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Author's Chapter Notes:
Yet another chater sans beta, but that's become the norm. I hope the writing won't give anyone headaches.
*The old factory*

Buffy couldn’t take her eyes off the couple across from her and Spike. It had been months since she’d seen Angel and looking at him now she realized she hadn’t really missed him. Sure, he’d been around the previous year, giving warnings, helping out, and stealing kisses from time to time, but despite having seen Spike a lot less often, his impact on her life was enormous compared to Angel’s. He had single handedly turned her life on its head, and that’s saying something for someone who found out she was Chosen to fight the forces of darkness at fifteen.

Angel was looking at her in a way that she couldn’t exactly interpret. Then again she knew more about Angel from what Spike had told her than from the horse’s mouth, so that wasn’t such a big surprise.

The main surprise was standing next to Angel. From Spike’s greeting she could finally put a face to the vampire-person she’d grow to hate without actually ever meeting. So this is Drusilla.

Buffy was not impressed. Sure, the other woman was taller than her, and she had a sort of something to her that Buffy guessed men could find attractive—if you have a yen for pale brunettes that look like a praying mantis that is—but she sure wasn’t all that. Maybe she should make sure Xander never met Dru, though.

“Hello, William!”

Hearing her speak made Buffy realize there was a way to dislike her more. The English accent that was different from either Giles’ or Spike’s was grating on her nerves. And exactly how many accents do the English need on such a small island?

“What are you doing here, pet?”

It was becoming clear that Buffy should stake every single vampire still left in the factory—Spike’s remaining minions had scattered once the fight was over—just out of principle. She wasn’t sure which of the three to start with, though. Nobody should ignore the Slayer in the room! Okay, so she sounded like a petulant five-year-old even in her own mind, but she was upset, dammit.

“We came to rescue you.”

The words seemed to bring Spike’s attention to Dru’s companion. “The Great Poof, gracing us with his overbearing presence again.”

Spike moved closer to Buffy and she wasn’t sure if it was for support, or as a way to reassure her that Dru was his past. Whatever reason, he was still in the doghouse as long as she was concerned. “We didn’t need you rescuing us.” She waved her hand. “Hello, Slayer here!” She then cocked her head and tapped her right index finger to her lips. “Which reminds me. Shouldn’t vamps be, oh, I don’t know, afraid of me?” She accompanied her words by pulling out her back-up stake.

Angel’s eyes widened for a second almost comically. “Buffy, wait, she has a soul!”

The news stopped her in her tracks. Although she wasn’t really all that sold on the whole soul-good/soulless-bad thing since that night in the Master’s lair, hearing that Drusilla had a soul changed things. Not that she thought the dark haired maniac was good now, necessarily, just that it would be more like murder than slaying to kill her.

“Bollocks!” Spike took a couple of steps forward, only to stumble back almost immediately. “What did you do?” His voice held a mixture of awe and anger that Buffy could totally relate to.

“What’s wrong?” The Slayer in her was itching for action. Not that taking down Kakistos was a walk in the park, but the reappearance of both their exes was doing a job on her emotions and her usual way of dealing with it had become pummeling something out of existence. And isn’t that something that would make weekly visits to a counsellor mandatory. She shuddered once at her own thought.

“The song is out of tune and the players switched seats.”

Spike looked at Angel, probably just as perplexed by Dru’s rantings as Buffy was. “Angelus?”

“It’s Angel now.” He sounded strange. Like he had given up on something, but she couldn’t quite figure out what. “Angelus is gone forever.” He looked straight at Buffy. “That’s what we’ve been doing all this time. We went to Africa and after some trials I got my soul anchored permanently and Dru—”

“I got my soul and my mind back.”

“Your—” Spike rushed to Drusilla and cupped her face in his hands. “Are you—?”

“Cured would be a word.” She shrank back from Spike and his hands dropped to his sides. “I’ve been made clean.” She wrapped her arms around her torso and Angel immediately went by her side and put his arm around her shoulders. The almost imperceptible way she leaned into him spoke volumes about how close they must have gotten.

With the new information she had, Buffy could tell now that Dru was watching Spike more like an animal watches a predator. She’s afraid of him. She’s more afraid of him than she is of me. It made sense, in a way, but it still left Buffy feeling weird. “Okay, can someone please start making with the splainy, ‘cause all of these half-sentences are making for a very cranky Slayer.” She levelled her eyes at Angel. “And regardless of whatever the soul situation is, everyone here but me is still potentially dusty.”

Spike turned to look at her with a mixture of confusion and possibly hurt on his face that made her stomach clench for an instant. Just as she was about to say something else, though, Angel cleared his throat.

“Maybe we could all go for coffee and discuss everything.”

“Wait, since when do you drink coffee?” Spike sounded almost as amazed by Angel’s choice of beverage as he’d been by Dru’s soul-sitch reveal.

The dark haired vampire looked almost sheepish. “Let’s all grab one and I’ll tell you.” Looking down at Drusilla, he amended. “We will tell you everything.”

That was what shocked Buffy more than the coffee. Angel willing to spill his guts was unheard of in Buffy-land. “There’s an all-night diner near the truck stop…?” She left her sentence trail, but with firm nods, everyone started moving out of the ruined factory.

~~~***~~~

*Dusty’s Diner, Sunnydale outskirts*

The two couples were standing opposite each other again, only this time they were occupying a booth in a diner and coffee had been poured all around. Buffy had been the only one to order anything else, and she’d chosen a pumpkin pie that Spike had stolen a slice of.

The trip to the diner had been made in a tense silence that had yet to be broken. Spike was loath to be the first to speak, and yet some things had to be said. “So how come you’re not brooding around anymore?”

What happened next gave him chills, and for a member of the undead, that was saying something: Angel laughed.

“I didn’t know he could do that,” Buffy mock-whispered while visibly trying to keep a straight face and mostly failing. Even Dru was chuckling next to Angel.

“You sure you’re not Angelus? No offense, but from the little of your souled self I saw, laughing and the absence of a cloud raining on your parade wasn’t really in your repertoire. That was more the un-souled version’s MO.” His senses were telling him that both dark-haired vampires were, indeed, souled, but that still didn’t explain their drastic personality shift. One was actually having a laugh, and the other was lucid. What next?

Angel finally quieted down and took a sip of his coffee. “It’s all part of the story we were going to tell you anyway, so listen up.” He took a deep breath. “After you kidnapped me and tried to bleed me to death to restore Dru something unexpected happened,”

“It was the Powers that intervened.” Drusilla spoke softly, yet with palpable excitement.

It made Spike wonder if that is how she’d used to be before Angelus got a hold of her. She was looking straight at him and the lucidity in her eyes almost hurt. Fucking what-ifs.

“When you took me here before our time, you changed so much you can’t even fathom.” There was a split second in which she looked as she did when she was receiving one of her visions, but the moment passed quickly and she was back to looking giddy. “when the ritual was almost done I got a vision unlike any I’d ever had, telling me I needed to take Angel and travel to Africa so we could both become all we could be.” A fleeting look of sadness darkened her features for a moment. “I fought it for a while, too lost in my madness to want to change, but in the end, I managed to convince myself and Angel, and we went.”

“There were trials involved; the stuff of legend that only champions can perform, but we did what we had to and we won our prizes.”

That was more like the Angelus Spike knew. Bragging and reveling in being better than anyone around. He gave a snort. “So what did you win? A new personality?”

The reply was a chuckle. “I actually won the rights to my soul, curse-free, remorse-free, and without any way to lose it.”

“Wait, you could have lost your soul?” Buffy was not taking things too well by the looks of things.

Why can’t you smoke in this place? I should have insisted on a bar. Wonder if the Slayer will get upset if I light one up. He looked at her as she sat with a slight frown on her face. Probably decide to take her frustration out on me. Hmm. No, that’s for when it’s just the two of us.

“The gypsies that cursed him added a clause of eternal torment that could be broken by a moment of true happiness. That would have unleashed Angelus again.” A shiver went through Dru and Angel grabbed her hand in support.

The changes in their vampiric family dynamic were about to give Spike whiplash.

“Do I want to know what would have made him truly happy?” Buffy was looking intensely at Drusilla and Spike wondered what she was thinking.

“It doesn’t matter now. It’s not going to happen.” The dark haired vampire was trying to hide something, and if Spike knew anything it was that his Grand-Sire’s secrets always hurt others. No matter the presence or absence of a soul.

“She deserves to know.” Then giving Angel a knowing look, Drusilla continued. “We said no more secrets, remember?”

Spike’s eyebrows almost hit his hairline. Angel trying to cover something up was par for the course, Dru calling him out on it, and the nod of agreement he gave her was completely new, though.

“If nothing had changed, he would have lost his soul after he slept with you.”

Spike was sure that if vampires could blush, Dru would be the color of a tomato. As it was, she just seemed to shrink back a bit. Buffy, on the other hand was gob-smacked. Of course, that didn’t last long either.

She turned her attention on Angel and pinned him with a look that was pure Slayer. “Did you know?”

“I didn’t and I’m sorry. I should have known, should have researched my curse before I ever got close to anyone, but I was— Well, I was too blind to see others might be affected.”

“Bloody hell, the Apocalypse is coming! I’ve never heard you apologize for anything in a sodding century.”

“What can I say, I’m a new man.”

He then exchanged a look with Drusilla that was so full of love it would have cut Spike up inside just a few months prior. Guess we both changed then.

“Dru helped me a lot. She made me see things in a way I’d never thought of.”

“Isn’t it just peachy then?” Buffy apparently had decided she wasn’t done being angry. “And what about you, then?” The question was directed at Drusilla and it held not a small amount of venom. “Got one vampire and now you’re back for more?”

Wait. Is she jealous? The thought made Spike grin and his heart soar.

Drusilla looked flustered. “No, it’s not like that. I was bonkers and evil, then I was lucid and pure. It took me a while to adjust and we worked through our problems together, Angel and me.” She smiled softly and stole a glance at her companion. “We have a part to play, but it isn’t here. We just came because I knew you would need us to win this battle, then we’ll leave and start our own journey.”

“Which is?”

“We’ll go to LA to help the helpless. There’s an evil there that we’ll have to defeat.” Angel was answering Buffy’s question while Dru was nodding alongside him.

“As for you and Spike—”

“We’re not talking about me and Spike, or if there even is a ‘me and Spike.’ You’re here to explain you!”

Her dismissal hurt him, but he decided to cover it with another snort. She not-too-gently kicked him under the table, but she accompanied it by grabbing his hand under the table and squeezing it gently. The Slayer is the Mistress of the mixed messages.

“What I meant to say is I’ve no designs on William.” Dru then stopped looking at Buffy and centered her attention on Spike instead. “You were my Dark Knight for over a century, but I never let you be my prince. I’m sorry for how I acted sometimes, but now you can be free of me.” She gave him the warmest smile he’d ever seen on her. “You’ll always be my Childe, but I release you from everything else. The creature I was didn’t deserve the man you are.”

Spike was speechless. Drusilla was basically telling him to go after the Slayer and forget her, but it didn’t hurt as he’d thought it would. Sure, her initial disappearance alongside the Poof had torn him up good and proper, but the radiant creature still holding his hand had given him a new purpose, a new lease on his un-life. To have the woman that had meant everything to him for so long basically tell him she was beneath him was a revelation, though. William would have wept. Spike just nodded and busied himself with another sip of his coffee.

“So you just waltzed into town to stake Cake-whatsis and now you’ll take off again; no harm, no foul.” She let out a low chuckle eerily similar to one of Spike’s own. “I say: no go. You’ll come with me to my home, where you’ll answer all of Giles’ questions, and if he’s satisfied, then you get to go and make a cozy little crypt for two. Until then, I’m keeping my eyes on you.”

“Buffy, we’re not the bad guys.”

She cut Angel off with a short hand gesture. “The fact that I’m willing to maybe sorta believe that is why you’re not blowing in the wind by now.” She fixed Dru with a cold, hard glare. “But I’m the Slayer and this is my town, so my rules.”

Spike just had to admire her. Sat with three Master vampires, that were at least ten to twenty times her seniors age-wise, she could still order them about like they would some lowly minions. She truly was magnificent when she fully embraced her Slayer side.

“But—”

“No, she is right.” Drusilla had put her hand on Angel’s forearm. Apparently neither woman was going to let him whine about listening to the Slayer. “There is much more to be discussed anyway.” Her eyes darted quickly between Spike and Buffy. “There’s more I have to warn you about.”

“Like what?” The frown was back between Buffy’s brows.

“Your sisters are coming and danger wears many masks.”

Spike briefly wondered if all seers spoke in tongues. He’d always thought it was mostly Dru’s insanity, while at the same time never actually needing to seek another seer out to test his theories. Why go drink from a river when you have a well? Still, it appeared all those prophecies being written in cryptic stanzas weren’t just because it was easier to convey a message across times and languages that way.

“I’m a lonely child.” Buffy seemed almost dismissive, but the tightening of the muscles in her back gave her away.

“Not since that night, no.” Dru was back to speaking plainly, although what she said was still puzzling.

Puzzling that is, except if you had a century of experience deciphering messages a lot stranger than that one. “How many Slayers are there, Dru?”

Buffy gasped while the answer came, simple and implacable. “Just the two.” She then looked straight at Buffy, who was already starting to breathe heavily, before she deadpanned. “For now.”





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