In the Beginning
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own the Winchesters or their world, or I'd make Dean my love slave. I only own Kyra.
Rating: M for supernatural violence against children, death and language
Characters: Dean, John Winchester, Bobby Singer, Sarah Grant aka Kyra Singer (OC)
Description: First installment of the Kyra Singer saga, set pre-series. Every hunter has their own horror story, a tragedy that made them choose the life, and Kyra is no exception.
A/N: Okay, I know this gets pretty dark in some places, but that's just the extent of the disaster. This is set a few months after Sam left for Stanford, which is why he's not in the picture for this one. Please review!
The first time I saw Dean Winchester…that's a day that's been branded in my mind permanently. You see, I was just a normal person up until then—sure, I'd developed a couple of freaky abilities, but I had an apartment, a husband, and two small kids. It wasn't exactly him that changed everything, it was just the job he was working, but he's the reason I'm still alive to talk about it.
"Mrs. Grant?" I looked up when I heard my name. I'd watched them come up the stairs while I was standing outside my front door smoking. Between kids and the lingering smoke clogging up my sinuses when I sleep, I made the rule with me and my husband that we don't smoke inside.
"Yeah, that's me. Who are you?" I asked in return. The kids were asleep and my husband was hanging out with one of his friends across town, and I wasn't exactly comfortable with strangers in Tulsa coming up to me…I grew up in a small town, so I was a bit paranoid about the crime rate here.
There were two of them; I was instantly attracted to the younger of the two, while the older one bore a strong resemblance. They looked like they were father and son, and it was the older one who spoke.
"Special Agent Hetfield; this is Special Agent Ulrich," they flashed their badges as they spoke, "we'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind."
It was their introduction that did it; a ringing started in my head, like an old-fashioned fire alarm—the bell, not the siren—and I winced. It ended with their introductions, though—it didn't extend into the bit about the questions. They seemed to notice because the younger one—the so-called Special Agent Ulrich—spoke up.
"Are you all right?" I swallowed back the pain in my head and looked at him. I knew what that ringing meant because it wasn't the first time it had happened, but my instincts were usually good and I went with them.
"I'm fine…come on in," I told them, then put my cigarette out in the ashtray and walked back inside. They followed me in and I motioned for them to sit down. As they settled themselves on the futon, I spoke again. "Sorry if it's not that comfortable…we don't really have the money for a couch."
"It's fine, Mrs. Grant, we've had worse," the elder said, then shot his partner a look. I sat down in one of my kids' chairs and looked at them seriously.
"Who are you really?" I demanded. Ulrich looked slightly uncomfortable, but Hetfield wasn't giving anything away.
"We told you-"
"Hetfield and Ulrich, I got that," I snapped back, cutting him off. "As in Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield of Metallica. I'm not stupid, and I know when I'm being lied to. Now who are you and what do you want from me?"
Both of them looked a bit shaken at that, but the younger one was first to speak; he tried to turn on his natural charm, but I was too fed up to go for it.
"What makes you think we're lying?"
"How about you tell me what you want from me?" I countered, feeling my temper flare up.
"We just wanna ask you a few questions about your husband," the elder stated. No alarm bells sounded in my head that time; at least I wasn't worried anymore about being raped or something. I wasn't backing down, though.
"Why should I tell two fake feds anything about him? He hasn't done anything." They were both studying me intently, like I was a problem they were trying to solve.
"We're not fake feds, as you put it," the elder said—alarm bells sounded in my head again, and it hurt a lot more than before. I held my head in my hands for a few moments, holding in the scream of pain.
"Stop lying, please," I spat at them. When the pain subsided a little, I looked up at them; they were giving me a look that was concerned and cold at the same time.
"You did that outside too," the younger one said. "Would you mind explaining that?"
"You'd just think I'm nuts," I told him. They both smirked.
"We're surrounded by crazy day in and day out. Try us," the elder said. I jumped to my feet.
"You wanna know? Fine," I spat at them, then started pacing. "I have a built-in lie detector, okay? When I hear someone lie, it's like an alarm going off in my head, okay? I hear too many, I get these massive headaches. It started about two months ago, and I don't know how or why it happened. It took me a little bit to learn what it was, but I've had a lot of practice to figure it out on my own."
I stopped pacing for a second and saw the look they shared between them; it sent chills up my spine. They looked at me, and their expressions were hard.
"Have you had any strange cravings lately? Blackouts, where you can't remember anything?" I shook my head.
"No and no. Why?"
"Where were you last night?"
"I was here with the kids all night."
"What about your husband—where was he last night?" I was starting to get mad again.
"Look, I'll tell you what you wanna know if you start giving me some answers, starting with who you really are and why all this is so important," I finally told them, sitting down again. "And please, no lies…my head hurts enough as it is."
They shared another look before they asked if they could speak privately. I nodded and walked down the hall to my room. Part of me wanted to eavesdrop, but part of me was scared to. Even if I had wanted to, though, I couldn't hear them because they were whispering—even if they seemed to be arguing over what to tell me and what to leave out.
Finally they called me back in the room, and both of them seemed uneasy this time…apparently they were more used to lying than honesty. I had been sitting for several moments before the elder finally spoke.
"I'm John Winchester, this is my son, Dean," he started—they shared a look before he stated, "we're hunters."
The way he said the word made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I grew up in south Arkansas, so I knew all about normal hunting, but the way he spoke told me their field had nothing to do with what I was familiar with.
"And what exactly do you hunt?" They exchanged a look before Dean looked at me—it almost looked like he was in pain.
"Ghosts…demons…werewolves…zombies…just about every nasty thing you've ever read about or seen in a movie," he said. It wasn't as surprising as some of the things I'd heard of, and I knew they were telling the truth due to the lack of migraine-inducing ringing in my head.
"Okay, so what does my husband have to do with any of this?" Dean blinked in surprise.
"That's it?" I couldn't help but smile a little at his blatant surprise.
"What, did you expect me to freak out?"
"Well, yeah."
"Well, I got a news flash for ya—I'm not like most people. I do believe those things exist; I've believed in the supernatural for a long time. When I was seventeen, I had a demon that kept coming to me in my dreams, but it was never able to get to me. It scared the hell outta me…it went on for a month before I told my mom about it, and she gave me some kind of daily lifting crap to recite and I never saw the thing again, thank God. Hell, I believed before that."
They exchanged looks while I was talking, and I had the feeling that they found it even more interesting than I did, which said a lot.
"So what are you doing in Tulsa, and what does my husband have to do with this?" I asked, bringing the conversation back to the point.
"We think he's been infected by a werewolf." My mind immediately went to the horrible bite wound on his arm from two nights before. He'd said it was from some psycho drunk, but he never got a good look at the guy. I started feeling a little nauseous then.
"He came home two nights ago with a bite on his arm…he said it was some drunk, but it was…" I rested my head in my hands, the nausea making my stomach cramp up…this couldn't be happening to me…what was I supposed to do? I felt Dean's hand squeeze my shoulder reassuringly.
"Mrs. Grant—"
"My name's Sarah," I growled, then took a deep breath and tried to pull myself together again. Falling apart wasn't going to help anything, I kept telling myself. I hadn't worked up the nerve to look at them yet, but I had to ask. "So what should I expect when he changes? What's he gonna do?"
"What do you know about werewolves?" I shook my head…I still couldn't look at them as I remembered everything.
"Just the overly-romanticized crap you see in movies and books, and I know half of that's probably a load of shit. They crave human flesh, silver bullets kill them, once they change they're too far gone, all that stuff."
I finally got the nerve to look up at them, and the looks on their faces told me I was closer to the mark than I thought. John clenched his jaw for a moment.
"Sarah, you were actually pretty close with those parts. More specifically, they crave the human heart, and it takes a silver bullet to the heart to kill them."
"And once the first change happens, everything that made them human is gone," Dean added. I started feeling nauseous again when it clicked for me—this was about to happen to my husband. "Sarah, is there anywhere safe you and your kids could go to? A friend, or a relative?" I shook my head.
"I don't really know anyone up here, and all my family lives in Arkansas," I told them. They looked at each other for a moment, and I could tell they were trying to think of some way to get us somewhere safe.
"Then we'll just have to stay with you…he's bound to come back," John stated matter-of-factly. "I can stake out the building. Dean, you stay here with her."
Dean started to protest, but John merely walked out, ignoring whatever Dean was going to say. I just put my head in my hands again; their actions were all too clear to me. Once my husband came home, they were going to kill him…but would he still be my husband? If he didn't come home till after dark, more than likely he would have changed by then—meaning the man I loved would be gone.
A hand on my shoulder made me jump, and I looked to my right to see Dean kneeling down beside me. His eyes spoke volumes of his inner turmoil; he hated that his job was necessary, but he liked doing it—he hated to be the bearer of such horrible news to me, but he was determined to do everything he could to save me and my children. It only made my heart ache even more.
"I'm sorry," he told me. Even his voice revealed his pain. "I wish there was another way." I waved him off as he prepared to say more.
"It's not your fault," I told him, cursing myself for my voice cracking. "It's either the truth or a body bag, right?"