Hello everybody, this is a short installment to my series of one-shots that will set the scene for future chapters.

Please enjoy.


"Find everything okay, Sweetpea?"

That's what set her off. The older woman with a soft southern drawl and a bright warm smile, simply asking if she had gotten what she needed in the small shop, had sent her into tears. Without word or a second glance, Cordelia pulled a $50 bill from her purse, handed it to the woman rather forcefully, and left a stunned shopkeeper in her wake.

"She lost a friend a while back," Zoe explained.

The woman nodded in a way meant to convey that she understood, though her face still read confusion. Zoe had taken the change and packages back to the car, where the Supreme continued to weep in the front seat. Kyle, still unaware of whatever had happened, looked expectantly at Zoe, who then reassured that the two of them would gather the remaining supplies.

She did not acknowledge their words. Although she had been thankful for their efforts (not so much Kyle trying to comfort her by petting the top of her head), there was little in this world that could have made much difference to her at the moment. She knew why it made her so upset, and that upset her further. She knew that she should know not to question the fates by now. They had been cruel and unusual to her all of her life, though they did bestow to her the greatest honor any of her kind could hope to inherit. She figured that for whatever it would be worth to have the answers to all of her why's, leaving them little reason to come back and do her wrong carried far more value.

So when her tears had finally dried up, she allowed herself a deep breath inward. She pulled the air into her chest and held it there for a long moment, admiring the way that it made her heart beat almost as desperately as it had all those times in the greenhouse with the one person she no longer lets herself think about. Except for right now, and every fucking day since they had met.

As always is the case, her despair turns to anger. She's so angry for so many reasons, but right now, she's particularly cross about her emotions. More specifically, the reasons why she must feel the way she does. And she laughs heatedly, because there's that 'why' again, and because any and all questions that she's ever had have never been answered in a way that has made her feel anything besides further confusion. And that's made her angry. And there she goes again.

She hopes that her thoughts will reach out into the universe, so far that maybe some entity who takes mercy on the sorrowful souls such as hers (she knows it's dramatic, but between Fiona and Myrtle, she was bound to receive a bit of it somewhere) will hear them and attempt to give her clarity, just this once. So she asks the never-ending void,

"Why has my entire life been one disaster after another? Why has nobody ever respected me enough to tell me he whole truth about anything? Why is it that every single person I've ever tried to love ends up leaving, or dying? Why have I never been enough? Will I ever be?"

When she's finished mentally screaming into the abyss, the strangest thing happens. She has been a witch for her entire life, as had been her mother before her, and her grandmother before that, and women (also one man, she notes) for generations of her ancestry, so she's seen many things that most others would find abnormal that are very run-of-the-mill in terms of what to expect. But in that moment, she understands completely the sensation that "regular" people get when they see a little more of what her normal is than they should, because what happens is beyond her. Her answer has come.

The answer is in the form of the car radio suddenly coming to life. Normally, she'd discount this as being anything of significance, but right now she's convinced that this is magic and she's the Supreme so she should fucking know. But it's not just that the radio has turned on by itself. It's not just that it is tuned to a station that she knows Kyle had not been listening to before she had run to the car in tears. It's not anything she can even explain. It's Stevie.

Yes, she's known the White Witch for as long as she can remember, so she knows she's not made any sort of mistake. There's really no way she could be mistaken anyway, not after all of those hours in the greenhouse with Ms. Nicks' biggest fan. She knows that she hears Stevie.

"Would you stay if she promised to you Heaven? Will you ever win?"

That's what Stevie asks her. And Cordelia knows that she will. She's just discovered that she need not question the fates to find her answers any longer. She can do whatever she damn well pleases. She's the fucking Supreme.


Thanks! More to follow...