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Cordelia finished telling the story to a shocked Spike, tears dripping off her chin unnoticed by either one of them as she re-lived the pain.  If it could have been possible, the ghost would have been paler than he already was.  Silence fell as the blond man absorbed everything that Cordelia had told him.  Cordelia buried her head in her knees to try to gain control over her emotions.  The memories of her helpless self battling against the violation of both her mind and body were harsh and unforgiving.  They wouldn’t let her go.  A smoothing hand on her back caused Cordelia to look up.  She saw a concerned Spike watching her, feeling suddenly guilty for the way he’d greeted her.

“I’m sorry, luv… If I’d known… I was an ass, I’m sorry,” he said seriously.  Cordelia reached up and wiped the final tears from her cheeks.

“It’s okay.  It had nothing to do with you, you couldn’t have known.  The crying is my own pity party,” she said, sitting up and taking a deep breath.  Spike shook his head.

“No, seriously.  I think me being an ass is a part of my genetic makeup or something…  Dru, Buffy, you…” he said.  Cordelia laughed slightly.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself… you were a vampire…” she said.  Spike pulled his hand back to his lap.

“This Conner kid… I feel like he’s an important part of everything…” he said, changing the subject.  Cordelia nodded.

“He was… he was a human child born of two vampires... his being here inevitably led to Angel being here… It led to Wesley almost dying… it led to that thing taking over my body and ruining everything…  As much as I loved that little baby and the boy he ended up growing into, I wish I couldn’t remember like everyone else…” she said.  Spike shook his head.

“That isn’t what I was talking about, luv.  I mean I feel he’s important for later… it’s why I got the vision…” he said.  Cordelia nodded her head.

“Being a seer means you get all the feelings.  And you have to trust them.  So if you say that… Conner… is going to be important, then I believe you,” she said.  Spike watched her for a second.

“How does it feel for you?” he asked.  Cordelia’s eyes stayed on her hands.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“To not have the visions anymore,” he said.  Cordelia’s eyes watered once more, but she held them back, determined to not cry anymore.  It made her feel weak.

“I feel like an arm has been cut off,” she said honestly.

“Maybe the Powers can give them back to you.  You have an in with them, tell them what you want,” he said.  Cordelia shook her head.

“I can’t.  This is what they want.  I made my choice,” she said.  Spike ran an appraising eye over her.

“What a stellar choice, luv… you’re miserable,” he concluded.  This time Cordelia’s laugh rang true.

“Oh, I’m not miserable, Spike.  Not really.  I have a small purpose here – not like I did before, but I still have it,” she said.  Spike looked at her questioningly, but refrained from commenting on it.

“Can I ask what all the choices were?” he asked.  She smiled.

“To die, to be a Power, or to live,” she listed quickly, not dwelling on any of them.

“Bloody hell, I’d have taken the Power trip,” he said, causing her to grin.  He grinned back.

“Yeah, well… it was tempting.  Each choice would have made me give up something.  Dying or becoming a Power would have cost me my chance to help my family.  Sure, living again means losing the visions and my demony powers… but if I can pull my friends out of this mistake, I can humanly die happy… and in a way, avenged,” she said honestly.  “Our family was about friendship, loyalty and the good fight.  Right now, I can see one thing that even remotely embodies any one of those in anyone.  They were all preyed upon, and it’s slowly sucking all of the good out of what they are doing.  They’ll end up damning themselves if they don’t figure it out.  Hopefully, I can help them do that.” 

“Well, luv… all of what you just said goes to prove that you are a better person than most…” Spike said, looking at her in admiration.  Cordelia shook her head.

“No, it doesn’t Spike.  I’m still as stupid, naïve, and selfish as the rest of the world… but with better accessorizing skills,” she said, a smirk ending her statement as she tried to lighten the mood.  Spike chuckled as he stood up, knowing that Cordelia’s meager information supply was at its end.

“You can take the human out of the cheerleader, but you can’t take the cheerleader out of the human,” he said, causing Cordelia to laugh and stand up with him.

“That’s right, baby.  The bitch is back,” she said with a grin.  He turned to her, his grin faded only slightly as concern seeped into his eyes.

“Well then, with that attitude, are you ready to go talk to Peaches about all of this?” he asked.  Cordelia’s grin slipped off her face quicker than it had appeared.  She hugged herself tighter as she braced herself.

“I’ll never be ready, Spike… but I have to do it.  Only you can’t come with me,” she said.  Spike reeled at her words.

“Why the bloody hell not?  He needs to know about the vision, and…” Spike said.

“No!  Let me talk to him first, okay?  Wes, Gunn, Fred and Lorne are all in the dark.  If you start blabbing on about the vision and that Wes knows, he’ll panic and do something stupid.  It’s Angel we’re talking about… you know… rip heads off first, ask questions later?” she said.

“Ummm, excuse the insubordination, Oh Supreme One,” Spike said as Cordelia rolled her eyes. “But let’s compare, shall we?  Ghost… human… which one do you think he’ll be successful in pulling a head off of?”  He pointed between himself and Cordelia.  She was silent for a second as she gritted her teeth.

“You can come if you want… but keep your mouth shut about everything until I bring it up, okay?” she asked.  Spike shrugged nonchalantly.

“Whatever,” he said, following the woman out of the storage room.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Wesley checked his watch again for the hundredth time.  She’d been in there for over an hour.  How long could it take for that girl to find something to wear?  Check that… it was Cordelia.  It could take her longer.  Wes sat back in his chair with a sigh.  But then again…  He stood up and went to the door.  Her frame of mind wasn’t exactly healthy… she seemed to be catapulting from fine to not-so-fine in such short intervals that it was beginning to worry him.  An hour alone by herself… with her old stuff… couldn’t be healthy for her at this juncture.   He reached the storage room door and knocked lightly.

“Cordelia?” he asked lightly, looking around the hallway to make sure no one heard his inquiry.  “Are you alright, Cordy?”  Not hearing anything, he entered the room.  It was vacant.  Wesley frowned as he picked up his folded, discarded robe.  Where did she go?  Grumbling to himself about willful females, he pulled open the door and stepped out into the hallway… right into Gunn and Fred’s rushing path.  He pulled up just short of hitting the two.

“Gunn!  Fred!  Where are you rushing to?” Wes asked.  Fred turned to him with a grin.

“Wesley!  I think we may have found something.  We need you to look at this,” she said excitedly indicating the book in her arms.  Wes’ eyes scanned the hallway quickly, but nervously.

“Well… let’s go back to my place and we’ll sit down and discuss whatever it is you may have found,” he said, taking the young woman’s arm and starting down the hall.

“Yo man,” Gunn’s voice broke out.  “What were you doing in there?”  Wes looked back to see the bald man pointing to the storage room.  Fred turned and looked to where Gunn was indicating.

“That’s Cordy’s stuff,” she said sadly.  The two men looked at her sympathetically before Wes cleared his throat and indicated the robe he held.

“One of my boxes from moving in mistakenly got mixed with hers.  I finally found it last week,” he said smoothly.  Gunn shrugged his shoulders.

“Dude, I still haven’t found two of mine… did you see them in there?” he asked.  Wes shook his head as they continued walking.

“So, Fred… tell me what it is you think you found,” Wes said as they made it to his door and opened it.  Fred ran into the apartment and plopped the book down on the coffee table.  Looking like a little girl at Christmas, she opened up the text and laid out her printouts and notes.

“Well, I’ve checked through all of the different language databases and through all of them, I pulled up about 700 possible matches.  Charles and I have been going through each of them and I think I may have found the answer.  Take a look at these,” she said, pointing to the papers.  Wes pushed his glasses further up on his nose and sat down next to the scientist.  His eyes scanned over what Fred had found and then he took a closer look at the text.

“Amazing…” he murmured, his hands running over the words in the book.  “It looks like it’s a hybrid of the languages we now identify as Saxon and Celtic.  Some of these words look to be a part of the Anglo-Saxon heritage, but they are different enough to say for sure that they aren’t.  The others suggest an ancient Celtic heritage.  If I am correct in my assumption, I would say this dates back to before the Dark Ages.  It would certainly explain why there is no known record of this text…  Western Europe, in the early anno Domini* centuries, was a war-torn preliterate society...  No known records from that time exist…”

“Until now,” Gunn commented as he leaned over the back of the couch.  Wes looked over his shoulder at his friend.

“We still don’t know exactly what this text contains…” he said before looking back to the book.

“Well, the plus side in this is we’ve found yet another text older than Angel…  Man, I’m starting to see 250-some years as young…” Gunn said as he leapt over the side of the couch and made himself comfortable.  Fred smiled as she, too, leaned over the text.

“What are you thinking Wesley?” she asked.  Sitting up, he placed his chin in his hand.

“Well, I think we should probably inform Angel of your findings.  But, I certainly would like to go over this a few more minutes and get some concrete information,” he said.  Fred nodded.  “Fred, go over to my computer and log onto the database… I’m going to have you do some cross-referencing of some words that I’m able to pull out.  I want to see if I can start making some sense of this.  Gunn, I need you to go over to that bookshelf and find the text I have on early European languages.”  Fred and Gunn both jumped up to do Wes’ bidding as the Englishman hunched over the gibberish-looking words.  Wes smirked as Gunn started humming the tune of a familiar song.

You wanna stay alive, better do what you can, so beat it, just beat it…” the man sang out.  It occurred to Wes that Michael Jackson probably didn’t envision his lyrics being used at such a moment… or so horribly.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Spike peeked around the corner and saw that it was empty.  He gestured for Cordelia to follow him.  She wished, suddenly, that she had taken the time to put socks on her bare feet as she tiptoed down the cold tile to where Spike was standing.

“This is it, luv,” he said.  Cordelia eyed the door warily, wanting to run in, but not wanting to go at all at the same time.

“He’s in there?” she whispered.  Spike smiled gently before he nodded.

“It’ll be okay,” he said, causing Cordelia to smile back.  Taking a deep breath she put her hand on the doorknob.

“Now or never,” she said as she turned it and pushed her way in.  She took a look around the office.  It was nice.  A little less dungeon-like than his past offices.  Still dark, though.  Some things never changed.  She only hoped it looked a little livelier during the day.

“Well… it looks like someone moved up in this crazy world,” she said.  Her heart hammering in her chest as she spoke to the back of his head.  Suddenly, his chair spun around and the expression on his face was priceless.

“Cor… Cordelia?” he stammered.  Again, some things never changed.  She smiled lightly as she put her hands on her hips.

“In the flesh,” she said.  He stood up, but didn’t move beyond that.  His chocolate eyes were locked on hers.  After a second, he let his gaze move over her.  She was wearing her clothes, but they were baggy on her.  She’d lost weight since her stay in the medical wing.  Her eyes had circles under them and her face looked drawn.  Even devoid of all makeup, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.  But still, he didn’t move towards her.

“Is that all you’re going to say?” she asked, approaching his desk and parking herself on the edge of it.  “Don’t you have questions… demands?”  Angel continued to watch her, not saying anything.  When it was obvious that he was still too shocked to say anything, she looked back to Spike, who closed the door.  She turned back to Angel, a firm look now on her face as she calmly placed her hands in her lap.

“Well, then.  Since you don’t have any questions or demands, I certainly do…”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

* Note: [A.D.] is the abbreviated form of ‘anno Domini’… Today we live in the 21st century anno Domini.  Everything before 1 A.D. is considered [B.C.] or ‘before Christ’.  Anno Domini is also used in conjunction with ‘in the year of the Lord’ [L.]  This period is noted as the Christian era…   

 

**A/N – First off, any research I did for this part was NOT extensive… lazily not so, in fact…  It may be correct, it may not be… for whatever purposes, I don’t care.  It just fits…  And second… I have no opinion whatsoever in Michael Jackson’s personal life shenanigans so I don’t want to hear anything about it… I just like his earlier music and it fit the moment, that’s why Gunn was singing lyrics from ‘Beat It’.

 


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