Kaleidoscope by Criss Moody

Date: November 15th, 2001
Disclaimer: Blame Numfar.
Distribution: Lar may have if she'd like. Otherwise, ask.
Summary: Kaleidoscope memories.
Pairing/Character: Cordelia
Spoilers: Nothing major, but this story is set after Quickening.
Rating: PG
Feedback: Yes, please.
Notes: This fits loosely with "Maturation," a Wesley story. This may turn into a series of character studies of the AtS characters. We'll see. Kudos to Donna for the beta.

Cordelia's dad gave her a kaleidoscope for her fifth birthday. Very high-quality, of course, with real glass and all kinds of things the five year old little girl didn't understand. She knew it was pretty, and that her daddy had gotten it for her because she was pretty. She was his big girl, his special girl. For years, she spent all the time she could looking through the scope. At lamps, at her parents, at nurses, maids, and cooks, sunlight, and moonlight. The random jumble of color and light patterns fascinated Cordy. An infinite number of beautiful things to see any time she wanted. But only once. No pattern ever repeated itself, not that she could see. That hurt something in Cordy eventually, and she put down the kaleidoscope. Turned to boys, and pretty baubles, and let her mom smile at her and call Cordy her darling girl. Her precious, darling girl.

Why couldn't memories be like that? Cordy thought about that a lot now. About how she craved the sloughing off of old memories like dead skin, those memories that lingered, and hurt, and reminded her. Reminded Cordelia that nothing was perfect. Nothing really lasted.

It was pretty stupid of her to trust Angel. She'd gotten the be-friends-with-him-but-be-ready-to-stake-him mantra down. It ran like a continuous loop of background noise in her head. Or it had. Then little things happened. Angel came back to them, damn near on his knees. Buffy died, and even Cordy felt some thing melting inside, some thing resembling sadness. And finally Cordy suffered snot and tear inducing migraines from, get this, the 'good guys'. She thought that was the turning point. Where she stopped being reserved in her trusting of Angel and started thinking he'd changed.

Right now, she wanted to forget trust. She'd trusted her Dad. He'd fucked up. She'd trusted Xander Harris, Biggest Loser in the Known World. He'd fucked up. She'd trusted Angel. He fucked up.

She still took the Xander memories out. Sometimes. At night with her cream soda and pizza dinner. In the morning as she dried off her torso. It wasn't all bad.

Two not bad things rang out loud and clear. Just before 'the incident', she and Xander stood before her locker, arguing. Every time Cordy tried to hear the conversation, it all became this gray drone in her head. Memory-Cordy turned to her locker, smiled at the goofy grin that Xander had in a picture she'd placed there, and when Memory-Cordy turned back to Memory-Xander, he had this look on his face. And it wasn't his befuddled confusion look or his befuddled lust look. It was something else. His eyes looked different. Like the clear light shining through a mess of colors. They really looked at her. And Cordy felt love. Not warm and safe, but love. The dragging, kicking, screaming, pulling hair out kind of love, but real.

The second not bad thing did not happen to be the incident. After she was home and being sad and pathetic in her bedroom, cutting up every photo taken with her, the Geek, the Witch, and the Loser. His voice echoed in the background, sorry sorry so sorry, and Cordy's scissors sliced up their life. In the spring, before Buffy went away, before Cordy left for vacation, she and Xander had gone down to the ocean and had a midnight picnic. They ate, played around, and as Xander dozed on the blanket, the full moon casting his body into blues, blacks, and whites, Cordy took a picture. His eyes blinked and he roused himself enough to smile sleepily and drag her down to the blanket with him. That picture, pale pretty and vulnerable Xander, had been the last picture held up for the scissors.

She didn't cut it. She didn't keep it either. Cordy had slapped it into a book somewhere, unwilling to part with it but equally loathe to see it around. Someday, if she lived through fucked-up vampires, suicidal visions, and LA traffic, she'd find the book again. Remember that a boy had loved her once and she'd loved him back.

Life should be like a kaleidoscope. Memories should drift down and around into striking combinations of every color in the rainbow. Dazzle with their brilliant pain for a brief second before they tumble into any of a thousand other patterns. Brighten up a dreary life with little flashes of humor and delight, and tumble into the pain again.

Yeah, whatever. Cordy did kinda like being able to hold a memory in her mind's eye. Wrap it around her when she went into work. Ready to 'love' Angel, support Wes, comfort Fred, and sympathize with Gunn. A Cordy of all moods, ready to shift whenever the light changed.

~the end~