Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns everything worth owning. I have nothing, or very little anyway.

Two weeks had passed since Tessa had moved in and not much had changed. The gang went about their detective duties mostly as usual, just with the strange feeling they were being watched, closely observed, which of course they were by the little nearly mute girl in the corner who pretended read all day. Cordy did some grocery shopping since she knew Angel would have no idea what to get a non-blood drinker, and Doyle went about filing the papers to have her enrolled in school. Now it was the first day and since her "father" had a little problem with going out in the daytime and Cordy was off at an audition, Doyle was given the responsibility of making sure she got there on time and in one piece.

"You got everything you need?" Angel asked as they headed for the door.

"Yeah."

"Enough pencils, pens, paper?"

"Yeah."

"Your books?"

"Angel! She has everything she needs. Can we go now?"

"Yeah," Angel responded, a little taken aback by his impatience.

The drive was quiet and long. Since Doyle wasn't usually up at the ungodly hour of 7:30, he had forgotten just how bad traffic was this time of day in LA. It didn't help that this kid barely talked. He liked uncomfortable silences even less than Cordy and was only able to bear them by drinking, that being his method of dealing with just about everything, but naturally Angel wouldn't let him drive Tessa around with a bottle of booze rolling along the floorboards.

"So school, huh. Never liked it much myself. Never very good at it." If she had been listening at all he certainly couldn't tell, she wasn't even looking at him, just staring out the window. "You like it?"

"School?"

"Yeah, school."

She gave a shrug for an answer.

"You good at it?"

"Sometimes."

"What's your favorite subject?"

Another shrug.

"I hated arithmetic."

"Math."

"What? Yeah, whatever. You like it?"

"No."

"You like literature. You're always reading."

"Yeah."

"Course I guess there's not exactly a big call for demonology texts in public schools these days, huh?"

"Hmm."

"I liked, what's his name...Twain, yeah, Tom Sawyer and the other one. Great American novel. Only American novel I read."

"Shocking."

"Funny, you're funny."

"Thanks."

"Can I ask you something? You ever put more than two words together at a time?"

"No," she replied, but as he looked over at her Doyle saw something he had never seen before, a smile on the girl's face.