AUTHOR: Goddess Isa
EMAIL: goddessisa@aol.com
SUMMARY: Response to Garnet's challenge to have Angel deal with his 16yo daughter's first date
SPOILER: None
DISTRIBUTION: Sure, just email me & lmk where it's going - I like seeing my name in print =)
FEEDBACK: Please, I'd have to have to Slay for it. =P
RATING: TV-14
DISCLAIMER: Okay, Aaron, Mia, Joanna, Ananda and Matt are mine. Buffy & Angel belong to Joss. He'd better take good care of them or else!
"Did I miss it?" Aaron asked as he burst into the house. He threw his gym bag down on the living room floor and looked around anxiously.
"No, and you won't be seeing anyone looking like that." Buffy said. She held her nose as she passed her son. "Go get a shower. And take that," she pointed to his bag, "With you."
"I don't wanna miss him."
"You'll just harrass him anyways, it's probably better that you're not here."
"I'm her older brother," he whined as he went up the stairs. "I'm supposed to harrass him, it's my job."
Aaron passed his father on the way to his room. Angel took one look at his son and said, "Hit the showers."
*****
"Mom?" Mia asked.
Buffy finished frosting the cake and put the knife in the sink. "What is it?"
"When I'm sixteen, is Daddy gonna act this way?"
"What way?"
"You haven't seen him?"
"No, I've been baking and cooking all day."
"Oooh," she stood up. "This is gonna be good."
Buffy noticed her putting her jacket on. "Where are you going?"
"Ananda ordered that Pay-Per-View Creed concert. We're going to watch it."
"Those guys are still around?" Buffy asked. "I listened to them when I was in high school."
"Bye Mom," Mia said. She paused at the second set of stairs that led up to the attic where Joanna lived. "Bye Joanna! GOOD LUCK!"
Buffy shook her head at her daughter and was going to go up to see if Joanna needed any help when she heard a banging noise.
She went into the living room and saw that Angel was banging his own head on the wall.
"Honey, don't." she said gently. "It's not the end of the world."
"I know, but it's either this or my game face."
"Bang away," she turned around and nearly collided with Aaron. His mouth was full of chocolate chip cookies and he was dropping crumbs as he walked through the house. He paused to guzzle down some milk and Buffy gave him a Look. "Aaron, you're eating all that junk and we haven't had dinner yet."
"This isn't junk - you made the cookies. And after I see Dad kill Joanna's date I've got a date of my own."
"If it's with Julia, tell her mother I said hello," Buffy said before going after the Dustbuster to pick up the crumbs.
*****
"Daddy, help!"
Angel took off his goggles and smock and put his airbrush down. He looked out the window and saw Buffy sitting at their picnic table with Mia on her lap. Aaron was playing with his basketball net and Joanna was outside the window with her bicycle helmet in her hand.
"I'll be right out," Angel told her. He turned his work lights off and went into the yard. They had solar lights all over so that he and Buffy could be outside with their kids after dusk when he was safe from the sunlight.
"I wanna ride," she told him.
"You sure?" he asked. "It's pretty dark."
"Please?" she smiled at him and he knew that she knew she had him. He helped her put her helmet on and then he held the back of her bike while she carefully pedaled.
"Hold me," she said when she began peddaling down on the sidewalk in front of their house. "Hold me."
"I've got you baby, you won't fall."
Angel followed her around the yard a few times before finally he knew he could let her go. He did and she road around on her own. She turned a corner and when she realized he wasn't holding on, she didn't stop. She went faster.
They went all the way around the block and got back to their house to find Buffy waiting with Mia in her arms.
"I did it Mommy!" Joanna said proudly.
"I know, I'm so proud of you." Buffy told her. "You're a big girl now."
Angel looked at her and realized she was growing up before his very eyes.
*****
"Dad, wake up!"
"Huh?" Angel stirred.
"Dad, get up!"
His eyes focused and he saw Joanna standing in front of him, all grown up.
She was sixteen, still a girl in some ways, but in others, so much like her mother. Half adult, half child.
"Well?" she spun around in her pale purple gown. "What do you think?"
Her dark hair was in a French twist and a tiny tiara sat on top of her head.
"You look beautiful." he told her.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Thanks."
"You got a minute?" he asked her.
She sat down on the couch next to him. "Homecoming doesn't start until eight, but we're gonna go out to eat first. Matt'll be here any second now."
"What's your first memory of being a child?"
She didn't have to think about it. "When I jumped off the front porch and had to go get seven stitches in my arm."
"You remember that? You were two and a half."
"It hurt like Hell, of course I remember it." she looked at him for a moment. She could see the memories in his eyes but asked anyways. "What's yours?"
"Of my childhood or yours?"
She laughed. "Of mine."
"When you were born--"
"No, I mean after that."
"Oh. It was your fourth birthday. And we took you to Toys R Us so you could pick out a gift. Aaron wanted everything in the store, and he cried every time we told him it wasn't his birthday."
"He still does that on mine and Mia's birthdays and you guys always buy him something anyway." she shook her head.
"You were the cutest thing. Four years old and all you wanted was a stuffed Porky Pig."
"Porky?"
Angel nodded. "He was your fave."
"Did they have one?"
"Of course not. So we went all over and finally, at the very last store, we found a teeny tiny one. And you took it and said 'thank you' and that you wanted to go home now."
Joanna just stared at him, wondering why he remembered that.
"I realized something just now, Jo. You're all grown up. Homecoming, then prom, then it'll be graduation, and college, and marriage."
"Dad, I'm--"
"It's just hard for me." he admitted. "I hate watching you grow up. Leaving me behind."
"I'm not leaving you behind, Dad." she lifted up her dress to show him the ankle bracelet he'd gotten her for her Sweet Sixteen. "I never take this off, you know that. You'll always be with me."
The doorbell rang and she stared at him for a moment, unsure of what to do.
"You'd better get upstairs," he told her. "I'll let him in and you can make your entrance."
"Thanks, Dad." She beamed at her father before disappearing up the staircase.
He watched her, seeing his little girl with pigtails and missing front teeth go up, and a woman come back down.