TITLE: Anchor (Part 14/16)
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...

CHAPTER NOTE: "ahmic" is pronounced AH-vic and is about the only bit of IrishGaelic I know, having picked it up from a novel. It means "my son". (I think that's right.)

Buffy heard a strangled cry from Anya, a shout from Xander and then more running feet, this time hurtling straight towards her. Spike spun automatically to face the new threat whole Buffy twisted the other way, sensing attack coming from behind.

Holtz was drawing a stake from his pocket, Sahjhan raising one arm in a threatening gesture. Her brain kicked up another notch, calculating angles and estimating distances without her ever being consciously aware of it. Holtz was out of range, the demon closer.

Yelling a warning to Spike, she moved without thinking, instinct taking over and guiding her feet and her thinking. She leaped onto one of the unused chairs, used it as a stepping stone to the table and hurled herself into a long, low dive. She caught the demon around the waist – and sailed right on through him.

She tumbled to the ground, rolling swiftly and instinctively to her feet, muttering darkly under her breath.

Spike reacted immediately to Buffy's shout, ducking sideways, and the stake flew past his shoulder and crashed into a crate, splintering the wood and leaving the vampire intact.

The distraction allowed the running man to barrel into his side, knocking him to the ground. Spike rolled, taking Robert with him. He battered the young man's stake aside and instinctively pulled back a fist.

"Spike!" Buffy yelled, but it was too late.

Spike's knuckles connected with Robert's face and he reeled back in pain, screaming, hands to his head.

Robert himself stared at the agonised vampire, shock and confusion on his face, which gave Anya time to attack him from behind, beating her fists against his back.

"How dare you escape from me?" she was yelling. "How dare you?" Robert went down under the furious ex-demon. She was joined moments later by Xander and Robert showed little sign of reappearing any time soon.

In the confusion, the last remaining vampire cultist leaped to his feet and raced for the boxes, not running through them as had been predicted, but instead scrambling up towards a skylight. He forced the catch and, again against expectation, jumped down again.

"Vampires!" Cordelia yelled as she rushed into the fray, followed closely by Giles.

Sure enough, a mass of robed vampires was surging into the warehouse through the open skylight.

"I forgot the roof," Giles exclaimed furiously. "Damn."

"So did I," Wesley consoled him as he reduced one of the vampires to ash with a well-aimed crossbow bolt.

"Find the baby!" the lead vampire yelled, and his fellows immediately started to spread out through the building.

Buffy calmly dusted one that got too close to her. "The baby's gone!" she yelled, trying desperately to keep track of everyone in the melee.

Giles and Wesley were back to back, fighting vampires with a skill that made one imagine they had been doing this together forever.

She caught sight of a streak of darkness out of the corner of one eye that she identified as Angel. A moment later he was joined by the flash of blond that was Spike.

_Strange allies all round,_ she thought, distracted from the notion a second later by movement beyond the two fighting vampires. Gavin Park and Lilah Morgan were backing slowly out of the fight, clearly intent on leaving as quickly and inconspicuously as possible.

Buffy opened her mouth to yell something, warn someone, when one of the vampires charged her from the side. She tightened her attention at once, pulling her focus inward until there was just her and the vampire. He lunged and she blocked, she spun and kicked and he flew into a stack of crates. They wobbled, but didn't fall and while he tried to catch his balance, Buffy moved in smoothly and drove her stake into his chest.

As the dust cleared, she looked for the lawyers again, just in time to see Cordelia land a solid punch to Lilah's jaw. The woman staggered and went down. Cordy stepped over her, planting one well-shod foot solidly on Lilah's chest.

"Oooh, issues," Buffy whispered in amusement, as she swung out an arm instinctively and dusted another vampire, spinning back into the fight and leaving Cordelia to her own, clearly quite sufficient, devices.

Gavin abandoned his supposed partner on the spot, snatching the briefcase from where it had fallen and continuing his escape. He was stopped dead in his tracks by Angel, who grabbed him behind and dragged him back again.

He gave Cordelia a strangely young, boy's grin. "Want a matched pair?"

She laughed, the sound low and throaty. "You know what to give a girl."

"Only the best for you," he agreed. He drew back a fist, two fast for the eye to see, and in a second Gavin Park was sprawled on the floor beside Lilah, unconscious.

"Can you handle her?"

Cordelia brandished her loaded crossbow. "You bet, buster. Go fight the good fight."

"You won't kill me," Lilah said with certainty. "I'm human, remember."

"Huh." Cordy was unimpressed. "You hardly qualify, lawyer lady. Angel's way more human than you. I suggest you don't risk it."

Lilah frowned, but seeing the look on Cordelia's face, she subsided.

"Good call," Cordy agreed. "I'm getting better with this thing. I can maim without killing now."

Holtz, whatever his reasons for coming to the warehouse might have been, had proved to be quite unable to help himself. He was fighting the swarming vampires with as much concentration and possibly more intensity than anyone else in the warehouse.

Buffy, the only Vampire Slayer in the building, was too busy with a demon to be dusting vampires, but everyone else was managing fine without her.

She would have said she had her hands full, but every time she tried to touch him, the air just shimmered and her hand or foot passed right through him. Sahjhan wasn't helping – he was just standing there and watching her with an amused look on his scarred face – which was rapidly driving her over the edge.

"There's gotta be _some_ way to get rid of you," she muttered grumpily, regrouping from the last failed kick, and he just laughed at her.

"Rumplestiltskin," he offered ironically and laughed at the blank look on her face.

"That is so _old_." Anya came up beside Buffy, brushing vampire dust off the shoulders of her coat. "Iron, behind the ear," she told Buffy as if she was discussing tomorrow's weather – or sex with Xander. She pulled a long, narrow metal spike from the pocket of her coat and handed it to the Slayer.

Buffy turned it over in her hands, getting the feel of the weight and shape of it. "I am _so_ not going to ask."

"Duh," Anya said derisively. "It's Magic Box stock. Pure iron. Good against the wee folk. I haven't catalogued it yet." She gave Buffy a warning look. "Lose it or get it covered in demony stuff and you pay for it."

Buffy laughed. No matter what, some things didn't change – a blessing she was just beginning to understand. "Thanks Anya."

With a weakness exposed, the demon suddenly looked a lot less confident. The air around him began to shimmer, as if he was about to disappear and Buffy immediately forgot Anya, forgot anything expect the fight. She dived for the creature, spike held and balanced in her palm.

Again, she passed right through him, but she was prepared this time. She landed neatly, rolled and spun back. Sahjhan turned more slowly, coming around to face her.

"Not so confident now, huh?" Buffy mocked.

Sahjhan frowned, concentration making his scarred demon face look more ugly than usual. He shimmered, but failed to dematerialise.

Buffy attacked.

She landed a solid kick to his chest and the demon staggered backwards, catching his balance just seconds before she could follow up with a blow to his face. He caught her swinging arm awkwardly, throwing her off balance and forcing her to back away and regroup.

Sahjhan was swiftly growing used to b soleingid and dimensional once more. As Buffy attacked again, he warded her off much more easily and the fight became something more familiar; a flurry of blows and kicks, attack and retreat, analysis and instinct.

She kicked, he backed away. He swung at her face and she ducked. Countless variations on the same with no lasting advantage to either, no surrender and no true retreat.

Buffy swung again and kicked, catching Sahjhan directly on the knee cap and forcing him to hop backwards, cursing in some language Buffy didn't know. He threw up his arms, the defensive motion automatic. Immediately grasping the moment's advantage, Buffy slipped inside those defences and brought her hand up, driving the stake firmly into his heart. She jerked back and paused, waiting for him to turn to dust.

Except that he didn't.

And that was when she remembered he was a demon, not a vampire.

Sahjhan laughed and surged to his feet, pushing her away. Buffy tumbled backwards, somersaulting awkwardly and crashing into a stack of crates.

"The ear!" she heard a voice yelling, one she identified an instant later as belonging to Anya. "I told you behind the ear."

"Stupid," Buffy muttered to herself as she struggled back to her feet. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

"Stupid," Sahjhan agreed in a mocking voice, which only infuriated her further.

She hurled herself at him, letting the anger and chagrin focus her further.

The fight became deadly serious, blow and counter-blow, strike and counter-strike. But Buffy was gaining the upper hand and she knew it. She increased her intensity and Sahjhan began to fall back under her assault. She finally knocked him to the ground again and moved in swiftly for the kill before he had a chance to recover.

This time, when she landed the fatal blow, she could hear Anya's voice ringing in her ears. _Iron. Behind the ear._ Her aim was true; the metal spike stabbed through flesh and bone, smashing into the demon's brain.

She stepped back, watching as Sahjhan's body seemed to fold in upon itself, growing smaller and then simply shimmered into non-existence. Buffy smiled. She liked the "go poof" demons; they made clean-up _so_ much easier.

She expanded her attention again, assessing the action in the rest of the warehouse. As she watched, Spike staked the last vampire with childish glee. As it crumpled into dust, he looked up, finding her gaze immediately. He grinned at her and she couldn't help but smile back. True, he was a soulless demon and a sociopath to boot, but there really was something very appealing about him.

As the dust drifted to settle on Spike's boots, it became clear the fight was over. The vampires were gone, Cordelia and Xander had the lawyers well in hand and all that was left was Angel and Holtz, facing each other silently across the abandoned table.

Their very stillness seemed to have frozen everyone else in place, so that no-one dared move or speak and break the tableau.

In the end, it was Angel who spoke first.

"Stalemate."

Holtz began to nod, but was interrupted by a new voice.

"No. Checkmate."

Justine was standing there, Connor in her arms. He had lost his blanket somewhere, but he seemed none the worse for wear, still drowsy as Tara's charm slowly wore off.

"Connor," Angel whispered, his voice full of horror.

"Give him to me."

But it wasn't Holtz who spoke; it was Giles.

Holtz himself turned to face this new voice, this new player he had barely registered before now. He saw a man of his own age, who carried the weight of years and experience with him. His stance was as firm as his voice, and he watched Holtz with a steady gaze.

"Give me the child," he repeated. "A son should be with the father who loves him." Giles caught a glimpse of Wesley out of the corner of his eye, flinching, but he ignored it.

Holtz shook his head. "Who are you, to defend the demon?"

Giles would have answered, but Angel spoke first.

"He is you, Holtz. My victim. My sin."

The words could have been shards of glass, that splintered and glittered coldly as they hit the floor.

Holtz's gaze shifted from Giles to Angel and back again. "And yet you take his side? I don't understand. He is not a good man He is not even a man."

"He is the father of a son," Giles answered painfully. "And I believe that he could be a good man. What right do we have to take that chance from him?"

"He killed my family."

Giles nodded. "He killed the woman I loved. He threatened those dearest to me and he damn near killed me. He terrorised the woman _he_ loved." Giles' voice tightened. "He should live with that, know what he has to atone for. Then he might truly become a good man."

"I swore no mercy," Holtz almost whispered.

"Then you are less than he," Giles said simply. "Because he has learned to love, learned to care and be merciful, and you have lost that ability."

"You like him?" Holtz asked incredulously. "He's your _friend_? After what he has done to you."

"No," Giles admitted honestly. "I don't particularly like him and I don't think we're friends. But I respect him and his efforts, and if he was given a second chance by a greater Power, then we have no right to take it away."

"The demon will show its true colours."

"Then I'll kill him," Buffy said quietly, her own remembered pain in her voice. "I've done it once already."

"And if he harms the child?"

_I won't!_ Angel wanted to scream. _He's my son and I love him and I won't._

But he had enough sense to realise anything he said now would only hurt him. His fate and the fate of his child were in the hands of these others. In the hands of Giles, who did not like him and was not his friend, but who respected him. That respect was an astounding gift considering the circumstances. It was a strange moment, a strange feeling to finally understand there were reasons for doing good other than guilt. Knowing he had the respect of Rupert Giles, he never wanted to lose it. Knowing he had Buffy's loyalty despite all the had passed between them, he never wanted to deserve any less. Knowing there were people who loved him, he wanted always to deserve and return that love.

And Connor… He wanted the chance to raise Connor to be the kind of son he himself had never been. He wanted to be the good father his own had not known how to be. If there was one thing in his whole life he did to make the world a better place, he wanted it to be his son.

He wanted it more than he had ever wanted _anything_ in his entire, long life.

But first, Holtz had to give him back, and he didn't dare say a word in his own defence.

"We won't let him harm Connor." It was Wesley speaking, that steady, seemingly compassionless voice that was full of it all the same.

"Connor doesn't just have Angel," Cordelia added. "He has us as well. We're his family and we'll love and protect him." Her voice grew quieter, colder. "And if we have to protect him from his own father, we will."

Holtz looked around, letting his gaze rest of the baby in Justine's arms before moving, not to Angelus, but to the man who had defended him so strongly, despite his right for justice and for vengeance.

"I believe your loyalty is misplaced," he said finally.

To Angel's absolute amazement it was Xander who replied. "Maybe," he admitted. "But you can't tell us what to do with it. Deadboy sure isn't my favourite person, but he tries. And the kid is his, not yours, so what right do you have to take him away?"

"He'll be safe."

Xander waved a hand around at the people in the warehouse – Angel himself, Wesley and Cordelia, even Gunn and Fred, who had arrived looking only slightly damaged and stopped at the sight in front of them. And the Sunnydale Gang; Buffy, Giles, himself and Anya, with Willow and Tara and Dawn back at the Summers' house.

"He's got lots of people to keep him safe. He doesn't need you."

"Justice," Holtz said quietly.

"Vengeance," Giles corrected. "At least the gypsies admitted they wanted vengeance over justice."

"I have the right."

"Yes," Giles agreed almost gently. "So do I. But I also have the duty to be a better man. So do you."

"No."

It was impossible to tell if the word was a statement or a prayer.

After a long, weighted silence, Holtz walked slowly over to Justine and took Connor from her arms. He stood there a moment, carefully cradling the child. Then he crossed the concrete to Giles and held out his arms. Startled, Giles took Connor in silence.

"He's your responsibility now," Holtz said simply.

Giles could only nod, accepting that in speaking for Angel he had, indeed, taken responsibility for Connor.

He expected the other man to walk away, but instead Holtz paused, his eyes on Connor's face. "Perhaps," he began slowly, too quietly for anyone else to hear. "Perhaps we could talk…?"

Watching the array of expressions cross Holtz's face, Giles could only acknowledge in silence the kinship he had with this damaged, partly insane man. _There,_ he realised suddenly, _but for the grace of Buffy, go I._

Holtz had never had anyone to help him heal. "Yes," he agreed. "But not here. I'll come to Los Angeles."

"I'll make sure you know where to find me."

Holtz straightened, the sudden vulnerability gone from his face. "Justine! Bring Robert. We're leaving."

Buffy stepped in front of him, stopping him from striding out of the warehouse without a backwards glance. "Being the Slayer and all, I don't exactly have anything against you killing vampires." Her voice turned icy. "But not Angel, not Spike and _not in my town._ Understood?"

Holtz looked down at this tiny, powerful young woman and smiled ironically. "Understood," he agreed. His gaze shifted to Angel. "What lies between us, Angelus, it is not forgotten. Not forgiven and never forgotten."

Angel could only nod and repeat the word Holtz had used a moment before. "Understood."

Holtz didn't bother to respond, just headed for the door at a fast pace. Justine hurried behind him, half-supporting, half-carrying the semi-conscious Robert.

To Angel's credit, he managed to wait until Holtz was out of sight, if not out of hearing, before flashing across the room to Giles. He had his arms out, ready to take Connor, when he froze suddenly. Instead, he stepped back a pace.

"May I?" he asked hesitantly.

Giles handed over the baby. "Never waste a second chance," he said seriously.

Angel hugged his son to his chest, the relief at holding him again rendering him almost speechless. "Never," he managed to agree brokenly. "It's all right, little one," he whispered to the baby. "Daddy's got you now. He's never going to let anything happen to you."

He looked up again, his face more alive and animated than Giles had ever seen it, even at the height of his love affair with Buffy. "Thank you," he said simply.

Giles just shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. "Please make sure I don't regret it."

"You won't," Angel promised. Uncomfortable himself, he turned back to see everyone staring at them.

"Is Connor all right?" Fred asked in a small voice. "I'm sorry, Angel. I lost him again."

"Are _you_ all right?" Wesley demanded, seeing the new bruise growing on her face.

Fred shrugged. "She hit me. I'm okay. What about Connor?"

"He's fine." Angel lifted his son to kiss the top of his head lightly. "He's fine. Come on, let's get out of this place."

There was a loud and deliberate throat-clearing. "Wait up, mister," Cordelia said firmly. "What do you want done with these guys."

"I'm sure I can eat a couple of lawyers," Spike offered helpfully. "Especially _evil_ lawyers. It's not like they count as human."

Buffy thumped him in the side. "Shut up, Spike."

"I have an idea." It was Wesley, and there was an unusual touch of maliciousness in his voice. "I'll need Giles to assist me. The rest of you go back to the house and we'll join you."

Giles looked at him, eyebrows raised, and Wesley just smiled. Dangerously.

Gunn chuckled. "The lawyers are in trouble." He exchanged a look with Cordelia. "How sad."

She laughed. "Go for it, Wes. But we want details." She stepped back from Lilah, who glared furiously but didn't dare move when she saw the glare Cordelia shot back at her.

"What about the money?" Fred asked as Wesley and Giles pulled the Wolfram and Hart pair to their feet.

"Leave a case for us," Wesley said firmly. "We're going to need it. Take the rest with you."

"Take it?" Buffy repeated.

Wesley actually smiled at her. "You need the salary I'm sure the Watchers Council isn't paying you. Connor and Dawn need to go to college one day. Consider it payment for a good night's work and an investment for the future."

Slowly, Buffy began to smile. "Well, when you put it like that…" She nodded and Xander and Spike went to pick up the money. Buffy exchanged a glance with Giles. "We'll be going then."

He nodded. "I'll see you back at the house."

Angel fell into step beside her as she walked towards the door. "So where does Dawn want to go to college? I'm thinking Notre Dame for Connor."

"Aren't you getting a bit ahead of yourself?" Buffy asked. "Dawn's fifteen and isn't thinking about college yet. Connor's still a baby."

"It's never too early," Angel insisted.

Buffy found herself exchanging an understanding glance with Cordelia as they both made a point of _not_ laughing. _The world is nuts,_ Buffy thought as she led the way outside. _And I like it._

NEXT