Chapter One

The bite on his calf burns and itches, it feels like little bugs crawling under his skin. It looked to him like it was beginning to heal up, it looked nice and clean, the scab was already drying up but he knew better. He knew things were going to get a really ugly, really soon. The moon was already beginning to start its next cycle. Dean glanced over to Alex who sat beside him in the Impala and slowly pressed down on the accelerator. She never glanced up from the laptop.

"Do you miss Bobby that much? Paula's going to be red-lining and overheating if you keep pushing her."

Dean glanced over at her again, surprised at how attuned to her surrounding she was. She still managed to surprise him, even though they had been hunting together for almost a year. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, then she stopped and looked up at him.

She knew something was bothering him, she could feel him, he was completely jittery, like his skin wouldn't fit, like he had about seven double espressos in an hour. His leg tapped on the floor, his fingers tapped on the tables, he paced around the room. Even now, his fingers tapped on the steering wheel. Normally when driving to Bobby's he was relaxed, even when they were hurrying for help he always seemed to be relaxed behind the wheel. For the past week the jitters had him, and had him bad, and it scared her. Nothing scared Alex, she had fought her way through the apocalypse alone, she had faced demons, angels, vampires, everything he had, alone, and survived. She had been surprised a couple of times, and startled plenty of times, god dammed partridges would fly up all the sudden in front of her back in Canada all the time and startle the hell out of her. Afraid, no. Soldiers who were afraid died on the battlefield. She'd seen her best buds freeze up in fear, and seconds later be face down in the dirt, dying. She was scared now.

"What? Why are you staring at me?"

Alex jerked back to the present and found him looking at her, he glanced back to the road ahead of them, then back to her. Alex had been avoiding asking, but he was really starting to worry her. She stared at the laptop screen in front of her.

"Something's...different...you're not yourself. You're jittery. Way too jittery."

She waited, staring at the screen, her stomach flipped and she glanced over at him. He didn't reply, he just stared out the windshield onto the dark road, the little muscle in his jaw worked a little. She knew he was trying to decide if he was going to lie to her or not, she knew as sure as the sun was bright, he was trying to figure out if he was going to lie to her. Alex stomach dropped to the floor when he jerked the car off onto the gravel shoulder and pulled up to a stop.

His hands gripped the steering wheel hard enough to make his knuckles white; he swallowed and kept looking out the window. He couldn't lie to her, the first thing he thought of doing was lying, automatic reaction, make a story, keep it simple, look the girls in the eye and smile. She wasn't a just girl, she was Alex, the one person in the world who knew everything about him and loved him anyway. How the hell was he going to tell her this, she'd be pissed that he kept it from her this long. She'd leave him.

"Alex..." his throat closed shut. How do you tell the person you love you're going to turn into something horrible, something they hunted.

"Alex, the last hunt in Chicago...the werewolf. I know he was human at the time, and the moon wasn't full, but the bite...something's happening. I can feel it. I can feel it inside me."

Alex blinks at him, her face an emotionless mask. He hates it when she does that. It's like she's a robot, feeling nothing. He does it himself, shuts down, stamps down the panic and fear, keeps it inside, hides it from the world when inside he's a howling, sobbing, mess of emotions. She blinks a few more times and then turns back to her laptop screen, she hits Ctrl and S and waits, then pulls the screen down and sits with it on her lap. The silver Dell symbol on the top shines softly, silver will kill it, kill him.

"Why didn't you tell me before now?"

"Because I wasn't sure, I didn't want to scare you. Nothing on that hunt was right. Werewolves, who never fully changed, hunted out of cycle, looked human all the time.."

Alex glances over at him quickly, reading his face, checking to see if he was hiding

anything else from her. He wasn't, he was scared, even with a quick glance she could tell he was scared. It was the same look he had on his face when he told her about hell, about what he did there, what he really did there. He was waiting for her to leave him, to tell him it was over. He was scared of being alone, not of changing into an animal. She swallowed hard, she had to be strong for him now, never give up, never show fear, adapt and overcome; the motto for survival. Bobby's, the panic room, a place to keep him till they could figure it all out.

"That's why we're going to Bobby's. "

He nods faintly at her, watching her thoughts move over her face. At least she wasn't a

robot now, he could see her planning, weighing, measuring everything out, laying down ideas, scrapping them, laying out new ones.

We're going to Bobby's so you can lock me in the panic room. Wait to see if I go full on wolf, it's a week and a half till full moon. Not much time."

Alex nods back, her brain spinning, she glances over at him and sees a scared little boy.

He expects her to leave him, even now, a year into it. She shoves the laptop off her lap and let's it slide onto the floor, then shifts around in the seat to face him. His knuckles are still white; she slides her hand over his and peels his fingers off, then presses them to her cheek. His fingertips are cold, whether from loss of circulation or from whatever thing is infecting him. She can feel the little calluses on his fingertips from loading rounds and packing salt rounds. She presses the palm of his hand against her cheek, feeling all the little bumps from cuts and broken bones; the palm of his hand is still warm. She could smell him, intensely; something she noticed more and more about him the last few days was his smell. Warm, musty, leather, and gun oil, she felt it curl inside her, every time. She wanted him, she wanted to pull his shirt off right there and take him, but it was bad timing, later, tonight in bed. She focuses her thoughts on how he was hurting and scared, how much he needed her.

"We'll make it work. We'll find a way. I'm not leaving you, not even if you change, I'm not leaving you."

"If I change you have to kill me."

"No, I won't. We need to stop for the night. There is a small town a few miles up the road..."

Alex leans forward and kisses him, her lips brush over his, soft, kissing away the fear, keeping him thinking, keeping him from freezing up, she wasn't going to lose him. Promises, making promises with her lips, promising him she would stay, promising him that tonight they would be together, promising him she would find a way to save him.

Her lips were a lifeline, giving him hope, if anybody could do it, it was Alex. She was as smart as Sam, she could kick his ass, she was a huge computer geek, and she was a chemistry genius. She was his Alex, he would die for her in a second and she would do the same for him.