Angel stared at the young human couple with their children, as he hid quietly in the shadows. It struck him again how much he missed his family; his Childer. All he had left in the world was Spike, his favourite, and Spike hated him.

The night was young and Angel had been restless to get out of the mansion. It was the same nervous energy he used to get just before a hunt as Angelus, but he didn't hunt now. He couldn't. His soul wouldn't allow it. So why was he out in the night, tempting himself?

He had felt the call.

Slight, quiet, barely there, like a baby bird sighing on the wind, but there nonetheless. It was a call he had heard on and off for nearly a hundred years.

It could have been Spike through their Sire/Childe bond; that bond was so weak with their fighting, and Spike had strained it to breaking point over the years; angry at his Sire for getting a soul, becoming Angel and leaving him and Drusilla after he'd promised not to.

But it wasn't Spike. He had sought out his stubborn Childe in those early years when the call had started, only to receive a harsh and violent response. No, it was not Spike.

Dru was gone now, but it had not been her either. She hadn't had this kind of power. Moreover, she hadn't had this much sense.

Who else then, could it be?

Sighing heavily, he returned to the mansion. Flinging himself through the doors, he shrugged his duster off and began pacing. The call in his head grew steadily louder and he gradually made out for the first time whispered words rather than the senseless noise of before. Angelus…Angelus? Daddy? Please, hear me…I miss you…it's been so long…

What the hell? Nobody but Dru had ever called him Daddy.

The whispers grew louder and became sorrowful screams. They filled his head and nearly brought him to his knees. Cradling his head and blocking his ears uselessly. He roared. "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

The screams stopped abruptly. A slight noise from the front doors sent him spinning to face the intruder, his face vamping instinctively.

There in the doorway, half hidden in shadows was a girl. He caught her scent on the air and sniffed it absently as he wondered what to do. The scent registered in his mind and he froze. Surely not. He sniffed again, deliberately inhaling as much of the faint breeze as he could. The smell of another master vampire was strong in his nostrils and he grimaced in distaste, but dug deeper into the scent as the girl stood frozen in the doorway. He smelled roses and something spicy and...was that passionfruit? But there, beneath it all was…Childe. His Childe.

No, not possible. His only child was Spike except…no.

The girl, well, young woman, took a staggering step into the light and he sucked in an unneeded breath in shock. Victoria. His lost Childe. But she was dead, killed by that bastard Fabian…whose scent he could smell all over her now! His forehead wrinkled further in a frown.

Seeing his frown, what little confidence she seemed to have fled and her arms wrapped around her slight form, both defensive and protective at once. Her beautiful face, that face he remembered so well and with such guilt, looked pinched and tired. Gaunt. Defeated. Her whisper was so quiet, even with his vampire hearing, he had to strain to hear her. "Angelus. Daddy. You don't remember me. You don't recognise me. I'll… I'll go." He could smell salt and copper and knew she was holding back blood-tainted tears.

Spinning fast on her heel, tattered skirts flaring, she fled into the night, leaving Angel to stare after his youngest Childe, the beautiful girl he'd long thought lost. In an instant, he broke out of his shock and went flying after her.

He could see her slight, dark form blurring with the shadows and followed her. She was fast, though obviously exhausted and he had trouble catching up.

Thoughts rushed through his mind. Victoria was alive! That wasn't possible. Fabian had kidnapped her not two days after Angelus had changed her. The bastard had stolen her from under Angelus' nose. The fury had taken over when he'd found his new Childe missing. His wrath had been terrible. Even William had coward from him in fear. He'd tracked her through their weakening bond until very suddenly, it had snapped like a frayed rope. Fabian had killed her. Angelus had followed her cooling scent then, sorrow mixing with the fury into one searing, driving need; to kill. To maim and torture, and he had. Fabian had suffered Angelus' wrath for a solid week before Angelus had staked him to a tree and left the sun to finish the job. But it was too late. Victoria was gone. After that, he had gone on a killing spree, mad with grief. The silly gypsy girl had been the last in a long line of unlucky victims. He had been cursed with his soul mere hours later by her stupid clan.

They were nearing the Sunnydale graveyard now, he knew. Vampires felt safe among the dead. But she shouldn't be afraid. Was she afraid of him? Surely not. She had never feared him before. That was what had attracted him to her in the first place.

He had met her at a masquerade in Paris one night in the late 18 hundreds when she was only 15. She had been beautiful and bold, innocent and sweet, but for all her purity, she possessed a wicked, often biting sense of humour, one she directed at the members of polite society she frequented social gathers with, but never related to, nor ever really belonged to. For once, Angelus had wanted to keep her that way rather than corrupt and break her like he had Dru.

She had been too much of a temptation for him to let her live though, especially when he found out she was a witch, and a powerful one at that.

He had waited patiently for five years until her twentieth birthday before changing her, had spent the short years flirting with her, moonlight walking in the gardens of her father's estates, spent hours secretly teaching her to read and write by candlelight in her father's library, escorting her to parties and dancing with her; much to her father's chagrin.

Duke Ashley Devereaux-Le Fay had wanted his youngest daughter ignorant, married off to some fat old duke and bearing children by the time she was 16, like her sisters, but a few quiet, well placed threats in the dead of night on Angelus' part had prevented it.

So her father had looked on helplessly as his daughter was courted and befriended by a man no one knew anything about, but all feared and respected on some primal, instinctive level. Except Victoria. Even when she learned of his true nature, she had never feared him, never turned away from him in disgust or horror.

Even better, she and Spike had hit it off immediately and had become almost inseparable; a desired reaction for a potential Childe to have towards an existing one.

In the beginning, she was ridiculed by members of Paris' 'civilised' society for waiting so long to wed, but as many of the courtiers went missing when they spoke of it, Victoria's lack of a husband and children were deliberately ignored. She had willingly agreed to join him, knowing she didn't really belong in the time she'd been born to.

She had been his weak spot. The only person he showed real care for because she was such a delightful contradiction. Her gentle innocence was tempered by her wry, cutting wit, sharp tongue and a stubborn streak a mile wide. She tempered his violent personality with patience and calm amusement. His tender treatment of her on the day of her change had been so out of character, Darla had questioned his ability as a vampire, the bitch.

Two days after Victoria's Awakening however, she was gone; stolen from him by his enemy in a moment of inattention. An enemy he'd promised to protect her from. Fabian.

He had not shown real emotion as Angelus since. Now, as Angel of course, emotion was unavoidable.

Yet here she was, very much alive and fleeing from him, dodging between gravestones in the deathly quiet of the graveyard, smelling of the long dead master vamp, the scent still strong in the open night air of the graveyard. He snarled silently. Why did she smell of Fabian? and why was the scent still so powerful? What in the hell was going on? Tired of the chase, he wondered if she would still respond to him, despite the claimed scent rising from her skin.

Hesitantly, he called her name.

Victoria stumbled to a jerking halt and spun to face him, leaning briefly on a crypt to catch her balance. Still she avoided his eyes. Her shoulders were hunched slightly; as if afraid he'd attack her. Why then, had she stopped running, if she was so afraid of him? "Victoria," he said again, voice heavily accented with his old Irish brogue and watched as she shivered.

He smiled slightly as it clicked. She knew her place. She still believed she belonged to him. He had called her name and she, being the good little Childe, had obeyed his unspoken command.

Realising how he sounded, he clamped down on his demon and ignored its infuriated roars as he drew closer to the shivering girl. She edged away from him, but stayed where she was. Wanting to know if it was really her, he dug deep into his mind, searching for the Sire/Childe bond which should have alerted him to her presence. He had locked it away long ago; afraid of the empty silence he would hear if he ever opened himself to the link.

Now though, he gripped the linking line and forced his essence along the bond, seeking out her familiar presence in his mind.

As he watched, Victoria started to breath unnecessarily. Short, sharp, gasping breaths. He forced the link wider, seeking her mind out.

She drew in a choked breath, then let out a strangled cry as her eyes went glassy and widened to stare blindly at him. One hand came up to clutch the place where her dead heart rested.

With a final push, he broke through the crumbling barriers and she screamed, sinking to her knees beside the crypt as their bond attempted to re-establish itself. Falling forward, she managed to catch herself on her hands, head bowed as great, shivering breaths wracked her tiny frame. He hurried forward, but pulled up in shock when she whispered the one word he was waiting for. "Sire…" with her acknowledgement, her long absent presence flooded his mind; feminine, lively and achingly familiar.

He realised then she was kneeling not in pain, but in submission.With a triumphant roar, he lunged forward and grabbed her up, pulling her off her feet and close to his chest in a crushing embrace.

When she stiffened, his demon surged to the fore. Resist me, will you, my wayward Childe? I'll show you…without another thought, he pushed her back against the crypt wall, drew back, and sank his fangs into her neck.