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Title: Flashes
Author: Thomasina75
Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm only playing with them.
Summary: Just before she stakes herself, Darla’s life flashes before her eyes.
Spoilers: Buffy S1, Angel S2 and S3
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Darla/Angel(us)
Author's Note: This fic is told in 100 word drabbles and fits completely into canon. Darla/Angel(us) is the only Angel pairing I really like (okay, except Spike/Angel). It starts just after she turned him and ended as she is staking herself. Some moments are big ones that you'll recognize, others are smaller. Thanks to my wonderful, wonderful beta debxena for catching all the little mistakes and generally making this readable. :-)
Feedback would be very lovely and much appreciated. ;-)

Companions

She had searched for years for someone worthy enough of spending eternity with her. She rejected so many. Too weak. Not pretty enough. Too annoying. She’d found a flaw in each one.

Except for him.

As a human, Liam was ideal. Tall, dark, handsome. His potential for destruction was so strong she could smell it on the wind long before she spoke to him.

As a vampire, Angelus became magnificent. So deliciously evil. A true artist molded expertly from her image, to serve as her companion in the night.

Together they brought the humans and their world to its knees.

Artistry

The scene was beautiful. The blood. The bodies. The lingering scent of fear.

Such artistry.

The father was seated in the middle of the bed wearing a smile of false hope. His wife, a much younger woman, curled affectionately under his arm, cradling her youngest child against her breast.

Darla caught Angelus grinning at her as she proudly admired his work. Her boy was a quick study. The setup was quite elegant, down to the last drop of blood. All that was left to do now was wait.

Soon the eldest son would arrive, and the real fun would begin.

Grandmother

“Just keep her far away from me!”

Darla stormed off into the night, leaving Angelus alone to play with his new toy. The girl had barely been out of the ground an hour and Darla was already fighting the urge to stake her.

What was she thinking, letting him turn the lunatic? Angelus’ torturing had been brilliant. She was his most perfect masterpiece. Until he made her one of them.

As Darla left, she heard the grating little bitch calling after her. “Grandmother…”

Ideas for revenge were already turning in her mind. Angelus would pay dearly for this.

Grandmother indeed.

Others, pt. 1

She found Drusilla’s new pet standing just outside the bedroom. She didn’t need to see past him to know what he was watching. She’d heard Angelus and Drusilla’s screaming and moaning from the street.

She cleared her throat.

“Should’ve known she’d choose someone just as pathetic,” she said.

This caught his attention and he swung around to face her.

Not giving him a chance to speak, she narrowed her eyes and moved toward him.

“You,” she snapped, glancing over his shoulder at Angelus as he tied a naked Drusilla to the bed, “are here to prevent that from happening. Understand?”
v Vengeance

His presence disgusted her. The dirt and filth covered him, even when he appeared to be clean. The smell of rats and petty thieves hovering around him made the presence of his soul even harder to stomach.

She shouldn’t have let him join them. It was obvious that he couldn’t change. She saw it on his face, in the guilt that burned like a beacon in his eyes.

In saving that baby he used up his last chance. She made him. She’d be the one to put him out of his misery.

The next time they met, he would die.

Others, pt. 2

The first time she saw him with the Slayer, she was interested. They were at The Bronze, talking. It seemed so innocent. Buffy was close to him, unknowingly fingering the cross around her neck. Angelus was still, listening attentively.

Darla recognized the expression on his face. It was one that had led to the deaths of so many over the years. Foolish girls never could resist it.

When she spotted them a second time, she became angry. He was helping her, betraying his family.

By the third time, a plan had formed. Losing Angelus to a schoolgirl wasn’t an option.

Death

As she stared at Buffy from across the floor of the Bronze, Darla licked her lips. After having to put up with Spike after he killed his first Slayer, Darla always wondered what it felt like, how sweet their blood tasted.

This would be fun.

She raised the pistols and began firing. There would be no fair fight for this Slayer. Darla wanted the bitch to hurt.

And she wanted to win.

It would’ve been better if Angelus had done the job. More gratifying.

But fucking him on top of his dead girlfriend’s body would satisfy her just as much.

Resurrected

She never took the time to think about the circumstances of her resurrection in the time after Wolfram & Hart brought her back. Her time was spent inside her head, cultivating her senses. Learning how to be alive. Listening. Seeing. Touching. Smelling. Tasting.

Weeks after her resurrection, her mind finally returned. She then began to remember. Not her time in hell or the early days of her captivity, but before that. The Hellmouth. Sunnydale. The crossbow bolt that went through her back and pierced her heart.

And the one that didn’t have the nerve to do it to her face.

Dreaming

His cool skin was soothing, a nice change from the burning heat of her own body. She liked how quiet he was, too. No noisy heartbeat pounding, no breathing. Silent and still.

She touched her lips to his neck and let her tongue glide down the bare, muscular surface of his chest. His skin tasted coppery and she was suddenly reminded of the sweetness of his blood. Her hands massaged his shoulders as her lips returned to his mouth.

Placing her hand on his cheek, she opened her eyes and began to whisper. “Just wait until you’re awake, my darling.”

Broken Glass

It’s all there. The faces. The voices. The blood. Every crime she committed. It’s in her eyes, her skin, her mind…

Her soul.

Smash.

Is this what he went through? Is this what made her boy filthy and weak? The thing that made him no better than the vermin he ate?

Crash.

Darla looked down at the blood on her hands and shivered. She wanted to lick it off. She wanted him to do it for her.

She needed her boy to come back and save her from this weakness, from this powerless, dying body.

Before she turned into him.

Reminders

“Your face!” The man backed away from her, hitting a wall.

Darla grinned. “What about it?”

She grabbed his arm, pulled him to her. The arm snapped when she jerked too hard and he cried out in pain. Her grin widened.

As she moved in for the kill, however, she noticed something change. He looked at her, his noble brown eyes dared look at her.

She recognized that expression.

Bastard.

With a growl, she reached for his neck, snapping it in one quick motion.

She was going to get Angel out of her head, even if it killed them both.

Perfect

She’d come there to kill him, but this was so much better.

They didn’t have to think. Their bodies moved as one, effortlessly. They easily recalled where to touch, what to kiss. How to make each other scream.

His mouth plundered her breasts. His hands caressed places that she never allowed anyone else to touch. She moaned in ecstasy as his teeth tugged at her nipple. It was perfect.

Like they’d gone back in time.

He was back. Just when she’d lost hope, resigned herself to killing the monster that wore her boy’s face. Angelus had come back to her.

Imperfect

So blind. She’d wanted this so much.

Shaking her head, she looked at him once again. “No…”

His soul. He still had his soul.

What went wrong? How was this not perfect?

She felt the demon inside her reel in disgust. She wasn’t enough. All those years and only a teenage girl had ever satisfied him.

For the first time in centuries, Darla was torn. Her demon wantied to tear him to shreds, make him pay for humiliating her. But the woman’s there too, hurt and confused, and hating how he’s the only one who can do this to her.

Leaving

All alone in Lindsey’s apartment, Darla stuffed her clothes into the first bag she could find. Looking around, she discovered a stash of money hidden in his desk drawer. More was found in a box in the closet. In the refrigerator, there was one last jar of blood. She opened it, took a sip, and then stopped, cringing at the chill.

Why was she even bothering? Angel drank from jars. She did not. She dumped it in the garbage.

Then she was out the door, leaving no sign of her presence other than the discarded jar.

No regrets. No goodbyes.

Changes

For the first few months, she ignored the changes. She had been particularly hungry since she leaving LA. Gaining a few extra pounds came as no surprise.

But when her body kept changing, when people started smiling at her and lovingly touching her rounded stomach, she paid attention.

And ate most of them, but that was beside the point.

It continued to grow. She visited shaman after shaman, seer after seer, and they all gave her the same impossible answer.

So she ate them too.

Whatever this…thing…was, it had to die. She’d rip it out herself if she had to.

Insanity

How was she supposed to sleep with that little parasite ripping her insides to shreds?

Darla closed her eyes just as it delivered another powerful kick.

“Not alone, he says,” she murmured to herself. “I don’t see him carrying it.”

There was a movement by the door and she raised her head just far enough to see Gunn standing guard.

The pounding of the man’s heart was intoxicating. It was the only thing that drowned out the insatiable cries of hunger.

He could be dead in a matter of seconds. Maybe then Angel would put her out of her misery.

Mother

This time when the baby moved, she wasn’t angry.

So many strange emotions bubbled inside her. She was afraid, afraid that she would kill it, afraid that someone else would beat her to it.

She was sad, too. Even in the best of circumstances, there was so much that could go wrong. So much harm she could do.

Funny how she’d always hated Angel’s soul, and now she was afraid to lose this tiny piece of one that lived inside her.

Darla leaned into Angel’s embrace and tried out the words in her head for the first time…

Her son.

Ending

Her son.

Holtz.

The guilt that she is suddenly feeling.

Her baby’s dwindling heartbeat.

All these things drift through her mind as the rain soaks them.

Pain. Vengeance.

Justice.

“This child—Angel, it’s the one good thing we ever did together. The only good thing.”

She understands now. Her connection to Angel. Why she could never completely let him go.

It was all about this moment.

About the baby she will never see, because now she knows what she has to do.

“You make sure you tell him that,” she says as her hand closes around a piece of wood.