Balance
by
Barbara Ann Morehouse
Disclaimer
I own nothing in this story, including the characters Dean, Sam, and Bobby, and of course the beloved Impala. All rights are reserved by their respective owners.
The only characters I claim in this story as my own are Alyssa and her 1968 Camaro.
Chapter One
The bus ride seemed to have gone on forever. The miles passed by agonizingly slow, and the suffering wasn't just from the distances she had traveled: the gasping for a breath that just wouldn't come, the stares from the other passengers, and her constantly drawing the images that came to her almost made this journey impossible. Almost, but she had no choice but to endure the torment until she made her way off the bus far from the next designated stop, to the relief of the driver and passengers, happy to have nothing more to do with the weirdo in the back.
It was the same car, a black, four-door 1967 Chevy Impala. She would know this car anywhere, for she relived the memories of it each night as she slept, and she knew the owner, as well. He was in this rundown motel somewhere.
There were only two possibilities, door number one or door number two. One of the cardinal rules of being a hunter was to park your car as close to you as possible. It was never known when a quick getaway could mean the difference between life and death or imprisonment and liberty.
She quieted her memories and did her best to wade through the mud in her mind and body, letting her metaphysical energy trickle out, and 'feel' her way to the prize, allowing her to be pulled by the power within in the direction she needed to go. Her gifts had never steered her wrong, and she knew this time would be no different.
'I'll take door number one, Monty.'
She stood at the pale yellow door, her weathered brown leather bag seeming to become a burden as it hung across her body. She patiently waited for an answer to her knocking, the knuckles of her right hand reddening from her persistence. Her long brown hair was blown in her face by the spring breezes, but she paid it no mind. She didn't have the strength to care about or the energy to move the strands tickling her nose and bombarding her vision.
She felt the air around her, bearing down on her shoulders, trying to crush her. Behind this door was the source of that weight. Behind this door she would finally come face to face with something. What it might be, she could only imagine, but in a way, she already knew.
Again there was no answer. Despite the growing pain in her hand, she pounded her knuckles against the cheap wood once again.
"Go away!" The response was curt, meaning someone was home. He didn't sound happy, but she didn't give a damn.
'Open the door before it's too late,' she thought.
Summoning her courage to face what lie behind the door, she found her voice.
"Please, open the door," she demanded, not too harsh, but enough to let him know she wasn't leaving. She could feel something growing stronger, thickening the air, and making breathing a daunting task.
'Just open the damned door,' she willed to him as she grabbed a hold of the doorjamb to steady herself against the sudden change of the air surrounding her. It was as if someone or something didn't want her to be here.
'This could be more than you can handle.'
'I know, but I have to try,' she thought back to her own mind.
The doorknob turned slowly as the hand that held it took every effort to keep quiet. As the door opened just enough she raised her eyes to look into the darkened depths of the barrel of a gun.
"Who are you and what do you want?" There was no face to the voice, at least not yet.
She heard the click of the revolver's hammer being drawn back.
'No hello? No where have you been? No how are you?' She held her tongue aware that this was not the time for snide remarks. She needed to get in that room, and quickly.
"I can help him." This wasn't the first time she'd seen the business end of a gun, so she remained completely unnerved. The fear she should have felt with a weapon pointed directly in her face was no match for the years of training and living through the hell of her life.
"Don't need your help." The voice waved the gun as if to dismiss her. "Now leave."
'I really don't have time for this', he thought to the woman standing at the door. His brother was in pain, and some chick shows up on his doorstep wanting to come inside.
Under normal circumstances, he'd have jumped at the chance to invite a pretty young woman into his room, but today was far from normal.
The gun was a minor distraction. She could hear the painful moans of a man in the back of the room somewhere. She took another deep breath, trying to find the oxygen left in the air coming from the room.
"I can help him, Dean, but you have to let me in." And hurry, she thought.
"Who the hell are you? Who the hell is this Dean?" The gun never wavered.
This was taking too long. Her mind was racing with multiple possible responses. Should she play the weak, helpless girl, begging to do anything for him if he just let her in, or would the hurt, heartbroken bitch that could easily shove the door back in his face, come off better?
'Screw it, no time for games.' She turned her head to the left, pulled back her windblown hair, and exposed the three long scars that trailed down the right side of her neck.
"Now can I come in?" She asked the voice behind the gun, knowing she could very well be starting her own war of words, and possibly weapons.
"Holy crap. Alyssa?" he responded in an audible whisper. The gun lowered and the door swung open.
The sight of who stood on the other side caught her off guard. She became momentarily lost in time, remembering when she last saw his green eyes.
'Focus,' the voice cautioned her.
'I'm trying,' she answered.
"Hi, Dean." She cautiously stepped across the threshold, never taking her eyes off of him.
Dean was staring at the face he hadn't thought of in over a decade. She had just left him without a word, no goodbye, no screw off, nothing. She could have died years ago, and he never would have known.
But here she was, standing before him, in the middle of nowhere, as if time had never passed them by. Her hair was just as long as it had been in the past, her brown eyes were more haunted now, but the way she looked at him, as if she could see right into the very depths of his soul, hadn't changed at all. He wasn't sure of what to say to her, so saying nothing he moved out of the way to let her in the motel room.
He caught the scent of her hair on the breeze that blew through the door behind her. She had used the same shampoo for years, and it brought the memories of another lifetime flooding into his mind. He briefly lost himself to the past, remembering their shared moments, but Sam's agonizing groans brought him back to the present and her purpose for being here, followed by a deluge of other thoughts and emotions he hadn't expected.
She stepped further into the motel room, tearing her eyes from his, pushing her way through the heaviness that threatened to steal the breath from her lungs. The yellowed curtains, stained from decades of cigarette smoke and time, were pulled shut, trying desperately to eliminate the brightness of the dying day. The small table and two chairs placed in front of the window were covered with empty beer bottles, crushed Styrofoam coffee cups, and old pizza boxes.
She stepped to the side of the bed nearest the window, where Sam laid grasping his head and writhing in pain. The tan colored blankets were crumpled under his body.
'Damn! He grew up fine, just like his brother,' she thought to herself.
'Back to business.'
'Yeah, yeah, you're no fun,' she responded to her own thoughts.
She removed her black jean jacket and threw it and her leather bag on one of the chairs. As she slowly approached him, she called to him, softly at first. He needed to hear her before he could see her and find his way back through the fog of pain to her voice.
Dean was standing on the other side of the bed, gun still in hand watching the scene play out before him. He wasn't sure what she was doing here, but he wasn't letting her out of his sight.
This sudden appearance was too convenient, too weird. Her showing up here after all this time, but he couldn't wrap his mind around that just now. Sam needed him more than he needed to dwell on her. The visions were getting stronger, and the pain seemed to be killing his brother.
Dean listened to Alyssa as she called Sam's name. His skin tingled with goose bumps as she spoke. Her voice was gentle, musical, and somewhat hypnotic. It was as if she was trying to sing him to sleep.
"Sam, can you hear me? I'm right here," she kept her voice low. "You have to come to my voice, Sam." She sat on the bed next to him.
Sam was grasping at his hair as if he were trying to rip it from his head. The pain was getting worse with every vision. His skull felt like it would split open with him still alive and aware of everything, spilling his blood and brain matter everywhere.
He could hear her, but couldn't see her, couldn't find her. Whoever it was, wanted him to follow her voice. Sam tried to do as he was asked, but just opening his eyes sent a tsunami of agony raging across his head.
Alyssa gently touched his hands with hers, working her fingers in between his, all the while speaking softly to him.
Dean watched closely as she caressed Sam's hands, wrists, and arms. And ever so slowly, Sam began to relax. His groans subsided as he released the death grip on his hair. His eyes became clear and focused again.
"I know you." Sam looked into her brown eyes. He could see now, and the pain wasn't so bad.
She smiled and said, "Yes, you do."
The air had changed; it was easier to breathe, but not by much. She had gotten through to him, and that was a huge step in the right direction. He could focus with her keeping the pain at bay, which would make the next step a little easier.
She wanted to see what he was being shown, so she took his hands in hers. They were rough in comparison, but his touch was gentle and caring.
"Sam, you have to let me in. I have to see what you're seeing. I need to know what is to come."
"How do I do that? I don't know how to let you see." Enduring the pain was one thing. Living with the knowledge of impending doom was another. This woman wanted to see what he saw. How could she want the images burned into her mind? And how was he supposed to do what she asked?
"You only have to open yourself to me and let me step into your mind. It's kind of letting me into your house through the front door. Just relax, let the feelings take you, and let me come along. I'll do most of the work for us, okay?" She had to keep calm, keep reassuring him that things would be fine. Although, in her own mind, she wasn't sure what she was doing. Alyssa was following her instincts, and as always, she knew what had to be done and just how to do it.
Alarms were going off in Dean's mind. He didn't like the idea of anyone getting into his head, especially after the run-in with the Obi-wan twins. He started to verbalize his own reservations, but he stopped himself. He could see Sam wasn't hurting as much, and he was talking. That was a good thing, right? But how did she do it? He didn't remember her having any abilities like this? His thoughts again took him around and around through the past. Where the hell has she been? Why is she here now? How did she find me? Emotions he thought he had buried deep enough to never surface again had broken the carefully built dam and were rising in a torrent.
Sam wasn't sure he was ready for this, but he didn't seem to have a choice in the matter. He relaxed everything, his mind, his body, just as she had said to do. He felt that tug on his mind again. He waited for the same blinding pain that always announced the arrival of the visions, but it wasn't there.
He couldn't feel her hands in his anymore, and her face blurred behind the wall of light. Images of bodies, thousands of men, women, and children, broken and bleeding, fires engulfing entire cities and landscapes, the agonizing screams of the dying, and a flash of Sam's face with eyes of flames were all the vision revealed, and then it was gone. They were still in the motel room, but they were breathing as if they had been running for their lives.
Sam's grip on her hands relaxed as the vision ended, but she kept a hold of him as if she would drown. It was over, but she couldn't let go just yet.
Alyssa leaned over and whispered something in his ear, releasing his hands at last. He nodded, rolled over, and promptly fell asleep as if nothing had happened.
She left Sam on the bed and ran past Dean into the bathroom. The door slammed shut behind her as she got a bird's eye view of her previous meal.
Dean could only listen to the sounds of her vomiting. He felt out of place, helpless, and in the dark about everything that had just occurred. He didn't like being left out of the loop.
'Time to remedy that,' he thought. He checked the safety on the gun. It was off.
Alyssa took her time cleaning herself up knowing she was going to have to face Dean when she opened the door. The images in the vision were disturbing, but that's not what had sent her to the restroom. She still couldn't stomach the smell of sulfur, no matter how many times she had been immersed in it.
Alyssa stared at herself in the mirror. Her brown eyes seemed to have darkened, or it could just be the light? She awaited the inevitable question.
'Are you ready for this?'
'Like I have a choice. I knew what I was getting into when I decided to chase them down.'
'But is this how you want this to start?'
'No time like the present to deal with the past, right?'
Taking a few moments to steady her breathing, she opened the bathroom door. The look on Dean's face spoke volumes. His eyes were hard and seemed full of anger, and maybe hatred, yet she could detect just a hint of what seemed to be concern just on the edges of his eyes. Or maybe she was just hoping to see it there.
She quietly motioned for him to follow her outside. The air was clear allowing her to breathe again.
Dean wasn't sure what to think about what he had just witnessed. His mind was still reeling with the how's and why's of her being here. He followed Alyssa outside to where she was standing next to the Impala intent on getting some answers whether she liked it or not.
The setting sun was beginning to paint the wispy clouds with yellows, oranges, and reds, a sky of fire. Almost poetic, she thought.
Noticing the few people milling about the parking lot, Dean thought it best to place the gun behind his back tucked into his pants. There was no need to draw any unneeded attention to themselves just yet.
"Sam will be fine for a while. At least until another vision hits him," she was rubbing her temples. Her eyes were throbbing from the migraine sitting in her skull. She leaned against the fender of the Impala for support.
"What happened in there? What did you do to Sam? What's happening to him?" Dean was shooting off the questions one after another, staring at her as if she weren't real.
'She just couldn't be standing here,' he thought to himself.
"Which one do you want me to answer first?" The world was beginning to spin. She had just emptied herself of any nutrition and energy she could have used to regain her ground enough to handle the emotional tirade standing before her.
"I don't care. Just answer them, Alyssa." He was nervous. He was never nervous around a woman, but this one had his gut in a twist, and more than anything Dean hated to feel as though he weren't in control of himself or the situation around him.
"In spite of the fact that I just paid homage to the Porcelain God, I need to eat. Sam took a lot out of me, and I need to recharge with some food." She pointed toward the restaurant that sat at the end of the motel parking lot. "My treat." She knew he'd never refuse a free meal.
They walked in an uncomfortable silence to the small restaurant, neither of them sure of what to say next. Dean asked for a booth at the back, nearest the exit. It kept them far from the other customers and gave them a quick escape route, if needed. They ordered burgers, fries, and beer from the portly waitress and waited until she left to continue the conversation.
Dean sat back on his side of the booth, waiting for the answers to come.
"So, where do you want me to start?" The throbbing sensation was still there, but it was becoming more bearable. She could at least focus on his face, and again, his eyes caught her sending her heart into her throat.
"How about telling me what the hell happened to my brother in there?" There were other questions in the back of his mind, but his concern for his brother's life was superseding all else.
It took only a few seconds, which to her felt like minutes, to drag her thoughts from the past back to the present and swallow the lump in her throat enough to engage in the conversation. "Does that happen to him often? The visions crippling him like that?"
"They've been getting worse. What do you know about them? What did you see? What did he see?" Dean wasn't letting her off that easy. He wanted to know what happened in the vision, who was involved, and where do they go. The other questions could wait.
"Again with the barrage of questions. I saw dead people," her eyes widen with the movie quip, but seeing he wasn't in the mood, she continued. "A lot of dead people, towns and cities on fire," she closed her eyes willing her stomach to settle again, "and screams of the dying."
"Did you see anything in particular, like a city name or something, or was it just in general?" Dean wasn't sure where this was going.
"I couldn't make out any particular places, people, or anything like that. But…"
"But what?" Dean didn't like this particular vision, as it provided no destination, no one to help. What the hell was it all about?
The waitress had returned with their food and drinks. Alyssa knew their talk wasn't over, but she needed to eat to regain the energy she had spent working with Sam.
Dean was becoming irritated. He wanted to know what the vision could mean, if she knew. "What aren't you telling me, Alyssa?" As far as he was concerned she wasn't in the best of places to be keeping secrets from him.
"The end of the vision was…strange," it was the best word she could come up with. "Sam was in the vision, like he was looking at us, but it was like it wasn't him. His face was different. He looked evil, and his eyes were fire." Alyssa took a swig of her beer.
Dean stopped himself from taking a bite of his burger. This was new.
"What do you mean his eyes were fire? Like yellow eyes?" Was this the warning Dad wanted him to look out for? Did this mean he would have to kill Sam, the only family he had left? Dad's parting words echoed through his mind as he waited for Alyssa's answer.
"I know the bastard you're thinking about. No, not like his. But fire. Real fire burning in his eyes." She talked through her fries. She was famished so her table manners left something to be desired.
It was a relief, almost, to hear Sam wasn't…what? He stopped the train of thought with more food.
Dean ate his burger, trying to catch up to Alyssa. She had almost finished her meal in the time they'd been talking. "What do you think it means?"
"Not sure. Don't know if it means anything. It didn't feel like it was finished though."
Dean had never had a vision, but he'd seen Sam suffer through quite a few of them, and they always sent Sam to his knees in agony, but he never talked about how they felt. There was the vision that led them home, and Sam had been right about it not being finished until it was actually finished.
'Maybe that's what she's talking about,' Dean thought. He'd have to get more information from Sam when he woke up. Maybe he would know. Without more answers, Dean could only speculate as to his brother's future.
"How did you do that with Sam? How long have you had these…powers?" Dean wasn't sure if he wanted the answer to the last question.
"I know about the demon's "chosen children". If you're wondering if I'm one of them the answer is no. You know what I could do before. It's just advanced a bit since then, with a lot of practice."
She took another bite of her burger. "And for the past year and a half or so, I've been searching for anyone who's tied to that yellow-eyed bastard."
"What do you want with the demon, Alyssa? What's your stake in this fight?" He looked at her hard, expecting her to tell him everything.
She looked down at her empty plate, unable to face him. "Don't worry about it. Just take comfort in knowing that if I have the opportunity to take that jackass down, it'll get done." She wiped her face and finished off her beer.
Not wanting to seem as if he was just ignoring the issue, he continued on another line of thought. "So you learned how to get into other people's minds and, what? Turn off pain? Sam was having a vision and it wasn't killing him. Is that what you learned to do?" Dean was sifting through his memories trying to dig up what he could of what she was able to do back then.
While going over his memories, his mind was also racing with questions, but the most prominent query was how the hell did she know about the demon? He was going to have to keep a closer eye on her than he originally had planned, which meant she would have to stick around, something he wasn't too comfortable with at all.
"I learned quite a few things, Dean. But this isn't the time or place for that." She was getting a little nervous with all the people coming into the restaurant. It was dinnertime for the locals, and the place was getting a bit too crowded for her.
'What's the matter?'
'I don't know. I just can't be in here anymore.'
"C'mon." She paid the check, left a tip for the waitress and walked out of the restaurant heading back to the motel room. Once outside, she continued.
"I'm a dream walker," she kept the pace back to the room relaxed giving him time to soak in what she was telling him.
"You mean like in that movie, Dreamscape?" Dean seemed proud of himself for making the connection.
"Yeah, like that. But I'm not interested in destroying the world."
Dean was impressed that she had seen the movie. Sam was a buzz-kill when it came to old movies. "But how did you get into Sam's head without either of you being asleep? And don't you have to use some kind of root for that?"
"I've used the root before, but it kept me from being able to control a lot of the dream, kind of like a drug keeps you from thinking properly. So I spent a few years learning how to do it without herbal assistance. That way I stay in complete control of myself. And besides, I couldn't quite get past the whole drinking someone's body fluids thing." She shuddered a bit with the memories, and then continued. "A vision is a waking dream, so I can step into it and watch what's happening. I can't affect anything in a vision because the person is still conscious so they're not controlling anything in it."
"So how does it work in dreams?"
"A dream is different. The subconscious takes over, leaving doors open, ways in, and I found the way to get into those dreams. People can influence the outcomes of their dreams, or they can look to their dreams for answers. I can step in and observe, or if needed, sort of suggest things." Alyssa never told anyone outside of her mentors about her abilities. This wasn't easy for her, but she wasn't going to start off this already tense reunion with lies.
"So you can be in another person's dream and talk to them? You can do whatever you want in their dreams?" He really didn't like the idea of someone who can get into his mind, let alone into his dreams.
"Well, yes, but I'd rather not get too involved in the dreams. It can be somewhat dangerous to interact with people while they're in the midst of some subconscious contemplation."
"What can happen? You know if you get too involved?" Dean asked, keeping his real thoughts to himself. He was beginning to wonder if Alyssa could be as big a threat as any other supernatural being they'd come up against in the past.
"It can get ugly. Really ugly," Alyssa replied.
They had reached the motel room door. Dean stepped past her to unlock it giving her the chance to look at him, really look at him. Again, she lost herself in the memories of long ago: his face, his lips on hers, his arms around her, his body next to hers.
'Stop living in the past.'
'Party pooper,' she told the voice. 'Besides, aren't you the one telling me to deal with the past?'
'Deal with it. Don't dwell in it.'
Dean could feel the heat of her gaze on the back of his neck. He knew what she was thinking about, but he did he best to not let himself get dragged into the past. One night, a long time ago, a lifetime ago. To him, those memories were dead and buried, and he wanted them to stay buried.
He unlocked the door to the motel room and stepped inside, looking to where they had left Sam, but the bed was empty. Dean's heart seemed to stop and a moment of panic rose up to swallow him.