TITLE: Anchor (Part 3/16)
AUTHOR: Kerry Blackwell
PAIRING: Genfic - B/S and X/A as on the show
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Through "Wrecked" on Buffy and "Dad" on Angel
TIMELINE: Imagine it's about six weeks after those episodes and the ones we saw didn't happen.
DISCLAIMER: All things Buffy and Angel belong to Joss Whedon, the WB, UPN, FOX and Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. I own only my genius (yeah, right!)
DISTRIBUTION: My site - White Hats - http://www.whitehats.co.nz (as soon as I'm well enough to code it and upload it) Any one else please ask first
FEEDBACK: Yes please!
THANKS: To Sarah for her editing assistance, and to Sarah and Ang for being ready to brainstorm with me when I begged appropriately.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I started this after seeing "Wrecked" and "Dad". My take on what could have happened next. It got totally Jossed immediately of course and since it takes me a long time to write anything, it got more and more AU as time went by. I had hoped to post it in the break, before anything _more_ happened, but I didn't manage it. Anyway, here it is. Just forget what happened after those two episodes and read my version. Please...

The night manager – really way too glorified a title for the ferrety little man behind the cracked counter – surveyed the guests checking in with a jaundiced eye.

There were four of them.

The first was a middle aged man with red-brown hair and beard who wore a long coat and walked with authority. Close behind him stood an auburn headed young woman with an angry face that was old before its time. Hanging back was a young man, barely more than a boy, with close cropped hair and rings in his ears. And finally, a fourth figure, wrapped in a hooded coat, stood back and let the other three do the work, its gender hidden by the all-encompassing clothing.

The woman signed them in, scrawling 'Smith' in almost illegible writing and looked up at the manager with her hard eyes, daring him to make a comment.

He just closed the stained ledger book and rocked back in his chair back to pull two sets of keys off the hooks.

"Nine and ten," he said succinctly as he dropped them in her waiting palm. He jerked his head to the right. "Up the stairs and on the left. Numbers are on the doors."

She took the keys and the party headed up the rickety stairs without saying another word. The night manager watched them for a moment, then he shrugged and turned back to the racing pages in yesterday's newspaper.

In Sunnydale, you never asked too many questions. You just took their money and turned a blind eye to all the weirdness.

Lilah Morgan prowled the confines of the Premium Suite of the _Embassy Sunnydale_ like a caged tiger while Gavin Park tipped the busboy.

"The least Linwood could have done was cough up for two suites," she spat as soon as the door closed and they were alone.

"I doubt this place _has_ two suites," Gavin commented with deceptive mildness. "Besides, we're in disgrace, remember?"

"I'm not the one who cocked up the surveillance," she said snidely.

"Yet, with all your skills of observation, you didn't pick up on it either," he pointed out smoothly. He paused for a moment, as if considering. "Oh, that's right. You couldn't tell when Angel wasn't Angel either."

"You wouldn't have been able to either," she retorted tightly.

"I wouldn't have been mak – "

"I'm taking the master bedroom," Lilah interrupted sharply. "Make yourself at home in the dressing room." She turned sharply on one heel and marched into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind herself.

"Of course, Ms Morgan," Gavin commented sarcastically, making certain his words were not quite loud enough for her to hear. "Whatever you say, Ms Morgan."

He carried his case and suit bag into the secondary bedroom. It was barely more than a cupboard and deserved the scathing appellation Lilah had bestowed upon it.

This damn baby had better be worth it. Not only worth the 'essentially unlimited' funds they had been given to make sure they were the ones to leave Sunnydale with the child, but more importantly, worth the grim reality of being forced to share a hotel suite with Lilah Morgan.

He deserved hazard pay. Perhaps, when they started dissecting the kid, he could be the one to make the first cut.

Frank Lombardi was an old-fashioned man. He didn't see any need for all this touchy-feely modern political correctness stuff. He was a man who had always called a spade a spade and he saw no reason to consider changing that. 'Mobster' had been good enough for his great grandfather in Chicago in the twenties and it was more than good enough for him. He left the whole creativity gig to his accountants and lawyers.

All the same, as he surveyed the penthouse apartment he would be calling home for the rest of the week, he would have been gratified to know that the last occupant had been a god.

Or he would have been if he believed in such things.

The business of organised crime had changed a lot since his great grandfather's day – computers were a godsend, the Internet was a miracle – but at bottom the business didn't change.

Robbery. Extortion. Kidnapping. They were the things it was all about.

Frank still wasn't exactly clear what was so important about this kid they were here to buy. But he'd been invited to this auction and the word on the street was that there were folks who wanted this child _very_ badly.

There had to be a profit in that somewhere.

Vampires were common in Sunnydale. No-one really noticed when another group arrived.

Spike was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he despised vampires. All they seemed to think about was wanton destruction and the next kill. Especially the young ones – no sense of self-preservation, no sense of style.

Naturally, he was all for wanton destruction, but it required some thought, a touch of artistry. There should be a flair to the kill, a bit of class. He'd done the mob-with-pitchforks thing when he was younger, and if it had caused his blood to boil and his dead heart to race at the time, he had survived long enough, gained sense enough, to know it was stupid and risky. There were much better ways to create havoc and have fun.

Even with a chip in his head.

Most vampires, of course, were never going to experience the heady wonder of shagging the Slayer, of loving the Slayer, but they should be able to come up with a better way of having a good time than trashing headstones.

The fledgling was making enough noise to raise not only the undead, but corpses that had been nothing but bones for centuries. He was a middle-aged man, with a pudgy waistline, receding hair and a dirt-covered suit that had to be the one he'd been buried in. He couldn't be more than one or two days old – or more technically, dead – and no decent sire would have let such a baby out of his or her sight.

Spike considered staking the poor bugger and putting him out of his misery, but he was bored, Buffy hadn't shown up like she'd promised – in fact he hadn't seen her on patrol at all tonight – and a bloke needed a little entertainment.

"Having trouble, mate?" he asked as he stepped into the circle of destruction.

The fledgling snarled, and tossed a newly uprooted headstone in Spike's direction. Spike ducked it easily, spreading his hands in a conciliatory, I'm-not-going-to-stake-you gesture.

The fledgling panted, still not used to the fact he didn't need to breathe any more, and for a second Spike felt sorry for him. He remembered that early confusion, and he'd had the illustrious company of Darla, Angelus and Drusilla on hand to 'help' him.

"Where's your sire, child?" he asked, a little surprised by the gentleness of his voice.

"Gone."

That was helpful. Spike had figured that much out on his own. "Gone where?" he tried. One more monosyllabic answer, he promised himself, and this guy was dust.

"He went out and didn't come back. Then the others came. They pushed me out of the crypt." His features, which had settled back into human form as he calmed, flared back into the face of the demon. "That was my _home_. I want to go home."

_Patience with the baby_, Spike reminded himself.

"What others?" he asked.

"Vampires. In robes. Chanting and praying. They said the crypt would be a good home for the Chosen Child." The fledgling hurled the pieces of a broken headstone across the grass in another fit of petulant anger. "It's my home and I want it back." His face suddenly turned sly. "Want to help me?"

"Sure," Spike agreed easily.

This one wasn't only a danger to humans, he was a danger to himself. "Come here," he commanded, using all the inherent power that came from being in the Master's direct line of descent.

The fledgling came to him without hesitation, and barely had time to register even a flash of surprise before he was dust on the ground.

Spike turned away. Buffy needed to know about this.

The sun was down, the vampires were roaming and Buffy was still at home, totally beside herself.

Not literally, but given all the other things that had happened to her lately, she wouldn't have found even that particularly strange.

Rupert had slept beautifully through the remainder of the night until waking her at five in the morning, complaining about a wet diaper. She had changed him, and cuddled him until he'd slipped back to sleep about half an hour later. She had gratefully gone back to sleep again herself, but this time she was troubled by surreal, disjointed dreams that all had one thing in common; she always failed to save Rupert from some terrible fate.

She woke, wrung out and exhausted, understanding for the first time how Giles must have felt every time he waited for her to return from patrol. She understood now, the emotion behind those five simple words Spike had said to her after she came back from the dead. _Every night I save you._

Still trying to process that revelation, Buffy had staggered out of bed to get Dawn ready for school. The bright spot of the morning had been the way her younger sister was willing to get up and dressed at once for a change, all so that she could sneak a peak at the sleeping baby before she left.

When she was gone, Buffy had crawled gratefully back into bed and followed Rupert's example. She was asleep again almost before she managed to pull the covers up to her chin.

They had both woken after midday, to find Willow ready and waiting with lunch for Buffy, formula for Rupert and a huge stack of baby books from the public library piled on the dining table.

"I figured if we can research demons, we can research babies," she said cheerfully, and set about hunting out the best websites while Buffy ate her sandwiches and fed Rupert.

The girls had a wonderful afternoon, reading Willow's collection of library books, talking girl-talk like they hadn't for months and indulging in some serious baby worshipping. Dawn arrived home from school and was even prepared to do her homework if it meant she could help with Rupert when she was done.

Buffy watched the baby and felt like she'd been given a miracle. It was as if he could put their fractured lives back into some kind of order, just by being there.

Then, around sunset, it all started to fall apart.

Rupert woke from his afternoon nap and immediately started fussing. A fresh diaper failed to improve his disposition and he refused to eat anything. They tried baby formula, fresh milk, even a little water, but he rejected them all. Dawn tried playing with him on the rug, tickling his tummy and playing silly games. That diverted him for all of about ten minutes, before he started whimpering again. Buffy picked him up and walked around the house with him on her shoulder, which settled him down to no more than the odd gurgling cry, but the instant she put him down again he started to scream in earnest.

Picking him up again made no difference and he continued to cry miserably.

"He wants his mommy," Dawn said, sounding like she was considering crying himself.

Buffy rocked him in her arms, whispering nonsense in his ear, but he kept right on sobbing.

"I'm going for a walk," Willow announced abruptly after the better part of an hour of this.

Buffy stared up at her, looking obscurely betrayed.

Willow flushed. "I'm sorry, Buffy," she said unhappily. "I've got to get out and clear my head. I'm all…" Her hands came up and she half clenched them, before carefully stretching her fingers and replacing her hands back at her sides. "All twitchy. I have to…"

Rupert hiccupped, and his wailing dropped off a few decibels. Buffy hitched him further up on her shoulder and managed to smile at her friend. "Go, Willow. Dawn and I can manage. You have to look after yourself, too." She looked more closely at the other woman. Willow was unusually white, the strain showing on her face. "Just be careful, okay."

"I promise," Willow agreed with a well-managed façade of false cheeriness.

"Take a stake," Buffy ordered. "Or a crossbow or something. Can you call Xander and ask him to go with you?"

Willow shook her head. "I just need a bit a space and some air to clear out the cobwebs." She saw the worried look on Buffy's face and managed a more genuine smile. "I'm okay, Buffy. Honest. I'm not going to do anything stupid or fall back into bad habits. It's just it's kind of…" She trailed off and Buffy found herself half-smiling, half-grimacing.

"Noisy around here," she finished.

"Yeah," Willow agreed.

"So go walk," Buffy insisted firmly. "Just humour me and take a crossbow with you."

Willow obediently found herself a weapon and looked back at Buffy with a pained laugh as she opened the door. "Only in Sunnydale," she said and saluted Buffy and Dawn with the crossbow before walking out into the late dusk.

Dawn watched her go. "Is she going to be okay?" she asked.

"I hope so," Buffy answered thoughtfully. "She's trying."

"Sure," Dawn agreed. "By running away when the going gets loud."

Buffy felt a little that way herself, but managed to stop herself from saying anything nasty.

"At least she's going out for a walk instead of doing any stupid magic," Dawn said finally. She looked up at her sister, her face suddenly worried. "You don't think she's going back to that guy, do you?"

"No," Buffy said with a certainty that surprised her. "She's just clearing her head like she said. She really is trying, Dawn."

Dawn frowned. "So long as she doesn't break any more arms."

Buffy gave her sister a helpless look, and seeing it, Dawn made an effort to change the subject.

"I wish Mom was here," she said quietly. She sat down on the sofa and watched as Buffy walked up and down, trying to calm the baby. "She'd know what to do about Rupert."

"I know," Buffy agreed sadly. "I was just thinking that, too."

"Or Giles," Dawn added thoughtfully.

Buffy stopped walking to stare at her. "Giles? He's like the forever bachelor."

"I still reckon he'd know what to do," Dawn insisted stubbornly. "He knows everything."

_Except when to stay with me,_ Buffy reflected, and was startled to discover the thought wasn't as bitter as it had been the last time she had thought it.

"We could call Janice's mom," Dawn suggested suddenly. "She could come and tell us how to make Rupert happy. Cause I really hate the way he's crying. He sounds so sad."

"No," Buffy said sharply.

"Why not?" Dawn was starting to sound petulant. "She'd be happy to help us."

"_No._" Buffy repeated.

"Why not?" Petulant was moving towards sullen at light speed.

Buffy hated how sad Rupert sounded too, but she didn't dare let that make decisions for her. "Because we need to keep him a secret," she said as patiently as she could. "We don't know who's after him, and until we do, we can't tell anyone. It's the only way to keep him safe."

Dawn didn't look convinced. "But he's so sad. He wants his mommy."

"Well, he's just got us," Buffy said tightly. "We'll have to do. Can you look in the books again? Maybe there's something we missed that might be what's wrong with him?"

"No," Dawn said flatly. "I say we should call Janice's mom. If you want to look in the books, do it yourself. My arm hurts and I'm going to bed."

She stomped up the stairs, leaving Buffy standing in the front hallway, holding the still crying baby.

NEXT