Of everyone involved, Libby took Marek’s leaving the hardest. The day he moved his things out she locked herself in her room and wouldn’t talk to anyone -- not that they tried very hard. They recognized her need for space; recognized her anger and hurt. In the days following she was temperamental at best, violent at worst. At lunchtime one day that week she was slouched in her seat in the cafeteria, scanning the room to avoid conversation with the others at the table. April and Noah knew why she was upset, but their other friends kept trying to cajole it out of her. She ignored them completely and when she saw a fellow classmate -- an oaf named Carl who’d had a growth spurt recently to go with his lousy attitude -- pushing around a younger kid (no doubt demanding his lunch money or something equally lame), something inside her snapped. She jumped to her feet and strode over to the duo. Noah, who’d whirled around to see what she was doing, hurried after her. “Lib, don’t!” He said warningly, and again she ignored him. “Hey!” She snapped, pushing his arm away from the kid. “Leave him alone.” Carl sniggered meanly. “Get lost.” Libby’s eyes narrowed, and Noah could see it written all over her face: she was itching for a fight.

“I said leave him alone,” she said again, a little more icily this time, and pushed Carl back a step or two. Carl instantly forgot about the sixth-grader and pushed her back. “Yeah? What are you going to do to stop me?”

Later, while Carl recovered in the nurse’s office and Libby sat in the principal’s office awaiting the arrival of her parents, Noah sat in class and figured that nobody would ever speak to Libby again, let alone make her mad. She’d taken him down in seconds, a guy with a nasty disposition who outweighed her by probably thirty pounds, with their entire school watching. The second she’d been marched out of the cafeteria by one of the teachers, the room had exploded with excited rumours and speculation. Noah frowned over his book, worried, until Mia discreetly poked him in the back. He turned his head slightly to hear her whisper “Do you think Libby’s okay?”

She’s perfect, he thought with a mental sigh. Everyone else was whispering about how Lib was crazy or things in that vein, yet Mia wondered if his sister was alright. He nodded slightly, warmed by her concern and his ever-growing crush. “She’ll be okay.”

Sitting in the principal’s office for the first time ever, Libby was not okay at that moment. She was furious -- mad at that stupid bully Carl, mad at herself for losing control, mad at Marek for leaving, mad at her mother for making him go. So she sat across from the secretary fuming until Angel and Cordelia showed up looking worried, surprised, and annoyed. The secretary showed them into see Principal Zettel, who looked stern but not altogether unkind. “What exactly happened?” Cordelia asked, shooting Libby a look, but directing the question at the principal.

“We have several eye-witnesses who back up Libby’s story that she was defending a younger student from a bully -- who, let me assure you, will be appropriately punished once he’s released from the nurse.” There was a ghost of a smile on Angel’s mouth at that, but he quickly quashed it. “While her intentions were noble, we have a zero-tolerance stance on fighting. I’m going to have to suspend you for three days,” she said, this time addressing Libby directly, who shrugged apathetically. Principal Zettel pursed her lips. “Libby, could you wait outside please? I’d like to have a word with your parents.”

“I’m concerned about her,” the principal said when Libby shut the door behind her. Cordelia and Angel shared a look, which Zettel didn’t miss. “I took a look at Libby’s file before you arrived. She’s a good student who never causes trouble. She flies under the radar, for lack of a better term, so this incident today concerns me.” She paused, obviously waiting for an explanation, which Cordelia hesitantly offered after a moment. “There’s been a bit of an upheaval in our lives recently. I think she’s just very upset right now and let her emotions get the best of her.”

“Ah. Well I certainly hope that things work out, but I have to insist you speak to her about this. I can’t worry every day that another student will end up in the nurse’s office.” As Cordelia looked offended (and Angel knew what offended Cordy was like), Angel cleared his throat. “We don’t tolerate this sort of behaviour in the kids either. Don’t worry about her acting up again.” He paused. “Is the boy alright?” Zettel looked grim. “He’ll be fine. Mostly had the wind knocked out of him, and was a bit shaken up by it all.”

“Sounds like he deserved it,” Cordelia snapped, not one to let insults to herself or children slide by. “Is there anything else?” She asked impatiently, pulling out her car keys. “There is.“ The principal’s tone chilled by a degree or two, and Angel resisted the impulse to slink out of the room in embarrassment. “Your son Darren is failing math. If he doesn’t achieve a fifty percent in the class, he’ll be held back.”

The car ride home was tense, with the bulk of it coming from the girls. Angel was tense because he was waiting for Cordelia to start in on Libby, so he decided to head her off and turned in his seat. “We need to talk about this, Lib.” His daughter’s eyes flickered to Cordelia and back again, but she agreed. “I’m sorry,” she said lowly. “I know I screwed up. It was just so frustrating to see that nobody did anything to stop that jerk.”

“I think it’s more than that,” he said gently. “You never lose control like that.” In fact, she kept such a tight reign on her emotions that he often wondered if he even knew the real Libby. “You could have seriously hurt that boy.”

“I could have, but I wouldn’t. I at least have that much control.” Angel didn’t know whether to be impressed or worried. In either event, she obviously knew her limits. “You’re trained to fight, Lib. None of the kids you know -- most of the people you know -- don’t have a clue how to do the things you do. And because you can fight, you have to walk away.” Cordelia chose that moment to throw in her opinion. “Exactly. I think you should walk away from it all together.” There was a stunned silence from Libby for a moment before she regained her voice. “What?!” Angel noted the way Cordy’s knuckles whitened from the iron grip she had on the wheel and wondered what she was really thinking. “You’re a kid, Libby. Kids don’t train to kill demons unless they’re Slayers, and you are not. But still, you haven’t been a kid since you were ten and Marek started training you.”

“You just don’t want me to have anything that’s from Marek,” Libby fired back angrily. “Why should I suffer because of your break up?” Cordelia was silent for a full minute. “You shouldn’t,” she said finally. “Which is why I can’t tell you to give it up. But you have to know that Marek won’t be around much to continue training you.” Libby fell silent and remained that way until they pulled up to the house. She jumped out of the car and hurried inside, barely acknowledging Cordelia’s call of “You’re grounded for two weeks!” before disappearing up to her room. Cordelia sighed and pressed the button to close the garage door. “This sucks, Angel.” Angel hugged her tightly. “They call it the Terrible Teens.”

“Who does?” she asked somewhat shakily, her face pressed into his shirt. Angel smiled. “My parenting books. I just never expected it to start with Libby. My money was on Ivy all the way.”

---

Libby didn’t come down for dinner and while the others talked about how she’d cracked at school, Angel had the feeling that she’d just lashed out due to being upset over Marek. He decided to stay in that night and have a talk with the daughter he had the shakiest relationship with. As he climbed the stairs, he mulled over the fact that he and Libby had never been very close -- she’d put Marek in the father role and while it hurt him to think about it, it had to be hurting her more. He knocked on her door lightly. “Lib? Can I come in?” There was no reply and he figured she was giving him the silent treatment. “I’m coming in,” he said, and pushed the door open. “Libby?” The room was empty; her window tightly shut. Had she gone downstairs without their realizing it? Angel took a quick turn around the house calling her name a few times, but she was plainly gone.

“Libby’s gone,” he told Cordelia, who sighed. “Damn it, she’s so grounded when she gets back!”

“She’s already grounded,” he reminded her humourlessly. “Obviously that doesn’t mean anything to her. Where would she go?” He wondered aloud. Cordelia shrugged. “April’s maybe, or to the gym at the office?” Those were definite possibilities, but two short phone calls crossed them off the list. Then he got a brainstorm and cornered Noah. “Libby’s gone, do you know where she went?” Noah shook his head and met Angel’s penetrating gaze. “No, she didn’t tell me.” Angel would have believed him if his son’s heart rate didn’t speed up slightly. Angel crossed his arms and gave Noah an expectant look. Noah waited a beat then sort of hung his head. “Fine, she might have gone out….patrolling.” Angel blinked in surprise, then did something he never had to the kids before. He yelled. “What! Why didn’t you tell me!” Startled by this, Cordelia rushed into the room. “What’s going on?” Angel whirled and hurried to get his coat. “Libby went patrolling. Where?” he demanded of Noah, who shrugged guiltily. “She really didn’t tell me! Downtown maybe? I could try her phone and call you if she picks up,” he offered, hoping to assuage some of his guilt for both ratting Libby out and not going to his parents when he knew she was putting herself in danger.

“Do it,” Angel ordered and rushed out the door. Noah turned his back on his mother’s blistering glare and reached for the phone to dial his sister’s number. “C’mon, Lib, answer,” he muttered as the line rang and rang and eventually went to voicemail. “Call me the second you get this,” he ordered into the phone. “Dad’s out looking for you. I had to tell him.” Noah sighed and hung up and hesitantly turned to see if Cordelia was still standing there. She was, and so were the rest of his siblings who’d come down to see what the commotion was. Cordelia fisted her hands on her hips. “How long has she been doing this?”

“A couple of months,” Noah grumbled, then decided to take a stand in hopes of salvaging some of his loyalty to Libby. “I won’t say anymore, though. You’ll have to ask her about it.” And before his mother could say anything, he hurried around her and up the stairs to his room. Noah collapsed on his bed and stared up at the sticky-stars and wondered: was Libby really that out of sorts that she’d wind up getting herself hurt? “No,” he said aloud. “Let’s not go there.” So instead of dreaming up all the possible situations Libby could be in, he pulled out his homework. When his door opened a crack awhile later he was surprised to see Ivy come in. “What’s up?” He asked curiously as she leaned against the door. She chewed on her lip and played with a long strand of hair before answering, “Do you think Libby’s alright? I mean, if I knew that was why she was always sneaking out…”

Ivy’s concern surprised him into a brief silence, then caused him to smile. Ivy was usually most concerned about Ivy, so this show of worry warmed him up a bit towards her. “Libby can take care of herself, you know that. She probably just blowing off steam… and besides, Dad’ll find her if she is in trouble. He’ll kill her when they get home, of course, but he’s not going to let anything out there hurt her.” Ivy nodded, and Noah could see the relief in her eyes. “You’re right. It’s just that what happened today was so unlike her.”

“I know, but we have to remember that she’s not a robot.”

Ivy laughed. “The Terminator! I love it.” She ended up staying for quite awhile talking about a lot of things. Noah forgot about his homework, and even about Libby for awhile, and actually talked to this sister for the first time in years.

While Ivy and Noah were bonding, Libby was facing down three vampires on the bad side of downtown and realizing that maybe she’d jumped in over her head. Still, she pulled out her sword (which she’d started carrying after that first night without it) and got to work. She made fast work of one of them and the other two wised up and grabbed makeshift weapons of lengths of pipe abandoned near a dumpster. She’d gone one-on-one before with real swords, but never two-on-one in a real situation -- she and Marek hadn’t got that far before….before. Her anger renewed along with her energy, she managed to best another one and take his head off with the shiny sword she’d liberated from the weapons stock at the office. The third vampire was by far the most skilled, and Libby was willing to wager he’d seen a lot of years in his undead lifetime. “Okay, little girl,” he said, obviously frustrated. “Enough is enough. One less Slayer will do the world a lot of good.”

“I’m not a Slayer,” she grunted, and the conversation ceased as the fight raged on. She could feel herself weakening as he landed a few hits, and decided that she really was in over her head. But, somehow, the fates were looking out for her because just as the vamp was about to gain the upper hand, he exploded into dust to reveal Angel holding a stake. They stared wordlessly at each other for a moment before Libby said to hell with pride and sagged with relief. “Dad.” Angel wordlessly grabbed her in an hug and held on for dear life. “You scared me to death!” He said furiously. Libby said nothing and squeezed her arms around him in an iron grip. He didn’t let her go and before she could stop herself, Libby burst into tears. Angel let her cry it out and didn’t let go until she’d trailed off into sniffles. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her cheeks with her sleeve. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“You have to cry sometimes,” he said, and put an arm around her shoulders to lead her to the car. “Otherwise you end up like me.” She cracked a smile. “That’s not a bad thing to be. It’s just not fair,” she said after a moment. “Marek wasn’t just in her life -- he’s my best friend.”

“I know. Just because he and your mom split up doesn’t mean that you can’t see him.”

“Yeah, but she was right that he’s not going to be able to do much training with me anymore.”

“Well,” Angel said slowly. “You always have me. I’ve got a lot of years on Marek, you know.” Libby smiled to herself -- she knew her dad would love to be the one to train her. “Yeah, okay. I need to know more hand-to-hand anyway. Can’t have my sword as a crutch.”

“Are you kidding?” Angel exclaimed. “You’re amazing! I had no idea. I saw you take that one down -- very impressive.”

“The first one was an idiot, probably brand new. He didn’t even get a hit in before I got him. The second was good, but that last one nearly had me.” The way she said it, so nonchalantly as if it were a fact of life, made his chest constrict and reminded him of Buffy. “Why did you do this, Lib? It’s not your responsibility.” She looked up at him then with a look in her eye that Angel recognized uncomfortably. “Sure it is. I have the abilities to do it so I can’t very well just sit back and let people die. Plus, it’s kind of fun.” Angel laughed a little at that and opened car door for her. “Yeah. Just do me a favour and don’t go out alone again, okay?”

“And just who am I going go with?” She asked with a snort. Angel started the car and pulled out of the alley. “It’ll take some convincing of your mom, but you can come out with me.”

“Oh. Okay.” She said it passively but Angel caught the glint in her eyes and smiled a little to himself. When they got home Cordy met them at the door with a mixture of fury and concern written all over her face, but before she could pounce Angel headed her off. “Go on upstairs, Libby. Cordy, let’s talk.”

---

Bridget waited for the bell with anticipation -- today was the career fair at the high school building and the eighth graders had been invited to attend. She’d found that since moving in with her Dad and Aunt Fred her academic side had started evolving and becoming more serious and she’d already started thinking about her future. She started packing up her bag with minutes to go in the class and was the first out the door when the bell rang. She hurried to Krista’s locker to collect her friend (who was only going to get out of afternoon classes) and hurried across the campus to the high school building. “Geez, Bee, it’s not like this is a first come, first serve thing,” Krista said, irritated, as she struggled to keep up with Bridget’s long strides. At the admonishment, Bridget slowed marginally. “Sorry, I’m just looking forward to this.”

“Yeah, you and everyone else -- oh, wait, no. You’re the only one excited about a job fair.”

“Career,” Bridget corrected automatically as they reached the gym. “A job is McDonald’s; the companies that show up here are really successful. Last year there were a couple Fortune 500s that came.” Krista snorted and motioned to the high-schoolers filing into they gym with them. “Well look at them -- junior execs in the making just chomping at the bit to stab some backs for the perfect job. Sorry, career.” Bridget took a second to give her best friend a sideways look. “Something wrong, Kris? You seem extra bitter today.” Krista rolled her eyes. “When faced with your inevitable future of becoming one of them,” she referred once again to the high-schoolers. “Wouldn’t you be bitter?” Bridget shook her head. “Whatever. I’m going to look around.”

The gym was filled with impressive-looking booths representing the best in the financial, medical, scientific, and law fields, and Bridget didn’t know where to start. She flitted from booth to booth, loading her bag down with pamphlets and information. She was particularly intrigued by the booth on genetics and biology, and spent an extra five minutes talking with the representative. Just as she started walking away, a cool feminine voice called out to her from the booth next door. “Not interested in law?”

Bridget turned to look. The woman was beautiful in a cold way, dressed in a dark designer suit Bridget knew would have cost a fortune, and seemed genuinely interested in a conversation. Moving closer, Bridget scanned the booth and felt a tug of recognition at the name: Wolfram and Hart. She wasn’t sure where she knew it from, but it might have been mentioned in passing by her parents. And, of course, she’d seen the building in the heart of the downtown area. The massive building that was entirely owned and used by the law firm that Bridget suddenly decided was worth a look. “I’m more interested in science,” she said before picking up a pamphlet. The woman smiled in a cat-that-caught-the-canary way and said, “Wolfram and Hart is a lot more than a law firm. We have several subsidiaries that deal strictly with science -- genetics, physics, as well as newer fields that are just fascinating.”

“Like what?” Bridget asked, intrigued despite herself. The woman smiled again and glanced around before lowering her voice. “You could call it supernatural science.” Bridget’s brows winged up in surprise then narrowed slightly. “What makes you think I believe in supernatural stuff?” The woman shrugged. “What scientist wouldn’t want the opportunity to prove its existence?” Bridget said nothing but knew that her acceptance of the answer was written all over her face when the woman pulled out another pamphlet from her briefcase. “We offer excellent summer internships to high school students. They’re very exclusive and competitive, but here’s some information on the application process. And my card,” she added, including the stark white business card with the brochure. Bridget looked them over and felt a spark of interest -- at the very least, it was worth looking into. When she saw that the woman was the president of a division within the company, Bridget slapped on her own best presidential smile and held out her hand. “My name is Bridget Chase, Ms. Morgan. I’ll definitely be considering applying in a year or two.” Lilah shook Bridget’s hand triumphantly and couldn’t help the mental high-five she gave herself when Angel’s daughter walked away, internship pamphlet held tightly in her grasp.

Later that night, when Bridget was tucked away in her basement bedroom, she emptied her backpack of all the brochures she’d collected at the fair. The Wolfram and Hart one stood out and she thumbed through it again. As she did so, Lilah Morgan’s card fell out and landed upside down in her lap. Picking it up, Bridget was surprised to see something written on the back in blue pen: a website address and a strange word she’d never seen before that turned out to be the password required to access the site. The webpage that Lilah Morgan had obviously wanted her to visit went into great depth about what supernatural science actually meant. Apparently Wolfram and Hart studied demon chemistries and things like science fused with magic and the scientific properties of foreign demon artefacts. The list went on, but Bridget didn’t need to read any further -- she was going to apply for that internship the second she could, and she was going to get it, come hell or high water.