Rating: PG
Synopsis: Alternate scene for Fredless. I think Cordelia and Wesley deserved a good sock in the mouth for being so mean (despite the fact that I thought what they said was utterly hilarious, I found it inappropriate).
Note: My other stories are available at my site, if you're interested. http://filebox.vt.edu/users/diharris/AngelFiction.htm or http://www.darkmuse.org

The world flipped upside down in an array of bright beiges and distilled light as Cordelia was tipped back, Wesley's thin fingers clasped around her shoulders as his lips met with her neck. She could feel the rumble vibrate against her chest as Wesley let out a fake, but animalistic, growl, and a smile dripped across her face.

She laughed.

She could feel Wesley laughing through his excitement, and somewhere in the distant background was a boisterous, amused grunt that was surely Gunn's. And she laughed again as the lobby of the Hyperion flared before her.

But then the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as though a ghost had blown a freezing breath across her nape, and she froze in Wesley's grasp. A bird caught in the stare of a cobra.

The savage growling emanating from Wesley's throat stopped abruptly.

The world went silent.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

She righted herself, yanking her skirt down in a ruffled, disjointed gesture of denial.

"Angel."

The word slipped from her lips as Wesley brushed himself off and looked up.

Angel was standing there, mouth set in a firm line. His frame was crumpled slightly, as though he had been punched in the solar plexus by Buffy herself. Lips parting, a small sound grated across his vocal chords before he fell silent, and his mouth shut. The process repeated.

Twice.

After that, he didn't try to speak anymore.

He blinked, and she could see the watering in his eyes, the telltale distress practically leaking from his visage. The distress he used to hide so well, but had since grown rusty at it.

Another blink.

"Angel, we were just--"

Cordelia didn't even have time to finish with the word joking before Angel was gone. It sat upon the tip of her tongue, unspoken and burning its condemnation into her.

Damn his preternatural speed.

Wesley stared at her gravely. "Oh, dear."

Cordelia felt her stomach tighten into a knot, bunching into thick, unhealthy cords of tension. "Oh, dear?" she whispered in disbelief, her eyes widening at his dismissal.

Wesley's gaze fell to the floor, his shoes, Fred's strange contraption. Anything but her. He cleared his throat before he ventured a soft, "I fear we may have gotten a bit carried away..." His bony fingers went subconsciously to his face as he wiped and rewiped his lips on the back of his palm.

"A bit?" she found herself questioning him, eyebrows raised. It was as though her brain had shut down.

All she could see was that look.

That look on Angel's face.

She let out a disgruntled growl, and shoved off of the bewildered ex-watcher, running. Running.

He wasn't in his room.

She searched every room on his floor.

He wasn't out on the patio.

Nor in his training room in the basement.

Then, and only then, did she choose to venture to the top floor -- to the room with the open ceiling. She knew he had liked to sit up on the roof and mope from time to time in the old apartment. She hadn't since discovered his out of room brooding grounds in the Hyperion, only just now finding it odd that she hadn't even bothered to try.

She eased through the half-collapsed door and peered into the open room -- glancing briefly upward at the splash of smog and purple light polluted sky above. "Angel?" she whispered.

There was no answer but the distant honking of horns and the clatter of general city noise.

She eased her way back into the dim hallway.

Where could he have gone?

And how could she have been so stupid?

So callous...

< That was the old Cordelia! > a small portion of her mind protested.

But that look.

That look on his face...

After searching three more barren, dusty rooms, she punched the wall in frustration. "Damn it!" she snarled as her knuckles crumpled into the rotting sheet rock and flesh tore, bringing the musty smell of blood and dust wafting towards her nose.

She walked slowly down the stairs in defeat, head hanging loosely bowed. What had she done? What had she done?

< That was the old Cordelia! >

She was ready to give up when she glanced to her right and saw that Angel's door was closed firmly shut. There was no trace of light underlining the small gap between the door and the floor, but she _knew_ she had left it open after going to search for him.

Someone had closed it.

Hopefully Angel.

In an instant she was knocking softly on the door, the soft raps pattering through the stillness like raindrops on a rotting wooden roof. "Angel?"

No answer.

But it wasn't locked.

She eased the heavy door open and tip-toed in.

The room was dark -- painfully so. She could barely see him except for the pale, crumpled outline of his form, huddled on the bed. His feet were hanging over the edge and he was sitting there like an overgrown, scolded child, staring with dull fascination at his hands folded in his lap.

Not surprising to her, he made no move to beckon her forward, or even recognize that she was there.

The brood zone.

She hadn't seen him do this in a long time.

< Pang. >

She gingerly sat next to him and placed a hand on his cool back. In the dim light, she could barely see his eyes squeeze shut in pain, but she saw it all the same. The pale crystalline reflection of unshed tears disappeared as his eyelids swept overtop of his irises.

She let her fingers slide across his back and rub his shirt, taken aback when his only response was to tense his muscles and cringe away.

"Is that what you all really think?" he whispered, not opening his eyes.

"No, Angel, no," she was quick to offer, feeling her heart constrict at the withering stare he gave her when he finally did open his eyes.

"I thought..." He paused. "I thought we were doing ok."

She frowned. "What?"

Sighing, he brought his dark chocolate eyes to her, bereft of all the easy going happiness that she had seen there so much recently. "Since," he paused, as though his words were stuck in his throat. "Darla," he finally finished, fumbling awkwardly for a neutral look on his pale face. "I thought..."

The tenuous grip he had on neutral composure evaporated.

Cordelia was taken aback by the switch in subjects, unable to understand what had brought him to his conclusions, or even, really, what the hell his conclusions were. "Pardon me while I say, HUH?" she said, adding a laugh in hopes of getting the mood more light hearted.

A small chuckle fell from his lips -- but his tone contained no amusement. Not even a small sliver. His eyes fell shut again and his face was wracked with flat, emotionless despair. "Get out, Cordelia," he whispered, the bite in his words stinging her.

"But I'm sorry..."

"No you aren't, that's the problem," Angel sighed, shifting visibly away from her.

Her heart clenched at the sight of him withdrawing back into that shell she had spent endless days and nights hoping he'd never return to.

What had she done?

"Yes I AM!" she protested -- her voice piercing the silence like a hammer through brittle glass.

Angel froze at the sound of her shrill cry. "Sorry for what?" he asked, his gaze sweeping over her heaving figure, gauging her reaction. Calculating.

She swallowed, realizing he was testing her. Suddenly, she felt like this was a final she hadn't studied for. "I didn't mean to make fun of you," she offered, cursing herself as she heard her voice raise in tone as though she were asking a question. Was she asking a question?

He considered her for a moment, his head cocking to the side as he peered at her and his scowl bled into a thin, gaze of disbelief. "Get out, Cordelia," he repeated, his words cutting through her with no hesitance.

She shook her head. Damn, damn, triple damn. Why did she feel like this was the one moment that mattered and she was coming up blank? "I don't understand..." she whined, trying to get a grasp, any grasp on the situation that she had somehow managed to mangle her way into.

He offered her no help. No assistance at all, merely cutting her down again with another withering glare. "That's right, you don't."

"But..." Why was this happening? Why was this happening? Her innards were screaming at her.

< TACT. WHERE DID THAT ONE LITTLE BIT OF TACT YOU HAD STORED IN YOUR TOENAIL GO? >

"Get out, Cordelia. I won't let you walk all over me anymore." His tone was low now. Low, and dangerous, and disturbingly dark, but she still didn't take heed. This was Angel. Angel was bark, not bite.

"But..."

< Stupid, stupid... >

She leapt back as he snapped into a standing position like a spring board and viciously grabbed a pillow, slamming it into the floor -- one of the first ever displays of temper she could ever recall seeing from him. Angel was supposed to be the quiet, reserved one. He was supposed to be that dark, mysterious one in the background, not the one threatening her and--

"You just turned the last five years of my life, the _only_ five years where I ever felt like anything other than a lecherous, evil, bloodsucking, waste of precious space, into a joke." He sighed, his glower turning even darker as he punched a fist out into the air. At some figment only he could see.

"I didn't mean..."

His eyes left his imaginary target and swept to her. "No, you never do, do you Cordelia?"

She paused, her mouth hanging open in mid-gape.

Angel growled, deep and low in his throat. But his game face still wasn't out. She didn't know he could growl while he wasn't in game face... "People _died_." Another pillow went crashing to the floor, feathers flying upward from the impact in a plume of fluffy down.

"I died," he added in a pained whisper.

"Angel, I swear, I didn't mean to belittle yours and Buffy's sacrifices, I--"

He cut her off with a cold glare. She backed up a step.

"You knew. You knew what she meant to me and you..."

His train of thought jumped tracks and started towards a new destination.

"You know, Buffy told me she wanted to go back. She told me what it was like."

Cordelia cringed at his longing tone. "Angel, what are you talking about?"

He babbled onward in a disgruntled tantrum -- the worst she'd ever seen from him before. His entire bed was in shambles now, and she prayed dearly that he didn't move to lamps and stuff that was actually breakable.

Like her.

"I don't... I don't remember it for some reason -- maybe I was somewhere else, but the way she described it was..."

He paused and leaned backwards, peering at the ceiling for a brief moment of silence with a soft sigh. The lithe muscles of his body corded and uncorded under his skin as he imagined something she could probably never hope to understand.

Cordelia was afraid to speak.

Abruptly, his eyes lost the dreamy haze and came back to rest upon her, growing cold when she met his stare with an unblinking one of her own.

"At least this will be worth it someday," he sighed.

And before she knew it, he had shoved her out the door and locked it behind her, leaving her staring open-mouthed at the peep-hole, a small squeak stuck in her throat.

"I'm a person, too, you know," she heard him whisper, muffled through the door, pained, and quiet, as though he were trying to convince himself as much as he was her. A small thump fell against the inside of the barrier between them, perhaps as he let his forehead come to rest on the cold wood.

Then, all was deathly quiet, and there were no signs of movement from within.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

What had she done?

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