CHAPTER TWO

One body split and passed along the line
From the shoulder to the hip
I know these bones as being mine
And the curving of the lip

Blood Sings – Suzanne Vega

"You're certainly being a downer, Connor," Dylan said, slinging his wheat gold hair back out of his eyes. He lounged back on his wooden chair, trailing a finger over his pint glass, catching a rivulet of ale.

"Did your talk with your tad go bad?" Bron asked.

Connor shook his head, having learned that 'tad' was Welsh for 'father.'  His conversation with Angel last night had been hard but good in some ways. At least he got to tell Angel how Cordy had tried to kill him, to maybe make some sense of what had happened. Angel had been quieter than normal during that then asked him to tell his story again to Wesley. That hurt because Connor felt like his dad didn't believe him and needed someone else to judge the truth of the story.

Connor also understood Bron's reservations. When Bron was a boy, his father had beaten his mother to death and left his sister, Arian, blind. Bron had a pretty grim opinion of fathers despite the gentle rearing his adoptive father, Evan Maddoc, had given him. Knowing Bron and Savage, who also had been raised by adoptive fathers, made Connor feel easy with still feeling deep love for Holtz and the fathering he had provided him. He knew it was all right to love an adoptive father, that it didn't make him bad for putting the love he should have had for his real dad elsewhere. And he was learning it was just as all right to have feelings for his real father. Neither Bron nor Savage did because their fathers had been bad men. His father was a monster and yet Connor was learning that he did care for Angel. It confused Connor, conflicted with all he had grown up believing but those tender feelings were there and he couldn't root them out. He stared at Bron and Dylan, realizing they expected an answer. "Just had a bad session with Savage yesterday and a bad night. I'm feeling dark."

"Which makes you the perfect lunch buddy." Bron rolled his brown eyes. "Too bad you can't have a drink."

"If I get caught drinking when I'm not old enough again, Mad Dog will beat my ass," Connor said, casting a furtive look around the Hen and Chickens pub as if he were already guilty.

"As if you wouldn't enjoy that," Dylan said, flinging a chip at Connor who swatted the hot greasy thing away.

Connor's pale cheeks blazed red. "Shut up. Besides, Savage says alcohol doesn't mix with my medication."

"Since when has that stopped you?" Bron downed a portion of his Carling Black Label.


Connor gave him a two-fingered salute and the other boy snorted, having been the one to teach Connor the gesture in the first place. "I have to go to work unlike you two sluhks."

"Oh yeah, the Council will come apart if their file clerk gets drunk," Bron shot back.

"One of these days we're going to have to look up what a slukh is," Dylan put in. "I want to know what you're comparing us to."

"I'll have Giles put it on your next Watcher's test." Connor managed a smile.

Dylan snorted. "Evil."


Connor smiled more whole-heartedly. He enjoyed spending time with Dylan and Bron. They made him feel normal. They helped him escape the pain of what he had done to Cordelia and the others, if only for a little while. They knew what he was and what he had done but they passed no judgments. With them, he felt like any other teenager. He felt like he belonged and he couldn't begin to describe how good it felt. He crammed down the last of his fish and got up. "I should get to work."

"Get going. If you're late, Mad Dog will blame us and while you might want a good paddling, I don't," Dylan said, his blue eyes dancing. "At least not from my aunt."

"I do not," Connor hissed, feeling his blush flaring even hotter. It didn't help thinking about Mad Dog like that made him warm and tingly. He knew everyone was aware he had a crush on Mad Dog. Most of them thought it was cute. He found it frustrating since she was well aware of it but had told him in no uncertain terms that she was his guardian and guardians didn't take advantage of their charges. He didn't see it as been taken advantage of and he'd told her that but it hadn't changed her stance. And, damn it, he was horny. He couldn't help it.

"We saw you eyeing that whip collection Mad Dog has," Bron said.

"You guys suck." Connor left them laughing at him. He didn't mind being ribbed. He had learned the difference between good-natured joking and insults. He knew they were just trying to wind him up which in all reality probably wasn't their smartest option.

"Don't forget, we're all getting together at the Cockroach tonight," Dylan called after him.

"I'll be there." Connor went out onto Flannel Street, the warm air caressing him. Summer was just around the corner but it wasn't brightening his heart. It had been a year since he had killed his friends. The actual day had come and gone. He had spent it curled into a ball wedged in the roots of an ancient tree under the bracken fern half way up the Skirrid. He had ran, seemingly forever, from Crug Hwyel all the way to that hill, after knocking down both Giles and Savage to get out of the house.

Usually Connor enjoyed his walks to the Council headquarters but he felt depressed. He couldn't escape thinking that he shouldn't be feeling anything. He should have been punished, removed from the world for what he had done. He didn't consider his mental collapse as punishment. Yes, he suffered, sometimes greatly, but not enough. It needed to be more. Three months he had been completely catatonic. He had vague memories of it, peaceful, calm. He missed it. Living was hard. At least going to the Cockroach would give him something to look forward to. The bar was actually called Grasshoppers but everyone seemed to like calling it the Cockroach. He knew Dylan, Bron and Cerridwen could lift his spirits. Arian preferred not going to pubs and he missed her when she wasn't with their group.

Connor heard heavy footsteps racing up behind him, moments before something cold and wet pressed against his flesh just where his shirt met his belt. He whirled and saw Caniad was behind him. He ran a hand over the hound's massive head.

"You bad girl. You're not supposed to sneak out of the yard."

She licked his hands. Caniad was his dog now, Mad Dog assured him. Caniad was her seven-year-old Irish wolfhound. Mad Dog said the hound had taken to him from the day he was brought to her home, still catatonic, and had gone out of her way to be with him ever since. She even jumped the fence and would come find him in town, making the trek from Crug Hwyel to Abergavenny. At nearly a hundred pounds and nearly three feet at the shoulder, Caniad made an impressive sight loping alongside the road.

"Come on, then. Might as well come to work with me. I'm already late."

She butted him with her brindled head and followed him to the Watchers' headquarters. No one even raised an eyebrow at the massive dog until he got to the library. The old woman at the desk glanced up, peering through her thick glasses then smoothed back her long mane of white curls.

"Followed you again?" Rhiannon smiled at him.


Connor grinned back. He couldn't put into words the adoration he felt for Saeth's great grandmother. Rhiannon made him feel like family, had even made him an honorary Maddoc. He still felt embarrassed when he remembered how he had bawled when she first called him grandson. She had gifted him with the one thing he had wanted all his life, a real family, something beyond just him and his father.

"She was waiting outside the pub," Connor said. "Giles said I was to help here today. What do you need me to do?"

"All those books need to go back on the shelves." Rhiannon gestured with an arthritic hand at the haphazard pile of books on a wide and probably ancient wooden table. "I will be very happy when the London branch is completely rebuilt. We're not set up to house this many scholars. You would think they'd at least pick up after themselves."

"Don't worry about it, Nain," he said, addressing her as grandmother. "I'll do it."

"And then you can sort through the document room. Save that for last. I'm not ready to hear your screams of terror when you see that place." She wagged her head.

Connor sighed. He hated that room. It was hot, windowless and it was haunted. Even he could feel the ghosts in there. Probably some long dead Watcher who just couldn't give up the post. He didn't doubt Rhiannon's spirit would cling to this place long after she was gone. "You can help haul the cart, Caniad."

"Good luck with getting work out of that beast, Baby Blue," Rhiannon said. "And you'll be at Grasshoppers tonight, correct?"

"Yes, Nain." Connor started piling books onto the cart so he could shelve them. He admired Rhiannon. She went out to the pubs every Friday night and danced. She made her own dresses for these events. It didn't matter to her that Grasshoppers was the hang out of the young and stupid. At a hundred and fourteen, she was still going strong. Her appearances at the pubs might only last an hour or two but the patrons loved her, especially the young. She proved you didn't have to get old.

 Rhiannon came to work every day to preside devotedly over her beloved library. He knew she had once been a powerful witch and now mostly just guided others. Giles had taken Willow to talk to Rhiannon once when she was recovering from her own mental breakdown. Giles had told him so many stories about Buffy and her friends, he felt like he knew them. And he had learned more about his father that way, things that were good and bright about him. Things that took Connor by surprise, like how Angel had rescued Giles, Willow and Xander from a gas-filled room or saved Buffy from the Three and from the aspect of the demon that threatened to drive her mad, and how he had traded his own body to save Jenny from Eyghon. It helped balance out the horrible things he knew Angel had done.

It took him nearly two hours to get all the books put away. He didn't mind. He liked having a break from filing and opening the mail. Of course, shelving books was pretty much filing but occasionally he'd sneak peeks and they were much more entertaining than filing. But he couldn't put off the document room any longer.

He sighed, seeing documents strewn all over the tables. He felt the eyes of the dead on him as he sorted the heaps into usable piles. He didn't much like ghosts. He took one and sat on the floor to put them in the ground level file box. Caniad collapsed her colossal body down on the floor, stretching to her full six feet in length. She blew out a long doggie sigh as her eyes closed.

"I know how you feel," Connor said, resting back against her. Not only did his dog nearly outweigh him but she was taller, too. He sort of resented it but he loved her. He pressed his face against her wiry fur and promptly fell asleep.

*                                                          *                                                          *

Connor heard something behind him in the woods. Caniad growled low in her throat. Connor turned but all he saw was fog. Giles had warned him never to go walking in the woods by himself at night, not on nights like this when the fog was so thick he would never see the danger before it got him. He sniffed the air, heavy with moisture. The only scents were of dampness and dog and the tang of his own sweat. He rubbed a hand over Caniad's long slender back and it came away wet. Connor stared at his palm, red with blood. His eyes widened as he looked down at his companion, seeing her brindled coat covered in gore.

Connor turned, certain now he wasn't alone despite the lack of olfactory clues. He couldn't breathe. Standing before him, Cordelia moved toward him, cloaked in fog. It swirled around her like a shroud, going into one of her empty eye sockets and back out the other.

"Why, Connor?"  Fog poured out of her mouth as she spoke. "I wasn't ready to die."

He whirled, unable to face her. Behind him stood Lorne, his head in his hands. His horrid orange-red eyes were gone as well but his mouth still worked despite not having lungs to give him voice. "Murderer."

Sobbing, Connor broke away, racing deeper into the fog. Caniad didn't follow him. Her body was dissolving into a puddle of tissue and blood that he could still see even though he had turned away from her. He leapt over a fallen tree and nearly landed on top of Gunn and Fred. Their torsos arose from a mass of bubbling bloody flesh, two beings braided into one. More vapor trickled from their eyeless sockets.

"Why?" they asked together. "Why did we have to die?"


Connor tried to run but his murdered friends surrounded him, pinning him to the moss-covered trees,  their chorus of 'Why?' deafening him.

*                                                          *                                                          *

"Rhiannon, where is Connor?" Giles entered the library having waited for several minutes for his charge to come to his office to be taken home.

Rhiannon tried to pretend she hadn't been asleep at her desk. "Rupert, don't sneak up on an old woman like that."


He shot her a cheeky grin. "Sorry. Have you seen him?"

"Last seen he was in the document room. The dust bunnies might have eaten him by now."

"Protect me, I'm going in." His smile widened and she swatted him lightly as she got up. Her walking stick today had a handle carved like a grinning skull. Giles knew he'd never understand Rhiannon's sense of humor.

They both went into the document room and saw Connor asleep on the floor, using Caniad as a pillow. The young man kicked in his sleep.

"Oh dear, he's having another nightmare." Giles said, putting out a hand to stop Rhiannon even though he knew she knew better than to approach Connor when he was in this state.

"Baby Blue," she called sharply. "Wake up, sweetling."

Connor sat up with a scream. Caniad struggled to her feet, overbalancing Connor who fell back against the shelving. The dog barreled out of the room, nearly taking Giles out with her. Connor took a deep breath then broke into tears.

Rhiannon went to him, running her hand through his hair. He curled up over his knees.  "It was just a dream, Baby Blue."

"No, no it wasn't," he sobbed.

"Connor, it was a dream," Giles said.

"They were all looking at me but they didn't have any eyes," he wailed. "They wanted to know why I killed them."

Giles knelt down with him and Connor hugged him so hard the Watcher thought his ribs would break. "I know it had to be terrifying, Connor, but it was a dream."

"Why can't it be ghosts? There are ghosts here," Connor said, sniffling, his death grip not releasing in the least.

"Do you trust me, Connor?" Giles asked and the boy nodded, his head against Giles' chest. "It was a dream." Giles wished that had sounded more convincing. He could only hope that it wasn't ghosts.

"It'll get better in time, Baby Blue. I know you don't believe that or even want it right now but it's true," Rhiannon said. "Come on, now. Let's get you up. You need to go home and get some good food in you. And you will dance with me tonight."

Connor wiped his face, trying to find a thankful smile for her. "Okay."

Giles helped Connor up. Caniad came back to claim her boy. Rhiannon escorted them out, kissing Connor's cheek before he got into the car. He curled up on the seat, the seat belt all but throttling him. He knew it wasn't a dream and that he deserved all their wrath.