Hey, all! Soooooo sorry for not updating sooner (stupid freaking writer's block). This chapter was also a weird one for me to write. It consisted of using 'she' and 'her' a lot. That was frustrating. Anywho, on to the reading. And tell me what you think, maybe? :)

Disclaimer: I, DietCokeIsMyLife, do not own Supernatural


6 years ago…

Her feet hurt. Her head hurt. The items that her feet were in had gotten incredibly dirty a long time ago. What were they called? Foot covers? Whatever they were called, they did nothing to protect her feet from the sharp small rocks next to the odd black trail. It was curious why there would be something like that there; a black, seemingly endless mass with a parallel yellow line streaked down the middle. What was the purpose of it? Why was it there?

Sighing in mild frustration, she sat down on the tiny rocks, wincing at the uncomfortable feeling it gave her butt. She picked idly at the odd fabric that covered her from her waist to her ankles. Its color was a light blue and the fabric had a soft feeling to it, but it was very baggy. The covering over her shoulders and torso was almost yet not the same: white and plain, not really providing much comfort against the occasional droplets of rain. There had been something on her wrist, before. It had had writing on it, but she had not bothered to interpret it; as of now, the strange band was discarded in a small creek, probably destroyed by now.

The wristband had most likely had had some significance in the clean building. Others that had worn garments like hers had donned the item.

In the clean building, she had come to on a cushiony surface, and confused as to why hard strings connected her to boxes that made strange pinging - nah, beeping - noises. There had been something underneath her nose and something incredibly sharp stuck in her right hand. Someone, not far away, was sleeping on a white chair, her head bobbing occasionally every so often. The girl was young, with dark brown hair and pale skin. In the girl's ears, there were strange objects connected to the same kind of hard strings attaching them to a thin small box on the girl's lap; the box was pink and flashy, and she didn't understand why someone would even have something like that.

Turning her attention back to the various items attached to her skin, she yanked the sharp thing out of her hand quickly - like a band aid, her brain provided, though she had no idea what a 'band aid' even was.

Immediately, red blood oozed out of the puncture in the skin, but she didn't pay any mind to it. The girl in the chair shifted in her sleep, but did not wake. Good. Next thing was to remove the hard strings. The strings were attached to her skin by some sort of substance that had once been sticky - glue, said the voice in her head. Ignoring it, she ripped the strings off one by one, and the results were immediate; the boxes shrieked and beeped urgently, and she decided now might be the time to get out of this strange place.

Throwing back the covers, she hopped off the…thing (bed, her brain insisted)she was on and hastily exited the room. She caught a small glimpse of writing on a sheet of paper before leaving - it read 'STOMACH CANCER - TERMINAL.'


Present Day

Stomach cancer, Mel thought, shaking her head at the memory. How in the hell did I survive freaking stomach cancer?

Now that Mel knew about her 'psychic' abilities, it made a little more sense: freaky powers somehow suppressing or getting rid of the cancer. Made sense why her freaking foot was so damn frigging healthy even though it should have taken a few weeks longer to heal. But why wasn't she getting her memory back?

It's probably only a matter of time, Mel told herself as she watched a jackrabbit hop quickly out of site behind a cactus, quickly followed by three smaller ones. A mother and its babies. Mel turned her head back to her computer and whacked the screen lightly as it was still frozen ("Dammit, work you stupid piece of shit!") and let out a string of curse words as the top part flipped back loosely, making the screen blank out.

Mel sighed in frustration. "I'm gonna need a new computer if this thing keeps acting the way it does."

John gave her a look. "You can get one after we kill the demon."

Mel shot him a glare of her own, her Bitch Glare. "Excuse me? Did I look I was asking you?"

"We have to stay focused on the hunt, Mel," John stated, ignoring her outburst.

Rolling her eyes, she said, "Am I your daughter? No! Do I depend on you for money? No! Am I perfectly capable of jumping out of this car with my stuff, hitchhiking away, and never seeing you again? Yes!"

"Are you threatening me?"

"To get the hell outta Dodge - away from you and your little 'I'm want you to help find the demon' crusade? You bet I am!" Mel shouted. "I did not ask you to drop everything and get me a shiny new and expensive computer; I just commented that this piece of crap - " Mel whacked the screen of the piece of crap in question " - will need replacing in the maybe-near future!" When John ignored her, she muttered, "Yep, definitely pissy."

It made Mel wonder why she even got in the car in the first place, all those years ago.


6 months ago…

It was a really long time as she sat there. There was nothing to do but trace meaningless lines and squiggles in the rock dust while she sat next to the black path. It only made sense to do so.

What was one's purpose? What were people supposed to do? Did Fate just decide what course of action you were supposed to take, and whom you met?

Apparently it did, because she just noticed the black box thing on wheels approaching. It pulled over in front of her, and quickly she stood up and backed away. One of the see-through panels (Glass) lowered down revealing a man - not to old, not too young. He had dark hair, stubble, and dark calculating eyes. He looked…scary.

"You need a ride?" he asked. She did not trust him. Why would she? Some strange man who came from nowhere in a big black box-thing on wheels. (Kinda like Doctor Who, her mind said, but she didn't even know what that meant).

"W…What?" she asked, not quite sure at what the man meant.

The man in question rolled his eyes. "Do you need to go somewhere?"

Go somewhere? Where? Now that she thought about it, she didn't even know where she was. "I don't know. I don't know anything."

He sighed. "Well, why don't you start with your name?"

Her name? Yeah, that was a good question. "I don't know that either."

The man appeared to be lost in thought, now. As if he could not decide whether to just leave her or be a Good Samaritan and help her. "Damn it," he muttered. "All right. Hop in."

Tentatively, she grabbed the handle of what appeared to be the door and pried the door in question open. Once seated, she closed the door and looked over at the man. "And what's your name?" she asked after a second.

"John," he answered. "John Winchester."

The ride to wherever John Winchester was taking her had been quiet and very long - they arrived at a one level building with many doors. A sign not too far away read SWEET DREAMS MOTEL. It wasn't a particularly well built building, but it was very…modern?…looking.

"Why're we here?" she could not help but ask.

"My sons and I've got a room here," John explained, turning the car off. "We'll help you figure out where you're from."

"What are you sons' names?" she inquired curiously.

"Dean - he's 20, the oldest - and Sam, who's 16," he told her.

After entering the through one of the doors (it had a '5' symbol on it), John introduced her to Sam and Dean.

Dean was a little taller than she was, with spiky dirty blonde hair and emerald green eyes. Sam, who seemed to be in the middle of a major growth spurt, had long-ish brown hair and brown eyes.

However, she didn't really pay attention to them. Out of the corner of her eye, she had noticed a piece of paper (yes, that's what the material is called) with a symbol on it. The symbol wasn't strange, no, what was strange was that she knew what it meant.

"Why do you have the design for a devil's trap copied down?" she questioned curiously, the name just flowing from her mouth automatically, and pointed at the symbol in question.

Sam whipped his head around to see what she was pointing at, and then looked back to her. "How did you know that?"

Baffled at her own sudden knowledge, she quickly lowered her arm and stuttered out "I don't…I don't know."

Behind her, John Winchester sighed. "Dean - Sam this is…Well, she doesn't know who she is."

Dean gave his father an affronted look. "And you just gave a complete stranger who doesn't 'know who she is' a free ride over here? What are you, crazy?"

She furrowed her brow, confused. Why would Dean be angry that his father had helped her? It seemed a little - no, very - strange someone would react that way.

"She's telling the truth, Dean," John snapped. "We've dealt with a few amnesiacs before - you and I both know the signs."

"That - " Dean pointed at the devil trap symbol " - was not a sign of amnesia."

"Actually," Sam interjected, "some, if not most, amnesiacs can identify things and just instantly know what it means - just like that. It doesn't trigger memories, sometimes, but it does happen."

"Dude, keep the Geek to a minimum for now," Dean replied, sounding annoyed.

All the while, she just stood to the sidelines as she watched the family bicker. "Should I leave?" she spoke timidly.

"No!" everyone shouted at once, making her flinch. "No," John Winchester repeated. To his sons, he said, "We'll talk about this later."

"Yes, sir," they replied in synchronization.

After asking her a few questions - mostly questions like 'what do you last remember?' and 'did you see any names - of buildings, people?' - John Winchester 'jumped' onto what he called a laptop computer and went to a 'site' that allowed people to see other people that were missing.

John typed in her description as she sat in a chair next to him, eagerly looking at the screen. It was all surreal to her, really. After she'd called him 'John Winchester' twice, the eldest Winchester had told her it was 'just John.'

"What did you say was on the clipboard?"

"It said something along the lines of 'terminal stomach cancer,'" she repeated. After she had said that for the first time, earlier, all three men had looked at her as if she'd grown another head.

"Right…" the older man murmured. A single name popped up on the screen after John entered in the information. "Well…a family wrote out a missing persons report for an Andrea Bernard, last seen in her hospital room. That name ring any bells to you?" he asked, looking over at her.

She shook her head 'no.' "Is that the only person of my gender missing?" she queried.

"In Detroit? 'Fraid so. And Andrea Bernard did go missing from a hospital room, same as you."

She shrugged. "How often do patients escape?"

"Not very often." John sighed. "Look, there's a ninety-nine point nine percent chance this Andrea Bernard is you. I say we go down to the station and find out."

"And if she's not? What if it all goes to waste? No."

John raised his eyebrows and gave her an incredulous look. If she hadn't known any better, she would have said John wasn't used to his orders being disobeyed. "No? Those people might be your family, why the hell not find out?"

She shrugged. "Because I'm more curious to find out how I knew that that symbol is a devil's trap. Plus, I would like to save them the trouble."

John sighed, frustrated. "We can't just let you stay with us."

She frowned. "Why not?"

"Don't the missing person signs on the wall freak you out just a bit?" Dean asked.

Still frowning, she looked around the room and saw that there were indeed posters and signs on one wall that of a number of missing people. Shaking her head, she answered, "No, not really."

"That's it?" the younger man question. "'No, not really?'"

She shrugged. "It doesn't bother me, but it does make me wonder why they are there."

"We, uh, we're kinda like the police," Dean said. "We go after things that kill people, sometimes there are missing people, and we go after whatever killed them."

"Don't you mean 'who'?" she asked.

"Yeah, we go after people who kill other people. That's what I meant." She wasn't convinced, but let it be for now.

Biting her lip, she made a split-second decision. "I want to go with you guys." All three men started talking all at once in a panic, but she interrupted them. "I know it seems cruel and a little…odd not to try to look for my family or friends, but I just feel like I don't belong with them. I'd rather go you - saving people, going after other people."

Dean was the first to break the long silence that ensued. "Yeah. You can stay."

"Dean!" Sam and John shouted.

"What?" the young man retorted. "She's got nowhere else to go anyway, dad," he added.

John rolled his eyes. "Fine. But son…"

"Yes sir?"

"On your head be it if all goes to hell."

"Yes sir!" Dean replied, grinning slightly.


Present Day

Picking out her name had been mildly amusing. John had shown her a popular baby names website; on the left side of the screen had been the boy names highlighted in blue, and the girl names highlighted in pink. Mel, however, hadn't really gotten the concept of which names went with which gender and had thought the boy names were girl names ("I like this name," she said, pointing at one of the blue names. "Uh, I don't think the name 'Micah' is for girls," Dean told her awkwardly. "Besides, those are the names for guys. Pick one from the other names."). In the end, she'd chosen Melissa, because it sounded closest to Micah. Her last name they had had to look up as well, because she'd thought it was rude to go around with the name 'Winchester' when Mel and the Winchesters weren't even related.

On a most common last names website, Mel had picked the one at the top of the list - Smith. Dean and Sam had insisted she pick a middle name, also, because 'everyone had one.' And so, at going to yet another popular names website, the middle name 'Jo' was chosen.

Melissa Jo Smith. Has a nice ring to it.


They reached Sacramento a few days later, on April 6th. They booked a motel room - technically, it was rooms, considering it was a two room, er, room - and stayed up all night making sure the omens were up to date. Luckily, they were.

By the next morning, the 7th, Mel and John had the demon's location narrowed down to a one-mile radius. The building in the middle of said one-mile radius was a bus station, which was weird.

Then again, all of the buildings in the radius were as equally unimportant - a construction site and a couple apartment buildings - so Mel assumed that was the initial plan; stay hidden…well hidden.

Since that was their only lead, Mel and John decided to do what only made sense: search the whole damn area. They went on foot, which, in Mel's opinion, was not the best idea they'd come up with all day. Her foot hurt like a bitch.

"Well, one block down…five or six to go?" Mel whined as she walked out of the bus station, which just starting its rush hour shift. "How do we even know it'll stay in one place?"

"It won't," was the answer she got. "We'll just have to check again, later."

Mel rolled her eyes. "Wow, that makes this job seem so much easier."

John glared at her.

Mel snorted with disgust. "What is with you lately? You are, like, more on edge than you have ever been, and you're so pissy! You're, like, pissed off at everything I say and/or do, and let me tell you, it is getting freaking annoying. So please, tell me, what the hell is going on?"

He sighed, still glaring. "I'm worried, that's all." He paused. "Worried about Sam - how quickly his abilities are developing. About Dean. And about you."

"Me." Mel stopped walking, frowning.

"You've always been like a daughter to me," John clarified. Mel resumed her painfully sore gait and continued to follow him. "But…the demon had said it had plans for you."

"Plans?"

"It hadn't been specific."

Mel nodded and followed him in silence.

After an estimated number of hours later, when it was well after 6:00 p.m., Mel was ready give up. They had been through each building twice, and there had been no sign of the yellow-eyed demon. Defeated for the night, they ate at a Biggerson's. John ordered a regular burger and Mel ordered the double bacon cheeseburger (what could she say? It was a guilty pleasure).

"Look," Mel said through a mouthful of lettuce and beef, "I can tell already I'm slowin' you down." She swallowed. "What with my damn foot and all, y'know? Moreover, I cannot sense all demons. You remember that one down in Florida, right? Where I couldn't find jack squat and we thought in was the waitress when it actually was the manager that was possessed? And so that got me thinking that this is just one of those times where I won't be any help."

John looked at her and blinked, frowning. "When did you have time to think of all that?"

"While we were walking up those stairs in that one apartment building where none of the elevators were working," she answered nonchalantly, taking another bite. "Trust me - twenty floors of stairs give you plenty of thinking time."

There was a long silence and then John said, "Well, if you wanna go back to Sam and Dean, go right ahead. I'm not your father; you're free to make your own choices."

Mel gave a small smile. "Thank you, John. Thank you."