Frowning, Angel set the papers down on the floor next to the bed, took off his glasses, and switched off the lamp next to the bed.  In their two and a half months of marriage, they’d made it a point to be very open about things.  Angel was getting used to her fertility-drug induced mood swings, but this didn’t look like one of those.  Scooting over to her side of the bed, he spooned against her back, throwing one arm possessively around her hip.

"Don’t," Buffy said firmly, scooting away from him.

"What’s wrong?" Angel asked gently, not letting go of her.

"I don’t want to talk about it," she replied firmly.

Biting his lip, Angel tried to figure out what was wrong.  She’d been fine yesterday, but this morning and evening, she’d seemed distant.

"Buffy ... " he pled.

Letting out a sigh, she rolled onto her back.  She didn’t meet his gaze, instead fixing her attention on the ceiling.

"I got my period this morning."

"Oh," Angel said quietly.

Turning to look at him, she mockingly parroted, "Yeah, ‘oh’."

He frowned again, but didn’t say anything.  He knew she was only being angry because she was very upset.  All of their attempts so far to conceive had been unsuccessful, but it hadn’t even been three months yet.  They’d both been to see the doctor again and there wasn’t any medical reason for why Buffy wasn’t pregnant.  Dr. Porter had prescribed fertility treatments for her last month, but apparently they hadn’t worked this time.  He personally thought her reaction was a bit premature, but he understood how important it was to her.  They both very much wanted another child.

Curling her up in his embrace, he said gently, "Buffy, we’ve only been trying for a couple months.  Give it time."

"Time is the one thing I don’t have," she said with a scowl.

"You mean we," he corrected.

Her glare intensified measurably.  "No I don’t.  I mean *I*."

"We are the ones trying to have this child, Buffy.  Not just you," he said, nonplussed.

"Yes, but *we* aren’t the ones who can’t get pregnant.  It’s *me*.  I’m too old.  You can make babies until you’re eighty."

"I’m pretty sure I won’t be wanting a baby at eighty," he said with a scowl.  "I think it would be too much of a hassle for my pretty young wife to change my diapers and the kid’s."

"Pretty young wife," she parroted.  "Exactly.  If you want a kid you should have married someone younger."

He blinked in shock for several seconds, unable to believe she’d just made a comment so outrageous.  He understood that due to the simple physical fact that she would be the one to carry the child that it was that much more important to her.  Still, it irritated him to have his stake in this endeavor, and his feelings towards her, treated so lightly.

"What *are* you talking about?" he half yelled in exasperation.  "I want *you*.  If we have another baby, that’s wonderful but I didn’t marry you because I was looking for a brood mare, Buffy.  We decided together to try and have a child.  I want it, but to be honest, I want you more."

Her bottom lip started to quiver and Angel silently cursed himself for snapping at her.  It wasn’t her fault, he knew that.  It was, however, rather difficult to deal with at times.  As far as he could tell, the "mild" symptoms Dr. Porter had explained Buffy might experience as a side effect of her fertility treatments were not mild in the least.  It was damn near a roller coaster at times.

With a sigh, he curled his body around his wife’s.  She snuggled into his embrace with a whimper.

"I’m sorry I’m acting so crazy," she said.

"It’s okay, sweetheart," he said, kissing her forehead gently.

Angel took a deep breath, savoring the distinctive smell of his mate.  Her scent always soothed him.  He wanted this baby, he just didn’t want to lose her in the process.

Dr. Porter had inundated them with numerous books and pamphlets on conceiving later in life.  Angel’d had no idea it would be such a complicated process.  He had to admit to himself that before he and Buffy started trying to have a baby he’d never once given a moment’s thought to intentionally trying to get a woman with child.  It had always been something to be avoided at all costs.  Now here they were counting days in her cycle, having sex in certain positions and a hundred other things to try and ensure conception.

As he held Buffy, Angel admitted to himself that he was worried.  Even if they did manage to get pregnant, there were still so many things that could go wrong.  The rates of miscarriage and birth defects in pregnancies where the mother was over forty were much higher than those in younger women.  He knew that Buffy’s inability to conceive was really bothering her, but he knew that a miscarriage would be absolutely devastating.

Pulling her against him more firmly, Angel nuzzled his nose into the nape of her neck, waiting until the deep even sound of her breathing assured him she was asleep.  Satisfied that all was as well as could be expected, he joined her in slumber.

Grace scowled at the police detective.  "Why do you want to speak with him?"

"Ma’am, I’m afraid I can’t answer that question," Detective Wong said as gently as he could.  He was quickly tiring of the aging secretary/body guard employed by the UC Sunnydale History department.  "Could you please just tell me if Professor Jacobson is in?"

"Grace," Angel said as he walked out of his office.  Looking up, he stopped abruptly.

"Are you Professor Angel Jacobson?" Detective Wong asked pointedly.

Angel’s brow furrowed.  "Yes."  He didn’t correct the last name to Jacobson-Summers.

"Sir, I need to speak with you ... privately."

"Of course, please come into my office."

Walking into the kitchen, Buffy saw her husband seated on one of the stools around the island.  Wrapping her arms around him, she pressed herself tightly to his back.  He didn’t acknowledge her.

"Angel?" she asked tentatively.

Still no response.

Releasing him, Buffy took a seat on the stool next to him and studied his face.  "What’s wrong?"

Almost as if he had just noticed her presence, Angel turned to face his wife.  He looked at her blankly for several seconds while her question registered.

"A police detective came to see me at work this afternoon," he explained quietly.

"Police detective," Buffy said with a nervous smile.  "Why did a police detective want to talk to you?"

"Clarice."

Buffy let out an irritated grunt.  "What?  Is she issuing a restraining order against you or something?" she asked cattily.

Angel looked at her for several long moments.  "She’s dead."

Minutes later, Angel watched wearily as Buffy stalked around the kitchen.   He’d known it would be a bad idea to tell her about Clarice, especially given the rather shaky mind frame she was in most of the time, but there was no way around it.  Buffy was going to find out and better she hear it from him than read it in the newspaper tomorrow morning.

"I don’t get it," she raged.  "The cops find her body and they just assume that you have something to do with it."

"Buffy," he said soothingly, "they didn’t make any accusations, they just wanted to talk to me."

"Why?  You said it yourself, she was vain, manipulative and promiscuous.  Why do they want to talk to you?  Surely she was involved with a dozen different guys."

"Apparently not," Angel said quietly.  "Clarice was new in town, she lived alone.  As far as Detective Wong has been able to surmise, that night in Jack’s was the last time anyone saw her alive."

"The night we saw each other," Buffy said quietly.

"Yeah," Angel said wryly, "the night I dumped Clarice."

"But you didn’t see her again," Buffy said frantically.

"No.  I didn’t.  But how can I prove that?  I walked home *alone*.  No one saw me after I left that bar and apparently no one saw Clarice either."

Buffy jumped as she heard the front door shut.  Angel’s brow furrowed and he craned around to see who it was.  They both became very silent as Nick walked in the kitchen.

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked self-consciously.

Angel sighed and cradled his head in his hands as he leaned against the island.  Buffy blinked back tears.

"What?" Nick asked, worried.

Buffy opened her mouth to speak, but Angel silenced her with a look.

"A police detective came to speak to me today," Angel explained as his son took a seat.  "A woman that I was dating when I first moved back to Sunnydale is dead.  They found her body a few days ago and as it turns out, I was the last person seen with her."

Nick nodded slowly.  "So that’s what all the commotion was about."

"What?" Buffy asked.

"I was over at Xander’s last night with Liz and he was pretty upset about the fact that he’d lost a construction job.  Apparently they were all set to do a remodel on one of the older factory buildings outside of town, but when they showed up for work and did a quick sweep, they found a body.  Not a big shock there, you know, we do live on the Hellmouth and all, but Xander said the cops went nuts about this one, shut down the entire site.  He’s scrambling to find another job to make up the lost revenue."

"They found her in a factory building?" Buffy asked, looking at Angel.

"It’s news to me," her husband commented.  "They didn’t give me any of the details, just questioned me about the last time I saw her."

Nick grimaced.  "They found her in a freezer ... with a broken neck."

Buffy stilled, unable to stop herself from thinking of Jenny Calendar’s death.  Angel was thinking the same thing.

"Somebody is doing this to you on purpose," Buffy said quietly.

Angel smiled sardonically.  "It would definitely appear that way."

Dan watched from his car as the cops went through Clarice’s apartment.  It was dark and with all the lights on inside, it was easy to see what they were doing.  Perhaps now his masters would see that he wasn’t incompetent.  His plan had just taken a little longer to reach fruition than originally designed.

The End