Wonderland
Her arm is broken in two places, tonight. She comes out into the hospital waiting room with her arm in a sling, and her lip is still bloody and swollen. Bruises shadow her face, but she tries to smile anyway.
"Okay, Wesley, let's go."
I gently drape her jacket around her shoulders, although my splinted fingers make it a bit awkward. Gunn stands behind her, his eyes angry, although his broken ribs might be the cause rather than-
But no, his own pain has never angered him.
In any case, it is only a short time before we are back in her apartment, swallowing a few more aspirin. We try to hide our winces from one another as we sit together, wishing we could heal faster, knowing that we don't have time for bones to knit before the next vision comes.
"I think we did well tonight," Cordelia says in a quiet voice.
She says that every time, every time we manage to overcome our human limitations and fulfill another duty that is not ours.
It would seem that the Powers never tire of the cruel jokes, because Cordelia's visions have been coming more often than ever before, now that their warrior has cast us off. She is tormented by the psychic pain of what could be, only to experience the actual pain of what does come to pass. And she still tries to smile. She has tried through her broken jaw, her split lips, her slashed cheeks, and the everpresent knowledge of abandonment.
**
Sometimes, the visions contain threats we cannot handle. Demons no mortal could possibly defeat, situations that contain certain death for the three of us, each increasingly weakened with every battle. I explain that to her, explain the precedents (or lack thereof), the consequences, the horrific methods of the foe she has seen in her brain.
She nods, and I know that she understands how right I am.
And her eyes will take on that wistful look that they never held back in Sunnydale, and I know that she is thinking of the future victim, because that is the role she always plays when the premonitions take her.
"So afraid..." she will trail off, and I cannot comprehend the terror that invades her unfocused eyes.
Those two words, and I pick up an axe, because she will go without me if I do not overcome my certain knowledge that we will perish. We fight against probability, knowing that our frailty will eventually defeat our determination, knowing that such knowledge will never stop us from doing another's duty.
We wake up in hospital beds, we worry until we are sure that all three of us are still alive, and we limp home to wait for it to begin again.
**
I sometimes wonder.
I sometimes wonder if he has died, but then I realize that Cordelia's visions would lead her to a new warrior if he had. He is still there, sinking back into what he had escaped, and killing the three of us with his indifference. I sometimes imagine that the creatures we fight have been sent by him, that he has reverted to the pure demon and sends his minions to torment us. I fight harder when I hear his mocking laugh in the back of my mind, kill with a fury I never knew I had.
I sometimes wonder who will tell him when we are dead, because I cannot believe that any of us will survive the others. Our unity grows with each battle, and if either of the others should perish, I would be sure to do the same. There are no more arguments or jibes, and Gunn's blood angers me as much as Cordelia's now.
I sometimes wonder if blood ever really angered him, with his inscrutable pale darkness.
I sometimes wonder if Cordelia will see his dark eyes in a vision, and we will finally be allowed to thank him, to go with stakes in hand to help the Powers remove their vampire from their side.
I sometimes wonder, but only until I see her body tense and her eyes screw shut. Then I run to her side, and Gunn does the same, and the cycle of unequal battle is ours once again.