Cordelia stretched, wondering how long she'd been asleep. She certainly felt much better than she had earlier, when Gwen had come to visit, and the injured landing party had been treated. It no longer felt like she was resting her head on a giant meat tenderizer, and her clothing felt smooth again. Everything wasn't wonderful again, but her head only felt slightly fuzzy, instead of filled with the battle of the bands.
Carefully, she sat up, half expecting a flare of pain from her head, or the desperate urge to empty her stomach. Instead, she only felt a little stiff, as if she hadn't moved in a while, or hadn't had quite enough covers while sleeping. Hesitantly, she reached up, touching her temple, where the vision-pain was normally the most intense.
There was a bit of an ache, but much less than she had expected. Further self-inspection revealed a complete lack of bumps, lumps, or open wounds. She couldn't feel any stitches, and while she wasn't sure if she would feel anything or not, she didn't feel like anything lumpy had been jammed under her skull. Of course, if the doctors had done their job right, she wasn't supposed to feel anything.
"Ah, Princess. It is good to see that you've awakened," the same doctor who had asked her about the surgery was there, clutching a paper. "If you can, I would like to ask you a few questions to make certain there are no problems?"
"Could I get some water first?" Cordelia asked.
"Of course, of course." He turned away, doing something at the wall, returning with a glass of cool water.
Cordelia sighed, wondering what sort of questions he would be asking and how he'd know if the answers were right. They started out simple, with some simple visual tracking and a couple hearing tests, and then he looked at the paper again.
"Can you tell me your full name?" his voice was calm.
"Cordelia Josephine Chase. Not that anyone is supposed to know about the Josephine part," she tried to glare.
"The theme of Angel Investigations?"
"We help the hopeless," Cordelia said absently, thinking that it was such a relief that she was still in real clothing instead of one of those revealing, unflattering hospital gowns. "I came up with that, you know."
"Where did you once accuse Willow – the Handmaiden? – of getting her clothing?" Dr. Teirell was frowning at the page, as if the question didn't make sense to him.
"Sears." Cordelia swallowed, wondering what else Willow or maybe Angel had put on that page.
After a few more questions, some embarrassing and others obscure but harmless, Cordelia was permitted to leave, her ears still echoing with the doctor's pronouncement of 'apparently undamaged and recovering nicely.' Her health was one area where the word 'apparently' wasn't welcome; she'd much prefer 'completely' or 'amazingly recovered.'
She decided to find Willow. This whole thing had spiraled way beyond anything she'd expected, and it would be nice to talk to someone who could understand all of the factors. Willow was the best choice, even if she didn't understand how much Cordelia wanted to be an actress, she understood the whole monster-fighting and sudden discovery of aliens combined with relationship problems. While Gwen might understand some of the confusion, she really didn't know the other actress well enough to open up with all her issues.
A few elevator trips, some long metal hallways, and two wrong turns later, she tapped on Willow's door. "Willow? You can't still be asleep in there."
A few moments later, a muffled voice replied, "Yes, I could. I would be if not for someone thumping on my door."
Cordelia scowled, looking around until she found a button by the door. As soon as she pushed it, the door opened with the little whoosh and squeak. "I've had time to get my head operated on, closed up, and sleep off the drugs, and then get a post-op check-up after that. What's your excuse?"
"I held twelve personal force shields on people for five hours, and part of that time, I was in orbit above them. I was exhausted. You try it and then tell me how much of a morning person you feel like the next day," Willow looked every bit as exhausted as she claimed to be. Her hair was sticking up in funny directions, her ship-suit was wrinkled, her skin looked waxy, and Cordelia was certain that if she got a closer look, Willow's eyes would be bloodshot.
"You're exaggerating, right? I know you're a strong witch, but… " Cordelia asked, letting the door shut behind her as she moved into the room. "Tell me that you're exaggerating."
For a moment, Willow just looked at her. "Twelve people in the shuttle. Us in orbit, them going down to Earth. Five hours from when they got onto the shuttle and I cast, to when they got back."
Cordelia blinked, her mouth opening and closing without noise.
"Okay, I admit I did the voodoo-sympathetic magic thing and cast it on bits of their hair instead of just directly on them, but it was still a lot of work." Willow sighed. "I don't think I'll be able to do anything else magical for a week."
"I think you've more than met your magical quota for a while," Cordelia mused, thinking about what Willow had said. Maybe she should be more careful about her hairdresser, and the whole nail clippings thing? Suddenly so much less silly sounding.
Willow tensed, looking at Cordelia with a frown, "What do you mean, you had your head operated on?"
"I had a vision since we got here, and it left me in pretty bad shape. Their doctors looked at the information their little monitor disk picked up and they said that the visions were killing me. Slowly, and with excruciating pain," Cordelia clarified. "After some time and thought, they said they could make a little device, stick it in my head, and then I probably wouldn't die from them."
Willow arched one eyebrow, "Probably?"
"I'm not to thrilled with that word being in there either. But I can't go to a doctor on Earth, the human ones would think I'm hallucinating, and either give me drugs to try to stop it or lock me up. A demon doctor – if there is such a thing – might believe me, but I don't think I'd trust them. That pain-drink that you gave me blocked the pain, but it won't fix the cause, and I think taking it too often would kill me as much as anything else," Cordelia explained. "I don't want to die, Willow, and if this might help, and at least I'm sure they want to help, then I'm out of options. You couldn't find any spells to help, I can't get rid of the visions, and I don't want to die. I still haven't become a famous movie-star yet."
Willow tried to smile at that. "You're working on it. Your role as Mirabanna definitely got you some exposure, judging from all the fan-mail you've been getting. That'll help when you go on more auditions, and if they've managed to get rid of the migraine aspect of the visions, it will be a lot better."
"Yeah," Cordelia smiled. "But all of this is completely weird. I half expect to wake up and not have even gone for the part yet, that none of this will have really happened. No aliens, no brain surgery, and Jason won't be looking at me like a freak."
"Jason can be a bit self-absorbed at time," Willow commented, trying to comb her hair out with her fingers. "Either he'll get over it, or you can find someone else, someone more level-headed."
"What if I don't want someone else?" Cordelia asked, still trying to figure the answer out herself. She was sure that his reaction hurt, and that she didn't like the thought of their relationship ending this way. What she wasn't certain of was if she'd even wanted something long-term, or just a while longer.
"All we can do is figure out what you want, what answers you'll give when he asks some awkward questions. You know he'll have questions, considering." Willow paused, her eyes unfocusing. "Well, there are spells that… no. I'm not going to use magic to make him forget or to bend his will. That's bad stuff, and we have to fight badness all the time, it would be wrong for us to become the badness too, you know?"
Cordelia considered what Willow had said, taking the time to sort out the words and the meaning. Somehow, she wasn't surprised that there were spells to make people forget, or to bend their wills. It would be convenient to try to use them, but… How would she feel if someone tampered with her memories, or bent her will to what they wanted? "I guess it would be a bad idea."
End part 50.
Angel had been drowsing in the med-lab, allowing himself to heal from his injuries as the Thermian doctors had pumped him full of blood. He'd worried for a moment that using a needle might not work very well, that it would be a problem that he wasn't actually drinking the blood, but that worry had proven false. It had strengthened him; he had healed. A corner of his mind just wished that he'd actually been able to drink it, to savor the taste of human blood running over his tongue, down his throat.
Maybe he wasn't quite as full and content as he'd thought. Carefully, he sat up, still feeling the bruises along his shoulders and a knot on the back of his head. The light felt very bright, and the med-lab smelled different, full of chemical smells, lingering traces of pain and scorched flesh.
"Ah, Mr. Angel, you have finally awakened," one of the Thermian doctors was speaking to him, a smile on his face.
"Yes," Angel looked at his arm, pulling the needle out. "That was starting to get annoying."
"Hmmm. Are you certain that you've had enough blood introduced to your system?" The doctor seemed faintly nervous, causing Angel to think he'd been given warnings about vampires.
"Enough that I'm not going to attack anyone, yes," Angel offered, hoping to settle the doctor's nerves. "If there's more, I wouldn't mind… Maybe not by way of a needle though?"
"You would rather…" He shifted his weight, looking uneasy, "just drink it?"
Angel looked at the doctor for a few moments, part of him not wanting to disturb him any farther and part of him just wanting to get some blood right now. "That's what vampires do. When a person becomes a vampire, there are… changes to several instincts. Other instincts appear that weren't there before. Given a choice, a vampire would prefer to drink blood instead of having it put in by a tube."
"There should still be some left from our preparations." The doctor glanced at one of the other rooms before looking back at Angel. "Do you have a preference, or should… Would any of the human blood be sufficient?"
"Any human blood would be fine," Angel assured. "But I think I'd rather not try the Thermian, it might not be compatible."
There was a moment of uneasy sound that might have been the equivalent of a nervous chuckle, and then the doctor scurried into the back room.
Angel fought the impulse to brood about frightening the alien doctor, and the other impulse, which he blamed on his demon, to chuckle about still being able to cause fear after getting almost squished by the alien bug-man. Maybe the doctor could tell him what had happened, though they obviously must not have done too badly if he was back on the Protector. He was fairly certain that Willow's spell had helped, and decided not to think too much on what that said about her power. Instead, he let himself ponder breakfast.
"These should no longer be needed. Hopefully that will be sufficient for your needs?" Two bags of blood, both larger than the packets that Earth hospitals used, were thrust towards him in shaking hands. One of them was slightly less full, as if part of it had been needed to treat someone's injuries.
"Yes. Would you prefer that I do this somewhere else?" Angel asked, wondering if that would help the doctor to feel less nervous.
A hand gesture at one of the doors accompanied the words, "Perhaps one of the recovery rooms would be better?"
Slowly, Angel stood up. While he felt much better than the last few moments in the cavern, fighting the bug-man, he still felt a bit stiff. He didn't want to get light-headed from sitting up to quickly either. Accepting the blood, he stepped into the room, sighing as the door closed behind him.
The room smelled faintly of Cordelia. Angel frowned, wondering just what could have landed his Seer in the med-lab, considering that the basic check-up had been done in the outer area. Deciding to ponder that later, he bit down on the first packet.
Several swallows into the packet, he realized that this blood tasted faintly like Cordelia as well. Many of the things that a vampire looked for in blood to add flavor simply weren't there, which should have been impossible. No traces of emotion, no traces left by what the person had or hadn't eaten. Of course, they had said that they could use some sort of technology to make more blood.
Angel finished the blood, folding the empty packets and dropping them into what he was fairly certain was a trash-can. He felt much better, and for once, he felt no traces of hunger, and no guilt from that lack. Maybe he should go find Gwen, they could try to talk about the future, if they had a future.
End part 51.