Someone told me, love would all save us
But how can that be?
Look what love gave us
A world full of killing
And blood spilling
That world never came
And they say that a hero can save us
I'm not gonna stand here and wait
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles
Watch as they all fly away
Now that the world isn't ending
It's love that I'm sending to you
It isn't the love of a hero
And that's why I fear it won't do
Cordelia grunted and blocked another shot at her head from Gwyn's quarterstaff. "I thought physicals were just like, shots and reflexes and height and stuff?!" she complained, dancing back to avoid a sweep aimed at her feet.
Doyle looked apologetic. "Sorta somethin' we 'ave to do…gauge your abilities an' stuff, Princ…er…Cordelia. 'Ey, Gwyn, ye ain't supposed to kill her."
Maj looked like he was ready to become delightfully irritating. "You know how competitive she can be. Probably have to pull her off before she forgets this isn't the real thing and goes in for the kill."
"Exactly what I needed ta hear right now, thanks, Maj."
"Pleasure, sir."
"Delia looks pretty good, though. Better than when I last saw her."
"We still talking about fighting form here, General?" Maj let his tongue roll out between his canines and tilted his head sideways. "Or some other type o' form?"
Doyle, sufficiently irritated now, eyed his second in command. "Mind out of the gutter. Last I saw her, she couldn't fight worth a god damn. Now she's holdin' up pretty well against Gwyn…" He paused once Gwyn had knocked Cordelia's weapon from her hands. "All right ladies, that's enough." He put up a hand to stop them.
Cordelia, breathing heavily though (miraculously) her hair was still perfect, smiled at him. "How was that?"
A fond twinkle ignited in his eyes, a rarely seen phenomenon when concerning the General these days. "Not bad, Cord. Where'd ya learn to kick butt like that?"
"Angel and I …" she trailed off at the mention of the vampire's name, and decidedly sorrowful expression came to her countenance for a split second, though undetectable to those who didn't know her like Doyle did. "We uh, we did some training."
"You okay, Delia?"
She shook off with a small back and forth motion of the head and looked back at him, all traces of thoughtful depression gone. "I'm good. I'm fine…we have a lot to catch up on, is all."
He nodded. "Time for that in the morning, I suppose."
"Yeah…" She straightened. "So… what's the diagnosis? Am I in fighting form?"
"Your form looks perfect to me, darlin'," Maj laughed.
Doyle ignored the wolf. "Well, we just need to see what Archimell says 'bout your physical health, an' give Kal some time to run 'is diagnosis on yer blood."
She squared her shoulders. "So, what next?"
"Well, we were gonna give you a rank for your command," Maj started.
For the first time, she looked properly distressed. "Rank, huh? Fuuun. Um, for the record, I totally look bad in cammo…"
She watched as her joke fell flat on its face, met with only a series of blank stares as response.
Doyle stepped in and saved her. "It's an earth thing," he explained, drawing her off to the side. "Whistler instructed us to make you an officer, which comes with a command, after a certain grace period, o' course…" he started with a small frown.
"Command? Like, army stuff?" Cordelia whispered at him, properly distressed. "I don't know all the signals or anything." She made a hasty, lopsided salute with her left hand. "That's the only one I know."
He chuckled a little. "Don' worry, Cordy. There's time for learnin', I can promise you that. I wouldn't let ya run out there half cocked. Might take a few months anyway."
She looked indignant at that. "I can handle myself! I didn't come here to wait months to do anything. I mean, I might not be so keen on all this military stuff, but I can help!"
He put his hands up in a gesture of unconditional surrender. "That I've no doubt, Princess, but til we know 'xactly what you're capable of at the moment, it's not worth the risk. Of you, or me men, okay? We'll see about gettin' you on the field soon as possible, but not before."
She softened a little at his entreaty. "I keep forgetting you have so much responsibility," she confided. "It must be so hard."
Something foreign flickered behind his eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."
She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He didn't shake it off right away. "C'mon, I think it's time you gave me a tour of this place. It's huge. Wouldn't want me to get lost, would you?" she kindly changed the subject.
He took her offer of escape without hesitation. "No, no. Course not."
She took his arm and led them out. Maj smirked, wondering who was leading who.
~~~~~~~~
Some odd hours later, and the base was effectively shown off. The important parts, anyway. From what she could tell, it all looked like an ungodly mix between Star Wars and Gladiator, technology and archaic ways blended together in an eclectic mess of heart monitors, pressurized automatic doors, electricity, thousand year old swords, unicorns, shamans, and chain mail armor. It made her head spin.
"So, this place is big…" Cordelia commented, deciding to stay away from the numerous decorating don'ts that could be found throughout the entire facility. **That's right ladies and gentlemen, we have now mastered the art of tact. Next up, decorating for military bases, 101. For the deadly AND chic, learn how to keep those barracks looking Martha -Stewart-clean and just as dangerous.**
Doyle's voice pulled her from her alternate reality contemplations. "Well, yah, it's the biggest military protection outpost this side o' the border," Doyle assured her. "Central Command of the whole effort, an' all. Naturally they'd give us the best facilities they can. We're all that's standing 'tween the human borders and our cities." He nodded lover the metal balcony towards the commons area down below. "And those, those are the men."
She looked over the railing at the groups of different species, a colorful mix of animal-like and human-hybrid creatures dressed in what must have been field uniforms, stained with the blood of enemies and friends. "They look tired," she said quietly, a quality of immense empathy in her voice he'd heard only rarely when they'd been together in LA.
He regarded his soldiers. "War does that, I s'pose."
She turned to him suddenly, a flash of that old assertiveness he knew her for mixed with sympathetic undertones. "You look tired too, Doyle."
His gaze immediately went downward, a troubled frown on his face. "I'm okay," he muttered.
"Doyle…" She reached out for him. "Are you really?"
He shrugged her hand off for the first time. "I have to be."
She backed off slightly. "What's been happening?"
"I lost a good friend earlier today," he admitted. "We still…we're setting up for his funeral tonight after dinner."
"I'm so sorry…"
He gritted his teeth at the sound of her voice, the way she seemed to wrap up his entire hardship here into that one neatly packaged bow. The loss of a friend. But it was so much more. Something about the way she looked compelled him to tell her exactly what, though he didn't know why. His had been a private pain for a long time now. "That's not all that's wrong, Cord," Doyle began to rant, however quietly. "I lost thousands o' men last night. Each one o' those guys down there feels like I feel…they all lost someone too, an' it's all because of me. I'm so sick of this job sometimes…" He turned towards her, eyes so weary they looked ghostly. "Angel was supposed ta be the hero. Not me. When Whistler came, an' I thought someone else was comin' up…I was so relieved for a second…I was so happy." He turned his head sideways, shameful. "I thought it might be done with, fer me."
Her resolve grew at his quiet pleading to her, the heartfelt agony in his voice touching inside of her. Never was there a man more right for this job. "Say it had been someone to replace you, Doyle. Would you go back? Could you?" she asked, lowering her voice, gazing out across the floor to the soldiers eating, relaxing, healing below them. "Would you stop fighting and just go back to stand on the side if they let you?"
He took a shuddering breath. "I don't know," he answered truthfully.
"Angel went to the Oracles, you know," she started, leaning her elbows on the metal handrail. "He tried to get them to turn back time so he could save you. Because we needed you."
He looked surprised. "He did?"
She nodded. "It hurt so much for the longest time. We couldn't talk about it. It was easier to pretend it didn't happen, I guess. That you saved us all, that you had to…die…to do it. I watched you die for us, Doyle. Don't tell me you're not supposed to be a hero. I can't accept it."
His brow furrowed. "I didn't want to do it, not right off."
She regarded him curiously.
"But then I had that vision…and, it was right, I s'pose. Lemme tell ya…it's not easy, seein' yourself die, knowin' that in the future…" he trailed off before letting out a deep throated sigh. "To tell ya the truth, I was ready to run." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Some hero, huh?"
Her eyes widened. "You had a vision? You knew?!"
He blinked, confused for a moment, as if he'd drifted to some far off place and only just remembered where he truly was. "What?"
Her questions turned to accusation. "You had a vision! You knew!!!"
He balked. **Whoops. Guess the oracles didn't tell them everything…**
She smacked him in the shoulder, hard. "How could you do that and say nothing? How could you know and not tell us?!"
He stuttered. "It's complicated…"
She crossed her arms. "It can't be that complicated. Tell me why."
He deflated and took a breath before launching into his explanation. "Whistler gave me a visit, the night before. Told me I 'ad a 'destiny'…" he spat the word. "…I thought 'e was just another crazy half-breed, thought he was off his rocker. Then he told me. Told me I wasn't needed in LA, that you'n Angel would get along without me. Told me they needed me somewhere else." He laughed. "I ignored him…brushed him off and went on with me business. Then… then, the second that I saw the weapon go off in the Quintessa… I figured it out, I guess. I figured that maybe it really would be okay. That the world, that you guys didn't need me after all, not as much as the world needed Angel. So I jumped. To my…destiny." His voice wavered a little bit. "You really missed me?"
"Doyle, don't even ask me that," she chided softly. "Angel and I…" she trialed off again. "Of course we did."
An odd light came to his eye. "You miss him, too."
There came a far away expression on her face, like she'd lost something before she'd ever really had a chance to hold on to it. "I do." She paused. "They…they never really let me say goodbye."
He stared off into the back wall with her. "They never really do."
An airy sigh. "Just when I thought I'd found him, too."
He turned towards her sharply at the sound of her voice, detecting the use of that underlying tone he could recognize in a heartbeat's passing. He'd lived using that tone in his voice the entire time he'd known her. "Delia?"
She caught herself too late, looked downward.
And that in itself was enough to tell him. Then, he knew. "You love him."
She had the grace to seem guilty at his statement.
He shook his head, not feeling either bitterness nor hurt at her non-verbal admission. "Ah, don't look like that, Delia."
"I'm sorry," she apologized after she'd had a second. "I never got to tell him, I didn't know how to tell you."
He shrugged one shoulder. "I guess I always sorta knew. Courageous 'earts and all. Like one o' those gothic romances. Leadin' man, leadin' lady. I always knew it'd really happen that way in the end. Was just foolin' myself otherwise."
She wanted to protest, to say that she'd thought it would turn out so very differently three years ago, that she'd seen him with her in the end, not Angel. But that had been an age long since past. "There's so much you don't know," she stated quietly. "So much has happened …" she trailed off into silence.
He could feel the dull ache inside of her, hear it in her tone. Hell, he had lived with his own brand of that pain for three long years, alone and tired. "I'm sorry you never got to tell 'im, Delia." He looked slightly bitter, for both of their plights. "I guess the 'heroes',"--he said the word mockingly, "don't get to love, yah?"
They stared out over the commons together.
Someone told me, love would all save us
But how can that be?
Look what love gave us
A world full of killing
And blood spilling
That world never came
And they say that a hero can save us
I'm not gonna stand here and wait
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles
Watch as they all fly away
Now that the world isn't ending
It's love that I'm sending to you
It isn't the love of a hero
And that's why I fear it won't do