Realizing that she just was not going to be getting any sleep any time soon, Buffy sighed and opened her tired eyes to her pitch-black room. Instead of just turning her head, her hand reached out to fumble even more blindly until she felt the familiar shape of her alarm block. Buffy brought it up to her face and she squinted as she read the neon numbers, then sighed again.

Next she cursed and then laughed as she'd lost her grip on the heap of plastic, which fell on her head. After setting it off to the side, Buffy sat up in the middle of her too-large bed for a long moment. She knew she needed sleep, she had to be up early tomorrow, and that's exactly why she was unable to find her way off to dreamland.

Stumbling out her bed, Buffy began padding across the floor of her bedroom, out and toward the living room. She flipped on the television, hurrying to set the volume as low as it could possibly go while still being able to hear it well enough, then flipped until she found what station she was after. Her eyes squinted from the bright and currently painful bright colors flashing from the set into the room. There was a light on in the kitchen, one that hung under some of the cabinets and shone down on the counter below, but it wasn't enough at the moment. She sighed, clutching the remote, looking toward the dim light in the other room, contemplating a quick snack but she really wasn't hungry so decided against it in the end.

Stretching for a moment, Buffy made her way over the sofa and plopped down. Her hands reached for several throw pillows to pile under her head and the small blanket folded over the back and made herself comfortable.

Buffy's hand remained clutched loosely around the grey-colored remote, her eyes blinking slowly as she watched. There were less commercials, thankfully, due to the hour but when they'd come she'd flip to some of the other similar networks in search for late night music entertainment. Buffy's mouth moved silently along with song after song, familiar with a good majority of them.

She remembered that this was how she had first seen Angel. She knew their music from the radio but one late night she was up watching videos like this and suddenly... there Angelus was.

She'd recognized the song right off. The first chords, that familiar voice in the first few seconds of the song that had been in her head for the past several days. She found herself smiling as she sang silently along to the smooth male voice, reading the white letters of information in the left corner before it faded out. Then the video began.

First with a quick view of an empty, brown, dirty looking but not really warehouse, then with a few flash of lights that didn't exactly scream glam but were show-y in their own way, that came with and went along with the drum beat for a few seconds. Then there was the band, through the flashes, now filling the room. The camera panned around, showing the outlines of the members. Then the first words came. Along with a close-up of the singer.

Buffy's eyes widened and she felt her pulse quicken considerably as she drooled at the screen. She felt hot tingles in her core as he sang to the camera. That god-like handsome face, messy hair, ripped up clothing covering one heck of a body... Yum. Dark, haunting, chocolate eyes seemed to meet her own, piercing through her. His head tilted slightly to the side, and she could have squealed, and then been forever embarrassed by it. But, it almost happened.

The video was rather simple, lights, the room, the band playing. For the most part they stayed in close-up on him, thank God, but the band was certainly included, as a whole and their own individual shots. They also had many outline views panning around similar to the opener. She did enjoy looking at that pretty face but something about those dark outlines got her too, probably due to the microphone cord, something about the look of it... bulging around his impressive arm then snaking down around him and to the ground... who knew. In any event, she enjoyed the three and a half minutes, give or take, video.

And how she had gone from that young girl drooling over her television set to what she'd become with Angel was still hard to wrap her head around.

OoOoO

Looking up from his notebook, Angel glanced over his shoulder. His eyes squinted a bit and he adjusted his baseball cap. There was a lot of noise coming from over there. Not that there wasn't anyway, but he figured something new must be up.

The large group of paps and press and what have you seemed to double every day. He himself didn't mind so much, this was pretty much part of his life. He'd gotten angry and annoyed a number of times but for the most part it was just something that was and wasn't that big of a deal. But this, here... this wasn't just about him, there were other patients here, patients not used to this aspect being in their own lives. And not just them, but the whole town had him and all that came with him taking over. Thankfully nothing too drastic had happened so far, least none he knew about. He'd been more stressed about it earlier on, now... it still wasn't all that great but everyone had gone out of their way to put him at ease about the issue.

Looking back toward the thick notebook in his lap, Angel twirled his pen around in his hand, trying to concentrate.

OoOoO

The photos and video clips were shown later that evening during a newscast on the station the television mounted behind Buffy's head was turned to. She'd tried her best to be casual about stealing many glances over her shoulder but she was interested to see. He was getting better day by day and she was beyond happy to see the evidence of that.

Near the end of the segment she found herself mentioned, the silver-haired male of the pair calling her out in a jokingly manner, making a quip about the wonderment of her return. She didn't care though, she was just happy to see signs of the latest improvement for Angel and his life.

Later when she was driving home, the radio jocks were discussing him as well, and her too. Though it turned out to be harder to listen to. It felt like a swift kick in the gut to have them voice outloud thoughts and fears she'd come to have. Things like what if she and Angel were truly over, what if he didn't want her anymore, what if he'd only been with her because of the lifestyle and what if now that he was living clean now that he regretted it or now he just didn't care, what if he used this time to get over her, what if he hated her...

It was a battle of two sides raging within her with these thoughts. One hand saying she was being ridiculous, that this was her and Angel, that nothing would ever tear them apart, not even this... but on the other hand, which seemed to be taking the lead or at least working it's way to it by the day, couldn't help but worry.

OoOoO

The longer he was clean, the more Angel missed her. He wouldn't have thought such was possible, but it was very much true. And how he missed Buffy with every fiber of his being.

He was slowing opening up to Jenny about her... about a lot of things. His past, his fame, his life... his friends, the band, Buffy... the drinking, the drugs... everything. He'd recently told her about his first "night" with Buffy and since then had regretted it badly as now he had that on his mind constantly. That was certainly something he missed, sex... sex with her.

He was trying to focus on other things... like having started writing again... music and a lot of apology letters, plus a journal for his time in there. He had shunned visitors as first but now he was happy for company from time to time. He was slowly fixing things and it was starting to show.

He'd tried writing out his feelings for her but all he ended up with was staring at blank pages. When it came to Buffy, Angel knew everything he needed to say he had to in person. Given he ever had the chance.

Nights though, for sure, were the worst for Angel. Living with a hard on during the day was no comparison to the emptiness he felt while laying down for bed. He missed everything about her.

Everything.

But this was by far the worst of it, not having her there in his arms next to him, to go to bed holding, to wake up next to, his arms still around her, her body curled up next to him, the scent of her driving him crazy.

Jenny had been dancing around bringing up the question of what would happen if Buffy didn't come back, what would happen then, how would he feel, so on and so forth.

He honestly didn't know. He didn't want to think about it either, every time he did, even for a second, he felt sick. It was quite obvious to everyone and their mother that he had no idea of how to live without her. And he didn't think he would want to.

That wasn't the answer he wanted to give, not the answer anyone wanted to hear, but it was all he knew to be true. She was his life, his everything. And he had no idea how to even imagine never having her in his life again. He knew it was something he was probably facing, but that didn't mean he could fathom wrapping his head around.