DISCLAIMER: Supernatural isn't my concept. If it was, they wouldn't have found John for at least two seasons.

A/N: Well, this has been written for about two months now, but I've been working two jobs at once and got too lazy to type it all out. But here it is and I promise I'm already typing out the rest of the completed story for you. Also, I've been thinking about doing some origin stories, giving more background on a phase in Anna's life that Dean and Sam are still unaware of. I could just wait on that though... Not sure. Anywho, enjoy! And thanks for waiting.

Anna climbed the steps to the front door and rang the bell.

"Where's Rover go?" Dean asked. He tried, and failed, to suppress a grin at the look Anna threw him.

"Into the bushes," she said. Sam snorted and Dean threw his head back and laughed. "Shut up," Anna hissed as the door swung open.

The brothers were still chuckling when Elsa Bowen moved into sight and the laughter died in their throats. Anna looked back to see Dean and Sam staring at Elsa, practically ogling her, and Anna reached out to tug on Dean's ear. He glared up at her and saw a satisfied gleam in her eyes as he rubbed his sore lobe.

"Dean, Sam, this is-"

"Elsa Glasson from the winter '98 Victoria's Secret Botticelli collection."

Anna stared wide-eyed at Sam, stunned by his recitation, and behind her Elsa just smiled. A tug at the pocket of her jeans brought Anna back to reality and she sighed in defeat.

"Elsa, these are the Winchesters."

The former model laughed and waved the trio inside, chatting with Sam as she led them through the house to Bowen's study at the back. He rose from behind his desk when Anna walked in and smiled grandly, waving the small journal in the air.

"Fantastic reading, MacKeary. You should have stayed longer to hear more. You'll never believe –"

The doorbell rang out and Elsa excused herself. Anna followed, guessing it was Genchy at the door, and the Winchesters remained in the study with Bowen. Dean shoved his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat, eyeing the antique lamps and statues suspiciously. Sam made small talk with Bowen who watched Dean from the corner of his eye as though studying a bug under a microscope. Dean finally had enough and snapped.

"What?"

Sam turned to Dean and stepped back, out of the line of fire.

"She's different," Bowen said after a moment, the corner of his lips pulled up in a sad smile. "She was always… cold, is suppose is the word. Geoffrey treated her as a subordinate more than a daughter."

Sam snorted from his corner and Dean heard him muttering something along the lines of knowing what that felt like before Bowen continued.

"She seems lighter now, soft somehow; more human. I'm assuming it's you. The both of you, really."

Dean felt like he'd been sucker-punched, and he couldn't put his finger on the reason that such a revelation would bother him, but before he could work it out Bowen just smiled and turned to the door to greet the newcomer. Dean tilted his head to take a good look at Anna, comparing her to the Lara Croft woman he'd first met and trying to see this new softness Bowen mentioned. When she caught his eye, though, Anna froze and her eyes narrowed.

"Are y'all talking about me again?"

Sam started. "How'd you know?"

"Dean looks confused," Genchy said with a grin and pushed Anna the rest of the way into the room. Dean straightened up and glared at Genchy, sinking down onto the small couch in front of the large desk.

"Tell us what you found, Phin," Anna said quickly, taking the small armchair near the door. Bowen perched on his desk and waited for everyone to get settled, Sam taking the window seat and Genchy settling down on the sofa beside Dean. Elsa asked if anyone wanted anything to drink and then excused herself again.

"It's amazing," said Bowen, nearly vibrating with excitement. "I kept reading after you left and after a while I began to recognize some dates and names. I wondered if I had begun to re-read some sections, but details were different, and I couldn't place where I'd seen these names before. Nearly drove Elsa mad with my pacing last night, but this morning I suddenly remembered!" Bowen reached back and lifted a large bound volume and thrust it toward Anna. She reached out to take it and nearly dropped the book, surprised by the weight. "Careful, it's heavy."

Anna glared at Bowen before turning her attention to the book, slowly turning the pages.

"Isn't this a parish register?" Her voice was soft and she ran her fingers lightly over the page, almost but not quite caressing the paper. Dean watched, fascinated as always by her book-mode. He watched her studying the entries, and then noticed her eyes narrowing as she saw something of interest. When her eyes shot wide in shock, Dean leaned forward, but she turned back to Bowen, her lips moving with silent questions.

"It's amazing, isn't it? That register has been in my family for over two hundred years and is the first register my ancestor created when he came to America from the old country. Our mystery pastor is, in fact, my ancestor Pastor Gregor Phinneas Bowen."

Anna looked down at the register in her lap at the names of people who had been born, had married and died, all carefully and lovingly recorded, under the supervision of a man who had created a monster. Sympathy welled in her, unexpected, for the woman they were now hunting. She had loved a man and been cursed by him to a future of madness and loneliness while he had gone on to live happily, marry and have children. Though Linnea had screwed up by coming after Dean, Anna found that at this moment she couldn't hate her prey. Dean shifted in his seat and spoke.

"So the chick we're hunting now is your great-granddad's fault?"

Bowen nodded. "That's what it looks like."

Genchy leaned toward Anna and whispered in her ear. "This would explain the scent I caught outside."

Anna nodded absently and sat back in her seat, staring at the words on the page.

"This seems a little too easy," said Sam with a frown.

"Or fated," Bowen said with a shrug.

"Cookies!"

Everyone looked over to the door as Elsa swept over the threshold with a large plate of cookies that smelled like round heaven.

"Ooh, cookies," Dean said with a boyish grin and he scooted forward on the couch to grab a handful, popping one in his mouth. "Dude, they're still warm!"

Genchy eyed Dean warily and grabbed a single cookie. Sam smiled at his brother and looked over to see Anna's reaction to Dean's antics, but was disappointed to see her still staring at the register, chewing her lower lip, deep in thought.

"Phin, what about the blood?"

Bowen looked confused and shrugged. "Well he was a bit of a rover but I never –"

"No," Anna groaned, rolling her eyes. "The cure. 'Blood freely given.' The pastor was afraid to sacrifice his life and I'm sure Elsa here would prefer you breathing."

"Ah," Bowen said with a grin and Anna realized he'd been teasing her. "Well, I've given it some thought and I think old Gregor had it wrong."

Dean watched as Anna tilted her head, listening, and he threw Sam a look as Bowen chewed his cookie, arranging his thoughts. When Elsa finally settled herself on the small couch between him and Genchy. Dean threw an alarmed look at Anna, but she was miles away. A look over at a faintly blushing Genchy settled his nerves somewhat, realizing he wasn't the only one affected by the former lingerie model. Oblivious, Bowen spoke.

"The curse called specifically for blood freely given, but if Gregor had to die to save Linnea then that would have defeated the purpose, I think."

"Purpose?" Sam leaned across his brother to grab the plate of cookies and began munching.

"The idea was for the two of them to be together after the trials were over and all was safe. I'm thinking all he needed to do was give up a little blood, a few drops at most as a promise of his love, and that would have been the end of it. Instead, he panicked and thought the worst, dooming the poor girl to remain a monster."

Anna leaned back and pressed a finger against the muscle twitching beneath one eye, sighing deeply. Dean scratched the back of his head and looked over to Sam once more, who shrugged, then turned back to Bowen and leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees.

"So, you think your blood might break the curse?"

"We can only try," Bowen said with a shrug and popped another cookie into his mouth.

.> . .

Genchy was outside searching the yards for any trace of a clue where they might find their prey. Sam and Bowen were continuing to dig through the old journals and papers for any other information on the curse. Anna and Dean sat at the kitchen table discussing the merits of homemade ammunition versus store-bought and swapping stories while filling hollow-tip rounds with Bowen's blood. He watched her gesticulating wildly as she described a failed attempt at a UV flash bomb.

"My dad, being a manly man, walked around for three weeks with sunburn down one half of his face. Bill, on the other hand, had prom coming and stole my sunless tanner to even himself out."

Dean laughed. "You're making this up."

"I have pictures," Anna said with a grin. "He was lobster red on one side and this horrible orangey-brown down the other."

Dean laughed again, remembering a few failed experiments of his own. "What happened to you?"

"Well, my burn was even at least," she answered with a blush. "But I had been observing the device itself while Dad and Bill were watching the readouts, so I was a good ten feet closer when it went off. I spent the next two hours in an aloe bath and the next week home from school."

"Score," Dean said and snagged another cookie from the plate. Anna grinned and paused to load a clip with the prepared bullets.

"It would have been sweet, but I had sunstroke and a nasty fever. I was bedridden almost the entire time and miserable."

Dean cooed in false sympathy and Anna stuck out her tongue in response. A comfortable silence fell, each smiling as they continued with their preparations. Slowly, though, Genchy's angry comments about Anna began playing through his mind. He began sneaking glances at Anna, when he was safe from injecting himself with the needle, trying to discern how injured she still was, looking for any hint of pain or discomfort. She looked up, suddenly and caught his eye. Both smiled shyly and returned to their work, then spoke at once.

"It really is-"

"So, you're just-"

They laughed and Anna motioned for Dean to continue. He took a second to organize his thoughts before he began speaking.

"Are you accident prone, or was Genchy right?" Anna stopped what she was doing and slowly set down the handful or rounds. Dean continued. "I mean, at the factory you had it pretty together and you did okay on the river-"

Anna raised a brow at the term and Dean sighed.

"Alright, the river was amazing, but here you seem-"

"It's your fault you know," she said, interrupting Dean. He just stared at her and she looked down, resuming her work. "I always had a fairly stable way of hunting, even when I worked with Dad. I finished with school as fast as possible and blew through college to get my degrees so I could get back to hunting. It was all a way of working to acquire more information for the database. Hunting was just a necessary part of gathering the data. The factory was a favor for John, really. The river was for Tibbs." She paused and looked up, the pain in her eyes piercing him. "Neither was personal, but this one is, and it's screwing me up. I'm off center and I can't get back."

Dean stared, slack-jawed and amazed. Anna looked like she might be violently ill or faint at any moment and he couldn't blame her. He knew that's how he'd feel if he'd ever had to say what she was saying now, to share this much of himself.

"We're hunters," she continued slowly. "Getting hurt comes with the job. Hunting alone I have to be careful because there's no safety net. Screwing up with Dad meant a billion pushups once I'd healed. With you and Sam it's different. I can take chances because you're there to catch me if I fall."

Anna fell silent and stared down at her hands. Dean followed suit, unsure what to say as he studied the grain of the table. When Anna snorted he looked back up to see her glaring at him.

"Next time you better catch me. Cars hurt."

Dean laughed and Anna's glare turned into a grin as they both began working again.

.> . .

"Well, she's been here, but I can't track her. There are no entry or exit trails and other than another scrap of clothing, nothing of hers. I think she's flying in and out, which means I'm pretty much useless."

Genchy sounded disgusted with himself and Anna sympathized with him.

"What about waiting to see if she comes back tonight?" Sam asked from his seat in the window. Anna shook her head.

"No good," she said. "We need to find her while the sun is up. I want us shooting at flesh."

"You are out for blood," Genchy said with raised brows.

"Damn straight," said Anna with a nod. "Plus we don't know if bullets will do any good once she's in stone mode. I don't want to take any chances."

They all fell silent, recognizing the sense behind her plan. Dean scratched the back of his head as a thought tickled his brain and spoke up.

"What about the campus?"

Everyone stared at him and he shrugged.

"That's where we first saw her and she looked like a student. I think she had books with her. Could she be registered?"

Anna and Bowen exchanged a look, eyes wide and then Anna shot to her feet and began moving toward the door, the men following.