Fic- The Huntress - MtB Chapter 45
Hello, All,
Sorry about last week, but I just could not shake the flu. Finally feeling half human, although completely stressed. Still, I managed to get a chapter done on time, thanks to my lovely betas.
Not much left to go and another story will end. But there’s still a bit left to tell here.
Enjoy!
~~@~~ Cheery Vibes ~~@~~
Nimue
"Though she be but little, she is fierce.” ~ William Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night’s Dream
www.DragonflyMoon(dot)net
www.livejournal (dot) com/users/nimuetucker/
Always_Everyday (at) yahoogroups.com
HowtoMakeaVampireSundae (at) yahoogroups.com
Title: The Huntress (Chapter Forty-Five - Meant to Be)
Author: Nimue
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Spike/Buffy (Most major characters included)
Feedback: Yes, please NimueofAvalon71 (at) yahoo.com
Disclaimer: All characters belong to someone other than me; they belong to Mutant Enemy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, Fox, UPN, WB, their affiliates, lawyers and all sorts of other folks that aren’t me. :::sigh::::
Summary: Cordelia wakes up. Spike tries to explain the implications of Cordelia’s new life to Dawn. Angel tries to justify what he did to Cordelia.
The Huntress
Amber eyes flashed, glaring through Angel as if they wanted to tear apart not only his flesh but also his soul. She sat bolt upright, chocolate hair flying behind her like a flag, and spun, whipping her legs off the side of the sarcophagus and hopping to the floor in one blindingly quick movement.
Her eyes scanned the crypt searching for something alive. Something warm and moving. Something to hunt. Angel watched her, heart breaking at what he’d done. Knowing that bloodlust. Knowing that unconquerable desire for the kill. The blood. The flesh.
But there was nothing.
With feral grace, she spun back towards Angel and stared, her yellow eyes a mix of confusion and anger and lust and a little bit of sadness. Her mouth never opened, but she spoke volumes with just her gaze.
“Cordelia?” Angel asked softly. There was no way of knowing if she even knew. Or if she remembered, yet, who she was. And if she did, it was anyone’s guess if Willow and Tara had been successful and restored that which made her who she had been.
The amber eyes dropped, looking at her body. Battered, bloodstained clothes. Red, scarred knife wound visible through a tear in the fabric of her blouse. Black boots scuffed and bloodied.
“Cordelia?” Angel repeated, as he slowly, so as not to cause alarm, shifted his weight and swung his legs over the side to face her. “Do you remember?”
She looked at her clothes again, and then at him, eyes still wide with every emotion imaginable. Suddenly, her face set in anger and she lunged forward, launching herself at Angel, a growl emanating from her pretty mouth.
Angel hopped off the sarcophagus just as she got to him and spun, grabbing her forearm as he rounded her and pulling it behind her back. “Not the first fledgling I’ve ever handled,” he said quietly as he pulled her other arm to join the first.
“Blood,” she whispered, her voice a harsh, arid sound.
He closed his eyes, trying to breathe. He’d made her into this. Made her a hunter. Made her crave that which kept the masses alive. No time for remorse now. It was time to teach her how to survive.
“Only the best for you, Cordy,” Angel responded, half teasingly, as he pushed down on her wrists and spun her towards the other end of the crypt, where he’d stored the blood Spike had brought in the mini-fridge in the corner.
Leading Cordelia, growling and kicking, to the other end of the room was no easy task, but the pain was more emotional. Angel had not lied when he said that she wasn’t the first fledge he’d broken. He remembered them all. Drusilla. Spike. There were one or two others, but the ones he would remember the most were the ones he took in as family.
Like Cordy.
Still holding her wrists in one hand as she twisted and bucked, Angel reached down and flipped open the fridge, grabbing a bag of blood. No time to warm it or put it in a container. Besides, ripping the plastic with her teeth might dull her aching desire to rend flesh with fang.
“Okay, so not the best, but this is what you’ve got,” Angel stated, turning Cordelia to face him and holding the bag just in front of her face, still keeping her steady with an arm around her waist. “Feed.”
She wanted to be angry, to tear herself away and beat her captor within an inch of his life, but the crimson blood hanging there, dangling in front of her open mouth, was too much to refuse.
Cordelia’s lips parted in a grimace as fangs gleamed in the dim light of the cabin. She reared her head back and attacked.
~~~@~~~@~~~
They all milled around the kitchen of the Windsor house, some guests spilling into the den and dining room, all in a sort of haze. The battle was won. The Master was defeated, in a most anti-climatic way. This round was over and they’d won; or at least, that is what the One’s report would mean to the Watcher’s Council. Another battle in the bag for the Slayer and the Vampire of Heart.
But this time, the winning was bittersweet. Luke and Draconius were still alive, or whatever the equivalent state was for them, and were sure to resurface as soon as they had a new plan. Although she had been an enemy to most, Spike had been forced to kill his maker, someone he’d loved innately. They’d lost the chance at reclaiming one of their own when Joyce, to protect the rest, had refused to come back.
And then there was Cordelia.
“Do you think… is it going to change her?” Dawn asked, nibbling half-heartedly on a carrot stick as she sat at the island in the kitchen, watching Spike make a peanut butter sandwich for Will.
“Always does, Love,” Spike answered, his voice hollow and distant.
“You mean, she won’t be anything like… well, you met Cordy,” Dawn pressed, turning the carrot stick over and over against her lips.
Spike sighed and turned. “If the Witches pulled it off, in a while, she’ll be mostly who you learned to know and… be annoyed by, Love. But for a while, she’ll be….”
“Lost?” Dawn answered, giving up on food and tossing the vegetable in the bin.
Spike nodded, cutting the sandwich and handing it down to tiny waiting hands. “Confused. Not easy going from one life to another. She died, Niblet.”
Dawn nodded, trying to wrap her mind around it. “You mad at Angel for doing it?”
A chuckle escaped the Vampire’s lips. “Peaches? No, not mad. Can’t say he thought that one through much, but he loves her. Wasn’t ready to lose her. Amazing what a man will do in the name of love.”
“Like get a soul and turn into a PTA soccer dad?” The young woman chided, as her fiancé stepped into the room, wrapping his arms around Dawn from behind and earning a warning growl from Spike.
“Very funny,” Spike replied, tossing a piece of cauliflower at Dawn and not-quite-accidentally hitting Brian instead. The newest member of the pack just rolled his eyes, knowing that Spike was always going to be this way towards him. And that it was because he loved his Niblet, which is something Brian could respect.
~~~@~~~@~~~
Sated for the moment, Cordelia let the empty bag drop to the floor and stood, dazed and full, in front of Angel. He watched her for a moment, the ridged features on her face nearly as beautiful as the smooth lines of her human visage.
“Do you remember?” Angel finally asked again, and Cordelia made the same visual sweep of her body, finally raising her eyes to his and shaking her head.
“Do you want to know?”
“Am I…. I’m dead?” It was more of a confirmation of what she knew than a question asked, but Angel saw the heartbreak behind it. Slowly, he reached down and took her hand, leading her to the couch in the center of the crypt.
Finally, once they were seated, he nodded. “You died yesterday.”
Cordelia’s head dropped and she studied her bloodstained legs. “How?”
Angel chuckled. “Being brave and stupid, like always.” She stared at him, eyes full of tears, and he realized that she needed to know this. Needed to understand. “Protecting Tara so Tara could protect us.”
Memories flooded back as events came through in jagged film reels in her mind. The mansion. The four men going inside. Knowing something bad would happen. Standing guard over Tara as she performed the spell. “The Master?”
“Dead,” Angel responded, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. “Spike and Buffy killed him this morning.”
“But not before…?”
Again, Angel shook his head. “No. Not before he … hurt us.”
The memories kept playing.
“And the rest?”
“Everyone else is okay,” Angel answered, knowing, now, that the girls had been successful. Cordelia’s soul was there. No Vampire, not even Spike, would have thought about the welfare of others just after their first feed.
Cordelia nodded her response, her hand traveling to her neck. “I’m a Vampire.”
Again, Angel nodded.
Her eyes grew wild as her hands studied the ridges and bumps in her face, pricking her fingers on her fangs. “Did he? That BASTARD!” She screamed, jumping up from the couch in a flurry. “The Master killed me and turned me?” The thought roiled her stomach that *anyone* had been that intimate with her. That brazen and rude and…. And it made perfect sense. What better way to take down another Master, take down Angel, than to bite and kill his mate.
“No!” Angel interrupted, watching her pace, clawing at the wound on her neck. “It didn’t happen like that.”
“How did it happen, then? Did he…. Oh God. Did he do anything else to me?”
Angel closed his eyes, trying to block out what she was thinking, knowing he had to set this straight. “No, Cordy. He stabbed you.” Gently, he leaned forward, catching the tear in her blouse with his finger and tugging. “In the gut. “
Her hand traveled down, brushing his as she passed it, feeling the wound. “It’s almost gone.”
“One of the perks of being a Vampire,” Angel responded, his finger tracing the healing scar. “But stabbing you is all he did. He left you for dead and took Tara hostage.”
“Tara?”
“She’s okay,” Angel answered, letting his hand drop.
He was quiet for a moment, pondering on whether or not the truth was really any better than her fears. But she needed to know. She deserved to know why. “Do you want to know what happened? Really?”
Cordelia nodded slowly, wrapping her arms around herself as she paced, boots clicking against the stone. “Yes.”
Angel swallowed. “We came out from the mansion and Xander found you,” he began, watching her walk. “You… you’d lost a lot of blood. Wesley…. I…. we didn’t think…. Cordelia, there was no way to…”
“Save me,” Cordelia answered, hugging herself tighter.
Angel closed his eyes, the picture of her lying there in a massive pool of her own blood tearing his heart and mind to shreds. “There wasn’t time.”
With a quick nod, she gave her assent to move on.
“I sent the others after Tara and the Master. They needed to help Buffy and Spike and take him out to ….. It needed to have a reason,” he finished, his eyes welling up. She stopped her pacing and looked over at him, watching his head drop as he spoke.
“What did?”
“You,” he answered, his voice choked. “I wanted to kill him, Cordy. Rip off his limbs and shove them down his throat….”
“Nice graphic.”
“He killed you,” Angel finally said, looking up at her with wet eyes. He studied her a moment, watching her hug herself, her hands playing restlessly with the fabric of her torn blouse. His head dropped again. “Actually, he didn’t. I did.”
A silence fell over the crypt as the pieces of the puzzle all fell together in a terrifying picture. She knew him. Knew how he thought. Knew how he worked.
They had found her. He knew she wouldn’t survive. He sent the others away and brought her here. And as she lay dying, he did the only thing he could to save her.
Made her a monster.
“You did this?” Cordelia asked, her voice barely a whisper, but to new ears, sounding like a roar.
Angel lifted his head again and nodded.
Anger flooded her, and, strangely, a wave of relief. It was he who had taken away her life. Who had been that close. Who had been with her when she died.
But he also took away the only thing she knew.
“You …. This was…. You thought this was a *good* idea?” Cordelia asked, recovering herself and pushing the relief down for a moment. “Making me… This?” Her hands gestured at her ridged face frantically. “This was the *right* thing to do?”
“I…” Angel began, watching her muscles tense in anger. “I couldn’t lose you…”
“Selfish, much?” She screeched. “Did you ever think that maybe I’d rather be dead?” Even as the words left her lips, she felt them to be untrue. She didn’t want to be dead. She didn’t want to be a Vampire much either, but of the two options, this one was definitely a plus. And the Vampires she knew, although annoying and really far too quick to make decisions, were pretty good people. Or pretty good undeads, or whatever.
Again, Angel’s head dropped. “I didn’t know…. I couldn’t think…. I…”
“So you sucked the blood out of me, made me drink yours and hoped for the best?” Cordelia shouted, not willing to let it go this easily. “Was I a tasty treat, at least?”
His head shot up and his eyes stared at her in horror. “You don’t actually…. Cordelia, the *last* thing I was thinking was dinner.”
“Oh, really?” She answered, beginning to pace again. “Funny how you didn’t even bat an eye before turning me, then.”
“Because you would have *died*, Cordelia. In the permanent, non-Buffy kind of way. Gone. Forever. I couldn’t bear that. I *need* you. And I *owed* you the chance at this, rather than…”
“What? Hell? I may be a bitch, but I might just have made it to Heaven,” she shot back, hands on her hips as she paced, thinking on that. She wasn’t that bad… usually.
“I was going to say oblivion,” Angel responded, trying to cool his own raging emotions. “I promised you, as you were…. Before you came back…. That I would let you go, I’d send you back…. If you hated me for this.”
“Yeah, real smart, Angel,” Cordelia sniped. “Uh, Vampire? No soul.” Again, as she said the words, she found the lie in them. She felt…. She felt nearly the same, inside. Other than the physical stuff, at least. But she felt concern, care, love….
Angel watched her put it together, stopping the pacing and looking him in the eye.
“How did you do it?”
“I didn’t,” Angel answered. “Willow and Tara did.”
“So I…?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t know that they’d be able to keep your soul.”
“So I…?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m me?”
“Not quite,” Angel answered, finally standing to meet her. “You’re a Vampire, Cordelia. Blood. Strength. Bad temper, although that shouldn’t be too big a change for you.”
“I can beat you up now, you know?”
“But yeah, the you inside is still you,” Angel responded, ignoring the barb and walking slowly closer. “I can teach you how to survive.”
“I’ve been taking care of your sorry ass for years now. I know how it works,” she barbed back, feeling the anger deflate as he came closer, his eyes pleading for understanding. For forgiveness.
“Cordelia,” he whispered, taking her hands from her hips and holding them in his own. “Know that I did the only thing I could think of…. I didn’t want this for you. I didn’t want to…. But I couldn’t lose you. And, somewhere in there,” he pointed at her chest, knowing that her heart no longer beat, but that it still *felt*, “I knew you didn’t want to leave just yet.”
She closed her eyes, trying to wrap her mind around it all. Knowing that what he was saying was true, but not sure how to make it all… understandable. “I don’t want to die.”
“Then let me teach you,” Angel answered, lifting her chin with his fingers. “Let me show you how to live this way.”
“I don’t have to brood, do I?” Cordelia asked, fighting off a smile she didn’t know she could still make.
“No,” he answered. “I won’t let you do anything you’d need to brood over.”
“Great, a chaperone.”
“No,” Angel said again, lowering his lips to hers. “A mate.”
To be contd.
Sorry about last week, but I just could not shake the flu. Finally feeling half human, although completely stressed. Still, I managed to get a chapter done on time, thanks to my lovely betas.
Not much left to go and another story will end. But there’s still a bit left to tell here.
Enjoy!
~~@~~ Cheery Vibes ~~@~~
Nimue
"Though she be but little, she is fierce.” ~ William Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night’s Dream
www.DragonflyMoon(dot)net
www.livejournal (dot) com/users/nimuetucker/
Always_Everyday (at) yahoogroups.com
HowtoMakeaVampireSundae (at) yahoogroups.com
Title: The Huntress (Chapter Forty-Five - Meant to Be)
Author: Nimue
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Spike/Buffy (Most major characters included)
Feedback: Yes, please NimueofAvalon71 (at) yahoo.com
Disclaimer: All characters belong to someone other than me; they belong to Mutant Enemy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, Fox, UPN, WB, their affiliates, lawyers and all sorts of other folks that aren’t me. :::sigh::::
Summary: Cordelia wakes up. Spike tries to explain the implications of Cordelia’s new life to Dawn. Angel tries to justify what he did to Cordelia.
The Huntress
Amber eyes flashed, glaring through Angel as if they wanted to tear apart not only his flesh but also his soul. She sat bolt upright, chocolate hair flying behind her like a flag, and spun, whipping her legs off the side of the sarcophagus and hopping to the floor in one blindingly quick movement.
Her eyes scanned the crypt searching for something alive. Something warm and moving. Something to hunt. Angel watched her, heart breaking at what he’d done. Knowing that bloodlust. Knowing that unconquerable desire for the kill. The blood. The flesh.
But there was nothing.
With feral grace, she spun back towards Angel and stared, her yellow eyes a mix of confusion and anger and lust and a little bit of sadness. Her mouth never opened, but she spoke volumes with just her gaze.
“Cordelia?” Angel asked softly. There was no way of knowing if she even knew. Or if she remembered, yet, who she was. And if she did, it was anyone’s guess if Willow and Tara had been successful and restored that which made her who she had been.
The amber eyes dropped, looking at her body. Battered, bloodstained clothes. Red, scarred knife wound visible through a tear in the fabric of her blouse. Black boots scuffed and bloodied.
“Cordelia?” Angel repeated, as he slowly, so as not to cause alarm, shifted his weight and swung his legs over the side to face her. “Do you remember?”
She looked at her clothes again, and then at him, eyes still wide with every emotion imaginable. Suddenly, her face set in anger and she lunged forward, launching herself at Angel, a growl emanating from her pretty mouth.
Angel hopped off the sarcophagus just as she got to him and spun, grabbing her forearm as he rounded her and pulling it behind her back. “Not the first fledgling I’ve ever handled,” he said quietly as he pulled her other arm to join the first.
“Blood,” she whispered, her voice a harsh, arid sound.
He closed his eyes, trying to breathe. He’d made her into this. Made her a hunter. Made her crave that which kept the masses alive. No time for remorse now. It was time to teach her how to survive.
“Only the best for you, Cordy,” Angel responded, half teasingly, as he pushed down on her wrists and spun her towards the other end of the crypt, where he’d stored the blood Spike had brought in the mini-fridge in the corner.
Leading Cordelia, growling and kicking, to the other end of the room was no easy task, but the pain was more emotional. Angel had not lied when he said that she wasn’t the first fledge he’d broken. He remembered them all. Drusilla. Spike. There were one or two others, but the ones he would remember the most were the ones he took in as family.
Like Cordy.
Still holding her wrists in one hand as she twisted and bucked, Angel reached down and flipped open the fridge, grabbing a bag of blood. No time to warm it or put it in a container. Besides, ripping the plastic with her teeth might dull her aching desire to rend flesh with fang.
“Okay, so not the best, but this is what you’ve got,” Angel stated, turning Cordelia to face him and holding the bag just in front of her face, still keeping her steady with an arm around her waist. “Feed.”
She wanted to be angry, to tear herself away and beat her captor within an inch of his life, but the crimson blood hanging there, dangling in front of her open mouth, was too much to refuse.
Cordelia’s lips parted in a grimace as fangs gleamed in the dim light of the cabin. She reared her head back and attacked.
~~~@~~~@~~~
They all milled around the kitchen of the Windsor house, some guests spilling into the den and dining room, all in a sort of haze. The battle was won. The Master was defeated, in a most anti-climatic way. This round was over and they’d won; or at least, that is what the One’s report would mean to the Watcher’s Council. Another battle in the bag for the Slayer and the Vampire of Heart.
But this time, the winning was bittersweet. Luke and Draconius were still alive, or whatever the equivalent state was for them, and were sure to resurface as soon as they had a new plan. Although she had been an enemy to most, Spike had been forced to kill his maker, someone he’d loved innately. They’d lost the chance at reclaiming one of their own when Joyce, to protect the rest, had refused to come back.
And then there was Cordelia.
“Do you think… is it going to change her?” Dawn asked, nibbling half-heartedly on a carrot stick as she sat at the island in the kitchen, watching Spike make a peanut butter sandwich for Will.
“Always does, Love,” Spike answered, his voice hollow and distant.
“You mean, she won’t be anything like… well, you met Cordy,” Dawn pressed, turning the carrot stick over and over against her lips.
Spike sighed and turned. “If the Witches pulled it off, in a while, she’ll be mostly who you learned to know and… be annoyed by, Love. But for a while, she’ll be….”
“Lost?” Dawn answered, giving up on food and tossing the vegetable in the bin.
Spike nodded, cutting the sandwich and handing it down to tiny waiting hands. “Confused. Not easy going from one life to another. She died, Niblet.”
Dawn nodded, trying to wrap her mind around it. “You mad at Angel for doing it?”
A chuckle escaped the Vampire’s lips. “Peaches? No, not mad. Can’t say he thought that one through much, but he loves her. Wasn’t ready to lose her. Amazing what a man will do in the name of love.”
“Like get a soul and turn into a PTA soccer dad?” The young woman chided, as her fiancé stepped into the room, wrapping his arms around Dawn from behind and earning a warning growl from Spike.
“Very funny,” Spike replied, tossing a piece of cauliflower at Dawn and not-quite-accidentally hitting Brian instead. The newest member of the pack just rolled his eyes, knowing that Spike was always going to be this way towards him. And that it was because he loved his Niblet, which is something Brian could respect.
~~~@~~~@~~~
Sated for the moment, Cordelia let the empty bag drop to the floor and stood, dazed and full, in front of Angel. He watched her for a moment, the ridged features on her face nearly as beautiful as the smooth lines of her human visage.
“Do you remember?” Angel finally asked again, and Cordelia made the same visual sweep of her body, finally raising her eyes to his and shaking her head.
“Do you want to know?”
“Am I…. I’m dead?” It was more of a confirmation of what she knew than a question asked, but Angel saw the heartbreak behind it. Slowly, he reached down and took her hand, leading her to the couch in the center of the crypt.
Finally, once they were seated, he nodded. “You died yesterday.”
Cordelia’s head dropped and she studied her bloodstained legs. “How?”
Angel chuckled. “Being brave and stupid, like always.” She stared at him, eyes full of tears, and he realized that she needed to know this. Needed to understand. “Protecting Tara so Tara could protect us.”
Memories flooded back as events came through in jagged film reels in her mind. The mansion. The four men going inside. Knowing something bad would happen. Standing guard over Tara as she performed the spell. “The Master?”
“Dead,” Angel responded, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. “Spike and Buffy killed him this morning.”
“But not before…?”
Again, Angel shook his head. “No. Not before he … hurt us.”
The memories kept playing.
“And the rest?”
“Everyone else is okay,” Angel answered, knowing, now, that the girls had been successful. Cordelia’s soul was there. No Vampire, not even Spike, would have thought about the welfare of others just after their first feed.
Cordelia nodded her response, her hand traveling to her neck. “I’m a Vampire.”
Again, Angel nodded.
Her eyes grew wild as her hands studied the ridges and bumps in her face, pricking her fingers on her fangs. “Did he? That BASTARD!” She screamed, jumping up from the couch in a flurry. “The Master killed me and turned me?” The thought roiled her stomach that *anyone* had been that intimate with her. That brazen and rude and…. And it made perfect sense. What better way to take down another Master, take down Angel, than to bite and kill his mate.
“No!” Angel interrupted, watching her pace, clawing at the wound on her neck. “It didn’t happen like that.”
“How did it happen, then? Did he…. Oh God. Did he do anything else to me?”
Angel closed his eyes, trying to block out what she was thinking, knowing he had to set this straight. “No, Cordy. He stabbed you.” Gently, he leaned forward, catching the tear in her blouse with his finger and tugging. “In the gut. “
Her hand traveled down, brushing his as she passed it, feeling the wound. “It’s almost gone.”
“One of the perks of being a Vampire,” Angel responded, his finger tracing the healing scar. “But stabbing you is all he did. He left you for dead and took Tara hostage.”
“Tara?”
“She’s okay,” Angel answered, letting his hand drop.
He was quiet for a moment, pondering on whether or not the truth was really any better than her fears. But she needed to know. She deserved to know why. “Do you want to know what happened? Really?”
Cordelia nodded slowly, wrapping her arms around herself as she paced, boots clicking against the stone. “Yes.”
Angel swallowed. “We came out from the mansion and Xander found you,” he began, watching her walk. “You… you’d lost a lot of blood. Wesley…. I…. we didn’t think…. Cordelia, there was no way to…”
“Save me,” Cordelia answered, hugging herself tighter.
Angel closed his eyes, the picture of her lying there in a massive pool of her own blood tearing his heart and mind to shreds. “There wasn’t time.”
With a quick nod, she gave her assent to move on.
“I sent the others after Tara and the Master. They needed to help Buffy and Spike and take him out to ….. It needed to have a reason,” he finished, his eyes welling up. She stopped her pacing and looked over at him, watching his head drop as he spoke.
“What did?”
“You,” he answered, his voice choked. “I wanted to kill him, Cordy. Rip off his limbs and shove them down his throat….”
“Nice graphic.”
“He killed you,” Angel finally said, looking up at her with wet eyes. He studied her a moment, watching her hug herself, her hands playing restlessly with the fabric of her torn blouse. His head dropped again. “Actually, he didn’t. I did.”
A silence fell over the crypt as the pieces of the puzzle all fell together in a terrifying picture. She knew him. Knew how he thought. Knew how he worked.
They had found her. He knew she wouldn’t survive. He sent the others away and brought her here. And as she lay dying, he did the only thing he could to save her.
Made her a monster.
“You did this?” Cordelia asked, her voice barely a whisper, but to new ears, sounding like a roar.
Angel lifted his head again and nodded.
Anger flooded her, and, strangely, a wave of relief. It was he who had taken away her life. Who had been that close. Who had been with her when she died.
But he also took away the only thing she knew.
“You …. This was…. You thought this was a *good* idea?” Cordelia asked, recovering herself and pushing the relief down for a moment. “Making me… This?” Her hands gestured at her ridged face frantically. “This was the *right* thing to do?”
“I…” Angel began, watching her muscles tense in anger. “I couldn’t lose you…”
“Selfish, much?” She screeched. “Did you ever think that maybe I’d rather be dead?” Even as the words left her lips, she felt them to be untrue. She didn’t want to be dead. She didn’t want to be a Vampire much either, but of the two options, this one was definitely a plus. And the Vampires she knew, although annoying and really far too quick to make decisions, were pretty good people. Or pretty good undeads, or whatever.
Again, Angel’s head dropped. “I didn’t know…. I couldn’t think…. I…”
“So you sucked the blood out of me, made me drink yours and hoped for the best?” Cordelia shouted, not willing to let it go this easily. “Was I a tasty treat, at least?”
His head shot up and his eyes stared at her in horror. “You don’t actually…. Cordelia, the *last* thing I was thinking was dinner.”
“Oh, really?” She answered, beginning to pace again. “Funny how you didn’t even bat an eye before turning me, then.”
“Because you would have *died*, Cordelia. In the permanent, non-Buffy kind of way. Gone. Forever. I couldn’t bear that. I *need* you. And I *owed* you the chance at this, rather than…”
“What? Hell? I may be a bitch, but I might just have made it to Heaven,” she shot back, hands on her hips as she paced, thinking on that. She wasn’t that bad… usually.
“I was going to say oblivion,” Angel responded, trying to cool his own raging emotions. “I promised you, as you were…. Before you came back…. That I would let you go, I’d send you back…. If you hated me for this.”
“Yeah, real smart, Angel,” Cordelia sniped. “Uh, Vampire? No soul.” Again, as she said the words, she found the lie in them. She felt…. She felt nearly the same, inside. Other than the physical stuff, at least. But she felt concern, care, love….
Angel watched her put it together, stopping the pacing and looking him in the eye.
“How did you do it?”
“I didn’t,” Angel answered. “Willow and Tara did.”
“So I…?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t know that they’d be able to keep your soul.”
“So I…?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m me?”
“Not quite,” Angel answered, finally standing to meet her. “You’re a Vampire, Cordelia. Blood. Strength. Bad temper, although that shouldn’t be too big a change for you.”
“I can beat you up now, you know?”
“But yeah, the you inside is still you,” Angel responded, ignoring the barb and walking slowly closer. “I can teach you how to survive.”
“I’ve been taking care of your sorry ass for years now. I know how it works,” she barbed back, feeling the anger deflate as he came closer, his eyes pleading for understanding. For forgiveness.
“Cordelia,” he whispered, taking her hands from her hips and holding them in his own. “Know that I did the only thing I could think of…. I didn’t want this for you. I didn’t want to…. But I couldn’t lose you. And, somewhere in there,” he pointed at her chest, knowing that her heart no longer beat, but that it still *felt*, “I knew you didn’t want to leave just yet.”
She closed her eyes, trying to wrap her mind around it all. Knowing that what he was saying was true, but not sure how to make it all… understandable. “I don’t want to die.”
“Then let me teach you,” Angel answered, lifting her chin with his fingers. “Let me show you how to live this way.”
“I don’t have to brood, do I?” Cordelia asked, fighting off a smile she didn’t know she could still make.
“No,” he answered. “I won’t let you do anything you’d need to brood over.”
“Great, a chaperone.”
“No,” Angel said again, lowering his lips to hers. “A mate.”
To be contd.