Chapter Nineteen

…

Residence of Eric Myers

10:24 AM

Eric’s eyes snapped open when his front door groaned as it was pushed in; he fumbled, trying to force through the haze of painkillers and the sound of some sports broadcaster on his television. A slight panic took over when pain flared across his ribs, and he scrambled.

“Hey, Sammy.”

Eric’s tension crumbled instantly at the familiar tenor of Dean Winchester’s throat. The Quantum Ranger took a few deep breaths of air to settle himself, let his eyes slide closed again, and allowed the haze to fade gradually instead of forcing it away by will.

“Hey. Dude. Padres are playing the Sox.” Sam’s voice rumbled to clear Eric’s head further.

“Hell yes. Go Sox.” Dean clapped his large hands together once. Eric listened to the sound of

Dean’s boots crossing the room toward himself, Valentine and Sam on the couch.

“Val, down,” Dean commanded, his voice sharp and leaving no room for protest, Eric felt the cushions move as the large dog complied. After a few seconds, pain shot through Eric’s pelvis and torso as Dean jostled his knees to slide in between them and the coffee table. He gasped sharply, jerked his head up and glared violently at the elder Winchester, lips drawn back in a snarl.

“Sorry, man,” Dean apologized, but his own face was twisted slightly with pain, one hand pressed tightly to his left side. Dean had showered recently, his hair was still damp and the scent of cheap bath soap floated off his skin; his torn and bloody clothes had been replaced by fresh jeans and a sage green T-shirt. The fabric of the shirt pressed into his chest to outline Dean’s own layer of tight bandaging around his ribs.

Eric snorted softly, “Slow down. It’s only baseball.” He let his head fall back against the cushions.

He jumped out of his skin and yelped slightly when Dean punched him in his good shoulder.

“Baseball is life, kid,” Dean growled and dropped his frame into the space between him and Sam.

Eric lifted a hand and sourly rubbed his shoulder, glaring at Dean out of the corner of his eye; his eyes flashed up and a bubble of comfort bobbed into his chest as he watched Celia ease down to sit lightly on the edge of the coffee table in front of him. One of her hands stretched out to rest over his on his shoulder.

“Don’t talk ‘bout the Pass-Time in front of Dean. He loves it,” she warned with a small smile.

"Would've been nice to know before... " Eric mumbled.

“Used to play. High school mostly. Pitching position,” Dean muttered, his eyes fixed on the screen.

“He was good,” Sam assured Eric over his brother’s head.

“Really?” Eric asked, his voice slightly tinged with sarcasm. Like what he really wanted was to hear about was Dean's adventures as the star pitcher for some obsure High School... and not pass out for a good fourteen hours, doped up on painkillers and hard liquor.

“Major League good. He was eighteen and had a ninety-seven mile an hour fast ball,” Sam continued and ignored the glare Dean sent him. “He was getting scouted by Double A league and colleges. It was cool.”

That peaked his interest a bit. “What happened?” Eric asked before Celia could stop him.

“Black Dog dislocated my shoulder, broke my shoulder plate, collar bone and shattered the ball joint,” Dean ground out, his voice almost emotionless. “Team coach thought I was in a car accident; pulled some strings and some high-end sports doctor to do the surgery. But I lost it.”

Eric cast a look at Celia, she was looking at Dean sorrowfully. Eric licked his lips thickly.

“Sorry. I didn’t---“

“Doesn’t matter.” Dean shrugged and flinched slightly in pain. “I can get it up to seventy sometimes. Eighty if I really try… so what are we doing?”

“Well…” Celia lifted a hand and tugged at her ear. “Best I can figure… truck won’t be ready until round midnight. Far as I can tell Ransik and his spawn won’t be makin’ an appearance anytime soon, the pack is dead so… sleep?”

“I vote sleep,” Sam chimed with a lopsided grin. “Sleep.”

“Sleep and food,” Dean agreed. “Chinese… something like Chinese… Mongolian…”

Eric made a slight face at the elder Winchester before looking at Celia. “I can sleep.”

The redhead nodded as she pulled out the red cell phone and hit a speed dial before hitting speaker and setting the phone down on the coffee table next to her. They waited until it clicked and a female voice echoed off the speaker.

“Everything all right?”

“It’s fine, Jen, we’re debating what to do right now,” Sam said loudly from his place on the far end of the couch.

“What to do?”

“Right now we have three votes sleep and one vote food,” Dean informed the Pink Ranger. “I voted twice.”

“Are those the only choices?”

“Well, our usual range of choices are: sleep, food, hospital and home... but we have the fifth of clean up detail,” Celia sighed tiredly.

‘Clean up?”

“Somebody has to go out and torch the site. It’s full of corpses and crushed up robot, including the Silverado. Sooner the better. Especially with the ground just soaked in our DNA. Someone comes on that scene we’re screwed in a royal fashion,” Dean muttered. He leaned back and rubbed a hand across his forehead.

“What’s ‘home’?” Eric rasped quietly.

“Wounded Heart,” Sam sighed, a tired longing in his voice.

“Wounded Heart?”

“My family’s ranch. Out in Tuscarora, Nevada. ‘Bout a day’s drive out of here,” Celia said, her own tone dripped with homesickness.

Dean just let out a ragged sigh and licked his lips before taking a draw from his beer.

“If we agreed… you would take us to Wounded Heart?”

Dean and Sam immediately cast their eyes toward Celia. The redhead shrugged a shoulder. “I… I don’t see why not. Far as I’m concerned y’all are welcome at the ranch.”

Jen’s end of the line stayed silent. The quiet stretched until the three Hunters were sure that Jen was debating asking for the road to Tuscarora.

“Listen, how ‘bout this, Butch... if he’s up for it get that green-haired pup ready. I’ll come get him and he can help me torch the site. The rest of ya can order in and catch a few. I’ll have a truck by midnight and we’ll go from there. Agreed?” Celia lifted her eyes to look at Sam and Dean.

Dean looked long and hard at Celia, as if trying to read her before he nodded.

“Done,” the elder Winchester agreed, with Sam nodding next to him.

“All right, I’ll talk to Trip… why Trip?”

“Cause he’s not a bruised, bloody mass of broken bones and pulled muscles,” Celia reasoned and snapped the phone shut as she pushed up to her feet from the coffee table. “C’mon Eric, ya don’t want to be here with them watchin’ baseball. They get rough.”

Had it been any other situation the Quantum Ranger would have rebelled, snorted and snapped back with sarcasm toward someone that suggested that they knew what he wanted. Anyone else would have been met with hostility.

But she’d had the chance to abandon him, send him to his death, the chance to crush him, taunt him, break him, reject him… hell, Celia had more than one chance to kill him herself. It was an ugly, internal struggle to accept that someone that had more than enough chance to destroy him had instead made the effort to keep him from harm. Eric hadn’t been protected since he was a child... and even then, that sort of treatment only lasted a brief time.

Conflict churned in his gut. A shattered part of him wanted to be protected, but it was buried under reservation and pride, a trust that had been broken to many times and a fear of investing himself again; yielding himself up to vulnerability and the pain that could come with.

The three Hunters hadn’t showed signs of using and dumping him. Celia especially. Eric wasn’t prone to pleading and begging for something he wanted, he didn’t pray to some power for what he wanted or needed. He didn’t have that kind of faith in him anymore. He refused to ask… but Eric Myers was not above bargaining with whatever it was that controlled the universe.

Eric figured if he doled out a little of himself at a time, gave up small shards of his soul, that in return the superpowers would continue to will his fragile bond with Celia into existence and might even start cultivating a thread between himself and the two brothers.

With a soft breath, Eric wrenched loose another shard and offered it up to the pact.

Eric started to push himself up, he winced as pain flared and then sharpened in his torso before spreading to his joints. His sore and bruised muscles had stiffened and locked up at his awkward upright position in the corner of the couch. Painkillers had tricked him into thinking the pain was dulled. Eric buckled and sank back into his place in the corner of the couch.

He looked up at Celia; bone weary and broken, he let out an exhausted breath and swallowed

thickly. “Little help…?” he whispered bitterly.

Without hesitation, Celia bent and snaked an arm under his and wrapped it around his shoulders; Eric’s head dropped until his eyes were locked on the floor and a flush of bruised pride flooded up his neck. He jumped when a large, calloused hand wrapped firmly around his elbow, he twisted his head so his eyes fell on Dean’s steadying hand and the calm face of the elder Winchester.

“Ready?” Celia prompted.

“Yeah,” Eric rasped.

Celia braced and pulled as Eric pushed his weight up, Dean’s hand tightened and pushed up, adding a third strength and support and Eric found himself on his feet, a little shaky but firm as Dean’s hand dropped back to the bottle of beer and Celia’s arm dropped until her palm was pressed gently into the small of his back; pushing, guiding and steadying him all in one.

“C’mon. That bed is screamin’ for ya.” Celia patted his spine lightly, keeping her hand firmly in place until Eric started for his bedroom. She followed close on his heels into the seclusion, Eric winced, and as he made to sit, her hand wrapped around his bicep and supported the younger man until he was stretched out on his back, panting slightly and eyes half lidded. Celia perched on the edge of his mattress, waited until Eric’s eyes cast toward her.

“Ya alright with the boys here?” she asked with a cocked head.

“At least they will leave me alone… “ Eric sighed, closing his eyes.

“For awhile. I caught a look at yer stash of movies. Don’t be surprised if in a few hours yer wakin’ up to the sound of them murderin’ the numbers from Rocky Horror… especially when Meatloaf starts singin’…”

“God…” Eric muttered, and scrubbed a hand over his face. He sighed heavily then spoke quietly.

“Does that mean me?”

“What?” Celia prompted.

“If I wanted to go to Wounded Heart…” Eric trailed off.

“Hell, kid, I’d be pissed if ya didn’t want to go.” She gave him a crooked smile. “I would understand... if ya didn’t want to go but I’d be pissed.”

“Why?” Eric rasped.

“’Cause yer my little brother. What more is there to it?” Celia patted his arm once as she pushed up off the mattress and stepped around it to slip out the door. Eric stared at the place she’d last been and replayed the words over and over in his mind until they blurred together...

…

Desert Territory

Forty miles outside of Silver Hills

1:30 PM

Trip was surprised how something that sounded like it would take hours, such as torching a combat site, was actually easy. The teenage alien was ordered to walk from corpse to corpse, dousing each in gasoline and then get out of the way. Simple as that.

Not that he didn’t work up a sweat. The container had to weigh at least sixty pounds and when it was empty there were two more to go through; there was enough blood on the dirt to make it mud and Celia wasn’t taking any chances. By the time he was through the second gas can his clothes were sticking to his sweat slicked skin and his hair was plastered down on his forehead and neck. His shoulders and hands ached and his back was starting to hurt.

Celia herself was stripping the destroyed Silverado and combing the battlefield for dropped and lost objects that linked back to the existence of humans here. Her arms were bloody up to her elbows and her hands were full of bullet shells. Lugging the now empty second gas container Trip braced his back against the side of Eric’s black SUV and let his head fall back, eyes shut. He panted quietly and tried to get his wind back.

“Ya alright?” Celia asked as she walked passed him to dump the scraps of ammunition into a plastic container and rub her arms with a dirty towel.

“I’m hot,” the young man returned. “It’s never this hot back home… never this hot in the city.”

Celia actually smiled lightly and let a little laugh pass through her lips. “I’ll admit that California deserts a little warmer than Nevada, but yer right.”

Trip rolled his head to look at her, eyes half lidded.

“It’s peakin’ above normal,” Celia said.

“Why?”

“What yer feelin’ is storm heat, boy. Look out there.” Celia nodded off to the East, Trip pushed himself up and walked around the SUV to look out over the desert; the horizon of brown earth rose in the distance to meet a sky of churning, blue grey clouds. They churned and rolled, taking up odd shapes. Trip lifted a hand to push up his hair and shade his eyes.

“Is it just rain?”

“No rain in that one. That’s a heat lightnin’ storm,” Celia informed him.

“Heat lightning… is it coming this way?”

“Naw, it’s movin’ on. That’s the storm that’s been hangin’ ‘round here for the last three days.

Rained itself out over the city and moved on. It’ll be over the Owyhee Mountains by tomorrow night and be one Hell of a show over the prairies.”

Trip cocked his head slightly as Celia lifted the third gas tank and lugged it easily across the ground to splash a fair amount of gasoline over the under belly of the Silverado before moving on to soak each corpse and pile of broken metal a final time before striking the match.

“Is that where you live?” Trip asked, following in her wake. “The Owyhee Mountains?”

“It’s the range near my place. Ya can see it from the end of the far pasture,” Celia said over her shoulder.

“Jen said that you offered that if we wanted to… we could go and stay at your ranch for a little while.”

Celia grunted an affirmative.

“What’s it like?” Trip tucked his hands into his pockets and followed on Celia’s every move, his eyes flitting over corpses and reliving the violent conflict that only happened a few hours before. Seemed like years ago already... “I’ve never been in the country before.”

Celia stopped and looked at him over his shoulder, her eyes wide with surprise. “Never?”

Trip shrugged. “My family lived in a city on my home planet. We he came to earth as refugees to Silver Hills and never left that city either. Besides, in my time... there's not much country left. It's mostly either cities or barren wasteland."

Celia made a slight face that Trip could almost call pity. She turned back to dribbling gasoline over the bloody puddles of earth. When she spoke her words were a little stiff, she hadn’t taken the idea of a wasteland Earth well. “Well, ya know the ocean? Picture that except instead of the sky meetin’ water it's prairie grass and red earth desert. Our ranch is about six thousand acres… first ranch on the territory… there before the town went up. Mostly its graze pasture… some backwood and desert scrub. And if ya ride out and look West ya see the Owyhee Mountains and the plateaus. Ride further ya can see the canyons and ravines of the same range. They’re a part of the painted deserts, so ya always know ‘em when ya see ‘em.”

“Painted deserts?” Trip cocked his head as Celia led him back to the SUV and set the gas can down, she pulled out a cheap lighter and shook it a few times as she spoke.

“When the Owyhee’s rose they were white… like bleached bones in the sun… but one day the Creator made paint and drew the sunset in the sky. When he was finished he had half a bowl left and couldn’t waste it so he painted all across the Owyhee Mountains and the deserts… they’re all bands of gold and yellow, orange, red, purple and the Creator’s paint sank deep into the earth and colored the rock below so if ya dig it’s the same below as above… “

Celia flicked the lighter to life, letting the flame dance for a moment before throwing it out into the gasoline soaked earth. Flames sparked and in a matter of seconds roared up and stretched to eat up the blood and carcasses.

“Really?” Trip asked.

“Why would I lie?” Celia shrugged, a practiced eye watching the flames for any that might try to break out of control. Their battle ground had been mostly rock earth and the only true fuel the fire had was the spilled gas but Celia would stay to make sure it dropped to smolders when its job was done.

Trip watched in both horror and fascination as the flames danced and licked on the corpses and the mangled remains of the Silverado; he tried to imagine the beautiful world that Celia described, rather than focus on the ugly one in front of him. But try as he might, he couldn't erase the images that would forever be branded in his mind.

And yet, he couldn't bring himself to regret... any of it. Not the arrival of the vampires, or Celia and the Winchesters.

"I'm glad I met you," he spoke, suddenly. "All of you." He smiled, his youthful face still innocent somehow... despite the flaming corpses and the battlefield that surrounded him. "I like you."

Celia smirked, then clapped his shoulder. "Well, that's good, Trip... 'cuz I like ya, too."

…

The Clock Tower

5:30 PM

Alex's face twisted into a mask of agony and he let a small cry of pain escape through his lips, unable to stop himself; his ice blue eyes stared up at her, full of agony, pleading with her to do something to make it go away. All she could do was hold on tighter, pulling his broken body to hers; she pressed her lips to his hair, taking in the scent, then trailed to his forehead and placed gentle kisses on his bruised skin. She could taste the blood and sweat... her tears ran down her cheeks and mixed with his.

"Alex... " Jen whispered, her voice cracking.

"J-Jennifer... "

"You're gonna be okay, baby... it'll be okay."

The world around them flashed into a bright white light, temporarily blinding them, and suddenly, Jen was sitting in a chair at his bedside in a hospital, listening to the beeping of the monitor and whooshing sound that sounded like music to her ears... Alex's breaths, in-and-out... in-and-out... she leaned forward in her chair and reached over to grasp his hand, wincing when she saw the bloody knuckles and burned palm.

His eyelids fluttered briefly, and then his eyes focused on her and a small smile played on his full lips... Jen's heart stopped beating for a moment, she was sure. A smile lit up her pale, freckled face.

"I love you," Alex murmured, his voice thick and slurred from fatigue and medication.

"I love you too... " she stood, bending over him and kissing his lips as she ran her fingers through his hair; she closed her eyes, savoring the moment, grateful that he was there, alive and in love with her. Could life get any better?

An urgent beeping noise shot through her like cold steel, and she reeled away from Alex to stare in horror at the monitor that was now showing a flat, red line across its screen... "No, no, no, no," she muttered frantically, and turned back to Alex, a part of her certain it was all a mistake. The computer was malfunctioning...

"ALEX!!!!"

Her scream echoed eerily as suddenly the lights in the hospital went out and left her alone in the dark... with Alex's rotten corpse, his piercing blue eyes still staring at her...

"Alex!"

Jen flung herself onto her back from the fetal position she had been sleeping in, and then sat up, panting heavily and drenched in sweat but shivering violently; letting out a tiny whimper, she swung her legs over her cot and stood on the wooden floor on her bare feet. The pink tank top she was wearing clung to her skin from the sweat, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood upright... she shuddered again, then started when she heard a moan coming from downstairs.

"Wes!" she gasped, and instantly took off down the ladder to check on the Red Ranger.

His eyes were open and gazing up at the ceiling, his mouth was twisted in a grimace, his face was pale and sweaty; Jen picked up her pace and hurried to his side, grabbing his hand and holding it between her own as she spoke: "Wes... are you okay?"

"Jen?" Wes muttered... he sounded surprised that she was there, and she couldn't imagine why.

"I'm here," she assured him, rubbing small circles into the back of his hand. "Are you in a lot of pain?" To her surprise, she found that the thought of him in pain hurt her more than she expected it would; if Wes was in pain, she wanted to stop it, she would do anything to make it stop. Just like she hadn't been able to for...

"It's not... that bad," Wes sighed, "Not really."

Jen smirked. "You don't have to lie, you know," she said, gently. "Celia left some morphine behind, in case you woke up and it was too much... you really took a beating." Her eyebrows pulled together with concern as he flinched again; she brushed away a strand of blond hair from his sweaty forehead. "She offered to let us stay at her ranch for a little while... I thought it might be good, especially for you. Give you time to heal up."

Wes frowned. "But... Ransik, we can't leave the city... open to attack."

"Celia said it's about a day's drive away," Jen said, "With the vector cycles, we'll make it back in no time... if we have to. But I think Ransik is gonna lay low for awhile." Her eyes gleamed. "He needs time to recover, too."

" ... a ranch, huh?"

"Be a change of scenery for you, that's for sure."

"You're no cowgirl."

Jen laughed. "You'd be surprised... "

"What?"

"I was a country girl," she went on, "Before I joined Time Force... small town, big family, church on Sundays. The works. We spent the summers out in the fields, working in the gardens, swimming in the lake afterward to cool off... real old-fashioned stuff, you don't see a lot of that kind of life in our time. Kind of seems like a different lifetime to me now... hey, you okay?" She pressed her hand to Wes' chest, her eyes locked onto his face as he gritted his teeth against another onslaught of pain. "God, Wes... you really... "

Wes blinked, confused by the way she trailed off instead of finishing her thought aloud. "I really... what?" he asked, his voice tight.

Jen rolled her eyes, trying to swallow the lump that was in her throat and threatening to choke her; she blinked rapidly, disgusted by the hot tears that welled up in them. She prayed Wes didn't see them. "Nothing," she told him, quickly. "It was nothing."

"C'mon... " A tiny smile played on Wes' lips. "Don't leave me hanging... besides, you gotta keep talking, it helps."

"That's not fair... using your pain to make me talk."

"Whatever works."

Jen sighed loudly, but relented. She put her hand on the side of Wes' face, tracing the line of his eyebrow with her thumb. "You really... scared me. You were so hurt out there, and we were so far away from anything, anyone that could help. I thought for sure... I mean, you looked like hell. It was just... "

"You thought I was dying."

" ... that thought crossed my mind."

Damn it, those tears weren't going anywhere...

"I thought I'd lost you," she whispered, her voice suddenly small and broken, just like in her dream; she shivered, and dropped her hands from Wes to hug herself against the chill that suddenly overcame her body. And this time, Wes reached for her... his hand found hers and grasped it firmly.

"Not a chance."

"Wes... "

"I mean it, Jen. There's no way you're getting rid of me."

"You can't promise me that."

"I sure as hell can." Wes squeezed her hand harder, then pulled her closer to him and her hand up to his face; he pressed his lips to her palm, but didn't kiss her, just held it there for a moment, his eyes never leaving hers. "You can't lose me, Jen. I'm not going anywhere." He grimaced. "Now, I know you miss Alex... I can't even imagine how much... and I know you're scared something like that is gonna happen again. But you're stuck with me."

Without giving herself a moment to second guess her actions, Jen bent over and hugged him, wrapping her arms around him as best as he could with him laying on his back; she put her head down on his chest, squeezed her eyes shut, and breathed him in. This wasn't a dream. He was real. And he was alive.

"I do miss him," she mumbled into his shirt.

"I know... but it's gonna be okay, Jen," Wes sighed. "You're gonna be okay... " Then he forced himself up, and placed a kiss on her forehead. "I promise."

…