A/N: Vivi here! I'm loving the reviews you guys are leaving. I got a question in one of them that I'd like to answer really quickly about how I came up with calling Allison Li. Here's how that developed in the story: when she arrived at the bunker, they called her Allison. Over time, they shortened it to Ali (with one L because honestly I didn't want to have to type the extra L all the time). When Dean was cursed, he had trouble saying Ali, so he shortened that to Li, pronounced Lee. If anyone has any other questions, leave them below in the review and I'd be happy to answer them! It's hard to enjoy confusing stories, after all.
Someone was knocking on my door. I started awake and sat up quickly, confused as to who was bothering me. The clock read ten thirty; it wasn't shift change time yet. Dean woke up as I moved and was already at the door. It was Sam.
"Cas is awake."
I followed the brothers into Dean's room, where Cas had been recuperating for a few days. No wonder Dean hadn't slept well. There was nowhere for him to sleep at night. Bobby was on the cot, Sam and I had our rooms, but Cas had his room.
"Welcome back, buddy." Dean said as he entered. "How's the head?"
"Pulsing." Cas said. "Is Allison alright? Did you restart her heart?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, Cas." I said, slowly making my way to the chair that sat on the right side of Dean's room. Standing hurt my chest; every step was jarring.
Cas sat up more and looked at me with surprise on his face. I smiled and waved, but he just kept staring with widened eyes.
"What?" I asked as the staring became uncomfortable.
"You look different, Allison."
"Is it the bruises? I was in a car wreck." I said.
"No, your soul… It's different. Brighter than before." He said quietly.
"Well, I was possessed." I said matter of factly.
"You can see souls again?" Sam asked. He was absentmindedly swinging his braced leg from where he stood on his crutches.
"Not well. Perhaps it's my condition that is causing the changes I see." Cas said, glancing from me to Dean to Sam and finally Bobby, who had also joined us.
"So you back or what?" Dean asked, crossing his arms. "I'd like to sleep in my own bed tonight."
"Yes, I've recovered enough to function as a human again. However, I haven't regained more control of my grace than I had before." Cas frowned and seemed distraught.
"It'll come back, Cas." Dean said.
"Yeah, the demon possessed the witch that cursed you right before she got to me. Melody is long gone; her vessel will die in a few days, I think, and the curse might fade. The demon's lackeys were trying to keep her alive in case the demon needed a backup." I hoped that my tone disguised the lie I was trying to sell. The guys didn't need to know that Francesca had fully planned on returning to that vessel and keeping me captive.
"I thought we found an article saying she burned to death in her own house?" Sam asked.
"Apparently not." Dean said.
"The demon made a shifter Melody and killed her to cover her tracks and keep hunters away." I said quietly. "It worked."
"So we just wait for the bang and then Cas is back?" Bobby asked.
"Sounds like." Sam replied.
"You said you have a headache?" I asked Cas.
"Yes."
"The same one from before, with the photophobia?"
"Yes."
"Part of the curse, probably. Did pain meds help before?"
"Yes, partially."
"I'll go get so-"
"No. I'll go get some. You sit." Dean pointed a finger at me accusingly and pushed past Bobby.
"That boy." Bobby grumbled before leaning out into the hall and hollering at Dean. "Y'ain't Atlas, ya idjit. Take that weight off your shoulders. You're sick, too."
"Dean is still sick?" Cas asked with concern in his voice. "But I healed him…"
"He's got the same cold as before. Just a case of the sniffles." I said, trying to console the angel.
"I'm not even strong enough to cure the common cold." Cas looked to his hands, held in his lap, and frowned. "What use am I to you that you keep me around?"
"Cas, you're family." Sam said. "We'd rather have you, angel juice or not."
"Yeah, Cas. It doesn't matter how powerful you are. We love you just the same." I said gently.
Dean returned with a bottle of water and the whole bottle of pills, which he set on the nightstand. For the first time, I noticed the little black sports car that Dean used to play with when he was tiny. It was on his nightstand, next to a book and the lamp. No wonder I couldn't find it…
"Thanks." Cas said, still dejected. He glanced up at me again and sighed before looking to the guys. "Would someone catch me up, please?"
"Actually, that would be nice." I said. "I don't really know what happened either."
"Why don't we all put the story together? Seems we have more than one side to see it from. Might as well take advantage." Bobby said.
Soon there were three more chairs dragged into Dean's room and a bag of peanut M&M's had appeared from the drawer of one of Dean's dressers. "Bobby, why don't you start?" Dean said with a mouthful.
"Ain't much to tell from my standpoint. I was doin' target practice with Allison and a shifter lookin' like Dean came up behind me, covered my mouth, 'n dragged me to the other side of the scrap yard. Took him down and looked for the girl but she was gone. Saw a shifter Sam drive away in a new car and a couple shifters in my house and I took off. I was tryin' to find you three when the real Dean called." Bobby shrugged. "Got Sam and Cas outta the hospital, brought 'em here, boxed up the demon with a binding spell and superglued the hell outta that thing. That's my side."
I nodded slowly. They put the demon in a box. She wasn't going to hell just to come back, but she wasn't dead either. I hoped she suffered in that tiny coffin.
Sam spoke up. "We called the house and got someone that sounded like you, Bobby, but he was off. We called Ali and got no answer, so we knew something was wrong. Ali sent a weird prayer to Cas, but we couldn't figure out what it meant. Dean came up with a trap to lure the demon to us and catch it."
"Uh, yeah, I figured the demon was after us so if we just stayed put, it'd show up sooner rather than later. The little bitch was parading Li around like street candy when it found me in a bar. Got it in a devil's trap but it got loose and cracked my walnut, popped Sam's leg out." Dean said.
"That's when I healed the ruptured artery in your brain." Cas said. "And when I passed out."
"So then the demon ran out and we drove a couple hours to get to an old safe house in the middle of nowhere." Sam said. "Dean and I were trying to plan our next move when… I don't actually know what happened. They told me I was drugged when I woke up at the hospital."
"You were roofie-ed." I said. "Francesca roofie-ed you and Dean."
"The demon?" Sam asked, his face colored in disgust. "Why would she roofie us?"
"So you'd hold still while she did things to you."
"Doesn't that defeat the purpose of torture? What good will it do if the victim is unconscious?" Dean asked.
"She wasn't." I said, my voice barely a whisper. Looking away from them, I spoke with a little more strength. "Francesca needed me to help her with a spell that would keep her in me for hundreds of years and I refused to comply. She was never after you."
Looks of surprise and confusion were passed around the room before Dean spoke. "So she kidnapped me to get to you?"
"To lure me out of hiding. She figured out I was with you guys from other demons you've brushed up against." I said, avoiding eye contact. "I didn't know about it until she possessed me again or I would never have let it happen."
"You couldn't know it was going to happen, Ali." Sam said. "We should have tried harder to get information out of her before we exorcised her the first time."
"You should have killed me." I said loudly, looking directly at Dean. "You should have killed me and her the first time." My cheeks burned with anger and I let the pain my chest fuel the flames. If they'd just killed me the first time, I could be with my husband and son in Heaven. Unless I'd imagined meeting them there…
"For the last time, no one is killing you." Dean snapped. "Not as long as we're around."
"Settle down, spitfire." Bobby said. "I wanna hear her side now. I've got yours already."
"My side?" I asked.
"Yeah, what happened after you got taken from my house?" Bobby asked.
"I'll give you the short version. A shifter that looked like Sam got me into a car and knocked me out. I woke up in a gray room with a one-way mirror and shifter Sam and Dean harassed me before Francesca came in wearing Melody's body. She possessed me and went on a killing spree. Then her minions got your location and she found Dean at a bar. The devil's trap broke, blah blah blah, she sent demons to put flunitrazepam, the date rape drug, in your drinks at the house you found. She broke Sam's toes and beat on you guys and put me out for a while and when I came around I was able to overpower her for a hot second. I sent the other demons away- they thought I was her- and called the ambulance. I stole a police cruiser and carved a binding mark into my side before crashing into a tree. I don't remember anything after that until I woke up the other day." I lied. "So now everyone's caught up."
"Damn." Bobby breathed.
"You overpowered the demon?" Cas asked.
"For a couple minutes, yeah. It hurt like hell. Like literally, she was clawing at the inside of my head and burning me and stuff."
"Wait, wait. You overpowered a demon to save us?" Dean asked.
I nodded. "Yeah. She was gonna kill you."
"That's incredible." Sam said.
"You must have really weakened her. Only took me one shot with a devil's trap bullet to take her down when I found her." Dean said.
"You shot me?" I asked, surprised. Sure, I knew there was a bullet wound in my leg, but I hadn't asked where it came from. "Mister 'nobody is gonna hurt Li while we're around'?"
Dean frowned. "I didn't know it was you. You were across a ravine and I was out there without backup. A guy gets trigger happy, okay?"
"You hunted down a dangerous demon alone?" I asked incredulously.
"It worked didn't it?" Dean said, trying to defend himself.
"He left Sam and Cas out cold in the hospital too." Bobby piped up. I looked to Dean in disgust and stood, hugging my arm around my chest to keep it from jarring so much.
Closing the distance between my chair and Dean's, I slapped him across the face. Not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough to turn his head and surprise him a little. He held his cheek and looked up at me with a hint of hurt in his eyes. "Don't you ever do that again, Dean Winchester." I growled.
A/N: Any questions? Did you like the chapter? Comments? Leave a review!