Not Until We Are Lost

She knew the rocking of the water before she even opened her eyes. The sounds of the ship as it moved slowly, listlessly. She knew that they weren't going anywhere by the way the waves rocked it.

In a flash, Sympathy was up and out of the big comfortable bed. She looked around and realized that she was in the captain's quarters, just where she should be. She dressed quickly and burst through the door onto the deck, a great smile on her face.

This, this was where she should be.

This was what she should be doing.

Her eyes scanned and found no sign of the crew, which meant there wasn't one. She was going to have to motivate her fellow travelers. Well, it was a good thing that she could motivate with the best of them. Her crew was always loyal. Unfortunately, the pirate imagined she was going to have to begin with fear.

With her heavy boots, Sympathy tromped to the middle of the deck, making as much noise as possible. She then slammed her foot three times down as hard as she could.

"Get up! Get up! All hands on deck!" Her voice rang clear and strong in the sea air. She felt more alive than she had since she'd started this ridiculous journey.

Sympathy woke up to the smell of sea air. This was a very pleasant change to the last thing she had known, which was the strange space ship. Not that being among the stars hadn't been a worthy adventure, but it scared her. Things like that were not even thought of in her time. 1752 was a world where doors opened with latches, not because you pressed a button. While she didn't particularly enjoy a lot of the things that were on the planets they went to, at least they were on the ground where she could deal with whatever went on a lot better.

The last planet they'd been on had been the ocean, too. That one, though, had been an ocean nobody could go into. She looked around the room, finding nothing but silly clothing and no weapons. She read the note and sighed. Well. She would have to find who remained, then.

The pirate found a bathing suit that was acceptable. Black with bright red flowers all over it. She didn't mind that it showed most of her body off, she was quite proud of how she looked, and it also gave her room to move and very little to get snagged should she run. She did find a pair of little red shorts, though, and pulled those over the bottoms.

On her mission, Sympathy left the room - very glad it had a knob - and began her search. She managed to pop into two rooms before the sea outside called to her. The note had said that the only dangers were beyond the wall. She didn't intend to disobey it. But she had to take part in the waters. She had to know the ocean again.

Abandoning her mission entirely, the pirate found a way to get out of the building and to the beach. She waded right into the surf, filling her mouth with the salt water, and laying back to let it float her around.

When she woke up in the room, Sympathy was immediately frustrated. There was no bright sun, no sandy beach, no sound of water lovingly lapping at the earth. No wild cacophony of birds and other animals filling the salty air. She threw the pillows off of the bed - a bed that had been taken off her ship, not the Anna Cortez, but the Remorse - and stood up to promptly begin to break things that were strewn about her.

That's when she realized they were her things, and that the bed was hers, too. The clothing she was wearing were the ones she had first worn and not the modern attire she'd found on the Samhain/Savior's Birth planet, nor the strange garb from the black and white one, though she did find those when she looked in the great oak dresser. Everything she had acquired was there. Everything. Even the odd hair soaps.

And her weapons.

Sympathy enjoyed the warmth of the shower before dressing herself, a luxury that she'd gotten to know after her time with Dean Winchester and didn't know if she would ever be able to let go of now, and then strapped herself to the teeth with the knives and pistols she was used to carrying. The weight felt good. Familiar. The clothes moved with her body and made her relaxed.

But she was still upset about the loss of the island. The delicious fruits. Oddly, her rabbit water bags were hanging on a hook on the wall. She noticed this as she stared at what had to be the door. A thing she could not figure out.

"Open." She said gently to it. "Open, por favor."

Nothing.

"Open, now."

Nothing.

"Open, estupido. I need to get OUT."

Nothing.

"FUCKING OPEN, YOU PUTA MIERDA, LET ME THE HELL OUT!" She hit the door with the flat of her hand, and the resounding thunk that returned informed her that it was not something she could break through.

Of all the things that existed in the world, Sympathy understood the sea the most. The way that it moved, its moods. What lived inside of it. The island that they were placed on was not a bad thing in her mind. She could see easily that there was plenty of food to sustain them all. Plenty of shelter, too.

After the world with all the black and white, she was happy to be in a place that she was familiar with. It eased her mind and relaxed her muscles. She felt like a pirate again. Even the ridiculous clothing that she found herself in couldn't spoil it for her. Instead, she set to work on shortening the pants so that her legs could be free for movement, leaving only enough cloth behind to cover those parts that it would be indecent to show. She did much the same with the shirt, ripping off the sleeves and tying the rest high to let the sun touch her belly and warm it.

With the scraps, she made bags. Ways to carry the food back and forth with her, to hold the live animals she caught. Sympathy turned one bunny inside out and constructed a few water bags out of its bladder and intestines, which she then filled at the freshwater stream.

She was happy. It was hard not to be.

The pirate lay out in the sun, her storage containers carefully hidden under a fern nearby. She soaked in the rays, smiling. She didn't care about getting to the other island, or doing anything but living. There was no strange technology here, no cars. Nothing she didn't understand. Only her, the wind, the ocean, the sun, and the sand. And survival.

Sympathy had taken the cat with her, unsure about what the man had said about it, but unwilling to leave an animal that might possibly be hyper intelligent and/or magical on its own in a strange place. Not that she really had a way to take care of it, she didn't really have a way of taking care of herself at the moment.

Not in any substantial way.

She felt like she was back in Electric City, about to live in the park. There were at least people here that she knew this time. If she could find one of those faces, maybe she could get herself into a better situation.

The cat purred softly in her arms. She'd never met an animal that responded so well to the spoken word. It was as if it really did listen to everything that she said, and understood that she was trying to take care of it. It didn't squirm around or try to get away. It watched the people and places that they passed with interest and an intelligence she couldn't tell if she was imagining or not.

She sat outside of a small shop to give her feet a rest and watch the sun go down. There was no color to see, so Sympathy painted the sky in her mind.

Things had gone sideways quickly when the alien showed, and it didn't matter that sideways had yet to involve violence. Violence with this lot seemed always like an inevitable. There were some talkers, some thinkers, but violence was there. Max knew it to be true even of himself. So, when he came to in what felt like one his own dreams, he had to sit and breathe for a moment.

"So this is how it goes? Aliens show up, and I faint?" That was how he started dreaming surely. He looked around, noticing the faces. "And, everyone came along for the ride, good to know." He knew he was talking to himself, but in a dream, such things didn't matter. At least he was dressed this time; he glanced down to check, letting out a soft whistle. What he wore was nice, and he smiled that he had at least dreamt of himself in his good trench. He glanced to the side, and there was the fedora. His hand slipped into the coat, and his smile grew grim - he even wore the holster with the gun. His fingers brushed over a suit that was so familiar; he nearly wept at having missed its comfort.

"Could be worse. No bats or bunnies. No talking frogs or dancing llamas." He didn't seem to mind the black and white, or more the shades of grey. It wasn't new to him; he did like color, but there was something freeing in the lack of color. He could fill in the spots if he wanted to with whatever combination, and no one could say he was fashionably challenged - even if he knew what some of the colors were.

"Now all I need is a damsel in distress, a case, and a sidekick." He didn't think he'd have that long of a dream, and he did notice that Eleni was around. "Or a Gal Friday would be better?" He saw a few other women. "Femme fatales galore."

Eventually, Piotr decided that enough socializing had gone on. People knew that their friends and loved ones were here with them, and that was a good thing. They could catch up further later, however. If he didn't interrupt, the meeting would go on far longer than anybody wanted it to. He'd provided some snacks, but no actual food. There would be a need for actual food at some point.

He cleared his throat to get the attention of everybody present.

"We are all here right now for the same purpose." Piotr's voice wasn't loud, but it was demanding. His accent cut through everything else easily. The edges of it were sharp, the middles heavy. He wouldn't, couldn't be ignored. "All of us were brought to this place, world or dimension, and we have all been seeking answers since we woke up. It is time to share what we have found."

He smiled a little at Mary, at Cas, then at Rob, still not giving up his position.

"I will do this in the most orderly manner that I can, so we can get the information and compare notes as needed."

Piotr turned to Castiel, who had spoken up first.

Piotr was anxious to get everything rolling. While putting the meeting off had given extra time to round up others who might need to be in on it, it meant a delay of information that he wasn't truly comfortable with. He'd managed to play it off with everybody that he'd encountered, making as if this wasn't as big a deal as it really was to him. Inside, Piotr had been twitchy. Anything could happen at any time. They were all dealing with the unknown. There were too many variables, the risk was far too high. Lingering only swayed things away from their favor.

It was very domestic, the way he readied for the guests. He didn't let Max lift a finger. It was the only way he could keep himself from stewing, really. To move, work. Put plates together. Ready beverages. Create a spread that Martha Stewart would have been proud of.

He even dressed up.

Black suit, crisp white shirt, black tie, shiny black shoes, hair combed impeccably, guns tucked away in their holsters under his arms and hidden carefully by the jacket of his expensive outfit. Not a lick of metal showing anywhere to give him away, and that was more a throwback to the long nights of watching a mark than anything else. Piotr didn't have any good reason for it now, but it felt right.

When there was nothing left to do, he leaned against the arm of the couch and worried his lip between his teeth. There wasn't a watch to check on his wrist, so he glanced every few minutes at the clock on the wall, ticking away in its hideous orange and purple motif, strange detached bunny ears the hands, a mangled face grinning behind them. It was disturbing at best, though Piotr didn't really see the image, just the minutes.

The doorbell rang and he opened it, taking up the entire doorway. He smiled at the first guests and stood aside to allow them in. He made motions toward the table of snacks and directed them toward the kitchen for drinks. Every single newcomer got the same treatment. Max still not allowed to do anything that might have taken even an iota of the control out of the Russian's hands. They weren't military people, those who were showing up, they weren't highly trained like he was, but he would be damned if he wasn't in command of everything.

There were so many faces that he didn't recognize, and still no sign of the one that he was still seeking. Rayne was not with any of the others that showed up. Piotr couldn't help the worry he felt for his charge. The strange woman who he'd met in Malden, what felt like a hundred years ago now. He didn't ask after her, knowing that if any of these people knew her, she would have been here. He'd been careful to set the time of the meeting right after sunset to accommodate her and any others that might be like her. If she was here, by some strange chance, and had not been informed of the meeting, and hadn't come looking for him, if she had, in fact, decided to keep herself secret, then she had a reason for it, and it wasn't Piotr's place to draw attention to her. The hope of that was beyond slim, however, and he knew it. She wasn't here, he just had to admit it.

He let everybody mingle for almost an hour, to make sure that all the people that had been told had a change to show up. That and it was obvious that some of them had been looking for each other for a while, and they were just now discovering one another. He couldn't bring himself to break that up. He knew how he would have felt if he'd found his friend. He wouldn't have been able to focus on anything else but making sure that she was alright.

Finally, he stood in the center of the living room, his eyes skating over the seating, knowing that there wasn't enough for everybody and regretting it, and cleared his throat to get the attention of the assembled.

"We are all here right now for the same purpose." Piotr's voice wasn't loud, but it was demanding. His accent cut through everything else easily. The edges of it were sharp, the middles heavy. He wouldn't, couldn't be ignored. "All of us were brought to this place, world or dimension, and we have all been seeking answers since we woke up. It is time to share what we have found."

He smiled a little at Mary, at Cas, then at Rob, still not giving up his position.

Dean drove out of the development where the house was and out onto the main stretch of... wherever this town was. He was looking for major landmarks, and anything familiar at all--including people he knew, just walking around.

Still, they didn't get far into the drive before Dean's stomach was gurgling. He didn't really want to put off the search, but food? With him? It couldn't wait.

Dean pulled into the lot of the Friendly's as it came up on his right. At least that was something sort of familiar. He parked the car, and with a sigh, turned to explain all of what was going to happen in there to Sympathy.

"Alright. I'm really hungry, and that's... gonna get in the way of trying to do what we wanna do. So we're gonna go in there and get some food and then go back to looking around."

He looked at her, eyes searching hers. This was going to be a lot for her. "It might be loud in there, but it's just a place that serves food, and we'll go as quick as we can."

Dean gave her a quick nod, got out of the car, closed the driver's side door, and waited for her right at the door of the restaurant. Part of him wanted to walk around the back and see if there was a big blue box there.

His eye stung.

Dean blinked. And then he blinked again.

He realized that there was something in his eye. Something that was doing the stinging. His hand went to his eye, to rub at it in that stupid reflexive way that never did anything but drive the cause of the pain further into the eye. Soap.

It was soap.

And now that he had a second to breathe, Dean realized he was naked. And wet.

The water was warm. He was standing in a shower, in a bathtub with one of those sliding glass doors instead of a curtain.

And standing not a few inches from him was a woman with dark hair and shampoo on her head.

Dean almost slipped taking a step backward. His eyes grew wide, and his eyebrows drew together.

"Holy shit!"

He managed that step back now, without falling.

Sympathy was, for lack of a better word, lost.

The ship, Anna Cortez, had somehow found her way inland through a series of locks. She had not done the steering. It had, in fact, happened while she was comfortably asleep in her quarters and the ship had been anchored. When she woke up and found the surroundings had changed, she had brought the whole crew up and accused the lot of them of doing the moving, but not one of them could explain it.

The town they were in was a port town, despite not being right up against the sea, which was what she was used to. It also had a very strange name. Electric City. For days, Sympathy had refused to get off the ship, hoping that she would be able to get herself back to open ocean. The mysteries out there were far more comfortable than the mysteries in this strange place.

But the crew had abandoned her one by one, and soon so had the stowaway passengers. She was left alone and anxious aboard the Anna Cortez, with nobody willing to come help her return the ship to the water it should have been in. To top it off, the lock operators told her that there were several broken mechanisms and who knew how long it would be before they would work again, so she might as well explore.

And that, that, had caused her even more grief.

The pirate didn't know what to think of the bright lights and the fast moving things on wheels. Or all the people in their strange clothing, doing strange things. She didn't want to admit to it, but there was great fear in her at what she saw.

Unable to take any more, Sympathy retreated to the quietest place that she could find, which happened to be a park. There were still strange things within it, but at least she was far away from the fast moving carriers and the big, towering monuments they called buildings. So much glass in them, and metal.

She'd been sleeping in a tree, using her belt to hold herself to the branches so she wouldn't fall out. Bathing in a fountain and rinsing out her clothes there as well. Food she stole from people having picnics, or the occasional man in a funny suit who brought his lunch in a brown paper bag. The unfortunate fool would get distracted, speaking into his strange little light up box, and she would snake in and retrieve the food.

Currently, she was sitting at the fountain, trying to scrub mustard out of her shirt. She'd taken it off and was holding it under the water. A too-dry cigarillo hung out of her mouth, her stringy hair fell in her face.

"I do not know what you are, you bastard yellow stuff, if I did not enjoy how you tasted so much, I would curse you and whoever chooses to put you on their food. I do not understand why you must stain!"

It wasn't her ship, but she'd sure as hell taken it over the first chance she'd gotten. She didn't feel bad for it, either. These bastardos didn't deserve the magnificent creature she was now captain of.

Sympathy had woken up deep in the belly of the boat, the familiar swaying instantly recognizable. She hadn't been on the water when she'd gone to sleep. Which meant that they had kidnapped her. Possibly thinking that they might get a wench out of it. Maybe to try to ransom her, thinking she was some rich man's daughter. She'd been wearing the dress of one, after all. Of course, she'd stolen it. After looking around some, discovering a massive churning, loud, contraption that put off heat, Sympathy made up her mind on what to do. She would take it. The whole thing. So one by one, she found and killed the captain, the first mate and the boson, tossing their bodies over the side. She gave the crew two options. Join their fellows in the ocean, or work for her. They all opted to work.

She had gotten them to show her how to quiet the noise in the ship, though many protested that it was what propelled them forward. She just pointed at the great masts and the sails attached. Which just confused them further.

The ship was not exactly like what she knew. It was large and wooden, yes. The sails were there, yes. The steering was done not out in the air, but in a little hut over the captain's quarters. There were lights and dials, instruments that looked like compasses, but were not. Many things that Sympathy started to ask about but waved off once she figured out she didn't need them to actually make the thing go. Without the terrific clamor down below, these things by the wheel made no difference. Again, the crew protested about the use of the sails. They would get further faster if she would let them turn the engine back on. Sympathy had no idea what an engine was, and she didn't want to hear their tall tales. They shot so many strange words at her. Replica. Movie prop. To the point that she threatened to drown the next man who spoke up about it in his own blood.

Land, they told her, was a few days away still. Sympathy didn't care. If the ship didn't need to resupply, she would have kept them on the water longer, straying from whatever foolish course they'd been on. All she cared about was that she was again the captain. Her new ship was called the Anna Cortez.