Takes place after BTVS season 1 episode "ANGEL".

Love And Dust

How do you know if you are in love with someone?

Before I became a vampire, I never gave it a thought. Never thought it would happen to me.

Honestly, I didn't think that it was actually real.

Oh, I said the words enough times… I knew when to say it to get what I wanted. I watched the way their eyes would light up and more times than not, it got me where other lies didn't.

I love you.

Everyone wants to be loved. They believed it… until the next morning when it was obvious that anything that Liam said was only true so long as the moon shone and the ale ran.

And then one night when the moon was high and the ale was deep, Darla came along.

Lust at first sight, for both of us.

I don't know why she had never taken a companion before that night, I never asked. But she chose me for that role and I, who had never given a "relationship" more than a few hours, became hers.

Not that there weren't others- for both of us. But in the end, it was always us.

We were together in debauchery and mayhem. In laughter and blood. In pain and death.

A match made in hell.

I'd like for everyone to believe that all that ended the moment I got my soul back. In fact, I've made it seem that way… it's easier to believe than the truth. And when I say "easier", I mean for me.

Because the truth is that I didn't become a crusader for good the moment the gypsies cursed me.

I didn't slam the door closed on my vampiric nature. I didn't shove Darla away from me in disgust.

She shoved me away. I disgusted her. My soul sickened her.

And I…. I just wanted to be with her.

My soul didn't make me want to be good, it forced me too. If I had been able, I would have continued on as Angelus. I wanted to continue on.

I didn't want to go on without her.

She took me back, briefly, but I couldn't be what she had made of me.

I wasn't her Angelus anymore.

And yet she had taken me back, soul sick and, let's face it, pathetic as I was.

Tonight, she said that the saddest thing in the world was loving someone who use to love you.

What does that say? Did she love me?

Perhaps, in her own way, she did.

She wanted me back, again. But she said that I'm sick because of my feelings for Buffy.

A vampire and a Slayer.

I think I see her point.

I staked Darla. I took a crossbow bolt that was fired at me, by The Slayer, and I put it in Darla's heart to keep her from killing that Slayer.

She said my name before she exploded into dust.

I had no choice, it had to be done.

If I had hesitated, Buffy would be dead.

It wasn't a decision, it was instinct. I came to help The Slayer battle the forces of evil- Darla was evil.

I pretended that it didn't mean anything and it was easy enough to accept.

Why not? I have a soul now. I'm trying to do what's right. She made me a vampire, a monster. There's not a reason in the world to feel anything but relief that she's gone.

It's a good lie, but a lie nonetheless.

Darla was my sire. She was my lover for more years than humans even live. How could it not mean something to me?

That doesn't surprise me in the least. What does surprise me is how little it means to me.

Not "little" in the grand scheme of things. Not in the way that I would have been able to do it at any other time or place- because I know I couldn't have.

In the cold depths of my un-beating heart, I know why I was able to do what I did tonight. Why the death of the one who was closest to me for so long, seems so distant.

Buffy.

I don't know what I felt for Darla but I know it pales in comparison to what I feel for Buffy.

The first time I saw her it was there. I didn't know what it was, but the first time I spoke to her I saw it there in her eyes.

Maybe this is what they mean when they say love at first sight.

She feels it too.

Even now that she knows me for what I really am, she feels it.

So, how do you know if you are in love?

It hurts.

Takes place after BTVS season 1 episode "Prophecy Girl".

Waiting And Watching

When Whistler found me in LA, I was a wreck.

And really, that's putting it nicely.

It wasn't always that way. It's not like that's how I existed from the moment I got a soul. But when he found me I was a few years along in my "I don't give a damn" phase.

There are a lot of reasons for that but they aren't important right now. What is important is why I pulled myself out of it.

I watched Buffy in LA.

She didn't look like a Slayer. But then they never do. They always look like you could snap them in half with one hand. And that mistake has gotten more than one vampire dusted.

Whistler thought that my interest was because she's pretty. And yeh, there's that. But when I looked at her I realized that she didn't have a choice. One day she was being a normal human girl and the next she was The Chosen One.

The Chosen One, who doesn't have a choice.

And I do. I have had this soul and it's kept me from doing harm… at least the kind of harm Angelus did anyway. But it hasn't made me do good.

Watching her made me realize that I'm capable of being more than just a vampire who was cursed.

I've done nothing but think about all the harm I've done. Yet with all that thinking about it, I never chose to try to give back something.

I shut myself off.

I lowered myself to a level that I felt I needed to be at and never thought that I should, instead, be trying to raise myself up.

I was waiting. Waiting to be shown a different path.

So I got it together and I came to Sunnydale after her. I thought that I could help her, give her some insight.

I may have shut myself off but I still knew some things… important vampire things. And I knew who to bully to get more information when I wanted it.

I gave her what I knew and I watched her prevent The Harvest.

I knew then that I was doing the right thing.

I came up with The Codex when Giles said he needed it. And I watched her when she found out what The Codex had to say… that The Master would kill her.

I watched her cry and felt a hollow ache where what's left of my heart is.

And I wasn't so sure I was doing the right thing.

I watched her die… and come back to kill The Master.

And the more I watched the more I realized how I was beginning to feel about her.

What happened with Darla… my barely controlled panic at what The Codex said… holding her lifeless body in my arms and not being able to save her… pretty much confirmed it.

This wasn't something I wanted to happen- I don't think she did either; not after finding out I'm a vampire.

But it's there just the same.

Xander asked me if I love her and I didn't answer him.

My answer isn't for his ears anyway.

And waiting and watching time is over. I've helped, but not enough.

Now is the time for action. Now is the time to take responsibility for my past.

Just standing back and not doing evil isn't enough.

Now is the time to really help her and do good.