Title – Father and Son

Disclaimer - not mine.

Rating - PG

Spoilers - everything ever.

Pairing - Buffy/Angel.

Synopsis – beginning to clear the air...

Feedback - always.

AN – this one is entirely Connor's pov.

I slam my back against the brick wall outside the Bronze and close my eyes. I take a deep breath and open them again - nothing changes, I'm still here, I'm still the same, everything around me is still the same. I feel a strange urge to pinch myself, but I know it wouldn't help me either. Nothing can wake me from this because deep inside, I know there is nothing to wake up from, one look into Buffy's eyes told me that. If there is a person in this world that would recognize my father everywhere, under any circumstances, it was she. She couldn't be fooled by anything, not when it had to do with him, and I run the picture of her in his arms in my head again, and I know. This is really he.

I close my eyes again and let myself get lost in the cold of the wall behind me. It's comforting, for some reason I can't explain. I just want to stand there, like that, and pretend there is nothing else in the world I need to worry about. But then my father's face surfaces before my eyes and I know it's not true.

For so many times in the past I dreamed of this moment, futile dreams with no prospect to ever become reality. I dreamed I would see him again, that I would be able to tell him so many things, to tell him how proud I am to be his son, to tell him I'm sorry... And I knew I could never do any of it because I knew it would never happen. My father was dead, and not a thousand sorries would ever bring him back. I think in a sense, I even found solace in that fact. I mean, it is one thing to hope you could do something you don't have the courage to do and actually... do it. I found solace in the fact I could never do it. With my father's death, I left my past behind me. I could so easily pretend I didn't have one. Even when the remorse for everything I've done was eating into me at night, when my father's voice telling me he loved me before I sank him to the bottom of the ocean was resounding in my ears... I could still pretend, even then. And now I can't pretend anymore.

I don't even know what was in his eyes when he looked at me tonight, I don't know because I was too thrown by everything to try and see. When I saw him everything came rushing back to me, everything I did, everything I didn't do, how much I hurt him, how I betrayed him. How will I ever be able to face him now that I have a chance? I have to laugh at myself, I looked so much braver when I was making promises to a dead memory.

But still, I know one thing, one thing I don't need to look into my father's eyes to find out, because this one I just know. My father loved me. He always loved me, regardless to that he knew me maybe for a year altogether, in spite of everything I did to him, he never stopped loving me, for the simple fact I was his son. I guess I will only be able to understand that kind of love when I will hold mine in my arms. I remember a picture I once found, with my father and me when I was still a baby, before Holtz kidnapped me from him, before all the hell began, when it was just me and him. He was holding me and smiling at me, and that's when I knew what they meant by saying a picture was worth a thousand words. I hope I will understand that some day. I hope I will be able to tell him all that, but right now I just want to be close to him. And instead I'm here, pathetically hiding from my own father. I'm just a coward.

"Connor?"

No, on second thought, it's not just my father I'm hiding from. I open my eyes and wearily turn my head to the right to meet her eyes. She's standing a few feet away, wearing my jacket, and she's so beautiful I suddenly forget everything else. Just for a moment.

"Why did you hit him?" she asks, and though it might not seem that way, I know she's starting with the perfectly right question. I know this because I know her, and I know exactly where she's heading with that, what she seeks to find out. And I know I'll tell her, because tonight I'm too tired to hide anymore.

"Because he hit my father," I say simply, as if it's supposed to be a given fact, never taking my eyes off of her.

She nods weakly and looks down for a moment, and I know she doesn't believe what she's hearing, never mind it's exactly what she expected me to say. "That man," she speaks again, as she looks up and makes a couple of steps in my direction. "He is... he's maybe six years older than you."

I laugh, a bit obscurely. "Five, actually. If you count the past three years, you can make it eight. If you count all the years together, you can even reach two-hundred-and-thirty-two. Make your pick." Never thought I was that good with numbers.

She nods again, and when her gaze finally sets on me, I feel myself being pushed back against the wall from its intensity. I don't think I've ever seen her so earnest in all the time I've known her.

"If you think... that I will let you break us up again because *you* decide I'm better without you or because you don't want to tell me things, I should let you know right now this isn't gonna happen."

Yeah, that's my girl. "That attitude seems to be a pattern tonight," I observe quietly, smiling softly to myself. "If you ask Buffy, she'd tell you it wouldn't get you into anything but trouble," I lie. I don't even know why I use that argument, she only had to glance at Buffy once tonight and realize she'd never seen her half as alive as she was in the arms of- I swallow hard and descend to the ground, burying my face in my hands. God help me, I love her, I will do anything she wants, anything she asks. If watching Buffy this past week taught me anything, it was to never let her go if I have a say in the matter. But I *really* can't do that right now.

My eyes are closed and my head is buried between my knees, but I still know she's walking over to me, I still feel as she's approaching closer and closer, and then I feel her arms close around me and I forget everything, again, for another moment. I straighten up and allow her to hug me as I rest my head on her shoulder and hug her back. And I'm trying to remember exactly when I let that one person to have so much meaning in my life.

I don't know for how long we've been sitting on the ground, embraced one in the other's arms, but I know these minutes gave me so much peace it seems it will last me a lifetime. I don't know how she can do that, how she can affect me this way, make me forget everything and everyone when my head is nearly exploding from the amount of thoughts and memories. I don't know when I dropped my guard and let her get so close, but it's moments like this that I'm so grateful that I did. She's mine. And I'm thankful for that little miracle, however I came to deserve it.

"What are you afraid of?" she asks me gently, and I lift my head from its resting place on her chest and look her in the eyes. I see her looking back in mine and I see a world in these deep green pools that I know is only open for me, and I regret I can't open mine for her the same way. Or can I?

"I don't know," I mumble, sitting up and inclining my back against the wall. But I do know. That must have been how my father felt years ago, when he had to tell the woman he loved the truth, so many emotions and so much confusion, I can't distinguish from one to another. I exhale, as I tilt my head back, gazing up at the sky instead of my girlfriend. I don't know how I can face her.

"Connor... I love you," she whispers, and I smile.

I know it requires something as corny as 'I love you, too,' but at the same time, I know that's not what she wants to hear right now. So I weakly shake my head, "That's not it," I say, and before I can proceed, she interrupts me.

"And I still will, no matter what you're going to tell me." I chuckle at that, not even realizing it just might give her the impression I'm taking her words lightly when I'm not. But her voice doesn't waver a bit when she's just as determinedly adds, "But you *are* going to tell me." And then, more humbly, "I need you to."

I nod. "The things... what you want me to tell you..." I pause for a moment because I find myself unable to go on. How do you tell something like that? How do you tell the woman you love she's dating a demon? Scratch that, how do you tell her about demons to begin with?!

She takes in my hesitation and the next moment, I feel her small hand in mine. I take my eyes off the sky and look at her. I feel my heartbeat rapidly increase in my chest and I don't know why. Her eyes darken and I acknowledge the strange gleam in them terrifies me, it momentarily fills me with inexplicable chill.

Liz pulls her hand out of mine and reaches for her turtleneck, slowly folding back the collar as she draws nearer to me. And then I see it, and I'm suddenly unable to breathe. All the times we made love, why she always insisted on dark... I never saw that, how could I never see that?? I know every single inch of her, and I don't know that...

I reach out and gently brush my fingertips over the two almost faded scars on her neck. I gulp, as I look up into her eyes, not knowing what to say. But nothing can prepare me for what I find in them. Her cheeks flush crimson and then pale, until I can almost see through her skin, and there is pain in her eyes, and there is shame. She was *ashamed* to tell me?

"Why?" I manage to squeeze out that one word.

She pulls her shoulders in mortification and draws back from me, covering her neck again. "I knew a girl who had that, she told her boyfriend and... He called her a whore and..."

I gather her in my arms because I know she's going to cry if I don't, and as she's holding onto me, I let my hand leisurely stroke over her long soft brown hair. How could she ever think I'd treat her that way? On second thought, didn't I treat her just as low when I left her, giving her almost the same reasons my father once threw in his girlfriend's face? Am I doomed to repeat his mistake, or am I going to put a stop to that? "I would never do that," I promise her, "I would never do that to you."

"I know," she nods as she pulls back, wiping her slightly moist eyes. "But I was scared. I couldn't tell you."

"Why are you telling me now?" I ask, and I already know the answer.

"Because now I need you to know," she looks resolutely in my eyes and I know she wouldn't let me turn this conversation around about her, not for the world. And a part of me is grateful for that. Maybe I do need to talk to someone. Or maybe I just wanna talk to her. "I need you to know... that I know, what was the thing that bit me. It was real, and I'm not stupid, and I'm not blind, and I don't pretend things don't happen when they do and I will have these marks on my neck forever to remind me."

"But why do you-"

"Because I never believed Dawn when she sold me that story about her fifteen cousins coming to visit all at the same time a few years back. I know she only has two aunts and neither one of them married either a Chinese or an African American, and that aside, she could try a little better than that." I detect a slight smirk in her voice and I smile at that. "And because I didn't buy the story where you apparently lived with their father all that time, because you looked nothing like them, and there were no pictures of you, and I've never heard of you until you turned up here three years ago. And because there are enough stories going around about Buffy to last us the night in the least."

I stare at her and I realize my eyes are wide and my mouth is dropped open. And I think she's just said all that in one breath and I need a little more time than a few seconds to take it all in. No, I chuckle inwardly, she's definitely not stupid. But honestly, did I ever really think she was? Why in the world did she never say anything? And then I remember that she did. I remember when she started asking questions and I turned her down, and the next day, because I was too ashamed to tell her and at the same time, knew I could never lie to her, I broke both of our hearts and left her. No, my girl was never stupid, that's a fact.

"They weren't Dawn's cousins," I have to laugh at the story my sister sold her, I would have never believed that one myself. "They were all Slayers, Slayers in training, better said."

"Slayers like Buffy?"

My head shots up and I stare at her in disbelief.

"I-I... read, stuff..." she stammers, casting her eyes down to her lap like a child who's been caught in mischief.

"But how did you know?" I insist.

She shrugs indifferently at that. "Some of my friends told me, what their brothers and sisters were sometimes talking about, the ones that graduated in the class of ninety-nine of Sunnydale High. She was a hero, that's what they all say," she gazes up at me, smiling softly, and I think I see her in a different light for the first time, and I only love her more. "She saved the lives of so many of them, they never forgot that. I just... put the pieces together."

She gives me a strange look and her smile fades away as she wears a more serious expression. So far, this conversation has been going in a relatively safe direction, I inwardly wonder how long this will last. "I also heard other things, from my friend's sister, who was Buffy's classmate. Stuff about her boyfriend no one ever saw except when they were sometimes spotted together at night, tall dark and handsome kinda guy, she said they always looked absolutely in love, especially this one time when he escorted her to the prom." There was a gleaming hint in her eyes I could read only too clearly. No, she never was the kind of woman to tell what she wanted, she expected me to know it just by looking at her, and somehow I always did.

"So is there anything you *don't* know?" I ask, a bit impatient for her to finally get to the real question she wants me to answer. And she doesn't hesitate for a moment.

"I want to know who you are. I want to know whom I've fallen in love with."

"You already do," I whisper, and look away from her. I realize I'm scared, too scared to answer her questions, to scared to tell her the truth. Again, my thoughts drift off to my father, and I picture him in the same situation, standing before the woman he loves and probably just as scared as I am right now. If he could go through with that, why can't I? But when I think of him, and of Buffy, I know there was nothing in the world he could ever do or say for her not to accept him after. With her, he had no reason to be afraid. Then I look at her and ask myself... Have I?

She puts her hand on my cheek and tenderly brushes her palm over my face, her honest and lucid orbs never leave mine. "Who are you?" she asks softly, and I find myself unable to resist.

I wet my suddenly dry lips as I avert my eyes from her for only a moment. "I'm my father's son," I say slowly. Then I look up at her again and add, "The son of a vampire, of the exact thing that left these bite marks on you. I'm the son of two vampires. My mother was three-hundred-and-ninety-three when she staked herself so that I will be born, my father died when he was two-hundred-and-fifty. I don't know how I turned out so much like a human, I know I have a soul probably because my father did, I don't know what my purpose is and how I even exist. But I know I have my parents' power and I have their strength, and there may be other aspects of them in me I'm not even aware of. You fell in love with a demon."

I expect her to pull her hand away from my face and I close my eyes because I refuse to see the look I imagine to be in hers. I don't know where I dug up the willpower to tell her everything I just did, a part of me doesn't care. I can never take that back now. My heart is pounding underneath my chest and I think it's about to jump right out of it if it doesn't slow down. Then I suddenly feel her nestling under my arm and enveloping my waist in hers. I open my eyes and gaze down at her, just as she rests her head against my chest. "Yeah, well..." she sighs, and for a moment, I dread what might be coming next. "Buffy did, too. And look at her."

THE END