I was underground, but I didn't remember how I got there. Cold, hungry, feeling a little dizzy and sick, I sat up in the dark and smacked my head on some stone overhang. It all hit me in a flash - catacombs, ghouls, a hunt. Particularly a nasty and large group of ghouls, I thought I remembered evidence of four, but so much of it was fuzzy. I started hearing noises, voices, then fighting and running footsteps. A bright light practically blinded me and a familiar voice behind the torch called for me, "Can you move? Did they bite you?"

"Sam?" I shielded my eyes against the flashlight and my eyes adjusted some. "Yeah, I think I'm ok." It didn't feel right. It felt like some of the times I've been too drunk and the whole world just spins and nothing feels real.

"Those ghouls will get out of that trap any minute and we're all ghoul-chow if we don't run now." Dean shoved a machete into my hand and pulled me along as we fled through the narrow walkways of what I supposed was an old sewer.

Everything smelled stale, mossy, and the path was a little slick like walking through slush in late winter. Castiel was watching our backs, shining angel blade in hand and keeping his other hand on my shoulder. The tunnel was just starting to get lighter when we heard scuffling, and it opened out into the chamber I'd been dragged to and woke up in.

"Damnit!" Dean cursed as the four ghouls started circling us. One of them held my Mag-lite I must have dropped, but I didn't remember that either. What the hell was wrong with me?

The fight escalated quickly. Mag-lite-ghoul charged at me, slamming the heavy flashlight on Castiel's shoulder. I swung with my machete and lodged it into her arm; she dropped the flashlight and grabbed me by the throat, shoving me against the wall. I heard the sounds of the Winchesters' fighting, and some sick noise from Castiel's direction. How did a ghoul already knock him out and start eating him, grace or no grace? The same sound suddenly came from my shoulder as the bitch started snacking on me. My flesh was in searing, unspeakable pain. Everything was a blur and I kept hearing myself screaming above all the other noises of combat. A gun fired and my ghoul's head exploded all over me. Dean was yelling my name, but he was cut short. I was finally together enough to pick up the gun he'd dropped and I shot the last ghoul, chowing on Sam.

The ghouls were dead. Cas was dead. Dean was dead. Sam was…well, he wasn't far behind, but there was no saving him, either. The chamber was complete carnage. I fell to my knees beside Sam, begging and pleading whoever might hear me for a way out of this. Sam's face alternated between contortions of pain and serene peacefulness. "Hey," he hushed me, "You know the drill. The keys are in-" his breathing was wet and labored. "Keys in Dean's pocket. Salt. Burn. Keep going. You hear?" Before I could say 'Absolutely not, pick up your guts and help me drag Dean and Cas out of here!' he was gone. I was alone. I could feel my heart sinking as the desolation of it all hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest…

In a bright white flash, I was in a park with dawn breaking over the treetops. A woman in a slick gray business suit and dark hair in a smooth bun stood in front of me. This park is where I last remembered being, after I killed only one ghoul last night. "The ghouls-" I started.

"It was a vision. None of that has happened. Yet." She'd had her hand on my head, and lowered it.

"They're alive?" My throat was so tight. The vision, even though something didn't feel quite right, it was so real.

"For now." She tilted her head toward me, "But they won't be for long if you stay with them. You are a distraction from their purpose."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Naomi!" a raspy British accent sounded off behind me. I hadn't seen Crowley more than a couple times yet, but he made my skin crawl like a human ant farm. Whoever she was, the King of Hell made her as nervous as me, that much was sure. He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. My jaw locked and I tried not to turn my head or side glance at him. "Dear, sweet, meddlesome Naomi. You and I have such different ideas of torture. You go for the mind, and that's all well and good, but once you take them out of your little reverie, they find reality again and whatever you showed them means nothing. Isn't that right, love?" He squeezed my shoulder like a teasing uncle and he laughed when an involuntary squeak escaped my lungs.

Naomi shook a finger at me, backing away. "Remember what I've told you!" With that, she was gone.

So carefully, I turned from under Crowley's hand and backed away a few steps. "What do you want from me?"

"I want you out of Naomi's sharp little paws," he flourished. "She means to caution you against being used as bait for a Winchester trap. She probably has another agenda for you. I, however, am counting on the likelihood of Moose, Squirrel, and Goose risking it all to keep you in the family." He strolled in a circle around me as he talked. "Now that you're safe," he he started to say, but I had to sit; I plopped down on the cold, damp grass. Vision or not, what I saw was too real, too gruesome. A terrible time to start crying in front of the King of Hell, but I did, I couldn't hold it in anymore. Elbows on knees, head in my hands, I let it all out.

He scrunched up half his face and watched me in disbelief. "Aw, now don't tell me you bought into her little illusion? It's incredible how fragile human hearts are," he scoffed. "You can't get any fun out of playing with someone's feelings, it's too easy." I got up and leaned against a tree while retched up what must have been everything I'd eaten in the last week. I started to calm down a little, finally. Crowley was pacing and fidgeting, looking impatient. He was right behind me now, his voice quiet. "It's not so bad as what I could do to you. Give it a day or two, you'll forget the grisly little details like a bad dream. Buck up." He patted my shoulder, almost encouragingly. I realized I was going to need so much therapy after this. Probably a session each with Dr. Jack Daniels, Dr. Jim Beam, and maybe Dr. Johnnie Walker if I could find him. The weirdest part was yet to come, though: he huffed with impatience, "Let me take you somewhere. Where do you want to go? Back to your boys?" Demon-King Crowley asking a lost little girl where her family is so he can take her back to them. This was entirely too weird.

I clenched my jaw and said over my shoulder. "I'm blonde, not stupid." I wiped my mouth and decided what I needed most was a dose of my favorite form of acupuncture. "Will you take me to the closest, nice tattoo parlor?" He did and even stayed with me to get some new ink, saying if I told anyone about our little outing he would turn me inside out and make a puppet show out of my innards. He didn't have to tell me twice.

I wandered my way back to the bunker, taking a roundabout route that delayed me by a couple days, just so I could make sure no black-eyes followed me home. When the guys let me in, I leaped into Sam's arms for a hug and when I hugged Dean he picked me up and spun a little. I felt hot tears welling in my eyes when he put me down and I tried to bite them away.

"Are you ok?" Sam asked, brushing his hair back.

"You're late coming back," Dean agreed, "What happened?" He caught my chin with a knuckle and tilted my face up. "Kiddo, are you crying?"

I tried to laugh it off, half-lying, "Nah, just got some bruised ribs, you know how it goes sometimes. Just feels good coming home to y'all." Shrugging their heavy gazes off, I went to my room, hiding a limp in my ankle from twisting it on my ghoul hunt.

I'd peeled off my clothes and hopped under the hot water and steam before I could breathe easy again. My shampoo, conditioner, and body scrub felt better than anything possibly could at that moment. Sometimes, a hunt means no showers, getting filthy, and not enough food that isn't pumped full of MSG. Soon as my shower was done, grilling a steak or some chicken would be my next must-have. Shit, I'd even settle for some scrambled eggs. Finished, I shut off the water and grabbed my towel to start drying off. I threw back the curtain to see Castiel. We shared the bathroom, he didn't look at naked bodies the same way humans do, and it wasn't the first time he'd walked in on me. So I didn't bat an eye. I did try to tease him about it, though.

"Does Dean know you walk in on me all the time?"

Gleaming blue eyes blinked at me, brows knitted. "Does he know you don't seem bothered by it?"

I really had nothing to say to that. I shrugged, but I was pretty impressed with his retort. I did catch him glancing down, though, while I wrapped my towel around me, tucking a corner in my cleavage, and combed out my hair. "Hey, eyes up here, Wings…oh." I cringed for my nickname for him. He didn't have wings anymore. "Shit, I'm sorry."

"Those are new." He pointed at the fresh ink on my thighs, still a little raw and scabby. I turned so he could see both of my new tattoos Crowley had sat with me to get two days ago: on my left outer thigh was a wrought-iron W with a gray, feathered wing, on my right was a polished silver W with another wing. I watched the wheels in his little angel head turn as he brushed his fingertips on my skin. "The iron is Dean. The silver, Sam. The wings are me. And they are placed where you strap your guns during a hunt."

I paused. "Yeah. I'm a little surprised you get it." I let Cas follow me to my room as I slipped on a tank top and shorts.

"It's very recent," he continued to scrutinize me. "What was the occasion?"

"I was…" I stumbled around my words. "I know I'm new to the club, but…you're my family. All three of you. You're my lucky charms when I go out on my own."

By the way, it's stupid to try to lie to an angel. He knew I was holding something back and he asked very hard with his eyes. I scrambled to say something plausible without being grossly dishonest, and before I knew it the truth about the vision that other angel had given me was just falling from my lips. I did manage to leave out the part about Crowley; if I never told anyone about that, it would still be too soon. "I keep telling myself it wasn't real, Cas. I know it wasn't, but for the few minutes I was experiencing it, the rest of the world didn't exist. You and Sam and Dean weren't just dead, y'all were…" I tried to make a ripping gesture, "Shredded. Half-eaten. There was no bringing anybody back, no deals to be made, nothing. It was even worse than how I lost my first family. I came out of that illusion grieving hard. The tattoos are my way of dealing with it." The tears flooded my eyes, burning, and streamed down my face.

The graceless angel stared at me, head tilted, trying so hard to understand how something that didn't actually happen affected me so deeply. He sat down on my bed with me, and in his tender and awkward way he put an arm around my shoulders to pull me close and rested his chin on my head. I would've laughed if I wasn't crying.

"Will you make me a promise?" I asked him.

"Um. Yes. First, what is it?"

I pulled away so I could look at him. "Castiel. If I'm ever in trouble, and I mean EVER, and the guys want to try to help me," I bit my lip, new tears welling up, "don't let them, ok? For the love of God, do. Not. Let them. Come after me. You, neither. Whatever it is, it's probably a trap, and you know it. I don't care if it looks like the easiest salt-and-burn they could do in their sleep, or something you could do in the blink of an eye once you get your wings back. Just…don't."

His frown lines grew deeper. "Dean would be impossible to persuade, never mind furious."

"Say whatever you have to to make them not go looking for me. Tell Dean," I smeared away my tears. "I mean, if the circumstances allow it, tell him that I couldn't handle being a hunter, so I left." I knew how much that would hurt him, but I hoped if Crowley or an angel ever snagged me, it would work.

Castiel was surprised. "But Dean loves you, and he knows you love hunting with him." I nodded. "So, if you went missing, you would have him believe you no longer desired to be by his side?"

"If I thought that would save his life, yeah. Any day." I curled my wet strands around my fingers. "The way I see it, if I'm bait, and nobody comes for me, there's a chance I'll be let go or I can try to escape. You know I wouldn't go down without a good hard fight," Cas smiled a little. "If I can, I'll make my way back home to my family. Will you promise though?"

"Breaking a heart in order to keep it beating. Humans do such strange things when emotional attachments are involved. If it will make you feel better, yes, I promise."

I had a hard time believing it, but I took it.

The angel hugged me again, a little too tight, but I took that too, with a smile. "Come on," he rose from the bed and grabbed my hand. "Dean is cooking you a steak. Medium-rare."

"The only way to have it!" I grinned and followed the smell of dinner across the bunker to the kitchen. ~~ka2013

By ~ derpnikdrawing at Tumblr