Summary: Within Spike's first decade of being a vamp, Dru made him a female companion for when she's with Angelus. He decides to remain faithful to her, but becomes friends with this new vamp girl, Veronica. She's around for all their major events, but splits with them before Prague, what happens to the Sunnydale crew when this very different vampire enters the scene? Series Rewrite from Season 2 Episode 13: Surprise.

Author's note: For now I am gradually adding things about her into conversation, and will discuss them in further detail later either in her thoughts, or as flashbacks like the show. Most of the series will remain the same, except with the addition to this new original character, which will obviously change some things, however, I'm only going to write the scenes that are different directly as a result of Veronica, because we all know what happens in the episodes. If you don't like the changes, don't read the story, but please don't leave negative reviews. Also, my stories are very dialogue heavy, not a lot of action or descriptions in my scenes, I'm working on it. That might improve in this story since some of the scenes are already in the story and I just have to adjust them to include Veronica. *Fingers crossed*

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the evil genius named Joss Whedon does. But Veronica is mine, as is her integration into the story.

Chapter 1: Reunions (Set during Surprise)

Ronnie looked at her invitation for the hundredth time to make sure they had the right address; she couldn't believe that Drusilla and Spike were staying in a run-down warehouse, maybe it was just for the party. Oh well, time to go see her best friend and Sire who she hadn't seen in at least 20 years.

She burst through the door and saw a nerdy looking minion sitting in the lobby of the factory.

"Ooh, look, we have minions now. You, where's Spike and Drusilla?" She asked with an air of authority.

"Um…in there."

"Good, bring this into them, so I can make an entrance." She handed the minion her package with the arm in it, she had no idea why Spike had said to bring it, but he swore that it was exactly the present Dru wanted. She followed the minion until he reached the room where Spike and Dru were, then stayed at the doorway to make her presence known at just the right time.

"I have your package." She heard the minion tell Spike.

"Just put it on the table…near the other gifts. Are you dead set on this, pet? Wouldn't you rather have your party in Vienna?" Spike whined from his chair.

"But the invitations are sent." Dru argued.

"Damn right they are!" Ronnie said as she strutted into the room. Spike was sitting off in a corner in his chair and she didn't see him at first.

"It's Mummy's little girl." Drusilla ran to embrace her.

"Hey, Dru, I've missed you. And Will, where is he?"

"Over here, luv, how have you been?" He rolled into sight and stopped right in front of her.

"Will! Why are you in a wheelchair? What happened?" She rushed over to him and crouched down to examine his injured body.

"Well, it's a long story, pet. We were in Prague, yeah, big mob decides they'll kill our Sire."

"How dare they!" She exclaimed.

"My sentiments exactly, but I got her out just in the knick. But she was still extremely sick, had to get her better yeah?"

"Of course." Ronnie nodded.

"Found this ritual in a book, called for her Sire's blood." He began to explain.

"Angel…us, yeah, but how did you get him to give her blood? We haven't seen him in ages."

"Turns out he lives here in good ol' Sunnyhell." Spike sneered.

"He does?"

"Yep, got himself a soul, too."

"Really? Interesting." She tried to hide her lack of surprise at this knowledge.

"Playing the bloody Slayer's lapdog he is." He said, clearly disgusted.

"Slayer?" Ronnie quirked an eyebrow.

"Yep, she lives here. They're a couple, it's so sick and twisted I can't even get my head around it. And he doesn't go by Angelus anymore, nope, it's Angel." Spike kept talking not noticing the suspicious looks Ronnie was shooting his way.

"Really? But um, how'd you get in the wheelchair, William?" She crossed her arms in a scolding manner. She always called him Will. Refused to call him Spike, dishonored his mother, she said. But it was always Will; if she said William, she was usually angry with him.

"Oi, I didn't do anything!" He defended.

"Really, there's a Slayer in the story and you didn't do anything to deserve being in a wheelchair?" She said in disbelief.

"Deserve?! Excuse me! I was trying to restore our Sire to health after she nearly bloody died!" He practically yelled.

"Right, and I'm guessing this little ritual required Angel dying," Ronnie mused aloud.

"Since when do you care about sodden Angelus more than Drusilla?" Spike asked angrily, now he was yelling.

"I didn't say I cared about Angel more, look, we've talked about this. You know something happened to me with those gypsies, I've changed somehow. I just…he's with the Slayer, right? So whatever you did to him obviously upset her, is that why you're in this wheelchair?"

"Oh, so you're still defending the Slayer. The killer of our kind, you're no better than Angel." He scoffed as he made to turn the chair and wheel away.

"I'm not gonna team up with her or anything! I just can't actively help you kill her. But I'm not joining her like he did, my loyalty is to you and Dru." She defended her point.

"Bloody well doesn't feel like it." He mumbled sulkily, as he stopped trying to roll away and started to pout.

"Look, I'm sorry I snapped at you. You just did what you had to do to save Dru. Now how did you end up in the wheelchair?" She tried to drive the attention away from her stance on the Slayer.

He straightened up in his chair to continue the story. He couldn't stay mad at her, it wasn't in him. "So there was this ritual, right? And…I may have…taken Angel against his will to preform it, and it got her all pissy."

"Well, it required him to die right?" She leaded.

"Well, yeah." He nodded.

"Fine, ok, she got all pissy, then what?" Ronnie said rolling her eyes.

"Well, she came to the rescue. Lucky it was enough to restore Dru, but she knocked me into a bloody organ while I carried Dru out. Left me there for dead, she did, we could've caught fire!" He said throwing his arms in the air in defeat.

"Ok, like I said, I'm not gonna join her, I'm loyal to you. But I can't actively fight her." She laid out her terms. They had to be clear on why she was here. She loved them, but killing the Slayer was not on her priority list.

Spike sighed. "Fine, pet, it's just good to see you, yeah?"

"Yeah." She smiled.

"Just stay outta the Slayer's way, yeah? Don't know how she'll react to you being so different and all; couldn't stand if something happened to you."

"I know, Will." She bent over to give him a hug.

"Probably haven't eaten in a while, go find yourself something. Bloody Hellmouth, people don't even notice the demon activity around here."

"Okay." She didn't tell him that she filled up before she got there, or that she was going to see another vampire…a certain souled vampire.

"Veronica?" Angel was shocked at the girl he saw as he opened the door.

"It's Ronnie now." She smiled.

"Oh my god, how have you been?" He motioned for her to come in and shut the door behind her.

"Do you really care?" She angrily plopped down on a chair in his apartment.

"So you've seen Spike already." He guessed.

"Yes, I came because they're throwing a party for Drusilla. I didn't even know that you would be here. And I come back, and he's in a wheelchair, Angel? A wheelchair?" She was yelling at him now trying to get her point across.

"I didn't do it, I was almost dead myself." He threw his hands up in a surrendering gesture. "Because of Spike!" He pointed at her for emphasis.

She scoffed, it was ridiculous how Spike and Angel both reverted to children when she was scolding wither of them, but especially whenever the other was involved in the situation. "Enough of your blood healed her without you having to die, if you'd have just done that in the first place this whole mess could have been avoided."

"I can't voluntarily help them anymore, Ronnie. I don't know how you can. It doesn't sit with my soul the way it sits with whatever conscience you have." He said angrily as he sat in the chair next to her.

"Alright, that's enough." She quickly changed the topic before they got into another argument over the differences between their Gypsy curses. "So, Will says you're with the Slayer now?"

"Yeah, what's it to you?"

"That's why I separated from Spike and Dru. Whatever weird conscience I have, the soft spot is Slayers. I can't stand for anything to happen to them. So after Will killed his second one, that's when Lawson and I left."

"You know Lawson?" Angel was shocked.

She smirked. "Yeah, he travelled with us. Me and him had a casual arrangement. He travelled with me after I left Will and Dru. He left me about a decade ago."

"Ronnie, I'm so sorry, you could have come and found me."

"And what, Angel? Sulk because we're ruthless killers?" She was yelling again. She had a feeling she'd be doing a lot of that throughout this conversation.

"You've never been that kind of killer, Ronnie." Angel tried to console her.

"It doesn't matter!" She screamed frustrated.

"Ronnie, you've been clean longer than I have. You were playing catch and release long before I was bagging it. I still ate the bad guys."

"Like I said, it doesn't matter. I wasn't gonna sit around and sulk. And what about you Mr. High-and-Mighty? You sired Lawson after you had a soul?! Do you have any idea what that did to him? What it could have done to him? He should be a lot more bitter than he is, he still had a part of his humanity, like me, but his was worse. Mine was a result of Drusilla's insanity, his was because you were good, Angel. How can a souled vampire sire someone? What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't, and I'm sorry." He looked down ashamed.

"Yeah, everybody's always sorry. Especially you, huh?"

"Look, Ronnie, I can't undo what was done to you…"

"Do you even know what was done to me, Angel? The last time I saw you was when we found out we were both different. Do you know what Darla did to me after you left us?" She was looking him right in the eye now. She knew his soul tormented him for the last century, but she was finally going to make him own up to the things that that soul had caused.

"Darla? Why would she care about you? She hated you." His brow furrowed in confusion.

"Yeah, that hate, it escalated. After you left, she beat me. We finally left her because Will got tired of putting me back together after she broke every bone in my body while he was out hunting."

"Why wouldn't you go hunt with him?"

"I couldn't let him know I wasn't killing! They'd probably dump me too, and I couldn't handle being on my own, I wasn't you." She tried to explain.

"You could have come and found me." He offered once again.

"Angel, no, I wasn't gonna travel with you. I'm sorry, and I'm over it now, but there was a time after you left that I blamed you for what Darla did to me, because that's why she was so angry. She hated that you had that damn soul. And now, you're with a Slayer, and Will hates you even more." She explained to him.

"So, now what?" He asked.

"I can't help you. You and her, I know you're dating her, but I just can't help you." She had set her terms with Will and now it was time to lay them with Angel.

"Why not? You're not one of them." He motioned to the door indicating Spike and Drusilla.

"No, but I'm not one of you either." She pointed at him. "I'm somewhere in between and I hate it. Do you have any idea how hard that is?"

"Yeah, I think I do." He looked at her pointedly.

"No, it's different. They called it a 'blessing', but this is more of a curse than you'll ever know." She wiped the tears that had started to stream down her face since she had let that long bottled up anger out at last. "I'm gonna stay with Will and Dru, but they know I'm not going to help them fight you."

"Wow." He breathed, but since they were both vampires she still heard him.

"What?" Her face twisted in question.

"After everything, after all you know, you still love him." Angel shook his head in disbelief.

"Yeah." She conceded.

"He's never gonna stop loving Dru."

"I know that! I love her, too. I'm never going to ask him to stop loving her. I just need to be around them. They're the only family I've ever had, Angel." She practically sobbed.

"You could be a family with the Scoobies. They'd love you." He entreated.

"Who the hell are the Scoobies?" She asked completely confused.

"The Slayer and her friends, that's what they call themselves." He explained.

"Whoa, wait, Slayer and friends? I've read the Slayer brochure, Angel, there's nothing about friends."

"Yeah, well, Buffy's different." He smiled sweetly.

"Buffy? Her name is Buffy? And you're in love with her? God does have a sense of humor. A vampire with a soul in love with a Slayer. Oh, the poetic injustice. It's captivating. Look, I'm not joining your Scoobies, I'm staying with Will and Dru. I'm not gonna hurt you, so please don't hurt me. And please, please, please, I know it's a lot to ask, I know. But have a little mercy, huh? He's in a wheelchair, Angel, a wheelchair. That's not my Will, it's not your Willie, it's definitely not Spike." She saw that her argument wasn't going anywhere with him. "Fine, at least a truce between me and you, maybe me and the Slayer I don't know."

"Do you want to meet her?" He asked almost pleadingly.

"Not today. But I will tell you, Will's putting something together for Dru's party. It's called the Judge, and I don't know a lot, but I've heard about the Judge here and there, it's bad, Angel, real bad." And with that, she left.

Angel walked into the library where all the Scoobies were already sitting around the table. "I have information from a source that Spike is putting together the Judge."

"The Judge? Good Lord!" Giles immediately started looking for books regarding the subject.

"How'd you find out about this, Deadboy?" Xander wondered.

"Oh, I have my ways." He said shrugging nonchalantly.

"Did you go to the factory?" Buffy asked.

"No." He shook his head.

"Angel, no more secrets, okay?" She pleaded, she was still stinging a little that he had never told her about Drusilla until she'd come to town.

"Fine. Five years after Spike was turned, Dru made him a toy. He didn't use her for what she was meant for, so they were just friends. Her name is Veronica, but I guess she's going by Ronnie now." He said as if he was still getting used to the taste of the name on his tongue.

"Veronica? There's no mention of a Veronica with the Scourge of Europe." Giles interrupted without bringing his head up from his research.

"I know, she was our best kept secret. Darla hated her, so whenever Darla was around Ronnie stayed locked up in her room." Angel explained.

"Well, that's just less people that your band of murderers killed, right?" Xander tried to look at the bright side.

"Yeah, but Ronnie never killed that much anyway."

"What do you mean?" Willow asked curiously.

"I was cursed with the soul. After that, Darla made them go after the gypsies who cursed me trying to dig up information. While they were there, Ronnie was about to make her first kill of the night when they gave her a blessing. She would someday be used for good because she was different. When I turned Drusilla she was already insane. So when she made Ronnie she still had a lot of her humanity, not her soul, just her humanity. It didn't bother her as much to kill as it does for me, but she understood it's what we needed to survive, so she just pictured it as killing a deer or something for food."

"That's gross." Cordelia scoffed.

"Look, I'm trying to paint her in a good light, okay?" Angel defended.

"Why?" Xander wondered.

"The gypsies, they saw that humanity in her and saw that one day she would use it for something good. They gave her what they called a 'blessing' and she might see it that way, too, one day. But for the last century it's just been a curse, almost as bad as mine."

"What did they do to her?" Buffy asked.

"You know that Drusilla can see the future?" He offered. "Ronnie can see the past. She touches something at a museum, she sees it history. She goes to the Coliseum, she can see the gladiator fights in her head."

"Good Lord." Giles marveled at the rare ability.

"Yeah, but also if she feeds and she kills, she sees their entire life flash before her eyes. It sits with her sort of like the way a soul would make you feel guilty."

"Incredible." Giles remarked, still in awe.

"She doesn't think so." Angel argued.

"What did she do about it? That was almost a hundred years ago." Buffy knew that Angel had beaten himself up for a century for all of his sins, but Veronica hadn't even been a vampire for 20 years when the gypsies gave her that "blessing".

"She stopped killing, but she didn't want the others to find out, so she fed just enough to not kill them. But apparently, Darla's hate for her still shone through. When she started treating Ronnie too bad, Spike finally took them away from Darla. The way I hear it from Ronnie, she split up with them in the 70s because Spike killing Slayers was too much for her. She doesn't mind when they kill humans, but something about killing Slayers gets to her. As much as Spike wants to kill them, she wants to protect them. This party they're planning for Drusilla, he invited Ronnie. When she found out about me and Buffy, she came and talked to me. She told me about the Judge, where she's been; she's not going to kill, she bags it now, too." He tried to explain to them so as to assure them that Ronnie wasn't a threat in any way.

"So, what? We're supposed to give her a free pass because she doesn't like killing?" Cordelia asked.

"Is she gonna be a Scooby now?" Willow questioned perkily.

"No, she's not gonna be a Scooby. She still cares about Dru and Spike; they never wronged her like Darla did. She came to visit them. She doesn't want anyone to get hurt. I told her I can't promise her anything about Spike and Dru, but she's granted immunity, clear? And if something does happen to Spike and Dru and she wants to stay, she's welcome with me. Anyone does anything to hurt her, they answer to me." There was no room for argument in his tone.

"Angel, do you love this girl?" Buffy asked.

"No, but since Dru sired her, and her situation is similar to mine, I feel responsible for her. Does that make sense?"

"I guess." She shrugged.

"Alright, don't touch her." He reiterated just to make sure he had made his point. "Okay, let's beat this Judge guy."

Angel and Buffy had barely escaped when they were caught in the raptors at the factory, they probably wouldn't have at all if it wasn't for Ronnie dropping those monitors. She didn't mean to help the Slayer, but she couldn't watch the Judge kill her or Angel the way he did Dalton earlier. Luckily Spike hadn't seen it happen or he'd be furious. She wondered if Angel and Buffy were okay now.

Angel woke with a start and gasped for air as he sat up. He got up and ran outside to the alley. He fell to the ground in the rain and cried out.

"Buffy!"

"Ronnie!"

Continues with "Innocence"