"Not--" He starts, then stops, starting again. "It wasn't a memory wipe. Not technically. It was a sort of time altering... thing." Angel sighs. "I made a deal with the Senior Partners when I agreed to take over Wolfram & Hart. There were things they did that I couldn't have made happen otherwise. One of those things was giving Connor a normal life. Things got really bad, for a while. He was messed up and I didn't know what do or how to help him; there was no way to help him. This life wasn't something that he was ready for, and being in Quor'toth that long really screwed him. So, I gave him up. In exchange for stepping up as their new CEO, they altered reality and made it so he was never my son, gave him memories of a normal childhood and a family. No-one remembered him beyond myself and my liaisons to the senior partners."

And Cordelia, but Angel wasn't touching the topic of Cordelia with Buffy with a ten foot pole. Not yet, anyway.

That had all came undone later on, of course. But, the memories Connor gained, falsified or not, had helped his son in ways he never could have. It gave him balance, even when his original set of memories were returned to him after Wesley shattered Cyvus Vail's orlon window.

"He's from before that, obviously. And before things got bad." Another heavy sigh as Angel rubs at his eyes with one hand. "Thank God," he adds as an afterthought. The mere notion of dealing with the scared, lost and suicidal boy that his son had turned into after dealing with Jasmine terrified him.