"You trying to work me?," Connor asks, both contemptuous of Clayton's chances and flattered by his attention. Usually it's Angel Wolfram & Hart tries to mess with.
"The firm for which I work has tried to do quite a lot to you over the years. Well, year-and-a-half. Their stated intention was to capture and dissect you. Preferably while you were still alive, but at some point death would have been inevitable. Before you had even been born, they brought in a doctor who specialized in demon anatomy to cut open you and your mother. While you were an infant, they made several attempts to kidnap you. I've seen the documentation; the orders from the Senior Partners. Very damning stuff. Which of course I'm legally prevented from showing you. Unless you sued, in which case it would probably come out in discovery. And juries love helpless babies almost as much as they hate big bad law firms."
"Aren't you supposed to offer me something, and then I tell you to go to Hell?"
Clayton chuckles. "Then again, you're not exactly the litigious type. I am. Otherwise, why would I have become a lawyer? If my adversary is weaker than I am, like that vampire I just staked, I destroy them. If my adversary is stronger, I settle. This is me settling."
"I got better things to do that listen to a guy who doesn't make any sense," Connor responds as he turns around and walks away.
"Don't you want a place of your own? A place for just the two of you? Where you and Dawn can go to be alone. To escape from the world, and its troubles. A cozy little cabin in the mountains, perhaps?" Connor stops and slowly turns around. Clayton flashes a subtle, Mephistopholean grin. "I have a place in Crestview, about five hours north from here by car. The woman I love no longer likes the mountains. The altitude plays tricks with her inner ear, or something. She's a fragile, precious, powerful creature. I live to make her happy. I could sell the property and make some money I don't even need. Or, I could give it to you and your beloved. My beloved advocates that last course of action. I sell it on the open market, and it ends up in the hands of some movie producer or investment banker who doesn't need it, and won't even appreciate it. I know you'll appreciate it. I know that it will bring you more happiness than it ever could bring them. Mona's always telling me that cold hard cash isn't the only currency that matters. There are spiritual credits and debits: the joy and pain you visit upon others. That's the sort of profit I'm looking to earn in this transaction."
"What's the price?," Connor skeptically asks.
"It's a gift."
"I'm not talking Benjamins. What are you trying to make me do?"
"Nothing. The property is mine. It has no connection to Wolfram & Hart. This has nothing to do with business."
"Right. Cause we're such good friends. I've never even met you. And now you're giving me a house?"
"You don't think of yourself as deserving?"
Connor scoffs. "No one gets what they deserve."
"Usually. But not always. We do have free will. We don't have to be brutal cutthroats stepping over our fellow man to get ahead ALL of the time. We can choose to do nice things every now and then." Clayton pauses. Connor still appears skeptical. "I misspoke earlier. This is, in part, about business. It's a settling of accounts. That's what I've been doing the last few months: taking care of my predecessors' mistakes."
"So your evil law firm's trying to buy me off."
"No. That implies a change of behavior contingent upon payment. I'm not asking you to change your behavior. Also, Wolfram & Hart is not giving you anything. It's my cabin. My loss. Even though I've done nothing to you. But that's the kind of guy I am." Connor gets within six inches of Clayton to look and sniff him over. Clay calmy stands there, his pulse staying at a resting rate. Like Angel, Connor notices this guy is harder to intimidate than previous lawyers. Connor's close enough to kill Clay before he'd have time to defend himself. The lawyer starts whistling "Blue Moon of Kentucky" to break the tension. Connor steps back.
"Okay. You're human."
"I'm honored to that you thought I was something more."
"You mean something less."
"Touche." He reaches into his front left pants pocket, pulls out a key chain with two keys and a laminated slip of paper hanging from it, and tosses them to Connor. "The gold one's for the house. The silver one's for the garage. The place is sparsely furnished. Not quite all the comforts of home, but I'm sure you've made do with a lot less. No ghosts. No curses. No demons or susquatches roaming the hills. No catches whatsoever. If it sounds too good to be true, well then, most of your life and some of Dawn's life has been too awful to be true. It's a matter of balance." Clayton holds his hands up, mimicking a scale while slowly backing away from Connor.
"And what does my dad get?" Clayton stops twenty feet in front of Connor.
"Why do you think I'd give him anything?"
"You said your firm's done messing with both of us." Connor doesn't believe this, but those were Clay's words, and he wants to check the consistency of Clayton's argument/lie.
"Angel believes that he deserves to suffer. He would never accept any gift that could make him feel happier. You get a gift because I don't think you deserve to suffer. Am I right?"
Connor looks at the keys, and at the address written on the tag. Then he looks back at the lawyer. "It's a trick. This is all a lie. Maybe it's one I'll like. But if it's not . . . "
"Do I look like a man courting death?," Clay jokes. "A lie requires concealment of the truth. I've concealed nothing. Of course, in our deceitful world, perhaps even truth-telling can be a form of trickery."
"If we go to this place, and Dawn gets even a splinter - "
"You'll play football with my head. Understood. I, too, am in love with a woman I hope to spend the rest of my days with. The mere thought of living without Mona is unbearable. Have the two of you arrived at that sublime moment when you each lose your individuality and, well, fuse into a single, psychic organism? Where when she's happy, you're happy. When she hurts, you hurt. Her strength is your strength. Her fears are your fears. You realize that you simply can't function without her, and that knowledge is not terrifying. In fact, it's exhilarating." Clay can tell the love stuff is making headway, though his philosophizing seems to be falling on deaf ears. Time to try to find another way to relate to the boy. "It's like that Nelly song: Why does Wolfram & Hart act this way? Heyyy, must be the money!" Connor chuckles. "There's no money to be made in fighting you or Angel. In fact, a lot of money's already been lost."
"So you wanna buy me off?"
Clayton sighs. "Connor, it's not that simple. Nothing is. I'm also rewarding you for defeating Mal. If you had not killed him a week ago tonight, I'd probably be dead by now, and our firm's Los Angeles branch would be on the verge of collapse. So, you may say my primary motives are two-fold: on behalf of Wolfram & Hart, I'm saying Sorry for trying to kill you' and Thank you for saving our lives.' To think, there are those who say irony is dead. Happy hunting." Clayton puts his hands in his pockets, walks past Connor and ambles out of the alley, whistling Hank Williams' "I Saw The Light." Connor stands there for a while, looking at the keys in his right hand. He balls his right fist around the keys and heads for home.
"Where the Hell have you been?," Angel demands to know when he sees Connor in the library at about half past eleven. "I've been worried sick all night."
"I went to see Dawn," Connor nervously responds, putting his right hand in his pocket, then pulling it out, key-free.
"I mean since then. Your friends said you left the hospital six hours ago."
"You talked to Kit and Eli?," Connor asks with a smile, trying to change the subject. "I thought you didn't like him."
"Connor, you have responsibilities. You can't go running off whenever you want. Especially at night. You know that's when most of our work is done."
"I was hunting! I killed three vampires. Isn't that work?"
"What about Dawn's vision? We could have used your help patrolling the beaches."
"It's tomorrow. Dawn said it happens Friday night. That means it's Friday night."
"She was making an educated guess. Believe me, the visions are never that precise. Cordy's misinterpreted many."
"You don't get it. Her operation's tomorrow. That's why the Powers gave it to her early. And she's right! Did you find any monsters tonight?"
"Yes. As a matter of fact, I did. There was an Oxcan demon under the Redondo pier."
"It was hibernating," Wesley points out.
"Better to kill it before it wakes up and hurts someone."
"I don't believe this!," Connor whines. "I spend the night killing vampires, and you're yelling at me because I didn't waste time like you all did. Unbelievable." He starts to run off.
"Connor!," Angel shouts. He slowly turns around. "Where do you think you're going now?"
"Why? What am I missing?" Connor leaves.
"Look on the bright side," Fred suggests. "At least he doesn't wanna kill ya."
"You always say that," Angel replies.
"Because it's important to remember." Due to their experiences the previous Summer, Fred and Gunn view Connor as always on the edge of going psychotic. Much as Buffy does.
Wesley steps forward to put Fred's argument in a different context. "Is Connor's relationship with you worse than your relationship with your father when you were his age? I know it's not worse than the one I had with my father."
"How dysfunctional were you people?," Fred wonders, slightly aghast at their low standards.
"Undoubtedly, most of the credit goes to you," Wesley continues. "You've been exceptionally affectionate and understanding, considering the circumstances. You haven't cut Connor down with faint praise and pointed criticism, vowed that he's never going to measure up to you, incessantly reminded him that he's never made you proud, and probably never will."
"Damn, you need therapy," Gunn suggests.
"Am I the only one here who has parents they like?," Fred asks.
"I liked my parents," Gunn responds. "Course, they ain't here no more."
"Buffy hates her dad. Willow hates her mom. Xander hates his entire family. Cordy's parents are in prison. What is it about demon hunting and domestic dysfunction?," Fred wonders.
Dawn slowly opens her eyes. The room's dark, but she recognizes the figure standing to the right of her bed and holding her right hand as Connor. "W-wh-what are you doing here?," she mumbles, her speech slurred by painkillers.
"I wanted to see you." He leans in and kisses her on the cheek. Dawn looks at the clock on the wall behind him.
"It's two in the morning. That's a little late for visiting."
"Don't worry. Nobody saw me."
"The operation's in a couple hours. I have to rest."
"I thought you rest during the operation. Don't they knock you out?"
Dawn puts her left hand on top of Connor's right hand. "Connor, I'm glad you care, but stop." He lets go of her hand and backs up, outraged.
"Stop!? Stop caring about you?"
"Stop hovering."
"So now you don't want me around."
"I love you. But you're not the only person in my life. And I shouldn't be the only person in your life. A lot of horrible things happened to a lot of people today. I'm one of the lucky ones. Just, try to see the big picture. Try to think about the feelings of others."
"Fine. I'll go. Bye Dawn." Connor slouches out of the room. Dawn wishes she could have phrased it better. Connor can be so thin-skinned and immature sometimes.
Buffy uses her left crutch to knock on Angel's door. He wakes up, puts on a shirt and answers. "Buffy."
"Sorry. I couldn't sleep. Did I wake you? Some creature of the night you are," she jokes to relieve the tension.
"I thought you wanted to be alone."
"Tried it. Didn't help. Now I'm trying something else. Can I come in?"
"Of course." He steps away from the door.
"Not that I need to be invited. Staying up all night. Asking for an invitation. Looks like we got a little role reversal going on." She chucks the crutches. "I hate these stupid things. They make me feel so - " she says while hopping on her right foot towards the bed.
"Helpless?" She plops down on the bed.
"I was going to say slow. But now that you mentioned it, I'm not very Slayer-ly at the moment." Angel sits down on a chair to the left of Buffy. "I'm not contagious."
Angel laughs. Buffy holds out her left hand. "Oh. You want me to climb into bed with you." He looks nervous.
"Don't worry. Maybe it's because of the cast on my leg, or the still-painful stab wound in my stomach, or the deaths I'm mourning, but I'm really not in the mood tonight."
Angel realizes his tentativeness was absurdly presumptuous, and lies down to Buffy's left. "I know what it's like to lose people."
"Really? Who?"
"Doyle."
"Doyle? Ohhh. You mean that Irish half-demon whose visions somehow ended up in my sister's head."
"I'm sure that wasn't his intention," Angel deadpans. In fact, Dawn has the visions because Doyle had faith in Cordelia. So, Buffy could blame Cordy for the whole thing. Which would suit Buffy just fine. "I was going to give up my life to save all those people. But he beat me to the punch. Literally. For the next week, I kept wishing it had been me."
"Angel, this is different. No one had to die. They died because I failed. Faith, and Giles, and everyone else. They died because I couldn't get the job done."
"Which happened because Nina hit you with one of Mal's arrows."
"What?"
"After you were taken out, I found it on the ground. It was his. Just like the ones he put through me. So if you want to pass blame, pass some of it this way. I'm the reason she wanted to make you suffer."
"She had sadism to spare before they even met."
"But, from what I've seen and heard, she makes her kills quick. Stringing you along was unprofessional. It was personal."
"I think her motivation went a bit beyond Your boyfriend killed my boyfriend.'"
"I know. But I didn't make things any easier for you."
"If it makes you feel any better, you wouldn't have made a difference. You and you friends would have been killed or maimed just like everyone else."
"It's a comforting thought," Angel says both seriously and sarcastically. He puts his right arm around her shoulders and holds her left hand with his left hand. "She hit you with that arrow for two reasons. First, because she was afraid of you." Buffy scoffs. "You were the most powerful enemy she had. Second, like you said, she was a sadist. She wanted you to feel helpless. She knew how much that would burn you up inside. But it wasn't enough, because you had protected and trained those girls. They were ready. You're the one who made that possible."
"It doesn't mean Giles had to die. Or Willow," Buffy starts crying. "I let them down. I let my friends down."
"No you haven't. Not yet. But if you keep this up, you will. Nina wanted you to blame yourself. You stay like this, she wins."
"It's not that simple. I can't deny away what happened. I'm the Slayer. I'm supposed to save the world. I'm supposed to protect the people I love. I failed." She cries some more. Angel puts both arms around her and holds her close. She leans her head against his chest.
"That's why it's tough being a general." This stings because it reminds her of what Giles said about her role.
"I was a lousy general."
"You won."
"Not because of any special orders I gave."
"Battles never go according to plan. You train the soldiers so that, when the moment comes, they can think for themselves and get the job done, no matter what comes up. Some of them are going to die. And there's nothing you can do to stop it."
"Maybe. Sometimes. But I'm not the sit-back-and-watch kind of general."
"I feel guilty." Buffy looks up at Angel suspiciously.
"Is there something you're not telling me?" Another kid? Perhaps another pseudo-girlfriend?
"Mal could have killed everyone I loved. But he got his jollies making them watch him kill me: the weak watching the strong suffer. Nina was the opposite. She got off on the strong watching the weak suffer. I'm very lucky Mal didn't think like Nina."
"If this Mal vampire was so high and mighty, how did you manage to kill him?"
"I got very lucky. Connor hit a million-to-one shot. I couldn't stand up for the next two days, though. They literally had to carry me back here."
"Sounds like you were pretty stake-able. Why didn't he just . . . oh, right. Putting you out of your misery would have lessened the fun factor. Guess his sadism saved your life."
"And Connor."
"That's what I meant. Connor, sadism. Po-ta-to, pot-a-to." Angel lets that pass on account of Buffy's physical and emotional suffering. Besides, he knows better than anyone how Connor likes to stretch out the pain rather than go for a quick kill.
"The point is I was lucky. There were factors outside of my control. There always are. Sometimes they help. Sometimes they hurt. This time, for you, they really hurt. And the only way to make the pain go away is to keep on fighting. Win the next battle. You got five Slayers looking to you for leadership."
"I think they're just looking to go home. I know I would."
"Maybe, after experiencing something like this, they can't. You and Willow and Dawn and Xander – and even Wesley – you're their family now."
"Wesley's part of my family? Since when?" They share a chuckle.
"Your extended family."
"Very extended." To Buffy, there will only ever be one Watcher.
"Half a dozen Slayers. With that kind of power, you can take on the world."
Buffy looks worried. "Can't I rest for a few days before then? Taking on one measly Hellmouth was tough enough." Angel smiles. Buffy leans up and kisses him for a few seconds to say "Thank you" for the pep talk. Then she falls asleep, wrapping her arms around Angel's chest and resting her head on his heart. Angel holds her and listens to her breathing. He falls asleep a few minutes later, having not slept in two whole nights.
On the long walk home, Connor thought about what Dawn said. It seemed disturbingly similar to what Angel had told him. Perhaps he was too fixated on Dawn. She was part of the group now, as was he, so maybe Connor should care more about the group as a whole. It took a long while, but eventually he agreed with Dawn, as always. When he arrived back at the hotel, Connor elected to go up the Angel's room and apologize for his earlier selfish behavior. He opens the door, and sees Angel and Buffy in each other's arms. What a hypocrite! All that talk about thinking about others, about not getting caught up on one girl, and here Angel was with Buffy. Cordy had barely been gone one day. Spike had been gone even less. How quickly they forgot. Connor slams the door. How quickly he forgot about empathizing with others. Connor runs up the stairs and marches past the Slayers' rooms on his way to see Eli, who of course is asleep. So Connor goes up to his room to fume and brood himself to sleep. Ariella hears someone whoosh by very quickly and opens her door to see who it is. In the room to her right, Fadila talks on the phone to her parents.
"That's right. I was there for both of them. But I'm fine. You looked up the Hyperion? West Hollywood. No, I didn't know which neighborhood I was in. I've never been here! It's not a shooting gallery! Or a brothel. Okay, it probably was both at one time, but now it's gentrified or something. It's very safe. Mom, relax. When will I be home? As soon as I can work it out. Don't send me a plane ticket. I don't want you to pay. They'll take care of it. Summer school starts in two weeks. Good to know. Yes, I know I have a whole semester to make up. But I think what's important is that I'm okay. It's over." Fadila laughs. "Yes dad. No one's trying to persecute' me anymore. Love you too." She hangs up and opens her door.
"Do your parents know what time it is?," Ella asks.
"It's 5:30 there. So they're up and calling me some more."
"Told ya you shouldn't have given them the number."
"It was nice hearing from them. At first. Then it seemed weird. Like I'm in a whole other world. All the things they worry about seem pointless." Fadila looks further on down the hall. "Are they in yet?"
"Yeah."
"Alone?"
Ariella laughs. "Of course! Madari was kissing her boyfriend in the hallway, but didn't let him come in."
"Spy."
"Not. She told me."
"Madari gossips about boys with you?," Fadila asks playfully, since Ariella won't even touch a boy on account of her religion.
"We're the two foreigners. We both understand that neither of us understands American dating."
"My grandfather says America is like the Old World, if the Old World didn't have any parents."
Ella laughs. "That's true." Especially from her limited experience, since the Americans she knows best either have no parents or act like they don't. "No fathers to punish you and scare the boys away. You have to look after yourself."
"I think Madari can do that just fine. I think we all can."
"How does the power feel?," Ariella asks Fadila.
"You ever watch The X-Files'?"
"The show's not so big in Israel. We have no many real enemies, there's no reason to make up make-believe ones."
"There was an episode where this device gets put in people's brains, and they have to keep moving at sixty miles-an-hour or their head explodes."
"That sounds just like Speed'."
"I never thought of that before. It seemed different, and a lot less lame, at the time. And that's how I feel: like there's this bomb inside me ready to explode, and they only way I can stop it is to use my power. Like I have two choices: slay or self-destruct. Slay or, you know, anything else that blows off steam."
"With me, it's the opposite. I feel like there's this sleeping giant in me, and if I use my power he'll awake, and I'll become a monster."
"That why you can't sleep?"
"Also, I'm not used to sleeping alone. Especially in such a big room."
"Four months of slumber parties can do that to you."
"It was like that even before I came here. Back home I shared a room with my two sisters."
"Want me to bunk with you?"
"No thanks. We don't have bunks, anyway. If it's okay, could I carry my mattress into your room and sleep on the floor?"
"Sure. Long as you handle any calls from my parents so I can get some rest."
"Do they know about me?"
"Yeah. They think I'm making some sort of political statement. Do yours know about me?"
"No. I think it would be too much of a shock for them." Fadila laughs. "I'm serious."
"I know. That's the funny part. We're talking about it like we're lesbians afraid of coming out."
Ariella backs up. "Maybe I shouldn't spend the night in your room."
"Don't flatter yourself. You're totally not my type," Fadila jokes. "Which would be harder for your parents to take?"
Ariella thinks for a few seconds. "Telling them I like women, or telling them I'm friends with a Palestinian? I think either one would give both of them heart attacks."