The flash of teeth with a grunt. The rainbow sheen of cement. A splash of blood against metal fretwork.
Connor closed his eyes.
Gurgling water in a drain. The smell of rain on bricks and against once heated glass. The high pitched shriek of a winged reptile dying in it's own flames.
From where he stood on a rooftop in the rain, soaked, shivering and completely unable to move away, Connor saw it all.
Four small figures battling nightmares from many twisting hells. They looked like toys; fragile and plastic like the GI Joe figures his father had given him for his sixth birthday.
His father….
He let the thought drop.
Four tiny figures. And he knew why there were just four. Someone had fallen…died. He could see well enough to know which one. He could see well enough to know which one would drop next. He could hear well enough that closing his eyes did nothing to block the truth of it from him. Every punch, every snarl, a sick crushing reminder that this was reality. And his life, the one he'd chosen of daytime and cut grass, college courses and library fines, was a fantasy with a price. One that he'd thought he fully understood. But the fight in the alley said he'd need the fake memories of 10 more years, if not the century of a vampire's long life to fully comprehend it.
Beside him, dry and transparent, the figure that had been with him since the moment he stumbled bruised and aching towards the stairs and away from Angel, kept her eyes just as trained on the scene four blocks away.
A flash of blonde, a whoop and another beast fell. Scales and horns and the stench of something worse than sulphur.
Connor clenched his fists, forcing himself to be still. He shouldn't have been this close as it was. He was learning the reasons Angel had wanted him as far away as possible. He turned and stared at the woman beside him, seeing her easily despite the wet hair in front of his eyes.
"How much longer ?" Not that he didn't know, but maybe she'd say something different.
Darla met his look with one equally sad. "Minutes, not much more. You don't have to…"
"I need to."
Connor flicked her a sidelong glance, trying to see the form beside him in the context of mother. But he couldn't imagine her like his own mother; hunting down socks, making spaghetti sauce, teasing him about dating. He didn't have any memories of her at all except for those dark moments with a lost girl, a dark haired woman and a very long knife and he'd been doing his best not to think about those things since reality had shifted inside his mind.
"Was I really born there ?"
Darla nodded. "You were. In the rain no less."
They were both silent for a moment longer.
"Why did you do it ?"
Darla didn't need to ask, what. "It was the only way you could be born."
Connor huffed, keeping his eyes on the constant duck and parry of the fray. "I think even you would have heard of a c-section."
Darla reached out and paused, her hand ineffectively poised to pull him closer. "When you were a baby, before you were born, we shared one soul. I wasn't like Angel, I'd lost my soul when I turned and it stayed lost. It stayed lost through me being human and back again. And I didn't miss it." She bit her lip. " But with you, that was the one time I didn't want it to go away. And I knew it would. The minute you took your first breath, no matter how we dealt with me giving birth, I'd be a demon again. I'd hate you. I'd have wanted nothing better than to hunt you down and kill you for making me feel that way."
"You could have done what Angel did, got cursed." Even if they were dream-like memories, Connor could still feel the frustrated emotions that had choked him. The questions that twisted and tangled him into something that would kill any and everyone. Would two parents have saved him from Holtz, from Wesley? Would he have still ended up a pawn to TBTB ? He hadn't had the memories back long, but they burned enough now, even muted, that he'd known he didn't want to give up the normal life he'd been given.
"I didn't run, if that's what you're thinking. I staked myself because I knew that was the only way you'd survive. And I wanted you to be the one good thing in my life I didn't end up destroying."
Almost as if activated by her words the ground of the alley started to tremble. The rooftop beneath them rumbled in response. Connor supposed an earthquake was as good a way as any from distracting the world from the fight happening in that alley. Except that the ground beneath beasts and men was breaking up. Light stabbed through cracks of asphalt in wildfire veins that reached further and further. In moments the black top began to give way and the blue skinned one was the first to fall through.
Connor stared in surprise as he heard her scream and dark forms swooped out of the abyss to break her body in the grip of shadow claws and carry her still fighting form away. His hearing seemed to ramp up. Angel was growling in fury and the one called Spike…
"Now that, was a good exit." Spike slapped at the still warm pavement with his sword. "What ? I'm not good enough for you ?"
From all sides the masses of hell surged.
A sweat-shirt hooded form dropped to the ground and Connor locked his senses onto the slowly fading heart beat. But it disappeared too as the shadows curved around Gunn to carry him away. The vampires were back to back now and the scene paused, like a movie, before they were suddenly covered in a wave of writhing demons. A bubble of magic and dimensions popped, sending shockwaves that knocked Connor back. And when he stood up and peered over the roof's edge, the black-top was smooth and unsullied. The alley empty. They were gone.
Connor made himself watch a moment longer, straining for any hint of demon activity. But the night was filled with mortals; bitching about the tremor, broken dishes, the television. He shared a look with Darla, and turned to find his way off the roof and home.
"Scientists still don't have answers to explain the freak earthquake that hit Los Angeles tonight. Starting in uptown, near the law officices of Wolfram & Hart and …
Connor tuned out the television and the background debate between his siblings about just what might have happened and how any day now California was going to slip right into the sea.
He slipped out onto the back porch and hoped this was the one time his attempt to sneak a smoke would be ignored. One breath, two, exhale. His eyes blurred, and he clamped his jaw defensively. "It was a good way to go." Honorable. Noble. Everything his memories of his other upbringing said a demon fighter could hope for.
A heavy hand clamped itself on his shoulder and Connor sighed. "No lectures, ok. I just needed one."
"I don't know how you get away with buying them. You're under age."
Connor smiled. "You don't want to know, Dad. You don't want to know."
"Want to tell me what's got you so upset you're risking your mother's wrath over the evils of smoking ?"
Connor shook his head, taking one last drag and then twisting the lit end out. He'd flush it later.
The hand on his shoulder tightened and pulled him closer.
"Dad, you'd sacrifice everything for me, right ?"
The man he'd called father for 17 years, even if it was only all in both their heads, looked at him strangely. "Yes. I and your mother both. We're parents. It's what we do."
"Even if it meant I might never see you again ?"
"Son, what's the…"
"Just answer, Dad. You and Mom, you'd sacrifice everything to make sure I was happy and healthy, right ?" The hand on his shoulder pulled him into a proper hug. And the voice was puzzled. "It's what any good parent would do."
Connor looked at the now fading specter of Darla that had followed him home and nodded. "I think I can respect that, now."
The End