The Family Way- Chapter Two

***

"Daddy, this is Angel." Buffy announced two evenings later. Anthony looked up from his paperwork, outwardly over the death of his son.

"Angel?" He asked.

"He's uh... My boyfriend." Buffy said with a smile. They were standing in his office, Angel doing his best to look like the nervous boyfriend. In reality, he was checking the room for potential bug locations.

"Hello, sir." He said to Anthony, who merely glared suspiciously at Angel.

"How long have you been seeing my daughter?" He demanded.

"Uh, little over three weeks, sir."

"I had invited him for dinner earlier, but after..." Buffy trailed off, unable to verbalise Sonny's death. Anthony nodded with understanding at his daughter.

"You'll be staying for dinner?" He asked Angel. Angel nodded.

"With your permission, sir." Anthony just nodded again and turned back to his papers, a sign that the conversation was over.

***

Buffy gave Angel the grand tour of the house and the gardens.

"What are they?" He pointed to a cluster of smaller houses and buildings as they wandered through the grounds of the compound.

"That's Sonny's house...." She choked back a sob when she pointed to the largest of the houses. "Daddy gave it to him after he and Genovetta got married."

"What about that one?"

"That's Spike's house."

"Spike?"

"He's my bodyguard."

"What's his surname?" Angel asked intending to do a full background check on every person she named.

"Liotta. William Liotta." She clarified for him. "You'll find a lot about Spike." She added knowingly.

"What about Genovetta?" He asked.

"What about her?"

"Is she involved?" Buffy laughed loudly. Angel was confused. "What did I say?"

"You really don't know anything about the Mafia, do you?"

"Yes." Angel countered hotly, annoyed that his knowledge was being questioned.

"Yeah right. If you knew anything about them, you'd know that wives are always the last to know everything. Women aren't Mafiosi, Angel. They get married, they have children, they raise children, they cook for their men, they get beaten by their men, they turn a blind eye to everything and that's the way it's been for a thousand years." She told him.

"Has anyone beaten you?" He demanded, worry filling him. She laughed again.

"No, no. They only beat their wives. Daughters, sisters, they're sacred beings to be protected." She said, a little sarcasm creeping into her voice.

"Oh."

"You really should watch The Godfather." Buffy advised. "All three parts. Or read the book or something. You're so concerned with the criminal aspects of it all, but that's not all there is. This is a way of life, a society in itself. To understand their crime, you have to understand how they live, how they think."

"Why do you talk about 'them'? Aren't you a part of it?"

"I don't think so! I live here, but I'm a civilian. Everyone knows that."

"Right." Angel said, adding yet another fact to his increasingly long list.

"I don't want to be a part of all this. I'm not going to marry some mafia hood and be like Genovetta. Did you know that she might end up going back to Italy?"

"She's actually Italian?"

"Sicilian, like my mother. She met Sonny when he went on business to her father's home. They fell in love, and he brought her back here. Just like my parents. But now he's dead, the only thing keeping her here are her children."

"How many children do they have?"

"Two. Daniella is five and Antonio is three."

"Antonio and Daniella."

"My parents' names." She reminded him. He nodded. She checked her watch.

"Time for dinner." She told him, taking his hand and leading him back into the house.

***

"What are you studying, Angel?" Anthony asked over dinner. The family was sat around the table tucking into large, steaming bowls of, appropriately, Angel hair spaghetti.

"I'm an Art History major."

"Really? What do you intend to do with Art History when you graduate?"

"Well, sir, I'm not really sure. I'd like to work at a gallery of some kind."

"How interesting." Anthony said in a patently false tone. "Where are you from in the world?"

"Steubenville, Ohio. But my family originally came from Naples."

"Naples? I've always loved Naples." Anthony said, genuinely interested in the conversation for the first time.

"Buffy tells me that your family is from Sicily." Angel commented.

"Originally. A century ago, in fact. I always considered us to be from New York." Anthony told him.

For a long time, Anthony had played down their Sicilian roots to outsiders in an attempt to deflect any mafia accusations.

"Angel lived in New York for a time." Buffy told her father. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him.

"How old are you?" He demanded.

"Uh, twenty seven, sir."

"Isn't that a little old for my nineteen year old daughter?"

"Daddy..." Buffy began.

"No sir. I think it's down to Buffy what constitutes too old." Angel said calmly. Anthony's eyes flashed angrily, but he remained composed.

"Quite. We shall have to see." Anthony said, smiling tightly at his guest.

"You have any family, Angel?"

"Yes sir. Two sisters and a brother."

"Parents?"

"My father died some years ago. My mother lives in Steubenville."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear about your father." Anthony said sincerely. Buffy looked at Angel.

Was he making it up about his father, or was he really dead? The neutral look on Angel's face didn't give him away, and it struck her how well matched her father and Angel were. Neither gave an inch during the conversation, neither conceded and neither ever raised their voice. In many ways, she realised, Angel would have made an excellent Mafia Don. Certainly better than her hot-headed brother Sonny. At that slightly disloyal thought, she said a prayer for her brother's soul.

***

"You did very well." Buffy said to Angel as they sat outside after dinner. "Much better than the last one."

"Last one?"

"The last boyfriend I brought home. I was a sophomore at the time. My father and brothers grilled him to within an inch of his life." Then, she hurriedly added

"Metaphorically speaking, of course."

"Of course." Angel echoed. Buffy glared at him.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"What?"

"You think my family are animals! You think that they're nothing more than killers! How dare you! You don't know anything about my family." She hissed, trying to keep her voice low.

"You're right. I don't." Angel told her. "But that's what I'm here for. I don't know why you and your brother came to me, but I'm here to find the truth." He remained calm, and this in turn had an effect on Buffy, who calmed a little.

"I'm sorry. But my father isn't a killer. That's why I came to you."

"Why did Danielo come to me?"

"To prove the opposite." She sighed sadly. "He thinks Daddy killed my mother."

"Why does he think that?"

"Because of what she said just before she died. Danny was the only one with her. And me, but I was only a baby."

"What did she say?" Angel asked. Buffy stood abruptly.

"The flowers smell beautiful, don't they?" She said, firmly changing the subject.

"Yes." Angel sighed, knowing he wouldn't get anything out of her about it now.

"Why do they call you Buffy? That's not your name."

"Yes it is." Buffy sat back down, satisfied with the subject change.

"Nadezhda. That's your name. It says on every file we have. And more importantly, on your birth certificate."

"Nadezhda Buffy Mariarosa Cesca Crocetti." She reeled off her full name.

"My first name is Russian, not Italian. It was the name of my mother's most beloved friend, a girl in Sicily who had come from St. Petersburg. She died in childbirth in Sicily just before Danny was born. My mother promised herself that her first daughter would be named after her. But my father said it was a horrid name for a little girl. Buffy was the name of another friend, here in America. Mariarosa is the name of my godmother, Cesca is the name of my great-grandfather's sister and the name given to our olive oil company. I became Buffy simply because my father wouldn't call me Nadezhda. Therefore, nobody else did." She smiled. "I told you it was a long story."

"It's just... Your name seems out of place here. Buffy isn't a typical Italian name."

"I know. But it's still better than Nadezhda." Buffy laughed.

"I should probably go."

"Hmm. Probably." Buffy said. "I'll see you at UCLA tomorrow?"

"Yes. In the afternoon." He told her. They got up and walked through the gardens towards his car.

"Bye." Angel said softly. Buffy smiled.

"Goodnight." She watched him drive away, the smile still on her face as she turned away to go inside.

***

"He didn't kiss you goodnight?" Anthony asked. He was standing by the door.

"No. He probably thought that you'd kill him if he did." She joked. Anthony glared.

"What does he think we are?"

"He thinks that we're a family rich from a successful olive oil business, Daddy."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. He doesn't have a clue about the rest. And I don't plan on telling him."

"You like him a lot, don't you?"

"What?"

"You have the same look I saw on your mother's face when we got married."

"Oh." Buffy looked at the ground, her face flushed. Well, at least her father bought into the relationship.

"I like him." Anthony commented as he led her inside the house. "He's too old for you, but I like him."

"You do?"

"He's intelligent, level headed. I could use more people like him."

"Don't!" Buffy said suddenly.

"What?" Anthony looked confused. "Don't what?"

"Don't even think about it! He's not one of us, don't get him involved."

"I wouldn't even consider it. I was simply musing that I could do with more people with brains like his."

"Oh."

"You really are smitten, aren't you, bella?" Anthony laughed before fixing her with a glare.

"You'll be careful."

"What! Of course! What kind of girl do you think I am?"

"A good girl." Anthony said with a benevolent smile. "Night, bella." He kissed her on the forehead before heading into his study. Then Buffy headed up the stairs to bed, deep in thought.

***

Angel was being followed, just as he expected to be. So he purposely stopped in a supermarket parking lot and went inside. His sister told him to get milk anyway. He managed to lose the shadow not long afterwards, but drove for a while longer just in case.

While he drove, he thought about the case. How could Buffy still love her father, knowing who he was and what he was, what he did? How could she mourn a brother who once beat another man to death with his bare hands? Perhaps more importantly, how could she defend them? Angel truly didn't understand her. Her words echoed in his head.

"You think that they're nothing more than killers!".

He did think that. He thought that the Crocetti crime family were killers. He paused in his thought. The Crocetti crime family. That's how they were referred to. What if the family and the crime family were two entirely different things?

After all, Buffy was clearly not a criminal, she was, as she put it, a civilian. How did one decide who was who? As he considered this, he saw the glowing yellow of a Blockbuster Video sign. He pulled into the parking lot and went inside. He came out moments later with The Godfather Trilogy. Then, he headed straight home.

"Angel! You're so late, is everything OK?" His sister came rushing to the front door of their home as he came in.

"Everything is fine, Dru. Where's Gunn? Faith?"

"Upstairs. What's that?" She pointed to the pile of videos in his arms.

"Homework." He said with a wry smile. Then he settled down to watch.

***

Dawn was breaking when the last frame of the last movie ended. Angel yawned heavily and rubbed his tired eyes. At least he didn't need to meet Buffy until after lunch. He was fairly sure he understood more now. He was also more confused. How could he have felt bad when the eldest son was killed? And even feel sorry when the middle son was killed? How could he feel sympathy for the family? They were criminals and should be treated as such.

The lines were becoming blurred and Angel hated that. He had always seen the world in shades of black or white, and the greys in between were now visible, leaving him perplexed.

"You still up?" Gunn said, coming downstairs.

"Yeah. Watching The Godfather."

"Oh. Good movie."

"Do... Gunn, do you like the Corleones?"

"Not even. They're killers. Just like the Mafia sons of bitches who killed my parents."

"Yeah." Angel nodded, remembering the circumstances of how Charles Gunn came to be adopted by his parents.

Gunn had been six years old when his parents were approached by a group looking to take over their successful textile company. They refused and just a week later they were found by the Coastguard. Angel suddenly felt rather uncomfortable and a little guilty. He stood up abruptly.

"I'd better get some sleep." He announced to no one in particular, and left Gunn standing there alone, wondering had gotten into him.

***

"Buffy!" She turned, expecting to see Angel. She instead saw the dark haired girl, Faith coming towards her.

"Hello Faith," She called as the girl approached.

"How are you today?"

"I'm well. You?"

"Five by five." Faith grinned and began asking questions about their 19th Century History class. Buffy answered, but found herself automatically searching the quad for Angel.

"Angel?" Buffy looked up. She hadn't spoken, had she?

"Faith?" Angel's voice came over, loud and clear. Buffy looked behind her to see Angel standing a foot away, looking confused.

"What are you doing here?" Faith demanded of Angel.

"I might ask the same question."

"Do you two know each other?" Buffy asked. Faith looked at Buffy's confused face and laughed.

"Angel is my brother. Do you know Angel?"

"Uh..." Buffy paused. What was she meant to say?

"We've been dating for three weeks." Angel cut in smoothly.

"And you didn't think to tell your little sister you've been seeing a college girl? Angel, I'm ashamed of you!" She said in a mock-angry tone.

"Yeah, yeah." Angel said, sitting beside Buffy. Something seemed to occur to Faith as she thought about it, and she suddenly stood up.

"I have to go now. Angel, can I speak to you? Now." She said, moving out of Buffy's earshot.

"Do you know who she is, Angel?" Faith hissed. Angel laughed.

"Of course I know."

"So you know she's Buffy Crocetti? You know, the Crocettis, the family you work day and night to put behind bars?"

"Yes, I know that."

"What the Hell is going on, then?"

"I can't tell you that. I have the situation under control." Faith glared, unbelieving. "I'll try to explain later, OK? You have to trust me." Angel said, his dark eyes boring into her.

"Fine. But you'd better explain when you get home." Faith told him. He nodded.

"I have to meet Dru. I'll see you later." She said, slinging her bag over her shoulder and stalking away.

"Is everything OK?" Buffy asked him when he sat back down.

"She knows who you are."

"Oh."

"She wanted to know if I knew what I was doing."

"Will you tell her about, you know, the case?"

"I might have to. At least that way she'll know to keep quiet."

"Oh. Good."

"Do you have class now?" He asked.

"No. I don't have anything for the rest of the day."

"Right. In that case, I think a history lesson is in order."

"History? I've just been in History!" Buffy said.

"No, this time you're the teacher. I'd like to learn the history of the Crocetti family."

"Fine." Buffy sighed. "You look tired. Are you getting enough sleep?"

"I watched the Godfather Trilogy last night."

"Oh. You really shouldn't do it all in one go."

"Thanks for the advice," Angel said wryly, stifling a yawn. "Now, where do we begin?"

***

Some time later, they were still sat at the table and Buffy had begun to tell him about her childhood.

"It says in our file that you and Danny ran away." Buffy grimaced.

"Yeah. I was thirteen, Danny was eighteen."

"Why did you run away?"

"Because Danny persuaded me to."

"Why?"

"He said I was in danger and that he would look after me. We got as far as... New Mexico before Daddy's men caught up with us. They brought us back and we got in a Hell of a lot of trouble."

"Trouble?"

"We were grounded for, like, ever." Buffy said. "Danny had to promise that he'd never do it again, and Daddy made Spike my bodyguard."

"Spike. Do you trust him?"

"Sure." Buffy said seriously. "He's protected me for six years. He's been with the family even longer. He even saved me from being snatched."

"Snatched?"

"When I was at private school, another family tried to kidnap me to use me as some sort of bargaining tool. Spike stopped them. That was scary."

"That's the only time you've been involved in, uh, family business?"

"Yeah. Daddy made it clear that anyone who tried to involve me would lose their kneecaps. Or something." Buffy laughed. Angel didn't laugh.

"You do realise that I'm going to have to investigate everyone?" He asked. She looked down at the floor and nodded.

"I'm going to have to ask you a lot of questions that you won't want to answer. But I need you to tell the truth."

"I know." She said quietly. "I wouldn't have come with Danny if I wasn't prepared to do this." She looked up at him.

"What?"

"You have to keep me safe once everything takes off. The mafia have never looked kindly on informers, whether they inform another family or the police."

Angel nodded and took her hand. He looked directly into her eyes.

"Do you trust me?" He asked. She looked into his dark eyes and saw something. She wasn't sure exactly what it was, but it comforted her. Yes, she trusted him.

"I do." She nodded.

"I'll keep you safe. I promise." Angel said solemnly, not tearing his gaze away from hers.

"Oi!" Spike's voice cut in. Buffy looked up abruptly. Spike was leaning against his car waiting. She sighed with relief. He was too far away to have heard her.

"Hello Spike." She called back. "Hey, Angel, how would you like to come to my house?" She said as if asking anyone on a date.

"I'd love to, Buffy." He smiled back. They stood up, and for Spike's benefit they walked over hand in hand before Angel followed them in his car to the Crocetti compound.

***

Buffy and Angel once again took advantage of the good weather to walk in the gardens of the Crocetti compound.

"Do you like your life?" Angel asked.

"I guess. Better than living on the streets or something."

"True."

"My great-grandfather only got into the business because he wasn't able to support his family any other way in New York. In Italy they sold olive oil legitimately. They weren't rich, but they were honest." She said, and Angel could hear the defensive tone in her voice.

"I understand." Off her look, he continued. "I do, really."

"Yeah, how?"

"My family came from Ireland. They were forced to leave Galway during the potato famine." Buffy looked lost.

"During the 1840s, there was a famine in Ireland when the potato crop failed. Thousands left Ireland for Britain or America. My family went to Britain first. They couldn't find any work there, so they came to America, to New York. It was hard."

"I'll bet."

"My father did some historical research during his youth. He discovered that the family was living in Five Points at one time."

"Oh. That's the slum, right?"

"Yeah. They ended up going to Boston, then someone in the family set up some sort of jewellery import company between Boston and Galway City. Eventually, by the time my father was born, the family was well off. Not rich, but well off."

"Hmm. I guess if Primo had just traded olive oil, we would be the same. But in Little Italy at the turn of the century, one couldn't just trade. You had to get permission from whoever was in power at the time. My great- grandfather chose to be master of his own destiny." The defensive note was back in her voice.

"I don't blame you, I don't even blame him. But the fact is, the world isn't like that. The way your father does business is obsolete."

"How would you know how my father does business?" She shot back, angry now.

"It's my job." Angel said quietly, several conflicting emotions flowing inside him. He stood up.

"I should go now." He said, still keeping his voice quiet. He stood up and began to walk away, irrational sadness filling him. Why should he be so distressed at her anger?

He shut his eyes for a moment and prayed fervently that he wasn't falling in love with the girl whose duty it was to protect. The girl whose father it was his duty to one day arrest.

***

The thing which confused Angel most was Buffy's defence of her father's business. Surely she understood that their way of life wasn't the norm? Surely she realised that not every wife was beaten, not every husband was killed? Surely she understood that this wasn't the Italian way of life any more than it was the American?

He had done so much research into it all now that his head was beginning to burst. His research had been completely exhausting. So far he had limited himself to facts, FBI files crammed only with bare statistics of convictions, murders and robberies. What the files did not show, however, were the reasons why.

Now he had looked into history and found the origins of the Mafia. Instead of discovering a deeply entrenched system of law enforcement that had been in place for a thousand years, as Buffy believed, he had discovered that the Mafia had existed only since the 19th Century when the people of Sicily had needed protection from the rich landowners and pezzonovante of their island.

Quickly of course, the people who began the Mafia had become just as rich and just as corrupt as the men they were meant to protect the Sicilian people from. Now there were hundreds dead from vendettas and the law of omerta- silence.

Whatever the Americans who lay claim to the legacy of the Mafia imagined it was, they were incorrect. Angel realised that Buffy had no idea, that it wasn't the birthright of her family to beat their wives or kill business rivals. The Crocetti family gave Italians a bad name just as the current incarnation of the IRA gave Irish people a bad name. Genovetta had no reason to have allowed Sonny to beat her- it was not 'the way it was'.

It wasn't Italians who had strange ways of looking at the world, it was this one community of villains. Angel realised that, however well dressed Antonio Crocetti was in his silk suits and fedoras, however charming he might be, he was still a villain. He might not do the killing himself, but he was still a murderer.

Again Angel draw parallels with the Irish: Only a tiny minority of them shot each other, planted Semtex in rubbish bins and buses, yet the IRA were to many, the personification of the Irish. He understood now how Buffy had come to be as she was: torn between loyalty to her family and rejecting them out right. He suspected that Buffy questioned her family's way, but only privately. It was hard to reject the teachings of childhood even if it seemed the right thing to do.

Angel hoped that, by coming to him, she had begun the probably painful process of leaving her family behind.

***

A month almost to the day after Sonny was murdered, Anthony called Buffy into his office. Fear that he'd discovered Angel's true identity made her heart pound as she entered the inner sanctum of America's most powerful man.

"Daddy?"

"Bella, sit down." He said in a somewhat serious tone.

"Is everything OK?" She asked, heart still pounding.

"Yes, I just wanted to talk to you."

"OK." She said, anticipating whatever he had to say. But instead, he paused.

"Do you remember how you used to bring your toys in here and play? No matter who I had in here, you refused to leave. I even had the Gottis in here and still you didn't go. You were never scared of the men in suits who came to see me."

"I knew that you'd protect me." Buffy told him in that simplistic way that a child has of trusting their parent implicitly. Anthony smiled.

"Bella." He sighed. "I won't always be here to protect you."

"I know that."

"I hope Angel can."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, you seem rather serious. He's here almost every evening now. I just hope that he can protect you. Buffy, no matter how much you distance yourself from the family, you will always be a Crocetti. And I'm worried that one day you will unprotected and someone will get to you."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm thinking... That Angel might be a good man to have in the family." Anthony said.

"Are you insane?"

"What? To ask an intelligent young man if he wants a good job?"

"Not just a good job! A job working for you! Angel.... Angel is a good guy!"

"Aren't I a good guy?" Anthony asked, although he dreaded the answer.

"Daddy.... You're the best. But I haven't ever wanted a part of your business. What makes you think I'd let you take the one guy I care about so you can groom him into your successor?"

"What?"

"That's the reason, isn't it? You wouldn't drag him into the whole sordid business just to run a numbers racket in Redondo Beach, would you?" Anthony hung his head.

"No. No I wouldn't."

"You want to make my boyfriend into Sonny."

"No I do not!" Anthony said, raising his voice ever so slightly. "I wouldn't want to unleash yet another Santino on the world."

"Daddy. Don't do this."

"Won't you at least let me talk to him?" Anthony asked her. She sighed.

"Fine." She jumped up from her chair and left without another word.

***

"It's a good idea Buffy." Angel said the very next day. She had told him all about her father's plan.

"What?"

"This way I can get in and find out who killed your mother. And who killed your brother."

"Yeah right. You just want to get evidence so you can throw my father in San Quentin for the rest of his life." Buffy almost growled at him.

"No. Buffy..."

"Don't lie, Angel. You took this case to get my father."

"At first. Then I realised that there's more at stake. More to lose."

"Yeah, like what?"

"You, silly." He said with a laugh, bringing her closer to him. He planted a feather light kiss on her forehead. Unbeknownst to him, Buffy's heart skipped a couple of beats at that one.

"Fine."

"You're all right with this?"

"No. But I'll tell him you're interested anyway." Buffy sighed unhappily.

"Thank you." Angel fixed her firmly in his gaze. "I don't want to throw your father in San Quentin. Really, I don't. I'm here to solve the murders of your mother and brother."

"You do know that if they find you out, they'll kill you."

"They won't find out." Angel said winningly. "They might be good at cover ups and making people disappear and appear. But we're better at it."

"If you're careful."

"I promise."

***

And so, the very next day, Buffy took Angel to Anthony's office. With real dread in her heart, which she couldn't quite identify, she allowed them to speak alone. What followed amazed Angel. Even he, an FBI agent assigned to the Crocetti case for nearly two years, had no idea how far the crime empire stretched, or just how much there was to it.

"My daughter cares for you a great deal, Angel." Anthony said after finishing the virtual tour of the organisation.

"Yes, sir. I care..."

"Don't bother, I know. My point is that you will be careful." Anthony said. "You will take all kinds of precautions because if you get yourself killed, my daughter will be sad. And I make it the policy of this family not to make my daughter sad. Understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Dinner tonight?"

"Well, yes sir."

"Good. My son Alessandro is home from New Orleans again."

"I look forward to meeting him."

"Good. You can find Buffy now." Anthony smiled warmly at Angel, who then went off to find her.

***

She was in her mother's rose garden again when Angel found her.

"Hi."

"Hello." She said flatly. "Enjoying the criminal side of life?"

"Not so far. But I've been invited to meet your brother Alessandro over dinner."

"Good. Xander's a good guy." She said.

"Xander?" He asked. "You people have too many names."

"Well, if you were at school and people made fun of your long Italian name, you'd find a nickname, wouldn't you?"

"Well, I don't know. Angel's so masculine I never had a problem." He said dryly. She laughed at that one.

"True."

"I'm sorry the twist this has taken. But if I'm involved, I don't have to find excuses to be here."

"Oh, I'm an excuse?" She said hotly.

"I didn't mean that. I meant being here snooping around."

"Fine. I get it. I mean, I am just an excuse. I just... Forgot."

"Well..." Angel sighed. "So did I."

"What?"

"I forgot this was just meant to be all show. I..." He trailed off. He fished around in his pocket. He pulled out a small box.

"I got you something."

"What?"

"Open it." He instructed. She did so. Inside was a sparkling gold Claddagh ring.

"It's...." She had no words.

"It's a Claddagh ring. It originated in Galway and was one of the first things my great-grandfather sold in his shop. It's one of the family's biggest sellers here." He said proudly.

"It's beautiful."

"The crown represents loyalty. The hands represent friendship." He paused nervously.

"And the heart?"

"The heart represents love." He said, looking down at the ground, feeling all the world like a schoolboy.

He found it hard to pinpoint exactly when he'd fallen in love with the girl he was meant to protect. Perhaps it was the moment when he ceased protecting her because it was his job, but because he wanted to keep her safe.

"Thank you." She managed to say.

She couldn't pinpoint exactly when she'd fallen in love with the man who would probably arrest her father one day. Perhaps it was the moment in which she hoped he was protecting her not because it was his job, but because he wanted to.

"You're welcome." He said. Then, deciding he really should seize the moment, he leaned in and kissed her.

***