Chapter 3: Harsh Awakening
Cordelia's Hospital
Same night
11:23 PM
Xander was pacing outside the hospital, waiting for Faith, the link with his crow provided a special view of her jumping around the city skyscrapers like Spider-Man. In a sense, it was even better than any movie he had ever seen, but he was still worried of her doing something like that.
Of course, with Willow's new Slayer Empowerment he guessed she wasn't even straining herself. If he could do it, albeit less acrobatically, for her it should be a piece of cake.
He focused again on his surroundings, but it was as calm as a hospital in downtown LA should be in the middle of the night. He looked up, focusing on a lighted window on the eight floor.
The mystical warrior sighed, thinking on things past and looking to the probable future.
His crow landed on his shoulder, and Xander looked to an alley between two buildings in front of him, on the other side of the street. Faith walked out of it, organizing her clothes a bit better.
"Gotta have to find something better to dress while Slaying," she said, while approaching. She was wearing a t-shirt, leather jacket, black jeans and combat boots. "The jacket goes all the ways and the T keeps bunching up to my face. Do you know anyone who makes leather jumpsuits in this town?"
Xander smirked, and deadpanned. "And what, miss the opportunity of you flashing an undead?"
Faith grinned, and looked at him "Hey, never used them as weapons before. Will it work?" she asked, stuffing her chest out and smiling.
"It does with me, why shouldn't with them?" he asked, leer on the face. "It might even bring some souls back. It's worth a shot," Xander said, smiling.
"You perv!" Faith said, finally kissing him.
"Looks who's talking. Anyway, the 'Charlie's Angels' leather looks will definitely agree with you. Might be worth a shot."
"I was more along the lines of Über-Dominatrix, with spikes and whips and the like. Scare the fuckers out," she said, still smiling.
"Or make them fall in love. No, thanks, one necrophiliac ex-Slayer is enough," he said, but still smiled.
Faith noticed the sincere smile, so she didn't comment, but to be honest, she was worried about Buffy. How was the ex-Slayer going? She should call Dawn and ask, but not in front of Xander. She hated to hide things from him, but she feared more losing their relationship. She noticed the surreptitiously look he gave up, to the hospital, and the slight change of his facial features.
"Still worried?" she asked, seriously.
"Yeah. First part was easy, thanks to my buddy here," he said, patting the crow's head. The bird took flight, landing in a tree branch above them. "How to explain that her 'normal' old friend is finally gone?"
"Normal? What do you mean 'normal'?" Faith asked, confused.
"Normal as in no-Slayer, no-Witch, no-Werewolf, no-Vampire, no-Watcher, only the Zeppo kind of way."
Faith stopped dead cold. She looked at him, fire in her eyes. He flinched.
"Should I hide?" he asked, lifting his hands in a mock-defensive kind of way.
"Alexander LaVelle Harris." He flinched again, with the tone and the use of his full name. He guessed she never used his full name before. "If she really thinks you were only 'The Zeppo', I should go up that room and beat her comatose all over again. I might be wrong, but I don't think that the former 'Queen C' would fall for 'only The Zeppo'. She saw something in you," she said, and completed in her mind 'the same thing I do', "and that's whom she fell in love with. And you were never normal, as Hellmouth goes. Remember the Hyena? And Halloween? And she called you the Zeppo 'cause she was /pissed/ with you. I would probably do the same, but in a more physical way."
He stopped, and kept silent for a few moments.
"Faith?" he said, finally.
"Yeah?"
"You are taking this 'rock' thingie too seriously."
"Yeah, I am. I hope someday I'll turn into a statue and be preserved for eternity in rock. When that happens, write in the dedication 'Faith Spencer, turned herself into a statue. Made that for a friend,'" she said, smiling.
Xander stopped stock still, Faith just looking at him.
"Faith?" he said, subdued.
"Yeah?" she said, smiling.
"Thank you all over again."
"No problem," she said. She looked to the hospital right in front of her. "How do we get in? Visiting times are off."
"We can sneak in easily. There is a window open in the second floor in the back. I already looked, it's a broom closet."
Faith smirked again. Thank God Xander had lost so much time in their long talks speaking about the past.
"You were just waiting for a reason to put me in a janitor closet with you, weren't you?"
Xander smiled. "Perhaps I was. So?" he asked, and they both began walking to the back of the hospital.
"You perv!" she chimed again.
"Looks who's talking. Again."
Cordelia Chase sat in her bed, wide awake. The news from the gang were enough to keep her awake for the next month. Hell, for the next year, if she thought about it.
Cordelia's Hospital
Earlier
02:45 PM
Wes, Fred and Gunn entered the room, all wearing large smiles in their faces. Cordy smiled back.
"Hey, how are my favorite demon hunter gang?" she asked.
"We're ok, Cordy. And you?" Gunn spoke for them. They traded hugs and kisses, and Fred gave her a flowerpot.
"I'm ok, just bored. This thing is not possessed, is it?" Cordy asked, eyeing the flowers. Wes grinned and Fred's face blanched.
"No, at least I didn't sense anything demonic from the florist across the street," he completed. Fred then noticed that Cordelia was smiling, and smiled back
"In our type of business, you never know. Thanks, Fred," she said.
"You're welcome."
"So, what has been happening? How's Angel?"
The faces darkened considerably and Cordy noticed.
"What happened? Angel is not dead, is he? Not more than he already is, that is."
"No, Cordelia, I...we guess not. It's just that some ... problems appeared. Let me explain..." Wes began. Cordy lifted a hand, and he stopped.
"Wes, I love you, you know that, right?"
The ex-Watcher nodded once.
"But if you begin with your explanations, I'll probably return to my coma. Fred, the same goes to you, sorry. So, Gunn, what happened?"
The black man laughed, but began explaining the missions that they did, Cordelia's, or better, Jasmine's reappearance, her pregnancy, Darla, Holtz, everything.
She didn't remember a lot of stuff he was telling to her. Only some flashes of a white room and she speaking with some strange people.
"...And then, he went to Sunnydale to help in the battle against the First. He came back, spooked with something. I've never seen Angel like that. So, he enters the Hyperion and calls us to a meeting. He speaks some sort of spell, and bang, we all remember Connor. He tells us that he'll leave for a time for us to think about it and vanishes," Gunn said, ending the explanation.
"Yes, some days later, Faith and Xander Harris appear at our door, looking for him. We told them that he had disappeared, and their reaction wasn't exactly...healthy," Wes concluded.
"They cursed like sailors for twenty minutes in a row. Xander asked for a room in the hotel, saying that they would help hunt 'the bastard' down," Gunn said.
"You forgot to tell her about Wolfram & Hart," Fred quipped, grinning. Gunn blushed, and smiled weakly.
"What those bastards did, this time? Aside from hiring Angel and you guys?" Cordy asked. She was pissed about it, but she would give her opinion about that after they ended.
"They didn't do anything this time. We did, to them," Wes spoke.
Gun mumbled something, and grinned.
"What, I didn't hear you?" Cordelia asked.
"We blew the LA Branch offices sky high."
"Oh."
And the weirdest of all wasn't the news, not even the LA Branch blow up, which she saw on the news later on, that was being attributed to a faulty gas line. It was Xander.
The man she fell in love with so long ago was gone. In his place stood a dark man, with a somber look and a very strange vibe. Gone was the constant smirk and even the jokes didn't have the same mood. He looked a lot like Angel during his brooding.
Worse of all, he didn't have said a word regarding what happened to him. They told her that they would come back tonight to speak, so they wouldn't be interrupted.
Another weird thing. Xander and Faith. That was a thing that Cordelia wasn't expecting. Of course, if Faith didn't have followed the path of evil, she could see it coming. Xander always had a thing for strong women and women in need. Faith was the perfect match for both.
And in all that, where was Buffy? What happened to the Slayer?
Same question goes to Angel. Where is the souled vampire, her boss and friend? The gang had said that he had disappeared, to parts unknown, and no one seemed worried by that.
A soft knocking on the door interrupted her musing.
"Come in," she spoke.
"Hey, Cor," the brunette head of her ex-boyfriend appeared at the door. "Are you undressed?" he asked, smiling. Someone thwacked him in the head from behind. "Hey!" he complained, but smiled.
"You wish, Dweebo. Come on in," she said, smiling. The duo entered the room, Faith closing the door. "Hey, Faith," she said and pointed to Xander, "how can you stand Mr. Unneeded Comments here?"
"Slayer strength, and the Hyperion has a lot of rooms. I can always sleep alone," the Slayer said, smiling. Xander grimaced.
A small pang of jealousy hit the Seer, but she smiled nonetheless. Their time was gone, that was sure. Time to move on, again.
"What did the doctors said?" Xander asked, seriously, sitting at the corner of her bed.
"Aside from 'miracle recovery', 'going to AMA journal' and the like?" she looked at him, who blushed.
"Yep."
"Three days and I'm outta here. Damn, not even one newspaper came to take a picture," she said in her best 'Queen C' style. "And who did cut my hair? I have to remember to thanks whoever did it. It looks nice, doesn't it?" she asked, looking at Faith, who only nodded.
Xander had to smile. The woman had come out of a coma less than forty-eight hours ago and she was already worried with the hair.
"Never change, Cor. Never," he said, with a smile.
Cordelia took the cue. "Talking about changes, what happened to you?"
Xander sighed, and mentally called his crow. He would need it for the explanation.
"I died."
Cordelia was struck silent for a full minute, and then she spoke the only thing he wasn't expecting.
"Doesn't anybody stay /dead/ in that damn town? You aren't a vampire, I know that, seeing you in daylight and all. So, what are you? And how it did happen?"
The pecking on the window surprised Cordelia. Faith opened it and the crow flew in, landing on top of the dinner table.
"Now you train birds in your free time, dweeb?" she asked, eyeing the bird suspiciously.
"He is part of the reason. Did you ever hear of the legend of the crow?" she shook her head no. "People once believed that a crow guided souls to heaven. But sometimes something so terrible happened during life, that a soul felt such pain so it cannot rest and sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to set the wrong things right."
"You are one of those sometimes. What happened, how did you die?" she asked, face serious.
"Yes and no. We are the ones with the power of resurrection. The crow is just a guide," The crow cawed. "Ok, more than a guide. But that is not important right now. What happened was that, you see . . ." and Xander told her. Buffy . . . the betrayal . . . the choice over Spike . . . the sword plunging in his heart . . . him digging out of a shallow grave in Buffy's backyard . . . the balance entity . . . Whistler . . . everything. It took almost two hours to get everything explained.
At the end of it, Cordelia Chase was crying. How could Xander be betrayed like that? And just by Buffy, who he saved more times than it was sane?
She controlled herself some time later. Faith brought her a cup of water, which she drank greedily.
"Thanks," she took a deep breath. "What are you going to do now?"
"We are looking for the missing corpse with a soul, and we have to evade the cops. Faith is still wanted. We'll stay till tomorrow in town, and we are going back to Sunnydale. I still have my job there, and Faith is needed at the Hellmouth."
"Why are you still looking for Angel? He disappeared. So what? He is prone to that, being a vampire and all. And with what he revealed to the gang, I would probably do the same, for a time. Self preservation is a must, even for vampires with a soul."
"I agree, but I have two small problems with that. One is that Angel is too dangerous to roam free without some sort of supervision. Does Angelus ring a bell? Second, he's had two strikes, and next one it's the third and he's out, no matter how nice and 'good' he is or how 'good' or 'honorable' his intentions were. And that is a promise I made to myself and to him," he said, voice hardening considerably.
"So, are you guys hunting him?" Cordy asked.
"Yeah, but more in a Magnum PI than a Slayer/Crow sort of way," Faith finally said. "After all, Angelus is a pretty nasty SOB to be left free in the world."
"But you don't know if . . ." Cordelia started.
"Could you take that chance?" Faith asked, Xander remained impassive.
Cordelia thought it over for a second.
"No, I couldn't. How can I . . ." and suddenly her eyes lost focus and she grabbed her head. "Man . . . holding a syringe . . . blonde girl . . . small . . . dark place . . . white tiles on the wall . . . looks like an old hospital . . . pain . . . she's screaming . . ." and the vision ended. Cordelia straightened up, and looked to them both.
"Vision. Can you tell us anything else?" Xander said, ready to leave if she could spot the place.
"No. That was it. But it felt far. Pretty far away. The place looked spooky, like some scene from a bad TV movie or so. The girl was panicking, and the man, demon . . . it looked like a man's hand, well manicured . . . whatever . . . plunged the syringe in her arm without the slightest care. And my head hurt. It didn't hurt in a long time," she said, surprised. "Thank God it wasn't a splitting headache, just an annoying one. What happened?"
"When you gave birth to Jasmine, you entered in a coma. Somehow, the demon essence that made you feel no pain with the visions locked you up in some kind of 'mind loop'. The crow and I, we entered your mind and we dealt with it. No more demon essence in you. As for the headaches, sorry, can't do a thing about them."
"Can't do a thing?" Cordy was surprised. "Xander, before you and before the demon stuff, I needed a bottle of Tylenol Nuclear Strength to deal with it. Now I guess that a couple of aspirins are enough. Thank you, dweebo."
"Your welcome, hag," he kidded, like the old times. "So, nothing else on the vision? Nothing that could give us a clue?"
"No, sorry. Place was scary, but pretty Spartan in the décor, if you catch my drift. Not even a flowerpot to clear the mood."
Faith smirked and shook her head. Xander grinned.
"Don't ever change, Cordy."
In a place far away from LA, a man was locking a passed out girl in an adjacent room with a steel door. He looked at her features and imagined how they would look in a few hours.
He exited the room, and bolted the door behind him, activating a stopwatch near the door and the one on his wrist.
"Soon," he said, and left the depressing environment.
