Although the sun had set over an hour ago, Taxon wasn't ready to sleep. (It was a city made up of the dead and the broken and the dangerous and the damned. It couldn't sleep.) The air was singing to her, crackling with fear and confusion and anger and a maelstrom of other delightful emotions that thrilled Drusilla to the core.

(When it had started, she'd knelt down on the grass, burrowing her fingers through the cool green blades until she'd stained her nails with soil and felt the very pulse of the city beneath her palm. It was only as alive as the people who lived there made it. It was alive now.)

Who would they bring to her? Who would she get to see again?

She thought of the missing parts of her family - not just her darling deadly boy and her grandmother, but the daughter who hadn't been born yet and the brother who might never come to be and the not-quite-cousin she'd treasured - with affection. With love. The chance to see them again would be even sweeter than Christmas.

She thought of the friends - could she really call them that? - that she had made and lost since coming to the city. Men from the stars and princesses from the past. A collection almost as precious (and certainly as strange) as her dear little family.

Although she hadn't been a good girl recently, she walked confidently - softly, swiftly, a shadow among the shadows - through the city.

If the hamsters told Father Christmas to give her coal instead of diamonds again, she'd rip their eyes out.

No.

There isn't enough room. I'm made up of blood and flesh. I'm filled up with secrets. There isn't room for a soul, not even for a little while.

I'll scratch your eyes out! I'll rip your throat out! I'll never be good. I can't be good. The wickedness is already inside. Can't you smell it? Can't you feel it?

I don't have the coins for the boatman. We'll all have to pay for the mess.

What if Drusilla had been chipped by the Initiative instead of Spike?

Buffy wasn’t quite sure why – or, indeed, how – Drusilla had become her responsibility. The Initiative had experimented on a lot of demons. Only one of them had ended up living in her basement.

It was probably something to do with Angel. Or, rather, Angelus. He’d made her, and poor Angel still suffered for it. He’d even admitted that she was the worst thing he’d ever created. Buffy couldn’t help but feel that helping Drusilla helped him get a little closer to redemption, even if he was too far away to appreciate it.

Or maybe it was because it was so easy to feel sorry for Drusilla. What with the dolls and the big dark eyes and the penchant for slinky insubstantial nightdresses. Maybe Buffy just tried to rationalise it by attributing it to her feelings for Angel. Because, lets face it, volunteering to look after a soulless, psychotic vampire wasn’t at the top of the ‘best decisions’ list.

( Still, she’d made her bed. Now she just had to make sure Drusilla didn’t slit her throat while she was lying in it. )

Prompt: What if ..?
Word Count: 2416