Author's Notes: This one took a while. Sorry folks, but real life had to take precedence. I'm in the Army and I've been gone for a couple of weeks on Temp Duty. Arlington is way depressing when you're burying people you knew.

Yet again, thank you one and all for taking the time to give me feedback on this. Thank you, and please keep leaving it. Feedback IS helping me write this. Coin of the realm here folks.

The 19 Nov, Angel:  Well, it advanced the Angel storyline but didn't help me all that much... Oh well. I'm getting more and more disenchanted with the show. Anyone besides me notice that Spike's Soul isn't as 'bothersome' to him as it used to be? I will be making some 'changes' to the canon back-story in this chapter for what I hope will be obvious reasons. This one is Dru and Spike intensive. The next part will be Xander and Anya, I promise.

Random Cow: ``Daemon'' is actually a much older form of ``demon''; daemons have no particular bias towards good or evil, but rather serve to help define a person's character or personality. The ancient Greeks' concept of a ``personal daemon'' was similar to the modern concept of a ``guardian angel'' Willow, being Willow uses the older form...

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Spike and Drusilla had just made it into the comfortable darkness near the corner of Buffy's house when they heard Anya's outburst.

Spike tilted his head and looked at Dru with a slight smirk on his face. "You need to go save the Whelp, then?"

"No Spikey... Kitten will do just fine." She tilted her head for a second and a sly smile lit her face. "Plus, he has help... four... three... two... one." As she finished counting the front door slammed open with a bang and Willow rushed out and headed immediately towards Xander and his yelling Ex-fiancée. "See?" She finished giggling slightly.

"Yea, well great then." Spike was a small loss as to how to continue their conversation. Yea, he wanted to talk to her... but how... What to say?

Dru knew that he was confused and pissed and hurt. The Vampire Spike had always been a person of action, as opposed to what he'd been like before he was turned. At least that was what he'd always tried to project, to show to others. She knew better.

Finally, after a couple of minutes of silence, just as he was about to get all growly, she giggled and spoke. "It's okay Spikey. Really it is. Say what you need to."

"Why?" He finally ground out. Frustrated, hurt and to top it off, his wonderful new soul was making itself meddlesome yet again, threatening to drown him in guilt.

"Why I Claimed kitten or why before?" She asked calmly while watching the struggle that was ongoing within him and plain to see on his face.

"Yes! Bloody well both of them. Why the Chaos Demon? Why the Whelp over there? Why'd you leave me? Why did you stop loving me?!" The raw emotion in his voice was almost painful to hear.

She sighed quietly and stared into his eyes from a mere foot away.  "Oh Spikey... I never stopped loving you."

"What?!" Her simple declaration completely derailed him.

"Look at him Spikey." Without meaning to, his gaze followed her gesture towards where Xander stood talking earnestly to Willow and a glowering Anya. "Look at him. He still loves her. And he still loves the Little Tree. He loves the Dark Slayer. He loves the Key. He even still loves your Fluffy-Slutty-Taffy Slayer." He could feel her voice sinking into him. "We can love more than one person William. It's how we chose to share that love that makes us who we are. Humans. Demons. Daemons. Even some Vampires."

He'd flinched when she'd spoken his real name, and found himself paying very close attention to what she was saying, in spite of the pain he felt. Or maybe because of it.

"You love your Buffy." The fact that she actually said the Slayers real name stopped the comment he was about to make even as he opened his mouth. "You love the Key and The Little Tree. You still love me, Spikey. Each one a different kind of love, but still love." He could see her swaying slightly in the moonlight as she spoke.

"You were the one who insisted on all or nothing Spikey. You left me long before I left you." This last was said with a trace of bitterness. "You fell in love with her the first time you saw her and slowly you let her push me out of you. You had the room for both, Spikey, but you wanted only one. I left because there was nothing else for me…"

He could only look at her as his mouth fell open. This was not going the way he had envisioned it. Not at all.

She flinched slightly at seeing the raw pain on his face. Oh Spikey..." She reached up and gently cupped his chin. "I'm so sorry."

"And what exactly are you so sorry for then?" he replied with a semblance of haughtiness trying to regain his mental footing. It was his standard defense and he knew she knew that.

She dropped her gaze towards the ground. "For turning you like I did."

"What!?" The severe shift in topics had him completely clueless as to what was going on.

"It's my fault. I gave you too much blood." She started shifting from one foot to the other, clearly fidgeting. "When I turned you. I... I'd never taken a Childe before... I gave you too much blood. I made you... broken. Like me."

He reached out and grabbed her by her arms, staring into her face.

"What are you bloody well talking about?"

Her gaze didn't leave the ground as she started talking softly. "Daddy broke me before he turned me..."

"I know that!"

Her head snapped up and she stared into his eyes. "No, William. You don't."

He dropped his hands away from her as if scalded.

"No. You. Don't." Each word was its own sentence, ground out through lips gone paler than normal even for a Vampiress. "Daddy wanted a Seer. A Sorceress. He got me."

She paused and he could see the pain in her eyes, the pain in her...

"No." He shook his head violently. "No... It's not possible."

"Not a full one, no. Not complete. Torn, broken, shredded. Part of a soul. Trapped in a dead body with a demon in charge." She laughed bitterly. "Is it any wonder I've been crazy?" She asked rhetorically.

To say he was surprised was putting it lightly. He could only stand there trying to grasp what she had just told him.

 "You came out... wrong when I made you. Why do you think Daddy was so hard on you? Why do you think he tried so hard to break you?"

She could see the memories shuffle past his eyes in his head as he started to shake his head.

"Yes. Daddy did... something that caused my soul to... break. He tore it into pieces and I was left with some of the parts." She started fidgeting again. "Have you ever wondered why you're not like other Vampires? Why you smoke and even eat?" She asked quietly.

"Because I'm William the bloody Bloody is why!" He roared, drawing the attention of the trio off to the side for a moment before they went to their own conversation. "I'm Spike, the Big Bad. I'm bloody well one of a kind!"

If anything, her face grew sadder. "Yes. Yes, you are. And that's my fault." As a confused look took a hold of his face yet again she continued. "When I made you my childe, I gave you too much of my blood, to much of me..." Her voice trailed off and she stared at him, trying to make him feel what she was saying. Repeating herself in the effort to make him understand. "I made you like me. Different."

He tried desperately to deny what she was saying but found himself unable to deny it.

"You are a Vampire, yet you love harder and deeper than most humans ever dream of." As he started to reply she cut him off ruthlessly. "You have always loved. You fell in love with me and with your Buffy while you still thought of yourself as a 'soulless monster'. The Key knew you loved her as family long before your trip to Africa."

"Well, yea." Was the best reply he could manage. "Wait a bloody minute... That stinking pillock in the cave said he'd given me back my soul!" He crossed his arms and half glared at her. "How do you explain that then?"

"He lied."

"What?! That's your entire answer then? He lied?"

"He didn't give you back your soul Spikey. He just brought it kicking and screaming out from its cage and made it look around at what you'd done. It's always been there. Trapped in a dark corner, occasionally fighting its way out and making itself known. That's why you've been the way you have been. That's why you are the way you are. Why you've done some of the things you've done."

"And the reason you're not balmy lately is?" He had to change the subject. The reality of what she was saying was too much for him to take.

"Kitten."

"You know luv, these one word answers are getting a mite irksome."

"When I Claimed Xander it made me… more solid. Better. Not all the way better, but a bit more lucid." She frowned for a moment in thought. "The stars don't talk to me as much as they used to Spikey… And Miss Edith has become all surly. Soon I may be as deaf to the stars as your Slayer." She pouted for a moment more and then her face cleared. "It was for the better though."

"Was it Luv?" he asked quietly.

"Yes. It's my destiny. I've been waiting on this…"

 "Why him? What is the story on the love spell Dru? The real story." Amazingly, there was no anger in his voice. There had been to many surprises, so much to absorb.

"I was affected by the Spell… That only proves that I'm… defective as a Vampire. That I still have at least some of my soul. It couldn't have if I didn't. The spell opened my eyes to who and what he was." She hesitated for a moment and then continued. "He was… I don't know Spikey. We'd watched them in action for so long and even you have to admit… His strength."

"Chubbs? Strong? You're loosing it again Luv."

Her eyes flashed a golden color for a moment, but she kept control and merely glared at him for a moment. "You know what I mean and don't deny it. He wasn't the fastest, the strongest or the smartest, but he never gave up and he never backed down. He faced off with Daddy, more than once, and walked away from it alive. For love."

"Damn" he muttered quietly. He'd almost forgotten that the boy had actually done that. There was no doubting that the boy had balls the size of a football. He didn't like him, but he did have a grudging respect for the man.

"He won't stop Spikey, he… can't. He won't let himself. He's chosen this fight and he fights like he loves… no holding back."

"Damn it Anya, it's not always about orgasms!"

The two of them turned towards the trio across the yard for a moment at Xander's outburst before turning to face each other again, a slight smile on Spike's face.

"At least she 'asn't changed much." He observed.

"Poor Kitten, she's taking this so hard."

"And you are surprised about this why?"

"Because it doesn't have to be this way. It never did."

"Are you happy Dru?" He asked suddenly. "Are you really happy?"

"Are you happy with your Slayer, Spike?" She asked by way of reply.

"I… I love her. I'd die for her. Thought I was getting my bleedin soul back for her didn't I?" He paused for a moment in thought. "I don't know if she loves me or not. Not even sure if she can or will let 'erself love me. Doesn't matter though. I love her. Don't know when it happened. Don't care. I love her and that's enough. Finally figured out what love meant."

"My kitten, My Alexander, has a huge capacity for love. A huge capacity. It's only matched by the loyalty he has for those that he loves." She trailed off for a moment and then looked at him shyly. "He reminds me a bit of someone I know… You."

At any other time Spike would have been outraged at the mere thought that he and Xander were anything at all alike, but in this one instance he actually considered and understood what she was trying to tell him.

There was so much more that they needed to say to each other, to understand about each other. But the argument across the way seemed to be gathering in volume though, and sunrise wasn't that far off.

"I think it's time you and the Whel… That the two of you need be heading off Luv."

She looked at him in gratitude and he had to blink at the sudden stinging feeling he felt in his eyes.

Slowly, almost shyly, she reached out and cupped his cheek with her hand for a moment, looking deep into his eyes. Then she released him and started walking across the yard.

"Thank you for listening William." She called back over her shoulder.

"And thank you as well Buffy." She added two steps later.

"What?!" He exclaimed as he turned around quickly and found the Slayer standing about 10 foot behind him with an undecipherable look on her face. He had no idea how long she'd been there or how much she had heard.

"Oh bloody Hell!"

End of Chapter 7.

Stay tuned for another chapter within two weeks or so. Same Grrr time. Same Grrr Channel.