A/N: This fic is in response to a challenge on sinfularchive, set by Zo.

Summary:

B/A. A/U. Setting sometime in the sixties during the Vietnam War.

Buffy is a twenty year old nurse just starting out at the local hospital of Sunnydale. She is desperate to start her own family, after having a rough childhood, but she doesn't want the baggage of a husband.

A 25 year old comatose solider is brought in – Angel. Buffy is immediately attracted to him and as she takes care of him late one night she takes advantage of the situation and climbs on top of him and makes love to him. He can be awake, but not too lucid – ideally if he remembers it he should think it was a dream.

A week later the solider is transported to another facility.

Buffy becomes pregnant.

10 years later.

Buffy and Angel meet up again.

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Just playing...

Rating: R for future scenes.

"If we quit Vietnam, tomorrow we'll be fighting in Hawaii and next week we'll have to fight in San Francisco." – Lyndon. B. Johnson, who became President after the assassination of J. F. K.

"Miss Summers, we got a new one for ya. Time to get to work. He's just been brought in. Name's Liam O'Connor. He's comatose – blunt trauma to the head. He was up at Hamburger Hill, poor kid. Looks older than some of the boys we bring in though; my guess is he's been in since the beginning. He's on an I.V drip – no pain meds. He's not feeling anything where he is…"

Buffy Summers looked up from the medical chart she was filling in for a soldier who was paralysed from the waist down. "Sorry Sarge, I gotta go. I'll be back later to change your I.V, 'kay?"

"Yes ma'am. Shame they be taking you 'way though – you're the right prettiest little nurse in this here hospital." Sergeant Riley Finn was only young, but had risen up through the ranks of the U.S. Marine Corps pretty quickly due to the need for soldiers to fight the Vietcong. He had been unfortunate enough to step on a mine while leading his troops, but lucky enough to survive.

"Well, I'll be back. You just keep on getting yourself better."

Buffy walked into the ward in which her new patient lay, all the while musing to herself. 'He's a nice enough man, and he seems to genuinely like me. And he's good-looking and smart. Any kid would be lucky to have him as a father… But he strikes me as the type that wants commitment. And I sure as hell ain't committin' myself to no man. Not after what I been through. You can't trust men. That asshole of a step-dad proved that…Cute he may be, but under that nice smile, who knows what's lurking there…' Her thoughts trailed off as she began to work.

Her new patient was a 25 year-old Irish-American. "Liam O'Connor, well what do we have here?" Most people didn't believe a coma patient could hear a word you said, but Buffy thought differently. Who knew where this man's mind was?

"Well, aren't you a mess? Bandages all over that head, what have you done to yourself?" Buffy kept up her monologue as if she was talking to him as she swept around his room. Checking his I.V was full and his blood pressure was right, and that his catheter wasn't too full, she kept herself talking as much for herself as she did him. It kept her mind off of her life, her past, and the future that always seemed just out of reach…

"Well, Mr O'Connor, I know they're part of your uniform, but someone appears to have forgotten to remove your dog tags. We can't be having with that, you might strangle yourself! Don't you worry though; I'll keep them safe… Well now. 'Angel'. Thought your name was Liam? It's a right pretty name though. And I don't know, it seems to suit you somehow. Maybe you're an Angel sent to bring me some luck? Lord knows I need it. I'll keep these tags for you, and when you wake up, you ask for them back, y'hear?" She put the dog tags in the large pocket in her nurse's uniform, and walked out of the room. As she reached the doorway, she turned around.

"I'll be back later, 'Angel'. Don't you go flying away on me, ya hear me?" And with a small smile on her face, Buffy Summers continued with her rounds for the day.