"You know, I'd forgotten how many more payphones there were ten years ago." I told Jamie, leaning against the call box.

"You're stalling."

I fidgeted with the paper in-between my fingers. "What am I supposed to say? "Hey, remember me? The crazy lady at the hotel the other day. You know, the one who lost their baby. Mind if me and my friend shack up with you for awhile until we get jobs to travel back to our own time?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, whatever." She shrugged, "We can't use money to get back to our time."

I sighed. Eyes focused on the number in my hands, I took a deep breath. "Yolo." I said.

"Which is just another way of saying, "Let's do crazy shit."" Jamie scoffed.

I shook my head, more out of embarrassment and trepidation at the phone call than her comment.

Three rings. And then a, "Hello?"

I almost dropped the paper. I had been expecting her to pick up, but her voice still made me jump. "Uh, hi. Is this..." I squinted at the name, "...Jessica? Jessica Moore?"

Her voice was bubbly and bright. "Sure is. Who's this?"

I glanced at Jamie. "This..." I took another deep breath, shaking my free hand in an attempt to get rid of my nerves. "This is Tessa. I'm the girl from yesterday. At the motel?"

She gasped in recognition. "Oh. Oh my god! Did you find your baby? Is everything okay?"

I groaned a little under my breath. "Uhhh... Not... Not really. See, the day before yesterday, we weren't even in California. We don't know anybody here and..." I groaned louder this time. "Ugh, I know this is horrible, but we don't know anyone, and we don't have any money to leave town or stay in another motel. We were just... Well, we were kind of wondering if we could stay with you for a couple days, or maybe rent a room, just until we can pay you and get back on our feet."

"Umm..." I heard her shuffling the phone around. "Well... My boyfriend is out of town for a couple days, I guess you guys could stay for the weekend. I don't know about after then though."

I stood there in frozen shock, eyes wide and eyebrows narrowed in a completely freaked out and unbelieving expression.

"Hello?"

I blinked twice. "Uh. I. Well. Wow. Wow, that's... That's amazing. Do you have directions to get to your house, or an address maybe?"

Jamie took my words to her as instructions and took a pen from her purse. I took it and wrote down Jessica's address on the small piece of paper her phone number was already on.

After I hung up, me and Jamie promptly went back to our room to pack.

"I can't believe she is actually going to let us stay at her house. I mean, we met her yesterday. Isn't that weird? Just a little?"

Jamie slipped on her black jeans with chains criss-crossed around the back. "Not really, considering the situation. She seems really nice."

I made a face that told her I saw her point. "Well, yeah... But what if we were freaks or something?"

She shrugged. "Then I guess she'd have freaks living in her house for the weekend."

I pulled on my pink tie-dye slitted skirt and a regular pink tank top, pulling on my rainbow beenie. A plus about being in this new twisted reality was that California was much warmer than Colorado.

I picked up my purse and frowned. I looked inside of it, then set my purse down and looked inside of my overnight bag.

"Uhh...Jamie?" I asked.

She had her suitcase handle pulled up and ready to pull behind her. "Hmm?"

"I can't find my keys."

She paused, staring at me with curious eyes before my words dawned on her. "Frickety frack."

I raised an eyebrow and slung my purse and overnight bag on my shoulder, following her out the door.

"Was your car here this morning? I don't remember." She said.

I stared at the empty space my Buick should have been. "You're kidding me."

"I guess we're walking."

I sighed deeply.

We had to ask for directions from several people, but eventually were headed in the right direction.

I felt better this morning than I had yesterday. The whole thing felt surreal, like a dream. Perhaps I was going through shock. But somehow, knowing William wasn't taken from me but rather not yet given to me made me feel a kind of comfort that wasn't there before.

We came to stop in front of a pink-tinted building in the kind of neighborhood that didn't look like it sported necessarily bad people, but not the kind of people I expected to be living in Stanford. Not that I had ever been to Stanford, California, but from what I heard about Stanford's school, I guess I pictured everyone to be rich snobs.

I knocked on the front door. A woman with long blond hair opened the door, wearing a Smurfs shirt with a cut down the middle and pink shorts that showed off her long toned legs. She made an L with her hand and pointed at me with it. "You must be Tessa."

I nodded, trying not to stare at the mole right in the middle of her forehead, now that I was calm enough to notice it.

She waved us over. "Come on in."'

We did.

The condo was complete with a small entrance room with a closet which was attached to a fair sized living room, a tiny kitchen, one bedroom, and a bathroom. She invited us to sit down in the sitting area, which was a used loveseat and two chairs surrounding a small coffee table.

"So... Tell me about yourselves." She said, glancing between the two of us. She looked at me, "I'm so sorry about your son, by the way. Have you found out any information yet?"

I looked down at my hands, fiddling with the strap of my purse. "No." I said quietly. "Just... That he's gone. And probably not coming back for a long time."

She nodded sadly, eyebrows creased in empathy for me. "I'm so sorry." She said again, softly.

I took a deep breath and shook my head as if that would get rid of the horror I felt creeping up into my throat again. "So I'm Tessa," I said, gesturing to myself. "Like you already know..."

Jamie waved a hand. "I'm Jamie. Her best friend, sidekick, secret lover, whatever."

Jessica's eyebrows raised as she looked between the two of us. "Oh. So you guys are...?"

It took a second for me to realize what she was asking. "Huh? Oh! No, she's just joking. I mean, we did date once, but-" Jamie gave me a severe look that told me to shut up, lest I lose my arms and legs to her laser vision. I laughed nervously. "But that's long over." I saw Jamie's face change from warning to an emotion I wondered might be wistfulness. "I got married, got pregnant, and then my husband left. Not such an original story, but it was still a hard one. At the time, anyway."

Jessica's eyebrows raised again. "Oh, wow! I'm so sorry!"

I wondered if she was going to keep saying that. "Ah, don't worry about it. He was a dick anyway. I'm really glad he's gone."

Her expression changed from forming pity to acceptance of the doucheyness of a man she'd never met.

"So... What about you? You said you had a boyfriend. How long have you guys been together?" I changed the subject.

She smiled. "Oh, about a year and a half now. He's really great. Smart, too. He got a 174 on his Lsat's."

I raised my eyebrows and nodded approvingly. Like I actually knew what an Lsat was.

"What's his name?" Jamie asked.

"Sam." She said, smiling proudly.

I pointed at her with an astonished expression. "Wow, no kidding. That's so weird. You know, I actually saw a show where..." I stopped, looking at her face and taking in her whole visage completely for the first time. My eyebrows creased.

"Did she look a little familiar to you?" I heard Jamie say in my mind's memory.

My mouth fell open a little, wonderment taking over my thoughts.

I looked over at Jamie. She stared back at me with a pensive look on her face.

Jessica was looking back and forth between us. "Uhh..." She smiled, a bit of a breathy laugh coming out. "Am I missing something? You guys look like you're having some kind of silent conversation."

I stared back at Jessica, taking her all in. "Oh... No... It's just... We were probably just..."

"Where did you say your boyfriend went off to for the weekend?" Jamie interrupted. Not like my speech was going anywhere fast.

Jessica turned back to Jamie. "Some family problems, I guess. His brother came in in the middle of the night last night and stole him off. I guess their dad went out hunting and hasn't come back in awhile, so they got worried."

Me and Jamie looked at each other again.

I asked the question with my eyes. Is this possible?

Jamie stared back with the answer. Is any of this possible?

She looked up at both of us as if she were missing some punchline to a joke. "So... Lemonade?"

/ / / / / /

Later, after we had talked some more, me and Jamie were getting our things situated and getting the living room ready for that night, grateful that the loveseat had a pull-out bed. After the bed was ready and our bags were situated, we closed the door to the bathroom and spoke in hushed voices.

"We have to talk about it." I breathed.

"What is there to talk about?" She answered back, just as softly. "This entire thing is nonsense."

I frowned. "You weren't so against all this when it was just time travel. Now it's nonsense? Now that one of our favorite T.V. show's is actually coming to life?"

"We don't know that. Not really. It could be some giant coincidence."

I scoffed. "Oh. Yeah. Right. You heard her. Sam Winchester. Winchester. How common is that name? And it's 2005. 2005! What other explanation is there?"

She shook her head, staring off into the bottom corner of the small mirror above the sink. She looked like she was sorting through everything. Finally, she said, "You're right. I don't know how any of this is happening, but it's all happening."

I nodded. It was final. I took a breath and fully accepted what was happening, even if my mind couldn't even begin to wrap around it. "Then you know what the first thing we have to do is." I told her.

She looked up at me, confused. "Find our families? If they even exist here?"

I stared at her as if it were obvious. "No. We have to save Jessica."

She looked at me like I was stupid. Or crazy. Or both. "What? You can't be serious."

I returned her look of stupid and crazy. I couldn't believe what I had just heard. "What are you saying? Of course I'm serious! Do you know how much pain and conflict could be avoided for the boys if Jessica only survived?"

She shook her head. "That's the whole point. Neither of the boys could have grown to be who they are if Jessica hadn't died." She raised her shoulders. "I'm not saying I want some innocent girl to die, but... Maybe it's for the better."

I looked at her incredulously. "You're joking, right? What if the whole show Supernatural was real, and that's why we're here? To save lives? To save people Sam and Dean couldn't?"

She sighed. "I don't think that's what's going on, Tessa."

I threw my hands up in the air. "Well, why not?"

We heard shuffling outside, probably from Sam and Jessica's bedroom.

I lowered my voice again. "Why not? There are countless people we could save if we just put the knowledge we have to good use."

Jamie shook her head. "If we really are here, then it's probably because of some game someone's playing. And as far as we know, only Angels have the kind of power to open the door to our world."

"Archangels, you mean." I corrected. Suddenly a thought struck me and I looked at Jamie sadly. "Look... I know you don't believe in God. But maybe now is a good time to start. I mean, we already know Chuck exists. Maybe God is the one to do all this."

She raised her eyebrows as if she thought that were a stupid idea, then stopped. "Well..." She seemed conflicted. "I don't know, Tessa. I think we should wait until tomorrow, sleep on all this. It's been a long, stressful day, and it's barely even begun. We'll figure out what we're doing tomorrow."

I reluctantly agreed.

"...So, call soon, okay? I love you."

Jessica was sitting in the small dining room when I came out of the bathroom. Thankfully, she didn't question why we had gone in together. I sent a silent thank you to whoever created the cliche that all girls go to the bathroom together.

Jamie came out of the bathroom shortly after. "I'm going to go out for a little while. I'll be back." She said, heading towards the door.

I spun to watch her leave. "Where are you going?" I asked.

"Job hunting." She replied. "I want to get applications in as soon as possible. Who knows how long we'll be here, with the police investigation going on."

Jessica nodded, eyes bright. "I know the supermarket down the road is hiring. You could check there first." A thought occurred to her and she crinkled her brows. "Do you have a ride?"

Jamie shook her head, looking tired with her response. "No. Whoever took our debit cards and our phones also took Tessa's car."

Jessica's eyebrow moved to form a concerned arch. "I could take you if you want. I usually walk everywhere, but I do have a car to take if you would prefer that."

Jamie waved the offer off. "No, it's okay. I can walk."

"Really, it's no trouble." Jessica said.

Jamie again declined. "No, it's okay. You're a college student, you probably could use that gas money for something more important. I need my exercise, anyway."

Jessica eventually conceded to Jamie's will to leave on foot, and after grabbing what she needed, Jamie was off.

I sat down next to Jessica at the small round table. "So... How did you and Sam meet?" I asked.

I already knew the answer. It was the person - or rather, meatsuit - that ended up killing Jessica, but I couldn't remember the man's name. I could see the black-eyed figure in my mind's vision, but I couldn't remember his name.

"We actually met by one of Sam's friend's, he was in the same class as him." She told me.

I nodded. "Really?"

She nodded, as well. "Yeah. His name is Brady."

Brady. So that's the demon I'll be trying to protect her from. I thought. My mind started reeling in all the ways you could protect yourself from a demon. There was of course the possession tattoo that the boys (and myself, on my 18th birthday - but with wings protruding underneath the initial sun-flared pentagram) had, but I wasn't protecting her from possession, I was protecting her from death.

The second way I thought of was a demon trap, but there was no way I remembered how to draw it. But with that, a thought struck me.

I stood up and left Jessica in the kitchen, hustling over to my overnight bag. I ran down the list of buttons I had on the strap, from Batman to Disney movies, until finally I came across exactly what I needed.

A button of the devil's trap.

"Oh, thank you, Hot Topic," I murmured, kissing the button.

"Is everything okay?" I heard Jessica call from the kitchen.

I let go of the strap and silently sent a thank-you to God, too. "Yes. I think it will be."

She was giving me a questioning glance as I walked back into the kitchen.

"Is there a library nearby?" I asked.

She gave me a puzzled look, but answered, "Yes. Do you want me to drive you there?"

I smiled. "That would be amazing."

/ / / / /

After Jessica dropped me off at the library, I quickly got to work using one of their computers to search everything I thought would be useful.

Being that saving Jessica was on my mind in the forefront, I searched how to make holy water first. It didn't give me much in the way of useful information, but I did learn a thing or two about Catholic tradition concerning bringing a pure baby into the world.

Next I searched Eric Kripke, Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins. I got some search results for Eric Kripke, but only for the stories he had created that didn't involve anything Supernatural. The actors didn't even exist, and the name Misha Collins had brought up a female porn star.

Searching real life people brought me to a chilling realization.

With trepidation making my hands a bit shaky, I searched the names of my family. My search yielded no useful results, so I tried the old game usernames of my ex step father. At this year, he should still have been married to my mother. I found a couple of websites with the related game tag, but even though it was indeed the same man my mother had been married to for 11 years, there was no information on the pages related to my mother.

I abandoned the search for my parents and instead looked up all recorded births in the city my younger sister was born in. She should have been about one year old at this time. I found a list of births in her hospital, but no babies came up with the name Marietta Rose.

I leaned back in my chair and ran my hands through my hair, scraping the top of my scalp.

What if I had never been born in this reality?

What about my grandmother? My mother? My sister?

My cat?

I felt a deeper depression than before beginning to weigh on me. Everything I had come to love in my existence was gone, save for Jamie.

Jamie.

I took a shaky breath into my lungs, my whole chest screaming and tearing itself apart at the effort not to completely melt into a hysterical mess.

If I had to lose everything I cared about, I was glad I could keep at least one person from my old life. Although, if I had to be truly honest, I would have taken my baby over my best friend in a second.

I started searching the names of bands, historical figures, actors, and movies that I remembered from my world. From what I could tell, everything was the same, save for the year differences.

What a trip.

Robin Williams, Whitney Houston, and Michael Jackson were all still alive. Taylor Swift hadn't produced a plethora of annoying popular songs on the radio yet. People were still trending the showcased belly button, tops that came up to the bust, and homosexuality was just beginning to peek its head out of the corner. Facebook was just a baby and Twitter hadn't even been invented yet, much less Tumblr.

I sat back in my chair again, completely blown away at the huge differences ten years made.

I checked the time. Jessica had said she would be back to pick me up in an hour and a half. That was only four minutes from now. I logged out of the computer and stood up, gathering my purse and getting ready to leave.

I felt like a big baby, being picked up and dropped off like an elementary student instead of a full grown woman. But my car was gone, and hell if I knew how to make it back to Jessica's house.

As soon as I stepped outside, I saw her car pulling up to the curb. I opened the door and got in, buckling my seat belt and setting my purse by my feet.

"I need to run some errands at the bank. Do you want to stay here until I'm done, or do you want to go back to the house?" She asked politely.

Visions of Brady murdering her in the bank ran through my head, but I quickly shoved them aside. He wasn't going to kill her at the bank. And this might be my only chance to have the house alone enough to set up devils traps.

"Could I go back to your house?" I asked a little shyly. "I feel like..." It didn't take much to open a small leak in the huge flowing Nile that was my aching pain. My voice began to tremble. "I feel like I need to lay down for awhile."

Her brow creased in concern. "Of course."

The drive back was quiet.

That is, until "You and Me" by Lifehouse came on the radio.

I stared at the radio in shock. "Wow! I haven't heard this song in forever!" I exclaimed.

Jessica gave me a strange look. "Really? It's on the radio all the time. It only came out a few months ago."

I looked at her blankly for a few seconds before I remembered exactly where I was. Or rather, when I was. "Oh, yeah. You're right."

As soon as she dropped me off, I went straight back to my button with the Devil's Trap on it. I removed it from my bag strap and got my pink pen out of my purse. I had been thinking all day and even thinking in my dreams about where I would draw the trap.

I always brought nail polish with me, so if the house had a carpet, I could try and draw it underneath with nail polish. But the only carpet in the house was sitting in front of the shower, and I doubted Brady would be going in there.

I glanced at my purse, where I knew the nail polish was.

Then again, it never hurt to be safe.

I grabbed the nail polish from my purse and headed to the bathroom. As carefully as I could, I drew the devil's trap in the best precision I could manage with the polish brush. I thought it looked good enough to hold a demon hostage, so I put the carpet back and headed to the front door.

The pink pen I had was light enough not to be visible unless you were looking, but, testing it on the threshold of the front door, I found that it made clear semi-permanent marks on the ground. I drew a small devil's trap on the threshold, then moved to every visible window and drew another small devil's trap on the bottom of the locks. By the last window, I thought I might have the devil's trap fairly memorized. Probably not enough to do it perfect on my own without the button, but enough to make a close replica. Not that a replica would do much good if it had mistakes.

Right as I put my pen back into my purse and sat down on the bed, Jamie walked in through the front door.

"Any luck on your job hunting?" I asked.

She shrugged and sighed tiredly, sitting down. "I wouldn't know. I didn't actually go searching for jobs."

I turned to look at her. "What? Then what were you doing all this time?" I asked.

She flopped down the rest of her body and let out a deep breath. "I was trying to find any information on our families." She looked at me, "And I was checking airfare prices and bus tickets."

I frowned. "You're dead set on getting back to Oregon."

She sat back up, her right hand supporting her frame. "Of course I am. Aren't you worried about your family?"

Her words forced tears I had been trying to fight into my eyes. "Of course I am. I'm terrified, Jamie."

She closed her mouth and didn't say anything else. But I continued, "My son has completely vanished off the face of this planet, and I can't find any information about Marietta. For all I know she was never born - and neither was I. Only God knows - or maybe it's Chuck, now - where the rest of my family is. Mama," The name I used for my grandmother who raised me until I was four, "might be dead, if she's even existential."

A thought occurred to me - the happiest that had come me to since this whole thing began. "If Mama is alive, though, maybe Papa is still alive, too." Papa, my grandfather, had died close to two years ago. He was the only father figure I had had that was actually a dad to me.

Jamie looked like she had stopped listening and was trailing off into her own thoughts, like she so often did when I was talking to her. "Do you think we might not have even ever existed here?"

I took a deep breath, trying to steady my rapidly spiraling mental health levels. "I don't know."

I frowned all of a sudden. "I went to the library today, but I totally didn't think about searching for myself. I searched for family members and actors and movies and stuff-"

"Movies?" She asked.

I shrugged. "Well, yeah. I wanted to see if thing's were the same here as in our realm."

She hummed her response.

I thought about telling her what else I did while she was gone - the devil's traps, the research on holy water. I decided against it, but did ask her opinion on something I had wondered about. "Do you think writing a devil's trap on the floor will actually trap a demon?

She looked at me as if she were exasperated. "Where did you write it?"

I looked at her as if what she had just said literally smacked me. "Why do you automatically assume I drew it somewhere?"

She frowned at me and looked around, no doubt trying to figure out where I could have put the thing. She looked back to me and frowned in what looked like a bit of sadness. A kind of pity, maybe. "I know you're just trying to do what you think is best. But I don't think we should try to change anything here."

I pretended like I didn't hear her comment. "But theoretically it should work, right?" I asked again.

She heaved a huge and loud overdramatic sigh. "Yes, Tessa, if it's drawn right, it should work."

I nodded approvingly.

While we waited for Jessica to come back, Jamie took out a sketchpad and began drawing, while I took out a notebook from my overnight bag and began to brainstorm ideas on how to make holy water. I suddenly was grateful for my paranoid packing skills and my indecisiveness when it came to what to wear. I had overpacked, not sure what I would want to wear once we left the airport, so instead of having two outfits, I had about three and a half.

I jotted down different churches I had seen on the way back from the library and put a note next to them that said, "Ask about holy water."

I thought about what would happen if we did catch Brady. If we drew another devil's trap above him, we could send him back to hell, granted that Jamie could read the exorcism chant off my back the right way. Along with the anti-possession tattoo with wings attached, the chant for exorcism was printed above it in old script.

I didn't think Jessica would appreciate having nail polish on her ceiling, so I went with drawing it on a piece of blank paper, as, like Jamie, I had also brought my drawing pad.

I didn't know if it could work, but I figured just taping it over his head wouldn't hurt to try.

I leaned a little to the side and pointed to my lower back. "Can you read that?" I asked.

She frowned at me. "I can't speak Latin."

I scowled. "You could at least try."

She rolled her eyes and went back to drawing.

I left early to go check out the churches I had seen, and maybe look for more. Granted, there were only three churches I could make my way back to, and every single one of them thought I was crazy, or at least touched in the head. I was given more than one pamphlet for their church therapy sessions.

I hoped I would be able to find my way back to Jessica's.

I didn't want to chance another way home, but as I was leaving the last church, I realized I couldn't tell which way I had come from. I went left, deciding that way looked the most familiar.

It wasn't.

I walked around aimlessly for who knows how long. I asked several people for directions, thankful I had brought the piece of paper with Jessica's address, but I kept getting lost over and over again.

It was beginning to get dark. Just as I was about to give up asking people and maybe take a bus, I came up to a giant building that looked like it was built years ago, by hands that knew the craft of building better than anyone in our day and age. I looked at the bulletin board that was lit up outside. Stanford Memorial Church.

I walked inside immediately, drawn to it's beauty and grandeur.

The first thing I noticed were the whispers. Inside the building, there were about three or four people whispering. Their voices were low and harmonious, like a kind of music rather than speech. I couldn't make out any of what they said, even trying to listen harder. I didn't see anyone in the church except someone kneeling at the altar in the very front, but the place was huge, and I was sure whispers echoed.

"Excuse me," I said softly. My voice carried down the hallways and through the crevices in the building, with a kind of echo that made the words sound warbled to someone who wasn't used to the sound.

The man kneeling looked up from his prayer and turned to me. I could tell he was the preacher of the establishment. Then again, this was a Catholic church, so maybe they didn't call him a preacher. What were they called, then? The pope?

"Yes, child." The man answered, raising an arm in a welcoming gesture.

I stepped closer. "Uhh... I was wondering... If you could tell me how to get to this address." I handed him the slip of paper once I got to him (it was a long way down the aisle).

He looked at it and handed it back to me, nodding contemplatively, "Yes, one of our volunteers lives near there. Jessica, I believe."

I looked at him strangely. "Jessica? Jessica Moore?" I asked.

He looked in thought. "Yes... Yes, I believe so. Our secretary is still here. I could ask if she could give you a ride home."

I probably should have been afraid of strangers. But I trusted people from the church, and maybe I shouldn't have, but I told him yes.

I sat and waited for twenty minutes while she finished up whatever secretarial duties she still had to do, then we went out to her car, which was parked out front. As soon as I stepped over the threshold of the doors to the church, the whispers stopped. No fading out, no walking away, they just stopped. I thought it was strange, but I continued to the woman's car. She took me back to Jessica's house with no problems.

When I walked into Jessica's condo, it was dark out and probably near bed time. The smell of take-out chinese food wafted immediately into my senses.

I looked over to the kitchen. Low and behold, there were Jamie and Jessica, eating take out.

Jessica smiled as I walked through the door. "We got food. Come eat."

I did.

There wasn't much in the way of dinner conversation, and afterwards we sat and talked for awhile. It wasn't long before we were getting ready for bed.

Like usual, Jamie finished brushing her teeth before me. After I was done, I used the restroom, and then blew my nose. For some reason, brushing my teeth made my nose a bit runny. (I'm sure, just the details you were wondering about.)

But as I was throwing my makeshift toiler-paper tissue away, I noticed the small bathroom window was open.

And the devil's mark I had put on it was gone.