Chapter 53

The dust immediately filled their nostrils. Covering her nose with her sleeve, she looked to Angel with a questioning glance. He was too busy staring at unseen memories and dancing ghosts to pay any attention to what Buffy and Connor were saying or doing behind him. The sun was shining in through the patio door, illuminating dust molecules as they floated throughout the room. Taking a deep breath, Angel tried not to sneeze as he led his son and girlfriend into the Hyperion Hotel.

White drape cloths covered the counters and furniture; Angel could remember the last time he had come here and draped everything. He had been alone in the early morning hours five years ago. Covering everything in site other than the floors had given him a sense of covering his past. It had been, not cathartic, but a catalyst for the development of new goals. Putting Angel Investigations behind him once and for all, he thought, would help him to focus on the future.

The alley where the final battle had taken place was behind one wall and a world away. If he tried to remember that night, which he wouldn't, he would remember the smell of burning flesh and blood and rotten walking corpses. He could remember the sounds of his friends screaming their last breaths if he tried, but he would not try to remember anything that painful, anything that he had tried to erase away through traveling in different dimensions, moving time and reality.

"Do you remember this, Connor?"

The young man was watching his own ghosts play in front of him. He could see the area where he leapt through a dimensional portal with intents to kill his father. He could see Lorne and Gunn and Fred walking around, looking at him. Memories of feeling like an outsider, like he didn't belong, started to claw at the inside of his skull. Taking a deep breath, he turned to Angel and tried to shake the feelings he was being bombarded with.

"I remember a lot of things about this place."

Touching the drape clothes delicately, Buffy turned to father and son. "This is the hotel that Angel Investigations was headquartered in? Willow told me about coming here a few times."

Nodding, Angel pointed to the office with closed blinds, "that was the main office. We did a lot of work here. Good work."

Swallowing hard, Connor looked at Angel and tried not to feel as if he was about to collapse within himself. He hadn't thought coming here would be this emotional. "What did we come here for? You were all cryptic and stuff in the car."

Allowing himself a small smile, he motioned for them to follow him up the stairs. Looking over his shoulder at Buffy, he made sure she was taking the steps slowly before continuing up the staircase. Once to the second floor, he led them down the hall to his old room. Pulling the key from his pocket, which he grabbed from his desk before leaving the house, he unlocked the door and stepped inside.

The room was dark and there was a fine layer of dust covering every surface. Looking to the bed, he grabbed the comforter, pulling it away and revealing a dust free sheet. Buffy sat down almost immediately, her hands on her stomach. Giving Angel a reassuring look, she nodded her head as a sign that he should continue.

"I keep a majority of things in storage units, leased different names. I'm a little paranoid about people finding things they aren't supposed to find. Anyway, I went to the storage unit a few weeks ago and found all the albums I had. Cordy was a nut about these things. She used to sit for hours with you next to her and paste pictures into the albums. There're two, I think. We took a lot of pictures of you."

He had been going through boxes at the bottom of the closet as he spoke. Finding a brown cardboard box, he smiled apprehensively and opened the top. Lifting two photo albums out of the box, he handed them to Connor. Placing the comforter upside down on the arm chair, he sat on the dust-free side. Putting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fist, he watched the two people he loved most in the world go through photos of Angel Investigations and baby Connor.

"After you…left, Cordy went…well; she tried to deal as best she could. She found all the pictures of you she had on her computer and in her camera, the ones she hadn't used before in the albums, and put all of them in there. It was therapeutic."

Looking up from a picture of a smiling Gunn and confused looking Angel, she looked at her soon-to-be husband in a new light. "Angel, I can't imagine…what did you do?"

Taking a deep breath, he looked at the floor before answering. "I went to bed for a long time." When he had the courage to look back at Buffy, he saw her wiping her damp eyes. Swallowing a lot of pain that he had wished forgotten, he held himself still. They deserved to look at his past without his interference, he thought.

Connor was slowly turning pages. The first album was mostly of the first few years of Angel Investigations. Cordelia had organized them in a roughly chronological order; Connor felt as if he was watching a movie documenting Angels' life. The first images, and there were few, were of a very different looking Wesley and a perpetually unsmiling Angel. A few were of a man Connor didn't recognize at all.

"Who's this?" Lifting the page so Angel could see, he watched the reaction on his father's face.

Angel hadn't needed Connor to show him the image to know who his son was referring to. There was only one man in that album Connor would not recognize. "His name was Doyle. He was my first seer, before he gave Cordy the visions. He died to save my life." The last was spoken in a hushed voice. Angel had though that he had recovered from Doyle's' death, but the pain felt as fresh as it had eight years ago.

Nodding slowly, Connor continued to the next page. In one picture, Angel had a half smile. The images progressed quickly through the early years of Angel Investigations; there were scant photos of those times. He and Buffy looked though the first album with a growing understanding of what Angel's life had been like. When they reached the next album, they saw something they had rarely seen in the first.

Angel was smiling. In almost every picture, he was smiling. Buffy released a sad and amazed breath. Seeing images of Angel holding and smiling down at an infant made her ache to have her own baby, to watch Angel with their child. There were pictures of everyone holding baby Connor. One in particular, of a distressed looking Gunn looking in the direction of Fred, holding baby Connor, made both Buffy and Connor laugh.

It was a long time before they closed the albums. Sighing, Angel leaned back, his muscles protesting having been in one position for so long. "You can keep any you want, Connor."

"I don't want to break up the album. Let's just take them home."

Nodding, Angel stood. Taking a deep breath, he looked at Buffy. The contemplative longing on her face was evident. Her hands were circling her belly, one hand on each the top and bottom of her protruding abdomen. Taking the hand that was on top of her abdomen, Angel smiled at her.

"We'll have that, Buffy. You'll have that."

Standing, she put her arm around his waist and allowed him to lead her down the stairs. At times, she was amazed at how much she wanted her child. When she had first realized she was pregnant, her overwhelming emotions had consisted mainly of fright and dread. Now, though, she wanted to be a mother more than anything else.

They left rather unceremoniously. Neither Connor nor Angel wanted to stay in the place hat held so many memories. Taking deep breaths once they were outside, Connor held the albums closer to his chest. They were precious to him, and he was going to preserve them to the best of his abilities. Looking at pictures of his father in the years before his birth reminded Connor that Angel had a life before him.

Buffy got into the back of the SUV; she felt the back seat gave her more stomach room. Leaning against the corner of the door jam, she sighed and put one leg on the seat as she buckled her seat belt. She hadn't been so concerned with that kind of safety until she had become pregnant. Closing her eyes, she listened to her stomach growl and felt her baby kick all at the same time. As much as she wanted to give birth and walk without waddling, it was going to be strange to be without the constant presence of her baby inside her.

"Baby and I are hungry. We get violent when we're hungry."

Connor put a look of mock horror on his face. "Angel, the slayer and slayer junior are hungry. Fear for your life."

Smiling a real smile for the first time all day, he nodded and drove towards a deli he knew Buffy would like. "This place has chicken salad, Buffy." He let those words linger as her eyes got bigger.

"Chicken salad! We're going there, right?"

"Yes. And I thought cravings only lasted in the first few months of pregnancy? Your taste buds have been demanding all throughout. Was this pregnancy thing just a ploy to eat new things?" Looking in the rear view mirror, he grinned at her to let her know he was joking. He was rewarded by her sticking her tongue out at him.

"Baby likes what baby likes. That's it. It's not me, Angel. Talk to your kid about these cravings."

Allowing himself a small laugh, Angel looked to his right. Connor was staring into the last page of the second photo album. The pictures that Cordy had at first deemed unsuitable for the album but later included after Connor's kidnapping. The last photo was blurry and unfocused. Angel was in motion, walking towards a basinet that presumably held his infant son. The look on his face was that of concern and determination, as if Connor was about to be attacked and Angel was getting ready to defend him. In realty, Connor thought, Angel had probably been going to him because he was crying. The look on his father's face, though, reminded him how much he had been loved and how outrageous the lies he had been told really were.

"Was I a good baby?" The question was unexpected, and Angel glanced quickly in his sons' direction.

"A good baby? I don't think babies can be bad. Do you mean did you cry a lot or sleep well or things like that?" At Connors nod, Angel continued. "You were great. You slept solidly when you did sleep. You smiled all the time. You were the happiest baby, or as happy as I can imagine babies being. You made these noises, they were so cool."

Connor and Buffy watched Angels' face as he spoke. Buffy, at one point in time in her life, would have called Angels' current expression goofy. Now, she called it sentimental. Watching him remember being a dad was beautiful, she thought. Connor tried to swallow the lump forming in his throat. He would be around nine years old, he thought, if he hadn't been kidnapped and taken to hell. Trying to force away his regrets and useless wishes, he concentrated on the place Angel was now parking behind.

Angel ordered at the counter for him and Buffy and waited for Connor to order for himself before paying the bill. Grabbing a bag of salt and vinegar kettle chips, he gave the bag to Buffy. He could hear her stomach growling and didn't think she could wait fifteen minutes for food.

Connor stole a few chips when he thought Buffy wasn't looking. She jabbed him playfully in the shin with her foot for his treachery. Reaching her hand under the table, she set it atop Angels' thigh. Smiling at him in a reassuring way, she squeezed his leg a little. The movement was cute and comforting, he thought. Smiling at her, he leaned over and kissed her cheek briefly. They heard Connor making gagging sounds across the table.

"I thought only kids did that?"

"No. I'm allowed to gag at any kind of displays of affection you show anyone until I'm about thirty-five. Those are the rules."

"Whose rules?"

"Well…my rules. What other rules would matter?"

"You know, I always thought you would grow out of the bratty behavior by the time you were in your twenties."

"You were wrong." Connor gave his father a sickening sweet smile that made Angel want to smack the back of Connor's head. Realizing his arm wasn't that long and he would have to get up to do that, he settled instead for leaning back and giving the young man a disapproving look.

Buffy gave them both disapproving looks. "You two bicker like it's your job. Shut up please." Licking salt off her fingers, she looked gratefully at the waitress that delivered her chicken salad sandwich.

Sighing through the first few heavenly bites, she suddenly looked thoughtful. Swallowing her food, she sipped her soda and looked towards Angel. "Hey, where's my sister? I haven't talked to her in days."

Fighting to keep from choking on his cheese steak, he somehow kept the surprise off his face. "Dawn? I have no idea."

"Hmm. Someone should check into that."

Staring down into his sandwich, Angel silently agreed. Someone should look into where Dawn was. He had a sinking suspicion that he would find his best friend wherever he found he found his future sister in law. Sighing quietly, he hoped they hadn't gotten into too much trouble during their making up session.