Alright, so heres my next chapter. I am sorry that it has taken me over a year to write it, but I had writers block for this story and I finally got around to re-read it, and, so… here I am again.

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or Angel or any other additional characters from both shows.

xXx

Darla looked around, disorientated. She didn't know how to feel. What she did know was that, again, she was on earth. Her very own personal hell. Everything on this land bought her pain.

Not one second ago, she was fighting for her life in an actual hell dimension. A place she preferred. After all, she knew that there she could trust no one. Here. People in this plane of existence were sneaky, conning you into trusting them, then finding out that you were better off not to have done that at all. Hidden agenda's. This place sickened her.

Her eyes darted everywhere until they found a face so dear to her during the last days she was here.

"Angel?" she spoke quietly, not trusting her voice just yet.

The vulnerability in her own voice triggered the memories of her last moments to come rushing back to her. She dropped the stake in her hands and numbly raised that hand to the place that her non-beating heart was. She let out of painful cry as she fell to her knee's in anguish.

She then felt a strong hand on her shoulder as a source of comfort, she knew instantly that it belonged to Angel.

* * *

Angel was confused. He was, after all, dating Nina. Why was Darla the one brought to him when he thought about love?

Life, as Angel knew it, just got complicated. He slowly made his way over to the broken down vampire, on her knee's, crying. He couldn't recall ever seeing her so broken. After everything that had ever happened, even during her pregnancy with Conner.

Where did she go when she gave up her life? Did she still have a soul or something like it? Was she evil again? So many questions were running through his mind as he put a hand on her shoulder as a comforting gesture.

"Who?" Darla asked suddenly.

"What?" Angel asked dumbly.

"Who brought me back this time?" Darla whispered.

What ever happened to the good old days when you died once and that was it? Apparently that didn't exist for her.

"I did." She heard Angel say.

She looked up to him, straight into his eyes and saw nothing but the truth. She grabbed onto his shirt and threw him across the room. He landed on his back, laying on his desk.

"Did that hurt?" Darla asked sweetly.

"Yes." Angel exclaimed as he sat back up.

"Good." Darla nearly yelled. She was pissed. She hated this place with every fibre of her being and Angel knew this from their last heart to heart talk.

"I didn't know that what I did would bring you back." Angel tried to explain.

"WELL THAT'S CONVENIENT!" Darla, this time, did yell. Hell was about to break lose.

"Mum?" Conner whispered. This made both vampires, in the middle of a heated discussion, stop and turn slowly toward the young man. Not as tall as Angel, but taller then herself. Darla knew instantly that he was her son.

"What's your name?" Darla asked with a softness even she didn't know she had.

"Conner." He replied as soon as she asked.

"Conner, huh?" she turned to Angel and rolled her eyes. "Irishmen."

"What would you have named him?" Angel asked suddenly.

"Alec." She replied as she stood and walked over to him slowly. After a few seconds of taking in everything about his appearance, she embraced him lovingly.

"Conner…" she whispered in his ear and smiled.

* * *

After a few hours, Angel was getting nervous. Darla and Conner had walked off alone in order to get to know each other. All of a sudden he remembered that Dawn was in his office, which meant she probably needed to talk to him about something.

He made his way to the elevator pressed the button for the top floor. When the doors opened he made his way a little bit down the hall and knocked lightly. He heard some rustling around inside and then the fumbling on the door handle. He smiled. Dawn had not changed a bit.

The swang open and Dawn had looked a little disorientated herself.

"Hi." She said all too cheerfully.

"Hi." Angel said back. She moved from blocking the door so that he could enter. As he walked in he realised that why she had a hard time getting to the door. Everything was everywhere.

"Sorry about the mess, I'm just trying to get everything the way I like it." She rambled.

"That's fine." Angel said. He noticed that all the posters she had been putting up earlier that day were down again. "Was there something you wanted earlier when you were in my office? Before all the excitement."

"Yea, I wanted to know if I could re-paint this room to my liking?" she said as both looked at the plain white walls.

"Yea, I had the walls stripped so that you could do whatever you wanted to them when I found out that you were coming." Angel replied with a smile on her face.

"Thank you." She said giddily.

"What colour do you want it?" he asked.

"Well I was thinking I would like it to be a pale, light purple or blue colour… what do you think?" she asked.

"I think that you should be comfortable, after all, your going to be the one that's living in this room."

"Thank you." With that, Angel left. He and Nina had to have a chat about where they stood.

xXx

Well, things will get better, I promise.

Please review.