A/N: *Hides* I can't even express how sorry I am that this took so long to get done. Life and writers block really really suck sometimes. But I have a good plan for the next few chapters, so they won't take nearly as long I promise.
Thank you so so much for sticking with me! Y'all are the mac to my cheese.
"So, what's the plan guys?" Sam asked when he reentered the conference room.
"We need to move out of here, first," Booth explained. "More people will be arriving within the hour, and I'd rather not explain why two presumed-dead fugitives are alive and well and not handcuffed in an interrogation room."
Sam, who had reentered the room unnoticed after his conversation with his wayward demon, nodded his head. Made sense, kind of.
"I suggested that we go back to the lab," Brennan supplied. "No one will be there because of the explosion. Protocol states that until the building is deemed out of danger, that no one is supposed to enter." Glancing to Dean, the actual source of the explosion, Brennan stated with a slight smile, "We know there is no further threat, and there really isn't a place in this city where we would have more of an upper hand than the Jeffersonian."
Sam looked to Dean a bit concerned. "Will that be okay? I mean the place is probably swarming with police and fire fighters. How is that laying low?"
"It's the best place to defend right now. We know it really well, it has some natural fortification after last night, and I have some people there that can help us," Booth supplied. His military training kicking in without a thought.
"You were serious about that?" Hodgins asked incredulously. "How in the hell are you going to convince Cam and Angela that what is happening is not us just going insane? 'Cuz I know how that goes."
Brennan thought for a second. "I don't really know," She admitted. "But I'd rather have more people on our side warding," she broke the flow of her sentence to look at Dean. "That's the right wording, right? Warding?" When Dean nodded, she continued. "It's a big building. We don't know how long it'll be before the demons get here. I'd rather have more hands making wards than just us."
Sam nearly gaped at Brennan then at Dean. "You're willingly recruiting civilians into a fight against a horde of demons? Dean, what the hell are you thinking?"
Dean shrugged defensively. "She wouldn't take no for an answer. That's what I'm thinking."
Sam looked between Dean and Brennan in disbelief. Dean rubbed his forehead, defeat plastered over his features, and Brennan looked between Dean and Sam a smug victorious look on her face.
Booth spoke up. "We've all been through serious fights. I'm sure this is nothing like we've ever seen before, but we can adapt quickly."
"That and neither of them are completely useless with guns," Hodgins laughed nervously. "I'd rather leave Angela out of this, but I would also rather have her here where I can protect her rather than out there. Who knows what these demons will do to get to you, Dean? I'd rather fight them on my home turf."
Dean looked to Sam. He could see that Dean had given up trying to fight them, and as much as he hated it, Sam was leaning to agree with his brother.
"Fine. When do we leave?" Sam said in a resigned voice.
Booth's mouth tugged into a tight smile. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out Ruby's knife.
Slapping the hilt into Sam's hand, Booth said, "Right now."
Brennan watched as Sam directed them to where his car, or more accurately Dean's car, was parked. She didn't understand it, but Dean was practically vibrating with excitement. What was it about that car?
Dean nearly flew out of Booth's SUV when they reached the parking garage. Brennan watched as he reverently rolled his fingers over the smooth lines of the 1967 Chevy Impala. It was a beautiful car, one that Brennan was sure her brother, Russ, would be drooling over. In fact, Booth was nearly visibly drooling as he stepped out the car behind Sam and Dean.
Sam wasted no time worshiping the vehicle. Instead he went straight to the trunk and popped it open. There were a few duffle bags, filled with what looked like clothes, in the trunk, but nothing else.
"I thought you said you had weapons?" Brennan asked, but stopped short when Sam pulled open the false bottom of the trunk. Revealing a veritable arsenal. Knives of all different sizes, shapes, and materials littered the trunk. Only outnumbered by the honestly ridiculous amount of guns stored haphazardly in different compartments.
Sam was handing Booth two sawed-off shotguns when Dean's voice called from the front of the car.
"Sam," Dean said in a low voice that threatened retribution.
Sam looked up from the weapons in his hands over the lid of the trunk, "What?"
Dean pointed to the front dashboard. An iPod was plugged into a jack that fed a wire into the cassette player.
Sam gave an innocent shrug. A boyish look came over his face in a way that, on his 6'4" frame, was nearly comical.
"It's an iPod jack," Sam explained sheepishly. How a man who nearly reached 200 centimeters could even remotely look sheepish, Brennan didn't know, but he managed it.
Dean was visibly angry. "You were supposed to take care of her, not douche her up!"
Brennan looked over to Booth who was barely holding back a smile. Hodgins was full on snickering behind her.
Sam got defensive this time, "Dean, I thought it was my car."
A hilarious range of emotions raced across Dean's face: from anger, to annoyance, to acceptance, to pure unadulterated sass. Brennan nearly laughed out loud. She didn't try to understand the history behind the exchange. It was something between siblings that she would rather leave alone.
Booth smacked Sam's arm to get him back into gear. Sam shook his head and began stuffing the shotguns into the duffle that Booth held open.
Brennan watched as Sam grabbed an assortment of items that seemed to make no sense at all. A small leather pouch, a large bag of salt, three cans of spray paint, a lighter, accelerant, a large jug of water, and what looked like rosary beads. She shook her head as she realized how in over her head she was. She thought she could handle a fight with demons, but now she realized just how little she understood about them.
"Do you think we can really do this?" Brennan asked with a small voice.
Everyone turned and looked at her. Sam spoke first. "Do what?"
Brennan gestured to the duffle. "Fend off these demons. Do you really think we can do it? Or are we about to get ourselves killed?"
Sam put down the false bottom of the trunk and reached for Brennan's shoulder. Squeezing it gently he gave her a reassuring look. "Dean and I have been doing this since we were kids. Yeah, demons are scary sons of bitches, but we're not going to let anything happen to you."
Brennan patted Sam's hand and gave him a little nod. When Sam moved away, Booth grabbed Brennan's shoulder. The pair shared a glance that whispered a silent language forged after years of facing life or death situations together. It was over in a few seconds. Afterwards Brennan took a breath to steady her pounding heart and grabbed a shotgun from Sam's bag. Holding the cold steel helped calm her shaking hands.
"Are we sure we want to bring Angela and Cam into this?" Booth asked Brennan and Hodgins. "This is really dangerous, Hodgins. Are you sure you want to risk your wife? Think about Michael."
"I am thinking about him." Hodgins looked at his watch. "He would normally be at daycare right now anyway. They have strict security there, and know more than they let on. It's why I chose them. I want Angela here so I can protect her. Also she and Cam need to understand what happened. It's not fair to keep them in the dark."
Booth took a moment to consider Hodgins' words. "Your daycare center is demon-proof?" He asked in disbelief.
Hodgins glanced to Dean and Sam who looked about as surprised as Booth was. He shrugged. "Not like I was going to leave my son in the hands of people who couldn't protect him. They're a legitimate business. Most of their clients don't even realize what they know, but some of us do. That's why I chose them. Angela never understood why I was so adamant about using that center. Maybe now I'll be able to explain."
"Well alright then," Booth concluded with a nod.
"Seeley?" Cam called out, stumbling through the debris littering the remains of the lab. "Dr. Brennan?!"
As she walked through the shattered remains of the glass entrance doors, Cam noticed a line of what looked like salt stretching in front of where the door used to be. Just beyond the salt, a red pentagram enclosed in a circle with unidentifiable symbols created an impromptu welcome mat to the destruction she saw in front of her.
Angela followed close behind. Her eyes were filled with tears as she surveyed the remains of the lab. The platform where Brennan spent most of her time was in ruins. Glass crunched under her feet and enough dust still clung to the air to make her emotion-filled eyes even more tearful. Wiping away the tears, Angela regrouped with Cam who was a bit more mission-oriented and less hung up on the destruction of their second home.
It must be the New Yorker in her, Angela thought. Determined and goal-oriented.
"Dr. Brennan, Seeley, Hodgins! Anyone?" Cam called out again.
Booth popped his head around the door to Brennan's lab.
"Over here!" He answered.
Angela and Cam heaved a relieved sigh, and broke into a light jog before they reached Brennan's office. Rounding the corner, Cam stopped short when she saw Brennan speaking lowly to a young man in a plaid shirt in front of the autopsy suite, her office.
The young man's back was to her and Angela, but Cam could see a can of spray paint in his hands. He motioned to the symbols painted on the ground in front of her office. The can's red cap framed it as the instrument to the new artwork.
"Glad you guys made it," Booth said with a tired smile. "Needed to know that all of my squints were safe."
Cam furrowed her eyebrows and tried to make sense of what she saw in front of her. She was about to ask why Booth was worried about their safety when Angela cried out.
"Hodgins!" She threw her arms out and stumbled through the wreckage into her husband's embrace. He had barely been halfway out of the door to Angela's own office when he caught her and held her tight.
Brennan and the young man standing next to her looked up at the sound of Angela's voice. Cam took an involuntary step back and sucked in a shocked breath when she saw the face of a man who, not 12 hours ago, was dead and decaying on the platform that now stood in ruins in the center of the room.
Her reaction was not lost on Booth. "Look, Cam, we can explain."
Angela echoed a similar gasp when she followed Cam's shocked stare. Cam figured it must be an even bigger shock to Angela. Seeing how she was the one that dedicated so much time to his facial reconstruction.
Hodgins tried to lead her forward to rejoin Cam and Booth, but Angela wouldn't budge. All of the color had drained from her face. She literally had seen a ghost.
Cam heard Hodgins try and reassure her that he could explain, but I don't think she heard him. Angela couldn't take her eyes off of the man standing next to Brennan who, to Cam, looked extremely uncomfortable with so many eyes on him.
Dean Winchester lifted his shoulders in an attempt at a light-hearted shrug, "What? You've never seen someone come back from the dead before?"
Cam balked at his words. She looked up to Booth whose only response was an unhelpful shrug.
Angela and Cam sat in baffled silence as Booth recounted their early morning adventures. Hodgins and Brennan would periodically jump in to add their pieces. Dean, for once in his life, sat quietly on the couch and only spoke up when he was asked a question. Sam, who rejoined the group after the initial bomb of the living dead man had sunk in enough to Cam and Angela's minds that they were shouting questions and demanding to know everything that they were seeing.
It was at then that Booth suggested that they all go sit in Brennan's office so he could explain everything.
"So you mean to tell me that you were actually the skin and bones corpse laid out on that platform yesterday?" Cam asked Dean for what seemed like the 100th time. "Like that was actually you?"
She turned to Brennan, "And you are telling me that you believe this?"
Brennan gave a solemn nod, "I didn't believe it at first either, Cam. I went through every other rational explanation of what I had just seen, but when I saw that demon…" She trailed off for a moment. "After that, Dean being resurrected right before my eyes became a viable explanation."
Angela chimed in at this point. "A demon?"
Sam took that as his cue to launch into an abridged "the truth is out there" speech including how Dean came to be on that table and how they had one measly lead on the thing that raised him. This deviated into Booth having to explain why they were back in the lab and why they had it fortified the way it was.
"You're saying real-live demons are about to descend on this lab and you called Cam and I to come too?" Angela asked in disbelief.
"I didn't want to leave you unprotected," Hodgins tried to explain. "The demons knew who we were, and if they know who you are, they know how to get to you. Sam and Dean agreed that having you here would be safer than leaving you vulnerable out there."
Angela then began to panic, "What about our son? I left him at daycare like you said!"
Hodgins took Angela's hand. "You really think that supernaturally aware and infinitely paranoid me would leave our son in a place that couldn't protect him?"
Angela was only more confused.
Hodgins sighed. "Ange, the daycare is run by people like us who know what's out there. The entire block is warded. No supernatural creature will even get a glimpse of Michael let alone hurt him."
"So why are we here exactly? Why are you two still here?" Cam asked fear making her tone more accusatory than she probably intended.
"We had to get out of the FBI. No doubt the office was about to be crawling with other feds and that would become a nightmare both for getting us out of custody and for keeping the demons, who look just like regular people, from killing us. We all agreed that coming back here and making sure you two were okay were the best things to do."
Cam looked unconvinced, but didn't say anything.
Angela, however, took this opportunity to speak her mind. "Are you kidding me?
"Shh," Dean interrupted. He jerked to his feet and moved towards the door to Brennan's office. The group watched him confused, but Booth and Sam picked up on the tension that coiled in Dean's shoulders. Neither of them could hear what startled Dean, but they trusted Dean's instincts. Something was coming.
Sam joined his brother at the door while Booth quietly directed the unarmed members of their group to the back of Brennan's office, where they would be safest. Drawing his weapon, Booth rejoined Sam and Dean at the doorway.
Dean glanced down at Booth's Sig Sauer and gave a nearly-silent scoff. "If that's a demon, your pistol won't do anything but make it mad," He whispered.
Attention is drawn when they hear footsteps in the lab. Dean poked his head out from behind the blinds in the office. He saw one person walking around the debris. The person looked like a middle-aged man. He wore an orange hazard vest and a hard-hat. The possibility that he could just be an average-Joe made Dean relax slightly. Those hopes were dashed when the man turned towards the office and revealed eyes as black as pitch.
Dean pulled his head back from the doorway almost instantaneously, but it was too late. The demon had seen him. It rushed the doorway only to be stopped at the last minute by the line of salt barricading the door.
Stepping out into view, Dean smirked at the demon struggling against the barrier.
"What? Can't get it up?" Dean scoffed.
"You're laughing now," The demon growled. "But you won't be when my master arrives."
Booth and Sam stand at Dean's flanks doing their best to look intimidating. Only Sam succeeds. Booth is too busy trying to decide whether he should keep the gun in his hands or whether its better to just be empty-handed like the Winchesters. Though on further thought, Booth realizes that these two are no doubt far from empty-handed. The fact that they could stand so coolly in front of a literal harbinger of evil meant a lot to how the power in this situation was balanced. Booth figured that he wouldn't start acting worried until Sam and Dean did.
"Oh so your master is coming to play?" Dean asked with mock enthusiasm. "Doesn't that sound kinky."
Sam cleared his throat in a subtle attempt to make Dean take some caution, Booth figured.
The demon didn't rise to Dean's goading though; instead, the demon just chuckled. It's laughter sent chills down Booth's spine, and he could feel the hairs at the base of his neck stand erect. His instincts screamed at him to get the hell out of there, but he stood his ground.
The demon kept laughing until he cocked his head and said, "You might think so Dean. My master has missed you terribly. He was so hurt when you left him so abruptly."
Even though Dean had been standing still, Booth could have sworn he literally froze at the demon's words. The only thing that told Booth that the man in front of him hadn't suddenly turned into a statue was the slight tremble in his hands.
"Alistair will be so pleased to have you back in his ranks, but let's be honest," The demon scoffed. "After your little jailbreak, I think it would please him more to have you back on his rack."
At that moment, all hell broke loose, and by hell, Booth meant Dean Winchester. An inhuman yell tore from Dean's throat as he pulled the bone-hilt knife from the back of his belt. Launching himself over the protective salt-line, Dean form tackled the taunting demon and they both collided with the ground with a loud CRASH.
Dean heard Sam called out his name in alarm as he launched himself at the demon, but before Sam could reach the struggle and help, it was finished. Dean had stabbed the demon through the throat. Its eyes flashed and smoke wafted from the wound, but Dean wasn't finished with the monster yet. He wrenched the knife from its impromptu sheath and stabbed the demon over and over and over again.
With each stab, Dean tried to erase the words that the demon had said to him. With each stab he screamed in his head, Demons lie! Demons lie! He couldn't accept that Alis—No. He wasn't coming. It was a lie. Why would he come? How could he? He was trapped in the bowels of Hell just like Dean had been. No way he clawed himself out that fast. No way. Unless… Unless he was released. Released to retrieve a wayward student. Dean kept stabbing as every fear surfaced in his head.
It wasn't until Sam grabbed Dean's knife hand and wrenched it free, while Booth pulled him off of the mangled corpse underneath him, that Dean was able to jerk himself out of his own mind.
That's when he heard Sam's voice yelling at him. He looked up at his brother, bewildered and lost.
"Dean," Sam's voice was softer now. "Dean it's over. Relax." At his brother's command, Dean sank into Booth's grip. His arms felt like lead and his chest was pounding so hard he was almost certain everyone around him could hear it. He was practically lying on top of the FBI agent whose arms were wrapped tightly across his torso, pinning Dean's arms to his chest.
Booth released the elder Winchester from his grip, and Dean clambered off of the FBI agent. Slowly standing, Booth retreated to where Sam stood, hands open and eyes full of tears at the sight of his traumatized brother.
Dean scrambled backwards on his hands until his back was flushed with the wall of Brennan's office. He had to get away from it. As far away as he could from it. He could feel the drying blood, hot and sticky, on his hands. They had left a macabre trail to where he now sat, gasping strained breaths. He desperately tried to wipe the blood off on his jeans, but it stubbornly stuck to his fingers like a stain.
Sam took cautious steps towards his brother, drooping his shoulders and curling in on himself to try to make himself look smaller. Dean recognized the motion from when Sam would talk to victims of the monsters they would hunt. With Sam's gargantuan build, he was more than a little intimidating, especially to someone who was traumatized. It made Dean even more uneasy that Sam felt the need to replicate that behavior towards him.
"I'm not some traumatized civy, Sam," Dean growled in annoyance. "You don't have to look like you're walking on eggshells. I'm fine."
Sam's face scrunched in disbelief. Dean knew that he didn't buy it, but luckily Sam didn't push. He just knelt down next to his brother, gave him a short appraisal, and then held his hand out to help Dean up.
Dean paused for a moment and pondered on what it would mean for him to pass the stain of the literal blood on his hands to his brother, but shook the melancholy from his head. Grabbing hold of Sam's hand, Dean lifted himself off of the floor. He dusted himself off and looked between Sam and Booth for a moment.
Movement behind him made Dean turn. Brennan, Angela, and Cam were gathered near the doorway to Brennan's office. Their eyes were wide, but for some reason Dean didn't think they looked like that because of the demon.
Sighing, Dean turned towards Sam and Booth who were looking at him expectantly.
Breaking the silence, Sam said, "Dean what did he mean about Alistair?"
A shiver ran up Dean's spine at the mention of the demon's name. Whether it was a shiver of fear or elated anticipation, Dean wasn't sure.
"All I can say is," Dean said slowly, pausing to look around at the people who he would now have to try to protect against a monster he couldn't face. "We're all screwed."