Chapter Three – Explanations
“I believe we’re here.” Wesley’s voice cut into Angel’s thoughts, taking his gaze away from the streets of LA. He’d remained silent for much of the journey, taking in the little he’d been told about what had happened with Cordelia back at Caritas.
Wesley had explained, in his usual halting fashion, that Cordelia was a Seer – a conduit for the Powers That Be. They relayed messages to her in the form of visions so that Wesley and the others knew who to save, which case they should be solving next.
That part, he understood. He’d heard of Seers before, even known a couple in his time – but none of them had been human. And none of them seemed to have the debilitating short-term memory loss Cordelia seemed to be suffering from.
“As soon as we see to this vision,” Wesley had assured him, quietly, “You’ll get your answers.”
Angel had accepted that. Cordelia had been shaken up back at the club, telling Wesley that unless they hurried, this girl in her vision was going to die. Angel didn’t think that there was any waiting around where Cordelia’s visions were concerned but there was something going on with Wesley right now that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
The Watcher was nervous, jumpy almost – and Angel’s presence didn’t seem to be helping matters much.
Gunn was even less than welcoming towards the vampire. Having shot as many glares as humanly possible Angel’s way during the ride, he’d pressed his foot down on the brakes, bringing the truck to a stop outside the abandoned warehouse off Mercer and Main.
“Now see, this is what bugs me ‘bout a place like LA. So many abandoned warehouses that the monsters in this world got what could be looked on as a storage facility…” He said, shaking his head.
Angel looked grimly at the young black man. He was right. Some of the time, the monsters in this world were aided by people, by their own stupidity. It was people like Gunn, Wesley and Cordelia who made this world a better place to live in.
“Any idea where this demon’s going to be?” Asked Angel, clutching the broadsword that he’d been given from Wesley.
“The visions aren’t exactly that specific,” Wesley answered, closing the door of the cab behind him as Gunn jumped down from the other side, “It’s more like a flash of a place and then serious detective work from there…”
“So what’s different about tonight?” Angel looked at Wesley, wondering what the Watcher was hiding from him. “Cordelia said that—”
“Look, you’re asking a hell of a lot of questions here.” Gunn frowned, taking a stab at the air with his fighting axe. “Best plan of action is us killing this demon dude and you being on your way, no muss, no fuss.”
It wasn’t that simple.
Whether they voiced it or not, they all knew that Angel wasn’t going to just walk out of there. He wanted answers. He wanted to know why, exactly, Cordelia hadn’t remembered him from the night before or why she seemed to be the only person living in her own little world of déjà vu.
Clutching his broadsword just that little bit tighter, Angel strode forward with Gunn and Wes, his shoes hitting the sidewalk silently.
They came around the side of the warehouse just seconds after leaving Gunn’s truck. Angel looked up at the broken windows, the crumbling walls of the building in front of him. This place had been empty for a while.
Perfect, Angel thought, At least that means the only human in there is the one in Cordelia’s vision.
“Think we should try to look for a side entrance?” Gunn glanced at Wesley, looking slightly unnerved by the fact that Angel hadn’t uttered a word since his little suggestion.
Wesley said nothing. He watched as Angel took a couple of steps forward, glancing up the side of the building at the sturdy drainpipe.
The drainpipe led up to the second floor, a broken window. It took Angel a moment to assess the situation. Going in through the front entrance would alert the demon to their presence, at least this way they had the possible advantage of catching the thing off guard.
Making his decision, Angel clamoured up the drainpipe and launched himself over to the fire escape, pushing down the ladder despite the short squeal of protest it gave. It hit the pavement below with a dull thudding sound.
Reluctantly, Gunn grabbed hold of the ladder, muttering something about vampires and their fancy-ass shit that any guy could pull, and hoisted himself upwards, Wesley following behind.
Lowering his head, Angel peered in through the broken window a couple of feet away from him as Gunn and Wesley made their ascent. He was aware of two different scents – one demon, easily distinguishable, and then… Angel’s nostrils flared slightly as he turned towards the others.
“Cordelia said we could save this girl?”
Wesley’s eyes darkened, “You think she’s dead?”
“I smell blood.”
“Did I tell you that freaks me out?” Asked Gunn, glaring at Angel”s back as he tried – and failed – to peer in the window. “What do we do?”
If Angel heard his question, he didn’t acknowledge it. He peered in the window closer, finding he could distinguish four different heartbeats. Two belonging to Wesley and Gunn, the other human…the last one not.
“She”s alive.” He said quietly, slipping through the window with all the grace he’d amassed after 240 years of being comfortable in his own body.
The warehouse was falling to bits, chipped paint and stains that Angel didn’t want to think about adorning the walls.
He could feel the floorboards creaking under his feet, bending beneath his weight. He tested the floors as he walked, placing his feet carefully as the heartbeat he’d been able to hear got closer.
“A demon…” Said Cordelia, quietly, pressing gentle fingertips to her forehead. “An icky, foul-smelling demon. There was a girl. She was so scared, Wesley…”
She moved her fingers in concentric circles, her face pale and drawn. She looked tired, Angel had noted, worn down. It hadn’t prompted him to leave her side.
The smell, Angel realised belatedly, was sulphur.
He knew of two demons that smelt like that. Both fit Cordelia’s description of ‘icky’ – both were just as dangerous as the other. For the girl’s sake, Angel hoped it was the first. For his? He hoped it was the second.
He paused, feeling the dust shift behind him as Wesley and Gunn made their way over. “Sulphur demon.” He uttered quietly, gripping his sword tighter. “Not sure what kind… Just aim for the neck.”
“My favourite spot.” Said Gunn, injecting just enough venom into his voice to make Angel squirm slightly.
For a group of people that had never worked together before, they were quite fluid in their movements. Angel headed up the attack while Gunn and Wesley flanked to the left, each clutching their weapon as if their life – or unlife – depended on it.
The sulphur demon was surprised, angered mostly, at being separated from its lunch. It lunged towards Angel, claws outstretched. Fetid breath brushed against cold dead skin and Angel drove his broadsword upwards into the chest of the demon.
It didn’t kill it. But it wasn’t far off.
The demon staggered, managing to thrust out its arms as Wesley and Gunn drove the attack onwards, knocking the pair against the wall.
A large cloud of dust rose from behind Angel, the dilapidated building already feeling the strains of the fight. Beneath his feet, he could feel the foundations shaking, the demons hulking form not easing the pressure any.
“Just a suggestion,” Coughed Gunn from the floor, trying to rid his lungs of dust, “But I’m thinkin’ we should get out of here.”
“Yeah, got that.” Angel growled as the demon came towards him again. He feinted to the left, drawing his knee upward and into its stomach. For just a moment, the demon’s face registered surprise – surprise that Angel had slipped under its defences.
He used this to his advantage, ignoring the smell that was making his eyes water and his body threaten to convulse with dry heaves that would leave him feeling even sicker. Instead, Angel grabbed his sword, yanked, and with just one mighty swing the demons head fell to the floor with a dull ‘thud’.
The fight was over.
***
Later, when the girl was in the hospital and Cordelia had been informed that the demon was dead, Angel was seated on the bench in the courtyard of the Hyperion, glancing up at an impossibly black sky.
Every so often the wind would change, sending a waft of sulphur floating upwards, almost enough to make him retch. He needed a shower, he’d realised belatedly, seated in his car on the way back to the hotel.
First, though, he needed answers.
Wesley’s reluctance to divulge information at the beginning of the night had been palpable. He’d been uncomfortable, unwilling – just stopping of downright rude when Angel had said that he hadn’t planned on leaving until he had answers.
After the fight he’d seemed tired, less likely to argue. Angel would get his answers but that was all and for now, that was fine.
“I feel a little more human now.” Angel’s eyes snapped open when he heard Wesley’s voice, but not in surprise. “Funny thing about a shower, it works wonders.”
His smile was wry, making Angel take just a moment to look down at his ruined clothes. He could have changed, could have showered, but sunlight was a couple of hours away at most. Angel needed answers more than he needed to be clean.
“I’ll shower later.”
Wesley sighed, his shoulders slumping a little. Angel almost felt bad for the ex-watcher, seeing him standing there so defeated.
Almost.
Behind him, Gunn and the rake-thin, pretty girl called Fred appeared, Fred affording him a tiny, cheerful wave. “Hi, again…” She said, and immediately stopped smiling when Gunn buried an elbow into her side.
She scowled, before moving to sit down on one of the steps.
Across from him, Wesley sat, his spine straight. He seemed to be deliberating over a way to open the conversation, a way to start telling Angel about what had happened to Cordelia. Most of them, or so it seemed, fell short.
“This isn’t exactly easy to say, Angel.” He said, after a moment. “Trying to explain everything that’s happened, I—” Wesley sighed. “I suppose I should start from the beginning.”
Angel stayed silent, watching the myriad of emotions pass across Wesley’s face. It was obvious he didn’t want to get into this – not now, not ever – but Angel wasn’t letting up. Did he feel bad about it? Of course he did. But there was a much bigger, more selfish part of him that needed something in what Wesley was going to say. He needed the truth.
“I’ve told you about the visions.” Said Wesley, quietly, “What they do to her, you’ve seen for yourself.” He paused then, drawing in a breath of air, “Tomorrow morning, Cordelia will wake up and have no recollection of meeting you again. She won’t remember the vision from tonight, though she’ll still have some of the hangover, no doubt. She won’t remember anything.”
“I know that… I was around, remember?”
Wesley shot him a pained look. “You were around for one day, Angel. One night. And because of that you have the potential to destroy everything we’ve built up and I won’t let you do that.”
Angel could feel his mood blackening by the second. “I’m not trying to destroy anything, Wesley, I’m just trying to understand.”
Sighing, Wesley clutched the Manila folder in his lap a little tighter, trying to hold onto whatever it contained for just a second longer. He’d hoped to deflect the questions, Angel presumed; give himself more time to come up with an explanation befitting of the situation.
When Wesley didn’t offer the information and there’d been enough nervous coughs from Fred to last a lifetime, it was Gunn who spoke up. He said, in the irritated voice that seemed to be reserved for Angel, that a little under a year ago, Cordelia had had an accident.
“Accident?” Angel echoed.
“It was the day before Fred’s birthday.” Wesley sighed, no longer looking at Angel. His gaze reached far beyond the walls of the courtyard and with every word he spoke, Angel knew he was reliving that day. “I was… Researching, as usual. A Nyazean prophecy brought to our attention by Wolfram and Hart. I was on cake duty.” A small albeit sad smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
Cordelia had always had that air about her, that air of authority that you didn’t dare argue with. He could remember quite clearly the arch of her eyebrow in the five seconds it had taken him to decide that driving her home was, in fact, a good idea.
“Fred didn’t know a thing about the party. It was her first birthday back in this dimension and Cordelia was determined to make it memorable.”
Angel looked up in time to see Fred wince. Her birthday that year had been memorable, he knew, but for all the wrong reasons.
“Cordelia delegated responsibilities,” Wesley continued, “I was on Cake duty, Charles was on a strictly decoration-getting mission and Lorne was entertainment. She, as usual, was hostess.”
Cordelia the hostess. Seemed fitting, somehow. In Sunnydale she’d struck him as the type of girl who knew how to party, who revelled in the role of being centre of attention. At least in that respect, she hadn’t changed.
Still, Angel listened in silence, noticing the slump of Wesley’s shoulders, the nervous glance shared between Fred and Gunn.
“I was so wrapped up in that Prophecy I forgot all about the cake,” Said Wesley, regarding Angel with a tired expression. “By the time I’d brought my head out of the book I’d been reading Cordelia had left me a note, saying she’d gone to pick up the cake and that she’d meet us at Caritas, minus my three o’clock shadow if I actually knew what a razor-blade was those days.”
Under normal circumstances, Angel might have smiled at that. These weren’t normal circumstances. Wesley’s words hung between them heavily, waiting to be dispelled by whatever was coming next.
“We were at the club when we heard what had happened.” Said Wesley, quietly. “Cordelia had arranged to pick Fred up for a ‘quiet drink’ and we… We weren’t at the hotel when the Police called by.”
Angel could feel his stomach sinking. “Police?”
“She was in her car when the vision hit, ploughed right into a wall. The doctors said she was lucky to pull through at all.” Wesley swallowed, fingers flexing against the manila folder, still in his lap, testing its weight. “She was in hospital for three months. When she woke up, she remembered everything before the accident but nothing of what she’d been through. She has her long-term memory but can’t retain any new information. It’s like every night Cordelia’s slate gets wiped clean.”
It explained it all. The reason Cordelia was reliving the same day all over again, the reason she didn’t remember meeting Angel just one night ago – all of it – but still, Angel didn’t understand.
Why make her relive the day all over again? Why let her believe that it was still a year ago, still the day before a party Cordelia would never attend?
“I don’t…” Angel paused, collecting his thoughts together, “Why do it like this? Why go to all this trouble to pull the wool over her eyes?”
Wesley frowned, looking every bit as if this question was the one that kept him awake at night. “Every day for a month we tried to tell Cordelia what had happened.” He said, his voice hushed, “On the days she took it well – which were few and far between, I can assure you – Cordelia was confused at best, cried for much of the day. On the days she didn’t, well, I’m sure I don’t have to explain how hard that was. This way is easier.”
“For who?” Angel looked at Wesley. He didn’t mean to accuse the Watcher of neglecting Cordelia’s best interests and he certainly didn’t presume to know what was best but this, making Cordelia’s life a bitter rendition of the same day over and over again seemed wrong.
“What do you do ten years down the line when Cordelia starts to age a little? When her body changes?”
As soon as the words were out of Angel’s mouth, Wesley’s eyes blazed. He stood, angrily, knocking the folder off his lap and to the floor. “You think I haven’t asked myself that same bloody question? This isn’t easy, Angel, and there are more things at stake than just looks, especially doing what we do.”
He didn’t answer. He was too busy looking at the contents of the folder Wesley had spilled across the courtyard, wondering if he reached out and touched one, would it make it more real?
Photos of Cordelia lying in a hospital bed stood out against the grey, dull cement – her face and head a mass of scars and bandages.
“I—” Angel faltered, his words dying in his throat, his poise shrunk down to the head of a pin. It was hard to speak, hard to move. Was that really Cordelia, lying so lifeless? How could his image of her before – so confident and full of life – be reduced to that photograph?
How could he remember her smile, remember the way her heartbeat quickened as she wrapped her arms around him and then see that picture?
It took all he had not to grab it and pull it to tiny pieces, his heart wrenching in his chest.
When he forced himself to tear his gaze away, Angel was pinned by a hard look from Wesley. “I think perhaps it’s time you go, Angel. You have your answers.”
And he was right, Angel realised, looking up to meet similar gazes from both Gunn and Fred. He’d asked his questions, he’d received his answers… But it wasn’t over. How could it be?
Standing, Angel met Wesley’s gaze again and said, as softly as he could, “For what it’s worth? I’m sorry.”
Stooping to pick up the contents of the folder he’d dropped, Wesley nodded, “So am I, Angel. So am I.”
Unspoken was a statement, lying so thick in the air that it started to make Angel’s chest feel tight. ‘Leave this alone. Leave her alone.’
Wesley hadn’t even said it; hadn’t uttered a word but Angel knew that his meaning was inherent in the set of his shoulders, the grim smile he afforded Gunn and Fred when he stood.
Angel nodded.
As he walked up the steps past Gunn and Fred, he didn’t breathe. Most of the time he did it for comfort, he supposed, to remind himself that he wasn’t so different from the people he tried to save.
It was a familiar exercise – in, out, in, out – monotonous at times, but familiar. He didn’t breathe until he was halfway across the Hyperion floor and a gentle hand grabbed him by the elbow.
He turned, faced with Fred, and let out a sigh. “Fred?”
“I-I know what he said. Or didn’t say.” She screwed up her face in consternation, trying to work out what it was she was trying to say. “But…” She risked a look back to where Gunn and Wesley were talking, obviously debating how well that had been handled,
“I’ve been around Cordelia for a year and a half, Angel. And vision aside? I ain’t ever seen her smile like that. Not the way she did when she talked about you.”
Angel looked at her, puzzled. “What are you saying?”
“You seem like the kind of guy—Vampire—” Fred blushed, openly struggling with the politically correct term for a vampire when he was standing in your home, “—You just seem like someone who doesn’t give up on people. I love Wesley, but sometimes I don’t think he can see past the guilt.”
He watched as Wesley pulled his jacket tighter around him, clutched that folder to him like it were the only thing keeping him afloat. “It’s not his fault.” Said Angel, quietly.
“I know that,” Fred nodded, “You know that. Sometimes, I think even the rats crawlin’ in the basement know that… But Wesley doesn’t. He beats himself up every day ‘cause he thinks that everythin’ that happened to Cordelia is down to him and—It’s not. He tries to protect her, Angel, but some things he can’t protect her from…”
“You think I can?”
Fred shook her head, “She doesn’t need protectin’, Angel. She needs the truth. She needs something other than what we give her every day.”
“Are you saying—”
“I don’t know what I’m saying.” Fred admitted, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “I just… I think you could be good for her, that’s all.” She looked behind him to where Wesley and Gunn were coming back into the hotel, her demeanour changing somewhat. “You should go.”
Mouthing a silent ‘thank you’, Angel nodded, not looking back as he headed up the steps and out of the Hyperion.
“I ain’t ever seen her smile like that. Not the way she did when she talked about you.”
As he walked, Angel turned that sentence over in his head, fighting the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. By the time he’d got back to his dingy little apartment, he’d decided that tomorrow he was going to do something.
What, he didn’t know, but something.