Angel is remembering his past. It’s 1860. Angelus and Darla had cut their bloody swarth throughout Northern Island, making their way across to London. From here they would prepare for the journey through Europe, bringing carnage wherever they roamed and set course for the continent: Asian rebellions were brewing. Darla has selected the evening’s prey for Angelus, but as soon as he took one look at the innocent, naïve and devout Drusilla, he knew she would be his masterpiece.

“Now that’s a funny story,” she sing songs back at him. Drusilla tells him that surely he remembers her always wanting pets, like puppies, kittens or orphans? And they always ended with misfortunes, didn’t they? A friend of her suggested a Lorophage demon, who don’t normally feed on vampires – creatures tend to need a soul to feel trauma and pain. But when she was treated by the Lorophage for her trauma, all the confusion, the fear and the torment that Angelus had inflicted, was gone. The demon ate it all up. And now, she no longer cares about the past. Now she has a new lease on her undead life and has decided what she wants to do with it.

She turns to him, making sure he looks at her, since she can tell he’s avoiding her gaze. “Every girl adores her father, so I decided to be like you,” she says, “To help the helpless.” With guidance from her, the Lorophage need not kill it’s meals. It can end people’s pain. She offers the treatment to Angel. Faith grabs his arms, concerned Drusilla will get to him. Her presence by his side is enough to shock Angel out of his reverie.

“You’re feeding people to this thing?” Drusilla claims that her patrons come to her, but Angel prepares to swing his sword at the Lorophage: “The people you ‘help’ are going crazy. Hurting and killing others.” As he makes his intentions to put the demon down clear, Drusilla tells him it’s going to be harder than swinging his sword, as the demon throws him against the back wall of the room. Drusilla says that if he needs proof, then Angel should start asking the people in front of him.

One tells him that he lost his family in an accident. He was useless until he came to Mother Superior. Another, a drug addict, says that Mother Superior saved her life. When Angel questions the name ‘Mother Superior’, Drusilla tells him that she couldn’t use her name, could she? “I had a vision you were in town. Didn’t want you dropping in until I was ready to greet you properly.”

As she moves towards Angel and Faith, her followers pick up the trail of her gown and walk alongside her. She tells Angel that she saw him coming. She obeys Harmony’s rules and everything they do here is consensual. The Lorophage is no longer a predator and is now a healer. There is nothing bad happening here: she implores her sire to leave his past go. “It can’t hurt you any more,” she insists.

She places her gloved hand tenderly on the side of his face. He turns away from her, but she turns his face towards hers. “Let me take the burden from you.”

Suddenly, Angel snarls, his face bumpy. He grabs her hard by the wrist as she jolts backwards, saliva escaping as he spits his words at her. “No.” He growls at her as she turns away. “You have no soul. You’re not capable of doing anything selfless,” he warns her, only for Faith to come between them. “Haven’t you been listening? You really have no reason to fight me. But if you simply must be naughty…”

Faith drags him away from Dru. “We should go.” As she leads Angel towards the exit of the converted church, Drusilla calls after them both: “It’s all right.” She coos. “Come back when you’re ready. I could never be cross with you Angel. We’re part of each other, you and I. Always will be.”

As they’re heading away, Angel declares that they have to stop her, but as Faith reminds him, it’s as she also told the Slayers: Drusilla’s not breaking any rules. Angel doesn’t care about that: people are being driven insane by her actions – that’s a reason. He tells Faith that if you take away people’s emotions, even negative ones, you’re denying a part of yourself that is human: he’s not surprised people have gone nuts under the weight of that. But as far as he sees it, Drusilla is messing with people’s heads, almost like the abused who become the abuser… and it’s all his fault.

Faith almost makes jokes. She knows the guilt-trip dance. The question is what are they going to do without starting a war? If the followers choose the procedure of the Lorophage, isn’t it their choice? “There were plenty of people in there who seemed fine. Ask me, there are some things better out of your head… than…” Faith stops, her words caught in her throat. Angel looks up, wondering why she stopped talking. He sees a man outside of the apartment. Faith has stopped moving, staring at the newcomer. “Faith,” the man says, slightly surprised. Faith still hasn’t said anything, but opens her mouth slowly, hiding her axe behind her back.

“Dad?” she whispers.

As he moves towards her, arms outstretched, he begins to marvel at how grown up she is now, but Faith swipes away from him and, loudly, asks him what the Hell he’s doing there in London! He looks at her and tells her immediately: “I’m sober, kiddo. Six months.”

Faith has clenched her fist, Angel standing behind her, watching, but not willing to interfere. Faith says she has heard all of the excuses before. She’s even betting that he stole his sobriety chip. However, her father goes quiet and looks at the ground. “Look, you got no reason to trust me. You want me to go, I’ll go. God knows I’ve done enough damage. But I finally turned it around sweetheart, all the bad stuff. I’m putting it behind me and if you’ll give me a chance I wanna try and fix things between us.”

Faith silently turns her back on him, walking back to the safety and security of Angel, waiting for her now. Her father looks at her sadly and says that he understands. He’s in town for a few more days if she changes her mind. His cell phone hasn’t changed. As he walks away, Angel tells Faith that he knows it’s not his business, but for the record, he couldn’t smell any alcohol on her dad’s breath.

Faith loses her temper. She refuses to take family advice from Angel! When was the last time Connor called him, exactly? Or how many times has Angel picked up the phone to him? It doesn’t matter if he’s sober. Not to her.

Angel tells her that he avoids Connor for his own good: all he ever did was mess up his life. When Connor was born, he swore he would give him the best life he could. It took him a while, but he realised that meant staying out of it. Connor is his own person now, with his own life, and Angel believes he’s better off without his father poking his nose in his business. Faith tells her that’s easy for him to say, considering he’s on the other side of the Atlantic ocean!

Angel looks at her, resigned. “Faith, you’re a grown woman. Do what you want. All I’m saying is, I can’t change what I am. Your father can.” She stops what she’s doing and considers his words. She reluctantly lets go of the lamppost she didn’t realise she was hugging and calls after her father, tears in her eyes. She yells the word “Dad” louder and he turns back to her. She’s running towards him…

Later, in the East End of London, Angel walks up to a large house in the middle of Whitechapel. It’s an old house, with lodgings dating way back to the beginnings of the 19th century. Angel recognises the street straight away. As he walks up to the house, he notices a ‘for sale’ sign outside. He opens the door and peers inside, the cobwebs indicating that the house has been empty for a long time. He remembers breaking the same door down, centuries ago, and finding a family huddled inside, fear in their eyes, waiting for him to strike. A voice addresses him from the shadows: “Fond memories?”

It’s Drusilla. This was, in the 19th century, her home. Her family ate, danced, sang and played here. But then Angelus came. Then they died and fell and bled and suffered here. “I used to have their screams running through my head, like an endless loop. The old me wrote lyrics to go along with it.”

She moves closer towards Angel, looking closely around the room, touching the walls, the fabrics that have been left to rot. She tells Angel that she hasn’t been back here since the night they died. It used to frighten her, but now she sees it as what it is: just a house. She’s actually thinking of buying it.

Angel can’t bare anymore and looks at her. “I’m sorry. What I did to you. What I took from you.”

Drusilla smiles: “Stop. I was a stupid little girl who believed my second sight was a curse. What sort of life would I have had? Shut away in a nunnery, slowly shrivelling up? Ministering to lepers? Praying to a God who couldn’t be arsed whether I lived or died?” She cradles Angel’s face in both of her hands, one hand on his cheek, the other’s fingers traipsing alongside his chin. She’s pressing herself closer and closer to him now. “I’m precisely where I should be,” she tells Angel. “You set me free.”

She smiles, the trap sprung. The Lorophage comes out of nowhere behind the distracted Angel. “Let me to the same for you,” Drusilla states, as the needle-like pins that the Lorophage calls fingers dig deep into his skull.

Angel is too quick however, and it able to free himself, throwing the demon over his shoulders, his needles removed violently. He tells Drusilla that what she is offering isn’t freedom from trauma or pain: it’s a lobotomy. He punches the demon, who responds by surprising Angel with its speed.

It spins around, arm extended and impales the vampire straight through the back, his needle-like fingers protruding from Angel’s chest. The Lorophage slowly picks him up from the ground. Angel can’t react, his eyes wide open, his pain exquisite, as the Lorophage begins it’s leeching process.

Drusilla stops the treatment, telling the demon to let Angel go. To do this, she raising two fingers, swaying them within the Lorophage’s eyeline, hypnotising it. Angel can’t help but be impressed: he never could master hypnosis.

Drusilla apologises for her ally. “He needs guidance,” she tells her sire, “A gentle hand, showing him a better way. Like your blonde friend changing how we vampires do things.” She tells him that, of course, she misses her previous life – the thrill of the hunt, the screaming, begging her to stop… but it’s not her anymore. “One mustn’t cling too tightly to the old ways, Angel. Hoarding your pain and guilt, wallowing in self-flagellation.” She tells him, as she reaches down to cup his face again, that she won’t force him to undergo any treatment. She’s even willing to wait for him to take her up on her offer.

Angel ignores her hands, gets up and steps back from her. “Good thing you’re immortal,” he tells her. She suddenly rips open Angel’s shirt! She tells him that her sight is still clear and she can see what he’s done. She can see a mystical amulet, named the Tooth of Ammut. Angel has placed it on his person, where no one can get to it. It’s effectively a soul magnet, picking up bits and pieces of a person’s soul – the only way to do so now that the dimensional barriers are sealed.

Drusilla smiles, poking gently at the Tooth. It’s in the form of a nipple piercing, which Drusilla finds slightly kinky as she touches it. She tells him that it will find all of the pieces of his friend’s soul and direct them straight into Angel: she can already see it.

Angel doesn’t want to know about any visions, but Drusilla says that it’s not a sight vision: she can see it in his mannerisms, the way he speaks, moves and talks. She is trying to help him. She asks him how many pieces of Giles’ soul he has, already inside him? One? Two? The more Angel does this, the more Giles will be in his head. “And there are two in there already aren’t there?” she says, tapping his forehead. “You and Angelus. Your human friends imagine him as an evil thing locked away in a vault, but I know better. He’s always there, talking to you.”

Angel walks back again, claiming that that simply isn’t true. Drusilla refutes this, claiming that Angelus is the naughty conscience on his shoulder, and he gets more and more persuasive over time, doesn’t he? He never had trouble taming Dru, she giggles. She uses any time he’s slipped over the centuries, tasted human blood, as an example.

Angel tells her that enough is enough. Even if Angelus is in his head, he’s very good at ignoring people. He bluntly says goodbye to Drusilla and walks towards the front door, back into the dead of the London night. She tells him one final time, that she can take his guilt away, so he can live with killing Giles. She begs him to let her help before this time it all goes too far. He refuses, running out into the night, distress on his face. She calls after him. If Angel needs her, he knows where to find her.

In the apartment that Faith shares with Angel, her father is stunned that all the property is hers. Faith admits she doesn’t know half of what’s in the apartment, as she hasn’t had time to go through all of it. The only thing she’s really contributed so far is the extra large television. They talk briefly about baseball and her favourite team, until he spots her weapons in the cabinet. As Faith tries to make up an excuse, her father tells her that she can’t ‘scam a scammer’ and that he knows all about the Vampire Slayers and what she does. He’s seen them all on TV.

Faith admits she’s relieved she doesn’t have to explain, and her father says that the whole thing explains a lot. When she asks if he’s freaked out by it, he says no: he has a little girl who can take care of herself. That’s a celebratory thing. He brings out his chip again, tells her that he really is sober. “It’s a new start for me,” he tells his daughter. “I was kinda hoping it could be a new start for us.

Faith doesn’t know what to say. She pulls her father into a big hug and only the ringing from her cell makes her break the embrace. “Dammit,” she exclaims. Faith answers the phone, asks the caller what the issue is and promptly hangs up. She tells her father she has an emergency. Would he mind staying put and she’ll be back as soon as possible? He tells her not to rush on his account, as Faith races on her way.

As she disappears up the stairs, a phone rings. It’s coming from his pocket. He pulls the phone out and answers it. “This is Pat. Who’s this?” The caller on the other end tells him something, to which Pat says that he made a promise and he’ll do what he said. He realises that he’s let his caller down before, but this time, he can’t lose.

“Yeah, things are looking up,” he says into the phone. He picks up a mystical glowing orb from one of the shelves around him. “Don’t worry bout nothing,” he tells the caller, eyeing the orb. “You’re gonna get exactly what you asked for.”