Bring Me to Life

By JeantheGuardian

Spoilers : ANGEL- Season 4 and BUFFY- Season 7.

P.S. I read up on a few spoilers for the grand finales of BUFFY and Angel's Season finale.and I don't know if they're wrong or not, but I just had to do something about how AtS's "Inside Out" ended. It didn't do Darla and Angel justice. And I'm not sure if Buffy's end will do so either, so.here this is!)

Summary: Connor makes a different choice than to sacrifice the girl for his "child".and this leads to Buffy, Darla and Angel banding together for a war for Cordy's soul.and against Jasmine and the First Evil. Who will survive the End of Days?

Pairings: B/A, mentions of A/C, B/S and Angel/Darla, Dawn/Connor, Wesley, Fred/Gunn, Xander/Anya, and other surprise pairings.and guests!

Disclaimer: Joss owns them all, to my everlasting chagrin. So don't sue.

Feedback: Cool. Always great to hear from the people I write this for...YOU guys!

Distribution: Feel free to take this story and use it, just let me know where, though, okay? Okay! Enough of this legal mumbo jumbo. On to the story!


Bring Me To Life

Part 1- The Road Not Taken


Choice there is not, unless the thing which we take
be so in our power...that we might have refused it.
--Hooker.

Choice.

Everything begins with choice. The ability to decide, to choose for ourselves. We do it in the morning, when we decide between rolling over and staying in the bliss of sleep, or to waken through the pains and groggily stumble to work. We do it when we decide on how we spend our monthly paychecks. Whether we're going to step up and ask out that special someone we've had our eyes on, or stand back in quiet fear as someone else takes your place. Whether we're going to try to give to this world, or to take from it.

Choice is what defines us. And in turn, we are defined by our choices.

Which brings us to this one crucial moment in time. Where in L.A., the City of Angels, the City of Lost Souls, in a abandoned meat packing factory, whose death-soaked stench of dead animals stills fills the air, a troubled young man, his heart tormented with despair, loneliness, and rage, must make one such choice. As two women, one bathed in the light of goodness and salvation, the other drenched in the darkness of evil and fear, struggle in a desperate tug-of-war for his soul, he holds the life of a young girl, no older than his own tender age, in his unsure hands. And now the boy must make a decision that may hold yet more heartache for him regardless of his choice. A choice that is complicated for so many reasons, and yet is as simple as black or white.

Life or death...which would he decide?


"Connor, listen to me!" Darla couldn't waste anymore time. She had to reach her son.

"It's not her", Cordelia calmly uttered to her mate. The calm was a mask, hiding the growing exasperation, the fear of losing control over her most powerful pawn...her champion.

"You have to let her go!"

"It's your father. This is how much he hates you...", Cordelia urged him on, the nervousness rising to the surface, betraying the smug look on her face earlier.

Darla's eyes brimmed with tears. "I love you. Please…", she pleaded softly to her only son.

As he heard his mother's desperate pleas, he felt his own heart begin to break. How could he refuse her?

"Torturing you with this sad imitation of your dead mother!"

But God, what if Cordy was right? The group always loved to use that disgusting magic. What if this was all a lie, what if...what if he was being tricked into killing their baby?

HIS baby?

"Don't let her do this!"

"Are you going to let them do this to us? Are you going to let them kill our baby!?"

"Connor, Listen to me!", she pleaded one last time, her beautiful blue eyes brimming with tears.

Connor felt his head spin in circles. The swirling began to consume him.

His mother. His family.

Mother.

Family.

Motherfamilymotehrfamilymeotherfaylmimoehterfalimy...now the words didn't even make sense!...His thoughts became muddled into one, and God help him, he did not know what to do.

Above all of that, he heard the girl's quiet sobbing. "Please….I wanna go home...I didn't do anything, I wanna go home, please…."

Her cries broke his heart, the poor girl couldn't have been, what, 15,16? She was probably on her way home from school, just trying to get to her home, her family.

Family.

Connor had a family to think about, didn't he? A child, who everyone was hunting, who needed him. A woman he cared for, maybe even loved, desperate for her child. HIS child. He wondered if his own mother, standing right there next to him, felt the same way….before she died.

Before he was born.

Born.

So peaceful, so blissfully unaware of the cruelty the world would show him, what horrors awaited him. So innocent.

Innocent.

"I didn't do anything, please...", the girl's voice echoed in his head. And that's when the voice in his heart began to reach his mind.

She DIDN'T do anything.

She was innocent. She was just trying to go home, and she was lost and scared and crying. What had she done to deserve this? She shouldn't have to die...just for his child. Or anyone. She didn't do anything! She was innocent!

His own mind roared out over the sea of voices, over the calls of the women around him, the thought his mother tried to convince him of, of the thought that, at his very core, he knew to be right, to be just---

This.

Is.

WRONG!

"NO!", he bellowed at Cordelia, his eyes filled with pain, and righteous rage. He picked up the whimpering girl by her bonds and jerked her to her feet.

"She didn't do anything! This is wrong, Cordelia!", he said as his eyes brimmed with tears.

He felt his mother sigh with relief next to him. "Good boy, Connor", she smiled, proud of her son.

Cordelia's face lit up with rage. "What are you saying!", she demanded, her fists balled up, shaking with unbridled anger. "You'd let our baby DIE because of one stupid, meaningless little girl? YOUR BABY ?"

As he spoke, he gained even more conviction. "No child of mine will ever be baptized with blood…led alone the blood of an innocent."

"You idiot!", she shrieked at him, leaning in dangerously close to his face. "Don't you realize what they're doing? Angel's turned you against me with this…this…pathetic excuse of a vision of your dead mother-"

"She's real enough to me!", he snapped back, not noticing the way Darla's eyes lit up when he said that. Love and hope filled her soul down to the very root of her being.

"There'll have to be another way, but not like this!", he continued. "I'm taking her home. Now!" He started to take steps away from her, dragging the bound girl behind him.

"You dare defy ME?", Cordelia growled.

He stopped short, and turned to look at her.

'Defy?'

That wasn't a very Cordelia-esque thing for her to say. He took a closer look, peering deep into his mistress's eyes.

Those eyes that once could captivate him to no end. Those beautiful brown eyes that could have commanded him to leap from the highest summit to the deepest ocean. They were still brown, just as beautiful...

But something about them was just wrong.

There as no warmth and kindness reflected off those orbs, only rage and desperation. No compassion and caring, but demand and callousness.

No good and purity, but something...

...Something...

"Evil?", Darla finished her son's thought. "Yes, baby. She's been lying to you all this time."

Cordelia whirled on the angelic vision of Darla, her eyes narrowed. "Nobody's talking to you, Casper", she sneered. "You might be dead, but keep interfering in my business and you're going to wish you never existed!"

"The only one who doesn't exist is you…'Cordelia'", Darla retorted back, calmly giving a knowing smile to the Dark Queen in front of her.

'Cordelia' snorted. "And here I thought Drusilla was the crazy one in your line." She turned back to Connor, transfixed on the two women, with the bound girl tugging weakly at his side.

"You see, Connor?", she turned back to the confused boy. "You see how they use lies with the truth? You see how they're manipulating you even as we speak?"

"Manipulating?", Darla's image balled her fists to her sides and held them there. "All this time, doing the things you've done? The Rain of Fire? Stealing Angel's soul? Telling MY son to kill his own father? Murdering that family of priestesses? And you have the gall to accuse me of manipulating?"

Connor's eyes widened. "Th…th-that family...you did that??" He flashed back to that night the gang came upon the sickening finding of those poor children alongside their parents, cut to pieces and lying in that horrible pool of blood.

Darla grimly nodded. "Yes, Connor. She did that. And much, much worse."

"LIES!", Cordelia roared. "Connor, are you going to allow this...thing to commit this blasphemy against me?"

"Blasphemy?", Darla chuckled, raising one golden eyebrow. "Why, 'Cordelia', you speak as if you were…oh, I don't know...a God, or something?"

This time, Cordelia smiled. And it was a dark, sinister smile. She let out a chuckle that was filled with such malice that it chilled Connor right to the bone. He had never heard Cordelia laugh like that. Ever.

"A God?", she sneered. "Honey, I'm beyond a god….I'm your master!"

Connor noticed too late a dullish red light glowing from her right hand. He hadn't seen Cordy do that, either. Well, she glowed, sometimes, but not that kind of glow. Not that kind of evil, creepy glow that was coming out of her right now...

His instincts kicked in at the last moment, everything in his body telling him to get himself, his mother away from.

"MOM, LOOK OUT!", the boy cried.

But it was too late. The hand had snaked out and grabbed Darla's image by the throat. Darla immediately gave a gasp of air, as a brilliant reddish light glowed around her. Darla cried out in pain, gasping for air, her eyes shut...looking as if she were actually choking.

But.that's impossible, Connor thought. She can't be choking; she'd have to be ali-

Oh, my God

Darla reeled as suddenly, she found herself pulled into a chokehold, 'Cordelia' wrapping her free forearm around Darla's neck, pulling her around in front. With the other arm, she pulled the meat cleaver against the stunned blonde's clavicle, causing her to gasp in fright.

"MOM!", Connor cried out, his other hand still on the kidnapped girl, who gasped in horror at the scene before her.

'Cordelia' glared at Connor, her eyes burning with cruelty and fury. "I tried to get you to do this the easy way", she glowered. "But, oh, no! Not Broody Junior. I guess it's true what they say. 'Like father, like son'."

"Let her go!", Connor gritted his teeth in anger.

"Awww, isn't that sweet?", 'Cordelia sneered at her ex-lover. "Showing concern for Mommy Dearest? Just too damn bad you couldn't apply the same concern to the woman expecting your child!" As she said this, she nudged the cleaver against Darla's delicate skin, making her gag and wince in pain.

Connor was near-panicked. His first thought was that his mother, the woman who gave him life, was being held at knifepoint. His second thought was that his mother, the woman who gave him life, was being held at knifepoint…by Cordelia, the woman expecting his child.

How could she do this, he thought.

"Cordelia", he finally said, an appeasing, rational tone finding its way into his voice. A true rarity in itself. "Come on…this isn't what you want- "

"I'm not a psycho, you twit! So stop talking to me like you're on the bomb squad!", she shrilled. "You wanna talk, Junior? Fine. I have something you want….you have something I NEED."

At that, the girl in Connor's grasp let out a cry of fear and stumbled back, but Connor's superhuman grip on her bonds kept her at his side.

"Cordy, please…don't make me do this.", Connor implored the brunnete, a small tear beginning to trail down his left cheek.

"Connor, Connor, Connor", she shook her head at him in pity. "I thought you of all people would've learned by now…life's about choices. The ones we make…and the ones we don't...it's simple really. You want your mother back? Fine. All you have to do… is slit the girl's throat. "

"Connor, don't listen!", Darla rasped out from beneath the murderess's grip. "Get the girl out of here, nothing else matters, not even my -"

'Cordelia' pressed the meat cleaver further into her skin, this time drawing a thin crimson line of blood. Darla let out a small moan of pain, cursing herself as she did so.

"STOP IT! You're hurting her!", Connor cried out, his eyes wide with fear and indecision.

"No one's talking to you, Blondie!", 'Cordelia' whispered fiercely in her ear. "Now be a good little dead girl and keep quiet unless you want to end up with a new throat hole…just like Lilah."

Darla looked up at her captor and laughed a breathy giggle. "Thank you. Guess you forgot about how 'special' my little boy is, didn't you…'Cordy'?"

'Cordelia' frowned in confusion until she looked up at Connor. His face was a mask of shock and disbelief.

"What?", he drew a shaky breath, obviously stunned by something.

'Cordy' was puzzled, until it dawned on her. Super-hearing! Damn it! I forgot about the brat's super-hearing! Cursing herself for not remembering such an important detail, she could only muster out, "You-you weren't supposed to hear that!"

"It was you all this time, wasn't it?" , Connor realized, beginning to shake with uncontrolled rage. "The Rain of fire, blocking out the sun, stealing my da- - Angel's soul, all those innocent people…you planned all of this, didn't you?"

After a beat, 'Cordelia's' face slacked down and she rolled her eyes. "Well, it's about time the monkey grew a brain", she snapped. "And to think, all this time I had you under my control, the answer was under you all along...literally."

"Why?", Connor managed to breathe out, his anger building up inside him like a churning volcano. "Why are you doing this?"

'Cordelia' snorted. "It didn't take much, did it? All a girl's gotta do is tell you how 'special' you are, fill that tiny little brain of yours with visions of fatherhood, a happy little family…throw in some T&A and you've got one whipped little super freak." Noting the hurt appearing in Connor's eyes, she gleefully continued. "Did you really believe that I could actually grow to love you? You shouldn't be loved…you should be locked up. Thrown away with the other murdering misfits in some rubber-padded room. Oh, and when I called you 'special'? I meant the way you call a little child with Down's Syndrome special. Or some autistic brat. Or a retarded kid. The fact that you let me take you this far backs that up, Connor. The fact is...you're a creepy, self-absorbed, whiny, confused, sad little boy." She paused for a beat, beaming a sickeningly sweet smile. "And nobody loves you."

Connor averted his eyes, a futile attempt to conceal the pain that those remarks made in him, of how deeply those words wounded his soul.

"Connor. Look at me", he heard his mother's soft voice beckon to him. He turned his eyes up to the beautiful woman, who he had never met up until now. To save him from his darkest hour.

"Look at my eyes, baby." He did as instructed, his dark brown eyes meeting Darla's blue-green orbs, which radiated nothing but pure love and affection.

"I love you. Always remember that", she said calmly, though her eyes began to spill tears. "I gave up my life for you because I love you so much….I'll always love you, Connor. No matter what." She gradually lowered her gaze. "But do the right thing now…listen to your heart...trust me, Connor, but most of all…"

As she spoke, Connor noted that her eyes began to follow a downward pattern. He followed her loving stare….all the way down...to the floor…near his foot.

Where the water bottle lay. The one that Connor offered to the girl.

"Trust your heart."

He understood.

'Cordelia' rolled her eyes. "Oh, geez, soap-opera, much? Make your decision, Connor. What's it gonna be? Your mother, or the girl? Time's a wasting, and I've got a baby to deliver."

Connor nodded. "Okay...okay, Cordelia. You win. I'll give you the girl."

"No, please!", the girl tried to squirm away from him, but he jerked her back towards him. She sobbed, mumbling indecipherable words.

'Cordelia' smiled triumphantly. "Smart boy. I knew you'd see things my way."

Connor paused. "Just...one question, though."

'Cordelia' frowned. "Don't wanna answer. In a hurry. Kill her, please!"

"It'll just take a second", he reasoned.

'Cordelia' let out a forced breath. "Fine. Make it fast!"

Connor smiled. "Why are your lips so chapped?"

'Cordelia' was thoroughly offended. "Excuse me?"

"Well", the boy shrugged. "I've got a little theory on that…you've probably been so busy planning out this well-laid chaos…you haven't had time to sit down, cool your heels….have a DRINK!..."

With incredible speed, Connor lashed out at the water bottle, kicking it through the air, open bottle and all, heading straight for 'Cordelia'.

The pregnant 'Cordy' was struck right in the head with the projectile, letting out a startled cry before spazing out and jerking backwards into the wall, loosing her footing, balance….and her grip on Darla.

In a flash of vampire-like speed, Connor reached a hold of his mother's wrist and began tugging her away from the room, the frightened captive girl in tow.

"Door. Hurry", was all Darla could manage as she, Connor and the girl ran as fast as their legs could carry them.

"Seiza jah n'hast ka lest. Seiza jah n'hast ka lest" Cordy began chanting, her eyes growing a dull milky white.

The door slammed about a half second before the three of them could reach the exit…and their freedom.

"Open it! OPEN IT!", the girl began shrieking.

"I'm trying!", was all Connor could manage, his muscles straining against the handle of the metal door, which refused to budge.

"She sealed us inside, Connor", Darla realized. "There's no way out through there."

The clip-clop of heels echoed only a few feet from them. The girl squealed in surprise as 'Cordelia' began to walk towards them, meat cleaver in hand, a malevolent resolve on her face.

"Gave you a chance, Connor", she hissed. "Your mother or the girl…now...you can watch them BOTH die."

Darla suddenly grabbed hold of Connor's hand. She reached out and clasped her other hand to the girl's wrist.

Connor was perplexed as to what Darla was doing. "Mom, what are you-"

"Trust me, baby, just hold on!", she said with determination etched into her gorgeous features.

And, for the first time in his life, Connor did as he was told.

Darla looked head on at the approaching 'Cordelia, only a few steps away from them, and scowled. "Domini, sacrum, recursum spiritum Angelus!", she roared.

The last thing Connor remembered was a howling, cold wind, his tight grip on his mother's soft hand, and a bright flash of light before everything went white…