AN: Some randomness and a few added details missing from Stolen.

July 15, 2008

...

Buffy heard Katie scream in the back yard.

Dropping magazine she'd been paging though, she ran to the back door and was about to rush outside to kill whatever had frightened her daughter when she spotted what had caused the commotion.

She let out a breath of relief and shook her head affectionately at the battle to the death happening in her backyard.

Katie and Liam were running for their lives as their father chased them with a loaded water gun.

Standing on the porch in the humid July heat and watching her family was so far the best soothing balm for the rawness in her nerves over the horrors of the last few days. Marcy's trial had found a guilty judgment, but as of yet, a decision on punishment had yet to be agreed upon. Some wanted her to face prison time as Faith had, others wanted her sent to a mental institute like Dana and heavily medicated, and then there were some who wanted her executed.

Buffy herself didn't yet know what she wanted, the slayer in her wanted to help her sister slayer overcome her sickness and get treatment, while the wife in her really just wanted her dead for trying to kill her husband.

Currently Faith was spending a great deal of time with her, along with resident 'physiatrist' Sarah and anti-psychotics administrator Cassidy.

Marcy would be spending the next few weeks to months in trial therapy to determine if the girl was salvageable, then a permanent decision would be made concerning her punishment.

Liam's happy screams as he was being soaked pulled Buffy out of her sullen thoughts.

Smiling an evil grin, she snuck out into the backyard, careful to avoid being detected by the three darting across the grass. Reaching out she chose her weapon of choice and made sure the water was turned on high.

A few minutes later the two toddlers flew past her hiding spot, Angel hot on their heels.

The moment he came around the corner, Angel yelped and jumped back as a torrent of water smashed into him.

Instincts made him drop and roll, ducking behind the trash barrel as he heard his wife struggling to breathe though her laughter.

'Oh really now?' He thought, eyeing the hose she had drenched him with. "Let's see how she likes to play."

"Mommy wins!" Katie cheered, her and Liam having noticed they were no longer being pursued when they heard their father yelp.

Liam was laughing hard as he watched, the two and a half year old almost bouncing with energy.

Angel used every vampire aspect he had to focus on exactly where Buffy was standing; the sound of her heartbeat, the disturbance in the air as she breathed out, her almost mind-numbingly wonderful scent.

Picturing her position in his mind, he jumped up unexpectedly from his hiding spot and pulled the trigger, sending a spray of water right at her.

Buffy gasped as the cold liquid exploded over her, soaking her new shirt and quickly ruining her perfect hair day too.

The attack caused another round of giggles and laughs from the two youths watching but immediately put an end to Buffy's amusement.

"Angel!" She yelled, feeling the cold of the water spreading right down to her bones.

"Not to go all schoolyard honey, but you got me first." He defended himself while thinking clearly he got a worst shot; she was wet, he was soaked.

He'd been silently smirking as he observed how her now wet light blue shirt was clinging to her shapely chest, when he felt the hot July temperature suddenly plummet around him. Looking up at his wife's hazel-green eyes he found she was throwing a him an icy cold glare, one he wasn't sure meant he was sleeping outside tonight…or 6 feet underground.

"You are so dead." She said in an unnervingly calm tone.

Before he could even mutter an apology, a wall of water hit him.

The fight was on.

…

An hour later, the lawn was soaked, as were the four people lying on it.

The fight had just run out of gas, the two littlest warriors having fallen sleep from the energy drain.

Angel was stretched out on his back, squinting up at the high noon sun as it shown down over them, slowly drying them with the midday summer heat.

Buffy was perpendicular to him, resting her head on his waist.

Katie and Liam were passed out between them, the little girl using Angel's chest and shoulder as a bed while Liam snuggled up in Buffy's arms.

"This is nice." Buffy said quietly, mindful of the two sleeping children.

Angel smirked a little, "Yeah…it is." He agreed, enjoying the normalcy of the day.

Sometimes their lives were occult chaos…other times they could almost forget Slayers and vampires even existed.

His dark eyes looked over Katie's form splayed across him and then down at his wife, she was shifting Liam slightly so she could free an arm.

"For I minute there, I really thought you were gunna kill me." He admitted, having seen the flash of full blown Slayer blaze across her eyes when he'd soaked her earlier.

"Thought about it." She said innocently enough.

He sent her an amused and possibly scared look. "Oh?" He inquired.

"Well I decided to let you stick around a while longer." She sat up, quickly getting to her feet and making to head inside so she could get her and the kids out of the wet clothes.

"What made you decide that?" He asked a moment later, following her back towards the house.

She grinned a little, "I'm sure you'll validate why tonight." With that said, she vanished into the kitchen.

With a grin, he sifted Katie onto one arm and hurried after her.

…

The two youngest awoke slightly as they were changed into dry clothes, but were still sleepy enough that Buffy figured a movie would be the best thing to keep them occupied as she whipped together lunch.

Searching the cabinets, she once again found the jar of peanut butter to be on the top shelf, completely out of her reach. 'Damn it Angel.' She grumbled to herself as she prepared to climb up on the counter to reach the jar.

Angel stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, having made sure the kids were occupied with the Lion King.

His eyes were steadily watching his wife's back as she moved along the counter, pulling paper plates out from under the sink and getting a butter knife from the drawer.

He smirked a little as she looked up at the jar of peanut butter on the shelf high above her head. He could hear her grumbling a curse along with a word that deeply resembled his name as she grabbed the jelly off the lower shelf.

"What'cha doing?" Her husband's voice asked from behind her as she leaned up over the counter, his arms quickly finding themselves around her waist.

Turning to face him, she sent him a warming glance, "Trying to reach the peanut butter you put on the top shelf again." Her tone factored in her complete annoyance at him.

"This?" He asked with a smooth and innocent voice, easily reaching the jar and held up.

Shaking her head, she snatching it from his hand and pulled the bag of bread open, "You totally do that on purpose."

He just grinned and kissed at the junction of her neck and shoulder, "Only so you don't hog it all."

"You're such as ass." She shook her head at him, a mix of playful and provoking, purposefully keeping her eyes on the forming sandwich in front of her.

"Yet you still love me." He whispered in her ear.

"It's a sickness." The remark had intended to be joke, but as he pulled away she thought maybe he hadn't taken it that way.

"That reminds me." He stated as he straightened, all trace of lusty humor vanished from his face as he looked down at her in all seriousness. "I need to ask you something Buffy, I know I should just keep my mouth shut, but I'm not really capable of that with half my head being Angelus now."

She eyed him with a gleam of worry and suspicion, "You can ask me anything." She replied, knowing that was how he often responded to her inquires.

It took a moment for his mind to hash out how he wanted to phrase it, then asked her, "Why didn't you get mad at me the other day for keeping a slayer murderer secret? I saw the anger brewing, it was there, why didn't you use it?"

That hadn't been at all what she was expecting him to say, so it took her a few seconds to recover her thoughts into something coherent. "Why even ask me that? Are you disappointed? Did you want me to hit you or start a fight?"

"No." He immediately responded, "I'm just, confused, that's all."

She stood there watching him a moment, remembering the anger she'd felt flaring when she'd interrupted the discussion in Angel's office while he was in the Med-Ward recovering from the scalpel wound courtesy of Marcy.

Flashback;
Spike smirked, "Angel's a dead man."

Ignoring the blond vampire while silently agreeing, Buffy threw her blazing eyes towards Xander and Marie, "How long?" She demanded, needed to know how long Angel had been purposely hiding this from her.

Marie gulped, "Tw-two days." She stuttered out, feeling like a child caught red handed with an open cookie jar after being told to wait until after dinner.

The elder slayer's eyes narrowed, realizing her husband's broody and avoidy behavior over the last few days had been because of his scheming behind her back.

Furious, she gave them all a verbal beating for agreeing with Angel about cutting her out, with the exception of Giles since he'd only just been informed himself of Marcy's involvement in Jessica's death and since he'd been against excluding Buffy from the facts.

After throwing them all out of her spouse's office and forgetting all about kissing the kids goodnight, Buffy stormed off in a raging fit down to the elevator, fully preparing to rip her husband a new one for his lies and betrayal.

Once she was back at the Med-ward, she shoved the doors open and took a deep breath to began her rant, except Angel wasn't still calmly slumbering as she left him. He was struggling against the thin sheet covering him, sweating, his breaths coming in short pants as he cried out against some unseen enemy.

'Shit, he's having a nightmare.' She realized as her anger automatically got put on hold a moment and she went to him. "Angel." She called, grasping his arm and laying a hand on his cheek.

At the contact, his eyes snapped open and he sat up with a yell, "No!"

Reacting quickly, she grabbed his arms to keep him from swinging, "Angel relax, it's only a dream."

Even half awake and half drowned in fear, he felt her soul immediately and grabbed her, yanking her against him. "Buffy! You're here, you're here, you're here…" He chanted against her hair as he held her bone crushingly tight, his body trembling with the rush of adrenaline and lingering claws of panic from his nightmare.

Letting him hold her, she shifted so she could look up at him and ran her fingers along the growing stubble at his cheek, "Shh, it's ok, I'm here." She soothed, "I'm not going anywhere."

A sliver of guilt slipped up her spine, knowing his nightmare was likely caused by her absence.

Slowly, his breathing and heart rate settled back to normal and she lowered him back down onto the cot, his arms was clamped around her waist which meant she had to lie down beside him to get him horizontal.

For a moment, she though he was asleep again when he whispered against her neck, "I dreamed she took you from me."

Any residual anger she'd felt towards him vanished while he nuzzled against her, "It was just a dream, I'm right here." She told him again as she settled beside him, resolving to hold her anger off until morning.

She couldn't bring herself to be mad at him while he was snuggling her like a teddy bear.

…

When morning came and she'd awaken alone, her anger had returned ten fold. However upon seeing his weary eyes and hearing him ask "So is this where you punch me and get angry for not telling you what I knew?" She knew she couldn't raise her hand against him, not again. The beating she'd given him the night she'd raped him flashed in her mind in that moment, and the power struggle that had almost torn them apart after he'd drank from her. She never wanted to feel that horror again and vowed to never let her anger control her again.

As he stood across from her and explained to her why he'd lied and covered up knowing about a slayer's involvement, she realized his purpose hadn't been deceit, but a shield. All he'd wanted to do was protect her, and she knew that was all he'd ever tried to do since the moment he'd first seen her. His efforts hadn't always been successful, but his intentions had never been to hurt her, only to keep her safe. Her heart widened for him a little in that spec of time, as he stood there fully preparing to be beaten up for his actions again.

She'd see the surprise in his eyes when she'd told him, "I'm not going to hit you." and that had hurt. She didn't want him to expect punishment whenever she got mad.

Now here he was, two days later, asking why again, as if he was expecting a beating still.

…

Now:

She looked up into his dark eyes, seeing the uncertainty there. "I'm not bottling up my anger if that's what you want to know. I just, I finally figured something out about you." She figured honesty was the best policy, and he needed to know why her anger wasn't going to come back on him.

He looked back at her with his own suspicions, "And what would that be?"

Without batting an eye she told him, "You're a stubborn, bull-headed idiot."

His eyes widened and she could see his demon's anger at the insult.

Moving forward, she wrapped her arms around him, despite his initial reaction to pull back out of her grip.

"The point is Angel, you're my stubborn, bull-headed idiot." As she spoke, she pulled him down and stole a kiss, which quickly became un-stolen and freely given.

As she pulled back she told him softly, "I know now it doesn't matter how many times you promise you'll stop making decisions for me or that you'll talk to me about everything first, you'll try forever but you'll never succeed. You can't." She watched his face fall as she spoke and made to defend himself, "Don't, just let me finish. I'm just saying I understand now that it's part of who you are, I now know I can't get upset with you for wanting what's best for me, for following your heart instead of your head. You're always going to try and protect me, whether I want you to or not." She brushed her hand up along his face, caressing his cheek, "I finally realized that isn't something to get mad at you for, but that it just makes me love you more."

She stood on her tipsy toes as their lips met again, slow and sweet and savory.

"Oh." He breathed out as their lips parted, thinking over her words and finding her explanation agreeable. He knew she was right, he wasn't going to change, he was an old dog sort-to-speak, already set in his ways. His heart often acted first before his brain could catch-up when it came to making 'Buffy's-safety' related decisions. He took comfort in the fact Buffy wasn't going to keep holding him accountable for a promise she knew he'd never be able to keep. When her life or welfare was at risk, he was going to act first no matter how she felt about it, he couldn't help it.

She smiled and kissed the healed spot where she'd pulled the scalpel from his body. "So are you going to help me with lunch, or would you rather be all mopey and broody?"

He grinned and bent to kiss her cheek, "Lunch is far more appealing."

"Good." She answered with a grin of her own, as she slid the first complete sandwich in front of him, "You can cut the crust off."

Smiling, he pulled a knife from the drawer beside her and sliced the PB&J how the kids liked it, wolfing down the discarded crust as he went.

Buffy piled the completed lunches onto plates with apple slices and milk, then brought the kids into the kitchen to eat.

While the totters were busy munching, she and Angel cleaned up and ate their own sandwiches.

Buffy paused her next bite half way to her mouth and watched with annoyed eyes as Angel once again put the peanut butter jar on the top shelf. "You really do that on purpose don't you?"

He totally did, but decided to say the opposite.

"You are such a sucky liar." His wife shot back at him. "And now I need to know why you purposely try to annoy me."

"It's not to annoy you." He immediately denied, "I just…nothing." Silence followed as he ducked his eyes away from hers and looked down at his half eaten lunch.

"You just what?" Buffy demanded, knowing he was attempting to hide something just made her want to find out what it was even more.

He looked up and shrugged, "I don't know, maybe I'm just an ass."

"I won't entirely disagree, but try again." The young blond insisted, wanting to know the real reason and not some deflection answer.

His dark eyes looked to her, then up to the top shelf at the innocent looking jar that started it all, then finally back to her. "I never really thought about it…but I guess I do it to feel needed."

"Needed?" Buffy asked, a little taken aback. "Getting something off a shelf makes you feel needed?"

He shifted uncomfortably, "Well it's not like you ever need me to open a bottle, lift something heavy or swat a spider for you. You're just not the damsel in distress type."

"It bothers you that I'm stronger than you." She didn't phrase it as a question.

"No." He replied back quickly, too quickly.

"And in your world the word 'no' is spelled, Y-E-S?" She countered, watching his eyes.

He looked away, almost shrinking under her gaze, "No." He repeated, but the word lack enthusiasm and sounded embarrassed. "I just…traditionally woman were always the weaker sex…I guess it still throws me off sometimes how independent you are."

Putting down the bread knife, she took the few steps separating them and laid her hands on him arms. Leaning against her husband, she looked up at his face until his eyes met hers. Her right hand lifted and brushed across his cheek, observing the way his eyes closed in pleasure from her light touch. "I love you, Angel. I might not need you to open a jar, but I DO need you, I always need you."

Instead of looking into her face, his deep brown eyes focused on the counter behind her, as if he were trying to telepathically finish making the peanut butter sandwich laying there on the plate. "I know you love me Buffy, but you don't actually need me. You're the strongest person I've ever met, not only physically, but emotionally. You'd be able to bounce back and carry on if something happened to me."

She'd heard enough, she had no idea how he got this nonsense into his head, but she was getting it out right now. "That's not true. I might be able to wear a very convincing mask when it comes hiding how I really feel, but it's only a mask Angel. If something happened to you, there would be no 'bouncing back', I…I would be dead inside."

His eyes found her face at the admission, widening slightly in surprise. He knew how much he depended on her, she was his everything, but the idea she depended on him just as much was a little scary to him. He had always taken for granted if he died before her, she would survive and carry on. He didn't want to be responsible for his death destroying his wife as well.

Even at the thought of losing him tears filled her eyes, "Like when I came back from Heaven, I'd just be going though the motions so no one would see I wasn't even here anymore. Maybe it was true once upon a time, but I'm too invested in you now. You're my husband, lover, best friend, and the father of my children… God Angel, you are my life…there isn't anyone on this Earth I need more."

"Don't cry Beloved" He whispered as he brushed the tear off her cheek.

"Then don't say non-sense crap to me like that." She rebuked. "It hurts to even hear it."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

She cut him off, "No, don't apologize, I'm glad you talked to me. I need to know when you have these poisonous thoughts whirling in that thick head of yours so I can slay them before they fester."

Silence fell between them, only interrupted by the sounds of Katie and Liam playing with their food as they ate at the table a few feet away.

He'd taken a step back, ow he was just looking down pensively at his unfinished lunch.

"Hey, what are you thinking now?" She asked, moving closer and searching his eyes for what was still bothering him.

He shook his head, "Nothing, I just…I guess...well, I didn't expect that. I know without you I'd be nothing, but the idea of you being dead inside without me, well to be blunt, it scares the hell out of me. I don't want that for you. I've lived a life without life, that isn't a pain I'd wish on anyone, especially not you."

"Simple, just stay with me. Then neither of us has to worry." Buffy suggested.

His hand slid along her temple, brushing a strand of long blond hair behind her ear. "That isn't a promise I can make." He knew he could die now, his beating heart meant it could be stopped. Death would take him one day, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Her fingers grasped his hand, squeezing it tight, "You can promise to try, that's all I want."

"I'll always try Buffy, always." He whispered, kissing her forehead.

"That's good enough for me." she answered as she stepped forward and leaned against him, enjoying the sound of his heartbeat within his chest.

After a long pause, he spoke, "I don't know what to say now."

She smiled a little, "You don't have to say anything. Just give me what I need."

"What do you need?" He asked, a spark of curiosity is his dark gaze.

Her answer was simple, "What I always need…you."

A hint of a teasing grin pulled at his lips, "I thought I was what you wanted."

She rolled her eyes at him, "You're both what I want and what I need, is that a problem for you?"

"Absolutely not." He stated without hesitation.

"Still waiting…" She smiled up at him, baiting him for a kiss.

He grinned and leaned down, lightly gliding his lips over hers before going in for a full bodied kiss.

"Daddy's giving mommy cooties." Katie mocked from her booster seat when she turned around and spotted her parents quietly making out behind her.

"Eww." Liam wrinkled his nose, "Yuck."

The two adults broke apart with knowing smiles, Angel leaning down to whisper in his wife's ear, "If they only knew where they came from…".

Her eyes widened as she elbowed him playfully, "Be quiet you, or I won't finish that kiss later tonight."

He just grinned that sexy smile of his back at her and went to help Katie wash the peanut butter from her fingers.

With her own flushed cheeks, Buffy gave Liam the second sandwich he asked for and finished cleaning up the counter.

She glanced up at the peanut butter on the top shelf, but this time it brought a smile to her lips.

...

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