Chapter Five: Discovering New Aspects, pt 2

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Willow’s forehead wrinkled. "Wha-? Buffy, how do you know? Did he tell you?"

Buffy shook her head. "No. I just...I looked into his eyes and knew"

"How?"

Buffy looked down at her hands. "Angel had that look...when he came back from Hell"

Giles, sitting next to Willow on the couch, sucked in a breath. "So, Spike has a soul"

Buffy nodded.

"Well...then I must say, it’s a good thing that Angel’s coming. I don’t think...none of us is really equipped to deal with this. Not really"

Willow’s eyes got big. "Angel’s coming?" Her voice was a squeak.

"Yeah. The whole LA crew is, in fact" Buffy’s face lit up. "And Angel said he might stay"

"Buffy that’s great!" The redhead smiled, then frowned almost immediately. "But, why are they coming in the first place?"

Giles took Willow’s hand and began rubbing his thumb up and down her palm. "We thought he might be able to...help you"

Willow looked down, but nodded.

"And, he’s bringing his son!" Buffy’s voice was a chirp.

"Son??"

**

Giles looked around his apartment and couldn’t help but smile. All that time in England had basically taught him one thing. It wasn’t home. Not anymore.

Sunnydale was home.

He pulled out the few suitcases he’d left at the apartment just in case, made a mental note to have the rest of his things shipped back in the morning and, grabbing the first aid kit, a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, he headed for the bathroom to deal with his wounds.

The minute he was in the small bathroom, the Watcher carefully stripped off his nice button down shirt and made a face at it. He hadn’t changed shirts since leaving the hospital that morning, and with all the blood that had seeped through, the shirt was a goner. Giles threw it in the general direction of the trash and turned on the water.

He opened the first aid kit and stripped the bandages off himself one by one. Only when they were all off did he look down at his chest to asses the wounds.

Giles stared down for a minute, then stepped back and stared at himself in the mirror. He ran a hand over the largest wound on his chest.

That morning, it was a deep gash, bloody and painful. Now, it was barely a scratch, healed over and almost invisible.

It wouldn’t even scar.

Something was going on.

**

"Ok, so, go through this again, please"

Angel sat down and ran a hand over his face. "Again? Gunn, where did I lose you?"

"I just don’t understand why we want to help this girl. I mean...she tried to end the world, apparently, so.."

"She’s Willow" Cordelia met Angel’s eyes and Wesley covered her hand with his own. "She’s...you have no idea how...god, she must have been so hurt" Cordelia managed to bite back the sob, but the tears started falling on their own for the girl who’d become so close to her over the last few years.

"Cordy.." Gunn’s eyes widened as he watched her cry. "It just, it doesn’t make any *sense*, guys! She.."

"She broke" Wesley smiled wryly. "And to be honest, I’m surprised it took so long. Willow is one of the sweetest people on earth. She’s kind, loving, and, lord help us, perky. On the Hellmouth, no less. And she’s been fighting by the Slayer’s side since her sophomore year of high school. She’s made it through a lot, but I’m really not surprised that losing her lover so soon after their reconciliation, and while she was on magik withdrawal, would send her over the edge. It’s really...well, it’s really rather remarkable that Xander reached her at all...but then, this *is* Willow. The Scoobies" Wesley flashed another rueful smile. "Where any other person would lose complete control, somehow, the Scoobies always pull through" He squeezed Cordelia’s hand for emphasis and she smiled at him, drying her eyes with her free hand.

Gunn sighed. "Well, I still don’t get it, but where you go, I go. Family, right?"

Cordy nodded. "And they’re the relatives you never meet until after the wedding, but love immediately" She grinned at his doubtful expression. "Trust me. If you love us, you’ll love them. And you and Xander have the same sense of humor"

"You’ll understand when we’ve been there a few days. I promise"

Gunn looked at Angel and after a minute he nodded. Fred, who’d been quiet through most of the conversation, raised her hand.

"Umm...how long will we be there?"

Angel cleared his throat. "See, that’s the thing. It won’t be fast...but even when I’m done.."

Cordelia smiled. "You’re probably going to stay"

"What?" Gunn stood up and crossed his arms, facing the Vampire. "Ok, what?"

"It does make sense" Wesley shrugged at Gunn who just stared. "Well, it does. Angel has a son. Buffy is in Sunnydale. She’s the only person I know of that Angel would ever think of raising his son with...in fact.." He turned to Angel. "Didn’t you leave her so she could be a mother, and you couldn’t give that to her?"

Angel nodded. "But that isn’t why I might stay"

"Then why?"

The vampire turned to Fred and smiled. "She asked me to"

**

"Ok, what do you mean, it’s healed? Not to dwell, but last night, Willow beat you to a bloody pulp. And I saw you after. You weren’t even walking well. We’re lucky you didn’t get another concussion"

"Ha bloody ha. I mean, it’s healed" Giles frowned at himself in the mirror and continued to speak into the phone. "Completely. It’ll be gone tomorrow. You’ll never know it even happened"

Lying on her bed at home, Buffy frowned at her speaker phone. "Could it be because Willow hurt you with magiks? Or, it could be all that power you ‘borrowed’. The magiks in your system might have left...I don’t know, some kind of residue that’s healing you?"

Giles shook his head, then remembered that she couldn’t see him. "No...I do still have power, but I can feel it. It’s my own...I didn’t want to risk using mine last night, because I didn’t want her to steal *those*, but the others. No, this isn’t outside magiks of any kind...but.."

Buffy waited a beat after he trailed off to prod. "But?"

"But I feel stronger, somehow. After I....after we hugged this afternoon, I felt something. A...a jolt of some kind"

Buffy frowned again. "So did I. Like...like when you said you’d stay, and I hugged you, we...did something"

"Somthing like a spell, yes. I’m not sure. But I started to feel the effects immediately"

"Ok...so, what now?"

"Well, the LA contingency should be here tomorrow night...I suppose Angel might have heard of something like this before. Until then.."

They spoke together. "Research"

Buffy giggled. "I missed you a lot, you know that? More that I can even say. You don’t leave again, you hear me, Watcher-man?"

Giles smiled down at the sink as he cradled the phone. "I hear you, Slayer-girl"

Chapter Six: The Gathering...

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"Ok, this is where you guys are from? I mean, this is it? The great Hellmouth?" Gunn peered out the windshield of his truck and shook his head. "Man, this just looks like a small town to me"

Wesley snorted. "Yes, and LA is the ‘City Of Angels’, isn’t it?"

Gunn nodded. "Ok, you got me there"

Wesley looked out the side of the truck and pointed. "Turn here" Gunn turned. "And please remember that *I* did not ‘come from’ Sunnydale, as you so put it. I came from England. Really, only Cordelia comes from here. Angel is originally from Ireland"

Gunn nodded as he maneuvered through the quiet neighborhood and the mansions they passed got bigger and bigger. "Ok, but it’s changed you. I mean, you might as *well* be from here by the way you act...both of you"

Wesley raised an eyebrow. "Yes, yes I suppose that’s true. But then, it is a Hellmouth" He gave a fond smile. "And it’s more the gang that changed me, rather than the place" He looked out the window. "You turn again up there"

**

"Damn!" Gunn dropped his bag in the front hall of the mansion and looked around. "I mean...damn! That guy always have places like this?"

Wesley raised an eyebrow and nodded. "Yes, actually, I think he does. I’m also sure he has money we don’t know about" He flashed a smile at Gunn. "We only know of what the business brings in, but he *has* been around for several centuries. No matter what Cordelia says, the man has other assets"

Gunn gave him a look.

"Dear god! That is *not* what I meant!"

Gunn grinned. "Just checking"

The door slammed and Angel came in, with Cordelia and Fred behind him. Gru hadn’t come, having decided to go back to Pylea and try again...again. Cordy was taking it better than expected and Gunn had hypothesized that the ‘bedroom experience’ hadn’t been all it’d promised.

A few of the windows opened, and so did the two large doors leading out to the garden, but when the fireplace lit on it’s own, Cordelia’d had enough.

"Dennis! Stop it already! We aren’t crippled"

The fireplace went out again and her bag lifted and dropped.

"Oh" Cordy turned to Angel. "He wants to know where to put my bag"

Angel smiled and Gunn shook his head. "Wow. So, now that he’s attached to you, he’s just gonna be your...what, hand maid?"

A lamp knocked over and the bulb broke.

"Sorry, man. Didn’t mean it how you took it"

The lamp stood back up. Angel chuckled and pointed towards the stairway. "The room at the top of the stairs, to your left. It was Spike’s, so you should love it" At Cordelia’s look he shrugged. "The guy has taste. He’s passed himself off as an interior decorator more than once...I think it’s how he was raised. All women, no father"

She shrugged back at him and turned to the bag. "You heard him, Dennis" The bag lifted and headed up the stairs. She turned back to Angel. "So? Come on! I want to see the gang!"

The vampire headed to the cooler he’d dropped by the door and nodded. "Ok, just let me feed Connor"

**

"Hey, how you doing?" Buffy and the gang were sitting in her living room waiting for the LA group to show. Spike had just come up from the basement, and she raked her eyes over him to check for wounds, just in case he’d gone self destructive, but found none.

"Honestly? Other than a lot of guilt, the same. Why is that, by the way?" He flopped down next to Giles and looked at him sharply.

The watcher frowned but nodded. "I suspected, yes" He looked up and noticed everyone’s stares on him. He shrugged. "Well, Spike was never exactly a normal soulless vampire. He loved...both Drusilla and Buffy. I’ve been reading up on it all day, just to be sure, and found that some vampires, when changed, retain some small pieces of their souls. Not enough to affect them being evil, not basically, but enough to change how they feel and react to the world around them" He turned to the blonde vampire next to him.

"You loved, and cared. So, you obviously had enough of your soul that human emotion was there...and your soul was already attached enough that when it was returned to you, you retained the same personality. All that was added, really, was the human conscience, and you even seemed to already have some of that before. At least...you displayed the symptoms. Helping Buffy save the world for example. Even when you didn’t have feelings for her"

Spike nodded. "So, I’m still me, really"

"Yes"

"Ok. Was wondering’ why I still felt the same" He shrugged. "So, it’s really just the guilt, which, today, doesn’t seem as bad" He smiled at Buffy. "Maybe it’s the effect of friends"

Buffy smiled. "Maybe"

Someone knocked at the door. Willow’s eyes lit up and Dawn practically bounced in her seat.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Hey Dawn, wanna get the door?"

The teenager was gone in an instant.

Chapter Seven: Questions and Answers

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Angel stared at Giles chest and then back at his face. "And this was *how* bad yesterday?"

Giles buttoned his shirt up and caught the Vampire’s eye. They were in Willow’s room so Angel could look at the watcher’s wounds, but they were nothing but light scars now.

"It was as bad, if not worse than what Angelus did. Yesterday morning"

Angel barely cringed at the reference, still puzzling over the current problem. "Ok, so you’re healing like a Slayer"

"Yes, and I apparently have added strength" Angel raised his eyebrows and Giles shrugged. "Either that or the weight lifting paid off beyond my wildest dreams, but I doubt any amount of working out would allow me to accidentally shatter a coffee mug when I swear I was barely holding it"

The vampire shook his head. "No, that’s Slayer strength...or vampire strength" He looked at Giles who shook his head.

"I’m not a hybrid, I haven’t been bitten. I checked"

"It doesn’t have to be in the neck"

"Anywhere. At all. I checked"

Angel nodded. "Ok...well, I have no idea, but I suppose there’s a reference somewhere"

Giles nodded. "I suppose we’d better start researching. We would have today, but Buffy wanted to quit her job, so we were looking for other options for employment" He smiled. "Turns out that she’s fully qualified to teach kick-boxing at the Judo studio on Main. She starts Monday"

Angel smirked. "Really? A Slayer is qualified to teach fighting? I’m shocked"

"Yes, well, Buffy literally banged her head against the wall when she realized that it hadn’t occurred to her before. Then she called Double Meat Palace and quit. The studio is willing to start her at a salary almost five times what she made at the Palace" Giles shook his head. "She was *flipping burgers*! Of all the things.."

Angel’s eyes darkened. If he had *anything* to do with it, his wife would never be in that position again.

Of course, he might want to mention to her at some point that they’re married...

**

Meanwhile, Buffy was cooing over Connor, who’d stopped fussing the minute she’d picked him up out of his carrier when Angel and Giles went upstairs. Gunn was sitting on the couch opposite her, just staring at this tiny thing that was supposed to be so strong. Fred was in the kitchen with Willow and Cordelia, catching up, and Dawn was bouncing around the house from one room to the other, but kept stopping to make faces at Connor who gurgled back at her.

When the younger Summers caught sight of Angel coming down the stairs she beamed and ran up the stairs to meet him, hugging him.

Angel chuckled. "Didn’t we do this once? I recall a hug just like this when I came in the door"

Dawn shook her head but didn’t let go. "It wasn’t as good. You were holding a baby"

Angel smiled and squeezed back before letting her go. "And where is my son?"

Dawn giggled and bounded down the stairs. "Where he’s been since he got here. Buffy’s holding him" She turned at the bottom and shrugged, waiting for the two men. "He started fussing the minute he saw her and kept holding his arms up to be held. He cries anytime she tries to put him down, so she’s just holding him"

Angel smiled. "Really?" Dawn nodded and led him into the living room where Buffy sat holding his son. It looked so natural. Like Conner was really hers.

Then Angel felt like he was falling. His vision swam and the room started spinning.

He dropped to his knees and grabbed his head, but a minute later the sensation was gone.

When he looked up, Angel was kneeling in the Oracle’s chamber, with two Oracles watching him. They were younger-looking than the other two he’d met, but other than that, they looked exactly the same.

The female smiled. "Welcome, Warrior"

Angel slowly stood. "Why am I here?"

The male stepped forward and spread his hands. A ball of light appeared, showing Buffy as Angel had seen her just before, holding Connor.

"You saw the truth, and as it was fated, when you did, you were brought to us"

The vampire frowned. "The truth?"

The female Oracle smiled. "That the child is hers"

Angel felt his knees go weak. "What? But, Darla.."

"Was merely a conveyance. Two years ago, a day did not happen. On that day, a new soul was created within your Mate...but as it did not happen, the soul was left without a body. It attached itself to you, as you were the only one to carry the memory of it’s creation, and at the first opportunity, it took hold. It was not the Vampiress that brought the child to being, but the love you shared with your Mate. The soul is born half from her, and half from you" The male actually smiled, something Angel could never remember the other male Oracle doing, and stepped back, removing the ball of light as he did so.

Angel just stood there for a minute, absorbing the information. Then he looked up. "Giles.."

"The Watcher experiences but a small piece of what is to come. It is written. The Immortal Council, the Slayer’s Circle, is born. It comes and is formed from the Gathering of the Family"

The vampire furrowed his brow at the female for a moment, then frowned. "I don’t understand"

She smiled at him. "It is written" She waved her hand and Angel fell to his knees again as the dizziness swept over him. When he opened his eyes, he was back in Buffy’s living room.

Chapter Eight: The Prophecy, Part One

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"What the hell was that?" Gunn raced to help Angel to his feet while Buffy gently rocked Connor who was crying. She was standing next to the vampire, watching him with worried eyes as she soothed her baby.

*Her* baby. Made on a day that didn’t happen. A day she didn’t remember. A day Angel would have to tell her about.

[Oh, great!] He winced to himself. [Right. Ok, well, you can just do that when you tell her that the ring she’s wearing married us. Get it all done at once...wait...] Angel did a double-take, then reached out and touched her left hand where her Claddagh ring rested...heart in.

[She’s wearing it.] He caught Buffy’s eyes and she smiled. [She’s wearing it for me.]

Angel just looked down at his mate for a moment, then gathered her into a hug, baby and all. Buffy stood there and let him hold her, reveling in the feeling, but after about a minute she pulled back to give Connor some air. She smiled up at the vampire and cocked her head.

"You ok? What was that for?"

Angel smiled back. "The mother of my child"

"What?!?"

**

An hour later, Gunn was in the kitchen going through the whole thing with Wesley one more time. The first time Angel had explained it, he’d been completely lost, never having dealt with this kind of mystical force before. Everyone else was in the living room looking for whatever the Oracles had been talking about. Xander and Anya had come back with Spike in tow from their snack (and blood) run about fifteen minutes into the explanation, but unlike Gunn, they were old hats at this and had caught right up.

Angel was sitting on the couch next to Buffy who had Connor still in her lap...except that now she was looking at her son like he was a prize she’d been told she could never have. The vampire had one arm wrapped around her shoulders and was holding an old, obscure text with the other...though, as Fred had pointed out, they were *all* old, obscure texts.

Fred and Willow were both on computers, typing away. The redhead, after some gentle prodding from Giles, was using her magic to speed up the two laptop’s internet connections. She’d argued for a minute, but Giles had pointed out that they did need to find the information fairly quickly, before others in the group began showing changes, and it was hardly hurting anyone to bump her internet speed from DSL to T1. The hacker had agreed, but only after Giles had promised to watch her and make sure she kept it under control.

Connor started to cry, and Buffy’s eyes got wide. Angel looked up and was about to tell her what to do, but stopped.

She was already there, feeling his bottom to make sure he didn’t have to be changed. Buffy smiled.

"Hungry then, are you?"

Angel looked at her quizzically. Buffy shrugged.

"I wasn’t that old, but I remember what it was like" She pointed her chin towards Dawn and gave a wry smile. "I actually remember it better than I should. Probably has something to do with the fact that the memories are built, not real"

Angel nodded and Buffy stood, holding Connor close. She got to the doorway and turned, raising her eyebrows at Angel. He smiled and got up to follow her.

When they got to the kitchen Gunn looked up and glared at Angel.

"When I signed on for this gig, you never mentioned anything about prophecies. I figured we’d be doing what I’ve been doing since I was eleven: fighting vamps and demons. No one mentioned any of this destiny and magic"

Angel shrugged. "It kinda comes with the territory...I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that *you* were in the prophecy"

Gunn groaned and dropped his head into his hands. "Great. Now I don’t even get a say in what I do"

Wesley just shook his head and indicated that he was going into the other room to help research. Angel nodded and stared after the former watcher, deep in thought.

"Ok, bottle?"

Buffy’s voice snapped him back to the present.

"Right. Bottle. Sorry"

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