Author's Note:

Thanks to all who are reviewing. I know we are starting out slowly, but it will build momentum in later chapters. But, this is first and foremost a story about Angel and Connor bonding. The action will take a backseat. Just in case you are wondering.

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The familiar rage had reared its ugly head all too quickly, Steven lamented. In one swift motion his muscles had tensed, his heart pounding with a powerful surge of adrenaline that his body required to expel his semi-preternatural strength and speed. His head throbbed painfully in anger over being tricked.

He had thought, for the briefest of moments, that maybe, just maybe, Father's assessment of Angel had been wrong. That maybe Steven's birth father, although a vampire, could be a warrior for good. But here he was already seeking to harm Father and, that, Steven would never allow.

Steven had no way of knowing that confrontations could be held verbally. In the Quor'Toth, when you confronted something, you sought to kill. Case closed. And, certainly, Steven knew of the centuries old animosity between Father and Angel where each had attempted numerous times to kill the other.

Angel stood up and assumed a slightly defensive position. He didn't want to fight his son again, but he couldn't allow the partly feral child to kill him either. He had seen the blood drain from the boy's face after he had announced his intentions and almost kicked himself for it. But, Cordy was right. He would not start out his relationship with his newly returned son with a lie.

Steven was practically snarling as he clenched his fists and began to make a threatening half circle in front of the vampire, attempting to position himself so that Angel could not get past him to go after Father. The dead demon would have to kill him first and Steven was betting that Angel wouldn't have the stomach to do it. He had already had more than one opportunity to slay Steven and yet he had failed.

In his seething rage, the boy was confusing Angel's love for his son with weakness.

Steven warily eyed the vampire's calm face, his cold hands held up in a surrendering manner, but his larger stance still one of defense.

"I won't let you hurt my father," the boy growled, channelling all of his energy to focus on the upcoming fight. He saw a change in the placid mask of Angel's face at his words. A spark of agitation ignited in the dark brown eyes.

"Holtz is not your father, Connor," Angel spat out, a little more viciously than he had intended. It was getting hard to push back the hurt that stabbed him every time he heard his beloved son refer to that vengeful creature as his father.

Enraged, Steven lunged to throw a punch at the vampire with his powerful right hand. A warrior used to fighting with a detached and cold mindset, his wild emotional state interferred with the arc of the thrust and Angel caught it easily in his own hand.

Physically reminding the boy of his superior strength, Angel firmly, but not painfully, used the motion to pull his son's arm down and twist him around, pressing the fist into the boy's own back with his right arm while encircling the struggling child with his left arm.

Shaking violently with rage, Steven jerked forcefully but futilely against the arm that was flung across his chest and holding him tightly so that his back was crushed against the cold chest of the vampire.

"I'm not Connor!" he screamed as he fought to free himself.

Angel bit back the desire to shake the misguided stubborn boy until he understood the falsity of those words. Instead, he tightened his grip around the trembling chest and leaned his head down next to the boy's right ear.

"Yes, you are, son. I know that because I'm the one that named you when you where born," he choked out quietly. "You are my son, not his."

Steven put all of his strength into escaping the strong arms that held him against his will, but Angel was much stronger than he was and it only served to frustrate him even more. He didn't want to hear the words coming out of the vampire's mouth.

"I heard your first cry," Angel continued, determined to get through to his literally captive audience. "I saw your first smile, heard your first laugh. I fed you, changed you, sang to you and loved you more than I ever loved anything else in over two hundred years of existence."

Steven's fight faltered for a second at the words, but he quickly pushed them aside and resumed his struggle. "You don't know anything about me, vampire," he spat out with a voice full of venom.

Angel sighed and took a deep unnecessary breath.

"It's true that I don't know anything about what you were like growing up. I can't deny that," he moaned sadly. "I don't know what your first word was, or how old you were when you took your first step. I don't know if he treated you well, or if he hurt you. I don't know if you ever wondered about me, or about your mother. I know that Holtz probably never told you how much we loved you and wanted you. How your mother gave her life for yours."

At those last words, Steven stopped struggling so hard but kept his tense stance. He dropped his head a bit forward and began to heave heavy breaths. Angel manuevered his right arm so that he was still holding his son's small wrist, but swinging both his arm and Connor's around the front of shuddering boy and holding him firmly in a tight embrace now. Unconsciously, Steven pressed his back further into Angel's chest and fought to keep his knees from giving out on him.

"You're lying," he whispered miserably. "You're the prince of lies, and you're trying to trick me. God gave me to Father, so that he could save me from you."

Angel pressed the bottom of his chin into his son's wild fine hair and exhaled loudly.

"God didn't give you to Holtz, son. Holtz took you. Two hundred years ago he made a deal with a demon named Sahjan that allowed him to be frozen in time until you were born. Sahjan promised to give him a chance to kill me if he killed you too. Only he didn't kill you. He took you from me because he wanted revenge for what I did to his family when I was Angelus. He knew how much I loved you. He knew that it would kill me far more painfully and slowly by taking you from me than if he just staked me."

Steven began to shake his head violently back and forth. These words were lies, all lies and he wouldn't listen anymore.

"You're wrong. My father would never make a deal with a demon. We kill demons. We don't make deals with them."

Cordelia walked over to him slowly, careful not to make any sudden threatening movements. Gently, she reached out and cupped the side of the boy's face in her hand, softly wiping away the tear that was escaping from his eye with her thumb.

"He did, Steven. How else do you think he managed to live so long? He was crazed with grief. He would have done anything to make Angelus pay for what was done to his family. Only Angelus wasn't around anymore when he was woken up. Only Angel was here. Angel, who had a soul now and was a champion for good. But that didn't stop him from taking his revenge out on Angel by taking his son."

The words cut into Steven like a knife. He didn't want to believe them, but a little part of him knew that they made sense. Father had never explained how he had lived to be so old and Steven, always respectful and obedient, had never questioned it. He was having a hard time coming to terms with the idea that the vampire that fathered him could have two separate identities. It was hard to believe and even harder to accept. However, he had been given enough of a religious education to understand the importance of the purity of a soul in God's eyes and the words were not entirely lost on him.

Slowly, he sank to the floor even as Angel and Cordelia lowered themselves with him. In a large heap he sat sandwiched in between them as he struggled with the warring emotions swirling around inside his head.

"He said that God gave me to him, to make up for the family that you took from him," he muttered as he stared at the floor.

Steven didn't see the harsh look that came over Angel's face, even as the vampire removed one of his hands to rub his son gently on the back. In that moment, it was all Angel could do to restrain himself from bolting over to the seedy little motel where that filth Holtz was holing up and drinking him dry.

"When I was Angelus and I took Holtz's family from him, I didn't have a soul. I had nothing inside of me to distinguish between right and wrong anymore. If Holtz is such a good man, what was his excuse when he took you away from a father that loved you, only to raise you in hell?"

Steven shuddered, the tears now falling freely from his eyes and spattering onto the hard floor making a small clear pool.

"You killed his family," he said emotionlessly, grasping for any straw that he could to maintain the illusion of his righteous upbringing.

Angel nodded, even though the boy couldn't see him do it.

"Yes, and he threatened to kill you," he answered in a choked voice, remembering the clear look of intent on Holtz's face as he gripped a meaty hand around the tiny neck of Angel's infant son right before he jumped them into the rift.

Angel raised his hand from his son's back and lovingly rubbed the back of the small pale neck in front of him, suppressing a shudder at the memory of how close he had come to watching his baby murdered in front of his eyes.

"That's how he got away from me that night," Angel answered his son's unspoken question. "He threatened to break your neck if I came any closer to him. I don't expect you to understand, son. But I couldn't risk giving him the chance to hurt you by taking you back by force. I thought I would be able to track him down later and get you back without risking your life but....," Angel's voice broke as tears started to fall from his own eyes, "I couldn't. I couldn't find a way in, no matter what I did."

Angel leaned forward enough to press his face into the back of his son's head, breathing in deeply of the boy's comforting scent. The scent that he thought had been gone for good that terrible night. Steven could smell the vampire's tears and it further confused him. Angel's words and actions seemed genuine enough, but to believe them would make a liar out of Father and he couldn't stomach that thought.

Cordelia gently stroked the boy's hair, trying desperately to soothe the confused and hurting child that she loved as her own. She lifted his chin up and saw pain and anger in his pale blue eyes. Leaning forward, she kissed away his tears even as she pulled him against her shoulder. Emotionally spent, he willingly nestled his face in the crook of her neck and allowed Angel to embrace them both as they all remained huddled on the floor.

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In the shabby room of the cheap motel, Daniel put the finishing flourishes on his two page masterpiece.

He knew, from the moment he saw Steven bonding with Angelus that, no matter what he had tried to raise the boy to believe, the child he had grown to love as his own son would eventually choose his blood father over Daniel himself. It was only natural, he reasoned with himself. Steven was the bastard child of two demons.

God knew Daniel had seen the unholy strength and speed for himself. Even though Daniel had tried for years to pray and beat the demon out of his adopted son, Steven was who he was. Daniel finally realized that he could never change the boy's inherited nature.

The former vampire hunter was old now, his true age finally catching up to him. Weak from the daily struggle in the bowels of hell, raising the spawn of devils as righteously as he could wore him down and he was now just a shell of a man. His strength was spent and he had nothing left to give to the fight that appeared to be still always in front of him.

He knew now, as surely as he knew anything, that he only had one course left open to him. He would give his last drop of blood in an effort to steer Angelus' son away from him for good. Maybe, just maybe, the cause was not yet lost completely.

Steven was nothing, if not obedient. Right now the boy was with Angelus, spilling all about his return. Leaning back in his chair, he sighed contentedly. It was only a matter of time before Angelus came to him.

Then, Daniel would have his final revenge.