It was still early enough on a Saturday that not many people were out. Although I knew the brunch crowd would be cramming the diners in about an hour. I drove to the trailhead opposite the M. Luckily, there were no cars there so I wouldn't have to feel self-conscious about my howling. This was nuts. I was actually going to call a wolf by howling. I decided to walk into the forest a ways, in case someone came along and so Beta could conceal himself if need be. I coughed once and then did as Ahna told me. I pretended I was yelling Beta as I howled once, twice, then three times. I cleared some snow off a stump to wait. I figured I'd give him about ten minutes. It passed by quickly as I listened to the forest with my new senses. If there was an animal, I almost always smelled it or heard it before I saw it. They got a lot closer to me too. Almost as if they didn't know I was there. Had I somehow finally mastered the art of being still? Something I had been working on my whole life?! This wolfy business was getting eerie. I howl again, deciding to give him another ten minutes, before going to the cave. I somehow instinctually knew how to get there. I walk further into the forest, hoping I'll run into him. About five minutes later, I hear rustling in the underbrush, then I smell him. Beta. He's in wolf form, but when he notices it's me, he changes to human. I watch him with bated breath. The transformation is fascinating. How wolf becomes man, breathtaking. As he has no clothes on, he staggers toward me naked. I turn and take off my jacket, offering it to him. He wraps it around his waist to be polite. "Alyx?!" He stares at me baffled. "How did you call...?" I turn to look at him now that he's covered.
"Hi, Beta," I say warmly turning toward him. "Glad you heard me. I was worried you wouldn't."
He sucks in his breath as I raise my eyes to meet his. "Alyx..." He breathes out.
"Surprise!" I say doing some jazz hands.
He walks around me in a circle, taking his time, drinking me in. "I had no idea this was going to happen." He pauses. "Before, when one of us has bitten someone, they got two, maybe three, of our abilities. It lasted through a moon cycle or two then dissipated. How many attributes do you have?"
"Well?" I counted them off. "All three super senses; hearing, vision, and smell. My hair has decided to get really thick and long and I have one hell of an appetite."
"I see," he says not quite convinced. "Is that all?"
"Oh yeah. When I went for a run this morning, I was super fast. I ran six miles in under thirty minutes. Normally I do five miles in an hour. But that's it. I swear." I explain.
He squints at me, his head tilted. "Are you sure?!"
"Positive," I answer back.
He looks at me again. "I miss the blue of your eyes." He comments. "And you smell different. Wilder, muskier, more like a wolf." He drops his head. Seeming angry he growls out. "Why did you call me? What do you need?"
I bite my lip. "Sorry to disturb your precious time," I say bitterly. "I need some of your blood. I was going to try to figure out what's wrong with me. And Ahna. She's all human now. Most of her memories have come back too. I was going to try and fix things. But if you don't want that I'll leave." I turn to go, surprised to find I have tears sliding down my cheeks.
I feel Beta's hand on my shoulder. "Alyx, wait." He says softly. "You misunderstand." I turn and find he has his own tears sliding down his face. I didn't know he could still cry. "I'm not mad at you. I..." he struggles to find the right words. "You didn't choose this." He sighs. "I know you have a human boyfriend somewhere and if this takes you away from him, it makes me sad. You are human, you deserve that human life. That is all." He drops his head and hand. "Whatever you need to help you solve this, I will do. Whatever is in my power." He holds out his arm. I grab it. He uses his other to tilt my chin up to reinforce his point. "Whatever is in my power." He says fiercely. I nod and lead him over to a large rock where I pull out a needle, syringe and several vials. I draw the whole rainbow, all six vials on him, hoping it can help me. Once I'm done, he licks his arm and the wound heals instantly.
"Thank you, Beta. I'll try to bring Ahna back to you." I say. "She loves you; you know. That was the one thing she mentioned if she had to remain a human. How she would live without you. You're her family." I wipe the tear that falls from his cheek. "Wish me luck?"
"Good luck, Alyx. I hope you succeed." He says solemnly. I turn and head back down the path to my car. I'd forgotten my jacket. The black wolf that was Beta nudges me. I take it and scratch his ears as he leans into me. I kneel and stare into his amber eyes, so like my own now and a silent understanding passes between us. I walk the rest of the way in silence pondering what's transpired. People have been telling me I'm special my whole life and I never believed them. But after what has happened to me the last six months, I'm starting to believe it could be true. And I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
I loved coming to the lab on weekends. It was always quiet and I could get some real work done. As I mentioned before, I wasn't actually one of the scientists who used the lab for research. But I knew how everything worked so I sometimes did my own experiments. I was in charge of keeping the place running so no one ever said anything about me doing my own thing. As long as I didn't use up much of the university's resources, no one cared. I took the five samples I had. Three from me, one from Ahna and one from Beta and made slides to look at them all. I made several other slides to stain them with varying stains to see how they compared. I then took the last of each vial and denatured proteins in order to run a protein analysis and gas chromatography to see what elements showed up. I figured that was a good place to start.
In the live environment, Ahna and my pre-Tyrion blood looked the most similar, the most human. Ahna had a line of cells I didn't recognize in hers, I figured it had something to do with her supernatural nature. Other than that, she was entirely normal. After examining my own blood, I discovered I had a few of those cells as well. I had a moment of panic. Hoping to dissuade my fears, I scanned the entire slide praying it was a mistake. It wasn't. I found more of them, totaling about fifty, but they were there. I looked at three more slides just to be sure. On every slide, it was there. Taunting me. What was it?! Now I was panicking!
Trying to remain calm, I compared Ahna's and Beta's blood. They both had the same line of mysterious cells present. Although Beta had at least one hundred times as many as Ahna. That confirmed my theory it was something supernatural. Now I was worried. I had found that in my own blood! Did that mean I wasn't human after all? My brain was buzzing with questions. I wrote them all down in my notebook to get them out of my head so I could focus on what I needed to do.
I then compared both vials of my blood. Pre and post-Tyrion. The post injections showed more of that supernatural line. It was still a low count by Ahna's standards but there were three times as many in the post line as the pre-line. Somehow whatever Tyrion had concocted reacted with my supernatural line. Maybe that was why I had changed so much. I checked the blood I drew that morning. I saw it had three times as many as the post line, six times the pre-line. I thought on that for a while, until the timer dinged. The proteins had all been denatured. Time to set up the analyzers. While I did that, I wondered if everyone had this line present. It is said somewhere that humans evolved from magical beings. Why couldn't it be true? Or that magical and nonmagical beings could be together... like in Harry Potter. Their offspring having lingering traces of magic. It sounded preposterous, but what did I know? A whole world of possibilities had opened up for me recently. There was so much I didn't know.
As soon as the analyzer was running, I called Mina and asked her to come see me at the lab. I had to know if she had the cell line too and I needed some of her blood. I didn't explain things, but she could tell by my voice that it was important and headed over right away.
I remembered I had some of Amanda, Stacey and Jean's blood as well. It was old, but I could still look for the anomaly, as I was calling it. I made slides, then set up the gas chromatographer with the other four lines. I thoroughly looked at all their blood. The cell line was not present, not in one of the five slides I made for each. I was so engrossed with finding one in their blood, proving that it wasn't something supernatural/magical, I didn't hear when Mina arrived. She pounded on the door and called me several times. When I didn't answer she used magic to open the door, letting herself in. I nearly had a heart attack when she tapped me on the shoulder! "AAAAAHHHH!" I screamed. "Shit! Mina?!"
"Sorry, but you didn't answer the door or your phone. I alohomora-d my way in here." She replied a little sheepishly. "What are you so engrossed in?"
I didn't want to tell her right then. I had to know if she had the cells, and if she did, I could prove my point. "If I'm right, I'll explain everything," I said by way of justification. She shrugged. She was cool about it and let me draw some of her blood. About fifteen minutes later I had my answer. Mina had the line too! It wasn't as high as Beta's but had more than my post-Tyrion blood and blood from this morning. If I had to rank people based on supernatural abilities. Amanda, Stacey, and Jean were one hundred percent human. Then my pre-Tyrion blood, then post, this morning's, Ahna, Mina and Beta having the most. I sat staring into space, my face full of disbelief. What did this mean? How could doctors not notice this? Maybe they did and it was never mentioned. I didn't know what to do with the information presented. I was a woman of science, dammit! I dealt with logic and reason. This made no sense! It had no logic or reason. It couldn't be true! But I had to face the facts. It was right there in front of me, there was no denying it. There was a small part of me that knew, deep down. I think I had always known there was magic still left in the world. I had refused to give up the idea it was out there, even when everyone told me I was wrong. That it was a childish fantasy to believe in such things. Technology and progress had hidden it away. But there were people out there who sought it out and fought to keep it alive. I now knew I was a part of those small few, even if I didn't want the job. As was Mina, Ahna, Beta, Bentley, Charlie, Sam, Dean and all the hunters I had come across since the incident last year.
I turned to look at Mina and everything spilled out. How Ahna had bitten me, my new senses. How Mina smelled like the woods, rosemary, sage, and thyme with a hint of jasmine thrown in. How I could hear her heart beating slow and steady, and wondered how she could be so calm about this when my heart was beating so wildly. The cell line I had discovered in all our blood and how it had to be something supernatural, something magical. But then why did I have it? How I didn't think I could handle this right now. What if I was turning into a wolf? What would Dean think? Would he still want to keep me around? As a pet? Would he gasp, kill me? How I wished he were here and Sam because they would know what to do. I rambled on and on and on. Mina listened inserting the proper hmm and uh-huh's appropriately. The last of all my fears tumbled out as the timer dinged. The chromatography and protein analysis were done and printing off the analyzers.
"Alyx!" Mina grabbed my shoulders and forced me to look at her. "This is too much information for you to absorb right now. I know you didn't sleep very well. I heard you putzing around. You need to sleep so your mind can rest before you tackle this problem. It's so big."
I protested. "Mina, but I have to know what it means!"
"Sssshhh, now. I know." She responds trying to soothe me. "But I can see it on your face how tired you are." She shakes her head. "And your mind is so loud. All your walls are down broadcasting your every thought!" She looks at me with a smirk. "And I mean EVERY thought!" I blush at that. "Are these analyzers done?" She asks ripping off the printouts and stuffing them in my bag. I nod. "Okay. I'm going to drive you home, where I will give you something so you can sleep. Then we can look at the results of the analyzers fresh and get some more answers. Alright?"
"No! Mina! I have to look at them!" I reach for my bag, but she shoves me off.
"Don't make me use a spell to refrain you. Because I will! This is for your own good! We are going home, and you are going to sleep. End of story!" Mina threatens me.
I sigh, my shoulders sagging. "Fine!" She's right about one thing I'm too tired to fight her. "I need to clean up the lab, then we can go." I get up to start.
"No! You're not touching anything!" She shouts and grabs my hand. "Just think what needs to be done to clean up the lab."
I look at her but sigh and close my eyes. I think of what needs to be put away, cleaned, discarded, organized, and turned off. I hear rustling and Mina softly saying an incantation. My eyes open and I watch as everything that I thought happens by magic. Mina's eyes are closed, and a faint blue-white light emits from her hands. Things fly through the air back to their proper homes, the counters are cleaned by unseen hands, beakers and vials are washed, papers organized, and everything settles to its proper place. "Wow! I don't think I'll ever get used to how awesome magic is!" I tell Mina.
She smiles and whispers back, "I still haven't. It is pretty cool. Now, let's get you home alright." I nod and follow her out, shutting off the lights as we leave. Mina leads me to her bug and places me in the passenger seat.
"I don't need a nap!" I say stubbornly and cross my arms. "What I need, is to look at the data from the analyzers and figure some shit out!" I growl and glare at Mina.
"Yeah! Yeah! I know. But I'm not going to let you!" She locks the doors, starts the engine and drives away. "Plus, I put your bag in the boot so you can't." She smirks.
I growl at her again. "Really Mina?!" I huff loudly and draw my knees up to rest my chin on. As we head home my mind starts racing again with all the facts I had learned this afternoon. My mind wrestled with this new truth. Some things can't be proven by science and that's where faith stepped in. Now I know they usually mean God when they say this, but even God doesn't explain everything. I knew from personal experience that Chuck was even wrong sometimes. Didn't that right there prove that magic existed? That the things not explainable by science were some form of magic? Castiel had explained to us that Chuck without his sister would cease to exist. Balance was essential to the universe. It would make sense to say that magic was the opposite of science, so it had to exist in order for the universe to be balanced. Right?! Right? I kept coming back to Newton's third law. For every action, there must be an equal but opposite reaction. I knew it was supposed to apply to motion, but it also applied to the law of karma, and karma was basically the law of life. We reached our apartments. I was exhausted. I decided a nap was probably a good idea after all. I headed to my room to lie down, even forgetting Ahna was there. She tried to assault me with questions, but somehow Mina held her off as I didn't have the strength to explain anything then.
Mina followed me inside and into my bedroom. "I'll explain things to Ahna. Don't you worry." She pats my arm as she tucks me into bed. "I have a little something for you to drink." Magically my favorite mug appears steaming. "It'll help you get some actual sleep." I take it and sip it. It instantly warms me to my core and makes me drowsy. I finish it in one gulp and hand the empty mug back to her, snuggling under the covers. Mina smiles and heads for the door. She checks her phone and says, "I'll wake you at four. Sleep tight."
