No good deed goes unpunished

Meanwhile, Marcie and future Rose were standing outside the side door of the church where they had just witnessed the deaths of Angelus and Missy, only to be confronted by a very familiar lady in red.

"You fools! What have you done now?" asked the woman Marcie called Empress even though she knew full well that the woman had another name.

"We saved your family, "said future Rose. "Isn't that what you wanted us to do?"

"I was waiting for you at the front of the church," said Drusilla. "If all had gone well, I fully expected you to go out that way. Instead I find you sneaking out this way."

"We weren't sneaking," said Marcie. "And yes, things didn't go as we planned but --"

"Didn't go as you planned!" cried Drusilla. "You set off an explosion within a church! If I had known you were going to do that, Crazy Marcie, I would have never given you permission to bring along those things you called incendiary grenades."

"It wasn't one of the incendiary grenades that caused the explosion," said Marcie. "It was an alien artifact that came out of nowhere. And where do you get off calling me Crazy Marcie?"

"Because you are Crazy Marcie, Agent Ross," said Drusilla. "That's one reason I hired you. Whenever I had one of my other human servants look up your record with your government, they would inevitably find a long list of references to Crazy Marcie, the Invisible Girl, who went mad and killed a bunch of teenagers, only to get recruited by her government as a professional assassin. Whenever your government had a job that was too dangerous for any sane agent, they would inevitably give it to you, Crazy Marcie, because they knew that you were insane enough to keep going till you got the job done."

"That was then, this is now," said Marcie. "I'm no longer that person. I'm more lucid now."

"So am I," said Drusilla. "But I'm still Crazy Dru in the eyes of those who used to know me and in a way, that's a blessing. There are a lot of things you can get away when people think you're insane. But all that's besides the point. I don't believe your story about the alien artifact. And even if I did, it wouldn't matter. All I know is that I gave you both one job -- save my family. And now thanks to you and Rose, they're all dead."

"But they aren't, Princess," said future Rose. "They survived."

"The hell they did," said Drusilla. "If they were still alive, you would have come out the front way."

"But they did survive," said Marcie. "And you really should stop your ranting, Empress. You're scaring her enough as she is."

"Oh, don't give me that, Agent Ross," said Drusilla. "I can look at Rose right now and see that she doesn't look all that scared."

"I'm not talking about Rose," said Marcie. "I'm talking about her."

And with that, Marcie pointed to the young brunette by her side, a brunette whose face looked very familiar to Drusilla. A woman who was obviously Drusilla's younger self.

By the same token, the woman by Marcie's side could not help staring at Drusilla.

Then at the same moment, they both exclaimed, "Oh my God! It's you!"