A/N :: Did you ever wonder what it was like for Angela to return to CT – that first night of coming home? What was she thinking? How would she face the fact that she was going to be alone again? I've provided ruminations from Angela that first night being home. I've added some direct quotes from the show. I do not own these characters, the dialogue, or the original WTB? Series.

The Room, Unslept In

Coming home …

The silence was deafening.

Mona and Jonathan had taken the luggage upstairs to unpack, neither of them expecting Angela's to be amongst theirs. The house felt empty before, after Tony left for Iowa, but she knew he'd be coming back for visits until he finally came back for good after his one-year contract was over. They'd finally have the wedding that was put on hold so Tony could take the one-year teaching and coaching job at Wells College. She could deal with that.

Jonathan and Mona were tucked into their rooms. Both wondered if she was okay. Mona knew Angela needed her career, but wondered more than once out loud if she was making the right decision breaking up with Tony. It was so final. Jonathan returned to childhood memories of worrying about Tony leaving him. No one could believe how the day had turned out.

Angela made her way up the stairs coming to the closed door of her bedroom. This was the first time she had been home since leaving Connecticut after the new year to move in with Tony.

She exhaled the breath she had been holding, a sad sigh leaving her mouth. But this emptiness was different. There'd be no more visits specifically to see her, no more phone calls, at least not the sweet calls just between the two of them, she thought. Angela knew Tony would have to come back to visit with Sam and Hank, but when, she didn't know.

How could she be back here in Connecticut? Like this? Alone, so alone as she felt the pit in her stomach get deeper and nausea set in.

Angela stood in front of her bedroom door staring down at the doorknob. She just couldn't reach down and turn the knob at that moment. She stood there and looked down at the knob. After about a minute, she took a deep breath, opened the door and slowly walked in. She reached over and popped the light on for the window seat. She shut the door behind her. She noticed Jonathan had left her luggage at the foot of her bed.

She slowly walked over to the window seat, sat down, and looked out the window into the dark. She let out a small, painful giggle thinking back to how Tony helped create this re-modeled room for the both of them in the midst of so much chaos. Tony and the guys had nailed Jonathan into the wall, she thought back. So much chaos to create this beautiful room.

It was supposed to be their room now – they would've been married at this very moment. They'd been saving it to use together after they got married when it would truly be their room. A renovated room they never got to spend a single night in. Damn! How did this happen? Why did this happen? A tear welled up in her eye.

Angela thought back to how apprehensive she was to get to Iowa, well, actually she got there drunk. Despite that, she knew it would be a change, but one she wanted. She wanted to support Tony after all the years of his support of her – her business, help raising Jonathan, Mona's antics. She knew it would be for winter and springtime, and then they'd be going home. The contract would be over, and Tony would have what he needed on his resume to search for a similar teaching job closer to their home. THEIR home – THEIR house – and this, THEIR room as soon as they were married.

Angela gasped realizing that Tony needed to visit sooner than she had realized. Jonathan would be graduating in June. He'd have to come back then. There was no way that Tony would miss Jonathan's graduation, she shook her head back and forth. He couldn't abandon him like Michael did, not after almost a decade of being Jonathan's "father." Jonathan was going to be Valedictorian. Tony couldn't miss that, she thought. How in the world could she face him so soon after leaving him in Iowa? Angela shook her head to make these painful thoughts disappear. But try as she did, they wouldn't leave.

Angela moved her legs up to her chin, closed her eyes and let these thoughts run through her mind…

Her mind wandered back to earlier in the evening, during the victory party for Tony's team. She had to leave that same night. If she hadn't, she never could've. Samantha stayed behind wanting to make sure her father was okay. Hank stayed behind wanting to make sure Samantha was okay.

Samantha. Samantha! The daughter she always wanted. Now she lived over her garage. A constant reminder that even though she broke things off with Tony, he was still going to be a presence in her life. They were friends. Maybe? She wasn't sure anymore … not right now, she couldn't be sure. Gawd, how was that going to work now?

Angela thought back to the conversation she had with Sam with her mother listening in. Sam and Hank had argued shortly after getting married and coming back only to find out they didn't have a place to live. And all three of them were in Sam's old room. Angela was listening to Sam whine about missing Hank because of their argument. Angela reached her breaking point realizing Sam was being very childish, and started spouting out, "…here I am trying to be with the guy I love that I waited eight years for, not two months, eight years. Eight loooong, lonely years …" Oh, how was she going to move on without Tony – the person she had waited forever to be with, she thought. She was lonely – she was going to be permanently lonely now.

And her mind kept wandering further backwards as she sat on the window seat thinking and crying, which wasn't helping the nausea she was feeling. Her stomach was in absolute knots.

Her mind wandered back to the night at Jonathan's camp. Ingrid. Since the night she announced she was Ingrid, it seemed they were destined to be together. They both fought it for so long that when they finally did come together, it was nothing short of a miracle. It was also a small miracle that nothing happened the night they spent in that tiny bed in that icky motel in that rainstorm, she thought.

And she questioned herself again, what if she had confessed her conversation to Tony with Dr. Bellows on that day almost five years ago? She should've told him then that she loved him. More tears fell. So much time gone. Maybe they would've married sooner. She even said as much right before Samantha married Hank as she was trying to get Samantha to postpone the wedding. It popped out that she realized that she and

Tony should've been married four or five years after being together, and maybe they could've had a ba … she had been stopped at that point by Tony, but the topic had been broached by Tony and her after the wedding.

And then Angela thought back to their moment in Brooklyn. When "BECAUSE I LOVE YOU," came flying out of his lips, Angela could hardly believe it. She even asked him what he had just said, just to be sure she wasn't dreaming it. They spent the next hour in a swan with their lips locked together. The relief from finally putting their confessions of love to each other out into the universe warmed her to her very core. Angela felt like she was floating on a cloud from then on. Never in all her life had any man made her feel as loved or wanted as Tony had. Their lovemaking was unbelievable. All those pent-up feelings for so long came pouring out of the both of them each time they came together. They did their best to make up for all the lost time, too. They talked out the insecurities that had kept them apart for so long. And then a few months later they were engaged.

…and finally, she thought back to a few weeks before Tony's graduation, sitting on the floor of this undone room. She wondered aloud to Tony if all the work had been worth it, and he definitely convinced her it was by whispering what it would be like for the two of them in this room once it was done.

And now it was gone. The emptiness was overpowering her. Making her more and more sick to her stomach.

She finally got up from the window seat. She went into the bathroom to put some cold water on her face and wash the tears away. Angela walked out of her bathroom and went over to her overnight bag and opened it up. She pulled out some pajamas. She looked into the bag and noticed the birth control pills that were at the bottom of the bag. She sighed, picked them up and tossed them into her waste basket. She thought, "Well, I won't need these any more…" and then thought out loud, "Well, it's not like I was using them anymore anyway and shrugged her shoulders. This makes it more final."

After changing into her pajamas and brushing her teeth, she came out of the bathroom and looked at her bed. She was absolutely exhausted, but she couldn't bring herself to sleep there. Not that night. Not the first night home. It was supposed to be Tony's and her bedroom. She looked all around the room. She didn't want to lay in that bed looking at that fireplace. She didn't want to see all the light switches to open the lights for the window seat. She didn't want to lay in the bed covered with Laura Ashley bedding. It was all too painful.

She started to think about going elsewhere to sleep. She could not sleep in this room. There was no way she was going to sleep in Tony's bedroom. He wasn't there anymore, but she couldn't think of that bedroom as anything but Tony's. Mona was in Sam's old bedroom now, and Jonathan was in his room. She went out of the room and opened the linen closet. She grabbed some bedding and walked down the stairs. She didn't want to sleep on the couch – in the living room or in her office. Again, too many memories of Tony and her wiling away the hours watching old movies and talking. Angela decided to go to Sam's and Hank's place. It would be quiet. She'd set an alarm to get up and back into the house before Mona and Jonathan would be up and notice she wasn't sleeping in her room – or in the house.

She pushed the swinging door to the kitchen open. She grabbed some Ginger Ale and crackers hoping to settle her stomach before going to sleep.

Angela then took a deep breath, opened the back door and went outside. She walked up the stairs to the apartment and unlocked the door. It was so quiet in the apartment. She placed the bedding on the couch and laid down.

Sleep didn't come easy that first night. Angela's thoughts wouldn't stop. The loneliness wouldn't abate. The nausea settled a little after drinking some of the Ginger Ale. Tomorrow (well, actually, it was already tomorrow) she'd have to settle into her new reality. She wasn't ready for it.