Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It felt like drowning.

She was somewhere deep, deep down, pressure crushing in on her, lungs burning, limbs too heavy to move.

The strangest part was that it didn’t feel strange at all. It felt perfectly normal. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to move. Couldn’t remember how.

Couldn’t remember much at all.

Maybe she should have been trying to fight against it, to pull herself up to the surface, but she knew in her heart there was no point. There was never any point. She was trapped, her flesh and bone forming a perfect prison she could never escape from. The best she could do was hide away in some dark corner and hope. She wasn’t sure this thing was even her body at all anymore; maybe it was merely a twisted shell pulled and stretched into the vague impression of a human being.

But even if she was just a shell, that didn’t explain the nothingness surrounding her. She was somewhere without the slightest trace of light or sound. A darkness more total than anything she’d ever known enveloped her, blanketing her against the world. The silence was heavy, suffocating. There was no touch or taste or smell or anything to help her get her bearings.

Perhaps she was dead. Yeah, that felt right. Not for any reason she could pinpoint, but it definitely felt right.

But no, there were some sensations she could feel. A subtle pain in her chest, a burning in her lungs like she was drowning. And her mind was still whirring, hazy memories clawing their way through the darkness towards her.

She didn’t want to be there when they caught up with her. A feeling of deja vu nagged at her. She’d been here before, waiting in a dark void of memory for a monster in the shadows to find her and swallow her whole. Consume every single part of her, strip the bones and leave nothing left.

She needed to escape, but in this crushing darkness there was nowhere to run.

The burning in her lungs was reaching fever pitch, so painful it cut through everything else: the crushing weight, the twisting in her flesh, the empty endless black.

And so, willing to do anything to make the pain stop, she opened her mouth slightly and took a breath.

She could open her mouth.

That was new.

She came to slowly, like swimming up to the surface from the bottom of a deep pool, guided by the faint impression of lights. Except, of course, as she opened her eyes, she could see that the lights weren’t faint at all. They were fluorescent lights, bright and harsh and clinical. She squinted against them, the sudden brightness stinging with pain.

She could squint her eyes. That was also new.

The thought confused her almost as soon as it was formed. Of course she could open her mouth and squint her eyes. Why was she so surprised by that? There was a reason, somewhere, buried deep in her brain, but she couldn’t quite reach it.

Everything felt foggy - the lights were blinding and her ears felt blocked and when she tried to move her fingers it was like moving through thick mud - but she was still vaguely aware of the flurry of activity around her. She heard voices talking indistinctly, though she didn’t recognise a single one of them. There was a weird beeping sound coming from somewhere that she desperately wished someone would turn off because it felt like a jackhammer to her skull. She could just about make out movement as people hurried back and forth around her. She didn’t recognise any of them, everything was too blurry, but she hoped that maybe it was her friends. She couldn’t quite remember their faces, but she hoped they were there.

Keeping her eyes open felt exhausting in a bone-deep way. She felt like she’d been asleep for years and yet somehow she was still so tired. And so she closed her eyes and let everything go black again.

—

Cordelia wasn’t sure how long she spent drifting in and out of consciousness. Maybe a day, maybe a few days, maybe months. Time didn’t seem to mean much anymore. What she did know was that eventually waking up got easier. Everything still hurt, and she still felt like she was seeing and hearing and moving through mud, but things were a little clearer. Sharper. It took less effort to keep her eyes open.

She could make out her surroundings now. She was in some kind of hospital room. It was mostly bare, nothing but cream walls as far as the eye could see. A single window next to her let in a weak light through the blinds, the only proof she had that the outside world was still around. On the other side of the room she could make out a slightly pathetic-looking plant on a small table and a couple of generic landscape paintings on the walls, looking faintly out of place among the beeping hospital equipment and smell of ammonia.

It didn’t help with the confusion. Wherever she was, she wasn’t quite sure how she’d ended up here or why. Everything from before she was asleep felt foggy and just out of her grasp. She could remember a pregnancy, and a monstrous voice in her head, and her body moving outside of her control, but there were so many gaps in between.

The hospital equipment seemed to have become an extension of her, tubes and cables plugged into her arms, anchoring her to all manner of machines. She turned her head slightly to try and get a better look at the equipment that had been grafted onto her. There was a drip jammed into her arm and one in her hand, and there was something that looked like a heart rate monitor, and there was…

She let out a rasping breath, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. He was asleep, slumped over in the chair next to the monitor, one of her hands clasped in two of his own. He was right there. And god knew what he must be thinking about her.

Angel. Different clothes, different hair, same miserable look on his face as usual.

Not like she could blame him. Through the fog obscuring her memories, there was one thing she remembered clearly: she’d hurt him. That she was sure of. There were glimpses skittering at the edges of her mind, not quite tangible enough yet for her to see them fully.

It felt like a mercy. Like her mind was protecting her until she was strong enough to deal with it all.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t remember anything, of course. The glimpses were enough. The thing in her head and her stomach. The pain. The feeling of thrashing helplessly against her body as it moved outside of her control. Connor. Oh, dear god, Connor.

She tried to take a quiet breath to steady herself, but it came out shuddering and gasping, her muscles not used to working quite yet. Or maybe she just wasn’t used to controlling them. Either would make sense.

Angel stirred, eyes blinking open, grip on her hand tightening. She froze, hoping maybe he wouldn’t notice she was awake. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t face him, not yet, not when she’d only been awake for a couple of minutes and the whispering things in her memory were already growing louder by the moment and -

“Cordy?”

She flinched at the sound of his voice, soft and gentle and tentative. This felt worse, somehow, than if he’d sounded angry. At least then he wouldn’t be hiding it.

“Cordy?” Angel’s voice again, even lighter and more hopeful than the first time. She turned her head, unable to help herself.

She’d never seen his eyes shine quite like that, all unshed tears and too much hope for his unbeating heart.

“Cordy! God, it’s… you’re…” he stammered.

“Yeah. It’s me,” the words scratched her throat and she wondered how long it had gone unused. She’d been eaten alive from the inside out. How long did you need to sleep to recover from that?

It hit her then, like a punch to the stomach, that those were the first words that had come out of her mouth in god-knew-how-many months that were hers. All hers. All of this was her. The thing in her head was gone and she had no idea how but somehow she was all that was left.

She’d escaped.

She choked, and she felt the tears fall from her eyes before she could stop them.

Angel crumpled at that, stumbling out of his chair to stand over her. “Hey, Cordy, are you ok? What is it?” His hands hovered over her shoulders for a few seconds, uncertain, before his concern took over and he gently grabbed hold of her. She tensed. He let go a microsecond later.

“It’s -”, she rasped, before the tears choked her, “I’m ok, it’s just… It’s me. It’s just me in here,” she looked up at Angel, mouth twisting in what she hoped was something a bit like her old smile, “Been a long time since I could say that. Or anything at all, really.”

“Oh,” Angel swallowed. Yeah, this was it.

Silence hung in the air, suffocating. The tube in her arm was starting to itch.

Angel finally spoke, quietly, “So you remember?”

“You mean what happened before the coma?” she said, voice barely above a whisper, making herself small. Even now she couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that her mouth was simply saying the words her brain wanted it to. She’d forgotten it could do that, “Sorta. Just bits and pieces. But I’ve got the gist.”

He sighed, sat down heavily, eyes fixed on his hands in his lap. Fair enough, she wouldn’t be able to look at herself, either.

“Angel,” she croaked, “I’m sorry -”

His head snapped up, “God, no, don’t say that. It’s ok, it wasn’t you, we all know it wasn’t you, and we’re all so glad you’re back,” the words came tumbling out of him suddenly, running together and tripping over each other, “When I got the call that you were awake I couldn’t believe it. I’d almost given up hope that you… but you’re back now! You’re awake and you’re ok and I’m so, so sorry about… god, about everything that happened. I should have known something was wrong but I didn’t and it’s all my fault, but it’s all gonna be ok now. And I’m sorry the others aren’t here but we didn’t want to crowd you when you were waking up. They’re all so happy, though. They can’t wait to see you.”

She blinked. Since when did Angel say that many words in such a small space of time? Unprompted?

“How long have I been out?”

“Five months,” Angel said quietly.

She coughed again, “Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

A silence fell over the room, but it felt light, somehow. Comfortable. She was so used to Angel being surrounded by a cloud of misery, she’d made fun of him for it enough times, but now the happiness and sheer relief pouring out of him was palpable. It felt bright. It felt like the sun.

She smiled, softly, “I missed you.”

And god help her, he actually beamed at that, the dork. “I missed you too. Every day. You don’t know what it’s been like -”

“Well, show it then,” with a little difficulty, she pushed herself up into a sitting position and held out her hand, watching with a smile as he caught it in his own, seemingly instinctively, “Come here, broody.”

She was too weak to properly pull him in for a hug, but apparently Angel understood, because he stood back up and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head. He was cool, and solid, and quiet, and he felt like home. She took a shaky breath and leaned into him, flopping forward and letting him hold her up. A wave of tiredness hit her, and she felt like she could go to sleep right there, with her head leaning against his chest.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” he stroked her hair softly, “It - I think it’s been hard on everyone, without you.”

“It looks like a lot’s happened,” she pulled back a little and looked him up and down, pointedly. He didn’t look quite like himself. Everything was a little too foggy for her to place what kind of suit he was wearing, but it was definitely too expensive for him. “What’s with the new look?”

To her surprise, he actually stepped back from her, leaving an emptiness behind him like a phantom limb. “Cordy,” he laughed nervously, “You know, you’re still recovering, the doctor said you’d probably be really tired, maybe we should talk about this later when you’re feeling -”

“Angel!”

He jumped, suddenly looking stricken. Possession and five-month coma be damned, she still had it.

She glared at him. “I know my memory’s kinda foggy at the moment, but I do remember what happened last time you tried to keep secrets from me. I remember it didn’t end well.”

His mouth fell open slightly, and she winced. That was probably kind of underhanded, considering the circumstances. “Sorry,” she shrugged weakly.

Angel twisted his hands together, “Yeah, ok…”

There was another long pause, silence dragging out.

“We took over Wolfram & Hart.” The words fell out of his mouth like they were the most natural thing in the world. Like a single thing about them made any sense. Cordy couldn’t help herself, and she clapped a hand over her mouth slightly too late to muffle her own hysterical laughter.

“This is a joke, right?” It had to be a joke. Angel had made some pretty horrible choices in his un-life, but surely, surely, there was no way he’d ever think this was a good idea.

“Look, it’s not - it’s not how it sounds. We were offered control of the L.A. branch to do whatever we want with it, and we’re doing good! They have a lot of resources, and we’re using them to help a lot of people. And - and I think we’re really making a difference. We’re changing it from the inside. This… this is a positive thing, ok?”

Cordy just gaped at him. Almost instinctively, she tensed one hand, digging her thumbnail into her index finger, hoping the pain would wake her from whatever messed up dream she was in.

Nothing.

Figured.

Angel looked at her helplessly, “It’s really not as bad as you’re thinking.”

“Well, what I’m thinking is pretty much the worst thing possible, so you’ve got a real low bar to clear!”

“Look, it was the only way!” Angel stuffed his hands into the pockets of his expensive jacket, frustration coming off him in waves.

Cordy narrowed her eyes, “What do you mean the only way?”

She saw something flash in his eyes, then. Something that looked a lot like guilt. It was there for less than a second, and then it was gone. “They offered more than we could turn down. They kept you alive. So,” he shrugged, “Not really a choice.”

“Oh, so this is my fault now?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. And it wasn’t only about keeping you alive. It was more complicated than that,” he sighed, sitting heavily back in the chair, “This is why I didn’t want to have this conversation right now. I didn’t want to drop all this on you right after coming out of a coma.”

Something about the look on his face gave her pause. Much as she wasn’t happy about whatever was going on here, she supposed he was sort of right. She was tired somewhere deep in her bones, a tiredness she’d never felt before. Even when the visions had been at their worst, pain nestling in her skull and stubbornly refusing to leave, the fear of dying keeping her in constant survival mode, even then she hadn’t felt this kind of exhaustion. Not surprising, really, since it felt like her nervous system was rewiring itself, remembering how to send the signals from brain to muscles to make her do things, completely of her own accord.

“Fine,” she said sharply, “I’ll drop it. For now. But I still have questions, and you’d better start coming up with answers.”

He nodded, “I will. I promise. But just… rest, for now.”

She lay back down, closing her eyes. Rest sure sounded nice. “Hey, Angel?”

“Yeah?”

“Are the others doing ok?” she felt somewhere inside herself that they were, that they were at least alive. If they were gone, then surely she’d know it somewhere in her chest. Still, she needed to hear it from him. “And what actually happened after I…” she trailed off, unable to quite bring herself to say the words ‘gave birth’. Hopefully Angel would get it.

“The others are all fine. There was… A lot happened.”

“I’ll take the cliff notes version.”

“Well, long story short… You gave birth to the higher being that had been controlling you and went into a coma. The higher being - she called herself Jasmine - she was able to mind-control anyone who saw her, and she used that to take over L.A. She claimed she wanted to bring peace, but she was eating people to feed her power. We figured out her weakness and were able to take her out. We, um, needed to take some of your blood to do it,” he cleared his throat awkwardly, “Sorry about that.”

Her eyes blinked open, “... No problem?”

“After that, Lilah offered us control of Wolfram & Hart, and we -”

“Lilah’s alive?” her heart leapt into her throat. She could have sworn Lilah had been one of her victims. The memory of it was hazy, she couldn’t remember being there in the moment when she killed her, but the guilt was still there, strong enough to mean that Lilah must have died.

Angel shook his head, “No, it’s complicated. Her contract… it extends after death. She’s still working for Wolfram & Hart, but as a - a ghost, kind of.”

“Oh,” she should have known that possibility was too good to be true.

“Not much else to tell after that. We all figured it was worth it. The others are doing good now. Still fighting the good fight, just with a better homebase. Fred’s got a lab now, so she’s pretty much in paradise. And they’re over the moon to hear that you’re awake. Did I mention that part?”

“Yeah, you did,” didn’t hurt a girl’s ego to hear it again, though, even if all her friends were apparently insane now. “And, um…” she swallowed, briefly wondering if asking the next part was a good idea at all, “What about Connor? Is Connor ok?”

Silence. She turned to look at Angel, suddenly desperate to know his reaction. He looked stricken, but in a way she couldn’t quite read the cause of. “Connor…” he stammered, “It’s complicated. We can talk about it later, ok?”

“What? No! It’s not ok!” she needed to know now, thank you very much, “Is Connor alright?”

Angel stared at her wide-eyed, frozen, “Connor… yes, Connor’s alright. All things considered. He’s ok, he’s safe.” He held out one hand, as if about to touch her, then seemed to think better of it “I promise, I’ll tell you everything later. but I… I really think you need to concentrate on getting better right now.”

Cordy gave him a long look, “Fine. But ‘later’ better be pretty damn soon.”

“It will be, I promise.”

She tried to let herself relax and sink into the hospital bed. She shut her eyes, revelling in the feeling of it, in the simple, pure sensation of moving her own eyelids. The feeling of being back in control.

It felt fake, somehow. Like she shouldn’t be able to do this. These weren’t her eyes, not really. Not anymore. They had been hers, and then they had belonged to the thing in her brain that had seized control and made her into its puppet, and now they were… they just were.

“I need to sleep,” she said, though it came out in a whispered croak, “That feels wrong. I’ve been asleep for five months - I can’t be this tired, right?”

Angel chuckled, “I imagine waking up from a coma takes a lot out of you.” He shifted uncomfortably, “Doctors say recovery won’t be easy. It never is with comas, especially not one as long as yours. They’ll explain it all to you later. But you’re alive! You’re back, and that’s what matters.”

She swallowed uneasily. Of course it wasn’t over. She’d survived a higher power hijacking her body, survived giving birth to a monster, survived the ensuing coma, and now there was the next damn thing. Now there was whatever was needed to make her ok again.

The shards of memory at the edge of her mind flared out, stabbing into her.

Maybe there was no way to ever make her ok again.

She opened her eyes and looked up at the blank expanse of the ceiling, letting the featureless pure white fill her vision.

“Yeah, I’m back.”