Diclaimer in Part One-a.

*****

"This is ... nice," Willow said cheerfully.

"It's a crackerjack box, Will," Buffy answered glumly, looking around her tiny apartment.

When they had initially moved in, she had thought it temporary, but money was disappearing much faster than she had anticipated and they couldn't afford to be moving any time in the foreseeable future.

"I take it Jake is still giving you the silent treatment," the witch surmised.

Buffy nodded. Willow was visiting for the week, mixing the small vacation with the first of a series of guest lectures at UCLA. The former Slayer was silently thankful that the witch had opted to stay at a nearby hotel rather than in the cramped apartment, if only because of the current uneasiness between herself and her son.

"Yeah," Buffy said with a sigh, comforted by her friend's painfully insightful nature. "I have no idea what the problem is now, but he hasn't said a word to me in three days."

Patting her friend's knee, Willow assured, "Kids are like that, Buffy. Don't you remember being mad at your mom over stupid little things. He'll get over it."

"I hope so," Buffy said wistfully, feeling a bit awkward about taking child rearing tips from someone without kids, but it was Willow. "He's going through so much and he won't let me in at all."

"He needs time, Buffy. Telling him about Angel when he's already in a state of agitation like this probably wouldn't be the wisest thing."

Buffy nodded in agreement. She knew Willow was right, but Jakob's unapproachable mood seemed to be almost constant. She was never going to find the right time to talk to him.

*****

"You aren't planning on going psycho evil boy again anytime soon are you?"

Angel's pained expression made itself visible as he lifted his face to stare at the dark vampiress.

"Pardon?" he asked, more for a clarification of what she had meant than for a repetition of the painful words.

"You know," Faith said, gesturing wildly with her hands, "evil, psycho, Angelus."

Angel winced as she sat down cross-legged in one of his expensive leather office chairs, the thick soles of her work boots scuffing the supple surface.

"You want to give me some background here?" he asked, trying to avoid looking at the damage she was inflicting on his expensive furnishings.

Faith made a face and then reluctantly explained, "Dru has been-"

"Dru?" Angel yelled, cutting her off. "You're hanging out with Drusilla? Are *you* nuts?"

"No," Faith said sheepishly, "it's just that where Darla is, Dru usually tends to follow."

Angel scowled at his friend. "I warned you about hooking up with Darla, Faith. She's dangerous."

"Yeah ... well ... she's my Sire," Faith blustered. She sighed heavily, dropping her gaze to her lap for several long moments before once again meeting his eyes. "And I'm *bored*! You're such a goddamn stick in the mud, and being a vampire with a soul really cuts down on my choice of friends."

Angel shot her a wry glance.

"Oh, I guess you've been there, huh?" she said meekly.

"Yeah, and I never once went to Darla looking to alleviate my boredom."

"Oh really?" she snorted, cocking an eyebrow. "That's now hot she tells it."

Angel scowled again, "We're losing sight of the subject here."

Faith shrugged. "Okay, so I'm with Darla. I mean we're not like real *buds* or anything, but she knows how to have fun and she's a riot in bed and well ... you know ... *Sire*."

Angel wasn't about to get into a discussion of Darla's bedroom talents with the Slayer turned ensouled vampire, or delve into the Sire/Childe dynamic. "What does this have to do with Angelus and Drusilla?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm here. For the last week or so, Dru has been acting extra nutty. She's been having visions all the time, just ranting about the stars talking to her, yada yada. Anyway when she's at her most coherent, she keeps blabbing about 'daddy' coming home."

Angel listened in silence, his face an inscrutable mask.

"That would be you, right? You're her 'daddy'."

"Angelus, to be correct. I'm nothing to her, especially now. I'm human. I don't even register on her radar except, well, as food."

Faith frowned. "Normally I wouldn't pay any attention to the psycho, but Darla seems to think she's on to something big. She's actually been listening to Dru. I'm worried. Darla is still way pissed at you and if there's any way she can get around the 'no vamping Angel again' clause in your humanity, she'll find it."

Angel smiled. Faith was a grade A screw up, but her heart was in the right place. "Don't worry about me, Faith. I can't be vamped again, The Powers That Be saw to that. I'm human and I'm going to stay human."

Faith smiled, but it was obvious she wasn't completely satisfied. "Just be careful, okay?"

"You have my word."

*****

In the week following Buffy's phone conversation with Willow, Jake had gone through his mother's address book, bank records, even her Christmas card list, and found not one mention of an "Angel" anywhere. As a complete last ditch effort, he started going through a bunch of musty old books that she kept hidden at the back of her closet in an old wooden crate.

He'd discovered the crate as a small child in Huxley. Buffy had ordered him to keep out of it saying he didn't have any business looking at its contents. Well-knowing her son's curious and persistent nature, Buffy hadn't trusted him to do as he was told and she had apparently hidden the crate and its load of books somewhere good. In the intervening decade, he'd failed to relocate the mysterious stash. However, when they had moved, the books had reappeared, and, as luck would have it, she hadn't gone to her previous lengths to keep them hidden from him.

As he started leafing through the tomes, it quickly became clear they were various histories and accounts of demons. Buffy had always reassured her son that there were no such things as monsters, but Riley hadn't been of the same mind. In several of their rare bonding moments, Riley had come clean about his former government involvement. He'd explained how various "monsters" were very real, even given him detailed records and accounts when the boy hadn't believed him.

Jakob couldn't figure out why his mother would have had these books, his father had been the one involved with monsters, not her. As he put the book down and continued to dig through the boxes, he came across a government file similar to the ones Riley had shown him ... only this file wasn't about a monster, it was about Buffy.

Hours later, after he gone through the reports again and again, Jakob still couldn't believe it. His mother was a ... Slayer. He knew that she was strong and athletic, but according to the charts in the file, she was damn near a superhero. Or at least she used to be. Putting the file down, Jakob picked up the books again, looking at them with renewed interest.

*****

It was late when Buffy made it back to the apartment after her extended dinner with Willow who was in town once again. The two had a lot of catching up to do, but hopefully now that they were living in the same state again they could stay closer.

Willow was still with Tara and the two were living in San Francisco where Willow was a professor and Tara ran a book store specializing in occult texts. The two had never had children, but were still as close as any couple Buffy knew, and still deeply in love. Buffy envied her friend's relationship. It would be nice to curl up next to someone you loved at the end of the day, someone who was your other half. Buffy pushed away the thoughts. She had long ago resigned herself to an Angel free existence.

Though the light was off, Buffy slowly opened Jakob's door, smiling when she saw that he was sound asleep. Apparently, happily ever after just wasn't fated for the former Slayer, but at least she had Jakob. Some part of her true love would always be hers.

*****

Jakob was still awake when Buffy opened the door to check on him, but he feigned sleep. He needed to sort out so many things for himself before he could talk to her.

After hours of digging through books, he still hadn't come across any mention of a man named Angel, but found lots of information on Slayers. They were supernatural creatures, tightly associated with demons.

It didn't take a huge leap of logic to figure out that Buffy and Riley had an "office romance", both of them being demon hunters, his father by vocation and his mother by blood. Maybe it had been a similar story with Angel. After all, a Slayer would have trouble dating a normal guy, right? He decided that he'd do a bit more digging into her history.

*****

"I'm being deafened by the sound of you not asking," Cordelia snapped.

Angel regarded her carefully before putting the casefile down and walking over to the coffee pot to pour himself another cup.

Kate raised an eyebrow at the actress. "I know I'm not going to get anything out of him, so why don't you fill me in."

Cordelia scowled. She still wasn't overly fond of Kate, but after nearly two decades of near constant exposure, a tenuous and grudging relationship had formed.

"Buffy," came her one word reply.

"Buffy?" Kate asked quizzically, "as in Buffy the tiny little blonde girl he keeps pictures of hidden in his office?"

"The one and only," Cordelia said with a smile, thoroughly enjoying talking about Angel as if he weren't in the room. It would eventually drive him nuts. It always did. Sometimes, her former boss was just so incredibly easy to handle.

"What isn't he asking you about her?" Kate inquired.

"Anything," Cordelia replied in a completely exasperated tone of voice. "He's known for weeks that she moved back to L.A. and not so much as a peep out of him. He also knows - thanks to Willow - that Buffy's son and my son Charlie are friends, but does he ask? NO."

Kate shrugged, "Maybe he's over her."

"Fat chance," Cordelia spat out. "If he's so over her, then why hasn't he found somebody else?"

Kate's eyes took on a mischievous glint.

"Well, Cordelia," Kate said with mock seriousness, "he's not as young as he used to be. Maybe he's intimidated by women these days, you know." She lowered her voice conspiratorially, "Maybe he has performance anxiety."

Smiling with wicked glee, Cordelia joined Kate's game. "Oh, I hadn't thought of that. You're probably right. He's what ... almost forty now? Could be. Maybe without all that vampiric stamina -"

Angel had finally had it, he slammed the coffee cup down on the desk and glared at Cordelia. "Enough! I'm not a monk, Cordy. I go out on dates, quite a few of them as a matter of fact."

She rolled her eyes at him. "You go out on a lot of *first* dates. You always find something wrong with them. They're too short, too tall, too loud, too quiet. The real problem is that none of them are Buffy. And now she's back in town and she's *single* and you won't even call her."

"Her husband just died!" he exclaimed, obviously irritated.

"Oh, please," Cordelia said, waving off his histrionics. "You're just a coward."

"I'm not a coward!" he said forcefully and then added in a more even tone, "and I'm thirty-eight years old physically, *not* forty."

*****

"What's wrong with you?" Charlie demanded.

Jake looked up from the notebook he was studying, not pleased with having his research interrupted. "Nothing," he grunted.

"Bullshit."

Jake scowled. He really wasn't in the mood to discuss this with anyone. Who the hell was going to believe him anyway? Trying to divert Charlie's attention, he asked, "You ever heard of a store called The Third Eye?"

Charlie gave him a confused look. "The bookstore?"

Surprised, Jake answered, "Yeah." He hadn't actually expected Charlie to have any idea what he was talking about.

"Yeah, I go there sometimes with my dad. Why?"

Jake shot him an incredulous look. "Why do you go there with your dad?"

"Why do you want to know where it is?" Charlie countered.

"I need to ... do some research," Jake said, foundering.

"You researching demons?" Charlie asked flippantly.

"As a matter of fact, yes, and why do you want to know?"

"You're serious?" Charlie asked, sitting down on the step next to his friend.

"Yes," Jake answered quietly. "I'm serious. Now tell me why you and your dad visit that store."

"We don't go there a lot," Charlie answered, "only when he can't find a specific book or something. But between him ... and Wesley, I'd think they have every book on demons out there."

"And why is that?" Jake asked seriously.

Charlie looked around making sure that no one in the lunchtime crowd of students was paying attention. "That's what he does," Charlie explained quietly.

"He does what?"

"He hunts demons, him and Wesley. My mom used to help, but since the acting thing took off, she pretty much stays out of it." He left the part about her not being a seer anymore out. Talk about one supernatural being could lead to talk about another and he had promised his father he wouldn't mention Angel.

Jakob didn't say anything and Charlie wondered if he'd just made a huge mistake. He'd never told anyone before what his dad really did, but he had been sure Jake would understand.

"You don't believe me?" Charlie asked, sure that wasn't the case.

"No," Jake answered. "I believe you. My dad was a demon hunter too."

Charlie startled for a moment and then realized Jakob was talking about Riley, not Angel.

*****

Angel sat in his office after hours giving serious thought to the conversation he'd had with Faith a few weeks earlier. Darla had been pretty quiet for the last couple of years, but he didn't doubt that if she found a chance to get revenge upon him she would take it - at any cost.

He hated the fact that Faith was involved with Darla, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Faith had managed to redeem herself, returning to her calling after Buffy's departure. It hadn't lasted long, the younger Slayer had been killed only a year after taking over. In a rather sick twist of fate, Darla had stumbled upon her death scene. Looking to get back at Angel, and perhaps to amuse herself as well, Darla turned the dying girl. Knowing full well how unstable turned Slayers could be, Faith's Sire had left her to her own devices.

Faith had kept her soul as all turned Slayers did, but unlike her sister Slayer counterparts that had been brought over, the experience didn't crush Faith. She was a great deal more relaxed than most Slayers, with a much more cynical view of life. She accepted her vampiric status in stride, noting that at least she wouldn't age. There was a certain appeal to looking twenty-one for the rest of your unlife.

After her death, a new Slayer was called and Faith turned over the reigns. She'd come to work with Angel for several years and still helped out from time to time as she was needed. Mostly, however, Angel and Faith were just friends. Angel was an expert on being a vampire with a soul and Faith was often in need of guidance. It had wounded Faith deeply when Angel was given his humanity, but they remained close in spite of it.

Due partly to her status as ensouled vampire and partly to her own free nature, Faith saw everything in shades of gray. Nothing was completely good and nothing was completely bad. This allowed her to become Darla's lover with no ill effects to her conscience. That relationship was also facilitated by the natural bond between Sire and Childe. Angel despised the thought of his Sire getting her claws in Faith, but knew that Faith was a big girl and more than responsible for her own actions. Also, the fact that she was occasionally close to Darla gave him the ability to keep tabs on the vengeful vampiress.

*****

As Willow had predicted, Jakob once again was speaking to Buffy, sans explanation for his earlier cold shoulder. However, he still seemed to be withdrawn and rather preoccupied. It had Buffy worried.

Almost to her relief, spring break was upon them and Charlie had invited Jake to stay over at his house on Friday night. In his usual style, Jakob informed her he would be going, rather than asking for permission, but she couldn't really blame him. He was almost eighteen. Almost a man.

Almost.

"Are his parents going to be home?" Buffy asked her son, knowing she sounded like a smothering parent.

"Yes," Jake responded in an exasperated voice. "Of course, they did say that we could go ahead and have a kegger with prostitutes and drugs."

"Very funny," Buffy admonished. "Just try not to be any trouble, Jakob."

*****

"Come on!" Jake barked at Charlie when the younger boy started hedging about walking down the dark alley.

"Are you sure about this?" Charlie hissed in the darkness, apparently unimpressed with his friend's choice of entertainment.

"I already told you that if you don't want to come, I'll go by myself!"

Charlie frowned, thinking to himself that he should have just kept his mouth shut about Caritas. He didn't want to be wandering around in downtown alleys in the middle of the night, but he wasn't about to leave Jake alone. His friend was a hell of a fighter and definitely not lacking in bravery, but he was new to town and he had no idea what he was getting into.

Not that Charlie had much better of an idea, his previous forays into illicit activities included having a few beers, hacking into the school computer system to change his grades, and kidnapping a rival school's mascot. Running, he quickly caught up with Jake.

"This must be it," Jake said with more bravado than he really felt as he looked at the dark stairway leading to the heavy steel door.

"I don't know," Charlie said uneasily. "I don't read Greek." He'd heard his father and Angel talk about Caritas, but he'd never actually been here before.

"Yeah, well, how many bars are there around here with names that look like math problems? Let's go."

The inside of the bar wasn't what either of them had expected. Their imaginations had conjured up an other worldly dungeon, not a ... Vegas lounge. Looking around, Jake decided it looked much more like a motel bar than a demon refuge. Except of course for the fact that it was populated almost exclusively by demons. Luckily, there were enough regular human customers that no one took any notice of the two newcomers.

Almost no one, that is. One of the bar's occupants had been watching the door, waiting for their arrival.

Jake was busy trying to locate the emcee, Lorne, that Charlie had told him so much about, when suddenly his view was blocked by a very large demon. Jake tried to step around him, but the demon mirrored his movements. Looking up, several feet, to meet the demon's piercing red gaze, Jakob swallowed visibly. Beside him, Charlie tensed as well, there was no mistaking the demon's malicious intent. Jakob jumped as the demon was pushed roughly to the side.

"Go away," the petite blonde barked.

Much to Jake and Charlie's surprise, the demon complied wordlessly, intimidated by the woman. Turning his gaze back to the blonde, Jakob found her slowly, blatantly assessing him from head to toe. As their gazes met, her mouth broke into a large smile that for some reason made him shiver.

"Hello," she drawled sweetly. "Why don't you tell me your name, dear boy."

Jakob licked his suddenly dry lips. The voice seemed to curl around his mind. It was the voice from his nightmares, the one that had haunted him for as long as he had existed.

"Jake," he rasped.

"Jake," she said, her voice caressing his name. "I'm Darla."

He looked at her carefully for a long moment and then parroted, "Darla." The name felt funny on his lips and a sense of foreboding surged through his body.

Her lips curled up in a smirk and she asked, "What are you doing here, little boy?"

"L-Looking for something," he stammered.

"And what would that be?" she asked, holding his gaze steadily as she inched closer.

"Jake, man, maybe we should go," Charlie said nervously. This wasn't going well and his dad would probably kill him if he ever found out about this.

Turning to face Charlie, Darla said in a voice that left no room for argument, "Why don't you wait here."

She shot a glance to a woman who was obviously her companion. Faith immediately grabbed Charlie by the arm, leading him towards the bar. Charlie didn't resist, reading the seriousness in the turned Slayer's eyes. He knew Faith. They weren't close, but he knew his father and Angel trusted her and that was enough to ensure his compliance. Turning to face Jake, Darla grabbed him by the wrist and led him over to a booth in a dark corner.

Jake tensed as Darla ran a blood red fingernail along the prominent vein in his neck. She was a tiny woman, much smaller than himself, but for some reason she set him on edge with a confusing mixture of attraction and repulsion.

"What," she prompted sweetly, "are you looking for in a place like this? You don't belong here ... not yet."

"Answers."

"What kind of answers?" Darla asked.

For some reason, Jake responded with total candor, almost as if he couldn't help it. This was a voice he'd known for eternity.

"Answers about who I am."

"Who do you think you are, my sweet little ... angel?" she whispered into his ear, her voice resting heavily on the last word.

Jake pulled back in shock, looking at her.

"I don't know," he answered honestly.

*****

"What's going on, Darla?" the brunette asked her Sire as soon as the two boys had fled into the night.

"It's none of your business."

"Why are you messing with Buffy's kid?" the turned Slayer asked pointedly.

Since Buffy had moved back to Los Angeles, Faith had checked up on her from time to time, never letting Buffy know what she was doing. Just as Gunn had known, Faith had figured out who Jake's father was, but she too had chosen to keep her mouth shut and let things take their own course, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire.

"Buffy's son?" Darla asked, her eyebrow arching as a huge grin spread across her face.

Faith silently cursed herself. Darla hadn't known.

"Well that just makes the whole thing that much richer now doesn't it?" the elder vampire mused. "I was talking to him because he's my boy's son and it's my right as Sire."

"Yeah," Faith snorted, "so he looks like Angel, but the kid's what, eighteen? Angel's only been human for a dozen years. How could that be his son?" She was trying desperately to dissuade Darla from taking a vested interest in the boy.

"I don't know," Darla answered honestly. "And I don't care. He has my Angel's blood running through his veins. I can smell it. I'm sure he'll taste just as sweet as his daddy."

"Dru knew this was going to happen. She knew he'd show up. That's why she told us to be here tonight, right?"

"Who knows what the hell Dru knows," Darla said harshly, irritated with Faith giving Dru credit for discovering the boy.

"She's been talking about daddy coming home," Faith prompted, knowing Darla was deliberately keeping her in the dark.

"Yes," Darla answered with a devious smile. "But we both know that can't happen. Part of that horrid humanity Angel was cursed with came with the stipulation that he could never be given the dark gift again."

Faith watched her lover for several long moments before it hit her. If she had needed to breathe, she would have found herself unable. For some reason, it shocked her that Darla could be so sadistic.

"But if you vamp his son ... ," the brunette said almost to herself.

"Yes," Darla said her smile widening even further. "My mate is just waiting to be reborn."

Faith frowned, trying to find a way to stall Darla. "He's ... young. Not that he isn't cute, and everything, but he isn't quite the piece of meat that Angel is."

"Yet," Darla qualified. "He just needs a little time."

"And while you wait?" Faith prompted, relieved that Darla wasn't planning to turn the boy immediately.

"In the mean time, I make sure he has the proper education."

"How are you going to do that?" Faith asked. "You just let him walk away."

"I gave him my number. He'll call. He's a curious little kitten, just like his father."

Faith looked apprehensive. "Buffy's not just going to sit back and let you have her kid, you know."

"I don't expect her to," Darla purred with obvious amusement. "I expect her to fight. I want her to fight ... and then I want her to find out what it's like to die at the hands of her beloved child, just like I did."

*****

"What did she say?" Charlie demanded as he and Jake made their way back to the car.

"Nothing," Jake answered honestly. "She didn't say anything, she just asked me a bunch of questions."

"Like what?"

"Like why I was there."

"Why were we there?" he asked pointedly. "All you ever said was 'demon research'. Could you be a little more specific? I mean if I'm going to get killed in some alley I'd at least like to know why."

Jake sighed. He hadn't intended to tell anyone, but Charlie was right, he had a right to know. "I'm looking for information on someone named Angel," he answered seriously.

Charlie swallowed. Jake was looking for Angel, but he'd promised his father he wouldn't say anything.

"Oh," he said lamely.

Jake didn't miss the way Charlie's posture immediately became nervous. "Do you know anyone named Angel?" he asked on a hunch.

"N-No," Charlie stammered.

Jake nodded, but knew that Charlie wasn't telling the truth. He didn't know what exactly Charlie knew, but it couldn't be good.

*****

Jake woke from the dream disoriented. He was sleeping on the floor of Charlie's room. He concentrated on calming his breathing, trying to hear if he'd woken Charlie. When he heard the soft snore, he calmed, satisfied that his friend still slumbered obliviously.

The dream was getting more intense every time he had it. This time he'd been crouched next to Angel - he knew without a doubt that's who the man was though he still couldn't see his face. His hands were still stained with blood, he didn't know whose. Darla was there. She was the one who whispered into his mind, "You must wake again."

He turned to face her and she looked at him with her demonic face to the fore. He didn't flinch. He'd been expecting to see it. He knew she was a demon. He knew she was dangerous, and yet he wasn't afraid. Darla loved him, wanted him, needed him - or more appropriately the darkness within him.

The screaming had started again, but this time it had a definite source. Tearing his gaze from Darla, he looked and saw his mother huddled against a stone wall. She was staring at him screaming, obviously hysterical. She was terrified of him.

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