Author: VaRuka (little ol' me)

Author's Note: This is a very shaky piece of fanfiction, in the since that I just started this and am going with my creative flow. I have no mapped out, story outline, notes on anything. It's kind of like a Round Robin or also known as a Tennis Fic sorta deal but with myself, though. So I'll surprise you, as I surprise me.
Disclaimer: I like to play with these "Barbies", and these "Dream Houses" . . . they've become an awful habit. They're so goddamn addictive . . .
Rating: R. . . ish?
Feedback: Keeps my fingers a typing.
Summary: Oops. The Scooby Gang is no more! Oops. Buffy failed everyone! Oops. Vital lives are lost! Oops. A locked box! Oops. Time travel? Uh. Oops.











Press For Time



This is just a great way to end every day.

My head whips back to seize up my pursuers. I should do this everyday, it gets the heart pumping. Speeding up my pace, I zoom by closed shops, wandering natives, late nightclubs, and suspicious characters hiding in each alley. Man, where are the cops?

I sharply curve into an alleyway. Dead end . . .damn. The pounding of my pursuers feet get more distinct. Fleeing was a bad idea. It only leads to fighting. I swivel my head around my neck, relishing in the sweet crackle and pop of my blood vessels. I thread my fingers together and pull back, grinning at the snapping sounds, just itching to wield them to pummel a being.

"Hurry it up," I scan the swirling thundercloud filled sky. "I take it back." My grin splits even wider. "I got all the time in the world."

Getting a little impatient, I begin to bounce back and forth on the balls of my feet, ready to assault, ready to spring on the bloodthirsty scoundrels. They cannot have back what is mine, what originally was mine. Fucking thieves. Selfish, greedy, moral less, beady eyed thieves.

They urgently turn the corner down this alley. An alley like any other alley, small and cramped, with little lighting, if any at all, and complete with smelly garbage bins. They are all equally confident. I can almost read their minds, oooh, a tiny female teenager against five big time boys; you truly already know who will end up on top.

Yeah, but they don't know me. All they know is my appearance. And appearances as one once said, can be very, very deceiving.

As a pack of hungry wolves they encircle me, leaving no speedy and competent escape, only a battlefield waiting to be fought upon. In a mock serious gesture I bow in respect. Already I am starting to sweat. The thunderclouds above ferociously growl, making the ground almost rumble at the intensity. I think that means start.

The shit hits the fan.

Sooner than later the reality of the situation strikes me as does a punch to my gut. In mid-fight I stumble onto the ground from the blow. All will to get up and keep kicking is leaking from my ears. The men bellow with laughter at seeing me go down without much effort on their part and without much fight on mine.

"Spike!" The scream is urgently ripped from my throat, released to float the airwaves and hopefully land in the right ears.

This is all a decoy.

With renewed strength uncovered from a box deep inside me, I surge back into action. I will not be beaten. And the decoy may have been efficient enough to get me away from Dawn, but there may still be time. Lightening suddenly cracks through the murky sky, hauling a roar of thunder along side it. What a beautiful night. What a night for escapades.

The five men morph into their demonic visages. Time to go now. With a leap of might and a leap of faith, I soar upwards to distribute a well aimed kick and plow through the attacking vampires. Descending to their asses they are out of commission for just the right amount of time I need to escape. Buffy scores!

Right as I step over into the clear, a shadow blocks my exit. From a carefully hidden place I extract a well-defined stake. Mr. Pointy don't fail me now. My body is braced for the onslaught . . . but it does not come. The moonlight strikes the figure.

"Fancy meeting you here, ducks."

A smile widens my lips, as I indignantly scoff. "You're a little too late. I was about to commence my escape, threat free, and all hero-like."

"Are you quite sure?" Spike tilts his head, with a better-than-you smirk. "Cause from my view it looks like-" A vampire topples me over. Out of the corner of my eye the other four are beginning to converge, "you knocked flat on your belly, Ms. Hero." Spike snide fully finishes.

I rapidly roll the vampire off, and with Slayer strength fling his body onto the rest of his pals. Like a bowling ball to a round of pins they collapse in a heap. It won't be long till they clamber back up and charge again. Fast as a blinking headlight I snatch up Spike's hand in my own.

"Time's up." I drag him along at a tremendous speed. In this event we do not dally. "Level one," I glance at him with a lop-sided smile, "we semi-won." He clenches my hand in his own way of reassuring me. "Now onto level two."

Upon reaching our New York apartment door, we stop . . . and wait. The clouds above drool droplets of rain. Another clap of thunder echoes through the land. Are we in time? Have we failed? More questions drop into my stew pot of a brain, swirling clockwise, counterclockwise, swirling, swirling, and generating a whirlwind of gooey thoughts. I tremble. Is she . . .

"Dead?" I audibly finish, not expecting Spike to catch on.

He cocks his head in my direction, examining my stance, my tremble, and softly replies. "Only way to know anything is to check."

This time he is the one dragging me along. Through the door we go and are hit with the distinct smell of blood and decay. Spike's nostrils peak, his eyes become slits, and he has vanished in a direction I do not feel like watching. I stand there observing our apartment. This is my life now. Not Sunnydale. Not anywhere, but here. And it is now all gone. Poof, bam, zoom.

All gone. All ruined.

Spike returns but minutes later. His composure is heart cracking. Tightened fists are shoved deep into his pockets, and his eyes are seeking mine. I gradual make eye contact, dreading what I will find in his watery azure depths. Silence is yanked down a time line, causing what seems like years to pass since the last spoken word.

The scent of death is pungent in the air, nearly choking me now. We never should have left. Why? Oh, fucking why? I should have stayed home with Dawnie. I didn't have to leave to retrieve back Willow's last gift to me. Of course, her gift is important, the final gift she gave before her death, but when you compare the small wooden box locked tightly to Dawn's life . . . I should have stayed home with Dawnie. Never should I have left after it, never . . . never . . .

Out of the thick silence Spike smashes his fist into the wall. The room vibrates with the magnitude of the deed. A circular hole is the result as he stumbles back. My insides shatter with that final act. Our eyes create a link. Pain mirrors pain.

"Dead?" I dumbly ask once more, cold latching onto my bones, sucking the marrow dry.

Spike has no reply, just a pantomime of his hand to follow him. My mind screams no, but yet, my feet obey. He leads me to Dawn's room where the smell is strongest. She lies on her back in the middle of the floor, limbs strewn about in a jumble, as if they put her on display. Not a inkling of blood is to be found. Not even a splatter on the walls.

Drained dry.

Spike's hand appears from nowhere inside of mine. The cold hisses with fear at the soothing product of the gesture, and its attachment to my bones wavers. Somehow I find myself wrapped delicately by Spike; wrapped with love, support, and a steady pulse of strength. My thumb rubs slowly on Spike's hand, my meager attempt to give him what he has just given me.

Moments later, I tear my eyes away from Dawn's limp, dead eyed body, and onto the wall. With big dripping black palpable writing is a message, another link to the continuous chain started from what feels like lifetimes ago.

My mouth opens on its own accord, speaking in a gentle voice, as if hushing a baby:



"She tasted like a baby deer

So sweet, so young, so full of fear

I anticipate how you both will taste

And I will take you slow, without haste

Savoring your powerful life forces

Regal souls to add to good's losses

Dying under my mistletoe

While I kiss you proper

As hello."



And the haunting message is spoken.

Spike forcefully pulls me in his embrace. I do not oppose. It is comforting and real. He has been by my side for this short but seemingly long journey not asking for much but respect and a home-a place where he is welcome and needed. Our relationship has significantly changed for the best or worse. Boy, has it changed from the stark animosity to the smoldering love affair . . .

Oh, boy.

Spike, Spike, Spike, what will we do? Our world has been demolished and the ruins have been left for us to wallow in. The life we have built from the older ruins of the other is nothing but ashes for us to taste our sorrow. Jeez, I sound like such a poet.

A hollow laugh is wrenched from my throat. Spike quickly responds, not being able to bear it, by quieting me with a kiss. A kiss that packs emotions now overflowing from his unnatural body down into the caverns of my own. Spike, Spike, Spike, can we now leave Sunnydale and Los Angeles and New York behind us? Discard them permanently together in the proverbial dust?
Oh, look at me, thinking to Spike like he could hear me . . .

. . . I have really left sanity, about to drown in the deep end. My grip on Spike becomes firmer. A shaky kiss is pressed hard onto my neck.

"Don't," I croak out between a sob and a plea, "let me drown."

He draws back to look me square in the eyes. "Why would I ever let that happen?" A flicker of his charming smirk leeches onto his lips. I calmly sniffle, ending my little episode. "I love you, Buffy." He just does not know how much those words mean to me, how much they affect every fiber of my being. "And my love has kept me by your side this far. I know I won't desert you, not now, not ever."

My mouth snaps open with relief to tentatively whisper, "I love you, too. You have been this rock. This bleached rock with a sun allergy that has never moved and is forever stuck on Buffy's landscape."

After that is said my mind attempts to re-balance its sanity from tipping to insanity, and mainly is becoming flooded down to the last square inch of room with uninhibited grief.

Somberly, I retrace my steps back into the main room, Spike promptly shadowing my movements. I can't look at Dawn's empty body any longer without purging my stomach of its contents. She signifies death in the molested form. They didn't just kill her; they drained the body of every liquid known to the human anatomy as they did to . . .

. . . Willow . . . Giles . . . Xander . . . Angel . . . Cordelia . . . and maybe to whomever is left . . .

They want us all good as dead. We can run, goes the old saying, but we can't hide.













Author's Note: Yes I am making my life a living hell. I have Ash Can Reform, an original short story called Ample Flow, another original called Circular Eventuality and now . . .*sighs* I have Now Hero Anon to finish. *shakily laughs* So updates on Ash Can Reform may be postponed for a tiny bit as I strive to finish and add to other things.

I know, I know, I know, I suck.