Ats fanfic--Out of Time (8/8, Complete)

[last01standing]

Title- Out of Time (8/8)
Rating- pg-13 (violence)
Summary- When Connor takes the wrong portal out of Quortoth, the bewildered members of the original Angel Investigations have to figure out how to deal with it.
Feedback- A definite good.
Timeframe- Early season one Angel (the Doyle episodes) and the season three Connor plot
Disclaimer- I am not Joss Whedon.
Characters- Connor, Angel, Doyle, Cordelia, Kate and Lindsey

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Well, this is it, the last part, all of it. After nearly a year, I’ve finished and I have to say, I’m sort of glad to be rid of it. As much as I loved this story, writing it was absolute hell. Connor's POV was always a challenge and it turns out I hate transcribing. When I got to Hero, I didn’t even want to look at it for a week. But I told you I’d finish and I did. It just took a while. With that in mind, please excuse me when, confronted with a question of a sequel, I reply with a resounding, "HELL NO."

This story was, at its heart, a Connor character study, and I only hope I did him the justice he never quite got on the show. 

Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end. I hope you enjoyed it.

---

 

Angel could hear them talking. Could practically imagine the scene behind the closed door, Cordelia and Doyle huddled over the baby, his son. Tickling him, holding him or just staring at him. They all did a lot of staring at him.

Doyle’s voice drifted through the door. “Look at him, Princess. You can’t be telling me you don’t see it.”

“It’s hard to miss,” Cordelia admitted with a touch of sadness in her voice.

Angel had seen it too. It was impossible not to. Every once in a while, his son would look at him with those clear blue eyes and Angel would feel his unneeded breath catch in his throat...

“It can’t be a coincidence,” Doyle whispered, “Darla and Holtz and now this.”

Angel pushed the door open and both of his friends jumped a little. “Would it kill you to make a little noise?” Cordelia asked irritably.

Angel didn’t apologize. “Where are Kate and Lindsey?”

“At the station,” Doyle replied.

“They’ve got him,” Cordelia said. “Holtz, I mean. Kate says they’ve got a way to keep him in jail until Wes and Fred can undo whatever spell brought him here.”

Warmth spread through Angel’s chest, with the knowledge that his son would be safe.

“Angel,” Doyle said quietly. “This is all starting to feel too familiar. Holtz, your having a kid. I’ve heard talk that the Scourge is on a swing up the coast. Have you ever considered…”

“No,” Angel said sharply. “I haven’t.”

“Angel,” Cordelia challenged. “The kid looks just like Steven. You have to have see it.”

“No,” Angel repeated, but it was a lie. He’d seen it. Oh, how he’d seen it. Every single day he looked into his son’s eyes and saw Steven. Saw the soul he had failed to save and it burned. Even knowing that by all rights, Steven should never have been in his life, never existed, it burned.

But to even consider that his son, this precious little boy in from of him, would have to survive the horrors Steven had endured filled him with dread.

“It would explain a lot,” Doyle said lightly. “Everything, actually. Where he came from, why…”

Angel stepped smoothly between his two friends and picked his son out of his cradle, rocking him protectively in his arms. “This isn’t Steven.”

He wouldn’t saddle his son with that name, with that fate. To grow up with a madman in a hell dimension only to die at age sixteen. He’d grieved for Steven, the son he’d never had, but the son he held in his arms now was someone knew, someone different.

“This is Connor,” he said.

I’ll do better this time, he promised Steven silently. I’ll do better.

 

END

 

---

 

Epilogue
Two years later

 

Comments

[dudly-lajoie.livejournal.com]

Hey, that could create a big paradox in the timeline. Because if Connor isn't taken to Quortoth, then he won't be able to change the past, and Doyle dies again, right? O__o

But I liked it.

Oh, and I've been meaning to tell you I really liked the vampire lunatic that Steven staked, the one who told him he didn't exist. She really didn't last long, but she was a powerful minor character, me thinks.

[trolllogicfics.livejournal.com]

Hey, what's a big old paradox compared with a happy ending, right?

As it turns out, Angel is the one and only fandom where I turn into a sap. I could kill pretty much everyone from every other show I watch, but Doyle Cordy and Angel need their happy ending. It's probably since the real ones where ohsodire.

And thanks for the comment on the OC. I'm always apprehensive about slipping them into a story because there are some folks who are extremely against them, but I love taking new characters out for a spin. I'm glad it worked for you.

I'm impressed you could stomach my high school grammer. Major thanks for reading. =)

[pathsforme.livejournal.com]

Beautiful story. And thus a time paradox became an alternate universe. It was heart breaking but it had a happy ending.

[trolllogicfics.livejournal.com]

Wow, you stumbled across an old one. Like an I started it in high school old one. I'm glad you liked it. I'm still partial to the happy ending. At least for the angel crowd. In other fandoms I'm all about the angst but my folks there have been tortured more than enough.