Five People Who Couldn't Save Cordelia
1.
"But why are you still here?" the Buffy-bot asked innocently.
He looked across the room at the brunette, nursing another migraine. He thinks about the slayer, and how her death hurt like a live thing, chewing into his heart every minute of the day.
He thought about his seer, dying for the visions she never asked for, but bore willingly, and how it would surely destroy him if she…
It wasn't a thought he could even bring himself to complete.
"Because there's no where else I can be." Giles said at last, and moved over to stand behind Cordelia, trying to hold on to her the only way he knew how.
***
2.
Buffy came home from the Doublemeat Palace; the house was quiet, but for the soft crying in the kitchen.
Dropping the bag of takeaway on the small end table next to her, she shut the door and walked slowly towards what she knew she was going to find.
Cordelia's back was to her. She was hunched over the counter, head cradled in her hands.
"Cordy?" the slayer asked softly, reaching out to touch the seer on the shoulder.
The brunette gasped and turned around, attempting, too late, to conceal the tears that she had been shedding. Pasting on an artificial smile, she tugged the blond girl into a quick embrace, before moving around the kitchen, trying to find something to do with her hands.
"Two teenagers in an alleyway, they're about to be…" she started.
"It's getting worse isn't it?" Buffy interrupted. She didn't want to hear about the teenagers. She didn't want to care.
Her seer was dying, and there was nothing she could do about it. Why save anyone, when she couldn't even begin to save the one person who gave her the strength to go on?
"…they're about to become a very gruesome experiment for a psychotic living in…"
The blonde girl bridged the distance between them, pulling the beautiful, weeping woman into a deep kiss. It was passionate, yes, but more than that, it spoke depths of the grief that Buffy had no way of putting into words.
"I can't…I can't lose you. God, please, I can't lose you." The former gasped as she pulled away, voice thick with heartache.
"Buffy…" Cordelia didn't know what to say next.
They held each other in silence, foreheads touching.
"Go. The kids need you. They're behind the Bronze." The seer said at last.
"I don't want to." Buffy said sounding vaguely petulant.
"You have to silly. Who else will?"
The slayer gave Cordelia a quick kiss.
"I'll be back soon. I promise. We'll take a bath together. I'll give you a backrub." Buffy promised.
"As long as you get rid of those clothes because ugh." Cordelia wrinkled her nose.
They burst out in a short, rough spurt of laughter.
***
3.
This was the last time she was going to get hurt. Fuck the mission. Fuck the Powers That Fucking Be. Fuck the soul. Fuck everything. He didn't give a good goddamn about anything else.
Spike was not going to lose his Cordelia, because no amount of people saved was worth her life.
Ignoring her pleas, he drained her until he was absolutely sure it was the right moment. And then, with infinite gentleness, he ripped with his fangs at his own wrist, and fed the thick, crimson liquid to her.
With a look of intense self-loathing, she drank. The last look Cordelia Chase ever cast at him was filled with hatred mingled with sorrow.
As her eyes closed, the souled vampire sank down beside her body. The convictions which had buoyed him for so long slipped away, and he wondered what it was he had just done.
***
4.
"Take away her visions." Willow demanded as she stood in the stone cavern. Her eyes were obsidian; dark veins traced the edges of her face.
"What is done cannot be undone." The voices informed her.
"Yes it can. You can. Take it away now or I will…" her voice lowered ominously.
"You can try." they said, sounding almost amused, battering her down with unseen hands. Despite all her power, she found herself unable to resist the conduit's attack.
"Foolish child…the seer will die. But as it is with the slayer, when one door closes, another opens." The voices informed her.
"No…no you don't. You can't replace Cordelia, you can't just…" the witch clambered shakily to her feet.
"I love her." She concluded, almost brokenly.
"That is the way it was, is, and will always be. Go, and trouble us no more." They whispered.
In a bright flash, she found herself stumbling in the darkness, with only the sounds of L.A. traffic in the distance for company.
With a sob, she fell to her knees onto the dirty ground, her hair slowly shifting from jet black to brilliant red.
***
5.
He watched her drain the whelp, noting the way she had drawn out the boy's terror and anguish past the point of madness. Finally, sighing in satisfaction, she dropped the body at her feet.
"You learn fast." He chuckled, drawing her into a bloody kiss.
"I was the smartest girl in my class you know? Well, apart from her." Cordelia said, toeing the lifeless body of Willow Rosenberg.
"Angelus…" she started.
"Angel." He corrected. He hated it when she confused the two.
She nipped at his lower lip.
"It must be hard for you, being back here again…" the demoness said.
"Nah. Not as long as I've got you." He said, guiding her out the door, past the blood splattered walls.
The slayer's eyes, still filled with some life, watched helplessly as they left, unable to stop them. She couldn't, what with being pinned to the wall with her own stakes through her hands and gut. As they disappeared around the corner, she could hear Angel tell the former seer,
"As long as you're safe, nothing else matters."
Neither vampires heard the fading warrior's hopeless, pain-filled whimpers.