Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with anything. Don't sue me, Gunn.

I wrote this at 4am on my iPod. Forgive me.

In the cave, she dreams.

Curled in a ball on the cold stone and rough furs, her mind slips into stories to keep her sane, if only for an hour or two.

She dreams of a home.

The cave, despite being where she has lived for- oh, so long, her entire life, maybe- isn't a home. It can never be that. It is a shelter, a safe (or as safe as you get in this hell) place. But not a home.

In her dreams, her home isn't traditional, either.

She dreams of a hotel, old and ramshackled, dusty but lived in, with creaking floorboards and warm colours. She dreams of a lobby that still has glory, of a weapons cabinet and people she loves.

Because home isn't home without family, right?

So in her home is her family, and this dream family is even less typical than the hotel.

She dreams of their leader, big and strong and brooding, who keeps them safe with a constant pain behind his eyes, even at his happiest. He is a Champion, she knows in her dreams. He is a hero.

She dreams of their seer, a beautiful woman with a sharp tongue and high taste, who suffers through agony because she wants to help, whose heart grows bigger every day. She directs them, pointing them at the evil when the Powers tell her to, and she is brave.

She dreams the Watcher, or ex-Watcher- the man who is not as moral as he would like to be, who has strayed farther and farther out of the black and white and into the grey every day, the man who watches her like she is something too pure to consider touching, but desperately wanting to. He has a brain to maybe even rival hers, and his books are never far from reach.

She dreams the fighter, not a true soldier but close enough, as he's been fighting to protect his people for years. He smiles and jokes and he, too, looks at her like she's pure and he wants to touch her, but he actually does. He buys her pancakes and kisses her gently and tells her he would rather have her than the only thing he's known his whole life. He fights almost as well as their Champion, for all his lack of vampire powers. His hands are rough from a life of hard work and he loves so deeply.

In her dreams, the demon, too, is part of her family- something she can't explain, because his kind treats her kind like animals and he should want to kill her on sight, but instead he sings and gives her advise, calls her pet names and worries after them all like a mother duck at times. He is not a fighter, she knows, and he didn't actually mean to get dragged into the good fight, but somehow he was. And now he cares for them too much to leave.

And a boy, a baby, one who shouldn't exist, isn't actually possible, but does, then a few days later he's almost a man, rough and full of pain with no idea how to live in this world. He hates his father but loves him too but mostly hates that he doesn't hate him. He takes after both his parents, and she loves him, thinks of herself as his aunt.

In her dreams, she sees all this. She sees how her life changes completely, sees herself walk with heroes. Sees her family torn apart and put back together. Sees the mistakes and the pain, the forgiveness and the love. Sees things she wouldn't believe, awake, even in the world she lives in now.

She dreams of monsters and lawyers, pregnancy and hell-gods. Sees love and loss and happy and hurt.

She dreams of a life she wants to live.

She dreams of a place called home.

And when she awakes, she forgets.