Days passed in a haze of pain medication, sedation, constant fussing. She was distantly aware of being in a bed, of being turned, of a low throb in her side that sometimes flared to full painful life only to be dulled once more by the insertion of more drugs into her blood. The light here was uncomfortable, always too bright; the people were too loud, too cheerful, to ready to lay hands on her when she needed something to be done.

And voices, too ....she heard the voices as she rose and fell in and out of consciousness, always aware that they were speaking about her, that she was somehow the cause of worry and concern.

"....none of her fingerprints match any on the database, but that just means she's got no criminal record ....just found her outside his bar ....no name, no address, no insurance ....can't keep calling her Jane Doe, it's insulting ....those wounds" Whatever happened to her, it wasn't a knife that left those behind ....severe blood loss, obvious trauma ....not interrogating my patient until she is well enough to endure it ..."

And always, she slipped into the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness before she could even think to try and speak, to help them with the problem of who and what she was.

3rd December, 2009

The steady beep of something electronic nearby drew her out of her doze, the slow drip of sedation no longer forcing her to stay still and resting. Her mouth felt dry, trapped behind a mask that blew strange-tasting air up her nose and past her lips. Her right hand felt stiff, wrapped in a bandage and laid flat against soft blankets at her side. Something was snug over her left forefinger, pinching just a little, throbbing in time with her pulse.

And her left side ....she was aware of a low ache that ran from just below her ribs to just beside her navel, localized and stinging lightly. She could feel a pad crinkled over the wound she remembered gushing blood, the stick of that pad coming free just a little where her skin had grown slick with sweat beneath it.

Fingers twitched against the soft blanket that covered her, left hand rising clumsily to tug at the neckline of the uncomfortably stiff garment she wore. Her lips moved, closing to try and wet her mouth with a swallow as her head moved, turning her face toward the source of what had woken her - the sound of someone moving about close by. Bleary dark eyes blinked once, twice, opening slowly to adjust to the strangeness of daylight.

"Good morning," a gentle female voice said quietly, a shadow passing over the source of the bright light as a figure moved toward her. "It's good to see you awake, finally."

Her surroundings swam into focus, her eyes taking their time to allow detail to make itself known. She was lying in a bed, in a room; a pale, small room, lit from a large window in one wall. A door stood open at the foot of the bed, offering the view of an equally pale hallway, down which figures sometimes moved.

Her lips smacked again, dry and increasingly uncomfortable. The owner of the gentle voice came closer, revealing herself to be a nurse of some kind. Dark-haired and tall, she laid her knee on the bed, leaning down to remove the mask from her patient's face.

"Mouth dry?" she asked, though the tone suggested she already knew this to be a fact. "Here, let me help you sit up, and you can sip some water."

A strong, confident arm insinuated itself beneath her back, and slowly, with much pain from her healing side, she was brought to sit, propped up against pillows. The change in position made her head swim, but the ache in her back and muscles declared that it was long overdue. A paper cup was brought before her face, a straw touched to her lips, and she took a cautious sip, delighted with the cooling moisture of the fresh water that filled her mouth.

"There, I'm sure that's better," the nurse smiled, setting the cup aside again. "I'm Dana, I'm a nurse here at the research hospital. You've been sleeping for almost two weeks; we didn't want to distress you with the state of your injuries, or what we had to do to get you back to this state."

She nodded slowly, the dark eyes lowering to her hands as Dana explained this in that soothingly gentle voice. The bandage on her right hand covered the intravenous catheter inserted into the back of her hand, into which a steady drip of what looked like saline was being fed from a stand over the bed. And the pinching snugness over her left forefinger was a pulse oximeter - it was in direct corrolation to her heartbeat that the steady beep which had first roused her continued on.

"Sweetie?" Dark eyes lifted back to Dana as the nurse's hand carefully touched her arm. "Sweetie, can you tell me what your name is" Or where you come from?"

Her name ....Golden blonde hair fell forward over her forehead as her brow furrowed, searching her mind for a name. Nothing came to her, not even the hint of a letter that might begin it. Her eyes lifted to Dana's again as she frowned.

"..." No sound escaped her dry throat and mouth. Licking her lips, she swallowed, and tried again. "I don't ....I don't know."

"You don't know your own name?" Dana asked searchingly, watching her patient's dark eyes with the obvious intention of finding some kind of deception there. "What about just a first name?"

Again, she searched the blankness of her mind, and this time the first flare of panic showed itself in her eyes. Her right hand turned beneath Dana's to clutch at the other woman's fingers.

"I don't remember ..." she heard herself rasp painfully. "....anything, I don't remember anything!"

On the edge of hearing, the beep of the monitor grew suddenly fast and erratic as her heartbeat quickened, responding to the panic that was surging through her. There was nothing in her mind, nothing to tell her who she was or where she had come from, nothing. Dana hurried to reassure her, speaking urgently in that gently soothing tone.

"Okay, sweetie, that's okay," she promised with a confident smile. "You've been through a lot, you can't expect to remember everything as soon as you're asked about it. It's completely normal after a traumatic injury and heavy sedation, don't you worry about it."

"Really' Normal?" Those clutching fingers slowly loosened their grasp as this calm, assured explanation made itself known. It was normal not to remember. She was normal. The beeping of the monitor slowed once again as she calmed down.

"Absolutely," Dana promised. "I'm going to page the doctor, and he can come in and make sure that you're comfortable with your medications and tell you what?s happened while you're here, okay' And this buzzer here?" She pulled a cord from behind the pillow, placing it into her patient's hand. "You press that, and one of us will come to you. You're not alone, sweetie."

She nodded once again, watching as the dark-haired nurse left the room, fingering the buzzer carefully. Not alone. But could you really be said to be alone at all, if you didn't even know who you were"

8th December, 2009

She was back in the bed today, huddled under the covers to watch the snow falling outside her window. Most people by now would have become tired and restless, being shut up in such a small, sterile room, but she didn't. It was all she knew.

A knock on the open door drew her out of these thoughts, urging her head to turn and settle the curiosity of her dark gaze onto the man who stood there. Blue eyes looked at her from a face that wore its years with dignity, that could be kind or cruel by turns. He was smiling right now, though, seemingly nervous of the reception he would find in the little hospital room. He was what most people would call spry in build, but looking at him, she thought there was more strength in the form before her than most people would notice. A holdall was hanging from his hand.

"Hey, missy-girl," he said, and instantly she knew him, feeling the unfamiliar shock of recognition light up her face with a bright smile. He was the first voice; this was her first memory. Her smile seemed to relax him, his own growing warmer as he dared to step over the threshold. "I, uh ....Name's Brian Morgan. Thought I'd swing by, see how you were getting along."

"You saved my life. Thank you." It was a simple statement of fact, one he couldn't refute, and yet where most people would have brushed off such a statement, dismissed their part in such a situation, he didn't, accepting responsibility for the fact that she was still breathing. Her hand reached toward the chair by the bed. "Please?"

As he stepped inside, he swung the holdall up from beside his leg, setting it down on the bed in front of her. He could almost have been blushing as he said, "Hope you don't mind ....I asked the nurses to make a guess at your size, went out and bought you a few bits. Ain't much, just a couple of changes of clothes, pajamas, toiletries and such. Basics you ain't got."

He sat down finally in a paroxsym of silent uncertainty as her astonished gaze travelled from him to the bag now sitting in front of her. Her fingers reached out to touch the zipper, wondering if he expected her to unpack it all right now before his eyes. As though he read her mind, he spoke up again. "Bag's yours, too."

Realising her own uncertainty must have been showing in her face, she glanced up at him in surprise, a shy giggle erupting from her lips that warmed her as much as brought a brief twinge from her side. Brian saw her hand go to touch over her sweater where the bandage lay, blue eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he leaned forward.

"That healing up for you?" he asked, glancing down to her hand very quickly before his gaze returned to her face.

She dropped her palm from her side, embarrassed to have brought attention to her injury. "The doctor says it'll take a few more weeks to heal up completely," she offered in a quiet voice, reassured by the way this Brian didn't seem to want to waste time with small talk that did no one any good. "He says it'll scar, but a scar's better than being dead, right?"

The older man's lips twisted into a knowing, somewhat rueful smile. "Doesn't sound as though you entirely believe that, missy-girl."

She shook her head, her own lips curving into a smile at his shrewd reading of her. "I don't know," she admitted with a one-shouldered shrug. "What if I deserved it' What if it was someone's revenge for something I did?"

"Oh, it wasn't that," Brian said instantly with a firm shake of his head, and she frowned in surprise, intrigued by how confident the man sounded in his refuting of her concerns. "Still nothing coming back to you, then" Cops said you don't know how you ended up outside my bar."

"I don't know anything," she said with a shake of her own head, one hand rising to tuck the sway of golden hair back behind her ear as she spoke. "It's like someone's reached into my brain and taken away my whole life. But I still have the skills that I learned; I can still read, and write, and I know how to use this." She reached beneath the pillow and withdrew the knife the detective had said belonged to her, handing it into Brian's curiously outstretched hand without a second thought.

He weighed it thoughtfully in his palm, slowly drawing the blade from its sheath to eye the lettering engraved into the metal with a manner that suggested he knew what he was looking at. "Pure iron," he commented mildly, resheathing the blade and handing it back to her. "Good balance. Any idea who W.A.H. is?"

Again, she shook her head, sliding the knife back under her pillow and out of sight. "No, not at all. I don't think it's me, though. Does that make any sense" I don't even remember my name, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't start with a W?"

"If you need it, it'll come back to you." Brian nodded, leaning back in his chair as he looked around the little hospital room. "Heard you were being let out in a few days."

She sighed, nodding. "Not that it helps much," she said in a quiet tone. "They say I'm not crazy, and they can't keep me in just because I have a hole in my side. I don't remember who I am, I don't know if I have a place to stay or a family, or anything. No one's looking for someone who looks like me; it's like I didn't even exist before I showed up outside your bar. I don't have insurance, so they're kicking up a fuss over how much it cost to treat me, and without a home or a job, how the hell am I supposed to pay them back?"

"That's a lot of worries on one pair of shoulders," Brian said thoughtfully, fidgeting to lean forward once again. "Look, I know it ain't exactly ideal, but there's rooms always open over my bar. You're welcome to one of them, if you're open to earning your keep working there. And don't worry about the insurance - I'll pay it off, you just think on paying me back."

Her mouth dropped open. "But ....why would you do that?"

His expression softened, a bittersweet memory in his eyes that she envied, even for the pain it brought him. "Because it's what my wife would have done," he told her gently. "She went to her rest almost fifteen years ago now, but sometimes it's as though she's still standing just behind me, telling me what to do. And right now, she's telling me to look after you, missy-girl."

"But what about your children?" she asked innocently. "Won't they mind you making a fuss over a complete stranger?"

Again, that smile turned bittersweet, touched this time with anger as he shook his head, avoiding her eyes. "No children," he told her. "Had a daughter once, long time ago. She took her mother with her when she went."

Compassion flared in her heart, and despite the ache in her side, she leant over the side of the bed, reaching out to touch his arm gently. "I'm so very sorry."

One strong hand covered hers, squeezing just as gently in return as he gathered himself under control. "Gives me an idea, though," he said suddenly, his voice brittle bright for the moment as he pushed grief aside. "I hear you're in the market for a name. Wouldn't mind it so bad if you took my daughter's. No one else'll ever get much use out of it."

She stared into his kind blue eyes, wondering at the inner strength of such a man that he could make such an offer to a stranger whose only imprint on his life thus far had been to bleed all over him and his customers. He seemed to have made a lot of sacrifices in his life, and yet here he was, offering her a home and a job and most precious of all, a name. He'd paid for her already out of his own pocket, and didn't seem to expect anything in return but her attendance as an employee at his bar.

"What was her name?" she asked very softly.

His hand patted hers where it still lay against his arm, wetness pooling in his eyes as he answered her. "Nimue," he said quietly. "Nimue Morgan."

Nimue. The name struck a chord inside her, though she would likely never know truly why. She could feel her throat tightening, more affected by the unshed tears and unspoken grief that radiated from the man sat with her than by anything that had been said or shared. And despite her lack of memory, her lack of knowledge, she trusted him.

"It would be a real honor to bear her name," she said finally, in a voice tight with her own unshed sympathy. "And yours. But I gotta know ....why are you doing all this for me?"

He rose to his feet, squeezing her hand between his for a long moment as his smile gentled once again, losing the bittersweet edge, but gaining something more profound - a purpose that transcended any dying wish of his wife's. "Hunters have to stick together, Nim," he told her firmly. "Ain't no one else who'll do you more good than harm in this world."

Before she could reply, before she could ask what he meant, he'd stepped away, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. "I gotta get back to the bar," he announced, as though nothing had passed between them but the time of day. "I'll drop back tomorrow, find out when they're looking to let you out. There'll be a place all set up for you when that happens, if you want it."

As she nodded, dumbstruck, he nodded back to her and strode from the room, leaving her to her thoughts and wonderings. Curiosity was never far from mind, and her hands were quick to open the holdall he had left for her, encountering denim and jersey and cotton; clothes in sizes that would definitely fit her; even, embarrassingly enough, underwear. At the bottom of the bag were a pair of sturdy boots, a wash bag full of basics, and three books.

She smiled as she lifted the books out. She hadn't mentioned her boredom to anyone over the past days, and somehow Brian had known to bring her something to help pass the time. Two were novels, Pride & Prejudice and Wuthering Heights. The third was a work of non-fiction entitled Signs of the Supernatural.

Her fingertips drummed on the cover of that third book, her gaze lifting to stare into the middle distance. Signs of the Supernatural. And what had he meant by hunters have to stick together" What did he think she had been hunting"

Early hours of 25th January, 2011

That night, the terrors returned. She'd known they were coming, of course; in thirteen months, not one incident of her strange instincts making themselves known had gone by without bringing with them the night terrors. But knowing what was coming was still not enough to let her face them without fear.

As the night slid from the witching hour into the wee smalls, the dream began. Always the same. Always mundane. She was out with her friends; it was the middle of the day, the sun shone brightly down on them. Chicago was its usual busy self, and then, without warning, everything went silent. The cars in the road simply melted away. The people on the street were no longer there. What had begun as a busy, thriving metropolis street was suddenly as deserted as a ghost town, and Nimue stood alone on the sidewalk.

Looking down at herself, she realised she was wearing those clothes ....the destroyed shirt, jacket, jeans that she had been found in all those months ago, now in pristine condition. The mysterious knife with its engraved initials was in her belt, and a 9410 Winchester shotgun was in her hands. She was armed for a hunt, and yet a moment ago, there had been no reason to even consider that one was necessary.

And there was something on the street with her. She couldn't see it, but she knew it was there, prowling, watching, waiting for its moment to attack. A couple of yards away, a puddle splashed as though a foot had stepped in and out of it. A low growl split the air, and Nimue felt the first crushing grip of panic take hold. There was more than one. She couldn't see them. She wasn't hunting - she was being hunted.

Suddenly her nerve broke, and she turned to run, hearing the slam and skitter of claws or talons on concrete as her invisible stalkers charged after her. Her breath was too fast, her pulse too high, she couldn't run fast enough to get away, there was nothing she could do ....and then she heard it. The sound of her pursuers' feet against the concrete sidewalk stopped, and she heard the grunt of someone knocked down, at the mercy of whatever those things were.

She didn't think. Skidding to a halt, she turned, bringing the shotgun to bear on the air over a shadowed figure without a name or face. She fired, and the shot hit. Whatever it was fell back a little way. She fired again, and again, over and over, advancing on the unseen attacker until the growling fell silent. The figure who had been attacked simply melted away, leaving her all alone once more in the silent street.

She relaxed, lowering the shotgun, and the second of the unseen monsters struck. Knocked to the ground, she screamed as the four scars on her side split open in a fountain of blood and pain, feeling claws dig deep into her flesh, knowing there was no way she could survive this -

Nimue always woke screaming from that nightmare, her limbs flailing, her throat hoarse, and always, Brian was there, fighting through the flail of her arms and the kicking of her legs to wrap her up tightly in a fatherly embrace, rocking her back and forth as she shuddered and shook, whimpering and crying in the grip of that not quite remembered terror.

This was the true reason she had not chosen to take a place on a hunt. This was why she told herself time and again how content she was in this sedate life, how happy she was working a bar where real unsung heroes shared their stories. Because she did not want to even imagine a life where the night terrors that took her happened every night without fail. Her instincts were a curse, drawn from the empty blankness of her mind, and they never failed to bring with them the lurking terrors of a life she did not remember.

20th May, 2012

Nim stood in the hallway a long time after the door had closed, staring at the cracking paint on the wood in front of her, listening to the sound of movement from within until it abruptly stopped. In that room was a man who knew her, who knew who she had been before she had come here, before she had chosen to be Nimue Morgan.

Joanna Beth Harvelle. Jo. Whose parents had been Ellen and Bill - William A. - Harvelle. Who had owned a roadhouse. Who had been hunters. Who had died while hunting, both of them. And she ....this Jo, whom Nim had once been ....she had died with the mother.

Her fingers touched the shape of her scars through her shirt, and the shock of that contact broke her out of her thoughts. He had touched her there. He hadn't flinched, or even looked away; he'd actually reached out and touched the ugly scars that marred her skin. And he was hurting because she wasn't the woman he'd expected when his eyes fell on her.

She didn't know quite how she felt about that. There was a lot of confusion in her head right now, a strange ache in her chest, uncertainty and wariness and relief all mingling with what might almost have been pleasure, just as it had been from the moment she got a good look at their drop-in stranger's face. No, she didn't remember him, exactly ....it was more a feeling, some deep knowledge that he was important to her, though why and how were still beyond her reach.

Drawing in a sharp breath, she turned to walk away, heading back down the stairs and into the kitchen that was set behind the bar. Brian was there, swearing at his own thumbs as he laboriously typed out a message on his cell phone. He was not at home with the phenomenon of text messaging, but since several of his contacts preferred it, he'd had to learn how.

He looked up as she came in, hitting send with an absent-minded gesture as he watched her move to the coffee pot. "You okay there, missy-girl?" he asked in a gentler tone.

Nim managed a half-smile for her friend, one hand snagging a small cup to fill with the harsh brew Brian preferred. She drew in a slow breath, letting it out in a low sigh before meeting his gaze. "Ask me again tomorrow?" she suggested quietly, and he nodded, understanding that some things needed time and space to make even a half-pint of sense.

"He sleepin'?" he asked then, lifting his eyes toward the ceiling with an upnod.

She nodded once more, moving to slide down into a seat at the kitchen table with him, her hands wrapped about her coffee cup. "Sounds like," she agreed. "I put him in 8."

"Good choice," Brian approved mildly, setting his phone aside to look her in the eye. "I don't know what?s goin' on here, Nim. I can't tell if he's really Dean Winchester from some other dimension or whatever, so I can't tell you if he's telling the truth. But some things you can't fake."

"He knows me," she murmured, completing her friend's little speech in a weary voice. "Why now" Why would whatever it is drop him here now, two years after I got here" I could've done with knowing all this, you know, when it was all fresh and gone."

"Maybe he had somethin' he had to do first, who knows?" Brian shrugged, leaning forward to wrap a comforting hand around her wrist as she stared down into her coffee. "Look, we gotta keep him here a couple of days. There's only one person can tell us if that really is one of the Winchester boys, and he's in South Dakota right now. He's on his way, but it'll take a day or so to get him here."

"And you don't want to tell Dean who it is who's coming, in case that makes him run for it?" Nim asked shrewdly. Brian nodded, eyeing her warily, and she made the intuitive jump to what else he didn't want to say aloud. "You want me to keep him here for a couple of days."

"Seems he knows you, and you two looked pretty cosy when I looked in a whiles back," her friend conceded awkwardly, subsiding under the accusation in her gaze.

"Brian, if he's who he says he is, and I'm who he says I am, cosy isn't likely to happen," she pointed out acerbically. "He looks at me and sees someone else who he thinks is dead, and no matter how cute he is, I am not getting cosy with someone who can't even remember what my name is."

Brian's smirk was irritatingly knowing. "But he is cute, is he?"

Nim rolled her eyes, frowning at her friend. She didn't want to go into this. "Shut up," she groaned, shaking her head. "Anyway, if he isn't who he says he is, he's dead anyway, right?"

"So what?ve you got to lose?" Brian ducked just in time as her fist swung in his direction, catching her hand with a laugh. That was a good sign, at least, she thought; Brian was laughing and teasing. He didn't think they were harboring anything evil under his roof. "Easy, missy-girl, I'm not saying you should do anythin' you don't want to. Just keep him interested and away from thinkin' about leavin'. You can do that."

"It's you he's gonna want to talk to," Nim said, pulling her hand free as she lifted her cup to her lips. "I can't tell him anything about his death, or his brother's. Who are the Winchester boys, anyway?"

Brian sighed, sad regret touching his expression. "They were one of a kind, kid," he told her quietly, settling in to tell her the full story as he knew it. By the time he was done, she was wide-eyed with fascination, her coffee forgotten and cold.

"So ....if he is Dean Winchester, he's kind of a legend, isn't he?" she said finally, and Brian nodded, smiling gently at his young friend as the full seriousness of this situation came crashing. "And if he's not ....that's a huge problem. You really think your friend in Dakota can tell you if it's him or not?"

"I know he can," Brian nodded confidently as he spoke. "He knew both the Winchesters best when they were alive, knew them from when they were kids. He'll know." He studied Nimue thoughtfully for a long moment, seeing the familiar signs of dread as the clock ticked on toward the end of the witching hour. "Gonna be a bad night, missy girl."

It wasn't a question. They both knew well enough that anything that touched upon the life she didn't remember, be it instinct or otherwise, brought that haunting terror to her dreams. Nim nodded slowly, sighing as she looked down at the grain of the table.

"At least I know what it is I'm dreaming now," she said quietly. The dream - the nightmare - matched Dean's description of Jo Harvelle's death almost perfectly. "Brian ....what are hell hounds?"

His expression darkened at the question, but it was time she knew what had given her those scars. What had almost ended this life of hers, no matter how another had ended in another time and place.

"They're what they sound like, missy-girl," he told her gently. "No one livin' has ever seen them and survived; they're invisible unless you're dyin' yourself. Aggressive bastards. Crossroads Demons use them to collect on deals, mostly. I thought it might've been hell hounds that gave you the bleed, but I figured the demon had taken your memory instead of your soul in the end. Thought if I gave you a new name, took you in here, made you safe ....I thought none of it'd come back to get you. Never thought a man'd almost pass out in my bar at the sight of you."

His hand found hers as she absorbed this information. "If him up there really is Dean Winchester, Nim ....he knows what you felt when you were all clawed up," he told her in a quiet, fervent tone. "Had a few encounters with them himself, so I heard."

Her other hand curled over Brian's where he gripped her, managing a smile that almost touched her eyes as she looked at him. "Thank you for telling me," she said very softly, squeezing his hand.

There was a long pause, both of them lost in their own thoughts in the silence of the kitchen. Then Nim sighed, squeezing one last time before she stood up, swallowing down the last of her cold coffee with a grimace. "Sooner I get to sleep, the sooner I get it over with, right?" she asked with forced joviality.

Brian nodded slowly, wishing her a good night as she left the kitchen, listening to her footsteps up the stairs and along the hall above his head. A few minutes later, he heard the door to the first bathroom open and close, and a few minutes after that, silence. She was a brave girl, his Nim; even knowing that in just a few hours she'd be scared out of her wits and screaming for help, she still faced her own demons without a fuss.

Very slowly, he drew himself to his feet, reaching into a cupboard for the big salt shaker. With a new face asleep upstairs, he wasn't taking any chances. It was time to batten down the hatches and hope Bobby got here sooner rather than later.

23rd May, 2012

Post-coital. What a dreadful collection of syllables to describe the warm, fuzzy feeling that had taken up residence in her mind and body since she had come together in the pre-dawn darkness with a man she loved. And yes, it was love. Strange to think that she had no memory of him beyond a few days previously, and yet he ignited in her the very emotion people always said happened instantly or over time. For her, it was somehow both.

Brian looked over at Nim as she came into view in the bar, a familiar looking hold-all slung over her shoulder, fully packed by the look of it. Another, heavier bag hung underneath the hold-all from the same shoulder, doubtless packed with tools of the trade. Dean and Bobby had disappeared into the parlor again shortly after breakfast was done, and frankly, Brian didn't want to know what was being discussed in there. It was hard enough looking at Nim and knowing she'd made a choice now that would take her away from here.

His gaze flickered to the bags as she stowed them safely beneath the bar. "That what I think it is, missy-girl?" he asked as mildly as he could.

Nim looked up, the happy shine to her eyes warming to his heart even as she nodded, confirming his fears. "He's getting restless," she told her old friend, taking up a cloth from the sink behind the bar. "I don't want him sneaking away out of some stupid sense of honor, thinking that he needs to protect me."

Brian snorted with laughter, kicking the cellar hatch closed. "God forbid anyone try to protect you," he growled in amusement, laughing aloud as she stuck her tongue out at him. He could understand her need to be packed and ready to leave at a moment's notice - he still remembered the aching agony of the few hunts where his Marsha had been unable to come with him, how wrong it had felt not to have her at his back. "You're pretty set on goin' with him, then?"

There was no consideration that Dean might choose to settle down here. Brian remembered the Winchesters' wanderlust from his few encounters with the Dean and Sam who had died in this world, and Nim ....well, Nim just knew, in that indefinable way of hers, that no power on Earth, in Heaven, or in Hell, could keep her lover still for more than a couple of days.

"With him or after him," she shrugged, not dismissing the possibility that Dean might well decide to try and take off without her. She was more than capable of hitch-hiking to catch up. Realizing how this must sound, she straightened, leaning her thigh against the table she had been wiping down as she looked over at Brian. "I don't mean I don't wanna be here, with you, Bri. I just ..."

Brian nodded, understanding the pull even if he didn't like it. "I know, missy-girl," he assured her. "Don't want to let him go again. Believe me, I know." It had been Marsha who'd had the wanderlust, and he who had followed her wherever she led. Oh, yes ....Brian knew what his young friend was feeling right now.

He cleared his throat, pausing in the midst of ringing up the contents of the cash register. "You got your IDs somewhere safe?" he asked suddenly, blue eyes sharp as he looked across at her. If she was set on going, there was one thing he needed to give her; one thing he'd held back on passing on, in the hope that she'd never need one of her own.

Nim moved back to the bar, leaning across from him with a shrewd look in her eyes. "In the bag," she nodded. "Should really start looking to set up my own kit, I guess."

"No need."

As she blinked in surprise, Brian sighed, bending to retrieve a cloth wrapped box from beneath the bar where he stood. It wasn't big, barely 12 inches deep, polished mahogany bound with brass. It also didn't take a genius to know what it was. This was a Cosey Box, a hunter's go-to place for all his or her forging needs.

"You stop at any way-point or refuge, there'll be someone there can refill this for you," Brian told her firmly, taking the last of the cloth from the box and pushing it over to her. "Even me. This one was mine; still fully stocked, got everythin' you need to keep yourself up to date. I figure Dean's got one himself, but you should have one, too. Best, in case you get separated."

As Nim stroked her fingers over the smooth wood, made speechless by the unexpected gift, her friend also lifted a small black book from his pocket, setting it on top of the Cosey for her. As she picked it up, flicking through at random, she realised it was full of phone numbers and names, some of which she recognised as being Brian's various aliases. Dark eyes flickered up to his curiously.

"In every state, there's one of us who'll play at bein' FBI, Homeland Security, whatever," he explained. "You hand over one of those names and the number that goes with it, and one of us'll vouch for you to whatever local officer's checkin' up."

Faced with this information - information Brian had conveniently kept to himself during the last year while she was out on hunts of her own - Nim couldn't help it. She smiled, the expression deepening until it became a full blown laugh. "You sly bastard," she declared in a fond tone, setting box and book aside to jump up onto the bar and hug her friend warmly. "Thank you."

His arms came up to hug her back, squeezing with gruff affection. "Just you take care, and come back through here from time to time," he told her firmly, refusing to become some tearful mess just because she was making plans to leave. He felt privileged that he'd been chosen to take care of her until now, whoever it was who had done the choosing.

But now it was time to let her go. No matter how he might regret Dean's arrival for the disarray it was going to leave him in when the man moved on, Brian wasn't going to deny that there was something special between the Winchester boy and his Nimue, something that no sane man would try to get in the way of, and truthfully' There was no other man he would even consider letting her bind herself to. If she had to leave the Landing, who better to leave with than a bona-fide hero"