Title: New Friends, Old Places

Disclaimer: See prologue.

Rating: PG-13

Author: Supergurl15

Author's Note: Sorry. Another delayed update due to school, editor crap, college applications, and the like. The last year of high school. :sigh: I wish there was some kind of warning attached to this pivotal point in your life. Isn't my best work… but so many people wanted a new chapter.

Note: I was listening to Everything by Lifehouse while I wrote this… so any questions about fluffiness should be blamed on the above statement.

Oh and no offense to anyone who's a door-to-door salesperson, just writing what I think Chloe would think about door-to-door salespeople. So… don't kill me. :cries:

All info regarding Angel's age, dates of some events, etc. are from: http : members . aol . com / biglerdar / buffyangel . html (Without the spaces.)

Yep. I do my homework.

Just as a reminder, I own nothing...only the plot idea.

Takes place around season two of Angel.

Thoughts and sometimes titles are in italics.

Chapter 9

"Chloe, I don't think your dad's going to be happy if he-"

"Angel!" Chloe said, cutting him off before he could even finish that ridiculous sentence.

Angel grew up in the eighteenth century she got that. They basically invented chivalry, but he was a two hundred and forty-eight... at least, she thought he was two hundred and forty-eight. Anyway, he was a two hundred and something year old vampire, key word in this sentence being vampire. He was at least two hundred and three years older than her dad, and it wasn't like bullets would kill him if her dad did decide to suddenly go overprotective parent on him.

Though she was a little surprised that her dad hadn't wandered upstairs to ask if they wanted anything to drink yet. Also known as his excuse to make sure that whatever was going on in her room was completely on a friend basis, 'G' rated, if you will. It wasn't that her dad didn't trust her; it was that her dad didn't trust guys being anywhere near his little 'pumpkin'. Personally, she didn't see what the huge deal was, if they were around her or not she wound up with a broken heart anyway.

"Trust me. If my dad thought that you were some potential threat to his role as chief Chloe supporter he would have killed you before we left the café."

"Chimpy." He chuckled, as he repeated the cookie monkey's name, remembering the story Mr. Sullivan had told him earlier about his little 'pumpkin muffin'.

"If you breathe a word of any of that to anyone, you'll wake up a pile of dust on your pillow." Eyeing him seriously, she tried to look as menacing as possible.

"If I'm a pile of dust on my pillow, how will I know I'm a pile of dust on my pillow?" Sometimes he wondered if Chloe even realized that she was often too sarcastic to be considered average, but then again none of them were really 'average', whatever one considered average to be.

"It was… just…" She stammered, "I'm going to go get the first aid kit."

Somehow during her wave of self-pity she had completely forgotten about Angel's injury. Returning from the pancake house, she had only just remembered the sword wound that she was so concerned about before, and after everything he had done for her, she felt horrible for just forgetting him.

Defeated, Angel sighed; there was no point in arguing now. Once Chloe had completely focused on something, nothing could change her mind. Like the time when she had insisted that he teach her Judo and Tai Chi, then practiced every spare moment that she could. It had only taken her two months to become pretty good at the forms. She never seemed to realize that it was that same determination that often got her into trouble.

Sitting on the pink, purple and green bed, he slowly he began undoing the buttons on the burgundy silk shirt, wincing when he attempted to shrug the shirt off his shoulders without doing further damage to the gash. Was Chloe always this… girly?

"Don't do that." She said reprimanding him the second she walked back through her bedroom door. Though she hadn't visited in a few months nothing had changed about the small suburban house in the middle of the nation's meteor capital. Nothing. The kitchen still had its same old homely glow, TV dinners stocked the freezer and refrigerator due to her and her dad's lack of culinary skills, even her room was exactly as she had left it, girly and artsy in every way, with the occasional bizarre news clipping scattered here and there along her walls. The only thing that had changed was Lana's room, what once was empty, was filled with the flowery yellows that were Lana's décor.

Setting the first aid kit on the purple flower shaped rug that lay a centimeter from the side of her bed, Chloe began digging through the kit, looking for something to patch Angel's dire looking wound.

"Chloe, you really don't have to do this. I'm fine. I'll be completely healed by tomorrow."

It wasn't until she had finished dabbing alcohol liberally on a gauze that she turned back around to face him and noticed that he was now seated shirtless, on her bed. Seeing Angel's naked torso wasn't anything new, she had seen him shirtless more times to count; practicing Tai Chi… training, and each time she would get like this.

By 'like this' she meant Clark around Lana, awkward, babbly, and klutzy.

She had first developed a crush on him when he had saved her from a vampire three years ago while she was walking home for a friend's house. She'd always had a weakness for the hero types, plus, it didn't help that he was really sweet and caring, and even funny at times, when he wasn't brooding. And even when he was brooding she still couldn't help but like him, it only added to his character. But they were friends, and she already knew how that always ended. Besides it would only complicate things and she didn't think she could handle not having Angel as a friend. God, I'm such a sap.

"No Angel, I want… to." She whispered softly, as if something else was on her mind.

"Thanks…" She said, finally able to look into Angel's questioning gaze after the long lapse of silence that had followed her previous statement. Chloe continued tracing the gauze back and forth delicately across the slightly reddened skin on his taut stomach, trying not to give him the once or twice over with her wandering green eyes. "…for earlier. I didn't get a chance to thank you."

"You don't have to thank me Chloe." Angel's face contorted when she placed the gauze on a particular spot where the sword and been embedded in his stomach.

"Sorry." Her fingers brushed his exposed skin as she abruptly removed the gauze from the wound.

She looked down at the piece of cotton in her hand, its pure snowy color tainted with scarlet.

Angel's blood.

Why did she always have to fall for the ones that she didn't want to fall for? She wouldn't mind being shoved to the back corner of some shelf, forever labeled 'best friend', if it were only that simple. At least she had learned enough from her crush, which was more of a deep love than an actual crush, on Clark to know better than to try something as risky as admitting her feelings for a friend ever again.

Throwing the gauze in the wastebasket and forgetting how she had been starting hopelessly at it only seconds before, she ransacked the first aid kit one last time before retrieving another gauze and stack of bandages from it. There wasn't much more she could do. Thanks to that vampiric healing ability of his, the sword wound had already started to… heal. The bandages were for her own amusement really, but of course she wouldn't tell him that.

"So…Hello Kitty or Carebears?"

"How can I possibly choose between such good options?"

Had she looked up from raiding the first aid kit for bandages she might have noticed Angel's eyes following her every move.

Closing the first aid kit, Chloe turned around handing a fistful of bandages to Angel.

"Personally, I think the pink of the Hello Kitty band-aids would really bring out your eyes." Glaring, Angel grabbed a few of the Hello Kitty bandages from Chloe's outstretched palm, "Are these really going to do anything, or are they for your own personal amusement?"

"I'm shocked that you would even consider such a thing." Chloe said while she gathered the last of the first aid kit, leaving the room once again.

She hadn't noticed. Angel stared at the fuzzy looking purple rug by Chloe's bed. Not that he particularly wanted her to notice his reaction to her touch. Getting over Buffy was something that he didn't think would come so… easily, especially so soon. Okay, so maybe he still wasn't over Buffy exactly, she just hadn't been a reoccurring thought in his mind lately. Buffy was something akin to his soul mate, his first love, but she was nothing like Chloe.

Chloe was overly sarcastic, snarky, enough of a caffeine addict to put even Willow to shame, freakishly obsessed with investigative journalism, and she was the perfect mix of the 'research' type, and the 'crime scene addicted/I want to be where the action is' type. Let's just say she could make a good P.I. or a detective. The only thing that she and Buffy really had in common was the fact that they were both blonds.

When they were together he didn't think about Sunnydale and Buffy, he didn't think about who or what their next case might be, or about trying to atone for his crimes as Angelus. He didn't even think about his dreams of Darla that had become a routine part of his erratic sleep patterns as of late.

He thought about… Chloe.

He thought about how her witty remarks always brought a smile to his face, how she was rarely seen without a coffee mug, or Starbucks cup in hand. He thought about how she sometimes rambled when she was speechless, and how she always found out what he had gotten her for her birthday before her birthday. He thought about how her smile made him want to smile with her, how his heart broke to see her disappointed or hurt.

He knew this feeling, except it was different from the lust he had for Darla as Liam, and what was supposedly 'love' that he had for Buffy. He was falling for her. In spite of a hundred year old gypsy curse, an immortal existence, and a promise that he could never love anyone like he had loved Buffy, he was falling for the one person that he had never wanted to.

She came back, handing a grey t-shirt to Angel. "It's the only thing I could find that would match with your ensemble."

Angel smiled faintly before taking the shirt from Chloe.

"Gunn, Cordelia and Wesley are going to meet us back at the hotel. I told Cordy about 'the barn incident'. " Chloe said pretending to straighten a stack of magazines by her bed while Angel slipped the shirt over his head. "Guess I have some explaining to do."

Looking out of the corner of her eye to see if Angel had finished changing, she stood up from reorganizing the magazines and turned to face him. "I just wish I would have told you guys earlier."

"Chloe, you had your reasons." He sighed before continuing, "Maybe it would have been better if you had talked about it, but you did what you had to, to cope."

"Just remember that I-we're here for you." He said solemnly, searching her eyes to see if she had noticed his little slip-up.

"I'll remember that." She added smiling. It was hard to believe that underlying the charming, gentle depths of Angel's soul there was a ruthless, cold-blooded killer who was also known as the scourge of Europe for about a hundred and forty-five years. She had never met the guy and based on what Cordelia had told her about his rampage in Sunnydale she didn't want to.

"You know, you sigh way too much for someone that doesn't need to breathe." She smirked heading down the stairs. Trust Angel to save her from her own self-inflicted melancholy moods.

"Force of habit."

"I was wondering when you two would get down here." Mr. Sullivan said eyeing Angel warily; curious to see what the young man's feelings were when it came to his daughter. Returning to his home he realized that he knew nothing about this 'Angel' character. Chloe had never mentioned anyone named 'Angel' during any of her visits home or even during a conversation on the phone. Suddenly she just shows up in Smallville without as much as a phone call or email. And there was the fact that the guy looked a lot older than his little Chloe, well okay, not by that much, but that wasn't the point. He was supposed to know these things, who his daughter's friends were, who she dated…

Being so far away he worried about her. Especially in a city like L.A., who knew what kind of crime went on in a city of that size?

And wasn't that… his shirt?

No, something was definitely not right.

"Well, I'm here in one piece. You might want to call the National Guard back and tell that I was here the entire time." She sat down on the couch opposite her dad and gestured for Angel to do the same.

"My daughter, always the comedian." Turning off the TV, Gabe Sullivan leaned forward in the chair. Now for the fun. This kid would wish he had never heard the name Gabriel Sullivan by the time the night was over. "So, you still didn't tell me what the surprise visit was for Chlo."

So that's where she gets the sarcasm. Angel thought, watching Chloe and her father exchange wits. He couldn't help but think about his own father for a fleeting moment. Chloe never talked about her family much; he hadn't even known she was from this 'Smallville' place until about an hour ago. Chloe's father might have been protective about his only daughter, but he cared enough about her to be overprotective, which was more than he could say about his own father.

She looked at Angel for a moment before answering, "Uh… does a girl need an excuse to see her own father?" She ended the sentence with a smile, trying to look as sincere as possible.

"Uh huh." Gabe said skeptically. It wasn't that he doubted Chloe; this situation just didn't seem like something that his daughter would do. She wasn't the most organized person in the world, but she always called before a visit and told him everything that happened in college, well the important things anyway. At least, he thought she told him everything. "Well, I-"

The doorbell picked that particular moment to spring nosily to life, splintering the uncomfortable silence in the room and ending Mr. Sullivan's next question as he got up to answer it.

"Sorry again." She whispered once she was certain her dad wasn't in hearing range, "I never realized that my dad was so… defensive."

Angel shrugged, "Can't say I didn't tell you so."

"Riiiiight." Her trademark cynicism shone almost blindingly through that simple statement. "So are we ready to go? Since I told my dad that we'd already eaten at the pancake house there's really no need for us to stay. Wouldn't want my dad to question you for the next three hours."

"You're not…?" Angel paused, confused at Chloe's proposition to leave. "I thought that you were going to stay here tonight."

"What? Angel, this isn't exactly the best time for a nice long chat with tea and crumpets, not with Boots the evil monkey running ramped in the streets." She stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world. There's a crazed, angry, and possibly psychotic demon lose and he asks why I'm not here to 'catch up'. "This could be the biggest thing since that Deevak demon guy, which no one bothered calling me about, or that telekinetic… whore."

Her face scrunched up somewhat at her hushed assumption. She had her doubts about the runaway girl when they first met her. There was something about her that had just screamed wrong. Her intuition had proven correct when Angel had told her about Bethany's visit to his bedroom one night. Of course, he hadn't just out and told her, it was during a 'how to help poor, scared, little Bethany' session. Never had she felt more envious, frustrated, and irritated at anyone in her life. Just speaking to the girl was a strenuous challenge.

"We did. I remember you saying something about it being the start of summer break and you didn't have to go to class that morning."

"Yeah, and I remember waking up from my state of delirium five hours later, feeling like I was forgetting something that might be really important. Then I remember checking my voice mail and wondering why you hadn't thought of yelling at me to 'wake up' like most people." Wonder who's at the door. Dad's been gone a pretty long time; it's probably just some salesperson who can't understand 'no' for what it means.

"I don't know if anyone's told you this but you're not exactly the-" His eyes danced around the room, hopping from photograph to photograph of Chloe, trying to imagine what that cheery face would turn into if he told her the unabridged version of what she was like on a morning without a detour to Starbucks. No, can't say that. "Without your coffee you're kind of-" Better not say that unless I want her glaring daggers at me for the rest of this trip. "You're not really a morning person, Chloe."

She smiled, which sort of scared him. The last thing he was expecting Chloe to do was smile. Sarcasm, anger, something other than the smile that she gave him. Smiles usually meant that she was planning something.

"Okay, well, I have to tell my dad 'bye', then it's the open road." Chloe said, walking off towards the corridor where her father was still talking to the unnamed visitor. A duffle bag in hand, she was already planning the perfect escape.

"Something's come up." She began speaking before she had even gotten to the door. Nice going brain. Some perfect plan. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure than Angel was still behind her was a distraction lengthy enough to cause her to almost run into her father, and to not notice Clark and Lana standing in the doorway talking to him. "Sorry that I can't stay- Clark?"

No this was worse than someone "up there" hating her. Someone "up there" wanted to make her life a living hell, or close to it.

Author'sNote: See, very um… fluffy. Kinda pointless. I promise the next chapter will be a lot better. I just noticed that I hadn't written anything in like a month sooo…