AN: So... this is rare. I never post on a Friday, forget Friday evening but I don't work tomorrow until late and I'm still high on personal pride at having replaced a part on my car without the aid of a mechanic... or even a man as the salesperson at the auto part store was a woman. I'll take my wins where I can get them. So, here's some story. If I'm bored enough tomorrow with my unusual day off, I may post the next part, which is an extension of this part. Enjoy!

Part 24 – A month later…

(April 28, 2009)

Liz rolled over and answered the phone. She felt like she had just fallen asleep. "Hello?"

"To whom am I speaking?" Came a female voice.

"Depends. Who are you and who are you looking for at… two in the morning?" Liz glanced at the clock and groaned. A quick glance at Kyle's bed said that he was spending yet another night with Betty Lou from the Quick N Save.

"I'm calling from Prescott Memorial in Langdon." The voice paused then cleared its throat. "Your number was the last dialed on a cell phone recovered from a victim of a car wreck. The gentleman did not have any identification, nor did his passenger, also a man. Both between 20 and 30 at a glance."

"Oh my god. I'm coming."

"Ma'am? Your name?"

"Liz. I'm coming. I'll be there in the morning." Liz jumped out of bed and got dressed. She ran the words over and over in her mind. She knew where they were. She had just talked to Sam the night before. She just had to get there. It wasn't too far. She could hitch to the bus station and catch a bus. She could be there by noon at the latest. Scribbling a note for whoever came looking for her, she tacked it to the front door and started her journey. Walking in the cool night air let her collect her thoughts a little.

The next day…

(April 29, 2009)

Liz walked into the hospital and stopped at the desk. The nurse on duty ignored her. "Excuse me." Nothing. "Pardon me." Nothing. "Nurse? Two men were brought in last night. I was called to come identify them."

"What?" The nurse finally looked at her and blinked rapidly. "Identify?"

"Two men. One is six foot four, lanky. He's got a mole on his left cheekbone. Brown eyes." Liz ran her hands through her hair. "The other is about six foot, stockier build. Green eyes. He wears a… charm around his neck." Liz tried to keep her tears from flowing but she was on the verge of losing it. "I… just came to identify the bodies. Just… tell me where to find the morgue."

"Morgue?" The nurse began flipping through a notepad next to the phone. "Are you Liz?"

"Yes."

"You're here about the Winchesters?"

"Yes." Liz gulped out.

"Ma'am. I'm sorry if someone misled you on the phone. They're fine." The nurse walked around the desk. "Both men were unconscious when they came in but they came around this morning. I'll take you to their room."

"Wait…" She took a breath to calm herself and make sure she'd heard what she thought she'd heard. "They're okay?"

"Banged up but very much alive."

Liz followed the nurse down the hallway to the room where both men were lounging and eyeing the window as if they knew exactly how to get it open and escape, if not for Sam's leg in traction and Dean's arm encased from his fingers up to his armpit in gauze. Both looked worse for wear but a sore sight for Liz's eyes after the tumultuous thoughts on her night's journey. "There they are." She breathed out, catching their attention. She stared at them through watering eyes for a long moment. "I'll kill you both for making me think you were dead."

"Whoa." Dean held up his hands. "Why are you here?"

"Why am I here? Why are you here?" Liz advanced on his bed. "I got a call in the middle of the night saying I had to come identify two men who were in some kind of car wreck. They told me to come because I was last dialed on your phone."

"The car flipped over a few times. We're fine." Sam tried to intercede.

"Way to look after your little brother, Dean." Liz whapped his good arm.

"Ow." Dean tried to duck but she had him trapped. "Who said I was driving?"

"It's your car." She whapped him again. "Of course you were driving. Were you drinking, too?"

"No!" Dean shouted back.

Liz gave up, tears slipping from her face as she sank into the chair by his bed. "They called me and I was thinking on the bus ride that I'd have to…" She sobbed suddenly. All the emotions from the long bus ride and all the relief to see two confused faces just poured out. She took the Kleenex when the nurse handed them over. Liz hit Dean's leg with the box. "Don't ever do that to me. Both of you. If someone has to come identify a body, make sure they call someone else. I don't want to be the one to take your ashes home."

"Excuse me." The nurse spoke up. "Should I bring the paperwork later on? For Mrs. Winchester to fill out?"

"Yes." Sam blurted out before Dean could protest that Liz was not either of their wives. "Thank you for bringing her in."

It took several long moments before Liz could calm down enough to speak. "After all the hours of building my courage to look at your dead bodies, it's a great relief to see that neither of you are dead." She took a breath and forced her mind to anything that would prevent more tears. "Is the Impala drivable?"

"Don't know yet." Dean shrugged but handed Liz the box of Kleenex. "Mrs. Winchester?"

"I didn't say anything. She just assumed." Liz waved him off. "Are you guys really okay?"

"We're fine. I wouldn't let Dean leave me behind." Sam offered her a smile. "He can walk out AMA if he wants to. I have my leg in a complicated system of pulleys though."

"With two good hands, I could get him out." Dean motioned to his right hand in the sling.

"What in the hell happened to you guys?" Liz sniffed loudly and reached for another tissue to clean up with.

"Yellow-eyed Demon. We got close again, thanks to yours and Sam's visions. Hopefully he doesn't know about you." Dean shrugged and scowled. That's all they needed. Liz's visions had helped a lot but if the Demon got wind of her, she was good as dead.

"Okay. I'll figure some way to get you guys out of here and then you'll both recover somewhere with a gazillion protection circles, okay?" Liz stood and ran her hands through her hair. "I'll fake some paper work and ask about the traction… transportation and wherever they towed the car."

"Do the car first." Dean advised. When she turned to glare at him, he motioned her away from the door. "The glove box. There's a box where I keep IDs. There should be a decent Winchester badge. Just make sure the name on a card in the trunk, matches one of the badges. There's a system. We know how to work it. Okay? If you get stuck, just bring me the cards and the badges. I'll do it."

"I'm sure I can figure it out." Liz grabbed the door handle. "If you can defraud the credit card companies, I can too."

--

Liz put down her own cash for the car and was grateful when it was drivable. It made a few funny sounds but she got it back to the hospital and found all the documents needed to cheat the hospital and credit card companies out of what the Winchesters owed them. She felt bad doing it but Demon hunting was a thankless and benefit-less job, and she would know from her experience alien-hunting. She faked grimaces and grateful smiles for the nurses and doctors as she negotiated for the release of her friends.

Sam was released first. His leg was fractured and his cast was dry. Dean had to have his wounds irrigated again and rebandaged before the doctor would allow him to leave, even under threat of a mad dash for the parking lot. Liz had to threaten to help the doctor keep him in order to get him just to sit down and wait for the much needed bandage change. Liz wheeled Sam out to the car and was not totally surprised at the gasp of horror. "Dean's going to punch someone."

"Rolled a few times, huh. Windows are missing. Broken, I guess." Liz eased open the backseat door. "I'm sure you can salvage a few more parts from the old Impala."

"If Bobby hasn't stripped it already." Sam slid into the seat, cleaned off broken glass.

"Bobby doesn't dare touch that thing. When he passes it on the lot he gets this expre—"

"Mother-fucker!" Dean exclaimed when he hit the parking lot.

"It's okay. It drives." Liz turned with a wince. "You should have known it would be like this."

"Look at it. I just got it running good again!" Dean wanted to punch someone but his right arm was in bandages that hurt when he moved his arm even a fraction.

"Just… close your eyes and get in. I'm driving."

"The hell you are."

"And you're going to work the gear shift with your left hand?" Liz shook her head. "I got it here. I'll get it to Bobby's so you can fix it up."

"Whatever. If you're driving. I'm sleeping." Dean sat in the passenger seat and waited until Liz had made sure that Sam was comfortable. She started the car and it let loose a whine before it settled into a chunky purr. "Son of a bitch. We'll be lucky if it makes it to Bobby's."

"I can drive. It's fine." Liz pulled onto the highway and felt Dean watching her every move.

"Watch the gauges. It even looks like it's going to overheat and you pull it over. I'm not blowing a gasket head." Dean leaned over to see the gauges. "Don't push her too fast. If she overheats, we're stranded."

Liz bit her tongue and kept driving but he was practically in her lap. "Do you mind? I like my space."

"Are the gauges even working?" he leaned even further into her personal space.

"You know what?" Liz pulled the car onto the gravel and turned to him. "You drive. I'll work the gearshift for you to get into drive and then I'm sleeping. I've been up since two in the morning and I didn't get a whole lot of sleep before that."

"Fine." Dean got out of the car and cursed at its appearance all the way around the car.

"Fine." Liz settled into the passenger seat then leaned in to help Dean get the car out of park and on the road again. Once that was done, she leaned over the seat so she could see Sam. Sam was laughing silently but he looked to be in pain. "You okay?"

"Tired… need some of this… stuff. I'll be fine." Sam shook his head and the bottle of painkillers. "Think we'll get there by morning?"

"At this speed?" Liz looked to Dean as she fished a bottle of water from her purse. "By tomorrow afternoon."

"We're not going to push her when she's like this. She'll strand us and we'll have to eat each other for food. We're not going down like that plane in the Andes." Dean over-dramatized as he pat the dashboard. "We should really give her a good looking over before we make the trip but I don't trust these out of the way towns after what happened in that orchard."

"Ah… the orchard. Burketsville." Sam nodded that he remembered. "Your face wouldn't have improved that scarecrow one bit. Had to torch the sucker."

"I still maintain that I would have gotten us out of there without you." Dean talked to his brother through the rearview.

"If I hadn't come along, you'd be pushing up apple trees." Sam shot back.

"I should have left you to the cannibals."

"Maybe the Wendigo should have had you for a snack."

"The Striga."

"Phantom truck."

"Psycho painting girl wanted to give you a close shave."

The boys fell silent for a while but Liz knew there were demons and spirits that they weren't voicing. They were bantering, not fighting. Other demons and spirits were saved for fighting, ammunition for when they were in close quarters for far too long… Sam winked at Liz. "Did you know that Dean has a way with kids?"

"What?" Liz turned slightly so she could see both of them at the same time. Dean rolled his eyes and set his jaw. The idea was bizarre and so she let out a chuckle. "Really?"

"Every time there's a little kid involved… boom. Dean takes care of it."

"Shut up, Sammy." Dean warned. His precious tough guy reputation was being tainted.

"No, seriously. When I first saw it, I thought he'd had a stroke or something." Sam adjusted himself better to tell the stories. "This kid's whole family was going to get killed by this spirit in a lake. The kid, too. Dean not only gets this kid with severe post-traumatic stress to communicate with someone for the first time since his dad died, but he saves the kid's life when the spirit tried to drown him."

"Oh my god." Liz gasped.

"Then, the kid looks at Dean like he's a hero. Laughing and talking and the whole bit. Like he was normal again." Sam didn't stop even though his brother was shooting him daggers through the mirror. "When we were hunting the Striga… It targets this little boy, whose little brother had already been attacked. Dean just…"

"Shut your cake hole, Sam." Dean bit out.

"Makes him feel better about having responsibility for his little brother. Makes him feel better about being strong for his mom. Then he convinces the kid to lie as bait."

"You did what?!" Liz smacked Dean's arm and gasped as the car swerved, Dean wincing in pain. "I am so sorry, Dean. I forgot, I'm sorry."

"He saved us all from the Striga." Sam quickly amended, peering forward to get a look at the expression on his brother's face. It was one of agony. "You okay?"

"Fine." Dean bit out.

Liz sat up and examined the bandages she had struck. "I'll do some better bandaging when we get to Bobby's."

"I'm fine." Dean repeated, his teeth clenched together.

"Sam, maybe you could give him like half a pain pill."

"I'm fine. I don't need drugs."

"Okay." Liz bit her lip, glancing at him guiltily. "Tell me about this… Striga. What was it exactly?"

"A witch." Dean shrugged, turning his face to the driver's side window area as he had no window to speak of.

"A witch?" She asked, her expression dubious.

"A crone."

"A crone?" She let out a small laugh.

She was driving him up the wall and they hadn't even cleared the county yet. The next seven hours were going to be hell… if the car would move that fast without protesting. "Do you want to know or not?"

"Yes… I'll be quiet. I promise. Tell me." Liz readjusted herself in the seat so she could watch Dean tell the story while he drove, his arm cradled against his chest as if he were afraid she'd hit him again, even though he'd abandoned the sling first thing in the car.

"This Striga is centuries old. It ritually feeds on children's life energy. They present like the flu or something. It feeds on bloodlines, usually starting with the youngest and systematically getting them all to the oldest. It leaves its markers. Sulfur handprints on window sills, unexplained and seemingly incurable sickness." Dean's jaw set. He had hated Dad for saddling him with so much responsibility but he knew that had he been appreciative and obedient, that thing would have died years before Dean would have had to put it in his crosshairs. "It wasn't the first time I'd run into one of these things… so… Dad trusted that I would be the one to kill it before it killed any more children. So we were staying at this motel, pretending to be working with the CDC… the owner's little boy gets sick and I put it together pretty quickly. Striga. Sam and I fought over this one but I knew how to kill it. It's only vulnerable when it feeds. We needed to catch it in the act and… the owner's older son was the next likely target. We could have just waited until it attacked but… I wanted to give the kid an option."

"And he said he'd do it." Liz whispered in awe. She often wondered at Max and Isabel's bond, being an only child. Sam and Dean seemed to be similarly close and to hear about some little boy risking his life to save his baby brother, she wanted to cry. "To save his little brother."

"Yeah." Dean's eyes flicked to her for a second but he set them back on the road. "Anyway. He agrees to be bait. We're waiting in the next room. Waiting. When he started screaming, we had to run in there but… the first shot missed. He did what I told him and hid under the bed. There was a scuffle and it went after Sam." He clenched his teeth together for a second before he continued. "I… was scared because the last time the Striga went after Sam, it nearly got him and I was too afraid to shoot it in case I shot him. I had to wait until it was vulnerable, though. I had to make sure it died."

"To save your little brother."

"Yeah, well… that's what big brothers do. So, I shot it in the head. It died. All the kids who hadn't died got better. End of story." He felt her eyes on him. "What?"

"Nothing. I still felt kind of bad cheating the credit card company and the hospital but… I don't feel so guilty about it now."

"Oh, spare me." He rolled his eyes at her.

"You saved a bunch of kids. Even if that's a one time deal… It's a thankless job, is what I'm getting at. The government wouldn't compensate you for doing it. You guys probably get into more trouble than is warranted because you're saving lives."

"Dean's on the FBI's most wanted." Sam snickered.

"Yeah, I am… You're not, though. You're harmless… like a puppy dog or a kitty cat." He taunted his little brother, who scowled at having someone else know what little acclaim he was getting as the Winchester's youngest member. Only in his family would NOT being on the FBI's most wanted list look like a disappointment.

"How do you know that?" Liz whispered.

"It's on their website… I'm more wanted than Nathan and Gary." Dean shrugged.

"Because you're a habitual law breaker." Sam pointed out. "Lillian was the gunman on a heist. One time deal."

"Is that what it says?" Liz frowned. Then she shut her eyes and put her hand to her forehead. "I hope my grandma doesn't know how to find that website."

"Have you been home at all?" Sam had to ask. He still hadn't told her he'd followed a lead to Roswell. She didn't ever want to talk about home, not even with him.

"No. Mom wants me to come for Christmas but… I don't know." She shrugged. "She sends me stuff in the mail. She even uses my alias."

"Why do you still use it?"

"I'm just used to it. I answer to both. Stan and I don't use them in the cottage anymore. His real name is Kyle by the way." She sighed heavily and sank low in her seat. "He should really visit his dad."

"What about your dad?" Dean asked, prompting her to tell more about herself. He had met the guy but he still didn't know the whole story and he wasn't going to tell her that they'd been to Roswell if Sam hadn't.

"Dad sometimes takes the phone when I talk to Mom. He doesn't say it but he wants me to come home. Maybe to go to college or take over the restaurant but… I can't go back there. Never again. I can't be in the restaurant where Max… where he used to come visit me on shift. I can't sleep in the room where Max stopped being my friend and where I had a vision of my friends and myself dying. I couldn't go out onto the balcony where he kissed me for the first time then proposed three years later. I just… I can't. There's too much good and bad there." Liz sniffed and looked up at the roof of the car. "It's just too hard. Waking up every day without him is hard enough. Seeing my mother-in-law at the grocery store and knowing that she… isn't really my mother-in-law anymore is just…"

"No brothers or sisters?"

"Only child." She smiled to herself. "But Maria and Isabel are like my sisters. Michael and Kyle are like my brothers. You kind of make your own family when you don't have your own. You guys are lucky to have each other… when… you know, you aren't letting each other get beat on by evil spirits and demons."

"You look beat. Get some sleep." Dean ordered her. "You shouldn't have come. We would have gotten out of there eventually."

"Couldn't let my friends get buried in some unmarked grave as John Does." Liz shot Sam a smile. "I would have asked Bobby where your hometown was and I would have taken you home."

"I'll write notes and sew them into our clothes before a hunt." Sam promised. "Bobby will identify the bodies and you can bury us in Lawrence, Kansas."

Liz blinked at him. They drove all over the place. All over the state for her errands, up and down the Midwest on their own hunts. She had seen Lawrence on the map more than a handful of times when planning routes or gauging their trips when Sam called her for one of their late night talks. "You guys just cruise past your hometown all the time and never go back?"

"We've been back once or twice since we were kids." Dean cleared his throat. "It's not home."

"Then what is?" Liz asked softly, getting comfortable to sleep again.

Dean turned a full-fledged smile on her. "You're riding in it."

TBC