Disclaimers: Not mine
AN: I'm so glad many of you love/hate this Angelus Either way, I'm happy! I had hoped this chapter would be sooner, you won't believe this but I wrote the first part right after I posted my last chapter...and the others came very slowly...
I had also wanted it to be longer...but alas, an uncooperative muse...
AN2: Some wonderful person taking AP English had previously offered to be my beta. Could you email again please? I've lost your email, thanks!
AN3: Thank you all for your last reviews, since it is not allowed now to reply reviews, that's all I can say at the moment. But if you'll just press that little signin button and leave a signed review, I'll be happy happy happy to reply in private:) You guys are the best!
Please thank my beta Genni for this sparkling new, grammatically correct chaper Any more mistake you find comes from me, my bad.
Chapter Eighteen
After leaving her lawyer's office, Buffy wandered around downtown LA for a while, sat in a coffee shop hungrily taking in the aromatic drink and pushed around the sandwich she ordered for lunch. She could not stop thinking of Angelus' offer and the fear, though she would hate to admit, that it had instilled in her.
She thought, helplessly, of the possibility that she may lose this trial and therefore Alex. She had a fair bit of a chance to win, she was sure of that, but she understood as well that staying in her marriage would help a lot. The fears Angelus had aroused were not unfounded. She looked down on the sandwiches torn into little pieces and lost her appetite. She bought a few chocolate chip cookies from the bakery and headed back out into the sun.
Standing amongst a crowd of mothers and some fathers, she patiently waited for Alex's school to end. She spotted him just coming down the stone steps as he looked around for her. The moment he found her, he could not conceal the skip in his steps as he walked toward her.
"Hi mom." He leaned in to a hug in her open arms. She hugged him tight and didn't let go until Alex started to squirm a bit. Buffy placed a kiss on his cheek.
"How was your first day of school?"
"It was cool." He shrugged nonchalantly, but could not resist showing her a beautiful picture and a clay work he'd done in Art class.
The pair walked two blocks back to their apartment. What previously had been Faith's study was now decorated as Alex's room with a proper sized bed, a desk, and bookshelves for his things. He placed the clay dinosaur on the shelf and followed his mother into the kitchen to put his picture on the refrigerator. After it had been placed in its rightful place, the two sat down for an afternoon snack.
As Alex gleefully filled Buffy's ears with tales of his school day and his classmates and teachers, Buffy could not help but feel a tug in her heart. She looked at her boy sitting in front of her with his sparkling eyes and pinked cheeks, memorizing very curve and gesture. She had never stopped thanking the PTBs for giving her such a gift, of joy and pride. The thought of losing him would kill her. No, she would do everything she could to make that possibility an impossibility.
When Alex finished his milk and cookies, Buffy sent him to rinse his teeth and wash his face before doing anything else. When he came back, he found his mother seated in front of the sofa, looking at a small photo album he knew she carried with her always. He plopped down next to her and cuddled by her side as they looked through the photos together, there were pictures of his father and mother and Mom holding him, his own family photos, and photos of his mom when she was a child, and her mother. Finally, they started to flip through photos that Alex had never seen before because they always stopped before that. He looked at his mother curiously, but she continued to look intently at the photos. There was a couple of her with an older man who could be her father. She did not look very happy in those; perhaps because of the other blonde haired woman clutching tightly to the man's other arm. There were a couple more of her with Aunt Faith, both in wild make-up and hair, which gave Alex the giggles and even brought a smile to Buffy's face.
Then there was a photo of a man who stared straight at the camera. It didn't matter that he was not smiling because it did not make him any less handsome than he was. Dressed in a dark business suits, tailored just for him, he was caught at work, slightly irritated but amused. There was another of him, dressed more casually but in all black, with a smirk on his face as he gestured for the photographer to come closer. And to Alex's surprise, the next couple of photos were of him and Buffy, who smiled sweetly at the camera. She was younger with short straight hair and her eyes sparkled with life. She blushed and laughed in a photo of the man talking to her, while the next one caught them in the middle of a kiss.
He looked at the photos in amazement, a little confused as to why he'd never been allowed to see them before and why she would be showing them to him now. Who was this man? How come he'd never heard of anything about him before? Is this someone his mother had lost as he lost his own parents? Is this man the reason she never settled in a place or with anyone else?
Alex looked up at Buffy, who instead of looking at the photos was actually looking at him. She put her arm around him and pulled him closer to her.
"There's someone I want you to meet, Alex." She said.
"Okay. Who?" He questioned cautiously.
"The man in the photo. I've known him for a long time and I would like to introduce him to you."
He nodded.
"There is a chance that we might be seeing a lot of him, now that we're in LA. He's here as well."
He didn't say a word, waiting for Buffy to volunteer more information about the mysterious man.
She does, "We were married." Not exactly the information she meant to share with her son, as she continued, "Actually, we still are. There were some problems, so I haven't seen him for a very long time."
"But now, we are going to see him a lot?"
"Yes."
"Okay". Alex shrugged, with a little numbness in his chest as he thought of the fact that Buffy never told him about her husband before.
Seeing her son lost in thought, his lips slowly moving to a pout and his forehead creasing; she placed a kiss on his soft brown hair. She says to him, "I'm sorry that I didn't get to tell you before. It's complicated and I guess a little hard for me to say anything about it. But, no matter what happens between Angelus and me, you will always be my favourite guy, okay?"
He gave her a small smile, "Okay." He paused and asked, "His name is Angelus?"
TBC…
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