Willow and Xander take Buffy back to Xander's apartment, where she relates her strange encounter. "Last night you met a guy who said Spike was his sire," Xander recalls. "Tonight you met one who said Angel's his sire."
"Not sire. Father. He kept calling him father. And he said Darla was his mother."
"Vampires can't have two parents, I mean, sires," Willow remarks.
"And he kept insisting he wasn't a vampire. Whenever I called him one, he flew into a rage."
"He's in denial?," Xander asks.
"He's deluded," Buffy responds. "But I already mentioned that part. Plus, he's obsessed with Cordelia."
"She isn't a vampire, is she?," Xander inquires anxiously.
"Maybe he went to high school with us," Buffy proposes, "and I didn't notice him because he was too much of a freak even for me. Or he was a transfer student who was attacked right after he got to town. That would explain the Cordy fixation."
"You think he's mad at me for giving Angel his soul back?," Willow wonders.
"I doubt it. For an evil vampire, he seemed unusually pro-soul. He called me a soul-stealing succubi."
"What!?," Xander exclaims. "Where'd he get that from?"
"Buffy is not a soul-stealing succubi," Willow offers. "Except, for that one time, when I guess you were. But that wasn't your fault."
Xander finally understands. "No offense, but wouldn't he be glad about that?"
"And did I mention that he talks to invisible people?"
"Never a good sign," Willow comments.
"Let me get this straight," Xander proposes. "He hates you. He loves Cordy. He's weirdly attached to Angel. And he loves Angel's sire."
"Oh, and he's eerily calm," Buffy adds. "When he's not in a mouth-frothing rage. I got the sense this boy wanted to torture me for a long time."
"But he left," Willow recalls. "How soon before we got there?"
"Less than a minute, I think."
"That's suspicious."
"Like he new we were coming," Xander comments.
"He called you my minions."
"That's insulting!," Willow exclaims.
"There is a huge difference between Scoobies and minions. Demons have minions."
"He thinks I'm part-demon."
"Well you kinda are," Willow points out. "But not in a scaly, horny, disgusting way. In an empowering, heroic, sexy – to men – way."
"What if he's working for Spike?," Xander proposes, always one to implicate Captain Peroxide.
"He wants to kill Spike. That's what he told me."
"Why?," Xander asks, wondering if this Connor vampire thinks Spike's good.
"Because he's a vampire."
"Okay," Xander responds, pausing to reflect on Connor's convoluted logic. "Clearly this kid has some serious identity issues."
"Not to mention logic issues," Buffy points out. "If you want to kill vampires, why tie up a vampire Slayer?"
"Either he wants to kill you or work with you," Willow offers. "He should make up his mind. It's like he thinks he's some vampire Hamlet." Spike enters. Buffy stands up.
"How wus your night?," he asks casually.
"I've had better."
"Me too."
"You looked like you were having a pretty good time."
"So you were spying on me?"
"I was trying to do what I do every night: save lives."
"Well I wusn't taking any."
"What were you going after those girls for, then?"
Spike smirks. "A nice roll in an abandoned building." She punches him in the mouth. "Nostalgic, are we?" Neither Willow nor Xander feels comfortable with where this is going.
"Spike, did you know a vampire named Connor?," Willow asks.
"A vampire named Connor. Can't say I did."
"How about way back in the day?"
"Sorry. Doesn't ring a bell. Why?," Spike chortles. "Did this Connor' say I sired him?"
"Not exactly," Buffy responds.
"Then he's not my bloody problem. I take it you staked this vampire?" Spike turns right to go into his bedroom, but Buffy grabs his left arm.
"I'm going to find out what you're up to."
"Talk about setting yourself up for a bloody disappointment."
Connor stands along the railroad tracks. He hears the train approaching. "He did that to you?," Connor asks Darla.
"I know this is tough for you to hear. But I have to tell you, because you don't hide the truth from people you love."
"I guess not," Connor says with a disappointed look on his face. Darla disappears, and he leaps on the freight train, which gets him home a few hours before sunup. He heads straight to his loft and watches Cordy sleep.
"Were you okay last night?," Connor asks in the morning when she awakes.
"No ninja lawyers," she replies with a smile.
"I'm sorry I came back so late. But I was hunting. I killed four vampires. I think it's important to save lives and help people. I'm special, so I guess it's my duty or something."
Cordelia smiles. "You are so much like your father."
Connor scowls. "No. I'm not. I only have eyes for you." Cordy's made uncomfortable by the come on. She doesn't get the insinuation. A few hours later, Angel drops by. Connor steps in his way. He looks angrier than usual, which is saying something.
"Hi Connor."
"What are you doing here? The sun's out."
"I took the tunnels."
"You want to tell me about your curse?" Cordy's as shocked as Angel. She shakes her head, indicated that she said nothing.
"Who told you about that?"
"So it's a secret you wanted to keep from me."
"No. It's, it's not relevant right now. Where is this coming from?" It seems utterly unrelated to Connor's usual grievances.
"Perfect happiness. Is that what you can't have?"
"Um, yes." Angel's beginning to get it, and he appears nervous.
"Did you feel perfect happiness when you made me?"
"Connor, that was a complicated situation - "
"What did you feel?"
"Let me explain."
"What did creating me make you feel?"
Angel pauses. "To be fair, if I had known I was creating life, I would have felt differently."
"Perfect despair! Is that what you felt? Perfect despair! Is that what I am to you?"
Angel is stunned. "Where did you hear that?"
"No wonder you let Holtz take me." Now that was a low blow.
"Connor, stop it," Cordy pleads, walking over to him.
"You gave her a ring, said thanks for a good time,' and told her to leave town or else you'd kill her. Real nice way to treat the mother of your child."
"At that point, she wasn't the mother of my child. Connor, who told you these things?"
"Does it matter? They're the truth. You love someone, you don't hide the truth from them. You've hid a lot of things from me. And a lot of people"
"Things and people who have nothing to do with you."
"It's time to stop hiding in the darkness."
"What do you want to know? What questions do you have?," Angel asks, trying play along.
"Did you set my mother on fire before or after you slept with her?"
"Before. Connor, you have to understand, your mother was killing people."
"Nothing you haven't done, hypocrite." Angel doesn't get it. Connor's reasoning is shoddier than usual. But before Angel can point out the faults in his son's logic, Connor grabs Angel and throws him over his shoulder and towards the open window. Angel catches fire.
"Connor, no!," Cordy screams, grabbing his left arm. Connor pushes her to the ground and runs at his father, hitting him in the chest with a leaping right kick as he tries to escape into the shadows.
"How does it feel? How does it feel?," Connor asks as he grabs Angel and holds his father in the light. Flames shoot off of Angel's back. Cordy finally grabs both of Connor's arms from behind, pulling him away from his father long enough for Angel to run away from the window and roll along the ground. Cordy throws a blanket on top of him. She angrily looks to her left at Connor as she kneels over Angel.
"Connor, what's gotten into you?" He runs away. "I'm so sorry," Cordy says to Angel.
"It's not your fault."
"I didn't tell him anything. I swear."
"How could you? Most of those details you didn't even know."
"He's been acting strange – well, stranger – ever since Spike came."
"Spike couldn't know that stuff," Angel snorts. "Only Darla could."
There's a long silence. "You're not saying what I think you're saying."
"I don't know what I'm saying. All I know is someone who hates me is messing with my son's head."
"Wolfram & Hart. They brought her back once."
"Doesn't make sense. Who did Darla talk to?" Angel's eyes open wide with recognition. "Lindsey."