blue_icy_rose

Title: Darkness I Live In
Rating: R
Pairing: Buffy/Dean
Summary: After a demon attack, Buffy wakes up with no memories except her name and begins to travel with Dean and Sam. While on the road, Buffy and Dean grow closer. Post Chosen. (I so suck at summaries, lol.)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon and the Winchesters belong to Eric Kripke. (Lucky bastards.) All the dialogue in Buffy's memory flashes are from various episodes. The title of the story was inspired by Mary Lou Von Meter's poem, Heart of Darkness. Banner made by the awesome Mel. ^_^
Author's Note: This is my response to chosenfire's Memories Forgotten challenge at Route 66. If you'd like to see the requirements for the challenge, go here. You can also find this at Twisting the Hellmouth. This new chapter was written for

tamingthemuse (prompt: center). Enjoy and feedback's always welcome!

Banner by

avamclean

Previous Chapters

Watching Buffy was becoming something of a habit for Sam. She’d been with them for a couple of weeks already and he’d noticed the way she seemed to notice so much when on a hunt. It wasn’t a bad thing. Hell, it’d saved all their asses just a few days ago. It was watching her that had Sam thinking that he might have figured out just what it was about her that was different.

“Sam,” Dean called, interrupting his thoughts. “Your girly ass coffee is getting cold and I’m not your freaking slave.”

Sam smirked as he took the cup. “You were that week in Tulsa.”

Dean scowled. “You got lucky when you won that bet.”

“Or maybe I just won.”

Buffy laughed, drawing both of their gazes. She grinned. “You guys are way more entertaining than TV.”

At that, Dean smirked. “Told you I could have been an actor,” he said. Sam rolled his eyes.

“Right.”

There was a few moments of silence and then Dean spoke. “Found a job in Oregon. Looks like some kind of water demon.”

“How do you know?” Buffy asked. Dean glanced at her, noticing the way she’d tilted her head slightly. It was something she did when something had caught her curiosity.

“A couple of kids went swimming in the lake. Their bodies were found a couple of days later with holes in their heads.”

Buffy’s nose wrinkled even as she closed her eyes against the image that brought to mind.

“Looks like we’re going to Oregon then,” Sam said.

~*~*~

The music was quiet, almost soothing in a way. She closed her eyes, focusing on it and on the man’s voice as he spoke.

“You are the center. And within you, there is the core of your being...of what you are.” She could hear his footsteps as he walked around her. “Find it. Breathe into it.” Beneath her hands, was solid wood and she heard his steps slow and then she can almost sense his presence as he walks in front of her and then past her. “Focus inward. Let the world fall away...fall away...fall away.”

Vaguely, she realized that he was repeating his words but even that melted into the background as she pushed herself up into a handstand on the pedestal in front of her. She felt relaxed and yet she’d never felt more aware of what was inside her. Slowly, she began to lift one hand off the pedestal, raising it until it was parallel to the floor. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this quiet peace inside her.

The sound of crystals falling to the floor crashes through the peace and she felt it shatter as her eyes popped open. She cried out as the shock caused her to lose her balance and fall to the floor. The man came towards her, concerned, and though she didn’t even nod, he seemed to know that she was okay. Instead, he took off his glasses and began to clean them, shooting an angry look in the direction the noise had come from.

Moments later, the face of a girl with long dark hair and blue eyes appeared, looking a bit bored.

“Can we go now?”

Buffy’s eyes opened and she frowned. That had to be the most useless thing in the world to remember. She paused and thought about it, remembering the way the room in her dream had looked until she’d closed her eyes. Mats on the floor and what was definitely a punching bag on the other side of the room.

A training room was the only thing she could think of when she also thought of the dream about the stones and thought about how easily she’d picked up weapons training, though they’d yet to try any hand to hand. It seemed Dean wanted to wait a bit longer to get her comfortable with the various weapons they had before she started that.

It was either that or she took some sort of meditating class. Or went to a very weird gym.

She frowned, thinking of the girl in the dream. She’d looked so familiar but no matter how hard Buffy tried, she couldn’t think of her name. It bothered her that she couldn’t, more than it had when she couldn’t remember anyone else’s name. She knew that this girl was important with her, despite how annoyed she’d felt in the dream.

She hadn’t felt that level of protectiveness towards anyone else that she’d dreamt about.

She sighed and lay back down, staring at the ceiling. Trying to remember wouldn’t do any good but she couldn’t but try.

Who was she?

~*~*~

Buffy frowned as she stared at the wall. It’d taken her over an hour to fall back asleep the night before and she desperately wanted to take a nap.

Still, that wasn’t what was bothering her.

“I think I have a sister.”

Dean’s eyes swung towards her, the look of surprise obvious. “You remembered her?”

She shifted and turned towards him, biting her lip. “Sort of.” She paused. “I had this dream last night and she wasn’t even in it until the end but...” Another pause. “It was the way I felt when I saw her. When I have these memories or dreams, whatever, I feel what I did when it happened and well, okay, I was way annoyed with her at the end there because she interrupted something that felt important and she did because she was bored but I also felt like I’d do anything to protect her.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it really.”

Dean moved to sit next to her. “I thought you did a pretty good job.” He was silent for a few moments and then he spoke. “When we were kids, Sam wanted to do everything with me. Always wanted to play games or go to the park.” He smiled. “He even wanted to train with me after he found out the truth. I didn’t mind too much, most of the time, and then when we were older, it didn’t happen as much. Suddenly, he had other things to do, things that were more important. I remember one time though, where he came flying around the corner like a horde of demons was chasin’ him, right when I was about to take a shot. He startled me and I pulled the trigger. Missed the target by a mile.” Dean shook his head as he remembered. “I was pissed at him, especially when I found out he was interrupting because he needed a ride to the library, of all places, and on a Saturday.”

Buffy laughed. “Really?”

“Hell yeah. We’d just finished a hunt a couple days ago and I’d screwed up, which led to me getting hurt so I was trying to get back to my routine and trying to make sure I wouldn’t screw up next time with the target practice. Threatened to make him my next target.”

“I bet that went over well.”

“Oh, he had a few bitchy teenager replies for that one, yeah. And, yeah, I was annoyed because I just wanted to be doing whatever I needed to without interruptions. But if anything had shown up at that moment to go after him, I’d have taken it out, no question.” He looked at her, complete understanding in his eyes.

She smiled. “You get it.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. He also knew that if he was in her position, he’d want to be doing something other than just sitting around, looking at the wall. That wasn’t going to help her remember anything and if she sat and tried, it’d probably drive her nuts. “Come on.” He stood and motioned towards the door.

“Where are we going?”

“The lake.”

~*~*~

“So, how pissed was Sam?”

Dean glanced at her, a small grin on his face. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “Somehow, I don’t think he was too happy with us coming here on our own.”

“He wasn’t.” Dean ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch. “That’s why he said he’d meet us here and why we waited ten minutes to leave. He was already pretty close.”

At that, Buffy tilted her head. “What was he doing so close to the lake in the first place?”

Dean smirked. “Exactly. Which is why I told him he could quit the bitching since he’d been thinking the same thing I was.”

She let out a low laugh as she imagined that conversation. Both brothers had probably been annoyed that the other one was headed towards the lake but couldn’t actually say anything since they’d both been on the same track.

Before she could answer, they caught sight of Sam heading their way. The look on his face caused any amusement they’d been feeling to disappear.

“Sam?” Dean said.

Sam shook his head and glanced behind him before turning back towards them. “There’re a couple of teenagers down there.” He paused and Buffy just knew that they were dead. “Holes in their heads.”

Dean’s jaw clenched and he closed his eyes briefly. “Let’s go.”

Buffy’s head snapped in his direction. “What?” She narrowed her eyes.

“We’re going back to the car and putting the weapons back in the trunk.” He let out a breath. “Then, much as I don’t like dealin’ with them, we’re calling the cops.”

Sam shook his head. “You’ll call. I’m going to stay out of sight.” Off of their looks, he added, “We need some way of getting a better look at them and the cops will notice if there’s fresh footprints around the bodies.”

Dean nodded. “Okay, so Buffy and I will walk over there and leave enough prints so that it looks like we just happened to find the bodies and then left to call the cops. What’re you going to be doing?”

Sam smirked. “Agent McCoy, at your service.”

Dean couldn’t help but snort. “The Real McCoy,” he muttered. “Nice.” He glanced at Buffy.

“I’ll be fine,” she told him before he could even open his mouth. “Let’s go.”

He nodded and they began to head towards the lake while Sam began to head back towards town.