BENEDICTION
Dawn opens the door of room 204 with her arms loaded with junk food from the vending machine and a newspaper. She is momentarily worried that the room appears empty, but then she hears noises in thebathroom.
"I found food in a big metal box outside. - Dad?" She calls. She is relieved when he finally emerges from the other room.
"Oh, good girl. You got it." Holtz praises, taking the newspaper from the under the pile of food she has dumped on the bed.
"Now. Let's have a look at the date."
He stares at the paper then drops down on the end of one of the beds. "Days. We've been gone only days."
His comments mean nothing to her. This world and how its time passes have no consequence other than the location of her mission. "I don't like this place. So many people. It's not like home."
Holtz eyes her sternly, "Quor-toth was never our home, Sarah. It was our prison. I should have known that one day *you'd* find a way out."
She shrugs. "The cracks were there already. I just made the sluks show me. That's all."
Holtz gets up, "Frightened rats, forced to flee to daylight. My girl's smart." He pats her cheek in praise. She leans in for more contact but none is forthcoming. She sighs in disappointment as he shuffles painfully to the table and chairs
"You shouldn't have followed me here." She admonished, concerned for his health
"How could I not?" He says as he lowers himself in a chair.
Sarah crosses to him and crouches down in front of him, putting a hand on Holtz' knee. "I would have come back to you, after I killed him." She quickly stands and turns away from what she is sure is his disappointment. "I'm sorry I couldn't."
"Of course you couldn't. It's not in you, Sarah." Holtz dismisses lightly.
"I've killed lots!" Dawn protests as she turns back to him insulted.
"Only when you had to, only to survive. And that's not the real reason why you worked so hard to get here. You wanted to see him."
"No." She denies.
"It's alright, my dear. There is no shame in it. I knew this day would come. That's why I never lied to you. I've always told you the truth about what you're parents were." He reaches his hand out to her. "How you and I came to be together."
Dawn takes his and lightly sits on his knee, careful not to put too much of her weight on his frail form. "God gave me to you."
"Yes. God delivered me to you, that I'd keep you safe and lavish upon you all the love that I could never give my first children."
Dawn looks deep into her father's eyes repeating the oft-told tale of her childhood. "Because he took them from you."
"That's right." Holtz nods as he brushes her hair away from her face.
Dawn looks away in shame. "I wish I *had* killed him." She scolds herself.
"If you had, then you wouldn't be the girl I raised, or the woman I know you'll be one day. There's more for you to learn, Sarah, much more. Maybe you'll surpass the slayers one day."
She slides from his lap and kneels in front of him. "And I want to."
"Good." He nods. "Then you must go to him." He stands up and walks away from her. Leaving her still kneeling on the floor.
"What?" She asks aghast.
"Walk in his world, learn all you can. Discover what of him is in you that you might fight against it." He grasps her chin forcing her to look up at him. "But be on your guard." He warns, "Remember what I've taught you. The devil will show you bright things, many colors."
--
After the invigorating fight in the Club, Dawn follows the stragglers into the alley. Angel has followed and takes care of one about to take advantage of her attention being focused on his comrades. Once they are dust she senses his presence behind her waiting silently. She faces him warily.
"They don't need to breathe or make any sound. You gotta be careful. - You know you were - you were good in there." Dawn looks up at Angel warily. "I mean, normally I'd take you a mall, or a museum, or - something. But it's - it's good to know that you can handle yourself in a fight."
Angel feigns a punch at Dawn. She jumps back, then smiles. Angel's breath is taken away. Its Darla's smile minus the guile. He clears his throat to cover his reaction. "It's good to know you can do that, too."
Dawn fakes an elbow to the gut, which Angel dodges smiling: "Woah."
Laughing the two of them dancing around each other, throwing fake punches, jumping up on the trash cans and dumpsters sitting along the wall of the alley, horsing around. When they stop Angel throws an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close as he leads her out of the alley. She leans into him missing the time when her father was taller than her and made her safe just because his arms were around her.
From above, on the fire escape Holtz watches them unnoticed.
--
"Stop saying that!" Dawn screams covering her ears to prevent hearing anymore.
Holtz is reaches across the table and pull her hands from her head, cradling them in his own.
"It is true, Sarah."
"You're wrong!"
"I'm not wrong. Anyone who saw you together would realize - that's where you're meant to be - at his side."
"No!"
"It was your need for him that drove you across the dimension."
"I don't need him! I need to be with you!"
"Go back to him."
--
Angel crosses to Dawn sitting on the steps to the courtyard. "Hey, kid. How 're you doing?"
"I might have tried to kill your friend." She says faintly, still feeling oddly light after her encounter with Cordelia.
Surprised that she sounds so lost. Angel dismisses her concern. "Yeah, well - she's used to it."
"I think I should go." 'But where?' She thinks, 'Father wants me here and nothing makes sense in this world.'
Angel sits down on the step below her. "Look - why don't you just - stay here? - I know it doesn't feel like it yet - but this could be home for you."
Dawn, staring straight in front of her focusing on nothing, mumbles. "I don't have a home."
"That's not true." Angel corrects. "You just don't remember, that's all. - Your home is here. This is where you're supposed to be."
"You speak as though you're my father."
Angel, smiling slightly, "Well..."
"He said the same thing." Angel's smile melts away realizing she actually meant, ' You sound just like my father,'
" He said we came back for a reason."
"Did he?" Angel questions, wondering what Holtz plans are for this girl and him.
ALL THE WAY
"You're leaving?" Buffy asked. "But we're celebrating. Wishing joy on the happy couple and all that."
"Yeah, and I've done that." He insists as he shrugs on his jacket. "I've got plans. It's still Halloween, you know."
"Remind me what those plans were again?"
"Meet the guys, Hit Kirstie's party, hang out, then crash at Jeff's."
"And his parents will be home?"
"Yes," Connor huffs. "They're having a party too. So they'll be home all night."
"OK." She crosses to him and fusses with his Jacket making sure its zipped. "Do you have--?"
"Yes!" he exclaims and brushes off her hands. "Night." He calls as he disappears out the door.
--
"Connor!" someone shout behind him. He turns and it's his friend Jeff. He stops and waits for him to catch up. "So are you good for the night?" He asks.
"I told my sister I was crashing at your place tonight." Connor nods as they start to walk again.
"Cool, keeping it simple, technically the truth. The folks'll pass out after their party and never know when we get in." Jeff grins and high fives Connor.
"So… Who are we meeting?" Connor asked. Jeff talked all day about big plans tonight but was really vague on the details.
"Sam Crick, you know from Spanish, he and a couple other guys are meeting up at the QT."
Connor frowns. "We're hanging out in front of a convenience store? What are we, Jay and Silent Bob now?"
--
"Hey, Haskell, Summers." Sam Crick greets with a nod as the meet up in the parking lot of the QT. He is standing with three other guys. One is wearing a Sunnydale letterman jacket. Sam addresses him. "That's everybody, Craig."
The guy in the letterman jacket shrugs. "Six is a good number." He starts to walk down the street confident the others will follow and they do.
After nearly a block of silence, Craig, the guy in the jacket faces them as he walks backwards. "Connor Summers, right? I've seen you around. Haskell? Doesn't ring a bell."
Jeff jumps in. "We had Consumer Economics last semester. I was paired with Julia Klemper."
"Oh yeah that class we did taste tests, surveys and shit." He nods as he turns to face forward.
"So," Connor addresses the other two that haven't been introduced. "What's your story?"
"Mike Dikkers, Pack-Mule." The shorter one with the glasses introduces himself as he gestures to the full book bag on his back.
The third guy pulls Mike into a headlock as they continued to walk. "Mikey has been generous enough to provide the traditional Halloween accruements."
"Such as?" Jeff asks.
"Oh, you know." Mike straightens his clothes now that the other guy released him and went to join Craig at the front of the group. "Eggs, toilet paper, soap."
"And this cool stuff the Chemistry sub showed us how to mix-up," Sam added.
"No acid I hope. I'm totally into have my flesh attached to my bones these days." Connor joked.
"Nah, its just cornstarch, water and red food coloring." Mike assured.
"What does it do?"
"Well it's the consistency of wet sand, so you pack it into a ball like a snowball. Then you throw it a windows." Mike explains.
"What? And it sticks there like wet toilet paper?"
"No, that's the cool part." Sam inserts excitedly. "It drips slowly once it hits a surface. Its totally gross!"
"Ok toddlers, we're taking a collection." Craig stops the group on the corner. "Pete knows somebody who can buy for us." He nods to previously unnamed sixth member of the group.
They all dig into their pockets and hand him a weird mixture of crisp bills and wads of green barely recognizable as currency. Craig counts through the collected cash then hands it to Pete. "That should be enough for a twelve pack, a bottle of Jack and a little something for your guy."
They wait on the corner diagonal from the liquor store. Pete jogs across the street and stops a guy coming out of an alley. They can see him gesturing to the store and hand the guy part of the money. While they wait Sam pulls out a pack of cigarettes and offers to everyone. Connor shakes his head absently while keeping his eye on Pete across the way. Mike pleads asthma, but Jeff and Craig accept his offering and light up.
Finally the guy emerges from the store. He and Pete exchange the last of the money for the beer and whiskey and give each other a manly back-thumping hug in farewell.
Pete joins the group again grinning at his success. He lifts the paper bag and gives it a shake for his audience. "Let's go party. I know just the place." He announces and leads them down the street.
Connor looks back at their buyer who is walking in the opposite direction counting his money when a familiar head of white hair comes around the corner and blocks his path. Spike! Connor hunches shoulders and pulls the collar of his jacket up to disguise himself. Still watching the buyer and Spike as he walks behind his group, he sees Spike grab the money from the other guys hand and plunge a stake in his heart.
Connor stopped dead in his tracks. The buyer was a Vampire! Spike lifts the wad of bills to nose then looks to where the vampire had just come. Busted! Connor runs to catch up the guys insinuating himself in the middle, accidentally jostling Craig.
"Summers! What's your deal?" Craig hisses giving him a shove.
"Sister's boyfriend." He adlibbed, not knowing how to describe Spike to these guys. "Five o'clock."
Craig looks over his shoulder and spots Spike. "Did he spot you?"
Not wanting to say 'he can smell me,' He lied, "He looked in my direction, but I can't be sure."
"But will he squeal?" Craig asked.
Connor considers a moment. "You never know, He runs hot and cold." He shrugged.
Craig considers the situation and decides they aren't putting enough distance between themselves and a potential parental unit fast enough. So, he turns to walk backward in front of the group. "We may have been spotted. Let's pick up the pace before the party ends too soon." He announces to the other four before turning and running. Pete shrugs their package a little more securely under his arm and follows suit trailed by the other guys.
--
Spike approaches the Summers' house and notices the Music is a little louder than usual. He observes Willow and Anya dancing while Tara and Giles look on with drinks in their hand through the picture window. As he makes his way up the walk, he sees Buffy and Xander chatting on the front steps.
"What's going on here then?" He inquires as he takes a final drag from his cigarette before dropping it to the concrete and grinding it out either toe of his boot.
"We are wishing Xander and Anya happy." Buffy answers happily.
"On what? Their 10,000th orgasm?" He countered.
Buffy bites her lip to keep from laughing while Xander angrily defends. "No, our engagement!"
"Tying the knot huh? I give it a year." Spike dismisses before turning to Buffy. "The pup in?"
"No, he went out."
"You let him go out alone?"
"Well, it is Halloween. Demon's night in. I though we could risk it."
"Yeah only 1 out 3 Halloweens are disasters. We aren't due for a bad one 'til next year." Xander jokes.
"I have feeling we might get the bad one a year early." Spike mutters.
"Why do you say that, Snow-on-top?"
Spike gives Xander a withering look before ignoring him totally while he addresses Buffy. "It might be nothing, but I took some money of a Vamp near the liquor store before I staked him. Some it smelled of Connor."
"So, you have an overactive sniffer." Xander taunts.
"Or Connor isn't going to that girl's party, but planning to throw one of his own," Buffy concludes
Spike finishes his thought for her. "Out in Breaker's woods more than likely. That's where the kids hang out."
She scrabbles up off the steps and run into the house yelling, "Giles!"
--
LESSONS
"Connor! Xander's here.
"Just a minute," Called a voice that's a little deeper than this time last year.
"You're gonna be late." Buffy warned up the stairs.
"Here's hoping," Connor mutters as he slowly thumps down the stairs in heavy Doc Martens.
"Go eat. I made cereal." She tells him, giving him a shove toward the kitchen.
"How exactly do you *make* cereal?" Xander asks as lets himself in the front door.
"Ah. You put the box near the milk. I saw it on the Food Channel."
"Isn't that Spike's--?" Xander trailed off as his eyes follows Connor.
"Yeah. When we came back that morning he found it upstairs in the hall. He's taken to strutting around in that sometimes when I took him on patrol this summer."
"Isn't that coat awfully hot?" He asked as he pulls out the blueprints he brought.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Don't get me started. I'm almost wishing Spike would come back and take my 'little bad' down a notch or two."
***
END
Author's end notes:
Tiny cow warrior. I have no idea where that came from. I looked up and it was there. It made me giggle every time I proofread. I kept getting an image of the Cow Flinger cow dressed as Xena
And for the record my niece is named Lane Wesley. So it can be a girl's name. (And she's not even named after anybody either)
Dammit! My 'All the way' turned into one of Joss' dangers of alcohol stories didn't it? Completely unintentional I assure you, I was just trying to come up with a rebellion that was the boy equivalent of Dawn's parking with strange boys.
And the cornstarch thing…really happened. We had a totally lazy 22-year-old chick teaching Chemistry (not a sub, actual full time teacher she rarely made it to first period on Mondays due to partying all weekend. Only lasted a year). At Halloween, she snuck into the empty Home Ec classroom next door and stole Corn Starch and red food coloring. There were only four of us in class (tiny rural school) We mixed up a batch and flung it at the black board all period. Best class ever. Ask me about fishing for Kindergarteners.
