Millstone (SPN, XO, UC, Mature) COMPLETE

[vaifeal]

A/N: I manipulated the time line a bit, Future Max is in Middle of Senior which is the 2000-2001 school year. I’m use to writing original short stories, forgive me for any mistakes. AU after 'The End of the World' and then it kind of takes a life of its own and somehow ended up a crossover with Supernatural. First chapter is more melodramatic than the rest. Original Characters are in and out if they get too Mary Sue, I dunno, slap me upside the head or something.

Uncle - Ex husband of mothers sister (aunt in Florida)

Millstone song by Brand New

Disclaimer: Don’t own it, just appreciate it

Rating: Mature

Summary: Change is a choice, destiny is a myth, life is hard, and there are somethings you just can’t make untrue no matter how much you wish you could. Liz is starting to figure that out.


The tapping of my pen is getting on the nerves of my neighbor, I can tell what with the glaring and all. Not that I care all that much, the mean old bird can bite it right now for all I care. If she keeps to her side of the armrest then we should be fine. If not then watch out old biddy, Elizabeth Parker is not one to mess with when she’s emotional. Not that I’m emotional or anything, emotion is something that happens to people who care and I don’t care.

Not anymore.

Not now.

I sound like a bitch… good. Sweet, collected, well-mannered Liz is gone. Dead. Buried. No piece of her left behind for salvation. I am not going to let anyone make me be that Liz again. That Liz lets people hurt her. That Liz was a masochist who put all her happiness on one person and then watched them walk out of her life. Granted, she might have given him an almighty shove, but the ‘great love’ of your life doesn’t just walk away.

It’s my fault... partially my fault. I can’t take it all on me. But I pushed him to leave, and I pushed him into the arms of the alien ice bitch herself. I just… this isn’t… Alex is dead, oh god Alex is dead, I‘ll never see my best friend again, never joke around, never listen to him talk, or play his guitar, or… and they’re together… Max and Tess. Tess and Max. They’re together…

Probably right now. Tess with my boyfriend, in my hometown, with my friends. Living my life with my Max.

Sweet Liz is dead. She can’t be allowed to live.

I swat my hair away from my eyes and stare out the plane window. It’s so dark out there, so very dark, like me. I have to be dark. I am the dark. Like the night. Fuck the night. Too many things can haunt you in the night. People leave you at night. Disappear into the shadows. He disappeared. He walked away; I still can’t believe he just walked away. He was suppose to walk away but he barely fought.

So much for soul mates.

I know where I’m physically going but I’ve never felt so lost. A cousin in New York, a clean slate if I can only remove myself from my past. If only…

Maria didn’t understand why I had to leave, why staying in Roswell would have eventually killed me or everyone else. I don’t know if I would have been able to stay away from him, even if he didn’t believe me about Alex, even if our friendship was at an end, even if me being cast aside was the price to pay for a future. How can anyone survive without a part of themselves? Especially when that part is so close. So close. We were so close.

I can still feel him, in my very bones. I can sense him, reaching out, trying to find me. Why is he trying to find me? Tess is his life now, he has to move on, he has to stop, I can’t stay away if he keeps looking.

The plane lands in Kennedy airport, my cousin is waiting for me a winter jacket in her hand, her old one she says. Lena Ryan, We’ve never been close, only exchanging an email every couple of months but she told me I was welcome if I wanted to come. I don’t even know if my… ex-uncle knows I’m coming but from our phone conversation I don’t think she cares if her father knew or not.

She’s got a couple of inches on me but other than that we’re not much different. Her hairs lighter, her eyes grayer, her skin paler. Actually, we don’t really look like each other at all.

Her eyes hold questions but her mouth remains shut. I guess she can sense that I don’t want to talk.

“We’ll get something to eat then head home ok?” she says as we make our way through the crowds, my bags bouncing off of people. I nod, I don’t know if I can open my mouth with out sobbing or getting sick. Each is equally attractive at the moment. What the hell am I doing? “We’ve got school tomorrow, everything for you is set, just have to pick up your schedule.”

I nod and she stares at me for a minute. She was concerned, worried that I was messing up my life. Giving up a suburban high school for an inner city one. Giving up friends and a future at Harvard, for newness and a state university.

“That’s fine,” my voice is barely above a whisper. We eat in the food court and she jokes around, telling stories, trying her best to keep the mood light until conversation is no longer required to avoid awkward silence. When we get on the subway she puts on her head phones and leaves me to stare out the window. Into the dark. The cold dark. My hands are cold. My whole being is cold and I don’t think it’s from the freezing weather outside. My mind won’t stop remembering.

“I'm...I'm ok up here...if you want to get some sleep.”

“I haven't slept since I saw you with Kyle. Liz, I know you, and I don't believe that you would do that to me. It doesn't make sense. Tell me what happened.”

*****

“What do you mean you’re leaving?” Maria’s voice is sharp.

“I just can’t stay here anymore,” My voice is weak, begging for her to understand. “Just don’t tell anyone where I’m going.”

“You mean don’t tell Max. What the hells going on Liz? I know you this isn’t you.”

When we got back to her apartment, Lena showed me my room and apologized. It had been her brothers before he moved in with their mom and still held ‘his stench’, stale chips with a sweet undercurrent of body odor. My ex-uncle opens the window a crack and says goodnight. Lena goes off to watch television, handing me the phone.

I call my parents and tell them I arrived ok, that I’m fine, really I am. Nothings wrong. I feel better already. I can’t wait to start class tomorrow. All lies, nothing more than they’ve gotten from me the last year and a half. I hang up promising to call them after class tomorrow.

I call Maria. Telling her about my cousin. That I can see the beach out of my window. I don’t tell her that its cold tranquility is what I’m hoping to achieve at some point. Then after listening to her gossip, we say goodnight. I try to sleep, but I toss and turn all night so that when my cousin wakes me up at six o’clock telling me we have to get the bus in a half hour, I look like the dead.

I get dressed and settle down on the couch, watching the clock. My cousin is attempting to make breakfast for me, ignoring that she still has her pajamas on and only fifteen minutes till we have to leave. She sees me staring at her as she puts a plate of slightly burnt, slightly gooey eggs in front of me.

“Just so you know, you’re on your own for breakfast from now on,” She sits down and slips a ratty pair of Chuck Taylor’s on.

“Aren’t you going to get dressed?”

“I put on a bra,” She pulls on a sweatshirt and hands me the phone. “Call him.”

“Who?”

“Max,” surprise flashes across my face. “Don’t look so shocked, these walls aren’t exactly thick. We leave in ten, its up to you.”

“It’s three in the morning there,” she smirks and shrugs.

“So?” Lena disappears into her room, I vaguely hear a crash and a string of curses.

I sat at the table for a minute holding the phone before my shaky fingers start to dial. I’ve lost my mind. I’m insane. It rings. I almost hang up. Max’s tired voice comes across the line.

“Hello?” I don’t say anything. What am I suppose to say? Why am I doing this? Something like a sob finds it way out of my throat and by the creaking of the bed I know I have his attention. “Liz? Where are you? What’s wrong? What happened?” My voice won’t work. “Why’d you leave? Just tell me where you are, I’ll be right there Liz, please.”

I want to tell him everything, let him come get me so we can work it all out, and that scares me.

“I love you Liz. Please come home.”

I hang up the phone.

We get on the green line bus, I use the metro card from yesterday, Lena tells me I can get a student one today. The bus is crowded, the school is crowded, my mind is crowded. I go through the day on autopilot, smiling at Lena’s friends as they joke, taking notes slightly surprised at the competitive nature of the classrooms, trying to adjust.

After class Lena and her friends take me to the movies for a matinée, we talk the whole bus ride there. Debate about politics, college, and have one particularly heated discussion on whether the school administration should change our mascot to the Midwood Pidgins since there are pidgins not hornets living in the auditorium (Lena was for it whole heartedly after all pidgins carry more diseases and would be more intimidating to the other schools, her best friend Ani however made a quite persuasive case that we should just ban together and burn down the school, pidgins and all).

They try and make me feel welcome, any other time they would have. A part of me realizes that I could get use to this. That I can get lost in my cousins’ life, pretend this is where I want to be.

I can do this.

My name is Eli Parker and this is my life now.

[vaifeal]

A/N: I have about 20 pages written already so updates will be pretty regular. I'm waiting for the SPN season finale to finish it. Thanks for the reviews :}

Disclaimer: Don’t own it, just appreciate it

Summary: Change is a choice, destiny is a myth, life is hard, and there are somethings you just can’t make untrue no matter how much you wish you could. Liz is starting to figure that out.

I’m on a dark street in the city, shoulders shaking from the cold. Why don’t I have a jacket? Come to it, why don’t I have shoes? There is a group of teenagers across the street. Pierced in too many placed to count and obviously attempting to be some Gothic version of being ‘scene’ (as my cousin calls it) but instead looking more like Medusa on speed.

My feet touch down on cold asphalt, maybe I can borrow a phone or bum a couple of dollars for the subway, you never know odder things have happened, like half human alien kings living in suburban towns. I’m not even in the road before something holds me back. There is a truck coming down the block for early morning deliveries.

One of them is in the street, in front of the truck, a crunch but no squealing tires. The black haired kid is dragged a couple of yards before he is released. The rest of the kids are gone.

My feet carry me to him before my head has a chance to protest. He’s a bloody mess, dying in the middle of an empty street. I kneel next to him and brush the hair out of his face. It’s a variation on Max’s.

“Zan,” I breathe out. Who the fuck is Zan?

His hand grasps my forearm tightly, his eyes locked with mine, pulling me in.

I wake up in my bed, sweaty and cold, a silver hand print glowing in the dark.
******

The auditorium is louder than normal which isn't surprising considering it is the last day of classes meaning that most of the school population is hopped up on sugar (at least I hope it's sugar) and fresh air. I find my way to the familiar crowd of people in front of the stage. Our spot. Lena's already there. Not surprising since she's suppose to be in class.

I find my seat amidst over exaggerated calls of welcome for the long lost daughter. I'm only ten minutes later than usual. I'd find the whole thing annoying if wasn't so damn early. My bacon, egg, and cheese everything bagel is warming my leg through my bag, I really want to eat it but I know as soon as I take it out there will be puppy dog eyes and in David's case drool. If I wasn't so damn hungry I would wait the twenty minutes till class to eat it.

As soon as it emerges from the bag there are hungry smiles and I'm forced to hand over half of it for them to share.

Damn them.

An exhausted Julia plops down in the seat next to me placing her head on my shoulder with her eyes closed. 7:30 is too early in the morning for teenager to be expected to be awake for class. Especially considering that many of us have to give ourselves an hour of travel time just to make it to class on time... which explains why many of us don't.

I swear when I make my schedule for college my earliest class is going to be at noon.

“Hoolia,” Ani says, an obnoxious smirk on her face.

“What did I tell you about calling me that hija?” Julia's head lifts off my shoulder, her face molded in to her best scolding mother impression.

“Did you just call me your daughter?”

“You act like it enough,” after a minute of confusion, Ani settles on answering in Bengali. This somehow morphs into who has the most creative non-English insult. Something I can't really participate in. Taking a high school language class doesn't really make you fluent.

It's one of those things that can make you feel like you're not a part of the group. They all seem to speak another language, or at least know the curse words and they use them frequently. Ani has Bengali. Julia Spanish. Lena Irish with her grandpa. Nick Haitian. Bo Polish. Boi Chinese.

Even David is bilingual in his own special way. I mean he can speak Hebrew, though when he does it comes out an odd mix of Yiddish and Cantonese. I'm not sure how he manages that.

I suppose I'm not alone in being left out when they go off on a tangent like this. Albert can only speak English and the last time Julia tried to teach George some Spanish he sounded like he had swallowed his tongue and Seth well, Seth had been taking French since first grade and still could only manage to say goodbye.

The conversation around me has returned to English, though I'd feel better if it had stayed so I couldn't understand it. I don't really want them to talk about Ms. Fried, whenever they do they have a tendency to disturb.

“I don't care what the woman says her name is not pronounced freed.”

“Do you think she's ever molested a chicken? She seems like she would.”

See, disturbing.

I'm going to miss them. I know we'll stay in touch and Seth is actually coming to Cornell with me but it won't be the same. Just like its not the same with Maria now.

Though I am really excited about starting University. I'm not even going to be a freshman, after a few summer classes I'll have thirty credits, enough to be a sophomore. Awesome.

The bell rings and George pulls me out of my seat draping his arm over my shoulder like he does every morning and we all go to class.

I'm going to miss high school. It wasn't so bad.

Whats so great about being normal?

Nothing... and everything.

******

I’m not who I was. I’ll never be who I was but the thought does not depress me as it once did. Its been well over a year, I am entering my second year at Cornell and I am happy. Something in the days of drama I would’ve never thought possible.

A lot has happened.

Some good.

Some bad.

And I’ve handled it.

I can now say with some pride that I am a strong female. A certifiable bitch as my dear friend Hutch would say. If only Maria could see me now: I’m a real New York City street rat… ok, so maybe I’m only a minor one - Lena says I still have to earn my stripes - but I can navigate the subway and I have picked up a little bit of an accent. Me, Elizabeth Parker, Little Miss Roswell New Mexico talking like a Brooklynite what has the world come to.

I wonder what Ma…

You know never mind. I don’t give a crap what he’d think of the new me. He is gone and no longer in the figurative sense.

Some day that was, let me tell you. It is never a good thing when your long time best friend calls you to tell you that the man… no, boy that you thought was the love of your life has gone and knocked up his mate from another planet. And then, get this to be told that he went and flew away. Got into a crystal and flew away. I’m not shitting you. A crystal.

Ever wonder what’s with aliens and crystals?

Superman, the pod squad…

Ok so I cant think of any others but I’m sure they’re out there, lurking in the corner waiting till your defenses are down then jumping out and saving your life looking all handsome and perfect before turning around and fucking it and you up.

I feel your pain Lois Lane, I feel your pain.

Hell at least her little green man erased her memory. I’d rather not remember being so close to bliss only to have the jack-off go and blow it. Who cares if alien man has to live with the knowledge of what could have been and you don’t. Let the four fingered freak suffer a little bit.

Retribution is a bitch.

This past summer Lena’s paternal grandfather paid for us to spend a month studying in Ireland, he even let us stay with his brothers family. Awesome. Amazing. Didn’t want to come home. I am in love with Galway. Met Hutch there. Hysterical little Bostonian. Any who…

We got drunk one night. Well we got drunk a lot of nights but this one night, pretty early on in the trip, lets just say this little girl didn’t know her limit and learned the painful way that alcohol, among other embarrassing things, makes you talk. Makes it very easy to talk about anything and everything, so naturally once fucked up relationships were brought up as the topic of conversation I had to chime in.

Me with my ex-half alien-boyfriend who became a character in those horrible teen pregnancy movies on Lifetime before blasting off in a crystal spaceship left there for him by his royal mommy.

The bartender told me I should write a book with my crazy imagination before he was cut off and I was promptly told by Creepy Kenny that if I was so sexually frustrated that I had to make up stories he was more than willing to help me in that department (we did make out at a later date - me and Kenny, bad news right there. Can‘t say he's not attractive but he is called creepy for a reason).

Hutch… well Hutch… dear old Sean Hutchinson I’m not sure what he said. That night is kinda blurry. Only thing I’ve really remember clearly about it is the dance floor make out with some Irish guy named Oísin. Who I first thought was named Ocean and then O’Sheen. I didn't remember his name till I got on the plane to return to the states.

I told you I had had a lot to drink.

Lena, found the whole thing extremely amusing and laughed about it up until her and Hutch disappeared together for the rest of the night, only for her to come home the next morning wearing his sweatshirt from the night before over her clothes from the night before. And they say nothing happened.

She thought I made up the whole thing. My drunken imagination at work. That was until she noticed green light flowing up and down my arms while in the airport on the way back. I hate airports I really do.

Ooh, ooh, you know what Ma… the alien kings space ship reminds me of? The crystal in the Dark Crystal, you know that terribly weird Jim Henson movie with the creatures and the puppets. Hhhmmmmm. He flew off in a Jim Henson creation. How funny is that.

Right, back to the green lights. It turned out that he left a little alien in me, and not in the good sense of the innuendo. I light up like a Christmas tree with a short circuit. Yes I do. No idea why besides that they pop up when I’m ‘stressed’, but I know it has to do with the pod squad especially its bobble head leader.

Lena promised to keep it a secret. I trust her: she can hold her drink better than I can. Hell, she’s my cuz, if I can’t trust her who can I? She does however have an issue with my ‘transformation’. Cynicism, she says, does not go well with my complexion. But hey, I’m a New Yorker now its what we do. (I‘d get hit if any number of people knew I wrote that.)

Maria says she’s doing well. She wants to visit, her ambitions of being a famous singer still haven’t faded. Even if she is a part-time business student at Las Crusas, she can still dream of something bigger than Roswell. It’s still hard to believe that Michael stayed behind. Stone-Wall Guerin always desperate to find family stayed on this trusty dusty planet for lil’ ol’ Maria DeLuca. At least that’s the way she tells it.

Why is it always the ones that seem good that disappoint and the ones who look to disappoint that pull through?

[vaifeal]

Disclaimer: Don’t own it, just appreciate it

Summary: Change is a choice, destiny is a myth, life is hard, and there are somethings you just can’t make untrue no matter how much you wish you could. Liz is starting to figure that out.

A/N: I just wanted to tell you that Sam and Dean don't turn up for a while. This is the last part of chapter 1, and while there are some ties to SPN in chapter 2 the actual characters don't pop up till the beginning of chapter 3. I wanted Liz in a particular part of her life when they met. I'll start posting chapter 2 next week after I finish the last of my final papers and before I start taking most of my finals.

Holy flying bat shit, do I feel old. Seriously old. It seems like just yesterday I was getting myself shot and today I officially have a doctorate. I can tell people that I am Dr. Elizabeth Parker.

Granted, I'm not a medical doctor. I'm not even a doctor of anything that has to do with medicine in the faintest degree of the word. But I do have a doctorate, so you must call me doctor. Haha, my evil plans have come to fruition. The world is under my control. Mwahahaha.

I apologize. It has been a very long three years and I have only just finished writing my excruciating long dissertation that is the bane of the existence of all doctoral students. This so soon after my masters thesis.

Two painfully long papers besides the uncountable number of papers during undergrad. All this in six years. And do you know what the only break was? Do you?

Of course you don't because I haven't told you yet. But I will. I am.

My only break was a five month internship with the Metropolitan Museum of Art (during which Maria came to visit, she was not all that impressed with the Met) followed by a three week dig with my favorite Dr. Reber on the West Coast. They were both experiences worth all the effort I put into them, unfortunately they're no Parisian Café.

So here I am. A graduate from three Universities. Cornell. Trinity. Oxford. (Not too shabby if I say so myself.) With about a two month gap before I go on another dig with Dr. Reber and then a three week gap after which I get to go do some field research in Sao Paulo. I'm psyched about it really I am.

It's just...

There is one downside to being done with school a.k.a. the inevitable trip back to Roswell. I'm trying my best to drag this out. Even going so far as to tell my parents that I want to drive from Boston. Despite that I'm 24, they still said no.

Damn them.

Here I am, purposely getting lost in an airport, trying my best to take as much time as possible to get to Roswell. I'd feel really bad about doing this to my parents if I knew they wouldn't use all the time I spend with them as an excuse to discuss my love life. Or lack there of.

So, I got put on a plane. Again. This time going to Roswell instead of away from. This time I'm not ready to start sobbing. This time nothing in my imagination is telling me that I can 'feel' someone looking for me, no desire to even see that person... though to be honest there is only one, slightly sadistic conversation that I want to have with the one who calls himself Maxwell. I imagine it would go something like this:

Hi Max, how are you? Hows the kid? Tess? What are you doing with your life? Me? Well I have my doctorate now. No, not in microbiology. Turns out the mere thought of anything at the cellular level is enough to send me into a homicidal rage. Oh, you want to know why? You Max. Just the thought of anything that has to do with you is enough to make me want to kill. And nothing says Alien Abyss more than cells... in any form.

Ani, my psychoanalytical friend, said that I'm not really all that mad at Max. That I had forgiven him a while ago, as evident by the fact that I could now say his name. She said that I'm really mad at me, at my role in ruining what I had wanted for such a long time.

I told her that it was complete bullshit.

I did what I had to do. It's the past. The only reason that returning to Roswell was a problem was because I didn't want to live in the past. A past which is embodied by Maxwell Evans.

My parents pick me up at the airport and we drive back to town. After the initial small talk the ride was quiet. I told them that it was the time change. After all I was still on British time and that is a pretty big leap from New Mexico. But really for all the changes in my life, every step closer to Roswell I come, the larger my anxiety grew.

The welcome to Roswell sign comes into view. It is the same as when I had left. My heart rejoices with the fact that things have stayed exactly the same. Really, I'm glowing with happiness.

... please tell me you noticed the sarcasm.

********

Six years. It had been six years and five months since Maxwell Evans had seen Elizabeth Parker. He had been back in Roswell for almost two years, and still he had yet to see any part of little Liz Parker.

When he had first gotten back, he had naively hoped that things would be the same as they had been before everything had gotten fucked. Liz would be back working at the Crashdown, Michael and Maria would be arguing every other minute, and Isabelle would be there to help him back on his feet. But nothing was the same.

Michael was the manager of the Crashdown. Isabelle was living in Wilmington, North Carolina with some guy she had married named Jesse Ramirez. Maria was running her moms business. Ms. DeLuca was now Mrs. Valenti. Kyle was a football coach in Arizona. And Liz. His Liz was still missing from the streets of Roswell.

He was fairly sure that she knew he was back in town, sans Tess and baby. Hell, he was sure that she knew the whole sordid tale by now. But still she remained at a distance.

After the initial shock of being back at home, being back on earth Max had been certain that he would see Liz at some point. Sure she was off studying at some prestigious school. Sure she had made a life for herself probably on the other side of the country. Sure she was probably in a long term relationship with some successful biologist. But she still had friends and family in New Mexico.

There were breaks.

Summer holidays.

Homesickness.

But nothing. Not one visit. Not one acknowledgment. Maria surely heard from her but her lips were sealed. Isabelle had come home for a week to catch up. Michael and Maria were always there. Even Kyle had called to say welcome home. But no Liz. And he had to accept that she wasn’t a part of his life anymore.

So he had settled into a routine. Working as a carpenter during the day, taking classes at night. His parents would pay for him to go to school full time but he had already put them through too much. It wasn’t so bad.

It was peaceful.

It was stable.

It was predictable.

Most of the time that is. Most of the time it was exactly what had been missing from his life for years but other times... other times it was boring. Stifling. Begging him to leave. To make a new start away from memories and shadows of old dreams.

So he looked but he didn't ever find what he wanted. Even when he found a place that seemed to be perfect. Crowded in its seclusion and normal to a fault. He didn't ever take it though. Maybe it was hope.

Hope that he could still feel home at home.

That he could still have a home.

A family.

A normal domestic life.

So he waited and saved and desperately grasped at the threads of a life that had dissipated almost seven years ago with a mutual betrayal.

He remembered the old rhyme about wishing on the first star in the night, the second half of which rang in his head continuously.

I wish I may. I wish I might. Have the wish I wish tonight.

Every night, Max held desperately on to the idea that wishes can come true.

[vaifeal]

Disclaimer: Don’t own it, just appreciate it

Summary: Change is a choice, destiny is a myth, life is hard, and there are somethings you just can’t make untrue no matter how much you wish you could. Liz is starting to figure that out.

***

Chapter 2 Section 1

It's amazing how it is possible to hold two very contradictory ideas within your head. Humans who knows what they can do. I know funny, right? Here I am a billboard for human potential and what we can do still baffles me. Like living a dichotomy.

This place. This town. It tears you in two.

A part of me has always held onto Roswell as home. A part of me won't let any other place be called that, even if it is. It's that part of me that missed this place, missed being here, missed everything about it from where I got shot to the cave outside of town where everything started to fall apart. The beginning to the end. That part kept track of flights.

The other part of me, the stronger part, you know the one that got me to leave in the first place. That part which for some reason sounds like Fran from the Nanny, hates it here. Hates it to the point of disgust. My skin crawls when I walk through my dads restaurant and it shouldn't. The Crashdown is my dads pride and joy, what would he say if he knew that his only child wished she had never set eyes on the place? The rest of Roswell doesn't seem to be any better.

Who knew you could be claustrophobic outside?

There are these two voices in my head waring it out, making me feel schizophrenic. The innocent one is saying: stay. The Fran one is screaming: RUN.

It's too loud in my own head to figure out which to do.

So I do both.

My bags are only half unpacked and despite hunger I have not stepped foot downstairs except for the hurried sprint through the back on the way in. No matter how many times I tell myself to breathe it just doesn't work. Illogical panic? Check.

They're all waiting for me. Dammit. I lived here for almost seventeen years. I was only gone for six. I shouldn't feel this awkward. I should slaughter the innocent voice. This really isn't home anymore. Just a collection of well ignored loose ends. I am determined to go downstairs. Even if I beg off soon after citing sleep deprivation or the headache I can feel coming on. But their waiting.

My parents.

Maria.

Michael.

Max, because I know as sure as I am that farming emerged independently in several places across the globe, that he will be there.

He will be downstairs. We all know it. Both voices. Maria. Michael. Especially Michael since he's the one that opened his big mouth in the first place. It's his damn loyalty complex. When I was gone he kept quiet about anything he learned from Maria, which wasn't much, but now I'm back so all deals are off. Maxwell and I have issues and Michael wants those issues resolved.

It seems that Michael's temperament stabilized about the same time he cut his hair.

I never thought I'd see him with short hair. Apparently it makes him look 'professional' and 'serious'. Who'd of thunk it? Michael... serious, it's such an unusual phenomenon. I did see him smile, a genuine light up your face smile. Not a smirk. A smile. The universe is going to implode any day now.

Ok, here we go.

Baby steps, E. Baby steps.

Just go down the stairs.

One step at a time.

Fuck it.

I trample down them like I did when I was a kid. It's oddly freeing. My dad gives me a hug when I see him. Starting excited conversation with one of the customers about his genius daughter. I'm blushing redder than a tomato. Sheesh, things keep going like this my ego is going to be big enough to take me to the place where the green men live. However, the lack of everything in space might be a problem.

I smile politely and make my way over to the people who once upon a time were some of my closest friends. They're sitting in the old booth. I wonder if that's just from habit or if they're is some underlying malicious psychological reason for it. Maria is all smiles and fluttering. Talking a million miles a minute as only she can. Michael is smirking at her in what can be considered an indulgent manner. Every once in a while giving me that quizzical look that he should have a patent on, the one that says 'don't look at me she's your best friend'. My return look attempts to say 'haha, but she might as well be your wife'. Tricky expression that one.

Max, I wish I could say that it's not awkward but he's doing that staring thing again. It's more intense than I remember it being. Has he picked up a new alien power? One that entails getting under human skin like a tick?

This would be so much easier if he wasn't so attractive. He was a good looking teenager. Now, he's a great looking adult. He's got that scruffy look happening too. GAH! The innocent voice is making some not so innocent suggestions. I mean really, what kind of asinine idea has me pulling him into a bathroom and having my evil way with him?

Ok, talk, smile, make nice. Stop imaging what it would be like to have Max run his now calloused hands places that would make my dad go buy a shotgun. This is why you should not meet exes when your horny. Skeletons have a way of seeming transparent.

Ugh.

******

The desert air is cool as it whips around me, caressing my skin. There is nothing around me. Nothing but sand and stars. It's like a scene from a movie. It should be serene but it's not. My skin is crawling, panic setting in. I'm not alone. I know I'm not. Even if rational thought says I am. I have to be. I'm alone but I'm not.

There's a cracking, a grating, a smell in the air. Sulfur. And I suddenly I know without a doubt that there is someone standing behind be. Their eyes burning into my back. Not in the warm intense way that Max and Michael have perfected but in a way that makes you feel like you're insides are boiling. Like they want to peel your skin away layer by layer.

Until you're exposed and bleeding. At their mercy without hope.

I'm shaking. Get it together Liz. It's just a dream. How do I know it's just a dream? It's too real to be a dream. I'm too aware for it to be a dream. Please be a dream. I'm turning and I don't want to be. The panic increases flooding over the walls of self preservation.

The man standing behind me is no one special. Average in appearance. Familiar in his forget-ability. Except for his eyes. The eyes are yellow, a nauseating mustard yellow. Poison yellow. Puss and bile. Evil. Somewhere my mind is screaming for me to run but I can't. He's smirking and stepping forward.

Nicolas. He reminds me of Nicolas. A creature without conscience. Who will do what ever he has to do no matter the cost to anyone else to get what he wants. And he's here with me. With a smile that names me his prey. Please let this be a dream.

He's running his cold fingers down my face, taking a perverse pleasure in the wince I can't hide. It's a gentle caress, an intimate gesture of someone who knows your darkest secrets. It stings. Leaving behind a trail of acid soaked fear. His face comes in close to mine. Teasing. Breath tickling my cheek. His hand is drifting to my throat, lightly tracing patterns, palm pressed to the hollow. A choked scream dies where his hand lays.

“Elizabeth,” his lips move against my ear. Too close. Invasive. I'm trembling uncontrollably. His voice changes, Max's with a harshness that the real one never held. “Do you think of it? The betrayal. My body pressed against hers. In her. With her. You were never good enough. Your body is barely decent. Too needy. All I wanted was a good fuck,” His hand drifted down over my breasts, playing with the top of my pants, “How about it Liz? Think you can measure up to her?”

The shaking is violent now, my hands are curled into fists. His face moves from my ear back to look me in the eye. Yellow eyes. Evil eyes. Not Max. I snap. Whatever was holding me still before isn't anymore. I shove the man back, he barely moves. I react without a second thought, my hand slaps him across his face with all the strength I can manage. An angry red mark mars his cheek. I am inordinately proud.

That lasts a second before his hand is at my throat again. No longer caressing. Tight enough to hurt but not enough for me to asphyxiate. “Can you feel it? The hurt. The pain. The hate. He left you. He pulled you in and then he destroyed you. Hold on to that feeling. You can make him pay. Make him feel like you did. Make him wish he had never existed. Do it Liz. Hate him. Hurt him. Everything is his fault. He deserves to die. Slowly. Rip out his heart like he ripped out yours. Pull in the pain. Let it strengthen you.”

My hands claw at his but he won't let go. His words are pulling at images in my head. Memories. Years and years of memories, ones that I didn't know were there, ones that still ring in my head. I'm past them, I have to be past them otherwise the last six years have been a joke. The words are poison, like the eyes and I feel myself falling into old traps.

“What are you?” it's a hiss, an empty threat in a precarious situation. I'm at his mercy. I know it. He knows it. Defiance is futile but it's in my nature. I keep trying to peel his hands from me. He smirks. He's enjoying it.

“I have plans for you Elizabeth Parker.”

I wake up sobbing violently and I barely make it to the bathroom before throwing up. Whatever was in my stomach comes up then the dry heaving starts. Everything is out of control. Shaking and sobbing and heaving. I feel dirty. Violated. I want to scratch off my skin anywhere that he touched me. I want to bleed out whatever he put in me.

The heaving tapers off and I crawl into the shower. Scalding water and one of those scrubbing gloves. I sit letting the water pour over my body until it goes cold. Scrub and scrub and scrub. Harder and harder. My skin is an angry pink when I finally turn it off. Raw but still not clean. I don't bother with a towel.

There are blossoming finger shaped bruises on my neck.

It was just a dream. I did that to myself. It was just a dream. Those are just a coincidence. I did them to myself. It was just a dream.

With a wave of my hand they're gone. I rarely ever use my powers or abilities or whatever you want to call them. They always seemed like things that exist outside of me. So I try not to use them but at times it's second nature to. At times I can't control them. I can never control the visions, those come at random times and beg to be acted on. The part that scares me is that... some of the things I can do, they've been getting stronger. For around a year, they've been getting stronger.

A year of headaches and nightmares.

A year.

For about as long as I've been dreaming of the yellow eyed man. Tonights dream was more graphic than the rest. Usually he stays in the shadows. Always the same man, always the same eyes. Watching. Playing out and with my nightmares. I had Isabel dream walk me once, a couple of months ago. I wanted to see if she saw him. I told her I missed her and that I wanted to see her. I think she thought I wanted information on Max. The excuse worked. Her powers didn't.

Isabel said she got in fine but that something had thrown her out. She said when she woke it was like someone had taken a sledgehammer to her head and that trying to get back in was like going at a brick wall with a toothpick (I am paraphrasing of course). I told her a little about my powers and blamed it on those.

I know that wasn't the cause.

It was the man with the yellow eyes.

I try not to think of him. I've gotten very good at it. I have a system. After a nightmare I change my pajamas from the sweaty ones I woke in, get a glass of water, and go back to bed where I watch TV until I fall asleep. It works. In the morning I barely remembered the dream.

Think it will work tonight? No? Neither do I.

*****

I'll post section 2 tomorrow.

Are Ackles eyes green?

[vaifeal]

Disclaimer: Don’t own it, just appreciate it.

Summary: Change is a choice, destiny is a myth, life is hard, and there are somethings you just can’t make untrue no matter how much you wish you could. Liz is starting to figure that out.

Chapter 2 Section 2

I fly out tomorrow night on a red eye to St Louis where Dr Reber is waiting for me. I'm going to spend the next month helping her with the second half of the excavation that she is leading with some of her students. We'll do the drive to Dupo and wake up at the crack of dawn to continue studying the Hamill site. The day after that I'll be heading a field trip to the Cahokia Mounds, it's Rebers' favorite site in the American Bottom but she can't be spared from Hamill so her favorite student gets to head it up instead.

So what do you think I want to do before I have to jump in feet first at a job that has long ass hours and takes place in ninety degree weather? That's right, sleep. Sleep till late in the afternoon since at least twice a week I'm getting woken by nightmares. So when my phone starts going off, waking me up with some obnoxious rendition of some random song that Maria felt the need to program to it, I don't want to answer it. I want to throw it across the room. Shatter it into a million pieces and do a jig on top of it.

I don't. I like it too much to sacrifice it to morning moodiness. The person on the other end however is fair game.

“Hello,” cruelty: excellent.

“Hello my bright little bulb,” way too fucking cheery for ten o'clock in the morning.

“Lena?”

“Yeah?” I hang up. I don't need to talk to my cousin. Sleep is better. Especially when she has so obviously forgotten about the time difference. I get ten more minutes of delicious unconsciousness before she calls back. We repeat the process two more times before I give in and stop hanging up.

I should have just turned the damn thing off.

We talk for a good thirty minutes. She has some 'forced leave' coming up so she might visit me in Illinois. I kind of hope she doesn't because I know she is going to bitch about how despite that she hasn't taken anytime off of her job since she got it two years ago and despite that everyone she knows has questioned her mental health because of it, she does not need a vacation. Ah, the delusions of youth.

After that oh so stimulating conversation I go downstairs. Maria, Michael, and I have been having breakfast almost every morning since I got back. It's past eleven so they're already at the counter waiting. We talk, make plans for future meetings. I have missed them. Michael is glowering, oblivious to the fact that the reason is obvious. I ignore him. It's surprisingly easy to do.

Luckily, Michael has a meeting with a supplier so he has to leave earlier than normal, he gives me a hug and makes his way out. Not without a “Talk to him Liz.” Like he's scolding a child. The nerve of some hybrids. Like I can't pretend I don't know who 'he' is...

Poor Max.

I've been avoiding him. It's not like I don't want things to be better between the two of us. Really I do. It's just, when it comes to Max I'm fighting myself too much. I never know how I'm going to react to being around him. I see him and words that aren't my own race through my head, making me clench my hands and hurry away.

He destroyed you.

He deserves to die.

Or I see him and I start having fantasies of things I haven't thought of in years. The good things that happened with us don't seem so few and far between now. Reality is tilted on its axis and nothing has remained the same. Someone needs to write an objective book about my adolescence so that I can analyze things clearly. I wonder why I have that impulse. Why can't I just let myself think happy thoughts? When did I grow out of sweet kisses and sunshine?

Maria begs off sometime later. She'll drive me to the airport tomorrow if she doesn't drive me crazy first. Call him Liz. Talk to him Liz. Don't these people know how to leave well enough alone. Thank goodness I'm going to be returning to normal civilization tomorrow. Tomorrow. It seems like I've spent an eternity here. Familiarizing myself with old playgrounds and now I'm leaving. I almost don't want to leave.

Strong emphasis on the almost.

I still have some lose ends to be tied. Stories that need an ending. Max is at the heart of most of those.

So when I find myself in front of his apartment it's not a surprise. Breath Liz. Just breath.

******

'I wonder if Alex would like who you've become,' said to hurt. It was said to hurt. It did.

I didn't even notice the lamp was in my hand until it was flying across the room at Max. He managed to deflect it in time. Damn. I was so sure that I had him there. Cheeky bastard has the nerve to look smug about it too. I suppose he thinks that no one can get one over on the great King Evans.

I'll show him. I should blast him across the goddamn room. He wouldn't see that coming. The no good, two timing, overbearing son of a bitch. I come here in good faith. I come to this crappy gonorrhea breeding hole in the wall that he has the balls to call an apartment thinking maybe before I leave tomorrow night that we can work it out. Be friends. Let bygones be bygones.

Stupid decision, E. Accidentally set off an atomic bomb kind of fuck up.

Why in hell did I think that things could be different? People don't change, circumstances change and nothing about ours has. I can't believe I actually came here. Max is the same egotistical bastard he was before. Do you know what the first thing he said was, after I confirmed to him that I was leaving the next day?

'Of course you're leaving Liz. That is what your best at.'

Like I was the one that blasted off in an overgrown Popsicle. Ugh! And of course as soon he said that the gloves came off and the garbage laid on the table. Alex. Tess. All the rest. Knock out drag out fight. Or it would be if I had any desire to continue this stimulating conversation. I've found that one lamp thrown is one too many.

As my fingers close around the cold brass of the nob, his voice stops me. “That's it? Fuck or flee, right? Fuck or flee. Just like after the Special Unit had me. Just like with Kyle,” He turns me around, his hands gentler than his words. “Tell me Liz, after I saw you with him did you keep going? Did getting caught turn you on?”

Why in hell did I waste so much time on him? The words that aren't mine are stirring in my head again. I can feel light tingling beneath my skin saying that the light show is going to start soon. My hands are itching to blast him or wrap around his neck or... anything that will hurt him. This isn't right. This isn't good.

“Where you always such a prick?” there is venom in my voice but not as much as I thought there would be. Maybe I'm still in control. “Tell me Max, when you had Tess pinned to the floor was she moaning? Or did the little guy fail to live up?”

Smart E. Real smart. Piss off the being with the upper hand. Max is staring at me like he's trying to read me. Not the intense stare he's done since he was a teenager and sitting in my dad's diner like a lost puppy dog. I miss that stare. This new one is unnerving. It's like there's been some new development in his understanding of my psyche.

He leans forward and presses his forehead to mine in a position that can't be too comfortable for him considering the height difference. He's building up to say something. One of those reality shattering revelations. I don't need another one of those, had enough in this sad little thing they call existence.

Once again my mind is a step behind my body because I've kissed him. Holy shit I'm kissing Max. It's needy and it's demanding. It's exactly what you'd expect you'd get after almost seven years of unfinished business. We're stumbling to the bed knocking over everything in our way.

Every time I try to take control or put a little more force into what he seems to want to be a series of tender moments he looks at me strangely, so I stop. Hand over some control for something so much more in worth.

Closure.

********

I wake up pleasantly sore and alone, sleep stopping my mind from remembering exactly why I feel that way. It takes a minute but it clicks. Sex with Max. I had sex with Max. Repeating it doesn't seem to make it any less real. Slowly I pull myself up and start to gather my clothes. My shirt by the door. Underwear peeking out from under the bed. Bra on the... fan, interesting.

Max is leaning on the door frame a cup of coffee in his hands, held out like a peace offering. I take it. There's too much sugar in it but being a person of sunny disposition I drink it anyway. Wouldn't want to hurt his feelings.

“You're still leaving,” not a question but I answer anyway.

“Yeah, I've got a life I have to return to,” his lips tighten. Funny how easy it is to read people when you look for it. “It's nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal? What was last night?”

“A goodbye between friends.”

There are two things that occur to me as soon as I've said that. It's actually true and Max isn't going to agree. Here we go again.

“A goodbye? That wasn't a goodbye Liz.”

“Yes it was,” I find my sandals in the hall and slip them on. I never thought I'd be doing the walk of shame to my parent's.

“This isn't the end.”

“Yes it is,” right away his mouth opens to refute but I cover it quickly with my hand. Time to pull out the big guns: wide imploring brown eyes. “You have this idea in your head that I'm the one for you. But I'm not. You knew it when we were younger and you know it now Max. It's time to let go.”

I don't know if he gets it but a hug and a kiss on the forehead later I'm off into the streets of Roswell. I should take vacations more often.

End Chapter 2

****

Yeah, so I'm not finished with chapter 3 but it's already 16 pages... I think I got carried away. Thanks for the reviews everybody, they mean alot :}

[vaifeal]

Disclaimer: Don’t own it, just appreciate it.

Summary: Change is a choice, destiny is a myth, life is hard, and there are somethings you just can’t make untrue no matter how much you wish you could. Liz is starting to figure that out.

A/N: The first section of below comes right after the SPN episode 'What Is, and What Should Never Be' and the following parts take place between that one and 'All Hell Breaks Loose'. This has to be the longest chapter I have ever written: 4 freakin' parts.

Ok, I need to know what to do with Chapter 4 hence the poll. At the moment I have two of them. One that goes AU at the end of “All Hell Breaks Loose: Part 1” and another that follows as closely to the episode as a crossover can. Please help me out.

And Thank You for all the reviews. They're great, hopefully questions are answered in the story before the end.

Chapter 3 Section 1

“I used to be such a burning example, I used to be so original” - Brand New, Millstone

My leg has been bouncing up and down since last night. I have absolutely no idea why but when Elena tells me to move the equipment from the hybrid to the truck and take it, I jump on the offer. Maybe it's spending so much time with the same people every day. Maybe it's the lack of a room with actual walls but with a quick 'I'll be back tomorrow night' and a small bag of clothes, I'm gone.

If life is suppose to feel like you're living it on autopilot than I am doing everything right. It's all planned out. Finish this dig. Take Elena up on the offer to do some research for ARCHLAB at USD. Field observation at Sao Paulo. Then most likely, some university position where I will publish occasionally to keep the administration happy until they give me tenure and I die.

A part of me wishes that someone would come along and fuck it up.

But we all know what happens when you wish for change. You get more than you can handle. At the moment I am content with the aftermath of the '47 crash.

So I drive. Getting on and off roads I've never heard of and don't know where they lead. I'll just ask for directions on the way back. Who needs those pesky things anyway, flying by the seat of your pants is so much more entertaining.

When the mile markers begin to blur and the road has turned into a never ending slide of black, the time has come to stop for the night. So the first dingy little roadside motel that comes along, I pull over. The red letters in the vacancy sign are flickering in that faulty wiring way and spots in front of the motel are mostly taken, but I park off to the side and figure what the hell who cares if the place looks like I can get hepatitis if I touch anything.

A silent breeze winds its way through the lot accompanied by the faint whizzing of the occasional car on the road. That is until a car door slams and there is a moan. To my left two men make their way from their car, which I hope arrived before I did otherwise I'm more out of it than I thought, and right away the tall floppy one is at the side of the shorter one, leaning on each other.

At first it seems sweet, a show of affection. Then the shorter one trips, his face coming into better light. It's gray and drawn. Pain. The leaning is not a mutual thing, more like the floppy one is helping to hold shorty up.

Why must I always be a step behind my own body? Is it instinct or just masochistic tendency? What ever it is, apparently it thinks I need to approach them. So into the shadows I go.

“Excuse me?” they stop and stare. Oh right, talk. “Are you alright? Do you need help?” One has darting eyes. The other looks like he wants to pass out.

“No, that's alright. I just need to get my brother to bed,” he reads the skepticism on my face. “Really, we're fine. Just came from the hospital actually.”

“Oh, alright then,” what to do now... “Take care.”

I leave them to hobble to their room and ten minutes later find myself in one of my own. Ever wonder who designs some of these motel rooms? One things for sure they definitely weren't in their right minds. Hmmm... paint fumes or pot, the rooms vibe is leaning towards paint fumes. The school board should show pictures of these motels to their students. 'See kids huffing is bad.'

Sleep comes easily.

The bouncing leg has finally stopped.

******

One of the universal truths of life is that there will be portions of your life that you don't like. For Dean it's that when his brother moans his name painfully and starts tossing his head, his first reaction isn't fear or panic but just to calmly pull over the Impala and wait.

He's never been good at that.

A small woman walks away from her truck and into the trees, her hood up and her face shadowed. A small flashlight in her hand providing her with the only source of light. She makes her way through, cautiously but with determination.

Her head bent down, shifting from the path ahead of her to the paper in her hand and back. The trees cleared out, a clearing exposed only by the faint light of a few stars but still glowing eerily. She makes her way to a particular tree, one of the largest, her hand runs along its drooping branches.

She pulls a container from her bag placing it softly on the ground before continuing to look for something additional. Just as she is pulling it out, she's being propelled forward.

There is nothing else in the clearing but still she keeps being thrown. She frantically whips the flashlight around but still no attacker. The force has her pinned against the tree. Raising up, off the ground. Hands swatting at the air. Her hood is back but her flashlight is on the floor pointed away, the dark obscuring her face.

When she drops to the ground dead, all that can be seen clearly is her unmoving hand.

The vision stops and another routine begins: Sam dealing with the aftermath of things he can't control. One other thing Dean doesn't like, seeing his brother in pain.

“Where are we going?”

“South Dakota.”

*********

Is it possible to go psycho killer on a whole organization and not get caught? Maybe for someone like myself but then there is that whole, threat of exposure thing. We'd all have to start hiding and running for our lives. Hmmm, despite how cathartic it would be I'm thinking it wouldn't be worth it in the long run. I'll just have to write a really angry letter.

Because I'm not sure if they could have canceled my trip in a less amount of time unless they waited for me to get on the damn plane. Why did they cancel it? Because of 'increasing violence due to labor disputes and other social upheaval.' In other words the exact same reason that they were sending the group of anthropologists and sociologists to study in the first place. I thought the people who ran these things were suppose to be... I dunno, smart?

Ugh!

I really hate job hunting. If I see another resume I am going to start sobbing. I swear. It seems like I have sent out hundreds of them. Posted them online. Handed them to friends in the field. That, all before I knew the trip was canceled, now I have to repeat the whole process to get a job sooner.

What exactly am I suppose to do with all the crap I have packed for the trip? Or better yet all the stuff my mother sent to me for the trip. A girl only needs so many pairs of socks.

Fuck! And now I have knocked over the can of black paint that I forgot I left on the floor. Do you want to clean it? I don't want to clean it because that is going to take paint thinner and an exorbitant amount of paper towels.

Half an hour later there is still a gray patch on the linoleum floor but who cares. They can bill me. Which they will. Lies are good. I can just say that the stain was there before... We all know I won't. I'll finish cleaning it later.

Tension headache. Back aches from leaning over artifacts all day. Dry chemically enhanced hands that I know I should get up and put some lotion on but I don't. Instead I open all the windows in my apartment, grab a snuggly blanket, some junk food especially the Napoleon Dynamite Ben and Jerry's ice cream I have been craving all day but haven't opened yet, and pop in the 'The Last of the Mohicans'.

Is there some way to get paid to eat ice cream and watch movies all day? That'd be sweet.

*********

“What do you have?” Dean asked as he walked into the motel room, dropping the bag of sparse supplies that he had managed to grab from a local gas station. Barely enough for two days but hopefully the job would be quick and low key.

“A series of local murders, all the victims were men and all were brutally beaten then hung upside from trees. The last one had a witness, a teenage boy, who says that there was more than one person so the local police are saying that it's a gang probably occult.”

“If all the murders are men, why'd you see a woman?”

“Dunno.”

“What are the police leaving out?”

“The witness also said that the men 'just disappeared' after they had strung up the victim and the expert that they brought in disagrees,” Sam replied, his fingers rapidly tapping away at his laptop.

“So we check out the scene and talk to this expert, got a name?”

“Yeah, Dr Elizabeth Parker. She lives right off campus.”

A quick change into their 'men in black' suits and they were on the road to the park. It was a quick drive, the park was alive with activity except where the murders had taken place. Sam isn't sure if it was the one from his vision, it was too dark to see clearly besides that it was dirt, grass, and trees. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Well, mostly nothing out of the ordinary. There was a tree, the largest in the clearing which was wilted, dead. The grass around it as well. Dean made his way around it, coming across a marking almost like a brand, in a shape similar to a bird carefully placed on the tree. He didn't recognize it.

“Hey Sammy,” his brother made his way over to him from where he had been pacing the clearing, Dean pointed to the tree and the area around it, “Unholy ground?”

“Or a dead tree,” he looked around, “It looks like its the oldest here, it could just be dead.”

“What about that?” Dean asked, pointing to the symbol. Sam took out his phone and snapped a picture, forehead wrinkled in concentration.

“No idea. We could ask Bobby or Ash.”

With a nod of ascension they made their way back to the Impala. Bobby was fairly close and Ash was always willing to help but the symbol might not have anything to do with the hunt. It could have been put there by some kid. Besides, Dean would much rather see what this police 'expert' had to say.

[vaifeal]

Disclaimer: Don't own it, just appreciate it.

A/N: Yes, so I did some research for this chapter but it was written during finals which means that at some point I stopped looking for what was right and did what was easy.

Summary: Change is a choice, destiny is a myth, life is hard, and there are somethings you just can’t make untrue no matter how much you wish you could. Liz is starting to figure that out.

Chapter 3, Section 2

“I used to care, I was being cared for. Made sure I showed it to those that I love” - Brand New, Millstone

“Yes, Max. I did know about Ava,” The last thing I want to be doing today is talking to Max, but I don't think he is noticing this. “Kyle called as soon as he saw her.”

“You didn't think that it would be pertinent to tell me?”

“Oh, I dunno. You being on a whole other planet made that kind of hard to do,” it must be the royalty thing. They've all got to be pre-disposed to pigheadedness.

“I need to know these things. She could be dangerous.”

“How Max? We've been watching her for over two years and all she's done is try and make Kyle happy,” I'll admit that the first time Maria told me that there was a copy of Tess out there, I freaked. Big time. Hell, when Kyle called and said he had run into her I almost flew my ass back just to be given the opportunity to punch that pretty little face, even if it wasn't Tess's.

But what can I say. I'm a big softy. I've talked with Ava and we (meaning mostly Kyle with the occasional assistance from Maria and I) have kept a pretty tight eye on her. She's not Tess. Doesn't act anything like her. Hell, she admitted the first time that I talked to her that though she had loved Zan (minor freak out there too, my subconscious is an unusual thing. I'd turn it over to be studied if it didn't include being a guinea pig. The science community can wait till I die to get its ands on my pretty little brain) but that he had never loved her and she had made peace with that.

Same face two different people. Like twins. We all learned that. Even Michael and Isabel learned that after spending some time with her.

“She's a copy of Tess. Do I have to remind you what she is capable of,” apparently Max isn't even going to try.

“No Max, I'm perfectly aware of what a vindictive bitch Tess was. But Ava isn't Tess.”

“They're dangerous Liz. All the dupes are dangerous,” but Ava is a good person, why can't he understand that? She was there when he wasn't. She helped me with some of the things I could do. Explained to me how even though I had never met Zan that I did connect with him. That my mental state back then, missing Max like I had and being so close to someone almost genetically identical, had allowed my fledgling powers to find the closest thing to him.

We use to sit up at night talking on the phone, Ava explaining that it must be one of my powers even if she hadn't heard of one like it before, not to dream walk like Isabel but to either project or blur my unconscious mind with reality. A gift that isn't all that pleasant. She is the only one who knows I can do more than I let one, a fact that she attributes to being with Zan in his last moments.

I do trust her, at least more than I do Max.

“So are you and Michael and Isabel. Or are you forgetting that,” frustrating little boy.

“We can't afford to just let her go.”

“Let her go Max? She's not our prisoner. Her and Kyle are engaged. They're happy. Leave them alone.”

“The dupes are liars. If something happens we can't trust her,” I purposely bang my head against the wall. All I want to do is hang up and start blasting music but if I don't talk Max down like Kyle asked me to, who knows what he will do. I stop myself from replying to the lies part. We all have our secrets and there is no reason to rehash old grudges.

“You ever think that if something happened she could help?” silence on the other end tells me he didn't. Heres to hoping he attributes this to intelligence. “There were four of you a reason Max without Tess you're incomplete. Between Ava and my own minor powers not to mention Kyle's if anything does happen you should be fine.” Like I'd let Kyle in any war. He can barely spark.

“And if everything with Kyle is a trap?” Fucking hell, anyone else hearing a broken record?

“Then we deal with it if that happens,” there's a knock at the door. Two men dressed in black suits. They start to open their mouths but I just wave them in. So much for all those lessons about not letting strange men in the house. “I don't care what you say. I know Ava there isn't a problem.”

I silently ask for identification from the two men. The taller one elbows the shorter one and they both pull out their badges at the same time. It'd be funny if they weren't FBI. Of course the feds show up when I'm on the phone with an alien.

“I need you to come down to Arizona,” I bite my tongue to stop the angry retort. I do the one moment motion to the officers before heading into the kitchen area. There isn't a wall separating the two areas but space is reassuring. Why do they look so familiar? Were they Special Unit?

Fuck.

**********

Dean watches as the woman walks away an apologetic expression on her face. He takes a minute to appreciate the way her shorts hug her ass as walks away. Small, dark hair and eyes, tan, and young. She looks more like a student than a professor, maybe a teaching assistant to Parker. They should get a drink later.

“Not gonna happen,” her voice makes him look away from where she leaning up against the refrigerator. Sam is already studying the apartment. “I don't give a shit Max. I'm not your fucking minion.”

He would not want to be the guy on the phone, she sound pissed. There isn't much in the place, not surprising for a temporary residence. The two bedroom apartment was only rented to Dr Parker for three weeks, not long enough to personalize beyond a couple of photographs. The main focus in the room is the only table in the place and it's overflowing with papers.

“No, you listen you piece of shit. For once in your life think about someone else. Leave them alone because I swear to god Max if you go near them,” she stops for a moment. Dean would like to know how that guy thinks he's going to talk his way out of whatever he got himself into. The smart thing would be to hang up and try again when she was calmer. “If I hear you stepped foot in Arizona I'm gonna make you wish you never came back. You understand that Max?”

It's not an empty threat. He hasn't even met her yet but he knows that. She snaps the phone shut right as Sam hisses out his name and jerks his head pointedly at the ceiling. Almost directly in front of them, a little off to the side of where she stands, stark against the white ceiling is one of the protective circles from 'The Key of Solomon' in what looks like fresh black paint.

“Sorry about that,” she says a tired smile on her face. Definitely more attractive up close and calm. She notices what they're looking at and her smile goes uneasy. “Pretty cool right? It was there when I moved in, haven't figured it out what it is yet.” She doesn't look them in the eye until after she says that. “What can I help you with?”

“We're looking for Dr Elizabeth Parker,” Dean's always been good with handling unsettling situations.

“You've got her,” of course she had to be one of those child prodigies. Parker doesn't even look Sam's age. No wonder the police weren't listening to what she said.

“I'm Agent Gray this is Agent Fretwell. We have some questions about what you told the police regarding the recent string of murders,” a tension Dean didn't notice had been there disappeared. That's odd.

“You mean what the police asked for then ignored, sure no problem,” she motioned for them to sit down in what chairs weren't covered in books. Parker started grabbing papers from the table before stacking them with a police folder. “That's everything I have.”

Sam took the papers and immediately started looking at them while Dean subtly looked at the rest of the work spread in front of them. She walked into the kitchen, leaving them alone as she grabbed cups from the cabinets and played with the radio.

“You think that's her?” he asked his brother.

“Yeah, the truck outside matches and the height and hair's right.”

Checking that she was still turned away from them he pulled the top most paper to him. This was definitely their girl. “Sam, check this out.”

Yellow eyes:

Illness? Jaundice? Hepatitis?

Coyote: antagonist: as creator? Myth: Impregnated an evil woman when others couldn't: What create?

Owl: eternal and indestructible: Ba'al Hammon/Amun/Aamon? Christian Demonology: Knowledge to those who make a pact with Satan, Prince, controls legion of forty. Romans: unlucky, destruction/death omen.

The list went on. Demons. Animals. Disease. Myths. Anything that had some relation to yellow eyes. Pigeons were even on there. Dean grabbed one of the small notebooks and flipped it open. It was a record of her dreams. Every time in the last three months that she had seen the Demon. When she woke up. What it said or did. There were a fair amount early in the book but it tapered off later.

June 23, 2007 – 9am - reinforced his desire for me to kill Max – instead took the phrase 'make love not war' literally – maybe he'll leave me alone now.

“I hope you don't mind, all I have is ice tea,” she as she returned to the table with three glasses.

“That's fine. Thank you,” Sam replied calmly placing the police folder on top of the book they had been looking in.

“Here, why don't I move those for you,” she calmly collected all the nonessential papers and moved them closer to her. Something in her voice is warning them not to ask question. “Just recreational research.”

“We noticed that you don't agree with the assessment that they are occult,” Dean let Sam do the talking. People, especially women tended to open up easier to him.

“There is nothing to say that it's occult besides that the murders are strange,” Sam gives her his almost confused please continue look. She not so patiently takes the information back from him, spreading it back out across the table. “They're all similar. All Caucasian men in their mid forties. All brutally beaten and then hung upside down to bleed to death. There has been one murder every two weeks. I'll admit that that looks suspicious but it doesn't add up. These murders started just after the rape and stabbing of a university student, Candace Washburn.

“All the victims are known misogynists so at first we though it was some type of revenge but none of the victims knew Candace and all had airtight alibis. Now heres where it gets weird,” she pulled out a couple of copies of old newspapers. “The archives are a mess so I'm still looking into this but the story goes that in the early 1800's when settlers were first coming into the area, one of them brutally murdered a Lakota girl, it's barely mentioned in any of the records just that it was very bloody.

“In retaliation, a group of men from her tribe found the settler and did to that man what is happening now. I'd say copy cat but there's something missing. Why this case? Why now? Why these men? Besides unless the perpetrator is from out of town, there's no local group that would do this.”

The brothers knew what was missing. Dean pointed to a crime scene photo of the symbol they had found, “What about this?”

“No idea. I've got an appointment later with a colleague out at the reservation, she might know.”

A couple of minutes later they were at the Impala headed back to the motel. They'd figure out what came next when they got there. Though, it'd probably include looking into Elizabeth Parker's past.

[vaifeal]

Summary: Change is a choice, destiny is a myth, life is hard, and there are somethings you just can’t make untrue no matter how much you wish you could. Liz is starting to figure that out.

Disclaimer: Some of the dialog is from SPN, flashback etc. I don't own it, didn't think of it. Completely not mine.. I hope that covers my ass.

Chapter 3 Section 3


“I used to sleep without a single stir, 'Cause I was about my Father's work” - Brand New, Millstone

When the door clicks behind them my mind does too. The motel a few weeks go. Floppy and pee wee (not that he is little up close... must not follow that train of thought) that I asked if they needed help. Fuckin' hell, I just spent the last half hour being pleasant to guys that the odds are saying probably aren't really feds. I rub my cheeks from where the fake smiling has made them tired.

I should have known. The shorter one 'Agent Gray' seemed more like one of Lena's police or fire boys than a fed, though he does remind me a bit of Lena's cousin Brendan the DEA agent but he's always been special. I should give Brendan a call, see if he's still shacking up with Chani. 'Agent Fretwell' pulled it off. He's got the whole 'I know something you don't know' look down.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Maybe they were on a case then too, staying at a cheesy roadside motel. The government can be cheap right?

Long ass day.

The drive to the reservation takes about a half hour normally but taking my sweet time to make sure that it's not my imagination that I have a black 1967 Chevrolet Impala (thank you google) following me, the same one that was sitting in front of my apartment for an hour before I left. It's not. I do. So either they want me to know that they're following me or they're really bad at it because they are riding me like I'm a fucking hooker.

Jesus, I need to go to bed already. I sound like I'm a gang member... I should be in the mob. If I was then I'd have minions. Minions would be excellent. Great now I'm turning into Burns.

A very long day.

Autumn is waiting for me when I get there. All smiles and welcomes. We met once before, she's a pleasant woman. When I first came to the university she was the one the administration had make sure that I knew all the statutes of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act which was completely useless because Reber had made sure that all her students had NAGPRA drilled into their heads.

So instead Autumn and I had gone out for drinks. The stories she tells with a couple of White Russians in her, instead of a professor she should be a comedian or an author. I'd read a book she wrote.

The meeting is quick. Autumn has to get back to wading through half assed legal documents that are stacking on her desk so she just gives me the folder of information I asked for and begs of. I remember the symbol as she turns away and quickly pull out the police photo I had hastily shoved in my back pocket.

Gray is still watching, I can feel his eyes on me. I'd like to test how far he is willing to go. If I walked into the sex shop downtown, would he follow me or would he wait to see if I came out the front door?

Autumn points me towards an elderly woman named Winona who I find sitting in the playground outside the preschool, something she does daily. I sit on the bench next to her, she keeps watching the children playing. We sit for several minutes.

“We can learn many things from the young,” her voice is soft and warm with a bit of a scratchiness to it. She turns her wrinkly face toward me briefly, enough to catch dark wise eyes. Voices and eyes two of the most entrancing details of a person. I don't respond. I don't think I'm suppose to. She calmly takes my hand into hers. “What do you need, Child?”

“Do you know what this is?” I hand her the photo. Her fingers calmly tracing the lines.

“This is the Wakinyan, the guardian of truth. He kills liars with lightening bolts,” she turns in her seat and faces me full on. Her eyes scanning my face, looking for... something. Her hand runs along my face, “There is strength in you, if you'd just be,” her hand drifts to my neck, her brow drawing together. “You have a mark on you.”

I stumble back, barely making it on my feet. A mumbles 'thanks' and I'm making my way to the truck. I am getting sick and tired of all this nonsensical bull shit. Who exactly dealt out the cards in this mess we call life? Because I have a bone to pick with them.

I'm almost at the truck when I remember Gray. A quick check in a passing window confirms that he is walking in the general direction of his own car. So that he can follow me, again. It's not so amusing anymore.

When he glances away, I slide the folder into the windshield of a blue civic and pullout the pocket knife that my father gave me when I first moved out. Ducking behind a car and quickly making my way to where he is looking around.

With a tackle that would make a footballer proud, we're both on the ground.

************

“Son of a,” Dean barely got the words out before he felt the sharp cool metal of a knife at his throat. It was Parker, pissed off and straddling him. The stuff that wet dreams were made of. She leaned down, the loose strands of her hair brushing his face.

“Actually, I prefer just Bitch,” she straightened out, a wicked grin on her face. He matched it with his own.

“I'll call you what ever you want.”

“God, would be nice,” her free hand ran down his sides, searching his pockets but his wallet was in his back pocket and she couldn't get at it without jeopardizing her position. “What I really want is to know is who you are and why you're following me.”

“You know who I am. I told you that thi-” she pressed the knife harder into his throat, probably drawing some blood.

“You finish that sentence and you'll be insulting my intelligence,” Dean shifted underneath her, ignoring that she had the upper hand. “I've seen you before at some crap motel in Illinois. You were hurt. Now who the fuck are you?”

“My name's Dean Winchester. I'm a hunter,” Parkers face betrayed her confusion.

“A hunter?” the knife loosened at his neck enough for Dean to take advantage of it. In a smooth practiced motion, he flipped their positions. The knife clattering to the side.

“That's better,” she fought against him but his weight was enough to keep her from getting away. With a huff she stopped and glared up at him. “Now, if I let you up will you be a good girl and not attack me?”

She seemed to consider it before nodding sullenly. He stood up offering his hand in assistance, which she ignored. Instead she backed away and brushed herself off, her eyes never stopped watching him. Jumpy little thing.

“I want answers.”

“We all want something,” Parker looked about ready to hit him. Her hands were clenching and she had that cute little pissed off look she had been sporting when they had first met. “We'll go back to your place. This might take a while.”

**********

Stupid cocky bastard. We all want something. Yes, well I know that. Smart ass. At least I'm not the one hunting in a city. What is he going to shoot? Pigeons? The tall one is waiting for us when we get back. Dean must have called him. Damn, no chance of locking him out with the other one standing there. I want answers but I want something to make me not pissed off more.

And nothing is more amusing than pissing someone else off.

Because I am sick and tired of being angry. I don't even know why I am most of the time. I know I have the right to be what with things going wrong all the time but I just want to be happy.

They come in behind me, awkwardly standing in the living room. I grab a washcloth from the kitchen and wet it. Dean catches it easily and wipes the small trickle of dry blood from his neck. I drop heavily into one of the chairs, burying my head in my hands. It's a sign of weakness but who really gives a fuck.

“Start talking Dean,” he opens his mouth and I know he's not going to answer in the way that I want him to. An exasperated look to the other one has him cutting Dean off.

“Sorry about my brother. I'm Sam,” we shake hands. Neither of them makes to say anything more.

“Why were you following me? What are you doing here? Are you even with the FBI?” I had lots of other questions too. Like: how far did you dig into my past? Why did you bug out from the circle thingy? What is the circle thingy? Cause all I know is that I saw it in a vision and it makes me feel better when it's there.

Dean cocks his head and opens his mouth. Sam cuts him off again, I think he realizes that I'm at the end of my rope. But I won't go down alone, dammit. “We hunt the supernatural.”

“... layman terms please.”

“Demons, spirits, things your worst nightmares wouldn't even touch. Well maybe yours would,” Dean, obviously. A person would think that if you spent your life lying about being federal officers, you'd develop people skills.

“How's that working out for you?” Dammit, don't flirt you silly little girl. He grins, completely aware of the undertones that I had put on that. “Wait. What do you mean I would?”

“You're like Sam,” like that's suppose to mean anything to me, “with the psychic stuff.”

“What?” That has to be one of the most inane things I have every heard, even if it is sorta, kinda true. “I'm not Ms Cleo.”

“Never said you were but doesn't mean you can't do anything else,” there is a reason I sat in this particular chair. When I was in Cornell, I went to Mexico with a couple of friends and picked up a knife at some pawn shop there. I know it's not the smartest thing to do, but I keep it shoved in the side of the chair. I always sit here when company's over. It's a little 'all work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy' but a girls got to do what a girls got to do.

“These abilities would have started over a year ago, with really bad headaches,” I'm starting to pick up a pattern here. Sam equals delicate approach. Dean equals blunt force... mind meet gutter. “We saw your journal. We know you dream of the yellow eyed demon.”

I get up and walk into the kitchen. It feels like I'm living back with my parents, people going through my stuff. I want to deny but I don't. “Do you know it's name?”

“Uh, I, no we don't. Why?”

“It's just this adage that pops up in a couple of cultures. To know a thing's true name is to hold some power over it,” I turn on the stereo and let the music wash over me, distraction is good. It's always been a sure way ground myself, if you concentrate on lyrics you don't have to concentrate on anything else.

I mouth the words without realizing it.

I ignore the two men sitting on my couch. We have more things to discuss but the last thing I really want is for someone to confirm that I'm suppose to be a part of something larger. Because if it's true than that means I couldn't have lived a normal life even if the shooting had never happened. It isn't fair. I want to talk to the person that stacked the cards.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I look back to them turning down the stereo, I had it up a bit high. It use to drive my parents crazy, my listening to music that high. They kept telling me that I was going to go deaf. “And the murders, is he doing them?”

“No,” Dean looks, not so much uncomfortable but more like he had information that he didn't want to share. Do they think I'm killing these men?

“I see things before they happen,” Sam struggles for the words. “I saw you die.”

“Oh,” that's not what I expected. “So, have you figured out who's doing the killing?”

This time it's Dean who stops Sam from talking with a shake of his head, thankfully dropping the previous topics of yellow eyed demons and of course, my eminent death. They wouldn't be here if they thought they couldn't change it, right?

We start discussing the murders. Autumns file joins the rest of the information on the table. Turns out the the girl the settler murdered, he didn't just kill her he ripped her to shreds. Wakanda, a fourteen year old Lakota girl who held some significance in the tribe. I'm not sure as to what but the documents Autumn gave me mention her being the center of or being present at important ceremonies. Unfortunately these are mostly from later interviews and translated memoirs so they don't mention things that people at the time would have known.

The settler, a Duncan Web, caught her and another girl out by themselves. He shot the other girl and held Wakanda captive for several days. When a couple of men from her tribe had found her she was dead. Her face crushed and nailed to a tree through her shoulders with iron spokes.

Web was found a day later hung upside down outside his house, having asphyxiated on his own blood. The men who did that to him, members of Wakanda's tribe were hunted down and shot by the authorities.

History is a bloody thing.

The living room is lined with papers and empty Tupperware containers. Meager leftovers shared between three people, two of them men, not nearly enough food. I could have made dinner, pasta would have been quick but Sam had protested over his brothers acceptance so I compromised and heated up what ever was already made in the fridge.

There was a lot of veggies, Dean looks like he could use a hamburger.

“You think that what happened to Candace woke those spirits up?” I'm sprawled out across the couch now, Sam has taken my place on the chair and has nodded off. Dean's at my feet still looking through the newspaper articles and official documents that Sam had brought with him.

“Yea, something like that,” at any other point in my life I would be concerned at how easy it is to accept that things like ghosts, spirits, and demons exist but hey aliens exist so why not. Besides energy is energy, no one knows how many different manifestations are possible.

I've got to stop trying to apply logic to things that defy it.

“What are you going to do?”

“Salt and burn their bones,” he throws the papers down in frustration. “When we find them.”

“You might not have to,” he gives me that look, the 'don't tell me how to do my job' look. I fix a cocky smirk to my face. Don't tell me how to do mine, either mister. I grab a book I had borrowed from the Native American Studies Department from the kitchen table and toss it to him. “The Lakota believe a people can't be crushed until the spirit of a woman is broken, the men were Lakota. Stop what woke them up, you stop them.”

“Nice work Parker,” he actually seems impressed. I bite my lip shyly before I can stop myself. Dammit. He smiles wider. Sam shifts in the chair, his foot sliding from the coffee table. Dean rolls his eyes and goes to him.

“Come on Sammy, get up,” Sam swats away his hand but Dean keeps shaking him. It kind of makes a girl want to have siblings. Taking it as a sign that they are leaving I go to my room and slip into my pajamas, a pair of boxers and a tank, there's no air conditioner in the place so it's going to be hot. The alarm clock flashes 1:00. Very long day.

I walk across to the hall to the bathroom but don't enter. There is someone in the living room. It's Dean, Sam is gone but Dean is still hunched over the information. Never let it be said that he's not dedicated.

“Are you going to get some sleep?” He looks up at me. I've never been one to believe that eyes were particularly easy to read or expressive, instead choosing to read facial ticks and body language but Dean, Dean has sad eyes. They get to you and you get the impulse to try to make things better.

I sound like a sap but it's true. They're amazing eyes.

I prefer his voice though. It has that quality to it that you know that if you had your head on his chest as he spoke the vibrations would run through you too. Oh man, I am so screwed.

He's standing, towering above me. He has to have almost a foot on me, taller than Max. “Are you going to answer any of our questions?”

“What 'our' you're the only one here,” note to self: it always sounds worse when you're defensive. I grab some of the containers and toss them into the sink. He's still staring when I turn around.

“What can you do?” I don't answer. “Why do you have a protective circle on your ceiling?” nope, will not talk. “You need to start talking.”

“Or what?” I step closer to him. “You're gonna kill me? News flash: that's gonna happen anyway.”

He steps closer. “Is this what we get for answering you?”

My shoulders droop, he's right. I always hated it when Max kept things and I'm doing the same thing. Withholding information that could be important. Still, there are somethings that it isn't my place to say. I open my mouth then close it and look away. Dean makes me look up at him. Stupid sad eyes making me all honest.

“I can't tell you what I can do because I don't know which is what,” he's confused but I plow forward, “and I have that circle because I saw it and it's the only thing that makes me feel safe because the yellow eyes scares the crap out of me and I don't know what's happening.”

He nods but neither of us moves. We just stare and if one of us doesn't start talking I'm going to start babbling enough for the both of us. Then we're kissing, slow and deliberate. I'm pretty certain I started it but hell, the man can kiss. I go up on my tippy toes arms trying to pull his head closer, it helps a fraction. I part my lips.

Loud noises wake me up, a scream, roaring. I find my way into the hall way, waves of heat warming my face. There is a man there dark hair and beard, bath robe over a USMC shirt.

“Daddy,” he's scared and handing me a baby.

“Take your brother outside as fast as you can. Don't look back. Now Dean, go!” he gives me a push and I'm running as fast as my legs will carry me. Down the stairs. Out the front door. I stop in the yard, there's smoke billowing from the windows.

“It's ok Sam.”

*****

Dean is confused when Parker jerks away. Eyes wide and breathing labored. Her brown eyes searching his face. She must have found what she wanted because she takes his hand and guides him into her room.

Empty, like the rest of the apartment but looks lived in. She pushes him on to the bed then follows him. Definitely not a bad way to end the night.

[vaifeal]

Disclaimer: Don’t own it, just appreciate it.

Summary: Change is a choice, destiny is a myth, life is hard, and there are somethings you just can’t make untrue no matter how much you wish you could. Liz is starting to figure that out.

A/N: Props to anyone that knows the 'Once Upon A Time In Mexico' reference. I love Johnny Depp. I'll post the chapter 4 that won the poll next week and then the one that didn't when the story is finished.

Chapter 3 Section 4

“I used to know the name of every person I kissed. Now I've made this bed and I can't fall asleep in it” - Brand New, Millstone

I wake up to my stomach rumbling. It's four o'clock in the morning and I need food. Dean is on the other side of the bed. Both of us shifted so to avoid the wet spot in the center, it should be dry now. His arm is stretched across, fingers barely grazing my skin.

I quietly get up, slipping on my underwear and tank. Hmm, food. I grab the vanilla icing from the fridge and Teddy Grahams from the cabinet. Dip, eat, repeat. So good. I feel eyes on my back and turn.

Dean is leaning against the wall, boxer briefs low on his hips, a grin playing easily on his lips. I lick the icing off of my fingers while the other hand prepares another graham. I hold it out to him. “Want one?”

When he walks over to me, feet barely making a sound, he reminds me of a predator. But in a good way, a very good way. I hold the Teddy Graham out to him, he doesn't take it but eats it straight from my fingers. Deliberately licking the excess icing off.

After it's all off I'm tempted to dip my fingers back in the container. Dean cups the back of my head and presses his lips against mine, slowly lowering us to the ground.

I'll never be able to see icing again without blushing.

*****

Beep Beep Beep

Fucking alarm clock. My hand gropes out, trying to find the annoying black box unsuccessfully. Another hand reaches over me and hits it. Dean. He lets out a groan and buries his head in my neck...

How am I suppose to get up?

I give him a minute, hoping that he'll roll over. He doesn't, so I slowly extract myself from the bed, ignoring his groan of protest and immediately tossing on some clothes. I don't do the morning after very well.

Dean lifts his head from the bed, his eyes trying to focus, “Wha?”

“Shh, I've got to go to work go back to sleep,” he already is, so I grab some clothes and go take a shower. I'm pulling my wet hair back when I hear a beeping coming from the living room. It's Dean's phone, over a dozen missed calls from Sam. Oops.

I place the phone on the bedside table, not wanting to wake him up but knowing that the more Sam calls the more worried he will be. Or the more pissed off. Dean seems like the kind of guy who does the one night stand thing. It's in his smile and the way he holds himself. Right along with the vibe that he'd wear a shirt that says 'I'm With Stupid' with the arrow pointed down.

Even sleeping he looks good. I feel my cheeks heat up, I left marks on his body. Oh god, that's embarrassing. I knew there would be some there always are, I'm pretty forceful in bed and he was all for it but they usually aren't so... noticeable.

I quickly scribble a note and leave. Even though my class isn't until around one, I'm still going to be late. This is what happens when you have energetic sex and have to sleep in to recover.

****

I teach two three hour classes, only an hour separating them. It's seven by the time I finish and despite what my students say I did not check my phone every ten minutes, really I didn't. I grab a burger from the campus center and go back to my office, well the office that is acting as mine at the moment and start doing the work that I'm being paid for.

Categorization. Carbon dating. Cleaning.

It can be painstaking but once I start I find that time flies. Music blasting, artifacts all around me. Some of them thousands of years old. Around nine I get a call from Dean. Him and Sam are going to take care of Candace. I got a very strict no to being allowed to accompany them. Stubborn mule.

All they're doing is digging a hole and it's not like I've never seen a dead body before. Hello, I handle remains for a living. Maybe not such fresh ones but still I contributed I want to see this thing through.

I'm getting this whole 'rush the castle and protect the women' feeling. I expect to be knocked over the head and dragged into a cave any minute now. It's annoying.

When I finally finish categorizing pottery fragments I get around to the good stuff. Checking email. I haven't done it in a while, my laptop is on the fritz so I only use it occasionally. The campus computers are perfectly fine.

83 new messages. 100 spam. Wow, I'm popular.

It only takes three minutes to go through all of them, a majority go straight to the garbage. One each from Maria, Kyle, and Ava. Isabel sends me one, no words just a picture of all of us together junior year. The side is cut off so it was after Tess had joined. She can certainly hold a grudge.

The last email I open is from Autumn. When the file finally downloads I freeze. Crap. I stare at the two clearest pictures. One a sketch of how they found Wakanda, the other a photograph from a ceremony with state officials. Autumn labeled everyone in it, Wakanda is off to the side, her back to the camera. A tattoo of the Wakinyan at the base of her neck. Exactly the same as the one found on that tree, the tree she died on.

Candace woke someone up when she died. Just not who we thought.

Fuck.

I don't bother to turn off the computer just slip on my sweatshirt, grab my bag and slam the door behind me. To get rid of a spirit the bones are salted then burned. If there are no bones, the girl was cremated over a hundred years ago, is the salt still needed? It's the tree, it was soaked with blood, I'm guessing that that is enough but do I need salt?

The chemistry labs are in the building next to the anthropology ones, so I duck in there. The supply close is locked but that's easily remedied. Sodium peroxide, some of the chemical composition of rock salt but highly flammable. I really hope it works.

On my way to the truck I dial Dean's number. I hope he hasn't skipped town yet, job done and all that crap.

“This is Dean. Leave a message,” fuck.

“We got it all wrong. It's not Candace. I'm on my way to the park right now, it's the fucking tree. You were right, unholy ground.”

The drive is quick like all things when you're nervous. I put my hood up when I get there, it makes me feel safer, and pull out the crime scene photo of the symbol. I've only been to the clearing once but the path is marked which is good because my pocket flashlight isn't enough to do much beyond expose it more than a few feet.

There is something off about this place.

I take the sodium peroxide from my bag and start digging around for my lighter, when my hands close around it I'm sent flying. My hand comes up, green lights immediately playing on my skin but I can't protect myself against what I can't see. I'm blind here.

Inching back towards the tree I never let my hand down. No, no, no, yes got it. My fingers pry at the lid of the can. And I'm being pulled up, feet flailing, arms grabbing at air. There is a faint smell of chemicals in the air, the can must have tipped when I dropped it. The lighter is in my front pocket if I can just reach it.

“Bitch,” I manage to gasp out. She'll burn even if I have to too.

Apparently she doesn't like to be insulted because she comes out to play. Except Wakanda winces when the pressure on my neck increases and her face is trying to apologize. She bears the mark of the guardian of truth and I've done nothing wrong. Can a ghost have a conscience?

Black dots are swimming across my eyes. You can't blast something that isn't solid and the lighter won't ignite. I have no idea how I get myself in these situations.

The sound of a shotgun going off ricochets around the clearing and I'm on the floor coughing from the sudden ability to breathe. Rough hands grab my arm trying to drag me away.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Dean's voice is harsh in my ear. Sam is standing behind him, ready if that thing comes back. It does but not alone. As he fires I use the distraction to push Dean off. “Parker.”

Ignore him. Grab bag. Find the extra set of matches that are always in that annoying little non functional side pocket. Strike, the whole book goes up and I toss them at the base of the tree. The sodium peroxide catches immediately and the fucker goes up in a second.

An inhuman shriek and Wakanda is gone followed closely by her puppets. Dean's glaring at me. I'm glaring back. Sam is trying to ignore the tension. This is going to make an awkward drive back.

They follow me in the Impala, Sam drives off leaving me to deal with his brother who's standing next on the sidewalk lips pressed together tightly. At least he's waiting to get inside before going ape shit.

As soon as the door closes his patience ends. “Where you trying to get yourself killed?”

“I did what I had to,” you'd think the professional would accept the risk.

“You don't run into this shit half cocked,” his frustration is mounting.

“Excuse me for not carrying a shotgun up my ass,” so is mine.

“I don't think you appreciate the situation.”

“What situation? I could have died but I didn't. If I stopped doing things because of what could happen my life would have been over at sixteen.”

“These things are dangerous Parker,” everyone is always saying that to me like I'm not smart enough to see it. I know the risks, I just choose to ignore them.

“I know that.”

“Do you?” life lesson: the most effective way to shut a man up? Kiss him.

Angry sex sounds like it is this really hot thing. It's not. Oh, it is pretty good but I'm not sure who's more bruised. Him or me. Probably him, Dean isn't the type of man to hurt a woman so I'm sore but besides bruises on my hips and a couple of bite marks I'm fine.

Dean is leaving tomorrow. Most women would prefer gentle caresses to portray some deep meaning, even if it's not really there, on their last night with someone. I'm not most women, not really.

The next day, I stay outside even after I can't see his car anymore. We never did settle that argument.

**************

Sam watched as his brother gets in the car, not bothering to look back. At least not by turning around, he's just compulsively checking the rear view mirror instead, even after Parker can no longer be seen.

“We could stick around for a while.”

“Dude,” Dean responds glaring at him and turning up Zeppelin “don't.”

End Chapter 3... finally.

This was suppose to go up last night but I was moving and I just got my laptop back. Sorry.

THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEWS THEY MAKE ME ALL WARM AND FUZZY :}

[vaifeal]

Disclaimer: Don’t own it, just appreciate it. If you recognize it it's not mine. Some lines from the episode since this takes place during both parts of “All hell breaks loose”.

A/N: since this is taking place during episodes that I didn't have any part in making I'm going to make this chapter as short as I can. It's someone else's work, I can't do it justice. First part is a mess but yeah, it'll do :}

This is the version that goes AU at the end of Pt. 1

Summary: Change is a choice, destiny is a myth, life is hard, and there are somethings you just can’t make untrue no matter how much you wish you could. Liz is starting to figure that out.

Chapter 4 Section 1

“I am fine to put your gun to my life and know I'm scared it won't fire right” Brand New, You Won't Know.

Ugh.

My sweatshirt is soaked through with sweat and I don't even want to think about what my socks are like. Even my underwear is drenched. This is what happens when you run as hard as you can on a five mile mountain trail.

I started running occasionally when I was at Cornell as a way to keep me from burning out. The last few weeks I've been doing it daily. I've turned into an endorphin junky but it keeps me from going stir crazy.

When I enter my room, I flop down on the bed a shower would be nice but right now I don't even have the energy to take off my shoes. It's nice to feel this close to passing out while in bed instead of laying there sprawled out and wide awake for hours on end. I'm not sure if I'm so on edge because it feels like there's a storm coming or if I'm just sexually frustrated.

I think I'll just blame Dean. He's not here so can't get pissed that I am and he would probably find it entertaining. He'd be more than willing to remedy the situation, too.

Damn, must stop thinking that way.

I let my eyes drift shut, a small nap never hurts.

************

The first thing I notice when I wake up is that I'm cold and wet. The next is that I'm outside. I slowly open my eyes, expecting to see some mysterious captor standing over me but there is no one. Rubbing the grass from where it is sticking to my legs, I take in my surroundings. A town, old, abandoned. No identifiable landmarks.

I'm in an unknown creepy abandoned town wearing a sweatshirt, shorts, and running sneakers.

This is so not good.

I follow the road deeper into town, not really sure if that's the smartest thing to do except there isn't much else to do. I wrap my arms tighter around me. What I wouldn't give for a jacket... or pants.

It looks like rain, great just what I need.

I round yet another corner. I might be going around in a circle. There is finally a sound other than the wind. Voices, several of them. A moment later I can see them and hear them clearly. They don't look dangerous but you can never know.

“-gay porn all hours of the day, you should have seen his face,” that sounds harmless enough.

I cautiously make my way closer, a blond woman in black is ranting about how when she touches people they die mentioning what others can do in the process. 'You have vision' she pointed that one to the tall guy with the khaki jacket. That I recognize.

“Sam?” they all turn around, five people. I make six. We're all on edge.

“Parker,” I don't know if he's relieved or upset that I'm here. Wherever here is.

“What's going on? Where are we? Where's Dean? Is he alright?” Not sure why but Dean's absence makes me feel worse than waking up in a strange place.

“I don't know,” he looks uneasy. That's not good.

“It's him, isn't it?” the others jump at that. Too many talking at once.

“Who brought us here?” it's the shorter of the three males. Introductions need to be made.

“It's less of a who. It's more of a what,” poor Sam. He's the only one with any experience in the field so he's going to have to take point.

“What does that mean?” the brunette.

“It's ah, a demon,” they all look at him like he's crazy. I would too if I hadn't had a ghost to kill me... or dreamed about it.

Sam goes on to explain about the demon and it's plans. Soldiers in an upcoming war between humans and demons. Lovely. They don't take it well. Jake calls Sam insane and walks away only to be attacked by a demon in the form of a little girl, Sam saves his ass using an iron fireplace poker. Not so crazy now huh buster.

It takes a minute for everyone to digest that demons actually exist outside of science fiction movies. While they do that Sam looks around, he recognizes the town bell. Cold Oak, South Dakota. A town that residents all left because it was so haunted. This just keeps getting better and better.

Lily starts freaking out. Poor girl accidentally killed her girlfriend but still, if you wake up in an unusual town with no idea how you got there, can only get out through miles of woods, and just discovered that demons are real, would you really think that whatever put you there in the first place is going to let you out?

Sam talks her down. He'd be a good dad.

“We're looking for iron, silver, salt any type of weapon.”

“Salt?” I understand Jakes confusion. I never really understood why it worked but there is no debating that it does. Something about purity. All I know is that it was used during the Punic wars to destroy cropland. Random fact, that is.

We start searching. Sam sticks close to Ava or she stays with him, not sure yet. I follow Andy, he's rambling about who knows what but it's comforting in its own way. He reminds me of Kyle except his Buddha is marijuana. He finds two sacks of salt, proclaiming it with a goofy grin I pat him on the back and we go find the others, except...

Lily is missing. Stupid girl. Dead girl. Oh god.

Ava makes a good point. If we're suppose to be soldiers than why did it kill her? Still, there is something about the girl. I don't know if it's because she's panicking while the rest of us are doing are best not to but she doesn't sit right.

Only Talley and Sam are trained as soldiers. The rest of us just have to follow as best we can. The sooner she accepts that the better.

I follow Ava inside and start looking for other stuff that can be used as a weapon. Sam and Andy are trying to get in touch with Dean using Andy's ability. I want to know if he's ok but I don't want to know if he's not. Does that make sense?

When I finish searching the house, Sam and Ava are making a circle of salt. I stand outside the door and listen to them talk. The situation is fucked up and confusing and bleak but at least we're not alone in it. I can feel for her, I can. She's scared and Sam just told her that her fiance is dead. Doesn't mean I have to like her though.

I wrap my arms tighter around myself and enter the room when Andy and Jake go in. Sam is sitting in the corner. I go sit next to him.

“It'll be ok,” I tell him. He stares at me like I have ten heads. Definitely Dean's brother. “You keep telling that to everyone else. You deserve to hear it too.”

“Even if it's not true?”

“What's so great about the truth?” I smile trying to make light of the situation. It's what Dean would do and he misses his brother. Sam shakes his head ruefully.

We each go back to our own thoughts.

“Elizabeth,” a voice says next to me. I jump. I really hate when it does that. “What'd you say, you and I talk?”

I don't respond, no need to. It's just going to do what it wants anyway.

“Not going to say anything, Elizabeth.”

“Would you listen if I did?”

“Now, now be nice. I might think you don't want to be here,” wake up Parker, wake the fuck up.

“I'm not going to do what you want me to. You're not a puppet master and I'm not your bitch,” it's so much easier to be ballsy when you know what you're talking to.

“Such spirit,” he goes to touch me and I jerk away.

“Why do you need soldiers anyway? Don't you have enough groupies in hell?” it laughs. The demon actually laughs, bad laugh but a laugh none the less. Didn't know that was possible. It shouldn't be possible.

“I don't need soldiers. I need a soldier,” that's not good. “Just the best. The rest are expendable.”

“So what? You're going to kill us off one by one? The real game of Survivor?”

“Who said I'd be killing them?” crap. He wants us to do it ourselves.

“Is this how you get your shits and giggles watching us kill each other until there is only one left.”

“That's the idea.”

“Wow, lucky us,” I close my eyes tightly. This whole thing could be a dream. A really bad dream. It's not. “I won't do it.”

“Then you die. Too bad. I liked you.”

I wake with a start. Talley is still standing in the corner. Andy no longer asleep at the table. Where's Ava? I elbow Sam pretty hard. He barely moves.

“Sam,” I shake him, he grunts awake spooked. “Where's Ava?”

We all separate to look for her. I am getting really annoyed with stupid people. What kind of person walks off on their own in dangerous situation... Ok, so I have in the past but then I sort of knew what was going on. Ava is flying blind.

I'm in another house when the screaming reaches me. I run back as fast as I can. It stops before I can get there. I barrel through the door. Andy is shredded on the floor. Ava is dead at Jakes feet.

“What the fuck?” I leave for ten minutes and bodies are flopping about. Not cool.

“Ava killed Andy. She tried to kill Sam. I killed her first.”

“Thank you for that concise summation of the situation but I repeat my original question: What the fuck?” They ignore me. Really now, is that necessary? I follow them outside. I wish I had pants on. It's too cold for shorts.

“Ava was controlling that demon,” pleasant girl that one. “We should be able to leave now.”

Jake stops and I walk into him. Damn guy feels like a brick wall, “Not we. Only one of us is leaving,” he looks from me to Sam and back.

I slowly walk away from him, separate the targets, make it harder for him. “Don't trust what he tells you. It's never right.”

“Only one of us leaves or we all die. What sense would that make. If I go, I can get close to him and kill him.”

I snort, “Like it would be that easy.”

“It doesn't have to be that way. We could kill him together,” dammit Sam sometimes there is no good way out. Have a little less faith in humanity it might come in handy, I don't know: now. If Jake believes what the demon said we're screwed.

“How do I know neither of you will try something?”

“You don't but here,” Sam puts down his weapon. Bad move but Jake does it too. They looks to me to do the same.

“I don't have a weapon,” they're both incredulous. “Seriously I don't.”

I dropped it when I found the dead people tea party. I relax slightly, maybe this can work. Thats when Jake hits Sam, sending him flying. He goes a good fifteen, twenty feet before he crashes into the fence. I jump on Jakes back and get slammed into the porch. That hurt. My sight is swimming. It's painful to move.

I stumble to my feet. Jake is walking towards Sam. A soldier mentality, take out the higher risk first. Too bad he never asked what I can do. They always underestimate the females. I raise my flashing hand and blast him. He's not going to stay down but it's enough for me to get to Sam.

I drop to my knees smirking at him, “Maybe you were right about the whole being special bit.”

Sam smiles back then it drops. He tries to push me out of the way but Jake grabs my shoulder and tosses me. My head hits hard and it's all black.

****

“We're gonna patch you up. You'll be as good as new,” those are the first words I hear when I come to but they're not said to me. A few blinks and my eyes focus. Dean is here. Holding up Sam who's on his knees, his head moving easily by his brothers hands.

No. No. Sam's not allowed to get hurt. He can't be hurt. Not Sam.

I drag myself over to them. Pushing Dean to give me some room, he lets me but only because he's a mess. I put my hand up Sam's shirts, placing my hand over his wound. I might not be able to heal the whole thing but I can help.

Why isn't Max ever there when you need him?

“What are you doing?”

“Accepting who I am,” Dean tries to move me, if I was him I would too, but I shoot him a dangerous look. “Come on Sam, open your eyes. Please, just a little Sam.”

I concentrate extending every fiber of my being, pushing my mind into Sam. I've never done this before. Never felt this before. Walls are coming down, it's amazing what you can do once you stop fighting it. My hand is on destroyed bare skin but I can feel everything in him. The heart rate that is barely existent. The lungs that aren't moving. The slowing blood flow.

But I can also feel the spinal cord stitching itself together, the increased firing of neural impulses in the brain. It's a beautiful thing.

Sam's standing there confused, all around us there's just black. The abyss. So this is where we come to die. So much for seeing your life flash before your eyes.

“Parker?” he doesn't understand. Maybe this place is of my making.

“It's not time Sam,” did he even know he was almost dead, “I need your help. I can't bring you back on my own.”

I feel the rise of his chest against mine. There is still a gapping wound on his back but it's mostly superficial now. Dean is pulling him close, repeating his name over and over again. I move away, stunned that it actually worked.

I can only leave them be, wiping Sam's blood on my shorts. My head is throbbing and my sweatshirt is sticky. I pull at it, the collar is wet and not with sweat. Hesitant fingers push into my hair, they come back red.

That's not good.

A/N: Story goes to 6 chapters, so there are between 5 and 8 sections left (haven't finished writing it all yet). No worries :}

Once again, thank you for all the great reviews :}