Summary: Cordelia/Xander. That's all I can really
say. Sucky summary, huh?
Spoilers: Minor through the third season.
Disclaimer: Joss made the characters. I like to think he did it so that I
could mess with them on occasion.
Rating: PG
Feedback: Yummier than cake.
by: Amy
* * * * * *
Cordelia loved him for the same reasons she loved her trophies, or photo
albums, or the first pieces of jewelry she had ever worn. She loved him
because he was part of her past. Because he had always been there, because
she had always been able to look around and find him when she hoped and
needed to.
She never got rid of those things; the trophies and such. She kept a small
chest filled with them, books and diaries and hopes and dreams that she had
once had. She had never, in her wildest imaginations, thought her life would
be like it was. Sometimes, she thought, there was too much of reality to
be
handled without losing your mind. Sometimes the reality had to do with the
present, and a lot of times the future, but mostly for Cordelia, it was the
past.
Not in the way it sounded, though. Cordelia didn't feel that the small
sentence was enough to describe what she meant about the subject. There was
too much reality in the past because there had been so little. Because,
looking back on it, she realized what could have have happened at any given
moment, or how she would have been a different person entirely.
Xander was one of the biggest, most important parts of that reality; that
past. She remembered him as a child, clinging to Willow as if for dear life,
taunting Cordelia. Of course, he never went after her with spite. Only
vengeance. Only the pain she had caused him made him go after her. But
that wasn't the point of any of it.
She didn't know if there was a point.
She would think back on the times he had used the swings, the time he had
crashed her sixth birthday party, the first time she ever felt jealous of
the
closeness that Willow had with him. She would remember their first kiss,
filled with passion and the fear of death, and she would miss him terribly.
Of course, she couldn't ever tell him that. Not really.
In the lonely, dank city of angels, Cordelia would sit inside of her tiny
apartment and try to think up reasons, or excuses, about why she loved him.
She never let on that she still had those feelings, not to Angel or Doyle,
or
the weekly letters she sent the group back in Sunnydale, but she would,
indeed, sit in the quiet and wonder to herself what could be. And more
importantly, what should be and what would have been.
She saw her life as two books. One of them was well-read. The pages were
dog-eared, the spine was creased, and there were footnotes everywhere. That
book was the one she had lived, the one she had gone through, the one filled
with a thousand terrors and heartbreaks. The other was smaller, cleaner,
had
a prettier cover, and was what she wished her life would have been like.
With whom, doing what, going where. All of the answers of all of the
questions to what should have happened were in *that* book.
But that much didn't matter.
Because both the books began the same. They had the same memories, the same
childhood secrets, the same innocent laughter. But they split off, halfway
through. Cordelia figured it was when she met Buffy that things changed,
but
it really wasn't.
She found this out later, after she had gone back to Sunnydale. She found
this out after she had broken out of a loveless marriage and had gone back
to
find out if there was still love for her in the world. Cordelia hadn't
realized it then, because she thought that, perhaps, blaming Buffy would
be
easiest. No, it was after she fell in love with Xander all over again, after
they had gotten married and had the two perfect children. After most of
their lives had passed was when the particular revelation had come to her.
Her life hadn't changed with Buffy.
It had changed with Xander.
But it would be a long time before she realized that. Then, she was almost
content to just wish and wonder and dream. It was almost fulfilling, and
if
almost was all she could get, she would settle for it. She would have to.
For then, she thought it would be okay to love him with some unexplainable
feelings, for some things that she could not define. And it was okay. It
was good.
But the one thing she knew for sure, the one thing she could place about
her
loving him so intensely, for better *and* worse, was her memories. All of
them. Because he had contributed so wholly to her life, her past, and her
future, she would love him.
If for nothing else, then for sentimental reasons.
The End