Buffy watched the sick play being performed for the amusement of a psychopath. She craned her neck to the side trying to get a better view of Jinx who was now chained beside her. She looked like shit.

Buffy had heard the outer cave collapse and was shocked the girl had survived the force of the blast. Jacob had brought her in about 20 minutes before ,unconscious, prattling on and on about Jinx's stupidity for thinking she could fight him. He hadn't wasted time chaining her up next to Buffy or injecting her with a tranquilizer even though she was still knocked out.

"At least she gets to be drugged for this." Buffy contemplated jealously.

Everything about Jinx pissed her off. The sad part was it wasn't even Jinx's fault. She was just being herself. She didn't really care what people thought. She just did what felt good, what felt right. Something Buffy could never seem to do. Buffy was always worried about what her friends would think.

Jinx was starting to wake up and was moaning softly beside her.

"Would you shut the mental musings off, your giving me a headache"

Buffy's mouth dropped open in shock. Jinx had been asleep she couldn't have heard what Buffy was thinking. Could she.

"Yes, I can hear you, and if you think for one second I am going to let you indulge in that little ass kicking party you have planned for me you are sadly mistaken."

Buffy's jaw snapped shut with an audible click. It was creeping her out to have someone inside her head, but at least it wasn't Jacob. He was too busy patting himself on the back for recapturing his precious prize. It occurred to her that if Jinx could hear her thoughts then she should be able to hear Jinx's. Maybe they could find a way out of here without psycho boy knowing what the plan was. As soon as they got one. Reaching out Buffy tried to communicate, she could feel herself easing into Jinx's subconscious. It was like jumping into a tidal wave. Buffy felt like she was drowning, being pulled under by the force of Jinx's mind. Faintly she could here Jinx screaming to her. Pushing towards the sound Buffy latched onto it.

"You stupid twit, you aren't ready for this yet. It takes years of practice to communicate with someone's subconscious mind."

Buffy was getting really tired of the stupid twit comments.

"Willow does it all the time"

Buffy could feel Jinx sigh.

"She just reads surface thoughts, it is a hell of  a lot easier to converse with the awake part of the brain. She didn't jump head first into my memory bank."

Buffy was mad…. again. She couldn't do anything right where Jinx was concerned. So she didn't know how to read minds, big deal, she could bench press 400 pounds and she was damn sure miss holier than thou couldn't do that.

" And I know your reading that thought and you can just….. Well you can shove it where the sun don't shine."

Buffy took a steadying breath, she needed to calm down and think logically. Starting a mental cat fight was not going to get them out of here.

"Okay so why does he want you so bad? Your not exactly a joy to be around. Maybe it's a ritual or something, does he need your powers to open some hell gate thingy."

The sarcasm in Jinx's voice reverberated through her mind causing Buffy to reel a bit, this mind talking thing was going to take some getting used too.

" You've been on the hellmouth way too long. Not everything is about dark powers and shit, you know."

"So what's it about then, oh all knowing one. Can you hurry up though my arms lost feeling about, oh, 7 HOURS ago."

"It's about love, oh whiny one."

"Oh please, that man isn't in love, he doesn't know the meaning of the word anymore. You screwed that up. He was just a nice sweet guy until you came along and now look at him"

"I DID NOT SCREW HIM UP. He's just a little obsessed, he can't have me anymore and he is making damn sure no one else does either."

Buffy winced at the tone in Jinx's voice.

"Sure and I'm the one in denial. He loved you Jinx and you threw it in his face by falling for Spike"

Buffy could feel Jinx's mind sputtering in disagreement.

"I did not fall for Spike, just cause some of us have issues with the vampire doesn't mean we all have to go ga-ga when he walks in a room."

"But Jacob said-"

"Oh Jacob wouldn't know his ass from a whole in the ground. He never listened to me. When I got back I told him I had seen what real love was not that I had fallen in love. Stuff with us is complicated. I loved him, I really did, in my own way. It was never the whole over the moon kind of thing though. He was my safety net, my port in the storm. Whenever life got too hard I could run to Jacob and he would make it all better. But I saw something between Spike and Dru. Something I wanted. It just wasn't enough to only half-way care. I wanted to feel it all. So I told Jacob I wouldn't be coming back. As you can see he didn't take it well. " 

"So let me get this straight. I am chained to a fucking wall, probably going to die, again, because you can't manage your love life. Somehow I am vaguely disappointed ."

"Look, he's probably going to let you go. I mean he doesn't want you anyway."

"Yah that seems to be going around lately" Buffy was starting to get that wallow in self pity vibe again. At the incredulous look on Jinx's face she stamped the emotion down, or tried too.  She couldn't get the image of Jinx and Spike out of her head.

" As much as I would like to ride your ass about that particular little moment, this is not the time. You all moody and depressed is not helpful right now, so I am going to just say it like it is. Spike loves you, not me. And whether you admit it to yourself or not, you love him. Love isn't all pretty packages and sentimental garbage. It's messy and it's hard. It's about time you got that through your head, because if you don't, sooner or later you going to end up in the same place as me."

"Spike would never kidnap me and chain me to a wall. Well okay he did, but that was before and…….."

The full impact of her situation finally dawned on Buffy. She could feel hysterical laughter start to bubble up from the pit of her stomach. This could be her future. During her little jaunt through Jinx's mind she had seen everything. She saw how much Jacob had loved her and she had seen how scared of that love Jinx really was. Jinx wanted more and she couldn't get it with him. She wanted what Buffy wanted to feel something, to feel love. Jinx had shoved him away and he had done the only thing he could think of to stop her from leaving him. It was sick and disturbing but Buffy understood now what had turned the gentle loving man she had first glimpsed into the monster he had become. That could happen to Spike, hell he had already been that. It wasn't the chip that was stopping him, it was his love for her. Even when she had died, he was still there for her friends. Because of love, something that she had thrown in his face time and time again. But he was still there, waiting for her to realize that what she felt for him was more than just lust.

Buffy shook her head. Apparently she was entitled to more than one epiphany a month. So he really did love her, she couldn't deny that anymore. But what did she feel for him.

"You love him, you brainless wonder. God why the hell do you have to make everything so difficult. Quit analyzing, start feeling."

Buffy jumped. She had to get that girl out of her head.

"Like your one to talk. If you had just fessed up to your  real feelings in the first place instead of using Jacob we wouldn't be in this boat, now would we." She sneered

'Well live and learn, kiddo. So in all your ramblings did you think of a way to get us out of here"

"Well actually….."

Buffy's  never got to finish her sentence, because at that moment, what once had been an impenetrable rock face had opened up to reveal a very pissed off vampire and a floating witch.

Buffy and Jinx's thoughts for once were in perfect sync.

"Cool!!"