Angel groaned and buried his head under his pillow. It was only six in the morning and already Heather was up and about. Spike had gone on a small vacation to cause some trouble down south and Buffy was visiting Willow for the week at Harvard, leaving him home alone with their four year old daughter. Normally, Angel wouldn't have minded it in the least, but for the past day and a half he had been feeling a little off. And being woken up at six in the morning made Angel feel like rolling over and dying.

"DADDY!" Heather screamed, hurrying into the master bedroom and launching herself on her parents' bed. "DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!"

Knowing that she wouldn't stop until he acknowledged her, Angel reluctantly pulled his head out from under the pillow. Heather giggled in delight and began to jump up and down on the bed. The jerky motions did Angel in and, quickly as he was able, he bolted from the bed and into the nearby bathroom.

After ridding his stomach of everything that he had eaten the day before, he stumbled into the living room and slumped down into his favorite chair. Heather followed shortly after him and popped her favorite video into the VCR before crawling up onto her father's lap. The dark-haired pair sat there and watched the Disney movie in silence, something for which Angel was grateful for. He dozed off from time to time and by the time seven-thirty rolled around was out cold.

Of course, Heather decided to pick that time to demand her breakfast. Moving a trifle unsteadily about the house with the toddler balanced on his hip, Angel made his way into the kitchen and found Heather's breakfast cereal and special Pooh Bear bowl and spoon. While she ate, Angel downed an entire carton of orange juice straight from the carton. If Buffy had been there she would have yelled at him, but she wasn't so Angel just drank away.

Angel was more than thankful when their neighbor, Mrs. O'Malley, came with her daughter to pick Heather up to take her to a friend's house for the day. Since no one would be home during the day to watch Heather, Buffy had made arrangements for Heather to spend the day with two little girls that she liked to play with.

As soon as the car pulled out of the drive, Angel trudged back into his bedroom and flopped down on the bed, not even bothering to pull the covers over himself. If he was lucky, he'd sleep the entire day and not wake up until Heather was brought home at four o'clock. Unfortunately, all that Angel got was an hour before he was woken up by the phone ringing next to his head.

"Hello?" Angel asked groggily, hoping that whoever it was would get it over with quick.

"Angel? You all right?" the voice asked.

"No, Joyce, I'm not," Angel told his mother-in-law.

"Then I take it you won't be coming in today? What about the Hanscome deal?"

"You handle it. I can't even see straight let alone think straight."

"But Mrs. Hanscome likes you better. She always buys more when you're there," Joyce reminded him, smiling at the thought of the fifty year old woman throwing herself at her daughter's husband.

"I don't think that she'll like me very much when I start puking in the middle of our meeting," Angel mumbled.

"In that case, you'd better stay home. Get some rest. Someone's watching Heather, right?" Angel nodded his head even though he knew that his mother in law couldn't see him.

"Yeah. She's at Beckie's today."

"Good. Hope you're feeling better, Angel."

As soon as he hung up, Angel rolled back over and fell asleep. This time he got about three hours before his stomach decided to wake him up. After getting rid of the orange juice the same way that it had come in, Angel thought that this time he would try tea. He was just bringing it into the living room when Buffy walked in the front door, suitcases in both hands. When she saw how wasted Angel looked, she quickly put her bags down and hurried over to him.

"Sick, huh?" she asked rhetorically. "Well then go lie down on the couch. I'll take the tea before you spill it all over the carpet." Once she had Angel lying comfortably on the couch under a thick blanket, she left him there and went to go get the cold medicine because she knew that it was unlikely that he had had any yet. Even after four years, Angel still hadn't figured out that he needed to take the stuff when he got sick.

When she entered the living room again, Angel was almost asleep. She gently shook him awake then had him swallow a few of the pills. "Stay with me?" Angel asked, his voice a little hoarse. "Sure, baby," Buffy said, lifting his head so that she could place it on her lap. When he got comfortable again, she began to run her fingers through his hair knowing that Angel loved that. "One of these days, Angel, you're gonna have to learn to take cold medicine when you get sick." Angel shook his head and shut his eyes. "You're all the medicine that I need." Buffy smiled when she heard that and leaned over to place a kiss on his temple. "That's sweet, baby. Now get some rest." "Besides," Angel added under his breath. "that stuff tastes terrible."

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