Work Text:
The Five reasons Cordelia helps the Scoobies
by wildannuette
1. Cordelia Chase…she knows what they think when they look at her: Princess, popular, without a care in the world. And they’re the people who are meant to be her friends, that hang on her every word. Her sheep as Xander often bitterly refers to them, on nights where she has to cast her eyes away from the hurt on his face, hurt she’s put there by ignoring him all day. Keeping her distance and faking disgust for him, for all of them.
They don’t follow her: Buffy, Xander, Willow, Oz…Giles doesn’t count so much, he’s too old to follow anyone, too set in his ways. They don’t fawn over her and emulate her, they stand beside her. They’ve fought to save her and so she’s fought alongside them.
2. They are a miss-mash group, misfits to everyones eyes though Cordelia can’t believe anyone’s really that blind to see what they are really doing, what they are really fighting. But people ignore it, gloss over it, much as she used too. But now she knows, now she’s seen what lurks in the darkness, what passes itself off as human: cute and sometimes rich and popular and sane, she has to take a stand. No one, but no one, rules over Cordelia Chase.
3. Xander…he was a good reason for her to help them. Caught in the rush of attraction, swept away in their love she couldn’t help wanting to be with him, wnting to know he was okay. He wouldn’t stop fighting, wouldn’t stop convincing her to come along to their ‘study meetings’, to see more and be more involved. She’d been reluctant at first, but gradually he’d wormed his way into her heart as had his friends and for the first time, Corelia hadn’t wanted to say no.
4. It had all ended bitterly, her and Xander. She hadn’t wanted to help them, hadn’t wanted to look the cheating bastard in the face anymore, except with contempt and yet here she was, helping him sort weaponry and feeling him shake ever so slightly when he pressed a hand to her arm and looked her into her eyes. Apologizing for a hurt he could never erase, begging for a chance he would never get again…maybe she was the fool, denying love, but her fingers moved to the scar in her side, her head shook automatically. Watching the light die from his eyes, she felt a malicious pleasure for all of a second before she felt only pain.
She didn’t want to help, but she couldn’t do anything else. Couldn’t find another way to mask the pain, to let Xander feel it as much as when she faced off with him. She wanted him, still loved him, but she didn’t trust him with the part of her he’d broken. Instead she focused away from her sheep-turned-traitor-friends, away from the scoobies and onto her…onto what she could do, what she could be. And all the while she helped, she fought with them, because the hellmouth didn’t stop for a broken heart and seeing Xander and Willow so guilt ridden, masking her pain and intensifying his by flirting with Wesley-it brought a little bit of control back into her life.
5. The last time Cordelia helped the scoobies, she vowed it would be the last. Only helped and fought because they were all under threat and she wasn‘t about to lie down and act like a baby. Wasn‘t about to let a man so power-ridden and creepy kill them all, her family and friends. She was no one’s snack.
Her vow would never be broken, though her desire to shake off everything demony and Sunnydale would come back with a vengeance when she met Angel in LA. But by then, Cordelia would be a different person, stronger and more independent-only looking back in scorn for the longest of times till she made her peace with them all.
As she pulled on her graduation gown, she made the promise to herself, that this time would be the last.
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