White by Dazzle
Summary: Angel and Cordelia finally realize where the paths of the last several months have led them. Ninth and last in the Prism Series, which follows Cordy and Angel's developing feelings throughout the previous year.
Spoilers: Through the ATS third-season episode "Tomorrow."
Notes: Thanks to Inamorata for the great beta-read and encouragement.
The
symbolism of white: reverence, humility, innocence, birth, creation, marriage,
winter, good. When all the colors of light are combined, the result is white
light.
*****
As I palm the car keys
and the motor dies down, I realize that I'm surrounded by a
silence that's too rare in L.A. Not pure silence, of course; just the
stillness of separation from automobiles and radios and human voices. I
can still hear so much, but it's all gentler. More natural. The cry
of gulls, the rustle of the breeze through tall beach grasses, and
above all the muted rush of the ocean.
As though I were
sleepwalking -- dreamwalking -- I get out of the car, breathe in deeply like a living man, and
smell the cool sea air. I walk to the promontory and look at the ocean;
snowy wavecaps flutter toward the shore, splash, rush away
again. My foot brushes against something, and I glance down; it's a
conch shell, too far from the water and too lustrous and opalescent to
be a genuine find. This is a souvenir, bought and dropped and
forgotten.
The shell is smooth in
my hand as I pick it up. I remember, as a child, believing that
you could hear the ocean if you held a shell to your ear. But it's no
more than the echo of a heartbeat and blood flow, amplified and
captured in the whorls. For one instant, though, I give into the
temptation to try it; tonight, it seems like anything could happen. I hold
the shell to my own ear, and as I should have expected -- I hear
nothing. I don't care. Right now, all I'm doing is trying to listen to
the remembered words in my mind.
"Depends on how
you feel," she said. About what, I asked. "About me." How did her voice
sound when she said that? How was it? She was -- direct, but not
certain. Her tone went up just a little when she said "me" --
didn't it? -- making it almost a question, but not demanding an answer
right away. Simple, sweet -- but teasing me, just the littlest bit.
She's not sure how I feel, but she at least guesses. I can feel
myself smiling -- half in anticipation, half in pure, stunned
disbelief.
Just when I thought
I'd lost her -- before we ever even had a chance - - it looks like this
might just happen after all.
Me and Cordy. Angel
and Cordelia. Please, let this be real. Please, let her feel what I
think she feels, say what I hope she's going to say.
Please, don't let me
screw this up.
*****
Okay, explain this to
me: If I'm driving toward a battle with a slime demon, where I am
guaranteed to get covered in ookiness, the highways are clear and I get
there in record time. If I'm headed to the DMV to come up with a cover
story to explain the lost license that's lying on the ground in
another dimension, I can make it in about five minutes so I can sit
in the office and wait all day.
But the second I'm
trying to make a romantic rendezvous with my best friend,
quite-possibly-about-to-be-boyfriend, every single person in Southern California
decides to pull out on the highway and drive four miles an hour. How do
they know? And why do they do it?
I drum my hands on the
steering wheel in impatience, but even as I feel the wheel against
my palms, I start to laugh.
I'm in love with
Angel. It sounds like some phrase from another language, and at the
same time, I know it's true. I mean, I KNOW it, down in my bones, in
my blood. I feel like one of those women in the comic-strip panels;
there oughta be a thought balloon over my head that says, "How
could I have been so blind?"
All those times we've
sat up late, talking, sitting side-by-side. The handful of nights we
slept in the same bed, not touching, but with our bodies curved near
one another all the same. The way we can read each other's minds
half the time, totally surprise each other the rest of the time.
That's the way lovers are together. God, that's how they are together if
they're lucky. And we've had this for so long, and I'm only now
catching on?
I gotta tell ya,
there's nothing quite like realizing that an entire year of your life can
be summed up with the word "Duh."
What am I going to say
to Angel? How do I explain it? I mean, do I just blurt out,
"Angel, I love you?" What if he doesn't feel the same? I'd DIE. And he
would too, except for the part where he's already dead.
But the way he reacted
when I asked him to meet me here -- the way his voice sounded -- I
think he does feel the same. I think. I hope. If he doesn't realize
it, if he's locked up in his own personal denial vault, I swear
to God I'll break him out. For one second, I imagine myself as some
kind of leotard-clad catburglar, my ear pressed against
Angel's chest as I try to crack the code that unlocks him, sets him free.
If he does realize it,
though -- if he does feel the same --
All of a sudden, I'm
remembering a hundred little moments, and seeing them in a whole new
light. The way he freaked after I nearly died and got demonized instead.
The way he touched my face when he showed up at my place late at
night to talk about Buffy. The way he drew me for my Christmas portrait.
I think Angel does realize. I think Angel's known this for a long
time.
And he let me run off
with Groo? He must have felt -- how am I going to explain --
I start smiling again
as I realize I won't have to explain anything. I won't even have to
say anything. When I get to him, and we look at each other -- we'll
know. Then and there. And before he can say anything about how we
shouldn't or curses or gypsies, I am going to grab him and kiss him
so long and so well that it says everything in my heart.
And maybe the way he
kisses will tell me the same. I remember Angel's mouth -- the slight
fullness of his lower lip, the set of his jaw, his strong chin. I can
imagine how his face will fit with mine, the angle we'll need. I
realize I've unconsciously tilted my face up a little; he's taller
than I am. The details are all so real to me, like we'd kissed a
hundred times before.
Oh, God, I'm so ready
to see him, to tell him. And the cars are just going slower to spite
me.
Wait a second.
The cars really ARE
going slower --
*****
Goddamned gypsies.
Cordelia's not even here yet -- we haven't even kissed for the first
time, unless you count being possessed or the time she was trying to
get rid of the visions, and I don't -- and I already want her so
bad my body hurts. And I'm never gonna have her, not the way I'm
dreaming of.
But I can take it if I
have to. And Cordelia -- I swear to God, she'll never regret
it. I can't have perfect happiness within her -- and just at this
moment, imagining being within her, being able to feel her living heat
all around me, I know it would rip my soul to shreds -- but there's
nothing stopping me from giving her everything I can't take myself.
And that's what I intend to do: give her everything she needs,
everything she would ever want.
I glance back at the
Plymouth, in particular the low, long back seat. I imagine laying her
on her back across that seat, slowly sliding her pants down from her
waist, lowering my face between her legs. My lips part slightly as I
imagine how she'll taste, and I wonder what's she like -- if she's loud,
or if she's quiet, or -- oh, God, Cordy, get here already. I want
to know. I intend to know.
Am I gonna be
frustrated? Yeah. But if that's the price -- if that's all I have to deal
with to be in love with Cordelia -- then it's such a cheap price to pay.
There was a time I
didn't think so. A few years ago, it seemed like not being able to make
love, to fully consummate passion, was this unendurable burden. It
stood between me and Buffy like a damned stone wall. All I could
think about was what I couldn't give Buffy. And now all I think about is
what I can give Cordelia.
For the first time, I
realize how much I felt like Buffy was another of my victims -- one
more person I was dragging away from the light. I saw the mission we
fought for, and I knew my desires took away from that. I thought it was
selfish. I thought it was wrong.
I sacrificed my love
for Buffy on that altar, and only now do I know that the altar was
consecrated to false gods.
Even this last fall, I
hurt Buffy for that mission. I told myself that nameless,
faceless people I might or might not save mattered more than this one
person whose name had meant the world to me, whose face could never fade
from my mind. I put abstract need instead of the very real pain of
one individual. I'd never do that again. I never will.
I look up at the sky
and whisper, "I'm sorry," to a girl I'll probably never see
again. I'm not apologizing for loving someone else; I'll never
apologize for how I feel about Cordelia, not to Buffy, not to anyone.
But I'm apologizing for learning these lessons the hard way, through
Buffy's pain and mine.
Now I know that a
mission can't ever be any bigger than an individual, can't
exist outside of any one moment. If you think a cause matters more
than any one person, then you've lost sight of what that cause is
supposed to be about.
Earlier this year, I
was willing to let Cordelia go, and I told myself it was out of
Love, the ideal, the burden. Now I know that I can't do anything but
love her, the act, the reality. Noun to verb. Death to life. Lie to
truth.
*****
"I'm Angel's
Seer." These are the only words that make any sense. The only thing that's made
any sense in my life for so long -- years now - -
How could I ever pull
those words apart? I'm a Seer; that's what Skip is telling me to
embrace. But I'm also Angel's, and that's what he's telling me to walk
away from. How can this possibly be? Angel's the reason I'm a Seer.
He's the reason I'm -- a grown-up, a fighter, a champion. I think he's
probably also the reason I'm a good person, or at any rate the good
person I've become. More than that: He's the reason I believe. This
last Christmas, when I could feel that growing darkness down deep
inside, I never gave up. I almost didn't even let myself get scared. Why?
Because I could look down at Angel and his son -- the son who's come
back to him, despite the odds -- and I could believe in miracles. I
could believe that the Powers would take care of me, keep me by Angel's
side to I could see all those Christmases to come.
Angel was the one
person in my life I most didn't want to leave. He was the center of my
life already -- God, how could I not have seen it then? But I already
knew how important he was. How right it was for me to put him
first.
And now Skip is
telling me to put Angel aside. The Powers brought us together, and now the
Powers want to drag us apart? I don't understand. I don't. But the Powers never lie.
All this time, I've
seen my mission in terms of one individual. One single person. I never
forgot about all the people we needed to help, all those lives we
were meant to save; still, Angel was the one I saw doing the saving. My
visions, his hands. Two parts of one whole. Inseparable.
But now I have to ask
myself if maybe it's bigger than one person -- no, two people. Bigger
than us.
*****
The Powers are lying
bastards.
Why did it take me so
long to figure this out? Me, of all people? For a century, I carried
around a curse with a loophole capable of destroying countless
lives, starting with those closest to me. Did they ever bother to
let me know? If not for my sake, for all those others? Never. The
Powers sent Whistler to give me a purpose in life, and Whistler sent me
right to a girl I didn't know how to love and wouldn't be able to
keep. Then they sent Doyle, to pull me back from the brink with his
psychic powers, and they didn't even give him a vision that might have
let him save his own life. Then they let Doyle transfer his abilities
to Cordelia, even though they might have killed her -- and they
came so damn close to killing her --
And all the while, I
told myself they were teaching me so much. That I was learning,
atoning, growing in the way they wanted me to do. But all I was doing was
bowing under that weight. I had to break the rules to find out how
meaningless the rules actually were.
I performed dark magic
to get my son back. The Powers would have me believe that by doing
so, I committed unspeakable sin. I felt guilty, as soon as I was
capable of feeling anything at all. God, I even prayed for my son to
be dead and in heaven -- in the Powers' keeping - - instead of
continuing to try to save him.
And now Connor's back.
He's older, and he's mixed up, and we lost so many years -- but
dammit, he's alive, and he's back, and why is that? The dark magic worked.
It created a rift, and that rift led to the creation of a path
that he followed back to my side. Connor dropped down into the center
of the pentagram I painted on the floor. I don't think it's
coincidence.
I look out at the
ocean again, at that infinite darkness, that unending horizon. For
one brief instant, I remember my old faith in the Powers, in the
mission. I believed so deeply, and that belief was more beautiful than
anything I'd felt in so long.
But I have something
even more beautiful now -- Cordelia's love, and maybe, someday,
Connor's again. All because I ignored the Powers'
"lessons" and started following my own heart. If I'd done that from the
beginning, I'd never have lost Connor at all. I'd never have trusted Wesl --
anyone else to take care of him. I'd have kept him safe by my side.
If only I'd known it all along --
No. If I'd known it
all along, I might never have lost Buffy -- and I'd never have fallen
in love with Cordy. And I can't regret that, no matter how much pain
it might have caused along the way.
I smile a little in
anticipation; Cordelia should be here soon. In just a few minutes,
I'll find out if she loves me. And she'll find out just how much I
love her.
*****
Still life on highway.
Playing in traffic. Deer caught in the headlights.
All these crazy
phrases keep floating up in my mind; they're all I have to describe the
current situation, and they still fall short. I thought I was prepared
for anything -- but not, as it turns out, standing in the middle
of an L.A. freeway that's frozen in time, right in front of a
Mack truck with the high beams on, staring at a hellguard demon named
Skip.
"But Angel --
he'll never know how much I love him," I protest again.
Skip shrugs -- the
blades that protrude from his shoulders, like wings, shift as he
moves. "I know it's not easy," he says. "If it were easy, everybody
would be a champion. But everybody isn't. Not everybody's up to
it."
"Angel's a
champion," I say. "And he needs me as much as I need him." That sounds kinda
arrogant, but it's not. It's the truth! Look what happened when I went
away. He lost his son -- not for good, thank God, but for long
enough. The damage to their relationship, to Connor's whole life --
no matter how hard they work, they'll never rebuild what they
would have had. He lost Wesley, too; I pretend like that doesn't matter,
but here and now, when I'm realizing I'll never see Wesley again -- I
know it matters a lot. Those are real wounds. Permanent scars. Like
Angel needed any more scars.
And why does Angel
have them? Because I took off, forgot all about him, forgot all about
my mission, and went snorkeling off Catalina Island. He was alone
and isolated and without anybody who really understood him, who might have seen what was
going on and acted to stop it. Because I was off with Groo.
Groo -- I wince a
little as I think of him and our misguided holiday together. Of the way
his face looked when he told me goodbye. I didn't love him, and I
never would have; I see that, now. But I did care about him, at
least enough to feel terrible that he got hurt. In the end, Groo got hurt
for the same reason Angel got hurt -- because I ran off to have fun
without asking myself if it was right.
"When I made you
part-demon," Skip says, "That happened for a purpose, Cordelia. For
a mission that was more important than any one man."
The purpose. The
mission. I think about that for a long few moments -- at least, what seems
like a long time in the center of an earth that's suddenly gone
completely still.
What happened when I
went away -- was that because I left Angel, or because I left the
mission? I don't have an easy answer for that.
I never tried to
separate them before.
*****
I set the conch shell
on the front seat of the car; I want to save it, to give it to
Cordelia. Not exactly the most glamorous gift in the world -- a far cry
from the Tiffany boxes she used to dream of -- but it's something
physical that I can put into her hands, give her to keep. It's
overwhelming, this urge to give something to her. Anything. Some token
that could represent just a fraction of what I'm feeling inside. I'd
forgotten this impulse: the craving to take something intangible
and find a symbol for it. For whatever reason, that makes it more
real.
Then again, maybe
that's what love does to you. It makes the abstract inadequate, forces you
to get real. And it makes you get real about everything, not just
the person you care about.
For instance, why did
I ever try to pretend that the mission wasn't about people?
I know the answer,
even as I ask the question. Because a mission is easy. It's neat and
tidy, all wrapped up in light and goodness. It justifies anything,
and if you make a mistake -- well, with conflicting scrolls of prophecy and spirit guides
that come in weirder forms all the time, you're bound to mess
up sometimes.
People -- they demand
more of you. If you mess up, it's not some vague question of bad
karma, something that you have to pray about, hoping for heavenly
answers that never come. It's Connor screaming that his name is
Stephen (thank God that's behind us, at least), or Lindsey holding up the
plaster that stood in for his hand, or Darla, surrendering the
feeble scraps of life and soul she possessed because I wasn't able to
protect her from Holtz.
Or it's Cordelia,
hands on hips, telling me she knew I couldn't save her.
That lie still hurts;
Cordelia didn't trust me to respect her wishes when she was afraid
she was dying. The part that hurts the most: Cordy was right. I
wouldn't have respected her wishes -- though it would be more true to
say, I wouldn't have respected the Powers that did that to her.
She only wanted to
help. She only wanted to rescue all those people who were hurting and
in danger. And for that, the Powers were willing to kill her. They were
willing to take Cordelia and use her up like she was made of paper.
Something insubstantial, to be thrown away.
"You think they
did this to hurt YOU?" she asked, incredulous that I thought the Powers
might hurt her just to get at me. Well, they tried to take my son
forever, let him grow up in hell with a man who couldn't have loved
him the way I do -- and that was all to teach me a lesson about what it
means to lose a son. Manipulative bastards. If they'd ruin Connor's
childhood to punish me, then they'd kill Cordelia for no better
purpose.
She teased me because
I thought the world was out to get me. I don't believe that, not
really. But I think the world -- at least the Powers -- isn't out to
help me, or anyone connected with me. We have to help ourselves. We
have to take care of each other.
When you get right
down to it -- isn't that what love means?
*****
"If I leave
Angel, then it's the same as ---"
Skip raises an
eyebrow, or what passes for an eyebrow on his face. "The same
as what?"
I can't answer -- not
because I don't know what I was going to say, but because I realize,
all at once, that it's not true.
I was going to say,
"It's the same as not loving him." But it isn't. Love doesn't mean not
caring about anything in the world except one person. Maybe -- maybe
it means that you and that one person care about the same things.
Even if that means those things are more important than either
of you.
Right at this moment
-- just when I realize that it's possible I'm about to leave Angel
forever -- I realize more than ever before just how much I love him.
How badly I want to see him -- oh, God, just once! I imagine him
standing at the oceanside cliff, as he must be. Waiting for me. I
imagine pulling up, running toward him, not even waiting to see what he
says, or for him to ask any of the hundred jillion questions that
have to be running through his mind. I want to kiss him, for real,
just for once. Is that so much to ask?
Looks like it.
All my life -- and
right now I realize that I have no idea how long that will be, days or
millennia -- I am going to love Angel. As a man, as a friend, or
just as the one who brought me to this place. Where I could stand
back from my personal concerns and finally put my stupid, childish
teenage self behind me forever. I'm going to love him forever, no matter
what -- even if we never see each other again.
Once I would have
thought that was impossible -- loving someone without ever seeing
them, or being near them. But I learned different, these last couple of weeks. Angel
thought he'd never see Connor again, but if anything, he just loved his
son more. I'll never forget what it felt like, hearing Angel say that
he hoped his son was dead. He could give his son up to heaven, knowing
that heaven was real. And if I could tell him about this -- ask
him what he would do - - I bet he'd give me up to heaven too.
Heaven is love made
real. Joy that rises new each moment. Angel would want that for me. And
I know now that I want it for myself. And that it's worth sacrificing
for.
Even sacrificing
Angel.
*****
Connor. I thought it
was impossible for me to feel more jubilant than I already do, but
thinking of him makes me grin. I laugh out loud, hear my voice echoing
among the beach grasses, above the roar of the ocean.
My son has come back.
My son is home.
I know what we've
lost; I don't ever expect the loss of those years to stop hurting. But
as real and as omnipresent as that shadow is, right now it's
eclipsed by the pure light of his return, of his willingness to live
with me, let me be his father again. I'll find a way to make the lost
time up to him. It might not ever be the same but -- it could still
be good, I think.
And I can't forget
what a miracle it was that he came to be in the first place. I
remember reeling in shock when I first found out about him. What would he be?
Man or monster. Child or chaos?
It was Cordelia who
sat by my side, listened to my fears, told me it would all be all
right. And she was telling the truth. I remember her as she was then --
tired and frightened but still standing by me -- and it doubles my need
to see her, kiss her, hold her close.
She carried such
terrible burdens for me then, weights I knew and did not know. She was
willing to kill Connor for me if it had to be done. She was willing to die
for me if the visions could come from no other source.
But now Connor's been
shown to be good -- stronger and better than human, not lower, not
worse. As much as it hurts, I have to give credit where credit's
due: Holtz raised him well. We don't have to be frightened of him
anymore. I don't even have to be frightened for him; he's so smart, so
able, so damn strong.
And the Powers, in one
of their rare merciful moments, seem to have given Cordelia
abilities that don't hurt her, but make her even stronger. She's
something I don't even understand now, but something that's beautiful.
Something she was meant to be.
The Powers -- they
bless us and they blame us, hurt us and save us, but I was fooling
myself to think that the difference was ever anything besides
random. Chance serves us as well as choice, as it turns out; defiance
does as much good as obedience. I can only listen to my own counsel.
Obey my own judgment. We must be meant to trust ourselves, at least;
after all, whom else could we possibly trust?
Those we love, of
course. But I don't have any fears that they'll lead me wrong.
I lift my head and
breathe in the salty air once more. This time, I catch a whiff of
something familiar -- someone familiar --
But it isn't Cordelia.
It's Connor. I feel myself begin to smile.
What is he doing here?
*****
"You've already
decided," Skip says, and he's telling the truth.
This is important.
This is my mission. Mine, not ours -- it's weird to think that, but it
must be true. Mine alone.
Alone. Without Angel.
Oh, God.
I'm not hurting for
myself; I'm going to heaven, and from what Angel's told me,
there's nothing for me to fear there. Only joy. Only love -- and even
greater than what I feel for Angel, as unimaginable as that seems right
now.
Still. I can't stop
thinking about him; he's standing near the ocean, and he's waiting for
me. He at least guesses that I was coming to tell him I love him,
and he's waiting there, maybe to tell me that he loves me too. And the
thought of him there, waiting and waiting until he finally gives up --
it breaks my heart. How can I do this to him? How can I let him be
hurt? What kind of uncaring person am I?
I tell myself that he
has Connor back now. And there's Fred and Gunn - - and maybe, just
maybe, with Connor at home safe and sound, Angel will find it in him to
forgive Wesley someday. And maybe Wesley will feel the same. Even
Lorne won't be in Vegas forever. Angel won't be alone.
But none of them know
him like I do, none of them love him like I do - -
Then I remember
something Angel told me once -- right when he got back from Sri Lanka,
when Buffy was still dead. Guilt is a cop-out. It's the easy way of
dealing with something. It lets you think about yourself, not about
the other person.
And I want to think
about Angel. If I can never be with him in reality, that just
makes it even more important that we're together in spirit. That I
carry him with me always, not in regret or in sadness, but in joy.
In love.
So I think about
Angel, let my love for him fill me up, illuminate me from within. And
because I'm thinking of him, I'm smiling as I float upwards, into heaven,
into light.
End.
Contact Dazzle