Note: Please see Prologue for warning, copyright and disclaimer information.

Half Truths

I fought my tears and turned the radio back on, quietly this time. I went back to the living room and attacked the post in the corner like it was a living thing. I ignored the pulling in my wounded shoulder, that pain was nothing to what I felt in my heart. I don't know how long I'd been at it when I heard a voice from the doorway of the apartment.

"Eliza?"

I turned and looked at her in surprise. "Corrine?" I walked to the door of the kitchen. "What are you doing here?" I looked at the mess Cormac had left, and bent to pick up the door.

"What happened here?" she demanded. "What happened to you? You have blood all over your pants."

"I cut myself," I told her absently. I felt two of the stitches in my shoulder pull free as I lifted the door and set it against the wall. "Its fine," I lied through clenched teeth.

"Cormac said that you were attacked," she said anxiously.

"You talked to Cormac?" I asked as I moved to the sink and the remains of the shirt I'd left there.

"Yeah, just before I came over," she replied. "What happened?"

"It's nothing, really," I muttered. "I was mugged."

"Did you call the police?" she asked matter-of-factly.

"No, no," I said quickly. "There's no need for that."

"Cormac said no, too," she replied. "Why? You should call them."

As if the police would do anything but arrest me for murder. "I-I really don't want to get involved with that," I told her.

"You're not in trouble with the police or anything, are you?" she demanded. "You never seem to want to be involved with them."

"No," I assured her without turning to meet her eyes, "it's just there are things I can handle on my own, and this is one of them."

She stepped into the room finally, avoiding the remains of the table. "Are you okay? How bad are you hurt?"

"Oh, it's nothing, really." I knew that the wound was bleeding again, but hoped I could get her to leave without seeing the blood soaking through my shirt.

"Let me see," she pleaded. "I want to make sure you're all right."

"I told you, I'm fine," I repeated firmly.

She grabbed my injured shoulder and turned me to look at her. At my unwilling gasp, she let go, but her hand came away sticky with my blood. She was horrified.

"Oh, my God," she exclaimed, "you're bleeding."

I looked down at the blood as if I hadn't known it was there. Corrine pulled my collar down to reveal the less than professional stitching Cormac and I had done.

"Eliza," she breathed in surprise.

I stepped away from her well-meaning hands. "It's all right," I told her. "I'll take care of it."

"Come on," she ordered, taking my hand and pulling me toward the door, "I'm taking you to the hospital."

I pulled away easily and shook my head. "No, I don't think so," I said calmly.

"I'm taking you to the hospital," she insisted.

"No, you're not," I repeated sternly. I took a breath to calm myself then said in a softer tone, "It's okay. I had this sewn up once; I'll just go do it again. It's not a big deal."

"What do you mean, not a big deal?" she asked, affronted by my words. "You're not some back woods country doctor, there's a hospital two minutes away."

"It's not a big deal, I can sew it myself," I told her, adding in an undertone, "it's not like I haven't done it before."

"What do you mean you've done it before?" She was nearly hysterical in her concern for me and while I was glad to know that she cared, I didn't have the patience for it.

"Yeah, well, I'll take care of it," I told her again. I strode quickly through the apartment to the bathroom, never once thinking about the rooms I walked through. The apartment was familiar and safe to me, or at least it had been until Cormac had invaded it. It had been years since I'd stopped noticing the dives I lived in. They'd always been like this, cheap and simple.

Corrine followed me into the bathroom and took the entire room in at a glance. I pulled the shirt over my head and rinsed the blood out; there was no use ruining another shirt tonight. I hung it on the nearby towel rack and picked up the bottle of alcohol. I gritted my teeth and poured it over the bleeding wound, then over the needle and thread that still sat on the edge of the sink.

I forgot about Corrine until she lightly touched a scar on my back where a vampire had tried to impale me years ago.

"What happened?" she asked in a voice full of horrified wonder. "Where did all these scars come from?"

I glanced at her stunned face in the mirror and tried to downplay the marks on my body. "Here and there," I told her lightly. "They just happened, I'm a little clumsy."

"Doing what?"

"I don't know," I told her as I snipped away the stitches I had pulled. "I get into fights sometimes, and sometimes I get mugged."

"What do you mean you get in fights?" she demanded. "And do you get mugged every day?"

"No." I pushed the needle into my skin and hissed softly at the pain.

"How many times have you done this?" she asked softly.

"Sewn myself up?" I asked as I tied off the first stitch. "A couple."

"Oh, my God," she whispered.

"Well, shit happens," I told her in a hard voice I'd never used with her before. I knew that the last five minutes had shattered nearly every illusion she'd ever had about me and I was angry that she had to learn about my real life this way. But she was nineteen now, an adult. She had to learn sometime that life wasn't all sunshine and roses, didn't she? I finished the last stitch while Corrine stared at me in amazement.

"I've been hurt before," I told her gently, ashamed at my outburst. "I've been in a few fights, a car accident or two. I don't have insurance and I don't have a lot of money, so I just take care of it myself."

"Why haven't you come to me?" she asked, her eyes pleading for an explanation she could understand. "You know I would do anything for you."

"Corrine, you know better," I told her, touching her cheek softly. "I won't take money from you." It was all right for her to live from the blood money the Tremere paid me, they owed her that for taking her father from her, but I didn't want any part of it.

"No, you know better," she exclaimed. "How can you live in this place? Look at it!"

I looked around the bathroom, at the stained toilet and the broken tile. "It's fine," I replied. "You know, I stay most of the time at St. Stephen's anyway, so it's not a big deal."

"Then why keep this place?"

"There's not a lot of privacy at St. Stephen's," I explained. "I need somewhere to go to be by myself, and this is all I need."

"This is all you need?" she looked at the leaking sink and the torn shower curtain. "This place is a dump. You know you can come to my place if you need space. If you need time alone, I can find somewhere else to go."

"Corrine, you know I couldn't do that," I protested. "I couldn't impose on you; you spend enough time with me. I know you have friends, and a life."

"It doesn't matter, Eliza," she replied softly. I wanted to die when I saw the tears in her eyes. "You mean more to me than any friend I have. You know what's happened to me from the beginning. You've known me longer than anyone."

I looked away, unable to bear seeing the pain I was causing her. I tried to blink my own tears away, but they welled up and Corrine saw them. She put a hand on my uninjured shoulder and turned me back to her.

"What happened tonight?" she asked. "Not the mugging, what happened with Cormac?"

The tears spilled down my cheeks and I tried to move away from her to hide them, but she wouldn't let me.

"You can't avoid this with me," she whispered. "I probably know you better than anyone. There's something going on here. Why can't you just open up for once?"

"That's not the way it works, Corrine," I told her roughly. "That's—it's just not the way it works."

"What is going on with you and Cormac?" she asked me. "I know there's something there, I know you knew each other a long time ago. I've seen the picture." She was talking about the picture on the table of the two of us.

I sniffled and wiped at my eyes. "Um, yeah. We were pretty close a long time ago," I started to explain, then I stopped. I didn't want to reveal more to her than Cormac had. "I don't know what he's told you about himself."

"He hasn't told me anything," she said. "He just said that he was in an accident and lost his memory."

I nodded. "Yeah, he was in an accident." He slipped and fell on a pair of fangs. I brushed the bitter thought away along with my tears and continued. "I thought he was dead, and ah, and it turns out he's not and, it's just—I just don't know how to feel about him being back."

"He's the one, isn't he?" she whispered, watching my face. "He's the one you told me about in New York."

I closed my eyes and looked down, remembering how I'd tried to explain to my daughter about love. "Yeah," I admitted. "But everything's different now."

"What's so different about it?" she demanded not unkindly. "Why can't you be together? Don't you still love him? Have things changed so much that you don't care for him anymore?"

"I don't know," I whispered. "Things certainly have changed."

"I think he still cares about you," she told me.

"I don't know," I repeated, looking away. "He doesn't exactly act like he does."

"Have you thought for a moment that he might be on edge?" she asked me. "It can't be easy for him to find out about someone in his past that he doesn't remember. How easy can it be for him to know that he should remember you, that there was some kind of a relationship there, but he can't remember it or you? Don't you think it's bothering him as much as it's bothering you?"

I looked up at her, tears falling from my eyes. I hadn't thought about it that way. I mean, I knew it was hard for him not knowing who or what he'd been before his embrace. I just hadn't thought about what he might have felt about not remembering me.

Corrine pulled me closer until my head was resting on her shoulder. I fought against the sobs that threatened to overtake me and stood stiff in her arms.

"Let these walls drop that you've built around yourself," she told me. "Don't you think I've seen this in you? Seen how you've pushed away everyone but me? I don't know what makes me so special."

I made a strangled noise against her jacket at what she'd said. I stood with her and let her comfort me, finally letting the tears work their healing magic in my heart.

"At least try with him, Eliza," she whispered against my hair. "It would make me so happy to know that you were happy for once. And get out of this dive," she added humorously, trying to cheer me up.

"You don't understand," I sniffled. "He wants me to help him get his memory back, but if he remembers me…. I'm not like I was."

"So?" she asked. "People change all the time. Look at mom and dad. They've been married for how many years? Don't you think that they've changed from the time they met till now?"

"Not like this," I said sadly.

"Is any change so drastic that it's beyond conceiving something good can come out of it?" she insisted. "It's like he's coming back from the dead. He's here, Eliza."

"But he's not the same," I told her, "and neither am I. Who's to say we won't hate each other?"

"Who's to say you can't at least try?" she shot back. "Give him a chance."

I shook my head and pulled away from her. "You sound like he does," I murmured as I walked into the bedroom for my third shirt of the night. As I pulled it painfully over my head, I heard Corrine moving around the room. "What are you doing here?" I asked her.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay," she said softly. "I left a message, but you didn't call me back."

"Yeah, I didn't check my messages for a few days. I was at St. Stephen's and didn't get the chance to stop in here." I watched her look around the room and steeled myself for her next question. It wasn't long in coming.

"Do you mind if I ask you something? What's up with all the weapons? Crossbows? Knives?" she asked, her voice rising as she spoke. "Stakes? Are those stakes in the living room?"

I tried to stall for time to think. "I whittle sometimes," I lied. "To pass the time."

"You whittle sticks to sharp points?" she asked, unbelieving.

"Yeah. It relieves stress," I told her. I strode quickly to the living room and threw the stakes in the now empty box. I added the knife to the box and tossed in the photo album for good measure.

"What is this?" Corrine asked.

"Nothing," I told her firmly, then threw the drawings into the box as well.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm picking up."

"You've just sewn yourself up and you look like death warmed over," she said angrily, "but you're concerned about a few things on a table in a nearly vacant apartment?"

"Chill out," I told her. "Everything is okay, let me just put this box over here and have a seat." I took the box to the nearest corner and set it down.

"Why don't you want me to see? Why don't you want me to be a part of your life?" she asked in a quiet voice.

I looked at her. "You are a part of my life."

"No, you are a part of my life," she replied. "I am not a part of yours. Do you realize that this is the first time I've fully been inside of your apartment?"

I shook my head. "Gee, I wonder why," I said dryly. "I knew how you would react."

"Why do you do this to yourself?" she demanded. "Why do you live in this crappy place? I know that you work, what do you do with all your money? You certainly don't spend it on clothes, or really cool furniture. It's not CD's or stereo equipment; it's not a car because you drive the biggest piece of shit I have ever seen in my life. What do you spend it on?"

I didn't know what to say so I lied. "I gamble."

"Bullshit!" she exclaimed. "Why are you fucking lying to me?"

"Sit down," I said softly. I wasn't looking forward to explaining things to her, but I knew that Cormac was right; Corrine did have the right to know some things about my life.

"I don't want to sit down!" she told me.

"Please."

"Where do you want me to sit?" she raged. "On this beanbag? It's probably full of cash, isn't it?" she kicked it hard and as it skidded across the floor beans fell out of a poorly taped seam. She stalked to it and sat down, crossing her arms and looking across the room at me.

She started to say something, then looked past my shoulder. "Why is there a fucking piece of wood sticking out of your wall?"

I turned to see the stake I had thrown earlier still stuck nearly four inches in the wall. I reached up, pulled it out easily, and tossed it across the room where it landed quite neatly in the box. When I looked back at Corrine, she was staring at me in amazement. I leaned back against the wall, knowing that the time for truths was finally here.

"A little clumsy," she said, her voice full of anger and outrage, "Something's going on here and I'm not leaving until you tell me what it is."

"There's a lot going on, Corrine," I told her as I slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

"And I want to know it all," she told me. "You can't put me off any longer. You've tried for years, and I'm not going to let it fucking happen any more."

"Watch your mouth, Corrine." I couldn't stop myself, it just came out.

"What do you think you are, my mother?" she asked sarcastically.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to get past the pain her words caused me. I refused to tell her that much of the truth in a dingy apartment with my blood on her hands. "No, Corrine," I whispered.

"What? What did I say?" She was confused at my reaction to her words, but I couldn't explain.

I shook my head and tried to smile. "I know I haven't told you everything about me, Corrine," I began, "and I'm sorry. There was just no way I could tell you and expect you to believe me, let alone understand. And I still can't tell you everything, I won't. There are things you're better off not knowing. Thing's you're safer not knowing. You must never tell anyone but Cormac what I'm going to tell you, and you must never admit to anyone but him that I have told you any of it."

"What are you talking about?" she asked me. She had finally calmed enough to see the seriousness on my face.

I wiped the last of my tears away and just looked at her for a minute. Until tonight she had lived in a safe little world surrounded by people who were exactly what she expected them to be. I didn't like shattering her illusions, but I tried my best to do it as gently as possible.

"I know this is going to be hard to believe," I told her, "but there is more to this life than you could ever imagine. There are people in this world that have certain… abilities that most people don't. Mental abilities that can do strange things, or physical abilities that give them strength, or speed."

"Like the time you saved me from that car when I was little," she whispered hesitantly. "You were so fast and you came out of nowhere. I thought for sure I was going to die."

"Yes," I admitted. "Things like that, and a lot more, too. Once you realize that there are gifted people like that in the world, it follows naturally that not all of these people are good people. They use their powers to manipulate and hurt others."

"You wouldn't do that," she said firmly.

"No, Corrine," I agreed, "I wouldn't. But there are others out there that would and they have to be stopped. There are also normal people in the world that believe everyone who has special powers is evil. The fight between those two types of people, the gifted ones and their hunters, is an old war."

"Like the Spanish Inquisition?"

"Exactly," I told her. "That is it exactly."

"Which one are you?" she asked, but I think she knew.

"I have certain unique traits, Corrine," I confessed. "Not like those that you are just learning about, but traits that make me very different from everyone else. I'm one of a kind because my mother had certain powers that normally make it impossible to have children. There are not very many like me around, and no one can find out what I am."

"Is that why you look so young?"

"That's why, yes."

"Is Cormac like you?" she asked. "He doesn't look any older than that picture." She pointed at the frame on the table. The picture had been taken a month before Mac died.

"Not like me, luv," I told her. "He used to be like you, but after the… accident his powers changed. He became like my mother."

"Was the book you gave me his? He said he'd read it before."

I closed my eyes. "Yes, Corrine. It was his."

She frowned. "Why did you give it to me?"

"He can't use it anymore," I said simply. "And I knew he would want you to have it."

She thought about that for a moment. "So you fight the hunters?"

"I wish it were that simple," I said softly, looking away from her. "I work for the hunters, finding the people who use their power for evil. But I help the good ones when I can, and pass along information to them when I get it to help them."

"You're a double agent," she murmured in awe. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Yes," I told her. "It most certainly can be."

"Shouldn't they pay you a lot of money for doing that?" she asked, outraged on my behalf.

"No, it's mostly on a voluntary basis," I replied honestly enough. The Society really didn't pay very well. "St. Stephen's pays my room and board, and gives me just enough money to pay for this apartment."

"Well, it should be more," she argued. "Or the others should pay you for helping them."

I wasn't about to tell her they did, and very well at that. The 'others' had paid for her apartment, her car, her college, even the clothes she was wearing. She'd only insist I stop giving the money to her, and wonder why I was giving it to her in the first place.

"Is that what you were arguing with Cormac about tonight?" she asked. "Did he find out what you do now and want you to stop?"

"No, luv, that's not it." I sighed. There was no way for me to explain short of telling her everything about Cormac, and I wasn't going to do that. Still, I had to be as honest as possible. "We fought because I'm not sure how I feel about him."

"So why don't you let him in?" she asked bluntly. "Find out if you can be happy with him again. Look, maybe you just need to get away together, maybe on a weekend somewhere."

"Yeah," I muttered dryly, "fly to Europe for two weeks."

"That sounds good," she said seriously. "I was thinking more like a weekend in the country, but okay. Why, did he ask you to go?"

I shrugged. "More or less."

"So are you?"

"I don't know. I don't know if he still wants me to."

"Why wouldn't he?" she asked. "What did you say to him?"

"We argued a little," I replied softly. "All we seem to do is argue."

"Then don't."

"It's a little easier said than done with Mac," I told her. "He knows just what buttons to push."

"So don't let him push them," she told me, leaning forward. "If it meant anything to you, you would go for it."

"Yeah," I said slowly. "Easier said than done. Maybe this is just one thing I was never meant to have. It never seems to work out."

"What," she replied, "is he a creature of Satan or something? How bad could he possibly be? How much could he have possibly changed?"

I couldn't stop the dry laughter that bubbled from my throat. "You have no idea."

"Why don't you tell me?" It was so simple for her, she was still so innocent. I wanted to keep her that way as long as possible.

"No," I said firmly. "He's just–he's just spent the last few years living a completely different life, different values, and so have I. If he knew me now he would hate me for what I am."

"What are you doing that's so bad except living in this shit hole?" she asked in outrage. It was nice to know she still thought that I could do no wrong.

"I don't live here," I reminded her. "I just come here to be alone. I live at St. Stephen's."

"So what, is he a killer or something?" she asked.

"I don't think so," I said honestly. At least, he didn't seem to be any more of a killer than I was. "I guess I don't know him that well. I mean it has been a long time."

"So why can't you take the time to get to know him?" she demanded. "Maybe you'll like him even more than you did before."

I shivered as I remembered the feel of his cold hands on my skin when he'd stitched me up. Oh yeah, that would be easy to get used to. Not.

"I guess it's possible," I conceded to stop her questioning.

"So you'll go away with him then?"

"I don't know if he still wants me to," I reminded her.

"Just show up and go," she suggested with a smile.

I looked back at her for a minute, then nodded. "Well, I guess that's an option."

"Don't you think it's worth it?" she asked. "And you know, you could dress a little better, maybe I should take you shopping tomorrow."

I barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes. "There's nothing wrong with my clothes," I told her, ignoring the actual state my clothing was in.

"Yeah," she said sarcastically, "just holes in the knees, holes in the shoes, not to mention that by the looks of your body, half your clothes should be bloodstained or ripped."

"It's not that bad," I replied defensively. Actually, sometimes it was much worse.

"Oh, right," she told me. "You saw your back like I did."

"It's not that bad," I repeated. "Other people have worse." Nosferatu, for instance could be horribly scarred.

"You'll be at my house in the morning to go shopping," she insisted. "If you're going to Europe, it's very romantic and you have to be dressed for it."

"You know I don't want to take your money," I said, knowing she would not give up until I relented.

"It's not like I'm on a tight budget or anything," she stated bluntly. "Let me do something for you for once instead of me giving you money and you buying me something with it. Don't think I haven't noticed, I have."

I blushed and looked away, my eyes falling on the knife that sat on the table. Corrine would never know just how much money I could have had if I'd wanted it, if I'd been a different type of person. But blood money hadn't tempted me before and it never bothered me to live in the places I do.

"Won't you let me do something nice for you?" she pleaded. "You've always been there for me, always seen me through everything."

"You've always been there for me too, Corrine," I told her, "and that's important for me."

"Through what?" she asked. "Apparently not for anything that counts."

"You've let me be a part of your life," I told her quite honestly. "That's all I've needed."

"Let me be a part of your life now," she said softly.

I studied her face for a moment, seeing how important this was to her. "All right, all right. Shopping tomorrow." I leaned back against wall and took a deep breath.

"Good, good," she said happily. "And you know, we might as well finish putting what little you have in this box and take it all back to my place. There's no way you can stay here, you don't even have a door."

I sighed and shook my head. "I'll fix the door."

"You can't fix that door," she told me. "It's broken."

"Corrine, you don't understand, I can't—"

"It's broken," she insisted. "Look, then you don't have to worry, you'll be at my house all ready to go shopping in the morning. And you're leaving tomorrow anyway, so it's not like it's a big deal."

I shook my head, knowing this was one battle I couldn't win. I really didn't want to be by myself with memories of Mac overflowing my mind. "Ok, but I can't just leave here. I have the answering machine here and there are certain people who know only this number. Like Cormac."

"Leave his number on your machine," she suggested. "You'll be with him, and if it's an emergency they can get a hold of you."

She got up and began gathering the few things left in the apartment. I grabbed an empty box from the closet and tried to collect my weapons before she found them, but I knew she saw most of them. I did as she suggested and changed the message on my machine. I knew that Kate would be pissed, but there was no help for it.

In less than ten minutes I was driving the van to St. Stephen's. I made Corrine wait down the block while I parked the van and put the keys under the mat. I jogged down the street and got into the car with my daughter.

We spent half the night talking about things I never thought I would talk to her about. I told her how I'd met Mac, omitting only some of the details like the vampires and the werewolves. We talked a little about my mother, although I didn't tell her exactly what Kate was. Around two o'clock we went to bed, Corrine insisting that I take her bed because I was wounded.