One Month Later
Soon after her meetup with the Winchesters, Allison realized that she wasn't going to be able to find her sister. Alice was too far off the map for even witchcraft to be of any use in locating her. Allison was forced to accept the reality that unless Alice found her, there was a good chance she would never see her little sister again.
Allison liked to imagine that Alice had run off to an island somewhere far, far away. Somewhere the Smiths would never find her. Somewhere she could hunt and survive and live every day to the fullest. Somewhere just peaceful enough to be comforting, just dangerous enough to keep the boredom at bay. The alternative was grim, but Allison didn't like to consider it.
For a long time, Allison thought she'd lost the Smiths. If they were still watching her and the baby, they were doing so from a great enough distance that Allison never detected their surveillance of her. Time forced her to regret losing them so thoroughly, made her wonder if it wouldn't be best to take some of her wards down so they could find her. At least if they were still watching her, she would know they hadn't found her sister yet. It would have been hope, at the very least.
Allison gave up on searching for Alice and instead focused all her energy on raising Alice's discarded daughter. She got her hands on the deed to a house with the help of a little witchcraft. She wanted to stop dabbling completely, but a cold turkey recovery from a lifetime of the dark arts would have to wait until she established herself. She was thirty-eight years old with no work history, no credit to speak of, meager documentation to verify that she was, in fact, a living citizen of the US. Allison promised herself she would stop using witchcraft, but not until she got her hands on a copy of her birth certificate, a head start on a decent credit score and some gainful employment.
As the weeks wore on, Dean kept finding excuses to visit.
"Not another suspicious death in the area?" Allison asked when he showed up for his latest unannounced visit.
"No, just, uh... last time I was here I forgot to bring something for the housewarming," he said, awkwardly presenting her with a toaster.
She laughed out loud at him.
"How do you make it as a hunter with absolutely zero ability to tell a believable lie?" she demanded.
"I can lie," Dean scowled.
"Just come in and hold her for a while and coo at her," Allison said, rolling her eyes as she stepped aside to let him in. "I'll take that."
She relieved him of the toaster and waved him into the living room. Dean had no idea what to do with such a tiny baby, so Allison showed him how to hold her.
"Just... talk to her," she said. "Just be, I guess. At this age, she's still just learning how to be. Not that exciting but... I mean, imagine if you were seeing everything in the whole world for the first time."
"Wow," Dean said, unable to take his eyes off the baby. "She, uh... she looks different than she did last time."
"Well, she is a shapeshifter," Allison sighed. "Sometimes she just... poof, you know? I gotta say, dirty diapers I was ready for, but full body slime sneezes? Nothing prepares you for that."
"That's rough, " Dean agreed. He studied the baby and she studied him right back. Something in her expression gave him goosebumps. "She looks... I swear she looks like she knows what we're saying."
"You creeped out?"
"Nah, I didn't mean it like that," Dean amended quickly. "Not that I ever spent that much time around babies, but aren't they supposed to be kind of... dumb?"
"They're just little people," Allison chuckled. "Some people are dumb, sure. And it shows early. Mary though... she's one smart cookie."
"Mary?" Dean asked, the name grabbing his attention. "You decided to..."
"Yeah. Gonna make it official next week, start getting all her papers together," Allison said.
Dean smiled, looking touched. Allison could tell his satisfaction with her decision ran deeper than simple flattery.
"Why Mary?" she asked. "All the names you could have picked, why that one?"
"It was just a suggestion."
"Random?" Allison asked, cocking an eyebrow. She didn't buy it.
"Well, it's... my mother's name was Mary," Dean admitted.
"I knew there was more to it. That's sweet," Allison smiled. "Makes me glad I went with your suggestion."
"Yeah. Me too."
Allison's smile didn't fade for the entirety of Dean's visit. She'd only ever seen one side of him and she never took him for the paternal type. He was full of surprises, one of them being the nurturing nature she was seeing now. If she hadn't been watching it, she might never have believed it.
"Dean, you don't need excuses to stop by, you know," she told him out of the blue, catching him off guard. Mary had fallen asleep in his arms and he was trying his best to put her down without disturbing her. Allison nodded to the baby, still napping soundly in her crib. "She's enough reason, you know?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
Allison walked him to the door, but he stopped before he walked out.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked abruptly.
"Doing what?"
"Why take her in? She wasn't your responsibility," Dean clarified. "Alice walked away from her, hell, so did I. Mary could have gone to some nice apple-pie middle class family with a white picket fence, a sibling and a half. She would have been fine whether you took her in or not. What made you want to step up to the plate?"
Allison thought it over for a few minutes before she finally answered.
"I wanted her," she said simply. "Look, Ruby lived about a quarter of my life for me. Maybe more. While she had me, I thought the only way I was ever gonna be free was if we died. After Sam set me free, all I could think about was finding Alice. After I found Alice, I was too busy running to think about what I wanted to do with my life. I had some stupid fantasies that I knew I would never actually get to live out. I just held onto them to keep me going through it all, but they were the kind of dreams you don't even want to try, you know? Better left as dreams than lived as failures. When I saw Mary for the first time, I just... it was like my whole life, I'd been waiting for her. I felt like I knew what I wanted for the first time in my life. Really, truly wanted, more than anything."
Allison took a second to breath and laughed at herself.
"That probably doesn't make any sense," she said.
"No, it does," Dean assured her. "It makes perfect sense."
Dean knew what it was like to live for someone else. He knew how much purpose the responsibility of caring for someone could bring. He understood that as altruistic as Allison's actions could be read from the outside, she needed Mary more than the infant would ever need her.
More than anything in the world, Dean knew what it was like to feel lost when all you had was yourself.
"So, me and Sam were heading out to Omaha to check into this haunting, but when we're finished... maybe I'll swing back around this way?"
"That'd be great. You know, I've got a guest room here. Save you guys some hotel money," Allison suggested.
"Sounds good."
Dean pursed his lips, one final concern pressing on him before he could leave with full peace of mind. He was warming to Allison, he understood her better and he felt like he owed her something for bringing Mary into his life when he was ready to leave her behind. Still, a nagging voice in his head wouldn't let him leave without asking...
"You're not gonna teach her all that witchy bullshit, are you?" he asked, the question bursting out of him unstoppably.
"Nah. I'm giving it up myself after I witch up a social security card," Allison assured him. "I'm leaving all that behind. I'm playing mother now... everyone keeps saying you can't be a hunter at the same time. And honestly, I was sick of hunting when I was twelve years old anyway, so..."
"Good. Good, that's good," Dean said.
They said their good-byes and Dean went on his way. No sooner had Allison shut the door behind him though, than someone knocked on her back door. Allison may have put her hunting days behind her, but she was as cautious as ever. The lifetime of training she had under her belt wasn't going to disappear any time soon. She made her way to the back of her house, one hand on the gun at her waist as she peeked out the door.
A man peered back at her with the brightest green eyes she'd ever seen.
"Allison Smith?" he asked.
"Who's asking?"
"Micheal Dixon," he introduced himself. "I'm actually a cousin of yours."
"That so?"
It made sense. She examined his eyes again, frowning as she recognized an ability derived from spellwork. Only an Arkansas Smith would walk around flaunting the ability to sense when they were being lied to. Of course they would send someone like him to grill her.
"I haven't heard from Alice since I was shot," Allison told him with a scowl. "So you can get lost."
"I know what happened in Minneapolis," Micheal informed her. "I know Kaydie shot you. Kind of a sucky first impression of your extended family."
"You can say that again."
"Well, I'm here to see if I can't repair that impression," Micheal said with a smile. "Kaydie's off the reservation, but-"
"Cut the bullshit," Allison said, opening the door the rest of the way and squaring off against him. "You're not the only witch here. I wasn't born yesterday."
"I'm not lying."
"That doesn't make you any less full of shit."
Micheal grinned at her.
"You're sharp. Just like Alice. You know, your sister wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't for me," he informed her.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. See, I did her a favor once. Opened a door for her and turned a blind eye while she walked out."
"Wow, you're a regular Samaritan."
"Hey, I'm an easy-going guy. I like to cut people breaks where I can. That break though... that was the biggest mistake of my entire life."
He took a step closer and Allison threatened to slam the door in his face. He backed off, raising his hands defensively.
"My bad. I'm just here to talk."
"I think I've heard enough."
"Do you have any idea what your sister did to us?" Micheal demanded, expression darkening. "To her own family? Your family?"
"I don't know you," Allison said. "Any of you. You're not my family."
"You know, I bet that's what Alice thought too," Micheal sighed. "I bet that's how she justified it when she possessed Smith after Smith, made us kill each other. Blew our home sky high and left us scattered and in ruins."
"If Alice did something that drastic, she had some reason," Allison said, ignoring the pit in her stomach. Micheal's words bothered her, settled deep in her gut planting the seeds of dread and doubt. She wanted to believe that Alice wouldn't do something so awful unprovoked, but she also couldn't help but remember the darkness the grew in her sister day by day. The darkness that she hoped to cleanse with holy water, hoped because she had no proof that it would help.
"Reason or no reason, I've got Smith blood on my conscience," Micheal said grimly. "We're watching you, witch. We're waiting. When your demon spawn of a sister does reach out to you and that abomination you're harboring... we'll get justice for our brothers and sisters."
"Get off my property," Allison hissed, tightening her grip on her gun though she restrained herself from drawing it. "Now. The next time I see you skulking around here I'll blow you to kingdom come, you hear?"
Micheal backed away, eyes locked on Allison's until the second he disappeared around the corner. Allison slammed the door and locked it, breath coming fast as she leaned hard against it, struggling to slow her racing heart. In the other room, she heard her baby crying, woken by the crash of the door shutting so hard. Allison shook her head to clear it, safed her weapon and hurried to pick Mary up out of her crib.
"Shh, shh. It's ok," she crooned, trying to convince herself as much as the baby. "Everything's ok. It's alright now. Shh."
Allison hoped grimly that she never heard from her sister again as long as she lived.
Alice Smith was not, in fact, on an island playing Survivor. She was in Boston, taking advantage of of one of the few bright sides that came along with being a lost soul.
"Come on, you've gotta work with me here!" she said, shaking the spirit in front of her. "I'm gonna take care of the sons of bitches that killed you, but you have to give me something to go on! Where did they go?"
The woman's apparition just kept sobbing and muttering to itself.
"My face, that was my face, that was my-"
"Oh for crying out loud!"
Alice let the woman's ghost go with an aggravated shout. This had to be the tenth victim of the shapeshifter clan who had once called Boston home, but the years had not been kind to the woman's spirit. She was incoherent, too unfocused to even bother being vengeful. She was the ghostly equivalent of a vegetable and about as useful to Alice as a rotten tomato.
Alice left the house and possessed the first person who passed by. She'd been hopping from body to body for months now, trying to avoid taking anyone too far out of their way out of compassion. She liked to think that she was on a strict died of good deeds. Conscientious food for a soul long past its due date. Still, she felt the need to stay in a physical form. She was afraid of what might happen to her if she stayed disembodied too long. If she was being honest with herself, all the crazy spirits she was working her way through trying to locate a shapeshifter were starting to freak her out a little.
"I'm not like them," she reminded herself, talking aloud in a voice that wasn't hers. "I went with the reaper after I died. I didn't hang on too tight, I let go when it was my time. I just... had the unique opportunity to change my mind after the fact."
Sometimes Alice couldn't help but marvel at the sheer dumb luck that was the devil's gate that she had climbed out of. She might have been tempted to think someone upstairs was pulling strings in her favor if she wasn't so sure that everyone that high up wanted her head on a pike.
The man she was possessing was completely unconscious and she was grateful for that. The horror and confusion was getting old. She was sick of feeling like an invader, a monster, a parasite. She needed to find a shifter so she could feel useful. So she could justify taking over its life, making sure it never hurt anyone else while she reaped the benefits of physical form. The search, however, was taking longer than she had anticipated. Much like the devil's gate that had freed her from hell, Danny Brontely had been more of a godsend than she initially realized. A stroke of luck that defied all odds. Lightning didn't strike twice in a lifetime, and now Alice was looking for a third dose from the hotrod.
She had a ritual that she performed every time she jumped bodies now. In keeping with her sister's wishes, she blessed a flask of water. She wondered a lot about Allison, but she knew better than to try to contact her. The spirit world was full of information and while Alice knew her sister was alive, she also knew that the Smiths were waiting eagerly for her to rear her head. She had to stay in hiding.
How long would she have to stay in hiding, she wondered as she finished the incantation. How long would the Smiths hunt for her? How long could she run from them?
"It's always something," she sighed, raising the flask to Allison in absentia.
Hell may have finally cut her some slack, but Alice was far from safe.
"You know, it's ok though," she said to herself, sighing and wincing as her throat itched in the wake of her holy water nightcap. "Lucky for those motherless bastards, I'm preoccupied at the moment. After I find a host, after I get my ducks in a row... well, I'm not running forever, that's for damn sure. I've been running my whole life. I'm sick to death of running. And if the Smiths think they want a fight with me, they're out of their god-damned minds."
Alice laughed, unworried. She always managed to talk herself out of worrying these days.
"Yeppp," she said slowly, swishing the holy water in the flask while she built up the courage she needed to take another swig. "Death couldn't beat me. Hell couldn't beat me. If the Smiths think they've got a shot at it..."
She raised the flask once again, this time to her cousins in Arkansas.
"May the best hunter win," she said with a grin.
The End...
Of Part Two!
Look for the third and final installment, Three Vows!
Author's Note: I don't usually ask for feedback, but we're at an especially important crossroads and if I could ever use a few extra opinions, I could use them now. Thoughts, comments, concerns? Three Vows is the home stretch. I have two endings planned out and as it stands, I could flip a coin and care less which one I use. So voice your thoughts and help me decide!
Thank you for reading and even more to those of you who left me reviews! You are my motivation to make time to finally finish this long-ass project. You are GREAT! Xoxoxo