Angel sighed when Buffy asked him how they met, that scared stutter still present as she spoke. He was sure she had an endless string of questions not only about him but everything and didn't know where to start with asking but took the set up he had put out there without really meaning to. He asked her if she would rather him go ahead and call Willow or someone but her sad eyes as she asked him "Please" struck right to the core. "I fe-feel like I need to know something, anything, about myself and those lost years."

Angel moved his body slightly in the uncomfortable chair before clearing his throat. "I was living in New York working at one of the sales offices for Wolfram And Hart when I was offered a promotion with the company. The new position required a move to LA since it was at their corporate office."

"W-Wolfram and Hart?" Buffy asked, looking like she was trying to place the name. "T-the hotel chain?"

Angel nodded. "Global marketing operations," he explained. "I was still getting settled in when I got roped into going with a few of my associates to speak to some business students at local colleges. One of those was UC Sunnydale." Angel paused, looking aimlessly around the room as she stared at him, listening. "Your friend Anya was in the class we came to speak to while you just happened to be in the classroom. You had popped in to see her in between two of your own classes but wound up staying for the entire lecture." He could see Buffy blush in a light pink out of the corner of his eye, reminding him a lot of the very day he was describing to her. "While Miss Jenkins did get a lot of attention drawn to herself with her bold attitude and strange questions, as well as bringing the focus to those around her, you had caught my attention all on your own within the first few minutes," he admitted. "I wound up making a near fool of myself when it came my turn to have the floor, using that to my advantage to flirt uncontrollably with you. You'd been embarrassed at first, no question about that, but soon you were matching me tit-for-tat every step along the way. When the time was finally up you got all shy on me again and made a mad dash toward the door."

"Oh, God," he heard her groan. It almost made him smile.

"It was all in good fun," he said. "And I was going to leave it there… you walked out the door and I started gathering up my things preparing to head back to LA but as I started walking through those halls again I just couldn't seem to shake you off my mind. I didn't have a name for you as I'd spent the whole time referring to you as "The Pretty Blonde" and the like, you calling me "The Handsome Suit" and other similar nicknames, nor anything to go off of but after being handed about five different flyers to a frat party that would be taking place later that evening I decided to give it a shot. I was there maybe a total of five to eight minutes when luck would be on my side as I spotted you come in. I simply watched you for another ten or fifteen minutes before finally making my way over to you. God bless you, you wasted no time in calling me out on it as the first words to come out of your mouth. You had me hook, line and sinker right then and there. After introducing me to your friends that had come with you to the party you joined me when I asked if you wanted to get out of there. We spent the entire night walking around Sunnydale just talking. About everything…. subjects ranged from our life stories, hobbies to music and current events. The sun was thinking about waking up by the time we finally got you back to your dorm room. I headed back to LA but from that point on I would come back to Sunnydale to see you at absolutely any chance that I got."

"We f-fell in love?" Buffy's voice asked, bringing him back to the present as he got swept up in the memories of the past. Her voice sounded small and unsure.

Angel shifted again in the chair. "We did," he confirmed. "Very quickly and very passionately," he added, still keeping his voice in the same neutral tone he'd had since the beginning. "We were in love. Stupidly, head over heels, over the moon in love with one another. We easily decided we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and agreed upon not wanting to waste the time to get to starting on making that happen. You'd had your reservations about marriage and I sure the hell never intended on settling down once before you came along, but all of that went right out the window. And we made it happen. We planned, and later had, a beautiful wedding. Neither one of us had ever looked happier in our lives, and you'd never looked more beautiful than you did that day because of it," he told her, his voice softening just the slightest. "It was decently sized... the setting was bigger than the guests, but it was perfect. You had your friends from school and such, friends of the family, old and current teachers and some scattered distant relatives. I had a bit more of my family fly in, then coworkers and friends. There was the church, the cake, the decorations, the dancing... the whole shebang."

"Did my father come?" she asked after a moment. "Wa-was he the one to walk me down the aisle?"

Angel sighed, shaking his head. "Hank came… but he stood in the back and left before the reception. Rupert Giles was the one who walked you down."

Buffy smiled at this. "It sounds like it was beautiful."

Angel cleared his throat. "It was. It was everything we hoped it'd be and it was the perfect start to our marriage," he told her. "We stayed in Sunnydale so you could continue your classes, moving into your old home that'd pretty much been sitting there empty since after your mother had passed and you'd been going to school. I continued to work for Wolfram and Hart... which wasn't always easy but they worked with me on getting my hours switched so scheduling got better for all ends involved. And we just went about our lives, loving every day and one another I guess they say."

"Did... do we have any... um... children?"

"No," he answered. "That had been something we didn't exactly see eye to eye on at first, I was very hesitant at the idea of having children... but I eventually came around… and we both decided that someday we would like to grow our family out more." Angel felt his thumb slide over to touch the wedding ring that remained on his hand, rubbing it gently as an old habit. "Sadly, that someday never came to be for us."

Buffy's eyes slowly lifted to meet his and he swallowed hard at the sight, losing a small piece of the battle to keep all of his emotions under wraps. She looked sad, confused, and very thoughtful in that moment. "I-it sounds like w-we were madly in love and perfectly happy," she said, his tone making him swallow another lump that'd formed in his throat. "Wh-what happened?"

OoOoO

Angel had never been happier for an interruption in his life than when the door had opened and a nurse came in to check Buffy's vitals then take her to another floor for some testing. He knew Buffy meant no harm with her line of questioning about their previous relationship... including asking about how it all came crashing down. He knew this had to be tough on her with not remembering any of it and being stuck with no knowledge of the past several years of her own life. And he knew if he was in her position he'd be curious and wanting to know all the same. But it wasn't easy on his own self either.

And right now he felt near a panic at the flood of emotions that gripped on tight to him from the conversation the two of them were having, not to mention everything else that had been going on in the past couple of weeks.

Add the fact of living it all on top of that, too.

He'd happily stood after the nurse announced her plans to take Buffy away and wished her luck before excusing himself from the room, saying he would be back to check on her later. He walked to the closest door that would lead him outside and hungrily ate up the fresh air that hit him. He pinched the bridge of his nose when he started feeling queasy and walked toward a bench across the way upon spotting it.

He was thankful the older man who'd been standing there smoking had taken off before he reached the bench, sat down and rested his large hands on his knees.

This had been one hell of a day.

And he knew it wasn't going to get any easier any time soon, not while things were like this.

Angel wasn't sure how long he'd sat there but he ached quite a bit when he went to stand, his hand reaching into his pocket to check the time. He decided he'd make a few phone calls before going to see about getting something to eat and maybe after that he'd brave coming back to the hospital to finish his and Buffy's conversation about the downfall of their marriage.

OoOoO

By the time Angel returned to the hospital visiting hours had come and gone, he knew this but went inside anyway.

It wasn't long before he was picking up the phone to get in touch with the nurse's station in the area Buffy was and after a brief talk with the woman on the other end, the door was unlocked for him.

Angel made his way down the hallway and then stopped at the desk, a smile on his face. "Thank you," he said sincerely to the older woman he came face to face with.

"Mister O'Connor," Olivia started.

"I know, I know," he cut in, holding his hands out after setting the white carry-out boxes he'd brought with him down. "My wife just woke up and I already missed most of the day with her," he said, his voice going straight to the older woman's heart by the look her eyes took on. "I know you can't let me back there to see her, but please just bring her some real food for me. I brought a second one of cakes and donuts and other sweets just for you lovely ladies and gentlemen," he said with a widening smile and a twinkle to his brown eyes.

The woman sighed, reached down and picked up the phone in front of her. She gave him one hell of a look which he smirked at then took a few steps off to the side until she called him back over. "The doctor gave an okay about bringing her the food," she said first, making him give her another smile. "And he said given the circumstances of her situation, he will even allow you to come in tonight. But only for an hour or two Mister O'Connor… or until Buffy gets tired." At this, Angel had to force a smile as he hadn't been expecting them to let him go see her and was hoping he could put off the rest of their conversation until tomorrow. After all, that was the main reason as to why he was late getting back this way. "You'll have to go back out to security and get a tag but then you come back this way, alright?"

Angel thanked her after a second or two had passed before allowing Olivia and Lily to go ahead and bring Buffy the meal he'd brought in for her while he went to go get his special visitor's pass.

It was only a handful of minutes before he was walking back through those doors, past the nursing station and on his way to Buffy's room. Her eyes looked up when he entered the room, a hint of a smile gracing her lips. "H-hello again," she said.

He nodded as his way of greeting. "I hope you enjoy the food. I figured you might get hungry and we all know hospital food isn't at the top of anyone's most favorite list."

Buffy nodded her head this time, twirling her fork around to grab her next bite of spaghetti. "Yes, very much so. Thank you."

"There's actually a secondary food area here at the hospital too that's actually not so bad though," he told her. "They have a few restaurant pods set up, a grocery section and deli... along with a few other things."

"That doesn't sound so bad. Might have to get my meals from there when possible while I'm still here," she said, then got a new look in her eyes. "Do you know why I'm here?" she asked. "I mean… not the hospital of course but what I'm doing in Texas?"

"No, not really. According to some of your belongings that were with you, you have an address here now. It's quite a few hours from here and from where you had your wreck however."

"Oh. Okay. I was just wondering," she answered softly.

Angel nodded then crossed the room, returning to the blue chair he'd been resting in the last time he was in this room. "Like I said, you and I haven't spoken in several months so I really haven't known what you've been up to. Before that I will admit I was keeping an eye on you from time to time even after we had split but that wasn't healthy for either one of us it seemed. You'd still been in California the last I knew," he told her. "I did get in touch with your property manager and explained what was going on with you a few days after the accident. She helped out a little with saying where you were working and getting me in touch with someone there but that's about it. I paid off what bills I knew of but I don't know what else might be out there."

"Y-you didn't have to do that."

"I know," he said simply.

"Thank you though."

Angel shrugged, unbuttoning his jacket before resting back against the chair more. "I called Willow and she said she would call Xander, Giles and some of the others. I think she's going to try to fly out tomorrow but if not it'd be the day after at the latest I'm sure."

Buffy smiled. "Yeah, she called here earlier too. We didn't get to talk long but it was nice to hear her voice, to hear a familiar voice, you know?"

"I'm sure that's a comfort given your circumstances."

There was a few minutes that passed where both of them remained silent. Angel looked up at the clock while she ate the dish he'd brought her. But finally she prodded into finishing their talk from before.

He couldn't help but let out a heavy sigh. "Things were perfect with us, for a couple of years they were," he started, making sure he kept emotions back out of his voice. "We argued, though not very often. We had differences in opinion, we had our ups and downs as any couple does. But things were good with us. Then it just started going to hell on us. There's not really one issue that caused it, no one instance, or anything like that. We both had our share of blame in it, though I bear more of that weight than you to be honest."

"What happened?" she asked again, softly.

"I got another promotion at the office, I became Senior Manager of my department. There'd been some inside issues with the company and there were a few months that filled like we were in a bubble of tension out there. The hours got longer, the workload taller. It started putting a strain on our marriage. You were recently out of college and looking to start your own career and it was a bad mixture at the time. Our hours never seemed to get on the same page and it felt like we hardly saw each other. Then when we did it was a toss-up to how it would go over. But that was just the tip of the iceberg," he said, casting his eyes down. "An old... friend, acquaintance... something... showed up which was a bigger issue that came between us. Any interaction with her was all about a business deal as far as I was concerned but Darla was causing issues with her own agenda. I did not know this at first but later it became painfully obvious."

Angel reached a hand up and rubbed at his tired eyes. He hadn't had a good nights sleep in a coon's age. "You suspected something was off with her long before I saw it coming and didn't care much for me brushing it off. And by the time I got the full extent of everything, it was too late. Darla had gotten you to believe a mountain of lies and there was no part of you that wanted to believe a word I had to say for myself. It didn't seem to matter what I did or what I said, hell any proof that nothing was going on that I could give to you seemed to do any good, you had your mind made up. I can't entirely blame you as the encore performance to it all was a damn good trap and the scene you walked in on that night would have made anyone see red that last time, but it was all some twisted game. After that, it was just a matter of a couple of weeks before it was more or less finished between the two of us. A lot of angry words got said, on both our parts, a lot of tears got shed, a lot of yelling and screaming happened, a lot of begging and refusing. When you told me to leave I did. I was tired of fighting with you. I was tired of being accused of things that I had not done. So I just grabbed enough of my things to fit in a gym bag and walked out the door."

Silently he added how that action was one of the worst mistakes he'd ever made in his life, that while leaving that night wasn't that bad of an idea, giving one another some space wasn't a bad idea, him using that night as the turning point to simply give up instead of fighting for her was.

Angel could remember all the times Buffy had brought up the fact that she suspected Darla was up to something and how he would just pass it off, then later when she started to question him about the extent of the relationship with the other blonde he even felt a little amused by the jealous, but soon shit the fan and it wasn't something to just push off to the side anymore. Buffy may not be able to see all of that in her mind's eye right now but he sure could.

He could remember a few times the two had crossed paths and Buffy would get angrier with every encounter, making claims of one thing or another and how he would go gripe at Darla afterward and do his best to make it up to his wife for whatever had transpired. Angel could remember being off on a business trip and how it wound up costing him everything when Darla sprung her trap, dragging him and Buffy through the mud in the process.

He still wasn't even quite sure what exactly happened, how it happened, but it had. Somehow Darla had gotten into his room somehow while he'd been in the shower awaiting Buffy's arrival as he'd asked her to join him when the weekend came and she would be off work. The next thing he knew there was a commotion going on in his room and there Buffy was, and Darla too. Darla who was not just in his room but with wet hair, wrapped up in a white robe, eating from the platter he'd had room service deliver not too long before.

She'd made some remark, Buffy had yelled at the two of them, and he'd just been dumbfounded at first. Eventually he'd had the sense to go chase after his wife but the damage seemed to be done.

"You stayed in Sunnydale," Angel said, bringing himself back to the present. "I decided to go stay in LA for awhile. We pretty much left each other alone at first, then you went ahead and filed for legal separation. I didn't fight you on that and kind kinda let it be. I had hoped maybe time apart would maybe help I guess, or would calm things down. But it wasn't long before I caught wind that you had resumed a relationship with one of your ex flames, Riley Finn, who you'd dated briefly when you'd first started college. You made your reasons for doing so-and with him-very clear, using it to hurt me for what you assumed I'd done. The two of us blew up at one another once more, this time far worse than any other before. We both lost our tempers in grand fashion that night, both saying things that we didn't mean-at least I know on my part I didn't and I was just wanting to hurt you, I like to believe it was the same for you... and when Monday rolled around I went and filed for divorce. It was pretty straight forward. At first we made a scene or two during the proceedings since we were utterly down one another's throats any time we crossed paths, but eventually I grew sick and tired of it and just gave up. I wanted it all done with so I agreed to just about anything you wanted, did my best to keep a cooler head, and ignored the rage fuming from your end. This, of course, only made you angrier in the end but I didn't feel like giving back into my own turmoil so I just let it all be. Before long our divorce was granted and we were no longer husband and wife. We did our best to continue steering clear of one another after that point as anytime we were in close proximity it always ended the same. You'd get mad, I'd just stand there taking it as still as a stone, this would get you more upset, and by the end of it I was getting slapped in the face or having something heavy thrown at me. So we just went on with our own lives."

OoOoO

Before he left for the night, Buffy had asked several more questions to her ex-husband, getting some details about the events that had happened to make their relationship fall apart and despite not remembering it, she felt a sadness grip onto her from the whole situation. From the way he had described everything it sounded like the two of them had very much been in love and that she'd been happy, and for it to all end over nothing more than a few stupid mistakes made her head and heart hurt.

She knew she'd always felt with her whole heart, and had always been pretty hard headed so she could see where she might lose her temper like that, but kind of hoped she'd maybe outgrown that in her older years that she couldn't remember.

Other than asking questions about everything, she really didn't know what to say to Angelus, or Angel as he told her she could call him. It was awkward, to say the least. He was so unreadable that it was a little irritating while she tried putting the pieces of her past together.

He'd told her the outline and a few details of their lives together, including how it all ended, yet he'd come all the way out here when he heard she'd been in the accident. And not only that, he'd stayed the entire time, coming to see her every day, checking in on her, keeping up the guise that they were still married to anyone who didn't know better so he would know how she was. He'd gone out of his way to find out where she was living nowadays and pay off her bills, had contacted those closest to her for her, brought her food tonight.

He was nice enough to her but he was very standoffish. He could turn the charm on so easily though when someone else would come into the room, always very polite, an easy smile gracing his handsome face. He rarely showed any emotion at all when it was just the two of them, his face utterly void of anything except for those haunting dark eyes of his. He did a good job of masking everything there but at times they'd give everything away. Which was probably why he avoided looking directly at her she deducted.

His voice had grown softer a time or two and would have more life to it when he spoke with a nurse or doctor or other orderly but when it was just them he kept his voice nearly what she would describe as business-like. It was strong and smooth, a little clipped. He'd been careful not to touch her, though she wasn't sure if that was just her overreacting, but that is the way it seemed. Careful not to touch her, careful to keep distance between the two of them.

She'd noticed there was a ring on his finger and before he had taken off for the night she'd asked him if he had remarried. He'd told her no. When he'd stood to leave she also noticed that it looked to match the one she had, that she'd obviously had on her when the accident happened.