And then there was she…

The angel shifted ever so slightly as she slept, a soft sigh escaping her lips. "Sam… how much did I have to drink tonight? Is there any possible way I'm drunk enough to be hallucinating?" "I don't know Dean. Not that many, no more than usual. She looks pretty real to me." He was looking at me the way people look at crazy people who talk to themselves in the street. I couldn't blame him, finding a girl in my bed would normally be a good thing. He didn't know who she was so my reaction made no sense to him. I didn't bother looking away from her. "It's her Sam." The reaction was instantaneous. "What? How? Are you sure it's her? I mean, it's been sixteen years… and she's supposed to be dead." Did I hear fear under all that shock? "Oh, it's her all right. It is definitely her. I don't know how… That girl right there is Annie Morgan." She smiled in her sleep and shifted again as if to prove the words I'd just spoken and didn't quite believe. I almost fell over. How the hell could she be alive? Dad had said they'd all died.

Not knowing what else to do and unwilling to wake her up and face what was now reality; I sat down on Sammy's bed and just watched her sleep. I heard the click of Sammy's cell phone. He was probably calling Dad. I didn't care what he did right now. She was my only concern. God, I just wanted to touch her to be sure she was really there… grown up… breathing.

By some miracle Dad picked up. Figures this would be the one time he picks up when we call. We've been back to Lawrence, I've almost died, but it took the reappearance of the one person who ever brought out the normal in me for him to pick up right away. Bits and pieces of their conversation made it through the haze that was still my mind. Sammy was agitated. Dad shouted something when he found out we were in Franconia. I couldn't tell what he said, but I could hear his voice from across the room. I think Sam asked him if he knew that Annie was still alive. I didn't want to know the answer yet so I tuned them out.

I couldn't get close enough to her… I found myself moving from Sam's bed to kneel on the floor where I could get a better look at that face. She was so beautiful… How the hell did that little wisp of a thing survive multiple bullets and a werewolf attack?

She couldn't have been bitten. Too young to be turned, the changing process from human to werewolf would have killed her. When a human makes the transformation to a werewolf the whole body changes. Bones grow at intense speeds, muscles thicken and shift to accommodate and before you know it your body has become a grotesque mess. You end up with something between a human and a wolf with a touch of blood thirsty Wendigo in the mix for good measure. Children's bodies aren't strong enough to take such a massive shock. Instead of changing, their bodies actually start to shut down in protest to the demands being made on them. They don't stand a chance at survival.

Her father had shot them all though… she had died… the pictures had been in the paper. There had been no mistaking it, and it had all but destroyed me to see them. Yet there she was. How had she survived?

I reached out to touch her face. I had to know it was real. She moved just before my fingers touched soft skin and I drew back feeling as if I'd been burnt. Ghosts I could handle. They're generally evil and there are any number of ways to repel or dispose of them. This one I didn't know what to do with.

Sam was off the phone finally. He spoke to me, but I didn't pay him any attention. I don't know what he said, but things must be okay because he crawled into bed a few minutes later. I sat in a chair in the far corner of the room intent on watching her sleep until she woke. I had no doubt it would be a long night even now that most of it was over. I propped an ankle on one knee, crossed my arms and got as comfortable as I could get. Then I waited. I hadn't intended to, but before I knew it my eyes were closed and sleep crept past my defenses.

He was on top of me again, snarling and drooling all over my face. His hot breath overwhelmed me, and still I fought him off. The gashes on my shoulders and legs were on fire, making it hard to move. Move I did though. I thrashed around, trying hard to wrestle the beast so it was the one laying on the ground. Dad yelled out to me just before I heard something imbed itself in the dirt just above my head. Even as the mangy thing stretched out above me, sniffing closer toward the shiny object, my fist closed around its hilt. I pulled the long, jagged edged knife out if its resting place in the ground just by my head (where Dad had expertly tossed it) and turned all of my energy on the thing that stood on top of me. Everything else around us faded away, there was just the wolf and I fighting each other to live. For what seemed like forever all that existed were the sounds of my ragged breathing, the werewolf's snarls and the feel of the knife plunging into it over and over again. Nothing more than that mattered.

His first conscious thought was that he had to stop waking up this way. He was on his ass on the floor in front of the chair he'd slept in. No weapon in hand this time, thank god, but this time he was in a cold sweat. Someone was in front of him, Sammy? No… not Sammy. Too small, too curvy. A girl? He thought back to the bar… no, no girl there… so who…?Then it hit him again full force in the gut: Annie!

Concerned grey eyes framed by tousled sun streaked blonde hair hovered inches from his own. He shoved himself as far back against the chair as he could get, and away from her. He only gained a few more inches distance, but he'd take what he could get. Not trusting his own emotions he didn't dare speak. Move. Breathe.

"Dean? Hey, Dean! Are you okay?" she was asking him. He felt a little unhinged. It was one thing to come back drunk and face a sleeping ghost. It was another entirely to wake from a nightmare with that ghost in your face and speaking to you after sixteen years. She waved a hand in front of his face and he swatted it away and got up.

Sam was awake and sipping coffee in front of his laptop and sunlight was streaming through the window. "Nightmare again Dean?" he asked, concerned. Dean just growled incoherently and made his escape to the bathroom. Annie turned to Sam "Nightmares? That doesn't sound like Dean. How long has he been having those?" "Not long. They started about three nights ago. I tried to wake him up and… well it didn't turn out like I expected. Nightmares are usually my department so I'm a little worried about him."

Sam and Annie had been awake a few hours already. He'd wanted to ask her how she had survived so many years ago, but figured that was an answer Dean would want to get from her himself. So they'd made coffee and discussed the current 'situation' in Franconia.

Sam could tell she was scared, and with good reason. That's why she'd tracked them down last night when they hadn't come back to the house. A werewolf in this neck of the woods after all this time? Dean had mentioned that he'd heard nothing of werewolves since the Morgans… so for those things to decide to show themselves here after all this time... It had to mean something. Sam didn't tell her that of course… at least he tried not to. The girl was quick. She'd figured it out on her own.

Annie had spent the last sixteen years researching werewolves. It was a private obsession of hers after her family had been destroyed. There wasn't much she didn't know about them. So when people started disappearing the safe quiet life she had worked so hard to build over the years became a lot scarier. When Sam had called she had immediately known why they were coming. It just made sense that they should stay at the house with her… besides that she felt safer knowing Dean would be there.

Ah, Dean. Now that was a whole other scary part of her life…

Dean found sanctuary in the bathroom. He popped a couple of Advil, those nightmares were starting to give him headaches. "Stupid freaking nightmares." He mumbled to himself. He'd have to remember that alcohol only made them worse… Christ, they were getting to his head. Now he was imagining Annie alive. Did Sam think he was crazy? Maybe he was… It had to be a good thing that he at least recognized that the hallucination hadn't been real. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

Halfway through his shower he started craving coffee. "Sammy!" he shouted at the top of his lungs "Tell me there's coffee left for me!" "I'm sorry Dean, who's Sammy? No one here but Francis…" his brothers teasing voice came through the door. Dean smiled to himself. "Ha ha Sammy! That better be a yes! Although, if Francis would like to make pancakes I like mine with chocolate chips…" Yup, Dean was definitely feeling better now. A shower was just what he'd needed. He'd even managed to convince himself he had still been dreaming when he saw Annie this morning. Besides, who could stay upset with the scent of coffee and pancakes in the air?

So he wrapped a towel around his waist and sauntered back into the room fully expecting to find no one but Sammy and the coffee. And at first it was. Sammy was the first thing he saw when he stepped in the room, handing him a perfect cup of coffee. He was even beginning to think there may actually be an advantage to this nightmare thing… two mornings in a row now he didn't have to hunt down his own coffee…His musings were cut short when he looked up from his first sip to a pair of charcoal eyes. "Sam, I need a doctor. Call me a doctor. Someone close. Someone who'll take me now." Dean said urgently, not daring to move and do it himself. If his head was that far out of whack there's no telling what else could crap out on him. "What? Why? What's the matter?" "Just call the doctor Sam. I'm hallucinating and it's freaking me out." For him to admit it flat out like that… it took a lot. "You're not hallucinating Dean." Sam was trying to calm him down, but it just made him angry.

"Look: I'm freaking staring at a girl who died sixteen years ago Sammy. Don't tell me I'm not hallucinating. Call a doctor damn it!" "Dean…" It was Sam who started to say it, but Annie finished the sentence for him. "I'm not dead Dean. You're not hallucinating" She stepped closer to him. "Don't be ridiculous, of course you're dead! I saw all those pictures in the papers. Six different States for God's sake. You. Died." He told the ghost before him, then turned to Sam when he realized he was now talking to his hallucination. "Oh god! I'm talking to it. Sam. Doctor. NOW!" then he had a thought, if she was a ghost, a real ghost, he could repel her with rock salt. A gun, he needed a gun. So he jumped on the duffel bag and started frantically clawing around it. Hallucination or ghost, either way he'd feel a hell of a lot safer if he were armed!

She snuck up on him. Nobody ever managed to sneak up on him. He wasn't expecting her to suddenly be in his face again. "Dean, would you just calm down and listen? I am not dead!" Had Sam not explained it to her earlier, Annie would have thought Dean to be neurotic. As it was all she felt was sympathy. It had to be hard after all this time, to see something that he thought he had lost forever, suddenly right before him. With the kind of stuff they did, it was no wonder he thought he was crazy or in danger. She was hoping that if he'd just let her get close enough to touch him it would help. Maybe warm skin would convince him she wasn't something to be afraid of. That's why she snuck up on him. That's why she was now in his face, once again inches away from those frantic hazel eyes. He put up empty hands as if he were under arrest and backed up a step right into the chair he'd slept in the night before. Looking absolutely ridiculous in just a towel, he was the sweetest thing she'd ever seen. Somehow he didn't seem to be the helpless type. To see him this way had to be a once in a lifetime thing. She smiled a Mona Lisa smile and reached out a hand to touch his cheek. The moment flesh met flesh he jumped six feet into the air. "AH! Jesus! God! You're real!"

Shock. His first reaction, like the night before, was shock. He looked to Sammy for confirmation. Dude was not helping, doubled over laughing like that. He had tears in his eyes for christ sake. He… he wasn't hallucinating… which meant Annie was real. She was real. Holy crap! Annie was real and alive and standing less than a foot away from him. So Dean acted in true Dean fashion: Act first, ask questions later.

She didn't even have the time to blink. He had her in his arms, holding her close partly to convince himself she truly was there and partly because he was just so happy that he could. It took a second for him to realize that her arms were around his shoulders and she was clinging as tightly as he was. Unfortunately on the tail end of that realization, the other realization came to him. He was still wearing nothing but a towel! Any other girl, any other time, he wouldn't have cared. But this was Annie and he was mortified. So for the third… maybe fourth time in less than twelve hours he jumped back and away from her. He glanced down at the damp towel then back up at her apologetically. "Sorry sweetheart, I would have dressed for this but you kinda took me by surprise." Finally feeling like he was getting back to himself he flashed her a wicked grin, snatched up some clothes and made another quick retreat to the bathroom.

"You still want me to call that doctor Dean?" Sam somehow managed to wheeze out between bursts of hearty laughter. "Two words Sammy: Shut. Up." Dean warned. It was no use though. Sam only laughed harder. He was still laughing quietly to himself intermittently about it hours later.

Nothing else matters

I would never have thought it possible. A romantic moment to the tune of Metallica… I mean come on. My brother, of course, would be the one to prove me wrong.

We were sitting around the living room pouring over the stacks of Annie's books, boning up on legend and lore that might help us and comparing them to things that Dean and Annie remembered from sixteen years before. There were yawns all around, after having spent the day in Sugar Hill, hunting down as much information as possible on the disappearances and the kids that went missing. I was getting used to the smell of coffee that seemed to constantly be in the air in this place. Well the last few days finally caught up with Dean. He just let out one large yawn…Annie laughed at him and put on some music to wake him up. So help me, it was Metallica. Dean stretched out to the sounds of 'Nothing Else Matters' and caught her hand in his. She pulled him to his feet and with a little coercion on Annie's part they started to sway gracefully around the room. When he lifted her up and lowered her gently so that her feet rested on his… well I think they forgot there was someone else there with them. They never even noticed me leave. My last glance… I'll always remember the sight of him. His face buried in her hair as he waltzed them around the room as if he were born to dance… Who knew Dean could waltz?