Record and play, after years of endless rewind
Yesterday wasn't half as tough as this time
This time isn't Hell,
Last time, I couldn't tell
This mind wasn't well
Next time, hope I'm...
Going to be good, and I would -
If I knew I was understood

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Buffy shifted in her restraints, hoping a slight shift to the left would ease  the pressure on her wrists, it wasn't working. The complicated irony that was her life never failed to amaze her. She had been going along perfectly fine, taking one day at a time, easing back into things and now within 7 short little days she had slept with her mortal enemy, acquired a mind reading flood causing roommate, lost said mortal enemy to bitchy roommate and now she found herself chained to a cave wall by roommates psycho ex boyfriend.

No it just didn't get any better than this.

The fact that she found herself in this position was embarrassing at best. She had run out of the Bronze and had literally run right into Jacob.  He had held her up when she should have landed face down in the alley, and stroked her hair when she started crying on his shoulder. Buffy didn't know what she had been thinking when she agreed to go for coffee and a talk. Her only excuse was he had been so nice and seemed to understand her.

"Yah Buffy, how many woman have been killed cause the guy understood her." she mocked

She had just wanted someone to pour all the pain out to. Watching Spike and Jinx had ripped  her apart. No matter how many ways she tried to deny her it, she felt something. She just didn't know what yet.

Jacob had been so sweet, telling her about his girlfriend leaving him and commiserating with her pain. The whole sweetness factor disappeared pretty quick though when she had mentioned Jinx's name.

"Then it was just hit Buffy over the head and chain her to a wall time"

  It was even more humiliating to know that it wasn't her he wanted. How many times had she been the target for the big bad? How many times had she come charging in to rescue her friends in this position? She was the slayer, the chosen one, the defender of innocents, the bane of all evil existing in the world and now she was………… bait. This day was not doing much for her ego.

Focusing her attention back at the problem at hand her eyes searched the cave for captor. He was lying on a bed watching her reactions intently. Too bad he was obviously crazy because he was actually pretty sexy.

Buffy gave herself a mental smack. What the hell was with her. Did she have a sign on her forehead that said if you are evil, psycho and gorgeous please apply within.

She realized he was talking to her .

'Bad Buffy, pay attention to what the  man is saying not the color of his eyes.  Which were green, not that she cared'

He appeared to be  trying to figure something out.

"I just don't get it" he said

"What?  Why your expelling all this effort to get back a demanding shrew like Jinx.  I know it's taxing on the imagination" Buffy jeered

She never saw the fist coming. Rocking her back from the blow she had the inclination that she now knew how Spike felt. And the realization that pissing off a psycho path was not a good plan, when one was chained to a wall and couldn't defend ones self.

" Don't ever let me hear you speak badly about her again. She is an angel. She's my angel."

Buffy was notably shocked, had she missed something. Wasn't this guy supposed to hate Jinx, he had kept her chained to a wall for Christ sake, not feeling the love there.

"I thought you didn't exactly like her, you know, with your history and stuff."

" I don't like Jinx, you little twit, I love Jinx. She is my reason for living.  I was devastated when I discovered she had been taken."

Buffy stared at the man.

"Okay, devastated, Have you actually met Jinx?"

She was a little more prepared for the strength of his punch this time. It still hurt like hell though. Spitting out a mouthful of blood she decided to choose her words  more carefully next time.

" You love her."

" I get that now"

" So why don't we just jog on over to my house, pick her up and you two lovebirds can head off into the sunset."

Buffy knew that wasn't the right approach but at the moment the idea of Jinx being gone was filling her with a whole lot of pleasure.

"That won't work. She has to come to me. That's the way it's always been. I wait and she comes to me. Don't you get it."

Buffy looked up at the manacles attached to her wrists, maybe there was something in this twisted little story that would get her out of here.

"Why don't you explain it to me"

Jacob sat down on the floor in front of her and leaned his head against her leg.

"We have been together for centuries, I have loved her almost as long as I have been alive. When your over 500 that means something you know."

At his pleading look for understanding Buffy nodded. At least she knew how old Jinx was now, the girl certainly hadn't been forthcoming about that little tidbit.

"Sure she would go off and have her little parties but she always came back to me. We were soul mates. No one could get in the way of that. Until she met HIM."

Buffy was surprised. She didn't know that amount of venom could be applied to a single word. She thanked her lucky stars that she wasn't the 'him' in this story.

"She never really came back from San Francisco. Oh sure her body did but her heart didn't. No, she left it there with some filthy vampire, who didn't even want her."

Buffy wasn't sure if the choking sound came from her throat or his.

"But I fixed it, I made sure she wouldn't leave me again. It took me years of planning but I fixed it so she couldn't leave me . She didn't understand that. She said I was keeping her a prisoner. But I wasn't, I was just making sure she had time to remember how much she loves me.  "

Buffy stared at the broken man sobbing in front of her. This was really sad. Once upon a time she had been a strong sweet caring man. Now he was just a sick twisted shell. This is what love does. This is what she needed to avoid at all costs. Not sure what to do, but hoping maybe a healthy dose of sympathy would get her out of here she tried that.

"It's okay, Everything will be okay. I'll talk to her and make her understand." she soothed

At the sound of the pity in her voice Jacob jumped angrily to his feet.

"I don't need your help." He sneered " I will get her back and everything will be right again"

Okay Buffy no more playing nice with the bad man, whatever she had glimpsed for that moment was gone.  Now she was faced with a mad man who didn't care if she lived or died.

"I don't get what in  the hell Jinx was hoping to accomplish by shacking up with a slayer!"

Buffy could feel ice start to from in her veins at the way he had spat out 'slayer'. This wasn't the usual 'I hate the slayer for ruining my fun' kind of emotion. It wasn't even hate. This was disgust, pure and simple. Buffy felt like a bug that had crawled across his shoe and she wanted to know why.

"Not feeling the love here. What the hell is your problem? Is it slayers in general or me in particular? Cause , you're not exactly topping my buddy list either here."

Jacob looked at her like she had grown another head.

"What is my problem" he sputtered "Are you really that stupid"

Buffy stared at him blankly.

"What the hell have those watchers been teaching you?"

Where the hell had watchers come from, she wondered. There was something going on here and she hated not knowing the whole story. Glaring at him she decided to pay attention his ravings. 

"Does history mean nothing to you?"  his voice leaked scorn

"Does this generation even care where they came from? The whole world is going to hell in a hand basket, you know."

He continued to bluster on about the moral degradation that was her age group but Buffy scarcely noticed. There was  only one  pertinent thing to her in his speech and she wanted some answers.

"What do you mean where I came from?"

Jacob stopped his tirade to regard her with shock.

"You honestly don't know do you. Those holier than thou peons never told you"

At the negative shake of Buffy's head he started to laugh.

"Oh this is too perfect, I wonder how many years it has been since they erased it."

 Composing himself he turned to face her.

" Jinx told you about us right, where we come from?"

 "Well did she tell you, that if it wasn't for us you wouldn't exist."

………………………..

Buffy wished she had the movement of her arms again, mostly to wipe the tears off her face. After dropping his bomb Jacob had taken off, muttering something about cappuccinos. She was glad he was gone she needed time to compose herself.

Her entire existence had been summed up in a few sick little sentences. Her purpose, her calling was just one big cosmic whoops. Her mind recoiled at the fact that she had been, for all intents and purposes, a mistake.

The plan was to create a being to fight off an evil The Powers That Be had sent to exterminate Jacob and Jinx's ancestors. The men had vetoed the idea, deciding they were strong enough. The women disagreed and did it anyway. But they screwed something up and instead of getting a whole new being they accidentally infused a human child with all the power. Realizing the mistake they found a rather slow man in a nearby village and sent the girl to him in hope that she would grow into her gift. Which she did, eventually, and was returned to fulfill her purpose.

"At least I know why the watchers council erased all this." Buffy sneered. "It wouldn't look too good in their journals to know the first watcher was actually the village idiot."

She had tried to get more information out of Jacob. She begged him to tell her what happened to the girl. His comments still made Buffy cringe.

"What do you mean what happened, the kid came back kicked some ass, end of story. In every generation blah blah blah. Basically honey, your just here to do our dirty work for us."

Turning towards the sound of scuffling coming back into the cave, she watched Jacob enter balancing two cups of cappuccino. Crossing the room he shoved a cup under face and asked if she thought there was enough foam.  Okay, maybe he wasn't all bad. Maybe it was a peace offering. Maybe he was going to let her go.

"That's lots of foam, but how do you expect me to drink it."

Buffy shook her wrists causing the chains to rattle loudly 

"It's not for you, slayer. It's for Jinx when she comes home"

Okay, scratch the whole not a bad guy thing. The man was completely deranged. If there was not going to be coffee in the immediate future then at least there could be some answers.

" So are you going to tell me what else happened? There's more. I know it."

'Enough!" he shouted

" The history lesson ended about twenty minutes ago, weren't you paying attention"  Setting the remaining cup lovingly on a nearby table he gave it an affectionate pat and returned to stand in front of Buffy.

 " It's time you fulfill your purpose now, slayer."

" Namely to get me my Jinx back. Let's send her a little message shall we."

"You can't kill me, she'll never come if you kill me"

Buffy wasn't entirely sure about that but she was grasping at straws.

Jacob clucked his tongue at her.

"I'm not going to kill you, you silly child……Yet……I'm just going to make sure Jinx knows how to find me. Now relax this will only hurt for a second"

Buffy shrunk as far back against the wall as she could, waiting for a blow. She blinked in surprise when Jacob just placed his fingers on her temples. Sighing in relief she realized he was going to use her mind to send Jinx his message. Relaxing slightly she felt him enter her subconscious.

"It isn't that bad actually, a little uncomfortable, a little painf…….."

Small fissures opened on the solid rock walls of the caves. The continuous vibrations of Buffy's agonized and tortured screams causing them to spread into wide cracks created small avalanches throughout the tunnel system.