"Her Love"

She sat quietly inside her house waiting for her love to walk through that door. While she waited her mind began to drift to when she was had first met him. It had started to occupy her mind more frequently and the questions that kept popping up: Why had he chosen her out of all the women and girls he could get. What made her so special to him?

I was born on December 16th in the year 1825 in London England. My parents named me Jasmine for that was my mother's favorite flower. My family was part of the high society of that time; when I turned seven I became a part of Her Majesty's court. Life back then was all about wealth, style, grace, and being better than the local peasants.

I remember the day that I met Penn and Angelus. It was the day after my sixteenth birthday and my mother decided to throw a lavish dinner and ball in my honor. My father decided that it was time for all the proper men of our society to meet me.

When I first saw Penn he stole my heart. After I shook his hand I realized that it was cold. It was December after all so I let it pass. He took me over and introduced me to Angelus; he told me that Angel was his brother. He was very handsome and when he started to speak I picked up his Irish lilt.

We talk for awhile about the beauties of his homeland and I noticed that I had been neglecting Penn. So I turned my attentions back to him and soon found out he was from England but had been travelling abroad and had just returned.

He spoke so elegantly of his travels that I lost interest in all of the other young men. I started to wish that the party would never end. Finally, my father decided that it was time for the party to end and everyone started back to their homes. Penn and Angel stayed for another hour and talked to my father about things. Finally they too took their leave and headed back home.

My father decided that Penn was the perfect match for his sweet daughter. So he sent a messenger to Penn and told him and his brother to come and join us for dinner in a week's time. This letter started my yearlong courtship with Penn. Penn came to visit me often but it was always at night. The reason he gave me was because he lived far away. Three days before my seventeenth birthday Penn proposed to me. My family was happy and started to plan my wedding. It all seemed to happen so fast but soon I was to become Penn's wife.

Three months after Penn proposed to me that the wedding was ready. I married Penn on a beautiful moonlight night in March. My family had invited everyone they could think of but Penn only had Angel. That seemed very odd to me but it was so beautiful that I didn't even think about it till later. The wedding was set in our garden and that say was the last time I saw a sunrise or a sunset.

We left that night for his home and the journey was very quick. When we arrived at his home later that night Angel met us at the door. His face that I saw wasn't his normal face but that of a monster. Angel grabbed me and when I turned to Penn for help I saw that his face was the same and Angelus'. I had fallen in love with a vampire and they intended to make me one that night also.

I don't really remember much of my transformation. What I remember mostly is a lot of pain and blood. Angel changed me that night into what I am now but I was bonded to Penn for he was the one that I truly loved. I awoke the next night and realized that I was different and I hated Penn and Angel for taking away my heart and soul.

I remember my first victim and how killing her made me feel. It was two weeks after my transformation and they took me out for my first kill. I remember I was lurking around my home and saw her walking in the garden by herself. My poor mother mourning the death of her little girl. I grabbed her and looked into her eyes and saw them fill with shock then love and finally with fear when she saw my true face.

It was an odd sensation to kill the person that brought you into the world but from what Angel and Penn had said they had killed their whole family and it never bothered them. I only killed my mother but to see my father's shocked and hurt face when he found her in the pond later that night was worth it. It made my first kill more memorable.

I traveled with Penn and Angel for about fifty years and then I left and traveled with another group of vampires also made by Angel and those twenty years was some of the best I had ever had. Unlike most vampires I never made another vampire for a companion because I already had one.

The door opened much later and scared Jasmine out of her thoughts of the old days. Her love walked in and just stood there looking at her. The sun had just started to rise and yet he knew that she hadn't eaten all day.

She hadn't eaten human blood since she had gotten her soul and a conscience but sometimes she accompanied him on his nightly feeds. Recently though he had been going out alone and coming back late almost at sunrise. She had started to worry that her Penn was doing something very dangerous. If he was doing something wrong then it would be her also that suffered the consequences.

Penn stood there looking at her and thinking about the day she was changed and when she came back after spending time with Spike and Drucilla. He also remembered how she didn't trust Angel anymore and how she had started to see things differently. He remembers when she told him that Spike told her Angel made her so he could take her away from Penn. Penn hated Spike for telling her that cause Angel didn't want her like that he just liked her.

"Darling", Penn said softly "He loves you but he won't take you from me because I loved you from the first moment I saw you in London." As she laid there she though about in and pushed all of the things Spike told her out of her mind and fell asleep next to Penn.

She sat there later that night and thought about the past seventy years with her love and her vampire family: Angelus was a good teacher and father but Darla was jealous of her. She tried to hurt her once so she left and spent twenty years with Angelus' other children Drucilla and Spike. They were misfits of their own making and being with them made killing fun cause of how they did it. It was always a surprise and Dru picked their victims through her visions and her tarot cards.

She finally went back to her Penn and Angel in the year 1912 she was about eighty-seven years old and still young compared to Angel and Penn. She traveled with them to America but Angel was different. He had eaten a gypsy girl and her clan had cursed him with a soul.

The people he killed and changed including her tormented him. It hurt her to see her sire in so much pain but it was his burden he needed to carry so Penn and herself left him to his torment and redemption. She heard from others that he started to help the Slayer in Sunnydale but that was in the year 1996. By that time Jasmine herself had gotten a soul.

Penn thought about her getting a soul and the torment she went through. She chose to go through the Demon Trials and regain what Angel had taken from her so many years ago. The three challenges almost killed her but she got her soul. That was in the year 1956 she had just turned 131 years old. He also remembered what he had done when she got her soul; he turned his back on her and left leaving her to be alone.

She fled from England and started to travel on her own and ended back in America in the year 1986. She found Angel she stayed with him but he was no help to her so she left and traveled and helped people what she wanted more in the world was to be back with Penn.

Finally while traveling in California in 1996 she felt a familiar presence and followed it to a penthouse apartment and when she knocked she prayed that her love would open the door. It cracked open quietly and there standing in a ray of light was Penn. It had been forty years since she had seen him and he still looked the same and after all those years his love was still there.

They hadn't been apart since then and its been six years but nothing in the world could separate them until Penn did something very stupid.

The story of that faithful night and everything after that is in the story "Jasmine and Penn" which will follow in the following week or so.

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