Timeline: set after Bela's first meeting with Sam and Dean. Also, the ghost ship is already taken care of. A little bit of an AU, as I think I'm gonna make Bela's deal pretty non existent, meaning she won't have to steal the colt or try to kill the boys.

Bela Talbot wasn't particularly fond of surprises, but he never ceased to surprise her. The first time he had surprised her was when he had managed to track her down to her apartment and, not only that, but work his way around her security system. The second time was when he rightfully refused to trust her, proving that he was smarter than he looked. Of course, there were a few more minor surprises in-between and afterward, but none of them compared to the stunt that Dean Winchester was trying to pull now.

He had first called her, the screen of her phone casting a dim illumination over her previously darkened bedroom (it was two-thirty in the morning, she had checked before promptly ignoring the digital DEAN WINCHESTER flashing on her cell's screen), and then, following her lack of an answer, he rang the buzzer to her apartment. Repeatedly. Like about seven times, causing her to roll on to her side and sandwich her head between two pillows to block out the incessant and repetitive bzzz.

After he called her phone once again, and she ignored once again, and he returned to the buzzing, she muttered "damn it all to hell" and, in a fit of sleepiness and rage, rolled off of her bed. She angrily yanked her silk black robe off its hangar behind her closet door and hastily wrapped it around her shoulders before stomping all the way from her bedroom to the door of her apartment. She was just about to open it when her fingers twitched above the doorknob and she quickly turned around and opened up the top drawer of a nearby end table, wrapping her hand around the black grip of her Walther PPK and concealing it behind her back. Cocking the hammer back just in case things turned for the worse (which they usually did once her and at least one of the Winchester brothers got involved), she opened the door wide enough to fit her head through and gave Dean her best this-better-be-bloody-well-good glare.

And do you know what he did? He laughed.

He also looked her up and down, or at least what part of her body he could actually see. One side of her robe had slipped between her leg and the door and hung in the empty space between her and Dean, while her nightgown had slightly hitched up as she leaned against the doorframe, revealing a piece of her bare thigh. Realizing this, she quickly straightened her posture, but still glared nonetheless.

"What the hell do you want? Do you know what time it is?" she seethed.

Dean clucked his tongue. "Now, sweetheart, is that any way to treat a guest?"

"Not if the person is uninvited, and very well unwelcome," she retorted, putting more of her weight on the door when Dean tried to edge it back with the toe of his boot and allow himself in.

Suddenly, though, his expression became serious. She even noticed a faint stress-caused crease on his forehead, but decided that she was too tired to ask about it. But then she noticed another odd thing—Sam Winchester was nowhere in tow of his older brother.

"I need to talk to you," Dean said, interrupting her thoughts. "It's about a special…item…you have in your possession." After Bela gave him a suspicious look, he added, "Please?"

Bela snorted. "'Please' doesn't pay the bills, Dean," she cooed.

He frowned, frustrated. "Can you just let me in?" again, he tacked, "Please."

And she noted the edging desperation in his voice. He tried to conceal it, sure; his pride, as well as his hate and distrust for her, was too big for him to let his guard down, but she had seen through his mask. Something serious was going on and, based by Dean's desperation as well as Sam's absence, it had to do with the latter himself.

She stepped aside and opened the door to allow Dean in. He practically stormed inside before realizing that he didn't know where to go and Bela walked past him and led him into the kitchen, but not without concealing her gun in the waistband of her panties first, no matter how clunky and cold and uncomfortable it felt. Once he leaned against the kitchen island and looked around to inspect her flat, she folded her arms over her chest and gave him an expectant look from her spot across from him.

Instead of immediately talking, he reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked to be like a small jug…or maybe bottle, of some sort. It was compact, short and wide, looked like it was made out of clay, and was the color of rust. It also had a strange face carved into its surface; the eyes big, the nose short and shaped like a semi-long "U", and the mouth small and turned downwards into a frown. It looked grouchy. To top it all off, it was sealed with a dirty-looking cork, and had a distressed leather string tied on either side of it. All in all it was ugly, and it made Bela mock the face on it.

"Am I supposed to be impressed?" she quirked, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow but slightly grimacing nonetheless. She made a move to poke at it but Dean slapped her hand away. She immediately thought he was just joking, or acting distrustful and guarded like he usually did around her, but when she looked up, his face was all seriousness. It quite literally said, "Don't."

That sobered her up a little. She immediately straightened her back and cleared her throat, waiting for him to follow up on his death-glare with some words of explanation. Finally, he drew a breath, impatiently rubbed between his eyebrows with the pad of his thumb and said,

"Ever heard of the myth of Morgon-Kara?"

He was joking. Was he joking?

After he didn't crack a just-teasing-ya smile, she frowned. "Can't say I have."

"Siberian mythology. Morgon-Kara was a shaman who could bring the dead back to life. This pissed off the Lord of the Dead all to hell, and he, in turn, complained about it to the high god of heaven." He paused and took a short, yet deep breath. "The high god decided to test the shaman by sealing a single man's soul in a bottle"—Bela, starting to get where this was going, suspiciously glanced down at the bottle in front of her—"and the shaman then rode his magic drum into the spirit universe, found the bottle, and freed him. End of mythology."

"Dean, honestly, I'm touched that you decided to grace me with your presence to share a little show-and-tell with me at three in the morning, I am, but you gave me no notice and I'm afraid I'm empty-handed. We'll have to continue this another time, or, perhaps, never." She glared, irritated and tired and confused. But before she could shove Dean away from her breakfast counter and out of her apartment, he said,

"Sam's trapped inside, Bela."

His voice was quiet and sober. He sounded lost and just as confused as she felt and, against her will, she felt sorry for Dean Winchester. Still, she kept her face void of any emotion except pure incredulousness, and glanced between Dean and the bottle.

"What—? How—?"

"We were hunting down a shaman in Indiana in search of this very bottle when the son-of-a bitch got lucky and hit Sam with a hoodoo soul-trapping spell. Then all of a sudden a murky white smoke is coming out of my brother's eyes and nose and mouth and is floating towards this uglier-than-hell bottle, while his actual body is falling to the floor like dead weight." He paused at the phrasing, briefly uncomfortable with himself, and then went on. "I checked his pulse and everything. It was still there. But he wasn't there. It was like he was in a coma or something."

"Where is his body now? Certainly he's not in the passenger seat of the Impala," she playfully chided, hoping to—at least slightly—relieve the tension in the air.

Ignoring her jab, however, he answered, "I left him at Bobby's. The old man's got an IV and everything a hospital would have that could keep Sammy at least breathing," he said. "That's why I'm here. Bobby told me what I need to free Sam's soul from the bottle."

"I do have a wonderful collection of wine openers," she smiled.

Again, he ignored her. It was odd not exchanging witty banter with him. She didn't like it. It was the only reason why she liked Dean Winchester (and not because he was annoyingly, and if not ruggedly, handsome either).

"It's a rune drum. Siberian, you might have guessed," he said.

She didn't have to think for long about what the man meant. The oval, membrane-encased drum quickly came to her mind, and she smiled almost immediately. It was small, at least no bigger than a normal piece of printer paper, but it was a pretty profitable piece that she had in her possession, and she had yet to line up a buyer for it.

"And this is the key to freeing Sam's soul?" she nodded.

Dean nodded, too.

"Okay, sure, you can have it," she added vaguely, before smiling devilishly and not unlike herself. She noticed that Dean didn't visibly relax after she told him that the drum could be his; the man knew what was coming next. "For two-hundred-fifty."

Dean cracked a hopeful smile, almost pathetically so. "Dollars? I do love myself a bargain," he pulled out his wallet from his jacket pocket and immediately dropped two hundred-dollar bills coupled with a fifty on the counter in front of her.

She scooped it up with ease before extending her free hand out, palm up. "Alright, now where's the other two-hundred, forty-nine thousand, and seven-hundred-fifty dollars?"

Dean groaned and snatched his money back out of her hand. "Okay, look, I don't have that kind of money right now—"

"Goodbye, Dean," Bela sang, cutting him off.

"—but I will find a way to get it to you, I promise,"

"You do realize that a quarter million dollars is actually a bargain, right? There are only seven of these things left in the world, Dean, mine included. Seven total. I could easily sell that for five-hundred thousand, maybe seven-fifty."

Dean practically begged. "Just let me borrow it. I'll bring it back as soon as Sam's free."

"No. Way. In. Hell," she said firmly, harshly enunciating each word. "How do I know that you won't free your brother and then turn around and sell the drum yourself?"

Dean looked past her shoulder and shrugged. "Actually, I wasn't going to do that, but that sounds much smarter than just returning it to you."

Bela frowned. "The only way you'd leave here with that drum is if I go with you," she said. After Dean stared at her with utter confusion sprawled all over his face, she added, "To free Sam. As long as it's in your hands, that drum is to be within my eyesight at all times."

In a swift movement that she didn't exactly see coming, Dean pulled out his pearl-gripped pistol and pointed it at her head. At the same time, she reached under the skirt of her nightgown and drew out her own handgun, aiming right between his pretty green eyes. "Unless I kill you and take it for myself."

She smiled sweetly. "A little bit like déjà vu, isn't it?" her smile faltered and turned to something more sinister, daring. "I'd like to see you try."

Dean quietly grumbled before lowering his gun and concealing it somewhere behind him, presumably tucked between his lower back and the waistband of his jeans. Bela placed hers on the counter, lest he tried that move again.

"I can get you the money, Bela—" he started, but Bela clucked her tongue before he could finish. After this he paused for a moment, his jaw set and his eyes alight with fire, and Bela watched him patiently, if not amusedly. Finally, after what seemed like a good ten minutes, he mumbled, "Fine. You'll come with me, if that's what it'll take to get the drum."

"It's settled," she said. "But I must add that there will be a rental fee, yeah?"

Dean stumbled on his words, vexed and annoyed and unsure of what to bark out first, so instead he said nothing at all and silently fumed as Bela took her gun off of the counter and made her way to her room to fetch her luggage.

From her bedroom, she called, "Do you know how to work this drum, might I ask?"

"Actually, no," he admitted, and Bela could have sworn that she heard the faint sound of Dean rummaging through her fridge. After rolling her eyes, she decided it wasn't worth her time stopping him. "But Bobby pointed me in the direction of the only person in the States that does, unless you want to go to Siberia. But I have to add, I don't do flying, so unless you got a car that drives on water or something…."

"Quite," she snapped back, although she was wearing a smile. After a brief pause, she added, "Who is this person?"

"He's a shaman—not an evil one, though," he said, and in a voice that was much quieter but that Bela could still hear, "Supposedly." He paused, then returned his voice to its normal volume. "Some Siberian guy named…Aliyev. Vadim Aliyev."

"And he knows how to use the drum; to save Sam," she asked, almost suspiciously.

"Supposedly," he repeated. "But it's the only lead I have and I'm willing to follow it. More than willing. Bobby said that in order to save a trapped soul, you have to do a specific beat on the drum. This Aliyev guy knows it—"

"—supposedly," Bela finished with him, nodding even though he could not see her. "And Aliyev...I'm assuming that our dear friend Bobby told you where he's holed up at?"

"North Dakota."

A little over a day's drive from New York to North Dakota, which wasn't all that bad, especially since she knew she wasn't going to be the one driving. As little as she knew Dean, she knew him enough to know that 1) he was not going to sit in any vehicle besides his beloved "beauty", and 2) the only person that he'd ever let drive said car would be Sam, and he was currently—technically—already in two places at once.

Bela finished packing her luggage with all of her essentials—toiletries, makeup, hair-straightener and curler, and of course, clothes—before moving into her walk-in closet and ritually finding her safe's keypad along the wall. After punching in her four-digit code, the safe, which was built into the wall, swung open and revealed its contents to her. Of course, this wasn't where she kept all of her stolen valuables (there were multiple other safes like this around her apartment, some bigger, some smaller), but it just happened to be where the drum was located at the moment. It was wrapped in a thick piece of canvas and she pulled it out, making sure to be extra careful, and placed it in a duffel bag that she had snatched from a shelf only moments before. After this, she quickly changed into something more suitable than a robe and nightgown, before grabbing the duffel and luggage and rejoining Dean where she left him.

Or where she thought she left him.