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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.

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Cordelia hadn't given much thought to where
she was actually going to go when she ran out of the Hyperion. All she knew was
she needed space, needed room to breathe.
Much of her memory was still a jumbled mess,
but she knew without a doubt Wolfram and Hart was evil. Every memory she still
possessed made that abundantly clear. She also remembered the way they'd
focused so much of their energies on Angel, doing everything they could to bend
him to their will, to make him revert to his evil incarnation.
So what did it mean that Angel had actually
formed a deal with Wolfram and Hart? Had they succeeded in corrupting him? And
if so, who was he now?
Cordelia didn't think he was Angelus. Her
memories weren't completely clear concerning the vampire's soulless version,
but she remembered enough to know he wouldn't have treated her the way he had
if he were Angelus. He also wasn't wearing leather pants, and while she
couldn't seem to recall why her brain would think that was an important detail,
she was positive it was.
She stopped and stepped out of the middle of
the sidewalk, leaning against a building to take a moment to rest. Just when
she'd thought things were getting back to normal, everything had been turned on
its head again. Cordelia knew she could go back and ask Angel for more details,
have him explain the deal with Wolfram and Hart until it somehow made sense to
her, but as things stood, she wasn't even sure if she could trust him.
Everything was too jumbled and confusing for her to trust anyone or anything.
Not
even herself� Not after what Angel had told her about Jasmine.
How could she even be certain she wasn't
harboring some evil inside of her now? She had been at the mercy of Wolfram and
Hart for at least a year. They could've done something to her, made her into
something else.
Cordelia gasped, her hand going to her mouth
as cold fear gripped her. These new powers of hers, her strength�was it
something Wolfram and Hart had done to her? Had they spent the past year
transforming her into some sort of superhuman killing machine?
The very thought made her stomach roll.
She'd seen first hand the sorts of things Wolfram and Hart used their people
for. Did they have some sort of ultimate goal in mind for her, a way to use her
in one of their evil schemes? And what if they were still planning on carrying
it out? Sure, the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram and Hart was in ruins, but that
didn't mean the firm was out of business for good. Didn't they have other offices
all around the world? They could just be biding their time, waiting until they
were ready to use her for whatever sort of evil they could cook up.
A new thought entered her mind, and Cordelia
panicked even more. What if she couldn't fight it? What if they had her
mystically brainwashed, and they would somehow trigger whatever it was they'd
done to her and make her real personality disappear again like what Angel had
told her had happened with Jasmine? Suddenly, she was remembering watching old
war movies with Xander Harris and all of the "sleeper agents" that
appeared in them.
Was that what she was? Some sort of evil
sleeper agent for Wolfram and Hart? And if so, how did she keep them from
triggering her and making her evil? Or was that evil again?
With her mind whirling, Cordelia needed a
place to sit down and think about things. Her first thought was to go visit
Anne, but if she was indeed some sort of sleeper agent and Wolfram and Hart
decided to trigger her, would she end up hurting Anne? And if that were the case,
then was she safe to be around people at all?
If she needed someone to make sure she
didn't become a danger to others, then she should be around Angel. He'd make
sure nothing bad happened. Cordelia turned around and started back towards the
Hyperion when she remembered why she left in the first place. Angel had been
working for Wolfram and Hart�he could be in on it all.
Yet she couldn't imagine Angel ever
betraying her like that, no matter how poor his choices seemed to be when she
wasn't around�
Only he'd spent the past year with Wolfram
and Hart, so� Cordelia's eyes widened again as a new thought entered her mind.
Angel could be brainwashed, too!
So if she couldn't go to Anne because she
might hurt her, and she couldn't go to Angel because he might be brainwashed,
then where could she go?
She
didn't know.
Feeling completely lost, Cordelia continued
to wander the streets of Los Angeles.

***
*** ***
Angel knew being a vampire had its perks.
The super strength, the fast healing, and the heightened senses were all things
that made unlife a bit easier.
However, it also had some major
drawbacks�like the inability to go out into the sun, for instance.
He had no idea where Cordelia had been
headed when she'd taken off out of the hotel. He didn't even think she had known where she was going. If it
weren't for the damn sun, he could go out there and track her down, completely
certain he would be able to track her scent under any conditions. Sometimes he
thought he knew her scent better than he knew his own.
Yet without having any idea of where she
could possibly go, he couldn't search for her with the sun high in the sky.
Wandering the sewers wouldn't get him far in this sort of situation, since
Cordelia could be heading in any direction.
And even if he could find her, he had no assurance
she'd want to talk to him. She was upset about his deal with Wolfram and Hart,
and Angel knew she had every right to be�even if there were circumstances she
couldn't understand with her memory the way it was. Angel knew now he had been
wrong to accept the deal, even to save Connor. In the end, the price had been too
high.
Connor� Truth be told, Angel wasn't sure he'd really
"saved" Connor at all now. After Wolfram and Hart had collapsed, he'd
tried to get in touch with him, but he'd still not had any luck. Even more
troublesome was the fact that Angel couldn't seem to find any trace of the
family Connor had been given either.
The
thought had entered Angel's mind that he'd made a deal with lawyers in which he
hadn't bothered to read the fine print�
He'd lost everything. His friends, his son,
his chance at redemption. He'd thought that perhaps if he could have Cordelia
back in his life, that maybe existing could be tolerable. But now? Would she
ever be able to accept what he had done, the decisions he'd made in her
absence, or would this finally be the thing that pushed her away forever?
Angel was determined not to let that happen.
He knew he could never have her the way he wanted, but the fact remained he
loved her. She was the best friend he'd ever had, and that was the bottom line.
If she was here, if she was still part of the world, then he would do whatever
it took to keep her in his life.
So he needed to find her, convince her to
forgive him, and get her to come home. What was in the past was already done,
but Angel wanted nothing more than to move on from here. They had to.
Cordelia
was all he had left�
With every bit of patience two hundred and
fifty plus years had afforded him, Angel waited for the sun to go down.

***
*** ***
Cordelia didn't know how long she'd been
out. The sun was setting, so she knew it had been most of the day, but she'd
been too lost in her thoughts to pay attention to time.
She'd almost turned right around and gone
back to the Hyperion more than once, but she still didn't know what to say to
Angel, or even if she should be
around him.
It had occurred to her that he might not
even really be Angel. For all she
knew. Wolfram and Hart was playing her, forcing her into some sort of twisted
game. It wouldn't surprise her in the least, not with as jumbled as her mind
was these days. And really, all that stuff Angel had told her had happened in
the past two years? Could she honestly believe any of that made enough sense to
really happen? It was all completely ridiculous�
Although, on the other hand, when was the
last time her life had made any sort of sense?
When the vision came, Cordelia welcomed it.
If nothing else, it got her mind of all the things she didn't want to think
about. Instead, she could focus on something she knew she could do�even if she
didn't know why. Fight.
Her face switching to a mask of
determination and strength, Cordelia took a sharp turn and headed towards the
place she knew she was supposed to be. For the first time all day, she had a destination�a
purpose.
The sun sank over the horizon, and Cordelia
saw the teenaged girls from her vision standing outside a warehouse. "Hey,
you two really need to get out of here," Cordelia told them as she
approached.
One of the girls crossed her arms over her
chest. "Who are you to tell us what to do?"
Cordelia rolled her eyes. As if she was in the mood to deal with
teenage attitude� "Look, I don't have time to get into how I know
this, but if you stay here, vampires are going to walk right around that corner
and kill you both, okay?" She pointed past them to the spot she'd seen in
her vision.
The second teen took a step backwards, even
as she scoffed. "Whoa, lady, you are seriously crazy."
Cordelia gave a heavy sigh. "Would you
just go? If I'm really crazy, then do you want to stand here and deal with a
crazy lady? Because I'm not leaving, and I will ramble if I have to."
One of the girls opened her mouth to
respond, but stopped at the sound of footsteps behind her. She turned, gasping
when four vampires in game face appeared around the corner Cordelia had said
they would.
"Really, now may be a time you two
might want to think about running," Cordelia said, her arms crossed over
her chest and one eyebrow raised.
Without any further arguments, the two
teenagers took off. One of the vampires started after them, but Cordelia
stepped in front of him and knocked him down in one fluid movement. "I
don't think so, buddy. The buffet table's closed."
A gleam in her eye, Cordelia reached behind
her, her hand wrapping around a make-shift stake in her waist band�

***
*** ***
Even with all the people in Los Angeles,
Angel had found her. Her scent had called to him, stood out among countless
others, yet it had been more than that. Something about her had called to him. He'd felt her presence in
a way he never had before.
He knew it would be romantic�even given
there futility of their situation�to think of it as something drawing him to
Cordelia because of his feelings for her, but he knew it was more than that. Something
familiar not only to him, but to his demon as well�
It was right at the edge of his
consciousness, a niggling sensation of familiarity he couldn't seem to place.
It made him move faster, pushing himself to get to her.
When he did, he found her fighting.
Three vampires stood around her, a pile of
dust already at her feet. Out of habit, Angel almost stepped into the fray to
save her, when he realized with a start Cordelia didn't need saving. She was moving in a way he'd never seen her move
before, with deadly accuracy.
The
vampires didn't stand a chance�
Shocked by what he was seeing, Angel
continued to stare, watching Cordelia as she dispatched her enemies. Then, she
turned, wheeling around to face him, her stake still raised.
Their eyes locked, and in that moment,
realization hit Angel hard enough to make him take a stumbled step backwards.
Cordelia
was a Slayer.

***
*** ***
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Shadows Still Remain