A/N: New and improved chapter 8, thanks to HalcyonImpulsion. I found a few gaps in my char dev, and I can't say thank you enough. Also, for those who read Lone Wolf, I found a chapter that got chopped in half somehow, so I fixed it and the FULL chapter two is now up on that story, so, for a better look at Dean's inner thoughts, go check it out.
Disclaimer: If my skills were good enough to write for Television, Sonny Corinthos' sister would have shown up two years earlier, but would have still had an affair with AJ... Scary, huh? I don't own Supernatural, just Anna.
Sam still wasn't talking to Dean when they slid into the booth across from Anna. Dean had been trying, without success, to get Sam to say something, anything, since they had left the cemetery. Whatever had made Sam so hostile toward the girl, whom Dean fully admitted was creepy, had also made Sam angry at Dean. Even Dean singing along with Alanis Morissette hadn't broken Sam's silence. When he refused to respond to Dean's request for a menu, Anna raised a brow.
"Did you two break up?"
Both brothers glared at her, and Anna tried to hold back the laughter that bubbled up, but lost the fight. Their twin glares became distinctly icy when she cooed at them in fake sympathy.
"Don't worry, Sam. I'm sure Dean will apologize before homeroom."
"Shut up," the Winchesters growled in unison. Anna laughed and waved them away.
"Good," she grinned. "You're both talking now. Tell me what you found, and then I'll tell you my news."
"We found something the cops missed," Sam answered, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. "Here, check it out."
Anna took the phone and stared at photo, chewing the inside of her cheek. She pressed a few buttons to enlarge the image and panned across to study the markings.
"Something you recognize?" Dean asked. Anna just shook her head and played with the lighting a bit.
"Mind if I send this to my computer?"
Sam shook his head and Anna messaged the picture to her email and returned the phone to Sam. Something seemed familiar, but it could just be that runic symbols always looked the same.
"I'll cross reference the database and ask Bowen, see if I can come up with anything."
Dean opened his mouth to speak, but stopped as a waitress came over to take their drink orders. Anna looked from one brother to the next when silence descended over the table. Dean shifted, unable to quite meet her gaze but stealing occasional glances at Sam, who just stared into his glass of water. Beginning to feel like a schoolteacher, Anna crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back.
"Okay," she sighed. "What else happened?"
"Yeah, Dean," Sam glared over at his brother. "What else happened today?"
"Dude," Dean shook his head. "You are such a child."
Sam snorted and rolled his eyes to Anna, who wisely hid her smile by taking a sip of water.
"There was a girl at the cemetery," Dean began his story. "I saw her on campus and she recognized me."
"You had time to pick up a co-ed?" Anna asked with a smile, ignoring the stab of jealousy.
"Not funny," Dean growled. He was secretly pleased to see Anna blush and duck her head. He wondered for a moment just how far down the blush would go, staring at the collar of her t-shirt. Then his eyes moved to the bandages on her arm and he frowned. She'd been hurt, again, and there hadn't been a damn thing he could do to stop it. He closed his eyes against the sound of her screams echoing through caves, amplified by having heard the real thing in San Antonio.
"There was something wrong about her," Sam grumbled, pulling Dean from his thoughts. Anna watched Sam as he worked to pull his thoughts together. "She was off somehow… and way too interested in Dean."
"Thanks, bro."
"You know what I mean," Sam said, shaking his head.
"Yeah, I know. Creepy."
"What was creepy?" Anna asked, confused now.
"She was," Dean said. "She was way too friendly way too fast for a cemetery." Dean frowned and watched Anna take a sip of water. "It was weird. When she touched me it was-"
Anna slammed her glass down and glared at Dean.
"Not funny," he repeated. "She was crying and I just tried to see if she was alright."
"I don't think she knows how to cry," Sam said under his breath. Dean shot him a "shut up" look and turned back to Anna.
"She grabbed my hand and… it was weird. My thoughts started racing, like I was trying to remember something."
Anna looked down at the table top, silent. The waitress returned with their drinks and food, exchanged a few words with Sam and left again. Anna remained quiet, waiting for Dean to continue.
"It was weird," Dean said again. "Like Sam said, she was off somehow."
Dean waited, watching Anna, trying to see what she was thinking. It suddenly occurred to him that for all that he and Anna were involved, so to speak, he knew very little about her. Her mannerisms, her nervous habits, and the way her mind worked, and damn it all he wanted to know. She bit her lip, thinking, and Dean watched her eyes narrow. Abruptly he felt the urge to punch Thibideaux. That bastard probably knew all of Anna's quirks and routines.
"We'll come back to her later," Anna said at last. "Right now, we need to focus on the job."
The brothers stared at Anna in shock and Sam wondered what the hell she was thinking. His instincts were never wrong, and Dean had no business flirting with creepy-flower-chick in the cemetery. He felt relieved though with Anna's next sentence.
"If she comes around with me here, though, I'll rip her hair out."
Dean chuckled and Sam smiled as Anna pulled out the small Swedish journals.
"So, what did your guy say?" Sam asked.
"Basically, Pastor B. was a very bad boy," Anna said. She pulled out her notepad and began reviewing her notes. "Apparently he'd been playing hide-the-strudel with half the women in the parish. One, though, stands out, and it's when he began seeing her that his journals were written in code. It seems that her father was an influential man, though I haven't had a chance to research the name-"
"We got a name?" Sam broke in, excitedly.
Anna nodded. "Yeah. If this is her, a name will make it all a lot easier. The two of them were pretty hot and heavy until the start of the Torsaker Trials. Once she was named as a witch, along with most of the women in Sweden, it was hard for him to keep seeing her. She, along with several other women, apparently begged him for help when he went to the jails to serve mass. But, since helping one would mean having to help them all, and that would mean revealing his extra-curricular activities, he had to refuse."
Dean listened carefully to what she was saying, seeing where this was headed. A glance from Sam told him that his brother was thinking along the same lines.
"According to the pastor, though, some real witches were found along with all the false ones, and that was how he got the idea to save Linnea Anders."
"Who?" Sam asked.
"That's her name. Linnea Anders. He saved her, or thought he had, anyway."
Sam became pensive as Anna continued. Dean smiled at the way she had gone academic on them, her dark blue eyes slightly out of focus as she became oblivious again to her surroundings. He wondered if it was normal to find her ability to tune out the world cute. Sam looked worried, though, and that never boded well. Turning his attention back to Anna, Dean was suddenly hit by a wave of exhaustion and yawned.
Anna stopped speaking and raised an eyebrow at Dean. "Is this hunting stuff boring you?"
"No, sorry." Dean shook his head, trying to clear his mind. "My wake up call must have thrown me off." Anna blushed again and Dean flashed a smile. Why hadn't he noticed she was the blushing type? "Keep going."
"As I was saying, the pastor found a witch, a real witch, and asked her to try and save Linnea. The reasons he used were complete crap, 'she was too young to die. The world would suffer without her innocence in it' bladda, bladda. The woman warned B that if she did this, there would be a price to pay, but, being a man of God and, well, a man he told her to do it.
"That day the witch worked her mojo and when night fell, Linnea began convulsing in seizures and collapsed. They called in the pastor, thinking she was possessed and when he got there, she freaked out, screaming and shaking. Then her bones began to crack… hang on, I have it here…
"There was a cracking sound as her bones began to reshape and reform themselves. Her screams became shrill, like a hawk hunting its prey, and her eyes glowed like the very fires of hell. Never have I seen such a transformation before, but I fear this will not be the last. I demanded that J------ tell me what she had done, but she simply said that I had been warned.
"Indeed, I had been warned, but I thought the price I should pay would be an earthly amount. Instead I have damned the soul of a woman I laughed with, shared so tender an intimacy with that I curse myself for having brought this upon her. She claims that the transformation will happen daily, with the rising and setting of the sun. The form she takes at night, this hideous form, will protect her body from disease, fire and age. She will become eternal as the stone she becomes at sunset. She will also go mad. The witch calls it a stone-madness, a sickening of the mind from the ravages of the transformation. My sweet, beautiful Linnea has been destroyed, when all I wanted was to save her.
"The witch tells me that my own blood will be all that can save young Linnea now, given freely. I am a coward, I admit it. I cannot sacrifice my own life for hers, cannot bear to think of dying so she may live. Lord above, give me strength. I will survive and endure. I will hunt for a solution to this curse, as will my descendants. But I fear death, and I fear dying for her.
"That's about all of it." Anna closed her notebook and tossed it into her bag. Sam and Dean looked at each other and then back to Anna.
"Too bad you couldn't translate more," Dean said in a teasing tone. Anna threw him a rude gesture and Sam burst out laughing at the look on Dean's face. "Well," Dean said after a moment. "On that note, I'm going to go take a nap."
"Dean," Sam began as his brother slid out of the booth.
"No, it's alright," Anna interjected. "Let him nap. We need to go out tonight. We should all get some rest." Anna reached for a menu. "First I need some real food. Cookies and cheesesticks won't cut it."
Sam grunted in agreement as Dean yawned, standing beside the table.
"Order me a burger to go," he said through the yawn. "I'll eat it later."
"Onions?" Anna asked.
"No, no veggies. Just cheese."
"You'll get fat that way," Sam said, shaking his head.
Dean reached out to playfully punch Sam in the shoulder. "Shut up."
Anna laughed and promised to place the order. Dean turned away and left the small diner to cross the parking lot to the motel room. He tossed a glance over his shoulder for a last look through the window at his brother and Anna talking. He watched Anna laugh at something Sam had said and he grinned. Dean was amazed at how easily she fit in with his life. She was smart and confident, capable, but she scared the hell out of him. He was afraid she'd get hurt, pissed she'd already been hurt and completely lost on how to keep her safe. Stepping through the door to his room, Dean snagged a last look at Anna as he pulled the curtains closed.
Anna stepped out of the motel office with a final apology over losing her key. She closed the door and made her way down the sidewalk to the room that matched the spare key. She had told the manager how she had locked her key in the Winchester's room and they were across the street at lunch and he'd been kind enough to lend her the housekeeping copy so she could retriever her own room key. Her gray eyes studied the brass numbers on the door. She inhaled deeply and caught the thoroughly male scent of Dean just through the door. She trembled in anticipation of what was coming, and slowly slid the key into the lock. In the sunlight her hair had bright red highlights, but the darkness inside the room beckoned her forward, his half-naked form on the bed calling to her blood.
Her mouth twisted into a smile as she closed the door behind her, one hand reaching up to undo the first button on her blouse.