With a final hiccup and one good nose blow Grace leaned back in the seat. It was late and she was exhausted but Dean wasn't through with her yet. He'd told her almost everything, more than he'd told his own brother, but now turn about was fair play. Although he was wary about what she might tell him, he wanted to know. "Tell me about the demon, Grace," he said, "Tell me about Azazel."

Grace didn't know if she could and she quickly went through a mental checklist of what was okay to say out loud and what she would rather take to the grave with her.

"In the beginning," she began, choosing her words carefully, "he was everything to me. He was all I had in the way of a mother and a father and he took care of me in his own fashion, changing homes and unwilling hosts like dirty socks. He finally left me with an older couple who, in fear for their very lives, took extremely good care of me while Azazel did whatever it is that busy demons do."

"Couldn't they just abandoned you?"

"Oh, they would have in a New York minute...if they'd dared. First I killed their cat and then I killed their dog and then there was the man's terrible accident."

Grace spoke so dispassionately about the animal mutilations and the attempted murder that Dean whispered Christo under his breath.

She stared hard at him.

"Sorry," he whispered.

She snickered and patted his hand like he was an idiot.

"I was only eight and I couldn't help myself but I knew it wasn't my fault. Someone was inside of me. A little girl who kept her hand over my mouth so I couldn't scream but, when she was happy, laughter came bubbling right out. She liked killing things...especially animals."

"That is so fucked up," Dean said to no one in particular.

Grace agreed wholeheartedly. "I'll never forget the look on that poor woman's face. She and her husband were so afraid of me, of us, that I felt sorry for them. I tried so hard to be good but with Lilith riding shotgun it was impossible."

Lilith! He should have known it was the fucking bitch and asked passionately, "Do you want me to kill her? I'll kill her for you right now!"

Grace laughed and told him yes but that he should probably wait until it got light out before he charged off to exact his retribution. Besides she had more to tell him, a lot more.

"Lilith never got any older but I did and when my body matured Daddy Dearest came home. He let Lilith go free and soon after that my mother found me."

Dean glanced to his left waiting for Grace to fill in the Grand Canyon of gaps but apparently she was done with her narrative.

"That's it?" he wanted to know and she, instead of lying outright to him, just nodded her head.

"Azazel let you go? Just like that?"

"My mom fought him tooth and nail. Brought a real life shaman with her. A spirit walker who kept him occupied long enough for us to get away. By that time I was really, really sick and knew Azazel was pretty much done with me anyway. Mom and I lived with the Apache on the San Carlos reservation until she died. Since then it's just been me and the werewolves."

"No boyfriends?" Dean asked trying not to sound too much like he was fishing.

Grace just snorted derisively. "I'm out in the field for so long that it's hard to tell whose legs are hairier, mine or the lichens. What guy can resist that, huh?"

Dean laughed and thought that, as far as he was concerned, she cleaned up real good.

Grace stretched her stiff legs out before her and slid further down in the seat trying to get comfortable. Dean reached for her and pulled her closer to him and she settled into the crook of his arm and laid her weary head against him.

"If I had any whiskey left, Downey, we could drink a toast to crappy childhoods." His voice was deep and rumbled in his chest and comforted her.

"To crappy childhoods, Winchester," Grace said raising her arm in an imaginary toast, "And to my hero, the bad ass who took out Azazel."


The Impala pulled into the parking lot of the Terrace Hotel and Grace wheeled her into a spot between Bobby's Chevelle and her own black, ¾ ton Ford Dually. The two of them got out and, as Sam watched from the hotel's doorway, Grace gave Dean a brotherly hug and got into her truck. Sam shook his head and wondered what had gone wrong. Surely there had been some chemistry between the two of them or at least on Dean's part because one, she was a female, two, she was hot, three, she was a female, four, she was a hunter and one through four again.

As Grace drove off Dean just waved and called out to her to 'watch her six' like she was an old Army buddy or something. He walked over to where Sam and Bobby stood, the younger Winchester clearly wondering if his brother had lost his touch - along with his mind.

"She's leaving? Just like that?" Sam asked, dumbfounded.

"She has a job waiting. She said to tell you both good bye."

"And..." Sam prompted.

"And good luck?" Dean added.

"And..."

"And what, Sammy?" Dean finally said in disgust, "I don't bag and tag 'em all."

"Since when?"

"Since I decided it wouldn't be such a good idea to get involved with a...a..."

"A werewolf hunter?" Sam finished.

Bobby coughed and Dean was pretty sure he heard the word 'bullshit'.

"Yeah. I hear they're out in the field most of the time," he said by way of a bullshit explanation of Grace's aversion to romance, "and apparently they don't ever shave their legs."

Sam picked up his backpack and slapped Dean on the back. "She shut you down, didn't she?"

"Oh, yeah," Dean said with a resigned smile. He and Grace had only talked but the fact that she supported his decisions -all of them - and hadn't run screaming into the night gave him hope - whether it was false or not.