Author's Note:

Hey guys, so this is my first attempt at a Supernatural FanFiction, and I figured I'd give it a brief introduction.

It takes place directly after the end of season 6, so watch out for spoilers. It does contain an OC but there won't really be much romance until way later on. Even then, it shouldn't consist of anything too adult. There is minor swearing, but not more than what you get on the actual show.

In terms of writing this, I tried to research it as much as possible, as well as stay true to the characters, so no need to worry about anyone acting OOC. I will try to include as many characters from the series as possible, without introducing too many blatant OCs. Please do keep in mind that I wrote this solely for my own enjoyment, but, if you do happen to spot any factual or grammatical errors, hit me up with a message and let me know. I don't mind criticism as long as it's constructive or, alternatively, creative.

Unfortunately, this chapter contains a lot of dialogue and very little action. I promise things will get more interesting; I just had to get introductions out of the way. Bear with me?

I guess I'm obligated to say that I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters. I'm also in no way associated with the show or the network. All of that should be obvious, though.

So, without further ado, here we go.

...

When you've been in the very worst circle of hell as long as Sam had, you tend not to spend much time in the present. Your mind drifts between what you're seeing at the moment and what you're remembering from before. You have to struggle every second to stay put, not to scream at the phantom pain, not to clutch your head to hold back the flood of flaming memories. Despite his best efforts, Sam was failing to stay in the present. He had managed to stab Castiel, but it had been in a dream-like state where he hadn't even been sure of what was real. It hadn't worked, anyway, as far as he could tell. Cas was saying something about being God, but Sam was finding it difficult to care while his skin was burning off. Was it? Wasn't it? Was that a memory? Yes? Wasn't it now? What?

"Sam? Sammy?" Dean, forgetting to be terrified of whatever Castiel had become, moved to Sam's side. Sam didn't remember falling to the floor, but he supposed he must have. Bobby stood his ground, keeping both the brothers and the corrupted angel in his line of vision.

"Sam? What's happening? Sammy?" Sam could feel the concern in his brother's voice, hear the desperation, and he answered as best as he could, given that he was only half there.

"Hell... it's, uh, pretty rough." Sam liked to think that he sounded a little sarcastic but, evidently, it was lost on Dean.

"I know, man. Just hang on. We're going to work this out." Dean turned accusingly to Cas, showing far less fear now that his brother's sanity was on the line. "Fix him."

Castiel regarded Dean sceptically. "You think I would help you? After all of the doubt you've shown me? I am not your servant, Dean. You cannot pull out your faith in me when you need it, then shelve it again when it suits you."

Dean swore, trying not to look too far in to the pain across his brother's face. "Dammit, Cas. If I ever meant anything to you, you'll help me now. You'll fix what you did to Sam."

Sam, in his semi-aware state, could perceive the shaking rage spreading through Dean. It was the kind of rage that Dean only got when someone close to him was in danger. Sam hated being the cause of it, but he had his own pain to deal with, and he couldn't, for the life of him, think of anything to say to Dean that would make things better.

"Dean, I can't." Cas' words were tinged with vague regret, but no more than that. The old Cas' penchant for inner turmoil was apparently gone.

"Can't or won't?"

"Both," Cas snapped. "I've only just taken in all these souls. I don't have enough control over them to help your brother without making his head literally explode. Furthermore, Dean, you lost the right to ask me favours the moment you lost faith in me."

Dean glared at Cas. "Fine. Maybe I don't deserve a favour from your royal friggin' highness, but Sam deserves some sort of payback after he sacrificed his soul to stop the apocalypse. The same soul that you forgot to fish out of the pit. You're the reason he's this twisted, Cas. Maybe I don't deserve a favour, but Sam sure as hell does."

Castiel's expression didn't even flicker as he reached in to his pocket and pulled out a small, white business card, handing it to Bobby without breaking eye-contact with Dean. "Take Sam there. Say I sent you. There's no guarantee, but it's his best hope right now."

Bobby gingerly took the business card and gave it a once-over. "The address isn't too far from here. If we hurry, we can be there by morning."

Dean was quiet for a long moment, staring in to Cas' eyes, trying to find a shred of emotion. There wasn't anything except a restrained irritation, probably due to the fact that Dean wasn't crawling around pledging loyalty to the new God.

"Thanks," Dean finally said, his tone stiff.

"I think," Cas began slowly, his eyes never leaving Dean's, "that you should have a little more faith in God, Dean."

And with that, Castiel was gone.

...

"This the place?"

The impala pulled up next to an old, two-storey cabin at the edge of the woods. Its shutters were all wide open, presumably to let in the morning light, but no flowers grew in the window boxes and no paint adorned the faded walls. The place still had a distinctly cared-for feel, though, as the surrounding area was obviously kept clean, and a straggly, but pretty wreath hung on the door.

"Anise," Bobby muttered as he and Dean approached the door, Sam leaning heavily on Dean as he tried to remember that he had to walk and not swat at the flames blooming across his chest.

"What?"

"The flowers in the wreath and around the porch. They're anise. They're supposed to protect against obsessive spirits."

"Your point?" Dean asked impatiently.

Bobby shrugged. "It just seems strange. They're not a common safeguard."

"Meeting someone strange; that's new," Dean rolled his eyes. "Can we move on?" With that, he banged his fist against the door, shifting a little under Sam's weight. "Hang on, Sammy. You're going to be okay," he murmured.

All three visibly tensed as they heard footsteps approach the door. They had no idea whether or not Cas had sent them in to a trap and, frankly, after the last couple of years and the way today was going, they wouldn't have been terribly surprised. They didn't even know what this guy was supposed to do. There was the sound of a key scraping a lock open and a bolt being moved back. Dean's free hand went to the gun tucked in to the back of his jeans, while Bobby's did the same. Sam's gun privileges had been revoked on the way over, when he had tried to shoot Satan, who had supposedly been in front of him. Bobby had narrowly avoided losing an ear.

The door opened slightly, and a pair of grey eyes set in to a smooth, tanned face looked out at the trio standing on the porch. Dean raised an eyebrow at Bobby, who shrugged back. Neither of them had expected a woman to answer the door.

"Can I help you?" Her voice was cool and controlled. The door was only slightly ajar, and Dean could see that there was still a chain linking it to the doorway. Glancing down, he noticed a thick line of salt on the floor. Clearly, this Kail guy they were supposed to be meeting wasn't taking any chances with lax security.

"Yeah, I'm Bobby, that's Dean, that's Sam." He gestured to each brother in turn. "We're here to see Kail. Is he in?" Bobby asked, his hand moving away from his gun. Dean's hand didn't move.

The woman's slender eyebrow was quirked slightly. It was a pretty expression on her. "I'm afraid the only Kail here is me, but if you'd like me to find a guy by that name, I'm sure I could look around." A small smile was pulling at the corner of her lips.

Bobby looked immediately embarrassed. "I'm sorry, we just thought..."

"It's fine," Kail cut in, smiling. "It's an odd name for a girl, anyway." Her gaze shifted from Bobby to Sam and Dean, and her smile faded. "He's hurt," she stated.

"Thank you, Doctor House," Dean grunted, shifting again as Sam sluggishly tried to fend off some invisible attacker.

Kail ignored Dean's sarcasm. "What happened?"

Bobby, seeing the frustration on Dean's face, quickly spoke before Dean could. "It's a long story. Can we come in?"

"Sure," she said slowly, her eyes staying on Sam's struggling form. "Just need to do a quick security check." Before Dean or Bobby could say anything, her eyes turned an incandescent, eerie blue. Dean's grip on his gun tightened and he moved to pull it on her. Before he completed the motion, though, her eyes were back to normal. Seeing the gun, Kail raised an eyebrow. "Calm down. I was just giving your souls a brief once over. I didn't even look past your intentions which, by the way, aren't bad."

With that, she shut the door, slid the chain out of its bracket, and opened the door again, this time wide enough to let the three men in to her house. Dean and Bobby paused before moving forward, stepping over the line of salt across her threshold. Sam's dragging feet broke the line, though, and, without a word, Kail knelt down and fixed it using a sack of salt that lay next to the doorway. While she worked, Dean silently gestured to Bobby to look up. Painted in white on the ceiling above the door was a flawless devil's trap. Straightening up, Kail eyed the gun in Dean's hand.

"You really should put that away. I'm not going to hurt you." As she spoke, she stepped out from under the devil's trap, a silent indication that, at least, she wasn't a demon.

Dean, still not feeling reassured, didn't move his gun hand. "You can look at people's souls?"

Kail rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Sherlock, how else would I heal them?" She looked confused. "Isn't that why you came?"

Dean blinked. Well, would explain why Cas had sent them to her. He slowly put his gun away. "Uh, yeah, it is. I was just... checking," he finished lamely, trying to avoid her gaze, which was growing more and more suspicious.

"How did you find me?" she demanded, taking a step back from Dean, Sam and Bobby, her hand reaching in to the back pocket of her jeans.

"Castiel sent us. He thought you might be able to help my brother." Dean figured that there was no point in beating around the bush. It felt stupid trying to hide the truth from someone who could, apparently, look at his soul.

Annoyance flashed across Kail's face, but she relaxed visibly, her hand moving away from whatever she was keeping in her back pocket. "Of course Cas sent you. He would send a mess like this," she muttered as her eyes turned an unearthly blue again, examining Sam far more closely than she had at the door. As she looked, her expression became steadily more horrified and, as if she couldn't look anymore, her eyes returned to their normal colour. "Move him to the couch," she ordered, her voice a little choked as she gestured through a door on her left. "I'll be there in a second."

Noting her sudden change in tone, Dean did as he was told, shuffling himself and Sam in to a small but immaculate living room with a couch, an armchair by the window, an old television perched on a pile of books, and a writing desk that had clearly been in use for a couple of decades.

Kail moved swiftly to a table standing in the entrance hall, yanking open the drawer and taking out a syringe filled with amber liquid before following Bobby in to the living room.

"What's that?" Dean eyed the syringe suspiciously, standing between Kail and Sam, who was lying on the little couch with a good portion of his legs hanging off the edge. He was groaning something under his breath, his breathing becoming heavier.

"Relax, mama bear; it's just a tranquilliser. It'll let him sleep without having dreams. Believe me; it's far kinder than leaving him like he is now."

Dean didn't move, his eyes conveying a clear mistrust. Kail sighed impatiently. "Look, I don't like you."

"Well I don't trust you," Dean retorted.

Kail closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath before continuing in a measured tone. "You show up at my house with the mincemeat that is your brother's soul without warning. You pull a gun on me and I still let you in to my home. I didn't even ask you to disarm once you were past my threshold and I know that, between the three of you, you have at least five different weapons. The least that you could do, at this point, is stop being so rude to me in my own home and let me do my job to save your brother's ass."

Dean stayed where he was, at least having the grace to look a bit embarrassed. Bobby shuffled uncomfortably. "Why are you tranquing him, though?"

"I can't do anything for him at this second because, frankly, I've never seen a soul this shredded before. Until I figure something out, he should probably sleep to avoid any more damage being done. The more you stand here, being a douche, the more messed up your brother's soul gets, and the more work I have to do to fix it." Her eyes were both steely and concerned, constantly flicking over to Sam's face. Reluctantly, Dean moved aside.

With quick, precise movements, Kail jabbed the needle in to Sam's neck and pushed down the plunger of the syringe, keeping her other hand on his forehead. He was burning up, but the stress lines along his forehead and between his eyebrows faded as the drug took effect. It would give him dreamless sleep for about an hour, and then go in to normal sleeping patterns until he was ready to wake up.

Satisfied that Sam was down for the count, Kail spoke without moving from her kneeling position next to him. "What the hell happened to him?" She asked, her voice quieter now, but still slightly on edge.

"Spent a year in hell with Michael and Lucifer," Dean supplied shortly.

Kail's eyes widened and she looked up at Dean. "You guys are the Winchesters?"

"You've heard of us?"

"When the apocalypse gets turned off at the last minute, it tends to be big news," Kail answered. "Your poor brother..." Her eyes were normal, but she appeared to be shuddering at the memory of what she'd seen. "They must've been pissed."

"Being trapped in a cage probably made them a little edgy. Is there anything you can do?" Dean, despite the heavy sarcasm, still looked incredibly worried, even though the immediate danger to Sam's mind was at bay.

Kail sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Maybe. I've never seen anything this brutal before. It's a miracle he even woke up. I have to speak to Castiel."

"If his highness grants you an audience," Bobby said sarcastically, disgust plain on his features.

"What do you mean?"

"Haven't you heard? He's God now."

Kail swore under her breath. "You mean he got in to purgatory?"

"You knew about his plans?" Dean asked suspiciously.

"I knew he needed a lot of souls to defeat Raphael. God knows he asked me to heal enough of them. I knew purgatory was a prime target, but I didn't think that Castiel had it in him..." Kail looked genuinely disturbed by the news. "I thought he was better than that."

"So did we," Dean shrugged.

"In any case, I'm going to try and talk to him," Kail resolved, standing up. Her voice sounded braver than she looked. "Alone, if you don't mind," she added. "You guys want something to drink while you wait?"

"What's the strongest thing you've got?" Bobby asked. Both he and Dean needed a stiff drink after the events of the last 24 hours.

"Coffee. I don't drink alcohol."

"Of course," Bobby sighed heavily. It had just been one of those days. "I guess I'll have some coffee, then. Dean?"

"Nothing for me."

"Sure. Make yourselves comfortable. Especially you, Dean. You look like you're trying to glare me in to next Tuesday and it must be exhausting." Her dry remark lingered in the air behind her as she disappeared in to an adjoining room. Bobby snorted.

...

Ten minutes later, Dean and Bobby were seated around Sam in the living room, while Kail had gone upstairs to try and contact Castiel.

"I don't like this, Bobby. It's too..." Dean stood up and began pacing rather than finding a suitable adjective.

"Convenient?" Bobby supplied.

"Exactly." Dean cast about the living room, eyes falling on a framed photo sitting on the desk. Kail was in the middle, looking much younger and wearing graduation robes as well a radiant smile on her face. On either side of her were an older man and woman, crow's feet at the edges of their eyes as they beamed at the camera. The whole scene spoke of a happy carelessness and pride. It was a great photo but, for some reason that Dean couldn't put his finger on, the younger version of Kail stood out to him. He couldn't place it, but something about her as younger girl made memories of hell start bubbling to the surface. Dean was not feeling any more reassured about this girl. "Have you ever heard of someone who heals spirits, anyway?"

"Shamans, mostly, and she sure as hell doesn't look like one. Looks more like the girl next door, y'know?"

Dean begrudgingly grunted in agreement, eyes glued to the image of a younger Kail. "There's something weird about her, though," he said, turning away from the photo and shaking his head to clear it. "She's too..."

"Controlled?"

Dean nodded, and continued surveying the room. Fire extinguishers sat in almost every corner, well within reach, and obviously maintained to stay in perfect condition. "She's pretty paranoid. Did you see all the salt? The Devil's trap? All these extinguishers? What's she hiding from?"

"If she can heal souls like she says, it's a pretty rare gift. I'm sure plenty of nasties would love to get their hands on it," Bobby pointed out.

"I still don't like it."

Bobby sighed, taking a sip of his coffee. "Do we really have another choice, though, Dean? I don't like it much, either, but we're stuck between a rock and a weird place, here."

Dean stared at his brother sprawled across the couch, a muscle in his jaw jumping a little. "We keep our guard up and, if it gets too crazy, we pull out," he decided, not sounding very sure.

"Of course."

...

"Castiel? Castiel, you owe me an apology." Kail rarely even tried to phrase her calls as prayers. She knew Cas could hear her. Sure enough, a soft fluttering of wings alerted her to the sudden new presence in the room.

"Jeez, Castiel, you're allowed to appear in front of me, you know," She exhaled, turning around to face the arrival. "I heard about what you did."

"You know I had no choice."

"Yeah? And who's forcing you to hang on to all those souls now that you've beaten Raphael?" She folded her arms across her chest. "You're different with all of those souls, Cas. I'm only a little more sensitive than most humans, and the vibe that you give off is downright creepy."

Castiel's expression flickered, and then became stoic once more. "I need the souls to maintain control and, need I remind you, possibly help you?"

Kail regarded Castiel carefully for a long moment, her expression a bit softer. "It breaks my heart to see what this has done to you, Cas."

Castiel inclined his head. "I assume you didn't call me here to scold me?"

"I did, but not for your recent soul-binge. It's about my new guests. Since when do you get to advertise my services to hunters, of all things? Not just any hunters, either. I mean, The Winchesters and Bobby Singer? What were you thinking?"

"I assumed you could handle it."

"Well, you assumed wrong," Kail snapped, then broke off, trying to get her temper under control before it got worse. "I heal souls for you all the time but, generally, they're not still in bodies. They also haven't been tortured in hell by Satan himself. Do you know how much it'll take to heal that soul? It's barely even a soul, anymore. It's barbeque meat. I could die trying to fix it. Even worse, I could lose control."

Castiel listened to Kail's complaints unsympathetically. "Your control is perfect, Kail, don't be dramatic. You don't have to heal the whole soul. You just have to make it... manageable."

Kail glared at Castiel, taking deep breaths to hold back the aggression threatening to build up inside her. "Dean doesn't trust me. Neither does Bobby."

"I believe the expression to use here is 'Join the club.'"

Figuring that Castiel clearly had no regard for her attempts at controlling her frustration, Kail moved to her bedside table, plucking a bottle of pills from it. After downing two pills, she closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. She spoke again when she felt the drug taking effect, liquid calmness spreading through her body. "Did you tell them what I am?"

"Of course not. Are you going to tell them?"

"Maybe, but only after I heal Sam. I don't need them to trust me any less right now."

"And you'll take all the precautions?" Castiel looked at her meaningfully.

"I thought my control was perfect?" She answered, arching a brow sarcastically.

"You really ought to show me more respect."

"Yeah? Who died and made you God, Cas? You can bet that it wasn't Raphael. I'd be careful, if I were you."

"I was going to say the same to you," Cas replied, and then vanished.

"Bastard."

...

"Ready to trust me yet?" Kail asked dryly as she entered the living room again.

"Ready to save my brother?" Dean retorted, standing up from where he had just perched on the desk.

"As I'll ever be," Kail threw a glance at Sam, flinching almost imperceptibly. "But I have a price," she said, carefully avoiding Dean's gaze.

"Of course you do," Dean glowered. "Name it, then."

"First, I want you to understand that I can't guarantee anything. Your brother's soul looks like he got caught in a trash compactor and then burnt alive multiple times. He looks like hamburger meat." She looked seriously at both Dean and Bobby.

"Skip to the punchline," Dean growled.

"I could die or lose my sanity while trying to heal him," Kail continued, ignoring Dean. "The only reason that I'm considering helping you is the fact that I, on some level, owe your brother for stopping the apocalypse. That, and I think that you could help me."

"With what?"

"I need you to help me find something. It's not for evil intent, it's just something that I need. I've been looking for it for a long time."

"What is it?"

"I'll tell you if I survive this. Until then, I need you to promise me two things before I help Sam. Firstly, you have to promise that you'll help me find what I'm looking for. Second, if I go crazy from this," She took a deep breath, "I need you to kill me and burn my body as soon as possible. Is that understood?"

Both Bobby and Dean stared at her in surprise. "Look kid, nobody wants to go crazy, but dying over it seems a little extreme," Bobby said gently.

Kail offered no explanation. "Those are my terms." She looked at Dean. "Take them or get yourselves and your brother out of my house." Her expression was smooth, but the anxiety was evident in her eyes.

"Can we have a moment?" Dean asked after a somewhat pregnant pause.

"Sure."Kail exhaled slowly and turned, moving in to the kitchen, out of sight.

"I don't like this," Dean whispered. "You realise that she could ask us to look for something evil? And am I the only one noticing that she's obviously hiding something?"

"It's not like you haven't reneged on a deal before. Plus I'm not seeing too many other options here."

"If I see Cas again, I'm going to rip his friggin' lungs out, God or no God," Dean grumbled.

"So I take it we're saying yes?"

"Was there ever any choice?" With that, Dean made his way to the kitchen, glowering. Kail was standing with her back to him, facing one of the windows. Dean couldn't see her face, but he could tell she wasn't looking outside. Rather, she was looking down at the counter without really seeing it, her pose seeming almost defeated as she leaned on it.

"We'll take your deal, but first I have some questions."

Kail straightened up and turned around, leaning back on the kitchen counter again and giving Dean wry smile. "Of course you do. You can ask while I prepare what I need." She began moving around the kitchen, opening cupboards and taking out various jars and boxes.

"What are you gonna do to my brother?"

Kail held up a large bundle of African Dream Root. "Get in to his head and fix him."

"You're going in to Sam's mind?" Dean's eyes narrowed.

Kail sighed. "That's the best way to heal souls while they're still in a body. I'm guessing you'd like an explanation?"

"You think?"

"And still so rude..." She muttered, opening various jars. While grinding up the Root in a pestle, Kail explained quietly. "When a soul is damaged, it's mostly because of emotional trauma and the damage manifests itself as emotional trauma. Therefore, the best way to access the damage is through the mind. If his soul weren't in its body, I'd be able to reach out and make a connection, no dream root needed. With a body, though, that would be incredibly painful both for me and Sam. The best that I can do is control his dreams in such a way that I could help his soul to move past its own torment and start the healing process."

"So your plan is to go in to his mind and... mess with his dreams?" Dean looked sceptical. "How long have you been doing this exactly?"

If she was insulted by his cynicism, she didn't show it. "I'll be guiding him through the healing process. It won't be perfect but, as far as I can tell, he was never really in perfect condition to begin with, soul-wise." She began mixing other herbs with the dream root using the mortar and pestle. "And I've been doing this since I was about five."

"Who taught you?" Bobby asked, entering the kitchen. Kail seemed un-phased, both by Bobby's sudden appearance and the interrogation that was obviously happening to her.

"No one. I just sort of... did what felt right. At first, we had no idea what was happening to me. It took a lot of research and travelling for my parents to work it out. There were a couple of Shamans that helped out along the way, too."

"Haven't heard of a Shaman stateside in a while," Bobby remarked.

"Who said we were in the states?" Kail gave Bobby a brief smile before answering the question he was about to ask. "We were in Rwanda, mostly. Lots of troubled souls there, both dead and alive. Lots of practice."

"Your parents went all the way to Rwanda to talk to some Shamans and give you some target practice?"

"Nope. They were looking for something else, but mostly they were hunting, like you." Kail didn't like talking about her family. It was clear in the way that her shoulders tensed every time another question was asked.

If Bobby picked up on this subtle cue to shut up, he disregarded it. "You grew up in the life? In Africa?"

"Yep." She kept her back turned to him as she tipped the ground-up ingredients in to a strainer, placing it over the mouth of a chipped mug.

"So what are you doing back here?"

"Days like today make me wonder the same thing," Kail answered tersely, moving to a different kitchen counter, picking up a pen, and scribbling something on a scrap piece of paper. "Can you please get me some of Sam's hair?"

Bobby nodded and left, leaving Kail alone with Dean, who was examining the salt along the window sills of the kitchen.

"Why all the paranoia? It's been a while since I saw security like this."

"It's not obvious? I heal souls. That sort of power attracts all sorts of ghosts and hellspawn. A lot of demons would love to have me working for them, and I'm really not interested. Even worse, agitated spirits get drawn to me and, without the salt barriers, they wait for me all over my house. It's really awkward to find one waiting in my shower or on my bed, so I repel them as much as possible." As she spoke, she set an old copper pot filled with water on the stove to boil.

"But why the fire extinguishers and the sprinkler system?" Dean glanced at the small nozzle above his head.

"Two reasons. First, they're all filled with holy water, and they pack a lot of punch when you hit something with them. Second, I live about twenty miles away from the nearest fire station and I don't like fire much to begin with."

Dean nodded, seeing the logic. His thoughts went back to the photo that he had seen on Kail's desk. He wished that he could figure out what the younger version of Kail reminded him of. "Who were those two people in the photo on your desk?"

She visibly froze at the question, indicating that Dean had un-knowingly brought up the subject of her family again. "My aunt and uncle. I lived with them for a while," she replied stiffly, not elaborating. Dean decided not to push the subject. Thankfully, Bobby returned at that moment with the hair that Kail had requested.

"Great," Kail said briskly. "Let's get started."

...

"Remember when you said we'd pull out if things got too crazy?" Bobby whispered to Dean.

"Yeah."

"This crazy enough for you?"

"Apparently not."

After under an hour of preparation, everything was ready and neither Dean nor Bobby had ever seen such a strange set-up. Incense burned around the room, smelling like cinnamon and apples, which weren't the most mystical of scents to begin with. The fact that the Beatles' White Album was playing certainly didn't make up for this apparent lack of protocol. Then, of course, was the fact that a cot had been set up next to the couch on which Sam lay and Kail was handcuffing herself to it.

"Run this by me again," Bobby said, concern written plainly across his features.

"The scent and the sound help me stay anchored to the physical world, so that I know that whatever I see in Sam's head isn't real." Kail's calmness, which had before concerned Dean, was much deeper now, reaching the serenity that is usually only seen on the faces of complete psychopaths.

"What's with the kinky stuff?" Dean nodded towards the handcuffs.

Kail threw Dean a set of keys. "You can unlock me if I'm not crazy. I'm just trying to give you an easier time."

"And this list of items?" Bobby demanded, waving the piece of paper that Kail had given him. "What do you need celery for?"

"That's my grocery list." Kail looked up at Bobby, an eyebrow quirked. "I'm dropping everything to risk my life for your friend's soul. The least you could do is to help me out with some errands."

This and, more likely, the strangeness of the whole situation, was enough to silence Bobby.

"Are you clear on what you have to do while I'm under?" Kail reached for the dream root tea, which had been steeping for the last half hour. It smelled terrible.

"Keep watch in case anything tries to attack you while you're down, buy your groceries and keep checking your pulse," Dean listed. "In 24 hours, or if your heart stops, we have to wake you and Sam up with this." He waved a hypodermic needle filled with a shot of adrenaline.

"And if I wake up... different?"

"Double-tap you in the head and burn your body. But how will I know?"

"Believe me," she levelled her gaze on him, "you'll know." She moved to take her first sip of tea.

"Wait," Dean said, moving half a step towards her. "Thank you for doing this."

"Thank me if it works," Kail responded, but showed her appreciation by smiling serenely at him.

"And you're pretty sure it'll work?"

"Mostly." Nevertheless, she brought the tea to her lips and gulped it down quickly so that she didn't have to taste too much of it. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Kail was asleep before her head hit the pillow. Dean stared for a moment at her prone figure, realising that this was the first time he had actually seen her being relaxed. Sure, she was pretty calm when she spoke, but it was much more controlled than he'd realised. Seeing her lying there, suddenly looking smaller in her jeans and oversized shirt, made Dean feel much guiltier about the way he had been treating her.

"What do we do now?" Bobby asked, reaching over to remove the empty mug from Kail's slack grip.

Dean heaved a tired sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face. "How do you feel about making a liquor-run while I hold down the fort?"

"I thought you'd never ask."