Kath's POV


Kath couldn't remember the last night that she'd had a proper rest; Dean had both of his siblings working day and night on new cases, traveling from city to city. It was exhausting, migraine-inducing work, but Kath couldn't remember a more exciting time in her life. Most of her previous jobs took weeks to finish, with proper planning, searching, and killing all done in good time. The Winchester boys were restless though, and Kath thoroughly enjoyed it.

She hadn't been with them the entire journey, however. Bobby had called her up with a personal case that she flew up to work with him on, leaving the boys to their own devices. According to Dean, Kath had missed "a town full of deadly freaks that randomly disappeared, our old pal Gordon who apparently thinks Sam is part devil, and an imaginary hoodoo friend." It was all very clear cut.

Now they were in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where a woman with no previous signs of violence had robbed a jewelry store and killed herself. Kath, to the dismay of the boys, had walked in with them, sunglasses over her eyes and cane in hand.

"Agent Todd, criminal psyche evaluator for the bureau," she introduced herself by waving a fake ID to the manager with Sam right behind her, Dean already interrogating/flirting with a salesgirl. "Don't mind me, I'm just here to listen and draw conclusions."

Sam and Kath listened attentively as the manager told his story about Helena, the well-known jewelry buyer who managed to raid the store, off the night watchman by stealing his own gun, then kill herself in her bathtub with a hair dryer. She'd had no motive and just dumped the stolen jewels nearby, without selling and losing anything. It was extremely strange, even by Kath's standards.

"Would you mind showing us the security camera footage?" Kath asked, before realizing how strange that sounded coming from a blind woman's mouth. "S-sometimes the perp may have said something to their victim, some kind of last words," she followed up quickly, covering for her mishap.

The manager shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry, the police already confiscated all of our tapes. Didn't you know?"

Sam leaned over smoothly. "The bureau is working hand in hand with the police, of course. We had orders to take the tapes ourselves; obviously someone caused a miscommunication. So you never saw any of the footage yourself?"

"The police took all of the tapes, first thing," the manager apologized.

"Of course they did," Dean walked up from behind, a piece of paper rustling in his hand. Salesgirl's phone number, clearly. "Thanks for your time sir, we'll be on our way."

As soon as Kath exited the building she yanked the bobby pins from her hair, loosening the too-tight bun she had carefully arranged earlier. "Where to next?"

"How the hell do you do it, Kath?" Dean asked from behind her. She grinned in response, leaning up against the Impala.

"Same way any of us pull off these covers. Lie through my teeth and look stellar doing it," she said languidly. "People will believe anything if you look enough like the part. Besides, who says there can't be blind criminal psyche evaluators in the FBI?"

Sam grumbled. "Anyone with more of a brain than these people."

"Calm down Sammy, there really aren't many people who actually know what they're talking about. I can pull it all off, no questions asked. Quit doubting me so much, it's not like I've gotten caught yet."

"Yeah, calm down Sammy," Dean said, although Kath didn't really like his tone. "She hasn't gotten caught."

Kath rolled her eyes. "You're planning to lock me in a closet and pick me up after the job's over, aren't you?"

"You learn fast, Kathleen," Dean said, patting her on the shoulder. "Now let's all quit arguing and get in the car; we have another stop to make."


Sam's POV


Sam had to admit it; Kath did have a way of getting things done, even if it put her in firing range. Maybe he was just feeling a bit too overprotective; she was his sister, after all. And blind, being blind was important too.

A cell phone rang in the back of the car, and Kath rustled through her personal belongings before answering it herself. "Hello?" There was a pause, and Dean turned down his music slightly so that she could answer the call, much to Sam's chagrin. Dean never turned down his music for him. "This is she." Another pause. "No, I cannot get into that right now, Jay," her tone turned stern. "I'm working another job." Alright, now her brothers were clearly eaves-dropping, but it wasn't entirely their fault; Kath never talked about her past. Then again, none of them did. "Call up Nance, she'll probably be dying to help." She sighed, rubbing her forehead with a hand. "What about Lucy? Keith? Heck, Jo's working cases now herself, call her!" The irritation levels in her voice were steadily growing, and Sam knew Kath well enough by now to know that her 'friend' should have stopped bugging her a long time ago. "No Jay, I can't see you anytime soon. I gave you this number for emergencies. Quit calling me." Then she slammed her phone shut, squeezing her eyes shut in frustration. Dean and Sam watched the entire episode from the front, staring back at her from the rear-view mirrors.

"Anyone you need me to beat up?" Dean offered from the driver's seat, which managed to grapple a stiff smile from his sister.

"It's a little late to play overprotective big brother, Dean. I'll deal with this a-hole later. I'd rather solve this case anyways."

They drove on in silence for a few minutes, before Sam broke it. "So... Who's Jay?"

Dean groaned and let one hand leave the wheel to slap his brother upside the head, not too painfully. "What part of 'stay out of each other's business' don't you get?"

Kath cringed at the slap, but shook her head. "It's not that big of a deal. Jay's another hunter I met working in Boston. Good kid, got into the job when his mom nearly got herself killed by an axe-murderer's ghost."

"Wait, nearly?" Sam asked. "She didn't die?"

"That is what nearly implies, Sammy. I know, most hunters don't get in without some kind of revenge in mind. Jay's more of a vigilante. Thinks he can maintain a normal life and still hunt monsters."

"Oh, please don't tell me," Dean cut in. "You two had a-"

"He was a very nice guy, big brother, and nice is sort of hard to come by for anyone like me. So yes, I did date him."

"We are really going to have to chat about your choices in men."

Kath rolled her eyes. "That'll happen when I start complaining about how often Sam and I end up being your wingmen for the night. Speaking of which, how was Frannie?"

"Who?"

"The salesgirl. At the jewelry store. She was practically begging for you, Mr. FBI Man."

"Oh yeah! She was hot."

"Of course she was. Anyhow, I broke it off with Jay; he was clingy and nearly got me killed a couple of times." She pointedly ignored Dean's shout of victory and decided to speak only at Sam. "Unfortunately, he's surrounded by a group of hunters that I've become close to over the years, and that means we have to pass by each other a little too often for my liking. He just called me up for the third time this month to ask for help on a case in D.C. I can't help, clearly, as I'm here with you guys."

"Aw Kath," Dean said, his voice patronizing. "If you want to go so badly, you could just ask. Sammy and I can take this one by ourselves."

The car slowed to a stop as Kath managed a fake smile. "Ha ha. No thank you, I'd prefer to be without the company of a man who thinks it's perfectly acceptable to wrap grubby little hands around me in public when we aren't even dating."

The siblings clambered out of the car, and Dean helped his sister to her feet before slipping his hand around her waist. "See? It's not that- OW!"

Kath had just stepped on his foot and elbowed him in the gut, "I did warn you," she said before following after Sam to the door of the new house that they were investigating. "So who is this guy we're supposed to talk to?"

"Ronald Resnick," Sam read from a notepad in his hand. "Security guard who got beaten unconscious at another robbery, the Milwaukee National Trust. It got hit about a month ago."

"Same M.O. as the jewelry store?" Kath asked.

"Yep. Inside job, longtime employee, the never-in-a-million-years type. Dude robs the bank, then goes home and supposedly commits suicide."

"This would be so much easier to figure out if the cops hadn't taken the security cameras," Dean muttered as Sam knocked on the door.

"They were just doing their job," Kath muttered offhandedly, although it seemed like she mostly agreed with him.

"No, they're doing our job, only they don't know it, so they suck at it." The door was taking entirely too long to be answered, so this time Dean pounded on the screen. "Mr. Resnick? Ronald Resnick?"

The next thing Sam saw was a blinding flash of light as floodlights filled the porch. Kath didn't react, naturally, but Dean managed to mutter a few expletives before shouting. "FBI!"

A short, tubby man came to the door, apparently still unbelieving. "Let me see the badge." Sam, Dean, and Kath pulled their fake IDs out of their pockets and slammed them onto the door in unison, the boys still protecting their eyes. The light dimmed significantly as Ronald hit a switch, and Sam studied the man in front of him. This was bound to be interesting. "I already gave my statement to the police," Ronald said.

"Yeah, listen Ronald, uh . . . just some things about your statement we wanted to get some clarification on," Dean blinked in the dimmer light, still adjusting to the brightness.

"You read it?" Ronald seemed a little surprised at the proceedings, but Dean didn't see it.

"Sure did," Sam's older brother replied.

"And you want to listen to what I've got to say?"

Dean paused, for a beat. Finally he could tell that something was off. "Well, that's why we're here."

"Well, come on in!" The excited little man waddled off down the hall, and Sam felt Kath's hand wrap around his arm as they entered the house. He had noticed over the past couple of weeks that she had begun to use him as her new walking stick, but he didn't mind much during the undercover missions. Besides, he knew well enough by now that she could move quite easily without an aide. She'd even roundhouse-kicked a zombie on one of their jobs; that had been awesome.

Ronald Resnick's house was the home of true Area 51 believer; a regular UFO adherent. His walls were covered with pictures alien sightings and articles on government conspiracy theories. Then the guy started talking, and Sam was pretty sure that he was half of a nut-case.

"None of the cops ever called me back. Not after I told them what was really going on." Ronald was incredibly twitchy, watching the Winchesters a little too closely. "Uh, they all thought I was crazy. First off, Juan Morales never robbed the Milwaukee National Trust, okay? That I guarantee. See, me and Juan were friends, he used to come back to the bank on my night shifts and we'd play cards."

"So you let him into the bank that night, after hours," Sam confirmed, as they all seated themselves in Ronald's living room, covered with more alien paraphernalia.

Ronald shook his head. "The thing I let into the bank wasn't Juan. I mean, it had his face, but it wasn't his face. Every detail was perfect, but too perfect, like, you know, like if a doll maker made it, like I was talking to a big Juan-doll."

"A Juan-doll?" Kath asked incredulously beside him, keeping her eyes focused on Ronald. He was clearly human, but even Kath seemed to reading something off this guy. Case of the crazies, probably.

"Look, this isn't the only time that this happened, okay?" Ronald shoved a manila folder into Sam's hands. "There was this jewelry store, too. And the cops, and you guys, you just won't see it!" Sam skimmed through the folder, slightly impressed. This guy had built up quite a case around this monster. Too bad he had no idea what he was dealing with. "Both crimes were pulled by the same thing."

Sam handed the folder back to Ronald as Kath said, "What's that, Mr. Resnick?"

Ronald grabbed at a magazine at a table beside it and nearly shoved it into Sam's face. The title BIRTH OF THE CYBERMEN glared across the headlines. "Chinese have been working on 'em for years. And the Russians before that. Part men, part machine. Like the Terminator. But the kind that can change itself, make itself look like other people."

Dean smirked beside them. "Like the one from T2."

"Exactly! See, so not just a robot, more of a, uh, a Mandroid."

"A Mandroid?" Sam and Kath asked at the exact same time. They were beginning to copy each other. Great.

"And what makes you so sure about this, Ronald?" Dean asked, before throwing a glare at Sam and Kath. Considering only Sam could actually see it, he felt like he was getting the worst of the punishment.

Ronald pointed a finger into the air and waddled over to his television set, where he stuck a VHS tape into the player. "See, I made copies of all the security tapes. I knew once the cops got them they'd be buried. Here."

"Thank God for this guy," Kath whispered into Sam's ear. "Now maybe we'll get something." The four people watched the VCR intently, and Sam saw Kath's eyes widen in his peripheral vision. A second later, Sam knew what she had seen: the light-flare in 'Juan's' eyes as they were caught on camera. The tell-tale signs of a shapeshifter.

"You see?" Ronald said, pausing the tape at the exact moment and nearly jumping up and down from excitement. "He's got the laser eyes."

Dean seemed semi-impressed as Ronald continued his rant about the 'mandroid', but Kath's squeezed her arm gently around Sam's to get his attention. The slightest shake of her head told him what he already knew; they'd have to break the poor guy's heart... In a not so literal sense of the way.

"Okay," Sam cut him off, catching Ronald's full attention. "I want you to listen very carefully. Because I'm about to tell you the God's honest truth about all of this." He paused for a moment, taking a breath, then continued. "There's no such thing as Mandroids. There's nothing evil or inhuman going on out there. Just people. Nothing else, you understand?"

Dean managed to keep a straight face, but widened his eyes behind Ronald's back at his brother. Way to break it to him. Kath kept her head down, refusing to make eye contact, as useless as that would be, with any of the men in the room. And poor Ronald was indeed shattered. He desperately tried to make his point, "The laser eyes-", before being interrupted yet again.

"Just a camera flare, Mr. Resnick. Look, I know you don't want to believe this. But your friend Juan robbed the bank and that's it." Even Sam felt sorry for doing this to him, but all three of the Winchesters knew that it was the safest thing to do, for everyone involved.

Ronald was furious, understandably. He stood and the three fake FBI agents did as well. "Get out of my house! Now!"

Sam nodded, "Sure. First things first."

A few minutes later, Kath managed to catch Ronald's eye before they left. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Resnick," she said, before they all exited the house as quickly as possible.


Dean's POV


Dean smirked, half-amused by the entire proceedings. They were back in their motel room, dressed in the hunting gear and decided their next move. Kath lay on a bed, eyes closed in some kind of meditative trance as she thought through the entire last day. Dean had seen before and learned not to question it. It was Sammy who had really been impressive today.

"Man, that has got to be the kicker, straight up," Dean said as Sam looked up from the television set to listen to him. "I mean, you tell that poor son of a birch that, what did you say, remand the tapes that he copied? Classified evidence of an ongoing investigation?"

Sammy rolled his eyes, staring up at Dean. "What, are you pissed at me now?"

"No, I just think it's a little creepy how good of a Fed you are. I mean, come on, we could have at least thrown him a bone; he did some pretty good legwork there."

"Mandroid?" Sam said, as if he needed no further explanation.

"Except for the mandroid part. I liked him. He's not so different from you or me or Kath. People think we're crazy."

"Sam did the right thing, Dean," Kath said from the bed, not even bothering to open her eyes. "Ronald was going to get himself killed if he kept going. Shapeshifters are no easy target; think about yourself, you're technically dead in St. Louis, right? He's no hunter, it's better that he doesn't know. And yes, I'm sure that it's a shapeshifter, Sammy, so I don't understand why you keep looking through those tapes."

"Just trying to see if it'll give any other clues," Sam called back to her, pausing the tape yet again as the eyes flared at the camera. "Well, the retinal reaction to video is definitely there. Just like St. Louis."

"I hate these friggin' things," Dean said as he sat beside Sam.

"You think I don't?" Sam asked, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, well, one didn't turn into you and frame you for murder," Dean said matter-of-factly.

"So, if this shifter's anything like the one we killed in Missouri-" Sam started, until Dean cut him off.

"Guess Ronald was right. They like to lair up underground, preferably the sewer. And all the robberies have been connected so far, with the, uh, sewer main layout." Dean pulled out a map that he had grabbed entering the town. "There's one more bank lined up on that same sewer main."

Both men turned around as Kath practically leapt off the bed, eyes wide and smiling. "Let's go get ourselves a shapeshifter."


Kath's POV


Kath entered the City Bank of Milwaukee through the front doors, only a few minutes after her brothers had gone in as security camera technicians. She knew how long it would take for them to get passes to see the cameras, and knew exactly where they would be going. Her biggest job was to not get caught.

Thankfully, even a blind woman can make herself seem at home if she acts like she has an important task at hand. She heard the boys on the other side of the room, talking loudly with a security guard about routine camera checks. She nearly smiled; she had told them to be audible, not shouting. In no time at all the brothers were being led out of the main area of the bank and down a usually locked hallway. Usually considering Kath had caught the door before it shut and followed behind them, quiet as a mouse. She could tell where the crevices in the walls were that she could hide in, which halls were easiest to duck behind and avoid being seen. She listened carefully behind one wall as the boys assured the guard that they would be perfectly fine, heard the guard pass by her hiding spot, then snuck back to the security camera doors. Banks were most concerned about their money getting stolen; a person walking around the personnel hallways was less of a threat. It also helped that her brothers were now the camera monitors.

One knock on a door later, and she was completely safe.

"Why exactly did we bring you along on this one?" Dean asked as Kath settled herself on a chair behind them. "You didn't even bring the popcorn."

Kath smiled coldly, placing a pair of booted feet on the dashboard. "Thank goodness cameras don't affect the fact that I can see the supernatural, otherwise this would be a very boring day."

"Just keep an eye out," Sam said off-handedly, and Kath laughed.

"That's a sorry blind joke, Sammy, you'll really need to do better if you want to hang around me."

All joking aside, their scouring of the cameras was of little help half an hour later. Kath was as blind as ever to the screens, not a single flash of monster before her eyes.

Sam was getting a little restless. "Maybe we jumped the gun on this one. I mean, we don't even know it's here."

"Mm-hmm," Dean responded, and Kath could tell that her older brother was getting a little distracted.

"Maybe we should just go back to the sewers and-" Sam stopped speaking and Kath rolled her eyes.

"He's staring at some poor girl's ass, isn't he?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

"Dean, we're supposed to be looking for eyes-" Sam started, but Kath cut him off.

"Third screen from the top right!" Kath said excitedly. "I saw a flash."

Sam and Dean immediately turned to where she was pointing.

"Hello freak," Dean said.

"Got him," Sam said, relieved. Kath heard him turn the door knob, but Dean stayed in front of her, staring at the screens.

"Dammit," Dean cursed, and Sam turned back from the door.

"What?" Sam and Kath asked at the same time. Dean pointed at another screen, then explained, for Kath's benefit.

"It's Ronald. He's chaining the doors and has an assault rifle."

Kath covered her face with a hand and could hear Sam groan behind her. "Damn," they said it unison.

Kath could barely make out Ronald's shouted words through the audio on the cameras, but she could definitely hear the gunshots fired in the building. "This is not a robbery! Everybody on the floor now!"

Dean and Sam scrambled to the doors, but Kath stayed seated. "I'm no help to you guys out there. I'll keep an eye on our shifter; he's not on the cameras right now but he's bound to show up again soon. Go get Ronald before he makes an even bigger mess; do either of you have your phones?" Their silences gave it all away. "Great. Do either of you have silver?" More silence. "We are so screwed. Hurry and stop Ronald, I'll try and keep tabs on the shifter! And come get me when this is all over."

The boys rushed out of the room without another word, and Kath sat back in her chair, eyes glued to the screens that she knew were in front of her. Where had that shapeshifter gone?

A few minutes later, it didn't completely matter. A security guard ran into the room, and Kath immediately put on the acting spectacle of her life, crying and bawling and clutching at her "savior", saying how she was blind and had run into this room for safety. She didn't manage to keep him busy long enough to keep him from calling the police, but when Ronald rushed through the halls, frisking the building for hiding patrons, she managed to keep hidden from him and the guard didn't give her away as she lay silently fake sobbing under the consoles.

As soon as Ronald led away the security guard and a group of others that he had found in the back, Kath returned to the screens. The shifter had reappeared on the screen that she knew was in the main lobby of the bank. So he was amongst the prisoners, thankfully. So were her brothers, unfortunately. She could hear Sam being yelled at as the disliked sibling, and Dean attempting to calm Ronald down by pretty much telling him the entire truth. Then again, it's not as though he could really keep the man with the gun in the dark for any longer. From what Kath could make out, after a few unwarranted threats, Ronald had decided (with Dean's egging) to make Dean his captive and lock the rest of the hostages in a vault until they could figure out where the shapeshifter was. A few minutes later, Kath could hear the men in the halls, searching for the shifter as Kath held her face in her hands trying to ignore the stupidity of the entire problem. The shifter was in the vault with all of the other prisoners, but Katn couldn't figure out a way to find Dean and tell him so without getting caught by Ronald. A few minutes later, it didn't matter. Listening intently to the audio and watching the screens only to have it all disappear with one pop was extremely disheartening. Hooray, the police were here and they had cut the power. Assholes.

Kath figured that it would probably be easier to get caught than sit around in the dark waiting for her brother to find her, so she cautiously opened the door of the camera room and made her way out... Only to hit the deck when a gunshot rang past her. Another shot caught her on her calf; Kath bit her lip hard to keep from screaming in pain as she heard one man tackle another, yanking the gun from his hands.

"You moron, that's my little sister!" Dean shouted at Ronald, throwing the gun away from him. "Besides, you can't kill these things with regular bullets; what the hell were you thinking?"

She felt two hands wrap around her shoulders and pull her upright, jostling her a little too much. "Kath, talk to me. Did you get hit?"

Kath lifted one bloody hand from her leg and held it up for Dean to see. "It's just a flesh wound, but it hurts like hell," she said weakly. "Here, hold the wound for a second." His hands held her bleeding gunshot graze closed for a moment, as Kath ripped a piece of cloth from her tank top and wrapped it around her leg as a temporary bandage. "It'll do. We just need to hurry up and kill this son of a bitch; I'm tired of getting shot at." Dean helped lift her to her feet, and Kath hardly put weight on her hurt leg, leaning against a wall for support. "Hullo Ronald, remember me?"

"You're not an FBI agent either, are you?"

"No, but I'm not the shapeshifter either. So please refrain from shooting me again, okay?"

"Sure thing, miss."

Kath turned back to Dean, eyes wide. "You've had the shifter with you the entire time; we need to get back to that vault." She took a step and nearly collapsed; the bad leg wasn't going to hold any of her weight at the moment.

"Kath-" Dean was about to offer help, but she shook her head.

"I need to get used to it. Go ahead without me, I'll catch up in a minute. And you don't have to worry about a sniper getting me; I'm clearly a hostage in this situation." She smiled softly. "Go!"

Kath hobbled her way to the vault, staying close to the walls and low to the ground. She knew that Dean was still hunting around the halls, searching for stray hostages to keep them safe from the shifter should it attempt to escape, and finally reached the vault within a few minutes. Apparently Ronald had decided to release Sam too (thanks to Dean's coaxing), and he was trying to deal with a hostage with heart trouble. Ron kept brandishing his gun a little too threateningly, and Sam was trying to calm the poor man down. At least, Kath could tell that he was human because she couldn't see him. It was the guy standing above him that she could see, a hunk of shape-shifting glob wrapped up inside one human-looking body.

"Come on, man, you've got to open up the door," the shifter was saying, helping the heart-attack man stay upright. "We've got to get him out of here."

Ron cocked his gun beside Sam. "Both of you stay right where you are."

Kath stumbled up behind Sam, and he turned wide-eyed towards her. "What happened to your leg?" he asked.

"Ron was a little too trigger-happy. I'll survive. The shapeshifter's the guy trying to help the dying guard. Trust me, you can let the other guy out before he actually does have a heart attack."

"She's right," Dean walked up behind them. "Just found the poor guy's body lying in the halls. He's the one."

The three Winchesters stared down the shapeshifter obviously, and Kath could see the shifter watching them, knowing that he was toast.

Sam stepped forward. "You know, Ronald? He's right, we've got to get this man outside. Come on, I've got you." Kath listened to the proceedings, watching as Sam took the guard from the shapeshifter's hands.

The shifter's chances were quickly slipping away. "I'll help you," he said, walking forward, but Sam pulled away.

"Oh, I got him. It's cool, thanks."

Sam passed by Kath with the guard, and now it was Dean's turn to do the taking.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" He asked the shifter, who shrugged and followed him out of the vault.

"You got the gun, man. I mean, whatever," the shapeshifter said, and Kath realized the precariousness of her position. She was too close to him.

That's when he struck, hitting Kath in the leg and pushing her into Dean, who had to flail and drop his gun to catch her. In that time the shifter took off into the dark halls, and Ronald followed after him, right into the open with his gun in hand.

"Stop! Come back here!" He shouted, just as Sam shouted "Get down!" and a sniper's bullet ripped through the window and buried itself in Ronald's chest. He fell to the floor with a thud, and Kath already knew that he was dead.

Scrambling on hands and knees, Kath followed in Dean's wake as he crawled over to Sam, who had hidden himself behind a pillar.

"The hostages are escaping," Kath said darkly. "This thing's going to become any one of them."

Sam and Dean both groaned, and Sam pushed the sick guard into his brother's arms. "You deal with the guard; I'm going after the shifter."

"I'll take the other hall; we'll make better time that way," Kath said.

"Holler if you see anything," Dean warned.

"No problem, although I might just take on this guy myself. It's been a pain in the ass."

"Good luck," Sam muttered, then they took off on their separate ways.

Kath cleared her halls with not a hiccup, although she did warn a few frightened hostages that it was actually safer in the vault than anywhere else in the bank. When she found her way back to the vault herself, Dean was already talking on the landline. He pulled it away from his ear an inch so that she could hear better.

"Woah. Kinda harsh for a federal agent, don't you think?" He said, answering whatever the Fed on the other end had just threatened.

"Well, you're not the typical suspect, are you, Dean?" Now it was time for the both of them to be horrified. How the heck did they know who Dean was? "I want you and Sam out here, unarmed. Or we come in. And yes, I know about Sam. Bonnie to your Clyde. Oh, and if in Kathleen's there too, she'd better show her pretty little face as well. It's like you guys want to be remembered as a traveling circus."

Dean managed to keep his voice unchanged as he continued. "Yeah, well, that part's true, but how'd you even know we were here?

"Go screw yourself, that's how I knew. It's become my job to know about you, Dean. I've been looking for you three for weeks now. I know about the murder in St. Louis, I know about the Houdini act you pulled in Baltimore. I know about the desecration and the thefts. I know about your dad."

Dean's voice darkened tenfold. Kath herself only heard this tone a few times in her life, and when she did she knew to run for her life. "You don't know crap about my dad."

"Ex-marine, raised his kids on the road, cheap motels, backwoods cabins. Real paramilitary survivalist type. I just can't get a handle on what type of wacko he was. White supremacist, Timmy McVeigh, to-may-to, to-mah-to."

Dean was shaking now; Kath could feel him beside her. "You've got no right talking about my dad like that. He was a hero."

"Yeah. Right. Sure sounds like it. You have one hour to make a decision or we come through the doors full automatic."

Dean slammed the phone onto the landline as Kath began a steady string of curses. "What?"

Kath ran a hand through her hair, half-forgetting that there was still dried blood on it. "We need to get out of here, and fast."

"Why?"

"I've dealt with way too many Feds in the past couple of years. They're lying scumbags, but they're consistent. That deadline isn't an hour; it's probably closer to ten minutes. And that guy wants you badly, Dean, he's not going to take chances. We need to find Sam."

Kath took off down the hallway that she was sure that he had disappeared into, but with no luck. She wandered about the halls for a few minutes searching, before she happened upon her brothers and a tearful young woman. At their feet lay the body of the shape-shifter, still glowing. "Well done guys, you got it! How'd you kill it?" She said, pointing at the body.

Sam and Dean turned to each other in amazement, and Sam nearly pushed the actual crying girl away from him. "Oh gosh, that's actually Sherry." The next thing Kath knew, the girl's cries disappeared as she ran off. The shapeshifter sprang to life and attacked Dean, knocking Kath against the wall and Sam next to her. Dean and the shifter struggled off down the halls, just in time for the younger Winchesters to hear windows breaking around them. Kath squeezed her brother's arm reassuringly, then they took off in opposite directions as the SWAT team members rushed into the building. Kath ran down the halls, far away from the shifter and her brothers, but helpless if she didn't find a way to escape the SWAT guys. She heard a shout nearby... Sam's voice. The three pairs of feet that she could make out behind her separated: two went in his direction, one continued in hers. Breathing a sigh of relief, she turned the corner, fell against the wall, and started to sob into her hands. She heard a person stop beside her and felt a hand touch her shoulder. She jerked away, still sobbing.

"Ma'am?" The SWAT man said, kneeling beside her. "It's going to be alright."

"Wh-who's there?" Kath said, lifting her head, still crying. "I'm sorry, but I c-can't see, it's too dark."

"It's just me ma'am, I'm here to help."

Kath stared sightlessly up where she knew the man's head would be, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. "Good." Next thing they both knew, the SWAT guy was armor-less and handcuffed to a chair, gagged and unconscious, and Kath was making her way through the halls again. It was funny how little the suit did to affect her ability to move around; peripheral sight problems weren't much of an issue.

Another gloved hand touched her shoulder and she swung upright, ready to beat her attacker down. Luckily, she heard a friendly chuckle. "Great minds think alike, big sister," Sam said from above (he really was incredibly tall). "Let's just hope no one realizes how short this SWAT team member became."

"Or suddenly capable of running into a hundred walls," Dean said, coming up behind him. "Job's done, let's get the hell out of here."

"I couldn't agree more, and I'm even willing to let the blind joke pass," Kath said. "Let's move."

A few crucial minutes later, they fell into the Impala exhausted, yanking the SWAT helmets from over their heads. "We're screwed," Dean said.

"Completely screwed," Sam agreed.

"Never been so screwed before," Kath added. "Hit the gas, Dean, and get us out of here."


Nightshifter was one of my favorite early episodes; I hope you liked this chapter! Please review; it means so much :)