Author's Note: So this is, like, 100% headcanon, (and very optimistic headcanon at that, regarding Drusilla's self-awareness), but it pops into my head every time I watch the scene. It takes place during that scene where Darla, Dru, and Spike ravaged the Kalderash camp after Angel got his soul, shown in a flashback from Angel: Season 2. Enjoy! Reviews are appreciated!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Rumania 1898
The gypsy camp burned.
Wagons went up in flames and the cries of innocents filled the air, entwining with the smoke like snakes.
"… but what you've done to him will force him to suffer for the rest of eternity. Remove the filthy soul so that my boy might return to me."
Drusilla looked up from where she knelt, a corpse propped against her skirts, to see Grandmum talking to a gypsy man. He was afraid, even though Grandmummy had her pretty face on. She seemed to be asking for help. Drusilla felt her thoughts, their singular object.
"Angelus has gone all away," she realized, her brow creased with worry. "Where is he?"
Daddy was nowhere to be found. He'd so enjoyed Grandmum's gift of the gypsy girl. Surely he'd love the rest of her clan. But Grandmum had brought them here tonight, her and her William. She hadn't seen Daddy all night.
"Drusilla, the camp. Go on. Kill things," answered Grandmum tersely. She was very cross. Little oceans in her eyes.
But Daddy wouldn't like it if they had fun without him. He never liked it when Drusilla and her William did. He'd come and hurt her, knowing that would be enough to hurt William, too. And then her boy would fight, and he'd hurt them both…
"But he shall be very cross if he finds we had a lovely mass slaughter without him," she said, and Grandmum sighed, closing her eyes.
"He'll join us soon," she said in a longsuffering tone, but Drusilla didn't hear her.
Far away, she could see Daddy. He stumbled through the forest, panting. Dozens of lovely voices screaming in his head. Daddy was hurting. Like he'd made her and her William hurt. Something glowed inside of him. A spark, burning up his insides. The sun inside of him was burning his insides, and his head was full of cries.
A soul.
The pixies in her head laughed their tittering little laughs, like tin bells. The stars looked at her from underneath hooded eyes, but she could see the tiny smiles they tried to hide. Drusilla could feel Daddy's pain. The way it tore up his insides, the way he had torn up her insides, so many times. The way the voices screamed at him, pleading for mercy. The stars never screamed at her; only sang.
"Now do as you're told," came Grandmum's voice over the din. Drusilla looked up at her, suddenly calmed. The tiniest smile played on her lips.
"… okay," she said, and she stood.
Daddy was gone. Punished. He couldn't hear his family anymore, only the sobs and cries in his mind. No one was left to punish Drusilla, or her William.
The wails of Daddy's torment played in her mind like music as she went to find her William.
They were free.
"Pretty music… pretty, pretty music…" she said quietly, dancing in place, entranced by the shrieks she heard echoed in Daddy's head.
Her William was there, like he always was.
"They cry out for mercy," sang Drusilla, as her William took her hand and danced with her without question. The cries and wails played even louder in her mind, and she smiled. "They cry out for mercy. They cry out for mercy…"
She could feel Daddy asking for his pain to be removed, begging for the mercy he'd never given anyone else.
"Show none," called Grandmum.
Drusilla agreed.
