Chapter Nine

Authors Note: I'm going to have to split this one up into two parts because it's ten pages long on my computer. Also, in between my updates I want to encourage you guys to go check out the story New World Rising by Faith Slayer89. She's a good friend of mine and I have to say that this story she is currently writing is blowing me away. I think you guys would definitely enjoy it.

To AngelBuffyFluffin: LOL. The beating issue is actually coming up in this chapter. Don't worry, you didn't miss anything. I've purposely wanted to establish Buffy and Angel's relationship first. I'm afraid though that it's only mentioned a little bit. I do have big plans for this problem though. Believe me, it's going to be… well, sad. grinds evilly

"Buffy?"

"What Sweetie?" Buffy was busy painting a pearly pink coat of nail polish on Kathy's tiny fingers. She promised her that tonight would be all about girlie stuff. Buffy was going to allow her to play with makeup all night. Most kids learned to experiment with these things at a young age. They would raid their mothers bathroom and come out with bright red lipstick that smeared their cheeks, while wearing one of their mothers dresses with high heals and a pearl necklace that dropped down to their skinny little knee's. Kathy though, could never really experience this. Yes, her mother had tons of makeup; dark eyeliners to go with the deepest of reds for her painted lips. But those things were just going to be makeup to Kathy. They weren't going to have any sort of special meaning, they were just going to be another part of their mothers life that Kathy shouldn't even know about. So Buffy had brought over several kits with all her makeup, and decided to let the little girl go wild. Kathy needed to stay a kid as long as humanly possible.

"Do you have a daddy?"

Buffy froze. "Yeah. Why do you ask?"

She shrugged a little. "I don know. I just wanted to know what a daddy was like."

Buffy stopped painting Kathy's nails and looked at the girl curiously. "What happened?" She knew something was bugging at that little face of hers.

"When I was at Matilda's, one of the other kids asked me why I didn't have a daddy and I sayed that I just never had and he told me that that was weird because daddy's are what keeps families together. Why does everyone else have one and I don't?"

Buffy picked the little girl up and placed her on her lap. "You're family is just a bit different from other ones. There's nothing wrong with it. Plenty of families don't have a daddy or a mommy."

"They do?"

"Yeah. Look at me for example. I don't have mommy. I don't even have a brother or a sister. Not having a dad is normal now a days Kathy. It's nothing you should be ashamed of."

"But what am I supposed to say to people when they ask me why I can't ever bring anyone to family day at school or I can't make anything for anybody of fathers day?"

Buffy sighed and brushed strands of hair away from the little girls face. "You tell them the truth. Tell them that you're daddy went away a long time ago, but you now have a brother who takes care of you just as well as a dad would, sometimes even better. As for fathers day, make Angel something. I'm sure he'd love that."

"It's just not the same." She mumbled.

Buffy smiled sadly. "I know exactly how you feel."

"Hey," Buffy had just finished putting Kathy to bed as Angel walked through the front door. "You're home early."

"The bar was slow tonight." He said hanging up his jacket.

She frowned. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head. "Nothin'."

"You're a horrible liar, did you know that?"

He laughed. "Do you think you could stick around for a while tonight?"

"Umm… yeah. Why?"

"You don't have to. I mean, it's really not that big of a deal I just…"

"Angel, breathe. Why do you need me to stick around? Did you need to go out or something?"

He shook his head. "Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to just kind of hang out tonight." His feet shuffled back and fourth on the soft carpet entry way as his fingers idly played with each other.

Buffy smiled a little bit. "You mean you actually want to get to know the person that watches your sister and tucks her into bed every night?"

Angle just started to fidget more. "If you don't want to…"

"Angel," She laughed. "Of course I want to. I was just giving you a hard time. It'd be nice to know a little something about the guy who I hear so much about."

"From who?" He looked at her sharply.

"Kathy? Why, who'd you think I was talking about?"

"No one in particular. This town just has a different view of me then others, that's all."

Buffy's tone with sharp and clipped. "Yeah, well the people in this town kind of need to learn to mind their own businesses and worry about their own children that they are currently screwing up instead of others."

Angel raised an eyebrow. "Do I sense a little resentment here?"

"I've lived here practically my whole life and there's one thing that I learned about this place a long time ago. Private business is never private. Quite frankly I'm surprised you haven't run from the house screaming yet."

Angel took of his coat and started toeing off his shoes. "I'm guessing the people of this town don't like you much."

"Haven't you heard? I'm a liar and a thief, a menace to society." She put on a mock air of richness to her.

"I don't really have time to listen to the things people say about each other in this town. It's always either school work or taking care of the family work. Kathy probably is more up to date on the town gossip then I am. Besides, they probably only talk about you because you're well off in life. People are just jealous of that." He started to walk upstairs, motioning for her to follow.

"No, it's just that I've said some things in my time that no one wanted to believe. They all just think I wanted the attention or something." Opening the door to his room, Angel ushered Buffy in. "Most people in this town just seem to think that my life is so great since my dad has the most money here."

"What kind of things would you say to make them rag on you so much?" Angel thought nothing really of this question. To him it was nothing more then mere words, a way to start a conversation so as to get to know each other a little bit better. He had no idea about the impact that it really drew.

"Nothing." She said quickly. "I just…. It was nothing. People in this town just really don't like it when I complain about something in my life. They can't possibly conceive that the daughter of a rich man could have anything wrong in her life. All the old bitty's probably sit around at tea time and say how I'm selfish and that I shouldn't be going on about my problems seeing how there are people in this world less fortunate then me. I mean, I completely get that. I'm not starving and I don't lack a roof over my head at night. But that doesn't mean I don't still have problems. Becoming rich doesn't just magically whisk them all away. I think I'm supposed to just be seen through a glass window and sit and look pretty."

Angel grinned, sitting down on his bed. "Tell me how you really feel."

Buffy laughed off some of the tension, realizing she had been pacing and speaking quite animatedly. "Sorry, it's just that… smalls town are the worst."

"I don't' know. I kind of like it here."

"You're kidding."

"No. It's nice here. The towns small and intimate, the people here are just as interesting and screwed up as they are in LA or New York, and it's good for Kathy. I couldn't really ask for a place much better then this to raise her in."

Buffy sat down right next to him. "You don't find it weird that you're raising a kid at this age?"

"I'm used to it. I've been doing it since my dad walked out." He looked at her a little bit. "I guess I really don't remember any other way."

"You have to remember something about life before you're dad left. I mean you were what, twelve when he bailed?"

"Eleven. But life was getting screwed up long before then."

"How so?"

"Mom was the same as she was now, only probably with a little less alcohol in her, and my dad was, I don't know. He was out late all the time supposedly working to keep food on the table since mom was a stay at home mother, or at least she was supposed to be. But even at the age of eight I remember having to take care of myself and pick up after my mom when she'd get drunk."

"You're dad never tried to get her to stop?"

"Honestly? For the longest time I don't think he even knew. That's how much he was at home all the time."

Buffy nodded. "I have theory… Do you want to hear my theory?" Angel nodded for her to continue. "I think that people are branded when they first come into this world, it's this random fifty fifty brand, it's nothing that you've done to deserve it, it's not personal, you just get it. Anyways, when you're born you get this brand either saying you'll grow up to be a good person or a screw up. But once one screw up reproduces, there's a more likely chance that when their kid is born that its brand is going to be a screw up kind too. Only one in a million screw up children turn out to be someone who'll actually turn things around in their family line. And you Angel, are one of those millions."

"That's a pretty whacked theory you got there."

She shrugged. "I get bored easily."

Buffy sat back fairly comfortable with him. It was strange how she barley knew this guy, even though she had been watching his sister for over a two months now, and then suddenly she's in his bedroom ranting to him about their small narrow minded town and their hypocritical ways. It all came naturally around him though. She didn't feel as if he would judge her at all. And that was one of the many reasons that she would soon realize why she was falling for him.

Slowing she looked around his room, taking it all in. A lone desk with a banged up old computer sat in one corner, a butterfly chair sitting in front of it to serve as a computer chair. The bed, in which they currently sat on now, was shoved up against one wall to make room for the small reading corner that he had with a bookshelf that was quickly overflowing with hard leather bound volumes like Canterbury Tales and Dante's Inferno. But, in one of the corners in the room remained the most enticing piece here. A spiral staircase stood, its white polished wood glowing eerily as the moonlight spilled in the windows. "What's that?" She asked it without even really thinking.

"A stair case."

She smacked him on the arm. "I know that, I mean what does it lead to."

Angel looked at it a little wistfully. "Before my dad had gone MIA, he had torn down the attic and kind of just made a little loft like thing in here. He added this stair case in when I was about six." He got up off the bed where Buffy followed. Now that she was aware of it, she couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before. You could see into the next level to this room. Its front was wide open, no wall there to block anyone's view. "Dad made it so he could see down into my room and I vice versa since he used to work up there all the time. He wanted to make sure he would be able to keep an eye on me while I played while he did his work, really the room is just a little open aired loft or something, like in studio apartments."

"That is so cool. I wouldn't think a house like this would have something this neat. My house is just boring plain craftsman's ship."

"From what I can remember about my dad, he always liked to work with his hands. I guess he practically remodeled this whole house at one point in time." He looked wistfully to the loft up above. "You'd never know though seeing how mom usually messes things up when she's on one of her little drunken binges. This is really the only surviving piece of him left. I don't' know why I even keep it."

"Why do you say that?" She took her eyes off the loft and turned to Angel to see the anger slowly spreading in his eyes, the most expressive part of his face.

"He wasn't a father to me, he walked out on all of us when we needed him most. Instead of staying and facing mom's problems and the fact that she was three months pregnant and the doctors said that the baby probably wouldn't live if she kept up all the drugs and stuff, he just walked out. He left me and an unborn baby with a drunk and didn't look back. He doesn't deserve to be remembered. I usually try to keep anything that might remind me of him out of sight. But this…?" He looked up at the loft still, lost down memory lane of some sort. Seeing past ghosts of a little boy and his father laughing and playing up there on the faded rug, the father's glasses a skewed as he read the newspaper while his son fell asleep in the sunlight that was streaming through the window. "I couldn't part with this for some reason."

Buffy had kept her eyes on his face this whole time, watching the emotions play across them. "Can I see it?" She asked quietly enough so as if he wanted to say no, he could just pretend he hadn't heard her words.

Angel turned, peeling his eyes off the images of his childhood. "You want to see it?"

"Yeah."