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Chapter 18: Discoveries

It’s late morning and for once Angel is awake before Cordelia. Dreams have stirred him to consciousness and now he lies beside the woman he’s recently found himself in love with, in the home of a woman he had once and will forever love though differently now than ever before, with a child resting on his chest who was given to him by the woman he thought he’d love for all eternity. His life has never seemed so long and complicated as it does to Angel right now. He looks over to Cordy who’s rolled over on her side facing him; she’s deep asleep and snores lightly with her lips parted. He finds her adorable.

“You’d think after a couple hundred years I’d know how to say this,” Angel says in a whispered voice to the sleeping Cordelia. His fingers gently run over Connor’s head as he sleeps and he can feel his son’s tiny heart beat against his chest. “The truth is though, I’ve never known anyone like you and…”

Cordy stirs in her sleep, she takes a deep intake of breath and moans lightly then slowly her eyes flutter open. As she sees Angel before her, her hand darts to her mouth as if worried that she may have drooled. Glad to find no embarrassing slobber she props herself up on one arm and smiles at Angel.

“What time is it?” She asks still half asleep.

“Early yet, not even nine, I couldn’t sleep… look Cordelia, I um… I wanted to talk to you about…”

Angel’s words are cut off as the voice of a teenage girl is heard shouting from the upper level.

Dawn’s voice calls out "Oh. My. God." In a high pitched girly tone.

--

Buffy’s eyes pop open to see Dawn standing in her doorway. The girl’s mouth hangs open and it takes Buffy a moment to understand why. Then she feels a stirring beside her as Spike rolls over groggily waking. She sits up in bed.

“Dawn…”

“Spike spent the night!” Dawn’s eyes are wide and her mouth hangs open.

“It’s not…”

“What’s wrong!” Angel’s voice calls as he pushes past Dawn to see into Buffy’s room. As soon as he sees Spike his eyes light up with rage.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Spike says as he finally gets out of bed.

“Spike, what are you doing here?” Angel asks holding himself back from charging the younger vamp.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but the lady asked me to stay.”

“You asked him to stay!” Dawn squeals excitedly. For the first time in a long time she’s starting to feel like she really has a family again and she’s overjoyed by the thought.

“Alright, everyone stop,” Buffy shouts. Her stomach feels queasy once again.

“I’ll believe that when I hear it from her,” Angel says as he gets up in Spike’s face who’s now standing just before the bed.

Buffy feels her stomach cramp up.

“Think you scare me?” Spike asks as he pushes Angel back a step. The older vamp growls in response.

“Hey!” Buffy shouts as she steps in between them. “The baby does not like fighting!”

That gets their attention.

“Buffy,” Angel says in a softer tone.

“I asked him to stay.” The room is silent for a moment. Everyone is staring at her. Dawn with glee, Angel with confusion and possibly regret, and Spike with awe. “I just… he came here late last night, and I couldn’t sleep… he just stayed next to me, to keep the baby calm so I could sleep… that’s all.”

“Right, that’s all,” Spike says partly in agreement and partly with hurt feelings.

“Why were you here at all last night, Spike?”

“Oh, right… there’s a reason for that actually.” Spike’s voice hits a tempo that suggests he’s just remembered why himself. “Seems we’ve got ourselves a bit of a problem kiddies… new bloke in town plotting all of our deaths, long face, rough beard, seems to know you by name.” Spike stares at Angel.

Angel’s face sobers and his mood grows serious.

--

“So this Holtz guy is some ancient vampire hunter out for revenge on you and Darla? What’s he want with me then?” Buffy asks.

She sits on the sofa with Spike across from her in the recliner, Angel broods in the adjacent recliner and Cordy stands behind him holding Connor.

“Way I heard it, he didn’t much care ‘bout you, ducks,” Spike says. “You were just the consolation prize; Angel here and his bitty bundle of joy are what he’s after.”

“I thought we were done with this guy after Darla dusted?” Cordy says, “wasn’t that his thing, to cause you pain like you caused him what with the killing of his family and all, Darla’s dead so… oh.” Cordelia’s eyes go wide in understanding.

“He wants Connor,” Angel says.

“He wants to take away the only thing that matters to you, make you suffer like he suffered,” Spike says, “told you those bleedin’ mind games you liked to play on your food would catch up to you eventually.”

“How dangerous is this guy?” Buffy asks. “I mean, he’s just a human right, no magical powers we have to worry about?”

“No, just vengeance, but he’s got help from a demon named Sahjihan,” Angel says and Buffy’s eyes light up. Something about that name is familiar to her. “What?”

--

Willow scans the passage again. Sitting at the dining room table with the translation on the prophecy that Giles sent her, she looks for the name that Angel had mentioned to Buffy. Tara sits at the table beside her holding her hand.

“Okay, here it is… Two champions, mates, shall be the bringers of the light in the era of great darkness and defeat the evil power… Sahjihan and his lord Ra-ga-nu-shahead… Sahjihan, that was the name yeah?”

“Well now we know why he’s helping Holtz,” Cordelia comments.

“Sahjihan just wants to get rid of the kiddies to save his own arse,” Spike says, “So why bring in another player then, seems sorta round-about what with Holtz’s main agenda being to take out Peaches an all.”

“Why not just go after Connor himself?” Buffy asks.

“He can’t,” Angel explains. “He’s non-corporeal… least at the present moment.”

“Kay, so I’ve got one baddie who I can’t touch cause he’s human, and another that I literally can’t touch,” Buffy says. “Great.”

Knock-less-ly the front door is opened and the occupants of the dining room turn to give their attention to the entranceway hearing the door swing on its hinges. Buffy walks into the doorway as Anya steps in followed by Xander wheeling something about waist height and covered in a white sheet.

“I come bearing gifts,” Xander says. He smiles seeing Buffy then frowns as he notices the meeting going on behind her. “Something up?”

“New info,” Buffy responds. “I’ll fill you in in a minute, you said something about gifts?”

“Ah, yeah, well it’s just a little something,” Xander says getting a little bashful, but the smile that crosses her face gives him confidence.

“Well lemme see already,” Buffy insists and Xander removes the sheet revealing a crib. The basket hangs from a support at each end which are set firmly into the base of the stand. As Xander pulls the sheet away the basket swings back and forth, and Buffy’s smile grows bright. She can tell he put a lot of work into this piece, carving a design into the frame and painting it white. It’s perfect.

“I know it’s just…”

“I love it,” Buffy says throwing herself around Xander and sufficiently silencing him.

“Good, I’m glad. Now what’s going on?”

--

The warehouse is dark with its painted out windows, but that’s fine with Holtz. He has enough light from the few industrial lights above that had yet to burn out for him to see the group of demons and vampires alike who have joined him. He smiles, stupid beasts, he thinks. Most of them will be killed, which is of no concern to him. All Holtz wants is to create enough chaos to allow him to get his hands on Angelus’s son, just like how the demon put his hands on his son and on his wife, and then he wants to make him watch as he kills the child. For a fraction of a second Holtz thinks about the monster he’s become to consider killing an infant. Yet this does not bother him as it should. No matter what Angelus has become, or even the innocence of his child, if such a demon spawn has innocence; the things he’s done cannot be forgiven; and so the sins of the father must be paid for in blood.

“I have given my word to show no mercy,” Holtz says to the crowd of rowdy demons, “all I ask of you is that you do the same.” The crowd sounds with a collaborative evil roar. “At sunset we shall attack, and we shall be ruthless, fight until they’re all dead.”

--

After Buffy explained that Holtz was the newest Big Bad after the babies the gang decided not to wait to take action. They’ve split up to search for where he’s holding up. With the sun high in the sky they feel reassured enough that Holtz won’t attack; least not until after sunset. They hope they can find his lair before then and prepare to either attack or at least be aware of where an attack would come from.

Xander and Anya walk through town on their way to check out Sunnydale’s warehouse district. Anya pulls her jacket tight around her feeling a chill to the air which seems out of place in the sunny afternoon and Xander wraps his arm around her.

“We should get her more gifts,” Anya says and Xander looks at her oddly.

“You do know that gifts cost money yes?”

“Yes, I know this; and babies are expensive, I’ve read up on the subject… and well, despite my love of money, and you, I like Buffy. And well, seeing as I’m not quite ready for procreation myself I’ve found myself wanting to buy… well baby things. They’re just so cute and small… I suppose I’d rather be buying them for me, but there is a general order to my life in which it would disrupt. Boyfriend, Sex, Money, Marriage and then babies, and it would be completely impractical to begin growing another being within me before the wedding, especially after all those dress fittings.”

Xander is quiet for a moment. He feels a sudden rush of fear and unease. Suddenly he’s bombarded with responsibility. He’s not just looking at a wedding, a fun party to celebrate his love for Anya but a marriage. A marriage which will incude making sure he can provide for her, where he’ll be a man, a husband; not just the cute boy she fell in love with who cracks jokes to ease the tension of tough situations and fought against the very thought of growing up. A marriage that will lead to babies, and a house, maybe a dog and a white picket fence. For a moment Xander wonders if he can do it. He wonders if he can give her the life she dreams about or if it’ll turn into the nightmare of what he remembers of his parent’s lives.

“Hey, you okay?” Anya asks.

“What, ah yeah, yeah I’m fine,” He says pulling her closer and chasing his thoughts away.

--

Tara walks into the bedroom to see Willow standing before their dresser. On one side she’s pulled out the ingredients for a locator spell, a map, few crystals, candles and sand. On the other side the drawer to her sensible clothes is open, and she holds in her hand one of the few t-shirts she owns designated ok to get bloody or full of vamp dust. Tara shuts the door behind her and Willow spins around realizing her presence.

“Oh, hi,” Willow babbles, “I um, I’ve just got to change my shirt and throw on a pair of sneakers and I’m ready to hit up the abandoned houses.”

Willow walks over to the closet in search of her shoes and Tara’s eyes bounce back between the red witch and the magic supplies she’s left on the dresser. Willow hasn’t done a spell in some time. Tara knows she still feels guilty over bringing Buffy back from the dead, but she feels as if there’s more to Willow’s resistance to do magic then she originally thought. She’s almost seemed to seek her approval before casting, which is very unlike Willow. She’d always been the confident one, not Tara, and the shift in her personality bothers the white witch.

“D-did you want to do a locator spell?” Tara asks.

“What? Um, no… no, I mean, if we can hoof it that’s better… right?” A flash of a memory of the dark power that’s been floating around since Buffy got pregnant enters Willow’s mind, the way it seemed to try and get inside her every time she did a spell.

“Willow,” Tara sighs. “You don’t need my approval to do spells, a locator spell wouldn’t have been a bad idea.”

“I know, I just,” Willow looks down at the sneakers in her hands, she doesn’t want to tell Tara how magic has made her feel lately, how it’s all felt more powerful, felt stronger. So instead she focuses on the other feelings that have been welling up inside her. “Bringing Buffy back from… it was the wrong decision, and you were right… whenever things get hard I turn to magic… I used to know that when I did magic it was to help people, but now, after Buffy… I just don’t know what’s right anymore, and then I wanted to fix it all with another spell and I didn’t even realize until you said something that I’d just be hurting her more.”

“It’s okay Willow, we all made a mistake bringing Buffy back, it wasn’t just you.”

“I know but, it doesn’t feel that way you know?” Willow’s eyes tear up as she tries to let some of her guilt go, and it does ease some as her girlfriend holds her close. What remains however is the fear that this dark magic is still out there trying to use her to get to her friend’s baby.





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