It had been three days since her sudden appearing out of thin air, and Ace was slowly getting used to the new world she had landed in. Well, getting used to was perhaps too generous a term, since she practically did not go outside the lab, and when she did, it was at night when no one else was up and about, save occasionally Hank if he was working late. She felt very insecure about the whole thing, and it annoyed her to no end. She didn't know how the authorities here worked, or more importantly how to cheat them as she had in her world, and she wasn't sure which myths were consistent and which legends differed. In short, her entire life's worth of experience and knowledge, carefully amassed and memorised, was useless. It made her restless and withdrawn, and she stuck to what she knew from this world, which was Hank and Charles, and the lab. It was unsettling even to her how little she dared. The only small comfort was a radio, which surprisingly had enabled her to find a channel playing only old rock hits, and it gave her a sense that perhaps these worlds were not as different as she had thought.

She was listening to this channel, sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, eyes closed as the tunes of 'Help' by The Beatles made memories float in front of her mind's eye like pictures from an old, faded album. Sandra featured in most of them, countless miles driven in the old Opel pickup across roads that cut through endless wasteland. Salting and burning their first set of bones, shooting their first vampire, exorcising their first demon, all those things that seemed so far away now. She was so lost in the memories that she did not hear the door open and close, nor did she register the footsteps before they were alarmingly close. She knew the footsteps, though, and so she did not jump up and her defensive instincts stayed in their uneasy, music-induced hibernation. She opened her eyes and looked up, finding Hank looking down at her over the rim of his glasses. She had just about gotten used to hit blue, furry outward appearance, and she found that she liked the man pretty well. He was intelligent, albeit a bit too science-y in her opinion, and seemed to be kind and eccentric, which was definitely something she thought very highly of. Eccentric people were usually the ones most likely to believe the truth, no matter of unlikely and odd it seemed. Right now, however, he was looking worried.

"Don't you think it's about time you started moving beyond the lab?" He asked, squatting down in front of her since she obviously wasn't going to stand up just to be at eye-height. Not that she really would anyway, he was several inches taller than her. She shrugged, turning down the volume of the radio slightly, reducing the music to a slight, soothing background buzz. "I do move beyond the lab. You just don't notice." She pointed out, staring him straight in the eye. Stubborn, that she was, stubborn as ever. He sighed, removing his glasses and placing them in the breast pocket of his lab coat. "In the middle of the night, yes, but that wasn't what I meant. You know that." His honest concern finally punched through and her stubborn opposing ceased. She sighed and leaned her head against the wall, hugging her knees, finally expressing her insecurity.

"Doctor McCoy-"

"Hank, please." His correction made her look up at him, briefly, before she nodded.

"Hank." She hesitated, the name felt a bit odd on her tongue., but not bad. "This world, I do not know it very well. Back in my world, I was born and raised for a very specific task. I never learnt anything that wasn't useful for hunting. In this world, hunting isn't necessary, because there's nothing to hunt." She pressed her lips together in a determined expression, meeting his blue-eyed gaze. It was time she told him exactly what she was.

"I shot a gun for the first time on my fifth birthday, I staked my first vampire at eleven. My father took me hunting when I was ten – there was never any choice for me. I know nothing but hunting and killing." She looked away from him when she saw the pity in his eyes – she didn't want to be pitied, she had grown strong from her childhood, she had saved lives back on her own world. "Here, in your world, the things I've been raised to destroy don't exist at all. I have no livelihood here, no use." She didn't, as some might have expected, feel sadness welling up, nor did she feel tears threatening to fall. All she felt was a deep, black pit in her stomach, a dark feeling of uselessness and hopelessness, which she had only experienced once before, and that had been when she held her father's mutilated corpse in her arms. She hadn't cried then, either. In fact, she doubted that she had any tears to shed at all, crying wasn't her thing.

Hank couldn't miss the bleak look in her eyes, and he responded almost immediately, taking her very much by surprise. Suddenly, Ace found herself enveloped in a comforting embrace that she had definitely not seen coming. She stiffened for a moment, unsure of how to respond to such a gesture. Warm hugs wasn't something she was used to at all, but after a few moments of hesitation, she allowed herself to relax and reciprocate, wrapping her arms as far around his middle as she could. He wasn't exactly light as a feather, mainly, it seemed, because of an overabundance of muscle, so she could only just reach around him. After nearly a minute, it began to get really awkward for her, especially since she wasn't used to hugging. Even so, she found herself surprisingly reluctant to let go and end the contact.

"It's okay, you know. It wasn't a bad childhood, I just played with unloaded guns instead of dolls. No big deal." The only response she got was his grip around her tightening. Alright then, she would indulge for a moment longer, it wasn't unpleasant after all.

She almost missed him, but when her gaze immediately returned to the middle of the room, there he was. That face wasn't one she could mistake for any other being, human or otherwise.

"Oh my god." Her sudden alertness caused Hank to let go of her and look in the same direction she was. There could be no doubt he was seeing the same as her, because he stood up, eyes narrowed with suspicion at the newcomer. Ace, too, got up from the floor, staring without restraint at the slim, black-haired man that stood before her. Death stared right back, though his chiselled face was dominated by an expression of apathy more than anything else.

"Oh my god." She mumbled again, fighting the sudden urge to dance with elation and smile broadly. She shouldn't be happy to see the pale horseman, but here he was, and she was thrilled. A creature from her world at last! Death raised a condescending eyebrow at her, sensing the sudden uplifting mood she was in.

"I assume you know this man?" Hank's words abruptly ended her trail of thoughts, and she snapped out of her dumbstruck surprise. She nodded, still trying to fight the urge to smile. "I do. This is the Death of my world, the eldest of the four horsemen." Suddenly she realised the severity of her situation if he was here, she had been elated to see another being from her dimension, but Death of all creatures? She wasn't so sure she should be happy any longer. "Come to think of it, why are you here?" She asked, turning back to Death. He simply returned her gaze, unblinking.

"I came for you." He said, his voice cold as though he was just pointing out an obvious fact. "You don't belong here."

"Yeah, I know. But why you? I'm not supposed to die yet, am I?" She was starting to get really worried now, and through the corner of her eye she could see Hank sending her a protective look. Odd. But she didn't think any more of it than that.

"No, not yet. However, with Aion's interference, the only way to get you back and restore order to the interdimensional realm is to reap your soul and take you to my domain."