Gunn solves Buffy's problems. Harmony enjoys the fruits of her new alliance. Devlin's hacking gets Angel slapped. And a vampire refugee from the east coast makes her way west.

Just after Angel finishes his Saturday morning meeting with Gunn, Wes and Spike, Arthur Bolingbroke staggers into the lobby. He looks wretched. "Wesley. Old friend."

"Arthur? My God, what happened to you?"

"Haven't you heard? I'm a wanted man."

"You're the guy from Lakewood who sheltered the Slayers," Gunn realizes.

"Does that make you the fool who led them into that ambush?," Spike asks with a smile.

"He works for you?," Arthur asks Angel. "You pay this cretin?"

"Tough words from a man who looks like a street urchin."

"I've been hiding in the sewers. I can't go home."

"By the way, thanks for the gun," Spike blurts out. "It helped us catch a very bad man."

"My weapons! How did you - ?"

"We didn't," Spike replies, angering Angel.

"You really are with the enemy."

"That depends on what side of the line you work on," Wesley counters. "A spotter for the Council. You've really come far since your days as a journeyman demon hunter."

"From the looks of it, I'd say it's all been taken away," Spike jokes.

"You were there when they took Dana," Angel realizes.

"You think Andrew could come up with a plan like that?"

"Does that mean we shouldn't blame him for the fiasco the other night?," Wes asks.

"I don't who to blame."

"Start with yourself."

"Or you," Arthur replies, looking at Angel. "Someone had us under surveillance. I doubt it was those kids, because no one followed me. But they were ready. They knew when I'd arrive. Which means they knew when I left. Which means someone had to be watching my house. No, for you guys, that's not so hard."

"This line's getting tired," Angel declares. "If we were so good, why didn't we even know you had twelve Slayers in town the last time?"

"By the time you knew Dana was a Slayer, we had our troops on the ground. Debbie you knew about ahead of time. You'd met with her. You had a deal to protect her."

"You got your head handed to you by a bunch of second-rate opponents," Angel replies, offending Spike. "Accept it."

"Out of all the girls Buffy's sent for, you know how many didn't make the trip to Rome? One."

"Sounds like those vampires were quite first-rate," Spike remarks.

"No. They were just prepared."

"Why are you here Arthur?," Wes asks. "Do you expect us to give you protection?"

"It's not the police I'm scared of. It's those vampires. They know where I live. And they have guns."

"They didn't kill a single Slayer. Why would they kill you?," Angel asks.

"Because I'm the one who brought the Slayers. Without me, the Council's blind in this region."

"Clearly they put their faith in the wrong man," Gunn witheringly concludes.

"We got better things to do than protect an anxious small-time demon spotter," Angel tells Arthur.

"I'm not asking for protection. I want you to help me kill them."

"I'm a busy man. I have bigger things to worry about than taking out a few loser vamps who aren't even feeding."

"I know that you know where the leader lives. But I can tell you where the other three stay. We bust in during the day, it'll take like five seconds. I don't even need you. I can get the job done with Price and Gunn."

"And why should I help you?," Wes asks.

"I know things. You want an inside picture of goings-on at the new and improved Council, I can give it to you."

"My employees don't risk their lives for a few scraps of gossip," Angel tells Arthur.

"You don't think these vampires will come after you?"

"If they're dumb enough to try, we'll take care of them."

"How much you wanna bet they know where you live?," Arthur asks Wes and Gunn. "In case you haven't noticed, they aren't partial to fair fights. Sniping and ambushes, now that's more their style. You'll regret not striking them when you had the chance." Arthur walks towards to elevator.

"Leaving so soon?," Wesley asks mockingly. "I thought your life was in danger." Arthur turns around.

"We're all in danger. At least I'm alert to it." He leaves. Angel and friends found him a tad or two overdramatic. Devlin was hardly a clear and present danger to them.

Harmony wakes up shortly before sunrise on Sunday morning and begins to get dressed in Alex's bedroom. He hears her and wakes up. "Leaving so soon?"

"Early shift."

"Are you disappointed?"

"With you? No! Alex, you were great."

"You were, well, damn, I don't even know the words to do you justice." Harmony smiles. The best thing about Alex is how worshipful he is to her.

"That's what your friends are missing out on with high school girls: experience."

"It's more than that. Harmony, you're something else." She gets nervous. "Like the way you came in through my window."

"You left it open."

"We're on the second floor!"

"I do a lot of rock climbing."

"That doesn't even begin to explain it." There's her extraordinary strength, not to mention the fact that Alex has noticed her body feels a little cold. Also, she doesn't pant or catch her breath after sex.

"Do you want explanations or do you want a good time?"

"I'll choose blissful ignorance, thank you very much."

"Don't worry. I'll call." She kisses him, opens the window and leaps down to the ground. Alex quickly closes it and climbs back into bed, pretending to be asleep. His mother opens the door.

"Did you hear anything?"

"No."

"You father said he heard a loud bump. It woke him up."

"Guess I slept through it."

"You were up pretty late studying. Especially for a Saturday night."

"Yeah, well, I got behind in a few subjects."

"Try not to have the music on so loud next time."

"Sure. Sorry bout that. It . . . helped me study."

At two a.m., Monday morning in Rome, Gretchen walks into Buffy's living room, where she and Giles are waiting. "We're free."

"And the girls?," Buffy asks.

"They'll be on a plane home tomorrow morning."

Around the same time (five on Sunday afternoon), Gunn calls Angel's apartment to explain the details. "They'll even get Andrew back."

"I thought the police had him dead to rights?"

"They did. But I got them to let him walk. In exchange, he can't set foot in the United States for ten years."

"Exile. I didn't know they still used that punishment."

"Dana is now legally ours," Gretchen reports.

"Apparently, so is Andrew," Buffy jokes.

"Overcrowded prisons. A massive state budget deficit. Guess they didn't want to waste the expense on a man who's obviously not a threat."

"You vowed we'd be back in business come Monday, and you kept your word," Giles tells Gretchen with a smile.

"Do they know who was pulling the strings?," Angel asks.

"Not a clue. They think they pulled them," he replies with a laugh. "And they did. But we were the ones pushing from the other side."

"Buffy doesn't suspect we played a part?"

"They have no way of knowing who else was talking to Justice."

Buffy stands up. "Rona and Vi leave tomorrow morning," she says as she paces. "The injured Slayers arrive back tomorrow night. We need a place to keep them quarantined. Letting the other girls see them right away would hurt morale."

"How bout I get them hotel rooms," Gretchen suggests. "From one of those nice places that appreciates the fact that, thanks to us, their guests are no longer in danger."

"Word is bound to spread," Giles cautions.

"Words are one thing," Buffy explains. "The sight of maimed Slayers is far worse."

"I'm still trying to pinpoint the identities of the vampires who assaulted them," Giles pledges.

"Usually after something like this, the parties involved can't help but brag," Gretchen adds.

"We have plenty of Slayers in the states," Buffy points out. "Why can't we send them down there to clean house?"

"Because the vampires could always run," Giles replies. "Success breeds rashness. I say we wait for their next move before we pounce."

"Make THEM walk into the next ambush," Gretchen concludes. Giles smiles. Buffy looks at Gretchen suspiciously. She sees Gretch's comment as a back-handed dig at her leadership. What's more, she seems to be driving a wedge between Buffy and her Watcher. Giles is very fond of her. Especially now that he thinks she single-handedly cleaned up Buffy's mess in California and averted the biggest crisis in the fledgling Council's short history. In addition, she's very close to Dawn, and she's charmed Xander and Willow. Ever since the coup in Sunnydale, Buffy's kept her eyes out for traces of dissension and insubordination. I'm sure Devlin would appreciate it that his little sister is getting on Buffy's nerves. Of course, he wouldn't appreciate the fact that she's dedicated to wiping his kind off the planet. Sibling squabbles can be so ugly.

On Monday, around one in the afternoon, Harmony's phone at work rings. "Wolfram and Hart. How may I direct your call?"

"It's Devlin." Harmony smiles. "Don't say anything. Just listen and act natural." He knows talking like this will make her feel important. "In the closet in the employee's lounge, in the right pocket of your red coat, is a piece of paper. In the left pocket is an stamped, addressed envelope. When you leave work today, don't put your hands in the pockets until you're out of the building and across the street. Once you're clear, place the paper in the envelope, seal it and drop it in the nearest mailbox. Don't look at the paper. Don't read it. That way, in case you're caught, you won't know anything. Goodbye, Harmony. And good luck." Devlin hangs up and laughs at his faux-cloak-and-dagger routine. Harmony hangs up and smiles. A secret mission! This was exciting. At least, compared to the rest of her drab, repetitive routine.

Devlin wanted the addresses of the vampires who had tried to kill Debbie with the werewolf. One of his moles stole a piece of notepaper off of Wesley's desk while he was at a meeting. Another one copied the paper. A third returned the original note to Wesley's desk. A fourth wrote Devlin's address on the envelope and put on a stamp. A fifth took the copy of the note and the envelope to Harmony, who was his sixth inside operative. This may seem unnecessarily complicated, but Devlin made it a team effort for three reasons: he knew each one of them would get a rush out of being part of something secret, he knew that it was best to keep each person's job short and simple, and he knew it was important to keep them in the dark, lest they feel the urge to squeal. Only two of the six knew that the stolen info came from Wesley's desk, and none of them knew what it concerned. Also, because Devlin used a series of drops, none of the six knew who the others were. This points to a fourth reason: Devlin was bored. Concocting elaborate plans was one way to pass the time.

At four in the afternoon, Fred steps out of the elevator and quickly makes her way to Angel's office. She looks furious. "He's on the phone," Harmony cautions. Fred pays no heed and bursts on in. Angel sees the fury in her eyes.

"Look, something just came up. I'll call you back. What's wrong, Fred?" Fred marches up to Angel and slaps his face hard with her right hand, leaving finger and palm marks. "What was that for?"

"Don't play dumb. It doesn't suit you. Lecherous and lustful, on the other hand, well we know you're more-than-capable of that."

"What the hell are you talking about?" She slaps him again. "Ow!" Angel was at a loss. Had she found out about the Connor memory-erasing spell? "Do Gunn and Wesley know?"

"Oh, you're lucky they don't. Because when Charles and Wesley find out – well, especially Wesley – you'll be in BIG trouble."

"Fred, what I did, what I may have done to each of you, I had my reasons. I hope you can try and see things from my point of view." Fred goes to slap him a third time. Angel grabs her right wrist. "Enough with the slapping!"

"What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking about protecting the people I love." Fred gets a very confused look on her face. She slams a piece of paper she was holding in her left hand down onto Angel's desk.

"Tell me which sentence talks about protecting the people you love." Now Angel looks completely confused. He picks up the page, starts reading, and is aghast.

"Fred . . . Fred . . . I didn't write this. I would never, ever - "

"You hired someone else to write your employee evaluations?"

"This is NOT your evaluation! My God! Fred, how could you think I would be capable of writing something so, pornographic?"

"I didn't. Until I called human resources. They said it came from your computer." Fred moves around to the other side of the desk and does a search on Angel's hard drive. "There it is!!!" She kicks him in the groin with her right foot. "Explain this!"

Angel limps over to the screen. "I can't. Fred, I didn't write this. I swear to you. Someone must have snuck in when I was away."

"Figured out your screen-saver password."

"I guess."

"Figured out your employee password that allowed you to submit this to H.R. via the network."

"I guess."

"And done nothing else to the network. Such as, say, embezzle funds, erase files, shut down the mainframe."

"Apparently."

"Like a car thief who steals a Porsche just to drive it around the parking lot for a couple minutes."

"I don't know what to say. I didn't write this."

"Then how do you explain - ?"

"I can't. I'm sorry. I can't." He reads the next paragraph. "Oh God! This is sickening. Fred, you know me. You know I would never, ever, think – much less write – these things." He puts the page down, turns round to look out the window, and tries to collect himself.

"Angel, if there's something you wanna tell me, something you need to get off your chest, I won't get mad."

"Fred, you're a very attractive, very beautiful woman. But I've never been attracted to you. Not in this way."

"Not even when I kissed you?"

"That was only to keep us from getting seen."

"That may be. But you still seemed a little weak-kneed afterwards."

"What the hell do you want me to say? First you're furious because this forgery says," he picks up the page "my heart smolders for you . . . with a yearning, burning, churning desire – see, I'm not even a Cole Porter fan. That's a dead giveaway. And now, apparently, you're mad because I DON'T have these sorts of feelings for you."

"I'm sorry. Maybe I'm not sounding completely logical. This sorta thing popped up in my mailbox, and I kinda lost it. Anyone would. Imagine if I wrote something like this to you." Angel's still holding the paper in his right hand, and he starts to squeeze it as he balls his hand into a fist before quickly snapping out of it.

"Fred, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that I was irresistibly attracted to you.' Why would I express it in a business memo read by complete strangers? The only reason I would do that is if I wanted to subject myself to office ridicule and – who all has seen this?" Lorne bursts in, holding out a packet.

"Angel-kins - I love it! This is just what I needed to brighten an otherwise dreary day." Fred makes a fist and glares at Lorne. "I sense rage and deep disgust."

"It's this memo," Angel tries to explain.

"I know!," Lorne responds. "Everyone in my office is raving about it." Fred looks mortified. Angel takes the memo out of Lorne's hands. Lorne takes the one out of Angel's hands.

"It's a different memo," Angel notes.

"I'll say," Lorne concurs, raising his eyebrows. "When you say you're evaluating someone's body of work, you really mean it."

"I didn't write that! Or this."

"Well isn't he a modest mouse. You won't even take credit for your good ideas."

"What good idea?," Fred asks.

"Ambrosia. The new bar downstairs. Okay, the name's still subject to change."

"There's no bar downstairs."

"Not yet. But we're already contracting for the job. This thing is going to be huge."

Angel flips through the pages. "This is not my work. It's a forgery."

"Well then lie and say it's yours, cause it's a damn good forgery."

"A bar and club on the first floor. You think that's a good idea?"

"My club reborn! And this time it'll be safe. Who's gonna have the moxie to bomb Wolfram & Hart?" Fred takes a look at the proposal.

"Oh, here's the giveaway. Angel doesn't know how to use Powerpoint," she jokes. "Ah guess we are wasting a lotta space down there."

"Check out the bullet points on page twelve," Lorne suggests.

"Keep the employees here and encourage them to work longer hours. Entertain prospective clients." Fred looks excited. "Can you really get major pop stars to perform!? Which ones?"

"You should see my client list."

"I don't believe it. Someone's impersonating me."

"Two fake letters. It doesn't make sense," Fred declares. "One of 'em's trying to get you slapped. The other's trying to get you praised."

"Someone's hacked into my computer and written memos in my name," Angel explains to Lorne. Fred searches for Lorne's document, and finds it on Angel's desktop.

"Here it is."

"Who would do this?"

"Devlin," Fred realizes. He's got the computer skills. And the unhealthy, stalker-like attraction to Fred.

"Our new vampire pest?," Lorne asks. "For gosh sakes Angel, why don't you just hire the boy and get it over with?"

"That's not funny."

"He clearly wants to help. And better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in."

"What if he's inside the tent, pissing in?," Angel asks.

"It's clearly a cry for attention."

"He really went to a lot of effort on this proposal," Fred observes.

"Now you're defending the guy who made you slap me?," Angel wonders.

"Okay, he's warped. But since when is that a disqualification for employment around here? It's not like he'd be working full-time. We could make him a consultant. Bring him in when he'd be useful."

"He's evil! And he's at war with Buffy."

"Because he has too much time on his hands," Lorne counters.

"Maybe this is his way of trying to get Spike's attention," Fred suggests. Angel rolls his eyes. "Ah'm serious! They had a very close relationship. He probably just wants to work again with his sire again."

"So he can stake Spike in the back." Angel thinks this might not be so awful. "Or, stake me in the back. He's a trickster. A con man."

"Who helped us save a few lives the other night," Fred reminds him.

"Debbie helped us save a few lives. Devlin was just along for the ride." Fred shakes her head. "I can't believe you're on his side. After what he wrote!"

"I don't want him around any more than you. The boy creeps me out." She shivers. "But assigning him some field work couldn't hurt."

"You could make it dangerous, life-threatening field work if you want," Lorne suggests, trying to play on Angel's negative feelings towards Dev.

"He has someone on the inside. We need to find out who."

"And what better way to keep an eye on someone than to hire them," Lorne responds.

"Do to him what Wolfram & Hart is trying to do to us?"

"Exactamundo!"

"Except that Wolfram & Hart won't succeed."

"Which doesn't mean you won't," Fred offers. "You're smarter that Lilah and Eve and the rest of 'em, and Devlin's not as smart as you."

"I'm forced to deal with plenty of evil people every day. I'm not about to let any more in my life by choice."

Elektra stands on the shoulder of a two-lane road in central Pennsylvania late in the afternoon, nervously eyeing the cloudy sky. She is tall, in her late teens, with long light-brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. Elektra wears low-cut jeans and cut-off t-shirt to show off her stomach and her belly piercing. A car zooms towards her, and she sticks her right thumb out as she walks backwards. It passes her by, as do the next four. She glances again at the sky. Elektra steps out into the road, in the path of a blue pickup truck, smiling and leaning back slightly, a mixture of eager flirtation and languorous ennui. Her heart wasn't in it, but the men were always too stupid or self-centered to notice. The truck stops. Inside are two young men in their late-twenties. She smiles and hops up and down. "Thank you. Thank you so much! I've been out here for hours. Ever since the last guy dropped me off. See, he was only going to Altoona. But I need to get back to College Park. Are you going there?"

They look at each other. "It's on the way," the driver responds.

"Cool!" The passenger side door opens, and she climbs in between the men. "Do you need gas? I can chip in for gas."

"That's okay. We're fine."

"Thank you so much. I don't know how I can repay you."

"Don't worry 'bout it." The driver starts down the road.

"Are you a student?," the passenger asks.

"Yeah."

"What do you study?"

"Human nature." She puts her left foot on the brake, pulls the emergency brake, grabs the driver's throat with her left hand and throttles him.

"What the fuck!," the passenger yells. Elektra turns to face him. She's got her fangs out. "Holy shit!" She grabs his hair with her right hand and bites him in the neck. As she drains the passenger, the driver slowly stops struggling. She lets go of both of them when they're dead, goes back to her human face, licks her upper lip and scowls.

"I hate biting through stubble." She takes off the emergency brake, puts her foot on the accelerator and drives a little ways forward. After taking their wallets, she opens the passenger door and drops both bodies in a gulley before driving away. She flips through the fm dial, but can't find any decent stations. "Goddam middle of goddam nowhere," she mutters, picking up her phone and trying to make a call. "Regan? Regan, can you here me? It's Leks! I'm out in the freakin' boonies! Where are you? Albany? No, no, no, don't go to Montreal. It's not safe. Trust me, I've been. Where am I going? Nowhere in particular. Just living off the land. Maybe I'll swing by Chicago. You think they're there, too? Fuck! Slayers ruin the entire shore, and now they won't even give us flyover country. You calling me chicken? Listen Regan, just cause both my parents killed Slayers doesn't mean I can. And they never killed two at once. Believe me," Elektra adds with a sigh as she shakes her head.