Chapter 8 No Place Like Home


Walking through the situation room, Sam followed Dorothy as she looked around curiously. "I can't believe I've lived here for seventy-five years," she said, her tone a little derisory. Not that she'd lived here, she thought.

Looking over her shoulder at him as she climbed the steps to the library, she asked, "How long have you called this place home?"

Sam hesitated and shrugged. "We've been here for a bit under a year. My brother calls it home, me … I …uh … I haven't had that much luck with homes."

"Me neither," Dorothy said, slowing as she looked around the shelving that lined the high-ceilinged, long room. "Overrated idea, if you ask me," she added, turning back to look at him. "I'll take the open road any day of the week."

He saw her eyes widen as she looked past him, her mouth opening in warning and her gun flash up. Sam dropped to the floor as she fired over his head, twisting around to see the witch flinch back from the hit, a puff of deep red smoke emerging from the bullet hole. She began to spin, impossibly fast, dissolving into a dark emerald smoke and ribboning up to the ceiling to disappear into a vent.

"She can get anywhere from there," Dorothy said tightly. "Do you want to split up? Cover more ground?"

"You're out," he said, gesturing to her gun. "We'll stick together."

He started for the staircase, wondering if the damned witch would be going up or down.


Charlie looked around as Dean opened the door. "I see you moved in," she said lightly, looking the display of weapons on the wall, the neat desk with it's laptop and desk lamp and photographs, the rack of albums and the old style gramophone. Dean's room had been personalised and her eyes widened a little as she realised how much of him was in here.

Watching her look around curiously, he felt a jolt of discomfort as he realised what she might figure out about him and turned for the small wooden crate he'd brought up from the collections level.

"You keep your porn meticulously organised but not –"

He lifted the crate from the floor to the table, looking at her. "Don't judge me."

The crate held more than two dozen small boxes, and his fingers flew over them, opening and closing, glancing into each. "Charlie."

"You find it?" She put the magazines back and turned around.

"No, not yet," he said, flicking a glance at the box in his hands and looking back up. "What happened on the salt and burn?"

"Nothing," she said, walking away from the bureau to look at his albums. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

"You get hurt?"

He watched her stop, her hand resting on the edge of the gramophone.

"Not much."

"Hunting alone's a good way to die young," he said, looking back at the contents of the crate.

"My choice, Dean," she countered defensively. She could feel his disapproval and couldn't help reacting against it. "I might not be good at it yet, but I'm learning."

"On your own? That seem smart to you?" His face was serious, brows drawing together.

She couldn't look at that expression, lifting a shoulder in a shrug.

"I thought you were intelligent, thought you were smart enough to know when you needed help. You think I've got so many people in my life I can afford to keep losing them?" he asked her.

She turned around, not sure what to make of the tone in his voice. "I'm not living my life according to what you think I should be doing, and I'm not quitting so that you'll feel better!"

The frown deepened to a scowl and he looked away. "You want to hunt, fine! I'm not telling you not to, all I'm saying is do it smart, don't just think you're gonna be alright because you won't be – you got no experience, you don't know what's out there, or what do with it if you did!" He dragged in a breath, straightening to look at her. "You know how long it took me and Sam to get competent – not good, just competent –?"

"Yes, I do," she snapped back at him, his words stinging with their load of truth. She knew it was stupid to try to do this alone but she didn't know anyone who needed a partner or wanted a rookie hanging around. "You grew up with it, I know, I read about it, I get it!"

The knowledge she had of them, of him, hit him again and he looked away, reaching back into the crate and nearly yanking the lid of the next box off as he shoved back at the tumultuous mix of discomfort and guilt, frustration and regrets swamping him.

"Reading about it isn't the same as doing it," he told her sharply.

"No, it's not," Charlie agreed suddenly, her shoulders slumping in acknowledgement of that unpalatable truth as she looked at him. "I want my life to mean something."

"It does mean something," he said, frowning. "You don't have to do this."

"No." She took a step toward him. "But I want to."

He looked at the box in his hands, opening the lid. The key was there, and he pulled it out.

"Yahtzee," he said softly, fingers closing around it as he looked up. "No one's questioning your courage, Charlie, it's your experi–"

"Dean!" Charlie yelled, her eyes huge in her face, staring behind him.

Crap, he thought, spinning and diving to the floor in the same motion, feeling the scrape of long nails along his scalp as he realised he had nowhere to go, the bed on one side and the wall on the other.

"No!" Charlie felt for her gun, panic rising as she realised she'd left it on the bureau behind her, and the witch was reaching for Dean, her eyes glowing green and a flickering emerald light building in one fist.

Looking up, Dean drew in one leg and slammed it out, his boot hitting the hag in the stomach and throwing her backwards across the room. He rolled to his knees, hand curling around the grip of the auto, when she reappeared next to him, and the sharp nails stabbed into his gun hand, carving three deep lines through his arm, the gun falling as his nerves were paralysed when they dug in deeper. He twisted away, trying to ride the cross-cut she aimed at his jaw, and he felt her pluck the key from him as he fell into the corner of the nightstand, the unyielding timber corner cracking into his skull.

A vertiginous spiral of black was sucking him down, and he struggled desperately to stay in the here-and-now. He heard a gasp somewhere nearby, saw a greenish light through the thickening curtains of darkness that were trying to shut out his vision, getting one eye open in time to see the witch draw back her arm, a nimbus of poisonously green light and crackling power surrounding her hand, the acrid smell of magic, of burning metal and fried oxygen, filling the room.

She was going to hit him with that zap, the thought pounded insistently at him, and that'd be the end of it. He forced his arm to straighten out, ignoring the searing pain that shot up to his shoulder at the movement and saw a shadow flash past, outlined, burned through, in the bolt the witch flung, hitting the wall and falling to the floor as his hand found his gun and rocked onto one knee.

The witch was turning when the bullet hit, high in the centre of the chest, her shriek bouncing off the walls as a puff of red smoke burst from the bullet hole. He fired again, but she was already spinning, cold radiating through the room as she seemed to dissolve into a thick green and black mist that twisted up from the floor and into the vent.

Fuck. Dean saw Charlie lying crumpled at the foot of the wall, the broken and splintered remains of the table she'd hit on the way down under her.

He dropped to his knees beside her, acutely aware that he couldn't breathe properly as he turned her head, looking for an injury, something (not a witch's killing power) to explain her stillness … his thumb rested against the thin skin of the side of her neck and he waited, not wanting to believe, the seconds ticking by and his senses registering nothing.

"Charlie?"

In his mind, the shadow flashed past again, between him and the light the witch was generating, the power to kill that'd been meant for him. No one's doubting your courage, he'd said, and he ducked his head, eyes closing. He slid an arm under her shoulders, the other under her knees and picked her up, knowing that boneless, lifeless feel, still trying not to believe it.

One day, you're going to tell me what happened to you.

He thought he'd have the time.

Are you ever going to trust me?

"Charlie, come on," he said, easing her onto the bed, pushing aside the strands of hair that'd fallen over the side of her face as her head rolled to one side. "Come on! Goddamn it, Charlie! Don't you be fucking dead!"

The little sister I never wanted.

"Dean?"

"Zeke!" He looked up as Sam swung through the open door, gun lowering and eyes narrowing. His brother straightened up, the angel taking over immediately.

"You have to help her," he said to Ezekiel as the angel walked into the room and looked at the woman dispassionately.

"She's gone."

"I know that!" he grated, shaking his head in frustration. "You have to bring her back!"

"I cannot keep doing that," Ezekiel said coolly, a warning implicit in his tone.

"Why the hell not?! You did it for Cas!"

"You know where the power I have comes from, Dean," the angel told him, his face cool and distant. "It is not infinite and every time I must draw on it, it weakens both your brother and myself." He looked at the woman lying on the bed. "Which means I must stay in your brother longer than you want, longer than we both want."

Dean swallowed against the thickness in his throat as he fought with the knowledge that the angel was right. His gaze dropped, jaw muscle jumping at the point of his jaw as he thought of the possible repercussions … more lies, more mistrust, sooner or later his brother would figure it out.

"The witch running around in this place is very powerful," Ezekiel continued calmly. "I can help with the witch – or I can save your friend."

Dean looked down at Charlie and the choice was no choice at all. He couldn't keep losing people. He couldn't let another person die who'd been trying to save him. Not another fucking one. He looked back at Ezekiel. "Save her."

Ezekiel looked at him for a long moment then inclined his head. "As you wish."

Watching him move around the end of the bed, Dean felt the shiver start in his stomach and worm its way through him. He was risking Sam, risking the angel healing his brother, risking destroying an entire other world if the witch used the key to return, for this one decision.

Ezekiel knelt beside the bed and leaned over to lay his fingers against Charlie's forehead, and Dean set his teeth hard together. He could figure something else out for Sam and Ezekiel, and maybe they could still get the witch, but he couldn't, he wouldn't, cut another person who cared about him loose.

His gaze flicked from Charlie's pale and unchanged face to the face of his brother, the power that had flowed easily when Ezekiel had resurrected Cas was not there now, he realised. The angel was struggling.

Charlie sucked in a huge breath, jack-knifing upright and Ezekiel was flung back, disappearing as Sam hit the bureau against the wall, his head bouncing on the timber drawer fronts, eyes closing as consciousness fled.

"Merry Christmas," Charlie said abruptly, looking around. To her right, she could just make out the outline of a man, a familiar man, standing by the side of the bed. Staring at him, his expression seemed … complicated, she thought blearily.

"Charlie," he said, leaning closer.

"Hey … I know you," she told him, eyes narrowing and widening as she tried to focus on him.

"I told you to stay in the dungeon," he said, the exasperation in his voice mostly held back.

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she muttered, her gaze cutting away from the look in his eyes.

"Dean?" Sam opened his eyes.

"Sam, you okay?"

"What the hell just happened?" Sam asked, leaning back against the bureau and rubbing a hand over the side of his head.

Here we go again, Dean thought tiredly, looking over at him. "The witch was here," he started, thinking of how to keep as close to the truth as possible. "She was about to put a whammy on me, and … uh, Charlie took it instead," he said, looking down at her briefly then back to his brother. "She got zapped, then, uh, the witch got the drop on you, when you came in."

Sam got to his feet, looking around, his brow furrowed as he tried to remember, his brother's account sounding strangely thin.

"Then why aren't we dead?"

"That's a good question," Dean said, immediately agreeable. "I clipped her with a poppy bullet, but she got the key, I think she's gone."

"No."

All three turned to look at the door, at Dorothy standing there. "She's wounded. We have time, she could still be in the air vents."

Shifting her legs to the edge of the bed, Charlie swallowed against the surge of nausea she felt with the movement, swaying a little as she nodded in agreement. "She's right, we have to get … get …after …"

"Whoa, whoa, Charlie, stop." Dean stepped forward and caught her arm as she teetered on the edge of the bed.

"Just go!" Dorothy said to him, walking in to stand beside Charlie. She nodded reassuringly to Dean as he let go of Charlie's shoulder, her eyes flicking to Sam. "We'll catch up."

"Sam, my gun … it's over there," Charlie said, her eyes screwing up as she tried to remember exactly where 'over there' was, waving her hand vaguely at the opposite wall. "There's one bullet left."

Looking at Dean, Sam reached out to pick up the revolver, the two men walking out together. Sam passed the gun to his brother as they turned into the hallway.

Dean gestured sharply left, and Sam followed him, both with weapons drawn.


"Who's Zeke?" Sam asked as they turned down toward the main stairs.

God, just five minutes without the fucking backlog of lies coming back to bite him, Dean thought ferociously, his eyes closing for a moment.

"What?"

"When I came into your room," Sam said slowly, barrel swinging right as they came to a cross-corridor. It was empty. "Before I got zapped, I thought you said the name 'Zeke'. Who's that?"

"Um …" Dean slowed, checking both directions as the hall ended in a T, not a single damned idea occurring to him to explain that. The angel couldn't have wiped that one second window before he'd taken off? "Look, you're still a little punchy, man, just keep moving."

He watched Sam shift to point as they moved along the hall, and with his brother's back to him, his face twisted up in frustration. How long before the whole fucking lot came down, he wondered bleakly? Before all the total crap he'd been spouting for the last few weeks caught up with him and Sam remembered the inconsistencies, or Charlie did, or Cas? Forget the fact that he was just mouthing trash with every new question, not even plausible trash at that.

There's a fucking lethal witch running around here and you're worrying about this? The snide voice in his head said with the same edge of anger. Get your head in the game or Zeke'll have to bring you back and you won't be able to lie your way out of that one.

Lengthening his stride, he caught up with Sam, shunting his thoughts aside as they checked doorways, closest and rooms, looking for the witch from a parallel dimension known as Oz.


Charlie lifted her head from her hands as Dorothy knelt in front of her, handing her a damp washcloth. She held it against her forehead and felt the nausea retreat, the dizziness begin to fade.

Looking down at the hunter, whose expression was, for the first time, she thought a little disbelievingly, warm and caring, she felt uncomfortable. Most hunters took a blow to the head – or anywhere else – without all these side-effects. She wondered if Dorothy's expression was genuine or if the hunter thought her weak. "I had the weirdest dream while I was out, it was Christmas and my parents were still alive –"

"Dream? Charlie, you died," Dorothy said gently.

"What?" Charlie looked at her. "No, no. What makes you think I died? Dean said –"

"If the witch zapped you, that's it," Dorothy said, getting to her feet. "Instant death. I should know, she killed me."

"Wait a minute, let's just – let's rewind a little here," Charlie said, looking around. "I think I need a paper bag. How did you die? That wasn't in the books."

Dorothy shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket, shrugging. "I told you, my father romanticised what happened to me in those books. The bones of the story are there. I went to Oz, sure enough, but not in a tornado and I didn't kill the Witch of the East by dropping a house on her. That wouldn't have worked in any case, you know."

"Oh."

"When I realised that the legacies and the hunters had left without me, I was … terrified," she said, her eyes a little distant with the memories. "I was twelve and being hunted by the Palace Guard, because the wizard wanted me. The Emerald Revolutionaries were after me as well," she continued. "Three of them found me, and they looked after me, protected me. They told me that the wizard had issued an alert to find me because he thought I knew how to get back to our world. That was something my father kept in the books, the great and powerful wizard was a charlatan. But he didn't recruit me or my friends to kill the witch. We had no intention of trying any such nonsense, to be honest. We were working on sabotage plans, burning the witch's forest, trying to convince Locasta to help us."

She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the floor. "It was a trap that got us, and the witch was vindictive. She made an example of my friends and she killed me."

"If your father wasn't there, how'd he know about all this?"

"I told him, when I finally got home," Dorothy said, turning to her with a rueful smile. "My own fault that those stupid books were published, I gave him all the material."

"But if you died …"

"Locasta turned up. The trap the witch set for us was relayed to her by another cell of the revolutionaries and she arrived and brought me back, and took me home. I found out that the kiss was protecting me, and I went back to Oz a few years later, against my father's wishes and the order's, got to the castle and caught the old bitch and bound her tightly. But we couldn't kill her and we tried everything. Finally, the wizard made the whirlpool because it was getting harder and harder to keep her bound within the spells, and I came back here."

Shaking her head, Charlie looked at her. "I can't believe that."

"Oh, you can," Dorothy said with a sigh. "My father used to say that within every fairytale and myth and legend there was a kernel of truth, but the layers that built up on the outside get more fanciful and fantastic with every re-telling and every century that passes. He was right about that."

"This binding spell, what do you need?"

"Nothing you have here, all the ingredients are from Oz," Dorothy said distractedly. "Sam looked in the apothecary on the off-chance someone had been back but there's nothing there."

"Alright, back to the books."

"Charlie, I told you those books are useless –"

"No, they're not," Charlie said, getting gingerly to her feet and taking a step when there was no return of the dizziness. Death carried a powerful kick, she thought, but luckily a short-lasting one. Another thought hit her. Why had Dean brushed off what'd happened? "Haggerty deconstructed all of them, trying to find a way to kill the witch and to find you again and your father wrote some clues, maybe even for you, in them."

"What are you talking about?"

"The poppies were in those books, Dorothy," she pointed out, following the hunter to the door. "It's very possible he found other things to guide you, or to protect you or things that you could use to fight her." She turned away, heading down the hall for the library. "Preferably something with a pointy end."

"Pointy end," Dorothy repeated, standing next to the door. "Pointy!"

"What?"

"Come on, we need the garage," Dorothy said, waving an arm as she turned in the opposite direction and ran for the stairs.

"The garage?" Charlie chirped, hurrying after her.


"Next level up?" Sam asked, looking around. Dean nodded. They'd been right through this one and the one below, and all the vents on those levels had been blocked with spellcord and jessamine. The witch wouldn't be able to cross through them. It was going to take hours to go through the entire building, he thought, rubbing a hand over his face as he tucked his gun back into his belt, but at least they could either trap her in the ventilation system which would buy them some time to figure out how to kill her, or she'd confront them before they locked her in. As long as they were moving, he thought she'd keep moving as well.

"Why the hell didn't she just leave when she got the key?" Dean wondered aloud, his footsteps thumping on the stairs. "Why stick around and risk getting trapped in here again?"

"Got me," Sam said. They were on the fourth level, he realised. The apothecary, workshops and store-rooms led off the hall here.

"Where do you want to start?" Dean turned his head to look at Sam as he moved down the hall, and saw his brother's eyes widen in shock. Not again, he barely had time to think before he was dropping to the floor and rolling aside, the crackle of the witch's power filling the hallway with its bright, burning stink.

He felt the brush of her robe as she swept over him, and rolled to his feet, his gun in his hand as he watched her sweep aside Sam's frantic attack and reach behind him, nails driving into his neck. She lifted the other hand and he saw the familiar light forming in it.

"Sonofabitch." He couldn't fire without the danger of hitting Sam and he was damned if he was going to give the bitch the opportunity to throw the whammy again. Accelerating across the few yards separating him from them, he heard Sam's deep grunt as he launched himself into his brother, weight and speed taking all three of them down in a messy sprawl across the floor.

The witch leapt to her feet, crouching beside Sam, her fingers driving into his face and scalp, burning through the layers of conscious Sam easily as the connection embedded itself. Dean shook his head, rising to his knees, and she turned, her right hand curling over his head, the nails digging in, and a second connection made before he could move.

"Find the women." Sam's blank expression matched his voice, emotionless, without inflection.

"Kill them both." Dean intoned in the same droning tone, nodding as he rose to his feet.

Inside the vessel, Ezekiel found himself bound and gagged by the control over Sam. He was weak, too weak to fight the commands that were looping irresistibly through Sam's conscious thoughts. Wrapping himself around the soul in his care, he closed his eyes and waited.


The long, concrete-floored room echoed with their footsteps as Dorothy and Charlie climbed the short flight of stairs and Dorothy hit the lights.

Looking around, Charlie let out a low whistle. No way Dean knew about this, she thought in amazement, looking at the vintage cars and bikes in their slots along the walls. He'd've been talking about it non-stop if he'd ever seen this. The elevator had brought them down here, four buttons pushed together for this level. The building had more tricks than she could've imagined.

"Yes! I knew those boy-scouts would keep it for me," Dorothy smiled as she looked down the wide aisle and saw the bike parked in its own slot near the end.

Charlie followed her as she hurried to the Excelsior, the trim 1930's bike gleaming as if it had come off the production line the day before. Dorothy bent to the panniers held to either side of the rear wheel and pulled out what Charlie thought at first, was a helmet. Then she noticed the eyes behind the lenses.

"Is that –?"

Dorothy looked down at it and nodded. "Yeah, he didn't make it."

She turned back to the panniers, muttering under her breath.

Charlie's eyes widened as Dorothy straightened up and turned, a pair of glittering red shoes held in her hands. Walking out from around the bike, Dorothy passed one of the shoes to her.

"I don't believe it," Charlie said, looking down at the sparkling, heeled shoe in her hand. "Did you actually walk down a brick road in these?"

"Nah, I never actually wore them," Dorothy said, looking at hers. "Seemed kind of tacky wearing a dead woman's shoes," she added, nose wrinkling up. "And I'm no good in heels, you know?"

"I don't suppose that wearing these will let us just wish her away?" Charlie suggested wistfully.

Dorothy gave her a withering look. "Sorry, no. But they're from Oz and they were her sister's, and they have their own magic. The witch cannot touch whoever is wearing them."

"That doesn't get us any closer to killing her," Charlie said, sighing as she looked at Dorothy. "Where did your father get the idea that water could kill the witch? In the books, he said it was because she was so old, and her blood had dried up, the water simply dissolved everything that was left."

Dorothy nodded thoughtfully. "He never told me that, never mentioned to anyone where that idea had come from."

"But the witch, I mean, she's not all dried up, so water wouldn't hurt her," Charlie mused, mostly to herself. "And … she is capable of changing from a solid state to a gaseous state, without the interim step of changing to liquid."

"What?"

"It's just that very few thing in nature do that," Charlie said distractedly, the answer so close to her she felt as if she might be able to reach out and touch it. "I mean, dry ice does …"

She looked at Dorothy. "Oh, blerg."

"What?"

"Dry ice is sublimated in water. That's what he meant," Charlie said fast, turning around and heading for the stairs. "Didn't you try water?"

"Well, no," Dorothy snapped, following at her heels. "I mean, it was ridiculous."

"It would be ridiculous if she was flesh and blood but she didn't bleed, did she?" Charlie said over her shoulder. "And it wasn't just adhesion, it was the freaking ice changing from solid to gaseous as soon as the water hit her."

"How can she be frozen!?" Dorothy demanded incredulously. "She moves around."

"How could she turn a normal man into a living, breathing tin man?" Charlie shot back. "The whole world of Oz operates on different physical laws to ours. Different laws, different outcomes, different … everything. The southern kingdom was populated by people made of porcelain!"

"Good point."

"There you are."

Charlie skidded to a halt as Dean and Sam climbed the steps toward them.

"Great timing, guys, look we need water –"

"No, you need to die," Dean said tonelessly to her, reaching out.

"Charlie, put the shoes on! She's possessing them, she won't be able to hurt you if you're wearing them."

"But they will!" Charlie squawked, backing away from the man in front of her. "Guys, I know you're in there! You have to fight her, fight her control!"

"They can't hear you, Charlie," Dorothy said, backing away with her, her gaze flicking from side to side in search of a weapon she could use against two men who were larger, stronger and probably faster.

"Dean! You can't let her do this," Charlie said, hopping backwards as she tried to yank her trainer from her left foot. "If she opens the door, she's going to destroy Oz!"

The trainer flew off as Dean reached out and grabbed her, and she barely kept hold of the slipper when she was lifted and he smashed her back into a window, the pane and glass falling around her, her head ringing from the impact.

"I have no intention of escaping to Oz," Dean said, his eyes fixed on her face. They were cold and empty and unbearably creepy.

"I'm going to bring my armies here," Sam told Dorothy, advancing toward her.

Sweeping aside Sam's longer reach, Dorothy ducked and spun, her fist snapping out and hitting Sam on the jaw. She bounced backward as she saw his head flick back, the blow doing nothing at all to slow his forward progress.

"Don't worry," Dean said to Charlie, releasing her arms and taking a step back from her. "You'll join Dorothy right after you watch her die."

She watched him turn his head to look at his brother, the witch's attention off her now, Dorothy's death more important. She whispered, "Sorry about the 'nads, Dean."

Leaning back against the windowsill, she figured she'd get one short stride in. She was right. She stepped forward and swung her leg back and up, the top of her foot hitting Dean between the legs squarely, her face screwing up as she watched his eyes roll back in their sockets and his slow motion collapse to the floor.

Apologise later, she told herself furiously, running past him toward the door.

Dorothy reached out for the steel jack handle as Sam turned his head to look at his brother. When he turned back the bar hit him under the jaw and he catapulted backward, breath driven out as he landed hard on his back. Dorothy scrambled to her feet and threw the second ruby slipper at Charlie.

"Go! Put them on! I'll buy you some time!" she shouted at the slender redhead, swinging the bar in one hand and getting the feel for its weight and length as Sam and Dean got to their feet and began to advance toward her.

"Alright," she said, reversing the bar and shifting her weight. "Let's see what you boys are made of."


Charlie heard the roar of the storm as the elevator let her out on the first floor, looking frantically around for a bucket … a fire hose … a freaking jug, she thought in desperation, anything that would carry enough water to change the frozen carbon dioxide of the witch into gas and dishwater. She leaned against the wall of the kitchen, her gaze scanning the chaos as she pulled her other trainer from her foot and thrust her foot into the slipper. There. In the corner, the big pot lay on its side. It even came with a handle. She ran across the kitchen, the smooth soles of the slippers skidding on the broken glass and china under them, heels clicking on the tiles.

As she staggered down the hall toward the library, she thought the noise was coming from the situation room. Closer, she realised as she turned through the doorway. The witch had used the key on the front door, and the vista beyond it was a long view of a roiling, bloody sky, a sinister black castle on a hillside in the distance and sweeping plains stretching out around it. The colours were too bright and too lurid for real life. Technicolour, she thought distractedly, switching hands as the pot got too heavy for the left.

I am protected from the touch of the witch, she told herself as the slipper's heels tapped up the iron stairs. I am right about the water. Dorothy's father was a legacy of the order and he'd never have slipped up on that, she thought, even if he hadn't been able to leave the clues in plain sight. The reassurances weren't doing much to slow the pounding of her heart or stop her throat from drying out, but she kept on with them. Dry ice. Solid to gas. Sublimation. Check.

Through the doorway, Charlie saw the shapes against the sky, hundreds of them, witches flying in formation, monkeys with the wingspans of condors, all heading this way, and she dragged in a deep breath. Fate of the world hanging in the balance … check.

The witch turned around faster than she'd thought possible, the long, filthy nails driving for her face and then stopped. She grinned slightly as the witch looked down and threw back her head in a silent scream of frustration.

"Gotcha," Charlie murmured, lifting the pot and throwing the water over her.

Clouds of freezing cold steam rose from the billowing black cloak, filling the gallery, filling the room. Charlie backed away, coughing and hacking.


Dean looked at his brother in confusion, Sam's arms wrapped tight around Dorothy's ribs and neck. He looked down at the knife in his hand, wondering what the hell he'd been about to do with it … then his nervous system let him know what else had happened and his eyes rolled back again as he dropped to the floor, the knife clanging on the concrete.

"Dean?" Sam let go of Dorothy, his head pounding, his jaw aching. "What the hell happened?!"

"You were both possessed by the witch," Dorothy explained as Sam knelt next to Dean.

"What happened to him?" Sam looked from his unconscious brother to her.

"Oh, Charlie kicked him in the jewels to get away," Dorothy told him prosaically. She looked up, her mouth curving up in a smile. "But she did it, Sam. She killed the witch."


"You killed the wicked witch and got the key," Sam said, a slightly derisory one-sided smile crinkling his eyes as he looked at her. The other side of his face was bruised and swollen from being hit with the jack handle.

"And that is how it's supposed to be," Charlie said smugly. "How's Dean?"

"Um, well, he's, uh, resting," Sam said, looking away. "He'll be fine."

"Can I see him?"

"Sure, yeah, I guess," Sam hedged, uncertain if his brother was going to be all that pleased to see her while he could still feel the effects. "You could take up some painkillers."

Watching her walk back to the kitchen, Sam hoped Dean would be too out of it to repeat what he'd said about her on regaining consciousness.

He turned to Dorothy, handing her the book he'd found. "This, I think, belongs with you."

She smiled down at it, her expression rueful. "Do you have any idea of what it feels like to have your life laid out in someone's idea of a fiction novel?"

"Yeah," Sam said, his gaze cutting away. "Actually, and unfortunately, I do. But, at the end of the day, it's our story and we're the ones writing it, right?"

"I guess," she said with a sigh as she tucked the book into the satchel hanging by her side. "You got anything to eat here? I've never been so hungry."

"Kitchen's a mess, but we could take a look," he said, waving an arm toward the library. "There's a lot to catch up on. Seventy-five years."

She glanced sideways at him as they walked up the stairs. "I can't stay."

"Why not?" Sam slowed, turning to look at her. "The witch is dead, Oz is safe, isn't it?"

"There's a revolution there," she told him, shaking her head as she wondered if she could even explain all the things that made staying impossible. "Even with Mortisia dead, the evil that plagues that world is still very much active. I have … debts … I need to pay, and I told the wizard that I'd come back."

"It's not your world," Sam said, his forehead creasing up doubtfully as he considered that.

"No, but it's my life," she told him quietly. "And I have friends there, people I care about, who care about me. That's the closest thing I'll ever get to a real home, I think."

He slid another surreptitious look at her, seeing her face calm and relaxed as she walked beside him.

"What about the open road?"

Glancing at him, she smiled briefly. "In Oz, I get both – adventure and a place I belong."

"Hmmm."


Charlie opened the door a little, peering into the darkened room. "Dean?"

"Huh."

The half-grunt came from the bed and she walked in, leaving the door a little ajar to allow the light from the hallway to spill into the room.

"Come to see your handiwork?" Dean muttered, shifting slightly away from her on the bed.

"I'm sorry!" Charlie burst out, looking at him. "You were the one who told me to take any advantage and go for the weaknesses!"

"Yeah," he mumbled. The nausea was still there, churning through his guts, the deep and unremitting ache in his abdomen pulsing faintly in time with his heartbeat. "Didn't mean on me."

"You were going to kill me," Charlie argued flatly, sitting on the edge of the bed. Close to, she could see his skin was waxy, shadows like bruises under his eyes, and her defensiveness faded. "I brought some more painkillers."

He brightened slightly, holding out his hand for them. Pouring a glass of water from the jug on the nightstand, Charlie passed it to him as he swallowed the pills.

"Really hurts, huh?"

He gave her a stony look. "There are no words."

"Sam said you got the witch," he added a moment later, eyelids half-closing as the pain began to recede, letting him breathe a little more deeply.

"Yeah. Got the key back as well." She looked at him, her brows drawing together a little. "And by the way, Dorothy told me that I died. Which means you somehow raised me from the dead!"

He looked at her, reaching automatically for a lie. "Uh, I didn't –"

"Don't BS a BSer!" she said, leaning forward. "Am I a zombie now? Do I need to eat brains?"

"No!" Dean said, frowning. "No, you're you. You're gonna be fine."

"Then you can explain it?"

"Uh." He looked away, mouth compressing. "No, not right now."

"Dean."

"Look, it's complicated," he said uncomfortably. "It's to do with Sam, and I –"

"I knew there was something eating you about Sam!"

"Yeah, well, congratulations," he told her dryly. "You got me pegged."

"I do, you know," she said. "I care about you, and I won't let you down."

He looked away, hearing Charlie's deep sigh.

"I know you don't want to hear it, but it's true," she said with a small shrug. "You have no idea of how good I am at carrying secrets, and I've never let any of them loose."

It wasn't that he didn't want to trust, he thought, eyes closing at the half-entreating, half-defiant tone of her voice. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell … someone … about what was happening, to him, to his brother, to the fucking world if he couldn't figure it out and set things right.

The silence grew. Charlie looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. She liked Sam and in many ways, they got on better than she could ever hope for with his older brother. But there was something that she couldn't let go of, something that made her feel as if, with the right words or in a different time, she could have a friendship with the man lying beside her that wouldn't be full of holes and secrets and the things neither of them could ever talk about to anyone else.

"I'll go," she said finally, getting up.

"Wait – wait a sec." Dean's hand snapped out and caught her wrist, his breath hissing through his teeth as pain returned with the sharp movement. "Sam – I told you what happened at the church."

It wasn't a question and she nodded, sinking back down onto the bed and looking at him. On the drive over, she'd managed to get some of the details of the trials out of him, right up to the point where Sam had agree to stop the third trial and had, Dean'd thought, accepted that he didn't have to die to atone for everything.

"He collapsed, just before the angels fell," Dean said heavily, his voice thicker, rougher, with the memories. "I got him to the hospital, but the doctors – they all told me he was dying and it wasn't a matter of if, but when."

Charlie felt her throat tighten and she looked down at the coverlet. Even without the books, it didn't take a genius to know how he would have felt about that.

"I was desperate and Cas wasn't answering and I sent an all-stations to whatever angels could hear me," he continued. He stared at the wall, not trying to fight the memories and the emotions that came with them, feeling the tight bonds that he'd been holding in place for weeks begin to loosen, incrementally and almost unnoticeably.

"Uh, a few showed up, most of them wanting to kill Cas, but one of them offered to help. He saved Sam, and we got out of there."

"But that-that's good, isn't it?" Charlie whispered.

"He saved Sam by possessing him," Dean said bluntly, turning to look at her finally. "And I had to-to-to go into Sam's head and c-convince him to consent to me."

"Sam thought …" her voice trailed away as the implications rocked through her. "You can't tell him the truth?"

"Sam … Sam would never've agreed to another possession, Charlie," Dean told her tiredly. "Not by anything but definitely not by an angel. He would've died first."

She nodded, thinking of the books at her Topeka apartment. She'd read every one of them, more than a dozen times now, and she knew what Lucifer had done to Sam, and to Dean.

"So you have to lie to him – and everyone else?"

"The angel – uh, he says if Sam knows he'll chuck him out, and if he gets chucked out before Sam is healed, Sam'll die."

Not even a rock and a hard place, Charlie thought unhappily. More like a rock and a massive freaking vice.

"So, um, the angel brought me back?" she asked, looking at him uncertainly.

He nodded. "I asked him to."

And that had been a whole other decision-making process that had freaked him out, he thought, lifting a hand and rubbing it over his face.

Charlie didn't know what to say. He'd asked an angel to bring her back.

"Why?"

He looked over at her, mouth twisting to one side a little as he took in the confused look on her face.

"Because you're the little sister I never wanted," he answered her, his tone flippant – and a warning not to ask any more, she thought – but his eyes steady on hers.

"Anyway, I can't – he can't find out, not until he's completely healed," he said, the look vanishing from his eyes and leaving her wondering if she'd even seen it there.

"What happens then?"

"The angel vacates the premises," he said, his gaze cutting away again. "And Sam and me are back to business as usual."

He wasn't certain it was going to work out that way, she thought. She wouldn't have been either.

"If he finds out …" she said quietly, and stopped as he nodded, turning back to look at her.

"Yeah, so he can't, no matter what," he said.

"Not from me," Charlie promised. "I'd better … get back down there."

He watched her get up, walk slowly to the door. "Uh, Charlie?"

Turning, she looked at him. "You need something?"

"Yeah, more ice."

Her head ducked as she nodded, going out the door and pulling it closed behind her.

His heart was beating a bit too fast, the sickening ache in his gut pounding along with it. It'd taken every bit of control he'd had to tell her, to put his trust in her and he wasn't sure he did … trust her … but he couldn't deny that it had lessened the load, by a small amount, couldn't ignore that somehow, through an unknown alchemical process, he felt less alone.


Two Days Later

Dean walked carefully around the car, trying not to favour either leg. The pain had gone, the psychological impact remained, at the edges of consciousness, making him a feel a lot more fragile than he was comfortable with.

The Impala sat in the centre of the aisle, clean and gleaming as he polished out the last of the wax on the front quarter panel. He looked up as Sam came up the stairs, followed by Charlie and Dorothy.

"So, everything the order had, up to 1958, is in the computer, and it's now accessible," Charlie said to Sam. "The catalogues, the books, all of their files. I wrote a search program for the database and tidied up their indexing and compression algorithms a little, it's good to go."

"Charlie, that's unbelievable," Sam said, looking at her over his shoulder. "The access is portable?"

"Absolutely," she said, making a vague gesture behind her. "The new laptop has the access codes and passwords, but you can also connect through that lawyer's office if you need to."

Dean rubbed off the final smear of wax and leaned lightly against the car, watching them approach.

"Looks good, don't she?"

"Like she belongs here," Sam agreed readily, looking along the line of vintage cars the garage still held, an immaculate '57 Thunderbird, late 40's Sprite and a gleaming black '33 Studebaker Commander 8. The cars and bikes would keep Dean's need to fix things to perfection satisfied for the rest of his life, he thought, hiding a smile.

"You heading back there?" Dean forced himself to walk straight as he met them.

"Yes," Dorothy said, glancing down to the Excelsior. "You mind keeping an eye on my bike?"

"Yeah, sure, as long as you don't mind me taking it for a spin once in a while," Dean countered, mouth tucking in one side at the prospect.

"Deal," Dorothy agreed readily. Her smile faded as she looked from him to Sam. "Thank you. For everything."

Charlie watched them, seeing clearly for the first time the fact that neither of them really felt comfortable with being thanked. Made it easier when they didn't get any, she thought disparagingly.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a rebellion to finish." Dorothy said, turning to look at Charlie. "Do you still want adventure?"

"Real adventure?" Charlie asked. "The sort that has magic and doesn't require six hours of grave-digging or two hours in the ER afterward?"

"Only kind I'm interested in," the hunter said with a shrug. "Come help me find my damned dog."

"Charlie," Dean said, stepping closer to her, not liking this development one bit. "Not a good idea. You have no idea what kind of things are in Oz, with the-the-the flying monkeys, and-and the evil forests and, just so you know, magic is not all it's cracked up to be –"

"Promise?" she cut him off, looking at him as Dorothy snorted softly beside her. "This is what I was looking for," she said, looking from him to Sam. "Something meaningful."

"Charlie –"

"No," she said firmly, closing the distance between them and hugging him tightly.

"I'm not hunting alone anymore, Dean. And this is what I want," she whispered against his neck. She felt his arms tighten slightly around her, then relax.

"And if you need anything," Sam said, grinning at her as he enveloped her in a hug. "Just tap your heels together three times."

"If I need –?" Charlie said as he drew back, throwing a look at Dean. "What about you crazy kids? You'll be alright without me?"

He shrugged, and she saw that the shell he lived with was already back, fitting snugly around him.

"Take care of yourselves, bitches," she said, lifting her chin as she looked at him. Beside her, Dorothy turned for the wide, double doors set into the wall at the end of the garage and Charlie turned with her, her heart hammering at the base of her throat.

Taking out the key, Dorothy inserted into the lock and turned, pushing the door wide. Charlie couldn't help the gasp that burst out when she looked through, brilliant green fields, a bright road twisting away from them, paved in bricks of deep golden yellow, and in the distance, spires and towers scintillating in the morning sun, a city of emerald glass and stone, beckoning to her the way nothing had in her entire life. She didn't look back as she walked through the door and felt the ground change beneath her feet, leather soles clocking softly on the brick. The air was different, rich and fertile and filled with scents, soft and balmy against her skin.

She realised she was walking away from everything she'd ever known, and she slowed, feeling Dorothy's glance on her as she looked back. Lit up by the sunshine of Oz, Dean and Sam stood in the doorway, Dean's eyes meeting hers, that connection she'd been waiting for, that she'd been hoping for, finally there.

Typical, she thought, smiling at him. Now he trusts me.

She turned away and walked down the yellow brick road, stride for stride with Dorothy, hardly aware of the clunk of the doors closing behind her.


Dean looked at the solid doors in front of him, then glanced at his brother. Sam nodded and they pushed the doors open again, nothing but the wide, curving tunnel that led from the underground garage up to the street level visible.

"Think she'll be back?" Dean asked Sam.

Sam reached for the door handle, pulling his side closed and waiting for Dean to do the same. "Of course," he said. "There's no place like home."

"Really?" Dean's brows lifted fractionally.

Sam gave him a sour look and turned back to the interior of the garage, heading for the stairs that would take them to the elevator.

"And by the way, how it is possible that your geek brain didn't figure out the extra levels in this place?"

"What?" Sam demanded. "How come you didn't figure out the elevator cable was at least twice as long as it needed to be?"

"I was busy," Dean said loftily, smiling slightly as they passed the Impala. "You were the one who insisted on looking at every square inch and you missed, like … hundreds of feet!"

"I was busier," Sam argued. "And you told me that Dad told you that you should know the exact layout of every place you have to hole up in –"

"Ah, don't bring Dad into it."

"You started it."

They'd agreed tacitly on a truce as the elevator stopped in the hall behind the situation room, Dean remembering the state of the kitchen and wondering if it was too early to go out to get something to eat, and Sam striding fast toward the library to see the laptop Charlie'd set up for him.

Both stopped at the sight of Kevin, tousled and yawning, standing in the middle of library.

"Wow, I really crashed," the prophet said, scratching his head and looking around. "I miss anything?"