| Title: Turn Back Time Author: Kizmet Chapter 3 Cordelia cut up the body in a daze, vaguely glad that she seemed to be the only one who could see or hear Angel, because the dark haired vampire was loosing it. For a long time he ranted at Giles, furious that the man who had been Buffy's father in all but name could mention her death with so little grief. That came after the pleading with everyone to stop lying and tell him where Buffy really was because she wasn't dead. She couldn't be dead. He didn't notice no one noticing him. When Cordelia finished her task she trudged back to the room where she'd first arrived in this place. As she slumped on the cot she noticed a tattered book tucked into a crevice in the wall at the head of her bed. She pulled out the book and was surprised to realize it was her old diary. Cordelia poked her head back into the main room and waited for Angel to notice her then jerked her head toward the room behind her. Angel quickly joined her. "I still keep a diary in this nutso world," Cordelia told him waving the book in his face. "Maybe that will tell us what's happening here," Angel said taking a seat beside Cordelia where he could read over her shoulder. She promptly scooted away. "It's my diary," she protested. "I'll tell you the relevant stuff." She opened the worn book to the beginning and started flipping through. "Who's dating who, what's in and out_ Okay here's something, Buffy attacking me with a stake at the Bronze. I remember writing that, I thought she was a total freak." Cordelia turned the page and read for a few minutes in silence then stopped and looked up at Angel. "The next entry is about how bad I felt for saying mean stuff about Buffy the night before. Her body was found in a crypt with the throat torn out the next day. It was all over school because Xander, Willow and Jesse all disappeared that night." "Jesse?" Angel asked surprised by the natural way she said the three names together even though the last was unfamiliar to him. Cordelia gave him a sad look. "Before your time. Jesse was the third Musketeer before Buffy came. He got vamped, I saw him go all `grr' at that Harvest thing_ I guess if Willow and Xander disappeared that night too they must have been turned as well." Cordelia continued flipping through the book. "There's more high school stuff. Mentions of monsters_ getting more of those the further I go. It's like the Sunnydale denial syndrome was getting overwhelmed. Things were too wrong even for Sunnydale to pretend that they weren't." "I run away to LA to become an actress and escape the awfulness that was Sunnydale. That happened a year before I really came to LA. Things don't go any better for me in this place_ Neat, Doyle still helps rescue me from Russell Winters_ with Gunn instead of you though." "They show me how things really are in LA. It wasn't as obvious here as it was in Sunnydale but it's almost as bad if you knew where to look_ I decide I'm sick of running and join their group_ Oh look, I have a crush on Doyle. I go on about his eyes for almost a whole page_ he did have the most beautiful blue eyes didn't he?" "Giles and Faith hit town. There's some initial conflict between us and them, but eventually we all join forces." "Gunn and Faith start sleeping together." "We make an attempt to close the Hellmouth, nearly half our people get killed before we even reach the town limits. I said Sunnydale looks like it's Hell now." "There's some stuff about how the vampire situation is getting way bad in LA. The Master moved his court here because they ran out of people in Sunnydale. Gunn's sister gets turned; he had to kill her here too. She was my friend here_ I was right about Willow and Xander getting turned, they're the Master's Lieutenants." "Here's some good stuff, Doyle and I start going out and_ oh_ oh wow_ that stuff's personal." "Back to the awfulness that is this place. Kate joins us. She's really a fanatic even in this group. I guess her dad must have gotten killed by demons again." Cordelia flipped ahead several pages then dropped the book to the bed and stared at it with horror and shock. Her eyes filled with tears and she pressed her hands to her mouth. "No, no, that couldn't happen. It didn't happen. That would never happen!" she insisted. Angel moved so that he could read the entry for himself. "Doyle was a demon," it read. "I can't believe it's real. We were up on the roof, watching the stars and talking. I was so happy; everything was perfect. That should have warned me, nothing is perfect in this world." "Doyle sneezed, such a stupid little thing, but his whole face erupted into blue quills, his skin turned green and his eyes went red. I just stood there staring. He shook it off and then he was my Doyle again, only I knew." "I stared backing away from him, looking for a weapon." " `It's not how it looks Princess,' Doyle pled. `You've gotta believe me.'" "I should have stayed and listened to him," was written next but it had been crossed out, multiple times; Angel could barely decipher the words. "I ran downstairs, right into Kate," the entry continued. "I told her. She pulled her gun and started back to the roof. We met Doyle halfway up the stairs, he looked scared when he saw Kate and the gun." " `Ye know me, Cordy, ye know I'd never hurt you!' he yelled and Kate fired. Then next thing I knew I was holding him and sobbing." " `He was a demon Cor,' Kate said coldly. `They're all evil, you know that.' I keep telling myself that Kate's right. That Doyle was just another demon, maybe some day I'll believe it." Angel tried to comfort Cordelia. "It didn't really happen. He didn't die like that," he said. "Just like Buffy isn't really dead." "I want to go home," Cordelia sobbed. "I don't like it here." A commotion in the main room drew them and almost everyone else there, even a very tousled looking Faith and Gunn. Wesley, dressed as he had when he arrived in Sunnydale, was being hustled into the room by two of Gunn's sentries. "Let go of me you ruffians!" he demanded, outraged. "We found him snooping around the compound," one of Wesley's captures reported. "I'll have you know I'm here on official Council business!" Wesley declared self importantly. "Until you ill mannered cretins interfered, but what else can I expect from Americans." "Ripper!" You've got a guest!" Kate yelled out a window. A few minutes later Giles appeared, the ashes on his close hinted that he'd been in the middle of disposing of Riley's remains, he looked Wesley over distastefully then asked, "Has the Council finally decided to take this to take this seriously and help us?" "I'm here to replace you," Wesley declared. "You've refused to do your duty so I'll do it for you." Giles glared at Wesley. "We're fighting a war, we don't have time for the Council's foolishness. And if you try to began the Cruciamentum I'll kill you," he said conversationally. Wesley made a few offended noises then recovered his powers of speech. "You can't simply ignore the Council," he said. "Look around you!" Giles snapped. "We're one hundred and twenty miles from an open Hellmouth! Most of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico are ruled by various demon sects. Things would be worse except that the forces of darkness are concentrating a large part of their energies on wiping out this resistance group. So you think it's a good idea to render the Slayer helpless for the sake of some archaic tradition? Are you a complete idiot?" "Well I never!" Wesley exclaimed turning to leave. Gunn gestured for the sentries to let him out, but he stopped at the door to ask, "I was also suppose to get an update on the key situation for the Council." Faith made a choked noise then hurried away. Gunn jogged to her side and wrapped a comforting arm around her. "It had to be done," he said as Faith buried her face against his chest, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. "The Key was destroyed," Giles said, his voice heavy with regret. Shortly after the commotion caused by Wesley's arrival died down a new, happier, commotion began, initiated by the arrival of three kids and a teacher-type. Cordelia wasn't quite sure how she saw the teacher in the man in jeans and an often-washed shirt, but it was there. Maybe it was the way he watched his students. The youngest of the three, a pretty little girl about four years old, made a beeline for Cordelia. "Cory, I got to use the colors," the little girl exclaimed, showing Cordelia a child's masterpiece. "That's great," Cordelia said enthusiastically, covering the confusion she felt. The teacher took Cordelia by the elbow and led her back to her room. He shut the door behind them as soon as the girl entered. "Alex almost slipped today," the teacher said seriously. "What do you mean?" Cordelia asked. "She almost let her demon face show with the other kids there!" he snapped. "What else would I mean? You can't keep her here Cor." "W_ what do you think I should do?" Cordelia stammered. This wasn't a twist she'd expected. "Take her to one of the demon communities," he replied instantly. "It's where she belongs, where Doyle belonged, but he wanted to be here, where he could make a difference. I know why you want to keep her, but even though the groups with good fighters get targeted by the Hybrids and the other communities of good demons are everyone's victims, Alex will still be better with them." "Because the others will kill her if they find out, like Doyle_" Cordelia whispered with a shutter. "Yeah, like your stupidity got Doyle killed. Demons aren't all evil, we know that, but try convincing Kate or any of the others of that. Doyle didn't even know he was part demon until he was twenty-one and trust me, finding out didn't make him a different person. You had to get Doyle killed to figure that out. I know you think rescuing Alex and taking care of her somehow excuses what you did to Doyle, it doesn't. You're just going to get her killed too." Then the teacher-type, who's name Cordelia had yet to learn, turned and walked out, leaving Cordelia with a four-year-old child she'd never seen before who seemed to be her ward. "You won't send me away?" Alex asked fearfully. "I didn't mean to be bad. Without a second's thought Cordelia embraced the child tightly. "You weren't bad," she said fiercely. "You were just being you." "I'm a demon, I'm bad." "No, you're not bad, some demons are very good," Cordelia said. "Then why'd Giles kill Dawn?" Alex asked. "I don't know," Cordelia said. Alex's face screwed up into a childish frown, an expression that's meaning wasn't obscured by the suddenly golden hue of her skin and the small horns sprouting from her temples. "Liar!" she accused. "Dawn was a demon thing! Demons are bad! So he killed her, dead!" With that the girl burst into violent sobs. "I don't wanna be bad." Cordelia held Alex until she'd cried herself to sleep, and then laid her down on the second cot cramped into the small room and covered her with a blanket. When Cordelia realized Alex's human mask wasn't returning without the girl consciously putting it on, she checked the door. Sure enough, her other self had fixed a way to lock the door, a way to protect Alex's secret. Cordelia wondered how the her that belonged here could stand living like this; unable to trust her friends, raising Alex to believe that there was something wrong with her. A hand, raised as if to knock on the door, passed through it, into the room. "Can I come in?" Angel asked stepping through the door, looking uncomfortable. "I tried to knock. Wesley got back to the place where he's staying safely. He called in back up from the Council. They're planning to assassinate Faith and Giles. I'd guess they're hoping the next Slayer called will be more controllable. I don't understand why Wesley's still with them. I can see how much he hates what they're doing, but he won't stand up to them. He's more under their thumb now than he was when he first showed up in Sunnydale." "We've got to find someway to put things back like they were," Cordelia said. "We've got to find away to undo what you changed. "That can't be what happened," Angel protested. "I made it so there's no Angelus, that had to have made things better. How could it cause this?" "We changed the past, now the present is all post-apocalyptic," Cordelia replied angrily. "Doesn't that scream cause and effect to you?" "It doesn't make sense," Angel snarled back. "There's something else that we're missing. This isn't my fault! I did the right thing!" "So why is everything so horrible?" Cordelia demanded. "I don't know. Maybe the oracles didn't get killed here. I'll ask them what happened," Angel suggested reluctantly. |