|
|
I like to watch him sleep.
I know that I won't have this opportunity for much longer. So I'm here every night, and he indulges me, smiling a little with that knowing look he has that tells me so much and so little, at the same time.
Leaving the hospital as dawn approaches is the most difficult part. I haven't been doing much at the office lately, and I don't particularly care. The Powers can take this job and shove it for the next year.
They have me for eternity, after all, a never-ending lifetime to serve them, without end, without him.
I don't want to let him go.
His face looks better now, almost normal. However meager their offer, the oracles have kept their bargain so far, moving the fatal damage over to his unlamented demon side, leaving the human more or less intact for the moment.
The hospital should be releasing him soon. I'm still not sure where we go from there.
Last night, as I was watching him, listening to him breathe, I gave in for a moment to the temptation to touch him, where the skin is well-healed on his face, where the hair curled softly against his cheek. I let my fingertips brush lightly against the warmth, and I saw the beginning of a smile teasing his lips.... in his sleep? Or was he awake? I couldn't be sure.
I had to get up and walk away for awhile, to keep myself from doing anything more.
DOYLE
He's gone and put everything on hold for me, I know. There are probably people dying out there every night because he's sitting next to my bed, watching me.
I know he's there, even when I doze off. I can feel him being there, and I can feel it when he finally leaves.
When he smashed the Ring of Amarra, he told me that he'd been brought back from hell for a reason. If it wasn't for living in the sunlight, then it probably wasn't to sit there and watch me sleep, either.
And while I'm holding him back from doing what he should be doing, I haven't yet figured out what it is that I should be doing, in the time I have.
A year as a human, with no demon to hold me back ... like Cordelia says, there's a lot you can do in a year.
But I'm going to have to leave them, once I get out of here, to go out and do some of those things, and they aren't going to like it.
Neither one of them is going to like that at all.
WESLEY
I took Cordelia over to the hospital in the afternoon for her daily visit, and then returned to the office of Angel Investigations. It would be best to have this conversation with Angel at a time when I knew Cordelia would not interrupt.
Angel was upstairs, drinking some of Cordelia's atrocious coffee, when I returned.
He looked up indifferently. "Wesley. You're back. What can I do for you?"
"We need to talk, Angel, about your friend Doyle."
The name caught his immediate attention, as I had known it would. He gestured sharply toward the couch. "Sit. Talk."
I moved quickly, noticing with some displeasure how instinctively I obeyed him.
"So what is it?" he asked impatiently as I sat.
"I've spoken with Cordelia. She was in need of a confidante, and...."
He frowned. "She told you."
"Don't blame her for telling me, Angel. She's still quite young, despite all her bravado, and she's very frightened. She may put up a brave front, but she is quite terrified of losing Doyle."
"Are you going to tell me anything I don't already know?"
"She's going to ask you to turn him."
That shocked him, enough that he actually dropped the cup of coffee. It fell, shattering on the floor and splashing everywhere.
He didn't even seem to notice.
After a long moment, he said, "I should have expected that. She doesn't understand what she's asking, but you're right. She's scared, and she's headstrong enough to get this kind of idea and run with it."
"I suspect she may be contacting Willow about the requirements for an ensoulment spell. She mentioned to me that it shouldn't be too difficult to locate an Orb of Thessula."
"I think Doyle may have a little something to say about that."
"Would I be correct in speculating that the idea would not be as appealing to him as it is to Cordelia?"
"Yes, you'd be correct. For years, the one thing Doyle has wanted most was to be fully human."
Angel looked at me then, and his face seemed even more haunted than usual.
"I doubt that Cordelia, or I, could offer him anything that could compare with that."
DOYLE
"You're looking almost normal. Well, normal for you, that is."
"Gee, thanks, Cordelia."
"No more tubes, huh? I guess you can actually move around now."
"Yeah, it's not a convoy when I go to the toilet any more."
Without asking permission, she reached out to touch my face, and I couldn't help but be reminded of Angel's surreptitious touch when he thought that I was sleeping.
Cordelia was bolder, but that obvious effort to be gentle was still there. "Healing right up. So, how much longer before you can keep your promise to take me out to dinner? Because I'm really losing patience here."
Her kiss was more insistent this time, more demanding, her tongue teasing at my lips, pushing for more. I didn't really want to respond, but I couldn't help it. Being kissed by Cordelia is just not something one can easily ignore.
When I finally gave in to it, I could feel, more than hear, her gasp of pleasure when the kiss deepened. Entwining her hands in my hair, she stretched out on the edge of the narrow hospital bed, pressing her body as close to mine as possible. There wasn't nearly enough pain to keep me from reacting to that.
I tried to break off the kiss then, pulling back. "Cordelia -"
"Please, Doyle." She pressed back in, her hands all over me, and I was torn between desire and ... something else. Awkwardly, I pulled my mouth away again, but not before her roving hands had discovered my response.
"We're in a hospital, remember? Nurses and such, coming in any minute?"
"I don't care," she started off, and then stopped groping me and moved her hands to my shoulders, where they stayed for awhile. "Okay, I do care, but I don't like waiting. When they release you, will you come over to my place first?"
"First?"
"You know what I mean."
"Cordelia, I....."
She looked at me, and there was a desperate hurt in her face. "Oh, no, you're not going to play games with me, are you? Because we don't have time for that," and then she looked away, blinking fast, and took her hands off me.
She moved back to the chair, placing a safe distance between us.
"Don't you dare tell me that you're going to say no. No man has ever said no to me, I do all the saying no part. Rejecting is my job, not yours, and don't think you're going to be the first... the first...."
She turned away, seeking out the box of tissues on the radiator and grabbing one, then blowing her nose furiously.
"Now you've gone and made my nose all red and everything. I must look a fright."
"I'm sorry, princess," I said softly.
She stared at me for a moment, wiping her eyes. "If you weren't... if you weren't going to, you know...."
"I know. But that's the problem, isn't it?"
"You don't seriously think that I'm just feeling sorry for you, do you?"
"Not 'just.' I know there's more than that. But, feeling sorry? Yeah."
"You don't even know the more there is. And that didn't make any sense, did it?"
"It did to me. But I can't let you do this to yourself, 'Delia."
"Do what?"
"The closer we get, the harder it's gonna be on you. You know that, don't you?"
"You think it's easier the other way? Wishing that I.... that we...."
"Could be."
"Why can't you let me decide that for myself?"
"Because it does take two, darlin'.... and I don't want to hurt you any more than I have to."
"Then why don't you just let Angel turn you?" she blurted out in a rush. "Then we can have all the time in the world."
I was too stunned even to reply. And the next thought that crossed my mind shocked me even more.
All the time in the world...
Time enough to let myself love and be loved....
Why was it that the face that came first to my mind, when Cordelia said that to me, wasn't hers?
Why was I thinking of Angel?
Year of Grace, Chapter Seven