Disclaimer: Not miiiiineeee.

A/N: With this new chapter, I bring you some Collins/Angel fluff. Fluff's always fun. Chapter four should be fun to write, I'll get right on it! I hope you enjoy this chapter while you wait! Oh, and try to guess what Collins's plan is, it shouldn't be too hard, haha.

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It was a crisp morning in January, and Collins and Angel were out early speculating the goods of the flea market. Angel picked up a small pink bunny doll with a human face and, turning to Collins, held it up with a very serious expression on her face. "Isn't this just the most hideous thing you've ever seen?"

Collins nodded, for he was a bit preoccupied this morning, trying to think up a new strategy with which to redeem himself. Ever since Operation: Avalanche had backfired, Roger's disposition was more dour than usual, towards Mark, his enemy, Mimi, and now even Collins, his own ally. Now, as Angel fluttered gleefully over a set of china, Collins merely smiled, focusing a majority of his attention on trying to find some inspiration for a new plan.

As they left the flea market, Collins walked alongside a smiling Angel, carrying the small box that concealed the china set Collins had purchased for her. Angel linked her arm onto Collins's free arm and grinned at him, but his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. Pouting, Angel averted her gaze forward again and suddenly squealed in fright as a dog leapt out from behind a cluster of garbage cans, upsetting a couple of them. Collins nearly dropped the box of fragile items at the sound of Angel's yelp, and he turned to comfort her only to find that she had disappeared behind him.

"It's Evita come back from the dead!" Angel shouted, clutching at Collins's shoulders and bunching up the fabric of his coat.

Collins couldn't help but laugh as the dog stood there with its head cocked to the side, wagging its tail in the most non-violent manner possible. Angel, furious that Collins would laugh at her, smacked him in the back, and for the second time he nearly dropped the box of china to the ground. "Look, Angie, it's just a little puppy," he said as the dog fell awkwardly to its side while trying to satisfy an itch with its hind leg.

"Puppies can be rabid."

"I know a rabid animal when I see one. This dog's perfectly healthy… besides, it belongs to someone. It's got a collar on, look…"

Collins knelt down in front of the dog and Angel, with her protective wall gone, took a few more steps in the other direction, holding her purse in front of her as though it were a shield. Slipping his fingers around the collar, Collins turned it until he could see a little heart-shaped tag that read 'Angel', with an address beneath it. "Aww, Angel, look," Collins said, and both the dog and the human perked up at the mention of their name. "You guys have the same name. You must be soul mates."

"Ick, the very thought of sharing my name with that wretched thing," Angel whined, watching the dog as it made its way to the nearest phone booth and lifted up its leg. "Its got no tact. No tact at all."

Collins laughed more as the snow around the phone booth became yellow, courtesy of the pooch, which trotted back to Collins with a now-empty bladder. The dog skipped around Collins's legs but then went for Angel, who darted this way and that trying to avoid it, shouting at Collins to come to her aid. Collins, however, was distracted by the yellow snow. Without even knowing it, that dog had just provided the inspiration Collins had needed. Picking up the phone, Collins inserted a couple of quarters and dialed the loft's number.

Ignoring Angel's fearful cries in the background, Collins hummed a tune to himself as the phone rang. One, twice, three times, then "SPEAK!"

"Hey Roger? You there?" he asked cautiously, keeping in mind that both his ally and his enemy lived in the same apartment. "I, uh… I have something… confidential to discu-"

A click. "Hello?"

It was Mark's voice, Collins was certain of that. "Hey Mark," he said, trying to sound as casual as possible. "Is Roger there?"

"Yeah, he's in bed with the flu."

"That's too bad," Collins said, wondering how his ally had suddenly come down with the illness. "How'd that happen?"
Collins could hear Mark laugh, and it would have almost sounded sinister, if Mark were even capable of being anything close to sinister. "Well, it's a funny story, actually," Mark began. "You see, Roger was playing this practical joke on me. He filled our freezer with snow… can you believe that he'd go through all that trouble just to make me miserable?"

"Yeah, Roger's pretty sadistic," Collins said, trying to keep his voice steady to avoid suspicion, for it was he who had actually filled the freezer.

"Yeah. Well, anyway," Mark continued. "He tried to get me to open it, but when we started arguing, Mimi ended up opening the freezer, and she was so pissed off at Roger that she kicked him out of the loft. His own apartment and she kicked him out! Locked the door and everything. I would have let him back in, had I been awake, but I was already asleep by then."

Something about Mark's tone of voice told Collins that Mark had been quite awake when this event occurred. "When it came morning, Mimi had gone off elsewhere, leaving the door unlocked. Roger stumbled in a couple of hours later and just collapsed into his bed and he's been there ever since."

Collins was slightly amused at the irony of the whole situation and greatly relieved that it hadn't been him in Roger's shoes. "Well, I'm sorry to hear about that… I think," Collins sympathized. "But if he's still capable of talking, I'd like to speak with him."

"Oh, he can talk," Mark assured Collins. "Sounds like shit though."

Collins heard the phone being placed on the surface of the table as Mark ran off to fetch Roger. Angel had long since accepted the dog's presence and stood behind Collins, waiting patiently. Listening intently, Collins expected to hear something in the background. Shouting, arguing, complaining, anything. But after a long, uneventful silence, Collins heard Roger's rough voice on the other end. "Hello?"

"Hey Roger," Collins said. "I've just come up with the most ingenious idea."

There was a bout of coughing in response, and Collins cringed as the phone smacked into the hardwood floor on the other end. After the coughing had settled, he heard Roger lift the phone back to his ear. "This plan…" Roger continued as though there hadn't been an interruption. "… will it be as much of a fuckup as the last one?"

Even with his voice as weak as it was, Roger had still managed to accentuate the word 'fuck'. Collins laughed nervously, though he knew was so much easier to deal with Roger's anger while he was a few miles away from him. "It's foolproof," Collins insisted, wincing as he heard Roger sneeze suddenly, causing him to drop the phone once more; he waited until he could hear Roger's congested breathing on the other end again before continuing. "But… it'd be in our best interest to wait until you're better."

"I'm better than ever," Roger said, not very convincingly. "Now tell me what it is, I want to know."

"You played in the snow as a child, didn't you?"

The reply was hesitant, filled with confusion. "Yeah… I didn't like it much though. My mom would force me outside."

"Did your mother ever tell you not to eat the yellow snow?"

There was another pause, but this time Collins could tell that Roger knew what he had in mind. He could hear Roger's soft laughter, interjected with coughing, before he spoke. "I like the way your mind works," Roger said slyly.

"Me too," Collins replied with a grin. "I leave you with this parting word… snow cones."

And with that Collins hung up the pay phone, turning to his darling Angel, who now held the little dog in her arms. "I see you've made a new friend there while I was preoccupied," Collins said, observing the two lovingly.

"Do you want to return the dog with me?" Angel asked.

"Of course," Collins said. "Someone's probably missing their little Angel. I know I'd be devastated if my Angel got lost."

Collins bent down slightly and kissed Angel, the dog squirming between them in Angel's arms. After pulling away, Collins wrapped his free arm around Angel's waist and the two continued their walk. After a while of perfecting his plan in his mind, Collins glanced sideways at Angel as she nuzzled her chin into the dog's head. "Hey Angel, what would you say to a winter picnic sometime this week?" Collins asked.

"A picnic!" Angel exclaimed cheerfully, squeezing the air out of the dog as she hugged it to her chest to demonstrate her happiness. "I'd love a picnic! Can we make snow cones to bring?"

"Of course, baby, I'd love to bring snow cones."