Fiction CCakaMV01- Waking Up

Title: Cordelia Chase, aka Mrs. Vaughn

Chapter Title: Waking Up

Author: Restive Nature

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Angel the Series. They belong to Whedon/ Greenwalt. I do not own the rights to Alias. They belong to J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot and Viacom. No infringement is intended and this fiction is for private enjoyment only.

Rating: up to PG-15 (subject to change at the author's whim)

Genre: Crossover, Angel The Series/ Alias

Type: Challenge Response

Pairing: Cordelia/ Michael Vaughn

Summary: Challenge Response. When Cordelia receives an ordinary run of the mill vision of a lonely man in the midst of a Vampire attack, she has no idea just how involved the Powers will lead her to be.

Spoilers/ Time line: For AtS, later in season two, after the rift has started to mend between the Fang Gang. For Alias, this is in the time jump between Seasons 2 and 3. Everyone believes Sydney to still be dead.

Feedback: Always welcome!

Distribution: Ask first please.

A/N: This is a response to the TtH challenge number 455. To make the characters respectable, I had to wait until Cordelia was either at the end of high school, or had made the jump to Los Angeles. For location, I thought that easier. And since she was listed, along with Lilah, I guess Angel counts under the Buffy banner. Challenge is as follows:

I just read a fantastic fic where Vaughn didn't marry Lauren when Syd disappeared, he married Chloe from Smallville.
What if Vaughn had married one of the BtVS women?

Requirements:
Rated no higher than R
Vaughn's wife should be: Cordelia, Lilah, Willow or Dawn (aged of course)
The wife's reaction to Sydney's return.
How the couple met.
Sark. At least a mention of him.

The ending doesn't have to be happy.

Cordelia Chase aka Mrs. Vaughn

Chapter One

Waking Up

Michael Vaughn, CIA agent, woke in one of the worst possible ways imaginable for a trained operative with years of training, operations training and field missions under his belt.

First of all, he was hungover. That in and of itself was bad enough. The headache that resulted from drinking, and he didn't know what he had been drinking because the taste in his mouth could have been anything from green grass to the ashes of his dead grandmother. This realization of course led to the second worst thing of his waking up.

He didn't remember the previous evening. If Vaughn had been thinking straight, he would have realized that in the midst of morning, or at least one could assume that it was morning, given the amount of sunlight that was filtering through softly fluttering curtains. But if he'd been thinking, then he would have realized that in waking, with a headache and a blinding ache in and behind his left eye, that he had either drunk enough to pass out, or his head and body weren't ready to be awake and were trying to maintain that hazy state where return to sleep was a real possibility. So he would probably at some point recall the previous evening's events, sooner or later.

But in not remembering exactly what had transpired , Vaughn was forced to make some assumptions about why he had been drinking. And those assumptions that he made moved worst thing number three, to the immediate top of the list, in effect obliterating everything else. The reason that he drank, not sociably, not with friends, not at dinner and dinner alone, or at the bar after work, hanging out with other late twenties, early thirties, prepsters. He drank because of Sydney.

Or to be more precise, because Sydney was dead. Sydney Bristow, the light and love of his whole life was gone. Destroyed in a house fire of which they'd had no inkling of, but should have, since they had in the time between the fire and recent days, discovered was most likely due to a new counterintelligence agency that had been emerging from the hundreds of legitimate terrorist cells that existed around the world.

The Covenant.

And if Michael knew anything at all about himself, it was that the merest whispering thought of Sydney and her death, was enough to send him racing and shaking for that bottle in the cupboard. Or the one in the drawer of his bed side night stand. Or the flask in his glove box in his car. At least, he decided, he could pride himself that he hadn't even tried bringing a flask in to work. Trying being the operative word. The temptation had been there, though the reality of the situation was that someone would notice. They were trained to notice things like that. And the psychiatrist that the CIA had forced him to see in the weeks immediately following the house fire, was already enough of a burden on Michael Vaughn's conscious. He didn't need her going on at length about...

And it was then that Vaughn decided to shelve the thoughts about the list. Except for maybe thing number four. After all the badness of drinking to excess, he had indulged in a sin that was bad for regular people, strictly and ultimately verboten for an agent of the intelligence business.

He had gone to sleep in strange, unknown surroundings, when circumstances were not forced in that manner. He was trained enough that he had been assessing the room subconsciously since he first awoke. He allowed those background thoughts to filter to the forefront of his mind now. He let his head loll just a little so that he had a broader scope of view. At first assumption he would say that he was in a hotel room. But it had to be a very cheap hotel, as it was covered in dust and cobwebs, his nose assured him. Or else someone, presumably someone he had gone 'home' with, was squatting in one of the few abandoned, intact hotels in the city of Los Angeles.

The more Vaughn looked around, at the richly appointed, thoroughly out of date and unmaintained markings of the room, the more he was convinced that it was one of those hotels. The dark colors were more soothing than the sunshine, but with a low groan, he realized that he would have to move to shut the curtains and that required more effort than he had in him at the time. As soon as the noise left his lips, his dry parched mouth protested and he licked at his lips, though his tongue seemed desert like and arid as well, Vaughn became conscious that someone else was in the room with him.

Except that there wasn't. He scanned the area and then realized that part of the wall close to the bed he lay on jutted out a little further than it probably should. There must be a bathroom on the other side. Vaughn rolled his head and shifted onto his back and found that there was a dresser with a tall mirror attached to it. The mirror was broken and fragmented, but squinting, he was able to make out a figure moving on the other side of the jutting wall.

It was a female form, he could tell that much by looking at the style and fashion of the clothing presented. A pants suit of some sort and high heels were all he could make out. And then there was a flash in his brain, that had his hands, fingers fisted loosely, pressing the heels to his eyes.

Blue pant suit, cream scoop neck tank top underneath. Long blond hair, blue eyes. British accent.

Vaughn came back to himself and remembered an important piece of the events preceding this moment. Yesterday had been the official NSC's debriefment. The sister agency to the CIA had sent in one Lauren Reed, daughter of Senator George Reed to interview everyone, one on one about Sydney's death, the investigation into Will and Francie and the double helix project.

That had all been bad enough, but after he had been debriefed, for what seemed the hundredth time, both personally and professionally and let's not forget the all important medically and psychologically, one Lauren Reed had left him for last and when the interview was done, she had expressed her 'deepest sympathies'. And had asked if he'd like to go somewhere and 'talk'. Which if course, she had assured him, was totally 'off the record'. But Vaughn knew better. Despite not giving an flying tiny rat's ass about what others thought of him at this heartbreaking time, he was not unaware of the whispers, the sympathy and the pitying looks of his co-workers. He may have needed the crutch of alcohol to get through his nights and he may have trouble with dealing, but he knew enough to know that all this off the record bullshit? It was a front for somebody, maybe Kendall, the director of their ops, maybe Jack Bristow, who had more contacts than a Chinese phone book had Chins. But somebody had placed Reed there and Vaughn was sure that had he accepted her offer, with her simple try for an innocence that she didn't quite pull off, her softly cultured tones that were more apropos for a psychiatrist's office than the central intelligence satellite office, he'd be under dissection again.

But then, the pant suited woman moved again and Vaughn could see that the woman was moving out of the bathroom and towards the room at large. Vaughn could just barely make out something in her hands before the crack that began in the next portion of the mirror repeated the same scene as below, from carpet up to item in the hands. As the woman came around the partition, Vaughn exhaled a very minor sigh of relief. She wasn't blond. She wasn't Lauren Reed. And though she had darker hair, there was very little resemblance to Sydney and Vaughn was inordinately grateful for that. This woman had very short dark hair that looked to have been touched by blonde highlights, large eyes of unknown color at the moment, wide lips and a beauty mark. She was also wearing what Vaughn would have called purple, although he was sure that women, following the dictates of fashion industry would probably have called it plum or some other fruity or fairy word.

“Oh good, you're awake,” the woman spoke bluntly and Vaughn groaned. “Headache, huh?”

She didn't, upon realization of that fact, modulate her tone down. It sounded just as loud and the serene yet resolute look on her face told Vaughn that she had little to no sympathy for the predicament he was in. The woman, although well developed physically, looked of an age to only just be called such, moved around the foot of the bed closer to him. Vaughn groaned again as the bed dipped under her weight.

“You know, getting blindingly drunk and passing out in the park, not the best idea in any city,” she continued, oblivious to his misery, both private and obvious. “But in LA? Do you have a death wish?”

As soon as she mentioned the park, Vaughn had another flash.

The CIA was in the habit of assigning protection detail to their agents as far as certain points. Especially those involved in ongoing investigations and Vaughn was no different. There were many reasons for it. But last evening, Vaughn had not been in the mood for every detail of his life to be exposed and dissected like a bug under a microscope. Shortly after storming out of the offices, he had used the training that the American government had provided him and lost his tail. Knowing that he could not frequent any of the places that he normally went to drink his sorrows away, namely his apartment, or the sports bar down the street, Vaughn had liberated his flask from the glove box and found a dark and secluded park off the side roads in an area of town that he wasn't familiar with. Given how big Los Angeles was, it wasn't difficult.

He'd spent only God knew how long with that flask, until it was drained dry. And it was only when the call of nature had come knocking, had Vaughn exited his car. In his alcohol befuddled mind, the choices of pissing himself, on his vehicles upholstery or finding a nice accommodating tree, the choice had been obvious.

“You're neck is going to be fine,” the dark haired woman continued and then held out the items in her hands. And Vaughn could see now what it was she held. A glass of what appeared to be water and a bottle of extra strength acetaminophen.

He stared at the items for a moment, trying to think, trying to assess, trying to do what he had been taught and had forgotten, obviously to his detriment. But perhaps, as some deep dark part of him realized, it wasn't forgetting, it was yearning. He was reaching down into the bowels of his personal hell and instead of fighting to surface from them, to carry on, he was welcoming the tendrils that promised to carry him away from the heartache and pain.

He glanced up at the woman again and she gave him a pointed look, shaking the pills just slightly. Very slowly Vaughn reached for them. He held the water carefully, as carefully as he held his hand, but the bottle of pills in his hand, fell to his lap, his grip slack around them.

“Uh huh,” the woman grunted and Vaughn grimaced. Suddenly her hand darted out and snagged the bottle back from him. He didn't protest, recognizing that she at least, on some level, had some sort of clue where the darkness was leading him, the thoughts that ran through his mind that he could give no voice to. She twisted off the cap and shook two of the pills into her hand before she replaced the lid. Instead of offering the bottle back to him, she held out the hand with the pills. Grateful, Vaughn took them and placed them in his mouth. They were followed by a small gulp of water, his throat protesting at the sudden fullness and he gulped down more liquid to ease the passing of the pain relievers.

Moving slowly, the woman turned and gingerly perched herself on the bed beside him. Vaughn didn't bother to look up from where he was absently studying the small amount of water left to him. “Who was she?” she asked softly, bracing her hands behind her as she seemed to be regarding him.

“What?” Vaughn asked gruffly, his throat only partly moistened, still rough sounding.

“I've seen people drink before,” she said in way of answer. “Going out to party, blow off steam. And then I've seen drunks. And those are usually the ones who have lost something important. Their innocence, their money, someone they love. You look too young to be suffering PTSD, everything about you screams well off. You've been doing this too long to have lost your money, since you can still afford Glenlivet and not the cheapest rotgut you can find. So, that leaves a loved one. And most people don't drink like that for a family member. Of course, I could be wrong, if it was...” She trailed off and then sighed. “It was a girl, wasn't it?”

Vaughn smiled sadly at her logic. It was spot on. The same assessment that he would have made in her shoes. Figuratively speaking, of course. He nodded slowly. “Not just any girl. The girl.”

She was quiet for a moment and Vaughn could feel her hand glance briefly over his shoulder to rest at his back. Unlike the sympathetic pats that he had received from co-workers and friends, this one was brimming with empathy. He could feel it almost flowing into him.

“What happened?” she asked gently. Vaughn was surprised, just a little. Most people were more hesitant to ask what happened, as if they didn't really want to hear and were just asking because they were morbidly curious, but the concern he heard in her voice was real. And somehow conveyed the sense that she knew he needed something, an outlet, a release.

“She died,” he spoke and was surprised at how steady his voice was. “In a fire. In her apartment.” The words were short and succinct, but they told their own story and needed no further embellishment. And again to his surprise, she offered no apologies or words of comfort.

“And because of that, you feel the need to chase after her?” the woman pointed out reasonably. Vaughn glanced up, wincing again as the sudden movement started little hammers pounding through his skull. The hand was removed from his back and she crossed her arms over her chest. “You're grieving, I get that. But what purpose is going to be served by you going off the deep end to the point where you follow her to the grave?”

“I'm not-!” Vaughn protested automatically, but stopped himself at her arched eyebrows, pointed look. “I don't,” he stammered, dropping his eyes.

“I think you do,” she argued. “I think you have and I think you will keep on until it stops, one way or another.”

“Why do you care?” Vaughn snarled out angrily. And then her hand was on his arm this time and he gentled under her touch, something he couldn't understand and he didn't think the hangover had anything to do with that.

“Because you're a human being in pain,” she pointed out. “It's not something that I will stand by and just let happen. Not if I can do something to help.”

“Huh,” Vaughn grunted. “That makes you one in a million.”

“Maybe not,” the woman chuckled softly. “But I am pretty unique.” She paused and sighed. “I lost someone too. Not... the love of my life, by any means. But a very close friend, who protected me, loved me, loved all of us enough to put his own life on the line. After he died, it... took me a long time before I could appreciate the... gift that he gave me. But what I figured out in all that time?” She waited for Vaughn to lift his head once more.

“What?” he murmured, wondering what trite pearl of wisdom she was ready to drop on him.

“My self worth,” she smiled sadly. “How much am I worth.”

Vaughn's eyes narrowed at her self serving declaration, and she seemed to recognize it.

“Life doesn't stop because someone died,” she pointed out reasonably. “No matter how much we might wish it. Life goes on and we have to mourn and find a way to go on. What my friend's death taught me was that I still have something to give. Things to do, to make a difference in this world. To help people. And that's what I do. Would she have wanted death for you?” the words hung between them and slowly Vaughn shook his head. “Of course not,” she answered herself. “Whoever she was, she would have wanted you to go on. To continue living, not for her or because of her, but for yourself, because I know in my heart, you can quote me on this, that there are better things that you can be doing with your time. People that you can help. But you have to start with just one.”

“Which one?” Vaughn asked, suspicious.

“Yourself,” the women spoke with conviction and Vaughn found himself with a hint of a smile on his face again. “Save yourself and then you can help others. Make the world that little bit better, safer.”

“You know,” he murmured, the sad smile gracing his face not so much mourning as remembering, “that sounds just like something Syd would have said.”

The woman chuckled. “Then she sounds like she was a pretty smart woman.” Vaughn did laugh that time.

“She was,” Vaughn nodded. “And beautiful. She had a simile that could light up an entire room.” He glanced up to see the woman beaming down at him and he tilted his head. “Kind of like yours.” It wasn't intended as flattery or flirting, just a notation, but her smile widened to where he could see, gleaming, pearly whiteness shining through. She nodded once and then clapped her hands softly to her thighs.

“Okay then,” she announced, standing and reaching for the glass of water. “I'll go borrow my boss' car and we'll take a drive and see if your car survived the night. And because I'm so nice, I'll even let you buy me breakfast as a thank you for saving your life.”

“I can agree with that,” Vaughn nodded, his free hand now reaching for the soreness in his neck, “on two conditions.”

“And they are?”

“One, you tell me your name,” he chuckled, feeling just slightly better than the last succession of mornings in who knew how long. “And two, you fill me in on what I apparently missed last night.”

The woman chuckled and grinned as his hand played at the bandage he found at the crook of his neck and collar bone.

“Well the first is easy I'm Cordelia Chase, Mr. ...?”

“Vaughn,” he supplied. “Michael Vaughn.”

“And the second, well, that was a doozy,” she settled the glass and pills side by side on the dresser, under the cracked mirror and tilted her head toward the door. “Let's get going and I'll fill you in on all the gory details.” She held out her hand to him and he reached for it, letting her brace herself before he used her strength to haul himself up to standing, weaving only slightly as he followed her from the dust filled room.

Chapter Two- Knowing The Crazy