Work Text:
Redemption
Title: Redemption 1?
Author: Wereleopard
Rating: PG
Pairing: C/A
Email: Romance
Summary: It is 200 years in the future and Angel is a hero to the masses but he is alone and tired
Spoilers: All of Buffy and Angel a
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angel verse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made I am just poor and the song doesn't belong to me either.
Distribution: FSB
Feedback: Yes please!
Chapter 1
Angel sighed and tried to vanish into the darkness and drink his coffee in peace. He smiled to himself at the thought of what Cordy would say. His chest hurt everytime he thought of her, which was everyday, people said that time would heal all wounds but it didn't, not this one. The pain was just as fresh as it was when it first happened; it felt the same now as it did the day she died. Angel felt as if it were yesterday and not 200 years ago. It was just like his love for her it never diminished, it was a candle that still burned brightly and always would. She was his heart, his soul and he wasn't complete because Cordy was not at his side.
He missed them all so much Fred, Gunn, Wes, Lorne and Connor. He was glad that Connor had met someone and had kids so he still had a family but it wasn't the same. Grandpa Angel they all called him even though he had lost track of how many greats there were between him and them it made things easier. He did love them very much; they were the one bright light he had left in his life.
Angel was surprised how his life had turned out, here he was a vampire with a soul, a hero and everyone knew what he was and they accepted him, he had become a beacon of hope for those in trouble. It was very odd having people walk up to him and ask for a picture, a handshake, an autograph. He had become a celebrity.
That was the real reason he was hiding away in the dark, he just wanted 5 minutes alone before someone saw him and the craziness started all over again. Cordy would have loved the attention and he didn't need to do an advert and become the dark avenger and he was so glad that he didn't have to wear tights to garner some attention. Some days it was just too much and all he wanted to do was hide away, but if him smiling and talking to someone made them happier, made them want to help people he was happy to do it.
"Hello, are you Angel?" A feminine voice asked softly but Angel could her the nervousness in her voice.
Angel groaned mentally he had been to busy in his own thoughts that he never heard her approach.
"Yes I am." He said smiling at the attractive young woman she was a petite build with flowing red hair and cat green eyes.
"Oh I thought it was you." The nerves suddenly vanished but now her tone was different. He could hear the awe filter through. "I'm your number one fan." She said grinning.
His number one fan, that was not the first time he had heard that and it wasn't going to be the last it seemed everyone he met was his number one fan.
"The story of you and Buffy is so romantic, so tragic. How you loved each other so much that you couldn't be together." Her eyes went all dreamy as she fell into a girlish daydream of being loved like that by someone.
Angel kept the smile on his face but this was the one thing he hated and he wished that they would get it right. Buffy and her husband had found it funny, but it annoyed him because it cut out Cordy, the memory of her, and of what they had felt for each other no matter how many times he explained this no one actually listened they wanted to hear the tragic romance, the Romeo and Juliet syndrome.
"Well that story isn't actually accurate." He told the young woman politely.
The woman smiled brightly. "Well what was the truth?" She sat down and stared at him intently, the story was that he had loved someone so much that he had never fallen in love again and people always had put Buffy into that part. Maybe if she were real lucky he might fall in love with her it wasn't fair that a hero should be alone, he needed to have someone at his side and it didn't bother that he was a vampire, in fact she found that quite attractive.
Angel sat there quietly for a moment gathering his thoughts, he wanted her to understand about him and Buffy and him and Cordelia. He didn't want to do Buffy a disservice about what they had but he wasn't going to diminish what he and Cordy had, he wouldn't do that.
"Buffy" Angel smiled at the thought of the petite blonde slayer. "We did love each other and we were each others first love that is all true and we split up original because we just couldn't be together. It took us a long time to let each other go. That is all true from the stories that you've heard. I was not the only vampire that she had feelings for the other one was Spike but it never worked out between them either. Buffy always had trouble accepting that she was the slayer and that is why she couldn't truly give herself completely over to someone who was a vampire but she did find her soul mate it was someone who had been by her side through it all." Angel had been so happy when he received the wedding invite to her and Xander's wedding; it had been at night and no crosses in site. It had been a beautiful wedding and Buffy had never looked more beautiful or happy.
"So it was because she was the slayer?" The woman asked a little disappointed because their story had been so romantic but she did want to hear the rest of the story to find out who had been his true love and why hadn't it worked out.
"Not really as I said Buffy couldn't truly accept being a slayer all she wanted was a normal life. Spike and Faith got together. Things work out the way they are supposed to no matter what pain in causes." Angel remembered how happy the two of them were and how devastated Spike was when Faith died, he stayed at her side as she aged and his love for her never faded, they had been together for a long time, they were lucky.
"What about you?" The woman asked she wanted to know about the vampire in front of her, she wanted to hear his story.
"Me, well for me it was Cordelia Chase, my best friend, my seer, my heart." His voice drifted of as he thought of the beautiful brunette he could still see her so clearly, he could smell her shampoo and her voice still echoed through his ears.
The woman frowned trying to remember who Cordelia Chase was; she glossed over the parts that didn't have anything to do with Buffy and Angel now she was wishing that she hadn't. "So you loved her very much."
"She was my soul mate and we didn't have very long together at being in love. When we first met she was someone I helped, then she became my friend, family, then it was my best friend and without realising it I fell head over heels in love with her. When she died it killed something inside of me." Tears filled his eyes as he remembered her saying goodbye to him, kissing him and then finding out she had never been there, she died without ever waking up.
"I'm sorry." The woman whispered as she watched his heart break all over again.
"I have to go." Angel stood and left the woman sat alone at the table.
She watched him walk away and wondered why people thought, why she had thought that the Buffy/Angel love was more romantic than the truth, it wasn't. All she wanted to do was find someone who had loved her that much.
Angel walked into his apartment and laid on his bed, he reached over and grabbed the photograph of him and Cordy, he just stared at it memorising again every inch of her, not that he ever forgot she was always with him. The tears finally managed to escape the confines of his eyes and roll down his cheek. He was over 400 years old and the only person who would have understood was gone now too. Spike. He had died saving a little girl from a group of vampires at least he had Faith were together, that was what he liked to believe.
Tonight he felt his age and then some, sometimes he just wanted it to be over, he just wanted this eternity of loneliness, this forever to end.
A flash of light lit the room and blinded him for a moment and standing in front of him were the Oracles.
"It is time." The male Oracle said.
"Time for what?" Angel asked suspiciously this wasn't the first time they had done this.
The Oracle's stared at their champion, their faces not betraying any emotion, if in fact they had any towards the lower beings and especially to this creature of the night.
"You try our patience." The female Oracle said her voice soft and velvety.
"What is it you want me to do now?" Angel asked again he was tired and alone; he was in no mood for games.
"It is time for a new champion to step forward, it is time, and your redemption is now at hand. You have fought long and hard. You have lost much. Your debt is now repaid." The male Oracle told him.
Angel just stood there staring as if he had been turned into a statue; his mind had stopped as soon as they had mentioned the word redemption, his redemption, and his debt now repaid. The vampire had finally made it he was going to be human. Cordy would have been so proud of him, they all would have been. His chest ached as he thought of his love and his family. Angel opened his mouth to thank them if it wasn't for PTB he would never have had Cordy or the others in his life. But before he could utter a word a light surrounded him a pain so intense ripped through his body like a dam being released. A scream was torn from his throat, the pain kept growing and growing until his mind couldn't take anymore and his mind closed down and Angel blacked out.
The sun rose reaching through the windows chasing away the darkness, a new day dawning, it starts afresh with no mistakes, a clean slate and for one person, a former vampire now purely human it was truer for him more than anyone else. Angel's whole body hurt, his eyes ached but he managed to force them open and as soon as he felt the sun on his face he automatically reacted and hid in the darkest corner he could find waiting to feel his skin burn and for him to turn into a pile of dust.
It took Angel a few moments to remember where he was and what had happened to him the previous night. He could feel his filling with air as he breathed in and out, he could feel his heartbeat beneath his fingertips as he laid them on his chest and he could he knew that his blood with pouring through his veins from the thunder in his ears. He was truly alive.
It happened he was human, Angel reached out a hand bit by bit and placed it in the sunlight and all he could feel was the heat, no pain, no death and the smile that graced his face out shone that very sun.
"Food." He muttered to himself as he rushed outside to find something to eat, as he had nothing in his fridge but blood. Angel felt like Scrooge on Christmas morning, that all these centuries had been his ghosts of past, present and future showing him the kind of man he could be, the kind of man he should be. Angel wanted to celebrate life, he wanted to try everything and the only sadness on this day was that the people who helped him to get to this point couldn't be here to enjoy this with him but he would never forget them, everyday he aged he would think of them and thank them for however long his mortal life would last and when he finally died he hoped that he would be with them, with his Cordy.
The next 10 years passed quickly for him, it seemed as if they went in a blink of any eyes. His skin was a little darker but he was very careful after all he had spent so much time in the darkness he had to take care. Angel remembered the first time he went to the beach in the daytime he laid on the warm signed and thought of Cordy. That was when Fred had told him of Kyerumption and of Moira. That was the day he realised that he was in love with her. So as he felt the sun on his naked flesh, his eyes closed and case beneath his dark sunglasses he thought of her and she was wearing that bikini she wore for an advert. Angel could see her clearly in his mind laying next to him laughing and joking. It felt like she was really there and again the pain in his chest came he missed her so much.
Angel was now 50, his hair was sprinkled with grey and his face was lined with wrinkles. People watched him they didn't understand him when he had started to go grey and when the wrinkles appeared he had been happy and excited. He looked more distinguished s the years went on age looked good on the ex-vampire. He had also started his first book of his life story because the publisher had told him that it would be too much to put into one book so they decided of 5 one for each 100 years of his life. Now he got to tell his side of the story officially and he would be able to set the record straight about his relationships with Cordy and Buffy.
Angel did go out with women after his redemption and he had told them straight off that he had one love his life and she had died many, many, MANY years ago and they seemed to accept it but as time went on they hated to be second to a ghost, they all thought that they would be the one to change his mind, that he would fall in love with them but Angel knew they never understood how deep his love for Cordy was because of everything they had been through together, things that most people could never understand. There was a bond that could never be broken.
Angel was no 70 and the 5 books that contained his life story had all been best sellers, there had even been talk of them being made into films but it had been hard enough for him to write them but he wasn't ready to see them on the big screen some of those wounds had never healed and never would be. But he did tell his family that if they wanted it to be made after he died that it was their choice. His bones had started to ache, he found it hard to move and his memory had started to go, it wasn't the things from his past he could remember all of that so clearly every little detail, no it was what had happened that morning or the day before that he forgot. Angel could feel his body dying bit by bit of old age and he was happy and some days more than others he couldn't wait for that to happen for his life to end as it started, as a human and naturally.
Angel could feel that the time was here, it was time for him to say goodbye to this world. He said goodbye to his family and his friends. It was wonderful not to be alone, to have people who loved him at his side. His eyes winced as the bright light appeared in front of him once his old eyes became accustomed a smile grew on his face.
Everyone who surrounded watched as the person they loved and knew as a man and vampire started to fade away from them. Tears fell from their eyes wishing that he could stay around just for a little longer but when that smile appeared on his face and he stared at nothing and when one word was whispered they knew he was happy an going where he had wanted to be for so very long.
"Cordy." He said his voice full of love.
His beautiful brunette stepped through the light and walked over to him, she reached out a hand and touched his chest an felt his heart beat, the smile that followed lit the whole room and as she stood back she reached out a hand to him looking down as he gazed at their entwined fingers his hand had no wrinkles. He reached up and touched his face and it was smooth he had grown younger back to the time when he had known Cordelia. Together the two of them walked back through the light as the people surrounding the bed watched his body as it took its last breath.
After the light vanished Angel looked around and he was standing in the lobby of the Hyperion Hotel and there was baby Connor, Fred, Gunn, Wes and Lorne.
"We were waiting for you." Cordy said with a smile.
"I never stopped loving you or missing you, missing any of you." Angel told them laughing he hadn't felt this happy, this complete in a long time. "I love you Cordy with everything that I am."
"I love you to Angel." She replied as they leaned forward and kissed softly, slowly and sensually.
A bright light covered them and the Oracles appeared.
"What?" Angel asked his voice edged with annoyance.
"We have come to tell you why you are all h ere." The male Oracle said.
"Because we're dead." Cordy muttered sarcastically.
The female Oracle just stared at her for a moment longer than necessary.
"You will wake up tomorrow and not remember any of this." The Oracle said.
Wes raised his hand. "What do you mean remember we're, well dead."
"You are no longer in your own dimension. Your seven sold were always supposed to meet up but this was the first time that they had, you are all connected. You are now and always will be champions. Tomorrow you will awake and believe that this is your world and you will fight the good fight as you have done before. Things will change, enemies will be different but you will always fight by each other sides and the reason that you have come to this place at this time." The male Oracle waved his arms around the room. "Because this is when you were all the happiest. Angel you are once again a vampire with a soul." Angel turned and looked at Cordy with sadness in his eyes. "But don't worry you don't not have the happiness clause in your cures you maybe joined with the one you love no matter who it is. You two are more closely joined than anyone. You are meant to be together the champion and his seer but that doesn't always mean you will always end up together. When you eventually all die in this reality you will be moved on to the next, always together, never alone."
With that the flash of light appeared again blinding everyone for a moment.
"I have to go down and pick up a book does anyone need anything while I am out?" Wes asked his friends.
"No thanks Wesley, Gunn and I are going to take Connor for a walk." Fred hooked her arm in Gunn's while he pushed the pram containing the little boy.
"I'm fine thanks." Cordy and Angel said at the same time and they looked at each other.
Cordy walked over to her desk and Angel watched her closely not even sensing the others walking out of the door.
"Cordy there is something I need to tell you." Ever since his soul had been secure he had tried over and over again to tell Cordy he loved her but he always backed out at the last minute.
"What is it Angel?" She asked as she fell deep into his eyes.
"Cordy I lov.." Angel said softly but was interrupted as the door flew open.
"Angel I need to talk to you." Buffy called out as she stormed into the room like a hurricane.
THE END