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[__visiongal]

It was light when I awoke the next morning. I hadn't meant to fall asleep, hadn't even meant to stay the night, not really, but... Wes had needed me, had asked me to stay, offered me a shoulder to cry on - a place I could cry, without ever feeling guilty about doing it

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[wesley_w_pryce_]

I look at her, Cordelia, oh god she'd stayed with me all night. I'm sure she had so many other things to do, people who needed her more and she stayed with me.

"Good morning." my ragged voice reminds me of how I must look, I have not exactly been paying attention to my appearance the last week or two.

"I should let you go, I shouldn't have kept you here talking. I should at the very least shower and offer to feed you."

[__visiongal]

"Well, I'm not gonna say no to that last part." I say, stretching my arms above my head. For all he's slept, he still looks exhausted - although I guess that's pretty much a given since in the last two days he's been through hell.

"How do you feel?" If he feels how he looks? Then that may just be the dumbest question I've ever asked.

[wesley_w_pryce_]

I can't help but laugh a little. "I will bathe myself and make food then. You could put some water on for coffee if you like."

I have to think about it when she asks me, how do I feel? "I'm numb Cordelia. I don't know for sure how I feel. But it is better than yesterday."

I give her a smile and stand and stretch before heading to shower and change clothes.

Yes definitely better than yesterday.

[__visiongal]

I look at him indignantly, shaking my head, "Uh, hey! You're British, remember? King of hospitality or whatever? I'm a guest!" I grin though, unable to ignore that tiny stab of guilt that sparks off inside me.

How can I laugh when-- No. I can't do that. Not right now.

When he tells me he still feels numb, I nod. I definitely know how that feels. But he also says he feels better than yesterday which... Improvement, right? Last night he was doing that whole knife edge thing that Angel's so fond of.

I brought him back from that.

He heads off to the shower and I go the opposite way, see what I can rustle up for breakfast while he's getting all fresh-faced and Watcher-clean. Before long I'm cooking - eggs and bacon - and eyeing that lump of cheese in his refrigerator, wondering whether it's blue cheese or just cheese gone bad...

[wesley_w_pryce_]

I am confused for a moment at exactly which 'here' Cordelia is referring to. She is suddenly so subdued.

"I never thought to be here, no. In a lot of ways." I realize I am still holding her hand and I wonder at the fact that she has not taken it back. "I never thought to be the person I am at this moment. It rather makes me think perhaps my father was right about me in some way."

I tried to make that sound light, I'm afraid I failed miserably. I am supposed to be comforting Cordelia, not laying my bitter childhood issues at her feet like a child.

[__visiongal]

My gaze strays up to Wesley's, watching him for a moment. He never talks about his father-- Little outbursts here and there which say that no, Wesley didn't really have the happy childhood. I'm starting to think that Fred is the only one who had, like, decent parents. Not that mine are terrible are anything, but being thrown money in lieu of something resembling actual affection isn't quite the good deal you'd think.

"Right about you how?" I'm trying to keep my voice normal but it's pretty hard, especially when Wesley's looking like that, "I mean, what, he had a crystal ball that showed him what it was gonna happen to you? I don't think so, Wes." I say, shaking my head. "What you are at this moment is... Screwed over, played - and also? Not alone. If your father said all that--" Which I'm seriously doubting, "--then much with the kudos to him. He should go into the fortune telling trade."

[wesley_w_pryce_]

I smile a little and look at her again. It is so weird to look her in the eye with these new thoughts in the back of my head.

"No, that's not quite what he said. But you're right, we were played."

I almost look at the floor again when I say the next bit, I don't want to see the look in her eyes when she answers. Cordelia has so much and I am asking for more than I am sure she is giving me.

"I'm not alone?"

[__visiongal]

I didn't mean to sound flippant when he started talking about his Dad - didn't mean to make little, I guess, on what he was saying. To say that Wes needs to start talking about his father? An understatement.

Whether he needs to talk about it with me or thrash it out with a therapist? Who knows, although God knows I'd be cheaper. I don't say it but I squeeze his hand, let him know without a doubt that I'm there, if he needs me.

And then, he asks it. "I'm not alone." Said with so much uncertainty that it makes a lump rise up in my throat

[wesley_w_pryce_]

She kisses my thumb as I trace her lip and she tells me she doesn't want to stop. I am glad because I don't want to stop either, I can't believe that she's been here right in front of me and I didn't see.

I didn't know that she was so much more than my friend and the person that I leaned on when things got bad. We were so much more and neither of us knew.

I am still thinking over her start of a question in the back of my head as I trace her jawline with soft kisses and I smile when i kiss her behind the point of her jaw right below her ear.

"How could I know you and not know that I loved you?" Whispered little more than a breath in her ear.

[__visiongal]

"How could I know you and not know that I loved you?"

The last time my heart started thumping like this - and I mean the good kind of thump, not that dull ache - was... Well, months ago. My birthday, actually. I woke up from a world that was so different to mine, so changed-- And I was back, in the Hyperion, with Angel and my friends.

"Love?" I can't seem to manage to get my voice more than a whisper. "You... You love me." I love him too. Not just in the big brother way, or the best-friend-kinda-family way. I love Wes. I love him. And it took so long to see it - it took visions and everything falling apart and, okay, the possibility of my untimely death.

If this is it? If this is the best my life's gonna get and I don't get the second chances? Then, honestly, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with the fact that I'll never sleep with Angel's son or betray him that way. I'm okay with the rest of it. I'm okay because somehow, today, I found out that one person I'd hoped I could protect and never expected protection from told

[wesley_w_pryce_]

For a second when I tell her I love her she sounds surprised and my stomach plummets a little, but then she is whispering that she loves me, saying it twice like she's tasting the words and I smile and bury mny face in her hair.

"How did we manage to not notice?" I have to ask, friends and colleagues and supposed detectives how did this just go past our noses.

Although the scent of her skin and the warmth as I kiss her shoulder is making me rather not care as long as I can be this way forever, or for whatever time we have.

[__visiongal]

"Oh, I dunno..." I smile a little, "Things getting in the way? Demons, vampires, the usual..."

Of course, there was always that first kiss. Who'd have thought that Wesley and I had any kind of future together after that?

He buries his face in my hair and for a while, it's so easy to forget. It's so easy to forget about all of this - about the visions and everything but Wesley telling me he loves me. Sooner or later - and right now, it's sooner, rather than later - reality keeps trying to crash back in. Reality as in Wesley loving someone who mightn't have a future at all.

Reality as me being selfish enough to love someone when I don't even know for sure I could change what was coming.

I close my eyes then, wrap my arms around Wes and bury my head in his shoulder, drawing in a ragged breath. I don't want to give up my visions. Ever. That's not an option. But giving up something I'd pretty much given up on with the rebar incident? I don't know how I do that either...