Chapter Three

Confrontation

The flight to LA seemed to take forever. Buffy stared out of the window at the clouds passing by beneath them, lost deep in her thoughts.

She didn't actually know what she was feeling. Spike, as far as she was concerned, had died saving the world. That she could cope with. Barely. But now he was supposedly alive and well and working with none other then Angel? It seemed unreal to her.

Willow, who was sitting next to her, had tried several conversations that hadn't gone anywhere. Buffy wished she could sleep like her friend. A part of her had never been so angry in all her life. Everything she'd gone though in the past year, all the hurt and grief and confusion had all been for nothing. But another part of her was still marvelling at the fact that he was actually alive. Even if he had been bought back by evil, it was still a miracle. But she was almost sure, that when she saw him, her anger would be the first emotion to show itself.

………………………………...

After Cordelia had revealed that Angel had hidden his son from everyone, chaos had of course ensued. Once the questions started, they didn't stop. At one point Angel had his head in his hands.

"Ok, enough!" shouted Cordelia. "I didn't wake up for you to go all psycho on me! Now, we have to pull together to save Connor. Your memories will slowly come back to you now that you know. Another little trick the powers have. Angel did this because he thought there was no other way. Connor wasn't happy. In fact, he was willing to kill himself and me he'd sunk that low. Angel loves his son and thought he was giving him a chance."

"But to make a deal with Lila…" started Fred.

"He should have been able to trust us," added Gunn.

"I still can't believe you have a kid. We've been through a lot Angel. Immortal enemies an' all that remember? That's something I should have known. When'd you go all soap opera on me?"

"Ok guys," said Cordy, stepping in front of Angel who looked exhausted, even though he'd barely said a word. " I realise it's a lot to take in. Let's take a break to think things over."

The room temperature had fallen dramatically since they'd come in. Cordelia watched as the group made their exit. "Well, that went well," she said, sounding far too happy in his opinion.

"Is that supposed to be a joke?" Angel asked.

She smiled and reached for his hand, taking him by surprise. "It's going to be ok. They'll come around. When they get their memories back, they'll realise just how important Connor is to you. And to them."

"His important to all of us," Angel murmured. There was an awkward silence between them. Connor was a touchy subject.

"Angel…I love Connor. I really do, so much. But…His like a son to me. I know that thing made it look like…it was something else, but…..you know what? This isn't the time for long speeches."

"Yeah, you did enough of that back in the meeting. What's up with that anyway? Another gift from the Powers? Long words?" he answered her, trying to lighten the mood.

"Ha, ha," she replied sarcastically, hitting him playfully on the arm.

………………………………...

Night had fallen. "Ok, when I said a break, I didn't mean the whole afternoon," said Cordelia, a little angrily.

"I know," said Angel.

"We don't have time for this. Connor's life is in danger. We're against the clock….."

"I know."

The door suddenly opened and Spike, Gunn, Lorne, Fred and Wesley walked in silently.

"We remember," said Wesley.

"But it still doesn't excuse what you did. It's not something we can just forgive. Memories aren't meant to be stolen, no matter how bad they are. They're not meant to be toyed with.

But we understand why you did it."

"But we're supposed to be a team, right? A family. You're supposed to be able to tell family stuff," said Fred.

"You guys practice that all day?" asked Angel.

"Little bit," they both said at the same time.

"Look. I know I can't change what happened. I should have told you. All I can do is apologise and hopefully we'll be able to move on……"

"Sorry to interrupt boss," said Harmony. Angel looked up, slightly annoyed. It wasn't often that he said he was wrong about something.

"What do you want ?" he snapped.

"Uh, you have a few visitors."

"Tell them I'm busy," he said.

"I don't think that's gonna work," said Harmony, looking behind her.

"Hi Angel," said a voice that Angel had never thought he'd hear again.

"Buffy?" said Spike in shock.

"Bad time?" Buffy sailed into the room as if she owned the place.

For a moment Angel couldn't say anything. He looked at Cordelia as if for answers, and noticed that she was looking very guilty. "Did you know she would show up?" Angel asked her.

"Hi Buffy," sighed Cordelia. "You're here about Dawn aren't you?"

Buffy looked at her in surprise. "How did you know about that? And last I heard you were in a coma."

"What's happened to Dawn?" asked Spike, stepping forward.

Buffy looked at him coldly. "I'm not ready to talk to you yet," was her only reply.

"Dawns gone missing as well, hasn't she?" asked Cordelia, and Buffy nodded

"We thought she might have come here," said Willow.

"Not meaning to be rude, but who the hell are all you people?" asked Gunn, looking bewildered.

"Ok," said Cordelia, taking over Angel's job again. She introduced everyone and explained their histories as briefly as she could.

"There's another part of this that you guys would have known about if you hadn't been playing hide and seek all afternoon," she said, once everyone had taken a seat.

"Connor and Dawn have both gone missing" as soon as she said Connor's name, she realised she'd have to explain everything to Buffy. She looked at Angel and he nodded reluctantly. After Cordy had finished, Buffy looked shocked at the new information. "And I didn't know about this?" she said angrily.

"Look, you can start world war three later, ok? Right now we have to work on getting Connor and Dawn back. The powers don't know exactly who's taken them. But they've done the most important part, which is sending me to you with the warning. And the teens are more important then we realised."

"How come?" asked Xander

"Like I've said before, history will change if anything happens to either of them, to evil's advantage. Not something the powers want." Angel knew from her tone of voice that there was more too it then she was letting on.

"This might go better if we had more players," said Buffy, trying to keep her anger in check, at least for the moment. "I can contact Faith - we don't know what we'll be dealing with. And Giles. He wasn't keen on the idea of us working together before….he didn't think we could trust you. But now I'm sure that he'll have something useful for us to work with."

"Good," said Cordelia, nodding at her in approval. Then she noticed that Xander was looking at her in surprise.

"What?" she asked, getting annoyed at his constant staring,

"Nothing. You've just gone all…commando on me."

"A lots changed Harris," she said, noting the changes that had happened to her former boyfriend. The eye patch kind of stood out and he hadn't told one joke since he'd arrived. "I'm sure we'll have the chance to play catch up later. But now…we have a problem."

"What's that?" asked Angel warily.

"How to get outta here with out being killed." She pointed at the door where Hamilton - their liaison to the senior partners - stood with a very evil expression on his face.

TBC

By the way, in this story, Eve never existed. She could have been a good character, but they just made her story line so obvious it wasn't even worth being in the show. You'll get another chapter tomorrow, but then not so many updates, coz I started a new job today.

Next chapter…Angel and the others try to get out of Wolfram and hart.