Epilogue- Battle Creek, Michigan Three Months Later
Students from the local middle school were filing in lines through the gate at the end of their school day. Groups of boys pushed each other in rough-housing play and ran or threw a ball for a friend to catch. Girls gathered in giggling clusters near the tree at the front of the school, near the low cement wall at the front of the building or walked down the main road in front of the school. Ben was leaning down over the bike rack to unchain his bike. He bid farewell to a buddies as they passed by him, slapping him on the back. He smiled at his friends and turned back to the chain. A young girl loitered nearby with her friends casting shy glances at the young man. As Ben began walking his bike toward the street, he became aware of his audience. The girl's friends were giggling loudly and Ben knew they were encouraging the girl to talk to him. He slowed down his pace to give her a chance to approach him.
When the girl finally detangled herself from her coterie, she approached Ben shyly, eyes cast down looking up through eyelashes and a slow cast of crimson begins to color her complexion. He had always been pretty confident when it came to talking to girls, but he had started feeling slightly self-conscious around them lately. He covered with a certain amount of bravado, hoping they didn't sense how ill at ease he had become since entering middle school.
Dean sat in the Impala parked in the parking lot at the arboretum across the street from the middle school. He watched the exchange between Ben and the little girl. A smile spread across his face in pride at Ben's ability to interact with girls. He shook his head at the exchange he imagined was taking place in front of him. He let his smile slip slightly as he realized he could approach him no closer than this. He wished things might have been able to return to normal with Sam, with Lisa… with Ben. But he had really frightened his family. It may take more work than he thought he may be capable of in order to repair this.
He sat staring out his windshield at the cars passing, the children walking home, the rustle of the wind in the leaves. He had the radio off; he closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the headrest. He listened to the sounds of voices, cars and wind. He tried to relax. Since he found out that Bast had somehow known about the family he left in Michigan, he worried that something supernatural might come for them. In three months, he hadn't had a report of anything or seen anything out of the ordinary when he looked into his concerns. He saw that Ben had been given the '69 Camaro. Bobby had finally deciphered the glyphs on the car and told Dean that Ben would be safer in that supercharger than in a Hummer. Dean felt comforted only by the fact that Ben was a long ways away from being able to drive it. There was no way Lisa would let him until he was much older anyway, he knew.
As Dean sat there absorbing the sun's warmth, the radio came on of its own volition. "Free Bird" rifted silkily over the speakers belting Skynyrd singing, "Won't you fly high free bird" and Dean's eyes popped open. The look of alarm on his face mirrored the worry he had harbored for the past three months. He flipped the radio off. He scanned the area around him. Nothing else seemed at all out of place. He pulled the EMF reader out of the glove box. Turning it on, he got no response. He looked up from the EMF to look once more out the window. Outside, in front of the Impala, was a tall woman with warm golden skin, long dark hair tumbling in cascades of curls and dressed in a silky scarlet dress. She looked at him with emerald green eyes and had a serene smile quirking at the sides of her mouth. Dean looked at her shocked and opened the car door to slowly get out. He saw that she didn't move except to watch him as he did. He walked to the front of the car to come toe to toe with her. He had managed to regain some of his composure, though when he spoke to her, his voice was hushed.
"We thought you died." He whispered.
Bast lowered her gaze and her smile diminished slightly. "I did, in a way." She replied. "I can't come back the way I was. I'm not sure I would if I could. Living like a mortal is really a lot more… "She looked up at him through her eyelashes in the way Ben's friend had when she was talking to Ben. "It's really too exciting for me." She finished. She watched Dean's expressions and tried to gauge his mood.
Dean kept staring at her. He was filled with questions and he still had concerns about Lisa and Ben's safety. "I need to know," he began.
She stopped him before he could finish by raising her hand to him. She shook her head. Dean noticed there were no marks or burns on her arms. The bracelets that held the binding ward were also gone. He remembered how they had fallen off when Castiel had appeared on the mountaintop. "I can't stay long and I know you have questions. Let me say that I knew I wouldn't be coming back here… no matter what the outcome would have been. You know by now that the gifts I left are meant to help protect those I left behind." She looked at the school front. She stood that way for a moment before she deliberately turned back to Dean.
"Castiel released you from the binding that made you… human?" he asked.
She scoffed mildly at that and she turned to lean against the fender of the Impala. "I was never really human, Dean. I was trapped between what I was and mortal. I'm not sure it could have been considered human, though." She kicked at the gravel in the parking lot with her sandaled foot. Dean looked at her with appreciation. Before she had been more human, but there was an air of something other-worldly about Kat. He could see that this was not Kat. The aspect of Bast he knew as Kat was really gone. Bast was hard muscle under warm gilded skin. Her movements were fluid and light, but under the grace was a predator in the tall grass. Her smile was set to inspire a welcome from Dean, but the humor did not reach her agate eyes. He could definitely see now what the Egyptians had seen of the cat in this being.
Dean didn't relax, but most the questions he had for Kat were dismissed from his mind. He looked at the creature that was Bast for a long time. He leaned against the Impala next to her, affecting a more relaxed posture. "So, did you just go back to heaven with Cas, or…" he left the question hanging. He knew Cas had seen Bast as a potential weapon he could use against the angelic forces siding with Raphael. He also knew that Cas was reluctant to utilize her. She was quiet for a several moments. "I can't go to heaven" She said hiding her face behind locks of her soft hair. Dean turned to face her. He reached up and pushed her hair back away from her face. She turned away from him.
"Things don't always work out just in terms of black and white… there are all kinds of shades of grey." She answered.
"Do you see Cas at all where you go?" He asked.
Bast inhaled deeply and shifted her position. "Cas. Well, Cas has a very… uncomfortable… relationship with me. See, angels are all about order and that black and white thing. He doesn't quite get me. He certainly doesn't trust me. He will try hard not to request my assistance in his struggle." She sobered very quickly and looked into the afternoon sky. "Even now, your friend is having a very bad day. Things have gone incredibly wrong and he is using all the weapons he knows how to use to try and win." She flashed a lopsided smirk at Dean. "He's even received help without his knowledge from a certain cat lover he knows." She shrugged. "He only needs to ask. He won't though. He won't unless he can see no other choice. To be honest, when you're trying to restore order, you really can't use something that has unpredictable effects. I am trying to stay out of it as much as possible. But, I owe him. I like to pay off my debts."
She smiled and glanced up at the world as it passed by their small tableau. "I am not here. I can't go there." She glanced at Dean and then sighed, "I came to tell you not to worry about them, Dean." Her tone and body language told him she referred to Lisa and Ben now, and not to Castiel. She continued, "I am watching them very carefully. I have… friends… who keep an eye on them when I am busy… elsewhere." She looked straight ahead as groups of people walked through the park coming or going, runners passed by, mothers strolled with children in tow.
"How did you know about them?" Dean asked with his eyes determined and stern.
Bast's smile became a grin as she looked at him. He was surprised to see elongated and sharp canine teeth bared in her smile. He was taken aback at how cat-like she appeared after all. She either ignored his reaction or didn't see it. She explained, "Dean, I told you. There is a mark on your heart and the line from your heart connects to those around you who mean the most to you. The tie to Sam is definitely the strongest. I knew about Bobby because there is a link between both you and Sam that connects to the fantastic Mr. Singer." She laughed with a mirth that nearly approached her eyes that time. She sobered slightly and waited a long moment before continuing. "The strongest bond with you besides the one with Sam is the one to that young man. I know you love his mother, Dean, but it is the bond of the child you claim as yours that attracted me to you."
Bast peered into Dean's face to determine what his reaction to this would be. "So, what is it you want from me?" he asked. She exhaled to herself.
She was compelled to come here, to make things right. The problem was, she didn't know how to do that. She wasn't even supposed to be here now. Castiel had threatened her with imprisonment in the urn he had taken from the apartment if she disobeyed once more. She had forfeited it to him in exchange for his cooperation. He held it in abeyance in exchange for her continued good behavior. This won't be the only time Cas will have regretted being lenient with her. It often amused her to see how far she could push the angel's tolerance. He was so much fun to push.
"I told you once that there was a line between us." She said sheepishly. "There is a mark that binds me to you. I don't want anything from you, Dean. Except…" she regarded him furtively. "I need to feel purpose. Allow me to fulfill my purpose." Her eyes pleaded with Dean to understand. He had all the information. Just as an angel needed permission to utilize a vessel, so she felt she required Dean's direct permission to continue protecting his family. He had work to do. He needed to have his attention fully on the road ahead, and she could keep an eye on this area of the world for him. It had eaten at her since Balthazar had released her from her prison. He had said to her, "Your family is gone. You have no followers. You have no purpose." Those words boomed in her head when she wandered limbo waiting to be needed in the struggle for heaven.
Dean was so much like her. He was a creature of decadent pleasures and comforts. He was a fierce protector. And he had a family that consisted of members mainly not of his blood. He, too, had a self-confidence issue revolving around the purpose he dictated for himself. Oh, yes. She could understand this human. They had a great many things in common.
Dean grinned at her. Here was an answer to the conflicts he felt welling up inside him over the course of the year since he left Lisa and Ben to join Sam to Hunt. It seemed pretty ironic to him that Sam pulled him away from the beginnings of a family to go Hunting, leaving his family vulnerable and unprotected. It was what Dean had done years before. Dean had pulled Sam away from the family he had made leaving Jessica unprotected and vulnerable. Dean had moments when he feared the same end for Lisa and Ben while he was on the road. It chilled him to not be able to protect them. He looked again at Bast. She cast covert glances at Dean as though detecting the answer in some way known only to her.
Bast knew when Dean decided to grant permission. It showed in his shoulders, in the set of his mouth, in the look in his bright green eyes. She smiled, faced him and leaned against his chest. She tilted her head up to him and whispered to him "Thank you." She kissed his lips and he reached up to put his hand on her hip. She was warm and smelled of cinnamon. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, Bast was gone.
He smiled briefly before getting back into the Impala. Man, he thought, I could have scored with an actual goddess. He shrugged, turned the ignition, and pulled the car out and on the road. He had work to do and a long road ahead. Best get started.
END