Chapter 45

Everyone in the room seemed to freeze in the exact position they had been in. Connors' jaw was glued to the ground as he stared at the woman who was now closing the door to the conference room. Her face remained passive but Angel could read her body language, she was nervous. Wearing skinny jeans, low black heals and a yellow sleeveless shirt, she walked towards the group.

Sitting down uneasily, she folded her hands in front of her on the table. "So I guess I'm the other woman." She managed a tiny smile. Cordelia had known the moment she had woken up to find her apartment void of other life that Angel had gone and gotten himself in trouble. There was no way, if she had been Buffy, that she would have thought Angel free of any guilt. Knowing Angel would have to be beaten and tortured to reveal that she was alive, Cordelia had decided to go to Wolfram and Hart and save Angel from his own stubborn pride.

Connor dropped heavily into a seat. He could not stop staring at the woman in front of him. Everyone in the room save for Angel and Will looked as if they were looking at a ghost. Will was hiding his surprise well; he was shocked the woman had shown up in front of all of them. She had seemed so vehement about keeping her new found life secret.

"So...I guess you guys want to know which way is up. I got into trouble and was sent back here. So here I am. I've been here a while; I wanted to get adjusted to living again before I told you all I was back. Angel came to see me to talk about Connor. He wanted to know if I had any visions or could give him any leads. I couldn't. And instead of letting him fall on his sword, here I am like a good friend."

Fred had stopped pacing and was now just staring. Allie was again sleeping in her mothers' arms. "You're alive." She said it as a statement instead of a question.

Nodding, Cordelia tried to smile again and failed. She didn't have the energy to pretend she was happy. She had hoped to live in anonymity for as long as possible and instead she had felt forced to reveal herself to people she thought she no longer knew. Feeling vulnerable, as if she was under a microscope, she fought not to squirm in her seat.

Gunn looked at her, alarmed and slightly afraid she was evil again. "You got really skinny." His mind was still processing that Cordelia was alive and well and sitting in front of him. He had thought never to see her again.

"I've been working out."

They sat for a while longer before Connor broke the silence. "Angel went to see you last night?"

Nodding slowly, she pursed her lips and cocked her head before answering. She wanted to phrase what she was about to say in a very delicate manner. "Angel came to me for answers. I didn't have any he was looking for."

Form the look on Connors' face, it was clear that he wasn't totally convinced. Cordelia decided that she wasn't going and try to make him believe her. Sighing, she dragged her hand over her hair and leaned back in her chair. "This is a mess. I know it. Can we move on from here?"

Shaking his head, Wesley rubbed his eyes as he spoke, "Cordy…you're alive; sent back from the higher planes of existence. You've been for here for however long without telling anyone but Angel. I…don't know what to make of any of this."

Gunn interjected before Cordelia had a chance to comment. "You said you got in trouble?"

She hesitated and licked her lips before she found the right words. "I was forbidden from seeing or influencing any of you, especially Angel. I was his seer for too long, they thought I wouldn't be able to objective. They were right, I wasn't. I sent Angel a vision. I wasn't expecting to get kicked out for it, but I was. They sent me right back here. I was…well, I needed time. And I couldn't stay on the streets, so I went to Angel."

Connor was still stunned but was rapidly rallying his senses again. "So…no one has any information about who killed my family? You don't know anything, Angel doesn't know anything and there were no real leads last night?"

Nodding, Angel spoke in a quiet voice, "We came up empty handed." He felt as though he had failed his son in many ways.

A devastated look passed over Connors' face before he quickly made it disappear. "I guess that's it, then."

"Connor…" Cordelia moved closer to the table, a pensive look on her face. "Connor, I don't think you will ever have any satisfactory answers. I'm so sorry for how everything turned out. It wasn't meant to happen this way." She let her words hang in the air, knowing full well that Angel grasped all the underlying meanings and praying that Connor wouldn't.

Standing, Connor started for the conference room door. Turning momentarily, he looked back to his father, "You should call Buffy." With that said, he disappeared through the doors.

Angel was the next to rise, "I have to get to work." Striding from the room with purpose, he was gone before anyone had a chance to stop him.

Cordelia leaned back in her chair. She hated the building she was in; she hated what it stood for. Even knowing everything Angel had done to destroy the evil within the company, the evil that had spawned the company, she was almost positive that he would never be able to fully reach his goals for Wolfram and Hart. She hadn't approved of his decision when he had first agreed to work for Wolfram and Hart and she still had many doubts about his running the empire. Absolute power corrects absolutely, she thought to herself. In the same thought, though, she was hoping that Angel would never have to fight that kind of personal corruption.

Looking towards the other people in the room, Cordy doubted her relationships with any of them would ever be the same as they once were. Cordelia doubted she could ever just sit and enjoy 'girl-talk' with Fred, or joke with Gunn. She felt to numb inside to do any of those things. In an instant, her mind reached a conclusion. Feeling as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, she smiled at the people in front of her.

"I have to go. You all have things to do and I have visions to see." Standing slowly, she walked to Fred and gave her a quick hug before kissing Allie on the top of her head. "I see you all another times," she lied. Cordelia turned to the door and was gone before her actions had fully registered with anyone still sitting at the table.

will had an idea where the brunette was going. He had always suspected that she had stayed in the city for Angel. Angel was a different man, Will knew, a man that had a child on the way and a woman he wanted to marry. Angel could no longer afford to rely on his seer to such a great extent as he had. It was time for both of them to cut their ties, not entirely, but somewhat. They had finally realized the only way to move on was to move apart. Everyone who had been with Angel during the days of Angel Investigations had grown with their leader; they had evolved throughout the years as a team, a collective unit. Cordelia had not been a part of that unit for a very long time; it had been over four years since her death. As much as Cordelia cared for Angel, and vice versa, Will was relieved they had come to the conclusion that it was time to part ways, at least for a little while.

Breathing out a low sigh, Will stood and stretched. It seemed the crisis of the morning had ended. Still hoping to apologize to Dawn, he left the room and walked in the direction of the stairwell that would lead to her office. He knew that he would have to talk to Angel eventually, to make sure everything was alright between he and Buffy, but for the moment his own relationship problems were going to take precedence.

The others in the conference room looked at one another. Fred was the first to break the tension that laced through the room. Her stress levels had been so high lately that she felt as though if she did not laugh she would surely implode. Sitting down with Allison still in her arms, she tried to get her laughter under control. It was ridiculous to think that her former best friend was back from the dead and had been in the office for a time without any kind of reconnection. Standing again, Fred asked Wesley to bring the bassinet to her office as husband and wife left. Wesley was shaking his head; he felt too accustomed to the idea of such intensity; he felt he should be more shocked.

It took only a moment for Gunn to leave to find Faith. He had been planning on asking her to lunch all day. Leaving only Xander in the large room, the one-eyed man leaned back. He had been purposefully silent throughout the entire saga. Having lost the woman he loved in Sunnydale five years ago, he found it difficult to be around his first love again. Cordelia reminded him of all the things he would rather forget, including Sunnydale and the life he had there once upon a time. His chest ached a little when he remembered what love felt like.

Pushing his thoughts from his mind and his chair from the table, he rose to leave. His mind waged an internal war as he walked the halls. Half of him wanted desperately to find and reminisce with his ex-girlfriend; the other half wanted nothing to do with anyone that reminded him so intimately of a past he thought was best left forgotten. Stalking the halls, Xander waited for his mind to make it itself up.