I’d always known it, just like everyone except him had. I’d just thought that maybe I’d have been allowed a little more time with him. I’m not sure if it would have been a consolation or if it would have made it even more painful. But then, our relationship had lasted much longer than any of my others had. I didn’t know why I wanted it to last even longer than it had.

“Cordelia, please! Please let me talk to you!”

Yes I did. I knew exactly why I wanted our relationship to last longer. It was because I wanted it to last forever. I wanted to marry him, to grow old-God, no, never mind, I meant stay young-with him. I wanted our love to last forever. I wanted to wake up next to those beautiful brown eyes of his every morning. Deep in the darkest part of my heart, I knew that I never wanted to love anyone besides Xander Harris. But I’d never told him that, for fear that he’d laugh. Tell me that I was just a temporary distraction from Willow. I couldn’t handle that.

I had to keep my cool, and I was losing it. I abandoned all attempts to walk casually away from him. I broke into a run, running like the devil himself was after me. I almost checked to make sure he wasn’t. In Sunnydale, you could never tell. I heard Xander calling after me, fruitlessly yelling my name. “Cordelia! Cordy! Please!”

I made it to my car and fumbled for the keys. The tears had finally found their way over my lashes and I struggled to clear my vision long enough to find the keyless entry thingie that I’d insisted Daddy get for my new Mustang. Finally I found it and I pressed it once. Climbing into the car, I pushed a shaky hand towards the steering column, making several jabs at the ignition before finally getting the key in the hole. As I turned the key, the passenger door slid open, and he was sitting there, panting and out of breath and turning those unhappy brown eyes on me. Damn. I must have hit the keyless entry thingie twice.

“Cordy.” He said my name breathlessly, and I thought of another time he’d said my name like that. It hurt so badly to remember what I’d given him that I didn’t even bother to hold back the tears. I did refuse to look at him, though.

“Cordelia, please look at me.” I couldn’t do that. I knew he knew that I was crying, I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could hide it, but I refused to look into his eyes and see what my tears were doing to him.

“Cordy.” This time he didn’t try and plead with me. He just raised a hand to my face and softly rubbed his thumb over my cheek, making tracks through the tears coursing down them. “Cordelia, please don’t cry. I never meant to hurt you.”

“Oh, so you just thought you’d kiss her and I’d say okay?” I bit out, quelling the tears and turning my angry brown eyes towards his remorseful ones.

“I didn’t kiss her,” he denied. I laughed bitterly.

“Yeah, she just kind of fell on your lips and you didn’t push her away,” I scoffed.

“Cordy, she kissed me. She had a fight with Oz and she was trying to come on to me, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to hurt her right after he had, God knows I’ve done enough of that in my life, and when she kissed me I didn’t pull away because I didn’t know how she would react. I didn’t kiss her back, though. I just didn’t resist her.” As he explained, he kept those damned brown eyes trained on me, hopeful, pleading with me to understand. I hardened my heart against him.

“Xander, you had no right to let her do that. All you needed to do was remind her that you had a girlfriend and you couldn’t let her continue to come on to you because you weren’t single,” I lashed out. He flinched. “Did you even think about me? Did you even think about how much it would hurt me to see you? You knew I was coming back. You knew I’d walk in on you.”

“Not that it’s much of an excuse, but I didn’t think it would even bother you,” Xander confessed quietly. I turned on him, amazement shining in my eyes. “You never seem to care much when you’re with me. I didn’t think you’d even notice Willow was kissing me.”

“Xander, how could you think I don’t care?” I asked. “I’m dating you, aren’t I? Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“It tells me that you’re attracted to me by some cosmically wrong reason,” he quipped. I could see how hurt he was. The pain just shone out of his puppy-dog brown eyes. I reached for him, wanting to ease the ache I knew he was feeling. Wanting to ease the ache I was feeling too.

“Xander, I’m attracted to you because of who you are,” I admitted quietly, choosing for once to not be a bitch and to tell someone how I felt before it was too late. Taking a deep breath and throwing my heart into the open ring, I reached for his hand. His chocolate-brown eyes shot nearly through the top of his skull and he looked at me in amazement. “You want to know why I ran like I did? It’s because I was so insanely jealous and in so much pain that I couldn’t stand to look at you.”

Xander threw his arms around me and for once I didn’t care that he was being a clumsy oaf. He held me tightly, cradling me to his chest and pressing kisses to the top of my head. “Cordy,” he whispered brokenly. I could feel the way his jaw was working, like he was opening and closing his mouth repeatedly without making a sound. I decided to go for broke.

“Xander, I was so jealous that you were kissing Willow because I love you. I didn’t want you to finally wake up and see that she loves you, too, and then walk away from me. And I was scared that it had finally happened.”

Xander pulled back from me. I could see in his brown eyes that my confession had made him incredibly happy. “Cordy, you. . . love me?” he repeated incredulously.

“Xander Harris, I love you more than I ever thought possible,” I admitted shyly. “I always thought you were the biggest geek, and then once I got to know you I realized that you had the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met. You’re worth a thousand of those snobby brats I used to hang around with. I am so scared of losing you, because I have never met anyone who cared about me because they cared about *me* and not just my money or my car or my clothes or my looks. None of that mattered to you. And I don’t deserve someone like you.”

“Cordy, you know what?” Xander asked.

“What?” I responded fearfully.

“You’re right, you don’t deserve me,” he quipped with a big smile. I smacked him, that one sentence causing my face to light up. He was joking with me. He wasn’t going to leave me. “But you know what? You’ve got me. For good. I’m not going to throw you over for anyone, especially not Willow. She’s my best friend and I love her, but not romantically. She has Oz. And you know what? I have you. At least, I think I do.” His brown eyes were suddenly worried, worried that despite our confessions and our bantering, that I still wasn’t going to take him back.

“Yeah, Xander. Yeah, you do,” I assured him quietly, my eyes shining and my heart soaring. I buried myself in his arms, taking a deep breath of cologne and his pure Xander-y smell. I was never sure why he meant so much to me, but I knew I loved him and I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t know how he had captured me so completely.

Must’ve been those damned brown eyes.