Author's Note: This story takes place in Christina Kamnikar's The Power That See universe. The individual stories in the universe are:

• Cigarette Break -- Tyche and Minos rant after Angel fires everyone in Reunion.
• Time Out (Of Mind) -- During Epiphany Kate gets her own miracle.
• The Power, The Glory, and the Ever After -- What do you do with a problem like a dead med student with the weirdest karma ever? Worse, what do you do with a immature dead god?
• Powdered Donuts and Sanity Breaks -- Inspiration, realization... indigestion.

When he reached the darkest of dark dimensions, Holtz didn't expect it to look like a well-appointed lobby for an upscale doctor's practice.

In his arms Connor, scared by the noise and movement, was wailing. He managed to hold a sustained note far longer than one would expect small lungs to be able to, and then paused and gasped desperately for breath before beginning again. Automatically, Holtz shifted Connor in his arms, gathering the tiny body closer to his own.

The lobby was deserted, a circular room with plate glass windows staring blankly back at him. Comfortable couches were snuggled up next to each other, inviting cozy conversation and relaxation. An enormous copper-covered machine sat on a low table, coffee cups clustered around it.

After a few minutes, Connor settled into hiccupping, interspersed with gasping little cries. At that moment, a door Holtz would have sworn wasn't there opened, and a woman backed through it, shouting, "I don't care if it is a physical impossibility -- do it anyway!"

She turned on her heel and stalked towards the coffee machine, remarkable-looking head down and barreling straight ahead. Grabbing a cup, she filled it to the brim, put it to her lips, and tilted her head back, drinking it in one long draught. "Brrrrrrrrrrrgh," she said, shuddering as she lowered the cup. Grabbing a sugar bowl, she spooned enough sugar to cover the bottom of the cup with a layer an inch thick, refilled it from the machine, and turned.

To promptly drop the cup and scream when she saw Holtz. The coffee spilled down the front of her periwinkle-and-lemon draperies, and the cup shattered on the floor at her feet. "What the hezmana are you doing here?" she demanded. The clear crystals woven through her corn-rowed hair -- it couldn't possibly be pink, really -- winked as she thrust her chin out and glared.

"I honestly haven't the faintest idea," Holtz said with credible calm. He did not know where he was, but there didn't seem to be any immediate danger. "I stepped through a portal and found myself in a place quite different than I had anticipated."

The creature was ignoring him. "Mike!" she bellowed. With one irritable sweep of her hand, she cleansed her gown of stains and vanished the shards of pottery around her feet. "Mike, get in here *NOW*."

Another door opened and a man who looked like a prize pugilist -- retired -- entered the lobby. "Tyche, I'm a *little* busy right now, and -- what are you doing here?"

"That's what I asked him. That's what I'm asking *you*." She put both hands on her hips and frowned at him, still looking about as dangerous as a five year old.

"Beats me," Mike shrugged.

"What's going on out here? Doesn't anyone even care that we are in crisis mode?" A man in a conservatively tailored suit joined the group in the lobby. For some reason, this addition made Holtz tighten his hold on Connor and step backwards, hoping to find the portal that had led him to this place. Instead, he bumped back into a wall.

"Number one, when aren't we in crisis mode," Tyche ticked off on one finger. "Number two, since we are in crisis mode because of him --" with a silver-colored fingernail pointed in Holtz's direction, "-- I think a little tantrum is in order, Minos."

Minos turned and examined their surprise visitor. "That does put the situation in a whole new light. Come on." Without waiting for Holtz, Minos returned to his office. At the door, he stopped and looked back to where Holtz had not moved. "Please come in," he said with exaggerated politeness.

"Thank you, no, I'll stay here," Holtz said, matching his sarcasm.

Minos narrowed his eyes, and suddenly Holtz found himself nudged forward by the wall itself, bowing out and pushing him in the direction of the office door. Accepting reality with the best grace possible, Holtz pushed away from the wall and followed Minos.

"Please sit down. We are rather surprised to find you here." Minos busied himself puttering around the office, shutting the door, and then returning to his desk chair.

"Where is here, exactly?"

"Ah." Rather than answering his question, Minos raised his eyebrows and stared at him. "That is... interesting."

The office door opened and Mike stuck his head in. "No breaches that I can see," he said, as though reporting to a superior. "I think that She just pulled a fast one on us for some reason."

"Or She responded to a developing situation with the best option possible," Minos returned. Mike shrugged and closed the door. "To answer your question, you are in Limbo."

Holtz rose to his feet. "If you cannot be bothered to answer my questions, then I see no reason to remain here."

"No, no, please sit. I do, in fact, mean that literally. Limbo. Neither Heaven nor Hell nor Earth. Somewhere Else."

"That is most helpful."

Minos sighed and ran his hands through thinning hair, and carried on. "Generally, we only see people here once they have finished their time on Earth -- this round at least -- but don't know where to go from there. You -- and Connor, of course -- are a special case. Not to put too fine a point on it, there is no way in the metaphysical laws of the universe that you can possibly be here."

"And yet here I am."

"Here you are," Minos agreed. "Now what do we do with you?"

Before Holtz could answer, the door opened again and another figure slipped through. Her hair was hanging around her face, midnight-blue and getting in her eyes, which widened when she saw the baby in his arms.

"Connor!" she squealed delightedly. "Oh, sweet baby!"

She darted forward, and reflexively Holtz stood up, knocking his chair backward in his haste. He put out one hand that should have circled the throat of this wisp of a girl, and held her an arm's-length away. Instead, his hand slid through her neck like fog, and she lifted Connor from his other arm, holding him above her head and cooing at him. "Oh, aren't you a precious boy? Aren't you a sweet baby?"

"Don't harm him," Holtz said desperately.

She cradled Connor in her arm and smiled sweetly up at Holtz. "Harm him? I'm his fairy godmother, in a manner of speaking. Isn't that right, snookums."

"Danae, don't scare our visitor any more than necessary, all right?"

Danae sighed. "All right. But I'm playing with the baby while you talk to him." She faced Holtz and said with utter seriousness, "I promise no harm will come to the child while he is in my care." With a grin she added, "Like any of us would hurt him. I mean, aside from Mike worrying that he'd have to kill him the minute he was born."

On that, Danae wandered out, singing something in a language Holtz wasn't quite sure existed.

Slowly, his tensed muscles relaxed, and he returned to his seat. Minos had his hands folded on the desk and patient eyes waiting on him. "You were saying?" Holtz invited in a fair imitation of civility.

"I was saying. You and Connor cannot remain here, but my difficulty is where, exactly, to send you."

"Perhaps our original destination?"

Minos raised his eyebrows again. "You honestly would wish to be sent to a hell dimension? Really. We've had with us a... I suppose you could call her our guest, who was once co-ruler of that dimension. She caused more than her fair share of torment in our reality, and she was the weakest of the three who ruled there. No," he said, overriding Holtz's comment. "In normal circumstances -- if anything about this can be considered normal -- we would be happy to do just as you suggest. But I very much believe that you were brought here because you could not be allowed to do what you were doing. You cannot so easily take Connor out of the world he was born in, and for. He has his destiny."

"Don't we all?" asked Holtz blandly. Bitterly. ~Didn't my daughter have her own destiny?~

Minos' talents did not seem to run to reading minds -- or he was ignoring the thought. "Yes, we do. Many of us more than one. You should have been deep into a far different life -- if Sajian hadn't frozen you in place for his own purposes, and brought you into this time."

"So, if you are so willing to prevent me from taking Connor away from Angelus, why did you not prevent Sajian?"

"Free will," Minos said simply. "Connor has his own fate, and he is not in a position yet to choose how or whether to pursue it. You made your own choices. He has to be allowed to make his." He smiled with genuine relief and admiration. "So that's why you were dumped on our doorstep. She does move in mysterious ways."

"You are welcome to choose where you would like to go," Minos continued, leaning over to pull papers out of a file. "I can acquaint you with some options, if you like. It is not very different from if you had finally Moved On and came to me. Connor, of course, we will --"

"I will not leave without Connor." Holtz's voice was deadly.

Slowly, Minos turned his gaze to Holtz. "He is not yours to control."

Holtz rose to his feet. "I have sworn to protect the child, raise him."

"Raise him to hate his father, you mean," Minos said levelly.

Holtz froze. "That matters... less, now. But I will not leave Connor with you."

Moving carefully, Minos flattened his hands on his desk. "Why?" he asked gently.

"My sworn word. And I have only yours that this is not, in fact, the dimension I thought I was retreating into. I will not leave Connor alone here."

There was silence for several minutes, as Holtz met Minos' unwavering stare. "Hmm," he said finally. "That greatly reduces the number of options for you."

"I don't care. I need --" A second chance to be a father? Hardly. Connor was no replacement for his own children. Another chance to protect innocence from Angelus? Revenge? Justice?

Peace?

Danae came into back into the room then, carrying the baby. He had his hands entangled in her inky hair and seemed delighted. With an easy smile she returned Connor to Holtz. "He's a miracle," she said simply.

Holtz took the baby, and thought back to the night of his birth. "Yes," he said. And nothing more.

Sunrise. Tyche tucked one foot under her and lit her cigarette. A falling star flared its way down to Earth. She stared at it a moment, watching the smoke drift up from the tip. "Burnt offerings," she murmured to Minos, "carrying wishes up to the gods."

"Or, a regrettable addiction," Minos added. They sat in silence, watching the day lighten to pastel shades of glory around them.

"So now what do we do?" Tyche asked.

Minos sighed. "Now... we wait. Again. Some more."

Snorting, Tyche tapped a bit of excess ash from her cigarette. A volcano in Hawaii had a brief and spectacular eruption. "Cordelia is going to bitch me out for not giving her any warning."

"You didn't have any warning to give her."

"Like she's going to accept that. She can't stand anything happening to the people she loves. And she loves Connor, and Angel and Wes and..." Tyche sighed.

"And, as usual, it will be hard on them. All of them." Minos sighed.

Tyche bit her lip. "Where did he go?" she asked finally.

"You know I can't tell you."

"Come on, you can trust me."

Minos faced her, and smiled wearily in the brightening light. "Of course I can. But I can't tell you. That's not how it works."

Pensively, Tyche stared straight ahead. "This messes up the books. Connor wasn't supposed to exist. Holtz was supposed to be a couple hundred years dead by now."

"Darla wasn't supposed to return, and so on and so forth."

"The Opposition keeps screwing us up," Tyche said, stubbing out her cigarette.

Minos made one sweeping gesture, trailing smoke after it. "You know... I'm beginning to think no. I think that they *think* that they are meddling with us. But every time they do so, things become a little clearer. A little more precise. I think that they are helping us."

"And wouldn't that piss them off to know. Come on, time to go back to work. Although I'd like someone to tell me how we're going to straighten things out now."

"Stop worrying about balancing the books." Minos got to his feet. "That's my job."

"And how in hezmana are you going to do it?" Tyche demanded, rising as well.

Minos smiled faintly. "I don't know. It's a mystery."

The last thing heard before they disappeared back inside was Tyche saying, "So very much not letting you watch Shakespeare in Love again..."

THE END