I, Alone

Title: I, Alone

Rating: T, by the new fanfiction standards… likely cause is violence, adult content and strong language.

Genre: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Lord of the Rings crossover. This is the sequel to 'I Capture the Sun'. Unlike the fluff the past story was, this is much darker. There is a lot of angst and a lot of action and just a little romance.

Pairings: Buffy/Legolas, Buffy/Other

Teaser: Buffy journeys to find the meaning of her immortal existence only to find the bitter truth that will lead to her ultimate defeat… never the journey, but the destination.

Summary: Buffy has been given a great gift – her old Slayer dreams. Now trapped with the knowledge of a great land to the east, she travels to the east and comes upon a land ruled by an iron fist. But there she learns a terrible truth and the bitterness of her fate. Cascading events are about to change her life forever, but she's not so willing to release the past either.

Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and company own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. J.R.R. Tolkien owns the 'Lord of the Rings' universe. I own my thoughts, visions and characters, including all original characters you are about to meet.

Timeline: This story takes place about a year post the events in Return of the King. This is far post Season 5 in Buffy the Vampire Slayer verse.

Author's Notes: Here we are again. I have wanted to write the sequel to this story since I wrote the original story. This is the story I wanted to tell… I just needed the first story to get to this point.

x-x-x-x

Part I

x-x-x-x

The air was still with the sounds of summer. In the distance were the faint songs of the Elves, ever beatific and yet they carried with them great sorrows and loss. Trees parted as she walked, their white branches seeming to bow to her power. Her own heart was filled with hope but in her dreams she knew only sorrow.

The bridge was awaiting her. Despite her reservations of knowing what she would find, she ducked underneath the remnants of the trees and slowly took the bridge. Though the pond sparkled underneath with new life that rebirth could only give, it did nothing to appease her mood.

She heard a whisper, as though someone were standing at her shoulder speaking words of great comfort. She reached out with trembling hands and placed her fingers on the rail. It was cool to the touch and sent shivers along her spine. The whispers faded as she chanced a look at the pool below.

Soft golden tendrils were the first thing she saw, followed by a pale face. She felt as though something clenched her heart as she saw her own features, pale and wan, in the water below. Hopeless, lifeless eyes gazed blankly at her. Her lips were twisted in a puzzled expression, as though she couldn't figure out why she had drowned again. Her arms were twisted, rivers of blood streaming down the slender limbs. Only when her arms dipped beneath the surface did the blood finally wash away. Her legs were at an angle that no living person should ever experience. Even from this angle, it looked painful. Her torso had been shredded, soft bits of pale yellow fabric floating along the surface.

The body floated along the shallow river ere it caught upon the rocks, halting and twisting brutally. She could only watch as those hazel eyes locked with hers though the body was upside down, bobbing, sinking…

Suddenly, she couldn't breathe. The air was hot and stifling, as though she were standing in a ring of fire. She gasped, her fingers leaving the comfort and safety of the rail. Icy fingers clawed at her throat, desperate for a chance to take a lifesaving breath…

"You have the gift… the gift of life…"

Those words were damnable, completely usurping who she truly was.

But then again, this dream was always the same. She heard another voice and spun to her left, her hands falling from her throat. There stood a tall woman who had once been a proud warrior. Though the light had long since died from her eyes, they still spoke of old wisdom and strength as her youth had passed thousands of years before. Her eyes were the color of the palest green glass and with them carried the sharpness of a shard across the pale skin at her throat. Her skin was milky, though yellowed. Her face was lined with wrinkles after years of graceless aging. Her lips held neither color nor warmth. When she smiled, there was no change to her ancient face. Her hair was the color of snow, long to her hips and yet she made no move to push it away. Her fingers clasped an old walking stick, gnarled and homely with graying nails and protruding veins. Though she was far older than any creature, her eyes held a hidden secret.

It was the secret to unlocking the reason why Buffy Summers still walked Middle-earth.

The woman smiled. There was no warmth in her smile. There was nothing there except her colorless lips twisting and exposing the wrinkles that creased her forehead. Her eyes nearly disappeared into her cheeks and her voice, low and raspy, always caught her in the end. "There is no gift for the one they call death," she said, her eyes lowering provocatively, as though ashamed she were about to divulge a great secret of the universe. "Shade and shadow, wall of flame. Neither exists. Neither will."

It was always the same with this old woman, the riddles.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw her body on the rocks, unmoving and uncaring. "Why?" she whispered, turning back to the old woman. "Why me?"

"You already know," the woman replied, reaching out with her ancient hand to graze the younger woman's face. "It is within you that you will find what you seek."

Always the same riddles.

"Please," Buffy whispered, urgently. "Tell me what I need to know. Please."

"I cannot tell you that which you already know," the woman replied again. Her lips were twisted humorlessly and her voice belied her grave face. "You have always known."

Buffy had no answer for her. She needed no answer. "I need to know why I'm back," she said, turning back to the woman. "Please…"

But instead of the old woman, there was a hawk flying straight towards her before soaring into the sky. Buffy opened her mouth to scream in frustration when she heard another splash and looked down in the water.

What she saw terrified the Slayer of demons and former Queen of refugees. "No," she whispered, finding strength in the word. "No!"

A sudden blast came from the water, knocking the Slayer from her feet. As the bridge began to fall apart around her, she felt the pond grow deeper as she struggled in the water. She choked and gasped as the heavy pieces of marble and nameless metal dragged her towards the bottom. She kicked and screamed, never willing to give her life to the water. She couldn't give her life if she had no life to give.

But the water refused to spit her back out.

She was choking.

She was gone…

x-x-x

Buffy Summers woke with a sharp gasp, sitting straight up. She held her blanket to her chest despite the fact she was fully-clothed, but her breath misted out in the chilled humidity of the night before her. As the remnants of her dream faded, she became aware that she was alone sleeping near a dying fire. She glanced out in the darkness, her well-trained eyes searching for the one who held the light of the Eldar. She didn't see him, but she was hardly surprised.

In the two months since they'd journeyed out from Rohan, they had rarely spent time apart. They rode mostly in silence and mostly at full speed. Since neither really required rest, they stopped mostly for the benefit of their steeds. In the few conversations they had, he had politely inquired where they were going.

The truth was, she didn't have a clue.

Their journey had taken them through Ithilien and to the north of Mordor. Black mountains lined the south with wide expanses of dried, cracked ground. Twisted remnants of trees stuck out at odd angles, snarling the clear desert pass. Thin bits of ash still fell from the sky, the last hurrah by the great Mount Doom.

Buffy rolled onto her back, her gaze moving from the pitch darkness to the sky. Through the slight haze that seemed to permeate every single moment of every day, she saw the glittering orbs of thousands of stars above. Through their silent nights, she had started to count the glowing orbs above, but lost count around sixty due to boredom. She really never had been good at math.

Tonight was no different. He had disappeared to parts unknown and she had fallen into a pitiful slumber, resting only her eyes to calm her nerves. The farther east they traveled, the most she felt like she was leading her companion to his death, not that she didn't try to talk him out of it. She had tried to tell him to go back. But the farther they went, the more he resisted her pleas. She didn't want him getting into something that was meant for her alone.

Maybe this was why he left at night; to get away from her incessant nagging. He was too polite to tell her that she was irritating him. Instead, he just took off, leaving her on her sleeping mat with thousands of stars glowing above.

Tonight, however, felt different. There was something new in the breeze, something in the decay surrounding them.

Something was watching their movements closely. And, if her growing suspicions were correct, that something wouldn't leave them be until they reached the hills on the far northern side of Mordor and continued eastward still. Neither one really knew what lay beyond the borders of Mordor. The one who did was Elessar and he hadn't come with them. He had a new wife and country to worry about.

She turned to her side again in an attempt to close her eyes when she heard the sound. Her body froze, perfectly poised. She heard the wind blowing. She heard the horses rustling. And, in the depths of the darkness, she heard a growl. Her hand moved silently beneath her mat, retrieving the knife she kept hidden beneath her body just for this very moment. Her eyes pierced through the darkness, spying the two forms of horses tethered a short distance away. The dying fire was nothing more than lustrous red embers.

Her fingers grasped the cold hilt of the blade and pulled it to the ground. The growl grew more menacing. Through the darkness, she saw the horses begin to rustle, as though they too sensed the danger was near.

And there, in the silence of the night, she saw a pair of glowing eyes…

"Legolas?" she murmured quietly. She hoped his keen Elven ears would pick up the danger or at least those intuitive senses would.

The growl was followed by a low shriek.

"Crap," she hissed, pushing off of her mat and casting the blanket aside. She ran away from the camp just as the being with the glowing eyes leapt after her. It took her a few moments to realize it was a warg. But instead of heading for her, it went for the horses. Once she realized that it had changed directions, she then ran to intercept, but not before she heard a loud squeal and the sound of flesh being ripped from bone. She reached the warg, which was tearing into her horse, just as a large arrow whistled over her shoulder and landed in its neck.

Turning around, she saw a familiar Eldar-lit form strolling towards her, his passive face almost pitying as he gazed at the toppled warg and the horse that lay at its side.

"Took you long enough," Buffy said huffily, crossing her arms as Legolas joined her.

"You were sleeping and I did not want to disturb you," he replied calmly.

"Where did that come from?" she asked, kicking at the warg's corpse.

"Mordor," Legolas replied, staring at the black mountains that rose to the south, blocking their view of the horizon. "And it is unlikely it was alone."

To prove his point, she heard another deep rumbling and spun about; catching several other pairs of eyes blinking in the distance. Letting out a soft gasp, she spun around and stared in disbelief at Legolas's knowing look. He stepped forward, moving beside her with his hands on his Elven knives strapped to his hips. Buffy slipped her knife into her opposite hand, prepared to do whatever it took to protect them both.

It was hard to believe that after all these weeks of travel, it had come down to the two of them and half-dozen wild wolves. She would have laughed at the situation if it wasn't so dire. They couldn't be left with any horses two weeks from the nearest help. Legolas moved to stand beside her, bow in hand. Her eyes traveled through the darkness as she heard the snarls and whimpers of the wargs as they surrounded them.

"What do we do?" she asked cautiously, unable to take her gaze from the darkness.

"We must fight them off," he said firmly. There was no fear in his voice. Part of Buffy wondered whether or not he was ever afraid.

"Us against a herd?" she asked sharply, shaking her head in disbelief. She had every reason to believe she could fight off the herd, but she knew that trying to protect both the sole steed remaining and the Elf who was turning out to be more of a pain in her side than a helpful hand would be futile. There was no way they could all survive if she went into full-Slayer mode. That meant she had to stand next to the horse that stood next to his brother, nudging him with a dark nose, his chestnut coat glistening in the dark light.

Buffy thought about their options. There was only one thing she could do; attempt to frighten them away by making a great noise. Glancing at the ground, she summoned her courage, lifted her head and…

"ARRRGGHHHHH!"

Legolas nearly jumped in surprise, turning to glance at the small, frail woman next to him. Shrieking at the top of her lungs would normally irritate her to no end, but at the end of the scream her voice broke. The scream changed from the sound of grinding two rocks together with the sharpest blades to the sound much stronger and more haunting than he could have expected from her. As the scream stopped, she felt the chills go down her back. Despite everything she had been through, the trace of darkness was still there within her. She held the power of a broken darkness and yet the shrill cry of the Nine still raged through her. Footfalls scampered in the distance and after a silent moment, she released a breath. One of the wargs howled into the distance and was soon joined by several more. They sounded much farther away than they had just moments before.

Swallowing hard, she turned guiltily to Legolas who was gazing at her, his eyes shining even in the darkness. She couldn't tell what was on his mind, nor at this moment did she care. Tearing her gaze from his, she walked over and bent down next to her fallen horse and began to remove the packs from the saddle. Legolas stood only a moment longer before moving to assist her.

"Did you have to make such a sound?"

"If you wanted to live till dawn, yeah," Buffy mumbled as she pulled her bag over her shoulders and rose to her feet. Legolas blinked up at her from the ground before breaking his gaze. "I know it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but it worked, didn't it?"

"For now," Legolas surmised, rising and blinking at the horizon. "Dawn is but a few hours off."

"We should wait until morning. If we leave under cover of darkness, they can sneak up on us and I, for one, don't want that to happen."

"I do not blame you," the Elf replied kindly, turning away from her. "Perhaps we should both take watch."

"It sort of defeats the purpose of resting then, doesn't it?" she shot back, rifling through her bag for the few possessions she carried with her.

"Our horse needs rest."

"So did mine… and look what it paid for."

Legolas merely turned and walked back into the darkness. Buffy could hardly blame him. She knew that Elves understood little about death and destruction. For immortal beings, how could they? Their only chance at eternal rest came when they died or no longer wished for immortality. Buffy, though immortal through death, understood so much about death that sometimes it frightened her. She spoke of it warmly, like an old friend who would come to dinner. She trusted herself when it came to death. She had dealt creatures and beings death for years now and it didn't stop with her own. It seemed her destiny was fighting from beyond the grave. It seemed as though fate wasn't quite ready to let her go.

And, for some reason, she longed to know why.

She jammed her knife back into its sheath, moving towards the horse and resting her hand upon its neck. It seemed to calm at her quiet words and solemn presence, but her thoughts were anything but. It seemed the farther east they drew, the more vivid her dreams became. It would only be a matter of time before they reached civilization again.

As dawn finally approaching with a ribbon of scarlet to the east, Legolas reappeared solemnly, finding the young woman curled up near the horse, murmuring restlessly. He felt his footsteps falter at the questions he had been about to ask her. Instead, a listless smile flirted about his lips and he bent down, his cool hand pressing against her warm face. When she stirred but did not awaken, his brows furrowed. His first thought was that someone with an outside influence had lulled her into sleeping. His fears were justified as he heard her murmur. Though the words were not distinguishable, he could feel the pain. Soon, her arm came out and knocked his aside. Rolling onto her back, her eyes opened and stared into his.

"What is it?" she asked quietly.

"Dawn approaches," Legolas replied, taking her hand and hauling her back to her feet. "We should ride north into the forest."

"There's a forest?" she asked wonderingly, turning to the north and staring hard at the tree line a day's ride away.

"Yes, it will be far safer than travel by land. If you insist we travel east, we must go north."

She was about to say that they had gone north before but nothing had really ever come of that except to look at the wasteland Ithilien had been turned into by the Orcs. Shrugging, she took her bag and moved to the horse. Legolas returned a moment later with her mat, which he kindly added to the saddle he had switched from her horse to his.

A moment later, she felt a flutter as she mounted the horse. He moved to assist, but she pushed his hand away. Though small, it helped that she had such sufficient strength to move upwards. Her pitying gaze fell upon her fallen horse and she sighed. Despite the fact that she really wasn't much of a horse person, she had grown attached to him. Legolas moved to her side, his hand quite close to her leg. She felt something inside her freeze and turned, their gaze meeting. She wanted to say something to him about how close he was, but she couldn't bring herself to say it.

Regardless of everything they had gone through and everything they had done, there was still something there. He was there to protect her. Buffy wanted to laugh at that. He was there to protect her? She couldn't die, at least not in the normal sense. He could, however, so right there the roles had been reversed. She could protect him easily enough. But if he was stupid enough to go off on his own and die… well, neither high nor hell could protect her from the wrath of Thranduil. Though she wasn't stupid enough to take on the entire Elvish realm, she knew in her heart that losing Legolas would affect more than just the old forests of Mirkwood.

She would lose a friend.

Instead of mounting the horse behind her, he took the reins and began walking. She would have questioned his motives if her throat had managed to unstick itself.

As morning broke and sunlight filled the desolate lands, she consoled herself by admitting that despite the bleak view, she would soon see more than this. It had to get better as the road east went on. And on some more. But the fact was there was no road east. There was just this long barren desert followed by the forest in the distance.

There had to be more to this world than darkness. There just had to be.

x-x-x

Thus ends the beginning of a new adventure…