Title: Family: Forward to LA

Author: victoriamartynne

Rating: R

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

Spoilers: None, I think!

Summary: Imagine if Connor had never been taken by Wesley, Xander and Anya had never split up and Angel had told Cordelia how he felt. Sequel to Family: Back to Sunnydale. The Scoobies visit the Fang Gang.

Lorne's scream was cut off as a hand clamped around his wrist, stopping him from falling.

Buffy grunted with the effort of holding him in mid air. "Cordelia, a little help here!"

Cordelia jumped. "Oh, okay!"

She knelt down on the floor and leant down to grab Lorne's other hand.

"On the count of three." Buffy gasped. "One, two.."

"Three!" Cordelia finished and they both began to pull Lorne up onto the step they were stood on.

Once Lorne had got his arms on the ledge he was able to help them pull him up.

"Ladies, I owe you one." Lorne gasped and straightened his suit. "In another minute I think my Armani would have been scorched!"

Cordelia rolled her eyes and Buffy just shook her head.

Cordelia checked that Ashleigh was okay and Buffy did the same with Connor. "D'you think we can unwrap them yet?" Cordelia asked.

"We'd better not yet." Buffy replied. "We've still got to get down the hall and we don't know how bad it is."

Cordelia nodded in agreement and they began to advance down the rest of the staircase to the hallway.

"For God's sake!" Angel shouted. "Will you untie me now? I swear, if you keep me tied up then I will kill you all!"

"Angel." Wesley pacified. "Buffy made us promise to stay out here. She will handle this."

"Wesley!" Angel growled again and began thrashing to try to break the chains.

"Look, f they're not out in ten minutes I'll go and get them." Spike said, more to shut Angel up.

Concern was written clearly over Spike's face and he wore a frown. Buffy should be out by now. He was torn between disobeying her and getting shouted at after wards or obeying her and feeling helpless. He decided that Buffy must know what she was doing or she'd have called.

"They'll be okay." He told Angel.

"God, how did it spread so quickly?" Cordelia asked as they saw the flames in the hallway.

"I don't know." Buffy answered and looked around for another way to get downstairs.

"Can we get through them?" Lorne asked.

Buffy shook her head. "We're going to have to find another way out."

"There is no other way out." Cordelia argued and then flinched slightly.

Buffy noticed. "What's wrong?"

"I think I pulled a couple of stitches out."

"Will you be okay?"

She nodded and lifted Ashleigh further up onto her chest, muttering soothing words that the baby couldn't hear. She suspected that she'd finally gone to sleep in her cocoon as she was no longer crying or moving. She could feel the rhythmic breathing so she knew she was okay.

Buffy was having more problems with the wriggling Connor. He was still crying obsessively and confused as to why he couldn't see anything except the white sheet over him.

Cordelia solved that problem by unwrapping his head slightly and talking to him softly until he calmed down and stopped crying.

Just as he was wrapped back up there was an explosion of some sort at the end of the hall sending fire their way. Buffy managed to shove Cordelia and Lorne into one of the doors before falling onto all fours herself so that the flames didn't touch her.

When the fire had passed Cordelia and Lorne looked outside and rushed to Buffy.

"Are you okay?" Cordelia asked, helping the blackened Buffy to her feet.

"Yeah, the floor's going to go, we need to get into a room and get out of a window somehow." She replied, looking down the hall. "Come on!"

They went back down the hall and went into one of the rooms that weren't locked.

Lorne slammed the door behind them while Buffy began to pull sheets off the bed and shove them under the door, blocking out some of the smoke that was pouring through.

Cordelia began to unwrap Ashleigh from her body and placed her on the bed gently, kissing her forehead.

Buffy noticed what she was doing and began to unwrap Connor too, giving him to Cordelia before going to the empty window, the glass had been blown out previously.

She looked out to see where they were. Lorne joined her.

"Look!" He pointed. "There they are. Is Angel Cakes chained to his car?"

Buffy began to shout out of the window. "Help! Xander! Spike!"

The gang on the ground didn't hear her. "Great." She muttered.

"What?" Cordelia asked from her position on the bed next to the babies.

"They can't hear me." She picked up the chair next to the window and flung it out of the window just as Lorne began to sing high pitched out of the window into the night air.

Automatically, whether it was from the singing or the chair landing on the ground and splintering, the gang looked up.

Wesley instantly moved to unlock Angel from his chains so he could follow the gang who were now running towards where the chair had landed.

They looked up and saw Buffy and Lorne in the window.

"Where's Cordelia?" Angel shouted up.

"It's okay Muffin." Lorne called down. "She's here with the bubs!"

"Tell her to come to the window." Angel ordered, he needed to see her for himself.

Lorne disappeared and came to the window with her.

"Hey!" She called down, more brightly than she felt.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. A little smoke ridden but fine. Any idea how to get us down from here? There's kind of no floor in the hallway no more!"

Angel closed his eyes for a second. He turned to Wes and Giles. "What do we do?"

"Maybe a rope." Giles suggested.

"There's one in the car." Gunn said and ran back to the car to get it.

"It's okay Cordy, Gunn's gone to get a rope." Angel shouted back up to her.

She nodded and then disappeared for a moment to pick up Connor, who had wriggled off the bed and was walking towards the door.

"Hurry up!" Buffy shouted. "I can feel the heat coming through the door, it won't lat much longer!"

Spike shouted up. "Do you want me to come up?"

She shook her head. "No, but thanks. You'll never get through the fire."

Gunn cam back with the rope. "Here." He said and gave it to Angel.

"Will you be able to catch it?" He shouted up to Buffy.

She nodded and held out her hands ready.

It took three attempts for Angel to get the rope to Buffy. She caught it eventually and took it into the room, looking for something to tie it to.

"Try the door handle." Lorne suggested, seeing that there was nothing else to tie it to.

"I don't know whether it will hold."

"But there's nothing else." Cordelia added. "We'll have to test it first but there's nothing else."

"Shouldn't the fire department be here by now?" Lorne asked angrily.

"It wouldn't matter; they wouldn't have ladders long enough to get up here. They'd have to come from the inside and they can't because there's no floor." Buffy explained as she began to tie the rope to the door handle, jumping when the hot metal touched her skin. "There's fire outside that door."

"Quickly!" Cordelia told her. "Pull on the rope. Test it."

Buffy began to use her slayer strength to test the rope. When it didn't slip or break she nodded.

"Lorne, you go first with Ashleigh. Then you, Cordelia will go next with Connor. I'll follow when you're both on the ground. I want both children safe before I go down." Buffy ordered and shepherded them to the window, babies in arms.

Buffy began to bind Ashleigh to Lorne's body so he could climb down the rope using both hands. When it was done he turned to Cordelia.

"Be careful." She told him and hugged them both and kissed Ashleigh's forehead.

"I will Princess." He promised and climbed onto the window ledge.

Cordelia and Buffy watched from the window while the gang on the ground looked up.

Cordelia held her breath anxiously as she watched Lorne inch his way down. "Oh God, oh God." She muttered over and over.

Buffy touched Cordelia's shoulder. "Come on; let's get Connor bound, okay?"

Cordelia nodded and turned away from the window reluctantly to let Buffy wrap sheets around her and Connor, binding them together.

"I don't think I can do this, what if I fall?" She asked nervously. "What if I fall and kill us both?"

"You're not going to fall; you're going to do fine." Buffy reassured. "All you have to do is take it one step at a time."

Cordelia nodded but didn't look reassured.

"You train with Angel, right? So you're strong. And you're part demon, you have the strength, you just have to use it."

Cordelia nodded and wondered if Lorne had got down yet. "Can we see if he's got down yet?"

Buffy smiled and nodded.

They went to the window and looked down. He was about six feet from the floor and moving slowly. Angel and Spike had their arms held up ready to catch him and help him down.

Cordelia released a sigh of relief. "One down." She said.

Buffy nodded. "I'll keep a hold of the rope, okay? So I'll have a hold of you at all times."

Cordelia nodded and hugged Buffy for a moment. "Thanks for everything."

She smiled and nodded. "Get on the window ledge ready."

Cordelia sat on it and swung her legs over the edge.

"Cordelia, be careful!" Angel looked up and saw her.

"I will." She called back down, trying to sound braver than she felt.

She saw Lorne jump to the ground safely and immediately unwrap Ashleigh from his body and give her to Fred.

"Your turn Cordy!" Wesley shouted up to her.

"Go on girl, you'll be fine!" Gunn added.

"I love you!" Angel shouted up.

She took a deep breath and gripped the rope with her thighs, ready to let go of the ledge. She slid backwards off the ledge so not to squash Connor and clung to the rope with her hands.

"Oh my God, what the hell am I doing?" She asked herself.

Buffy answered. "You're saving you and your son's life."

"Great, so it's not like there's a lot of pressure!" She said sarcastically and began to inch down the rope.

"You're doing great!" Fred shouted from the ground.

"Yeah!" Anya added. "I mean, as great as you can be doing when you've only moved a couple of inches!"

"Anya!" Cordelia shouted. "Not helping!"

She inched her way down the rope slowly, trying to ignore the chafing of the rope on her hands and the way it was rubbing through her pants. Great, she thought, I not only get stuck in a burning building, I ruin a pair of pants too.

She'd made it past the third floor when the rope began to wobble.

"What's happening Buffy?" Giles shouted up.

They saw Buffy disappear from sight as the rope began to sway and then fall dramatically, Cordelia still too far off the ground to land safely.