Rating- R for swearing
Warning- clearly, this is in fact slash. Some angst this chapter. '
Disclaimer: I don't own Jack. I do however own Jack's brother Dave. . . I bought Pop-Tarts from a vending machine today, so yes, I own Pop-Tarts. I don't own Early One Morning, I do have it on cd, though. But EOM is a folk song. . . so no one owns it. This goes outside of Cannon as Crush ended differently in my mind he did stake Dru. Also in my world Cordy and Conner never slept together, so the evil never manifested as Jasmine, therefore Wolfram and Hart never gave Angel the business, Lilah never died, and Cordy isn't in a coma. Any other changes are explained directly in the text.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Angel had gone to wash his poncy hair. The offer to join him had been extended to me. I declined knowing damn well that a shower with him meant a shower. It would be good clean fun. Boring bastard.
While I waited for my Pop-Tarts to pop I considered sitting. Wisely I decided sitting would be far too painful to counteract my tired feet. A young man walked in and pulled a juice box out of the fridge without addressing me. When he finally turned to me he said, "So who the hell are you?"
"Who the fuck are *you*?" I said in a bored voice, "Look, Angel's given you all the day off. Go home."
"I am home. Angel's my father."
"Bullshit. Get out before I make you get out." I said my voice filled with cold anger. The boy wasn't human but I couldn't figure out what he was.
"Why don't you think I'm his son?" he asked looking bewildered.
I couldn't help but laugh. "Do your research, child, I don't believe you for two reasons. One, Because I *am* his son. And two he's a vampire while you're. . . not."
"You're his son?"
"His childe. Now again I ask: who the hell are you?"
"The law firm Wolfram and Hart brought my mother, Darla, back to unlife. She seduced Dad in his sleep and nine months later I was born and she was dead. . . er. You're Spike right? I'm Conner."
"Bullshit," I repeated. My Pop-Tarts popped and grabbing them I proceeded to run up four flights of stairs. Wrenching open the shower door I said, "You won't lose yer because ya love me too much?" Wet Angel nodded, the perfect picture of confusion. "So then how in bloody hell is there a whelp down there claiming to be your and Darla's son? If that's true why do you still have your fecking soul?"
"It was a spell, I was under a sleeping/seduction spell," he said softly.
I shook my head slowly and slammed the door so hard that the glass shattered. Dazed he stood watching me with his mouth open. I shook my head again and threw one of my Pop-Tarts at him. The gesture made me laugh through my tears and quaking. "You bastard," I whispered and marched off. Looking back I screamed, "Lying bastard!" I bump into the boy. "Out of the way, Little Brother," I said softly while trying not to misplace my anger. And then I kissed his forehead. "It's nice that you don't look like your mother," I said puling him into a hug. Then I marched into Angel's bedroom and slammed the door behind me.
Quietly the door opened and shut. Angel crawled behind me. I didn't look at him. I just cried. I am such a little queen. "I'm sorry, baby," he said softly, "I didn't even think. It was a spell, a bad spell. But I can't regret it and wish it didn't happen. Outside of finding you, Conner is the best thing that ever happened to me.
"Why is he so old?" I asked with a harsh sniff, while scrubbing my eyes. When the hell was I going to get a rein on my emotions? Why had dieing caused me to become such a woss?
"Remember Holtz? That puritan who's family we slaughtered? He had himself frozen in time to seek revenge and he stole Conner from the office and brought him to a hell dimension for the equivalent of fifteen years. It was about a week of our time. Then we found a portal in and got him back. I killed Holtz, that bastard stole my baby. He's only been home for six months. So much time has been lost. He's the only person I've failed half as much as I've failed you."
"Oh, Lee, I'm sorry, but I can fix this. There's a spell. He'll be sent back in time to the hour after he was babynapped and when he gets as old as he is now, his regain his memories of Holtz."
"Yeah?" he asked with a light in his eyes. "He's so *so* hurt that I lost that time. He wouldn't stop crying for a week after he came home. He wanted a childhood."
"I can give him that." I said feeling more confidant than I had in years. I had always been so good at spells, especially cut and dry ones like this. I have never had much self-discipline when it came to sitting still over texts for hours on end, I had done too much of that in life to continue in my death. For instance, Buffy was really shocked to learn I could read. Now as it is, I like reading I just never get a chance to sit down quietly without getting the itch to do something else.
"Can we go talk to him?" asked Angel somewhat nervously.
"Of course. Commo, let's go find Little Brother."
~~~*~~~
"You can do that?" he asked, looking happier than he had in all the months since he'd been home. Spike nodded at the boy, he looked so thrilled to be helping. "Do I have to get the memories back? I really don't want to remember."
I couldn't answer, I felt my throat close at the words falling out of my human *child's* mouth. Spike sighed as he pushed the hair out of Conner's face. "You might be more philosophical once you get some happy memories to offset the bad ones."
"I'm too old to be fifteen," he said with an edge of anger.
"If it's all too much to handle when you get them back, I have an agate stone that would let us wipe them away. Ok?"
Conner nodded and then lunged forward to give Spike a tight hug. "Thank you for this."
"It's nothin, Little Brother. Don't worry about it. We're going to get this sorted. Say hello to the joys of family. Dad got you back and now I'll fix this. It's just my flamboyant way of making an introduction."
I smiled at my two boys. It was like a dream. They were sitting together and talking Conner with his head resting on his knees and Spike fidgeting as always. I watched as Spike ran his fingers through Conner's hair.
An hour and a half later I was holding my baby son in my arms again. Spike looked over my shoulder. Smiling he said, "Cute little bugger. I think he's gonna be happy here. It's a bleeding shame you destroyed the Gem of Amara."
"Yeah, I *destroyed* it," I said sarcastically and pulled it out of my back pocket. "I just had to make everyone else and you think it was gone. You would have ended up hurting yourself with it as I wouldn't have been there to slap your wrist every now and then."
Staring at it he swallowed hard. "You can take the baby out."
"Yes, *we* can."
"What?"
"I can split it in half. . . well I can't, but a jeweler can. I had Wesley look it up ad infinitum: it'll still work."
"Really?"
"Yes, Will."
"Wow. So I guess we're a family."
"We always were, we were just spread out. Now it's just the way it should have been. I have my childe and my son all back in place. Christ, I'm amazing I still have my soul." We laughed. He handed me the gem and I gave the baby over to him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him smile at himself. "What?" I asked.
"I think I might actually love the little blighter."
"Yeah," I said sighing, "he does that. I can't believe you did this. It's amazing. I don't know how to thank you."
"You don't have to. I didn't do this for you, Sire. I did it for a sad little boy."
"He hated me at first. For failing to protect him, he hated me."
"Liam, I'm so sorry, luv."
"We're gonna make it up to him though. . . right?"
"Of course, it's all sunny days and picnics from here on out. And then in 15 years and 37 days he'll get all of his memories back and make a good guest at a diner party," said Spike deftly holding the baby in one arm while putting Pop-Tarts into the toaster and turning on the Kettle. Smiling he looked down at Conner as he started to sing, "Early one morning just as the sun was rising, I came upon a young man in the valley below. 'Oh don't deceive me oh never leave me.' How could Holtz use a poor baby so?"