Part 6

"Buffy!" Xander's voice was calling to her. "Hey Buffy, wake up!"

"Hunh?" she grunted as she sat up from Giles' desk. She had drifted off while researching vampires of unusual strength and origin.

"We're not doing all the research on our own," he said, touching her shoulder and smiling. "You've got to pull your share of the weight, missy."

"Sorry guys," she said, rubbing her eyes. "How long was I out?"

"About twenty minutes," Giles said from his armchair in the corner.

"It turns out, mind-reading spells are a dime a dozen, mind control spells are almost as bountiful," Willow updated her. "But I haven't yet been able to find a simple spell that allows dream visitation, it's all wrapped up in other magicks, which has to be sort of incubated over time. Hundreds of years, in fact. And it's really difficult to do it without a soul, so maybe Giles is right about this vam..."

Buffy stared at the book in front of her. "I just had another one."

"A-a dream?" Giles said, looking up concernedly. "About Ogha Dunver?"

"Yeah," Buffy said quietly. She looked at Willow. "Except she said she's not visiting my dreams. She said she didn't come there, that she was brought there. And then she said more stuff about how we're the same, and daughters, the darkness, blah, blah..." her voice trailed off.

Giles closed his book and crossed the room. He knelt down next to her and asked, "What else did she say? Tell me everything."

The others gathered around to hear, as well.

Without looking at them, Buffy said, just one level up from a murmur, "I was sitting right here at this desk. I was writing in a diary. I was writing about how I felt. Only I knew it wasn't my diary, that belonged to Giles, that I was just using it. Then she showed up and told me that she doesn't come into my mind, she is brought."

Willow wondered, "But if she isn't going there consciously, then how can she remember being in your dream later on? You said she mentioned being in your dreams, the last time you met her, right?"

"But she also said that she doesn't choose to be in my dreams any more than I choose to be in hers," Buffy said. "So we must be sharing dream space somehow. Having the same dreams."

"Didn't that happen to you and Angel?" Willow asked.

"Yeah, but that was The First messing with us, and I've also had the same thing happen with Faith when she was in her coma. There's no consistency there, so I don't think we can find a link this way," Buffy said, more thinking aloud than anything.

"And then the stuff about being connected?" Xander asked.

"To darkness," Giles assumed.

Buffy paused, trying to remember. "I thought that, but she said that we are both daughters of something else, but wouldn't say what. But she didn't deny that we are daughters of darkness, only implied that there was more to it than that."

The room was silent, everyone thinking.

After a bit, Buffy added, "And she said that I should look further into myself to find the answer."

"Well, that's helpful," Xander said. "Every self-help guru since the dawn of man has said that!"

"No, she said," Buffy closed her eyes tight, and tried to shut out everything else except her memories of the dream. She spoke haltingly."She said that the diary is myself, because it's all about me. It's my thoughts, my feelings... and that I should look into myself... and go back in time."

"She wants you to read your own diary?" Anya asked, scrunching her nose.

"I don't keep a diary anymore," Buffy said, looking at Giles in an appeal for help.

A glimmer of realization shone in her Watcher's eyes. He looked at her squarely and said, "But it wasn't your diary you were using. It was mine." He moved quickly across the room again.

"You keep a diary?" Xander asked incredulously, as Giles disappeared behind a door beneath his staircase.

"No, it's the Watcher Diaries!" Willow exclaimed, practically jumping out of her shoes. "She's trying to tell us we'll find the answer in the Watcher Diaries!"

Giles emerged from under the stairs dragging two large old wooden crates stuffed with old books with yellowing, disintegrating pages.

Everyone grabbed a volume, knowing that their task now was simply to find any reference to Ogha Dunver that they could.