Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
(O.O)
Darla
America. I had never expected to come back here, and I had never wanted to. Not since I left the Master's side for the last time. I would have been content to never see its vast plains, craggy mountains, and sprawling cities ever again, but the cure for my Drusilla was here. I might have told her we were going here because of the hellmouth, but in her visions that she relayed to me, I'd seen the truth.
Angelus. Another thing I had not been expecting. Nearly a century of avoiding him, and now I had the irony of needing his help to save my Dru.
The memory of the last time I saw Angelus was not a pleasant one. It had been in China at the turn of the century, during the Boxer Rebellion. The three of us: Dru, William and I, had been at the time pursuing a clan of Grak'sh demons. They were fiends of chaos that fed on destruction and havoc, leaving nothing but crushed bodies and devastation in their wake.
Dru and William had gone ahead of me to scout out where the nest might be hiding, while I tried to secure us a base of operations in midst of the chaos that was Beijing. It was the wrong time to be a foreigner in China, and I was nearly beside myself with worry for my two charges.
Angelus had simply appeared out of the shadows in front of me on a narrow side street, nearly starling me out of my skin. I'd had to put my hands on him, running my fingers over his beloved face, making sure he was solid, before I'd been able to believe that he was really there. He was dirty and unkempt, but he was my Childe. He begged for me to help him, and to make him part of the family again. It was obvious to me what was wrong with him. He had a soul.
At first I had been ecstatic to find out that my Childe had been alive for all this time, and was even happier that he'd returned to me. I had so many questions. What had happened to him? Where had he been for the last two years? And why had he only now returned?
"I was cursed with a soul, Sire, as a punishment by the gypsies whose beloved daughter I had defiled and killed," he said, confirming my suspicions and answering some of my questions. It seems that the return of his soul had felt the same as if he had died to the sensitive Dru thus making us believe that he had died that night.
But my happiness to see him subsided, and no sooner afterwards common sense returned to me, this was Angelus my evil childe who just had his human soul, his adulterous and drunkard human soul, returned to him. What had he been doing for the last two years while he was away from us? And why had he only now decided to return? These questions immediately came to me.
He had answered by giving me a long and detailed story of his experience as we hid in the dark of a city on fire. His tale was mostly about how the guilt had consumed him, how he had wanted to dust himself, but couldn't out of a fear of where his soul would go after his death.
I had found it hilarious that out of the four of us, the once mighty Whirlwind, that Angelus was the only one who cared that he'd end up in hell when he dusted. William, Drusilla, and I had already made peace with this as an immutable truth we could not change and would come upon us when our time came.
Angelus had continued his tale, telling me how he'd realized that all those crimes he'd committed while he'd been without a soul were not his fault at all, but belonged solely to the demon. His words disturbed me. They reminded me too much of the drunk whoremonger of a human that he'd been, always putting the blame for his actions on booze or untrustworthy friends. He further explained to me that this understanding was what had spurred his return to us, his family, in hopes that we could help him expunge the soul so that he could return to a life of anarchy and bloodshed with us. He wanted the fun with no consequences.
I wondered what kind of rock he'd been living under to not know that we'd now be that last creatures on earth that would help him free his demon.
It terrified me to even think that Angelus had not changed at all, even with the soul burning inside him. When I'd first felt the spark in my own chest, I had believed its presence had made me human again. I knew better now. The soul was just a light, illuminating what had always been there inside us. For Angelus, its significant meant very little to him because unlike William and Dru, Liam had been a bastard as a human, and it seemed he'd carried that straight into death. For the first time I caught myself regretting him as the one I had chosen to be my Childe. His easy dismissal of all the deaths he had caused, claiming them to belong only to the demon, angered me beyond belief. It was not right.
He was not right.
I had made a monster. And I believe that it fell unto me the responsibility to correct that mistake, even if it tore me apart to do so. I had to protect William and Dru, were he to stay with us his influence on them would be too great. He'd have their minds twisted around to his way of thinking before the day was out.
"You truly wish to join us again, my Childe?" I asked him, approaching him with my hips swinging, my head tilted coquettishly to the side. He had nodded slowly in response, watching me. "You're telling me that despite the soul you're carrying, you'd be willing to kill humans?" I walked my gloved fingers up his chest, then caressed his cheek.
"If'n that be yer wish, Sire." His voice was rough, the Irish accent he hated so much breaking through.
"And what if my wish was for you to kill yourself, would you still be willing to do what I asked?" I slapped him, my voice cold.
He looked shocked, my betrayal reflected in his eyes. I couldn't blame him. Before my soul, he had been mine as I had been his. I had abandoned my own Sire for him. In his world he could not imagine me rejecting him.
"Ye would ask that of me?" It was barely a whisper. His own callused hand pressed over the welt I had left on his cheek.
In that instant I had made the mistake of looking up into his face and seeing the raw emotions there, all the confusion and desolation. It broke my undead heart. My soul may have permitted me to view William and Dru as my own children, but my demon would forever see Angelus belonging to me. For the first time since the curse, I felt torn between the soul and the demon. The human and the beast. One wanted to destroy the being in front of me, while the other wanted nothing but to reclaim what was rightfully hers, and protect it to the end of time.
In the end I had had to compromise. I couldn't kill Angelus, but I couldn't let him stay with us either.
I squared my shoulders, knowing what I had to do, but not liking it.
"No, my Childe, I would never ask that of you." Relief had flooded his face. "However, I would never ask for you to kill another for me again, either." I forced my veins to become ice. My words confused him, I could see it. "What I will ask of you, boy, is to leave my side. I never want to see your pathetic, repulsive, souled self ever again."
"But Sire-" Tears were gathering in his eyes. It nearly crushed me.
"Leave, Angelus! I don't want you or your worthless soul near me, William or Drusilla!" I slammed my fist into him, knocking his unresisting body backwards.
Once he recovered, he had stared at me with so much hurt and bewilderment that I had had to turn my back on him or risk losing my resolve.
I started to walk away, then stopped and looked one last time back over my shoulder at him. "Don't ever let me see you again, or I will dust your pathetic ass."
He had done as I had asked. From that day to this I had not seen him once. Of course, I had kept an ear out for him over the years, which is why I always knew where he was and what he was doing.
I knew that he spent most of the last century awash in self-pity, and that in 1943 he got caught up in the American war effort, but that afterwards he went straight back to wallowing and brooding.
It was only recently that something had happened. He had somehow gotten involved with the current Slayer in Sunnydale, which was why I now found myself on a ship sailing into New York harbor. The buildings were taller than I remembered, the lights brighter. Like so many that had arrived this way I carried hope with me, but it was tempered by a healthy dose of fear at seeing Angelus again.
I had done badly by my Childe, I could see that now. I had abandoned him in his time of need. Back then all I'd thought I'd only been worried about was my charges, but now I could admit that I'd also been afraid for myself. Around him my demon awoke and fought back against its chains. I hoped I'd be stronger now. I also hoped that my rejection of him then would not bear poisoned fruit, and lead to him to turning his back on Drusilla. I couldn't lose her. Whatever it took, whatever apologies Angelus needed, I would not be too proud to give. Even if he asked for my dust, I would gladly give it. It's what any mother would do.
I watched the Statue of Liberty as we sailed by, a welcome to those coming to the New World. My Childe calls himself Angel now, and in that, I find hope that he'd live up to his namesake.
(O.O)
