Thank you so much to all of the readers for the first chapter and for the support!

EXTRA big thank you shout out to those who reviewed: SarahCullen4, TheRealDarlaCooper, dixie326, thehelper900, Blue-10-Spades. And to those who PMed me with questions (I won't post your name in the shout outs in case you wanted to keep your name private in the messages.) Anyone who writes knows how indescribably good it feels to get those little favorite/follow/review messages!

To address some questions real quick: Yes, Castiel will be in the story, be patient babies! Yes, I know that they are never called "zombies" in the TWD world but it felt very DEAN in that moment and I always thought Kirkman's explanation of TWD being in a universe where no one had ever heard the word zombie before felt really weak… but from here on out they will be called "croats" or "walkers" depending on what POV we are in.

Unfortunately, I do not own anything TWD/SPN related. I am merely a fan exploring the horrific worlds created by Kirkman and Kripke.

/

/

Chapter 2: Snitches get stitches and end up in… bunkers

Twenty minutes later, after the Winchester brothers had checked the small room for walkers and secured the windows and door, she perched on a dusty old motel bedspread with her left pant leg rolled up to her knee. Sam was towering over her at the foot of the bed with a real medical suture kit.

"I expected a needle and some floss," she joked when she saw him pull the still sealed kit out of a duffle bag.

"I've done that before. It actually works pretty well. But I thought I'd give you the good stuff," he quipped as he ducked into his bag to search for something else.

Dean seemed completely oblivious to their conversation. He had several guns and knives spread out on the small table in the corner of the room and was cleaning and checking over the weapons. She noticed that he included her own gun in the process. Even though she had run out of ammo while fleeing the prison weeks ago Beth had managed to hang onto the weapon, hoping that she would eventually find more ammo. The knife from her belt was also sitting on the pile, but she was really surprised to see the small knife that had been tucked into her boot. She leaned over and surreptitiously checked in her right boot.

"Yeah, we found that one already," Dean said without even looking up from the gun he had already disassembled in his hands.

"I can see that," she responded, trying to keep her voice cheerful instead of nervous, "You guys thought of everything."

"When you spend your whole life around weapons, you learn all the best hiding places," his voice was gravelly.

Before she could think of a response to that, Sam had found what he was looking for in his bag and had stepped to block her view of Dean. She watched Sam splash some water from the bottle on his hands and then he handed it to her. Beth's mouth was dry and she gratefully pulled the bottle up to her lips.

That's when she got a whiff of it. Her nose burned painfully and she pulled it quickly away from her face.

"You ever gotten stitches without anesthetic before?" Sam asked her with raised eyebrows when she tried to pass the bottle back to him.

"I'll be fine," she insisted, still waving the liquor at him.

"I've had my fair share of cuts, and that is an especially jagged and nasty one you've got. Trust me, a couple shots will take the edge off," he insisted.

"I don't… uh… I don't drink," she stated with as much certainty as she could muster. Giving up trying to hand the bottle to Sam, she capped it and just set it down on the bed next to her.

Dean snorted loudly from the corner in disbelief, "Look Sammy, we found a teenager that doesn't drink! It's better than finding a unicorn!"

"Don't be a jerk Dean," the taller brother said bending over to pick up the bottle. "Ignore him," he said gently to Beth. "It'll be a lot more painful, but it'll be fine."

She nodded and stretched out to grab one of the pillows from the head of the bed while Sam pulled over the other chair from the table and settled into it at the foot.

Sam opened the suture kit and poured a generous amount of the alcohol onto her leg. She hissed when it burned but didn't flinch away.

"Ready?" he asked skeptically, poised with the needle in his hand.

"Just do it please." Beth knew she needed stitches if this cut on her leg had any hope of healing and she just wanted it to be done as quickly as possible.

He looked at her, took one long pull from the bottle himself and then dug the needle into her skin with a muttered, "Sorry about this."

The needle tugged through her skin over and over. It was excruciating. Beth wanted to scream and kick. She felt like she would be willing to search every single room of every single hospital in America for some kind of anesthetic right now.

Tears streamed down her face but she stayed as quiet as possible. She didn't want to scream and attract walkers. Plus, Dean kept shooting glances up at her from the table and for some reason she didn't want him to think she was weak.

Sam's hands were gentle but didn't falter once.

"Done this a lot, huh?" she asked him through gritted teeth, hoping for a distraction.

He let out a breathy chuckle, "You could say that. Had to stitch up my own stomach once, 47 stitches."

"On yourself?" she asked aghast. "Why couldn't someone else do it for you?" Her eyes flicked to Dean but she didn't dare ask out loud.

"Sam is the Florence Nightingale around here. I'm more like… Batman in this operation," Dean bragged.

"You run around in tights?" she laughed when she pictured someone running around in tights to get away from walkers.

Sam guffawed and Dean looked simultaneously irritated and impressed with his lips turned down in an exaggerated frown.

"No. I save people from things that go bump in the night and drive an awesome car. Just think of it as The Batmobile," he tried to recover.

There was a large bump and loud growling from outside. "Speaking of bumps… I guess that's your calling card, Batman," Sam chortled with his eyes still on her leg.

Dean picked up one of the weapons lying on the table and headed for the door muttering under his breath, "I could pull off tights if I wanted to…"

Beth couldn't see out of the window from where she was sitting on the bed but if she had to judge based on the sound of the growls, she would guess there were probably five or more walkers out there. Sam didn't even look concerned that his brother was going out there, alone and with only one machete.

When Sam got to the widest part of the cut, he had to pull the skin taught and she pressed the pillow into her mouth to keep from screaming.

"Sorry Beth. I'm almost done," Sam said quietly with sympathetic green eyes.

"Maybe I should have taken that drink. I have gotten drunk before," she began, thinking of the moonshine shack with Daryl. Even though that was only a few weeks ago, it felt like that happened a lifetime ago. And it felt strange to be talking to someone who wasn't Daryl after they had been on their own for so long. However, talking was distracting her. "Had some trouble finding something to drunk actually. A walker got my bottle of wine and the peach schnapps got smashed. Ending up getting drunk on moonshine actually and burnt down an old shack with Daryl. The moonshine tasted absolutely awful, like what I imagine nail polish remover would taste like. But being drunk was fun… I can see why people do it, all my problems… and even walkers, didn't seem so bad anymore," she babbled and smiled at the memory.

Dean had walked back inside the room and caught the tail end of her talking to Sam. The blade was dripping with dark walker blood but his clothes didn't even look ruffled. He locked the door behind him and clomped over to the table again.

"That's the point of drinking, sweetheart. To forget your problems," Dean scoffed.

"How many walkers were out there?" she asked, ignoring his commentary.

"Seven," Dean acknowledged indifferently.

"Think they were just stragglers or is there more?" Beth was in business mode now. It was automatic now after her weeks with Daryl. There were times when he would indulge her and let her chatter about whatever was in her head, but there were other times when she knew that they needed to talk logistics and safety.

"Just stragglers, I didn't hear anymore coming," he grunted back. "How're those stitches coming?"

"Almost done," Sam replied with another tug at her leg.

Her leg was still agonizing but when she glanced down, she realized that he was just finishing the last stitch. There were 18 little knots that were tight and evenly spaced. "What did you do before all this? Were you a surgeon or something?"

"No. I was going to be a lawyer," he answered with a nervous glance over his shoulder at his brother. "All done. Just keep them out of the water and I can take them out for you in a few days."

"I can take them out myself. Thank you for doing that though Sam," she said smiling up at him and tossing the pillow back where it belonged. Her muscles slowly relaxed—she had tensed up while Sam had stitched her up—and she realized how sore she was from fighting off walkers last night.

"You were a good patient," Sam flashed her a quick, toothy grin, put the bottle of liquor back in the duffle bag and pulled out a map that he opened up on the second bed.

Her head was still pounding and she wanted to sleep. But even though she didn't think these men would hurt her, Beth couldn't bring herself to fully let her guard down. So instead of sleeping, she just lay down on the bed, closed her eyes and willed her head to stop spinning. The small blonde tried to count the seconds in order to take her mind off of the pain.

After she had counted to 1,294, she heard Sam and Dean begin conversing in very low voices.

"Figure out where Kevin could be hiding yet?" Dean grumbled.

Beth didn't move. They were speaking so quietly that they must think she was asleep. Maybe she could figure out more about these strangers if she stayed completely still.

"We've been through this Dean. He's not at any of our safe houses, not at Garth's, we've checked everything that had to do with Kevin's family or old life and any hunter who knew about him. We've been looking for him for years… it… it might be time to move on," whispered Sam.

"And what if Crowley got him?"

"If Crowley has him, Kevin is probably being hidden in the darkest parts of Hell already. If Crowley has him, only the angels would be able to pull him out."

"Angels aren't gonna do shit for us," Dean scoffed. "Cass is… Cass is gone. And the rest of them are just self serving dicks."

"I can't do any of my normal research without news reports and the internet. That place off of Jekyll Island was that last place of Garth's I know of. We've already been through everywhere else in of our records," Sam sounded like he was reading from a script, as if they had already had this discussion numerous times. "I'm out of ideas, Dean."

"He was our responsibility," Dean sounded pained. His voice dropped another octave as if he was only talking to himself now, "Stopping this Croatoan virus, closing the gates to hell permanently, getting Cass out of purgatory… that's all on me."

Sam corrected with an exasperated, "Us."

Beth was seriously confused. What did he mean by 'closing the gates of hell'? She kept counting in her head both to keep herself calm and make sure her breathing remained even.

"We'll go back to the bunker. There has to be something else we're missing," Dean said with an air of grasping at straws. "Maybe we can summon one of Crowley's flunkeys at a crossroads. Trap the black-eyed bitch and torture her until she tells us if Crowley has Kevin. Or maybe one of them will know how to get back into Purgatory to Cass."

"Okay Dean, we'll check the books again," Sam's voice seemed half-hearted though.

And he didn't seem to have any problem with Dean's suggestion of torturing people for information.

She felt her heart pick up in speed as it pounded violently against her rib cage.

A vision of her sister and Glenn popped into her head. Beth knew that the Governor had tortured them for information about the prison—her sister came back from that experience a hollow, sad woman and Glenn's face had been so swollen and bruised that she hardly recognized him.

She forced herself to stay completely still. If she got spooked now, she had no idea what would happen. They hadn't hurt her yet… but it was clear that these men were extremely dangerous.

"What are we going to do about her?" Sam's voice was almost inaudible.

Beth almost stopped breathing altogether. But she compelled herself to keep the rhythm of her breaths the same, breathing in for five counts and then out for six. They were going to discuss what to do with her and if their talk of trapping and torturing people was any indication, she was not going to like their plans for her.

Dean sighed, "I don't know Sam. She's just a kid. Southern Barbie who still shakes hands and probably curtsies. We can't just let her go, but I don't like the idea of having Suzanne Somers tagging along for us to take care of too."

"Well, finding that guy she was with is going to be impossible, if he's even still alive. Maybe we can just let her stay in the bunker…" Sam mused, and she heard the crinkling of paper as he folded his map back up.

"We lock her in and you think she'll just dust the bookshelves and bake some apple pie while we try to kill the King of Hell?" Beth didn't need to open her eyes and see him to hear that Dean's voice dripped with sarcasm.

There was loud growling from outside again and Beth took it as her opportunity to pretend to wake up. She was no longer remotely tired and she didn't think she could hold still and pretend to sleep anymore. Her head was aching worse than before with all this new information.

Sam had shuffled over to the window and reported, "Just a few dozen passing by, they didn't hear us."

Beth could tell from the angle of the sun coming into the room that it was still only midafternoon. She vaguely wondered if these men would ever let their guard down and go to sleep so she could come up with a plan.

/

/

A/N: When I was proof reading this, I became terrified that people would think that nothing happened in this chapter. However, there are a lot of HINTS about what will happen next, setting up long-term plot lines and character relationships. Plus, I am trying to slowly induce Beth into the SPN world and trying to show the brothers through a stranger's eyes. (Someone who doesn't have the advantage of knowing how amazing and badass they are.)

Hopefully you liked it… Please follow, favorite and review so I know how it's being received. Feeling super insecure posting this so I am begging for some reviews to tell me what y'all think!

NEXT CHAPTER: DEAN'S POV! Yay! The next chapter was so much fun to write, can't wait to post it.