Title: To Gain One's Heart
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Angel
Characters/Pairing: Angel/Cordelia, Doyle/Cordelia, Dennis, Lorne, Angel/Buffy mentioned
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt: #77: Revision
Word Count: 756
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters belong to their rightful owners, not the author.


"Is there anythin' ye would've changed?"

"There's always something every one would change, sweetheart. For example, I would have gone about Vegas differently, and this time I would have been a hit on my own without the whole evil schmaevil problem."

"But what would ye have changed, Princess?" Doyle persisted, ignoring their friend and looking only at her.

"My whole life was about being a visionary," she reflected. "In grade school, I envisioned myself being the most popular and beautiful girl in the school. By high school, I had become the girl I thought I wanted to be. I ruled those hallways even after Buffy came with her little slaying ways."

Doyle smiled fondly. "I cannae imagine that would've been so hard."

His lilt still seemed to caress her ears after all this time, but her heart remained heavy. "Then my parents lost everything, so I lost everything. I had to revision myself. I slaved in that clothing store to try to get the dress I wanted for prom, but I still couldn't afford it when the time came. If it hadn't been for that Zeppo, I wouldn't have gone at all."

"And yet," Lorne remarked teasingly, "you chose to go with Wesley."

"Wesley?!" Doyle repeated in shock. Just how many men had had his Princess while she still remained ignorant of his very existence? It didn't matter, he told himself, how many she'd had. If she'd ever love him just once, he'd prove himself better than all the rest and the only one for whom she was truly intended.

"Yeah." She laughed, but a sad note still rang in her laughter. Dennis touched her hand. She turned her hand over, palm up, and he interlaced his fingers with hers. She shrugged. "I thought he was what I wanted at the time."

"But he wasn't."

She nodded. "He was everything I thought I wanted -- an older, foreign guy with a great accent and a decent body in the right clothes."

Doyle perked up. He was all those things!

"He wasn't exactly a hero, but he was in the fight. I was tired of being excluded, and he was my ticket in for a little while."

"But it didn't last."

She shook her head. "No. It wasn't meant to be. One kiss was pretty much all it took from him to make me come to my senses." Her nose wrinkled. "He had fish lips."

Dennis laughed. Doyle grinned. With a wink, Lorne remarked, "Been there, done that, Brown Eyes."

She smiled. "I bet you do know exactly what I'm talking about. Any way, as you guys know already, I revised myself again. I tried I become the girl I had been, the woman I'd always thought I'd become. I tried hard to become an actress, but that wasn't where I belonged. I can see that now."

"Can ye?"

"Yes, and don't start on how bad my acting skills were, Doyle! I could've learned!" She frowned. "But I never got the breaks. And then I was too busy being Vision Girl and helping you guys save the world."

"But what," Lorne asked gently and curiously, "would you have changed?"

"None of that," she spoke confidently. "There's only one thing I would have changed, although I wouldn't mind never having become pregnant. And of course, there's the whole Jasmine thing, but if what I wanted to change had changed, I wouldn't have been on that bridge that night."

She sighed, her face falling even more poignant. Her regret was palpable in the air around them. "There's only one thing I really would have changed. After everything I went through, after everything we both went through, I just wish he could have known how I felt. I should have told him earlier, Buffy or no Buffy. I should have told Angel I love him."

"He knows, sweetheart."

"Does he?" she asked. "If he does, why's he down there smooching Buffy? I thought you said he loved me."

"He does, Brown Eyes, only I'm afraid Angelcakes doesn't really know how to show he loves any one except himself. Not in the way that we all want to be loved."

Lorne touched her free hand, but it was into Dennis' arms Cordelia went. He wrapped his arms protectively around her, and she hid her face as she again wept silently into his shoulder. Lorne soothingly rubbed her back while Doyle looked helpless.

"I'm sorry he did nae love ye, Princess," he whispered at last and turned away, sad that he himself had also never gained the love of the better part of his heart.

The End