The next day, they loaded into the Supra in a strained silence. Buffy moved stiffly into the middle again, one hand tucked tightly to her side to protect her side from getting jostled. Brian suspected that she'd gotten hurt, or at the very least strained something last night. The clatter of her axe against the tile floor in the room next door had woken him up, alerting him to the fact that she'd gotten back well past four in the morning. But she looked just as alert as she had yesterday. It worried him how easily Buffy hid her problems, how if he wasn't looking for them, he knew he would have missed them entirely.

Dom slid into the driver's seat, and moments later they were tearing out of the parking lot. The road flew by, and the car settled into the mild discomforting silence.

"I thought I told you boys to choose." Buffy spoke up. Brian flinched in surprise at the sudden break in the quiet.

"We came to an agreement." Brian answered, exchanging a short glance in the mirror with Dom.

"No." She said shortly.

"Buff-" Brian tried to plead his, their, case to his sister. But she ignores him, flinching slightly at the nickname, and talks over him.

"Instead, I come back to two testosterone fueled idiots who seem to think that a lack of bruising means anything. The only thing I see any progress with is that nobody is lying to anyone anymore." Brian and Dom both scoffed at the same time. The tension in the car shifted higher, but they were unfortunately pulled onto the freeway, leaving them no escape from his younger sister's uncompromising glare.

Brian sighed heavily, giving in first. He knew from experience, that the Summers girls were as stubborn as they come.

"I'm not turning them in. He's letting me walk away clean, cover intact. Its a good deal for us both Buffy." He said shortly. Buffy snorted but let it go. Brian felt a prickle of fear creep down his spine. If his sister is letting something go now, that meant there would be even more hell to pay later.

Almost like he can't help himself, he glanced at Dom through the mirror, eyes wide with panic. Asking his former friend for help. Dom sighed through his nose, but gave him a minute shrug he barely caught. At least they still had that in common; younger sisters who utterly baffled them.

Buffy leaned her head against his shoulder, and her eyes drifted closed. It didn't take long for her breathing to even out. Brian looked down at her for a long moment, her honey blonde hair more natural looking than he's seen since he's met her. Her eyelashes fluttered slightly at the movement of the car, but she settled back down again.

"Dom… I trust Buffy, but I gotta know. This stuff she's wrapped up in… how dangerous is it?" Brian had managed to surprise himself with how causal the question came out, considering the stranglehold anxiety had over his throat at the moment. The racer king sighed heavily, not looking over at him.

"She's the best in the business, from what I know. And I don't know that much, just enough to stay out of the way and to keep me and mine alive. She's lasted the longest that I've ever heard of. Most of 'em die after a few months, maybe a year. She's been in the gig for as long as I've known about that part of the world." Brian shuddered. Dom's answer only confirmed one thing; whatever Buffy was part of, it was going to get her killed.

"Can you tell me what she's involved in? Dom, I gotta know. She my sister."

"She's your sister, let her explain it to you in her own way and time. Besides, you've gotta see it for yourself. I barely believe it, and I've seen some of that shit before." Dom rumbled gruffly, but not unsympathetically.

The car fell back into silence, but it was far less awkward than it had been before. Brian wasn't sure how, but he knew it had to do with Buffy. Both of their hard edges were smoothed over by worry, and their sharp edges blunted by the blonde sleeping squished between them that the boiling hot anger from the night before and simmered lower.

Buffy whimpered in her sleep. Brian carefully cradled her body, one hand soothingly tracing circles on her knee. Her whole body convulsed once; hard. Brian's heart sped up, his thoughts wrenched back to reality as he looked down at his younger sister with worry. Buffy spasmed again, a low whine torn from her throat. She started to shake, the tremors in her body matching the uneven staccato beat of his heart.

"Dom, pull over." Brian ordered. The bigger man glanced down towards them once, and his eyes grew wide. The car lurched sideways, and they pulled off to the shoulder of the empty highway. Brian threw the car door open and pulled his sister out. She let out a wail and abruptly sat up, her hands immediately scrabbling at the asphalt and her legs kicking wildly. One of her feet lashed out and got Brian in the shin. He was knocked back several inches, practically down on one knee from the force of the blow.

How is she so damn strong?

Brain didn't have anymore time to think because Buffy had shot awake, her eyes wide and unseeing as she stared at the world around her uncomprehendingly. Her mouth was hanging open in a broken wail, that had been abruptly cut off. She let out a sob and curled protectively around her abdomen, but nowhere near where she'd gotten hurt two days before. His sister hadn't let him look at the wound at all, insisting it was nothing more than a scratch and would heal just fine on it's own.

"Buffy, wake up. Wake up, it's just a bad dream Buff." Brian tried shaking her, but Buffy just let out another thin wail with her eyes still firmly closed.

"Buffy." He called to her again, his heart beating wildly in his chest. His palms grew sweaty as uncomfortable flashbacks to a phone call on a hot day played in the back of his head. He did not want to have to call Dawn with the same crushing message she had once delivered to him. Hot and cold sensations flashed through him as he leaned over his younger sister, calling her name, shaking her shoulder, begging, begging her to wake up.

Buffy's eyes however, remained obstinately shut, tears pooling under her closed lids and slowly dripping down her cheeks. The shaking and flailing had stopped, but Buffy was still letting out little moans and whimpers, reacting to whatever scene was playing out in her head. Brian pulled her into his lap, cradling her close, desperate to protect her from whatever demons haunted her sleep.

"Buffy, please." His voice cracked on her name, the sentence trailing into a hoarse whisper.

A large hand settled onto his shoulder. Dom stood behind him, eyes trained intensely on his sister. Brian didn't know what to make of the man anymore. All he knew was that Dom would help Buffy; was helping Buffy. And at the end of the day, that was all that mattered.

"Dom… I, I don't know what to do." He admitted quietly. His former friend just stood there silently for a moment. Then he crouched down next to him and shook Buffy's shoulder.

"Come on Slayer. Get up, job's not finished yet." Buffy's eyes snapped open, and she lunged forwards. Her arms shot out in front of her, clawing at the air. It was eerily similar to how she'd woken up in the car the other day. It was like she need to be sure that she wasn't trapped by something.

Buffy's shoulder shook as her chest heaved with the force of her breathing. She let out a broken sob, the sound cut in half and choppy.

"Not another one." She murmured, wrapping her arms around herself. Tears fell down her cheeks, and Buffy flinched away from the hug Brian tried to wrap her into. His fist clenched tightly, even as he stored the word slayer away n his mind for later.

"Another what?" He asked her gently. Buffy just shook her head, visabely retaking control of her emotions.

"Just get me to Cleveland." She ordered shakily, her tears drying.

"Buffy-"

"I don't want to talk about it Bri."

"Why do you look so trapped?" The question left his mouth before he had fully formed the thought. Buffy turned away from him, her face several shades paler than it had been a moment previous.

"There are some questions you don't want the answer too Brian. Trust me, this is one of them."

"Buffy, tell me. Let me in." He begged her. He needed to understand, to know. He was so damn tired of feeling useless, of being dead weight. Buffy needed his help, and he needed to know what was wrong with her.

"Brian… You really don't-"

"Tell me." She sighed heavily, turning away from him. She leaned against the hood of the supra, still painted an unmistakable shade of bright orange. The hood should still have been burning hot, but Buffy still pressed her palms flat on the surface of the metal and leaned against it. Brian opened his mouth to warn her, but Dom beat him to it.

"That's hot." The taller man stated calmly. Buffy ignored him. Her shoulders shuddered, and she bowed her head. It was like her whole person was sagging deeply into the earth, and the only thing anchoring her here was the hot car against her hands.

"Earlier this year, I was.. I was…" Buffy started to say, her voice trailing off as she stared at some point in the distance; seemingly ignoring her hands. Brian was sure she has sustained some serious burns at this point. He stepped forward but at Dom's rapid head shake aborted the movement.

"I woke up inside a coffin. Underground." She admitted. Buffy spoke so quietly, Brian nearly didn't catch the admission.

"Now… every time I wake up, for just a moment, I think I'm back in that box." His heart pounded heavily in his ears. His chest burned, and he absently rubbed a hand over the feeling. The world had gone silent, and there was nothing but Buffy's words and his heart beat hovering in the air between them.

Coffin. Alive. Underground.

Brian stepped forward but his knees buckled under him, sending him to the ground with an umph. He pushed back to his feet and managed to cover the distance to his sister. Everything inside him wanted to envelope her in a hug, but Brian hesitated. If she woke up trapped, then wrapping her into a hug, trapping her in his arms, was probably a bad idea. And Brian didn't want to scare her. So instead he settled for setting on hand on her shoulder, shifting to the side so she could feel the wind on her back at the same time. He leaned his head against the top of hers. He just stood there, being there for her. She had deflected the topic, and Brian knew that there was more going on than PTSD from what had to be one of the most horrifying scenarios he couldn't imagine being done outside of a gritty crime drama, but for now this was enough. Buffy had bared her soul, or at least part of it, just now and Brian wasn't going to dismiss that cost. His sister needed him, no matter what else she was hiding from him.

He felt it, the moment when Buffy leaned against him, rather than the car. He moved his hands slowly, from now on he would always move slowly with her, and covered her hands with his. Gently he pried her grip off the car and folded her hands gently into his own. If nothing else could hold her up, the Brian would.

Faith had hinted to some bad things, not just with whatever was going on in Cleveland, but Dawn and with Buffy's friends. His sister would never be aimless, or friendless with him.

If there was one thing he'd learned at the table of the Torretto clan was that family is everything.

He'd lost Buffy once. He wasn't about to lose her again. Not even to herself.