Why I hate Harmony Kendall.
By Nodakskip (as modified by Starway Man)
Email: Nodakskip@aol.com
Author's notes: This is an AU. All should be explained within the fic. means thoughts. And for the hell of it I used the library from the Buffy 30 minute pilot and not the one from the series that we all know.
Setting: Angel season 3 / Buffy season 6
Disclaimer: None of the BtVS/Angel characters belong to me. I don't do enough crack and I don't have enough money, to claim otherwise. Plus I would have done them much better. But the story is mine!
***
Winifred "Fred" Burkle sighed in pure frustration, as she leaned upon the check-in counter at the Hyperion hotel. So caught up in her evanescent thoughts was the former physicist, that she completely failed to notice one Charles Gunn walking up behind her.
"Hey there, honey, what's got y'all so wound up?" her boyfriend asked, as he noticed the state she was in.
Fred jumped, startled, at his voice. "Charles! Don't do that!"
Gunn held up his hands, trying to calm her down. "Whoa there. Sorry to scare you. You, uh, just looked like you had some stuff on your mind, is all..."
Fred nodded, as she sighed yet again. But then it occurred to her... He might know, she thought. "Charles. Is there something important about today?"
He shook his head slowly, thinking about it. "No, we cleared the last case last night. So, I'm thinking today should be free of anything…"
"No," the brunette interrupted him. "I mean the date. The 20th of November. Did something ever happen on this day, before I joined up with you guys?"
"Not that I know of. Why?"
Fred frowned. "You're sure?"
Gunn shrugged and nodded. "Pretty much, yeah. Why?"
The woman pulled herself up and sat on the counter, her legs dangling off the floor as she spoke. "Well, uh, Cordy came down here with me forty minutes ago. We just happened to wake up at the same time, I guess. She was complaining about how the slime from the demons last night totally ruined her pants..."
"Yeah, well, that sounds like our girl," Gunn commented, not seeing the point of all this.
Fred continued determinedly, "Well, she was checking the mail when she found some coupons for 20% off at Best Buy, she wanted to use them to get a new battery for her lap-top. Then I told her to check what dates for the coupons were good for. So, she looked! Then she mumbled and I quote, 'It couldn't be, not already!' She checked Wesley's calendar, and then bolted upstairs back to her room. It looked like she was going to start crying!"
"And she hasn't come back down?" her boyfriend asked in concern.
"No," Fred sighed even more this time. "I was about to go ask her what's wrong, when Angel stopped me. He said that he'd hoped that she wouldn't notice the date today. I asked him why, but he just said it was nothing important..."
The brunette paused. "Then later, y'know, I asked Wesley when he came in. And he just told me it was a personal matter of Cordy's! But the way she tore up to her room, something had to be wrong! And it's kinda weird that the two men who make it their life's mission to take care of her, don't go running to her side..."
"So," Gunn said, thinking it over carefully. "You never went to ask her?"
"Well...no…I mean, if it's something…"
Gunn cut her off, his mind made up. "I say, let's go see what's up."
He made for the stairs. Fred jumped off the counter and rushed to stop him though, "Charles! We can't just…."
"Fred, there's no harm in just asking. And it's pretty obvious pussyfooting around ain't gonna get us nowhere..." the black man told her, as he went up the stairs to the second floor.
Fred watched him for a few moments, before shrugging to herself and running to catch up to him. About thirty seconds later, the young couple arrived at the door to Room 215. Cordelia's emergency room.
Those who didn't live in the hotel, such as Wesley, Cordelia, or Bethany, their resident Vision Girl, had what the Fang Gang had come to call emergency rooms. A room that they used when they got back too late from demon fighting to go home, or just needed a place to rest and keep changes of clothes.
Well, Bethany had told Fred that when they were picking the rooms, that Cordelia had been very vocal that she would have Room 215. And when Cordelia set her mind on something, you did not want to get in her way.
As Gunn and Fred stood there, they could hear muffled crying coming from the room. Gunn lightly knocked on the door...
The response was immediate. "Go away, Angel!" Cordelia yelled, from the other side of the door.
Fred got close to the doorframe. "Cordelia? It's us, Fred and Gunn – are you okay?"
But again, the response was immediate. "I'm fine!"
Gunn got annoyed. "Well, you sure as hell don't sound like it!"
Fred looked up at him, startled. Pissing off Cordelia Chase when she was in a sour mood, was not a good idea...
Fred still had vivid memories of what Cordelia had done with the demons in Pylea, that had called her a cow. She also remembered the hard look in the brunette's eyes, while she did what she did. She'd almost felt sorry for the demon priests back then...
But only almost. Because five years in a hell dimension? It sure as hell toughens you up a lot.
And then to Fred's surprise she heard Cordelia again yell out, "Fine! Come in." Plus as soon as they came into the small two-room suite she told them, "Close the door behind you. I don't need Angel to come in already..."
The former Texan and the former gang leader found Cordelia sitting on the bed. She had her back against the wall, since the bed's headboard was long since gone. They could plainly see she had been crying a lot, but the main thing that Fred noticed? It was that Cordelia had changed shirts.
She now wore a maroon-colored jersey. And from the looks of it, something that belonged to a high school football team. A decal of a pig was in the middle, with the legend 'Sunnydale Razorbacks' on the top and bottom. Also, their friend's hair was out of its normal ponytail, and flowing freely over her shoulders.
"Didn't know you played ball," Gunn joked weakly, trying to get her to talk.
Cordelia smiled a tiny bit, before moving over so her back was to them. She pulled her hair back, so they could read what was on the jersey completely.
HARRIS, #15
When she resumed her pervious position on the bed, Gunn looked at her funny. "A player gave you his shirt? Okay, I know Angel said you were this hot cheerleader and all...but most guys I know? They wouldn't part with their tops, unless someone grabbed 'em by the short 'n curlies and-"
"Charles!!" Fred interrupted.
Cordelia got a sad look to her face, ignoring the commentary. "It was his away jersey. The home game one was a lighter color..."
Fred was going to ask who she was talking about, when Gunn put a hand on her arm to stop her. He could tell his friend needed to get this out of her system...
So Cordelia just kept talking. Her eyes were downcast, and her voice had a very sad undertone to it, but still the words came out. "I remember, he forgot and left it in Daddy's car. This one game they'd beaten the other team, and gotten a chance at the division playoffs, y'know? And they were hoping they could get to state championships..."
The former cheerleader looked up to them. "Of course, they'd would have made it to the state finals. He always got 'em that far. It was, like, an accepted fact of life! On the drive home in my car, he was all smelly and the darn shirt was soaked from the mud and sweat, so he took it off..."
Cordelia giggled a bit at the memory. "I swear, he knew what seeing him all sweaty with no shirt did to me! So we pulled off to the side of the road and parked behind some trees, and made out for about an hour or so. He put his warm-up shirt on afterwards, and he just forgot this…" she pulled on the jersey with her fingers. "...in the back seat. I was going to wash it, then give it back to him."
Gunn and Fred both watched, as she pulled her knees up to her chin as she grew even more upset. "But I didn't get the chance. And now, I probably never will."
Fred moved to the bed. She sat next to her friend, and wrapped her arms around her. Cordelia wasted no time in burying her head in Fred's shoulder, and crying hard.
To be honest, this surprised both Fred and Gunn. The Cordelia Chase they both knew had never showed this much emotion, ever. Sure, she would laugh and joke around on occasion; but most of the time if you didn't know her, she would scare the living shit out of you.
Gunn had once described her as a cross between GI Jane and a Bond girl. Because she could be as deadly as she was beautiful. Anytime the Fang Gang needed weapons, swords, battle-axes, guns, even explosives, Cordelia would make a few phone calls and they would show up.
Fred remembered one time they'd needed some weapons, to go up against an army of vamps holding a bunch of children. She had gone with Cordelia, and the men they'd met to get the guns from had scared her badly. They were the kind of guys that if you looked where you were not supposed to…well, the authorities would never find your body, for starters.
But Cordelia had taken on a cold demeanor, talking to those dogs of war as if she did this sort of thing every day. And so the men hadn't crossed her in any way, shape or form. No sexual innuendo, no threats, no nothing.
And, too, Fred didn't want to know where Cordelia had ever gotten the money she'd used to buy the guns with.
"So who's this Harris guy, Cordelia?" Gunn asked, as he pulled his chair close to the bed.
The crying woman reached under the covers of the bed, and pulled out a 5 x 7'' framed photo. She gave it to Gunn, who looked at it carefully.
The black man saw Cordelia in a dark blue prom dress, along with a guy in an old-style dark tux. He also noticed two more things. One, she had a cast on her right wrist. And second, her face was filled with so much joy and love as she looked at her date it was unbelievable.
Gunn was willing to swear he would never have believed that this was the Cordelia he knew, if she hadn't given him the photo herself.
"You wanna tell us what happened? Might make you feel better," the former leader of the Lost Boys told Cordelia, as he handed the framed photo to Fred.
The thing was, Gunn was now kind of worried. He had been told by Angel and Wesley that Cordelia had been a member of the demon-fighting group of the town where she'd grown up in. So, this story was likely to get dark, personal and ugly.
Cordelia leaned her head against the wall. She closed her eyes as she spoke, "It might help," she imitated a Boston accent, before she laughed. "That's what my shrink often said. Talk to someone about what happened, it might make you feel better."
The former May Queen looked back at Gunn. "Couldn't really tell him about the demons and vampires now, could I?"
"You could tell us," Fred stated.
"You really want to know?" she asked them curiously.
Both man and woman nodded their heads. "We're all friends here, Cordy," Gunn told her. "Family, even. If you're hurting, then we're hurting."
Cordelia looked at them for a few moments, took a deep breath, and then started talking. "Okay, look, the reason I'm upset? It's because today is the third anniversary, of the day my life was shattered. And the worst part is I have no one to blame for it, but myself. I was a stupid little girl, who thought she was a woman! Boy, was I wrong..." the brunette ranted, as she looked at the picture of the happy couple from years past.
Ms. Chase looked at it for a few moments more, before she looked up again. "But to understand it all, you have to know about the beginning, the very beginning. So, here goes. It all started, the first day of the first grade. The day I met the people who would be in my life for years, and would become my best friends. Willow Rosenberg, Jesse Marks, and Alexander LaVelle Harris."
"LaVelle?" Gunn choked in amusement, as Fred shushed him.
Cordelia just smiled to herself, as she continued. "Yeah, apart from his parents only the three of us ever knew it. But getting back to the story, we all got along great. For the entire year of first grade we would spend recess together, and hang out together – we all even had our little desks in the same area. Heck, I can't count the number of sleepovers we had! And you shoulda seen one home video my father made – total laugh riot. But then...we hit second grade."
"What happened in second grade?" Fred asked.
A sour look came to Cordelia features. "Harmony Kendall moved into town. She was our age, and her folks were just as rich as my parents and Alex's. But even back then, the damn blonde was totally insecure about herself. She tried to become the popular little 2nd grader! And since Alex was the richest boy in the school, she quickly latched onto him. And that kind of pissed me off..."
Fred grinned at her. "Oh, you liked him."
"I was just a kid!" Cordy told her hotly, then relented. "Okay, well, it was just sorta taken for granted that he was mine. When we did the elementary school play, I was Snow White and he was my prince..."
She sighed. "My mom showed me once a few years back all the report slips that would get sent home with me, because I ended up always fighting with Harmony. But Alex was always so dense around girls, he didn't have a clue what was happening."
"Then what?" asked Gunn.
Cordy fidgeted, "We got into some fight after that, one that for the life of me I can't remember what it was even about. Alex got so mad at me, and we didn't talk for the rest of the summer. At least, so I'm told. Then in 3rd grade, we ended up in different classes. Harmony and Alex in one, and Willow, Jesse and me in another."
She leaned over and pulled out a box of tissues from the night stand. "Our relationship just got worse after that. By the time junior high came around, Alex was dating Harmony. Of course, I'd dated a few guys over the years myself, but still...since Jesse and Willow's families were kinda middle class, meaning not rich, Harmony made sure they were shunned by the popular crowd. And since they were my friends, I got called 'weird' for continuing to hang out with them. Harmony and her pack of sheep, they called us losers and freaks all the time..."
"So, what you're sayin' is this Harmony and Alex turned into first class assholes, huh?" Gunn asked. He wasn't sure where the story was going, but this was the most he'd ever heard Cordelia talk about her past.
But a faint smile crossed Cordelia's face, as she glanced down again at the picture lying beside her. "No, only Harmony. Sure, Alex went around being a butthole to the rest of the unpopular nerds and geeks. But he never let the jocks or cheerleaders insult the three of us, whenever he was around. And Harmony never tried anything when Alex was within earshot, either."
"So he still liked you guys?" Fred asked. "But then, why didn't he hang out with you?"
The sad look returned. "Good question. All I know is something happened between Harmony and him, around the middle of freshman year. He wanted to break up with her, but she did this damn idiotic little puppy dog act! Like I said, he was always dense around women. The big dummy really didn't believe most of the girls on campus wanted to go out with him, and Harmony was not going to let her hooks loose of the best guy at Sunnydale High! But then, it all changed mid-way through sophomore year."
"What happened then?" Fred asked timidly.
"Buffy Summers arrived," Cordelia told them. "She was the vampire Slayer. Until then, we never knew that Sunnydale was sitting on top of the damn Hellmouth! The town was full of demons and vampires, but we. Never. Knew..."
"Wait up," Gunn said, with a frown. "Buffy Summers? Isn't that the chick that Angel's always actin' broody about? The one that got brought back to life, a few months ago?"
Cordelia nodded. "Yeah, that's our Buffy alright. Takes a lickin', but keeps on ticking! Angel and Buffy, they had this big star-crossed lovers romance thing. But that's an entirely different story," the brunette woman told him, discouraging further questions.
"It turns out that the Watchers Council – you know, the guys Wesley used to work for? – well, they knew that Buffy was moving to good old Sunnyhell, way back when. So they got one of their people, this guy called Rupert Giles, placed in as our school librarian. He was her new Watcher. I was in the stacks on the third floor of the library the first day they met, and I overheard their entire conversation."
"Your high school library had three floors?" Gunn asked amazed, but then he shook his head. "Figures, all the money for schools ends up in the suburbs..."
Cordelia took a quick drink from her water bottle that was sitting on the nightstand, before responding. "It was a cool place, I ended up thinking," she admitted.
"It had a large seating area, three floors of bookshelves going around the sides and back, spiral staircases, and even this hugeass skylight! Anyway, later that night I talked to Buffy about what I had overheard, which is when Willow, Jesse and another guy Jonathon, who I really didn't know that well, were taken from the Bronze by vampires. Believe it or not, they were looking for, like, take-out meals for this old Master vamp, who lived underground! Seems he was trapped in some Star Trek-like force field. And there was this ritual thingy in the pipeline to get him out, one that required one of his minions to drain a lot of people at the local nightclub to give him power somehow..."
She continued, "We lost Jonathon that night, he got turned. I had to stake him myself later, which is not something I'll ever remember fondly. But we got into the Bronze that Friday after sunset, and freed a whole bunch of people. Buffy, being the super chick or whatever, fought the vamps and decapitated the one that had grabbed me at the end," the brunette laughed.
"I realized later that Harmony was the next person in line to be killed, when we broke in to save the day. About a year or so afterwards, I actually wished that we'd been a few minutes late! I know, it's not nice to wish death by vampire on anybody, but that's how I felt."
"Did she thank you at least for saving her life?" Fred asked innocently.
Cordy shook her head. "Oh no, that woulda been a fate worse than death for her! By then Harmony hated me with a passion, just as much as I hated her. So thanking me for saving her ass, would not be good for what she thought was her public image."
"Typical," Gunn grunted. "Then what?"
"In the end, it just got called a 'gang fight on PCP'. I swear, everyone just ignored the bite marks on the bodies and went off in to their little dream world! But me, Willow and Jesse couldn't. Seeing vampires up close and personal, really kinda makes it hard to repress your memories like the rest of the townsfolk."
The former rich girl of Sunnydale then sat up straighter, and put a look of pride onto her face. "We became a team, you see. Giles, Buffy, Willow, Jesse, and me. Buffy was the Slayer, so Willow named the rest of us her 'Slayerettes'."
Fred giggled. "Like the Rockettes?"
Cordelia returned the giggle. "Not really, but Jesse did mention that if me, Buffy and Willow ever wanted to get outfits like the Rockettes, he sure as hell wouldn't mind."
Gunn had watched the tiny exchange between the two women carefully. Cordelia now seemed to be fondly reminiscing about her past, and it seemed to him that this was maybe the first time she'd spoken to anyone about this. He still didn't know what had happened to her, but to hold it all in for three years? No wonder she got cold and despondent a lot.
"Now, this is where it gets interesting," Cordy continued. "At least for me..."
She then told them, "By the end of sophomore year we had dealt with some weird things, besides the vampires. A few demons, and even this weird talking ventriloquist dummy! But the big thing that had happened to me by then, was that I'd gotten possessed. And not by a demon, but by a hyena."
"A hyena?" both her friends asked in surprise.
Cordelia shrugged. "Seems that the zookeeper in Sunnydale wanted to channel the primal spirit power of these hyenas, or some sorta thing like that. He had this big fashion-dead ritual all set up, but I had to go and try to save some guy from a bunch of bullies that had dragged him into the closed hyena den! So me and five other kids got possessed by those deadly African animals, instead of him."
"You can get possessed by an animal?" Gunn asked, surprised. "I thought it was just ghosts and demons."
"That's what I thought too," Cordy told him. "But believe it or not, we started to act like a pack of hyenas. We just had the animal desires, really. Hunt, kill, feed...and one other thing."
Gunn had already guessed what the other instinct was, but Fred looked confused. "What other thing?"
Cordelia blushed. "After we'd eaten something that I never want to let myself remember, ever again, well our pack leader, this guy Kyle...he wanted to take his girlfriend and myself out to the woods to...uh, mate. He'd apparently claimed me as his..."
The young woman paused and grinned, as she remembered that part of it. "Thing is, the hyena version of me didn't take too kindly to being treated like that. When I was normal I'd hated the guy, so I sure as hell wasn't going to let myself be 'claimed' by that asshole! I pretty much kicked his ass. I, uh, then went in search of my own mate, somebody that was...up to my standards."
Gunn had already guessed what was coming before Cordelia ended up saying, "And while I was in this hopped-up animal heat mode, I ran into Harmony – who started to bitch at me, for looking like a 'ho..."
Gunn chuckled. "Dumbass called you a whore? Oh, I'm afraid to hear what you did to her..."
Cordy lay back against the wall, with her hands interlaced behind her head. "It was nothing, really; I just grabbed her wrist, flipped her ass onto the ground and walked away without a second thought. But it was in front of everyone. And she really hated it, when most of the students cheered me on..."
Fred laughed. "What were you wearing that she called you a 'ho for?"
"Nothing all that bad," Cordelia shrugged. "A black leather miniskirt, dark blue blouse, and a leather jacket. I was on the hunt for a suitable mate, after all."
"Did you find one?" Fred asked.
"Oh yeah. And I really didn't have to look that hard," Cordy responded with a sigh. "Deep down...I was looking for just one guy, and him alone. Eventually, I tracked him down at his parents' guesthouse. And I still remember the look Alex gave me, when he first saw yours truly. He couldn't form coherent words, he was so flabbergasted! Later, he told me that I looked like some kinda dark goddess to him..."
"Then what? Then what?" Fred asked, totally into the girl talk mode. Gunn just rolled his eyes.
Cordelia shrugged, "I just grabbed him, and we started making out in a way that would even make people in the Playboy mansion blush. And I, uh, got very angry when he tried to refuse me."
"He tried to turn you down? When you were basically this animal in heat?" Gunn asked, shocked. A little too shocked, for Fred's liking.
Cordelia smiled and let Gunn squirm under Fred's glare, before she resumed...
***
FLASHBACK
April 17th, 1997
Harris family guesthouse
"Ah, Cordy?" Alex stammered, backing up. "Not that I don't want to do what I, uh, think you're suggesting we should do, but, um…"
He was cut off by the very attractive young woman in leather grabbing him by the shirt, and throwing him onto the island counter top in the kitchen.
"Shut up!" the brunette teenager-slash-hyena spirit told him forcefully as she kissed her first ever crush, ramming her tongue into his mouth and initiating another round of tonsil hockey.
And so he, like almost any other guy, went with the kiss, which only seemed to encourage Cordelia more. Thus she broke it off and quickly removed her jacket, tossing it to the ground before she climbed up there as well, straddling him.
"Cordelia!" Alex tried again. "What the hell has gotten into you!?"
"I told you to shut up!" she just demanded again. "I'm claiming you as my mate, already! So just get yourself juiced up enough, to do your job!"
Alex Harris was shocked when she said that, but even more so when Cordelia grabbed his shirt and ripped it off of him.
The buttons instantly flew away in all directions, clattering onto the ground.
"Cordy, please, talk to me! I know this isn't really you! Okay, granted, we've drifted apart a lot in the last few years, but I know you would never do something like…"
The male teenager then lost his voice for a moment, when his 'friend' quickly removed her blouse. "Oh, boy..." was all Alex could weakly mutter out loud, as he looked at the half-naked girl on top of him.
Luckily, he was able to tear his eyes away from the always-interesting area of her chest and looked into Cordelia's eyes. And what Alex saw there, shocked him to the depths of his soul.
His first grade best friend was gazing at him, with nothing but pure lust on her face.
Cordelia grabbed his hair forcefully and quickly told him, "Get this through your thick head. You're mine!" Before she sank down like a shark, and started to make out with him as if they were in a porn flick.
Neither of them heard the back door open, or the words "Holy shit!" ring out. All Alex knew was that a few seconds later, he heard a small 'bang' sound and Cordelia fell off of him, to slump down next to him unconscious.
He propped himself up by his elbows, as he looked at the newcomer. "Buffy Summers? Oh, I shoulda known," the boy groaned. "What the hell is going on here?!"
His demand for answers just incensed the petite blond girl. "What's going on here?!" the Slayer repeated back to him, as she waved the large frying pan she had in her hand at him menacingly.
"I'll tell you what's going on here! An asshole football player is taking advantage of my friend, when's she not in her right mind!"
Alex jumped off the counter to face her. "Listen, you little bottle-blond twerp! I may be capable of a lot of things, but I would never take advantage of Cordelia like that! Ever!"
The Chosen One laughed bitterly at that, full of contempt for him. "Yeah, sure, pal. You just keep telling yourself that..." she responded to him in disbelief. And when the now-angered Alex moved towards her, Buffy was ready and instantly nailed him over the head with the frying pan.
He awoke a bit later, but Buffy and Cordelia were long gone.
END FLASHBACK
***
Both of her friends stared at Cordelia in shock, after she was done telling that part of the tale. "Holy crap, girl!" was all Gunn could say.
"Did he tell everyone what happened, the next day?" Fred asked, concerned.
"No. He'd have never done that," Cordelia quickly told Fred. "Luckily Giles was able to get us all un-possessed, later that night. The others, they all ended up in the loony bin after they realized what had happened to Mr. Flutie, our school principal. And trust me, you do NOT want to know details! Anyway, Buffy wanted to kill Alex because she thought he was going to rape me..."
"Real sensitive subject," Gunn interjected, shaking his head.
"Yeah, well, I was just so embarrassed by the entire thing that I told her and the others that I didn't remember anything. Giles knew I was lying, but he stayed silent about it. And I was just barely able to keep Buffy from killing Alex, the next day. But I still had to face him, afterwards."
"Let me guess," Gunn said. "He was a little freaked by it."
"Oh, ain't that the understatement of the year," Cordelia told them, shaking her head