Angel criticizes Connor for accepting Clayton' offer, and Connor takes it out on Dawn. The gang learns that Lorne's become a Lothario. Clay pays an unwelcome visit to Lindsey. Dawn and Connor deal with their first fight. And Annette makes quite a splash when she shows up at the Hyperion and starts treating Connor like a dog.
"What else is there?," Angel asks. Connor looks at Dawn with his big bambi eyes and holds her right hand.
"I think Connor should tell you."
"Is this about the other night?" Connor doesn't say anything. Right then, Lorne barges in, strutting, dancing and wearing sunglasses.
"I've got the world on a string," he sings. "Good morning!, munchkins. What are we discussing today?"
"You seem surprisingly chipper," Angel notices.
"I take it things went well with Grella?," Anya inquires.
"Fabulous. And thank you for asking."
"Are you saying that you got lucky last night?," Gunn asks.
"I'd hardly call it luck."
"More like word of mouth," Anya explains, alarming pretty much everyone else. "Ainu and Istra had nothing but praise for Long Lorne'."
"Why would they call him - ?," Fred wonders, before beginning to look sick. Angel, Gunn and Wes also appear uncomfortable.
"I'm surprised you're so surprised," Anya says to Fred, who naturally feels deeply insulted. "You spent five years in Pylea, yet you don't know they're hung like elephants?"
"How the hell do you know that?," Xander demands to know.
"I briefly dated one about five hundred years ago. Big, beefy, simple-minded, monosyllabic warrior. They really go for Vengeance Demons. Especially the blood larvae.
"Blood larvae?," Fred asks, looking even more sickened.
"I was wondering what that smell was," a mildly disgusted Angel says to Lorne.
"Silly me. I forgot I was the only one here with an exciting and controversial sex life," Lorne retorts. Buffy's glad not to be part of this conversation. Xander shuts up. Wes, Fred and Gunn still feel some self-righteousness on account of them never having attempted to cross the species barrier. "Don't be ashamed. Who wants a boring sex life?"
"What you do, or who you do, in your private time is none of my business," Angel maintains. "That said, don't all of these Vengeance Demons work for Wolfram & Hart?"
"We have a policy against sleeping with the enemy?" Wesley looks sheepish. "Anyway, they're not the enemy. The part of the firm they work for has nothing to do with ruining your life and turning you evil."
"I'm not familiar with that part of their operation." Angel liked to imagine that everything they did revolved around him. "Do you know who their boss is?"
"Some little guy named David," Anya reports. "They say he's a total pushover."
"Some little guy named David offered to help me when I was evil. I'm wondering if it's the same guy."
"Maybe meddling with you is only part of his job description," Lorne guesses hopefully. He's one kid who does not want to be banned from the candy store.
"Blood larvae?," Dawn asks. "Oh, I get it. Wait. No I don't."
"Please don't try to," Buffy suggests.
"Do you roll around in it?"
"Let's get back to what we were talking about before."
"Did you read anything when he sang?," Angel asks Lorne, who sits on the stage. Angel, Wes and Gunn avert their eyes, since these eyes are level with Lorne's crotch, which they'd rather not think about after Anya's revelation.
"He's not going to die of old age."
"Meaning what exactly?," Wesley wonders.
"Meaning the guy doesn't have much time, and he knows it."
"Finally, some good news," Angel comments.
"I wouldn't break out the balloons just yet, chief. His short-term future looks very bright. On the other hand, you're not his number one enemy."
"Who is?" Angel's hurt by this information.
"Couldn't tell. There's quite a few."
"That he worries about more than me?" This was insulting.
"Sorry big guy. Hate to disappoint."
"I'm new here, so I might have missed something, but has he tried to kill you yet?," Buffy asks.
"No. Not directly."
"Or indirectly," Lorne adds.
"Has he tried to hurt any of your friends?"
"Not really."
"Okay. That's odd. Cause where I come from, that's what enemies do. Maybe you're trying so hard to create a nemesis that you're making this guy into something he's not."
"But if he's not interested in Angel, why did he go to the trouble of reaching out to Connor?," Dawn asks. "We can't write this guy off." Buffy's worried that Dawn refers to Angel's problems in the first-person plural. "Especially after what he offered."
"What did he offer?," Angel demands to know. He sensed Connor was hiding something. Connor shifts in his chair, upset that Dawn spilled the beans.
"He gave me some keys, said they were for a house in the north."
"He offered you vacation property?," Buffy asks, stunned. "Why couldn't my enemies ever offer me vacation property?" Things sure worked differently in the big city.
"You made a deal with him?," Angel inquires, the volcanic rage slowly building upwards inside him.
"No deal. He gave me the keys, and left."
"Did you sign anything?"
"No! Why are you so freaked out?"
"The man who wants to take my soul and do God knows what to you - "
"You mean the dissection. He apologized. I think he wants a truce."
"Dissection?," Dawn faintly asks.
"He said they wanted to cut me open when I was a baby, and then again when I was grown up. That was the time they attacked with the helicopters during the movie."
"And the van?"
"Yeah."
"Right. I remember you mentioning that." Xander's about to ask a question about all the wacky stuff they're referring to, but elects not to.
"Connor, he's trying to bribe you," Angel explains. Connor groans.
"Isn't a bribe when you to have to do something to get something?"
"It does appear to be a quid without a quo," Wes remarks.
"If I may, I'd like to mention some inside gossip I picked up during my, dalliances. It seems no single person's in charge. There's David, and there's this other lawyer. The girls call him the Apostate. They're beginning to have a civil war. I'm going out on a short limb and guessing this Apostate fellow is our Clayton."
"Great work Lorne," Anya compliments. "You're a regular Mata Hari." Of all the people who worked for Angel, Lorne was the last one he thought could trade sex for secrets.
"Why do they call him the Apostate?," Wesley wonders. Perhaps he has some sort of mystical powers.
"Openly mocking the Senior Partners comes to mind," Angel replies.
"Sounds like they got a guy who plays by his own rules," Gunn concludes.
"Does he hope to turn Connor evil?," Fred proposes. Dawn and Angel glare at her. "Not that I think that's at all likely, Connor."
"He wants Connor out of the picture," Angel assumes. "So that the next time there's a crisis and things get dicey in LA, he'll be tempted to go someplace safer."
"What do you mean?," Connor asks. "The sun's not gonna disappear again, is it?"
"Maybe you're overlooking the obvious," Buffy adds. "What if he's just trying to lure Connor into a trap?"
"Isn't that a little overelaborate?," Anya wonders. "If he really wanted Connor dead, couldn't he just pull out a gun and shoot him." As usual, Anya was being helpful but not comforting.
"The Devil needn't be a monster. He can be a tempter," Wesley points out.
"He seems to be good at telling people what they want to hear," Dawn mentions. For instance, he gave Connor something Connor was fantasizing about getting.
"Like last night," Buffy begins, alarming Angel. "What he told me about what happened in Sunnydale was more comforting than anything anyone else has told me."
"Even me?," Angel demands to know.
"Sorry. Like Dawn said, he's good with words." Charming Connor AND Buffy. Angel had to kill this guy.
But first, he'd have to get in line. Lindsey sits on the beach at Big Sur, playing his guitar. Clayton, with no shoes or socks, his white pants rolled up, and a light blue t-shirt, walks over to him. Why he would drive three hours to see someone who detests him and happens to be in mourning isn't quite clear. The man feels a compulsion to show up where he's not wanted. As he approaches, Clay sings the Hank Williams song Lindsey is mordantly playing on his guitar:
"The silence of a falling star
lights up a purple sky.
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry."
Lindsey stands up, turns around, backs away and scowls. "Ain't you the rat who took my old job?"
"Actually, I earn more and have more authority than you ever did," Clay replies with a grin. Clay has found that when a person thinks you're scum, sometimes it helps to play into their assumptions.
"What the hell brings you all the way up here?" Lindsey's disappointed that the only possible weapon he has is his guitar, which Clayton is hardly worth destroying.
"A delivery." He hands Lindsey a piece of paper.
"Standard and Perpetuity — is this your idea of a joke?"
"That's the real McCoy. If you don't believe me, try setting it on fire." Lindsey reads it very carefully, trying to ignore the big "VOID" stamped across it. This has to be a trick. "You're free, Mr. MacDonald."
"Since when?," he asks, still suspicious.
"You know the answer to that." A long silence ensues. Did Faith's death buy him his way out of Hell? Talk about guilt. When it comes to brooding over one's soul, Lindsey might now be able to give Angel a run for his money. He tears it in half. It comes back. He crumples it up and throws it down. It appears on the sand without so much as a crease. Clayton walks over, bends down, picks it up and hands the contract to Lindsey before politely backing away and getting out of his enemy's face.
"Now why would Wolfram & Hart want me to have this?" Clayton was getting to the fun part.
"They wouldn't. Your soul was the one piece of leverage they had over you. It's clearly not in their interest to tell you you're not going to Hell. But it's in my interest."
"You expect me to believe you're rebelling?" Talk about a copycat.
"Nope. It's much more fun to defy them and get rewarded for it. In Los Angeles at least, Wolfram & Hart values competence over ideology. So long as you please their clients, antagonize their enemies and bring in record earnings, they will overlook motives. Along with certain extracurricular activities."
"You're supposed to be their new golden boy?," Lindsey asks with a laugh. "Standards really aren't what they used to be." With his light blonde hair and bronzed skin, Clay look a little too much like a literal golden boy to be taken seriously, especially in his line of work.
"I've got Angel boiling over with impotent rage."
"Very funny."
"I've learned from your mistakes. As well as the even greater mistakes of your successors. The way to hurt Angel is to avoid him. He can't stand not being the center of attention. Avoid him long enough, and he becomes so desperate for the limelight that you can make him play your game. I've set him up for one humiliation after another. Wanna know my secret?"
"You're a complete fraud?" Clay laughs at Lindsey's denial. Part of him hopes that Lindsey's jealous of his seemingly effortless success.
"I don't give him any innocents to save or bad guys to kill."
"Then you're not accomplishing anything."
"Why don't you talk to him about me? Observe how he reacts to the mere mention of my name. Maybe then you could give him some tips. We do have a lot in common." Short, dark-haired Lindsey glares upward at tall, fair-haired Clayton.
"I don't think so."
"Maybe you right," Clay replies, slipping into the backwoods accent of his youth. "Reckon I growed up a lot poorer than you."
"Where'd you grow up, Bangladesh?," he jokes. Couldn't have been anywhere in America, since Lindsey came from the poorest-of-the-poor in that country.
"Kentucky Hills. First time my home had plumbing was when I went away to college. I'm guessin' it was the same for you?"
"You expect me to believe that you come from mountain folk?" Clayton looks and sounds like he was born and bred in Beverly Hills.
"Don't matter if you believe it. It's still the truth."
"Did daddy die of black lung disease?," Lindsey jokes, playing along with Clay's hardscrabble con.
"Huntington's. When I was seventeen."
"Huntington's. That's, uh, isn't that hereditary?"
"There's a fifty percent chance I won't make it to fifty. No matter. My two brothers didn't make it to age five. Two of my three sisters are still around. Girls tend to fight off sickness better than the boys. They're tougher, ah guess. Even the one's who ain't Slayers." Lindsey balls up his right fist and thinks of punching Clay. He puts his hands up in front of him, leans back and loses the accent. "You want to know why I'm here? Because I admire you. You bucked the system and you got away with it. You defied them. That gave me courage." The praise turns sour once Clay claims Lindsey as a role model.
"The courage to brag about how you're not taking on Angel?," Lindsey replies.
"No. The courage to flaunt the Senior Partners. Angel's just an off-hour hobby. Like music. Did you also play in band to help pay your way through college and law school?"
"You were in a band. What did they play - eighties synth pop?" Clayton does have a shiny, vacuous quality.
"Bluegrass. Like I played back home. 'Cept with drums and electric guitars. Drunken J. Crew frat boys eat that stuff up." Clayton backs away. "Good luck keeping that soul of yours clean." Lindsey's left to stare at the voided contract and wonder. If it's a fake, it's an incredibly elaborate fake, right down to the signature in blood in Lindsey's own handwriting. This Clayton fellow sure was shameless: expecting Lindsey to thank him for taking the time to deliver this; trying to buddy up; telling outrageous lies about how he's working Angel over. Lindsey will have to make a visit down south and get the real story from the man himself.
Elijah sits at the desk in Angel's office, working on the computer. "This guy's got a sense of humor."
"Evil and funny," Kit notes with decidedly less enthusiasm.
"And possibly a skier. This place is near some choice mountains."
"Oh no. Don't tell me you're with Connor on this."
"I'd like to be with you." He reaches out, grabs her right arm with his left and pulls her onto his lap, causing the chair to slide and nearly tip over. Kit giggles. "Snowboarding during the day. Taking a dip in the hot tub at night."
"I don't snowboard."
"Do you hot tub?"
"I might. With the right person." He goes to kiss her. She pulls her head back. "What makes you think you're that person?"
"Boundless optimism."
"Which is such a turn-off."
"Need I point out I'm depressed and pessimistic about everything in my life other that you?"
"That's more like it," she jokes. They smooch. Then they start making out. Eli puts his hand on her thigh. She put her hands to his face and musses up his hair. Then Angel enters.
"What's going on?" Kit stands up, pushing off on the chair, causing Elijah to fall down. Wes, Gunn and Fred also witness this.
"Research," Elijah pithily responds when he stands up.
"Researching what?," Angel asks, upset by people fooling around in his office because, well, he has to work there. He has to sit in that chair.
"We found out tons of stuff," Kit offers as a defense. "Actually, Eli found it. We were, celebrating our success." She looks at him and smiles.
"Yes. Exactly. And don't tell me none of you have ever fooled around after a nice demon hunt." Angel, Buffy, Gunn, Fred, Dawn and Connor decide to drop this topic.
"What did you find?," Dawn asks.
"Your house has its own web site. Here, take a look." He turns the screen around. "Twelve hundred square feet on two acres of land. There's a stream running through your back yard, and a jacuzzi on the back deck." Connor clearly likes what he sees. "I checked the town's property records, and the place is assessed at $215,000."
"I'm rich?," Connor asks with a smile.
"No. I had to do some hacking to get info on the deed, but I find out the house is owned by a charity called Wide Open Spaces, which describes its mission as providing desperately needed recreation for children from war zones.' I guess that's supposed to be you, Connor."
"So, what's up?," Connor wonders. "Is it my house or isn't it?"
"If it were yours, you'd have to pay about $75,000 in taxes. Which you could easily do by selling the house, and pocketing $140,000."
"That's enough to put someone through college," Fred points out. Buffy glares at her, since this almost sounds like an endorsement.
"But this guy wants you to use the house, and he's not giving you any choice in the matter. The tax dodge only saves him about $250 a year in property taxes - thank you Proposition 13."
"So who owns it?," Anya asks.
"I think it's the trustees of the shell charity. But I haven't found their names yet. Something tells me they might include people in this room, but with that Clayton guy having veto power. That would kinda make sense, considering his practical joke sense of humor. I mean, this web site, the interactive tour of the house, it's designed entirely for us. I mean you."
"So is it mine or not?," Connor demands to know.
"Assuming these keys work, you can use it as long as he wants you to. He can always change the locks at any time."
"You see Connor. He's trying to influence you," Angel argues.
"Who isn't?," Connor replies, grabbing the keys and running off.
"Connor wait," Angel pleads.
"No. I'll handle this," Dawn suggests, further humiliating Angel. She hops off after him.
"Normally I'm against child abuse. But in Connor's case, I really think you need to slap some sense into him," Buffy suggests half-jokingly about the incorrigible brat who seemed to throw at least one tantrum a day.
"Spare the child and spoil the rod, I have not sold myself to God," Elijah offers to everyone's blank incomprehension. "No Patti Smith fans in the room, I see."
"No, I got it," Kit assures him. "Just wasn't relevant."
Connor can hear Dawn approach, and opens the door to his room. "How could you do that to me? How could you betray me like that?"
"Didn't you want to know what you were getting yourself into?"
"That's why we told Eli. Why tell Angel? It doesn't concern him."
"The man who gave you those keys is Angel's enemy. Maybe even his mortal enemy. How doesn't it concern him?"
"Shouldn't I be able to trust you? I tell you a secret — in our bed! — and you tell everyone right away."
"You wanted to keep it a secret because you knew it was wrong. You knew Angel would get mad at you if he found out."
"So you care about his feelings more than you care about mine?"
"This is about something a little more important than feelings. I did what I thought was best for you."
"As if I don't know what's best for me?"
"You weren't looking at the big picture."
"So I'm a child? I'm not mature enough to make my own decisions?"
"Connor, you're blowing this way out of proportion."
"No. No, I'm think I'm finally seeing the big picture." Connor marches off. He finds Elijah in the lobby talking to Fred. "Come on, Eli. Let's go somewhere."
"Just the two of us?"
"Why not?"
"Go ahead," Kit says to her boyfriend. "I got homework to do."
"Okay. I'll just go put down these house keys and pick up my car keys."
"I'll be out front," Connor says before dashing out.
"Hyperactive little sucker, isn't he?," Xander notes about Connor storming out of the office, rushing back downstairs, and darting out the door. Buffy senses relationship problems. She's not sure whether that's good or bad.
"Trouble in paradise?," Kit asks when she finds Dawn in Connor's room.
"Did Connor say something?"
"No. He just ran off with my boyfriend. Any idea why?"
"I'm sure Connor and Eli are just friends," Dawn jokes.
"It's that cabin in the woods, right?"
"No. It's Connor. He likes to pretend we're the only two people on Earth, and when I show him that's not the case, he gets upset."
"He always has to have everything his way. Is that it?"
"No," Dawn tells her skeptical friend. "He just thought that once we were together, everything would be perfect."
"You mean he expects everything to go his way?"
"What are you trying to do, Kit?"
"Sorry. Is this when I'm supposed to say this is meaningless and everything's going to be okay?"
"It is. And it will. Connor's moody. We both know that. With him it's always ecstasy or agony."
Elijah and Connor walk down the boardwalk. Eli looks out at the waves. Connor scarfs down the two corn dogs in his hands. "You wanna go in the water?," Connor asks.
"Nah. It's low tide. Anyway, the big waves are further south. Plus I don't have my board with me, which sort of moots the first two reasons."
"Why did she turn on me?"
"To be fair, if Kit thought I had acquired a substantial amount of property from a questionable source, she'd probably want my mom to know."
"You think she did the right thing?" Geez. Everyone was against him.
"I think it would have been better if she tried harder to convince you to tell him on your own. But she'd just compiled a dossier on the guy, and it might have seemed germane. Don't sweat it. It's not like you're dad's gonna take it away from you, is it?"
"He better not."
"And he would have figured something was up the first time you went away for the weekend and couldn't explain where."
"I wonder if he's jealous."
"Why? Does his winter cabin lack a jacuzzi?," Elijah jokes.
"He's always the one those lawyers cared about. Now I'm the one they mess with."
"You say that like it's a good thing."
"He's been the Champion. The top dog. Now there's a new generation."
"Assuming you're correct, which I doubt you are, did these evil lawyers go after Angel's friends?"
"All the time." Elijah looks nervous.
"Back to why I doubt you're their prime target."
"You think I'm not important enough?" Eli's struck by Connor's touchiness.
"Think about it. You're young. You're not ripe yet. Wait, that has sexual connotations. You haven't peaked. As a fighter, champion, whatever. You probably won't until you're twenty five, maybe even thirty. By which point I'll have completed my doctorate, gotten a job on the east coast and will keep in touch with you primarily by phone and email. In the meantime, they'll continue focusing on your father until he's dead, or evil, or retired."
"He doesn't age. Why would he retire?"
"My point exactly. He's got a lot of good evil-fighting years left in him. Anyway, this whole ploy seems like a way for them to use you to mess with his head."
"You think I'm just a tool?," Connor asks angrily.
"It's not what I think. It's what they think. And since they're evil, why should you care what they think?"
"Glad to hear the job went off without a hitch," Anya says into the phone to Fred, who's on other end with Gunn. "Now did you get their credit card number? I know their last check cleared. But if these people are going to call on us once every six months, it's far more convenient if we can automatically bill them on our own. And that way, if they don't have the money, we get paid and Visa ends up holding the bag."
"Ah'm beginning to side with Angel," Fred says to Gunn. "Maybe Anya's money-grubbing and profit-nagging isn't what we need."
"I'm happy putting up with it if it moves me into a bigger apartment."
Connor sits at Angel's desk, happily looking over pictures of "his" new home. Elijah sits on the couch across from the desk, perusing some of Wesley's volumes. "I'm amazed at how they can write about something as exciting as demons, yet make it all sound so boring."
"There's two rooms upstairs. You and Kit won't mind taking the smaller one?"
"Depends how thick the walls are," Elijah deadpans. "I thought the whole point of this thing was for you and Dawn to be alone?"
"You're the one who's got a car."
"That's right. I can make a duplicate of those keys, and head up there with Kit anytime I want," he jokes. "Not that I'm being presumptuous in assuming we'll still be together six months from now and, hel-lo." He sees a tall girl enter the hotel. She wears high heels, a short black skirt, a sleeveless blue designer blouse, a black choker around her neck with a small silver cross hanging from it, and designer sunglasses. Her short, straight light-brown hair comes down in a tight, neat bob to just below her ears.
"Who's there?," Connor asks, noticing Eli's distraction.
"No one. Just some random hottie." Connor hustles over to the door and takes a look for himself.
"That's no random hottie. I know this girl. Met her yesterday. She's from France."
"Ooh-la-la." Annette walks up to the front desk and takes off her shades.
"Afternoon."
"I remember you!," Anya says. "Do you want a room?"
"No. I want action."
"We're not that kind of hotel."
"The kind with Slayers and, oh hi Connor!" She does a little wave and smiles. He waves back, as does Elijah, even though he's never met her. The two of them leave the office and walk up to her.
"We are THAT kind of hotel. So long as you're not talking about anything kinky and, lesbianish. They're not those kinda Slayers." Annette giggles.
"You're very funny."
"Why thank you for noticing!"
"Hi Annette," Connor says.
"Connor. You're just the man I need right now." Connor smiles. "Can you go find Wesley?" That was deflating.
"I'm Elijah," he says to a disinterested Annette. "Connor says you're training to be a Trainer, I mean, a Watcher. Can you tell me why books about demons are so boring?" She laughs. Elijah's pleased.
"So that amateurs wouldn't be tempted to read them. A little knowledge in the wrong heads can be a very dangerous thing. Connor, I said find Wesley." He sighs, scowls and is off. Who did she think she was, walking in and ordering him around like that? And why did part of him like it?
Angel enters, having finished his afternoon blood. Buffy's visiting Willow in the hospital, so he has some time to kill. "Have Fred and Charles called?," he asks Anya.
"The job is done. Hopefully the check will clear."
"It will," he assures the ever-greedy Anya.
"I know. With dozens of Vengeance Demon friends of mine roaming this city, I really shouldn't worry about delinquent clients." Angel hopes she's only kidding.
"You're Angel!," Annette announces.
"Why yes! You've heard of me?" He loves being a celebrity.
"Angel, this is that Claude guy's daughter."
"Annette Marcel." She shakes his hand and holds on for a few seconds. "I've never shaken hands with a vampire before. Then again, I've never met a vampire I didn't try to kill. Before now." Angel take his hand away. He's a little spooked by her.
"Nice to meet you too."
"Do you use mousse?," she asks, looking up at his hair.
"Yes."
"Thought so." A Watcher's daughter meets him, and that's all she wants to ask about? Connor returns with Wesley.
"Annette! What a surprise. I had no idea you were in town." She hugs him, which is a little odd for Wesley.
"We're staying near the airport. I killed a vampire last night! So did daddy." Connor and the Slayers were out for five hours, and they didn't so much as see a vampire.
"Where?," Connor asks.
"Not sure. I'm new in town," she jokes. "Somewhere a few miles from the airport." She steps in front of Connor and smiles. "Good boy. You get a cookie." She pats him on the head for fetching Wesley. Now that Connor didn't like, not even in a kinky way. "I kid." She puts her right hand on his left shoulder. "I thought a boy who's been through as much as you could take a joke." Connor smiles. Maybe she's just being friendly in a strange foreign way.
"So you were joking when you implied I was unworthy to learn about demons?," Elijah asks.
"No," she curtly responds.
"Nice meeting you, Annette. I'm sure the pleasure was all . . . someone standing here who's neither you nor me." He leaves. Apparently she doesn't appreciate self-deprecating humor.
"What brings you over here?," Wesley asks. "Do you want your library back?"
"Yes. But I'll give you a few days to Xerox items of interest. I came to watch your Slayers train. History in the making."
"I'm not sure they're terribly interested in being put on display." Annette laughs.
"I wasn't going to charge admission. Have they trained yet?"
"No. Not, not since the battle."
"Then now would be a good time to start, no? I'm sure Connor here wants to see how he matches up." Connor smiles. That sounds fun. He runs off to get Dawn. Annette's father enters through the back entrance and sneaks up on them.
"Oh look!," Anya says. "It's the Watcher who shaves."
"Are you a citizen?," he asks. "How does that work, becoming suddenly human after so long?"
"Was that a threat?," she nervously asks. "Because I know some women who are still in the trade -"
"Can't take a joke. You definitely are an American." Anya takes that as a compliment of her ability to assimilate. "There's jasmine in the courtyard."
"Night-blooming," Angel notes.
"I know. How terribly predictable for a vampire. I expected more from you, Angel." He's too hurt by the insult to notice the compliment hidden within. "Your vampires are quite well-organized. While one feeds, the others stand sentry. I imagine that is a tribute to their enemies, including yourselves." Angel's sure that's a compliment, though a somewhat convoluted one. He used to really like French people. But that was more than a century ago.
"You were attacked?," Angel asks. Annette laughs.
"Isn't that the point?" Angel looks at Claude, one father to another.
"You take your daughter on patrols?"
"No," she objects. "I take him."
"She wanted to go out alone. They grow up so fast these days."
"You don't have to tell me."
NEXT: Vampire child against Slayer. Plus, Annette humiliates Angel a few tricks she has up her sleeve. Wonder if Connor will like watching that.