This is all familiar to the red-headed hunter. It's her version of The Red Scare, the videogame she had stolen and reprogrammed when she was twelve. It's what is now a pretty standard first-person shooter game. Her versus super-Nazi soldier vampires.
The difference is that the Nazi's are trying to break into her mother's hospital room. Charlie hadn't told any one about her mother, about her being on life support for sixteen years. About the accident that caused it and killed her father being her fault.
In the few quiet moments, when she stops to let her heart rate and adrenaline levels drop closer to normal, Charlie racks her memory. She was spying on The Shawnee County Coroner's house. Hiding in the bushes without her partner because, well, because Henry is overbearingly paternalistic and patronizing. All that 1950s shit. Charlie was outside Jennifer O'Brien's house. A teenaged boy was inside.
Then she was here, armed and fighting off super-soldiers.
Yeah, something isn't right.
SupernaturalSupernaturalSupernaturalSupernatural
Six bloody human bodies are tossed around the warehouse floor, whatever had animated them in life long gone. The furious activity of the fight over and now a deafening silence has blanketed the room. Dean hurts. Inside and out. The effects of the Trials leaving him about as useful as a screen door on a submarine, as his father used to say.
Limbs as sturdy as wet noodles, Dean pushes himself upright by sheer willpower. Guess still being here makes him the clean-up crew. He finds some tarps piled in the corner, does a quick count of bodies. He takes one though for he and Castiel to drag the bodies toward the center of the room. First the bodies of the former military men, followed by Crowley's crumpled form, as Dean takes time to roll them into tarps.
"I don't understand. Why are we treating these bodies with such respect?" Castiel's voice sounds dragged out of him, past a throat dry and cracked. Naomi has taken his Grace and left him in this body, and things hurt. His feet, his shoulder from the fight. He's tired too, and a bit in shock. He had wrapped a large white handkerchief around his neck, but he wonders if he'll need stitches.
Dean's fingers, warm and slightly trembling check Castiel's bandage and grunts approval. Dean motions for Castiel to help move Gadreel. The big man is almost too much for the exhausted hunter and former angel. Dean smooths down Gadreel's hair, zips his jacket and crosses his arms across his chest before rolling him into a tarp, and Castiel thinks maybe in his movements are the answer. The people inside these rolls of material were not at fault, but the former angel can also tell that Dean is blaming himself.
The hunter bends down to pick up Meg, trying not to remember all the terrible things the demon had done. Not now. Right now he's thinking of how she had stood bravely facing down angels, protecting him. She looks so abused and broken, her hair incongruously bleached. He straightens just long enough to hand her off to Castiel who carries her easily and prepares her body.
Left for last, earning a place of honor on a Hunter's pyre, his grandfather, Henry Winchester. Dean gently closes Henry's eyes before picking him up and moving over next to where Castiel is still working. Castiel is surprised to hear Dean whispering, a cross between an apology and a prayer that Henry finds peace in the afterlife.
"Tell my Dad, I say hey." Tears streak down his face. "Tell him, tell him, I'll see him soon, but not too soon. Sorry I was a disappointment." The hunter wipes his face and takes a shuttering breath. "Cas, we need to drag all these wooden crates over here. I need some kerosene too. Maybe you could go look for some. We need to, to get rid of the evidence before some poor schlub of a cop has to figure out what to arrest us for." He scrubs at his face again, making it match his reddened eyes.
When Castiel comes back into the room with a stoppered bottle of kerosene, Dean has broken all the wooden items into smaller pieces hiding the bodies inside. He takes the bottle and splashes it around, tossing the emptied container on top. Then he lights his lighter and holds it to a book of matches, making sure they all flare up before tossing it onto the kerosene soaked wood and turning away.
As they walk out of the old warehouse, two limping figures, Dean turns to the dark-haired man and points out that Henry was supposed to be in Topeka, partnering with Charlie. "We need to get a car and get going. I've got a bad feeling about this."
SupernaturalSupernaturalSupernaturalSupernatural
Sam didn't lose much time when he dropped off Kevin. He had raided the money stash in the Impala's trunk to give the Prophet $500, remembering plenty of times before the guys went to work for the government where he would not have been able to be so generous. Kevin shoved his cell phone into Sam's hands, turning away into the terminal without looking back.
Sam sees it as symbolic. He had turned his back on Kevin before. "Good luck." Sam calls out but he can't even tell if Kevin heard him.
Over the nine hundred miles of highway between Santa Fe and Topeka, Sam tries to reach out to Henry and Charlie, getting no response. He tries to call his brother, but stops when a phone in the glove box rings. Stopping only for coffee and gasoline, Sam makes the drive far faster than he should have been able to in the classic car - Eleven hours. The exhaustion his body always feels since he did the second trial tries to pull him under into sleep, despite the sun rising, but Sam remembers the system he and his brother have, and books a hotel room where Dean will be able to find him.
Four hours. He needs at least four hours before he can pretend to be someone else. Sam hopes he is not going to be too late.
When he wakes up to his cell phone alarm chirping, Sam stretches. Turning his head this way and that to loosen the tight muscles, he spots Dean flopped face first, fully clothed, on the other bed sleeping. More surprisingly, Sam sees Castiel stretched out with his feet hanging off the dilapidated sofa against the far wall. There's a story there, but it will wait. Sam shuffles into the bathroom and closes the door quietly.
When Sam comes back into the room, both Castiel and Dean are sitting up, but neither looks like it will last long. "Saw the car," Dean starts, his voice still heavy from sleep. "Let ourselves in."
Sam slumps down across from his brother, his eyes raking over the blood and soot on his brother. Dean is so pale that freckles usually only seen in the summer are standing out in sharp relief on his face. "Where's everyone?"
Dean haltingly tells him the story of Lucifer's Crypt, the fight, the deaths, gaining and losing the tablet, Naomi stealing Castiel's Grace. Metatron's cowardice.
"So Henry?" Sam can't stop himself from saying. "Gadreel? Meg?" Dean bites his lip, eyes not reaching his brother as he shakes his head.
"I gave them a Hunter's funeral." The older brother shrugs, "Couldn't think what else to do."
"Where's Kevin?" Castiel asks from across the room.
Sam clears his throat. "Alive. But he…he decided he doesn't want anything else to do with us." He barely can meet his brother's eyes. "I gave him money. Dropped him off at the bus station." He digs into his coat pocket at the end of the bed, pulling out a cell phone. He tosses it to Dean. "Didn't want to keep in touch."
Dean turns it over in his hands, tucks it into his pocket. "His choice." He adds flatly then changes the subject. "So where's Charlie?"
Sam explains about the text message. How he needed rest before heading over to check out the coroner. "I say we confront her in her office." Sam finishes.
Dean shrugs. "I trust Charlie's instincts. I say we tail Jennifer O'Brien. See where she leads us." He turns to Cas. "Want to weigh in here?"
"I will go with you, but I don't know how much good I'll do. I'm not very useful right now." Castiel's face twists as he tries to hold back tears. He burrows his head into his hands.
Sam stands as though to go to him, but just wrings his hands. Dean walks past his brother to rest a hand on the former angel's shoulder. "This ain't the worst off we've ever been. And right about now I think we're all questioning our ability, but we're all we've got; we're all Charlie's got. So let's go figure this out."
Following O'Brien leads to an old warehouse where she walks in with a boy, and Dean snorts. It's always some old warehouse. The three men stock their pockets with Djinn antidote and silver knives coated with lambs' blood.
Sam and Castiel confront the Djinn mother and child while Dean finds Charlie and doses her with antidote. It doesn't work.
"What do we do now?" Castiel asks, helping Dean positions the petite Hunter in his arms to carry her out to the Impala while tonight Sam does the honors of burning down another warehouse to dispose of bodies and hide the evidence.
"We'll figure it out. We always do." Dean sighs. After Sam gets into the car they head to a different hotel and rent adjoining rooms. Sam powers up his laptop and starts going through the database Charlie created of the lore of the Men of Letters. While his brother researches, Dean turns on the television, expecting to see news of the fire.
The news reporter is talking about a National tragedy instead. It seems a historic old building on Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska has exploded. Unknown number of deaths, but confirmed that everyone who worked in the building has perished. A Senator Shirley Martin is on the broadcast talking about how she had been investigating what may have been an off the books agency of Homeland Security. Dean and Sam Mossberg are both listed as confirmed dead.
Castiel shakes his head. "Naomi is cleaning up her mess."
Dean shrugs. "Yeah, well, rumors of my death and all. Could be worse." He rubs his palm across his stubble, thinking beards might help disguise them, not that any body's looking if they've been declared dead again.
They sit watching the newscast some more, but an empty warehouse outside Topeka catching fire doesn't make the show. Dean wonders if the agencies in Kansas and Missouri will ever compare notes on the warehouses.
"Hey, get this." Sounds from across the room and they wander over to join Sam. "I'm not positive, but I think Djinn are basically making you sleep, feeding off your feelings from the dreams. I think, maybe, one of us can reach her if we use African Dream Root."
Dean loses in rock, peper, scissors, and Castiel wonders if he did it on purpose. It doesn't matter because it doesn't take long after downing the tea that he helps Charlie break out of her fear-ladened dream. Dean draws her into his arms and lets her cry until she's cried out.
The next morning, none of the guys are surprised whe Charlie says she has had enough. Goodbyes are leaving them numb.
"What's next, Dean." Sam asks quietly as they load everything back into the Impala so they can head back to the Bunker.
"Now we rest, Sammy. We get strong again. Then we figure out what to do about Abaddon in Hell, and Naomi or Metatron in Heaven. We figure out how to be civilians again, and we teach Cas about being human." Dean three men pile into the old car and head West.
"Sometimes all we can do is live to fight another day."
Sam glances across the old car's bench seat. "Sounds good, man. Sounds good."