*phew* I FINALLY got this chapter finished! Since this one took so long, I'm gonna try something a little different with the next section, focus less on the hunting jobs (though they'll be another one or two before, well...you know) and more on the family works. Thanks again for being so patient and awesone, all! You are uber nifty!

Hey, you know what's not mine? Yeah, you do!

~CA

Back at the bar, Lily had gathered everything she needed to know, and was getting ready to leave. Gratefully, too, because the sheer memory of Drake's ordeal had him drinking more and more. It was probably a good thing she brought the recorder, even if it was just for the sake of keeping up appearances, because half of everything he'd said had been slurred and garbled by the time he finished.

"Right, well…Thanks," she said, more than ready to excuse herself from his decreasingly pleasant company. He'd become bitter and cynical, almost angry over the course of the interview, and between his sour attitude and the diminishing bar population, she was beginning to feel edgy. Not that she couldn't handle herself if he decided he didn't like her dredging up best forgotten memories. Sure, he wasn't a demon, or anything, but she knew enough to keep him away for at least long enough for one of the other patrons to notice.

But she wasn't concerned. Drake seemed too sorry for himself to be interested in her.

"Um. I'll be in touch," she said, standing. "Good luck with—"

"Wait," he said, grabbing her wrist for the second time that night. "What'd you say'ur name was?"

Lily looked down in distaste at the meaty fist wrapped around her wrist, struggling not to make a face. He wasn't hurting her—not yet—but the fact that he was touching her was…well, gross. As well as a reminder that two or three of the shot glasses that now filled their table was hers. Drake had been an…accommodating guest at first, concerned that she should 'loosen up', though she was certain his willingness to provide the alcohol had more to do with her forgetting his story than anything else.

'Well, now they're gonna smell twice as much alcohol on me,' she thought to herself, idly checking her watch.

"Alice," she said. "Alice Greene, and—shit! It's after midnight? Fuck, they're gonna kill me! Look, Mr. Drake. Sir. Dude. Whatever. I gotta run, but I'll let you know—"

"Who?"

"Who?" Lily repeated dumbly. "Who what?" 'Where, when, why. You should have taken Sam's interviewer spot, and he could have this idiot,' she thought cynically. This was exactly why Dad had never allowed drinking on the job—it addled the brain.

"Who's gonna freak? If'ur late?" Ben pressed.

Lily rolled her eyes. He was persistent. She spat the first answer to come to her slightly looser-than-prudent tongue."My…editor."

"Your editor?"

Oops. Wrong persona. She'd only had a few drinks…but given her somewhat diminutive stature, 'a few' was more than enough. Lily cursed inwardly before trying to fix her mistake.

"I mean…my next client."

His eyes narrowed on her face, apparently not buying the lie. "Hey, wait a second…Don't I know you?"

Lily felt her heart skip a beat. Who would have thought the lumbering idiot would be more on his game when drunk? "No, I—"

"Yeah, you're that one chick on the rowing team with Sarah, huh?"

"Who?" Of course. Sarah Carmichael, her erstwhile teammate, was Drake's girlfriend. How could she forget? Damn.

"She came an' tol' me you hadda leave the team 'cause…'cause you're dad died."

Lily had slapped him before she knew what she was doing. Under other circumstances, she would have been surprised. Just now, her anger overwhelmed the surprise.

"Shut up," she hissed. Drunk or not, Dad's death wasn't something to be chatted about by inebriated jock-star frat boys. "Let. Go."

Drake stared in wide-eyed shock for a long minute—Lily doubted any female had ever struck that model-eqsue face of his—before his eyes narrowed. Again.

'Aaaand more drunken revelations,' she thought cynically. 'This guy probably woulda passed more classes if he'd just been drunk all week.'

"You lied," he said slowly, as if just fully comprehending the whole situation…and he probably was. "You lied about helping me, and about the story. You…you're a freak! You're not a cl...clai—"

"Clairvoyant?" she said sweetly.

"Yeah! You're just a liar."

"Yeah, well, either way, I gotta go."

"No way, Alice, if that's even your name. If you're not gonna help me, you gotta pay me back some other way."

Again, Lily had turned to hit him before she knew what was happening. But this time, either the alcohol had muddled her mind further than she thought, or Drake was just ready, because before she could even touch him, she found herself against the wall. His beefy forearm was pinned over her shoulders, while his other hand restrained her wrists.

'Great,' she thought bitterly. 'Sam and Dean might actually kill me after this.'

It occurred to her only briefly that she should have been worried, but really, she was only annoyed. She was certain that if she hadn't decided to drink, she'd have been able to ward Drake off, or at least distract him. She could only guess what kind of trouble she was going to get in now…

Suddenly, she felt a hand graze her chest, and reacted instinctively—if angrily—to knee her attacker in the groin. She was just trying to figure out how best to overcome the growing mist in her head when the pressure across her chest vanished.

Again, she reacted on instinct, hurling a fist in the direction Drake had come from—only to have her attack foiled.

"Lily! Relax. It's me."

"Sam?"

She blinked in confused astonishment. The night was getting stranger and stranger. 'Further down the rabbit hole, Alice!'

"Are you okay? Did he hurt you?" Sam, as it happened, was still speaking to her. Not paying attention was probably not going to help her case.

"Uh…no…" she stammered. "I mean, he tried, but—"

"Good. C'mon, we're leaving. Dean, let's go."

"Dean?"

Lily was confused, and she was sure it was more than the drinks. How had her brothers just…appeared out of nowhere? And how much had they seen?

Outside, Bobby was waiting, leaned up against the car. Lily blinked. "Bobby? Damn, how many drinks did I have?"

Sam chuckled ruefully somewhere next to her ear. "Enough for you to say that out loud." It occurred to her he was walking very close, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other guiding her toward Bobby's car.

Bobby straightened as she and Sam neared. "Lily? You alright?"

"I'm fine, Bobby," she said, pushing Sam's hands away. "We should just…go."

"Sure," Sam said, pulling open her door. "Bobby, I'll watch Lily. You might wanna go grab Dean, before we have a non-Trickster murder on our hands."

Bobby looked back and forth between Sam and Lily before ducking inside the bar.

Sam, for his part, was staring at Lily, who wouldn't look back for a long minute.

Finally, she said, "Well? What, no lecture?"

"It's coming. Just wanna make sure you remember in the morning."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Don't be so melodramatic, Sam. I had two…three drinks. So sue me."

"I don't care if you had grape juice, Lily. That kid was about to—"

"He's twice my size, what do you want from me?"

"You think this is helping your case?"

"What I think—"

"Alright, alright, I'm fine, Bobby, geez!"

Both Lily and Sam turned to look to the bar door, where Bobby was all but dragging a petulant Dean away. The bartender (and a significant crowd) stood gazing after them with a variety of expressions ranging from fear, to awe, to annoyance.

"Hey, take your friend home to sober up!" the barman called as they approached the car.

Dean half turned. "That creep was on top of my sister, man. You're lucky I didn't take his ass out!"

Lily watched, sure her mouth was hanging open in humiliated shock, her back pressed up against the car door, subconsciously hoping if she pushed hard enough, it would swallow her whole. She was sure she had never wanted to disappear more in her life. Bobby let go of Dean and walked around to his side of the car. Dean glared over his shoulder before turning to Lily.

"Lily. Are you okay?" He didn't wait for an answer as he looked her up an down, his eyes falling on the red marks around her collarbone and wrists.

"Son of a bitch," he growled, turning back toward the bar.

"Dean, wait!" Lily called, grabbing her brother's own wrist. "I'm fine. I promise. I just…let's go home."

Dean looked incredulous.

"You want to go home? What, now? Because it looked like you were having a great time."

Lily lowered her voice, willing the crowd at the door to disappear. "Dean…"

"No, Lil. I'm wondering why now is such a great time to go home. Why not, oh, I don't know, three hours ago? Before midnight, before you got drunk enough to let some random guy—"

"I'm not drunk, Dean! Quit talking to me like a little kid!"

"You are a little kid, Lily! Somehow, I always get pegged as the irresponsible one, when you're the one pulling stunts like this. Tell you what, tomorrow, when we…go out, you can stay back and continue being a grown up from the motel."

"What?"

"If you can't fight off some punk frat boy, Lil, I'm not taking you hunting."

"Dean, you're not being fair!"

"You wanna discuss fair? Come home on time next time."

"You are not Dad, Dean! You can't lecture me on curfew!"

"This isn't about curfew, Lily. This is about you not being able to take care of yourself. This…thing we're facing, I've never seen anything like it. I'm not gonna go out there and risk Sammy's ass and my own, because my baby sister can't handle herself!"

"Dean."

She could almost hear the physical blow the words had been. And, given the look on Sam's face, and the tone of Bobby's voice, so could they. She stood there, staring at her brother, trying to remember how to breathe. 'Off with her head!'

"Dean," Bobby said again, this time half rising from where he sat in the driver's seat. "She's had enough. Get in the car."

There was a second of silence in which Dean looked torn, but Bobby reasserted himself. "Dean. Get in the car. We're leaving."

Dean swallowed hard, still staring at Lily, who glared with back, though the latter was nearly in tears, not that she'd ever admit it. Dean turned abruptly, climbed into the car, and slammed the door behind him.

Lily woke the next morning to a thermos of coffee, two bottles of water, some aspirin, and a note. She knew without reading it they'd left without her.

She didn't have the energy to be angry, or try to recall what had happened between her argument with Dean and that morning. She couldn't remember getting back to the motel, or getting into bed, and it didn't serve to help her feel any better.

"Forget it," she muttered, groaning as she sat up. She rolled over, took three of the aspirin, chugged half a bottle of water, then trudged to the shower. They could leave her out of the hunt, but that didn't mean she couldn't get things done.

As soon as she was out of the shower, she called Amber.

"Hey, Amber…Yeah, it's me….Yeah, I know, I should have called. Believe me, I would have, but things have been crazy the last few days. I wouldn't have even called if…No, no, I'm fine, everything's fine, just need to get away from the family for a few days." There was a pause, and Lily forced a laugh. "Yeah, exactly like before school. Well, kinda…Anyway, I was wondering if you had time to hang out? I wanted to talk to you about something…No, it's nothing…Well, I guess it is a big deal. It's just…I…I was thinking of staying. For good."

Five minutes later, the youngest Winchester was on her way to her old dorm.

Hearts.