Prologue
A bit of back story
I was in New York when I found her. She was out of her mind crazy. She hadn't fed in a week. I could smell it on her, she was starving herself. She was talking about how the stars and Miss Edith had told her that she was supposed to die soon. That she should die soon because she had been a bad girl. She didn't have a soul, so I wasn't sure what was really going on with her when I found her. The only thing I was sure of was that she was absolutely bonkers. There was no two ways about it; the bird had finally cracked because of what Angelus had done to her over 100 years ago. It was a long time coming, but she was my sire, I couldn't just watch her suffer. So I made a few phone calls. I contacted a witch in New York close by where I had found her. The chit said she had known my sire was there and that she also knew that I was coming to town thanks to a nifty tracking device another witch had stuck on me at some point. Or at least that's what she said. I think she just sensed a vampire with a soul if you ask me. Getting on with my story, I talked to this bird and she pointed me towards a coven in England. Told me that the coven over there would be able to do something to fix Dru's mind, make her not so crazy anymore.
We get over to England and they chain her to the wall and forced her to eat. They told me that not only was it for their protection, but for her own as well because she would need all the strength she could get for what they were about to do to her. It worried me a bit when they told me that, but the bird I was talking to said that it was mental strength that she needed and that if she was starved half to death, she wouldn't have the mental strength for anything let alone what they had to do to fix her.
Fast forward a week and the bird tells me that they have done all they can for Dru, that now I needed to take her to Ireland and talk to a witch named Elissa. She says that Elissa will finish what they had started and make it so that Dru would be able to keep her visions, but they wouldn't make her crazy anymore. So I pack up my single duffle bag of clothes and the couple of items I managed to gather for Dru and made my way to Ireland to find Elissa. Took me about 3 weeks before I was able to locate the woman, and when I finally did I find out that the woman has a spell on her house to make you forget why you're there. So I wound up standing across the street from her home yelling at her in the middle of the night to take the bloody spell off so that I could talk to her, told her she didn't have to invite me in, just take down the spell. After 2 nights of me yelling at her closed door she finally opened it and took down the spell. She refused to invite me in like I figured she would, but she was willing to listen if I would 'just shut the 'ell up before I wake the neighbors'. I told her how a witchy coven over in England had pointed me in her direction to finish fixing what they had started on Drusilla. She looked over at the woman that was with me then for the first time and realized that there was really nothing going on inside her head at the moment. Apparently the coven in England had wiped her mind completely. Elissa invited us in and it took her about 2 weeks to do whatever she did with Dru. But when she was finished, Dru was like a vampire with a soul, but without one. She wouldn't ever want to feed on humans again, would actually kill anyone who tried to make her feed on another human. She would be more than willing to hunt and kill any vampire or demon and kill it instead of trying to recruit it to join an army to take over the world. She would be able to sense a vampire with a soul and wouldn't try to kill it if it did have a soul. I informed the witch that it wouldn't be a problem since there are only 2 of us in the world with a soul, me and Angel. Elissa said she would still have her visions and they wouldn't drive her crazy anymore, but as a side effect she would vamp out after the vision and stay that way until she had fed, so I needed to make sure there was always blood around. When she finished informing me of everything she shooed us both out the door slamming it, but not before I managed to tell her to call a witch in Sunnydale and let her know everything and that we were headed her way.
We didn't stop much on the way back to Sunnydale, only during the day to sleep and only at night to feed. Most of the way back Dru was quiet. I figured she didn't really know what to say about whom she was because she really didn't know who she was anymore. She had all of her old memories, but that wasn't who she was and she knew that most people would still think she was Drusilla, the crazy vampire who talked to the stars and said that the stars and her doll told her things. The first thing she did on her own from Ireland back to the states was throw the doll over the side of the ship and into the ocean.
I knew that Red had felt us drive over the Sunnydale county line. Dru and I both felt the surge of magic that came our way of someone trying to identify who we were and if we were a threat. Dru said she bet me 50 bucks that there wasn't anyone or anything in or coming into Sunnydale that the witch didn't know about. We made our way across town and set up show at our old mansion on the edge of town. The next night we went and sat at the county line just behind the Welcome to Sunnydale sign that I didn't stop to burn down or run over for once. Dru was right, every car that drove past we felt that same surge of magic coming at it. There really wasn't anything or anyone coming into Sunnydale without the witches notice.
The next week was spent hunting the cemeteries but staying on the opposite end of town as Buffy, At some point during that week Dru and I decided that we would split up during the night and hunt at different spots for demons and vampires then meet back at the mansion before sunrise and feed on the almost never ending supply of pigs blood that stayed cool in the fridge.
Everything was fine for the next month or so, but I started to catch the scent of the slayer coming closer and closer to my hunting grounds almost every night. She probably thought it was odd that there wasn't a single vampire that she had found coming from this end of town in over a month. I started following her on her patrols then. Occasionally I would stop by her house after she had left for patrol and sneak a peek in the window at the witch and Bit. After patrol I would follow Buffy back to her house and make sure that everyone was in safe and sound. Then I would head to the mansion, checking the cemeteries on my way back, and meet up with Dru on the front porch for dinner. Drusilla knew all about me following Buffy around and checking on my girls at the Summers' home at night after patrol and for once she didn't much care that I was off looking after the slayer and her family and friends. I did the same thing every night. It became such a routine for me and it worked for both Dru and me. We knew eventually we would have to let Buffy in on what had happened in the last couple of years, but we were hoping that it wouldn't come to that for a while and if it did, that Red told her about us being here first. I didn't much want to try and convince the slayer and her friends that Drusilla wasn't going to try and eat everyone anymore.
All my plans and all hope of never having to tell Buffy ourselves flew out the window the night she saw my cigarette go flying off the top of the mausoleum during her patrol.