InsaneJournal

Current mood:	discontent
Current music:	Deliver Me - Sarah Brightman

Good-Bye, But Not Forever
Kinetic.

Connor remembered looking up the definition of the word once, something for a physics assignment he had. Now he didn't just know what it meant, he knew what it felt like.

After leaving Rhiannon in the aftermath of their argument, the Destroyer walked ten blocks with his arms folded across his chest and his fingers knotted into the fabric of his shirt sleeves as though he meant to rip them from the garment at the seams. He'd been aware that he was drawing stares, but there was nothing in him that cared. The half-full Mountain Dew bottle had kept banging against his leg when he walked, and he ended up throwing it away because it was annoying him. The bus ride back to Searchlight was one long, loud blur.

He spoke to no one when he arrived back at the Lighthouse, barely noticing that Julie was not behind the bar as he stalked upstairs. There was quite possibly a scream lodged somewhere inside his ribcage. It was happening again. Everything was coming apart.

He grabbed the portable boom box he'd bought at Wal Mart and carried it back outside, where he marched to the outskirts of town where the Joshua trees grew to put on some Rammstein and go through his exercises until his cargos were soaked through with sweat. When he finally left off, he turned off the music and stood in the sudden silence, trying to make his thoughts quiet. He failed. They caromed around in his skull like shrapnel, and he ended up grunting in disgust and carrying the boom box back to his room. He stripped off his clothes and hurled himself into a shower, which helped a little. A very little.

He had to plan. They knew who he was, they'd tracked him well enough to send him that letter in the first place. He was going to have to hide, and he hated it. Just when he'd thought it was safe to go back in the water...

Julie was one angry and frustrated werewolf. Agent Rimes's parting shot had hurt more than she wanted to admit. Was she hiding down here? Playing victim? Julie didn't see it that way, but maybe the Agent had a point about doing more to try and help people. After all, what had she done since Brad was no longer a threat? She'd tended bar and just tried to live a normal life. But she wasn't normal, was she?

After spending a good hour staring at the photographs and letting the thoughts richochet around her skull the werewolf threw her hands up in frustration and changed into her running clothes. With her ipod firmly attached to her armband, the photographs were left on the table and she went running to try and clear her head. By the time she returned, her shorts and tanktop were clinging to her like a second skin and she was in desperate need of a shower.

And she still had no idea what to do about the 'offer'.

The werewolf stalked toward the bathroom, too distracted to notice that the shower was running as she pulled the tanktop over her head.

Connor had flattened his hands against the wall of the shower, and he was standing under the hot spray of water letting it pound down on his knotted shoulders and run through his hair while he breathed in the steam. He could pack some things into a duffel bag and drop out of sight for a few days, just to see how bad it was likely to get. He'd have to leave some kind of note for Jo, something to let her know he wasn't intending on staying gone forever. And Julie. He'd have to tell Julie. Hell, he'd have to warn Julie, because if the government wanted him, they'd likely want her too.

Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.

He had gotten halfway out of the stall when he saw Julie enter the bathroom, and he made a startled sound before drawing back behind the curtain. "Jesus! What...uh. Hi." He pulled the curtain more fully closed, feeling water dripping down the back of his neck. "Sorry, I didn't hear you come in." He wiped droplets away from his brow, feeling awkward and more stupid than usual. His eyes passed over the tank top in the werewolf's hands, then fixed on a point on the wall.

"Uh, could you kinda...hand me my towel? And then close the door with you on the other side of it? I can't...."

Julie's eyes snapped toward the shower when she heard Connor's yelp and turned bright red herself, she should have paid more attention to her surroundings. No wonder they had been able to track her so easily, she'd gotten lazy. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention," she apologized to her roommate and romantic interest.

At his request she smiled in amusement and reached over for the towel, tossing it to him. She thought about making a joke about him not having anything she hadn't seen before but decided against it, he was upset enough as it was. "I'll close the door behind me."

Still, she couldn't help but sneak a look as she backed out of the bathroom and closed the door. It had been a long time since she'd been with anyone, and on top of that she could feel that it was getting to be that time of year again. Instead of her normal routine going out into the wilderness to change she'd have to go lock herself down in the basement when the time came, until the urges passed.

Besides, she had bigger things to worry about than her lack of a sex life. "Okay, coast is clear!" She called through the door, and started over for her room to change out of her sweat soaked clothes. A pair of sweats would do until she could get a shower in of her own.

Maybe after she was cleaned up herself she could talk to Connor about the whole project and get his take on it.

"Doors have locks for a reason, moron." Connor toweled his hair impatiently before wiping the fog away from the mirror, first with his hand and then with a corner of the towel. His distorted image in the glass caught his eye, and he looked at it for a second before returning to drying off. "Welcome to my world."

He pulled on the fresh jeans he'd thought to bring along, draping the terrycloth over his still-bare shoulders. He'd explain things to her as best he could, then pack light. Couldn't stay here, not if it would bring trouble down on the place he'd called home. Would she understand?

"Look, um..." he began when he stepped out of the bathroom. "I know that I haven't been around very much lately, and that we haven't been able to hang out that often. A lot of stuff's been going on. A lot of stuff's still going on." Now there was an understatement. The Destroyer moved into his own room for a minute, found his empty backpack where he'd tossed it on a chair. He twisted the material back and forth between his hands momentarily, then reluctantly packed a couple of clean shirts into it.

"I have to...I need to go away for a few days."

Julie padded into his room in bare feet, having tossed on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. The sight of him in just a pair of jeans had her waggling her eyebrows in approval until she realized what he was doing. "Go away for a few days?" she repeated. He was scared, it was obvious in his body language and his scent.

"There are a lot of things going down," She agreed, coming around to sit cross legged on his bed and watch him pack. "You'd be surprised what I've heard the past few days about what's going down."

She paused, then continued in a quiet voice. "I had a visit from Homeland Security today, an Agent Rimes. They want to recruit me for a program to keep tabs on people like us." Julie let the words hang out in the air and waited to see his reaction.

They'd already been here. They'd already been here. Connor's gut turned into one big knot, and he felt his shoulders bunch as his hands stilled. His expression went slack for a moment, and then it shifted into something more animated - and far less pleasant - as he turned and slung the backpack across the room by the straps. It smacked into the wall and landed on the floor with a soft thump. The Destroyer let out a breath.

"All right," he said to Julie, and now he was too still, almost immobile. Watching her the way he should have watched Rhiannon. Because he was ready for it now, for the way it was going to feel when she stuck it in and broke it off. Right in the belly where all the soft stuff lived. His fingers twitched, the only movement he made, and he folded his arms to grab for his elbows and keep his hands still.

"I guess this is the part where I apologize, 'cause I should have told you. I didn't know at first how wide they were going to cast the net. Guess that was pretty stupid. To them, we're all hostiles unless we cooperate." Pause. He couldn't stand himself for the way he asked the next question. "What did you tell them?"

"About what?" She didn't care for the way he was staring at her or his tone of voice when he asked that question. "You? The subject never came up. I listened to what she had to say, told her I wasn't interested, and she dropped a folder of pictures on the table. Pictures of me, pictures of my family."

She twisted the drawstrings on her sweatpants, and stared at the backpack. "Anyway, I was angry and asked where this outfit was when I got involved with Brad, why it took some politician getting killed to get people's attention." Julie stared down at her feet, and her voice was small when she continued. "She basically called me a coward, hiding down here in Searchlight like I was still some victim when others were in trouble. That I could be trying to make a difference, do something positive with what's happened to me."

He made a noise, a dismissive sound, and took the two and a half steps necessary to duck down and make eye contact with her. "You know what she knows about anything? Nothing. She'd run like hell if she ever saw a vampire unless it was in a movie. She has no idea of what its really like out there, and she doesn't want to. She just thinks she does."

It was the speech he'd have made to the Slayer if he had had the chance, if she hadn't cut him off so fast, and he dragged his hands through his still-damp hair as he paused for another breath. "I already decided I'm not doing it," he told the werewolf with finality. "They can bite me. That's why I can't stay here, because I don't know what happens now." He gestured at the pack, which still lay on the floor. "I decided I'm not turning on my friends. I even told my dad. Whatever happens now, until this goes away, I'm their enemy."

He actually managed to sound proud of it, pulling his narrow shoulder back a notch. It was what Angel would have done. Holtz, too, probably. So much alike, his two fathers. Too much.

He just wished he didn't also mean he was technically Rhiannon's enemy too.

"She's right though," Julie insisted, and met his eyes. "About me hiding. I have these abilities, what good are they if I just sit around here tending bar? I could take on a vampire and win, if I knew how to fight properly. I could stop somebody like Brad from doing to someone else what happened to me. But instead I've sat down here in Searchlight."

It wasn't like she hadn't tried to learn how. It just seemed that people either left or simply didn't have time to teach her, and she'd needed some of that time to let herself recover from the mental traumas Brad had inflicted on her. Maybe she'd stayed too long behind the bar, but it had been a welcome refuge from having to face the outside world.

Connor was getting a headache. He could feel it closing in on either side of his skull, and he went back to packing to try and stave it off. "What is she 'right' about? That you need to be part of their circus to make a difference? Not everybody's a combatant, Julie, and not everybody needs to be. You make plenty of difference the way you are right now."

He opened a drawer, rummaged out another shirt and a pair of jeans. "I should have taught you at least some stuff," he said, speaking more to himself than to her. "If they don't throw me in jail, I'll get around to it, I swear." He stuffed the clothes into the pack carelessly, pulled a sweatshirt on over his head. "Besides, maybe I don't want you out there, did you ever think about that?"

Shoes. Should he take his boots or his cross-trainers? He really needed a new pair. His brain was going in a hundred different directions at once. He got a thick pair of socks out of a second drawer and put them on. Boots were better, especially if he would have to fight.

"No, she wasn't right about me being a part of their group, just that I could and should do more." She frowned again as he returned to packing.

"I'm not interested in being in their program, Connor, but they know where I live, they've been watching us. They have pictures of me from all over the place. They took pictures of my family." That bothered her the most. "My family doesn't even know what I am, they don't know anything about what's been going on up here."

His last words got her attention. "You didn't want me out there?"

"Look." Christ, he didn't have time for this, not really. For all he knew, they were looking for him right this second, and they knew where he lived too. "Self-defense is one thing, everyone should know how to protect themselves, but I never exactly thought it was the greatest idea for you to be wanting to take on the undead yourself." He was making a mistake telling her this now and he knew it, but what was one more mistake?

The trash can in his room was still full, and he went to it and fished out the letter with the government insignia on it. He held it up where Julie could look at it, the wrinkles in the paper where he'd wadded it up making some of the words difficult to read. "They gave us seven days, a week to make up our minds. My mind was made up before then. Because I didn't fall in line, something's going to happen. I don't know what, but something. I won't bring trouble to this place. To you and Jo, not after both of you have helped me."

He sighed, threw the letter away again. "Your life is too normal for this," he said to the werewolf. "Too normal to be out there fighting, too normal to have to worry about the feds hauling you off to jail, too normal for all of it." He waited, looking at nothing in particular. "Too normal for you to have to deal with me, maybe."


Julie stared at Connor with an undecipherable expression for several heartbeats before she finally shook her head.

"Connor Reilly, you've got a lot to learn," said the werewolf as she got up off the bed and walked over to where he was standing until there was barely a handspan between the two of them. Julie took one hand and turned his head so he was looking at her, and kissed him. After she broke off the kiss she looked into his eyes.

"It's one of the things I admire in you that you feel the need to try and 'protect' me," she told him softly. "I wish I could say that your leaving would make them not keep trying to recruit me but I don't think that's going to be the case. I'm a werewolf, Jo's a Slayer, it doesn't matter whether we're active or not, they still want us on their team and it seems like they'll do whatever it takes to do that."

The issue of whether she should be out there trying to help fight the good fight was set aside for now, but she'd come back to his words again soon.

"If you leave, where would you go? I've been on the run before, it's not a pleasant experience and that was before I had the government trying to track me down." She glanced away, obviously thinking, then back at him. "I could come with you," she offered hesitantly, almost afraid to hear his response, "if you'd have me." She didn't really want to run, but it seemed clear she couldn't stay. There were no neutrals in this fight, it seemed.

He didn't know what he was supposed to tell her. Her physical closeness, the way she was looking at him, was pulling his mind back in the direction of things like Safety and Home, but there was no safety here anymore because a bunch of idiots in suits had shattered it. Was he supposed to tell her that they'd already turned Rhiannon, and that the Slayer's betrayal stung him in a place where he was way too vulnerable? Given his luck, she'd misunderstand, and then he'd be forced to argue with her over it. Could he tell her that he wasn't just protecting her, but himself, from the feeling of devastation at being left behind again? Because if they turned Rhiannon, they could turn anyone, and he was tired of being kicked when he'd done nothing to deserve it.

He dropped the pack on the floor and pushed it aside. "Look." He put his hands on Julie's shoulders and held the eye contact despite the fact that everything in him recoiled from needing to have this conversation. "Its really better if you stay here. I'm probably a fugitive by now, and I don't know if it wouldn't be worse for you if they caught us together. Call your folks, tell them what's going on, they'll be able to do something." He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, deliberately put some distance between them.

"This can't last long. Its too much of a shift. Its just better if I'm someplace else until that happens. Alone."

"Yeah I can just see that conversation," Julie snorted, trying not to show the hurt from the refusal of her offer. It was his choice to go after all, no one was putting a gun to his head. Not yet anyway. "'Mom, Dad? I've got something to tell you..." It was clear as a bell in her mind's eye. Her folks wouldn't believe her, then would be trying to get her to come home to 'spend some time with them' so they could take her to a therapist since she was clearly off her rocker.

"If you're going to run, you'd probably better go someplace like Brazil or Australia, the Agent said they already have agreements with Canada, Mexico and most of Europ offe." Why couldn't he see that running on his own wasn't going to solve anything? Julie herself couldn't make up her mind whether to run or to stay and 'fight the power'.

She'd never believed the nuts who talked about 'black helicopters' but maybe they had a point.

"I've hidden before too. And Quartoth's a lot scarier than Vegas. It won't be easy, but I'll be fine." He felt relieved that she wasn't going to make him defend himself. He wasn't the one doing this, they were. Connor found one boot halfway under his bed, the second near the dresser. He picked them up and held them suspended by the laces before sitting down on the edge of the mattress.

"I'm sorry about this," he told Julie, meaning it even as he looked at the floor to avoid eye contact. "For not being around, for having to go now, for doing what I said I wouldn't, which is leave. Its not like I'm gonna be gone forever, though. This has been home for too long." He started to put his boots on. "This can't last forever."

"Right." Julie leaned against his dresser, her arms wrapped around her sides and eyes fixed on the wall. Another person was leaving. Sure he claimed it was temporary but who knew what would happen? Devon, Matthew, Kris, Judah, Hannah, now Connor?

It was still his choice to leave, even if the circumstances weren't in his control. "You can stay and fight too, you know," She reminded him, "It isn't like by leaving you're going to spare Jo, Nyx, and myself. They're still gonna come after us. There's still Corbett and Whistler around here too, I'm sure the government is gonna come after them. We could all work together."

"If you're really going to leave, I still think I should go with you. A couple traveling together would attract less attention than some drifter on his own." She knew he wanted to go on his own, but maybe she could change his mind. An unkind thought popped into her head: I'll bet if Rhiannon had offered to go with him he'd have jumped at it.

She liked the Slayer, from the few times they'd actually met, but Julie couldn't help but be the tiniest bit jealous of how she seemed to have Connor's respect and attention.

Work together. Right. There had been a point when teamwork had seemed like the way to go, but right now not so much. Having just re-learned trust, feeling like he'd gotten the boots put to him was a little much to take, and he needed to be by himself to work out what he had to do next. And he knew that Julie didn't believe him when he said he'd come back, he could feel it in the way she wasn't looking at him, but he couldn't help that.

"I give you my word I'll come back," he said, having finished tying his boot laces. "That's all I can do right now. Everything's happening too fast." He got up from the bed, claimed his pack from the floor. Another pair of jeans went inside, and he zipped it shut. He glanced at the rumpled bedcovers, then around the room. He was leaving home again.

He closed the distance between himself and Julie, put one arm around her. He felt cheated of this too, as if having more time would have let him get accustomed to having someone care for him in a romantic sense. Maybe he wasn't supposed to have that either, though. If being alone was the only way he'd stop getting kicked, then he'd work out a way to live with being alone. "I'm sorry. Tell Jo something for me, okay? I'll call in a day or two if I can."

He paused briefly to look down at her, offering one of those uncertain smiles, then passed her by on his way out the door. He didn't look back.

"Bye."

"Connor, wait!" Julie took hold of him as he tried to pass by and pulled him tight against her. She reached up and kissed him, and not just a peck on the lips, but a hungry, demanding kiss. When she finally pulled back she was breathing just a bit harder -she was closer to that time than she'd first thought- and smiled up at him even though her eyes were starting to blur just . "Something to remember me by, and a reason to come back. I'm not through with you mister, not by a long shot."

She pushed away from him and started toward the shower. "See you soon."

He let her go, looking after her with a bemused, slightly crooked smile on his face. Touching his mouth with one hand, he re-adjusted the pack so it set on his shoulders more comfortably. Maybe? Maybe. Sometimes maybe was enough.

"I give you my word."