THE BODY
Connor enters his Art class with his friend Jeff, a little gun-shy from a confrontation with his 'nemesis' Kyle in the locker room. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Kyle already in seated in the front row. The only empty seats are next to Kara whom he as been trying to work up the nerve to talk to all week.
Raising her voice to be heard the teacher instructs, "Okay. Remember, we're not drawing the object. We're drawing the negative space around the object." She steps aside and reveals the model, which is a 2- or 3-foot high marble nude.
Connor and Jeff go to the back and take easels on either side of Kara. Connor looks nervously at her as he picks up the charcoal. The other students begin to draw as the teacher's voice continues. "And then give me a sense of the spaces around ... the space in-between."
"Hey," Kara greets, her eyes not leaving her sketch.
"Oh. Hey Kara." Connor returns trying to sound nonchalant.
" What's goin' on?"
" Um, negative space."
"Whatever happened to accentuate the positive?" She quips.
"And don't mess with Mr. In-between." He finishes lamely.
Kara looks at his paper, "That's pretty good."
Connor smiles, "Thanks."
Behind Kara, Jeff holds up his pad of paper, on which he has scrawled "GO DOG!" Connor gives his friend a scolding look, and then turns back to his drawing.
"So I heard you, like, had a freak-out and cut yourself."
Connor panics, "Uh, no, not even. It was a whole ... it was so not..."
" I've felt like that before." She reassures smoothly. "Things get so crazed, you know, you just feel like you wanna do something ... extreme."
"Yeah. I just ... I had a lot of intense stuff going on."
Kara smiles, returns to her drawing. "A lot of people don't understand that. Pain."
"Yeah," Connor smiles. Behind him Buffy enters the hallway, looking at Connor through the window.
--
Kara and Connor are quietly flirting in the last row of the classroom when Buffy approaches the teacher. "There's been a family emergency. I need to take Connor out of class." The teacher nods her permission so Buffy slowly makes her way up the aisle.
"He looks so happy." She thinks, "I really don't want to be the one to ruin that."
"Connor," She says softly, but he doesn't hear her at first. "I have to talk to you."
Connor looks up, apprehensive. "Um… Can it wait? I'm in the middle of a class."
"I know. Please come with me."
His eyes stay riveted to her back as she leaves the room. He puts down his charcoal and follows.
"I thought Mom was picking me up," He says conversationally as he closes the classroom door behind him. Buffy remains silent as she leads them down the hall. " What's going on? Something's going on." He protests refusing to take another step.
" Let's go outside." She requests while internally begging, "No, not here. You don't want to do this here."
"No. Tell me what's going on." He demands.
"It's ... bad ... news." She answers haltingly.
Connor stiffens with fear and crosses his arms anxiously over his chest. "Well, what is it? What happened?"
"It's bad. Please, can we-"
The Suspense is killing him and he can sense the audience forming in the window behind him. Raising his voice he asks, "Where's Mom?"
Buffy starts to loose her brave facade. "Mom ... had an accident. Or, um.."she stutters as the tears start to pool in her eyes. "...something went ... wrong from the tumor."
Suddenly nervous he interrupts and steps toward her. " Is she okay? Is she ... but she's okay? But ... it's, it's serious, but..."
Buffy's tears are flowing freely now. She shakes her head and reaches for him. "Connor."
Shaking with emotion, "No." he whispers as he shies from her touch
Finally he breaks, "No, it's not true! No, you're a liar, she's fine!" he shouts. Connor punches a nearby locker and cries out in pain. Buffy gently takes his injured hand in hers, trying to comfort Connor as their silent observers look on. Even Kyle has nothing derogatory to say about the emotional scene. At least Connor will have that small respite today.
***
BARGAINING
"So my homeroom teacher, Ms. Lefcort, was like, 'Your sister's an example to us all.' She wanted to make it National Buffy Day."
He sets his glass on the coffee-table and sits on the floor across from Spike. He considers taking another slice of pizza, but he's more bored than hungry. He just picks at the toppings eating the odd string of cheese or mushroom.
"Makes sense." Spike sighs looking at the TV without actually watching it.
" It does?"
"Yeah, she responded to BuffyBot because a robot is predictable. Boring. Perfect teacher's pet. That's all schools are, you know. Just factories, spewing out mindless little automatons." He looks at Connor and sees the sly grin forming on his lips and quickly back pedals. "Who go on to be ... very ... valuable and productive members of society, and you should go. Because Buffy would want you to.
Connor's face is somber again. "Check. One mindless automaton."
They sit in the awkward silence sipping on the nearest soda. They both make a face realizing that had each grabbed the other's drink and traded glasses.
"Uck, Grape. So, uh, what do you fancy, my young pup, uh, game of rummy?" Spike suggests as he gets up from the couch.
"Well, Willow and Tara said they'd be back early." He leans to the side to see what Spike is doing at the side table. "You don't really have to hang. I mean, if you're bored."
Spike turns to face him and raises and eyebrow knowingly, "I'm not, and yeah, I do."
Spike found a pack of cards he was looking for in the drawer and sat down opposite Connor again.
"But I'm fine alone. You all left me alone last night. And look, still breathing."
"You weren't alone. You were at Jeff's." Spike pointed out. He sometimes liked to act put out about spending time with Connor, but he quite enjoyed it. It's nice being idolized and he doesn't resemble Buffy in the slightest. So he can be with the part of her that survived with out it hurting too much. 'Though why Connor chose 'the big bad' to idolize is beyond me.' He thinks to himself. 'Perhaps the Watcher or the Whelp…wait just answered my own question.' He is shook out of his reverie by Connor's cajoling.
"No one's coming after me. I'm not the key. Or if I am, I don't open anything any more. It's over. Remember?"
"I'm not leaving you here by yourself, so forget it."
"Well, I could've invited a girl over and you wouldn't want to cramp my style, right, Spike?"
Spike eyes rivet into him, daring him to lie "Do you have a girl coming over?"
"No," Connor admits reluctantly. "But the possibility still exists." He insists.
Spike smirks and begins to shuffle the cards. "Of course it exists, You're a good looking bloke. Almost as handsome as me even. But the fact remains you haven't been that sociable, so when would you have meet this girl."
"I'm old enough to be alone. In fact, I'm more than old enough to be the baby-sitter and not the baby-sat. It's not like I'm begging to go on patrol anymore."
Just the thought of Connor out there fighting and possibly dying upsets him. He slaps the deck on the table in front of him, his jaw clenched. "No. I'm not leaving you ... to get hurt. Not again."
Stalemate.
"Now deal."
--
The trademark roar of several Harley Davidson Motorcycles startles Spike from his near-doze on the couch. He looks down at Connor asleep on the couch next to him and mutes the television. The engine rumbles grows louder followed by screeching tires and crashing noises. Spike pulls back the curtain and looks out the window. He takes a deep breath as he sees demons on hogs tearing up the neighborhood.
The noise has woken Connor, "What's going on?" he yawns.
"Stay away from the window." Spike whispers as he stops Connor from sitting up.
He walks into the foyer and Connor follows.
" What is it, what's happening?"
Without looking back spike responds, "Just do as I say." He checks to make sure the front door is locked. "I'm going to check the rest of the house."
"Don't move!" Spike calls from another room.
Connor stands still where he was placed, looking around nervously. He jumps startled when one crash sounded particularly close.
In the other room Spike goes through Buffy's weapon chest. "...holy water, one cross - Ow!" he exclaims in pain. Stepping back he shakes his hand to relieve the pain. "Brilliant." He admonishes himself
He looks at his injured hand, then over at the window, notices Connor peeking out through the curtains.
"Here!" He scolds as he strides to the window, dragging Connor away. "You want me to bloody thump you? I told you to stay away from the window."
"Who are they?"
Spike looks out the window again checking the progress of the destruction outside. "Hellions. Road pirates. They raid towns ... use 'em up, burn 'em down. It's usually backwaters, any place..." he pauses as he makes a realization. "Any place they think is vulnerable."
"They know the Slayer's gone." Connor comments coming to the same realization as Spike.
Spike looks back out the window. The demons continue to ride up and down the street, setting fires and breaking windows. "We can't stay here." Spike decides and pulls Connor away from the window again.
"Can we take 'em?" Connor asks following Spike to the foyer.
"Not unless I can help it, pup. I can't protect you here." He answers heading for the door.
"We've got weapons and the other's will be back soon" Connor argues.
"And what, barracade ourselves under the stairs? Not really my style."
"But we can't let them tear up the town."
Spike sighs in frustration, grabs Connor roughly by the shoulders and looks him square in the eye. "Connor, I get that you want to help. But I'm your sitter, so mind me. I'm not gonna let any of those buggers lay so much as a warty digit on you. Right?"
" Right. But-"
"Right, then. We can't wait around to see if the others will pop in. We're on our own. No one's coming to our rescue. We need to concentrate on us not the bleedin' town." He grasps the front of Connors shirt and leads him toward the back door.
They run along the side of the house crouching behind some bushes. Connor strains to look over Spikes shoulder at the mayhem and sees demons breaking windows and knocking over mailboxes.
"Get back." Spike warns, shoving Connor head away from his shoulder.
"I-it looks like they're just ... wrecking stuff." Connor comments some what relieved until he hears a woman scream. "Are they bothering the people too?"
Spike doesn't comment while he continues to watch the mayhem. Connor notices he is grinning "What?"
"Uh, oh, nothing, just, uh ..." nodding toward the action, "looked like fun." Connor raises an eyebrow, "I'm just sayin'."
"I get it." He smiles.
"Yeah, it's just ... " He scans the area, "With this kind of frolicking going on all around town, we're not gonna get very far without-" He pauses as he gets an idea.
He gestures for Connor to stay put and darts for a pile of sports equipment in the next yard. He tosses the football helmet to Connor and takes the baseball bat for himself. He strides to the middle of the street purposefully. He stands motionless and stares down an oncoming demon like a toreador challenging a bull.
The Demon, always up for a good game of chicken, picks up speed aiming for Spike. At the last moment Spike takes up a batters stance, swings and breaks the bat of in the Demons face. The motorcycle, now riderless continues a few feet then falls to the ground. Spike throws down the broken bat at the comatose demon in satisfaction and retrieves the bike.
"Let's fly, pup!" He calls to Connor.
Connor puts on his helmet and jumps on the bike behind Spike. They go roaring down the street leaving the looting demons behind them. They hope.
A NEW WORLD
The air crackles with static lightning and a large, horned monster drops to the ground, followed almost immediately by a teenaged girl. The girl slices the demon's head off in a fluid arc and its decapitated body dissolves into nothingness. Angel stands mesmerized, staring as the girl aims a three-chambered, wrist-mounted stake-launcher at him.
She smirks and says "Hi, Daddy."
Gunn runs across the lobby toward the weapons. Groo moves to the side to get a clear shot at the intruder with his ax. Angel turns towards them, holding out a hand. "Wait!"
She launches two stakes at Angel in quick succession as Angel turns back to face her.
"No!" Angel shouts
Angel turns as the stakes travel through the air, aimed at his heart. The first one almost lodges in his shoulder, but he turns with it and bats the second one aside. As Angel defends himself, Groo flings his ax at the girl, who deflects it, mirroring Angel's motion.
Angel and the girl straighten back up and resume their former positions staring at each other.
"My god. - It's you. - Dawn." Angel gasps part in disbelief and part happiness.
Cordelia notes to herself that she looks like little Miss Robinson Crusoe in her rough clothing made of animal hides and dirty face. While Fred is reminded of the illustrations of Ramona Quimby, Age 8 since the girl is all arms and legs and her hair is roughly cut into a pageboy. In Gunn's mind, she looks like St. Joan from the movies. Groo thinks, "hmmm, tiny cow warrior."
Connor enters his Art class with his friend Jeff, a little gun-shy from a confrontation with his 'nemesis' Kyle in the locker room. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Kyle already in seated in the front row. The only empty seats are next to Kara whom he as been trying to work up the nerve to talk to all week.
Raising her voice to be heard the teacher instructs, "Okay. Remember, we're not drawing the object. We're drawing the negative space around the object." She steps aside and reveals the model, which is a 2- or 3-foot high marble nude.
Connor and Jeff go to the back and take easels on either side of Kara. Connor looks nervously at her as he picks up the charcoal. The other students begin to draw as the teacher's voice continues. "And then give me a sense of the spaces around ... the space in-between."
"Hey," Kara greets, her eyes not leaving her sketch.
"Oh. Hey Kara." Connor returns trying to sound nonchalant.
" What's goin' on?"
" Um, negative space."
"Whatever happened to accentuate the positive?" She quips.
"And don't mess with Mr. In-between." He finishes lamely.
Kara looks at his paper, "That's pretty good."
Connor smiles, "Thanks."
Behind Kara, Jeff holds up his pad of paper, on which he has scrawled "GO DOG!" Connor gives his friend a scolding look, and then turns back to his drawing.
"So I heard you, like, had a freak-out and cut yourself."
Connor panics, "Uh, no, not even. It was a whole ... it was so not..."
" I've felt like that before." She reassures smoothly. "Things get so crazed, you know, you just feel like you wanna do something ... extreme."
"Yeah. I just ... I had a lot of intense stuff going on."
Kara smiles, returns to her drawing. "A lot of people don't understand that. Pain."
"Yeah," Connor smiles. Behind him Buffy enters the hallway, looking at Connor through the window.
--
Kara and Connor are quietly flirting in the last row of the classroom when Buffy approaches the teacher. "There's been a family emergency. I need to take Connor out of class." The teacher nods her permission so Buffy slowly makes her way up the aisle.
"He looks so happy." She thinks, "I really don't want to be the one to ruin that."
"Connor," She says softly, but he doesn't hear her at first. "I have to talk to you."
Connor looks up, apprehensive. "Um… Can it wait? I'm in the middle of a class."
"I know. Please come with me."
His eyes stay riveted to her back as she leaves the room. He puts down his charcoal and follows.
"I thought Mom was picking me up," He says conversationally as he closes the classroom door behind him. Buffy remains silent as she leads them down the hall. " What's going on? Something's going on." He protests refusing to take another step.
" Let's go outside." She requests while internally begging, "No, not here. You don't want to do this here."
"No. Tell me what's going on." He demands.
"It's ... bad ... news." She answers haltingly.
Connor stiffens with fear and crosses his arms anxiously over his chest. "Well, what is it? What happened?"
"It's bad. Please, can we-"
The Suspense is killing him and he can sense the audience forming in the window behind him. Raising his voice he asks, "Where's Mom?"
Buffy starts to loose her brave facade. "Mom ... had an accident. Or, um.."she stutters as the tears start to pool in her eyes. "...something went ... wrong from the tumor."
Suddenly nervous he interrupts and steps toward her. " Is she okay? Is she ... but she's okay? But ... it's, it's serious, but..."
Buffy's tears are flowing freely now. She shakes her head and reaches for him. "Connor."
Shaking with emotion, "No." he whispers as he shies from her touch
Finally he breaks, "No, it's not true! No, you're a liar, she's fine!" he shouts. Connor punches a nearby locker and cries out in pain. Buffy gently takes his injured hand in hers, trying to comfort Connor as their silent observers look on. Even Kyle has nothing derogatory to say about the emotional scene. At least Connor will have that small respite today.
***
BARGAINING
"So my homeroom teacher, Ms. Lefcort, was like, 'Your sister's an example to us all.' She wanted to make it National Buffy Day."
He sets his glass on the coffee-table and sits on the floor across from Spike. He considers taking another slice of pizza, but he's more bored than hungry. He just picks at the toppings eating the odd string of cheese or mushroom.
"Makes sense." Spike sighs looking at the TV without actually watching it.
" It does?"
"Yeah, she responded to BuffyBot because a robot is predictable. Boring. Perfect teacher's pet. That's all schools are, you know. Just factories, spewing out mindless little automatons." He looks at Connor and sees the sly grin forming on his lips and quickly back pedals. "Who go on to be ... very ... valuable and productive members of society, and you should go. Because Buffy would want you to.
Connor's face is somber again. "Check. One mindless automaton."
They sit in the awkward silence sipping on the nearest soda. They both make a face realizing that had each grabbed the other's drink and traded glasses.
"Uck, Grape. So, uh, what do you fancy, my young pup, uh, game of rummy?" Spike suggests as he gets up from the couch.
"Well, Willow and Tara said they'd be back early." He leans to the side to see what Spike is doing at the side table. "You don't really have to hang. I mean, if you're bored."
Spike turns to face him and raises and eyebrow knowingly, "I'm not, and yeah, I do."
Spike found a pack of cards he was looking for in the drawer and sat down opposite Connor again.
"But I'm fine alone. You all left me alone last night. And look, still breathing."
"You weren't alone. You were at Jeff's." Spike pointed out. He sometimes liked to act put out about spending time with Connor, but he quite enjoyed it. It's nice being idolized and he doesn't resemble Buffy in the slightest. So he can be with the part of her that survived with out it hurting too much. 'Though why Connor chose 'the big bad' to idolize is beyond me.' He thinks to himself. 'Perhaps the Watcher or the Whelp…wait just answered my own question.' He is shook out of his reverie by Connor's cajoling.
"No one's coming after me. I'm not the key. Or if I am, I don't open anything any more. It's over. Remember?"
"I'm not leaving you here by yourself, so forget it."
"Well, I could've invited a girl over and you wouldn't want to cramp my style, right, Spike?"
Spike eyes rivet into him, daring him to lie "Do you have a girl coming over?"
"No," Connor admits reluctantly. "But the possibility still exists." He insists.
Spike smirks and begins to shuffle the cards. "Of course it exists, You're a good looking bloke. Almost as handsome as me even. But the fact remains you haven't been that sociable, so when would you have meet this girl."
"I'm old enough to be alone. In fact, I'm more than old enough to be the baby-sitter and not the baby-sat. It's not like I'm begging to go on patrol anymore."
Just the thought of Connor out there fighting and possibly dying upsets him. He slaps the deck on the table in front of him, his jaw clenched. "No. I'm not leaving you ... to get hurt. Not again."
Stalemate.
"Now deal."
--
The trademark roar of several Harley Davidson Motorcycles startles Spike from his near-doze on the couch. He looks down at Connor asleep on the couch next to him and mutes the television. The engine rumbles grows louder followed by screeching tires and crashing noises. Spike pulls back the curtain and looks out the window. He takes a deep breath as he sees demons on hogs tearing up the neighborhood.
The noise has woken Connor, "What's going on?" he yawns.
"Stay away from the window." Spike whispers as he stops Connor from sitting up.
He walks into the foyer and Connor follows.
" What is it, what's happening?"
Without looking back spike responds, "Just do as I say." He checks to make sure the front door is locked. "I'm going to check the rest of the house."
"Don't move!" Spike calls from another room.
Connor stands still where he was placed, looking around nervously. He jumps startled when one crash sounded particularly close.
In the other room Spike goes through Buffy's weapon chest. "...holy water, one cross - Ow!" he exclaims in pain. Stepping back he shakes his hand to relieve the pain. "Brilliant." He admonishes himself
He looks at his injured hand, then over at the window, notices Connor peeking out through the curtains.
"Here!" He scolds as he strides to the window, dragging Connor away. "You want me to bloody thump you? I told you to stay away from the window."
"Who are they?"
Spike looks out the window again checking the progress of the destruction outside. "Hellions. Road pirates. They raid towns ... use 'em up, burn 'em down. It's usually backwaters, any place..." he pauses as he makes a realization. "Any place they think is vulnerable."
"They know the Slayer's gone." Connor comments coming to the same realization as Spike.
Spike looks back out the window. The demons continue to ride up and down the street, setting fires and breaking windows. "We can't stay here." Spike decides and pulls Connor away from the window again.
"Can we take 'em?" Connor asks following Spike to the foyer.
"Not unless I can help it, pup. I can't protect you here." He answers heading for the door.
"We've got weapons and the other's will be back soon" Connor argues.
"And what, barracade ourselves under the stairs? Not really my style."
"But we can't let them tear up the town."
Spike sighs in frustration, grabs Connor roughly by the shoulders and looks him square in the eye. "Connor, I get that you want to help. But I'm your sitter, so mind me. I'm not gonna let any of those buggers lay so much as a warty digit on you. Right?"
" Right. But-"
"Right, then. We can't wait around to see if the others will pop in. We're on our own. No one's coming to our rescue. We need to concentrate on us not the bleedin' town." He grasps the front of Connors shirt and leads him toward the back door.
They run along the side of the house crouching behind some bushes. Connor strains to look over Spikes shoulder at the mayhem and sees demons breaking windows and knocking over mailboxes.
"Get back." Spike warns, shoving Connor head away from his shoulder.
"I-it looks like they're just ... wrecking stuff." Connor comments some what relieved until he hears a woman scream. "Are they bothering the people too?"
Spike doesn't comment while he continues to watch the mayhem. Connor notices he is grinning "What?"
"Uh, oh, nothing, just, uh ..." nodding toward the action, "looked like fun." Connor raises an eyebrow, "I'm just sayin'."
"I get it." He smiles.
"Yeah, it's just ... " He scans the area, "With this kind of frolicking going on all around town, we're not gonna get very far without-" He pauses as he gets an idea.
He gestures for Connor to stay put and darts for a pile of sports equipment in the next yard. He tosses the football helmet to Connor and takes the baseball bat for himself. He strides to the middle of the street purposefully. He stands motionless and stares down an oncoming demon like a toreador challenging a bull.
The Demon, always up for a good game of chicken, picks up speed aiming for Spike. At the last moment Spike takes up a batters stance, swings and breaks the bat of in the Demons face. The motorcycle, now riderless continues a few feet then falls to the ground. Spike throws down the broken bat at the comatose demon in satisfaction and retrieves the bike.
"Let's fly, pup!" He calls to Connor.
Connor puts on his helmet and jumps on the bike behind Spike. They go roaring down the street leaving the looting demons behind them. They hope.
A NEW WORLD
The air crackles with static lightning and a large, horned monster drops to the ground, followed almost immediately by a teenaged girl. The girl slices the demon's head off in a fluid arc and its decapitated body dissolves into nothingness. Angel stands mesmerized, staring as the girl aims a three-chambered, wrist-mounted stake-launcher at him.
She smirks and says "Hi, Daddy."
Gunn runs across the lobby toward the weapons. Groo moves to the side to get a clear shot at the intruder with his ax. Angel turns towards them, holding out a hand. "Wait!"
She launches two stakes at Angel in quick succession as Angel turns back to face her.
"No!" Angel shouts
Angel turns as the stakes travel through the air, aimed at his heart. The first one almost lodges in his shoulder, but he turns with it and bats the second one aside. As Angel defends himself, Groo flings his ax at the girl, who deflects it, mirroring Angel's motion.
Angel and the girl straighten back up and resume their former positions staring at each other.
"My god. - It's you. - Dawn." Angel gasps part in disbelief and part happiness.
Cordelia notes to herself that she looks like little Miss Robinson Crusoe in her rough clothing made of animal hides and dirty face. While Fred is reminded of the illustrations of Ramona Quimby, Age 8 since the girl is all arms and legs and her hair is roughly cut into a pageboy. In Gunn's mind, she looks like St. Joan from the movies. Groo thinks, "hmmm, tiny cow warrior."
