When Connor's and Dawn's lips are but a centimeter apart, Connor sees Buffy out of the corner of his right eye. She sees him, with Dawn, and her head looks like it's about to explode. She rushes towards the boy. Connor lets go of Dawn and dashes for the rear exit. To Dawn, it's like he disappeared into thin air. She sees the very pissed-off Buffy and grabs her. "Buffy! What are you doing?"

"What am I doing? What am I doing!?" She pushes Dawn aside and continues her pursuit. But when she gets outside, he's gone. She rushes back in.

"That worked out about as well as we could have hoped," Cordy says to Angel. The image of him watching Connor and Dawn almost kiss, and watching Buffy watch them almost kiss, is seared painfully into his brain. A photographic memory has it drawbacks. Buffy rushes back to Dawn.

"You have REALLY done it this time."

"Why do you have to drive away every boy I meet?," she whines.

"Not every boy. Just the ones who want to kill you, or put a spell on you, or tried to kill me!!"

"What are you talking about?" She drags Dawn out of the Bronze while Angel climbs up onto the roof and looks for Connor.

"Have you been paying attention the last two days? That boy you were dancing with knocked me unconscious and tied me up last night."

"That's impossible! Connor's gentle. And good. He saved my life! And you never told me about this."

"I told everybody."

"You mean Xander and Willow."

"And you."

"No."

"Well, didn't you hear me talking to Angel tonight?"

"No. I was up in my room because Spike had killed my two best friends. Who later on tried to kill me!"

"Because you snuck out! I think there's a lesson here." A furious Dawn slaps Buffy's face with her right hand.

"You have got to be the world's biggest hypocrite." After all, Buffy was sheltering the vampire who sired those girls. "Connor is the sweetest boy I've ever met. He would never hurt anyone. Unless he thought they were evil." Buffy's beyond furious that Dawn's playing Blame the Victim, even though Buffy just did it herself.

"What the hell has gotten into you?"

"Lately, it's been hard to figure out whose side you're really on. Or maybe I just feel that way because I'm not Spike. You're always on his side."

"This is not about him. This is about you sneaking out and meeting strange, psychotic boys."

"Connor is not psychotic. Okay, he's strange. But he's also - "

"Angel's son." Dawn can't even begin to fathom this.

"What!?"

Angel catches up with Connor about a half mile away. He grabs his son's right arm from behind. Connor spins and hits Angel's face with a left hook. "Sorry," Connor offers. It's the first time he ever apologized for striking his father. "I thought you were someone else."

"Let me guess: Dawn's attacked by two, maybe three, vampires. And you swoop on in and kill them, getting a little neck wound in the process."

"We saved each other. And how do you know her name? Are you moving in on HER as well? That's so typical." Now that was something to make Angel's stomach turn.

"I know her name because we've met. She's Buffy's sister."

Connor shakes his head and slowly backs away in anger. "You just can't take it. I find a girl who doesn't like you, and you still have to ruin it. You ruin everything!"

"I ruin everything? Who's fault is it that Buffy wants to kill you?" Frustrated by Angel's logic, Connor takes a few seconds to answer.

"Mom told me to."

"Which you didn't find odd?"

"She's always protected me." This raises far more questions than Angel wants to answer at the moment, so he shifts the focus away from Darla.

"Did Buffy attack you?"

"Of course!"

"Before you attacked her?"

"I didn't give her a chance."

"How would you have reacted if a complete stranger knocked you out and tied you up?" Connor is angered by his father's good sense.

"She hates Cordy. She hates Cordy! How good can she be?"

"So he's not really Angel's son," Dawn says to Buffy after she tried to explain Connor's background. "He can't be. But he thinks he is. And Angel thinks he is. Because they have fake memories." Dawn smiles.

"Oh God no," Buffy declares, putting her right hand to her forehead. It didn't occur to her that Dawn would react positively to the information. "Did I remind you that he tortured me, and liked it?"

"You forgave Spike. Why can't you forgive Connor? He didn't even kill anyone."

"Spike didn't know what he was doing. That little bastard did."

"Maybe you scared him."

"You're blaming me!?"

"I'm just saying, the boy I met tonight couldn't have done what you said he did without a real good reason."

"He's psychotic. How's that for a reason?"

"Then why didn't he, I don't know, cut off your ears, or rip out your fingernails?" Buffy cringes at Dawn's imagination. "He just made sure you wouldn't hurt anyone, and then he let you go. What's so psychotic about that?"

"You didn't see his face. You didn't see his eyes."

"Yes I did," Dawn replies with a big grin.

"You're starting to make me physically ill. By the way, I thought you were in mourning for your friends? Picking up strange boys seems an odd way to grieve." Dawn slaps Buffy's face with her left hand. This slap is stronger than the previous one.

"How dare you. You're the one who let them die!" Buffy tries to slap Dawn with her right hand but Dawn reaches across her body and grabs Buffy's right wrist with her right hand. Buffy yanks her arm away, steps back and turns around for a second before turning back.

"This boy has you acting crazy."

"THIS BOY saved my life! THIS BOY was nice to me when no one else cared about my feelings. THIS BOY made me feel special, THIS BOY made me feel important, and you drove him away." Dawn contemplates punching Buffy, decides against it, starts crying and runs away.

Cordelia shines the headlights of Angel's car on Connor and Angel. "There you two are. So Buffy didn't give chase?"

"She's got a killer vampire to mount." Angel punches Connor for disrespecting Buffy and for bringing up Spike in a way that makes Angel jealous. Connor smiles wickedly. "No wonder she likes Spike instead of you, dad. You're not evil enough for her."

"Sorry to get in the way of this very disturbing family spat, but can we get the heck out of the Hellmouth before more bad stuff happens?," Cordy requests.

"She's right, you know," Angel says to Connor while grabbing his arm. Connor shoves his dad away.

"I have to find Dawn. I can't let Buffy win."

"And I can't let you get yourself hurt," Angel replies, grabbing Connor from behind, lifting his son's feet off the ground and carrying the struggling lad to the car, plopping him in the middle of the front seat. Cordy puts her left hand to his right cheek to calm Connor down and induce him to stay put.

"It's for the best. You don't belong here."

"I don't belong anywhere."

Buffy arrives at home. "What happened?," Willow asks. "Dawn is really broken up."

"She's grieving," Buffy replies, preferring to keep Dawn's interaction with Connor a secret. "How's Spike been?"

"Quiet. Docile. Hasn't killed anyone in at least an hour," Willow darkly jokes, upsetting Buffy. She rushes over to him, but is cut off by Xander.

"By the way Buff, after Spike punched me out, this kid burst into my place and tried to help me out. He seemed really nice. He also seemed to be hunting Spike. I'm not sure if there's a connection between these two things - "

"Was his name Connor?," Buffy asks, about to explode.

"He didn't give a name. You mean the guy who thinks he's Angel's son? No. This boy looked and acted nothing like Angel. Like I said, he was really nice to me."

"Scrawny kid? Soft, unmanly face, dressed and groomed like a runaway?"

"I suppose. Wait. Oh no. You're not saying - "

"I think you already did."

"But he was good! The kid who put an ice bag to my face and made sure I was okay cannot be the monster who held you hostage in that gas station."

"Everyone thinks he's good but me. I'm the only one who sees the truth." Then she makes sure Spike's all right. Xander thinks Buffy's getting a little topsy-turvy in her assessment of good and evil.

"What could you see in her?," Connor asks Angel as he drives down the highway. "She's not that pretty. Mom was prettier. Cordy's way prettier. Don't you think Cordy's prettier than Buffy?," He asks Angel with Cordelia in the car.

"Connor, that's sweet," she interjects. "Sweet, but not helpful."

"I'm going back," Connor vows. "You can't stop me."

"I can try."

"Because you don't want me to be happy?"

"Because I don't want you to end up in a body cast."

"Since when did you care about whether I was safe? You're the one who threw me out on the street!"

"He loved you, and you dropped him to the bottom of the ocean," Cordy reminds Connor.

"Who's side are you on? Oh. Right. His."

"There are no sides, Connor. Just reality. It's time you face it," Angel offers.

"Yeah. Reality," he says with a smile. "Like how Dawn's not really Buffy's sister." Without quite knowing why, Cordelia starts to feel worried about him.

"Don't you think Dawn's a little too immature for you?," she asks, putting her left hand on Connor's right knee. Angel glances over, sees this, and starts to worry as well.