Chapter Five
A very nice-looking man opened the door. Faith straightened her shoulders.
"Mr. Reilly?" she asked.
His eyes swept the three girls standing on his porch before answering. "Yes?"
"We're looking for Connor," Faith said, deciding a brisk, professional tone would be best. "Is he in?"
Reilly frowned slightly. "No, I'm afraid not. He's in San Francisco for the summer."
"Could you give us his address? We're from Wolfram & Hart; we just want to check in on how he's adjusting." She smiled and handed him the business card she'd stolen from the law firm's receptionist. The card merely stated the receptionist's name, Stephanie McCormick, and not her title. Faith wished she'd grabbed a few more.
Reilly looked from the card to Faith, his eyes scanning her attire before glancing suspiciously at Katie and Elena. Faith leaned forward slightly.
"I sometimes take local high school kids with me on my weekend rounds," she whispered. "They feel more comfortable if I don't wear my suit." She had her jacket buttoned to her collar bone to make her outfit more modest. Underneath it she was drenched with sweat thanks to the blistering June sun.
Reilly relaxed and smiled slightly. "Of course. It's very kind of you to follow up with us."
"Satisfaction guaranteed," Faith said in her best Perky Buffy imitation.
"Just a moment." Reilly disappeared into the house and returned a few seconds later with a ballpoint pen. He flipped the business card over against the doorjamb and began writing. "Here's his address and phone number there. He's really doing quite well. He has an internship with Martin & Boggs, a very prestigious architecture firm." He grinned at her, oozing paternal pride.
Faith nodded and accepted the card. "Thank you, sir. I'll make sure this gets to a member of our San Francisco team first thing Monday morning." She took a step back. "Have a good day."
Reilly waved and shut the door.
As they walked toward their waiting cab, Faith was extremely aware of the card held between her fingertips.
"I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that he's our age," Katie said.
"Me, too," Faith said, watching California roll by out of her window. She was tired of buses, tired of boarding one every few weeks to move on to a different city. Even empty they felt claustrophobic, and the bus from L.A. to San Francisco was a popular route; this bus was anything but empty. She never thought she'd consciously wish she could just settle down and really live somewhere, but if it meant she never had to ride a bus again, she'd do it in a heartbeat.
"I mean, Angel wasn't exactly a chatterbox," she continued, "especially about himself, but how do you manage to keep from everyone that you have a kid? Even Buffy doesn't know about him, and you'd think he'd have at least told her, what with their 'forever love' and all."
Elena sat next to a large, snoring man in the row in front of Faith and Katie. She twisted around and knelt facingbackwards in her seat, looking at them over the headrest. "Maybe he was protecting him. Maybe Angel had to give his son away long ago, and could not tell because something horrible would happen?"
"Like what?" Katie asked.
Elena shrugged. "Or it is the magic, like Faith thinks."
"Or this is just some kid who happens to be named Connor and who, through some freak incident, survived getting hit by a van," Katie said.
"Yes," Faith said, "we all know what you think."
Katie huffed and leaned slightly toward the aisle so she could look out the bus's windshield; it kept her from getting motion sickness. After a few seconds of silence, Elena turned around and sat properly in her seat, the man next to her continuing to snore. Faith returned her gaze to the landscape outside her window and tried not to think of Robin Wood.
That was another reason she was tired of buses. Unwelcome memories.
It was a slightly ghetto apartment building, the kind you could rent by the week or month. The Slayers climbed the fire escape-like stairs to the third level and made their way to number 316. The blinds were shut against the slanting rays of the setting sun, but Faith could hear the faint thumping of music punctuated by what sounded like small explosions.
She knocked, and they waited.
"Maybe he's not home," Elena said, twisting the bottom of her t-shirt.
"No," Faith said. "Video game. Can't hear us." She slammed her fist against the door three times, making it rattle in its frame.
"Whole building heard that," Katie muttered.
The noise from inside stopped abruptly, and then they heard the chain being pulled back. A young man pulled the door open a few inches, his body language cautious but confident.
Faith stared at him. Connor stared back.
She'd found him.
"Faith!" he said.
Her eyes widened, and her own questions stuck in her throat.
"Wait," Katie said, "he knows you?" She turned to Connor. "You're actually him?"
Connor opened the door a little wider, letting his body fill the opening. He stared at Faith, the expression on his face a mixture of apprehension and enthusiasm. "You don't remember me, do you?" he asked. "No, of course not. You weren't there. That Window thing wouldn't have worked on you."
Katie said, "Huh?"
Faith managed to choke out, "Connor."
"Wow," he continued, not seeming to hear either of them. "I never thought I'd see you again, that's for sure. Didn't you go to Sunnydale? Were you there when, you know…" He mimed an explosion with his hands.
"You're Connor," Faith said again, her voice stronger. She had a strange urge to touch him.
He frowned slightly. "Uh, yeah. Hey, how do you know about me? You're not supposed to."
"She had a dream," Elena said. "A vision that led us to you."
Connor turned his head, taking in the other Slayers for the first time. "A vision?" he asked. Faith expected him to be confused or at least wary. Instead, he sagged against the door frame. "A vision," he said flatly.
"Could we come inside?" Elena asked, her voice soft.
Connor straightened. "Yeah. Yeah, of course." He stepped back, holding the door open for them.
The inside of the apartment was about what Faith would expect in a temporary summer residence for a college guy. The furniture was worn and mismatched, either hand-me-downs from relatives or picked up at the local thrift store. A videogame was paused, one of those first-person, alien-shooting games Faith had enjoyed during her stint as the Mayor's right-hand gal. Overall, the place was tidy and ordered, managing to be shabby and homey at the same time.
Connor crouched by the game console, shutting it off,and waved them to the plaid couch. He turned a blue armchair so that it faced them rather than the television and sat. "My roommates are at a work dinner," he said. "They should be gone for a while yet." He placed his hands on the armrests and squeezed. "I think I know why you're here," he continued. "And my answer's no."
"Aw, come on," Katie said, crossing her arms, then uncrossing them. "We didn't even ask our question." She turned to Faith. "Do we have a question?"
Faith shook her head. "I didn't get that far. I just…had to find him. You."
Connor frowned again. "That's it? You had a vision and came to find me and you don't even know why?"
"Yeah, man," Katie said, scooting to the edge of the couch so she could twist herself to face Faith more squarely. "This was a friggin' quest, and you don't even have a reason?"
"Look," Faith snapped, her gaze mostly on Katie, but flicking to incorporate Connor as well. "The dream didn't come with instructions, all right? I didn't get bullet points on 'how' and 'why.' I just knew I had to find him."
"'Cause Angel told you to," Katie said flatly.
"He did?" Connor's question came out as a whisper, and the hope in it made Faith's stomach twist.
"In my dream," she said. "He's still dead."
Connor flinched. "Right."
"He said you were important, but lost. And that I'd have to take care of you." She smiled. "And that you had his chin. He had this whole proud poppa thing goin' on. Kind of embarrassing, really."
Connor absently touched his chin while he thought, his gaze lost somewhere in the carpet. "Why would you need to take care of me?"
She shrugged. "You tell me. I just have the dreams."
He looked up at her, and the pain in his eyes made her forget to breathe. It was as powerful as anything she'd ever experienced in the deepest pits of her existence. "I don't want to fight anymore," he said. He blinked, and the haunted teenager was replaced with the normal one. "Don't take it personally, though. I told the Irish guy the same thing yesterday."
Faith straightened. "The Irish guy was here?" The question came out sharper than she meant it to, and Connor sat back in his chair, blinking.
"Yeah. He kept going on about taking up my father's mantle as a champion. He really liked that word, 'champion.' Got pretty poetic about it, really."
"So he wasn't trying to, you know, kill you?" Faith asked.
Connor shook his head. "Not that I noticed. I'm pretty sure I could've taken him, though." He smiled. "Last time I saw you, though, you pounded me pretty good. But I guess you don't remember that."
"Is anyone else really confused?" Katie asked. Elena raised her hand.
"I knew you," Faith said. Connor nodded. "And there was some wacky memory mojo." He nodded again. "When?" she asked.
"When Wesley broke you out of prison to help catch Angelus."
"I broke myself out of prison, thank you," she said distractedly, her mind racing through her memories of that time. She remembered Gunn, a cranky Cordy, a geeky girl named Fred. No Connor. "That is so weird."
"No kidding," he said. "I've got two sets of memories now."
"You going to explain this to us later?" Katie asked.
They were silent for a moment. Katie lounged in the corner of the couch, her legs stretched out in front of her. Faith leaned her elbows on her knees and stared at the floor as she continued running through memories, wondering how many others Connor had been wiped from. Connor drummed his fingers on the armrests of his chair
Elena studied Connor, her face its usual abundance of interest and concern. She spoke so softly, it took a moment for the words to fully register in Faith's mind. "Did you know you are part demon?"
There was half a second of stunned silence before Katie leapt to her feet. "I knew it!" she cried.
Connor stared at his lap, but he didn't seem surprised by Elena's declaration.
"I don't care who his dad is, Faith," Katie continued. "Why are we sitting here talking to a demon?" She waved an arm in Connor's direction, her entire body tense.
"Sit down," Faith said. She stared at the taller Slayer, but Katie's only concession was to cross her arms and stare stonily back.
"He is a demon," she said, enunciating each word. "Just 'cause he looks human—"
"So do we," Faith snapped.
Katie froze with her mouth open, and Elena's gaze left Connor for the first time since he'd opened the door.
Faith rolled her eyes. "Where do you think the super powers come from? Eating your spinach? There was some sort of mystical demon-human cross-pollination thing way back when they made the first Slayer." She waved a hand in a vague gesture, relegating the origins of the Slayer to that murky category of things she didn't care enough to understand. "Giles explains it better. He needs to stop leaving it out of you newbies' Slayer 101 history crash course or whatever it is he's doing. Do you get a pamphlet or something?"
Neither of them answered her question, but Katie did return to the couch, sitting heavily enough to bounce Elena.
"You're all Slayers?" Connor asked.
Faith nodded once before addressing Elena. "How'd you know that, anyway, 'Lena?"
Elena looked from Faith to Connor and back. "I can feel it. You cannot?"
"I thought there was only one Slayer," Connor said, frowning at Faith.
"What do you mean you can feel it?" Katie asked, frowning at Elena. "What on earth does that mean?"
"A witch made more," Faith said to Connor.
Elena said, "I don't know. I can just tell. He feels different."
"Do we feel different?" Katie asked.
"Yes, but not the same different as him."
Connor said, "That's why I don't want to fight." His statement put a stop to the flurry of words, and the Slayers' attention focused on him.
"I don't think we're asking you to fight," Elena said. "I don't think we're asking you to do anything."
Connor shifted in his chair. "Maybe not. But someday you might, and I need you to know that I can't."
"What makes you think we would?" Katie asked, not quite able to keep the scorn from her voice. "Just because you're all demony doesn't mean you'd be any use." She crossed her arms and made an obvious show of looking him up and down.
Faith would have told Katie to shut up and sit down, but she'd been about to ask the same question.
"I can fight," Connor said flatly. "I did. But I want to just pretend that half of my life didn't happen. Because I remember how much I liked it—the…fighting—and it scares me."
"Good," Faith said. She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but at Connor's gaze she elaborated. "It's good that it scares you. You like it too much, bad things happen."
Connor blinked, and the expression in his eyes shifted. "I remember," he said softly. "You were in prison for murder."
Faith stopped breathing. From the silence, everyone else had stopped breathing too, including Connor, whose eyes widened as he looked from Faith to the other Slayers and back.
Katie slowly unfolded her arms, and Faith met her stare. A string of ready excuses ran through her head. Katie's distrust of law enforcement would make it easy. A botched night of Slaying left her holding a dying woman when the cops showed up….
But Angel's words drowned them out. That it wouldn't be easy, that she'd never be done paying for what she'd done…but that it was still the right thing to do.
She stood.
"You beat up some people in a club," Katie said. She sounded confused, disbelieving. Suspicious.
"Did that, too," Faith said evenly. "Did a lot of stuff."
Katie drew herself up, clenching her fists. "Did you kill someone?"
"Yes."
Katie flinched as though the word was a physical attack. The betrayal and hurt on her face tore at Faith in the same way.
"I switched sides for a while," she said, trying to explain. "I was screwed up." Still am, she added to herself. Just not as much.
Katie swallowed. "I…I think I…"
"Do what you need to do," Faith said quietly.
Katie stared at her for another second, then, in four long strides, she moved to the apartment door, wrenched it open, and disappeared.
Faith closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them to look at Elena. The younger Slayer looked back at her, her gaze steady and full of sorrow.
"I think I should go after her," Elena said.
Faith nodded.
When the other Slayer was gone and a string of long, awkward seconds had passed, Connor said, "I'm sorry. I didn't—"
"Not your fault," Faith said, the words feeling brittle. "Mine. I should go, too."
Connor nodded and also stood, and they moved to the door. Outside, Faith paused, scanning the area for her Slayers, but they were gone.
"I'm sure they'll…" Connor looked down at his feet.
Faith waved his words away. "They'll be all right. Just need some time," she said, wishing that were true. She turned toward him. "Look. I had that dream for a reason, and the only thing I know is the fight. I know you already said no, but maybe you need to reconsider."
Taking a deep breath, he lifted his face to meet her gaze one last time. "Angel gave up a lot for me to have a different life. I think the greatest thing I can do to honor him now is to live it. Don't you?"
All she could do was nod.
He went inside.
Faith stood on the walkway outside his door, alone. In just a few minutes she'd lost both her Slayers and Angel's son.
She needed something strong to drink or something hard to hit. Preferably both. She turned and made her way down the stairs.
There had to be a bar around here somewhere.