thanks for reviewing, i'm glad you all liked the last update! i've decided there's going to be four parts to this story instead of 3 like i initially said...enjoy!

Part 3!

Life in the Fast Lane

"Alex," Derek was saying to her. He had just asked her what was going on but she still couldn't answer him. What on earth could she say to him? They had already gone through her dad's journal and decided that he had lost his mind. How was she supposed to tell them that everything in that journal was the truth? "What the..." she heard him saying, looking behind her.

"He asked a question Alex," Dean motioned to her and she rolled her eyes, cursing herself for leaving the file folder on the counter; he must have used the paper clip to free himself.

"Why?" Alex snapped at him. Over the last few days she felt herself getting pushed closer and closer to the edge between dealing with the incident in Chicago and now all this with her family. Her brother coming out of that room now didn't just nudge her over the edge though, he'd basically picked her up and thrown her over the side. "Why, why are you like this?!" she asked, shoving him.

"You and Sam," he shook his head at her. "You need to be honest with yourselves, that's why."

"Yeah, Mr. Afranian," she said sarcastically. "Honesty really is the best policy, isn't it?"

"They don't know anything about you, the real you," he informed her. "Your friends, your boyfriend," he motioned to Derek now and her brow furrowed as she had never told him or acted like Derek was her boyfriend; she really wanted to leave that aspect out of all of this. "Oh please, it doesn't take a profiler to figure that out," he said, mocking her.

"Screw you Dean," she told him with another shove, neither of them paying attention to much else. Not speaking for six months had put a huge strain on them and something had finally broken.

"You feel better?" he asked sarcastically, raising his eye brows at her. She shoved him again, alternating with hitting him as well, some landing as slaps while others were punches; she had just had enough. Dean wouldn't ever hit her back but he did try to catch her or at least push her away from him. She felt someone's arms around her, pulling her back. She thought maybe Derek but then...

"How old are you two?" Rossi was snapping at them as he was next to Dean now; Sam had been the one with his arms around her.

"Let go of me," she murmured as she yanked away from her younger brother though he was hardly the one she was angry with.

"Alex," Rossi was saying to her now, noting the looks around the room. It was very obvious that now was the time to come clean, that her role was going to have to come out. There were no more lies to tell, no more excuses to make. She looked to Derek now who was a mix between confused and concerned.

"Come here," she said, motioning for him to follow her into the room where her brother had been. Maybe the secret needed to come out, but she also needed to talk to him alone first; this time after closing the door she also closed the blinds.

"What is going on Al?" he asked her again, even more confused than before.

"Derek," she started off, struggling. It was only fair that he hear it first and from her, but she had no idea where to start with him.

"What was he saying that I don't know the real you?" he was asking now. "What was all of that?" He had never seen her get like that, how she snapped at her brother and they started fighting.

"You're never going to believe me," she said softly.

"Try me," he was challenging her at this point. There was a major secret at play here and while he wanted to help and protect her he couldn't help but feel that she had been playing him this entire time.

"I know who's been killing those men," she said quickly.

"You do?" he questioned, not sure what that had to do with all this but he would take what he could get from her at this point. Maybe this was her way of admitting to him what her dad was up to.

"Constance Welch," she answered, studying his expression; still just confusion.

"...that woman that killed herself?" he asked now and she nodded. "What, do you think she faked her death, then-"

"No, I think she's dead," she assured him. "The stuff in my dad's journal...it's real Derek." He was quiet a moment.

"You," he started off with a weird laugh, thinking she was messing with him though he had no idea why right now; her face was deadly serious though. "You're not serious," he accused her.

"Unfortunately, I am," she told him, trying to gauge his reaction. He clearly didn't believe her but he also wasn't sure what to make of what she was saying. The only thing he was able to do was stare at her. "...can you say something?" she nearly begged.

"What do you want me to say Alex?" he asked her. "You just tried to tell me ghosts are real."

"They are," she reinforced for him.

"Baby," he shook his head at her. By his tone he had clearly settled on thinking she was crazy, which almost actually made her crazy. "I don't know what your dad had you believing growing up or-"

"Don't profile me!" she stopped him. "I know, ok? I get it. Why do you think I never told you about any of this," she said as she motioned to the door. "Why do you think I got this job? I never talk about college or my time at the academy because I didn't go," she informed him. "I never went, all right? Rossi is good and can pull strings but come on," she challenged him.

"...no," he told her.

"No? No what?" she questioned.

"No, I don't believe this," he informed her; she felt her blood freeze. "I don't know what you're trying to hide for them or..." He wasn't sure what was going on. Did her dad and brothers really kill those people? Is that what she was hiding and now she was telling this ridiculous story to try to cover for them?

"If you don't believe me, ask Rossi and Hotch," she said, going and opening the door. She had wanted to handle this herself, she wanted them to be able to talk just the two of them, but she was getting frustrated. To be fair though, she couldn't have ever expected that he would just take her at her word. At this point, she needed back up.

"Where are they?" Derek was asking immediately as the first thing he noticed was that her brothers, their only suspects, were gone.

"I sent them back to the motel room," Rossi answered calmly.

"What, why?" he demanded. Now, he was just getting agitated. The only logical explanation was that her dad and brothers were involved in this. They acted like they were Marshals, inserting themselves in the case to see what the BAU knew. Alex was lying for some unknown reason to protect people she never spoke to. And now Rossi was going along with this? What, because of his connection to this family?

"He doesn't believe me," Alex was saying to Rossi and Hotch now, though that was certainly obvious. Derek looked at his other two team members, Prentiss and Reid, taking in their looks of disbelief. If he looked in the mirror he was sure he would be wearing the same expression.

"I let them go so they could keep investigating the case," Rossi told him.

"They are the case," Derek was saying. How was he the only sane person left in this room? "Hotch?" he asked, looking for him to say something, anything.

"I think it would help if we stayed on the case as well," he was saying. Now Alex was the one looking around in disbelief but she wasn't sure what she had been expecting. After all, it wasn't like they could just leave now. Judging by the air in the room she knew that he and Rossi told the others why she had been brought into the team. It was also clear they weren't sure what to believe.

"Ok," Alex said. "Fine." She grabbed a set of keys from the table. "Who's coming with me?"

"Where are you even going?" Derek was asking her now. Who was this person standing in front of him? It certainly wasn't the woman he had been dating for the last year, living with for the last six months. No, this was someone else, someone who had serious secrets she kept from him. And, at this point, seemingly major issues.

"It's starting to get dark now," she said, noting how the sun was going down early as it was late fall. "I figured the bridge would be a good place to start."

"We already combed over that thing," he argued with her. "What do you expect to find in the dark?"

"Honestly?" she asked him before motioning to the board where someone had stuck Constance's picture since she had brought up the suicide earlier.

"Alex," he tried to argue with her. She wasn't being rational. There was no reason for them to go out there.

"Look, you don't get to demand answers and then when I offer them turn away," she told him in frustration. "Are you coming or not?" The looks he was getting from the older team members were telling him that he had to go but he had no grasp on why. Maybe to keep her safe? Was that what they were doing, going along with it so Alex wouldn't think she was crazy? Playing into the fantasy so they could eventually convince her it wasn't real?

"Fine," he gave in.

"Anyone else?" Alex asked, looking between the other two.

"I'm in," Reid was telling her; at least he seemed friendlier about it. Maybe he didn't believe in the supernatural, but she was choosing to believe he was treating this like something he could learn from, rather than just going along to see how crazy she and her family were.

"Em?" Alex was asking her.

"Ah, I don't know," she was saying, shaking her head. She was hesitant, but not in the same way Derek was. Maybe she knew something about this life, maybe she had seen something in the past, maybe she was just easier to convince. Either way, Alex got a read on her expression.

"It's fine," Alex promised, not making her say it; she believed Alex. "We'll be back then," she said now, leaving the police station with Derek and Reid.

The ride back to the bridge was painfully silent, not unlike the ride home from the airport the night before. It was hard to believe that was a much simpler time in her life, so much easier than what she was up against now. The one difference tonight seemed to be that Alex was the one angrily gripping the steering wheel, though Derek still had his same agitated look. That, and Reid was sitting in the back seat, occasionally spewing facts about the supernatural that he learned in some anthropology class he had to take. She at least appreciated his attempts at easing the tension.

"What did you say you thought this was Alex?" Spencer was asking.

"A woman in white," Alex said as they turned onto the road that would eventually lead to the bridge.

"...oh," Spencer said with a bit of a face. "So, you think that she..."

"Yep," Alex nodded.

"Do I get to be in on this?" Derek asked, a bit annoyed. Alex turned to look at him, as she slowed her driving.

"Do you believe me?" she asked him and he didn't say anything. "A woman in white is a type of spirit," she explained as she parked the car now. She could see her brother's car sitting at the other end of the bridge, seeing their figures standing over that way. "They can be anywhere, but they all have the same story." She stopped when she could hear her brothers starting to argue.

"Which is..." Derek said though he trailed off as she hopped out of the car to go break her brothers up.

"They find out their husband's are cheating on them, so they kill their kids then themselves," Reid informed him. "After that, they haunt road ways and kill unfaithful men."

"Naturally," Derek said sarcastically, getting out of the car now as well, both he and Reid spotting Dean shoving Sam against the bridge by his shirt.

"Hey, that's enough!" Alex said, prying them apart from each other.

"Don't talk about mom like that," Dean was saying to him as Alex pushed him further away.

"He was a baby when it happened, give him a break," Alex was snapping at her twin. Derek figured her mother's death sparked all this fascination with the supernatural within the family. That was when her dad's journal started at least. Whatever had happened it certainly sent this family on a downward spiral.

"Oh yeah?" Dean asked. Derek and Reid felt a bit on the outside again, much like when Alex and Dean broke out in their fight back at the station. With no knowledge of her family or really her history there wasn't much else to do other than watch from the sidelines. "What's your excuse then?"

"Do no do this right now," she ordered. "I am fighting for my life right now Dean, for my relationship."

"It's more than you did for us," he motioned between him and Sam.

"Oh come off it," she rolled her eyes at him. "What, because I didn't want to hunt anymore?"

"No, because you get this new job," Dean told her. "This new life, this new boyfriend," he motioned to the side. "That I don't get to meet or hear anything about ever. I mean seriously Alex, you're my twin sister."

"Guys," Reid was saying as he noticed first. The only one to look at first was Derek who was stunned speechless. There standing on the railing of the bridge was the woman from the article; Constance Welch. There was no possible way...

"Not everybody wants this," she informed her brother as she had ignored Reid, though she did feel the twist of guilt that Dean felt like she had just cut him out of her life. "And that's why I hid it, because not everyone can handle-"

"GUYS!" Sam broke them up now and they turned to look just in enough time to see Constance disappear over the side. The five of them ran over to the edge to see, all evidence of her gone, not even a disturbance in the water.

"We should get out of here now," Alex said as her point seemed to be pretty safely proven; at this point, nothing good could come from them staying there. That was when they heard Dean's car starting down at the other end of the bridge.

"Who's driving your car?" Reid was asking now as nothing really seemed to sink in yet; it was all surreal.

"Ah, kid?" Dean said as he held up his car keys.

The next second or two were a complete blur as the five of them took off sprinting down the bridge, out running the car that chased them. Alex felt someone grabbing her arm and pulling, rolling off to the side with them and she realized it was Derek as she was laying next to him, both of them out of breath. The car had stopped at the railing and she squeezed her eyes shut to gather her thoughts.

"Hey, Winchester?!" Reid was calling from where he was also laying on the bridge, having fallen to the opposite side of the car to avoid it.

"Yeah?" she called back.

"I believe you," he informed her, still out of breath.

"...ok," she nodded as she sat up slowly, getting up before offering a hand to Derek to help him stand; he didn't say anything but he clearly believed her now too. She couldn't say anything to him yet though as her brother shouting interrupted her thoughts.

"DEAN!" Sam was shouting over the side of the bridge.

"Oh my God," Alex said, rushing over to the side.

"Here, come here," Derek was saying to her brother, offering his hand to help him back over the side.

"Did he go over?!" Alex was panicking.

"I haven't seen him since he slipped," Sam was saying, both of them leaning over, eyes frantically searching in the dark.

"DEAN!" she shouted now.

"...yeah?" Dean said having come back up the bridge, covered in mud.

"Don't scare me like that!" Alex shouted as she let out a breath of relief at the same time. "Holy hell," she sighed, looking him over. "Are you hurt?"

"Gonna hurt tomorrow," he told her, going to check on his car.

"Car all right?" Sam asked. Derek and Reid were in complete disbelief as the Winchesters just went about like things were normal, as if they hadn't just been chased down a bridge by a car that was driving itself.

"Yeah, it think it's ok now," he was saying, leaning back against it. "That Constance chick, what a bitch!"

"Yeah, provoke her," Alex told him though she couldn't be angry if she tried, just happy they were all ok; she noticed her brother smirk. "...what?" she asked hesitantly.

"You missed this," Dean said, not asking but just stating.

"No," she just shook her head.

"You know I know when you're lying," Dean reminded her. As her twin he was basically her human lie detector. There was a certain rush that came with hunting, she couldn't deny that.

"Settle for me missing you?" she offered and he shrugged, accepting this. "You riding back with us?"

"Back where?" Dean asked.

"I'm taking them back to the station," Alex said like it was obvious. She wasn't fully getting them into this job, she wasn't going to make them see it to the end. She just wanted them to investigate enough to prove that she wasn't insane.

"Why would I-"

"Because you smell like a toilet," Sam informed him. "You getting in your car like that?"

"You're car it is then," Dean said as he passed his brother his keys. "Careful," he emphasized.

"Yeah, yeah," Sam brushed him off as he got into the driver's side. Reid and Dean started their way back towards the other car, with Derek stopping Alex on their way there.

"Are you ok?" she asked him worriedly. A million things could come out of this mouth right now and the one that she feared most was him telling her they couldn't be together anymore.

"You've been dealing with that," he was saying, not sure how to find the words, taking one of her hands. "Since..." He was at a complete loss over what he had just seen.

"Since I was four," she finished for him, then shrugged. "Yeah," she nodded. She was surprised but grateful when she felt him pull her hand to wrap her in his arms, holding onto her tightly.

"I'm sorry you couldn't tell me," he murmured. It was real, and so many things made sense now.

Her strained relationship with her family. The way she was really jumpy, especially at night. How she hated Halloween and horror movies. The nightmares she would have every so often. Her past was a terrifying one and he realized he didn't hide it from him; she had hid him from her past, to preserve what innocence was left after what all they already witnessed in the BAU.

"How about I tell you more about it at home," she offered as she pulled away. She was beyond thankful that he was willing to listen to her after all of this, that he was wanting to stay with her.

"Whenever you want to tell me is fine," he said, sorry for ever pushing her before.

"Derek."

"Hm?" he stopped as he had meant to get back to the car.

"I love you," she told him, his smile making her melt.

"I love you too," he said back.

thanks for reading! :) i really hope you liked it, writing his reaction was so HARD! AH! but what do you think?! please tell me! and like i said there will be one more part after this! also...i never really meant for this to be a big full story just these four parts but i have other episodes from season one of supernatural that i kind of think about adding to this story just as one shots...thoughts? episode requests? let me know! :)