A/N: I am going to thank TheSouthernScribe and BloodStreamOnFire at the same time because I feel like their reviews can be answered simultaneously. You two are so awesome, and I hope that I don't let either of you ladies down with this chapter, as I know that you two wanted Bonnie to tell him (both that she's a witch and that she loves him), but really they are one in the same, and she cannot tell him one while hiding the other. This chapter will delve more into that issue. Also, this chapter may feel shorter, because really it's just a filler chapter. A little background info to make the story more cohesive. A Million Ways isn't getting the reviews that it used to, and I think (or hope rather) that it's only because both TV shows' seasons are heating up in a big way, whereas my story is still stuck between the shows' two seasons. For that reason, I've added a bit of new season stuff from Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries just to spice things up a bit, and glue the character's lives together. It will not affect the initial climax, which will be exposed in the next chapter. If you haven't seen either of the new seasons', don't worry, I don't reveal anything. I just use certain ideas. Like usual. As always, alerts make smile, but REVIEWS DRIVE ME WILD!

Disclaimer: If I owned either of these shows, I wouldn't have borrowed from their previous plots, and expanded upon them to fit my own. So let's get on with it, shall we?

ALLIED FORCES

Dean's POV

For as long as I could remember, Bobby was the only constant in my life, and he acted in a way that most believers credited to a higher power: he could always be counted on in times of need, though not necessarily when called, and worked in the most mysterious ways possible to pull a miracle out of his ass when I was losing faith. To dad, I was a soldier. A loyal follower happy to keep Sammy safe and out of harm's way, while he went on hunts for days at a time, then later, hustling the cards that we'd been dealt, slicing throats, and asking questions later. Don't get me wrong, I loved the guy, and somewhere, underneath all of that salt and gunpowder, I knew he loved me too, but warm he had never been. Not to me anyway. And I had certainly understood it. In this life, we were covered in so much blood it was hard to tell our own from the enemy's, but whenever dad was gone, Bobby stepped up to the plate. He made sure that Sammy and I had enough food to get us to the end of the week, and didn't hesitate to lend both his help and a mean right hook.

It had been that way for as long as I had been breathing. If ever I needed someone, Bobby was right around the corner, even if he lay miles away. Suddenly, there was someone who needed me, and unfortunately, the two didn't mix.

"What in the Devil has gotten into ya?" Bobby blocked the room's small window, yelling until his face glowed white and red. Twenty minutes ago, Green Eyes had run into the garage with Eyebrows and some blond chick close on her heels, catching me right as I was loading a wire cord with Corpse Bride's name written all over it into the Impala's trunk.

The minute she set foot onto the shop's raised concrete floors I knew that something was wrong, and not only because the wind had picked up, something it seemed to be doing more and more lately.

Blondie, the young girl standing beside Green Eyes, sized me up and rated my appearance, talking about a mile a minute and looking not that much different from a girl that I would have banged had Green Eyes not been in the picture. But she was, and despite the constant squeaking in her ear, she looked scared and in need of a place to stay. This time, there was no question whether that place would be mine, even if her friends had to come along. I'll just deal with the consequences later, I told myself, as I turned on the apartment's lights and sat her at the kitchen table. Little did I know, those consequences would come ten minutes later in the form of a very agitated Bobby.

"We are dealing with what might be the second wave of the apocalypse, and you sit there playing footsie with some googly-eyed cheerleader?" I sat at a desk in my room, looking over the artifact that he had dropped in front of me, wondering if the three unsuspecting witnesses in my kitchen could hear Bobby's disapproval.

"We weren't playing foot—"

"I don't give a damn if you were giving her open heart surgery out there! You know better to let civilians in on stuff like this," he was madder than I had ever seen him. And that counted the time he sold his soul to that punk ass crossroads demon, Crowley. However, calling an infestation of ruthless bloodsuckers the second wave of the apocalypse was a stretch. Unless there was something that the old man wasn't saying.

"Bobby, what was so important that you couldn't say over the phone?" He took dad's book away from me and flipped somewhere in the middle.

When he had knocked on my door, he held the small black book up to me, face whiter than flour and cursing, "This vampire business is a whole shitload more complicated than we coulda ever imagined." He set the book back in front of my now with that same expression.

The originals, it read, are comprised of seven families of the earliest made vampires: the Kaywayklas in North America, the Aymara's in South America, the Fachris in Africa, the Feizis in Asia, the Kissans in Australia, the Ellsworths in Antartica, and the Petrovas in Europe.

"So they're who we have to blame for all of this Twilight-influenced douche baggery?" Bobby didn't get my humor, so I continued by clearing my throat and asking, "What are we dealing with here? A bunch of crusty coffin sleepers, who've spread their seeds to each of the seven continents, looking for a good time?" He snatched the book away for a second time, and deepened his look from angry to full on pissy.

"Do you even know what this means?" He didn't wait for me to fill him in on the obvious: this had been dad's journal. A directory of all that went bump in the night. "This book belonged to Samual Campbell, your grandfather. It was passed on to your mother after his death, and then onto John after her's. Campbell went after a set of vampires who called themselves Trevor and Rose," this was surely one for the history books, but it didn't seem to have a damn thing to do with Green Eyes' and my problem with Corpse Bride.

"Okay, so gramps fought vampires. I'm not seeing the surprise, here." Bobby's face turned redder than I'd originally thought possible as he explained that gramps didn't just fight off any vampires, he fought off a direct link to these seven families, who apparently hold one of the many keys to Armaggedon.

"Dean, the apocalypse isn't just one massive fight between good and evil. It's a series of rounds between every alpha of the supernatural world, in the orders that they were created, and the sad sacks chosen to fight them. You've already popped off the demonic alpha…"

"Lucifer," I finished for him, while rubbing my head in my hands, trying to get his explanation to make sense. "So Fangs in a Skirt is our alpha?" His eyes looked toward the door, then back at me, "No, but she's a very important piece in this messed up puzzle," his voice dipped lower, "she's the vampire version of Lilith. The alpha vamp created each original family so that they would produce an exact double of the themselves every 500 years. Your vampire, Katherine Pierce, is a double of the original Katerina Petrova. They were made so that the vampire line would remain strong even if the double wasn't a vampire. Killing all of the copies will release the alpha, and start part two of the war between good and evil. To date, there is only one surviving vampiric double left,"

"So, killing the bitch would do even more damage than good here? Great!" To an outsider, it might have seemed that I was whining. Throwing in the towel to a game I could have easily conned. But Bobby, as usual, had thought of a way out.

"Oh, quit yer belly aching, will ya? You've obviously had your head up this girl's skirt for so long you don't remember that where there's a will, there's a way," he placed a picture of a circle called the Emily's Circle of Protection. The back of the page held a Latin spell that supposedly trapped anything placed inside the circle. Bobby went on to draw a map of some tomb in the back woods of Mystic Falls. "Draw this symbol near the tomb's entrance, and then lure her to it in the morning. Alone!" he added this last part while looking ahead to the door. We both knew that leaving Green Eyes behind on this mission was the responsible thing to do, but what he hadn't counted on was the fact that she was already as much a part of this situation as I was. Plus, and I didn't say this about many people, she was a tough chick. I still had the scars to prove it.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to her out there, you know that. But she wants to come—"

He threw his worn baseball cap on the dirty wood floor and swore under his breath, "Are you that big of an idjut, or are you just under some kind of spell? Have you ever stopped to wonder just why she's so willing to help you in all of this? What's in it for her? Hell, for all you know, she could be some kind of monster herself. Lord knows, we don't need another Sam/Ruby, blood drinking issue," there was more that he wanted to say, but being every bit the caretaker as he was the disciplinarian, he realized that he had pushed too far and put his hand on my shoulder, "She's not Cassie, Dean. She's not Lisa. Or Sam. And being with her isn't going to replace them. It's not fair to endanger her like this," I shrugged his hands off, knowing full well that what he'd said was true. Hell, even I'd thought it a couple of times, but I sure hadn't wanted my worries thrown back in my face.

"Thanks for the psychiatric analysis, Dr. Phil, but in case you haven't realized, I'm not frigging five! She's coming, Bobby, so why don't you get off my damn back!" Later, I would wish that I could take it all back. Later, I would wish that I had listened to him. Yet, at that moment, I was pissed and he was stung, picking up his hat and storming down the hall, toward the front door faster than I had ever seen him move.

"Well excuse me for not wanting to see you bury yourself in blood. But one Dean Winchester funeral is enough for one lifetime." The book still lay hot in my hands when Green Eyes came up behind me in the doorway. Just from one look, I could tell that she and the others had heard everything, if the blond's gaping mouth was any indication.

"I'll take Caroline home," Eyebrows assured Green Eyes, "Then I'll meet up with you back at Sheila's," Green Eyes squeezed both her eyes as well as my hand. Apparently they had been having a discussion out here that was every bit as heated as the one I'd been having with Bobby.

"You know I can't do that, Stefan. I haven't been back there since…Gram's. And I definitely can't go back there now. Not for that. There's got to be another way." The blond looked back and forth from her arguing friends, bitching about how someone had better tell her what the hell was going on. They stopped their bickering long enough for Eyebrows to assure Green Eyes that he would take the yapping girl home.

"That way, you can ride with him," he said nodding in my direction, "and fill him in what we were talking about earlier." His eyebrow was raised in a Stop stalling way that reminded me of Sammy whenever he got into his Know-it-all mode. "Nice to meet you, Dean," he called before leading the cranky girl out of the garage that we were now standing in, leaving us to the hard part. The part that I lived and died for.

We drove in silence for the first ten minutes. Due to hours of poker and black jack, she and I had perfected the art of being silent together. It was one of the things that I'd grown to like about her. She wasn't clingy. Most women needed to talk and know that they were being listened to. Luckily for me, the few that actually knew me well enough to be part of my life, were just like me: mysterious and talked only when they had something to say. Green Eyes was the same way. She didn't offer more than was asked, and always kept me guessing. It drove me crazy, trying to guess what she was thinking. But at the same time, it was what I loved most about her. Tonight, she was just as quiet as any other. But I knew her well enough to know that this time, she had something on her mind.

"So are you going spit it out, or do you just want me to worry about you all night?" She looked over at me and smiled.

"I didn't know that you were worried about me," she bit her bottom lip, proud of the fact that she had picked up on another one of my weaknesses.

"Well now you do, so what's got you so quiet?" Her head cocked to one side, as she decided whether to answer with a sarcastic remark or give me the truth. "Does it have something to do with whatever Eyebrows was talking about back there? What did he want you to tell me?" Her cheeks reddened in my peripheral vision, which she tried to hide by ducking her head. I grabbed her hand before she could sweep her hair in front of her face. She reminded me so much of the past when we'd first met, but that night—maybe even before—the only one here was her and myself.

"Stefan's just worried about me. This isn't easy on our end either. He realizes that one of us could die tomorrow, trying to trap Katherine, and he wants to make sure that I tell you…that… I've fallen…" she yanked her hand back and took a deep shaky breath, "…behind on my end of a deal. Y-you know what?" she stuttered, "I'll tell you on the ride home," This was what I meant by her driving me crazy. But she was right, we did have other things to worry about, as a few minutes later, she pointed to a small opening in the woods. "Here," she pointed, "We're at the tomb."

My objective was to get in, draw the damn circle near the tomb's entrance, and leave. I'd lost count of how many graves and mausoleums I'd jumped into with the intentions of burning some demon's last remains. That was how it always ended. One way or another, a Winchester was diving feet first into some hole, hoping for the best. This time, however, shook me worse than all of those moments combined, and all because Green Eyes was standing outside of the sealed entrance, staring up at me with her hand opened wide.

"Here, let me do it," she said grabbing for the chalk in my hand, before drawing the protection circle on the concrete and slicing her hand, following the directions to perfection without even looking at the book. When she saw my look of dismay, she smiled sadly and sighed, "Mystic Falls has just as much lore on witches as it does on vampires," like that was supposed to explain things.

"Well, then after we stake this heartless bitch, we can flame broil some witches." It was supposed to have been a joke, until I remembered the rumors about her grandmother and how sensitive she was on the whole subject of witches and the supernatural in general. "Listen, Green Eyes, I can be a bit of a dick when I'm on a hunt, but I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories abo—"

"There's no grey area for you is there?" she said, looking down at the circle. Her voice was low and sad, "No exception to the rule? Isn't it possible that some of these things you fight are good? That they can't help being different?" I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she had to be so upset about.

When she and I had first met, she seemed to hate these things as much, if not more, than I did. She'd sat down at the Mystic Grill's bar, tipped her head back, and downed vodka like it was her job, swallowing everything but her extreme hatred of vampires.

"There is nothing," she had said all those weeks ago, sneering and smirking like a drunk high school girl trying to down her problems in an alcohol induced blur, "sexy about a parasite." And I had licked up every drop of that hatred, telling her things that she had no business knowing, letting her in on something that would kill me if she got hurt. I was nothing if not stubborn, trying to convince both Bobby and myself that she was strong enough to handle all of this. That she could replace Sammy in this fight, all because she had talked a good game. And that she had. Now, though, she was singing a different tune entirely, and honestly, her cold feet was a little disappointing. But then again, this was the reason that civilians were never allowed on hunts.

"Listen Green Eyes," I answered, wishing that we could hurry up and cover the trap and get the hell out of here. The circle, which looked like a bloody web, was starting to remind me too much of the pit. Plus, Green Eyes had drawn the damned thing so big, it was hard not to step in it. "I'm not going to lie to you about any of this. Witches, vampires, demons, monsters: I don't like 'em. At all! And maybe there are some good ones out there, but I certainly didn't get all these scars from Glenda the Good Witch and Casper the Friendly Ghost! So in my experience, no, there is no exception to the rule. You're either human, or you're evil. Period!" She looked stunned, but didn't press further. Instead, she focused on covering the hole with leaves.

"We'd better start heading back. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow." She mumbled without waiting for me to help. She didn't even seem to want my help. Her lips stretched into a tight forced smile that made me think back to Bobby's argument, "Have you ever stopped to wonder just why she's so willing to help you in all of this?" I knew from personal experience that some broads were just helpful. Sammy and I had both had certain flings that got caught in the chase and stuck around long enough to see the capture. Still, I wasn't so sure that that was the whole story in this case.

The ride back was just as silent as the first time, but the second time, it felt too much like those argument-type silences. The type that led normal guys straight into the dog house. So, I turned up the radio, trying to blast away the quiet. Or at least serve as a transition to another topic, "So, what did Eyebro…uh Stefan want you to tell me back there?" She shifted in her seat a little but continued to look out the window. The light drizzle beat down a little harder on my baby's paint job, and even though the rain couldn't get in, Green Eyes hugged herself tighter. A stray tear that I tried to reach over and wipe rolled down her cheek.

"Nothing," her tongue darted out and licked at the tear, another one quickly following in its path, "It doesn't really matter anymore."