***

Darla looked around her room. It was a nice room. Expensive. With a lovely view of the ocean. She loved the ocean. It seemed so dark and seducing. Sometimes she'd try to remember what it looked like in the sunlight. She never succeeded. It was always the same. She would sit in front of the window, look out and try to imagine what it looked like bathed in a bright, golden, divine sun. She would sit there for nights on end, only going out to feed. Angelus had mocked her on those nights, telling her that they were demons and it wasn't appropriate. They should be out causing mayhem. He was right, of course.

Angelus. Her darling boy. Her lover. Her protector. He was always right. He was the bravest and meanest vampire she had ever known. She admired him so. He would do anything to please her. Together they had sought out all of the cataclysms and riots and any occasion for a good killing. Chaos was the perfect state of nature. Together they had killed off families. They had taken the babies from their mothers and made them look while they sometimes violently ripped the babies' throats out and sometimes gently bit into the soft flesh and slowly drank until their little hearts stopped beating. The fear. The anger. The heartbreak. The despair. She loved it. She could feel it everywhere. It made her want more, and Angelus always made sure that she got what she wanted. She was happy.

They said that demons couldn't love, but what did they know? In her experience it was man who couldn't love. Humans were so filthy, so vulgar and so disgusting. She remembered what being alive was like. Although she was too old to remember every detail, she remembered being poor. She remembered being beat. She remembered the shame, the abuse, the hurt… Though she didn't really remember. She was not able to identify with those feelings anymore. She just remembered it being very bad and hurtful. So very unlike now. Now she felt great. No guilt, no remorse, no stinking soul.

That's what the Slayer used to justify slaughtering vampires. At least vampires didn't have a choice. What about those human who did have a soul but chose to be bad? They were the one who supposed to die. In Darla's opinion, vampires were no worse than any other predatory animals. No, wait, vampires were the predators and human were the animals. Like cows, only better tasting.

She smiled and looked out at the ocean again. It looked so calm. So deep. So innocent and beautiful. Yet she knew how dangerous it was, and she knew how many lives it had claimed. It thrilled her. Of course, she couldn't drown, but she felt drawn to it. Drawn to try and see how deep she could go before the pressure got too big, or how far she could go out before she got too tired and too hungry to go on. It was calling her name. Telling her that out there everything would be all right again. Like before.

Nothing was all right anymore. She was no longer happy. She had been crying just now. She had lost her love. Vampires weren't supposed to appreciate beauty, to love or to cry. Yet she did it all. She had never known love before and now her love had been taken away and replaced with this `Angel' as he liked to call himself. He had always been her angel. Her angel of Death.

He had tried to love her. Tried to be her Angelus. She had seen the hurt and sacrifice in his eyes. Yet he was not Angelus, he would never be Angelus. They had parted. She was all alone again. Dru had always been Angelus' and Spike had always been Dru's. She had no one anymore.

The ocean was calling her. Telling her to become a part of its incredible and undiscovered world. Telling her that in its sweet embrace she would never be hurt ever again. Telling her that even though God had never accepted her as one of his children that it would accept her… If only she would come to it.

Yes. She would come. And as she now saw it bathed in the moonlight, she would soon see it bathed in the sunlight. The bright, golden, divine sunlight. See the sun. One last time. Then no pain ever again.