Ch 25 – Alone Time

"Angela," Mona said over the intercom. "You've got a good-looking visitor. Want me to hold your calls for you?"

The speakers distorted her mother's voice a little, but Angela could still hear the wink-wink, nudge-nudge in there. She smirked to herself. They would have to learn to live with this kind of teasing from now on.

"No, thank you, Mother."

Seconds later, Tony opened the door to her office. "Ready for some shopping?"

He smiled at her, and Angela's stomach did a backflip. Tony hadn't been to the Agency in a while, and to have her two worlds merge like this, after all that had happened, and in light of everything that was going to happen ...

When they walked down the hallway towards the elevators, Angela was suddenly very conscious of her employees' eyes on them as they passed by their open office doors and cubicles. They knew that she had a male housekeeper, and some of them had seen Tony before when he dropped something off for her, or on rare occasions when he picked her up. They also knew that Samantha was his daughter, and that they all lived together.

Oddly enough, Angela had never wondered before if people gossiped about them. It seemed likely. Then again, if Mona got wind of any talk behind her back, she would shut it down, and fast, Angela was sure of that. For as uncaring as she appeared sometimes, Mona was very protective of their little family. She had been the one to bring them all together in the first place, and for all these years she had been her and Tony's biggest cheerleader.

Well, as soon as the pregnancy became obvious, and when she changed her name, people would find out that any gossip had been right on the money.

Angela's breath hitched. When she changed her name.

She hadn't given it much thought before, but immediately she knew that she wouldn't stay Angela Bower just because it made sense for the business. After Michael, she hadn't gone back to Robinson because she didn't want to harm her career, and to avoid drawing attention to her personal life. But she was over that now. If (no, when) she became Tony's wife, she would take his name.

In the elevator, she reached for his hand. He squeezed it and drew her closer, into a gentle kiss.

"Hi," he said after they parted.

"Hi," she repeated, and they smiled at each other almost shyly.

This was the first extended time alone together outside of the house they would have since … who could remember. And it was the first time since the positive pregnancy tests.

Hand in hand, they crossed through the foyer and stepped out onto the crowded sidewalk. They began to stroll under the twinkling Christmas lights, both aware that they had things to discuss, but neither of them willing to break the spell.

Yet, it had to be done.

"How did your exam go?" Angela finally asked.

Tony cleared his throat. "Ah, so-so. I don't know. Statistics isn't my strongest subject. I'm glad I get tomorrow off."

"I'm sure you did well." She looked at him and thought that she saw him flinch for a millisecond. "And then French on Friday?"

"Yeah. I can't begin to tell you how ready I am for Christmas break."

"Me too," she sighed. "How did it go with Sam?" All day, Angela had been plagued by her guilty conscience. "I was so tough on her on Monday, when all she did was lock some papers in a file cabinet with a broken lock. She couldn't have known. And then yesterday I forgot that I wanted to take her out to lunch."

"When you went to the doctor?"

She nodded.

"Well, that was more important than lunch," Tony said softly.

"I agree. But I still feel terrible. I just- I had no idea Sam was this hurt. I'm going to apologize to her again."

"She already told me that she's going to come back to the office tomorrow."

"She did?" Now this was a surprise.

Tony shrugged. "Apparently, a day of housework did her good. She said it was 'meditative'. Don't ask me. She doesn't want to be a quitter, so she's gonna be back to help you guys with your party."

"Oh, I'm glad." Angela let go of Tony's hand and looped her arm through his instead.

"Yeah, me too. One less thing to worry about."

"What else are you worried about?" she asked tentatively.

He looked at her, caught. "Oh, uh – you know. We have a couple of things to … figure out, right? How we're gonna tell the kids, of course. And then all the rest." He turned away from her and looked out into traffic when he said this last bit.

Angela swallowed. Right. Tony had been wonderful ever since the condom broke. Strong, supportive, and as far as she could tell, he was truly happy about the baby. But this was still an unplanned pregnancy, and Angela could imagine the kind of pressure Tony was putting on himself because of it.

"Tony?" she said quietly. "I know we have a long list of questions that we need to find answers to, and sooner than we thought we might. How about we just start with number one?"

"Yeah. Sounds good. I'm probably overthinking all of this, anyway."

"Don't say that. You're worried, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't. A lot of things are going to change. But if you think about it – we have spent far more time living together under pretty unusual circumstances, and so far, both kids are fine, you and I managed to find our way towards each other. So, I don't know. I feel like we're just finally putting a name to something that has been a long time coming."

Their eyes met, and she knew that her words had touched upon something. "Well, I knew I was in trouble a long time ago," he admitted with a grin, but didn't elaborate. She would ask him about it some other time.

Angela nodded. "So, the kids?"

Telling them was the most pressing issue, as far as she was concerned. While she wasn't ready to disclose news of the pregnancy, not until she was further along, she really needed the house to feel … safe. A place where they could be affectionate without having to think twice about who might see them.

And she wanted to share a bed with Tony every night – if that was what he wanted as well. Not because of sex, even though she yearned for that too, but for the closeness. Both of them had gone so many years without this kind of intimacy. Why waste any more time?

Maybe it also was the knowledge that soon enough, their nights would look quite different, with feedings and diaper changes every couple of hours.

"Do you still want to do it over the holidays?" he asked.

Angela gazed up at the buildings rising high into the sky above them. "If I'm honest, I would like to stop hiding as soon as possible, it doesn't feel right. Maybe we could tell them this weekend? That way, Sam and Jonathan would have a couple of days to process everything. And we could spend Christmas as a family. I mean, we were a family long before, of course. But not like this," she hastened to correct herself.

"I know what you mean," Tony said and leaned in to kiss her cheek.

She took a deep breath before continuing. "And this is also going to be the last Christmas where it's just the four of us. Well, five, counting Mother. It might be a good idea to make some memories."

Angela thought of Jonathan. She hoped to God that he would react better to their news than he had to Michael's, but she had no reason to assume that he would.

Next to her, Tony nodded but didn't say anything.

"Tony?" she asked after a while.

"I was just thinking. This time next year-" he looked at her sideways, his cheeks flushed – from the cold or from emotion?

Angela felt her own face grow warm. This time next year they would have a three-month-old baby. It was hard to imagine.

"Things will be very different," she finished.

"But good."

"Very good. Maybe a little sleepless."

"Ah, that doesn't last forever."

"No. It doesn't."

They smiled at each other, and Tony wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Let's do it. We'll sit the kids down on Sunday after breakfast."

Then, suddenly and inexplicably, he stopped walking. "Oh, hey!"

"What is it?" Angela asked, confused.

"It's the diner. The one we went to after- when I brought you your notebook."

She looked at the sign above the door. "When you thought Jack and I were having an affair."

"That, too," Tony mumbled. He looked adorable when he was embarrassed. It was astonishing that he still wasn't over that, despite everything that had happened since that night.

"Do you want to go inside? I could use a sandwich. And some hot chocolate maybe."

ooooooooo

"So, where were we?" he asked after the waitress had taken their order.

"Sunday after breakfast."

Tony reached for her hand. "What exactly are we going to say?"

"I think if we tell them we're dating … that may be understating it a little," Angela said. Dating, to her, implied that they would go out every now and then, but aside from that, things around the house would stay pretty much the same.

Tony was stroking her knuckles with his thumb. "Why don't we go with the truth. You and I, we're in love."

"Yes," she breathed. The next obvious question was on the tip of her tongue, but she hesitated, afraid of giving Tony the impression that she was pushing for this. But there was no way the kids would not want to know.

"Tony, what if they ask where-" - "And if they ask what we're going to-" they ended up talking over each other.

"Go ahead," he said.

Before Angela could speak, the waitress brought them two hot chocolates. Then she waited until the young woman was out of earshot again.

"What if they ask us where this is leading?"

"Then we'll tell them marriage. Because that's where this is leading, isn't it?" Tony asked carefully, the tips of his ears flaming red.

Angela found herself unable to hold his gaze, it was just too intense. She picked up her spoon and began to stir. "Oh, yes. We just never really talked about it before. Not seriously. The last time we did was at Isabel's and Paul's wedding, wasn't it? And that didn't exactly end well for us."

"We're in a different place now," Tony said and sought out her eyes. "I'd say I've grown up a little since then. And we do have a baby on the way."

"I don't want to get married just because I'm pregnant," Angela suddenly blurted out.

Tony's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, hey – who said anything about that? I would have asked you one of these days, anyway."

"You would have?"

"Of course! And I will! Don't get me wrong, this isn't the proposal. You deserve to be asked the right way."

"I'm sorry," she said and briefly dropped her head into the palm of her other hand. "I don't know why I said that. It just came out. I guess I don't want us to rush into anything. We're already skipping half a dozen steps with the baby. I don't want you to feel pressured."

"I don't," he said. "Back when Isabel and Paul got hitched? I stood up there, and all I could think about was putting a ring on your finger. So I guess this is one of those things that was 'a long time coming'."

"Oh, Tony." For a second, Angela was transported back to her own fantasies at the Ferguson/Schaefer wedding, imagining Tony waiting for her at the altar, lifting her veil, kissing her passionately …

"And about the other thing, skipping all of those steps," he continued, "I want to make this very clear, Angela: I'm happy. Yeah, maybe we could've waited a little longer to have a kid. But that's not how babies are, right? They come when they want, and this one wants to come now. Well, in August. We have a couple more months to prepare," he said gently and cupped her cheek with his hand. "Whatever you do, don't doubt for one minute that I want this with you, okay? I don't want you to worry about a thing. School, my job, whatever kind of career I'm going to have, those are my problems. Not yours, not our baby's."

Angela didn't quite agree with that last part – everything being Tony's problem. But she was too moved by the rest of his speech to start arguing. It was important to him to show her that she could depend on him, and it filled her with considerable relief to hear him confirm one more time that he was indeed happy about the baby. All she could do was nod tearfully and meet him halfway when he scooted closer to her in their booth to kiss her.

Eventually, Tony pulled back, keeping one of her hands in his. "Now that we're talking about this, do you think … do you want to get married before the baby comes?"

Angela looked at him. "It would make a lot of things easier, wouldn't it?"

He swayed his head. "Probably. But that's not what I asked. What do you want?"

She almost surprised herself with how easy the answer was. "I want the baby to be a Micelli. Right from the beginning."

"Yeah?" Tony's eyes lit up.

"Yes," she nodded. "Even if I have to get married wearing a circus tent."

"We don't have to wait that long," he said, squeezing her hand. "Although I'm sure you'd look beautiful."

She laughed. "Thank you. I'll remind you of that."

"Seriously, I'm happy to marry you anytime. Next week, next month, on Valentine's Day …"

"Tony," she gasped, not sure whether she should laugh or cry.

"I mean it. Whenever you want, wherever you want. Even in Vegas."

Angela shifted in her seat, suddenly remembering one little detail she had somehow never filled Tony in on. She would have to wait for the right moment. "Let's not make any decisions now. If the kids ask when, we'll tell them that they will be the first to know."

"Works for me," Tony said. Angela wondered briefly whether that was the truth – maybe Tony really would prefer to make this quick, being Catholic and all?

She looked into her cup of hot chocolate for a moment before lifting her gaze to meet his eyes again. "I think that I would prefer to wait until the second trimester. I suppose that's not very Catholic. But with Jonathan, I was so tired early on, and I would like to feel good on my wedding day. So we can celebrate." She gave him a small smile, and Tony returned it in full.

"Oh, believe me, we will."

ooooooooo

"What are we going to say if the kids ask about the presents?" Angela yawned in the passenger seat of the van. She had lost count of how many times one of them had begun a sentence with 'What are we going to say …' tonight.

"We're having them delivered," Tony said.

"Good idea."

"You know why you hired me."

As soon as the words were out, Angela knew that they had one more issue to tackle, and Tony did, too.

He cleared his throat. "About that."

Angela sat up straighter. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open, the dark landscape that flashed by outside the windows and the streetlights that illuminated the inside of the van at regular intervals were downright hypnotic.

"I'll give my tax accountant a call," she offered through another yawn. "He can run the numbers and talk us through some options."

"That sounds so … businesslike," Tony said.

Angela turned towards him. "I'm sorry. It's just – I think we're going to need some help to come up with the best solution here."

Tony sighed, and even in the half-darkness, Angela could see the muscles in his jaw working.

"No, I get it. I mean, I guess I would like to keep my and Samantha's insurance and everything. But I gotta say, I can't stand the idea of mooching off of you if I stop being your housekeeper, but you still pay for everything. But I also don't want to be working for you while we're in a relationship. Let alone as soon as we're married. Not even on paper. And I can't find another job that pays even half of what I make now until after I graduate."

"Tony!" Angela said, shocked. "You wouldn't be mooching, no matter what we decide to do. Say you stop working for me, and you continue to go to school full-time, and I cover … some of the cost. That's not so unusual. Couples all over America do that for each other. And it wouldn't be forever. Only until you graduate. Or I could lend you the money, if that would make you feel better."

He sighed. "I don't know, Angela."

"Is it because usually it's the other way around?" she asked, afraid of the answer.

"No." Another heavy sigh. "Well, maybe."

Angela leaned back against the headrest. "How can it be alright for you to take a job as my housekeeper, but not for us to help each other as spouses?" she asked softly.

Tony was silent for a long while. "I don't know, Angela. It just … it's different. I guess I'm realizing, no matter what we do, you're always going to be the breadwinner, while I'll be making crumbs."

"Tony, money isn't everything."

"I know. But … it's tough. I'm never going to catch up with you. Whatever type of career I choose, it's never going to lead me anywhere near where you are. And now you're pregnant, and it feels- it feels kind of shitty, to be honest. Not that you're pregnant! But how little I can do for you. I clean the house, and I go to school, and I try not to mess up on my exams, while you're doing all the heavy lifting at the Agency and having our baby. This is a difficult one for me, Angela."

"I can tell," she said quietly, floored by his outburst and not entirely sure where this left them. Unbidden tears were beginning to bite at her eyes, and she tried to wipe them away as inconspicuously as possible, but of course Tony noticed.

"Are you crying?" he asked without taking his eyes off the road as he maneuvered the van onto the offramp for Fairfield.

Angela exhaled. "No."

"Yes, you are," he said gently.

She sniffled. "Tony, I don't agree with what you said, but I'm really tired and I don't think it makes much sense for us to continue this now. We shouldn't have started talking about this in the car."

"Maybe not," he agreed. "But we did. And now you're crying."

Angela wiped her eyes again. "I don't know what else to say. I can tell you again and again that it doesn't matter to me how much money you make. That I love you because you're … you. I would want to be with you even if you mowed lawns in Central Park. I don't care."

"But I do," he said.

"I know. And that's why you're going to school, and I admire you for it. I've never been happier in my life than during our years together. But I can't change the facts. And I really, really don't want to fight with you tonight."

They were driving through their neighborhood now, seconds away from home. Tony's hand reached for hers across the middle console. "I don't want to fight, either. But I also don't want to lie to you. But most of all, I didn't mean to upset you like this. I'm sorry, Angela."

"Thank you," she breathed. "And I'm sorry that I don't always get how difficult this must be for you."

"How about we sleep on it? All the kids have to know on Sunday is that things will change one way or another," he said when they pulled into the driveway. "And you have your guy crunch the numbers when he's next available?"

"I'm going to give him a call."

"Good. We're going to work this out."

ooooooooo

Even though they had technically made up in the van, things between her and Tony felt a little strained for the rest of the night.

Luckily, both of the kids were upstairs already and wrapped up in their own activities when they looked in on them. Jonathan was playing with his chess computer, and Sam was painting her nails and talking on the phone.

"Did Dad tell you? I'm coming back tomorrow," she shout-whispered at Angela.

Angela nodded. "He told me, honey. I'm glad. We'll talk tomorrow, okay?"

Sam gave her a thumbs-up before turning away from the door and screeching "No way!?" into the phone.

Angela tried to do some reading in her study while Tony excused himself to the garage for a late-night workout. But the evening's heightened emotions, in combination with a rising tide of pregnancy hormones, had taken their toll on Angela, zapping her energy. The letters kept dancing in front of her eyes.

The light in the garage was off, and she heard water running upstairs when she decided to head up to bed as well. As she was drifting off to sleep, she wondered whether Tony had planned on saying good night to her, or if they were keeping their distance for now. Normally, she would have waited up to check on him after his shower, but she was so, so tired.

Suddenly she heard Tony's secret knock on her door (it was really more of a scratching sound, extremely quiet), but her limbs felt like lead, and she hoped that he would come in on his own. After another scratch, the door opened, and Tony snuck inside.

"Sweetheart," he whispered.

"Tony," she smiled at him. Already half asleep, she lifted the blanket and motioned for him to come in, which he did.

Tony snuggled up to her, the big spoon to her little spoon again, and the last thing she registered were his lips on the back of her neck.

ooooooooo

Next door, Sam stood with her back pressed against the wall, unable to believe what she had just witnessed peeking through her slightly open door.

A/N: Some heavy lifting in this one. I needed to address some of the more fundamental questions, and since Tony and Angela have limited alone time at the moment, they had to do (almost) all of it in one go.