Lena had two weeks before she was due in Canada.

Two weeks which flew by in the holler uncharacteristically to the normal slow lull that she had settled into since the wrap up of the X-Files, and the brutal end of Kitty Matthew's.

Lena wasn't sure how they'd ever bring her back, though Kim Manners was for certain they'd find a way. Because the will of both David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson was more than prevalent.

Lena couldn't really complain. There wasn't much to complain about if she was being brutally honest. It was a good excuse for ending acting and returning back to simpletonism, a life she never could seem to shake.

Lena loved the hum of the mountains. Specifically the Appalachians. And she loved her cabin —— her safety net, her silver emergency blanket of peace and quiet that Lena had tucked herself into and burrow her roots deep, like a sow rooting for rattlesnakes.

The cabin wasn't small. The property wasn't either. One hundred and twenty three acres nestled among the towering pines of Kentucky’s foothills, and several buildings spread amongst the five acre clearing that her three bedroom and two bedroom cabin fit into. A small house she called the guest house sat at the edge of the five acres, adjacent to the left of Lena's, which her younger sister had claimed as her own personal resort when she visited.

There was a barn too. Not a shabby one, but a well kept walk-in that held two gated stables that let out through the back into a turnout, and a few short fences that harbored her sheep, milking goats, and any chickens who decided to jump ship from their designated coop and stow away with the rest of the animals.

It wasn't a new home, but it wasn't necessarily old.

Nevertheless it had become her sanctuary. To which Len had returned after the dust had settled that had kicked up from the ending of The X-Files, seeking solace in the simple, rustic life she had once known.

No more flashing lights, no more long hours spent on set. Just wide open spaces, or as much as five acres could allow, winding roads, and the hum of nature to fill the blissful silence.

Mornings started with the sun gently rising over the mountains, casting long shadows over the valley below. Lena would sip her coffee on the porch, the steam curling up into the cool morning air, watching the fog roll in from the valley like a blanket slowly being pulled back.

The world was still, and for a moment, she could forget about the chaos she had left behind in Vancouver, the life she had let loose and had no inkling to return to.

Until Layla came along —— darling won't you ease my worried mind.

Lena's routine was predictable, comforting. She'd spend her days tending to the animals, reading, sometimes hiking the trails she'd explored as a child, before her parents had mover back to the flat, rolling corn lands of Indiana and became Hoosiers once again.

Her life had a simplicity she hadn’t realized she craved so much. Canada had made her miss a lot in the two and a half years she was gone. Gillian, ever the trading woman, never really understood what she was referring too. But David did. David missed New York, and the fifty other homes he owned that he liked to vacation about to.

Lena only had one. But the money was there for another. Maybe something more east, Virginia, or a bit farther down in Tennessee. South to the Northern parts of Alabama or maybe west to the eastern corner of Arkansas.

She didnt want it too hot or too cold.

There was a part of Lena that knew her life was all a bit too quiet. She was a upper B-list actress who had fallen off, purposefully, much to the displeasure of TMZ, and had settled into semi-normalcy.

A year after the X-Files wrapped up, in two-thousand and three, a part of her that wondered if she had truly left the excitement behind, or if it was waiting for her, just out around the riverbend.

She didn't really miss acting. It was long days, getting yelled at for things out of control, and frequent uncomfortable situations. It was interns running around thinking they were 'the shit' and guest appearances treating everyone as if they were king cotton

So no, Lena didn't miss that. But she did miss the sets and the travel, the downtime in between, and goofing about. She did miss Kitty Matthew's and getting her hair played with for a hour of the morning. And she loved the fans and most of the media they would create.

She kept nearly everything given to her scattered neatly about the house. Drawings were placed in a hat box, letters in another, trinkets in a circular blue, and the rest that didn't fit would slide back with the others lined in a row under the bed.

Lena was sentimental. Sometimes too sentimental for her own good.

It made readying herself to leave again harder than it should have been.

It was early one morning, just as the sun was beginning to peek through the trees, that her phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. Lena had been moving around the kitchen, flipping pancakes, when the vibration broke through the otherwise peaceful rhythm of her morning.

The animals had been fed and they were all about, no broken fences and no runaway goats. So she didn't worry about it being that. The goats had been. . .oddly well behaved as of late.

She wiped her hands on a checkered dish towel, and picked up the phone. She pursed her lips as she saw the name she knew all too well. And with a deep breath, Lena answered. "Hey, Cordelia."

"Lena," Cordelia’s voice came through the receiver, the tone unmistakable "One week and you're flying back to the gulag!"

Lena paused, her hand resting on the back of the chair she was in the motion to pull out. The weight of the words didn’t quite sink in right away. She had a week before she be on a return flight back to Vancouver.

Cordelia had booked her that same little two story house in Williams Lake, five hours away from the hub of British Columbia.

"And to think, I was jus' gettin' comfortable here." Lena replies, half-joking, half-serious. Her Kentuckian drawl making itself quite known. She would blame it on the lack of sleep.

"Don't make me repeat myself." Cordelia’s voice was already taking on that teasing edge, the one that Lena knew all too well, and wasnt a fan of. But despite being her agent, she was a friend first. And Lena couldn't find it in herself to replace her. She didn't have much of a reason to either, except for the crippling fact that Cordelia Lewis hated the U of K Wildcats, and was a diehard Crimson Tide fan, being born and raised in Alabama before moving to New York after college.

"Kripke wants you to meet the boys, but he wants to finish shooting all the single scenes with the Kenner family and Layla before he mashes you all in a lumpsome." Lena felt her chest tighten, the knot in her stomach pulling at her insides. "It's happening. Its happening!"

"My food is getting cold is what's happening."

Cordelia huffed. "I think I'm more excited about this gig than you are!" That wasn't really the truth, and Cordelia knew it. Lena was excited, she was just scared, and wasn't really in the mindset for any extended travel.

Hence why she was moving to Canada for the summer while shooting and not flying from Kentucky to Canada, and so on and so forth.

"Kripke loves you," Cordelia said, no hesitation in her tone. "He's already calling Layla his ‘lucky charm.’" It sounded too good to be true, too easy. Lena didn't like easy. She liked earning her keep, she appreciated hard work.

Dad had always said anything handed to you can be taken away on a whim, but the lessons learned in hardwork will stay with you forever.

Lena couldn't shake the feeling that Layla Kenner would think the same thing.

Her mind flickered back to the audition, to reading the script and feeling that strange pull. But that was weeks ago, and she'd let herself believe that it was just a blip in time. Something to amuse herself with, and that Manners and Kripke really weren't planning on roping her into this and hogtieing her to the tracks with the speeding train that was Vancouver racing straight for her midsection.

"You’re not just another guest star, Lena," Cordelia continued, her voice softening, as if reminicing on their old college dorm days. Late nights and a shared mini-fridge that Lena always seemed to hog. "Layla's going to be a central part of the Winchesters’ world. Manner's got big plans for her. This is your break, this is your three hundred secluded acres with that Champagne saddlehorse you wanted."

Lena didn’t answer right away. Cordelia had known her for long enough to know that she needed a moment to think, a moment to process.

Her gaze drifted over the cluttered kitchen, the farmhouse sink, the worn wood of the table that had seen a thousand quiet mornings just like this.

She had sat at the very wicker chair her hand rested on the back of now when she got the call about the X-Files. And she swore she could hear the creak of the floorboards as if the cabin itself was sighing at the thought of her leaving again. Anywhere but Vancity Lena, anywhere!

She knew deep down that it was right to go. She would be closer. And it was only for the summer, and the summer after that, and after that. She'd be home for winter. Her sister, Kathy would come and watch the animals. She lived here part time already. The chickens liked her better anyhow.

And who knows, maybe the show would flop after season three and she would get to come back with the earnings and buy that three hundred dream acres she's always wanted. Wherever it is.

Lena stared out the window, watching the mist roll in over the mountains, her thoughts spinning. She had been running away from it all for over a year now, from Vancouver, from acting, but now the pull to return was undeniable.

Was she ready for it?

What are you going to do cowgirl —— saddle up or just lay there and bleed?

Cordelia’s voice broke through her thoughts. "Pack your bags."

Lena exhaled, a laugh escaping her lips. "I have a week 'Delia." Lena said, the word hanging in the air like the Spanish moss that blanketed the trees she'd seen cascading  in South Carolina —— not fully commited to falling, but not exactly holding on either. Somewhere in limbo. "Alright," the word was drawn out sigh, thick Kentucky drawl doing nothing for her proper disposition. The word wasn't entirely said in disbelief, but more in the realization that she had to face what she’d been avoiding. And Cordelia would be there, every step of the way.

It wasn't like she had another client to tend to. And if she did, Lena still came first. As a friend and as a former Wildcat, despite how much it hurt the Lewis girl to utter such discrepancy against the Crimson Tide.

Cordelia’s voice was lighter as she listened to Lena's acceptance. She knew it would come sooner or later. It always did. "A couple of days. You’ll be there soon enough. I’ll handle the details. Just wrap up a summers worth of things i'll get shipped up to Lake Williams, or whatever, and the rest is for your carry on and crap."

Lena took the phone from the crook of her neck. "I don't think an agent is supposed to talk to the client like that."

"Well, you don't pay me jack shit. I do this for the hot guys. Plus, I'm not your agent right now, I'm your best friend. So suck it up buttercup."

They hung up and Lena put the phone down, face up on the table.

The stillness of the house pressing in on her once again. It was happening. She was going back.

She was going back.

She had planned on living out her days in the quiet of the mountains, listening to her bluegrass vinyls, home sweet home Kentucky, content to fade from the world of lights and cameras.

She would have to figure out a way to take her record player —— but Cordelia could get someone to do that.

Agent, best friend, manager, Lena swore that woman could do it all.

Except find a decent guy.

But that, like all discrepancies, could be  forgiven.

Plus, who knew what the new cast would bring?

Kripke seemed ambitious.