Rose awoke to full sunlight streaming into the window. They had spent the entire day and night before in each other's arms and now Dean was gone from their bed. She looked around to see him sitting at the desk carefully cleaning and examining his guns. If she wouldn't talk to him, this was all he knew to do. Seeing her stir, he glanced up but didn't say a word. She sat upright on the bed, holding the sheet to cover herself although she didn't know why. They were still alone. "Get Sam." She said. "It's time you knew the truth."

Dean and Sam sat in the motel chairs and waited for Rose to say something, watching her in anticipation. She was pacing and wringing her hands, fully dressed in jeans and one of Dean's black t-shirts. She twisted the ring on her thumb as she always did when she was nervous. Her pendants swung freely with each step. She didn't want to tell them but time was running out. She decided to start there.

"There's not a lot of time left, so you deserve to know..." she started. Dean and Sam looked at each other as her words from before came into Dean's mind, "I know about the deal. I'm going to get you out of it."

Dean stopped her. "What you said the other night. You can't stop this. I won't let you!" his voice trembled.

Sam looked at Dean surprised. He was unaware of what Rose had told Dean. "Dean, what? What did she tell you?" He looked at Rose, still pacing, her back to them now. He had allowed Dean the time he needed, trying to give him some space, but Rose was right. Time was running out and he felt helpless, not knowing if just having faith in his vision was enough. It had been nearly two months since they first found her, since his vision that Dean would live and she would die and so far no research he had done showed him just how that would be possible. The fact that their families were connected somehow, and that hers was a family possessed by demons, with FBI connections confused him all the more.

"She told me she knows about the deal. And that she knows a way to stop it..." Dean answered his brother. "But, Sam, your vision!" Dean looked at Rose now too, but she didn't turn around. "I know you want to help," he said to her, "but you can't! I won't be responsible for another..."

"And how do you think I feel, huh?" Rose turned on him, anger in her voice. "You! You have no idea..." her voice fell and she sat down on the corner of the bed, her head dropping into her hands. "It's my fault you're even in this mess," she whispered.

Sam jumped to his feet and in one stride was at the bed, sitting next to her. He put one arm across her shoulder, above the bandages, as her body heaved with sobs. He looked over at Dean with a pained look on his face, not knowing what to do or to say. Just knowing that this was the one person in the world who could help Dean, and that she wanted to, but they both knew the cost. His vision had made that clear and he knew Dean wouldn't let it happen. Dean would rather die himself than let another person die in his place. Dean just sat in the chair across from them, watching his brother and his lover, a feeling of helplessness running through him. He looked down at his hands, unable to move or to say anything.

The sobs subsided and Rose raised her head, her eyes bloodshot, snot running from her nose. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. Not looking at either of the brothers she said, "You know what I am. What I'm capable of..."

"Yeah, but that isn't you!" Sam protested. "That has nothing to do with who you are!"

She still didn't look at him, instead turning her back to him, pushing his arm off her with a shrug of her shoulder, her face contorting as the move caused pain to shoot through her back. The painkillers Dean had given her had worn off and she refused to take any more. Sam released her, but didn't move from his spot on the bed next to her. With her back to him, she continued, looking only at the blue carpet on the floor.

"It has everything to do with who I am," she said softly. She stood and walked over to Dean's bag, pulling out the photographs of her from the wall of her family home in Abilene. Handing the one of the baby over to Dean, she instructed him, "Look at it. Look at it!" Dean was surprised at first that she knew he'd taken them, but he examined the photo carefully, his eyes finally spotting what she wanted him to see. He'd never noticed it before. His eyes grew wide looking up at her in disbelief and confusion. "I was born evil, Dean. I didn't just turn that way!"

Sam stood and looked over Dean's shoulder at the photo gripped tightly in his brother's hand. He, too, saw what Dean was looking at. The baby looking up at them had deep, dark blue eyes that cast no reflection off the camera flash. The child in the photo was pure demon.

Sam looked confused now. "But when we met you when we were kids," he said. "You weren't evil then…"

Rose scoffed at Sam's question, knowing it was a valid one. "The demon leaves right around the time a child is able to walk and talk, waiting to return later." She half-snorted, half-laughed. "I think even they don't want to deal with a demon toddler running around!"

"So on your 16th birthday…?" Sam started to ask.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Is that what they told you? That it was because of my 16th birthday?" She looked at Dean, still sitting in the chair gripping the photo. She knelt on the floor in front of him, putting herself between his legs, as close to him as she could get. He let the photo slip from his fingers and fall to the floor, putting his hand to her cheek.

"You're not evil," he said to her in a hushed growl, willing his words to be true. He stroked her hair and looked into her sky blue eyes. There was nothing evil at all about this woman in front of him, he knew that much. Troubled, yes. Evil, no.

Rose put her hand over his on her face, closing her eyes at his touch. "Not anymore," she whispered back to him, "because of you." She glanced up at Sam standing over them and looked back into Dean's eyes. "I was meant to lose my virginity… to another demon. If I had, I would have been turned forever. Your father cast a protective circle around us that night, keeping the demons – keeping my family away from us." Her eyes searched his, knowing this was not what he needed to hear about his first sexual encounter, that it had been planned by John. She continued, "Dean, it was the goodness in you that kept me from becoming pure evil, even after the demon regained control."

She pushed up from her heels, standing. "There's more," she said. "What's going to happen… at the crossroads…"

Dean rose now too, leaning into her to finish her sentence for her, "…nothing is going to happen!" he growled at her, "I'm going to keep my end of the bargain, end of discussion!"

She didn't shrink back from his angry stance, instead met it with her own. "You may not have a choice!" she retorted. "What will happen has already been foretold!" She stood facing him, her head turned up in defiance at his stubbornness.

Taking all this in, Sam spoke up as Dean and Rose faced off in a staring contest, "What?" he said. "Rose, what are you talking about?"

Still staring at Dean, she answered, "The Prophecy is about him."

Sam continued his questions as Dean continued staring her down. "Prophecy?" Sam asked.

Not taking her eyes off Dean, she replied,
"In the twilight of the day
At the setting of the sun,
Mortal enemies, now lovers
And the two shall become one.

Once the veil is broken
And the gates are opened wide
Good and evil walk together
And fight now side by side.

The world will live in turmoil
If they both walk the land
And in that final battle

One will fall and one will stand.
Once the fight is over
And the morning light is nigh
Though their love will live forever
One must live and one must die."

She watched Dean's face as she spoke the words, seeing the recognition come over him that it was indeed about them. She left out the final verse:
With just a tiny heartbeat
Though the mother they do mourn
Man will face his own destruction
If the pureblood child is born.

Knowing what he was thinking, she added, "You think you're the one meant to die? Why? Because you should have died before?"

"That's right!" he growled at her, his hands clenched in fists of rage. "I should've been dead a long time ago, and this never would've…"

Rose interrupted him in a screaming match with him now, "I died first, Dean!" Her voice quieted as her words stopped him in his tracks. She repeated herself in a hushed whisper, "I died first." her blue eyes filling with tears as she looked into his eyes, dark green with rage. His face softened as he looked at her, his eyes searching hers. She pulled her t-shirt down, revealing her yellow rose tattoo on her left breast and the jagged scar it incorporated into the leaves, petals and thorns. With a look of determination on her face to match Dean's, she said to him, "Lightning strike. Straight to my heart. I was dead before I hit the ground."

Dean just looked at her incredulously. He raised an eyebrow finally in a question, "And just how do you know…?"

Before he could even finish, she answered his question with a question of her own, "Do you think the other night was the first time my family tried to use me to kill you? Just the fact that we're both still alive is what brought all this about in the first place. 'The world will live in turmoil, If they both walk the land.' The fabric of time and space has been ripped by the magic it took to bring me back and to kill you. It's what made the Gate so easy to open."

A look of recognition crossed the faces of both brothers. What was it Grams had said? "A pureblood sacrifice…" Moving around to face her, Sam asked, "What did your Grams mean when she called you 'pureblood'?"

She looked at him with a sad faraway look in her eyes. "My family was in the Crusades. But the bloodline goes back beyond that, back to the ancient Celts. Back then, one of my ancestors made a pact with a demon – offered control of all his offspring in exchange for power. They sealed the pact with a drink from the demon's own cup, which he then gave to my ancestor as a reminder of his offering. Around the time of the Crusades, the family split into two factions – one fighting for redemption from what our ancestor had done, the other embracing it. The cup was melted down and re-forged, each half of the family getting part of it, but not before Richard I himself drank from it."

"Your ring?" Dean asked, taking her hand in his.

"And my weapons." She allowed Dean to hold her hand for the moment studying her ring and her hand. "Most of the family inter-married with other humans, of course, weakening the bloodline. But one line from each side remained 'pure'. I wasn't just born, I was bred from the bloodlines of both sides. My mother…" Her blue eyes filled with tears that now streaked down her face and she pulled her hand away from Dean. She quickly changed the subject. "It's why Grams wanted you dead. No other hunters have ever killed as many of our family as the infamous Winchesters." She laughed slightly and wiped the tears from her eyes, looking up at Dean. "The very man I fall for is the one man my family wants to kill. And I'm the one who can stop them. Maybe they shouldn't have been so quick to breed me after all? My cousins and I…"

"Cousins?" Sam asked.

She looked sideways at him. "I have family all over the country but my cousins and I are the only pureblood. Uncle James – the one I told you about before – he had two kids, Meg and Charles, but I don't know where they are now. Why Sam?"

Dean and Sam exchanged a glance that made her uneasy. She didn't just hear the name on both their minds, she felt it – Meg – and knew instantly that Meg was dead, and Charles too. "Oh," she said softly, then her eyes grew wide, looking at Dean. "Oh! You? Oh, Dean, I didn't know! I swear!" Her reaction was more of guilt than anything.

Changing the subject, Sam asked, "And your other scars?"

She pulled the right sleeve of the t-shirt up, showing the heather and barbed wire. Pointing to that and to her right leg, where they knew the other tattoos of the ankh, rose and blue scorpion were, she said, "Car crash. I was in a coma for days. I died twice after that one and both times they brought me back." The brothers looked over her head at each other, their eyes wide. Twice?

She raised the shirt, revealing her stomach and the horned lizard with its own jagged and deep scar.

"Don't tell me," Dean said, the growl back in his voice. "Someone stabbed you?"

"No," she said, looking up at him. "Surgeon screwed up in a routine surgery. Sliced my spinal cord. I recovered in just a few days after they declared me dead on the operating room table."

"And your leg?" Dean asked, indicating the flaming dragon and the worst of her scars. He remembered the scar now, from long ago and how she'd been ashamed of it when they met as teenagers, had tried to hide it from him. The same thought crept slowly into the minds of both brothers as they recalled the article of Rose being pulled from a house fire.

"From a fire when I was four years old," she answered, letting her head drop from his gaze for the first time. She whispered in a hushed tone, "That one worked. I'm the reason your mother's dead."

Refusing to listen to another word, Dean grabbed his jacket and raced out the door. Wanting to follow him, Sam chose to turn and face Rose instead. "When you say you know how to help him," he said to her.

"I do," she answered as she gathered her things into her bag. She stopped and turned to face Sam. "Please believe me," she looked into his eyes, seeing the pain he was in, "I did not want this."

Sam sat on the edge of the bed. "Rose," he said, tears welling in his eyes, "do you know how to stop the Hellhounds?"

She looked long and hard at him before answering. "Yes, Sam, I do," she said. "But it doesn't matter. It won't do you any good. It isn't the Hellhounds that will be coming after Dean. Every demon that you ever sent back to Hell, every demon that escaped and every member of my family wants to see him die. They're going to be there to drag him down to Hell themselves." Rose eyed his reaction. "This is the battle you've been waiting for. It's going to happen at the crossroads."

She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek, then grabbed her backpack, slipping the strap cautiously over her neck to hold it at her side. "You just get Dean to the crossroads," she said, gripping her amulet in her fist. "I'll take care of the rest."

Sam didn't move from the bed for several minutes after she walked out the door. He didn't see the figure that came around the corner and walked up to Rose. Already in the bar down the road, neither did Dean.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" the man said to her.

Looking up at him, Rose sighed and said, "Yes, I'm ready." She turned and started walking holding her bag gingerly at her side, John Winchester walking alongside her.

A car drove by them on the road. "Whoa, hey!" the passenger said to his friend. "That girl was hot! Why didn't you stop and pick her up? We could've had some fun with that one!"

"I dunno, man. Something just didn't feel right about it," the driver replied, looking in his rearview mirror at the petite redhead walking alone down the road.