"What we ... inherit is a tiny particle of protoplasm having a certain characteristic composition, structure, and past history. This protoplasm is capable, under certain combinations of circumstances, of developing into a mature organism, resembling the one from which it came, but under other combinations of circumstances the external appearance -- the expression -- may resemble that of the parent only a very little, or not at all."

Lily's almost ready to give up, on the street in her beautiful gown; Rufus trusts Vanessa absolutely, and points out that the bus still has eight minutes before it leaves. He goes rushing around the block again, to check the bus stop -- which is obviously where they should have camped out, duh -- and Lily asks what the point even is. "After what I just did, I... What am I supposed to say to him?" Rufus knows that feeling. "That we're his parents, and that we're here for him. And that Love Can Fix Things!" She scoffs; can you blame her? "We both know that's not true," she says distractedly, and he whirls on her. Rufus Humphrey gets right up in somebody's face, because you don't talk about love like that. Not on his watch. (I'm so invested in and sad about this because I've done both, I've been both -- and in the end, does putting the hash mark in the Lily column more than the Rufus one make you better, or worse? -- and have spent the last decade wishing I could title a recap "I'm Still Your Fag," but that will never happen. Nonetheless, this one would have been the best. The particular novel I'm writing this month could totally be called that, so that's something, but still.)

"You know what? I don't!" He really doesn't. He never will. It's simultaneously the most nauseating and the most wonderful thing about him. "You... What Scott saw was you, grasping at anything you can to push me away." She says that's wrong, but he's on a tear: "First it was Serena and Brown, then the mugs and the Mayor, then it's that you 'can't see the future'?" Lily shrugs, rising to the level of his emotion: "Well? I'm scared of the future. I'm scared of a lot of things." Rufus stomps his little feet and tosses those bangs around and clenches his little guitar fists; he doesn't get more than a sentence into his speech before his throat closes up and his eyes are full of tears.