Title: The Aftereffects
Author:
AbbyCadabra
Posted: 03-10-2002
Disclaimer: Everything that has anything to do with Angel belongs to Joss Whedon. And for those of you who don't know, I am not Joss Whedon.
Spoiler: Small from Sleep Tight
Distribution: Archive away, Florrie!
Notes: OK, so I sat down to write a cute, humorous fic, maybe another installment of the "Unwelcome..." and "Well Thought Out..." Cordy POV fics. But I guess I just wan't in a very cute, humorous mood today. And after watching "Don't Say A Word" last night, I got an idea. I hope this is A/Cey enough.
Angst Alert!
Mental institutions were all the same to Angel, and he was quite familiar with his share of them. In his heyday as the Scourge of Europe he had sent so many here, many of who had been beautiful and young with an innocence that he had never really possessed.
Insanity. That was Angelus’ forte. He knew the ins and outs of a human’s fears and insecurities better than any five-hundred-dollar an hour psychiatrist could ever dream. There was irony in that. The most insane of all the mad sending so many to their dooms of padded rooms and pills in plastic cups, until one day, their lunatic minds give out and their tortured hearts stop.
Angel didn’t want to think of that. Didn’t want to imagine her life ending that way. Ending that way because of him.
The Hartford Mental Health Care Institution was just like all the others. Perched atop an uninviting hill of dead grass and shrubbery, with leafless trees that hang over the meandering driveway in the same ominous manner that frightens children at night when those shadows dance with the moonlight on their bedroom walls. This was the sort of place that forever held a black cloud over its rooftop, blocking sunlight, and providing nonstop drizzle. Never rain, just a sprinkle light enough to make you bring your collar over your head, but not heavy enough to use an umbrella.
That was how Angel was now, holding the lapels of his leather duster over his head to protect from the rain, and clutching a manila folder holding his forged psychologist papers between his elbow and side as he made a mad dash for the large double doors from his car.
Once inside he shook the water droplets from his jacket and let it fall onto his shoulders. He looked up and quickly had to shield his eyes from the bright white florescent lights that made everything, for a brief fleeting moment, seem almost consecrated. Everything in this main room was a sparkling white. The stale linoleum floor, the stiff repellent chairs that were neatly lined up along the white walls. It all looked extremely… sterile.
Angel took a moment to ponder the irony of him standing here, in this room of white, dressed from head to toe in black. If not irony, symbolism maybe?
“Can I help you, Sir?” A smooth voice interrupted his thoughts and he noticed for the first time that there was a glass window to his right, and behind sat a woman. She too, was dressed all in white, although her red dyed hair did offer variety to this curious mix of black and white.
“Sir?” She asked again after a minute or so of silence from the man. If he weren’t so handsome she’d have been a little weirded out.
Angel shook his head and smiled a little at the woman’s expression. He remembered the papers that were still clasped in his hand and he offered them to her, sliding the folder through the opening at the bottom of the glass.
“I’m here to see one of the one your patients.”
“Do you have an appointment Mr.,” she opened the manila folder, “Angel?”
“Dr. Angel,” the vampire corrected.
The woman flipped to the next page in the stack of papers, “Oh, yes. Well, do you have an appointment, Dr. Angel?”
“I’m afraid not. But, you see, this woman, she’s an old friend of mine. I just need to see her.”
“And you thought that if you brought all your fancy doctor papers and high recommendations that you would have a better chance of seeing her without an appointment.”
Angel put on his best sheepish look and smiled a half smile he knew could get him anything he wanted from women. “Yes?” he answered uncertainly.
The woman—Doreen, her nametag said—quickly shuffled through his papers, with a slight smile playing on her lips. Angel knew he had her already. She set the papers down and looked him straight in eye.
“Well,” she motioned to the empty room around them, “Since it isn’t too busy around here, a suppose a quick, friendly visit won’t do any harm.”
Angel smiled his thanks, making her blush a little. She pressed a black button with her manicured fingertip, sounding off a loud buzz. The vampire looked to his left and a large metal door swung open for him.
“C’mon,” she said.
He stepped through the door and met long, white—big surprise—corridor. A door suddenly swung open and Doreen stepped through. She motioned for him to follow her.
“So who’s this friend you just gotta see?”
Angel’s steps faltered somewhat. How was he supposed to answer that question?
“Her name is… Cordelia. Cordelia Chase.”
Doreen’s head snapped around and she stared at the vampire in shock. “Her? You actually know her?”
Angel breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. “Yes.”
Doreen stopped abruptly and Angel nearly ran right into her.
“Then maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“What?” Angel shook his head, trying to understand. “Why?”
“She’s not in the best… state of mind.”
There were so many possible replies to that comment that ran though Angel’s head. ‘Take a look around you. Nobody here’s in a good state of mind,’ being the dominant one, but he decided against it.
“Ma’am, I’m a professional. I can handle it.”
“But you have a personal attachment to her.”
“All the more reason for me to see her.”
Doreen was about to protest further, but stopped herself. It would have been futile; this man was determined to see her. She took a deep breath, “This could very well—no, it will—come as a great shock to you.” And then she added under her breath, unaware that the man could hear her perfectly, “She’s the biggest nut we got in here.”
It was a long trek to the wing that she was housed in. Angel passed through hallway after hallway of rooms with barred windows and women reaching out to him, calling him for help—in more way than one. He was disturbed by some of things that came out of the mouths of these insane women, but Doreen showed no signs of even being affected by them, which disturbed him even more.
Angel concluded, about two hallways back, that everything in this asylum was white. That is, until he came to long hallway that wasn’t even a color. It must have been once, he thought, but decades—maybe even a century—of being unattended—until now—would do that to any paint job.
The walls were molding and crusted. There were great stains of what could have been anything ranging from honey to blood everywhere, in all shapes and sizes. The passageway reeked of insanity and death and Angel almost choked on it. There were puddles along the floor where the rain was leaking through the decaying rooftop. The only sound was that of the water hitting the floor and faint, eerie singing that came from the solitary room at the far end of the corridor.
Doreen’s pace slowed significantly and Angel noticed that she seemed to almost tiptoe towards the cell, as if she was being careful not to disrupt the singing.
She paused in front of the door and whispered to Angel, “Are you sure about this?”
He nodded. Doreen turned back around and unhooked a large set of keys from her belt. She easily found the correct key, but had trouble getting it into the lock. She was shaking so.
“Here, let me.” Angel grasped her trembling hand and removed the key. He placed it into the lock, took a deep breath, and turned.
He cracked open the door and let the off tune singing carry further into the hall.
“…Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream. Row, row…”
Doreen urgently tapped the vampire on the shoulder and pointed to the far end of the corridor, away from the woman beyond the steel door. She turned on her heel and practically ran in the other direction.
Angel took another deep, unnecessary breath to calm his frazzled nerves and then slid the door all the way open.
There she was. Her back was to him and she was looking at the far wall of her room—her cell—where there was a steady stream of rain running down it. She was sitting on her bed, which was nailed to the floor, crossed legged.
He almost collapsed at the sight of her. She was so thin, gaunt even. He could clearly make out the bones in her legs and could see her spinal cord and ribs jutting out of her skin through the thin material of her mental institution regulatory gown. Her once-glorious hair that rivaled even the sun in beauty was chopped off and resembled his own. But the spikes of her hair were unruly and not done for reasons of fashion.
“…Merrily. Life is but a dream…”
Her voice was hoarse. Angel didn’t know whether it was that way from lack of use or over use. His eyes suddenly burned with tears of pity and guilt.
He called out to her, but she showed no signs of understanding or even hearing him. He called out to her again, but different this time, “Cordelia.”
The singing stopped instantly. She slowly turned around to face him and he immediately wished she hadn’t. Her face was thin and pale. The skin around her eyes and her cheekbones seemed to just hang there, as if somebody glued the top portion to the necessary parts, but left the rest to flap in the wind. The contrast of her eyes was startling. There were deep, dark circles there that might have passed for black eyes if he hadn’t known any better, but the whites of her eyes were vast and clear. Her face seemed longer and much, much thinner.
Angel felt like his legs would give out at any moment and send him—and possibly his whole world—crashing down.
She smiled, and Angel cringed. Yellow, rotting teeth replaced those that used to be so white and perfect.
“Angel?” she whispered to him tentatively. Those words seemed to convey a clear message to him: Fragile. Handle with care. Easily broken.
Angel didn’t trust his voice so he only nodded. She was instantly off the bed and in his arms.
“I knew you’d come. I knew it. I told them, but they didn’t believe me. Didn’t believe an Angel would be coming to save me from here. But I knew.”
A repressed tear finally freed itself and slowly rolled down his cheek and blended with her hair. She felt like a skeleton. Is this what it felt like to embrace a bag of bones?
He couldn’t stand it any longer. He gently pulled back, only to have her push forward.
“We need to talk… Cordelia.”
She immediately shoved him into the wall with a strength that he had forgotten about.
She pinned him to the wall with a fiery stare that could have melted any icecap. “Talk? About… what happened?”
“I need to know,” he pleaded with a soft voice, careful not to upset her.
She fiercely shook her head and turned away from him and back to her bed, singing again in a soft whisper.
“Row, row, row your boat. Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream…”
This time, more urgently, “I need to know—“ Almost. Almost slipped up there. “—Cordelia.”
“Call me Cordy. I remember you called me that. When we were in love. Do you still love me, Angel?”
“I love Cordelia.”
“Always and forever, right? That’s what you used to say to me.”
His eyes hardened. He didn’t like where this was going. “I will love Cordelia, always and forever.”
Singing again, “Life is but a dream…”
He approached her and softly placed a hesitant hand on her shoulder. “Please tell me.”
“Row… The Scoobies came to help. They came to L.A…. Row… To help get Conner back… Your boat… Buffy was jealous because you and I were so in love… Gently… We all went to the Hell Dimension Holtz was in… Down the stream… Xander and Giles were lost in the portal somewhere. Buffy was so mad… Merrily… Willow died because her magic backfired in that realm. Buffy was so sad... Merrily… Spike died protecting us. Buffy was so crazy… Merrily… Buffy went to Holtz so he wouldn’t kill her… Merrily… She told him where you were so he would stop killing others… Life… Holtz took you and tortured you until I saved you… Is… You killed Holtz… But… We got Conner back… A… We left… Dream.”
Tears were streaming down Angel’s face now. It was hard to relive those painful memories like this… with her. But he needed to know.
“And Buffy? What happened to Buffy?”
“I killed her. I killed her.”
There was his answer. What he was looking for. The guilt lifted, but the sadness remained.
“I killed her.”
He gave her shoulder a brief squeeze and turned to leave—to go home.
“I killed her.”
He had opened the door when she called out to him… one last time.
“Angel?”
Angel lifted his damp face and streaming eyes to meet her clear blue ones.
“Do we live happily ever after?”
A rueful smile played on his lips. “Yes, Cordelia. You and I live happily ever after. Me, Conner, and Cordelia.”
She nodded in ignorant satisfaction and turned back to the mini waterfall of rain leaking from the roof down the wall and finally ending in a small puddle on the dirty floor. “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream…”
Angel stepped over the threshold and slowly shut the door behind him until he heard the soft click of the automatic lock. He sighed heavily, and he spoke to her through the thick metal door. Told her what he’d wanted to say for so, so long, but couldn’t. Until now. He closed this long and heartbreaking chapter of his life with two simple words:
“Goodbye, Buffy.”
The End.