Chapter 4

Fixing A Hole

The happy little triangle Andie had grown accustomed too didn't get any better in the following weeks. The tension between Sam and Dean just grew, each of them too stubborn to talk about their problems with the other. Andie didn't want to get in the middle of anything; but she was discovering that staying silent put her squarely beside Dean anyway.

Even while on cases they couldn't keep things straight. They got caught up with some old hunter friends of Sam and Dean's, Ellen Harvelle and her daughter, Jo. They were stuck in a town caught up in a hell of a demonic problem; made everyone think they were seeing demons when they weren't, it made Ellen believe her daughter was possessed and vice versa.

If they were in any doubt about the apocalypse; this case sure made them certain. War, one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse was behind the demonic game of cat and mouse. Andie had held him down while Dean sliced off the magical ring adorning his finger; a trinket he took because it was the source of War's power. He would twirl it around his finger to 'activate' it; it was what made the townspeople see each other as demons.

The splinter in the side of their triangle came from War himself; who taunted Sam mercilessly in the moments before his death, telling him he knew that all Sam was thinking about was demon blood, blood, blood. His words only solidified Dean's lack of faith in his brother; and thus didn't at all heal their relationship.

On their way out of town; they stopped by the gas station on the side of the road and while Sam filled up the Impala, Andie followed Dean to a picnic table where he was twirling War's ring around on its side, his eyes way too focused on the trinket to be a man at ease. There was something else on his mind; and Andie knew what it was. Their triangle.

"You know I'm not big on the marital chit-chatting," Andie said as she straddled the bench beside Dean. "But I wanna know what you're thinking right now..." She lifted one leg up on the bench and let the other dangle down the side.

"I'd tell ya if I knew, Morgan…" He replied.

"It's hitting you now, isn't it?" She said, lazily laying her hand on his knee. "The end? We just came up against a friggin' Horseman for Christ's sake…but we fought and we won." She tried to sound a little more upbeat. "Three more and-"

"And what?" Dean cut in. "And that'll be it? Andie; we're nuts if we think just knocking over the Horseman is gonna be the end of this."

"It's a start." Andie pointed out.

"Again with the positivity," Dean smirked at her. "Something else the angels amped up?"

"Fine. We're all gonna die tomorrow; happy?" She quipped back.

Dean laughed. "That's more like my girl." He said, twirling the ring again. "Pit stop at Mount Doom?" He joked.

"Har-har." Andie deadpanned, swiveling in her seat as Sam joined them across the table.

"Guys…" He started; his tone serious.

Dean immediately stopped him. "Sam; let's not."

"No, listen. This is important." Sam pressed. "I know you don't trust me." This statement was validated by Dean turning away. "And now I realize," He paused and shook his head. "I don't trust me either. From the minute I saw that blood, only thought in my head," He drifted off for a minute; his mind flashing that bloodied dagger before his eyes. "And I tell myself it's for the right reasons, my intentions are good, and it, it feels true, you know? But I think, underneath...I just miss the feeling. I know how messed up that sounds, which means I know how messed up I am. Thing is, the problem's not the demon blood, not really. I mean, I, what I did, I can't blame the blood or Ruby or...anything. The problem's me. How far I'll go. It's something that means..." He clucked his tongue, searching for the right words. "It scares the hell out of me, Dean. In the last couple of days, I caught another glimpse-"

"So what are you saying?" Dean interrupted.

"I'm in no shape to be hunting. I need to step back, 'cause I'm dangerous." He ignored Andie's eye roll. "Maybe it's best we just...go our separate ways."

Andie scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief, knowing that Dean would change his brother's mind. He had to. There was no way they could function without each other.

Dean sighed; considering this. "Well, I think you're right."

Sam looked surprised. "I was expecting a fight."

"You'll get one from me!" Andie yelped and got to her feet. "You don't have to go anywhere for us to figure this out."

"Andie." Dean pulled her back down. "Look, Sammy, truth is I spend more time worrying about you than about doing the job right. And I just, I can't afford that, you know? Not now."

Sam nodded. "I'm sorry, Dean."

"I know you are, Sam." Dean mumbled as his brother rose to leave, he offered him the Impala to which his Sam declined.

"Take care of yourself, Dean." He said with a shaky smile.

"Yeah, you too, Sammy." Dean murmured back as he stared after his little brother; wandering off to God knew where.

"So, that's it?" Andie said incredulously to Dean when Sam was out of earshot. "You're just gonna let him go."

Dean wouldn't look at her, his eyes were on Sam as he grabbed his back from the Impala and hitched a ride with a trucker parked nearby. "He's a grown man, Andie; he can do what he wants."

Andie pouted. "Since when does that matter to you?"

"Please don't fight with me about this," Dean begged her. "I'm tired of it… can you please just go with me on this?"

Andie pursed her lips together. "Ok." She agreed quietly. "Fine," She looped her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder. "I won't argue… about this."

"Thank you," Dean kissed her crown. And for awhile longer; they just sat there, until the air became too cold and the night ate away the sun. Then they climbed back in the Impala and headed off. Andie shifted uncomfortably in the passenger's seat, she almost climbed into the back just to ease her anxiety, but she didn't. She just stayed sitting there, in Sam's seat, as they drove further and further away.

xxx

What followed in the coming weeks was the first proper time alone Andie and Dean had ever had. Andie never minded being the third wheel, the tagalong to this brotherly duo, but there definitely something nice about being in the top two for a change. For starters, there were less arguments, less sharing, and no need to stay quiet while having sex; the latter a gigantic plus in Dean's eyes.

They hunted whatever crossed their paths, nothing could stop them no matter how hard they tried. They had their goal and they were sticking to it; kill Lucifer. It was always their goal, Andie supposed, it just was that last goal that never seemed like it was going to be reached. But it was. They were running towards it now, guns a'blazing.

Ellie tried once to talk Andie out of it; and she didn't try again. Castiel, on the other hand, continued to try and steer them away from what he called their 'insane task' to the point where he popped in every hour on the hour with some new argument as to why it was a bad idea. Dean used whatever clout he had over Castiel and told him not to bother them again; and if he wanted to talk to them to do it by cell phone. He bought him a prepaid cell that he could throw away when he was finished with it and programmed his and Andie's phone numbers into it. Castiel wasn't happy with the arrangement; but he obliged.

After a long, long drive to Kansas City, Andie and Dean holed up in a motel to decide their next move. When Andie came out of the shower towelling her hair dry, she caught the end of Dean's cell phone call with Castiel. When he hung up; she inquired as to what it was about and he relayed the information to her.

"As in the Colt?" Andie asked, her thin eyebrows rising as she tried, yet again, to get her head around the latest spanner in the works.

"Yeh; Cas thinks we're better served with it than without it," Dean rubbed his hands across his face and sank heavily into the bed. "Doesn't seem to matter how many times I tell him the thing's probably been totally melted down now. Anyway; he said he'd pop by tomorrow morning, so..." He fell back onto the mattress and sighed. "How many hours we drive, today, sixteen?"

Andie smiled at his tired form and crawled onto the bed. "Something like that..." She muttered as she climbed astride his body. He took his hands from his face and smirked. "First night in a new motel," She pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. "Let's christen it like we always do."

Dean grinned. "Yes, ma'am," He grabbed her hips, flipped her onto her back and muffled her giggles with a deep kiss.

xxx

Andie was awoken from a pleasant sleep by Dean's cell phone buzzing on the nightstand. She was clutching Dean's bare chest from behind and groaned in annoyance when he moved to answer the call.

"Damn it, Cas, I need to sleep!" He growled into the phone. Then there was a pause. "Sam?"

Lifting her head off the pillow; Andie clutched the blanket to her chest to keep in the body heat and bundled her pillow up under her head, watching Dean pull his shorts back on and retrieve a beer from the fridge; a sure sign this wasn't going to be a quick conversation.

Andie sat, wide awake, holding the blanket up over her naked body waiting for Dean to finish the call. She only caught Dean's segments of the conversation; but it sounded bad. However her internal reaction was very different to Dean's seemingly muted one. As far as she could tell, Sam was informing his brother of how he was chosen to be Lucifer's vessel – his vessel!- Sammy? So much for being the sweet one, Andie thought. The conversation ended with Dean quite vehemently protesting the idea of Sam coming back to join them hunting, claiming they weren't strong as a trio anymore.

When Dean had hung up and finished his beer, Andie voiced her concern. "So... I know I saw I wouldn't argue... but Sam is a vessel now?" She tried very hard to keep her voice from rising; it was only four AM; way too early for a domestic.

Dean sighed and shuffled back to bed. "Like I told him...whatever we do, we're the fire and the oil of the Armageddon. You know, on that basis alone, we should just pick a hemisphere. Stay away from each other for good."

"Stay away? He's your brother," Andie said incredulously. "You love him more than you love yourself."

"Andie – don't." He pulled the blanket up under his armpit and kept his back to her.

Sighing, Andie clicked off the lamp beside her and laid down on her back staring up at the roof. After a minute, she rolled back over and slid her arm around Dean's middle, knowing he'd either shove her off or let her touch him. Thankfully; he chose the latter. He pulled her hand up within his to his chin and kissed her fingertips while she cuddled herself to his back, kissing his bare skin. After a few moments; the pair drifted back to sleep.

xxx

When Andie awoke again; she was in immediate discomfort.

It was daytime; that much she knew from the sun shining right in her face through the window, but she was also clothed; and she most definitely had not been when she went to sleep. Blinking a few times to get her vision adjusted to the light, she realized she wasn't even in bed anymore; but on the floor of their motel bathroom.

"Wha...?" She started to say as she got to her feet, still put off by the fact she was now wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Then she actually saw the bathroom. It was a mess. And not the usual dirt and grime; but like someone had been at it with a wrecking ball. It was then she realized the sun wasn't coming in from a window; it was coming in from the side of the building that had been completely demolished; she was staring right up where the roof should have been.

"Andie?" Dean's voice urgently called for her. "Andie!"

"Yeah," She managed to croak out; turning her amazed face back to what was left of their motel room. "Yeh, I'm here." Stepping over some debris – debris? – she exited the bathroom to see Dean, also fully clothed, staring agape at her. "You okay?" She asked.

"Yeah; you?" To him she nodded. "What the hell is going on?" He inched closer to the window.

Andie just shook her head again and looked around their now trashed motel room. There wasn't even a mattress on the bed; the rusted springs were all that was left. "Man... don't tell me the apocalypse rang and we missed the call..." Her heart sank when she saw Dean, a frozen stance, as he stared out the window. "Dean?" She forced her feet to walk closer to him, but then she, too, was frozen. She was right. Her breath caught in her throat, she reached up and pulled the curtain aside to only confirm the image before her.

Buildings smouldering, nothing but piles of rubble, were lining the empty streets as were cars in declining states of functionality. The sky was clouded a sickly black and gray from all the pollution exuding from the remains of the city. Sadly, it was exactly how Andie pictures the end of the world... only she was never living in it in her dreams.

xxx

Screaming for Ellie and Castiel didn't work; so for lack of anything better to do at that point, Dean and Andie, albeit reluctantly, left the hotel on foot.

The streets were a mess, everything was destroyed. All the shops had been ransacked and looted clean, and whatever hadn't been stolen had spilled onto the street, soiled by the elements. Every piece of glass was shattered, graffiti covered or both. And as of yet; they hadn't seen one other sign of life.

"This...is...madness..." Andie said without irony as she kicked aside a broken toaster sitting in a puddle.

"It's not real," Dean said. "Right? I mean, it can't be real... we didn't sleep through the end of the world."

"No..." Andie agreed immediately; although every fibre of her body told her this was real. Just a different type of real...

"You can't sense Sam?" Dean asked her again. "Cass? Zoe? Anybody?"

"No, I can't sense anyone," Andie replied, annoyed that her own power was acting up. "Not even you, and I can see you."

A sudden shatter of glass made them both freeze on the spot; it was the first foreign noise they'd heard since they'd woken up. Unmoving, the two of them looked around slowly for the source of the clatter. "There." Andie pointed down an alleyway. A young girl was sitting in the middle of the cement playing with what looked like a glittering puzzle.

Dean led the way as they approached. "Ah.. little girl?" Dean called to her; she didn't turn around. "Little girl?"

They were only feet from her now; Andie could see her face, even though downcast, was dirty and her black hair knotted. And what she'd thought was a puzzle, was shards of glass that the little girl was trying to piece back together. Andie gave Dean a shrug of her shoulders, maybe the kid was just scared, and he knelt down beside her.

"You know the not talking thing is kinda creepy..." He forced a smile; which faded immediately when a dollop of blood fell from the little girls' lips onto the ground.

"Dean," Alarm bells rang in Andie's head. "Move!" She grabbed him by the shoulder just as the little girl looked up at them, rather snarled up at them, her face a contortion of horror, blood dripping from her blackened death. Her eyes, bloodshot and squinting, pierced into Dean as she let out a hiss and lunged at him with one of her glass puzzle pieces.

Dean jumped back as she swiped at him, and then knocked her out with one heavy punch. His eyes drifted up and saw a large piece of graffiti along the side of a building just up ahead. One word that sent a chill down his spine.

Croatoan.

"Crap..." He muttered.

"What?" Andie's eyes followed his. "Oh...no..." Though she hadn't seen the virus in action, she'd heard the story from both Dean and Bobby. The demonic virus that caused a murderous rage in the people in infected. It was transmitted through blood to blood contact; so basically it turned everyone into flesh-craving zombies. Good news; they were easily killed. As long as you didn't get any spray-back...

"Ok, so we have to get..." Dean trailed off as several, obviously infected, people rounded the corner of the alley; spotting Dean and Andie immediately.

Andie didn't move, she just thrust her hand towards them intending to knock them all off their feet... so it was highly shocking to her when none of them moved and they were still barrelling down on them. "That's not right..."

"Move, move, just MOVE!" Dean grabbed her hand and pulled her into a run.

Andie hadn't run for her life in a long time; she wished she'd stretched first. Her legs started aching as she and Dean curled around another corner into a thinner alley. Neither of them looked back; but they both could hear the sickening growls and rampant footsteps of the infected behind them.

The alley only went one way, so they followed it and heartbreakingly were met with a chain-link fence over twelve feet high. "NO!" Dean bellowed and smashed his fists against the wire.

Andie tried again to use her power, but still nothing moved. "Come on!" She threw herself against the wire; but it was so heavily set into the walls on either side that it acted more like a spring and didn't budge. A chorus of snarls caught Andie's ear and she forced herself to look behind her. At least six infected people were almost on them.

"Andie," Dean snatched her hand.

Then, out of nowhere, bullets started flying.

Out of pure instinct, Andie and Dean dropped to the ground crouched behind a very thin piece of sheet metal. The zombies before them started falling to their knees as bullets rained through them, mowing them down with ease. Through the chain-link, Andie saw men in army colours and hardy, military tanks rolling to a stop just on the other side of the fence. She saw a slew of men exit one of the tanks and start firing automated weapons at the undead.

Whilst shielding herself, Andie noticed an alcove just to her right, hidden behind a pillar. They'd have to run about three feet through the bullets, but it was their only chance. And as the zombies fell to the ground ahead of them; at least twice as many showed up from behind ready for a fight with the military.

Someone clicked on a radio behind them and The Countours track "Do You Love Me?" started blaring over loud speakers, this appeared to be more a sport than a life and death situation.

Andie still felt Dean's hand within hers, she squeezed it to get his attention and pointed at the alcove, no way she could shout over the deafening roar of music and gunfire. He nodded that he understood and held up three fingers to countdown. Two fingers... one... They sprinted for the alcove, Dean shoving Andie through ahead of him, and both of them stumbled on the damp floor until they were well out of the way of the firing line.

"Damn..." Dean breathed as he leant against the wall. "You ok? You get hit?"

"No, I'm fine," Andie quickly checked her body but didn't feel any pain or numbness. "I think I'm fine."

"Ok, come on," He took her hand. "We gotta go before those undead freaks realize there's a way outta there."

They followed the alley and ducked into a storm drain where they stayed until night fall when they dared to venture above ground again. When they did, they retraced their steps to that chain-link fence. Dean used a crowbar he'd found amongst the debris of one of the buildings to jimmy a hole through the wiring big enough to fit the two of them through.

There was dim light coming from the lampposts, waning light, and Dean and Andie moved as quickly as they could through the bullet casings littering the ground. Some were fresh, but some were deep in the mud. It was clear that what the pair had witnessed was not the military's first run in with the infected.

The soft light glimmered on a sign hanging haphazardly off the side of more chain-link fence further up the street. Andie read it as she walked towards it; her heart sinking as in a few words, the sign answered a lot of questions:

CROATOAN VIRUS
HOT ZONE
NO ENTRY
BY ORDER OF ACTING REGIONAL COMMAND
AUGUST 1, 2014
KANSAS CITY

"August first... 2014..." Dean read.

"Aw, crap." Andie whined. "We time-travelled again."

xxx