Buffy sat up in the stands her arms hugging her knees, feet pulled up on the seat. She watched her sister down below enter the water gracefully and continue down the length of Sunnydale’s local pool. Dawn had persuaded her to come and watch her practice for the try-outs for the school swim team, even though Buffy had tried to deter her by explaining what had happened to Sunnydale’s last swim team, but this didn’t seem to bother the former key, and Buffy watched her now, execute a tumble turn at the end of the pool and swim back in the other direction.
It had taken her a long time before she could even set foot in the leisure centre where the swimming pool was situated, her heart rate soared every time she had thought about it. Now she was sitting within viewing range of the pool, and every time she visited she just about managed to edge herself closer to the pool. She only had about another ten rows in front of her.
‘Great, ten more trips here and then I can go right back up to the top, away from the water…faaaar away’ She thought to herself. Her thoughts of the vast pool of oxygen and hydrogen before her were distracted when she felt a familiar tingling within her which set her slayer senses on alert and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
‘Vampire’ her mind detected. All of a sudden the tingling feeling was replaced by a stronger, warm feeling like warm honey running through her veins. She turned and saw the vampire in question descending the stairs towards her. He flashed her that smile that always turned her insides to jelly, and she thanked god that she was already sitting down, otherwise she would have been in a heap on the floor. Over the last few months she had seen Spike in a new light. Everything he had done for her since she had been brought back from the dead, all the time he had spent just sitting and listening to her, and holding her when she cried remembering what it had been like for her in heaven and how she had been pulled out of there. Recently however, she had begun to feel that feeling of sanctuary and comfort again, and it wasn’t when she was quiet and alone. It was when she was wrapped in Spike’s embrace, as he whispered soothing words to her as she let her emotions run through her.
She returned his smile as he stepped down the last few steps to her row and took a seat next to her.
“Hi.” She spoke softly.
“Hey pet.” Spike smiled at her again.
“What you doing here Spike? I didn’t picture you as the swimming type.”
“M’not luv. Here on official business. Giles sent me to find you. He found something in one of his books about a demon uprising tonight. He wants to see you as soon as you can.”
“Okay, well Dawn should be finished soon I’ll just go…” She turned to look at the pool and she felt her heart rate soar, her fear rising within her. “I…I’l um…” She tried to speak again, but couldn’t form words.
Spike heard her heart rate rise and saw the look of fear in her eyes. The only time he ever felt the fear radiate off of her like this was when she had described to him how she had clawed her way out of her grave. He gently took her hand in his.
“Luv, are you ok?”
“Um…yeah…I just…” She took in a deep breath. “Can you go get Dawn for me?” She asked him quietly.
“Of course…I’ll be right back.” He told her, questioning in his eyes, but he decided he should wait to question her and he descended to the pool side.
Buffy sat down in her seat, her heart rate dwindling back to its normal rate.
“God…I’m being totally paranoid ugh!” She cursed herself.
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Down at the edge of the pool Spike got to the end of the lane where Dawn was practicing as she finished a length. When she saw Spike approach she whipped her goggles off of her face as he crouched down at the edge.
“Spike…is everything ok?”
“Yeah…um Giles needs Buffy for some…business” He covered as another swimmer reached the end of the pool and got out.
“Oh okay, well I’ve got one more length to do then I’ll go get changed.” She informed him.
“Sure, just one thing. What’s wrong with Buffy? Why didn’t she want to come down here?”
Dawn looked at him as if he had grown a third eye or something. “You are joking right? You honestly don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“She died.” Dawn told him quietly.
“Yeah, I know. We pulled her out of heaven and for that I will never forgive myself.”
“No you don’t understand. She’s died before. She drowned.”
Spike felt his insides hollow out and he felt completely numb.
“What! When?!” Spike asked her, his voice barely above a whisper.
“About four years ago. She’s never been within less than twenty feet of a pool since then. I’ve woken up to hear her screaming in her nightmares. She’s been having nightmares about it quite a lot recently. I think when she was brought back she felt vulnerable, weak, like it could happen again. Plus the whole prophetic slayer dream things don’t help. She keeps thinking the nightmares are true. That she’ll drown again.”
“I had no idea.” Spike whispered. He cast a glance up at Buffy who was sitting curled up on the seat, staring out of the glass covered ceiling at the stars.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” Spike seemed a little hurt.
“I think she didn’t want to unload more of her worries on you. She’s been confiding in you about one death, she probably didn’t want you to have to bear the weight of another traumatic event.”
Spike stood up and ran a hand through his mussed up blonde curls.
“Okay, you finish up here, I’ll be up with big sis.” He cast a small smile at Dawn who replied, “Sure thing”, and replaced her goggles and set off to do one more lap.
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Buffy was so transfixed staring at the stars trying to work out which ones belonged to constellations and which didn’t, that she barely heard Spike’s return.
“She coming? “
“Yeah.” He said simply. Buffy saw questioning in his eyes, mixed with…fear.
“Yeah…you’re probably wondering about just now…”
Spike interrupted her, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Buffy looked at him and realised Dawn had told him what had happened.
“I’m sorry…it’s jut that it happened four years ago, and it’s just so pathetic… the slayer is scared of a swimming pool”
“Hey… it’s not pathetic.” Spike told her, placing his hand on hers. “I want you to know, if you wanna talk about it I’m here, but if you don’t…”
“I do. I just didn’t want to pile something else on you.” She took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. Just looking into them gave her a confidence she thought had been lost that night years ago. Her grip tightened on his as she interlaced her fingers with his.
“It was four years ago, and the Master, well there was a prophecy that I was gonna face the master and die by his hand. Anyway, I went to his lair to face him and he used some hypnosis thing on me, and made me weak and he drank me, but only enough so that I’d pass out.”
She took another deep breath, but this time it was shaky, tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to go on.”
“I want to. I’ve been waiting to tell someone for so long. I…um, well it turned out my blood was the key to breaking his imprisonment and he took me up to the local pool above his lair that was going to be demolished the next day. I woke up just before he… threw me into the pool and … whatever he did to me it made me weak, my whole body felt like a mac truck, it was heavy and I couldn’t move. I sank to the bottom. I was so scared…I couldn’t breathe and my lungs were burning…I knew air was a couple of feet above me but I couldn’t move, like I was bolted to the bottom… I kept trying to get to the surface but I couldn’t….I was so scared…all alone…then it all went black…” Buffy whispered as the tears fell. Spike placed his hand on the side of her face and brushed the tears away with his thumb.
“It’s ok love. It’s over.” He pulled her towards him and wrapped his arms around her. “Shh…it’s ok.”
Buffy wept in his embrace for a few more minutes. The warmth and comfort his embrace brought washing away the fear and loneliness. Spike placed a soft kiss on her forehead. Buffy lifted her head and found tears in Spike’s eyes also.
“I will always be here for you. No matter what.” He whispered, as Buffy brought her hand up her fingers tracing upwards over his neck. Her thumb grazed lightly over his bottom lip and she leant in towards him. Their lips were mere millimetres away, Spike could feel the heat coming off of her lips, he knew that if he could kiss her he could show her just how much he meant his promise of protection. Their lips barely brushed when Dawn came down the stairs from behind them after getting changed.
“Ready to go?” She asked them, blissfully unaware of what she had just interrupted.
Buffy pulled back tentatively, her gaze never leaving Spike’s.
“Yeah Dawnie.” Buffy replied. She brushed her tears away with one head, the other still held Spike‘s grasp. She stood and pulled him up with her.
“Let’s go.” Buffy walked up the stairs and rested her head on Spike’s shoulder as they headed up and out into the cool night air.
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Hold on to me, love
You know I can't stay long
All I wanted to say was I love you
And I'm not afraid
Can you hear me
Can you feel me in your arms
Holding my last breath
Safe inside myself
Are all my thoughts of you
Sweet raptured light
It ends here tonight
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AN-: I hope you liked it. The next chapter will come as soon as I can. I really should be doing some English essays, but oh well!
I changed the plot of ‘Prophecy Girl’, and threw a swimming pool into the mix because of something I will use in later chapters.
The song extract is from Evanescence’s “My Last Breath”, as is the title of this fic.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, this is set sometime in early season 6, before Buffy & Spike got together. It’s slightly AU. I’ve changed the events of ‘Prophecy Girl’.
Disclaimer-: I own none of the Buffyverse characters or story lines, or any of the song lyrics used anywhere in this story!
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Disclaimer-: I own none of the Buffyverse characters or story lines, or any of the song lyrics used anywhere in this story!
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