"Look at you," Darla says with a glowing smile. "My brave, beautiful boy, all grown up into a handsome, noble man."

"Are you really here?"

"No she's not!," Buffy yells.

"I've always been here. I've always been with you. Watching over you. In your heart. Couldn't you feel me?"

"Yes. But why did you leave me? Didn't you want me?"

"There is nothing I wanted more in the world than to hold you in my arms."

"But you staked yourself. Before I even took my first breath."

"It was the only way."

"I don't believe that."

"Connor, I felt you dying inside of me. So I did what I had to do to give you a chance at life. The chance I never had. You were the only person I ever truly loved. The only good thing Angelus and I ever did together. Didn't he tell you this?"

"No."

Darla looks dismayed. "My dying words, my last request, was for him to tell you these things. Why didn't he? He had plenty of opportunities." Her eyes focus on Buffy. "Maybe he had other things on his mind. Other priorities." Connor glares at Buffy as Darla stands behind him.

"Oh no. Not the crazy stare," she says more with exasperation than fear.

"She's always come first to him," Darla whispers in his left ear. "That's why he lost you. Why he didn't try harder to keep Holtz from taking you away to Quor Toth. He's hidden her from you. She's his dirty little secret. His big lie. The reason he always sounds so insincere and hypocritical. All that stuff about loving Cordelia, it was just a smokescreen. His whole life is a lie."

Connor turns around to face Darla. "MY whole life is a lie."

"Okay, we're making progress," Buffy interjects. "You're starting to accept that you're not living in reality. Now work through that with the invisible shrink."

"Your life has always been a lie because his life is a lie," she says in slow, soft, motherly tones. "And his life is a lie because of her. Get rid of her, and all the lies melt away. You'll finally be free."

"Kill her?," Connor asks. Buffy tugs harder on the ropes and looks up to see if either of the ones on her arms are coming loose. He takes out his knife and walks towards Buffy. "Even if she is a demon, she still looks scared and helpless."

"Scared? Helpless? Ha! Boy, are you off the mark!," Buffy yells.

He runs the flat side of his dagger against her right cheek and looks her in the eyes, tilting his head slightly to the right. "I couldn't kill something so scared and so helpless. Not in cold blood." Buffy's in a bit of a quandary now. Does she continue her defiance, keeping it real but risking a violent reaction? Or does she play along and humor the lost boy until she can figure a way out?

"You wanna see help helpless I am? Go ahead and untie me." Connor looks down at the ground and seriously considers this.

"No!," Darla orders. "She's tricky. How else to you think she lured in Angel? Obviously not with her looks!" Connor laughs at this. Buffy just thinks it's the laughter of a nut case. Connor turns round and walks away from Buffy. Darla stays hot on his heels, talking into his right ear. "Don't let her get away. You'll never forgive yourself. Listen to me, son. Please listen to your mother." He turns round again and looks at Buffy from twenty feet away.

"She looks like someone I'd save in an alley."

"Oh!!," Buffy yells. Now he had really crossed the line.

"You want to know her true nature?," Darla says with a smile. "Ask her what she thinks of Cordelia." Connor ponders this.

"No. Too obvious. Like you said, she's tricky." Connor puts away the knife and walks towards Buffy.

"That's my boy," a proud Darla offers.

"I know a girl from Sunnydale. Went to high school with you. Her name's Cordelia Chase. Did you know her?"

"Why? Did you kill her?"

"I might." He laughs and shakes his head. "I'm only kidding. Cordy's, well, she's got some problems. She thinks she's better than everyone. She thinks she's perfect." He's actually describing what to him is the antithesis of Cordy.

"Like everyone should bow before her."

"Yes!" Connor grins and nods. Buffy thinks she's making progress. "All those clothes. Like they'd ever cover up her problems, make her look beautiful." Of course Connor thinks Cordy would look quite beautiful without any clothes. It's tough for him to pretend to despise her, but he soldiers on. After all, he is Angelus's son. Time to make evil daddy proud. "She's not even as pretty as you." That doesn't quite sound like a compliment to Buffy. Connor's trying his best, and occasionally he slips up. "What was she like in high school?" Connor literally wants to hang Buffy with her own words.

"I think you hit the nail on the head."

"What's that mean?" He really doesn't completely get the carpentry metaphor.

"It means she was a stuck-up, Little Miss Queen C." Connor laughs and gleefully nods his head. "Very rude. To everyone. It was as if the words went out her mouth before traveling through her brain. And since she was rich and popular, she thought she could get away with it."

"She was mean to people?" Once again, his anti-Cordy is identical to Buffy's actual Cordy.

"When wasn't she mean to people?" Connor giggles. "Completely self-absorbed. Not a care in the world for anyone else." Buffy has to be evil. No good person would ever describe Cordy in these terms. "She was bitch, and proud of it. Just ask her. I know she'd admit it. At least she's honest about herself. I'll give her that."

"But she was also selfish. And mean. And a bitch. Some people never change!" Buffy smiles. "Like you." Connor's expression changes to anger, and Buffy becomes worried. "Cordy is the nicest, bravest person I know." Buffy laughs because this is genuinely hilarious. Then she notices Connor's not joking.

"Then I feel sorry for you. You obviously haven't known that many nice people." With this, she was hitting the nail on the head. Connor puts the blade of his knife to the left side of Buffy's throat. His face looks deadly serious. She finds the fact that he can put on such a masquerade and switch personalities at the drop of a hat to be simply chilling. Definitely his father's son.

"I put a knife to her throat, and she glowed, and she healed me. Let's see if you can do that."

"What?"

"I knew it." Connor puts the knife in his pocket and walks away. "She has NO power!," he yells, throwing his hands up in the air. "Why am I wasting my time with her?"

"No power? No power!," Darla yells, pleading Buffy's case for her. "She made your father kill me. She took away his soul. And then, when he got his soul back, she punished him by sending him to Hell! No power!"

"That was a lifetime ago!" To Connor, more like two lifetimes.

"If you think I'm so powerless, why don't you untie me? I'm sure a big, strong man like yourself could keep a weak little woman like me in line." Now it's Buffy's turn to act. She thinks she deserves an Oscar for calling Connor a "big strong man" with a straight face.

"If Buffy's a threat, why didn't Cordy take care of her? Cordy could destroy her in a second."

"Okay, now you're just baiting me."

"Let her free, and she'll kill you," Darla pleads.

"Who said I was letting her go? I need to know more. I need to go find Spike."

"Connor. Connor, come back here! Don't you trust your own mother?" Buffy finds herself all alone. It sure was strange for him to abandon her like that. Maybe he was one of those psychos who got off on stretching out the suffering. It did give her friends more time to find her. But what was that Connor said about Spike? She still couldn't believe Spike was a killer. And even if he was, no way Spike would be in league with such a low-life.

Spike sits at the bar at the Bronze, drinking a beer. He looks to his right and spots Kit thirty feet away, where she's sitting at a table with Carlos. Kit looks Spike's way. Carlos glances over his shoulder. "Why you flirting with that old guy?" Kit and Spike both quickly look away from each other.

"I wasn't flirting. Besides, he's not that old."

"And what's up with his hair? He forget to mix the peroxide with water?"

"At least he doesn't use motor oil," she kids. Carlos lets it slide.

"I know Dawn would back me up on that creep."

"How do you know he's a creep?"

"He's macking on a high school girl. Need I say more? Speaking of Dawn, what was up with her today?"

"She said her house was haunted last night."

"Figures," he jokes. "And the limp?"

"Stepping on broken glass."

"Caused by the haunting?"

"Actually, yes."

"If things are that messed up at her place, isn't that a great reason for her to get out tonight?"

"You know how it is. Buffy probably made her stay in to do homework or something."

After forty minutes, Connor has yet to return. Tracking down Spike's scent is proving to be harder than expected. But tracking down a helpless Slayer - that takes slightly less time. A vampire enters the garage. He sees Buffy, her arms and legs bound and spread, and he smiles. "Perfect," she sighs. "Just perfect."