Desperate Acts: Prologue
by Wravyn

They're not mine, and we all know it.



Cordelia sat alone on the hood of her car. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her legs and her chin rested on her knees. Her eyes were closed. She was thinking, as was usual these days, of Xander. The memory of his smiles and kisses were still fresh in her mind, although they had broken up over a week ago. < I still love him, > she realized.

She had been more hurt by the kiss he had shared with Willow than she let on. Burning his pictures had only been her way of letting go. But the love she felt for him was immaterial, and ran deeper than a couple of photographs. She couldn’t let him out of her mind. In the eyes of the world, Cordy had bounced back from her relationship with no apparent scars. She had gone back to her old self – Queen C with her admiring flock of sheep. Each time her relationship with Xander came up in conversation she laughed it off, often with a scornful remark at his expense. Whenever she passed him in the halls she looked away deliberately and put on a disinterested face.

In time, Xander’s calls had stopped, and he no longer appeared at the Bronze. Life went on, but she still thought of Xander – still thought of his arms around her, still thought of their passionate kisses. She thought of Willow too. Her anger and jealousy were ever present in the back of her mind. And so when the girl Anya prompted her to make a wish, she wished for the one thing she truly wanted. Merely wishing for Xander’s love wasn’t enough ... there would always be Willow in the background. Instead she looked off wistfully and pictured Xander’s face. “I wish things had happened differently.”

Anya had laughed. Cordelia, her mind on Xander, did not see that her face had changed. “Done.”


* * *
Angel paced up and down the floor of the mansion, deep in thought. The sun was shining outside, and normally he would be sleeping, but his mind was preoccupied with thoughts of Buffy. he brooded.

A part of Angel secretly wondered if that were true. What the two had shared was love, that was undeniable. But even before the loss of his soul and his shift to the Angelus persona, he had known that their relationship was doomed. A Slayer and a vampire ... it was just not meant to be. he thought in anguish. He covered his face with his hands as he pictured the beautiful, laughing creature that was Buffy.

Unbeknownst to Angel, at the same time he was making his wish, Cordelia was making the exact same one on the other side of town. When that spell that had altered Cordelia’s reality had acted upon her, it had also pulled in the vampire.


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