A/N: Categorizing this story was a bit difficult, because it deals with the possibility of a past life AU within canon. Individuals may be human who aren't usually human, but vampires and demons do exist. As of right now, I plan to write a series in this universe. Some elements from this story are based loosely on the novel The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. The rating will most likely change. Credit for the characters goes to Joss and Mutant Enemy. This is my first Buffyverse fic, so any response is much appreciated: )
"At times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages' way,
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light let in by death,
That life was blotted out -- not so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again."
Paracelsus by Robert Browning
Prologue
The air felt heavy and stagnant, carrying the scent of salt musk from the sea. Though the watchman had returned to the upper decks for the night and not a soul save himself remained in the cargo bay, he sensed the glare of invisible, piercing eyes. Darkness closed in around him; but inside the dark, inside the inside, a spark lingered. Desperately he tried to hide from it, to draw himself so tightly behind a row of wooden packing crates that perhaps his shaking body would simply vanish into dust, spilling useless bones and blood into oblivion. But nothing could shut it out.
He closed his eyes and she was there, just as she had been for all his waking life—and unwaking life. Even before his heart stopped beating long ago, he had dreamt of her. "My muse, my goddess" he called her. Visions, impressions, and memories would kiss his eyelids as he slept, but when he woke, he could never remember her face. The sweet smell of her hair, the warmth of her soft body curled over his, the whisper of her breath—these things remained with him. More than once in his endless lifetime, he'd believed that he'd found her only to discover that she remained an elusive phantom. But now he knew. He knew because of the spark, and he remembered. He saw what had been, and he saw fractured pieces of what might be; and everything jumbled together into a tangled heap inside his broken mind. All he knew was that he needed to find her again. Soon he would be back—back to America.
Crimson water flowed through her fingers and pooled on the floor like liquid rose petals. Horrified, he pulled the knife from her grasp and cradled her palm in both of his.
"No," she said, "Look."
He watched as she slipped the blade beneath his flesh and gasped in surprise when her hand clasped his.
"Your blood is my blood. We are bound to one another. They cannot take that from us."
Together their blood will be powerful.
"Stop. Stop. Stop. You show me just to take it away. You let me see what I can never have again," he whimpered and cried out to the eyes in the darkness as the sounds and flashes violently assaulted him, "I don't bloody want it, do you hear me?! Let me forget. Please God, I just want to forget."
"One more night," she whispered, tears heavy in her voice. Tears she only let him see. "I don't want to face tomorrow without one more night with you."
"I knew you and loved you and forgot you …She'll never love me like this—not after what I've done. William is a bad man. He hurt the girl. Take it back. Please take it back."
He lay sprawled on the floor of the Quick Mart while his life bled out of him.
"Don't cry, love. And don't forget the milk," was all he could think to tell her.
"Blood. It's always blood…That's all life is," he murmured as he drew a small knife from the pocket of his black leather duster. He tore his shirt from his body, drew the blade against his chest, and tried to cut it out.