Cora had arrived at Buffy's exactly at ten o'clock the next morning. Buffy laughed as she pulled the door to her house shut behind her. It was funny to see anyone other than Spike driving his beat up old car, but somehow Cora looked like she belonged in it.

Buffy climbed into the passenger's side seat and shut the door behind her; then she looked to her driver.

Cora was wearing the jeans that Buffy knew she had first been wearing when Angelus had brought her to Spikes. Despite the fact that they had been washed, Buffy could still see that a few dark bloodstains remained on the fabric—remnants of Cora's ordeal. On the top, the girl was wearing what Buffy could only guess was one of Spike's smaller black t-shirts, although it wasn't very small on the tiny framed girl.

"Morning," Cora said brightly. Her hair was loose and wavy. The long brunette locks fell way past the girl's small shoulders and to her mid back.

"You too," Buffy said. "You look like you're feeling better."

She really did, Buffy noticed. In fact, that may have been a bit of understatement. Considering how beat up Cora had been on the first night that they had met, she looked like a completely different person. Buffy couldn't believe that the girl was able to even stand let alone make a drive to Santa Maria. The rings around her eyes had already disappeared and her skin didn't have the incredibly pale color it had when she had first arrived. Buffy knew the girl's other injuries were nowhere near completely healed, but otherwise, Cora looked healthy.

"Yeah…amazing what being fed and sleeping in a nice bed can do for your health," Cora said. "Being chained to a wall and not fed anything for a couple weeks isn't exactly beauty rest." She started the car and took the main street that led out of town.

"How'd you know which house was mine?" Buffy asked curiously.

"Spike gave me directions. It was surprisingly easy considering how small Sunnydale is."

"So you've never been here before?" Buffy asked, curious to know more about the girl's past.

"Once, actually. Before you were here though…before you were even called I guess. I was ten, and…from what I recall, vamps had pretty free reign of the place back then. It's a good thing you came." She smiled warmly at the Slayer.

Buffy laughed. "Yeah, good thing I guess."

"Really, Buffy," Cora said sincerely. "You've done a lot of good here. I know that there are few people who even give you credit for what you do, and I'm sure it's tough. But people appreciate it, they just don't know it."

"Yeah, hazard of the Slayer job I guess. All work, no pay." Buffy shrugged.

Cora stretched in the driver's seat. "So, what was it like? Becoming the Slayer I mean. From what I hear, you weren't exactly Protector Girl at your old school. Cheerleader, I was told?" Cora cocked an eyebrow at Buffy and gave the other girl a sly smile.

Buffy laughed easily. "Yeah, it was pretty insane when I found out about the whole Slayer business."

For the next hour or so Buffy filled Cora in on what it had been like being called. How she had moved to Sunnydale, about her parents, her friends, Xander and Willow and Giles, about her relationship with Angel, and then Angelus, her quarrels with Spike, and about her high school, and then her college and Riley.

Cora concentrated on Buffy's history as she drove. She asked questions and nodded appreciatively at the different events Buffy had survived. She had laughed at things Willow and Xander had done and she had become quiet and sad when Buffy's story moved to Angel. Buffy had done so much as the Slayer, Cora noticed. A lot of good.

Buffy finally ran out of things to say about herself and then laughed as she looked at where they were. "Sorry, I just kind of talked us halfway through our trip."

"No, I liked it. I mean, I like hearing about it—the Slayer stuff, and your life. It's interesting. You've been through a lot," Cora noticed as she switched lanes.

"From what I've heard, so have you," Buffy replied, adjusting her position so she could have a better view of Cora.

"I guess," Cora said, turning to look at Buffy. "But it's hard to say that I've done anywhere near as much good in the world as you have."

Buffy thought for a moment, and then said, "I want to know more about you. I've told you my whole history, now it's your turn for sharing-time."

Cora laughed at Buffy's way of lightening the mood. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything! Start wherever you want," Buffy said enthusiastically.

So for the next hour's drive Cora told Buffy stories. She told Buffy about how when she was five, Angelus had convinced her to drink a cupful of cherry-flavored rum, causing her to be sick for the next three days and causing her mother to nearly beat Angelus unconscious. She skipped over anything about her parents' deaths and moved on to telling Buffy stories about living with Angelus after their deaths.

"There was this one time," Cora began, remembering another story. "You'll probably like this one…" Cora paused, rethinking what she was saying. "Unless you like Drusilla that is…you don't like Dru do you?"

"Definitely not a fan of the crazy bitch, no," Buffy said.

"Good. You'd be surprised how many people are like head over heals for her, despite the crazy." Cora laughed.

"Anyways," she continued. "Dru and I used to fight all the time when her and Spike were with us. Even as a ten year old, I knew she was a serious piece of work. Anyways, she has this thing for dolls. I mean, a creepy, insane thing for dolls. She used to cut out their eyes and stuff."

"Ewww." Buffy scrunched her nose up. "That would have been traumatizing for any ten year old."

Cora laughed again. "Yeah, but I didn't care as long as they were her dolls. But Angelus had gotten me this doll while we were in New York, one of those American Girl dolls, you know? Anyways, I loved the thing. And she knew it. But she went all psycho one day and started saying how it was her 'mummy' and belonged with the rest of the family in her bedroom. She popped out the eyes and set it in there with the rest of her collection."

Cora paused her story for a second as she concentrated on adjusting the air conditioning in Spike's old car. "He really needs a new one of these," she said as she fiddled with one of the dials.

"Okay," she said, leaning back. "So I found out about the doll and we got into this huge fight, which ended with Dru basically chasing me around the house trying to kill me. Angelus came home and found me hiding in his bedroom—Dru was always too scared of Angel to go into his room—her 'daddy's' room. Angelus went and started beating the crap out of her. Well that was great fun until Spike came home a little while later. Needless to say, he was completely pissed. He started fighting with Angelus, and then all three of them got going. It lasted for six hours. I mean, it was intense. Living with vampires, there were no stakes in the house, so nothing was fatal. But by the end of it all, I found all three of them passed out on the floor. Spike and Dru had ganged up on Angelus and so they were all pretty much evenly matched. It took Angelus a day to come to, and when he did, him and I left for a while. That's when he decided to leave the states."

Buffy laughed easily at the story. She would definitely have enjoyed watching the three vampires fighting like that. Six hours. Buffy shuddered. Sometimes she forgot the true strength and immortalness of vampires. She turned to Cora.

"Not to insult you, but wasn't that hard on your…well…I guess on your conscience? Living with Angelus. I mean, he seriously gets off on torturing people." Buffy shuddered as she remembered her own experiences with him.

Cora wasn't insulted at all. "I know where you're coming from, but Buffy, I grew up with it. I mean, I knew vampires were evil, but when I was little and Angelus would come around, he didn't do any of that stuff. I grew up looking at him as this uncle who loved getting me into all kinds of trouble and who drove my parents insane. So when I started living with him, it was the same kinds of things. He didn't do that stuff around me. I stayed at home when he got hungry."

Cora sighed and her eyes narrowed on the road. "Until one day," she began. "I think I was eleven. We were in Rome and Spike was back with us again. He was supposed to be watching me that week, but he had gotten into a huge fight with Dru, who so needs to be locked up and staked, and then he got himself completely wasted.

"I left the house—he was so far gone he wouldn't have noticed if I had set it on fire—and went to where I knew Angelus was. I was just bored, and I figured I'd walk to see him and then go back to Spike's. Well I walked in on him and a girl…she was my age. He had her…" Cora's eyebrows furrowed and her face grew stern. "Well, it wasn't something I would want any eleven year old to see."

Cora looked lost in thought for a few minutes, barely able to form words for the way she had felt about that situation.

"I mean, the girl was my age at the time, and he had her tied to the wall. She wasn't even screaming, just crying silently. Her shoulders were completely hunched and you could just…" Cora inhaled sharply again at the memory. "…you could just see that he had completely broken her. That was when I realized he was completely evil."

"What did you do?" Buffy asked.

"Well," Cora laughed, returning her face to her more usual, lighthearted features. "First I thought the best thing to do was to kill him. There was a pencil lying on a table nearby. I grabbed it and flung myself at him. I think I scared him nearly to death. He never would have expected that from me, but I had never expected something like that from him."

Cora looked seriously at Buffy. "I always knew he was a vampire, but he had just never seemed so evil to me. I know it doesn't make any sense…" Cora shook her head.

"Anyways," she continued. "I actually knocked him over and was trying to stab him with the pencil. I guess I hadn't really put it in my head to stab him in the heart, but I got him a couple of the times in the chest. Finally, he grabbed me and carried me out of the room. I was screaming at him, hitting him, doing anything I could. He just carried me back to Spike's. He threw me down in my room and I just stared at him. He was even still in his vampire face."

"That would have been…terrifying," Buffy offered.

"Yeah, he just stood there for a long time. Finally, he told me to go to sleep and he left. I wouldn't talk to him for weeks afterwards, but I mean, I didn't have anywhere to go. Him, Spike, and Dru were the only people I knew. Never would I have ever gone anywhere with Dru—crazy bitch that she is—and Spike was a little crazy after that fight with her, so I was stuck with Angelus."

"So I guess it wasn't all fun and reckless games living with them?" Buffy said.

"Hardly," Cora replied. "Although, don't get me wrong, reckless was the way I lived most of the time. I had fun, and, you may not believe this, but Angelus taught me a lot. Like how to fight. Although you may not like to admit it to yourself, Angel has some serious power. He's strong, and living with him, learning to fight like him, it made me stronger. We've been in true fights before. Fights where we both—at the time—thought that we were going to the death, and I've almost beaten him for real. Did you know that?"

Buffy turned to look at Cora in surprise.

"Yeah," Cora smiled. "After he first taught me to fight, we sparred all the time. Eventually I learned how he fought, and I actually have become a pretty equal opponent for him."

"You'll have to teach me," Buffy said. "I can't seem to do it."

"Yeah well, you'll have to be careful. He wants you dead all of the time."

"True," Buffy agreed.

There was another subject Buffy had wanted to approach with Cora during their trip out together. She just wasn't sure as to how to bring it up with the girl.

"So then…Angelus," Buffy attempted, "You wouldn't like it if…if I did find a way to beat him?"

Cora let out a heavy sigh as she thought about Buffy's question. "I thought that would come up, and I've been trying to think of how to answer that." Cora thought again for a few moments as she concentrated on exiting the highway towards Santa Maria.

"I can't tell you that I would be okay with it if something happened and you killed him. In a way that I know is completely sick and twisted…he's like a father to me, and a brother, and a friend, and well, other things. I can't explain it but he's always been there, and that's important to me since my parents."

Cora turned to Buffy seriously. "No, I can't tell you it's okay. I understand why you would need to do it, Buffy. You're the Slayer—you can't deny that. But at the same time, I couldn't understand it if you did it if you didn't have to. If he stays out of your way, I would expect you to stay out of his…does that make sense?"

"I guess," Buffy relented. "Are we here?" she asked as they pulled to a stop in front of a large white apartment complex.

"Yes ma'am," Cora said as she pulled into a nearby parking spot and shut off the ignition. "Let's go gather some stuff."

Cora and Buffy entered the apartment complex through a side door. They walked towards a set of stairs and climbed them to the second level.

They walked down a long hallway of doors and then stopped at the one on the end. Cora took out a gold key from her jeans' pocket and then unlocked the door.

The apartment was a one bedroom flat, complete with a small kitchen and an even tinier bathroom, and one side room that was nearly empty except for a large couch and television set.

"Nice place," Buffy said.

"It's a dump," Cora said honestly. She took a step into the living room and then stopped. "Wait."

Buffy had stopped dead in her tracks when Cora had said it. She glanced around the room, looking for what had made Cora hesitate.

"Someone's been here," Cora said simply. She took a few more steps into the room and then stopped again. "Someone is here."

"How do you know?" Buffy whispered.

The apartment seemed empty to her. The rooms were all dark, except for the light that now shone in through the open apartment door, and all of the blinds were drawn tightly closed. Even the small window that was above the kitchen sink had a large phonebook sitting in it, blocking the sunlight from entering. Suddenly Buffy understood.

"Vampire?" Buffy guessed.

"I would say so," Cora agreed. She turned to Buffy. "Came prepared?"

Buffy shook her head, realizing that she had been slacking on her Slayer responsibilities. She didn't even have a pencil with her.

Cora took a step back and reached up to the top of the doorframe. She pulled down a small, sharpened wooden stake. Buffy nodded appreciatively as the girl handed it to the Slayer.

"You're prepared," she said, taking the stake from her.

"Live with vampires long enough and you realize that they live long enough to gain a lot of enemies. I never go too far from stakes," she said. She reached underneath her coffee table and grabbed another, much larger stake. She gave Buffy a wicked smile.

"I'm still not quite up to form, so I'll probably leave the slaying to you. Just try not to get dust in the bed."

The two girls crept silently up to the door of Cora's bedroom. They pushed it open and then counted to three. When they reached three, they flipped on the bedroom lights.

There was a large form lying in Cora's bed. It didn't even stir when the lights were turned on.

Cora rolled her eyes at Buffy.

"Should we jump and stake?" Buffy asked. Considering it was Cora's house, she figured it should be Cora calling the shots.

"Nah; we can jump, but lets be careful on the staking. I wouldn't want to kill some poor bum whose been living in my apartment for the last couple weeks." Cora crept over closer to the bed.

As she got closer to the sleeping man, realization lit up in her eyes. Buffy was about to ask her what it was when Cora suddenly threw her stake at the man's head.