A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! Originally this was supposed to be the penultimate chapter, but it grew too long, so I split it halfway. Two more chapters until the end. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.
August 12th, 2016, Coalmont, Colorado, 4:30 p.m.
By the time that the flames died down enough to see inside the twisted wreckage of the gas station, three of the four onlooking vehicles had split. The military grade jeep and the bullet-ridden sedan had instantly taken off after the Impala, and Spike had been right on their heels. Only Sam had stayed. Castiel had told him plenty on their drive from the abandoned warehouse, and the hunter doubted that Faith Lehane had made it out of his brother's conflagration alive.
When the fire finally dwindled to an angry, smoldering heap, he stepped through the now-empty front door frame, shattered glass crunching beneath his boots. Sam pushed and shoved warped shelving out of his way as he struggled towards what looked like it might once have been the back seat of an SUV. He looked down on the fire-blackened corpse lying across the car seat, its burnt features unrecognizable.
"The Slayer's time ran out," said an emotionless voice from behind him.
Sam flinched violently. G-d, he would have thought that six years of hanging around his brother would have broken Castiel of his unpleasant little habit of sneaking up on people. Apparently not. "You sure that's her?"
The angel squinted at the charred body. "Those are the clothes she was wearing when they – "
"Abducted you?" The hunter cut in, the words pitched up half an octave in mild hysteria.
"Yes," said Castiel with a frown. "I am sorry she ended this way."
Sorry? Sam choked. Sorry did not even begin to cover it. And when Dean found out – the hunter winced at the automatic thought. Like as not, Dean had been the one who did this. "Can you tell how she died?" he asked the angel.
Castiel shook his head. "I'm an angel, not a medical examiner," he pointed out mildly. "And Sam, before you ask, I cannot reverse this."
"Yeah, I kinda figured that, thanks." The man exhaled through his teeth. "Cass, can you do me a favor?"
"Yes?"
"Would you grab my bag out of the truck? Dean would kill me if he found out I didn't take care of this right."
Although he raised his eyebrows at the expression, the angel said nothing. Instead, he quietly began picking his way back across the still-smoking floor.
Once he was alone, the hunter crouched down, bringing his face on a level with Faith's body. He placed one hand on the far too-warm blackened skin of her shoulder, which crackled and crumbled under his light touch.
"I screwed up, Faith," whispered Sam, knowing that no apology would ever be enough to make up for what he had allowed to happen to her. He waited in silence beside the dead woman until Castiel returned with a large black duffel. The hunter fiddled around in its insides in search of a canister of rock salt and a bottle of lighter fluid. Then he liberally sprinkled rock salt and lighter fluid over the corpse before lighting a fistful of matches and watching the Slayer burn for a second time.
For a while, Castiel sat vigil with him, but eventually the angel wandered back outside to do whatever it was that he did when he was on his own. To his shame, Sam felt a sharp sense of relief at Cass's departure. He could hardly breathe for the guilt that was choking him, clawing its way from belly to throat, and the angel's presence only worsened things.
Finally, when the Slayer's body had burned itself nearly down to ashes, Sam heard the groan of a car engine approaching. Rising to his feet, he tugged the revolver out of the waistband of his jeans and moved towards the exit.
As he cleared the broken fragments of glass around the front door, he was hit around the waist by a furious five feet, eight inches of blonde Slayer, knocking his pistol to the ground.
"This is all your frakking fault!" Lily was crying, her face scrunched up in sheer fury. Becka's SUV was once again parked beside Sam's pick-up, and the dark silhouettes of the two vampires were visible through the dark tinted glass of the front seat. "You killed her!"
Sam knew better than to point out that either the fire or his brother had killed her. As he attempted to block the flurry of blows that Lily was unleashing on him, her fist slammed into his shoulder with enough force to dislodge it from its socket and Becka darted past them into the burned-out building. He could hear the scraping of metal against concrete as the brunette rifled through the rubble to better access the older Slayer's charred remains. At last, the scraping stopped, and a single, horrified word trembled back to them.
"Faith?"
Sighing, Buffy stepped away from her position near the hood of the SUV, her arms crossed over her stomach. Ignoring Castiel, who was staring with narrowed eyes at the silent vampires, she first tugged Becka out of the gas station and then pulled Lily off of Sam. "Girls." Her tone was kind but firm and left no room for argument. "Get in the car."
Sam rediscovered his voice, gritting his teeth against the pain of a dislocated shoulder. "What happened? Did you lose him?"
With a toss of her blonde hair, Buffy turned back to the hunter. Lips pursed, she helped him to pop his shoulder back into place. "Look, I don't even want to get started on all the things that went wrong here," Buffy grimaced. "You shouldn't have acted on your own when your brother vanished. You should have called us. We may be Vampire Slayers, but we are very good at handling demons, demi-gods, gods, all of it. You should have called. We could have helped. Maybe then we wouldn't be standing here. Did Faith . . ." she paused. "Did Faith volunteer for this?"
Cradling his still-aching arm, Sam said, "No," so softly that the blonde barely heard him.
"Well. To answer your earlier question, yes, we lost Dean – for the moment. I only came back because the girls called Castiel and he said something about a body. They wanted to see her, but now we're headed back out to pick up the trail. You know what this means, don't you? We can't stop until we bring Dean in – and as for what state he's in when that happens, I don't really care."
"Buffy – "
She cut him off. "I'm sorry, Sam. I really am. But that's where we are right now. I need to take care of my people. Can you look after the body? Do whatever it is that you hunters do and then take care of the ashes?"
"What do you want me to do with them?" he asked.
"Bury them. Scatter them into the ocean. Do what you need to." The blonde gestured in frustration. "Just know that we will do what's necessary where your brother is concerned. There – there are consequences for killing a Slayer."
"I know," said Sam, his mind racing. Hesitantly, he voiced the thing that had been rolling around in his mind for the past few weeks. "I think . . . I think I may have a way to save Dean. There is a ritual that will cure a demon."
Buffy re-crossed her arms across her chest in a display of skepticism. "And has this ritual ever worked?"
"Once. Almost," the hunter added as a caveat, and he tried to scrub the mental image of an overly-emotional Crowley out of his mind.
The Slayer raised her eyebrows, but said only, "It's a slim shot."
"It's all we have. Please," importuned Sam.
"Okay," said Buffy. She could give him this, at least. "When we trap him, we'll let you try the ritual. And if it doesn't work, we'll handle things our way," she finished, a hair more harsh than she had intended.
Unable to resist one last push, the hunter reminded her, "Faith would never give up on him. You know that as well as I do."
"Faith's gone," remarked the Slayer coldly. "You Winchesters aren't dealing with her anymore. You're dealing with me. And I don't plan on being quite as lenient as she was. Your brother was her Achilles heel, and you got her killed. Goodbye, Sam."
With that parting shot, she climbed into the SUV and left.
Sam turned to Castiel, who was still silent, standing sentinel as the car and the vampires disappeared onto the highway. "What is it, Cass?" snapped Sam, uncomfortably aware of how close he was to the end of his rope.
"I was just thinking," mused the angel. "How for all their self-proclaimed righteousness, the Slayers are as prone to evil allies and . . . murky morality as the rest of humankind."
"They are human," Sam pointed out.
"For the most part," agreed Cass.
"Right." The hunter rubbed at his temples. He could feel a headache coming on, and his shoulder still hurt like the devil from where Lily had dislocated it. He stepped away from his pick-up and walked towards the gas station one final time. He had ashes to burn and to bury. "Come on, Cass," he said with an air of resignation. "Let's get to it."
July 12th, 2016, Denver, Colorado, 6:45 p.m.
Buffy waited until they were twenty minutes out from Denver before she allowed the other shoe to drop. "You're going home," she told the girls bluntly.
"What?!" Lily rocked back in her seat, her eyes growing wide with shock.
"Buffy," started Becka pleadingly, "you can't –"
Appealing to a higher authority, the blonde Slayer reached into shotgun and prodded the vampire sitting there on the shoulder. "Angel, make her listen!"
"Spike!" hissed Becka when it became clear that Angel was staying out of this one. "A little help, here?"
But the vampire shook his head. "She's right."
"You have got to be kidding me," grumbled Lily. It was taking all of her will-power to keep from bursting into tears.
"I'm not," said Buffy flatly. "You girls have already spent, what, two weeks on this? You need to go back to your lives."
"Not yet," Becka insisted, "We have to – "
Lily joined her in protesting, "Faith – "
"Faith is dead." The words were tense, clipped, harsh. "We can't do anything about that. She bent over backwards to give you what the rest of us never got. You honor her by using that."
"Buffy – " begged Lily, some of her anger fading to reveal the cracking emotion beneath. "Buffy, please – "
"You need to go home, girls," the head Slayer repeated herself. "We're putting you on the next flight out to Ohio, and we'll ship the car."
"But Dean – " Becka protested feebly.
"Don't you worry about Dean," said Buffy darkly. We'll find him, and we'll take care of it."
"Don't kill him," half-whispered Lily, her voice wavering.
"Please," echoed Becka.
"All that destruction, and you still want to protect him?" wondered Angel, speaking for the first time. He generally did his best to stay out of Slayer-on-Slayer conflict these days. It never ended well for any fang that got between them.
"No, not protect," the brunette clarified. "Just not destroy."
Buffy shook her head. "Girls," she said, "I'll do what needs to be done."
And really, there was nothing they could ask for beyond that. Oh, they knew that they could ask, but there was no promise of an answer, no promise of any better.
"This sucks," Becka hissed in her best friend's ear, leaning back against the leather upholstery until their shoulders knocked into each other.
"Yeah," said Lily as the first of many tears began crawling down her cheek. "It really frakking does."
July 12th, 2016, Flagstaff, Arizona, 11:27 p.m.
Dean was unsurprised when Crowley found him in a grungy dive on the fringes of Flagstaff later that night. The black-eyed demon was slowly nursing his way through a fifth of whiskey. It was that kind of evening – and there was no girl in the place who was anything above a four. If Dean wanted to get lucky, he was going to have to get blind drunk first.
The King of Hell opened with, "So your little girlfriend – "
Snorting softly, Dean took another sip of his drink before replying, "Dead."
"A pity." Crowley nodded at the bartender and ordered one of the fruity cocktails he always seemed to enjoy, musing aloud, "I liked her."
"Sure, you did," said the other demon sardonically. "Come on, Crowley. Don't bother lying. You and me both know that you hate to share."
Crowley shrugged as if to say 'True,' then added, "Doesn't mean that I didn't like her."
"Doesn't matter now, does it? She's dead, and I'm hungry." He glanced up at the grizzled man behind the bar. "I'll take the nachos. Biggest plate of 'em you got."
August 3rd, 2016, Beulah, North Dakota, 5:25 p.m.
Three weeks. It took Dean three weeks of nonstop boozing and bromancing to admit the uncomfortable truth, which was that he almost missed the Slayer. She had provided the occasional buffer to Crowley's more . . . annoying moments, and she had been an entertaining outlet who snarked back as good as she got and who had always been as interested in a little casual violence as he was. She just liked to choose the targets of her violence more particularly. The demon didn't regret his choices – not one bit – but sometimes, when he transferred her necklace from pocket to pocket until he gave into a whim of sentiment and hung the damn thing from the rearview mirror, he wondered.
"Interesting trophy," said Crowley after watching the silver chain sway back and forth with the smooth prowl of the Chevy, recognizing the cross without seeming to recognize its significance.
"Sure," Dean shrugged, and then he slammed the car door shut and left to find a buxom blonde to screw his brains out.
Without the Slayer, the urgency of finding an escape route from Crowley died down a fraction. He could leave whenever he wanted to – he just didn't care enough to bother.
Unfortunately, the King of Hell did not appear quite as willing to let the wind take them wherever it wanted. He began pushing, at first subtly, but soon becoming more and more overt. He wanted Dean to do things – and not the fun kind of things, either. He wanted to use him as an enforcer, to persuade him into taking an active role in the endless bureaucracy of Hell. And Dean? He had no interest in playing along.
Crowley kept pushing, and Dean kept resisting, and when push came to shove, Dean both pushed and shoved, leaving Crowley sprawled out on his backside on the rough wooden floor of yet another nameless bar, two of his be-suited flying monkeys snickering while they watched.
The King of Hell had had some choice words for him before they parted, something about emotional ties and letting go, and choosing a damn side. Sliding behind the wheel of the Impala, Dean caught a glimpse of the dangling cross out of the corner of his eye.
Pity that she had had to die, he thought aimlessly, backing the car into a 180-spinout in the gravel parking lot. Given the choice between Sammy, Crowley, and the Slayer, picking a side would have been an easy decision. One of those three sides was often the same as his – and it sure as hell wasn't his brother's or the demon's.
Oh, well. Now he had no limits, no ties, no sides. Now, he was free.
August 5th, 2016, Portage, Wisconsin, 10:47 a.m.
Sam stared at the cell phone that the local LEOs had taken off of the dead meatsuit of the demon who had attempted to corner his brother in a gas station. His shoulder twinged as he scrolled through the call log. Despite three weeks and an excellent sling, he had yet to recover from Lily's forceful dislocation of his shoulder. One of the numbers on the log had called the phone three times yesterday morning, with the last call coming in twenty minutes before the demon had burst into the gas station.
The hunter wrinkled his nose. Something about this situation stank. Frowning, he narrowed his eyes at the call log. Then, reaching a decision, he tapped the unknown number on the screen, wondering if his hunch might be right.
The phone rang three times, and then a polished English voice drawled, "Sampson."
"Crowley?" No point in asking how the demon knew it was him.
"Good God, Winchester, no need to sound so shocked."
Sam dispensed with the small talk. "Does Dean know you've been putting out hits on him?"
Crowley scoffed. "That was the farthest thing from a hit. Unless we're talking illicit substances . . . the Mark of Cain engenders blood lust, you bumbling idiot."
"How did you know it was me?"
"You really think I don't know each and every one of your phone numbers? Anyway, I've been looking for you – this makes things more convenient."
"Why?" demanded the hunter suspiciously.
The King of Hell cleared his throat. "I have a slight . . . issue, and I was wondering if you would take it off my hands for me."
"I'm listening."
"Your dearly beloved brother – well, it turns out he isn't quite as tractable without his pet Slayer as I thought he might be," said the demon with an air of melodrama. "He is becoming rather more trouble than he is worth."
Sam's heart was racing. On the one hand, this could be a trap. On the other hand, if Crowley was about to turn on Dean, that might be the opening that he and the Slayers had been waiting for. "So?"
"So," continued the demon, "I had thought that perhaps you might be interested in helping me to power down darling old Dean-o. Whatddya say, Bullwinkle? Are you ready to get your Rocky back?"
"You'd really help me?" wondered Sam skeptically.
"Of course," Crowley assured him. "I just require one small thing in exchange."
August 7th, 2016, Williston, North Dakota, 3:12 p.m.
When the door to the bar creaked open, Dean glanced up from the piano keys. He didn't know how to play – not really – but he had spent more than one night with girls who did. He kept his face impassive as four people stepped into the room, two of whom kept their faces hidden beneath heavy hoods that they pushed back as they walked out of the bright sunlit afternoon in to the dim electric light of the bar.
"Hiya, Sam," purred the demon conversationally. "Had a feeling you might be coming. Gotta say, I wasn't expecting the whole posse." He nodded to the navy sling encasing his brother's left arm. "Who winged you?"
The hunter winced. Dean's mocking, no matter how good-natured, always made him feel like he was a clumsy six-year-old – and this was far from good-natured. "Lily."
"Good for her." The demon rose from the piano bench, his body language still loose and relaxed. "I told you not to follow me, Sam," he reminded his brother. "Much less for you to bring your little dead friends along."
Sam took a step forward, conscious of the incredibly pissed-off looks on the vampires' faces. Apparently, they liked Dean's newfound sense of humor even less than Sam did. "You know I can't do that, Dean. By the way, your, uh, pal Crowley . . . He sold you out."
"Sounds like him." The demon was only mildly irritated that Crowley had beat him to the betrayal punch. He leaned back against the side of the upright piano and surveyed his audience. Buffy, her expression characteristically pissed; the stoic brunette vampire; the sarcastic blond; and, as always, his pseudo-sincere little brother. "So . . . which of you wants to go first?"
Moving again, Sam kept interposing himself between Dean and the others. "Hold on a second," he attempted to reason with his brother. "You don't have to do this. Look, we know how to cure demons. You remember that?"
Dean snorted. "Little Latin, lot of blood. It rings a bell." He strode past his brother, past the vampires with their poorly concealed swords, past Little Miss Stick-Up-Her-Ass to the bar. Stepping behind the wooden counter, the demon poured himself a double of bourbon and tossed it back. "In all that research you did, you ever stop to think that if I wanted to be cured, I wouldn't have bailed?"
"That was Crowley," said Sam, although he didn't sound sure.
Dean smiled coldly. "It really wasn't."
Opening her mouth to say something, Buffy paused. Something warned her away from interrupting this discussion between the brothers.
The younger Winchester would not be deterred. "It doesn't matter, all right? 'Cause whatever went down, whatever happened, we will fix it."
"Like you fixed Faith?" laughed the demon, and he poured himself more bourbon. "'Cause here's the thing: right now, I'm doing all I can not to come over there and rip your throat out . . . with my teeth." Dean took a sip of amber liquid, feeling the burn all the way down into his stomach. "I'm giving you a chance, boys and girl. You should all take it."
Finally finding her voice, the Slayer said, "Afraid I'm going to have to pass on that."
Dean glanced from his brother to the petite blonde standing beside him. ""Well, I'm not walking out that door with you, sweetheart," he said flatly. "I'm just not. So what are you going to do? Are you going to kill me?"
"Yes," started Buffy at the same instant that Sam said, "No."
"Why?" demanded the demon, and his voice slipped a few notes deeper. "You don't know what I've done. You don't know what I did to her. I might have it coming."
It was abundantly clear to each of the others which 'her' he was referring to.
"He probably does," muttered Spike. Angel and Buffy did not disagree.
"Well, I don't care," snapped Sam. "Because you are my brother, and I'm here to take you home."
"Ha!" Dean poured himself yet another bourbon and wiped at his eyes. "'You're my brother, and I'm here to take you home.'" He mocked Sam's earnest tone. "Yeah, what is this, Lifetime? Huh? With your puppy-dog eyes? Oh, thanks, Sammy. I needed that."
"Enough." Buffy shoved her hand into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a pair of jangling, sigil-marked manacles.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Come on, blondie. You really think those are gonna work?"
"There's one way to find out," said the Slayer grimly.
"Okay." The demon leapt the bar counter in one swift, easy movement, knocking glasses down to shatter on the hardwood floor. "Let's find out."
The first five minutes of fighting were easy. Dean knew his brother's style – hell, he'd been the one who taught him how to throw a halfway decent punch – and with that sling tying up his left arm, Sam was mostly out of it. The demon's first tactic was to push past the others and back into the great outdoors – that took care of the vampires, leaving them trapped inside the bar, ineffectual brawlers in the sunlight.
As for Buffy, he could keep her at bay easily enough. The demon had plenty of experience sparring with Slayers, and Summers was not anywhere near as rough as the last Slayer he'd wrangled with. Even at her most polished, Lehane'd had her rough edges, and as a ghost-turned-zombie-turned-'real girl,' she had been nothing but rough edges.
It was almost entertaining, knocking the Slayer back down to size. She would come at him with the intense Slayer fervor, and Dean simply side-stepped her or stopped her with a blow to the solar plexus – the kidneys – the knees – that left her gasping for air. He figured he'd give it another five minutes, and then knock her unconscious. Maybe he'd even jam the First Blade into her ribs. It would, at the very least, be fun. Maybe even more fun than finally teaching his little brother a lesson.
All in all, everything was turning up Dean. And then that damn redneck militia boy showed up, trying to go all Inigo Montoya on him. Putting the obnoxious bastard – what was his name? Cole? Cody? – back into his place was just distracting enough that he was not prepared for Sammy to whip out a flask of Holy Water, splash it into his face, and slap one of those damn anti-demon cuffs on him while he was wiping the burning liquid out of his eyes.
Looking unreasonably satisfied with herself, the Slayer cold-cocked the militia man on the back of the head, and he fell to the ground. Dean struggled briefly against the manacles, but despite his enhanced strength, the chains refused to budge. With no other good alternatives, the demon allowed his brother and friends to manhandle him across the bar parking lot and into the backseat of the Impala, sandwiching him in between the two vampires.
They smelled. If demons reeked sometimes of sulfur, vampires were worse. They smelled cold and damp, like the inside of a grave. As a human, Dean had never noticed. Now, well, it smelled better than six days ago when Crowley had puked in the back seat of the Chevy – although, given that the King of Hell had just finished eating spaghetti in vodka sauce – well, really just pasta with vodka – that wasn't saying much.
He kept his mouth shut for the first hour of the drive, until Samantha had to go and insist that Dean not instantly killing the Inigo Montoya wannabe had been a sign of kindness. Dean had to set him straight on that one. He explained why giving Cole – Cody – whatever – a chance to avenge his father and then knocking him senseless had been anything but merciful. He finished with, "And what I'm gonna do to you, Sammy . . . well, that ain't gonna be mercy, either."
"You can't convince me, Dean. You're still in there. I know it," insisted his little brother. He gestured to the silver necklace dangling from the rearview mirror. Dean had been too lazy to take it down. "I mean, you still have this."
The demon shrugged. "Oh, sure, Sammy. I salted and burned the hell out of that chick, but I held onto a damn piece of jewelry. Must mean I'm a little innocent angel after all." He snorted. "Hate to break it to you, but the brother you think you're missing ain't coming back no more – and neither is that dead Slayer. One thing I will say for her, though, she was definitely the least obnoxious of all of you."
Buffy twisted around in her seat and scowled at the demon. "Sam," she said coldly, "I think you should let me sort out your brother."
The hunter shook his head, "I would, if I thought it would help any."
"How about you sort him out, then? I could drive for you."
"NO!" said Sam and Dean in unison, the one thing they could still agree on. Spike and Angel echoed the sentiment with even more horror.
"What?" retorted Buffy.
"You can't drive, blondie," snarled Dean. "Not just that this ride's off-limits, but you couldn't drive a Hot Wheels car across a kitchen floor. One of the many other things I learned from Boston girl. She told me an awful lot about you three – Buffy and her two vampire ex-boyfriends. Girl never really had much of a filter when it came to me."
This could be unfortunate, thought Spike to himself. He scooted a half-inch closer to the window in an effort to get himself as far from the demon as possible.
"Can you make him stop?" hissed Buffy to Sam.
"Sorry, no, I can't," the younger Winchester admitted ruefully. "Trust me, I would have shut him up twenty minutes ago."
"Only twenty minutes? You're getting soft, Sammy."
Sam finally lost his patience. "Dude, shut up!"
"Nuh uh," said the demon mulishly. "If I have to deal with all of you, you all have to deal with me. You should have just left me alone. I wasn't bothering you. I wasn't tricking sons of bitches into selling their souls to cross-roads demons – unlike some people in this car," he added meaningfully.
Everyone looked at Sam.
"That was an accident. He wasn't supposed to go through with the deal."
Spike and Angel exchanged uncomfortable looks across the back seat.
Dean laughed. It was not a friendly sound. "What did you think would happen, Sam? You get some idiot all worked up about a kiss and a demon being the answer to all his problems, and what do you think he's gonna do?"
"Why did you kill Faith?" asked Buffy. Since the demon was being so chatty, he might as well chat about something she actually wanted to hear the answer to.
"Sure thing, sweetheart," purred Dean, his tone dripping with venom. "Snapped her neck like a candy cane. She didn't even see it coming."
"I didn't ask how or if you did it. I asked why."
"Why? Cause my brilliant brother here frakked up. 'Cause she was dying anyway, and I ain't never been big on patience. Ain't that right, Sammy?" He allowed the question to dangle in the air.
"Dean – "
"You really shouldn't have done that, little brother. You should've let her be. It wasn't kindness, what you did. You think you're so high and mighty – all of you," he tacked on with a sweeping glance across the Chevy to include all four of them.
The demon went on, "You think you're crusaders of the light, so much better than everyone and everything else around you. But here's the thing – you're just lyin' to yourselves. Dead girl, well . . ." he paused, smiling bitterly, "she knew the truth."
"Which is?" demanded the Slayer tersely.
Dean turned his bitter smile on her. "Monsters, heroes, it's all different flavors of the same thing. At least she was honest enough to see that. You bunch, though, you never stop lying for long enough to get a look at what the truth is."
And having said his piece, the demon clammed up and did not speak for the rest of the drive.
August 8th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 7:50 p.m.
Everything was too cold. Everything ached. Everything hurt. Angry words from familiar voices drifted to her on clouds of gray smoke. Everything was too much.
Faith screamed, and her world exploded back into color. She was standing in the room that the Men of Letters had used as a dungeon, on a dark slate floor back behind a series of heavy metal shelves to mask their less-friendly activities from anyone who should happen to accidentally open the door. Strapped to a hard metal chair with both embossed leather straps and engraved iron chains, the chair centered over a devil's trap etched into the floor, was Dean Winchester. He was rocking back and forth in his chair, and he had sweated clear through his dark red shirt.
Their eyes met, and they looked at one another consideringly. Faith leaned against the wooden table, crossing her arms over her chest in a display of nonchalance, and then she fell halfway through the wood. Dean snorted.
"You look like Hell," she said unironically as she stepped out of the table, glancing down at the emptied, uncapped syringes scattered across the scarred wooden top. To the far right of the syringes were a handful of weapons, including a demon-killing knife and an angel blade. To the far left was a very familiar necklace. Faith lifted it from the table and slipped it over her neck. A feeling of increased clarity swept over her. She had not died in the bunker, but the year and change spent wandering through its labyrinthine hallways meant that she was stronger here.
"And you look better without all the demon snot."
"Oh, it's gone?" The Slayer craned her neck downwards. Sure enough, no green Fyarl demon goop, not on her hands, not in her hair, not on her jacket. Her clothes were different, too. Now she was wearing the jeans and the tank top that he had burned her in. "Huh, I hadn't noticed."
"Out of curiosity, just how much does it take for a ghost to, you know, die around here?"
Faith picked up one of the syringes off of the table. "Wondered the same thing myself." She poked the needle into the tip of one translucent finger. "Hmm. That doesn't hurt." Satisfied, she dropped the syringe back among its fellows.
"Where you been, Slayer? Thought you'd move on with all that damn salt and fire." By Dean's calculations, he had another half hour before Sam returned for the round of priest-blessed blood injections. He could afford a little small talk.
The ghost shook her head. "No such luck – I appreciate the gesture, though. Turns out Heaven's closed, and that deal you made with Crowley to keep me out of Hell still stands. It's just me and the Veil, unless I can find the energy to show up here." She jutted her chin out towards the devil's trap and the engraved handcuffs. "Those really work on you?"
"Not for too much longer," said Dean. He was soaked through with perspiration, and every shot of that damned human blood into his veins burned like hellfire, but the more human he became, the less the bonding held. After the next injection, or maybe the one after, he figured he would be able to spring himself loose. "You missed the most fun road trip ever on the way back here."
"Did I?" asked Faith without too much curiosity.
It wasn't worth lying about. "No. Not really. Me, Sam, Buffy, her star-crossed exes."
"Sounds like quite the party. Wouldn't've been room for me."
"You're always welcome to sit on my lap." Dean leered at her.
"I'll pass, thanks." The Slayer frowned in thought, twirling an angel blade in her hands, then said, "I want to make a deal."
"I'm listening."
"If I help you out here – let you off the leash – could you do one thing for me?"
"Depends. What do you want?"
Faith crossed into the devil's trap and dropped the cross into the demon's hand. "I want you to destroy this," she hissed, and the temperature in the room plummeted. "Melt it down, crush the stone to powder, I don't care what it takes. Destroy it."
The demon raised an eyebrow. "You like hanging out in the Veil that much?"
"I want to be done, Dean. If you can get me that, I'll let you out of here."
He searched the dark eyes, almost imagining that he could see stars in the depths of the empty pupils. Dean didn't bother asking if he could trust her. He knew he could. "Okay, then. Hop to it – before my dear brother gets back."
Nodding, Faith reached down and scratched out the paint-filled lines of the devil's trap with her angel blade. Then she pulled a ghostly bobby pin out of her hair and twisted it into the spelled handcuffs. The manacles fell open with a soft clank, and the ghost stepped backwards.
Dean shoved the necklace into his front pocket, grabbed a wicked-looking knife off of the table and rushed to the door.
"You gonna hold up your side of the bargain?" called Faith after him, sounding almost mournful.
The demon flashed her a chilling smile over his shoulder. "For you, sweetheart, always. Just got a few loose ends to tie up, first."
One of the metal shelving units scraped across the floor, instantly blocking his way. Dean staggered to a halt just before smashing his nose into a rusting steel shelf. He turned back to look at the ghost. "Careful," he warned lightly, almost teasingly. "That's close to poltergeist behavior."
"I know," said Faith, and cracks ran up the legs of the wooden work table. The other shelving units whined and creaked as the metal protested.
Dean raised his eyebrows, impressed in spite of himself. "Nice work. How pissed off are you about this whole ghost thing, exactly?"
"Very," growled the dead woman through gritted teeth.
"Huh." He could easily duck through the gaps in the shelving, but a new idea had struck him. "You hear me mention that part about how Buffy's here?"
"What are you trying to do, Winchester?"
"Maybe nothing. Maybe something. It all depends on you."
The ghost snorted. "Don't it always. Do this, Faith; do that, Faith. Killing's wrong, Faith. Except when it's the guy who shot our beloved Tara. Then it's okay. Then it's okay to flay people alive. It ain't the killing that's wrong, you know," she commented sourly. "Not really. Not in her mind. It's me."
"You feelin' ready to give some of that back to her?" Dean could handle his brother, a Slayer, and two vampires on his own, but Zombie girl tended to make confrontations more . . . fun.
The metal shelves zoomed back into their original positions. "You know what?" mused the ghost. "Maybe I am."
She followed after him, the icy wind at his back, an ever-constant presence hovering at his six. Dean moved easily through the silent bunker, the angel blade that Faith had lifted held loosely in his grip. Four. There were four of them between him and a way out, four people who were in desperate need of their comeuppance.
The demon smiled grimly. He was looking forward to seeing Little Miss Dead Girl, halfway to poltergeist as she was, help out with that.
"I'm grabbing a beer," he called back softly over his shoulder to the ghost as they entered the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he popped the top on a twelve-ounce can and began chugging like there was no tomorrow. "You thirsty?"
"Always," mourned the Slayer in a hollow voice that was filled with the howling of the wind.
Changing the subject, the demon said conversationally, "I'm not a huge fan of these walls."
Faith did not answer, although the tile was more than a little dated.
"Think it's time we paint them red?" Dean finished.
The ghost rolled her eyes. "Melodramatic, much?"
"Not my best line?"
"Not even close."
"Can't argue with that. Come on, Slayer."
"Use my damn name, Dean," snapped Faith.
"Or?"
"Or this – " She jerked a chair into his path and knocked him off balance. His shins collided painfully with the wood, and he stumbled forwards.
"Bitch."
"Drama queen. Didn't you have a score to settle? Let's move."
They stalked quietly through the hallways, creeping from corner to corner, and then the whole bunker went dark. Dean grinned. "They're in the machine room. Only place you can control all the lights. He's probably triggered the emergency locks on the doors, too."
Faith faded from view, but he could still feel her, cold and furious, over his right shoulder. When she spoke, it was a mere whisper drifting into and out of his ear. "Lead on."
Dean had hunted over a thousand things since that long-ago day when John had taken Daddy's little blunt instrument and put a shotgun in his hands. He had never hunted his brother before. The novelty was rather entertaining.
He traced Sam's movements, step by step, until he reached the machine room, the chill of the Slayer close at his heels. It was empty. Dean slipped the angel blade into the back of his belt and reached for a heavy axe lying on the floor. He ran his thumb along the edge. Blunt. Perfect.
"Dean –" started Faith in a warning tone.
The door slammed shut behind them with a painful, infinite finality. There came the thud of wood banging down across the door as a bar swung into place.
"Gonna try to lock me in, is he?" muttered the demon in amusement. His grin widened. "Huff and puff and blow the house down, would you, Faith?"
The ghost closed her eyes, scrunching them tight, and then she opened them. The door shattered into a thousand flying splinters, spraying their welcome party in their faces.
Angel and Spike darted backwards. Shards of wood traveling at high velocity were not healthy for vampires. Buffy went pale at the sight of an almost transparent Faith Lehane. Sam merely shook his head. Honestly, at this point, he wasn't even that surprised, anymore.
"Faith?" gasped the older Slayer. "You're – "
"Oh, shut up," grumbled Faith. She opened her palm and twisted, sending Buffy five feet through the air to slam against the nearest wall. The blonde's head struck the tile with a sharp crack, and she slid down to the concrete floor. Only now did the blood drain out of Sam's face.
"Dean – " he hollered at the same time that Spike snarled, "Faith – " and darted forwards.
"You got the fangs?" hissed the demon under his breath.
"Yeah."
A furious wind swept across the room, sending a second wave of splinters zooming at the vampires.
"Good," said Dean. "I'll get Sammy." He advanced on the hunter. "See, here's the thing I realized, little bro. Back when I – well, back when I cared about all this sh-t, I thought I could count on two people – you and her." The demon jerked his head towards Faith. "Funny thing is, I can't count on you. Honestly, I'm not sure if I ever could. But I can count on her."
"Dean – "
"I warned you, Sammy. I warned you several times. Now, you're going to have to pay up."
The demon advanced on his younger brother, axe brandished high. He was laughing. Maybe this was how Cain had felt, when he sent Abel upstairs to meet his maker. Little brothers – G-d, they were overrated. He rounded the corner, ready to embed his axe in the center of his brother's sternum. Then he heard a noise behind him, and he whirled. Somehow, Sam had doubled back.
The hunter slipped between the unceasing rain of splinters and the vampires, making his way across the concrete to the unconscious Slayer. He locked his arms under Buffy's arms and began to drag her to safety.
Grinning, Dean advanced. This was far too easy.
Suddenly, arms of adamant wrapped around him from behind, holding him still with superhuman strength.
"It's over, Dean," said the gravel voice of Castiel in his ear. "It's over."
Dammit. When had the blasted angel gotten here? Furious, the demon bellowed a half-formed imprecation and threw his weight forward and backwards, struggling against Castiel's embrace. His eyes flared to black, and his gaze flashed across the hall to stare into a transparent face. The ghost advanced forward, hands outstretched, and the rain of wooden splinters intensified. The walls around them groaned, and the tile on either side of Faith cracked all to pieces.
Sam ran forward, pulling a syringe of blood out of his pocket, which he then jammed into the side of his brother's neck. Buffy groaned as she regained consciousness. Black eyes faded to green. With a quick tilt of her head, the dead woman vanished, leaving Dean alone in the epicenter of a sh-tstorm.
August 9th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 8:30 p.m.
His mind was panicked, alternatively racing and frozen, and he had been buffeted by a swarm of unforgiving emotions until he finally shut it all down, forcing himself into a detached numbness. Tomorrow. He could process things tomorrow.
Someone knocked on his bedroom door, and Dean said merely, "Come in."
It was Castiel. They spoke for a few minutes, mostly of apologies and Sam and if he had been able to heal Buffy's concussion. Finally, as the angel made to leave the room, the hunter cleared his throat. "Cass?"
"Yes, Dean?"
"I know . . ." He swallowed. "I know I have no right to ask it of you, but would you be willing to do one more thing for me?"
Sounding concerned, Castiel asked, "What do you need? Sam said he would pick you up some food – and some pie."
"You aren't going to like it." The hunter glanced away nervously.
"None of us have much liked anyone else's decisions recently," said Castiel in a sentence that made quite the muddle of things.
Somehow, Dean still managed to understand him. "Cass, it's a pretty big favor. You don't have to do it, if you don't want to."
The angel stared at him for a long moment, his blue eyes narrowed in concentration. At length, he said, "Tell me, Dean. What do you need?"
His second visitor was . . . somewhat less congenial. Five minutes after Castiel left, the Slayer arrived. She knocked on the door and waited for his response before entering, and the look she gave him was somewhat more abashed than usual.
Buffy paused, observing the man in front of her. She had so many questions, most of them along the lines of "Why did you – ?" or "How could you – ?" But she asked none of them. She merely watched the man, pale and sweating and looking like he had been hit by a train. His hands were clenched over his knees, and Buffy wondered if that was to keep them from shaking. On his way out the door on a supply run for fried food and alcohol, Sam had compared the demon cure to withdrawal, and now she wondered if this was how Willow had felt when she tried to quit magic.
"Good to have you back, Dean," she finally said.
"Good to be back," answered the hunter woodenly, his face an expressionless mask.
"I spoke with Castiel. He explained a little more about what happened . . . to Faith."
"I'm sorry about that. About what I did to her." A muscle pulsed in the man's cheek, and he looked away, unable to meet the Slayer's too-sympathetic eyes.
"I'm sure you are," said Buffy. "I wish you'd called me."
"Mmm?" It was the most neutral response that he could think of.
"When Faith showed up. When your brother was dying. When you needed to take down a Knight of Hell. When your prophet was killed. When you felt like you had no choice but to take on the Mark of Cain." Her voice became more impassioned with every sentence. "I could have – we could have helped you."
There went the muscle again, twitching in his cheek. Buffy waited for the hunter to reply, knowing that he was already backed against a wall, and that she did not want to push him any further up against the metaphorical brick.
For his part, Dean struggled to answer her. He had never been much good at needing help – mostly because there weren't too many people who were there to help when he needed it. He had trusted the one Slayer, trust that had been earned and grown over long days in his Chevy and long nights in any one of a hundred cemeteries scattered here and there across the lower forty-eight. Buffy, as well-meaning and competent as she might be, had yet to earn that trust. It did not help that all of Faith's distrust and skepticism of the Slayer organization had been passed on to him.
"I appreciate that," he said after a long, awkward moment that seemed to last forever.
"I know . . . I know that we aren't Faith, but we are here, Dean. If you need us."
"Thanks," said Dean, wishing this conversation would just come to an end.
To the man's great relief, Buffy sensed the unstated dismissal and with another sad, confused look, she walked away.
A little later, Spike and Angel dropped by independently of one another, with nary a word spoken. The former handed him a flask of bourbon and a burner phone, and the second returned the cross necklace that had been taken away from him after the last incident in the hallway. Dean appreciated their silence – it was one of their best qualities, frankly. And right now, with everything raw and stinging and painful again, after the blissful lack of caring that accompanied being a demon, Dean could use more than a little silence.
But even then, that wasn't enough. Dean felt the pressure building up inside his head, the pressure to fix things. Voices in the back of his mind were clamoring that this could never be fixed, and so after two quick nips of bourbon, he knew it was time to call Faith's girls. He knew they were back in Cleveland, that Buffy had sent them home without giving them any choice in the matter, but he also knew that he needed to apologize. G-d – did he need to apologize. After staring at his new cell phone for another endless moment, he finally punched in Becka's number.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Becks. It's, uh, it's Dean."
There was an uncomfortable silence before she said, ". . . Hi. Buffy already called."
Dean winced. He did not want to speculate about what the Slayer-in-chief had told them. "Is Lily there? There's something I need to say to both of you."
"She's downstairs. Let me go get her."
Neither of them spoke as the brunette Slayer tromped along the hallway and down the stairs to the kitchen of the townhouse. Dean could hear her footsteps sinking heavily into each of the steps, and his anxiety grew with every clodding footfall.
"Lil – phone's for us."
A stool scraped against tile somewhere in the background. "Is that Buffy again?" came Lily's muffled voice.
"No. It's Dean."
"Put him on speaker, then."
"Hi, Lily."
"Hey, Dean." Her voice was marginally less unfriendly than her best friend's. "How you holding up?"
"I'm . . . Buffy told me that you two were there, back at the gas station. I'm sorry you had to see that."
Becka hissed softly through her teeth, but Lily, undaunted, said, "Was she dead before you set that fire?"
"Yes."
"Why did you do it?"
"She was dying – resurrection spell stopped working. I . . . I didn't want her to suffer."
"You telling me that the demon version of you was really that concerned with her suffering?" demanded Becka sharply.
"Beck," cut in Lily. "Does it really matter? Whatever his reasons, I'm – I'm glad that she didn't suffer."
"I can't . . ." the brunette huffed, angrily and exhausted. "I can't do this, Dean. I'm sorry. Everything's just too present right now."
"I get it," said Dean, striving for unaffected. "I'll let you go. Take care, Becka. You too, Lily."
"The wedding's August first," Becka reminded him abruptly. "You'll be there?"
Confused, he started, "Beck – "
"No, sorry, let me rephrase that. I shouldn't have made it a question. You'll be there," said the engineer firmly. "Sam will be there. And you'll show up the night before the wedding, and we'll have a couple of drinks in honor of Faith, and I'll hug you and forgive you for everything, okay?"
"Becka – "
"Don't you dare try to miss my wedding," hissed the Slayer. "Or I'll come down to Kansas myself and make you regret it."
"All right," the hunter admitted defeat. "August first. We'll be there."
"Good."
"Be safe, Dean," added Lily. "We really are glad you're back. Even if we're having a hard time with this."
"I'm sorry," Dean apologized for what felt like the thousandth time. He just wished that 'sorry' meant something these days.
August 9th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 11:00 p.m.
He was so damn tired of the apology tour. And there was one last stop – well, two, really, but he had to wait until Sam got back from his lengthy grocery shopping trip for the very last one. While his baby-sitters were cooking up something in the kitchen, Dean snuck out of his room and padded softly down the hallway to one of the many work rooms in the bunker. He gathered his supplies together, dreading the apologies that would soon be demanded of him.
After his preparations were completed, he tossed a lit match into a copper brazier and waited for her to appear. It did not take long.
"Hey," said Faith. The ghost's eyes darted across the room, taking in the brazier with the warming pan inside it, and the necklace dangling a few inches over the fire before finally settling on his face. Realizing that he was going to keep his promise, she smiled, one of those tired smiles that still somehow managed to reach her eyes, and hazarded quietly, "Showtime?"
Dean sighed. Better to get this part over with sooner rather than later. "I'm sorr – "
The Slayer interrupted him instantly. "Skip it."
Well. He guessed that made things a little easier. The man cleared his throat. "I talked to Castiel. After the whole Metatron fiasco and everything else, he made friends with this angel called Hannah. She's got a bit more pull upstairs than I'd've figured. Anyway, Hannah talked to her people this evening. Had to do a little arm twisting, but end result is that they've got one of the penthouse suites up there with your name on it."
"Not sure that I'm exactly Heaven-material here."
"You are." The hunter paused, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep from fidgeting. "There's something else you need to know."
Faith raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" The promise of an ending, a real ending, made control far simpler than she had anticipated. She could keep it together for a few minutes more. It was almost over.
"When you get bored with that penthouse – which we both know you will," he added before she could interject, "follow the road."
Her other eyebrow climbed up to join the first. "The road?"
"The Axis Mundi," Dean clarified. "It's a road that leads through Heaven to the Garden at the center."
"What would I want to do with a garden? Dude, you know me. I've got like two black thumbs."
"There's a guy – Ash. That time that Sam and I got dragged up there, turns out Ash'd figured out how to game the rules, travel around the place. He'd built this set-up to look like a heavenly version of Harvelle's Roadhouse. If you find the Axis Mundi, Ash'll find you. And then he can show you how to find whoever you want – Bobby, Wes, your first Watcher, your mom – "
"My mom won't be in Heaven," Faith said derisively. "Yours might, but mine sure as hell won't."
He shrugged. "Well, if you see my mom, tell her 'hi' for me."
"Will do." The ghost stuck her hands into the pockets of her spectral jeans. "So . . ." she nodded towards the cross necklace still gripped in his fist. "We gonna do this, or what?"
Dean stared at her for a long minute, saying nothing. He hated being vulnerable, hated needing others, but Dean would have been lying if he did not admit that he needed her. Had always needed her, had needed her for so long that the thought of losing her again made him want to retch. Life had been so, so much easier as a demon.
"Talk to me," the Slayer urged when he made no move to open his mouth.
"I wish I'd been me. Before," he admitted, feeling a fresh wave of guilt.
Faith cocked her head to one side. "Yeah?"
"We'd've raised Hell," said Dean.
The Slayer chuckled. "I think we kind of did anyway."
Not much that he could say to that, other than, "Touché."
Taking half a step forward, the ghost announced, "I feel bad, leaving you with all this sh-t."
Dean laughed without humor. It was a jagged sound that scraped and cut at his already bleeding insides. "Oh, darlin'. There's always sh-t."
"See?" Faith smiled, a gesture more filled with sorrow than mirth. Momentarily, she was tempted to touch him. "There he is, my knight in flaming armor."
"I swear, if you were corporeal right now, I would smack you for that."
This time, her smile was actually amused. "Come on, Dean. Didn't your daddy teach you never to hit women?"
"Not ghost women."
"Fair point." The Slayer exhaled. "But, cut the crap for a second here, Winchester, will you really be okay?"
"Seriously? After everything that I did to you – not least of which is keeping you here – and you're asking me if I'm okay?"
"I could have left, if I'd really wanted to," the Slayer reminded him. "Don't try to take credit for what I did."
He looked away. "I should have done better. Should have been better."
"I think we did the best that we could." Faith watched the hunter for a long moment and then sighed. "This is never going to be easy, is it? You and me, saying goodbye?"
"No." Dean shook his head. "I don't think it is."
"Well, we need to finish up this little song and dance, 'cause I haven't had the penthouse suite since my adventures with the Mayor back in SunnyD. Kinda curious to see what the do-gooder version looks like."
"Right." Dean blinked hastily, then he looked away from her and dropped the cross into the brazier. "Should take it about ninety seconds to melt," he informed her. "I timed it earlier with some bullets."
"Great." But for the first time, her voice wavered. "This Axis Mundi thing – you're sure it'll help me find this buddy of yours with all the cheat codes to the Happy Hunting Ground in the sky?"
"Ash'll get you sorted. Hell, he might even find you first."
"Hope so." The Slayer hesitated for a long moment, then she slowly walked around her side of the brazier, keeping her distance from the fire, until she stood merely a foot away from Dean.
He met her eyes, and for once that distant, unearthly gaze was focused solidly on him. Not fixed too close or too far. Just focused directly on him.
"Time's up," said the ghost quietly as her outline began to fade away. She looked down towards the fire.
"Faith?"
"Huh?" She glanced up from the smoldering coals.
The words caught in his throat, but he forced them out anyway. "You should know. I – I loved you, too."
Her gaze softening, Faith grinned. "Look after yourself, Dean."
Much as he wanted to look away, Dean could not glance down, even as undesired moisture began to burn behind his eyes. "What?" he joked feebly. "Like you won't figure a way to keep watching out for me?"
The only response was a faint sound of ghostly laughter and the cool pressure of a pair of insubstantial lips against his cheek, and then she was finally, finally gone.
It was perhaps thirty minutes later when Sam found him, still in that old workroom, the air filled with the slight tang of molten silver, blue green dust scattered all across the floor. Dean sat in the corner, his arms around his knees, his head tilted back against the wall. Sam knew from one glance at his brother's face that he had been crying.
The hunter crouched down beside his older brother and gently set the grease-stained paper bag in his left hand on the floor. It contained a burger, fries, a pie of apple pie in a clear plastic container – a peace offering to start patching up all the cracks. "Dean?"
His brother looked up, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. He stared down at his boots. "I'm sorry, Sammy," he said quietly, his voice still wet, as if there were more tears yet to come. "I should have told you."
Glancing around the room, it didn't take much for Sam to guess where his mind was headed. "About Faith?" he surmised.
"Yeah." Dean exhaled heavily, and he wiped at the skin below his eyes. "You and me," he said hurriedly, desperate to explain and even more desperate to have the explanation finished and over with. "We lose people all the time – hell, the road behind us is practically the freaking Dead Marshes. Mom, Dad, Bobby, Caleb, Pastor Jimmy, Jo, Ellen, Jess, Benny . . . I thought I was used to it, Sammy. I thought I could handle it. I just never thought I'd lose her, you know?"
He turned his head away to stare at the wall. In a voice that threatened to implode from tension, he went on, "I could lose everyone else and feel like my guts were bleeding out, but as long as I had her, I could get through it. Don't know why. So after I lost her, I just couldn't cope. And when she turned up, G-d help me, I didn't have the strength to send her on. I couldn't lose her again. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd melt the damn necklace, and it felt like one of those things we needed to keep between us. There was . . . there was a lot of that, I guess. A lot of stuff we kept between her and me."
"It's okay," said Sam slowly. He wished – he wished that he could do something – anything more. But there was no solving this. There was no bringing the Slayer back. He had tried that, and it had ended terribly. "I get it," he lied, although he still wished his brother had told him. "You and Faith, you were always kind of your own special thing. Did you . . . ?"
Dean gestured to the still-smoking brazier in the center of the room. After that uncharacteristic explosion of emotion, he was already drawing back into himself. "Necklace is melted, turquoise is crushed. Ka-blooey."
"Okay," repeated Sam. Nothing was okay today, but he had Dean back, and that had to count for something. "Here." He pushed the white paper bag along the floor to his brother. "Got you some dinner. Fork's in the bag. There's, uh, beer in the kitchen when you're ready."
"Thanks. I'll be along in a minute."
"I'm – I'm glad you're home, Dean." Sam clasped his brother on the shoulder, squeezing tight for a moment, and then he left.
Leaning his head back against the wall, the man stared at the silver liquid in the brazier and the scattered turquoise powder. He would be fine. He would be fine. He just needed a minute.
The Mark on his arm flared hungrily, and the hunter choked back a note of hysteria. Who the hell was he trying to kid? He wasn't fine. He hadn't been fine in a long time – and he didn't think he would be again. Not for a long, long while.
Dean closed his eyes and tried to remember her: her face, her voice, the way her skin felt next to his. But try as he might, all he could feel was cold. She wasn't coming back. Not again. Not anymore. He had to let go – and he would. But first, he needed a minute.