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Things are starting to move a little faster now. Hope you enjoy and please review!
The next morning Spike had gone before Katie had woken up and given that Katie was up by seven thirty every morning, that was some feat. It definitely confirmed Buffy’s fears that Spike would avoid her. Maybe he just needs time to think about it, she thought to herself as she went about her morning activities. She kept herself busy cleaning, leaving Katie in her baby walker to run around after her.

It wasn’t long before she was cursing the makers of baby walkers, as Katie had rammed her ankles for the fourth time in five minutes. She turned to her daughter, “Don’t you have anything better to do than chase mommy?” she asked with a ghost of a smile on her face as Katie babbled back at her in explanation.

“Mommy needs to make some decisions about what we are going to do baby,” she said to the little girl. “It’s important that we get this right and without daddy things are going to be hard.”

Katie babbled and continued to follow her mother throughout the morning, pausing just once to look at the telephone lead. It called to her and she positioned herself side on, leaning across a potted plant to reach it. She giggled triumphantly and tugged the wire to her mouth chewing on it thoughtfully whilst her eyes scanned for more mischief.

Katie’s eyes fell on some paperwork laying on the low coffee table; it looked like it would taste better than the telephone wire. She promptly dropped the wire, which was already forgotten and rushed towards the papers, leaving the now disconnected telephone wire to drop into the plant pot, hidden from view.

It was in that moment Buffy realized that her daughter had been far too quiet and rushed into the living room, just in time to rescue the post from her daughters mouth. “Not for you little one!” she admonished gently, her mind going back to mulling her problem of the two brothers.

She couldn’t rely on Giles forever. Life wasn’t that simple and she hadn’t meant for this to last as long as it had anyway. If only Angel would speak to her. He was still arranging for money to be put in her bank account, but she needed to take some steps towards being independent.

Spike would help her, she knew he would, but she was weary of becoming too reliant on him. She already cared about him too much and she needed to break away. But why? She asked herself angrily, why should she care about Angel’s feelings? He turned his back on her, not the other way round. Yes she had left him, but she wasn’t the one who had…

It was pointless; there was no answer. She needed to respect Angel, if only because he was Katie’s father and needed to be in her life. She didn’t know when, but he would come back into their lives and she needed to be ready and not make things harder than they could be.

*********************************************************************************

Angel was packing, his flight is later that day, and he was nervous about going back to Sunnydale. He packed and repacked his bag as many times as he had run through what he was going to say to Buffy when he sees her and he’s still not ready.

Possibly he will never be ready, but he doesn’t have any option. He loves her and he needs to see her, needs to make arrangements and to apologize for pushing her out of his life. He’s not expecting much. He’s hoping for a lot, but he’s not expecting Buffy to forgive him just like that. He’s done too much and pushed things too far for them to be saved now. But maybe, just maybe she would let them start again.

It was then that he thought about Cordy, he was confused by his feelings towards her. He liked her and she was an intelligent, beautiful woman who had helped him more than anyone would know but he was worried about getting too attached to her. Dinner had been a mistake. As enjoyable as it was to spend time with her outside of her therapist role he needed to be more careful. Looking back he didn’t see the meal as cheating on Buffy, he didn’t have any romantic intentions towards Cordy; he’s just drawn to her.

He sighed as he repacked the same shirt that he had just removed from his bag. The problem was that he had shared more of himself with Cordy than he had with anyone since Darla…

Well that was bound to come up given that he was going back, his thoughts dwelled on Darla for a while, before he suddenly wondered how Barb was. She had been Darla’s best friend and he hadn’t spoken to her since the funeral. Maybe it was time to start building back those bridges he had burned. But then, if he did he would need to see Spike.

His heart ached as it did every time he thought about his younger brother. Angel knew he was in the wrong, knew that he had lashed out. It was just that everything had gone so fast and they were both as stubborn as each other and nothing ever got cleared up. Maybe he could do that next he thought, his heart lightening in his chest. After he fixed his marriage he would see about reconciliation with Spike, Buffy would help him. Family was important to her.

He was distracted from his packing by the shrill ringing of the phone; he picked it up quickly glad of the distraction.

“Hello”

“Angel, man is that you?” The voice seemed very strained.

“Yeah, Gunn are you okay? You sound a little harassed.” Angel was used to Gunn sounding stressed, it was a regular occurrence.

“Angel, we’ve found him. Been told, no ordered not to tell you, but I couldn’t do it. We’ve found the bastard and I figured that you would want to be in on it.”

“I…” Angel was torn, to help take the fucker down would be a perfect way to get closure, but his flight was leaving and he had to put Buffy first. “Thanks for telling me, but I’m going to see my wife. Flights leaving tonight.”

“Okay. Glad you’re going to see Buffy, she’s a great girl, you don’t want to lose her.”

“Thanks, I’m going to try. Just out of curiosity, where did you find him?”

“Funny story, one of our most wanted pictures on the Internet. Man phoned, said he’d seen him about town. Sent a local cop to check out the story and he’s confirmed it, gonna go take care of it now. Little town called Sunnydale in California.”

Angel dropped the phone. Katie!

“Angel, you still there… ANGEL!”

He picked up the phone hurriedly, “Gunn, Buffy’s in Sunnydale! With Katie!”

“Fuck! We’ll be there as soon as possible. I’ll get everyone moving.”

“I have to go, I have to warn Buffy. I’ll be there by morning.”

“No problem, I’ll give you a call when my flight gets in and we can take it from there.”

They both put the phone down, neither one in the mood for goodbyes. Angel was frantic and immediately phoned his father’s number.

“Damn it!” He growled into the hand piece “Pick up the God damned phone!”

When he got no answer, he tried Buffy’s mobile, which was out of area and tried his fathers mobile, which was off. Not wanting to explain in a message he slammed the phone down and began to pace.

He needed to move, maybe if he got to the airport early enough, they would be able to get him on an earlier flight. Throwing his clothes haphazardly in his bag and grabbing his phone, he runs out the door to his car.





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