Jumper
by Tannith
Well, I, of course don't own anyone in here, they belong to Joss Whedon and whoever else controls the Buffyverse.
As to the story, well, if you don't like the Buffy/Spike concept, skip this one. I got the idea listening to Jumper by third eye blind, hence the name. I don't own them either. I hope you like it. Feedback is a good thing!
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The moon behind her cast its glorious reflection on the waves before her. Staring over the cliff face, the girl closed her tear-stained eyes once more, trying to block out the thoughts that would not go away. 'I betrayed him. he loved me and I betrayed him. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine. I was weak. All the pain the demon with his face caused me. I let it get to me. I let our love die. I betrayed him. He trusted me, more than he trusted himself. And I betrayed him. I killed him.'
The scene flashed once more before her closed eyes. He stood before her, at the mouth of Hell. He didn’t know what had happened, what ‘he’ had done. “Close your eyes” she had told him. And she had done it. Shoved him into the vortex. She had committed the ultimate betrayal. She would never forget the look on his face. It was worse than any torture she could imagine for herself. His eyes had held no anger, no accusation, only a lack of understanding. He had looked back at her with those innocent, tortured eyes, and had silently asked her, “Why?”
She could find no reason to her life anymore. Sure, she was the Slayer, but there were backups, replacements. 'Kendra, why? You were so strong; I got you killed as well. My self-centeredness sacrificed you to Druscilla. Never again. The next Slayer will be better than I.'
Her only other reason for living had been Angel. Their love had been enough reason for her to live a thousand lifetimes. Then, in an act that was supposed to seal their love, she lost him. She thought forever. The hateful being that took over his body had slowly killed that love inside of her, and given her a new reason to live; revenge. AS the flame that was her love died, it left in its place the coals of her new passion, the destruction of the demon inhabiting the body she had loved. His taunts had only made it easier. She had to kill him; it was the only way she could get over his death. 'I’m coming to join you, that you may take your revenge for my ultimate betrayal ~ that I stopped loving you, that even though I knew it wasn’t really you, I let it kill our love.'
It was also the only way she could protect her friends. 'Ms. Calendar, I forgive you, I hope you can forgive me. You betrayed me by lying about your knowledge of Angel. I betrayed you by not fufilling my duty. I let Angel kill you. The greater betrayal is mine. May the act I am about to commit pay the balance of my debt.
'Giles, Willow, Xander, Oz, Cordelia, and Mother. Forgive me for leaving you like this, but it’s all I can do. I am too weak, and unworthy of my position. There will be another. Do not blame yourselves. May the powers that be forgive me for my weakness.' Her prayers said, she took the remaining step to the edge, arms outstretched, searching herself for the strength she needed to take the final step into eternity.
“You know, I’d really hate it if you did that, who else would I have to kill?”
The unexpected voice startled her, and she almost completed the act she had been about to commit. Falling forwards, an inch away from sudden death on the rocks below, she felt strong arms encircle her and bring her back to solid ground. On the brink of hysteria due to adrenaline and mental anguish, it took her a moment to comprehend the sudden words and the accent with which they were spoken.
“Spike?”
“Evenin’, Slayer.”
“You saved me?”
“Couldn’t let you die without killing you first.”
She cocked her head sideways and bared her neck to him. ”Go ahead, Spike. I don’t want to fight you. I don’t care enough. So go on. Do it. Kill me. Drink my blood. Get it over with. Finish what you interrupted. Let me die.”
He was taken aback. 'Beelzebub below, what’s going on here? What happened to my brassed off slayer? (Mine? when did I start going possessive about her?) She’s offering me her neck, her blood, her life! Why? O hell! I can’t do it. It’s all I’ve wanted since I met her. To beat her, to have her at my mercy. To have her know I won as I drank her blood. I can’t do it. It’s too easy, why?'
“All right, pet, what’s going on here? Last thing I knew it was stakes, crossbows, and holy water. Now it’s tears, cliffs, and suicide. Care to explain to your dear old mortal enemy what’s going on?” why do I care? I should have drained her dry by now! Unaware of his own actions, he was slowly drawing her away from the cliff’s edge, away from her death, closer to him.
'Why should I tell him? Why does he care? Why not? Give him a final chance to gloat over me. Why not?' The despair in her thoughts expressed itself in her voice as she answered. “I killed him. He opened the gate to Hell. He was about to release Acathla. So I killed him.”
“That was your plan, right? Slay Angelus, save the world, get closure, that sort of thing, right? I’m afraid I don’t see the sorrow in a plan gone right, pet.”
“It wasn’t Angelus, Spike. I killed Angel.” Her reply was barely audible, even to Spike’s supernatural hearing. Too shocked to respond, he listened as she continued. ”They restored his soul, but it was too late. I told him to close his eyes, then I kissed him and ran him through. I sent him to hell. With his soul. To the fiery pits knowing it was I, his former love, that sent him there. I betrayed him. I got as far away as I could. I came here to offer penance for my sins. For my betrayal. Angel, I’m sorry, I’m weak, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, we were supposed to love each other forever. Forgive me.” Her eyes had taken on a faraway cast; unable to continue she burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands.
'Former love? I would have sworn she still loved him. Poor thing.' Unable to believe what he was doing, he pulled her to him and she cried into his chest. The sobs shook her whole body as she cried herself hoarse. ”It’s all right, pet. It’s all right. It wasn’t your fault. It had to be done. He’d understand, pet. It’s all right.” 'What in blazes am I doing? This is the SLAYER! She caused me to lose my Dru, and I’m comforting her? What in Hell is wrong with me? She is my enemy! But she’s so vulnerable. So weak. (So beautiful) So helpless, like my ducks was. I won’t let that happen again. Never again.' “Shhhh, pet. It’s okay. You’re okay. Don’t worry, pet. It’ll be all right.” He continued to rock and hold her until she had cried herself out.
'Why is he being so nice to me? Why doesn’t he just kill me? Make me his third. He’d be even stronger with my blood in his veins. He and Druscilla could rule the Hellmouth. Wait, where is she? He never leaves her side.' Pondering the enigmas presented her, she pulled away from his firm, muscular, handsome chest. 'Wait! What am I thinking? Handsome? He’s a VAMPIRE for goodness’ sake. A bloodsucking fiend from beyond the grave! My enemy! Although, he is being nice to me, and he is rather cute, in a Billy Idol sort of way. Maybe he’s changing the ending of ‘Endless Sleep’… What am I thinking? I’ve got to get some answers, fast.'
She sat up straight and looked Spike in the eye. ”I don’t mean to be rude, but what on earth is going on here? Why are you being nice to me? Why didn’t you take my blood when I offered it to you? And where’s Druscilla? You were so possessive of her, now she’s nowhere to be seen. What gives?”
He looked pained when she mentioned Dru, but he answered her in a voice devoid of emotion. “The first deals directly with the third, and as to the second, call me a fool or a softie, but self-sacrifice has never been my gig, giving or recieving. If I’m going to drink the blood of a worthy foe, let it be because I earned it, not because it was handed to me on a silver platter, so to speak.” '(And because I could think of some other things I would like to do with you…)' a part of his brain, quickly supressed, added. ”As to Dru, well Slayer, there’s one less of our kind you have to worry about. She’s gone, and it’s all my fault.”
The last was said half moaning, half sighing, and it caused Buffy to look up sharply from the grass she had been contemplating. 'Druscilla’s dead? Because of him? How? Why? She was his little princess, his ‘ducks’. What happened? Why do I care? Don’t know why, but I do.' She knew the best response was silence, so she let him take his time in continuing his tale.
“When we left you fighting…him, I drove until the gas ran out. I had no plan; I just wanted my ‘ducks’ back, all to myself. No more of her ‘Daddy’ mucking up the works. We wound up not far from here; a little town called Half Moon Bay. How did you get here, by the way? I’d like to know who rigged this game of chance.”
“It was the farthest away I could get from Sunnydale with only $87.50. And it was the opposite direction they would expect me to take. There’s the cause of the coincidence. But, you were saying…?”
He sighed. “Yes, about my Dru. Well, I got us a room at the local motel, got us sunproofed, and settled in for the day. Apparently, I dozed off, for when I woke up, Dru was nowhere to be found. She left me a note though. She said I let you kill her ‘Daddy’, that I was a bad man, that her doll told her I wanted Angel dead. She said she hated me. I tore the note to shreds.
“I had to wait for the sun to go down before I could look outside. I found her ashes two feet from the car. She hadn’t taken more than four steps when she died. She died because I didn’t love her enough to let her go. It wasn’t really love between us. She needed me, or she did for a while. I was obsessed with her. I couldn’t let her go, and it killed her. It’s all my fault she’s dead. I came out here as you did, to die. I was going to watch the sun’s reflection on the waves. I was going to let it burn my pain away. Why am I telling you this?” 'Why, indeed. A little part of him nagged. Why are you confessing you never loved Dru? What ended that obssession? Could it be that it began to die the second you decided to help the Slayer? Could those big brown eyes have helped you to decide? She’s your enemy; she’s THE enemy. She hates all our kind. Dru’s dead, and now you’re looking at Buffy? What’s wrong with you? It’s all your fault!' He broke into tears.
Buffy took her time digesting the news. 'Druscilla’s dead, because I killed Angel. Spike says he never loved her. Why does this make me happy? No! I refuse to feel for another vampire! This is taking the bad boy fascination too far. They are the enemy; it’s my job to rid the world of them. But, when he looks at me with those sad eyes, and that accent, and that body…Enough! It will not happen, it can’t!'
Meanwhile, she had embraced Spike and was attempting to calm the sobs that wracked his form. She had never seen a vampire cry, had not known they could, and the sight was a shock to her. The sight was made even more moving by the contrast of the blood red tears with Spike’s death-pale complexion. She took his head in her lap and stroked his head like one does for a hurt child, a suprisingly mothering act for one so young and so tough.
'She’s so soft, so warm, so alive, so sane Spike thought as he lay cradled in Buffy’s lap. By all rights she should have killed me long ago, and I her. I don’t know why she hasn’t slain me yet. Even with Angel’s death on her mind, everything in her should be screaming to kill me. Why do I yet live? Bloody hell, why haven’t I killed her? I can’t be falling for her. How Shakespearean. We’re Romeo and Juliet all over again. But I will NOT be Dicaprio. I despise the way that ends. Why hasn’t she killed me? She can’t have refrained for the same reason I have, can she. What if she hasn’t, what if she is going to kill me? What will happen if she doesn’t feel this incredibly crazy feeling that I am right now. Or, more important yet, what if she does? Only one way to find out. Hell’s bells, I hope I know what I’m doing.' He began to raise his head towards hers.
'He’s so gentle, so peacefuly, here in my arms. Yet I know he’s a vicious killer. He should have taken the blood I offered him. My duty screams to kill him. Yet I have not, why? It seems I have done it again, I’ve fallen for the wrong guy yet again. I can’t believe I’ve fallen for another vampire. When he looked at me with those sorrowful eyes, when he spoke of losing Druscilla, I almost forgot his true, killer, nature. He seemed so human, so vulnerable, so sweet. I’ve fallen again, and harder than I did for Angel. What am I going to do? This is stronger than what I felt for Angel; there is no pity here. I pitied Angel, I can’t pity Spike. He’s stronger than Angel was; something about him radiates power. What am I going to do? What if he’s not getting this lunatic urge that I am. No escape now, I have to know.' She lowered her head towards his.
They met halfway in a kiss that certainly wasn’t. It seemed to surprise both of them, not enough for them to break the kiss, however. In that kiss they asked the same question and received the same answer. Neither knew for sure why, or for how long they had felt this way, they just knew that now, on the cliffside in the moonlight, they did. There were no demands in that kiss, only relief, and hope. As the kiss ended, Buffy lay down beside Spike and looked up at the starry sky. “I think I love you, Slayer,” he said as she rested her head on his shoulder.
She snuggled closer to him. ”I must be going insane, because I feel the same, Spike.” She regarded the stars as if searching for an impossible answer. ”We came out here to die, and found a new reason to live. The question is, what do we do now?”
Spike glanced down at the petite body beside his on the grass as he laid a kiss on the top of her head. “I don’t know, pet,” he mumbled into her hair. “I wish I did, but I just don’t know."
Fin
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