Devlin comes close to befriending Fred. Deb and he talk about how they hope to thwart Buffy's efforts. Meanwhile, Giles decides to pick up the rogue Slayer as soon as possible, and discusses his plans with a fetching new colleague who's appeared in this story before.

Harmony finds Spike wandering down Hollywood Boulevard at one in the morning. She crosses the street and walks quickly to catch up with him. "Struck out again?," she jokes. He turns around. "Don't worry. It's not you, it's them. Have you tried Venice Beach? I hear the girls who hang out there are a lot more friendly."

"Monday's usually a slow night for the vamps."

"Guess so. We're standing in the middle of Blood Alley.' If they're not biting here - "

"They're probably nibbling somewhere else. Someplace where no one's hunting them."

"Did you love him?"

"Him? Wh-which him?" He's worried she has the completely wrong idea about Angelus and him in the old days.

"Devlin."

"No. Of course not. I wus always fond of the boy. But love never entered into the equation."

"Did he love you?"

"I doubt it. He looked up to me. Took after me. Had a certain strong affection for me. But it was never love."

"I don't mean the kind where he wants to have sex with you. There are other kinds."

"We were close. But we argued and fought constantly. He kept striking out on his own. If he loved me, like a father or something, he would have hung around longer."

"Why him? What attracted you? You can see hundreds of people in a night. But he's the one you sired."

"The way he talked with his friends, the way he controlled the conversation, he looked like he had the makings of a leader. And once we got talking, it didn't take me long to notice how smart he was. He had brains, ambition, originality. You got those, the strength follows automatically."

"But what was in it for you?"

"After killing my second Slayer, I felt like I had done everything. Everything except raise another vamp. Plus, I was about to turn one hundred."

"So it was a father thing. Or was it a mid-life crisis thing?"

"Murray Gell-Mann was far more important than Richard Feynman," Devlin declares.

"Of course," Fred concurs. "Strangeness. Quarks. It's impossible to imagine the past forty years of sub-particle physics without him."

"Not that Feynman was THAT overrated. He also won a Nobel Prize. And he was talking about nanotechnology all the way back in 1959."

"Helping develop Quantum Electrodynamics ain't nothing to sneeze at."

"But QED has nothing to do with why Feynman was way more famous than Gell-Mann. Feynman was showman. He had all those pithy little aphorisms."

"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results - "

"But that's not why we do it!"

Fred thinks about this. "That one never quite made sense to me."

"Or to any other Physics major." Fred takes offense.

"Like engineers get any more action," she responds, since Dev was majoring in electrical engineering (and minoring in classics) at the time Spike sired him. "I know how dateless the computer geeks were when I went to school. I can only imagine how much nerdier you guys were twenty years earlier, before programming went mainstream."

"I never claimed otherwise. What were we talking about?"

"Physics."

"No. Public relations. It's not just about what you achieve. It's how you sell those achievements. Feynman was that rare scientific genius who was an extrovert. Gell-Mann was a bigger genius, but an introvert. So he doesn't get to testify before Congress, or write a best-selling book. The joke was that after Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman' became a hit," Gell-Mann tried to write his own book of anecdotes. Only it ended up being called Of Course. Now I See That You Are Completely Correct, Professor Gell-Mann'."

Fred laughs. "That's so true. They taught at Cal Tech,so I had professors who'd worked with both of them. By the way, Gell-Mann's alive."

"He is?"

"He lives in New Mexico. You were talkin' about him in the past tense."

"My mistake. But my point still holds: What matters most is publicity, likability, Q ratings. It's the exact same way with vampires."

"Physicists are like vampires?," Fred asks herself. "That's even more wacky than saying physics is like sex." She's imagining Angel and Spike in lab coats, fumbling around with a bubble chamber, trying to figure out what the bloody thing's supposed to do. Angel asking Spike if he remembered to turn off the particle accelerator. Spike responding that he did. Angel not believing him. Spike insisting he turned it off because the collisions of sub-atomic particles didn't produce the cool explosions Spike had imagined they would, causing him to lose all interest in the contraption.

"Publicity trumps achievement. Take Dracula. The guy's a loser with a capital L."

"He's real?"

"And just as boring as the movies show him to be. No one who knows any other vampires would look at Dracula and say Now there is a sexy vampire.' You yourself have already met two who are far sexier." Fred doesn't look so sure. "The second one's Angel, not me."

"Oh."

"I'm probably far too young for you. Though my criticisms of Angel are diverse and voluminous, he's clearly superior to Vladi in every way. Though that is setting the bar rather low."

"You've met him?"

"Back in '93. He was just as underwhelming as Spike said he would be."

"Spike? And Dracula?"

"Used to know each other pretty well back in fin de siecle London. Which must mean he also knew Angelus. Though of course those two could have met far earlier. And probably did. Dru told me Angelus had a thing for Romania back when it was still the provinces of Wallachia, Transylvania, Moldavia, Bessarabia and Bukovina. I'm sure he kicked old Drac's ass. Or at least got in a few good hits before the wuss turned into smoke and floated away. Guy can't fight worth a lick. And those vampirettes of his? Fewer people have been inside Space Mountain."

"You're putting me on."

"I swear I'm not. Dracula's real. All of Anne Rice's are fictional. Although Akasha might be loosely based on a vampire from the Egyptian Pre-Dynastic period."

"Do I look gullible? And how did we get here from Murray Gell-Mann?"

"P.R. over talent. Dracula's like Feynman. I'm like Gell-Mann. Angel is Neils Bohr, and Spike is Wolfgang Pauli." At first, Fred laughs at Devlin's ridiculous analogies. But she stops laughing when something occurs to her.

"Pauli was taught by Bohr. He spent his first few years working for Bohr in Copenhagen."

"See. Just when you think I can't get any more ridiculous, I start making sense. Perhaps I was making sense all along."

"Maybe in your own mind you were."

"It's a shame that I haven't yet won you over," Devlin laments. "On the bright side, I have broken down nine of your ten layers of prejudicial revulsion."

"How awful of me. I discriminated on the basis of the whether or not you have a soul."

"The professor who sent you on that five year sabbatical abroad. Didn't he have a soul? Yet you assume a soul makes all the difference in the world. Perhaps it does for some people. But for me, it was just an alteration of incentives. I've never been evil. Never sought out the innocent. Never revelled in causing suffering for its own sake. I give people what they deserve."

"You're hardly an objective judge of that."

"So I'm wrong to believe that Deb deserves to live past the age of twenty?" Devlin hears Angel's car coming down the street. "How time flies." Fred stands. Dev does likewise. "One thing I forgot to mention. You guys aren't just using Wolfram & Hart's resources to help people? You're also using your positions to get inside their command structure, learn their secrets, probe their weaknesses? Okay, I'll take that blank stare as a no." He continues to talk as they walk towards the door. "You are aware that they can fire Angel and the rest of you at any moment, and there's nothing you can do about it."

Angel pulls into the driveway. "As first dates go, that wasn't so bad," Debbie jokes. Angel doesn't appreciate the humor.

"This is my business card. It has my office number. On the back, I wrote my cell number and my home number. Call anytime."

She looks at the card. "You guys must be desperate for a Slayer of your own," she kids.

"I don't want to exploit you. Frankly, I don't need to. I think you're overestimating your own power." If she wasn't going to be serious, he might as well do likewise.

"So you just came here because you have no social life and needed something to do at night," she says with a smile to indicate that her poking is all in good fun. He can tell she's beginning to trust him. As Debbie gets out, Devlin finishes his pitch to Fred.

"Think Evita.' Argentina, 1940. You're the nation's duly elected civilian leaders. But the army's loyal to its generals, not to you. And if the generals tell the troops to storm the presidential palace, you're outta there. Everyday could be your last. As long as you have the keys to the building, you need to make the most of that access."

"You think we should snoop around. Wouldn't that actually get us fired?"

"Not if you do it right." Debbie opens the front door. Dev and her smile at each other. "I get my girl back. He gets his. I hope this was one of you more pleasurable times as a hostage." As Fred walks out the door, she gives Devlin a quick glance and a tentative half-smile. "Halfway through that tenth layer," he says to himself as he closes the door. Fred gets in the car and Angel quickly drives off.

"I'm sorry I put you through that," Angel apologizes.

"It wasn't too bad. He's very eager to be liked."

"I thought he took after Spike."

"I think this trait goes back to when he was human. How did you and the Slayer get along?"

"Pretty well. Hardly what you would expect from the headlines: Slayer Shacking Up With Slayer-Killing Vamp' Slayer Uses Muscle To Rule School.' Her moral center's still intact. The interesting part is that she's not attracted to Devlin because he's bad. She's attracted to him because she thinks he's good."

"Poor girl's in for a rude awakening."

"If that ever happens, she'll know how to handle it."

"You really like this girl."

"Not like that."

"Angel, I know. She's young enough to be your — never mind." Angel lets the unintentional insinuation about Buffy slide.

"She's very spirited. And tough. Even before she got her power. Debbie has the heart of a warrior. She's a fighter."

"Is Dracula real?"

"Smaller than life. A vampire lives five centuries among hundreds of thousands of Gypsies, and not once do any of them feel the need to Curse him. How dangerous can he be?"

"Was Angel on his best behavior?," Devlin asks Debbie as she gets ready for bed while he works at the computer.

"Perfect gentleman."

"Does he know you're a one-vampire woman?"

"Angel's not hot for me."

"Then something must be wrong with him. You're definitely more beautiful than Buffy. Besides, I think she's getting a little long in the tooth for him."

"To Angel, I'm like a mentoring project. That's all."

"Not attracted to you. Honestly, I'm insulted," Devlin jokes. "Me and him are going to have a conversation about what his problem is."

"No problem. He just knows that you've ruined me for all other vampires."

"Maybe he's not as bloody stupid as I thought he was." Debbie sits on his lap. Dev gazes up at her.

"You don't really worry about that sorta thing, do ya Dev?"

"Of course not. And you shouldn't either. Just as I've ruined you, you've ruined me for all other women, mortal and unmortal. (Devlin doesn't like immortal' since so few vampires even make it to the century mark.) We've ruined each other."

"Gosh. You make it sound so romantic."

"Oh no!," Angel says, putting his left hand to his forehead as he drives. "Why did I do that?"

"Do what?"

"I gave Debbie my home number. Which means I also gave it to her boyfriend."

"And you're afraid he'll — what? — make a couple prank calls?"

"Or pass it on to every vampire he knows. I keep forgetting he's part of the equation because I wish he weren't."

"What do you worry about?," Devlin asks Debbie.

"Buffy."

"I told you I'll handle that."

"I know. Your hacker friend in Eugene is doing you a favor in exchange for you not killing him."

"And because he loves his work. Archie knows it's an idle threat. I can't kill someone I like."

"He figured out how to hack into the Council's e-mail server, and then told you how to do it yourself," Debbie reports, listlessly repeating what Devlin tells her every time she gets worried. "Are you reading their mail right now?"

"Sure am. Here's Andrew going on and on about nothing important. He does this practically everyday. And I have to sift through each one just in case something important is buried inside all this irrelevant, sycophantic bullcrap. Why does Buffy suffer this fool?"

"Are you sure they'd even mention that they were coming? These people live in the same city. They could always do business face-to-face."

"Whenever they are sending a team to pick up a new Slayer, everyone in the organization gets notified by a mass e-mail. Also, they reserve plane tickets on-line, which means someone always gets a confirmation letter listing their itinerary and flight numbers. We'll see them coming from eight thousand miles away."

"How come they haven't found you out?"

"Because I don't do anything. I just look. If, say, I started screwing with someone's account or tried to clone one of their credit card numbers, chances are they'd find me out pretty quickly. But they're not the CIA. They have no reason to fear that an enemy's reading their correspondence. Whoever heard of a vampire hacker?"

"But what good is being prepared if they send more muscle than we can deal with? It wouldn't be so hard to overpower us. 'Specially with the armies they got."

"It doesn't matter who they send. Or how many. They won't lay a hand you."

"No deaths. Remember."

"Why would I make corpses? A police investigation is the last thing we need. We want them out of the state as fast as possible, which requires them to be alive. Corpses are terrible at fleeing with their tails between their legs. You do trust me?"

"Honey, I burned that bridge a long time ago. Burned all the bridges. Now it's just the two of us, trapped on the desert island that is our relationship."

"And you accuse ME of being unsentimental." They kiss. Devlin picks her up and carries her over to the bed. Once they're down on the bed, he grabs hold of her shirt. But before he can take it off of her, Debbie sits up.

"Wait. Just wait." Dev also sits up.

"Something wrong? You're not pregnant, are you?," he jokes.

"Do you think we're getting too predictable?"

"Predictable! Was tonight predictable?"

"I mean this part. Every night we talk, cuddle, get into bed and make love for an hour if it's a school night, two hours on weekends."

"You watch the clock!?"

"No. Not until after. Ya know, before I fall asleep."

"It's a very action-packed hour."

"It's great. But it used to seem, I don't know, epic."

"Now that's unfair. Every time I go long, you complain that you're not getting enough sleep."

"I'm talking about intensity. Maybe it's because we've been living together for four months. It's natural for couples to settle into a routine."

"So we change the venue. The house does have six rooms."

"When was the last time we did something new? Something, uninhibited?"

"My Mustang?"

"No. That's old. But we could go somewhere in it." She thinks back to the place where Angel took her. "The beach!"

"Isn't it a little too cold for that?"

"At this hour? Yeah. Guess you're right."

"Wanna spar? That always heats things up."

"No," Debbie says with a yawn. "Too tired." She leans back on the bed and stares dejectedly at the ceiling. "Welcome to Dullsville."

"Population two. At least it's not overcrowded." Dev takes off his shirt and lies on top of Deb. They continue smooching as the two of them sit up and Debbie quickly removes her shirt. They embrace again and roll down onto the floor. Once she felt Dev's flesh press against hers, Debbie's malaise was over. The two of them moan and grunt as they roll and thrash around, knocking the wheeled desk chair first into the dresser, then through the open doorway and into the hall. "As routines go, this one's not too bad," Dev jokes before Deb grabs him and pulls him back down.

Fred meets up with Wesley back at work, and they repair to the executive lounge, with its leather couches and sixty inch television screen. Fred brings over a bowl full of microwave popcorn and sits to Wesley's left, putting right leg over his left leg. He puts his left arm around her shoulders, and they happily snuggle while Wesley decides which show to choose on BBCAmerica-onDemand. He selects "Waking the Dead."

"Don't ya want something more relaxing after a hard day?," Fred asks. "This always reminds me of work," she says about a show that focuses on forensic science, autopsies and crime-solving.

"I like Spencer Jordan. He's grown so much as a character. He's become this scintillating combination of intensity, intelligence and moral torment."

Fred laughs. "Ah'm sorry. But are you identifying with him?" She giggles some more.

"Out of all the characters, he is the one I identify with most. I focus on what's underneath the actor's skin," he adds, addressing the fact that the character's played by a black actor. Hence Fred's chuckles.

"Do you identify me with Frankie?," she asks about the young, female forensic scientist.

"She is highly intelligent. But you're a far more creative thinker. And I can't imagine Frankie driving an ax through a demon's skull. Speaking of which, how was your evening with our enemy?"

"Devlin? He's no enemy. Just a potential enemy, I suppose."

"What did the two of you talk about?"

"Quantum Physics." Wesley laughs.

"No. Seriously."

"Ah'm serious. He's a real nerd; in addition to being a real killer. He spent most of the night talking about Spike. Well, about a whole different Spike than I know."

"You mean the Spike that's evil."

"WAS evil."

"Which you already knew. So why are you so shocked by anything Devlin could have told you?"

"You know my rule: don't ask questions you already know the answer to."

"While you knew Spike was evil, you still could not imagine him that way. What was abstract became concrete."

"You seem to be revelling in this."

"Do I sound like I'm revelling?"

"You are takin' satisfaction."

"I simply believe that you cannot know the measure of a man when a crucial section of his life is hidden from view."

"Good thing I don't hafta worry about that with you," Fred declares, both of them unaware that this is not the case.

Tuesday morning, shortly after eleven. Angel and Anne walk out of his office after their meeting. "Last time we met, you were scolding me for taking money from Wolfram & Hart. Now you're running it. Should I file this under irony, or hypocrisy?"

"The city would be a far worse place if someone else had my job."

"When during the last three years did you get over your fear of dirty hands?"

"I still haven't."

"Situational ethics, then?"

"I admit it. When it comes to fighting evil and protecting the innocent, I'm a Machiavellian. If the ends can't justify the means, what can?"

"I'm not criticizing you, Angel. I'm sure you have reasons which I can't understand, and I accept that. But there was a time when you didn't cut me the same slack."

"I was in a bad place when we met. It was wrong to exploit you for my own private vendetta. But that's in the past."

"Relax Angel. I trust you." Spike enters and walks towards Angel from behind.

"Good morning!" Angel turns around and prepares to be annoyed. Since he's no longer looking at Anne, he can't see the look of sheer terror on her face. "She's definitely your type. But wut happened to Nina?" As Spike steps closer, Anne backs away. Her whole body's shaking.

"You stay the hell away from me." Angel looks at the hyperventilating Anne and wonders why she's looking at Spike with such petrified perplexity. "Angel. Angel. I thought you killed his kind?" Spike grins, further terrifying Anne.

"Ooooh. A fan. Pleasure to meet you, love." He takes a step towards her, causing Anne to back up an additional fifteen feet.

"Is this one of the dirty little deals you have to make for the greater good?," she asks Angel.

"Settle down, love. I won't bite. Gave that up a while back."

"You are a sick, sick monster. Angel, can you hit him for me, let him know this sort of thing is not funny?"

"I'd love to. But Anne, what's going on?"

"Did I attack you? Oh no. Oh no. I killed one of your friends. Family? Please tell me I didn't make you an orphan."

"You bit me!"

"Then why are you alive? I don't mean to sound callous, but that's what tends to happen."

"You don't remember."

"No, I don't. I'm sorry for biting you, and for forgetting that I bit you. So I didn't kill anyone you knew?"

"Remember the vampire worshipping cult in Sunnydale?" Then it all comes flooding back.

"Ford! Him I did kill. But you probably don't hold that against me, since he did try to have you killed."

"Spike's the vampire?," Angel asks. "Spike was the vampire who scared you straight? And, also made you abandon the idea that vampires were sexually desirable." He couldn't help but add that last part.

"Now I remember you. You had on that fetching black number with the choker." Anne slaps his face with her right hand. "Guess some girls don't like compliments. Just so you know, if you hadn't been so distracting, I would've gotten to Buffy before she got to Dru, and you and all your friends would have been killed by the other vamps. So, in a way, you saved a lot of lives that night. I'm sorry if I scared you. But, if what Angel just said wus right, it ended up being for the best. For the both of us. I've changed. I have a soul. I'm good now."

Anne stares at Angel. "It's true," he reluctantly concedes. "The part about having a soul. The other two are open to debate." Anne's rendered speechless.

"I used to work for Buffy, in fact. Well, it wus more than a working relationship." Anne stares at Spike. She moves her eyes to look at Angel again. His uncomfortable demeanor says it all. Anne gulps and grabs her stomach. Buffy. Her inspiration. Her namesake. Consorting with the demon she had long viewed as the very personification of evil?

"I think I'm going to be sick." The elevator opens. She runs towards it. Spike holds open the door and tries to enter. She punches his nose with a right fist. "What part of stay the hell away from me don't you understand?"

"Wait a second? Who are you? How do you know Angel? Do you require the services of a champion? Since Big-Brow sold out, I've been the one on the ground, doing the actual life-saving." She knees him in the groin. He winces and steps back. "First impressions don't have to be lasting impressions!," he yells out as the door closes. Spike turns around and glares at Angel. "You could've done a better job of vouching for me. Whoever that was, she seemed to like you."

"Do you feel no contrition at all, or are you just not smart enough to know when to express it?"

"For what? I didn't do anything to that bird. Is there any evil for me to fight, or should I go check in on Fred?" Spike decides to do that, and walks away. "At least there's one woman around here I won't give the willies to." Problem is, now that Devlin's talked to Fred, that's not longer the case. That's not to say Spike will frighten Fred. But, at least for the next few days, she will feel a tad uneasy around him.

Meanwhile, in the Eternal City, Giles looks over intelligence reports with Gretchen. She is forty years old, five foot nine inches tall, with long legs, strong shoulders, straight black hair that extends to just above her shoulders, and dark blue eyes. She wears a navy blue skirt that stops a few inches above her knees, a matching blazer and a light blue blouse.

"One Slayer. Four vampires," Giles notes.

"And the vampires work for the Slayer?," Gretchen asks in disbelief.

"According to our source."

"You mean according to Andrew's source."

"Our source. Who happened to talk to Andrew. It's Roger. We've worked with him before. You know that he's credible."

"My quarrel isn't with the source."

"You don't trust Andrew."

"I don't question his loyalty. Only his competence."

"He's worked in this region before. Quite successfully, if you recall. And I'm sending him with the same team as before. Tabitha will be in charge."

"What's their plan? Attack or recruit?"

"Recruit, of course."

"But they'll attack the vampires."

"My guess is the vampires will flee the moment they see what they're up against."

"You don't think the girl will mind?"

"I hope she'll come to her senses. You yourself have retrieved Slayers we believed to be quite hostile. But once they discovered there were others like them, once they were given the chance to be part of a community - "

"They signed right up. I like to think I had something to do with their change of heart."

"We both know that Andrew lacks . . . presence."

"Among other things."

"Yet he makes that work for him. The girls are often intimidated when they first meet me or Robson. Andrew doesn't look or sound like an authority figure. That can be very important when making first contact. To a newcomer, it appears that the Slayers are more-or-less autonomous, and that Andrew's authority depends entirely upon their consent. The last thing we want a potentially rebellious Slayer to think is that we're taking them away to a boot camp or a boarding school."

"I understand. He's the honey that catches more flies."

"Besides, your presence is needed here." They both look away from each other and fidget nervously. "Next to Buffy, you're the best trainer I have. The girls always request you to lead them on their first field assignments. And you're doing a great job of training Dawn."

"She trains herself."

"Quite true. But she values the time you two spend together. To be honest, she gets rather lonely when you're away."

"Is she the only one?," Gretch asks with a smirk. Giles cleans his glasses.

"Of course not. Buffy likes having you around as well." She laughs at his ducking of the question. "Which reminds me: Our friend Silvio has given me a box at for tonight's performance of Turandot.' I was hoping you could join me."

"Teatro Costanzi?"

"I believe so."

"Who's singing the title role?"

"Umm, er, I, I'm not - "

"Just kidding, Rupert." Gretchen says with a smile. "Sounds like fun, but I'm not sure I have anything appropriate to wear."

"Nonsense. You have that black dress you wore to Adriana's Christmas party."

"With the matching heels? The night I wore my hair slightly curly?"

"Your hair hadn't been curly for nearly a month by then. And you wore your hair up on that particular evening." Gretchen smiles.

"Just checking. Good to know you're paying attention." She leaves the room. Giles smiles. Poor guy. Every time he falls for a woman in the workplace, she turns out to have a tragic connection to one of Buffy's boyfriends.

Writer's note: I know what you may be thinking, but this is very different. For one thing, Angelus killed one of Jenny Calendar's ancestors, but not anyone in her immediate family (until Uncle Janos). And Jenny/Jana concealed her true identity. Giles knows that Gretchen Oden was orphaned at the age of thirteen when vampires killed her entire family, and possibly sired her missing brother. But Gretchen does not know that Devlin is Herman Odenbach. To be honest, she's never even heard of Devlin. And she certainly doesn't know that Spike was the vampire who sired her brother and killed her sister. Given all this, perhaps it's for the best that Giles is not sending her on this mission. For Gretchen's sake, for Devlin's sake, and for Spike's. If you had twelve Slayers under your command, and you learned that the vampire who destroyed everyone you loved was in the neighborhood, what would you do?