For What You Are

Jayne sat in her famous spot – the bough of a tree – once again. She sat with her head in her hands and held her stake in her hands. Looking at it with disgust, she threw it away; expecting to hear the thud of it sinking into the grass, but all there was was silence.

“Salvatore,” Jayne muttered with distain in her voice.

“Am I really that familiar to you now?” Damon responded, suddenly standing next to her.

“I wish you weren’t,” Jayne muttered. “Why are you even here?”

“Ouch,” he replied. “Looks like somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

“Then maybe,” she said, snatching the stake back, “You should leave before I do something drastic. Believe me, the mood I’m in right now, it’s not incomprehensible by any means.”

“Ooo,” he said, “So what happened to put the slayer in this much of a bad mood?”

“You don’t want to know,” she replied, passing the stake between her hands.

“On the contrary,” Damon replied. “I find myself fascinated by you. So any little secrets or interesting facts you want to throw my way, I’m all ears.”

“By the time I’ve explained my past, it would take so long that you’d be wishing you were dead. A wish I’d then be happy to grant because I have told you many times that I will kill you if you ever inch close to my past.”

“I am already dead,” he said pointedly.

“And I can kill you again,” Jayne replied, flicking the stake towards him dangerously, “A fact you would be wise to remember.”

“Oh but I am wise,” he replied with an annoying smirk. “And what you should know is that I have a bit of leverage on my part to make you talk.”

“Nothing will make me talk,” Jayne said with confidence, “I have nothing to fight for except survival.”

“Not even Kara?” he asked.

Jayne’s head jolted up to look at him, her momentary falter in stance quickly returning to normal. However, Damon’s vampire eyes didn’t miss the change. He knew he’d struck gold.

“What do you know about Kara?” Jayne asked in a low voice once she realised Damon wasn’t leaving the matter.

“I know that she’s annoyingly hot,” he replied, “She has a tendency to trip over nothing. She hates school, doesn’t mind making bets that she knows she can’t keep and hangs out with a bunch of vampires even though she doesn’t know what they are. She also plays guitar, doesn’t get along with her guardian and has some serious memory problems.”

“You’ve been stalking her haven’t you?” Jayne asked.

“Only a bit,” he said. “I was just curious considering you two are so alike.”

“Oh really?” Jayne said. “In what ways?”

“You both look relatively the same age. You don’t have any known family, neither does she. Both of you crop up in history in the most random places and you both know how to throw a punch. However, she doesn’t have as much coordination. Hence the tendency to trip over nothing.”

“I seriously think you need to get a life,” Jayne said, leaning against the tree trunk wearily.

“And I think that you need to get talking,” Damon said.

“That’s not going to work,” she replied. “I’ll never talk…”

Jayne trailed off as a sudden thought came into her head. She’d given Kara back memories which she’d regretted since she did it. So, the obvious conclusion would be to cover them all up again. But since Jayne couldn’t do it because it seemed her way wasn’t working as well as it used to…maybe it was time to enlist the help of somebody who’s way would work.

She turned to face Damon, “Can you compel her?”

“Come again?”

“Kara,” Jayne said. “Can you compel her to forget?”

“Yes…I could,” he responded hesitantly, “Why?”

“I gave her back memories-”

“Whoa…what?” he looked at her confusedly. “You gave her back…memories?”

“Which I’ve taken away,” she continued. “But her knowing about her past could ruin everything.”

“But you said all you cared about was survival,” Damon said. “So…her knowing is going to kill you.”

“Ultimately…yes,” Jayne replied. She could see the cogs working in Damon’s head. If he let Kara keep the memories, he’d be rid of Jayne. But then he wouldn’t find out Jayne’s mystery.

“If it was going to kill you…then why did you give the memories back?”

“Because she was fighting the block,” Jayne said, standing up. “All those years that I’d hidden her memories from her started to make her immune. She was remembering and it was killing her.”

“So you gave her memories that would kill you,” he said and Jayne nodded in reply. She could also see that in his mind he knew that Jayne was protecting Kara. But more pressing matter were bothering him. “Wait, I’m still stuck on the whole memory wipe thing. You…took her memories…and now you’ve given them back. And now that she has her memories this is somehow going to kill you.” Jayne nodded again. “But you can’t take away her memories because she’s grown immune to it so you want me to compel her into forgetting…how many years?”

“Um…” Jayne didn’t want to say. It wouldn’t help her whole ‘don’t talk’ mantra.

“I need to know,” Damon said in a sing-song voice. “If you want this done, I have to do it tonight. And you can tell me all about yourself tomorrow night. That’s the terms.”

“Any fine print that I need to know about?” Jayne asked cautiously.

“Not as far as I know,” he replied. “But it’ll probably come up within the next week.”

Not really having a choice, Jayne sighed and looked at him, “Give her a past. As far as I know she’s only told a few people anything and if most of them are vampires, they won’t point it out when they notice she’s been compelled.”

“Jayne,” Damon said, “How many years do I have to erase?”

She stared at him, revealing the secret that no person living or dead had ever known.

“1102,” she whispered.

If Damon was surprised, he didn’t let it show jumping down from the tree nimbly and disappearing into the distance.

But Jayne still ached with worry.