Absolution
by Meltha
Disclaimer: This is a fan piece. It was not created or distrubuted for profit. The characters, situations, and music mentioned in this fic belong to their respective creators/companies/etc.
Originally written December of 2000. (My second one
ever.)
Feedback: If you please, thank you.
Distribution: At the moment, here. If
someone wants it, I'd really appreciate it if you would ask me, please.
Dedication: This one goes out to RyAn.
You're one special person.
Author's Note: This is set during the time period
before Angelus got his soul back. I know Dru and William didn't apparently
technically become a couple until 1900, but I'm bending that rule a teensy
bit here.
Stars shone brightly in the night sky above, singing their never ceasing
rhapsody of diamond-cold light, not that anyone else heard it other than
the startlingly beautiful girl with skin as pale as the moon. Her
sapphire eyes sparkled in the semi-blackness as her feet tripped lightly
over the lamp-lit cobblestone street in a dance of mixed innocence and
power. From the shadowy depths nearby, a pair of eyes the color of
winter watched her graceful movements, never completely comprehending the
dance but admiring her fluid gestures, the fragility of her motions that
he knew concealed her tremendous strength. He smiled at her in a
surprisingly tender fashion.
"Hearing the stars again, princess?" he asked in dulcet tones as
he stepped forward into the light and drew her towards him, taking her
tiny, icy hand in his own.
"Can't you hear them whispering in your ear?" she asked, putting her mouth
close against his cheek. "They sing so prettily here. Not like
in smoggy London. It's clearer, now."
He adored ever particle of her being, but that didn't stop him from realizing
she was utterly insane. Often he wondered what she had been like
before Angelus had tortured her into losing her mind. It was one
of the things that made him hate his grandsire most. She had been
damaged beyond repair, and now he would never be able to know her in totality.
How could he when she barely knew herself?
"Yes, I like this little town better myself," especially since Angelus
and Darla didn't want to come, he added mentally. She looked at him
pointedly for a moment, and he wasn't entirely sure she hadn't read his
mind.
"So," he said in an attempt to move the topic far away from his dark rival,
"are you going to tell me where you've been spending so many hours away
from me this past week?"
"Shhhh," she replied, acting more like a child afraid of being caught doing
something naughty than the vampire she was. "Don't want him to hear
you."
Him? If this "him" turned out to be something other than a waiting
meal, Spike was going to be extremely disappointed. Time had taught
him to expect Drusilla's little infidelities. Although he claimed
that they didn't hurt him, he never extended her the same discourtesy.
He had eyes for no one but his pallid princess.
"I see. Tell me, pet, is the gentleman going to be furnishing this
evening's dinner, or are we talking about one of your playmates?"
He tried to say it without bitterness, but his eyes didn't meet hers fully.
Giggling merrily in response, she intoned in a teasing voice, "Is
my Spike jealous?" She drew her hand down his cheek and under his
chin. "He needn't be. The human is almost eighty. You're much
prettier."
Before he could stop it, a relieved smile spread across his face.
She gave his short ponytail a mischievous tug and continued to dance down
the deserted street. He started to follow her, but she suddenly turned
around with a remarkably different air about her. She put up a hand
to stop him.
"No. The stars say go by myself," she said as her blue eyes riveted
him to the spot. There was no arguing with her when she was like
this.
"But love, will I see you before dawn?" Secretly, he always worried
that she would forget about dawn altogether. Daymares of his lover
turning from her beautiful self into a pile of gardenia-scented dust haunted
him regularly.
"I'll be home soon. Go play. Like me."
Personally, he had some other plans for playing after she returned.
"Don't be gone long, Dru. I'll be waiting for you." He seemed
to dissolve into the shadows as he went to find his own meal.
Drusilla continued along the path she had taken for the last week.
A notable change came over the strangely childlike woman as she neared
her destination. She seemed less demonic and more human. Finally,
she reached her goal.
She stood in front of a small, two-storied building. It was, in fact,
the village toy maker's shop. Great glass windows on the lower floor
looked in upon a sea of faces, many of which bore a strong resemblance
to Drusilla. The dolls returned her gaze steadily.
With one swift movement, she opened the door of the shop and entered.
She knew the place well by now. Every day for the last week she had
come here and studied the faces of the dolls that lined the walls.
It was almost like looking in a mirror, which was naturally an impossibility
for the vampire. There was a tremendous feeling of peace here, a
peace that she could almost remember feeling once before a long time ago.
She had been uncertain what
she was doing here for several nights. The old man who ran the store
lived on the floor above the shop, but as she had no invitation, she was
unable to enter his rooms or even set foot upon the staircase. One
night she had been in rapt conversation with a remarkably pretty little
dark-haired, light-eyed doll who wore a frothy dress of cream lace when
she had heard a voice.
"My dear, would you like
a cup of tea? You don't want to catch cold," the old man's voice
said kindly.
It was a strange greeting
even to Drusilla, which was saying something. The man showed absolutely
no sign of surprise, let alone fear. She looked at him for a moment,
trying to decide what the proper thing to do would be: kill him,
or drink the tea and then kill him. After all, she didn't want to
be rude.
"What am I saying?
You never stay for more than a moment anyway," he said to himself sadly
as he stood looking at her. She was startled to see tears in his
eyes.
Drusilla was used to
tears of fright, but these stemmed from sorrow. Deeply confused,
she turned to him and said quietly "I'll stay for a bit."
Now it was the old man's
turn to feel startled. "You spoke! But, I've never heard you
speak before..."
"You've never spoken to me
before," said the increasingly befuddled girl.
"Yes, yes I have, daughter.
So many times. Are you, can you really be here," he said with tremendous
tenderness.
Drusilla's mind twisted his
words around, trying to make some sense of things. He thought she
was his daughter. Her great eyes shifted in wide arcs around the
room as she tried to remember something. Her father... Angelus had
killed her father. Painful memories invaded her thoughts. Her
first instinct was to end the conversation with a quick snap of his neck,
but once more something unexpected happened. The old man threw his
arms around her and buried his face in the folds of lace on her shoulder,
crying in great, soul-heaving sobs. Something in the back of her
mind clicked, and, rather than letting her demon-face come forth, she tenderly
put her arms around the old man.
"There, there," she crooned
sweetly as she gently stroked his back. "It's alright."
"You're so cold. Here,
sit down by the grate and I'll make a fire. I don't understand any
of this," Drusilla was in silent agreement with him on this, "but I'm grateful.
So very, very grateful."
Drusilla watched as the old
man heaped wood into the fireplace in an attempt to warm her perpetually
cold flesh. Not too long after, a fire blazed cheerfully in the hearth.
"Come child. Come sit
by me. Bring your doll. You always did love dolls."
Obediently, Drusilla moved
towards the fireplace, bringing the doll with her. She found herself
sitting quite naturally next to him on the floor as he gently smoothed
her dark curls away from her face.
"You're still the most beautiful
girl in the town," he said, which in spite of everything made Drusilla
smile. Demon or not, she was still every inch a female and liked
compliments, which was why she so often trifled with other admirers.
"When we lost you..."
Understanding dawned across
Dru's face. The old man's daughter had died, probably long ago.
He thought she had returned to him. The poor man's a bit unhinged,
she thought without irony. I suppose I should humor him a bit.
That is what people do when one is mad, isn't it?
"Do you remember what happened?"
he asked her quietly.
"Some of it," she replied
in an equally quiet voice. Her thoughts were resting on events that
had happened long ago as well. She recalled opening the front door
of her family's home and the daylight exposing Angelus's handiwork to her
terrified eyes. She remembered screaming for a very long time.
Her highly sensitive mind also read that the old man was remembering pain,
too. He had lost his daughter to..."A fever was what did it, wasn't
it?"
The old man nodded silently.
"We did everything we could to save you. It was all so horrible."
His hand played with one of her long, dark curls.
"I'm sorry you hurt," Drusilla
said, and strangely enough, she meant it. "I'm sorry I was taken
away from you. I never wanted to cause you pain." She had started
to cry.
"Poor little love, you weren't
the cause of the trouble. It does hurt, I won't deny it, but it wasn't
your fault. You didn't do anything to make it happen."
Pulling her close, he rocked
her soothingly. Drusilla was glad that the light from the fire was
too dim for him to see that her tears were tinged with red. She sobbed
almost hysterically.
"Please forgive me, Father!
I didn't mean for it to happen! I swear I didn't! I tried so
hard to be a good girl! Forgive me, please!"
"Hush, love, hush!
Don't hurt yourself! There's nothing to forgive. You did all
that you could, child. Forgive you? There's nothing to be forgiven.
You couldn't help it," he said as he gently kissed her cheek.
Looking out the window, Drusilla
recognized the signs of approaching dawn. She couldn't stay.
"I have to go now.
I'm sorry."
"Child, I don't know what
kindness I've done in all my life that let you come back to me, but I am
grateful. I don't think it will be too long now until we don't have
to part again, will it?"
"No, Father. Not long."
Drusilla had seen enough of death to know when it was coming, and she knew
he was not long for this earth. His labored heart was steadily beating
slower. It wouldn't be long at all.
She had returned every night
since then, but she hadn't gone inside again. Instead, she had kept
a silent vigil under his window for hours, listening to the sound of his
breathing and the slowing heartbeat. Sometimes she had sung quietly
to him in the street, humming the melody of the stars. It seemed
to comfort him, and she was glad.
Tonight was different.
When she entered the shop, she listened with all her might. Nothing
stirred. Gently, she put her slippered foot on the staircase and
passed up to the old man's room without encountering any barrier.
From this, she knew what she would find.
He was gone. She could
tell from the scent that death had been there, but the corpse had been
taken away already. She stood in the center of the room for a long
time, not moving. Then her eyes fell on a faded daguerreotype next
to his bed. The subject was a girl, perhaps fourteen years old, who
Drusilla realized looked remarkably like her. She carefully took
the picture out of its frame to study it more closely. The eyes,
the hair, the skin, the face, all of them resembled her as she remembered
herself before... Of course, it was merely a resemblance. It
had been fortunate that the old man had seen her in poor light with bad
eyes. She placed the picture face down on the table and saw writing
on the back of it.
"Our dearest Edith, 1854-1869,"
she read aloud.
She lingered for a few more
moments in the room, looking at the starlight that fell across the floor.
"Goodbye, Father. Be
happy now."
She turned and walked down
the steps to the shop. She stopped for a brief moment to pick something
up and tuck it lovingly into the crook of her arm before she sped off into
the lightening darkness.
"Glad you're home pet.
I was worried," Spike purred gently at her as she entered.
He really had been concerned.
The sun was already starting to crest over the horizon. Embracing
her affectionately, he was startled when a hard bundle jabbed him in the
ribs.
"What's this?" he asked,
looking into her face for the first time since their parting. He realized
she had been crying. "Did someone hurt you, love? Was it that
old man? If it was..." His face was already starting to change.
"He's dead." Her voice
betrayed no emotion at all. She moved away from him, rocking the
bundle gently and cooing a soft, wordless tune.
"Oh, well, I can't offer
to kill him for you then," he said in some embarrassment. "What
have you got there, Dru?"
Drusilla gently laid a doll
in a frothy, cream-colored lace dress on the bed, carefully cushioning
the porcelain head on a pillow. Spike stared at it uncertainly.
"Spike, meet Miss Edith.
Miss Edith, this is Spike," she said seriously.
He continued to look at the
doll speechlessly until Dru stamped her foot at him and give him an indignant
look. Picking up his cue, he bowed to the doll politely. Ridiculous
as it might have looked, he realized Drusilla was in a mood that needed
to be humored.
"You know, she looks quite
a bit like you," he remarked, noticing the dark hair and blue eyes of the
doll.
Drusilla gave him a little smile then hurried
off to fetch Miss Edith a cup of tea, the first of many in the years to
come.
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