A/N : Loving the response to this fic, thanx so much to all who reviewed. This idea has been kicking around in my head for so long, I wondered several times if it would work. Clearly you all think it deos so far - long may it continue.

Chapter 2

"Bloody hell" Spike gaped at the baby in Angel's arms.

It had been crazy enough finding out he was going to be a father, knowing as he did that it ought to be impossible for himself and Drusilla to make a child. They were vampires after all, the living dead, and sterile as far as he knew. Now it seemed not only did the two of them have what it took to make a baby, but so did Angel and whomever he got some action with. From the scent Spike was getting, he would've taken a stab at who the kid's mother was, but it ought to be impossible.

"Thought Darla was dead" he said aloud, though he hadn't really meant to.

"She was" Angel nodded, knowing how his grand-childe had figured it out, he would've smelt the connection, and felt the pull of the blood-link too, "And she is again now, but she came back" his grand-sire explained, "Any chance I could come inside to tell the whole story, we've been travelling for a while"

"Sure" Buffy said, moving out of the way and letting the gang into her house, almost on autopilot as her brain went into overdrive.

Angel had a son, apparently with Darla, whom everybody had presumed to be dead all this time. There were two babies in her house, both of which had been born of two vampires, both of which had lost their mothers at their birth.

"Hey" Cordy half-smiled as she came through the door, followed by Wesley and then a couple that were unfamiliar to the Slayer.

"Er, hi" she said absently.

"This is Gunn and Fred" the ex-cheerleader gestured to her friends, "Guys this is Buffy, and for some reason as yet unknown, we also have Spike"

"Spike?" the dark man echoed as they all moved into the living room and sat down together, "Ain't he a vampire?"

"Yeah, he is" Angel nodded, staring at his grand-childe, "I'm sure there's a good reason though, why Buffy would have him here"

"Bloody live here, you poof" Spike told him nastily, "Not that it's any of your business"

It made the Slayer wonder how it were possible for this to be the same person that looked after Annaliese every day. Her doting father turned into the equivalent of an unruly teen after sharing a room with Angel for less than two minutes.

"How about we start with your story" she said to her ex, "Then we'll share ours"

The brooding vampire kept his eyes on Spike a moment longer, the look the two shared being far from friendly, before he paid attention to Buffy once again and nodded his head. He and Cordelia sat down on the couch, Connor on his fathers knee, as Fred joined them, Wes grabbed an arm chair and Gunn perched on the arm of the couch beside Fred. The Slayer took the second armchair as Spike hovered at her side, until she gestured he should join her and he sat down on the arm of the chair beside her.

"I guess I should start with Connor" Angel sighed, "Darla was brought back from the dead last year by a law firm, Wolfram & Hart"

"Heard of them" Spike nodded, "Evil buggers, right?"

"Totally" Cordelia agreed, "And hell-bent on bringing Angel down"

"Maybe they're not so bad then" Spike smirked, until Buffy's warning look made him shut up fast.

"Anyway" Angel continued, ignoring his grand-childe, "There was an... incident, with Darla and me, and then she disappeared. When she came back a couple of weeks ago, she was pregnant"

"So this incident...?" Buffy said with a look.

"I think that translates to shagging, pet" Spike told her, causing her to roll her eyes - she really wasn't so naive she didn't get it!

"Look, this is sooo not the point right now!" Cordy interrupted, "The point is Connor is some kind of miracle kid, and everybody is gunning for him" she said, looking genuinely scared when the Slayer and Spike bothered to pay proper attention, "We need help here"

The cry of a baby made everybody's attention switch to the staircase upon which stood Willow with a baby in her arms and Tara hovering behind. They'd heard the voices of Angel, Cordelia and the others, and now, knowing it was safe, had brought the child downstairs.

"I think she wants her Daddy" the red-head told the assembled group, the entire fang gang looking shocked when Spike got up from his seat and went over to the witches, taking the baby from Willow.

"Another baby" Fred gasped, "and he's the father?" she checked with Buffy.

"Yes" she nodded once, talking mostly to Angel as his attention switched back to her, "You and Darla weren't the only ones to have a miracle child"

"Spike and... and you?!" the souled vampire's eyes were wide as dinner plates and he looked less than impressed by what he seemed to be being told.

"Oh come on, Angel, like you should really be this surprised" Cordy snorted, "She's always had a thing for the walking dead"

"She's not my baby" Buffy snapped, mostly annoyed by Cordelia's snarky attitude, less so by the apparent accusation that she was Annalieses's mother, after all she sometimes found herself wishing she were.

"But she is mine" Spike told the group as he came to sit down next to the Slayer once again, rocking Annaliese gently in his arms, "Dru paid me a visit, by the looks of things just a short while 'fore you and Darla rediscovered your past pleasure" he told his grand-sire who gaped at the tiny baby girl in Spike's arms, "This is Annaliese"

"Aaw, she's just adorable" Fred smiled, "Isn't she Charles?"

"Cute kid" Gunn agreed, though of course he was less to eager to be swooning over children than she was.

"This is simply unprecedented" Wesley shook his head, glancing between the two vampires and their offspring, "Two children, both borne of two vampires, and so close together. This can't be simply coincidence"

"Hardly" Cordy agreed, "I mean, hello, two vampire guys suddenly firing the not-so-blanks, making buns in stone cold ovens, and at almost exactly the same time? Either the Powers That Be or the Powers That Do Evil are messing with us"

"Something is definitely going on" Buffy agreed, "Two miracles like this, there has to be a reason why"

"Maybe" Willow considered, "Or maybe it's just the blood or something"

"Blood?" Buffy frowned slightly, "There's blood now?"

"The blood-line" her friend explained to the whole room, "Darla and Angel, and Drusilla and Spike, they're all of the same vampire blood-line, right?"

"Yes, indeed" Wesley agreed with her, "The blood-line of Aurelius, a superior line amongst vampires" he nodded his head.

"Right, so maybe they're so superior they can do stuff other vamps can't" the re-head said thoughtfully, "Like, make babies"

"I see what you're sayin'" Gunn nodded, "But if that was how it was, wouldn't they have like a million kids each by now? They been round a few hundred years, that's a damn lot of... y'know" he said vaguely when he realised he was in mixed company and the phrase in his head wasn't wholly appropriate to come out of his mouth right now. Fred blushed even at the idea of what he might've been going to say.

"I don't know why we suddenly both have kids" Angel admitted, "What I do know is, mine is in danger, and we need help"

"Yeah, and you're probably puttin' my kid in just as much danger as yours by coming here, you stupid git!" Spike complained, "All these folks gunning for a miracle kid, and hey presto now there's two. You think they're only gonna be interested in yours?"

"Connor is the only child they're paying an attention to so far" Angel shot back.

"Yeah, but Annaliese was born first!" Spike said, getting in his face as the two vamps got to their feet, standing toe to toe, both with their children still in their arms.

"Guys, this isn't helping" Buffy told them, getting up herself and trying to split them up, "You're just going to upset Annaliese and Connor with all this tension"

Spike was actually the first to back down. He loved his child, and Buffy, more than anything else in the world. If it was in their best interest for him to back off from Angel right now then he'd do it, without question.

"Sorry, luv" he told the Slayer genuinely, "Reckon I ought to be gettin' the little one back to bed anyway"

"Good idea" she agreed with a smile, "I'd say maybe you should take Connor up too" she said, turning to Angel, "but we only have one crib"

"We could have two if you wanted" Willow cut in, "A simple duplication spell and shazam, two cribs for two little miracles" she smiled.

"In the absence of another plan or a store to go to at this hour" Buffy considered, "I'm going with yes, thanks Will"

The two Wiccans followed Spike and Annaliese back up the stairs, and Angel tagged on behind, carrying Connor.

"So, I guess we need a plan if we're probably going to be under attack sometime soon" Buffy sighed, "We have info on the guys that are after you?" she asked Wesley who produced a sheaf of paper and put it into her hands. It was a detailed list of all those who would take or harm Connor, what they'd tried to do to protect the baby, and how successful they'd been.

"In theory many of them should be dead" Wes explained as the Slayer looked over the rough paperwork, "Angel tricked a great many of them, they ended up trapped in a mine shaft with a rather large bomb"

"But hey, you know demons better than most, Buff" Cordy reminded her, "Some of them are tough critters, a bomb wouldn't do enough damage to kill them"

"There's a lot here about this Holtz thing... What's that?" the Slayer asked as she struggled a little with the flowing script of Wesley's writing.

"Not a what so much as a who" Gunn filled in, "Back in the day he was pretty much what you are"

"A Slayer?" she frowned, not really understanding.

"A demon hunter" Wesley explained, "but without the strength and skill of the actual Slayer. He is merely human, or he was back when he originally hunted Darla and Angel in the 1600s"

"Okay..." Buffy elongated the word as she tried to wrap her head around this situation, "So he's a zombie now or...what?"

"He's still human" Fred spoke up for the first time, deciding it was best to get in a few sentences of what she understood before the conversation veered off into the complex issues of demons and magicks that she hadn't totally got a grasp of yet, "Somehow a demon named Sahjahn froze Holtz in time, and brought him back in this time"

"To kill Angel's son?" Buffy guessed, hoping she was following this. She was so tired and this was beyond weird, she half wondered if she was dreaming the whole thing.

"As far as we know his original plan was simply to end the existence of Angelus and Darla" Wesley told her, "But now, with Darla gone and Connor here, it seems likely he might go through the son in order to bring pain to the father"

"Especially since that's what we did to him" Angel said from the staircase as he returned to the room.

Buffy grimaced at the very thought, but then she'd long since realised there was a lot about Angel's past that was unsavoury but must simply be accepted as it couldn't be changed. Angel wasn't that evil person any more that had committed such heinous crimes against people throughout history, anymore than Spike was the terrible monster he had once been either.

"But this is just one guy, right?" Buffy checked, returning her thoughts to more important matter of Mr Daniel Holtz, "One ought-to-be dead guy, but still, he's just a human and beatable?"

"As far as we know" Cordelia agreed, "but the guy is a maniac, and he's building an army, plus there could be more people and demons coming after Connor, not to mention Wolfram and Hart and whatever plans they might have"

"Okay" Buffy sighed, putting a hand to her head that was spinning violently by now from the sheer amount of information it was trying to handle, "I so wish Giles was here right now" she muttered as she tried to think how best to take charge of this situation. She really was not sure where to begin.

To Be Continued...