Cordelia

AUTHOR: LAndrews

SUMMARY: Vignette/ Angel journals

RATED: PG-13 Language

SPOILERS: Set immediately after "DOUBLE OR NOTHING"

DISCLAIMER: Characters described within are property of

Mutant Enemy Productions, 20th Century Fox, Joss Whedon,

David Greenwalt, and anybody else working for/with them, in

any case, not me! These characters are used without

permission, intent of infringement, or expectation of

profit,

it's just kinda fun!

THANKS: To all the great websites out there offering so

much info and insight.

FEEDBACK: Thanks! landrews@carolina.rr.com

(couldn't help myself- I thought Angel would still be hell bent for leather- Looking for voice, flow, comments)

**********************

CORDELIA

**********************

I love Cordelia. She has matured so. She waited for me. Let me filter.

I boxed his clothes tonight, what hadn't burned.

Looking back over what I wrote, something I only sometimes do, I am still shocked at the intensity of my rage. When it passed, I truly felt cored, empty. The whiskey didn't help.

I'm left with a cold flame in my center. Never have I been so torn.

Wesley will still pay for taking his leadership role too far. He didn't just betray my trust, Connor's trust, he treated us all as though we were children, afraid of the dark, unable to make our own decisions and informed choices. Holtz acted as he was forced to by his very nature. Wesley... was it his own childhood issues, father issues? I hadn't thought of that until now. Was I not to be trusted to be rational because I was... am... a father? No, I’m just not to be trusted. What then of Fred and Gunn? Did he look so down upon them for being in love? Did he really think them lost in their euphoria? Was he lost in jealousy? Did we not notice his pain?

Damn it! None of it matters. I refuse to make excuses for him, can't believe my brain would even try. He lost his trust in us, and he deserves his loneliness and pain. And fear, I hope, of me. Given half a chance, I would still kill him, can still feel the days of torture I would offer him rolling through me, and then his head between my hands, the dry snick of his neck bones reverberating into my very being.

Enough.

I cleared the bath of his things, cleaned the kitchen of bottles, formulas, toys.

That doesn't mean I won't keep trying. I just can't lose myself in me, again. I have at times spent years wallowing in memories, recriminations, self-pity. I can't afford that now. Not if I want him back. And I do, with a desperation, a craving, that feels like a tidal wave compared to any blood lust I have ever felt.

They did not abandon me. It took me days to quell my panic. I don't know if I could have without Cordelia. She did not take Wesley's side. She brought her strength and laid it at my feet. Her touch... and her silence. She did not mind that I did not even bother breathing.

I have not shared my current hatred of the PTB. I must remind myself constantly that the only thing that matters is what I do, that nothing matters. Maybe I have lost my sanity. I could not help but trust again, after so strongly pledging that I would not. I threw my trust into Fred's incoherent assertiveness that Charles was in danger, trusted in Groosulag to fight beside me, trusted that throwing my soul in for Gunn... I couldn't let him go. I felt so strongly that I would win, perhaps hoping for the PTB to prove themselves to me?

The answer was loud and clear. We do this ourselves, or not at all.

I think, if not for Cordy, I would have done it, given up my soul, maybe welcomed it, tried perhaps to negotiate down to mine only, but maybe not. I handed that stake to Cordy

for me, not expecting her to be so creative. To have that clear, cold thought again, to be able to cause pain, no conscience... it is alluring. I am, at the moment, glad she did not allow me the choice.

I took his crib apart tonight.

How many souls were watching? Rejoicing in my pain and grief and resignation? Perhaps those souls may now find forgiveness for me, in my understanding, even as I still cannot find it for Wesley, or myself.

My father was right; I am, very much, a slow learner, and dim-witted, to boot.

I love Cordelia; not as she loves Groo, not as I have loved. But a deep transcending love, all the same. I need her.

I love her for her beauty, her healing silence, for the sure knowledge of life she seems to draw now from the air around her, like a confidence whispered to her very core. I feel she could teach me more of being than I've learned in almost three centuries. She is the first true friend I've had since well before I died. My best friend. She is a Seer, and I am in awe of her. Without a word, she has forgiven me for losing the one thing we both loved the most.

She has forgiven me. I don't deserve it.

Or perhaps I do. This love for her is bittersweet torture.

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