So, I'd been trying to figure out how all this was gonna end up ever since the day Faith and me went on the run. Sometimes I saw us going out like Bonnie and Clyde, bullets flying. Sometimes I saw us hiding for the rest of our lives. Once or twice I tried to figure what we'd look like if we got old together -- Faith with one of them blue rinses in her hair, me with a cane and a baggy old sweater. Yeah, well, it didn't quite look right to me either.

But I sure enough didn't think it was gonna end with me and Faith upstairs at the Hyperion, getting ourselves settled into one of the guest rooms.

"You feel right stayin' here?" I ask her.

Faith shrugs. She looks all kinds of worn out, but she's smiling. "I feel all right crashing here tonight," she says. "After dragging our asses halfway across the country, I guess they can put us up for the night."

"They're all hangin' around down there," I say. "The Watchers, too. Like a damn cocktail party." They're talking and carrying on -- not partying, just doing their Watcher thing to the max.

"I think they were planning on celebrating the big conviction," Faith says with a grin. God, that girl's gorgeous when she smiles. Maybe she's gonna start doing that more often. "Didn't get what they wanted, but, hey, shame to waste good booze. And it's not like they ain't got plenty to talk about now."

I put my feet up on the bed, try to get comfortable. Feels weird, making myself at home at the Hyperion again. "So what are we gonna do tonight?" I ask her. "Normally, I'd have a few suggestions 'bout what you and me could do with two beds and a claw-foot tub --"

"I wanna hear those later," Faith says.

I smile at her. "-- but nothing like the sound of Watchers using big vocabulary words downstairs to kill the mood."

"Chuck, are you crazy?" Faith shakes her head in amazement. "Open bar downstairs, and you want us to stay locked up in our room? Free booze!"

I give her a couple seconds to laugh and say she's joking. She just keeps shaking her head at me. "You're for real?" I sit up straight on the bed. "Those people were 'bout to lock you up and throw away the key, and now you want to go party with 'em?"

"Hey, wow, now that you mention it -- that might be uncomfortable," she says. "Might make some people feel real awkward. Some people's brandy might not go down so smooth."

I think about that for a minute. Then I grin at her. She grins back. "Let's go," I say, and she grabs my hand, half-dragging me to the door.

Faith didn't do it. I always knew she didn't do it. I didn't need any damn spell to know the truth. If you love somebody, really love 'em all the way through -- you know the truth without even asking.

I splash some cold water on my face and pat down with a washcloth, but it's no good -- I still look like I was just crying. Of course, that could be because I'm starting to cry again. I watch my face crumple in the mirror until the tears blur my vision, and then I just hold the washcloth to my mouth to muffle the sobs.

It was all supposed to be over. Faith was supposed to be guilty, and Angel was supposed to accept that he wasn't to blame, and that was supposed to be the end of it. Then Angel could start to heal, and we could maybe find our way back to each other again.

But now Faith's innocent, and Angel just found out Buffy went crazy and homicidal on his watch, plus there's some anonymous stranger out there who killed her, and no way Angel's not gonna want to go after that guy. It's not over. It's never gonna be over. It's just beginning.

And I can't do this anymore. I just can't. As much as I love Angel, I can't be with him anymore. I can't watch him tear himself apart any longer, because I just get torn apart right along with him. I feel myself getting weaker every day. It's like when the visions were getting worse, except it's not my body getting torn apart this time. It's my soul.

The Powers invited me to heaven. I said no. I always knew they'd make me pay for it. I just didn't have any idea how long it would last, how many more people they would hurt to make sure they hurt me too. I don't know anymore whether I'm getting out of here to save myself or save everyone around me.

I splash some more cold water on my face, pat dry again, go out into the room Angel and I share. I've never let my own apartment go -- seemed cruel to abandon Dennis entirely -- and now I'm glad I didn't. All I have to do is pack a few things, and I can be out of here in a couple of hours.

Just as I start dumping my hanging clothes on the bed, Angel comes in. Oh, God, I'm not ready to tell him -- I have to tell him --

Then I see his face as he comes up to me -- and he's smiling.

"There you are," he says, and he picks me up and twirls me around once before hugging me tight. "You ran off so fast." Angel leans back and grins wolfishly at me. "I'll just have to be faster." And then he kisses me so long and so deep I feel myself starting to get lightheaded.

This can't be happening. This is happening. He's happy? He's happy that we found all that out about Buffy?

When our lips part, he looks down at me expectantly. He's waiting for me to say something. Do something. "Cordy?" he whispers.

"What the HELL is going on with you?" I smack him across the shoulder as hard as I can, which is hard enough to make him jump back. "You don't talk to me for months, and you mope and you brood about Buffy, and then we find out she went total psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est, and THAT makes you happy? You -- are -- " I'm whacking him on every word now, and I'm getting really riled up, and my hands are starting to do the glow thing, "-- MAKING -- ME -- INSANE!"

And the light swells up and flares out in the room, bathing us both in Dr. Feelgood energy. Oh, MAN, I haven't done this in way too long. It's like your soul suddenly gets carbonated -- bubbles and sugar and foam all inside you. The anger goes someplace else; the feeling weird doesn't. But for a couple of seconds we can't fight anymore. I can't be scared anymore. There's just this fizzy, wonderful sensation that makes you blink and gasp and tingle.

When the light dims down enough for us to see each other, the look on Angel's face is so flat-out bewildered that I have to smile. He smiles back. Then we start to laugh. Then we start laughing even harder -- giddy, punch-drunk laughter. Much better, on the tension-release front, than beating up my boyfriend. Finally, I wipe tears from my eyes and say, "Are you okay?"

"Better than okay," he says. "Better than I've been in a long time."

"Yeah, I can see that," I say. "I just thought you'd be upset by what we heard. That's all."

Angel looks a little more serious then, and already I want to kick myself for wiping that beautiful smile from his face. "I'm not -- I didn't like what we heard. Of course not. But it could have been worse, Cordy."

I put my hands on either side of his face. "How?"

He considers that for a moment, and then he hugs me close. "That's part of what I'm going to tell you in Alaska."

Alaska? Oh, yeah. I almost forgot I agreed to that. Jeez, I should at least have bargained for Iceland. Or, oooh, Norway. But what the hell -- to judge from the way Angel's touching me, I don't think we're gonna be spending a lot of time outside the hotel. "Alaska," I murmur. "Okay, never thought THAT would sound romantic."

"Sure it is," he whispers into my ear. "I'll keep you warm. Make you a fire. Wrap you in furs."

We kiss again, slow and wet. His fingertips trace down my spine, settle on my hips, pull our bodies close together so that I can feel just how much he's looking forward to this trip. Angel's kissing me the way he hasn't in a year, and somehow, despite everything, the trial did just what I hoped it would do. It set Angel free. When Angel starts nuzzling his way down my neck, I manage to gasp out, "Think we could go downstairs just long enough to shoo out our eighty super-stuffy guests?"

"Mmmm. Sounds good." The tip of his tongue flickers along my collarbone. "Think they'd abandon the open bar?"

"Hell, no." Presto change-o, the mood is killed. But Angel's laughing, and I am too, and somehow, the world's gone from hell to heaven in about two minutes. I'm not gonna fight it. "Come on. Let's go down and make nice and do our part to drink up the store. When we're out, they're gone."

He puts his arm around my shoulders as we head downstairs.

I'm never gonna understand this man. I should probably go ahead and accept that now. I know we still have a lot to deal with -- if he thinks all his sexy talk about Alaska is gonna stop me from interrogating him on that trip, he's only right until, like, day three. After that, he'd better expect to do some serious opening-up.

But until then, you know what? I'm gonna relax and enjoy this.

Maybe the Powers are gonna punish me someday. But not today.

Faith lied for me.

But why? Why? What possible reason could she have to protect me? I know she despises me; if she didn't before that one night together, she must after the way I reacted the next morning --

I close my eyes in shame. I threw her out then because I sensed the evil in her, or so I thought. I had spent too much of those past few months getting close to evil, and I feared it was beginning, perhaps, to rub off. To taint me.

Now, though, I have to wonder if the evil I sensed was in Faith at all. Or in Lilah, or in Angel, or in Buffy. Maybe I need to face the fact that it's been in me, all along.

Ramsay is saying something, and I force myself to pay attention. "Inevitable, of course," he says.

"Of course. I mean, what was that?"

"Faith's ultimate descent," he says. "Once a killer, always a killer."

Cornish, at Ramsay's elbow, shakes his head. "I'm not convinced," he says. "The very fact that Faith continued her duties while on the run -- well, it's persuasive, don't you think?"

"Perhaps she is stable for now," Ramsay concedes. "But what we have just heard about Buffy Summers -- a Slayer far less mentally troubled than Faith, at least insofar as we knew -- only goes to demonstrate the inevitability of it. The origins of the Slayer's power spring from darkness, and in the end they return to darkness. We cannot forget it."

Cornish shakes his head. "But Summers passed the Cruciamentum. Normally Slayers can't manage that, unless they've put darkness far from themselves."

"True. But the fall remains inescapable," Ramsay repeats, and at this I can hear no more. I gesture at my near-empty glass, and they turn toward each other, talking on and on about Slayers as though they understand them. My hands are shaking, as I think about darkness, and tests, and inevitability.

The blood on Buffy's clothes -- the feverish energy in her eyes -- I thought she was a killer, and I was right. I was right. Those three words are unfamiliar to me, and I can't quite accept the truth of it.

I've relived that night in my mind a thousand times since then -- no, more. The shading of Buffy's voice, the things she said to me --

-- "Well, Wesley, I wish the world were cut-and-dried like that. I wish the good guys never had to do the bad things. But I learned way back that my wishes don't come true." --

-- EVERYTHING, even the way she held the knife. None of it absolutely condemned her. And during the past year I'd convinced myself that all of it vindicated her. Her face changed shape, became lighter: the face of an innocent, unsuspecting woman. Her words were less brittle, more pleading, the words of a woman trying to justify her friend and not herself. My memories became more clear over time, not less, and each day I realized how wrong, how horribly wrong, I had been to think Buffy a murderer.

And yet she was. I was right. My memories deceived me, and my instincts did not.

When the time came to kill, I killed. I understood the truth on a level beneath consciousness, a truth in defiance of all I believe as a man. .

Yet as my memories of Buffy's death have grown more fluid, one truth has never been dimmed. One thing remains as real and as vivid to me as the moment it happened. I remember the moment I struck, the way the knife's hilt pressed into my hand as the blade met the resistance of flesh. I remember the heat of blood between my fingers, the muscles I tensed, the sound of Buffy's last breath catching in her throat. Those are a killer's memories.

The one consolation I've had is that all my mistakes have been the mistakes of a good man. A man who was trying to do the right thing. Morally, I may have been confused and uncertain, but I was always trying to stand on the side of good. And it turns out my instincts are better than my morals after all.

I glance across the room, to where Fred has engaged Faith and Gunn in conversation. They are all smiling at one another. Faith knows what it is to have a killer inside, one that eventually rules both head and heart. And if her descent into darkness is inevitable, is mine?

The bartender is a worker hired for this occasion. She does not understand the true purpose of what we do here, or the many duties and responsibilities I have. This must be why she demands identification.

"Many people here know me," I explain. "You can ask them my name."

"Yeah, and all your friends are gonna say you're 21, aren't they?" She folds her arms. "Best you're gettin' is a club soda, kid. Take it or leave it."

I would have liked a Coke, but this woman is argumentative and displeasing. "I will take it." She hands me the glass, and I begin weaving through the crowd. It would be wrong to interrupt Winifred while she is talking to Gunn, but maybe after that I could get her attention, and we could go up to the roof together to look at the city. I know she likes that. I bet Wesley doesn't know she likes that.

"Hey, there," Angel says behind me. I turn to see him with his arm around Cordelia, who looks both happy and sort of confused. I guess she's thinking about Buffy. "Have the Watchers been bothering you?"

"Two have tried to discuss my part in apocalyptic prophecies," I tell him. "And another one asked me the way to the bathroom."

"Hey, not bad. Very, very low on the nag-o-meter for Watchers." Cordelia pats Angel's side. "I am getting myself the stiffest drink available. You want something?"

"Red wine." He kisses Cordelia, and it takes a while, and I feel a little embarrassed. But they pull apart, and Angel smiles down at her. "Hurry back."

"Okey-dokey." Cordelia goes toward the bar, leaving Angel and me alone. I'm glad; this way, I have a chance to ask Angel about something that has been confusing me for the past day.

"What have you got?" Angel is frowning at my glass. "I hope that's only club soda."

"It is," I say. Is there some significance to club soda? I'll have to ask. But some other time. "Angel, the trial today --"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you let me come?" When Angel looks at me, puzzled, I explain, "You thought I might have killed them. Didn't you?"

He stares at me for a long moment. "Connor -- oh, God. You knew?"

"You don't ever let me patrol alone anymore. You watch me carefully. You ask me questions you think I don't understand, but I do. And besides, you had reasons for suspicion." I list them, the way my father taught me to when I wanted to prove a point. "I had passed by earlier on patrol. So if you were there, you might have recognized my scent. I had talked about the need to be rid of the Brotherhood before, so you knew I had thought about it. You are -- you are a hunter," I say, and though it feels strange to pay Angel this compliment, I cannot deny it is true. "A hunter would suspect me."

His face is set as he nods slowly. "Yeah, Connor. I suspected you. I'm sorry."

I watch him very carefully as I ask, "Why did you never ask me?"

"Because -- Connor, I'm so sorry. I just wanted so badly to believe it wasn't true." Angel puts one hand out, as if to touch my shoulder, then lets it drop. "Maybe I knew, deep down. But I still wondered, and there's no excuse for that, and I --"

What is it that's bothering him? I try to get to my question, the one I must get the answer to. "If you thought I did it, then you thought I would be captured during the trial today. But you let me come. Why did you do that?"

Angel looks as though he is in pain, and he shakes his head at me as though he cannot answer. But I must hear, and he knows he must speak. Finally, he says, in a low whisper, "It was time for the truth, Connor."

And if I had been guilty, he would have let them take me away. Angel would have given me up if I were a murderer. He would not have protected me.

I smile at him, and at his look of astonishment, I can only smile more. "You did the right thing," I say, and I try not to let him see my surprise. I thought Angel cared nothing for greater justice; I thought he cared more for his own friends than he did for the victims we try to save. But that is not true after all. There is good in him. I guess -- I guess my dad must have been wrong about Angel, at least a little bit.

Angel's mouth is slightly open, but he collects himself. This time he does touch my shoulder. "You understand?"

"Yes," I say. "I do." Angel is a good man after all. If he would sacrifice me to the greater good, then I know he is truly committed. Because -- I don't think about it much, but he does love me.

"Connor, I want you to bear with me for just a minute," Angel says. And then he hugs me very tightly. Right in the middle of this party, and I know the Watchers are staring at us, and this is very embarrassing. But Winifred said to be nice to him, so I hug him back a little, and I hope he won't try and do this again anytime soon. At least not in public.

"Okay," Angel says, stepping back. He is smiling down at me very proudly, and I like it and dislike it at the same time. Maybe I like it a little more than I don't. "I'm glad you understand. And I'm really glad I was wrong. We're okay, right?"

"Yes," I tell him. "We'll get a lot more done, now that we understand each other." Now that I know Angel is not as weak as I thought him, I can tell him more. Maybe he will want to do things my way from now on. At least he will listen.

"You and me," Angel says, as though he can't believe it.

Cordelia comes back up then, a glass of red wine in each hand. "So, are you two scoping out all the hottie action in the room? Father-and-son scamathon?"

Cordelia says many words I don't understand. I look over at Angel, confused, and I see that he doesn't understand either. We smile at each other, and then Angel takes his wine and kisses Cordelia on the cheek. "Let's go talk to Faith and Gunn, okay?" She grimaces, but Angel takes her hand firmly. "It's not gonna get any more comfortable. We owe them some apologies, don't we?"

"I HATE payback time," Cordelia sighs, but she follows as Angel leads her away in the crowd. I watch them go for a few seconds, then I look for the snack table. They might have pretzels.

"It's no big," I say to Angel and Cordelia. Chuck makes this weird sound, like he's choking on something, and I don't have to ask what. But I'm serious, kinda. "You thought I did it. No wonder you went bounty-hunter on me."

"We shouldn't have assumed," Angel says. He means it, I can tell. Feels like hell about it, and he's still got himself a drink, which is just pure classic Angel. Damn, I missed him.

Cordelia, her I didn't miss so much. She smiles at me, but kinda weird, when she says, "I mean, sure, there were the tracks in the blood and the knife at the murder scene, but really, what's a little incriminating evidence between friends?"

"It's my fault too," I say, and I clamp down hard on Chuck's hand before he can cut in. "I shoulda trusted you guys not to execute first and ask questions later. I ran off because I thought you'd think I was guilty, like that wasn't the number-one way to make totally sure you DID think I was guilty. I shoulda stood my ground, told you the truth, trusted you guys to check it out. I didn't." I smile at Chuck, which is a warning to smile along with me, as I say, "So me and Chuck saw a little of the world last year."

"Gonna see a little more of it this year. We're not staying here," Chuck says. He sounds like he's ready to put up a fight to make sure of it. Angel looks all concerned, and here comes the sales pitch, but I can set them both straight.

"Either of you guys remember the parole board? I skipped out without notifying. That means I've got a one-way ticket back to the California penal system waiting for me. And now that the world's only got one Slayer again, I figure I better earn my redemption on the outside. But I'd feel easier setting up shop in a different jurisdiction. Maybe Jersey." I grin at Angel. "The West Coast's in good hands."

Cordelia looks real happy about that. "Okay, I'm thinking what a Jersey Watcher would be like. Subtract tweed, add polyester. Where you would have a scone, put a pastrami on rye. Yeah, could be fun." To my surprise, I start laughing. Cordy always was funny; gotta give her that.

But speaking of Watchers --

I see Wesley skulking around, trying to look like he's not looking at me. Time we had a little talk. "You guys do the mingle thing, okay? I'm gonna talk with Wes."

Angel and Cordelia mostly look relieved. Chuck knows I need to talk to Wesley, though he doesn't know half the reasons why. They let me go, and I walk through the crowd. People move the hell out of my way, trying not to look like that's what they're doing. I'm parting this group like the Red Sea. Feels good to be around a bunch of people who know I'm the Slayer, who know I've got power. I missed that.

Wesley sees me coming, and he doesn't dodge. He squares his shoulders, getting ready for it. Last time I saw him, he killed B. He's got some hell to pay for that, but I ain't the one collecting that bill.

"What now?" Wesley says. He still thinks I'm gonna blackmail him or something. He's halfway right.

"I'm gonna need a Watcher," I tell him. "Chuck watches my back, but he ain't so much with the research, you know? I need a Watcher, and I need one who understands me. Somebody who ain't gonna pull any high-and-mighty crap. That looks like you. Of course, you'd have to come to Jersey, but I figure if you got used to L.A., you can get used to anyplace."

"You can't mean it," Wesley says.

"I won't make you do it," I say. "If you don't want to, screw it. But we both got a lot to make up for, Wes. We'd make it up faster together." That look in his eyes -- freaked-out and fucked-up and a million miles away all at the same time -- you wouldn't ever guess what it really meant, unless you'd seen it staring back from a mirror.

"Why? Wesley says at last. "Why did you -- do what you did for me?"

I hug him hard, one arm around his back, the other hand behind his head. He stiffens up, and I whisper in his ear, "You said you weren't anything like me." I pull back just enough to look in his eyes. "But you are, aren't you?"

Slowly, Wesley nods. I feel something wound up all tight inside me finally relax, let go. "That's all I ever wanted," I say. "For you to admit it."

It takes him a couple seconds to recover. He straightens up, gets a little British in his backbone; it's good to see it. "And for me to move to New Jersey."

"New place. New life." I let go of him. "You're a lost cause the day you decide that's what you are. Until then, it's up to you. Think about it."

It's gonna take him a while to decide, so I cruise on over to the bar. Might as well stock up on the free vodka cranberries while the getting is good. And right now, I could use a drink. Because I know if Wes says yes, it's gonna screw things up in more ways than one. But if he says no -- could be worse.

I look back over my shoulder, see Wes looking around -- either for somebody who ain't in the room, or for something he doesn't know how to find. I know the feeling. I used to think it meant I couldn't ever be saved. Now I think it might be the reason I could save somebody else, if he'll just take the chance.

What's it gonna be, Wes?

Connor forgives me.

All this time he knew that I doubted him, and he didn't hate me. He didn't leave me.

"Angel, none of them have left," Cordelia whispers in my ear. "Not one! How much alcohol did they stock that bar with?"

"I don't think any of the Watchers scheduled flights out any faster than tomorrow," I tell her. She groans, and I slip my hands around her waist. "We can use the time."

"What for?" She sticks out her lower lip in a bit of a pout. Cordy's wearing dark, plum-colored lipstick. I love it when she does that pouty thing.

"Lots of things." I brush her hair away from her face; she's a little sweaty. It's warm with body heat in here -- dozens of humans, flushing the air with their blood and scent. "Packing, for one. Checking with a travel agent about our trip."

"We can do that online," Cordy says, then brightens. "Oh, I can start doing that now. Think anybody would care if I ducked out of here?"

She looks so happy. For the first time in years, Cordelia looks her real age -- a young woman, carefree and beautiful, about to take a romantic holiday with the man that, for whatever undeserved reason, she still loves.

We made it in the nick of time.

"Go," I say, and I kiss her cheek. "Remember, no planes."

"Great," Cordy says, rolling her eyes. "Can't WAIT to get back on a train." But she's grinning.

She darts away into the crowd, heading toward the office. And in the middle of all these people, I'm suddenly alone. I look around for Connor, but he's not in the room. I can imagine he wouldn't enjoy this any more than I would.

Connor. My son -- perhaps more now than he has been since he was a baby. Somewhere, somehow, he learned how to let go of the past. All that anger and vengeance, I know it's still in him -- but there's finally more there. Compassion. Understanding. Forgiveness.

Joy wells up inside me, and I force myself to do something I started a long time ago -- I turn my thoughts toward something that will temper that happiness, make me just sad enough. Can that hold the curse at bay? I won't know until it fails. But it's not hard to come up with something, not today.

All that carnage I saw -- Buffy did all of that.

My Buffy. I remember her as she was when I met her, teenage attitude and drugstore perfume and perfect side kick. She had a diary and pink nail polish, and she turned her lampshades upside-down, and she cried from happiness, from sadness and when her favorite commercial came on. Sweet and vulnerable and yet strong. Another version of that Buffy came to me, hurting so much it hurt just to look at her, the ache as much a part of her as her skin.

And I didn't help her. I couldn't help her. She knew that, though I don't know if she understood why. I know I didn't until much later.

Just out of the ocean and the box -- trying to accept what Connor had done to me, what Cordelia had done for my sake, what Wesley and I had done to one another -- then, more than at any other time in my life, I had to put the darkness inside me aside. I couldn't look into it, draw upon it for power like I used to do, or have done since. I couldn't let it have any part of me. If I had, I would never have come out again. And Buffy had fallen into the core of that darkness.

We traded places, she and I. It was as though I had found a way to walk in the sun without being burned, but Buffy could no longer bear the light.

At any other time in our relationship, we would have grown closer because of that. But what we would have become afterward? Would we have made each other stronger? Or would the darknesses inside us have bled out, flowed together, and become something more dangerous still?

I don't know. I'll never know. And I can't be sorry. But I know how Buffy felt. I know it because I lived it, and I close my eyes and ask for forgiveness, that the one time she needed a companion in the darkness, I couldn't follow.

But I know one thing that nobody else does: I know Buffy did what she did for the right reasons. She wasn't insane. She wasn't mad. She was just fighting the best way she knew how. I can't do anything else for her, not now or ever again, but I can remember her the way she deserves to be remembered, as a hero.

Oh, poor Connor. He's trying so hard to be a gentleman.

We're sitting up on the roof, looking out at the city. Well, I am. Connor's looking down, trying to be very dignified. I want to put an arm around him or hold his hand or something, but that would probably just make things worse.

"I like Wesley," he says at last. "He's a good man. You -- you deserve a good man, Winifred."

"Thanks," I say softly. "But really, there's nothing going on between me and Wesley."

"You were with him today," Connor says, which means absolutely nothing. Just as I'm about to tell him that, though, he adds, "I can smell him on your clothes. I know you were -- you were close."

I forget how many of the vampire senses he got with the package. I say, "I hugged him for a while, Connor. He was upset about the trial, and everything that's happened." This is the truth, just not the whole truth. "But Wesley and I aren't dating. That's just not how things are with us."

"That's how he wants things to be," Connor says. He watches me carefully as he says it; he thinks I don't know, that things will be different once I do.

"That's not how I want things to be," I reply. "Connor, I wouldn't ever start dating somebody and not tell you. I'd tell you right away. I promise."

He takes a minute to let that sink in. Then his head comes up, like he's taking it on the chin. "Of course," Connor says. "We're friends." He smiles over at me, and he looks so grown-up -- he's acting so grown-up -- that for the very first time ever, I see him as a man instead of a boy.

And right in that moment it hits me that I like Connor more -- that I trust him more, and with more of myself -- than any man I've ever dated. Even Charles. But then the breeze catches Connor's hair, and the way it ruffles makes him look a little younger, and he's just Angel's boy again.

"Maybe you and Wes can get to know each other better," I suggest. "You two might hit it off and be friends too. You haven't really had a chance to do that yet."

"No." Connor half-shrugs. He might take me up on the suggestion, but he doesn't want to think about him and Wes being big pals right now. Instead he says, "There's one thing I don't understand."

"What's that?" Okay, this might not be a fun question. To add to the not-fun-ness of it all, the rooftop door swings open and Wesley steps out. Bad timing. Very bad timing.

Connor glances over at him, but he doesn't seem dismayed. I understand why as he says, "I don't understand about Buffy." He then nods at Wesley, inviting him to come near us and talk it over with us. For about two tenths of a second, I am in love with Connor.

"What is it you don't understand?" Wesley says.

"I don't guess any of us understand what happened with her," I say. "Not really. In the end, only Buffy understood that. Maybe even she didn't."

"That's not what I mean," Connor says. "I mean -- before. When she was with us, she was always angry, and she started fights, and she made everyone uneasy. I know she was a good fighter, but she was dangerous. We knew that even back then."

"Did you?" Wesley looks surprised. I hope Wesley takes that to heart, sees that somebody else perceived the same things he did.

"So what you're asking is why we didn't stop her?" I say.

"Buffy could not have been stopped," Connor says. "She was a Slayer. It is difficult to stop a Slayer from doing anything. But why did Angel have her in our home? Why did he keep her with us? If he didn't know she was dangerous, he knew she made things difficult for everyone. I knew he used to be her lover, but he loves Cordelia now, so that wasn't it. Was it?"

"It wasn't that," I say. Wesley sits beside us, and I'm finally glad he's here; he needs to hear this too. "Connor, Buffy wasn't just a girlfriend to your dad. She was the person who changed his whole life." This is all secondhand information, of course, but I'm pretty sure I know the story by now. "I guess -- for lack of a better word, you'd say Buffy was Angel's savior. Just like Angel was my savior, when he got me out of Pylea and helped me fit in the world again. The person who rescues you -- not just saves your life, but saves whatever it is inside that makes you yourself -- that person isn't somebody you can ever turn your back on. Even if they do wrong. Even if they make it tough for you. Even if they hurt people you care about." I look back over at Wesley. "Right or wrong, that person owns something in you from then on. It's a debt you can't ever repay. But you can't ever quit trying. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

It's Wesley who answers. "Yes," he says. "Yes, I do." But he's not looking at me as he says it. He's looking off into the distance, like he never saw Los Angeles before. Or maybe like he doesn't expect to see it again.

It's not like it was last time. I'm not always alone, but I am sometimes. And I can't really be happy, where last time I couldn't be anything else. It seems like I still have some things to work out before I get to that point. Some things I have to accept.

For instance, I used to think that you needed the truth.

You couldn't understand anyone without the truth, and you couldn't love people or be friends with them or work with them if you didn't understand them. So I wanted to know the truth about the people around me. But that's mostly because I didn't know it.

I can see them all much more clearly now. I know how little they understand each other, how little they even understand themselves. If I were still shortsighted, still had an ego, I'd laugh at them for that. That's how I'd react if I were still alive.

But the thing is, as I watch them all, Angel and Cordy and Wes and Faith and the rest -- I see the whole picture. Crystal-clear. In focus.

They don't understand each other. They don't even come close to understanding each other. Their mistakes and their confusion sometimes come close to tearing them apart. And yet, they don't. They still love each other. They still try to do the right thing. They still struggle on, finding their way through the world as though they were blindfolded, clumsy and slow, but finding their way nonetheless.

Each of them turned away from me during the last, awful months of my life. I hated them for it. They weren't frightened of me or the things I had done or would do -- they were frightened of themselves, of the pain and anger that sits at the core of every single person, kindling waiting for the right spark to burst into flame. They saw that in themselves when they looked at me, because that pain and anger was all I had left.

I thought they were fools. Willfully blind. I was disgusted with them for their refusal to see what I thought was the truth. Now I know I was as blind as they were.

I saw Angel as a guy who couldn't ever be my lover again because he was so freaked out by how dark I'd gotten. So I didn't see him as a man doing his best to be a good father, or how much of his kindness to Cordy was an attempt to do better by her than he'd been able to do by me. I saw Cordelia ducking and scraping around me as proof that she felt bad for stealing Angel. So I didn't see how desperate she was to do the right things, to make up for the one time in her life she was asked to put every selfish concern aside, and she said no.

I didn't see that Gunn was faithful almost to a fault. I didn't see that Fred was always trying to reach out to other people. I didn't see how much Connor tries to find a way to love both his fathers. I didn't see that Faith was awkwardly trying to set a good example. Or that Wesley needed so badly to believe he'd been able to protect someone.

The terrible things I believed about them were mostly true, but so were the good things I refused to believe, and the ultimate balance -- that I don't know, and never will. I think that's weighed in ways that go beyond simple truth.

Wesley -- I feel bad for him, for all the blame he's going to keep heaping on himself. I killed myself, in the end; I used the cultists for an excuse, and Wesley's hands for a weapon. Angel threw away the proof that would have vindicated me; still, I never expected to be vindicated until after I died. Before, I would have been mad that none of them ever realized the Brotherhood of Amesace had changed and become dangerous after all, that I saved a lot of lives by taking those others. They think I went crazy, which wasn't exactly what I was going for. You only get one chance to make a last impression.

Now, I see how much it just doesn't matter. I know what I did. I know what I was, bad and good, whole and entire.

None of them want to know the truth. They run from it, play games to avoid it. It's the uninvited guest at every table. But when you reach the point I'm at now, the truth takes you over. And how you feel about it -- I guess that depends on how you've lived. What you regret. What you don't.

I wonder what they'll each think, when they can no longer run from their own truths. When they look into their own darkness and their own light, I wonder what they'll find.

I hope that some of them will find me there. I would like to see them again. I would like them to know what in me was true.