"Hey, Dad, look at this." This is one of the reasons he loves this child so fiercely. They've spent the better part of the day at the Field Museum, yet he's still not exhausted his wonder at the world around him.

"What have you found?"

"Look at this rock." Jonah holds an elongated disk of stone, a flat oval of unremarkable color. "See when the light catches it?" He flashes it in the sun, and it comes alive with peach-colored sparkles. "Neat, huh?"

"That's really great." He doesn't say "beautiful," though it is, because that's on the list of words that make his son roll his eyes. "You have a good eye for detail, noticing something so subtle."

"What's 'subtle'?"

"It means something most people wouldn't notice." He'd never have believed, when all this had started and he'd been so frightened, how much he'd come to love being a father. Would never have suspected he could possibly be good at it, after the example he'd been given. He couldn't have foreseen how easy this boy would make loving him, even when parenting was hard. He ruffles Jonah's hair. "What do you say we go get that piece of pie I promised you?"

Jonah slips the rock in his pocket and takes his father's hand.

There's a litany of questions Jonah asks now and then, after they've finished the night's chapter of the latest bedtime book. The boy knows the answers, but he seems to find some comfort in the ritual of asking.

"Dad, how come I don't have a mom?"

"She died the night you were born, Jonah."

"What was she like?"

This is always a difficult one. There are so many large lies he has to tell that he hates to add small ones to the list. "She was very beautiful. She loved to travel, and she'd been all around the world before you were born."

This night Jonah adds a new question to the litany. "How come you talk funny? Rob's dad doesn't sound like you. I don't sound like you."

So much for his attempts to Americanize his speech. "I was born and raised in England. This is how people talk there. You were born here, so you sound like an American."

"Is my mom from England? Is that where you guys met?"

He shakes his head. "We met in California. She sounded like you."

"Why don't we live in England?"

"I left there a long time ago. My work brought me here." Gently he brushes Jonah's hair back from his brow. "Sleep now."

"I love you, Dad," Jonah mumbles. He's asleep before Wesley can say I love you, too.

Gazing down on his son, he finishes their nightly ritual. Whispering in Latin, he sets the protective spell that keeps them both safe.

Once the questions break out of their pattern, new ones keep coming. Saturday, on the drive home from Whole Foods, Jonah asks, "How come you don't get me a new mom?"

Wesley's surprised, yet not surprised. The question, he believes, comes from their encounter with the mother of one of Jonah's classmates. Her flirting hadn't been that overt as they'd chatted in the produce aisle, but Jonah's eye for the subtle extends beyond rocks and animals and trees.

"And where would I find her?" he teases. "The new mom store?"

A sidelong glance reveals Jonah rolling his eyes. "There's a whole bunch of kids in my class who have moms but no dads. There's more at the music school. Pick one of them. Daniel's mom is pretty."

"Jonah," Wesley says gently. "Things are --"

"--Not that simple," Jonah finishes along with him. "You always say that." He turns away to stare out his window.

"My work makes it difficult," Wesley says. "There's no guarantee we won't have to move somewhere else on short notice."

"But we haven't had to in a really long time."

This is true. These past four years or so he's felt safe, so he's done the best he could to give Jonah a stable life, a normal childhood. Wesley wonders now if this was a mistake.

"You could tell your boss you don't want to move. If they need someone somewhere else, let them send some other person."

"I'm afraid it doesn't work that way."

Jonah's quiet until they're home, unpacking their groceries. "Can I have a party this year for my birthday? It doesn't have to be huge or anything. Just some of my best friends."

He should say no. Much as he's tried to give Jonah a normal life, that's something neither of them will ever have.

He should say no. But he's so grateful that his son has close friends, that his openness and kindness attract other children to him. Jonah's well-liked by most of his classmates (all but the sociopaths, and god knows every school has a handful), but his closest friends are quiet, serious boys.

He should say no. But their previous conversation has suffused him with guilt. Jonah's timing, he's sure, is no accident. Even so, the boy asks for nothing more than he deserves. A day with a few of his friends. Time to be a child.

He should say no. What he says is, "That's a fine idea. Let's talk about what you'd like to do."

For a day or two it's a party at the Field Museum and the new IMAX film.

Then an excursion to Wrigley Field or Comiskey Park, depending on which team is in town.

Then Jonah thinks about an orienteering expedition.

"I'm not sure that's everyone's idea of a good time," Wesley gently suggests. It's Jonah's, though. Wesley's taught him this skill from an early age. "What about David?" David is a walking cornucopia of raging allergies complicated by asthma, and Jonah would never exclude him.

That plan abandoned, the next is a visit to the Shedd Aquarium. Jonah's friend Rob has an aunt who's a docent there, who could probably be persuaded to give five nine-year-olds something that would feel like an insider tour.

Wesley's grateful beyond words that Jonah's idea of a good time is not forty of his closest friends at a Chuck E. Cheese.

The aquarium plan is the one that sticks, and together they begin making arrangements. Rob's aunt readily agrees to help chaperone and meets Wesley for coffee at the Old Town School of Folk Music while Jonah has his guitar lesson. He's been introduced to Rachel before and heard much about her from Rob and Jonah, but they haven't really talked before this. She's bright and funny, and her fondness for her nephew and his friends shines through as she helps Wesley plan the aquarium day.

He can't remember the last time he talked so freely with another adult, or laughed so much.

For the first time in years it feels alien to hear someone call him Rhys, the name he's been using in this current identity.

He's let himself forget how much he misses hearing someone call him by his true name. He's stopped allowing himself to think about how very lonely this life has made him, even as it's fulfilled him in ways he couldn't have predicted.

When Jonah returns from his lesson and sees them together, his pleasure is obvious.

"Well," Wesley says as he and Rachel rise, "we have errands."

"I thought we were going to breakfast at Lou Mitchell's next," Jonah says.

Wesley fumbles with his car keys. "Ah. Yes. So we were." He looks up at her and smiles. "Would you care to join us?"

"I wouldn't want to horn in," she says.

"You wouldn't be."

Rachel spends half the day with them, leaving with the promise that she'll call when she comes up with new ideas for the aquarium visit.

This night as Wesley tucks him in bed, Jonah asks no questions about the past. "I think she's nice, don't you?"

"Yes, Rachel's very nice."

"And pretty," Jonah adds, in case he's missed the point.

"Yes, she is." In fact, her corkscrews of dark hair make him think of Virginia. He wonders, now and then, what his life would have been like if he'd walked away from Angel Investigations when she'd hinted at it.

His moment of distraction is not lost on Jonah. "Does she remind you of Mom?"

He smiles, tucks the covers closer around Jonah. "I think it's long past time for you to be asleep."

It's long past his own bedtime when Wesley finally finds sleep, and when he does, the dreams shatter his rest. It's been years since he dreamed of being locked under the stairs, of the helpless panic that used to grip him.

No use calling out, or pounding on the door. It only added hours to his sentence.

He wakes in a cold sweat, sitting bolt upright in bed.

This dream is the herald of more like it. Always the tight, lightless space under the stairway -- except when it's a coffin -- always the surging panic.

It's a metaphor for his life. Too small, airless, room only for him and the boy. Stifling, yet what waits outside carries a sense of palpable danger.

The dreams come back for a repeat performance every night, but he still doesn't discourage Rachel either time that she calls with additional suggestions. Instead he finds reasons to extend their conversations, readily responds when she does the same.

There's a price to be paid for losing his focus, taking their safety for granted. A few days before Jonah's birthday, they're riding the El back home after a day game at Wrigley. Wesley glances up as the doors open and a couple boards their car. The kind of couple so clearly in love that it envelops them, an aura which extends to the people around them. Like others in the car, Wesley smiles at the pair, thinking as they find a seat across from him how very much the woman reminds him of Fred.

Jonah draws his attention to a picture in his scorebook, and for a few moments they're engaged in talk about the Cubs' pitching staff. When he glances up again, Wesley sees the woman is smiling at him -- women are drawn to involved fathers, he's noticed.

It's her smile that sets the thread of tension within him uncoiling like a broken watch spring. He keeps his face neutral as he leans down to whisper to Jonah and then leads him toward the train doors, but it's too late. The smile freezes on the woman's -- Fred's -- face.

"My god," she breathes. "Wesley." She rises to her feet, stumbling with the movement of the train as it pulls into the station. "Connor?"

The doors glide open. "Run," he tells Jonah. "I'm right behind."

"Wesley, for god's sake --" Fred clutches at his arm as he steps out onto the platform, and he shoves her back into her companion, sending them both stumbling backward. Before they can recover, the doors are gliding shut, and he's running toward Jonah, who's paused on the platform, looking back.

"Keep going!" Wesley catches Jonah by the arm and pulls him along.

"You pushed that lady. You said --"

"Not now."

"Why did she call you Wesley?"

He tightens his grip on his son's arm. "We don't have time for foolish questions." Wesley hears his father in his tone of voice, and inwardly cringes. "I'm sorry, Jonah." He loosens his hold on his arm. "I'll tell you everything when I can, but we must hurry."

When they reach the street, Wesley flags down a cab, and in swift succession they find themselves in a car rental agency, a mini-storage unit on the city's outskirts and a motel room in the outer suburbs.

Just as quickly, Wesley sheds the close-cropped beard he has worn for the last several years, his glasses, the rental car and the name Rhys, along with a temporary identity he used to register at the motel. They leave Illinois in a second rental, with four suitcases and a briefcase filled with documents they picked up at the mini-storage. Wesley's hair is now a dark auburn, his son's the color of a newly-minted penny.

"Who was that lady, Dad?"

"No one." He realizes he's snapped out this answer much too quickly. "Nobody that we know."

"She acted like she knew you."

"She was wrong."

"Then why are we going away?"

"For god's sake, let me concentrate on driving." Again Wesley's father's voice echoes in his head, and he softens his own with some effort. "I'm sorry. I'm trying to pay attention to the traffic, that's all."

"It's okay," his son says, but his voice is subdued.

They travel in silence for a time, Wesley concentrating on shielding them from locator spells or other magics. The assault doesn't begin for a while -- he's often wondered how closely in touch the others are after all these years, wonders now how long it will take Fred to reach Angel and for him to prepare the spell. Wesley thinks about the tiny hockey stick Angel had bought for Connor, the manic energy he'd poured into child-proofing the Hyperion. Surely he has everything at hand, even after so much time has passed.

"What's your name?" Wesley asks.

"Matthew," his son says sleepily. "Matthew Lawrence."

"What's my name?"

"Dad."

He ignores Matthew's petulance. "What's my official name?"

"Edmund Lawrence."

"Very good."

"We're going back, though, aren't we? In a day or two?"

"No, Matthew. We can't." He knows the boy knows this already.

"Well, what about my birthday?"

An ache settles in his chest, but Wesley forces himself to smile. "We won't miss your birthday. We'll do something special."

"I want to do what we planned. I want to spend it with my friends."

"I know."

"Then let's go back."

"I'd like that just as much as you, but we can't."

After another long silence, Matthew turns from the window. "You pushed that lady down."

"She didn't fall. I was careful."

This is the sort of self-justification he'd never accept from Matthew, and his son doesn't let it go unchallenged. "You said not to push people at all."

"I know." He thinks about the violence of his previous life, the casual acceptance of guns and blades and wooden stakes. His encyclopedic knowledge of how to kill a wide range of demons. How miraculous it is that he's managed to shield his son from the darkness of his past for this long, that someone like him has managed to shape this gentle boy. "This was an emergency."

Matthew thinks about this a moment. "Like when you have to push someone out of the way because they'll be hurt if they don't move. Something might have happened to her."

Wesley wishes he could fall back on such a positive explanation. "Not exactly. If she'd followed us, she'd have put us in danger."

"Why? How could she hurt us?"

"It's complicated, son." Even Wesley is surprised at how tired he sounds.

Matthew regards him for a long moment. "We're never going back, are we? The same as we never went back to any of the other places we lived."

"That's right."

"It's not because of your job, is it?"

Such are the dangers of having a child with such a sharp eye for subtleties. He longs to tell Matthew a lie. "No. It's not."

"Was that ever the reason?"

There's a long pause before Wesley says, "No. There are people who are looking for us. It's important that they don't find us."

"What do they want with us?"

"I believe it's safer for you if you don't know."

Falling silent, Matthew turns toward the window. Out of his pocket comes the peach-sparkled rock, which he's taken to carrying with him. His fingers worry at its surface as he contemplates this newly remade world.

This day was inevitable. The moment he'd bundled up the baby and slipped out of his California apartment, the clock began ticking until this moment his son learned that his life, his security, were all founded on lies. The flat midwestern scenery darkens to a vast emptiness before Matthew speaks again.

"It's because of that lady, isn't it?"

"Yes. And it's true, I did know her once."

"Why does she want to hurt us? She looked nice."

"It's not that she wishes to hurt us. But she's still a danger -- I can't tell you the whole story just now."

"Was she my mom?" Matthew's seen enough television news reports on custodial kidnapping to piece together a scenario, however inaccurate.

"No. Everything I told you about your mother --" which is damn little, he knows -- "is the truth. She died when you were born."

"What's my real name?"

It's the least he owes the boy. But he can't. "It's not safe. Someday I'll tell you."

Matthew's birthday sucks, he takes great pains to inform Wesley (though his usual mode of expression isn't so crude). Privately, Wesley is forced to agree. They've rented a cabin on a creek in North Idaho for a few nights, planning to spend the day hiking at a nearby nature preserve. But the day dawns with the promise of a second day of slashing rain and unseasonable cold for this time in August. Wesley suggests alternative activities, but none of them is acceptable.

All he wants for his birthday, he says, is to know his real name.

Wesley lets him watch television all day, an unaccustomed indulgence that neither of them enjoys. Wesley himself reads one of the books left by previous occupants of the cabin, a thriller about the biblical apocalypse. As suggested by its status on the paltry bookshelf here, it's completely disposable.

By the time they head out in the rain to the town five miles down the road (if a general store, a bar, a church and a diner can be called a town), Matthew's mood has turned completely sullen. They burst into the diner, dripping from the soaking they got in the short run from the car, and Wesley guides him toward a table.

The young waitress breaks away from the customer she'd been chatting with. "I'm sorry. That section's closed. Any of the booths is fine." She snatches up a pair of menus and approaches them. "Hey there, champ," she says to Matthew.

He doesn't respond until Wesley touches him on the shoulder. "Hi."

Wesley chooses a booth by a window. Though the upholstery is cracked, it offers a better view of the parking lot. The waitress, barely in her twenties, with impossibly light hair and frosted pink lips, hands each of them a menu in a heavy plastic cover. "Coffee?"

The only prospect that seems worse is attempting the tea. "Please," Wesley responds.

Matthew slouches on the bench seat, kicking the base of Wesley's bench. Wesley bites back a command to sit up straight. Let the boy feel what he's feeling. God knows it's a luxury Wesley was never given.

"I hate this place. I hate you."

Wesley offers an apologetic smile to the waitress, who's returned with the coffee pot. "I'm afraid we've had rather a trying day."

She smiles. "Everyone's entitled to one now and again, I guess. You know what you want, champ?"

"I want to go home," he mutters.

"Matthew," Wesley says, his tone gently chiding. "The lady's waiting for your order."

Her pink lips quirk upward at the word lady.

Matthew rouses from his slouch and tells her what he wants. At Wesley's suggestion he goes to the men's room to wash his hands, giving Wesley the chance to make an explicit apology. "Today's his birthday, and it's been something of a disappointment."

The waitress casts a glance at the weather. "I'd guess. Well, I'll bring him a piece of cake later on. Does he have a favorite?"

"Yes, but it's generally hard to find. Spice cake with chocolate icing, but he likes all-chocolate, too."

"We've got the spice cake," the girl says. "That's my favorite, too."

She's true to her word, bringing Matthew a piece of cake at the end of a sullen dinner during which no more than ten words issue from his mouth. She approaches slowly, careful not to let the flame on the one candle blow out. "I heard it's your big day today." She sets the cake in front of him. "Your dad told me this is your favorite cake."

Matthew nods, surprised. "Thank you." His tone isn't terribly convincing, but Wesley's gratified he remembered without prompting.

"You're welcome. Make a wish -- go on, you can tell us what it is. That's an old wives' tale that it's bad luck."

Matthew flashes him a hard look. "I wish --"

Wesley can't account for the alarm that sweeps through him. "Jonah, no --"

"I wish you weren't my dad."

The waitress's mouth makes a frosted pink O.

It seems like a long time before the ache in his chest allows Wesley to breathe, but he ghosts a smile at the waitress. "Thank you."

She reads his unspoken request and retreats.

Matthew tucks into his cake, unaware of the wound he's inflicted. He inhales it in just minutes, yet it seems time has stopped as Wesley watches. Pushing his empty plate away, Matthew looks up and reacts with surprise, just as the two men who've entered the restaurant unnoticed smoothly seat themselves at their booth, one on either bench.

"How's it going, brother?" the one who's sitting next to Matthew asks.

It's a moment before Wesley can speak. "Gunn."

Matthew's eyes widen and he sits up straight. "No cause for concern, Connor," Gunn says. "That's my name. Charles Gunn." He offers his hand to the boy. "You don't remember me, but I'm your uncle Charles."

"My name is Matthew," he says dully.

"That's not what your real dad calls you. Your name is Connor."

"You don't remember me, do you, Wes?" echoes the broad-shouldered man blocking Wesley. "That's kind of hurtful. Xander Harris."

That still doesn't help him out any. Wesley's attention is on his son.

"Dad?"

"Whatever he's told you, he's not your dad," comes a smoky female voice. Faith is standing by their booth, her very stance a threat. "Your real dad sent us here. He's been looking for you."

"Faith, I don't know what you're thinking --"

"Let me clue you in, then, Wes. I'm thinking after all Angel did for you, this was the worst thing you could have done to him. I'm thinking you deserve what Angel wanted, for us to bring you back to him. He'd kill you, you know that. But Charles here says he owes you, that you nearly died once for him. And I guess I owe you for different reasons. So we're gonna let you go."

"And my son --"

"We're taking Angel's son back," says Gunn.

Wesley tries to rise, but the space is too tight. "I will die for this boy."

"No." There's a stabbing pain deep in Wesley's thigh that makes him cry out. Harris presses his thumb down on the plunger of a syringe. "You don't get to do that."

A syrupy warmth spreads through Wesley's muscles, and along with it, a numbed inability to move. He tries to speak, but the pathways between his brain and tongue are no better than a mass of crossed wires. He can still watch, though (all those years of training finally coming to fruition), as Gunn slides out of the booth and helps Matthew -- Connor -- do the same.

"C'mon, Connor," Faith says. "We'll go pick up your stuff, then we'll go see your dad. He can't wait to meet you."

Matthew looks back toward him, confused.

Next to him, Harris chants softly in Latin, reading from a piece of notebook paper with many creases.

"Dad?"

Whatever forces its way into Wesley would make his head snap back, if he weren't so drugged. It causes him to nod reassuringly, makes his mouth move. "Go with her, Matthew. It's all right."

Faith takes Matthew's hand as if he's a small child, and Wesley watches as Matthew leaves with her.

"That's what I like to see," Harris says to Gunn. "A nice, peaceable transaction."

"Everything all right here?" asks the waitress. Vaughnie, her name tag says.

"Coffee for my friends, please," says the thing that's invaded Wesley's head.

She brings it and then goes, and Gunn and Harris kill an hour, swapping battle tales as if he's not there.

The invader doesn't leave until they've gotten him into their SUV, seemingly under his own power. When it goes, it takes a chunk of him with it, spinning him into blackness.

He's alone when he wakes, the cabin bathed in sunlight. Scrambling for the small wastebasket by the bureau, he retches several times.

His son. They've taken his son.

He tries to get to his feet, but his legs refuse to cooperate. He glances around the room, fighting vertigo, and sees that the boy's suitcases are gone. So is the briefcase full of documents.

As the dizziness clears, he rises and frantically reaches for his jacket. His wallet is there, stuffed with his getaway money, as well as his ID.

Gray Stewart.

He knows this is not his real name, nor the most recent name he was using.

The thing is, neither of those names will come to him.

His son's has been torn from him as well. The people who took him -- a woman, two men, he remembers this much, but their names are gone. The father -- the real father -- Gray can conjure a face, but his name, the place where Gray knew him ... this has all fallen into an abyss.

An after-effect of the drug, surely. He tries to tell himself this, but he knows the difference between fog and black nothingness.

He thinks of the waitress, prompting the boy to utter a wish. This is the one name he remembers. Vaughnie. Such perfectly crafted vengeance: to lose his son, to lose the boy's name and his own, and those of the people who might lead him back to the boy. Every bit of it gone, except the memories that make his loss so bitter.

He sits heavily on the mushy mattress, seeing a slight movement on the garishly patterned bedspread.

He reaches out and takes the smooth stone into his palm. He turns it in the light and watches peach-colored sparkles dance across its surface.

Such an acute eye for subtlety his boy has.