When Fred yawned, Angel smiled. "It has been a long night. We should get some rest because I'm sure Wes and Giles will be up at the crack of dawn," he said, shaking his head. He pulled them down to the bed and covered them up with the provided blanket. Angel held Fred in his arms, listening to her breath until he fell asleep himself.
The following morning, Angel woke up to a slight knock on the door. Figuring it someone there to pick up the food tray from the night before, he got out of the bed and rolled it over there. When he opened it, Wesley was standing there and not one of the pub's wait staff.
"Just checking on you two were holding up," he said, trying to look around Angel.
Angel block his view. "We're fine Wes. Just getting some sleep before we leave tonight. I assume we're still leaving tonight?"
Wesley pushed his glasses up and nodded. "Indeed we are. Is Fred all right then?" he asked.
"She's fine. Still sleeping."
"Oh. Then I shall leave you alone," Wes said, stepping away from the door.
"Hey Wes? Could you take this downstairs?" Angel as he pushed the cart out the door.
"I, um..."
"Thanks," Angel said before he closed the door and crawled back into bed with Fred.
When Angel slipped away from her and out of bed, Fred woke up. Rolling onto her side, she pulled the covers up over her even though Angel was blocking Wesley's view of her in the room. She couldn't but laugh softly as she listened to their conversation - of course he'd be all curious as to how things had been going. Wouldn't be the Wesley they all knew and loved if he wasn't.
Finally, Angel got rid of him and closed the door before getting back into bed with her. Smiling, she snuggled up to him again and cracked an eye open, looking up at him. "Sometimes I think Wes thinks of himself as the big brother I never had," she murmured before resting her head in the crook of his shoulder again.
The day passed rather quickly, and soon night had fallen again. They knew that the clan expected them to be out of the town that night, so finally, they got up and dressed before heading down into the pub to find Wesley and Giles. After getting something to eat, they headed out to the car they had rented to begin the drive back by way of the Channel Ferry in France.
Somehow, Fred thought that the return trip was going to be longer than even the journey to Romania had been because when they got back, she knew they would be starting a new chapter in their life together.
A week later, the four of them were arriving back in Los Angeles. Giles and Wes dropped Fred and Angel off before taking the van home, knowing they'd have to bring it back the next day so Lorne could return it to its owner. But at the moment, all of them just wanted to relax in their own beds after sleeping on hard beds for over a week.
Unlocking the front door, Angel held it open for Fred and once she was inside, he flicked on the lights and walked over to the counter. Everything seemed to be in working order and nothing seemed out of place. He didn't think anyone would break into the hotel but with Wolfram and Hart around, you couldn't be sure.
"It's nice to be home," Angel said as he looked around the hotel. He then turned and smiled at Fred. "No more small, hard beds." He quickly scooped her up and carried her up the flight of stairs to the bedroom they shared. Once inside, he placed her on the bed and grinned. "Are you hungry or do you just want to go to sleep?"
Angel crawled into the bed and pulled her into his arms. "Whatever you want, Fred," he said, nuzzling his neck.
When Angel had said whatever she wanted, he had meant it. For the first few days they were back, it seemed they didn't come out of the bedroom, except when they needed to eat. They just were enjoying each other and the relative quietness too much. Wesley and Giles seemed to understand their need to be with each other alone, so they made themselves scarce during that time.
At one point, they had a scare when Angel doubled over in pain at one point, both of them afraid that the curse might have finally taken effect. Fred didn't run, though, refusing to leave the man she loved, and to their relief, whatever it was, it hadn't been his soul being pulled out. Angelus was well and truly gone, it seemed. They figured Angel hadn't had enough blood, and that seemed to do the trick as it didn't happen again.
Finally, they knew they had to get back to work, and they got back to taking cases. Wolfram and Hart started sniffing around again, no doubt wanting to know what had happened to Angel while they had been in Romania. Fred swore that she was going to put a crossbow bolt into the next lawyer to show their face in the hotel.
It didn't help that she was feeling under the weather either. It had seemed to creep up on her, the nausea and general feeling of sluggishness.
Then she started seeing a pattern and tried to brush it off. There was no way she could be. Angel was a vampire, and vampires weren't alive, so how could she...? She couldn't be. But the nausea persisted and even got worse, so one day, while Angel was working with Wes and Giles, she sneaked out of the hotel and went the nearby pharmacy.
When she got back, she hurried to the bathroom and did the test. Then stood there, looking at the stick for several long minutes in disbelief before sliding down the wall.
She couldn't be, she thought, starting to cry out of nervousness and fear. She hadn't been with anyone but Angel, so how could she be pregnant? What was going on? Had she been impregnated like Cordelia or something? Oh, God, she hoped not because that was just too frightening and disgusting to think about and besides she hadn't been anywhere she could be impregnated except the bed she shared with Angel, and he was the only one who could have gotten her this way, but he couldn't have because he was a vampire...
Oh, God, what was he going to say? She couldn't keep this from him.
Angel stood in the sewer and looked down at the demon. It'd been a nasty, fire breathing one, but along with Wes and Giles, they'd killed it. "What do you want to do with the body?" he asked as he wiped his hands off on his pants. He couldn't wait to get back to the hotel and take a long, hot shower.
"It should be all right down here," Giles commented before wiping his brow with his sleeve. "All right, love?"
"Yes. The burn isn't too bad," Wes said as he looked down at his arm. "Nothing some ointment won't help."
The three of them went back to the hotel and Angel placed the weapons away. He wanted to see how Fred was doing, knowing she hadn't been feeling too well over the last weeks. If it didn't get better soon, he was going to take her to the doctor, no matter how much she complained. Angel wasn't about to lose to love of his life to something stupid.
He was placing the axe inside the cabinet when he heard Fred crying. "Fred?" he said before dropping the axe and jumping over the railing of the stairs. He ran down the hallway, Wes and Giles behind him, and went to the bathroom. Pushing the door open, Angel looked down at Fred and kneeled beside her.
"What's wrong?" He asked as he saw the white stick in her hand. "What's this?"
"It looks like a pregnancy test," Giles commented from the doorway.
A pregnancy test? Angel blinked at that and pulled Fred's hand up and looked at the stick. "Fred?" he asked, staring at it. She couldn't be pregnant! Angel wasn't alive and only life could create life. "You aren't pregnant, right? I mean, I wouldn't mind but I can't create children." He then looked back at Giles and Wes. "I can't, can I?"
It took Fred a few moments to register that there were people in the bathroom with her. When Angel's cool hand took hers, she started and brought her head up, tears still streaming down her face. He was looking at the test. He knew. Oh, God, he knew.
"I swear, I don't know how this happened," she told him, hiccupping as she tried to speak around the tightening in her throat. "You know I haven't been with anyone except for you because I know you'd be able to smell them on me if I had, but I haven't, so I don't know how I could be pregnant, but I've been sick and not feeling well, and the test says I am, and...and..."
She swallowed, feeling like she needed to throw up again but not wanting to do it in front of them. Closing her eyes, she let her head fall back against the wall, hitting it a bit harder than she intended.
"How can I be pregnant?" she whispered.
"Fred..." Wesley started to say softly.
She opened her eyes and looked at Angel, then over at their friends. "Find out. Please find out. If this is Angel's child, I...that would be...it would be a miracle and wonderful, but if it's something else--please find out. I have to know. We have to know."
"It's all right, Fred," Giles promised as Fred moved to cling to Angel tightly, burying her head against his chest. "We'll do what we can to find out."
“Fred, it’s okay. I’m here,” Angel whispered as he wrapped his arms around Fred’s trembling body. He softly rubbed her back and looked up at Wes and Giles, giving them both a lost look. He didn’t know what to do. How could this be happening?
“Angel, not to pry, but didn’t you tell me several weeks ago you had some pain. Pain you thought was perhaps your soul leaving you?” Wes asked as he adjusted his glasses.
“Yeah. A couple of months ago, I think. Why?” he asked as he continued rub Fred’s back.
“I think there might be something with that. I’ve recorded it in one of my journals and--.”
“You keep track of my sex life?” Angel asked as his eyebrows rose.
“N-No! I just wrote it down because I thought it was interesting…”
Angel nodded and continued to hold Fred against him. He buried his face in her hair and took an unneeded breath. Suddenly, he began to sense something about Fred and what she was pregnant with. “It’s human,” he whispered before placing a kiss on the top of her head. “I can sense a soul. It’s human.”
“Good. Wesley and I will start our research then,” Giles said before leading his lover out of the doorway.
Once they were gone, Angel turned his attention to the woman he loved. “I’m so sorry, Fred. I’m sorry this is happening to you,” he whispered as an overwhelming need to protect her, and their unborn child, came over him. “Do you need to lay down? I can take you to the bedroom if you want.”
When Wesley mentioned the night that Angel had been in pain, Fred's mind immediately started spinning. That would have been around the mid point of her cycle, not that she had thought much about it at the time since Angel was a vampire, and vampire's weren't supposed to... Oh, God, had something happened to him to make him able to give her a child? But who? Why?
Continuing to cling tightly to Angel, she closed her eyes when he suddenly whispered in her ear, telling her the baby was human. Her baby--their baby was human. However this had happened, the baby was human. She grabbed onto that and continued to repeat it over and over in her head while Wesley and Rupert left the bathroom, leaving the two of them alone.
"I..." she started to say when Angel apologized, not certain what to say to him. She wasn't sure she was ready to be a mother - after Pylea, she wasn't sure she ever could be or should be. Now, she was having a baby, and Angel was the father, or at least seemed to be--no, he was. As she sat there with him, starting to calm down, she found herself somehow just knowing for certain, however it had happened. Everything would be okay, she told herself. They'd get through this together with Wesley and Rupert's help. "I think I do want to lie down awhile."
With him helping her as she was still a bit shaky, they went into the bedroom, where Fred lay down on the bed, her hands on her abdomen as her mind began spinning. She'd have to find a way to tell her parents, and they'd have to get baby furniture and baby clothes and diapers, and she'd have to make a list so they didn't forget anything...oh, and books, so they knew what to expect, and she'd have to find a doctor. Was there a doctor that had night hours so Angel could come with her? Was there a doctor that would understand Angel's special nature? She'd have to ask Wesley since he knew a lot of people in the city.
"We're having a baby, Angel," she whispered in amazement.
There was a knock at the door, and a moment later, Wesley opened the door to peek in, holding a book in his hands. "Sorry, I won't bother you too long, but Angel, the night you had your pain, was there anything else strange that happened that night? Anything you touched? Any light? Anything either of you can remember?"
"Well," Fred said, looking over at Angel. "There was a kind of strange light flicker before Angel double over. I thought it was the power since the hotel's old, but they blinked several times before dimming and brightening again."
Angel had wanted to pick Fred up and carry her to their bedroom. He was sure she'd find it romantic any other time, but not now. He knew she might get upset if he coddled her too much so he settled for slipping an arm around her and leading her to the bed. And once she was lying down, he slipped in beside her.
"I know," Angel whispered as his ran his fingertips over his stomach.
When Wes showed up in the doorway, Angel let Fred answer his question. What she was saying was true - the lights had flickered a short time before he'd felt the pain. And just like Fred, Angel hadn't thought much about it.
"I don't recall touching anything out of the ordinary. It was the night Giles and you were gone and we didn't have any cases," he answered. "Fred and I stayed at the hotel that night."
Wesley nodded and looked down at the book. "Well, Rupert and I are going to look through a few more volumes. We're also going to have a look at the roman calendar," he said.
Angel started at that. "Doesn't that calendar predict the coming of something bad?" he asked.
"Not exactly. It states something will come on the date. It never said it was bad or evil. Besides, I'm rather sure it has nothing to do with the baby," Wesley said. He gave them a smile before slipping out of the room.
Angel let out an unneeded sigh and gathered Fred into his arms, and tightly held her. He hoped Wesley was right.
Fred rested her head against Angel's shoulder as he talked to Wesley about that night, a flush of embarrassment creeping up her neck to her face. Even though they weren't really talking about what they done, it kind of felt like they were. She had snuck out earlier that day and bought some lingerie to wear for him that night, and after having made love only in their bed to that point, they had tried out several other rooms in the hotel.
Then Wesley mentioned the calendar, and Fred raised her head, her heart starting to pound at the idea that their baby could be tied to it. Wesley tried to assure them that it wasn't, but still...
"Our baby can't be evil," she said softly. "It's our baby. It can't be."
She took a deep breath and ran her hand over her forehead, rubbing her temples for a moment before resting her hand on her abdomen again. Part of her just wanted to lie there, safely curled up in Angel's arms, while another part of her felt as though she should be doing something, getting ready somehow, helping Giles and Wesley with their research.
"I need to ask Wesley if he knows of a doctor that can help us," she said. "I don't think I can see a normal human doctor, can I? He or she's gonna have to know that you're...that we're...I want you there for all of it. And I should call my parents and tell them. Oh, how am I going to explain this to them?"
She stopped, taking a deep breath and shaking her head, tilting her head to look up at the man she loved. "I'm sorry. I'm not...I think this has got to be the most amazing thing to happen to me besides falling in love with you, but there's just so much to think about, and it's running through my head, telling me I should deal with it now."
The following morning, Angel woke up to a slight knock on the door. Figuring it someone there to pick up the food tray from the night before, he got out of the bed and rolled it over there. When he opened it, Wesley was standing there and not one of the pub's wait staff.
"Just checking on you two were holding up," he said, trying to look around Angel.
Angel block his view. "We're fine Wes. Just getting some sleep before we leave tonight. I assume we're still leaving tonight?"
Wesley pushed his glasses up and nodded. "Indeed we are. Is Fred all right then?" he asked.
"She's fine. Still sleeping."
"Oh. Then I shall leave you alone," Wes said, stepping away from the door.
"Hey Wes? Could you take this downstairs?" Angel as he pushed the cart out the door.
"I, um..."
"Thanks," Angel said before he closed the door and crawled back into bed with Fred.
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Finally, Angel got rid of him and closed the door before getting back into bed with her. Smiling, she snuggled up to him again and cracked an eye open, looking up at him. "Sometimes I think Wes thinks of himself as the big brother I never had," she murmured before resting her head in the crook of his shoulder again.
The day passed rather quickly, and soon night had fallen again. They knew that the clan expected them to be out of the town that night, so finally, they got up and dressed before heading down into the pub to find Wesley and Giles. After getting something to eat, they headed out to the car they had rented to begin the drive back by way of the Channel Ferry in France.
Somehow, Fred thought that the return trip was going to be longer than even the journey to Romania had been because when they got back, she knew they would be starting a new chapter in their life together.
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Unlocking the front door, Angel held it open for Fred and once she was inside, he flicked on the lights and walked over to the counter. Everything seemed to be in working order and nothing seemed out of place. He didn't think anyone would break into the hotel but with Wolfram and Hart around, you couldn't be sure.
"It's nice to be home," Angel said as he looked around the hotel. He then turned and smiled at Fred. "No more small, hard beds." He quickly scooped her up and carried her up the flight of stairs to the bedroom they shared. Once inside, he placed her on the bed and grinned. "Are you hungry or do you just want to go to sleep?"
Angel crawled into the bed and pulled her into his arms. "Whatever you want, Fred," he said, nuzzling his neck.
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At one point, they had a scare when Angel doubled over in pain at one point, both of them afraid that the curse might have finally taken effect. Fred didn't run, though, refusing to leave the man she loved, and to their relief, whatever it was, it hadn't been his soul being pulled out. Angelus was well and truly gone, it seemed. They figured Angel hadn't had enough blood, and that seemed to do the trick as it didn't happen again.
Finally, they knew they had to get back to work, and they got back to taking cases. Wolfram and Hart started sniffing around again, no doubt wanting to know what had happened to Angel while they had been in Romania. Fred swore that she was going to put a crossbow bolt into the next lawyer to show their face in the hotel.
It didn't help that she was feeling under the weather either. It had seemed to creep up on her, the nausea and general feeling of sluggishness.
Then she started seeing a pattern and tried to brush it off. There was no way she could be. Angel was a vampire, and vampires weren't alive, so how could she...? She couldn't be. But the nausea persisted and even got worse, so one day, while Angel was working with Wes and Giles, she sneaked out of the hotel and went the nearby pharmacy.
When she got back, she hurried to the bathroom and did the test. Then stood there, looking at the stick for several long minutes in disbelief before sliding down the wall.
She couldn't be, she thought, starting to cry out of nervousness and fear. She hadn't been with anyone but Angel, so how could she be pregnant? What was going on? Had she been impregnated like Cordelia or something? Oh, God, she hoped not because that was just too frightening and disgusting to think about and besides she hadn't been anywhere she could be impregnated except the bed she shared with Angel, and he was the only one who could have gotten her this way, but he couldn't have because he was a vampire...
Oh, God, what was he going to say? She couldn't keep this from him.
What was she going to do?
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"It should be all right down here," Giles commented before wiping his brow with his sleeve. "All right, love?"
"Yes. The burn isn't too bad," Wes said as he looked down at his arm. "Nothing some ointment won't help."
The three of them went back to the hotel and Angel placed the weapons away. He wanted to see how Fred was doing, knowing she hadn't been feeling too well over the last weeks. If it didn't get better soon, he was going to take her to the doctor, no matter how much she complained. Angel wasn't about to lose to love of his life to something stupid.
He was placing the axe inside the cabinet when he heard Fred crying. "Fred?" he said before dropping the axe and jumping over the railing of the stairs. He ran down the hallway, Wes and Giles behind him, and went to the bathroom. Pushing the door open, Angel looked down at Fred and kneeled beside her.
"What's wrong?" He asked as he saw the white stick in her hand. "What's this?"
"It looks like a pregnancy test," Giles commented from the doorway.
A pregnancy test? Angel blinked at that and pulled Fred's hand up and looked at the stick. "Fred?" he asked, staring at it. She couldn't be pregnant! Angel wasn't alive and only life could create life. "You aren't pregnant, right? I mean, I wouldn't mind but I can't create children." He then looked back at Giles and Wes. "I can't, can I?"
The two looked at each other and both shrugged.
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"I swear, I don't know how this happened," she told him, hiccupping as she tried to speak around the tightening in her throat. "You know I haven't been with anyone except for you because I know you'd be able to smell them on me if I had, but I haven't, so I don't know how I could be pregnant, but I've been sick and not feeling well, and the test says I am, and...and..."
She swallowed, feeling like she needed to throw up again but not wanting to do it in front of them. Closing her eyes, she let her head fall back against the wall, hitting it a bit harder than she intended.
"How can I be pregnant?" she whispered.
"Fred..." Wesley started to say softly.
She opened her eyes and looked at Angel, then over at their friends. "Find out. Please find out. If this is Angel's child, I...that would be...it would be a miracle and wonderful, but if it's something else--please find out. I have to know. We have to know."
"It's all right, Fred," Giles promised as Fred moved to cling to Angel tightly, burying her head against his chest. "We'll do what we can to find out."
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“Angel, not to pry, but didn’t you tell me several weeks ago you had some pain. Pain you thought was perhaps your soul leaving you?” Wes asked as he adjusted his glasses.
“Yeah. A couple of months ago, I think. Why?” he asked as he continued rub Fred’s back.
“I think there might be something with that. I’ve recorded it in one of my journals and--.”
“You keep track of my sex life?” Angel asked as his eyebrows rose.
“N-No! I just wrote it down because I thought it was interesting…”
Angel nodded and continued to hold Fred against him. He buried his face in her hair and took an unneeded breath. Suddenly, he began to sense something about Fred and what she was pregnant with. “It’s human,” he whispered before placing a kiss on the top of her head. “I can sense a soul. It’s human.”
“Good. Wesley and I will start our research then,” Giles said before leading his lover out of the doorway.
Once they were gone, Angel turned his attention to the woman he loved. “I’m so sorry, Fred. I’m sorry this is happening to you,” he whispered as an overwhelming need to protect her, and their unborn child, came over him. “Do you need to lay down? I can take you to the bedroom if you want.”
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Continuing to cling tightly to Angel, she closed her eyes when he suddenly whispered in her ear, telling her the baby was human. Her baby--their baby was human. However this had happened, the baby was human. She grabbed onto that and continued to repeat it over and over in her head while Wesley and Rupert left the bathroom, leaving the two of them alone.
"I..." she started to say when Angel apologized, not certain what to say to him. She wasn't sure she was ready to be a mother - after Pylea, she wasn't sure she ever could be or should be. Now, she was having a baby, and Angel was the father, or at least seemed to be--no, he was. As she sat there with him, starting to calm down, she found herself somehow just knowing for certain, however it had happened. Everything would be okay, she told herself. They'd get through this together with Wesley and Rupert's help. "I think I do want to lie down awhile."
With him helping her as she was still a bit shaky, they went into the bedroom, where Fred lay down on the bed, her hands on her abdomen as her mind began spinning. She'd have to find a way to tell her parents, and they'd have to get baby furniture and baby clothes and diapers, and she'd have to make a list so they didn't forget anything...oh, and books, so they knew what to expect, and she'd have to find a doctor. Was there a doctor that had night hours so Angel could come with her? Was there a doctor that would understand Angel's special nature? She'd have to ask Wesley since he knew a lot of people in the city.
"We're having a baby, Angel," she whispered in amazement.
There was a knock at the door, and a moment later, Wesley opened the door to peek in, holding a book in his hands. "Sorry, I won't bother you too long, but Angel, the night you had your pain, was there anything else strange that happened that night? Anything you touched? Any light? Anything either of you can remember?"
"Well," Fred said, looking over at Angel. "There was a kind of strange light flicker before Angel double over. I thought it was the power since the hotel's old, but they blinked several times before dimming and brightening again."
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"I know," Angel whispered as his ran his fingertips over his stomach.
When Wes showed up in the doorway, Angel let Fred answer his question. What she was saying was true - the lights had flickered a short time before he'd felt the pain. And just like Fred, Angel hadn't thought much about it.
"I don't recall touching anything out of the ordinary. It was the night Giles and you were gone and we didn't have any cases," he answered. "Fred and I stayed at the hotel that night."
Wesley nodded and looked down at the book. "Well, Rupert and I are going to look through a few more volumes. We're also going to have a look at the roman calendar," he said.
Angel started at that. "Doesn't that calendar predict the coming of something bad?" he asked.
"Not exactly. It states something will come on the date. It never said it was bad or evil. Besides, I'm rather sure it has nothing to do with the baby," Wesley said. He gave them a smile before slipping out of the room.
Angel let out an unneeded sigh and gathered Fred into his arms, and tightly held her. He hoped Wesley was right.
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Then Wesley mentioned the calendar, and Fred raised her head, her heart starting to pound at the idea that their baby could be tied to it. Wesley tried to assure them that it wasn't, but still...
"Our baby can't be evil," she said softly. "It's our baby. It can't be."
She took a deep breath and ran her hand over her forehead, rubbing her temples for a moment before resting her hand on her abdomen again. Part of her just wanted to lie there, safely curled up in Angel's arms, while another part of her felt as though she should be doing something, getting ready somehow, helping Giles and Wesley with their research.
"I need to ask Wesley if he knows of a doctor that can help us," she said. "I don't think I can see a normal human doctor, can I? He or she's gonna have to know that you're...that we're...I want you there for all of it. And I should call my parents and tell them. Oh, how am I going to explain this to them?"
She stopped, taking a deep breath and shaking her head, tilting her head to look up at the man she loved. "I'm sorry. I'm not...I think this has got to be the most amazing thing to happen to me besides falling in love with you, but there's just so much to think about, and it's running through my head, telling me I should deal with it now."
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