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Shadows Still Remain	By : addielogan Category: Angel the Series > Het - Male/Female > Angel(us)/Cordelia > Angel(us)/Cordelia Views: 3578 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Angel: The Series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Anne was doing some paperwork for the
shelter at her kitchen table, not wanting to go downstairs to her office until
Cordelia awoke. She had been able to tell from her behavior the day before that
the dark-haired woman truly had no idea what was going on and possibly even who
she was. The doctor had assured Anne nothing was physically wrong with
Cordelia, which ruled out any chance of a physical ailment preventing her from
speaking, but Cordelia had done nothing to try to communicate another way,
which made Anne think it was indeed something psychological. Cordelia seemed�lost.
She'd given the doctor's recommendation to
bring Cordelia to the psychiatric ward a little more thought, but Anne still didn't
feel comfortable with the idea. It felt too much like abandoning her. She
didn't think Cordelia was crazy. It seemed more like she'd been through
something traumatic, a theory that was backed up by how Anne had found her two
nights earlier. She supposed psychiatrists would be more experienced in how to
deal with the situation than Anne herself was, but given the circumstances, she
didn't know how much help they'd be.
And Anne wanted to help. Genuinely help, not
just gloss over the problem by giving it a name and Cordelia some sort of
medication, the way it would probably happen if she turned Cordelia over to the
hospital. Helping people was what Anne did. It was the way she stood up, the
way she was strong enough to make a difference. It was what she'd been taught
years ago by the girl who had given her her name�
Anne looked up when she heard Cordelia come
into the kitchen and gasped at the sight of a cut on her head. "What
happened to you?" Anne asked, helping Cordelia over to sit at the table.
"Did you fall out of bed and hit it on the side table?"
Anne hadn't really been expecting an answer
from Cordelia, but she voiced the only theory she could come up with all the
same. She couldn't imagine any other way Cordelia could've gotten such a nasty
cut on her head. "Stay here," Anne said as she went into the bathroom
to get her first aid kit. She came out a few minutes later, glad to see that
Cordelia was patiently waiting for her.
Cordelia didn't flinch as Anne cleaned her
wound with an antiseptic swab, then covered it with a
piece of gauze. "It's not deep enough for stitches, so that's good,"
Anne said as she taped the gauze down. "And it doesn't look quite as bad
as I thought it was, now that I've cleaned the blood off."
Cordelia smiled her gratitude to Anne for
tending to the wound, and Anne smiled back. She'd helped there, she knew, and
she felt productive. She'd been at a loss for how to really take care of
Cordelia since her guest had arrived, never sure if she was getting all of her
needs met since Cordelia couldn't verbally communicate them. Anne had done what
she could though, making sure Cordelia had food, clothes, and a place to sleep.
And now Anne figured Cordelia must be hungry
again. She closed up the first aid kit and went to the fridge in order to find
something to eat.

***
*** ***
As Cordelia ate her breakfast, she kept
replaying the events of the night before in her mind. Even without any solid
memories of anything before waking up in the collapsing building, she knew what
she'd seen�and what she'd done�shouldn't be normal. Only it felt normal,
at least for her. She didn't think the other people she'd met since Anne found
her saw pictures in their minds of things that hadn't happened yet the way she
had, but the thought of it happening to her didn't scare her.
She also hadn't been frightened by the
monster she'd face. It had been a horrible sight, but she hadn't flinched,
hadn't screamed the way the woman she'd saved had. Instead, she'd seemed to
have an instinctual drive to fight and kill the creature. Was killing monsters
something she'd once done often?
However, one detail from the night before
seemed to stand out above all others. Angel� Why had that one word been
so familiar to her when nothing else was? The sound of it had been the most
familiar thing Cordelia had known since she'd woken up�more familiar than the
word she'd come to realize was her own name. It had stirred something inside of
her to hear it, tried to pull forward memories Cordelia couldn't seem to
access.
One thing she knew for sure, though, Angel
was a name, someone she'd known. She didn't know who, but it was
someone�someone important.
Cordelia looked up at Anne, and wondered if
perhaps she'd know. She'd seemed to know who Cordelia herself was anyway�would
she possibly know other people from Cordelia's life as well? Maybe if she said
the name, Anne would know, and could help her find Angel, whoever and wherever
he was.
"Angel," Cordelia said, the sound
of the voice of her previously-mute houseguest making Anne glance up from her
papers sharply.
"Angel? Do you remember him?" Anne
asked.
"Angel," Cordelia repeated,
wishing she had the words to make what she needed clearer.
Anne shook her head. "I don't know
where he is. I've been trying to call Gunn to find out�do you remember Gunn?"
Cordelia stared blankly for a moment before
she repeated softly, sadly, "Angel."
Anne didn't know how close Cordelia and
Angel had been. The last time she'd had any real contact with the both of them,
there'd been a rift. She'd talked to Gunn enough to know at least that they'd
started working with Angel again, but she'd never gotten any details on his
friends' personal lives. She wondered what sort of relationship they'd had if
Cordelia could remember him when she didn't seem to remember anything else. Had
Cordelia been the ensouled vampire's lover?
In any case, Anne was wondering now if
perhaps Angel was the key to helping Cordelia. If they were lovers�or even
simply close friends�then perhaps Angel could help jog Cordelia's memory in
ways Anne couldn't. The question was, how could Anne
track down someone like Angel? She doubted she could simply look him up in the
phone book� The last she'd heard from Gunn, Angel had been working at Wolfram
and Hart�something Anne had to admit shocked her, given his hatred of the firm
in the previous run-in she'd had with him�but even any lead there was gone.
She'd heard on the news that the LA office of Wolfram and Hart had mysteriously
collapsed in what was being called a "localized earthquake."
After hearing that, Anne had wondered if
Cordelia had been a survivor from there, though she had no way of verifying her
theory. It certainly seemed more than likely, given that she'd found Cordelia
not far from the building on the night of the collapse, but it still didn't
tell Anne what had really happened. Simply surviving an earthquake didn't make
people forget who they were and how to talk. If that were the case, most of
California would be made up of amnesiacs. Something else had happened,
something big enough to destroy Wolfram and Hart, send demons into the streets,
and make Cordelia Chase forget who she was.
And Anne was willing to bet good money Angel
was indeed at the center of it all. She just needed to find him and hope he
could help Cordelia more than she could.
Deciding Anne wasn't going to be able to
show her who Angel was, Cordelia gave up asking and went back to her food.

***
*** ***
When another vision came, Cordelia was
ready. Somehow, she'd known it was coming, and she waited for it.
She crept out again, following her instincts
and letting them guide her to a late-night diner, where she waited in the
shadows for what she'd seen in her vision to begin.
A waitress stepped out of the diner and
locked the door behind her, and Cordelia knew it was almost time.
Silently, she waited for the moments to pass until two strange men approached
the woman, hunger in their amber eyes.
A voice deep inside of Cordelia was telling
her what they were. She knew it as well as she could know anything these days.
Vampires.
"Head and heart," something seemed to whisper to her. "Head and heart."
As the first vampire leaned in to bite the
terrified waitress, Cordelia made her move. She lunged for the vampire,
tackling him before his fangs could enter the girl's throat. He snarled at
Cordelia from the ground then jumped back to his feet, their previous prey
forgotten as both vampires turned their attention on the woman who had
interfered with their hunt.
They attacked; Cordelia blocked. Her muscles
seemed to remember the moves even if her mind did not, and she fought them as
if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be doing. From the
corner of her eye, she noticed the waitress run, but she didn't try to stop her
fight now that she'd saved the girl. The demons who had wished to feed from her
still needed to be stopped, and somehow, Cordelia knew it was her job to do.
She let the fight move into an alley beside
the diner, still fending off the attacks from both sides. The longer she kept
them at bay, the angrier the vampires became, and Cordelia knew she needed to
end this soon. She looked quickly around the alley, a small smile forming on
her lips as she spotted a wooden crate nearby. The way to kill them both became
clear to her as she leapt up and over their heads, coming down beside the crate
and smashing it with her hand.
The vampires were confused for only a moment
before the first one charged at her, fangs bared. Cordelia grabbed a piece of
wood from the broken crate and plunged it through his heart before the vampire
had a chance to realize what she was doing, then watched with satisfaction as
he exploded into dust.
The second vampire started at the sight
before him, then turned to run, deciding a meal wasn't
worth facing a woman who could do that. Without hesitation, Cordelia
picked up a second broken piece of wood and threw it, watching it slice through
the air and in through the vampire's back, slamming through to pierce his
heart.
With a grin, she stepped over the two piles
of dust and left the alley.

***
*** ***
Anne was still asleep when Cordelia made her
way back, and she was relieved to see she'd made it out without disturbing the
other woman both nights she'd left now. Something told her Anne might be
bothered by the idea of Cordelia going out to fight the monsters she saw in her
dreams.
Cordelia went into the bathroom and shut the
door before turning on the shower. She stripped off her borrowed clothes before
stepping under the spray, grateful for the ease with which the warm water
washed away the grime of her fight.
After she bathed, she turned off the water
and got out of the shower, wrapping up in a towel she pulled off the rack.
Cordelia wiped away the fog from the mirror and frowned at the sight of her
reflection. She knew she was looking at her own face, but she couldn't shake
the feeling of staring at a stranger instead.
The
worst part of all of this was not knowing herself.
The gauze over the cut on her head was damp
and heavy from the shower and Cordelia peeled it away, noting how the mark was
now no more than a tiny scratch. She threw the used gauze into the trash can
before turning her attention back to herself, checking for any injuries from
the fight with the two vampires. Aside from a couple of bruises, there didn't
seem to be any, and she was pleased to note that.
Anne still hadn't awoken when Cordelia came
out of the bathroom, and Cordelia walked softly back into the bedroom, shutting
the door quietly behind her. She hung her towel over the edge of the bed before
slipping back into her nightclothes and getting under the covers.

***
*** ***
Okay, the hit counter is going up. People
are reading this. Yet three people have left reviews. I'm going to assume this
means the people who are reading aren't overly interested. Am I right?
I'll be completely honest�I know this isn't
a big site for reviews, but come on. You're reading it, say something. I put a
lot of work into this, and it's frustrating when people just ignore that. And
really, it doesn't inspire me to hurry up with the next post when it looks like
no one really cares about the story.
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Shadows Still Remain