I own none of the characters of Angel.

Once Cordy's breathing had become even, and the snoring and drooling began he knew that she was out for the count. She had fallen asleep, tightly clinging to him. He gently untangled himself from her arms and got dressed. He then went into Catherine's room to say goodbye to her.

"Hey chipmunk." He whispered to the sleeping child. "Daddy has to go away for awhile to help an old friend. It will be dangerous but don't tell your mommy because I lied to her because I don't want her to be worried about me and then try to be a hero and come and help. She needs to stay here and take care of you. I'm going to do everything that I can to make sure that I can come back home to you but if something happens and I don't make it, I hope you can remember how much your daddy loves you." He gently kissed her head and walked over to Cordy. He knew that if tried to talk to her, she would wake up so he just kissed her lips and softly whispered "I love you" and he headed to his office.

"Wes, what are you doing here?" Angel had spent the last hour writing letters to Cordy, Catherine, Connor and Ciara.

"I knew that you were leaving so I wanted to make sure you were all right."

"I'm fine."

"I did some research on this Carlo and Angel, he is dangerous. Are you sure that you are physically ready for this?"

"I'm ready, just please don't tell Cordy what you read about him. She will freak out."

"I'll try."

"Look Wes, I just wrote some letters. Can you keep them in the safe in your office and give them out only if something happens to me and I don't come home." Wes just stared at his normally confident friend who actually looked scared.

"You're worried."

"I am and I want to make sure that if I don't make it, they know how I feel about them."

"They do know Angel."

"Can you do this for me please Wes?"

"Of course I will Angel."

"Are you ready you stupid ponce?" Spike asked as he walked into Angel's office.

"Look Spike, I really don't need your help." Angel snapped.

"There is no way in hell that I'm going to let you go in and be all hero like and save Buffy. I don't need you."

"You can't find your way out of a square box without help you idiot."

"You two are going to have to put your differences aside in order to be able to successfully rescue Buffy."

"I can do it by myself." Angel and Spike said at the same time and then glared at each other.

"See you're already working together." Wes said and they turned their glare on him.

"Let's go Spike." Angel grumbled and they left the hotel in the pre-dawn hours to catch a plane with tinted windows.

--

"Any word on Angel?" Cordy asked as came into the office. He had been gone for two weeks and none of them had heard anything.

"I spoke with Giles and there has been no changes since yesterday. Buffy still had not been rescued and Angel and Spike had not made another rescue attempt for three days." Wes explained.

"God Dammit, I hate this. It shouldn't have taken this long." Wes didn't respond. "He said that he wasn't dangerous, that he could handle it. Is this psycho vamp in a fortress?" Again Wes didn't respond and Cordy's eyes grew wide. "That son of a bitch. He lied to me." She walked over and staring pulling Wesley's books off of his shelf. She was going to find out about Carlo.

"Cordelia, please not my books." Wesley begged

"Since my husband lied to me then I will find out for myself what this Carlo is all about."

"He just didn't want you to worry about him." Before Cordy could tell Wesley that she is his wife and has every right to worry about him, Gunn burst through the door.

"English, we've located the Gorssa Demon. He is across town and he is hungry." Gunn blurted out.

"OK, is everyone ready?"

"Connor and Justine are waiting at the truck."

"I'll go." Cordy said.

"No we've got it. Why don't you stay here and handle things." Cordy wasn't in the mood to argue so she agreed to stay behind and the alone time would give her more time to check out Wesley's books to learn more about Carlo.

"CORDY." She jumped out of her chair. She was intently reading about Carlo. She had found out that he was one of the most vicious vampires of all time with the exception of Angel, Spike and Darla. Once Angel and Spike stopped fighting evil and Darla staked herself, Carlo became the most vicious evil vampire in the twenty-first century and her Angel was fighting them. She looked up and saw Fred standing in the doorway, her face contorted with pain.

"Oh my God Fred, what happened?"

"The baby….he's coming….Wesley….not…answering his….phone."

"I'm taking you to the hospital."

"No…need…husband." Fred gasped.

"Come on we'll call keep trying him on the way." She wrapped her arm around Fred and led her to the lobby. "Ciara, can you stay here, watch Catherine. Fred's in labor and I'm taking her to the hospital." Ciara nodded. "Keep trying to get a hold of Wesley and let him know what is going on."

"Good luck Fred." Ciara yelled as they went out the door. An hour later Fred and Cordy were in the delivery room and Fred was fully dilated, ready to start pushing.

"Cordy, I can't…I need Wesley." Fred sobbed. Cordy had changed into scrubs and was prepared to help her best friend through this until Wes showed up.

"Yes you can. Giving birth is a piece of cake." Fred laughed through her tears. "At least you had time for an epidural."

"OK Fred, it's time to start pushing. Are you ready?" The doctor asked.

"No, my husband isn't here yet."

"Sweetie, we can't wait any longer. Your son needs to be born now." Fred nodded and with Cordy's help, thirty minutes later Fred pushed out a healthy baby boy.

"Fred, he is beautiful." Cordy said as she looked at the baby in Fred's arm.

"He is. He is just perfect. I think he looks like his father."

"Poor kid." Cordy joked and both girls giggled. "What's his name?"

"Matthew David."

"Hello Matthew. I'm your Aunt Cordy and I'm going to spoil you rotten. You have a wonderful cousin named Catherine. You two will have so much fun together."

Fred had just gotten cleaned up and moved to a private room when Wesley showed up.

"Oh, honey, I am so sorry. The demon ate my cell phone and he was much harder to kill then we had anticipated. When we got back to the hotel and Ciara told me the news, I tried to rush right over but I was covered in it's blue slime and blood, which caused me to spell quite horrible so Gunn insisted that I shower before I came over." The nurse that was adjusting Fred's IV line looked at Wesley like he had grown two heads.

"I'm glad that you showered because if you hadn't I wouldn't let you hold your son. Come here and say hello to Matthew." Fred said as she put their son in his father's arms.

"Hello son. I'm your father." Wes whispered as the tears fell onto the blue blanket. Cordy took that moment to sneak out and let the new family get acquainted. She had a sudden urge to hug her baby girl.

--

"God Dammit. We need to get back there and take that son of a bitch out NOW." Spike yelled.

"Yeah Spike, just rush right in there like we did the first time and get our asses kicked again. Yeah, that sounds real fucking smart." Angel snapped. He was tired, hurt and just wanted to go home.

"We have to save her. Did you see what he was doing to her?" Spike said softly.

"Of course I saw. I have two eyes same as you do." Every time that he closed his eyes, he saw Buffy, chained to a wall, beat within an inch of her life, and Carlo was drinking just enough of her blood to keep her alive, but barely.

"I don't know if I can wait until the sun goes down to go after her."

"Then be my guest and go out into the sun. Let's see how far you can get."

"Bite me Angel."

"Oh that's real mature Spike." Spike stuck his middle finger up at Angel who rolled his eyes and began to pace.

"We need the blue prints of that hell hole. There has got to be some sort of sewer access. Any vampire with brains has sewer access. If we can find that access then we can surprise him during the day, when he won't expect us." Angel said, frustrated with himself that he didn't think of it sooner, but even he had to admit that his mind was back in LA with his family.

Spike quickly got on the phone and an hour later they had the blueprints in their hands and by nightfall that had their plan set in motion. They decided to get a good night's sleep and proceed first thing in the morning. Before going to sleep, Angel called home.

"Hey Cor."

"Angel, you sorry son of a bitch. You lying asshole. When you get home I'm going to kick your pale ass into next week."

"You found out about Carlo didn't you?"

"Hell yes I found out. I can read you know and Wesley's book had a lot of interesting information about that asshole."

"Cor, I'm sorry. I just didn't want to worry you."

"I'm your wife, It's my job to worry."

"I know. It was stupid of me. You're right. I'm sorry."

"Of course I'm right. I'm Cordelia. So have you saved her yet?"

"We are going back in tomorrow."

"Be careful."

"I will." Cordy then told him about Matthew's birth and all of the recent demons that they had killed.

"Come home soon please." She whispered.

"I'll try. Kiss Catherine for me."

"I will. I love and miss you."

"I love and miss you too."

At dawn the next day Spike and Angel put their plan Rescue Buffy into motion.

"Do you think that he is sleeping?" Spike asked.

"Do I look like I know what his sleeping patterns are?"

"Jesus, what crawled up your ass and died?"

"You did."

"My God you are as moody as a woman."

"Look Spikey, I'm not here to be your friend. I am here to get a job done and I could do it much better if you would shut the hell up for a change." Angel whispered through clenched teeth.

"Touchy, Touchy." Spike muttered under his breath. If Angel didn't need Spikes help, he would have staked him right there.

"This is the door." Angel said

"How do you know it's the right one?" Spike knew that Angel was in a pissy mood and he quite enjoyed pushing all of his buttons.

"I just do. Now are you ready or would you like to continue to stand out here and question me."

"I'm ready."

"On three. One. Two. Three." They both easily lifted their leg and kicked the door down. They were surrounded by tons of vamps, but they were ready for them and took them out easily. They were searching all of the rooms for Buffy when they heard her screams. They ran towards the sound and kicked that door down. Carlo spun around and faced them.

"So you found my sewer access did you know?" He sneered. Angel and Spike immediately vamped.

"Release her." Spike said.

"No, but you can if you can get through me." Carlo vamped.

"You think that you are so original by torturing you victims?" Angel asked

"You're not. We invented and perfected that mate. Me and him." Spike said before Carlo could answer. The three of them stood there, Carlo glaring at Angel and Spike and Angel and Spike glared back at him then in the blink of an eye, Spike and Angel were attacking Carlo.

Carlo was a tough opponent. He was every bit as strong as Angel and Spike and he held his own against them. There were quite a few times that Angel and Spike were thrown across the room or against a wall but they recovered quickly. After an hour of intense fighting, Angel finally was in a position to stake Carlo.

"Spike, get Buffy." Spike didn't have to be asked twice. He ran over to the wall were Buffy was chained up. When Spike roughly yanked one of the chains off of the wall she screamed in agony. When Angel heard Buffy's scream, he sent the stake right through his cold dead heart. Carlo was no more. He quickly made his way over to Spike and Buffy.

"What are you a dumbass? You need to be gentle. Her wrists and ankles are raw." Angel shouted

"Who are you calling a dumbass? I just saved your ass."

"Bullshit. I saved you." They both were picking the locks on the chains.

"Are you serious mate? He almost had a stake in your heart and I pulled him off of you."

"And how many times did I pull him away from you? Actually how many times did I pick you up off of your sorry ass? It happened so many times. I lost count."

"Will you two please shut up?" Buffy whispered hoarsely.

"Buffy are you OK?" Spike asked

"I've been better."

"Come on, let's get you out of here." Angel said and he and Spike both bent down to pick her up.

"I've got it." Spike said

"No, I've got her."

"I said I'll get her."

"No, I'll do it."

"What are you guys, two? I'll walk."

"Buffy, you can't walk. You've lost a lot of blood." Angel said but Buffy choose not to listen and began to walk away but she collapsed in Angel's arm after one step.

"Always have to be the hero don't you mate?"

"You're finally getting it Spikey." Buffy looked into Angel's eyes,

"I love you Angel." She whispered and fell unconscious.