Title: The Unforgiven
Author: Lore
Rating: PG15
Summary: Angel finds Connor
Disclaimer: don't own, please don't sue

My best friend betrayed me. A friend I thought I could trust. A friend I thought I could rely on.
My best friend betrayed me.
And I still can't cope with it.
I still see it happen, Connor lost to eternity, lost with my worst enemy.
And the one man I thought I could trust with my back is responsible.
God Wesley, how can I ever forgive you.
And if I can't. How can I ever forgive myself for trusting you.
But that's the point isn't it.
Forgiveness, redemption.
You're lying here in a bed next to me. Your throat cut, you could die at any moment and I'm not even sure if I want you to live to kill you myself, or just to have you back.

"Angel?"


Cordy's standing there, ready to support me. To be angry for me, to feel guilty for not being there when I needed her. But it's not her fault. She couldn't possibly know, could she?
So I hold in my anger, so I hold in my fear and I just stand here, staring down at him. At Wesley. At the former watcher, at the traitor. And my fists struggle out of my control, wanting to kill him... or to brush through his hair and say I forgive him.

*******

It had been two weeks since Connor ...

Two weeks that the cradle had been empty, as empty as my heart. Two weeks that Wesley had been in a coma, unable to come out of it.

Holtzes group had tried two more attacks. Hurting Fred and nearly taking out Gunn. They were attacked on the street. I told Gunn to move in here, safety in numbers and all that. He grumbled but didn't refuse.

I can't even bring myself to wonder why.

The Hyperion is so silent with Connor gone. It's dark now. How come I never noticed that before?
Cordy took Groo to her apartment. I wonder about them, what he's doing to her, if he's treating her right... And part of me thinks he must be perfect... for her.
Someone she can love and who adores her.

A man, not a monster.

Everything is cold so cold now.
How come I never felt the cold before?

It grows colder with every passing second, is that cause my heart is gone?

No, it's ...

Fred's screaming. I run downstairs, ready to fight. Gunn is trying keep her away from some weird portal that appeared right in front of them. It's pulling her in and we're too late to stop it.
Or are we?

I grab a hold of her, pulling her and getting dragged along. I refuse to let go, refuse to loose another friend.

I'm so close to the portal, so ... too close.
There's laughing behind me and Gunn's face changes in a demonic visage.
I almost let go of Fred and I look and see her change in a demon as well. The same demon.

And as they fade and I'm pulled away I understand I've been had. Wondering how stupid I could be, to forget the truth. That both of them would be gone this evening, a date, all evening.

But it's too late now and I scream as I'm pulled along, away.

I can feel myself tumbling, falling. And nothing's ever enough. Nothing ever will be.

I sit up, scrambling my mind together, wondering where I am and the demon appears next to me again. I make a grab for him, but he's still untouchable as ever.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Your worst enemy."

"I don't even know you."

He glares at me in anger, ready to huff off and leave me here on my own, without even a clue of where I am.

"Just thought it would be funny. Seeing how you killed your own son."

I stare at him, wondering what he's talking about.

"He will die." Then he turns to his watch. "Oh say, five minutes from now, in an alley across town. Have fun trying to save him."

I could see him fade, laughing madly with my fear. And I stare around, London. But where ... If this is London and I'm here. ... It's been so different since I was here, almost a century, yet now ... it almost seems the same. I stare in shock and know the truth. It's the past and I'm here and I can't even remember who I killed that my own son would be amongst them.

I start running helplessly. Knowing it could all just be a lie. But I can't take that risk.
All I can think of is the hunting ground we usually took, the homes we toured, killing their guests, then killing the people. And I run there, up to the homes of the elite and away from the gutters.

Could I be on time?

And I see myself, me, Darla, Dru. A man, more like a boy runs into us. I can hear myself laugh and see Dru go after him.
And I know, just know that this is the time, that that's Connor.
I can't even say why I'm so convinced of it. I didn't even see him long enough, but it's what my guts tells me.
I run after him and am hit by something, someone. I try and get up, but the boot kicks me again. I finally manage to look up and see Spike standing over me. Stopping me. I jump up, pushing him against the ground. I don't have the time for this, for some petty rivalry.

I throw him against the wall and I go after Dru again. Someone grabs my arm and I hit them, her ... Buffy.

"Angel no."

But I don't listen to her. I push her away as well and run. Right into an alley, seeing him. Her.

"Do you want it?"

The question's been put and I recognize that voice as it responds.

"Oh, yes! God, yes."

And I stare at the scene in shock, unable to move as Drusilla looks down for a moment as her face changes and her fangs descend. He's trembling now, not quite understanding what's happening, what's going to happen and I still have a chance to stop it. All of it.

But then the moments gone and Buffy grabs me back, holding me away from them as I watch how a girl I sired buries her fangs in my sons neck and how he screams first in pain, then in moans of pleasure.

How she smiles as she opens a wound on her chest, making him drink of it.

My son. Connor, William, Spike.

And I hit back at Buffy, pushing her into Spike, not understanding, or understanding it all too well as once again I loose my son through the betrayal of a person I loved.

She looks at me. Finally letting me go and I kneel down next to his body, my sons dead body. Spike is behind me. My son, in past and future. A moment so surreal that I can't even start to realize it's for real. That that's Connor both lying there and standing there.

I don't even have a stake, a sword, anything to prevent him from rising again, from coming back and killing the people he loved as a human.

And then it hits me. Spike's my son.
Spike, William, the boy I ...
Everything I did to him. Every way I hurt him, anything to get him to walk the line.
Everything I did to him, to my own son, my own blood in more ways than one.

I touch the body, the last moments before the infection sets in, before the demon takes over. But they won't even let me have that and Spike grabs me, pulling me along through some kind of portal. I stare at them, at the two of them.

I stare as he offers her a hand in getting up. As he lovingly strokes her arm and the bruise I gave her, placing his lips on the bruise and softly brushing it with his lips.

For some reason my heart is tearing apart, but not because they're together. Or is it? My son, my little boy, My childe.

I remember his eyes as I took him, as my fangs ripped into his bare neck, as I drank his blood, eating his innocence, even as a demon. I remember making him drink my blood, making him a part of me. Refusing him a world outside of our little family.

I had my son all those years. My own son and I ...

"This doesn't change a thing Angelus."

So he knows. He knows and still ... And he turns his back to me, Buffy looking at me one last time before she follows him, muttering a faint apology.
I should demand to know why, but I can't bring myself to do so. I can't, I won't.

I father, I abuser, I killer.

I should hate them all, Wesley, Buffy, ... Spike.
But all I can feel for them is love and regret.

And so I end up sitting here again, next to Wesley's bed as he wakes up and looks at me, an apology on his lips. But I won't hear it, I place a finger on his lips as my eyes beg him to stay silent and he mercifully is.

And the only one I can't forgive is me.