ATUHOR'S NOSE: I finished editing this and went to upload it but I'm coming back here to say apparently Billie doesn't get her own character category? The fuck? Poor Billie, so smart but always screwed over.

Warnings for: THERE WERE NONE ORIGINALLY but then I went back to edit in the ATUHOR'S NOSE and now there's an effword. Oh my.

Death found her in Boulder. Rowena wasn't surprised. She hadn't gone too far. Once she started smelling lilies, she put her tea aside. Just for the mo.

"Good," she said, "you're up. And looking hale and hearty, as a hard-working girl such as yourself should. Lovely. How are you feeling, dearie?"

"Peachy," said Billie. "Alive. Which is weird, considering."

Rowena grinned. "Oh, aye. I imagine for someone like yourself, that would come as a bit of a shock." Grinned wider. "Cheers." Her fingers hooked through the tea handle with calculated elegance. Lift to her lips. It's all part of the act and besides, Rowena deserves it, after the feat she's pulled off today. "Care for a cup?"

Billie scoffed. "You mean drink some of your witch brew so you can work more of your magic on me? Nah. You can keep your frog toes and just tell me why I'm here after the Winchesters's angel put a sword through my heart."

Rude. Rowena popped her eyes out, the picture of innocence. Billie managed to look even less impressed. "You make it sound so nefarious! All I've done is help you!" And maybe a wee bit myself. "I haven't even asked for a 'thank you'!"

"You expectin' a thank you? For this? Seriously? 'Cause I gotta say, Rowena, I'm seriously considering cutting through the red tape and taking you right now."

Oh. Now there was a tasty idea. And the bonuses would be even bigger than she'd been planning. Rowena fluttered her eyelashes, angling her head to shoot Billie her sexiest, smokiest look. "Oooh. I never thought - "

"Don't get cute. I meant kill you."

"What? You can't be serious! You're a reaper, reapers can't just kill people and I'm not dead to take!" Rowena cried. This was the thanks she got? Getting killed by the damn thing right after she brought her back? Did she know anything to put the little gravedigger back in the grave. Well, yes, something else from the Book of the Damned, but really -

"Reapers aren't supposed to come back to life either, but look where we are," Billie said, but there wasn't enough heat to her words. Was, in fact, just a touch of sadness in her eyes. Oh, please. Who on earth was upset about getting brought back from everlasting nothingness? Apparently, reapers.

No no no, threats aside, Rowena was pretty sure she had her pegged right. The reaper who got promoted to Death after the big fish himself bit it had to be a model employee. Breaking the rules for something petty wasn't something she'd do.

(Was it?)

Bringing her around to Rowena's way of looking at things would take just a wee bit more work than Rowena originally anticipated. Ah well. All's in a day's work for a witch. Time to break out the big guns.

Rowena fluttered her eyelashes again.

Billie raised her eyebrows. You seriously doing this?

Oh yes, Rowena's poison-apple smile responded.

"My dear," she started.

"Name's Billie," the reaper said. As if Rowena didn't know. She caught the eye-roll just in time to stick the devastatingly sexy smile in its place.

"Billie, Billie, Billie Jean," Rowena trilled in her lightest, sweetest Scottish lilt. She drew up a chair next to hers. "Hm? Sit with me. Let's straighten all this out, the two of us."

Billie Jean didn't sit with her but remained exactly where she was, folding her arms and leaning against the wall. "Think I'll stand. But what the hell, I'll play ball. Talk, Rowena. What'd you bring me back for?"

"For the good of the Balance!" Rowena said with all the earnestness she could muster. "Now I'll be the first to admit that I've occasionally - "

"You mean always," Billie corrected.

" - sometimes do things in the name of self-interest and from time to time Satanism, but I can recognize the big picture when it comes down to it." This, Rowena thought, would be the perfect time to reach for Billie's hand to emphasize her words. Shame the reaper had to play so damn hard to get.

Billie's eyebrows went higher.

No use crying over spilled lamb's blood, Rowena reflected, and continued, "I think we may have got off on the wrong foot here. I know I'm not much in the grand scheme of things, but you are! Billie, darling, you're the only one left in this cosmos with any sense in her head, and you and I both know it! All the higher powers gone, reapers - your own brothers and sisters - defecting left and right, Winchesters dying and popping back to life like it's nothing - "

Billie cut in, and Rowena couldn't have been gladder to touch a nerve. "Get to the point, Rowena."

"The point is that you're the only one left who minds the forest for the trees, sweetness," Rowena purred. "If I let you stay dead, what would've happened if we let things continue as they are - well, I don't need to spell it out for you, do I?"

Billie tipped her head, giving Rowena a hard look through a spill of black curls. "Cut the bullshit. I mean your point. I know you ain't just going to let me walk away and tend my business. You've evaded me and mine with your tricks for, what? Eight hundred years? You don't give a damn about the Balance. I know you don't have an unselfish bone in your body. So what are you cooking up? Fair's fair, I'll repay what I can just to get even the scales. But first I gotta know: what do you want, Rowena?"

The witch's eyes gleamed. "I want what every girl who's ever been burned wants," Rowena breathed. She rose up, a spider in black and white and red, and went to Billie, long skirts gliding along the dirty floor. Billie watched her come with an appraising look in her eye. "I want you to take care of that ungrateful, lying brat Lucifer. I want you to kill my worthless son. And those damn Winchesters. For good."

Death smiled. "Oh yeah," she said, "I can definitely work with that," before her lips found Rowena's, the pact sealed with a crackle of power that made the hairs on Rowena's arms stand up.

So as it turns out, Death kisses better than the Devil.

Who knew?