Chapter 15

Buffy stood in Castle Bam and looked around at all the flowers, balloons, and stuffed animals from fans and friends and the big 'Welcome Home' banner over Bam's giant Heartagram. "Wow."

Ville, Bam, Linde, Mige, Burton, Gas, April, Phil, Joyce, Giles, Justin, Lynn, Xander, Willow, Brenden, Dico, Novac, Dunn, Raab, Glomb, Joe Frantz, Jesse with his wife and baby, and Jonna stood in the big dining room under the banner and around the large table and yelled, "Surprise!" and, "Welcome home!"

Angel held Buffy's hand and led her the rest of the way into the dining room. "This isn't too much, is it?"

"No! This is... Wow." Buffy said.

"Bam and Ville put it together."

"How? We were on the same flight."

"But you slept through most of it." Bam said, coming up and kissing her cheek. It had been over two weeks since Buffy had gotten out of the hospital. She had moved into Ville's apartment for those two weeks afterwards because the doctor didn't want her traveling quite yet. Jonna and Ville had been absolutely amazing. They always made sure she was comfortable and had everything she could possibly think of. Angel hadn't left her side since.

"We all thought this would make you feel better." Ville said. "Plus give you a chance to make your big announcement in style."

Buffy smiled at him. "No one told anyone?"

"We thought you and Angel would like to do that." Bam said.

"It's not exactly a little ring." She said, glancing at her finger. "How come they haven't noticed?"

"You've been holed up in my apartment." Ville said. "Not many people have seen you."

"Oh."
"You don't have to announce it now." Bam said. "There's cake and food, so..."

"Cake?" Buffy asked, brightening even more.

"Red velvet, just like you like."

"Awe, thank you guys."

Angel didn't leave Buffy's side for a moment and Ville and Bam weren't too far away from her at any given moment. She was well protected. The reporters at the airport had been no match for the force of Bam, Ville, Angel, and airport security. They had kept Buffy hidden and the reporters at bay. Buffy had seemed slightly surprised that she had such a reception from the press, but then again... She shouldn't be. For the next half-hour, her friends talked with each other and made sure Buffy was comfortable. The little party was very uplifting for Buffy's spirits.

"Excuse me." Angel said. Not many people seemed to hear him.

"Hey! Shut up!" Bam yelled suddenly. Everyone turned to look.

"Buffy and I have an announcement to make. As of two and a half weeks ago, Buffy managed to force a question out of me that's been dying to come out. And now, I want to do it my way and in front of everyone." Angel dropped to his one knee and smiled up at Buffy. "Ok, for the second time, Buffy... Will you marry me?"
"I already said yes." Buffy said. She held up her hand to show off the ring. Everyone in the room seemed to gasp and then let out a joyful cry.

"Actually, you didn't. She gave me an ultimatum. So, I need a yes or a no here, baby."

"Oh, then yeah. Sure. Why not?"

Despite the fact that most of the guests were guys, they all clambered to see the ring and congratulate the couple. Not long after the announcement, Buffy's energy started to wan. Bam and his parents escorted the guests that weren't staying at Castle Bam to the door and thanked them for coming. April and Phil offered to clean up and they forced Novac, Dico, Raab, Glomb, Dunn, and Joe Frantz to help them. Xander, Willow, and Brenden rode back to their hotel in a limo that Bam had managed to get for them. Joyce, Justin, and Lynn headed back to their hotel and promised to come check on Buffy later. Ville, Bam, and the rest of H.I.M. went down to the Pirate Bar and sat with Buffy and Angel in front of the fireplace. After a while, Ville ended up bringing out his guitar that he named Sylvester and started playing random songs on it. It was nice. Back to normal.

The doctors said it would take Buffy about a month or so to completely regain her strength and that it might not be a good idea to travel with the band like she had been doing. She had insisted that traveling with the band was good for her, but the doctors disagreed. So, in a couple of days, Angel was taking her back to Sunnydale with him where she would spend the next month recuperating. Bam was a little sad that Buffy wasn't going to be staying at Castle Bam, but Angel was her guy now. And for some reason, that made Bam even sadder.

Angel set down Buffy's suitcases in the foyer and looked at Buffy. She looked around a little warily, almost uneasily. "What's wrong?"

"Are you sure this is ok with you?" Buffy asked. "I mean, maybe... Maybe I should just stay at my place. I feel like I'm imposing on your manly solitude."

"My... Buffy, no." He cupped her face in his hands. "You're my fiancee, baby. No more manly solitude for me. My house is your house. Anything I own... It's yours now too."

She smiled, still unsure, but hiding it well. "Ok. So, where do I sleep?"

Angel looked at her, almost appalled that she had asked. "Um..."

"Angel, I've never been in a relationship this serious and deep before. Forgive me if I don't know how to act. The role of future wife has never been graced with the name Buffy Summers until now, so I have no idea what I'm doing."

"Well, I would assume in this situation that you would sleep in my bed with me."

"Ok, so if I start adding all of my girly things in your bathroom, it won't freak you out?"

"Maybe at first, but I have a lifetime to get used to it." He kissed her gently. "So, after we get you settled in here, what would you like to do?"

"I don't know. I pretty much didn't plan anything since it's your town and I don't know anybody."

"I think I have some ideas."

"Works for me."

After they put Buffy's things in the closet and drawers and the bathroom, Angel helped her into his black convertible and drove off. He took her to the local supermarket to shop for foods that she might want to eat. He pushed the cart as Buffy walked alongside of him, randomly putting things that appealed to her appetite in the cart.

"Well I'll be damned!" A voice said behind them. They turned to find a tall, bald, black man standing there with an average sized, stick-thin woman. "The papers didn't lie."

Angel smiled and walked over to the man, taking his hand and hugging him in that manly way that men do. "Gunn! Long time." Then he hugged the woman. "Hey Fred." Angel turned and waved Buffy over. "Guys, this is..."

"Buffy Summers." The man said.

"Buffy, this is Charles Gunn and Winifred Burkle. More commonly known as Gunn and Fred. They're friends of mine from college."

"Hi." Buffy said, pushing her hair behind her ears.

Gunn held out his hand and Buffy shook it. "Damn, I'm a big fan. Can't believe Angel snagged you!"

Buffy smiled, getting a little nervous. Fred held out her hand and shook it gently. "I read about your hospital scare. How are you feeling?"

"Better." Buffy said.

"Sorry about Gunn. He's not very good at holding in his sometimes scary manly outbursts. The womanly touch manages to escape his brain sometimes."

"Fred here is a physics professor at UC Sunnydale." Angel said. "And Gunn is a lawyer."

"Do you practice with Angel?"

"I work for Wolfram and Hart in LA." Gunn said. "It's where Angel started out too, but he decided to quit and start his own company."

"I keep asking him to join me, but he says the benefits at W&H are too good." Angel said, lightly punching Gunn's shoulder.

"I may have to if you're gonna have lots of Hollywood stars knocking down your door. Divorce seems to be a big trend these days."

"You're a criminal lawyer."

"May have to switch over now."

"You get Hollywood people at W&H all the time."

"Well, none of them are young hipsters going through the heartbreaking time of a divorce. They'll need a shoulder to cry on."

Fred whacked Gunn in the stomach. "I don't find you funny."

Buffy stood back a little, admiring the Count Chocula box behind her and wishing Bam or Ville would call her. Angel seemed to notice she was pulling away from the conversation. "Well, guys, we better get back to shopping. We have lots to do before the day's over with."

"Sure." Gunn nodded at Buffy. "It was nice meeting you."

"You too." Buffy said.

Fred patted her shoulder. "I hope you get to feeling better soon."

"Me too."

"I think she'll be back on her feet in no time." Angel said, slipping an arm around her waist and kissing the side of her head. "She's pretty tough."

Buffy smiled up at Angel. People around the store that were passing the aisle were starting to stare and whisper. As she and Angel moved on, the whispers turned to murmurs and then to audible conversations. People were noticing who she was. Just as they headed down one of the frozen food aisles, a teenage boy came up to her and smiled broadly.

"You're Buffy Summers! I'm a huge fan. I have all of your movies and my room is covered in posters of you!" He said gleefully.

Buffy smiled as best she could as a group of people started to form around her and push Angel aside. Her strength was starting to go as more and more people begged for autographs. Some people, she noticed, were getting on their cell phones and calling their friends to the store. Angel was doing his best to squeeze back in and rescue her, but the crowd kept pushing him back. He could tell Buffy was getting tired pretty quickly. She wanted to tell the people that she needed to leave, but she just couldn't be mean to them. These people were her fans. Without them, she wouldn't be here. Suddenly, a man with white-blonde hair was there pushing people out of the way and pulling Buffy away from the crowd.

"Sorry folks, the bird's tired." He said in a loud, British accent. "Maybe some other times then." They started to get rowdy. "Hey! She's still sick! Are you bloody blind ya vultures!" The man delivered Buffy back to Angel and helped them get her into the manager's office. Buffy assumsed the British guy was the manager, but an older man with short gray hair handed her a bottle of water and his name tag said he was the manager. "There you are, mate." The British man said.

"Thanks, Spike." Angel said to him.

"She gonna be ok?"

"Yeah. I think so." Angel kneeled in front of her and smiled. "Not the first outing we'd exactly hoped for, huh?" Buffy shook her head and took a drink of water.

"I'll finish buying your groceries." Spike said. "You should get her home and into bed."

"Are you sure?"

"You can pay me back later."

"Thanks."

"Sure."

"You can take the back way out and drive around here to pick her up." The manager said. "That way you don't have to take her back through the crowd."

"Thank you." Angel said. "Buffy, I'll be right back. Spike, watch out for her."

"Sure thing." Spike said.

Buffy lay in Angel's bed and watched him move around the room. She'd been asleep most of the day after the grocery store incedent and had woken up to Angel moving through the house. When she'd opened her eyes, she'd discovered him trying to discreetly put a big bouquet of red and white roses on the dresser and fluff them up. He'd stare at them for a second and then move them around again. Buffy held in her giggles and made sure she looked like she was sleeping if he'd turn to look at her. She waited until he was satisfied and had left the room before she got up and looked at the flowers. There was a note with them.

Buffy,

When you wake up, I'll be waiting out in the living room. I hope you feel better.

-Angel

In the middle of the note was a bunch of scratch marks where Angel had written something and then scribbled over it. Buffy smiled and smelled the roses. She loved white roses. And she'd read somewhere that if you put white roses with red roses, it meant to represent true love. True love, indeed! Buffy thought. I almost died when I thought I'd lost him.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she just stood there smelling the roses. After a minute, she opened the door to the bedroom and headed out into the living room. Angel had set up a small picnic in front of the fireplace with a blanket and the same basket he'd brought to their first picnic. Buffy smiled and looked around for her fiance. He came into the room carrying a bowl of slices of warm French bread and stopped when he saw her.

"That was quick." He said. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

"Only a little bit."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

"The flowers are beautiful."

"I hoped you would like them. I was terrified that you would wake up while I was out getting them." He set the bowl down and kissed her cheek. "How are you?"

"Better. How long was I out?"

"Um..." Angel looked at a clock. They had gotten back at around one in the afternoon and Buffy had gone straight to bed. It was now seven at night. "About six hours."

"Oh my God!" She laughed. "That's... I've never slept that long in my life."

"Really?"

"Well, until recently. I usually wake up every now and then, piddle around for about an hour and then go back to sleep. Wow. You're bed is extremely comfy." Angel escorted her over the the picnic area and helped her to sit down. "Thanks."

"Are you hungry?"

"Actually, yeah. I haven't eaten all day."

"Good, because I've got lots for you to eat."

"Who's Spike?"

"What?"

"That guy... Spike. Who was he?"

"He's... I can't really call him a friend. I've known him since sophomore year of high school when he came blazing into town. Very Billy Idol wannabe..."

"I could see that."

"Anyway, we've had... an understanding. We butted heads a lot back in high school and then he got accepted to the same college as me and he went just to piss me off. During college, I met this girl Drusilla. She was... interesting. Very artistic. I wanted to be different, so I started a realtionship with her. Spike became infatuated with her too and we kind of had an all out war through college over her. Eventually, she dumped us both to date some other guy. After college, Spike came back here and I started working for Wolfram and Hart in LA as an intern to learn the ropes while I went through law school. Well, during that time, my cousin Faith came to town for a few months from Boston and Spike fell hard for her. They're a perfect match, those two."

"Are they married?"

"No. Spike's 'not the marrying type' as he likes to put it. And to tell you the truth, Faith's not either. They're both very free and wild spirits. But they love each other. Maybe one day."

"He seemed nice."

"He can sometimes, but not all the time. Most of the time you want to punch his annoying lights out."

"So, you know my man history, but I've only heard one name from your past. Are there any other significant women from your past?"

"Only one." He looked slightly... annoyed.

"And...?"

"Her name was Darla. I met her in law school. Her father was the head of W&H." He paused, unsure of how much to tell Buffy. Deciding it was best to be honest with her, he trudged on. "We got serious pretty quickly, but we hid it because we didn't want her father finding out about us since I wasn't the guy he wanted to see his daughter with. About a year after we first started seeing each other, Darla told me she was pregnant. I wasn't finished with law school yet and I knew this was going to take me out, but I prepared myself to be a father and I proposed to her. Darla, however, wasn't prepared for any of it. She accepted my marriage proposal, but she felt the relationship was just a fling. About a month after I proposed, the baby died. I never knew if she'd killed the baby or if it was just a miscarriage, but it was the end of the road for us. About a year and a half ago, she looked me up and asked to see me. Said she wanted to try again since her marriage to Lindsey McDonald, her father's golden boy, didn't work out." Buffy didn't say anything. "I told her to fuck off."

"I figured." Buffy said quietly. "I mean, obviously you're not with her."

"Yeah." He took her hand and kissed her palm. "And don't worry, you're my girl."

"Always." Buffy leaned in and kissed him gently. "I love you."

"I love you." Angel said.

After dinner, they laid in the bedroom that Angel had turned into a den and watched TV. Angel was the first to fall asleep and he did so on Buffy's lap. She played with his hair and turned down the volume, content to just sit there and listen to his heartbeat.