Anam Cara

Part 12

By Gem

The page of the magazine crackled as she turned it over, creating a strangely loud sound in the silent apartment.  Buffy smoothed the glossy picture flat as she stared unseeingly into the model's heavily made-up eyes.

Another quiet day loomed large in front of her.  Doyle and Cordelia had already left, trying to give their hosts some time alone.  She and Angel would use the time to train, and later she would go out to get more groceries.  The gang would come over in the afternoon, and Doyle would keep Angel company as she and the rest of the troops helped Giles stock his new store.  Then, when the sun had set, it was time for dinner with Mom and Dad.  If they were lucky, they would spot a vamp or two on their post-dinner patrol.

This was not a slayer's life.  Well, except for the patrol part, and maybe the training.  But it was the silence of it that bothered her.  She loved knowing what Angel was thinking, but she didn't want to do everything with him without even discussing it because they did the same thing every day.  That was just a little too normal and humdrum for her, but it seemed to be the way Angel felt safest right now.

She missed the sound of his voice.  From the night they first met, he had captured her heart with that soft, serious, and yet slightly flirtatious voice.  But the past four days he had spoken very little, and it was starting to worry her.  No, they were beyond the starting gate; she was worrying at full gallop.

A knock on the door interrupted her grim thoughts.  She hurried to answer it (wouldn't want to disturb the lovely silence, now; would we? her inner voice mocked her) and found her friends assembled on the doorstep.

"Hey Buff," Xander said easily.  "We thought we'd get an early start today so we can go out and party tonight."  He started to shimmy into her apartment, showing off his dance steps, but his plans were quickly derailed by Cordelia.

"You are so not going to embarrass me in public by dancing like that," she commanded, catching hold of a swinging arm just before it connected with her shoulder.

"He's not an embarrassment to you," Anya snapped.  "He's my boyfriend now, and I'm the one he embarrasses in public."  She made a great show of pushing Cordelia's hand off of her boyfriend.

Cordelia shrugged.  "You said it; I didn't."

"Ladies, please," Doyle pleaded as he followed Cordelia into the apartment.  "We want a nice friendly outing.  A bit of fun to celebrate your Mr. Giles finally getting his store stocked, and us not having to help anymore."  He glanced over at Buffy and quickly added, "And of course, Buffy's dad being almost a hundred percent again is another reason to break out the bubbly."

Buffy considered the offer.  An evening out, a break in the routine, might be just what Angel needed to shake him free of his dark thoughts.  Or at least free enough to share them with her; she would settle for that.

"Well, I'm not sure Angel will go for it," she said doubtfully, "but I'll give it the old Slayer try."

"Withhold sex from him if he does not comply with your wishes," Anya advised her seriously.  "It always works on Xander."

A dull wash of red crept up Xander's throat and across his face as all eyes turned to him.

"Buffy, could you pick up the pace with the persuading?" he whined.  "Some of us need to find a nice noisy place to have a little chat about the rules of Show and Tell."

"I will withhold sex," Anya warned him.

Buffy smiled reluctantly as Xander groaned.  "I'll try to hurry," she promised her long-suffering friend.

* * * * *

She slipped quietly into the kitchen, keeping her eyes carefully fixed on Angel as he mechanically moved from dishwasher to cupboard and back again.  The same number of measured steps from one end of the kitchen to the other; the same single swipe of the dishtowel along the outside of whatever utensil he retrieved.  Over and over, like his body could operate independently of the mind locked inside of it.

He had been doing pretty much everything by rote the past four days. 

The first day after Drusilla's death, he had seemed a little lost, but still better than she expected.  But somehow the more time passed; the further away he seemed to drift into his own thoughts.  Physically he was never very far from her, yet she felt the silence growing between him and the rest of the world.

"Angel," she said after a few minutes observation, "the gang is here.  We thought maybe tonight we could go out and celebrate Giles' new shop, and my dad being out of the hospital.  Now that Oz's 'time of the month' has passed and all."

He stopped his mindless repetitive motion long enough to blink at her.  "Out?  Sure.  Great."

"Like hell," she flared, catching hold of her temper a moment too late.  'Hell' was not a word thrown around loosely in their home.  Buffy took a deep breath and regrouped.  "Angel, you have to talk to me.  I know killing Dru hit you hard, even harder than we thought it would.  But you can't pull away like this.  I won't let you."  A few quick steps had her at his side, his arm held firmly in her grasp to prevent escape.  "You shared a lot with me about her the other day, all about her death and afterwards.  But that doesn't mean we're done dealing with her, or the rest of the past.  You're the one who always tells me we can't outrun it; now it's time to put up or shut up."

He stared down at her, his dark eyes filled with jagged shards of memories.  "I don't regret what I did to Dru," he answered dully.  "It had to be done.  I just..." with a sigh, he pulled his arm free and dropped into one of the kitchen chairs.

"You just what?" she prompted.  Her hand strayed to the back of his neck, pale and strangely defenseless as it rose from the collar of his sweater.  Her strong fingers massaged his cool skin, bringing him warmth any way she could.

Angel bent his head, allowing her more access to his neck.  It felt so good, so right, to accept her comfort, but the rightness of it made it all the more a guilty pleasure.  Who was he to deserve such blessings, when he had meted out so few himself?

"I just wish I had done it sooner," he admitted, studying his folded hands as they rested in his lap.  "I should have killed her as soon as I regained my soul.  Dru, Spike, Penn...all of them down the line.  I could have saved so many lives if I'd had the guts to face up to my sins."

Her fingers abruptly stilled on his neck, and then both hands reached down to cup his face and gently turn it towards her.

"Hey, who died and made you me?"

He stared at her, his brow creased with confusion.  "I don't..."

"Last I knew, there was only one vampire slayer in this family," she continued firmly.  "Did I miss a meeting?"

"They were my responsibility," he insisted.  "I made vampires, who killed God knows how many people and who also created vampires, and then those vampires went on to kill more people and create more vampires and..."  He drew in a ragged breath.  "I should have ended the cycle a long time ago.  But they were my...well, sick as it sounds, they were my legacy.  Proof that I existed.  I couldn't make myself give that up."

"Honey, you were barely keeping body and soul together for most of the last hundred years, no pun intended."  Her hands fell away from his face to caress his shoulders as she turned and slid onto his lap.  "If you want to start rounding them up now, then great; we'll start tomorrow night.  But I'm not going to let you beat yourself up because the first thought your newly restored soul came up with wasn't 'kill vampires.'  I don't think that's why you're here."

"Then what do we do day after day?" he asked wearily. 

"We kill vampires," she allowed him, "but we also go after a whole smorgasbord of other creepy crawlies without fangs.  I may be a vampire slayer, but the past few years have taught me there are actually worse things in the world than O-pos junkies."

"My father always lectured me on taking responsibility for my failures.  I disappointed him so many times in life because I refused to do that, but I can't run away anymore.  It's time I faced up to what I did.  Me, not just the demon."

"Angel, from what I heard in that dream, your dad came down on you for pretty much everything," she said gently. 

"That wasn't him, it was just my memory of him," he reminded her.

"And you are the most generous, forgiving person I know," she countered.  "So if that's the way you remember him, I don't even want to think about how bad he really was."  The corners of her mouth turned down as she remembered more of their shared dream.  "For that matter, I think it's time you traded in those rose-colored Ray Bans and took a good hard awake look at my mom.  The way she talked to you in that dream..."

"She loves you, and she worries about your future," he interjected.  A worried frown creased his own forehead at the thought of causing more dissension between Buffy and Joyce.  "She's supposed to do that. I guess my father must have felt the same about me.  I certainly gave him enough reasons to worry."

"You said yourself that you wanted him to notice you.  I'm guessing he was pretty good at looking past you.  Which is not to say he deserved what the demon did to him," she hastened to add, seeing the objection in his eyes before it reached his lips.  "I'm just saying you might want to take some of his lectures with a grain of salt.  Or maybe the whole saltshaker.  Plus a margarita."

"He was...a product of his time.  And maybe I was too, in my way." 

Trapped in a time and way of life that kept children under their parents' roofs until they married, and bid sons to follow in their father's footsteps regardless of their own natural talents or inclinations.  Maybe there had been another way to escape the boundaries of his life, but at the time drink, and Darla, had seemed like the best bets.

"But you're not stuck in that time, Angel," Buffy reminded him, bringing back from his fruitless musings.  "You've brought little bits of it with you, but you changed your opinions, changed the way you look at people and the way you treat them.  You've learned."  She stroked his cheek gently.  "Do you think he ever would have?"

Part of him wanted to defend his father, to make up for all the suffering he had caused him.  But Buffy expected, and deserved, honesty.

"I don't know," he admitted. 

She thought carefully before she offered her next bit of advice.  Angel had lived with his guilt a long time; it had helped to shape him into the man he now was, and in his own way he cherished it for that very reason.  But she meant what she said in his dream; he couldn't let it hold him back anymore.

"Angel, I never knew your dad.  Obviously."  She grinned self-consciously.  "Maybe he was a good guy who just didn't know how to be a good father; I don't know.  But I do know that you can't put him on some sort of pedestal because you feel guilty for his death.  Just because all saints are dead doesn't mean everybody who's dead gets a little gold ring to hang their hat on."

"He wasn't a saint; I never said that," he protested.  He looked away for a moment, thinking how strange it was to have someone else know the inner workings of his mind so well. "But I'll never really know if I could do better either.  I mean, look at..."

She swiftly laid her hand over his lips.  "Don't even say it," she warned.  "She wasn't a child; she was a demon, sired by another demon for the sole purpose of causing pain.  And I think she did her job really well where you're concerned, so she's not getting any sympathy cards on Father's Day from me."  She paused for a moment.  "Or she wouldn't if she was still here, which she's not, so she really, really won't.  We just need to put her to rest."

"I'm trying, love.  In my own way."

"By brooding night and day?" she asked skeptically.

"Yes, actually."  He smiled gently at her.  "I've got a lot of memories to make sense of.  Most of them aren't pretty."

"Is it getting any better?" she asked wistfully.

"A little."  He shook his head ruefully.  "Maybe you're right; I need to take my ego out of the equation.  For all the thinking I did before I met you, most of it wasn't too clear.  I never really thought about why I wanted them to survive until a few days ago."

"So maybe not going on a killing spree wasn't exactly the non-crime of the century?"  She tilted her head to the side and frowned again, seeming more puzzled than distressed.  "Did I double that negative or triple it?  I lost count."

He allowed a small grin at her blatant attempt to lighten his mood.  "I love you, Buffy Summers, even if you quadruple your negatives."

"Never doubted it for a minute."

He kissed her softly, and thanked the Powers, any Power, that had brought her to him when he needed her the most. 

"I know you're worried about me, and I'm sorry.  Now I know how Doyle's been feeling the past few months, with all of us trying to make him open up when what he really needs is to step back and just be for a while."

She slipped her arms around his neck and pressed against him, digging her chin into his shoulder.  His arms circled her slender body, holding on to her tightly from need, not force of habit; she could feel the difference.  He was still in pain but he was here, in spirit as well as body.

"You could never just be; you think too much.  But when you're ready to think out loud, you know I'm here," she whispered.  "Always."

He kissed her neck lightly, touching the scar with his lips for the first time since that fateful night it was created. 

"I've already told you most of it," he answered.  "Now it's just a matter of living with it."

"You know, the hardest part when you came back from hell wasn't not being able to touch you."  She allowed a small smile as she pulled back to look him in the eye.  "I mean that was hard, but the worst part was not being able to make you feel better about yourself, and about us.  I tried, but I was always afraid if I did too much or said too much that he..."  She stumbled to a halt, but Angel smoothly picked up on her train of thought.

"That I would lose my soul, and become Angelus again." 

It wasn't a question.

Buffy nodded somberly.  "This little voice in the back of my head said if I made you feel too loved or secure, if you ever felt too...happy...about us, that it would start all over again."  She leaned in again and rested her cheek on his shoulder.  Her lips moved gently against his throat as she continued to speak.  "All I wanted to do was make sure you knew exactly how much I loved you, but that was the one thing I couldn't do...then."

* * * * *

Xander Harris was bored. 

Not screaming out loud, 'when-will-this-geometry-class-ever-end' kind of bored, but still sufficiently not diverted to be patient while Buffy retrieved her anti-social boyfriend from the kitchen.

"I say we go, and if they want to catch up after the sun sets, then great," he said for the third time.  A few quick steps took him to the apartment door.  "Who's with me?"

"Xander, sit," Willow said sharply.  "Buffy and Angel will be out in a minute, and then we're all going to try really hard to have happy faces and cheer him up."

"Then we can go out and down a few pints," Doyle added.  "Paint the town red."

"Not a happy color for a town full of vamps," Xander warned.

  Buffy and Angel walked into the living room before Xander could take Doyle up on his suggestion.  The vampire seemed embarrassed by all the eyes that immediately focused on him, and turned to Buffy in confusion.

"Do I have something in my teeth?" he asked, leaning over to whisper in her ear.

"Hey, hey, no kissy-face in front of the kids," Xander said quickly, though a little more sharply than he intended.  "We're getting bored here, guys.  We've had an extra week with the Buffster, and we've spent it cleaning up her mom's house and watching Little Boy Brood do his thing.  Time for a new tune."

Buffy glared at Xander as she gripped Angel's hand tightly.  "I'm sorry we haven't been amusing you, Xander," she snapped.  "Next time we'll try to have the family crisis in LA so you and your shadow puppet friends won't get bored."

"Buffy, it's all right," Angel said soothingly, running his free hand up and down her arm.  "He's right; I've been back to my old self the past few days, and in my case that's not always a good thing."  He faced Xander without anger, remembering the compassion on the boy's face when he offered Angel a helping hand in his lowest moment.  "I know you wanted to spend some more time with Buffy before she left; I'm sorry things got in the way."

Xander was suddenly ashamed of his outburst, especially since it had been brought on by simple boredom rather than any deep-seated feelings.  At least he was pretty sure it was just boredom.  Rather than delve too deeply into the recesses of his own mind and risk turning into another Angel, he chose to deal with the vampire's problems instead.

"So, what inspired the sudden visit from the Ghost of Angel Past?  I mean I know you were wigged by dusting the fair, yet oh-so-freaky, Drusilla, but it can't all be about that."

Angel sat down in the wingback chair Buffy had reserved for him by virtue of threats.  She settled herself on his lap and took the hand that wasn't draped around her waist into her own warm hands. 

"Angel isn't ready to talk a lot about this yet," she said, squeezing his hand to show she understood. 

"Oh, come on, you can give us more than that," Xander whined.  "We might even be able to help." 

At least it would be something to do, he reflected.  Not a fun thing, but something.

"It's not so much about Dru," Angel began with difficulty, forestalling Buffy's further attempts to shield him.  "It's more about me, and why I made her, and why I couldn't destroy her, or any of the others I'm responsible for."  He smiled grimly, certain they wouldn't understand.  "Good or bad, they were my immortality."

"Sort of like children," Willow said slowly.

"The only kind I'll ever have."

He glanced across at Buffy's face, reaching out to her for the courage to go on.  Her hesitant smile grew brighter when she sensed why he was looking at her, and she nodded reassuringly at him.  She knew Angel needed to talk about this; whatever the reason he had for choosing to do it to the group rather than just her, she would respect his decision.

"I thought I could do it better than my father," he continued softly, "and they were my big chance to prove it.  Now I have to face not only what a mess I made with them, but also with my own father." 

"Before the whole, you know, biting thing," Buffy added quickly.

"I was a disappointment to him, and he made sure I knew it every day of my life.  And the more he showed it, the further out of my way I went to justify his opinion.  Even killing him didn't end it, because then I started fighting myself."

Angel closed his eyes and sighed with something akin to relief.  It was done.  The worst part of the confession was over, and now he and Buffy wouldn't have to face any more questions about this.  They would leave him alone to deal in his own time, and eventually he would.  They would, he and Buffy both.  Alone.

"Father issues?" Xander snorted.  "That's what this was all about?  Oh please."

Angel's eyes flew open, staring in confusion at the human who mocked his eternal struggle.

"I'm serious, Xander."

Xander stalked over to Angel and bravely waved an admonishing finger in the older man's face.  "You think you're the only one who's ever had to deal with them?  What, just because you were around before they invented ice cubes, you've cornered the market on dysfunctional families?"  He stepped back a pace and gestured around the room.  "Welcome to Dysfunction Junction, pal."

"Hey!" Cordelia yelped from the sofa.  "The Chases are not dysfunctional; we can't afford to be anymore."  She glanced at Doyle in embarrassment as she mumbled,  "Shrinks cost too much."

"It's all right, Cordy," he said softly, patting her hand.  "I never fancied myself a gigolo."

"As if."  She tossed her head at the very idea.

"As I was saying," Xander said a trifle impatiently, "we're all winners in the dud-dad sweepstakes, not just you.  Look at Cordelia; her father was a crook.  He gave her the boot as soon as he found out crime didn't pay quite well enough to keep the IRS off his back."

"My dad wasn't a crook," Cordelia said defensively. "He just forgot to pay his taxes.  For, umm, a few years."

"Boy, Cor, it's a good thing he didn't lose his money until after your math grade was paid for.  We're talking twelve years here."  Xander held up his wide-open hands.  "Add two little piggies to these and you've got all those pesky 1040s accounted for."

"Xander," Willow said, "you're being a little harsh."

He strolled over to face his oldest friend, his mind feverishly shifting through the remembrances of many years past to support his claims.  In high school it had been easier to hide the bad stuff than face it, but they were adults now, or near enough.  Time to let it all hang out and see who was still around when it was over.

"Am I, Will?  I'm not saying they're the only ones.  My dad is an alcoholic, and that goes double for Mom.  Sometimes triples, if it's been a bad day."  His memory inconveniently chose that moment to serve up a score of memories of those bad days, but he forced himself to continue.  "She's just a weeper, but he prefers the more pro-active side of the stereotype." Xander laughed sharply. "You know, the first four-letter word I learned was 'duck.' In fact, I'm sure in that fun little alternate reality Anya made for Cordelia..."

"Where I died!" Cordelia snapped, turning her ire on the ex-vengeance demon this time rather than Xander.  "Where we all died, except Giles."

"You asked for a Buffy-less Sunnydale, and you got it.  The power of the wish does not include a money-back guarantee." Anya casually shrugged her shoulders. "And it's not like you gave me money anyway."

"In that world," Xander continued in a louder voice, "I'm sure my father was the first one I used as a sippy cup after I was turned. And I bet I loved him to the last drop."

There was a brief moment of silence in the room as everyone absorbed Xander's announcement. 

"You don't know that," Angel said finally.  "You can't."

Xander tapped his head.  "In here, in my memories, no.  But in here," he tapped his chest, "we're talking a bet even Doyle wouldn't lose."

Angel looked at him carefully, seeing for the first time the pain Xander usually hid behind a mask of jokes and smiles. 

"I'm sorry," the vampire said gently.  "I didn't know."

Xander took a deep breath; he had just felt something very strange pass between he and Angel, and it would take some getting used to. There was a peculiar connection between them now, built not only of a common love for the girl who brought them into each other's orbit, but also of shared survival of a dark past.  Suddenly he had something in common with Angel beyond mutual irritation. 

It was definitely freaksome.

"Okay, so where was I?" Xander said, pushing the unexpected moment of male bonding aside for later mulling. 

Much, much later mulling.

"Oh yeah, Willow," he said with relief.  "Her dad doesn't qualify for any 12-step programs, he's honest, and he's still living in the same house with her. Sounds pretty Ozzie Nelson, huh?" Xander watched his oldest friend carefully, hoping she would someday forgive him for his revelation of things shared in confidence. "Of course he's barely said more than 'hi' to her since she told him she wasn't just a lab experiment he and the missus cooked up. In fact, I don't think I've even laid eyes on the guy since freshman year."  He feigned a casual shrug.  "But hey, dads are like that, right?"

Willow blushed as she looked around the room.  "My dad, he...well, he means well, but I'm not exactly the daughter he and my mom planned on when they started charting her ovulation cycles."  She dropped her eyes to stare at Oz's hand, tightly wrapped around her own.  In a stronger voice, she continued, "I think they were thinking a little more Wall Street and a little less wolfsbane."

"Which brings us to Oz." Xander held out his hands, palms turning upwards, to display his next subject.  "Oz's dad kicked him out of the house for being a werewolf.  I ask you," he appealed to his audience, "can you get more prejudiced than that?  And in Sunnydale too; home of the free-range demon and land of the not-so-brave undead."  Xander paused for a beat before nodding at Angel.  "Present company excepted, of course."

"No, he's cool with the werewolf thing," Oz corrected Xander in a mild voice.  "It was when I told him I wanted to be a professional musician that he made me sleep in my van."  He shrugged his shoulders with characteristic aplomb.  "He's an entertainment lawyer."

"Okey-dokey," Xander said hesitantly. "Well, our next contestant is a certain Irish half-demon, and his amazing half-father."  He glanced over at Buffy and Angel, who had been observing the proceedings in silence thus far.  "You can probably tell we've all been doing a lot of quality sharing the past few days.  Doyle's contribution to Story Hour was his deadbeat dad."

"No protests from me on that score," Doyle agreed with a crooked smile.  "The old man was a bum, plain and simple."

"And hey, I know she's not a Scooby, but Angel's good buddy Kate can't stand her Daddy Dearest either," Cordelia offered, throwing someone else's familial dysfunctions to the wolves.  "Might be in the California water or something. Of course we all know that was part of what reminded Angel of...well, never mind."  She shared a secret smile with Buffy as Angel watched in confusion.

"Reminded me of..." he began.

"No, it can't be our water," Willow jumped in.  She knew the joke even if Angel didn't, and she wasn't sure he'd appreciate it right now.  "Buffy, didn't you tell me Giles became a Watcher because his father told him that he had to?" she continued. "It was the family business or something.  This new magick shop is probably the first thing he's gotten to do just because he wants to since college.  I mean, he had to get old before he could be a grown-up; how sad is that?"

"Ooh, and Wesley; do you remember him?" Cordelia looked around the room before she continued, seeing only a few blank looks from the newest members of the gang.  "He never said anything specific, but he made a few comments to me about not liking closets.  He was always talking about his dad at the time, so I think he used to get locked in or something."

Doyle turned slightly in his seat and stared at her.  "And just why did the subject of closets come up between you two?  Who was this Wesley fellow anyway?"

"Big Watcher Geek guy," Anya explained briefly.  "Cordelia thought he was sexy."

Cordelia started to protest, and then thought better of it.  She patted Doyle's knee and offered him her most beguiling smile, complete with fluttering eyelashes. 

"We'll talk later," she promised him.

"That we will, darlin."

Anya turned her attention to her boyfriend.  "Xander, I don't think I have any father issues.  Not that I remember."  She frowned, trying unsuccessfully to dredge up some hint of a memory.  "Of course, he's been dead for eleven hundred years, so I guess if I had any, I won by default."

"That's okay, Anya," Xander reassure her.  "I'm sure you drove him to an early grave."

"Do you really think so?"  She beamed at him, grateful to be included in the group therapy.

Buffy sighed and squeezed Angel's hand.  "Well, my dad and I are doing better now, but I can throw a few issues on the table to cover Anya and I both."

"I'll say, Buff," Xander snorted.  "In the four years since you came to Sunnydale, I've never seen your father before this week.  I have, however, seen you hospitalized twice, dead once, running away from home once, graduating from high school and blowing up a public building.  These are usually billed as classic 'dad' moments."  He dropped on the floor at Anya's feet.  "Well, actually a lot of them are also known as 'cop' moments, but that's beside the point."

"Yeah, well, we're working on the staying in touch thing."

"In any case, I think I've proved my point.  Man, I should have been a lawyer." Xander looked at Angel, hoping somehow he had reached the vampire.  And wondering why it mattered to him that he did.

"So Hamlet, did we poke a hole in the ghost yet?"  Cordelia looked sternly at her best friend and surrogate brother.  "You're not so special just because you had a lousy father.  And don't think killing him gets you any extra sympathy points either, since most of us aren't packing a spare psychotic personality to do our dirty work for us."

Willow smiled brightly.  "Yeah, we lucked out.  Thanks to Buffy.  And you, of course."

Angel felt Buffy's hands wrapped tightly around his; he saw the friendship and concern on each of the faces in the room, and a small tingle began to circulate through his body.  He would never completely reconcile himself to his failures with his family in life, and he would certainly never cast aside his guilt for the way he treated them and so many others after death.  But he had a new chance now, with a family of his own.  No children; that could not be helped.  But he had Buffy, always Buffy, and Cordelia, and Doyle, and now he seemed to have all these other people too.  People he thought were Buffy's friends alone, but who were willing to share their own pain just to make him feel one of them.

He had a family; one even his father would be proud of.

"I didn't do anything," he demurred, "but somehow I lucked out too.  Thanks to Buffy."   The depth of passion in his eyes when he gazed at his lover should, by all rights, have swallowed her whole.

"Okay, I know that look; they're going to go at it again, whether we're here or not. So let's do ourselves a favor and not."  Cordelia leaned over to grab her purse from beside the sofa, inadvertently tilting the sofa cushion upward. 

Doyle saw something small and square beneath the raised cushion and fished it out.  "Hey, what's this?" he asked, tossing the little brown package in the air.

Angel froze.

* * * * *

The small box flew up in the air, carrying all eyes with it.  It was Cordelia's hand that reached it first, however; she snatched it away from Doyle while it was still in mid-air.

"Oh, you've found it!  My little, umm, my...box.  Mine," she emphasized, casting a commanding glance at Angel as she dug her elbow into Doyle's ribs.

"Hey, watch it there, darlin'," he protested. 

"I'm sorry, pumpkin," she cooed, "I guess I'm just a little overexcited because you found my box.  You know; the one we brought from LA with us?"  She transferred her fiery gaze to Doyle, willing him to go along with her clever story.

"Yeah, that sure is one nice piece of cardboard," Xander teased.  "I can see why you were so upset to lose it."

Doyle's startled glance met Cordelia's, and the light bulb almost visibly flipped on behind his eyes.  "Oh, er, yeah, that's right; she was upset all right.  Carried on something fierce about losing it, let me tell you.  On and on she went about her little, umm, thingamajig."

Angel sighed; nothing was going the way he planned.  When he was evil, it used to be so easy to bring his schemes to fruition, but his human soul always managed to get in the way of his sneakier instincts.  Not to mention a guilty conscience that took up all the brain cells he'd used to store the memory of his hiding place.  He'd been searching for that box for days.

"Cordy, Doyle, thanks for the help but it's okay."  He nudged Buffy to stand up so that he could cross over to the couch and take the little package from Cordelia.  "This is actually my box, though what's in it is meant for someone else."

"Angel, what's going on?"  Buffy anxiously scanned his face, alert for signs of distress.  He didn't look angsty, though; he seemed embarrassed more than anything.

Angel gazed down at the box, debating when and where and how to open it.  He'd spent weeks wracking his brain for the right setting, imagining and discarding one scenario after another as insufficiently romantic or memorable.  Not once had he imagined an audience, however; that seemed way down on the romance scale.

"This is not how I pictured this," he grumbled, not even aware he was speaking out loud.

"Pictured what, honey?"

"Yeah, let us in on the joke." Xander settled himself more comfortably against Anya's knee and waited expectantly for the punchline.  "We could all use a laugh right now."

"This isn't a joke," Angel snapped. 

He clenched his fingers tightly around the box, finding comfort in its solidity.  It was real; nothing anyone said could take away its reality, or its meaning.  No one but Buffy, and he was fairly certain what her response would be.

"Angel, man, maybe you should take a walk or something.  You know, just you and Buffy.  Alone."  Now that Doyle understood the problem he had created, he was desperate to fix things.  He had, after all, once been in this same boat himself.  With any luck, he might be again one day.

"Oh, that's a good plan," Cordelia scoffed.  "Ground control to Major Tommy Boy!  Daylight.  Vampire."  She brought her hands together and pushed them upwards and outwards.  "Whoosh."

Buffy was suddenly at Angel's elbow, her troubled hazel eyes fixed on his downturned face.  "What is going on?" she asked quietly.  "Just tell me the truth; that's all I want."

Angel glanced longingly at the door, and all that it protected and barred him from. 

"I wanted to do this right," he said softly, more to himself than to Buffy.  "I wanted it to be special, so that you could have one of those memories you used to talk about.  The perfect moment."  He heaved a sigh as he looked down at her beloved face.  "But I've gone around and around, and I never figured out the right place.  Everywhere that has any meaning to us has good and bad memories attached, and I wanted to put the past behind us.  At least for this moment."

"Angel, you're scaring me," she said flatly.  "Whatever you wanted we can still have.  It's not too late."

"No, it's just in time actually."  He smiled as he resigned himself to an audience, but when he looked deep into her eyes, everyone else disappeared. 

"It has to be now, because this week is almost over."

Now Buffy was truly puzzled. 

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Yeah, what was the deal with the 'now or never' stuff?" Cordelia broke in.

Angel tuned out Cordelia's voice, and everyone else in the room.  He focused solely on Buffy, and trying to make her understand.

"Ever since I've known you, spring has been really tough on us, especially the end of May.  I don't know why, but everything always falls apart right about this time every year, just like clockwork." He shivered slightly at the host of memories assaulting him.  "You may be superstitious about your birthday, but for me it's May.  You die, I go to hell; you run away, I...run away.  Things blow up."  He paused for emphasis.  "It's not a good time of year for us."

"Agreed," she said steadily.  "But we're together now.  I mean, yeah, my dad almost died and you've been all broken up about Dru, and...but...okay, I see what you mean."

"I wanted to change that.  We're going to change that," he amended.  Angel slowly peeled the paper tape off of the package and opened the cardboard box to reveal a smaller velvet jeweler's box inside. 

Buffy was speechless when she saw the box lying in Angel's palm.  Anya, however, was never at a loss for words. 

"What is it?  Let me see," she demanded, craning her neck to see around Angel's broad shoulders.  "Oh," she breathed, "it's a ring, isn't it?"

"Does the word 'private' mean anything to you?"  Cordelia scowled at Xander.  "Harris, can't you muzzle her or something?  I can't hear a thing if she keeps babbling."

"Okay, we need to leave," Willow said firmly.  "Come on guys."  She got up from her chair and reached for Oz's hand as he stood up beside her.

"Hey come on," Cordelia protested, remaining firmly ensconced on the sofa.  "I put a lot of work into this moment.  Do you have any idea how stubborn those two can be?  I want to see the payoff."

"Cordelia."  Doyle didn't say another word, but his eyes spoke volumes.

"Oh, all right," she conceded with a scowl.  "But I better get some flowers out of this, or at least a thank-you card."

She addressed her warning to Buffy and Angel, but they paid her no heed.  They had eyes only for each other, specifically for Angel's outstretched hand, still cradling the box, and Buffy's finger, now lightly touching the lid.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked softly.

He smiled at her, that old crooked half-smile that melted her bones like taffy. 

"That depends on what you think it is," he murmured.

"Okay Cryptic Guy, you were saying something about changing bad traditions?"  Her fingers caressed the box, sliding over the lid and down the side to stroke his palm.  "I admit; you did really well breaking my birthday cur..."  She stopped short and tried to regroup.  "No, not a curse.  I was not going to say that.  We don't break curses, of any kind. Ever."

"Not anymore," he agreed gravely, with the barest twinkle in his brown eyes.  "We're past that.  And now it's time for something new."  His smile vanished, leaving a grave expression.  "I love you, Buffy; you know that.  And even though I've done my best sometimes to mess things up, you still love me."

"So we fight and try to kill each other; so what?  You're not getting rid of me that easily," she whispered.  "Slayers were built to take it on the chin."

"I know we're never going to have that normal life you used to want.  There's always going to be bad days and apocalypses that try to mess up our plans.  But I refuse to let any of that influence me anymore."

He opened up the box slowly, exposing the small platinum ring inside.  At its heart was an emerald-cut diamond, flanked by two deep blue sapphires.

"You are the best part of me; you're my center and I won't lose you again."  He tugged the ring free from its velvet prison and slipped it slowly up her third finger, after transferring her Claddagh ring to her right hand.  "I want to make sure the universe knows that.  Will you marry me?"

She barely glanced at the ring once it was exposed to the light; her focus was on her beloved as he finally asked the question she had been waiting so long to hear.  There were times she began to doubt they would make it this far, and times she almost wished they wouldn't.  She never planned, or expected, to love someone so much, and the depth of her feelings was sometimes frightening.  But he was as necessary to her as breathing, and she was never going to willingly let him go again.

"Angel, I..."

She had barely managed to get his name out before the doorbell rang.

"Oh sure; we have to leave but someone else gets to stay," Cordelia complained.  "Well, we'll just see about that."

Before Doyle could grab her, Cordelia was off of the sofa and opening the door.

"If you don't mind we're having a private..."  Suddenly Cordelia realized precisely who was on the other side of the threshold, and abruptly slammed the door.  She leaned up against it and attempted a nervous laugh.  "Ha, ha.  My mistake.  Wrong number.  I mean, wrong door."

Willow groaned; she knew a stall tactic when she saw one.  "Okay Cordy, enough is enough," she said firmly as she started pulling on Cordelia's arm.  "Let whoever it is in so Buffy and Angel can get back to...what they need to get back to, and what we need to not be watching them get back to."

"Willow," Cordelia protested, plastering herself against the door.  "You don't know what you're saying...and stop pulling my arm.  I bruise easily you know...hey!"

The witch had at last succeeded in ousting the former cheerleader from her position as door guard.  With a dramatic flourish, Willow swung open the door...and slammed it shut again a moment later.

"Cordy's right," she said breathlessly, taking up guard duty next to her old nemesis.  "Wrong number." 

Buffy stared at the two of them, wondering when exactly she had slipped down the rabbit hole.

"Guys, this is really amusing and all, but...well, no, it's actually more annoying than amusing, so we need to say bye-bye now." 

Buffy reluctantly let go of Angel's hand and joined her friends at the door.  One stern glance, promising impending pain for those who would disobey, was enough to clear her path.  She opened the door, prepared to give short shrift to any door-to-door salesman who might be intruding upon her 'perfect moment.'

Instead she faced a much more immovable object.

"Buffy," Joyce said with a warm smile.  "Your father and Rupert and I have something to say to you."

"Mom, now is really not the time."  Buffy glanced back at Angel waiting patiently in the living room for her, and then down at the ring on her finger.  "Come to think of it, maybe now is good."  She stepped back and waved them inside.  "You missed Angel's proposal, but you're just in time for my answer."  She waited grimly for her mother's response, and she was not disappointed.

"Oh good; then we're not too late."  Joyce smiled happily at Giles and Hank while her daughter glowered.

* * * * *

To Be Continued