Purple by Dazzle
Summary: Angel is both terrified and overwhelmed in the aftermath of Cordelia's near-death and new demonic identity. Fifth in the Prism Series, which follows Cordy and Angel's developing feelings throughout the previous year.
Spoilers: Birthday, Season Three.
Notes: Thanks to Inamorata for the great beta-read and encouragement.
The symbolism of
purple: transformation, mystery, cruelty, mourning, enlightenment
*****
I run up the stairs three at a time, aware that Gunn and Wesley are panting
behind me, trying to keep up. But I have to see her -- I have to make sure that
Cordelia's still alive, that what we saw wasn't some weird fluke, that she's
really okay --
And I come into my room and see Cordelia floating a few inches from the ceiling
and sipping a grape Nehi soda.
I have to be hallucinating. Maybe I'm the one the Powers are testing. Or maybe
the combination of sleeplessness and terror finally broke whatever fragile
sanity I might have left.
"How did it go?" she asks brightly.
"It went -- just great --" Gunn says between deep gasps as he and
Wesley stumble in behind me. "Some more bad guys have exited this world for
other, warmer dimensions, thanks to Cordy-O-Vision."
"Well, that's a relief," she says. "Now we can figure out how I
get down from here."
My brain is buzzing with the quick, garbled explanation she gave us -- Cordelia's
part demon now, and she doesn't seem to have any more idea what that means than
I do. She's got abilities none of us can predict or understand; in the car,
Wesley said we'd just have to watch and see. But what it all boils down to is --
Cordy's going to live.
Lorne is standing beneath her, my son in one arm and his own grape soda in
another. "Do you think we should maybe load up her pockets with
stones?" he asks. "You know, for ballast."
"Maybe just feed her a lot of ice cream and fried food," Gunn
suggests, then ducks Cordy's foot as she kicks at his head.
"Very funny," she says. But she's beaming down at him as she hands
Wesley her soda, like being suspended a few feet above the ground is the best
thing in the world.
Wesley is shaking his head as we all circle beneath her. 'I can't think of many
demons that have the capacity to defy gravity."
"Well, thank goodness," says Fred, who's sitting on the foot of my
bed. "If demons could generally fly, we would generally get creamed."
"Cordy?" The name sounds strange -- no, it's my voice that's strange,
cracked from exhaustion and strain and disbelief. "You're really
okay?"
Cordelia tries to reach down and touch me; when she can't, she just smiles at
me, a sad smile that belongs to a much older woman. It fills my soul, and it
breaks my heart. "I kinda have a helium thing going on," she says.
"But except for that -- Angel, I'm fine. I'm okay."
She's okay. Except for floating. "Let's try the direct approach," I
suggest. And then I take hold of Cordy's foot -- then her calf -- then her thigh
-- then her waist -- then her shoulders, tugging her whole body down until she's
in my arms.
Oh, God. Cordelia in my arms -- warm and breathing and holding me and alive, so
alive --
Her weight settles onto the floor; I can feel it in the way her embrace changes,
becomes more solid and real. She chuckles softly, as though through tears.
"Back down to earth."
"That's a relief," Lorne says. "I thought we were gonna have to
rent you out to Goodyear."
"Please try not to compare me to a blimp," Cordelia snaps back, but
there's no anger in it. She's still smiling, still holding me close. "Oh,
yay, gravity's back. Angel saves the day again."
Cordelia steps back from me, beaming, because I saved the day.
I spent hours and hours watching her lie there dying, and there wasn't a damn
thing I could do, and I knew it and still I had to sit and watch her --
I push her away from me savagely. The violence of her shocks her, stuns the
others. I can't believe it myself, but I can't stop. "Cordy, what the hell
were you thinking!" I shout.
"Angel, are you HIGH?" she cries. She's tugging her little sweatshirt
around herself, scared and mad, and I don't blame her, and I still can't stop.
"You were dying!" My voice cracks on the last word -- so much for the
tough-guy routine -- but it keeps spilling out of me. "You've known you
were dying for God knows how long, and you couldn't even tell us? We didn't even
have a chance to learn what was wrong with you, or find out how -- how to help
you --"
"I'm okay, okay?" Cordelia's fear and hurt is changing into pure Cordy
wrath; deep inside me, I feel something twist in anger, grow stronger for it.
"I didn't need you to help me."
"You got lucky," I snarl.
"Lucky? What about floating-and-demonic spells lucky to you?"
Wesley steps gingerly between us. "Ah -- perhaps we should consider this in
the past --"
I shove him out of the way -- not as hard as I did Cordy, but hard enough for
Gunn and Fred to start edging their way toward the door. "I'm -- we're your
friends, Cordelia. You owed us the truth."
Cordelia's hands are on her hips, and her face is flushed. "Trust me, the
truth is overrated. Like, I could have lived a LONG time without knowing that
you think of me as a -- what was it -- spoiled rich girl? Is that what you told
the Powers about me?"
And how the hell did she hear that? It doesn't matter. "If you think that
comes even close to comparing to not telling us that you were -- not giving me
even a chance to save you -- "
"That's because I knew you couldn't!" Her eyes go wide even as she
says it -- I know she regrets it instantly, but it doesn't matter. I feel cold
and sick and a hell of a lot deader than usual.
Cordelia stands there awkwardly, her hands balled in her sweatshirt. The others
all look as though they wish they could melt into the carpet. And I'm the
jackass in the center of it all, the guy who just threw a fit and now can't
think of a damn thing to say. The useless idiot who couldn't even save her.
Connor starts crying, and the sound is more welcome than it's been since the
very first time I heard him, moments after he was born. Lorne starts bouncing
him gently and says, "Hey, tiger cub, let's you and me go downstairs and
let your old man cool down --"
"The old man's cool enough," I say, and hold out my hands for my
child.
The others hesitate, and I hate them for it, and I hate myself even more for
deserving it. "I'm fine with him," I say, slowly and deliberately.
"It's the rest of you who need to go." As I say the words, I'm only
looking at Cordelia.
Lorne hands Connor to me, and I cradle him close, checking his diaper. I hear
the others walk out, rather than see them. And to judge by the soft footsteps
that linger in the hall, Cordelia is the last to leave.
***
I wake up in the middle of the night -- not startled, but alert. Mentally I
replay the sound in my mind, then look over at the other side of the bed.
Connor's awake. He didn't cry, but he's started making noise, testing me to see
what it takes to wake the dead.
Somewhere between the moment Cordelia left and the moment I finished changing
Connor, I realized how long it had been since I'd slept for more than 10 minutes
at a stretch, or in a bed, or without being afraid that Cordelia was about to
die. I started to put Connor in his crib, but then I knew how badly I needed him
near, to hear his breathing and his heartbeat. So we piled up in bed together
for -- I glance at the clock -- a couple of hours, before the Amazing Bottle-
Drinking Machine woke up, apparently ready for action again.
He gives a little cry -- just one, trying out his voice. He blinks at me in the
darkness, maybe as surprised to wake by my side as I am to wake by his. The baby
books all say he should always sleep in the crib, but this once I didn't listen,
and I'm glad. I may be a hot- tempered jackass, or a ineffectual man who
couldn't save his -- his best friend, but all that's a little farther away right
now. I put my hand on Connor's tiny round tummy, feel the warmth of his living
body within his terry-cloth sleeper.
"What's the matter, big guy?" Connor blinks up at me, frowns in
something that's not quite distress and puts his fist in his mouth. "I
figured you were hungry. You're growing fast, aren't you?"
A quick check of the fridge reveals that I'm out of bottles up here; I think
there are a few already mixed downstairs. I'm still not ready to deal with the
others, but at 3 a.m., Connor and I are probably on our own.
With my son on my shoulder, I go quietly down the hallway past Lorne's room,
past Fred's. There's a light on downstairs; we usually have at least one lamp
lit during the night, in case of midnight customers or feedings.
And as I get closer to the lobby, that dim light lets me see Cordelia, curled
around the circular sofa in what has to be the world's most awkward position for
sleeping. She is asleep, though, so if I wanted, I could get Connor's bottle and
go upstairs again without ever letting on.
But the sight of her -- both the uncomfortable way she's lying and the simple,
beautiful rise and fall of her breath -- make me go to her side.
"Hey," I say quietly, shaking her shoulder with my free hand.
"That can't feel good."
"Hmmmph -- wha?" Cordelia sits up and blinks at me in incomprehension.
Then she remembers that she wanted to talk to me, and she grins. Then she
remembers that she's mad at me, and the smile's all gone. "Took you long
enough."
"Why are you -- Cordy, if you don't feel up to driving home --" Oh,
God, she's still too weak to drive, and I pushed her, and -- "You know
there's rooms, there's beds --"
"I feel fine," she insists, then stretches and grimaces as her back
pops. "I didn't mean to sleep down here. I thought even you couldn't be
stubborn enough not to come back downstairs after a few minutes. Guess I guessed
wrong." Her eyes are dark as she scowls at me. "But you're finally
here. So, did you come down to yell at me some more?"
I feel like hell, but for once, discretion isn't the better part of valor. I say
it gently, but I say it: "Did you stick around to lie to me some
more?"
Cordelia wants to go ballistic at that, but she can't. She's too tired -- even
in the shadows, I can see the gray-purple smudges beneath her eyes. And, angry
as she is, she knows my question's a good one. "Angel -- don't be mad at
me," she says at last. "You don't understand what it was like."
She looks like the 21-year-old girl she is right then -- uncertain, sweet, still
afraid. I sit down beside her. "Tell me."
"I didn't know for sure I was dying," she says. "The doctors
would say -- well, they'd say one thing, and then the next week they'd say
something totally different. They obviously didn't have any idea what they were
talking about."
"I know it had to be confusing," I answer. Connor wriggles against me,
still hungry, but for the time being, he can be appeased with a pat on the back.
"But Cordy -- I mean, obviously they did know what they were talking about.
They said you were dying, and you were." Cordelia was dying. She was lying
on my bed still and silent and dying --
"I guess," she says miserably. "I mean, I really didn't know from
the doctors -- the last few months, I didn't even read most of my test results.
But sometimes I wondered. I used to think maybe I could feel it happening."
"Jesus, Cordy." I take my own terror of the last several hours,
stretch it out over months, and try to imagine how it must have been for her. I
can't. "But even if you were just scared, you could have told us. Even if I
-- even if I couldn't save you, I at least could have -- tried to help you not
be afraid." Only that. But at least it would have been something.
"Angel, I didn't mean that, about not being able to save me. I didn't mean
it. Please don't think I meant it." Cordelia puts her hands against my
chest; her words do less to calm me than the feel of her skin, so warm and alive
against mine.
"You meant something."
She sighs and looks skyward -- for advice? Trying to take flight again? Instead,
she says, "Angel -- I wasn't scared that you couldn't stop it from
happening. I was scared that you would."
"What? Of course I would have stopped it, Cordy. It was killing you --
"
"And how would you have stopped it, huh?" Cordelia's on her feet in an
instant, pacing in front of me. The words pour out of her, but she's saying this
to herself as much as to me. "There's only one way you could ever have
stopped it. And that would have been to get rid of my visions. You would have
had to take them away from me, and I didn't want that."
"The last time you were in danger --" A memory of Cordelia's face,
frightened and burned, swims up out of my memory, floods my thoughts, is gone.
"-- you were willing to give up the visions then."
"Only because I was scared. But once I had a chance to think about it some
more, to realize what it means to me and to you and to all those people we help
-- I knew that would have been wrong. I had to keep the visions, Angel. I had to
keep being your Seer. You could have taken the visions away from me, but if that
meant I wasn't your Seer anymore -- then you wouldn't have saved me. Not really.
I had to believe that it was gonna turn out okay, because we were doing the
right thing."
She's so young. She still thinks it could be that simple. "You still should
have told us."
Cordelia quirks her lips. "You're telling me that you would've done what I
wanted? Let me keep the visions?"
"I don't know," I confess. "But at least I could have just --
been there for you. You had to be so scared, Cordelia. And I lean on you so for
so much. I want you to be able to lean on me too." Me, somebody's stable
rock and comfort and anchor. Okay, it's not likely. But it would be nice to try
sometime.
She sighs. "I know I can lean on you if I have to, Angel. But the last few
months, I didn't know which way to lean. I wasn't sitting up nights terrified
about it. I was so amazingly not thinking about it, at ALL. You know me. If I
don't want to go there, my brain doesn't go there. End of story."
Cordelia's just saying it to make me feel better, but it works, because at last,
it's the truth. The thought of her alone and frightened these past months -- I'm
glad it's just an idea, and not reality.
But just when I think the mood has lightened, Cordelia frowns again and swats me
on the arm. "Ow!"
"I believe we have a certain rich-girl comment to discuss?"
Oh, hell. "Cordy --"
"Don't you Cordy me. And don't even think about pleading baby-bottle duty.
Connor's halfway asleep again." I glance down and see this is true. Way to
fall down on the job, little man. "Why did you say that?"
I think about what I said in that chamber, and my stomach drops as I realize the
depth of what I confessed in there -- what I admitted out loud for the first
time ever. Haltingly, I ask, "Cordy -- what did you hear?"
"That you think I'm a spoiled little rich girl the Powers couldn't even be
bothered with," she says. "Or something like that."
I study her face carefully. She's angry -- not as angry as she's putting on, but
angry enough. But she's not holding anything back. I wish I had taken a breath,
so I could let it out. Cordelia didn't hear. She doesn't know. "You know
that's not how I think of you," I say, because that's the simplest way of
putting it.
"If it isn't -- " Hell, she actually believes I might have meant it,
at least a little. "-- then why did you say it?"
I ask myself the same question, then answer her slowly. "I thought that --
if I pretended you didn't matter to me -- then they wouldn't take you away to
hurt me."
"You thought they were doing all this to hurt YOU?" Cordelia's shaking
her head, half in amusement, half in disbelief. "Hello, it was MY head that
was going to explode! Do you honestly think the whole universe is only out to
get you?"
I open my mouth to protest, but then I stop. I start thinking -- Wolfram &
Hart, Holtz, Kate, Drusilla, the Council of Watchers, the First Evil, the
gypsies --
Cordelia gasps and claps her hands to her mouth. "Oh, my God! You do!
Because it -- well, it kinda is."
We stare at each other for a long minute, and then we burst into laughter.
Connor wakes and starts bawling, and I cuddle him close, but I'm laughing too
hard to get into the kitchen. The universe is out to get me. Of course. Explains
it all. Why didn't I see it before?
As always, it takes Cordy to see it for me.
She's giggling and wiping tears from her eyes as I get up. "Come on,"
I say between laughs. "Let's get this guy his bottle."
We get into the kitchen and finally get Connor his formula; Connor can't quite
grip the bottle himself yet, but it's clear he'd like to try as he hungrily
gulps down his meal. "Sorry we made you wait," Cordelia whispers as
she leans down and kisses his head. "Mmmm. That smell right at the top of
his head. What is that? Just pure babysmell, I guess. Why does that smell so
great?"
"Don't know." Standing here in the dim light, with Cordelia strong and
alive and by my side, and Connor warm and healthy in my arms, I feel the last
tension drain out of me. "Hold him, will you?"
"Huh? Sure." Cordelia holds her arms out, and I hand over both baby
and bottle. She gets the right grip right away, and Connor doesn't miss a beat.
"Why do you --" Her voice trails off as I wrap them both in a hug.
"Oh," she whispers, and rests her head against my chest -- leaning on
me, just this little bit, just for this moment, and it's enough. Connor shifts
slightly between us, and Cordelia's cheek is soft against my skin.
For so long, I've fought for intangible things -- rightness, salvation,
redemption. All part of my mission and my duty. But at this moment I realize how
good it feels to know that everything you're fighting for -- everything you love
-- can be contained in your embrace. Held safe in your arms.
End.
Contact Dazzle