Thanks, Deena. makes note to that effect. might come in useful if she starts demanding Daniel again

(BTW, Deena, do you use Yahoo IM? I'm amchau42. Be nice to talk to you that way.)

sumi, that would be... um... interesting.

Another tiny sliver of what might become Dru/Willow (set during Season 6, after Tara left and Amy got deratted):

* * *

Drusilla felt the ripples pass through her skin as she left the club, and she paused on the threshold, sliding her fingers idly over the stonework with her head cocked to one side. For the first time in long weeks her mouth curved into a smile. The boy glanced back at her with an impatient little frown, his pulse fluttering deliciously, and pouted.

"There a problem?" he asked. His voice was shrill, but he looked like a Renaissance cherub and his hair was a dirty blond that reminded her of a boy in a London alleyway long years ago. Dru's smile broadened and she sprang lightly over the threshold, pausing barely a kiss away from him.

"Not now," she said, and ran one lacquered nail gently over his skin in a caress too faint to draw blood. "Everything's coming up roses after all." He blinked, mesmerised by her voice and the sudden force of her gaze.

"Roses?"

"Pretty red flowers with sharp little thorns." She bent forward and pressed a kiss onto the thin warm skin of his throat. Many miles to the south, the witches twisted the fabric of reality again and Drusilla shivered. It would take a day or two to get back to Sunnydale. "Come along, my little Ganymede. Mummy's thirsty."

* * *

Watching the witch was Drusilla's new hobby. Some nights she forgot, or lost interest, and wandered off to plait some pretty girl's intestines, or to listen to a new student band at The Bronze. Most nights, however, she watched the witch. She had to be careful, because the Slayer was there, and the Slayer was good. Better than good. Better than ever, in fact, and that was saying something. And there was her Spike too, to consider; successfully keeping her presence secret from her sweetheart made Drusilla bounce with smug glee and hug herself with delight at her own cleverness. And it made her heart ache unexpectedly too, especially when she saw him staring after the Slayer like some moon calf with milk in his veins. He should have been able to feel his Drusilla watching him from the shadows; she had learned a lot from Daddy, but Spike had always known her best of all and he should have known she was there. But his head was full of metal and his heart was full of this vulgar little girl, and it seemed he had no memory of her scent.

Drusilla despised inconstancy.

But she rather liked the witch, with her chemically coloured hair and her power and her need. She was burning like a bonfire and all around her were little lives like birthday cake candles, weak little lights that a tiny breeze would whisk away. Yet somehow all the other mortals seemed oblivious to the maelstrom of magic and anger and wanting in their midst. The other witch had an inkling, but not even she had grasped how much strength the Slayer's little friend possessed. Drusilla could see right away what the problem was, and she had just the thing to cure Willow's worries in a trice. The nasty soul was getting in the way, muddying the waters and making little Willow weep. She still thought she wanted to be good, although she wasn't very good at being good. She didn't understand what she could be.

Drusilla was going to have to show her, like a good mother should.

swoons

I love good Dru fic. Love, love, love.

beams

"braiding pretty girls' ..."

And, dumb me, I was expecting the next word to be hair.

lovelovelove

Wow. And wrod to the lovelovelove.

I'm torn between it making me want to write more Dru, and it making me abosultely pertified that my Dru is terrible.

Because that's, um, a very good Dru.

Go, Brits! With the Dru writing and everything. I'm so not worthy.

It's somebody else's fault. They pulled down the bunny-proof fence

Something squeaked behind him. It sounded like shoe leather. Giles knew he should be worried, but, dammit, Robson was trying to bleed to death on the floor in front of him, there was a dead girl on the other side of the room, so forgive him for being a mite distracted.

The gunshot made him duck, though, and the swinging axe that was aimed for his head slammed into his shoulder instead as the Bringer fell.

He clutched the wound, staring at the new corpse. This was going to be difficult to explain. Someone must have heard that shot, this wasn't America, people would report gunplay--and who the hell was that, anyway ...

New hands held him up, pressed a cloth to the bleeding wound. Robson had passed out again, but he was still breathing. Giles tried to focus on the person next to him.

"You're a difficult man to find, Rupert," Ethan Rayne said calmly. He looked around, then tugged Robson's necktie off to tie the cloth around Giles' wound.

"Ethan? How--why--"

"Who, what, when, and where. Not now, old boy." He got his shoulder under Giles' good side and lifted. "Upsy daisy."

"No ... Robson ... hospital ..."

"No, you, hospital. I'm sure Robson's very civic-minded neighbors have already called the police, they can deal with this mess. I'd rather not be here."

Giles saw the pistol shoved in Ethan's belt. "I don't understand..."

"You don't have to. Just stand up as straight as you can, keep moving, and hope no one gets a good look at us as we leave.

The next hour was a blur. There was a car waiting at the curb, then a hospital emergency room and Ethan telling the story of a mugging with such flaming high drama that the nurses thought Giles was going into shock rather than trying not to laugh himself sick. By the end of it all, Giles almost believed in the gang of drunken hooligans who had taken exception to Giles' taste in soccer teams and drinking companions and Ethan being too panicked to call the police because "all that blood, poor dear Rupert, I just couldn't *think*, I just knew I had to get him here." Ethan's description of the "attackers" was vague enough to be believable but detailed enough to make the policeman nod knowingly.

Finally Giles was released into Ethan's care, and Ethan escorted him out to the car, babbling in concern. Once they were in the car and away from hospital, though, all the extravagent gestures and words faded. Two blocks away, Ethan pulled into an alley and leaned his forehead on the steering wheel.

"Are you all right?" Giles asked softly. Pain drugs, lovely things.

"Yes, I'm--I think so--that thing wasn't human, was it? That I shot?"

"What? Oh, no, no, it wasn't. It was a Bringer, or Harbinger, a servant of the First Evil, its hands in the world. They've been killing the potential Slayers, trying to end the line, Robson said it's started, everyone is in such dreadful danger." He didn't think Ethan was listening, though. The other man clutched the steering wheel, eyes tightly closed. "Ethan, what is it?"

"Half a second slower, a breath slower ... you've have been ..."

Giles reached out with his good arm and put a hand on Ethan's shaking shoulder. "Yes. Thank you for that, by the way. Tell me why you were there, with a gun. I didn't even know you could shoot."

Ethan took a deep breath and relaxed his grip on the wheel. But he didn't look up. "Choices are being demanded. Sides are being drawn up. I thought I knew mine, but then I remembered your annoying little habit of always pulling some miracle out of your hat. I'm playing the odds."

"Ethan, are you telling me you want to help save the world?"

"You needn't sound quite so disbelieving, you know." A look of unwonted seriousness went across his face. "Chaos isn't evil, you know. Well, not solely. Stagnation is evil. The forces coming up on the other side want unending pain and torment. No room for the delicate touch, that bit of whimsy."

"Turning me into a demon was not delicate. How did you get away from the Initiative, anyway?"

That mobile face suddenly went guileless and sad. "Such a weak, ineffectual man, without his magic what kind of threat could he be?" The grin was pure wicked Ethan. "They actually left me alone in a room with a working telephone with an outside line for ten minutes. I had to burn half a dozen favors, but in 20 hours I was free and the Initiative was suffering an infestation of fire ants, ghost scorpions and skunks. I was almost reluctant to leave."

"Ghost scorpions became extinct in the 1830s, how in the world--"

Ethan shrugged. "Well, in this dimension they are. I'm sure those mad scientists were ever so grateful to have several specimens of an invisible stinging insect to study." He turned to look at Giles. "Was that creature swinging an axe at you in particular or were you just convenient?"

"I'm afraid I was just convenient, though I'm sure that will change. All the potential Slayers are being hunted, and the Watchers Council is in danger--"

"Damn," Ethan said with as little sympathy as was possible to put into a word.

"Stop it, we don't have time for that. The Council may be full of berks and idiots, but they're still the organization best position to mount a defense against primal evil."

"There is no defense against primal evil. One might as well defend oneself against primal gravity. Despite whatever spasms are happening now, the balance will be maintained."

"But what if it won't be?" Giles said quietly. "What if there were a way to tip that balance, and darkness is trying just that? You said it yourself, sides are being drawn. The darkness thinks it can win this, it thinks that the light can be defeated."

Ethan stared off frowning. Giles felt something of his turmoi