AN: Thanks for all the reviews guys! I really appreciated them! For all who wanted to know, Bella is the same age here that she was in the Twilight books (17 going on 18) and please don't get on to me for the Creepy-Older-Man factor in her dating life (i.e. Dean is like 12 years older than her) just consider that Edward was like 100 years older than her in the books. So really I think she just has an issue with age differences.

P.S. just in case you are Extra Ordinarily Dull and haven't already realized, I Do Not own Twilight or Supernatural. I just own my plot line. so Don't Steal my plot line. Thanks!

It was 10 o'clock before I stopped for gas and coffee. I paid in cash, small bills pulled from various pockets in a hair brained manner, all to convince the boy behind the counter that I really was just another hung over teenage girl on her way home after a weekend of partying and bad-decision-making.

I watched him as he sorted bills into various slots the cash register. He was pimpled, not much older than I was. Bored and tired and pissed off looking, much like I imagined any other teenager at any other convenience store job would look. I wondered what it would be like to feel that way about your job. I had never itched to be normal, never felt the pull of college and a husband and two point five blonde-haired blue-eyed children. I still didn't want that now, but with everything going on….

I grabbed my receipt out of the boy's hands and hurried out to my car, completely forgetting my cup of disgusting Kwik-E coffee. I drove off anyway, fleeing from the thoughts that I had had in that gas station.

I drove west, because that seemed like the best direction to head. I still had no idea where I was going, but that really didn't matter. Every time I stopped for gas of coffee I used a different credit card or cash, and I drove far off the beaten path to find the places I went to. It was a habit I had; throwing people off my scent, and it was a habit that would die a hard death.

A guy at the third gas station I stopped at asked me if I needed help. I didn't understand what he meant until he gestured to the front of my shirt. I gasped when I saw what he was talking about. I was wearing an old grey wrestling sweatshirt that had once belonged to Bobby. Across the middle of it were stripes of blood, Dean's blood. The blood was dry now, after hours of neglect, and the shade of brown that only blood can turn. I felt the color drain from my face and my hands begin to shake. To the man I laughed, kept my cool, told him it was woodstain, but thank you for the concern. But on the inside I was falling apart all over again. I had gone out in public covered in blood. I had gone out in public covered in Dean's blood.

I have learned over the years that it is nearly impossible to have a breakdown in your car and not get noticed. So I kept driving, all the while blinking away tears and trying to keep myself together. I knew that eventually I would run out of land to drive on. I needed a plan, plans kept me calm, helped me think, helped me survive. 99% it's pure dumb luck that you get out of a mess alive, I remember Phil growling at me when I was younger and he was just beginning to teach me the ropes of hunting, the other 1% is a really damn good plan. I needed a plan, but I couldn't think straight. All I could do was run through lists in my head of places I couldn't go and why.

Renee, my mother. She was in Florida, and I couldn't go to her because she hated me for something that she didn't quite understand, hated me because of what I'd done to Phil, her husband, nearly three years ago.

Ellen Harville was a good friend, always willing to take me in no matter the situation, but I refused to go to her or her daughter, Jo. They had enough tragedy in their lives without me bringing down a demon army on their heads.

Bobby Singer, who I had just run from, and who it would be months before I could face again.

Where ever I went I would have to be careful. Seemed like everyone wanted a piece of me these days. I was wanted for questioning by the Feds under my own name, and if they ever connected some wide spread dots I could be dealing with a lot more than just a quizzical law enforcement officer. There was a coven of vampires after me for stealing a prized possession from them a year or so back. A few hunters were waiting for my next big trip up so that they could charge in and play hero because I was there when the Devil's Gate was opened. And Lilith. Dear Lilith probably wanted to dance around a tribal fire and paint herself with baby's blood while hoisting my intestines on a pointy stick and shrieking a war cry. After all I was in the room when she was humiliated by a human. She couldn't kill Sam and so she turned tail and fled, and I watched it all, effectively signing my own death warrant.

20 miles to the coast and I was out of time, out of options. It would be getting dark soon and I had to turn my car around now unless I was planning on driving into the ocean. Tears of frustration gathered at the corners of my eyes and that only made me madder. All these decisions that I couldn't bear to make back when Dean was alive were being forced upon me now, and it was overwhelming. Suddenly wearing that bloody sweatshirt was too much, I couldn't do it anymore. All I could see was that night, the night the hell hounds ripped Dean to pieces. Over and over again it played in my head, further infecting the jagged hole where my heart had once been. Emotion clouds judgment. Phil had always told me, and here I was, spewing emotions like some daytime drama star. But I couldn't hold it in. Not now, not when I was alone. Not when there wasn't anyone around to hold it in for.

I needed to burn the sweatshirt, before I went crazy, I could feel it in my bones. Dirt road. Right now. Right turn. I didn't slow for the turn; instead I accelerated head on into the mass of leafy green that surrounded me on three sides. Behind me a cloud of dust covered the view of the main road. I followed the tire tracks to the end of the line where they stopped right in the densest of trees and underbrush. I hesitated for a second before snatching my army duffle and climbing out of the car. From where I had parked I could see a faint trail of some sort leading deeper into the woods. My gut screamed no, that it was a bad, bad, very bad idea to go down that trail, but every bone in my body tingled yes.

"I'd listen to your gut, I mean since when have creepy forest trails ever been a good thing?" I shrieked and spun on the spot, drawing my gun and preparing to fire on whomever it was that had just spoke. There was no one near me, but I could feel the lips of the voice at my ears as it whispered in an all too familiar way, "But what's life without a little risk, eh babe?" I spun again, and still no one was there.

"Dean?" My voice was shaky, because I was sure that I was losing my mind, hearing his voice in the middle of a forest, saying the things that he had said to me a thousand times before.

No one answered me, so I stood alone, a crazy girl pointing a gun at an empty forest, before making my way to the path. The grass was wet and soaked through the legs of my jeans in seconds as I trudged through the thick wildlife. Something inside me told me to keep going though, keep walking, just a few more feet… was it getting lighter ahead?

I broke the tree line and stumbled into an enormous field just as a rouge breeze blew past me, lifting my hair around my face and I raised my arms to greet it, breathing in deeply as it carried the scents of the forest to me. For a moment I felt as though I could lose myself in this place, all my worries and grief. But then I remembered why I came. I remembered that I had a job to do. I walked to the middle of the field and set down my bag, still trying to steady myself by breathing deeply.

I shucked the sweatshirt first. The bloodstain was huge, dried in, violent. I held it out in front of me; gritting my teeth against the pain it was causing the hole in my chest. Some of his scent lingered on the fabric; I had embraced him so many times while wearing this garment, he had held me against him so often. I briefly buried my nose in the familiar gray sweatshirt before folding it up and laying it on the ground. I had a job to so and daylight was fading fast, I told myself sternly, but in the back of my head a small, scared part of me was begging me to burn it, burn it fast, please, it hurts too much to remember. I opened my bag and reached for my tin of salt, pouring a liberal amount over the sweatshirt before dousing it in lighter fluid. Another breeze swept by and I shivered: the only shirt I had left was a thin camisole. I looked down and huffed in dismay. Across my stomach was another smear of blood, bled through from the sweatshirt, no doubt. It took only a second of indecision before my mind was made and I was shedding the thin camisole as well, leaving me in the middle of a giant field in the middle of a giant forest in nothing but my bra and wet jeans. I pulled out a book of matches and folded back the cover, holding everything carefully so that I didn't get burned. I struck the whole book at once against my knee before tossing it onto my clothing.

I watched the last bits of Dean Winchester burn away with my clothing before turning my back to the flames and picking up my bag. I was two steps away from my impromptu campfire when it started to rain. Great, just great.

"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?" My voice broke the natural silence of the field and I felt for a moment like I had trespassed on something sacred. I held my hands to the heavens, daring lightning to strike me before continuing on to my car.

+ + + + + HELTER SKELTER + + + + +

In all of my lists and calculations of places I couldn't go and people I couldn't endanger there was one name left out, decidedly forgotten. They called him Crazy Charlie because years of hunting had left him so paranoid that he shot first, second, and third, and might just ask you a question or two before shooting again. It didn't matter whether you were some bad-news-evil-son-of-a-bitch or a paper boy, if you were where Crazy Charlie didn't want you to be, you probably weren't going to be there much longer. Enough people, actual honest-to-god innocent people, got shot full of rock salt that the government forced Charlie to twelve step his way through every program they could pay for. He was a war veteran of some sort and so they felt obligated to fully and completely finance his recovery and turn him into a regular working joe. I had met Crazy Charlie a few times before all the therapy and the government financed "rehabilitation".

Now though, now things were different. Crazy Charlie was, so they said, not so crazy any more. It had been years since we least spoke, and I was terrified that things had changed too much. Who knew, maybe he had a whole new life now, wife and kids and a dog named Fido. He might open his door, see me, and slam it in my face. Or things could've not changed at all and he could open the door and fill me full of lead.

That was why I sat in the car, starring at the house that I only dimly remembered from all those summers ago. This is insane. I grumbled to myself. You've fought the stuff of nightmares and horror flicks for years, but you can't face suburbia? Can't march up to that door and say "Hey Charlie, I know it's been a while. I was in the neighborhood and wondered if I could reach on your couch for a night…or a week… or a month… or two… you know…"? And I couldn't. I really really couldn't. I was so afraid, not of Charlie but of rejection, because this is the last idea I had, and once this one was shot down I would be living in hotels and squatting in for sale houses. For once I wanted permanence, stability. Was that too much to ask?

Breathe in, breathe out, now go.

I forced myself out of the car slamming my door behind me, not even trying to be silent. From the backseat I pulled out a ratty old knapsack that held my salt, holy water, favorite gun, and a jar of dead man's blood, along with other essentials. I slung an old army issue duffle over my shoulder that held a few changes of clothing. Finally I gently pulled out the old hardcover guitar case that housed what I considered my only real prized possession. She was a Yamaha FG-335 Lightwood acoustic guitar with a tone that always made me great wads of cash when I cracked open the case on a street corner.

I stood on the street for a minute, just looking over the mess I was about to enter, letting the rain soak me to the core. Finally though I got impatient. I was wet, tired, ready to get this over with. Numbly I glided up the front walk and to the door where I watched as my fist reached out and pounded on the wood. It was like watching a movie without the remote, I couldn't hit pause or stop or rewind, I just had to watch events unfold. I heard cursing and stomping ad the rattling of chains and locks, but I didn't even have the energy to brace myself for what could be the last moments of my pitiful existence. The door swung open to reveal Charlie, aiming what appeared to be an elephant gun right between my eyes.

I couldn't bring myself to care anymore. He hadn't shot me yet, so obviously all that therapy had done some good, but a hunter's self control could only go so far. I was going to get myself shot real soon, I was sure of it. I closed my eyes, letting exhaustion take over my body and flood my bones. I could feel myself start to sway, and then I heard a mumbled "Isabella?"

My eyes snapped open and out of habit I centered myself, waking up within seconds every nerve ending that had previously been asleep. "The one and only." I managed a smirk, because it's what Charlie would expect, but my words didn't have their usual biting edge.

"Well damn," Charlie reached up to scratch his head, still holding the rifle, and I flinched, half expecting the thing to go off and blow us both to kingdom come. "Renee told me you were dead, round abouts three years ago." He scowled at the thought.

Huh. That nudged at the wound in my chest where my heart used to be, making it throb dully. "Is that the story she's spreading?" My words took on the quality I had long ago adopted when talking about my mother, a flippancy designed to show that I didn't care about her obvious rejection, but my shoulders sagged with the news that my mother had pronounced me dead. I couldn't understand why I cared now, but it hurt me, this her final act of denying anything to do with me.

"Well," Charlie shuffled awkwardly "I'm glad you're not dead. It sure is good to see you again honey." He forced a gruff sort of smile, trying to take away whatever pain his words may have unintentionally caused.

I sighed and stepped through the door, over the iron symbols inlayed into the floor meant to keep out demons and whatnot. I knew that I wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight. Charlie would want an explanation, and I would tell him everything, I always did. I echoed his words, "Good to see you too Dad."

Thanks for reading! Please review! Oh, and I know that wasn't much of a cliffy, but bear with me, we're just picking up speed!