Chapter 4

"Here," Cordelia handed him a box of tissues with a mischievous grin, "In case you feel like doing your `peeling onions' impression again."

He thanked her dryly. They had moved out into the garden. The ostensible reason had been their joint desire to get away from the chaos of the destroyed lobby. Angel had other motives he hadn't voiced. First and foremost, he wanted the chance to view Cordelia in the moonlight again. Secondly, he wanted to save her further upset by letting the shadows hide any tears of his yet to fall.

She settled down next to him cupping a new (chipped) mug of coffee in both hands. She had changed into a warm sweater she'd found behind the counter, and the way she'd pulled the sleeves down over her wrists made her look younger and more vulnerable than ever.

"Funny."

He wasn't sure he had heard her correctly. That certainly wasn't a word he'd use to describe much right then.

"What? Funny?"

"Yeah. Funny. I've known you forever and I never knew you could cry. Proper tears and everything. It's funny."

"You haven't known me forever, Cor."

They spoke in hushed tones. A natural adherence to the laws of the night.

"Sometimes it feels like it. Or maybe I just like pretending I have. Sometimes it feels like I've known you five minutes. I suppose it feels like that to you all the time, what with having a couple of centuries under your belt and all."

He smiled at her, his dark eyes warm and soft. The safest place she'd ever known, thought Cordelia.

"No, it doesn't. Some years pass like minutes, some like centuries. These last few years? Best three hundred of my life," he managed a genuine grin and was rewarded with one in return.

"Yeah, apart from all the demon fighting, evil lawyer scheming, exploding apartments, resurrected exes, hell dimensions and pretty much nearly being killed on a regular basis, it's been a damn fine run," she returned.

He studied her closely, "You make it sound like it's already over."

A trademark half-smile, a raised brow, an averted gaze. Words so quiet they were hardly audible, "For me it almost is."

He shut his eyes tight as a roughed wave of grief washed over his soul, grazing it raw, "Don't say that. Don't ever say that."

"It's the truth. It might not be the next vision, or even the one after that, or maybe I'll get really lucky and have three or four only mildly debilitating visions before the one that kills me, but it's going to be soon. I can feel it."

"Maybe some people aren't ready to accept that truth."

"Maybe they'd better."

"Maybe it would kill them, too."

"Now you're being melodramatic."

"First, not melodramatic. Second, do you really imagine I could keep doing this without you?"

"That's what you thought about the B-... about Buffy, but you went on. You were okay. I'm guessing it's more likely I'll *stay* dead but you'll cope. You're strong, Angel, and it's not as if all those hopeless are going to stop needing help because I'm not around. You'll go on, and one day the pain won't be as bad and the next it'll be even less, until the day comes when you're happy again without realizing it. Only not too happy. Because that isn't a good look on you. I mean, sure the wardrobe improves, but the insides? Ugly." she finished, punctuating the last word with a wrinkle of her nose.

How could she do this? Make him want to laugh and cry all at once. God, he was going to miss her. No, no missing. Not yet. Not whilst she was warm and alive and huddled into his shoulder. It was then he remembered.

"Cordy?" the slightest bit of suspicion had crept into his tone. She tensed a little in anticipation.

He continued, "You said I could give you the power to stand the visions..."

"I thought we'd already covered what a great idea *that* would be," she interrupted.

He carried on, ignoring her, more certain by the second he'd missed something important, "*Or* I could take them away." She noticeably shrank and moved away, still clutching at her coffee mug. "The first one isn't an option, you're right. So maybe you could explain option two to me? Because I'm thinking it sounds like a winner."

Ohgodohgodohgod. As if things weren't complicated enough already. Cordelia bit her lip nervously, "I've told you before, Angel. I can't lose the visions."

"You can't lose the visions but you can lose your life? Cordy, that's madness!"

"It's a little quirky perhaps, but it's not madness."

"Quirky?" Angel spluttered, not believing his ears.

"Without the visions I don't have a life. Not the one I want. I'd rather be dead."

"Of course you'd have a life, the same life, just without the pain and the headaches and the falling into the furniture! Or are you going to tell me you enjoy that now?!" Angel's total confusion was tipping over into frustrated anger.

"No, I wouldn't!" she sat rigid now, eyes fixed on the darkness ahead, not on him, "If I didn't have the visions I wouldn't be here - with you and Wes - fighting the good fight."

"And I told you before, the visions aren't why you're important. Do you think I'd need you any less? Do you think I'd stop caring without the link, or that Wes would?"

"Yes and no, respectively. And that's why I wouldn't be able to stay."

He could only look at her in exasperation.

"I'm not explaining this well," she turned back to face the vampire, crossing her legs over the top of the bench, "You do the most amazing things for me. Things that I never dreamed I could ever expect anyone to do. How many other girls can say they've had men jump into hell dimensions to save them, not once but twice? And I'm so grateful, Angel, and I love you so much for it. But it's such a huge risk. Look what happened with Billy. Innocent people got hurt, Wes and Fred got hurt. Having the visions, being the link, means that when you do things like that I can justify it, because the visions help us help others. Without them, you'd just be doing it for me, and who has the right to say Cordelia Chase is more important than anybody else? Not me. Not you."

Angel's irritation had expired. Instead he could only look at her in awed reverence. When did she become so selfless, so noble? Had it always been there, it just took the most awful of challenges for it to be revealed? He didn't have any answers and it struck him that he really should. If only he'd realized everything she was so much earlier. If only it wasn't so close to the end that he'd finally realized she was everything that mattered.

"Cordy, you do know - when I did those things - I wasn't thinking about the damn link, I was only thinking about you," he half-growled, low and intense.

Her gaze melted. This was what it was to be loved. Loved with all the strength and ferocity of a demon filtered through the unswerving constancy and gentle sweetness of a good man. Who wouldn't exchange short life for this? It was more than most people found in three score years and ten. In Wes and Angel she had two people (count `em, *two*) who cared more for her than for themselves; and that, decided Cordelia, was... substance.

She took his hand gently in hers.

"I know," she breathed, struggling to keep back her emotions, "But that's what makes it impossible to be stay here if the visions are gone. I'm an easy enough target for your enemies as it is. While I have the visions I *have* to stay to get the messages to you, without them I'd just be even more of a liability. Cordelia Chase, Kidnap Central! All the evil dudes would be telling each other in bars, `You want to get the Do-Gooder Blood-Sucker going? Get your mitts on that loudmouth brunette chick. Guy'll go crazy trying to get her back even though she's got no superpowers or is any aid to his cause. Keep him distracted for hours whilst we massacre a few innocents.' "

"That is the worst impersonation of an `evil dude' I've ever heard."

She pulled her hand from their clasp to swipe his shoulder, but returned it immediately.

"You do get my point though?"

"No."

"Yes, you do. You're just a stubborn dork who doesn't want to admit I'm right."

"No. It's not enough reason."

"So you think me not being able to live with myself knowing I was your Achilles heel isn't enough reason?"

He had to admit he hadn't thought of it quite that way.

"Wes, Gunn and Fred don't have superpowers either, and they don't see it as a problem. They just want to do what they can."

"Pfft! Wes is the `Fount of All Bookish Knowledge'! The Warrior for the Light would be fighting pretty much blindfold without him. And are you really telling me that without a second thought you would jump into a hell-dimension portal and rescue a psychotic criminal for Fred or Gunn?"

"Yes!... no... I don't know."

"I do. And you shouldn't feel guilty about that Angel. It's good that you have that distance, it enables you to see the bigger picture. I don't think you have that with me. And that... it means so much to me but... it's also a little scary."

Angel began to see where she was coming from. The closeness in which they took such strength also made them both vulnerable to exploitation. And if they were put at a disadvantage, then so were the people they were supposed to help.

"So you leave. It would hurt like hell but at least you'd still be alive."

"Haven't you been listening?" It was Cordelia's turn to be exasperated.

"I like having a purpose, having a place. I like belonging. I never belonged anywhere else. Not in my family, not in Sunnydale, not at those phony Hollywood schmoozing parties - though they can be kind of fun. Everything I love and need is here in this hotel, and I'm afraid that without it..." she trailed off, suddenly intent on the contents of her mug.

"Afraid that without it, what?"

"Afraid that without it... I might turn back."

She paused.

"I might turn back into what I was. If I left, I'd lose everything, I'd lose myself. I wouldn't belong again and I'd rather die then go back to that, Angel, I swear. I couldn't stay without the visions and I couldn't live if I went away. Catch 22. See? Take away the visions and I'm still damned."

"No. Nothing like Catch 22. Or damnation. You stay and we work on your guilt issues and my portal jumping tendencies. Simple."

She burst out laughing, the warm rich sound exploding the cool stillness of the air. It was infectious and Angel found himself smiling without really knowing why.

"Oh, that's good! *You* advising *me* about guilt issues! Wait `til I tell Wes and Gunn about that one!" she giggled.

Her shaking mirth subsided a little, amused expression slipping into one of tender affection. She ran a finger down the line of his jaw, the lightness of her touch making him shiver. The pools of silver moonlight stretched, gleaming, all around her again. Enticing him with their whispers of an aged and ageless eternity. Angel stared into her dark glistening eyes, noting the tiny shimmer of the spherical moon caught within them. Part of his mind tried to capture every detail of the way she looked at that moment. The purity of love emanating from her delicately drawn features, the expressive eyes, the full lips, the perfect imperfection of the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, dappling her skin like the craters of the moon. Another part of his mind flashed up other images of her from his mental library. The same aspect kept appearing in different instances. Cordelia sat on the stage of a disused theater, one arrow pointed at a former friend's throat, one at
her heart; Cordelia on the airport runway not long ago, ready to take a life if she had to because she felt responsible for the actions of others. In the images Cordelia stood strong, beautiful - crossbow in hand. It hit him like a thunderbolt. Diana. That's what he saw in this young girl. Hunter, Moon, the woman who could never be owned. Goddess.

"Retard," her lips muttered.

Maybe not.

Maybe she was just Cordelia. Best friend, fashion victim, Ph.D. in Angel Baiting.

Maybe she was both.

And he loved her.

"What would I have to do? To take the visions away?"

Instantly, she closed down. The warmth and intimacy in her demeanor went out like a light. The moonlight withdrew its gleaming silver fingers.

"You don't need to know. Because I'd never allow it."

"Cor..."

"Drop it, Angel. I mean it. I don't even know for sure that you could."

"If you tell me maybe I could help you with that."

"You really couldn't."

"You don't know that."

"I said `leave it', okay!"

"Dammit, Cordelia! Stop doing that! You can't tell me there's even the slightest hint of a possibility I won't lose you and then snatch it away again with no explanation. I need to know. If you explain and it's something too terrible then at least I'll be able to go on in the knowledge there was nothing else I could have done. If you don't tell me I'm always going to wonder and *I* couldn't live with that. So please, whatever it is, just *tell* me. What. Do I Have. To do?"

Okay, the man has a point. He deserves to know everything now you've come this far. So you never wanted to be here. Too late, girl. You've no other options left. Time to bare your soul. Oh crap, how to begin to explain? Best just blurt it out, Chase. You're good at that.

"Comshuk me."

"Excuse me?"

"Comshuk me, Angel!"

~~