Angela watched the gentle ebb and flow of the ocean waves from her seat in the sand. Juice had made good on his promise and had brought her to some club affiliate's beach house in Santa Cruz. It was a beautiful place, right on the water with its own private beach. The sun was slowly starting to rise in the distance. A cool breeze blew past, making her shiver and wrap Juice's sweatshirt more tightly around her. An alarm on her phone had woken her up at this ungodly hour, the event on her calendar reminding her to call "the Kozik brothers". She'd set it for an afternoon reminder but obviously Koz had messed with it, trading the PM for AM. He was always doing shit like that. Wiping at her eyes, she pulled out her phone. She didn't think the reminders would still be on it considering she'd had to get a new one after Mel destroyed the last one. Apparently when Juice synced her contacts, he'd done her calendar as well. Wiping at her eyes, she opened her voicemail folder. She had a few saved from each brother. Most of them said the same thing. She knew it was going to hurt, but she pressed play anyway.

Mel's voice blasted through the speaker along with a whole mess of noise behind him. "Geela!" he shouted, stretching her name into an annoying call. He was drunk; he always called her when he was drunk. "Gee! I passed my boards! Fuck yeah! Why aren't you here? You should be here! I miss you, Gee! All right, I gotta go! I love you, you gorgeous undertaker, you!"

Tears were streaming down her face. Hearing his voice, how happy he sounded, made her heart twist painfully. She'd never get a drunk call or a silly text from him again, and it was all her fault. What had she done? She'd single handedly killed her own best friend.

The next message started before she could stop it. "Angie-pie! Just callin' to let you know I made it here all right," Kozik's voice came bright and happy. The message was from the last month of Juice and Happy's incarceration when Kozik had to go on a run for a few days. She'd made him promise to call when he got to whatever secret location he was going, and he'd humored her like she knew he would. Hearing the old message after his death took on a whole new meaning and before she could press pause, she was sobbing. "Stay strong while I'm gone, kiddo. Keep swimmin' and all that shit. Should be back home in a day or two, you need anythin' call Piney. Old man's gotta be good for somethin'. Love you."

Pulling her legs up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around her knees, and buried her face into the little space between her legs and chest. Sobs shook her entire body making it hard for her to breathe. Their voices kept playing in her head on separate loops making it hard for her to think of anything other than the two people she'd lost. There were too many conflicting emotions running through her making sitting there that much harder. She had to go, had to move. She scrambled to her feet, painfully aware of the healing wound on her calf as she started to run.

Juice had been watching her from the backdoor of their little rental. He'd woken up in the middle of the night to a cold bed with the backdoor wide open. He'd been watching her for awhile now, giving her the space he knew she wanted. If she wanted him, she would've woken him up. When he saw her put her head down, he unhitched himself from the door and headed her way only to have her spring up and start running.

His heartbeat kicked up a notch as he watched her take off down the beach. She wasn't supposed to run; Chloe had specifically told her not to when she was getting her stitches out. The bullet wound on her calf had only just healed and running could damage it. Without another thought, he ran after her, catching up with her easily. Reaching out a hand, he grabbed her arm, pulling her to him.

She reacted violently to his touch, spinning around, her fist at the ready. "Angel! Stop!" he shouted, ducking out of the way of her fist before taking her wrist in his hand and drawing her close.

Angela struggled against him for a moment before she gave up and sagged against him, her forehead pressed to his collar bone. "I killed him," she sobbed, tears streaming down her face. She was out of breath and shaking. Juice wasn't sure if it was from the cool sea air or something else. She sucked in another hard breath, tilting her head back to meet his eyes. There was a look of fear, of desperation in her eyes that chilled him to the bone. "My Melly, I just...killed him. He's gone. He's not coming back and neither is Koz and I...I can't..."

Juice took her face in his hands, his thumbs stroking over the wet tracks of her tears. Her breathing was coming much too fast, almost as if she was about to hyperventilate. It scared the shit out of him. "Hey, hey. Calm down, Angel. Breathe," he soothed, trying to get her to relax. "It's okay, baby."

She shook her head emphatically, taking a step away from him. She was sick and tired of hearing that it was okay. "That's just it! It's not! It's not okay, Juice! I killed someone! I killed my friend and I...I loved him and I didn't want him to be gone. I didn't want this! I wanted to be happy! I wanted him to be happy! And now he's just...gone! And it's my fault."

He felt his heart break just a little when her voice cracked on the last word. It hurt to hear her say she loved Mel, though he knew it was a different kind of love. It was the same love she associated with Koz and Happy. She hung her head, her shoulders shaking as another sob escaped her lips. "I'm so sorry, Angel," he said, taking her hands into his. Squeezing her hands, he tried to think of what else to say. He knew what she was feeling; he'd been there not so long ago. "This sucks. I know it does. It hurts and you feel like shit and all you want is for the pain to end because you keep thinking of what their life would be like now...what they'd be doing and how you fucked it up and it's like a stab to the chest every time."

Her head snapped up, dark eyes meeting his, widening slightly; he'd hit the nail on the head. She swallowed hard and nodded, "Yeah."

"I know, baby. I know," he answered, letting go of one of her hands to push a strand of hair out of her face. "That feeling...it doesn't go away. Not completely. But it does get easier to bear. You gotta remember why you pulled the trigger. He was going to hurt you. He had already. He could've hurt our baby. That's why you did it. You didn't kill your friend, you killed the asshole who was about to hurt your family. Right?"

Angela nodded, a shaky breath escaping her lips. The things he said about Mel, though harsh, were true. The man she had shot was not the same man that left that drunken message. It was what had allowed her to pull the trigger so easily in the first place. But there were so many good memories of Mel, that the bad usually were pushed away and it was those good memories that haunted her. "Yeah."

"You gotta focus on that, Angel," he urged, his eyes locked on hers hoping to God his words were sinking in. He knew what a kill like this could lead to. It had driven him right up a tree. She leaned into him, her arms slipping around his waist, nose nuzzling the skin of his neck reminding him again of what he'd attempted. " 'cause this shit will eat at you. Make you do stupid things. You are an amazing, strong person, Angel. Don't let this change you. Remember what you were fighting for."

"Okay," she croaked, on the verge of tears yet again.

His hand smoothed down her back as he felt her shoulders start to shake again, her tears hot against his skin. She was broken and falling apart, and he had no idea how to fix it. Angela was always so strong, so sure of herself. Seeing her like this scared the crap out of him.

Kozik had once mentioned how Angela liked to be touched, liked to be held. The blonde had suspected that she hadn't gotten enough hugs when she was younger from her elders. Juice wouldn't be surprised if that was true. Besides the brief kiss on the cheek, her mother and aunt didn't show very much warmth towards Angela, and he was positive Happy didn't cuddle unless absolutely necessary. In fact, he'd seen Happy on more than one occasion forcibly push her away and tell her to stop crying. So he held her tighter, trying to express his support through his embrace and hoping it was the right thing to do.

They watched the sun rise together, her head tucked underneath his chin, his arms still securely around her. Dressed in just his boxers, Juice was freezing, and he was willing to bet Angela was too. He let her go for a brief moment, only to sweep her up into his arms. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders, her hand reaching up to cup the side of his face. He gave her a soft smile before her lips met his. "Thank you," she whispered, relaxing against him, her head on his shoulder.

"I got you, Angel," he said, kissing her forehead. A sense of triumph and pride came over him; he rarely got things right, but it seemed he finally managed to do something good for once. "Always."

-----------

Angela woke up the next morning with something incredibly fuzzy under her cheek. Wrinkling her nose, she opened an eye to find her head pillowed, not against Juice, but against the gigantic brown teddy bear he'd won the day before playing the star shootout game at the boardwalk. Funny, she hadn't remembered falling asleep on the "biker bear" as Juice called it since the stuffed thing was wearing a fake leather vest and a bandana. Reaching out a hand, she was surprised to find his side of the bed empty; he usually woke her up when he moved. "Juice?" she called out.

No reply came, but she could hear him talking in the living room. Groaning, she glanced at the alarm clock. Four AM. "Do they ever sleep?" she mumbled to herself as she slid out of bed. She grabbed his t-shirt off of the ground and slipped it on before padding her way towards the living room.

Juice was pacing back and forth wearing just his jeans, phone pressed to his ear. She leaned against the entrance of the hallway, watching him while eavesdropping on his conversation. "What?...Everything okay?...C'mon, Chibs. We just got here...I can't..."

He stopped pacing when he saw her. Dressed in one of his t-shirts with her hair still rumpled from sleep, she looked beautiful. A concerned look crossed her face as if she sensed something was wrong. "Yeah, all right. I'll let her know," he said on a sigh before snapping his prepay shut.

"What happened?" she asked, her dark eyes wide with worry.

He sighed, running a hand over his face. "Club shit. I...We gotta go back, Angel."

Disappointment flickered across her face for an instant before she sucked in a deep breath and plastered a smile on her face. "At least we got one day, right?"

"Yeah," he rasped, feeling like shit as he wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. He felt her shoulders sag in response as if all the stress she'd been running away from had come back. They'd only gotten to spend one full day at the little getaway house. Only one day relaxing, acting like a normal couple before the club came calling. He wondered if they were ever going to catch a break. If things would ever calm down long enough for them to get some respite from the craziness of the past few weeks. "I'm sorry, Angel, but..."

"Stop," she interrupted, tilting her head back so her eyes met his. "You need to be there for your family, I get it. It's okay."

Juice sighed, leaning his head down so his forehead was pressed against hers. He knew this crazy life he had was hard to keep up with. Most women would be pissed if their vacation was interrupted by work, but Angela wasn't most women; she understood the club came first. He had a feeling it was something she'd grown used to growing up with Happy as the only man in her life. "I love you, you know that, right?" he asked, kissing her quickly before letting go.

Angela gave him a tired smile as she nodded. "Love you too," she said, sighing as he disappeared down the hall to the bedroom to pack. She watched him go with a sinking feeling in her heart. She wanted, no, needed to spend time away from Charming, and just when she was starting to relax, they were going right back. She kept the smile on her face but on the inside, she was screaming.

-----------

"That was a fast trip," Chloe said as she entered Angela's small house. After treating the other girl off the books for the bullet wound and stab wound, the two had grown even closer. Angela knew she could trust the young nurse, and since Tara was so deep in her own shit, it was nice to have someone else to talk to. "You were gone for, what..."

Angela sighed as she followed her friend to the kitchen table. "One whole day," she answered tiredly taking a seat on one of the wooden chairs. "It was nice."

"Ang..." Chloe said, seeing through her friend's nonchalance. She knew her trip getting cut short bothered her; she wouldn't have invited her over if it hadn't.

"There's nothin' I can do about it, Chlo," she said with a shrug. "What'd ya bring me?"

"Ice cream and cheesy movies of the animated variety. Figured you need to learn some Disney 'fore the little brat comes."

Angela rolled her eyes. "I know my Disney quite well, thank you very much."

"Ever seen these?" she asked, holding up a DVD with an alligator and an African American princess on the front and another with a blonde with very long hair. At Angela's blank look, she grinned. "These are the new generation, sweetheart."

"God, I'm old," she scoffed, raking her hand through her hair. "Why the hell do you have these anyway?"

Chloe shrugged a shoulder, pulling out two large tubs of ice cream. One coffee flavored, the other Neapolitan. "I like to stay current for my patients."

Angela laughed, already reaching for the coffee ice cream as Chloe went to grab spoons. "Liar," she teased, smirking at her friend as she went to put the DVD in.

"I know," she said on a laugh, grabbing her own tub and following Angela to the couch. They both plopped down on it, kicking their feet up onto the table. Chloe handed Angela a spoon and together they settled in for a night of Disney movies and ice cream.

-----------

Juice fought the urge to laugh at the sight before him when he and Hap entered the house. Angela and Chloe were both lying on opposite ends of the couch, totally asleep. Two empty tubs of ice cream sat on the table while an animated movie blared in the background. Something with frogs.

"What the hell?" Happy asked, his rough voice low so as not to wake them.

"Looks like someone was having fun," he said, laughing as he glanced up at the screen. A little bug was singing some slower song. "Pretty song."

Happy scowled at him in response. The only reason he'd decided to join the idiot on the way back home was to check in on his cousin. Now, he was starting to regret that decision. "Wake her up."

Juice shook his head, rounding the couch and sliding his arms underneath her sleeping form before easily lifting her up. "She sleeps heavier now," he explained, cradling her against his chest. "I'm gonna put her to bed if you want to get Chlo."

Get Chlo? What the hell did he mean by that? Before he could ask, the idiot had already disappeared leaving him staring at the nurse. " 'ey," he said, shaking her shoulder gently.

Chloe stirred, her brows furrowing together before her hazel eyes slid open. "Shit," she groaned, sitting up slowly.

He had to admit, he was surprised at her cool exterior. Most people would've jumped out of their skins if he'd woken them up. "You all right?"

"Me?" she asked, raking a hand through her midnight black hair. At his nod, she shrugged. "Totally fine. It's her I'm worried about."

Hap nodded in agreement. "She say anythin'?"

Chloe shook her head slowly. "Nope. It's just...pregnant women are supposed to...glow, y'know? Haven't seen her glow very much."

"She unhappy with the idiot?"

"Nah, its not him. She loves him," she answered confidently. She bit her lip, mulling over how best to explain it. "Look, I don't know what happened to her. The bullet, the stab wound...whatever it was...she's not dealing with it right. Add that on to losing her two friends...she's exhausted. The getaway she was supposed to go on? That would've been really good for her."

Happy sighed, knowing she was right. "Ain't nothin' I can do about that."

"I know," she said, sighing. "Well, I'm gonna head back. Let the two of them be before I start hearin' things I really don't want to."

He watched her stand, those long legs of hers that were usually covered by ugly, loose scrub pants were now tightly covered by a pair of yoga pants that showed off every curve those scrubs hid. His eyes traveled up her body to the sporty neon green top she was wearing that was just as tight. Girl had curves all over, he noticed. But it was her eyes that got him. The intelligence those golden hazel eyes held as they surveyed him with open curiosity. "Need a ride?" he asked before he could stop himself.

"Nah," she said on a shrug. "Thanks, though."

He nodded in response before heading to the door. "I'll walk ya out. Don't want to hear anythin' either."

"Homicide prevention?" she teased.

Happy flashed her a wicked grin, if she only knew how close to the truth she was. "You know it."