Blood Drops On Rose Petals

By DM Evans

Chapter One

I had given up hope of being rescued. I didn’t know any more how long I had been here, days, weeks, months. It all blended together, thanks to all the drugs that they kept pumping into me. They must have backed down on them since I was actually able to walk around my cell. It wasn’t much of a walk but there was a window to investigate. It was tiny and so high I had to stand on my tiptoes to see out. I could see the moon and a thick stand of trees. It’s enough to tell me I wasn’t longer in the city.

How would Buffy ever find me now? We had all gone to L.A. to celebrate, if that’s the word for it, the year anniversary of Sunnydale getting sucked to hell. It was more of a ‘we survived it and the terrible year that came after so we’re gonna party’ kind of thing. To say last year had been stressful was beyond understatement. Faith, Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles and I had traveled the world gathering all the new Slayers to train in London while the Council reformed. It was hard work. Xander had been surprisingly serious about it, but that was probably more to keep his mind off Anya.

Kennedy had been left at the Cleveland Hellmouth to guard it as she was the next most experienced Slayer after Faith and Buffy, but it was more we didn’t want her around. After one wild party, she had tried to organize a daisy chain to prove she could be, I don’t know, as fun as Faith or something. She had been hitting on me all night. Willow had found out and her reaction had been swift and cold. I was glad she was gone. I had never liked Kennedy. She was too full of herself, a total brat. She reminded me of the worst inside of myself and it was ugly.

Andrew had scuttled off early on once Xander had gotten over the shock of Anya’s death enough to blame Andrew for it, for all that had happened to Sunnydale. In many ways, I agreed. He and his friends were the reason Tara died, that Willow had lost it and that the damn seal had ever opened in the first place. I slept a lot better at night knowing I didn’t have to worry about Andrew and his camera.

We chose Angel’s hotel to celebrate the anniversary. Principal Wood had joined with Angel’s group after recovering from his injuries. Wes had asked him aboard even though I never understood why exactly. Now that they worked for Wolfram and Hart they had all the man power they needed. I think Principal Wood had simply seen too much to go back to his old life, but I wouldn’t have wanted to stay there. Angel was acting weirder than normal, more short tempered and scary. It didn’t help that Wolfram and Hart had brought back Spike as a human and a sort of unpleasant one at that. He whined constantly about all the stuff he had lost. He wasn’t adjusting to being weaker, to just being human, very well. And then there was poor Cordy. I hadn’t ever been a Queen C fan but I felt sorry for her. She had woken from her coma but her mind was gone. She remained child-like but seemingly happy in the group home Wesley had found for her.

God, Wolfram and Hart, I had to warn Buffy. My sister probably still thought they’re simply the group Angel works for but they’re not. They’re more. They’re evil. They’re the ones who kidnapped me. I had been going to meet Fred at the law firm and some of the guards grabbed me, injecting me with something.

I didn’t remember much after that. Occasionally I woke up to find doctors, I guess they were, taking blood, hooking me up to machines, running tests, doing a gynecological exam. When I was awake and vaguely clear of mind, I felt degraded and terribly afraid. The spookiest part was no one would talk to me. It was like I didn’t exist, or I was a lab rat that didn’t rate so much as a word or two. Occasionally, I saw Lilah. I remembered her from the tour Fred had taken me on. She was the one who orchestrated my kidnapping. I’ve never been clear enough to ask questions to find out why she had done this to me but now I felt unfogged enough.

I tried to move the cot so I could see out the window better but it was bolted down. I had been moved from L.A.. Maybe many times for all I knew. I couldn’t wait for a rescue. I flopped back down on the bed, wondering about my new state of awareness. Had someone mistakenly not given me a dose of the drugs or maybe they wanted me awake for whatever came next?

It was so hard to keep track of time but it felt like hours before I heard the locks on my cell door moving. I wasn’t surprised when Lilah came through the door. She smirked at me, sauntering into my cell, her heels making annoying clicking sounds on the cold floor. She paused, waiting for me to speak, to cry or rave or something. I didn’t give her the satisfaction.

“Nothing to say?” She cocked an eyebrow at me.

“What would you like me to say? Want me to beg you to tell me what’s going on? To tell you my sister is gonna get you good for this?” I think I had been picking up Faith’s sarcasm, and oddly enough the old Dawn would have done just that but this last year has aged me a lot.

“I doubt that she will.” Lilah beckoned me forward. “Let’s go for a walk and you’ll see why you’re here.”

I didn’t argue. I might as well go with her. After all, what did I have to lose? If I saw where I was, maybe I’d see a way out because I wasn’t going to get out the little window.

Lilah led me out of the room into a corridor that was too bright, too antiseptic and it put me in mind of a hospital, only the hall was deserted except for what looked like guards at either end. One stood aside and let us pass into another bright hallway.

“Does Angel have any idea?” I asked.

“Of what? That we have you? No, but Angel’s an idiot,” she replied, daring me to contradict her. She seemed disappointed when I didn’t oblige. I’ve learned a lot this past year, grown up fast and one of the things I learned was not to volunteer information. “He’s been battling us ever since he arrived in L.A. We make one pitch on how there’s been a change in management, that we were the good guys now and how we wanted to help him help the world. The square-headed doofus of the night bit on that so hard and fast he doesn’t even realize he has the hook in his belly. If we had known how easy it was to buy off Angel Investigations, we would have tried it years ago.”

“That doesn’t sound like Angel.” I wrinkled my nose. “Why would he believe that?”

“Not just him, they all did because they’re greedy and despite one or two of them having a modicum of intelligence, it’s strictly book smarts. The combined common sense of Angel Investigations is somewhere less than a sea cucumber’s. All we had to do was give Angel the one thing he wanted most in the world,” Lilah said, going through another door and down the stairs.

We left the hospital, going underground into a maze of corridors. I could tell they were well traveled. There were a few tricycles, adult-sized with baskets on the handle bars that suggested people carried stuff from here to who knew where. I got the sense this complex was huge and it was one of the reasons I didn’t just charge Lilah and run for it. I didn’t know enough yet to do more than get caught and I still felt a little wobbly from all the drugs. I tried to look for markers to navigate by should I get free.

“I know you’re lying, Lilah,” I said, thinking on her last statement. “You haven’t given him the one thing Angel wants most. He’s still a cursed vampire. He can’t be with Buffy or anyone.”

Lilah’s smirk made me feel young and stupid. “That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted us to erase something from everyone’s memory.”

I made a face. “What?”

“We’ll get to that when we get where we’re going,” Lilah said, then patted me on the shoulder, a happy look on her face. “But you, Dawn, were a bonus. We’ve been looking forward to getting hold of you ever since we first learned of what you are. You can do a lot for good for us, Dawn.”

I knew she meant things that didn’t require my cooperation. She was giving me a look that reminded me of Glory. But like Glory, she talked too much. Giles said that was probably one of the reasons Buffy managed to beat Angelus way back when. He talked so much instead of acting that she had time to find the strength she needed to skewer the man she loved. Don’t even think about it, Dawn. You’re scared and depressed enough as it is. “The time has passed for me to open the gate to Glory’s realm, all the alignments are off.”

“Awww, sweetie, you’re not a key for just one place.” Her tone was saccharine. “You’re a skeleton key to all sorts of places. One such place will be ready for opening soon. You don’t even need to die, just bleed a little in the proper spot.”

“Is that what all the exams were for?” How many right turns had we made? I was already losing track.

“No, that was to test how human you are. You’ll be delighted to know that the monks seemed to have made you human in every way that counts. The doctors even went up and saw you have active ovaries. Isn’t that nice?” She smiled at me again. Ugh, did Glory have children?

“Not especially.” I so did not like where this was going.

“We’re curious to see what we might be able to breed from you. Given the amount of hormones the doctors have been pumping into you, you should be ready soon.”

“What if I don’t want to be a mom.” Damn, my voice was shaking. She knew I was scared but that was okay if I could just keep her talking while I decided if I had a chance of breaking free. I had no desire to be a mother. I was barely eighteen. I haven’t even graduated high school yet. Giles was home schooling me now. I was still a virgin and I had no plans of losing that to some damn science experiment.

“Don’t judge it too fast. You haven’t even met Daddy yet.” Lilah took me through another door into something that looked like a zoo exhibit behind thick glass and bars. There had been an effort to create a rocky wall on one side with a cave-like area. The rest was greenish but battle scarred, like the indoor grass had been torn and bloodied. There were a few trees inside the cage and some ropes. It reminded me of the gorilla exhibit in San Diego’s Zoo. There was auditorium seating all around the enclosure, and the rocky theme had been continued there. It smelled worse than the gorilla exhibit, hints of blood, sweat and stuff I’d rather not think about.

“It’s a thousand dollars a seat to watch him fight. He’s earning the firm a ton of money,” she informed me proudly.

“Who is?” I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to know what they thought I’d be sleeping with.

“He’s there.”

She pointed into the cavernous area. I peered into the darkness. I could barely see him moving, more of a shadowy blur than anything.

“What is he?”

“The son of two vampires,” she replied.

I whirled to face her. “What? That’s impossible!” I wished I sounded more convincing but why did it have to be impossible? I should be impossible and yet here I am.

“He’s Darla and Angel’s son. He was the one thing Angel wanted protected so much so he signed off on joining with us and signed over all his friends, too. Just be grateful he didn’t hand us Buffy and Faith in the process. We should have asked. He would have given them to us.” She sounded smug, so sure of herself.

I wanted to argue but I could barely form thoughts. “Angel...he doesn’t have a son. We’d know.”

“Maybe you did know once. We erased him from all memory, similar to how the monks installed you,” Lilah said.

“Angel couldn’t possibly have wanted this.” I stabbed a hand at the enclosure.

Lilah laughed so coldly she invoked Glory in my mind once more. “Angel’s an idiot. He thinks a golem we placed with a family is his son. He believes the boy is studying abroad in Russia.”

“Why did Angel want his son to disappear?” I couldn’t help staring into the shadows, looking for him. I got the impression he was studying us as well. Angel had a son...I couldn’t comprehend it.

“Connor went insane. We’ve been tracking him ever since he was born. He’s prophesied to do great things but with the Beast destroying much of the firm, we didn’t have time to act. I told the Senior Partners to snag the unnatural brat during the summer when Angel was MIA but they wanted to wait and watch him. A critical mistake. We never took away the Observers we had watching him. Ever seen an Observer? Cute little things, look like butterflies. They transmit massive amounts of information. We saw Connor go insane after he killed Jasmine.”

“Who’s Jasmine?” I felt so lost but since Lilah was obviously having fun showing me how little I knew, it was okay.

“Oh, right, you were busy with the First, weren’t you? Jasmine was going to bring world peace.”

“We did hear something on the news about L.A. going all mellow.”

“That was Jasmine’s doing.” Lilah ticked a finger against the bars. “Until Connor put a fist through her skull. So what if she was eating several dozen people a day to bring peace to the rest?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Sounds like a hell goddess.”

“I guess in a way she was.” Her eyes bored into me. “She was Connor’s daughter. We’re hoping he’ll continue to father children with such great potential.”

“Oh...no.” God, this was worse than I feared.

“The two of you could produce wonderful kids,” she informed me.

I tried to ignore that so I fished for more information. “I still don’t understand why Angel turned to you for help.”

“He lost track of his son in all the craziness after Connor snuffed his daughter. Our Observers didn’t. We watched him go off on a cop, babbling about family. We already knew how much that meant to him. It didn’t take a shrink to see he had had a nervous breakdown so we stepped in and showed him a whole bunch of people acting very unfamily-like and told him how to punish them. We rounded them up, wired them with explosives and wired him, too, since he was nuts enough to want to die. We even provided him Cordelia all wired up like a Christmas tree because we knew how much she meant to him.”

“Wait? What does she have to do with this?” This must be how Buffy feels when Giles starts going off about things he thinks she already should know about some demon or another.

“They were lovers. Cordelia was Jasmine’s mother. Angel was busy telling me what I could do with Wolfram and Hart’s deal while I was showing him the perks of his new office so I knew I had to do something to hook him before he got away. I let Angel see a newscast portraying Connor as a hostage taker. I guess he was, after a fashion.” Lilah shrugged. “Angel’s skull is so thick he never even stopped to think how an unarmed boy, even on as strong as Connor, could to subdue some thirty people in a place as big as a mall. Did Angel think Connor managed to carry an unconscious Cordelia into the mall like a gunny sack or did he think the hostages just sat there and waited while Connor ran out to get her? He never even questioned it, the moron. Hell, he never even stopped to think how Connor learned to make bombs. The boy was raised in a hell dimension with no education. He’s lucky he can tie his own shoelaces and somehow Angel figured out the boy learned advanced munitions somewhere. I hate working with stupid people.” Her face went dark like she was pissed off at Angel for not being challenging.

Put that way, Angel did sound like an idiot. I hated to think of him like that. “Why didn’t Angel just try to help his son instead of using magic to erase him?”

Lilah shrugged. “It involved actual work? He’s a lousy father? He’s dumb as a brick? How should I know? Angel beat the shit out of the little snot then asked us to erase all memory of him and to give him a nice normal family to live with.”

“And instead you brought him here?” Mom told me once a parent would do anything to protect a child, that sometimes they’re so afraid for their babies they don’t stop to think about the danger they’re risking. I guess that was true since Angel had believed his enemy would help his son.

“Of course. Angel somehow forgot that we’ve been after his kid since before Darla dusted herself to give birth to him. He robbed the boy of anyone who could have rescued him from his father’s stupidity by erasing all memory of him. The only people who know is Angel, me and now you and I’m only telling you because it hardly matters if you know.”

Meaning I was never getting out of here as far as Lilah was concerned. “And you’re what? Playing fight club with him?”

“Oh, just until the time is right to stage our apocalypse. The fighting helps to keep his skills sharp.”

“And he’s not insane any more?” I swallowed hard, hoping that was true if they thought he was getting near me. “Did he recover from his breakdown?”

“Possibly he could have but we give him enough LSD to keep the delusions coming.”

I stared at her, horrified. “Why?”

“Because it makes him more vicious and he’s learned to come to me for comfort. It took most of the year to train him but like Pavlov’s dog he responds to me. He’s a good little hound. I should change his name to Cuchulainn.” She sounded proud, almost motherly.

“Will he come out of the cave?” I asked, trying not to let it show I didn’t get the reference she made.

“Sure.” She opened a rock shelf the cage was anchored into and it turned out to be a cover for a refrigerator. She pulled out some tupperware. “You can feed him if you want.”

“What do you mean feed him?”

“Watch.” She grabbed up a slab of raw beef. “Come on, Connor. I know you’re hungry.”

He came out of the rock like a cat, stealthy and fluid. He was across the enclosure in one graceful leap. Lilah opened a small window in the bars and held the meat out. I thought he’d tear off her arm, the look in those startling blue eyes was that insane. Blue? How’d Angel’s kid get blue eyes?

He grabbed the meat and stuffed a huge mouthful of the bloody stuff into his mouth, chewing greedily. As thin as he was, I was sure he was starved. His shapeless clothing hung on him, a tattered red shirt and baggy brown pants at least one size too big. Both were crusted and stained. His hair spilled to the middle of his shoulders in a greasy, lanky mess.

“That’s a good boy, Connor. Want some more?” Lilah patted his shoulder.

He grunted something at her that was too animal-like to be words. She held the tupperware out to me but I backed away. Shrugging, she tossed him another blob of meat.

“Get him one of the bottled waters,” she instructed me.

“No, I’m not getting near him.” On the surface Angel’s son didn’t look dangerous, only deranged but I could sense that he was both.

“Do it. You might want him to get to know you.” She offered me another chilly, flat smile. “It’s safer that way.”

Somehow I decided she might be right. I took a bottled water and opened it. I handed it over. He caught my hand and I screamed in spite of myself.

Lilah tapped his fuzzy cheek. “Gently, Connor. Be nice.”

He stared at me as if there was an open door straight into my deepest parts. His rough hands still held mine but not hurting me. He stank. Obviously letting him bathe was low on Lilah’s to do list. His nose flared. He was drinking me in. This strange elfin boy had nothing in common with Angel that I could see except maybe the intensity of his eyes. He took the water bottle with one hand, still holding onto me. He licked the palm of my hand and I couldn’t escape the feeling he was tasting me, like a dog. Lilah was right. She had made him the perfect hound. His long tongue lapped my skin again and Lilah laughed.

“He likes you.”

I curled my lip at her and said, “Drink the water, Connor.”

His eyes widened and then he grinned at me. His smile was so wide I was expecting the top of his head to fall backwards. He reminded me of Lilo’s Stitch. His smile was psychotic and the worst part was he looked truly happy. He let me go and guzzled the water, some of it drooling past his full red lips and down the soft scraggly fur of his chin. I wiped my palm on my pants, realizing Connor wasn’t the only one who stank. I was still in the clothes I had been wearing when I was grabbed up.

“Visiting time is over,” Lilah said, going to close the little window to the cage. Connor shoved his hand back through, groping for me. “Behave, Connor, or the ‘you know whats’ will come back.”

Connor dropped back, fear in those incredible blue eyes. “No.”

It was the first word he had spoken. I guess I knew he could speak or at least he used to be able to. I couldn’t imagine Cordy letting anyone who communicated with grunts close enough to get her pregnant.

Lilah shut the window. “Come on, Dawn.”

“Da-awn.” Connor grabbed the bars as he said my name. Two syllables, like he was rolling them around his mouth experimentally.

“Bye, Connor,” I said, not knowing what else to do.

He grunted again and scaled up a tree, lounging on a branch. Again the image of a cat filled my mind. Lilah led me back into the underground labyrinth that I had no real hope of finding a way out of.

“So, what do you think of him?” Lilah asked eagerly.

“I think I’m not letting him anywhere near me so you can forget your baby,” I replied.

Lilah snorted. “Oh, it’ll be a lot more mechanical than that. Think turkey baster, dear,” she said as light and cheery as if we had been talking about boys after school instead of getting me pregnant against my will. “If we put you in with Connor in that state, he’s likely to rip you limb from limb.”

I shuddered at that. Then a loud scream echoed in the corridor coming from where we had just been. I looked back wondering what they were doing to the poor boy. Lilah laughed.

“The LSD is kicking in. Back when he spoke more, the things he’d tell you he was seeing, well, let’s just say it gave me nightmares for weeks.”

“Good,” I shot back and she just smirked again. “Why can’t he talk better? I mean, he wasn’t always like that, was he?” Lilah shook her head. “They’re calling it paroxysmal aphasia, kind of a transient loss of speech due to the fact that’s he’s out of his little mind. He just doesn’t want to talk is my guess.”

After that, Lilah went silent as she led me back to my cell. I was too shocked to do more than follow her, desperately trying to memorize the lay out.

“It’ll be another few treatments before we’re ready to take you in for the procedure,” she said. “And luckily it won’t even interfere with that little opening we want you to do. Oh and if you’re thinking about running, the guards will shoot you. It might not kill you, but don’t get it into that little head of yours that you’re going anywhere soon.”

I just flopped back on the bed, ignoring her. Lilah locked me back in and then I rolled over, burying my face in the thin pillow, trying not to cry. Tears got me nowhere. Buffy wouldn’t cry if she were in this situation. I just had to take what I had seen and work on a plan. Easier said than done.

Chapter Two

I wasn’t sure how long it was before Lilah came back for me; two, maybe three days judging by how many meals I was brought. I tried to refuse to eat or drink, realizing the LSD had to be in the bottled water I gave Connor. Lilah touched the meat with bare hands, but then again I didn’t really know if that would make you absorb LSD or not. Either way, I was afraid they’d try to drug me with food and water, but I couldn’t go without drinking no matter how hard I tried. The drugs ended up inside me and the hormones, too, no doubt. I could feel them. My breasts hurt. I was getting pimply and moody and I was horny as heck. I had never felt it this strongly. I hated Lilah passionately. How could she do this to another woman? I guessed all that mattered to her is the power. I was powerful, if she was right about me being a key to more than one dimension.

Lilah wore a smart linen pantsuit when she came to get me. I hated her for her clean clothing alone. All I had was a bare toilet in my cell, no tub, no sink, no toothbrush. I was covered with red marks from me scratching at my dirty skin. My hair felt like bugs were crawling in it.

“Come on. We don’t have a lot of time,” Lilah said, tapping her expensively shoed toes.

“I’m not going.” I had no plans of being hauled off and impregnated without a fight, but I had no way of really holding them off. They could overpower me or just drug me. Heck, for all I knew they had already done it while I was unconscious and something weird was growing inside me.

“What?” Her eyes widened then she waved me off. “No, not that, like we’d let you be awake for that. This is fun and games time.”

I got up and followed her, thoughts about me not being awake for the impregnation ringing in my head. That was my great fear. If they wanted to knock me out, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I felt cold and small, overcome by a feeling of helplessness so strong I could barely breathe. It was like being on the tower again, or under the earth with Buffy as the zombies clawed at us, or standing with Xander in the school, knowing I was about to die. I stumbled after Lilah, back down the corridors we had traveled before. She was taking me to Connor. Fun and games? They must be fighting him tonight.

My suspicions were confirmed. I could hear a cheering crowd through the door. The room was cool but jam packed with people, all human; men and women dressed like they were going to the ballet rather than watch a boy fight demons to the death. Lilah escorted me like a princess, a very filthy one, to the best seats. She sat beside me and I wondered how she could stand. I stank like the geeky gamers in the comic book shop Xander often took me to growing up. I liked the comic books, but I always felt like a lot of the men in there had never seen a girl, let alone touch one. At least Xander was a well-kept geek who knew what soap and water were for. Andrew fit in with the other crowd. Right now, I smelled like I fit in, too.

“Comfy?” Lilah asked.

I wanted to strangle her with her own silk scarf. “Does it matter?”

She scowled at me. “Not really.”

“If you cared, you’d give me a bath and a toothbrush.”

“You have a point,” Lilah said as a bundle of weapons were tossed into the enclosure. I noticed that a dome had been added so whatever they were putting in there with him could fly.

Lilah had made a mistake in bringing me here. I could see the other guests coming in across from me. I didn’t know where that doorway went, but I didn’t think it would be as labyrinthine as the path we took. They weren’t prisoners. I could be wrong, but I couldn’t see people paying a thousand dollars a seat being willing to put up with nonsense.

Connor came out of the cave as soon as the weapons dropped. He pulled the bundle closer to the cave and unwrapped it. I could almost feel the crowd tensing in anticipation. The cheering actually started when three gates into the enclosure opened. I heard a weird rustling noise and out of the gate popped what looked like three black giant mops wriggling under their own power. Once the mop-things were in the enclosure they uprighted and I nearly screamed. They were floating heads with eyes that seemed to bleed fire. Iron grey teeth gnashed like bars of the Connor’s cage. The hair writhed like snakes, propelling the heads along. One flew far too near for me, drooling gobs of yellowish spit on the glass. The stench was awful even through the protective dome. Would it be bad if the Slayer’s sister barfed everywhere? Connor didn’t seemed fazed. There was a gleam in his eye that said he was ready for this, that he enjoyed it. That was almost as disturbing as the things in the ring with him.

“What are they?” I shivered, shrinking back in my chair.

“Flying heads.” Lilah shrugged then off my look added, “Don’t blame me. I didn’t name them.”

“They’re horrible.”

“I’m sure the Iroquois thought so, too,” Lilah replied and I wondered what they had to do with it.

“They could swallow Connor whole,” I said. I didn’t know what the thing would do with him if it ate him. It was just a head. Maybe it had guts up in its skull. I didn’t want to think about it.

Connor had sword in hand. He grabbed one of the ropes and swung up at a head. The thing bobbed out of the way. Connor fell, hit ground, bounced and got another by its whipping hair. He shoved his sword straight through the eye. The crowd groaned as if disappointed he killed one so fast.

He leaped off the plummeting head, arcing in a back flip onto the tree branch. He was beautiful in motion, like Buffy and Faith. Or maybe I should say Spike and Angel. For once I could see his father in him. Connor moved quickly, maybe even more so than Angel.

He ran up the wall and kicked off, grabbing the hair of another head. He drew back with the sword and the third head’s strong jaws caught the blade, wrenching it free. Connor lost his grip and fell. The head he had been about to slay swooped under him and snapped him up like a Scooby snack.

Beside me, Lilah stiffened. It wasn’t in her plans to get Connor killed and as much as I didn’t want to be forced to have his baby, I didn’t want him to die horribly. A loud cracking sound echoed through the enclosure as teeth shattered. The thing howled and Connor popped free, coated in yellow drool.

He hit the ground running and snatched up an axe. Like a handball, he bounced off the stone wall and sliced into the injured head. It went down but Connor lost his axe. The last head flew after him, shrieking but he was out of distance weapons. He leapt and tore down a tree branch. He impaled the last head with an accuracy I’m sure Buffy would have appreciated. The crowd was on its feet, cheering

“Amazing, isn’t he?” Lilah asked.

“Yes, but why bring me here? Just to show off?” I was wondering about that. Removing me from my cell only increased my chances of escape.

“Actually, they say that having parents together, bonding, makes for a healthier pregnancy and better baby.” She patted my hand, faking concern for me.

“I’m not bonding to him. I’m a little afraid of him,” I admitted as if that would dissuade her.

“Understandable. We’ll wait for the room to clear before taking you away. Maybe you can have a little alone time with him.” She smirked at me again.

I looked at the boy covered in yellow spit. I didn’t want to be alone with him. I was more than willing to wait, my eyes on the public door as secretly as I could keep them there. It looked like a straight shot up from that door, a ramp. Maybe it led out but could I get away from Lilah?

Soon the room was empty and Lilah went back to the fridge in the wall, opening it. “I think just the water this time. It’s good to keep him hungry. Give it to him.”

I took the bottle but when she opened the window in the bars, I backed away. “He reeks. I don’t want to get near him.”

“You’re no rose, yourself,” Lilah snapped. “Now give him that water.”

“No.” I stomped my foot. I knew how to throw a monster-sized fit and was prepared to do so.

“Fine.” Lilah snatched the bottle away. “You’re tempting me to put you in there with him, just to see what happens.”

As she leaned in to hand him the water, I grabbed the barred window and rammed it into her. She grunted, dropping the bottle. I slammed the door on her a few more times. Connor ignored me, more interested in his water. He held the uprighted bottle with both hands, slurping noisily. Lilah slumped and I kicked her in the knee. I had to be sure that she couldn’t follow me. I grabbed her hair and jerked her head back so I could shove it into the wall.

I shrieked when her head came off in my hands. It slowly spun around as I stood there holding it by the hair. Her eyes winked at me and her perfectly rouged lips mouthed, ‘surprise,’ unable to make sounds without lungs behind them. I dropped the horrible thing and raced for the door. I had to dodge through the seats. As I reached the door, which thankfully wasn’t locked, I looked back and saw Lilah putting her head back on. Something clanked open, sounding like the gates the heads had come through.

“Go after her, Connor. Bring her back alive.”

Oh God, no. Thankfully I had on tennis shoes instead of those chunky heeled things me and Buffy were slaves of fashion to. I sprinted up the corridor and hit the door at the other end hard, nearly bowling over a few of the fancy dressed fight pervs who were loitering around talking. I was out the door and into a parking lot surrounded by woods. It was cool, surprising me. It was summer, after all.

I didn’t stop to see if I could get into a car. I knew nothing about hot-wiring. I had nothing to stage a car jacking with and I knew that if these people were here for the fight they’d hardly be likely to help me escape.

I made it to the tree line. I hated running in the woods. I was such a city girl. I was stunned that there wasn’t a fence but then, there it was a hundred yards out, Chicken wire topped with hoops of razor wire. How as I going to get up that? I ran along the fence line, hearing something in the woods behind me; Connor with a full load of LSD in him, no doubt.

I saw a maple or an oak or something. I don’t know one tree from the other. The important thing was that it had a fat branch that hung over the fence. I managed to climb the tree, which was harder than I thought it would be. I nearly slipped off onto the razor wire as I shimmied out on the branch. The drop to the other side jarred me so hard I thought my head was going to come off just like Lilah’s. I didn’t fall on my butt, shocking myself. It took me a moment to start running. I could see Connor nearing the fence. Don’t look, Dawn, just run.

I couldn’t listen to my inner voice. I ran, turning my head to see if he was gaining on me just like all those stupid chicks in the horror flicks Xander liked to rent. Connor cleared the fence in one mighty leap. Dear God, what was he? A boy Slayer? I couldn’t outrun something like him.

I concentrated on running, continuing my blind path through the dense woods. I wanted to cry for help, but not for Buffy. I wanted my Mom, as ridiculous as it was. My foot caught on a log and I went sprawling. Twigs and rocks tore into me but I managed to get back up. I grabbed the offending piece of tree and hefted it. He was right behind me now. I felt his approach, like a bunny feels the hawk. I whirled with that branch so hard I took him off his feet. The blow made my shoulders ache but I kept pounding him on the head with the log. Did I feel something break? Had I killed him? It felt like bone had given under the wood. I was going to be sick.

He wasn’t moving. I had nothing to tie him up with, not even a belt. He was gurgling. I could see bubbles on his lips, blood maybe? I could smell blood even through the reek of the flying head drool. I couldn’t see it in the dark and I couldn’t worry about it. He was down and this was my only chance. I brought the branch down in his face then dropped it.

I started running again. My scraped skin and twisted ankle burned like acid. I pressed on. I couldn’t believe how dark it was in the woods. I couldn’t see the sky. There was no moonlight. I kept tripping over roots and rocks. Old leaf litter proved to be as slick as ice. Branches tore at my hair; once I got so entangled I had to tear away so hard my scalp was bleeding. Let me get out of here and I swear I’ll cut my hair short.

I paused, my sides feeling like I’d been knifed. It felt like I had swallowed fire into my lungs, my throat raw and thick. My legs trembled. Over my panting, the forest was alive with sound. They tell you the woods are quiet. They lied. Crickets, owls and other things I didn’t know, frogs maybe, chorused loudly. Then I heard something else, snapping branches. Someone was after me. It was Connor or maybe another of Wolfram and Hart’s people. Either way, I had to move.

I couldn’t get up to speed. My chest felt like it was being crushed, my muscles were spasming so badly. I was so out of shape, too dependent on a rescue from Buffy. If I lived, never again would I be dependent on anyone.

My foot found a hole and I pitched forward. The next thing I knew, I was tumbling down the hill. When the world stopped spinning, I was half buried in a stand of wild roses, their thorns pricking me. They smelled so pretty. For an insane moment all I could do was lie there, drinking in their scent in the summer air, heedless of the thorns spilling pearls of my blood.

I forced myself up and fell again. My ankle and knee ground like they were filled with broken glass. Oh, please don’t let me have a broken ankle. A loud inhuman growl sounded in the woods followed by thrashing. Somehow I knew it was Connor. Maybe the LSD had caught up to him and he was fighting things in his head. I should be so lucky.

I tried standing again and managed it, but I couldn’t run. There was too much pain and my ankle wobbled. I stumbled along the stand of roses. Fog started creeping around them, ghostly in the darkness. What more can go wrong? I can’t even see as it was. The fog thickened. I heard some strange sound rushing through the woods. It reminded me of waves but different.

I didn’t have time to think about it. Connor came through the underbrush. The fog made him seem bigger, more than he was. I should have killed him when I had him down. Only I’ve never killed a person before. Demons yes, but a person, I must not have it in me. I tried to go faster. I nearly stumbled into the roses then caught a tree, using it to push off. A few more steps and I found the source of the weird sound. I had run to a river. It was full and wide and so fast. If I went into it, I’d die for sure.

Gasping for air, sobbing maybe, I tried to find another way. Connor crashed into me and we went down into the roses. Thorns tore at my face as I hit ground. For someone so little, Connor felt enormous, like I had been run down by a pit bull. His growling only helped that image. I hit him in the face, feeling bristly hair and tacky blood under my hand. He head butted me, making me see stars. I tried to push him off and he bit my flailing arm, drawing blood. I screamed and hit him harder. He punched me in the gut, taking away my breath. My bleeding arm fell into the roses, tearing it more.

Connor sat on me, straddling me. I didn’t know what he was going to do, but I was too hurt to stop him. He had killed three giant heads like they were nothing, so I didn’t know what I thought I could do anyhow. He was staring at me curiously. Was he seeing me? An LSD hallucination or was he trapped in his own madness?

Then I heard something odd, felt it deep to the bone. Magic. The rose hedge started shimmering with a red light and it began to grow upwards. Both Connor and I watched it, mesmerized. It turned into a woman, beautiful and serene looking. Her hair fell around her in a long sheet that looked black in the night. She smiled at me and said, “No fear.”

And somehow I wasn’t afraid any more. Connor was still on top of me but his growling had ceased. He sniffed at the woman and she ran a hand over his face like a mother with a child.

“You poor boy. There is so much sickness in you. It mingles with the poisons you’ve been fed.” Her voice was like a melody as she caressed his face. “You are trapped in magics like a fly in a web.”

“Someone did this to him,” I stammered, not sure why.

Her dark gaze roved back over to me, her face utterly placid. “You are concerned for him even though he was going to hurt you.”

I nodded. “It’s not his fault. He’s sick and they’re making him do this.” I had no earthly idea why I was defending Connor other than it was the truth.

Her face finally showed an emotion, a hint of anger. “Once, sickness took those I loved. I was blamed and hunted for it. No one should suffer like this.” She captured Connor’s head with both hands.

Connor didn’t fight her. His eyes fluttered shut as he relaxed. I scrambled out from under him. Red light flowed out of her and entered him. Connor stiffened and jerked. She stepped back, and helped me up. She smelled of roses.

“What did you do to him?”

“This will hurt, but afterwards, he will be free of all the poisons, all the magics woven around him and into him.” She stroked my hair, leaving ruby sparkles in it. “I can help your pain.”

I nodded and her red light went into me. It felt warm, driving out all the pain, but if it was easy for me, it wasn’t for Connor. I could hear him moaning. He started thrashing and screaming. I looked at the woman, shocked. Had I blindly placed trust in someone I shouldn’t have? Had she hurt him?

“You helped me but him...”

“Your body only needed a little repair. He needs the badness drained out of him,” she replied, her voice still the same soft timbre.

I hoped she knew what she was talking about. Connor rolled to his side, vomiting. He kept retching until nothing came out. He managed to crawl just a bit away from the puddle of puke then started retching again. This time light, a bluish white started coming out of him. I assumed that was the bad magics. He collapsed, groaning, once the icky light stopped flowing. He stopped moving; exhausted, I hoped, not dying.

“Will he be all right?”

“Now he will. He’s been carrying that magic in him for some time now. He needs to rest.” She went over to Connor and touched his cheek. “Sleep.”

“Someone’s trying to keep us both prisoner. They might find us here. We have to get out of here.”

She smiled at me again. “You’ll be safe for the night. Tomorrow, follow the river south. It’ll take you to where you need to be.”

“Um...south?” Okay, so I didn’t have an internal compass.

She pointed the way then turned and gestured to a soft looking patch of grass under a tree. “You also need sleep.”

“Thank you.” I stumbled for the spot then looked at her. “Who are you?”

“Hitcoga.”

What an odd name, I thought as I stretched out on the ground. “Why did you help me?”

“These are my woods and innocents are safe here.”

“But how did you know I needed help?”

She mouth pursed. “Your blood on the roses called me.”

So she was from another dimension? I didn’t care. I trusted her. It felt completely right to do so. “Well, thanks...for my life,” I said, laying in the grass. I was never one for camping. I didn’t even like picnics much. I didn’t like being on the ground, with the bugs, but I could care less at this point. It didn’t even matter I was trying to go to sleep only a few feet from the person Wolfram and Hart had sent to drag me back. I trusted Hitcoga instinctively. I wondered if she was one of the goddesses Willow and Tara used to invoke. She seemed like one. She was still watching me from the roses when I shut my eyes.

Chapter Three

When I woke up, I nearly panicked. I couldn’t remember where I was, covered with dew; the air ripe with the scent of roses. As their perfume filled my nose, last night flooded back to me. Now that it was light, I could see the color of them, a delicate pink, like a hint of blood on pale skin. There was no signs of Hitcoga. I had nearly forgotten about Connor. Had he run off?

I glanced around but he was no longer lying on the grass anywhere in sight. I was a little nervous about where Connor had gotten off to. I wasn’t afraid, oddly enough. If Connor wanted me dead or captured, he had plenty of time while I was asleep.

I had to pee which was much more urgent than any fear. I’ve never peed in the woods before. How do you find a good spot? With my luck, I’d squat on poison ivy. I stood up, surprised I wasn’t the least bit sore. Hitcoga’s magic must have been powerful stuff. I headed for the river, figuring I’d have less chance of getting a rose up the butt there. When I got to the bank, I saw Connor’s clothing hanging on a tree branch. A large knife rested not far away. I swallowed hard. I hadn’t even realized he had that. He could have dismembered me with something that big and I realized how much Lilah had trusted him to do her bidding before Hitcoga’s interference.

I looked out into the water and a few yards downstream; Connor was in an eddy, taking advantage of the slower moving water. He must have been sitting on the bottom as he scrubbed his head furiously. It slowly occurred to me I was looking at a naked man. Okay, I could only see him from the waist up, nothing I hadn’t seen at the beach before but if he stood up...

I had never actually seen a naked man before. There had been a few close calls with Xander over the years and the time Andrew forgot to lock the bathroom door, but I didn’t see anything, thank God. I watched Connor’s muscles rippling as he tried to wash his hair, suddenly forgetting I needed to pee. Muscle, skin and bone, that’s all there was to him. I wanted to take him somewhere and get him a huge piece of caramel cheesecake or something. I could count the knobs of his spine. I’ve never seen a man so thin, not even Spike. Still, my hormone-riddled body was telling me things it might like to do with him.

Wasn’t he cold in that water? It was cool outside wherever we were. It certainly wasn’t southern California. My mind flashed back to Xander and Andrew doing the ‘shrinkage’ scene from Seinfeld. Great, the first time I’ll have ever seen a penis outside of the Playgirl’s Maria had stashed in her locker and it was going to be shriveled from icy water.

I really should have been trying to find a place to pee or to follow the river and escape. Anything but standing and staring, but I couldn’t help it. If I didn’t move now, I was going to be so embarrassed if he saw me peeking at him.

He got up, wringing out his hair. It was longer than I liked on a guy. Good lord, he had no butt. There was just nothing to him. He turned around and I couldn’t help but look. Why did it look like an elephant’s nose? The tip was all floppy, wrinkled skin; is that was a foreskin looks like? It must be since I hadn’t seen anything like it in Playgirl. For his sake, I hope shrinkage is real and not something guys tell themselves.

I glanced up into his face, feeling my own reddening. His pale face remained expressionless. I still didn’t move even as he sloshed out of the water. He didn’t appear to be embarrassed about being naked. It seemed like nude was simply natural to him. He didn’t seem like he wanted to hurt me any more either since he made no menacing movements.

‘Don’t watch him walk, Dawn, cause with that thing swinging, it just looks silly.’ I could have sworn Mom’s romance novels described a naked man walking slowly toward you as sexy and sensual. Should have known better than to trust a Harlequin.

Saying nothing, he walked past me, and stretched out in a patch of sunlit grass. He shut his eyes. Do I say something? Was he ignoring me because he’s humiliated? Or was he still insane and couldn’t even see me? Or maybe he’s just rude? Like I should talk, what with me staring at his thing.

So long as he wasn’t trying to kill me, I guessed that was all I cared about. Washing off sounded like a great idea. I knew it was time wasting, but I could probably move faster if I wasn’t stopping to scratch my filthy body every two minutes. Besides, I stank. Who’d stop and pick me up and take me to civilization looking and smelling like this?

I took my shoes off and wondered how exactly to do this. Connor had obviously washed his clothes first. Could I get naked in front of a stranger? Yes, I could. I took off everything and glanced back to see if he was looking. His eyes remained shut. I was slightly miffed. How does a teenage boy not look when there might be a naked girl around?

I went to the slow moving part of the river and soaked my clothes. Would they get clean without soap? Who knew? My shirt was torn and spotted with blood; so were my jeans. I beat them against the slick, smooth rocks then put them up in a branch, too. I waded into the river. It was so cold; the shock making me feel like I had to pee even worse. I couldn’t hold it, poor fishes.

I tried to move away from that spot even though I knew the current had already carried it all away. I nearly slipped on the round river stones. I couldn’t get too far from the bank. The water went too fast in the middle of the river. I hunkered down to get my hair wet, feeling my nipples harden in the cold but it felt good to have fresh water on me. I ducked under, letting my hair wave in the current. I came up for air, took a deep breath and went back under, digging my fingers in my scalp.

My cold tolerance must not be as good as Connor’s. I had to get out of the water. I didn’t care that I had lost travel time. I felt infinitely better. I climbed out onto the bank and Connor still had his eyes shut. What was wrong with him? What kind of guy doesn’t cop a look? I’m worth looking at, right? Well, if he was that sleepy, I wondered if I could get his knife. I almost got to it when Connor’s eyes snapped open, looking up at me suspiciously.

“Um, you might want to be careful that you don’t get a sunburn,” I said lamely, suddenly feeling as naked as I was. I moved passed him and found my own sunny patch of grass.

“Not a vampire. Sunlight won’t hurt me,” he muttered. So he did understand me and was sane enough to make some sort of conversation.

“I know that.” I laid down, even though I was thinking we should get moving. Wolfram and Hart had to be after us still. “But anyone can get a sunburn, you know, especially as pale as you and I are.”

He glanced at me. “I didn’t know.” His lips pursed, his eyes dimming. “I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“I know you didn’t mean to. I know Lilah made you do it,” I said, thinking for the first time that he might be sane enough to deal with. “How do you feel?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he turned onto his side, making his penis fall down across his thigh. It seemed to like being in the sun, considerably longer now but still looking like an elephant’s nose. I was suddenly struck by the ludicrousness of it all. Two naked teens talking like being nude was a normal everyday thing.

“Bad,” he admitted finally. “Confused. I don’t know you, but you seem to know me.”

“Not really, just what little Lilah told me. I’ve never met you before. All I know is you’re Angel’s son.”

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. His face went ugly, full of hate maybe. It scared me. “How do you know him?”

The growl in his voice made me shudder. I had to calm him down or he might try to kill me or something. Maybe Hitcoga hadn’t really cured all his insanity. I mean, can that even really be cured? Maybe if I just kept talking, I’d say the right thing since what I knew about psychology fit on the head of a pin. “I’ve known Angel since I was a little kid. My sister’s the Slayer.”

His brow wrinkled. “Faith?”

“No.” I smiled. “Her name’s Buffy. She’s one of the Slayers, the oldest. Oops, she might not like me saying that. She’s been the Slayer longest, I mean.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know that name.” His eyes scanned the skies. “I don’t remember much...not since...Jasmine.” He swallowed his words, looking like he was in pain. His eyes went all empty and spooky.

“It might be better that you don’t remember, Connor. It was an awful place they had you in, doing bad things to you,” I said softly.

“I don’t know where I am.” He sounded younger than I thought he was, scared, like a lost kid at the mall. I knew how he felt.

“I don’t either.” I should feel more afraid than I did. Something, despite everything, I felt safe with him, like I knew now that he was free from Lilah he’d protect me. I knew it was foolish to trust so easily but I couldn’t help it.

“How...how did they get me?”

“They tricked Angel. He thought he was giving you a nice normal life.”

Connor hitched himself up on one arm, looking at me. A strand of his hair fell across his face, tracing the path of his nose, which was slightly off center. “What?”

“I’m not sure exactly.” I shrugged, wondering why I wasn’t more self-conscious about having him staring directly at my naked body. “Something about putting you with a normal family and making everyone forget you were you.”

His eyes slotted. “Why?”

I shrugged. “I don’t have the answers, Connor. He probably wanted you to be safe and happy. That’s what Buffy wants for me. What I want is the family I already have, even if it is nuts. Maybe it’s the same with you and your dad. You’ll have to ask Angel yourself once we get out of here.” I ruffled my hair to help dry it. “You are wanting out of here, right?”

He nodded.

“Don’t you think we should go before they send someone after us both?” I asked.

He sniffed the air. “No one’s around. Let the clothing dry more.” With that, he flopped onto his belly. For his sake, I hope there weren’t ants in the grass.

I’ve never been a patient sunbather and I couldn’t get as relaxed as Connor. Maybe he was still exhausted from all he’d been through or maybe he was still a little mad. I remember the odd state of mind Willow had been in the few times Giles could coax her onto the phone when she was rehabbing in England. She had been apathetic and Connor seemed like that now.

Connor’s eyes were shut as he seemed to soak up the sun. He reminded me of a cat, a panther maybe. My eyes roved over his butt, what little there was of it. I shouldn’t be looking. The hormone overdose was doing strange things to me, or maybe it was regular teenaged horniness. I didn’t have to imagine him naked so I was one step ahead. Of course, I still didn’t know what it looked like erect. I’ve never seen that. Me and my friends were too shy to look at pornos. Just thinking about it made me feel tingly and I didn’t want that. Just then my stomach growled loudly. When was the last time I had eaten? I looked over and saw the noise had caught Connor’s attention. I flashed him an embarrassed smile.

“Sorry. I’m hungry.”

He nodded. “Me, too.”

“They were drugging you with your food,” I said, looking up at the sky. Black clouds were rolling in. Lightning hit trees a lot right? Oh great, I was going to get fried in a forest. “Connor, I don’t think our clothes are going to get dry.” I pointed upwards.

He sat up. “You might be right.”

Without another word, he got up and started to dress. I did the same. It was next to impossible to get my wet pants up.

“Hitcoga said to go that way.” I pointed downstream. I’m not sure why I assumed we had gone from predator and prey to partners but he seemed content with the new arrangement.

He just nodded and started walking. I trailed after him. As we walked along, I noticed he was definitely a shade shorter than me. He was such a slight creature he conjured up images of Peter Pan in my head. Peter Pan with a really big knife. Then again I think Pan had a sword. Connor suddenly scooped up a good sized rock from the water’s edge, cocking his hand back.

I flinched, thinking he was going to hit me. That’s when I saw the squirrel. “What are you doing?”

He pointed at the squirrel. “You said you were hungry.”

I grabbed for the rock. “You’re not killing a squirrel.”

“Why not?” He jerked away from me. “It’s good meat.”

“No, it’s not,” I argued and by then the squirrel was gone. He gave me a dirty look and dropped the rock. “We’ll get to civilization soon and then we can eat,” I added more optimistically than I felt.

He just glared and started walking again. I followed. It was a lot easier to walk in the forest in the day time. At least I could see the roots and rocks. Still, I was getting very tired. My butt and thighs burned, trying to keep up with him. Finally he asked me to tell him about my family. The way he asked it struck me as odd. The word family seemed to cause him pain.

For some reason I chose not to tell him about Mom and Buffy right off the bat. Instead I told him what I really was. I don’t know why I did. No one is supposed to know my secret but something inside me told me he needed to hear it. Lilah had been right. We were somewhat alike, strange creatures with no real place in the world except the one we made for ourselves.

He listened as the rain started pelting down, making it miserable to walk. My feet got wet and blistered in my shoes. My pants stuck to me, chafing me, but talking seemed to take my mind off it. He listened to how the monks did the opposite thing Angel tried to do to him, how they had implanted me in everyone’s memories. As lightning crashed, I told him that I really hadn’t ever known Angel as a child, that I just felt like I had since that’s the magic of me. We figured I didn’t come into existence until Buffy was at college but if you asked him, Angel would remember me spying on them from time to time, like a bratty little sister would.

Then I told him all about Buffy. Connor was very quiet as I told him all the good things Angel had done. By now I was so exhausted, I didn’t know how I was walking and talking at the same time. I slipped in the mud a few times but Connor always caught me before I fell. He was strong and sure-footed like a goat. I was just starting in on Angel becoming Angelus when Connor grabbed me, dragging me to a halt. He put a finger on my lips.

I shut up as he tensed, cocking his head to one side. His nostrils flared and I started to shake. Something was out there and from his body language, I knew it wasn’t another hiker or fisherman or hunter or something nice and benign like that. Connor’s fingers entwined with mine.

“Run,” he whispered and started off, pulling me along after him.

“What is it?”

“Don’t know,” he replied. “They’ve sent something after us.”

Connor dragged me through the blinding rain. If there was something behind us, I couldn’t tell. My foot slipped on the wet leaves and I fell, taking Connor with me. He landed on me and we tumbled until we slammed into a tree. Our legs were a tangle. Connor got off me, drawing his knife. I shook my head to clear it then I saw it above me in the tree; a black cat, bigger than a panther. Red eyes, mere vertical slits, stared down at me. The end of its long, twitching tail was a knob of spikes like an Anklyosaurus.

“Connor, above us!” I cried as the tail came crashing down at me. I barely rolled out the way in time.

The cat leapt, letting go with that tail again. Splinters of wood flew, some nearly blinding me. Connor wasn’t scared. He dodged the flailing tail and managed to get onto the beast’s back. He tried to slit the cat’s throat. The thing howled and crushed Connor’s leg against the tree. He grunted as the beast ground his knee into the wood. The cat yowled again and now there were answering cries. There was more of them somewhere but I couldn’t see them in the rain and through the thick trees. I couldn’t tell how many were out there.

I scrambled to my feet, looking for a weapon; a heavy rock would have to do. I went to slam it down on the cat when its tail swept out, nearly nailing me. I jumped back and threw the rock. It slipped out of my wet hand and flew erratically right over the cat and hit Connor in the chest. Shockingly it didn’t knock him off the cat’s back. Leaning down, he picked the rock up, smashing the cat with it. As the beast snapped after the rock, he stabbed it with the dagger in his other hand. He shot me an irritated look, stepping around the beast’s dead body. It didn’t have the decency to dissolve.

“Sorry,” I said with an apologetic wave of my hands.

“We need to move. More will come.” He took off, his bleeding leg not slowing him in the least, and I raced after him. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Is your aim always so bad?”

“I slipped,” I shot back and he snorted.

“Should have hit you in the head,” I muttered under my breath.

“And I would leave you here to those things,” he replied, too calmly for my tastes.

“Yeah, like you would.” Boy, I sure hoped he wouldn’t. “How’d you hear me anyhow?”

“Ears like a vampire,” he grunted then took a longer look at me. “You okay?”

“Yeah. You?” I asked needlessly. He was running like nothing had happened. He just nodded.

We ran for what seemed like forever before deciding that the cat’s buddies weren’t hot on our trail. We slowed to a walk and trudged on in the damn downpour that seemed to have settled in for the day. I wasn’t used to storms like this. The sheer ferocity frightened me. I jumped almost every time thunder cracked. Connor started giving me aggravated looks after a while.

Connor didn’t speak as we fought our way downstream. My wet clothing felt like it had developed teeth. Blisters, from all the chaffing, raised along the lines of my under pants. I almost wished he’d start a conversation but I wasn’t sure if I could find the air to speak. I shook from fatigue and I was so hungry I was sure half the forest heard my stomach gurgling. All too soon, I was stumbling and slowing while Connor just kept chugging along. Finally, I flopped to the ground.

“I have to rest,” I told him. “Just for a minute.”

He came over, sitting across from me, staring intently like that would help me rest. What was going on behind those blue eyes? Was it the impatient look of a superbeing like my sister who rarely tired or something more sinister?

“I’m so hungry,” I moaned, wringing out my hair which had twigs and burrs in it. Ticks? Did rain keep ticks away? What the heck did a tick look like?

“You wouldn’t let me kill that squirrel,” he replied, his gaze never wavering. Why couldn’t he look away?

“And I’m still willing to wait until we reach civilization,” I said, even though I despaired of ever doing so.

He snorted, resting back against a tree. His eyes fluttered shut. So, he was just going to go to sleep on me? Actually that sounded good, but neither of us actually slept. We only sat for about ten minutes before Connor got up and started off.

I could hardly stand. I didn’t realize I was so out of shape. Thin is one thing, having honed muscles is another, I guessed. I was used to short dashes through Sunnydale, not sustained hikes.

“Connor, slow down,” I said, gesturing at the river. “At least let me get a drink.”

He pointed skyward. “Safer water. Things can live in rivers.”

I shuddered. I hadn’t even thought of that but he was right. I’ve heard horror stories about brain-eating amoebas and dysentery. I tilted my head back and let the rain water flood into my dry mouth. It tasted odd but cool.

Time wore on. I was so tired of walking. All the trees and rocks looked alike in the rain. I wished Connor would wheeze a little, like me, act a little less robotic. Maybe I was expecting too much. He was damaged. I could sense it, like how Buffy had been damaged ever since Willow brought her back. I just wish he wasn’t permeating my thoughts the way the rain was my clothing.

If he couldn’t at least look tired, he could talk to me. He had been silent ever since the conversation about family got interrupted. One of my girlfriends in school said the best kind of boy was the silent kind. She was wrong. This much silence was creepy.

I was beginning to think we’d never find civilization. I couldn’t tell what time of day it was. The sun was a blurry white disc, barely visible through the thick black clouds. Connor stopped.

“What? Are those cats after us again?” My head swiveled around, trying to find the hidden dangers.

He smiled, which was scarier than those cats. “You need a rest.”

I didn’t argue. There was a large rock by the river that had a nice flat spot. I sat on it, watching the water surge alongside my resting place. Connor climbed higher on the boulder, perching there. He reminded me so much of a cat sometimes, the kind if you go to pet its belly would tear your hand off.

The cool damp of the rock made my butt ache. I tried to take my mind off it. I stared at the water, bubbling white over the rocks. A howl punctured the air and one of those slit-eyed cats leapt out of the underbrush. Connor met its charge head-on while I tried to dodge the flailing tail full of spikes. My foot slipped on the slick rock and I went toes over head into the river.

My head cracked against the rocky bottom. For seconds, everything went black. When my head cleared, I was being rolled along the river bottom. I couldn’t breathe. My chest burned. I wanted to cough but didn’t dare. I must have already sucked in water when I was stunned. I was drowning. The world was watery and whipping by so fast above me. I tried to get my feet under me. I knew I could stand in this river and at least get my head above water, but the current was too fast. I couldn’t get a purchase. Rocks crashed into my legs, back, arms, everywhere.

The battering threatened to separate me from consciousness. Something snared my hair, yanking hard. The fresh pain cut through the blackness enveloping me and the last of my air bubbled out. Then I realized that whatever had my hair was hauling me out of the water. A hand flashed past my eyes and hooked under my arm. Now having a better hold on me, Connor dragged me to shore.

I curled up on the wet grass, sputtering out water. He knelt and looked at my head.

“Thanks,” I managed to gasp. “The monster?”

“Dead. Are you broken?”

I looked up into his blue eyes, reading concern there. I guessed he was asking if I had broken bones. I hurt all over so badly it was hard to tell. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re bleeding.”

And so I was, especially from my scalp. Connor carefully probed all the places that were torn open. He ripped the bottom third of his shirt off and pulled it into strips. It took more doing than movies would have you believe. He bound me up the best he could.

“Can you stand?”

I really wanted to do nothing more than sleep, then I was terrified that was a concussion talking. How serious could concussions be? “I don’t know.”

Connor helped me up and the world spun. I gagged, nearly vomiting. It felt like fireworks were going off in my head. My legs seemed like water. His arms tightened around me.

“I think...” I squeezed my eyes shut. “ I have a concussion.”

“Lean back,” he said and I did. He swept me off my feet. I didn’t think he’d be able to carry me since he was so small but he did, effortlessly. My nausea grew as he walked. I shut my eyes, gritted my teeth and buried my face against him.

It felt like lead weights were anchored to my consciousness. They took me under. When I woke back up my whole body throbbed with each beat of my heart. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. I was lying in the grass. I couldn’t hear the river. Connor was busy with a bunch of tree limbs but I wasn’t sure what he was doing. I sat up and his head snapped around, his eyes pinning me.

“I feel terrible,” I muttered.

“You can’t travel,” he said.

I wanted to protest but I knew he was right. I still felt dizzy. “What are you doing?” I asked, glancing around at where I was. We were near a rock outcropping. Connor’s branches were resting near one such spur of rock. Down the hill, he had some leaf wrapped limbs tied above a small fire, sheltering it, but it was still barely alive.

“Making a shelter.” Connor sat back, giving the lean-to a satisfied look. “Go in.” He cocked his head to the side. “Need help?”

He gave me a hand up. I took a few steps then shook off his hand. “I’m a little woozy, but I think I can go on my own.” I wasn’t sure of that, but I was sure of the pain and pressure in my bladder. I couldn’t ask him to help me into the bushes to pee.

His eyebrows raised. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I have to...” I trailed off with a blush. He nodded like he knew what I meant. I hobbled off. My right knee felt swollen. My vision didn’t seem quite right, but still I managed to find a fallen tree to sit on. I wasn’t good at squatting to pee as I had already discovered. Now with a concussion, I would be lucky not to fall down and whizz all over myself.

Once I managed it, I went back to Connor. He was feeding the little fire. He looked up and pointed at the shelter. I got on my butt and scooted in since my knees hurt too much to crawl. It wasn’t too damp inside, the rock shelves above us providing cover even before Connor had started work. He had laid leaves over the exposed rock and the branches provided a tight, almost water-proof cocoon. I could cry or kiss him or both. This little shelter he made us felt like the St. Regis Hotel and Spa in L.A. to me at this point.

Connor poked his head in. “You’ll be okay here. I have something I gotta do.”

“You’re not leaving me!” I didn’t even care that I sounded panicked.

“Not for long.” He handed me his dagger. “Rest.”

And then he was gone. I guessed he actually trusted me since he left me a weapon. I curled up on the ground, listening to the rain pattering on the shelter. My fingers touched the hilt of his dagger. I was shocked he left it with me but I guessed, like Buffy, he was a weapon in and of himself. I fought with my exhaustion just in case one of those cats came back.

A snapping sound woke me up. I couldn’t believe I had fallen asleep. I squirmed, trying to get the knife and turn myself so I could fight, only the knife was gone. My heart thudding, I poked my head out. It was still raining. Connor was back, sitting by the fire. I managed to crawl agonizingly out of the lean-to and walked down to him. He glanced up at me, cleaning his dagger. Something was over the fire on a thick branch, squirrel, rabbit, opossum, I didn’t even care. It smelled fantastic as it roasted and my stomach growled loudly.

“It’ll be done soon,” he said and I blushed, realizing he had heard that.

“Just don’t tell me what it was.” I leaned my head back and let more rainwater trickle into my dry, hot mouth. “I guess we’re staying here for the night. Do you think that’s safe?”

He shrugged. “No, but nothing I can’t handle.”

I should have his confidence. “But those cats...”

“Will find us either way if there’s more of them. Wolfram and Hart won’t just give up, but you’re in no shape to go further. Maybe tomorrow, there won’t be any rain and we can go faster.”

Neither of us addressed the fact that if I had a bad concussion I wouldn’t be able to go at all. I didn’t think I did since my nausea was passing, but I’d be so sore come tomorrow I wasn’t sure how I’d walk. I couldn’t worry about it. There was no changing things. Soon enough, the roast whatsis was done and between us we devoured the poor creature.

Afterwards, Connor doused the fire and I went back to our shelter. Night was falling. I crawled inside and wondered if he was going to keep watch or should I. He came inside the lean-to with me, making me suddenly aware of how small it was. He laid down beside me, leaving me closer to the rock where I’d be better protected.

“Shouldn’t one of us keep watch?” I asked.

“Probably. You hurt your head. You can’t really do it. I’m used to being alone. Not safe but at this point, probably the best we can do.” He looked over at me. “Try to sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy just yet,” I said, thinking how very odd it was that the first two times I’ve slept anywhere near a guy in the same room, more or less, it wasn’t in a room at all. I never liked camping and yet the first time sharing space with a boy was in the great outdoors. Of course, there was nothing sexual about this but tell that to the hormones still racing around inside me. They were saying this was the perfect mate. He saved my life. He built me a home and he dragged home food bare-handed. What more could a girl want deep in her primal self? I answered back with thoughts of a good job, a nice car and a big house. God, I was sounding like Anya. “Talk to me,” I said, hoping that would get my mind off his skinny body.

“About what?”

“I told you about my family. Tell me about yours,” I said then regretted it. I knew that couldn’t be a safe topic. “Or about anything, if you don’t want to talk about Angel.”

“Can I tell you about my father?” He shifted on the dirt, trying to get comfortable. “The one who raised me?”

“If you want.”

I listened to him telling me tales about the man he called Father and about how he grew up. I couldn’t imagine such trauma and yet he seemed perfectly all right with it. I thought the things his father had done to him to ‘train’ him were cruel, but I could tell he didn’t think so. I wanted to tell him to stop, that the night was scary enough without tales of life in hell, but I didn’t. I just wanted to hear his voice.

I didn’t know when I had fallen asleep but I had. A loud peal of thunder woke me up. I was on my side, facing the rock and Connor was wrapped around me. For a moment, I thought he was taking advantage of me in my sleep, touching me where he shouldn’t then I realized he was asleep himself. He snored softly, his breath warm against my neck. One of his hands was tossed over my arm and the other curled up under his head. So what was poking me?

For a moment of blind panic, I thought a snake had crawled in with us then I realized it was him. His erection tented up his baggy pants. I bit my lip, remembering sex ed when they told us about how guys averaged two to three hard ons in their sleep. Mostly the class tittered about that and I’m not sure we all believed it. Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I reached back and touched him lightly through his pants. I froze, wondering if I had awakened him but he snored on. I handled that rigid organ more curiously the second time and he shifted, pushing into my hand. Oh, God, he is awake...okay, no he isn’t. Still, I moved my hand away. The last thing I needed to do was make him mess himself. I squirmed away a bit, so it wasn’t poking me any more.

He murmured in his sleep, then rolled over the other way. With him gone from around me, I could feel the dampness seeping in. I wondered if he was cold. He was missing half his shirt since it was holding together the tears in my skin. I curled up along his back, slipping my hands around his chest. His spine dug into me. He needed to put on some weight, but at least he was warm. I shut my eyes and tried to go back to sleep and forget about what the raging hormones were telling me to do.

Chapter Four

I woke to the twittering of song birds. It was oddly a pretty way to wake up despite the fact I was lying in the dirt, in clothing that smelled like mildew. It was beginning to overpower the stench of sweat. I climbed out of the shelter in so much pain I had to clamp my jaws to keep from crying out. As I stood, I felt the scabs stretch, some tearing, oozing under the makeshift bandages.

It wasn’t raining, and if I had to guess it was just a little past dawn. Connor was tending the fire. He looked up the hill at me but said nothing. I went to my bathroom tree then headed past Connor to the river. It might have parasites in it, but I was willing to risk it to wash my hands. Wiping yourself with leaves sucked. What did people use before toilet paper? No, I decided I’d rather not know.

Something smelled yummy, making my mouth water. I wondered what he had caught and killed this time. I hobbled up to Connor’s side.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Very sore, but I can walk,” I replied, managing to sit without falling. “What are you cooking?” I didn’t see a spit this time, but there was a wad of leaves in the fire.

He poked the wad out of the flames with a thick stick then used it to peel away the leaves. Inside was a fat fish with the skin and head still on. That made me a little queasy, but I was hungry enough not to care.

“How did you get a fish?” I asked as he slipped his dagger into it.

Connor cut it in half, handing me part of it, happily head free. “The river.”

I took the fish, cradled in the leaves. “I know that part. What I meant is you don’t have any fish hooks.”

He flexed his fingers at me as if that was an answer. The fish was good but I couldn’t bring myself to eat the skin. Connor ate most everything. He went to the river afterwards and rinsed his hands. “No more rain so we have to drink from here,” he said.

I had noticed the lack of rain. I cast a glance up and saw that the sky was perfectly clear, an endless stretch of blue. I drank from the river. Even though we were both filthy, neither of us took the time to bathe. We weren’t as crusty with blood and demon drool like we had been yesterday.

“Ready?” He stretched, joints popping.

“No, but there’s not much choice.”

He didn’t argue and we headed down river.

“Connor, I wanna say thank you.”

He looked over at me sharply, his soft brown hair flipping into his eyes. He brushed it back irritatedly. “For what?”

“For taking care of me. I know you don’t have to do what you’re doing. They sent you after me and I know that wasn’t your idea, but I also know you have no reason to help me. I’m just slowing you down, giving Wolfram and Hart a better chance at getting you again.”

He shrugged. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“Maybe, but you saved me from those cat things.” I smiled. “You even built me a little home.”

“Built it for us,” he corrected me. “Wolfram and Hart don’t want to capture us any more.”

“I sort of thought that too since these cats seem more interested in eating us than catching us.” I shook my head, my hair whipping. “But that makes no sense. They need my blood.”

Connor sucked at his lower lip, considering that. “We’re not far from Wolfram and Hart’s prison. Maybe the cats are just random guards and we’re unlucky.”

“I vote unlucky,” I said and he grunted again.

His face went all broody as we walked on. Even though he looked nothing like his father, I recognized Angel’s ability to mope. Connor fell silent again. It gave me time to concentrate on all the aches and pains in my body. Finally, I pleaded with him to talk to me. When will I learn to be careful of what I ask for? He asked me about Cordelia, sobering when I told him about her coma. When I asked had he and she really had a child, he told me the whole story. It left me scared, almost shaking as we hiked. He had loved her. I could hear it in his voice and she had hurt him terribly. I wasn’t sure he even understood how he had been used since there was still love in his eyes for her. She had kicked him out of his own bed, told him it was a mistake and he had been so sheltered he didn’t even seem to know that he shouldn’t be telling me this. When the baby came, his memories got fuzzy and there was something he didn’t seem to want to tell me. I didn’t force it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

When he went quiet again, I let him stay that way. I’d lost track of how long we marched on when his head snapped up, stopping me.

“Hear that?”

“More monsters?” I wasn’t ready for that. I hurt too much to run. I think going down river had damaged me worse than I thought. My knee felt like it was half unhinged and my head still throbbed.

“No. Cars.”

I couldn’t be happier if he told me I’d won a million dollars. “Where?”

He canted away from the river, going faster now. I followed as best I could, pain momentarily forgotten. We got to the edge of the woods and I could see the road a few hundred yards off. We both broke into a jog. No cars were coming but I didn’t care. Roads meant people. Suddenly, there was a crack like thunder and Connor went hurtling backwards. He rolled on the ground before regaining his feet.

“What was that?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

He headed back towards me only to get tossed again. I went to him. Whatever barrier he was running into didn’t bothering me. I squatted down next to him then my knee buckled and I landed in the loam. He looked at me, his eyes sad, his lips parted just a bit. They quivered.

“They told me I was leashed to this place.” His eyes hardened into blue chips of ice, as he concentrated, as if trying to grab onto a slippery thought. “Leashed like a dog. They won’t let me go.”

“But Hitcoga removed all the spells around you.” I felt a shudder race through me like yesterday’s lightning. He had saved me. How could I leave him? “The spell must be on the land itself. It recognizes you. They must not have had time to add me to the spell.”

“Didn’t think you’d get this far,” he said.

I frowned. He was right. Wolfram and Hart considered him dangerous, not me. “I wouldn’t have without you. Stay right here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I said excitedly. I had an idea. I tried to jog out of the woods, but my knee had had enough. It felt like a balloon ready to pop out of my dirty jeans. By the time I got to the road, its deserted condition hadn’t changed but just down the hill was a sign and a little further down a mile post. I stumbled down hill, read the mile maker then the sign telling me which state park Wolfram and Hart had somehow buried their complex in. I turned around and limped back to Connor.

“I know exactly what sign post we’re next to,” I said, proudly. Now if I only knew what state that sign was for. “I’m going to go for help. One phone call and I’ll have Slayers here and a witch. Willow will get you out of this.”

He made a lemony face. “Hate magic.”

“You have reason to,” I said, placatingly. All I needed was for him to be as stubborn as his darn dad. “And I’ll get your dad.” His face darkened at that. “I know you don’t like Angel but we might need him. Do you think you can stay safe around here? They’re all in Los Angeles. It might not be until tomorrow before we can rescue you since I’m not even sure what state we’re in.”

He smirked and for the first time, slightly resembled Angel. “No problem.”

“Great, because I’ll be able to find you here...how will you know when I get back?” I couldn’t just expect him to hang out in this very spot. Something was likely to come for him.

He tapped his nose. “I’ll know.”

“You can smell me?” I stared. “Is that how you followed me through the wood?”

“Yeah.”

“Ewwww.” I shuddered, seeing one of the makeshift bandages on my arm flutter. I took off all the strips of Connor’s shirt that were holding me together. I might end up at a police station or hospital. I didn’t want anyone to know I had help. That would mess up the story I planned on telling. Some of the bandages stuck to the wounds and I teared up as I pulled them free, blood running anew.

“Be careful,” he said, gathering up the discarded bandages. I didn’t want to know what he was going to do with them.

“You, too.”

I looked into his baby blues. He was trying hard not to look afraid but I could see it hiding in those almond-shaped orbs. I didn’t know why I did it but I grabbed his face and kissed him, surprising him. He broke away, staring at me as he shoved the bandages in a pocket. Then he put his arms around me, kissing me back. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. Okay, my whole experience was with a vampire boy, Justin, but this was nothing like that. Connor made me want to forget about rescue. I ended the kiss this time and broke away from him before the hormones got the better of me.

“I’ll be back as fast as I can,” I promised and hobbled for the road. That wasn’t all hormones. Maybe it was because of how he saved me, or because, like me, he was unique, without a real place in this world, but I was feeling something strong like I had never felt before. Too bad I didn’t have time to worry about it.

I started going down the road, so relieved to have this bit of civilization under my feet, so afraid that Wolfram and Hart would still be looking for me that I started crying. I was still crying when a car slowed down for me.

Luck finally went my way. Not only was the driver armed with a cell phone, she was a doctor on her way back to Madison. I was in Wisconsin of all places. I wouldn’t have even guessed I was so far from my family. She called the police then got her medical gear out of her trunk - she did home health and her trunk was a mini-doctor’s office - and she fixed me up some. When the cops got there, I lied the best I could. I sent them looking miles away from where Connor was hiding out. I had to tell them I had been kidnapped in L.A. and I didn’t know how I escaped from the creep’s RV. I described my kidnapper, only vaguely aware that my description was actually that of my father. Well, just let them try to find him. No one else could.

They took me to a hospital and Dr. D’Mayo came with me. She was sweet, holding my hand as I waited in the E.R. and answered more questions. I kept telling them that he didn’t rape me, that he was feeding me some kind of drugs, that I wasn’t aware of how long I was in his control and that he didn’t talk much. I figured keeping my story simple was the best since I was lying to the police and filing a false report. Finally, they decided they had enough information and the doctors decided I didn’t have to stay at the hospital. They gave me pain killers, antibiotics, several stitches in my scalp and a knee brace. Dr. D’Mayo drove me to Madison and she gave me forty dollars and paid for a hotel room. I made sure I got her address so I could send her a thank you and so I could pay her back.

Finally safe, I called Buffy. I had wanted to call from the hospital but I knew her. She would have wanted to come to my rescue immediately and I would have had to wait at the hospital since there’d be no way of contacting her until she got to Wisconsin. I didn’t even have a cell phone. Could you even call collect to one? I hadn’t even been sure the police wouldn’t have made me go with them once the hospital released me so I decided to wait to make that call. The police had called the number I gave them, Buffy’s phone back in Cleveland at our base there. There was no answer but I didn’t expect that there would be. Buffy wouldn’t have gone back there, not without me. The cops were concerned that there was no missing person file on me in Los Angeles, but given my age it was easy to convince them that my sister probably thought I had just run away again.

I think we both cried all through the phone call. I told her about Connor and she already knew he existed. I guessed when Hitcoga destroyed the magic around Connor, everyone remembered him. However, no one from Sunnydale knew about him other than Willow. She hadn’t said anything before because Buffy needed to concentrate on the First Evil. Giles got on the phone, asking me about Western Union. I found out the hotel office had a way of getting money wires and I called them back. Giles sent money because they wouldn’t make it until late tonight at best. They didn’t even know how they’d get here yet. I used some of the money to rent the room for an extra day just in case.

I just wanted to lie down and sleep until my rescuers made it here, but I found the strength to go shopping, which required me to find a bus to a strip mall. People looked at me funny, but who could blame them? I looked and smelled horrible, hence the shopping trip. I got the cheapest jeans K-Mart had to offer, a three-pack of underpants, a couple t-shirts and a cheesy night shirt. Tooth paste, tooth brush, hair brush and deodorant all made it into my cart, too. I got back to the hotel as fast as I could and into a hot shower. I scrubbed hard then dressed in my new clothes. I had forgotten to buy a bra but sadly I could get away without one. I dumpstered my old clothes then headed across the street to a Chinese restaurant to get take away sesame chicken, egg drop soup and fried wontons. I went back to my room, and ate ravenously, watching HBO.

It wasn’t even six in the evening but I was exhausted. I changed into my night shirt and crawled under the covers. I curled up, thinking about poor Connor. I was stuffed with Chinese food, clean, warm and sleeping in a soft bed watching crap on TV. He was probably lying under tree branches munching on burnt rabbit if those cats hadn’t killed him. Connor could take care of himself. I knew that. I could feel it, like there was some strange bond between us. Had Lilah known we’d jive so well or was it bizarre luck or was I just imagining it, white knight on a horse and all that? Well, more like filthy knight on sore feet, but close enough.

I went to sleep thinking of him out there and he percolated into my dreams. They were frightening, me and him naked in rivers of blood. The knock on the door that dragged me out of dreamland was a blessing.

“Dawn?” Buffy’s voice sounded through the door.

I jumped out of bed, hit the light switch and threw open all the locks. Buffy was through the door, lifting me up in her strong arms before I even knew what was happening. The greetings were mostly a jumble of words and tears. It took several minutes for me to realize that almost everyone was here; Xander, Willow, Giles, Angel, Wes and Faith. I got passed along to all of them for hugs. Faith kicked the hotel door shut.

“I can’t believe you’re all here. It seems so unreal,” I said then reached for Angel. “I told Connor you’d come. I wasn’t sure how since I know you aren’t into plane travel.”

“Wolfram and Hart has a necrotempered plane for Angel but we didn’t trust them, not after what you just told us so I did a big teleportation spell,” Willow somehow bubbled, her pale face etched with exhaustion. “It kinda took it out of me.”

“Yes, Willow ought to get some rest,” Giles said and Angel’s head snapped around, an irritated look on his face.

I glanced at the clock. It was after two in the morning. “You’ll never get to him in time, Angel. The sun would be coming up by the time we even get there. He’ll be okay.”

His dark eyes were like coal. “Not with Wolfram and Hart after him.”

“He did fine with me weighing him down,” I said. “And he’ll be recovered more now than he was, thanks to Hitcoga’s spell. I think so, at any rate. He seemed to be connecting with me more as we went. He can build a shelter and catch his own food. He’ll be okay for another day, probably more.”

“We can go tomorrow in the day,” Buffy said. “It might be better that way rather than bumbling around in the woods in the dark.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Faith said. “And you know that boy can handle himself, Angel.”

“Not in the condition I last saw him in,” Angel argued, not ready to give up.

“He fought just fine,” I said. “They had him in a fighting ring but they fed him L.S.D. too, trying to keep him nuts. Hitcoga healed him, and he was fighting those cat creatures without any trouble. He saved my life.”

“Do you know who this Hitcoga is, Dawn?” Wes asked.

I shook my head. “She came out of the roses and fog. She said these woods were hers.”

“We can worry about that later.” Buffy wrapped a protective arm around me. “Dawn needs to rest.”

That got rid of half of them; Faith, Xander and Willow who went to their freshly reserved rooms. Giles, Angel and Wes insisted on hearing the whole story. Buffy sat with me on the bed, resigned to it. I told as much as I could until I got too tired to talk coherently. Buffy shooed everyone out and climbed into the second bed.

“Where’s Angel going to sleep?” I asked, thinking in the trunk of the car or under the hotel bed, ewww.

“The shower stall. It’s not ideal but with a do not disturb sign he should be okay,” Buffy replied, curling up on her side, looking at me. “He’s sharing with Xander who I guess will have to go to Giles and Wes’ room if he has to pee.”

“Xander’d probably rather pee on Angel,” I mumbled.

Buffy snorted. “Don’t give him any dangerous ideas.”

“I’ve never been so glad to see you,” I muttered.

“I know how you feel,” Buffy said and started to tell me how scared she had been, but I faded away in the middle of it.

*

*

*

It was late in the morning before any of us woke up. I was still sore so I took the pain pill along with my antibiotics. Pulling on the knee brace was more painful than leaving the knee alone but I managed to get the piece of neoprene up and velcro’ed on. It was decided that Wes and Xander would stay behind with Angel to research and to contact Fred, Gunn, Robin and Lorne who had remained in L.A., trying to see if they could find out anything about the Wisconsin complex. I think there was some tension there, too, because of what Angel had done.

The look on Angel’s face when we left hurt to even think on. It was killing him to be left behind. I gave him a hug before we left. I sat up front in the rental car and directed Giles to the spot. We decided it wasn’t safe to just leave the car on the side of the road if a cop or a ranger came by. There was a small, kind of overgrown scenic area about a quarter mile up the hill so we parked there, armed ourselves with knives and walked. I didn’t want to do any more hiking but I had to, no matter how sore I was. At least Faith and Buffy were the ones backpacking in the other weapons, just in case. Once we got to the mile marker, I stopped.

“What’s wrong, Dawn?” Buffy asked. “I know you don’t want to go in there.”

“That’s not it. Connor might get a little nervous if he sees everyone. He doesn’t know you and he might think that Wolfram and Hart has captured me or something,” I said.

“You’re not going into the woods alone,” Buffy said, sharply.

“I want Faith to come with me. He knows her,” I replied.

Buffy’s eyes went grim, her body tensing but she nodded. “We’ll be waiting right here.”

Faith and I headed into the woods. Her lips curled as the forest closed up behind us. “I hate the woods.”

“I’m not thrilled either,” I said.

“Did he give you any idea where he might be?” Faith asked.

“I told him to wait in this area, but who knows? Wolfram and Hart might have come after him,” I said. “He said he’d know when I came back.”

“How?”

“You don’t wanna know,” I replied.

“You know, kiddo, I’m impressed. You almost got away from him when Connor was hunting you down.” Faith gave me a look of approval. “I’ve fought him. The boy has moves.”

“I thought I killed him,” I admitted. “I kept hitting him in the face with a log. I don’t know how he recovered so fast and came after me.”

“He heals like a Slayer,” Faith said. “Look at this.”

Faith pointed to a tree with a splintered base. There were dark spots on the bark that might have been blood.

“That’s probably from those cats,” I said. “Their tails do that.”

Faith drew her knife. We walked on but saw no other signs of battles. Then I spotted branches up against rock. It just looked like shrubbery until I looked more closely.

“That’s one of his shelters.” I pointed it out. “Stay here.”

I expected Faith to protest. Buffy never lets me do things on my own, not like this, but Faith just nodded. I went up to the shelter and peered in. Connor was curled up asleep, looking like a cat tucked into a ball.

“Connor,” I called softly.

His head popped up, his teeth flashing like an angered dog. His hand grabbed the knife. I was so glad I didn’t go with my first inclination and shake him awake. He might have gutted me before he knew who it was.

“It’s okay, Connor. I’ve brought help just like I said.” I tried to wave him down.

He ruffled his hair after sliding his knife away then stretched before crawling out of the shelter. There was a rusty-colored crusted gash on his left arm. Now that my heart was back safely in my chest, I noticed that his face was clean, not just of dirt but of that hideous beard. How could he possibly shave with a knife? I don’t know but he managed it. He looked so young now and amazingly girlish.

“What got you?” I took a few steps back so he could get out.

“One of those cats.” He glanced over and grinned, his blue eye brightening. “Faith.”

She cocked a hip at him as she smiled. “Look at you, kid. You’re even skinnier than the last time I saw you.”

Connor ran a hand over his tattered shirt, trying in vain to improve his appearance. I wanted to slap him. He so did not need to be primping for Faith. Why was I suddenly so blinding jealous? Maybe because I knew Faith would sleep with anything and anyone. The real question was why did I care if Connor was in lust with Faith? I just didn’t want him to get used and tossed aside, just like all Faith’s other men including Principal Wood. He had gotten used a couple of times before Faith got bored. After Cordy already hurt Connor like that I didn’t want him to go through it again. Oh, who am I kidding? I just didn’t want Faith touching someone I was interested in and I wanted to dig Connor’s eyes out for looking at her.

“They fixed you?” Connor’s eyes finally jerked back over to me.

“Yeah, at the hospital. We should go so Willow and Giles can figure out how to get you free,” I said and he made a face. “What? You don’t like Willow?”

“Don’t like magic,” he reminded me, his face going all surly.

“Like it or we can leave you,” Faith said lightly. She shouldn’t joke about that.

He smirked. “You won’t leave me.”

“As if you’d let me,” Faith shot back. “You’re still burning to show me what you can do.”

“You won’t beat me this time,” he said.

She laughed.

I lost my patience. “Connor, we need to...” I started.

“Be back,” he said then jogged off.

Great, what now? I started to follow but Faith stopped me. “He doesn’t need you there watching him shoot moss off a tree trunk,” she said, grinning.

Realizing what I normally had to do after waking up, I blushed. Faith gave me an odd look and asked, “You okay, Dawn? You’re getting Buffy-Face.”

I glared. I didn’t know which new Slayer coined that term, probably Kennedy, but it meant getting pissy. “One of these days she’s gonna hear you say that,” I said and Faith rolled her eyes. “And I’m just worried is all. We don’t know how long it’ll take them to get Connor free, if they even can.” We hadn’t talked about what would happen if Willow and Giles failed, as if to even think it would make it happen.

Connor came back quickly enough and we headed to where our friends waited. Connor stopped before I did. I guessed he knew exactly how far he could go, or maybe it was the sight of Buffy, Willow and Giles standing in the woods that made him hesitate.

I took his hand. “Connor, you know Willow. This is Giles and my sister, the one I told you about.”

He bobbed his head, moving closer to me. I would never have guessed he could be shy.

“Hello, Connor,” Giles said, studying him closely. I knew that look; that was the full-on ‘Curious Watcher’ look.

The _expression on Buffy’s face was much harder to read. She looked stunned, maybe even pained. I could understand that. I don’t think she ever wanted kids, but she had wanted to be with Angel. I think part of her still did, which I was all for. I mean, if she had to have an undead guy, better Angel than a man who tried to rape her. It had to hurt Buffy that Angel had a kid with someone else. She touched Connor’s shoulder like you would a precious antique.

“Thank you for saving my sister,” she said, finally.

“Tried to hurt her first,” he replied, surprisingly honest.

“I know. She told me.”

Connor eyed Buffy. “You’re a Slayer, too? Are you as good as Faith?”

Buffy smirked. “I’m better.”

“You wish,” Faith shot back.

“I’d like to see it,” Connor said, smiling at Buffy. Was he flirting with my sister? Xander was right. He, Willow and Buffy had sat me down for the ‘big talk’ before I went to high school. Xander had told me repeatedly that all teenaged boys thought about was sex and they’d hit on anyone. I wasn’t even sure Connor knew he was doing it. I was ready to slap him.

“If I may interrupt all the...uh, posturing, Connor, Willow and I need to do a few simple tests to see if we can determine what Wolfram and Hart has done to bind you here,” Giles said.

“What do I have to do?” Connor gazed at Giles, seeming tense. He changed radically from how he was acting with us girls.

“I know you don’t like magic, Connor.” Willow approached him, slinging off her backpack. “What we need to do is use a spell to probe you. It won’t hurt. All you have to do is sit back and relax.” Willow gestured at us. “We can all sit down. We’ll be here a while.”

“Um, one of those cat things was near by. Faith and I saw its marks on a tree and it cut Connor,” I said, not sure I could relax.

“It’s dead.” Connor sat on some mossy ground.

“B and I will keep an eye out so Willow and Giles can do their thing,” Faith said.

“They’re Splinter cats. They’re indigenous,” Giles said. “Or at least Wes and I think so based on Dawn’s description. It’s hard to say if they are here by coincidence, sent after Dawn and Connor, or just placed here as guards.”

“Told you we shouldn’t have let those boys share a room,” Faith said and Giles rolled his eyes, turning back to Connor.

I sat next to Connor. Buffy raised an eyebrow at that, but she said nothing. Giles and Willow did the chanty thing then went off to where Connor indicated the boundary was. He told us how he had tested it for miles in either direction after I had left him.

Connor leaned close, his eyes still on my sister and Faith. What did he find so fascinating? He whispered to me, “Who is the better fighter?”

So, that was it; the power thing. I couldn’t compete if that’s what turned him on. Me being the Key was power all right but not the physical kind. “Buffy, but I have to say that. She’s my sister.” I grinned. “They’re pretty incredible. I’m not sure Buffy knows what to say to you, if you think maybe she’s being rude by ignoring you more or less. She and Angel have a history. She’s still got feelings for him.” I wasn’t sure why I was babbling, desperate to have him pay attention to me. How uncool, Dawn. Connor made a face so I went one step further. “So does Faith but that’s probably more lust than love.”

His lips curled and he gave the Slayers a look of disgust. Crush two objects of flirtation with one blow, way to go girl. I shouldn’t feel good about that but I did. I couldn’t even say why I wanted his attention but I did.

Giles came back over and started asked questions that I’m not sure Connor even understood, all sorts of weird, arcane stuff mixed in with personal questions. I tried not to hear, thinking maybe Connor wouldn’t like it. I got up stiffly, putting some distance between us, but I kept my eyes on Connor, studying him now that I was rested and more or less unafraid.

Connor looked so unscary that I wondered how I had ever been afraid of the little guy. The fight ring flashed in my mind; being tackled into the roses served to remind me. He only looked like a harmless kid. He was deadly, I told myself, trying to decipher the attraction that I knew went beyond hormonal overdose. This was silly. I didn’t believe in love at first sight and I wasn’t sure it was love or anything like it, but there was a compulsion that I needed to puzzle out.

Tall, dark and handsome he wasn’t. He wasn’t an uggo by any means but he was no one’s standard of handsome. He was way too skinny for one thing. The bend of his long nose made his face intriguing, though. He had the weirdest smile, kinda creepy but captivating. Those lips were red and big. I remembered how they felt when we kissed; good, commanding. I wanted to try it again when our mouths weren’t like the inside of a sewer. I was glad he shaved. Beards, even ones as scraggly as his had been, weren’t my thing. I think it was his eyes I liked the most; the shape of them, their expressiveness, the deepness of their slate blue. They were definitely his best feature.

Still, put him in my former high school and he’d be another Xander, not cute, cool or rich enough to be in the popular clique. I doubted Connor would have cared had he been a normal kid. Neither did I, really. I wasn’t exactly Ms. Popular either but that was okay. From what I could tell, those girls weren’t particularly interesting, merely pretty.

Then something popped into my mind, something I had totally forgotten. “Buffy, we forgot the breakfast we brought. I’ll go get it.”

“Sit and give your knee a break. I’ll go,” my sister replied and headed back for our car.

I settled back down next to Connor.

“I had breakfast,” he said.

“Don’t tell me about it,” I said quickly. “It was probably cute and furry and I don’t want to know.”

He shrugged then whispered, “You smell nice.”

So he noticed my efforts to clean up. Good. Of course, now that I was surrounded by washed people, Connor’s griminess was far more noticeable as was his smell. “Thanks.”

Connor licked his lips, his eyes darting around like he was looking for something. “Dad came, too, didn’t he?”

I nodded. “I should have said so right away. Sorry. He’s with Wes and my friend, Xander. They’re doing some other research, trying to figure out what Wolfram and Hart’s up to.”

“I knew he’d come,” Connor muttered and I couldn’t tell if he was happy or not.

“He loves you too much not to,” I said. “He wanted to come last night but there weren’t enough hours left in the night.”

Connor nodded. “He tries to love me.”

“You make it sound like you don’t believe he does,” I said, not liking the creeping darkness I heard in his tone.

His face went so sad that I nearly cried for him. “I’m not sure a creature like him or one like me can love right. Demons aren’t made to love.”

“You’re wrong,” I said. Was he a demon? I hadn’t even thought about that. What is it with Summer Girls that we keep going for the not-quite-human?

“I’m with her,” Faith said. I hadn’t even realized she was listening in; she had looked so bored. “Angel cares. If he didn’t, he would have let me go straight to the hell I was heading for. Your dad saved me, turned me around.”

Connor looked over at her then stretched out on the ground. “You asked me once if I was a murderer ‘cause you were.”

“That’s right. Your dad dragged me back from that darkness.” Faith sat down, leaning back against a tree. “And that’s how I knew you didn’t have the balls to take me in a fight. You’re not a murderer.”

Connor snorted, rolling so he could look at her more easily. “You only assumed that. I never said I wasn’t.”

That got our attention. Even Willow and Giles looked up from the books they had backpacked in.

“You killed someone?” I asked, feeling a deep hole opening in my heart. I didn’t want to know this. His eyes went vacant. I didn’t like that. I could almost see his sanity bleeding away.

“I’m the Destroyer,” he said, neither confirming our fear nor alleviating it.

A rock scuffled along the ground, startling us. Buffy was coming back with two bags. She paused, staring at us all. “Did I miss something?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Faith said, tossing a pinecone Connor’s way. “Kid?”

“Told you before. I have a name.” Connor sat back up, still grouchy.

“Yeah, you were snotty about it then, too.”

“I was snotty because you weren’t listening to me,” Connor said, getting an angry look that reminded me of when he was in that enclosure. Maybe Hitcoga hadn’t fixed all his mental problems.

“That’s because you were planning to kill Angel,” Faith said, stiffening.

“Angelus and he told me to!”

Buffy stopped in her tracks, standing over Connor. “He what?”

“He said if anything went wrong and Angelus got out I had to kill him. He made me promise,” Connor said. “It’s the only thing he’s ever said to me that ever made any sense.”

Buffy just dropped the food bag in his lap and stalked over to Giles and Willow, taking bottled waters out of the other bag.

“Why am I having trouble with Angel doing that?” Faith asked.

“Ask him.” Connor opened the bag and pulled out the twinkie first. “Thank you, Buffy.”

“He really wanted you to kill him?” Buffy persisted, stalking back our way.

“He knew what Angelus could do...guess he didn’t want that to happen.” Connor shrugged and all but inhaled his twinkie. “He knew I could kill him if I had to.”

Faith snorted. “You couldn’t even beat me.”

“It takes a lot to beat Angelus,” Buffy said, eyeing Connor. “I’m with Faith.”

“Whatever.” He shrugged again, finding the convenience store sub sandwich we had gotten him. He ripped through the plastic. “I beat him once. I could do it again.”

“You beat Angel?” I asked. He hadn’t told me about this and I was actually sort of grateful. I didn’t like this conversation.

“Sure you did, kid.” Faith rolled her eyes at him.

Connor glared at her, chewing. He swallowed and said, “I did. He had to be punished for what he did to Father.”

Buffy’s eyebrows came together. “Angel is your father.”

“He means the man who raised him in that hell dimension,” I said in case Angel hadn’t told Buffy the whole story. I couldn’t tell if that had been a question or a reminder on her part.

“Angel killed him. Oh, he says Justine did it but she’s not around to tell me her side. And if it happened that way, it means Father thought I was a tool for his revenge and nothing more.” Connor shook all over. I put a hand on his arm, feeling his muscles quivering. “That can’t be true. I know Father loved me. So I punished Angel.”

Buffy squatted down in front of Connor. Her voice was cool, even and scary. “What did you do to Angel?”

Connor met her eyes, unafraid, almost proud. “I welded him in a coffin and I sank him in the ocean.”

Buffy rocked back and I was too stunned to even move. “I would have known if you did any such thing,” Buffy said.

“Buffy,” Giles interrupted softly. “Wes told me about this on the way here. Both Angel and Cordelia were gone. Gunn and Fred didn’t think to contact you. They assumed you were out of Angel’s life.”

“You tried to kill him?” Buffy asked and I thought she was going to snap Connor’s neck.

His smile was so frigid, I wanted to get up and bolt. “If I wanted him dead, he’d be dust.”

“That’s cold,” Faith said.

“He deserved it for what he did to Father.”

“The way I understand it, that man kidnapped you. Why in the world would you give him your loyalty over Angel?” Buffy asked.

“It was God’s will that Father raise me,” Connor said, taking another bite of his sandwich as if we were talking about the weather or sports scores instead of his attempts at murdering his dad.

“You start quoting Scripture and I’ll slap you,” Faith said.

“Faith, Buffy,” Giles waved them over. Buffy dragged me to my feet, not caring that my knee twinged and protested. We went over to the boundary where he was working with Willow. “Angel told me Connor has a very idealized view of Holtz and very much believes that it was the will of God, the way things turned out. Given his precarious mental state, it doesn’t do to challenge the very foundation of his beliefs.”

“It was the will of God,” Connor called out, startling us.

“Vampire hearing,” I said. “Forgot to warn you.”

“And don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” he added.

“Sorry,” Giles said, then changed the subject, “Wolfram and Hart is quite serious about keeping you here. This is going to take us longer than anticipated.”

“No kidding,” Willow said.

“How long did they have me?” Connor asked.

“I should have asked that myself,” I said.

“You’ve been gone six weeks, Dawn,” Buffy said and I felt suddenly weak. I had no idea so much time had passed.

“Angel said it’s been over a year for you, Connor,” Willow said.

All the anger and bravado drained out of him. He looked limp and so very small. “That long. I don’t remember...I don’t know what they did to me.”

I went to go to him. I could see that pain and despite what he had just told us, I wanted to comfort him. Buffy grabbed my arm, pulling me close. She hissed in my ear, “Leave him alone.”

“No,” I said and her eyes widened. “We can argue about it later.”

I pulled free but only because she let me. I sat with him. “Connor, it’s probably best that you don’t. For all I know, they had you living in that cave thing in the fighting arena the whole time they had you prisoner. They gave you terrible drugs to make you see things and keep you insane.”

“One of them was nice to me,” he said, his eyes suddenly bright with tears.

“Lilah...no, Connor, she wasn’t,” I said and his eyes drilled me.

“Not Lilah. Lilah’s dead. Angelus killed her.”

“It was Lilah, Connor. You just had so much acid in you, you couldn’t tell. And I guess she is dead since her head is detachable,” I said, shuddering. He echoed that body movement.

“She was behind it all. She lied to Angel. She took you from him and she was the one making you sick. She only wanted you to think she was your friend so you’d do what she wanted. She called you her dog,” I said harshly. I didn’t want him having any fuzzy feelings about Lilah just in case Wolfram and Hart came after us before we could get him free. His lips trembled, the tears trickling down his face. I had only seen men cry a few times. The night Buffy died and the night after Sunnydale was swallowed whole. Xander cried for days after Anya’s death became real to him. I put my arms around Connor, pulling him close. He put his dirty face against my shoulder, weeping. “It’ll be okay,” I promised. “Giles and Willow are the best. They’ll get you out of here and you won’t have to worry about her any more.”

“That’s...a big ‘tude change,” Faith said uneasily.

“From what Angel described, at the end when he made his decision to try and put Connor with a family, I’d say Connor had a complete nervous breakdown. It takes time to completely recover from that, even with magical help,” Giles said. He didn’t add that sometimes you don’t recover from that. We feared that when Willow went nuts.

“I should have...why didn’t I know it was her? I think I know things but I can’t be sure,” he sobbed. “I think they were real but maybe they weren’t.”

“Like what, kid?” Faith asked, taking a few steps closer to us then hesitated.

Connor sat away from me, wiping his face. “I remember Dad trying to kill Cordy’s baby...or so she said. Stuff she’d say made perfect sense when I was with her...but when I left her it didn’t make any sense.” He looked over at Faith. “She was jealous of you and me...but there was nothing. I just sat with you a little while...when you were dying from that drug.”

Faith’s face softened. “You did?”

He nodded. “I remember Cordy wanting me to do something I really didn’t want to do to help the baby be born. It was bad but I don’t know what it was now...but I know Mother was there. So, maybe I am crazy ‘cause she died to get away from me.”

“Who told you that?” I asked. What a horrible thought, that your own mother would rather die than be with you.

“Dad.”

“That doesn’t sound like Angel,” Buffy said.

“Not him, the real him,” Connor said.

“Angelus is not your dad.” Faith said what we were all thinking.

Connor ignored her. “After Jasmine was born...it all goes dark and scary and the more I try to remember the less I do...the more afraid I get.”

“For now, you might want to leave those memories be,” Giles said softly and Connor looked at him. “The trauma you went through, that can take away memories, sometimes for good. That’s your mind’s way of protecting itself. Let it.”

Connor’s face twisted like he was wrestling with that. He flopped back down on the pine needles and dirt. “Not remembering might be good,” he decided. “I understand why Wolfram and Hart took me. They’ve always wanted to get a hold of me even before I was born. Fred told me that, so I don’t understand why Angel trusted them to help me like Dawn said he was trying to do.”

“Well, after we’re done asking him about the thing with Angelus and you killing him, we’ll ask him that, too,” Faith said.

Connor sat up long enough to strip off his shirt and wad it up under his head. Buffy’s eyes trailed over his body then glanced at me. I could see what she was thinking, ‘should his stomach cave in like that?’ and ‘is it right I can count all his ribs?’ but she has no room to be asking, either.

“What I don’t get is why they took Dawn,” he said.

“Remember what I told you about being a portal key?” I asked and Buffy’s eyes got too big for her face. I could almost hear her screaming my name in reprimand. “That’s why Wolfram and Hart want me. They have some portal they think my blood will open. I don’t even have to die to do it, or so Lilah said.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Buffy growled.

“There’s more, Buffy. I was...kinda scared to say.”

Buffy came over and sat with me. She stroked my hair. “What did they do to you, Dawnie?”

“I don’t know they did anything.” I shifted uncomfortably. “But they had plans for me. They were feeding me hormones.”

“Why?” Buffy stiffened up.

“They knew what I am. They know what Connor is and what his and Cordy’s daughter was. They wanted me to have Connor’s child.”

“What?” That question came in a horrified chorus of voices.

Connor stared at me, mouth open. His head jerked away, his gaze falling to the ground then he flung himself to his feet. He paced like a caged animal. Giles and Willow gave up on their books and came over to me, pity in their eyes.

“I’m sorry, Connor.” There was no way I could easily get up and try to calm him down. My knee hurt too much. “I probably should have told you first but I’m kinda wigged out by the whole thing.”

Connor slammed a fist into a sapling. He killed the poor thing. Faith caught hold of his arm.

“Speaking of wigging out, let’s not,” she told him, making him sit back beside me.

“Dawn, what did he do to you?” Buffy put her arms around me, glaring at Connor like he had been the one to come up with the idea.

“Nothing,” I wriggled out of her arms. “It wasn’t going to be like that. It was going to be all artificial but it didn’t happen...I don’t think.”

“You don’t know?” Willow asked, horrified.

“I was drugged for six weeks. I only remember about four days of it,” I snapped. “They had no intention of letting me be awake for it but I don’t think it happened. Connor, did they have you...uh you know?” My face burned hot.

He gave me a weird, confused look. “What?”

“Jack off,” Faith supplied for me. For once I was grateful for her crudeness.

Connor just shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know, choke the chicken, pull your wank?” Faith added hand motions that seemed to shock him.

“She means self-abuse,” Giles supplied.

“Abuse?” Faith asked that like it was the silliest thing she had ever heard.

Connor’s jaw dropped. “That’s a sin.”

Faith lightly hit him. “I told you, you’d get it if you started quoting Scripture.”

“That wasn’t Scripture,” he protested. “And I don’t do that.”

“Really?” Faith seemed amused. “What century are you from?”

“One over two centuries past,” Giles said with a subtle smile.

“Doesn’t change anything. It’s a sin,” Connor said like he really believed it.

“Actually is has changed. We know that it’s a good, healthy thing,” Giles replied.

“I didn’t do it,” Connor said then muttered, “Genesis 38.”

Faith hit him again, a little harder this time. “That was definitely a Scripture. You are as stubborn as your old man. So, you don’t wank. Did they do it for you?”

“No.” Connor curled up, knees to his chest. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Well, it’s not like Dawn can’t deal with it if it did happen,“ Faith said as Giles led Willow back to their work.

“What do you mean?” Connor’s voice was knife-sharp.

I put a hand on his knee. “Nothing. It’ll be okay. The first time Lilah brought me to see you, she told me I wasn’t ready yet for the procedure. They didn’t drug me into unconsciousness after that.” I got up and went over to Giles and Willow. Buffy followed me.

“You’re lying,” she whispered.

I shifted through Willow’s back pack and came up with a tablet and pen. I wrote, I don’t honestly know but Giles is right. Connor was raised by someone from a long time ago. If he thinks masturbation is a sin, what do you think he’ll do if we mention abortion? If I’m pregnant, I don’t want him to ever know. Let him think it didn’t happen.

Buffy crumbled the paper up and nodded. She gave me a quick hug, whispering that she’d let Faith and the others see this just so no one would make a mistake.

“How’s it going, Giles?” I asked. “I’m getting kinda nervous. Those cats don’t mind daylight.”

“I’m afraid this will take us a good deal of time. The best you can do is just try and relax.”

“Easier said than done.”

I went back and sat with Connor who was curled up, head pillowed on his filthy shirt. Buffy came with and Faith joined us. I made Buffy tell me what had been going on for the last six weeks beyond my kidnapping, which obviously nothing had been. I was the only thing on her mind, which was kinda comforting. Connor spent time debating with Faith about whether or not he let her best him. His excuse was that according to Cordelia he did it because he liked Faith cracking the whip on him. It amused Faith to no end. I thought they were going to start sparring just to pass the time.

Eventually, Faith hiked back to the car to get the lunches we brought just in case. Connor ate the snack first again. Giles offered Connor his dessert, probably thinking what I was; Connor needed a little meat on his bones. As time dragged on, Connor napped under the trees.

“He’s extremely malnourished,” Giles said, not looking up from whatever herbs he was grinding. “It’s taking a toll if he can sleep through this.”

“Maybe but he’s always looked like that,” Faith said.

Giles shoved his glasses up. “Really? So, he’s a greyhound then?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what he inherited from Angel but it sure as hell wasn’t his build.”

“His sneer,” Willow piped up. “He got that. He so androgynous, though. I didn’t expect that when Fred told me about Connor.”

“You’ve called me that before. What’s it mean?” Connor rolled over, cracking open one eye.

“You’re supposed to be asleep.” Willow pouted at him.

“How can I sleep through all the talking?” he asked. “What’s it mean?”

“It means you’re so girlie we don’t know if you’re a girl or boy,” Faith said, patting his cheek. “Baby face.”

Connor swatted at her. “I don’t look like a girl.”

“Sure you don’t.” Faith grinned. “Okay, you’re a flat girl but in this company that doesn’t make you anything special.”

“Hey!” Me, Buffy and Willow cried.

Faith bobbled her boobs. “Jealous.”

Connor watched them bounce and I pinched his side. He gave me a wounded look. “I don’t look like a girl. Tell them, Dawn.”

“She’s seeing what we’re seeing,” Faith said.

“I meant the time at the river,” he said.

“Connor!” I could only imagine how red my face was. “Shut up.”

“River?” Faith’s eyes danced. “Did you go skinny dipping, Connor?”

“He was washing demon gook off himself,” I said, willing his lips sealed.

“So, he is a boy under those hideous pants?” Faith’s grin was absolutely predatory.

“I wasn’t looking,” I said, keenly aware of Buffy’s eyes on me.

“Yes, you were,” Connor said.

With an embarrassed yip, I buried my face against my knees, my hair flowing down like a curtain.

“You naughty girl,” Faith said. “Did you join him?”

“Faith!” Buffy snapped, then tapped my shoulder. “Did you?”

“What’s the big deal? We were just washing.” Connor looked honestly confused as to why Faith was amused, I was embarrassed and Buffy was miffed.

“We don’t do that in front of each other here,” Buffy replied.

“You’re as bad as Fred about that,” Connor said, wrinkling his nose.

“You can go back to sleep now,” I told him, glaring daggers.

“Any progress, Giles?” Buffy asked.

“Yes, we actually freed Connor hours ago, but we thought it would be more fun to sit in the woods like bait all day,” he shot back irritatedly. Guess he was tired of hearing that every ten minutes.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’m hiking out to the road to call Xander and let him know what’s going on.”

At some point, I remembered it getting very quiet and almost spooky, just the wind in the trees. The next thing I knew Buffy was calling my name. I opened my eyes, trying to figure out what was warm and soft under my head then realized I had fallen asleep with my head on Connor’s belly, our bodies like a T on the loam. I sat up quickly, rubbing my eyes.

“What?”

“I doubt Connor wants a lake of drool filling his belly button,” she replied and I shot him an embarrassed look. His eyes were shut but I didn’t think he was sleeping.

“It’s getting dark,” I said.

“We know,” Faith said. She had a pile of freshly whittled stakes at her side.

“Maybe I should start another fire for dinner,” Connor said.

“Xander’s bringing something,” Buffy said.

“I’m not getting out of here, am I?” Connor asked.

“You will,” Willow assured him. “Just maybe not as fast as we’d like it.”

Something crashed in the woods and we all tensed. Faith threw stakes to Buffy and Connor. Then we heard cursing.

“Xander,” Buffy and I said together.

“Where are you guys?” he called. “We kinda lost Angel.”

“That way,” Wes said. “Just like I told you. You have no sense of direction.”

“I feel a little like Hansel here, okay?” Xander replied. “And someone just couldn’t stay in the trunk until sundown making us go the long way through the bushes.”

“You two make enough noise.” Angel’s voice made Connor tense up. “And I told you to follow me. I could sniff out where to go.”

Angel ghosted out of the woods first, clinging very carefully to the shadows. Xander and Wes had a big cooler between them.

“Where the heck did you park? We pulled off the road by the mile marker but there was no you,” Xander said.

Before we could say anything, Connor exploded off the ground and hit Angel like an enraged bull. We were all stunned as he knocked Angel off his feet with one punch. Connor was on top of his father, screaming, his fists going so fast they were a blur. The only word I could pick out was, ‘bastard.’ They grappled and rolled on the ground, Angel smoking as Connor forced him in and out of patches of fading sunlight. It took Faith and Buffy to pull him off. Connor strained against them, his wiry muscles bunching as he shrieked.

Angel got to his feet, dusting himself off. “Let him go,” he said in a tone that made the Slayers obey without question.

Connor stood there, not attacking like we all thought he would. He shook so hard I thought he might come apart. The tears were immediate, like a river. “You let me go again. You let them get me. Again.” That last word came out like a curse and Angel recoiled like it was holy water.

“I’m so sorry, Connor. I didn’t know. They tricked me.”

This time Connor did hit him. “You never loved me enough to keep me.”

Angel caught his arm and whirled him around. Angel’s strong arms closed over Connor’s, pulling him against Angel’s chest. Angel dropped his face into Connor’s hair. I could barely hear him whispering apologies to his son. Connor struggled and squirmed, but he couldn’t break Angel’s grip. Finally, his knees just went out and he went to the ground. Angel moved with him, pulling him even closer, scooping him up into a fierce embrace.

“You let them hurt me,” Connor said, his voice so broken I started crying in sympathy. He started struggling again but Angel just held on tight. When Connor went limp again, Buffy looked ready to cry, too.

“I never meant for that to happen, Connor. I tried to help you. You wanted to die and I couldn’t let you do that.” Angel loosened his grip enough to stroke his son’s hair with one hand.

“Why don’t you ever hold onto me?”

“I didn’t think I could give you what you needed.” Angel was crying now. “You told me you were dead inside and I didn’t know how to make you live.” His arms tightened over Connor. “So I did the only thing I could think of. I loved you enough to give you up. I wanted them to make you forget everything and make you part of a real family.”

“But you trusted our enemy to do it,” Connor wailed. “How could you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Angel choked. “And I’ll never forgive myself for that. Connor, I’m...”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Connor roared.

“Connor,” I said, taking a few frightened steps toward him. Buffy reached for me but I waved her off. “I know Angel did the wrong thing, but sometimes you’re so desperate to help you’ll try anything.” I squatted down, my knee screaming inside the brace. I gave up and sat. “When Mom died, I tried to bring her back from the grave. I knew it was wrong. Willow and Tara told me so. Spike told me so but he still helped me try because he wanted her back, too. I didn’t think it through until almost too late and I stopped the spell.” I looked over my shoulder at Buffy. “Then Buffy died, and not just for a few minutes like when Xander did CPR. She died for me because that portal I was made to open required me to die to shut it. And it was wrong for her to do that, but all she could think of was saving me. We wanted Buffy back so much it hurt. We needed her. We convinced ourselves that she was in Glory’s hell dimension and we needed to rescue her. We didn’t think of the consequences. We just knew someone we loved needed our help and we acted. We brought her back from the dead and I’m not sure she’s ever forgiven us.”

“Dawn,” Buffy said, tears trickling from her eyes.

I held up my hand, returning my gaze to Connor’s face. “She was in heaven, Connor, and we ruined that because we thought we were doing the right thing. Angel thought he was saving you by putting you with a good family, making you think you were normal even if it meant he’d lose you forever. Think of how hard that was for him. Maybe he should have thought it through better but there wasn’t time, not if he was fighting to save you from yourself. I guess that’s what they mean about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.”

Connor held a hand out to me. I took it and he yanked me against him. Angel let go, letting Connor curl around me. I hugged him close as Angel’s arms slid around us both, pulling us to him. It felt so safe in his arms.

“You just have to try and let Angel make it up to you. I know it won’t be easy. Just ask Buffy,” I said.

Connor said nothing, his tears hot on my neck. Something loud and inhuman shrieked through the night air.

One of Wolfram and Hart’s creatures had found us at last.

Chapter Five

The thing came through the woods, looking like a fur-less, fat grizzly bear. It ran on all fours until it saw us. On its back feet, it was almost eight feet tall. It swiped at the nearest person, Faith, with steely grey claws. Faith cartwheeled away while Buffy raced to where Giles and Willow were tearing through one of the backpacks for weapons.

Faith kicked the leathery thing, her foot bouncing off it. She ducked under those talons as the thing roared, showing thick yellow teeth. Connor leapt at it with the stake Faith had given him earlier. Thank goodness, he had been so intent on taking Angel bare handed that he forgot that he had that thing.

The stake shattered like glass against the bear monster, shocking me. I tried to hobble for the weapons. My knee had stiffened up terribly. I had no idea what I’d do if I had to flat out run. Connor jumped at the thing as Faith and Angel took it from behind. It swatted him away. He spun out in mid air of control , his heel clipping Buffy’s head. Connor hit his boundary line and it snapped like a shot gun. Poor Connor got knocked away, nearly landing on Buffy.

Another howl rumbled through the dusk air and a second naked bear monster came tearing out of the woods, then a third. I managed to get to the weapons, finding a crossbow. I wasn’t very good with them but it was better than nothing. Buffy and Connor bolted after the second bear thing. Xander shot at the third with a crossbow. He had worked hard this past year to regain his marksmanship after losing his eye and it paid off. He hit the target but it bounced off.

“That is no fucking good,” Faith said.

“No kidding,” Buffy shot back. “Connor, we’ve got these things. You guard Dawn. It’s her they want, and you. She’s too hurt to fight.”

Connor looked at Buffy and I expected him to protest. Most days I would have too but not tonight. I wasn’t in any shape to fight. I doubted I could even defend myself. He darted over to me, his eyes steely as if being given something to battle had driven out his inner demons. He grinned at me and it was oddly cute.

“Watch out, guys. Gonna try something,” Willow said then yelled something in a language I didn’t know. A fireball leapt from her fingertips.

I felt like cheering when the fireball set the creature alight. Something stung my shoulder like a bee. Connor jerked like something had stung him, too. I heard something, like a motorcycle. I wondered what kind of monster made that noise as I felt for the wasp. My shoulder started to burn. My fingers brushed something metallic. I saw it fall to the ground, bright bristles glittering in the moonlight. Even as my vision began to cloud, I saw Connor going down, three of the bristle bunches visible on his back. I collapsed, seeing ATVs rocketing along the tree line. See them, Buffy! Stop them!

*

*

*

My head hurt so much that waking up was a misery. The room spun and it was all that I could do not to throw up. I startled as I felt hands on me. Connor put his long fingers over my lips, nodding at the wall, which was a thick netting of wire and beyond that heavy bars. Standing guard in the corridor, like bookends were two creatures that looked like a cross between the Hulk and the Thing. I didn’t like our chances of getting past them especially with my injuries.

Wolfram and Hart had captured us again. I didn’t need to see Lilah to know that. The tranquilizers that hit me in the woods had told me that much and waking up in a cell confirmed it.

“Are you hurt?” he whispered and I shook my head.

“We’re someplace different than before.” Connor took a tentative sniff. “Or at least I think so. Smells different...sweeter.”

I quivered. “What if they took us out of state again?”

He closed his hand over mine, sitting next to me. “We’ll escape again. But I don’t think we’re that far from where we were.”

“You don’t know how long we were drugged this time,” I argued, starting to shake.

“Not long. You still smell good.” He smiled at me.

I took a deep calming breath. “I guess Lilah did say I was supposed to be opening a portal. It was probably here in Wisconsin.”

Connor pulled me closer to him, his body stiffening. “She’s coming.”

I guessed he could smell Lilah before I could hear the click of her heels. She wasn’t smiling when she reached our cell. I hoped she’d gotten in huge gobs of trouble for letting us escape.

“You two gave us a merry chase. We were afraid the guardians would accidentally kill you before we caught up with you, especially since you were facing Gumberoos when we found you.” Lilah studied us. “But I suppose the biggest surprise was Connor’s sudden bout of sanity. How’d that happen?”

“I wouldn’t say he’s sane,” I said.

“Cured enough to not kill you and help you out of the forest,” Lilah said, crossing her arms like armor. She thought I was lying and even though I was, I was willing to bet Connor was still suffering mentally.

It was hard to argue that and she probably figured out I had come back for him, bringing reinforcements. She had to know Angel, Buffy and Faith were all in the area. I doubt she’d care about the others, not knowing how dangerous they could be. What kind of risk had our recapture put Fred, Spike, Gunn and the others back in Los Angeles at?

“So I guess asking you how to get Connor past the barrier won’t do much good,” I said.

Lilah snorted, tossing her hair. “Ask away. I don’t even know the answer to that, not my department.”

“So what now?” I asked.

“Tonight you’re going to perform that little service for us.” Lilah tapped on the bars with her nails. “And if you two want to take the initiative on that other thing we want you to do for us, please be my guest.”

Connor lunged at her. He penetrated all the way through the metal webbing nearly getting her through the bars. Lilah jumped back. One of the Hulk-Thing’s grabbed Connor’s hand and yanked him hard against the webbing. Connor braced himself against it and tugged back, nearly bending the bars with the creature’s body.

Lilah pulled something from her jacket and pressed it against Connor’s hand. It crackled with electricity and the TASER which almost dropped him, barely giving him time to cry out. Lilah had a hold of his shirt, keeping him from falling as she continually zapped him. I snagged him, pulling him out of reach.

“When he’s done twitching, we really would like it if you got on that other project, so to speak. If the smell’s stopping you, we can scrub him down.” Her smile could have frosted all of California.

“Go to hell,” I spat.

“Already there, sweetie, but have it your way. You’ll enjoy it less if we have to do it.”

With that, Lilah left. I stroked Connor’s hair. He moaned, his body shaking from the assault. I let him lay quietly, cradling his head in my lap. There was nothing I could do to speed along his recovery. Now that we weren’t charging the cage, the Hulk-Things went back to their bookend positions.

It didn’t take long for his eyes to start focusing again. They flicked down to where my hand rest on his bare belly. I hadn’t even realized I had been rubbing it, trying to be comforting. I snatched my hand away and he sat up.

“Are you okay?” I asked

“I hate those things,” he mumbled, getting to his feet. He looked around our bare cell. It only had an exposed toilet, which I’d rather explode than use, and thin cot attached to a wall, that we’d have to be really friendly to share. He crawled under the cot and waved for me to follow.

Curious, I did, having to press up against him. I had gotten used to how bad he smelled. “Why are we under here?”

“Harder to see us if they’re spying,” he whispered.

“Oh.” I figured I could be just as quiet as him in case they were listening in.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his fingers brushing my arm.

“For what?”

His eyes went morose, their blue deepening. “You were free. You’re back here because of me and I think...” He swallowed hard, looking like he wanted to slip back into those long silences of his. “Our talk in the woods, you’re afraid now...afraid of me.”

The pain in his voice echoed inside me. I touched his face. “I don’t regret trying to rescue you.”

“Why?”

“Because like you said to me, it’s the right thing to do.” I struggled to move under the cot enough to press my hand to his arm. I needed to touch. “Most of us would have tried to save you just because you’re Angel’s son. I know you hate him right now, but the rest of us see what he tried to do, how he tried to help.”

His lips twisted into a little half-frown. “Like you said about you and your Mom and Buffy.”

“Right. You saved my life more than once. I couldn’t just abandon you. I knew the risks when I came back. As for being afraid of you, I am a little. I know that probably hurts you but it’s true.”

“Then why...” He shifted away from me as much as he could, which really wasn’t much. “Did you kiss me?”

I heaved a sigh, trying to think of how to answer that. “I don’t really know. It felt like the right thing to do. I tried to tell myself it was just the hormones but that’s a lie. It’s something more. I don’t know why but I feel very close to you. I don’t believe in soul mates and all that crap but I do know I feel something more for you than I can explain and I don’t know why. We barely know each other. And the way you kissed me back...I thought you were feeling something too.”

He didn’t answer right away. Maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe he was just your typical horny teenager who wasn’t going to pass on a kiss, but my insides were telling me it was more than that. “I don’t know why either.”

“Because you’re really in love with Cordy?” Oh, stupid. Why did I mention her name?

His eyes shut. “No. I thought I was. She said she loved me but I think...I think something else made her do it...Jasmine maybe, since she needed to be born. I know Angel thought that Cordy made all the badness happen. I think maybe he was right, but I didn’t then. I think Cordy was controlling me here.” His hand snaked up to tap his temple. “I don’t know how.”

“You said that before, how things didn’t make sense when you left her side.”

He nodded. “When I think now on the things she did and said to me...that’s not love. She’d kiss me then tell me it was wrong to do it. I just wanted...did you think it was wrong, too?”

I snared his fingers with mine. “No, I don’t think my kissing you was wrong,” I said, honestly.

“But you’re afraid of me...but I guess you kissed me before the scary talk.”

“I was afraid of you before that talk. I saw you in that fighting pit, remember? I know you were being controlled and that you had been driven...well, kinda nuts. I’ve only been as scared as I was in those woods once or twice before, when I was beating your head in with that log.”

He smiled faintly. “That hurt.”

“I bet. I was afraid afterwards, too, because I didn’t know if Hitcoga could make you un-insane, but I guess she helped. Or maybe it was only a temporary kind of madness that Angel saw in you and tried to fix. But when we were trying to get out of the woods, I got less scared. You did your best to help me. I think...I think you’re just as scared only you can’t admit it. This world frightens you. I think you scare yourself.”

The tip of his tongue flicked over his upper lip. “Maybe. I don’t know this world...my place here. But fear gets you killed.”

“Sometimes...sometimes it saves your life, too. You did scare me again with what you said to Faith. The look in your eyes when you talked about murder scared all of us.”

I couldn’t describe the _expression that fell over his face. He dropped his gaze away from mine. “It was like I told you in the woods but I didn’t tell you all of it. I don’t know...I have memories of Cordy killing someone...telling me the blood of an innocent was needed to birth our child. I think I argued with her. I didn’t want to do it but I think I helped. I just...I just can’t remember. Maybe it’s part of the madness...the things I only think happened. This past year, what little I remember, can’t be real. I don’t think this memory of Cordelia is real because my mother was there. She was trying to stop me. She was telling me how much she loved me and I was listening to her. I tried to do what she asked.” He shivered against me.

“Maybe it wasn’t real. I don’t like thinking that it could be,” I said. It was more than that. I didn’t want to think he could be a murderer. Worse, could I love someone who was? No, scratch that. Of course I could. I loved Anya, Angel and Willow and they were all murderers, if I were honest about it. I had had feelings for Spike until I found out what he pulled on Buffy. The truth was, if I really did have feelings for Connor, his past wouldn’t change that. I’d somehow adapt to it.

“But since I’m the son of two dead things and you’re energy made flesh, real and unreal doesn’t have much meaning,” he said.

“Exactly.” I smiled wryly. “But if it happened, it doesn’t mean you can’t be forgiven.”

“Like Angel and Faith?”

“Yeah.” A weird bubble of laugher welled up. “Sorry. I was thinking of a math problem Tara and Willow were helping me with. Math is so not my thing. Anyhow we were working out some practice problems and I figured out that Spike, that’s one of Angel’s grandchildren so to speak.”

“I know how vampires usually breed,” he interrupted.

“Um, okay. Sorry. Anyhow, we figured out that if Spike had only killed one person a day every day, he would have killed about forty thousand people and somehow we forgave that.”

“Dad would have killed more then,” he said.

“Yeah, but Angel was souled so he wasn’t killing for two hundred years, just part of that time...way to really muddy the waters, Dawn.” I made a face. “But the point I’m trying to make, the same one Buffy tried to make when Angel tried to kill himself, is if you really want to make amends you can. Maybe not everyone believes that, but I do.”

“Dad tried to kill himself...I didn’t know that.” He seemed so surprised. “Father told me many times what I needed to do. I promised him I would cling to the good and lay waste to the evil. I don’t think I did a good job.”

I could feel his disappointment in himself. “Well, since I’m thinking your father would have bundled Angel into that evil you were to lay waste to, I’m glad you weren’t the perfect Destroyer.”

He made a face. Did he still feel bad about not killing Angel? Did he think his adoptive father, I’d think of him that way since Connor obviously did, thought less of him because of it? “Father was disappointed that he thought I had feelings for Angel. He tried to pretend he wasn’t, said that it was natural that I should but I could tell it hurt him.”

“It shouldn’t have. He knew you loved him, too.”

“Angel made him kill his own daughter. My parents slaughtered his family and turned his daughter into one of them and left her for him to find,” Connor said, the heat trickling back into his voice.

I pressed a finger over his lips. “I’m not saying that isn’t horrible. It is. And we can debate that another time. Right now, we need to think of a way out of here.”

His lips pursed against my finger. I felt the tip of his tongue against my flesh. I moved my fingers and replaced them with my lips. The kiss was quick but tender. I put my face against his shoulder, feeling the curve of his collarbone against my cheek. He tensed.

“Don’t worry, Connor, I’m not looking to get on Wolfram and Hart’s second project and jump you.” I shifted so I could meet his eyes.

He made another face. “I didn’t think that.”

“But I guess I am kinda scared of maybe dying tonight. I really don’t want to die a virgin.” I squirmed out from under the bed before I did do something stupid. “But I certainly don’t want to do that here.”

He slithered out, too. “I understand. That’s part of why Cordy did it. She thought the world was ending with the rain of fire. She wanted me to have something real, she said. Like she thought I’d never been happy a day in my life, which is kinda true.”

I glanced over at him, hearing that anguish. “But it was kinda empty, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “Well, not when it was happening. But the next morning everything changed and she threw me out.” His eyes narrowed. “It was my bed, too.”

Leave it to Cordelia to toss him out of his own place and take over, but I didn’t tell him that. Instead, I got him thinking about how to get out of our cell. I only wished I could say we did it, that we escaped, laughing all the time. Instead, we got no where and in due time, Lilah returned, dressed more casually than I had ever seen her. She was even wearing jeans and sneakers. She pointed a shotgun at Connor. It took several tries, but she managed to pump two tranquilizers into him. After all, he couldn’t exactly run. She stood back and let the guards come in and shackle Connor up.

“Let’s go, little miss.” she said to me.

“I’m not going anywhere.” I tried clinging to the bars even though I knew it was hopeless. All she would have to do was sedate me. Instead, she had a few human guards pluck me free and tie my hands behind my back.

She had them bring Connor with us and I couldn’t figure out why. We were loaded into a Hummer, a military looking one, not those ‘I’ve-got-too-much-money-and-no-environmental-conscience’ kind that Yuppies bought. Connor had been right; we weren’t at the complex. It looked like we had been held in a mansion in the woods. Lilah had them drive us out to a small lake, ringed with roses. I could smell them. They looked dark in the pale moonlight.

There was a gazebo under lights near the lake. The Hummer parked a few yards from it with some of the other vehicles that were there. Under the artificial lights I could see the roses were black. There was a literal forest of them. On the gazebo stood this really wizened old woman in a bright purple gown. It looked so ridiculous on her, obviously made for someone her great granddaughter’s age.

“I see you’ve brought her,” the old woman said, her voice like sandpaper.

“Did you have doubts, Mrs. Hogarth?” Lilah said as I was muscled out of the Hummer.

The old woman’s thin lips pulled into a line. “Yes, I did Ms. Morgan.” She walked over to me, grabbing my chin with her knobby fingers. “Such a little thing. Her ceremonial dress is right there.” She pointed to a black robe draped over the gazebo railing.

“Don’t think I’ll be putting that on,” I said.

Hogarth shrugged. “If you insist on being stubborn, we can handle that.” She nodded at Lilah, the thick bun she wore her white hair in bobbling.

“Hold her,” Lilah instructed my guards.

Realizing she meant to strip me herself, I kicked and screamed and fought, but I couldn’t hold them off. Between them all of my clothing was torn away and they pressed me naked into the grass. Lilah tossed the robe at me. I pulled it on frantically. It was soft against my bruised skin.

“Tie her in the gazebo,” Hogarth said and some of their muscle men dragged me into it. There were runes of some kind carved in the flooring. The black roses covered the bare spots of the floor. In the center of all the carving was an altar. They hoisted me up on it and strapped me down.

“Buffy’s going to find me,” I said helplessly, wishing Connor would wake up. He could break through the ropes they tied him with. I knew he could.

“Oh, I trust that the Slayer might do just that,” Hogarth said. “Inside the mansion we could shield you two from locator spells, but they’ll interfere with the magic here at the lake. But we’re prepared for that.”

The old bitch pointed at some of the guards who opened the vans we had parked by releasing more of those Splinter Cats.

“Buffy can tear through those,” I said.

“We know,” Lilah said. “That’s why we have him.” She took a whistle from Hogarth and blew it.

The lake water bubbled and hissed and this thing rose from it. It came ashore, water pouring off it. It looked like a dragon almost, with lots and lots of horns. They covered its head and back all the way to the long snaky tail. Its heavy fangs couldn’t be contained insides its jaws, poking out like a walrus. Its huge protruding eyes were Lorne’s orange-red shade. Its skin was Lorne colored too, only wartier.

“Meet the Hodag. Believe me, he’ll give them plenty to worry about. We only need to hold them off long enough to cut you,” Lilah said. “And if he’s not enough, we have Connor.”

I didn’t say anything. Now I knew why they hadn’t left him behind. They were going to use him as leverage. I followed Lilah’s movement with my eyes the best I could tied down as I was. She had them drag Connor to the nearest tree. I could see her as she tied his knees and ankles together. She hammerlocked his wrists and pulled them behind his shoulder blades. My own shoulders ached in sympathy. He was starting to come around as she hitched his ankles to his wrists with a stout rope, pulling his feet almost to his butt. She fastened both to a noose she slipped around his neck. Her guards slung that around the heavy tree branch and they hiked Connor up by his neck until he was balancing on his knees. If he tried to squirm free, he’d fall over and choke.

Lilah slapped his face a few times. “Wakey, wakey. You might want to concentrate on balancing. I’d hate for you to hang before your daddy gets here.”

Connor just glared at her and Lilah rejoined me and Hogarth.

I looked at the old woman. “Why are you doing this?”

“For all the shallow reasons,” she said. “What comes through that portal can make me young and powerful again.”

“Guess that’s better than trying to make hell on earth,” I muttered.

“Oh, no profit in that,” Hogarth assured me.

“Now what?” I asked.

“We wait. It’s not quite time, then you bleed a little. Mrs. Hogarth goes back to being young and you and Connor go back to your cells and we can work on project number two,” Lilah said.

And so we waited. I tested my bonds enough to know I wasn’t going anywhere. Still, I kept working at it. It hurt a lot, but if I could get my wrists bloody enough I might be able to slip free. I might open the portal in the process, but at this point I didn’t care.

I watched Connor squirming a bit as one of the cats licked him. He had to be in so much pain. Suddenly I saw a subtle change in his body language, a flicker of something on his face. He heard something, something we didn’t, at least not yet. The cats bounded away towards the edge of the black rose forest and the Hodag lumbered away from the lake’s edge.

The first thing we heard was the twang of a crossbow and one of the cat’s screeched. I wanted to cry. They did it, they found us. I couldn’t see most of the battle, but I could hear it. I heard Willow’s spell chants, Buffy barking orders, Faith, well grunting or something as she killed things. Angel and Xander were there. I had no doubts that Giles and Wes were somewhere, too.

“Hurry up and just do it,” Lilah snapped at Hogarth.

The old woman looked at her harshly. “It’s not time. It won’t work until the moon is at its zenith.”

“Damn it,” Lilah said.

Something roared so loud the noise felt like it was bouncing off my ribs. It was the Hodag. Faith was riding its back, her feet balancing on the horns. It twisted, slinging her off against a tree and its tail twitched, catching my sister, knocking her off her feet. It went to impale her on its horns and Angel jumped in the way. I winced seeing the horn sprout out of his back. I knew that wouldn’t kill him but it had to hurt; even Connor cried out in protest of that treatment.

Angel stumbled back off the thing’s horn as Buffy stabbed the creature. It wasn’t enough to kill it, but the Hodag retreated some. Angel caught Lilah’s gaze. “I’m going to mount your head on my wall, Lilah!”

“I think he means that,” she muttered, looking up at the moon. “We’re not going to make it.”

“Have faith,” Hogarth said then collapsed onto the floorboards. Giles was there behind her, having used the pommel of his sword to knock her out.

“Dawn said your head is easy to knock off,” Giles said and I could almost imagine him tacking on a Spike-like ‘bint’ to that, his face was so dark and angry.

“Harder than you might think.”

Lilah had the TASER out before Giles could move. I strained against my shackles as poor Giles hit the gazebo floor. Lilah turned to me. “Well, this is a waste. Time to get you out of here.”

She zapped me, too, quickly and not for long. I could hear the battle still but I couldn’t focus. Lilah released me, slinging me over her shoulders. I couldn’t move. My body felt like ants were crawling inside it. “What are you idiots waiting for?” she snapped. “Hang him!”

Upside down, I could still see Connor and that Lilah didn’t have a clear escape route but with those words she did. Two of the guards raced for him and hauled him up. Oh, God, they were hanging him. Angel bellowed something I couldn’t make out and suddenly everyone’s attention was on trying to stay alive and cutting Connor down before he died.

Lilah tossed me into the Hummer. I managed to pull myself up enough to see out the window as she started the engine. A sword hit the rope strangling Connor, splitting it at the tree branch. He fell. Faith was cutting him free as Buffy and Angel ran for me. Lilah gunned the engine. I tried to scream but couldn’t do more than moan as Buffy was tackled by a cat. The Hodag trampled Angel just as he neared the Hummer.

As we raced into the woods, I saw Wes slicing the throat of a cat, saving Xander. Where was Willow? A fireball suddenly exploded on our windshield. Lilah slammed on the brakes and I bounced off the dashboard. Willow was there, readying another spell. Lilah reached between the seats and pulled out another gun. From its sound, it was a real pistol, not a tranq gun. Willow dove aside. I don’t think Lilah hit her but she wasn’t stupid enough to stand there and be a target.

Lilah gunned the engine and something hit the Hummer even as we drove on. She smiled at me. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to find what else you can open later.”

“You aren’t getting out of these woods,” I said as something pounded on the roof of the vehicle. I could move my mouth but my limbs were still in business for themselves.

“That’s what you think,” Lilah said but she didn’t look convinced.

More pounding sounded then the tearing of metal. Someone was ripping straight through the roof of the Hummer. I looked up and there was Connor. If I ever doubted he could do murder, all that was erased by the look in his eyes. He was more than ready to do to Lilah what he had just done to the Hummer.

Lilah hit the brakes again trying to dislodge him. Connor half fell into the hole he made, striking his head on the jagged metal, and Lilah gunned the engine again. We didn’t get far when someone stepped out of the darkness and winged a stick at us. A stick, I couldn’t believe it. What would that do and who was this? No one could have run fast enough to keep up with us. The stick hit ground and a huge rose hedge sprung up. The Hummer slammed into it, barreling through, but it slowed us. Another stick hit ground and this rose hedge slowed us more. The third must have done something to the guts of the Hummer because it smoked and stopped.

“What the fu-,” Lilah’s curse was broken off by Connor grabbing her hair, yanking. Her head came half off and her pistol went up over head, discharging. Connor screamed and I smelled the gun powder and blood.

“Connor!” I tried to twist to get to him, but my body was still little more than a bag of twitching flesh. He dangled from the hole in the roof, blood running from his head.

Lilah got out of the car, putting her head back on straight. She dragged me out, letting me hit ground hard. I couldn’t even get my legs under me to walk as she pulled me along. The stranger with the sticks approached us, another stick in hand. She smelled of roses.

“Hitcoga!” I cried.

“You brought this horror to my land,” she said but that was directed at Lilah. “It ends here.”

She went to toss another stick but Lilah shot her, too. Hitcoga dissolved into a shower of rose petals. I cried. Lilah grabbed me again, yanking me deeper into the black rose forest. What had I done wrong to have every rescue go awry, like some cosmic force was against me? Then someone hit Lilah and she went down. I recognized Connor’s slender frame. She hadn’t killed him, thank whoever was listening. He tore her head off, holding it like a trophy. Her body twitched away from him, crawling horrifically like something from a bad slasher flick. Connor tossed Lilah’s head into the rose hedge and went after her. The smell of roses permeated the air even stronger and another stick hit. He nearly plowed into the freshly formed rose hedge.

“There’s been enough killing,” Hitcoga said, her body reformed.

“Connor,” I said, holding out a hand to him. He stood there, looking at me, his face a gory mess from where the bullet had creased his head. I had to look like something out of one of Mom’s romances, lying on rose petals in a long black robe.

He came over to me, falling at my side. He pulled me into his arms. I kissed him, just as soft as the petals of a rose. There in the forest of the black roses I knew suddenly what I was feeling from Connor, the thing that was drawing me to him. He wanted to be loved so much, I could feel it from the way he held me, the way his tongue pressed against mine. There was a feeling of oneness, of a desperation to know something he needed more than anything. He had love to give. I could feel it flowing into me and he wanted it back so bad it hurt.

A hand touched my shoulder and I broke the kiss, twisting in Connor’s arms. Hitcoga smiled down at us. Behind her were Buffy and Angel. Oh great they just saw us kissing. The vampire leaned on Buffy heavily. The wound that went straight through him must really be hurting him badly. Hitcoga stepped aside and Buffy ran in, scooping me out of Connor’s arms. Poor Angel nearly fell down without her to prop him up. Hitcoga stepped in giving him her hand.

“Where’s Lilah?” Angel asked as Buffy squeezed me too hard.

Hitcoga pointed out where Lilah’s body had found her head and was putting it back on. “It’s over.”

“No, it’s not,” Angel said, stumbling away.

“Fraid it is,” Lilah said. “Got a built in escape clause.”

Her body fell over lifelessly. Connor got up and kicked her.

“Where is she?”

“Back in hell,” Angel said, touching his son’s shoulder. Connor didn’t break away.

“She shot him in the head,” I said. “But I think the bullet just grazed him.”

Angel examined Connor. “Guess being hard-headed worked for you this time,” he quipped and Connor wrinkled his nose.

“Hitcoga, can you help him?” I asked, worming free of Buffy.

She nodded but first she let her red, healing light wash over me. My knee and head felt instantly better. She cupped Connor’s face as she healed him then she reached for Buffy. “I cannot heal the dead one.”

“I’ll be fine,” Angel assured her.

“Our other friends might be hurt back at the lake. Come with us, please,” I said.

Hitcoga nodded. “I need to repair the damage to my lands.”

She followed us as we picked our way through the forest. By the time we got back to the lake, all the cats were dead; the Hodag was lying on the shore looking mostly dead and Faith and Willow were patching up the men. Hitcoga healed them all in turn then laid hands on the Hodag.

“Why are you helping it?” I asked.

She looked back at me. In the light, I could see her hair was a glossy black and her skin a warm cinnamon. “He belongs here. He was not for their use.” She gestured at the fallen humans. The Ho-Dag slithered back into the lake, all interest in us gone.

“Oh. Thank you again, Hitcoga. She might have escaped with me if not for you.”

“As I said before, you are safe on my lands,” she said.

Giles and Wes questioned Hitcoga eagerly as Buffy and Faith trussed up all the unconscious Wolfram and Hart cronies. I didn’t know for sure what we would do with them, but we weren’t leaving them here. I sat down on the steps of the gazebo wearily. Connor sat with me, an arm looped protectively around me.

Finally, once the work was done Hitcoga came back to me and held out two roses, one black and one pink. “They’ll stay ever fresh. When you get home, plant them and they shall grow.”

“Thank you, for everything,” I said and she just smiled and disappeared. I looked over at Buffy. “Can we leave now?”

“Yes, we can.”

Chapter Six

I didn’t plan on being back in the Wisconsin woods ever but in the light of day, safe from Wolfram and Hart and their monsters, it was beautiful. We had rented two big cabins at Devil’s Lake for the weekend because Willow, Giles and Wes wanted to see the Perseid meteor shower without light interference.

It was like being in Girl Scout camp, or at least what I thought that would be like. I had never been anything normal, like a Girl Scout. Me, Buffy, Willow and Faith were in one cabin and Giles, Wes, Xander, Angel and Connor in the other. There would probably be cabin confinement-related deaths by the end of the weekend.

We had been in Wisconsin for two weeks now. Once all the terror was all over, Gunn, Fred, Principal Wood and Lorne had taken off for Cleveland to get some distance between them and Wolfram and Hart. Spike stayed behind as a decoy so he said. I think that most of us were wondering if he was on Wolfram and Hart’s side since they were the ones who brought him back. We didn’t know which was more risk, taking him with them and having him know exactly where the new Council was or leaving him behind and chancing him going over to the law firm completely. At least they were able to move Cordelia from her nursing home and took her to the Watchers’ newly formed Council there so she could get the help she needed.

We stayed in Wisconsin at first to allow time to raze Wolfram and Hart’s complex to the ground and to give me and Connor time to rest. Connor also needed time to get used to being back with Angel, which wasn’t an easy thing for him. It was even harder for Angel. I could see the guilt eating at him. His child had spent a year being drugged, used and abused by Wolfram and Hart and it was his fault. Angel was going to be majorly down on himself and broody and maybe deservedly so. We all knew he had tried his best to help Connor but he had only made things worse but it wasn’t beyond all hope.

Giles and Willow took the time to cast a few more locator spells, looking for more new Slayers. They found one up in Rhinelander, which proclaimed itself, of all things, the ‘home of the Hodag.’ Of course, they thought it was a hoax and someone had made a fake one once. I’d love to tell them there really was a Hodag and I wondered what it thought of having a festival named after it.

We extended our stay in Wisconsin to talk to this new Slayer, Diana Wannamaker, who was going to be a sophomore psych major at the University of Wisconsin this fall. She wasn’t as surprised as some to learn what had happened to her. She was a competitive pow wow dancer and she had noticed her sudden increase in abilities, able to dance effortlessly and tirelessly.

I liked her a lot and was sorry when we put Diana on the plane to Cleveland. Diana was Ho-Chungra, which I had never heard of. She explained that her tribe had been lumped in with other tribes and called Winnebagos by the government. She took me, Connor and Willow to a pow wow before she left. It was an amazing celebration of culture like I had never had time to see before. She was beautiful in the shawl dances. More importantly, she knew the legend of Hitcoga and told me all she knew.

During the last two weeks a couple of other important things had happened. For one, my period hit with a vengeance. Everyone was smart enough to stay clear of me but at least it was over with. I had spoken to a doctor and she said the hormones would clear quickly and I wasn’t pregnant. I couldn’t even express my relief at that.

The other thing was how much time Connor and I had spent together. He even spent cautious time with me during the bitchy days. We went to a movie in Madison. He had only ever been to a movie once before when Angel took him to a drive-in. Who goes to drive-in’s any more? Wolfram and Hart had spoiled that movie for him.

Our movie went better. The next day, he bravely put up with the all-girl shopping trip up and down Madison’s State Street, which I had roped him into. The poor thing didn’t know enough to run with the other men when they heard the word, ‘shopping.’ I think he preferred the trip he and Xander made to the Wal-Mart to buy emergency clothes for him.

Diana insisted that since we were in Wisconsin, we had to go to the House on the Rock. It turned out to be a museum nearly three miles long that had begun with a freak house built underground inside a cliff or something. Willow, Giles and Wes were over the moon. Xander, Buffy and Faith wished they had stayed behind with Angel. I found it kind of cool. I couldn’t tell what Connor thought about it. He was so quiet, just watching everything with big eyes; maybe absorbing it all; in his own world also possible.

We even went dancing at the Inferno in Madison, but it took a little magic to make scraps of paper look like legal id; this club wasn’t like the Bronze, letting just anyone in. I think Faith and I scared poor Connor out on the dance floor. Afterwards, we couldn’t peel him away from our table. Still, it was a good night. Angel even showed up. He and Buffy danced. On the sly, Faith bought me and Connor one Long Island Ice tea a piece. We both got really silly drunk off of them and felt crappy the next day. The Buffy-Angel tag team lecture did not help matters until Faith demonstrated where they could shove things.

Willow occasionally made comments about how cute Connor and I looked, but that was Willow for you, all hearts and flowers. Buffy was less thrilled, but I couldn’t tell if that was because she was being ‘over protective big sis’, or if she was worried about Connor in general or just that he was Angel’s kid. That had to be really weird for her. It was pretty weird to me, too. What was worse was that Faith caught me and Connor making out, which barring that incident, had been really nice. Faith promised not to tell, though. We had been doing more than a little of the making out whenever opportunity presented itself, which was not nearly often enough; way too much adult supervision.

I headed out of our Nordic Pines cottage with Willow. Buffy and Faith were already outside. Faith leaned on the dark wood of the cottage, looking bored. Buffy’s eyes sparked seeing me.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Buffy asked.

“You and Faith are going to hike Sauk Point trail, one of the longest and more difficult hikes in Devil’s Lake. I’ll pass. I’ve had enough hiking. You two go prove who’s Queen of the Mountain by yourselves.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“How about you, Connor?” Faith called as he and Xander came out of the bigger cottage. “You wanted to see who was better, me or B. Come hiking with us.”

He wrinkled his nose, walking over to me. “Wanted to see fighting. Walking in the woods, not too exciting.”

“Well, if they did it like those guys at Mazomanie Beach, it would be interesting,” Xander said, having become intrigued by Wisconsin’s nude beach.

“Yeah.” Connor bobbed his head enthusiastically and I reached over, twisting one of his nipples through his shirt. He yelped.

“I see Dawn’s learned your trick, Faith,” Willow said, wryly.

“Yes, very nice, Faith.” Buffy shoved the taller Slayer.

“Hey, you have to get men’s attention,” Faith said.

“It’s working,” I said. “You two go hike. Have fun. I think I’ll go swimming in the lake and just lay out in the sun.”

“Sounds like fun but are you sure you and Connor don’t want to go with me and Xander to get all the cookout fixings.” Willow bounced a little as she talked.

“Tempting but I want to swim,” I said.

“Me, too,” Connor added.

“Your loss,” Xander said. “You won’t be there to stop me from buying the purple ketchup.”

“Willow,” I whined.

Willow put a hand on Xander’s arm. “Purple is not a color for ketchup.”

He shrugged and headed for the car with Willow.

“Last chance for the hike,” Buffy said.

“You two have fun,” I replied and the Slayers headed off.

Connor turned to go back to his cottage to get his suit, but I stopped him and led him into the lady cottage.

“We’re not going swimming?” he asked as I locked the door.

“Later.” Our suits would have to get wet or Buffy would get suspicious. “That hike takes average people three hours. It should keep Buffy and Faith busy for at least an hour. And Willow and Xander are going all the way back to Madison to get the goodies and pick up Wes and Giles.” They had stayed in the city last night because they were coordinating something with the Cleveland crew and cell phones were a bit sporadic here in the hills. “I thought we could enjoy some alone time.”

He smiled, knowing the only other person who might catch us was trapped in the men’s cottage by daylight. “I like that.”

I took his hand, realizing mine was shaking. I was scared, silly as that was. I wanted this and yet changing my mind wasn’t off the decks. Maybe I wasn’t ready. No, I was. I had meant what I said about not wanting to die a virgin. I didn’t want to just give it away either. It didn’t feel like that, though. I wanted it to be Connor. Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I should. I knew he had a terrible violence in him, even though it seemed reserved for demons, at least now that he was relatively sane. I could probably find a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t if I looked, but they didn’t matter as much as the reason to do it. It felt very right.

Was he ready, though? I knew he probably still had feelings for Cordelia, but he certainly wasn’t saying no to making out. He hesitated momentarily when I took him into my and Buffy’s room, locking the door.

I pressed him back against the door, kissing him. He melted against me, that desire for love surfacing like a tidal wave. His mouth was hungry against mine, all but sucking my tongue into it. My eyes shut as I ran my hands through his hair, now cropped a lot shorter. He had soft hair, like a cat. It stubbornly refused to be styled but at least it looked better short. He must have his mother’s hair because I couldn’t imagine Angel’s hair being silky like the strands trickling through my fingers.

His lips traveled along the line of my jaw so he could nuzzle my neck. I let my head fall back, giving him better access. Our hips touched and the mix of fear and need escalated. All sorts of things went through my head; stuff friends had told me, sex ed lectures, things I’ve heard Willow and Buffy discussing when they didn’t realize I could hear.

I knew it could hurt, a lot even. There might be blood. Did Connor know that? I’d bet he didn’t. He’d only been with Cordy and she was a lot of things, but virginal wasn’t among them. Connor was only one step away from a virgin and in a lot of ways more naive than me. At least he had some idea what to do instead of both of us stumbling through.

I slipped my hand under his shirt, feeling the tight muscles of his abdomen. He had a strip of soft hair cutting along the middle of him, heading further south, where I wasn’t quite ready to touch. Connor eased me away, my hand slipping free from his shirt. His eyes met mine, seemingly enormous and inquisitive at this point. Maybe he hadn’t twigged onto the fact I wanted to do more than make out. He was pretty sheltered, after all.

“I want to,” I whispered. “If you do.”

For a moment, he just stared. I’d feel so stupid if he didn’t but he nodded. “Are you sure?”

“I am.” Oh, lord why did I feel like I was about to cry? Maybe it was because this wasn’t what I pictured when I thought about this moment. In my daydreams, I didn’t have to worry about getting caught. The setting was romantic. Okay, a cottage in the woods was pretty romantic. The man was a Greek God in looks and build, and what I had was a skinny boy with beautiful blue eyes and a strange smile. Last chance to bail, Dawn. Only, I didn’t want to do that. This was what I really wanted.

He kissed me gently again as I took hold of his shirt. I pulled it up. His skin was like snow, so white I could see the faint trails of blue his veins made under it. Giles’ observation about Connor being a greyhound was a good one. There wasn’t an inch of wasted flesh on him, all hard muscle over bone. I pressed my lips to a nipple, sucking it between them. He shuddered a bit, making an encouraging sound. With my help, he slipped free of his shirt.

I kissed the hollow of his neck then fluttered kisses along the wing of his collar bone. His long fingers trailed up my spine to my bra closure. He was clumsy getting it undone, but I preferred that to having him be able to do it in a snap. His hand played over my back, now free of the strap. I took a step back, removing my shirt and bra. I felt oddly exposed. He had already seen me naked and me him, but at the river there had been nothing sexual to it, more like Adam and Eve resting after a bath. Now sex was everything. My lips felt pouty from the kissing. My nipples didn’t need the cold to steeple out and the valley between my legs felt swollen, enormous and moist. Now I knew what Faith meant when she talked about that low down tingle. It was wonderful.

I pulled down the covers and sat. He joined me, his lips meeting mine again. I felt his strength resonating in that kiss. His fingers trailed over my breasts, toying with my nipples. His skin was calloused and hard, rough and I liked it. For a weird moment, I felt inadequate. He had played with Cordelia’s breasts and she had been stacked. He had certainly noticed Faith’s breasts. I couldn’t compete with either of them, but he didn’t seem to care.

His hot mouth closed over one nipple, sucking hard. I moaned softly, arching into it. Between my legs, I felt slicker than ice, but that was good. That would make it hurt less, logically. I stroked his back as his lips worked against me, then coursed a hand down his arm to rest over his hand. Was he shaking a little, too? Good, that was almost sweet.

He let my nipple slip free after giving it a gentle tug with his teeth. Connor looked into my eyes, smiling. I wasn’t sure how long I could wait now. I fumbled with the button on his jeans. He got up and kicked off his shoes, sending them across the room. He peeled out of his pants and got back in bed with me.

My breath caught as the realization this was really happening washed over me. For a moment, I froze. How did I handle a boy so he’d like it? Connor’s interest was clear, his cock standing up. The foreskin had opened, revealing little beads of moisture at the tip of his penis. I was so glad he couldn’t read minds because I couldn’t get the thought, ‘it still looks silly,’ out of my mind.

I gently closed my hand around him. It was even warmer than I was expecting and the skin looser as I moved my hand up and down. From the way his eyes closed, I figured I was doing it right so I moved my hand more boldly. Connor groaned, getting even harder and longer under my fingers. I hadn’t expected that.

I ran a finger over the tip of it and it twitched under my fingers. I didn’t have a lot of good references in my mind to decide how well he was hung but I knew he wasn’t small. It didn’t matter or change the nervous quiver in my stomach over whether or not this would hurt when we made love.

Connor pulled me closer to him, his breath hot and fast on my bare skin. He slid his hand under my waist band. I let him go. I remembered Faith’s frequent complaints about young guys not being able to hold back. The last thing I wanted was for him to cum on my pants. I undid my zipper.

Connor let me go so I could get my pants off. My underwear were soaked through as I took them off and set them aside. I held up a finger to him to keep him where he was while I opened the inside pocket of my purse and fished out the condoms I had bought in Madison. Now, of course, I had to be the one to explain what they were to Connor. Cordelia obviously hadn’t and I just bet Angel hadn’t had that talk with Connor in the last two weeks. Could I explain this without blushing? What if he just stared at me like he didn’t get it? Okay Dawn, if he’s too dumb to figure out a condom, he’s too dumb to have sex with.

I got back into bed with him and he just stared at what I had in my hand. I pulled one off the strip and gave it to him. “It’s a condom. You need to wear it.”

His eyes flicked to the packet then back to me. “Why?”

Oh great. “Because it keeps you from getting me pregnant,” I said. Adding in the fact that it kept from spreading disease would only muddy the water, not to mention he wasn’t going to touch me without it.

“Okay.”

I kissed his shoulder as he opened the condom wrapper. He considered the ring of latex for a moment then put it over the head of his penis. I put my hand over his, helping him roll it down. Boy, I sure hoped neither of us were allergic to latex. The condom made his cock look unnatural but I could live with that.

I put my arms around his neck, pulling him backwards on the bed with me. Connor shifted as he kissed me greedily, resting his hand on the inside of my thigh. Please, just let him touch me now. I needed him to. He slid a finger along the wiry fluff of my hair then slipped it into the valley, touching my clit. My breath caught and I rocked against him, encouraging him.

Connor ran his thumb over my clit while rimming my vagina with a finger. He was a little clumsy but I was thrilled he even knew about foreplay. I sighed as he slipped a finger inside me. I looped a hand over his head, pushing him harder against my mouth as he pulsed his finger in and out of me. It felt good, different. I mean, I had touched myself before but under his hands it felt different. I put a hand over his, moving his thumb over my nub the way I liked it.

Connor was a quick study. He picked up the motion almost immediately. I moved my fingers back to his cock which was pressed into my belly. I stroked it and he moved into my hand.. His lips left mine, moving to my neck, sucking hard as he pushed a second finger into me. I tensed a little. His fingers were obviously bigger than mine and I wasn’t used to that stretch. I don’t think he noticed, moving his fingers faster.

A pressure built inside me. I pressed down against his hand then shuddered. That felt so good. I caught his face, kissing his check then moved my lips to his ear, “Now,” I demanded softly.

Connor moved so he was over me. He sat back, sliding his hands under the small of my back. I let him move me as he got between my legs. I looked up into his big blue eyes and smiled. I wasn’t afraid any more. Connor lowered himself over me, his body hot against mine. I felt his penis rubbing between my legs. What was he waiting for? Maybe for me to change my mind. I kissed him again then said, “I’ve never done this before.” I wasn’t sure why I said that. He already knew I was a virgin. “It might hurt me some.”

His eyes widened. Maybe that put too much pressure on him but he needed to know. “I’m too rough,” he said.

I ran a hand over his cheek. “It’s not you. It’s normal for the first time,” I assured him. “Please, I trust you.”

That was the right thing to say. He kissed me so gently I was stunned. His cock bumped against my clit then slid down and into me. I gasped, tensing again. My eyes screwed shut. It did hurt and I knew he wasn’t all the way in, not by a long shot.

“Dawn.” He wrapped up a question in that with fear and concern.

I opened my eyes and saw the anxiety on his face. He didn’t want to hurt me. I tried to relax. Being all tense would only make it worse. Connor hadn’t moved, still barely inside me. “It’s okay,” I promised him. “Quickly, please.”

He pushed into me with one smooth motion. It felt like sheathing a knife. I cried out, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. The pain radiated away from my vagina and a burning warmth flooded in. It was hard to breathe normally. I heard him calling my name again, that same fear in his voice. I threw my arms around his shoulders and squeezed his hips between my legs just in case he thought about pulling out. Slowly the pain faded and my breathing went back to normal.

“I’m hurting you,” he said.

I shook my head. “It’s okay now. You feel good,” I assured him, rocking my hips under him. I looked up into his concerned eyes and brushed the hair back out of them. “I promise you that.”

I released my death grip on his hips, trying to encourage him, squeezing his cock with those little muscles that usually only made themselves known on bad cramp days. Reassured, Connor took the initiative, pumping in and out of me. It only hurt a little now. Mostly he felt wonderful inside me.

“Faster,” I begged and he complied. He was holding back but I knew he had to. He was too strong for me. He could seriously hurt me if he let go.

The bed sang with our movement, like the crickets that kept me awake nights. Sweat trickled off him, sliding between our bellies. His thrusts grew quicker and more urgent as his breathing went from ragged to desperate pants. The pressure was building in me again, demanding release but he went first. He moaned loudly as he shook and shuddered against me, his eyes rolling up. His head dropped against my shoulder as he pulsed in and out more slowly now, his body still quivering. I gripped him internally, his cock still hard even as his movements slowed.

I nipped his shoulder, “More,” I said and he rolled us onto our sides, losing contact with me momentarily.

I sighed as he slid back into me. He was going soft but he still pressed into me, moving with me. I kissed his slick shoulder as he reached down rolling his fingers over my clit. I moaned, my lips moving over his shoulder as he squeezed my clit. He thrust hard into me, letting go of my nub. The dam inside me broke, the pressure exploding out of me in a geyser. I bit his shoulder hard and he grunted. I thought I had given myself orgasms before but they had been nothing like this. I rolled back onto my back, dragging him with me.

He rubbed his cock against me and another climax followed fast. My heels dug into the mattress as I lifted off the bed. My thighs shook then I collapsed, now a happy woman. We kissed again. Connor brushed my hair back then froze, his eyes glued to his fingers. I saw they were streaked red.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, horrified.

I took his hand. “It’s okay, Connor. That’s normal for virgins.”

His eyes took over his pale face. “You’re sure?”

I snuggled into him. “Positive. That was...I don’t have words for how nice that was.”

Connor didn’t say anything, just folding me into his arms. I could feel the pulse of his neck under my cheek. He shifted just a bit to pull off the condom and toss it in the bedside garbage can. He cuddled back up with me. This felt very nice, too, almost too nice. We nearly fell asleep. I wiggled out from under him and he looked at me curiously.

“We have to get up and get to the lake,” I said.

He looked at me quizzically. He didn’t seem to want to move. “Why?”

“Because we said we were going swimming and we don’t want Buffy to think we did anything else,” I said, pulling on my underpants.

Connor’s eyes narrowed and I realized he didn’t understand. He had to think I was casting him off now that I was done with him, just like Cordy had. I sat back down on the messy sheets.

“What’s wrong with her knowing?” he asked, his voice going hot.

I stroked his arm. “Because she’ll say we’re too young for one. If you really are nineteen, you could actually be in trouble for being with me. I’m not old enough to have sex legally.”

His brow furrowed. “Then why?”

“Because I wanted to. And I’m not sorry I did and I’m most definitely not saying we’re never doing this again. We just should keep this part secret for now.” I kissed him. “I guess maybe I should have told you that before.”

He shrugged. “I’m good with secrets. Don’t really want him knowing everything I’m doing.” Connor glanced at the window whose curtain I had pulled. “Not sure if he could hear from their cabin.”

I didn’t have to ask to know he meant Angel and I so didn’t want to think about Angel being able to hear. I hadn’t even considered that. “Okay, good. Let them get used to the idea of us being boyfriend-girlfriend first, okay?”

He nodded, rolling out of bed, going for his pants. I ripped the sheets off the bed, wadding them up before he saw the spot of blood. I didn’t want him freaking out. I took all the bedding off then finished dressing. I went to the bathroom before I did anything else. I had stopped bleeding, luckily. Connor was sitting on Buffy’s bed, tying his shoes when I went back into the room. He didn’t have his shirt on yet and I saw I left a big bruise on his shoulder.

I made a face. “How fast do you heal?” I pointed to the mark. At least it was getting so blue there, the teeth marks were overwhelmed.

He craned his head, trying to get a good look at the wound. “Not so fast they won’t see that if I’m swimming.”

“Tell them I did it holding you under the water,” I instructed.

He scowled. “Why would you do that?”

“You’re a boy. Boys are bad, explanation enough,” I said and he made a face at me. “I’ll meet you down there.”

I had to shoo him out of the cottage. I went back, made sure the condom wrapper made it into the garage, too, and took it all to the dumpster. I carried the sheets to the office to dump them in to be washed and got some fresh ones. I made the bed and headed for the lake. I was really sore, but happy. I’d just go in enough to get wet and do a little tanning.

I did just that, wading out waist deep since my thighs felt too sore to swim. The water was icy but it felt good on my tender flesh. Connor swam, probably burning off excess energy. He always had that in spades. No wonder he was so thin. I stayed in the water longer than I planned but it made me feel a lot less achy, not to mention it was so beautiful in the lake. Purple cliffs poked out of the surrounding pines, honestly purple. The mountains, or hills or whatever they were called, looked like some giant had dumped thousands of purple boulders to make a ring of rock mounds around the lake. Willow said it was purple quartzite. I would have to come back here with my artist’s pad and draw it.

I climbed out and laid on a beach towel on the soft grass. The sun felt even better as it warmed me. Connor finally came ashore and laid down on the towel next to me. He reached over and stroked my arm. I smiled at him. He looked so sweet and silly at the same time. His brown hair was plastered on his cheeks and face as he nestled belly down on the towel. Xander had obviously picked the swimsuit Connor was wearing. It looked dangerously close to sliding off and it bagged to his knees. And somehow I didn’t see Connor going in for something that looked like Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” on acid; violent purple, brilliant blue and neon green swirled on the cloth with splashes of sunburst yellow. It was too flashy for Connor, but it was definitely Xander’s style. Lying there in the sun, Connor looked anything but nineteen. If someone had asked, I would have said he was fifteen or sixteen.

“You really don’t know how old you are, do you?” I asked, just as his eyes were shutting.

He cracked open one to look at me. “No. When I came back to this place, Cordy decided I was eighteen, not sure how or why. We didn’t celebrate birthdays on Quor-Toth. Who knows if a year there is as long as a year here. I don’t even know when my birthday is.”

“Well, you’ll have to ask Angel,” I said and he grunted. I tapped his hand. “Be nice.”

His eyes opened again. “I’m nice.”

“I think you’re trying, which is of the good.”

“It’s hard,” he admitted, sighing. “That thing he wants me to see tonight, the meteor shower, what is that?”

“You’ll see...so will I. I’ve never seen one tonight. It’s a shooting star. Do you know what that is?”

“No.”

“Well, Wes, Giles or Willow can explain better but you’ll be there forever.”

“Like when they explained the effigy mound here in the park?” He shuddered.

“Yeah, like that. You and Faith really shouldn’t have threatened to toss Wes off the nearest cliff, because that ended up a whole separate lecture,” I said and he made a lemon face. “Anyhow, the short version is it’s a hunk of rock and ice from space that comes to earth and it’s all bright and sparkly...and probably just like that rain of fire thing you went through. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

He flopped onto his back. “It’s natural and not because of a demon?”

I nodded. “A hundred percent natural phenomenon, happens every year.”

“That’s okay then. The rain of fire was scary, especially since I thought I was responsible but it was pretty amazing to look at,” he said.

Every time I thought I’d heard the worst, most painful thing that could possibly happen to him, he found something new to make it more tragic. “Why would you have been responsible?”

“Because the Beast came through in the alley I was born in. Never did figure out what that was about,” he said.

“You were born in an alley...oh, ewww, that’s terrible for you.”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember it.” Connor glanced over at me and smiled. He took my hand. I would have been content to lie there soaking in the sun, holding hands but a shadow fell over us. I looked up and Buffy and Faith were standing over us. Faith was beaming. Buffy looked more solemn. I let go of Connor’s hand like it had burned me and he gave me a hurt look.

“So here you two are,” Buffy said. “We looked for you in the cottages.”

“We’re right where we said we’d be,” I shot back a little too defensively. “How was your hike?”

“We had fun,” Buffy said.

“What happened to your shoulder, Connor?” Faith’s grin was slick.

He sat up, rubbing at it. “Dawn did that.”

Lovely, he forgot the part about it happening in the lake. Note to self, boy’s brains don’t fully engage after sex. “That’s what he gets for roughhousing in the water,” I added quickly.

“Was that before or after you let him suck on your neck?” Faith’s grin broadened as she pointed to my neck. I slapped a hand to where Connor had been nuzzling earlier. I hadn’t thought to check for hickies.

Buffy’s face didn’t show whether or not she believed my story. Her eyes were on the sucker bite. “You’re both getting pink. You probably have had enough sun.”

“Good point.” I sat up. “We forgot to buy sun tan lotion.”

“A fatal mistake for Snow White and her boyfriend, Casper the Friendly ghost,” Faith snickered, nudging Connor with a toe.

He swatted at her and Faith danced away.

“No fighting in public,” Buffy said as I tried to get to my feet without looking like I was in pain. “You two can wait on the cage match until we’re in private.” She grinned.

“Oooo, cages.” Faith smirked and Connor’s eyes lit up.

I could have killed him, but I honestly didn’t think he knew he was flirting with her. I think he thought Faith was relating to him as an equal warrior. I wouldn’t get jealous. I didn’t want to be that kind of girlfriend, but Faith had best keep her claws off of him. She can have any man she wants and probably already has.

I picked up the bath towels and we headed for the cottages. It wasn’t easy to walk normal but I couldn’t exactly stumble along like I had spent the day horseback riding. At some point, Faith got the idea that racing Connor to the cottages was a good idea. They darted off and I figured she’d cheat to win.

“He’s not as smart as he could be,” Buffy said, lightly.

“I’m making allowances for a complete lack of schooling,” I said.

“Hard to argue that. Take off a few IQ points for being a teenaged boy.” Buffy grinned, looking happy for the first time in a while. “Giles assures me that they do get better as they get older.”

“He should know,” I said and she laughed.

I hoped that she was going to leave it at that since she was quiet the rest of the way home. Faith was already in the cottage on the couch watching the little tv.

“Faith, do you mind?” Buffy nodded toward the door.

I really didn’t like that. I could sense a lecture in my future. I went into my bedroom to get my clothes. I ducked into the bathroom, but I could only drag out changing out of my swim suit for so long. Peeing actually did take a little time, between the burning and the twinging. Buffy was waiting for me in our room, sitting cross-legged on her bed. She gestured at mine.

“Have a seat.”

“Are you going to yell?” I flopped on the bed. It suddenly didn’t have the same wonderful feeling it had just a little while ago.

“I’m not going to yell.” Her eyes narrowed, a sure sign yelling was going to happen despite what she said. “I just want to talk.”

“Probably not going to do much good to pretend I don’t know what about.” I punched up the pillow then hugged it tight.

Her lips thinned. “Not if you think I’m going to yell.”

I eyed her uneasily. I so did not want to have this talk, and I hope she didn’t yell. Connor and Angel could probably hear that from the other cottage. Oh lord, could Angel have heard us to begin with? The other cottage was only yards away. “So?”

“Dawn, I’m not sure Connor is exactly good for you,” she said slowly as if weighing each word. Maybe she didn’t really want to be doing this either.

“I knew you’d say that.” I sat back up. “And I know there’s plenty of reasons to think that way but...”

Her eyebrows raised. “But?”

“I really care about him, Buffy. We have a lot in common,” I said.

“You’ve known him two weeks, how much could you know?” She uncrossed her legs, putting her feet on the floor.

I guess she had a point. It did seem a little like we were rushing when it was put that way. “We’re two very unnatural kids, Buffy. Together we feel a little less weird.”

I didn’t expect Buffy’s eyes to mist up over that, but they did. She got up and sat next to me. She stroked my hair back off my forehead. “You’re not unnatural, Dawn.”

“I’m a ball of green energy some monks decided to make into a real girl. I’m like Pinocchio...only a girl...and not of wood but you know what I mean,” I yammered. “And Connor is so different. He’s having even more trouble fitting in than I did and I can help him. But it’s more than that.”

Buffy’s hand closed over my knee. “I’m listening,”

I looked at her, studying her face. “Yeah, you really are, aren’t you?”

She put an arm around me. “I knew we’d have to have the big talk some day. I kept hoping Mom had done that.”

“She did, after my sex ed classes.” Maybe that would end it, but I wasn’t usually that lucky.

Buffy nodded. “I remember how I felt when Mom screamed and ranted at me about this.”

“But you slept with Angel,” I said cautiously, “who was a lot older for one thing.”

Buffy smiled sadly. “And that differs from you how? Beyond the whole my-boyfriend-lost-his-soul-turned-into-a-fiend thing.”

“Connor might not be older than me. We don’t know how old he is, and what makes you think he and I....” I looked away. I didn’t want to lie to Buffy’s face about it especially since she was making a special effort to be understanding.

“Call it a sneaky suspicion.” Buffy got up, pacing around the room. “Call it intuition.”

“Call it Angel could hear us and you stopped here before finding us.” My face went bright red, realizing that had to be it. I wanted the bed to open up and swallow me whole. “Buffy, he’s not yelling at Connor is he? I mean, things are bad enough between them without that.”

She came back over, sitting down and squeezed my hand. “He’s not saying anything to Connor. He still hasn’t forgiven himself for what happened. Connor could probably burn the cottages down around us and Angel wouldn’t yell at him for it.”

“Good point.”

“Dawnie, I’m just worried that you’re going too fast. I mean, you’ve already taken a huge step.” She caught my chin, making me look at her, “too big of one.”

I pulled away from her grip. “I know Buffy but it felt right.” I slung my hair back then met her eyes levelly. “I know that this was the way it was meant to be. He makes me feel safe and happy and wanted.”

Her face went somber. “Dawn, he’s dangerous. You know that better than I. For all we know he’s a killer. He didn’t get the nickname the Destroyer for nothing.”

“I know that, too, Buffy but given your last few boyfriends you don’t have any room to talk. Between Angel and Spike they have a body count the size of a small city.” I showed her my best defiant face. That had been a dangerous card to play but it was the truth and part of me still hadn’t forgiven her about Spike, or at least the part where she had left me with him after he tried to rape her. I didn’t care that he couldn’t physically hurt me and who was to say he couldn’t? I wasn’t entirely human. I watched my sister’s face, expecting the yelling to start now.

Instead, Buffy sighed, shrinking in on herself. “What can I say to that?”

“Probably nothing. I didn’t go into this blind, Buffy. I know the risks. I know all the reasons why I shouldn’t have done it and I know what my heart is telling me.”

“I just want to keep you safe, Dawn,” she whispered, and it was incredibly touching. I was grateful my sister cared so much about me, even if I didn’t always act like it.

“And you do, but sometimes you have to let me do things on my own. And if it’s a mistake, I have to be the one to pay the price,” I said. She embraced me and I hugged her back. “I like that you worry about me, Buffy, but you have to trust me, too.”

“I do.” She played with my hair again. “Just tell me that...um,”

“The condoms are in my purse.” I held up my hands. “Believe me, Buffy, pregnant is the last thing I want to be.”

“That’s a relief.” She ran a finger over the sucker bite. “Letting boys suck on your neck can be dangerous.”

“You’d know,” I replied, grinning.

She laughed. “It’s part of my job...stopping the sucking. Okay, that just sounds dumb. And remember, good girls don’t leave huge bite marks on their boyfriends.”

“Who said I want to be a good girl?” I smiled at her.

“Don’t make me send Faith to another country to end her influence on you.” She ruffled my hair. “Are you feeling okay?”

I nodded. “A little sore, but I’m good. He was worried about hurting me, being as strong as he is. I guess kinda like you were with Riley.”

“Yeah, that’s a real concern and I’m glad he was worried about it. I think he does like you a lot, Dawn. Of course I was sort of thinking he liked Faith, too.”

“I know. Everyone likes Faith.” I gave a full body shudder. “I think he’s more interested in showing her he can beat her in a fight than anything. He’s interested in you for the same reason.”

“That scrawny little kid is so not beating me in a fight,” Buffy said.

“You have no room to be calling any one scrawny, Buffy,” I said and she rubbed a self-conscious hand over what was left of her belly. “But if he gets out of line, I give you permission to smack him around a little. Angel probably won’t mind.”

“Yeah, Angel.” Buffy ran a hand through her hair. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around him having a son, especially a short, bony, girlie looking one.”

“Hey, that’s my boyfriend you’re talking about.” I shoved her lightly. “You stick with Willow’s description of him.”

“Androgynous, yeah like that’s every so much better,” Buffy said, smiling. “I thought Angel was going to have a fit the last time Willow called Connor that.”

“I know. It was cute,” I said.

“It was but...I worry about what will happen once they go back to L.A,” Buffy said.

I felt my heart drop to somewhere past my heels. I hadn’t even thought about that. “I...I mean, can’t they stay in Cleveland with us? That’s our new home base.”

“Angel will have to deal with Wolfram and Hart, Dawn.” Buffy got back up. “I don’t see him leaving Connor behind.”

“Why not? Giles can help keep an eye out for him. It’s good for Connor to be with me, Buffy, and not just because of how we feel about each other. He’s never had friends his age. Being with the new Slayers will do him good. He needs schooling, too. He’s not going to get that chasing after Wolfram and Hart. I don’t even know if he can read and write. He’s missed school entirely. And he’ll like the Hellmouth. There’re things to slay.”

Buffy nibbled her lip. “You know, you make a very good argument. We ought to sit down and talk to Angel about this. He might be agreeable to Connor staying with us for a while. He wants what’s best for Connor. Willow and Giles would make good tutors...and I think they both want to study Connor for being what he is.”

“Yeah, he’ll love that.” I rolled my eyes. “But does the big talk have to be tonight? I mean, star gazing and heavy angst don’t go together. It’s supposed to be kind of romantic.”

“Star gazing, romantic? With the three brains there?” Buffy smiled.

“Ha, ha.”

“We’ll let it go until tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Buffy.”

*

I was stuffed full to the gills with hamburger, hot dogs and brats. Willow was sadly alone in eating the garden burgers. The rest of us tore into the meaty feast like starving carnivores. Somehow I found room for baked beans, cole slaw and chips, and several cans of root beer. Then there was apple pie. Connor laid to rest any theories about him not actually eating and surviving on air. I wasn’t sure where he found room to put all the junk he ate.

We all chilled for a few hours by the camp fire, listening to the boom box. Everyone else had real beer to my and Connor’s root beer. We looked like normal people for a change and it felt good to pretend. I only wished Willow and Xander would have let me beg off dancing by the fire with them. Why did I get the impression they were the only two who didn’t know me and Connor had done it?

As the night wore on, and we were still waiting for prime Perseid watching time, Willow produced the fixings for s’mores. I don’t know how I managed to squeeze them in with everything else I ate. Connor’s sweet tooth was as bad as Xander’s. I half expected both of them to puke later from all the sweets they stuffed in.

“Ooo, ooo,” Willow cooed. “It’s getting close to time. We should get ready.”

She, Buffy and me laid out some blankets to go with our camp chairs. I claimed one, motioning Connor to sit with me on it. Of course, Buffy and Angel took the one next to us but there wasn’t really anywhere else to go. It’s not like I could expect them to take their blanket and go elsewhere in the woods with it but it might do them some good, since Angel obviously had found a way to have sex and remained souled. Bad sex, maybe? Whatever, didn’t want to think about them doing it. Willow and Xander took the third blanket after Willow turned the music to a classical station. The rest had to deal with the chairs but they might have been more comfortable or maybe I had just had enough of lying on the ground.

Still, it was a beautiful night. The sky was crystalline. Frogs and crickets accompanied Mozart, according to Angel, and I was snuggled up with my man. It was all a girl could ask for. I looked over at my sister who was lying on her side, Angel next to her. They both smiled at me. Connor noticed.

He leaned in close and whispered, “I think he knows.”

I nodded. “They both do, but it’s okay.”

Connor didn’t look convinced but he stretched out on the blanket without making a fuss.

“Ooo, there’s one.” Willow stabbed a hand skywards.

“Where?” Giles asked.

We missed that one but I spotted the next one. The Perseid meteor streaked through the heavens, in a wavering light of red, orange and white. It looked like it had sparklers for a tail. It was just simply beautiful.

“Wow,” Connor muttered next to me.

For some reason I looked back at Buffy and Angel and saw the joy on Angel’s face born of Connor’s reaction to the stellar display. I could feel the love he had for his son. I nudged Connor hoping he’d see it, too. He shifted beside me then pressed his lips to mine. I could feel him smiling through the quick kiss.

“Look at that one,” Faith said, hopefully talking about a shooting star and not us.

We went back to looking at the night sky and we made a game of seeing who could spot the most meteors. Between Giles, Wes and Willow we learned more history about the Perseids than we ever wanted to know; like our knowing that the first sighting was back in 36 AD by the Chinese was absolutely vital to our enjoying the evening. Of course, that was who and how our friends were and you had to love them for it.

I entangled my fingers in Connor’s strong hand. I might not know what our future held, but I didn’t care. We shared a scary past. Things could only get better from there. I was ready to face whatever came. Content, I squeezed his hand and turned my gaze to the heavens.

~Fin~