I don't own BTVS or AtS. *whimper* I don't own most of the characters in this story... although, I -do- claim Skittles and Andy just cause I plain out like 'em. (Gah! I sounded Southern, when I said that.) Anyway, Joss Whedon's wit and intelligent writing are what keeps me trapped in these stories, and Freddie Mercury's voice and brilliant compositions are what sustain me, when I don't take it upon myself to sit down and write. You, 'the reviewers', are what keep me writing, on the whole. *takes a sweeping bow* Thank you. Anyway, I've had a couple of you request for more backstory and... Well, the customer is always right? Hmm... So, we shall be getting...

On with the show.

::Carpe Diem- El Diablo::

Lindsey watched the reunion of Missy and his son. He was torn between snatching the little boy away from her slowly breathing form or letting him continue with the story of his ordeal. He knew that, most likely, no matter what the doctors had said to ease the child's mind, Missy didn't comprehend one thing Andy was babbling about. His only hope was that she could and that she would feel a gut wrenching guilt for letting him go through all of the pain, he had. "Andy, we should probably go, now. Missy should probably have some quiet."

Andy sighed and nodded. "Can we go see mommy?"

Lindsey almost snapped at Andy for considering such a thing, but then he realized that he had promised his son that they would see her today. "All right..." Lindsey agreed. "...but when I say it's time to leave, I mean it." Andy nodded, in understanding and reached up for Lindsey. Lindsey leaned down and picked up the little boy, with hardly a thought.

It was coming so natural to just love the child. Lindsey swung Andy around on his back, so that he was piggybacking. He wondered what he ad been thinking, leaving in the first place. Lindsey walked out of the hospital room and headed down the hallway, toward the wing they had put Amelie in.

"How was I, last night?"

The question took Lindsey by surprise. "What do you mean, Andy?"

"You know what I mean." Andy growled in Lindsey's ear, making the older man chuckle.

"Oh..." Lindsey shrugged and hopped Andy up, higher on his back. "You were..." Lindsey tossed his head from left to right, in an undecided manner. "...okay."

Andy bit his bottom lip and started to chew. "Just okay? I didn't eat anybody did I?"

Lindsey shook his head. "Not anybody of importance."

Andy scrunched up his little forehead and snorted. "You're teasing me, aren't you Uncle Lindsey?" It was more of an accusation, than a question. The boy was pretty swift.

Lindsey shook his head. "No, I'm not. You didn't eat anyone important. In fact you didn't eat anyone, at all. You were really well behaved."

"I woke up in a bed." Andy recounted to Lindsey, for the fourth time this morning.

"You sure did." Lindsey nodded. "No, son of mine is going to wake up behind metal bars, if I have anything to do with it.. That means you can't get arrested, ever. Okay?"

Andy sighed and nuzzled the back of Lindsey's hair. "I won't, if you won 't."

Lindsey grinned. "It's a deal."

"Katie said we are going to go back to where she came from, for a visit. She said that there was a nice lady I needed to meet. Also, said there were lots of kids for me to schmooze with." Andy paused for a second. "What does schmooze mean?"

Lindsey chuckled. "It means to make friends and meet people."

"Why didn't she just say that, then?" Andy inquired.

"She was being silly." Lindsey sighed. "Here we are." Lindsey stopped in front of the door that indicated quarantined patients. They had been keeping Amelie in there, under guarded watch and lock and key. The cops had come by and questioned Lindsey about his relation to the patient and whether he had seen the shooting. He answered all of their questions and headed home, the moment that they were finished. He had old them that he may bring his and Amelie's son by, the next day. They had agreed that the child should be able to see his mother and would be allowed a ten-minute visit. "If that much." Lindsey had muttered.

"How do we get in?" Andy asked, quietly.

Lindsey knocked on the small rectangular window, in the middle of the door and waited. A buzzing sound filled the air and a nurse, with a clipboard, walked out of the door. She gave Lindsey an easy smile and then looked up at Andy, with a frown. "He can't come in here, sir." The woman was whispering, as if that made Andy automatically incapable of understanding English.

"Daddy, you said I could see mommy today."

Lindsey looked back at Andy's stricken face and tear filled eyes and then glared at the nurse that stood in between him and his son's happiness. Andy had called him daddy. He would have ripped the woman's head off, if he thought it would make the child say it again. Of course, then it would probably be said in horror. He didn't want that. "Look..." Lindsey struggled to sound understanding. "The child wants to see his mother. I only want to make him happy, you see. The police said it would be okay if we had a ten-minute visit and I'm going to hold them to it. Do you understand?" Lindsey narrowed his eyes at the woman and smiled, when she nodded and looked at her clipboard.

"Your name, sir?" The woman flipped a page on the board and sighed, quietly.

"Lindsey McDonald. This little man is Andy McDonald." Lindsey popped Andy up, again, causing him to giggle.

The woman nodded gravely and looked at the two, before waving them inside. "Follow me."

"That's all right." Lindsey said. "Unless they moved her, I know where she is staying. Thanks, anyway." The woman gave Lindsey a look that made her look worn and beaten. Working in a quarantined area, of a hospital, would probably do that to anyone, Lindsey mused. Lindsey watched the woman make her way behind her counter and started for the door down the hallway, which was being stood watch over. The man outside the door was reading a magazine, with Ben and J-Lo on the front, and drinking a coffee, when Lindsey stopped in front of him. "Hello, officer."

"Lindsey McDonald?" The man asked, without tearing his eyes from the magazine.

"Yes." Lindsey said, a tone of amusement drifting into his voice. Everyone was so interested in this couple of beautiful yuppies, who just happened to be famous. Would they still? Would they not? Who knew? Who cared? "I'm Lindsey."

"Got your boy?" The man asked, while flipping the page.

Lindsey sighed. "No, but I have my pet zebra, if you want to pat him down."

"That won't be necessary." The man muttered, without any indication of whether he had understood what Lindsey had just said. "Go on in."

Lindsey took a step into the hospital room and looked over to the bed, on the right hand wall. Amelie strapped down to it and hooked up to a number of machines.

"Lindsey?" Andy whispered in Lindsey's ear. "Why does mommy look worse than Missy?"

"Mommy took too much medicine and it made her very sick. They had to vacuum out her insides, so that she wouldn't die. She's going to be okay, though. She should be able to wake up, by now. Do you want to get down and go talk to her?" Lindsey didn't want to let his son down, but he knew that the boy had a right to go speak with his mother.

Andy nodded and Lindsey let him slip down his back. "You'll stay with me, won't you?"

Lindsey nodded. "Always and forever, baby boy."

Andy smiled up at Lindsey. Then, he turned toward his mother and took a few tentative steps toward her bed. "Mommy?"

Amelie stirred and her eyes fluttered open. "Andy?"

"Mommy!" Andy jumped toward his mother and squeezed her as tightly as he could manage.

Amelie groaned in pain. She couldn't throw the boy off, because her arms were immobile. Plus, she was under the influence of way too many drugs. If she could have pushed him away, though, she would have done just that. "Andy, baby, mommy is hurting."

Andy gasped and jumped back away, from his mother. "I'm sawwy." Andy turned toward Lindsey and buried his face in the man's leg.

Lindsey made a displeased sound and grunted. "Amelie, you *will* be nice to our son."

Amelie's eyes widened in recognition. "Lindsey?"

"Yes." Lindsey stroked the back of his son's head and met eyes with his ex-wife.

Amelie nodded and sighed. "Andy, honey, come to mommy. Tell me about how your day has been."

Andy turned back to his mother and slowly made his way to her side. She reached up to stroke his face andhe nuzzled into the caress. "I went and saw Missy. She's prolly gonna' die."

Lindsey sat down in a chair and watched Amelie pretend to care about Andy's stories. He shook his head, in wonder, at how such an amazing little child, could come from such a horrible pair of people. Lindsey could hardly remember what had gotten them to this point in their lives, but he knew that he couldn't regret it, every time he looked at his son. Lindsey listened to the droning conversation between Amelie and Andy and remembered back to what had gotten them here. The story of how they came to be.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~

She had been sitting on the step of the court building, starring at a piece of paper, clutched in her hands. Her hair was beautifully coifed, up on top of her head, pieces of hair falling around her face and framing it, like a picture. She was gorgeous. She had a pair of long and shapely legs, tucked up underneath her. Lindsey couldn't believe his eyes. "Excuse me, Miss. Is this the People's Court?"

The woman looked up at Lindsey and sighed, quietly. "No." She looked back down at the paper she was reading and then stopped to look at Lindsey again. She smiled sweetly and shook her head. "I'm so very sorry. That was extremely rude of me." The woman put her paper down and pointed at the building behind her. "This is the regular court building. The people's court is down the road on the left. You'll know it by the statue of Lady Justice. Her left arm is broken off."

Lindsey laughed. "Of course, it is." Lindsey took a seat beside the woman and leaned back. "I'm Lindsey." He turned toward the lady and held out his hand.

She took a hold of his hand and smiled. "Amelie. Are you a lawyer?"

"Will it make you think any less of me, if I am?" Lindsey asked, while quirking a brow.

Amelie shook her head and laughed. "No. My father was a lawyer, as was my mother."

Lindsey cringed. "You poor thing. So what do you do?"

"I'm a dancer." Amelie smiled at Lindsey, lasciviously.

"Oh." Lindsey grinned. "Where do you dance? Maybe I could come see you, some time."

Amelie let out a soft little sigh. "At the San Francisco Ballet."

"Oh?" Lindsey laughed. "I *love* the ballet."

"Really? Are you straight?" Amelie asked, with a grin.

Lindsey nodded. "When it suits me and my purpose."

"Oh, and what's your purpose, as of now?" Amelie asked.

Lindsey shrugged. "Getting your number and making a date."

Amelie nodded and tore a scrap of paper off of the page she had been reading earlier. She pulled a pen out of her pocket book, which sat next to her, and scribbled on the back of the paper. "Here you go, then." She got up from her seat on the step and stretched. "I've really got to go run some errands, right now, but I should be available between four and nine every evening." Amelie put out her palm and accepted Lindsey's handshake. "It was nice meeting you."

"The pleasure was all mine." Lindsey said, with a smile. He watched Amelie walk away and he knew he hadn't been lying.

The truth is, the pleasure was his, for a time. They had gotten together, not a week later and had become inseparable, after that. They were both arguers and unmovable in their beliefs, or lack thereof. They spent most of their time fighting like cats and dogs, or making up for said arguments. It was a lust/hate relationship, which took its toll on both parties. After four months of strain and a constant stream of annoyances, they both decided to go their separate ways. The peace was kept, for a while, until Amelie called Lindsey up, with an earful of news.

"I'm pregnant and it's all your fault." Amelie's breath was coming in short gasps

"*All* my fault? When is it that I found the time to rape you?" Lindsey was less than enthusiastic about becoming a father. The truth was, he didn't know where to begin. His own father hadn't exactly been the best example to go by. "Are you keeping it?"

"I... haven't thought... I mean... I don't know." Lindsey sighed, unhappily. "Would you come over, so we can talk?"

Lindsey nodded and then realized, with a laugh, that Amelie couldn't see him.

"What's so funny?" Amelie asked, on a wail.

"Nothing." Lindsey sighed. "I'll be there, in a moment." Lindsey headed straight over to Amelie's apartment and was welcomed, with a slap to the face.

"How could you get me pregnant?"

"I... don't know. Faulty condom?" Lindsey rubbed his sore cheek. "I guess all of that, 'when a man and a woman love each other crap' isn't exactly how it goes."

Amelie grabbed her forehead and gave a feminine little grunt. "And I was still hoping for a stork or cabbage patch."

Lindsey felt bad. He really didn't know how to sooth a pregnant woman. "How can we make it all better?"

Amelie looked up at Lindsey with bright, tear filled eyes. "I can't kill it!"

"No." Lindsey nodded and walked forward, taking Amelie into his arms. "Of course, not."

Amelie sobbed into Lindsey's shoulder and gasped. "She won't have a daddy to warn her about boys."

Lindsey nodded his agreement. "What if it's a boy?"

"He won't have a daddy to warn him about boys."

Lindsey pushed Amelie back a few steps and shook his head. "We have got to move out of San Francisco."

"We?" Amelie asked, confusion written all over her face.

Lindsey nodded. "We... I mean, I know we don't get along all of the time and we disagree about so many things, but... You won't be dancing while you're pregnant." Amelie started to protest, but Lindsey cut her off. "You can forget it. We won't have you endangering the baby and we have already established that we won't have any 'Dirty Dancing' mishaps. You are going to go full term and we are going to have a beautiful little... human." Lindsey grinned at Amelie and then pulled her into a hug. "That little human is going to have two parents who love it, so much."

Yes, they loved it... him. Andy was an angel, from the very beginning. He was a bright and capable one month old, before anything of worth came up.

"I'm going to start dancing, again. I've already started getting my figure back to normal and I just did some warm-ups without breaking a sweat." Amelie had made the proclamation, while Lindsey fed Andy a bottle.

"Really?" Lindsey had just started at this new firm, Wolfram and Hart. Well, the firm wasn't new... It was actually ancient, but apparently they were interested in everything Lindsey had to offer. "Well, I'm going to be spending a lot of time at the office, you know."

Amelie shrugged. "We'll get a babysitter."

Lindsey nodded. "Sounds good, to me."

It had sounded good until he met the babysitter. Hans... Who was named Hans? Really? Well, their new male babysitter was. He looked like a Hans, too. A big buff German (or was it Austrian) man, who one day decided to sleep with his wife. She had apparently agreed that that would be the right course of action and they started a long drawn out affair. Lindsey finally got tired of pretending that he didn't know what was going on and packed his bags. They were stacked at the door, one day, and Amelie failed to question it. The next thing she knew, her husband was gone.

Lindsey called Amelie two days later, from his new apartment that the firm had set him up with. Apparently they had sent Hans to his house, as a test on his marriage. The marriage had lost and for some reason, maybe the new lack of a soul, he didn't seem to care. "Hello, Amelie? Just thought I should tell you that a lawyer, from my firm, will meet you soon. We're getting a divorce and you can have Andy. I can't take care of a child. I'll send you all of the financial support you will ever need, but I can't be there for every little thing." Lindsey had hung up and that had been that... for a while.

Three years later, Amelie had called. "Lindsey, something happened."

"What's that?" Lindsey sat in his big desk, examining his nails. They were looking kind of girly, lately. He really needed to cut them.

"Andy has been bitten by a wild animal."

Lindsey sat forward in his chair and cleared his throat. His heart had started beating, wildly. "Is he all right?"

Amelie sighed, heavily. "He's going to be fine, except..."

"Except what, Amelie?" Lindsey slammed his fist down on the table.

"It was werewolf. I know that it sounds crazy, but it was. See I have this friend who has a child and they were playing together, the other night, and something happened. She said she had her dates mixed up! I've thought about suing her."

Lindsey shook his head. He had clients that were werewolves. He knew the drawbacks of the disease. From all logical points of view, that's exactly what it was, a disease. "There are ways to slow down his cycle to a halting level, but we'll have to wait until he is older for those methods."

"How long?"

Lindsey thought for a moment. "Non-virgin age?"

Amelie sighed. "This sucks, Lindsey. I'm getting back into my dancing full force and then something like this happens. Now, boarding school is completely out of the question. I can't send him overseas, while he's morphing into Andy the dog-faced boy!"

Lindsey shook his head. Amelie sounded so bitter, when she spoke of their son. It was absolutely heartbreaking. "I'm going to start coming around more often."

"How do you think I should explain that one? I've already told Andy that his daddy was a total bastard who left him, because he couldn't deal with being a father." Amelie was hissing over the phone.

"Well, Medusa, tell him anything. Tell him I'm his uncle or something. The way we fight, we could be brother and sister." Lindsey sighed. "We still have the same last name." He reasoned.

"Whatever." Amelie slammed down the phone, in Lindsey's ear.

Lindsey left the phone off the hook and walked over to his closet, at the far end of his office. He slipped of his jacket and tie, and into something a little more fitting of an uncle, who was going to take his nephew to a ball game. He looked in the mirror and laughed. Khakis and a white t-shirt? He had to go shopping.

So, Lindsey headed straight over to his ex-wife's apartment and met his son, for the first time since he could walk or talk. They hit off and became best buds. They went to the movies and talked about girls and the cooties their kisses carried. Lindsey made time to point out that little boys carried cooties also, so therefore they were off limits in the kissing field, as well. Andy understood. Lindsey sighed in relief. It got to the point where Lindsey wanted to spend so much time with his son that he started slacking in work. He got distracted, lost a hand, gained a soul... of sorts. Things were falling apart and rebuilding themselves so fast that Lindsey wasn't sure how to react.

On top o all of this, Amelie had started taking less interest in her son and more interest in this new dancer at her studios... Missy. She was a quiet girl, from a poor background, and apparently, a abusive boyfriend, whom she had lived with since she was sixteen. Amelie took her under her wing and helped her find her own wings, although they were clipped short, periodically. Missy turned out to be good with Andy and, as far as Lindsey was concerned, that was all that mattered.

After Lindsey had quit the firm, he had decided to go 'find himself'. That meant nobody that reminded him of LA and his life before and/or during Wolfram and Hart. He explained to Andy that uncle Andy was going to go on vacation, down south, and he would be back when he felt rested enough. Rest was cut short, when Lindsey realized his truck was going to junk out and all he really wanted was a 'normal' life. A wife that he loved, a little boy, who happened to be trapped in La with a bitch of a mom, and a small house in the middle of nowhere.

Then, his dreams almost became an impossibility, thanks to the machinations of his evil ex-wife. His ex wife, who lay there in he bed, idly stroking the hair of her son, which she couldn't find the heart to love. Lindsey sighed and looked up at the clock. It had been twenty-five minutes. That was a definite record for him. Twenty-some-odd minutes, in the same room with Amelie and there was no bloodshed. "Andy, we need to leave."

The little boy lifted his head and nodded. He stood up and walked over to his das and grabbed his hand. They made their way toward the hallway, but before they could get outside Andy turned back to his mom. "Mommy?"

The woman turned her head toward her son and gave him a fake smile.

Andy took a shaky breath and then shook his head. "Mommy..." He stated more firmly. "...I know you gave me to the bad man. I also know that you are going to be going away, with the police. I think that's good." Andy looked at the woman more thoughtfully. "Cause if they didn't, I think I would probably eat you."

TBC

-Hehe...So, I just answered a lot of questions. This was a long and difficult chapter to write and I spit it out in a day. Please, give reviews and I will give more chapter(s). (The plural thing is undecided)-

--The subtitle was El Diablo (Spanish for 'the devil'), which is a song by the Brian Setzer Orchestra. It is so very, very hot. Listen to it and weep with joy.--