Giles figures out why the stake didn't choose Buffy, and thinks he's figured out what Nina plans to do with the sickle. Gwen drops by to see the gang. And the Hyperion gets a most unexpected visitor.

At half past ten, Angel and Connor lie on couches in the lobby while Cordy stands behind the check-in desk. Fred walks in through the back entrance from the garden courtyard. "The parking lots in the neighborhood agreed to stop gouging our guests," she reports.

"Did you do what I suggested?," Cordy asks.

"Threaten to have Angel beat 'em up? Nope. I jus' told 'em that I'd go to the press and report how they were takin' advantage of disaster victims."

"Extortion by p.r. I wish I had thought of that," Cordelia confesses.

"Kinda strange that the lobby's empty," Fred comments. "Place was packed at this time last night."

"Lorne's turned the basement into a social club," Angel reports. "Makes sense in a way. They already go down there to cook and do laundry."

"Plus, it keeps them out of our way," Cordy adds. Lorne steps out of the elevator. "How's the party?"

"Subdued. It's Monday. Still packin' 'em in, though. Guess they got nowhere else to go. Except to their families. And who wants to do that? Present family excluded."

"Have you thought of a name for the place?," Cordelia asks. "It's kind of like a the Caritas meets the Bronze, part two. Which is a little disturbing. I don't like it when my old life and my new life merge into one."

"Ain't that the gospel truth. I fell prey to the deja-phobia myself when my brother came here," Lorne confesses. Gwen walks through the front door. She's wearing black jeans and thin, long-sleeved gray sweatshirt with a hood in back. Her hair's slightly curly. Angel is very shocked to see her. It's the first time they've crossed paths since he got his soul back.

"Looks like business-as-usual to me. I thought this place was packed to the rafter. Where are all the people?"

"Upstairs in their rooms, downstairs in the ballroom," Lorne reports. "Everywhere but here."

"Guess you hafta keep someplace safe for solitude," Gwen comments as she steps down from the landing into the lobby. "Otherwise, how can a lone super-hero function?," she asks while looking at Angel.

"Gwen. It's, uh, good to see you, again," Angel stammers. "You look, um, good. And gloveless." Gwen ignores Angel's awkward small talk and walks up to Connor. She looks concerned. "How come every time we meet, you look like you've just gotten run over by a freight train?" Connor smiles. The one good part about being seriously injured is that pretty women want to comfort you.

"Bad timing. Maybe you should come by more often. This sorta thing only happens to me about once a week."

"Tough guy, huh? Guess you take after you dad when it comes to that." Angel smiles at this compliment. Connor scowls.

"Unlike some people, we don't run away in the face of danger," Cordy declares in a thinly-veiled attack. Fred's glad not to be the only hostile one.

"It's easy to run when you have no one to stay around and protect," Gwen responds, inadvertently reminding Angel about Cordy's announcement that she'd be leaving. "Which definitely isn't the case for any of you. Look at you guys. Still together, after everything you've done to each other. But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Gotta love family, no matter what they do." Connor's struck by the analogy. Never having made the metaphorical leap the others have, Connor only thought of Angel as family. Which was why he had seen nothing wrong with pursuing Cordelia. In Connor's mind, his rivalry with Angel over Cordelia was no different than Wes and Gunn fighting for Fred's affection.

"Forgiveness always trumps loneliness in my book," Lorne offers. Gunn walks down the stairs, a wrench in his hand. His sleeves are pushed up to his elbows.

"Took care of all the plumbing problems," he announces. "For tonight, at least." When Gunn makes it down to the lobby, Gwen's snuck behind him. She puts her right hand on the top of his skull. He spins around. "Gwen!"

"Didn't see me there?"

"That is your specialty."

"Ready to go?"

"Just give me a minute to wash up. I wasn't expecting you to drop by."

"Thought I'd see if running the Hotel Angel had driven you guys insane yet."

"It's only been three days. I give us a week before we start losing it."

Gunn turns around and stands to Gwen's left. They're both looking at the rest of the gang. Gwen takes his right hand in her left hand. "You guys can drop by my place anytime if you need to get away from all this humanity." Gunn looks at her.

"Anytime?"

"We can always head over to your place," she proposes with a smile.

"Gwen, why are you touching him?," a very surprised Angel asks.

"Jealous?," Gwen asks with a flirtatious grin.

"That's not what I meant," Angel insists. "I meant to say how . . . are you touching anyone?"

"Magical chunk of amber I stole in Malta and rammed into my brain. You know, it doesn't seem to get any less disgusting each time I say it," Gwen remarks to herself.

"You lost your powers."

"Thanks to you," Gwen replies, stunning Gunn. "Remember that long trip to the desert, when we were talking about our special circumstances, swimming in each other's angst, and you mentioned your quaint little dream about getting jump-started back to life for good? That got me thinking. If a vampire can become normal, I sure as hell should be able to."

"You told her about the prophecy?," Cordy asks. She thought that was something only Angel's inner circle was supposed to know.

"If it's a secret, I'm good at keeping those," Gwen assures Cordy. "Especially for a friend." Angel winces, but not from the pain of his injuries. "Or so I'd like to think. I don't have much in the way of a track record. You were my first real friend, Angel."

"Come on, Gwen. Angel's been through enough today," Connor jokes. He's spent enough time on earth to figure out how hurtful that term can be for a guy. Gunn takes some selfish satisfaction is Angel's disappointment. It makes him feel like less of a sidekick.

"Beep me if there's another massacre," Gunn says before walking out the door with Gwen.

"Where's Wesley?," Angel asks, changing the subject. "Did he go to find more books about Nina?"

"He went home," Fred says, still slightly shaken by the sight of Gunn with Gwen.

"After Kelly called here," Cordelia reports. "I walked into the office before things got gross, and he decided work wasn't the place for phone sex." As usual, Cordy's candor hurts someone, further reminding Fred of her loneliness.

"I'm going to go back downstairs. Check the liquor situation. I think it's best if our guests don't have to roam the dark, scary streets for overprized booze." Lorne leaves.

"Can you guys help me with something?," Connor asks Angel, Fred and Cordy.

"You want another sandwich?," Fred asks.

"Now that you mention it," he begins before pausing. "But that's not what I meant. You know those girls who live with Buffy? The Potentials? Five of them were dating, and all the guys are here."

"Giles let them date?," Cordy asks with surprise. "Human guys? Their own age?"

"Yeah," Connor replies.

"They really aren't Slayers," Cordy quips.

"I thought they spent all their time fighting and hiding," Fred recalls.

"They saved two of the guys from vampire attacks. Isn't that how Slayers are supposed to meet their boyfriends?," Connor asks with a sly look at Angel. "They others met at the Bronze, I think. The night Lindsey played there."

"Lindsey was singing on stage, and those girls were able to take their eyes off of him long enough to pick up some high school guys? They must really be cute," Cordy concludes, remembering how taken she was with Lindsey the one time she saw him perform.

"I guess," Connor responds. "Problem is, two of the girls are dead."

"And the boys don't have a clue," Fred infers.

"They must have some clue. At least the ones who were attacked," Angel maintains.

"Their girls are still alive. And those guys know that."

"Maybe you should have waited until the fighting's over before telling any of them anything," Angel tells his son.

"I didn't mean to. But Clarence, who's dating Rona, is good friends with Carlos, who's really tight with Kit, who's dating my best friend. And Preston, who's dating Amanda, is on the basketball team with Clarence. And Preston's friends with Prashant, who's dating Madari. So I'm hanging with Carlos, and those guys come over, and they know I'm with Dawn, who lives with Buffy, who they always see with their girlfriends. So they figured I knew something." Fred and Cordy marvel at Connor's rambling explanation.

"That has to be the most normal teenage thing I've ever heard you say," Fred confesses.

"You made more friends in Sunnydale than Buffy," Cordy observes. "And you were only there for a week. So much for using the whole super-powers thing as an excuse for being unpopular."

"They find out I'm calling Dawn, and wanna speak to their girls, too. I woulda been a jerk if I said no. That was Saturday. Then this afternoon Keith and Lucas asked the other three guys if they'd heard anything."

"They knew that all these girls lived together," Angel observes. "Didn't that raise a few questions?"

"Molly and Rose were really pretty," Connor explains.

"High school boys date pretty girls no questions asked," Cordy adds. "Doesn't matter if they're five hundred year-old mummies or giant insects or Potential Cannon Fodder. Especially if the boy is clumsy and unpopular and hides his charm behind a facade of idiocy and bad fashion choices."

"I think they're both popular. Eli said they're jocks. Keith's a wrestler. Carlos said he won the county championships last week. Lucas is a swimmer."

"A member of the Sunnydale swim team. Are they any good now that their coach isn't turning them into fishes?," Cordy wonders, confusing everybody else. "If kids start losing their skin and run around the hotel biting people, don't say I didn't warn you."

"How do you tell someone their girl's dead?," Connor asks. "Especially when they can't understand why?"

"I'm glad you came to us, son." Angel's happy his boy is acting more sensitive and human. It's as if he's starting to empathize with those who suffer, just like his old man does. It doesn't occur to him that maybe his son just empathizes with these guys because he fears for Dawn.

"Actually, I was asking Cordy and Fred," Connor responds, wounding Angel's pride. "Ya know, cause they went to high school a few years back, so they could relate."

"Kids in Sunnydale are used to people they know mysteriously disappearing," Cordy notes. "That should help."

"Molly was from Wales, and Rose was from Montana, so I was thinking of saying they went home. But I figured that was unfair. I wanna tell them the truth, but I know I can't."

"This is why I thought Giles would keep them away from boys," Angel comments.

"You would think he'd learn from past mistakes," Cordy jokes at Angel's expense.

"They were lonely," Connor reports. "I think that's why they were all over me," he adds with a cocky grin. Connor had wondered about that at first. Sure, he thinks he's good-looking. But that first night he showed up, they had treated him like a rock star.

"A Slayer magnet," Cordy comments. "Maybe it's genetic."

Faith stands in the middle of the living room, holding the stake. The Potentials crowd around her, looking at the highly-decorated weapon and eagerly asking her how she got it and what she did with it. Buffy, her two cut hands bandaged, walks into the dining room. Giles, Willow and Xander follow her. They sit across the table from their dejected friend.

"I've determined who those tiny faceless men were," Giles reports, trying to skirt what's bothering Buffy. "They're called Joiners. Synthetic demons, like the Reapers, but more numerous. About seventy in all. They cannot be killed. On the other hand, they cannot kill."

"That's most un-First-ly," Xander points out.

"The Joiners are craftsmen. Builders. If the First were an army, they would be the engineering corps."

"Demon construction workers," Xander notes.

"They really do have demons for everything," Willow comments.

"I'm sorry," Buffy jumps in. "I'm sorry, Giles. I blew it tonight."

"Nonsense," he responds. "You held off two Turakh-hans. You knocked Nina off of a cliff. You performed marvelously, just like always."

"I came back empty-handed. Faith got her weapon. I didn't get mine."

"I don't think it works like that. The sickle has always been imbued with evil."

"Dawn said the book called it a poisoned weapon," Willow reports.

"That's because it's an arsenic bronze, containing that poisonous metal in place of tin. Which was common among early bronzes from that region. But what made it sinister was that it was a demon's weapon, used to kill Slayers. And when a Slayer got her hands on it, it corrupted her."

"That's why Nina wanted it. She wants to use that thing to kill the Potential Slayers. And I couldn't keep her from getting it."

"But you kept her from using it to kill Faith."

"I don't mean dredge up traumatic memories," Xander begins, "But Nina hasn't needed weapons to kill the Potentials in the past. Why would she need one now?"

"Maybe it's not them she wants to kill with it," Buffy guesses. "Maybe it's us."

Giles offers his take. "The scant literature on the First is filled with harvest metaphors. Watchers and Potentials are compared to stalks of wheat. The Council is a vine, the Potentials grapes. Or the Slayer is a tree trunk, the Council is the root system, the Watchers are the branches and the Potentials are olives. Being both a weapon and a farm tool, the sickle would fit easily into that motif."

"All the more reason for her not to have it," Buffy responds. "I had my hands on that weapon. It was mine. It would have been, if I wanted it bad enough."

"If you wanted it that bad, you would be missing four fingers right now," Xander argues. "The harder you pulled, the deeper the blade went into your hand."

"Xander makes a good point," Giles states. "Short of wearing a chain-mail glove, I don't see how you could have freed that weapon."

"I had my hand on the stake first," Buffy reports. "It tried to pull it out. Before Faith. I couldn't do it. She touched it, and it slipped right out. Like it was meant for her. And not for me."

"You tried. Before Nina?," Giles inquires.

"Right before."

"And Faith said Nina pulled it part of the way out."

"There you go!," Xander exclaims. "Nina loosened it. That's what made the difference."

"Yeah Buffy," Willow concurs. "You were penalized for going first. Whoever went after Nina would get the weapon. Faith pulling it out wasn't fate. It was an accident."

"No it wasn't." Buffy leaves the dining room, walks through the living room and into her bedroom. The Potentials don't notice her. Sitting at a table in the back of the room, Dawn watches her sister come and go. She can tell something's wrong. Giles comes into the living room and walks up to Faith.

"Would you mind terribly if I had a look at the hieroglyphs? They could be vital to saving our lives."

"Then it's yours," Faith says, casually tossing the stake in the air, catching Giles off-guard. He still manages to catch it after some bobbling and walks over to the table. Faith sits down and flips on the television. The Potentials sit around her and ask her to repeat the story about how she stabbed Nina and made Big Bad bleed. Anya comes out of the kitchen and into the dining room with a pot of coffee. She pours herself a cup, and Xander and Willow do likewise for themselves.

"Buffy doesn't seem to be handling her demotion very well," Anya notes, surprising Xander and Willow.

"What demotion?," Xander asks. "No one demoted her."

"That's the worst part," Anya responds. "She's probably the first human in history to be demoted by an inanimate object."

"The stake is for both of them," Willow argues.

"They're not children," Xander adds. "They can learn to share their toys."

"That's not the way it works with magic weapons. Was Excalibur shared? Whoever pulls it out owns it. Unless they get killed, and then their killer owns it. So, unless Buffy wants to try to murder Faith the way Faith tried to murder her, she's weapon-less. And Buffy knows this. Why else would she act like this?"

"Because the Potentials see Faith as the hero tonight," Xander answers.

"Tomorrow morning, everything will be back to normal," Willow predicts.

"You don't get it. Things will never be the same. Maybe Buffy will continue being the leader. But Faith is the one with the power."

Giles walks into Buffy's room, stake in hand, looking at the engravings. Buffy sits on the back of her bed, her knees scrunched up near her chin and her arms around her shins. "We should know a lot more when I decipher these glyphs. Hopefully, I can complete the translation by the tomorrow morning."

"Thanks for keeping me in the loop. Make sure you tell Faith. It's her weapon."

"Buffy, I simply can't understand why you're acting like this. Is there something you haven't told me?" Buffy reaches out her left hand.

"Hand me the stake." He obeys. She stands up and faces him.

"It looks good on you."

After holding it for fifteen seconds, she says "put up your right palm."

"Why?"

"So I can hit it as hard as I can."

"What is that suppose to prove?"

"Do it." He does. She throws a right cross, barely moving his hand. She punches it twice more with little impact. Giles is puzzled. "Let's arm wrestle." She kneels on one side of the bed. He kneels, still very confused, on the other side. She puts her right elbow on top of the bed. So does he. "I'm going to try to pin you. Just hold your ground." She struggles and struggles, hardly forcing him back. "Now, try to pin me." They remain deadlocked. "Try harder." He quickly pins her. Giles stands up. "Let's do this again," Buffy suggests. She reaches out her left hand and drops the stake on the bed. They clasp right hands, and Buffy immediately wins, straining a few of the tendons in Giles's right elbow. Buffy stands up. Giles does likewise. It dawns on him. His jaw drops.

"Good Heavens. You can't hold it."

"Not without losing my Slayer Power. I tried to use the stake against the uber-vamps, and that nearly got me killed. It's not meant for me." Giles takes the stake in his hands and looks it over while trying to figure out why this would be. "This weapon doesn't think I should be a Slayer. I'm not the Chosen One. That's what it tells me every time I hold it."

"All that this — this quirk — says is you're not supposed to wield this particular weapon."

"The only weapon that can hurt our enemy."

"We don't even know if it can kill Nina. Faith said she stabbed Nina through the heart, and it didn't even slow her down."

"But it's great against the uber-vamps. Giles, the stake makes her stronger, and it makes me weaker. What do you think that means?" She's already answered it for herself.

"I'm not sure." He considers the question for a few seconds. "No, believe I am. You've already died. The Slayer Line has moved on. First to Kendra. Then to Faith. And her death will cause the next Slayer to rise. Yours won't. Your second death did not. You're a lame duck."

"Thanks a lot. I thought you came in here to make me feel better."

"This is nothing new. You've been a lame duck for nearly six years. It means nothing. You think this piece of wood proves that Faith is the True Slayer? Then she's been the True Slayer for five years. And Kendra was the True Slayer for a year before that. And yet you're the one who has saved the world time and time again. And all that time, not once were you ever stopped by the fact that the line of succession had passed you by. It's a mere technicality."

"It's saying I shouldn't be a Slayer."

"Well you shouldn't," Giles responds, shocking Buffy, who's too dejected to realize he's using a rhetorical device. "There's only supposed to be one Slayer at a time. You beat the system. You were too strong, too special, too magnificent to go gently into that good night. And the forces of evil have never gotten over that."

"You think the stake's evil?"

"No. It's merely, doctrinaire. Wait a minute. The stake is a defensive weapon. It was created to protect a Slayer from the sickle. Of course. It makes perfect sense."

"Care to invite me to your private inspiration party?"

"You can't destroy the Slayer Line by killing every Potential Slayer. New ones will always sprout up. You cut off the branches, you rip out the vines, more will grow in their place. Unless you remove the roots. Or chop off the trunk."

"Nina kept saying Faith was the one who mattered."

"Her death causes the next Slayer to rise. That's why she needs the Pearl of Merv! It captures demonic powers."

"Like the ones the Shamans forced into the First Slayer. Game, set, match. So if Faith's the prize, why spend so much time going after Potentials and their Watchers?"

"The Council had to be destroyed, in case any of them knew how to recreate the spell, or possessed documents that would provide clues about how to achieve that. They took care of both problems by blowing up the headquarters. As for the Potential Slayers, well, their elimination could be a contingency, in case the initial attempt to capture the power fails. The next Slayer could be any Potential. She could rise anywhere. From the standpoint of the First, it's best if she not be in Sunnydale, where she can help us. If Faith were to die, and her successor was halfway around the globe, you would be left alone. Then, once we were killed, there would be no one standing in Nina's way. She could track down the isolated, inexperienced Slayer, kill her and try again."

"All that killing, all around the world, and it's all for just in case Nina botches the job?"

"Perhaps the spell has to be performed immediately, and that might be hard to do in the middle of a fierce fight. Also, once Nina and her demon minions break out of the Hellmouth and enter the wider world, nothing will be capable of standing in their way. The First has to be stopped in Sunnydale. It knows that. Which is why the Bringers tried so hard to prevent anyone who could be of aid to us from getting here. They want to keep the enemy army as small as possible."

"It's beginning to make sense. I see the part I have to play."

"I'm glad that I could restore your morale."

"Faith's like Dawn. But with Slayer Powers. And a much better boyfriend." Buffy knows Lindsey's a catch. But she doesn't think Connor is one. "Her death could end the world. I have to protect her."

"I think Faith would object if you tried to become her bodyguard."

"Giles, her life is precious. God, I never thought I'd hear myself say those words. Ever. But, right now, until the First is defeated, it's the truth. My job is to keep her from dying."

"Faith is the person here who needs your protection the least. And if you become preoccupied with her safety, not only will you antagonize Faith, but you will leave the girls defenseless."

"Spike can protect them."

"I would dearly prefer not making Spike their first and last line of defense."

"Faith's hard to kill. I know that better than anyone. I won't be trying to shield her. But if she's down, and she looks like she's nearly done for, I have to save her. I have to save the Slayer Line."

"I could be wrong, you know."

"Since when?," Buffy half-jokes.

"I won't know for sure until I've deciphered the writing on this stake. Until then — "

"I know. Don't say a word. You think I want to break the big news and tell Faith that she could be the last Slayer?"

"No thanks. We don't need any help," Angel says to Cordy and Fred as he and Connor limp towards the elevator. "Unlike Mal, Nina goes for the soft tissue."

"Plenty bruises. But nothing broken," Connor reports. They step into the elevator and lean against the back wall as the door closes.

"You fought good today," Angel says to his son. "I mean that."

"Doesn't matter how good you fight when you lose." Connor grabs his crotch with his right hand and keeps it there for a couple seconds, worrying Angel.

"You're not supposed to do that in public. Is this something you picked up from watching MTV?" Connor looks to his left at Angel.

"They're gone. Are yours?" Angel realizes what Connor's talking about, cringes and take a few seconds to respond.

"Yeah," he responds slowly, holding the Y. "But they're not gone. They're just, umm, inside." Angel cringes and looks extremely nauseous after speaking these words. He had been trying not to think about it.

"They'll come back, right?"

"Uh-huh. Absolutely. They'll descend down in no time."

"Has this happened to you before?"

"No! Definitely not. Except, well, before I was born. Same with you. So I wouldn't worry."

"It's scary."

"Yes son. It sure is that." The door opens. They stop out into the hall.

"Don't tell anyone," Connor requests.

"Why would I? Why would I possibly want anyone to know about this?" Angel can imagine all the eunuch jokes Cordy and Wes would subject him to. He turns left and Connor turns right. They each limp to their respective rooms. "Hell hath no fury," Angel mutters to himself.

Leo sits on the right side of the couch. Piper sits in the center. Chris stands to Leo's right. They're watching the eleven o'clock news. The anchor does the intro for the story their LA affiliate showed the previous night. "Another human interest story on that stupid little town," Piper complains. "Forgive me for seeming heartless, but they all sound the same after a while." Phoebe enters and sits on the left arm of the couch. Paige stands to her left.

"What happened to all the demons?," Phoebe asks Leo. "Are they living in the wreckage?"

"Is that why the army's keeping everyone out?," Paige adds.

"The demons left," Chris reports.

"Are any of them heading in our direction?," Piper wonders.

"Probably. But they won't come here," Chris responds.

"Why not?," Phoebe asks. "I thought we attracted demons?"

"Not these kinds," Leo assures her.

"What kinds are those?," Piper asks.

"Smart," Phoebe answers.

"Or cowardly," Paige adds.

"Dunno," Chris responds. "But they're not your problem."

"Check out the innkeeper," Paige tells Phoebe, referring to Angel's image on the screen. "I'd like to help with his problems."

"Tell me about it," Phoebe responds with a grin.

"Don't people usually have last names?," Piper asks.

"Maybe he's not a person," Chris proposes. Leo immediately gives Chris a "You idiot!" look.

"What do you mean by that?," Piper asks. Chris gets nervous.

"It was a joke. A stupid joke."

"It's not like he's a demon who's letting all these people into his hotel so he can eat them," Paige responds with a weak laugh. "He isn't, right?" The three sisters look at Leo, who looks at Chris.

"It can't be," Leo whispers to Chris. "He's supposed to be a recluse. Howard Hughes with a shave and a manicure."

"What about the name?," Chris whispers back. "How many guys have that name? Or the I just stuck my finger in the light socket' hair?"

"Is there something you boys would like to tell us?," Piper asks.

"What do you mean boys?," Chris nervously asks. "That's what you would say to a child."

"He's a vampire," Leo confesses. "I've heard his name once or twice."

"Oh no," Piper responds. "He is going to kill all those people."

"He runs a hotel so he can eat the guests?," Paige asks. "Wouldn't the police pick up on that after a while?"

"He's a, he's a vampire with a soul," Leo says with a groan.

"You mean he's good?," Paige wonders. "Does he help people?"

Phoebe's got a big smile on her face. She leans forward and stares intently at the screen. "A half-demon, desperately wanting to be human. Fighting a battle against his dark side. Tormented, no doubt, by the evil past he struggles every day to overcome."

"Oh no. Here we go again," Piper remarks, rolling her eyes and looking at Leo.

"And he looks really hot in black," Paige says to contrast with Phoebe's flowery encomium and express what she thinks her sister really meant. "Plus, his younger brother ain't too bad, either. I wouldn't mind plucking that tadpole out of the water."

"Does he work for the Elders?," Phoebe asks Leo and Chris. They both laugh.

"He wishes," Chris responds.

"I heard he works for the Powers," Leo explains. Piper and Phoebe both wince.

"Poor bastard," Phoebe responds.

"Who are the Powers?," Paige inquires. Piper takes this one.

"A bunch of Upper Level sadists who make the good guys who work for them suffer." This knowledge only makes Angel more desirable in Phoebe's eyes.

"Only the noblest and most selfless heroes continue working for them."

"Or the biggest boobs," Leo adds derisively.

"Wait a minute," Piper jumps in. "They said the younger one is the hotel owner's son. That can't be right. He's a vampire."

"An immortal having a child. How crazy is that?," Chris asks, his voice cracking with anxiety.

"Not that crazy," Piper replies, looking at Leo.

"Maybe Angel turned Connor into a vampire, and it's just a creepy vampire-family thing," Paige proposes. "No last name for him, either. Do vampires just not have those?"

"But he's breathing," Phoebe notes. "And his dad isn't. Watch his broad, muscular chest and see for yourself."

"I'll take you word for it," Leo quips. Piper can tell he's resentful of all the attention Angel's getting. "If there had been some special vampire child around for the last two decades, I would have heard about it."

"What if he was taken away and raised in another dimension to keep him safe?," Piper theorizes.

"Like that could ever happen," Chris comments while wiping sweat off his brow.

A man rides up to the Hyperion at high noon on a loud Harley. He wears brown rattlesnake boots, tight, faded jeans with black leather chaps over top, a tight gray t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and a leather jacket. His face is covered in stubble, his eyes covered by sunglasses. He wears his long, light brown hair in a samauri knot. His teeth chomp on a lit cigar. He turns off the motor, slowly steps off the bike, and pulls off his black leather riding gloves. He takes the cigar out of his mouth with his right hand, exhales, drops the stogie to the ground and steps on it with his right foot. He slowly ambles through the courtyard. When he strides on into the lobby, he is shocked to see all the people milling about. Two of them rush by him and out the door, to hurried and preoccupied to notice his presence. Things had sure changed since he last set foot in this building. All these strangers, but not one familiar face. Had they left?

And then, he spots Cordelia on the other side of the room. She's behind the check-out desk, actually checking people out. When she's finished with the paperwork, the people pay and thank her her and Angel for their hospitality. The family takes their bags and walks out the back door. A few seconds later, she looks over and sees him. He takes off his shades and walks towards her. "My princess."

"Groo???"