Title: Song of Shadow

Author: faithwinchester

Pairing: none as of yet

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: through Simon Says for SPN (though none of those events actually happen), and eventually the whole series of Buffy

Author's Notes: This is a AU which should eventually cover from the beginning of Buffy season 3 through the end of season 7, with changes made by the inclusion of Sam Winchester

Summary: A sixteen-year-old Sam Winchester has a vision of his future self, who tells him that to keep his painful future from coming to pass he must leave John and Dean that night. When he does, he meets Faith, who is heading towards Sunnydale and away from Kakistos.

Prologue

The images were blurred as they raced past Sam's eyes, a fact that he was grateful for. His father yelling at him that if he walked out the door he shouldn't bother coming back. A beautiful blonde girl on the ceiling, engulfed in flames and pleading with her eyes for his help. A slightly older and paler Dean, lying in a hospital bed with no hope in his eyes. His father again, this time with demonic yellow eyes and an evil grin as he ripped into Dean's flesh. Dean in another hospital bed, a tube down his throat breathing for him.

His father's body lying on the hospital room floor morphed into what Sam knew was his father's funeral pyre. That image shifted into a vision of Dean, a sniper rifle shoved under his chin and a peaceful expression on his face. Other images flew past before they resolved into a picture that almost broke Sam's heart: the demon, still somehow in their father's guise was dead, but so was Dean. And then Sam saw himself, broken and bleeding, apparently preparing to follow Dean in death.

"It doesn't have to be this way, you know."

Sam whirled around and came face to face with himself. It was an older him, with new scars and an entire universe of pain in his eyes, but it was still Sam. "What do you mean?"

The older him waved his hand at the now-frozen scene behind them. "This is what will happen if you don't change things. I know, because it already did happen...to me. But it wasn't supposed to."

Sam frowned in confusion. "How do you know that it wasn't supposed to happen? Not that I want it to happen, or anything."

"The PTB's, the Powers That Be, wouldn't have given me a chance to fix things if there wasn't something to fix." He smiled somewhat cynically. "Besides, they figure that this way they can fix several problems all at once. Kind of a buy one, get four free sale. There's only one catch." He paused, meeting Sam's eyes steadily. "You have to leave Dean and Dad, tonight."

Sam just blinked in disbelief for a moment. "Leave? Just like that? Why?"

The older Sam sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's part of the other things the Powers are fixing while they're fixing this. If you don't help to fix the other problems, then you can't fix these, either. It's not fair, but that's the way it is."

If it had been coming from anyone else, Sam wouldn't have believed them for a second. But he knew himself, and he couldn't imagine anything happening that would make him ask this without a damn good reason. So he closed his eyes, sighed and nodded. "Where am I going?"

Older Sam sort of shrugged his shoulders and smiled apologetically. "That I can't tell you. You'll know when you get there."

Sam snorted. Apparently he got cryptic when he got older. Everything started fading then, his vision going black as he heard Older Sam say one last thing.

"Everything will work out for the best. You'll see. I promise."

Sam's eyes snapped open as he sat straight up in bed with a soft gasp. He glanced over at the other bed, relieved when he saw that Dean was still sound asleep. He slipped out of bed, wide awake now that the image of his father and brother dying was burning behind his eyes. He got dressed in silence, careful not to wake Dean. He couldn't do this if Dean was awake and asking questions. He could barely manage to do it as it was.

He packed a bag with the essentials; a few changes of clothes, his knives and various other weapons as well as a supply of rock salt and holy water. He hesitated for a moment before stuffing one of Dean's dirty shirts into the bag as well. He didn't think his brother would miss it, and he didn't even know why he was taking it, just that it felt right.

He paused long enough in the small kitchen to write a note, thankful for once that John was out on a hunt and not expected back for another day. Then he hitched his bag onto his shoulder, took one last look around the apartment that he knew he would never see again and slipped quietly out the door.

Since he had no idea where he was going he simply picked a direction and started walking, hoping that he would find something soon that would let him know that he was going the right way. He hadn't gotten very far at all when he heard the sounds of fighting, and if he strained his ears he could just barely make out what sounded like several voices chanting. Sam picked up his pace as he headed towards the noise, dropping his bag and pulling a knife from his boot when he realized that several demons of some sort were ganging up on a girl about his age.

He jumped into the fray, knife flashing as he sliced his way towards the dark-haired girl who grinned and winked at him when their eyes met for a moment. An instant later they were back to back, ducking and twisting with an odd kind of rhythm. It only took a few minutes for them to kill most of the demons, but the fact that the ones that were still alive hadn't stopped chanting the entire time made Sam nervous.

"What are they doing?" He turned his head just in time to see the girl shrug.

"No idea, stud. I just wandered in, they saw me and started jabbering." She threw one of her knives, hitting one of the remaining demons in the throat. "I doubt they're saying anything good, though."

Eventually there was only one of the demons left. It grinned at them, sharp-looking teeth flashing as he practically screamed out the words to the chant one last time. Then it lunged at them, impaling itself on Sam's knife.

Sam and the girl just blinked at it for a moment before a fog began to rise from the body, quickly enveloping them. Before they could even start to move the fog compressed around them before exploding in a flash of light and knocking them both to the ground.

After a long moment Sam managed to push himself up from the ground, one hand pressed to his suddenly-aching head. He blinked the afterimage of the flash from his eyes and glanced around until he saw the girl who was also slowly pushing herself up.

"Um, Faith? Did you just sort of...?"

She chuckled wryly. "Live your entire life in about two seconds? Sure did, Sammy. Nice life you've had, too, by the way."

He nodded gingerly, slowly getting to his feet and trying not to wobble too much. "Yeah, yours looks like a walk in the park, too, Faith." He paused for a moment, staring down at the bodies of the demons they had killed. "Is it just me, or did it look like they were trying to do this on purpose?"

Faith nodded. "Not just you, stud. I don't know why they'd want to, though. You have any ideas?"

Sam shook his head, bending down to wipe the majority of the demon blood of off his knives. "Not a clue. Guess we'll just have to wait and see if anything else happens." He looked around the dark alley, checking for any clues as to the demons' purpose and not finding anything. He sighed. "So, what now?"

She frowned as she retrieved her knife, making a face at the sound it made as she pulled it from the demon's body. "Well, the other you in the vision said you'd know where you were going when you got there, right? This looks kinda like a smack in the face to me, Sammy boy."

Sam just looked at her in silence for a moment, ignoring the nickname for the time being, his vision of her life letting him see the hint of fragility behind her tough-girl facade. So with a mental shrug, he nodded. "Yeah, it sort of does, doesn't it? So, we're heading for Sunnydale, then?"

Faith smiled, tucking her knives back into wherever she had been carrying them before. "Sure are, stud. Hellmouth, here we come."