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Leni still wasn't quite sure how she felt about this place.

On the one hand, she still didn't appreciate being brought here against her will, pretty much everything here was well outside her comfort zone, getting bitten by a goddamn vampire had not been the best possible introduction to things, and she could really use a drink to help her cope with everything.

On the other hand, the rest of the people on board seemed decent enough, by and large, there was no Confederation around to hassle her (she assumed), and everything was... new. She'd lived for so long within her struggle that being plucked bodily from that context was forcing her to revise her mindset; her conversation with the Doctor had made that abundantly clear to her early on.

And then, too, sometimes she'd find places like this: places of unearthly beauty and grotesquerie. There was art that, while clearly the product of some foreign sense of aesthetics, was still unmistakably art. There was art that originated from a more human-like mindset, but that was defamiliarized, made strange by its new context. The art hall she stood in now was yet another instance of both, with its chilling murals and shifting statues, all bathed in a light like nothing she'd seen before. It made her shiver, but that didn't keep her from appreciating it.

The statues, she had to admit, puzzled her. They were interesting to look at, but what was their point? It wasn't as if they'd been created by an artist with something to communicate, like normal art was; were they simply meant to be commemorative? Were they computer-controlled, or was there some kind of intelligence guiding them--perhaps Stacy? Was it really art if there were no motives, or even an artist behind it, to examine?

She sighed and rubbed her temples. She was starting to feel like she was back in college again--the last time she'd come up with something that pretentious, she'd been writing her thesis. She'd wanted to clear her mind, not clutter it further, and so she contented herself for now with watching the statues change.

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"No, not exactly," he answered. The corner of his mouth turning upward in a crooked smile. "Can't say that I'm a big fan of sleepin' in something that looks like a collapsed lung." There was a pause before he turned his body toward her and extended his hand. "I'm Sam."

"Leni." She gripped the proffered hand. "Just to get it out in the open now," she added only half-jokingly after a short pause of her own, "are you an alien, a vampire, or anything else I should know about?" Okay, so maybe she was a little paranoid...

Sam's brow furrowed at the question. "Uh...No," he answered, "I can't say that I am..." He paused for a moment before asking, "You?"

"Fully human, last I checked." She grinned wryly. "I... sort of got off to a bad start here," she offered by way of explanation. "Still not used to all of these other things running around."

"Yeah, join the club," Sam returned the smile, though his appeared more awkward and nervous. "My first day, I tried to shoot one of the hologram thingies."

"Hologram thingies?" Leni sounded a bit startled. "That's one thing I haven't seen around here, unless you count the sky in the city."

"Oh..." He said, then paused for a moment while he appeared to think. "Well, there's this girl...well, two of 'em, actually...and, I dunno, apparently they're some of artificial intelligence networks, or whatever, that Stacy took when she took everyone else." He sighed before adding, "And I shot one...or tried to, anyway."

"AIs? Sentient AIs?" Leni definitely sounded a little wary; 2001 had been a cinematic masterpiece, but HAL was not something she wanted to meet personally. She hoped these were more benign. "How did that turn out?"

"Not good," he answered, then seemed to reconsider his reply. "I mean, no one got hurt or anything but...I did kinda look like an idiot," he added, again with a nervous smile.

"I guess you would, trying to shoot a hologram." There was no malice in it, just amusement. "It's not as if no one else here has had moments of their own, though."

"Yeah, I guess so," Sam admitted. Though, from his tone and the way his gaze fell to the space of 'floor' at his feet, it didn't seem to comfort him. "So...what were you sayin' earlier about you gettin' off to a bad start?" he asked, obviously changing the subject.

Leni flicked her hair away from where it had carefully been arranged to fall over her shoulder, revealing a pair of small but still-livid scars on her neck. "Had a run-in with a vampire. Stacy decided that letting it snack on me was okay in her book." No bitterness here, of course, none at all.

She tucked her hair back in place, going on as she did. "And the first 'human' I met turned out to be some kind of hugely powerful alien. On the whole, not a good track record so far."

"A vampire?" Sam repeated, surprised. He looked around the art hall for several moments, seemingly looking for something--the vampire, most likely. "Here? There's a vampire on board?"

"That or some kind of... bloodsucking alien, I guess. I didn't get a good look, but what I saw didn't look too human." The vehemence of Sam's reaction piqued her curiosity. "Not a fan of them, I'm guessing?"

"Not exactly," Sam admitted, stepping forward. He moved to place his hands on her head, readying to tilt her head to the side before obviously reconsidering. "You mind if I...?" he asked, seeking permission.

The look Leni gave him was a little wary at first, but she finally nodded and shifted the lock of hair aside. "Go ahead." She glanced sidelong at him. "You've dealt with them before." It was definitely more a statement than a question, but the tone was meant to elicit an explanation all the same.

"Yeah," Sam nodded. He leaned forward, cupping her jaw in the palm of his right hand while the other hand cradled the back of her head. He tilted her head to one side, exposing the area on her neck where she'd been bitten.

"A couple of times, actually," he said, his eyes narrowing as he inspected the bite. "The first time, my dad had a friend--another hunter--get killed by a coven of vampires in Colorado. So, the three of us--Dad, Dean, and I--went to...return the favor, I guess you could say."

Still holding her head in place, Sam slid his right hand down to the bite, gently touching the skin around it. "Then last year, Dean and I came across another coven in Wyoming. But it turned out that they didn't hunt people, they realized it was murder or something, and were feeding off cattle instead."

Leni let her head be examined, flinching just a little when he touched the area around the bite. "Sounds like you've got an interesting life." Her tone was such that it was hard to tell whether it was sarcasm or not. "You do this kind of thing on a regular basis?"

"What kind of thing?" Sam asked with uncertainty.

"Dealing with vampires and other... whatever else is around. Nothing I know anything about, so you'll have to fill in the blanks." The look she gave him was oddly penetrating. "You talk about it like you're used to it."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," he said, meeting her eyes for a moment before returning to focus on the bite mark. "I suppose you could kinda call it our 'job' or something."

"Some job." She actually sounded a bit impressed. "Sounds exciting, hunting monsters for a living." Again, it might've been a bit hard to tell how sincere the sentiment was. "How's the pay?" she added dryly.

"It...sucks, actually," Sam answered. "So we make up for it other ways: pool sharking, credit card fraud..., but we get by."

Leaning forward to take one last close look at the wound, Sam finally nodded and stepped back. "Well," he said with a slight shrug. "It was a vampire, at least from what I can tell but as long as you didn't drink any of its blood you should be all right."

"Good. That'd be the last thing I need here, turning into one or something..." Leni nodded and flicked the strategically-placed lock of hair back into place.

"So, your job's potentially deadly, and the benefits are... pretty much limited to the gratitude of your fellow man. Why do you do it, then? Because no one else can, or what?"

"No, it's not that," he explained. "There are others but..." He paused, appearing rather uncomfortable with divulging his family history to a veritable stranger. Swallowing a lump in his throat, he made his way over to a bench and eased himself down onto it, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

"My mom was killed by demon when I was six months old," he finally blurted out. "That night, my dad found her pinned to the ceiling of my nursery with her...with her stomach cut open. And then this fire started out of nowhere and Dad barely got Dean and I outta there alive.

"That's when he figured out that there's stuff out there that's not natural. Sooo...just before my first birthday, Dad packed me and Dean up and we basically hit the road, moving from town to town, changing our names when we needed to, and livin' in one motel room after another while Dad started hunting for the thing that killed our mom.

"Then, as we got older, he started training us to do the same thing... You know, kinda pick up where he left off..."

Leni seemed by turns fascinated and revulsed by the story, but she listened to it all the way through, and paused a moment to take it in once he'd finished.

"Revenge? Well, that's as good a motivation as any." She sat down beside Sam, looking thoughtful. "Did you ever find it?"

"Yeah," he nodded, looking down at the 'floor.' "About six months ago, or...at least it was last time I was home. It killed Dad...but Dean, he got it. Shot it with this gun, a Colt, that we found that fires bullets that can kill anything."

"Did that end it?" A pause, as Leni looked at the mural across the hall. "And do you still have the gun? I've got a feeling it may come in handy here."

"No, it didn't end it," Sam answered, his shoulders slumping further, obviously trouble by his own answer.

"And...no, I don't. Dean had it with him and, as far as I can tell, he's either not here or still down in one of those pods."

He shrugged. "What about you?" he asked, shifting the focus of the conversation to her again. "I mean, we've spent all this time talkin' about me and I don't know the slightest thing about you."

"I was falling back into interview mode, I guess." Leni leaned back against the bench and linked her hands behind her neck.

"I'm a filmmaker. Not as glamorous as a demon slayer or anything," she added a bit sarcastically, "but there you go. Used to make documentaries till the government decided I was too much of a pain in their ass to keep off their leash." There was definitely some residual bitterness there. "They tried to get me to make propaganda for them, I told them to screw off and joined la resistance." For all her flippancy in talking about it, the fire in her eyes showed how high her emotions ran remembering it.

Sam nodded, his eyes meeting hers when she glanced over at him as she spoke, his interest unwavering. "Wow..." he said once she'd finished with all-too-brief autobiography. "...So, you're like Jacques Cousteau turned Charles de Gaulle," he noted with an amused half-smile.

"Something like that." The comparison elicited a small grin. "But with fewer fish and more oppressed workers... and less luck than de Gaulle. They caught us, eventually." Her expression darkened at the memory. "The bastards killed most of the ones they found."

Sam gave her a sympathetic look, his expression softening. "I'm sorry," he said with a tinge of regret in his voice.

"It wouldn't be so bad if it hadn't killed the movement with it."

She pushed herself off the bench, seemingly too agitated to keep still. "We kept it going for sixty years, now we have to start all over, and I got stuck as a professor so they could keep an eye on me, so I can't even do anything to help!"

"Hey," Sam said, rising as well and followed Leni as she grew agitated. He followed her, seemingly unaware that she'd drawn close to the--infamous--black obelisk.

He reached out and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Who's to say you can't do anything? I mean...you're a teacher now, right?"

"Not of anyone who actually gives a shit." The hand seemed to calm Leni down a bit, or at least remind her of her situation. "Gods know I try, but they're still looking over my shoulder, and the students are a bunch of brainwashed dust-breathers anyway. Makes me almost glad I'm here sometimes."

"You've gotta have something worth going back for," Sam said, stepping forward to stand next to her and looked into her face.

Just then, with Sam having neared it, the black obelisk shifted into the form of Sam with his arms wrapped around a woman, attempting to pull her out of a bathtub, but obviously having some trouble doing it.

"God, I hate that thing," he said, a chill running down his back.

Right as Leni opened her mouth to reply, Sam's attention was drawn away, and with that, so was hers.

"... so that's what it's for." She sounded a bit less unnerved than she looked. "I was watching it earlier, but I didn't see anything I recognized... Who is that?"

"This girl my brother and I saved," Sam answered, looking at the scene from his life being depicted by the statue.

"Her dad and his friends drowned a boy when they were kids," he explained further, "and the boy's ghost came back after they grew up and started killing their family members. One guy's son drowned in the kitchen sink..."

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