Another Higher Power

Disclaimer: I do not own Angel.

Chapter 9

As Fred made her way downstairs with Isabelle in toll, she thought about how to broach the idea of Angel babysitting even more than she already had done. Going out was one thing but being out for a long while when she had never left her 'child's' side was another.

Angel was still shut away in his soon to be old office. No one had dared enter for fear that he would tell them to get out again. But no one knew why he was acting the way he was, only Fred knew and that might be enough for him to handle for the moment.

"Angel, you in there?" Fred knocked lightly on the door and she heard him sigh from within the confines of the room.

"What do you want Fred?" He asked from the other side. He obviously wasn't in the mood for company – again.

"I need for you to look after Isabelle for me while I go out and run some errands, they can't wait." Fred tried to sound desperate enough so that he would open the door. She heard him move from the other side of the room.

He opened the door and peeked out to see Fred holding the child in question. He was unsure about this and he wanted to say no but he was running low on animal blood and Fred would no doubt need to go and pick some up for him along the way.

"I will pick up your blood supply ok, if you look after her for me? I can't take a baby down to the slaughterhouse district it would make people call child services." Fred put a look of pleading on her face so that he would at least consider doing this. "Please do this for me?"

"Ok as long as you're quick." Angel opened the door and came out of the office into the lobby. He at least had the common sense to be dressed in fresh clothes. He looked a lot better than he had done yesterday.

"Thanks you won't regret it. I shouldn't be more than an hour." She said to him and grabbed her bag, leaving her child and Angel alone in the lobby. An hour would be a good starting place in her plan to help Angel.

Angel looked at the little girl who looked back at him with her brown eyes. For a child she sure was looking at him with an expression of interest. Like he was a toy she could play with.

"What are you looking at?" He asked her, half thinking that she could answer back. She smiled at him, knowing to herself that this could indeed be the way to help him recover from his loss.

"Oh well for a minute I forgot you were a child instead of that girl that you used to be." He talked to her and found that her not answering back was actually rather nice.

He sat down with the child, holding her close like he once had when Connor was a baby. He found it saddening but at the same time found it to be a wonderful feeling. It brought him back and allowed him to feel that way once more. When was the last time that had been? Before all the bad things happened with Cordelia and Jasmine that was for sure.

"Why do I feel like I know you? But not from the battle with Jasmine." Angel asked more himself than he did to the child in question.

All of a sudden Isabelle started to cry and Angel was suddenly drawn back out of his line of thought and straight into the crying infant in his arms. He rocked her and tried almost anything to make her stop but she wouldn't.

In seconds it brought him back to the time when Connor was born and only one thing would stop him crying, Angel didn't want to have to do this again but there was no other option. It just might work again.

So he ended up vamping out again and showing the little girl in front of him, she stopped crying and again looked at him. She was a little older than Connor had been when he had seen this and had the child's definition of no fear.

"Ok, that seemed to have stopped you crying." He said, staying in his vampire face for a while whilst the child seemed to adopt a look of awe around the older vampire. She wasn't afraid and that was all there was to see. The only other child in the whole entire history of this planet who hadn't been scared of him.

He was confused at the child's seemingly calm acceptance of what he was to her. Like there was indeed as much of a connection between them that had been between himself and Connor as a baby. But this child was of no relation to him at all. Or so he thought.

Angel gave the little girl his finger and she gripped it tightly with her hand, showing Angel that there was indeed a deeper connection between them. Even though Isabelle didn't know much about this world and even less as a child, Angel was one of the things she did know. His voice and his emotions were ever changing even though he was over 250 years older.

He was like a canvass and his emotions were the paint how he changed over the time that she'd been watching him was obvious and that was what made her choose him in the first place. Because she knew deep down that he was the one who could help her.

'I know that you are wondering who I am.' She thought in her own head but she couldn't yet make the connection she'd made with Fred. If she could get him to do what she wanted then she could protect him and that would need to be now instead of when he would be at Wolfram and Hart. By then it would be too late.

He pulled her closer to him as if he knew what she needed to do. But was unaware of the complication that would follow. She would do what she could now but as a child her attention was limited but if she made a start then it might help.

It was all she could do and with that she hoped it would be enough.