The waitress called Irish walked past the table where Sam sat by himself. He had been looking through the newspaper in hopes of appearing busy, or at least he had been until he noticed the red haired waitress. It was not her pretty face that he noticed first, he had seen her along with another in a vision being attacked by a gang of vampires and some how he knew he must be there to help her or they might kill her. His eyes hadn't really left her since he'd seen her. Since all of his visions usually had some connection to the demon he wondered which one of the girls it was and what the connection might be.
He watched her walk up to the bar and have two pitchers of green beer poured up. She ran her hand through her hair; something seemed to be bothering her. What ever it was she didn't seem to want to show it. She took the two pitchers of green beer back over to the winner of the second table. The winner seamed to be shamelessly flirting with Dean. Sam just shook his head; this was supposed to be business not pleasure. He knew that if all went well for Dean he would be going back to the motel by himself tonight, at lest they would be protected.
Destiny leaned back and watched her opponent set up his next shot. On her right a pitcher of beer was set down next to her. Without looking she reached out and spun the pitcher so that the handle faced her. Then in one swift movement she wrapped her hand around the handle and lifted it from the table. Then with her other hand grabbed her glass and poured some beer into it, her eyes never left the game that was in progress.
"Show off," Irish teased, poking at Destiny.
"This isn't showing off I was just thirsty," Destiny said in a mock hurt voice. "Besides, what happens after I win is showing off," she finished a huge smile forming on her face.
"What did you do?" Irish asked clearly worried.
"Oh you'll see . . . don't worry it's not illegal just a bit of fun," she said setting her beer down. "My turn gotta go Irish, just keep the beer coming," she said as Dean stepped away from the table.
"Do I really want to know?" she wounded aloud as she walked away.
Sam watched the waitress converse with Dean's opponent briefly before she walked away, slowly making her way towards his table.
"Sera, I'm taking ten, cover for me?" Irish turned to head back to the bar when another waitress called to her.
"Sure," she answered, with a softened Irish accent, which explained the nickname. She then turned and walked towards Sam's table. She stopped at the one directly across from him to collect an empty beer pitcher, then made her way towards him. "Can I get you anything?" she asked stopping at his table.
"No, I'm fine thanks," he replied.
"Ok, just let me know if you do," she replied smiling at him. She turned and walked back up to the bar, pulling her long coppery braid over her shoulder. Sam noticed her tooled leather belt with the name Serenity stamped into the back.
"Serenity," he said, reading her belt. He suddenly felt the need to strike up a conversation with her, he needed more information. She stopped and looked over her shoulder at him, clearly waiting for him to say more. "Or is it Sera?" he added lamely. It was hard for him to talk to women in general since Jessica's death.
She smiled then ran her hand unconsciously over then back of her belt. "Either work, Sera is short for Serenity." She took the pitcher back to the bar and came back to talk to him.
Sam quickly raked his brain to get the conversation going, trying to make it look casual. "So where are you from?" he asked and immediately felt stupid for asking that. "I mean your accent isn't very thick, like you've been in the states for a long time," he quickly amended.
"How very observant of you," she said smiling at him. "Your right, actually, my parents moved to the states when I was six. I grew up in Carmel, California. Before that we lived in Anascaul in county Kerry. My family owns an old castle up the Brandon Mountains that they've been working on converting into a five star hotel for the past five years. It's a poorer part of Ireland but in a way it's richer. Culturally rich, you know what I mean?"
"No, but go on," He said smiling back at her, glad that he didn't have to fight to keep the conversation going. She was freely giving him the information he needed with out him having to dig.
"Well its one of the few areas left where the original Gaelic is still spoken as the indigenous language. Things are done the old fashioned way in a lot of places still. The peninsula is full of mostly small towns. A few places still don't have electricity or anything like that, if you can imagine that." She smiled and blushed looking away. "I'm sorry I'm babbling it's just that I'm not very good at all this. I just don't get a chance to get out and socialize much."
"No, its ok, it's been a while for me too," he said fighting to keep the conversation going.
"Really? Bad break up or something?"
"No, actually, she died in a fire," Sam said not quite sure why he was telling her this.
"Oh I'm so sorry. I know how you feel; I lost my older brother one year ago today." A look of sorrow came across her pretty face.
"I'm sorry. How did he die?" Sam asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
"No offense meant but I'd rather not talk about it. Let's just say I didn't take it very well," she said, shifting uncomfortably.
"Sorry," Sam replied, his heart starting to race. Had he gone too far and scared her away? How could he protect her if she wanted nothing to do with him?
"Its ok, you didn't know," Serenity said her shy smile coming back to her face.
"So, uh, you said you don't get out much, what do you do?" he stumbled slightly as his heart rate begun to slow. Her warm smile assured him that he hadn't gone too far.
"I dance for the New York City Ballet. I work here part time to cover my expenses. Dancers don't make very good money, unless you're a principle or have a contract with some major band."
"So you're a ballerina, huh."
"Yeah," she replied with pride as she blushed slightly.
"That's cool."
"Thanks. So what do you do? Are you a student or something?" Serenity asked. She wanted to know more about this guy who appeared to be interested in her.
"Not currently, I'm sort of taking a break form it for a little while."
"What are you doing now?"
"I'm on a road trip with my brother," Sam said motioning towards Dean who was playing another round of pool. "We're just kinda going around the country meeting different people, and all."
"I see, you're road warriors or something like that. Hitting up all the pool tournaments along the way?"
"Well he is, anyways. I'm just along for the ride, in that sense," Sam said trying to think of how to get the subject of the conversation back on her.
"Well it's good to have family that you get a long with."
"Don't you get a long get along with family?" he asked happy to get the conversation going back in her direction.
"Not all of them," she said sighing with a faint hint of regret, "or at least they don't agree with my choices, my sister especially. They all thought that I should have gone into medicine or something. But I couldn't do that, I had to follow my dream. All I ever wanted to do is dance and they just couldn't understand that."
"I know the feeling. My Dad wasn't at all thrilled about me going to school."
"You're kidding?" she was shocked, "most parents would be thrilled for their kid to go to off to a college. Where'd you go?"
"Stanford."
"That's a very good school," Serenity said clearly impressed.
"Yeah, but my Dad and I had a hell of a fight when I left. He wanted me to stay and pick up the family business." It was his turn to sigh with regret.
"I'm sorry to hear that, but you can't always please everybody and you can't live your life the way somebody else wants you to or you'll end up bitter and resentful for the rest of your life," she relied matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, I think he realized that eventually, because we did make up before he died." It suddenly occurred to Sam that they seemed to be relating to each other on the same level. He wondered what else he was yet to discover.
"That's good, at least you got that. My parents died when I was 17, they never got to see me make it this far. I guess they never thought I'd take it seriously, or that maybe after one audition I'd give up . . ." her voice trailed off as if she were lamenting the past and her smile wavered slightly. A roar came up from the pool tables, snapping her back into reality. "Hey look it was real nice talking to you . . ."
"Sam."
"It was real nice talking with you, Sam, but I've got get back to work now before my boss gets on my case. I'll see you around."
"Yeah, sure," Sam said sorry that he had to let her attention go. Serenity smiled at him as she turned to go. Her bright green eyes were intoxicating, yet not at all in an unpleasant manner. He considered his options for a second about how he was going to get her attention again. Then as if the idea had been planted in his head by an out side force it occurred to him. "Hey wait," he said before she could get away, "what time do you get off?"
"Excuse me?" Serenity looked perplexed.
"Well its looks like my brother is going to busy tonight and I thought maybe we could go out and get a bite to eat or something and talk some more."
"Are you asking me out?"
"No . . . um . . . well maybe, but I promise you it's with the best intentions. I'm not looking to get into you into my bed or anything, I just like talking to you. You're the first person that I've met that I can just talk to and understands what I'm talking about. And I'd just like to talk to you some more . . ."
Serenity's smile seemed to brighten and her green eyes twinkled merrily. "I'd like that. I get off at two," she looked down at her watch, "That's about in another half hour. It'll be just after the battle of the sexes is over."
"Battle of the sexes?" he was clearly perplexed. He hadn't been paying attention at all to the pool tournament.
"Yeah, there are really two tournaments going on here, one for the guys and one for the girls and then the winners of each face off with a battle of the sexes. The winner gets an extra $200, while the loser gets auctioned off for a date with someone here. Usually it's a guy who gets auctioned off. Some times I think they do it just for the ego gratification. Either way though the bar makes a lot of money from this."
"I see, well I'll see you when you get off, Serenity."
"Ok, I'll see you then." Serenity walked off in the direction of the bar where one of the bar tenders begun drilling her in a series of questions. He had a suspicion that they had to do with him. She smiled and blushed before grabbing two more pitchers of green beer and taking them to the pool tables.
A rowdy group of leather clad rough necks walked in, pulled a few people away from the table they were occupying, shoved them off to the side and sat down in their place. The waitress who would be covering their covering their table looked like she wanted to hide. She turned and pleaded with the bar tender behind the bar for him to wait on their table for her but he refused. She then turned and walked over to their table to take their order. She took their order and returned to the bar unmolested. She took another deep breath before retuning to the table with their order. Again she returned the bar unmolested. Sam knew that she had the right to be scared; these were the vampires in his vision. Now he knew that he couldn't let Serenity out of his sight or she might die tonight.
