Thank you all for the reviews and your patience with my less than perfect updating skills!

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Buffy listened to water running in the bathroom and took the opportunity to prowl around investigating Angel's room. It didn't seem to be as generically tidy and guest-roomy as hers so she guessed it had actually been his room when he lived at home. Lots of books and arty bits adorned most surfaces; he didn't seem that super neat either, which was a relief as she wasn't exactly notorious for the orderliness of her personal belongings.

She moved to the desk smiling as she saw the small box with 'Trojan' emblazoned across it; poor Angel, how embarrassing getting a lecture like that from a trio of tipsy teenagers. Then she paused, half tucked under the box and a book was what looked like a pencil drawing of Angel's mom. She hesitated a minute and then shrugged, he probably wouldn't mind and it was on top of his desk not in a drawer or something. She moved the box and book to one side and picked up the sketchpad. The drawing was of Angel's mom and was really well done, a tiny winged 'A' in the corner giving away the artist.

Buffy shook her head, he'd mentioned that he liked to scribble in sketchpads but she hadn't expected him to be that good. Eagerly she flipped through the pages; most were images of the last day or so. She screwed up her nose hoping fervently he hadn't been drawing any ex-girlfriends nude; that was something she so didn't need to see.

She beamed happily when she found a gorgeous drawing of her and Willow together, clutching glasses and each other, laughing at something. She smiled and kept flicking through the book, she vaguely remembered him having a small pad kind of thing on him last night but didn't really recall him actually sitting and drawing her. He must have made brief sketches and touched it up and finished it afterwards. Which was way beyond adorable and really reinforced how much he really did like her.

Pleased by this notion Buffy flipped over another few pages and caught her breath. A drawing of her that was so perfect and detailed that she could pick out the individual lighter and darker flecks of what would be green, gold or brown in her Hazel eyes filled the page. Intricate Celtic knot-work scrolled elegantly in the background and small italic lettering was woven into the pattern.

Buffy began to read the words but tears began to blur her vision. This picture was so beautiful and so much effort had gone into it she felt totally overwhelmed. When she had blinked enough to see the words that almost made her cry properly, so she forced herself to put the sketches back where they had been and went and sat back on the bed with the first line of the poem he had copied down churning in her mind, 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.' Could it be that Angel loved her or was it just a pretty picture with pretty words and some wishful thinking on her part?

Moments later the bathroom door swung open and he padded towards her barefoot, his devastating sex appeal not diminished in the slightest by disastrously messy hair and baggy old sweatpants. "I was just thinking." He said.

"Oh?"

"Maybe we should write notes to Faith and Spike and stick it under their doors so that they know what we were talking about earlier."

Buffy grinned, shaking off her ruminations about the picture, "Good plan, though I think one note would probably be sufficient."

Angel grinned back as he dug in his desk drawer for a fresh notepad. "Yeah, but we don't know which bedroom they're in."

"Good point. Well, you're the delivery boy, I'm going to hide out in my room instead of unexplainably wandering the house in my underwear and your shirt."

Angel chuckled as he scribbled two brief and near identical notes, "I'd cover you."

"That would definitely get some disapproving looks if it was literal!" Buffy couldn't resist commenting, watching in fascination as Angel blushed.

"It'd be fun though."

Buffy snorted, "Fun for who? Spike maybe, yet another opportunity to laugh himself silly at someone else's expense. Your mom would definitely never invite me here again as I don't think scarlet women make the best daughter- in-laws."

Angel grinned. "Yet another way of getting out of marrying Spike, quick lets go!"

"I didn't mean if I married Spike!" Buffy burst out before realising that she had just implicated herself.

Angel smiled happily at this until Buffy began trying to back peddle.

"That came out wrong!"

"Uh huh?"

"What I meant to say was something else entirely, that is that I um, that was, I mean that I uh we should be delivering the notes not uh-"

Angel raised an eyebrow; she was so cute when she babbled.

Buffy subsided as she realised that she couldn't wriggle out of the situation without sabotaging the possibility of marriage to Angel some day in the distant future.

Angel stood holding the two scraps of paper destined for Faith and Spike, "That's okay Buffy, I'm a modern man and confident in my masculinity, I can cope with a woman proposing marriage to me!"

Buffy's mouth hung open until he hooked a finger under her jaw, shut it and kissed her. "I'm kidding, I know what you meant. We like each other, we're planning to date and so if we do end up with a really good relationship then there is the possibility of marriage someday and you don't want to screw things up with mom just in case. Right?"

Buffy nodded, and followed him over to the door, Why couldn't she have come out with something cool and realistic like that instead of developing the rare combination of verbal diarrhoea swiftly followed by conversation constipation. Gah!

Angel opened the door and peered out, "All clear I think."

"You only think?" mumbled Buffy as she clutched his T-shirt and took the opportunity to lean against him. Mmm, all those lovely muscles.

"I'll go have a look around the corner and down the stairs and then when I wave you can go to your room and I'll brave Spike and Faith's rooms to deliver these."

Buffy tugged him down to press a soft kiss to his cheek. "Okay, I'll see you in a minute or two?"

"Count on it."

Then as Angel sneaked down the corridor Buffy closed the door down to a crack and glued her eye to it, it wouldn't do to be seen lurking in the bedroom of her future brother-in-law after all.

A minute later Angel popped back around the corner and grinned, making shooing motions before disappearing again. Buffy was swinging the door open to do as he advised when she realised that grabbing her dress would probably be a good plan. Leaving the door wide open she shot across the room into the bathroom and wrestled the heavy damp dress out of the bathtub where she had abandoned it. She dashed back across the room and paused by the desk, was that voices she could hear? Drunken voices? Nearby voices? Aagh! What the hell were people doing slinking up the back stairs, Dammit?

Buffy did the only thing she could think of in the three seconds she reckoned she had, she dumped the dress in the middle of the floor and dove under the duvet, tugging it frantically over her head.

"Hey Angel, you in here?" Asked a cheery voice.

Buffy cringed under the duvet even as she relished the yummy smell of Angel that assaulted her senses. Oh hell, they were either in the doorway or in the room. Either was bad. Couldn't all the pests just go to bed? Wait a minute! That sounded like Spike!

Buffy cautiously shifted the duvet very slightly in an effort to un-muffle her ears and waited for the man to speak again.

Then Angel spoke, "Hey Drew, Suzy, you looking for me?"

Buffy clutched the duvet tighter, now very grateful that she hadn't poked her head out to chat. The guy sounded a lot like Spike and she'd nearly been fooled into bobbing out to say 'hi' and 'get lost!' She'd had a near miss there. Spike would've been shocked enough to see her appearing from the depths of his Brother's bed, any strangers who weren't in on the mess would have been horrified. She envisioned what Spike's expression of shock would have been like and had to hastily smother her slightly hysterical giggle.

As Angel greeted Drew and his girlfriend he couldn't help but notice that Buffy's dress was in a crumpled heap on the floor and that his previously neat bedcover was now mussed and had a Buffy-sized lump under it.

When the lump twitched he had to bite his lip to stop smirking.

"I wanted to apologize for my brother Max." Drew was saying. We were just passing on our way to bed and saw the door open and I thought I'd just stop in and say sorry for not keeping a better eye on him and the other two. They didn't really give me the details but I believe that they said a few things to you that they shouldn't have."

Angel shrugged. "It doesn't really matter and I think Max was the least offensive of the trio. I thought it was quite funny really."

"Well I just thought I'd stop by and let you know they will be apologizing in the morning and making up for any embarrassment they caused."

Angel grinned, "I should think their hangovers will be bad enough by way of punishment and they won't find me out of bed before noon if they really do feel the need to apologize."

Drew and Suzy chuckled at this and turned to leave, Drew taking in Buffy's abandoned dress as he did so. "Will we be having a double wedding?" He joked with a grin.

"Huh?"

"Wasn't that the dress Buffy's friend Faith was wearing?"

"Uhhh."

"Angie boy you're bloody brilliant! I'll be off the hook and able to shag Faith to my heart's content now!" Spike barrelled into the room flapping a recently delivered note.

Angel sat down on the bed carefully avoiding squashing the lump. He had a feeling that the whole thing was about to go horribly wrong. The lump oozed towards him and frantically nudged his leg; nobody else seemed to notice.

Drew and Suzy stood looking confused as Spike belatedly realized their presence and shoved the note into the pocket of his sweatpants, "Oh Shit!"

"Faith?" echoed Suzy looking shocked and a little angry.

Drew looked at Spike in puzzlement. "Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you supposed to be marrying Buffy?"

The lump shifted and Buffy slowly sat up holding the duvet up near her chin, Spike's expression of comic horror was all she could have imagined but with other witnesses it was somehow nowhere near as funny. "No, he's not marrying me."

"Bloody hell Buffy!" Spike erupted. "Bloody hell Angel!"

Drew and Suzy now looked totally confused. "I don't get it, Spike was engaged to Buffy but is now with Faith and Buffy has moved on to Angel." Suzy mumbled wide-eyed.

Angel sighed heavily, "It's a very long story."

Drew flashed him a small grin, "A long story you don't want to tell right now I'll bet?

Angel managed to grin back, "Something like that. I think we all need some time to sort out what's happening here before we really start telling people."

"Understandable. Well, we'll be off to bed. I hope you all sort it out."

"Thanks." Buffy managed.

Angel nodded his appreciation. Okay, so disaster hadn't struck, just yet, but how long could their luck hold?

Drew and Suzy left the room, gently shutting the door behind them and Buffy and Angel looked expectantly to Spike waiting for him to either say something intelligent or go away. But Spike only seemed capable of muttering 'Bloody Hell!' to himself while staring pop-eyed at Buffy's abandoned dress.

"Spike hello? Earth to Spike?" Buffy muttered.

There was no response.

Buffy shrugged and turned to Angel with a wicked glint in her eye as she shimmied out of his borrowed shirt under cover of the duvet. "Take off your shirt and get into bed and look cozy, maybe that will sting him into leaving." She muttered.

Angel grinned and obeyed under Spike's horrified gaze, "What are you doing?!" He howled.

Buffy sat up with the bed covers artistically tucked under her arms revealing silky expanses of her bare shoulders and the upper slopes of her breasts, giving the appearance of nakedness, "He is getting into bed so we can pick up where we left off far too long ago." She purred.

Angel grinned as he settled in the bed beside her and she snuggled her satiny cheek against his bare chest. She was referring to her nap of earlier of course, but Spike didn't know that and was rapidly going purple in the face.

"My God! She did it! The Virgin Queen finally did the deed with the Virgin King! I gotta tell Faith!" With that he dashed out of the room banging the door behind him.

Buffy buried her flaming face somewhere under Angel's arm, "Oh well that was nice and embarrassing, Thank you Spike, knew I could count on you!" she moaned.

Angel smiled, this news definitely counted as good. "Why embarrassing? I don't see anything wrong with waiting for someone special."

"You don't?" Buffy raised her head slightly and squinted at him, "You don't think I'm a ginormous freak?"

Angel grinned, "No, I'd go as far as to say it's really nice but then that's what I want to believe so I don't feel like a ginormous freak!"

Buffy's eyes widened into perfect circles, "Huh?"

"Did you listen to him?"

"Yeah," she replayed Spike's little outburst in her head, "Oh!"

Angel smiled at her shock, "What? Can't guys want it to be with someone they love or at least really care about and respect?

Buffy grinned and snuggled closer wincing as the wiring of her corset dug into her ribs, "I guess the perfect ones do. But then, I thought that perfect guys were only in fairy stories until I met you."