Part 5
Part 6
"Oh no, oh God..." Cordy rushed over to the open window, peering over the sill. The curtains were blowing merrily in the breeze, and she squinted at the grass below, leaning over as far as she could without flying out herself... God, he didn't have vampire strength any more, and leaping out of windows probably wasn't an activity conducive to a long and healthy life. She searched the ground, all the time trying to remain calm, and not envisage a crumpled, crushed man lying on the grass two storeys below her vantage point. There didn't seem to be... but it was quite a drop. Shit, shit, shit.
She pushed herself away from the window, and looked frantically around the room, wondering if this was some kind of sick joke, and he was hiding, waiting to jump out and yell 'Got ya!' Wishful thinking, Chase, wishful thinking. "Liam? Liam, this isn't funny..." There was just a small part of her, telling her to keep looking - and that if she did, he'd magically appear. Having slammed open the closet a fourth time, and gazed out the open window yet again, she had to accept it. Liam was gone. In the middle of the night, into a town full of blood sucking fiends, most of whom would be more than thrilled to draw the life out of the now living Angelus. Crap.
"Wesley! Giles!" she shouted, anxiety tinging her voice, still peering out of the window. Every time she looked at one of the shrubs a way beneath her, she thought she might be faced with the sickening image of the mangled body of the man formerly known as Angel. Feeling the tears start to well up, she turned around and sat on the sill, head in her hands, waiting for the men to arrive. With every second that passed, she became more and more miserable, and more convinced that he was dead.
"Cordelia! Cordelia, what's wrong, are you..." Giles stopped as he saw the girl crumpled up sitting on the window sill, her shoulders shaking with the harsh, silent sobs that were wracking her body. He could hear Wesley rushing up the stairs just behind him. Dropping the crossbow that he had somehow grabbed in the panic caused by her tone of voice, he walked over to the window, crouched down in front of her, and gathered the crying girl into his arms. She gladly leaned forward into his embrace, clinging on to him as tightly as she could as they knelt on the carpet, Giles supporting her slight weight.
"Oh, god, Giles, it's all... all my fault! If I hadn't brought him here, and... and if I hadn't put him through... all of this, if I weren't so selfish..." she said, trying desperately to talk through her tears, which were soaking his collar, leaving black streaks.
"Shh, Cordelia, it's alright..." he murmured as he rubbed her back, wanting desperately to soothe her, to stop her awful crying; he wasn't sure if he could stand the agony of having this ordinarily plucky, courageous young woman sobbing her heart out in his arms, and clinging to him for dear life. This wasn't the Cordelia he knew; this broken creature had been through so much, and this most recent run of events had all but destroyed her. After a few minutes, her breathing started to get a little more steady, but she continued to tightly hold onto him, her arms wrapped around him, her fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt. After what seemed to him like hours, her sobbing stopped, and her grip loosened somewhat. He realised that she'd fallen into a deep sleep, no doubt the consequence of all the days and nights she'd spent reading his ancient, confusing texts, and constantly worrying. When Giles really thought about it, he couldn't remember the last time Cordelia had actually had any rest at all.
Drawing her motionless body closer to his, he stood up, scooping her up into his arms, and moved to carry her out of the room. Wesley had been standing quietly at the door throughout the entire exchange. He had no idea what to do or say -- it was very rare for Cordy to cry, let alone weep openly on the shoulder of one of her colleagues. So, he had just stood and watched, and tried to work out what happened. It didn't take a Watcher's training to figure that out - the open window, along with the absence of Liam, was fairly self explanatory. As Giles walked past Wesley, the younger man found himself feeling very much as he had when he had first come to Sunnydale: wet behind the ears, an outsider.
"I... I, I, uh, Mr Giles, I..." Giles rolled his eyes.
"Dear lord, man, don't just stand there catching flies," Wesley snapped his mouth shut, "get Buffy and the others, and start looking for him! I had thought you had grown out of being a blithering idiot, but perhaps..." Giles half smiled as Wesley glared at him, then marched off down the stairs. Giles continued up the hall to his own bedroom, and gently set Cordelia on the bed, pulling the comforter over her. Finding the book he had been looking through for prophecies that could possibly relate to Angel's premature shanshu and succeeding amnesia, he settled in the chair next to the bed, watching over her as she slept. Every time she tossed, turned, murmured or whimpered, he became increasingly determined to find a solution. For to help Angel, however little Giles liked him, was to help Cordelia and to ease her suffering. He continued his researching into the wee hours of the morning, before finally succumbing to the fatigue that had been settling upon him, and falling into a light sleep.
It was like piecing together a broken vase. Here and there, shards of glass sparkled in the sunlight, before reverting to being crystalline and invisable, making it impossible for him to see them, and start to reassemble them. And every time he did pick up one of these shards, and tried to put it in the right place, it cut him, and he was forced to drop it again.
((Close your eyes))
Liam had been lying to them all along. It made him feel bad, but if he told them what he remembered, it would give them false hope. For what did he truly recall? Other than small sentences, fragments of events, remnants of the man he used to be, faintly sparkling in the light, teasing him, taunting him? He wanted to put them together, he truly did - he felt like only part of a person, having all these disconnected memories, and being incapable of fixing them together to form a whole. But he still wanted to be himself.
((If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow))
He'd been strangely drawn to the hill on which he now sat, overlooking the town. He guessed that it was a place he'd come to a lot in what now seemed like a previous life. He wasn't sure why he had followed the impulse - maybe because something inside him really did want to come to the surface, some small part of 'Angel' which remained within him.
((It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man))
All he knew was that he hated himself. Hated what he'd been, hated what he'd become, hated that he caused everyone around him so much pain. Cordelia. To see the look on her face each time she was faced with the disappointment that the latest memory jog hadn't worked, that her Angel wasn't back with her, and yet he felt glad, glad that he was still Liam and that he was still there. He didn't want to leave them. He'd grown very fond of this century, and the people in it, particularly Cordy.
((She'll provide a connection to the world. She's got a very ... humanizing influence))
He hated how they all treated him as a problem, something that needed be erased. They didn't mean to, he knew - they were just thinking of Angel, wanting their friend back - but it was how Liam felt. He didn't truly understand why they couldn't just accept that he was here, and he intended to stay. "Because I'm no angel," he said to himself.
((The three of us are all that's standing between you and real darkness))
No doubt, they would come looking for him. More than likely, they would find him. Liam knew he was putting himself in danger being here, but after the effort he'd gone to, he wanted to sit by himself and reflect in the calmness and quiet. He realised now how stupid scaling down the trellis, then jumping to the ground, had been. How was he supposed to have known that there was a rosebed just beneath the window? It had broken his fall, but he'd be feeling it for days.
((And somehow, I just can't seem to care))
And so he was going to sit, as these memories bombarded his consciousness, unwanted, unwelcome, invading him, tormenting him. He saw faces. He saw terror. He felt pain. Most importantly, he felt complete, absolute despair. And yet he couldn't place the emotions, didn't know what caused him to feel as he did. He was forced to endure, not knowing what the missing link in the chain was, not sure that he even wanted to know.
((You're a monster))
"Giles... wake up... Giles?" He slowly opened his eyes, trying to blink away the bleariness that shrouded the room. Clearing his throat, he reached up and straightened his glasses, before trying to work out where the voice was coming from, and to whom it belonged.
"Cor... Cordelia," he said, as he thought back to the events of the previous night.
"It's late... well, actually, early - I thought I should wake you, otherwise, y'know..."
"Are you... how are you?" The girl sitting in front of him on the edge of the bed smiled a weary smile. "That was a rather foolish question, wasn't it?"
"No... I... I feel better. Sure, I still feel as if my insides are in a vice, but I'm not too exhausted any more."
"Good. That's... I sent Wesley, Buffy and the rest of her entourage to scour the town and find Liam. Cordelia, I'm sure he'll be..." Cordy rolled her eyes.
"Oh please, don't even try that. I'm not stupid, you know. Not only did I live in this hell hole for eighteen years, but I've been living in Los Angeles for the last two, so you can't try to kid me with that stuff. I'm not a child, Giles. I don't need to be coddled. And also, when you're uncomfortable, you take off your glasses and make a show of cleaning them. Kind of gives you away when you're lying." Giles stopped what he was doing, stared at her for a second, then put the glasses back on. "Hey, don't look so shocked! I notice things... Fine, Wesley does it, too." Giles made a mental note never to do it again.
"I... I don't know what to say. Cordelia, I really do think that Liam will be..." he stopped as she raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure Buffy and Wesley will do their best." He glanced at his watch. "Well, I suppose it's never too late for breakfast. Would you...?"
"That would be lovely," she said, genuinely smiling for the first time in what seemed to Giles like eternity. He smiled back, then prised himself away from the comfort of the chair, walking towards the door. "Giles, wait," she said. He stopped and turned around, an expectant but bemused expression on his face as Cordelia walked towards him. "Thank you," she whispered as she stood just in front of him. Bemused was too mild a description, Giles decided. Utterly dumb-founded and astonished better conveyed his feelings as Cordelia pressed her lips against his.
To be continued.... Author's note: PLEASE don't be put off by that last bit! I swear, this is a CA story. And anyone who's read my work before should know that nothing is what it seems.... :D