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private | she doesn't know just where she belongs

[It's been a week or so since Sam encountered Sarah in Memphis, and for some reason, he can't get it out of his head. The lore on fairies he checked out said something about people losing their memories and ending up somewhere else, and honestly, it fits. After all, the one they were hunting when she disappeared was powerful enough to put up a convincing glamour, at least until one of them found the metaphorical thread and started unraveling the whole thing.

Updating Buffy's friends on that little development proved somewhat difficult, but hey, he did. Granted, none of them took the news particularly well (he had to keep Dean and Dawn apart from each other, if he ever managed to pull Dean out of Purgatory), but he's not alone in looking for her, at least. And since hunters can be such a gossipy bunch, most of those he's met are on the lookout for a petite blonde chick with a bad memory.

Sam is...well, he's running himself ragged, looking for Buffy, looking for a way to get Dean out, killing what few Leviathans are left, hunting things, and saving people, all at the same time. He barely even sleeps, with all the research and graveyard-digging and monster-killing.

The latter of which, he's doing right now.

...or trying to.

See, Sam has been going two days without sleep. And now this jiang shi ("hopping corpse" - don't ask) is pinning him up against the wall and about to suck his life out.

Dammit, really. With all the changes lately (from having no partner to having one to none again), he hasn't had time to adjust to being on his own yet again. At this point, either Dean or Buffy would have come in and blasted this rotting corpse to kingdom come, but they aren't here.

And Sam?

Sam's about to die.]

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[ Sarah walks out of the alleyway after Sam leaves and realizes she knows absolutely nothing about her life. She uses the funds they provided to get on a plane, heads back to New York and promises to raise holy hell on Wolfram and Hart unless they start giving her some answers. She gets nowhere. They insist that what they told her was true, provide her with more files and photographic evidence than she can shake a scythe at and they think that's it; Sarah placated, case over.

They give Sarah her next target - Amalia Mercer, a witch - and she gets on another plane, looking for something different in Amalia's file; a reason why Wolfram and Hart want her dead. Like Sam's, there's nothing in there and when Sarah gets out of the car at her house, she's weaponless, unsure if she's even doing the right thing. She asks Amalia for her help. She has to figure she's pretty powerful if Wolfram and Hart want her dead and when she explains her predicament, Amalia nods. She'll help her, of course, asks for nothing in return and pricks Sarah's finger with a dagger. She hands her a crystal, one she's chanted over in Latin for the last half hour and tells her to turn it over in her hands three times. It takes fifteen minutes for things to start coming back.

Her name is Buffy Summers. A Slayer - The Slayer, until she activated a bunch of girls all over the world, making Potentials-into-Actuals, changing their fate for the greater good and pissing off a law firm in the process. Wolfram and Hart. It's not altogether clear why they didn't kill her. They saved her from a life in prison, turned her into a trained assassin that would wipe out a large portion of the demon-fighting world and Sarah was only too happy to oblige. She barely makes it to Amalia's bathroom before she throws up and when she comes out, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Amalia is wearing a grim expression and handing her a glass of water.

She tells her she won't remember right away. The fairy glamour is one of the strongest one's Amalia has ever seen and it's not gonna be easy to break. Sarah knows enough. She thanks Amalia, gets in her car and starts to drive. She goes back to Memphis - the last place she saw Sam and her heart sinks when she realizes she's a day too late. She doesn't even know why it's important that she sees him, it just is.

Slowly but surely, Sarah is starting to remember. It's coming back to her in flashes - hunting with Sam, some weird flashes of Elvis and her actual sister, not the version Wolfram and Hart showed her. She knows now why she was so not incensed over Demon-Husband guy 'cause Buffy had been married, yes. But not to blonde guy. Buffy had been married to Sam (Left hand, third finger... Where the hell is my wife?) and she thinks she maybe even loved him.

She follows the trail of energy-sucked bodies to Coldwater Creek, Georgia, and when she talks to the coroner it's the first bit of hope she's had in three days. Agent Hamill, Buffy's 'partner' was here earlier today, following up on the same lead. She learns that they're all happening around the same area (abandoned building near a cemetery, what else?) and Buffy hotfoots it back to her car, breaking every speed-limit in town to get to Sam.

She finds the Impala first and it's the first time in a month and a half that she sees something tangible to connect her to her life pre-Wolfram and Hart. She almost cries. She grabs her gun from the seat, goes into the place the same way she assumes Sam did and--There he is. She's almost too late. The thing has Sam pressed up against the wall and Buffy is pissed. She blasts the thing from the side, sends the rotted corpse flying across the room. She's not quick enough to catch Sam when he drops but she wouldn't have had time anyway.

A shot to the side is not enough to kill it. The thing comes at her again, Sam barks out an instruction (thank God for insanely-smart guys who research before going into a hunt) and this time? She shoots it in the head, watches the dirty, rotten corpse fold to the floor. She decides it is really most sincerely dead when it doesn't get back up again, turns back to Sam. She mostly resists the urge to touch the bruise at his temple, frowns a little at how tired he looks and then she realizes she has no idea what to say to him beyond- ] Hey.

Edited 2012-08-23 18:46 (UTC)

[He sucks in a deep breath, his heart pounding.

So maybe he's thought about this, a lot. Maybe he's wondered about how they'd meet up again, and maybe getting rescued--again--was one of them. But those thoughts were just wishful thinking, nothing more.

But this is real. This is real, and he has barely anything to give her, except for a tired smile.]

You too.

[ God, he looks exhausted. She drops her gun to her side and steps over to where he's standing. They are literally toe-toe-toe and Buffy's own heart is trying to jack-hammer its way out of her chest. ]

It's me, Sam. Real Me, not... [ Her mouth twitches into a frown. ] Stupid, Law-Firm Sponsored Killing Machine Me. [ The last few weeks have taken their toll on him. She can see the strain in his face, the lines around his eyes. She knows the fervor with which he's been searching for Dean - doing it between hunts, around sleep. She knows that he'll have been out there fighting, saving people and hunting things because that's what Sam does and she knows, even though she can't remember everything about him or even them yet, that he'll have been looking for her too. She frowns because Amnesia Girl should've fought harder to find out who she was, come back to him sooner, and she reaches up, touching his cheek. ] I am so sorry.

Edited 2012-08-24 06:50 (UTC)

Don't be.

[Sooner or later, all that's going to take its toll on him, and he'll crash into a deep, peaceful sleep. But for now, he just breathes, glad that at the very least, Buffy's in front of him. And hey, she saved his life. Again. If that's not just in time, he doesn't know what is.]

Just...get some gas, we need to torch this corpse.

[Yeah. Focus on the job.]

Gas, I can do. [ She nods. She doesn't even want to know what the life-sucking thing about to work its mojo on Sam was. She's just glad she got there when she did and that ending it is gonna be, well, relatively as simple as shooting it in the face and torching the sucker.

She hands her gun to Sam, takes the keys to the Impala and heads outside to pop the trunk. It's weird how things come back to her. They're like little flashes of memories and she can dimly recall standing with Sam arguing over the best weapon to kill a chupacabra with.

She shakes herself, grabs the canister of gas, the box of matches and heads back towards Sam. ] Gas, matches... All we're missing is the marshmallows.

They didn't have any.

[He picks the corpse up by its shoulders (there's blood and gore on his clothes already, what's the smell of a rotting corpse to boot?) and drags it to a relatively open area. Right. Time to torch this sucker.]

Figures.

[ He drags the corpse over to the middle of the room and Buffy follows. She wonders, fleetingly, if this was their routine - Sam did the lifting, she did the torching but then... Slayer. As in, able to lift the heavy things. Maybe she just avoided the ichor?

It takes less than a minute to set the corpse alight and when Buffy does her nose wrinkles. Rotting corpse smelt bad enough but flaming rotting corpse? Raise your hand if eww. ]

What was it?

Jiang shi. Hopping corpse, kind of like zombies, only they'd rather have qi instead of brains.

[Just another day in the life, really. Now it's his turn to ask.]

How'd you break the glamour?

[ Upgrade that to a very definite ew. ] Oh. Hence all the attempted sucking when I walked in here tonight.

[ And God, is she glad she was in time. She moves around the body a little (there's no sense in doing a half-assed job, after all) and glances up at Sam when he speaks again. ]

I didn't. You did. You didn't kill me in that alleyway and I guess--Even Forgetful Me knew there was something up with that. [ She frowned slightly as she thought about her trip back to Wolfram and Hart. ] I flew right back to the Evil Law Firm of Death and demanded answers but they were as forthcoming as you can imagine. They gave me a new target and instead of killing her I asked for her help. I've been tracking you ever since.

I thought you were a shifter, but the silver didn't work, so. [He runs a hand through his hair.] I'd have run more tests, but I didn't have the time.

[Pause, then--] I've been talking to your friends. They've all been worried about you, especially Dawn.

[He's not surprised, really. She's a little sister, what else would he expect from her? Hell, she kind of reminds him of himself, sometimes.]

You were on the clock, that I remember. [ And that, she was uber-thankful for. She'd killed enough people in her time as Amnesia-Girl, she didn't need to add a list of people Sam hadn't saved in looking for her into the mix. She blinks when he mentions her friends, her sister. Part of the reason she'd been so anti-hunter, she thinks, is that there are a few people in her life that she would die for, immediately and without pause. Dawn is one of them and when she made the link between sister and hunting the evil that'd killed her? It had just seemed right, kind of. Slowly, she breathes out, not even sure what to say to that. ]

I-I think my memories are just starting to come back. I mean, I remember Dawn and I remember you and I remember Elvis for some reasons I don't even wanna understand but--Amalia -- that's the girl that helped me -- she said it might take a while before I'm fully Buffy again. [ Her nose wrinkles. ] I mean--I am me, I just... Don't remember all of being me. Does that make sense?

Amalia? [He breathes in, a memory of the year he spent without a soul resurfacing. He'd come pretty close, but all they shared in the end was a kiss. A really passionate one, but still.] I know her. You got lucky, finding her.

[He lets out a soft huff.]

It makes sense. And as for the Elvis, we were married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator.

You know her? [ Buffy asks, head tilting. ] I didn't exactly stumble across her or anything. Wolfram and Hart wanted her dead.

[ Oh. Okay. That makes a hell of a lot of sense, actually. ] We got--Okay. That... Makes sense. [ It explains a lot, actually. ] Is Dawn okay?

Edited 2012-08-24 12:49 (UTC)

We, uh, met once. I don't think she has very good memories of me.

[Soulless!Sam was a sleaze, okay.]

Dawn's fine, the last time she called. [Which was an hour ago.]

What? Why? [ Ahhh. Wait. Witch. Sam has issues with Witches. ] You tried to kill her?

[ She concentrates on torching the rest of the corpse before she addresses the issue of her sister. ] She's been blowing your phone up every couple of hours, huh? [ She knows how persistent Dawn can be when she wants something. That, she remembered first of all about her sister - her real sister, not the fake one ala Wolfram and Hart. ] Have I mentioned the sorry?

I might've kissed her a few years ago. [He's been trying to get past the issues, really. Willow's a pretty great girl, the witch thing aside. Amalia, though...well.]

Along with everyone else. I'm not blaming them. [Breathe out.] Or you.

[ Okay. She's confused at that. ] Why would that be a bad thing? I remember you kissing and, well, you didn't suck at it...

[ Her heart is pretty much in her mouth when he tells her he doesn't blame her for what happened but Buffy has never been one to cut herself any slack. There are a thousand should've's running through her head right now so she avoids his gaze, looks down at the corpse and stops with the torching. ] Is that it? Corpse all... Crispified?

It's, uh...I met her in 2010, and I...look, it's a little hard to explain, but I didn't have a soul at the time.

[Sam's the sort to blame himself for...well, a lot of things as well. He could've been there faster, figured it out sooner, been just a little stronger, but he wasn't. Dean's in Purgatory, Buffy's most likely wanted, and it's all because he wasn't enough.]

Yeah. It's not getting back up.

[ Buffy stares at him for the longest time. She can tell he's not joking from the look on his face. ] You--What? [ The tone of her voice is not accusatory. She doesn't know whether she knew that already or not. Mostly? She's just kinda curious. ] How could you be without a soul?

[ She wipes her hands on her jeans (the smell, she remembers, will linger for weeks no matter how many laundromats they visit) and when she glances at Sam she doesn't miss the look on his face. Her brow wrinkles in concern. ] This wasn't your fault either, Sam. [ Deep down, she knows it wasn't her fault either. That doesn't make it any easier though because she can still see the face of every friggin' hunter she offed and it makes her skin crawl. ] When was the last time you even slept?

It's a long story.

[...um.] Two days. I was busy.

[ Right. One that, apparently, they're not talking about now, judging by the look on his face. ]

No wonder you look beat. [ She frowns at him. She knows how secular-minded he got with trying to get Dean back. She can only imagine what was going through his head the full time she was--Well, away. ] I'm suggesting sleep and then shower, not necessarily in that order. [ A beat. ] Actually? Suggesting would mean you had an option. Which you very much don't.

I'm fine. [It's actually a token protest, but still.] I've gone for longer without any, and there's still something I have to do while here.

[aka researching a vital component to whatever ritual he's hit on that just might pull Dean out of Purgatory.]

Yeah. You're awesome. [ Buffy points out softly. ] 'Cause you often almost get life-sucked by a hopping, bunny-corpse thing...

[ She recognizes the look on his face almost immediately, frowns. ] Hi. Remember me? Partner. Wife. Sometime back-up against the forces of evil? I can help. [ She can. Research, demon-pounding, whatever it is he needs, that's what she's there for. That's kinda the point. ]

[a resigned sigh] Fine. I just--after what happened, I'm a little worried. You sure Wolfram & Hart won't try to track you down?

I don't know. [ She shrugs. She doesn't. She can't imagine they're exactly pleased with the way she left things but she doesn't care. Any lawyer-types decide to get up in her face and she will end them. Immediately. ]

They try? And I will show them just how pissy a slayer can be.

Good. [Turning around to walk out of the room. There are still so many questions in his head, so many things he wants to say or do.] Let's go.

[ They head back outside and Buffy goes to the trunk to grab a couple of the weapons she bought from the back of the Wolfram and Hart sponsored car. She meant what she said when she said she hated driving and it's a natural progression, she guesses, for her to be back in the Impala. ] Want me to drive? [ She doesn't normally, but she figures he looks beat, so... ]

No. You drive like a spaz.

[Last time he let her drive, well...he doesn't want to repeat that experience. Ever.]

I do not! [ Said Buffy, huffing out a surprised laugh. ] Well, okay, I do but... Spaz is better than being roadkill when you fall asleep at the wheel, Winchester. [ She was teasing. Mostly. ]

I've taken that risk before. And anyway, we're going to be roadkill either way, I'll take the one that doesn't have you at the wheel.

[He's still pretty awake, he can drive back to the motel. Should be a few minutes anyway, and then he'll hit the hay.]

Why thank you for that vote of confidence, husband of mine. [ She tells him, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling as she gets into the Impala. ] So... What is it I'm looking for when I get back to the motel? Y'know, and you're all While You Were Sleeping?

[He starts the car first before he answers.]

Ever heard of a guy named Kevin Tran?

Uhm, I don't think so but... My memory is still a little spotty... [ Buffy tells him. She's pretty sure that it's all gonna come roaring back at some point but at the minute? She's drawing a blank. ]

He's a prophet. Got kidnapped a while ago, and I couldn't find him. [Mostly because he was a bit busy being worried over Dean instead.] But I think I know where he is, I just need to make sure.

A prophet, huh? [ Buffy thought about that for a moment, trying to wrack her brains to think what she knew about prophets so far. The answer, of course, was not much. Although... No, that was a lie. She knew what Wolfram and Hart had put in her handy-dandy PDA about Everything Supernatural Ever and prophets had come under that; she only hoped they didn't have this guy. ]

So, what is it I need to do? [ Buffy glanced over at him. ] Am I recon girl or... what?

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private | she doesn't know just where she belongs

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and about fifty billion years later /cough SORRY

no worries at all! I've been snowed under with work/school. You okay, m'love? <3

doing better now, blergh

/cuddles