Part Three
“Connor?”
Angel knocked gently on the door of his son’s room. The night had passed since their brief but highly emotional fight. Angel hadn’t wanted to push it, instead letting Connor make the first move. He hadn’t though. In fact, as the clock rolled around to well past the point when Connor would normally have woken up, he didn’t move at all. The door was still firmly shut, as it had been last night.
Angel took a deep, unnecessary breath. “Listen. We need to talk.”
No sound from the other side of the door.
He hated to invade his son’s privacy, but... “I’m coming in,” Angel declared, and turned the doorknob. It was unlocked.
The inside of the room was pretty much normal for a teenage boy. It wasn’t very neat, with clothes scattered here and there on the floor. A poster of a band and a young movie actress adorned the walls. A computer sat on a desk beside the room’s only window. A completely normal room...except no Connor.
“Connor?” Angel called a little louder. No answer. He ducked around the open door of the bathroom and found no one there either.
A new worry was growing in Angel’s mind...and he looked a little closer.
The bed was unmade, with some of the clothes scattered on it. Clean clothes, though, partially folded even. Put aside in favor of others? And in the bathroom.... Angel opened the medicine cabinet.
“Damn it!”
Dashing down the stairs two at a time, Angel almost collided with Wesley. “Angel!” he gasped in surprise. “What’s wrong?”
Angel swallowed and tried to calm himself. “Have you seen Connor?” he asked.
Wesley shook his head. “I assumed he was still asleep. Why?”
Angel bit back another curse. “He.... I think he ran off, Wes.”
“What?” The aging man blinked at him. “Did something happen?”
Angel sighed. “We had a fight last night,” he began to explain, even as Wesley began walking back up the stairs. “Somehow, he found out about the prophecy.”
Wesley looked at him sharply. “The Tro-clan prophecy?”
“I think so.” Angel led the way into his son’s room. “He was going on about how he was supposed to destroy the world. He wanted to know why I’d never told him.”
“Well, he does have a point,” Wesley muttered.
Angel glared at him. “It’s not like you ever told him, either,” he snapped. At Wesley’s look he held up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just...”
“Worried sick, I’d imagine.”
Angel nodded.
“I do understand, Angel,” Wesley said. “Are you sure he’s run off? I mean, he could be somewhere in the hotel.”
Angel shook his head. “His medicine is gone, too, Wes.”
Wesley frowned. Suddenly, a curious look crossed his face and he reached down to pick up a small, torn piece of paper off the floor. “What’s this?” he said mostly to himself.
Angel came closer to look. It was a tiny piece of a photocopy of something bearing strange characters he couldn’t begin to read. “I’ve never seen it before.”
Wesley picked up another piece of paper from the floor beside it and looked at them both very seriously. “Well,” he said, “it looks like someone wanted Connor to know about the prophecies.”
Angel looked at him in surprise. “That’s the scrolls? The same ones...”
“That were stolen when he was born? I don’t think so. This...” he pointed to a mark on the second scrap, “doesn’t look familiar at all. Curious.”
Frowning, Angel could see him slipping already into full research mode. “Wes...” he said.
Wesley looked up. “I am sure Connor is okay,” he said reassuringly. “And we will find him. But until we do...I also want to see if I can piece this together.” He smiled wryly and held up the scraps. “Literally.”
Angel did not smile. “I am going to find my son,” he declared.
Wesley nodded. “Of course.”
The sun was high in the sky, and the heat greater than Joyce was used to as she strolled along the main street of Sunnydale. Still, she did her best to ignore the sweat trickling down her back and enjoyed the moment of freedom she had been given. She’d spent the morning in the offices of Sunnydale High, registering to start there in the fall. Following that, Buffy had an interview for a job, and reluctantly left Joyce to her own devices.
So she took the moment to get to know her new hometown a little better. Sunnydale was considerably larger than where she’d grown up, but it wasn’t a city and Joyce figured out some of the basic layout pretty quickly. Or at least as much of it as she could explore by foot. She wasn’t going to try and walk all the way from one end of the town to the other.
“Joyce, right?” an uncertain voice called.
The voice was slightly familiar and Joyce turned in surprise. “Connor,” she said happily, greeting the dark-haired young man. She smiled. “What are you doing here?”
He gave her a little smirk. “The hotel you suggested is around the corner.”
Joyce was instantly pleased. “So, you decided to stay after all?”
He fell into step beside her, walking along the sidewalk. “For now,” he replied.
His tone didn’t encourage Joyce to comment on that, so she held her tongue.
“What are you doing here?” Connor asked after a while. “Getting away from your family again?”
“Nah,” Joyce said with a smile. “Mom actually let me out this time. She’s got an interview.”
Connor nodded. “So...you’re new in town.”
“Yeah. Just arrived last night.”
“Same here,” Connor replied with a bitter chuckle that baffled Joyce.
Still, she couldn’t help but be pleased. “What a coincidence,” she commented. “It must be meant to be.”
“What? I...uh...” Connor stuttered.
Joyce couldn’t help but laugh. “Just friends, silly! Not that you aren’t cute and all, but you’re way old for me. Well, not way old, but...no, I didn’t mean it like that.”
Connor’s half smile returned. “Thanks, I think.”
“So,” Joyce said after another moment, eager for more information on her mysterious rescuer. “Where’s your family?”
Connor’s expression went blank. “Why?” he asked a touch sharply.
Joyce could not help but give him a very odd look. “Well, you said...” she made a gesture vaguely like staking a vampire, “is a family business. So where’s your family?”
He swallowed hard. “They’re...uh...”
“Oh!” Joyce’s eyes went wide. “They’re not dead, are they? I am so sorry....”
Connor gave another odd laugh. “No...that is, well...” He smiled slightly. “In most families that wouldn’t be so hard to answer.”
Joyce was more baffled by the second. “Huh?”
Connor shrugged and waved it off. “My mother died when I was born,” he said. “Dad’s...well, he’s Dad.”
Joyce felt her brow crinkling as she looked at him, puzzled. “You know that made absolutely no sense to me, right?”
“I know.”
“And you’re not going to tell me anything else, are you?”
“Nope.”
Joyce grinned. “You are very weird, you know that?”
Connor nodded but did not smile. “I know.”
They walked along quietly for a little longer. Joyce liked having someone to accompany her, so long as that someone wasn’t family at the moment. She’d had just about enough of family with that gathering last night. Abruptly, she glanced at her watch and almost yelped. “I’m going to be late!” she declared.
“What is it?” Connor asked, worried.
Joyce hurried her steps and he sped up with her. “I was supposed to meet Mom at the magic shop after her interview!”
“Magic shop?” Connor asked. There was a curious expression on his face. “Your mom was interviewing at a magic shop?”
Joyce chuckled. “God, no! Aunt Anya...a friend of hers...runs the magic shop. Mom working for her is really not a pretty picture.” She shook her head. “No, she was interviewing to be some sort of receptionist/assistant/secretary person at this new law firm on the edge of town.”
“Then why are you meeting at a magic shop?”
Joyce glanced at him. “Are you being nosey?”
“Just curious.”
Joyce shrugged. “I don’t know. Slayer stuff I guess. It’s where they keep all the books on demons and prophecies and.... What’s wrong?”
There was an odd look on Connor’s face, but he shook it away. “Nothing.”
Joyce didn’t have time to press the matter, seeing the shop just ahead. “Well,” she said, “here’s my stop. I’d like to say it’s been informative, but I think you especially like being mysterious.”
Connor just grinned.
Joyce met his smile easily. “Well, it’s been nice talking to you,” she said.
“Likewise,” Connor replied, and continued down the street.
Joyce couldn’t help but smile. ‘You may not be informative,’ she thought to herself as she entered the dimly lit shop, ‘but you certainly are interesting.’
To be continued... Interested yet?