This One Goes Out To The One I Love
by Alex M. Queirolo
AUTHOR's NOTE:
This story has no real time line and is in fact just a little blurb. It's actually the rewriting of an old story of mine. I just placed it within the BuffyVerse.
DISCLAIMER:
The characters of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER belong to Joss "Da Man" Whedon and his most excellent team of writers. And of course to the suits at WB, FOX and MUTANT ENEMY. No infringement is intended.
***
The hell of it was, they started out hating each other. And not just
hate like in Kindergarten when the class bully, a greasy haired kid
about four feet tall, stole your red ball with the nice gold star on it.
Nah, real hate. Real, true, unbridled hatred.
Funny thing about hate, huh? Seems that more often than not, hate has a
weird way of turning the tides and doing the unthinkable by making
lovers out of bitter enemies. All the hate and the bad feelings are
forgotten and then all you got is a passion much too powerful to even
begin to describe. There's a problem with too much love though and that
is, quite simply put, it can't last. Not to say or even suggest that the
love will die but if you're a realist, you come to realize what all men
and women foolish enough to play the game of love realize and that is
that life has many roads and side-streets and the highway to love is a
badly obstructed one.
Alexander Harris was a goof off in the traditional sense of the word. The kid you laughed at as you walked down the hallway, the slacker you could always count on to start the fire in the chem lab. And yet somehow or another he possesed about him a flare
that didn't seem to go with his style. An uneasy truce with himself that spoke more than the threads he sported from an era without fashion.
He was a romantic young man and after they got together, he'd lean
against his locker, his lean frame relaxed and at ease and he'd watch
her stroll down the hallway, her every stride causing young men to turn
and watch with wolf-like smiles on their faces. He'd watch all the jocks
and the studs try to get her to notice them and he'd have to whisper to
himself in a voice only Father Time could possibly understand, "She's my
girl." Then he'd laugh and a strange, sweet smile would cross his face
causing his dimples to deepen and his dark eyes to sparkle. "And heaven help me but I think I'm in love with her," Xander would whisper to his two comrades in a conspiratal tone.
And it was true. His friends had been startled by the rumors that, as
Buffy Summers put it, were both "shocking and absurd". The rumors of these two sworn enemies getting together had begun to circulate in November but
it had taken until February for them to be confirmed. For the longest
time, Buffy had insisted that the rumors were as Shakespeare had once put
it, "The children of an idle brain." When she had finally spoken to
Xander, it had put her in a state of shock for quite awhile. She had
continuously repeated in an incredulous voice which had easily shown her
disbelief, "I never really, truly, totally disliked her but, Xand, you hated her."
And Xander would simply nod and reply in an incredulous tone, "I guess so but..she's my girl."
Cordelia Chase was a beautiful girl who'd been crowned Homecoming Queen
her Sophomore year which was simply unheard of. Their mutual hatred for
each other was fueled, as most hatred is, from the prosperous seeds of
ignorance. Their lifestyles and backgrounds were so completely different
that they naturally assumed that they were each others' born enemy. He'd
been raised the son of a social worker while she'd grown up with a Beamer at age six in what people around Sunnydale, California called the ZipCode. It was just a commoners' way of saying where the rich people lived.
She assumed that he was a loser, a moron and a ingenerate. He
pegged her to be nothing but a high class, one hundred percent stuck-up
bitch. Turned out they were both wrong but it took tragedy, as it always
seems to do in this great game we call life, to shine a new light on the
subject. They were brought together by a destiny too unbelievable for fiction. And when they had become the only two individuals who could save the Slayers' life after a vicious attack from her ex-lover, their bond became rock solid. As they worked hour a
fter hour in the darkness of a damp cell to keep Buffy alive, they realized that only the passion they felt for each other was responsible.
Willow Rosenberg would later go on to murmur that it all sounded far too much like a soap opera. In any case, the tide had changed and Cordy and
Xander had found a new respect and ultimately, a new love for each other.
Xander was well aware of the fact that guys tended to follow Cordy. What
sensible single guy with raging hormones wouldn't? She was a stunningly
beautiful young woman with an attitude and a backseat for two.
For her part she found herself unable to remember ever hating Xander especially when he would reach out and take her into his arms. And she knew that he was considered to be one of the biggest losers around campus but all that seemed to mean anything to
the young couple was that they were together.
And when the Slayer couldn't finish the fight to win back her lover because her injuries were too substantial, it was they who completed the circle that won back Angel's soul. It was they who pledged their love for each other that caused the sky to trembl
e and the stars to fall.
The young couple would go out often, sometimes doubling with Willow and
Oz or Buffy and Angel in an attempt to downplay their whole relationship and all. Most of the time, though, they didn't even bother. All their friends watched their relationship closely and although they were extremely happy for
Xander and Cordelia, they also realized that a love as strong as the one
that they had was bound to eventually hit a snag in the road. The
question would then become: Could they overcome it?
And then, five years up the line, while lying in her lovers' arms and waiting for the sun to rise, Buffy Summers turns on the radio and hears a local DJ say in a soft voice, "From Xander in Sunnydale to Cordelia wherever you are, This One Goes Out To The
One I Love."
-FIN
