Author: Circe, circex@netscape.net
Title: Just Walk Away
Part: 3
Disclaimer:  If I owned them Doyle wouldn't have died.  'Nuff said.
Rating: PG, maybe PG-13 for language.  You've seen Angel, you've heard
it.
Status: The story is complete, the series is too.
Summary: Pairing D/C.  Set several weeks after my story 'What Comes 
First'.  Cordy has some thinking to do.
Other:  Feedback cherished.  Dedicated to my beta-reader, Georgia, and 
now to Aleta too.


I had to get out of the office. I just couldn't stay in there, with 
them and the memories any longer. So now I'm walking the streets of Los 
Angeles, alone. 'How smart is that?' I ask myself. A young woman, 
pregnant and alone, walking the streets of a not-so-good neighborhood.  
At least it's not dark. Yeah, it's not dark, but that doesn't change any 
of the other stuff.  Not a lot of things, and nothing I can handle, 
changes being pregnant. Not Doyle coming back.  Damn. I wasn't going to 
think about him. I wasn't.  Just a nice walk away from everything, 
that's right.  "Keep walking, Cordy."  Great, now I'm  talking to 
myself.

It's not like I don't have people to talk to, to go to when things get 
rough.  I've got plenty of people.  But not my parents, or my friends 
from Sunnydale, or even my not-quite- friends like Buffy.  Okay, I've 
got, like, three people to go to.  But it's better than nothing.  I 
mean, Angel has been doing the whole caring thing, the shoulder for
me to lean on.  He's actually pretty good at it, I guess because he's 
used to feeling bad inside that he understands how to make it better.  A 
little better anyhow.  Okay, he usually makes me end up crying and 
feeling even worse, but that isn't his fault.  He tries but he doesn't 
really understand me.  Like he tells me 'You'll be such a good mother,
Cordelia', or 'Cordelia, you're good person, with a good heart, let it 
guide you'.  It's sweet, but really, I mean a good person?  I'm a bitch.  
I've accepted that.  I like that.  Everybody knows what kind of bitch I 
am.  If I let that guide me where the heck will this kid and I end up?  
And please, Angel thinks I'll be a good mother.  Me?  I don't know the
first thing about being a mom.  I really don't.  I can give this kid 
fashion tips and teach it how dumb and hurtful lies are, but what else?    
'Here honey, this is how you hold a stake.' Right.  Or how about dating 
tips.  'Mommy's first serious boyfriend cheated on her with his best 
friends and mommy got impaled on a steel rod trying to save him.' 'Don't 
kiss boys, they could get you pregnant.'  Or even 'Don't kiss girls 
unless you're sure you won't get them knocked up.'

I slow down as I walk.  I can smell the ocean close by; I must have 
walked all the way down to the docks.  I'm a few blocks away from them 
actually, I could turn around and head back for the office, but I think 
I want to see the ocean, to watch the waves for a little while.  I stop 
at an ice cream stand.  I'm hungry from all the walking and I don't 
think I've eaten yet today.  And the baby wants a non-fat frozen yogurt.  
Mmm, strawberry, not normally my favorite, but whatever.  I keep 
walking, trying to distance myself from everything, but I keep picturing 
walking down here with a toddler, buying her a strawberry yogurt.  I 
feel all twisted up inside, thinking about parents and children and
family.  My own family doesn't know I'm pregnant.  I just don't know how 
to talk to them about anything real.

I wonder if this is how Kate feels. Kate, well there's a surprise.  I 
like her. Sure, she's stupidly falling in love with Angel, but a lot of 
women do. Kate lost her mom when she was really young; she told me that 
the day she found out I was pregnant. She'd found me crying in the 
hallway.  On the stairs where Doyle and I, no.  I'm not thinking about
Doyle.  Don't think about Doyle.  So, I was crying on the stairs, where
positively nothing ever happened, and I'm not really sure why.  Scared?  
I was, but I don't think that was why. I think it had just struck me 
that my life was never going to be mine again. I'd have another person 
who needed me to be the one to have all the answers and know what to do 
and how to take care of things.  Maybe I was crying because I was 
scared.

"Cordelia?"  She'd sounded unsure of herself.  Cops don't deal well with 
crying women, even when the cop is a woman too.  "Cordelia, what's 
wrong?  Do you want me to get Angel?"  I remember her asking me that 
clearly.  'Yeah,' I thought, 'please get Angel so he can lie to me again 
about how good a mom he thinks I'll be.'  Well, I thought that I was 
just thinking it to myself, but I guess it kinda popped out of my mouth 
in an out loud, sarcastic voice.  Well, I think it, I say it.  I guess 
Angel didn't tell her about my 'Immaculate Conception', because the 
first words out of her mouth were "You're pregnant!"  At first I thought 
I'd have to kill her, for being excited and happy, but then she must 
have taken a good look at my face because she put her hand on my 
shoulder and squeezed.  "My mom died when I was eight."  She smiled a 
far away smile, like she was looking back at her childhood.  Then she 
focused on me again.  "All that matters is that you're there."  And then 
she went on into the office.

I stroke my hand over my huge stomach and feel the baby inside kick 
against my hand.  It makes me smile every time.  Well, not at three in 
the morning, but every other time.  "I'll be there."  I promise it and I 
keep walking. We've talked a lot since then, Kate and I.  She still 
doesn't know that Angel is a vampire or what exactly happened to Doyle.  
I didn't want to lie to her, or just lie by omission, so I told her that 
there were some people, like family, that the baby's father had to help.  
And that he was gone and I didn't think he was ever coming back.  It's a 
good thing I didn't tell her that he was dead or else I'd have to lie to 
explain his resurrection.  I can feel the salt of the ocean against my
face, taste it on my lips, I swear it's not tears.

I walk right up to the docks, to where I can see the boats on the water 
and either I'm into torture or I just wasn't paying attention because 
the first boat that I see is the Quintessa. No.  Oh, please no.  I so 
don't need to deal with this now.  I don't want to look at that ship and 
I don't want to remember what happened there.  Doyle was going to ask
me out on that ship, and Angel was going to die on that ship.  Doyle 
kissed me there, he died there.  Our baby...I close my eyes.  I don't 
want to think about it.  I won't. I do.  I think about all the demon 
people that we saved, the half demons that we saved.  My baby is going 
to be a quarter demon.  Harry told me the baby 'should be able to pass
even easier than Francis'.  Should be, being the operative words.  There 
is also a chance that the baby won't pass at all.

I open my eyes and the damn ship is still right in front of them.  But I 
think right now that I'm past caring.  So much for walking away from my 
problems, they just followed me from the office all the way to the 
docks.  There is a metal rail not to far away and I go over to it and 
lean on it staring out at the ocean and the boats and one boat in
particular. Angel always tells me what a good mom he thinks I'll be, and 
maybe I won't be half-bad because I'm already not taking the easy way 
out of this.  Harry told me that there were 'mixed couples' like Doyle 
and me that would be happy to have my baby.  To raise it in both the 
human and demon cultures.  I just laughed.  I must have sounded 
hysterical to her.  But really, couples like us?  Like Doyle and me?  We 
weren't a couple; we'd never even gone out on one date.  The kiss that 
got me pregnant was our first and last.  How in the world was there 
another couple like us?  Harry meant well.  She did and once she got
me calmed down I thanked her for caring.  'Cause that's what it was.  
She cared about me being able to deal with the baby, about the baby 
knowing it's heritage so he or she wouldn't get all screwed up like 
Doyle did.  And she cared about Doyle and she wanted the last surviving 
piece of him to have a good life.

I thought about it a lot later.  About how I could have my life back if 
I didn't keep the baby.  I thought about how much better off the baby 
might be if it had both a mom and a dad to raise it.  But in the end, I 
couldn't do it.  This baby is a part of me, and of Doyle. And maybe I 
didn't love him, didn't know him, but I could have.  Besides, who else
would tell the baby what kind of hero his father was?  It's not like 
I'd be raising the baby alone.  It'd be me and Uncle Angel, who'll teach
the baby how to fight, and Auntie Kate, who says the secret to good 
parenting is just to be there, and Aunt Harry who can teach him or her 
all about being a Bracken demon.

I was so confused in those first few weeks after I found out that I was
pregnant.  Where would the baby and I live, how could I work?  That sort 
of thing.  But we settled it, Angel, Kate, Harry and I. Now that Harry 
was working at Angel's covering most of the demon research I would have 
time for a second job.   So now I work part time at the Police Department, 
helping to file reports and typing, clerical work. It was  Kate's idea, 
for a paycheck and because it would allow me to use the drop-in daycare 
when Angel needed me to help him work, like in a club or something.  
Angel said he'd be happy to have a baby around the office, if I wanted to
bring the baby to work at Angel Investigations with me.  And my housemate, 
Phantom Dennis, doesn't seem to have a problem with me being pregnant, so
if he doesn't mind having a baby around the apartment then I should be 
able to stay in my place.  It has a den that could work as the baby's room.
In the last few months, things have really settled down.  I might not be 
ready to be a mother, but I'm certainly not so dazed and frightened 
anymore. I sit down slowly on the dock; I do a lot of things slowly now,
and let my legs dangle over the water.  I fold my arms against the metal
rail, warm from the sun and let my chin come to rest on my arms as I stare
out at the Quintessa.

Doyle is back.  And I'm more confused than ever.