Author's Note: Canonically, I find this one slightly sketchy. My excuse is that it's set mid-S3 and for whatever reason, Angel didn't try to kill Jenny, so she's considerably friendlier towards him. And mostly I just wanted Jenny to make fun of Angel being all angsty, and Angel to be a little more than the Dark Broody Boyfriend. (Although of course there have to be aspects of Dark Broodiness, because come on. It's S3 Angel.)

"Can I have your cookie?"

Angel glanced up from the manuscript in surprise. "What?"

"Your cookie," Jenny said conversationally. "Can I have it? It's been sitting on your plate for the last ten minutes, and I just finished mine."

"Sure," said Angel awkwardly before going back to researching the most recent demon Buffy had run across. Giles hadn't called him in, but he still wanted to look into it. After all, if Buffy was in danger, he knew that he had to try and help. Not just out of moral obligation, but due to the feelings that he was trying so hard to—

"You're sure you don't want them?" Jenny continued to query. "I mean, Willow isn't planning on baking any more for a while…"

"Go ahead," Angel answered, still staring at the manuscript and feeling incredibly guilty that his feelings for Buffy still lingered. If Buffy was in danger, and for some reason or another they got caught up in the heat of the moment…a part of him was scared by the possibility of Angelus resurfacing, but a part of him was too selfish to care. One moment of happiness, true happiness, was worth so much to him, but was it really worth transforming into Angelus again? Was it worth—

"Are you done brooding?" Jenny asked, taking Angel's cookie.

"What?" said Angel, now actually taking the time to stare at Jenny.

"Look, Angel, we're the only two people in this library, and I'm getting tired of the whole silent research thing," said Jenny frankly, taking a bite of the cookie. "Mmm," she said contentedly, before continuing, "So you finish up your brooding and then we're going to have an actual, human-to-vampire conversation."

"I wasn't brooding," Angel informed her.

"You're brooding right now!" Jenny accused him, a laugh in her voice. "You get all sullen."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Angel replied uncomfortably, staring at the manuscript.

He was trying to read. He really was. Reading meant that there was a task he had to finish, monsters he had to fight. But nowadays, the only monsters he seemed to be fighting were his inner demons. The ones he had to protect himself, and Buffy, from at all costs. These were the demons that said it would be a good thing, a moment of happiness with Buffy and then the end of having a soul. The demons that—

Jenny purposefully tipped over Angel's mug of pig's blood, spilling it all over the manuscript.

"What the hell?" Angel demanded, not sure whether to be stunned or angry. He looked up at Jenny, who was giving him a very pointed stare. "I was reading that!"

"I found some info on the Internet that I'm going to research myself, so you don't need that," Jenny explained, "and if I had told you that without destroying the manuscript, you would have continued to pretend to read while you brood. And like I said, we're the only people in the library, so you're going to have to talk to me." She turned in her chair so that she was staring at him, a challenge in her eyes.

"I don't want to," said Angel, not really liking that he was starting to sound like a stubborn little kid.

"Okay, I'll just talk, and you can listen," Jenny told him. She cleared her throat dramatically before beginning. "So I'm thinking of renting a really sappy romantic comedy just to see if I can get Rupert to cry, because he tries to be Mr. Tough Guy when it comes to movies but I always catch him sniffling a little at the sad parts. And I never cry at movies, but he's convinced that I cried when we were watching The Lion King. Which, by the way, is a really good movie, even if it's a kids' movie about—"

"I've seen The Lion King," Angel said quietly.

"Did you like it?" Jenny asked. "I thought it was cute."

"Parents die a lot in Disney movies," Angel commented, shifting slightly in his chair so that he could face Jenny. Only slightly, though. He was just going to explain this to Jenny, and then he would stop talking to her. He didn't really feel in a place to talk right now; he wanted to mull over his complex feelings for Buffy. "I find it morbid."

"You find The Lion King morbid," said Jenny slowly, a little disbelievingly.

"Yeah," Angel replied.

"You, Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, get depressed by cartoon lions."

"Well, when you put it like that," Angel muttered.

"No, I get it," Jenny teased, dark eyes full of mirth. "It's really sad when Mufasa dies. That and the stuff with the hyenas? That's some dark stuff. Much darker than, oh, I don't know, vampires and demons and mysteriously immortal mayors."

"That's not what I mean," Angel persisted indignantly.

"Well, I'd be happy to listen to what you mean, Angel, but you said that you didn't want to talk to me," said Jenny with clear self-satisfaction. "So I think I'll go print out the info you need, and then you can—"

"If you think about Beauty and the Beast, I mean, where are the Beast's parents?" Angel asked Jenny loudly, choosing to ignore her growing smile. He had to settle this once and for all. "He was, what, ten when he got transformed? And a ten-year-old prince can't rule a kingdom. Did he eat his parents? Were his parents already dead? And who was ruling the kingdom if they were dead? And what happened to that guy?"

"Maybe Cogsworth was the…uh…what's it called when someone rules a kingdom in place of a kid who's too young?" Jenny replied.

"I think it's a regent," Angel told her. "Everyone was talking about that in the late 1700s. The regent of…might have been England?"

"Would Cogsworth really be qualified to rule a kingdom?" Jenny continued. "I mean, if you ask me, Mrs. Potts would have been the better choice."

"Cogsworth was pompous and stuffy, but I think he knew his stuff," said Angel. Then, casually, "Pompous, stuffy, and British."

"Are you comparing my fiancé to an annoying talking clock from an animated movie?" Jenny asked huffily. "If anything, Rupert would be Belle."

Angel stared at her for a moment. Then the thought of Giles in that stupid yellow dress Belle had been wearing came to his mind and he started laughing. It wasn't very loud, nor was it long (it was about five seconds of laughter), but when he'd stopped, he found that his complex feelings for Buffy didn't seem as necessary to mull over.

For a moment, Jenny was silent, looking quite stunned. Then she started to talk again, now with an even larger smile. "I mean, it's totally obvious! Belle wants adventure, she loves books, she's brave, she's compassionate, she—"

"Hate to break it to you, Jenny, but Belle fell in love with a hideous monster, and you aren't exactly the Beast," Angel pointed out.

Jenny stopped talking, contemplatively bit her lip, and then came up with, "Well, I don't have the best table manners." She stood up.

"Oh, are you going?" Angel asked, surprised to sense a note of disappointment in his voice.

"I just have to print out the article I found online," Jenny explained. "I'll be right back." She hurried off.

Jenny came back with a new copy of the document Angel had been reading, blood, and coffee. All three items were ignored in favor of their complaining about the utter stupidity of romantic comedies and most romantic subplots in general.