Halloween had been a complete success for Charlie. True things didn't go as she originally planned but the end results were the same, she and her friends were able to celebrate the holiday together while smiling and laughing. It was all she had ever wanted. So since Halloween had gone well, it was only natural that Charlie wanted to celebrate other holidays with her friends such as Thanksgiving.

The idea of celebrating Thanksgiving was more well-received by everyone, most likely because they would all be enjoying a feast of free food. However there was a catch, you had to invite your family. Charlie invited her parents and her uncle Gabriel, Vaggie invited her mother, Alastor invited his parents, Niffty invited her grandparents, and Husk his sister and his nieces and nephews. Angel was the only one who wasn't inviting any family. In fact he was the only one who didn't want to participate in the holiday which was weird considering that normally Angel would go for anything free.

"Is it religious reasons?" Charlie asked him. "I mean I know Thanksgiving isn't a religion based holiday but some cultures and faiths aren't in favor of it."

"It's has nothing to do with religion or culture toots." Angel said. "I just don't like Thanksgiving."

"You don't like free food?" Husk asked. "Mr. Free loader?"

"I've never had much of an appetite for turkey and stuffing." Angel said.

"Then we'll add Italian food to the menu." Charlie said. "We are having the traditional foods but we're also having Cajun and Latin American cuisine for Alastor andh is family, and Vaggie and her family."

"No thanks." Angel said. "You're already going through so much trouble for Smiles and Sweet Wings, I don't want to be a bigger burden."

"Since when?" Vaggie muttered under her breath.

"But it's no trouble at all." Charlie said. "I want to do whatever it takes to make the holiday a happy one for everybody."

"I understand that Charlie but I just don't want to celebrate this one."

"But-"

"My answer is no!" He snapped. "Accept it, will ya?"

He stormed off to his room after that. Charlie tried to follow him but Alastor stopped her.

"Let him be my dear." Alastor said. "If he wishes not to participate in the festivities, then it's his right to refuse."

"But he'll be the only one. He'll be left out. He'll be...He'll be all alone."

"I know and I understand your desire to make sure everyone feels included and happy. But darling it's hos choice and believe me, forcing him to celebrate will only make things worse."

"I can't believe I'm saying this." Vaggie said. "But he's right. Even if it is for what's best, you can't force a person to do something."

"At least not when you're full grown adults." Husk said. "When you're a kid your parents force you to do whatever they want you to do and if you resist then you're a huge disappointment! Well you drove me to alcoholism Mom and Dad! You drove me to it!"

"Who are you talking to?" Vaggie asked Husk.

"Ignore him, he's drunk and having another alcohol induced flashback." Alastor said.

"Should we be concerned?" Charlie asked.

"No. This is normal for him." Alastor said. "Now then why don't we all go help Niffty clean up the hotel? We don't want to spend the holiday dining in a pigsty."

"Why not? There's already a pig living in here." Vaggie teased. "I still can't believe you allowed Angel to let that animal live here."

"What's wrong with Fat Nuggets?" Charlie asked.

"He's a pig!" Vaggie pointed out. "He belongs in a barnyard."

"Or in a butcher shop." Alastor added.

"Al!" Charlie scolded.

"I'm joking."

"For your information, that pig is the only thing Angel loves and finds comfort in. Without it, he'd have nothing and nobody. I couldn't have possibly told me Fat Nuggets couldn't live here."

"Well I don't see how livestock could prove to be a companion but to each his own, I suppose." Alastor said.

"You know now that I think about it, Fat Nuggets is pretty much the only person or thing, that angle allows himself to vulnerable with." Vaggie said. "He doesn't really get close to anyone else."

"What about Cherri Bomb?" Charlie asked.

"Oh yeah I forgot about her. But she hasn't been around lately, has she?"

"No. Last I heard she went away to blow up all of Valentino's strip clubs. Heaven only knows when she'll be back." Charlie said. "I've tried to get close to him, to talk to him, to listen, but he just doesn't want my help in that department."

"Well I can't say I'm surprised."

"What do you mean? Am I hard to talk to?"

"No it's not that, it's just that it's hard to talk to someone about your problems when it's a person who can't relate to them. You're a good a listener Charlie and we all know you don't judge but, you haven't been through everything he's been through and he just doesn't think you'd understand."

"I get that." Charlie sighed. "I just wish I could help him."

"We know." Alastor said giving her a hug from behind. "But in cases like Angel, you can't help him unless he asks you for help first and that's the way it is. It's hard to accept, but it's how it is."

"I know."

"Now enough with the sighs and the frowns." He perked up. "You have something very exciting to look forward to. You're finally going to meet my mother, I've been so anxious to introduce you to her."

"Oh yes!" Charlie said, her tone turning from disappointed to excited. "I can't wait to meet her, and your father."

"Oh yes...My father." He said, sounding a little nervous.

"What's the matter? Don't you want me to meet him?"

"No I do. I really do. It's just that...Well...The thing is, as I've mentioned many times, my dear mother was a paragon of goodness and virtue. But my father on the other hand...You could say he was the complete opposite. To put it simply, my mother was a saint and my father was a sadist."

"You mean he abused you and your mother?"

"No. Not us. Just other people. If anyone ever pushed him to his limit, you'd read about them in the obituary."

"Oh..." Charlie said taken aback a little. "Well don't forget, I'm the daughter of the first evil being ever created so I think I can handle whatever flaws your father has."

"Fair enough."

The two then excitedly exited the hallway to find Niffty and help her tidy up the hotel. As Vaggie watched them, she smiled slightly. She'd never admit to it, but despite her initial skepticism on the subject, Alastor and Charlie did make a good couple. They both loved music and the arts, they both had old-fashioned tastes though Charlie was half old-fashioned and half modern, and both came from families that were mixed up of good and bad people. But what made her finally come around to accepting them was that Alastor seemed to really love Charlie and he really wanted to make her happy.

"And I want to make her happy too." Vaggie thought to herself. "Which is why I think I'm going to have a little chat with Angel."

Now she wasn't going to force him or anything. She was only going to try to find out what he had against Thanksgiving because something about his reason for declining didn't sit right with her. He didn't want to celebrate because he didn't like the food? Bull shit! She once saw him drink an entire tube of tooth paste when he was going through with drawl, so picky eating wasn't the case.

You see Vaggie had what some would call a built in lie-detector and it had been going off with each answer Angel had given them. But she chose not to call him out on it in front of everyone else because she had a feeling that the truth might be a little embarrassing. Also she was aware of his little crush on her and thought that maybe he'd feel more comfortable confessing to her alone. Manipulative perhaps, but it's not like he had never manipulated someone crushing on him.

But there was another reason too. One that was more important. She wanted to make sure that Angel wouldn't relapse. He had finally beaten his drug addiction and she knew how hurt feelings and deep rooted issues could drive a person to relapse to their old ways. And to her, the only thing worse than seeing someone fall into the pit of failure, was seeing someone fall into it again. Especially after they had come so far by climbing the hill of betterment. People like Alastor may have found the notion amusing but Vaggie found it horrifying and heart breaking. She believed no one deserved that, not even Angel.

Knock-knock!

"Coming." Angel opened the door to his room and found Vaggie standing on the other side. "Vaggie, what a nice surprise. Never thought you'd ever come to my bedroom."

"Don't start get a an erection, I just came to talk." She said. "And if you pull any moves on me, I'll yank out that gold tooth of yours."

"Fine. I don't mind talking. What do you want to talk about?"

She made sure no one was close enough to hear them, then she stepped into his room and closed the door.

"Angel are you okay?" She asked him in a surprisingly gentle tone. One that caught him by surprise because in all the time he had known her, she had never once spoken gently to him.

"Yeah I'm fine." He replied, sounding confused. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I know you weren't telling the truth when you told Charlie why you didn't want to celebrate Thanksgiving."

For a moment he became very quiet. Almost as if she was surprised that she could see through his lie and was taking a moment to figure out how. Lying was second nature to him after all. Why he was so good at it, he had been able to fool priests when he lived on earth. Either he was losing his touch or Vaggie was way smarter than he gave her credit for.

"I...I didn't lie."

"Yes you did."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did. It's not the food that keeps you from celebrating. I know you're not a picky eater. You love to cook and you love well-prepared meals. Not to mention I've seen what you've eaten when you go through with drawl. Now if you don't want to tell me the real reason, that's fine. But don't lie to me."

"If you don't care if I tell you or not, then why are you here? Why are you trying to talk to me?"

"I just want to make sure that you're alright. I don't know everything about you but I do know that you keep a lot of things inside and that can really hurt you. Or worse, it can push you to do things like take your own life or take other lives. Believe me I know."

She had a look of shame on her face, for a moment she was recalling past mistakes she had made. Ones that led to her coming down here in the first place. Ones that she knew had broken her poor mother's heart many times.

"I won't get into the details but when I was alive I felt rejected, used, and hurt a lot, and I never told anyone. Not my mother, not anyone who wanted to help me, I just kept it all bottled up and one day I snapped and...And I did terrible things. I don't want you to do the same. You've been doing so well here and you're getting better, healthier, I just don't want you to...Relapse."

Angel sighed and looked down at his beloved pig Fat Nuggets who was giving him a look of devoted concern. The pig couldn't speak, but Angel knew what he was thinking.

"You have to talk to someone other than me and Aunt Cherri isn't here."

So Angel picked up his pig, put him in his lap, and proceeded to pat him while slowly confessing to the one-eyed moth demon.

"Okay the truth is, it's the whole family thing. I don't want to celebrate Thanksgiving because my family is horrible. They're all criminals who have put me down my entire life. My own father said that he wished his dick had never planted me in my mother in the first place. And each time I forgot to stay in line, he beat the shit out of me and said that I brought the pain on myself."

His touch grew a little firm but it didn't hurt Fat Nuggets.

"My mother tried, but she was a battered woman who would submit to her psycho husband's will no matter what he did. My older brother Arackniss bullied me about my interests and called me names but that's pretty much every sibling dynamic. The only person who ever really gave a damn about me was my sister Molly. She supported everything I did as long as it didn't hurt me, and she was more of a mother to me and Arackniss than our own mother was."

"So you had a good relationship with her?"

"Yeah. She was the only one who still kept in touch with me when my old man threw me out for getting into prostitution. Never mind that it was his abuse that drove me to it."

"Then why don't you ever see her?"

"When I was alive she was always begging me to get off the drugs and go to rehab, but I never listened. She told me how scared she was of one day finding out I had OD'd to death and she promised to pay for any treatment needed to help me. But I ignored her advice, I lied to her and used the money she gave me to feed my habit, and in the end her worst fear came to pass. I couldn't face her in the after putting her through all that, how could I?"

"But you're better now." Vaggie said sitting beside him. "And despite it all, I'm sure she still loves you."

"She couldn't possibly. I broke her heart and I used her love for me. No one could forgive that. My parents never wanted me and I know my brother hates me. He always said that if I was a loser and that if I didn't straighten up, the family was going to get rid of me and they did. Hell, I found out years ago, that they didn't even have a funeral for me when I died."

Vaggie felt her own heart break as she listened to his story. Angel was much more damaged than she thought. No wonder he worked for the likes of Valentino for so long, it was because he was used to pain and misery. He probably thought his life in Hell was barely different from his life on Earth.

"I just can't ever face my family again and that's why I don't like to celebrate holidays that put a lot of emphasis on family. Like Thanksgiving. You all have screwed up families but at least not all of them hate you. Damn it, Charlie's father is the prince of darkness and Al's is a sadist serial-killer yet they still love their kids."

"Well you know I don't have a father who loves me either." Vaggie said.

"But you still have a mother who loves you. You all have people who love you. I don't. I don't have anybody."

"But are you so sure that there's no way you could fix things with any of them? Maybe not your parents but your siblings?"

"As far as Arackniss is concerned, he only ever had a sister, and I can't look Molly in the eyes ever again. I've hurt her too much."

He slowly laid down in bed, burying his face in his pillow. Fat Nuggets moved to nuzzle up close to him, wanting so badly to make the spider demon's pain go away for good. Vaggie on the other hand couldn't stand to see him like this. Looking so alone and so unwanted. She laid down next to him and put her arms around him in a hug. A chaste, innocent, non-sexual, comforting hug. The kind you give someone when words can't make it better. He didn't say or do anything in response to that hug. He didn't flirt or get aroused or anything like that. He just let himself be held.

"What happened to your father?" Angel asked after ten minutes of silence had passed. "If you don't mind me asking."

"I don't mind." She answered softly. "He left us. When I was about maybe seven or eight years old, he didn't come home from work one day and nobody knew what happened to him. It was like he just vanished. My mom was a mess, she sent out a missing person's report, people went out looking for him, I waited up for him almost every night, nothing. Then about a month later a lawyer showed up on our door to serve my mom divorce papers. Turns out my father was alive and well, and living in a new apartment with his girlfriend. I never saw him again and as if that wasn't cruel enough, he told people that my mother had cheated on him and that I wasn't even his child."

"God that's just...Just heartless."

"It was to avoid paying child support and Mom didn't have enough money or maybe she didn't have the strength to go through all the arguing, but there never was a paternity test to disprove his lies."

"No wonder you hate men so much."

"I don't hate you."

He slowly turned around to face her.

"Really?" He asked.

"Uh-huh." She nodded against the pillow.

"I don't hate you either." He said.

"I know. But I don't know why though. I never was really nice to you, and I'm sorry for that."

"That's okay. I'm not really nice to anyone unless they pay me."

That made her laugh a little.

"So you do have a sense of humor?" He chuckled.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well you have to admit, you do have a bit of a sour grape vibe going on. At times I didn't think you even know how to laugh."

"I know how to laugh. I just have my own idea of what I find funny. Sex jokes not being one of them."

"Okay then if sex jokes don't make you laugh." He said sitting up. "Are you ticklish by any chance?"

"No I am not." She said sitting up quickly.

Angel's eyes were pointed right at her sides as an idea creeped into his mind. Vaggie deduced that idea almost instantly.

"Don't even think about it." She warned. "No. No. No."

His fingers started to crawl toward her.

"I'm warning you Angel, don't you dare-"

But her words fell to deaf ears and he started to run his his fingers up and down her sides and under her arms, causing her to wringle and laugh uncontrollably.

"Stop!" She cried between fits of laughter. "Stop! Ha-Ha! Stop it!"

"Only if you say please first." He teased. "Pretty please to be exact."

"You're such an asshole! Get off! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

They were rolling around on the bed so much that the springs could be heard bouncing and Vaggie was laughing so loudly, that almost everyone could hear her. Eventually everyone's curiosity was peeked and they went to investigate.

"Ah! No! Not there!" They heard Vaggie let out an especially high pitched laugh.

"Oh so that's your weak spot, huh?" They heard Angel tease.

"I can't take it! Get your finger out of there!"

"Oh my God." Charlie whispered in shock.

"No F'in way." Husk said. "I must be drunker than I thought."

"Oh how perverse." Niffty said covering her ears.

Then there came a loud thump. Angel and Vaggie had rolled off the bed and the door was creaked open to reveal her lying on the floor and him on top of her, the two of them just laughing and laughing.

"You okay?" He asked her trying to stop laughing.

"I'm alright. But please don't-"

Suddenly her smile fell and was replaced by an expression of utter horror.

"Hey what's wrong?" Angel asked noticing the change of look in her face.

He slowly turned his head to look behind himself and his expression quickly mirrored hers.

"Well this is quite a show we missed." Alastor said smugly. "Anyone care to explain?"

Angel quickly got off of Vaggie and they both stood up from the floor.

"This isn't what it looks like!" They said at the exact same time.

"I was just talking to him!" She started.

"And I wanted to see if she could laugh so I tickled her!" He finished.

"Bull!" Husk said.

"No! I swear! I've never seen her naked and I've never been inside of her! Also I would never have sex in front of Nugsy!"

"Uh...Vaggie is that true?" Charlie asked. "If it is, I don't care. I don't judge. In fact I think it's really sweet-"

"No! We are not...We're nothing! I swear to you!" Vaggie said.

"How dumb do you think we are?" Husk asked.

"I believe em." Alastor said.

"You do?" Niffty asked.

"Well they are still fully clothed you know." Alastor said. "And while I have never known carnal pleasures, I'm pretty sure you have to at least not be wearing undergarments in order to commit the act of coupling and I unfortunately got a glimpse of them both still wearing thongs."

"Ahh!" Vaggie screamed, pulling her skirt further down. "You pervert!"

"Madame I am no pervert." He assured her. "You and Angel just stood up so fast that your skirts flared up and gave me a quick and unappealing sight."

"I saw them too." Husk said.

"Okay everyone that's enough!" Charlie said ushering everyone away from the doorway. "Show's over, break it up, let's all get back to work!"

When they were finally all gone, Vaggie quietly exited Angel's room, both feeling very flustered at the moment.