The room was so dark she could barely make out the silhouette of her hand even when she held it directly in front of her face.  Light was a bad thing, an intensifier to all the little specks and sparks of agony that were chasing around her skull.  She'd already had her quota of over the counter pain meds for the month, much less the day, and although she thought she remembered a bottle of scotch nestled in the back of one of Angel's kitchen cabinets, retrieving it would mean that she would have to face the artificial lighting of the exterior room.  She rolled over onto her side, hands clutching mindlessly at her throbbing head.  Movement was a bad thing too…

If only she could alleviate the pressure that had grown within her skull, she would be able to breathe again, maybe then she could even form a single coherent thought.  She tore at her hair to no avail, the pressure wouldn't let up and the vision flashbacks wouldn't stop their infernal reruns through her mind's eye.  Blood and terror and pain and anguish… all repeated in endless detail over and over and over again until Cordelia thought she might very possibly go insane from the mere repetition of it all.  She couldn't take it any more, she just couldn't handle the ever-blossoming pain behind her temples.

Angel raised his head in silent question at the dull thud that resounded across the foyer.  It seemed to have come from his darkened bedroom where he'd settled Cordelia, but he couldn't be sure, old buildings were notorious for having their own repertoire of creaks and groans.  He'd decided that he would cheerfully relinquish his private quarters for the rest of his existence if it gave Cordelia some small sense of peace.  He heard the thud again; rising from his chair to assure himself all was well and she hadn't fallen out of bed or been attacked in secret by one of the more despicable demons they often hunted down, he slowly began to stride closer to the room.  At the third thud he quickened his pace, worry clouding all reasonable thought.  He opened the door to another low thump and peered into the near pitch black of the room.

Cordelia sat on the floor close to the wall, blankets and linens trailing behind her to puddle at the side of the bed, her back was to the door and she made no attempt to let him know she was aware of his presence. 

Angel stood rooted to the spot as he watched her lean forward and bang her head into the wall in front of her, slowly and deliberately.  His eyes wide, he watched as she repeated her actions once more.

"Cordelia!"  He crossed the distance between them in an instant, his cry alerting Wesley and Gunn, bringing them into the room as well.  He dropped down to his knees just as her head made contact with the plaster wall once more, grabbing her shoulders, he hauled her around to face him, taking in her obvious pain and distress in one glance.  "Come on, Cordelia.  Don't do this."

"It… hurts…"

"I'd say that's the understatement of the millennia…" Gunn muttered to Wesley, gaining the other man's full agreement.

"Cordelia," Angel murmured.

"No!"  She tore herself out of his gentle embrace and threw herself against the wall again.  "I can't… it… nothing will… I…"  Incoherent and exhausted, she slumped against the plaster, her bruised forehead resting against the cool edge of the draperies, tears coursing down her cheeks unabated.

"Oh, Cordelia," Wesley breathed in sympathy.  He looked at Gunn who appeared to be in the same state of helplessness as he was.  There wasn't anything they could to help and they both knew it, all they could do was intensify their search for a way to rid her of the visions that were devastating their friend.

"Delia?  Cordelia…"  Angel adjusted his position so that he was crouched in front of the whimpering woman.  He wanted to reach out and gather her into his arms but didn't know if that would help her or cause even more distress.  Unsure, he watched her face closely, reaching out with a delicate hand to brush away her tears. 

After a few minutes of silence, she pressed her cheek into his palm giving Angel all the opening he needed to reach out and engulf her in a loose hug.  She sank into the embrace, burying her face against the softness of his shirt and relishing the hard solidity of his shoulder beneath the material, a rock of stability to cling to in the face of the swirling tides of agony that crested in her head.

The ringing of the phone startled Wesley and Gunn from their position just inside the room.  After one final glance at the pair who were huddled on the floor, Wesley hurried to stop the jangling noise the second time it sounded, ringing through the nearly empty hotel lobby, Gunn following close behind. 

Quickly snatching the phone from its hook, Wesley answered.  "Angphel Investigations."

Gunn did a double take at the slip.  How long had it been that Cordelia had run through her list of alternate names for the agency when they had been on their own?  It seemed a lifetime.  His eyes met Wesley's with the sudden sharp pain that the error had opened splashed across his face as the Englishman turned his attention back to their caller.

"Rupert?  Oh yes, no, no, I assure you.  Just a slip of the tongue.  Yes, she had recovered quite well, but she suffered another vision this evening…  Yes, we were able to take care of the problem she foretold but Cordelia's condition has only worsened.  No, Angel's with her now.  No, I don't think it wise to disturb him at the moment.  Did you?  Oh.  Well, I do thank you for your help, we all do.  Yes, I will call if there is any change."  Wesley slowly set the receiver back on its hook.

"So did English-two find anything?"

"No, he is empty-handed.  He assured me that he would continue to search for anything that may be of use to us.  He says they are all looking through the collection of texts he has accumulated at the shop."  Wesley sank down onto the sofa as the utter desperation of Cordelia's situation ate away at his own resolve to help her in any way he could.  If there was nothing to be done, he couldn't do anything more than watch her die a slow and increasingly painful death.  So far, none of their queries had turned up the barest hint of an acceptable resolution.

"Who's 'they'?" Gunn asked, pulling a chair across the floor and flipping it around backward so that he could straddle the seat, his arms resting across the ladder-back.

"Buffy, Xander, Willow, Anya… a few others.  They all attended Sunnydale High School together, now they help Buffy in her duties as slayer."

Gunn snorted as a grin spread across his face.  "Cordy sure knows how to pick 'em, doesn't she?  First she goes to high school with vampire slayers and demon hunters…"

"Anya was a demon at the time," Wesley interjected tonelessly.

"…and demons, then she comes to LA to work for a vampire and go out stalkin' the nasties like lady-Rambo.  The girl needs to get away from all the big bads for a while, take a vacation somewhere there aren't any killer demons to ruin it for her."

Gunn's grin was contagious and Wesley found himself smiling despite himself.  "I suppose we could send her to the moon.  I don't recall hearing of any demonic activity occurring there as of late."  Cordelia certainly did seem destined to deal with an interesting group of living, and un-living, creatures.  And those same groups of creatures, human and otherwise, had left their fair share of scars on her.  First the rebar through her abdomen, then the brain trauma brought on by the visions, then Darla's bite, not to mention nails impaling themselves in her arm, lucky swipes of monsters' claws… the list was interminable.  She had endured far too many traumas for someone of her tender age.

"Now you're talkin'."

~~~

She paused her tale, her gaze sliding back to the photograph.  So long ago and yet she could see them still, just as clearly as she had then.  She could hear their voices in her head, just as they had sounded then, whether they were involved in an argument or laughing over something one of them had said.  Occasionally as she padded through the lower rooms of her home, she would almost expect to see one of them striding purposefully through the front doors, weapons in hand and determination in their eye; almost, but then the sunlight would change and she would be reminded that they wouldn't be walking off to fight the demons ever again.  It was too late for them, they had fought 'the good fight' and were able to finally rest: the rest of the deserving few.

"Ma'am?  Are you alright?"

She raised her eyes to meet those of her invited guest.  He was so very young, quite like they had been, well all of them except for Angel, but even Angel seemed young at times.  And what was this intelligent young man doing?  He was whiling away his youth chasing after vampires and demons… how very familiar.

"Yes, Mr. Bruin, I was simply drawn into my memories, it happens to you once in a while when you get to be as old as I am," she chuckled.  Closing her eyes for a moment, she drew in a deep breath.  She was growing tired, but the story needed to be passed on.

"If it's too late, I can always come back…"

"Nonsense, you came to hear the story and hear it you will."  She leaned forward in her bed and gestured toward a small table behind the reporter.  "If you would, Mr. Bruin, there is a leather portfolio in the drawer of that table.  Please get it for me."

The reporter rose and fumbled with the drawer pull, finally opening it and extracting a cracking zippered bag and handing it to the lady who waited for it.  Once it was in her possession, she opened it, slowly, easing the zipper pull up over the little used teeth of the slide closure. 

"I saved these," she said simply, pulling out a handful of papers and pages, all covered with hand-penned notes.  "They were notations about Angel's future and Cordelia's dilemma both.  I believe there are no fewer than six different translations of the Prophecies of Aberjian, as well as several other important sounding documents Wesley stumbled across in his search.  There are also the notes they made concerning their quest to find a cure for Cordelia's progressively worsening condition.  Perhaps they can help in your story, Mr. Bruin, as well as lend a bit of accreditation to my own tale."  Seeing the concern in his eyes, she was quick to add, "I know that you believe me, I am only concerned about others."

"How long have you kept these…"  He took the pages she offered him, sorting through them quickly before tucking them securely into his briefcase.

"Oh, it must be close to seventy years, perhaps closer to eighty even."

"Why?"

She closed her eyes briefly before she answered him.  "Because I knew that one day their story would need to be told and that those who knew it best would be few and far between, I was merely waiting for you to come along and look for the truth of it all.  Truth can be a fleeting thing, Mr. Bruin, and the mind can play tricks on you, altering that truth to fit its own needs, but their story actually happened and the world needs to be aware of that."

~~~

Papers littered the tabletop and surrounding floor, along with crumpled scrolls and bookmarked tomes.  Amidst it all, Wesley fumbled through yet another translation of one of the ancient Scythian texts of paranormal abilities.  He'd already searched through all the other available data and nothing had given them even a hint of resolution.

The ringing of the phone startled him, causing another of the stacks of papers to fall to the ground in a flurry of confusion.

"Angel Investigations…"

Angel raised his head when the door slowly opened.  He had heard the telephone and Wesley's half of the conversation but nothing was to be gained from listening to the monosyllabic replies the ex-watcher had made.  Wesley stood in the opening, backlit by the dim light from the lobby.

"What is it?"

"Angel?  There's something I think you should hear," Wesley began, "but please, come out to the lobby.  I don't want to…"  He gestured to Cordelia where she slept on the bed next to Angel.

He eased up from the bed, careful not to disturb the woman who was again at rest, if only momentarily.  Striding from the room, he approached Wesley on the far side of the room.  "What?"  He was silenced by the man's indication that he should follow him.

Once again at the desk, Wesley leaned heavily against the thick wood, careless of the increased chaos his movement added to the muddle of books and papers.  "It was Giles on the phone.  Angel, short of going to the powers that be themselves and demanding they remove the visions themselves… there just isn't anything to be done.  The only cures I have been able to locate tend to cure the possessor of their life as well as the visions, and none of those who have been helping to research in Sunnydale has found anything different.  There is no cure, Angel.  We are powerless to prevent this from…"

"No," the harshness of Angel's tone rattled the windowpanes.  "No."

"Angel, yes.  If the visions had been given from anyone but the PTB, things might be different, but…"

"But Cordelia got the visions from Doyle, not the PTB."

"Yes," Wesley agreed, "but he got them from the PTB.  Even though he transferred them to another host, it still…"

"She's going to die because of me."

Wesley closed his eyes at the intensity of pain that suffused those few words.  "Not at all.  It's the visions and their side affects, they simply weren't meant to be experienced by a human host."

"Doyle was given the visions in order to help me on my road to redemption and he died because he was protecting me.  Whether he meant to or not, he transferred those visions to Cordelia, and now she's going to die too.  All because of my redemption," he spat the words out with venom and self-loathing in his voice. 

Wesley remained silent; there wasn't anything he could say that Angel would listen to, regardless of his own thoughts on the matter of blame.

"I'm killing Cordelia."

to be continued (just a couple more chapters now…)