Perhaps the most unlikely pairing in the history of the Hellmouth, these two defied all laws of convention to make a great couple. For a little while. When we met them both, it was instantly clear they'd been bitter enemies for a long time. She ridiculed him for being a geek and an outcast, and he despised her haughty self-involvement. They both actually seemed to have a special place in their hearts devoted specifically to disliking each other. Then Cordelia found herself entangled with the Scoobies. She continued to dismiss them in public, but she knew she could count on them for help, and they began to do the same.

One such time found Xander and Cordelia trapped in Buffy's basement. Adrenaline pumping, anger flaring, they lit into each other, blaming one another for their current predicament. The mounting tension between them grew until they had no option but to throw themselves into an epiphany of a kiss. Wow, they thought, they so needed to get out of there.

This continued for a time. Public battles more bitter than before, followed by heated kisses in the broom closet. Xander was the first to admit his feelings, nudging Cordelia for them to literally come out of the closet, but when her vapid followers found out that she was dating Xander, they shunned and scorned her. Yielding to pressure, she broke up with Xander, and he resorted to a love spell. Not to get back together, just to make her love him so he could be the one to break her heart instead. But the spell backfired, Xander learned, because Cordelia already did love him. Finally, she told the Cordettes to take a flying leap, and she and Xander were happy for a little while.

Drawing on the Hellmouth's sense of tragic irony, not long after Cordelia admitted her feelings for Xander, he began cheating on her with Willow. Cordelia found them in each other's arms and turned to run, but she fell through a weakened staircase. She plunged through to the floor below, speared through the stomach by a snapped piece of metal rebar. Xander visited her in the hospital and called her constantly, but she refused to see him.

Cordelia actually blamed Buffy's influence for making her ever notice Xander in the first place and wished to a new friend that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. The new friend was Anyanka, a vengeance demon, who granted the wish and transformed Sunnydale into a living hell where The Master was free, and most of the students of Sunnydale High were dead. Including, it turned out, Xander and Willow. In this world, they were vampires, and they gleefully killed Cordelia. Fortunately, Giles was able to undo the wish, and all returned to normal. At least, normal for the Hellmouth.

Cordelia actually treated Xander and the entire Scooby gang with more venom than she'd ever mustered towards them in her pre-Xander days. Xander accepted his share of her scorn, but once he felt he'd taken enough, he began to rise to the bait. One day, he followed her into a store to continue an earlier fight and found that she was working there. She admitted bitterly that her father had lost all his money, and she was struggling to afford her Prom dress on layaway. He stunned her by keeping her secret and later paying the balance on her dress. She accepted the gesture as the apology it was meant to be. She fought alongside the Scoobies at graduation, then she moved to Los Angeles with dreams of becoming a star.

Pivotal Episodes:
What's My Line II, Bewitched Bothered & Bewildered, Go Fish, Lovers Walk, The Wish, The Prom

[ back ]