She had been done with battles, once. Out of the world of heroes who saved it, back amongst the innocent and the ignorant, people chasing dreams and paychecks and toddlers, living out lives as fully undistinguished and untarnished by the fact of war and the threat of oblivion as any she could have wished for herself.
And then, the angel had come.
Yet another prophesy, of the Daughter of the Earth, the Brightest Witch who had to save the Righteous Man, lest the world tumble into darkness. And so, she had come.
There had been little choice. When the alternative was Armageddon, how could she have chosen otherwise?
And now here they were, at the end of everything. The fighting had stopped with the last combatants, and it had been several ragged breaths before she, or any of them, it seemed, had realized it was over.
She had turned to see the brothers standing, back to back, covered in grime and gore and their own sweat, and probably some of their own blood. They had stood together, at last, against heaven and hell. They had fought - together - and survived.
And as that realization dawned, they had turned as one to her, eyes seeing past the Fiendfyre she still wielded like a sword, to her face, her eyes. Their twinned expressions of joy and relief brought her out of the Berzerker rage that had fueled the flames, flames which flickered and died as she began to sag beneath the oncoming wave of exhaustion.
And then suddenly she was taken up, buoyed by two pairs of arms reaching for her, clasping her tight as they knelt beside her, Dean's arm tight around her waist as though clinging to a life-raft, Sam's cheek resting on the top of her head, comforting and comfort-seeking. Wordlessly she sank into them, letting the weariness wash over her, drinking in everything about this moment. It would be imbued on her memory forever: the scent of burning feathers, cotton shirts on her cheek.
A/N: This was inspired by a prompt from putpromptsonpaper, and is dedicated to marionhood, whose fault it is that I know about Supernatural at all. This references her stories "Hermione's Angel" and its sequel, "The Family Business," which are excellent and deserve all the reads and reviews they can get.