Daria looked down at the phone – it was Angel. Right. She'd called him last night and this could very well have been his first chance to get back. Dude might have been up all night and getting ready to crash for the day. She told Aunt Amy and Jane to go in and get a seat and that she'd be in a few minutes, and then, once they were inside, opened the phone and said, "Yo!"

Yes, she was still feeling a bit Faith-repressed; why do you ask?

"Daria?"

"Who else would dare answer my phone with a yo?" she asked dryly. "Yeah, Angel, it's me."

"You called last night. Sorry I wasn't there –"

"I've said it before, Angel: You have a life, you have a job to do. It's nice if you're there when I call, not mandatory. I would've said if it'd been a screaming emergency."

"Still sounded somewhat urgent."

"I ain't going to lie to you: It is. I'm facing off against an old enemy of yours and I got my friend Jane and my Aunt Amy in tow. Can't dump them off, 'cause the way I judge this SOB it's perfectly capable of going after my friends or relatives just to get to me."

"Who is it?"

"The First Evil."

Angel said, "You're kidding."

"Do I sound like I'm kidding?"

"Daria, unless you listen closely, you never sound like you're kidding."

Daria smiled. "I suppose that's true. But no, I'm not kidding. I've been attacked three times in the last day, plus gotten two visits from the big guy himself. Once as my sister Quinn, once as Mayor Wilkins. Didn't really work; all it's managed to so far is piss me off."

"Then that's what it wants you to do."

"Excuse me?"

"The First very nearly succeeded in getting me to kill myself to avoid the chance of me letting Angelus out again. It's a master at that kind of manipulation. If you're angry because of what it's doing to you, then it wants you angry."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I can give it some thought – or better yet, call the Doctor." Lynette Vaughn was one of the few people Daria felt a significant degree of affection for. More importantly, she trusted the woman implicitly, and most importantly, she was a criminal psychiatrist. She'd seen evil, in its human form, at any rate.

"I'll do that, but I want any thoughts you have as well. You and B are the only ones I know who've directly faced off against the bastard. I talked to Giles last night and he gave me the scholarly rundown. Always helpful. But both kinds of knowledge are useful."

"Okay," he said. "Two things. One, the First can cause you to have realistic dreams with your dead in them."

"I had one of those last night. A family barbecue in Highland turned into my entire family blaming me for still being alive. I wasn't sure it was the First's doing. Now I know. And I'll remember."

"Good. Second thing. If you see me, Buffy, Spike – or Cameron Kim – touch us, or get us to touch something."

"Why?"

"The First can appear as anyone who's died, remember. Spike and I are dead by definition. Buffy died –"

"Or Faith would never have been called. Of course. And Cameron died on the operating table in Lawndale right after we beat Glory." She had a horrid thought. "Kim's a shapeshifter. Does that mean the First can appear as literally anyone?"

A moment of silence. Then Angel said, "I wouldn't think so. Cameron can't possibly be the first shapeshifter in history to die. If the First could appear as literally anyone, dead or alive, we'd have heard about it by now. Certainly, Giles would have."

"That's a definite relief," Daria said.

"It is. And, Daria, I can't stress this enough: If the First wants you to get angry, don't let it make you angry. Be calm; be cynical; laugh in its face. But whatever it wants you to, don't."

"Thanks. I'll do my best." She thought for a second. Anger. The last time Daria or Faith had gotten out-of-control angry was in prison, when she'd read the chapter in April 10, 1997 about the day of her parents' murders. She had raged, then, for several hours, repeated punching the cell walls and stomping on the cell floor until Doc Vaughn had finally come in and calmed her down.

She hadn't read that chapter of the book, since. And that was one thing the First couldn't force her to do, even in dreams. You couldn't read in dreams. Not more than a few words. And that wouldn't be enough.

And she wasn't the same person, now. Faith had been born of that rage. Faith could deal with that rage. And Daria Faith Morgendorffer was, again, a walking, talking violation of the law of contradiction: She both was, and was not, Faith. So it was possible she could deal with the anger.

Still, she wasn't stupid. If the First wanted her angry, she would stay calm.

Changing the subject, she said, "Any further progress with your assault on Gavin?"

"Yup. We've got him on the run." He chuckled. "And the best part is, the rest of Wolfram & Hart is letting him twist in the wind. He's getting only the help he explicitly asks for. Apparently even a group of evil lawyers have their standards."

"Good."

"We also think we're getting closer to figuring out who masterminded that assassination attempt on you in prison."

Daria stiffened. She hadn't exactly forgotten that someone had sent Mrs. Krueger, but it had fallen by the wayside in the wake of the assault on Glory, the defense of Cameron Kim, and her recent road trip. "Who?" she asked.

"Not that close. We have a solid lead, though. Don't worry; this is important to us. I'll let you know when we actually do. Because I'm pretty sure you're going to want to be in on the assault."

"Got that right," Daria said. "And with that, I think I need to get going. If I stay out here much longer, Amy might come out after me and I don't want her overhearing this stuff before I have a chance to explain it on my own terms."

"You sure you should?"

"I have to," Daria said. "Ain't saying anything about Faith still kind of being around, but the First has been too obvious for me to just rely on the Sunnydale blindness effect."

"Understood. Good luck."

"And to you." Daria hung up and walked inside, where Amy and Jane were waiting.

X X X X X

Daria said, "Let me tell you a story."

Jane said, "If it's the one about the lovely lady and her three very lovely girls, we've heard it already."

"It's a different story. Please, try to minimize the interruptions until I'm done. Oohs and ahhs of astonishment or disbelief are acceptable."

"I've been waiting to hear this," Amy said. "I'll try not to interrupt. Or run screaming into the night."

"It's daytime," Jane pointed out helpfully.

"That should make that part of it easier," Amy said.

"Okay," Daria said. "This is a story about magic, and vampires, and a hellgod. It began for me when I was born, though I didn't know about it. It started for Faith in the spring of 1998 . . ."

Daria had made her way through two ribeye steaks, a baked potato with butter and sour cream, two and a half Cokes, and was in the middle of a big slice of apple pie when she finally said, "So. Aunt Amy. Any questions?" She hadn't outed Angel completely, though she had mentioned that he knew all about the supernatural. She hadn't mentioned Faith's continued existence. Beyond that, she'd told her aunt pretty much everything she could think of, condensed into about 45 minutes.

Amy, put bluntly, looked stunned. She hadn't run screaming into the night, but she hadn't asked any questions either. Jane had more than made up for that, asking many, many questions, some of which were even serious, which is why she'd specified "Aunt Amy" when she made the call for questions.

"I think you broke her like you broke my brother," Jane said.

"Nothing's broken," Amy said. "Nothing at all. But it is an awful lot to take in."

"No kidding," Jane said seriously. "But I've seen proof."

"You've seen vampires?"

"No – well, yes, actually. One of them. But he probably wasn't a good example."

Daria said, "Spike isn't a good example of anything except how to be a bad example."

"But I have," Jane said, "Seen magic; I've seen someone run up as fast as the Flash would have, pick someone up like you or I would pick up a camera, and run off just as fast; I've seen people claiming to be Knights attack innocent people, or nearly so; I've seen a woman change into a leopard; and I've seen Daria here do things physically that Olympic athletes would cheerfully murder their own mothers to be able to pull off. Hell, she outran me without hardly trying, and my ability to run is one of the few things I'm confident in. You saw her pick up the sofa yourself, and you saw those cultists."

"Now," Daria said, "Is an excellent time for the application of Ockham's Razor."

"No need for that," Amy said. "I was half-convinced already. But it is a lot to take in all at once."

"So no need to worry about you contacting Sheppard Pratt?" Jane asked.

"For Daria, no. I'm not so sure about me."

"I know how that feels," Daria said. "It took me a while to be convinced, and it had already happened to me, in some sense."

Amy leaned forward in her seat and said, "I have one question: does this whole 'Slayer' thing explain your eyesight?"

Smiling slightly, Daria said, "It figures that that would be the first thing you'd pick on.

"But I have," Jane said, "Seen magic; I've seen someone run up as fast as the Flash would have, pick someone up like you or I would pick up a camera, and run off just as fast; I've seen people claiming to be Knights attack innocent people, or nearly so; I've seen a woman change into a leopard; and I've seen Daria here do things physically that Olympic athletes would cheerfully murder their own mothers to be able to pull off. Hell, she outran me without hardly trying, and my ability to run is one of the few things I'm confident in. You saw her pick up the sofa yourself, and you saw those cultists."

"Now," Daria said, "Is an excellent time for the application of Ockham's Razor."

"No need for that," Amy said. "I was half-convinced already. But it is a lot to take in all at once."

"So no need to worry about you contacting Sheppard Pratt?" Jane asked.

"For Daria, no. I'm not so sure about me."

"I know how that feels," Daria said. "It took me a while to be convinced, and it had already happened to me, in some sense."

Amy leaned forward in her seat and said, "I have one question: does this whole 'Slayer' thing explain your eyesight?"

Smiling slightly, Daria said, "It figures that that would be the first thing you'd pick on. Only partially. I went from around 20/200 to around 20/80 when I was 'called.' Richard Wilkins got me a LASIK surgery to get to 20/15. One of the few good things the man ever did for - Faith."

"And he was the one you were seeing last night?" Amy asked.

"Yes. The First apparently sought to play on my emotional connection to a deceased father figure, not understanding that my general opinion of Richard Wilkins is one of contempt. I may remember much of what Faith did; I do not have her emotional connections." And this was somewhat true. Daria Faith Morgendorffer, while she had, at times, Faith's emotions and Faith's instinct's, did not remember Richard Wilkins fondly, and did not have Faith's conflicted and somewhat guilty feelings towards Buffy and her friends. She did have a residual fondness for Angel, but then, Daria had reason to like Angel as well, as he and Doc Vaughn had been responsible for getting Faith out of jail even as Aunt Amy and the court system of the State of California had been trying to erase her from existence.

"And your first thought was to get me involved, too. How sweet." It was good seeing Amy able to joke about it, even a little.

Jane said, "No, her first thought was to get me involved. And I have many creative ways of thanking her. Not all involve cattle prods."

"Still," Daria said, "I shouldn't have led it to you. For that, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let my selfish desire to settle our relationship get you into trouble. And that's why we're not going to Aunt Rita's. Or Grandma Morgendorffer's, for that matter."

"Apology accepted," Amy said. "Given what you've been through, it's not a surprise that you're not thinking clearly."

"I should be, though. There's no way to physically fight something you can't hit, and probably no way to magically destroy a force of the universe. I have to be able to outthink it, because otherwise, I'm dead. I would like to know what it wants, and yes, I've tried asking it, and it doesn't feel inclined to tell me."

"Imagine that," Amy said dryly.

"Still, we can't exactly follow the pattern of 'beat bad guy up, get ahead of bad guy, stop and rest, wait for bad guy to catch up, repeat," Jane said. "At least, not forever."

Amy said, "I agree."

"So the option is a heroic last stand?" Daria asked. "I'd rather avoid that. Being a Slayer may have a short life expectancy -"

"Can I officially call down the wrath of the gods on whoever thought having teenaged girls fight vampires until their untimely death was a good idea?" Amy said, with a bit of anger in her voice.

"Call down as much wrath as you want," Daria said. "I'm not fond of them myself. Still, it's not something I can exactly ignore."

"I suppose not," Amy said. "I wasn't thinking 'untimely last stand' so much as 'build up our lead.' And the best way to do that is - I hate to say this - for us all to use one car. We can trade off driving and someone can sleep in the back seat."

"Boy, you're highly adaptable, ain'tcha?" Jane said.

"The choice is running screaming into the night or sticking with you until this thing ends, somehow. I choose to stick by you. I do reserve the right to make snarky comments."

Jane said, "Right? Hell, that's a requirement."

"One problem," Daria said. "I'm only licensed to drive a motorcycle."

"And it took me years to actually get a car that didn't look like it would fall apart if someone spat on the hood," Jane said. "I'm not just abandoning it in a steakhouse parking lot 200 miles away from home."

"Richmond has an airport; how about long-term parking?" Amy said.

"I can do that," Jane said. "I won't like it, but I'll do it."

"And you?"

Daria shook her head. "Given that I couldn't drive the car anyway, I'm not going to ditch the motorcycle. But with this we should be able to drive for longer with fewer stops. With any luck, that'll get us some lead time, because we've got a long trip ahead of us."

"And where are we going, O fearless leader?" Jane asked.

"You were right, Jane; run, fight, repeat, is no way to go through life. So we need to go somewhere we have backup. Real backup. And Aunt Amy: I'm sure you're going to love seeing Angel again."