DISCLAIMER: Buffy, Angel and the gang belong to the evil Joss and I only own the characters I make up. In a perfect world however I would own all of them, Buffy and Angel wouldn't have broken up and Riley would never have existed.
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: General (if any)
TIMELINE: Ten years after the wedding (part of long ago series).
DISTRIBUTION: You want you can have it, just tell me where you put it.
DEDICATION: This part is to all of those who have sent me feedback, especially Erin, Ryan and Sara-Lee.

Hope had never been so glad to see a Saturday arrive, finally she could sleep in, wear her Pj's all day and most importantly there were no high schoolers around her. She snuggled back under her quilt and was going back to sleep, when she was rudely disturbed by the phone. "What?" she barked down the receiver.

"Well, is that anyway to talk to your mother?" Buffy replied laughing.

"Mom? Why are you calling so early?" Hope asked wishing she could be sleeping instead of talking.

"It's noon... what do you mean early? Are you still in bed? It doesn't matter since me, your dad and the kids are almost to Sunnydale, I suggest you get up and dressed" Buffy told her.

"Should I tell Gran?" Hope asked her mom hoping that the answer was no.

"No" Buffy answered, "I think we should surprise her."

"Okay, I'll see you guys soon" Hope said.

"Bye honey" Buffy said as she hung up.

Hope put down the phone and reluctantly climbed out of her nice, warm, comfortable bed to go get ready. Half an hour later she was just finishing getting dressed when she heard the doorbell, she ran downstairs to answer it and found that there was no-one there. She was about to close the door when she looked down and saw that someone had left a blood red rose on the welcome mat, she picked it up and saw that her name was on the tag. Hope smiled and took a look around, when she didn't see anyone she went back inside.

*

Chyna watched Hope from her hiding place a few doors down and watched as Hope took the rose that she'd left. It was all part of Chyna's latest scheme - she called it operation Love Connection. She'd decided that since both Hope and Dev were her friends, she wanted them to be happy and to do that she'd decided that they needed to get back together. Now she'd delivered Hope a small token of someone's affection, she had to convince Dev to go patrolling with her and accidentally run into Hope... which would not be easy since Dev had barely left his apartment since he'd found out about Hope being in town. She walked away confident that her little plan would work out and she'd be the hero.

*

When Hope heard the knock on the front door, she opened it and launched herself into her mother's arms, "Hi mom."

"Sweetie" Buffy replied as she returned the hug.

"Hey, what about me" Angel whined impatient for his turn.

"Hi daddy" Hope said hugging him.

When Hope broke free of the hug she was assaulted by three munchkins. She greeted her younger (and mostly annoying) younger siblings and they all went into the house.

"So where's mom?" Buffy asked looking around.

"She must have stayed at Giles' last night" Hope replied trying not to imagine that scary image.

"Well, I'm disgusted" Buffy said pulling a face. "I'm guessing she does that a lot."

"She's either there or Giles is here" Hope told them.

"I always thought Giles had better taste" Angel muttered.

Buffy hit him gently on the arm, "That's my mother you're talking about."

"So..." Angel replied.

They were interrupted by the front door opening and Joyce walking in, "Buffy? What a surprise."

"Hi mom" Buffy said.

Joyce looked at the man she still considered the devil. "Angel" she said stiffly.

"Joyce" Angel acknowledged while secretly thinking that his mother-in-law made Atila the Hun look like a saint.

Before things could get really uncomfortable three younger ones ran into the hallway. "Granny" they cried together.

Joyce then happily went off with the kids and left Hope and her parents alone. "Okay" Hope said to them, "Correct me if I'm paranoid... but did she just ignore me? I actually don't think she likes me much."

"You're not paranoid" Angel told her. "The problem is that although you act like your mom most of the time, you look like me and Joyce wants me dead."

"Plus she hates the whole slaying thing" Buffy added.

"Don't worry" Angel said to his daughter, "She's old and with some luck she'll die really soon."

"ANGEL!!" Buffy yelled trying to be offended and not reveal she was thinking the exact same thing.

That ended the conversation and they followed the sound of Joyce's voice to where the others were.

*

Chyna arrived at Dev's apartment that evening just as the sun was setting. "Hey" she said entering his apartment, "Wanna help me patrol?"

"I thought your watcher was..." Dev started.

"He cancelled. He has a report on my progress due into the watcher's council" Chyna told him.

"Umm... sure" Dev replied. He really didn't want to go out and run the risk of running into Hope... but he couldn't let Chyna go out alone, that would be signing her death certificate.

"Cool, lets go" Chyna said dragging him to the door.

"Alright" Dev said letting himself be dragged along.

They headed for Restfield cemetery and as they began the patrol, Chyna started to lead Dev towards the meeting place that she'd arranged with Hope.

*

That night as Hope and Spike were leaving to meet Chyna (and they thought her watcher), Buffy decided to go along with them. As they walked slowly towards the meeting place, Hope was treated to the Buffy-Spike patrolling stories and she thought about how strange it was that both she and her mom had been Spike's patrolling partners. They arrived a bit early so they sat down to wait for the slayer.

"I hope that this slayer shows up soon" Spike grumbled, "I wanna get to Willy's before all the good bloods gone."

"SPIKE!!" Buffy said trying not to gag.

"What are you complaining about, I'm talking about eating which is something you do all the time" Spike replied.

"Point taken" Buffy answered.

While Buffy and Spike were sitting there bickering, Hope began to get that funky feeling again.

"Hope are you okay?" Buffy asked concerned when she saw her Hope go pale.

She was about to answer her mother when she heard a familiar voice say, "Hope?"

*

At the sound of her name, Hope whirled around and found Dev standing not even two feet away from her with Chyna. It was more than she could think to deal with and so she fainted.

"Hope" Buffy said kneeling down next to her daughter.

"Bloody hell Bloodbag, why did ya have to ruin everyone's day by showing ya ugly face" Spike said rudely.

"Shove it Chip-head" Dev growled back. "Is she okay?" he asked Buffy.

"She'll be fine. Hello Dev" Buffy replied.

"Hi Mrs McKellen" Dev answered her politely but immediately after returned his attention to Hope.

Five minutes later Hope started to come around and the first thing she saw was Dev. "Please let this be some horrible nightmare" she muttered closing her eyes again, but when she opened them he was still there. "Oh God" she said beginning to wish she'd stayed at home.

"Not God, just Dev" he said. He couldn't believe how good it felt just to be near her, it was like the missing part of him had returned.

"You are... I don't know... but I'll..." Hope spat out confused. She knew that she should hate him or something like that but she didn't, in fact she now knew for certain that she was still in love with him.

"What, you'll kiss Spike in front of me" Dev taunted.

"Sure" Hope replied spinning around and kissing Spike.

Dev stared at her for a minute and then said, "Maybe I'll kiss Chyna."

"Hey, leave me outta this" Chyna replied wondering what she'd done by bringing them together again.

That's when all hell broke loose between Hope and Dev, while they were arguing Buffy, Spike and Chyna snuck away not wanting to be around when the weapons were drawn. Hope and Dev were so busy screaming at each other that neither noticed that they were standing there alone. After a couple of minutes of screaming it was no longer satisfying, so Hope decided to hit Dev. Dev caught Hope's hand and tried to restrain her but when that didn't work, he used the one way he knew would shut her up, he kissed her. Neither of them even attempted to break the kiss as the old feelings began to sweep them away. The next thing Hope knew she was apparently at Dev's apartment and she really didn't care, all she did care about was the sensations that Dev was causing her to feel throughout her body. They tumbled onto his bed and lost themselves in each other.

*

It was extremely early the next morning when Hope woke up, she felt something was different. When she tried to roll over she bumped into another body and the night before's events all came back to her. She slipped out of the bed, got dressed and snuck out of Dev's apartment. Ten minutes later Hope arrived back at Joyce's and let herself in and she found her mom waiting for her.

"Surprise" Buffy said to her.

"Mom" Hope acknowledged and then tried to get past, but was stopped.

"You know this kind of reminds me of another time you tried to sneak into the house" Buffy commented.

"What are you talking about?" Hope asked playing dumb.

"You spent the night with him" Buffy stated.

"Is it that obvious?" Hope said sarcastically.

"Yeah... I figured you and he would either use all that tension constructively, or one of you would've killed the other."

Hope sat down on the stairs and put her head in her hands. "I'm still in love with him" she said sadly.

"Why's that bad?" Buffy asked.

"I don't... he doesn't..." Hope started to cry.

"You don't think that he feels the same way" Buffy filled in. When Hope nodded she pulled her into her arms and let her cry.

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