Chapter 2

She watched the glowing fiery ball slip slowly into the ocean, savoring every ethereal shaft of golden light as they cut through the encroaching dusk, trying to imprint every different hue worn by the heavens on her mind's eye. Furious yellow deepening to rich orange, orange slipping into delicate pink, pink feathering into blood red. A grand performance, more spectacular than a fireworks display, put on by Nature every evening for everyone, everywhere.

The shifting colors reflected off the planes of the young girl's face, burnishing her cheekbones with bronze, lighting tiny flames within the depths of her hazel eyes and weaving threads of amber and copper in her dark hair.

Cordelia wondered why she'd never bothered to look before. Something so extraordinary, so full of grace and light and hope. Yet it had never seemed important, never been something she'd given a moment's notice. Instead, for much of her life, she'd concentrated upon the ephemeral; shoes, clothes, high-school popularity, the brief tainted rush of delivering the perfect put-down. The woman who had once been Queen C of Sunnydale High furrowed her brow, wishing she'd been able to possess this kind of perspective all those years ago, considering all the sunsets she'd missed, and full of wonder that something so simple could be so complicated.

The sun rose and set every day. Expected, taken for granted, unappreciated. Yet contained within that single occurrence lay the entire existence of the Earth. Overworld and underworld alike were ruled by the sunlight. Death happened everyday too, especially in their line of work, and whilst private worlds could be rocked by it, the flow of life continued unstemmed with the next sunrise.

Cordelia shrugged to herself. Death. No biggie. Not cosmically.

Yeah, right.

Tell that to the crawling fear which kept grabbing at her gut making her want to wretch, snatching at her vocal chords making her want to scream, snagging at her muscles making her want to sink to the floor and huddle there until it ceased. She was past throwing up, past screaming, past hoping against hope that the cause of the fear would evaporate if she willed hard enough. Her fight was gone but the fear remained nevertheless.

No biggie.

Tell that to Wesley who had spent the best part of the day desperately ransacking every text he could get his hands on. Every book, every scroll, that might possibly tell of a human seer who had survived their burdensome gift. In the end his fevered research had only uncovered confirmation of that which she had seen in her mind-splitting vision. The last human seer's final vision had been literally mind-splitting. As had the human seer's before that. There had been no others. She was the third in recorded history. Cordelia wasn't about to lend much weight to the old adage, `third time lucky'.

No biggie.

Tell that to Angel, who had been around death, caused death, hell, *been* dead for a quarter of a millenium. Angel knew better than anyone that death was pretty much as big as deals got. It had been three hours since she'd run from the hotel, run from his questioning eyes. He'd have the answers by now, and Cordelia would put the little money she had on betting his response, unlike Wesley's, hadn't been an offer to make a pot of strong tea.

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She had her back to him, lent over the railings gazing out at the gently swelling Pacific Ocean, the final burnished rays of the day gently brushed their long fingers over the lines of her body, lending her the glowing appearance of an otherworldly being. He drank in the scene, shifting uneasily from foot to foot, trying to delay the moment when he would have to step forward and shatter her serenity. One more thing for him to take from her. One more part of her for him to destroy. He was on the verge of moving towards her and placing a cold hand on her shoulder when she spoke, the sound surprising him back into stillness.

"I know you're there, you know. I can feel the huge cloud of angst unsettling the atmosphere. Like before a thunderstorm."

Normally, such a Cordelia-ism would have made him smile, now it just felt like a knife being twisted in his chest, and yes, he had first hand knowledge of that sensation. He moved next to her, instinctively taking up a pose to mirror hers. Elbows on rail, hands clasped together, eyes on the horizon. His mind hurt from the crowds of thoughts and half-thoughts, feelings and fears. There was so much to say, so much to express, so much to work through... how the hell did you start conversations like this?

"Hey." Great opening there, Angel.

"Hey."

Silence settled between them. He cleared his throat to break it.

"Um, Wes told me..." the rest of the sentence got stuck in his throat. He knew the words. That you're going to die. Soon. All because of me and my stupid mission. The news coming from Wesley's mouth had been unbelievable, refutable, plain wrong. From his own it seemed desperately, horribly real.

She saved him, cutting in, "Yeah. I didn't want you to have to go through this."

A tiny pause.

"Is it still standing?"

"What?"

Three years still wasn't enough time to learn to follow the meanders that passed for Cordy-logic. God, he wanted more time.

"The hotel. Is it still standing after the battering I presume you gave it?"

She indicated towards the gashes and bruises on his knuckles, turning her face to meet his for the first time since she'd spoken. That face. Her face. Rendering all the wind out of him.

He gasped hoarsely, "Just about.... Cordy, I..."

A swiftly raised hand shushed him. "Don't! Please don't! I already know everything you're going to say." She started to reel off her mental list, "How sorry you are, how it's all your fault, how it doesn't have to be this way, how you're not going to let me die, that you'll find a way to get rid of the visions, or discover some hokey spell to make me stronger."

Cordelia paused for breath before fixing the vampire straight in the eye. "I know it all, Angel. I've had this conversation with you in my head a hundred times over. I was hoping I'd get to avoid the actual version, so just... don't... say... any of it."

It was more than he could stand. The hazel eyes defying him to challenge their fate. Desperate rage welled up inside his soul once more.

"What do you expect me to do, Cor? Shrug my shoulders and say `Oh well, there goes another seer. Has anyone seen this weekend's listings guide?'!"

Shouting at her wasn't the most productive approach, he knew. It was, however, the only course of action he seemed to have at his disposal right then. She shrank a little from his scathing tone, but there was too much pent-up anger, grief and frustration for him to be able to moderate his outburst now.

"You didn't want me to find out? You thought, what?! That I wouldn't care?! That I didn't deserve to know?! I know I hurt you, Cor, but I thought we were over that. Things have never been like this before."

He gestured from himself to her, "You and me, Cordelia, I thought... I thought we were closer than ever. And you didn't think I needed to know that the visions you get *for me* are going to kill you?!"

She burst in, her voice rising, matching the emotion in his, "Yeah, because what you really need is yet one more thing to feel guilty about, one more reason to lock yourself away from the world and brood, one more victim to add to the list! Buffy, Drusilla, Darla - there's a role call of `Females Angel Flagellates Himself Over' I *really* want to join! What's happening to me *is not your fault*, okay? When I'm gone sit in a darkened room and enjoy wallowing in the self-pity and self-blame all you want, but don't you *dare* start while there's still breath left in this body!"

She pressed her hand against her quickly rising and falling chest in time with her last few words for emphasis. He watched her with uncomprehending eyes.

When he replied the fury in his voice had dropped to a pained halter, "How can I not?"

She only threw him a frustrated pleading glance. Her anger had dissipated along with his, but her full lips still trembled with emotion and her large eyes glistened with moisture. How could he let something so beautiful slip away without a fight?

"It *is* my fault. You saying it isn't doesn't make it so, we both know that. No me. No mission. No visions. No pain. No death. I caused this, Cordelia, why didn't you want to give me the chance to make it better? I'll find a new way to the Powers. The Oracles folded time once, there must be some other entity with that kind of power who can stop the visions. Their deal is with me. You, and Doyle, should never have been brought into it."

He half-expected her to dissolve into tears, thanking him. The resignation suddenly replaced by hope. Instead she grimaced as if biting back anger and tore her gaze away from him back out onto the now dark ocean.

"Always you."

The words would have been matter-of-fact but she couldn't prevent the note of bitterness from creeping in.

"I see why you and Buffy thought you had the soulmate thing. You're just the same. It's always about you. As if everyone else are just minor players caught up in the grand drama that is The Saga of You."

"No, Cor! I may have acted like that sometimes, but truly, I get that it's not about me anymore..."

"No you don't. You don't get it at all. You never have, or else you wouldn't be all `oh woe is me, poor Doyle, poor Cordy, poor Wes. Look how badly their lives turned out because of me'. It's bull Angel! Do you know why things have happened to us the way they have? It's not because we're just some hapless fools who happened to accidentally get caught up in Slipstream Angel! It's because we *chose*. We *chose* to be here. And although I bet none of us could pinpoint the moment, the second, in which that decision got made, there just came a time when we realized we'd already made it. That it wasn't necessity keeping us here anymore, there was simply no where else we wanted to be. *I* chose this, Angel. You didn't force it upon me, I chose. And it's not *your* mission. It never was. It's *ours*. You, me, Wes, Gunn, Fred - this is what we've chosen. *Chosen*. Knowing the consequences, knowing not all of us would see it through, not even sure if there was a `through' to see.
*That* is the deal, Angel. It's about time you realised it."

He hardly waited for her to finish before shooting back, "You didn't choose anything, Cordy. You got stuck with the visions, and got stuck with me. You can't tell me this is what you wanted from life. I've been there for the auditions, the casting calls, the hundred plus attempts you've made to get yourself a something different. Better. The life you should have had. Why are you pretending anything different now? To make it easier for me? Because let me tell you, there is *nothing*, *nothing* you can say that will do that."

He suddenly felt the lapels of his leather jacket tugged harshly, pulling him towards her, then released just as quickly as her fists balled up to pound on his chest.

"God, you're so dense! You're a big, stupid, dense lug of a vampire!"

"Cordy!"

He grabbed her wrists gently, preventing a further physical onslaught, and peered into her conflicted face confused, uncomfortably aware that his bemused expression was probably only reinforcing her assessment.

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It was then that the tears started to fall. Hot and fast, they edged over her cheekbones before careering down the hollows of her cheeks and plummeting into the soft wool of his sweater. Angel, at a loss for anything else, did what he'd been wanting to do from the start, wrapping her in his arms and holding her, pressing her, tight against him. Cordelia allowed him, her frustrated anger dissipating into wracking sobs. Her mask of distant strength crumbling into clutching, grasping need. Need to be close, need to touch and to be touched. Need to lose herself in the familiar sense of perversity that washed over her every time she realized it took a dead thing to make her feel truly alive.

Angel guided them both towards the nearest bench a few yards down the ocean front, Cordelia clinging round his neck. Each warm gasp of her breath gently falling on his cold skin wounding him in ways her pummeling fists never could.

Entangled, they sank down on to the bench, Angel's chest absorbing Cordelia's sobs. His cool lips brushed against her hair as he waited for her distress to abate wondering why, out of all the factors arrayed around the young girl in this arms, it was his apparent stupidity that had compelled her to flooding tears.

After a minute, which Angel had tried his best to will to an eternity, her wracked gasps slowed. Cordelia began to regain her composure and attempt to control her breathing. Wiping at her damp eyes with her hands, she shifted out from the embrace. The cool night air rushed to fill the space she had occupied and Angel shivered involuntarily at the temperature change next to his skin.

The moment hung between them, broken only by her quiet sniffs. Angel wanted to reach out, touch her, bring her close again, but her altered demeanor cautioned him against it. When she finally brought her eyes to meet his, her strength held steady once more. She had become proud, brave, dignified, untouchable Cordelia again.

As she faced him under now darkened skies of her native California, he wondered dimly how it was that she had always been here. At times like this she didn't seem the modern, glossy, all-American girl he knew she was. Angel had been lucky enough in recent years to view her in the sun. He knew how in the sun she sparkled; light and dazzling, all suntan and toothpaste smiles. Under the sun she was the Cordelia Chase the world saw, used, caved into, wanted and discarded at will.

In the moonlight however, the cool rays through which his usual existence was filtered, she was something else entirely. The silver light painted her skin pale, accentuated her darkened eyes and not her flashing smile. At night she no longer sparkled but shone with a quiet luminescence; ancient and otherwordly.

Both Cordelias drew the vampire. One pulled him towards the heady warmth of her humanity, her laughter, her pulsating life force and instilled within him a desire to allow himself to be burned up in its heat. The other bewitched him with the tantalizing promise of hidden wisdoms, of a power beyond and outside them both, whispered of nobility and love, of courage and endurance, and gave him a glimpse of the eternity within and without himself; leaving him yearning to be immersed in the gleaming silver pools of metallic moonlight. All this encased in the fragile frame of the young girl, who moments previously had been sobbing brokenly in his arms.

Waiting for her to speak, with breath as bated as it was unnecessary, she bewitched him now.

"Maybe... maybe it did choose us too. No, no `maybe'. It did. I know it did. Sometimes I know things without knowing how I know. And I know Buffy's not the only Chosen One. The Powers chose you too, and I guess they chose me. But the decision was mutual. I still chose them too. And I choose them again every day. Don't you see?"

She looked up at him in supplication.

"The auditions, the reason why every so often I make another pathetic attempt at an acting career - it's not about trying to find an escape route. It's just the opposite. I wanted there to be something else I could do, something else I could be good at so that I was still choosing. So that I'd know, so that you'd know, I *could* be somewhere else and yet wasn't. Because. I. Chose."

Her last words separated with her emphasis. An emphasis, Angel realised with a inward smile, which was for the big, stupid, dense lug of a vampire's benefit. The smile worked its way slowly to his lips before resting a little short of his eyes. The gesture was enough to enable Cordelia to tell he had finally got a clue and she rewarded him with a smile of her own and a rueful chuckle.

"That's what that last disastrous commercial shoot was about," she paused, the smile falling as the reminiscence deepened, "The visions were getting worse and we'd only just made up. I needed to prove my choice again. It didn't quite work out."

She managed a half-grin, attempting to counter the dismay that had repossessed Angel's face at the mention of the visions. His eyes fell from hers as the habitual weight of guilt resettled upon his shoulders. Cordelia reached out, her fingers catching his chin, tilting his face back level with hers.

"But then there was Pylea, and I *did* choose again. Chose this. So none of this is your fault, Angel. It's nobody's fault. It's just the road the choices *I* made have led to. Do you understand? It's important to me that you understand. If you don't understand I'm really in trouble, because I'm not sure there's another soul in the world who will."

He looked into her beautiful moon-darkened eyes, silently pleading, wordlessly asking him to grant her this little sliver of peace and Angel found himself sliding into the mercury moonlight with a tiny nod.

She held him there with her gaze for the longest time, before breathing only a gentle, "Good."

The spell broke and Angel felt himself quickly resurfacing. Scattered senses regathering their bearings. Bench, ocean, night, LA, twenty-first century. Her hand dropped from his chin and she gathered her coat around her against the cool night.

Standing, she shot one final look at the liquid moon reflected in the ocean, then turned sharply and offered her hand, "Let's get back. I want to check on Wesley."

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