Disclaimer: I don't own Until Dawn.

A/N: Hey guys, I know this isn't the update you were hoping for either 'And All the World Comes Tumbling Down' or 'An Inextinguishable Light', however my dissertation is taking longer than expected and I haven't had time to work on the next chapters for them. *sheepish* So, here, have a totally unrelated Until Dawn one-shot that I wrote a while ago to tide you over until then! xD

(I genuinely am sorry – I'll be able to go back to work on AATWCTD and AIL by the start of September. I hope you'll enjoy the angst/fix-it time-travel/MikexJess fluff in the meantime. :) )

The Butterfly-Touched

Jess wakes up.

This in itself would not be so surprising, if not for the fact she is sure that she fell asleep in an uncomfortable plastic chair at Blackwood police station, leaning against Ashley's shoulder, after the most horrific night of their lives.

But she has woken up sitting on a bench, outside a very familiar cable car station, and Jess stares wide-eyed into the darkened pine trees and the softly-falling snow and wonders if she's going crazy.

That wasn't a dream. It isn't possible. No dream is that detailed, that real.

No dream could match the vividness of her experiences; the terror of being dragged through the snow by an impossible monster, and of falling down an endless mine shaft, and being hunted through cold, dark tunnels where the air tasted like death and no sunlight had ever touched.

Jess' hand goes instinctively to her ribs, but they are whole and undamaged. She takes a deep, tentative breath and nearly cries when her ribcage expands without the slightest hint of pain. Then her hand flies to her cheek and she catches her breath, nearly choking as her fingers touch smooth, unmarked skin. She scrambles in her bag for a mirror and holds it up with shaking hands and then really does let out a sob at the sight of her face, so perfect and unmarred – everything she had ever taken for granted.

She knows it's vanity, but she's always, always had beauty on her side – when she'd caught sight of her reflection in the bathroom at the police station, she'd broken down into hysterics. After all the loss and death of that night, the final straw had been the knowledge that her future had been stolen too. Who would want a model with a scarred face?

Jess blinks away the tears clinging to her lashes and forces herself to take deep breaths. Calm down, Jess. You're here. You're whole.

"But how?" she whispers to herself. "It's impossible."

And then she remembers that people twisted by cannibalism into monsters are impossible too, and can't suppress a horrified shudder. Ashley had told her everything, in a quiet, exhausted undertone, while the two of them had been sitting waiting for Chris' interview to end. Told her about the monsters, and the old man that hunted them, and his death and their survival. Only she and Chris had made it out of the lodge in the end, and her green eyes had filled with tears as she spoke.

"Mike and Sam are – were – heroes, Jess. We would never have made it out – if they hadn't –" Ashley's voice broke and she had to try again. "They – they sacrificed themselves them so we could get out. And Em still didn't...didn't make it."

Jess makes herself breathe evenly, blinking steadily to force back the tears blurring her vision. Emily and she had been at odds for nearly a year but that didn't erase a lifetime's worth of friendship and love, only buried it beneath pain and betrayal. And Mike…

Jess presses a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob and, as if summoned by her thoughts, a familiar voice calls a greeting from close by. "Jess!"

She looks up into warm brown eyes and is immediately transported back to when she last saw them, looking up at him from where she was lying on the rusty floor of an ancient elevator. She had been broken and bloodied and he'd fallen to his knees at her side, desperation and horror etched on his face and her name on his lips and all she could feel was blinding, overwhelming relief that he'd come for her. Half-naked, through the snow and the dark in the wake of a horrifying nightmarish creature, to rescue a girl he'd been dating for less than half a year.

And then the floor had dropped away beneath her and she fallen into the dark, chased by his scream of despair and barely seven hours later she'd been informed gently by a policeman that Mike hadn't made it off the mountain. Ashley had filled in the details, but it was small comfort to know that he'd died a hero, because he was still dead and she'd never even got to tell him thank you –

"Jess! Jess!" Mike's voice is alarmed and much closer than before and Jess suddenly realises that she's crying, tears running down her face, and then Mike's face blurry face is right in front of her. "Jess, are you okay? Speak to me, babe!"

She laughs through her tears because she never thought she'd see him again and the gaping, ragged hole in her chest is suddenly filled again, overflowing actually, too big to be contained. "Yeah. Sorry, Mike," she hiccupped, wiping at her eyes. "I'm just really…not feeling well at the moment." I can't tell him the truth. What even is the truth? I've just lived through the night to come and it was the most horrifying experience of my life but somehow, impossibly, I've come back to the start again.

Then he tugs her forward off the bench and folds her into a hug, interrupting her train of thought, and Jess all but melts into the embrace, hugging him back fiercely. She can feel the beat of his heart in his chest and nothing in the world is more reassuring right now. "I'm sorry," he says in her ear. "Is there anything I can do to help? Paracetamol? Ibuprofen? "

She laughs again, and presses her wet face against his jacket. "Don't worry, hot stuff. You're helping just by being here."

"Yeah?" He pulls back a little and Jess' mouth tugs up in a fond smile at his pleased, cocky smirk, and underneath that, the shadow of real concern and the man that tragedy revealed Mike to truly be.

"Yeah," Jess returns, smile broadening as she wipes away her tears. "Don't let it go to your head."

Mike huffs good-naturedly. "Me? Never." His smirk softens into a smile. "Now, Miss Jessica, if you'd point me in the direction of your bags, we should probably get moving before we freeze to death. After all, we have a party to attend."

He winks, completely unaware that the bottom has just fallen out of Jess' stomach – it's all she can do to keep it from showing on her face.

Shit. Shit, shit and more shit.

xxx

Mike sticks close to her on the way up the mountain, clearly sensing she isn't in the mood to talk but wants him close by regardless. Her mind is too busy turning over in panic and barely-suppressed terror and oh God, this can't happen again, it can't, it can't –

She couldn't warn anyone, for obvious reasons. They'd think she was crazy, or trying to pull a prank, and wouldn't leave regardless. At most, she'd be able to get herself and Mike off the mountain, if she feigned illness. She hadn't been sure before but she had the measure of him now – the-night-that-wasn't had showed the kind of man he was under pressure.

The others would stay though, and although the thought of being on this mountain a minute longer than necessary makes her hands tremble uncontrollably with fear, she has to try and save their lives. If she leaves now, knowing the danger they are in…she'd be the worst kind of coward.

Firmly resolved, Jess steps over the threshold of the Washington lodge and tries to ignore the bitter taste of fear in her mouth.

xxx

"Oh my God, that is so gross." Emily's disdainful drawl echoed across the lodge's living room and Jess startles a little at the familiar words.

She is curled into Mike's side and they're sitting in comfortable silence, listening to the banter between Chris and Josh as the two guys struggle to light a fire. Mike's fingers are tracing absent patterns across the back of Jess' left hand where it is oh-so-casually draped across his chest, conveniently directly over his heart, and she's slightly concerned she might be starting to obsess over that, but not enough to stop. The sound of Emily's voice jerks her out of her comfortable state though and she raises her head to look her at her ex-best friend.

Matt tries to intervene, voice soothing, but Emily runs right over the top of him. "Seriously, can she be any more obvious? No one wants in on your territory, honey; you don't need to drape yourself all over him."

The lash of Emily's acidic tongue has become familiar but unwelcome since she and Mike got together and normally it churns her gut in the worst way, anger and guilt and grief all mixed up together – but right now, the only thing she can feel is the same awful horror and anguish when Ashley said "The lodge exploded – and Emily – Emily didn't make it out."

Emily must have suffered horrendous agony in her last moments and Jess can't summon anything but grief and regret as she looks into her former friend's sharp features. She settles back against Mike's side and says quietly, "It's good to see you again, Emily."

More than anything else she could have said, this completely throws the brunette. She glares, to cover her confusion, and then straightens haughtily before striding away, and Jess doesn't know whether to laugh or cry when she realises she has finally succeeded in rendering Em speechless.

xxx

Josh offers Mike the key to the guest cabin even without the fight between Emily and Jess to prompt it and Jess suddenly remembers the other complication to this night that Ashley had filled her in on.

Shit. Double shit, she manages to not say aloud and surreptitiously looks Josh over. She sees what she didn't see the first time, the dark circles under his eyes, the slight edge to his manner, and feels her guilt redouble. It is so completely, undeniably her fault – Mike and Emily took the idea and ran with it but the prank had been instigated at her suggestion – and while Josh's own prank was undeniably an equally shitty way of getting back at them, he didn't deserve to be dragged off and eaten by a wendigo for it.

She fights the urge to laugh hysterically at this added complication and then Mike speaks, surprising her. "Nah, Josh. Thanks for the offer, man, but Jess is feeling pretty bad. I think we're just going to hang out here for a bit."

The warm glow of – love, she can say love now, even if it's only to herself now, right? – takes her by surprise and Jess has to fight the smile that threatens to spread across her face, even as she chides herself for being surprised. Mike's not an idiot – anything that's enough to make her cry is pretty serious and he's concerned enough to forgo the opportunity for them to cuddle up in a cozy, secluded cabin.

Josh looks taken aback but recovers with genial smile and a "Sure, man. It's cool."

Then, unexpectedly Emily steps forward. "We'll take it," she says with biting distain, holding out a well-manicured hand. "Anything to not have to see those two all over each other."

Josh hands her the key and Matt follows in her wake and Jess is helpless to stop them. Mike misreads the sudden tension in her body and turns an encouraging smile on her. "Don't worry, babe, you know what she's like."

"I know," Jess murmurs, trying to relax and ignore her sudden terror. She and Mike had made it to the cabin fine before, hadn't they? Please God, let Matt and Emily be lucky too.

Then Josh recruits Sam and Ashley and Chris and they scatter through the lodge, hunting up hot water and spirit boards. Jess rests on the sofa at Mike's insistence, due to her being 'ill', and watches him pull all the dust sheets off the furniture and pile them into a big heap in the corner, keeping up as light-hearted a conversation as she can manage.

Then he tries and fails to start the same fire Josh had been working at, and she laughs, sliding off the sofa to join him, much to his protests. He is astonished and she is just a little smug when she gets a fire going in under five minutes with a little pyramid of paper and sticks.

"My aunt has a coal fire," she explains as she carefully feeds the flames, growing them gradually, and when they end up swapping fire-related stories from their childhoods, she is completely unsurprised to hear that Mike and his cousin once nearly set themselves alight with a Catherine wheel. "Pyro," she teases and he snorts.

"You're one to talk," he says playfully back, and she laughs, unable to deny it with the fire now roaring in the hearth.

"Guilty as charged," she says, stretching out on the rug. Mike lies down beside her, rolling onto his side, and propping his head on his hand. She can see the flames reflected in his warm brown eyes, and then Ashley's voice echoes in her head– they blew the lodge up when they were still inside – and Jess has to force herself not to tense up again.

Something must still show on her face because his expression grows serious again. "Hey," he says softly. "You know you can tell me anything, right? I mean it, Jess. If something's bothering you, you can talk to me."

Jess blinks away her tears and manages a smile. "I know. Thanks, Mike."

"Hey guys! We found the spirit board if you want to join us!" Chris' triumphant voice shatters the moment and Jess smothers a smile as Mike groans quietly.

"Chris, man, you have no sense of timing," he calls back as he pushes himself to his feet and offers Jess a hand up. She accepts, with a sense of dread, ignoring Chris' mock protests at the slander to his timing. Ashley didn't tell her any minute details but she has a feeling this séance isn't going to go well.

xxx

It doesn't.

After Josh storms off, they all head to the library on the advice of a fake ghost to find fake evidence and Jess is trying her best to remember the exact order of events that Ashley had explained to her. It didn't help that she'd been grieving and in shock – not exactly in the best frame of mind for remembering details.

Then Ashley is yanked into the kitchen and they hear her screams abruptly cut off and no amount of battering will make the kitchen door open. "Ashley!" Chris screams, beside himself with panic and fear and Jess wishes she could tell him that redhead is in no real danger.

"He must have barricaded the door!" Mike yells. "This way!" He grabs Jess' hand and runs out of the hall, Chris sprinting after them – Jess has the presence of mind to snatch up a poker from the fireplace as they run through the living room.

They barrel outside through one of the side doors and circle around through the snow to the door behind the kitchen, leaping up the wooden steps two at a time, only to find that that the door is gaping wide open. Blood glistens wetly on the floor; Mike curses, Chris lets out a low cry of despair and Jess is utterly disquieted, hoping that Josh hasn't actually cut Ashley to make her 'abduction' more believable.

They follow the blood trail through the snow to one of the outbuildings and despite knowing it's a setup, Jess' heartrate spikes in distress at the sight of Ashley and Josh chained to a wall, as a sawblade whirs to life.

"Hello my special little subjects…"

As the deep, electronically altered voice crackles over hidden speakers, Jess is jolted into action. Turning, she runs out of the shed, ignoring Mike's worried cry of "Jessica!" She's been out this way on previous visits to Blackwood and she knows there is more than one door into the outbuilding – and while they are likely locked, the doors themselves are old and weak.

Poker in hand, she uses it to punch through the weak, rotted wood surrounding the lock on the first door she comes to. Mike catches up to her as she enters the outbuilding. "God, Jess, what are you doing?"

She shoots him a fierce look over her shoulder but doesn't stop moving. "Saving our friends' lives! Are you coming or what?"

Mike looks momentarily taken aback. Then he grins as he sprints after her, even though it's still touched with worry and fear. "That's my girl." His hand finds hers and she squeezes it tight as they push past a pile of boxes and stumble out into chaos.

Ashley and Josh are screaming and Chris is shouting on the other side of the fence, frantically pleading with the unseen 'psycho' to stop what he's doing, his voice cracking with fear and horror. The sound is breaking Jess' heart and she abandons her original plan to make a show of trying to untie Josh and Ash, before 'discovering' Josh's real body.

Instead she lets go of Mike's hand to sprint for what is clearly the control panel, barely visible in the shadows behind where Josh and Ashley are tied up. Ignoring Mike's startled shout, and the glimpse she catches of Josh's real body behind the board he's 'chained' to, she reaches up and immediately slams down the lever marked 'Saw 1'. Thank God Josh is so OCD about labelling stuff.

The sound of the sawblade dies away, and the air is filled with sound of Ashley's sobbing and Chris' broken voice saying, "Oh thank God, thank God –"

Then Mike's arms close around her in a fierce hug and she barely curbs the urge to lash out with the poker. Instead she relaxes and apologies before he can speak. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I had to stop it."

Mike lets out a deep breath. "I know. I – I just – the guy who did this still has to be around here somewhere."

"I know." Jess looks over his shoulder, in time to see Josh drop down from the box he was standing on so he could put his head through the hole in the board. He turns to face her and she meets his furious, dark gaze, edged with more than a hint of instability. "And I think I know who did it."

xxx

It doesn't take long for the others to work it out for themselves and the air is soon thick with angry shouting and furious accusations. Jess is quite sure she is Josh Washington's least favourite person in the world right now, and his black glares make Mike plant himself squarely in front of her, glowering right back at him.

Even Chris is incensed at Josh, for what essentially amounts to emotional torture, and eventually Josh's reasons and plans come spilling out of him in a flood of ugly, jagged shards of truth and festering pain.

However, Jess can't bring herself to be anything but glad she has cut his grand plan short at the first opportunity. Even if Josh can't see it, the longer his scheme was allowed to play out, the more it would hurt him and everyone around him.

And more importantly, now Jess is now free to worry about the real threat; not that she has any idea how actually deal with a wendigo, short of making like a statue or blowing up a house.

The group that returns to the lodge is a mostly silent one, although the air crackles with tension and bad feeling all round. Mike draws Jess away to sit on the sofa furthest from Josh, eyeing him warily and with no small amount of anger. "If he'd done that to you, I would have fucking killed him," Mike promises quietly, in a tone no less deadly for it.

Jess follows his gaze to where Ashley is still trembling and hugging her knees to her chest, Chris at her side, awkwardly attempting to comfort her. Josh stands at the window, glaring out into the night, and Jess shakes her head. "I don't think he's all there, Mike," she says quietly. "Look how erratic he is. He's clearly ill."

Mike takes in Josh's hands, clenching and unclenching spasmodically, and frowns but says nothing. As Jess' gaze drifts around the room's occupants, she suddenly realises who is missing, other than Matt and Emily. "Sam!" she blurts, frantically wracking her brains. She is sure Chris had said something earlier but it seemed like so long ago… "Where's Sam?!"

Chris looked up, startled. "Um…she went for a bath? It was a while ago now though."

Mike glares suspiciously at Josh but Jess nearly laughs with relief. Sam is notorious for the amount of time she spends in the bath – hopefully she's still there, undisturbed by the events of the night.

Jess and Ashley set off to retrieve their blonde friend, with Mike hovering behind them like an unusually protective shadow. Sam is indeed unaware, and utterly startled by the other two girls knocking on the bathroom door. She's even more shocked when she's filled in on exactly what's she missed, and she's soon dressed and down in the living room with everyone else.

No one seems to know exactly what to do now, although it's safe to say the party atmosphere is well and truly dead. Jess hopes desperately that this is it, that Emily and Matt will stay safely in the guest cabin until the sun rises and they can all get off this accursed mountain in the safety of the light and never return – which is, of course, when there comes a thunderous knocking at the door.

Everyone jumps to their feet, nervy and on edge after the night they've been having, and Chris and Mike insist on being the ones to answer the door. They are all shocked by the sight that greets them; Matt, unconscious and slung over the shoulder of a complete stranger, who is also holding some kind of bizarre gun-like weapon attached to metal canisters on his back, and behind them both, Emily, looking unusually shaken and clutching a shotgun in both hands.

"Move," the old guy says impatiently, brushing past Chris and Mike, and while Jess has never seen him before but she knows immediately who he is, thanks to Ashley's description.

The wendigo hunter carries Matt inside, with Emily close on his heels, and Mike shuts the door, before everyone except Josh crowds around, asking frantic questions. The hunter pushes past them and deposits Matt on the sofa nearest the fire and turns around to glare at the teenagers. "Shut up. You're all gonna listen to me, and I don't care if you believe me or not, but I'm gonna say my piece regardless. You all need to get off this here mountain, and never come back – I don't know why you did, after last year."

Of course, this prompts another round of questions and outright accusations in regards to Beth and Hannah's disappearance; Josh says nothing but Jess sees the sudden wildness in his dark eyes and prays he doesn't attack the hunter out of hand.

The old guy cuts across them all, and in blunt, harsh words tells them about the true threat on the mountain. Silence follows, long and filled with disbelief, but before anyone can voice this, Emily speaks for the first time since she entered the lodge.

"It's true," she says and it's her tone that changes the mood in the room. Emily never shows weakness but right now her words are raw and utterly shell-shocked; she still meets each of their gazes in turn, straight-backed and proud, but there's something haunted and hunted that wasn't there before in her eyes. "It chased us through the woods – I thought I was going to die and then Matt fell and hit his head –" She breaks off, looking away and taking a deep breath. "He saved our lives." She glances at the wendigo hunter, a rare and grudging respect in her eyes.

Jess decides it's about time she threw in her two cents and speaks up. "I believe you," she says to the old guy, although her eyes are firmly on her former best friend. "If Emily says it's true, then I believe you."

Emily's gaze snaps to her, shocked, and the others murmur uncertainly, torn between believing and not wanting to believe. The hunter's eyes seem to linger on her for moment, oddly assessing.

"What should we do then?" It's Mike who speaks up and Jess has to fight back her smile that wants to escape. He's unsure but he still has her back and the knowledge fills her with warmth.

"Get down to the basement," the old hunter says gruffly. "Find a room with a door that locks and no windows and wait until morning. I'll come back and escort you to the cable car station and then you'll stay off this goddamn mountain."

The others nod and, looking around at them all, Jess tries not to acknowledge the fragile hope blossoming in her heart.

xxx

It's a long five hours until dawn. During that time a disorientated Matt wakes up, much to Emily's relief, although the signs are so subtle probably only Jess can tell they're there. They give him water to drink and once he's woke up properly, he reconfirms that the hunter is telling the truth and to Jess' relief, she feels the sense of belief strengthen in the room now that two people they trust are telling the same story.

Mike sticks close by her the entire time and at precisely 7am, they make their way back up to the living room. True to his word, the hunter is waiting and they set off through the snow with their bags and their lives.

Jess wants to weep with relief when the cable car station comes into view and she can't believe it, can't believe that they're all here and in one piece, and she squeezes Mike's hand, utterly overcome with emotion.

They're waiting for the cable car to arrive (Josh had sent it halfway down the mountain as part of his prank) when the wendigo hunter's gaze catches her's and he beckons to her. "Not you," he says as Mike makes to accompany her. "Just the girl."

Mike's frown deepens and he opens his mouth to argue but Jess squeezes his hand again, forestalling the argument. "It's okay," she says, giving him a smile. "It'll just be a minute. Right?" She looks at the hunter and he nods.

They withdraw a short distance, just out of earshot, and Jess can still feel Mike's worried, protective gaze on her back. "What is it?" she says, looking up into the hunter's grizzled face.

He gazes back at her contemplatively and then the last thing Jess expects comes out of his mouth. "This isn't the first time you lived this night, is it, girl."

It's less a question than a statement and Jess feels her eyes widen in shock, all but confirming his words. He nods, looking satisfied. "How –?" she asks, bewildered.

"It's this mountain. I don't know if you picked up on it, but it ain't exactly normal." His tone is dry. "Sometimes it interferes, sometimes it doesn't. But you have the look of the butterfly-touched. What happened on your first time around?"

Jess thinks of the-night-that-wasn't and of dark tunnels and claws scraping over rock and the agony in her chest and of sitting huddled in a police station with another blood-stained girl as they waited for their sole remaining friend to finish talking to the police – and some of it must have shown on her face, because the hunter just nods. "Fair enough."

In the distance the cable car clanks into the station, accompanied by several whoops of joy, and the old guy looks at her levelly. "This is a gift. Don't waste it."

Jess glances back at her friends, all of her friends, silhouetted by the light of the rising sun, and then looks back at him, clear resolution in her eyes. "I won't."

He nods and then turns and melts into the treeline; Jess re-joins Mike on the edge of the group and he looks at her, questioning and worried. "You okay, Jess?"

She smiles up at him as they step into the crowded cable car and wraps her arms around him, the tight knot of fear in her chest unravelling completely for the first time since she woke up here again. "I will be now."

A/N: Thank you again for reading – if you enjoyed, please let me know. :)