A/N: The title comes from First Aid Kit's My Silver Lining. I own nothing. I reference several movies and I don't own them either.

A few of Robert Rodriguez's other characters make cameos in this story because how could they not? I think Cherry Darling and Dakota Block from Planet Terror would be excellent hunters. And a cookie to whoever spots the other cameo who doesn't actually appear but is mentioned! I have also played very fast and loose with the myth about the brothers.

Let me know what you think! I'm considering adding more chapters.

Two months to the day Kate escapes with her life but not her family, the RV gives up the ghost.

The trip to the resort town on the coast has been a waste of time. She thought she'd see the beach and maybe try to figure out what the hell she was supposed to do with her life, but there's nothing there worth her time and she tries to leave almost as soon as she arrives. But the camper just sputters and won't turn over. She thinks about calling a mechanic, but the more she stands there, the salty sea air ruffling her hair and imbuing her lungs with a kind of freshness she forgot existed, the more she realizes that she needs to let it go.

It takes her a week to come up with the nerve to leave it. She walks along the beach, watches tourists and tries not to think. At the end of the week, she tries to start the engine once more and it doesn't even click. She takes what she can, buys herself a used Jeep Cherokee with the money that Seth had thrust at her, and she walks away from the only thing left of her family, leaving it to rust on the side of the road.

The camper deserves the rest and the sun-tanned heaven. She doesn't. Not really. There's too much to do.

Too many left to kill.

She drives to a small cantina and goes straight for what has to be the last payphone in the world. She pulls out the small business card she's been carrying in her back pocket and dials the cell phone number scrawled on the back.

"Yeah?" a deep voice says in her ear.

"Ranger Gonzalez?" Kate asks, her voice just above a whisper.

There's a pause, then he says, "Call me Freddie, Miss Fuller."

"Call me Kate, Freddie," she says starting to grin. "I don't suppose you can help a girl out?"

"I've always liked helping damsels in distress, Kate," he says.

"Not in distress," she says shaking her head. "I was hoping you could direct me towards some institutions of higher learning, actually."

There's another pause and then, "Looking to get your GED, Kate?"

"Let's just say I'd like to expand my knowledge and gain a few more practical skills," she says. "Can you recommend anyplace in particular?"

"I might," he says. "Give me a few days and I'll see what I can come up with." He sighs and she can hear him scrub a hand over his face. "Kate. Are you sure you should be doing this?"

"Yes," she says turning her back on the way she came and looking down the new stretch of highway. "I'm sure, Freddie."

"I don't like it," he says. "It's not safe."

"Nothing's safe," she says, her hand tightening on the phone. "Not anymore. But I didn't get this far by being stupid, so help me, Freddie. Tell me where to go."

"Right. Get yourself to Monterrey and go to the café that's around the corner from the American Embassy," he says. "I'll have something for you."

"You're not going to try to take me back to the states are you?" she asks.

"Do you want me to try to take you back to the states?" he asks.

"No," she says. "I'm not going back."

"I wish you'd rethink this," Freddie says quietly.

Kate pauses. "No. You don't."

It's quiet on the phone and Kate can hear the static crackling along the line. Then he says, "No. I don't."

"Talk soon," Kate says and she hangs up.

Three days later, courtesy of Freddie's contact in Monterrey (a third cousin of his named Estéban), Kate has a list of people who will teach her everything she wants to know, a fake id, and a new cell phone.

The next two years are spent in learning what she can from whoever she can and hunting down nests of calebras and killing as many of them as she can.

She learns hand-to-hand combat from an old group of militiamen and then about knives from watching a gang in Mexico City.

It's in Guadalajara that she discovers that her talent really lies with the crossbow. She hangs out with a group of survivalists for month and a half learning how to track and hunt.

She gets exceptionally good at setting fires after a good three weeks with a travelling circus. The man who eats fire on stage is a font of information about explosives.

She learns and she hunts and she survives.

There isn't any room for anything else; she makes sure of that.

It feels…right. So she keeps at it. Makes some contacts outside of Freddie, kills a lot of culebras, and after a while the nightmares stop.

But the dreams start up two years after she walks away from the RV.

Sunlight dances across a gray stone floor and firm but gentle hands hold her and she's surrounded by warmth and strength and her palms rest against two steady heartbeats and the thrum under her hands match her own heartbeat and she closes her eyes…

Only to open them and stare at the early morning light coming through the lace curtains pulled over the open window in her room.

Morning dawns brighter on the east coast of Mexico and it stirs Kate to get out of the single bed, pull on her boots, strap on a knife, and head downstairs.

She's at Cherry and Dakota's place near Tulum for her bi-monthly check-in with the ladies and to pick up any mail she might have accumulated. She met the ladies not too long after she started hunting and it's Cherry who taught Kate how to fire a gun while Dakota taught her the basics of first aid.

The ladies and their group have their own gruesome history that took out most of their families and Cherry's right leg. They're the closest things Kate has to actual friends and after an especially close encounter with a culebra that nearly had Kate's guts for garters the week prior, she'd figured it was time to head down to see them.

Her first night in their compound was spent in the usual fashion, drinking sangria, eating good food, and telling them about the nests she'd taken out, Cherry marking them down on a large map on the wall with little red pushpins.

Kate spends the next few days resting up and letting the gash on her side heal up. She sifts through some stuff Freddie sent her, focusing on the stash of journals and papers that he'd somehow managed to find that belonged to Professor Tanner aka Sex Machine. Kate does her best to forget how the man died after he'd been transformed. Tries to forget how it was her that sent the arrow flying into his heart.

Instead she tries to figure out what he'd been looking for and every night she falls asleep with carvings and glyphs in languages she doesn't know swirling in her head and she wakes up to the echo of two strong heartbeats.

By the end of the week, she decides enough is enough and she can fucking take a hint, okay?

She sorts through everything and collects everything Sex Machine had on the myth about the brothers who tricked the gods.

It's into her second day of making notes and glaring at Sex Machine's appalling handwriting that Cherry and Dakota finally sit down across from her and take the pen from her hand.

"Hey," she says. "I'm getting somewhere."

"Are you?" Cherry asks. "Because it looks like the thing you're getting is a migraine."

Something deep inside Kate flinches, but nothing shows on her face.

"I think there's something to this whole brother myth," she says instead. She shows the women a picture of a wall carving with two figures following what looks like a ray of light. "This looks like they followed a shining beacon of some kind into the Underworld and then drew the gods out one by one and tricked them." She frowns. "Somehow."

"Crafty fellows," Cherry says. "But setting this aside for just un momento, how's your side?"

"Fine," Kate says pulling the book back towards her. "I took the stitches out last night."

"Groovy," Cherry says, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder. "Next question, why are you hitting the books so hard?"

"Because I'm tired of the small time," Kate says staring down at the picture of the two brothers. "I'm tired of taking out one nest at a time." She gestures towards the map on the wall. "Look at all those pins. Looks how many that have been taken out in the last year alone and measure it against how many more are out there. It's not sustainable. We have to go big."

"And you think you're the one to do it?" Dakota asks, her blue eyes wide and clear and her voice gentle.

"Why not me?" Kate asks confused. "I'm good at this. I'm better than some of those other hunters out there."

"We're not dissing your abilities," Cherry says rolling her eyes. "Just making sure that you really want to do this."

"It's what I have to do," Kate says tracing a finger along the edge of the ray of light in the picture. "What else is there for me?"

She doesn't have to look up to know that the other women are exchanging a look of some kind.

"All righty then," Cherry just says. "Just keep us in the loop and let us know when we need to circle the wagons. Deal?"

"Always," Kate says looking up with a smile.

"Good," Dakota says. "So you're going to lead the brothers into the Underworld?"

Kate frowns. "What? No. I mean…what?"

"Uh, shining beacon of light?" Cherry says as she gestures at Kate. "You're it."

"What? No," Kate says shaking her head.

"What does it say about the light?" Dakota asks.

"Nothing," Kate says shuffling through her notes. "There's nothing about it. It's not part of the myth."

"Well, they aren't going after the gods for the heck of it," Cherry says. "They must be getting something out of it. Or someone."

"Why?" Kate asks.

"Because, a lot of myths are based on the search or quest for something pure and beautiful, person or object. Helen of Troy or the Golden Fleece, anyone?" Cherry sits back and smiles. "Useless Talent Number 23 - I read a lot of Time-Life books when I was a teenager."

Dakota, with a fond smile, runs a hand over Cherry's hair and says, "From what we've heard about the gentlemen in question, they're going to need some kind of incentive."

"You mean…me?" Kate asks. She shakes her head. "Uh huh. No way. I'm not going to be relegated to being some kind of consolation prize hanging around in the corner while those two fight the big bads. That just seems so-" Kate trails off as Dakota and Cherry supply:

"Predictable?"

"Clichéd?"

"Yeah," Kate says.

"Well, you have to remember that most modern stories are based on myths and those," Cherry taps the book on the table, "came first."

"Okay, so if I accept that I could be some kind of stand-in for this mythical reward," Kate says while cringing. "I guess we know who the brothers are." She sighs and props her head on her hand. "Crap. I don't even know where they are. They could be living it up in Cabo, for all I know."

"No, they're around. We've had reports of them taking out nests," Cherry says. "The real question is: do they think of you as someone worth following into hell? Do they think of you as a friend or a sister?"

Kate hardly ever lets herself think about the brothers, but she remembers the kiss in the back room, how Richie's lips were warmer and softer than she'd expected, how his hands were so big they could span her entire ribcage, how he towered over her but only ever looked at her with trust. She remembers how Seth had held her when they got out of the club, his arms awkward around her waist as he held her up while she sobbed. How they'd both defended her without question.

She also remembers the thrill that ran through her when she caught them looking at her.

You know, it's a real shame the Texas school system didn't include this kind of personal stuff in those stupid Life Management classes, because Kate does not know how to cope with this level of complexity.

Since she's not quite sure how to articulate the sheer bizarreness that was her relationship with the Gecko brothers, in response to Cherry's question of if they think of her as a sister, she just mumbles, "Sometimes."

Eyebrows rise on both of the other ladies' faces.

"Annnd that's a loaded answer," Cherry says nodding. "And I'm guessing it means they'd follow you anywhere. Wow. Brothers. That's hot, Kate."

"Cherry," Dakota says, lightly tugging on Cherry's hair.

"No, I'm just saying, I've seen the mug shots," Cherry says. "Once upon a time I would not have kicked either of them out of bed for eating crackers."

"It's not like that," Kate says rolling her eyes. "It's…weird and…wrong and…just weird."

"Honey," Dakota says putting her hand on Kate's arm. "You're considering going into battle against gods and snake-people. I think weird was left at the border."

Kate slumps in her chair and covers her face with her hands. "What do I do?"

"What you do best," Dakota says. Kate drops her hands and looks at her. "You survive, Kate. However you can."

Kate glances at Cherry who's nodding in agreement and eventually Kate nods back. "Right. Survive. I can do that."

"You sure can," Cherry says. "And hey, if you happen to have some sexy funtimes with two hot dudes-"

"Cherry!" Dakota tugs Cherry's hair again.

"Ow! I was just going to say that she'd have to tell us all about it," Cherry says grinning.

Kate can't help but laugh. "I promise to give you a play-by-play should the deed ever actually occur." She pauses. "Which it's won't. Because it's weird."

"And wrong," Dakota says, her eyes wide and possibly patronizing.

"And weird again," Cherry adds.

"I don't think I like you two," Kate says.

"Yes, you do," Cherry says smiling and ruffling Kate's hair. "So what's your game plan?"

"Well, I'd like to confirm the myth," Kate says, pushing any and all salacious thoughts from her head. She picks up the book and points to a page. "Looks like there's something outside of Cuencamé in Durango that may have some relics. Sex Machine mentioned it in one of his journal entries." She sits back. "Looks like I'm heading towards the mountains."

"Send us a postcard," Cherry says. "And try to come back, okay?"

Kate gives the women a rueful smile. "I'll do my best."

The state of Durango has more mountains and trees than Kate's seen in years. The air is dry and cool as it blows through the Jeep's open windows. She drives through Cuencamé sticking to the highway, then veers off once she's outside the city limits. The old road is barely paved as she drives through the flat canyon, mountains surrounding her on all sides.

She finds the church smack in the middle of nowhere. She drives around the perimeter, then drives past and parks just behind the back. She checks her knives and her gun, then gets out of the jeep.

Her footsteps are near silent as she walks around the corner of the church. It looks like a dozen other churches she's seen over the last two years. Single story with a brass crucifix on top of the belfry and white plaster walls with a few shrines here and there. The shrines have several candles underneath them and most look new, so someone must come by on a regular basis. However, it's the trees surrounding the church that catch her eye.

Crosses of all shapes and sizes hang from the branches, catching the sunlight and casting bright squares of light on the ground and the church walls. Some are silver, some are brass, some simple, while others have delicate filigree etched along the edges. Kate stares at them for a minute, holds out her hand and watches a diamond of light dance on her palm.

Then she rests her hand on the butt of her gun and walks into the church.

The inside of the church smells familiar and it reminds her of all the other churches she's been in, filled with the scent of incense and dust and something else. She thinks it's the smell of age, of relics and worn hymnals and Bibles that have rested inside pews for decades, well-thumbed and yellow with time.

She was raised a Baptist not a Catholic, so she never crosses herself when she enters a church, but she does bow her head slightly when she catches sight of the crucifix.

To be honest, she's not sure if it's God she believes in these days. All she knows is that there are higher powers in this world and well, God seems to be the nicest of the bunch.

He only ever dealt in floods and parables, not blood-sucking fiends.

She walks slowly through the church, skirting along the side, her eyes open and her feet silent. The crosses outside continue to dance in the light breeze and the shards of light play on the floor inside.

As she reaches the pulpit and heads behind the dais, the door to the church creaks open. She quickly slips into the shadows and draws her gun.

She's taken refuge in churches before as the culebras tend to avoid them, but it's not always the snake-people you have to look out for.

Kate thumbs the safety off and listens. She hears their voices and her heart stutters in her chest.

"I swear, if that blind bastard has sent us on another fucking goose chase-"

"Wild."

"What?"

"Wild. Wild goose chase. That's the phrase. It's not just a goose chase. Shakespeare used the phrase first."

"Do I honestly look like I read Shakespeare?"

"You watch it. The other night. Kurosawa's Throne of Blood is a version of MacBeth."

"Richard."

"Look, I'm just saying-"

"You're not saying anything. This is not a conversation I am having. We are in the middle of nowhere, sent here by some dude irrationally fixated on pulled pork-"

"Slow-roasted pulled pork."

"-to find something and there's nothing fucking here."

"Maybe you're not looking hard enough," Kate says as she rounds the corner and sets her eyes on the Gecko brothers for the first time in two years.

Their arms immediately rise in perfect unison as they point their guns at her.

Kate just laughs under her breath and puts her gun away.

They haven't changed much. Seth's hair is a bit grayer at the temples and Richie's face is thinner, leaner. They're wearing dark jeans and Seth's got on a black t-shirt that shows off his tattoo, while Richie's sporting a black button-down shirt that doesn't have a single wrinkle on it.

Kate kind of misses the suits.

Richie lowers his gun first and breathes, "Kate."

"Gentlemen," Kate says, willing her voice to stay even and not crack with whatever it is she's feeling (panic, pleasure, pain, heartbreak, anger, happiness, lust - she really doesn't know).

"I thought I gave you close to $500,000 to get the hell out of Mexico," Seth says as he slowly lowers his gun, his voice low and rough.

"You did," Kate says, leaning against the arm of the first row of pews, fighting the urge to cross her arms over her chest.

"And yet here you are," he says, glaring at her.

"Here I am." She stares back at him.

"We knew she was still in the country, Seth. We've been hearing about the girl with the crossbow and the knives who slays vampires," Richie says, not taking his eyes off of her. "Now we have proof that it's her. You look lovely, Kate."

"Thank you," she says looking at Richie and feeling a smile creep up on her face. She wills it back down. Richie isn't going to be the difficult one here. Whatever it was that connected them in the first place is still in effect and she can feel the pull towards him. It's Seth that's going to be the tough one to convince that they need to go on a quest to defeat a bunch of gods.

"Kate," Seth says, stepping towards her. "You were supposed to go home."

"I am home," she says flatly. "Here. This country. These highways. What did you honestly expect me to do, Seth?"

"I expected you to get out of this country and forget about all this," he says waving his gun in the general direction of the knives strapped on her hips.

"How?" Kate asks, her eyes widening at the man's sheer obtuseness. "How was I supposed to do that? Have you managed to forget it? Because if you have, you gotta tell me your secret. Because I remember all of it. Every second. Everything they said, every drop of blood that…"

She stops talking and looks away. No, she thinks fiercely. She hasn't had a panic attack remembering how her father and brother died in months and she sure as anything isn't about to have one now in front of them.

No matter how much they may understand better than anyone.

"No," Seth says after a minute.

"No, what?" she asks looking at him.

He looks right back. "No, I haven't forgotten."

"Neither of us has," Richie adds. She glances at his neck at the high collar of his shirt and wonders if he still has the scars from the wounds Santanico Pandemonium inflicted. As if reading her mind (and Christ, he probably is), he lifts his chin slightly and she can see the edge of the puncture wounds on his jugular.

"I didn't think you'd go all Ellen Ripley on us, though," Seth says.

"Sarah Connor," Richie amends. "She's the more appropriate comparison."

"Whatever," Seth says. "I just thought-"

"That I'd go back to Texas and go to college? Or I'd get a job at Wal-Mart or JC Penney's and settle down?" Kate offers. She shakes her head. "I don't think those are options for me anymore."

"What did you do with the money?" Seth asks, his eyes assessing. "That jeep parked in the back yours?"

"The RV died on me," she says. "And I still have most of the money. Why? Do you need a loan?"

"We need you," Richie says simply.

Kate looks at him. "You picking up on things again?"

"Always," he says with a smirk. "We need you. We always did. And you need us."

"Doing okay on my own," Kate says shifting her weight and resting a hand on her gun. She may need them, but she's not going to come right out and say it. Not with Seth glaring at her like she's some wayward toddler.

"You're doing extremely okay," Richie says. "But something's coming and we need you now."

Chills spill down her spine, because she knew that, she knew she was right to worry, but it still makes her stomach turn to hear it confirmed. "What's coming?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know. But we were sent here for a reason."

"Yeah," Seth says. "Reason being some asshole with bad taste in cantinas sent us to the middle of nowhere to catch up with princess here under the guise of learning more about that stupid myth."

"I came here about the myth, too," Kate says.

The looks they both give her is priceless: disbelief warring with confusion.

She rolls her eyes. "You aren't the only one with connections these days, fellas. Freddie sent me Sex Machine's research and this looked like a good place to start."

"Freddie?" Richie says as Seth says, "You keep in touch with the Ranger? Jesus Christ, Kate."

"He helps me out," Kate says, her voice rising. "He has better access to official reports than I do. He also managed to get all of the professor's research which I wouldn't have been able to do."

"So the ranger is sending a little girl off to do the dirty work," Seth says chuckling. "That's great. That's stellar law enforcement in action."

"He has more to lose than I do," Kate says, narrowing her eyes as she walks towards Seth. "He has a family. He has a home. I don't. It was an easy call to make."

"Easy?" Seth says looming over her while Richie says, "Yes, you do."

"What?" Kate asks looking at him.

"You have a home," Richie says. "With us. I thought I already made that clear. You should have come with us in the first place." He frowns at Seth. "I never liked that you sent her away. We should have talked about it."

"Hey, you were half dead at the time and a little unable to make decisions," Seth says. "I was giving her a chance!"

"A chance for what?" Kate shouts. Her voice echoes off the walls of the church and everyone falls silent. The only sound comes from the crosses clinking in the trees outside. Kate breathes in and out and looks at Seth. "You are under the impression that what happened to me didn't change me. Well, it did. I'm never going to be that girl who went to church on Sunday, did her homework, and sang in a choir. That's not me. Not anymore. I'm doing what I have to, because someone needs to."

She looks at them both. "Just like the two of you."

Richie nods while Seth shakes his head. "No. You're not like us."

"You think I didn't try?" Kate asks, her voice finally cracking. "I drove up to the border fifteen times those first few months." She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "But something kept pulling me back in."

She opens her eyes in time to see Richie's eyes brighten and a grin spread across his face. She rolls her eyes. "Yes, I've seen the Godfather trilogy. And before you ask, the third one's my favorite."

His face falls. "No. Why?"

"Andy Garcia's hot," she says with a shrug.

He, hand-to-God, looks like she's just kicked his puppy, but he recovers. "He's better in The Untouchables."

"Nah, Internal Affairs," Seth says.

"Anyway," Kate interrupts because she's sure they'd bicker forever if given the chance. "I'm here and you're here and I'm looking for proof that, once upon a time, two brothers defeated the gods. Because history needs to repeat itself."

"Excellent," Richie breathes, his eyes bright and Kate lets herself chuckle at the eager expression on his face.

"Shit," Seth says and he rubs the back of his neck.

Richie frowns at him. "Come on, Seth. It's not like you haven't been saying the same thing for months now. About how you're tired of the rinky-dink kills and how it'd be better to nuke the site from orbit somehow." He turns to Kate. "Great minds are clearly thinking alike."

"God help me," Kate says drily, but Richie just smirks at her.

"Fine," Seth says holding his hands in the air. "Fine. Let's take on the gods, why the hell not? Not like I had any plans for the rest of my life." He looks at Kate. "Where to first, Katie?"

"I have no idea," she says, wondering why it's so easy to fall back in with these two and wondering what that might say about her. "I just know that there might be something in this church that proves the myth could be real."

"Don't suppose we're going to find a secret weapon that will take them all out of our misery?" Seth says as Kate turns around and head towards the back of the church.

"That's too easy," Richie says. "It's a quest, Seth. There are trials."

"Great," Seth mutters.

Kate runs her hand along the back wall of the church, the plaster cool under her fingertips.

"I always knew we'd see you again," Richie says, his voice close by. She glances over her shoulder to see him less than a foot away. "You're the one that leads us, aren't you?"

"What?" she asks.

"What?" Seth echoes, looking over from where he was examining the stone floor.

"There's always a reason for the heroes to go on their quest," Richie says. "You're it."

"I would have thought ridding the world of those things would have been reason enough," Kate says.

"Oh, it is," Richie says. "But the heroes need something that keeps them going. Something good."

She narrows her eyes and remembers her conversation with Dakota and Cherry. "I'm not anyone's reward. I'm not some kind of a prize."

"Fair enough," Richie says. "But you are what will keep us going."

She rolls her eyes and really wishes more myths were written with women calling the shots and decides that when this is all over, she's going to write them.

"Found something," Seth says, stomping the heel of his boot on an uneven bit of stone.

The stone gives way and they can see stairs leading down into darkness. Kate slips her MagLite from her pocket and aims it down the shaft.

"Once, I'd like the creepy stuff to be in the attic instead of the basement," Seth mutters.

Kate starts forward before either of the men can and steps onto the first wooden step.

The plank of wood splinters under her feet and she starts to drop down. Two sets of strong hands grasp her waist and pull her up before she can even gasp. Her right hand comes to rest against Richie's heart while her left grips Seth's wrist.

Their pulses are steady under her palms and she stares at them both as they stare at her.

Eventually, she blinks then sighs and chuckles.

"Typical," she mutters.

"Want to let us in on the joke?" Seth asks.

She shakes her head and says, "Nothing. Just-"

"Dreams?" Richie says, leaning forward, his eyes glittering behind his glasses.

She looks up at him and makes a face. He just grins. "It's an incredible world we live in, Kate. Want to see what else we can find?"

Kate, not unkindly, shakes off their hold on her and faces them. Seth looks grim, but determined and Richie just smiles.

Aw, hell.

"Well, already been to hell once. Let's see if it improves the second time around. But this time…" She gestures at the hole in the floor and grins at the brothers. "One of you goes first."