On Your Side

"You got anything?" Dean asked coming in with a six pack. He threw his keys on the table and handed Sam a beer, then got himself a piece of pie out of the fridge. Sam nodded from his place on the bed, computer resting in his lap.

"Yea. I'm almost positive there's a shifter in Baltimore. It's the usual: good people doing bad things and not remembering it-"

Dean grunted. "Which could also be possession."

"Being in two places at once isn't possession."

Dean looked at Sam. "I hate shifters. They're gross."

Sam shrugged. "Maybe it's a leviathan."

"Shut up Sam." Sam smiled crookedly at his brother.

"Well look at this," Sam said, showing him a security cam picture. It was a young girl wearing a cheerleadjng uniform. Her eyes were glowing as she looked into the lens.

Dean scowled. "Great."

<><><><><>

Bayleigh held her sleeve over her nose, trying to keep some of the horrible sewer smell out of her nostrils. 'Why would anything choose to live down here?' she wondered noting a pack of rodents scurry by. Her tiny flashlight didn't provide very much light, but anything more might alert whatever lived in the illuminated room ahead of her.

She slipped on something and almost fell. Her breath caught in her throat; it was skin. She was dealing with a shifter. In all of her years of hunting, she'd only ever encountered a shifter once and it was with her mentor barely two months after she'd first started. She pulled her silver knife out of it's sheath on her hip. Then she slunk into the room, not at all prepared for what she would find.

A voice rang out behind her.

It was a girl in her late teens in a blood covered cheerleadjng uniform. "Hi there," it said in an artificially sweet voice. " Aren't you a pretty one. I like you. A lot. This one's mind is cluttered with boys and cheers and dances and a huge-monsterous test that she won't get to turn in because she killed her boyfriend-- oh wait, that was me." It giggled and paused, waiting for a response, something humans usually did after her taunts. But none came, not even a witty hunter remark. "You don't talk much, do you?"

Suddenly, it lunged at her. Bayleigh wasn't expecting something in such a tiny body to hold so much force and was thrown to the floor. The monster kept one arm pressed up against Bayleigh's neck while the other pried the knife out of Bayleigh's hand. Before the knife was thrown across the room, a cut had been made on the creature's wrist. It hissed in pain, grabbed her head, and smashed it into the floor.

Everything went black.

When she came back, she found she was zip-tied to a pipe. Dried blood cracked on the back of her neck. Her arm was broken at the elbow and wrist. She tried to wriggle free, but the pain caused her to go unconscious again.

The next time she woke up, the monster was back, in the shape of an elderly woman. It was laughing about something.

"The Winchesters," it cackled. "They're coming here, to my lair, tomorrow. Isn't that just super exciting?"

Bayleigh groaned. The monster frowned

"Oh, Dear, are you in pain? That's just horrible," it said with false sympathy. But Bayleigh's mind was already numbing again and she knew she would be asleep soon.

<><><><><>

Dean shook his head. "I can't even look at you." He bit into his burger and looked away.

"What?" Sam demanded, mouth full of salad.

Dean just shook his head and nodded towards a girl sitting alone at the end of the bar. "Don't we know her?"

Sam squinted his eyes and watched the girl. He knew he knew the face he just couldn't make the connection of where he'd seen her before. Suddenly, it hit him. "Oh, hey, its that girl," he said.

"Oh, yea, that girl. As if I, of all people, only know one girl."

"No the one from a couple weeks ago. The solo vamp."

"The one who never told us her name."

"Yea."

"Well why don't you go ask her, Lover Boy," Dean snickered.

"Ask her what? Why Lover Boy?"

But she was already heading towards them, moving like a cat does when stalking prey. It made Dean uneasy.

"She would look so good half naked next to my baby," he said despite his impression of her. Sam nodded absently, not taking his eyes off her.

The girl plopped down in the bar stool next to Sam.

"Hello, boys," she said. "I don't think I properly introduced myself last time we met. I'm Bayleigh Quinn Thomas." She sipped her drink watching them, waiting.

"How do you know who we are?" Dean asked.

"Oh, come one," she said, her eyes wide. "Everyone knows about the Winchesters." Their lack of response told her that that answer wasn't good enough, so she added, "Once upon a time I was being eaten by vampires and your father and Bobby Singer swooped in and saved the day. But that's not important. I assume you two are here for the shapeshifter, right?" Sam nodded. "Well I found it's den," she said smiling. "I can take you guys there tomorrow if you want."

"That would be great," Sam said.

The look on her face made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, but he brushed it off reluctantly. No use starting shit with someone offering a great deal of assistance.

<><><><><>

"Not much further," Bayleigh whispered. She gestured towards the glow at the end of the tunnel

They entered the room. Dean turned, hearing unintelligible shouts from a dark corner. His heart sank when he recognized the girl who'd been yelling, bound and gagged. There was a grunt and Sam was on the ground, the shape shifter lunging at Dean with a lead pipe in hand. He was almost immediately disarmed and realized his error in not getting ready until they were at the site; she'd seen where he put all of his weapons.

Without his weapons, he knew it would be useless to try to fight the shifter in hand to hand combat, so he did what came naturally: he ran. The shifter cackled evilly and followed, snickering and calling out his name with various obscenities.

Bayleigh finally pulled free of the zip-ties with a gasp and groan of pain. It had taken her hours to weaken and loosen them. She pulled the gag out of her mouth and stumbled over to Sam. She made sure his head wasn't bleeding, then started shaking him with her good arm.

"Winchester. Hey. Winchester. Sam!" He jerked awake, grabbing at anything he could, which turned out of be her broken wrist. She jerked it out of his grasp, intensifying the pain of her broken elbow, also. She clutched her arm to her chest and scooted away.

Sam leaned forward to apologize, but she waved him away. "Your brother's running from my other half right now," she hissed. He got the hint and took off.

She blinked back the mist in her eyes and held her arm to her chest until the pain subsided, then she got up and followed Sam's path down the sewer tunnel. She hadn't gone far when they loomed up ahead of her. She was hit with the odd sensation of an out of body experience as she looked down on the corpse of the shifter. She shivered.

"So I'm assuming you're the real Bayleigh," Dean said. She nodded.

"Thanks for saving my ass," she said. Dean nodded as Sam stepped forward.

"Your arm's broken?" he asked. She nodded again, glaring at it.

'Its gonna be a mess,' she thought bitterly. 'Ill probably have to get a cast and I'll be out for at least a week.' She frowned.

"I hate to be rude, but my dog's been alone for three days." She waved, but as she turned to leave, a man in a trench coat appeared beside her. Her eyes widened and she fell back a step.

"Dean, Sam-- why are you in a sewer?" Cas asked. (a/n: Oh Cas. I heart Cas) He turned to Bayleigh briefly, then back to the boys. They fell into a conversation that she had no way of understanding, so she waved again and turned to leave.

"Wait," Sam said to her. "Cas, can you help her?"

Bayleigh paused, wary, not knowing what was going to happen. The man wordlessly approached her and placed a hand over her arm. It glowed slightly and tingled a bit, then went completely numb. When she regained feeling, there was absolutely no pain in her arm. At first, she hadn't even noticed the feeling returning, it felt so nice. Her brows furrowed together and she looked at him.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded.

He looked at her like he didn't understand why she would ask that question, the answer was so obvious, then said, "I am Castiel, Angel of the Lord."

Bayleigh looked at Sam and Dean, confused, then left. She had no response to that.