Okay, so this was taking forever so I decided to post each episode up in parts. This is part one. Dedicated to angel-cordy.

Through My Eyes

The Cordeliaverse; Season One

Chapter One: City Of…

The city lights…the clubs…

" Los Angeles . You see it at night and it shines. Like a beacon." The highways…the sky scrapers…dance bars…

"People are drawn to it. People and other things. They come for all sorts of reasons." I narrate. "My reason? No surprise there. It started with a girl."

It's always about a girl... Darla… Drusilla… Buffy…

I'm at a bar in the middle of Los Angeles . I play with my empty glass. Everyone around me glares. Guess they don't like drunken people – or Irish people for that matter.

"She was a really, really pretty girl." I frown. "No she, she was a hottie girl. She, she had - I mean - her hair was... You know?" I turn to the person next to me. "You kind of remind me of her. Because, because – you know – the hair. I mean – the hair." The person next to me has great hair. It's shiny and brown and swirly…and I think he's bald…

That' s not right… I stare at him for a few minutes, then turn to look at the group of people playing pool behind me.

One of the guys walks over to where I'm sitting and leans over to talk to the bartender. Maybe it's his hair that… no. I think his is brown. Or green, if only it would stop crawling, dammit.

"We want to cash out." He says. I grin at him.

"Girls are nice." I laugh. Cuz you know, it's not really that true. Girls are nice and round and pointy in places and stuff, but they do things and that's not so nice and round and… and I forget…

The guy shoots me a disgusted look. Guess that's a no-no to the date. The bartender hands the guy his change and the guy walks back to his friends as I consider whether or not green is a nice color.

"Okay, guys, let's go. Let's go find some real fun." I hear him day and straighten up as they walk out. After a few seconds, I get up and follow them out.

The group walks into the alley behind bar. I can hear them loud and clear even though I'm not really there. The blonde's chatters on animatedly.

"You guys really know the doorman? I mean you can get us into the Lido ?" Lido ? Must be a new club. Note to self: Add Lido to list of vamp hotspots.

"I don't want to go clubbing anymore." I hear one of the guys say, his voice turning throaty. I can guess he's vamped out. " I want to party, right here." One of the girls' scream, and the other girl pipes up.

"Hey back off!" What is it with girls? She doesn't really think he's going to leave does she?

"Shut up and die!" I hear one of the guys shout as I stagger up to them. It's really actually original…

"Excuse me." I say, still playing the drunk part. "'scuse me. I'm sorry. But has anybody seen my car?" I ask and try to find ways to describe the car. "It's big , and it's shiny."

It's really shiny…I like shiny…

"Piss off, pal!" The brunette vamp growls at me. Squinting, I walk up closer to him and lean in as to get a closer look at his face. He growls at me again and I back away, grimacing.

"Uhh, breath mint?" Ick.

The vampire throws the girl into some trashcans and swings at me. I surprise him by blocking and knock him down. I spin around to knock the second vampire down. Then I kick the first vampire to keep him from getting back up.

The third vamp manages to tackle me to the ground, but I catapult him over my head and get back up.

Seeing two vamps charging at me from opposite sides, I quickly trigger the stakes concealed in spring-loaded wrist sheathes under my sleeves and stake both at the same time.

They dust and I groan, trying to get the dust off. Do you have any idea what dirt does to my coat? I'm gonna have to get it dry cleaned. Ugh…

The first vampire comes up and hits me over the head with a trashcan from behind. I sit there on the ground and stare in horror and fascination at my coat. My coat's dirty…and dusty and muddy…

Bastard's dead.

"You shouldn't have done that." I growl, shifting into vamp face.

Getting up, I hit the first vampire in the stomach then throw him across the alley. He spins in the air for a moment and then lands on top of a car's windshield, effectively cracking it.

One of the girls is bleeding – I can smell it. People ask what blood's like. It's coppery and metallic…kinda like how pennies taste.

"Oh, my god! They were…" One of the girls starts to say but I cut her off. I don't want her thanks. I know I don't deserve it.

"Go home." Instead of listening and leaving, I sense the girl step closer. I struggle to keep my cool. The smell of blood is soo…tantalizing.

"Thank you." I turn around to look at her and a shocked look crosses her face as she realizes that I'm a monster too. I realize that the smell of blood is coming from her forehead where she's bleeding.

"Stay away from me." I gasp out, trying not to breathe in the intoxicating blood. I know I won't be able to resist if I do.

The girls back away and I walk down the alleyway, feeling disgusted at myself; at what I am. Breaking a slat from a wooden crate, I stake the unconscious vampire who's still lying on the car's hood without even looking.

I don't want to see him, because then I'd just see the monster that's me.

I fish through the cupboards in the kitchen, been waiting for an eternity for the big vamp guy but he hasn't shown. Charming maids an' rescuin' damsels in distress is my guess.

I know heroes are s'possed to be good and nice and all that crap, but couldn't this guy jus' have one good alcoholic Guinness?

Sitting on the bed in my crappy rundown apartment room, I pretend that the ants on the carpet by the door aren't really ants. I mean – maybe they're really like demonic little midgets, ya'know? Then I'd have no reason to be scared of them.

Unless they eat humans that is.

The phone rings and I nearly scream. As it turns out, imagining ants as midget demons that cannibalize humans is actually scary. Not as scary as seeing the actual ants, but still freakish.

"Hello?" I pick up the phone, praying to whatever god exists that it won't be the landlord. I'm not exactly known for paying bills on time.

"Cordelia!" A fake voice greets me and I wince. It's Margo. She gives the best parties but she's actually a total phony. I hate phonies. But the thing is, she knows all the "people" in Hollywood , so I have to be extra nice.

"Margo!" I shriek. "It's sooo nice to hear from you. How are you?" She laughs.

"I'm throwing a party tomorrow. You'll be there won't you?" I glance at my closet. It's threadbare. "All the executive producers are coming. You'll meet, you'll greet, and you'll charm."

"Of course." I force myself to say. This could actually be my big break. "I'll be there." We chat a while more, but the only thing I can think of is that I can't wait to get a midget demon free apartment.

Nearly an hour later I realize that the reason I can't find my car is because I walked. Feeling very stupid I manage to walk home without running into any more vampires.

Cutting through the offices in my building, I get into the elevator, pull the metal grating close and press the down button. I don't know why but I love pushing buttons. It's like a really weird fetish. They didn't have any buttons when I was alive – or for two hundred years after I'd died either.

Spike once told me the future was gonna be like the Jetsons. I think that's the only intelligent thing I've ever heard him say.

They have a lot of buttons on the Jetsons…nice, shiny buttons even…

Anyways, I eventually reach my apartment and start pulling off my coat as I walk in. Undoing the now empty wrist sheathes I walk over to the weapons cabinet and lay them inside. Pulling off my shirt I adjust my black wife beater and toss the shirt on the sofa.

As I toss it on the sofa, I sense something. Freezing, I glance over my shoulder to spot a brunette guy in his early twenties.

"I like the place." He says, glancing around appreciatively. "I mean it's not much with the view, but it has a nice bat-cave sort of an air to it." I blink. Twice.

"Who are you?" He plays with a deck of cards in his hands. I wince as he manhandles them, they're antique – just like nearly everything else I own. I can see that my bedroom door's open…

"Doyle." I turn around and sniff.

"You don't smell human." Which is good because I wouldn't know what to do if a human broke in. They have this number you call in England for emergencies, I think they have one here too…411 or 911 or something?

"Now that's a bit rude." He doesn't really look insulted. "So happens that I am very much human." He sneezes and blue spikes pop out all over his face. Cool trick. "On my mother's side." He shakes his head and the spikes disappear.

He walks past me, glancing around the room, running his hands over things I'd rather not have people touch. Like my antique mirror and that table from 1982 and…

"Well, I come in uninvited, so you know I'm not a vampire like yourself." Gee, isn't that obvious. If it weren't I'd have blue spikes all over my face. I wince at the thought of what I'd look like with blue spikes. Then force myself to keep my mind from wandering.

"What do you want?" Doyle grins and motions his hands upwards.

"I've been sent. – By the Powers That Be." I stare at him, confused. Are they like a new mafia or some new world conspiracy group?

"The powers that be what?" I sound stupid…Doyle sighs.

"Let me tell you a little bedtime story." I make a face at this.

"But I'm not sleepy." Okay, that must be the stupidest thing I've ever said – including the time I told Darla that I thought Drusilla looked younger. And that was a big bad stupid thing to do.

"Once upon a time there was a vampire. And he was the meanest vampire in all the land." Crap. I wince as I realize that he's talking about me. I flashback to the Boxer Rebellion - to myself biting a girl; her name was Daniel. "All the other vampires were afraid of him, he was such a - bastard." Doyle continues. Well, I did like being feared. I still like it a little… "Then one day he's cursed – by gypsies." I try to hide my shudder. Gypsies fill me with dread and fear. "They restore his human soul. And all of a sudden he is mad with guilt. You know: 'What have I done?' You know, he's freaked." Well, wasn't I supposed to be? I just die and then a hundred years later I wake up in the middle of Romania remembering all the horrible things I've supposedly done. Of course I freaked out. I flop down on the sofa.

"Okay. Now I'm sleepy." He makes me sound like some weird insane… uh, thing! Ya' kno…Doyle shrugs as I try to figure out exactly what he makes me sound like.

"Yeah, well, it's a fairly dull tale." Maybe he'd like to switch places. Then he wouldn't find it so dull. "It needs a little sex, is my feeling." Sex, violence, blood play…that's all the people of this decade want to see and hear isn't it? " So sure enough: enter the girl." Buffy… "Pretty little blonde thing," He whistles and I try to keep from jumping up and bashing his head in for thinking about my girl like that.

But she's not my girl anymore, is she? "Vampire Slayer by trade. And our vampire falls madly in love with her." Well, who wouldn't? She's like the sun in my sunless world. "Eventually the two of them, - well, they get fleshy with one another." Wait a minute. Is this stuff already published? "Well, I guess the technical term is perfect happiness." A vampire and his lover can't even have privacy in their own bedroom, can they? "But when our boy gets there," Angelus… "he goes bad again. He kills again. It's ugly." Death usually is.

"So when he gets his soul back for the second time, he figures hey, he can't be any where near Miss young puppy eyes without endangering them both." Young puppy eyes? Her eyes weren't puppy like. They were deep and gorgeous and…he's still talking. "So what does he do? He takes off." I remember. And I hate myself for it. She cried – I made her cry on what was supposedly to be the happiest night of her life…

"Goes to LA." Doyle picks up an early nineteenth century knife. "To fight evil - and atone for his crimes. He's a shadow," See, that's better than when he made me sound all creepy and weird. "a faceless champion of the hapless human race." He sets down the knife.

"Say – you wouldn't have a beer of any kind in here, would you?" I'm a vampire. What do you think?

"No." He looks at me like I've just committed a horrible crime.

"Come on, you must have something besides pig's blood!" I roll my eyes and stand up, choosing to ignore his last comment.

"Okay. You've told me the story of my life, but since I was there, I already knew. So why aren't I kicking you out?" Doyle opens my refrigerator and makes a face when he sees that the only things in there are two bags of blood.

"Because now I'm going to tell you what happens next." Maybe he's like some seer. Can demons be seers? "You see this vampire, he thinks he's helping." Thinks? "Fighting the demons. Staying away from the human's so as not to be tempted. Doing penance in his little" he glances around. "cell." It's not a cell! "But he's cut off. From every thing. From the people he's trying to help." I scowl at this.

"I still save 'em. Who cares if I don't stop to chat?" He nods.

"When was the last time you drank blood?" Last year when Faith… I clench my teeth.

"Buffy." It's whispered but I know he's heard.

"Left you with a bit of a craving, didn't it?" Oh god… "Let me tell you something, pal, that craving is going to grow and one day soon one of those helpless victims that you don't really care about is going to look way too appetizing to turn down." I know he's right. It's happened before. "And you'll figure hey! What's one against all I've saved? Might as well eat them. I'm still ahead by the numbers!"

I've never been a good person. Not when I was alive, not after my death, not ever. I think when I was with Buffy I tried to be a good man for her. But now that she's gone, it's highly possible that I could…

"You know I'm parched from all this yakking, man. Let's go treat me to a Billy Dee." He's like a nineteenth century version of me when I was alive. Was I this addicted to alcohol? Something tells me I don't want to know.

Doyle and I walk down the street. Doyle carries his bottle in a brown paper bag.

"It's not all about fighting and gadgets and stuff." He lectures. "It's about reaching out to people, showing them that there's love and hope still left in the world." A homeless lady comes up to us and asks him for some change.

"Get a job, you lazy sow." He snaps to her and I blink. That's how he shows people that there's still love and hope in the world? He turns back to me. "It's about letting them into your heart." He's a hypocrite. "It's not about saving lives; it's about saving souls. Hey, possibly your own in the process." This is stupid and pointless…a dumb and pointless – I think I already said that…

"I want to know who sent you." I tell him point blank. I'm in the middle of downtown with a hypocritical half demon talking about letting people into my dead heart and trying to resist going over to the girl that's trying to prostitute herself and giving her my credit cards (I left my cash at home).

"I'm honestly not sure. They don't speak to me direct. I get - visions." Visions. Is that girl going to be okay? "Which is to say great splitting migraines that come with pictures. A name – a face. I don't know who sends them. I just know whoever sends them is more powerful than me or you, and they're just trying to make things right." Then maybe they should make sure homeless people aren't homeless and that girls don't get raped or forced to prostitute themselves and…he's staring at me.

"Why me?" I ask. It makes no sense. I'm not like those "heroes" on television. I used to watch Superman back in the sixties…

"Because you've got potential." Potential? For what? Being a bloodthirsty killer? "And the balance sheet isn't exactly in your favor." I frown.

"Well why you?" He looks uncomfortable for a minute.

"We all got something to atone for." I reply, avoiding his eyes. There are things I'd rather just not get into. I reach into my pocket and pull out a piece of paper. "Had a vision this morning. When the blinding pain stopped I wrote this down." He takes the paper from me ans stares at it. It reads 'Tina Coffee Spot'.

"Tina." He sounds out the name. Nodding, I jump up on the hood of the car Angel's leanin' up against.

"Nice looking girl, needs help." I tell him and he stares at me in confusion. Alright, this guy has three expression. Numero Uno: I'm guilty and ridden. I'm hideous - don't look at me. Numero Dos: What? Huh? I'm too old to understand a word you're saying. Numero tres: What? Where you talking?

"Help with what?" He asks and I shrug in response, uncorking my bottle.

"That's your business. I just take the names." I tell him, gulping down the jack.

"I don't get it." He says slowly. Good lord, for a guy who's two hundred years old he's pretty slow. Reminds me of those teenagers on TV.

"How am I supposed to know…" He continues and I cut him off.

"You're supposed to get into her life, remember? Get involved." I repeat for his benefit. "Look, High School's over, boy. It's time to make with the grown up talk." He still doesn't look up to it.

"Why would a woman I've never met even talk to me?" He asks and I burst out laughing. That is honestly the most moronic question I've ever been asked. Includin' that lass who asked me if me if men could get pregnant (back when I taught kindergarten).

"Have you looked into a mirror lately?" I ask incredulously and then realize that he hasn't. "No, I guess you really haven't, no." There's silence for a few seconds then Mr. Broody Forehead sighs like he's about to impart really important wisdom and I wait. After all, if you can't learn something from a guy who's two hundred then what's the point of growing up and…wait, that's not worded right.

"I'm not good with people." He finally says and I stare at him. That was the big wisdom parting. I roll my eyes.

"Well that's the whole point of this little exercise, isn't it?" People in the eighteenth century musta been pretty moronic if this is what one of them is like after two centuries. I smile a little at this. At least he's real.

"Are you game?" I ask.

"Are you game?" He asks and I'm silent. Not knowing what to say, I excuse myself, walk over to the girl still standing on the curb trying to prostitute herself and convince her that if she'll walk back to my place with me I'll write her a check.

I have to tell her four times that I just want to help before she stops trying to kiss me.

That's part one for now. More to come soon. SS4EVA