Buffy's eyes flickered back out to where Angel and Lindsey were talking on the patio, she was trying really hard to keep whatever anxieties she was feeling in check, but as the hours ticked by it was only becoming more difficult.

A few minutes later, just after she'd gotten the cookies transferred to the oven she felt his strong arms slipping back around her. Almost as if he couldn't resist, his lips started creating a soft trail up the column of her neck, "I'm sorry," he eventually said. Sighing, his arms tightening around her just the slightest bit.

"Wanna talk about it?" She asked, then turning around so she could get a better look at him she tried once again to see if she could sense what was bothering him. Last night and this morning had been nothing short of perfect, but there was something eating at him. He may not want to admit it, but she had become pretty good at reading him over the last weeks.

"You mean I haven't made you want to give up on me yet?"

"Are you sure we're okay?" He felt his pulse kick up at her question. He knew that she had probably been in here internalizing the way he was acting, and that made him feel more guilty than anything.

"Come on."

Letting him lead her back up the stairs, she barely caught the look Lindsey sent their way.

He had no idea how he was supposed to go about explaining any of this to her without sounding like some raging lunatic himself. "I'm sorry," he said again once they were safe within the confines of his room. His bed all too inviting, he pulled her over as he got settled atop the still rumpled sheets. Despite his mental breakdown, he still found the sight of her so perfectly against him stealing his breath away. He couldn't help but think about how much easier their relationship would be if he was just some normal joe off the street. If tragedy hadn't taken away the life he had planned for himself.

"Ya going to tell me what you're sorry for, or did you just drag me up here to get a feel?" Her playful tone earned her the first smile she had seen from him since this morning. Any other time she would have let him get away with it, but there was very clearly something bothering him. Deciding it was probably best to try and put at least a little distance between them, she moved to his side, though her leg stayed splayed across him.

"I am fucking terrified by the thought of losing you."

His eyes had drifted to the ceiling above them, but his voice was laced with enough emotion to knock her right over had she not already been lying across his bed. Daring a look his way, she could see the tears that he was just barely suppressing. "Angel…" she said, letting one of her hands slide under his shirt to rest against him. "You're not going to-"

"My entire family was murdered because some former lawn worker of my Grandfathers thought it would be an easy way to make a few bucks. He claimed that he didn't know the rest of the family would be there that day, but he did it on Easter weekend. My dad, my grandfather, my brother, my uncle… He shot them all. I was supposed to have been there."

He had never recounted this story for anyone. Not even Lindsey had her his tale of accounts firsthand. Of course he knew the details of what happened, but that was only because he had been there with him through most of it.

"I was an artist. Living out my dream, building a studio outside of Venice. I was supposed to have come home for the holiday, but an opportunity for a showcase came up, and my dad insisted that I stay. My brother was supposed to be the one who eventually took over the company. He was the star student, graduated with three degrees from one of the top universities in the nation. His whole life he had been groomed to take on the role, it was what he lived for. Him and my dad were just alike, I was the one who resembled him more, but he used to joke and say that I was born with my mother's soul."

She knew that whatever happened to his family had to be bad, but she hadn't been expecting a story like this. Hell, some of the gossip that had been spread around was less horrifying than the truth he was telling her. Interrupting him for the first time she asked, "Was she there too?"

"No," he whispered. Then finally tearing his eyes away from the empty space above them, he turned his head toward her. "She got sick when I was little… ovarian cancer. They tried everything they could, my dad even flew her to Europe for treatments, but by the time they found out, it was already too late."

Hearing what happened to him, sure was putting a lot of the missing puzzle pieces she had been trying to figure out in place. She watched a single tear escape his eyes, but instead of letting it fall, she quickly brushed it away with her thumb.

He leaned into her touch, but he didn't dare open his eyes. She seemed to understand as much though, instead of bombarding him with questions, she stayed quiet while he gave her a few more details. Her fingers alternated from tracing his jawline, to threading through his hair, every once in a while when he hadn't made something clear she would ask about something, but for the most part she just listened to him ramble.

"This morning Lindsey voiced some concerns about the two of us… How people might react to the news that we're together. He didn't mean any harm by it, but it got me thinking. There are always people who are after me. I couldn't even begin to tell you the number of death threats I've received over the years. If those people were to find out about you… If something were to ever happen to you-"

"It wont."

His tears ignored, he finally opened his eyes to see her glossy green embers staring back at him. "We don't know that, and the only way I know how to keep you safe is to keep me and you under wraps. I'm in love with you… I know that probably sounds crazy and I understand if you're not ready for that sort of thing to be said out loud, but you have this strange ability to make me voice things that I would never admit to anyone else."

He watched her take his words in. When he brought her up here, he had no intention of ever saying such things, hadn't even been sure he felt them until the words were already tumbling out. Though now that they were out, and he had heard himself with his own ears, he couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. It was like some weight he hadn't even realized he was carrying around had suddenly been lifted. His shoulders still had to bear the weight of the world on them otherwise, but it was a small reprieve he would accept all the same.

Buffy's leg suddenly moved and for a split second he worried she was bolting but then before he could even finish such a thought she was straddling across his lap, fingertips softly caressing his features. "I love you, too," she told him softly and he swore his heart lurched into the middle of his throat. "I would agree that all of this does seem to be happening really very fast, feelings growing heavy probably well before their time, but that's out of my control. I think I was a goner well before even a move was made and it's only grown since then... but you were pretty much the last thing in the world I had been expecting."

"I could easily say the same," Angel promised.

"I'll be honest on the fact that I don't entirely know how to feel about being a hidden feature in your life. I get it, or at least I am trying to... I understand there's endless reasons, for both of us even, that might be a good option, I promise I do... and with you revealing what happened to your family I see there's even more than I was aware to consider..." she sighed, "But can I also admit to there being some downsides to not just being open and honest-"

His hands slid up the length from her bent knee to the curve of her hip. "There is nothing I want more than to sing from the fucking rooftops how I feel about you, Buffy. I am proud to be with you, I am amazed at every fucking thing you are. But I don't want the wrong person to use you to target me, either. I don't know what the balance to that is."

Her eyes fluttered downward for a moment. "I am sure we can figure it out, though. I mean... there's nothing wrong with people having a private life remain private, right?" She paused again before, "Maybe it doesn't have to be everybody's business or sung from the rooftops for everyone to hear, maybe it can be private to the outside world and be as open as we want with who we chose? Maybe that's part of the balance? I don't know... but we can figure it out."

OoOoO

"I was supposed to be there," Angel repeated when she asked if he wanted to talk more about what happened to his late family. Buffy couldn't even begin to wrap her head around how much guilt he must have been carrying around in all the years since, it was well enough to drive anyone mad she was sure of it. "Lindsey's spent well enough time reminding me there was no way of knowing what was going to happen and I know he's right. There were zero red flags I would have ever been made aware of, but there were others who should have made some sort of note about some things in his history I've always felt. Then that feels like victim shaming, victim shaming the dead no less, and that just unlocks another layer of the hell my life became. But I know, I know I know I know, there was nothing that signaled to me something terrible was going to happen and I couldn't have seen it coming. He's told me more than a few times that none of my family were spending their last moments on this earth being mad at me or wishing I was there and logically I can understand that, too, but a bigger part of me can't shake the idea of there being more to it. He's constantly been go live your life for them. He hated me taking on the company, knew what it meant for me to do that, but there's just this wall in front of me. This part of me that tells me I shouldn't get to have more, I shouldn't get to have a life that I want, I shouldn't get to find happiness because they didn't."

"Angel," she cooed softly, pulling herself closer to him. "I don't have the same advantage of being able to say I knew your family well enough to say this, but I'm going to anyway... wherever each of them are, they're not watching over you, thrilled at every time you deny yourself joy, thrilled at seeing you miserable, punishing yourself for something you had no control over."

He sighed. "I've played out what happened so many times in my head I swear I could almost see it down to the last detail, I can almost smell the blood, the fear and tension in the air. I've gone over every document made available to me enough times I could probably glance at one and be able to tell you it word for word from memory, I've looked at every photo, every timeline, and it just lives in me with nowhere to go. I know Lindsey's done the same with anything he could find, too, but I've always carefully tried to avoid doing any sort of walkthrough or huge discussion of all the details with him in all this time. I probably couldn't even start to explain why, it used to be if I said the words out loud it would make it all true, but then time just continued and I still couldn't seem to bring myself to really ever go there and it just became this, like, silent understanding between us. And, maybe, in some part of my mind I always thought the less anyone knew, the safer they would be?"

"And the less people you allowed to get close to you, the safer they would be as well?" she asked softly, trying to picture him as a carefree kid who simply pushed a visit home to see his family back by one weekend and how it'd cost him everything, feeling so happy and full of life to answering the door to find police officers whose job it was to track him down and break the bad news to him.

His life had become eternally divided into the person he was before that moment and the person he became after. And he'd be hopelessly alone for almost all of it, even if he had a couple friends he could call in, even they were held at a distance in many ways, and she couldn't think of much else in this world more heartbreaking.

Her hands both came to rest against his chest, trying to keep her own emotions in check with all the information that had been thrown at her today, and yet she couldn't help but seek more, asking him to tell her more about the members of his family he'd tragically lost.

OoOoO

Lindsey let Wesley in when his ass finally showed, having given him zero warning as to what he was walking in here on he couldn't help but find amusement in what was bound to happen.

"Where's Angel?" Wesley asked, as he unloaded the bags he was carrying onto the counter. "Also, shouldn't a certain blonde be here already? Don't tell me she backed out."

The grin Lindsey had been sporting ever since he opened the door widened as he leaned against the corner of the island. "Oh she's here."

"Really?" Wesley looked around once more. "Outside then?"

Lindsey shook his head. "Guess again."

Wesley began to argue that he couldn't possibly know where they were when something seemed to dawn on him. "You can't be serious." he said, his voice lowering several octaves.

Lindsey simply shrugged, then acted as though he was sealing his lips. "I didn't say a word."

"Oh no you don't. You don't get to lead into something like that and then play innocent. Spill. What's going on?"

"What's going on with what?" Angel asked, having appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Looking much more relaxed than he had earlier, Lindsey silently noted.

Lindsey smirked,"Wes here was just asking where you were."

"Uh-huh. Well… Here I am."

After discussing everything with Buffy, he felt better than he had earlier. Not that anything had changed, but he at least felt like he could breathe knowing that she somehow understood where he was coming from. What he had been through, and why it was so important to keep her safe.

"And ? Lindsey says she's here too."

Angel nodded. "She is. She fell asleep. I didn't want to wake her."

"I see." Wesley sighed. "Fell asleep. Where exactly?"

Angel glanced from Lindsey to Wes and back again. He really should have thought this whole friendsgiving through. It life would be a hell of a lot less complicated right now if he got to spend these days off holed up here with Buffy. As it was, he knew that Wesley. At least he hoped as much.

"Buffy and I are seeing each other."

"Is that what they're calling it now?" Lindsey balked, grabbing a fresh beer from the fridge.

Wesley walked over to take the beer Lindsey was offering. "And how long have you been… seeing each other?"

Suddenly a beer didn't sound so bad. Taking one for himself, Angel winced. Not only was he not used to sharing so many details about his life. He honestly wasn't sure how to answer. As Buffy said, in some ways they had been dating ever since that first day at the office. But the more technical answer was of course yesterday. Not that he was going to sit here and admit that to Wesley. It was bad enough having Lindsey breathing so far down his neck that he seemed to know every minute detail of his and Buffy's relationship. "It's very new," he cautiously admitted.

Wesley nodded, "Well pardon me for saying, but it's about damn time. I mean she has seemed to do wonders for your attitude as of late. I'm sure everyone at the office-"

"No one can know."

Unlike Lindsey, Wesley only knew bits and pieces about Angel's past. He knew enough to know why Angel was in the position he was in. But he lacked the specifics, the backstory of how he truly came to be who he was. Wesley was one of his oldest employees, he was his friend, he trusted him. But the question was could he trust him with this. With her.

"I understand," Wesley said. "Office drama, all the gossip that would entail-"

Angel looked to Lindsey for help, "It's more than that."

"What he means to say," Lindsey said. "Is that we both know this knucklehead over here is worth more dead than alive. Literally. There's always been people after him, always will be. Which was exactly why his stubborn ass has always kept his distance from people."

"Ah," Wesley said. "And now that he's dating Buffy-"

"Those people might try to use her to get to me."

"I see," Wesley said. "And how does she feel about this?"

Wesley glanced at Lindsey but he looked as if he was waiting for an answer as well. He wasn't surprised that Angel felt this way, it was no secret that he was a very wealthy man. Did he believe that he needed to keep his relationship with Buffy a secret because of his status, no. But thankfully that wasn't his decision to make and did his best to let him know as much.

ButImBroken:

Written with Scribes1015