Christina's Synopsis

Lilah is doing what all smart employees of Wolfram & Hart do: sneaking around her rival's office, peeking at his memos and trying to find some dirt on Lindsey. She is startled to be interrupted by the resurrected Darla, who is amused at Lilah's antics, and by extension, those of the entire firm. She reveals to Lilah that she's been using purple Carynthian powder to keep Angel asleep when she visits him at night -- asleep, and dreaming of what she wants him to see. Lilah is intrigued, and asks Darla what he's dreaming. "Nightmares," she gloats.

---blipvert to the Hyperion---

Cordy and Wes are quarrelling about whether to pay Gunn, and before it can descend into literal hair-pulling, Angel walks in and puts an end to the more childish part of the argument. The discussion of whether or not to pay Gunn goes on, with Angel threatening to fire Cordy, and Cordy pointing out that she's Vision Girl, he can't fire her (with a stuck-out tongue). Through his stifled amusement, Angel agrees to discuss paying Gunn on a case-by-case basis sometime soon. As their talk continues, Angel admits that he's been sleeping weird--- Wes asks about his dreams, but before they can get into that, Cordy has a vision of girl being attacked by two men in an alley. Angel leaves to do the hero thing, but Cordy is horribly convinced that he's not going to be in time....

As we cut to a terrified young woman, her head already bleeding from one blow, being pursued by two would-be rapists. They push her to the ground, and are talking over what they're going to do to her next when one draws a knife---- and in a panicked wave of psychic power, a dumpster throws itself across the alley, smashing the creeps into a wall as the victim cries in terror.

*Cue Darling Violetta and the Noir Credits, then to commercials*

The police have reached the alley and the smush-mark that's the two ex-creeps as Angel crosses the police line. He snags a paper cup of coffee, and does his best impression of a world-weary detective for the patrolman. (And it's really a good impression. He's been hanging out with Kate too long.) He schmoozes the info about the deaths out of the Cub Scout patrolman, then examines the scene, finding blood that is not that of the two dead men - that of their victim. Angel keeps looking, and walks off the crime scene just before the real detective shows up (much to the patrolman's confusion).

The blood trail leads to an abandoned warehouse, where the terrified girl is hiding. She doesn't want to talk to Angel, and his continued attempts to get info inspire her to telekinetically throw a rebar through his chest. Shocked that he's still alive when he gets up and pulls the bar out, she's even more appalled when she learns his name, thinking she hurt an angel. "It's just a name," he explains, then says that he's different --- like her. "Those men in the alley... tried to hurt you, didn't they? But you stopped them." The girl is still shaken and defensive, and Angel guesses that she's not from L.A. from her (faint) accent, and finds out she's staying with friends. Before she runs away again, he manages to give her one of the agency cards. "I won't hurt you... and you can't hurt me. You need that." She grabs the card and runs as Angel collapses in pain. "Okay. Maybe she can hurt me a little."

The still-shaky victim stumbles up the stairs to her friend's apartment--- to be greeted by Lilah. "Bethany. I was starting to get worried."

Fade to commercials.... then fade back in.

Bethany offers to help Lilah fold laundry, while Lilah apologizes for not making it to the club with her. Lilah evidently met Bethany at a talk she gave at Bethany's high school, and in response to Bethany's insecurity and disbelief that Lilah's letting her stay with her, she smiles sweetly. "You have no idea how special you are. You have power about you. Other people are going to start to know that." Bethany looks really uncomfortable at this, and goes to bed, while Lilah sits and gloats over whatever she has planned for the girl.

Meanwhile at the Hyperion, Cordy and Wes are patching up a twitchy non-breathing Angel. Wes advises caution in dealing with the girl. Cordy gives Angel a hard time for not getting her name or address; Angel volunteers that he's sure she's from the northeast, and probably a runaway. Wes wonders if she's a demon, but Angel's sure she's just a girl. "Just a girl that can kill your ass by thinking," Cordy retorts. Angel responds that she's out of control, lost, and in need of help. Wes doesn't know much about telekinesis except the text-book definition, so they don't have a lot to work with.

Gunn enters with a really cool hubcap axe, ready to kill stuff. He's somewhat disappointed that they only called him to do some legwork, tracking down the nasty pair who were chasing the girl. Cordy is still poking Angel in the back about paying Gunn, and she manages to get him to roll his eyes and say okay. Then he heads to bed... even though he's only been up for three hours, leaving Cordy to find the girl, Wes to research telekinesis, and both of them looking puzzled and concerned about their narcoleptic boss.

In bed, Angel winces over the bandage and lies down with a troubled look.... As Bethany lies awake in her bed at Lilah's. When she finally falls asleep, the lamp next to her bed moves as she has a nightmare of a man closing in on her in an attic hiding place. "Hey, Rabbit. Let's go downstairs... Just you and me...." It's the ubercreep. Not helped by Lilah's gleeful look as she watches her protege freak out in her sleep. The lamp jitters, shakes, then goes sailing toward Lilah, smacking her in the face and waking up a horrified and sorry Bethany. Lilah's in no shape to stop the stricken girl from running out into the night in her nightgown.

In dreams, Darla pushes Angel to the floor, straddling him in front of a roaring fireplace. Both of them go to game-face as their love-making becomes more violent--- and the real Darla curls herself around the sleeping Angel, whispering nasty-sweet nothings into his ear. Dream-Darla sinks her fangs into his neck, and Angel wakes up, not looking refreshed at all.

Mid-day, and Cordy and Wes haven't found anything about the girl, or much more about telekinesis. Wes says that TK is a phenomenon that occurs during periods of "extreme emotional distress". Which fits, but isn't as helpful as they could want. "I think I may have a lead," Cordy says, looking at the entrance to the hotel--- where Bethany stands in her nightshirt, sweater, socks and shoes, looking quite edgy. She introduces herself as Bethany Chalk, mentions that he'd said she couldn't hurt him, and that if she needed anything.... Angel welcomes her, introduces her to Wes and Cordy, and Bethany comments on it being a family business. "Friends. Come on in," Angel invites her. She stumbles forward, and nearly collapses on Angel, then suddenly pulls away, apologizing and saying that she's tired. Angel offers her something to eat. Cordy is getting a weird vibe off her, you can tell, and she tries to reassure Bethany that Angel helps people all the time. "Then what's wrong with you?" Bethany asks. "Where to begin..." Wes snarks under his breath.

Lilah is getting a dressing-down from Holland at the office because Bethany has taken off to who-knows-where. Holland does the classic intimidate-and-threaten followed by an expression of confidence, and Lilah promises to find her. She's very happy when Bethany calls to tell her she's okay. She is very *unhappy* to find out where Bethany is, though.

Dressed in some of Cordy's extra clothes, and a little more together, Bethany goes out to talk to Angel in the shadowed courtyard of the hotel. Bethany doesn't know how to explain what's going on to Lilah, and is worried that she'll thinks she's crazy. "Are you?" Angel asks. At Bethany's expression, he says that things would probably go better if he knew up front. Bethany doesn't want to talk about what's going on with her at all; after all, Angel's the expert. He denies it, and says that he just knows about having to control power. "I don't want to control it. I want it gone," Bethany responds.

Inside, Cordy is watching their conversation from the check-in desk, and Wes is still doing research. Cordy is getting a vibe, a weird vibe, from Bethany. Wes didn't get a vibe, but he's turned up something disturbing in his books, if his expression is any indication.

Bethany is trying to describe what it feels like when things move. She doesn't really feeling like it's her doing it; she's in massive denial. It only happens when she gets upset. Bethany gets more anxious and angry as they talk, not wanting to talk about herself, and she's obviously been psychoanalyzed a couple times, and doesn't want to go there again. "Don't start asking me any stupid questions, like when were you potty trained and name all your pets, and... do you like hide and seek," she stammers out. Angel doesn't have a response to that, and Bethany is becoming even more upset, saying she doesn't even know why she's here, when Wesley interrupts, ostensibly agreeing with her. "There are people who need our help who have much more serious problems than impulse control issues." Angel objects, but Wes goes on: "She should go back to her friends. Or maybe we should send her back to her *father.*" BINGO. Bethany flashes on the hide-and-seek guy's face, and then TK-throws Wes half-way across the courtyard into a wall, and then does the same with Angel when he startles her. Angel lands in the sunlight, then quickly scrambles for cover as Bethany freaks and Wes winces in pain.

Cordy is putting ice on Wes's shoulder as she demands an explanation for his tactics. Wes explains that he mentioned her father to see how she'd react-- and that usually the kind of trauma that can produce that level of psychic power involves abuse of some kind, when a child is very young. Cordy had mentioned a sexual vibe, Bethany had made a crack about the 'family business' - Wes put two and two together and got Carrie. "There's not enough yuck in the world," Cordelia says with feeling. Angel comes back from calming Bethany down, and says that Wes should be gone while they try to deal with her. Angel sends Cordy home too, and stays to deal with the distraught and fragile Bethany.

She's hiding out on the eighth floor, the least renovated portion of the hotel. Bethany's embarassed that everyone knows about the abuse, ashamed of how she hurt those guys, and full of self-loathing. Angel sits down to talk to her, telling her that he's seen people try to be better, even after a lot of other bad stuff. "I'd like that. To see people the way you do," Bethany says.

A little later.... Dream-Darla is taking another bite out of Dream-Angel as Angel sleeps restlessly; both of them are vamp-faced now, and they turn to speculatively regard a bound, gagged and whimpering young girl in a nineteenth-century dress.... as Bethany wanders into Angel's room. He wakes up, disoriented. "Darla?" Bethany says she heard him tossing and turning. She sits down on the bed. She comments on Angel having a happy dream, "or maybe the covers were just rumpled." Angel isn't quite sure what to make of this. "Is there something... something you wanted to talk about?" "No. I figured we'd have fun," Bethany says, her voice flat, not meeting his eyes. "You could do stuff to me, and ... we'd have some fun." She shows more animation when he says no; Bethany isn't happy at his rejection, saying that she isn't some frightened little girl. Angel says she wouldn't like him when he was "happy." He gets a quick flash of Darla when Bethany reaches for him, and pushes her away; she reacts by rattling the bed.

She's giving off massively mixed signals; she doesn't even seem to know what she wanted when she walked in. (Protection? Validation? Reassurance? Control? *sigh* Bethany is a very sad person). "Are you shocked that I'm a great big slut?" Angel says he's not easily shocked. Bethany seems to be trying to subvert the idea of her innocence or lack of control... In response to his question about if she has fun, she talks (in a quiet, heartbreaking voice) about how she just goes away in her head when she's with a guy, then 'comes back and cleans up the mess.' The guys she's been with don't notice or care that she's not there, and he probably wouldn't, either. In response to his comment that people aren't all as bad as she thinks, she snipes,"Right. You love the people. Love them so much, you have a hundred rooms to be all alone in." Angry and defensive, she tries to reject his attempts to help her. "Who's Darla?" she asks. "Good night, Bethany," Angel says.... As the real Darla peeks out from around the edge of the doorframe.

The next morning, Holland is giving Lilah hell again, because Bethany is messing up the Darla Dream project. He orders her to get Bethany out of there for the sake of both projects and her neck.

Angel is trying to get Bethany to consciously control her power, draping a scarf of Cordelia's around his neck with her mind. Slowly, Bethany gets the hang of it, while a concerned Cordelia watches from the office. She walks over and tells Angel that Gunn just called with a lead, and wants his help. She promises to look after Bethany, and possibly take her shopping.

Angel smashes in the door as Gunn walks in to the rather posh apartment of one of the creeps who attacked Bethany. Angel can't enter, but Gunn wanders around looking for clues with impunity and criticizing the decor. The place is too expensive for a thug, but he's reportedly muscle-for-hire--- they suspect that someone hired him to attack Betahny, to see what would happen. Angel off-handedly brings up paying Gunn on a case-by-case basis, and after making him sweat, Gunn accepts. Angel falls into the apartment as the thug dies, revoking the no-invite rule to the place. Gunn laughs, they look around some more, and ooo, guess what? The speed-dial is set to Wolfram and Hart. Gosh. Are we shocked?

Bethany and Cordy are walking past the carousel at the pavilion walk, enjoying their lattes. In the midst of coffee talk, Cordy goes right for the throat: "Don't bone my boss," she cautions Bethany. Bethany tries to deny her interest, but Cordy steamrolls over her. "He sees you, pretty much, as the damsel in distress. I think it's more complicated than that." She's not willing to overlook Bethany's inherent dangerousness, even though she likes the girl. She points out that Bethany had other, non-lethal options to dealing with the two guys that attacked her--- but they still ended up dead. Bethany is crushed by this, but Cordy continues to be supportive, and tells her about the visions, saying she knows how scared Bethany was. "Somewhere in that moment of panic, a decision got made. And I don't want something like that to happen to my friends. Or, and I can't stress this enough, me."

Bethany is listening, so Cordelia concludes: "No matter what, sex complicates the equation. Even more than you think." Bethany accepts her explanation, and the two are starting the girl-talk about guys when a guy walks up and injects Bethany with a sedative. Then two guys try to grab Bethany; Cordy yells for the police and throws coffee in their faces, and the two girls make a run for it, but Cordelia is overpowered as the guys carry away a limp Bethany and stuff her in a van. "Bethany! You can squash those guys!" she shrieks, as Angel and Gunn drive up, then continue the pursuit in the Angel-mobile after some fast pointing and yelling from Cordy.

Car-chase fun ensues, with Gunn driving and Angel going all caped avenger on the back of the van. Angel whaps the guys around, throws them out of the van, and retrieves Bethany.

Moments later, Lilah is furious to hear of her subordiates' failure, saying over the phone, "Fine, he wants to play with little Miss Time-Bomb? Pull the trigger."

This can't be a good thing.

At the hotel, a very, very unhappy Bethany is crying and upset at Angel's explanation of who and what Lilah is, and that she arranged the assault on B ethany. She doesn't want to believe it, doesn't want to hear it, accuses him of playing with her mind. She runs back up to the eighth floor, childhood patterns re-asserting themselves as she curls into a ball, throwing doors and window frames around when Angel and Cordelia follow her. Angel demands that she take control of herself, telling her that she can be strong and not let them win, telling her that she has the power. "Don't let them touch you," he tells her, and Bethany slowly calms down. Drained, she gets to her feet and goes to the door....

... where her father stands on the other side. "Hello, Rabbit," he greets her.

As every window on the eighth floor is blown outward in a massive explosion of glass.

Cordy's been knocked into a wall, and so has Angel, but Bethany and her father are still standing as he looks deeply concerned, saying that he'd been looking everywhere for her. Lilah called him and told him where she was. As he walks toward Bethany and she backs away, the room starts to come apart, plaster falling, wood creaking, nails flying around the room. (One of them gets Cordy in the arm). "I knows you don't mean to hurt anyone," he says. "You're coming back with me, with your family." The room continues to disintegrate as Bethany quietly freaks out. "It'll be just like it was before---" the room starts to shake. "I missed you so much." More beams shiver. Bethany looks traumatized. "Shhhh, Rabbit." Suddenly, it all stops. Angel gets to his feet. "Bethany---" She slams him to the wall, her face calm. Bethany's father says, "It's time to go. Why don't we go downstairs, just you and me---" And Angel is released, as Mr. Chalk starts floating in the air, beginning to be afraid. Then choking, asking her to stop, asking Angel to stop her, as Angel slowly walks forward. "Help me. Stop her," Chalk begs. "Bethany. You've got the power. Use it. Finish it," Angel tells her quietly. "It hurts. Make it stop---" her father chokes. Bethany doesn't smile. "Good bye," she says, as Angel and Cordy watch, helpless as Mr. Chalk goes hurtling out the window, plunging down, down toward the pavement--- then stopping to hover about one story over the ground for a moment, before Bethany releases him to, alive, to roll on broken glass... then breathes a sigh of relief.

The next day, Lilah's disbelieving, still trying to convince Bethany that she needs her help to control her power. Bethany rejects all of Lilah's offers, pointing out that friends don't hire friends to rape them. Lilah's defensive, trying to make it sound like she had Bethany's best interests at heart, to make her stronger. Bethany reaches out for her suitcase, and it flies into her hand. "Good job."

Lilah follows her to the door, where Angel is waiting for Bethany. Bethany orders her not to follow her. Lilah can't think of anything to say other than, "He is a *vampire*, you know." "Weird," Bethany comments, then walks away. Angel smiles, telling Lilah that she'll have to find someone else's brain to play with. Lilah smiles grimly. "I have someone in mind." Angel and Bethany walk down the staircase as Lilah mutters, "Sweet dreams," and closes the door.

**

Lizbet's Review

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