Title: Nothing else left

Author: TashG

Email: tash_faith@hotmail.com

Rating: G for all (At the moment)

Summary: W/O fic. Oz is injured at Angels final battle.

Distribution: If you want it, ask!

Disclaimer: Joss owns the BtVS characters, etc, etc.

Author's Note: Set Season 6/ Summer between S5/6





It amazed Willow how much this girl had not changed in appearance. She was still a looker. Apart from the crows' feet threatening to appear at the edges of her eyes, Cordelia Chase was still the same, physically anyway. The wear and tear of fighting demons and vampires, the creatures of the night, was starting to catch up on her though.

If she had changed at all, it was as a person. She had grown more mature. It was true since she had arrived, just a few short hours ago, she had not made one snide remark, not even to Xander. Although that may, and most probably was because, of the horrific news she bought with her.


It had shocked everyone. Chilled them to the core. Every fibre of their being, shaken.

It had finally happened. Angel had died. That was how far Cordelia had gotten so far, in between the tears she shed.

'He died a noble death' She told them. 'I've never seen anyone fight like that before.'
It had happened in and architectural dig site, or so she had told them. Apparently the architects had come across a deep hole. So deep they didn't know where it ended. They had used various digital equipment to try and find out the depth of the hole, but it never worked, the technology always got scrambled, or had errors, or refused to work properly and spat out absurd numbers.

Of course, Angel had grown curious and fearful, that it might be something more than natural. Something supernatural, otherworldly, in fact. He was right.

Late one night, a curious architect had come to investigate it, while there was no one else around, to see if there were any clues to the origin of this strange hole.

The next morning his corpse was found, at least 20m from the hole. And a few feet away, a tent full of assistants was found mutilated, every strip of flesh torn from the bodies.

That proved it. That proved his theory. This strange phenomenon was in fact a hell mouth of sorts. Disgorging various creatures as time went by. The architectural teams mistake, was uncovering it.

They had to close it.

That's when it had begun. The battle. He'd predicted that as time went by, more creatures, demons and monsters alike, would come out of the hole more often.
So he'd gathered a few 'friends' to come and help. It turned out he needed more than a few. Kate had helped; she was a police officer who had helped Angel in the past. And she, in turn, and brought a few fellow officers.

She didn't tell them what it was for, just to bring lots of weapons, guns. They didn't question her. After all, she had become head police officer.

So, the take down squad consisted of Angel, Gunn, Wesley, Cordelia, Kate, and 6 other police offers who had no idea what they were doing.
It wasn't enough by far.

They were outnumbered.

"So, how did you get away?" Xander prodded after a few minutes of silence.

"I ran. Angel told me to run, he said it was the only think any sane person could do. So I did."

"So what happened?"

"Well, I ran a far as I could go, as fast as I could. IT only occurred to me how long I'd been away when the sun rose. When I went back, someone had used the grenade that Gunn had gotten hold of. It looked just like a mountain had fallen down or something. I didn't know what to do, there was just bodies everywhere. I was just frozen, I couldn't move."

Cordelia paused for a minute. No one pushed.

"Then the police arrived. Then the ambulance. They took me down to the station. Gunn and Wesley went to Hospital; I think they found one surviving police officer. I didn't know what happened to Angel. I mean, it was daylight. He could have jus found shelter for all I knew."

"After they questioned me, I went down to the hospital to see them. Gunn was conscious, Wesley wasn't. He told me...he told me he saw Angel die. He, uh, got decapitated. I saw him fight before I left, and the way he was fighting I didn't think anything had happened to him".

"God." Willow murmured.

"Yeah" Xander said, looking at the floor. "I always thought he'd be the one who'd live the longest".

"I didn't really know him, but yeah, vampires generally do tend to live longer than humans" Anya added.

"There's more" Cordelia said, turning to Willow.

Willow frowned, but didn't say anything.

"Oz. He was in LA and needed a place to crash for the night. He said he didn't like driving during a full moon or something, even though he had the whole non-wolf thing going. He came with us, to the site. Just before I left he ended up wolfing out. I guess he got really angry or something. I saw him in the hospital".

Cordelia stared hard at Willow, and then continued.

"He had to go into emergency surgery for a small lung rupture. He's got a machine breathing for him".

Everyone was staring at her. 'Why is everyone staring at me?' She thought, oblivious to the tears running down her cheeks.

That's when it hit her. Everyone was dying. First Buffy. No one thought she'd be the first to go, that's for sure, being the slayer and all. Then Tara, in a plane crash of all things. Giles hadn't exactly died, but he'd moved back to England. Dawn had moved in with Willow, after the campus had made some special arrangements. They didn't see much of Spike anymore. They'd all seen him patrolling alone before; they all figured it was to work out some physical tension or something.

And now this. Willow stood up, and grabbed her coat off the back of her door.
"Cordy, drive me to LA?"

Cordelia looked at her for a second, the nodded. "Sure"