AN: And I'm back. Ha! You all probably thought I was dead or something right? Wrong! Just at School, and therefore busier than a mofo. So here's where we pick up the story! Enjoy
P.S. Unless you are (still) incredibly Extra Ordinarily Dull you should know that I don't own diddly-squat except for my plotline and characters that didn't exist before I made them up (don't think there are any of those yet though…).
I was fourteen years old when I shot my mother's husband, Phil. Kill or be killed. That's the cardinal rule of hunting, of nature. You kill it before it kills you. This isn't a video game, kid. You don't get four more lives after you die the first time. Either you're dead or it is. How many times had Phil drilled that single lesson into my head? At first his words had frightened me, but soon I learned a hard indifference. Because no matter how much I wanted to reject that one single statement and argue that really, nobody had to die, I knew that Phil was right and that everything I would ever face would be going in for the kill.
Phil met my mother when I was nine years old. She was going through her nursing phase, working in the city ER when he stumbled in, a stab wound to the gut that had sliced through some intestines and other important organs. She held his hand while the doctors stitched him up, babbling to him about national debt or some such nonsense because they couldn't sedate him during the operation. He lived and she never stopped chattering. One week later he was living in our small apartment, recuperating and wooing the both of us. Their meeting was the stuff of a romance novel, and before The Big Bad my mother used to tell me the story before I went to bed; each time it got more exciting, with more details.
At first everything was rainbows and puppy dog tails. Phil helped out around the house more and more the better he got. And my mother seemed happier with him around. With Phil around the bills got paid and the taxes were turned in on time. With Phil around I didn't have to balance the checkbook and make sure all our groceries were taken care of. My mother got to continue being her childlike self and I got to actually be a child. Everything was right.
Then, about a month after he moved in, Phil got called away on a business trip. He kissed my mother goodbye and ruffled my hair and then he drove away, only to return a week later, slightly bruised and bloody. My mother chose to ignore the signs, but I was a curious nine year old, convinced that when I grew up I would be a spy for a top secret government agency. So the next time Phil had a business trip I tagged along, in his backseat under a blanket. I learned that day that not everything is just a bed time story, that more often than not nightmares are real and they can follow you into the day. Phil caught me, but not before I had seen more than any grade-school aged child should ever see. After that day Phil taught me everything he knew about the supernatural, and what it took to kill it. My nine year old lips stumbled over Latin verses and my shaky hand drew symbols. I learned how to fire a gun and then he took me out on hunts with him. At first I was only aloud to sit in the car and pass rounds of ammo out through the window as he warded off whatever it was we were hunting. Then I was aloud out to dig graves and light things on fire. Sometimes he handed me the clues to a case and a laptop and had me do all the research, find all the missing puzzle pieces. Whatever it was, Phil always made sure I was prepared to face it and take it down.
But this hunt, the hunt that he took me on a few days after my fourteenth birthday, was different. We were out after some type of ancient magic and getting nowhere fast. You could tell that it was ancient by the taste left in the air, for months afterward that taste was on the tip of my tongue, haunting my every waking moment. Phil went off alone one night, ruffling my hair his way out the door and reminding me to protect myself. I stayed up for a while watching crappy motel TV and wondering exactly what made pay-per-views worth paying for before drifting off, a shotgun leaning against the nightstand and a handgun under my pillow.
It was the scratching that woke me. It was like twigs from a tree scraping on the door to the motel room, only more substantial. And there was a taste in the air, that taste that will never leave me. It took my sleep incrusted mind almost a full minute to comprehend what was going on before I was fully awake and terrified, every nerve ending in my body sparking with life. By that time though the door had broken open and he was already in the room, just feet away from me. He was a corpse really, there was skin hanging in strips from his face and the tips of his fingers had worn away to bone, quite literally. Blood pooled at bruises more violently than I had ever seen before, and one of his legs was twisted, dragging strangely behind the rest of him. It wasn't until I saw the eyes though, that I really understood what was going on. His eyes were completely white, dead but not unseeing. It was later that I learned all I could about zombies. Later that I learned how after a zombie is made the body begins to deteriorate quickly, rotting from the inside out. Later I learned that a zombie is made from a freshly killed corpse, and is only created by powerful magicians that used them for their own dark purposes. Right in that moment though, all I could think was: he's not stopping. He's not stopping in recognition, he's coming after me. Kill or be killed. Kill or be killed. And so I scrambled out of the shitty motel bed and I grabbed for the shot gun that leaned next to me. And as the walking corpse stumbled closer, I raised my gun, readied it, and took my shot. Bullet after bullet tore through his forehead, spraying brain matter and bits of skull and blood in every direction, until my chambers clicked empty and he crumpled to the ground. I stayed where I was for only a moment or so before crawling over to where he lay, dead and now rotting away. I choked on tears and mucus, hysterical laughing starting to make its way up my vocal chords, before roughly pulling myself together. I had fifteen minutes, maybe, before the cops arrived. So I took all of my things, left behind Phil's clothing and toiletries, and sped away in his car, a '67 Shelby Mustang he lovingly referred to as Eleanor. I drove away and left my stepfather's body lying in that shithole of a motel room for the cops to find.
Later, after hours of driving as far away as possible, I called my mother from a payphone outside of an airport. I cried hysterically, trying to explain what had happened and she begged me to turn myself in so that I could get the help I needed. In the background I could hear police officers trying to get her to hand over the phone, others ordering a trace on the call. I didn't care, because I had to make my mother understand. Understand that it wasn't my fault, and that I was sorry. But she didn't understand, and the moment she heard that I wasn't turning myself in she told me I was no longer welcome. Then my mother hung up and left me clutching the payphone like it was my last severed lifeline.
I bought five tickets to five different cities on the next available flights out from the airport desk with Phil's only legitimate credit card, and then I drove away, leaving a puzzle for the feds and a middle finger for my mother.
Seven months later I found myself in a bar, in between jobs and cheating yet another drunken biker out of his drinking money. I was living out of my car most of the time, occasionally using a credit card to get myself a motel room. I showered at local churches and gyms, bought only nonperishable items from the grocery store, and for extra spending money I hustled pool. The man I was playing against that night was particularly smelly and hairy, two things that always seemed attached to the biker persona. He was also especially stupid, allowing me to win almost three hundred bucks from him before walking away spitting fire. I finished my drink before walking out of the bar and back to my ride. It felt like a motel night, and I had a long day of driving to look forward to. I almost didn't notice the angry biker stalking after me until too late. His heavy hand landed on my shoulder and reflexively my right hand shot to the waist band of my jeans for my gun. But then I heard something completely unexpected: two other guns clicked from behind the biker, both aimed straight for his meaty head.
"Hands off the girl, Tiny." One of the armed men said, his voice low and rough in the cold night air. The biker whirled around, dragging me with him to face his new opponents. I took that opportunity to pull my handgun out and level it with the big guy's ear.
"Do as the nice man says, Tiny." I growled at him, pushing the cold metal of my gun against his ear. The hand on my shoulder was removed immediately, the man shaking in his massive boots. "Good job. Now why don't you go back inside and drink some more with your buddies," I tried to sound brave, but my voice wavered, and I was sure everyone could hear it. Silently the biker shuffled back into the bar, not daring to say a word.
I turned my gun on the two men who had just helped me out. I didn't like their look, two strange men carrying guns set off all kinds of alarm bells in my brain. "Thanks for that boys." I held my hands up slowly, not dropping my weapon but letting them know I wouldn't shoot them if they didn't shoot me. The men copied my careful movements, resetting their safety locks and stashing their guns in their waistbands. My thumb twitched toward the safety on my gun but I didn't feel like putting it back on quite yet.
"You okay there sweetheart?" It was the shorter one that spoke first, holding up his hands and taking a cautious step in my direction. Immediately I stepped back and into a halo of light cast by a streetlamp. I heard his gasp as the light hit me, illuminating my ragged appearance. "Jesus," He breathed, "Jesus, you're just a kid!"
I think I might have laughed at that, though I'm not sure. Hardly anybody called me a kid anymore when they saw me. I had a couple of tattoos, and I knew that I was tall and tough looking for my age. Living on your own did that.
The taller one spoke up then, breaking the tension in the air. "That tattoo. Where'd you get it?"
I could hear something odd in his voice, like strain. I knew immediately which tattoo he was talking about, I knew that tone he had from the dozen other times someone had asked me about that particular tattoo. I also knew that the right answer to his question could form new alliances for me, something vital in the world of hunting. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." It was barely a whisper, but I knew the big man had heard me. He and the other one stepped into the halo of the streetlamp and pulled aside the collars of their shirts, revealing a tattoo identical to mine. A flaming star, directly over the heart.
"Nice to meet you boys. My name's Isabella." Finally I put away my gun, holding out my hand for them to shake instead.
"Isabella, I'm Dean Winchester, and this is my brother Sam,"
From then on it was history. I traveled with the boys, driving my car behind theirs, crisscrossing the country, killing the supernatural. We were family, arguing and laughing and kicking up a storm. Eventually I developed a crush on Dean, and then we started dating. Sam didn't seem to mind, not really. I don't think he had ever gotten over his girlfriend, Jessica's, death. When Dean said "I love you," it only seemed natural for me to say it back, because I did love him. Age wasn't ever really brought up between us because we both realized how little time we had to worry over such stupid things. Life was good, no great.
And then Sammy got stabbed. And died. And Dean went absolutely Bat shit crazy. I stayed at the shack with Sam's rotting body, curled up and convinced that I would lose both Sam and Dean in a matter of days and convinced that I could not live through that. Dean took off late at night, muttering crazily under his breath, drunk as a skunk, and I stayed behind to wait. I had never felt so alone, not when Renee had abandoned me, not when I was living in my car, not ever. I would die of loneliness, I was sure of it. And then, just as suddenly as Sam had died, he rose again like some sort of miracle second coming. Only I knew better than to believe in miracles. So when Dean came back from where ever it was he had been I gave him time to celebrate with his brother before pulling him aside and demanding to know what had gone down. I didn't have to pry very hard to find out what Dean did to save Sam.
It was at that moment, when Dean told me about his one year deal that I began shutting down. The days on the calendar flew by, each one a slap to the face. Until finally it was the night of all nights. The final showdown. Bobby Singer, an old friend of Sam and Dean's, gathered the clan for a war photo, claiming he wanted to document history. And then we went out to kill Lilith. And we failed. And Dean died. And a part of me died with him.
I told all of it to my dad, and he listened patiently, understanding my need to get it out. Every so often he'd frown and tug on his mustache, but mostly he stood stock still, just watching my lips move as I spun my crazy ass yarn. At the end of it he looked up, as if asking God for answers, before letting his gaze settle back on me. I could see the cogs in his brain slowly working, the words rising in his mouth in that slow way. Finally he spoke. "Well baby girl, I'm not gonna lie. You're in deep shit."
Something between a sob and a laugh erupted from me, and snot joined the tears that had been silently falling for a while now, making me one unattractive girl. "Yeah Dad," My voice broke and I swallowed some of the bile that was starting to rise before continuing. "Yeah, I've been in it from the start. But uh- I'm tired. And I haven't actually stopped moving in years. I feel like I just need to stand still for a while, just to get my bearings. And I was wondering if, if maybe…" But I couldn't finish the sentence. Something was keeping me from asking my father for a place to stay. Fear of rejection again I suppose.
Somehow Charlie understood though. The corners of his mouth twitched, in which direction I couldn't tell, and then he nodded once. "Your room's exactly the way you left it kid. And I reckon it'll stay that way for as long as you need it." He thumped me on the back then, his version of an affectionate gesture, before picking up his elephant gun and shuffling out of the kitchen. He began to climb the stairs slowly, calling out over his shoulder, "Go on, get some sleep. We'll talk when you wake up."
AN: Soooooooo… Questions? Comments? Concerns? Ask and I may or may not feel like answering you. But it never hurts to ask, now does it?
Oh, and for those of you who are planning on berating me for not updating in so long, just remember that I am human as well, I do have a life, and as much as I would love to spend all my time writing for you, I've got Shit to Do. Thanks for being patient though. Much Love ~Rosie!