A/N: Don’t own, don’t sue

A/N: Don’t own, don’t sue. This is my first Jumper fic. Actually, this is my first fic for something other than a book. Please read and review. Enjoy.

Chapter 1

“He has no idea.”

Rane Anderson sat atop one of the tallest skyscrapers on Tokyo, watching a fellow Jumper jump through the streets of the large city. She shook her head, reaching for the elastic hair tie on her wrist. She tied her long black hair back into a ponytail, a few loose bangs falling into her blue eyes. He really had no idea that she was watching him.

Sighing, she screwed her eyes shut, concentrating on the spot a few yards ahead of him. Almost instantly, she was there, and he was just a few steps behind her. Turning to face him, she sighed, “A ninja you’re not.”

He looked at her, his mouth a perfect ‘o’ in his shock. Then his mouth twisted into a scowl. “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

A Brit, eh? She cocked a grin, before jumping quickly to her home in the Philippines, confident that he would follow her.

Sure enough, he soon stumbled through the jump scar, looking extremely pissed off. “What the bloody hell is this all about, eh?” he demanded, his hands clenching into fists.

“Chill out, man,” she chuckled, going through her fridge and tossing him a can of mango juice. “I can understand why you’d be paranoid though. You stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Me?” he asked, opening the can of juice and laughing mirthlessly. “I still out like a sore thumb? You haven’t met half the Jumpers I have, otherwise you’d know that I am about as subtle as they come.”

“Apparently not,” she retorted. “Otherwise, you would’ve noticed that I’ve been following you for the past two days.”

“The past two days, huh?” he said, smirking and taking a swig of the mango juice. Smacking his lips, he said, “This juice is quite good, by the way.”

“Thanks,” she said, offering him a half-grin. “It’s hand-squeezed.”

“Bullshit,” he said, grinning cockily at her.

“What, you don’t believe the juice is hand-squeezed?” she said, sounding as if she were challenging him.

“No, no, I believe that,” he said, waving his hands in front of him, the juice in the can sloshing around, “I can taste the fiber. But what if I don’t believe you’ve been following me for the last two days?”

“Let’s see… let’s start with Paris on Monday morning,” she said, grinning just as cockily as he was. “Then you jumped to Dubai- nice choice by the way. Then to Florida, and you stayed there until Tuesday morning, when you jumped to London. Then you jumped to China, where you had lunch, and then to Germany. You stayed there until this morning, when you jumped to Tokyo. That’s when I finally confronted you.”

His brows furrowed together as he set the now empty can down on the coffee table nearby. “That,” he said slowly, as if choosing his words carefully, “is extremely stalkerish. You’re intriguing.”

“Actually, I’m Rane,” she said, extending her hand for him to shake.

“I’m Griffin,” he countered, shaking it.

Instead of releasing his hand after a few moments, she held onto it, screwing her eyes up in concentration. Using her free hand, she opened a new jump scar in thin air. Griffin gaped at her. “How the bloody hell did you do that?”

“You’ve got to go, Griffin,” she told him, pulling him towards the jump scar.

“What? Why?” he protested. In all honesty, she was the most interesting person he had met in his entire life, and he wanted nothing more than to stay with her and learn more about her. Funny, the one person he wanted to be around was the one person shoving him away.

“You don’t want to be around me, Griffin,” she told him grimly, shoving him into the jump scar. However, he held onto her hand. Chuckling, she added, “Let go of me.”

“Why?” he asked, looking at her intently. “Don’t you want to learn more about other Jumpers?”

“Not if I want you to live, I don’t,” she told him, firmly prying his hand from hers. “Those who stick around with me don’t tend to survive long.” With that, she pried his last finger off of her and he was sucked into the jump scar to Canada.

She sighed, slumping down onto her couch and flipping on the television. She hadn’t particularly wanted to make him leave, not this Jumper.

There was something different about him, something different than the other Jumpers, something that made him like her. He hadn’t had everything in life handed to him, like he had fought some pretty tough battles of his own and others’ battles as well. She sighed again, knowing that it was for her own good.

She was responsible for the death of four Jumpers so far, she wouldn’t be responsible for a fifth.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLL

“Two bloody weeks,” Griffin growled, jumping to Egypt. “Two bloody weeks.”

It had been two weeks since the day he met Rane, and he had spent every moment since she jumped him out of her home looking for her and he had yet to find her. How could one Jumper be so hard to find? He had visited her apartment in the capital of the Philippines, Manila, several times, then the landlord finally told him that she moved out about two weeks ago. N

Now he was walking through the streets of Manila, trying to decide where to look for her next. There had been no pictures of faraway lands in her apartment, so he had no idea what her jump sites were. In short, he was screwed.

“Griffin?” a voice called, interrupting his concentration.

“What the bloody hell do you want?” he growled, turning around to face the speaker.

It was Rane.

“Wow, bad moment?” she asked, taking her sunglasses off and looking at him in amusement, her blue eyes sparkling with laughter.

“I’m sorry, Rane,” he said, feeling sheepish. “I was just wondering how the bloody hell I was going to find you.”

“Why are you so intent on finding me?” she asked, cocking her head at him. “I heard from your friend David that you ‘don’t play well with others’.”

“Oh, so you talked to the dumbass, did you?” he said, chuckling. “First of all, he’s not my friend, he’s more of a pain in my ass. Second of all, that’s true.”

“So why do you want to spend time with me?” she asked, her gaze intensifying.

“I don’t know, honestly,” he said, shrugging and staring determinedly at his shoes. “There’s something different about you. Something like me. Like you lost your innocence a long time ago.” He glanced up at her as he said this, just in time to see a strained expression cross her face.

“You’re right,” she sighed, running a hand through her hair. “You and I have that in common. We’ve made sacrifices bigger than the others could even imagine.”

“Right,” he said, nodding his head. He stepped closer to her, feeling the air crackled with the tension, and gently fingered a scar on her cheek that he hadn’t noticed the last time he had seen her. “I’m assuming we both fight Paladins?”

She nodded. “You’re correct, Griffin.” Sighing, she said, “You better leave if you want to live. No matter how strong my partner is, Roland always finds us. He always kills my partner.”

“Is that what you’re so worried about?” he asked, chuckling, still invading her personal bubble. There was something almost magnetic about her that drew him to her, almost as if he couldn’t help himself.

“I’ve already got the blood of four Jumpers on my hands, and I won’t have you be the fifth,” she said angrily, pulling herself away from him. “Leave, Griffin.”

“I know I’m kind of small and scrawny-looking, but I can handle myself,” he said softly. She snorted and started walking away. “Come on, Rane, it can’t be fun living alone. I would know. Just give me a chance.” She froze in her tracks, but still didn’t turn around to face him. “Just let me take you out for dinner. One dinner, and let me stick with you. That’s all I’m asking.” Chuckling, he added, “Don’t think I’m going soft on you, but I don’t wanna be alone anymore.”

After a few moments of silence, he was ready to walk away and give up. But just as he sighed and prepared to do so, she turned around and smiled.

“All right, Griffin.”

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

“Sorry, but I feel the need to ask, is Rane your real name?” he asked over dumplings in China.

Chuckling, she replied, “Don’t worry, Griffin, I don’t blame you for wondering. Yeah, Rane’s my real name, as paranoid as I am. But Roland, who doesn’t know my real name, calls me Lightning.”

“And why is that?” he asked, grinning crookedly.

“Because I’m apparently the fastest Jumper he’s ever seen,” she snorted, taking a sip of her Diet Coke, “and according to him, the most talented. I don’t think that’s a compliment coming from him.”

“Well you’re probably the fastest and most talented Jumper I’ve ever seen,” he told her honestly. “And I’ve seen a lot of them.”

“Well, thanks,” she said, blushing faintly at his praise. “When was your first jump?”

“I was five,” he replied. Then he began to chuckle at the memory. “I was terrified of neighborhood dogs, and one of them was chasing me down the street. Quite vicious.”

“Pit bull? Rottweiler? Doberman?” she suggested.

“No,” he corrected, “Chihuahua.”

“Oh, wow,” she barely managed to choke out through her laughter.

“And I just… jumped into my room,” he said, shrugging. Tracing the rim of his glass of water with his index finger, he added, “Roland showed up soon after that, and he killed both my parents.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, frowning sympathetically at him over the table.

Chuckling, he admitted, “I’ve never told that to anyone before. What about you? What’s your story?”

“Just because I let you take me out to dinner in China doesn’t mean I’m going to bare my soul to you right here, right now,” she told him gravely.

He looked taken aback, but said nothing otherwise. “All right then, fair enough,” he said. “But just know, I’ll get your story out of you one day.”

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

One day turned out to be about a week later. After she moved out from her apartment in Manila, Rane had bought an apartment on another island of the Philippines, called Cebu. Griffin had been sleeping on the couch in the living room the whole week, and though they weren’t entirely uncomfortable with each other, things were still slightly awkward between them. She had accidentally left the bathroom door unlocked one day, and he walked in on her taking a shower, a very awkward (though pleasing) sight.

That particularly night, Griffin was having trouble sleeping, so he was fully alert when he heard her shuffle through the living room to the kitchen, sniffling. He pretended to be asleep, unsure of whether she wanted to be alone or not, for she sounded like she was crying. He saw the light turn on in the kitchen and heard her rummaging around. After a few minutes, he heard the sound of a mug being set down on the kitchen table, and he heard her sniffling again.

Finally, he decided that he had enough of listening to her cry and got up from his position on the couch. “Oh,” she said, seeing that he was standing up and making his way toward her, “you’re awake.”

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging as he sat down and taking in the sight of her. Her black hair still showed signs of sleep, and her blue eyes were red and bloodshot. She still had a few tears streaming down her face. “Are you… okay?” he asked awkwardly, twiddling his thumbs.

“Yeah,” she said, shrugging as well. “Nightmares.”

“Oh,” he said mildly. “Can I ask of what?”

She sucked in a deep breath. “Reliving losing my little brother,” she replied. So she had lost her little brother in this war. Griffin resisted the urge to shake his head. “Reliving the loss of my other four partners.” She looked up, meeting his gaze with a static shock. “Dreaming about losing you.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he was glad when she broke the silence again. “Do you still want to hear the story of my first jump?” she asked.

“Sure,” he replied, nodding.

“I was fifteen,” she said slowly, staring down into her mug of milk. “This… jock had just asked me out, and I refused. I told him that he wasn’t my type. He seemed pretty pissed off, but I ignored him. He cornered me in the parking lot that afternoon, and I was alone. He took me by surprise, slamming me up against his car and threatening to kill my friends if I even thought of fighting back. He had me naked within minutes, and so was he.” She met Griffin’s eyes at this point, to see how he was taking it. His face was contorted into a mask of rage, his eyes crackling with anger. “Right before he… took my virginity, I jumped. I was so shocked, and I had jumped straight into the principal’s office. She was shocked, to say the least, but I told her my story, and got the jock kicked out of the school and sent to military to school. Soon after, I ran away from home with my ten-year old brother. Our parents were abusive.” She stopped abruptly, though she had sounded like she was going to tell the story of her brother’s death.

“I’m sorry, Rane,” he finally managed to mutter. “You didn’t have to tell me.”

“I know,” she said, starting to cry again, “but I wanted to.”

He sat there for a few more moments, watching her cry, but then he moved to the seat next to hers. Hesitantly, he wrapped an arm around her, soothing her.

It was the best decision he ever made in his life.