Shadows of Destiny

by Lady Dawson

Chapter One: What Happened Before

There are two days that remain perfectly vivid in my memory, despite the years that have passed since then. The first is the day that I found out the truth about my heritage, the day that I discovered that my mother was a Vampire Slayer and that I inherited her powers, her legacy, her destiny. It was also the day that I met my sister Slayer Buffy Summers and together, we fought to protect the hellmouth and keep the people of Sunnydale from dying before their time. The second memory is the day that I killed my boyfriend Jesse Bryant's little brother Jake.

Maybe I should back up a little bit. My mother was Gwyneth Seymour, the Vampire Slayer some twenty years ago. She met and fell in love with my father, whoever he was, and he disappeared, leaving her pregnant. Eventually, she gave birth to me and raised me as best she could with her Watcher James Wyatt, but when I was four years old, she was murdered a vampire named Josephine, James along with her.

But I was saved by a man named Angel. I didn't know it at the time, but he was actually a vampire cursed with a soul. And he would become one of the best friends that I could ever ask for. He took me to an orphanage and told me to change my name so the vampires wouldn't be able to find me.

For the next twelve years, I was shuffled from foster home to foster home, sent to live with dozens of families in various states across the country, but it wasn't until I moved to Sunnydale that I encountered any more supernatural activity.

My very first day at Sunnydale High, I met the new Slayer, though I didn't know who she was at the time, Buffy Summers. We became fast friends and that very night, I also met her boyfriend Angel, who was the same Angel who'd rescued me from my mother's murderers the night she died. He knew at once who I was and alerted Buffy and her Watcher Rupert Giles, telling them who I was.

It was a good thing that they told me the truth about my mother when they did, because unknown to me, my foster mother was actually a demon hired by Josephine to bring me to Sunnydale. Josephine had spent the last twelve years searching for me, because she wanted to find the daughter of the Slayer. It was written that a daughter of the Slayer, who inherited her mother's powers, would join her sister Slayer on the hellmouth and together, they would destroy it.

I was that daughter, possessing my mother's gifts and was in every way a Slayer myself, even if I hadn't been called like the others before me. In order to save Buffy and our friends, I killed Josephine and we began to fight together to protect the hellmouth. Somewhere along the way, we became more than just friends; we became sisters.

And Angel and I grew closer, too. He was the big brother that I'd always wanted and he told me on more than one occasion that I was like the sister he wished that he hadn't killed. We were a family. Me, Buffy, Angel, Willow, Xander, Giles . . . even Cordelia was family. And when Willow started dating Oz, he was welcomed into the Scooby Gang.

But a dark threat loomed ahead of us and unknown to anybody, the curse that the gypsies placed on him a hundred years ago came with a clause. And when Buffy and Angel consummated their relationship, I lost Angel to his demon and Buffy to her grief at losing her soul mate.

For months, I helped Buffy fight Angelus, but along the way, I also fell in love. His name was Jesse Bryant and he too was a victim of vampires. His mother had been turned the previous year and when he met me, he knew I was no stranger to the supernatural. We fought together and eventually developed feelings that were more than merely friends.

But Angelus was still out there and then Alcaltha came. Alcaltha was a demon who could unleash hell onto the world. At the same time, we discovered the gypsy curse that had been placed on Angel the century before had been revived and Willow decided to use it while Buffy and I went to face Angelus, to give her time to curse him. But it turned out to be a trap, ending with our friends put into the hospital and Buffy and me wanted for murder.

Willow was in a coma for awhile, but she woke up and insisted on redoing the curse to help Buffy, who was on her way to kill Angelus. She insisted that I stay behind to protect our friends. I reluctantly agreed. It was a decision that I would regret for the rest of my life.

Because Willow sent Xander the message about what we were doing, but he never gave her the message. Instead, he told her to kill Angelus and destroy the man she loved with no chance of getting him back. It's funny, how one little thing can destroy everything. Because Buffy never got the message, she had no idea what was coming and just as Angel was returned to her, she was forced to send him to hell. Angel's blood opened the portal and only his blood would close it.

I wrangled that particular piece of information out of Xander and I raced to the mansion to warn Buffy, but it was already too late. Alcaltha was dormant and there was no sign of Buffy or Angel.

Well, if it were me in her position and I'd just been forced to kill the man that I loved, I knew where I would go. I managed to get to the bus station just in time and found Buffy just as she was about to board the bus to Los Angeles. I didn't stop her though; she needed to get away, to be able to heal before she came back home. So I just hugged her goodbye, told her that I loved her, and let her leave, not telling anyone where she went.

With Jesse by my side, I fought to protect the hellmouth in Buffy's absence. Willow, Xander, and Oz helped us, but every night, I would lay awake, wondering what would happen if Buffy didn't come home. I'd lost the two people I loved most in the world in one night . . . and I'd also lost my family for a second time.

But Buffy did come home and with her return came Angel's resurrection, granted by the Powers that Be. I was out patrolling with Buffy when we stumbled upon Angel, wild and feral thanks to years in hell, and we got him back to the mansion, chaining him up so he couldn't hurt anybody. We nursed him back to health, but the danger was far from passed. He and Buffy resumed a shaky relationship, both of them terrified of what would happen if Angel received one moment of happiness. Everything would return to where we'd been before and neither one of them wanted to go back to that terrible place again.

Jesse and I were falling madly in love, but just as we were getting to the point where we both wanted our relationship to move forward, a Slayer by the name of Faith came to the hellmouth and turned our world upside down.

Along with the mayor, the newest big bad, she summoned a demon to possess me and I was shoved inside myself while the demon remained on the surface, destroying my life and those I cared about most.

I could only watch, trying desperately to get Jesse to hear me, when she mocked him, taunted him, and killed his little brother Jake, who was only eight years old. I still see Jake's face in my nightmares, still can remember that knife as I slid it into his small body and watched him die. Jesse discovered this and said some cruel and horrible things to me before he left Sunnydale, leaving for San Francisco, and I was left possessed. And the one person I thought for sure would know that it wasn't me was gone.

In the end, it was Angel who discovered the truth. When the demon attacked him, to get him out of the way for the Ascension, I was able to break through the possession and scream a warning to him. He realized at once what had happened and knocked me out before taking me to Buffy and Giles to exorcise the demon out of my body. But they couldn't get rid of the memories.

Once Faith realized that I was in charge of my body again, she knew that she had to get one of us out of the way, so she shot Angel with a poisoned arrow, which could only be cured with the blood of a Slayer. By this time, we knew that there was no way that we could help Faith—and right now, it was a choice between her and Angel. For both me and Buffy, that choice would've been Angel every single time.

I stayed behind to keep watch over Angel while Buffy went to go confront Faith and kill her so Angel could drink her blood. She did manage to defeat Faith, just not the way that we intended. Faith jumped off of her balcony and into a truck below in order to avoid Buffy's triumph. Someone found her later and took her to the hospital, where she was placed in a coma. The head trauma was so severe that they believed that she might never come out of it. I don't believe that for a second, though; if I know Faith, she'll come out of it eventually and then we'll have to deal with a very dangerous and vengeful Slayer.

With Faith out of the picture, it was left to Buffy or me to heal Angel—and he wasn't willing to drink from either of us. In the end, she had to punch him not once but three times in order to force him to drink from her. She had to be rushed to the hospital and we were left wondering we'd be fighting the Ascension without the senior Slayer. Thankfully, though, she pulled through and we were able to defeat the Mayor by blowing up the school—literally, actually. And the hellmouth was safe for another day.

But afterwards, I discovered a horrible truth: Angel had broken up with Buffy and was leaving Sunnydale, going to Los Angeles.

And unfortunately, I couldn't stay on the hellmouth either. I was almost convicted of murder, but Giles contacted the Watchers' Council and they helped clear me of the charges, since it hadn't really been me doing them. But before I was possessed, I'd had a full ride to UCSunnydale on an art scholarship; my future was pretty much set, but once they found out I'd been involved in a homicide, they took it away. After I was cleared of the charges, it was too late. They'd already given it to another girl, leaving me with no way to pay for school next fall.

Buffy was more than willing to help me with the aftermath of my possession, but I could see it on Willow and Xander's faces every time that they looked at me. They blamed me for what I'd done while possessed. I had Jake's blood on my hands. Every time that I looked at them, I could see it reflected in their eyes. They wouldn't forgive me so easily for it.

Even Giles was uneasy around me. He was the only father figure that I'd ever known, but he still was uncomfortable.

And Joyce . . . Buffy's mother . . . she took me when I had nowhere else to go, put a roof over my head, but she took it away, told me I wasn't welcome in her house.

There was no way that I could possibly stay, not with everything that had happened here. The only reason to stay here was for my sister and Buffy knew that I needed to get away. Away from Sunnydale, away from the memories of what I'd done, and away from the people who were supposed to support me, yet blamed me somehow for things that I couldn't control.

But they weren't the only ones; I blamed myself for everything that I'd done and for killing Jake. The nightmares alone were bad enough, but every time I saw a kid around his age, the guilt would resurface. I could barely even function. As much as Willow and Xander hated me right now, they couldn't possibly hate me any more than I hated myself.

I couldn't possibly stay in Sunnydale; the memories would haunt me and eventually drive me crazy. And I was afraid that if I stayed, I'd turn into Faith.

Buffy would always be my sister and if she needed me, I would drop everything I was doing to go help her, but Sunnydale was no longer my home. It couldn't be—not after everything that had happened. So after a tearful goodbye to my sister, I left Sunnydale behind.

After that, I mostly just wandered, taking up odd jobs in whatever dump I happened to be at in order to pay for gas and food and stuff. Eventually, I hit the road and traveled around the country, but the supernatural was bound to catch up with me sooner or later.

And with Slayers, it's always sooner.

Not even a week after I left Sunnydale, I came across this vampire nest in southern Nevada.

They never even knew what hit them.

There were others too . . . once I was certain that the town was safe, I moved on, fully intending to take a road trip, get away from the Slayer gig for awhile, but I barely got to the next town before I found another supernatural being, this time a demon possessing a girl. I exorcised the demon, but the poor girl didn't make it.

Werewolves . . . ghosts . . . demons . . . vampires . . . curses . . . almost everything that I ever encountered while on the hellmouth I stumbled upon. I guess I should have known better; I wasn't going to get out of the Slayer gig. Maybe I could outrun it for awhile, but eventually, it would catch up with me.

So I gave into the inevitable. If I couldn't escape my destiny, then I was just going to face it head on. I couldn't go back to the hellmouth, but I could find supernatural jobs around the country and take care of them so innocent people could live another day.

Over time, the saving-people-thing made me feel less guilty about what happened back home. I could still see myself driving that knife into Jake, but over time, I knew that, really, I couldn't have done anything different. I had done everything humanly possibly to break free, but it wasn't enough. Even Buffy and Angel told me time and time again that it wasn't my fault.

It didn't take me very long to find others doing the same thing I was doing. I sometimes came across them when I was working on a job. Sometimes, we would work together and other times, they would tell me to take a hike.

After awhile, I began lowering my guards around them and telling them who I was, but I soon learned that it wasn't the best idea. Hunters aren't exactly receptive of any supernatural creature, even the Slayer. We might be on the side of good, but as far as they're concerned, we possess powers we shouldn't, so we should be put down.

So finally, I just stopped telling them who I was. Granted, I wasn't exactly supposed to be telling anyone of that fact, anyway. One of the most basic rules of a Slayer is that people aren't supposed to know who we are. We're supposed to be work in secret, so vampires don't know who the Slayer is.

Granted, hunters aren't exactly civilians, but if they're just going to try and kill me because I'm not completely human, because I possess abilities that are more than human, then it was just better to let them think whatever they wanted when they noticed my enhanced speed and strength.

I had been traveling around the country and hunting the supernatural for almost six months when I met two brothers who would turn my life upside down and change the course of my destiny for all time.

And their names were Sam and Dean Winchester.

My name is Kaitlyn Sawyer, born Katherine Seymour, daughter of Gwyneth Seymour, sister of Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane, and a Vampire Slayer. I am eighteen years old.

AN: The daughter of the Slayer thing is roughly based on my story "Chosen by Destiny." The only thing I changed was her name and what happened with her father, but if you want to read the finer details, you might want to check that out. Anyway, thanks for reading and I've already started on the second chapter, so the sooner I get reviews, the sooner I update. Thanks for reading!

Lady Dawson