Yay, snow day! I actually got to finish editing this because I'm snowed in. This chapter focuses on Shawn and Angela's relationship and also the time spent with her father. The next chapter will be more focused on Angela's relationship with her husband and basically just what she was up to all those years before seeing Shawn in New York. There are likely only two chapters left, but as usual with me there's the chance I could ramble on a little longer because my internal editor seems to be on a permanent vacation and I can't shut up, lol.

If I seem to be too hard on Shawn, please let me know. I am mainly trying to reverse the villainous tones GMW was painting on Angela and sometimes it's come out as being too hard on Shawn (some editing was done there). It is not my intention to make him the bad guy.

As always, thanks so much for your patience and feedback. I appreciate it.

"Then you should've stayed," he whispered. "Why didn't you stay?"

"You're not seriously asking me that, are you? You know why. I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend time with my dad. I took it."

"Leaving me in the dust," he remarked.

"You know damn well that's a lie. Choosing to go with my dad was one of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make. I wanted to spend time with him, but it meant leaving behind my entire life for a year. You were there as I agonized over it." Angela shook her head, almost disgusted with him. "If, after all this time you still can't see how important it was for me and why- and you of all people should get why it was important-maybe it's best we ended when we did because you clearly never knew me at all."

"But you still made the choice to go. You chose to walk away from our life."

"Yes, I did, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat." Perhaps she could phrase things in a gentler manner, but she was over being blamed for the sorry state of Shawn's life.

Very few things hurt more than hearing her say those words. "What?"

"My dad's dead, Shawn."

"I know that."

"The time I had with him…I'd been waiting my whole life for that. There were days he was busy with work and I had my online classes, but he made it a point to spend a lot of time with me, as if he was trying to make up for all the lost moments. It was the closest we'd been since I was a kid. And after that year came to an end we stayed close. I was afraid things would change after he got married again, but we were still-"

"You dad remarried?"

Angela got up and retrieved a picture that hung on the wall. "He had a two week vacation and we decided to do a little traveling for fun, go someplace we had never been before." She handed the photo to Shawn. "We were eating lunch at an outdoor café in Lisbon and someone called out his name. It turns out a friend from his hometown was there vacationing at the same time."

Shawn smiled at image. Sgt. Moore was in a nice suit and had his arm around a blonde in a pink cocktail dress. Angela was standing beside her father in a darker shade of pink and next to the woman were two guys who seemed roughly the same age as he and Angela, maybe a little older. They all wore identical grins. "Was she an old girlfriend?"

"They were friends, but only dated for a couple months in their senior year. Part of the appeal for them was the reactions they'd get from people who would see them together. Interracial dating wasn't something that was accepted when they were kids."

He nodded. "Right." He didn't remember anyone giving him and Angela a hard time when they were together. At least no one ever said anything to his face. He suspected they just got lucky.

"They decided dating partially for shock value was misguided and the smart thing to do would be to go back to being friends before anyone got hurt. He was leaving for boot camp after graduation and Nancy was going out of state for college. They parted on good terms but didn't see each other again until Lisbon."

"Wow." He shook his head, unable to stop staring at the smiling faces. "Your dad randomly ran into his high school sweetheart in a foreign country and wound up with her after all those years apart?" That was inspiring.

"I wouldn't call them sweethearts, but-"

"Who are these guys," he asked, pointing at the picture.

"Those are my step-brothers, Doug and Jason."

"You have step-brothers?"

"We're not Brady Bunch close because we met as adults and already had our own lives, but they're good guys. If I ever need them they don't hesitate to help me, same with Nancy. She's been amazing actually. Her first husband died suddenly after about ten years of marriage. She had to raise her kids alone. After all that we lost my dad. She's the only one who even comes close to understanding what I'm going through right now." Angela cleared her throat before taking the picture back. "Would you believe that Nancy's moving out here in the next few weeks to be closer to me and 'her grandbabies'? I mean, she checked with me first and insisted on living a few miles away so as not to be intrusive. But she's retired now and was feeling isolated. She chose me over living near one of her sons and their families."

"Really?" Shawn was glad that Angela had the maternal figure she always craved. It seemed she had a solid extended family to fall back on and support her. "That's great."

"It can't replace my dad and I'd give anything to have him back or just for him to hug me once and tell me that everything is going to be okay- that I'm going to be okay, but…" She trailed off before taking a steadying breath.

"You know I…uh…I was going to try to talk you out of going. The day you were packing up your dorm I came to see you but you stepped out to get more boxes. I talked to your dad before you came back."

"I know. He told me."

"How much did he tell you?"

"He said you threatened to propose to get me to stay. He told me all this when I was trying to decide what to do about us."

"What would you have said," he asked after some uncomfortable silence. He'd always wondered what her answer would've been.

"Shawn, we weren't ready to get married. But if somehow you'd been dumb enough to try to talk me into staying and I had been stupid enough to listen to you I can say with relative certainty that I would've resented you for the rest of our lives."

"Why?"

"My dad's not here anymore. That time we had, I knew it was special then but now it means everything to me. If I didn't go with him it would forever be a giant what if and lost opportunity. Instead I have memories to comfort me and remind myself what a great man he was and how much he loved me.

"He didn't get to walk me down the aisle when I got married. He never got the chance to know his grandchildren. And he would've been a wonderful grandpa." Her eyes shined with unshed tears, but she was determined to continue on without losing it. She'd been crying too much lately. "I'm sorry if you feel like I deserted you and I never intended to hurt you, but I'm not sorry for going. You can offer me that same choice a million different times and in a million different ways and I'd pick my dad every time."

Shawn understood what she was saying. Not having time with his dad is something he regrets, even if he wasn't technically the responsible party. He understood, but that didn't mean it was easy to hear. Angela would've left him no matter what. Nothing he said or did would've stopped her. That hurt. "I just wish-" He stopped talking when he looked at her. She had paled considerably an odd look on her face. He wasn't sure if she was going to cry, throw up, make a grand confession…something. She did not look good. "Angela?"

"I'll be right back."

He was confused, watching as she hurried out of the room. Did he say something wrong? Did talking about her dad upset her? Maybe she had to cry. She hated crying in front of other people, him included. When she returned a few minutes later she seemed better, if still a little rattled. She also had a bottle of water in her hand. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I thought I heard one of the kids." She sat back down on the couch. "Where were we?"

Shawn wasn't sure he believed her, but had no good reason to challenge it. "You were talking about your dad and what a great guy he was."

"Right."

He shifted around in the chair. "I get why you felt you had to leave with him, but why did you give up on us? Why didn't you try harder?"

She couldn't help the incredulous look that showed on her face. How dare he accuse her of giving up. "I called, emailed, and wrote letters. I don't know how I could've tried any harder."

I did all that, too."

"At first maybe, then you stopped. I thought you met someone else even though Eric and Topanga insisted you hadn't."

"There was no one else."

"Perhaps, but I felt like you were freezing me out and I just couldn't bear it. I couldn't stand to hear that I wasn't enough for you again. That-that you needed more than me, something different…or better."

"What are you talking about?"

"Freshman orientation ring any bells? You referred to me as a friend to another girl. When I called you on it you said it was a time to spread our wings and explore our horizons, not be tied down to one person. You said you needed to have new experiences and try different things."

"And you thought me moving to New York would-"

"There's a lot of room to spread your wings in New York, lots of new people, too. It was taking you more and more time to return my calls and emails. You used to get back to me within a day. Eventually it became a week, two weeks."

"That's because it was hard to talk to you. I missed you too much."

"How was I supposed to know that? You stopped picking up the phone. So I figured I'd be the one. I'd be the one brave enough to end things instead of clinging to a relationship that was no longer working. I knew I'd be blamed for it anyway, so I may as well do something this time. At least it would be on my terms. God knows you wouldn't have done it. If I had left it up to you I'd probably still be waiting by the phone."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because you have this insane need to always be the victim. You're terrified of owning up to your actions."

"No. Why would I want to be a victim?"

"If you're the victim no one will ever blame you for your life being a mess."

"That's not-"

"When discussing your divorce you admitted the marriage was a mistake, but you also blamed everyone else under the sun for it. The only people responsible for your marriage and divorce are you and Katy. Still, you blamed me, Cory, Topanga, Maya, Riley…hell you even blamed the ghost of your dead father, and my newborn son. Don't do that last one again, by the way," she warned with a finger pointed at him. "My kids are off limits."

"I wasn't blaming all of you."

"Come on, you did the same thing when we were together. Any issue between eventually us dissolved into being my fault. Even the breakups you initiated. You and Cory practically gaslit me with revisionist history to the point even I was confused about who was right and who was wrong. I was always the one apologizing and you were forever poor, misunderstood, sainted Shawn."

He thought back over the history of their relationship he realized she was right. How many times had she apologized to him for breakups and arguments he started? "It couldn't be my fault," he said in a hushed tone. "I couldn't blame myself."

"Why not?"

"Because if I…if it's all my fault then I would have to admit that I ruined the best thing in my life." He paused and blinked back the tears that suddenly clouded his vision. "How was I supposed to live with myself knowing I destroyed us? I still had to look myself in the mirror every day."

"Shawn-"

"And then," he broke in, more composed than before, "you called me to say you weren't ready to come home and that it was best if we broke up. Reject me before I could reject you." 'Again,' he added silently.

She nodded. "Self-preservation at its best. Or worst. I never could decide which it was."

"Why didn't you just tell me that you-"

"Shawn, I have never once begged someone to love me and I wasn't about to start. I did my part. I called and emailed and kept the lines of communication open. If you really loved me and wanted to make it work you would've picked up the damn phone more often. You wouldn't have waited two weeks to return an email. You knew where I was staying. You could've written a letter or sent up the freaking bat signal. But you didn't. There was only so much silence I could take before I had enough." She shook her head. "I think deep down, I knew it was over for you when I went with my dad. I was just in denial."

"What do you mean?"

"I said I love you and you said goodbye."

"What?"

"We agreed not to say goodbye because it wasn't goodbye...at least I didn't intend for it to be. So we said I love you. After I walked out the door I turned around to take one more look at you and I could read your lips." She stared right at him, almost daring him to challenge her. "I said I love you. You said goodbye. You were the one, Shawn. You gave up. Not me. You didn't even have enough faith in us to last until I made it to the cab. I may have been the one to officially end things, but you mentally checked out long before that."

He wanted to refute her, to say she was hallucinating and offer up endless proof of his love, but he couldn't. "I was convinced you'd be dazzled by Europe and wonder what you ever saw in me and I-"

"-you gave me the reason to not want to come home to you on a silver platter."

Shawn felt like throwing up. Angela hadn't stopped loving him back then. It wasn't that she 'hadn't been ready.' She was just afraid of being hurt again, of being hurt by him again. She was too scared to fight for someone who wouldn't want her back. Their relationship was undone by fear, assumptions, and words that went unsaid. How typical of them. It always felt wrong that after everything they went through they just sort of fizzled out. They'd always been too passionate to fizzle and die without a fight. "I'm sorry."

"So am I."

"I guess the thing that bothers me the most is if I had the chance to go back and change things I'd change everything. I would've done everything in my power to make sure we wound up together. But you…"

"What about me?"

"I don't think you'd change a damn thing. I have so many regrets about practically every relationship in my life- especially ours', but I don't think you do."

"That's not true. I have regrets like anybody else, but the difference between us is I don't obsess over them. I take it as a lesson learned and try not to make the same mistakes in the future. Like our relationship for instance-"

"What about us?"

"You were the first guy I ever loved, Shawn. That never goes away. You're always going to be special to me, but we didn't necessarily go about loving each other the best way. It wasn't a very healthy relationship a lot of the time. You didn't always treat me very well. I didn't realize it until later, after some time and distance. I'm not saying it's anyone's fault. We were two kids dealing with abandonment issues just trying to keep our heads above water. We didn't know how to be in love. Neither of us had good examples to follow."

"You're wrong."

"We were together- on and off- for what…two and a half years? Three years?"

"Yeah, so?"

"How much of that time were we together and happy, truly happy, without some drama or crisis going on?"

Shawn tended to fixate on only the good times with Angela. It hurt too much to focus on the bad. He was usually the cause of the bad. That's where regrets came into play and he hated thinking about those. "I don't know. The last months before you left were the best months of my life. The beginning of our relationship was good, too."

"That's what, eight months? A year if I'm being generous."

"I never did the math."

"Look," she began in a gentler tone, "I'm not here to do tally up the score on who hurt whom the worst."

"Are you sure about that," he snapped.

"We both made mistakes and could've treated each other better. But I learned my lessons and moved on. I don't think you have."

"You were the best thing that ever happened to me. It's kind of hard to get over you walking away. I stayed and you left. I always stayed."

She sat back and folded her arms in front of her body. "I think that's some more of that revisionist history coming into play."

"What?"

"Let's forget the times you walked away from me for a minute. You ran out on Cory on his wedding day. Sure, you came back, but you still ran away."

"I was afraid things would change between us."

"Then you fled town the day he became a father."

"How did you know about that?"

"Eric's a blabbermouth, remember?"

"Right."

"Abandoning your best friend on the two biggest days of his life doesn't sound like the actions of someone who stays."

"I didn't-"

"Oh, and the boathouse," she exclaimed.

"What?"

"I can't believe I remember this, but our first Valentine's Day three ex-girlfriends kidnapped you."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot all about that."

"They thought they were protecting me from you. They said you'd made plans with all of them for Valentine's but couldn't commit long enough to keep your word. You cut and run when things started getting heavy and they didn't understand why. They were trying to save me from being hurt the same way they were."

'Oh, god,' he thought to himself, 'he was a leaver. Katy and Maya were just his latest victims.' "I was just a kid. I didn't know how relationships worked. Being in a real relationship scared me. That changed when I met you," he admitted quietly. "I was still scared, but it was the first time I wanted it to work."

"I feel the same way."

"Then why couldn't we work? If we were so important to each other shouldn't it have been meant to be?"

"Maybe we were meant to be. We were meant to come into each other's live in a specific time and place. We taught each other important lessons about life and love that we never would've learned from someone else. Meant to be isn't always forever. Sometimes it's just meant to be for now. And when the time is over you take what you learned and grow from it."

"Where did you get that crap?"

"It's how my dad described things with my mother. He never said what he thought she learned from their relationship, but he would go on about what a gift I was to him and how proud he was to be my father. As much as he hated my mother for leaving, a part of him would love her forever because of me."

Shawn leaned his head back against the chair and covered his eyes. He didn't know how to process anything. It was like every mistake he ever made was being thrown in his face. "My parents…Chet and Virna…they messed me up. I can't…because of them I can't…"

"You're creeping up on forty years old, Shawn. Don't you think it's time you stopped blaming your parents and took charge of your own life?"

"Oh, like you're so successful at it?! When you saw me in New York you asked me if I thought you should have kids or if you'd be like your mother. That doesn't sound like someone who took charge of their life."

"I had a little relapse. Sue me."

"By the way, do you know how weird it is to ask an ex-boyfriend if you should have kids with your husband? It was even weirder considering our history. Why would you do that?"

"I knew you'd be honest with me. Grant would go on about how good a mother I would be and how he loved to see me with our nieces and nephews. I was afraid he was just saying that because he was my husband. Being supportive comes with the territory, you know? I wanted to have a baby with him, too. I wanted it more than anything, but I was so afraid. No matter what else happened between us I knew if you really thought I'd bail on the kid you would tell me. We both know what it's like to have our mother leave and we would never want a child to feel that same pain."

He thought about Maya and all of his broken promises to her. "Yeah, but it's still hurt. Don't get me wrong, I was happy that you were happy and had a good life, but it was supposed to be with me. Asking about kids with your husband…you had to know it would kill me to hear that."

"To be honest I didn't think much about how you would take it."

"Wow, thanks. That's cold."

"I'm sorry, but it's the truth. I was preoccupied with my own issues."

"What issues?"

Angela debated momentarily whether or not to share this, but realized she'd been honest about everything else thus far, no matter how painful. "I had a miscarriage several months before we saw each other."

"You did?"

"The pregnancy was a surprise and when the test came back positive I was scared to death. I put on a happy face for Grant because he was so thrilled, but I was terrified. Don't get me wrong, he knew my fears and tried to talk me through it, but he didn't understand. He came from one of those stereotypical happy families with a mom and a dad and brothers and sisters." She picked up a pillow from the couch and hugged it to herself. "I had this nagging feeling that something was going to go wrong but I just chalked it up to my fears of becoming my mother."

"What happened?"

"We went for our first ultrasound to confirm the due date and the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat."

"God, Angela, I'm so sorry."

"Grant was amazing. He was upset, of course, but he was mostly focused on making sure I was okay."

"This is probably a dumb question, but were you okay?"

"I was sad…for me and especially for Grant because he wanted it so badly. But mostly I was relieved." She wiped away a rogue tear. "And that made me feel awful. What kind of person would be relieved? I was such a terrible mother I couldn't even grieve properly for my own baby.

"The doctor said we could try again when we were ready." She smoothed out non-existent wrinkles in the pillow she was holding. "After several months passed Grant asked me if we could talk about trying to have a baby."

"And that's when you came to New York," he concluded.

"No, that's when the nightmares started."

"What nightmares?"

"The baby I lost would come to me in the form of an older child. Usually it was a girl, but occasionally a boy. But the kid would tell me they knew I wasn't going to be a good mother. They knew I was bad." Angela shoved her hair behind her ears and stared at Shawn. "They left me before I could leave them."

"You can't blame yourself. Dreams and emotions aren't rational."

"I know that, but it didn't make me feel any better. Anyway, not long after the dreams started Eric called to vent about Cory whining to him about wanting to set you up with Katy. He thought the only fix was for me to come and release you from my spell. Those were Cory's words, by the way."

Shawn nodded. "So you came to New York to tell me to move on and asked if I thought you would be a good mother."

"I figured two birds and one stone…you know?"

"I'm sorry you and your husband had to go through that." He wanted to tell her about Cory and Topanga, about how the large age gap between Riley and Auggie wasn't entirely planned. They'd experienced their own losses in between. He didn't want her to feel alone, but ultimately didn't say anything. It wasn't his place to share such personal information even about his best friends. Angela chose to share her struggles with him. "Did you ever tell him about your visit to New York?"

"Oh, Grant knew everything. We didn't keep any secrets from each other."

"Good…that's good. Secrets are bad. How did he react?"

"He was hurt."

"Why?"

"He thought if I should talk to anyone about my fears of having a baby it should be him." She closed her eyes and could still see the look on his face, hear the pain in his voice. "Angie, we're supposed to be a team. If you can't talk to me about something as important as having kids then what are we doing here?"

"He called you Angie?"

"What? Did I say that out loud?"

"Yeah. Grant called you Angie?"

"Yes. Why?"

"You hate being called Angie."

She shrugged. "I didn't hate it from him."

Shawn wasn't quite sure how to handle that. She wasn't even his Angela anymore. She was Grant's Angie.

"We had a long talk," she continued. "We dragged out our deepest, darkest insecurities and laid them bare. There was no stone left unturned. It didn't matter how painful or difficult it was to discuss, we did it. And we came out so much stronger in the end."

He was torn between being happy for her that she got through a rough patch with her husband and disturbed that he indirectly played a role in helping them. "Then what happened?"

"Jude was born the following summer."

"Right."

"I didn't think you wanted anymore details than that."

"No, definitely not. I mean-"

"That's okay, Shawn, I get it." She exhaled and sank into the couch. She glanced at her former boyfriend and noted the glazed expression on his face. "I'm glad we ran into each other today. I wasn't sure when I first saw you, but this was good. We've needed to have this conversation for years."

He supposed she was right, but there had been a few too many painful revelations for him to see it that way at the moment. "I think I'll go call the airline and see if there's an update on when I can get on a flight."

"You know you can stay here tonight if you have to."

"Excuse me?"

"I have an extra room. You just have to be willing to put up with the occasional whining and crying in the middle of the night."

"Please, I shared a dorm with Cory," he quipped. "I'm used to whining and crying."

"Mama! Mama, up! I up now! Mama!"

Angela sighed when she heard Jude's shouts. Naptime seemed to fly by while she was talking to Shawn. "I should go get him before his yelling wakes-" She didn't even get to finish her sentence before Zora's cries mingled with her brother's. Then the dogs began to bark. They did that when they thought the babies were crying for too long. "Jinxed myself there," she said with a laugh. "You ever been around two toddlers at once? And eating lunch with them doesn't count because they were immobilized by their love of cheese."

"I've never even been around one toddler."

"Then I hope you keep up with your cardio." She tossed her pillow at him before standing. "If not you'll be passed out by dinner because they will wear you out."

"I think I'll be okay."

"Famous last words, my friend."