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Disclaimer: The usual, I own nothing, ME & WB everything..

Thanks to Oracleholly and Alwaysjbj for their amazing job at betaing!

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He is watching them from his spot behind the mausoleum. They are patrolling, the whole gang, including the two vampires, only the watcher is missing. Drusilla patrolling he could understand, since she is like him now. But how the Scoobies could accept that soulless monster into their company, he simply cannot fathom. He had tried to tell them the previous night, but none of them seemed willing to listen. Not even the watcher, and he is the one, who had personally experienced the consequences of letting a soulless vampire behind your guard.

In his anger, Angel is completely oblivious to the fact that Giles might blame him personally and not merely his soulless state for Jenny Calendar's death. To him his deeds as Angelus are the ultimate proof that nothing good can come from the Scoobies trusting Spike.

Irritated that he won't be able to get his hands on his grand-childe tonight, Angel decides to continue what he had earlier planned on doing- finding Darla.

Despite Darla being the one to tell him about her plan to go to Sunnydale and check on what might be keeping Drusilla, he has not heard from her since his arrival. At first this didn't worry him too much. Even though she had just been recently returned to her vampiric state, she had hundreds of years of experience from her previous existence to use to take care of herself, even with a Slayer close by. However, knowing that Cordelia and his old gang are here changes that though. Thanks to his former employees, Buffy and her friends are now aware of Darla's presence and might decide to seek her out, while the blonde vampiress is still unaware of them even knowing of her resurrection.

Yet, even in his worry about his once sire, now grand-childe, the dark vampire is unable to stop himself from watching the group some more when they finally find something to fight.

It is Buffy and Spike, who jump in, attacking the demon without any hesitation. And to Angel's chagrin, it is oblivious that they are used to fighting together. Their moves are smooth and completely in sync with each other. Neither of the two wavering once, covering the other's back at all times. This he finds even more upsetting, especially since he is aware of their usual impatient, and sometimes reckless acts while fighting on their own.

The two fighters continue to play with the demon that they could have easily defeated at the beginning of the fight, meanwhile the others don't seem remotely worried about the ongoing struggle. Drusilla and the girl who helped Willow with the freezing-spell on him the previous night are chatting amiably with another blonde, while the aforementioned redheaded witch seems to be having a heated discussion with Xander, a little further off to the side.

Finally the fight is over and the demon is lying dead on the ground. After confirming that it is of the self-dissolving variety and no hiding of the body will be required, the group continues their patrol as if nothing major had happened.

Unable to comprehend that they appear not to take their duties too seriously, Angel decides not to follow them any further, instead he finally begins his search for Darla.



While Angel is off stalking the Slayer and her friends, Darla, who is still blissfully unaware that anyone in Sunnydale knows of her return from death, has just decided on what she deems to be the best way to pay the Slayer back for the bitch's part in dusting her.

The blonde vampiress remembers well the circumstances that had led to her demise, including how she managed to get invited into the Slayer's home. She is sure no one ever thought to uninvite her, with her being dust and all, so testing this theory is the first step in tonight's plan.

To her delight she soon realizes she had been right, the invite is still intact.

After entering the Slayer's home through the back door as she had on her previous visit, Darla is now hiding carefully in the kitchen behind the island. The original plan had been to search the house, but voices from the living-room informed her of the presence of more than one person. She quickly thanks her vampiric hearing for preventing her from accidentally making them aware of her presence.

The sound of footsteps from a single person nearing the kitchen cause her to carefully glance over the counter, and Darla has to fight to suppress a giggle of delight at seeing that the person entering the kitchen is just the one she was waiting for.

She is aware that she has to be careful since the woman might very well recognize her - after all who forgets one's first encounter with a vampire. Darla slips behind her intended victim and presses her hand onto the other woman's mouth, while gripping her around the middle with her other arm, effectively silencing her.

Terrified Joyce turns her head as far as the hand covering her mouth will allow, only to look into the face of the vampiress who had already tried to kill her once.

After she had learned about vampires being real and her daughter being the Slayer, she had once asked Buffy about the accident in the kitchen. Realizing in the light of her new found knowledge that the barbeque-fork excuse sounded even stranger than it had before. Still trying to better her mother's opinion of the recently decreased Angel, Buffy had revealed everything about Darla, who exactly she was and how she met her end.

Luckily, Joyce had been informed of the blonde vampiress' resurrection as Buffy filled her in on the details of Drusilla's ensoulment, otherwise she might just have died from the shock.

"Hey Joyce, nice to meet you again, I just bet you didn't expect that." Darla snarls.

Despite her fear of being in the vampiress' clutches, Joyce feels relief that Darla doesn't seem to know about their awareness of her return and attempts a slight shake of her head. Determined that even should she not manage to make it out of this alive, she would still do everything in her power to make it easier for her daughter to destroy the blonde menace.

Satisfied with her reply, and the woman's obvious fear of her, Darla continues to explain exactly how she hopes the Slayer will react upon finding her mother's dead body.

Joyce just keeps rigid hoping the vampiress will continue to prattle on, so there might be a chance that Rupert, who was waiting in the living-room for her return, would get worried and come to look for her. She'd never have thought to be grateful for her recent illness, but the chances of him coming after her, while everyone was still wary of a relapse, were much higher.

Suddenly there is a noise at the backdoor, followed by Angel looking helplessly through the window after discovering he is unable to enter the house.

Delighted at this new turn of events, Darla maneuvers Joyce over to open the door, so that she is able to talk to the dark vampire.

Joyce's relief at the arrival of potential help soon diminishes, as she realizes that instead of calling out to the other people in the house for help, Angel, instead, starts trying to talk the vampiress out of killing her, all the while taking care to keep his voice low so as not to alert anyone to the situation.

Joyce feels her anger rise as Angel droned a meaningless lecture on Darla's actions and how they endangered her chances of redemption. She suppresses the urge to scream at the futility of his words as he then tries to convince the blond, who still holds her firmly, that if she would go with him they could help each other to better themselves.

Unable to listen to his delusional prattling any longer, she rapidly nears the point where she would prefer being killed, if only to be spared this torture.

Suddenly the body at her back is gone and Angel's agonized screams rent the air. Confused Joyce turns to where the vampiress had stood mere seconds before, only to almost weep in relief at discovering Rupert, with a raised stake still in his hand.

The relief in the watcher's face at finding Joyce unharmed is soon replaced by anger, as he listens to Angel cursing and yelling at him. The dark-haired vampire seems to believe he could have talked Darla out of her plan and that Giles' inference robbed her of her chance at redemption and himself of someone with whom to spend eternity.

Unable to believe what she is hearing, Joyce turns back to the agitated vampire, staring at him in openmouthed shock.

Finally Giles is unable to take it anymore.

"SHUT UP! Are you even listening to what you are saying, you stupid prat? Her redemption? She was going to kill Joyce, and you were going to stand there and do nothing! That is what was going to happen, and you are either too blind or too stupid to realize it. If I'd only stake vampires who are unable to be redeemed - which you seem to believe is the automatic result of them having a soul, I would never stake one again. Every vampire can, theoretically been given back his soul. That's no reason to let them continue killing in the meantime." Giles removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. Exasperation at the vampire's logic, or lack thereof, is causing him the first stirrings of a headache.



"As for you loosing your preferred partner, I am assuming you do remember Drusilla? The woman you drove insane by killing off her family one by one, prior to turning her into a vampire? She is out there right now, helping my Slayer and clinging to the hope her 'daddy' will care enough to take her back with him to Los Angeles."

Giles' eyes darken and his gaze harden, all traces of the mild, kindly watcher disappear leaving only the Ripper in his place, his voice dripping venom as he spoke, "I can't help but wonder, Angel, do you for one second truly believe I give a fuck about you being lonely? After what you did to Jenny? Or did you think I'd just forget who it was that killed her? If it weren't for Buffy, you'd have been nothing but a pile of dust a long time ago, souled or not. To tell the truth, it was rather satisfying to be able to show you what it is like to be unable to save the woman you love. Think of it as belated payback."

Having finished his rant, Giles violently closes the door in the shocked vampire's face. The enraged watcher draws a deep breath, calming himself before turning and drawing Joyce into a relieved hug.

Outside Angel is unsure how to react to the usually calm watcher's furious outburst. He had never truly considered the possibility of Giles resenting him for what he had done as Angelus. Understandably Jenny Calendar's death had hit the man hard, but Angel had been certain the watcher would make the same separation between his souled and soulless selves as Buffy had done.

Unsure what to make of this discovery, the vampire decides to ignore it for now, and instead focuses on what the older man said about Darla and Drusilla. He almost feels bad about preferring Darla as his lifetime companion instead of Drusilla. The dark-haired vampiress, however, was insane so it's not like he would be able to carry on a normal conversation with her. Why wouldn't he prefer his sane sire to her? Still, the option has been taken away from him once again, so he resolves himself to go to the Magic-Box the following night and talk to the darker of his two ladies. After all Giles was right, he was responsible for her.



The moment Giles closes the door in Angels face Drusilla stops her conversation with Anya and Tara. Turing toward Buffy she begins clapping her hands in excitement, while informing the Slayer that everything is going to be alright now, as her daddy will come to his senses.

"You might want to return home now though. If we waste too much time, the bottle will be empty."

Confused, Drusilla shakes her head.

"After that I'm confused. There are a police-car and candy involved, but I don't understand…."

Instead of demanding further information on what the vampiress is talking about, Buffy blanches and hurries to declare the patrol to be over for the night. Not taking the time to answer her friends' questions, she gestures at the two vampires to follow her home and quickly takes off.

On the way to her house Spike tries to get her to tell him what is going on, but Buffy only throws him a breathless "Later" before speeding up even more.

Arriving at her house, she bursts into the living-room, followed shortly by the two vamps, only to find her mother and Giles well on their way to working through a bottle Scotch. Relieved to have arrived in time to spare herself a repeat of the embarrassment which followed the band-candy debacle, she snatches the bottle away from the two adults, and forcefully demands an explanation; while absently handing the bottle of Scotch to the blonde vampire behind her.

After a lot of giggling and yelling, she finally manages to figure out what happened at her house earlier that night. Numb from shock at the close call her mother had had with Darla, she silently holds her hand out for the, by now, virtually empty bottle. Spike, already having made good use of the alcohol during the conversation, hands it over without a word of protest. He to is too numb with shock to care.

Thanks to the Slayer being unused to alcoholic beverages, it doesn't take much for her to become as intoxicated as the adults. So in the end it is Drusilla, who ushers Joyce off to her room and prepares the couch as a bed for Giles. Buffy and Spike move into the kitchen, intent on finding something else to drink and drown their guilt at not being there to help the older woman.

Upon her return, Drusilla is satisfied to find them still there, drinking in comfortable silence, so she moves back upstairs, checking on the nice glowing girl before getting ready for bed herself.

She knows her two new friends downstairs will be able to take care of each other, even if they might both end up with horrible headaches in the morning.

Slowly the house on Revello Drive turns quiet, interrupted only occasionally by the blonde vampires' laughter when he finally gets the Slayer to tell the tale of Ethan Rayne's second visit to Sunnydale.





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