ChildOfInnocence Book2 Part10MatureSPN/RJ/L,D/L3/28COMPLETE

[DMartinez]

Author: DMartinez
Email: shockerdm@icqmail.com
Disclaimer: Characters portrayed in the following work belong to Kripke, Singer, Metz, Katims, WB, UPN, CW. No infringement intended.
Summary: Supernatural/Roswell Crossover: AU without Aliens: Dean is still reeling from a couple of close calls when he sees her. She's familiar and he doesn't know why, his father's not answering his phone and their case is more complicated than he originally thought.
Rating: Mature
Pairing: John/Liz, Dean/Liz


Book 2 - Chapter 1

Sam stared at his brother. It had been a hard month and he figured Dean for cracking any time now. The Reaper a hunt back had really dealt Dean a blow. Nearly dying, absorbing the guilt of stealing someone else's life, taking the chance away from someone who deserved it and then to follow up with return of the ex who would forever remain that way. He was surprised that Dean hadn't cracked yet. And Dean had yet to respond to the fact that their father had not responded to the phone calls that Dean was about to die. Of all the above, Sam figured that for the thing that hit Dean the hardest.

Dean smiled broadly at the waitress who grinned back and read off their orders as she set the plates down. "Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you."

"Will do." Dean's eyes followed when she left. Pleased when she turned at the end of the bar to see if he was watching.

"Dude, can you give it a rest?" Sam gripped, squeezing mustard onto his burger. "The trail for Dad is going cold and you're catting around."

"I can't help it if the ladies find me irresistible." Dean cleared his throat. Sam still saw the twitch at his eye at the mention of their father. "Anyway, I think I got us a case."

"Oh yeah? A case?"

"I need to do some canvassing. Gotta see if talking to the locals comes to anything." Dean lied. He knew he sucked at lying to Sam but what else was he going to say? Dad had sent more coordinates and Sam was not Dad's number one fan these days. Dean still held out hope that their father would meet up with them at one of these assignments. Dean just wanted to know the man was still alive.

"Right. Uh-huh."

"Quiet being such a pissy douchebag. I'm cooped up with you in the car all day."

"Whatever man, get another room tonight, please. I don't enjoy freezing my ass off in the car until you kick coyote ugly out."

"That." Dean pointed to the long-haired brunette with the do-me lips. "is NOT coyote ugly. That is the… opposite of coyote ugly. That is so much the opposite of coyote ugly that you want to be MORE sober when you rock her socks off."

"Dean, do me a favor and just shut up now."

"Gentlemen? Anything I can get you?" She appeared next to the table.

"How about another round and some company?" Dean gave her a broad smile.

"I'm on duty right now." She grinned, "but um… if you close out your ticket in the next twenty minutes… I get off in thirty."

"Awesome." He nodded to her and grinned at his brother. "Eat, Sasquatch, eat."

--

"Liz." She answered as she took a shot of something gold. "You're not from around here."

"No… I kinda travel all over."

"Must be… lonely." She shook her head. "But sitting still doesn't get any better."

"I hear that." Dean slammed a shot then pulled on his beer. "You… from around here?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Kind of… checking it out for the moment."

He nodded. His life wasn't so great right now. He'd almost died, he'd been dumped by the love of his life… again. No clue where his dad was and he was having a hard time finding another case to lose himself in. Dad's text had come in at a good time… but a phone call would have been better, seeing as Dean had been ready to die and all.

"Hey, listen… I don't know about you but the crappy music in this joint is getting to me. I know a biker bar down the road with better music and the bartender is a decent pour."

"Sold." He laughed. "You're a girl after my own heart."

"Oh, thank God. A kindred spirit. This music drives me nuts after a whole shift of it." She grabbed her jacket and jerked her head toward the door.

--

"I don't know. I just do." She shrugged. "60s and 70s and very small selection of 80s… I just groove better. I love pool and I play a decent hand of cards."

"How's decent?" He flicked his eyebrows at her.

"They got a regular game going tomorrow. I usually play. Clean up sometimes."

"I'm there." Dean nodded. "Hey, before I forget… some old dude was saying there's 'hinky' stuff going down."

She rolled her eyes. "Some old, same old. The old mill is haunted and every spring the old folks get in a tizzy over it."

"A tizzy?"

"It's haunted so it's like… strange lights and whispers in the dark and shadows at night…"

"Anyone complain more than others?"

"God, yes. Mr. Dumas on 11th and Mrs. Applebaum on 12th. Every year, I'm told." She pulled on her beer and stared at him. "You okay?"

"Fine." He nodded.

"It's just… I had you pegged for a roll in the hay and now you're bumming me out on purpose."

Dean shrugged. "Maybe I figure on staying a while longer."

"How long?"

"A week?"

"Hmmm. I don't know. I was amped for a quickie and now you're saying you might draw this out a week?" She shrugged. "For a week, I like some stamina."

"I've got stamina." He grinned. "I've been trained by the best yoga instructor in the country."

"Really now."

Dean cleared his throat, his eyes darting away. "I, uh… since we're being honest and everything about our intentions. I had planned on a quick roll and the whole nine… Just…"

She tilted her head at him. "Have we met before?"

"Um, no?" He frowned at her.

"Sorry, the way you just did that with your eyes… is… kind of familiar."

"Oh, no, I think I'd remember if we'd met before… which is kind of what I was getting at… I'm having fun. I like talking to you… which is kind of killing me right now because I… uh… I don't … I'm not big on talking."'

"Strong silent type, I get it." She grinned and took a pull on her beer. "I… think that might actually be my type."

"Wow, pretty desperate. Resorting to claiming I'm your type."

"Shut up." She shoved him lightly. "You sure I can't talk you into bed?"

"I'm actually sharing a room with my brother." He cleared his throat when her hand slid up his chest and behind his neck. "But I do have a backseat."

"I don't know if I'm a backseat kind of girl." She took a step closer. "Let's… um… give the backseat a chance and if… it's good for the night, I won't hold it against you… but if… you want to come back… I'll be here."

"I guess… we'll just have to play it by ear."

--

Dean turned back he felt that she was no longer right beside him. She had stopped a few steps back when she had caught sight of his car. "She's a beaut, ain't she."

"Um… yeah." She tilted her head at him. "Those… are rare, right?"

"In this condition, yeah."

"Hm." She bit her lip and joined him once more. She slid in through the driver's side and glanced around the inside, the leather was pristine but soft and worn. Duffels in the backseat. She leaned against the passenger door while he got the car running. He tasted so good when he finally put his lips on hers. Finally, put his arms around her. Dean pressed her down into the seat, wishing they had just started in the backseat but there was a bunch of crap back there. He eased her blouse open and fished out a long chain that disappeared far, far into her shirt. He cocked an eyebrow at her when he came up with a locket and a diamond ring.

"Did I tell you to stop?"

He was about to follow orders when he saw the shadow behind her head. Taking a deep breath, he reached over and rolled down the window. "Let me guess, take it on home, officer?"

"Guessed it in one. I suggest moving along quickly."

Liz shut her eyes but sat up and straightened out her clothes. When she opened her eyes, he was watching his rearview for the cop. "So, um… maybe you had the right idea and tonight is just not the night to get it on."

He laughed and watched her out of the corner of his eye. "Maybe."

"I don't live far… but I have a strict policy of not inviting in strange men."

"I'd be glad to drive you home in any case."

"Someone raised you right."

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 1

Dean woke the next morning, very uncomfortable. Sam was already up and on the laptop. Sam arched an eyebrow at him before tossing a shoe at him. Dean had to sit up in a flash to protect his vital parts. "Bitch."

"She reject you after all?"

"No, just… shit kept happening." Dean grabbed his clothes for a shower. "Look into the old mill, will you?"

"Did your canvassing not pan out?" Sam snorted but waved off his brother that he was on it.

"Pretty vague."

"Maybe we're just wasting our time here." He called after his brother who flipped him off before the bathroom door shut. "Maybe we should just move on." No answer.

So, Sam did the research just to humor his brother. Nothing of interest to him. Local interest stories interviewed older residents who swore the old mill was haunted but there had never been anything to happen there that would substantiate any of their claims. No suicides, murders or even accidents. Hell, the gossip was pretty vanilla. What did grab his attention was an accident just a few months ago on the road to the next town over. A bus and a train collided. A few casualties and many injured, including an amnesia victim. There were no pictures but Sam imagined it had been pretty horrific. And then to happen in front of a graveyard. If there was anything going on in this town, it was about that.

Dean walked out as Sam was printing out a few articles. "See, I knew there was something here."

"Don't know what it is yet or even if there is anything. Just a story I want to check out."

Dean picked up a sheet of paper to read and frown. "Seems familiar."

"Cause only every town in the good ol US claims it really happened in their town. We just have to wait a year to see if the dead passengers stop any cars from getting stuck on the tracks."

"That's what it is! I heard it was a school bus though." Dean flopped down on his bed and dried his toes on the edge of Sam's bed.

"You're really disgusting. That girl should be glad she didn't hook up with you last night."

"We… we're supposed to hook up later." Dean gave his brother a tight grin. Sam rolled his eyes. "Hey um…" Dean had no idea where he was going or if he should even voice this out loud. "You ever… like meet someone and just… can't do the deed cause… Never mind."

"Did you have some equipment difficulties?"

"No." Dean threw a pillow at his brother. "I just… kind of… felt bad for… doing what we both wanted to do anyway… I just… I don't know. She was really nice."

Sam stared at his brother, who had a… wistful?! expression on his face. "She was nice?"

"Just you know… like… nice to talk to."

"Wow… don't… get up too fast now. You're growing as a person and it might make you a little light-headed."

"Shut up."

"Did you… spend all night talking to her or something?"

"It wasn't all night." Dean busied himself with putting on his socks and shoes and avoiding Sam's gaze at all costs. "You hungry? I'm starving."

"Wait, Dean… are you trying to tell me that you didn't sleep with her and you're… falling for her?"

"I don't know! I just… like her."

"Oh, Dean, Dean. You were bound to grow up someday." He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. Dean grabbed his jacket and threw open the door. "Hey Dean?"

"What?" Dean spun around.

"Just… be careful. After… you know… Cassie…" He held up his hands in surrender at the murderous look at his brother's face. "I'm just saying. Situations like that put a person's emotions in a vulnerable state. If you're really into this girl, it could be risky… emotionally… especially if it doesn't work out."

"You're such a girl." Dean walked out the door, leaving Sam to scramble around to follow before he got left behind with no breakfast.

--

Sam knew that his brother moved fast but this was… Olympic speed dating. Personally, it took Sam months to achieve this kind of comfort level with a lady. Despite Dean's hopeless ways with women, he always managed to charm one or two out of their pants. Sam hoped this girl strung him along for the whole length of the case, just to give Dean a taste of his own medicine. Sure, he felt for the guy for meeting this girl just after getting his heart smashed by his ex but, hey, welcome to the human race.

Of course, he loved witnessing the awkward encounter at the coffee shop. That lasted for all of ten seconds though. Either this girl was easy or Dean was just that good. When Dean returned, his head had yet to return to earth. "Dean."

"Right, yeah." Dean handed his brother his coffee. "Do you recognize her?"

"Yeah, she was our waitress last night."

"No, yeah. I mean… Do you know her from somewhere before?"

"No." Sam shook his head and showed his brother the further dirt he'd dug up. "Check this out. So my train wreck, the driver died and none of the witnesses saw why he stopped and possibly anyone who did died."

"Your point?"

Sam slid another article on top. "This."

"Sam, this is from a week later."

"It was discovered a week later but there was evidence of rain runoff into the grave. It rained the night of the crash."

"You think the bus driver got distracted because he saw someone desecrating a grave?"

"It's possible… and it's possible it wasn't just a grave desecration. Let's go check it out?"

"Sure, dude… but at night… cover of dark and all."

"And we won't be able to see anything. We need a good cover to get in there during the day."

--

The groundskeeper scratched his bald head. "You boys are just in time. I'm supposed to fill it back in this week. Let me tell you, keeping the tarp over it and keeping the kiddies out has been a real pain in the ass."

"Yeah?" Dean peered down to the casket.

"I come up here after I got those wreck vics graves dug cause I seen the stone is knocked over the way it is."

"Any significance?"

"Don't know what there would have been. The marker's old as Adam… can't even read it." The older man reached down and flipped the stone over. "Pastor from Minnesota called down, asked the name on the record. Told him the same thing I'm telling you. This grave was centuries old. Probably the first man to die in these parts. The stone is worn to hell."

"Huh…" Dean motioned to Sam. "I think we're done here."

"You might want to look at this first." Sam pointed to where he'd been examining the contents of the grave. The top of the casket had been replaced. "Where'd the first man to die in these parts centuries ago get the money to replace his casket parts?"

"County paid for that. The asshole who busted up the place, knocked a hole in it. Maybe they thought they were stealing jewelry or something." Groundskeeper snorted. "That guy… I looked him up. Local research buff. He was a holy man. Buried him in his robes."

"Do you still have the original piece?"

"Going out to junk now that the official investigations are over." He jerked his head over to the pile of crap in a dumpster. "Feel free. I really need to set this guy back to rest."

Dean felt a pit growing in his stomach as he followed Sam to the dumpster. Sam hopped in to pull out the busted up piece of wood. He showed Dean what he'd been looking for. Scratch marks in the wood, busted from the inside out. Dean nodded that he'd seen. It felt so familiar, he wanted to puke. "Let's go, man."

--

Dean went out for their dinner after flipping through his dad's journal and coming up with nothing. This was familiar. He knew this. He'd heard about this. Pulling out his phone, he made a phone call while he waited for their burgers. "Dad, I know that you're not picking up and… I don't even know if Sam called to tell you that I'm okay… I… We're on a case that… well…"
He snapped the phone shut and paced the foyer of the burger joint while he went over the words to say. He didn't know what he knew. He just knew something. Whipping the phone out, he tried again. "Look, Dad. You sent us here. I checked it out. There was a stupid haunting that wasn't. There was a bus collision with a train near a graveyard. A grave desecration… Dad, looks like someone climbed out of a centuries old grave. I know you've done this hunt before but I can't find any of your notes on it and I… I'm at a loss. The grave's original occupant was there but whatever crawled out four months ago is gone. County did a thorough job. They're closing it up tomorrow but… there's nothing else. I'm not seeing any evidence of zombies… Just… call me when you get this message."

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 3

John walked into the bar just as the dinner rush was dying down. Mostly people finishing off their meals and waiting around for the night time drinking binges. John stared at his phone for a long moment. He should just be thankful that Dean had called him at all. He should have come to see him when he was in the hospital. He had wondered if Sam would have called him at all if Dean had died. He deserved that, he supposed. He wasn't as great a father as he should have been.

He didn't look up from his phone when the waitress stopped by his table. "Just a burger and a beer."

"You want fries with that, darlin'?"

"Nah." He shook his head.

"Coming up. We got Pabst on tap."

"Whatever is fine." He nearly dialed Dean's phone but snapped the phone shut. He was a coward, he knew it. He should have driven straight to the motel around the corner and found the Impala but he was ashamed and he should be. He had the icon for a message on the voicemail but he didn't know how to check that. It had taken the salesgirl hours to teach him how to send a text message. He was not going to fight with the voicemail now.

Hell, when Sam had called him a few weeks earlier, he'd almost called right back… just to hear his voice. He'd had to find out from Jim what was going on with his boys. It had taken so much strength not to go to them when Dean was so weak. The demon had been tailing him and leading him straight to the boys was the last thing he wanted to do. He had to see Dean though.

"Burger and a beer." She reappeared with his food. "Anything else I can get you?"

"Got any must-" John trailed off as he looked up at her. "Liz?"

She tilted her head and pointed to the nametag. "Yep, that's my name."

Then his brain caught up to him. "No, um… you just… look a lot like someone I knew… long time ago."

Her eyes filled with tears for a moment and then they were gone. "Mustard. Coming up."

He watched her go, stared at her while she hunted down a jar of mustard. Her hair must have been a mile long and her face… just the way he remembered. "Thanks," he mumbled when she handed him the jar and a spare knife.

"No, problem. I kind of hate mayo myself." She shrugged. "Let me know if you need anything."

"You… you're twenty, right?"

"21. I work in a bar." She started to walk away.

"Liz." He called her back. "You're really twenty, aren't you? Your birthday is in December?"

She froze and stared at him. "What?"

"Did your mother talk about me?" John rose from his seat.

"I…" She averted her eyes. "I don't know my mother… or my father, before you ask."

"Jesus Christ, Liz." John shut his eyes and dragged a hand over his face. "Look… I could be wrong but… I really think I knew your mother before you were born."

She motioned him back to his seat and slid in across the way. "Look… I don't think I can answer any of your questions. I don't have answers to my own."

His burger went cold as he stared at her. "You look… exactly like her."

"I do?"

"Exactly, except when I knew her… her hair was about as long as yours and she chopped it all off. It was the 80s. Girls… women… were doing things differently than I was used to."

"I thought about cutting my hair but… I never have the time." She bit her lip and stared at him. "Look, I'm sure you mean well and all but… I really don't know you from Adam… and I'm working."

He nodded to himself. "Just… tell me your birthday is in December."

"Why is that so important to you?"

"Because, if your birthday is in November or December of 1986. I know who your father is." Her eyes started to fill with tears. She looked away, hand over her mouth. Her other hand fluttered around her neck before pulling a long chain out of her blouse. John choked when he saw her struggling with the locket. He reached over and opened it to show her. "That's me and that's your mom."

She struggled to find her words. "How do I know that's really you? If… it's been twenty years…"

John cleared his throat before letting the locket drop between them. He pulled out his wallet and fished around inside a pocket. "You'd think just any stranger would have this?"

She took the picture from him and laughed through a sob that had built up in her throat. She just stared at it. The woman in her locket, holding on to the man in her locket. The man sitting on the other side of this table. The short haired woman laughed and gazed into the camera. The young man stared right at her, as if the cameraman didn't exist to him. She slapped the picture down on the table. "I'm sorry."

John watched her go, her earlier easy gait replaced by the walk of the shell shocked. And Jesus, he hadn't thought of Liz in years. This wasn't why he was here. He was just going to check in on Dean and be gone.

--

Dean opened the door to find his date so much earlier than he'd planned and in a worse mood than he'd planned. "Liz, you okay?"

"I'm fine… just… need a minute away from…" She made a swirling gesture at everything out the door. "Some… guy popped up claiming to be my dad and just what the hell I'm supposed to do with that? I don't know."

"Wait, just some dude… you didn't know about him?"

"All I had was a picture of some dude that I assumed was my dad. No clue who he was and all that shit." She growled and flopped onto the nearest bed. "The way he looked at me… and… I think he didn't know about me to begin with."

"So, how'd he know who you were?"

"Apparently, I look just like my mom."

"Apparently?"

"Look, it's not like I have these memories of a happy home with a mom and dad who loved me."

Dean lowered himself onto the bed beside her. "Traditional families are overrated."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He nodded and let her roll against him. He held onto her. Trying not to think about Sam's version of events and focus on what he felt which was that this chick was awesome.

"I'm such a spaz." She admitted.

"Nah… some dude appears out of nowhere for the first time in your life. He's gotta have proof…"

"Kind of but… I could always ask him to take a DNA test. I mean… the guy dated my mom long enough to make a stab at my birthday. He must have… at least suspected that I was on the way." She rolled away so she could look at him. "I mean… the way he looked at me." Her eyes softened as she stared into his face. "I have a confession to make."

"What's that?"

"The other night… I was pushing for us to… roll around." She bit her lip and took a breath. "I haven't been with a man since I got to town. I feel antsy and… um… when I got to town, I took a knock to the head. I don't remember when the last time I got any was."

"Do not tell Sam that I told you this but… it's been awhile myself. The last girl I slept with was my ex and she dumped me pretty quickly afterward."

"Nothing left to do but jump together and hope the fall is worth it."

--

Sam returned from his research to find the room empty and Dean's bed conspicuously made. Waving it off, he turned to his research on this thing. It wasn't going that well. No witnesses. The injured bus victims had been shipped off to rehab and the amnesiac victim had not been home though he doubted she would have been of help.

--

Dean fell onto the bed and pulled her down with him, their clothes strewn between this room and the front door. Rolling her beneath him, he stopped to look at her. He stared at her braid, so freaking long. He held the braid in his mouth and used his hand to pull the rubber band off. She laughed and helped him unbraid the plait until it was a mass of hair under her head.

Lip between her teeth, she held on while he got them situated. Sliding inside her, both their eyes went wide. Dean made to pull out but she held on, shaking her head. "No, no, please." Cradling her beneath him, Dean took his time and when they fell apart, he felt… happy. For the first time in a while, sex hadn't left him feeling empty and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kissing her head, Dean relaxed like he hadn't in months.

They listened to the radio while they lay around, making out when the mood struck. Not talking about anything of importance. Dean left her, worn out, after a particularly physical last round, with a promise to call after he'd talked to his brother. He walked back to the motel, feeling slightly alien. It hadn't been his first time but Hell if it didn't feel like it. He waved off Sam when he entered the motel room. He took a shower and sat and half-listened to Sam's research.

"Dude, are you on the case or not? We might have a zombie wandering around."

"Doubtful, dude's body was reburied."

"What if something was buried with him?"

"Like what?"

"Don't know." Sam sighed and stared at his brother. "Where were you?"

"Um…" It was on the tip of his tongue to blurt out that he'd been deflowering a virgin but a latent bout of gentlemanliness stayed the words. "Out. With Liz."

"Dude, you're acting weird." Sam stared at his brother. "She that great?"

"Yeah… I think she is… She… I don't know… Feels familiar or something."

"Feels familiar?"

"I don't know. I just feel like I know her."

"It's called connecting, Dean."

"Well whatever, I don't hate it."

"Wow." Sam shook his head. "Just wow."

"Dude, get over it and forget any girly notions you've got building in your giant girly head." Dean pointed his finger at his brother. "I like her and that's all I'm saying."

Sam nodded and tossed his research at his brother. "You play catch up while I catch some Z's."

--

When Sam came to, Dean was gone. He was worried about his brother. He was getting so attached to this girl he had just met. He had this sick urge to call up his father and ask him how Dean had acted the first time he had met Cassie. Not that the elder Winchester would actually answer his phone. Sam showered and dressed slowly, giving Dean plenty of time to return with food. It didn't happen so Sam had to wander out on his own, on foot, in search of food.

Taking a salad to a table, he pulled out his notepad and dialed Blue Earth. "Pastor Jim? It's Sam… yeah, I guess…. Well, I don't know about that but… I know. I pray too." Sam took a deep breath while the pastor talked. "No, he hasn't so much as called… he did?" He knew his voice cracked but he cleared his throat quickly to cover it. "No… Dean found us a job, a real head scratcher… yeah, I know." He glanced around to make sure no one was listening. "Initially we thought it was going to be a haunting but… Well, nothing added up, so I did some digging and this is something else altogether. There's a collision between a bus and a train in front of a graveyard with evidence of grave desecration… Well, not really but we did find the original pieces to this one and it looks like something busted out, not in… Pastor Jim, listen… well I did and it sounds like you might have looked into it…. Yeah, I thought that might jog your memory… The groundskeeper says the man on the gravestone was a holy man…" Sam poised his pen and started writing when the preacher started talking.

--

Dean leaned on the bar and watched her cater to her tables… all two of them. It was a slow night. She hopped up on a stool to kiss his mouth. "I never get tired of doing that."

"Me neither." Dean brushed her hair out of her face. "You sure you're 21?"

She paled but nodded. "Yes. I am."

"If I find out you're jailbait…"

"I'm not that young." She laughed heartily. "Honestly? I'm 20 but sh… don't tell the boss."

"My lips are sealed." Kissing her mouth firmly. "Listen, I gotta go feed my brother… I'll be back."

"He's a grown man, he can feed himself."

"You're right but I'm an awesome big brother."

"I'll bet you are."

--

Dean nodded to his brother as he walked in to the room. "Let's go get some food."

"Already ate." Sam waved him off. "Look at this. I called Pastor Jim. He says that he's seen something like this before."

"I knew it." Dean grabbed the printouts.

"You did?"

"I can't remember much. I tried calling Dad but you know how that goes."

Sam mulled that over a second but kept going. Screw Dad. "Pastor Jim said that he was in a graveyard, putting a soul to rest when he saw the hole in the ground. Something had clawed its way out. The grave was ancient, belonged to the first priest to die in the area. Inventory of the grave showed that the body was still there."

"So… what… no zombies?" Dean frowned as he recalled vaguely watching his dad and Pastor Jim in a graveyard from the car window. Saw them pulling something from the ground.

"No. He says nothing dead crawled out… he was very vague after that but he insists that it's not evil."

"We need Dad on this. Dad… knows what this is. I know it." Dean picked up his phone and dialed. It rang in his ear and oddly, a cellphone rang in the next room. It went to voicemail and the ringing next door stopped. Dean walked to the wall and dialed again.

"Dude, what are you doing?"

"Shut up." Dean barked and cut off the call before dialing again. "Son of a bitch." He stormed outside and to the next room, banging on the door. Sam was right behind him, asking what was going on but Dean ignored him until the door opened. "What the hell, Dad?"

"Dad?" Sam sputtered.

"Boys," he nodded to them. His eyes going wet as he looked Dean over. Pissed off and strutting for a fight, but healthy and as whole as he ever was. "Dean, you look good."

Dean almost punched him. "Jesus Christ, don't you… fuck!" He spun away to reclaim his cool. "I'm going for a walk."

Sam scratched behind his ear, unsure how to greet his father. He was pissed, ashamed, relieved. "He's uh… gonna to screw his new girlfriend, then he'll be back."

"Sam?" John leaned in the doorway, face washed out, obviously hung over.

"You okay?" Sam stepped forward to block the sun a bit. He recognized the funk over the years. Thinking about his wife, drinking too much and listening to the radio way too much. If he got drunk enough, he reverted to singing along to Roy Orbison and the Beatles.

"Yeah." John nodded, wiping a hand over his face. "Is he okay? Really?"

"Yeah, Dad. We figured it out." Sam felt the anger win out. "We called you."

"I know."

"We left messages."

"I… don't know how to check 'em."

"Well, you figured out how to text message okay." Sam whipped his phone out and pointed to it. "I'll bet the defaults are still on. Dial 1, Dad. Listen to all of Dean's messages. He always did exactly what you wanted him to do and this is what you do to him? I understand me. I'm a big disappointment. Fine. Dean actually looks up to you. Dean actually cares what you think of him. He was dying, Dad and you didn't even call to tell us why you couldn't come."

He turned to go but John opened his mouth. "It's good to see you, Sammy… and I was never disappointed in you."

John watched him go. Yeah, he'd fucked up. He'd fucked his whole life over. He sat back down, downed aspirin and a bottle of water, then he started going through his voicemails. He only got through October of 2006 when he gave up and turned to the bottle. Sometime after the sun went down, his door opened and he felt a hand on his head. The blurry shadow made a clucking noise and then John felt strong hands lifting him up and setting him back down in a more comfortable position. "It's okay, Dad. It's okay. I'm here. Sammy's here. All of us are here, together. Just sleep."


TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 4

Dean set a glass of water, a cup of coffee and three Tylenol on the night stand next to his father. He readjusted his father's blanket and took a seat next to the bed with Sam's research notes. He still couldn't pinpoint how familiar the case seemed. Sam's handwriting was the manual for diagnosing psychotics but Dean got the gist. Dean focused on deciphering the scrawl until the pills, the water and half the coffee were gone. "You feeling okay?"

"I should be asking you that."

"I'm fine. Sam saved the day."

"Sam's with you. That's good."

"We've been looking for you but you knew that."

"Yeah… Sam deciphered voicemail for me. I'm… catching up."

Dean set the papers down. "So, how'd you learn to text?"

"Girl in the store. Took two hours… I got the phone stuck on the numbers and… never got it off." John shrugged.

"Dad, Dad… you gotta… like take a crash course or something." Dean's smile faded a bit. "Why are you here?" he cleared his throat. "You sent us the coordinates. We came. We're working on it but it's taking time because… it's not like you sent us a clipping or left us a sign."

"So the haunting?"

"Old people flapping their jaws."

"So what are you working on?" Dean handed over Sam's notes. John looked them over and grunted. "You'd think the smart one in the family would learn to write better."

"I keep telling him, it's like trying read caveman drawings."

"Sam says you've got a new girl."

Dean shrugged. "Just someone I met here."

"She know you're not staying?"

"Yeah."

"So… it's not going to be the way it was after the journalism major is it?"

"I don't know."

"You tell this one what you do, yet?"

Dean shook his head and then shrugged. "This one's not like that one. I… really get her. She gets me. I don't know. No commitments. Just… good times."

John nodded to himself. He'd been thinking about the good times he'd had in Blue Earth with a woman that Dean didn't even remember. Sam probably had no idea. "Get 'em while you can."

"Dad… this case… I think you've worked it before."

John nodded and started really paying attention to Sam's notes. Graveyard, scratches on the coffin. Priest's ancient headstone. The blood drained out of his face. "They find anybody?"

"No one that we can confirm crawled out. I can't remember but..." Dean rubbed a hand over his face. "I keep thinking that I was in the car and you were helping Pastor Jim with something… it's kinda… I mean… how old was I?"

"You were six." John nodded. Visions of Liz crawling out of the ground, passing out as soon as she hit air. Picking her still body up, pulling her the rest of the way out of the ground. Holding on to her while Jim drove the Impala back to his house, the boys in the front seat… John wrapped his arms around her, praying that she stayed alive and that if she was alive that she wouldn't do anything that would make him snap her neck before they got her in a devil's trap.

"I don't remember a whole lot about that year."

"You'd just started talking again. You went to school in one place for a whole year."

"No wonder I don't remember. I must have been in a coma or something."

"No… you had a good time." John read over the note, line by line while his mind spun around the short-haired vixen who had nearly changed his life and the long-haired darling waiting tables in a sad excuse for a road-house bar and grill. "Drove Jim nuts. He banned us to the upstairs before the first week was over."

"He made us sleep upstairs? What'd you do?"

"What did I do? I think it was you and your army men fighting with the fire truck and Sam's earaches every other week made the man lose sleep so that he couldn't write a decent sermon for his day job." John snorted.

"Right…. Army men and the fire truck. They keep lobbing napalm everywhere."

"I know. The firemen used a water hose to put 'em out… and ruined the sermon on hellfire and brimstone."

"The water hose." Dean laughed. "Oh shit, he was pissed."

"Yes, Dean. It was a proud day for me. My firstborn son made a holy man curse."

Dean sobered up and waited for his father to absorb the case. "Dad… why did we stay so long with Pastor Jim?"

"Change of pace… thought about staying… it didn't stick."

"What happened with the case?"

"Dead end… never did figure it out."

"No leads?"

"No witnesses. No leads. No ideas."

"What crawled out?"

John's gaze slid far away, twenty years back. "A girl."

"What happened to her?"

"I don't know. She disappeared nine months later. No signs. No trails. Just gone."

"Poof, into thin air."

"Yeah."

"Weird."

--

Sam was steamed. Dean had spent exactly one night pissed at their father and now he was over it. He had taken over his former role of pushover and house servant. Although, the look on Dad's face was priceless when Dean's phone beeped out a text message and Dean took off for the next two hours.

Sam spent that time catching his dad up on what he'd talked to Pastor Jim about. "He said that it was a dead end."

"It was. There was never anything linking it to a cult or a ritual of any kind. There were no clues, trails. In fact, the only thing weird about it is it happening twice. I'm just wondering where the girl is."

"Girl?"

"A girl crawled out of this grave, right?"

"Never tracked her down. Never even confirmed that a person crawled out." Sam shook his head. "The crash that happened on what I think is the same day… there was a survivor who turned up with amnesia but like I said… haven't found her."

"So you think she might be the person who crawled out of the grave."

"I just figured her for a witness." Sam stared at his father. "What are you not saying?"

"Keep looking. We'll find something…" John stared at the picture of the accident. It was devastating. It was a miracle that anyone survived. "How many survivors were there?"

"Five. Four stated that they climbed out the emergency exit. All had extensive injuries. The amnesiac… minimal injuries."

"Maybe the amnesiac wasn't in the bus."

--

Liz twirled the amulet around her fingers. "What is this thing?"

"Just something my brother gave me for Christmas one year." Dean shrugged.

"How old were you?"

"12." He cleared his throat and covered her hand with his. "He was having a rough time. He'd bought it for my dad. To protect him."

"So… how'd you end up with it?"

"Dad missed Christmas. Sam was pissed, so pissed. I had to break it to him that his life was not what he thought it was. Instead of hating me, he hated Dad more." Dean took a breath and looked at her profile. "Sappy, I know."

"No, it's sweet. You're a good big brother."

"You mind telling him that?"

"You gonna let us near each other again or… are you afraid he's going to snatch me away?"

"No, no… that's more my thing… sad to say I pulled it on him more than once." Dean brushed his lips over her temple. "My… dad's in town. They're at each other's throats… like always. Need my space."

"Am I some dirty little secret?"

"No." He grinned. "I'm usually the dirty secret."

"Well… being somebody with not a lot of somebodies… I don't see why anyone would want to keep you a secret."

Lounging and making out and taking it slow to explosion only lasted until Dean's stomach rumbled so loud, it was obscene. Co-ed shower and a hunt for shoes saw them heading out into the night for anything still open with anything still warm. It wasn't until she was leaned against the passenger door with her milkshake and he was scarfing apple pie from a carton that she asked what had been on her mind all night. "Dean, where's your mom?"

He paused, fork tapping against his carton as he chewed, eyebrows shooting up, head bobbing. He cleared his throat a couple of times after he swallowed. "She's…"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Well, it's not like I was wearing a sign."

"How long ago?"

"22 years."

"Oh Dean…" She sat up and scooted across the bench. "Sorry, didn't mean to broach the downer subjects."

"Okay. I got one, now you get one."

Liz slid her hand down his thigh. "Okay. Ask away."

"Who's in the locket?" He tugged on the chain disappearing into her blouse. She tilted her head away. "Well, whose ring?"

She sipped her shake and shifted so that she wasn't facing him quite so much. "I… um… don't remember more than I let on, Dean… obviously." She licked her lips and cleared her throat. "I think it's my parents. I mean… I assumed and kind of got the dad part confirmed… but I really don't know."

"What did he tell you?"

"I wasn't listening all that hard. I think the ring was hers. I… assume he gave it to her but I don't know what happened. I mean, he looked… surprised to see me. I guess she skipped out on him."

"He must have meant something to her."

"How do you figure?"

"You got the ring and the locket." He fished it out and looked them over. When he started to open it, she covered his hands with hers. "What?"

"It's… too raw."

"You seen him since the other day?"

"No, but… I've been a little preoccupied."

--

John cleared his throat. It had been weighing on his mind since he'd seen her. He was going to have to tell the boys but finding the words was not one of his strong points. "Sam… did I ever tell you…"

"What's that?" Sam looked up from his French fries and his lap top.

"I know that Dean doesn't really remember much and I don't expect you to… or even for you to understand…"

"Dad?" Sam set everything else aside so that he could listen to what his father was about to say. These moments were rare and Sam really hoped it wasn't going to piss him off but he knew that he should reserve judgment until after his father had stated what asinine thing he'd done.

"When you were 2, I dated a girl, pretty seriously."

"Dad, you haven't dated in all my memory… I mean… there was that teacher but you've always had a no-fly zone over the dating subject."

"Most of it is because of this girl. It lasted about… five months. We lived in Blue Earth with Jim for awhile. We had our own place for a bit. Dean was in one school for all of the first grade."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. We were engaged, Sam. I was… a day away from being married to her and she… just didn't come home. I looked. I waited and she just disappeared." John wiped at his eyes. "I… I didn't want this life for us, Sam. I settled down for her. We made plans for the future. For you boys for… for more kids. I was going to give up the hunt for her."

"Dad… it sucks and I get that you're bummed but… why are you telling me now?"

"Because I have to tell your brother, too and… even though he doesn't remember, he took it just as hard as I did."

"Dad, why do you have to tell him at all? Or me? Since when are you the sharing and caring type?"

John stared at his youngest son. "I ran into someone the other day. You can thank her for my still being here when Dean came knocking on my door."

Sam felt a pit in his stomach rolling around. This felt huge and Dean should be here for this. He didn't quite understand his father's concerns about this. "Who?"

"The girl I dated was young. I was 31 and she was 20 and she loved you boys. I think she might have fallen for you two before she fell for me. I wasn't the nicest person to her when we met. We… kind of rushed things. We only really dated a few weeks before sleeping together and then we moved in together maybe a week later. Maybe a couple months after… we were engaged." John's mouth went dry. "We didn't fight a whole lot so I honestly have no clue what made her leave… but the other day, I ordered a burger and a beer and the waitress looked exactly like the woman who walked out on us."

"You mean she kind of looked her."

"No, she looked exactly like her. Everything, from head to toe. I thought it was her for a minute." John finally met his son's eyes. "Sam… she had the ring that I gave her mother and the locket I'd given her for Christmas with our pictures inside it."

"Wait." Sam shot to his feet. "You're telling me… wait… you think this girl is your…."

"Yeah. I think she's your sister."

--

Dean pulled into the motel. He let one hand fall to the inside of her thigh. "You ready?"

"You make it sound like we're going in front of a firing squad."

"You've clearly never met my dad." He grinned at her. "I don't let girls meet the family that often."

She graced him with a small smile and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Okay, let's go before I lose my nerve."

"Me too, let's go."

Dean led the way to the room. He only paused a moment before opening the door and stepping inside, pulling Liz with him. "Hey guys…"

Sam jerked his head up when Dean greeted them. He nodded to Liz. John froze when he saw her and his stomach turned when he saw how Dean had his arm draped around her waist. Dean started to make introductions but Liz stiffened beside him. "What are you, following me?"

"Liz." John stood but she was already backing out of the room.

"You know her?" Dean frowned, trying to pull her back into the room.

"Dean…" Sam tried to cut in but he could see nothing but the train wreck to happen. "Dad…"

"Dad, what the hell?" Dean gripped her hands tighter.

"Oh my God." Liz whispered as all the pieces fell into place. Her hands flew to her mouth, her stomach heaving. She disentangled Dean's arms and hands from her body and raced out of the room and down the street, just to be anywhere but there. She was home before she realized that she was missing anything.

Dean stared at his father and brother, Liz's chain and locket tangled around his hand. "What the hell just happened?"

"Dean, you need to sit down." Sam wiped his hands on his jeans.

"Dean." John approached slowly. "I need you to remember what we were talking about earlier."

"I'm not playing memory lane, right now. I'm trying to figure out why looking at you made my girlfriend run like there were hell hounds on her ass."

"Dean. Sit and listen." Sam pleaded.

"Do you remember Liz?" John tried to start this conversation again.

"Yeah, my girlfriend. Just ran away." Dean pointed to the door.

"Do you remember walking in on me and my girlfriend?" John tried once more. "Long time ago?"

"What?" Dean frowned.

John searched his memory for anything that would mean anything to his son. "Charlotte's Web. Do you remember Charlotte's Web?"

"Sure, cartoon."

"The book, son. Do you remember reading the book?"

"I don't know… I guess at Pastor Jim's when I was little… some babysitter."

"Dean, so… Not a babysitter." Sam cursed and reached over to shut the door.

"Cootie shots. Do you remember giving me cootie shots?"

Dean remembered sharply. Bat under his arm, his little hands holding his father's bigger one and drawing circles and dots because… "You made out with Pastor Jim's friend in his living room."

"Yes." John nodded, some small relief before he dropped a bomb on his firstborn.

It was fuzzy but clearing up. "She took care of me when I was sick. Gave me free pie."

"Her name was Liz. We were taking care of her for a while." John prompted. "It was 20 years ago. I don't expect you to remember much more than what she was to us."

"She drove me to the police station to pick you up after Halloween." Then it all came flooding back. Looking down at the necklace wrapped around his hand, he swallowed down the lump of dread. Opening the little square, he felt the tears and shame building up in his chest. There was a woman about Liz's age, with Liz's same face… across from his father's 31 year old face. "Ah shit… Dad… fuck." Dean didn't even see the room anymore. "Fuck, Dad, fuck…"

"Dean… you're not…" John lead but he knew.

"Yeah, I am. It's not like I knew she… Not like I knew there was even a possibility… Fuck." Dean blinked his vision clear then stormed out of the room.
TBC

[DMartinez]

Part 5

John attempted to start drinking several times. Sam had whipped many bottles from his hands saying he ought to be sober like the rest of us. Finally, near dawn, Sam's curiosity got the better of him and no one was sleeping so long as Dean was out there, pissed, shamed and alone. "We lived with Pastor Jim for a year?"

"From September to the end of November." John answered quietly. "School had just started and I was looking for a hunt so I could enroll Dean. We happened to be at Jim's when I got recruited for a mystery. You took to her right away. Dean… not so much. Me… Honestly, I was interested the day she left his house to get away from us. She came back in new clothes and new hair and with new determination to live her life despite what anyone else thought."

"Kept you on your toes?"

"Yeah. I mean, I guess we both knew we were interested from the beginning. I'm bad hand at those kind of games. Took me a while to catch up. Dean caught on to what was going on before I did." He snorted, spinning his ring around his finger. "He'd come home sick from school and she'd busted herself up trying to get him back to Jim's… I ended up picking both of them up from the school. Watching her take care of Dean that way did something to me. His fever was so high and he was so miserable, he just let her, all day. Made her read a bunch of stories and she did. I… realized that he needed that, that I needed that. After everyone went to bed, we were watching Johnny Carson of all things. Started talking about her life and my life and… it just happened. Dean came downstairs cause he was still miserable and wanted everyone else to be miserable. He was being a little shit and taking him back to bed was a fight. He woke you up and you were pissed off. She was hobbling around on a busted ankle, came in and took you to bed with her so I could deal with Dean. Right then… I figured the making out on the couch was her hormones and my loneliness but what she did for me was more than any of that. The next day… I wasn't there for this, I heard it from her later. He was really being a little shit. Marking territories and making sure she knew where the lines were drawn. Made her promise not to kiss me first or make me want to kiss her or… if I kissed her while in a fever-induced hallucination it didn't count as me kissing first."

"And he was six?"

"She said he was… a 26 year old mind in a 6 year old body. He loved her too, though. He went from stomping on her toes for holding you in September to making her macaroni jewelry at Christmas. He had this habit of waiting until he was in the bathtub and I was busy getting you down to bed… She would sit with him in the bathroom, do all that girly stuff women do to their faces and he would ask her questions. Like… he was doing research on an alien species. Why do girls have boobs? Why do they torture their faces like that? Why do girls have to be so gross?" John laughed to himself. "She would answer every single question. Treated him like an equal. After we got engaged… he asked her if it was forever. Made her spit-shake on it because he didn't want to train another wife."

Sam burst out laughing. He really wished he had known his brother when he was that young. Dean always seemed infinitely older and wiser… until just recently in the last six years or so. "Wow. Spit shakes on forever."

"Yeah. We'd talked about it. I only rented that cramped little house because of her. She had so little that all she really wanted was a little house with a fence with just enough room to grow a family. She was this young girl, involved with me, and she was thinking about what would happen to you boys emotionally if she had a baby. Hell, I'm the one that brought it up and she always told nothing but the truth all day long. She spit-shook with Dean on my making the first move and she followed through. Then spit-shook on forever. We all thought it was a done deal and I was giving up the hunt. I prayed, Sam. I did. I prayed for forgiveness because I thought maybe I was turning my back on your mother."

"Dad… I told you for years that it wasn't healthy to stay alone that way. Loving Mom… still… I mean…"

"I will always love your mother. I will probably always love Liz. They were very little alike but I know that. I… can't take loving another woman as much as I loved either." John lifted his hand and his ring caught the light. "I took this ring off for her. She never asked me to, I just did it. I didn't feel right asking her to marry me with the promise to Mary around my finger. I'm telling you that I was dead serious about this woman. When she took off, I waited through half the summer. Three months, I waited for her to come back… it was another year before I put my ring back on."

"Did you know… I mean… how certain are you that Liz is your daughter?"

"It was April and… Dean said he'd seen Liz throwing up before school. I was already at work and I tended to work later so I could earn a little more money for us. Liz was waitressing part time and I was serious about getting a house, aside from the one we were renting. He told me that every day for a week. I asked her about it. Hinted. The subject is sensitive, especially going into a marriage… she brushed it off. I thought she was. I always wondered."

--

Dean found himself at her door but he couldn't knock so he just sat outside, trying to figure out what to do. He didn't speak even when she sat outside with him, under his arm, silently crying on his shoulder. Finally, he needed noise. "I didn't hear the door."

"I wasn't home. I just came from church."

"You go to church?"

"Not, you know… regularly. It's comforting sometimes. I don't remember much but I this… ingrained respect for the clergy." She sighed heavily then hesitantly took her necklace back from him. "So, he told you?"

"Yeah. You do look like her… I have… fuzzy memories of her." He admitted. "She was always smiling."

"You never knew about me?"

"No. She was gone before they ever got married. I never remembered anything about babies. I recall a few talks we had when she lived with us. Boys and girls. I guess I walked in on them having sex once. I got a talk about that. Apparently I was always giving my dad cootie shots in hopes of him wising up and dumping the girl."

"So, you didn't like her?"

"No, I think I did. It was barely two years after my mom died. I was pretty concerned with preserving my mom's memory. I was pretty horrible to her on occasion but she was always there with a smile and apple pie."

"She baked?"

"No." Dean shook his head, recalling a counter and little boxes of individual slices of pie. "I think she was a waitress. Used to bring pie home."

"This isn't a nightmare, is it?"

"If it is, I can't wake up." Dean opened the locket and stared at it. That Liz on one side and his dad on the other. "I remember this day… Dad was smiling and manning the grill. The Pastor was trying to get him to put his shirt back on to… maintain some modesty in his house. I think he was teasing Liz with his body."

She tilted the picture so she could see it. "He was very handsome."

"She made him smile a lot." Dean took a deep breath. "I think I blocked her out on purpose because she made all of us happy and when she left…"

"He stopped smiling? Was maybe worse than before?"

"Something like that."

"I wish I could tell you something about her but I can't."

"I know." Dean nodded. "I know."

--

Sam grabbed his jacket and tapped his father's socked feet. "I got a lead on the amnesiac."

"Got a name?"

"Got an address. They set her up until she could get on her feet. Apparently she still lives there. No answer on the phone but it's not far from here."

John sat up and rubbed a hand over his face. His boots on, face scrubbed and hair… forget it, he followed Sam down to the truck. They drove a short distance and found an apartment building with virtually no cars in the front lot. Sam knocked on the door. He felt his father lean back to look in the back lot. John cleared his throat and knocked more forcefully on the door.

It was a sleepy-eyed Liz who answered the door. She took one look at John and tried to shut the door. Sam rushed to keep the door open. "Whoa. Wait." Sam placed one hand on the door and the other on the door frame. "Please, wait… we're not here for a family reunion." When he saw she wasn't impressed, he kept talking. "We're investigating the bus crash and you're the survivor with amnesia."

Liz stared up at him and then looked at John. "I've spoken to every investigator in the county, in the state."

"We're not with the state." John offered. "Or with the county."

"Isn't this some conflict of interest?"

"Liz's what's going on?" Dean opened the door wider from behind her.

"Dean." John scolded. "What are you doing here?"

"Coping." Dean nudged her back inside the apartment, not giving his dad and brother an inch. "It's the Winchester Incest Support Group."

"Dean." Sam couldn't see the pain in Dean's face but he knew it was there. He'd been talking about Liz since the second they met. Finally though, their father had managed to ruin something important to Dean.

"Dean, she never gave consent to use her name in the papers. She's the amnesia victim we're looking for." John clarified.

"Shit." Dean took a breath and looked back at her. "This is what we do. We gotta ask you some questions."

"Fine… but… take it easy on the staring. I'm not quite adjusted to having family and the accidental incest." Liz plopped down on her couch and motioned for Dean to let them in.

John glanced around at the second hand furniture covered in handmade covers, the little knick knacks on hand painted end tables. He took the arm chair with the native American rug draped over its back. So many triggers leaping out at him, reminding him of his Liz. Jesus, this was going to be hard.

Sam sat in a wicker chair that was too small for his tall stature. Dean ignored his father's look and sat next to Liz, who leaned in to feel him near to her. Sam rubbed his hands on his knees. "So um… Liz… We're investigating the bus crash and I know, from the files, that you have retrograde amnesia but anything you remember would be helpful."

"I really don't… um… They say I was in and out of it when the ambulances showed up. " Liz rested her head against Dean's shoulder while she put her thoughts together. "The EMT said that I told him my name. I don't remember him at all. I woke up in the hospital. The nurse on duty said that I had passed out, woken up and passed out again. I don't remember any of that. She said I was mumbling something about 'the kids'." She motioned the quotation marks with her fingers. "I said something about the pastor and getting back… but I don't know what any of that means. The EMT said that I was really lucky because I only had these… deep gouges on my hands and knees but… no broken bones or… contusions or… No head injury to explain the amnesia but they were saying that was shock. They said that I was just standing there, staring at it. I can't even imagine. I saw the pictures in the paper and I still can't… I don't even know where I was going."

"So, you don't remember anything, at all, from before?" Dean prompted.

"No, I mean… little things come to me… but nothing major. I mean… this is all I have from before." She held up the locket and the ring. "And now I know what it means… but I didn't before."

"I gotta call Pastor Jim." Sam stood up with his phone.

Dean took her hand in his to look at the scars, faint and healing but there. "They're on the knuckles, Dad." His breath caught in his throat. "Like she… punched through wood."

"They said I had splinters." She nodded.

Dean stood up, hand over his mouth. "I'll help Sam."

Liz bit her lip and drew her knees up to her chest. "What is this investigation about?"

"Sometimes… things aren't cut and dried and they taking deeper digging. Different point of view, alternative solutions." John breathed in a shaky breath because he thought he was right but now he thought he might have made a mistake. "I've dealt with a case like yours before."

"Like mine? I thought this was about the crash."

"This is something that the boys don't even really know. They were too young but when I met your mother… My friend Jim is a pastor up North… I was helping him with a quick job. Some research and interviews. We were wrapping things up when we heard… grunting. Female, faint. We went to investigate. There was a girl crawling out of the ground. Her hands were bleeding. I pulled her out of the ground. She was pretty out of it. We… thought there was something wrong with her… aside from her crawling out of the ground in a graveyard." John watched her carefully. She looked exactly like his Liz. "We quarantined her the best we could. She came to the next day. Told us her name. There was a bunch of gibberish about being cornered in a house and she thought we had rescued her from that. We hadn't. Said she was 28 and married… or widowed rather. Then when we told her how we found her, she passed out. The next time she woke up, she didn't remember any of that. We gave her a run down and she just… started living. She told me once that she felt like she didn't have a choice about it. She could dwell on what she didn't remember or she could… make a new life. One of her choosing."

"John… what are the chances of her memory loss and mine…"

"Very slim but we never solved her case. We were missing the pieces to do that and then she was gone and the trail was cold."

"Do you think she figured it out? I mean, were there theories?"

"She remembered little things. She hated mayo. She liked pecan pie. She knew how to…" He pulled the rub off the back of the chair. "Make these. She made awesome pancakes…. But she never remembered anything personal."

"You said she talked about a husband."

"She… wasn't married before. She and I… made that discovery together." John admitted. "She… figured she must have been with someone before me but that turned out not to be true."

"Huh." Liz mused to herself. She glanced back at her kitchenette where Dean was pacing and Sam was on the phone, scribbling on her notepad. "What do you think would have happened if she hadn't left?"

"We'd be living in Blue Earth, permanently. I'd be working at the garage and she might have better hours at the diner… there would have been a couple of moves to bigger houses… and more kids." He stared at her profile. "We had a plan. I… didn't know if I was ready for more kids but Liz was young and it was on her mind."

Liz nodded to herself. "John, what theories were on the table? I mean… you had to have something you were researching."

"It's… not what you're used to, I'm afraid but we're not crazy." John moved to sit on the coffee table. "We figured that someone buried her alive. We thought it was a cult thing but no one ever showed up looking for her. Then we thought that maybe she was caught up with bad element. We put her face through the system. Nothing came up."

"So, you don't even know where she was from?"

"No. We tried. She tried jogging her memory but she got fed up with it."

"Do you think she left because she remembered?"

"Maybe."

Liz nodded, twirling her locket between her fingers for a few silent moments. "I don't mean to be ungrateful. Meeting you and getting some clue but I'm still a little freaked. I finally felt like I was getting myself together here and the best part…" She flicked a glance at Dean and then back to John. "Is kind of ruined. I don't want to talk about that but…"

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you more."

"You told me plenty." She focused her gaze on her locket; opened it to look at the pictures. "Dean told me a bit about her. The pictures kind of jogged his memory."

"Liz… I've honestly only ever loved three women in my life. My mother, my wife and your mother… I'm not gonna freak you out by adding you in right now but… let's leave it unspoken for now."

"Okay. I can deal with that." She looked up at him. This dude was her father. She didn't think she looked a thing like him. "Do you have more pictures?"

"Just a few more. I kind of left her memory behind when I left Blue Earth."

"You had all those plans to settle down and you threw them away because she left?"

"When you fall in love, the hurt that comes with it is pretty devastating. Ask the boys how I act when it's about their mother." John cleared his throat. "I… put off their mother's memory for her. I was pretty torn up about it and then for her to leave the way she did."

There so many details. So many layers. Liz's head began to hurt. She motioned to him that she'd be back and disappeared into the bathroom to find her bottle of aspirin. She waved the bottle at Dean when he poked his head in to see where she went. He backed away after a moment. He'd been doing that all day. Making an attempt to get closer then backing off before it could be read the wrong way. It was reminder, every minute that she couldn't have what she wanted because it was wrong. It was a line crossed without her knowledge and that just compounded her headache. She wanted so much to just dive into his arms and pretend everything else didn't exist.

Invaded. They had invaded her home and her life and she knew she'd never get rid of them. Alone with no memories one day, a lover the next and today with a father and two half-brothers. Liz gripped tight to the sink and focused on her reflection to keep from sinking to her knees. She just needed twenty minutes of quiet to let the aspirin start working.

--

Sam held the phone against his hear while he waited for the Pastor to finish translating a section of test. He eyed Dean's pacing, his frequent glances to the bathroom where Liz had yet to emerge. "Dude, you okay?"

"Fine."

"No, dude. Are you okay?" Sam caught Dean's eye for all of five seconds. Just long enough to know that however alright Dean seemed, he wasn't nearly. "Dean?"

"Dude… I just found out that I've been banging my sister for week. I need some alone time with my thoughts." Dean shrugged him off and raced to the bathroom when they all heard her retching.

Sam cleared his throat when he felt his father's eyes on him. Then Pastor Jim was back on the line. "Sam… I don't know what your Dad is thinking, picking up this hunt after all these years but I never put it away. I never wanted to get him started on her again."

"So, what did you find?" Sam pressed.

"The inventory on our local holy man. He was buried with a cross from his order… and an amulet that wasn't. I've spent nearly 15 years on this, Sam. The amulet was not there. I called months ago when this case first happened. The groundskeeper confirmed for me that it was male, a priest and he was missing an amulet. I've searched archive after archive. I managed to find a headstone with clearer print. These priests were part of a secret sect but I still don't know what kind."

"How secret?"

"My ties at the Vatican won't return my calls about it."

"You have ties at the Vatican?"

"Not anymore."

"So what are you translating?"

"It's old Latin. It's probably related to our mystery but I can't be sure. Roughly, it speaks not of the priest buried there but of what he did. These men were entrusted with "God's Oath" but as to what that is, I don't know. I've got another section partially translated from a log that I suspect housed another desecrated grave. My friend there is sending me some items for a closer look. This inscription on his tomb-"

"Tomb?"

"This individual had a tomb in a vault, New Orleans. 60 years ago, the vault was discovered to have been broken into and the bolts broken. The only thing missing was the amulet. The outside of the tomb had extensive writings on it, in this ancient Latin."

"Pastor Jim? The inscription."

"Right. What I have speaks of a warrior called up to defeat a demon. I don't know if it is a specific demon or demons in general. This warrior will rise to aid in the fight against the darkness. The warrior rises again and again. The warrior is sacrificed again and again."

"Which means?"

"Nothing much now. I'm missing too many pieces of the puzzle to even hazard a guess at the picture." Jim took a breath. "How is your father doing?"

"He's… shaken. Dean is, too."

"Very unfortunate but… knowing Liz the way I did… she would have never left if she had known she was pregnant."

"Did you know her well?"

"She lived in my house, shared my meals and helped me deal with your father."

"Pretty well, then."

"I'd say so." Jim sighed heavily. "I will call later when I know more. I'm really very curious about this girl and her circumstances."

"Yeah, we all are."

--

Liz brushed her teeth and let Dean guide her to bed. He set a trash can next to her head and laid his hand on her forehead. "No fever. Just nausea?"

"Head's pounding." She whispered.

"You took something?"

"It came back up."

"Okay." He nodded. "Lights too bright?"

"Little bit."

"Sounds like a migraine… and I don't blame you. This week has had its suck and suckier moments."

"Some good moments, too."

Dean averted his eyes but nodded. "Yeah."

"Am I horrible to wish that last night never happened?" She wrapped her hands around his. He didn't meet her eyes or grip her hands back… but he didn't pull away either. "I just want to go back to last night and… throw my locket out the window and… to have kept driving past the motel and just… kept on."

He gave her weak and watery smile, his eyes bouncing all over. "Me, too. Get some rest."

--

Sam opened his email and stared at the attachments before calling his father over. "Dad… I think we were wrong about some of this…"

"What's that?" John stepped away from Liz's bedroom doorway. He peered at the attachments and took a shuddering breath. "How old are those?"

"These… are from the 60s, those are from the 40s, that one is from the year 1905." Sam looked to his father. "Dad, she looks exactly…. There's no variance for…"

John's mouth went dry. "Load up, we're going to see Jim." He looked to Dean, who was just joining them once more. "All of us."

"She's sick." Dean shook his head.

"We've got to go."


TBC

[DMartinez]

I'm in a ridiculously good mood today. Don't know why. Got a letter from my sweetie, feeling the love and enjoying my job even though it's a daily trial. So here's another part and if I'm not returned to earth before I hit the sack, there may be another. DM


Chapter 6

Dean stayed next to her, the whole time. Packed her up, bundled her up and actually tossed the keys to Sam for the drive to Minnesota. He took it upon himself to see that Liz was comfortable and taken care of. He didn't like his father's edginess and Sam's expression. John had wisely elected to drive alone in his truck.

Dean could feel her sweating through her clothes and his. He tossed off one of her blankets, making Sam turn to check on them. "She okay?"

"She had a migraine before Dad gave the order to load up. She was getting sick… course that could be because of what happened between us."

"Dean, you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"It's a lot for you for one year. Maybe you should get some of it out of your system."

"My year's been great. Hunting with my father and brother. It's… it's all I ever wanted." Dean bit out, turning his face to the rearview window, because he couldn't stop the wet coming to his eyes. The shame and disappointment and ultimately betrayal. He actually blamed his father for this. He blamed his father for not making Liz stay. He blamed his father for not finding this Liz sooner. For not telling him the second he suspected what he knew. They should have always known. John should have never let them forget her. "Sam, pull over."

He all but dropped Liz when he escaped the car to empty his stomach onto the side of the road. He heard the truck screech to a halt but he was too busy heaving to tell his father not to bother. He took the water bottle and swished and spat then he gulped half of it despite Sam's protests. When he turned back, their father was paused between the two vehicles. Liz was peering out the open door at him and Sam was trying to comfort him but he smacked off the arms. "I can't… Sam… I can't. Take Dad in the Impala. I'll drive the truck but I can't look at either of them right now."

"Okay. I'll tell him." Sam nodded. Dean stayed where he was until the arguing died down and he watched Sam get Liz comfortable before shutting the door. Sam climbed into the passenger seat and his father into the driver's side but not before giving Dean a look that almost brought up his water again. He waited five minutes before climbing into his dad's truck and steering it around them and on to Pastor Jim's. He just couldn't have them driving in front of him either.

--

Upon arrival at Pastor Jim's, he greeted the pastor and motioned up the stairs. Jim stopped him. "Dean, you didn't know and there are still unanswered questions. Don't… just wait."

Dean had barely managed a nod then disappeared upstairs to the room he'd once shared with his brother and father. Jim waited on the porch for twenty more minutes when the Impala pulled in. John stumbled out, dazed and Sam had immediately opened the backseat door to help out the slight girl. John barely gave Jim a look before going straight to the bottle of whiskey in the kitchen. Jim counted five fingers of whiskey before Sam got her onto the porch. Jim looked into the girl's ashen face. "My Lord… she looks… exactly. I wish I had a picture handy."

Sam pulled the chain from around Liz's neck and held it out. "Be careful. It's been known to make Winchester men sick to their stomachs by looking at it."

Jim's heart broke at the sight of the locket. "He gave this to her at Christmas. She never took it off. The ring… she'd take it off for work and dishes… slide it around the chain like this." He opened it and there were the pictures he'd helped John select. A much happier time. "Dean's upstairs. I take it neither of you have told him my theory."

"No time. And I don't want to get his hopes up."

"Your father's hit the bottle already."

"We… had a couple of episodes on the drive up." Sam ushered her inside. They took her upstairs to the room Liz and John had shared. They gave her some Tylenol and a glass of water, and a trash can. Sam pulled Jim out into the hallway to explain away from John's already burning ears. "We had to pull over for Dean. It… all caught up with him at once, I think. Then he couldn't stand to be in a vehicle with any one of us. That's why we split up the way we did. Then he hauled ass ahead of us. Dad tried to keep up but then Liz started talking. She was… chiding him for driving so fast with Dean so sick."

"What?"

"She was in the back seat by herself but she kept sitting up to yell at him to take the corners softer because Dean's fever was high and making him nauseous wasn't going to help matters. Dad slowed down just to see what she would say. She started reciting Charlotte's Web and talking to Dean but…"

"Dean was in the other car."

"Right. Then she started berating him for taking the scenic route when she was in pain and Dean was so sick. Dad told me not to say anything. He caught her eye to keep her attention and asked how the pain was. She was… kind of… huffy and started muttering under her breath about clueless men and of course she was in pain, she'd sprained her ankle." Sam took a deep breath. "She passed out for a little while and when she came to, she saw me and demanded to know who the hell I was. She was leaning over the seat and I was going over printouts of the attachments. She started screaming and demanding that no one else touch her."

"No one else?"

"Yeah, I don't know. Dad got really freaked out. He just shut down. Then she started chanting and singing… Sounded a little… Gregorian, I guess. All Latin but… I couldn't really make out much beyond it was a prayer for salvation against evil."

"Okay… I'll talk to your father. You try to write down as much of the chant as you can remember." He only paused to ask one more question. "What caused the fever?"

"She was kind of bombarded by all of this at once and Dean was trying to take care of her but… we just kind of invaded. She started throwing up and Dean said it was a migraine but I think she's just been overwhelmed."

--

John sat beside Jim's desk. "I think I made a big mistake. I don't think that's my daughter in there."

"I don't think so either." Jim handed him the file he'd been working on. "Thanks to the advent of the internet, I was able to come up with these. We never would have found them 20 years ago."

"I saw some of these."

"I did some further digging." Jim sat down. "It seems that she popped up in New Orleans in 1965. There was a notice for anyone with any knowledge to report in. She lived in a sanatorium for diagnosis for two months, then she was sent to a chapel with an order of nuns. They said she loved to sing… not on pitch, mind you, just that she was always singing and dancing" They shared a laugh about the Liz they had known who couldn't hold a tune to save her life. "She lived there for two years. To my knowledge, that is the longest she's been anywhere. She got married to a man with a troubled past. They found his body, the body of another unidentified man and a lot of blood from an unidentified female. No body." Jim laid that picture down. "It's her. She adapted quite well to the 60s, it seemed."

John stared at the picture. At the striped jeans and the peasant blouse and her arm through that man's. Flowers in her hair. Just married, it seemed. "What about her ring?"

"They found it in a pool of blood. That was the only evidence they had that she'd been there through whatever horrors occurred." Jim turned a page. "1945, a girl showed up in New Mexico. She lived on the reservation with her husband there for about eight months. She appeared behind an old rectory. She was treated kindly. She was taught their ways. Married quickly. She participated in a sweat to retrieve her memories. She left her ring behind and vanished, they said." Jim handed that picture over.

John nodded that he saw the design on the blanket draped over her shoulders, her long hair in a thick braid. "She's the love 'em and leave 'em type, huh."

"I don't have pictures from 1925 but a girl who chanted Latin and danced better than any flapper but… while she didn't marry, she did carry on with one fellow exclusively. He was studying to become a priest and almost halted his studies. When she disappeared four months later, he resumed his schooling. He wrote about her in his journals, which were hidden away because although he took his vows into Catholic priesthood, he always loved her." Jim handed over a copy of the journal entries that described the young flapper.

"I saw the picture from 1905," John prompted and studied that one.

"Emerged from the mist they said. There was a break in at the local cemetery. The two were never linked. She spoke oddly. Sung badly and constantly. She married shortly afterward. Arranged marriage to keep her from being accused of being a harlot... Her husband beat her for resisting his advances." Jim held open the book he referenced. "This is her physician's journal. The doctor was in love with her but traveled often and could not protect a wife, though he had offered. The man she married was quite wealthy." He kept going though John's face had shut off any emotion. "The doctor believed she was often raped by her husband. When the husband was called away to deal with his business, she fell ill. The doctor all but moved into the house to care for her, per the husband's instruction. The doctor believed that her husband was waiting for her to get pregnant, have the baby and be done with her. Two months, the doctor stayed to care for her, despite the fever only lasting a week. The night he left to maintain propriety… nothing proprietary happened. She was gone the next day. No one ever saw her again. Our good doctor was jailed for the murder of her husband."

"Who is she, Jim?"

"Her name is always Liz, or Lisa or Elizabeth." Jim cleared his throat. "There are so many layers to examine that I fear we won't uncover them all before she leaves."

"In the car… she…"

"Sam told me."

"She looked at me, Jim. She gave me that look she always gives me when she's irate. She called me clueless. That day, when Dean got sick… she kept muttering that I was clueless but I didn't pay attention. She outright told me, word for word what she was muttering about that day." John wiped a hand over his face. "She…"

"We'll figure it out."

--

Dean sat next to the bed and watched over her. She woke sometime later and gave him a smile. He took her hand and stared at her. "They're saying there's actually a very, very good chance that you and I are not related."

"Are they?"

"Yeah. Things are not adding up though... We think you crawled out of that grave. And… I thought maybe for a while that it was part of some cult thing. To track down a certain bloodline as a sacrifice and you just… drew the short straw but… I still think it's a cult thing but I don't think you were buried."

"Then what happened?"

"I'm still thinking about it. No one has told me much. I'm mostly overhearing these things."

"I think I know how that feels. Everyone's afraid that we're going to break."

"I don't… feel things this way. I never have."

"Sure you did. Maybe you don't remember." She slid to the side of the bed, allowing him to lay facing her. "You remember love. Always. I don't… remember much but I think I know that I was loved at some point. Maybe my mom gave me up for a reason. Maybe there was a higher purpose."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. I'd like to think that though. It's better than imagining that she threw me away." She took a breath. "The things I feel when your father looks at me… feels familiar. Like I know what he would have given me if he had known…"

"We don't know." Dean reiterated.

"I wasn't talking about that, Dean."

"You're not but… being who I think you are, this is still not right."

"Do you love me?" She cut off his stuttering answer by kissing him softly. "It's gonna work out."


TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 7

John looked up from his research when Dean walked into the room, hands in his pockets. He didn't know how to apologize to his son for what he had done. So he picked up Sam's papers and started reading. "These were found inscribed on a tomb that was desecrated in New Orleans forty years ago. Jim and Sam have been working on it… Sam's translating some chant she was doing in the car. The tomb belonged to a priest who had… some extensive journals which were damaged in Katrina. All we've got are the rubbings."

"What?"

"The priest died some… hundred years ago. He was given an amulet by an elder when he was younger. The priest was very devout. He was murdered for upholding church law in a lawless city. The inscription was placed as one of his dying wishes. "Protector of God's Oath, consecrated to a warrior who will smite the evil that walks amongst men. A warrior to rise on the eve of death. To walk amongst man in flesh from a virtuous man. Inside the" this is where it gets really rough. "Inside the magic holds the sacrificial blood of the first warrior called upon to scourge the earth with blood. The warrior will perish and will rise again." It's really vague."

"Yeah." Dean agreed.

"I've heard of this before."

"Yeah."

"I blew it off. Superstition. I always thought the warrior was a man." He shrugged and waved his son off. "Sam beat you to it. Already called me a sexist bastard."

"So… how come we didn't know about this before… aside from you being a sexist bastard."

"Not something that could be proven without anyone left of the order to carry on the words. Jim's trying but he's being blocked by the church. Course he can't tell them he has proof because they'll come and get her and who knows what they'll do to her."

"If what you're telling me is what I think it is. This is what I think it is." Dean took a breath. "We can't save her, Dad. Whatever's going on with her will pass and then she'll be gone and we're never going to know why."

--

Sam listened to his father and his brother in the next room. Going over what they had learned, what they had still to explain to Liz. He had just sat down at the laptop again when she stood over him. "Hey, feeling better?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "Dean and I figured it out. You don't have to worry about explaining to us that we've never been incestuous."

"Well, that part's a relief." Sam gestured to the seat next to his.

"Well, mind explaining to me your theory?"

"Um, it's not much and it's kind of traumatic so… um… one thing at a time." He turned his laptop to her and brought up the picture of the amulet as drawn by a priest who had claimed to see it once. "This is…"

"Bellum." She blurted out.

"Yeah, we think they were warriors." Sam looked over at her. "Do you know Latin?"

"No." She shook her head. Abruptly, she stood up and burst into the room where Dean and John were bent over a stack of books and notes. "Dean… I need air."

"Okay." Dean took his keys from his father and followed her out the front door to the car.

"No, let's walk."

--

Jim studied John. He'd been oddly silent since Dean and Liz had left. He knew from Sam that the absent two had found out in a roundabout way what was going on but had chosen not to question any farther than the fact that they were not related by blood. Sam's notes were useful as he had taken a proper Latin course in college and could reference cultures that saved Jim time in connecting. Sam snorted and threw a pencil at the table. "It is so like Dean to take off with the pretty girl and leave me buried in research."

"Had this night before, have you?" John snorted in like manner.

"Yeah, Dad. I have." Sam bounced his leg nervously.

"Dean always did like the ladies… after he turned 9, that is." Jim commented.

"Girls grossed me out until I was 11, what was with Dean?"

"He'd had a… an early introduction to sex. I had to explain things a little early and you know your brother. He usually makes it impossible to leave out the wheres and whatfors." John stretched his arms behind his back.

"Taught you to put a lock on your door." Jim commented dryly. "Your father wanted me to sit him down and explain it."

Sam looked to his father. "Really."

"He was six. I didn't want to traumatize him. Should have known that it was already too late."

"Dean got his first sex talk when he was six? It explains so much." Sam snorted but sat silently while he thought about his brother and the way he'd been acting since they had left Missouri. "Hey Dad, do you remember Cassie?"

"Dean's girlfriend Cassie?" John sat back and laced his fingers over his belly. "Yeah, I remember her. I was ready to rake him over the coals for telling her what we do."

"Why didn't you?"

"He told me he was going to do it. I warned him not to. He took off and then he came back and he didn't talk for a week and he never went back to see her. I figured he'd learned it the hard way."

"Did you know that she threw him out? She thought he was nuts."

"Your brother never talked about the fall out. We finished the job and kept moving." John considered that for a moment. "When he did start talking about her?"

"About twenty minutes after I met her."

"Sounds about right."

--

Liz took his arm as they walked down Main Street. Dean just watched her as she took it all in, wondering if she remembered it from when he was a boy. He had all sorts of thoughts about the way this would go and this wasn't one of them. He didn't like thinking this was the same Liz who had given him a bath every night for six months. He didn't like that this was the same Liz he used to hate for distracting his father so often. He wanted her to be someone else. Someone new. Whatever they had before all the shit in the world had exploded, he'll never know but he wanted it back... She looked up at him while she pulled him into a diner with neo-modern stools and benches but he followed her because he couldn't not. She ordered a milkshake and fries and he picked off her plate when they came. She hummed to every song out of the jukebox and Dean wondered how it was she knew them all. He wondered if she was trying as hard as he was not to remember what they had been to each other 20 years ago. About what she had been to his father 20 years ago.

"Liz… what are we doing?"

"Enjoying life, Dean." She covered his hand where it lay on the table. "It's short.

"Okay… but why are we in a diner?"

"Because I like French fries."

"I recall there are a few other things you like."

"Yes but… there are a lot of people at the pastor's house right now."

They walked down Main St. and took a right on Oak and a right on Cedar and a left on Maple and ended up in front of a little house with two big windows up front and a small yard with no cars and no one living in it at all. She stared up at him and yanked his arm to move past it. He pulled her back. "This was where I was supposed to grow up but you left us."

"Yes, Dean. You were supposed to grow up here and I thought you would but you didn't so let's leave."

"No… tell me why. I know you know why."

"Life is short, Dean. I enjoy what few months I get at a time."

"Why did you leave?"

"I was going to come back. I thought I could come back… it doesn't work that way. I never get to stay." She gripped his jacket and pulled him closer. "Please let me enjoy what I have left of this go around?"

"Why?"

"Because… I need to. I need to have everything this time can give to me."

Liz walked around the house, pulling him with her, looking for the back bedroom and knelt before him. "Please?"

"Here, in this room."

"It's an empty room, Dean. It's just a house. It doesn't mean anything… in 20 more years it could all be gone."

Dean stared at her with her long hair and her short skirt and her deep eyes. "It had to be you, right?"

"Yes, exactly. It has to be you, too."

--

Sam stared out the window. "They're not back yet and they didn't take the car."

"Don't worry so much about your brother, Sam. He can take care of himself."

"Dad… do you know something that I don't?"

"About Liz… plenty… about what they're doing… not much."

"How are you not freaked by this?"

"Who says I'm not?" John cleared his throat and watched the leaves blow in the breeze across Jim's front lawn.

"Sam, this life is short. I'm 51 years old and I haven't gotten what I wanted out of this life except to see that you and your brother can take care of yourselves… I imagined that I'd spend much more of my life happy and it hasn't been that way… I had ten years with your mother. I had 9 months with Liz… in 51 years, 11 of them were happy... I'm not stupid. I know that whatever Dean and Liz are doing, I don't want to think about it but… She owes him this time. She ruined something special that Dean was getting used to back then. She owed him."

"What exactly?"

"Dean was put off all women for a long time because of Liz. He thought they would do nothing but break his heart because of what she did to me… it was a miracle he could feel anything for that journalism major… it's a miracle that this Liz was able to get him so… open…"

"That was Cassie's fault because she broke Dean again."

"You're assuming that he fixed himself in a year.

--

Dean lay back with his jacket for a pillow, Liz cuddled against him. "This house is nice. I always thought so."

"It is." She agreed.

"I think about it sometimes. I'd like that life… but I'm too…screwed up to make it work."

"Then what do you think you could make work?"

"I don't think I can make anything work but I think that the closest that I could ever come would be to have a girl somewhere who waited for me to drive through from time to time. And I would drive through as often as the hunts would let me. Have a place that was stationary for my family. They would know everything that I know so that they would be safe without me."

"It sounds nice but finding a girl like that…"

"I've thought about taking her with me… but I remember what it was to move around with my dad. Never owning anything… always leaving everything. I wouldn't wish that on anyone." Dean ran a hand down her bare back while he thought it out. "I understand why my dad gave it up for you. He had kids, he'd known what it was like to live like a person. He missed it. My memories of times like that are… too few. Too fuzzy. I miss the memory but I don't know that I miss the places and the times."

"So, what are you going to do with your life?"

"I'm a hunter, Liz. It's what I was raised to do. I'm going to keep hunting and I'm going to live my life the best I can. I'm going to take care of my brother and my father and I'm going to hope I meet someone who's going to understand what I do and why I do it."

"Why do you do it?" Her eyes were filled with tears because she already knew what he was going to say.

"A demon screwed up my life. I'll be damned if other families are destroyed the way mine was."

"Even if you don't have any lasting happiness yourself?"

"I see people's lives shattered by death, by evil and then I show up with my dad or my brother and we stop more people's lives from getting shattered. Ghosts, demons, whichever."

"You don't care about God's plan."

"I don't care about God. He hasn't given me anything I can use. I've nearly died and I wish I had the kind of life where I could appreciate that but I don't. All my life has to offer me is shadows and evil… but I have the tools to beat them back. Saving people, saving lives. It's what my father taught me to do. It's what we've done since Mom died… since… you left us and I can't count the number of people we've helped and we don't get thanked. We don't get paid. I just get this small part of me that knows these people won't live the way I do."

--

Sam sifted through Jim's pictures. Locked in a box for over 20 years. He didn't even need the dates on the backs to put them in order. He could tell just from the state of his father's clothes, the state of Dean's smile. The first one was obviously a sneak attack. John's head on a book, drool coming out of his mouth and a nearly empty beer in his loose grasp. Hair sticking up at odd angles. The next was of himself in a diaper and Dean with the water hose. The first picture with Liz was alarming. She had baby Sammy in her lap and a put out looking Dean next to her. She looked so damn happy just to be holding somebody else's baby. He knew he was two but geez, what turkey he'd been.

Picture after picture showed that Liz loved to laugh and she was contagious as first John, then Dean followed her example through the months. Abruptly, he saw the intimacy between Liz and John. One week there was something there and the next there was no space between them. Then the pictures changed location. Liz reading to Dean with Sam in her lap. John and Dean working on the car. Sam streaking through Pastor Jim's house.

Sam rolled his eyes at that one. His family could be so immature sometimes. Then a picture caught Sam's attention. Liz's face, so peaceful, as she gazed into the camera. John holding onto her, his eyes on her. Sam knew that he had never seen that look on his father's face before. He had one picture of his parents but Jess's fire had taken that. He had nothing to compare it to. Then he found the picture of them kissing, a ring on her left hand.

To be honest, Sam knew that his father wasn't always an asshole. As kids, they'd had some good times. Had some pictures to prove it but he had never known his father could be like this. Suddenly, it began to hit him how much his father was holding in over this whole mess. Feelings like that couldn't be shut off. After Jess died, Sam figured he had a new appreciation for what his father had gone through after his mother had died but he clearly hadn't even touched the subject yet.

Outside, he could see Dean's bulky shadow and Liz's smaller one. They inched their way to the door. Obviously taking their time to do what lovers do. Sam glanced around, suddenly afraid his father was going to see what he saw… but John had been in the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey for well over an hour. Finally, the door opened and there was space between them. Dean excused himself to get cleaned up. Liz walked past Sam, ruffling his hair as she stepped into the kitchen without so much as a warning to its sole occupant.

Liz sat across from John. "Your name is John Eric Winchester."

"Yeah." He nodded and tilted the bottle back into his mouth.

"We were almost married once. You were going to make me so happy."

He tilted his head at her. He almost contradicted her but something in the way her eyes looked right at him. "Liz?"

"Yeah, it's me." She blinked back the tears. "It was… not quite yesterday for me. I was… putting away the dishes and I found the note you left for me and I remember thinking that… no matter what, I would always have you and in the next moment… I woke up… and I had to go." She took his hand in hers. "I don't remember leaving. I know that I left."

"What are you?"

"I don't know that there's a word for me." She answered honestly. "I remember now, though, John. I remember everything."

"I'd like to test that." Jim spoke from the doorway, journals in hand. "I have some very specific means to do so. Please, step into my office."

TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 8

Liz sat in the chair and waited while the pastor put his quiz together. He sat on the edge of the desk. "Tell me about Albert Grayson and Delmar Lynwood."

Her face paled, she fiddled with her scarf and rubbed her forehead. "I was married to Albert. Dr. Lynwood was our family physician."

Jim nodded to John that it concurred. "What happened to Dr. Lynwood?"

"I don't know. I was gone long before he would have passed. He was a good man."

"And Mr. Grayson?"

"Had the devil in his soul but… he wasn't demonic." She rubbed her arms against a chill that was a century old. "I know what you want to hear but I can't live that again. Albert was an awful man. Dr. Lynwood and I sinned together. We plotted to leave Albert but I couldn't let Delmar leave his practice, his life to… I woke up the day after my will broke."

"You woke up?"

"Yes."

"Are you awake now?"

"In a manner, yes."

"Father Ulysses Braedon?"

Liz's mouth turned up in the corner. "He took his vows, did he? He was pretty ambivalent about God."

"Not according to his journals."

"His journals didn't pillow talk with Uly. His parents wanted him to become a priest because he had stroke when he was young. He had limited use of his left hand. They never saw him as whole." She lowered her eyes. "He had a strong enough embrace to please any woman. It's a shame that he went through with his vows."

John took the book from Jim and handed it to Liz. "Read it. He never loved anyone after you."

"Uly was a very passionate man. He could channel it to help dozens or he could be selfish and hide away in his dorm for hours." She whispered.

"David Joe?"

"Strong man. World War II Veteran." Liz stared down at her hands. "He had… awful nightmares but a good heart. His family was very loving."

"When did you wake up when you were with him?"

"His mother arranged a sweat for me. She didn't like that I couldn't remember. She had to fix me. After she did, I left."

"Frank."

"Stop, please." Liz begged. "Frank…"

"What happened that night?" Jim peered into her distraught face. Most of his other questions had been met with honest answers, short but honest.

"I woke up too late. The man beating Frank… he wasn't… he was… the demon who had possessed him was… and I was too late to save his life."

"What kind of demon killed Frank?"

"Kind?" She shook her head at him. "Doesn't matter what kind. Just that it died a moment after Frank did."

"Liz, what happened the day you woke up in 1986?" John cleared his throat.

"I…" She looked up at him. Watched his expression. All furrowed eyebrows and steely gaze, just like the day they had met. "I woke up, just like I told you I did. I could feel it calling to me. It was just over the state line. I figured that I could go and just… I figured I could kill it and live and I could come home. It didn't work that way."

"You died?"

"Every time, I die." She stated simply. "Every single time."

"Liz," Pastor Jim cut in. "How many times have you died?"

"I've lost count."

"Five times a century." Sam shrugged as he did math in his head. "Gregorians were 10th century."

"I am not Gregorian. There were some morons." Liz snorted. "I hadn't lost count yet when I fell in with that bunch. I'd say I'd died about 15 times before those morons started up with their Kyries."

"That puts you in the… 5th or 6th century." Sam flipped some books open

"I don't know."

"You don't know what year you were born?" Dean questioned softly.

"I know what day. It was the shortest day of the year. I lived for 20 years with a surrogate family. My mother gave me away to the priests and the nuns. I thought I was to become one. I was trained from very young." She took a breath and thought about her life. "I was cloistered but well fed and always attended to by the good sisters. Father Elijah began readying me for his important works when I was… a very young woman."

"Liz?" Dean cleared his throat. "Do you remember what he was… readying you for?"

Her next words came in a flurry. Jim and Sam immediately picked up their pens to write as much of it as they could. Then she switched back to English. "The concepts escape me sometimes."

Jim held his hand up as he compared his notes with Sam's. "Every Fall, he taught you prayers on the altar. He interviewed the sisters constantly to ensure that you were devout and virtuous and you were. He was pleased."

"Then what happened?" Dean prompted.

"There were always wars. Invaders. I was always taken to safety but…" She bit her lip and twisted her hands together. "Father Elijah and I got separated… fleeing the soldiers. Our men scattered us to the caves. That is when I met him. My guard. He'd been sent by Father Elijah to protect me. Two years, until I was returned. We were careful about ourselves. I was promised into the path chosen for me."

"You fell in love with him." Sam whispered.

"He did such a good job that Father Elijah let him stay to guard me at all times." She worried at her braid. "He often listened to Father Elijah's preparations to warn me of what was to come." She switched back to her native tongue to relate the remainder of the tale.

Jim's face fell when he'd translated it. Sam's head bowed. John waited. Jim made some notes. "There were rumors of a sacrifice to be made in order to beat back the darkness. Only the strongest and the most virtuous would be selected. A warrior would be sacrificed after a fertility rite in the fall."

"That's backward." Sam blurted out.

"I know." Jim cut him a look. "The man selected was a brute. The strongest with the best military record and there was only one consecrated maiden in the cloister." Jim shut his eyes for a moment. Then he kept reading his notes. "He and I made plans to run away, to be married, to be away from the fanatics. Father Elijah began talk of the demons who walked among the people undetected. He was mad. Insane. We found a sister, kind to our cause. The night before the day I spoke my annual prayers, she married us. He took a horse and we met outside the camp to be gone forever. Father Elijah's men found us as we consummated our marriage. The rest is prayers and carnage."

"There was a light but it was unreachable. I was reborn into carnage. Blood and tissue everywhere. Father Elijah's body torn to shreds as I stepped into the world." Liz spoke softly. "His brothers spoke of the amulets they wore as they awaited the warrior. They were expecting the brute or even my love. Father Elijah botched the ritual. I am cursed and blessed and I shall always return."

--

Liz felt Dean's arms around her but she knew that he wasn't in the room with her. She suspected he was in the room down the hall twenty years ago. This had never happened before. In all the centuries of her continued resurrection… she had never encountered anyone that she had known before... but then she suspected that it was because John had never given up looking, just like he had never given up hunting for his wife's killer. 250 lives and she never got to see any of them out.

At least she got to see the result of her involvement… but she wasn't sure how she felt about that. John, moody as ever, had no hope left. Had only vengeance. Sammy, the happy baby, so brooding and angry. And Dean… the paranoid and guarded child, a wounded and guarded man. She couldn't help but feel partially responsible for that.

He cleared his throat and she expected him to launch into a rant or a speech or something of importance. "Why do you sing so much if you know you can't carry a tune?"

"And you can?"

"Not the point." He shifted so that he could see her face. "You know every song. The good ones, the bad ones, old ones, new ones."

"My people believed that singing was akin to praying. I don't always remember the relationship that I had with God before all of this happened to me but some part of me remembers the way I worshipped."

"You believe in God? After all this shit?"

"It's not all shit. There are always good times."

"Between dying and being beaten and raped by men you don't know."

"There are always good times." She repeated.

Dean lay on his back to stare at the ceiling he hadn't seen since he was six. He usually slept with Sam in the room down the hall. Their father never going up the stairs unless necessary. He had the vaguest of memories from the time they had lived in these rooms.

"John was the first man in all these years that had children when I came into his life." Liz sat up, arms wrapped around her knees. "Jin had a ward but it wasn't the same. Kelly had his sister's daughter in his house but… she was grown. David Joe had so many nephews but they were all teenagers. Sammy was the first baby I was so close to. These men I loved, they protected me. Protected others. I never saw them love anyone but me. David Joe hated his mother. Uly had this deep resentment for her. He almost didn't love me back because he thought I was tricking him. He let me have my fun at the clubs but I always came back to him. He had found me and sheltered me… I could never abuse him the way his mother had."

"You hooked up with a deformed dude in a monastery."

"It wasn't a monastery. It was a college. A religious college. And he wasn't deformed. Limited use of a fully formed arm. He was… a warrior in his heart."

"I'm… sensing a trend."

"What?"

"Dad, me, this Uly dude with the lame arm and… that doctor dude who killed that asshole for you… I think I get it."

"Well, I don't know how you do. I don't."


TBC

[DMartinez]

Chapter 9

Sam looked up from his book when Liz came down the stairs. It was early. Jim and John were passed out still. Dean was clearly not awake. She tossed him a wave and got started on breakfast. After a few minutes, good smells began wafting from the kitchen, calling to Sam's empty stomach. He attempted to help but very quickly realized he was in the way. He sat down to watch her cook. "Liz… I know that the last week or so has been kind of… effed up but do you mind…"

"Ask away." She nodded to him.

"What was he like when he was with you?"

She smiled to herself and sprinkled nuts and chocolate into the batter sizzling on the griddle. "He was very good. Very intense." She flipped and poured and kept talking. "He didn't like me at first. I suppose that he felt I was evil. You were such a cute baby. The way you toddled around after Dean and John. He was… so protective of you boys. It took a week before he was comfortable leaving you alone with me." She took a breath as she flipped Sam his breakfast onto a plate. "He never talked a lot. A lot of heavy silences but… when he did… He loved your mother so much."

"Yeah, so I hear."

"He didn't want this life for you, Sam. He was ready to give it up." She slid plate and a fork to him.

Sam started to negate that sentence when he looked down at his plate. "How'd you know what I liked?"

"Who do you think got you started on these, Sammy?" She grinned and turned back to the stove. "You were such a cute kid. You were running everywhere, started to talk really fast. Every time he saw you, John's eyes just… lit up. He loves you boys to pieces." Her smile broadened. "You and Dean used to watch cartoons on Saturday mornings. Dean had his bowl of cereal and you had yours, sans milk. He would just… sit between you two on the floor. He cursed this cartoon and that cartoon and you would try to feed him because he wasn't eating breakfast in those days. Just coffee."

"He was like that?"

"He had his moods but when he was in a good one, everyone had a good time. Sometimes we managed to give him a good time even when he wasn't in a good mood." She stared into space for a minute. "Jesus, that man was gorgeous when he let himself smile." Her face flushed as she realized she'd said that out loud. "Well, it used to take my breath away."

"Well, last I knew, he was using his smile and his charm for evil."

"To fight evil." She tossed over her shoulder. "There's a difference." She made up three more stacks as she talked. "The man in that other room… he's not the man who seduced me on Thanksgiving." She shrugged. "But it's been twenty years. I highly doubt that Dean gets his jollies stomping on girls' feet anymore. I highly doubt you enjoy naked runs anymore. A lot has changed since I was last here."

"Apparently." He watched her build the stacks of pancakes. "Is it hard to wake up?"

"Every single time. I remember and I always wish that I didn't." She finished setting the table with pancakes and silverware. "Remembering and knowing… makes me wish I felt the call of the demon faster."

"It calls to you?"

"It's how I find it to kill it."

"But it calls to you?"

"Well, I'm sure it doesn't know it's doing it but… it's like a song only… not." She turned to the window. "The song is disjointed in a way that human music is not."

"And you can hear it?"

"Sometimes not until it's almost too late… 252 songs I have silenced. 253 loves I have lost. And I do it… again, and again." She walked out the back door.

--

John rinsed the dishes for the dishwasher. Dean just finishing his breakfast, himself. Jim and Sam had long taken up the books looking for… John didn't know what. It had been tense for days between father and son. All over a woman. John didn't know what to say to him. He never had. All these years since leaving Blue Earth and Liz behind, John hadn't had many talks with his eldest son. Had done enough of them by the time Dean was 7 that there were very few left.

"Well, she's not your sister."

"Yeah, we figured that out. Thanks." Dean muttered, staring at puddles of syrup on his plate. "I can't do this though. I can't be what she wants."

"You mean that she can't be what you want."

"Whichever. She's… it's not going to work because she's going to find a demon to kill, she'll die and in twenty years, she'll be back and she won't remember either of us until it's time to kill something else." Dean stood and dropped his plate in the sink. "I couldn't stand to see her with someone else, twenty years in the future. I don't know how you're doing it."

--

John found Liz curled up in the backseat of the Impala. He opened the door and sat on the other side. "Enjoying being alone?"

"No." she shook her head. "Just… remembering some good times." She stared at his profile when he wouldn't meet her gaze. "You look… different. Older. The beard is new." She scooted closer, cupping his face in her hand to make him look at her. "I am so sorry, John. If I had known… I never would have stayed to begin with."

"If I had known you were going to leave… I never would have let you stay with my boys." He admitted.

"Would you have still pursued me relentlessly?"

"Possibly."

She took a breath and made him look her in the eye. "John, I have to tell you something."

--

Jim studied the words that Liz had written about the chants, prayers and rituals that Elijah may have used to conduct his rites. He felt he was close to something. He studied a bit about the times that Liz alleged to have come from. Marveled at her evolution so seamlessly over time. A lesser willed person might have gone mad long ago. He glanced up when John stumbled in the door. Watched the man go directly to the counter for his bottle of whiskey. Four long swallows straight from the bottle.

--

Dean had just shucked his boots onto the floor when Liz stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. Fresh from a shower and in a quiet mood. "Sammy says you got sick this morning."

"Just a headache." She shrugged him off.

"You hiding today?"

"Thinking."

"Sam told me about the demon song. You heard it yet?"

"Not yet." She slipped under the sheets.

"How do you do it?" He asked as he shucked his jeans and shirt. "I know you said that it's in your blood but how…"

Liz watched his movements carefully. "You don't want to hear about that, Dean."

"Do they go to hell or are they gone?"

"They die. Hell is too good for them. My blood takes them out of this world."

"But how?"

She motioned him closer and stared into those green eyes. "Dean, there are some things I do alone. Killing demons is one of them."

"What are other things you do alone?"

"Well, sleeping alone is not one of them."

--

Dean knew the instant that Liz began hearing the demon song as Sam had called it. He lay awake long after Liz had fallen asleep. Every muscle in her body tensed, her breathing changed. Her eyes fluttered open for a few seconds and then she relaxed but he was certain that she was not asleep. At early dawn, she stirred purposefully. He watched her dress in silence and when she reached for her shoes, he cleared his throat. "How far away is it?"

"It's aiming for me. It knows about me." She turned and gave him a watery smile before walking out the door.

Five minutes passed before Dean decided they needed to follow her. Throwing his clothes on, he banged on the door down the hall. "Let's go, Sammy. Demons are singing." He clomped downstairs and peered out the front window just long enough to see that Liz had stolen the truck and not the Impala. "Pastor Jim! Dad! Let's go. Demons are waiting a slaying!"

Jim was the first one outside with his books. "We're not ready. I need a day more. I'm certain we can break the cycle."

"Do your research in the car, she's gone to kill some evil thing." Dean motioned to the Impala.

"What's her lead?" John rose from the couch with a cracking of knees and back.

"Going on ten minutes soon." Dean held the door open. "Sammy!"

"I'm coming." Sam tramped down the stairs and followed the train out the door. Sam ended up sharing the backseat with his father while Pastor Jim used the rising sun to light his way through his notes. "So, she say where?"

"No. She just took off but I'm following the cloud of smoke left behind by Dad's truck."

"She stole my truck." John shook his head. "Can she reach the pedals?"

"Apparently." Dean took a breath. "I asked her how she did it, how she killed them and she refused to say. Just said that it's her blood that does it."

--

Liz lay bleeding slowly from her neck and arms. Four bodies had dropped when the evil bastards had ripped open her arms upon seizing her. She had done the rite. Using her blood as she said her prayers over the fallen bodies. The bodies cooled around her as their demons had been killed and were no longer animate. Her neck throbbed. She couldn't remember exactly what she had fallen against that had cut her so deep but it was only a matter of time before the white light took her.

Her vision blacked out but the white light still hadn't appeared. She heard a voice. Mocking, taunting. She managed to move slightly before the light appeared. Felt the world go still around her and then it was still. Quiet.
TBC

[DMartinez]

AN: Well, wouldn't you know it, I got another letter and so you all get more good mood posts BUT. This is the last post of this book. I'm nearing the end of BOOK III so maybe there won't be a long wait for the next book. We shall see.

Chapter 10

Dean and John took turns by her hospital bed. There had been five dead bodies when they had caught up to her; barely alive, blood everywhere. Jim had done his work quickly. A lot of Latin and a little assistance from Sam. John thought it sounded vaguely like a binding ritual; very similar to what they used to corporealize troublesome spirits without remains to destroy.

Jim performed last rites, just in case, though she had stabilized on the second night but refused to wake. The doctors assured John that his 'daughter' would be fine when she woke up but the concern would be 'if' she woke up.

Winchester men watched wounds heal and scars begin. That was new. She'd never had scars before. Jim came every night to pray over her. Dean played the radio softly for her. Sam read to her. John talked when the boys were out of earshot. Liz lived through the complications, lived through extubation.

It was John who sat and held her hand when she finally opened her eyes. He and Dean had discussed it. They would say nothing to her. He helped her to some water. Gave some vague answers and confirmed that she had forgotten everything. John repeated the story they had given the hospital and the cops. She had cried about the story. Had cried about not remembering anything.

She had smiled when the boys had walked in. "You must be Sam and Dean."

"I'm Sam. That's Dean." Sam gestured as he stood at the foot of her bed. "You're very lucky."

"So, I'm told." She tilted her head at Dean. "Do I know you?"

"My son, the hounddog. It's possible you saw him in a bar once." John joked lightly.

"We haven't met." Dean nodded to her but didn't come any closer than the doorway.

"Pastor Jim has said that you could live with him until you get on your feet." Sam offered.

"Wow. I appreciate that. I just… don't know how I'm going to do that. I don't remember having any particular job skills." She breathed out.

"I know someplace you'll work out." Dean jerked his head to the hallway. He started for the door. "We'll pick you up tomorrow after you get discharged."

--

Liz waved goodbye to the men who had saved her life with a smile and stepped inside the little diner. She sat down at the counter and told the waitress she wanted an application. An older woman slid a sheet of paper and a pen under her nose. "I… don't have a permanent address right now. I'm supposed to stay with a…" Liz pulled the scrap out of her pocket. "Pastor Murphy."

"I know Pastor Jim." She nodded and held out her hand. "Name's Angela. This is my place and if you're half the waitress your mother was, you're more than hired."

"My mother?" She tilted her head at the woman. "You… how?"

"Darling, you look just like her… and not a thing like your daddy. Be grateful of that." She moved on, leaving Liz to fill in what she could, which wasn't much. Then she returned to go over the day in and day out of the diner. Angela tsked softly. "Exactly like your mother."

"I'm sorry. I've… just been in an accident. I don't remember much and… I really wish I knew what you were talking about."

Angela cocked her hip. "Twenty years ago, your mom walked in the door. Jumped in to save our asses during a rush. She stayed nearly a year. Fell in with your drunken louse of a father despite what anyone told her, then lit out… and if my math is current. She had bun in the oven when she did. Your daddy… I knew he'd show his true colors. I told her once if I told her twice that John Winchester ran rough and rowdy and to stay away."

"John Winchester?" Liz turned around but the car and the truck had been long gone. She fumbled for the locket around her neck. "This John Winchester?"

"That's the one." She nodded. "Don't know why Pastor Jim puts up with him. I'd've barred him from the church years ago."

--

Sam watched his father's truck turn south while Dean steered the Impala north. "You agree with Dad about this?"

"It's better this way." Dean nodded. "Pastor Jim will take care of her. She'll build a new life. Safe."

"Do you agree with Dad about this?"

"Sammy, it was my idea."

End Book II