The Mercy of Fortune

After a number of requests, I'm reposting the revised version of The Mercy of Fortune!

Summary: The Winchesters meet up with a fellow hunter who comes bearing some interesting parts of their past. Takes place after Bloody Mary but will be AU. This story makes more sense, the more you read.

Disclaimer: All I own is Mavis. Feel free to let me know how I'm doing!

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end almost the moment he entered the bar. The knowledge that someone was watching him was almost second nature. It kicked in as natural as breathing. And he knew he was being watched.

Hazel eyes swept the bar inconspicuously, hoping that the subject would stand out but of course, his luck did not run that way. That eerie sensation was not a new one. The past several weeks in fact, he'd felt like someone was watching him, just out of eye-shot. Dean Winchester was beginning to think he might be paranoid.

And there she was. Seeing her face again was a punch to the gut, taking his breath away for a moment. She was pretty, pretty as ever, and the last person he had expected to see when his eyes landed on her. Ever again. Her pale skin held a touch of pink in the cheeks. Her red hair pulled back. Those blue-gray eyes, too big for a hunter locked right on his. Her pleasant face was still rather soft with youth, but an angular jaw framed her wide mouth. Nice lips, she always had nice lips.

Dread and doubt clenched his stomach. Mae… no, Mavis he corrected, was not the sort of girl he wanted to find attractive. He didn't want to find her at all but the fact that he was still attracted to her held an extra layer of insult. She had never been ugly, but he wanted her to be right then. It was only fair. Somehow, he thought it might have been easier if she were. The woman should have at least been plain or awkward. With a name like that, she had no right being as pretty as she was.

She had no right pulling at the emotions, emotions he thought he'd put away, with that secret smile as she looked straight at him. A strange mix of joy and pain flooded him. She was the last person he wanted to see, and yet, there was a small part of him that thrilled to set eyes on her again. He pushed those turbulent feelings down with a bitter grin. That enigmatic smile widened as she offered him a mock toast with her beer. She leaned back to prop her impossibly long legs on the other chair at her table. It wasn't exactly an invitation, but she had to know that he wasn't going to walk away from this.

"You have to do better than that Red." He muttered to himself as he got and paid for his beer.

If he considered her more objectively, thoughts uncolored by negative emotion, he could admit she was a good-looking woman, better than he remembered actually. If they didn't have the history they had, she would still have been the first woman in the bar he would have tried to hook up with. Her long red hair and a tall, lean body, sculpted and refined with age had its appeal.

The girl he knew was good with a gun, a knife, a bow … whatever weapon was put in her hands. He didn't think that could have changed in the years since he'd last seen her. She was probably better, he thought, twisting the knife a bit more.

Her gaze focused only on him, so intense in those moments that he that thought maybe she could see through him. It nearly shook him for reasons he couldn't define and didn't want to explore. Time to bite the bullet, Dean thought as he took a sip of beer. He tried to look casual, making his way over to her.

Mae suppressed an outward expression of it as a trill of excitement shot up her spine and a touch of nerves tried to clench her throat. This was business, nothing more. She was doing a favor that she knew she didn't owe. And yet…and yet here she was. Was it, she wondered, the best or easiest way to do what she had agreed to do or was she just trying to break free of the tediousness of this current agreement?

His smile was so hopelessly smug that hers wavered just a bit. It would have been easier to knock it off his face than have any sort of conversation. Instead, she steeled herself against any sort of outward emotion or even the inkling of regret in making her presence known. "You're the one who's been following me."

She nodded, winked and took another pull on her beer. "Took you long enough, Skippy. Must be gettin' soft."

Her crimson eyebrow quirked with the challenge. He only yanked the chair her feet had been resting on, taking his seat. Her boots hit the floor with a resolute thud, but Mae didn't seem to mind as much as Dean wanted. "Where's Sam?"

Exactly how long had she been following them? Instinct aside, he had no real proof until now that anyone had been, and he wasn't certain how much she knew. As far as she should have known, Sam was happily grinding away back at college, happy to be done with hunting and his family. That's where things had been the last time they'd spoken. Even stalking them, she couldn't possibly know everything that had happened since their dad went missing.

"Sam?" Dean asked.

"Yeah Sam. You know, unusually tall guy, floppy hair, possibly your brother? Sam."

It was almost hard not to tease him. It made things worse, she knew. If possible, his eyes got greener as she took the first swipe. "I know who Sam is."

"Way to go, champ! Everyone must be so proud of you."

Dean wasn't sure what he wanted to do to her. Logically, he knew he shouldn't take the bait. She was trying to pester him, he was certain that was part of her ploy. Although, he couldn't quite figure out why. Why was she here now? If she had been following him, how long? If she was following him, then why? And why, unless she had completely forgotten the past few years, would she contact him again? It was best not to think about it.

Focus, he reminded himself. "Do you ever shut up?"

She was a bit surprised that even her gentle prodding made him snap a bit. Those lips curved more. Her smile was perpetual but hollow. "I haven't even started. We've barely even made it through one round. I guess I thought you'd want to throw down."

Anger tinged any enjoyment he might have found between a healthy back and forth. When that happened, they were both stubborn enough to fight over nothing. "Let's not and say we did."

Their verbal jabs came fast but he would have much rather just knocked her on her ass. "Oh Dean, I expect so much more from you."

"What are you doing here?"

She spread her hands wide before placing them behind her head. "It's a free country, for the time being. So, I'm having a drink. Now see, I don't wonder why you'd be here. You, I'd expect you here. Clearly I've been known to slum it from time to time."

He looked her up and down. "That's not a surprise."

"Unfortunately for you…" she paused, a sudden stumbling of the heart she had fought so hard to harden. The conversation, the situation, it lacked a playfulness she knew was lost. In this close proximity, her boldness failed her a bit.

"What?"

"Nothing. You know, I'm pretty sure you're a last call kind of guy in a place like this."

Mae's smile was slow but wide and he realized while there might have been mirth from any other person saying something like that, he saw the falter. And he tried to gauge if he pushed further to a real fight or if he should let it go. It wouldn't take much, he thought. But he wasn't sure what that fight would look like or what would come from it. "You suck." He said, backing off for now.

"Sure, but never on a first date."

A smirk touched his face, despite all his control. He offered back a halfhearted 'Prude.'

"So really where's Sam?"

Her voice was softer now. Mae propped her folded arms on the table and offered him the first real smile of the evening, the kind that reached her stone blue eyes. She would try her best to be genial. There was no point in making an awkward situation worse, she told herself. She could stay or leave at her own volition. Not that leaving was an option for her.

"Back at the room." Dean said, drawing her back to the conversation.

"Oh, okay." A frown pulled at the edges of his mouth.

"What? You disappointed it's just me?"

With a shrug, she tipped back the rest of her beer, playing with the now empty bottle a moment. "I've certainly been more excited to see…well, almost one. Besides, it's been a while since I've seen Sam. How's he doin'?"

"He's great. Livin' the dream. What do you think?" He hadn't meant it to come out so harshly, but Mae wasn't exactly in the position to jump back into their lives, his life. He wasn't sure what she knew and what she was trying to get information out of him on. Or why. The why was more concerning. He hadn't imagined a scenario where they ever spoke again.

Another shrug pulled at her slim shoulders. "Don't know. But this isn't exactly his scene." She sighed, "Listen, I'm just tryin' to… make nice, okay?"

Dean clucked his tongue. "Sweetheart, I got plenty of nice and if I were looking for more, you wouldn't be the first stop. What I wanna know is what you're doin' here?"

Hands parted in surrender and innocence, the smile she gave was beyond fake. "Girl can't go to a bar now, have a drink?"

His laugh was skeptical as he took another drink. "You don't just show up places Mae. And I don't think you've changed so much that all of the sudden, you're cruisin' bars lookin' for a hook up. Let alone a bar in the same town I'm in. So why are you here?"

She bristled against his tone. "Same reason you're here I guess."

"And that is?"

A chuckle radiated in the back of her throat before she leaned in closer. To an outsider it might even look intimate, but he knew she was bracing for a fight. "You tell me."

Truth be told, they did not have a clear reason there were here. Not yet anyway. Sam had found some strange reports of several deaths that did not seem to be normal but no hard evidence that there was a job here. They planned to look into it in the morning.

For now, they needed the rest, needed the break. But finding Mae in the same place, at the same time, made him wonder. Did Mae have some inside information or lead? How badly did he want to get to the bottom of this? Right now, not bad enough to work the same case with Mavis.

At his lack of reply, she huffed. "This has been fun an' all but I think I've had just about enough."

Mae knew this was a mistake from the beginning. She couldn't even pinpoint the reason she agreed to this in the first place. This was a favor she didn't owe, and it seemed like Sam and Dean could handle things together just fine. They didn't need her to babysit. She didn't think they were handling anything major enough to merit a third set of hands. After this brief interlude, she was pretty sure she didn't want to shake up her world again to hunt with them.

A fraction before he could state the same though and she stood, pulling her battered coat off the back of the chair but not bothering to put it on. As excruciating as it was to sit on the sidelines, tailing the brothers and keeping out of sight might have been easier. She was going to need more patience than she thought she could ever have if she was going to honor this particular request.

Even when they were on the best of terms, Dean Winchester could annoy her quicker than any other person, over the smallest things too. The little voice in her head told her though that this wasn't about being annoyed. She knew what it was about and was trying to distract and distance herself from it as much as she could.

If she focused only one the job, she gauged that the boys didn't know what they were hunting yet, not on this job and certainly not the bigger picture. That much was clear. Not that it mattered if they knew or not, knowing what she knew was enough to bring her out here, despite hating that she just had to come out from the shadows to see him.

A dissatisfying mixture of anger and foolishness roiled in her belly and threatened to claw at her throat. She felt stupid for even trying. What did she think she would accomplish? Had she thought that time would have bridged the gap that had had grown between them and the unpleasantness of the past? She nearly laughed out loud. If there was one thing the Winchester men were champions at was holding on to past ordeals.

The rather swift footfalls behind her told her Dean had followed her out of the bar. She didn't look back working on this assumption. If it were some barfly, she wasn't worried; she could drop him in a matter of seconds. Hell, kicking some strange dude's ass would have been a decent outlet for her feelings. But she wasn't about to give Dean the satisfaction of catching her peering over he should to check to see if he followed her.

"Damn." She heard wistfully from behind her, closer than before, as she approached her car and slid the key into the door lock.

Dean was in love, in lust. Nothing could truly come between him and his first love, but he could still admire another pretty face. It just wasn't fair. Crossing the distance between he took in the beauty of the automobile. Hating Mae would have been simple if he didn't actually like her so much. And that car, that car did not help his fondness for her. "C'mon."

He muttered to himself, running a hand over the slick finish of the classic car.

"What?" Mae asked with a simper on her lips.

"1968 Mustang 390 Fastback. How awesome is that? Mae, this is just, it's… a thing of beauty."

Her smile turned. She had to agree. It has been one of her favorite cars since she could remember but she shrugged, worrying her keys in her hand. "McQueen."

Dean's smile got bigger. He knew how to pick 'em, he thought, as his eyes left the car and met the girl. For a moment, everything else "Highland green and all. I think I'm in love."

"Watch the drool, Deany boy. I just had her washed"

"You gotta let me drive 'er."

A bark of laughter brought his eagerness right to a halt. "You're outta your ever lovin' mind man."

"Mae. C'mon."

Her eyebrow turned in a disbelieving arch. "Mae, c'mon is not an argument that's held sway over me for at least 10 years not. Besides, a few minutes ago you told me you had enough nice."

He opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn't find the words. She was right, this moment was small compared to the hard emotions he was twisted around when it came to her. All he managed to do was open his mouth and close it again.

Mae beat him to it once again. "Well, sweetheart, you won't have to worry about what I'm doin' here because I'm leaving." she quipped.

With mixed emotions, he watched the redhead get in her car and back out of the parking space. He would miss her, he realized, and he would particularly miss that beauty of a car as he watched her drive off, toward the highway.

He wasn't sure why the hell she was making an appearance in his live now, what could have brought her here, and he wondered how the hell he could deal with the churn of thoughts that seeing her again brought up.

Fuck, he thought, he did not need to have her show up in his life again.