A/N: A little short, I know.

No amount of scrubbing could remove the blood from Lydia's red shirt, and fixing the hole in it was impossible without a good seamstress.

Lydia ground her teeth angrily.

She'd loved this shirt, and that damn angel had gone and stabbed her, staining it with blood and putting a nice sized hole it in. Better the shirt than the jacket, though. Had that angel sliced a hole through the black leather jacket, the demon would have leveled the entire diner. Call her a little vain, but she liked to have her clothes looking nice.

Well, at least she had her health, she noted with dry amusement.

Her nose looked as good as new, the blood all cleaned up, but the other wound was still noticeable.

With a frustrated sigh, she lifted her shirt once more to look at the wound on her abdomen. It was no longer a gaping, bleeding wound, but rather it was now an ugly raised scar. She pressed on it lightly with her fingers and winced a little, the spot still very tender. Healing the internal damage was beyond her skill-set. All she could do was numb the pain to the point where she could function at peak efficiency – not a difficult feat since she'd gone through pain far more unbearable in Hell. Compared to what she went through in Hell, what she was feeling now was nothing more than an irritation to be ignored.

There was a slight commotion outside the bathroom, but unlike last time she didn't think anything of it.

It sounded more like arguing about what to do than anything else.

The others who had taken off to get Howard to a hospital had returned once they found the SUV swarmed with flies, and it wasn't long after that before the flies reached the diner, casting it in darkness.

Everyone had panicked, but Lydia's fear was countered by knowledge of what was happening. She retreated back to the restroom after snatching a bowl and some towels from the kitchen, ignoring the demanding questions everyone seemed to have for her in regards to the old lady, and had set to work cleaning the blood and her wound while it healed and trying to clean her shirt to no avail.

Regardless of her lack of process with the shirt, she wasn't in a hurry to leave the restroom. There was no point since she couldn't very well go outside with all of the flies blocking out the sun. She wanted to leave… oh, she so very much wanted to drag Charlie out and just go, but she couldn't. Not yet, and knowing that she couldn't leave damn near drove her nuts.

A knock on the restroom door drew her attention and she looked towards it, hesitating.

She really didn't want company, especially when the chances were high that it was Charlie standing on the other side again wanting answers. But if she didn't answer the door, whoever it was might get worried and the cavalry would come running.

With a heavy sigh, she called over her shoulder, "Come in."

The door opened slowly, but instead of Charlie slipping into the bathroom, it was the teen girl Audrey.

"Hey," Audrey greeted, glancing in the mirror at where Lydia had been wounded, nervous and afraid of what all was going on. "You okay?"

Lydia shrugged, turning to lean back against the sink. "It's nothing I can't handle. How's your dad?"

Audrey shrugged sadly, sniffling slightly, "Sleeping, or unconscious… not really sure if there's a difference or what, so… yeah."

If the girl was looking for a sympathetic ear, she'd come to the wrong person. Her parents hadn't exactly been her favorite people to begin with for a great many reasons, so she couldn't really offer any real advice or anything similar.

Shaking her head with a bitter smile, Audrey leaned on her shoulder against a stall. "This is so fucked up."

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Lydia asked with the hint of an amused smirk.

"Really?" Audrey asked, staring at her. "You're going to lecture me on language?"

"I'm the last person capable of giving anyone a lecture," she replied, and that was the God's honest truth.

Hesitating, a question on the tip of her tongue, it took the girl a full minute before she finally asked, "Who are you? I mean… what was that back there? It was like you went full on ninja with that old lady before she stabbed you."

"Took a few self-defense classes," she explained halfheartedly, not particularly trying to lie now that things were going down the drain.

"Yeah, okay," Audrey muttered, hardly believing her excuse. "What are you, like… superhuman or something? 'Cause I saw you get stabbed and you're walking around like you only stubbed your toe."

"There are things going down that are a little… hard to explain, and frankly I don't have time to do that. But I could use your help with something."

Audrey blinked, straightening. "Yeah, sure, what is it?"

"Keep an eye on Charlie."

"Why?"

Not willing to divulge too much information to the teen just yet, she replied, "She's a friend and she's pregnant, but I can't watch her every second. All I'm asking is that whenever I'm not with her that you keep an eye on her."

Audrey nodded slowly, and replied, "Okay. Yeah, I'll watch her. No problem."

Lydia watched her leave, waited a few more seconds, and then sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Dominic would throw a fit if he learned that she'd left the care in watching over Charlie to some teenage human girl. Then again, he'd be pissed to know that she was having a human watch her instead of dragging her out of the place despite the flies.

This whole thing was going wrong so very fast, and she couldn't very well stay in the ladies room while it was going down.

Despite her misgivings about coming out, she adjusted her shirt and put her jacket back on, heading out of the bathroom.

Off to her right, she spotted the dead old lady and scowled at her, inwardly cursing the angel for stabbing her and ruining her shirt. Looking away from the body to the others, taking in the state of things, she sighed.

Her presence wasn't readily noticed, everyone too focused on the flies beginning to disperse outside while Sandra and Audrey stayed close to Howard – they couldn't afford to be so oblivious.

She found her dagger resting on a table, and only when she picked it up and raised her foot to a chair so she could put it back in its sheath on her boot did she gain the attention of everyone.

Audrey looked from her to Charlie and back, offering her a little nod and half-smile.

At least the girl was keeping an eye on her.

"'Bout time you showed your face!" Bob snapped angrily, crossing the room to stand only a few feet from her.

"Aw," Lydia cooed mockingly, a smirk on her face. "Miss my gorgeous smile and gentle disposition, did you, Bobby? I had no clue you felt that way."

"Cut the bullshit and tell me what the hell is goin' on here!" Bob demanded, face going a little red, getting right in her face like he was close to snapping and slapping her one.

"What makes you think I know anything?" she snarled. No one got in her face, least of all a human.

"Hold up now, there's no need for this! We've got enough problems goin' on without us rippin' each other's throats out," Percy intervened, stepping between the two and urging them to put some space between them. He looked imploringly to Lydia and said, "You handled yourself pretty good with that old lady, and we all saw you get stabbed but here you are walkin' around just fine and dandy – you gotta know somethin', anythin'."

"What I know," she started, tone low in warning. "Is that I am not the bad guy."

Bob snorted, uncertain since she wasn't revealing any information, but after that silence hung in the air.

With a heavy sigh, Charlie rose from her chair to stand by her friend. "She did try to save us from… that."

Audrey nodded and added, "Wouldn't she have helped that thing rather than try to kill it if she was a bad guy?"

Technically speaking, she was only trying to save Charlie, but she wasn't about to bring that up at this point, especially when she had Audrey speaking up for her. Better two people than one at the moment.

"Dad," Jeep started, getting his father's attention. "Flies are about gone."

Sure enough, the sky was starting to clear up, the flies dispersing in all directions as quickly as they'd come.

That came as no surprise to Lydia.

The flies had been drawn to Charlie and her baby, acting as a sort of beacon that would assure the angels that she was in fact there.

To everyone else, it was absolutely confusing.

"The hell is goin' on?" Bob mumbled more to himself, shaking his head.

"More to the point, what're we doin' about the old lady?" Kyle asked, walking towards the body that was wrapped in plastic.

Leaning down, Bob pulled the plastic from her head, frowned, and then touched her face. "Christ, she's burning up. How's that possible – she been dead an hour?"

Kyle looked at him. "I don't give a fuck how long she been dead. The bitch just walked on the ceiling'! She ain't staying in here."

"All thing's considered, it's probably a good idea to take her outside," Lydia suggested, noticing how uncomfortable the sight of the body made Charlie.

Sandra shifted from her spot beside her husband. "Should we move her? Won't we get in trouble when the police come?"

"If they come at all. Never did get through to them on the phone," Bob commented. Shaking his head once more, he handed off the shotgun to Kyle and then tightened the plastic around the corpse. To his son, he said, "Gimme a hand with her, Jeep."

Jeep blanched, looking at the body, but swallowed thickly and grabbed the plastic at her feet, helping his father lift her up.

As the father and son carried the corpse to the door with Kyle in toe, Lydia pulled Charlie to the side, aware that Audrey followed, and whispered seriously, "We've gotta leave – now."

"Yeah, but the flies –"

"I tried to get you to leave earlier, and you didn't listen to me!" Lydia hissed. "If you wanna live through this, you are going to have to trust me. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee that you and the baby will make it past Christmas."

Charlie looked a little taken aback by Lydia's bluntness, but she didn't protest as she did last time Lydia insisted that they leave. "… You know what's out there, don't you?"

Lydia glanced away, ground her teeth before looking back to her friend and giving her a silent nod.

"Will you tell me what it is?"

She nodded, but said, "Only when we're safe."

Audrey asked, "Can me and my parents come, too? My dad… he needs a hospital!"

Bringing anyone besides Charlie would be a bad idea, not wanting to involve more people in this than she had to, but the only way to get Charlie to come willingly would be to bring everyone. Even so, the kid wasn't all that bad – hell she reminded her a little of how she used to be when she was a human and a teenager.

Reluctantly, she nodded, watching the three men outside through the windows even as a chill ran down her spine. "Grab anything we might need – food, water, anything."

Audrey nodded quickly, scrambling to her mom sat with Howard as Percy tended to his neck to relay what they were doing while Charlie went to grab some things out of the display case.

"I'm gonna go get my things from the restroom," Lydia said to everyone still in the diner, that same chill going up her spine, warning her.

She didn't wait for a response as she went back to the ladies room to sort through her backpack for the weapons she wanted to carry on her person, unaware of who was pulling into the parking lot of Paradise Falls.