"Mahal"
By: Lynn
DISCLAIMERS: Making it short...NOT MINE!
SUMMARY: AU; Just another story where everybody's human and Angel, Oz, and Xander are the new students in school.
DISTRIBUTION: Are you kidding me! I NEED someone to host my fics. Just e-mail me if you want them. Previous Parts found at: http/
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BETA READER: Ashley Russo (last parts un-beta¡¦ed)

Part 8

Jessica Roarke sat Indian style on the lilac rug that partially covered the mahogany floor of her bedroom, while Connor kept her company by playing games and chatting with friends online on her computer. Black and white photos were scattered around Jessica, and an open binder of negatives was laid out in front of her while she fiddled with an old camera in her hands.

Like Angel, the youngest Roarke was an artsy type. She used to be mainly into drawing until they moved to Sunnydale. She signed up for the course just because it reminded her of her dad since it was an old hobby of his, but immediately fell in love with Photography, finding out that she was a natural at it.

After she was done loading her camera with the new roll of film, Jessica went to organizing her pictures. The girl smiled when she came across a particular photo. It was of Angel and Buffy sitting under the tree in front of the school. They were smiling happily at each other as they had a private conversation. They didn't even know that Jessica had captured the moment between the two.

'Aww...' Jessica thought, 'They're so cute together!' She was about to show her brother when the phone rang. Both of the twins reached for the silver cordless phone resting in the charger on Jessica's desk, but Jessica snatched it before Connor could even touch it.

As soon as she answered, she immediately regretted it. Her happy smile quickly melted and shifted into a look of annoyance.

"Oh, hey Melody," she greeted with false enthusiasm. When Jessica muttered her name, Connor pointed and laughed quietly at his twin, earning a kick in the shin and a few slaps which just made him laugh harder, just to piss her off.

"... and of course Juniper and Penelope. Hey guys. Wow the joys of party lines," she rolled her eyes and mouthed, "Help me," to Connor, "The mall?... I don't know if I can go... Why not? Um Connor isn't feeling well and you know how that freaky twin link goes...No," Jessica yelled in refusal for their offer to come over. She suddenly realized how desperate that sounded and quickly amended it by calmly saying, "I mean no, it's okay... EW! No Juniper. Connor does NOT need 'special treatment'!"

The said teenager looked at his sister in shock, trying to take the phone away from her so he could take back the offer to receive his "special treatment."

Jessica ended up wrestling Connor on her bed while talking on the phone, struggling to keep him at bay with her legs. At a last ditch effort, the brunette started to make static noises. "What? Chhh... I chhh ca- chhh -ear ooh chhhh...what?" then in a perfectly normal but hurried voice she said, "I'll see you guys around later ok? Bye."

The dark haired girl smirked at Connor when she hung up the phone, sticking out her tongue at him. In response, Connor took one of her pillows and hit her upside the head.

"Ow," Jessica said with a pout, picking up one of her larger stuffed animals and swung it at him. She giggled when he stumbled ungracefully to the floor. Connor looked up at his sister with a glare in his crystal blue eyes.

"Uh-oh," she mumbled before screeching and running off, Connor right on her heels. For some reason, her brothers loved to chase her like she was some sort of prey and they were the predators. They were violent ones her brothers.

They made it all the way downstairs in the dining room before Connor tackled Jessica to the floor, careful not to really hurt each other on the hard wood floor. Connor had Jessica pinned and was playfully torturing her. For a boy as skinny as him, Connor was really strong, his victim could barely move under his strong grasp.

He didn't let up until his sister begged for mercy and apologized. He jumped back up to his feet and lent a hand to Jessica, both of them panting for air and giggling.

The tall boy took a glance toward the bay window and saw an attractive blonde woman talking with Angel. Intrigued and curious, he walked over to the window to get a closer look.

"'Ey, Jess, who's that," he pointed outside to the woman.

Jessica joined his side and took a look. "Duh Connor! That's Nina." All she received from him was a look that said "And I would know who that was?" She sucked her teeth in frustration, "Nina? Tara's roommate,"she still got nothing from her brother, which just made her more frustrated, "Angel's GIRLFRIEND?"

"Ohhh...," he turned his attention back toward Nina and Angel.

"Geez Connor, they have been going out for a month. You'd think you'd notice her by now. I mean we did have dinner with her."

He furrowed his eyebrows at her and asked incredulously, "When? I don't remember her coming over for dinner."

"Last Tuesday."

Connor rolled his eyes and nudged his sister, "Stupid. I wasn't here. I was at Josh's house for dinner that night."

She thought for a moment and then suddenly remembered that he was indeed absent from the first meeting of Angel's new girlfriend.

"Oh right. Well, I guess she's nice," then she added, "she's a little weird and tries a bit too hard, but Angel seems to like her, so I guess we're stuck with her."

The twins watched as their brother talked and laughed with his girlfriend. Nina was leaning back on her car and Angel stood in front of her, his hand resting next to her on top of her blue Honda Civic. Angel then turned his head and caught the two staring at them, Nina looked too to see what got his attention off of her.

Connor and Jessica gave the couple identical innocent smiles and waves. Angel retaliated by waving his hand to shoo them away. Nina smiled sweetly at her boyfriend's siblings, giving them a little wave, doing the opposite of Angel and gesturing them to join them, thinking the two were so cute.

"You wanna go embarrass him," Connor murmured to Jessica.

Jessica looked at him as if she was shocked, "Connor that would be wrong to make Angel look like a jackass..." she smiled mischievously, "Lets' do it." With that, the two made a mad dash outside, evil ideas forming in their brown haired heads.

Dawn sighed, resting her chin on her palm, not paying attention to the excitement in front of her.

Her friend strayed her brown eyes away from the football game to look at the brooding girl. Instead of watching the game like everybody else was, she had her blue eyes focused on her brother who was sitting a several seats away with some friends. The whole gang, except for Tara who had to study for and exam, had came to the last football game of Gunn, Angel, and Riley, but had separated into different groups.

Jessica threw a piece of popcorn at her, "You're pathetic you know that?"

Dawn retorted by taking another piece of popcorn from the carton Jessica was holding and threw it back at her.

"Am not," she pouted and looked back at Connor, flirting with girls that were sitting around his crew. Dawn scowled and muttered, "Skanks."

Jessica heard her and raised one of her thin eyebrows, "Who?"

Dawn nodded over to the red head, brunette, and blonde girls poking at Connor and ruffling his hair, "Those girls by Connor. You know, Heather, Melody, and Jackie? Ugh, I hate them."

"Well Connor seems to like it," Jessica quipped and then focused back on the wide field where the teams were lined, ready to finish off the game. She started to holler proudly for the guys, adding to the noise of the crowd.

"Oh yay, the more skanks the merrier," Dawn grumbled sarcastically, still watching Connor and his friends; Melody's followers, Juniper and Penelope joining in the mix.

As her reply, Jessica growled in annoyance, taking a handful of popcorn and chucking it at her friend.

"This is fun," Willow giggled and gave her little Sunnydale High pennant a little wave, "I'm giddy!"

"I like it when you're giddy," Oz stated, rubbing his girlfriend's back.

"Yeah! Whoo," Xander and Spike cheered loudly like Jessica had done but much louder, "Go Cordy," Xander yelled at his head cheerleader girlfriend flipped and kicked high in the air in her short skirt.

Buffy eyed Xander and Spike strangely, "Guys, you do know that's there's a football game going on don't you?"

"Oh so that's what the commotion is about," Xander joked, nudging Buffy with is shoulder, getting a giggle from the golden blonde.

"Screw the game, there's hot girls with short skirts kicking high and what not," Spike commented.

Once again the hormonal eighteen-year-olds hooted and hollered for cheerleaders.

"You guys are the definition of horny teenagers," Fred said with a smirk. She waved happily at her boyfriend as he jogged from the sidelines to take his place on the field.

"So, Buffy, how are you and Brian going," Willow changed the subject.

Buffy gave a little laugh, "We're not. I'm thinking about, you know, dumping him."

"Then I say good riddance," Spike remarked taking his eyes off the pompom waving girls for a moment, "Give the dumbass the old boot and be done with it. He's such a pansy." He then winced when Buffy punched him on the shoulder.

Willow pouted, "Aww...He was cute though."

"Yeah he's so cute... Why would you dump him?" Fred questioned.

'Because he's not Angel,' she wanted to say but ended up saying, "He is, but underneath all that cuteness is annoying clingyness. I'm just glad he doesn't go to our school, he would've drove me crazy."

Suddenly the audience screamed and stood up with excitement after Riley threw the ball smoothly to Angel, and then received a hard hit to the ground. Angel caught the ball with ease, running with incredible speed to the end of the field. He managed to avoid the oncoming players trying to tackle him, by getting help from his teammates and dodging and swatting them away with much skill.

The Sunnydale High side seemed to scream even louder when Angel finally made it to the end zone, scoring the winning points. The crowd was going crazy, students and grown-ups were hollering in excitement while shaking their mini pompoms and flags of maroon and gold.

Angel's teammates charged and jumped on him, all of them roughly shoving each other in a manly way of celebrating.

Buffy, Willow, Dawn, Fred, and Jessica jumped up and down in excitement, "whooing" and "hooing" for their good friends' victory, while Connor forgot about the girls around him and cheered with his guy friends. Oz was still as calm as ever but still managed to crack a grin and clap. Xander was being his loud self and took an air horn from his baggy pants, held it high in the air and gave the button a good push. While everybody loudly applauded, Spike gloated while happily collecting his money from the people whom he made bets with.

When Riley, Angel, and Gunn were finally dismissed from the locker room along with their other teammates, they found themselves having to go through a whole bunch of people congratulating them.

After the crowd departed to go to their own cars, they soon found the whole gang gathered around Oz's van and Buffy and Cordy's cars who were conveniently parked in front of Riley and Gunn's cars.

Willow, Dawn, Jessica and Connor were sitting in the open sliding door of the van. Dawn and Jessica were turned towards each other, their hands were palm to palm as they played the slapping game.

Oz leaned casually against the side of his blue, metal baby, idly running a hand through Willow's red locks.

Spike sat in the passenger seat of Buffy's Mitsubishi Lancer, leaning on his thighs that were out of the open door way. He listened as Buffy and Fred stood in front of him and chatted.

Cordelia and Xander were making out in Cordy's cherry red Beamer, windows up and doors locked.

Connor spotted the three football players coming towards them and nudged his sister, nodding towards them. Jessica smiled and ran to the three with a squeal, jumping in the arms of Angel, the others were right on her heels. Everybody besides Xander and Cordelia that is.

"You guys were so great," congratulated Jessica, moving on to Riley and Gunn giving them an equally excited hug that she gave her brother.

After hugs and handshakes from the others, Buffy was the last one to congratulate Angel.

The spiky haired brunette smiled at the beauty, 'Kiss for the winner?' he thought of saying, but opted with stating with his arms open wide, "Doesn't the winner get some lovin' from Buffy?"

Buffy shook her head and went into his open arms. "Great game, Angel," she said.

"Thanks," Angel hugged her tighter, not wanting to let go, but eventually had to.

Both of them reluctantly left each other's embrace, but the pang that they felt was quickly amended when Angel threw his arm around Buffy's shoulders, bringing her closer to his side.

"Where's Xander and Cordelia," Angel asked the group. Everybody pointed to the expensive car of Queen C. As if on cue, Xander's air horn was heard loud and clear from the confined car. After the loud beep, the muffled and angered voice of Cordelia was heard.

Everybody laughed at the odd couple, their argument could be slightly heard through the closed windows.

Laughter still going through them, Buffy and Angel made eye contact. Their laughter died down, but smiles still graced each other's lips as they just stared and reveled in the other's beauty.

Of course, their moment was ruined, as always, when Angel's phone rang.

Angel let go of Buffy and unzipped his large gym bag to retrieve his black flip phone.

"Yeah?... Oh, hey Nina," Buffy's broad smile faded a bit when she heard the name , she sadly left Angel's side and went to stand by Willow next to Oz's van, "Hell yeah we won! Twenty to seventeen... Yeah I wish you were here, too... Ok... Ok bye."

As soon as Angel hung up, Xander had rolled down Cordelia's driver's side window and announced, "Victory party at Mason's! Let's go!"

After the various cheers of agreements, everybody went to their respective vehicles, and as corny as this sounds, to go and party their asses off.

TBC…