Three months later…
"Now, see," Seth says from his position on the table looking down at three very angry culebras, "you have some options here."
They hiss and swipe their arms at him.
"Option one!" he shouts, deflecting their claws with his shotgun. "You can tell us where you've hidden the relics and we go in peace."
The culebras snarl and lunge at him.
"Option two!" he says kicking one of them in the face. "You don't tell us where you've hidden the cash and my pretty partner over there shoots open the windows and you all burn to fucking ash."
The culebras look over their shoulders to see Kate standing on the bar, her crossbow aimed at the tinted window above the door. She waves at them.
They leap at Seth, Kate fires, the window shatters, and sunlight streams in.
The culebras burst into ash and Seth gags when it lands on his face. "Jesus Christ!"
Kate lowers her crossbow and looks at him. "They never go for option one."
Seth makes a face at her and tries to shake the ash from his clothes.
Seven months later…
It hurts.
"No! You do not get to fucking check out on me, Fuller! Open your eyes, Kate!"
It hurts so much.
"You are not going out like this, so open your eyes and look at me! Please, Kate!"
It hurts more than anything has ever hurt before, but he's pleading with her and so she tries to open her eyes.
The first thing she sees is Seth holding a blood-soaked shirt to her stomach and she remembers a gun going off. Did she actually get shot? How…boring.
"Kate? Katie?!"
Her eyes close again.
Twelve months later…
"Happy birthday," he says handing her a drink that actually has a pink umbrella in it.
"Thanks," she says gingerly taking the drink. "What is this?"
"Fruit and alcohol," he says. "You'll love it."
She takes a sip.
He's not wrong.
It's nice.
"Sweet," she says smiling.
"Just like you, princess," he says with a smirk.
She punches his shoulder and he winces.
"Easy, Wonder Woman," he says rubbing his shoulder. "How's it feel to reach nineteen?"
She thinks as she sips at her drink. "Pretty damn good, actually."
He raises his bottle of beer and she taps her glass against it.
She collects three more umbrellas and piles her hair on top of her head so she can put the umbrellas in her hair. Seth laughs at her and she lets herself forget that they're off to a massive nest the next day and that she hasn't had word of Scott in a year.
Seventeen months later…
"Fuck you!" she shouts slamming the door and walking away from the motel.
She hears the door open behind her and Seth shouts after her, "Fuck you, too!"
Seventeen months and one day later…
"I'm an asshole," he says as they sit on a guardrail overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
"I'm not exactly a prize these days either," she says, pressing her shoulder to his.
He curves an arm around her and presses a kiss to the top of her head. She wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes him gently.
Twenty-four months later…
She stares at a too still Seth and holds his hand tightly and for the first time in a long time, she prays.
Twenty-seven months later…
With a yell, Kate swings her crossbow and smashes it against the head of a culebra that started out the evening as a bartender. He staggers and she quickly takes aim. He explodes into dust when her arrow strikes his heart.
Seth swings a sword he picked up from somewhere and decapitates one culebra, then another.
When no more are left, they stand back to back and survey the club floor, littered with body parts and broken furniture. A family of four cowers in a corner, the parents covered in dust, standing in front of their children.
"Go," Kate says to them. "Go and don't look back."
The family goes.
Kate watches them and something aches in her chest. She rubs at the cross around her neck as Seth rubs the space between her shoulder blades.
Thirty months later…
"Hello, brother," Richie says from where he stands in the doorway of Seth and Kate's motel room. "Guess you never found that blue agave."
Thirty-five months and twenty-three days later…
"This is going to suck," Seth says as he, Kate, and Richie stand at the opening of a cave that may or may not lead to the Underworld.
"If that was a pun," Richie says. "It was terrible."
"It was a statement of fact, Richard," Seth says. "This is going to suck. A lot." He turns to Kate. "You can turn back. You don't have to do this, Kate."
She hefts her crossbow in her hands and looks down into the darkness. "Like I trust the two of you to get it right."
"I always did like you, Kate," Richie says smiling.
She actually manages to laugh. "Well, then, what's that you always say, Seth? Let's get ramblin'?"
Seth unsheathes his sword and says, "Not like I planned on living forever."
They head into the darkness.
The End.
