fic: home (7/7) (buffy: the vampire slayer) (angel: the series)
Classifications and warnings available here.
Continued from Chapter 6.
* * * * *
Home by anr
* * * * *
7. THE OFFICE
She screams.
From the other room there's a thud as something heavy hits the floor. A split-second later, he appears in the doorway, vampy and determined.
"What? What's wrong?"
One-hand-on-her-heart startled, she points to the corner of the room with a feather duster. "Cockroach! There!" When he doesn't move, she points more emphatically. "Hello? Bantam weight brain burrower currently on the premises!"
Bones shifting, he loses the face. "Brai--" he starts to repeat, only to shake his head like he's got uber-cause for exasperation. "Cordy."
She's already backtracking to the desk she's just finished de-sheeting and dusting. Pulling open the bottom drawer, she looks for the Yellow Pages she shoved in there. "E -- E -- E -- ah! Here we go! Exterminators..."
"Cordy..."
Not looking up, she snaps her fingers in the general direction of where she last saw her bag. "Grab me my cell, yeah?"
"They're not going to be open."
"Of course they will! LA's, like, infestation incorporated. The day the antlered bug squashers in this city close their doors is the day ants take over the world."
"Actually --"
Rolling her eyes, she flicks through the ads. "If that's the prelude to another of your 'remember when it was 1819 and bathing was still a fond future' stories, pass. Besides --" She brushes a strand of hair back towards her ponytail. "-- we need to arrange for a sign-painter, also."
Tentatively, Angel says, "sign-painter?"
"For the door...? So people will know who we are...?" Maybe that thud earlier was his head losing its marbles. "Seriously, Angel. I mean, really."
"Really," he echoes, only he says it beside her, having crossed the room all supernaturally creepy and fast. He places one hand on top of hers, stilling her page-flickiness. "Stop, okay? It's Christmas Day. They'll be closed."
Chris-- oh. Right. Sighing, she leans to the side and rests her head against his shoulder. "Oops?"
His other hand moves to the small of her back, holding her almost dance-embrace-like. "You can call them tomorrow," he promises, and tightens his grip into a hug.
*
Swapping rooms for awhile, she leaves Angel outside to remove the rest of the sheets and rearrange their desks into a layout more appealing than dumped-here chic while she finishes the book shelving in the inner office they're making over into a library.
"You sure about all this?"
"Hmm?" Wiping off a thin layer of dust, she alphabetises her Bob's Mystical Monsters and Preternatural Pets anthology on the shelf. Most of her personal collection is already over here, and one more trip tonight oughta complete the relocation.
"This --" When she looks over to where he's leaning all studied against the doorjamb, he waves at the abundance of bookcases. "I thought you needed these."
"Uh... yeah? That is why we henced them over here, right? So we wouldn't have to keep high heeling it back to my place every time we wanted to be referencing?"
"I meant for your... searching."
His utter reluctance to refer to anything vengeancy would be kinda funny if it wasn't so not. Turning back to the bookcase, she shrugs. "What, I can't not look from here?"
He blinks. "Not look?"
Well, yeah. Slotting in the last handful of books, she tosses him the empty box. "I figure it's like when I couldn't find my cell phone last week -- as soon as I stopped searching for it, there it was."
"You made me look for it! You kicked me out of bed and wouldn't let me back in until I found it!" Having collapsed the box, he props it against the wall.
"And your point is...? Worked, didn't it. I stopped and I found."
"Because I found it!"
He's really not getting it... and that's probably for the best. "Angel." Walking over, she presses her hands to his chest and tilts her head back, looking up at him all sweet and smiley. "Don't knock the system, okay? The system works."
Especially when the whole point of the system, now, is for it not to work.
Leaning down, he presses a swift, smacking kiss to her lips. "The system's crazy."
"Well, yeah." Grinning, she gives back his kiss just as quick like, before shoving hard on his chest. "Now get out of my way. We have a company to outfit."
*
There's a box sitting on his kitchen table.
Sucking on a yoghurty spoon, she shuts the microwave door and presses the quick start button. As the mug of blood begins its circling journey to ninety-eight-point-six, she does her own ellipse around the table.
Plain cardboard, no scrawling description written across the top flap -- definitely not one of the ones she's been carting over here.
She probably shouldn't snoop.
Turning her back on it, she watches the counter on the microwave do its thing and does not, absolutely not, stare at the reflection of his kitchen table on the side of his kettle.
Footsteps behind her. As the microwave goes T-minus, Angel slips his hands around her waist and presses up against her back. "Mmm..." he says, nuzzling at the curve of her neck. "Dinner?"
Tilting her head to the side, she licks her spoon. "Depends."
Dragging blunt teeth along the tendons in her shoulder, he hums. "On?"
She leans back against him, feeling a bright, white heat start to lick through her senses. "Whether you're referring to me or not."
Biting down, he pushes his hands under the waistband of her sweatpants and into her underwear. "What do you think?"
Gasping, she drops her yoghurt. "Me," she manages, "definitely me."
As he works her pants down, she strips off her shirt -- well, his shirt, but it's on her, so -- and tank and bra before reaching back and fumbling with his fly. His hands leave her body just long enough to divest himself of his own clothing, and then his cock is sliding against the small of her back as he pulls her back a step. Her hands find the edge of the counter and hold on tight.
One of his hands settles between her legs, his fingers dancing over her clit, while his other rubs the thick ridge of his cock against the slickness of her sex. Moaning, she rolls her hips against his touch.
"Don't tease..."
He huffs what might be a laugh against her upper back, mouth open on her skin. "Patience --"
"Is so not a virtue right now!" Prying one hand off the counter, she reaches down as her hips cant up, pushing his hands away and guiding his cock inside of her. "Fuck!"
He growls, low and deep.
A split-second to breathe, to adjust to the feel of him stretching and filling her up, before his hands return to her waist and grip tight and hard, holding her still as he starts to push against her. Her whole body rocks forward and she straightens the arm attached to the counter to keep herself from face-planting.
Shallow, shallow strokes as he fucks her, as she touches herself, as he sucks on her neck and shoulders, nipping and licking. She can feel her muscles tensing as the pressure to come builds; can feel his fingers tightening on her hips, his unfangy teeth pulling at her flesh, his rhythm fracturing as he climbs after her.
The microwave is silent, and has been for several minutes now, but on instinct she reaches out with the hand not already gripping onto the counter and hits for the door release button, the scent of hot, hot blood wafting out in a heady cloud.
Angel's reaction is immediate and vibrant and wicked-hot. Vamping, he grips her hips hard and slams his cock into her, forcing her up onto her toes as both her hands clench around the counter's formica edge. His mouth latches onto her neck, fangs biting down and down and down...
She comes mid-bite, mid-thrust, mid-hottest orgasm of her life, whimpering and breathless and trembling in his hands and barely even conscious of the fact that he's followed her into a bone-melting release of his own.
Achingly slowly, he eases off, fangs retracting and the sucking less and less until he's just licking at the bite he's left on her neck. His hands flex on her hips, his hold loosening, and she shudders as his cock slides out of her, as her heels settle back on the ground.
"Oh my god," she breathes out, muscles still popping and sparking.
He hums wordlessly.
Leaning forward, she drops her head down onto the backs of her hands. She's still holding onto the counter too tight to let go. "For the record? We are totally -- totally -- going to be cleaning the office every day of our lives."
He takes a way unnecessary breath. "Hell yes."
*
After she's cleaned up the yoghurt she spilled on the counter, and he's reheated his blood, they sit down at the kitchen table. She's takes the chair right-angled to his and crosses her legs, resting her feet on his lap.
"You okay?" he asks, staring at her neck.
She nods. "You?" He's still getting used to the reality of her not freaking out if he wants to bite her a little during sex, and -- truth be very much told -- she is too. The fact that it's usually fire-red hot when he does it, though, has been going a long way towards lessening the possibilities of panic.
Well, that and the utter absence of her nightmares since Sunnydale, because apparently the cure for terror is to actually be terrorised. And all but die. And then not.
And did she mention the mostly because it's hot? She finds it hard to believe, now, that her nightmares had ever let her forget that little fact.
Sipping at his dinner, he nods back.
"Good." Stretching, she pokes his bare chest with her big toe. "Because that?" She tilts her head towards the counter. "Was totally way more than okay."
He looks down at his mug -- like he's all self-conscious and not at all Mr I've-been-a-vampire-for-two-hundred-and-fifty-years-and-know-more-about-sex-than-you-could-ever-forget -- and then back up at her again, a dirty little smile on his face. He leers way obviously at her half-dressed state.
"Perv," she says, rubbing her foot over his thigh and feeling the fabric of his pants shift under her sole.
He shrugs. "You're sitting there in my shirt," he says, like that explains everything. "In only my shirt."
She makes a half-assed grabby feint towards where the rest of their clothes are still all abandoned on the floor. "I could fix that..."
His hand grabs at her shin, holding her in place. "Don't you dare."
She smirks. "You're easy."
"I'm happy," he corrects, smiling back. "So be kind."
"I thought I was very kind to you." She raises an eyebrow. "Or were you not here just now?"
"Oh, I was here." His hand smoothes up her leg. "Very much here." He strokes a finger along the side of her knee. "Very much happy here." When his fingers tickle up her inner thigh, she squirms and laughs and slaps his hand away. He grins. "Blissfully happy."
"Wow," she says, smiling. "That happy? I'm impressed."
And for the millionth time since -- utterly, completely and irrevocably relieved.
It worked.
Cementing her thoughts in the here and now, she leans back in her chair. "We should make up some flyers tomorrow. And order business cards. You know, to go with the signage we'll have on the front door?" She wipes her hand across the air, banner-style. "'CA Investigations'."
"I thought we decided on 'AC Investigations'."
"Pfft. And have people thinking we're half of a heavy metal fan club? I think not. Besides -- 'CA Investigations' sounds way more solvent."
"'AC Investigations' would come first in the Yellow Pages."
She rolls her eyes. "And since our only competition under the category of Paranormal Consultants and Demon Fighters is the 'The Ghostbusters' -- and they're fictional -- I don't think that's much of a muchness, do you?"
"You just want your name to come first."
Duh! "Like you don't? Please!"
Adorably enough, he looks like he's a non-heartbeat away from poking out his tongue. "It's my office."
"So? It's my demonology library outfitting the office. And it was my idea." Well, mostly. But the fact that she got the idea from his descriptions of how he was making money? Totally irrelevant.
"Yeah. Well." He leans forward and smiles that beautiful, breathstealing smile of his. "I love you more."
"Probably," she teases, waving a hand like that totally doesn't count. "But we're talking selling points here, and that won't bank you much outside of this room."
He raises an eyebrow. "And inside the room?"
Dropping her hands to her shirt, she toys with one of the buttons suggestively. "How do you feel about dessert?"
*
The box on the kitchen table contains a pair of worn and torn pants, a cheap and nasty cotton-blend t-shirt, a dirty old blanket, and a shiny foil-wrapped and red-ribboned Christmas present.
After a moment, she realises she recognises all four items.
These are the pants Angel had been wearing when she found him in the Bronze that day, the blanket he used to protect himself when he left the nightclub, the t-shirt she bought him from a supermarket in Oxnard... and the farewell gift she left for him the day she left.
It looks like it's never been opened.
"I couldn't," he says, startling her, and she looks up to see him standing near the end of his sofa, his office and apartment lock-up routine obviously done and dusted. He shrugs. "Didn't want to accept the fact that you were gone."
She drops the present back into the box. "It was a stupid little thing anyway."
She remembers her thinking back then, five years ago today, how love shouldn't -- couldn't -- survive what they'd been through, and knows now that she was unbelievably wrong.
She recloses the flaps on the box. "I'm sorry I snooped."
He shrugs again. "If I hadn't expected you to look, I wouldn't have left it there."
Moving forward, he picks up the box and walks over to where his trashcan sits in the corner of the kitchen. He dumps the box beside it.
"You don't want it anymore?" she asks curiously.
He straightens and turns back around to face her. "Don't need it anymore," he corrects. As she watches, he moves over to the sink and turns on the taps.
Her heart skips at his honesty, at his faith. He believes in her so much sometimes... it's a little scary.
"Angel --" Fingers gripping the back of a kitchen chair, she stares at his back. "That night the other week? When we got back from Sunnydale?"
He reaches for the liquid detergent. "Hmm?"
"There's something I haven't told you. About that night. About what happened that night."
"Happened?" he repeats, but it's distracted, his tone, and she watches as he starts washing her coffee mug and his dinner mug and her spoons.
"Yeah, I --"
But her words stutter and fail as the enormity of what happened overwhelms her for the infinityth time since -- Anya done and disappearing and reality transforming, reforming, one last time, a brave new world just for her -- Angel asleep in the bed beside her and no more blood, no more heartbreak, no more dying...
No more Angelus.
Ever.
I wish the Kalderash Romani had made Angelus' soul permanent.
"Cordy?"
Shaking her head, she steps forward and picks up a dish cloth, reaching for one of the mugs sitting on the drainer. "S'not important," she hesitates, drying the mug. "Just, you know, I realised something is all."
He glances at her curiously. "Oh?"
"Yeah." She puts the mug away.
"And that was...?"
That changing reality for the betterment of everyone was never, ever going to happen -- someone, somewhere, was always going to lose.
That the only world she was ever going to be able to affect again was her own.
And that the only home she wanted and needed... was one with him in it.
But -- she can't tell him that. Not in so many words, she can't. She can't tell him what actually happened and run the risk that this time, this time, he would believe her. If he knew that those realisations were solidified by his bringing of her nightmare to life... by his almost killing her...
No.
"I love you," she says simply and moves back to his side. She rests her cheek against his shoulder and smiles up at him.
Smiling back, he hands her the other mug. "I know."
* * * * *
The End.
SOUNDTRACK: Home
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated. *g*
Continued from Chapter 6.
* * * * *
Home by anr
* * * * *
7. THE OFFICE
She screams.
From the other room there's a thud as something heavy hits the floor. A split-second later, he appears in the doorway, vampy and determined.
"What? What's wrong?"
One-hand-on-her-heart startled, she points to the corner of the room with a feather duster. "Cockroach! There!" When he doesn't move, she points more emphatically. "Hello? Bantam weight brain burrower currently on the premises!"
Bones shifting, he loses the face. "Brai--" he starts to repeat, only to shake his head like he's got uber-cause for exasperation. "Cordy."
She's already backtracking to the desk she's just finished de-sheeting and dusting. Pulling open the bottom drawer, she looks for the Yellow Pages she shoved in there. "E -- E -- E -- ah! Here we go! Exterminators..."
"Cordy..."
Not looking up, she snaps her fingers in the general direction of where she last saw her bag. "Grab me my cell, yeah?"
"They're not going to be open."
"Of course they will! LA's, like, infestation incorporated. The day the antlered bug squashers in this city close their doors is the day ants take over the world."
"Actually --"
Rolling her eyes, she flicks through the ads. "If that's the prelude to another of your 'remember when it was 1819 and bathing was still a fond future' stories, pass. Besides --" She brushes a strand of hair back towards her ponytail. "-- we need to arrange for a sign-painter, also."
Tentatively, Angel says, "sign-painter?"
"For the door...? So people will know who we are...?" Maybe that thud earlier was his head losing its marbles. "Seriously, Angel. I mean, really."
"Really," he echoes, only he says it beside her, having crossed the room all supernaturally creepy and fast. He places one hand on top of hers, stilling her page-flickiness. "Stop, okay? It's Christmas Day. They'll be closed."
Chris-- oh. Right. Sighing, she leans to the side and rests her head against his shoulder. "Oops?"
His other hand moves to the small of her back, holding her almost dance-embrace-like. "You can call them tomorrow," he promises, and tightens his grip into a hug.
*
Swapping rooms for awhile, she leaves Angel outside to remove the rest of the sheets and rearrange their desks into a layout more appealing than dumped-here chic while she finishes the book shelving in the inner office they're making over into a library.
"You sure about all this?"
"Hmm?" Wiping off a thin layer of dust, she alphabetises her Bob's Mystical Monsters and Preternatural Pets anthology on the shelf. Most of her personal collection is already over here, and one more trip tonight oughta complete the relocation.
"This --" When she looks over to where he's leaning all studied against the doorjamb, he waves at the abundance of bookcases. "I thought you needed these."
"Uh... yeah? That is why we henced them over here, right? So we wouldn't have to keep high heeling it back to my place every time we wanted to be referencing?"
"I meant for your... searching."
His utter reluctance to refer to anything vengeancy would be kinda funny if it wasn't so not. Turning back to the bookcase, she shrugs. "What, I can't not look from here?"
He blinks. "Not look?"
Well, yeah. Slotting in the last handful of books, she tosses him the empty box. "I figure it's like when I couldn't find my cell phone last week -- as soon as I stopped searching for it, there it was."
"You made me look for it! You kicked me out of bed and wouldn't let me back in until I found it!" Having collapsed the box, he props it against the wall.
"And your point is...? Worked, didn't it. I stopped and I found."
"Because I found it!"
He's really not getting it... and that's probably for the best. "Angel." Walking over, she presses her hands to his chest and tilts her head back, looking up at him all sweet and smiley. "Don't knock the system, okay? The system works."
Especially when the whole point of the system, now, is for it not to work.
Leaning down, he presses a swift, smacking kiss to her lips. "The system's crazy."
"Well, yeah." Grinning, she gives back his kiss just as quick like, before shoving hard on his chest. "Now get out of my way. We have a company to outfit."
*
There's a box sitting on his kitchen table.
Sucking on a yoghurty spoon, she shuts the microwave door and presses the quick start button. As the mug of blood begins its circling journey to ninety-eight-point-six, she does her own ellipse around the table.
Plain cardboard, no scrawling description written across the top flap -- definitely not one of the ones she's been carting over here.
She probably shouldn't snoop.
Turning her back on it, she watches the counter on the microwave do its thing and does not, absolutely not, stare at the reflection of his kitchen table on the side of his kettle.
Footsteps behind her. As the microwave goes T-minus, Angel slips his hands around her waist and presses up against her back. "Mmm..." he says, nuzzling at the curve of her neck. "Dinner?"
Tilting her head to the side, she licks her spoon. "Depends."
Dragging blunt teeth along the tendons in her shoulder, he hums. "On?"
She leans back against him, feeling a bright, white heat start to lick through her senses. "Whether you're referring to me or not."
Biting down, he pushes his hands under the waistband of her sweatpants and into her underwear. "What do you think?"
Gasping, she drops her yoghurt. "Me," she manages, "definitely me."
As he works her pants down, she strips off her shirt -- well, his shirt, but it's on her, so -- and tank and bra before reaching back and fumbling with his fly. His hands leave her body just long enough to divest himself of his own clothing, and then his cock is sliding against the small of her back as he pulls her back a step. Her hands find the edge of the counter and hold on tight.
One of his hands settles between her legs, his fingers dancing over her clit, while his other rubs the thick ridge of his cock against the slickness of her sex. Moaning, she rolls her hips against his touch.
"Don't tease..."
He huffs what might be a laugh against her upper back, mouth open on her skin. "Patience --"
"Is so not a virtue right now!" Prying one hand off the counter, she reaches down as her hips cant up, pushing his hands away and guiding his cock inside of her. "Fuck!"
He growls, low and deep.
A split-second to breathe, to adjust to the feel of him stretching and filling her up, before his hands return to her waist and grip tight and hard, holding her still as he starts to push against her. Her whole body rocks forward and she straightens the arm attached to the counter to keep herself from face-planting.
Shallow, shallow strokes as he fucks her, as she touches herself, as he sucks on her neck and shoulders, nipping and licking. She can feel her muscles tensing as the pressure to come builds; can feel his fingers tightening on her hips, his unfangy teeth pulling at her flesh, his rhythm fracturing as he climbs after her.
The microwave is silent, and has been for several minutes now, but on instinct she reaches out with the hand not already gripping onto the counter and hits for the door release button, the scent of hot, hot blood wafting out in a heady cloud.
Angel's reaction is immediate and vibrant and wicked-hot. Vamping, he grips her hips hard and slams his cock into her, forcing her up onto her toes as both her hands clench around the counter's formica edge. His mouth latches onto her neck, fangs biting down and down and down...
She comes mid-bite, mid-thrust, mid-hottest orgasm of her life, whimpering and breathless and trembling in his hands and barely even conscious of the fact that he's followed her into a bone-melting release of his own.
Achingly slowly, he eases off, fangs retracting and the sucking less and less until he's just licking at the bite he's left on her neck. His hands flex on her hips, his hold loosening, and she shudders as his cock slides out of her, as her heels settle back on the ground.
"Oh my god," she breathes out, muscles still popping and sparking.
He hums wordlessly.
Leaning forward, she drops her head down onto the backs of her hands. She's still holding onto the counter too tight to let go. "For the record? We are totally -- totally -- going to be cleaning the office every day of our lives."
He takes a way unnecessary breath. "Hell yes."
*
After she's cleaned up the yoghurt she spilled on the counter, and he's reheated his blood, they sit down at the kitchen table. She's takes the chair right-angled to his and crosses her legs, resting her feet on his lap.
"You okay?" he asks, staring at her neck.
She nods. "You?" He's still getting used to the reality of her not freaking out if he wants to bite her a little during sex, and -- truth be very much told -- she is too. The fact that it's usually fire-red hot when he does it, though, has been going a long way towards lessening the possibilities of panic.
Well, that and the utter absence of her nightmares since Sunnydale, because apparently the cure for terror is to actually be terrorised. And all but die. And then not.
And did she mention the mostly because it's hot? She finds it hard to believe, now, that her nightmares had ever let her forget that little fact.
Sipping at his dinner, he nods back.
"Good." Stretching, she pokes his bare chest with her big toe. "Because that?" She tilts her head towards the counter. "Was totally way more than okay."
He looks down at his mug -- like he's all self-conscious and not at all Mr I've-been-a-vampire-for-two-hundred-and-fifty-years-and-know-more-about-sex-than-you-could-ever-forget -- and then back up at her again, a dirty little smile on his face. He leers way obviously at her half-dressed state.
"Perv," she says, rubbing her foot over his thigh and feeling the fabric of his pants shift under her sole.
He shrugs. "You're sitting there in my shirt," he says, like that explains everything. "In only my shirt."
She makes a half-assed grabby feint towards where the rest of their clothes are still all abandoned on the floor. "I could fix that..."
His hand grabs at her shin, holding her in place. "Don't you dare."
She smirks. "You're easy."
"I'm happy," he corrects, smiling back. "So be kind."
"I thought I was very kind to you." She raises an eyebrow. "Or were you not here just now?"
"Oh, I was here." His hand smoothes up her leg. "Very much here." He strokes a finger along the side of her knee. "Very much happy here." When his fingers tickle up her inner thigh, she squirms and laughs and slaps his hand away. He grins. "Blissfully happy."
"Wow," she says, smiling. "That happy? I'm impressed."
And for the millionth time since -- utterly, completely and irrevocably relieved.
It worked.
Cementing her thoughts in the here and now, she leans back in her chair. "We should make up some flyers tomorrow. And order business cards. You know, to go with the signage we'll have on the front door?" She wipes her hand across the air, banner-style. "'CA Investigations'."
"I thought we decided on 'AC Investigations'."
"Pfft. And have people thinking we're half of a heavy metal fan club? I think not. Besides -- 'CA Investigations' sounds way more solvent."
"'AC Investigations' would come first in the Yellow Pages."
She rolls her eyes. "And since our only competition under the category of Paranormal Consultants and Demon Fighters is the 'The Ghostbusters' -- and they're fictional -- I don't think that's much of a muchness, do you?"
"You just want your name to come first."
Duh! "Like you don't? Please!"
Adorably enough, he looks like he's a non-heartbeat away from poking out his tongue. "It's my office."
"So? It's my demonology library outfitting the office. And it was my idea." Well, mostly. But the fact that she got the idea from his descriptions of how he was making money? Totally irrelevant.
"Yeah. Well." He leans forward and smiles that beautiful, breathstealing smile of his. "I love you more."
"Probably," she teases, waving a hand like that totally doesn't count. "But we're talking selling points here, and that won't bank you much outside of this room."
He raises an eyebrow. "And inside the room?"
Dropping her hands to her shirt, she toys with one of the buttons suggestively. "How do you feel about dessert?"
*
The box on the kitchen table contains a pair of worn and torn pants, a cheap and nasty cotton-blend t-shirt, a dirty old blanket, and a shiny foil-wrapped and red-ribboned Christmas present.
After a moment, she realises she recognises all four items.
These are the pants Angel had been wearing when she found him in the Bronze that day, the blanket he used to protect himself when he left the nightclub, the t-shirt she bought him from a supermarket in Oxnard... and the farewell gift she left for him the day she left.
It looks like it's never been opened.
"I couldn't," he says, startling her, and she looks up to see him standing near the end of his sofa, his office and apartment lock-up routine obviously done and dusted. He shrugs. "Didn't want to accept the fact that you were gone."
She drops the present back into the box. "It was a stupid little thing anyway."
She remembers her thinking back then, five years ago today, how love shouldn't -- couldn't -- survive what they'd been through, and knows now that she was unbelievably wrong.
She recloses the flaps on the box. "I'm sorry I snooped."
He shrugs again. "If I hadn't expected you to look, I wouldn't have left it there."
Moving forward, he picks up the box and walks over to where his trashcan sits in the corner of the kitchen. He dumps the box beside it.
"You don't want it anymore?" she asks curiously.
He straightens and turns back around to face her. "Don't need it anymore," he corrects. As she watches, he moves over to the sink and turns on the taps.
Her heart skips at his honesty, at his faith. He believes in her so much sometimes... it's a little scary.
"Angel --" Fingers gripping the back of a kitchen chair, she stares at his back. "That night the other week? When we got back from Sunnydale?"
He reaches for the liquid detergent. "Hmm?"
"There's something I haven't told you. About that night. About what happened that night."
"Happened?" he repeats, but it's distracted, his tone, and she watches as he starts washing her coffee mug and his dinner mug and her spoons.
"Yeah, I --"
But her words stutter and fail as the enormity of what happened overwhelms her for the infinityth time since -- Anya done and disappearing and reality transforming, reforming, one last time, a brave new world just for her -- Angel asleep in the bed beside her and no more blood, no more heartbreak, no more dying...
No more Angelus.
Ever.
I wish the Kalderash Romani had made Angelus' soul permanent.
"Cordy?"
Shaking her head, she steps forward and picks up a dish cloth, reaching for one of the mugs sitting on the drainer. "S'not important," she hesitates, drying the mug. "Just, you know, I realised something is all."
He glances at her curiously. "Oh?"
"Yeah." She puts the mug away.
"And that was...?"
That changing reality for the betterment of everyone was never, ever going to happen -- someone, somewhere, was always going to lose.
That the only world she was ever going to be able to affect again was her own.
And that the only home she wanted and needed... was one with him in it.
But -- she can't tell him that. Not in so many words, she can't. She can't tell him what actually happened and run the risk that this time, this time, he would believe her. If he knew that those realisations were solidified by his bringing of her nightmare to life... by his almost killing her...
No.
"I love you," she says simply and moves back to his side. She rests her cheek against his shoulder and smiles up at him.
Smiling back, he hands her the other mug. "I know."
* * * * *
The End.
SOUNDTRACK: Home
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated. *g*