"Angel. Angel."

He knew it was too early to get up, so he rolled over and buried his head under the pillow, but the voice came again and this time it was accompanied by a tugging on his arm. "Angel, wake up."

Buffy! Angel remembered with a shock. It had to be her. He'd set her up in the adjoining bedroom, which had a connecting door to his, and blockaded her main door so the only way out was through his room. He sat up so fast the pillow shot off the bed and landed on the floor, right next to the four year old wearing the "Little Mermaid" pajamas he'd let her pick. "What is it? What's wrong?" Angel asked.

"I hafta go to the potty," Buffy informed him.

"You what?"

"I hafta-" Buffy started again.

"Stop! All right, just a minute." Angel instantly got up. It was a good thing he'd thought to wear pajamas himself or young Buffy would getting quite an eyeful. "Stay here," he ordered as he threw on his robe and went over to the door. Cordelia should be downstairs working at this hour. He opened the door and yelled, "Cordy! Help!"

Within 30 seconds, she was up the stairs and in front of him. "What's wrong? You're looking pretty calm for someone who just screeched my name like there was an emergency."

"There IS. Buffy has to go to the bathroom. What am I supposed to do?"

Cordelia huffed an annoyed breath. "Gee, I don't know, maybe TAKE HER THERE?"

"I can't. I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do. Cordelia, I'll give you a raise if you help out."

Cordelia looked at the piles of toys and clothes scattered around the room and raised an eyebrow. "How will you afford it? It looks like you nearly bought out the store last night."

"I'll take out a loan or something. I'll manage. Just bail me out here. Come on, you can't blame me for having a hard time getting used to the fact that this little girl is my ex-girlfriend, de-aged."

"When you put it like that... A raise, you said? It had better be a big one." Cordelia considered. "All right, I'll do it. And while I'm at it, I suppose you want me to make sure she takes a bath and brushes her teeth? You'd better be thinking Christmas bonus, too. Give me her things."

Angel looked blankly at Cordelia. "What things?"

"Toothbrush, toothpaste, and hairbrush things." Angel didn't answer. Cordelia shook her head. "Oh, don't tell me you didn't pick up any of them."

"You didn't say anything about getting those," he defended himself. "You just said clothes and toys."

"Because I thought the rest was obvious. OK, forget it, I'll figure something out. Come on, Buffy."

Cordelia took Buffy out of the room, and Angel quickly got dressed and ready for the day. It was much earlier than he usually got up, but he thought he'd better not risking annoying Cordelia any more by going back to bed. Then he sorted through the heaps of toys, sure Buffy would like to play with them right away. She'd wanted to start in last night but had been so tired she couldn't keep her eyes open. Finally satisfied, Angel went downstairs to the kitchen, where he dumped a portion of blood into a mug and drained half of it in one gulp.

"What are you drinking, Angel?"

The little voice from behind him made Angel jump. He turned around to see Buffy wearing a cute little blue outfit with flowers on it.

Cordelia stood right behind her. "For future reference, next time Buffy has to go to the bathroom, take her there and wait outside the door. She should be OK by herself. Now I'm going back to work. Have fun!"

Even before Cordelia had left the kitchen, Buffy piped up again. "What's that?" she repeated as she stared at the red liquid in Angel's mug.

He started to say "Blood" automatically and then caught himself and substituted, "A health drink."

"Can I have some?"

Like he was going to let her drink blood. "You wouldn't like it," Angel said.

Buffy's lip quivered and her eyes slowly filled with tears.

Angel tried to steel himself but Buffy was making him feel like a monster again. He managed to hold out until one tear spilled down her cheek and that was too much for him. "Fine, I'll give you a little bit," he said and turned back to the refrigerator. Inside was a small bottle of cranberry juice. As he poured some into a small glass, he hoped the drink looked enough like blood to fool Buffy.

She tasted it and then shoved the glass away. "Yuck!"

"See, I said you wouldn't like it. Next time maybe you'll listen to me."

Angel congratulated himself on his quick thinking when Buffy looked thoughtful. For about a second. Then she announced, "I'm hungry."

"I can't go through this again," Angel decided. "I haven't gone to the store yet and since no one else is helping, we don't have many choices. But we do have leftover pizza, right? Great. That's your breakfast."

Buffy didn't object, so he plopped a couple of pieces of pizza into the microwave and heated them for her. Then, while Buffy was eating, Angel ran back into the lobby to talk to Cordelia. "Where's Wesley? Is Gunn around?"

"Looking for babysitters? Wesley went out for a couple hours and Gunn has some stuff to take care of so he won't be coming in until that's over with."

"Thanks." Angel dashed back to the kitchen, where luckily Buffy had decided to keep eating instead of wandering off. He hoped he could cajole Wesley into helping look after her. One thing he knew about little children, they needed an incredible amount of supervision.

Done eating, Buffy looked around and then decided, "I wanna play outside."

Angel glanced at the windows. It was possibly the sunniest day in a month. "Sorry, but I can't go out. I'm allergic to the sun."

"What's 'lergic?"

"It means I get sick if sunlight touches me. You don't want me to get sick, do you?" Buffy shook her head. Angel went on. "You can have fun playing inside too." He thought of all the toys they'd hauled home last night. No problem there. He'd bought enough to keep Buffy busy for ages.



Three hours later...


"Angel, I'm bored!" a voice proclaimed.

From his chair at the reception desk, Angel looked from the discarded white Furby with blue eyes and the limp Tickle Me Elmo in one corner of the lobby to the Lego buildings and Barbie Dream House in the opposite corner. "How can you be bored? Look at all these toys."

"They're boring," Buffy complained.

"No, they're not." Angel jumped up and went over to the toys. "See, Elmo will laugh if you tickle him, and you can do things with Barbie. Lots of fun things like it says on the box."

Buffy pouted and shook her head.

"I know! You can color." Angel dug around and located the big box of crayons he had picked up the previous night. "And here." He tore a blank sheet of paper from the pad on the reception desk and brought it to her. "There you go, all set."

Seeming satisfied for the moment, Buffy settled down with the crayons and began to scribble on the paper. Angel heaved a sigh of relief and went back to researching a rare demon species that was rumored to be invading the city. For about 10 minutes, all was quiet. Then the front door opened and Wesley came in.

"Wesley! I am so glad to see you," Angel greeted him. "Come over here and meet Buffy. You didn't get introduced yesterday." He knelt down beside Buffy and got her attention. "Buffy, this is Wesley. He's a friend."

"Hello, Buffy," Wesley addressed her.

"Hi." Buffy barely glanced at him and went back to her drawing.

"I guess she's a little shy," Angel apologized on Buffy's behalf, drawing Wesley away from her. "She doesn't really remember any of us, you know."

"How are you coming along with her?" Wesley asked. "Well?"

"I really don't know how to tell," Angel admitted. "I'm trying."

"Can I help with anything?"

"I was hoping you would ask that." Angel decided to take advantage of the offer and get as much help as he could. "I want to get some food for Buffy from the store but I'm not really the best person to go shopping since for one, I don't eat so I'm not very acquainted with the layout of modern stores, and two, I have to keep an eye on Buffy."

"You could take her to the store with you."

Angel shook his head. "Not an option. I learned my lesson when I took her shopping last night."

"So you want me to go for you?"

"Exactly." Angel held out a paper. "I've already written out a list."

Wesley accepted it and read, "Milk, orange soda, grape soda, chocolate ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, candy, french fries, hamburgers." He looked at Angel. "How did you come up with this list?"

"I asked Buffy what she likes."

Wesley looked at Cordelia, who shrugged and said, "I'm trying to stay out of this as much as possible."

"Can you go now?" Angel asked.

"I suppose," Wesley answered.

"Thanks, I owe you." Angel relaxed a little as Wesley turned and walked back out the door to run the errand. That made one thing he didn't have to worry about for a while. He had just gone back to his research when Buffy trotted over and tapped him on the arm.

"Angel, look!" She held up her drawing.

Angel dutifully looked. He saw a few streaks of blue at the top of the paper, a yellow blob, some black marks under it, brown and red lines, and a lot of green at the bottom. "Very pretty. So, what's it supposed to be?"

"It's my house!" Buffy said indignantly. "And Mommy and Daddy and me and you too!" She stabbed her finger at the black marks.

Angel was on the verge of asking which mark was supposed to be him when he saw Cordelia shaking her head behind Buffy's back. Instead he said, "I told you it was pretty."

Looking mollified, Buffy changed moods again and presented him with the drawing. "Mommy always puts them on the 'frigerator."

This time, Angel took the hint and replied, "I will too." Buffy waited, obviously expecting him to do it right then. Obediently, Angel got up and announced, "I'm going into the kitchen right now to put it up."

"Can I have a coloring book?" Buffy asked him before he could leave.

"Yeah, sure." He hadn't thought to buy any at the store so Angel went over to the bookcase and dug through the volumes there, looking for some useless thing Buffy could have to play with. He selected an old cookbook and gave it to her. "There you are. Have fun." Then, not wanting to give Buffy an excuse to become upset again, Angel went into the kitchen to stick her artwork up on the refrigerator. When it was safely pinned in place on the door, he went back to the lobby to see Buffy coloring peacefully and Cordelia in the middle of a phone call. All looked calm. Angel settled back down with his papers and resumed work.

Wesley returned with the groceries and unpacked them. Things were still calm. Wesley came back to the lobby and hunted up a couple of files. No problem there either. Wesley glanced at Buffy and saw what book she was coloring in. No more calm.

"Why is that child defacing a first edition of the Ancient Demon Rituals?" he yelled. Before Angel could do anything, Wesley had marched over and pulled the book away from Buffy, scowling at her. "Look!" Wesley flipped through the pages, revealing different crayon colors on at least half of them. "It's ruined! Absolutely ruined!"

Frightened, Buffy began to cry. Angel ran over and picked her up, protectively turning her away from Wesley. "Don't yell. You're scaring Buffy. And what are you talking about? I gave her an old cookbook, not a rare demon book."

Wesley pointed at the corner of a book lying under Buffy's stuffed elephant. When he spoke, it was in a chilling whisper. "THERE is your cookbook."

"Buffy?" Angel said gently. "Where did you get the book Wesley's holding?"

She sniffled as she clung to his neck and pointed at the lower shelves of the bookcase. "Over there. It was more fun than the one you gave me."

"See?" Wesley said grimly.

"It wasn't her fault," Angel defended. "She didn't know."

"No, it wasn't her fault," Wesley agreed. "It was yours." Carrying the damaged book, he stalked into his office.

Cordelia had remained silent throughout the confrontation. Now that it was over, she piped up. "Angel, have you ever heard of a little service called day care? I think it's time to look into that idea."


TBC