14

What the Dolly Saw

Spike and Rose were taking a breather from the dancing. That is, Rose was taking a breather, and Spike was having a beer, when Rose's cell phone rang.

Spike looked disgusted. "If Harm wants to know if the kids can stay up past their bed time," he growled. "I really will kick her ass."

Rose ignored the outburst, and answered the phone. To be honest, she was a bit annoyed herself. And Harmony was the worst offender when it came to interrupting their evenings out with trivia. "Hello? Yes, Harmony." She looked at Spike and they both rolled their eyes. "Who? I see." Rose sounded calm enough, but Spike saw the blood drain away from her face, and felt a twinge of panic. Had something happened to the kids? But Rose was still talking to Harm. "He did?" A wave of relief washed over her. "No, it's all right, Harmony, you did the right thing. We'll be right there." Rose clicked the instrument shut.

"What's going on, luv?" If a person could actually die from curiosity, he'd have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. "Are the kids okay?"

Rose nodded. "They're fine," she assured him. "But something has come up." She wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell him just yet. There was the ride home to consider, and the thought of Spike driving all keyed up and tense was almost enough to make her shudder. She'd like to get there in one piece.

"Not another apocalypse?" Spike groaned.

"No," Rose answered slowly. "It's a bit more.., personal."

&&&&&&

"Harmony, Gunn, take the kids straight home," Angel ordered. He hated to spoil their fun, but better to be safe than sorry until they knew what Drusilla was up to.

Alaric and Ariel didn't protest as Gunn and Harmony each grabbed one of them. They just kept looking at Drusilla with the unblinking stare of a pair of cats.

Once the twins were well out of the way, Angel motioned for Dru to sit down. After all, he couldn't very well stake her in front of all these people.

"Why did you send the pretty babies away, Angel?" Dru pouted. "I wasn't going to hurt them. Henrietta and I just wanted to have a little chat with them."

Angel considered. Drusilla might be crazy, but she seldom lied. She really didn't need to, since it was often so difficult to glean the truth from her insane ramblings that it was better than lying. "Why did you want to talk to them?" he asked cautiously.

"That little boy looks just like Spike, doesn't he?" Drusilla asked conversationally.

"Is that why you came to L.A.?" Angel guessed. "To see Spike?"

Drusilla nodded, though whether in answer to his question, or to one of the myriad voices she heard in her head, was anybody's guess. "I know he isn't with the Slayer anymore," she murmured, half to herself. "I saw it in the stars one night. Miss Edith and I miss him. We thought that maybe since he isn't under the influence of that nasty Slayer anymore, we might have a chance of bringing him back into the family."

Angel bit his tongue to keep from blurting out that Spike already had a family, although Dru might already have figured it out. Or seen it. Just how much she saw in her psychic visions was known only to her, and she seemingly made no distinction between reality and fantasy. "Drusilla, you really don't want to be in L.A.," he advised carefully. He wasn't going to challenge her if he could just persuade her to leave. "Spike doesn't want to see you. He's over you."

"He told the Slayer that I was his salvation," Drusilla mused. "He called me a dark angel. That was very sweet of him, wasn't it?"

Angel sighed. He obviously wasn't getting through the fog of insanity that constantly veiled her. "Leave town, Dru," he said flatly. "If you don't, you're going to get hurt."

"I'll go," Drusilla agreed demurely. And all too readily. "I'll leave just as soon as I have my Spike back."

&&&&&&

Rose was glad to let the elevator do some work. Between Spike driving like he was possessed (giving him as little information as possible hadn't helped, if anything, it had made things worse), and then him pulling her along, trying to goad a human into vampire speeds, she needed a breather now far more than she had when they had taken a break from dancing.

Spike fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "You ready to clue me in on what's happening now, pet?" he inquired. "Or are you just planning on surprising me?"

Rose gave up. And her reasons for not telling him all that she knew were no longer valid anyway. "Charles and Harmony took the children out for some ice cream," she began. "And someone came up and started talking to or about the children. Harmony wasn't too coherent."

Spike cocked his head at her. So far, she had explained exactly nothing. "And?" he prompted.

"Harmony said that it was Drusilla," Rose finished. She knew about Drusilla, from before. Spike avoided mentioning his long-time love around her.

"Dru?" Spike's eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hair. "What'n hell is Dru doing around my kids?"

"I'm not too sure," Rose admitted. "As I said, Harmony wasn't too coherent. But she did say that Angel showed up. He sent her and Charles home with the children and stayed there to deal with Drusilla."

Spike heaved a long-suffering sigh. First Rose, and now the kids. Why was he constantly having to owe the big pouf for saving his nearest and dearest? "Was there anything else?" he asked.

Rose shook her head. "That was all that Harmony told me on the phone," she replied. "But I thought that it was serious enough to cut our night out short."

"I'll have to agree with you on that one, luv," Spike conceded. "Just what is that crazy bint up to now?"

&&&&&&&

Angel had come at it from every direction he could think of, and still, his repeated hints and even downright orders to leave town weren't sinking in for Drusilla. He didn't really like the thought of having to stake his crazy childe, but if she became a real threat, he would. Maybe she ought to know that. "Drusilla," he said. "There's nothing but trouble for you in Los Angeles. If you don't leave, I'm going to have to dust you."

Drusilla laughed, a high-pitched, brittle sound. "Then I shall just have to make sure that you can't catch me," she replied, suddenly shifting to reality. She stood, vamped out and grabbed a passer-by, holding the hulking man as easily as she did her dolly. "Stay back, Angel," she warned. "Or I'll bite him."

Helpless to stop her lest he endanger the man's life, Angel watched in frustration as Drusilla gave herself a good head start. Then, she threw the stunned, but otherwise uninjured man aside and melted into the night.

&&&&&&

Harmony met them at the door. "Gunn is in their room, reading to them," she explained softly. "He thought I should do the talking since I'm the one who knows about Drusilla."

"The kids are okay though, aren't they?" Spike demanded. Hearing it second-hand wasn't quite good enough for him.

"They're fine," Harmony replied. "But they're confused. They said they couldn't read her mind like they do everyone else's."

Rose shot Spike a questioning glance.

"Dru's a psychic," he explained. "The kids have always had the advantage before. But Drusilla has some of the same talents that they do. And she's been using them a lot longer. Probably gives her some kind of natural immunity."

"Were they scared?" Rose asked softly. She didn't like the idea of anything scaring her children.

Harmony shook her head. "More curious than anything, I think," she answered. "They kept watching her until she was completely out of sight."

"And Captain Forehead just had to come riding to the rescue, did he?" Spike grumbled. "Did Dru say what she wanted, Harm?"

"Not while I was there," Harmony admitted. "I don't think she even noticed that I was there. First, she was looking at the kids. Then, she was talking to Angel. Gunn and I might as well not have been there."

"Did she say anything to indicate that she knows they're Spike's children?" Rose queried. The thought of Drusilla being in possession of that bit of information made her blood run cold.

"I'm not sure," Harmony confessed. "She did notice that Alaric looks like Spike, but she didn't exactly say that she knew Spike was his father."

"I do not like this," Spike grumbled, heading back for the door.

"Where are you going?" Rose asked, latching onto his arm.

"A spot of Dru hunting, babe," Spike replied, trying to disengage himself from her, and finding that he couldn't do it without hurting her. And he'd sooner stake himself than hurt her.

"Wait until Angel gets here," she pleaded. "He may have more information. Or were you planning on going over the entire city on foot?"

Spike subsided. He hadn't thought that far ahead. He'd just thought, first and foremost, of a possible threat to his family. "Oh piss," he muttered disgustedly. "What makes you so sure that the ponce is going to report in here? He's not always too keen on sharing the vital information, luv."

"He'll be here," Rose said with complete confidence. Almost as if to assure her that her faith was not misplaced, the doorbell rang. She shot Spike a triumphant look, and Spike put his hand over his eyes. Bloody git. Seemed to absolutely delight in being a pain in his ass.

&&&&&&

Drusilla made it back to the den with no company except for Henrietta. "We gave him the slip, didn't we my sweet?" she cooed to her doll. "Darling Angel must be getting quite past it. Or maybe it's just that nasty, nasty soul of his. Angelus would have caught us."

She walked around the room a few times, looking at things without really seeing them, then, flopped down on her bed and lay there, eyes wide open looking up at.., something.

&&&&&&

"She gave me the slip," Angel confessed. "She dodged in and out of crowds so many times that I lost her scent. And even if I had caught up to her..,"

"She'd have grabbed someone else and threatened to bite them," Spike finished tiredly. "Damn it all. Did she at least say why she's in town?"

"She's looking for you, Spike," Angel answered. He stopped to pat Rose on the back. She'd been taking a drink, and the news had caused it to go down the wrong way. "Sorry, Rose," he apologized. He turned back to his grandchilde. "She thinks that she can get you back now that you're not hanging around Buffy anymore."

"Are you all right, sweetheart?" Spike was momentarily distracted by Rose, red-faced from her coughing fit.

"I'm fine," Rose wheezed. In reality, she was terrified. Spike had been with Drusilla for over a hundred years. There was bound to be something there still. All her insecurities suddenly leaped to the fore.

Spike went over to her, took the drink from her hands and handed it to Angel. Then, he pulled her into his arms. "I love you, babe," he assured her. "Dru and me were over a long time ago. When are you going to get it through your pretty mop that I'm not letting anything come between us? Not now, not ever."

Rose looked up at him, gazed into his eyes, and all she saw there was love.

&&&&&&&

"We need a plan, Henrietta," Drusilla said. "We know that Angel won't help us. Pity, that would have made things ever so much easier. All we would have had to do was go waltzing in to Wolfram and Hart." She did a quick waltz step with her doll. The news of Angel's taking charge of the firm had traveled far and fast. "Just like that. But Angel is being mean. He wants us to go away. We're not though, we're going to stay right here until we get our Spike back." She turned at a sound, two of the den's other occupants had arrived.

"Do you know Spike too?" Den asked. He looked to his friend. "Man, he sure does pick the pretty ones, doesn't he?"

"He sure does," Val agreed. He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Do you think this means he's not dating the human chick now?"

"Spike's with a human?" Dru had started paying attention to them now. She stood and stared at the two of them, waiting for an answer.

The pair shrugged in almost perfect unison. "We don't know," Den admitted. "He was a couple of years ago, though."

"But we haven't seen him since," Val added. "It was just that one time."

"Do you know where he lives?" This might be the lucky break she needed, Dru thought.

"Sure," Den said eagerly. "At least, where he was living then. He might have moved."

"Then we'll just have to find out, won't we?" she purred. "I don't believe that we've been properly introduced. I'm Drusilla."

"I'm Val," Val replied. "And this is Den."

"And this is Henrietta." Drusilla finished off the introductions.

&&&&&&&

"You do believe me, don't you, babe?" Spike rolled over, his arms wrapped around Rose so that he pulled her on top of him. "There is no one but you, and never will be. I love you."

"I love you, darling," Rose whispered, stroking his face. "So very much. And it's not you that I'm doubting. It's me."

Spike sighed. "We're not going to go through that you're not real thing again, are we?" he asked. "I'd say that any woman who can bear children is real enough." He turned his head to kiss the hand that caressed him. "Not to mention the things you do to me. I'd hate to think I was doing this all myself." He gave her a lecherous grin.

Rose rolled off of him, and lay there with her back to him. "You were with her over a hundred years," she pointed out quietly. "And you were very much in love with her. I don't think it's something you can just turn off."

Spike turned on his side, snagged her with an arm and spooned her up against him. "Yes, I did love Dru," he admitted. "And she whored around and treated me like dirt. I suffered from it, but in time, I got over it. And seeing as how I've got a soul now, an evil Drusilla just don't do it for me." He buried his face in her hair, just reveling in her scent. "I didn't turn it off, it turned itself off, eventually." He snuggled in closer to her, so that she could feel the effect she had on him. "Why don't we stop talking about turning things off? I'm more interested in how much you turn me on."