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by Chris Kenworthy (scoobyhq@fcmail.com)
Disclaimer: If it's been on TV, I didn't make it up!
"Hmm, let's see, who else do you need to shop for?" Cole said, a look of thoughtful concern crossing his face.
"Just my dad, Willow, Leslie Decowski, and you," Buffy rhymed off. Cole's look of concentration deepened. "Come on, Cole, you're not staying, and that's final," she badgered him. "You've been quite enough help already. You've got dinner with your mom to get to."
"But you... you've still got..." Cole spluttered, but Buffy cut him off.
"I'll take another pass through the mall to see if anything occurs to me, and if not, mom and I will drive up to the Elmwood mall tomorrow." She shook her head at her new boyfriend. "G'wan with you, silly."
"I didn't realize that anybody could be not done their christmas shopping by now," Cole muttered softly, shaking his head and smiling. Buffy repeated her 'move on' gesture one more time. "Not without a kiss goodbye," Cole teased her.
"Oh, okay, twist my arm," Buffy replied with a teasing grin. Putting a few bags of packages carefully down at her sides, she stretched her arms up to wrap them around Cole's neck, bringing his lips to hers for an energetic but unhurried smooch. It was more than half a minute before she let him go, and both teenagers were gasping for breath.
"And, um, on that pleasant note I say... I'll miss you, sweetheart," Cole said with a dapper bow, and headed for the parking lot where he had left his car. Buffy watched him go for quite a while, smiling with unconcealable happiness until there wasn't much of Cole Palmer that she could make out anymore. With a sigh, the Slayer picked her bags up again and turned to continue her shopping trip, when she noticed a tall brunette staring at her.
Cordelia Chase. To Buffy's surprise, there were tears streaming down Cordy's cheeks, ruining her makeup. Buffy blushed with embarassment, and apparently, that startled Cordelia out of her silent stillness. Stepping forthrightly up to Buffy, she choked out, "I hope you're ha-happy now." Cordelia's normally unstoppable voice broke in the middle of the sentence, with the impression that she was holding back sobs with sheer force of will.
"I... I was," Buffy managed to sputter out. "Until I saw you standing here..." To Buffy's surprise, she felt the tears welling up in her own eyes. "Oh, Cordelia, I'b solly id had to work out this way," she blurted out through the tears. As discretely as she could, she took Cordelia's hand with a free pinkie finger and got both of them over to a bench out of the way.
"Well why then?" Cordelia managed to softly wail a few seconds after she had sat down. "Why did you take him, if you didn't want this to happen?"
"I..." Buffy choked off, and looked up at Cordelia, some of her sympathetic reaction starting to wear off, and Buffy's tears eased off to a dribble. "I didn't set out to steal Cole away from you, Cordelia. I'm sorry if that's hard for you to accept, but it's the truth. You liked him, but he liked me better than you, and I liked him too. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way things work out sometimes."
Cordelia half-honked as she blew her nose through a sob. "It's not just Cole, though I really *did* like him." She looked up sadly at Buffy. "Nobody will even talk to me now. When I was dating Xander, I could manage to keep my place as top dog because the rest of them were sheep. Even after the 'Willow incident,' I was doing damage control, I was still in the game. But then you come along and I lose *another* guy, to the freaky Buffy girl. I have no friends left!"
Buffy shook her head, more saddened by Cordelia's implicit admission that Cole was more valuable to her as a tool to social status than as a romantic interest than she was sympathetic to Cordelia's tale of woe. Still... "Somehow, I think you do, Cordelia. As much as neither you nor we want to accept it, I think that me, Willow, Xander, Oz, Giles... we're your friends."
Cordelia harrumphed. "Oh, yeah, right. With friends like you, who needs enemies? You nearly get me killed every week, snatch away any guy I'm interested in..."
"We've seen you at your worst, and as much as we might like to, we'll never turn you away," Buffy whispered softly. "Isn't that what friendship means, in the end?" Cordy didn't say anything. Buffy smiled sadly and started rummaging in one of her bags. "My mom's holding a kind fo a Christmas party. Dinner at four, present exchanges and good company starting at seven. Come by any time, if you like." She brought out a medium-large gift-wrapped box and placed it in Cordelia Chase's lap. Various labels read: To Cordelia Chase. From Buffy Summers. Merry Christmas and all the best of this holiday season to you. I'm sorry. Do not open until Christmas day.
(Over at a fast food restaurant on the other side of the mall.)
"Thanks Oz," Willow said shyly, taking a french fry and chomping it, and following that up with a chicken nugget. "You've been a big help today."
"Well hey, you too," Oz acknowledged with a cheerful bob of his head. "I'd never have thought of that computer program for Leslie, but I know that she'll love it."
"No problem." She smiled over at Oz. "You know, I'm really glad that we're doing this." Oz raised an eyebrow in an concise wordless expression of curiosity. "The 'friend' thing. Xander aside, I know that I'd hate to not have you in my life. You'll always have a little bit of my soul, Oz, and 'best friends' sounds about right for what we should mean to each other, right now."
Oz shrugged, trying to brush aside the pain that subjects like this still caused him. Sensing that a change in the subject was in order, Willow mentioned, "How are things going, you and Leslie-wise?"
"Um, okay." Oz said. After a second, (surprisingly!) he elaborated. "She's cool. Not as much like you as she seems, Willow, which is actually good. In that she has some surprises up her sleeve, that is. Otherwise, I'd feel like I was dating an episode of the twilight zone."
"That's great," Willow said, with a wholesome smile. "I'd like to get to know her a bit better."
"Cool," Oz said, as laconically as usual, and munched on his hamburger.
(Back in the mall proper.)
"Hey, Xander!" Buffy called out, seeing her friend wandering somewhat bleakly from store window to store window. "How's it going?"
"Oh, you know, same old same old," Xander said, flashing a tired version of the trademark Xander Harris grin at her. "Still buying presents for Willow."
"Present-s?" Buffy repeated. "Just how many are you getting her?"
"Umm..." Xander thought a moment, then moved conspiratorially close to Buffy. "I'll tell you, if you like, because I think I'll be needing your help. But you can't breathe a word of it to Willow, okay? I need it to be a surprise."
"Uh, okay, Xander," Buffy said, half-surpressing a wide smile. "What is it??"
"Umm..." Xander looked around the corridor dramatically. "Not here. The windows have ears." And he headed off, leaving Buffy to trail along behind.
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