A/N: Warnings, spoilers, notes and such are mentioned in chapter 1. This is the final chapter and it's a little longer than the others. Reviews and concrit is highly appreciated.
An unnaturally firm arm had trapped Cath's head in the bend of its elbow. Fighting against the long strides and the cold pressure was futile as Temple dragged her across the backyard towards the house. Air barely reached her lungs and the shotgun had slipped from her fingers right next to Sam's unconscious body; the last remaining strength in her muscles was being dispensed in attempts to breathe.
"I can't let you do this anymore, Linda."
It wasn't the first time she had heard a spirit's voice but never before had they mistaken her for someone else like that. The tone lacked warmth and life and effort, it was a mere stating of a fact and nothing else. Her body tensed as the spirit pushed her through the back door. The dry wood splintered easily and she screamed as shards sliced into her arm that she lifted to protect her head.
Temple treated her like a rag doll and she acquiesced, hoping for a second where the grip around her neck diminished to get the Bowie knife from her boot. They stepped through the kitchen and crossed the hall. She tried to grab anything to slow down the menacing ghost but it didn't work in anything else but producing fresh bruises. The spirit climbed the stairs to the second floor and her legs finally found solid floor, but there was no room to fight back in the narrow staircase. When they finally reached the landing upstairs, she stood angled in a headlock and facing a door. There was an old revolver in Temple's left hand. She had no idea whether it had been there the entire time, but now it pointed at the door, which blew open with an invisible force that vengeful spirits mastered.
Two pairs of eyes turned quickly to them and Cath would have been more pleased to see Dean if he hadn't been tonguing a spirit. Although the shotgun peeking from underneath his leather jacket made her forgive him. And maybe the fully concentrated hunter look that Dean directed at her helped.
---
A moment of awkwardness radiated from the spirits when their eyes met but before Dean could capitalize it, the older man let out an angry roar and tossed Cath into the room. She stumbled through Linda's flickering form and bumped roughly into Dean's side but he managed to keep them both upright. Linda's spirit appeared fully back, now standing behind Cath, and looking royally pissed at the intruder. Dean noticed the wavering expression on Temple Parker; it appeared that he couldn't decide which one of the women to aim, so he turned the revolver at Dean.
"Oh crap!"
Dean ducked out of the way just in time and emerged from the corner of the room. The spirit vanished in billows of white smoke when Dean let rock salt tear into it.
Even as the shot still echoed in his ears, he saw the scuffle between Linda and Cath. The spirit had yanked Cath down and now they were both going at it in the best catfight style. Dean couldn't get a clean shot and for a second he wondered if he should just settle with watching since he hadn't seen a decent catfight in ages. However, he didn't need to wonder about that long as Cath bucked the spirit to her side, pulled out the familiar Bowie knife from her boot and took a stab at Linda's body. It was artless but enough as the body disappeared in wisps of white smoke.
Dean helped her to her feet, bracing the shotgun in his other hand and watching the room sharply.
"Where's Sam?"
Dean didn't care if his tone was a little too harsh, Cathy should've been watching Sam's back and making sure that he got the bones burned, not traipsing around to prove herself.
"Don't know. Bastard knocked him out cold."
Dean heard the rasp in her voice and didn't need to peer at her neck for the bruises in the low light to know they were there. Instead, he kept sweeping the room for Casper's evil family.
"The salt's not working, they come right back."
"That happens sometimes." Dean didn't care to go further into the subject. "We've gotta find Sam."
Her left arm flinched under his touch but he didn't let go, not until she was moving towards the door. The Parker spirits cut straight into their path, rematerializing from nothingness.
"Son of a bitch!"
Temple decked Dean and his trusty shotgun rattled against the floor when it fell out of his reach. When scrambling back up, he saw Cath ducking Linda's attack and getting in another stab with her Bowie. Daddy dearest still had the revolver, now trained on him. He was sure that this was it. Sam would have to finish the battle without him, continue on and pick up the normal life he had always wanted. The trigger was halfway pressed and Temple Parker was to be his executioner; somehow he had expected to go out in a bigger bang.
The firing pin never hit the bullet in the chamber. Instead, Temple Parker went up in smoke --again--, the revolver fell to the floor with a dull thud, turning into a solid, inanimate object instead of his guillotine. Cath's knife stood gleaming in the doorframe.
"Well that was close."
Dean shared a look with Cath and found it oddly comforting to receive only a shocked nod as an answer. After that, they sprinted into action gathering their weapons and heading for the stairs.
"Oh c'mon!" The Parkers were back, Temple standing on the landing below, and Dean's patience was wearing thin. "You've gotta be freakin' kidding me."
The tall, pale silhouette threw himself against Dean, who braced for the impact and hit solid spirit mass with the butt of the shotgun. The labored sounds of struggle and fists from above him told where the missing half of the undead Parker family was. After that, everything around him reduced to receiving and delivering punches. The spirit wasn't holding back its wrath anymore and slowly but surely, it gained the upper hand.
The spirit only seemed to take pleasure of the physical beating; a vicious chuckle filled the air when he threw Dean against the wall on the top of the stairs. The signals from Dean's limbs and torso mixed together like he had been ran over by a train. A litany of curse words went through his mind and Dean couldn't be sure if he said them out loud. Not even seeing Linda straddling and strangling Cath on the floor to his right produced enough adrenaline to jump to her rescue. An errant thought popped into existence, 'what if it was Sam', but he couldn't muster the strength to get up. Parker stood in front of him, smiling ominously and moving slowly, like it had all the time in the world now. Maybe it did.
---
Growing up the way he had, Sam had learned not to deviate from a plan, not if it could still work and there wasn't a backup plan. So despite his desire to run into the house and see what was happening, he grabbed the shovel as soon as he got up. The throbbing in his head didn't leave him alone, but the sight of a missing Cathy and her remaining gun and the lack of the distinct low rumble from the Impala's engine made him dig with fury. He didn't know how long he had been unconscious but damn if he was giving up.
The moment when the shovel's tip hit wood hard enough to crack it, Sam moved away from the edge of the grave. He balanced himself with the shovel and rammed his foot through the rotting boards that made up the coffins. The partially decayed corpses gave off a foul stench but he barely even registered it. Quickly, Sam took the duffel, emptied the box of salt on the remains, poured a good measure of lighter fluid on top of them and lit them. He just hoped that it wasn't too late. The flames died peacefully while Sam was dashing towards the house.
---
Dean's eyes were on the revolver that Daddy Parker had picked up from the floor. The barrel pointed somewhere between here and forever when the spirit turned to look away from him. Dean heard the noise first and when he followed the spirit's line of sight to the flaming and blackening figure of Linda, he knew that Sam had done it. Which meant that he was alive.
Something akin to sadness and sorrow radiated from Temple Parker's face when he saw the spirit of his daughter disappear. Dean didn't care to guess why the older man still remained but he saw a window of opportunity which he intended to use. He kicked the gun from Temple's hand and then charged forwards with renewed vigor. They scuffled for awhile, hitting walls and Dean using his elbows and knees without doing the damage they would've done to a normal man.
"Dean, get down!"
The reaction to his brother's order was ingrained in his being. Just as soon as he dropped down, Sam shot the bastard.
"You okay?"
Dean was sure that he looked far from okay, but didn't bother with the smart-ass reply when the spirit could reappear at any moment.
"I thought you burned the fucker." His voice was rough and urgent and Sam helped him back to his feet.
"I did. There must be something else."
Sam looked at Cath, who was still lying on the floor next to the wall and then kneeled by her side. He tried to find a pulse and was greeted with a weak swat on his wrist. Dean watched Cath shaking the phantom pressure from her throat and attempting to sit up.
Suddenly, he realized what was still keeping Parker's spirit here.
"It's gotta be the gun."
He spotted the old revolver in a dark corner where it had landed after his kick, but before he could rush over to grab it, the spirit appeared. Dean knew that his muscles were very tired by now, but he struggled with the pale ghost, trying to keep it away and give Sam enough time to torch the gun.
"Sam, burn the damn thing already!"
His order caught Temple's attention and he threw Dean right into Sam. They landed on their backs and Sam was the first one up to stop the menacing figure that was drawing closer. Dean watched how Sam used that ridiculously tall frame of his to generate momentum that would have been enough to kill a man. Just not this one. The older man slammed Sam against the wall by his throat and pinned him there. Dean's legs weren't carrying his weight as steadily as he would've liked, but he reached the spirit and used every last ounce of strength trying to pull the thing off his brother. The bastard never budged.
---
The crashes around her had to fight through a killer headache to be recognized as sounds. A single flashlight on the floor illuminated the hallway but she was fairly certain that the reddish tint and black spots she saw didn't come from that. Looking up towards the sounds, Cath saw Sam throwing himself against the remaining spirit without success. She attempted to get up, but the black spots dancing in her vision multiplied and forced her to sit down; amidst the chaos her mind was trying to tell her something important. Her eyes fell on the old revolver next to her as Dean launched himself towards Temple's spirit. The voice in her head screamed a little louder. In a second, the pieces fell into place and she remembered what needed to be done.
Cath's hands trembled as she frantically searched the pockets of her hoodie. Finally, her fingers found the small bottles she had taken along for just in case. The cap twisted off easily from the other one and a pile of salt spilled onto the gun, leaving a trail to where the bottle rolled from her grip. She had no idea if torching the gun would work so she squirted most of the lighter fluid from the other bottle to the heap. While she pulled out the matchbook that had accompanied the bottles, she saw Dean trying to wrestle Temple Parker away from Sam with poor results.
Just as she struck a match to light the mixture of salt and accelerant, she realized that the gun probably still had bullets in it. If the fire would get hot enough, the bullets could explode, but if she wasted another second, Sam would be out of the game. Before she could make a rational decision, the match she held started to burn her fingers and she threw it onto the heap. Cath could only hope that the bullets wouldn't give any more troubles.
The flames surged high as the lighter fluid ignited and Cath was thrown back by the intense heat. The fire had only the accelerant to really fuel it and the flames died quickly down to more modest heights. She risked a look at the brothers and saw Temple Parker's face distorted with pain; the once solid body tensed, turned black and disappeared with almost an implosion. No white smoke anymore.
The fire had settled now and soot stained the metal. She stared at the final flickering flames licking the revolver clean before she slumped to the floor from sheer exhaustion.
---
Dean had insisted that he could drive the Impala back to the motel and that Sam drove Cathy back, even though she claimed to be okay enough to head back by herself. Although Sam wanted to argue with Dean about his current condition, he decided that it was easier to listen to Cathy's muttering than Dean's stubborn comments about being able to handle it. He checked the rear view mirror once in a while to make sure that Dean was still following them and glanced at Cathy as regularly. Her shoulder leaned against the door and she watched the changing views; Sam wasn't sure if something was bothering her or if it was just her post-hunt unwinding, so he left her alone.
The moon was now setting, illuminating the fields just above the tree line and they were five minutes outside the town when she broke the silence.
"Do you think he hates me?"
Her voice sounded a little broken, the words more whispered than actually spoken.
"Who? Dean?" He got a nod in response.
"He's," Sam paused to think about it. "He's a little wary of strangers, especially when it comes to hunting."
He glanced at Cathy to notice her gazing at him.
"He doesn't trust me."
Sam wasn't sure if was a question or a statement.
"You kinda have to earn it."
Sam formed a sympathetic smile, which Cathy acknowledged but she seemed to ponder his words.
Hoping that her next question wasn't if he trusted her, Sam let the second turned into a minute. When it appeared that she wasn't about to ask, he reverted back to making observations about Dean's driving.
---
They pulled to the motel a few minutes later and Sam hurried to give Dean a hand but got dismissed very quickly. Cath searched for the words to excuse herself and retreat back to her room, but Sam's large paw on her back ushered her to their room before she could protest. Once inside, it took only a second for Dean to flop on his bed, arm flung over his eyes, and somehow she felt that she was intruding. Sam's hand guided her to a chair and in organized fashion, Sam proceeded to throw Dean an icepack and grab the first aid kit.
Miraculously, after the beating they collectively received, her arm was the only thing that required patching up, rest of it was bruises and minor scrapes. Air hissed between her teeth in a deep, desperate inhale as Sam practically soaked the torn skin in antiseptic liquid. It burned like hell and she wished that she'd been alone for this, because the brothers would never take her seriously again if she couldn't handle a little wound.
"You okay?"
Sam's eyes had this 'you can tell me anything and I won't laugh in your face even if you admit that this hurts' look going, but she ground out a rough 'mm-hmm' and left it at that.
After the liquid fire, the splinters embedded in her arm were a piece of cake to handle. Sam managed to pull out all but one which needed to be cut out. Wherever the knife came from, it was so sharp that the half an inch incision was certainly more painless than Sam fishing out the last wooden shard. The white gauze Sam neatly taped to cover the trickling wound looked somehow final. It meant getting back to her life and her ways; things that she knew to appreciate after nights like these but things she hated sometimes for not being normal or, ironically, still normal enough not to be taken seriously.
"Thanks."
She got up quickly and let the room spin for a fraction of a second. After the room settled, she spied on Dean, who had only moved enough to set the icepack on the left side of his face; Sam looked at her with those damn puppy eyes.
"So, I guess we part here."
The boys were quiet, Sam checking if Dean had acknowledged her and his gaze lingering on his brother when Dean actually moved his arm to look at her. After the silent moment where Sam waited in vain for Dean to comment, she made a hasty retreat towards the door, hoping that Dean would say something, anything. The silence freaked her out, and it felt like one of those silences you get from a parent that says 'I'm so disappointed by your behavior, go to your room and think hard about what you've done'.
She cracked the door open and turned to look back. Luckily, her face still remembered how to form a smile and so she forced it out.
"It was nice doing business with you guys. Try to keep out of trouble."
Dean craned his neck slightly, still saying nothing, but maybe with softer features than before and Sam simply nodded in her direction.
"You too."
She stepped out into the dark night, the moon no longer visible, and crumbled into pieces inside. Near death encounters weren't her thing, which was exactly the reason why she usually had a back-up plan for her back-up plan.
Her dad had taught her that, 'Always have a back-up plan, Cat', and mostly, they didn't even need it. When they did, her dad was there and they both knew what the other was doing and things never went quite like this. If things got really bad, they didn't talk about the close call afterwards and the 'I love you's were written between the lines when they tried to figure out what had gone wrong. And every time they would end up talking about mom. Now Dad was out of town and she sure as hell wasn't about to retreat into the empty motel room with only her thoughts to keep her company.
---
"Wanna go get a drink?"
Dean sat up on the bed, turning the not-so-cool-anymore icepack in this hands and tossing it at Sam to irk an answer out of him.
"Nah, man." Dean knew the accompanying look well. It was Sam's very own 'something's not right here, must fix the situation'.
"Sam, if you wanna go talk to your new best friend, then go ahead, but I'm heading out."
So maybe he was a little on edge about the situation. Cath had left quite abruptly even though she had clearly been relaxed with Sam earlier while doing research. He wasn't about to make it his problem, though. The supernatural fuckers were dead, Sammy was alive, he was alive and even the third wheel was alive. A good night, considering the possibilities.
"Dude, you look like you just got your ass kicked. No chick's gonna go for that." Sam huffed and earned a self-satisfied smirk from Dean.
"You're just jealous that I'm the better lookin' one even when I'm beat up."
Dean could have sworn that he heard Sam's 'dude, you're impossible' bitchface when he stepped out.
When they had first arrived in town, Dean had memorized the most notable bars, diners and other places where information came cheap. So he also knew that there was a decent bar just down the road.
Smoky haze hovered in the air as he stepped in. At first glance, he could tell that some of the guys took a longer look at him than they should've but not even the dim lighting could hide the swelling around his left eye. The jukebox moaned in the beat of Bruce Springsteen and Dean made his way to the counter, earning a few more looks and whispered comments. He had seen classier joints but then again he'd been in places where the music was all ABBA and guys didn't look like guys anymore. But that had been Sam's fault, anyway.
Two beefy truckers blocked a part of his view of the bar but Dean walked straight up to the barkeep and ordered a beer. Somewhere between tipping the bottle for the first mouthful and choosing a seat that had the widest view of the joint, he noticed that the seat was already taken.
Three glasses sat neatly in a row on the counter, the leftmost empty and the rightmost still full with what he suspected was Jack. She lifted the glass in the middle and threw it back in a way that made Dean think that Cath wasn't much of a drinker, or that she wanted the stuff to burn her throat. He couldn't be sure which. Dean chugged a quarter of his beer while deciding if he wanted to finish it alone, or if he should join her before anyone would come up to her and ask for a dance and the implied drunken sex. Oh, hell.
She set the now empty glass between the others, its rim touching them, and Dean quickly assessed that she was in here to get something more noticeable than just a buzz but less than a puke-inducing hangover. Somehow, the three pre-filled tumblers felt more like a hunter's routine than anything else he'd seen her do. Although having extra salt, lighter fluid and matches in your pocket came pretty darn close. He sat down next to her, setting his beer on the counter; her eyes shifted towards him but stopped before they reached his and her hand settled on the next drink.
"Sam is probably looking for you. He wasn't sure if you were okay." Dean tested the waters.
The silence between them stretched and Dean shrugged it off, deciding that if she didn't want to talk, hell, he could be quiet as well --which kinda was his original plan-- and just sit there with the feeling of being alive or just not dead yet. Fuck, he had done the brooding in a bar enough times after Dad disappeared, and before he had gone to get Sam, to know the disjointed feeling of hunting alone.
He wasn't waiting for her to say anything anymore and he barely even registered the way she kept turning the glass in her hand without drinking, so he almost missed her words.
"Who did you lose?"
There was no drunken drawl in her words, just quiet defeat and soft hurt layered underneath the casual tone.
Dean looked at her for a while, not even intentionally deciding to play stupid. He wanted to believe that she had forgotten hearing about Dad and that any other pain was too deeply buried for anyone to ever find it. Sammy knew it was there but he never asked and even if he had, Dean would have never confirmed it.
"What do you mean?"
He turned to look at her with an innocent expression that he figured had to come close to Sam's puppy-dog eyes if done perfectly. He also knew that he failed with delivering it.
"This," she gestured around with the glass, "isn't exactly a calling. Every hunter has lost someone, that's how you become one. Revenge."
She chewed out the last word and he knew that her theory held water. Partly relieved that she hadn't read him that well, he pulled on his mask of indifference, shrugged his shoulders and stated off-handedly, "My mom."
The confession burned deep in his heart, but Dean pretended it away like he always did. He took a swig at the beer and felt her looking at him, fitting this new piece of information to his character. Being under scrutiny felt uncomfortable, like he was eight years old all over again and Dad was yelling at him when their target practice had produced more shot-up fence than demolished beer cans.
"Me too."
He glanced at her, masking the action with another swig of beer. Her eyes were on her hands and she seemed to be picking a hangnail on her left thumb. After a brief contemplation, he stayed quiet, not offering his apologies because he knew how hollow they were and how much he himself hated them.
"What happened?" Her voice sounded soft and considerate, the apology whispered in every letter.
Her eyes were on him again, not assessing him anymore but searching for something.
"A demon. You?"
Dean didn't particularly like how his voice got rougher especially when his choice of beverage wasn't strong enough to warrant it.
"It was a spirit, nasty one. Had already killed five. It was after me and my mom but there was this hunter helping us. He saved me but mom died in the hospital."
The glazed eyes told him that she was fighting off the tears that came with bad memories. She took a deep breath and blinked the tears away. The words ebbed and flowed now, coming out more slowly than her usual pace, maybe a little slurred around the edges.
"Anyway, Dad made me stay with my aunt and uncle while he took off. When I was thirteen, he called me as usual. I didn't know what he was doing but he called me every week, made damn sure of that. So, one time he slipped the name of the town where he was staying and I ran away, hoping to find him. I did finally and he was in the middle of a hunt. I saw his notes about spirits, how to track them down, kill them, and realized what had happened to mom. I refused to leave until he promised that I could join him after I finished school."
She attempted a shrug and swallowed a mouthful of her third Jack. There was no trace of the tears left.
"So it's just you and your dad?"
"Yeah, mostly. Though he teams up with someone if he thinks the job is too big for the two us."
A hurt and angry look crossed her features. He could guess why. It was the trademark of dads everywhere to keep their children away from whatever they deemed the kids couldn't handle. Sometimes it just felt like being hit in face with a wet towel. Or a goddamn brick. Dean failed to smirk and finished his beer.
---
The alcohol started to have some effect on her now, the first two drinks finally dulling the sharpest edges of her senses, silencing some of the post-hunt stress. Dean ordered another beer, being nothing but a gentleman now, when she wasn't sure she wanted to see that. Cath tried to ignore the little flutter in her stomach, telling herself that having someone to talk to was better than a simple roll in the hay. No matter how long had it been from the last time. And maybe she had been wrong and Dean wasn't quite the typical hunter after all.
She rolled the tumbler in her hands, occasionally setting it back on the counter and shoving it at random directions to align it with some imaginary point. Dean's phone rang with the opening chords of a familiar song that she couldn't identify right away. She pushed and prodded the glasses in minute moves and listened in on Dean's side of the conversation.
"Yeah?"
It was someone familiar, probably Sam. Dean listened quietly for a while and glanced her direction.
"Dude, it's fine. She's here."
So it was Sam, all concerned for her welfare, apparently. Sweet guy really.
"Tell Sam I said hi."
She wouldn't have actually said it out loud if it hadn't been for the alcohol in her system. Dean obviously tried his hardest to ignore the fact that she probably sounded like a five-year-old, and although he managed not to roll his eyes at her, his expression was worth the little humiliation and she shrugged absently in response.
"It's okay, and she says hi."
She had no idea what Sam said but Dean ended the call after that.
---
She never finished her third drink, as simply sharing a silence with Dean was enough to pull her out of the thoughts she tried so hard to avoid. Being alone wasn't anything new but being alone after almost having been strangled to death really bothered her.
"I think I'm gonna call it a night and hit the shower." She hopped down from the bar stool. "Wanna walk a girl home?"
She managed to offer Dean what she hoped was a charming grin.
"What? You afraid you're gonna get lost or something?"
Dean offered her a smirk to go with the sarcasm.
"Or something."
"I'm pretty sure you could handle this 'or something'."
Dean waved his beer slowly and watched the liquid swirl in its glass container.
"Maybe, but I didn't ask you that."
"Fine."
The reluctance wasn't real, though, and Dean threw some bills on the counter before following her.
---
Dean figured that it wouldn't take much of an effort to sweet talk his way into her room. So she wasn't his usual type but then again he wasn't that picky. The bigger problem was that she knew things about him now, about his past, about mom, and he wasn't going to have a one night stand with someone who knew. So, he'd walk her to her room and then go beat off in the shower. It was just another one of those nights.
They walked side by side, sharing another silence which neither one was pressed to break. As they arrived to her door, she pulled out her keys but just held them in her palm.
"I guess this is it."
Her voice was low from the abuse and alcohol but Dean heard the faint sadness in it.
"Yeah."
He looked up and habitually checked out the parking lot before looking back at her. He didn't apologize too well nor too often, but maybe this time he could make an effort.
"Listen, uh, you did good today."
Her lips curled in a small smile and she nodded.
"Thanks, Dean. I appreciate it. You keep taking care of Sam."
After a nod to acknowledge her words, she slipped inside. As she flicked on the lights, Dean headed back to his room.
He found Sam sitting on his bed, the laptop propped on his extended legs. The temptation was too much for Dean to resist; sometimes Sam made it a little too easy.
"Updating your porn bookmarks there, Sammy?"
Dean didn't have to face Sam to know what look he wore. He smirked and vanished into the bathroom before Sam managed to notice that he came back early and without lipstick stains.