A/N: Sorry I couldn't update this sooner. Oy with the reading!! Anyway, I'll just post the last four chapters at once. Enjoy :D


Summary: It was just a matter of time timing. Five times Chloe could have met the Winchesters (and Crossing Kansas wouldn't have happened). Chapter 2/5


2005

Sam resisted the urge to look at his brother. Again. He knew Dean noticed every time he studied him from the corner of his eye. If he looked again, he was going to start a fight. Though, at least if they were fighting there would be some sort of speaking going on. Dean had been silent since they'd left Lawrence hours earlier.

With a sigh, Sam settled his head against the window, watching the flat landscape pass quickly. He couldn't really blame Dean for being silent. He had a lot to work over in his mind.

He closed his eyes, bringing back the image of his mother's spirit. She was beautiful. More beautiful than the pictures had ever portrayed. All his mother had ever been to him was a handful of pictures and Dean's fractured memories. Seeing her whole—or mostly whole—and standing in front of him had been a bigger shock than anything he'd experienced before.

He could only imagine what seeing her had done to Dean.

"What was in that box Jenny gave you?" he asked, deciding he'd had enough silence. The longer he stayed silent, the longer Dean had to build his walls back up.

Dean shrugged, keeping his focus on the road ahead. "Pictures of us." He reached into the back seat and grabbed the box, tossing it onto Sam's lap. "I guess they got left behind."

Sam opened the lid, blinking down at a picture of Dean as a child, holding him as a baby. "Yeah, I guess so," he agreed, letting silence cover them again.

He didn't know what to say, anyway.


Most mornings, going to college and working at the Daily Planet wasn't a problem. Chloe had always been a multitasker. She thrived on having too many things to do and not enough time to do them in.

Some days, though, all she wanted was a cup of coffee and a break.

She took an appreciative sniff of her coffee before drinking, enjoying the feeling of the warm liquid travelling down her throat. It was one of those rare days where her homework and Planet work were all done, and all she had to do was enjoy the coffee in her hands.

And she was going to enjoy it as long as she could, because she knew the day wouldn't stay calm. Days never did. Not for her. Not in Metropolis.

The door to the coffee shop dinged, announcing a new customer, and she looked up, watching two men walk inside. She almost smiled, taking in their attractive faces then hesitated when she studied the short-haired man. He looked familiar, but she wasn't sure why.

She was pretty sure she'd never seen the man before, and she was definitely sure she'd never seen his friend.

Realizing she was staring, she dropped her gaze back to her drink, letting them pass unnoticed. If he was someone she knew, it would come to her. In the mean time, she sat, listening to them order their drinks then stand in silence waiting.

She chanced another look when the silence passed longer than she expected, and found the familiar, short-haired man watching her. He smiled when she looked up and she smiled back. The familiarity only grew with his smile, and she grasped for a name.

His smile slid into a flirty smirk and she realized why that look was so hard to recognize. It had never been directed at her before.

She was staring at Jason Teague, or at least, a man who looked scarily similar to him.

Her smile fell from her face and she returned her gaze to the mug in front of her. Jason was dead. She'd seen the body when it had been extracted from Clark's meteor-wrecked home last spring. That man in front of her couldn't be him.


Dean pursed his lips and turned back at his brother, when the pretty blonde looked away. It had been quick, but he could have sworn he'd seen disappointment in her eyes before she'd dropped her eyes to her drink. Apparently she wasn't good at reading a smile.

He mentally shrugged as his drink was set in front of him. He had some time to teach her.

And he could use a little distraction from the last few days.

"Find a table, Sammy," he ordered, scooping up his coffee cup and moving towards the blonde's table. "I'll be back."

Sam frowned and looked to where he was headed. "Dude," he hissed, gesturing with his cup. "We got these to go."

"So?" Dean shrugged and continued to his destination. She looked up before he could reach the table, her eyes widening in surprise. "This seat taken?" he asked, attempting another smile.

She shook her head and kicked the chair out. "Nope." Her eyes wandered the small coffee shop and stopped when they spotted Sam. "What about your friend?" she asked.

"He likes to drink his coffee alone," Dean lied, watching the way her green eyes flashed with curiosity when they returned to his face. "My brother's kinda strange like that."

"Brother?" she questioned as if the idea of him having a sibling were impossible.

"Yep." He nodded, pulling the cap off his drink and taking a small sip. "He's Sam. I'm Dean."

The blonde took his offered hand, still studying him. "Chloe." Her gaze dropped to his hand wrapped around hers, before returning to his face. "Are you from out of town?"

Dean resisted the urge to squirm under her curious gaze. There was something about the way she was studying him that didn't sit well with him. He was starting to regret coming to her table. "Just passing through," he answered. He caught his brother's gaze over her head and silently ordered him to come over. "But we couldn't drive through Kansas without stopping in Metropolis."

"Exactly," Chloe agreed. "So you've never been here before?"

Yeah, he was really regretting sitting down. She didn't want to flirt. She just wanted to ask questions. She couldn't even ask the questions in a flirty manner. She was matter-of-fact as she spoke, as if conducting an interview. "Haven't been in the state for years," he said, searching for her press pass.

Sam arrived then, offering Chloe a smile. Dean watched as her gaze shifted from curiosity to something softer. Sam's innocent charm had won her over. Dean couldn't even feel jealous, he was just relieved. She'd only asked two simple questions, but it had been the way she'd watched him while he'd answered that had him itching to leave.

She was grasping for something and he was pretty sure he didn't want to know what.

"Hey Sam. Ready to go?"


Chloe made it to the front door of the Daily Planet before it finally clicked and she was left scrambling inside to her computer. Her search drive offered up a long list of potential hits, but she was only interested in one.

Dean Winchester. Murder. St. Louis.

There had been a reason his face had looked familiar, and it wasn't the fact that he could pass for Jason's brother.

She swallowed her disappointment and picked up her phone, knowing if she didn't call she'd regret it later. Sure he'd smiled and attempted to flirt, but that didn't mean he wasn't capable of murder.

And, she was pretty sure he'd been packing.


Sam paced the small space of his motel room, wondering how long it would be before he wore a hole in the cheap carpet. He'd been pacing and brainstorming for hours and he still had no plans. Short of charging the police station and demanding they release his brother, he didn't know what he was supposed to do to help Dean.

His brother was stuck in jail, and all Sam could do was pace.

His dad wasn't any help. He was off God only knew where, avoiding his children. So it was up to Sam to save his brother from jail, before Dean got tried for the St. Louis murder.


Dean let out a long breath and flopped back on the small cot, deciding he'd rather count the cracks on the ceiling than stare at the walls.

As he counted, he replayed everything he'd done in the last day, trying to figure out what could have possible tipped the cops off. He remembered overly curious, green eyes, and glared. That was the last time he flirted with a pretty girl in a coffee shop.

A knock on his cell door pulled him from his thoughts. "Winchester," a female voice barked and he sat up, frowning at the face through the small window on the door. "Ready to talk?" she asked.

"Do I have a choice?"

The woman, Maggie something he remembered, shook her head. "No."

"Awesome."


Two days later, the coroner in St. Louis will confirm that the body buried in town was legit and, apparently, Dean Winchester's. But by that time, Dean will have vanished from his jail cell, never to be seen again until his next unfortunate run-in with the cops.

The anonymous source who called in Dean Winchester's whereabouts will follow his story all the way to St. Louis. She'll take one look at the identical copy of his body lying in the morgue and remember a girl from high school that could change to look like anyone she wanted.

She'll then wonder which one was the copy and which one was the original. And if either had anything to do with Jason Teague.

Years later, when an article announces a body stolen from a Smallville morgue, the brothers will investigate. They'll learn quickly that the body is Chloe's and that she is very much alive.

They'll leave town immediately.


Dean will spot her twice from a distance, and never say a word.

Chloe will slowly forget about him and Sam as her life continues to become more extraterrestrial.

Sam will never forget.


And, after a whole month of resisting, Dean will once again flirt with women in coffee shops.