Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in the following story. They all belong to....the people who wrote Buffy.
Story: Pretending
Author: winchester666
Chapter: 1/1
Summary: 2x16. She was so good at pretending that she was starting to fool herself.
A/N: As much as I hated Cordy when I first starting watching, I couldn't help but totally fall in love with her in "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered". So here's my first try at a Buffy fic. Constructive criticism wanted...but don't be too hard on me.

xxxxxxx

Her friends wouldn't even speak with her anymore, let alone want to be seen with her. And whose fault was that? Xander's and her weird attraction to him. If there could be a more opposite couple in the world--besides Buffy and her vicious killer vampire boyfriend--it was Cordelia Chase and Alexander Harris. She had always been the popular, good looking one and he had been the one to always get the brunt end of her blunt comments.

Stiring her drink as her thoughts drifted, Cordy only saw Xander walking towards her out of the corner of her eye and stood quickly, her mind made up on what she was going to have to do. Of course, it didn't help that he looked...well like someone she could totally see herself dating. "Your clothes...You look so good," she heard herself say, sounding surprised.

Xander looked down at his clothes. "Oh. I let Buffy dress me," he said simply, before getting a confused look from Cordelia. "Well, not physically," he added, realizing how his words had really sounded.

She let out a hasty breath. "Perfect. You had to make this harder, didn't you?" she nearly whined, but caught herself and focused on a more normal tone.

"Okay, clearly the fact that I please you visually has got us off on the wrong foot here," Xander stated, unsure of why he wasn't getting the response he had hoped for. Hell, he'd fussed over his outfit and his gift for quite a while and thought he had landed looking pretty good and having an okay present.

Cordelia looked up at him sadly but he didn't seem to notice. "Xander..." she started, only to be cut off by him.

"Let me finish. I've been thinking a lot about us lately... the why and the wherefore. You know, once, twice, a kissy here, a kissy there. And you can chalk it all up to hormones. A-and maybe that's all we have here. Tawdry teen lust. But maybe not. Maybe something in you sees something special inside me." Cordelia glanced down at her feet then back up at him, something Xander didn't miss, but he continued anyway. "And vice versa. I mean, I think I do. See something. So..."

Cordelia's mind was a whirlwind as he handed her a small box and she hesitated for just a moment before taking it, mind on what she had wanted to say from the moment he'd walked over. "Xander," she started, opening the box and looking down at it's contents. "Thank you." She lifted the pendant out of the box and held it in front of her eyes. "It's beautiful." It surprised her how Xander could have picked out something like that, but she didn't have time to wonder about it. Letting out a breath, her eyes flickered from the necklace to his face. "I wanna break up," she said abruptly.

Xander's face went from a look that said that he was feeling pretty good at the "It's beautiful" statement to a look of disbelief at her next words. "Okay, not quite the reaction I was looking for."

Cordelia shook her head. It was now or never and she couldn't take back her words. "I know. I'm sorry. It's just... Who are we kidding? Even if parts of us do see specialness, we don't fit." Strangely enough, as she heard the words coming from her mouth, they sounded so fake and definitely not something she truly wanted, but she missed her friends. Didn't that give her a right to do this?

Xander looked from the necklace in Cordelia's hand. "Yeah! Okay...," he started, voice conveying just how upset he was. "Do you know what's a good day to break up with somebody? Any day besides Valentine's Day! I mean, what, were you running low on dramatic irony?"

Her stomach turned at how hurt he sounded, and she could think of nothing to say, which left her stuttering for a reply. " I know. I didn't mean to do it this way. I..."

"Well, you did," Xander interrupted, ignoring her apologetic look and walking away after a moment.

She watched him leave before looking back down at the necklace. It caught the dim lights in the Bronze ever so slightly and she slumped back down in the chair she had previously been sitting and brooding at. She placed the box on the table as she bit down lightly on her bottom lip. She knew it was a lousy thing to break up with someone on Valentine's Day, but she couldn't take being thrown out of her own group over a guy. Cordy unclipped the clasp and was about to put on the necklace when she saw Harmony and the others standing by the stage, looking in her direction. She hesitated before dropping the necklace back into the box and slipping it into her purse as she stood and grabbed her drink. You did the right thing, she told herself, nodding slightly as she walked through the crowd. Keep telling yourself that, Cordy, a small voice in the back of her mind ventured to argue.

xxxx

Slipping back into her room after leaving the Bronze, Cordelia hastily got into some pajamas before flicking off her light and crawling into bed. Laying on her back, she stared up at the ceiling for what seemed like ages before she quickly pushed off the covers and made her way to her vanity in the dark. Her hand fell on her purse and she flipped it open, fishing around until her fingers touched a small box. Clasping her hand around it, she made her way back to her bed and slid under the covers. Opening the box, she pulled out the necklace and held it up in front of her. A few rays of moonlight peeked through her window and fell across her face and hand. Putting the box on the nightstand, Cordy let the chain fall around her middle finger as she rolled onto her side and tucked the heart shaped pendant in her palm, closing her fingers around it. Eyelids suddenly heavy, her eyes closed and she fell into a light sleep.

xxxx

She hadn't wanted to face school the next day, but she couldn't do anything suspicious that might lead to Harmony deciding she shouldn't be in the group anymore. So she faced school and managed to stay away from Xander until the middle of the day. She was on her way to meet the others by the stairs when she caught sight of Xander and tried to escape without him noticing her, but it didn't work so well. She stopped in her tracks as he appeared in front of her.

"Oh, come on, don't flatter yourself. I'm not gonna make a big scene. I just want the necklace back," Xander said quickly.

Cordelia held a book to her chest and listened to his words. "What?" she said in disbelief. "I thought it was a gift."

Xander shrugged lightly. "No. Last night it was a gift. Today it's scrap metal. Figure I can melt it down and sell it for fillings or something."

Normally she would have no problems bashing on someone, to their face or otherwise, but she couldn't help but feel a sad feeling in the pit of her stomach as she found herself going back to being able to outwardly bag on Xander. "You're pathetic!" was all she could come up with.

"Come on, I'm not gonna add to the Cordelia Chase castoff collection."

She was primed on knowing how to act like something didn't bother her, although this was harder than she had thought. Maybe she should have tried harder to stay home. Instead, she glared at him. "It's in my locker," she replied without a hitch.

Xander pointed to her locker with his eyes. "I can wait," he said shortly.

Cordy gave him another look, a cross between annoyance and a glare and goes over to her locker. She saw Xander leaning against some lockers a few feet down from hers before she worked out her combination and pulled open the locker. Putting down the book in her hand, she glanced over at him and saw that he was leisurely watching people pass by and not paying close attention to her. Taking a breath, she leaned behind the locker door and exhaled as she pulled the necklace out from under her collar. As much as she would have loved to keep it and tell Xander she made a mistake, she unclasped the necklace and took it off before closing her locker door loudly. Xander looked over at her, standing up straight.

"Here," she said stiffly, handing him the necklace. "It's a good thing we broke up. Now I don't have to pretend I like it." Her words came off harsher than she had wanted, but there was nothing she could do to change that now.

Xander gave her a look like a cross between hatred and sadness before closing his hand around the pendant and walking away.

She watched him leave, telling herself that one of these days she might just have to go against the norm, suck it up and stand up for Xander. She must like him more than an occasional make-out session between helping Buffy and Giles; why else would she have worn the necklace after she'd broken up with him. Letting out a small breath, she looked around for her group and walked over, joining into the normal, people-bashing talk that went along with her friends.

A/N2: So basically it's a Cordelia-centric, rewritten version of the beginning Cordy/Xander events at the begining of the episode. I just wanted to try my hand at BtVS writing before I dove into a full story.