Dreams
Disclaimer: I don't own The Sentinel or Angel the series. The dialogue in the first chapter is taken from a transcript of the Ats episode 'Hero'. I don't own any of the pictures in the banner either, I just found them on the net and put them together.
Spoilers: The Sentinel anything up to but not including 'the Sentinel by Blair Sandburg' although I wont follow the timeline from the show. Ats anything up to and including the episode 'Hero'.
Warnings: Think 'Hero' gone bad. But nothing too bad, I just use it as a backdrop for my story. Probably some vivid descriptions of crimescenes. You should know the episode 'Hero'. No prior knowledge of The Sentinel neccesary.
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She climbed up the metal ladder, her heart pounding in her ears as she reached the catwalk. God, she didn’t have enough time! Angel was already on the catwalk, fighting Tiernan, one of the scourge demons. The ship was swaying slowly, sickeningly as the waves crashed against it’s sides, stretching the ropes which tied it to the dock.
Beneath her she could see the Lister demons, half demons, crowding together in cargo room. Doyle came up the ladder behind her while she watched, frozen as Angel grabbed Tiernan’s neck, twisting it. Heard the crunch as the demon’s vertebrae caved in under the strength of unyielding fingers. Angel. She tried to scream his name, warn him, but she couldn’t. Her voice refused to obey her. God, she couldn’t breathe. Watching in horror as the demon slowly fell over the railing, tumbling down to land with a hollow thump on the metal floor of the ship.
They had to get out, had to get away! Suddenly the gloomy darkness of the cargo hold was chased away by a bright beacon. She opened her mouth, no! The word caught in her throat, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Below she heard the Lister demons scream in terror as they saw the beacon slowly being lowered down on a metal chain.
‘What does that thing do?’ Doyle’s voice reached her ears, and for a second the painful pounding of her heart became silent. Everything became silent.
‘It kills anything with human blood’ Angel answered, watching as the beacon came to a stop in front of the catwalk.
‘Well, it's getting brighter and that doohickey… - it's fully armed, isn't it?’ No! Doyle, we have to get out, don’t you understand? Please, just go, just leave. But again she couldn’t say anything, just stand there, watching as everything happened all over again.
‘Almost. If I pull the cable, I think I can still shut it off.’ Angel, don’t! We have to leave! She wanted to scream, grab him, beg him to get away from the ship. From beneath she could hear the screams become more and more frantic as the half demons realised that they were locked in. The sound throbbed through her body, banged against her ears, so intense that she felt nauseous.
‘How're you gonna do that without touching the light?’ Doyle’s question finally prompted her to action.
‘Angel, that's suicide.’ Don’t you get it? You’re going to die! But she knew already that it was too late, saw it in his eyes as he turned to her. The way he straightened his shoulders. No! No, don’t do this, Angel, don’t be so stupid! For once just walk away!
‘There's got to be another way.’ Yes! Listen to Doyle. Please listen.
‘It's all right.’ Angel said, looking at the demons in the cargo hold. No, no it isn’t. She looked at him, saw the determination in his eyes, and suddenly the world narrowed in and all she could see was Angel, Doyle and the beacon, growing more brilliant by the second. Oh, god she couldn’t breathe.
‘No!’ She couldn’t do this again. No… her chest hurt as she forced in another breath, her throat burned with unvoiced screams of denial. No, no, no…
Angel put his hand on Doyle’s arm, and then Doyle grabbed his arm one last time, looking at the vampire with understanding.
‘The good fight, yeah? - You never know until you've been tested. - I get that now.’ No! Pure terror ran through her veins at Doyle’s quiet words, the demons beneath her forgotten, the scourge, the beacon, nothing mattered, because she knew what he was going to do. She closed her eyes, willing him to stop. The sound of flesh hitting flesh, Angel’s groan, and the tiny tremble of the catwalk as he hit the metal floor of the cargo hold below made her open her eyes again. Doyle’s face so close.
She tried to focus on it, bury every line of it in her mind, but she couldn’t. The beacon blinded her, the sobs and panicked screams from below distracted her. She opened her mouth, willing to plead with him, willing to do anything, anything at all, to stop him. Before she could say anything he leaned in, she felt his warm breath on her face, the smell of whiskey. Then he kissed her. For a second something brushed against her, made her skin tingle and a cold shiver caressed her neck. Then it was over. He pulled back. She looked up. Helpless. She had nothing more to say.
‘Too bad we'll never know… if this is a face you could learn to love.’ His voice gentle as his face changed, spikes growing out of it, his eyes turning read, as his skin grew green. And she knew she could have. If he had just given her a chance. Somewhere behind her she heard Angel climb up the ladder in a frantic attempt to reach them before it was too late. She closed her eyes against the tears.
‘Doyle. Doyle. Doyle! Doyle! No!’ But Angel’s screams went unheeded as Doyle gave her one last smile and threw himself over the railing, falling though the air, so slow, to grab hold of the beacon. She watched, tears running down her face, her heart beating against her ribs as he tried to reach the cable. His hand moving unbearably slow as his skin burned of his body, the muscles underneath turning black as the light grew stronger. His hand reaching closer and closer. And then just as he touched it, his other arm, holding tight around the beacon slipped, and with an anguished scream he fell, his burned corpse landing on the floor, and for a second the only sound was the echo of bones braking against the metal.
Then the screaming started. Louder than before, drowning her. The light grew stronger, she felt heat rising against her skin, but she didn’t care. Didn’t care about the doomed demons in beneath her or her own death. Suddenly Angel ran past her, his hands grabbing the rail as he launched himself across it, reaching out to the deathly light.
‘Angel! No!’ The scream echoed in her head, reverberated as she watched the vampire land on the beacon, his hand grabbing the cable and pulling it away even as he fell, like Doyle before him. In the fading light of the dimming beacon, she watched as he fell, slowly, almost floating gently towards the floor, his body breaking up, turning to dust even before he reached it. There was no sound. Not thump of a body hitting metal beneath her. No body to morn. Only dust, drifting slowly down, showering the demons below. She shook her head. No. Denial. No. No, no, no, no. No! Noooo!
-
Cordy woke up, the echo of her scream still hanging in the air. With a shaking hand she brushed away a stray her from her face. She felt the wetness of her tears, and rubbed them away with fast, angry movements. God, why did they have to be so goddamn heroic? She needed them. Who cared about some stupid demons that couldn’t even protect themselves? She sighed, and pushed the cover away. She wasn’t being fair. It just hurt so much. God, she wished she had done something differently. That they had been faster, that the ship had already left the harbour when the scourge showed up.
She walked over to the adjoining bathroom and looked herself in the mirror. She looked tired. Dark circles under her eyes, that became harder and harder to mask with makeup. Worn out. That’s how she felt. She looked at her wrist watch, lying on top of the mirror cabinet where she had left it the evening before. Just minutes after she had paid for the hotel room. Five in the morning. At least it was getting better. She still couldn’t sleep after the dreams but she was able to sleep longer before they started. God, she looked like hell. She turned on the shower, waiting till the temperature adjusted and stepped in under the hot spray. She moaned as the tension slowly drained from her body, then she got dressed and opened her wallet. Not much money. Enough for another two months if she lived in cheap motels.
She had sold Angel’s apartment, and most of the weaponry, keeping a few stakes, a battle axe and a sword. She didn’t have the heart to sell his car, so instead she had taken it with her on her road trip. Yeah right. Not really her road trip. More like the Powers That Be followed their sadistic streak and left her with Doyle’s visions. Bastards. If she ever got face to face with the powers she was going to tell them a few things about messing around with people’s lives. She had considered going back to good old Sunnyhell after Angel and Doyle... She had gone. Stayed for a week.
Just long enough to watch the final instalment of the star crossed love affair between Buffy and Angel. Buffy doing the -woe is me- act for all she was worth. Staid just long enough to realise that she didn’t fit in. God, Buffy had been devastated. And angry, out to blame anyone, just as long as it kept the pain away. She had yelled at her, demanded to know why she hadn’t stopped him. Cordy had ignored her. She knew that the slayer was just trying to keep the pain away. Instead she had raged against the Powers, almost made herself mad with what ifs. She understood Buffy perfectly. Understood her anger and despair. But she couldn’t stay there. Couldn’t play the scapegoat. Or even the comforter. It had been cloying, all that grieve when she felt like she was drowning in her own already.
So she left. Made arrangements, sold Angel’s stuff. And then it hit. She had scared the hell out of Dennis when the first vision grabbed her, screaming inside her scull. She remembered how painful they had looked when Doyle had them. In reality they were worse. For a second she had been sure she would die. The first moment after the vision the pain had been so bad she couldn’t even remember what she had seen. Then it came back to her. A young mother and her baby being killed by a vampire. She had gone out alone, somehow managed to stake the vamp. After that the visions kept coming, mostly small stuff she could handle by herself.
But the visions started to take her further and further away from LA. A few hours drive. Then a day. Finally she had terminated her lease, made a trip to a Chinese herbal store and found some magic powder and an incantation to free Dennis from his ghostly existence. She had left then, living in a suitcase, hopping from motel to motel, going wherever the visions sent her. So far she had been lucky. She hadn’t run into something really big yet. Maybe the powers were just starting her out slow. God, it had only been two months since they had died.
Two months and three days. She missed them. She hadn’t had the nerve to watch the video cassette she kept in her bag. The ad she had insisted they make to get some more customers. Of the paying variety. She couldn’t bring it over her to throw it out either. So she just carried it along from room to room, sometimes taking it out, fingering it. Trying to convince herself that she was going to watch it this time.
She combed out her wet hair and pulled it up in a pony tail, then she took out her makeup; covering up the bags under her eyes and the tired greyness of her skin. At last she gave her mirror image a smile. She looked good. It was all façade, but so what? She was a master of facades. You didn’t get to be the queen of Sunnydale high without. Hell, she had kept her façade up when her parents started yelling at each other, not that she really cared. She hardly saw them anyway. She’d kept calm and collected when the IRS came by and took everything they owned, when her heart was braking after Xander left her and when she lived in that cockroach infected hellhole before Doyle found her a new place.
It was what she did. Didn’t matter how she felt inside, as long as she looked good, she was fine. Untouchable. With a last look at the mirror she picked up her bags and gathered her toiletries. She walked out to Angels’ car, fumbled with the key before it slid in and she drove out onto the road; the sun at her back and no particular goal in mind. At some point she’d have another vision and then she know where to drive. For now she wanted the sun out of her eyes, and the map showed a small town a couple of miles down the road. She ran a hand through her hair pushing a lock which had freed itself from her ponytail away. God, she hoped they had a decent starbucks. She could use a good cup of coffee right about now.
TBC
This might be updated a bit sporadically at the beginning (Real Life commitments). Please let me know what you think. Tals
