One for the Team (3/3)
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title One for the Team
Rating PG13, some horror references
Characters Angel and Cordelia
Word count c2700 overall, this part 800
A/N The third and final part of Angel in the Rulesverse. Part one- Part two. The whole story runs 2004-06, from an AU NFA to... this.
The great thing about using Wolfram and Hart for magical experimentation? Well equipped labs, and soundproof walls. No one had to hear the pain. Unless they wanted to.
Willow left Cordelia’s agonised bedside, and walked into the soundless Outside.
Angel couldn’t.
*
The sounds of suffering kept coming. Animal-ugly. Didn’t feel human, let alone like Cordelia. Not his polished, glamorous, soft-hearted friend. They reminded him of Wolfram and Hart torturing her with visions. Until she went mad with the pain.
Had he brought her back for more magical insanity? Was that the cost that Angel would pay to have Cordelia back? (Except, look who was paying the price.)
But this time it wasn’t the visions, or not only the visions. Words that had gone unspoken in Angel’s new world came flooding out. Connor. Jasmine. Darla. A virgin to the slaughter. Manjet. The Svear priestesses. Angelus. Blood. Death. Slaughter. The Beast.
The words were unstoppable. My daughter the monster. Cordelia chanted it, begging to hold a child long dead, and grown putrid even before her father put his fist through her skull.
Angel had tried to forget Jasmine. Now he recalled every moment of her sweet, rotten reign, and despaired. What was hurting Cordelia wasn’t supernatural. It was a human response. Of course she screamed.
*
She was sitting in his office three days later, when Angel surfaced from a deep and troubling sleep and rejoined the insistent working world.
“Hey.” Cordelia smiled at him. Not a hair out of place in her nice new do. Big smile, just as he remembered it. She was relentless. Heroic. He could hardly believe the sight. Except it was Cordelia. What else could he have expected?
“Hey Cordy. It’s good to see you better.”
A very slight grimace passed over her expression, though it cleared fast. “Thank you. Thank you so much for all you’ve done. I know after everything we went through... before... well, I wouldn’t have blamed you for leaving me on life support forever. Wouldn’t much have blamed you for switching me off.” Her face showed radiant certainty that he’d never have done that.
Angel sometimes forgot how much Cordelia had helped to keep him sane and human. (Ish. Human-ish.)
It really was good to have her back.
But even as he thought it, Cordelia was breaking his heart. “I have to go away. I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here. I killed a girl here. Just a girl, to bring... to give birth. Did you even know that? What we did for her? My... daughter... was born here and she died here and I never even saw her-”
Her voice was rising, tightening, giving a hint of the endless screams she’d swallowed down after those first terrifying hours.
“I’ll come back,” she said, after a pause to get herself under control. “I will come back. I’ll visit. Holidays and stuff. But this can’t be my home. I want to get away. See the world. Make money and never get knocked up by a mystical demonic thingy ever again.”
“And the visions?”
“Yeah. Still got’em. Still demony too, they tell me, even if it was all a ginormous con trick to... do all that to me. But hey, we’re an international evil-fighting organisational machine, right? I’ll call in details to Slayer Central. They can send a squad.”
Yeah. They were an organisation. No one needed Angel to leap into a car and ride to the rescue. Not anymore.
She hadn’t said anything about... other things. So Angel had to. That hurt.
“Cordy. When we last talked. Really talked, I mean, before everything went wrong, you were coming to meet me...”
She smiled. It had a final look to it. “Yes. I was, I really was. And I was so happy to think we’d finally got to a point where... Yeah. But it didn’t happen. It’s four years ago. You moved on, in some really major ways.”
Nina, he thought. But that’s over. Barely even began.
“Like what happened with Connor,” she said, surprising him. “All of it. Wolfram and Hart too. That really changed you, you know?
“And we... we never got to that place. I don’t think it’s even there anymore. Do you?”
He was desperate to say yes.
But he didn’t. Couldn’t.
So she left.
*
The fourth intake of Slayer Support Operative trainees was pretty much what he’d come to expect.
Except for the young, tough kid with the scruffy hair and huge smile. “I’m Stephen. Looking forward to joining the fight against evil!”
They all said that, in the first few days of their training.
None of the others added, “Hi Dad.”
It felt a little like redemption. Or the start of that, at least.
***
Title One for the Team
Rating PG13, some horror references
Characters Angel and Cordelia
Word count c2700 overall, this part 800
A/N The third and final part of Angel in the Rulesverse. Part one- Part two. The whole story runs 2004-06, from an AU NFA to... this.
The great thing about using Wolfram and Hart for magical experimentation? Well equipped labs, and soundproof walls. No one had to hear the pain. Unless they wanted to.
Willow left Cordelia’s agonised bedside, and walked into the soundless Outside.
Angel couldn’t.
*
The sounds of suffering kept coming. Animal-ugly. Didn’t feel human, let alone like Cordelia. Not his polished, glamorous, soft-hearted friend. They reminded him of Wolfram and Hart torturing her with visions. Until she went mad with the pain.
Had he brought her back for more magical insanity? Was that the cost that Angel would pay to have Cordelia back? (Except, look who was paying the price.)
But this time it wasn’t the visions, or not only the visions. Words that had gone unspoken in Angel’s new world came flooding out. Connor. Jasmine. Darla. A virgin to the slaughter. Manjet. The Svear priestesses. Angelus. Blood. Death. Slaughter. The Beast.
The words were unstoppable. My daughter the monster. Cordelia chanted it, begging to hold a child long dead, and grown putrid even before her father put his fist through her skull.
Angel had tried to forget Jasmine. Now he recalled every moment of her sweet, rotten reign, and despaired. What was hurting Cordelia wasn’t supernatural. It was a human response. Of course she screamed.
*
She was sitting in his office three days later, when Angel surfaced from a deep and troubling sleep and rejoined the insistent working world.
“Hey.” Cordelia smiled at him. Not a hair out of place in her nice new do. Big smile, just as he remembered it. She was relentless. Heroic. He could hardly believe the sight. Except it was Cordelia. What else could he have expected?
“Hey Cordy. It’s good to see you better.”
A very slight grimace passed over her expression, though it cleared fast. “Thank you. Thank you so much for all you’ve done. I know after everything we went through... before... well, I wouldn’t have blamed you for leaving me on life support forever. Wouldn’t much have blamed you for switching me off.” Her face showed radiant certainty that he’d never have done that.
Angel sometimes forgot how much Cordelia had helped to keep him sane and human. (Ish. Human-ish.)
It really was good to have her back.
But even as he thought it, Cordelia was breaking his heart. “I have to go away. I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here. I killed a girl here. Just a girl, to bring... to give birth. Did you even know that? What we did for her? My... daughter... was born here and she died here and I never even saw her-”
Her voice was rising, tightening, giving a hint of the endless screams she’d swallowed down after those first terrifying hours.
“I’ll come back,” she said, after a pause to get herself under control. “I will come back. I’ll visit. Holidays and stuff. But this can’t be my home. I want to get away. See the world. Make money and never get knocked up by a mystical demonic thingy ever again.”
“And the visions?”
“Yeah. Still got’em. Still demony too, they tell me, even if it was all a ginormous con trick to... do all that to me. But hey, we’re an international evil-fighting organisational machine, right? I’ll call in details to Slayer Central. They can send a squad.”
Yeah. They were an organisation. No one needed Angel to leap into a car and ride to the rescue. Not anymore.
She hadn’t said anything about... other things. So Angel had to. That hurt.
“Cordy. When we last talked. Really talked, I mean, before everything went wrong, you were coming to meet me...”
She smiled. It had a final look to it. “Yes. I was, I really was. And I was so happy to think we’d finally got to a point where... Yeah. But it didn’t happen. It’s four years ago. You moved on, in some really major ways.”
Nina, he thought. But that’s over. Barely even began.
“Like what happened with Connor,” she said, surprising him. “All of it. Wolfram and Hart too. That really changed you, you know?
“And we... we never got to that place. I don’t think it’s even there anymore. Do you?”
He was desperate to say yes.
But he didn’t. Couldn’t.
So she left.
*
The fourth intake of Slayer Support Operative trainees was pretty much what he’d come to expect.
Except for the young, tough kid with the scruffy hair and huge smile. “I’m Stephen. Looking forward to joining the fight against evil!”
They all said that, in the first few days of their training.
None of the others added, “Hi Dad.”
It felt a little like redemption. Or the start of that, at least.
***