“So this is Dana?” Connor said, looking at the nervous girl who stood in the corner as if she were afraid, yet still had a posture like she was about to take someone’s head off.
“Wait a minute,” Willow said. “How do you know her name? I never told you.”
Connor frowned. “My father and I talked about it.”
“Who’s your father?” Xander asked.
“Xander,” Willow said in her warning tone.
“Ohhh,” Xander said. “G-man had an illegitimate love child.” Xander began to sing in a silly voice with a dance to match. “Go Giles! Go Giles!”
“I don’t like him,” Dana said. “We fought. In a basement. You wanted to kill my friend.”
Connor looked at Dana strangely. “Even if we had, you wouldn’t remember.”
“Angel,” Dana said. Connor shuddered at the name. “You tried to kill Angel.”
Connor shrugged. “Only a few times.”
“Hey,” Xander said happily. “This kid seems okay. How do you know dead boy?”
“We used to work together,” Connor said. “It wasn’t a good working relationship. Still, Dana wasn’t a slayer then.”
“She gets confused,” Willow said. “She has memories from other slayers.”
“Oh,” Connor said. “Okay. Now I know what she’s talking about.”
“Wait a minute,” Riley said. “You had a fight with a slayer and you still have all your limbs?”
“Yeah,” Xander said, just realizing what Riley was saying. “Explain yourself skinny man.”
“Gadgets,” Connor said with a shrug.
“Gadgets?” Xander said. “Your gadgets saved you?”
“Gadgets and training. So, are we staying here in Montana? I brought plaid clothes just in case.”
“San Francisco,” Xander said. “We want a big city, but . . .”
“L.A. has a lot of bad memories,” Connor said. Xander and Riley figured he was talking about Dana’s memories from L.A. Only Willow knew that Connor was referring to both Dana’s and his own.
*
“I could take you again,” Dana said as they boarded the plane. “Easily.”
“Sure.” Connor glanced at Willow. He wanted to talk to her without Dana or Xander hearing. But it wasn’t going to happen on the plane. They were all sitting together.
“Baseball fan?” Xander asked.
“Yeah,” Connor said. “Twins. How’d you know?”
“You have batting gloves in your carry-on.”
“Oh,” Connor said. “Actually, I’m working on this thing with gloves and Holy Water. Unfortunately there’s a sweat issue, so I can’t-”
“That’s okay,” Xander said, raising his hand. “I already have more details than I want to hear. In fact, later on, I’m going to go into the bathroom and bang my head against the wall until I forget I ever heard anything about your sweaty, Holy Water, baseball gloves.” Xander waved to a couple seats. “We’re sitting over here.”
Willow and Dana sat across the isle from Connor and Xander. Connor glanced at her nervously. “So, what kind of place we staying?” he asked, hoping to get her attention.
“Apartment building in the Mission,” Xander answered to Connor’s chagrin. “Bad part of town. Lots of vamps.”
“And muggers,” Connor said, looking at Xander. “And rapists. You sure this is a good idea?”
“Connor,” Xander said with a smile. “You’re new to this line of work I’m sure. So let me let you in on a little secret. Men never, ever, ever get to call the shots. There’s always a slayer or witch or a watcher-”
“There are lots of male watchers,” Connor interjected.
“No one listens to them. So just sit back, enjoy the ride, and try not to piss off Will or she’ll turn you into a toad or something.”
The plane took off and hit the cruising altitude. As soon the fasten seat belt light went off, Willow headed for the restroom. Connor waited a moment, then stepped over Xander and headed back as well. As Willow opened the door to leave, Connor quickly pushed her inside and closed the door behind him.
“Connor, I’m gay. So if you think you’re joining the mile-high club-”
“Get over yourself,” Connor said as he rolled his eyes. “I need to talk to you.”
“Can we do it somewhere that doesn’t smell like urine and disinfectant.”
“We need to talk privately and we need to talk now.”
Willow sighed. “I’m a powerful witch, Connor. I called a thousand slayers; something that’s never even been dreamed of before.”
“Meaning?”
“You think a memory spell by a petty thug like Cyvus Vail would stick on me?” Willow said, a little offended that Connor had even considered the possibility. “I do a spell every so often to see if spells have been cast on me. Especially memory spells. I’ve had a couple bad experiences.” She smiled as she saw Connor’s puzzled look. “That is what you were asking, right? How I remember you.”
“Yeah,” Connor said, looking a little sad.
“When I detected Vail’s spell, I did my own to shake it off. Then I called your father and bitched him out for an hour. Memory spells are bad hoodoo. But I agreed to respect his arrangement.”
“Oh,” Connor said. “Th- thanks, I guess.” He glanced at the door. “Do they know?”
“Xander doesn’t,” Willow said. “As for Dana . . . I don’t know. Her still having Faith’s memory of fighting you kind of threw me.”
“Me too,” Connor said. He sighed and leaned back against the door. “You really think we can save her.”
“Angel saved you, didn’t he?”
“Not really,” Connor said. “He just reformatted my hard drive. Sorry.”
“No,” Willow said with a smile. “Geek talk. I dig it. Kind of miss it, actually.”
“Sometimes I wonder if I was really so far gone that . . .” Connor shook his head. “Never mind.”
“No,” Willow said, at last interested in the conversation. “Tell me.”
Connor shook his head. “That was a different life for me. I try not to think about it.”
“Sir,” a flight attendant said sternly as he and Willow left the bathroom. “I’m going to have to ask you to use the bathroom one at a time. This is an airplane, not a brothel.”
“Why are you saying this to me?” Connor said, feigning anger. “She’s the one who dragged me in there.”
“As if,” Willow said.
“I don’t really care,” the flight attendant went on. “If you-”
“Look . . . Lisa,” Connor said, looking at the flight attendant’s name tag, which read Lisa Reisert. “She’s gay. She’s a nurse. She was helping me change a bandage so I won’t bleed all over your seats. I kept boxers on the whole time. Honest.”
“Oh,” Lisa said, not sure whether or not to believe him. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Any time,” Connor said.
Lisa followed them to their seats and saw that Willow sat with a woman while Connor sat with another man. “Oh,” she said, not checking herself before she spoke aloud. “You’re with him,” she said, nodding to Xander.
“Yeah,” Connor said.
Xander nodded, then suddenly caught their drift. He looked from Lisa to Connor and back to Lisa. “But not in a gay way. It’s not like . . . it’s not like we . . . gay.”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Connor said, taking Xander’s hand. “She understands.”
Xander pulled away, making a disgusted and frightened face.
“Sorry,” Connor said to Lisa. “My Xander gets a little shy in public.”
“My boyfriend’s the same way,” she said with a smile as she continued on down the aisle.
Connor and Willow laughed at Xander’s discomfort. “That’s not funny,” Xander said.
“Yes it was,” Dana said off-handedly as she flipped through “Fresh Air”, the airline’s magazine. She stuffed the magazine back with the others and looked at Willow.
“So, she has a sense of humor,” Connor said with a smile. “That’s a good start.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Dana said angrily.
“Fair enough,” Connor said.
And with that, the plane began its descent into SFO.
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