DISCLAIMER: Not mine, though I have the sneaking suspicion that Dru is
Cerisaye's. :)
SUMMARY: Pastfic, Dru. PG-13. Home, sweet Home. All she ever wanted was to belong.
WORDCOUNT: 1282
DEDICATION: to Cerisaye , because it's her birthday and she's an excellent, kind
woman who welcomed me into the lj world without knowing much about me. Because she is an
excellent beta who has helped me a lot, and because she's always there to support my crazy
plots. *hugs* THANKS!
Galway Award at Heroes Award, Dark/Angst Runner-up at Shades of Grey Awards, Vamp Award at The Dark Awards
NORTHERN STAR
by Leni
Once upon a time she'd had a father. She vaguely remembers how that man had twirled her
around until she got dizzy and begged him to stop. He had laughed as she tried to bake for
herself and ended up covered in flour. His face had changed from caring to sombre as her
visions escalated, that man had finally shouted at her and threatened to beat her if she
kept talking about the world beneath her eyelids. He had never laid a finger on her, true,
but she had been terrified of his angry demeanour more than once.
But from before the screaming and the rage, Drusilla can still remember a kind face.
Decades had gone by, and mostly she never pays attention to the whispering memories. But
today it is different, she was outside when she realised that the light around her wasn't
moonlight, but instead came from the brightest star on the sky. And she remembered.
Her father had taken her outdoors many times when she was a little child. She can even
feel the horse between her legs, her hands clutching onto her father's shirt as he laughed
and told her he wouldn't let her fall. He had loved the stars, too. He didn't know much,
not like her daughter would learn later. But he loved the tiny bright points in the sky
and he taught little Drusilla everything he knew. The details are fuzzy now, too many
things have happened and the stars themselves have confided too much in her for Drusilla
to remember a mortal's words. But she does.
Tonight, when she's lying on her bed, thinking of the sky above her Drusilla can still
hear that soft voice. "That is the Northern Star," he'd say, pointing at the
biggest blur, "No matter where you are, you will always see it and it will always
guide you home."
"Home to you?" she had asked, eyes wide with the secrets her father confided in
her.
"Of course, little one. Home to Daddy." He had laughed as he told her more
stories about the stars and finally mounted her on the horse and told her again to grab
tightly on his shirt.
He hadn't been laughing when she found him outside her bedroom door one morning. Instead
his face had been blue and afraid... so afraid, even more than the first time her dreams
tuned into reality.
Afterwards everything had been so different, there had been no Daddy to listen her quiet
voice as she read. He hadn't been there when the next vision attacked, filled with blood
and death and desperation. He hadn't helped his darling wife to sleep or to eat, and
Drusilla had had to watch as Mommy cried in every corner, wasting kerchief after kerchief
as Drusilla ran around the house trying to maintain some semblance of order. Her mother
had cried even harder when her oldest son disappeared, only to come back carried by the
town men, bluer than Daddy and with blood on his clothes. Drusilla still wishes she had
never kissed him goodbye, his last gift had been his death and she hadn't been able to go
outside her bedroom for days after that.
In her room she had understood what was happening. A curse had come onto her household and
Drusilla instinctively knew who was next. She had spent the following day with Mommy and
finally kissed her goodnight so that she wouldn't feel guilty about not doing it
afterwards. Drusilla does not remember sleeping that night, but she must have. After all,
why lose sleep when things were inevitable? She had woken up and walked slowly to her
door, knowing too well what she'd find when she opened it.
After that life was a descent into... Nothing.
Nothing did she see as she packed her clothes, all black as corresponded to a girl without
a family. Nothing did she say as she sat in the carriage on the long way to the convent,
not even a word as the sisters undressed and dressed her like a doll and made her eat
against her volition. Drusilla heard nothing in those day in the cell, the birds didn't
sing, the crickets never chirped and all was in silence as she finally saw the
blood dripping from every wall.
Drusilla had walked slowly to the altar, her black clothes fit the ocassion and the
blackness she saw in his eyes. She felt nothing as she put her hand in his, letting him
close the distance between their bodies; and even though she had never been pressed
against a man, there was no surprise in the way he touched her and kissed her and made her
lie between the blood of those who had sworn to protect her. She was nothing, only a body
in front of an altar, until the moment she felt sharp pain against her neck and she could
almost see her life draining away. And then she felt it: Salvation. But Drusilla had been
cursed since the moment she had her first vision, of course salvation could not be hers.
Just as she thought herself free and murmured a last pray of thanks, all was lost. He'd
brought her back.
Drusilla wonders fleetingly if the first thing she noticed were his eyes, luminous with
unholy light gazing hungrily at her. Or maybe it had been his mouth, as he murmured
strange words against her skin. It surely had been his hands, they could never stay quiet
in one place and she loved seeing them at work.
"What are you staring at, Dru? Another vision my darling girl will gift me
with?"
"No."
"Then pay attention to this," he whispers as his lips descended on her again.
Drusilla tries to pay attention, but her thoughts are somewhere else. She is remembering
one of those nights she had spent with Angelus, hunting beneath the moonlight while her
Grandsire partied at some rich house. She had been singing softly, a catchy tune she'd
heard somewhere, as Angelus drained the last victim. Then something had called her
attention, a big bright point just above her Sire. "What are you staring at,
dear?" he had asked then too.
"A Northern Star." She'd grinned slowly and gleefully clapped her hands.
"It'll bring me home, it'll bring me home! Daddy said so."
"Drusilla, you have no home."
She pouted. "I don't?"
"Oh, sweet Dru, don't you understand? Your place is at my side. Forever."
"But Daddy said..."
Slap. "Your home is with me. Look at me, Drusilla. Look at me!" His harsh
fingers buried under her chin, she had no option but to raise her eyes to his. "The
stars won't bring you anywhere, I'm the only one you belong to. Where I go, there you'll
be with me." The fingers turned gentler, and by the end of his sentence he was
lightly caressing her cheek.
Drusilla leaned into his touch and decided that he was right. The stars were good for
telling her secrets and whispering of things to come, but the only one who had a right to
change her destiny was her Angelus. She has let the light in his black eyes become her
north and her south, and sometimes she knows that he's everpresent in her entire world.
And maybe that mortal man's words are already slipping back into silence and mute memories
but with a last thought to her past life, Drusilla discovers the truth. He was right all
those decades ago, she thinks as her nails travel around Angelus' neck and tell him how
much of her attention he has in a long kiss.
She will always come home to Daddy.
The End
20/12/03
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