Disclaimer – I don’t own them; Joss and Mutant Enemy and all the various other Powers That Be do. If I owned them, I’m pretty sure they'd be much, much happier.
Comments and feedback to Ralkana47@yahoo.com would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Author’s Note – Dedicated to Kendra and Rashell, who gave me the seed of the idea in the BB chatroom. And to ML – the laundry story. We knew we'd get there eventually.
Author’s Note II – Thanks to Meghan for the title.
Timeline – A year and a half after Chosen and Home.

Buffy stared at her overstuffed bags in resignation. She'd put off unpacking for several days, hoping that maybe a Luggage Gnome would come along and do it for her. No such luck. She giggled quietly and thought, Hey, stranger things have happened…

She could occasionally hear Angel on the phone in the office at the other end of the penthouse, conducting business. She laughed; if anyone had told her seven or eight years ago – hell, if anyone had told her two years ago – that Angel would be calmly discussing a Vigrath demon’s parole violations over the telephone in a sunlit room, she would have considered their sanity on par with Drusilla’s.

Pulling clothes out of her bags, she tossed them on the bed in haphazard piles. Clean, clean but wrinkled, dirty, and dry clean only. The last two piles were large. She’d been looking forward to coming home so much in the past couple weeks that she’d kind of let her laundry pile up.

When she was nearly finished with the third suitcase, she paused for a second. There were no murmurs from the office, so she called his name.

“Hmm?” His voice drifted back to her.

“Do you have a washer?”

There was a pause. “Yeah. There’s a small laundry room off of the bathroom.”

“You mean the CEO of the LA branch of Wolfram and Hart doesn’t send his clothes out?”

“I could,” he said sheepishly. “I do sometimes. I don’t know what they use to get blood and vamp dust out, but it works like magic. Of course, it might be magic. But laundry’s therapeutic.”

Wrinkled blouse in hand, she wandered towards his office. He was sitting at his desk, toying with the pen in his hand and staring out the window. When he caught her reflection in the glass, he turned slightly so he could see her leaning on the doorjamb. She shook her head with a little smile and asked him, “Anyone ever tell you you’re strange?”

He chuckled. “A few times. But that’s why you love me, right?”

Angel’s tone was teasing, but she could hear the question in it, the belief that even after several days of professions of love followed by fantastic sex, this was all a dream. She sighed. Tossing the blouse on the desk, she climbed onto his lap, straddling him. He growled appreciatively and pulled her closer, nuzzling her neck and resting his head on her shoulder.

“One of the many, many reasons I love you, Angel,” she whispered, and he sighed happily.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he murmured.

She ran her fingers through his hair, combing through the soft strands as he rested against her. “Tired, baby? Need someone to take care of you?”

Angel shrugged, still speaking into her neck, and the sensation sent pleasant shivers through her. “I can take care of myself. Having you here to help me do it, here for me to help you take care of yourself, it’s… wonderful. Something I never thought I’d have.”

Buffy kissed the top of his head. “Did I ever say thanks to Wes and Fred for getting rid of the loophole?”

Chuckling, he held her tightly to him. “Only about three dozen times.”

“Oh, well, good. I’ve only got a couple thousand more to catch up with you then.”

He nodded and then yawned. “Think I’ll quit for now. Nap?”

She clambered off his lap, blushing. “Well… the bed is… kinda buried right now,” she said quickly, and Angel growled in mock annoyance. She laughed. “Just give me a minute to move the piles.”

He followed her into the bedroom, wrapping cool, strong arms around her from behind and pulling her tight against his chest. Buffy relaxed against him and they stood in silence for a moment, simply enjoying each other’s presence. Her gaze wandered over her scattered belongings, and she suddenly froze. She quickly pulled herself away from him and began rifling frantically through her luggage.

“Buffy? What’s wrong?”

“No, no, no… where is he…”

“Buffy?”

“I can’t find him! I couldn’t have left him – “

“Buffy, what – “

“Mr. Gordo!”

“Who?”

“Mr. Gordo! My pig!”

Confused, Angel stared at her, and then it dawned on him. “The one from Sunnydale? You still have it?”

“I’ve had him since I was five, Angel! And now I can’t find him! Oh – “ She continued throwing things out of her suitcases, muttering the whole time. Angel was baffled. He’d rarely seen her this upset, and he wasn’t sure what to do. Done with the luggage, she returned to the bed and started tossing clothes everywhere, hoping he’d been buried during the unpacking process. When the surface of the bed was again visible and the clothes covered most of the floor, she dropped onto the bed and buried her face in her hands.

Alarmed, Angel lowered himself onto the bed beside her, pulling her into his lap. “Hey, don’t cry, beloved. We’ll find it – him. I’m sure he’s at Giles’ – we’ll call and check, okay? Please don’t cry.”

“He’s all I have left of Sunnydale, Angel… all I have left of my mom and dad and – “

“Is he in your backpack?”

She stilled and stared at him through her fingers.

“Your backpack, the one you had on the plane. It’s in my closet if – “

With a wild cry, she launched herself off the bed and toward his closet. She wrenched open her backpack, nearly ripping it in two, and a joyful shout filled the room. Angel saw a brief blur of pink fur before it was hidden away from him, cradled in her arms.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“You didn’t hug me that tightly, and I hadn’t seen you in a year and a half,” he said wistfully.

She glanced up, still clutching Mr. Gordo to her chest. “You get me through half the trauma this guy here has, and we’ll talk.”

Angel frowned. “There won’t be any trauma for you to get through if I have a say in things.”

Buffy crawled up onto the bed again. “You can try, Angel, but we both know – “

“Let me dream, okay, beloved?”

She kissed him softly, a tiny brush of her lips over his. “Bed’s clear now,” she murmured. He growled and pulled her closer, stopping when he felt something plush hit his chest. Surprised, he looked down to see Mr. Gordo peeking up from between them. She giggled.

Angel was about to grab the pig and throw it aside when he realized that given the events of the past fifteen minutes, that probably would not endear him to her. He gently took Mr. Gordo from her and set him on the floor. After a moment’s deliberation, he covered the pig with a blouse she’d thrown down in her frantic search, and she laughed.

“Apparently he’s a tough enough act to follow without having him stare at me,” he muttered, and she giggled again. Her laughter was cut short when he captured her lips with his once more. “But I’ll do my best…”

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