

“You are cold, aren’t you?” There was no answer. “Well, so am I.” Buffy stiffened behind her, the slayer’s smaller body no longer molding to Cordelia’s. But her arm didn’t leave her waist, holding Cordelia in an embrace without feeling or meaning or comfort. And yet, it was something.

Cordelia wondered if, were she to accumulate enough emptiness, enough tiredness, would it all amount to something? Something that wasn’t empty, wasn’t exhausting. She’d already collected so much; it couldn’t be long until it added up to something different, something whole and exhilarating and sincere—she hoped.

Buffy shifted behind her, the bed dipping with her movements. Her arm no longer rested in the hollow of Cordelia’s waist, but higher, on her ribs, awkwardly.

“I’m going,” Cordelia admitted, throat suddenly going tight.

“About time.” Her hair muffled Buffy’s voice, stealing away the tone in her voice. To Cordelia, she sounded numb, lifeless. “You’ve been suffering too long.”

“To work,” she clarified.

“Oh,” Buffy said, the amusement in her tone emerging as she spoke louder. “When?”

Thinking for a moment, “Eventually.”

She imagined a smile on Buffy’s lips, and could almost hear it in her words, “When?”

Cordelia hesitated. Her eyes swept over the dark blue wall once more, resting on a shadowed corner where the black crept lazily into the blue, blending perfectly. “As soon as I feel something.”

--

“…other day. And today, at around 11:13 I think it was, before you came in, I was standing right over there.” Cordelia shivered as a flush of air scraped across her bare shoulders, following Fred’s index finger with her eyes as she pointed to a darkened corner, “Minding my own business when he—”

“He?” Cordelia interrupted. She’d learned that the only way to keep Fred on track was by interrupting.

“Angel of course. He,” she said the word with a smile and overtly Texan drawl, “Came over, walking all hunched and hand-pocketed, and asked me if I wanted to maybe—he said maybe, not me—isn’t that cute?—go into the kitchen with him, and he’d make me something to eat. Said I looked too skinny—”

“You are too skinny,” Cordelia said dazedly.

She cast a hazy glance at the girl beside her, the small, knobbed bones of Fred’s elbow catching her eye. She moved her gaze to Fred’s knees, poking girlishly out from the bottom of a navy pleated skirt. She could make out the shape of each bone, the length of each ligament. Fred’s knees were bigger than her thighs.

She was suddenly hungry.

“C’mon,” Cordelia said as she stretched off of the settee, one arm high in the air and one leg extended behind, reaching for the ceiling. “I need something to eat. You’re making me hungry.”

“I’m always up for food,” Fred said with a wide smile as she followed Cordelia into the Hyperion’s grand kitchen.

Fred was always so happy. Always finding the good in something, the joy in small things. Like a trip to the kitchen with a friend. Fred was just like that, Cordelia decided. Some people weren’t.

Cordelia’s steps faltered when she swung open the door, a familiar bulk coming into view unexpectedly. Angel’s eyes flickered over her quickly, questioningly, and then to the side, where Fred stood. His gaze returned to Cordelia, still in the doorway, fingers keeping the door from shutting on them.

In his eyes she could see an uncertainty. It went unmasked or unnoticed on his part, slight but undeniable, like a brewing storm, graying the sky ever so slowly. She thought he was probably thinking about those fifteen or so messages he had left on her machine earlier. He was maybe wondering if he had left too many, or had sounded too desperate. She felt the need to reassure him, to smile warmly, and talk loudly and about something stupid. To comfort him and make his doubts disappear.

But it seemed like too much. A smile. A few funny words. It had all become too much of an effort for Cordelia, who could never quite find anything in the emptiness to motivate her. Who was always so tired. Who was always so ready to collapse.

“Angel!” Fred said excitedly, smiling, and Cordelia felt a flash of contempt for the younger woman. Hated her for her bony knees and easy-come light heartedness and it was only there for a second before she caught herself and pushed it down. “What’re you doing here?” Fred asked despite the coffee mug of blood in his hands. Cordelia moved out of the threshold and to the refrigerator, away from Fred.

Angel raised the cup as his only answer, returning Fred’s smile with his own much smaller one. He turned to Cordelia, taking a sip from his mug. “Hi,” he said softly, reminding her of the pillows that had been thrown off of her bed hours before.

“Hey,” she said without turning around, pulling the lettuce, tomato, and other sandwich ingredients from their shelves.

“So, um, rough night?” He acted as if he didn’t know Fred had sidled up right beside him, her hip almost against his. “Or day. Technically.” He attempted a laugh, but it came out more as a gasp, she thought, like he had choked on a breath of air. Which, she knew, he hadn’t.

She shrugged as she placed the various items on the island, her body facing him, but her eyes still avoiding his. She concentrated on the bread, reaching inside the bag towards the middle of a full loaf for the softest two pieces. He approached her slowly, the material of his pants sliding with every step, scrunching then swooshing. His hands rested on the counter, visible in corner of her eye.

“I- I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said, voice so soft, so gentle. She openly looked at his hands, and wondered if they would be so gentle. So loving. “The whole body switching fiasco and dirty-old-man-in-my-body… thing. Whatever he said or did, I’m sorry for that.”

“Angel,” she glanced at him quickly, lips barely quirking, “You are a dirty old man,” Cordelia said, her smile filling as she spread mayonnaise on the bread. “So stop apologizing just ‘cause another dirty old man took over your body for a while.”

He didn’t say anything, and she wasn’t looking, but she knew he was smiling. She could almost feel it.

“Angel,” Fred said, voice too loud, drawing the attention of both he and Cordelia. “Are there anymore Charlton Heston movies playing? I’d love to see another one. And hopefully you won’t turn into somebody else this time…”

Cordelia lowered her eyes as Fred went on and on, another stab of disdain for Fred aching in her gut. But this one lingered, feeling so much like the pain of a real knife, sharp blade and cold metal and all. She felt—irrationally, she knew—as if Fred had intruded on a moment between she and Angel. As if Fred had trampled on their connection with her too-loud voice and puppy love obsessions purposefully.

“You’re completely justified in feeling that way," came a fourth voice, heard only to Cordelia’s ears. "She is pathetic to no end. I mean that is so not how you get a guy. Especially Angel.”

The slender hand and forearm in Cordelia’s peripheral vision were oh-so familiar, oh-so disturbing. She suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore.

“She isn’t even cute,” Buffy said.

“Fred,” Cordelia croaked. “Do you want this sandwich?”

Fred looked at the sandwich, then Cordelia. “I thought you were hungry.”

“I’m suddenly not.” She slid the plate in Fred’s direction. “Besides, you need it more than I do.” She could feel Angel’s gaze burning into her, could picture the crease of concern in his brow, but kept her eyes on Fred, who gratefully picked up the plate and made her way for the door.

“Angel, are you coming?” Fred asked, stopping with her back to the door.

Cordelia’s gaze flickered to his, hazel colliding with almost-black in a messy rendezvous, too short and too unprepared. A feeling slithered over her, slow and cold as the formation of ice, freezing that ever-present emptiness for just a moment. It made the tattoo on her back tingle and her heart hum and her skin shiver. She wondered what he felt when they looked at each other like that.

“Angel?” Fred asked, snagging his attention.

“Yeah,” he said softly, blinking his gaze from Cordelia’s. Her face didn’t change as the emptiness spilled again, going everywhere. “Yeah.” He followed her out of the kitchen, eyes glancing back just once as the door swung closed.

“You wasted a perfectly good sandwich on that flake,” Buffy whined.

“Buffy, please, just-” Cordelia stopped, ran a hand through her hair, and sighed.

“Leave?” she asked, pulling herself onto the counter. Her legs dangled over the sides, swinging around carelessly like a child’s. “Negative.”

Cordelia said, her voice small and hushed, “Please.”

“So,” Buffy said, ignoring the plea, “How’s the head? You haven’t had a vision in a while, right?”

Cordelia ignored her, her eyes avoiding the harassing green of Buffy’s.

“But I don’t guess that matters. You’ve got, like, constant migraines. Aren’t you afraid your head’s just gonna… explode one day?”

“Buffy—”

“I bet it’ll be messy when it happens. Real gross. And not ER gross. But real blood-and-brain stuff, like on that Trauma show, only more not-in-your-head.”

“Stop it,” she said loudly, her eyes flashing to the door to see if she’d been heard.

“And, oh, I just thought of this. The visions are obviously going to kill you, so what do you think the last vision is going to be about? A rape or burning orphanage or murder? Or worse? That’s seriously going to suck, having your last memory be of someone else’s death.”

“Stop,” she repeated in a dry whisper, her lower lip trembling.

“Or do you think you’ll get a vision of yourself, that way you’ll see your head exploding?”

She felt like she was about to cry, throat aching and heart pounding. Felt like she was about to let it all break open, which was so not option. Because once it all came loose, she didn’t think she would ever be able to get it back.

“Cordy’s gonna collapse. Cordy’s gonna die,” Buffy sang cheerfully. “And nobody’s gonna care. Cordy’s gonna die, die, die.”

Cordelia choked on the tears she fought to keep down, one slipping from the tight seal of her eyelids, caressing her lashes before falling like high hopes down her cheek.

“And nobody’s gonna care. No, no, nobody’s gonna care.”

Cordelia suddenly heard laughter in the other room, and knew she had to find control. She gripped the cold metal sides of the counter and fought for it. She tried breathing deeply, but the air hitched in her throat when she did, so she tried short, shallow breaths. Her hands hurt and felt like they were ready to snap off, so she focused on the pain, let the sound of it buzz loudly in her ears and drown out Buffy’s song. She gulped for air, and it finally came easily. She tightened her hands once, fast, and then let go, fingers uncurling painfully. Her breathing became regular, and she allowed her eyes to flicker open slowly and heavily, as if she had just emerged from under water.

Her gaze traveled over the kitchen’s interior, Buffy nowhere in sight. She wouldn’t allow herself a sigh of relief, because she had learned that those were just invitations for something else that would sink her even deeper.

She heard the laughter again, coming through the walls slowly, seeping like molasses, and sounding so far away. Like it had come through a thousand walls rather than just one. But the distance didn’t matter. The laughter came from someplace else, and there was none here, in this sterile, industrial kitchen.

There was laughter in the other room, loud and uninhibited and God, she remember what that felt like. She remembered it as something so real and contagious and powerful, yet so weightless. So easy.

Cordelia wanted to laugh, felt the need to laugh, at what or who, it didn’t matter. Just to forget about everything for one fucking second, to let nothing matter. She wanted that so badly.

And it was supposed to be easy, wasn’t it? Why couldn’t she just laugh? Just feel the weightlessness and easiness? Just feel?

God knows she wanted to.

Brushing the soft pads of her fingertips over the edge of the counter, the metal smooth and cold to her touch—like Angel?— she tried to think of something. To recall some absolutely hilarious moment in her life, some humiliating loss of footing or a perverted joke—she never found those very funny in the first place, but she was reaching—or a horrendous fashion mistake.

Instead, Susan Kirk came to mind. Vision number sixteen. A forty-something divorcee with two grown children and no one to share a bed with. Mauled by something that felt like barbed wire on her way to her car after work. And then she remembered Janis. Vision number twenty-two. Singer, dancer, lover. Gutted. And then came the others. Christina and Bailey and Maurice and Paulette and Courtney and Joseph…

There was laughter in the other room, but there was none left in Cordelia.

--

“Angel?”

“Cordy. Hey.” His face lit up when he saw her, shoulder leaning against the frame of his bedroom door, and she almost felt like smiling with him. “Come in,” he said, straightening away from the shadow he sat in and into the light.

She moved slowly, steps long and quiet. She took a seat on his bed, near the chair he sat in. It was dark in his room; curtains open to the night sky. The only light came from the small lamp beside him, shadows splashing over the walls. She liked that.

He was smiling at her. She didn’t smile back.

“Cordy, I’m—”

“If you apologize again, I’ll jump out the window screaming.” Was she kidding? Wasn’t she? Thank God he found it funny.

“Sorry—er,” he smirked, “For that, too.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry I was late,” she said, taking the conversation straight to the point.

He shook his head and laid his book on his lap. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not. Much, I mean.” He looked confused. “What I mean is, I’m sorry for making you worry.”

His face cleared and he nodded. The silence in the air felt swollen, filled with something peaceful and tender. She liked that, too. Her eyes drifted to the shadows as he said, “I’m just glad nothing happened.”

She nodded, hazel eyes focused on a corner that had turned navy in the shadows and moonlight.

“Cordy,” he said, the nickname grabbing her attention. “If something was ever … to happen,” he paused, a hand running through his hair, leaving her wondering what he would do if that hand had been hers. “I just want you to know that I- I—”

“Love me?” she offered, voice more hopeful than she felt.

“Well, yeah.” His eyes caught hers, and she felt out of control for a second. Plummeting, but to a good place. “But can I at least… say it, myself?”

She looked down, breaking that feeling off at its root. Earlier, lying in her bed and standing in an empty kitchen, she had wanted to feel something. Oh God, she had wanted to feel something exactly like this. But now that it was here, offered so plainly and openly, it scared her. She had become accustomed to the emptiness, used to wanting something and not having it.

The prospect of having something, of having what she had wanted all along, all of it, and then losing it scared her more than the emptiness ever could.

She thought about the pain. She thought about the medications, and the box under her bed. She thought about her last trip to the doctor’s, about the CAT scan that had dangled so limply from his fingertips as he told her this would probably be her last visit.

She saw her hands, and they were trembling. “Please don’t.”

He nodded numbly, leaning back into the shadows.

--

It was bright in the lobby, and the shadows were darker than they had been in Angel’s room, something Cordelia had become fascinated with, watching them closely.

The phone rang suddenly, once, twice, and she looked over at Gunn, playing his beeping video game and paying no attention. The phone rang again, and Cordelia moved to it slowly, the sound of her heels clicking on the floor. She squinted the light out of her eyes as she reached under a lamp for the cordless handset, almost twinkling under the direct light. She answered in the middle of the fifth ring.

“Hello?”

“Cordy?”

“Willow. Hey. What’s up?”

“It’s Buffy.”

Her eyes darted straight up, straight into the light, hurting and blinding, but she didn’t notice, because she already knew what Willow was going to say. She didn’t notice the sudden chill on her thighs, the floor coming up under her so immediately when her knees buckled for not the first time that day. She didn’t notice the arms that wrapped around her waist, in the very same place as those that had held her earlier, in her bedroom.

“Hello? Cordy?”

All she could see was the white of the lamp. All she heard was her own breathing, thin and fast and so very, very loud in her head. All she felt was nothing, the air suddenly gone and space suddenly all there was.

“Cordelia? Are you there?”

And then she felt something shift inside of her, and oh god she felt like she was caving in. She felt like her soul was collapsing in on itself, bending impossibly over her entire world. Over a life that had been given too many second chances. Over her own, seeing its last days, and never seeing another chance.

“Buffy?”

“Is alive.”

She was sliding, notch after notch passing her by as she slipped further, farther. She was a star, and the sky was breaking all around her, and she was free falling back to Earth. She just kept falling and falling and falling.

End. And still TBC.

Rating: NC-17 for sexual situations

Category: Angst, season three, pre-Connor

Content: C/A

Summary: She wanted the light. Wanted to make it a part of her. Wanted it forever.

Spoilers: TVT (general stuff)

Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse and BTVS were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.

Distribution: Nothing Fancy. Anybody else just has to ask.

Notes: Lyrics are by Enya, "Paint the Sky with Stars".

Notes(2): Okay, so I know I said that there was going to be five parts, but I thought, and Kel agreed, that this should be the end. It's the natural conclusion to the story.

Thanks: Kelley. Thank you. You deserve more than two words, but I'm a mess of inarticulate words and cliches right now, so... Just thank you. And Katy and Elisha. I love all of you so much.

Feedback: Will make all the pain this story inflicted worth it. Okay, guys. Last chapter. The END end. Thanks to everybody who's been following thus far, and I hope this pays off somewhat.

Paint the sky with stars

--

Outshine The Sun

Her sheets were never smooth anymore. Always rumpled and tangled. They were wrapped around part of her legs, sliding across her hips as she twisted and turned, falling half way to the floor. Cordelia thought they were a perfect contrast to her clock, which kept order and was never disturbed.

Tick. Tock.

Cordelia knew emptiness. It was distinct, a feeling she could set apart from everything else. It was as if she were standing on the bank of a ledge, the drop sharp, and wind lashing at her back and eyes seeing only down.

She had hated the emptiness. It made her wish for things she knew would never happen; that she could freeze a perfect moment, and live there forever. That there would be no pain in her life, just bliss and serenity and maybe a little fame. That the wind would shift and push her away from the edge, away from the nothing that lay waiting below.

But she always knew, could always just feel, that the wind wasn’t shifting. That the wind was only picking up.

Tick. Tock.

There was a difference, Cordelia knew, between empty and nothing. Other people thought they were similar. Maybe even the same. They closely categorized them and interchanged their meanings and used them easily, as if they didn’t have a fucking meaning that was all their own.

Empty was a void, waiting with open jaws at the bottom of everything—A well, pit, heart or soul. Remember?

That was what empty and nothing shared.

Tick. Tock.

She glanced at her clock, the soft clicking of the red second hand reeling in her attention. Her eyes flew past the posts of her bed, past the draped windows, zeroing in on the red hand that saw every second as it came and went, and knew that these people didn’t know true nothingness. Had no idea what it felt like to be absolutely numb. To see without feeling. To remember without any recollection. To live and yet not.

Cordelia did.

Tick tock.

She couldn’t look away from the clock. Her eyes followed the red seconds hand over each number. She wondered what Angel was doing. Wondered if Buffy was sleeping. Wondered why she wasn’t. She watched the seconds hand spin.

And the room was spinning, too. Or was that her?

Tick tock.

It wasn’t just her. All the spinning, round and round, past the tens and elevens and twelves, couldn’t have been her. She would have felt it, the light-headedness and the nausea and the cool throbbing in her head, would have loved to feel it. But she couldn't feel anything.

Ticktock.

She closed her eyes to make the spinning stop, and saw the cliff when she did. She saw the sky, gray and heavy with rain. She saw the ledge, still as jagged and towering as she remembered. And she saw it all from below.

Ticktock.

She had already plummeted, and was looking up at what she’d left behind.

--

The hallways of the Hyperion were dark even during the day, and Cordelia couldn’t quite remember how she’d gotten there. Her memory was a blur; gray like the storm clouds that flew above her ledge.

She crept slowly and quietly down the hall, her fingertips gliding over the wall as she held one hand out to steady herself. The window at the end of the corridor was shuttered by thick, expensive drapes, very unlike the kind she used for her own windows at home. They kept the sunlight out almost completely, letting only stray cracks of light push through the material.

The hallway seemed solid with silence, dense and filtered with it. She imagined that, just beyond her fingertips, noise blared insanely, and that there was an invisible barrier that kept the noise out. That kept the silence complete.

She fought to keep the stillness uninterrupted, walking softly and breathing softer. She stopped when she came to a familiar door. She watched, disconnected, as fingers, trembling and, surely, too thin to be her own, came up and traced the metal 217 that hung there.

Cordelia pictured Angel asleep in his bed, the sheets smooth and unruffled, and suddenly wondered what she was doing. Her hand stilled, as if it were caught in the silence, wedged in the nothing.

The metal of the door number was cool, but warm beneath her skin. Warm because of her skin. Her hand moved again, away from the warmth she’d created, and just then, at that moment, she understood why she’d come, and the realization was as jolting as a blow that came out of the dark, knocking her down and stealing her breath.

A closed fist came down on the wooden barrier, knuckles pounding, fingernails forming shallow crescents in her palm, and she was surprised at how distant it sounded, how fogged and hazy. She could see her cliff, and it was growing taller, moving further away and catching up with the sky.

“Cordelia? What is it? Are you all right?”

Her eyes focused, Angel’s darker ones clearing in the fog. He looked concerned, brow furrowed and lips pursed. He wore boxer briefs, faded gray, and nothing like she’d expected. She had always seen him as the silk boxer type, colors in black and blacker.

“Cordy?” he asked again, reaching out and wrapping his fingers around hers. His hand dropped slowly, sliding down hers, until all he held were the tips of her fingers.

His touch undid her. She snaked her hand around his neck, the tips of her fingers barely brushing through his hair, and yanked. His lips collided with hers bluntly, the smallest of sounds catching in his throat as her other hand trailed over the muscles in his back, tense and tight under her forceful strokes.

Her lips opened and her teeth scraped his skin, her tongue licking at his closed lips. She moaned in part pleasure, part disappointment as she felt his hands come up and grasp her shoulders firmly. He pushed her away, hands dropping from her shoulders immediately, as if the texture of her skin disgusted him.

She stepped to him again, wanting something for the first time in what seemed like too long. He stepped back and held a hand out in front of him. She looked at his palm, and noticed it didn’t quiver.

“What are—”

She flinched at the volume of his voice, so much louder than she had ever heard before, and he stopped himself. He took a deep breath for reasons she didn’t understand, passing a hand through his hair.

“What was that?” he tried again, his tone much softer than before, almost too quiet. She had to strain to hear him.

“I…” she trailed off. There was a knot in her throat, and the rope was tightening with each second that passed as he looked at her like that. Like she was a broken doll, and he’d only just noticed the crack in her head.

He regained the step he’d taken away from her, suddenly the epitome of caring and concern. He was close, his hands and lips so close to hers, yet still so far. Still so untouchable.

“You can tell me,” he whispered.

He smelled of generic brand soap and conditioner, his hair damp at the top, where it grew the longest. His eyes were alert and clear, showing no signs of sleep. She wondered what he had been doing all day.

“I want you to tell me,” he said, voice reminding her of how coffee looked as it was poured. Smooth and dark and flowing.

“I- I just… need—” Her eyes bore into his, and it seemed to her as if she was pleading with him. Begging him for something. And she didn’t want to sound like that. “I need you to give me something.”

“Anything,” he answered immediately.

She looked away, glancing at his hands, and she watched as they moved towards her, so slow she thought he was moving in slow motion. He cupped her cheeks, fingers digging into her skin gently, and forced her eyes back to his. “Tell me what you need, Cordy, and it’ll be yours.”

She sighed, and it was heavy with the sound of tears. “I just need to… feel. I need to feel something, Angel. Hope. Comfort. Something that isn’t…” His thumb swept over her cheek, feeling so good, and her eyes fluttered in a daze before focusing on him again. “I need to know that… that I can still feel something.”

He was still except for his eyes, breaking away from hers and slipping downward slowly. She watched his chest, expecting it rise and then fall with a disheartened sigh, looking away when it didn’t. His hands moved from her cheeks to her shoulders, drawing her into his arms and burying his face in her hair.

She wouldn’t let herself melt into his embrace. She stood rigid in his arms, waiting for him to disappoint her.

“Cordy, the comfort you’re looking for… I can’t give it to you,” he said. She couldn’t establish the tone of his voice, but imagined he was dismayed, pitying. “The curse would… In a second if I touched you like that. And I can’t risk that.”

She wrenched away from him, pushing him back and reveling in the look of shock and hurt on his features. And, though he would deny it, the look of excitement.

“This isn’t about love, Angel,” she spat, slamming the door closed behind her as she moved in on him. “It isn’t about you or your curse, because this isn’t going to be about happiness. Damn it, this is about me. Let me fucking feel something, Angel. Screw happiness!”

“To happiness.”

“You can never have too much of that.”

He looked away, feet carrying him a step back, then another, as if her words had physically shoved him. And maybe they had. Maybe she had shown him something, opened his eyes to a loophole or an exception or an excuse.

“Angel,” she called softly. He didn’t hear her or didn’t acknowledge her, his gaze lingering on everything else, anything that wasn’t her. “Angel, look at me,” she snapped, yanking his attention to her much like she had his lips a moment before. “No,” she shook her head, “Look at me.” She motioned to the rest of her body. “Look at me.”

His eyes strayed over her body, slow and exact, taking all of her in. The pale skin that had once been bronze with sun. The chipped fingernails that had once been manicured and flawless. The limp hair that simply hung from its roots. His eyes returned to hers, dark circles that she no longer bothered to hide marring the skin just below, and they glistened with comprehension.

“I need this.”

He glanced away again, fingers coming up to rub against his brow. His hand still didn’t tremble, and she wondered if he were capable.

“You won’t lose your soul,” she said forcefully, tone hard and rational. “This circumstance is too… I’m too miserable. Too pathetic and too fucked up. How can that give you perfect happiness?”

His hand dropped and a fast, harsh, “It won’t,” slipped from his lips and then she was on top of him, the bed beneath them both. Her lips crashed against his, and this time weren’t met with hesitancy. He kissed her back like he wanted to devour her, all of her, skin and bones and blood. And she felt it.

She wanted it fast and hard and uncaring, and that was what he gave.

Her fingers pressed into the flesh of his back roughly, urging him take more of her, to fucking take all of her. One of her hands moved to his hair, and she fisted what she could, loving the cold, damp texture. She jerked his head back, breaking their kiss, and nipped at his bottom lip with her teeth. She caught it gently, and gave it a not-so-gentle squeeze that had him growling or moaning—she couldn’t quite tell the difference.

His hands were on her, here and there and everywhere that mattered, making her body buzz. She leaned back and enjoyed it for a moment, shutting her eyes. The tips of his fingers unhooked her jeans, then slipped under her blouse, pushing into her skin almost painfully. Her eyes snapped open at the sound of popping buttons and realized that he had ripped open her blouse.

He smiled wickedly at her as he leaned forward and took a lace-enclosed breast into his mouth and Christ he felt so fucking good on her.

His fingers dug into her sides, into her back, jerking her closer. She crashed against his chest, flesh smacking flesh primitively, and let all her inhibitions crash with her. She lightly bit his earlobe, and opened herself fully to his hands and lips and oh those fucking teeth.

Everything she felt was tenfold, bigger and better and fucking exhilarating. His hands were electricity, and her body was made of water, relaying every touch to every inch of her skin again and again, building up with every new contact made.

He wet the material with his tongue, dancing over her hardened nipple through the lace, and she whimpered when he bit down on her softly, feeling like she was going to explode from the sensations. She arched her back, pushing herself into his mouth, needing to feel more of him on her, oh God, just needing to feel.

“Take it off,” she panted, leaning forward and licking his neck, tasting the cool, salty flavor of his skin.

And suddenly the barrier was gone, and his lips were on her bare skin, kissing and licking and making her feel so good. So very, very-

“Fucking good,” she whispered in his ear. He chuckled, lips still wrapped around her, and she groaned out her pleasure at the sensation.

He was not quite cold, but far from warm, and it had shivers running the length of her skin, making her more sensitive to his touches, which were everywhere at once. Kneading her ass, covering her tits, pulling her hair.

She felt his cock against her thigh, hard for her, and grabbed him suddenly and, yes, that was definitely a growl. She laid her palm flat on top of him and rubbed through the gray cotton, fast and hard like she wanted. He threw his head back, moaning and growling and sounding so very, very hot, and then his heated was gaze on her, searing her, igniting her. With feeling.

His hand darted out suddenly, and he caught her wrist, holding her still. Her world shifted, and she found herself on her back, staring into his smug smile, fangs appearing longer to her than they’d been before. She groaned as he slid down her body, the sparks flying as his skin chafed hers. He yanked her jeans from her legs and threw them randomly to the side, her panties soon following, a sloppy pile of her clothes forming in the corner of his room.

He crawled over her until they were nose to nose, his lips falling on her like a dead weight, forceful and crushing. He took the air from her lungs as if he needed it. As if he couldn’t live without it, which she knew wasn’t true, but wasn’t going to stop him. To ever stop him. Her hands drove into the mounds of his ass, pulling at his boxers until they were just low enough. Until he was pressed against where she needed it most, skin on skin, need on need.

He licked the skin on her neck as he moved against her, the length of him stroking her hip.

“Yes,” she breathed out. “Fuck me, Angel. Fuck me.”

His movements stopped suddenly, his body silent and tense.

“What?” she asked, voice sounding of a panic she didn’t feel. “What’d I—”

He placed a finger over her lips, smothering her words. Dark eyes that once blazed with desire now swarmed with something deeper. Something that left her heart aching.

He bent down slowly, eyes gazing into hers until the last possible moment, when his lips met hers gently, tenderly, in a kiss that had tears stinging her eyes. He gave her one more, and then another, chaste and sweet and beautiful. He smoothed the hair from her eyes, his lips not far behind, kissing her cheeks and eyes and the tip of her nose.

She let out a shuttering breath, digging her nails into his back as she tried to set fire to him again. Fast and hard and uncaring, remember? It was what she wanted, what she could handle. This was slow, tender. It made her feel like letting go.

And she didn’t want to fall again.

He hissed in pain as she broke the skin, but only kissed her lips again, as a lover would. As only a lover could. His nose brushed against hers softly, lips painting an innocent path along her jaw line. She gasped as he grazed the soft spot between her jaw and earlobe with the tip of his tongue, chills coursing her spine.

The tips of his fingers were almost warm as he traced them across her collarbone, his touch weightless and eyes so very, very heavy. The heels of her feet dug into the sheets anxiously as he teased her, touching every place he could as he drifted down her body.

She watched him as he watched her, gaze rapt with her skin and filled with sadness. She blinked hard, trying to swallow the emotions, but he made it so impossible. The kisses didn’t relent. The touches wouldn’t stop.

She felt him sign his name on the skin of her stomach, making gentle sweeps of the small five letters that spelled him perfectly.

A-n-g-e-l.

He kissed the slope of her ribs, the crook of her elbow, the tip of each finger, one by one, until her breathing became deep and effortless. Until her lips trembled with emotion. Until she was letting go. Beginning to fall. Into him.

Her eyes slipped shut as he entered her, gradually and with great care, as if afraid she would break. Would she? Hadn’t she?

Her breathing stopped as he filled her completely, so near perfectly, and began again as he set his pace. He moved slowly, in long, quiet strokes that felt like the end of the world, the emotions running through her potent enough to blow the universe apart.

A tear slipped from the crease of her eyelids, tumbling down the side of her face, swept away by his palm before it blended into her hair. His lips rained on her skin, somber and gentle as the real thing. His eyelashes fluttered sweetly against her bottom lip, her breath hitching at the sensation.

His rhythm hadn’t quickened, but she could feel the heat brewing at her core. It was spreading gradually, through her thighs and abdomen, coiling like the tips of a fire. She could hear him breathing in her ear, fast gasps in and out, but couldn’t feel his breath.

She sought out his lips with her own, yearning for the hope he was so willing to give her. He tasted like solace and comfort, and she drank it all in. He kissed her like he could mend everything that was broken about her, spreading the cure to every inch of her skin. She wanted him to fix her.

Her ledge suddenly snapped into focus behind her eyelids, but it wasn’t the same. It was different somehow. There were no clouds in the night sky, and no wind at her back. There was just Cordelia. Just the edge. Just the stars.

She felt her heart quicken, a fast thumping that made her entire body throb. She felt the fire licking at the tips of her fingers, waiting to explode. She felt Angel inside of her, all over her, touches and kisses and whispered nothings that meant everything, urging her to keep falling until she was entirely his.

She felt.

She looked up, and the stars were exploding above her. It was a cosmic fireworks show. Star after star burst, until they were all exploding so suddenly and so fast in a menagerie of colors against the black, black sky. She smiled wildly, open and full, and gazed over the edge. The darkness below was vast and deep, littered with sparkles of colored light, falling and fading into oblivion. It was endless.

She glanced at the exploding stars, at all the precious supernovas, and felt relieved.

And then she leaped.

“I need this.”

She suddenly screamed in pleasure, her inner muscles clamping around Angel as he came with her, lips against her temple as he grunted in release. He collapsed on top of her, a delicious weight, and she didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She just breathed.

She’d said that this wasn’t about love. Told him she just needed to feel.

And now that she did, now that she felt everything he gave, absolutely everything, she couldn’t deny that this wasn’t about love. It was behind every touch, every sweet caress. It was the feeling that burned into her skin after he kissed her. It was for her, and she accepted it, because feeling it now, feeling what she could before she just couldn’t any more, was more important than worrying about losing it.

Her eyes opened slowly, lashes heavy from her tears, and saw only Angel. His dark eyes gazed at her, waiting and uncertain. She tilted her lips up, sweeping them across his. Her hand drew through his hair, fingers gentle rather than pulling, and dragged him closer, lips pressed fully against hers.

This was her moment, and she lived it fully. Yet it didn’t seem like it was just a moment. It seemed like an eternity.

She breathed deeply as his lips moved away, sounding to her as if it was the only sound in the world. He kissed her temple once, softly, his lips hovering by her ear as if he wanted to say something, but hesitated, and then he was gone, rolling to the side and onto his back, arms extended at his sides, open and inviting.

He smiled at her. She smiled back.

She moved into his embrace, curling around his body, warm with her heat. She laid an arm over his chest, rising and falling without need to, her cheek resting on his shoulder. He brushed a kiss against the crown of her head, running a hand through the dark threads of her hair.

Innocent and intimate.

She sighed heavily, suddenly feeling so tired—but in a good way. Not tired of emptiness or numbness. Just tired. From feeling so much. From loving so much.

Her eyes drifted closed, but instead of seeing darkness, she saw only light.

She had been in the dark so long, living in a shadow and running on empty and feeling nothing. But now the dark was gone.

She wanted the light. Wanted to make it a part of her. Wanted it forever.

Dimly she heard Angel calling for her, shouting her name. Why? Did he want her to climb back into the darkness, the emptiness, when she’d just allowed herself to let go? When she’d just found the light? Just found peace?

She rose into the light, the air silent around her as if it was holding its breath. She watched as Angel’s fingers trembled, as he smoothed them over her hair, over her lips, over her slowly closing eyelids.

Cordelia reached out for him, stroked his cheeks and eyes with fingers laced in light, and smiled as her body breathed deeply, once, twice, and then—

She dissolved.

“Someday you’ll be a star, too.”

“Like you?”

“Like me.”

The End.