Undefined blotches of blinding whiteness flashed overhead; one after another. My head was swarmed with dull, disorienting humming. I was on the fringe of consciousness. I felt less than human; almost similar to a ghost bound to the earth, but yet, not quite dead. I was surrounded by distant voices shouting urgent, but indistinct orders. My eyes were open—that was obvious, but all that I gazed upon was obscure and unfocused.

"She's going into shock!" shouted an intense, masculine voice.

Was I the one going into shock? The last thing I could remember seeing was a tree—but what had happened after the shadows had concealed my vision?

"She's seizing—we need to get her to a room!"

In an unanticipated second, the voices changed from quiet murmurs in the distance to thunderous bellows pulsating against my eardrums. It felt as though, at any given moment, my ears would begin to bleed. It was unbearable.

With another flash of a second, all that around me came to a halt. There was no noise—no sight—nothing. For all I knew, I had died but never have I been so lucky.


Consciousness crawled into my mind again. A glob of saliva slid down my parched and brittle throat as I began to wake. I turned my head ever so slightly, and felt terrible, tender pain throbbing across the entirety of my skull. I cursed under my breath and forced my eyes open. The fluorescent lights above my head burned at my corneas, causing me to squint. I shielded my eyes with my hand until my pupils dilated, and adjusted to the sudden influx of brightness. When I removed my hand from blocking my view, I discovered that I was in a hospital. I grimaced at the plain, pale walls. If there was anything I hated more than the monster responsible for my father's death, it was hospitals.

I glanced around the room, trying to figure out what had happened after I saw the tree. I could at least assume that my car had crashed into it. My eyes widened with realization. What happened to Danielle? Had I killed her?

As I was pulling the blanket off of my body, I noticed a figure from the corner of my eye. I turned my head—a bit too quickly, might I mention—to see Dean Winchester sitting in a chair near the bed; watching me. I furrowed my eyebrows at him. "What are you doing here?"

"Sammy and I were on our way to investigate a case, and we saw this familiar red Mustang crashed into a tree. Weird, right? Anyway, I wasn't worried about it, because, well, it wasn't my problem, but Sammy—being the sentimental sap he is—demanded I pull over. After seconds of fighting, I finally gave in. Lo, and behold; it was you. We brought you here."

I let out a short laugh and shook my head. "Well, that's ironic."

"Come again?"

"Nothing," I replied with a wave of my hand. "There was another girl in the car, right? She's my friend. Do you know if she's okay?"

"I don't really know anything," he shrugged. "The doctors took her to a separate room. Sam is waiting for her wake up."

"Well, thanks for helping us, but you don't need to stay."

"I was waiting for you to wake up, just to make sure that you weren't dead, or anything. I'll get out of your hair now."

Dean stood up and was headed for the door. I sat up slightly and called for him. He turned back and stared at me expectantly. "You and your brother were heading towards a case," I began. "What case?"

He hung his head and pursed his lips. "Look, no offense, but we work alone. Maybe you're trying to jump in—it's appreciated and all, but it's not necessary. We can handle ourselves."

"I wouldn't have said otherwise," I shot with a glare. "I only wanted to see if you were interested in some assistance, but I can see you're not. Where were you headed, anyway?"

"Milwaukee, Wisconsin," he answered and nodded at me before exiting the room.

I glowered at him and muttered insulting profanities under my breath as I lifted myself from the bed. I grabbed onto the metal perch of my intravenous bag and walked slowly into the hallway and towards the receptionist. She looked up at me, studied my condition, and raised an eyebrow. "I don't think you should be out bed."

"Can you tell me which room Danielle Harlington is in? She's my friend—she was in the accident with me. I want to make sure that she's alright."

"I really don't think you should—"

"—I'm fine," I snapped. "Please, tell me which room she's in."

The woman eyed me for several seconds until she began looking through the list of patients currently in the hospital. "She's down the hallway to the right, in the fifth room on the left."

I thanked her and headed directly towards Danielle's room faster than I should have. I threw the door open and fell to the ground when I was inside of the room. I heard the sound of Sam quickly rising from his place in the chair as I crawled desperately towards my closest friend. When I reached the bed, I used the rail to pull myself onto it. She was still asleep and looked absolutely horrible. Much of her face was cut and bruised. Guilt stabbed me directly in the stomach at the sight of her. There was no one that could be blamed other than me.

Tears began to well in my eyes as I softly caressed her face. "I'm so sorry," I whispered to her. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

Sam's hand gently touched my shoulder. I turned to look up at him and quickly wiped the tears away from my face in embarrassment.

"You don't need to feel ashamed of your tears," he reassured with a gentle tone. "I'm sure this is a lot for you to take in, and you have every reason to cry."

"Is she going to be alright?" I asked weakly.

He nodded twice. "The doctor came to check on her earlier, and he told me that she was going to be perfectly fine. She has a few bruises and scrapes, but other than that, she's fine."

I sighed in relief and looked over to her, still feeling guilty for causing the accident to begin with. I wasn't sure if there was ever going to be a way to make it up to her. "How long have you been in here?"

"Since Dean and I brought you both in," Sam answered. "No harm had really been done to her, so I was allowed to sit with her as they set up the IV and got her situated. She's been asleep the whole time. Dean told me he had to wait a few hours to enter your room. From what I know, your state was a lot worse. You hit your head pretty hard when your car crashed into the tree and the windshield broke, so some of the glass was littered throughout your body. They said you went into shock and seized."

"Wonderful," I noted sarcastically. "Do you know if it's alright that we leave? Once Danielle is awake, that is."

"The doctor said that she would recommend you both stay another night, but they're not demanding it."

I nodded a little bit and look over Danielle before groaning. "Crap. We can't really leave, considering the fact that I probably totaled my car."

"Right," Sam laughed awkwardly. "Well, no worries. Dean and I gathered yours and Danielle's stuff from the trunk of your car and we're planning to take you wherever you both need to go."

"I'm sure Dean is ecstatic about that."

Sam rubbed the back of his neck. "No, of course not, but he'll find some way to get over it. He's a big boy."

"Damn right I am," said Dean as he entered the room. "By the way, don't worry about getting your car fixed. Sammy and I have that covered."

I raised an eyebrow at his words, taking a moment to glance towards Sam. "You do?"

"A family friend of ours, Bobby, has a car scrapyard in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It's a self-service salvage, but we convinced him to fix your Mustang," answered Sam.

"Which didn't come without a hell of a lot of bitching, so I believe some thanks are in order," Dean added pompously.

I scowled at Dean but forced a smile upon my face. "Thank you, Sam," I told him and him only as a passive-aggressive way of retaliating against Dean.

Sam Winchester glanced towards his brother—who was giving me a blank stare—and tried to suppress his laughter. When Dean caught onto this, he slapped his younger brother upside the head. "Bitch," Dean muttered under his breath.

As I thought the comment had been directed at me, I opened my mouth to snap at him, but Sam intervened. "Jerk," he said. It became clear to me that this was their 'thing'.

"Dean told me that you guys are headed to Wisconsin—what's in Wisconsin?"

Before Dean could warn his brother to keep his mouth shut, Sam turned his body in my direction. "We think there might be a case there," he answered. "There have been a lot of robbery-suicides going on. It just seems a little weird, so we're going to check it out."

"Oh," I nodded in response. I glanced towards Dean, who was about to pull his brother into the hallway. "Do you think that you're up for some assistance?"

Sam shrugged off his brother's hands when they grabbed hold of his jacket. "I wouldn't mind the help… what about you, Dean?"

"No," the eldest Winchester brother immediately answered. "Absolutely not—no—we don't need any help, Sammy."

"Well, why not? Lex is a Hunter, too, and she could be of some help."

"Dammit, Sam, I said no. Besides, she's all banged up and broken. What help could she be, really? And that other girl, yeah, we don't know her."

"She's a Hunter, too," I interrupted, "my partner, actually."

"Well, where was your handy-dandy partner in Connecticut?" asked Dean.

I scratched my forehead in frustration. "Around," I told him. "She took a brief… sabbatical from hunting, but now we're back together… and willing to help."

Dean looked at me for a long moment before turning back to his brother. "Sammy, no. This is a bad idea."

"Why is this such a bad idea to you, Dean? Is it because they're Hunters, or because they're women—or is it because they're Hunters and women?"

"God, Sam, it's not because they're women! Do you mistake for some sexist monster who thinks that women can't do the job? No, women can do the job perfectly well—we've both seen it! The problem isn't because they're Hunters, either. Maybe some of the reason I'm skeptical is because they're Hunters, sure. Other Hunters can be dangerous, and you know that. The biggest problem I have with this is that she has proven herself to be a danger on her own. I mean, c'mon Sammy, look at the events that have unfolded, huh? Back in Connecticut, we found her unconscious in her room… she's been prescribed antipsychotics, Sam—and she just crashed her freakin' car into a tree! Does any of that not scream 'unreliable' to you?"

Sam folded his arms over his chest and gave his brother a pointed stare. "I'm willing to give them both a chance. You should be, too."

"I can explain everything," I told them. "Being unconscious—the antipsychotics—crashing into a tree… I can explain all of that to you both, but it's not going to come out all at once. I don't want it to come out at all, but you're uneasy about it, and reasonably so. No matter what you say, Dean… Danielle and I are coming with you. We have to, and that… I don't know if I can explain that, but you don't have a choice. We are coming."

"No, you are not coming. We'll take you where you want to go, that's it," argued Dean.

"Fine," I shot back. "I know where we want to go."

"Yeah, where's that?"

"Milwaukee, Wisconsin."

Sam slowly looked over to Dean. "I don't think we have a choice."

Dean Winchester exhaled for a long moment, then turned and exited the room. It seemed that he finally realized that there was no way he was going to get out of this deal. Danielle and I were going to help them with their case—despite how much we both abhorred the very idea.


After hours of waiting by her bedside, Danielle finally awoke. When I noticed that her eyes had opened, I sat straight and leaned over the side of her bed. "It's nice to see that you're finally awake," I told her in a soft voice.

Her eyes slowly moved towards me, and once they reached my face, she gasped quietly. "Lex, you look horrible," she said to me. I laughed in response, knowing that she wasn't wrong, but I hadn't brought myself to look in the mirror—I hadn't looked in the mirror for years. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"We crashed into a tree," I answered. "Well, I crashed into the tree. You were just a victim to my unreliability."

Danielle furrowed her eyebrows. "What are you talking about? You're completely reliable, Lex. It's not your fault that you crashed the car, and besides, I made you angry… and I know that aggravates your… condition."

"That's no excuse," I insisted with a shake of my head. "I shouldn't even be driving with my condition, and that's my own fault."

"Enough of the blame game," she demanded as she sat up. "I assume we're going somewhere. After all, you've laid my clothes out on the bed."

"We are," I agreed. "Sam and Dean were actually the ones to find us, and bring us here."

Danielle looked over to me slowly. "Are you serious?"

"It's ironic, I know," I laughed quietly. "Since I totaled my car, they've agreed to take us wherever we need to go. They're going to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so I told them that that's where we're going to go—and that we're helping with the case. Dean tried and tried to fight against it, but I told him that he has no choice. I'm relentless."

"While I'm glad that we're, you know, fulfilling our destinies or whatever, I'm wondering if that's a good idea? Going with them is one thing, but helping them with the case? I'm not so sure about that. Lex, we just go into a car accident."

"The doctors said you're perfectly fine—just a little bruised and cut up."

"I'm not worried about me," said Danielle. "I'm worried about you. When we first came in, I heard the doctors talking about your condition, and you're in no shape to be fighting monsters. You could seriously hurt yourself."

"Look, Danielle, I appreciate your concern, but I'm going to be fine. I've fought monsters in worse condition. Plus, I feel okay. Adalcus said—no, Adalcus insisted that this is what we're supposed to be doing, and this coincidence is just too ironic to look past. Finding them and getting them to agree to let us come along is too easy to pass up. I'm not risking what could be our only chance simply because I'm a little injured."

"Lex, I have to argue against this."

"You can argue all you want," I told her. "Luckily, I'm too stubborn to listen to anybody."

Danielle decided that it would be best if she didn't try to fight me any further. In the end, she knew I would win. I had always been too stubborn for my own good, but I knew it was a quality that she admired about me. If I had to give myself credit for anything—it would be that I refused to quit—that I refused to lose—that I would never back down.

Once Danielle had finished getting dressed, we exited her hospital room to rejoin the Winchester brothers, who had been sitting in the waiting room. We finished checking ourselves out of the hospital and made our way to the parking lot where Dean's black Chevrolet Impala sat, looking as beautiful and regal as ever. The four of us piled into the car—with Dean as the driver, Sam as the passenger, Danielle behind Sam, and myself behind Dean.

As Dean shoved a cassette tape into the player and peeled out of the parking lot, I looked out the window to watch the scenery blur past. Danielle and I had successfully infiltrated Sam and Dean's little 'gang' and I wondered if Adalcus was watching—and whether or not he was proud of me. For some reason, I sensed that he was… for some reason, I was proud of me, too.