Title: Redux

Summary: “It’s you,” he hisses, face an inch away from hers, eyes dark and wild. “You’re doing this, why won’t you stop, why won’t you stop-”

The hand hidden behind his back swings around, and she sees a glint of metal in his hand the split second before her chest explodes in pain and everything goes black.

---

She wakes up to the sound of birds chirping right outside the bedroom window, the smell of breakfast burning, and Samson smiling at her from the doorway. “Good morning,” he smiles, and Delilah says, “Your pancakes are burning.”

He runs to the kitchen cursing, and she smiles as she follows. “It’s okay, it’s only your first time making them. Everybody sucks the first time,” she calls as he yells “Hope you like your pancakes crispy!”

---

She holds his jacket for him as he slips into it. “Off to fight the big baddies?’ she asks, and he responds unsmilingly. “Those bloodsuckers are going down.”

“Hey,” she says, and he turns to face her, hand on the doorknob. “Be careful, okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, “I will be.”

She gets a horrible feeling as he walks down the front pathway, and she panics, almost calling him back.

Later that night, curled up in bed next to Samson, she doesn’t know why she was so worried. He came home fine, like he always does.

---

Delilah wakes up to the smell of burning pancakes and grins. “You’re eating all the burnt ones,” she bellows as she races to the kitchen.

---

She spends the afternoon reading the new book she bought, kisses him goodbye as he leaves to fight the vampires in town, and they fall asleep tangled together. She lays awake that night thinking how lucky she is.

---

Samson bounces on the bed, waking her up, as he whispers in her ear, “So how bad is it that I burnt the pancakes my first time making them?”

She pats his arm reassuringly as her brain wakes up and thinks, ‘Oh, hey, what’s burning?’

She covers her nose and grins at him. “It’s only your first time making them, don’t worry. Just don’t try making waffles, okay?”

He mock-glares at her and says, “Well then, why don’t you show me how to make them?”

She does.

---

Later that day she reads the book she just bought and is pleasantly shocked by the ending. She kisses Samson on his way out the door, and they fall asleep on the couch while watching a movie together.

She wakes up to the smell of burnt food and groans, rolling over and burrowing under the covers, tucking a pillow over her head to block the sunlight streaming in from the open window. She laughs as she hears Samson curse, and thinks about how lucky she is to have him.

---

A week passes.

---

As he leaves that night to fight, she joins him in the hallway. She brushes the non-existent lint off of his shoulders, smoothes his jacket over his chest with her palms. “Don’t die out there,” she says, only half-jokingly.

“I already did,” he says solemnly, and she feels the jacket under her hands become suddenly wet and warm. She pulls her hands away like they’re burned, and there’s nothing there.

No blood, only pale skin and chipped fingernails and twisting veins.

She stares at him. His eyes are as cold and unreadable and as dark as they have never been before.

He opens the door, and she faints, hitting the ground with a soft thud.

---

They wake up side by side. She rolls over, shifts closer to him, and falls back asleep.

---

In the afternoon, after Delilah laughingly makes Samson scrape pieces of burnt pancake out of the pan, the phone rings.

She picks it up. Susan’s voice comes over the wire, soft and worried.

“Hey, Del. How are you holding up?”

Delilah frowns, confused. “What are you on about? I’m fine. Samson just burned the pancakes he was making, but it was only his first time making them, so- ”

Susan cuts in, voice tight with worry.

“Del- Sam’s dead. He’s been dead for weeks. He died fighting the head of those-those monsters, remember?” Susan sounds worried.

“No,” Delilah says, suddenly feeling absolutely certain that she was right. “No, he’s not dead.”

“Del-Del-Delilah?” the phone squawks, dangling from the end of its cord where she dropped it, and the voice sounds farther and farther away until the only sound she hears-

-is birdsong. Samson is standing in the doorway staring at her, and when she gets out of bed she realizes there is no longer a phone in the kitchen.

---

She wakes up to silence and frowns. “Sam? Samson? Are you – where are you?” For some inexplicable reason, she is filled with dread.

She hears footsteps behind her. “Don’t turn around,” he says, voice harsh. His breathing is heavy and ragged, and he says, “Don’t look at me.”

He says, “I can’t stop it. Only-only you can stop it, or we’ll be stuck like this forever. Anytime I tell you the truth it starts all over again and we wake up.

It’s you. It has to be you.”

She turned around, and the last thing she sees is Samson, standing there with a small, neat hole in his temple, pistol in his hand, a few small trickles of blood streaking down the side of his face, and then she wakes up.

---

The room feels cold. She walks out to the kitchen and breakfast is unmade. She walks into the hallway, and Samson lurches out from the living room and grabs her.

“It’s you,” he hisses, face an inch away from hers, eyes dark and wild. “You’re doing this, why won’t you stop, why won’t you stop-”

The hand hidden behind his back swings around, and she sees a glint of metal in his hand the split second before her chest explodes in pain and everything goes black.

---

She wakes up as the bright sunlight filters in through the window. She looks over at Samson, sitting with his head in his hands, back and shoulders pressed against the doorway.

She rolls over and falls back asleep. There’s no point in waking up.

---

She wakes up to Samson gripping her arms hard enough to leave marks.

“Let me go, Del,” he says, urgency in eyes. “Del, I’m gone, I’m dead, so just let me go-”

“I can’t,” the sound is torn out of her in a sob. Horror slams into her as she realizes the truth in that statement. “Oh God, I can’t.”

He jerks his hands away as if burned and stumbles to his feet, front door slamming shut as he runs.

It doesn’t matter. He’ll be back in the morning anyway.