Hiraeth (pronounced [hiraɪ̯θ])

     TITLE: Happiness is a Warm Gunn

     AUTHOR: kerk_hiraeth

     FANDOM: Angel the Series; post-NFA (coda for my au x-over story The Loneliness of the Long Distance Hero – see the link below for full list of x-overs)

     LENGTH: 150;

     CHARACTERS: Charles Gunn; Alonna Gunn (in abstentia); Cordelia Chase; Illyria; Gwen Raiden; River Song;

     'SHIPS: None; except the familial one; though there were canon ones between Gunn & Gwen &(if only by implied future possibility) Gunn & Cordy;

     A/N: This is my first story since February 2017. Not wishing to discuss too much the 'hell' I've been through; nor the good times & moments, I shall just instead thank with all my heart the inestimable elisi without whose persistent faith; encouragement & friendship this moment would not have come. Not only for that, but for the fact that the story that inspired this was written for her as well.

             Here is the link to that earlier story (please comment on that here if you wish to comment on that as well, as I no longer have proper access to that old account) kerkevik.livejournal.com/193908.html .

        The fight kept bringing them back to him; or they brought it back with them for surety that he hadn't fled the field with his still oozing blood.

     Illyria surely sensed her; Gwen paused for a few moments too. As his senses failed he thought he smelt and heard that piratical woman with the hair as well.

     Kneeling in his blood; the oily rainwater, and other stuff she never touched him; just stared and worked to keep him awake.

     Only when; his eyes long closed, he heard a breath, then her voice softly singing the same song he'd sung to help her sleep did she take him; slipping into sleep, into the warmth of her embracing arms.

     His last thought as he felt the comfort of knowing that he would wake; in this world, was appreciating the fact that Cordy had known how much seeing Alonna again would heal him.

      For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

      kerk hiraeth