Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville/Supernatural

"Chloe, I'm fine."

"You're black and blue." She wanted to cry as she stared down at her battered… Dean. When Dean hadn't come back for an hour after having gone to get everyone food she'd grown worried, especially when he didn't answer her texts (he was 'too cool' to text people unless it was her). She'd worried that a ghost or a demon or some sort of supernatural baddie had gotten to him. It'd never crossed her mind to consider that a drunk driver might be the reason he'd be in a hospital one day.

"I look worse than it feels," he tried.

"Liar." And yet her voice was soft as she reached down and kissed his forehead. "They have you on morphine and all other sorts of stuff." She closed her eyes. "I hate this."

"Not more than me." He cupped the back of her head and pressed their foreheads together. "I'm okay, babe."

Her eyes flew open as a dark blush covered her face. He'd never called her that before. It used to be just "kid" and then he'd stopped doing that too. She liked this one much better.

"And here I was told you were gravely injured," a voice grumbled from the doorway.

Chloe turned to see John Winchester (flanked by Bobby) standing in the doorway. This was the first time in months that they'd seen him face to face. After Lois had joined them he'd called in and they'd basically had a phone conference about what was going on because John had something important he had to do which he couldn't leave. Chloe could see that it had annoyed both Sam and Dean, but they'd told John mostly everything, and she said mostly because John still didn't know that that she'd been married to Dean in the alternate reality (neither did Lois) or the fact that the Dalakis weren't exactly human (no one trusted him not to try and hunt Chloe if he did). But despite knowing everything John had stayed away for months. He'd said he was doing something important, that he knew someone who might have information, and then there'd been radio silence. Nothing. Until now.

"Dad." Dean's voice was gruff and he tried to sit up straighter but flinched in pain.

Chloe pushed him back down with a glare. "Stay down."

He pouted at her.

She smiled back at him.

John cleared his throat, loudly.

They turned their gazes back on the man who wasn't used to being ignored by anyone, much less his sons.

"A drunk driver." John dropped his bags and entered the room. "Your hunter senses must be depleted for you to let a drunk driver put you in a hospital."

Chloe clenched her fists. He hadn't seen his son in forever and this was his opening line?

"John…" Bobby began.

"Look what the cat dragged in." Lois pushed passed Bobby into the room and snorted at John as she sat on the edge of Dean's bed. "What, did you get bored and figured your family might help liven things up for you?"

John glared at her.

Sam entered the room and closed the door. "Why did you decide to come now?"

"I don't like being interrogated," John snapped at them. "So quit it. Now."

"Make me," Lois challenged.

John looked about to hit her but took in a deep breath and turned his sharp gaze on Chloe. "We need to talk."

"You and me?" Chloe pointed to herself in surprise.

Dean glared and tried to sit up once more. "Whatever you say to her—."

"You say in front of me." Lois stood, defiant. "She's under my guardianship."

Dean flinched and looked away.

Chloe loved Lois, especially how protective she was, but at the moment it was a hindrance. Not only wouldn't Dean even look in her direction whenever Lois was around, but because of the brunette he hadn't kissed Chloe in… in too long. The blonde understood. He'd explained everything to her as soon as they could get a moment alone in the hospital while waiting for Jess to be discharged, but that didn't mean that Chloe had to like this new situation. She'd only just really gotten into a comfortable relationship with Dean, they'd just told each other truths they'd needed to hear, and yet now it felt like they'd taken five steps back.

Lois, bless her soul, wasn't doing any of this on purpose and didn't seem to notice the tension at all. Not the normal tension nor the romantic tension. Nothing. She was just glad to be back and had stepped back into the role of Chloe's mother. They slept in the same motel rooms. Shopped together. Went out to get things for the boys together. And if, for some reason, they had to split up in groups with the boys, Lois and Dean always ended up going together. Always. And it was Dean's fault. He didn't want to do anything that might make Lois suspicious (like always wanting to go alone with Chloe) but Chloe was worried that he was giving Lois the wrong idea! The brunette had always been attracted to Dean, and she'd always wanted "father" material for Chloe, and the blonde was worried that Lois really would develop feelings for Dean. Not only didn't she want to hurt her cousin - but damn it - Chloe was insecure. She knew she wasn't half as pretty as her cousin, or half as vivacious, or alluring, or—or—Lois was just that girl. And Chloe wasn't. And she still didn't know why Dean was with her.

It wasn't as if they were fated to be together. Wade had been her soulmate. Not Dean. If there was anyone she'd been fated to be with it was Wade - and what did that say about her relationship with Dean?

To be truthful, though, Chloe hadn't worried about all these questions until Lois had appeared. She'd been secure in her relationship with Dean, at least as much as she could be about anything - but now everything was murky.

Dean wanted to wait until her eighteenth birthday, when Lois couldn't say anything, but Chloe had so many doubts about that plan. For one, she loved Dean and wanted to be with him, and for the other, she worried that there was no way a relationship would last as a non-relationship that long.

"Fine." John narrowed his eyes on Chloe. "Your mother is loose."

Chloe's eyes widened in horror. "What?"

Even Lois looked shaken. "We would've heard—."

"They're keeping it under wraps, I only know because I saw her when I went to check up on something in Smallville." John's gaze was on Chloe. "She was at your apartment, going through the empty place with a fury, screaming something about needing to find you and finish what she started. That she needed to save you before it was too late."

Chloe had faced Spencer, had gone up against Goodnight, had survived Hope… and yet at the thought of her mother her legs shook and she hadn't realized they'd given way until she found herself sat prostrate on the cold tile ground.

"Chloe!" Lois hurried around the bed towards her.

"What were you doing at their place in Smallville?" Sam wanted to know.

John kept his gaze on Chloe. "She's coming for you, and she has a witch helping her. It's the only reason I wasn't able to stop her - I was unprepared for the backup."

"A witch?" Bobby glared. "Was it a Dalakis?"

Chloe hadn't told anyone what Hannah had said, that the Dalakis weren't actually witches, because she'd been too scared to wonder what else they could be if not that.

"Maybe, I don't know, I didn't exactly stop to ask for her pedigree." John's voice was a hiss before he took in a deep breath. "They'll find you, they're retracing your steps, and now that the witch has something of yours from the apartment they'll be able to find you. It'll take a while for the spell to take effect, but it will. And when it does they'll come for you."

"Let them," Dean growled. "I'll kill them both."

"Dean, you can't even move right now." Lois dismissed him and turned to look at John. "You wouldn't have taken the time to come here if you just wanted to pass the message along."

"You're right." John turned his glare on Chloe. "I know somewhere I can stash you where they wouldn't be able to find you, magic or no magic."

Chloe's eyes widened.

"Where?" Sam wanted to know.

John raised his chin. "Holloway Asylum."

Chloe froze.

Dean snarled. "You are not sticking her in some quack house!"

"Holloway Asylum has been used by Hunters for decades to hide those being tracked by magical means." John's voice harshened. "She'll be safe there. They'll be unable to find her. It'll be like she disappeared off of the face of the earth."

So it'd be like the time she was taken to an alternate universe.

Dean must've thought the same thing too, because his features twisted in utter disapproval of this plan.

Chloe, on the other hand, was conflicted. On one hand she didn't want to leave Dean, but on the other this was Holloway Asylum. This was the place she'd planned on interning herself months ago. This was the place Wade had told her about before he—before his death. She felt like she owed it to Wade. She hadn't been able to help him, to save him, but maybe if she helped the people in that place she'd be able to alleviate her conscience somehow. She kept dreaming of Wade dying. Every night. She needed to do something to feel less guilty.

"Fine, if they can't track her then she and I will go to this psycho ward," Lois sighed.

"No," John said, eyes on Lois. "You're the only one who knows Moira or how she thinks. You're coming with me." He turned to Sam. "I need you to go to George. There's someone I know there who might have a way to track the witch." His gaze went to Bobby. "Think you can muster up the desire to go to Montana to see Dee?"

Bobby groaned. "I thought you might ask that." With a sigh he nodded. "I'm on it." And with that he left.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "What do I do?"

"Nothing, you're useless to us how you are." John's words were harsh. "Stay here, you'll only be a burden the way you are."

A muscle jumped in Dean's cheek. "If you think that I'm just going to stay here while—."

"Dean." Chloe reached out and placed her hand over his heart. "You're too weak right now. You need to stay in the hospital and get better."

He turned to look at her, expression both frustrated and betrayed. His heart beat rapidly under her touch, urgent, worried.

"I'll be fine." She gave him a brave smile. "If there's a place that's made to make sure no one can sneak in or out, it's an asylum. I'll be perfectly fine while the others find my mom and—give her back to the authorities. Anyway, she won't even know I'm there."

He caught her hand and held it tightly. "I don't trust that she won't."

"Are you calling me a liar?" John hissed.

They both ignored him.

Dean tightened his grip on Chloe's hand, gaze up at her, expression as close to pleading as it would ever become. "I don't want to be separated from you. Nothing good happens when we're apart."

His words tugged at her heart and she smiled down at him, fighting the tears. She didn't want to be separated either, but she knew that he needed to rest and get better now, and for her the most important thing was that Dean was safe and healed. What if her mother and the witch found her while she was with him? He'd try to protect her and he could be hurt worse than he already was – or killed. "It'll just be a little while."

Dean's grip tightened on her hand and he shook his head.

"Deano, I get that you're worried about Chlo, I am too." Lois stepped in close, breaking into the moment as she placed her arm around her cousin's shoulders. "But we have to do what's smartest. Aunt Moira has proven herself resourceful and deadly in the past – and that was without a witch helping her. We need to put our big sibling worry to the side and trust that your father knows what he's saying."

"Excuse me?" John glared.

"You're excused," she quipped over her shoulder before she continued. "Chloe will be fine. And we need her to be fine while we find this madwoman and put her away – this time for good." She hugged Chloe tightly, unintentionally causing Chloe and Dean's hands to slip out of each other. "We'll get her, Baby Cuz."

Chloe, gaze on Dean, hugged Lois back. "I know."

She was being interned under the name Chloe Campbell. Apparently that had been Dean's mother's maiden name, and considering that one time Hannah Dalakis had made Chloe think she was Mary, well, it made her all sorts of uncomfortable. Still, she understood the need for subterfuge and didn't say anything about it. She'd easily convinced the doctors that she 'needed their help' and she really hadn't had to act. Instead she'd told them about the symptoms she'd lived with most of her life. The nightmares. The ghost pains. She opened herself up to the evaluating doctors and was admitted into the place under self-admittance. It meant that she'd have more liberties than the few patients who'd been forced to attend, and while that made things a little better she was beginning to feel trapped already.

John had played the worried guardian and hugged her with a gruff "keep an eye out" in her ear before he'd disappeared out the door without a look behind. In fact, he'd looked like he couldn't get out of there fast enough. At first both his actions and his words had left her completely confused, but then she'd entered the common area after getting her belongings settled in her private room, and she understood immediately that John had had an ulterior motive in putting her in this place.

She'd never felt so furious in her life. Was her mother really out or had John lied just to get her here? And why exactly did he want her here in the first place? Shouldn't he be doing his best to-unless Wade was right, and John needed someone to "keep an eye out" just in case.

Taking in a deep breath, Chloe moved towards the boy with the golden hair and tanned skin who sat in the corner, staring unseeingly at his shoes. His mind was obviously somewhere else, and whatever he was thinking about was torturing him. His eyes were haunted, and the dark bags under them proved he hadn't slept in far too long.

For a second Michael and his sneer flashed before her eyes, but she shook her head. "So, how crazy are you?"

He jumped and looked up at her in shock. Apparently he'd been so deep in thought he hadn't even noticed her standing next to him. This guy was nothing like the arrogant, self-assured Michael. He was scared. That was obvious in his eyes, there was terror, which he tried to hide the second he realized she was a flesh and blood girl and not-not a monster.

She felt surprising pity fill her. "I'm sorry, that was rude, wasn't it?"

"Not really, not considering where we are," he chuckled darkly and shook his head. "I saw my mother's murder and repressed the violence of the scene by creating monsters in place of men. I'm here to work out those issues so I can remember and accept things for how they truly happened." He sounded like he was reciting something he'd been told by the doctors over and over again. He also sounded like he didn't believe it. With a sigh he looked up at her. "What about you?"

Oh god. This was why John hadn't come immediately. Lois had thought that he'd gone to a regular hunt but… The pieces were slowly falling into place. "My mother tried to murder me, twice, and because of that I have anxiety issues, insomnia, suffer from nightmares and ghost pains and a couple of other things I'm told are all in my mind."

He raised his hand. "Adam Milligan."

A sigh escaped her lips as she shook that hand. "Chloe." She turned to sit on the armrest of the chair he was on. "So. How long have you been here?"

"Two months or so." Adam's gaze shifted to the others in the common room. "If I wasn't crazy before, I think I might be now."

"That bad?" She asked, curious.

He shrugged. "I'm told I hallucinate."

She tilted her head towards him, Wade's words about what had happened to people in this place playing in her head. "What sort of things?"

He shrugged once more and looked unwilling to comment further.

Her eyes narrowed on him and was about to press her luck when suddenly a girl walked up to them.

She was older than they were by at least five years, and she looked like she'd spent those five years locked in this place. Her hair was wild, but not as wild as the expression on her face as she leaned in close. "Don't be alone! It comes for you when you're alone! It comes in the darkness! It comes for your soul!"

"What does?" Chloe fixed her eyes on the woman who could either be just bonkers – or driven insane by something happening around her.

"The Boogeyman." The girl leaned in closer, her breath rank, like she hadn't eaten or brushed her teeth in days.

Adam shifted uncomfortably in his sheet.

"The Boogeyman." Chloe tried to school all expression off of her face.

"He'll find your fears and he'll use them against you." The girl grabbed Chloe's arms and shook her tightly. "Stay in the light!"

"Karen, get off of her!" In a second Adam was up and had torn Karen off of Chloe, the other woman's nails digging in and scratching her arms. Orderlies hurried towards them and grabbed Karen, pulling the struggling girl away.

"HE CAME FOR YOU, ADAM!" Karen screamed as she was taken away. "HE'LL COME BACK FOR YOU!"

Chloe's eyes widened as she turned her gaze towards a pale Adam. "What's she talking about?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. She's crazy, that's all." His gaze went to her arms. "Come on, we'll get someone to take a look at that."

Chloe wanted to press, but she could see he'd closed himself off after that attack. So she just let him take her to the infirmary to get her scratches taken care of.

One of the rules of this place was that you had to agree to total isolation from the outside. You were allowed one phone call a week, that was it. Chloe already knew this, and that was why she'd had a fake phone to hand in and had smuggled her real cellular into her room, which she'd hidden, along with her Arcangel blade, behind the vent she'd dislodged in her private bathroom. She'd only make phone calls from the bathroom anyway, because there shouldn't be a camera in there – and if there was a camera there was no way that the asylum could get away with admitting it. Not without looking like perverts.

After medication was given out (she'd thought this was a place that didn't believe much in medication) the lights were cut and everyone ordered to bed. Chloe waited for the first round of orderlies to make their rounds before she slipped into the bathroom and freed her phone.

She quickly responded to Lois' texts, letting her know she was fine, then called a number she knew by heart. Dean wasn't supposed to have his cellular either, but like her he wasn't exactly one to follow rules.

In two rings he'd picked up. "I hate this plan."

She smiled at the sound of his voice. "I miss you."

"Then you shouldn't have left," he mumbled, clearly still annoyed at her for siding with his father.

"Let's not fight," she whispered.

He could be heard groaning softly as he got into a more comfortable position. "What's the place like?"

"I don't know. Cold." She contemplated telling him about Adam, and while she knew that he wouldn't be happy, well… "Your half-brother is here."

There was a moment of silence, and then: "The half-brother that kills us all in the future?"

"A future that isn't ours."

He growled. "Goddamnit! My father planned this! Your mother probably isn't even after you! What is he up to?"

"I don't know, but Adam's mother was murdered by some monster and I think your father brought him here to convince him that he didn't see what he knows he saw."

There was silence, and then Dean groaned. "Damn that old man." There was reluctant empathy in his voice. "How could he do that? If Adam and his mother were targeted he's not going to ever be safe. Especially if he doesn't know the truth."

"It's probably a reason why Adam's here. So nothing can find him." Chloe ran her hand over her face. "What do you know about the Boogeyman?"

There was a pause. "The Boogeyman? He doesn't exist. Why?"

Relief flooded. "One of the crazies here started ranting and raving about the Boogeyman." She sighed. "I wouldn't take anything she said seriously though. I mean, she attacked me and-."

"What?" Dean's voice was low, dangerous.

"Dean, she got sent to solitary. Apparently she's not one of the ones here voluntary. I'll be fine. I only got scratched."

"Chloe, I don't like-."

The sound of footsteps echoing in the hallway caught her attention. "I have to go."

"Chloe-!"

"I love you!" Hanging up, Chloe hid her phone once more and hurried to her bed. By the time her door was opened and a light shone inside, she was tucked under the blankets 'asleep'. The light continued to rest on her for a couple of minutes before the door closed and the footsteps continued on down the hall towards the other patients.

Opening her eyes, Chloe let out a sigh. That had been close. She'd have to learn the night orderlies' patterns to be able to time herself better.

Getting more comfortable in bed, Chloe closed her eyes and, to her surprise, quickly fell asleep.

TBC