A/N: Actually mostly B/R (with definite mentions of B/A). No, I haven't gone turncoat, but I sympathize to a certain extent. Not every relationship can be big fire and passion. And I think Riley gets a lot worse than he deserves when his biggest fault was just being rather lame and not of the type to appeal to shippers.

Disclaimer: Do I look like Joss?

Settling (for Less)

I.
What her friends didn't realize was that she was settling. They thought that Riley hung the moon, of course. They were so biased, so desperate to see her with a "normal guy" – with anyone but Angel, for that matter – and yes, okay, to see her happy (she shouldn't doubt that, it was just that their blind actions made it hard to remember the truth of their intentions sometimes) that they didn't look closely at her own state. They didn't see – didn't want to see – how hard she tried to make a big deal about things that failed to make an impact on her, how she forced each smile and laugh out to keep up pretenses and painted herself a careful façade. She tried so desperately to be the normal-er girl who they wanted her to be (who the thought she wanted to be), but some days the cracks in the veneer were so large she wondered how they could miss them.

Because she was settling. And how far down was she settling! Sure, Riley was nice. But what was nice compared to someone who sang to her very soul? And how was she to be in the bliss they all expected when every touch was but a poor substitute for his? But she was settling, because she could not cling to the impossible dream any longer.

II.
As weeks passed, a strange thing happened. Riley slowly worked his way into her life, into her fantasies, and at some point even into her heart. Eventually, she found with a shock that she wasn't settling anymore.

Well, not unless accepting less than the impossible dream was settling. Seeing him again still shook her up in ways she didn't want to think about, but in time the brief reminders of him no longer tore her heart up.

Her two men were different as fire and ice, but in a way that made it less painful. Less reminders that way. So Riley couldn't bring her the bliss the he once had. But so be it; in her experience bliss was all too fleeting, and Riley offered her contentment. Sure, the relationship wasn't the big love and passion of her last one, but it didn't have the angsty strings attached either. She might not love Riley as passionately as she had Angel, and perhaps not even quite as much, but that didn't mean she didn't love him.