TITLE: Sleep Is Your Friend! (1/1)

SERIES: Bedtime Stories (#6)

AUTHOR: Tisienne Blue

DISCLAIMER: I am not Joss Whedon, hence I own no one you know from TV...

RATING: PG-13, at most, I think...

PAIRING: A/W, of course...

DISTRIBUTION: Charity can have anything of mine, always... also, Vampie can have this if she wants it... anyone else, just ask...

FEEDBACK: Please.

DEDICATIONS: to Kim, Jesmin, Raene/Nikki, Witchy, Ariel, and Lian... glad you liked the last one, my dears... also to the Candy Orgy... hello, luvs...*g*

NOTES: After a while, Angel gained his reward and became human... he went back to Sunnydale, where he married a certain little redheaded witch... they have two children, Katie (9), and Patrick (3)... when Angel and Will go out, they generally get one of their friends to babysit...

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Mayor Joyce Summers smiled slightly to herself and closed the magazine she'd been flipping through. She almost hadn't even picked it up from the coffee table, but eventually, the very idea of something that openly called itself 'The Wiccan Times' was appealing to her. Besides, what with being the Mayor of a town like Sunnydale, she really thought she should see if there was anything in any of the articles that might pertain to the situations her little town frequently found itself in. To her surprise, she had found that most of the articles were very articulate, surprisingly well written, and very informative... she didn't know that she'd ever need to call up a cone of power, but at least now she knew how to if it ever did become an issue. She had been quite happily absorbed in her reading, and almost hadn't heard the slight sounds the little girl upstairs was making. Once she had, though, the magazine was all but forgotten, as Joyce Summers, Mayor, was put on hold, and Joyce Summers, Mother, came to the fore. She knew that Katie could be difficult, but...

She grimaced slightly as she climbed the stairs. This little girl was almost as much of a trouble-maker as her own older daughter had been... of course, Katie made up for it with her sweetness... at least when she wasn't up to her ears in misbehaviour... She walked slowly to the girl's door, and listened for a moment before opening it to find little Katie reading to herself aloud, from what looked like one of her father's demonology books. "Katie!" she said, almost angrily, "You know you're not supposed to be reading those kinds of books yet!" She plucked the book from the girl's small hands, ignoring the storm clouds gathering on her young charge's face, and pulled a different book from the shelf near the bed. "Here. Why don't you read this one?"

Katie looked suspiciously at the older woman. "You're not gonna tell me to go to sleep? 'Cause usually Mama and Papa's friends do."

Joyce smiled softly down at the little girl. "No, Katie. I'm not going to tell you to go to sleep. I think you should, but... I can't make you." She laughed at the amazed look on the young girl's face. "Look, honey, you know, and I know, that sleep is your friend! It makes it so that you can have energy for school and playing, but... if you'd rather stay up all night, well, as long as you don't wake your brother, I don't mind a bit. But!" she said seriously, pointing her finger at the girl, "You're going to stay in this room. You can read, or play with your dolls, or whatever, but... bedtime is bedtime, and as long as I can tell your Mama and Papa that you were in bed on time, I don't suppose that it really matters what time you went to sleep!"

Katie could feel her eyes growing even wider before she started to pout. Joyce wasn't being any fun! And how was she supposed to drag a story out of her if she didn't care whether she stayed up or not? She sighed softly, in her adorable little-girl way. Maybe she could just... ask her? "Ummm... Joyce?" she said, a little bit timidly, "Would... will you tell me a story?"

Joyce smiled softly, sitting on the edge of the girl's bed. "Of course, honey... all you had to do was ask..."

~~~~~~~~~ and this is what she said~~~~~~~~~~~

Once upon a time, there was a little girl, and she was very much like you, Katie! She had a smart and funny Papa, and a very smart, very pretty Mama, too. She grew up in a big city, far to the east, and when she was old enough, and had learned enough, she went away from home to learn more at a great big center of knowledge. Now, this girl, we'll call her Joy, wasn't sure of what, exactly, she wanted to study, and so for the first year or so, she spent an awful lot of time meeting... boys. Unfortunately, none of them could seem to hold her interest, and she started thinking that maybe there was something wrong with her. She had almost managed to convince herself that there was, but then she let a friend of hers convince her to go to a ball with her, even though neither of them had boys to take them. So she went with her friend, and regretted it almost immediately, because she just wasn't having any fun. After a little while, she told her friend that she wanted to leave, but the girl wouldn't let her, saying that the night was young, and they'd just gotten there. So Joy was stuck, because her friend had been the one to get them there in her carriage. Well, Joy sat off in a corner of the ballroom, moping for a little while, but then... then she saw one of the most handsome men she'd ever seen in her life! He was with another girl, but Joy wanted to meet him so badly that she got up and introduced herself! Now Joy was, in actuality, quite a pretty girl, and fairly intelligent, too, if I do say so myself, and after a few minutes, the young man... we'll call him Spank... was smitten! So smitten, in fact, that he told the girl he'd come with that he was leaving with Joy! So he did, and gave Joy a ride home and a nice little kiss on the cheek... he was a gentleman, you see.

Joy and Spank continued to see each other, and after a while, they decided to get married. Eventually, they had a little girl, and they called her... Muffy. Now, Muffy was a regular handful, but she was cute, so people liked her. Maybe if Joy had been a bit more attentive, Muffy would have been better natured, but... that's neither here nor there. In any case, when Muffy was almost six years old, Joy and Spank had another little girl, and this one was called... Dusk. Dusk was a very sweet baby, and an even sweeter child.

So things went on, Muffy and Dusk grew up, and Joy and Spank... well, they had their problems, but... and one day, Spank was hit by a bus, and was never seen or heard from again... Oh, OK, he wasn't really, but... No, he was possessed by some sort of a demon, that told him his family wasn't good enough, and he left.

Well, Joy was upset, but that's to be expected, and after Muffy got into some trouble, she decided to move herself and her girls to a small kingdom nearby. The kingdom was called Bright Valley, and that was where Joy decided to settle down. She got a little house, and opened a nice little... shop... with a friend of hers, and everything was going along very nicely for a while, but then... Muffy started having problems again. She was disappearing at all hours of the night, and getting into trouble at school. Things just got worse after Joy fell down and somehow stabbed herself in the neck with a barbecue fork.

Well, all sorts of things happened after that, but eventually, Joy understood why her older daughter was getting into so much trouble. Muffy was the Player! She had been chosen to do a very special job, and unfortunately, that job caused her to be in places that a regular girl would never have been in! Add on to that the fact that she had begun... seeing a much older man, and well... it just wasn't good. But Joy was proud, once she understood, even if she did try to burn Muffy and her little friends Winnow and Jamie at the stake one time... it wasn't really Joy's fault... there was a demon involved.

So eventually, Muffy went on to learn more at the local institute of knowledge, and she ended up seeing a very nice young man there, because the relationship she'd had earlier, with the older man, whose name was Saint, hadn't worked out... Of course, Joy had known that it wouldn't, because even though she hadn't said anything to Muffy, Joy could see that the older man was really in love with Muffy's friend Winnow... he just didn't want to admit it for some reason. And Joy could tell that Winnow would be a perfect match for him. In any case, Muffy had found herself a good guy, one who was almost perfect for her, and Saint had left the kingdom.

Everything went well for quite a while after that, with Muffy and Winnow attending classes together, and Winnow, along with some others like, uhh... Alex, and... Mr. Wiles, and uh... Bike, who was a very nice young man, no matter what anyone else might have thought... well, in any case, they all helped Muffy with the Playing, and everything was good. Until Saint came back, anyway.

As it turned out, Saint hadn't thought that he was good enough for Winnow, as he had a bit of a dark side, but... he had been doing some good work, on the side of the gods, and eventually they had decided to reward him by taking that dark side of him away! Now he felt like he could maybe have the one thing that would make him truly happy, and that was... Winnow!

Now, Winnow wasn't entirely sure that Saint was being straight with her... after all, she'd known him for years, and he'd never shown any signs of even liking her, much less loving her, so Winnow felt somewhat unsettled by his pursuit of her. Of course, it didn't help that, much to Joy's shame, Muffy had decided that Saint being entirely good meant that she could have him back! So Joy did what she could, talking about how perfect Muffy's current boyfriend was, and how right they were together, but nothing seemed to work, so Joy finally gave up and called on Winnow. She told the girl about how she had known of Saint's feelings before he'd ever left Bright Valley, and that she thought the girl was a fool if she didn't leap at the chance for happiness with the man she loved. Fortunately, Winnow listened to Joy, and she and Saint were a very serious item less than a day later.

Muffy, of course, was terribly unhappy! She really had hoped that Saint would be all hers again, and one day, she came home crying! When Joy asked her what was wrong, she finally fessed up. She had gone to see Saint, and had caught him in a... delicate... position with Winnow. And when she had demanded that he choose between them, he hadn't even had the courtesy to look like he needed to think about it! He'd laughed at her, she said, and then she told Joy the real surprise. Muffy had decided to accept her boyfriend's marriage proposal... she was leaving with him that night, and they would stop in Keno to get married on their way to his home.

Joy wanted to go with her daughter, and see her married, but when she said as much to Muffy, the girl had just... snapped. She reared back, and actually slapped her! She screamed and railed, saying that she knew that Joy had been responsible for Saint choosing Winnow, then she ran from the house! Well, to say that Joy was stunned would be an understatement! She ran outside after the girl, but Muffy, being the Player, was long gone. Joy never heard from her eldest daughter again, although the girl's husband did send her the occasional letter... she was just glad that they were all right.

Well, after only a few weeks, Winnow and Saint dropped a bomb of their own. They were getting married in a nearby kingdom, and Winnow wanted Joy to be there in her mother's place. Because, Winnow said, Joy had been more of a mother to her in the five years she'd known her, than her own had ever been. Well, Joy was delighted to agree, and cried at the wedding, wishing that she could have seen Muffy get married, but... Winnow was a beautiful bride, and, just under a year later, an equally beautiful mother...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ she stopped speaking~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joyce smiled at the obviously sleeping girl. After raising her own girls, she could tell when a child was faking it, and Katie definitely was not. "Sleep sweet, honey," she murmured softly as she switched of the bedside light and made sure the girl was covered well. She smiled again, gently, as she shut the bedroom door and went back downstairs, reassuming her spot on the couch. Willow and Angel were very lucky to have such a wonderful family...

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She smiled as she heard the front door being unlocked, looking up from the couch to see her favourite young Sunnydale couple entering. "Willow... Angel. How was the movie?" She stood, her grin widening as Angel smiled back at her while Willow just blushed beet red.

"Ummm... good!" the redhead chirped, far too perkily, "And ummm, I'm going to check on the kids!" She bolted for the stairs. "Thanks, Joyce, Bye!" she called over her shoulder as she started up.

Joyce laughed knowingly. "So, can I take it that a certain young, married couple has been banned from the Sunnydale Cinema yet again?" She shook her head in mock disappointment when the tall, dark haired man had the decency to look sheepishly at the floor. "That makes what, Angel? Five times this year alone?" She sighed, still chuckling to herself. "You know, one of these days, they're not going to let you back in, and then what are you going to do?"

Angel glanced carefully at her from the corner of his eye. "Ummm... rent?" He lifted his eyes to her when she laughed again. "I do have that Blockbuster membership, you know... Maybe we'd better start using it..."

Joyce shook her head, thoroughly amused. "Yeah," she said, as she grabbed her coat and bag from the chair by the door, "Maybe you'd better!" She smiled up into his eyes, and hugged him tightly, twice. "The first one's for you, the second hug's for your wife. Why don't you go give it to her?" She opened the door and stepped out into the night, heading for her car. She waved to Angel as she pulled away, smiling as he quickly shut the door. Those two always seemed to get caught going at it in the most inappropriate places... still, she was glad that they were so very much in love...

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Angel slowly opened the bedroom door, taking in the sight of the thoroughly mortified redhead sitting on the edge of the bed. "What is it, love?" he asked smoothly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, "What's wrong?" He grinned slightly as he lowered his mouth to her smooth shoulder, nibbling gently at her soft skin.

Willow gasped, still wound up from what had happened earlier. "Angel," she moaned, leaning into his caress, "We got caught... again!"

"Yes, my love," he whispered against her skin, his tongue flicking gently across the point of her shoulder, "We did... what of it?"

She pulled away from him, meeting his eyes in disbelief. "You're kidding, right? We can never go back there now! I mean, what must they think of us?!" She groaned as he pressed her back against the bed, covering her tiny body with his own.

He stared down into her luminous green eyes, his own sparkling in merriment. "Sweetheart," he murmured softly, licking his lips, "I doubt that they're thinking anything now that they didn't think the first time..." He rolled them both, staring up at her now, as she began to slowly unbutton his shirt. "Or the second... or even the third, for that matter..." He moaned aloud as she lowered her lips to his chest... he could tell, it was going to be a looong night... They were definitely going to have to start renting!

End.

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