Waiting for You. Angel watches Cordelia, and thinks about things he’ll never say.

---

“Cuz even her smile

Looks like a frown

And she’s seen her share of devils

In this angel town.”

”Lullaby” by Shawn Mullins

---

She’s moving around the office, not quickly but gracefully, and he suddenly remembers the girl he’d known in high school. He never talked to her much, not really, not except for that one time near Halloween when she showed up while he was waiting for Buffy, but he’s always gotten the impression of confidence from her, of being in her element wherever she went and feeling no fear. From several very frank conversations , over the last couple of months mostly, he knows that that wasn’t the case, that some of the time she was absolutely sick with fear that she wouldn’t fit in, that she wasn’t good enough, that she’d never find her place.

She’s found her place here, and he knows it even as he despairs over it. He knows that she would have stuck with them no matter what, but the visions have made it impossible for her to do anything else, and he can’t help but wonder what her life would be like without them. Maybe she would have eventually found her inevitable stardom, like she always said she would, and then she wouldn’t be stuck here with him, fighting demons all the time...

And he knows it’s stupid. He knows that she’s always been loyal, and she’d have always have stayed with them, no matter what. But he sees her sometimes, when even her million-dollar smile looks strained around the edges, and he can’t help but wonder. If she’d never met him, would she still be this miserable?

---

“Beverly, you're killing me with all the things you do to me
Like the way you roll your eyes from across the room
You don't even know I wanna be your Romeo…”

”Beverly” by Pay the Girl.

---

And lingering in the back of his head is the need to make it better, no matter what it would cost. He tries to pass it off as being his typical “hero impulse,” as Cordelia would call it- the “Damsel-in-Distress syndrome,” in Wesley’s more sophisticated, if no less mocking, words. But he knows it’s more than that.

How could he resist? He’s always been attracted to strong, confident women. For God’s sake, he never would have made it past his thirtieth year if he hadn’t been hopelessly attracted to the vivid beauty of Darla, and he never would have become a Champion for the Powers if he hadn’t fallen in love with Buffy Summers. And here he was, desperately in love with another powerful, beautiful woman.

Not that he’d ever say anything about it. Contrary to what Spike had always thought, he wasn’t a witless poofter with more hair gel than brains. He knew that she never looked at him that way, and would laugh at herself if she did, even for a minute. The closeness that they shared was just the very best sort of friendship, and that was enough. It really was. It didn’t matter if he sometimes wished for more, because it would never happen, and that wasn’t even taking his curse into consideration. She wasn’t interested, and he wouldn’t make a move even if she was, so there was no “them,” not like that.

He could always think, though. He was good at thinking. Cordy- and everyone else- called it “brooding,” but he wasn’t always thinking about the horrors of his past. Sometimes he just immersed himself in wishful thinking and let himself daydream. His daydreaming would never go anywhere, and he knew that, so what was the harm? He could sit there, and watch Cordy out of the corner of his eye, and just... wish. Where was the harm?

Besides his slowly cracking heart, of course.