Meg checks the address on her phone one last time before approaching the building. The text is from a withheld number, and it's signed "HG."
She doesn't know anyone by those initials.
She rings the buzzer.
"It's me."
"Hey, you."
A tone sounds, and she pushes open the door.
They had met in a hotel bar. It wasn't long after Lucifer had taken his dive back into the Cage, and the world below was falling apart around everyone's ears. Meg's first instinct was to find a hole and hide in it for a few decades, but first, she needed a new face.
Time for some window-shopping.
"Looking for someone?" The girl beside her asked. Like half the other humans there, she was in costume, pointed ears and all. Conventions made it so much easier to blend in.
Meg considered her response briefly: lie or half-truth? In her experience, the latter was always more fun.
"Considering a new look."
"What's wrong with this one?"
Meg looked over at the girl - young, reasonably good-looking under the elvish get-up. She could see herself inside this one, perhaps - but she had learned to be discerning.
She smiled, slow and seductive. "It's known by all the wrong people."
"Really?" The stranger leant forward, and Meg could hear her breaths grow shallow. "There are ways of fixing that, you know."
Over the girl's shoulder, Meg caught sight of a flash of black at eye level. A costume, or a real demon emboldened by the strange crowd? She couldn't be sure. She needed a cover.
She pulled the girl close and kissed her.
By the time they broke apart, the potential threat was long gone.
"We could talk about it in my room," the girl continued, a little breathless. "Tomorrow morning."
"And in the meantime...?" Meg questioned, playing along. She knew where this was heading, and there were worse places to spend a night.
"I'm sure we'll think of something." She grabbed Meg's hand.
"Easy there, tiger!" Meg laughed. "I don't even know your name."
The girl smiled, and there was mischief in it.
"Tiger will do for now."
(Several hours later they exchange names. By that point, it doesn't matter much. They're both lying anyway.)
The door is open, but the doorframe has been salted. Meg can't get inside.
"Charlie?" she calls.
"Sorry!" Charlie appears from round the corner and pulls the door open fully, reaching up to wipe the salt off. When it's done, she drops her hands onto Meg's shoulders, but Meg ducks under her arm and through to the room beyond. The flat is unfamiliar, and filled with cardboard boxes.
"New place?"
"New everything." Charlie shrugs. "It's Alice, now, by the way."
"Burned through another name already? Easy there, tiger."
Charlie smirks. "And you're here because...?"
At first, she lets Charlie assume she's involved in something mundane; the mob, perhaps, or spying. She's vague with her story about a new boss weeding out the competition, and this human doesn't ask questions.
Their arrangement isn't what Meg had been looking for, but it's better than she'd expected. It's an open secret that possession isn't perfect; if you get inside Picasso, it doesn't make you magically able to paint. Some things, humans are just better at, and hacking is one which it's increasingly hard to do anything without. By the time a coder crawls out of the Pit, their knowledge is already obsolete - but their meat suits are useless if the mook at the helm still thinks "witch box" is a technical term.
Every side hires hackers now. The only difference with Charlie is that she's better at it.
Well, and the sex isn't too shabby either.
But then, one day, a couple of hunters got lucky and her safehouses were compromised and there was only one place she could think of to go.
"Are you - is that smoke?" The holy water burns were still hissing against her skin, and Charlie looked horrified.
Meg pushed her way inside quickly. "Do you have a first aid kit?"
"Those aren't burns," Charlie said quickly. "I know burns, and those aren't - not normal burns, anyway. Meg. Tell me what's going on."
Meg sighed. "Are you sure you want to -?"
"Tell me." There was a sharpness in Charlie's voice that Meg had never heard before, and it dragged a response out of her before she'd really thought it through.
She flashed her eyes black.
A flinch went through Charlie, and Meg waited for her to scream or lash out. She was already planning how to restrain her, how she'd move into the fresh skin and leave her old body bleeding on the floor so the girl inside couldn't tell Crowley anything.
But instead, Charlie looked into her pitch-dark eyes and nodded.
"Okay. I think I need to sit down."
"For the pleasure of your company," Meg lies with a smile.
Charlie rolls her eyes. "What happened to the nurse? I liked the nurse. The nurse had potential."
"The nurse had bad judgement," Meg admits. But good luck. Very good luck, to escape Crowley's goons this time. He nearly had her, and now Castiel, her promising little ace in the hole, is trapped in another damn dimension and she's back to chasing down bad leads.
"Those allies you mentioned didn't work out?" Charlie frowns in concentration, and Meg wonders - not for the first time - what is going on in that brain of hers.
"Well, I'm not exactly turning cartwheels right now if that's what you're asking."
Charlie sighs. "Does this have anything to do with leviathans?"
"So, let me get this straight," Charlie said eventually. "There was a big, fire and brimstone, angels and demons apocalypse about to happen, and it got averted by a couple of humans? How... Tolkien."
"Averted is a relative term, sweetheart," Meg told her. "They wiped out the generals. Now there's a civil war in Hell over the power vacuum."
"You against this Crowley guy." Charlie nodded. "And if he comes for me..."
"You die horribly."
"Oh good." Charlie managed a half-smile. "I thought it might be uncertain death. It's nice to be sure."
Meg rolled her eyes. "Put salt across the doors. Demons can't cross it. And don't let strangers in - not that you would anyway."
Charlie nodded. "So... where are the angels in all of this?"
"Out of the picture. Their civil war went the massacre route. You know, I actually met the guy who did it. He didn't seem the type."
Charlie's eyes narrowed suddenly. "Did he get to second base?"
Meg faked shock. "What kind of girl do you think I am?"
"...Bad?"
Perhaps it was the uncertainty, but something in it startled Meg to laughter.
"You've met the Big Mouths?" Meg asks.
"Kuhspluguh!" Charlie lets out a loud noise of protest. "Why didn't you tell me about them!?"
"They're not exactly top priority right now!" Meg shouts back. "That mess is way above my pay-grade."
She's learned that the hard way.
"I was working for them," Charlie protests. "And then these two - hunters - show up -"
"Hunters?" This sounds a little too familiar.
"Calling themselves Sam and Dean - and they practically had 'Gryffindor' stamped on their foreheads, so that might even have been the truth."
"You met the Winchesters?"
"You've met the Winchesters?" Charlie looks about ready to explode. "Right. Stay here."
She rushes out of the room and there are rummaging noises from next door. When she returns, she's carrying half a dozen coloured markers, and a rainbow-shaded piece of paper large enough for Meg to sleep under.
Charlie starts drawing.
"So, how do they - wait - no -"
"What is all this?" Meg asks.
"What does it look like?" Meg doesn't respond, but the answer isn't anything she's ever seen before. "I'm keeping track of the situation. You know, politically speaking."
Meg raises an eyebrow.
"I'm mapping the power structures of Hell," Charlie explains slowly. "I was thinking it might help you work out where Crowley's weaknesses are and -"
She cuts off suddenly, because Meg is kissing her, fierce and unplanned like her time with Charlie always seems to wind up being.
"I always said graphs were sexy." Charlie says when they stop to breathe, and Meg has to kiss her again just to see if it will shut her up for once.
"The Winchesters," she says a few minutes later, when Charlie is gasping for air. "Stay away from them, okay?"
"I always said Slytherin was under-rated," Charlie jokes, then grows serious when Meg meets her eyes. "Why?"
"They have a nasty habit of getting people killed."
Charlie smiles. "Careful. If you keep talking like that, I'll start to think you care."
"Easy there, tiger." Meg chuckles against Charlie's neck. "Don't get carried away."