Author's Note: You guys are now officially caught up with my writing! I don't usually post mid-week, but it's going to be about a week before I can post again and I want you guys to give me lovely reviews and suggestions between now and then.

Also: sorry for being so evil. :-)

Chapter 10: In Which a Friend Becomes the Oracle

It was another six days before I got back to Missoula. After Cas's terrified announcement, he had gone unconscious again, so it had been up to me and the Winchesters to try and piece together any lore we could about this "oracle." Then I had a giant stack of reading and several burning questions to carry back with me.

"So are you up at the university?" the man driving the truck asked, and I glanced down to see that one of the ancient Greek books was poking out of my bag.

"Um, yeah," I improvised. "Yeah, my classes start today but my ride had to ditch me."

He nodded, apparently content with my answer, and the rest of the trip was silent. Before my death, I would have been uncomfortable at best riding around the country with a series of strangers, but I knew that now no one could hurt me. I was just kind of bored.

"This the place?" the man asked, effectively bringing me back to my surroundings.

"Yeah," I said happily, the familiar sight of the deep blue house raising warm feelings inside me. "Thanks so much for the ride, my cousin's going to be so happy to see me."

I hadn't even finished speaking before a crimson shape had appeared in the doorway, and I grinned. With one last wave and thanks over my shoulder, I practically leapt out of the truck, trailing my books behind me, and ran up to the glowing white porch.

Walker held his arms wide, beaming, and I jogged up to give him an enormous hug. I hadn't seen him since I had left to solve my first case with the Winchesters, and that had been weeks. We had talked on the phone, of course, but I missed being home here more than I cared to admit.

"Long time no see," he was forced to mumble into my shoulder when I wouldn't let go.

"No kidding," I chuckled. "God, I missed you." We finally separated and I was rewarded with a booming bark and the sight of a wagging tail. "Cas!"

When I had been called back suddenly to deal with Castiel's injuries, Casper had been with me in Montana. In his confusion, he had followed my scent to Walker's. My friend called me and I asked him to keep an eye on my dog.

I hugged Casper for a while too, then stood up, still smiling. To my surprise, Walker embraced me again, and after a moment I laughed and hugged him back. The show of affection was unusual for his 17th-century character, but I rolled with it, too happy to be home again to worry.

After everyone had gotten their fill of hugs and I had convinced Cas to stop jumping up on me, I picked up my book bag and walked inside to drop it onto the kitchen table. Walker raised an eyebrow; he knew very little about our theories so far. He strolled over and picked up one of the heavy tomes. On the cover was the classic painting of the Oracle at Delphi by John Collier, her red and bronze robes flowing gracefully over her tripod stool. The steam from the crevice at her feet and the shadow of her hood partially obscured her face.

"So, Castiel thinks that you are this Oracle?" Walker asked, clearly skeptical.

I shrugged. "He was too weak to say much, and then he left as soon as he woke up. But the Winchesters and I have a few theories." I opened a couple of books to strategically-placed sticky notes. "Look at this: there were hundreds of Oracles over the years. Sometimes there were several at once, but usually one of them was more accurate. They could be rich or poor, young or old, educated or ignorant. It was all based on their talent for interpreting the word of Apollo."

Walker nodded in understanding and I pointed to an illustration from a cracked old piece of pottery. Holding up a finger, I undid my wavy ponytail and fixed it into a low bun before pulling my hood halfway up. I turned so that he could see my profile. "Look familiar?"

Walker furrowed his brow. "Are you really suggesting that you are some… reincarnation of this Oracle? Surely they could not all have been the same person!"

"Hunters have made contact with the Greek gods before," I continued, determined to relate all of the facts before being shot down, "and they've added to the mythology since the fall of the empire. For one thing, they've discovered that there was always a huge hunt around Greece to find the next Oracle, even though the priests would make it look like they had just chosen someone from Delphi. For another thing, this concept of an Oracle has jumped around through most civilizations, but never simultaneously." Walker still looked extremely skeptical. "Don't you see? There are prophets who are tuned to angel radio… what if Oracles are connected to the pagan gods?"

"I don't know, Andrea."

"Look, just help me read," I pleaded, "and hopefully soon we'll be able to get hold of Cas and find out what he meant."

"Fine." I smiled; it's not like we had anything better to do, and this was important. I knew that he would give in.

A half an hour later, I was deeply immersed in the academic debate about what gases from the crack in the earth at Delphi had allowed the Oracle- or Pythia, as she was more commonly called- to go into her trance-like prophetic states. Walker was focusing so hard that he was back in his normal form, blood, uniform, hat and all. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and smiled at the concentrated frown tugging at his lips.

"Hmm," he grunted, and I leaned over to see what he had discovered. Following the words on the page with his finger, he read. "One of Pythia's more famous prophecies was to an unknown soldier, uncertain of whether or not he should venture out into battle. In reply to his question, she stated 'Go, return not die in war.'" Walker glanced down at me where I was scrutinizing the page. "You see? The meaning depends entirely on whether you place the comma before or after the 'not'."

"I can see how that would be confusing," I mused, absorbed once again in a study of what percentage ethylene gas is needed to induce a hallucinogenic state.

Walker laughed hollowly. "That reminds me of some advice I once received. And look at me now." He glanced down at himself and apparently realized that he had shifted form, because he immediately switched back to his sweater and slacks.

"You don't need to do that," I murmured without taking my eyes off of the chart I was examining. "It's just me; you're not going to scare me."

"I did when you first came," he said quietly, and I looked up. Walker's eyes held that deep, sad expression which I had come to recognize as longing for life.

I thought about reaching over to put my hand on his where it had clenched into a fist on the table, then hesitated. I wasn't exactly sure where we stood; I remembered the enthusiastic hug from earlier and my own hand twitched nervously. Had I been missing something obvious?

"Well, you have to remember that I had never met another ghost," I eventually responded. "I was just surprised."

Even as I said it I knew that it was a weak excuse; Walker had scared me, and he knew it. However, he sighed and changed back. Honestly, this was how I pictured him when I was away: fingers pushed through hair in concentration, tri-corner hat tilted back on his head, formerly-crisp uniform crumpled and creased while crimson liquid trickled down his chest. I suppressed a shudder at my own insensitivity to his appearance, but, in fairness, this was just how he was. It was his true form, and I had come to associate it with him.

"Andrea?"

I suddenly realized that I had been staring and dropped my eyes back to my book.

"Is something wrong?"

I shook my head resolutely, determined to worry about my personal problems later. This was serious, life-or-death, end-of-the-world type stuff that I was dealing with here.

A cold hand closed over my wrist with more force than was probably necessary and I looked up, startled. Walker's intense blue eyes peered into my own, clearly distressed.

"Why don't you answer me?"

"I can't," I cried out, squirming against the uncomfortably-hot fingers clasping my arm. They were bound to leave a burn.

Zachariah scowled. "I think that you can, you little bitch!" he practically yelled in my face. "What do you not understand about the apocalypse? Or did Lucifer already get to you?"

I sobbed, confused and terrified. "I don't know anything! I'm a journalist, I live in a crappy apartment building and I drink too much coffee. I saw a man with black eyes on the day I died, he tried to drive a bus into a bunch of kids and I was just trying to save them! Please," I screamed as something pierced horribly into my back, "please! I swear, I swear, I swear…" I trailed off as the burning pain became too much and I was left gasping and whimpering.

The towering angel sneered. "This is the problem with the pagans, isn't it? The one source of their prophecy, and she's not even protected. I mean, in your past lives, do you have any idea how often men would become infatuated with you and simply steal you away to-"

The pain retreated for a fraction of a second, barely allowing me to relax before it ripped through me again and the painful sound of Zachariah's voice was drowned out. It may have been by the roaring in my ears; it could have been my own screaming.

I hated myself for begging the way I did. "Please, please!" I cried until I was hoarse. But the restraints around my torso and legs only tightened, the angel's yells only grew louder and I only became more desperate. As a soul-rending wave of agony washed over me, it became too much and I simply slipped into a deep calm.

"Joshua," Zachariah called somewhere in the faded background. "Her memory is resetting again. Bring her back to the entrance chamber and allow her to pass through again. This time, make sure that that note is left! If she has any flashbacks, I want her to be able to write them down and send them to us."

"No," I whispered, horrified at the idea of forgetting what had happened. What if I allowed myself to walk into the same trap again? "No. No. I won't forget. I won't…"

"Damn it," I moaned as I looked around me. "I'm definitely dead." I just couldn't figure out why the afterlife looked so much like Hogwarts.

With a deep, shuddering breath, I opened my eyes to see the familiarly pristine chandelier which hung over Walker's dining room table. I was lying on the ground, having slipped through my chair. Flexing my fingers and toes, I felt fine, so I gingerly tilted my head to the side.

Walker was curled up against the wall, hands over his ears and wide eyes trained on the floor between his feet. At my sudden silence, he looked up. The terror and concern in his eyes were earthshattering. When he saw that I was alert, he gasped and crawled to me on hands and knees to take my head in his hands.

"Andrea," he whispered, tears tracking through the grime on his face. He looked terrible; the wound in his shoulder was gushing and his sunken cheeks were positively skeletal. I was surprised at myself for noticing these details after what I had just experienced, but I guessed that it was my way of coping. Rule No. 1 of journalism: observe everything. "Andrea. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," he repeated before choking and falling silent.

"For what?" I asked softly as I made to sit up, but his hands held me fast.

"I did something. I don't know, I upset you."

"What happened?" I doubted that he would be this distraught if I had simply lost consciousness. Walker shook slightly with a silent sob, and apprehension sparked within me. What had I done? What had I said?

"You… you fell. And then you started screaming." He glanced up at the old-fashioned clock which hung on the wall. "That was over an hour ago." I noticed Cas lurking anxiously in the corner, and I smiled at him to let him know that it was OK for him to come forward. He loped over, head low, to lie down protectively at my feet. "I'm sorry, at first I tried to help, to do something, but… you pushed me away, you yelled, you said… things. I didn't know what to do. I'm sorry."

I sat up this time, pulling gently out of his grasp, and turned to face him. "Stop apologizing, it's not your fault. I just remembered something that my memory had blocked."

Walker still looked horribly traumatized, so I scooted forward to wrap him in a hug. He embraced me tightly and I closed my eyes, relishing the moment. Things made much more sense now, but the contact still reassured me. Torture is not a pleasant thing to suddenly remember.

"Zachariah tortured me," I explained, and Walker suddenly jerked back, eyes blazing. "He knew that I was the Oracle, he wanted me to tell him about my powers and anything I remembered about the past. He wanted help fighting Lucifer."

"The rascal!" Walker interjected hotly, reverting to the most offensive slang from his time that he could bring himself to utter. I suppressed a laugh at the word, even under the serious circumstances.

"I'm fine," I assured him. "I just want to figure out what this all means."

That phrase echoed in my head a few times, as if I had heard it innumerable times before. Then I realized that I had as a few more memories trickled back. The soldier that Walker had read about earlier- I remembered him now. His helmet, clutched under his arm, had rattled against his armor as he shook with terror at the prospect of war. Not a coward, but a boy, too young to be thrust into such peril. Generals, emperors, poor housewives desperate for children, I had spoken to them all. I just couldn't remember how I had gotten my information.

This time I lolled forward but remained upright, and I didn't think that I had made any noise. This was fortunate; I doubted that Walker could have withstood another similar shock.

"Did you remember more?" he asked anxiously.

"Yeah…" I trailed off. I flickered heavily and shuddered at the sensation. "I don't know, I feel like there's something that I should remember." I looked up to see Walker staring at me, still obviously concerned. "I, um, think that I need to sit a minute before we keep researching."

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