Life's Scares
by Caela

Disclaimer: I own Danielle, Jena and Feyrin and all of the other kids that will be mentioned throughout this story. Got it?!

"Jena, what happened before Mommy left?" Angel sat her on the kitchen table and peered into her eyes.

"Some men came and she told me to stay here and to...to..." She was thinking of what he mother had instructed her to do earlier. She gave a hard nod when she finally remembered. "To stay quiet and to call you when I finished counting to 200." She looked very sad for a minute. Angel put his fingers under her chin, forcing her to look at him.

"What is it, Baby?" Her eyes were looking away from him but Angel continued to move her face to meet his eyes each time she tried to stare at something else and finally gave up and looked at him dead on.

"I only know how to count to 40, Daddy. And thats hard!" She whined as she defended herself. Angel smiled and hug her to his chest. He was happy that she had not learned to count to 200 that would be all too long of a time for her to be alone and THEN to call him.

"Jena, do you know what the men looked like? What they were wearing? Their shape? Did they look like the pictures in Giles' books? Can you remember for me, Baby?" Angel rocked her lightly as he hugged her still.

"They were...They were...Tall...Like YOU!" She looked up from his chest and perked her voice up at the thought that she had remembered something of possible use.

Angel smiled at her cuteness. "Uh...huh...?"

"I'm not sure what their skin looked like.....there faces were all blackened out!" She felt sorry that she wasn't any use to him.

"Blackened out?" Angel tried to determine what she meant in her little world and making it into his words. "Do you mean that they had black masks on so you couldn't see their faces?" Angel gave her something she could work on.

She nodded, her long, wavy brown hair bouncing.

"Did they talk at all, did they say anything?" Angel already had a good idea as to who had intruded into their home and threatened his

family."Yeah...But it was really confusing, they were playing some game..." She stumbled through her thoughts trying to describe the type of game they appeared to be playing. "Old Mc Donald!" She smiled, thinking that he would understand fully what she meant. He looked at her with a confused look. She retreated into her thoughts. "They kept calling each other Hawk and those flowers that Mommy doesn't like..." She tried her best to give him examples of where she was getting Old McDonald from.

"Code names..." Angel murmured under his breath.

"What are those?" She hyped up and put her hands on his cheeks, giving him her best little girl look, which wasn't that hard to do sense she was one herself. She pursed her lips together and reminded him of Buffy when she was being funny and yet very serious at the same time. Angel was now, of course, forced to look into his daughter's eyes.

"Thats what people use to call other people in order to keep their real names private, a secret. Kinda like a spy. You remember what a spy is...Sometimes you do it for me when I don't know what to get your Mommy for our anniversary or Christmas..." She tried to jog her small memory bank.

Thinking to herself she finally understood it well enough to be included in the conversation that Angel was going to have with Giles, Willow, Xander, Oz and Anya.

A few minutes after everyone arrived Jena fell asleep into her father's arms as he carried her everywhere through the house. He just wasn't comfortable with leaving her in her room alone. He wanted her near by and at all times. The only thing he could do what hold her. No matter what. He constantly rubbed her back with the free hand that wasn't supporting her bottom without acknowledgment of doing so.

Each time he would stop and use his hand to do something else her body would tense into his grasp and held him tighter to her. She was always afraid of being left alone, she just didn't tell anyone. Angel knew that he and Buffy would have to work on that, to keep feelings inside, especially fears, just wasn't healthy, more so with a girl her age.

Her arms were laying at her sides when he sat down, which he tried to do so for the most part. Giles was making a few calls, to the council, to some people that owed him favors, everything. Willow was upstairs in their master bedroom trying a location spell with Oz, Anyz and Xander. The other kids were left with Danielle at Willow's place accompanied by her Changeling boyfriend, Feyrin. Feyrin was a faery of which had the ability to play any part he wished in the human world. He was sent down to look after someone in the Scooby- Gang from the Powers That Be when he was merely a young infant and took the place of a human, but does not know which one of them he was meant to watch over.

Danielle was very aware of what was out there, but she chose to keep it to a bare minimum of notice from the others. She didn't like the idea of living atop a Hellmouth, but she did not deny the threats of it's nasty inhabitants. She always played it safe, sometimes too safe. She had the habit to wait for Feyrin to get out of his last class to walk her to her dorm. Feyrin was well built and well trained by....The Gods only know by whom, but kept well in practice with Buffy, Angel and Giles. The three mystics of the group, aside from Oz, were no match for the usual vampire groupies. Feyrin was very fond of Danielle, its just that he was too damn irish to make a move that she didn't already make first on her. That was the only way he could tell that he was permitted to touch her in that way. Or to even look at her in the same matter. There were times that he would catch himself staring at her lean and well shaped legs directly after she had taken a shower whenever they stayed late at Angel and Buffy's, sometimes over night, and just wanted to slap himself for the thoughts that raced through his head about what he wanted to do with her. Or TOO her for that matter. But even though he knew that HE didn't do much TO her, he was thankful that she understood and made the first moves and loved him and not someone else who, he thought, didn't deserve her.

Because this lad certainly did, Feyrin knew that even though he had met her through a prophecy of being a Protector to someone that was near to her, there was another thing that he was destined for. Loving Danielle.

Part Three

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