Baileigh Solis

after this and this and this


They keep saying names like she should recognize them. And she probably should. Tommy and Carbone Karras. Cain and Henrietta Callahan. Julian Sark. People they tell her she knows, loves, cares deeply for, people that they tell her love her very much in return.

But they’re just names to her. Just names.

“That’s a beautiful ring, sweetheart.”

She blinks up at the kind-faced woman who steered her to the kitchen earlier and insisted that she eat. “…What?”

The woman--the mother of the man that found her in the street--she smiles, and wipes her hand on a dishtowel, reaches down to take her left hand lightly in her right, turning it this way and that to make the stone sparkle. It startles her, a little; she didn’t notice it there before. She’s…never seen it, before. “Oh,” she remarks quietly, tugging her hand back and folding her arms, suddenly uncomfortable. “It is…pretty.”

The woman makes a soft noise…sympathy, perhaps. She turns back to the stove and silence descends for a time…uneasy at first, but as the pleasant scents of food cooking fill the tiny room, the tension eases. Now that its presence has been pointed out to her, she can’t leave the piece of jewelry alone, constantly turning it on her finger, touching the stone with her fingertips. She wonders if someone gave it to her, and who, and when, and why she didn’t notice it before.

She’s afraid. If just one thing, just one thing would look or sound familiar, she’s so sure the rest would come back to her. There are people that know her, that care about her, but they‘re all gone from her mind. What happened to her?

“It’s all right, sweetheart.” Baileigh jumps a little, startled out of her thoughts as the round-faced woman sets a plate in front of her. “You’re safe with us.”

And she wants so badly to believe it. To feel safe, cared for. To feel anything but lost and confused and frightened.

She wants to. But she can’t.

“That’s all right, too,” she could swear she hears the lady murmur, almost sadly, as she sweeps across the kitchen to begin preparing even more food.

"I'm telling you, something isn't right, Ethan."

Her Watcher heaves yet another sigh that so clearly tells her he would rather be doing anything right now--and that includes chewing tin foil and sticking a 9-volt battery on his tongue--than listening to her rant at him over the phone as she packs. "These dreams are part of being a slayer, Baileigh, you know this."

"Ugh, why won't you listen to me, why won't anyone listen? This is different. It's not like I haven't gone through this for years now. These are not your typical nightmares. These are...they're intense, they're too real, they're not--they're just not the same!"

"They're memories. They aren't just dreams, they're events that actually happened--"

"Oh my God, does everyone in the world think I'm stupid?!" She throws the shoe in her hand in frustration, winces as it skitters across the floor and hits the wall. She covers her cell phone with her hand and mouths a sheepish 'sorry' to Julian before deciding it might be best to finish this conversation without any potential projectiles in her hand. Especially stiletto heels. Someone could lose an eye. "I know they happened, Ethan," she continues, abandoning her packing for the moment and rising to pace around the room. "I know they're memories. I would like to repeat that this is not exactly my first time at the rodeo, m'kay? These are different, everything about them feels different. I wake up and I don't, I don't even know who I am. Are any of the other girls experiencing anything close to same thing?"

"If they are, they haven't spoken to me about them."

"Well, I can't imagine why not, cause you're so goddamned helpful and all!" She makes a face, realizing she just crossed a line, taps the edge of the phone against her forehead a few times in quick succession while hissing 'stupid stupid stupid' and attempts to apologize. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, lack of sleep makes the temper short. Just, could you at least try to find out who this girl is? It might not do any good, but please. Help me out here. Give me something. I can't keep taking this tea, eventually I gotta get some real sleep. Now I freely admit, hey, I don't need much, so maybe this isn't priority, and that's fine! You know, there's apocalypses to be prevented, demons to be eviscerated, but AM I GOING INSANE. Nobody wants a crazy slayer wandering around L.A., now do they? Huh? Huh?"

"I am doing the best that I can, Baileigh. I am. I promise."

Do better. She doesn't say it out loud, as it's too immature even for her, but his icy tone is no great encouragement. "Fine. Thanks so much for that." She snaps the phone closed and glares at it for a moment, as though the whole thing were it's fault, and briefly entertains the notion of throwing it in the same direction as her poor mistreated shoe.

She's not wrong about this. Something isn't right, and nobody's listening.


word count: 505

You can never quite describe it to anyone that asks. What the dreams are like. How the legacy runs through you. You don't think anyone who's never felt it can understand...and even those like you feel it differently, in their own way.

The girls, the women that pass through your dreams, they're the long lost friends you ran with on the schoolyard, that you laughed and played with as a child before their family had to move, and you can barely remember what they looked like, or how their voice sounded. You don't recognize their faces anymore, but you feel a tickle at your memory when they speak. When they laugh. Sometimes you even remember their name in a sudden moment of clarity, but it slips away when you wake.

Sort of. But not exactly.

You're the same. In sleep, you live in their skin. Separate and together, the same, and not. You feel everything they feel. Their triumph is your triumph. Their pain is your pain. Their failure is your failure. Over and over, every night you dream. You are a warrior, a princess, a priestess, a saint, a cop, a thief, a waitress, a revolutionary, a soldier in disguise. You have danced in temples, you have danced in a bar. You have won, you have lost, you have loved, and you have died.

Over and over, every night you dream. Separate, but the same.

Sort of. But not exactly.

The Watchers call it the chain. A chain that connects you together, through history, across the miles, one to another. When you close your eyes, when you focus, you can feel it. You can feel the tug, the memories, centuries of war and violence, of life, of death. Every memory makes you better. Every dream makes you stronger.

Connected. Sisters, comrades, friends, past, present, future. Slayers. Every one.

Sort of.

But not exactly.


word count: 311