"What are you supposed to be?" Liam asked. His mom's costume was definitely not what he had in mind. He knew she was strongly against being a vampire, but what he saw was beyond his imagination.

While Liam tried to figure out his mom's costume, Angel tried to remain cool. Like Liam, he had not expected Buffy to walk down the stairs in tight red leather pants, his old leather jacket from high school, and a tank top. The sight made his mouth go dry in awe and shock.

"I'm a Vampire Slayer," Buffy explained, holding up a wooden stake. When she walked down the stairs, Buffy felt Angel's gaze trail over her body. She quickly shook off the fluttering feeling coming from her heart at the thought. "Anyway, I thought you were supposed to be a vampire. Liam is the only one that looks like one." Buffy had to admit that Liam looked adorable with his fake fangs, slicked back hair, and cape.

"You've seen those new vampire shows, they all dress like this," Angel argued. He gestured to his simple black outfit which did not differ much from his normal day-to-day wear. But that didn't stop Buffy from clocking in the Angel's addition of black leather pants.

"Whatever, let's just go and get this over with," Buffy grumbled, as she led the two boys out of the house and into the neighborhood. Over a week had passed since Riley had left and Buffy was getting antsy. He said he would be back in a week, it's been over. So for the past few days, Buffy had been stuck in a mood.

"Oh come on, cheer up for the kid. All he wants is to have a good night with his parents," Angel said, playfully punching her arm. "Right, Liam?"

"Right," Liam agreed.

"I don't like how you've convinced him to gang up on me," Buffy said. Although, she secretly loved it. Angel and Liam have gotten much closer since that weekend away together. And with Angel stopping by every weekend and talking on the phone with Liam each night, they really had developed the father and son relationship she used to dream about.

"You know you love it," Liam chimed in, causing him and Angel to chuckle. Before Buffy could even rebut, Liam ran to his first candy stop.

"He's right, I do love it," Buffy admitted to Angel. Angel smiled at Buffy's admission. "Thanks for being there with him this past week, things have been off since Riley left."

Angel hated Riley talk, especially because the guy had tried to take his kid away from him, but things were going well with Buffy. They weren't fighting which was a first for them. He just wanted everything to stay as it was in that moment, the three of them. "When is he supposed to come back?" Angel asked.

"Three days ago," Buffy said while twisting her ring. Angel caught her doing that a few times recently, but it wasn't to her wedding ring.

"I'm sorry, Buff," Angel said. Though he was not a keen supporter of Buffy's relationship with Riley, he could tell she loved her husband. And the reason they weren't together had to do with him, or so his mother had told him and his father.

"It's okay, he'll come home soon. I know it." That mantra had been pushing her through the past few days, the assurance that Riley would come back and they could work on their relationship.

Angel didn't press the subject any further.

They went through the night never broaching the subject, stopping at house to house, as Liam racked a large pile of candy. By eight o'clock the lights had gone out in most of the neighborhood and the candy had dried up. Buffy and Angel had stopped by Buffy's house and Liam dropped off the candy before heading to his Aunt Willow's party.

Liam felt out of place at the party, there were some kids, but they were all closer to Tara and Seth's age. That typically made him the go to babysitter.

The party had just begun when Buffy and Angel arrived. Xander and Dawn were there as well as some of Willow and Oz's coworkers and old classmates, even Jenny and Giles showed up despite being quite older than the rest of the crowd.

"I'm going to get something to drink," Buffy announced to Angel and left him in the doorway. Many single women set their sights on the young man and made their way to closer to him.

Buffy found herself looking for a beer to get herself through the night. Angel had been cordial to her, but there was an air of unspoken tension that hung between them. "Hey, Buffy!" Harmony greeted.

"Hi, Harm," Buffy replied, uninterested yet again in conversation with the other blonde. Buffy scouted the room out for Willow to retrieve her from Harmony, but she was in deep conversation with a woman wearing the same witch costume as herself.

"So seeing as you and Angel share a kid, but aren't together, do you think that he would be like totally be into me?" Harmony asked. Angel was still as hot as she remembered and would not mind continuing their blossoming relationship from high school.

Buffy looked over at Angel being hounded by all the single women in the room. His gaze met hers and he was practically begging her for assistance. But with an opportunity like this, the old Buffy couldn't resist. "Definitely," Buffy grinned.

Harmony smiled and strode over to Angel. Buffy watched in delight as another woman began to throw herself at him. He had a murderous glare in his eyes and Buffy held up her beer glass in the air, acknowledging her involvement. Aside from Angel, everyone else seemed to be paired off. Willow with Amy. Oz had found himself talking to his old bandmate Devon. Xander and Dawn were on the couch as he massaged her feet. Jenny and Giles hung back with the twins and Liam. And then there was Buffy all alone. Usually, Riley would be by her side, but with him gone, she was reminded of the loneliness she hadn't felt in a long time.

Buffy stopped by the refrigerator and grabbed a few more beers before heading outside and hiding on the Osbourne's porch. She sat on the porch railing drinking as she stared up at the stars. This night had only reminded her how much she missed her husband. All she wanted was him back.

"Thanks for the help back there ," Angel commented sarcastically, distracting Buffy from her thoughts. Buffy looked over at Angel as he sat next to her with his clothes and hair extremely disheveled.

"It's not something you couldn't handle," Buffy replied finishing off her third beer. Had the time passed that fast, she asked herself.

"I'm not like that anymore, Buffy," Angel said slightly hurt. It was obvious to Angel that Buffy still viewed him in the same light that she had all those years ago.

"You're right, I'm sorry. After all you do have a fiancée to think about. How does she feel with all the time you've been spending in Sunnydale?" Buffy was curious about Angel's fiancée. She had heard that Darla was some type of heiress from Jenny, but Buffy had personally never met her.

"I don't know," Angel shrugged, pursing his lips and shoving his pockets in his pants. "I called off the wedding and broke up with her three weeks ago." It was immediately after the weekend spent with Liam that Angel had met up with Darla and called the wedding off. She was livid, but Angel explained his new situation regarding Liam. She was not the type to settle down or be a stepmother to his preteen son which was made aware to him a week prior when he told her the truth. If she wasn't going to be there for Liam, then Angel thought there was no point of continuing the relationship.

Buffy, inebriated, silently cursed herself and apologized. "Angel, I'm so sorry. I didn't know..."

"That's okay, it was a long time coming." It was partially true. He and Darla were at different stages in their lives and he needed someone to meet him where he was at.

"Still, I can't help but feel bad."

Angel's curiosity peaked at Buffy's statement. Buffy had nothing to do with his failed engagement, it was all him. "Why?"

"Because I ruined my marriage, it wouldn't shock me if I was the cause of cancelling your engagement," Buffy said reaching for her fourth drink.

Angel grabbed the beer from her. Drinking away the pain never helped anybody. "Buffy, I doubt you ruined your marriage."

Buffy rolled her eyes at him. "That's what Riley keeps telling me. I was the one who made up excuses, on more than one occasion, for Riley to wait on adopting Liam. I pushed it off for so long that now it would be impossible for him to do so without Liam hating Riley for it. And on top of that, I kept rejecting the idea of another baby. It wasn't like I hated them, it's just that I didn't want one. It's my fault he left," Buffy spiraled.

"Do you ever think about what our lives would be like if we made one change in the past?" Angel pondered out loud.

"Sometimes." Buffy felt guilty for her answer. "When Liam got fussy as a baby, I would try to picture a life where I wasn't a mom, I was just a normal teenage girl having fun with her friends." She loved Liam with her whole heart and would not trade him for anything else in the world, but she had sacrificed her youth for him. And part of her craved the youth she never had. "But I never could. Liam became my whole life and I couldn't picture my life without him. What about you?"

"I think about it, quite a lot recently." Especially since Joyce's funeral reception, Angel added in his mind.

"Like what?"

"Like what would happen if I had asked you out on the night Liam was conceived." Buffy turned to Angel, not expecting him to ever say those words, and listened to his monologue. "I think about that night a lot. After you went back to my place and I gave you the ring, I intended to asked you out on a date, but you beat me to it by kissing me. Then we went to my bed and I couldn't stop myself. You were just so beautiful. Then when it was just you and me in bed after, I just regretted everything. It wasn't how the night was supposed to go. I wanted to be better than my reputation for you. I thought you would hate me for getting you drunk and then sleeping with you. You would have gotten up the next morning once the alcohol wore off and started screaming at me that not only did I take your first kiss, I took your virginity."

"I wouldn't have thought that," Buffy said in a hushed tone. She had the biggest crush on him at sixteen and that night happened to be the best night of her life as it gave her Liam.

"I didn't want to risk it. We still didn't get along that well and that's why I kicked you out." Buffy remembered the moments following their time together. There was a lot of screaming. "I wanted to break your heart before you could break mine. I couldn't even talk to you for two months after that because I was ashamed of my actions. Then you pulled me into that supplies closet and all I could think about was how badly I wanted to kiss you. But it wouldn't have mattered. I royally screwed up both of our lives it seemed. You told me you were pregnant. I was terrified and I shut down. I was three months shy of graduating and going to college, I couldn't have a baby. My life was just about to begin."

"That's why I let you go," Buffy admitted to a confused Angel. "I didn't want you to resent me or the baby for keeping you in Sunnydale. You always wanted to leave this town and I thought making you stay and own up to it would make you hate us. In my mind, it made more sense for you to not be there than be there and resent us for ruining the life you could of had."

If only they had communicated better, then there was a chance they both could have gotten what they wanted.

"I never would of resented you or Liam." Angel found that idea to be impossible, sure it would have meant giving up his dream school and profession in LA, but he would have had his family.

"I didn't want to risk it," Buffy repeated cocking a half smile.

Angel decided to continue on with his story. "And with our arrangement, I stayed as far away as possible. There were times that I just wanted to ask about the baby, but I could never bring myself to do it. Pride and my own ambition got the best of me. And it became so hard as you got further along and tried to talk to me and involve me in as much as possible. I just had to leave and Spike knew a guy that had a place for us in LA."

"That's why I chased you down graduation day."

"Yeah what a surprise that was. I tried my best to retain some composure, but you always brought out the fiery side of me. There were so many times I wanted to leave the conversation and then you kept dragging me back into to it. You really got me when you told me we were having a boy and I felt him kick. It made everything seem more real. And in that moment, I wanted you more than anything."

"Probably not your best time." Buffy was always embarrassed of that intimate moment, not because she didn't enjoy herself, she did, but she had fallen back so easily to Angel. She was thankful the video cut out before anyone could see. "I mean the teacher's lounge couch and having to work around a pregnant belly was not ideal."

"I didn't mind that. If anything, it probably turned me on even more than I was." Buffy blushed at the thought. She never considered her pregnant self as hot in any way but Angel had. "Actually, it was my favorite time of ours together."

"Really?" Buffy was stuck in disbelief.

"Oh most definitely," Angel admitted. "The first will always have a special place in my heart because we got Liam from it, but there was something that made the second stand out. I could see the physical evidence of what came from our love that time, your bump. And all I wanted to do is love you. It was just the two of us and for a minute I could pretend that that was my life."

"It could have been."

"But I was too much of a coward to let it happen." Hearing Angel call himself a coward was something Buffy never thought she would hear because she never viewed him as such. "So yeah, I've been thinking about the past a lot. There were so many chances I could have had and I threw them away. If I just stayed by your side from the beginning, then maybe..."

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe I would be married to you instead of Riley. Maybe I wouldn't have missed Liam's milestones as a baby like his first words, first steps, first birthday, and first day of school. Maybe we would even have a few more kids." Angel had thought about that alternate reality more and more the past few weeks. He had pictured their wedding, raising Liam together from infancy, and a couple other kids.

"You know the reason Riley never adopted Liam was because I always held out hope that you would come around." Buffy knew Riley suspected it, but she never uttered the phrase out loud until now. Part of her had wanted what Angel had spoke of, but nothing could be done to change the past. The had to say goodbye to it, and hello to what tomorrow brought. There was no point on dwelling on it.

"And you have no idea, how thankful I am for that." Angel smiled and looked at Buffy. She was truly beautiful in his eyes, not even Darla could compare. He slowly started to lean in closer to Buffy, praying that she would not move away.

"You know the last time we were drunk together we got Liam," Buffy pointed out. They were heading into dangerous territory and Buffy was not sure if she could stop herself if they started.

"I'm not drunk," Angel said as he leaned in further to kiss Buffy.

Liam had been watching his parents from the window while Giles and Jenny played with the twins. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Though he loved Riley and his mom together, he wanted nothing more than his parents to get back together.

"Buffy, you will not believe who's here!" Willow cheered, stopping Angel and Buffy in their tracks. He had been so close to kissing her and did not know when the next opportunity would present itself.

Willow had instantly regretted interrupting the two as she saw the disappointment on both Buffy and Angel's faces. What the estranged parents didn't know was that the night was about to get much worse.

"Who?" Buffy asked, trying to regain composure after her almost kiss with Angel.

Willow stepped out of the way and watched as all the color drained from Angel's face.

"Riley," Buffy said breathlessly, staring back at her husband.