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Summary: In an attempt to get over her grief for Spike, Buffy has cut herself off from her past life, and anything that reminds her of the vampire that's still in her heart.  But when a news story brings her attention to the battle in LA, the Slayer finds herself once again facing old betrayals and old faces.  Returning to LA she finds even newer betrayals and the possible death of her most secret hope.


Faded Hope

by bitchee

Chapter 16

Angel stepped back, for a moment his brain refused to catch up with his eyes and he stood jaw unhinged and stuttered.

“C-cordy... W-hat…How?”

Cordelia Chase rolled her eyes and sighed in a very familiar way before moving close enough to touch the shocked vampire. Peering intently into his face she reached up and pushed his lower jaw closed with an audible snap. When he immediately opened it to say something else, she huffed wearily and placed her fingers over his mouth.

“Shush Angel, I don’t have a lot of time, and you wanted some answers so just keep it zipped until I’m finished.”

Stepping back, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared hard at him.

Reminding herself that this was not supposed to be personal, she did her best to sort her own swirling emotions as she met his bewildered gaze.

Oh Angel… what am I going to do with you?

Shaking her head, she pushed away her very personal anger and despair, and squared her shoulders for what she knew would be one of the hardest conversations she had ever had.

“Right,” she started, her expression carefully neutral.

“I have been authorized by the powers to give you some of those answers you seem to want so desperately… but”, she said holding her hand up when it seemed as though he was going to interrupt. “I’m warning you now Angel, you are really not going to like them.”

She sighed heavily.

“First off, and let me just preface what I’m about to tell you by saying… What the hell did you think you were doing?” She glared at him.

“You were never supposed to take over Wolfram and Hart and run it the way you did. The powers were testing you and you managed to screw it up in ways that not even I can believe.” Her lips thinned into a disapproving line as she continued. “The right thing to do would have been to turn them down in the first place, or failing that you could have taken over and then looked for a way to cut the senior partners' connection to our dimension. Even if only temporarily,” she added, easily interpreting his brooding look. “At the very least, it would have given you more time to work out how to take them out permanently.”

Whirling away from him, she unfolded her arms and resisted the urge to hit him right in his glowering face.

“God Angel, how could you possibly be so damn stupid? You had access to the white room and instead of using that access to close the conduit you sat on your big fat… chair and ran their stupid company for them.”

When she turned back to face him, Angel found his rapidly rising temper suddenly cooled by the look of anguish on the former cheerleader’s face.

Trying to think of the best way to explain to her that the way he’d handled things had been the only way possible, Angel reached for her. His sudden need to touch her and make sure he wasn’t dreaming, at war with his anger at her obvious disappointment in him.

As he reached for her Cordelia took a deep breath and stepped back, desperate to avoid any sort of physical contact that could only make what she had to say harder.

“No Angel, let me finish. This is already hard enough for me, just let me tell you the rest and then you can talk.” Her tone was hard but her expression was pleading as she continued to back away.

“You have no idea what you have done and I don’t have time to explain it all to you, so I’m going to tell you what you need to hear and we can go from there… Okay?”

At his hesitant and somewhat annoyed nod she continued.

“Okay here’s the sitch… You’ve fucked up royally, and the powers no longer consider you their champion. As a matter of fact” she admitted grimly “as far as they are concerned, you have by your actions and the signing away of the shanshu prophesy, in fact confirmed that you are most likely going to be the one that brings about the final apocalypse.”

“What the hell do you mean no longer their champion, I’m…”

His angry snarl was cut off in mid tirade as Cordelia’s eyes flashed white and he suddenly found himself speechless… literally.

“As I said,” she continued glaring at the furious vampire. “The powers have lost all faith in you and no longer trust you. You were even sent another champion to help you on your path and instead of embracing the opportunity, allowing his input and acknowledging his unique perspective you belittled and fought with him at every turn. And yeah okay,” she offered at his sour expression “I get that Spike can be a pain in the ass and has a few of his own issues where you’re concerned. But still,” she continued “he did fight for his soul and save the world and yet you treated him like a complete joke.”

Approaching him with a very familiar glitter in her eyes, she poked him in the chest with her index finger.

“Oh and while we’re on the subject,” she snarled out, unable to resist giving in to her own feelings any longer.

“Buffy trusted him enough to wear the amulet and be her champion. Says a lot about the faith and trust you put in the supposed love of your life, doesn’t it big boy? I mean really Angel… grow the hell up why don’t ya.” She spat derisively.

“Buffy chose Spike to wear it, not you, so why don’t you buy a clue and stop living in the land of denial. Love of my life my ass!” she snorted, rolling her eyes as Angel opened his mouth, obviously intending to argue, before remembering he couldn’t.

“Okay” Cordelia muttered, trying to reclaim her calm and get back to the reason she’d been allowed to talk to him in the first place.

“To cut a long story short… I’m here to tell you to get your act together. Thanks to me, you have exactly one last chance to change your destiny.” She warned, her tone deadly serious.

“At the moment, with the way you’ve been acting you’re a hairs breath from becoming your own worst nightmare and I’m sure you don’t want that… do you?”

Folding her arms across her chest, a protective gesture Angel knew well, Cordelia met his eyes with determination.

“Angel, there are things that are about to happen that not even the powers have any control over, and certain decisions made by you that could affect the balance of existence.  If you choose wrong, your soul will be ripped out and Angelus will be the one left running the show. Which, while a whole world of bad all by itself, with the other players in this race, it could just be the reason we lose.”

Reaching for his hand, she continued her tone gentling as she tried to explain.

“When you killed Drogyn you played right into the senior partners hands. The deeper well is without its guard and Illyria’s presence has disturbed the old ones sleep. Without someone to guard the well, it’s only a matter of time before something gets out and if Wolfram and Hart get their way what comes out will only be the start.”

Angel shivered at the look in the former seer’s eyes. He couldn’t remember her ever looking as worried and scared as she did right at this moment, and it shook his faith in ways he wasn’t sure he was ready to examine.

After a moment, she began to speak again and he found his worry overtaken by anger yet again.

“I can’t tell you much more, and I’ve already let slip more than I should. But I can tell you one important thing… that no matter what you think you might want or feel, you have to trust in me.” She pinned him with her gaze.

“Spike and Buffy are very important. Their relationship is possibly the only thing standing between us, and the total destruction of everything on this planet. You must not interfere in any way with what is happening between them, no matter what.”

Seeing the gold of his demon flickering in his eyes Cordelia clenched her fists and looked heavenward.

“Grrrr… why me” she muttered before taking a deep calming breath and facing the vampire again.

“Listen dumbass, cos I’m only gonna say this once. You need to get it through your thick skull that Buffy was never meant for you, and that even if she was, you gave up any rights you may or may not have had the moment you left Sunnydale. She was meant for a champion and you are no longer even in the running for that particular title, let alone on the same path as her… or for that matter Spike.”

Pinning him with a hard stare and emphasizing each word slowly and concisely she continued.

“Leave them alone Angel, or you will lose not only your soul, but in all probability your life and everyone else’s with it… including Buffy’s.”

When his sullen glare only intensified Cordelia Chase grit her teeth and counted to ten.

A moment later her eyes glowed and Angel found himself able to speak.

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

Miles away in the shattered remains of the old A.I headquarters the slayer gripped her lover tighter as she felt the barriers in her heart and mind fall.

Buffy found herself suddenly freed by the emotions she could feel pouring across the link.

She made no attempt to hide or throw up the walls that had been her constant source of protection for nearly all of her adult life. Instead, for the first time she truly opened up and let the man in her arms feel exactly what she felt for him and just how long she’d been feeling it.

Locked within the cradle of her body, Spike trembled with shocked disbelief, as Buffy surrendered all that she was and all that she felt, without one iota of hesitation.

She held nothing back.

Not her confusion at the sudden burst of lust she’d felt the first time they’d met in the alley outside the Bronze. Nor the growing feelings she’d tried to deny when his love for Drusilla was proved at the point of her own stake. Her jealousy of their bond, her realization that Angel would never love her the way Spike loved his sire, and her aching secret wish that she had met him first.

Everything was revealed.

All her regret for the way she had hardened her heart and refused to trust her eyes and her own instincts flowed out across the claim.

Deep down inside she’d known that loving Spike could destroy her in a way that loving Angel couldn’t. All these truths that she had done her best to hide from the both of them, she now gave freely. Buffy gave him every crumb he had ever asked for and asked nothing in return.

His own tears ceased as her emotions swept through him, swamping him in her sadness and regret. He was awed to realize that her sorrow over the loss of Angel was nothing compared to the way she had felt when she had seen him with Anya and realized she had driven him away.

Not even the aching grief she’d felt at the loss of heaven compared to how she felt knowing that her need to protect her heart had likely cost her the one thing she really craved.

He felt her shame over all the times she’d hit him in an attempt to deny what she knew she wanted more than anything.

Then moments later, he reveled in the joy she’d hidden so carefully after he returned from Africa.

And he was shocked at the depth of her pain at the realization of what her rejection in the bathroom had caused him to do.

All her need for him… her yearning was laid bare in a way that left him with no doubt about how she felt.

When he finally knew just what his death in the Hellmouth had meant to her, Spike could barely get his head around the depth of grief and pain that she’d been living with the past year.

For a moment, he forgot that he didn’t need to breathe as he found himself swimming in a lake of pain so deep and wide he couldn’t see the shore.