Title: A Sunnydale Tale
Author: victoriamartynne
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Spoilers: None.
Summary: In 1998, Angel befriends Cordelia when the going gets tough.
She could hear muffled familiar voices.
"Is she..?"
"No, I can hear her heartbeat."
"She's been raped, God who would do such a thing?"
"We should get her to a hospital."
She struggled through her hazy mind to protest but nothing came out of her mouth.
Other voices blurred in her mind as well as the sound of sirens but darkness overcame her again.
"Cordelia, can you open your eyes?" A strange voice asked.
She groaned and tried to cover her eyes against the bright light but her hand seemed glued to the.mattress? Where was she?
Her eyes flickered open for a second and she saw a woman's face staring down at her sympathetically.
"You're back with us." She smiled.
"Where am I?" She asked groggily.
"Sunnydale General."
"General what?" She asked, not understanding.
The sympathy grew. "Hospital."
"Why am I in hospital?" She asked and then her memory answered the question for her.
"Oh my God. I remember." Her hand covered her mouth to cover her scream.
"You're doing fine and all you need to do is rest, your friends are outside if you want to see them." The woman, who from further inspection was a nurse, smiled and ticked something off on her chart.
"My friends?"
"I'll send them in for you." She said brightly before Cordelia said anything.
Images flashed through her mind, Greg on top of her forcing himself in her, the pain of her insides being torn and stretched.
She felt tears slip down her face. She'd been used, she was a whore.
"Cordy?" Buffy said gently, startling her from her thoughts.
She jumped and then brushed the tears away angrily.
"What are you doing here?" To her own ears, her voice was weak and pathetic.
"We found you, Angel and I." Buffy replied.
It was then that she saw the vampire standing a little further behind her slayer, who had advanced into the room.
"I guess I should thank you for saving my life." Cordelia told her bitterly. "Instead of leaving me to die in the alleyway."
Buffy edged forwards and sat on the edge of the bed. "Don't say it like that."
"How many other ways are there to say it?" She snapped. "You should have left me to die."
"You're a survivor Cordelia." Angel told her from the doorway. "You could have given in and let that man beat you down until you died but you didn't. You fought for your life and you won."
Cordelia wrapped her arms around her body tightly.
"Are you in any pain?" Buffy asked quietly.
She shook her head. "No."
"Can I get you anything?"
She shook her head and brushed away tears again.
"Are your parents at home?"
She shook her head again. "No, they're out of town somewhere."
"Your doctor said you shouldn't be alone right now. You could come stop in our spare room. I'm sure my mom won't mind." She told her sincerely.
"I couldn't do that."
"Why not? At least you won't be alone. Besides, my mom likes someone sick to look after."
"I'm not sick, and I couldn't."
"If you want you can come stop at the mansion." Angel offered. "You'll be alone, I sleep most of the day but if you need me at night I'll be awake."
"That could be a good idea." Buffy agreed. "I could come check on you after school."
"You don't have to pretend to like me just because of what happened." Cordelia told her, her eyes bright with tears.
"Who says I'm pretending?" Buffy asked but even to her ears it sounded a bit false, their past was hardly friendly.
"We're hardly friends." Cordelia whispered, her bruised face casting weird shapes across her skin.
"Maybe we could be." Buffy said simply and stood up. "We should leave you to rest."
Flashes of Greg on top of her flew behind her eyes. "Please don't leave."
Buffy turned back around to the bed and the sound of the pleading in Cordelia's voice. "If you want us to."
Looking scared and alone she nodded.
Buffy nodded at Angel and they sat down in chairs near her bed.
She eventually drifted into an uneasy sleep. Nightmares of the rape swirled around in her head until she shot up in bed gasping for breath between body ripping sobs.
Angel jumped up from his chair to comfort her awkwardly.
"Don't touch me!" She screamed as his hand touched her arm. She looked up into his face and saw that it was him and not Greg. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." He murmured and put his arm around her shaking shoulders. "It's only me."
"I thought. I don't know what I thought. Where's Buffy?" She looked around the room wildly.
"She went home a couple of hours ago. She said she'd come back in the morning."
"I don't want to be here in the morning." She whimpered. "I want to go home."
"You should stay here where someone can look after you."
She shook her head. "I need to get out of here."
She swung her legs off the bed before her could stop her. "I can't stand their looks, like I'm sick." She stood up on shaky legs. "But I'm not sick, I just. I just. I just." Her legs gave way and she fell to the floor, her face in her hand. "I just need it to have never happened."
She broke down in sobs again and he climbed off the bed to put his hand on her shoulder. "If you're sure I can take you home."
She nodded and looked up into his face. "I'm sure."
He lifted her up so she was perched on the bed and took his coat off to wrap around her shoulders.
"Where are my clothes?"
"They're. The police have them." He told her.
She didn't ask any questions she just put his coat on over the hospital gown and let him help her to her feet.
He took her to the nurses' station outside and demanded that she be discharged. The nurse in charge spent ten minutes telling Cordelia she was disobeying doctor's orders but they eventually left.
He got her shivering form into his car and turned the heat on full in an attempt to stop her shaking. She closed her eyes to fight of waves of nausea that were fighting inside her body at the closeness of Angel, a man and also the dizziness she felt in her head at having walked outside for the first time since it had happened.
She closed her eyes for a moment to fight of the feeling and then opened them. She sat up sharply in her seat. "Where are we going?"
He looked across at her. "To the mansion."
Panic rose up in her chest. "I don't want to go home with you! You're just the same! Let me out!"
He was utterly baffled. "What?"
He slowed the car but she was already clawing at the door handle.
"Cordelia!" He warned.
She wretched the door pen and it was only by using his vampire speed that he kept her from falling out of the car.
"Have you done trying to get yourself killed?" He asked, none too gently. "'Cause that's where you're headed if you try opening the door while the car is moving."
She was trembling under his touch and her eyes were lowered.
"Look." He pointed out gently. "I only want to help. The doctor says you can't stop at home alone so you can come stay with me. I have a spare room and I won't bother you except for if you need me and ask me to, okay?"
Slowly she nodded. "Okay." She whispered, subdued but not relaxed.
"Okay." He agreed and took his arm from hers to shut her door. "I'm taking you to my place now."
She nodded and looked out of the window at her surroundings. She'd seen them practically everyday of her life but all of a sudden everything was more unfamiliar.
Shadows appeared where there shouldn't be any. Darkness was closing in on her, waiting until she was alone before it could claim her. She could feel it.
Angel opened the front door and stood back so she could enter. She walked in slowly.
Gradually, with the help of the car's heater she had stopped shivering but he knew a shower and a change of clothes would do her good.
He waited while she had stepped away from the door before shutting it and stepping around her.
"I'll show you to the bathroom so you can take a shower or a bath, it will warm you up."
He walked across the room, hearing her following him slowly. The smell of blood permeated the air and he knew it was coming from her.
"I'll get you a t-shirt or a sweater for you to sleep in; I'll get Buffy to go to your house tomorrow to get you some of your things." He told her and grabbed the clothes before showing her to the bathroom. "Cordelia. I. Are you okay?"
She nodded, accepting the shirt off him. "I'm fine."
"I don't want to freak you out any more than you already are but I'm a vampire, as you know. I have enhanced senses. I can smell blood." He hesitated to see if she would volunteer information, but she didn't. "Are you bleeding?"
She lowered her eyes and he could see a blush creeping up her neck.
"It's okay Cordelia, I'm not putting you on the spot or anything I just want to make sure you're okay." He told her gently.
"I am okay." She replied flatly. "Maybe I am bleeding, I don't know. I'm kinda numb at the moment."
She walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
"I'll be right out here if you need anything." He shouted through the door.
When there was no response he turned away from the door and went to the phone. He quickly dialled Buffy's phone number.
"Hello?" Joyce's groggy voice came on the line.
He winced. "Could I please speak to Buffy? I apologise for calling so late but it is important."
"Who's calling?"
"Uh. It's Xander." He hoped she wouldn't recognise his voice in her tired state.
"I'll wake her up for you Xander and please, try not to call here at three in the morning again." She said firmly.
He gulped. "Of course I won't Mrs Summers."
He didn't know it was that late.
"Xander?" Buffy asked into the phone.
"It's me." He said.
"Oh, hi, I thought my mom said."
"She did. I told her I was Xander; I didn't want to make her mad." He told her sheepishly.
"What's up? It's like three in the morning." She yawned.
"I brought Cordelia back to the mansion. She woke up screaming and she didn't want to stay at the hospital."
"Okay, is she okay?" She was now more awake.
"I guess, she's taking a shower at the moment. I was wondering if you could go round her house and get some of her things for her. A nightgown, toothbrush, that sort of thing."
"Sure, I can do that. I'll stop by in the morning before school."
"Great, I'll see you then."
Cordelia looked at her face in the mirror. If it wasn't for the bruises and scratches on her face then you wouldn't know anything had happened to her. If only that was true.
She brushed away tears again and blew her nose. She turned on the tap on the bath and let it fill with red hot water. She checked the door was closed before stripping and climbing into the too hot water. She winced as she sat down, her skin turning pink.
"It'll be okay Chase, it always is." She told herself.
Cordelia had been in the bathroom a long time. He was starting to get worried.
He knocked on the door gently. "Cordelia?"
There was no sound; he could only hear running water. He tried again. "Cordelia?"
Still no reply. "Cordelia, I'm worried so I'm going to open the door, don't panic, okay?"
He opened the door slowly, expecting to hear a scream or shout but there was nothing. He peered around the door and his cold blood ran colder still. He rushed to the bath.
"Cordelia?"
She was unconscious, blood seeping from deep cuts on her wrists. "Fuck Cordelia, what the hell have you done?"
He grabbed the shirt from the floor and started to shred it, wrapping pieces of it around the wounds to stop the blood flow. Trying them tightly he then lifted her out of the bath and took her into his bedroom. He placed her on the bed and wrapped her up in a thick blanket.
"Cordelia, wake up Goddamn it!" He growled and held her head up with one hand whilst rubbing her arms with the blanket to try and get her cold body warm. "You are not going to die!"
He lowered her head on a handy pillow and pressed his fingers to the wounds on her wrists. They looked deep enough but probably not deep enough to need stitches. If she would wake up then he could find out if he needed to take her back to the hospital.
"Cordelia, listen to me, you're not dead, and if I have anything to do with it you are not going to die." He told her, smoothing her wet hair from her forehead. "You are seventeen; your life is just starting."
He could hear a faint heartbeat, an indication that she was still alive. "Come on Cordy."
She didn't stir.
He thought for a couple of moments and then decided.
He unwrapped her from the towel and slipped one of his shirts on her and a pair of sweats that were on the top of his ironing pile. As he was dressing her he noticed that she was bleeding, he hadn't imagined it earlier.
He swung her into his arms and carried her to the car.
"I need some help!" He shouted as he carried her into the Emergency Room.
A nurse and an orderly ran across.
"Follow me." The orderly instructed and took them into a cubicle with a bed.
Angel placed her on the bed.
"What's the problem?" The nurse asked, eyeing the bandages.
"She was brought in at nine last night, she'd been raped. I took her home a couple of hours ago and she was in the bathroom and she slit her wrists." He told her, standing back as she examined the wounds and applied fresh swabbing.
"I'll get a doctor." The orderly told them and left.
"Will she be okay?" Angel asked.
"The wounds are pretty deep and it looks like she's lost a lot of blood." The nurse told him and started to apply a drip and an oxygen mask. "She's got a strong heartbeat but her breathing is laboured."
Angel hesitated. "I noticed while I dressed her, she's bleeding from. you know."
The nurse nodded. "I'll get the doctor to check it out. Now, I think you should wait outside."
He nodded and left to sit in the waiting room, it had been a long night, for him and the brunette who was fighting for her life.
Cordelia didn't regain consciousness for a week. Her parents were still away and nobody had been able to locate them to tell them about her condition.
Her wounds had required stitches after all and they were healing okay. The first night at the hospital she'd been given a blood transfusion to replace the blood she'd lost. The doctor who'd been seeing to Cordelia before she'd discharged herself had examined her again and had prescribed her antibiotics for a possible infection.
She woke up on a Saturday afternoon with a high fever.
She looked around the room and saw a bunch of flowers on the nightstand and a card with a bear on the front. She reached up with a shaky hand and took it down.
"To Cordelia," She read. "We hope you get well soon, love from Buffy, Angel, Xander, Willow, Oz and Giles."
She blinked back tears and put the card back next to the flowers. They had no card.
The room was the same one she'd had before; she recognised the ugly stain on the floor that could only be God knows what.
She picked at the bandages on her wrists until she was able to unravel them. She wound them from the wounds until she could see the ugly scars and stitches marring her perfect skin.
She threw the bandages onto the floor and turned her wrists over so she couldn't see the scars. If she pretended real hard maybe it would all have been a bad dream.
Once the nurses had realised that she was awake they had called Angel, the contact number they'd been given and he'd driven to see her.
He walked into the room and smiled at the incredibly pale and weak girl on the bed.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" He asked her and sat in the chair next to her bed.
"Sore, tired." She told him, her voice a whisper.
"That's understandable I guess."
"I want to go home." She told him, her eyes pleading with his.
"No chance." He told her firmly.
"Why not?"
"The last time I took you home against doctors orders you ended up slitting your wrists and nearly dying. I'm not taking the chance of you trying again and succeeding."
"But I won't!" She sounded like a child as tears rolled down her face. "I promise I won't but I need to get out of here, I hate it here!"
"I'm sorry Cordelia, but no." He told her.
They sat for a few minutes in silence but then he broke it. "Why do you hate it here?"
She turned her tearstained face to him. "When I fell through the stairs in the old factory I ended up here. And when I was four I fell into an empty swimming pool and cracked my skull and I ended up with a really mean nurse, I guess this place just creeps me out. I've spent some of the worst times of my life in here."
He nodded. "I once ended up in hospital, back when I was human."
"Why?"
"I got too drunk and fell down a flight of stairs, my dad was pretty mad." He admitted.
She smiled faintly.
"Can I get you anything?"
She shook her head. "Who brought he flowers?"
"I did."
She looked at him in surprise. "They're beautiful, thank you."
He smiled and took her hand in his gently. "They reminded me of you."
She looked at them. "You didn't have to do that."
"I wanted to."
"Well, thanks."
They sat awkwardly again for a few more minutes until he, once again, broke the silence.
"I came here every night you know." He blurted.
She turned to look him in the eye. "You did?"
He nodded.
"Why?"
"I don't really know, you were all alone and you looked so small. I wanted to be there for you in case you woke up; I guessed that no-one else would have bothered to come check on you." He told her gently. "I would like to be your friend."
She smiled faintly. "It's not like I've got many of them right now."
"If you'd like another I'd be honoured."
Author: victoriamartynne
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Spoilers: None.
Summary: In 1998, Angel befriends Cordelia when the going gets tough.
She could hear muffled familiar voices.
"Is she..?"
"No, I can hear her heartbeat."
"She's been raped, God who would do such a thing?"
"We should get her to a hospital."
She struggled through her hazy mind to protest but nothing came out of her mouth.
Other voices blurred in her mind as well as the sound of sirens but darkness overcame her again.
"Cordelia, can you open your eyes?" A strange voice asked.
She groaned and tried to cover her eyes against the bright light but her hand seemed glued to the.mattress? Where was she?
Her eyes flickered open for a second and she saw a woman's face staring down at her sympathetically.
"You're back with us." She smiled.
"Where am I?" She asked groggily.
"Sunnydale General."
"General what?" She asked, not understanding.
The sympathy grew. "Hospital."
"Why am I in hospital?" She asked and then her memory answered the question for her.
"Oh my God. I remember." Her hand covered her mouth to cover her scream.
"You're doing fine and all you need to do is rest, your friends are outside if you want to see them." The woman, who from further inspection was a nurse, smiled and ticked something off on her chart.
"My friends?"
"I'll send them in for you." She said brightly before Cordelia said anything.
Images flashed through her mind, Greg on top of her forcing himself in her, the pain of her insides being torn and stretched.
She felt tears slip down her face. She'd been used, she was a whore.
"Cordy?" Buffy said gently, startling her from her thoughts.
She jumped and then brushed the tears away angrily.
"What are you doing here?" To her own ears, her voice was weak and pathetic.
"We found you, Angel and I." Buffy replied.
It was then that she saw the vampire standing a little further behind her slayer, who had advanced into the room.
"I guess I should thank you for saving my life." Cordelia told her bitterly. "Instead of leaving me to die in the alleyway."
Buffy edged forwards and sat on the edge of the bed. "Don't say it like that."
"How many other ways are there to say it?" She snapped. "You should have left me to die."
"You're a survivor Cordelia." Angel told her from the doorway. "You could have given in and let that man beat you down until you died but you didn't. You fought for your life and you won."
Cordelia wrapped her arms around her body tightly.
"Are you in any pain?" Buffy asked quietly.
She shook her head. "No."
"Can I get you anything?"
She shook her head and brushed away tears again.
"Are your parents at home?"
She shook her head again. "No, they're out of town somewhere."
"Your doctor said you shouldn't be alone right now. You could come stop in our spare room. I'm sure my mom won't mind." She told her sincerely.
"I couldn't do that."
"Why not? At least you won't be alone. Besides, my mom likes someone sick to look after."
"I'm not sick, and I couldn't."
"If you want you can come stop at the mansion." Angel offered. "You'll be alone, I sleep most of the day but if you need me at night I'll be awake."
"That could be a good idea." Buffy agreed. "I could come check on you after school."
"You don't have to pretend to like me just because of what happened." Cordelia told her, her eyes bright with tears.
"Who says I'm pretending?" Buffy asked but even to her ears it sounded a bit false, their past was hardly friendly.
"We're hardly friends." Cordelia whispered, her bruised face casting weird shapes across her skin.
"Maybe we could be." Buffy said simply and stood up. "We should leave you to rest."
Flashes of Greg on top of her flew behind her eyes. "Please don't leave."
Buffy turned back around to the bed and the sound of the pleading in Cordelia's voice. "If you want us to."
Looking scared and alone she nodded.
Buffy nodded at Angel and they sat down in chairs near her bed.
She eventually drifted into an uneasy sleep. Nightmares of the rape swirled around in her head until she shot up in bed gasping for breath between body ripping sobs.
Angel jumped up from his chair to comfort her awkwardly.
"Don't touch me!" She screamed as his hand touched her arm. She looked up into his face and saw that it was him and not Greg. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." He murmured and put his arm around her shaking shoulders. "It's only me."
"I thought. I don't know what I thought. Where's Buffy?" She looked around the room wildly.
"She went home a couple of hours ago. She said she'd come back in the morning."
"I don't want to be here in the morning." She whimpered. "I want to go home."
"You should stay here where someone can look after you."
She shook her head. "I need to get out of here."
She swung her legs off the bed before her could stop her. "I can't stand their looks, like I'm sick." She stood up on shaky legs. "But I'm not sick, I just. I just. I just." Her legs gave way and she fell to the floor, her face in her hand. "I just need it to have never happened."
She broke down in sobs again and he climbed off the bed to put his hand on her shoulder. "If you're sure I can take you home."
She nodded and looked up into his face. "I'm sure."
He lifted her up so she was perched on the bed and took his coat off to wrap around her shoulders.
"Where are my clothes?"
"They're. The police have them." He told her.
She didn't ask any questions she just put his coat on over the hospital gown and let him help her to her feet.
He took her to the nurses' station outside and demanded that she be discharged. The nurse in charge spent ten minutes telling Cordelia she was disobeying doctor's orders but they eventually left.
He got her shivering form into his car and turned the heat on full in an attempt to stop her shaking. She closed her eyes to fight of waves of nausea that were fighting inside her body at the closeness of Angel, a man and also the dizziness she felt in her head at having walked outside for the first time since it had happened.
She closed her eyes for a moment to fight of the feeling and then opened them. She sat up sharply in her seat. "Where are we going?"
He looked across at her. "To the mansion."
Panic rose up in her chest. "I don't want to go home with you! You're just the same! Let me out!"
He was utterly baffled. "What?"
He slowed the car but she was already clawing at the door handle.
"Cordelia!" He warned.
She wretched the door pen and it was only by using his vampire speed that he kept her from falling out of the car.
"Have you done trying to get yourself killed?" He asked, none too gently. "'Cause that's where you're headed if you try opening the door while the car is moving."
She was trembling under his touch and her eyes were lowered.
"Look." He pointed out gently. "I only want to help. The doctor says you can't stop at home alone so you can come stay with me. I have a spare room and I won't bother you except for if you need me and ask me to, okay?"
Slowly she nodded. "Okay." She whispered, subdued but not relaxed.
"Okay." He agreed and took his arm from hers to shut her door. "I'm taking you to my place now."
She nodded and looked out of the window at her surroundings. She'd seen them practically everyday of her life but all of a sudden everything was more unfamiliar.
Shadows appeared where there shouldn't be any. Darkness was closing in on her, waiting until she was alone before it could claim her. She could feel it.
Angel opened the front door and stood back so she could enter. She walked in slowly.
Gradually, with the help of the car's heater she had stopped shivering but he knew a shower and a change of clothes would do her good.
He waited while she had stepped away from the door before shutting it and stepping around her.
"I'll show you to the bathroom so you can take a shower or a bath, it will warm you up."
He walked across the room, hearing her following him slowly. The smell of blood permeated the air and he knew it was coming from her.
"I'll get you a t-shirt or a sweater for you to sleep in; I'll get Buffy to go to your house tomorrow to get you some of your things." He told her and grabbed the clothes before showing her to the bathroom. "Cordelia. I. Are you okay?"
She nodded, accepting the shirt off him. "I'm fine."
"I don't want to freak you out any more than you already are but I'm a vampire, as you know. I have enhanced senses. I can smell blood." He hesitated to see if she would volunteer information, but she didn't. "Are you bleeding?"
She lowered her eyes and he could see a blush creeping up her neck.
"It's okay Cordelia, I'm not putting you on the spot or anything I just want to make sure you're okay." He told her gently.
"I am okay." She replied flatly. "Maybe I am bleeding, I don't know. I'm kinda numb at the moment."
She walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
"I'll be right out here if you need anything." He shouted through the door.
When there was no response he turned away from the door and went to the phone. He quickly dialled Buffy's phone number.
"Hello?" Joyce's groggy voice came on the line.
He winced. "Could I please speak to Buffy? I apologise for calling so late but it is important."
"Who's calling?"
"Uh. It's Xander." He hoped she wouldn't recognise his voice in her tired state.
"I'll wake her up for you Xander and please, try not to call here at three in the morning again." She said firmly.
He gulped. "Of course I won't Mrs Summers."
He didn't know it was that late.
"Xander?" Buffy asked into the phone.
"It's me." He said.
"Oh, hi, I thought my mom said."
"She did. I told her I was Xander; I didn't want to make her mad." He told her sheepishly.
"What's up? It's like three in the morning." She yawned.
"I brought Cordelia back to the mansion. She woke up screaming and she didn't want to stay at the hospital."
"Okay, is she okay?" She was now more awake.
"I guess, she's taking a shower at the moment. I was wondering if you could go round her house and get some of her things for her. A nightgown, toothbrush, that sort of thing."
"Sure, I can do that. I'll stop by in the morning before school."
"Great, I'll see you then."
Cordelia looked at her face in the mirror. If it wasn't for the bruises and scratches on her face then you wouldn't know anything had happened to her. If only that was true.
She brushed away tears again and blew her nose. She turned on the tap on the bath and let it fill with red hot water. She checked the door was closed before stripping and climbing into the too hot water. She winced as she sat down, her skin turning pink.
"It'll be okay Chase, it always is." She told herself.
Cordelia had been in the bathroom a long time. He was starting to get worried.
He knocked on the door gently. "Cordelia?"
There was no sound; he could only hear running water. He tried again. "Cordelia?"
Still no reply. "Cordelia, I'm worried so I'm going to open the door, don't panic, okay?"
He opened the door slowly, expecting to hear a scream or shout but there was nothing. He peered around the door and his cold blood ran colder still. He rushed to the bath.
"Cordelia?"
She was unconscious, blood seeping from deep cuts on her wrists. "Fuck Cordelia, what the hell have you done?"
He grabbed the shirt from the floor and started to shred it, wrapping pieces of it around the wounds to stop the blood flow. Trying them tightly he then lifted her out of the bath and took her into his bedroom. He placed her on the bed and wrapped her up in a thick blanket.
"Cordelia, wake up Goddamn it!" He growled and held her head up with one hand whilst rubbing her arms with the blanket to try and get her cold body warm. "You are not going to die!"
He lowered her head on a handy pillow and pressed his fingers to the wounds on her wrists. They looked deep enough but probably not deep enough to need stitches. If she would wake up then he could find out if he needed to take her back to the hospital.
"Cordelia, listen to me, you're not dead, and if I have anything to do with it you are not going to die." He told her, smoothing her wet hair from her forehead. "You are seventeen; your life is just starting."
He could hear a faint heartbeat, an indication that she was still alive. "Come on Cordy."
She didn't stir.
He thought for a couple of moments and then decided.
He unwrapped her from the towel and slipped one of his shirts on her and a pair of sweats that were on the top of his ironing pile. As he was dressing her he noticed that she was bleeding, he hadn't imagined it earlier.
He swung her into his arms and carried her to the car.
"I need some help!" He shouted as he carried her into the Emergency Room.
A nurse and an orderly ran across.
"Follow me." The orderly instructed and took them into a cubicle with a bed.
Angel placed her on the bed.
"What's the problem?" The nurse asked, eyeing the bandages.
"She was brought in at nine last night, she'd been raped. I took her home a couple of hours ago and she was in the bathroom and she slit her wrists." He told her, standing back as she examined the wounds and applied fresh swabbing.
"I'll get a doctor." The orderly told them and left.
"Will she be okay?" Angel asked.
"The wounds are pretty deep and it looks like she's lost a lot of blood." The nurse told him and started to apply a drip and an oxygen mask. "She's got a strong heartbeat but her breathing is laboured."
Angel hesitated. "I noticed while I dressed her, she's bleeding from. you know."
The nurse nodded. "I'll get the doctor to check it out. Now, I think you should wait outside."
He nodded and left to sit in the waiting room, it had been a long night, for him and the brunette who was fighting for her life.
Cordelia didn't regain consciousness for a week. Her parents were still away and nobody had been able to locate them to tell them about her condition.
Her wounds had required stitches after all and they were healing okay. The first night at the hospital she'd been given a blood transfusion to replace the blood she'd lost. The doctor who'd been seeing to Cordelia before she'd discharged herself had examined her again and had prescribed her antibiotics for a possible infection.
She woke up on a Saturday afternoon with a high fever.
She looked around the room and saw a bunch of flowers on the nightstand and a card with a bear on the front. She reached up with a shaky hand and took it down.
"To Cordelia," She read. "We hope you get well soon, love from Buffy, Angel, Xander, Willow, Oz and Giles."
She blinked back tears and put the card back next to the flowers. They had no card.
The room was the same one she'd had before; she recognised the ugly stain on the floor that could only be God knows what.
She picked at the bandages on her wrists until she was able to unravel them. She wound them from the wounds until she could see the ugly scars and stitches marring her perfect skin.
She threw the bandages onto the floor and turned her wrists over so she couldn't see the scars. If she pretended real hard maybe it would all have been a bad dream.
Once the nurses had realised that she was awake they had called Angel, the contact number they'd been given and he'd driven to see her.
He walked into the room and smiled at the incredibly pale and weak girl on the bed.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" He asked her and sat in the chair next to her bed.
"Sore, tired." She told him, her voice a whisper.
"That's understandable I guess."
"I want to go home." She told him, her eyes pleading with his.
"No chance." He told her firmly.
"Why not?"
"The last time I took you home against doctors orders you ended up slitting your wrists and nearly dying. I'm not taking the chance of you trying again and succeeding."
"But I won't!" She sounded like a child as tears rolled down her face. "I promise I won't but I need to get out of here, I hate it here!"
"I'm sorry Cordelia, but no." He told her.
They sat for a few minutes in silence but then he broke it. "Why do you hate it here?"
She turned her tearstained face to him. "When I fell through the stairs in the old factory I ended up here. And when I was four I fell into an empty swimming pool and cracked my skull and I ended up with a really mean nurse, I guess this place just creeps me out. I've spent some of the worst times of my life in here."
He nodded. "I once ended up in hospital, back when I was human."
"Why?"
"I got too drunk and fell down a flight of stairs, my dad was pretty mad." He admitted.
She smiled faintly.
"Can I get you anything?"
She shook her head. "Who brought he flowers?"
"I did."
She looked at him in surprise. "They're beautiful, thank you."
He smiled and took her hand in his gently. "They reminded me of you."
She looked at them. "You didn't have to do that."
"I wanted to."
"Well, thanks."
They sat awkwardly again for a few more minutes until he, once again, broke the silence.
"I came here every night you know." He blurted.
She turned to look him in the eye. "You did?"
He nodded.
"Why?"
"I don't really know, you were all alone and you looked so small. I wanted to be there for you in case you woke up; I guessed that no-one else would have bothered to come check on you." He told her gently. "I would like to be your friend."
She smiled faintly. "It's not like I've got many of them right now."
"If you'd like another I'd be honoured."
