Authors Note/Next Chapter: Thanks for the reviews serious fan, your questions will be answered (And they are good questions/speculations. Thanks for three reviews Imzadi. Because of your reviews the aforementioned, bridging chapter is rewritten. If my computer hadn't swallowed my first and second draft's whole it would have been up much sooner.

Six Mounths Later

Stella: POV

Every day I pass my mother by, drawn into a cocktail dress by my dad's hands. She smiles down at me from her poster across the street from the bus stop. From her perch she promotes Listerine (a product she never needed to use) to the world.

Last week I caught two small boy's practicing there kissing skills on her paper smile.

My grocery bag broke. Fruit, and noodles spilled all over the sidewalk. I bent down to pick them up.

Dad was away right now, dealing with one of Cordy's visions, leaving me to shop and cook for my self.

Every time he left me alone, I worried that he would go after spike. Right after Mom died he he wanted to kill Spike in spite of the impossible odds, or rather because of them. Without my mother, My dad wanted to die. Then he remembered me

I walked up the stairs to our apartment. The first few months after mom's death, we had several huge shouting matches, but we were slowly growing close again.

He even helped me out with my history homework. Unfortunately he knew more about the past then most historians. No one else was aware of Louis the 14th's affair (with Darla of all people). And I could hardly bring by 250 plus year old dad as an eye witness.

I unlocked the apartment door, fumbled for the light switch put my bags down on the counter, then I turned to get a glass of water.

That's when I noticed the man bleeding on the couch. I didn't scream. I just reached for the phone, and started dialing 911.

"Stop" the man on the couch said, I was so shocked that he could speack that I dropped the phone on the ground with a thunk. "I'm a friend of your dad's"

Angel POV:

I walked up the stairs to my apartment, tiredly. It's one in the morning and between the voliture demon, and Cody's martial woes I hadn't had a chance to sleep in days. In fact I hadn't really slept properly since Willow's death

I was eager to get home, to make sure Stella, was fine. I unlocked the door, and entered. II didn't bother turning on the light "Stella I said into the darkness.

That's when I noticed the smell of blood in the air. "Stella", the blood wasn't hers but it smelled vaguely familiar.

"In here" Stella replied. I walked towards her voice and my bedroom. Stella was standing in the doorway, her long hair loosely tied back in a braid

The first thing I noticed was the blood covering my since new silk sheets. Then I noticed the owner of the blood and I growled. "What is he doing here?"

Stella looked puzzled, "He said he was your friend"

"Have I ever said the name Lindsay in any context that could possibly construed as friendly?"

Stella's already abnormally white skin grew considerably paler, and she took a step back away from the bed.

"This is Lindsey?"

I nodded, and then turned my attention back towards the barely conscious Lindsey. "Now that you to have been introduced, get out."

"Why?" Lindsey asked.

Stella answered the question, since I considered it to be purely rhetorical "Because your evil"

"Not any more" Lindsey said. His voice was very low, and his sentence, was broken because of the pain. I almost felt sympathetic for him.

"How long have you been good this time? A day, a week?"

"I've been a reformed evil doer for five years now, angel. And you know that"

Stella stared at me, I gulped, and Lindsey continued, "Three years ago a Mr. Angel hired a private detective to follow me. Two years ago a lawyer named Mr. Summers, investigated my charity, and a month ago a young man named Liam flirted several secrets out of my wife"

"If you are reformed who beat you up?" I said my voice hinting at the evil that angelus was capable of.

Lindsey was silent.

"Get out" I repeated.

Stella stared at me, as Lindsey coughed, then proceeded to talk. His voice growing fainter by the second "In all fairness, I kept my eye on you as well, and I must say I was impressed by the way you raised spi"

"Stop" I shouted at Lindsey, and he obliged. 'Stella please step outside for a second" I asked.

Stella nodded and left the room.

"You should have told her" Lindsey said his lip curling up into sneer. "So are you still going to kick me out"?

I looked at Lindsey on my bed bleeding; I knew what he was capable of. What he had done, what he could do? If made him leave now, he could permanently destroy my relationship with Stella: my daughter in all but blood.

"No" I growled. As if I had a choice.