After the sun went down, the trio left Cora's apartment, carefully locking the place up. Angelus carried Cora's bag for her, still feeling bad about hitting her earlier. When they got to Spike's car, Angelus put the bag in the trunk and then met Cora at the driver's side door.
"No way," he said, after taking the keys out of her hand.
"Angelus, Buffy will kill me if I put her life in your hands. Besides, you're not the best driver," Cora explained to him.
Angelus cleared his throat loudly. "I'm sure even the Slayer can figure this one out. I've got a century's worth of experience driving these things, you've got…what? Two?"
"Actually, I've been driving since I was fourteen? Or don't you remember?" Cora raised her eyebrows at him.
"Again," Angelus said, holding the keys above her head as she reached for them, "not my fault." Then he turned to address the Slayer. "Buff, don't you think, using all of your incredible Slayer intelligence, that in Cora's weakened condition, I should be the one to drive?"
"Whatever," Buffy said, still standing by the passenger side door. She rolled her eyes.
"She agrees," Angelus said, pushing Cora to the side and opening the driver's side door for himself. Cora rolled her eyes at him and then circled the car to get in the passenger's side. Buffy had already buckled herself into the backseat.
"Here, we go," Angelus said as he put the car into gear and turned on the radio. A local hard rock station was already programmed in. Angelus cringed as he listened to the song. "God, Spike listens to some serious shit," he complained.
After fiddling with the old car's radio dials for a few minutes, Angelus found what he was looking for. Leaning back, he turned the volume up and let the car fill with music from a classical station.
Cora turned in her seat to look at Buffy.
"Classical?" Buffy asked in disbelief.
Cora laughed at her surprise. "Yeah, he's basically the biggest loser I've ever known."
"Ladies, please," Angelus interrupted. "This music was the music of my childhood," he said, as his hands swished back and forth across the air in tune with the music.
"This music was made in the last decade, Angel," Cora corrected him.
"Whatever," he dismissed. "It's educational."
With that, Cora leaned back and closed her eyes. "Might as well get some sleep, as long as he's driving," she called to Buffy.
Buffy wasn't completely sure about relaxing in the backseat as history's evilest vampire took her for a drive, so she settled for watching the couple sitting in the seats in front of her. Cora had relaxed back against her seat, her eyes closed, her arms wrapped around herself in an effort to protect herself from the chilly night air that seeped through the old car's doors and windows.
Angelus had noticed Cora's discomfort as well. Buffy watched as he tried to adjust Spike's heater, and then cursed it when the dial actually came off in his hands. A minute later, Angelus had taken his leather jacket off and had laid it across Cora. Then he rested one hand behind her neck.
Buffy felt content watching how easy it was for Cora to sleep with Angelus driving. A few moments later, Buffy found her own eyes getting heavy, and soon she was drifting off to the vampire's classical music.
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During the next two weeks, Cora began to slowly return to normal. Her wounds had begun to heal, and ,thanks to good food—well, more like a lot of Spike's fast food—Cora had regained a lot of the weight she had lost during her captivity. Although she was lacking in the muscle tone that she usually had so much of, she was feeling more like she had before everything had happened.
Angelus had made good on his promise to stay with Cora. After driving them home from Santa Maria, he had gotten himself comfortable at Spike's, much to Spike's regret. Cora was reminded of her years growing up with the two vampires as they fought over things like the remote or movies. It reminded her even more of her past when they started physically fighting one night because Angelus changed the channel on Spike during his show.
Buffy had made it a habit to visit Cora whenever she had any free time, while Angelus had made his own habit of making sure he was out when Buffy arrived. It didn't matter to Cora though, she was just happy to be feeling well again and to be getting back to her old self.
"Thinkin' baby?" Angelus asked from his spot leaning against Spike's doorway.
It was a beautiful sunny day in Sunnydale, and Cora was taking full advantage of it. She had gotten pale during her time with the Grieshlin, and she intended to get her olive color back immediately. It was enough to live with vampires; she didn't need to look like one.
Angelus' place against the door, under the roof of the crypt, kept him protected from the sun. Cora's place, lying out in the grass in front of Spike's, put her directly under it. Angelus watched her bask.
"Nope," Cora answered finally. "Just enjoying the sun." She smiled back at him.
"Sorry I can't be out there with you. Bad for my complexion," he said.
"Yeah, complexion my ass." Cora laughed and raised herself gently from the cemetery ground. She turned and walked toward him. She pushed him out of her way.
"You're feeling stronger," he commented as she pushed past him.
"I know, it's great," she said, heading to Spike's small fridge. She pulled herself out the bottle of apple juice she had bought and drank it straight from the jug.
"I think," she continued between gulps, "I want to start training."
"With me?" he laughed as she drank. "Baby, I don't think you're quite up to that yet."
"Well, maybe not," she consented as she put the juice back and closed the fridge, "but what better way to work up to it than to start?" She gave him her most convincing smile.
"Alright, but no yelling if you get your ass kicked."
"You could take it just a little easy on me," she suggested, taking her shoes off and sitting down on the couch. Besides her and Angelus, the crypt was empty. Spike had left through the sewers earlier that day after discovering that Angelus had drank the rest of his bagged blood out of the refrigerator.
"And you didn't need to drink that blood. You know Spike can't take anything fresh anyways," she added, a note of disapproval in her tone.
"Oh but that was fun," Angelus smirked. "Tasted like shit but, hey, I had a craving."
"So will you?" Cora asked again, getting back to their previous subject.
"Tonight," Angelus answered as he sat down next to her on the couch and turned on the television. Beside him, Cora smiled in satisfaction.
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Buffy had been doing the school and Slayer thing since returning from her trip to Santa Maria with Cora and Angelus. She had been spending time with Cora and, even better, a lot of time with Riley, which was something Buffy didn't usually have a lot of time for, unfortunately. But she had noticed that with Angelus back in town, vampires in general seemed to be keeping a lower profile than usual, or maybe it was Cora who was making Angelus keep a low profile, Buffy wondered. Either way, Buffy's job seemed easier.
Buffy was just on her way out to surprise Riley after his class when her cell phone rang.
"Hey," she answered casually.
"Buffy, hi Buffy, it's Giles," the voice on the other end responded.
"Hey Giles, what's up?"
"Buffy, I'd like it if you could come over her for a bit today," Giles said.
"Okay, Giles, what's the sitch?"
"The…the what?" Gile's confused voice echoed on the other end.
"The sitch—the situation, Giles. What's going on?"
"Well, I don't mean to alarm you, but I do believe that I may have discovered some rather interesting information about Cora."
"Okay, well I'll be right there." Buffy hung up her cell phone and grabbed her bag. She supposed Riley would just have to wait.
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Twenty minutes later, Buffy was knocking on Gile's door. He answered it quickly and ushered her inside.
"Now," he started, "I don't mean to alarm you, and I'm sure you were quite busy on such a beautiful day like toady, but I daresay I've found something that may be a bit interesting." He was already pulling out a slim old book.
"Right," Buffy said, sitting down on his couch, "getting right to business then. What is it Giles?"
Giles brought the book over to her and laid it out in front of them on the coffee table.
"I've been researching deeper into the diaries of old Watchers and I've found something curious about Annabelle's watcher."
"Anna who?" Buffy asked, still lost in what Giles was trying to tell her.
"Annabelle, the young slayer who stood with Cora's family more than a century or so ago against Angelus," Giles reminded her.
"Oh, right, so what about her?"
Giles sat down beside Buffy and started paging through the old book in front of him.
"Well, it's not only about her, per say," he began. "It's more something I discovered from reading her Watcher's diaries, something about Cora's ancestors. Something about Cora."
Buffy's face turned serious. "Something bad?" she asked him.
"Well, no not exactly." Giles took off his glasses and faced Buffy. "Actually, it may be a very good thing." He thought about it for a moment before adding, "It may be especially good for you, Buffy."
"Giles, what is it?" Buffy's curiosity was piqued. Would she ever know everything there was to know about the new girl in town?
"It's something called the 'Second Generation'," he began. "It seems that a few years before Angelus tried to kill Cora's family, the Powers that Be—"
"The what?"
"Powers that Be – mystical, powerful beings who, well, make everything what it is," Giles clarified.
"Right, continue."
"So, the Powers that Be gave the powers of a Slayer to another. A young woman in Cora's family. There was a large threat that was rising, a vampire named Tur'el. He was the first vampire, the first one there ever was. It seems that, just before he was about to be risen, the Powers that Be gave the young girl Slayer's abilities, in order to help the true Slayer fight him."
Buffy's head was spinning again. Another slayer?
"Tur'el was an incredibly powerful vampire, impossible to defeat, but the two Slayers, using their combined powers, managed to trap him before he returned to full power." Giles skimmed through the diary quickly again, "They trapped him in something that they only refer to as 'the container.' This container, it seems, could hold him, trap him, and as long as it remains hidden, he cannot be resurrected."
"So Cora's a Slayer?" Buffy asked, her eyes wide.
"Well, not a true Slayer. It would seem that, although your Slayer abilities would completely transfer to the next chosen Slayer after your death, her Slayer abilities have simply traveled down through the line, through the generations of her family. Therefore, she may not be quite as strong as you; I'm not quite sure actually as to how that works."
Buffy nodded her head slowly, still taking it in. "So it's a good thing…kinda…right? She can help with the whole Slayer thing?"
"Yes, I mean, it would seem so." Giles nodded.
"But, we're not going to have another Faith on our hands?" Buffy's interest turned to worry as she considered the rogue Slayer Faith who was still in England being dealt with by the Watcher's Council.
"Well, I suppose that that would be Cora's call, but from what you've said, she sounds stable. If you can call living with Angelus stable," he added quickly.
"Does the Council know? About Cora I mean?"
"No, I don't believe they do. I can't imagine it's something they would have thought to keep from me had they known," Giles answered, closing the diary and replacing it on his bookshelf. "Unfortunately, there have not been too many previous Watcher who thought it prudent to study the lives of Slayers past."
"Hm," Buffy shrugged. "So we're still all good right? New information, but…okay information?"
"Yes, I believe so," Giles said, entering the kitchen and pulling something out of the refrigerator.
"Well," Buffy said, standing up. "Three Slayers. Whatd'ya know?"
"Care to stay for dinner?" Giles called from the kitchen. Buffy could already hear him preparing some meal.
"Sure." Buffy shrugged. She hadn't done the visit thing with Giles in a while, not since Cora had come to town. Might as well make the most of her Watcher-Slayer bonding time. She could go see Cora tonight. Hopefully the girl could fill her in on the Second Generation thing.
