Happily Ever After Part One: Surrender Your Arms

AUTHOR: Harker De Grace (Sugar N' Spike)
EMAIL: [email protected]
DISTRIBUTION: Please ask. I won't bite unless you ask very nicely
SPOILERS: Season 1 Angel
RATING: NC 17
CONTENT WARNING: Gratuitous sex and bad language in later parts
RELATIONSHIPS: Angel/Faith/Cordelia
FEEDBACK: Yes please even if it's hatemail. Just so I actually GET some mail.
SUMMARY: A seriously mushy excuse for a long-winded fic
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, not even my mind. I think Joss has that too.
DEDICATION: To Tess De Bont. I will adore you forever, my little Darla, *ahem* Darling....

A lot could change in six years. A child could be born, loved ones could be lost, battles could be fought. In six years, so much could happen that all that mattered was if you lost or won.

Faith wasn't sure she'd done either.

Maybe "dismal" was the word she was looking for as she looked up at the building, but the only word that sprang readily to mind was "home" - she hadn't had one for so long, she couldn't even recall what it was like to know where you were going to lay yourself down at the end of it all, where you could go when it was too much. After so long alone, after so many men and women used and discarded, there was only one person Faith felt she could really relate to, only one person who knew her pain and could read her bitter brown eyes like the Litanies of Satan. The irony was, that person wasn't even really a person.

The shivering heap stood in the feeble gaze of sodium streetlights nobody cared enough to repair. It was raining, it was December, and the bundle was soaked to her skin. She felt naked as she stepped up to the door with its frosted glass panel declaring which business lay behind it, she was stripped beyond caring about the cold, and she approached her only hope of solace not as Faith, the Vampire Slayer, not as Faith the Slut Queen, but as Faith Bradley. Small town girl, broken home, no love, not even a dog to keep her company. It was about as vulnerable as she could feel, and vulnerable was rock bottom for Faith.

The dull echoes of the doorbell died away, no footsteps approached, and she couldn't even catch the fainted trace of vampire aura, so she tried again. Three tries later, she grew frustrated and tried the door. Amazed to find it open, she stepped inside.

Not a whisper of Watcher or a ghost of Cheerleader anywhere. Cordleia's desk had already been abandoned, her cosmetics removed and her magazines stacked up, Wesley's was also in order, and the frosted panelled door to the back office was slightly ajar. Faith bit her lip, and pushed the door, seeing that the scarred oak desk was empty. She smiled just a little through her impending fright as she realised Angel hadn't changed a bit in his work ethic; all the pencils in the desk tidy were angled the same way and were perfectly sharp, every pen had a lid, papers met at perfect straight edges. Still the same meticulous bastard she'd been too proud to love too long ago. Shaking her head, she leaned against the wall as memories threatened to overwhelm her once more.

It was memories had led her here to these offices, memories that had dogged her for all these years until the only comfort she could seek was one who had lived with his remorse for decades longer than she had. She remembered the night she had broken down in his arms that last time, she'd tried to kill him but one look in those eyes, one glimmer in him that he found himself unable to hate her, and she'd felt the tears hammering at her cheeks before she knew they were shed, salt rivers that poured out all over his silk shirt as strong arms held her tightly, telling her it was all right. There was only one person she believed when he said that, and it was Angel. Jealousy was a large part of her hatred for Buffy. Jealous of her Watcher who loved her like a father - Buffy's father had left but she still had a father figure. Faith's father had just walked out, Wesley was hardly a replacement. Jealous of her circle of friends who always forgave, always forgot, didn't seem to care the little bitch treated them like shit when she didn't get her way. Most of all, jealous of the protective arms of a certain strapping Irishman she fled to whenever it got tough. Faith had wanted those arms, wanted to be loved, and in that moment of weakness she'd taken them, and Angel had merely given. He'd never asked her to do her share while she'd stayed with him recovering, never asked her to help him in any way, just given her everything he could if it would make things easier on her in her fragile mental state. It had worked. Six years serving the Powers That Be later, she was still alone, and there was only one way it was going to change.

Creeping further, Faith investigated the lower apartments, and could hear only music, so at least she knew someone was home. She wandered through the small kitchen and study, past shelves full of arcane treasure museums she would kill for, and finally through to the sitting area, where the music was coming from. Faith had never listened to any classical music, and had always thought it boring, but she almost immediately realised she was wrong as she caught sight of her goal stretched out on the sofa. The music was singing his praises, she knew it with everything in her that still knew what love was meant to be like, telling her everything about the luminously white sheen of his marble face, the curve of his soft lips and the fringes of his impossibly long dark lashes splayed over his high Celtic cheekbones. His eyes were closed in sleep, his face relaxed, it took Faith a few moments to realise that she'd never realised how young Angel was when he was Sired. He'd always seemed middle aged to her, thirties at least, perhaps early forties, but with those creases smoothed out of his brow it was plainly obvious he had only been in his mid to late twenties. It was also suddenly obvious why he'd been given his name, Botticelli could have painted no more heavenly being in any moment of lucid genius.

The music paused, before starting anew; a faster piece which seemed too lively for the sleeping Angel before her to fit with. Recalling what she was here for and no longer transfixed by his handsome features, Faith leaned over the slumbering vampire and ran one hand gently through his hair, realising it was freshly washed and free of any styling product, and that the texture was like satin, velvet, suede leather. The gel darkened his hair, and she saw now for the first time that far from being its apparent hue of blackish brown, Angel's hair was in fact light brunette and streaked with honey-brown strands. He'd allowed it to grow a little longer since she last saw him, and it was slightly flopped over his forehead. She smiled for the first time in weeks, and brushed the errant strands away. At her touch, his eyes fluttered open and focused on her. He drew in a deep breath - a reflex of waking he'd never lost - and then looked suddenly puzzled;

"Faith?" he asked groggily, rubbing his eyes. She nodded, sitting away from him and clasping her hands together. "What are you doing here?"

"I needed something" she shrugged, knowing it was just what the old her would have said.

"I'm always here Faith, what did you need?" Angel asked, hauling himself to a sitting position and reaching for her hands tenderly.

"You" she simply replied.