Wounds

by Whitgirl

 


RATING - PG (for mild doctoring of a wounded Angel)
SPOILERS - Takes place after Dead End
NOTES - Please let me know what you think!  I crave responses!



       ~When she was little, Cordelia wanted to be an adventurer.  She planned to find new worlds hidden in the unexplored seas and write books about the native species of animals, eventually becoming famous like Columbus or Magellan.  When Cordelia and her parents went to Costa Rica she left the campsite early in the morning to explore.  She had gotten lost, and finally in a cloud of tears and sunburn she again stumbled upon her parent’s campsite, where she discovered her father missing and her mother drunk to the point of retching.  Even at her own young age Cordelia wanted to get lost again, to leave behind her family for the green waxy freedom between the leaves and the riverbeds.  She had stayed and comforted her mother, who continued downing shots of Bacardi while moaning on and on about rich bastard husbands who had no idea of what true pain was.  That day Cordelia gave up being an explorer.~
       Cordelia found Angel lying facedown in a pool of crimson, his coat heavily covering his form like a shroud.  Post-vision electricity darted fiercely from her eyes to her temples, but she ignored the pain as she reached his body with a stifled cry.  She didn’t bother with gentleness; instead she firmly gripped his chest and arms and forced him up into a sitting position.
       Angel’s face was startlingly pale under the streetlight, a thin stream of blood the only color on his face.  His dark clothes were wet to the touch, and        Cordelia grimaced as she lifted up his shirt to see severe looking lacerations across his broad chest.  Not one of his injuries appeared to be life threatening, or at least he wouldn’t be exploding into particles of dust anytime soon.  However, Cordelia would be willing to bet that a couple of bones were broken; at the very least his hair had seen better days.  She touched a forming splotch of purple across the bridge of his nose, her dark eyes wide in a mixture of determination and panic.  Angel had yet to regain consciousness.
       A sudden noise to her right made Cordelia speed up her procedures.  She put her hand around Angel’s waist, shifting her weight so that he was lying atop her right hip.  Moving into a squatting position, she slowly began to stand fully on her legs, gritting her teeth and willing that the limp vampire atop her would soon awaken.  
       ~When she was little, Cordelia wanted to be a fitness expert.  She could imagine herself being a built and tough woman who looked great in miniskirts.  This dream flitted between her eyes until the age of fifteen, when some football player she was barely interested in had taken her moaning into the backseat of her dad’s car.  She hadn’t wanted him at all, but she wasn’t strong; She couldn’t fight him off.  She hadn’t really attempted to; She didn’t ask him to stop, just let him take her until she was shivering with a cold sweat and wondering why she couldn’t have been strong.  Cordelia couldn’t be one of those strong women, she couldn’t even tell a popular guy “No” in the back of her dad’s car.~
       Her prayers were answered when Angel’s eyes suddenly flew open, and for a moment Cordelia caught a glimpse of the trapped animal within.  A flash of dragon scales or tiger’s claws before Angel’s familiar eyes gaze uncertainly peered back at her.  
       He cleared his throat and ventured, “Cordelia?”
       She nodded briskly, once again shifting her weight so that she would not fall over.  “Yes, it’s me.  I had a vision that you were in trouble.”
       Angel dully blinked, and then realized that the young woman was trying to hold his bulk up.  Moving gingerly so as to not upset Cordelia’s balance, he put his full weight on his dragging feet.  He attempted to make small talk with a half-hearted, “What time is it?”
       Cordelia continued to support him.  “Around three in the morning.  What were you fighting?  .”
       “Two Vhelmar demons.  They had the element of surprise…” He swayed for a moment, and then caught himself, “…And axes”.
       Cordelia pursed her lips worriedly.  “Well, we’re near my apartment, so come on.  We’ll get you out of those clothes and then I’ll play doctor.”  At Angel’s weird look she rolled her eyes.  “You know what I meant.”
       The walk was long and seemingly horrific for Angel.  Every step required more strength than he had, and every few minutes they were forced to stop so that he could rest.  Cordelia faintly noticed that her new white Capri pants and pink sweater were adorned with sequins of blood ranging from the size of a button to larger blotches that mirrored a map of Europe.  At some level she acknowledged that the clothes were ruined, on another she was shocked to discover that she didn’t care.  
       The apartment was well lit with the TV blaring, and vanilla candles burned under the watchful eye of the resident phantom.  Dennis opened the door for Cordelia, and as soon as they crossed the threshold Angel collapsed on the floor.
       Cordelia gave a clipped, “First aid kit!” to the ghost, and began systematically removing the vampire’s clothing.  The coat was ruined; as was Angel’s black shirt.  Cordelia pulled these off and threw them into a plastic trash bag.  She didn’t wince at the state of Angel’s battered chest, she just grabbed the peroxide and got to work, ignoring any grimaces or shouts of protests from the vampire.  
       ~When she was little, Cordelia wanted to be an artist.  She could swirl colors around on a palette for hours at a time, expertly mixing blue and yellow and white until it resembled some poor rainbow that had been hit by a car.  One day as she was working she accidentally dropped her picture of a red flower onto the designer white carpet.  She had only finished three petals.  The maid had heard Cordelia’s crying and upon discovering the mess scolded her for carelessness.  Cordelia’s parents vetoed any more painting, and ordered the maid to throw away the offending art supplies.  Although they had hired many forms of cleaning help, the red stain never budged from the carpet and sometimes it seemed that somebody had bled to death in Cordelia’s playroom.~
      After throwing a bloody rag into the sink to clean later, Cordelia admired her handiwork.  Angel’s chest was still a multi-colored mess, but at least it was a doctored multi-colored mess.  He was still pale and shell-shocked, but he seemed to be recovering. Angel poked at one of the numerous bandages adorning his body and looked up at her wonderingly.
       He said, “You’re amazing.”
       Cordelia broke down.
       The reaction to his simple statement alarmed him; Cordelia was red and raining and seemingly at the brink of losing sense completely.  He couldn’t sit up, so he instead awkwardly patted her back and face with his one good hand.  She sat down on the floor beside him, babbling incoherently as she cleaned up the rest of the mess, wiping uselessly any stray blood that had dripped onto the linoleum.  
       “I’m not amazing!  I’ve never been amazing.  I can’t do it, Angel, I can’t!”
       “Cordelia!  What is it?  What…”
       She turned on him.  “Why did you get hurt?  I can’t stand it when you get hurt.  I think – I feel too much.  What if you’d been hurt worse than now?  What if I lost you?  I couldn’t do that; I wouldn’t know what to do, where to go…”
       She stopped.  “I’m weak.  I can’t do this anymore.”
       Angel’s mouth grimly snapped shut.  Before he had been amazed at her outburst, now he was furious.  “Cordelia Chase, you are anything but weak.”
       She looked up tearfully.  “I am.  There are parts of me that you don’t know…”
       He shook his head.  “You are strong, Cordelia.  You are one of the strongest people I know.”
       Cordelia bitterly stated, “I’m not!  I’m not smart like Wesley, or valuable like Gunn.  I’m not strong…” She caught his eye.  “Don’t you wish I were…like Buffy?”
       He looked away, momentarily stunned.  “Cordelia…”
       “I know it sounds weird, but if I were Buffy I could protect you.  I could fight alongside you.  You wouldn’t be hurt.”  She paused.  “I could be strong, then.”
       He stayed silent.  The clock on her TV beat the time in regular intervals.  She watched it awhile before drifting her gaze to a clothing magazine she had received in yesterday’s mail.
       “I have never wished that you were Buffy.”
        Cordelia looked back at him silently.  
        “When I first saw you again at that party, I was surprised at how happy I was to see you.  It wasn’t because of you, Cordelia, it was because of your connections with Sunnydale.  When I hired you it was partly out of pity, partly out of loneliness.”
       She eyed him warily.  So he had never really liked her at all… another football player in the backseat, or another drunk mother or can of red paint…
       “But then I got to know you, Cordelia.  And the young woman that I got to know was stronger, kinder, tougher, and more beautiful than anyone I had ever or since then met.”
       She stilled, her mouth open and hand searching for his.  He accepted, turning his bruised face back to look directly into her eyes.  
       “When I look at you now, I’m not looking for blond hair or green eyes.  I’m looking for Cordelia, the most amazing person I know.  The person I feel privileged to spend a part of forever with.  Cordelia… You are essential to me.”
       She was crying again, but she barely noticed.  Her heart fluttered, her palms were wet, and her muscles wouldn’t stop twitching.  Instead she leaned forward, her dark hair falling closer and closer to his face.
       She whispered, “What exactly does that mean, Angel?”
       He was suddenly wary, as if surprised at the underlying meanings of his own words.  He opened his mouth slowly, and licked his lips.  “I don’t know.”
       Cordelia smoothed back a piece of his hair that was sticking out funny, and traced a line from his temple to his injured nose.  She breathed, and said, “You’re such a good friend, Angel.”
       ~When she was little, Cordelia made a vow to never lie.  However, she gradually discovered that she lied in tiny ways everyday, though never on purpose.  As she grew older and she fell in love, she learned that some lies were necessary to maintain a normal life, and to protect herself from romances that would never work out.  And yet…~
       And yet as Angel fell asleep sprawled on the floor of her living room, Cordelia knew that she could find the patience to wait a little longer.  Her hand held Angel’s tightly, and as she watched the numbers on the clock turn to mark a new hour she fell asleep, her breath strong and wild.  



THE END