Disclaimer: I do not own of the characters of BtVS or AtS. This all just emulation, baby.

Author’s Note: Set after "Apocalypse, Nowish" on AtS and "Sleeper" on BtVS. If you don’t watch Angel, some event references might be confusing. Since this was done out of a writer’s block I had when trying to update my other story "Fortunate Son" I don’t know if I’ll continue this since I have an affinity for starting fics and not continuing them, but if I get enough reviews, I may consider continuing this. Also, I don’t have a beta reader. I’m far too lazy to deal with a beta. So some slight grammatical errors are inevitable. It shouldn’t damage the story that much, though

Summary: Fed up, Angel sends Conner to Sunnydale to reside with one of the people he trusts the most: Buffy. Unfortunately, casa Summers is already bustling with it’s own problems, the largest one being a soulful but wacked-out houseguest named Spike. Put the frazzled slayer, the brooding son of her former lover, the hallucinating vampire pawn of the Big Bad and all the other colorful locals of Sunnydale into one house and what do you get? Chaos is not a large enough word.

Rating: PG-13 for language and adult situations.

Pairings: B/S, D/C

*************************************************************

Prologue: Exiled From the City of Angels

Downtown Los Angeles was in ruins, but the rain of fire ceased; all that remained of the shower were smoking bits of earth where the flickering meteor-like streamers hit. The air was thick with the wailing noise of the people and sirens. But Angel didn’t notice any of it. All his yellow-glinted eyes could see was the bed in front of him where two writhing bodies grasped each other with dancer-like movements. The all-consuming apocalypse had nothing on him; the rage he felt inside could turn millions of cities asunder. He made a furtive step towards the two lovers and felt his face turn hard and bumpy as he continued to watch them move together, sighing small little moans to each other. But he willed his demon visage down and roughly threw a charred head at them.

They both looked up when they heard the thud upon the floor and stared down at head, barely indistinguishable from all its burns. One thing was clearly noticeable, though. Atop the demon’s decapitated head were horns. This was the end to the end that they feared.

Cordelia was the first to speak. She gathered the crumpled sheets around herself futilely, as if to cover up what she had done. "Oh God. Angel."

He stared at her, clenching his teeth. "It’s over. The world’s not ending," was all he said.

Conner looked up at his father and it was the first time Angel ever saw his son truly scared. Almost instinctively, he edged away from Cordelia in the bed. "How?"

Angel’s voice was unrelentingly stony. "Just something I remembered from Sunnydale. Remember the Judge, Cordy?"

Stiffly, she nodded. But the Judge was the last thing on everybody’s mind and they all knew it.

"Yeah, well it was the same deal. Rocket launcher, no weapons forged kind of thing. I thought of it, Wesley found it. And here you were all worried." He sounded less than reassuring.

Cordelia saw the yellow fire behind his eyes and knew what was coming. She got up and raised a passive hand. "Angel, before you start, wait, I can explain------"

"Cordy, can you leave us alone? I want to speak to my son now."

"Please, Angel," she implored him. "Listen to what I have to say first-----"

"I said leave!"

She had never heard him so angry. Casting an anxious glance at Conner, she wrapped the sheets around herself tighter and left the room. Conner sat upright and tried to feign sanctimonious indifference, but Angel could smell the fear on him. Sighing, Angel sat on the bed and stared at his son blankly.

"We didn’t mean for it to happen----" Conner started.

His father raised an eyebrow. "We?" He said the word like it was a barb to his tongue.

"You can’t say you’re angry about this," he replied with a rebellious scowl. "Cordelia said she didn’t want to be with you. She wanted to be with me. She made her choice."

Angel was silent, but nodded his head quietly. After a few moments, he finally spoke. "I want you gone Conner."

Conner had already put on his clothes and marched around the room self-righteously. "No. No, you can’t make me."

"Can’t make you? I’m your father."

"Like hell you are! You’re just some freak who's not even alive!"

"And you’re my son who dumped me in the ocean for three months." He sighed. "I love you Conner. You’re my son. I’ll always love you. But having you here is destroying yourself and destroying me. I want you out of my home, out of my city."

"Just because she wanted to be with me instead of you----"

"Conner." He didn’t alter in severity or intonation. He looked up at Conner and his son could tell he was as serious as a heart attack. "I want you gone," he repeated.

"I won’t go . . . You can’t make me leave. I’m eighteen. That means I’m an adult in this world. I can take care of myself."

"And how have you been taking care of yourself, Conner? Holing yourself in abandoned buildings or shelters? Creeping around Los Angeles, coming out only to slay at night? That’s no kind of life."

"But it’s my life!"

"You need family. The kind that obviously, I can’t provide."

"And where would you expect me to go?" he challenged.

Angel thought for a second. "Somewhere where you would have someone."

"I have people here. I don’t want to leave."

"You should," a soft voice pierced the tension in the room, and Conner turned to Cordelia, who stood in the door looking shrunken and white. "Your father’s right."

Conner stared at her, alarmed. "What?"

Still clutching the sheets like a Grecian dress, she neared Conner seriously. "It’s better this way, baby. Things have suddenly gotten a lot more confusing. I thought I knew what I was doing, but I realized this was a mistake. I didn’t want it to happen this way. I’m so sorry."

Conner felt lost and stung and lonely, the way he had the moment he first stepped out of the portal from Quartoth. "Don’t say that-----"

"She said it," Angel replied firmly. Cordy began to cry, but Angel tried to reach for Conner’s shoulder. He shook him off with fury.

"Don’t touch me," he spat. He turned back to Cordelia, his heart visibly shattered. "You really want me to leave?"

Cordelia hesitated as tears streamed down her face. With one kiss and one night, her life had suddenly gotten a lot messier. Maybe she was being selfish in thinking that having him gone would suddenly clean it up, but she still said it. "Yes."

He stared at her as if she had smacked him across the face. But he would never refuse to oblige her. So his overwhelming love turned to hate as he snarled:

"Fine."

TBC…..I should hope. I know it’s kind of short and a little undeveloped, but I’ll post the next chapter, which brings the story to Sunnydale. If I don’t get enough reviews by that time, I probably won’t continue. Not to say that’s a threat, lol. I just wanted to see if this kind of story would garner any interest.

************************************************

Chapter 1: Love's Lost Ones

He had been traveling for a long time without respite. His whole body felt tired and haggard under the weight of the voices, whispering and trickling into his ears in a chaotic race. They tore his head apart and left him screaming silently in pain.

And he was lonely. Despite the troops of people that constantly haunted and taunted him, he had no friend past self-loathing. He thought that when he had found the missing piece, he would suddenly fit. He would suddenly be worthy of love. If anything, it made him more unworthy.

He hugged the sheets around his bare chest and rocked in the bed, dampening his pillow with frustrated tears. "I'm sorry . . ." he croaked. "God, I'm so sorry." He didn't even know who he was talking to.

"Shhh." She shifted her weight in the bed beside him so that she was nestled into his back. Curling her arm around his shoulder, she smoothed his forehead comfortingly. "It's alright," she purred to him, stroking his bare arm lovingly. "I'm here with you."

He turned his tear-streaked face to her, drowning in the cascade of golden locks that framed her smile. "Are you really?" he asked, hesitating.

She leaned down and kissed him. "Of course I am, shagwit." She admonished his fear by wrinkling her nose.

A grin broke through the tears and he reached out to brush away her hair. "Shagwit?" he repeated, amused.

"What can I say? You're a bad influence. You've got me 'buggering' up the yin-yang."

He laughed softly. "Yeah, well give us another 'snog', then."

She chuckled cattily and pressed another soft kiss to his lips, settling herself more comfortably in his arms. He moaned as she pressed herself closer to his chest, suddenly raising herself above him so that she was staring down at him. Looking deeply into his stormy pacific-blue eyes, she swept away the hair from her neck and lowered it near to him. He wavered.

"What are you doing?"

She stared at him innocently. "What do you mean?"

"That . . ." His voice was uncontrollably shaky. "Y-your . . . your neck."

She gave him uncharacteristically snarkish grin. "Yeah?" She bared it to him more grandly, bowing her head out of the way to display the smooth golden vessel. "Isn't it what you want?"

"N-no . . . no . . . I don't want . . . I-I can't want . . ."

She roughly straddled him and grabbed him by the hair, dragging him up to her. She pushed his face into the crook of her neck, laughing again, but with a hint of something that filled him with dread.

"You know you want it."

He struggled to scramble out of her grasp, but the scent of her blood and her skin kept him chained. "No . . ." he pleaded. "Stop."

"Stop what? Stop what you've always dreamed of? You want it . . . I want it. Don't ever think that you're better than wanting this."

"Buffy, I love you----"

A guttural, menacingly laugh escaped her. "You don't know even know the word." She thrust him closer to her jugular. "Drink."

He hesitated, but gingerly inserted a fang, allowing a heady ruby-colored liquid to pool out onto his tongue.

"Yes," she hissed, closing her eyes and clinging onto him desperately.

His mind was screaming at him to stop, but he couldn't. He began to gulp in earnest now and blood streamed down her shoulder.

"Drink," she chanted again and again, in rhythm to his voracious gulps. "Drink, drink, drink, drink----"

"Drink!"

Spike jolted awake, gasping helplessly. He sat up and clutched the sheets around him to force himself out of the nightmare. Overcome with panicked breaths, he stared up at Buffy, who stood by his bedside, holding out a mug of blood with a frown. "I said here's your drink. Man, I leave you for a few minutes and another band of imaginary beasties come to plague you." She handed the mug to him indifferently.

"I . . . I dreamt I was here . . . with you." He awkwardly glanced down at the bed strewn with sheets and Buffy timidly turned red in response.

"The visions are getting pretty deceptive, aren't they?" she murmured quietly in response.

He was still shaking. "More than that . . . I dreamt . . . I dreamt I bit you."

She unconsciously backed away with him. She paused for a long time, what seemed like an eternity to Spike, then said, "But it was just a dream."

Quivering, he nodded unconvincingly. "Just a dream."

Another pause, but he looked up at her with lost, fragile eyes. She didn't know what to do, so she began to walk out of the room. "I've got to go downstairs."

"Wait!" He stood up, wrapping a sheet around his slender frame. "Don't go. Please. I'm still shaky from the . . . can't you . . . just sit here with me?"

It was such a heartbreaking plea. Conflicted, she stared at him. "I . . . I need to get things ready."

He furrowed his brows. "Get things ready for what?"

"A houseguest is coming over and we have to get ready." She paled and motioned towards the bed guiltily. "Which reminds me, we have to move you down to the basement. We'll be needing the guestroom for him."

Spike glanced around the room confoundedly. "A guest? Him? What are you runnin', a boarding house?"

"He's a friend of a friend," she explained. "And I'm really sorry that it's a little cramped here, but this all happened on kind of a short notice----"

"You're apologizing?" Spike said abruptly, so brusquely that it almost alarmed her.

"Well . . . yeah. I know it kind of sucks to be stuck in a dank basement that has a tendency to flood come every Thursday. I just want everyone to be comfortable-----"

"I'm a vampire, Buffy," he stated bluntly. "Making me comfortable shouldn't be your main priority right now."

Pause again, thick silence once more. "Yeah well, Xander's helping me set up the sofa bed downstairs. You remember it. From Xander's own days as a basement dweller?"

Before, he would have made a face and a cutting comment about how he didn't want to wallow in the whelp's old filth, but now, he just nodded passively. "Sounds fine."

There was something so despondent in his smirkless tone that made her want to cry. "I know this is weird----"

"It's not. It's not weird at all. I . . . I should be thanking you for taking me in like this . . . into your home . . . into your life." He emphasized the last word with a glimmer of hope.

It was too much to see him sitting there, staring up at her with such boyish love and adoration and expectation. So she curtly replied, "Yeah," and sped downstairs, leaving him alone once more.

**********************************************

"He wants to send who to the what-what?!"

Buffy sighed, shaking out the linen sheet. "Angel wants to send Conner here. His son."

Xander held his hands up dramatically. "First off, the whole 'Angel-having-a-son' thing? The question "How, in God's name, how" does not even begin to cover it. And second of all, why is he sending him here? And to stay with you? He thinks he can go off, have a fate-defying kid and proceed to dump him in your lap? Rat Bastard, thy name is Angel."

She gave him a reprimanding frown. "It's not that bad," she replied. "Angel is having some . . . problems with Conner and thinks Sunnydale would be a better environment for him."

"Yeah but isn't that a little . . . irresponsible? Okay, so kids are difficult, but you don't abandon them every time they have a temper tantrum."

She wagged an eyebrow at him. "He's not a kid, Xander."

"Oh that's right. With his father being dead for more than a century and all, you'd figure his genetics would be a little messed. So what is he? Two-headed monster? Bat-winged fang boy?"

"Close. Try an eighteen-year old teenager."

This was beyond Xander's comprehension. He summed up his response to the situation in three words: "Great Galloping Garfinkal."

"Yeah, that was basically how I reacted when Angel called. But he explained everything, not to mention why he thinks Conner should come here, and I agreed and thought it was a good idea."

"Good idea? Buffy, the Macerena seems like a good idea compared to this. You've already got a colorful amount of people residing in your home, why add the son of your former lover into the mix?"

Buffy smoothed the sheet and tucked into the sofa bed. She grew quiet and began to somberly pick at the printed purple heliotropes on the sheet. Spike once said heliotropes were his favorite flowers. He had mentioned about how his mother grew the prized flowers in their English garden long ago and had lavished more affection and attention on them then she had ever bestowed on her son. As a young boy, he often wished that he could be a heliotrope just to garner the same kind of consideration from his mother. When he repeated this to his father, he was severely beaten after being commanded, "No son of mine shall ever carry on such poofish tendencies." He loved the flowers anyway.

At the time when he told her, she had no patience for any reminiscing he had about his previous life. There was to be no speaking involved in their interaction, just aggressive violence and cathartic sex. But now she remembered. She remembered like never before. And it made her think of the way he had looked at her, earlier in his bedroom, all broken and tired and loving at the same time. And it made her compassionate in a way she had been lacking.

"Because he's lost, Xander. And I want to help find him."

And she wasn't sure if she was talking about Spike or Conner, but she knew she meant it.

Chapter 2: New Home, Same Place

He left, not with the roar they expected, but a silent scowl. It left them confounded and mystified.

They were gathered at the bus depot, awkwardly sending him off. He glowered at them wordlessly and boarded the Greyhound.

"I don't understand this at all," Fred whispered to Gunn as the bus waited to depart. "Why is he leaving?"

Gunn shook his head blankly. "My question is more like 'how?' I mean, this is Conner we're talking about. Punk-ass kid who lied to the people who took care of him for months. Boy who dumped his daddy ten fathoms under. Didn't expect him to leave without a fight. He's getting exiled and doesn't even flinch that ticky staking hand of his."

"He's a good kid," Angel suddenly defended grimly. "This isn't about exile. This is for his own good."

Wesley shrugged dubiously. "I understand that Angel, but Sunnydale? The universe's hot-spot for mystical convergence isn't exactly conducive to anyone's "own good"."

Angel sighed. "I know Sunnydale isn't very normal. Hell, there are mental institutions more normal than Sunnydale. But I know he'll be safe there. He'll be protected. Most of all, he'll be with people I trust." He stared intensely at Cordelia, who merely gazed at the ground with noticeable guilt.

Fred still frowned. "That doesn't explain why he's going. O-or like Gunn said, how . . . voluntarily."

"He's leaving because he's in love with me. That's why he's doing it. That's why he's not fighting for it. Because he knows I want him to leave." Cordy paled and her voice wavered uncontrollably. Angel clenched his teeth and said nothing.

Fred, Wesley and Gunn all exchanged curious glances, but remained silent. Cordelia edged up to the bus and tapped on Conner's window. He glowered down at her, but finally opened it.

"What?"

She held up a piece of paper. "Read it. It's a letter I wanted to give to you before you left. I know I'm a coward for not being able to say this to you face-to-face, but it's easier this way."

He took it from her, already knowing its contents. The paper seemed to sting his fingers to the quick. He put it into his pocket. When he looked down, she was holding out her hand. He was reluctant to take it, but he did. She was crying while she kissed his hand, pressing her lips to his skin. He felt like he would never be able to forget how soft her lips were.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, pressing the hand to her face.

He wanted to yank his hand back hatefully to slap her or strangle her or grab her onto the bus so that they could ride away together. But he couldn't. He just let her grasp it, wetting it with her tears. "That's okay," was all he could say.

She let him go and backed away, eyes filled with a mixture of regret, relief and guilt. His father took her place, approaching him. Conner let himself harden with loathing.

"I love you," Angel said.

"I hate you," Conner replied coldly.

His father sighed. "I know you think you do. But you'll thank me one day, believe me. I'm doing this for you, so that you can have a good life. Son----"

With the last little word, he slammed the window closed roughly and turned away from them.

*************************************************

He read it ten times over during the three-hour ride. At first, he took it out of his pocket with the intention of ripping it into a million pieces, but he read it instead. Almost compulsively, he read it three more times in succession before stuffing it back into his bag. He would wait awhile, then draw it back out, hesitate, put it back, take it out again, then read it. That was the pattern of the trip. Now, it was his eleventh time reading it, but he didn't feel any better about the words on the page.

He held it with a steady hand, but inside he was quaking with quiet fury and resentment. How dare she presume to know how he felt? How could she say that what he felt for her wasn't real? The parental attitude she assumed while telling him he didn't love her just made him rebelliously affirm that he did. He would love her until the day he died and nothing would change that. Not his father, not this Buffy, not Sunnydale, nothing.

He crumpled up the sheet and threw it out the window. The brightly painted sign emblazoned with the message "Welcome to Sunnydale" sped past the window, but he stared blankly at it. He didn't care if he was welcome at all.

***************************************************

"Welcome!"

The skinny blonde girl held the door open with a plasticine smile. He looked her up and down suspiciously and concluded that she must have been The Buffy everyone was talking about. He was surprised with her. Here was the world-renowned slayer and she was as scrawny as Fred. She was pretty, though, in a generic way. She looked like many of the sunny, tanned waifs he had seen in Los Angeles. He wasn't that impressed.

He considered his words carefully, never altering his frown. Standing awkwardly in the door, he shuffled about and finally replied with a, "Hey."

Buffy fidgeted about and looked a little lost as she gazed up at the lanky, brooding teen. Like father like son. "Well . . . umm . . . come in!" She rushed him through the door.

He entered cautiously with light steps, as if he was entering a vampire's nest. He studied everything with a hunter's critical eye. The house was friendly and warm: a stark contrast to the Hyperion's massive roominess and cold, hotel halls. In the living room, four people stared at him with rabid interest, leaning forward as if they were gawking at a museum exhibit.

"Hi!" A short-haired brunette piped up loudly.

"Hi!" A taller brunette echoed.

"Hi!" A redhead agreed.

"Hi!" A brown-haired man concluded. They all sounded rushed and forced somehow and Conner decided that Sunnydale residents were insane.

Buffy gave an uneasy little laugh. "Okay so nothing will ever top that mind-blowing introduction, but I guess I should expound." She pointed at them respectively. "Conner, this is Anya, Dawn, Willow and Xander. Guys, this is Conner." They all opened their mouths to render a familiar response, but Buffy quickly cut in, "Yeah, I think we already covered the 'hi' business."

"Nice to meet you," Xander said, holding out his hand for a shake. Conner just glanced at it and glanced away. Brushed off, Xander made a miffed face at Willow. Nervous, Willow took initiative and put a friendly hand on Conner's shoulder.

"Glad to have you here, Conner." She smiled a little falteringly and waggled her head, reminding him of Fred. In fact, they all seemed to be a variation on the same people. Xander had the same thick, domineering air of Gunn, Willow, the agitated brainniness of Fred, Buffy, the stoic, superior-like resolution of Angel.

"Yes, I'm sure Buffy is ecstatic to house yet another other-worldly oddfellow in her humble abode whose mortgage is fast exceeding her income range," voiced Anya. She must have been the strange one, like Lorne.

Dawn approached him, holding up her hand, then bringing it down when she remembered he obviously didn't do that. "Ummm . . . hey. Didn't know you were staying here till a few hours ago since certain pain-in-the-ass sisters"-----Pointed glance at Buffy here----"Refuse to tell anybody anything ever."

Conner inspected Dawn closely. She was clearly very attractive like her sister, but in a different way. He got the sense that she didn't fit as easily as the rest of these people. He didn't know what it was, but he didn't bother trying to figure it out. It was probably because she was just a kid among adults.

"Where's my room?" he asked flatly, forgoing any response to the warm introductions.

Buffy exchanged anxious looks with everyone and led him to the stairs. "Here, I'll show you."

He picked up his bag and followed her up the stairs and down the hall. On the way, Buffy bumped into a very blonde, skinny man coming out of a bedroom. He clearly jumped when making contact with Buffy. Buffy looked similarly on edge.

"Oh, Spike . . . sorry. Umm, the . . . basement is ready for you." Conner noticed how thick the air became amongst the two, something chemical. He was a lot more perceptive than people thought.

"Right . . . well." The hall was crowded, so touching her to get by was inevitable. Spike gave her a lingering look that she quickly blushed and shrugged out of. He rushed by, but was momentarily blocked by Conner, who scrutinized him carefully. He frowned and quickly galloped down the stairs.

Conner stared after him and back at Buffy. She seemed restless and preoccupied. She opened the door quietly and he went into it without a word, throwing his bag carelessly onto the bed. She wavered by the door.

"If you need anything, just call me from downstairs. I'll let you get adjusted to the room."

He didn't know what to say so he nodded, closing the door after her. Alone, he collapsed onto his full bed and gazed around at his new surroundings. And he thought about what they meant.

The house was warm and light, not like Hyperion at all, but one thing was the same. It was a house of secrets. He already knew what that was like. And though he didn't like it, at least he knew what he was in for.

TBC…….

*************************************

Chapter 3: Discoveries

He didn't trust him. There was something dark and sharp and foreboding about him evocative of . . . who? He couldn't place his finger on it. But he could tell it was someone he didn't particularly like.

He sighed and lounged back onto the droopy sofa couch, pulling the smoking fag out of his mouth. Immersed in the pillows, he sniffed the sheets carefully. Didn't reek of Harris. That was a good thing.

He thought more about this kid. Why had Buffy brought him in? What was he doing here? He knew it wasn't his place to ask questions, but he was living here now. If this new housemate was a homicidal, Mary Jane-smoking, drugged-up juvenile delinquent, he had a right to know, didn't he?

"What makes you think you have any rights?" A measured voice broke through the quiet of the basement and the whirring of the washing machine. He looked up, startled and gazed around the room. She stepped out of the shadows. He groaned when she smiled and threw her head back, sending raven-black hair sprawling across her thin shoulder.

"You're not here," he growled.

She laughed liltingly, sending shivers up his spine. "Aren't I? It'd make more sense for me to be here than you."

"You've never made sense."

"You're right. Never was one for a linear train of thought. But I always saw things, William. I've always seen things for what they really are. And I see what you really are."

She approached him and sat seated on the bed, bringing a deathly white hand to his forehead. It was deceptively soft, but he refused to lean into it.

"Go away," he whispered futilely.

"My poor, poor William," she murmured in a more recognizably childish manner. "What have they done to you? They've caged my pretty, pretty boy and thrown away the key."

He turned away from her. "I've done it to myself. You remember. You were there with me."

She nodded solemnly. "All those years, you were my golden boy. You were a free bird, soaring on the wings of your own imagination."

He snorted. "Imagination? Is that what they're calling callous murder and bloodshed nowadays?"

"It was what you were born to do."

He gazed vacuously into his hands. "Born to be a monster?"

She shook her head and cupped his face in your hands. "Ah, ah, ah, brooding does not suit my boy. I've already got a daddy for that."

He batted her hand away and spat hatefully. "Stop calling me your 'boy'. That's not what I am anymore."

She plumped her lower lip up, almost in a sad pout. "That's right. You’re hers, now. The one she never wanted, but hers nonetheless."

He was too tired to argue. "She has nothing to do with this."

She chortled low and mockingly. "Oh my pet," she gasped through laughter. "She always does." She moved across the room, her long burgundy skirts swishing like the sound of the laundry. "Don't tell me that deep down, you aren't more than hopeful that your being here means something."

He was silent.

"You think if you play the part of sad, sniveling dog, holed-up in the decaying heart of her basement, you'd win her back. That if you try to find the spark, the light, you could dance with her in the sun." Her face suddenly twisted into a scornful scowl. "You aren't worth her dirt. You belong in the darkness with me."

He ground his hands to his ears. "No."

She grabbed his hands loose and shouted in his ear. "Always in the darkness with me, William. Puppy can't run, can't hide. Might as well bite and bark the way he was meant to." She let her cold, lifeless lips trail down his neck. "May as well kill."

He got up with frustration. "That's it," he decided firmly. "It's been neat talking you, Halluco-Dru, but the fun's over. Retreat back into whatever insane recess of my mind you marched out of." He went upstairs to get a blood pack.

He marched into the kitchen, shaking. It seemed like the voices and visions and people were with him all the time now. Only time they let him be was when the blood was filling the back of his throat. They never bothered him because then because that's what they wanted. They demanded blood.

Warily, he put the blood Buffy had brought home from the butcher into the microwave. It was hard being here. A year ago, he would have rejoiced at the opportunity to live in the same house with the slayer, waking up to smell her scent in the air every morning, but now he hated it. Being here and so close to her reminded him of what he was and what he had done---not only to her, but also to the millions of innocents throughout the years. It was like a prison of constant guilt and loathing. But he didn't have anywhere else to go.

"I don't like him being here," he heard Xander say from the living room. He stopped and stiffened, aware that they were talking about him. He wanted to awkwardly withdraw back to the basement, but he didn't want to make a sound while doing it. He didn't want to listen and he didn't want them to know he was listening. But at the same time, he couldn't help himself. So he stood silently with his ears perched.

"I know it's a uncomfortable situation, but we all have to make sacrifices sometimes," Buffy replied. He stilled and wondered how she could feel that way. Why should she make the sacrifice for him? What had he ever done to her, except cause her pain? He shrunk at her compassion.

"But why for him?" Xander said again, as if line with his own thoughts. "He doesn't exactly deserve the whole "getting by with a little help from his friends" riff."

"You don't know that!" Buffy objected, more hotly than he would have expected.

"You said he was dangerous."

"That's what they told me. But others told me different. There are always two sides to a story, Xander."

Still listening from the kitchen, he wasn't following. Who were they? And who were others? And why were they talking about him? This wasn't right.

"How could we know if he was dangerous?" Willow softly interjected. "We don't even know him." Didn't even know him? He grew sad with this remark somehow. You spend five years attempting to kill and work together with people and they say they don't know you. Red, of all people should know him. He thought he learned a lot about her that one night they had spent together with Xander in the abandoned old factory. Of course that was a long time ago. He was different now . . . wasn't he?

"I don't want him here, either," Dawn stated grimly as well, and the words blunted him on the head. They could call him evil, depraved, sick and twisted, but one disparaging word from the Nibblet's mouth and he was crestfallen. He had never shown how deeply her hostile reaction to his being back affected him, but it did. He remembered how much she adored him and trusted him as a soulless monster. Now that he was repentant and sorry, she couldn't stand to be in the same room with him. It twisted his guts inside painfully.

He heard Buffy sigh. "Dawn, you know this is complicated. We can't refuse to have him here. He's just a kid."

Hearing that, he almost breathed a sigh of relief. So they hadn't been talking about him after all. They were talking about that boy and . . . wait? Did they day dangerous?

"But he isn't 'just a kid', Buffy," Xander pointed. "He's Angel's kid."

He had been taking the mug of blood out of the microwave when he heard that and promptly dropped it in response. He stared down at the spilled blood in shock, and then back up at Buffy, who had walked into the kitchen and stood in door. She sighed at the broken mug and the blood on the floor before looking up at him.

"Spike. How much of that did you hear?" she said, beginning to pick the pieces of porcelain out of the blood.

He swallowed hard and shook his head in disbelief. "Enough," he murmured.

"So now you know. Conner is Angel's son."

He didn't say anything. The questions were too numerous to properly convey at the moment, so he just absently dipped his finger in some of the blood spilled on the counter and sucked it into his mouth. In less than a second, he had a young, fuming teenager on top of him, trapping him in between the fridge and a stake. He gazed up in confusion at Conner, whose eyes flickered with raging fire. He bore down the point of the stake into Spike's chest and yelled, "Vampire!"

TBC……………