“Hey, sweetie," Hank Summer said as he hugged Dawn. “I made breakfast.”
“It tastes awful,” Buffy added. Both Angel and Willow gave Buffy a look that indicated she should ease off. “Guess it’s the thought that counts,” Buffy added grudgingly.
“Anyway, Dawn, I was wondering about your plans for the summer,” Hank said.
“Oh. I was going to stay around here and, um . . . I have an internship.”
“Really?” Willow said. “That’s so exciting.”
Buffy kicked Willow under the table.
“Oh!” Willow said. “The internship. Right.”
“You shouldn't work yourself too hard, kiddo.”
Buffy groaned. “Me he tells study, study, study or you'll never get into college. You he tells don't work too hard.”
“She already got into Stanford, Buffy,” Hank said. “Obviously she has the necessary work ethic that you seemed to lack.”
Buffy stood. “I'm not going to take advice on how to follow through from a guy who gave up on his marriage. And his children.” She quietly walked out of the kitchen.
“Give it time, dad,” Dawn said hopefully.
“You should probably lay off the criticism and just kiss her ass for a while,” Kennedy offered. “That’s what my parents did when they were trying to make up for ignoring me during their divorce.”
“Actually, I was thinking of an outright bribe,” Hank said.
“Those work too,” Kennedy nodded.
“I'll say,” Angel laughed. “When Cordelia was pissed at me, I bought her a bunch of shoes and all was right with the world again.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, that was Cordelia.”
“Am I getting a car?” Dawn asked with a grin.
“I was thinking maybe you'd like to spend the summer with me in Hawaii.”
Dawns eyes lit up even as her stomach turned. There was no way she could take a summer off from her training to be a watcher and a witch. “Thanks, dad. I . . . I'd really like to. But it’s important I stay here for the summer. For my internship.”
“Actually,” Willow said. “If you want, I can see about getting your internship postponed.”
“It might be nice to have a summer in Hawaii before you go out into the real world,” Kennedy agreed.
Dawn looked up at the door through which Buffy had left the kitchen.
“I'll talk to her,” Angel said. “It’s important that you spend time with your dad. Deep down, I think Buffy knows that.”
*
“Hey, kid,” Kennedy said as she stepped into the office Connor was looking through.
“Hey,” Connor answered without looking up. “He was seated at a desk looking through computer files.”
“Shouldn't you have ducked out of sight or something when you heard me coming?”
“I could tell it was you.”
“Right. The sense of smell. I forgot about that. On purpose. It freaks me out that you can do that.”
“You could always try switching perfumes to throw me off.”
“Whatcha got there?”
“This professor is investigating cultures which believe in either animal worship or animal possession.”
“Sounds exciting,” Kennedy said in a dull tone.
“It is if you had a pack of werewolves running around campus recently.”
“So you busted into this guys office because he studies animal worship?”
“I broke in because the other night, when those two vamps were breaking into the crypt, they brought me here to see their boss.”
“This office?”
“No. Just the building.”
“How’d you know which office? Never mind. The smell thing. I forgot gain.”
Connor smiled. “I'm hoping Willow can hack into Peoplesoft and get me this professor’s home address.”
“House call. Cool. Any chance of a major beat down happening?”
“Yeah. Good chance, actually.”
“Wicked. Let’s go talk to Willow.”
*
As they approached Willow’s house, Connor could hear the yelling.
“What’s wrong?” Kennedy asked.
“Buffy and Dawn are yelling at each other.”
“Oh. Buffy must not be taking the Hawaii news too well.”
“What Hawaii news?”
“Dawn’s spending the summer in Hawaii with her dad.”
“Oh,” Connor said sullenly, his heart dropping into his stomach.
“Okay,” Kennedy said as she grabbed Connor’s arm and pulled him away form the front door. “You and I need to talk.”
“About what?”
“Your intentions with Dawn.”
“What? What intentions? What are you talking about?”
“Dawn took her dorm room phone off the hook two nights ago and the next morning you were with her. Now she’s going away for the summer and you’re getting all mopey looking. And where did you spend last night?”
In my dorm room, Connor said defensively.
“Yet you’re wearing the same clothes this morning you were wearing last night? Want to take another stab at that question?”
“I . . . it was just because of the room. I was, it was Emily’s room and I wanted to spend time there. That’s all.”
“That doesn’t explain the look you just made when you found out Dawn was leaving.”
“What? That was . . . why do you even care?”
“Because I care about Dawn, jackass!”
“There’s nothing between us!”
“You know how she feels about you,” Kennedy said sternly. “Don't lead her on.”
“I'm not.”
“You are!”
Connor turned away from Kennedy and sighed in frustration.
“I think you’ve gotten used to her being there,” Kennedy said. “To her wanting you and wanting to please you. And I think you’ve taken advantage of those feelings.”
“I didn’t mean to!”
“I don't think you meant to. But you knew what was happening and you kept doing it anyway. Didn’t you?”
Connor hated being called out on what he’d been doing.
“You should talk to Willow,” Kennedy said, easing off a little. “Her first girlfriend was murdered by this geeky villain. Maybe she can help you get through this.”
“I don't want to get through it. I could have saved her if I'd acted faster that day. Or if I'd done more to stop Terry before things went as far as they did. Sometimes I feel like I'll never be happy again. And when I feel that way, I have this strange sense of . . . of satisfaction. Because I know I deserve it.”
*
“Do you think other watcher wannabes are headed for the tropics this summer?” Buffy shouted.
“So you’re holding your position over my head?” Dawn snapped. “I can’t believe that. You are such a controlling bitch.”
“Apparently my control issues and bitchiness were pretty good for you. After all, you’re going to Stanford, aren’t you?”
“Oh, please! Willow and Tara did more to raise me than you did. You were off having your secret trysts with Spike while I was left in the care of a magic junky.”
Buffy had to restrain herself from slapping Dawn. She’d always been so good about not losing her temper since discovering she was a slayer.
“I'm trying to get past that, Dawn,” Buffy said in a quiet, controlled voice. “I had my issues. And Willow had hers. We all made mistakes." She sat on the bed. "Everything was finally going to be okay, you know? Angel's human and we're together. I finally got used to mom being dead and dad being gone. You're doing well at a great college. Angel and I were going to settle around here so he could be close to Connor and I could be close to you. I'd finally be the big sister you deserved. And now I feel like everything's going to change."
Dawn wasn't used to this kind of openness from Buffy. "Nothing's going to change, Buffy."
"Dad charms over people even when he doesn't have the advantage of being their father. You with dad for three months in paradise? There's only two ways that can end. You come back wanting to be around your father more than anything in the world, so you leave school and quit training to be a watcher. Or he loses interest and breaks your heart. Either way, the ending is not of the good."
Dawn sat next to Buffy. "You think I'd drop out of Stanford?"
"You have no idea what that man can talk people into. Every time he missed a birthday or forgot to call when he said he would, he always found a way to make me forgive him. It's . . . it's good you want to have a relationship with dad."
"It is?"
"Well . . . it's better than getting addicted to Heroin, anyway. I just don't want you to get hurt. And more importantly, I don't want you to give up things that are important to you and your future so you can make him feel less lonely after he got dumped by his latest girlfriend."
"I won't do that, Buffy. I promise.” Dawn hugged her older sister. "You really have been a good sister to me."
"No I haven't. But that’s changing. I promise."
*
"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Willow asked.
"Yeah," Connor answered. "Of course."
They were sitting with Kennedy in the back of a van parked down the street from the house Lionel Milton's, the Anthropology professor investigating animal worship and possession.
"You take care of any magical barriers," Connor said. "And I'll pick the lock and disable the alarm. Kennedy drives the van patrolling for . . . well, other people patrolling."
"How did you learn how to disable alarms?" Kennedy asked. "Does Stanford have a class in that or something?"
"Kind of. You just have to know how to apply what they teach in Electrical Engineering."
"And you know how to do that?" Kennedy said. "I just want to be sure seeing as you're doing a B&E job with my girlfriend."
"We are not!" Willow said in an offended tone. "I've never cheated on you!"
"B&E means breaking and entering, Willow," Connor smirked.
"Oh. I thought it was something dirty."
Connor and Willow hopped out of the van and headed for the house.
"Not sensing any magical fields," Willow said.
Connor stopped and stared at the house. He glanced at the address he had in his pocket, then back to the house. The front door was wide open.
"Guess I'm not going to need to work on that alarm, either."
As they watched, a coroner's van pulled up.
Connor began moving toward the house, but Willow grabbed his arm and pulled him away. "We need to keep a low profile. We don't need cops asking us questions, writing our names in their reports, or doing any unpleasant body cavity searches."
"Good plan. I'm really not in the mood for a body cavity search at the moment."
*
"So this is what you kids do for fun on Saturday night," Hank joked as they headed back to the car.
"We're both over eighteen," Buffy said moodily as she put an arm around Dawn. "And Angel's older than you are."
Hank looked at Angel with a scrutinizing glare. He was pissed that this man older than he was took advantage of his daughter, while also unable to believe that Angel was in fact older.
"She's kidding," Angel said. "I'm thirty-five." He wanted to pick an age that was close to his appearance, yet would still be old enough to have a son Connor's age.
"And what do you do for a living?" Hank asked.
"Dad," Buffy grumbled.
"I'm a retired private investigator," Angel answered Hank.
"Retired? At thirty-five? I had no idea PI's did that well."
"Depends how good you are," Angel said. Or how well you divert funds from an evil law firm, Angel thought.
The group walked off of University Avenue down Waverly toward Hamilton, where their cars were parked.
"And what exactly are your intentions with my daughter?"
"Don't answer that!" Buffy snapped at Angel as she turned to her father. "Look, you can show up out of the blue and ask forgiveness if you want."
"Buffy," Dawn said in a worried voice.
"Let me finish Dawn!" Buffy snapped while still looking at Hank. "But don't you dare try to play the dad card now. Not after all this time."
"Buffy," Angel said.
"Angle, butt out." She was still looking at Hank. "If anyone gets to act like a dad to me, it's Giles. He was the one who was there for me."
"And I think Giles would want you to deal with the problem Angel and I are trying to tell you about," Dawn said.
"Dawn, just . . . oh. Wait." Buffy turned and looked to see a group of four vamps in game face approaching.
"Check it out," one of the vamps said. "One for each of us."
"And two of them are smoking hot," another said.
"Really?" Dawn said in a gushing tone. "Do you think I'm hot, too?”
"Dawn," Buffy said. "Please don't get excited that the sociopath thinks you're cute."
"Easy for you to say. Guys fall over you all the time. If it weren't for the undead, I'd have no social life at all."
"Undead?" Hank said.
"We'll explain later," Angel cut in as he and Buffy moved in front of Dawn and Hank. He lowered his arm and a stake sprung down from up his sleeve. Buffy pulled her stake out of her purse. Dawn began to concentrate.
"Shouldn't we be running or yelling for help?" Hank asked.
"They'd just outrun us," Dawn said in a bored voice. The vamps came toward them fast. Dawn flung her hand out and a fire bolt shot out and hit the first one.
"What the hell?" Hank shouted in sheer surprise.
Buffy dodged a punch from one of the vamps, then nailed him with a spin kick. Angel threw a roundhouse punch at his vamp while the third when after Hank, the only person not fighting back. Hank punched the vamp hard, knocking it back. Dawn quickly threw herself on the ground behind the staggering vamp and tripped it. Angel quickly took a step back and slammed his stake into the tripped vamp's heart.
"Thanks!" Dawn said.
"No problem."
"Holy shit!" Hank yelled as the vamp burst into dust.
Buffy kept up a barrage of punches until she had her vamp pinned against a car. She slammed her stake into his chest, dusting him. She turned just in time to watch Angel dust the last of the gang.
"This is weird," Angel said. "They usually hunt in big cities, not small towns."
"Sunnydale," Dawn said. "Hello?"
"That was different," Buffy said. "We had a Hellmouth."
"A what?" Hank said.
"We have to find out what's attracting them here," Angel agreed with Buffy.
"Someone seriously needs to tell me what's gong on here!" Hank yelled.
Dawn looked at her father, suddenly realizing she needed to explain this all somehow. "Um . . . street gang. From East Palo Alto. It's a bad area."
"Then why did they explode?"
Dawn blinked. "Suicide bombers?"
"Okay, dad," Buffy said. "I need you to calm down. Then I need to tell you some things. Then I'll need you to calm down again."
*
"Dead?" Willow said.
"For two weeks," Kennedy said. "His daughter came to visit from out of town and found his body stuffed in a trunk in the basement."
"That must have smelled pretty ripe," Connor said.
"You with the smelling," Kennedy said. "That still freaks me out."
"I don't think I'd want to smell that either," Willow said. "And I don't have heightened senses."
"If he's been dead two weeks, who was using his office the other night?" Connor asked.
"How the hell would I know?" Kennedy said.
"What? I know. I'm just thinking out loud."
"Well stop it.”
"I need to go back to his office and look around more."
"That's a great idea," Kennedy said. "Snoop through the office of a murder victim."
"She's right, Connor," Willow said. "We need to either find another lead or wait until this blows over."
*
Buffy smacked Hank.
"Hey!" Hank shouted. "What was that for?"
"I could tell you were thinking that you must be dreaming. I wanted to let you know that you weren't."
"You could have pinched me."
"Yeah. But smacking you was more cathartic."
Hank sat on a bench. "So . . . you've been doing this for how long?"
"Ten years," Buffy said.
"Ten?" Hank shook his head. "I knew I was behind on what was going on in your life, but this is . . . why didn't you tell me?"
"There isn't much you could have done for me except buy lots of life insurance."
Hank looked at Angel and Dawn. "And you two knew about this?" He looked away. "Of course you did. You're part of it."
*
"When are your parents coming?" Willow asked. It was about six in the morning.
Connor shrugged. "They'll probably get here around noon. I don't really want to leave, but they're worried about me. I need to spend some time around them. Show them I'm not catatonic or anything."
"We'll keep looking into things here," Kennedy said. "If anything really big comes up, we'll call you. Otherwise, take some time off to think and recharge and . . . work on other stuff."
Connor smiled appreciatively. "Thanks." He looked at his watch. "I better get to my dorm room and get the rest of my stuff packed. Tell everyone I said bye."
"Are you okay?" Willow asked.
"I guess. I was kind of hoping to spend more time with Angel before we both took off. But I guess he's kind of busy being human now."
Kennedy smirked. "Fathers.”
"Don't they suck," Connor finished her thought as he remembered back to telling Angel that same thing. But that, as Connor always told himself, was another life.
Connor headed out. When he got to his dorm, he found Angel waiting on the stoop outside. "Sorry I haven't been around," Angel said. "Buffy had some drama and I forgot that you did, too. Figured the least I could do was help you pack."
*
"You have everything packed?" Hank asked.
"Yeah," Dawn said. "How're you doing? With the . . . with the demon stuff and all?"
"I don't know yet." Hank looked at the clock. "We better go if we're going to make our flight."
Dawn hugged Buffy, Willow, and Kennedy good bye. Buffy and Angel would be spending the summer at the Watcher's Council Headquarters in England. After that, they'd be making plans about where they'd live, whether they'd have kids, and other things pertaining to a normal life. Dawn smiled thinking that, after all this time, things would finally work out for Buffy. After all this time, her father was back. After all this time, they might all have a happy ending. She was so lost in her reveries, that she didn't realize how much time had passed until the private jet Hank had chartered lifted off and flew toward the rising sun.
*
Later that night, Kennedy and Willow ate dinner by candle light. It was dusk and there was still some light outside, but the candles were more for mood than actual light.
"After we check into this professor's death,” Kennedy said, "we should take a vacation, too."
"Oooh," Willow gushed as the phone began to ring. "We should go back to Brazil."
"Willow in a bikini! I could go for that."
Willow blushed as she picked up the phone. "Hello," she managed to say while suppressing a laugh. Kennedy was dancing around Willow seductively. "Hey Giles. What's up?"
Kennedy didn't realize anything was wrong until the phone slipped from Willow's hand.
"Will? Baby, what's wrong?"
"We have to call Buffy," the witch said as she staggered backward, pale as a sheet.
"What's wrong?"
Willow was stuttering and making a series of incoherent noises.
Kennedy grabbed the phone. "Giles, what's wrong?"
"I had no idea she would take it this badly," Giles said.
"What? What's going on?"
"One of our teams investigating human criminals working for or with demon sects found some human remains in a trunk off the coast of Australia.”
"Okay," Kennedy said.
"The remains are of two adult humans. It looks as if they were killed roughly five years ago. There was quite a bit of work done to conceal their identities, but DNA test and-"
"Giles, spit it out!" Kennedy shouted.
"It's Buffy's father," Willow finally managed to speak. "He's been dead for five years."
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