Angel finally let him go home to his apartment Sunday afternoon, but not until he had submitted to rigorous physical and mental testing. Even then his father seemed reluctant to let him leave, but he did so after Connor made sure to mention several times how much he was looking forward to school in the morning.
A weekend at the Hyperion seemed to do about a month's worth of damage to his life and schedule, and there was so much he needed to do. He made several phone calls, both to get homework and reading assignments and to assure his friends that he had not died in a ditch somewhere. After staring at the screen for several minutes, he even dialed Haley, half hoping that she would answer and half hoping that she wouldn't. Unsatisfied with the "The number you have dialed is no longer in service" message that he received after his first attempt to reach her, he tried again. And again. Each time yielded the same result. She was gone.
He kicked himself for not stopping at the grocery store on the way home, because the cupboards were almost literally bare, and the refrigerator smelled funny. Luckily, his mother happened to call and invite him to dinner as he was staring hard at cold leftover... somethings. Dinner with the family was nice—much nicer than the food poisoning that he likely would have incurred from pretty much anything in his own fridge—and if he'd behaved strangely the last time they had seen him, no one mentioned it.
After dinner, he took a bus home, but he regretted it. The ride was uncomfortable, not only due to the unpleasant looking woman who kept eyeballing him, but also because, well, his ass still kinda hurt.
Angel had spanked him hard, and while he didn't really harbor any resentment toward him for it, he didn't exactly think it had been fair or necessary, either. His father was a good man, but he had some odd notions about how to fix things between them. He could whack him as hard as he wanted, but it wasn't going to make everything Connor had been through—everything he had done, everything he had caused—go away. That was a fact that, for now at least, he intended to keep to himself.
After his nightly rituals—showering, brushing his teeth, browsing the internet for an ungodly amount of time—Connor finally collapsed onto his wonderful, comfortable, welcoming bed, where he wept until he fell asleep.
"Ah, Mr. Reilly, so glad to see you decided to join us today," Professor Harding intoned dryly as he passed by her desk.
The rest of the students laughed. Bastards. Like they never missed a class.
"Yes, ma'am," he mumbled, fully embarrassed by the attention drawn to him.
"I expect you'll want to make up Friday's quiz," she said, a frown stretching the corners of her mouth.
He just stared at her helplessly, unsure if an answer was expected or not.
"Oh, all right," she said, and after a long-suffering sigh, passed a sheet of paper up the rows to him. "It was open-book anyway. Let's hope you brought your book."
More giggles from the heartless monsters posing as his classmates.
"If you can get that done by the end of class, I'll take it," she clarified. "Otherwise, forget it."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, flipping through the pages of his British literature textbook with reckless abandon.
"Same goes for the rest of you," she informed the class, and Connor was relieved to see more than a few guilty parties join him in the frantic search for names, dates, and quotes.
As it turned out, besides that quiz, he hadn't missed all that much by losing out on two days of classes. Had he been a more cynical person, he might have criticized the quality of the education he and his parents were paying for, but as things went, he merely considered himself lucky.
A cute girl in Financial Accounting and Reporting even offered to lend him her notes, which he gratefully accepted. Later, as he reviewed—i.e., shamelessly copied them—he noticed that she'd made sure to write her phone number at the top of one of the pages, "just in case you have any questions." Connor thought he was rather done with cute girls for awhile—they were dangerous—but he entered her number into his contacts anyway... just in case.
For a full five business days, things seemed normal. That was good. Connor could use a little bit of normality. Spike didn't pester him to go out—in fact, Connor wondered if Spike would ever pester him to go out again after what had happened the last time—and Angel didn't get on his case about school or anything else. The more Connor thought about it, though, the more abnormal that all seemed. He wanted Spike to make him go out for a good time. He even—sorta—wanted Angel to get on his case... but just a little.
Friday night mercifully arrived, and almost before he realized his intentions, Connor found himself standing outside the front doors of the Hyperion. Unburdened by any taxing obligations such as, say, romantic dates, he thought he just might take it upon himself to initiate a little fun. Angel wouldn't want to come out, of course, but he could be dragged.
"Dad?" he called as he pushed the doors open. "Dad? Spike? Anybody home?"
Receiving no answer, Connor walked to Angel's office, but no one was there, either. On a whim, he sat down in his dad's chair and spun around in a full circle. If his dad was going to be this lax on security, he deserved to have his furniture played on.
"What are you doing?" Illyria asked curiously just as he'd begun his second spin, startling him so much that he nearly leapt from the chair.
"I was... nothing," he answered guiltily, even though he knew Illyria couldn't care less about the joys of chair spinning.
"You seek your father and my pet," she observed. "They are not here."
"Oh," Connor said, frowning. "Do you know where they are?"
"I do," she answered.
Connor looked at her expectantly. She gazed back unfazed.
"Um," he finally said. "Could you maybe tell me where they went?"
"No," she answered simply, continuing to peer directly into his eyes.
"No?" he repeated. "Okay... Any particular reason why not?"
"Angel instructed me to tell no one of their whereabouts," she clarified.
"Oh," Connor said, waving his hand dismissively. "I'm sure that didn't include me."
"Especially Connor," she added.
"What?" Connor answered, a little bit offended. "What do you mean, 'especially Connor?' Why especially Connor?"
"Angel is the leader. I do not question his orders," Illyria said coolly.
"Since when?" Connor scoffed.
"You, however, are not the leader," Illyria informed him. "And as I do not answer to you, I shall take my leave."
Connor watched, open-mouthed, as she turned and grumpily stalked straight out the front entrance. Geez. Illyria was haughty and aloof on a good day, but tonight she was being a downright bitch. After a few seconds of contemplation, he sat back down, pulled out his phone, and called Spike. No answer. He tried Angel, but he didn't answer either. He knew that his aggravated tone would be apparent in any voice-mail messages he left them, so he opted for texts instead. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk as he waited for a reply.
"Snooping through Daddy's desk, I see," an unfamiliar disembodied voice declared.
"What the fuck!" Connor exclaimed, jumping from the chair and immediately taking a defensive stance. "Who are you? Where are you?"
He glanced frantically all around him but saw no one.
"Show yourself!" he demanded angrily.
"As you wish," the voice said indifferently.
Connor grabbed the only "weapon" within reach, a silver letter opener, and stood perfectly still as wispy smoke rose from the floor and curled into elaborate designs in front of Angel's desk. The individual misty strands intertwined until, at least a full dramatic minute later, the spitting image of that first demon he had killed—well, the first one after regaining his memories—stood before him.
"Shit," Connor breathed out, more than a little unprepared. "Didn't I already kill you?"