A/N: I know it's been a while since I updated, but have you seen how many fics I have going?

The Way We Were

Chapter 5

Darla frowned and lifted her head to look at him, licking a trickle of blood from her lips, "Angelus there's nothing to talk about, just sit here and enjoy the peace and quiet and warm blood in your veins" she told him, dipping her head back down and draining the last from the body she was holding.

"Darla" Angelus said again, lifting the drained body from her lap and dropping it next to his before pulling her up gently frorm the couch. "It's important."

"You have gotten very needy and imposing of late" she said wrapping her arms around him and pulling his head down towards hers for a kiss, "You need to change that."

Angelus smiled and dipped her in his arms, "Getting annoying am I?" he asked with a laugh as he led her up the stairs, "Now come up the stairs and talk with me, dear one."

Darla smiled and followed Angelus up the stairs until Drusilla, still sitting on the couch, the watcher she was feeding on pushed aside, tugged on the hem of Darla's dress making her stop.

"Grandmum, I want to come with you. Secrets and secrets all around me buzzing and whispering, will you let me in?" Dru begged, her hands claps together hopefully.

"Come along" Darla told her walking up the stairs, "Will, stay behind" she ordered without even so much as looking over her shoulder at him.

Will swore and kicked the couch, tears of frustration coming to his eyes. He would never be one of them, no matter what he did or how loyal and obedient he was, they would always treat him like an outsider. Drusilla was insane and they respected her more than him. He crept up the stairs and sat in the hall, his head angled towards the doorframe to listen. The door was open a crack and inside Will could see Darla and Dru sitting on the sprawling king sized bed while Angelus paced the ground in front of them. Darla took the pin holding Drusilla's hair up out and combed her ebony locks with a wire brush, slapping Dru's hands ever now and then when she picked at her bandages.

"What do you think of Paris?" Angelus asked as he continued to pace.

"It's a perfectly fine city, what of it?" Darla asked twisting piece of Dru's hair around her finger, playing with it absentmindedly. She grimaced suddenly and said, "No, we're not going there." She said, "We're fine here in London; perfectly fine. The slayer has a broken neck and her watcher is dead on our living room floor, we've got nothing to worry about. London is perfect for us and we, are perfect for it"

"Darla, lets be practical" Angelus argued, "The slayer will heal remarkably soon and be after us again, there is an amount of never ending Watchers from that council and my God Darla, I'll be damned if I wait around to get dusted."

"So you want to run frightened?" Darla asked, done toying with Drusilla's hair and stretching languidly on the bed, "You've killed slayers before and so have I, we've nothing to worry about. It is all about the hunt after all, you can even make her lose her mind like you did our darling Dru if you'd prefer."

"I'd prefer that we relocate. I know we can take slayers, but it's not us I'm worried about, we have childer, helpless, imbecile childer who not only have the chance to get themselves dusted, but us as well."

Darla sat up again and smirked, "Well, aren't you the doting dad" she simpered, "So concerned about your poor little defenseless childer" she laughed, "It's noting, just let it be."

"Nothing?" Angelus thundered, "Fine, just stay here and deal with the threat yourself, but I hear France is very nice this time of year and I plan on seeing it for myself" he said sternly, starting to pace more quickly.

Darla sighed, "Oh, my darling boy" she said curling up in the bed.

"What?" he yelled.

"Send me a postcard from Paris, will you?" she asked with a smile as Angelus glared daggers at her.

"And I'm taking the childer!" he threatened.

"Really?" Darla asked and laughed, "I should be so lucky"

Drusilla growled and shook her head, "I want to stay with mummy." She curled against Darla and laid her head against her waist.

"Dru can stay here, but feel free to take the boy, you'd be doing me a favor"

"Because that's all I live to do" Angelus muttered and walked out, "look for that postcard." He almost tripped over Will's crouched form in the hall and kicked him out of the way, jogging down the stairs and banging out the door into the night.

Drusilla whimpered and sat up, "Daddy's all gone…all gone away, he tastes of bitter, bitter pomegranates, not sweet at all." She shook her head and repeated, "Not sweet."

"We're all bitter" Darla replied and sighed, biting her lip, "Don't start, Dru"

Will slowly got up and pushed open the door a little wider, "Dru? Darla- er, Madam?" he called walked into the room uncertainly.

"William, you're the man of the house now, you're slow and dumb, but you'll do" she said emotionlessly, "Go pick up the bodies downstairs and then take Dru out, I'd like to be alone."

Will nodded and compiled silently, taking Dru's hand gently so as not to hurt her burns and led her out of the room leaving Darla alone, looking after them.

"I hate my childer" she muttered and got out of bed, tossing things in her way aside, brushing the entire contents of her dresser onto the floor watching as the tiny bottles and containers of perfume, rouge, and face powder shattered, littering glass and colors across the wood floor. She tipped her armoire over and screamed at the top of her lungs in frustration as tears pooled in her eyes. Angelus, that bastard! He left her! How could he do such a thing? They argued all the time, but he…left, he just left and Darla knew somewhere in the recesses of her blackened heart that he wasn't coming back. And it was all her fault, she pushed him too hard, ignored him, treated him like a naive childe. It. Was. All. Her. Fucking. Fault.

Darla sunk to the floor amidst the scattered glass and picked up the broken pieces, looking at each bit as of she'd never seen glass before. She picked up an aqua-colored oval piece of glass from her perfume bottle and crushed with between her thumb and forefinger, watching as the smaller pieces of it embed themselves into her skin causing droplets of stolen blood to spring forth.

She sat like that for a long time in an almost comatose state watching the blood pooling on her fingers like so many small rose petals. They were petals of misery that duplicated the ones inside of her aching, telling her she lost, everything she'd ever wanted, was gone and she was now truly alone. It wasn't about love, no, never about that, nor the sex though it was undeniably good, it was about the knowing smiles she got from him, the small smirks when she made a joke or said something cruel to the childer that only he understood. It was almost a century's worth of private jokes and shared memories, a century of sharing everything, moments and thoughts and fears, they were close…closer than kin or lovers, closer than even the most devoted couple.  No one could infuriate her more than him, or make her happier; they were almost different sides of the same person, but now that person was gone…half of her was gone.

Darla didn't move until she heard the ruffle of movement behind her and the thrum of voices around her like the buzzing of honey sweetened bees that Drusilla always spoke of. She felt a rough pair of hands on her shoulders trying to pull her upwards, pull her out of her grief, but she shook them off, falling back into her pit of despair and felt the blood warmed body of Drusilla curl up beside her and coo into her ear, nursery rhymes of dead children and blackened roses.

Darla came out of her stupor then, she smiled a little and listened to Dru's high crooning, wrapping her arms around the girl and resting her head on the younger vampire's shoulder; Angelus was her lover, but Dru was her best friend and she hoped with a fierce intensity that she would admit to no one, that she didn't break that too.

"William, go tend to the fire, I'm sure it's gone down since you've left" Darla ordered in a voice sounding very far away, yet the same as when Angelus was right here with her.

"Darla…are you okay?" the timid boy asked, shifting from one foot to the other uneasily as his eyes washed over the destruction she'd created.

She turned to him stiffly and addressed him formally, "William, just because Angelus has chosen to go on a trip doesn't mean you may let your manners fall. You will address me as Madam."

Will nodded and said a quick, "I'm sorry, Madam" before rushing off to tend the fire. It was only after he left that Darla realized she never answered his question.

"Grandmum, we had the most wonderful time!" Drusilla exclaimed, clasping her hands together like an eager toddler, "We danced under the stars while they sang for us, and we found the nicest couple outside of a restaurant. The man screamed so loud when I fed from him…it was such pretty music. When will daddy be home?"

Darla gave her a tight-lipped smile, "Daddy has gone to Paris; he shall be back when the threat of the slayer is over" she said evasively.

"Yes, mummy, but when?" Dru prompted.

"Drusilla, I don't know." Darla snapped, "I have no control over Angelus and I just don't know" she had a strong urge to strike the girl, but dug her nails into the flesh of her palms instead, only lightning when she felt blood, to quell the urge.

Darla stood up shakily and walked to the bed, lying down without even bothering to loosen her corset, she didn't breathe, so what did it matter anyway? She pulled the pin out of her hair and let her honey colored tendrils of hair flow down to her shoulders and frame her head as she laid back in the bed making it look like a golden halo.

"Grandmum?" Drusilla asked timidly as she stood up too, her heeled boots crunching the glass underfoot to bits.

"Stop calling me that" Darla repeated as she always did, but this time there were no threat behind her words.

"Why did Daddy leave us? Was I naughty girl?" Drusilla asked with all the childlike innocent someone sane could never possess at her age, "Did I do wrong, grandmum?"

Darla was temped to his a 'yes', to pin it all on the girl, make her take the guilt and burden, she was temped to blame it all on her childer. Idiot childer that never did anything right and constantly wore on her nerves, but something about her own childhood struck her, how even a the age of six she'd never had the innocence Drusilla had about her now, and she just couldn't, couldn'tshatter that, especially with lies.

"No, Dru, it wasn't you, or William, or really even me. Angelus just…is testing me. He excepts me to run after him to France, but we can get along fine without him, can't we, precious?" Darla asked raising her head from the lace coverlet of the bed and smiling a Dru with faux mischievousness.

She thought Drusilla would look at it as an adventure, she thought Drusilla would claps her hands together and give a little hop of excitement and heartily agree, she did not however, expect Drusilla to frown and shake her head, sounding saner than she had in years with a  "No, I should expect we wouldn't." before walking out the door as silently as she'd come in.

Something in Darla broke then, as she lay back in bed and closed her eyes, the realization hitting her with finality that she was wholly responsible for the childer. She thought then that it'd be best to go down the stairs and dust them both where they stood and be nomadic again, like the time before Angelus, but she wasn't even truly alone then, she'd had the master. Beside, Darla didn't possess the energy to even sit up, compared to staking both the childer, and William was a spirited one, he'd struggle to the death. No, she'd just lay here and think, she decided. Darla didn't move from her bed for three days, neither feeding nor speaking to the childer.

TBC…next chapter Darla has an emotional breakdown of sorts and they all adjust to life without Angelus.