"We're clear of the area. You can come up if you want," Oz said.

"With all of this luxury back here?" Daria was hunched behind the drivers' side seat, out of the way of the motorcycle, taking up most of the floor space, and Oz's gear, which took up most of the rest.

"True. First class is nicer, though."

"Do I get a catered meal?"

"Budget cuts."

"Damn," Daria said. "Who do I complain to?" She maneuvered past the various cargoes and plopped herself in the front seat.

"I'm the complaint department."

"Of course." After a second, "Look. Thank you for helping. Don't know if I would've made it out, otherwise."

"You're welcome."

"Especially the history –"

"You're not Faith," Oz said. "Willow said so. Even if she hadn't, I'd've known."

Well, she was partly Faith, but apparently Oz hadn't been let into that secret. "How? Something related to your wolf, or sheer brainpower?"

"Both, actually. You don't smell like Faith."

"Hmmm. So different personalities smell different. That's not something I would have expected."

"Not that, exactly. Faith used makeup, a different shampoo, a different deodorant. You have a lot less of that." Daria Faith Morgendorffer used lipstick and nothing else. It was the compromise she'd come up with internally, though she couldn't have given her reasoning on the topic. "And you don't carry yourself like Faith. A little bit, here and there. But you're not acting."

"Glad to be accepted so quickly."

"Willow was part of it," he said. "I think she was embarrassed by something."

"She gave me a hard time the first time I went to Sunnydale," Daria said. "It took her awhile to accept me. I'm glad to see she has."

"She has," he said.

"Good thing for me that you were in the area," Daria said. "I guess sometimes luck can be on my side."

"Not entirely luck," Oz said. "I was meditating in Tibet when I got a sign that I needed to be in Kentucky on or about July 1."

"Did this sign say 'One Way' on the other side?"

"Wrong way, go back," Oz said. "But signs like this, you don't ignore. Didn't say why, but I didn't think it was to reestablish my music career."

"You still have the guitar, though."

"Of course."

"So what did Willow tell you about the situation?"

"Everything she had, starting from when you first discovered you weren't you to earlier this morning. Plenty of details. Took her about five minutes."

Daria smirked at that one. "One suspects a good Willow-English dictionary might be a useful tool."

"But the market would be too small."

"So we'll charge $1000 a copy. And speaking of Willow, I need to call her."

It was a fast call; enough to thank her for Oz and ask her to keep an eye out for any photographs or police reports mentioning her, specifically those originating around Lexington, Kentucky. And also to research Linda Griffin.

"You're presuming on my kindness a little too much there, missy," Willow said after Daria was done asking for favors.

"I apologize. Next time, I'll go off in a corner and die quietly." It was said teasingly, but Daria had to say it. "Look. I do appreciate it. Thank you."

"Don't mention it, Daria. I still owe you."

They hung up.

X X X X X

Later, Daria caught a quick nap. They'd decided they were going to stop around Scottsburg, Indiana to have a late lunch, and Daria was, for various reasons, exhausted.

Yeah, she'd been lucky. The Bringers could've killed her if Oz hadn't shown up. She wasn't saying it was definite, but it was very possible.

And, depressing as she thought the world was at times, living was sure as hell better than the alternative. For one thing, unless you chose Spike or Angel's method of going about it, dead people couldn't read.

She was back in a familiar apartment almost immediately, and was immediately suspicious. She hadn't been here since the three parts of her personality had been joined. Hadn't been a need.

She moved to look out the window, which now looked out over -

Highland? Specifically, a view of their house in Highland, at night but well lit by street lamps that hadn't actually existed in the real world.

Okay . . .

"Not a bad view, is it?" she heard behind her.

Whirling, she saw Buffy standing there. "And how would you know? You've never been there."

"Buffy" shrugged. "I can still see."

"And anyway, it's a horrible view."

"No, the view's perfectly fine," said with a giggle. "What it's viewing, now, maybe that's a different story."

"Why are you here?" Daria said.

"Well, when a mommy and daddy love each other very much . . . "

"I meant, why are you here, First?"

"Just enjoying the view," it said. "Also keeping a promise."

"Promise?"

"I told you I'd give you a hint about why I wanted you dead."

And this is your way of doing it?" Daria asked. "Showing me a view of my old house?"

"Naah, just more fun for me this way," it said. "This way I get to poke around inside your head. You know, there's a lot of stuff in here."

"Sorry I didn't have that storage system put in," Daria said acidly. "So, yo: The hint?"

"You'd almost think you didn't want me around."

"Imagine that."

"Tell you what," it said. "You come watch the view from the window and I'll tell you what I promised I would."

Daria said, "No. I don't need the hint that much that I'm deliberately going to go along with whatever psych game you're trying to play. You think I'm fucking stupid or something?"

"I know better. Come on!" It said with mock enthusiasm. "Last chance to cooperate . . ."

"Let me add a 'hell' to my earlier 'no."

It shrugged. "Okay. Then I guess I'm going to have to bring the show in here."

And before Daria could respond, or react at all, the half-seen view from outside rushed up to overwhelm the apartment.

She saw a man walking down the street, then up to their front door.

Shit. The First was feeding her a vision of Willard Jay Harbaugh murdering her parents.

Harbaugh himself looked like Daria remembered; of course, she only remembered him from last week, when she'd watched him being executed. She didn't want to look too closely.

While she was in prison, Dr. Vaughn had hypnotized her and led her through what had happened, and Daria had explicitly asked her not to let her remember any of it. Later on, she'd discovered that was a good idea, when she'd read Aunt Amy's book on Harbaugh's crimes and her own disappearance – specifically, the chapter dealing with the events of the night of April 10, 1997. After reading the chapter, Daria had been enveloped in a damn-near all-consuming rage, doing her best to punch her way out of a jail cell, and coming pretty fucking close to pulling it off.

And the First was going to show it to her, starting with the part she couldn't possibly have seen or remembered, because she was working with Beavis and Butthead on one last school project while all of this was going on.

Angel had warned her that the First probably wanted to make her angry. There was nothing in her life more likely to do that, than seeing this.

Nothing else even came close.

Harbaugh kicked down the front door and the dream's "camera view" followed Harbaugh inside, slowly, as though the First were using slow motion instant replay. It caught up with him just in time to see him pulling a gun on her protesting father, who was beginning to get up from the couch he was sitting on.

"Hey! You can't do that!" Dad said. Harbaugh quickly raised his gun and began to fire.

No!

A gunshot rang out, but Daria was no longer looking, having turned away and closed her eyes.

"Hey!" The First said, still in B's voice. "No fair! That's cheating!"

"Oh, so we're playin' fair now? Marquis of Queensbury rules and everything?"

"No; my game, my rules."

"My head, my rules."

"Just keep telling yourself that."

"What? Daddy!" Quinn's voice came.

Then Daria heard a scream that sounded very much like Quinn's, and then a gunshot.

The rage was building, despite herself. She had to get out her.

She had an out she didn't the First knew about, though damn near any human being would have.

Since Daria knew it was a dream, she could pinch herself and wake up.

Pinch-

X X X X X

The First was kicked back into the In-Dark when Daria Morgendorffer somehow woke herself up. It would have to remember that she was capable of that in the future. She was strong-willed and aware in her dreams, much more so than the vampire had been. The vampire had been unaware that he was dreaming until he'd awakened.

The First had learned. It would work more quickly in the future - or influence an already created dream instead of creating its own. It would not use the apartment again. The Slayer had too much control there.

It had hoped to be able to penetrate her mind more thoroughly and deeply than it had yet been able to while she was conscious. Not accustomed to not having thorough access to a mind, it had so far only picked up stray thoughts and emotions, and not all of those. Enough to know to focus on the rage. But while it had been able to create the dream, and appear within it, the way to the rest of Daria Morgendorffer's mind had been blocked.

It had had to work with the thoughts of others, dead and living, relying on the memories of the Slayer's deceased family to show what had actually happened to them when they had been murdered. Memories of the other person there, the murderer himself, were not available. That only occurred when a certain variety of demon had been present at the demise, one that fed on death in the same way vampires fed on blood. This feeding destroyed the mental remnants of a life that were typically accessible in the In-Dark.

From what it could perceive, its attempts to draw Daria Morgendorffer into rage had met with some success. The Slayer was not helpless, as it had hoped. But this, perhaps, could be a good sign of things to come.

There was so much rage left to be let out.

X X X X X

Daria jolted awake with a loud yelp inside the van. A road sign said Scottsburg, ten miles. Next to her, Oz said, "You okay?"

"No," Daria growled.

Growled?

Yes, growled. If the First had wanted her mad, it had done a good job.

"What happened?"

"The First showed up in my dream, looking like Buffy. It tried to show me a scene of my parents and sister getting murdered. It got maybe halfway through when I forced myself to wake up."

"Why would it do this?"

"To make me mad. I can't handle that level of pure rage. I've only had to deal with it once before. And now I need to tell you something so you won't be surprised by what I do next."

"What?" And she gave Oz two minutes on how she was actually still partly Faith. He raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything until she was done. "Thanks for trusting me."

"No problem. Wish it was more trust than having to do this." And her self-control vanished, and she spent the next five minutes swearing and screaming in anger. She did not hit anything. The only thing to hit was the door, glove compartment, and windows of the van, and she'd break the first two and the third would hurt her more than it would get rid of her anger.

When she was done, they were almost at the turnoff. "Do you feel better?"

"A little. Not a whole hell of a lot." But that little meant something. It meant this wasn't an unending pool of vitriol, like the one she'd experienced in prison.

"Huh."

"That was a knowing huh. What you got there, wolfboy?"

His eyebrows rose at "wolfboy," but he didn't respond to the Faithian phrasing, instead saying, "I know why I was sent here."

"You mean, apart from preventing me from getting slaughtered by a mob of Bringers?" Daria was starting to recover her equilibrium.

"Exactly. If all you needed was a good fighter, there are plenty of those. Better than I am. I'm competent there, but not a real expert. No. I was sent here to help you handle the rage."

"I'm still not exactly Faith," Daria said. "So I'm sorry if my memories are faulty. You? Rage?"

"Me. Rage," Oz said without a trace of humor. "You may have noticed back there in the bar parking lot – I can control the change now. And control myself when I do change."

"I did notice, what with not being blind and all."

Oz smiled slightly. "Yes. But you were distracted."

"Perhaps a little."

"In any event, you – the Faith part of you – had woken up from your coma and were out of Sunnydale when I came back for the final time. Thought I was coming back for Willow, but "You can't go home again."

"Figures you to quote a Wolfe."

A quick grin. "Yes. But one of the reasons I came back is I found a way of controlling the changes. Herbs. Nothing that would get a second glance from police. But now I change whenever I get angry. Found that out when I tried to kill Tara." A rueful expression. "The wolf couldn't handle that Willow had moved on. Still has trouble. But that's what I've been doing for the last year. Learning ways to control it. Let it out only at intervals, when appropriate. Not to let it control me."

"And you think you were sent here to teach me that?"

Oz said, "I'm sure of it. Especially if the First knows anger would cripple you, Might make it easier to kill you; might be for some other reason."

"I don't suppose it's as simple a matter as taking some herbs."

"No."

"Of course not. Why should my life get any easier now?" Daria asked cynically. "I'm warning you, though. You get me sitting in a lotus position and chanting about how great things are and, once I regain my sanity, I will kill you."

"Understood. And my objective isn't going to be changing who you are. It's simply preventing rage from taking over, when it gets a hold. I'm not exactly overflowing with optimism myself most of the time."

"And how does your gut feeling say I'm going to handle Anger Management 101 as taught by Larry Talbot?"

"I won't try if you don't want to learn," Oz said, not reproachfully in the least.

"Does 'willing to go along with it to stop the bad guy' count as want to, in your book?"

"Close enough."

They reached Scottsburg with Daria beginning to feel normal again.

Meditation, later. Food, now.