Chapter 7 Not Near, Not Far

December 14, 2013. West Keep, Kansas

Sam's eyes narrowed as he watched his brother circling him. Dean moved lightly, on the balls of his feet, his weight balanced and fluid, his face cold and hard and expressionless.

Barefoot and shirtless, the two men were closely matched, Drew thought, despite the younger Winchester's height and weight difference. He glanced at the avid faces of the juniors watching. Dean had more experience, possibly, and was slightly faster. Sam had the greater reach, and he hoped that all the watchers had noted that Dean was careful not to let Sam get in close, where that reach and weight advantage would count.

He'd been a cop for twenty years before the virus had come, shaking down every belief he'd held, exploding every parameter of the world as he'd thought it was. Back then he'd had more than a passing interest in hand-to-hand and the myriad of different styles from raw and dirty street to the highly-stylistic temple martial arts. It'd saved on the paperwork to take down a criminal with a knowledgeable blow to a major nerve centre instead of having to fire his weapon.

There was a flurry of action on the floor and a resounding bang on the hardwood boards as Sam landed on his back, back on his feet with a flickering shoulder spring and rubbing at his shoulder, moving back out of Dean's reach. Drew's attention narrowed on the combatants, analysing and dissecting. He'd fought both, sparring to keep mind and body in high gear, and had a healthy respect for the fact that neither clung to any particular style or pattern and both were very unpredictable.

Ben hand's were clenched into tight fists, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched the bout. Beside him, Krissy was leaning back against the pillar, but he could see the tiny flinches and twitches as she followed every move. He'd faced her a couple of times on the training floor and had been impressed by the way her father had taught her to use the advantages she had, a greater speed and natural dexterity than most of the boys she faced, instead of trying to compete in straight moves and strength with her opponents who were invariably taller, heavier and stronger.

Sam stopped dead, feinted right and left, and slammed a hand out, the heel grazing along Dean's jaw as his brother jerked his head back and let his weight shift back with the blow, taking most of the power out of it. The counter to the solar plexus was faster, Sam's twisting evasion not quite successful and the whoop of his remaining air exiting his lungs loudly echoing around the bare walls and floor. He dropped to one knee under the follow-up jab for his ribs and scythed one leg toward Dean's, over-balancing as his brother jumped it, then rolling backward fast, taking the elbow aimed at the nerve centre in his shoulder on the back of his ribcage instead.

Letting him go, Dean straightened up and turned around, walking lightly back to the centre of the floor and waiting. His brother's skills had improved a lot, he thought, watching Sam get to his feet and walk toward him. Sam'd told him about the fight with Baal, the unbelievable flow and speed he'd had against the archdemon. Some of it, at least, had stuck. Either of the previous two hits would've taken him down before, Dean thought a little wryly, as his brother squared up to him again.

It was their fourth day of joint training in the big building. Drew, Tilly and Seth had been putting in time since Kelly had left. Elias, Rufus and Lee were out, looking for survivors, and since the order had been searching for anything from the church texts or the older mythology on Heaven, angels, prophecies about prophecies and the rest of it, the juniors hadn't been able to get their lessons on lore much in the last few months either.

He'd watched them sparring, shooting, both on the range and against the skeets Seth and Archie had rigged in the empty fields south of the keep, field-stripping their weapons and sitting in the ad-hoc classes that all the hunters gave whenever they had time. There were too many gaps in the training, he'd told his brother.

Sam snaked in and Dean waited until the last second before dropping under his brother's sledgehammer cross, legs scissoring around Sam's and bringing him down, rolling over and trapping his brother's arms against his chest as he shifted his weight to Sam's torso and pinned him there.

He had a big advantage with Sam, he knew. Years of sparring together had sharpened his knowledge of his brother's tells to the point where at least ninety-five percent of the time he knew what he'd do, and how he'd do it.

Sam swung his legs up, their length giving him the momentum to break Dean's grip and reverse the hold. He felt his brother slithering frantically out from under him, one bare foot hammering into Sam's ribs but too late. His brother managed to hook his arm around his neck and with a rolling twist, he was pinned over Sam's raised knee, his back bowed and one arm trapped under him as Sam's forearm cut off his airway.

Then there was the other five percent, Dean considered, slapping his palm against the floor and grinning upside down at his brother. Sam grinned back and let him go and they rolled to their feet, looking at the men, women and kids standing around.

"Even if you know your opponent, don't make the mistake of thinking you know all their moves," Dean said, rubbing the back of his neck. "And with an opponent you don't know, never, ever assume that they won't have something you haven't seen before up their sleeves."

"Weight for weight groups," Sam called out, rotating his shoulder as he felt it stiffening. "We've got an hour before class."

Drew handed Dean a towel, tossing another at Sam as he nodded at the floor. "Rufus told me you two trained since you were younger than these guys?"

Sam glanced at Dean and back to the other man. "Yeah, we started young."

"Impressive."

"Not really," Dean said, dropping the damp towel on the bench and picking up his tee shirt. He could admit that he still wasn't entirely comfortable with the ex-cop, still felt the occasional twinges when his memory threw up an image of Drew solicitously helping Alex. "Elias back from Mississippi yet?"

"Not until the end of the week," Drew said, gesturing vaguely toward the door. "Said that even with the susvee, it'd be a long haul."

Sam wiped the sweat from his face and neck, looking around the room. He saw Adam standing to one side of the closed doors, and nodded to him, rubbing down quickly and grabbing his shirts and jacket.

"Dean, Adam's here, I'll see you at the order tomorrow," he said.

Looking over at the youngest Winchester, Dean nodded. "You know where Liev and Ryan are right now?"

"They've started work on expanding Woodland," Drew said. "Been there all week."

"Right," Dean said, pulling on his shirt and the jacket over it. "Thanks."

"Tilly said you were looking for recommendations, for the trainees?"

Dean sighed softly. "At the end of the week," he said, looking at him. "We're down two experienced hunters, we need more people to make up for them."

"Doing what?" Drew asked curiously.

"Doing what we do," Dean said, a brow lifting humourlessly. "Not finished with this ride yet."

Woodland Keep, Kansas

Dean stopped the truck by the gates and got out, hurrying across the packed snow to the gatehouse and yanking his glove off with his teeth as he pulled up his sleeve.

"You here to see Liev?" Scott asked, passing him the flask and spilling salt over his hand.

He nodded, grimacing at the ice-cold water that instantly chilled his stomach and licking off the salt. "Is he in the main keep?"

"Was an hour ago," the young guard confirmed, slipping the knives back into their sheaths. "You know which way to go?"

"Yeah." He turned away, dragging the glove back on. There would be another blizzard tonight, and he didn't think the truck would make it back to West Keep if he didn't get a move on.

The apartment, which had seemed pretty big when it'd been the two of them, was not as comfortable for four, he'd discovered. He needed to find them someplace bigger.

Chukchi Peninsula, Eastern Russia

Pulling down the tinted goggles from his eyes, Jack looked at the white-on-white towering cliffs ahead of them. The sea had been frozen all the way across in a single sheet, as far as they'd been able to tell, solid as rock and covered in snow and in the dwindling light, the shadows were the only thing that differentiated the landscape, separating hill from plain and hummock from dip, in blues and purples and fine, pale greys.

There hadn't been any wildlife on the crossing, he thought, the crunch of his boots over the hard-packed snow, the hiss of the sled's runners and a distant rumbling the only noises he could hear. A big, white, empty nothingness and maybe more of the world would look like that, if Kelly's speculations were right. That thought was as cold and as bleak as the landscape.

Like the village on Little Diomede, there were a few buildings left on the rocky shore of the peninsula when they started to climb from the ice level. Doors were mostly gone and the double and triple-glazed windows had vanished, but the shells remained, cutting the freezing wind and a couple still had inner rooms that were far enough from the openings to be considered relatively warm.

"We should be able to get radio once we reach Anadyr," Kelly said as they set up their tents and built a fire on the doorway side of the room. "Airport tower should be intact, enough to help boost a signal."

"How do you know this place, Kelly?" Perry asked curiously, setting a pan of snow over the fire.

The hunter grinned at him. "Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies."

Danielle snorted softly and tossed four packs of the dehydrated ration packs to Perry. "Our dear Mr Kowalski was not always a hunter, Perry," she said, lifting a brow at the older man.

"Always a hunter, my dear Miz Wilder," Kelly said, adding a roll to his 'r's'. "But not always a hunter of teeth and claws."

Jack and Perry exchanged a look. "Aren't there monsters here?"

"Plenty," Kelly said, his voice flattening out. "The whole peninsula is full of shallow water, bogs, marshes, soaks, and sinks. Wraiths, whisperers, revenants, rawheads and näkki in abundance. We'll do four two-hour watches tonight, two each," he added, looking at them. "Dan, you and Jack take the first watch."

They nodded readily, turning back to their tasks. Perry threw a handful of coffee beans into a battered pot filled with snow and set it on the edge of the fire as the smell of the re-hydrating and heating food began to fill the room.

"So what was Kelly doing over here?" Jack asked Danielle quietly when the others had settled into sleep.

She smiled, shaking her head. "He worked for the CIA for awhile."

"What?" Jack turned to look at her in astonishment. "How'd you get him to tell you that?"

"He didn't," she said, shifting her position slightly to see a little more of the hallway outside the open door. "Rufus told me, a few months ago."

"Explains a lot," Jack said, glancing over his shoulder at the tent behind them.

"Doesn't it."

"How come you came with us?"

Danielle turned to look at him. "I wanted to help."

"But you got kids …" he trailed off uncertainly at the look on her face.

"Billy's taking care of them, and when I get back he'll go out on the next job," she said. "Thought you knew that."

Jack shrugged. "Haven't caught up with Billy for a few months."

"What happened?" she asked, keeping her eyes on the door. Billy hadn't said anything about his friends when he'd made his decision to take on the responsibility of being a father. She'd had the impression that he'd had some kind of falling out with the others.

"Nothing, really," he told her. "Billy was pretty adamant about what he wanted, and I didn't really agree."

"You're not staying with Alison?"

"When I'm there, I'm there," he said, discomforted by the turn in the conversation. "That was what we agreed before – when we found out."

"Sounds convenient," she said.

"I didn't plan on having a ready-made family, Dan," he said, hearing the defensiveness creep into his voice and frowning.

"I don't suppose Alison did either."

"She could've given them up," he said shortly. "Chris did."

For a moment, he thought Dan would say something about that. For a long time the two of them had been pretty tight, competing against each other to be the best in their small group. Danielle let out her breath and shrugged.

"Yeah, she did."

"You think that was wrong?" Jack felt the same half-hidden rush of guilt as he did whenever he drove out of the gates of the keep.

"No," Danielle said softly. "It was her decision. I just hope she doesn't regret it later."

She'd hit the problem with that one word, he thought, staring past her at the hall. "If she does, it'll just be another one that make up our lives."

In the tent, Kelly listened to them. Jack was thirty, none of the others had hit that yardstick yet. Rolling over, he thought they had plenty of time to accrue their regrets. He was going to regret not getting enough sleep.

December 16, 2013. Litteris Hominae, Kansas

Living here was going to prove too restricting, Sam thought as he looked around the smaller second room they'd claimed from the order's limited amount of accommodation. There was an adjoining door into the larger room, now used as a sitting room and Jean's room, and this room, barely able to fit the double bed and a couple of bureaus, was for them.

"You are a romantic, Sam Winchester," the woman lying beside him said, stretching out, the candle-light gilding her smooth skin.

"Me? Nah," he whispered against her neck, rolling onto his shoulder to look down at her. "I just like the way you look in this light."

Marla laughed, low in her throat, and the sound sent a sharp frisson of memory and emotion along his nerve endings.

It'd taken him several weeks to recognise the changes the relationship had made in him. He was, at one and the same time, more relaxed, with himself, with other people, and yet slightly anxious all the time, keyed up when she wasn't there, more aware of the underlying currents in and between everyone he met, at the order, in the keep.

"Just in this light?" she asked him, shifting up the bed and adopting the provocative pose of a porn starlet, propped on her elbows, head thrown back. Sam's breath whistled out through his teeth involuntarily.

"Not just in this light," he admitted readily, leaning toward her to kiss the long, curving line of her throat.

He was beginning to understand his brother's reactions, he thought as his hands slid over Marla's skin, following waist and hip and long, long thighs. He wanted to be here all the time, with her and her son – their son, he corrected himself absently – and not just for this, this physical closeness that he'd missed so much, but to protect them, to make sure that nothing could happen to them, to keep them safe and be able to feel safe himself, in her arms, in the warmth they made between the three of them. And while he'd been able to see Dean's need for that, he hadn't felt it, hadn't known how it could chew and gnaw inside … until he'd felt it for himself.

He couldn't let go of it. He knew, now, why Dean hadn't been able to either. And why he'd run rather than face the daily reminder of what he'd had and lost.

"That sigh wasn't romantic," Marla said reprovingly, lifting a hand to cup his cheek. He slid down beside her, arm curling automatically around her.

"Let's get married."

She looked at him, eyes wide. "I thought you didn't want to."

The words had come out without conscious thought or intent. He hadn't even realised he'd been thinking of it. And logically, it wouldn't protect her anymore than if they weren't.

He sat up, rubbing his hands over his face and back through his hair as he tried to explain the sudden epiphany.

"What we do here," he started, looking for the right place to start. "What the world is like, it's not going to change now, not going to become safer or better, at least–" he considered, shaking his head. "– not in the very near future." He took her hand between his.

"I'm not going to stop hunting. I love the research and this place," he added, gesturing vaguely around them. "And looking for all the pieces of the puzzles, but I want to do something about them too. And there's still a hell of a lot more we have to do before we can even consider that things have reached a place where a 'normal' life is going to be possible."

"I never thought you'd stop, or want to. The world is what it is, Sam," Marla said softly, a slight crease between her brows as she looked up at him. "I don't know that it was ever any safer."

"No, you're right," he agreed. "So why wait? Why not just fit everything in, as much as we can?"

"You were waiting for things to get better?" she asked him with a slightly wry smile. "That's why you said you didn't want to make a commitment?"

"I didn't want to promise something I couldn't keep," he admitted, his gaze cutting away and back to her. "I know, it was naïve."

"Very romantic," she said, her smile getting wider.

He felt a line of red rising up his neck, the tips of his ears burning and shook his head. "So?"

"So?"

"So … will … you?" he asked as the flush spread up from his neck and over his cheeks. "Marry. Me?"

"Yes, of course," she laughed, touching one cheek. "I don't think I've ever seen you that colour."

December 18, 2013.

Dean watched his half-brother walk steadily across the library, one arm filled with a pile of books, the walking stick in his other hand barely supporting him. Adam set the pile on the table and looked around, nodding as he caught sight of him.

"What's that?" Dean asked, walking up to the table and gesturing at the pile.

"Training," Adam told him, hanging the stick on the edge of the table as he sat down. "Jerome's got a list a mile long."

"That what you want to do?"

Adam watched him take a seat on the other side of the table and nodded slowly. "I'm looking at it," he said. "Trying to catch up with the pre-med studies as well. Bob said we could always use more doctors."

"He's right about that," Dean said.

"You don't have to worry about me," his half-brother said, eyes narrowing a little. "I'm good here."

Dean's mouth quirked up to one side. "I'm not worried about you," he said. "You look like you're handling yourself alright."

Adam looked down at the books. "Yeah, I'm getting used to it."

"I, uh, wanted to say, I'm … sorry," Dean said, his gaze cutting away. He'd wanted to have this conversation with Adam for months now, pushing it aside, putting it off as everything else had gotten in the way. Family was more than blood, but Adam had never been given the chance to become family, and that had grated against him.

"For what?"

"That Dad didn't tell us about you," he said, with a small shrug. "It would've made a difference."

"Sam said that too, but I'm not so sure," Adam said slowly. "He told me what happened with you and him, and Dad. It doesn't seem like anything could've changed that."

"Maybe not," Dean admitted, unwillingly seeing that a decision like that by his father could've cut Adam and his mother's lives short much earlier. "I still wish he'd let us know."

"I really hated him for not being there, you know," Adam said quietly. He huffed out a breath. "I couldn't think of a single reason that was so terrible he couldn't be with us."

Dean smiled reluctantly. "Not in the usual list of things, huh?"

"Right." He looked away, his expression tightening slightly.

"My mom, she missed him," he said, looking back at his brother. "She loved him. She'd just light up when he did come, and fall flat for a week after he left. I was more angry at him for that than anything else."

Thinking back through his memories of the falls of those years, Dean realised that his father had disappeared regularly around that time, returning quickly. He'd been tense and angry, time after time when he did. They'd all been seriously fucked up by the decisions that had been forced on John Winchester.

"If it makes any difference, I think he loved her too," he said to Adam. "And you. He never would've kept you so far away if he hadn't wanted to protect you."

Adam nodded. "Yeah, I – when I saw – I figured that out eventually. I'm sorry for freezing up on you, back in Texas."

Dean pushed aside the memories that rose suddenly, shrugging them off with well-practised control. "Everyone freezes at first, Adam. No harm, no foul."

"Adam?"

They turned to see Frances standing at the end of the table. Dean glanced at Adam, hiding his surprise when he saw the younger man's face soften as he looked at her. He'd thought there'd been something between Adam and Christine, at one time. That seemed to have changed.

"Uh, Dean, you know Frances?"

Dean nodded to the order's initiate. "We've met."

"Sorry to interrupt," she said, with a small nod to him. "I could use a hand if you have some time."

"Sure," Adam told her, getting up and looking back at his half-brother with a shy smile. "Six month old twins."

Dean ducked his head. "Know about that."

Adam started away from the table, then stopped, half-turning. "Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Uh …" he faltered, looking down at the floor.

The corner of Dean's mouth lifted a little. The kid was a Winchester. "It's all good, Adam. I'll see you around."

"Right."

He watched his brother walk down the length of the library aisle, head bent close to Frances'. There was a wealth of intimacy in the unconscious gesture, her hand curled lightly around his arm. Turning away and walking down the steps to the situation room, Dean thought that at twenty-three, settling down had been the last thing on his mind. He stopped mid-step and realised that at twenty-three, he'd told Cassie the secret, hoping they'd be able to make it work out. The realisation made him grimace inwardly.

"Dean," Jerome said, dragging his thoughts back to the present. "Elena just sent a message from Lourdes."

"About?"

"Ghouls." Hitting the print button, the scholar gestured to the now-chattering printer.

He picked up the sheet of paper, gaze skimming down it. "Just the one nest or did they see more?"

"Four in total," Jerome read from the screen. "They hit the ones they saw, but Luc and Renaud saw movement as well, through the mountains, every group was heading south."

Like the wendigo and the others, he thought, eyes half-closed as he let the disparate pieces float in his mind, looking for the connections. As hard as it was to believe, given the normal territories of those creatures, there was only one consistent explanation for the movement.

"What'd they say about the weather?"

"Bad, early storms, same as here," Jerome said, turning the chair around to face him. "Think that's it?"

"Yeah," Dean muttered, folding up the paper and tucking it into his pocket. "Too cold in the north now." He looked at Jerome. "Alex said you had some stuff you wanted her to look over?"

"That pile," Jerome said, gesturing to two archive boxes sitting on the desk near the bottom of the stairs. "The angel hierarchies, the known bloodlines of the hunters, copies of the fragments we have on the prophecies."

"What do you expect her to find?"

"I'm not expecting anything," Jerome said dryly, lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug. "Just hoping that a fresh pair of eyes might see something we missed."

Heaven

Gabriel walked down the long marble corridor toward the proclamation hall, head bowed as he thought about what the Power had told him. If Metatron had changed the prophecies, to misdirect those reading about them, he must have known the truth about them, who the Sentinel was, or how they were chosen. Only the scribe had the real information. Once he'd handed over the tablets to the Qaddiysh, their locations had been hidden from him.

He stopped mid-stride, rethinking that. Castiel had said that the scholars had found the areas where the tablets were hidden, using the scribe's sigil as a key to a divination spell. What was there to stop Metatron from commanding those locations from his own sigil? Calling out and seeking the frequency of his name with all the power of the souls of Heaven?

Why wouldn't the scribe tell Camael those locations, he wondered? Why force the archangel into killing and hunting down the Qaddiysh keepers for them?

Unless Metatron was not working with Camael at all.

He looked down at the smooth marble floor and scowled. Was he seriously considering that more than one mind was behind this? That it was coincidence or happy chance that the bloodlines had been manipulated and Lucifer released as a separate gambit to the finding of the Word and the Grigori's desire to return here?

Look to motive, he told himself firmly, walking slowly along the corridor. The Grigori's desperation is well-known. And Camael was Metatron's student. The scribe had vanished three thousand years ago. The orders for the bloodlines had come from Raphael. The battle for Gem Shel Yed'e, Uriel's battalion against the nephilim had also come from Raphael and that had been just after the scribe had fallen. Who had directed the Lord of the Air in his endeavours to retrieve the angel tablet? Had that been a first ploy, the bloodlines a fall-back plan to release Lucifer and give the fallen a clear chance at finding the Word?

He thought the vast hall was empty when he entered. A soft rustle of feathers, echoing in whispers along the hard surfaces drew his gaze to the pillar to the left of the low dais.

"Michael."

The commander of the heavenly Host looked up. "More good news?"

"Hard to say," Gabriel answered, slowing as he took in the dullness in his brother's eyes. "The manuscripts in the library were tampered with."

"Of course they were," Michael said, his voice filled with resignation. "What did you find?"

"Zephon stated that the alterations didn't make sense, there were no further writings when he'd taken them from our Father, whatever Metatron deleted, he must have added himself first," Gabriel told him, sitting on the steps beside his brother and stretching out his legs. "How long was the Power scribe before Metatron?"

Michael shook his head. "Lucifer did his initial training with him; I think most of the younger ones did. He was the first. Metatron took over just before Lucifer and the others rebelled." The archangel turned his head to look at him. "Why?"

Gabriel shook his head, unsure of what he was thinking. "Has Castiel returned?"

"No." Michael looked down at the marble floor, his wings rustling softly. "We cannot see the Grigori, not even a broad location. I've sent two of the Authorities to look for them, but …"

"They will have shielded themselves tightly, if Camael revealed to them the fate of their brothers," Gabriel said, nodding. "Without him, they cannot move far or fast."

"Without His Presence, I am lost, Gabriel."

The Angel of Death drew in a long breath. "He has never abandoned us completely before, Michael. You must keep your Faith, in all things. What we were created for, what they were created for. He will not let evil overcome."

As if the words had lent a brief and temporary strength, Michael straightened up against the pillar, his expression smoothing out.

"Did you learn anything of this Sentinel prophecy?"

"No. In all truth, Michael, I'm not sure that it even exists, as a true Word from our Father," Gabriel said, turning to him, his voice and eyes full of doubt. "I know that Lucifer claimed that we would dispensable once mankind came to its maturity, and he hinted at a guardian that would take over the responsibilities with which we had been charged, but there is nothing in the library – or Zephon's memories – that support that."

"Was that what Metatron erased?"

"Surely it would have been spoken to the Scribe long before he took the role?" Gabriel frowned. "Lucifer –"

"What?"

"I don't know," the archangel said uncertainly. "There was something in the promises the Morning Star was making but it is not coming clear to me now."

"You were tempted by those promises, Gabriel," Michael reminded him softly. "I remember your anger with humanity."

"I was busy down there," Gabriel acknowledged dryly. "It seemed that they would never learn. And even now, their behaviour is frequently questionable."

Michael snorted. "As is ours," he said, the deep warm tones of his voice flattening out. "It would not surprise me to learn that our Father left in disgust with us all."

"He created us. As we are, without free will or the ability to make our own choices."

"And yet…" Michael said, turning slowly to look at his brother. "We have made our own choices. Lucifer chose to rebel. Someone here chose to act against the Word, against the Will and has plotted to bring us to the Second War and bring down the pillars…"

"Michael, we have no souls –"

"No, we do not. No guiding light of love and conscience," Michael muttered, staring at the floor. "Just the same as they were imbued with – the ability to choose and the understanding between good and evil and the consequences of both. How could we guide them if we had not those things, Gabriel? How could we protect them? No soul, no everlasting life, but …"

He swung away, alabaster and pearl wings shimmering in the light. "We have all of their sins, my brother, and once, we had their virtues. What have we now?"

Gabriel looked at him, brows drawing together as he tried to follow his brother's argument. "Still choice."

"Yes," Michael said decisively. "Still choice. All of us. Free to choose. And all of us, desperate for a Father's love that has been gone for too long."

"You think He will return if Heaven falls?" Gabriel asked.

"I don't know if He will or will not," Michael snapped, walking toward the doors at the end of the chamber. "I do think that is why this has been planned."

Crows Nest Keep, Kansas

Echoing from the concrete walls, the black car's engine rumbled to silence and Dean opened the door, looking around the narrow court. Liev gestured to the iron doors to one side.

"This is the only place I've got without throwing people out," he said, walking to the doors and opening them.

Dean walked through the short tunnel between the keep's inner walls and blinked in surprise. There were four houses, in a space of nearly ten acres, walled around by the outer curtain walls, the inner court grassed over and the houses separated by small, wild fields and thick copses of trees.

"What the hell is this?" Dean asked, pivoting on his heel as he stared.

Liev gave a short laugh. "These were here and marked when we looked at the way to set up the keep," he explained, walking down the narrow road toward the furthest house. "I ended up walling it in as it was because of the accommodation shortage, but most folks are still a bit uncomfortable with wood construction, so there wasn't a big demand for them." He gestured at the houses that were closer to the keep walls, on either side of the road. "Ryan took that one, told me he'd never get a chance to work on an older house again; Billy and Chris took the other side."

"What about the other two?"

"The one past the barn is still a bit questionable," Liev said. "I think it was probably abandoned before the virus. That one," he added, looking at the two story frame house they were approaching. "It's fine, just needs some TLC and it's good for another hundred years."

They stepped off the road onto a grassy verge, and walked up between the bare, leafless trees that partially screened the place. To one side, a slightly sagging timber shed stood, big barn doors hanging askew on rotted hinges. The front had a three-quarter porch, deep and sheltered, and a bay window on both first and second floors, jutting out past the porch. He could just make out the sigil of Gabriel, faint against the peeling strips of weathered paint.

Climbing the porch steps, none of them creaking or sagging, he acknowledged Liev's cocked brow with a nod. It all seemed to be pretty sound. The front door opened into a wide hallway, with a steep staircase running up one side. Beyond the stairs, double doors stood ajar, showing large, square rooms, still papered in some blousy, floral design from the fifties, the carpet over the hardwood boards thin and dusty and unravelling at the edges.

"This'd fit a family," Dean remarked, walking through the dining room, gloomy with the dirt covering the windows, into a big kitchen. Beyond the kitchen a laundry and downstairs bath and a backdoor. In the kitchen another door with a rusted lock was near the big stove – basement, he thought.

"Yeah, it's roomy," Liev agreed readily. "I guess folks want the reassurance of stone and concrete after what they've been through."

He wouldn't've minded stone, but with standard protection, and the keep walls around it, Dean thought this would work fine. They crossed the hall, seeing a double living room on the other side of the house, then turned and walked up the stairs.

Upstairs, four bedrooms and a bathroom took up the same space as the rooms below, and an short narrow flight of stairs led up to the attic space at the end of the hallway.

"Only thing, Dean," Liev said, his tone becoming apologetic as they stood together in the front bedroom. "You're on your own with whatever you want done to this place. I've got keep work backed up till spring, and I can't spare anyone –"

Dean shook his head. "No, that's alright. I can do this."

Liev gave him a doubtful look. "Well, if you still want it, you got it."

December 19, 2013. Camp Tawas, Lake Tawas, Michigan

He had to keep mostly hidden, through the days, at least. At night it was easier to move around, get information he needed. One of those he'd thought an easy mark had shaken her head and told him it was too late. He'd been tempted at the time to crush her as he had the first, but had decided against it. Too many missing and they would look for him. It didn't matter now anyway. The slender blonde was here, and in the big office on the first floor he'd seen the photographs, in them all her expression had been the same.

"We found her body two days ago, neck broken, nothing else," Boze said, his face drawn and worried in the greyish light that filled the office. "Wasn't like she was well-liked around here or anything, but no one disliked her enough for this."

"Neck broken?" Jo looked at him, a small crease appearing between her brows. "An accident, maybe?"

Renee shook her head. "No accident," she said, her voice clipped. "Meredyth said the cartilage and bone had been crushed."

Jo's expression smoothed out as she took that in. "Crushed."

"There was a lot of trauma to the neck," Boze explained tiredly. "It looks like she didn't die immediately and her whole neck was swollen, we couldn't get much more information from it. Meredyth did the autopsy, and she said that the larynx and spine had been crushed to powder, inside the neck."

"Like a – vice?"

"Yeah."

"That seems pretty personal," Jo said, turning to Renee. "How would someone've gotten her to put her neck into a vice?"

The tall blonde snorted. "Got me. Drugs or drunk, maybe. Meredyth's got her blood samples, but it'll be a couple more days."

"I can't believe we've got monsters and angel worries and still have to deal with murder."

"No, seems damned redundant, but there it is," Boze agreed bitterly. "If someone had a grudge, they might've headed for Lake West, lay low until things get quieter again."

"I'll keep an eye out for anyone new over there," Jo said, a thin shiver rippling through her. Since the devil's attack on the camps, they'd felt safe, even when the werewolves had been stalking them, she'd never had a moment's doubt about the people inside the walls.

"Did you hear anything further from Kansas or France?" she asked Boze, getting to her feet and hearing the faint pops in her back as she straightened up.

"Not since Elena's message about the ghouls," the leader of Tawas told her. "Wouldn't be surprised if that was happening here too, further east, we never had much of a problem with them here, but we could send a couple out to watch Chicago."

She nodded. "That was infested with them. It would give us an idea of the consistency of what might be happening."

"Jo, Bobby said they might need some help if they do figure out this prophecy business," Boze said to her as she started for the door. "You got any trainees you think would suit?"

"Two," she said over her shoulder, her hand resting on the door handle. "Marcus and Trip. They're itching to do something other than patrol the woods; it'd be good for them."

Walking down the hall, head bowed in thought, she wondered again at the short-term memories of people. It was only December and they'd had two severe storms so far, not to mention four different sightings of wraiths around the lakes. Surely those were more significant in terms of survival than a damned grudge against someone.

She'd wanted to kill the girl herself, just on principle, when she'd heard some of things she'd been saying about Dean, but both Boze and Rufus had drawn her aside and told her to let Renee handle it. If she hadn't succumbed to the desire to stop her mouth for good, she couldn't think that anyone in the camps could've had a good reason for it. Of course, since moving up here, Zoe had made a few enemies for other reasons. But one didn't usually let in one's enemies, and Renee had been pretty certain that whoever had done it had been close to the girl.

More guards and a triple entry series of tests, she thought, her feet following the hall automatically as she headed for the front doors. An emphasis on really looking at the people who came in and out of the fortified compounds, getting to know them, talking to them, maybe. Both Boze and Bobby had thought that would be a way to filter any croats, although they really were just whistling in the wind on that issue. They didn't know if the virus had damaged the brains of its victims, in some way that would show up in normal interactions, or if it had hit the limbic system and played on the emotions only.

"Hey, Jo."

She looked up in surprise. "Dean, what are you doing here?"

"Had some time, thought I'd touch base with you and Boze, get an update," he said, straightening up from the wall he'd been leaning against and walking to her.

"Weren't we clear enough in the report?" she asked, frowning slightly as he stepped in close to her.

"Crystal," he agreed. "You know me, just like to get hands-on with this stuff."

"Boze and Renee are in the office," she told him, taking a step further toward the main hall. "I –"

"Not running off so quick, are you?" he asked her, lifting a hand and pushing back a loose strand of hair from her temple.

Been here before.

The thought flashed into her mind as she stared up at him. Not here here, but close to here.

"What's going on?"

"Just been awhile since we caught up, Jo," he said, stepping closer. She could feel his exhale against her cheek as he ducked his head a little. "I thought we could, you know, find somewhere nice and relaxing and talk."

For a long moment as her nerves fizzed and crackled with the feel of his fingers light against the side of her neck, she considered it. Whether it was a physical reaction or an emotional one, it hadn't really died for her, just been sublimated in a new life, a life of responsibility and someone else.

Someone else.

She felt it, the second the old reactions died. Just vanished, his touch just a touch, no longer sending a low-voltage charge through her. She ducked her head, pulling in a deep breath that was part relief and part satisfaction. Look, ma, I'm all grown up.

"You can talk to Boze about whatever you need to," she said, taking a half-step back from him. "I've got a family to get home to."

"Ah, Jo, c'mon," he said, smiling at her. "Not gonna pretend that there's nothing there now, are you?"

Here before. The thought returned much more strongly. Not with Dean. With Sam.

"You're not Dean."

He looked at her and she saw the sardonic humour in his eyes disappear, his expression flattening out to a stony stare.

"Who else would I be?"

"Not Dean," she said. Her hand slapped against the butt of the gun in the pancake holster under the hem of her jacket at the small of her back. "Silver rounds."

He hesitated a second and she drew the gun, cocking and firing in a smooth fluid action, seeing the .44 calibre round punch into the man's shoulder from the back as he spun around and sprinted up the corridor she'd just come down.

"Boze! Sean!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, accelerating up the corridor behind him.

She came around the corner to see Renee and Boze standing in front of the office, staring as she pelted up to them.

"Did you see him?"

"Who?" Renee asked, holding a steadying hand against Jo's shoulder as she skidded to a stop beside them.

"Shifter, I think," she gasped, shaking her head. "Maybe the alpha shifter, he looked like Dean."

The same thought exploded in their minds at the same time. Zoe would've let in Dean, no question.

"Double-check," Boze said, his face thunderous. "Renee, get Bobby on the radio, check if Dean's in Kansas."

He looked at Jo and at the gun in her hand. "You get him?"

"Winged him," she confirmed, looking down the hall. "He came this way."

"Must've been white lightning, we came out just before you came around the corner," he told her shortly. "What did he want with you?"

"I don't know," she said. "He said he wanted to talk."

"Talk about what?"

"He didn't say." She shook her head, pushing aside the memory of his fingers against her skin. "You think he killed Zoe?"

Renee called out from the inside of the office, "Bobby says Dean's there."

"Why change to look like Dean? Everyone knows him. He must've had to hide for days since Dean was here."

Boze shrugged, turning back to go into the office. "Renee, get on the horn to the gates, to the guards on the palisades and to Sean, Tag, Rona and Marsh. They see Dean; they put him down, silver rounds, biggest they're carrying, heart and head shots only."

She nodded and picked up the phone, dialling the numbers fast. "Bobby wanted to know what the hell we were talking about."

"Soon as we've got the compound locked down, I'll talk to him."

He turned back to Jo. "Zoe had a crush," he said, looking levelly at her. "You did too, one time."

She nodded unwillingly. "And shifters are genetic anomalies."

"Able to pass on those anomalies. And more so the alpha, I think," he agreed.

December 21, 2013. West Keep, Kansas

Rufus watched Dean sidle into the big office, hands in his pockets.

"Where the hell have you been?" he growled at the younger man.

"Working on the car," Dean said repressively, looking at Bobby. "What'd Renee say?"

"Said that someone was there who looked like you." Bobby leaned back against the desk. "Said that someone killed Zoe and tried to hit on Jo."

"What!?"

"Boze thinks the shifter went after them because it got some knowledge from you about them." Rufus looked at him dryly.

"Why the hell would it look like me?" Dean demanded, a flickering memory shooting in his mind as the words came out. "Some dude ran into me, last time we were there –"

Bobby nodded. "Jo thinks the shifter has been hiding there for a while."

"Shifters don't turn," Rufus said, looking down at the floor. "They just copy, but they have to come from somewhere."

Another memory, much older returned to him. "We ran into a shifter in St Louis in '05," he said slowly, digging for what Rebecca had told them – told him – before they'd left. "Rebecca said it was talking about evolution and mutations."

"They're anomalies," Bobby agreed. "Born different, like rugaru."

"So it's trying to make itself some kids?" Dean looked from Bobby to Rufus disbelievingly.

"Maybe," Rufus said. "Boze thinks it's the alpha."

"Did Sam find any lore on the shifters at the order?" Dean moved to the back of the sofa, leaning against it.

"Found a whole lotta stuff," Bobby said. "Shifters, the ordinary ones, can't do it. They're born, they live for an unknown length of time and they only die if someone sticks a silver blade or bullet into them."

"Immortal?"

"Looks like," Bobby said. "But they can't make more. Only the first-born shifter can increase the population and that's through the regular way that all humans make more."

"Why kill Zoe if it wanted a family?" he added, looking from Dean to Rufus. "Kind of defeats the purpose, don't it?"

"She couldn't have kids," Dean said shortly.

"That's why she ended up on the skinwalker hunt," Rufus added.

Bobby rubbed a hand along his jaw. "Well, that might explain why it killed her then."

"Is Jo alright?" Dean asked him.

"Yeah, she figured it wasn't you and shot it as it was getting away," Bobby said. "They haven't found it yet, but they've got the camps buttoned down."

"Everyone being tested?"

"And then some."

"Good."

"Don't know how long it's been there," Rufus pointed out sourly. "Might be a few kids with some special abilities in nine months time."

Dean looked away. "Meredyth and Ray looking into that?"

"Yeah," Bobby said. "As much as they can."

"When do you want to go?" Rufus looked at the hunter, one brow raised. "I mean, we can use the susvees pretty much anytime, if you want to wait until you've finished fixing up the house."

Dean's brows drew together suspiciously as he looked at him. "What're you talking about?"

"Less you're painting the Impala with white house-paint, you weren't working on the car, kid." He grinned and gestured at the white paint speckles that flecked the younger man's face. "Rollers, I remember them."

Bobby's face creased into a one-sided smile. "Was all wall-papering back in my day."

Rufus nodded. "Yeah, I had a fair amount of that stiff sonofabitch paper to hang too. 'Course, it was a labour of love."

"Shut it," Dean said, scowling as he straightened up. The last thing he needed was these two, reminiscing about the old days and making pointed comments about nesting. "Jerome said there's a helluva front heading our way. We're not making it to Michigan before Christmas."

Rufus snorted, grinning at Bobby. "Ah, you remember that first Christmas at home, Bob?"

"Yeah, our first snowed like crazy –"

Dean sighed and left the room, letting the door bang shut behind him. The house was nearly done. And he wasn't going to be admitting to anyone how much he was looking forward to a real Christmas, in his own home, with his own family.

December 23, 2013. Crows Nest Keep, Kansas.

Alex looked around the big room slowly.

"You like it?" Dean asked, shifting from foot to foot unconsciously. He was acutely aware that every choice he'd made, everything he'd done here was showing more of himself than he normally allowed anyone to see. Anyone but her, he amended silently.

"It's incredible," she said, turning to look at him finally. She seemed about to say something else, but her gaze dropped and she turned away. He saw the movement in her throat and walked over to her.

The fireplaces were cheery with fires he'd lit early, before he'd brought her over. The furniture he'd bargained for with Jackson and Riley, Ted and Sophia and Lawrence, from the big farmhouses in Ghost Valley and Woodland, an eclectic mix of old-fashioned timber desks and shelving and tables and chairs, big, overstuffed sofas and chairs in faded solid and floral materials, nothing really matching anything else, but surprisingly, when he'd moved everything in, he'd thought it went pretty well together. It looked like a home, looking around over Alex's head. Not a flash or a modern one, a home like he'd spent his first four years in. The sort of home he knew Alex had grown up in. Just comfortable and … safe.

The walls were filled with hex bags, the order's extra-powerful ones, stuffed into the cavities and sealed over again. Iron bar ran along the outside of the low boundary fence, and buried tiles and shards of mirror made another zone of protection closer to the buildings. Wards and guards, sigils, icons and seals were painted and carved into the beams and rafters and joists, over every entrance and opening, webbing the house in an invisible net of traps. It was as safe as he could make it.

Following her through the rooms, he remembered doing the same thing at Chitaqua. Then his attention had been focussed on the house, on all that it'd held and all its possibilities for his small group of survivors. He'd been watching her, even then, but it'd been a subconscious thing, assessing, evaluating, observing, too distracted by the responsibilities that weighted his every decision. He remembered she hadn't spoken much, telling him about the supplies that were there, but no questions and no nervous chatter.

She didn't say anything now, either, just walked through the place, looking at everything, opening the cupboards and the doors, the drawers in the cabinets. She'd done exactly the same thing when they'd gone to look at the apartment in West Keep. He'd had to wait until the end of the inspection to see her reactions.

Upstairs, she stopped in the bedroom next to the one he'd decided could be theirs, looking at the two cots that he'd placed to either side of the big sash window in the south wall. He couldn't work out what she was thinking, her face almost expressionless in the cool, grey light.

"I remembered not knowing how to tell you," she said, so softly that he took a couple of steps closer, head bent to catch the words. "I remembered being afraid that you didn't want this burden, when you had so much else to do, so much responsibility resting on you."

"It wasn't a burden, and it wasn't this, us, that I was afraid of," he said, standing as close to her as he could, not quite ready to risk a touch. He couldn't judge her mood, couldn't tell where she was, in the memories, in the past or present.

She looked up at him, her mouth twisting down a little. Again, he had the strong sense she was about to say something, and his stomach tightened, then she closed her eyes and slipped her arms around him, tucking her cheek against his chest.

What, he wanted to ask, to know? What was it that she kept holding back?

December 25, 2013.

Looking at the tree that filled the corner of the room, a home-made foil and glitter-paste star brushing the ceiling, Dean swallowed against the memory, smiling through it.

"I still don't know what made him change his mind," he said, one shoulder lifting slightly.

He looked at Alex when he heard her soft exhale.

"He figured that what you wanted was more important than what he wanted," she said gently, shifting to lean against him. He lifted his arm, drawing her closer.

Sam had been angry. Angry at the deal that'd saved his life but was going to take the last of his family. Angry that he couldn't find a way out of it. Angry with his brother for making it. Angry at himself. Angry at the world.

"Our Christmases were kind of sucky," Dean admitted, a half-smile at the memories of the needle-less trees and stolen gifts or no gifts at all creeping back. "I was okay, if they were both there, that's all I needed," he added, breathing in deeply, his chest loosening a little with her scent all around. "But there's no getting around it, they were mostly pretty lame."

She didn't say anything and he knew she was waiting, knowing somehow that he would take a long time to think through and figure out what he wanted to say. That knowledge, like her scent, was reassuringly familiar. It was what he knew about her. It hadn't changed.

"When Dad made the deal …" he hesitated, pushing and pulling at the memories that crowded close with the words. "I didn't know how to accept it, you know? It felt wrong. Really wrong."

You know, I put – I put too much on your shoulders, I made you grow up too fast. You took care of Sammy, you took care of me. You did that, and you didn't complain, not once. I just want you to know that I am so proud of you.

That'd made the pit he could feel bigger … wider … deeper. His father, saying that to him with tears filling his eyes. He remembered shaking with the fear that had begun to curl and twist inside of him.

"We knew, me and Sam, we both knew there was no such as coincidence, but neither of us said anything, not one fucking word about me coming back and him dying."

He'd lied to Sammy then, standing next to his father's pyre. And he'd lied until he couldn't stand the deceit and the words and the pain a second longer. He hadn't expected the backlash, the accusations and the plain loss of trust he'd seen in Sam's eyes. Caught between them, one last time, his loyalty torn and shredded.

"I didn't grieve for him, not really," he said, feeling her arm tighten around his ribs. "I blamed him for the way things got worse, for the way I felt like every day I was making the wrong decisions, fucking up our lives, fucking up Sammy's chances." He closed his eyes.

The visions. The other demon-infected children. That iron bar that had taken out the rapist in an act he still couldn't fathom. Meg. And the djinn.

"I felt his last breath, against the side of my neck, felt it and knew it was the last one, even when I was waiting for his chest to move again, waiting and waiting for it," he told her, told himself, no longer sure who he was re-opening those old scars for. "I tried to accept it." He shook his head. "I really tried, but I couldn't. When I looked ahead, even just a little way ahead, there was nothing but black. I couldn't see life. At all."

I just wanted you to be a kid ... just for a little while longer. I always tried to protect you ... keep you safe ... Dad didn't even have to tell me. It was just always my responsibility, you know? It's like I had one job ... I had one job ... and I screwed it up. I blew it.

How long had he felt that? His whole life. From the moment his father had put his brother into his arms and he'd gone down the stairs, his heart in his mouth, so goddamned mindful of the fact that he had to hurry but he couldn't because he couldn't risk dropping Sammy …

"I didn't want to die," he said to Alex, the words gusting out on a long breath. "And I didn't think, really, of what a deal would mean, not then. I just couldn't fail at the only purpose I'd ever had in my life. Not on top of losing Dad, of the sacrifice he'd made. I didn't think of how it would feel to Sam, only of how I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do whatever I could do."

I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I love. I let Dad down. And now I guess I'm just supposed to let you down, too. How can I? How am I supposed to live with that? What am I supposed to do?

In that moment, before he'd remembered, realised, recognised the way out, he'd been flying apart. Nothing, he rationalised much later, would ever hurt the way that had, that instant of knowing that his father had made his sacrifice for nothing, knowing that he wasn't going to be the man his father was, the man he'd wanted to be, knowing that he would let everyone down, sooner or later, even if he could find a way forward, there would never be a moment's peace for him, never be a calm port in the storm, never be any kind of happiness.

"Man, he was pissed, when he found out," he said, shaking his head slightly, trying to dispel the memories of his choice, the gradual recognition of what he'd done, what the cost was going to be. "He saw, straight away, what it was. I didn't – fuck, I was high for weeks just on the fact that he was still alive."

Bobby had seen as well. The old man's anger had been driven by pain, but it had still shaken him, seeing all that emotion in his face, all that feeling that had been directed at him. That had been because of him.

"I couldn't let him die," he said, barely breathing the words out. They were the echo of what he'd said to Bobby, in the heatless sunshine of the salvage yard, seeing the brightness in Bobby's eyes, unable to believe then that it was for him.

He heard the deep sigh beside him, and blinked away the past, looking down at the tousled dark gold curls against his shoulder.

"Pretty fucking hopeless all the way round, huh?" he said, wishing suddenly for a fraction of a psychic power that would let him know what she was thinking. "It was what Heaven planned, because my Dad didn't break down there."

Alex lifted her head, looking into his eyes. "You'd do it the same way again."

Her certainty shook him. He would, he knew. There was only one thing he'd change if he had a chance to go back and do it again.

"Yeah."

"Do you still think you don't deserve anything, Dean?"

He looked back at the tree, lips dry and his tongue licking over them nervously.

I've made some mistakes. But I've always done the best I could.

Saying it out loud, saying it in words, was like inviting bad luck, he thought. John Winchester had done the best he could. He'd done the best he could. Neither of their best had been good enough to stop the plans of the angels of Heaven or the demons of Hell.

"I lost my family," he said, the words coming out like fragments of glass through a throat that was too full of memory and pain. "I couldn't protect them, couldn't save them. I lost friends, dragged them into the firing line and they paid for it."

"But you had them," she said softly. "No one would have followed you, or loved you, if you hadn't given them something too."

He frowned, mouth twisting down slightly. "I didn't let anyone in, not even Sam, most of the time."

No one but you, he thought, turning to look at her. And I paid for that.

"You let me in," she countered. "You said I knew you."

He drew in a deep breath, feeling the nervousness drop away abruptly, a measure of peace and either acceptance or resignation fill him. He hadn't looked at it, hadn't admitted … then. He wanted to now. "And if it hadn't been for the people depending on me, I'd've welcomed a bullet when you died."

He felt her ribs rise sharply; her arms around him tighten hard. "That would've been a mistake."

"Yeah," he agreed sardonically. "It would've been."

Maybe that was why he'd never let go, had told himself savagely that she was dead in his head, but had never believed it in his heart. He didn't know. He'd tried. As he'd tried to accept it with Sam. He'd known better than to make a deal to bring her back, and now he understood what Death had meant when he'd said he couldn't help him, but he hadn't let go.

"If I don't … remember … don't get all those memories back … if they never come back …" she said, drawing away from him slightly, looking down so that he could only see the top of her head, not her expression.

"It doesn't matter," he said, his arm closing around her, hand dropping to catch her chin and lift her face, so he could see her eyes. "Do you want to be here?"

His heart slowed as she hesitated, her lashes casting shadows over her cheeks as they lowered.

"Is it enough?" she asked after a minute's silence.

"Yeah, it's enough."

His pulse accelerated, he could feel the beat in his ears, in his throat, in the blood that rushed along vein and capillary and artery. You make the weight disappear, he said to her in his mind, tasting her lips, feeling her arms curl around his neck. It was more than enough to keep him going, keep him fighting.

December 27, 2013. Litteris Hominae, Kansas

Jerome wheeled his chair down the ramp and along the curving counter as the insistent beeps from the computer continued.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming!" he muttered to it, hitting the Break key and reading the message from Lourdes. His face whitened and his hand snatched at the phone on the desk beside him.

"Bobby, need you and Rufus and Dean over here as soon as possible," he barked into the handset as soon as he heard Singer's voice on the other end. "Just come!"

He set the phone down, staring at the message unhappily. Why, he wondered? What possible reason could they have?

Dean finished reading the message and turned to look at Jerome, his face hard. "Why?"

"An excellent question I've been asking myself non-stop," Jerome said tersely.

"Why what?" Sam came down the stairs and looked at the group standing by the screens.

Dean looked over Jerome's head at his brother, and Sam saw the bleakness in his expression before he turned away, his face closed and shuttered again.

"Michel got a message from Marc this morning. They're in Russia," Jerome told Sam, gesturing at the screen. "The alpha vampire attacked them in Slovakia, a couple of weeks ago, killed Adrian but left Marc and Christophe alive, apparently to deliver a message to Dean."

"The message?" Sam asked, watching Dean walk away, shoulders hunched and rigid.

"That the Grigori are still looking for Alex, they haven't finished with her yet," Jerome said softly.

"What?"

"Why would that vamp tell Marc about this?" Bobby demanded, brows drawn together. "Where's the advantage to it?"

"An' why would they want her? They made two copies, and they killed them both," Rufus added, his eyes following Dean worriedly as he paced around the room and stopped abruptly beside the situation table.

Felix cleared his throat quietly. "Perhaps they have been fed the same information as Raphael had?"

Jerome turned to look at him. "That the last scion can control the tablets? Those bloodlines have vanished! How would they know if she was the one? We can't verify it."

"I don't know, Jerome, only it would explain why of the three hostages they took, they only copied her."

"But why destroy the copies?" Rufus asked, looking from Felix to the legacy. "If they were trying to create a key to finding the angel tablet, why use that effort as decoys?"

"If that rogue arc gave them that information, he was acting on what was written in the library in Heaven, wasn't he?" Ellen asked shortly. "The texts that Cas said had been tampered with?"

"Yes." Jerome looked at her, his eyes narrowed. "You think he tampered with them, getting the information and erasing it?"

She shrugged. "Metatron said that the lines were lost, but he fell before they died out, or got lost or whatever really happened."

Staring down at the situation table, Dean drew in a deep breath. "It doesn't matter," he said coldly.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, looking over at him. "We need to know what they –"

"No. What we need to do is find that tablet and get the heat off – off here," Dean cut him off sharply.

"How?" Bobby's voice cut through the silence.

"I don't know!" Dean snapped, turning back to the table. "But we have to find a way, talk to Cas, get him to take us over there."

Sam exchanged a look with Bobby. They could get over there, but without the knowledge of the location, without knowing who it was the prophecy mentioned to draw the sands aside, they would be wandering in the desert for years without achieving anything.

"What about the shapeshifter?" Sam asked reluctantly. "That was –"

It was barely more than a flicker, but Sam had seen it before, that fleeting expression in his brother's eyes and he dropped his gaze, turning to look at Rufus. "We could get over to Tawas, this week; less confusing if the shifter hasn't taken a new form anyway."

"No," Dean said, staring at the floor, his face stony. "We'll go to Michigan. You, me, Elias and Lee. We'll find it, gank it, get rid of it."

He looked up at Bobby. "We need more intel. Maybe Cas can give us that."