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The Key to Connor	By : DarkRhiannon Category: AtS/BtVS Crossovers > Het - Male/Female > Angel(us)/Buffy > Angel(us)/Buffy Views: 3852 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own AtS or BtVS. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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The Key to Connor: Chapter 1

By Rhi

Disclaimer: I don't own them. All Hail Joss. If I did own them, well, crossovers would be guaranteed for sweeps week and damn the contractual hassles of internetwork dealings. What are lawyers for, anyway? (Well, besides blood sacrifices, of course….)

Spoilers/ships: This follows Ats ep "Forgiving" and contains spoilers thereto. It's completely AU. Oh, and Spike is Angel's childe. He said he was in BtVS ep "School Hard" and I don't care how Joss twisted it later! B/A. I don't write C/A. Some B/S cause it's canon. C/G.

Distribution: Sure, just let me know.

Feedback: Is always nice.

Rating: NC-17 with eventual warnings for language, sex, torture, character death, and just general angst.

Author's Note: This is dedicated to all those who've read Breaking a Slayer. Thanks for the feedback. I wrote this during the week between "Forgiving" and the next ep, so the timeline is completely changed. Connor is still a baby…

Angel was so furious he could barely restrain himself from killing every human in the hospital. His hands were shaking with the need to destroy, to maim and savage the stupid mortals blithering at him like so many dumb sheep. If Gunn or Fred said one word…ONE WORD to him about forgiveness or sympathy or any other fucking sentiment, he felt himself ready to lash out at them. They must have sensed the rage he kept barely leashed…they chose to stay in the hospital with Wesley. *JUDAS.*

Snarling viciously, Angel leapt into his black convertible, knowing that he had to get away before he destroyed what was left of his human family. *Gods, Connor, Connor, my boy, my SON! He took my SON!* He longed to howl in anguish, to tear at his hair, weep tears of blood, anything at all to let loose the pain dwelling in his heart. *He could be dead, he could be in agony, Holtz could be doing anything to him right now. God knows, he's mad enough to torture a helpless babe just to wreak some twisted revenge on his father.*

What could he do; where could he go to save his boy, his only child? Angel drove frantically through the dark city, desperate for answers, clinging to the barest thread of hope that he might find his boy before it was too late.

*

Lilah was pissed. Oh, not that she'd let on through the mask that had long ago become her true self. She was the ice queen, the one in control of all, regardless of the actuality of the situation and how she had to scramble to cover her ass. But Lilah hated Angel. For his broad chest and his flowing black duster, for that spiky dark hair and those deep chocolate eyes that drew her in, destroying her defenses and forcing her to abase herself before his god-like beauty. The one-with-the-angelic-face, indeed. What a bastard. An unmitigated, fucking bastard. How dare he not want her. How dare he move to snap her neck without a thought! She was going to bring him down, no matter what the senior partners commanded.

And now, she had just the tool. Going over the surveillance records of Angel's "family" for the past year, Lilah had discovered that his one real weakness, namely the resurrected Slayer, Buffy Anne Summers, had a weakness of her own. Her sister, Dawn, wasn't human at all, but an otherworldly Key to alternate dimensions, made flesh by some highly misguided monks. *Well, that was what celibacy would get you,* Lilah thought to herself. *You just can't think clearly with all those hormones racing around with nowhere to go.* She amended that thought to make sure she got herself laid sometime soon, so she wouldn't have to consider herself one of the lonely celibates.&nP>

No, Buffy was Angel's sure weakness, the one thing that could cause Angelus to appear on command, and Dawn was the card that would bring Buffy to hand. Lilah laughed coldly and picked up the phone.

*

Brrrrrring. Brrrrrring. *God, what time is it?* Buffy thought to herself as she reached dazedly for the phone. A double-shift at work yesterday plus closing, plus patrol meant she'd only been in bed 2 hours when the phone rang at 7. "Uuhhhh, hello?" she muttered, hoping that she had the handset correctly positioned and not backwards.

"Buffy Summers?" a calm and collected voice on the other end sounded coldly amused at her obvious incapacitation.

"Yeah, this is Buffy. Who's this?" she asked, trying to pull herself into the world of the conscious, with relative success.

"This is Lilah Morgan. Of Wolfram and Hart. I believe we have a mutual acquaintance in common? Angel?" The voice got colder, if that was even possible.

"Um, yeah, you're those guys who keep hassling Angel. What do you want with me?" Buffy had dragged herself to a sitting position and was fully awake, adrenaline flowing as the potential threat manifested itself. Phone or not, she was the Slayer first, a mortal with only 2 hours of sleep, second.

"Angel's son Connor…you did know he had a son, right?" The condescension oozed from the voice on the other end of the line as if the woman relished every dig she delivered to Buffy's fragile ego.

Yes. She knew of Connor. Knew that Angel had slept with Darla of all people. *Well, not people, really, Buffy.* Darla definitely fit the non-person category to a T, even if she had sacrificed herself to birth Angel's son. Angel's son. Without her. Buffy repressed a sob, unwilling to share her grief at not being in her soulmate's life…not being the mother of his child when she'd give anything and everything in her power to be the one who carried such a precious gift for him.

He had told her to move on. And she'd tried. But substitutes, whether human like Parker and Riley or vampiric like Spike could never compare to the one night she'd shared with her love. It wasn't that they weren't good, god knew, Spike was unbelievable in bed…on the floor…against a wall…on a crypt…Buffy cringed to think of all the positions in which he'd had her….all the ways he'd taken her. It wasn't as if he'd forced her, she couldn't delude herself that way. No, she'd begged Spike to take her, again and again….anything to make her feel as if she were still alive, still anywhere but trapped inside a dank, dark coffin, struggling to rip her way to the surface before the air ran out. She slept with the light on now, unable to relax unless her body was so exhausted that it simply gave out. Spike, however unlikely, was her savior.

Not that she wanted Angel to know that. God, what he'd been through. She could only guess…her love for Dawn was a weak second compared to what he must feel for Connor. Even her jealousy over his fucking Darla couldn't dim her happiness that Angel had managed, against all odds and every known law of vampires and demons, to create such a wondrous being.

"Yah, I know he has a son…what about him? You haven't…don't you dare hurt Connor. What's wrong, what's happened?" Buffy managed to focus on the threat, pushing all yearning thoughts of Angel and his son to the side to focus, as she was so good at, on the threat she heard from this woman's cool, calm voice.

"Connor has been kidnapped. He was taken to a dimension without portals by a man Angelus hurt terribly in the past. Angel has no way to get to his son unless you and your sister help him. He's trapped in Quortoth, the darkest of the dark worlds." The frigid clarity of the voice uttered the fatal words without pause, uncaring of the hurt inflicted with each syllable.

"NO! Connor! Oh, God, poor AngWhatWhat does he need, what can I do? Wait…why are you helping him? What's in this for you? You're his enemies!" Buffy wasn't stupid, despite her lack of time for college (or high school for that matter) she'd never been dumb.

Lilah laughed, "Oh, we have our own interest in the child of two vampires. Angel may not be our ally…yet…but he holds a charm all his own…as I'm sure you'd agree." Her insinuating tone made it clear that Buffy and Angel's relationship (if you could even call it that at this point) was well-known to the entire firm and a source of deep amusement.

Cringing at the intimacy of that chill voice, Buffy forced herself to focus on the now, reserving a thought for Ms. Morgan's later comeuppance. "Ok, what do you need? How can we get Connor back for Angel?"

"It's simple, really, Buffy. May I call you Buffy?" Lilah jeered over the phone, continuing without regard to Buffy's response. "If you get some blood from your sister, the Key…a small vial should do…and you perform a simple ritual here in LA, at Angel's Hyperion Hotel, he'll be able to enter the dimension where his son is being held captive. Of course, this will be quite painful for you…you'll be the gate holding the portal open. I'll understand completely if you're unwilling to do this. After all, from what we've heard, Angel left you…" her voice trailed off in a snide insinuation.

Buffy flinched, then shook her head, angry that her personal life should be such an open book to this bitch. "I'll do whatever it takes to help Angel. Does he know that you called me?"

Lilah laughed. "Oh, my dear, innocent child, of course not. Angel would never trust us with something this important. But I assure you, it's the only way he's ever going to see his son again."

"When should I meet you?" Buffy asked, not even questioning that she would do whatever it took to get Connor back for Angel. He didn't deserve this and if she could fix it for him, well, maybe it could begin to make up for sending him to Hell and flaunting her relationship with Riley in his face…not to mention fucking his childe. She shivered, thinking of Angel and Angelus's likely reaction to that little indiscretion and decided that she wouldn't be mentioning Spike to him, if she even saw him while she was in LA.

"Bring the blood with you and meet me tonight in the Hyperion. 3 o'clock sharp.

"Ok, I'll be there. And, Ms. Morgan, if you're thinking of screwing me over, let me remind you, you don't want to piss off a Slayer…" Buffy let her voice trail off, hoping that Lilah understood the threat implicit in the simple words.

Lilah laughed again, amused at this child and her amazing arrogance. "Don't worry, Buffy, I'll be there. And you'll get exactly what I promised you…."

Angel's cell phone rang as he was parking at the Hyperion. "What?" he grunted, turning off the ignition.

"Angel. It's Lilah."

"What do you want?" *bitch.*

"I have a proposition for you, but you'll have to come here. Now." Lilah's voice was flat, no feeling evident at all.

"It's two-thirty in the morning, what makes you think I'll set foot in your office to do anything but rip your throat out, Lilah?" Angel growled, relieved to have someone to focus his fury on.

"Oh, I think you'll come, Angel. I doubt you had social plans for the rest of the night anyway. Of course, if you never want to see your little baby again, that's up to you" Lilah sneered. "Bring your green buddy along and have him read me. I'm telling the truth." She hung up.

Angel paced restlessly back and forth in Lilah's office as Lorne tried unsuccessfully to calm him. The b was wasn't even there. Her obsequious secretary informed them that she'd needed to pick up one more item for the spell personally, but would join them shortly.

Angel didn't care what Lilah was plotting this time, as long as she could get him to Quortoth. He didn't trust her, but from Fred's research and Lorne's sources, Angel knew there was no other way, short of finding another of Sahjan's kind. That was unlikely in the extreme. So, he would use Wolfram and Hart just the way they planned to use him. At least, that was the plan.

*

Lilah met Buffy outside the Hyperion and directed a flunky to take Buffy's car elsewhere. Couldn't have Angel spotting that, although in his state of mind, he could probably drive right through it without noticing.

Buffy held a syringe of Dawn's blood carefully in one hand. She'd lied to Dawnie and told her that it was for social services to confirm that Dawn wasn't using illicit drugs. Dawn seemed to buy the story, or was so apathetic towards anything Buffy did these days that it didn't matter anyway. *She was better off without me,* Buffy thought. *Tara, Willow and Spike took better care of her than I can. And they will again, if they need to. Let'ce ice it, outside of Slaying, my life's a pretty big zero.*

Lilah took Buffy to a room directly above the lobby of the hotel and painted a pentagram on the bare wood floor. "You need to strip and anoint your wrists, your feet and your lips with the blood, then place a drop of it at each point of the star. Then lie down and wait for me to return. You can't leave the room, or Angel will hear you."

Buffy nodded numbly, hoping that Lilah was eager enough to get Connor back that she wasn't lying about the ritual. Still, once Lilah left, Buffy crept downstairs quietly to set in place a little insurance of her own on what she took to be Angel's desk in the office. Returning upstairs, she stripped quickly and squirted a small amount of Dawn's blood on herself as directed, then dripped it on the star as well. She lay down on the star with her head at one point and her hands and feet on the others and waited for Lilah to return.

*

Lilah hoped that Angel was too preoccupio smo smell his former lover on her. She'd been careful not to touch Buffy, but Angel was known for the keenness of his senses, and it wouldn't do to underestimate him. She'd done that too often in the past.

"Thank you for waiting…urgh!" she gasped as Angel whirled around and grabbed her by the at, at, slamming her up against the expensive wood grain of her office wall.

"I don't trust you, Lilah." Angel growled, his face inches from hers and his eyes glowing an uncanny gold. "Tell me how you're going to get me to Quortoth now, or maybe I'll just have myself a little snack." He loosened his grasp just enough for her to speak, but not nearly enough for comfort.

"Angel," Lilah rasped. "It's simple really, we have a Key to alternate dimensions. We'll hold a Gate open in your hotel lobby while you get Connor and come back. But the Gate will only hold for a short while, so you'll have to be quick."

"Lorne?" Angel asked, glancing away from the woman he still held pinned to the wall for confirmation of her words.

"She's telling the truth, Big Guy, at least part of it. I can't tell if she's holding anything back, though…it doesn't work like that." Lorne smiled self-deprecatingly.

Angel turned back to Lilah and leaned in closer. He lifted his left hand to her hair, stroking the silky dark strands away from her neck and leanin cln close to her. He could hear the blood pounding through her veins, smell the sweet scent of her fear. He licked her jugular slowly with his cold tongue, relishing her abortive attempt to flinch. The scent of arousal joined the fear, churning together in a heady mix that made his fangs drop, aching to taste the precious fluid so close by.

"Uh, Angel-baby? Sweetcheeks? Is it realhe the time or place for this right now?" Lorne asked nervously.

Angel glared over at him in full gameface and snarled, then pulled himself back together and morphed back to human. "I'm sure Lilah is telling us everything we need to know, right?" He leaned in toward her neck and Lilah gulped frantically.

, it, it will work, just try it and see. I'll set it up myself, personally." Lilah's heart was beating frantically, but she managed not to say anything that wasn't technically true.

Lorne tilted his head to one side and gazed at the lawyer quizzically. There was something she wasn't saying, but he couldn't tell what it was. Perhaps just the lawyer mindset…always holding something back. *Please oh Spawner of us all, let that be it,* he though to himself.

They strode from the room and Lorne and Angel drove back to the Hyperion in silence, with Lilah following behind in her black sedan.

At the Hyperion, Lilah directed Angel to stand on a spot in the center of the lobby and wait. "I have to go directly above you for a minute and set these into the floor," she said, pulling four huge metal spikes from a black bag inscribed with alchemical symbols.

Angel nodded, too concerned about which weapons he'd rather bring than the exact pattern of the ritual.

Lorne hovered near Angel, more certain than ever that this was a really bad idea, but unsure what to do to stop it. Without Gunn and Fred, let alone Wes, he was unable to stop the whirlwind of fury and revenge that was Angel now.

Lilah ascended the stairs to the room above the lobby and found Buffy naked and waiting in the pentagram. "Ok, Buffy, are you ready to open the gate?" she smiled pulling the spikes from behind her back.

Buffy gazed up at her. "Do what you have to do, I'm ready." She'd known it couldn't possibly be as easy as Lilah had told her. The spikes just confirmed what she'd known in her heart when she left Sunnydale. One way or another, she was going to bleed.
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The Key to Connor