Rating:G
Disclaimer: You know the stuff. Beauty and the beast goes to blah. "Make of our hands, one hand. Make of our hearts, on heart. Make of our vows, one vow. Make of our lives, one life. Now it begins, now we start, one hand, one heart. Even death won't part us now." Written by Stephen Sondheim. Performed in West Side Story.
Distribution: Sure, just tell me where?
Spoilers: B/A saga (just a bit)
Summary: Angel's version of Beauty and the Beast. Makes him realise problems.
Author's Notes: I wanted one of my Aixlie stories to a little bit shorter…I have more aixlie stories that are not connected. The kid's name is just the same. Oh yeah if anything says Elizabeth or Adam that's because i had to changed everything around because we could use anything of anybody elses for an extra creditness in english. so i changed it all, and now its all buffyness again.
AN2:If anybody wants the Elizabeth Adam story please ask, not much difference...Acutally i don't think its different at all other than the names and a small segment that was taken out... Plus it wouldn't have to use a b/a saga disclaimer. Though this one touches a bit on it...
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"And so they lived happily ever after, the end." Angel closed the book, turning to look down at his youngest daughter. She smiled widely at him, flashing her bright white teeth.

She held up a different book, its spine covered in gold. It was beautifully decorated on the cover, tied in a red ribbon keeping it closed tightly.

"Another one please," she looked up into his eyes with her expression so forlorn Angel could not deny this child anything. She knew exactly when Daddy was going to say no, and then did she play Daddy with her puppy-dog manifestations. God would her mother kill him. He took the large book from her tiny five-year-old hands. Untying the ribbon he flipped to the cover, reading it aloud.

"Beauty and the Beast," he started, pausing to slowly open the book careful not to miss anything otherwise Aixlie, his daughter, would whine the whole night about the picture she didn't get to see. "Once upon a time…"

"No! That is not how it goes," she glared at him incredulously. "Moron," she muttered rolling her eyes. A mocking tag name his wife had often used in reference to him.

"Well then how does it start?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow. "Brat." She quickly stuck her tongue out turning the pages back to the title.

"Beauty and the Beast. Before Aixlie was born there was this pretty girl," she signaled him by stopping to take over. He smiled knowing the story he often told Aixlie at night when she wouldn't go to sleep.

"Six years ago, which was before Aixlie was born there lived an extraordinarily beautiful—well all the words in the world couldn't describe her. She was perfect. She was more perfect than perfect, she was…"

"Daddy," he turned to face an annoyed Aixlie who yet again had interrupted him. "Mama isn't here so ya don't haft to suck up." Angel looked at her dumbfounded.

"Who taught you what that phrase?" he asked.

"Shouldn't you be denying it?" Aixlie asked.

"Five years old and you already are saying stuff like 'suck up', and I do not suck up to your mother. I wouldn't have to, I love your mother very much, and she loves me just as much."

"Then how come you've been sleeping on the couch for the passed week?"

"Couldn't you have been born a dumb daughter?"

"You don't mean that do you?"

"Of course I do…not, do not," he smiled and Aixlie just frowned at him.

"Just read the book," she held it back up to him. He opened it back up.

"The girl's name was Buffy," he started. "She had long blond hair that shined as the sun. Her eyes were emeralds, its grass green features beckoning any and everyone to follow. And yet no one really seemed to love her. Not her father, nor mother. She finally realized the fading love from her father when she and her mom left her father. Her parents had broken up. She was devastated. She then also hit a point where she had found out what she was supposed to do with her life. She was supposed to save the world. She had nearly burnt down the P.E. room in her school, obviously getting kicked out. The person she was supposed to fight killed her boss. The poor girl was a wreck. She ran off with her newfound boyfriend after the other one broke up with her answering machine. They went to Las Vegas, or so she told me."

"You knew Buffy?" Aixlie asked him astounded at this. Angel ignored her.

"She came back and found out she was moving. She was moving to a new place called Sunnydale. Yep, Sunnydale. The hottest place in California. Anyway, she met a man there. He wasn't really the handsome prince you would think of; he was more of a kind monster. Kind of like an oxy-moron if you think about. Well Buffy, she met this monster in an alley. He was stalking her, entranced by her over glowing beauty. He annoyed the heck out of her, for a while only leaving her with the name of Angel.

"Buffy and Angel soon fell deeply in love. They would often see each other even though the thought of their love was forbidden to man. Nobody believed in their love, most people discouraged it. They never listen to what people said about them and their feelings. They would say that they loved each other and the world could do jack about it. Pretty simple," Angel laughed uneasily running a hand through his hair as though he was scared of what he was saying. "One night when Angel and Buffy were out they came across a real bad guy. He was trying to kill them, and he was doing a pretty good job at it too. Luckily, or well, you could think about it, as not luckily, Angel and Buffy got away. They hid at Angel's house, and there on that night at that time they created their daughter though neither one would know for a while.

"Angel became a monster nobody could love, and he repaid Buffy for loving him with death. And yet she somehow still survived. She survived for a while finally getting rid of Angel's bad self, watching him before her eyes become her loving Angel again. She saved the world that day. She saved it by killing him.

"She had her daughter for a while, and then he came back. Her daughter was passed on to him when he came back. He wasn't a monster anymore and she couldn't handle a child and a lover, or husband. Because of this Angel changed his life, and raised his daughter by himself for two years, asking Buffy once every year to marry him. On the third time she finally said yes. She told him she had always loved him, her insides begging to say yes to his pleas. And finally she felt ready. Finally she could, and she did. On July twenty second 2001, their daughter's birthday, they married.

"Angel, Buffy, and Aixlie Rain O'Brien now lived in a large house with a white picket fence in the front just like they always dreamed of. Happily ever after." Angel closed the book looking down at his yawning daughter.

"Why'd they name her Aixlie Rain?" she asked him expectantly.

"Because Aixlie means shining light, and Aixlie was conceived on a rainy night she was their shining light in the rain."

"Oh," Aixlie yawned and mumbled a bundle of incoherent words, rolling over on her side pulling the covers up over her head. In minutes her slight snoring told Angel it was okay to leave. Peeling down the covers her kissed her on the forehead for only a second since the sleeping Aixlie wanted her covers back. He stepped out of her bedroom.

After stepping out of Aixlie's room, Angel knocked into a hurring Cordelia, an employee of his.

"Sorry," she whispered knowing he must have just put Aixlie down to bed. Buffy would kill him for all the times Cordelia had covered for his lateness to bed being extra work, and that Cordelia had put Aixlie down hours ago.

"You?" he asked in a one worded question.

"I gotcha covered. All of the case report forms are organized in alphabetical order, now you can for once get to bed on time." There were also other times when she did the work for him, especially when Aixlie wanted Beauty and the Beast. Angel would never tell anybody else his version of it, yet Aixlie seemed to like it better.

"Thank you so much, I better hurry before I forget was I was going to say to her," he smiled at Cordelia running down the hall towards his and his wife's bedroom.

Slowly he opened the door hearing it creak and a tired moan coming from the bed. "Turn off the lights, and get your butt in bed before I kick you out again."

"Okay Buffy," he said, shutting the door as quietly as he could, which sadly wasn't that quiet. He stripped himself of his shirt and pants sliding into bed in his black boxers. He wrapped his arms around the warm body in the center of the bed that, almost like a north against north magnet, pushed away from him. He closed his eyes in defeat, turning on his other side facing the wall muttering an "I love you," in a husky tone right before. A tear rolled down her eye, she knew he never meant to do anything to make her mad; it was just so hard to live with him now. Now that she wasn't the center of his attention, now that he had a life. God when she said it out loud it sounded so much more selfish than she thought it was. She could hear him humming the song played at their wedding, the lyrics finding place in her mind.

"Make of our hands, one hand. Make of our hearts, on heart. Make of our vows, one vow. Make of our lives, one life. Now it begins, now we start, one hand, one heart. Even death won't part us now." She unconsciously scooted closer towards him, this time wrapping her arms around his large form. "I'm so sorry. I'm being selfish brat. Hey, even death won't part us now. I promised, didn't I?" He rolled around to face her. He smiled remember their small dance where she had promised even though in the wedding they had said, "until death do us part," death won't stop her from following him where ever he went. And here she was pushing him away from her, his love still never failing. She truly did hold his heart. "In my hands I hold your heart, I'll keep it warm till death do us part," she stated the end of the vows they had exchanged.

"You were always good at remembering those types of things," Angel said to her. "Is it true? Do I still hold your heart?"

"Always and forever, I promise," she kissed him lightly on the lips sealing her swear.

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