Time's Exhilarations
Quick Author's Note: Nothing belongs to me; not even the title, which is stolen from Adrienne Rich. Nobody beats up my little brother except me; nobody kills Fiona Goode's daughter except for Fiona Goode. AU weirdness.
"Wait, Delia! Cordelia! Wait!"
Cordelia Foxx turns back against all her better judgments, and there she is, the prettiest woman in the world, all blonde hair and soulful brown eyes and broken heart out on her sleeve, wearing too little against the elements, her small feet pitifully bare against the pavement.
"Cordelia, please, please be careful. Promise me. Take someone with you. Don't do something brave. I don't—I don't want to bury you, not on terms like ours, not when we're this angry with each other, not...now."
"You'll live."
Cordelia has never seen Fiona look so broken. She turns away without an apology.
She regrets it when Fiona takes the bullet. The beautiful woman is stretched out on the ground and there's so much blood and it should have been Cordelia's blood but now it's Fiona's and all because of a lifetime of poor decisions, all because Fiona, for once, was too good to let her go. Cordelia is trying to plug the hole with her bare hands but that's not working, so she rips off her jacket, shoving Fiona when the woman tries to push her away, tries to push her someplace safe.
Fiona is in surgery for thirteen hours. The doctors don't let Cordelia in to see her after; they can't risk it, not in her state. Cordelia wants to have her mother's powers in that moment, wants to throw them all against the wall in defiance and stride down the hallway a hero, wants to show them what Fiona bled for, but doesn't. In the end, she doesn't even try.
When Fiona awakens, days later, Cordelia is the first person she asks for. Cordelia is still in the waiting room. She's past the nurse before they finish calling her name.
Fiona looks tiny on the hospital bed, dwarfed by machines and wires and a thin paper gown that is somehow more revealing than all the times Cordelia has seen her wearing less. The younger woman wants to cry. She doesn't.
"Jesus," Cordelia chokes out, and she reaches for Fiona's hand.
For the first time in a long time, Fiona gives it.
"I remember," she says, like it's not vague. "I remember your hands. You were trying so hard."
"I'm sorry I couldn't—"
"No." Fiona shifts, winces, and blood blooms on her stomach; a popped stitch, maybe. Machines start to beep, quiet at first and then frantically. Fiona squeezes her daughter's hand. "Your touch was enough."