Okay, I know I said I would have this up sooner, but it seems like the universe is against me at the moment. LOL. My computer is on the fritz, has been for a while. So instead of saying I'll update soon, I'll say I'll update when my computer is generous enough to let me. LOL

Worth the Price?

Learning to deal with hearing Sam's and Dean's thoughts was going to be tough. I could tell that already. Sam's thoughts seemed to go in circles. He'd think one thing and then another and so on and so forth and then he'd go right back to where he started. Like he couldn't get past it. His thoughts gave me a headache.

Then there was Dean. He didn't give me a headache; the ache he gave me hit much deeper. Every time he saw me there was a small I never meant to hurt her that echoed from his brain to mine. Then there were other purely male thoughts. How he still wanted me. How, if we could just be together - in every way - that we'd both feel so much better. He even thought of positions - positions that I didn't even know existed. So of course when those thoughts entered my mind because of him I'd blush and he'd notice and he'd wonder about what was causing it.

I could pick up stray thoughts from other people, too, but they weren't as clear; probably because I didn't really know them. I wasn't connected to other people the way I was to Sam and especially Dean. But if I kept hearing their thoughts…it was going to drive me insane. It was going to send me moving in the opposite direction. All three of our minds went back to Dean and his inevitable demise. I could hardly handle my own thoughts on that, let alone theirs.

In the car on the way to Kansas when the music was up - and when Dean was enjoying it for real, and not just pretending to enjoy it - it was easy because he was usually singing along with it in his head.

As we pulled up to Missouri's house I tried to hone in on whatever Missouri had been feeling. There wasn't any demonic threat, but something didn't feel right.

"Early warning system, guys," I said softly before getting out of the car. I was sure they'd probably already known I would feel something because Missouri had felt something. And the fact that nothing had happened yet was a bit alarming to me; Missouri was good at what she did.

If demons wanted whatever this artifact thing was, then if they had it and nothing had happened it probably meant they were plotting something supremely evil. Evil things didn't take downtime unless they were preserving their strength for something huge. Not that I wanted anything to happen. I wouldn't mind having a break, being able to forget about killing or being killed for a while. Be normal and safe for a while.

Once inside I saw Bobby in the kitchen, books spread out on the table in front of him and a big black stone in the middle. It was extremely…black, so black I could almost get lost in it. So I tried not focusing on it.

"Uh, is this the thing?" I asked as the psychic came in. "Hello, Missouri."

"Hello, child." She sat at the table. "And no, this isn't the artifact, but he did get it from his professor friend."

"I finally found it. I've done a few more exorcisms since I talked to you last. I got the thing and I gave it to him in exchange for this." Bobby gestured to the black stone. "Missouri told me bad things will happen if…I'm trying to find out what exactly will happen."

"Do the demons want this too?"

"No, this is somethin' else." If I can just learn how to work it.

"What's it supposed to do," I asked. "Why'd you want it?"

"It could be useful." It could save Dean if I can just find a loophole.

Man, this was frustrating. I wanted to ask him what loophole he was talking about, but I couldn't very well do that without letting everyone in on my secret. Which I so wasn't ready to do yet.

Sam and I helped Bobby research what we found out was called the Black Stone. Original considering the stone was black. The research turned up almost nothing except for the fact that the stone was so black if one looked at it for too long it seemed one could become hypnotized. Check. I remembered how it drew me in. Why it drew me in I had no idea.

"So, Bobby, what does this thing do?" Sam asked. "It might enlighten us if we knew what it was for."

Bobby looked at Sam and then at me. "I'd rather not say anything until I know for sure."

"Bobby, share!' I said. "We can't help you unless you're straight with us."

He looked around and bent lower over the table so we did the same. Obviously he didn't want anyone else hearing it - namely Dean since Missouri probably already knew. Dean, so not being the Research-guy, was in the living room.

"I'm trying to save Dean," he almost whispered. "The stone is the catalyst for the ritual, but I need to find a different ritual. Dean would never go for this one."

"Why not?" Sam asked, and I saw hope filling his eyes.

"Because if we can't find another way then in order for the ritual to work we'd have to trade one life for another. Someone else would have to die for him to live."

I shook my head. "We can't do that." My answer was immediate and firm and true. One: It would be wrong. 2: It wouldn't go over well with Dean. 3: I was back to it would be wrong.

"Well, we'll find another way," Sam said, grabbing a book. "At least this proves there is one."

I stared at the black stone again and wondered how this particular stone could be part of a ritual to save Dean. What was so special about it?

"Do you know the history of this thing? Has it been used before? Where's it from?"

Bobby shook his head. "I don't know. All I know is that William bought it at an auction not too long ago so he could keep it out of the wrong hands. Most people don't know what this thing can do. Historians or people dealing with occult, yes, but not many."

"Hm. Did he say anything about a different way to do this thing?"

"Nope. He didn't even say this way. I figured it out on my own."

I looked at Sam and then at Bobby. I said the next thing as seriously as I could. "We can't tell Dean. Okay. He'll break it without thinking twice. We won't even be able to try and find another way."

"Agreed," Sam said.

Two hours later we had nothing for our efforts so we did what we usually did in times of crisis: We planned and if that failed we would improvise.

One of us would go talk to this Professor Connors guy while the rest of us kept Dean busy. I hated being underhanded with Dean, but like I'd pointed out earlier…Dean wouldn't even let us look into this. And this, this was going to be hard. I'd already seen the hint of hope that Sam had felt and I knew how bad it would be if this didn't pan out. Everyone would have a big let down. We would feel even worse that we did now. A lot more pessimistic, too.

So, in short, we had to sneak around and not tell Dean about the weird maybe-helpful stone. If he found out we were keeping this from him he was going to be pissed, but it was better to look and be disappointed and heartbroken than to not try at all.

I would probably be the one to go to the college to talk to the professor. Dean would be able to read me in two seconds flat if I was the one who was supposed to distract him. It was hard for me to lie, period, but it was especially hard to lie to him.

Since we already had a plan we decided to take it easy the rest of the night. I'd start bright and early in the morning - I even planned on doing it right by making an appointment to see the good professor.

Bobby was going to help keep Dean busy. Didn't know how, didn't really care as long as it worked. I wasn't too worried about Bobby though; he knew what he was doing.

Dean didn't ask about the research because he thought he knew we'd tell him if we found something. The reason I knew he thought that was because I heard it. It made me feel even worse for not saying anything.

That night I enjoyed a nice hot bath; I enjoyed a nice hot bath whenever we stayed somewhere that didn't only have a shower.

After the bath Dean, Sam and I played poker with poker chips at the kitchen table, which we cleared of books. My poker face sucked anyway, but I had to try really hard not to smile the whole time because I could hear what their cards were in their thoughts.

After the third time I knew whether to fold or keep going Dean said I was cheating.

"I am not!"

Not really. I wasn't stacking the deck or anything. The cards fell where they were supposed to. Weren't you supposed to be able to read people when you played poker with them anyway? I just had…an unfair advantage. Okay, so yeah, I was totally cheating. I wasn't going to tell them that though.

As planned I was the one who went to the college. I took the stone with me so there would be no confusion as to what I was talking about.

Sam and Dean were out doing…something. I wasn't sure what exactly, but it didn't matter as long as it wasn't anything too illegal.

The professor's office hours were from three to seven and it was now six so I had an hour to get the information together. Piece of cake.

"Come in," was the response I got when I knocked.

"Professor Connors?"

"Yes." Professor Connors was a man who was maybe in his forties. His hair was brown and his hairline was receding. His eyes were hazel and he had glasses on. He was tall and lean and friendly looking.

"Hi. Um…I'm Alyson Daniels. I'm a friend of Bobby Singer's. I'm here to talk about the thing you gave him. Why did you have it?"

"Straight to business, huh? No time for pleasantries?"

"Kind of on the clock here."

Such a pretty girl. She looks so tired. I wonder what this is about.

"Please, sit down," Mr. Connors said. "You have the stone with you?"

"Yes," I said, bringing the stone out of my back pocket; it had been flat enough to fit. "Bobby said it could help save someone we care about very much. He also explained how. It's an evil way."

"Evil things don't do good things unless they're gonna get something out if it." He was suddenly sympathetic. "Who are you trying to save?"

"My boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. He's going to do in less than a year and…"

"He's sick. Maybe you should wait and -"

"He's not…sick. It's a little more complicated than that."

"You want to know if there's an alternate way of using the stone," the professor deduced. "If there is, it's not written anywhere."

"Okay, how does the ritual work then? How do we know it hasn't already begun?"

"The ritual isn't just a way to trade one life for another. You have to trade circumstances. Do you know anyone who's willing to do that?"

If the ritual began it would mean whoever was doing to ritual would be taking Dean's place in Hell. And I deflated. I loved Dean, but I wasn't willing to do that. It made me feel bad, but there it was. But I knew someone who would do that.

Sam!

"How exactly does the ritual start. Does it actually take a ritual to start it or…"

"Just the person's presence will do. The stone will slowly fill with the person's life essence, the black stone will become white when it gets full."

The stone was still black now, so that was good. "If that happens, how do you reverse it?"

"You break the stone. Easy enough, right?"

If he was telling the truth, which his thoughts were saying he was, then yes, it sounded easy enough.

"Is that all? Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"I didn't know much about it when I bought it. I only knew the basics. That's why I kept it. Just in case someone else wanted it. In the wrong hands it could be considered a great weapon."

"If it only takes one life then how is it a weapon?"

"If it's used right it only takes one life. In the wrong hands…it could destroy the human race."

Fortunately that's not in any books either, the professor added in thought.

When I left the professor's office I was bombarded with thoughts.

One day the world will be running on empty.

People with power and money don't have any problems they can't solve.

Probably cursing me out for thinking he's an idiot.

I knew what was wrong. I'd walked by a class that was just getting out and I was in the middle of the crowd of students that had just come flowing out of the room. My head was starting to hurt as thoughts kept invading my mind and then I became aware of red metallic liquid hitting my lips and entering my mouth. My nose was bleeding.

I had to get away from the group. I began to rush toward the parking lot. I had taken Bobby's car and when I reached it I slid inside and began massaging my head. It was throbbing. I wiped my nose on my jacket sleeve but the blood kept on flowing.

I tilted my head back and just let myself rest for a minute. My world was kind of…spinning a little and then it was fading to black.

When I woke up I was no longer in Bobby's car. I was in a bed. A hospital bed. I was in a hospital, beeping machines and all.

"Mm." My head was still a little sore, but not as bad.

"Aly?"

My eyes snapped open and instantly landed on Dean. He looked angry and worried at the same time, and the worry was just making him more angry.

"Um…hi. What am I…doing here?"

"You should tell me. You've been hiding things from me, how the hell am I supposed to know what you're up to?"

Dean had been sitting, but now he was up moving back and forth at the bottom of the bed.

"You and Sam were going behind my back to…and then you didn't even come back to Missouri's last night. We had to come looking for you."

Last night? How long had I been in the hospital. How long had I been unconscious?

"You really piss me off, you know that? You didn't come back and what was I supposed to think, huh?"

"Dean, I -"

"No! I think I wanna hear me talking right now. I didn't know if you'd run off or if you were out lying in a ditch somewhere. Then Sam told me where you went and we got there and you were a mess. You weren't…waking up. You wouldn't wake up and, you know, I didn't even know what to tell the doctor when we got here. I am your boyfriend and I couldn't even tell them what was wrong!"

I didn't correct his use of the term boyfriend. He still thought of himself that way and I still thought of him that way.

"They did a bunch of tests. MRI's, CAT scans on your whole body, and I didn't even know if it was okay for them to do that. What happened?" The last thing was said through clenched teeth. "You keep shutting me out and…you used to tell me everything. Start talking."

Well, what did he want me to talk about? What had happened to me or why I was at the college?

"Dean, I don't want to talk about it. I'm handling it."

"Right. Sam and I found you unconscious in a parking lot because you're handling it. You're lying in a hospital bed, because you're handling it." I can't help her if she won't let me in.

There was a knock at the door and Dean looked that way. I followed his gaze. A doctor in a white lab coat was there.

"Miss Daniels? Glad to see you're awake."

"Glad to…be awake."

"Did your boyfriend explain to you what happened? The tests?"

"Mm-hm."

"Well, I have a couple questions for you. The first being: How long have you been getting migraine headaches?"

"I-um…I've been prone to headaches all my life, why?"

"Well, here. Why don't you take a look at this." The doctor handed me a picture of a brain scan. "That is what a normal brain looks like."

The picture showed the scan of a normal active brain. The colors showed up red and maybe yellow - warm colors.

"I don't - I don't understand. What does this have to do with me?"

Dean sat beside me and looked too. "Is this hers?"

"No, but those red spots are hot areas, what you'd expect from a healthy, functioning brain."

The doctor, who I noticed was Dr. Adams - from her nametag - handed me another scan. This one had a bunch of blue and other cool colors on it.

"Then there's this. The cooler colors signify dead areas of the cerebrum. That means there's not enough oxygen getting to those parts of the brain. Now, there's nothing on the scans to signify why you're having these problems, but, if it progresses much further, there can be complications."

"Complications?" Dean asked. "What does that mean?"

I was suddenly glad I wasn't alone because I was hardly paying attention anymore. I didn't want to think about this. I didn't want to hear this. I couldn't hear this.

"Brain damage," Adams said. "It could be a slow progression into a vegetative state."

"Well, what do we do? How can we help her?" Dean asked, all-business like.

"There's medicine to help with the pain, but that's all we can do. If we can't figure out why she's having her problems, there's no way to stop it. And this far in…it's progressed too far to change it. It may not get worse, but it won't get better."

All we can do, I thought. God, I don't wanna die.

After that I just stopped listening. Dean was paying attention; he could explain everything to me later. When the doctor left Dean shook me out of my stupor. His eyes were no longer angry. He'd lost the will to be angry.

"How long have you been going through this and you haven't told me about it?" His voice was gentle now, like he wanted me to know it was okay to tell him these things.

I felt something break inside of me now that the doctor was gone and I grabbed onto him and started crying. Full on I-can't-breathe crying.

"Dean, I'm in trouble."

Uh, ya think? was the response I got from his thoughts.

"How long has this been going on, Aly?"

"More and more recently." I gasped in much needed breath. "But they're not migraines. They're just a side effect of my abilities."

Dean's arms had wrapped around me instinctively when I'd grabbed onto him and now they were tensing.

"You told me you were gonna stop using them so much."

"I did. It's not all of them that's causing it; not all of them hurt. And I can't shut it off."

Dean pushed me away a little to get a good look at me. "What are you talking about? What aren't you telling me?"

I glanced toward the open door and gestured for him to close it. He did.

"Okay," I said, taking a deep breath because I felt like sobbing still. "You already know it takes a lot out of me to get rid of demons and things. It causes what doctors would call 'intense cerebral pain'. Then there's something new, an ability that I tapped into without meaning to and I can't make it stop."

Dean sat beside me again. "Go on."

"I can read your mind without touching you. I can read everyone's mind."

Dean's gaze sharpened. "No way."

"Yes way. Remember who we're talking about here. The other night when I wasn't feeling well you thought I might be pregnant. Which I'm not and it wouldn't be your fault if I was. Takes two to tango, ya know."

Dean seemed to be taking everything in easily, but I knew - well, heard - that he was just pretending.

Thoughts like What do we do? How do we help her? Oh, God, am I hurting her right now?

"You can't do anything. The only way for me to stop this is to learn how to control it. And no, you're not hurting me. The only reason I passed out was because I was in a crowd and everybody's thoughts were hitting me at once. When it's just one or two people it's not that bad." I shrugged. "It doesn't hurt at all, actually."

"Oh, I hate your life," Dean said, raising a hand to pat my hair. "I know you can't help it, but…these abilities that are supposed to be so…good…are killing you."

"I am not gonna die," I said firmly. I grabbed his hand. "I am going to learn to control this and we'll save me just in the nick of time. That's what us hero-types do, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but what then? What about when you get another ability or when one of your other ones grows? What then?" I'm not gonna be here much longer. I can't help her when -

"Don't think that!" I exclaimed. "Please, that's all I've been hearing about the last few days. I can't hear about it anymore."

"That's…I can't control my thoughts. Let's talk about something else then."

"Okay." Most important. "Where's Sam?"

"They wouldn't let anyone else back here. Bobby and Sam and Missouri are in the waiting room. You were at the college for what? What were you doing there?"

"Sam didn't tell you?"

"Obviously not. You two have been secretive since we got to Missouri's. What's up?"

"I went to talk to that professor guy. I had that stone with me. Did you see it?"

"It's in your jeans pocket. What does that have to do with anything?"

"It has nothing to do with what's going on with me, I promise." He had to know that the stone wasn't causing this, it wasn't anything to do with him. My problem was my problem. "But there's a ritual to…try and save you."

That's when Dean just shut down. Therein laid why I hadn't told him to begin with. He wouldn't even listen now if I tried to explain, I was sure.

"We didn't…do anything, I swear. We just looked. But we can't. Someone else would have to take your place, and -"

"You and Sam went behind me back to -"

"Well, what else was I supposed to do?" I almost shouted. My heart monitor went haywire. "I have tried to march in the support-Dean parade, but I hate just sitting back and watching you die!" I clenched my jaw and forced myself to breathe evenly. I waited until my heartbeat was back to normal before continuing. "The way you're feeling right now about me, the desperation to fix things, to make it right again? I feel that everyday, every time I see you." I sighed, knowing I was getting ready to hit him below the belt. "If you had a way that could maybe fix what's wrong with me, wouldn't you try?"

Dean didn't say anything for a second, but then…"That's not the same thing."

"No, it never is when it comes to protecting you," I said. Well, seethed. He was making me angry, so I did what I was good at: I avoided the subject. "Look, I just wanna get out of here, okay? They're not gonna find a physical reason for the dead areas in my brain. There's no reason for me stay."

Dean sighed like he wanted argue about it, but instead he just shrugged, defeated. "Fine. Let me go talk to the doctor. See what she wants to do."

"She can't keep me here against my will. I'll get her to get me a prescription for the pain and then we can leave."

Before Dean left the room he turned back to me and said, "I just wish you had told me, that's all."

Then he walked out; he left me knowing how much I'd hurt him with those nine simple words. The truth was I hadn't known my abilities were affecting me so badly. I knew that when I overexerted myself it hurt, but I hadn't known it was causing this much damage. Now I had a dilemma. The new mind-reading thing…well, I couldn't control that. But the other ones that I now could control - mostly - could hurt me too. Dean was going to tell me not to use them anymore and it made sense.

I wouldn't use them unless there was no other option, but I wouldn't just sit back and watch the people I loved get hurt or worse just because it could cause me another headache. I was aware it was a lot more complicated and dangerous than that, but I needed to keep things simple for now.

Okay, so...I know this is a little on the short side, but...it's just introducing the idea of Aly really being in trouble because of these abilities of hers. If this was any other show I probably wouldn't have gone there, but in Supernatural there's always a trade-off. You can't have something good without something bad to even it out.

Anyway...this is an actual condition. I don't know if I explained it all that well, but I'll go more into it later. Yeah, but anyway...headaches can actually cause dead areas in your brain if they're bad enough, they can cause lesions or holes which, as the doctor said, means that there's not enough oxygen getting to that part of the brain and therefore that part dies. Or the cells die and brain cells can't regenerate so once they're gone that's it, you can't reverse it. Unless the doctors have come up with some new thing since I learned that in school. LOL

Enjoy.