Me again! Hope if you've gotten this far, it's because you're enjoying what I've got. Writing is procrastination, so I'll likely keep this up for a while, but I probably won't continue to publish without a whole lot of positive feeback. =O Let me know what you think, and enjoy! I've already started on chapter three--no worries. The Winchester brothers you know and love will be in the next several chapters a whole bunch. Peace!

OH! And the only Winchester that's mine is Lily. *sigh* Also, Emily Dickinson wrote her own poem, entitled 'Because I Could Not Stop For Death'.

"I assume, Ms. Williams, that the two bushy-tailed rodents you seem so intent upon are conducive to today's lesson?"

The cold intonation of her name brought Lily back quickly from where she'd been, chin firmly cupped in one palm, eyes seeing without seeing a few squirrels chasing each other on the quad.

She answered automatically. "Yes, sir."

It wasn't until the class tittered around her she knew she'd answered incorrectly.

Professor Grisham—Doctor, as he preferred to be called—taught only two classes at Dartmouth: Introduction to Neurology for grad students, and advanced biochemistry for undergraduate students on the new FastTrack pre-med route. Lily often compared herself and her classmates to the Marines: The Few, the Proud, the Advanced. It was a rigorous course, of that no one would argue. But so much emphasis was put on their 'advancement' is was impossible not to joke, if only to relieve some of the pressure forced on the intelligent individuals.

In any case, if she and the other twenty or so students were the Marines, Doctor Grisham was none other than the proverbial battle-worn drill sergeant. The one who was 'only hard on his charges, because he wanted them to succeed'. The same one, who, if he weren't killed halfway through the movie (at the end of her second year, Lily was beginning to lose hope for this possibility), would experience a teary-eyed moment of pride when one of his soldiers, the one everyone else had given up on, took on the entire enemy battalion using some otherwise inconsequential tip he'd learned early on.

All things considered, things weren't looking too bright on that front, either, though it looked as though Lily had just reestablished her role as the underdog.

Doctor Grisham smiled a smile that was too perfect to be anything but terrifying as he swooped in for the kill. "Oh?" he said, almost sweetly. Lily didn't move, though she was certain there had to be some sort of law against looking at a person like that. Cannibalism was illegal in the United States…right? "And what, pray tell," Grisham continued, using a word Lily was certain didn't even exist anymore, "would that be?"

Lily blinked, trying to ignore the flush she could feel rising on her face. She hated blushing; her freckles stood out and made her look like a leper. The thought made her face burn redder as she answered, "Er…what would what be, Prof—Doctor?"

"Today's lesson, Ms. Williams," Grisham droned on, over the sound of the giggling class. "The one you say is conducive to the mammalian activity over yonder? The same activity you can't seem to take your eyes off? I assume it must be at least partially related to our lesson, since you certainly aren't paying attention to what I'm saying, and finals are in two weeks."

Lily just stared, trying to figure out why accusations seemed so much worse when they were accompanied only by your last name—maybe it was some sort of ancient incantation? She thought it, but didn't smile. She'd never found those dry jokes of hers even a little funny—when the continued giggles from around her alerted her to the present. Grisham was staring at her expectantly.

Oh. He wanted an answer.

Still burning red, Lily's eyes shot to her desk. She'd finished the paper only minutes before class, dragging everything from her desk along with her, haphazardly shoved into her bags. Now, with an assortment of crumpled papers on her desk, and less than two hours of sleep in the past 48 hours to her name, she blurted out the first thing she saw:

'Because I could not stop for Death,
He Kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves,
and—'

"Uh…Because I Could Not Stop for Death?"

The quasi-polite giggles which had been steadily growing in volume around her now erupted into full blown, uninhibited, slightly nervous laughter. Even Drill Sergeant Grisham appeared pleased with her answer. Lily had known she was wrong even as the words left her lips; there wasn't much to be done for it now. It wasn't as though she could get much redder.

Then again, it was never a good idea to test fate.

"Of course," said Grisham as he retreated to his board, full of equations Lily hadn't seen him put up. "I can see how squirrels playing in the grass might remind you of nineteenth century American poetry. But I still fail to see the connection between Miss Dickinson and gluconeogenesis. Perhaps you can explain it to me after class."

Lily suppressed a groan. Wonderful. One more activity to try to wedge into her day. Never mind that she couldn't focus on a single thing for more than thirty seconds without having to remind herself to wake up! She nodded wordlessly and packed away her literature notes, crumbling them into the bottom of her torn backpack with everything else. Times like these she wondered what life might have been like if she hadn't moved away…

'We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us…'

She quickly shoved those thoughts, thoughts of 'home' and 'family', away with the rest of Emily's poem, even as the rest of the class began to empty around her. She must have missed the dismissal. Or perhaps she'd just been more caught up with the poem than she'd realized. No matter the reason, he was waiting, and she was already running late.

Jumping to her feet, balling up the rest of the poem in her hand, she trudged to the front of the lecture room, backpack in tow. Grisham was packing away his laptop, shutting down Powerpoint, giving harried instructions to the TA, who was looking at the clock. It was Friday afternoon, and even biology majors had somewhere to be.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Grisham turned to look at her. The monster he normally was still lingered behind his pale blue eyes, though it seemed subdued by lack of student-chaos to feed on.

"Good afternoon, Miss Williams. Enjoyed your poem?"

She bit her lip and ducked her head slightly. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to wander off like that. The team—the crew team, I mean—we're just finishing our pre-season training, and—"

"I understand how difficult it is to be both student and athlete, Miss Williams. Especially a student-athlete at your level of performance." Perhaps the words were meant to be a compliment. They didn't feel like one. "But I think there comes a time where a student-athlete must—"

'I'm blue, da ba die da ba die doo da ba dee da ba die…'

It seemed impossible that the day could get any worse. Two years ago, the early-nineties throwback had seemed the best possible option for a ring tone. Now, Lily reserved it for only those most seldom of calls, and even then, only as a private joke. Lily muttered a halted apology as she whipped her phone out and hung up on the call without checking the caller ID. The song was saved for two people, and two people alone, neither of whom were high on her list of people to talk to just now.

"Sorry," she muttered again. "I didn't—"

'I'm blue, da ba die da ba die doo da ba dee da ba die…'

"Perhaps you ought to take the call," Grisham said drily, one eyebrow raised. "Make it quick."

Lily smiled apologetically, then quickly stepped out of the room, her face burning again, though now more with irritation than embarrassment.

"Jesus, what is it, Sam?!? I have a meeting with my professor. I'm in classes right now! Just because you're a graduate doesn't mean life stops for the rest of us!"

It wasn't often Lily talked to her older brother. He'd just graduated from Stanford University, but the 3000 mile separation did nothing to sweeten their relationship. She'd been expecting a, "Well, hello to you, too." Maybe he was telling her he'd finally gotten that scholarship, and he was on his way to grad school. He was going to be a lawyer, Lily thought. He, too, had left the 'family business', thoughtthe similarity didn't make for good blood between Sam and his little sister.

Still, all the guesses in the world couldn't have prepared her for what came next.

"Lily. Good. Where are you?"

Lily grunted, exasperated. "I'm IN A MEETING! I just said that, Sam. Look, can I call you back, or something, I—"

"No, I mean…I mean are you by yourself?"

Lily stopped, frowned. She hadn't seen her brother in almost four years, but she didn't think any person's voice could change so much in that amount of time. He sounded older, yes, but more than that…huskier. Rougher. Like he'd been…crying? She was instantly wary.

"Yes…kind of…why? What happened? Why are you calling?"

The questions were a formality. Lily already knew the answer. Hell, she'd probably known since the moment she'd heard his voice on the other end.

"Sam? Sam, what–? "

"Dad's dead, Lily. A…a car crash. They…they just called it a few minutes ago."

Lily supposed he kept talking. He had to have, right? Close or not, they shared the same father, and he owed her some sort of explanation, or at least a funeral notice. If Lily had been paying attention, she might have caught the ragged tone in Sam's voice that betrayed how hurt he truly was. She might have been suspicious, because she knew the relationship between her the younger of her two brothers and her father was colder even than the one between herself and the rest of her family.

But Lily hardly heard it. She muttered a quiet goodbye, tucked away her phone, picked up her bag, and stepped back into the classroom where Grisham was waiting. One look at her face told him the meeting was going to have to be rescheduled. She left again without a word.

On her way back to her room, she dropped the piece of paper she'd been clutching in her hand, and Emily floated away on the wind, flashing the closing lines of her poem to the setting sun:

'Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.'