For a second upon waking up, Angel was confused. There was an alarm clock going off nearby, and it wasn’t his. Half awake, he vaguely recognized that this wasn’t his bed, either. Oddest of all, he wasn’t alone.
“Mmph. Five more minutes,” Buffy mumbled, then flailed for the alarm clock. Her hand connected with Angel’s chest instead. Now awake, she blinked at him in surprise. “Hey,” she said with a grin.
Angel smiled back, then rolled away from her momentarily to turn off the alarm. “Good morning, morning glory,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her once again.
Buffy chuckled against his chest. “That’s a new one,” she laughed.
“It felt appropriate.”
Buffy shifted slightly so she could meet Angel’s gaze. She was smiling contentedly. “I missed this. Waking up with you.”
Angel thought back to the last time she had woken up in his arms. It had been right before he’d announced he was leaving Sunnydale. “I’ve missed it, too,” he agreed.
They were both silent for a long moment, content in each other’s company. Angel realized after several minutes that Buffy was on the verge of falling asleep again and shifted her slightly. “Buffy,” he said gently, “don’t you have class?”
“Can’t I just stay here?” Buffy pleaded. “Right here?”
Angel chuckled slightly. “I thought you wanted to look for an apartment today?” he reminded her.
Buffy jumped out of her bed as quickly as she could with her leg in a cast. “I’m up, I’m up!” she declared.
“Shh,” Angel whispered, sitting up in the bed. “Willow’s asleep.” He gestured at the other bed in the room, where Buffy’s roommate was hunkered under her blankets. She had apparently returned to the room at some point after Buffy and Angel had fallen asleep.
“No, I’m not,” came the muffled voice from under the covers. Willow rolled over and poked her head out. “Morning,” she muttered.
“Sorry,” Buffy said quickly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“S’okay,” Willow replied sleepily. “I have things I need to do today anyway.”
Buffy smiled a bit sheepishly. “I’m…gonna go get ready for class,” she muttered, then hobbled out of the room.
Once she was gone, Willow crawled a little further out of the blankets and smiled slightly at Angel. “Did I hear that you’re going to look for apartments today?” she asked.
“Yes,” Angel affirmed. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome in your dorm room.”
“You’re always welcome,” Willow said hastily.
Angel smiled. “Thanks. Buffy and I need our own place, though.” He heard his own words a second later and sat up straighter in surprise. “Did I just say that?”
“Say what?”
“’Our own place.’”
Willow smiled back at him. “Yeah, you did.”
Angel leaned back contentedly. Our own place. He liked the sound of that.
Buffy scowled at him. “I have never been so embarrassed in my life,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry,” Angel said sincerely.
“No!” Buffy said quickly. “It’s not your fault. She was staring at you, that’s all. I mean, it’s sort of a compliment when other girls stare at you and get jealous because you’re mine…but she’s my teacher! That’s just wrong!”
Angel said nothing for a long moment. He simply carried Buffy’s books as they walked towards his car. It was, somewhat to Buffy’s surprise, a comfortable silence. She hadn’t realized how much she missed these sorts of moments with Angel. She smiled at him to show that everything was okay, and he smiled easily back.
“Will finding an apartment make your day better?” he suggested.
“Oh, definitely!” Buffy replied
enthusiastically.
Buffy’s enthusiasm had waned by mid afternoon. Sitting
on the steps in front of apartment complex number who-knows-what, she looked
wearily at the piece of paper where they’d been writing down what they’d
seen. Who would have thought it would be this hard to find an apartment?
In a town with such a high mortality rate, there was an amazing lack of
available real estate.
“What do we have left?” Angel asked, sounding just as tired. He leaned against the side of the building in partial shade, wearing dark sunglasses. The bright sunny day was obviously rather uncomfortable for the half vampire.
Buffy looked closer to the paper she held. “Well,” she said slowly, “two of the leasing offices were closed for ‘meetings.’ Who in the world holds meetings on Wednesdays?” Her voice was thick with frustration. “That leaves…one more expensive place close to campus, and another that’s farther away.” She paused. “I’d like to see the one right near campus, actually.”
Angel nodded and pushed away from the wall. “Alright,” he said easily. “Let’s hope we have better luck with this one.”
Back in the car, Buffy began directing Angel to the next possible place. “Angel?” she said after a few moments. “What are we going to do if we don’t find an apartment in one of these places?”
Angel glanced over at her for a second. “Weren’t there a couple of places that had apartments that were going to be available eventually?”
“The earliest they’re available is at the end of July,” Buffy said grumpily. “Baring unforeseen deaths, of course.” She paused. “Turn left at this light.”
Angel followed her directions. “We probably won’t manage to get everything ¯ the wedding, the business ¯ arranged until the semester is over,” he pointed out. “You could stay in L.A. with me until we can move into an apartment together,” he offered a bit hesitantly.
Buffy’s mood changed once again. “You mean that?” she asked with a grin.
“Of course. But with any luck it won’t be necessary.” Angel turned once again, pulling the car into the parking lot.
They said little else as they exited the car and walked side by side into the leasing office. A young woman stood up from behind a desk at their entrance.
“Can I help you?” she asked politely.
“Yes,” Angel said, beginning to recite the words that they had gotten very used to saying by now. “We’re looking for an apartment,” he began, and continued to rattle off the specifics.
The woman smiled at them once he was done. “You’re very lucky,” she said. “Someone just canceled yesterday…”
Both Buffy and Angel couldn’t help but smile back.
Sitting tiredly in one of the chairs, Layla had been watching him do this ever since they had returned to the crypt shortly before sunrise. She’d finally had enough of this. “Please sit,” she said wearily. “You’re making me dizzy.”
Spike didn’t sit, but he did stop pacing for the moment. He returned Layla’s weary expression as he looked at her. She was an exotic looking vampire, her dark hair, tan skin, and facial features revealing a different original nationality than her slight British accent would suggest. Spike wasn’t sure exactly where she’d come from before he’d met her. He could guess; her name was Egyptian for ‘born at night,’ most appropriate for a vampire. “Sorry,” he said briefly, still frowning.
Layla lost her annoyed expression and looked a bit concerned. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“What do you think?” Spike replied angrily.
Layla frowned at him. “I don’t know. There are so many possibilities,” she replied sarcastically.
“He’s my sire. My bloody, walking in sunlight, has a heartbeat, human sire,” Spike said in disgust. He’d never admit it, but he didn’t always mind so much that Angel had a soul. It kept him out of Spike’s way and made it so much fun to give him a hard time. But now he didn’t even have that small consolation ¯ Angel was just another human Spike couldn’t kill. “Human,” he muttered once again.
“Oh, is that all?” Layla asked. “And here I thought you were upset that the Slayer is sort of going to be your mother-in-law.”
“What?!” Spike said in shock.
Layla leaned back in her chair. “You need to be more observant,” she scolded. “The girl was wearing an engagement ring.”
Spike finally took the remaining chair. “Priceless,” he muttered. “Just kill me now.”
“What exactly is your problem?” Layla asked. “I mean, not that the idea isn’t revolting…”
Spike sighed. “If there’s one thing I love about this town,” he explained, “it’s the possibility of chaos. The Slayer and her friends are fun to tie into knots. But throw Angel into the mix,” he said his name derisively, “this town is going to be a whole lot less fun. Especially since I can’t even hurt him any more.”
The vampires were silent for a long moment. “Since when do you have to be torturing people to have fun?” Layla asked finally. “Not that it isn’t fun, but…there are more subtle ways of causing chaos that you’re perfectly capable of.”
Spike brightened considerably at that. “You’re right. I can.” He leaned forward eagerly. “And something tells me you have an idea.”
Layla smiled. “I do.
And it’s perfect.”
Two days in Sunnydale, two days in L.A. seemed to be the
pattern Angel was working on. After spending two days in Sunnydale
finding an apartment and continuing his and Buffy’s wedding plans, Angel
was back in L.A. trying to take care of whatever he could. The apartment
was available for occupancy in one week and the wedding date still stood
at ‘as soon as possible,’ so Angel had some big things to do ¯ namely,
packing.
As Angel stared at the contents of his apartment, he was interrupted by footsteps on the stairs. Turning, he was greeted by Cordelia’s impatient gaze. “Well?” she asked.
“Well what?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “What did she think of the ring?” she asked in exasperation.
Angel smiled. “I’m still engaged, if that tells you anything.”
“Angel!” Cordelia said, annoyed with him now. “I spent all that time helping you pick out that ring and you’re not even going to tell me Buffy’s reactions?”
“She was surprised,” Angel began, thinking of that wonderful moment they had spent together on the beach watching the sunset. There really wasn’t much more that Angel had the words to say. “Why are you down here, Cordelia?”
To her credit, Cordelia dropped the subject of the engagement ring. “David Nabbit’s upstairs,” she said briefly.
Angel stopped his packing and looked at her in surprise. “What’s he want?”
Cordelia shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it makes him feel special to hang around here.”
“I’ll be upstairs in a minute,” Angel replied. He listened to Cordelia go back up the stairs, then stood up straighter and looked around his apartment. There was so much here he had to consider taking with him. It was going to be hard to leave this place. But it would be even harder to not be with Buffy after the events of last weekend.
The boxes could wait for a moment. Angel smiled to himself and followed Cordelia up the stairs.
The office was bright and cheerful ¯ almost painfully bright. It took Angel a moment for his eyes to adjust after the darkness of the apartment below. David Nabbit sat in one of the chairs, and stood quickly at Angel’s arrival. “Hey,” he said by way of greeting.
Angel nodded at him with a small smile.
“So,” David asked with barely concealed enthusiasm, “did I interrupt some demon hunting?”
“Nope, something much scarier,” Cordelia teased.
David looked at her, then back at Angel expectantly.
“Packing,” Angel explained.
David frowned. “You’re moving?” he asked, clearly disappointed.
Angel nodded briefly.
“Where are you going?”
“Sunnydale,” Angel said. “It’s where I lived before I moved here.”
“Oh,” David said briefly, and seemed to be at a loss for anything else to say.
There was a moment of silence before Cordelia decided to explain for Angel. “He’s getting married,” she declared.
“Oh!” David said again, but this time he was smiling slightly. “Well, then…”
“Yeah,” Angel acknowledged, and smiled slightly as well. “You’re invited of course. Once we set the date for sure.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
Buffy sat in the hospital, waiting for the doctor to see
her. She sat with her cast propped up on another chair, her mother sitting
next to her. She knew her leg was well healed by now. It was going to be
horrible getting the stitches out ¯ what she was actually here for. But
with any luck the doctor would realize the bone was healed as well, and
then it was back on the job for this Slayer.
“Ms. Summers?” and official sounding voice came from nearby.
Buffy did not stand, but raised her hand to gain the attention of the inquiring young doctor. He nodded and walked over to her. “Good afternoon, Ms. Summers. If you’ll just come with me, I’ll take a look at your leg.”
“Thank you,” Buffy said in sincere relief. She climbed to her feet and her mom helped her get her crutches situated.
In a smaller examining room, Buffy hopped up on the bed so the doctor could take a good look at her leg. As he unfastened the soft cast, he smiled at her and spoke. “So, you’re the young woman who caused such a stir last weekend, getting engaged in the ambulance.”
Joyce looked surprised, not having heard that part of the story, but Buffy just laughed. “Yeah, that would be me,” she agreed. She fought to keep her leg still once the cast was removed. “How does it look?” she asked.
The doctor touched her leg gently. “Does this hurt?” he asked.
Buffy shook her head. At the doctor’s surprised look she explained, “I heal fast.”
“Yes, well…I’ll have to take some x-rays, but it looks like you may be able to keep the cast off today.” He smiled at her. “I’ll be right back.”
Once he left, Buffy grinned at her mother. “See? All better.”
Joyce frowned at her. “Buffy, maybe you should take it easy for a couple of days,” she suggested.
Buffy shook her head firmly. “Angel’s coming to town tonight, and we have a wedding to plan,” she said. She grinned at her mother. “Now is when the fun begins.”
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