Roads Untraveled ~ Sam Winchester

Chapter Thirty-Three - Something's Different

Elizabeth opened her eyes, finding herself back in the bedroom. She stretched out her limbs, instantly feeling better as her muscles flexed and her bones cracked.
She sat up, perching on the edge of the bed, rubbing her eyes. She looked over to the bedside table, seeing another glass of blood and smiled, reaching over to it.

After vacating the room, she heard chatter from down the hall, moving to follow it.
Turning into a large room, she saw the boys sitting at the map table she vaguely remembered seeing when she arrived.
In the centre of it, was an ice box. Next to that, was a half empty blood bag. She figured the other half was in the glass she was holding.
They instantly took notice of her presence, standing up to greet her.
"Hey." She mumbled, the bright light of the room stinging her freshly conscious eyes.
They both came over to her, engulfing her in a sea of flannel and muscles as they hugged her tightly - as though they were afraid she'd disappear again if they let her go.
"Did you say I'd been gone two years?" She asked, causing them to separate.
"Calm down there, Speedy Gonzalez. You've only just woken up. You've been out for four days." Dean replied. "But yeah, we even had Crowley searching everywhere we couldn't and Charlie hacking into every available database. But it was like you'd just dropped out of existence."
"Four days?" She gasped.
They went to sit down at the map table, Dean pulling up a chair for her between him and Sam.
"Where have you been, Elizabeth?" Sam frowned.
"Well..." She started, taking a deep breath as she wracked through her memories. "I was in Purgatory with Pigeon... The Leviathan were closing in on us and then... It was the Angels, come to rescue him. They disappeared. I remember thinking I was screwed. But then I just... I dunno, I ended up in Heaven. They took me to Pigeon and he said he wanted me put back on Earth. I was led away, but they weren't taking me back to Earth. I've been trapped in Heaven's dungeon this whole time."
"You what?" Dean growled, the fist around his beer bottle tensed up making his knuckles go white.
"I heard the Angels fall. Not that I knew it at the time. Then, I was introduced to Metatron - he didn't much like me. Not after I threatened to kill him. He had me chained up in my cell and that's... Where it starts to get weird." The Vampire sighed, sipping her glass of blood with reservation as she thought back to those memories... or dreams, whatever they were.
She started to get a headache deep in the centre of her skull, forcing her to close her eyes, rubbing her temple to try and soothe it.
"We don't have to do this right now if you don't want to." Sam soothed, reaching over the table to brush his fingers against the ones she had clasped around her glass.
"It's fine." She mumbled, re-opening her eyes. She released the glass to hold his hand properly, not realising how much she'd missed his touch until it was right there. "I- I started getting these... I don't know... Images?"
"What sort of images?" Dean pressed, a deep set frown on his face.
"Of this girl - Eden. But I was her. Every time, she woke up in this cave. Each time was various stages of her childhood. There was this voice - a man's. He told her he was her uncle - sort of. He let her out of the cave to 'see what she could do' and, well... It turned into a murder spree. And everyone Eden didn't kill, she turned into a Vampire. It felt like me, but it couldn't have been. I've never done any of that. But, Alexander was there..." She sighed.
"Your sire?" Sam asked, earning a nod of confirmation.
"Eden had turned him. He kinda became her guardian. I don't know... But at the end of every dream or whatever, she ended up back in the cave, chained down to a rock. In the last one, she grew flowers... Like, magically. All she had to do was touch the ground and they sprouted up from the earth. She'd grown attached to Alexander, so when her uncle took her back to the cave, she was distraught... She was screaming and pulling at invisible bonds until this burst of energy came out from her and destroyed the chains. That was when I woke up. My chains were like that... The cell I was in was blown to pieces. So I ran and just... Thought of you two. Next thing I know, I'm outside staring at the Impala." She looked between the boys, absolutely terrified. "What's happening to me?"
The Winchesters looked between each other with grave faces.
"I don't know, 'Liza." Dean sighed.
"But we'll find out." Sam gave a small, hesitant smile, squeezing her hand gently. "Starting with trying to find out who Eden is."
Elizabeth ended up staring off into space for a few moments before having a question come into the forefront of her mind.
"You two really looked for me all this time?" She asked.
The boys gave a soft chuckle.
"Between a Knight of Hell and Heaven coming crashing down on us, yeah... We did." Dean replied.
Elizabeth smiled, looking around the room. She decided to get off her seat and stretch her legs, exploring the room in detail.
"So, you boys wanna tell me what the Hell this place is?"
Sam and Dean looked between each other in amusement. Their Elizabeth was slowly coming back. The blood and the four day nap most likely helped.
"This is the Bunker." Sam started. "It was made for this secret, Hunter-like organisation called the-"
"The Men of Letters..." Elizabeth gasped, spying the hexagram sigil on a file on the other side of the map table.
"Yeah..." Dean frowned, glancing to his brother. "How'd you know that?"
"I worked for the British branch in the early nineteen hundreds." She replied, taking a sip from her glass of blood.
The older brother choked on his beer.
"We didn't even know there was a British Men of Letters. We've only been here a couple of weeks." Sam replied.
Elizabeth laughed rather sarcastically. So much so that she got a little dizzy and had to steady herself on the table.
"You really think Americans came up with a name as misogynistic and pretentious as 'The Men of Letters'?" She retorted.
"Fair point." Dean shrugged, then looked up at her with a smile. "It's good to have you back 'Liza."