Delilah looked at the blonde-haired doll in her talons in confusion. Without thinking through Cynthia's request, Delilah had agreed to play with the young human in her quarters.

"Oh I love this dress!" Cynthia said in a strange voice.

Delilah watched the young human pick up a faded pink and green one-piece from the ground using the dolls hands. Then began to undress and re-dress the doll while speaking with a falsetto voice.

Cynthia looked up at Delilah with mild impatience. "Why aren't you playing with me? Do you want another doll?"

"No," Delilah answered. She looked at the doll in her hand again and the scattered toys around them. "I don't know what to do," she told the small child.

"You're supposed to pretend like you are the doll and we are at the mall," Cynthia explained with the voice of someone who had gone through the same speech more than twice that day.

"Pretend?" Delilah repeated.

Cynthia stood up with a huff and illustrated with her hands. "This," she said, walking around their small space, "is the mall. It has a lot of floors." She waved her hands in different parts of the air. "The dolls are shopping together because they are friends and like clothes."

Delilah was bewildered. There was no mall. She and her clone siblings had been taken to one after doing a good job patrolling for a week with Claw and Talon. There was nothing in the air where the child pointed to and Delilah began to wonder if she could not see what's there. Hesitantly, the female clone stuck her hand out. There really was nothing there.

With an exasperated sigh, Cynthia gathered her dolls and toys.

Though Delilah was unfamiliar with playing pretend, she recognized the signs of subtle anger. "What's wrong?" she asked Cynthia. Delilah stayed sitting.

"I'm going to play soccer," Cynthia replied curtly as she took the blonde doll from Delilah's hand. Once her toys were back in the box she had pulled them out of, Cynthia left the room.

"Is something wrong Delilah?" Maggie asked, seeing the clone alone in the room.

"She is angry with me," Delilah told the mutate as she followed Cynthia from the room to the open 'court yard' with her eyes. Humans in the upper floors were taking down and putting up clothes while Omar, Brentwood, Malibu and another human child kicked a slightly deflated ball to each other.

"Cynthia? Why?" Maggie asked in surprise.

"I don't know," Delilah answered. "She was telling me about a mall and pretending but there's nothing here and she spoke with a strange voice and made the dolls pick up clothes. Then she took everything to her box and went to play soccer."

Maggie offered Delilah her hand. "Well sitting here won't do anything. Let's talk to Cynthia."

Once Maggie called the young girl away from her activity she asked her what had made her stop playing with Delilah.

Sensing she was in trouble, Cynthia pouted and looked at the ground in silence.

"I'm not angry Cynthia. I just want to know why you're angry with Delilah," Maggie told her.

"I'm not angry," Cynthia denied.

"Ok, then what happened?"

Cynthia huffed and stayed quiet for a moment before answering, "She wouldn't play with me. I don't want to play dolls by myself so I went to play with Omar."

Maggie quickly realized it was a situation of culture shock. Delilah, a clone and a gargoyle, had never actually grown up in the normal sense and so did understand the nuances of child fantasies and pretend adventures. Cynthia, still a child and unaware of how Delilah came to be, acted out in anger but not in malice.

Maggie crouched down before Cynthia and spoke softly so as not to be overheard. "Cynthia, Delilah doesn't know how to play pretend. No one taught her how."

Cynthia 's eyes widened in shock. How could anyone not know how to play pretend? Even her mother knew how to play pretend.

"Why not?" Cynthia asked.

Now came the difficult part of explaining cloning but Maggie decided to try another approach. "Well, how do you know how to play pretend? Who taught you? My Aunt Aggie and my mom taught me."

"Mamma taught me," Cynthia said.

Maggie took a deep breath. Delilah watched the exchange in curiosity. "Well Delilah didn't have a mother to teach her so she doesn't know how to play pretend or with dolls like you do."

"What happened to her mommy?" Cynthia asked.

"I don't know and she doesn't either," Maggie explained hurriedly. "But do you see why Delilah wasn't playing with you? It's not that she didn't want to but she doesn't know how to."

"I try to tell her," Cynthia defended herself.

Maggie nodded in agreement as she searched for words but fortunately her moment of silence allowed Cynthia to reconsider her position.

"I can teach her," she offered. "I'm very good at playing dolls and pretend."

Maggie smiled at both girls. Standing up, she asked Delilah, "Would you like to learn?"

"We can have a lot of fun," Cynthia interjected. "But only until Mamma says for me to go to sleep."

That reminded Maggie that Cynthia and Omar should be getting ready for bed.

Delilah nodded. "I want to…learn to play."

"Great," Maggie said in approval. "But it's time for Cynthia to go to bed and for you to go patrolling with Claw."

"Ok, Tita Maggie," Cynthia said brightly. "We'll play tomorrow Delilah. Buenas noches!"

Delilah looked after the young human and Maggie walking towards the girl's room before walking off to meet with her fellow clones and Claw in the tunnels. Delilah had realized some time ago—she did not know when exactly—but she had developed reflections. That was she did as she walked down the tunnels: reflect. Thinking back on the evening's events it had started out with curiosity, then confusion, followed by sadness and then happiness.

Same Night: Mexico, Puebla area, 2 hours difference from Manhattan:

"They received my call and are now informed," the tan fay-disguised-as-human told Demona.

Demona caped her wings. "No doubt that once Goliath knows, he'll do everything he can to ally himself with Cuauhtemoc and his clan," she said in satisfaction of knowing one of her many nemeses. She nibbled at the tip of her left talon in thought. "He won't be able to deny me attendance at the gathering."

Lily's black eyes sparkled with fay mischief as she nodded in agreement, "So far so good on that end."

^*^*

Same night, Elisa's apartment:

"So besides getting together, what's your goal with this gathering?" Derek asked, sitting with Lexington across from Goliath and his sister.

"To forge bonds between our clans," Goliath said.

"And increase our population," Lexington inserted. "There aren't many of us out there."

While the Quarrymen were being branded as a peace-disturbing gang, their messages of hate split the public in half. Fortunately, the police, on the mayor's request, were working hard to snuff them out before the current situation of statue-smashing escalated.

Goliath hoped once the Quarrymen were disbanded and put behind bars, the public's fears would ease. It was easier to envision than accomplish though once, gargoyles lived side by side with humans. However, even in those times there was tension.

"One of the issues we want to discuss during the Gathering is using the media to introduce ourselves, but in a better light," Lexington explained. "If the other clans were willing, we could let the whole world know about us."

"That's a huge risk," Derek pointed out, thinking of his own clan as well.

"We know Derek, but at least New York has to know these guys are here to stay," Elisa pointed out. "And we're lucky to have them.

After a little more conversation, Goliath and Lexington returned to the castle, leaving Elisa to spend some time with her brother.

"I wanted to ask, why wasn't Brooklyn here?"

Elisa explained that he was out patrolling with the others and while Goliath went to the Gargoyle Gathering Brooklyn would act in his stead.

"Goliath did start it after all. The other reason was because Goliath wanted to pitch the idea of inter-clan mating, and since Broadway and Angela are pretty much an item, and Brooklyn will be staying behind that leaves Lex free to help Goliath. They said it's not a new concept to them but they used to have a bigger clan."

"Yeah, not too many single gargoyle-gals around here, even if it is New York," Derek joked weakly, looking at his sister.

Elisa caught the look in her brother's eye and asked him what was on his mind.

"You and Goliath… honestly," he replied.

Elisa's breath caught in her throat. She shouldn't have been surprised. Derek always looked out for her despite that fact that she was the eldest. Besides,he was a former police officer with the skills to tell if a suspect was lying or hiding something she had to remind herself.

"Yeah, we're going out," Elisa answered as casually as she could.

Derek nodded mutely. "Just wanted to confirm. I mean it's obvious and I'm not in a position to judge. I'm a guy who likes being a mutate who's in love with a girl that wants to be human again."

Elisa's face softened into one of compassion and realization. If she had spent more time with him, she would have known it was serious. "She's still hoping for a cure?"

Derek nodded again; his face was saddened. "Don't get me wrong, I'd do anything to help her, but...it's just so hard to think that one day she will be cured and leave. We're platonic sis."

Elisa put a comforting hand on her younger brother's furry arm. He was already thinking the cure was a done deal despite that there was no cure. Derek wouldn't tie Maggie down so long as she was bent on being human.

"Has she said anything?" Elisa asked.

Derek shook his head. "Sometimes she talks about stuff from home and how she'd like to take a walk in the sun once she's human. Her face just lights up—she's beautiful, and stronger than she thinks. I know she wants more than holding hands now and then but..." he sighed.

"We've been burned before," Elisa finished for him.

"So what about you and Goliath?" Derek asked after a moment of silence. Now the tables were turning.