2011

Sunnydale, California

Downtown: Couples Therapy Office: Session 1

"What happened on that day from your perspective, Angel?" Cordelia held her chin in her hand as she looked at Angel.

"It went exactly the way Buffy explained it." Angel said, dismissively waving his hand in Buffy's general direction.

Narrowing her eyes on Angel, Cordelia did not believe him for a second. "I don't believe that. You can't possibly see the events unfolding precisely as Buffy did."

Angel exhaled a breath of annoyance. His jaw tightened and his dark eyes were glaring at the therapist.

Cordelia appeared unbothered as she patiently waited.

With a strain of reluctance in his deep voice, Angel began to tell his version of events. "I was in the living room trying to help Kate pick out which dolls she wanted to take with her. But it can never be just one doll. We gotta go through them all. One by one and by their names." He lowered his eyes, trying to hide the sadness in them.

"What kind of dolls?" Cordelia asked.

Clearing his throat, Angel pulled himself together. "Uh, those, um, American Girl ones I think and action figures. Katie is a fan of all things Disney. I lined them up and…"

September 8, 2009

Sunnydale, California

Crawford Street: O'Connor Residence

"Can't I bring them all, Daddy?" The five-year-old asked, perfecting the identical and very affective pout to her mother's.

Angel averted his gaze from her pout, determined not to fall for it. He continued to line up the dolls and Disney action figures in front of her. "No, 'cause then I'll be the one stuck carrying it. Three."

"Four." Katie countered.

"Two." Angel narrowed his eyes on the girl.

"Five."

"Four."

"Deal." Katie held out her little hand.

The smirk on Angel's face widened into a large smile. He took Katie's little hand into a handshake. "When did you become such a negotiator?"

"I don't know what that means, Daddy." Katie looked at her father with big dark eyes.

Angel chuckled, eyeing the girl. She was a very beautiful little girl with expressional dark brown eyes and long dark brown hair. Although she had inherited his dark features, Katie looked just like her mother. Angel knew he'll be in trouble chasing out all of the boys that would be lining outside his daughter's door.

For being so young, Katie was fiercely intelligent and so eager to learn. She was beginning Kindergarten in a few weeks. The five-year-old could not wait.

"Angel!"

Angel lifted his head to the sound of Buffy's voice calling his name from the kitchen.

For a few minutes, they went back and forth about tupperware she was trying to find. Angel was amused because he honestly could not remember the last time he had ever seen his wife inside the kitchen. She is by no means a cook, never having the patience for it.

Angel chuckled hearing Buffy curse with annoyance from the kitchen. He lowered his gaze to Katie and muttered. "I'm surprised your mother even found the kitchen."

"Me too." Katie said in agreement, also never seeing Buffy enter the kitchen except to use the microwave.

"I heard that!" Buffy grimaced.

Angel and Katie looked at each other and busted out into laughter.

After a few more minutes, Katie finally picked her final four dolls she was going to take with her to grandma and grandpa Giles' house.

Reaching out his hand, Angel pulled his daughter into his lap. Making his daughter gasp into a fit of laughter, Angel tickled her ribs and covered her little face with kisses.

"Daddy!" She laughed.

"Guys ready?" Buffy's soft voice cut through the laughter.

Angel lifted his eyes from his daughter in his arms to his wife and swallowed. Wife was so beautiful. He loved her to pieces. Her blonde and perfectly styled hair was long and softly curled in loose ringlets. She wore a pair of blue jeans, which hugged the curves of her slender body. She wore a very simple white tank top with frill white daisies at the bottom and on her feet, Buffy wore a pair of light brown sandal high heel shoes.

"Yeah." Angel climbed back onto his feet. "C'mon, Katie girl."

Katie also got to her feet and struggled to put on the backpack. Angel smiled down at her and fixed the large sized strap on her little shoulder.

On the way out of the mansion, Katie asked about having a hotdog at the barbeque. For the last three days, all that Katie had been asking about was this hotdog.

Of course, she'll get the hotdog, as well as two cookies. Angel could never tell the girl no. Buffy was the one that usually stepped in as soon as she recognised that Angel was falling for the five-year-old's pout, to which Buffy was immune.

Helping the girl into the Jeep, Angel strapped her in and smothered her face with kisses. He pushed back Katie's dark hair to see her beautiful little face. Angel wanted another little girl that looked just like Buffy.

He heard the back door close and could see Buffy walking around the SUV towards him.

Angel closed the door and reached out to his wife, wrapping an arm around her waist. He pressed her back against the Jeep and lowered his head, capturing her mouth.

His heart pounded in his chest and rang in his ears as he kissed Buffy. He loved her kisses as well as when her fingers interlaced into his hair as she got more into the kiss. The front of his body pressed against her. All of the blood running through his veins shot down to his cock confined in his jeans.

"Angel, we're gonna be late." She moaned against his mouth.

"We're already late." Angel mumbled, kissing along her neck, tasting her skin.

"Fine. We're gonna be really late." Angel could hear the smile in her voice.

Angel lifted his head from the crook of her neck. He frowned, which looked more like a boyish pout. "Your mother's gonna blame me anyway."

"My mother loves you."

Angel exhaled a heavy sigh and removed his arms from around his wife.

In the backseat, Angel saw Katie looking at them making silly faces in order to get their attention. Angel smirked and stuck out his tongue, making a funny face.

"Jeremiah was a bullfrog

Was a good friend of mine"

Angel chuckled, listening to Buffy and Katie sing quite off key to the popular seventies song.

Shaking his head, Angel tried to engrain this moment into his memory. He wasn't sure why he should, but there was a striking need to do so. Angel brushed it off thinking that it was just too cute for words as he listened to the mother and daughter duet.

Sitting at the stop sign at a four way intersection, Angel waited patiently, letting the few cars also waiting at the stop sign to pass through first.

"Singin' joy to the world

All the boys and girls "

Angel took his foot off the brake and slowly accelerated across the interaction, now having the right of way.

As they reached the middle of the intersection, Angel had barely any time to react when he heard Buffy's panicked voice shouting his name.

He looked to his right just as the grill of the Ford F-150 crashed into the side of the Jeep.

The Jeep violently tumbled and twisted, smacking the pavement hard on impact. The glass of the windows shattered, scraping his skin and impaled Buffy in the abdomen.

After a few minutes, which certainly felt like hours, Angel opened his eyes, realising that he was still alive.

Outside of the car, he could hear distorted voices of witnesses gathering around the scene. He can also hear the faint sierins of an ambulance, firetruck, and police cars rushing to the crash site.

Clenching his jaw, Angel felt a strange wetness trickling down his face. He touched his face and looked at his fingers only to realise that the wetness was blood. He tried to move his legs but they were stuck under the steering wheel.

He turned his head to his right to see Buffy beside him. She limply hung from the seat with the seatbelt still strapped across her body. Her beautiful face was covered with blood. Angel lowered his eyes and saw that a piece of glass had been skewered into her abdomen.

Angel opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. In a panic. Angel tried to unstrap himself and get his wife out of the car. He looked back to the beat seat to check on Katie.

His breathing became uncontrollable, unable to see his daughter in the backseat. The twisted and mangled pieces of metal blocked any view of her.

Angel tried to use his strength and punch himself out from where he was but he could not move an inch.

"Help!" Angel croaked, slowly finding his voice. "Help!" He shouted, becoming a bit stronger. "Help! We need help! Help!" Angel continued to try and punch his way out of the mangled car.

Sunnydale General Hospital: Emergency Room

The ER doctors ran through the sliding door rolling Buffy and Katie's bodies on seperate gurney's. Angel followed behind them, trying to keep up but his entire body was sore and bruised.

The EMT's tried to help him on the scene, but Angel had no patience for them. He needed to be with his wife and his daughter.

His girls did not look well. They took the brunt of the crash.

"What do we got?" A doctor asked, following the gurney's into the emergency room.

"Multiple blunt trauma protocol. Tachycardic and hypotensive en route. Obvious head, chest, and abdominal injuries." The doctor head of trauma said as he followed one gurney into one room.

"She's hemorrhaging. We need to get this girl into an OR, ASAP." The Pediatric Attending doctor said, holding her hands over Katie's wound as she rode along the side of the gurney heading towards the surgical wing.

Angel walked quickly, trying to keep up with the doctors when another doctor whirled around holding out his hands to stop the paniced father.

"I'm sorry, sir, but this is as far as you can go."

"B-but, that's my daughter. She's only five. She needs me."

The doctor exhaled a breath. "I know. But, right now, she needs the doctors. Please, sit over there. We'll have someone come to stitch your injuries and—"

"Just do everything that you can for her. Please." Angel swallowed, his body trembled with fear.

The doctor nodded his head and ran through the swinging doors, heading to the operating room.

Hours Later

Waiting Room

Angel sat against the wall with his hands in his hair. His knee anxiously bounced uncontrollably, desperate for any information about his daughter.

Almost an hour ago, Buffy had been rushed into the operating room with internal bleeding from the windshield glass sticking out from her belly. The surgical doctor came out with an update that Buffy's heart stopped beating for three minutes and she had to be resuscitate. She was now being carefully monitored in the ICU.

Now, he was waiting on any information about Katie. The five-year-old had been on the operating table since their arrival and Angel hadn't heard any information about his little girl since.

"Ahem."

The sound of the Attending Pediatric Surgeon that had been with Katie this entire time stood in front of him.

The doctor removed the flowery scrub cap from her head. Her blue eyes were sad and the corners of her mouth sunk to a deep frown.

Angel watched the surgeon sit down in the empty chair beside him and laid a gentle hand on his forearm.

"We did everything that we could..." The doctor spoke with a soft and sympathetic voice.

Angel buried his face into his hands, no longer able to hear a word the doctor was saying. She carefully explained the many complications they had run into during Katie's surgery.

The fingers buried in his hair tightened as he slowly began to pull at it. Angel squeezed his eyes closed and gritted his teeth.

Manically pacing back and forth in the hallway outside of Buffy's room in the ICU, Angel rubbed his hands over his face. Tears stung his eyes, threatening to flow down his cheeks.

He turned to the metal cabinet near the nurses station.

Angel suddenly began punching the cabinet with his already injured fist.

Creating dents into the metal cabinet, Angel hardly felt the wounds forming on his knuckles.

He threw himself back against the wall. He looked down at his bleeding hand and studied the minor injuries, Angel gritted his teeth. Slowly, he slid down the wall, sitting on the floor, crying.

Outside: ICU Room 5

Angel entered the ICU room. His dark bloodshot eyes lifted to his wife, now stabilised and knocked out from the anesthesia. Her beautiful sun kissed skin was covered in deep cuts and thick painful looking bruises.

He stepped up to the foot of the bed. Angel wrapped his hand carefully around her foot and gave it a squeeze, now worrying about what to tell Buffy when she finally woke. He could still hardly believe it.

In an instant, their lives were completely changed for the worse.

Stepping around to her bedside, Angel pulled up a chair from against the wall and sat down. He took his wife's hand into his own and examined it for a minute. He brought her hand up to his face and kissed her palm.

Unable to hold himself together, Angel's chin quivered and the tears welled in his eyes trickled down his cheeks. He lifted his gaze to Buffy's face and silently begged for her to wake up.

2011

Sunnydale, California

Downtown: Couples Therapy Office: Session 1

Angel stared down at his hands.

The room was still with silence.

Buffy held her arms around her body, trying hard to make herself as small as possible.

Cordelia's dark eyes hadn't moved from Angel. She studied every micro movement of his face. He tried to appear dismissive, as if he shouldn't be able to mourn the loss. Cordelia read emotions of anger at the injustice of it all. She wanted to dig deeper, having the inkling feeling that Angel thought of himself as the one truly at fault for the accident.

"Angel, you were the one in the driver's seat." Cordelia said, breaking the strenuous silence.

Angel's eyes shot up to Cordelia. His expression darkened, becoming increasingly agitated. "That's enough."

"Do you blame yourself for what happened to your daughter?" Cordelia bravely pressed.

Jumping to his feet, Angel angrily roars, "That's enough!" He stormed out of the office and slammed the door behind him.

Buffy closed her eyes and slightly jumped at the raging door slam.

Cordelia exhaled a breath and turned her eyes to Buffy. She quietly observed the blonde, feeling very sad for her.

This couple certainly had a long and difficult road ahead of them.