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Rachel has yet to find what useful purpose Dean serves to this world or any other. So far his driving skills, propensity for violence, and taste in music has been far outweighed by the pure annoying of his personality.

The number of punches she's dealt his shoulder has multiplied ever since she hit her head, too. Maybe Jo was attracted to men that tried to baby her but Rachel would take a monster over a concerned individual any day of the week.

Which is why she had no problem with stealing one of Dean's guns after they'd made camp and he'd gone off to-- do whatever it was he was going to do. Se has her own, of course, but it doesn't serve her purpose.

It isn't shiny.

"Mort?" Rachel frowns and glances over her shoulder to make sure no one's around to see her acting like a crazy woman, talking to a gun. "C'mon, I need to talk to you."

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"Probably for the same reason that you can't seem to understand that a slap on the wrist doesn't stop anyone from hurting anyone! Get back on your high horse and get out of my sight, you're not doing anything but pissing me off!"

Steph glares.

Then she turns her back, pointedly, and walks her bike over to the side of the street; where she settles herself against the wall, arms folded, pointedly watching Rachel.

Not. Going. Anywhere.

Rachel is having a hard time breathing. Her chest hurts, her eyes burn, her hands fisted tight at her sides.

She's not a monster. Tobias told her that plenty of times and he wouldn't lie. She isn't.

...or she wasn't, with him.

"Get on your bike," Rachel growls softly. "And go."

"Not until you do," Steph says flatly. "I'm out of surveillance cameras, so you're gonna have to put up with it."

"I can't- I'm not leaving yet," Rachel snaps angrily, and is careful not to glance back at where the Impala sits in the darkness.

And maybe she should just leave without Dean anyway.

"Get out of here, Steph, or I swear to god, I'll convince you to."

Steph wants to go. She wants to get home and make sure everyone's safe, and then she wants to go out and beat the punching bag into shreds, and she wants to convince herself that Rachel's utterly wrong.

Most of all she wants to convince herself that she'll never end up like that.

"What will you do if I go?" she asks, voice so calm it's obviously an effort.

Rachel scoffs, looking away from Steph and crossing her arms over her chest - tight and angry. "I'll do something horrifically evil like eat dinner and go to bed. Jesus Christ."

"Like I could take your word for it," Steph points out glumly, "even if I liked you. I don't wanna stay here either. I've got plenty of better things to do. But you're a danger and you're close to the farm."

"Stop saying that, I'm not a danger to little kids and their parents!" Rachel roars, stepping closer to Steph again, the urge to attack unbearably strong. "I've been to the damn farm before and I haven't hurt anyone! I don't just kill people! I'm more worried about a place like that that trusts people like you!"

"Oh, yeah, because you're doing such a good job of convincing me you're calm and peaceful," Steph snorts, folding her arms. "I can't guarantee none of my family have never killed anyone. Or committed crimes. The difference is I don't think they should die for it!"

"So basically, you can decide who's allowed to live or die but no one else can? God, you're ridiculous! What makes you think I've ever killed anyone just because I felt like it?! What makes you so sure their reasons and mine were so different?!"

She doesn't want to kill Steph.

She just wants to beat her senseless.

And Rachel's still walking closer.

"No!" Steph snaps. "Will you stop doing that? You're twisting what I say into what you think I should say! I'm saying that nobody gets to decide who lives or dies! No matter what they've done!"

In typical Steph-fashion ... she's not budging an inch.

"Nobody... except your family?" Rachel growls, coming close, getting right in Steph's face. "Lemme ask you this, did you interrogate them the same way you've been doing to me?! Did you give them the third degree about why and how and when and what else they could have done? Did you?!"

Steph narrows her eyes right back. "No," she says flatly, "because I trust them. You've never shown me one single reason to trust you."

At her side, her hands twitch slightly, itching to form a fist.

"Yeah, you're right, I just fought alongside you against a whole damn army of zombies!" Rachel snaps.

She is not a monster. She's not. She doesn't just kill. She's a hardened warrior, a soldier, she does what's necessary, not just what she wants, she knows what she's doing and she does it for a reason.

"I don't need or want your trust!"

"Yes, and then when we'd won you killed three unconscious, helpless men," Steph points out, growls really. "And acted like it was something you were proud of! My worst nightmare is to end up like you!"

"I killed three unconscious men that, when conscious, had killed enough people to splatter the whole damn mall with blood!" Rachel explodes.

And swings hard to punch Steph across the cheek.

"Good! You're the worst excuse for a warrior I've ever met, I'd hate to see what you'd do with real power behind your bullshit!"

"Coming from you?"

Expecting the blow, Steph dodges easily, slipping aside before Rachel comes close.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Useless, weak human limbs with human muscle and human reflexes.

It just makes Rachel madder.

"Yeah, coming from me," Rachel snaps, whirling to keep Steph in front of her, but she doesn't strike again - yet. "Take it however you want, just get out of my face!"

"You hit me," Steph points out, maddeningly calm with her hands raised, poised to fight. It's always this way: once the action has started, she's cool and calm; adrenaline and violence make it so easy to think strai---

Shocked, she drops her guard abruptly. "You get out of my face and I'll get out of yours."

"No, you ducked," Rachel points out in a growl.

--only to stare.

Abruptly, Rachel is just as calm, just as quiet. But with hands fisted tightly at her sides.

"I have been trying to get you to leave since you got here," she points out, very soft, even with her voice trembling. "And now... you're telling me... that I need to get out of your face, you egotistical," her voice rises, "hypocritical," a little louder, growled, "nosy fucking," and shouted, "bitch!

"GET OUT OF HERE!"

"Well," Steph says, calmly and coldly, "it's going to be a little hard to get on my bike with you looming over me like that, isn't it?"

The insults get nothing; the shouting gets nothing. She's too busy being dismayed by her own reaction. It never seemed bad before, how easy she finds turning to violence, but standing in front of Rachel and seeing ... what she desperately doesn't want to be her future... it's a problem.

Rachel's teeth clench, jaw setting, and it takes her a moment to actually speak.

"I'm only standing in front of you. Turn around and go."

She doesn't trust her not to sneak back and spy on her, like she's going to kill a fluffy innocent bunny.

...which she won't, if only because it's Dean's turn to hunt.

Steph glares at her, and pointedly doesn't turn her back as she moves to get on the bike.

Some kind of parting shot would be appropriate here, but -- she's just not really up to it. Too angry. Too upset.

... besides, it's occurred to her that if Rachel were to morph bird she could reach the farm well before Steph could stop her. She wants to be with the babies if the psycho vigilante -- because that's what Rachel is, whether she likes it or not -- attacks them.

The bike kicks up a cloud of dust as she roars off back towards the farm.

A girl, a monster like Rachel, would react to this by watching Steph until the dust has settled and the lights of the bike are lost in the darkness, then retreat to the woods to find something to fight, even if it's just a tree to bruise her hands and split her knuckles on with training.

Which does not at all explain why, once it's dark again, Rachel deflates, picks up Dean's gun, and wanders back to the Impala. She puts the gun carefully back where she'd picked it up, in the backseat by Dean's bags. She sits down over by the fire, on the blanket she'd picked up at the last shop, and lies back with her eyes on the stars.

And rubs her face with both hands, as if that might wipe her mind, or her memory, clean.

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