**Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Here's the next chapter of Eve's story! :) **

Chapter Twenty-five:

The three of us were sat in a triangle around the thickset dwarfish coffee table in the middle of the room. We were field stripping our firearms and cleaning them into flawlessness under the illumination of the two sixty-watt floor lamps on either side of Sam and I on the couch.

We'd been at this for a while—starting first with the load of shotguns and then wrapping up with our handguns, which we were doing now. A tense silence had already settled over us like unwieldy, stiff-jointed armor and I aimed to keep it that way. I did not trust my mouth to come up with the right words, even if I permitted it release. I'd only ignite the fuse in a room cushioned with a deadly cloud of carbon monoxide. Dean being the carbon monoxide.

He was sitting across from Sam and I in a wooden chair, his knees against the trim of the gnarled wooden table. As he was going through the motions, habitually checking off all the boxes, it was transparent to see he was looking inward, trapped in the braiding of his problem solving network. Dean was mulling over something, something serious, for a long time. And he hadn't been this way for just today either.

Sam was the same way, though he sat father back in his seat so his legs didn't touch the table. When Dean put his cleaning rod on the table, Sam snapped it up and shoved it down the barrel of his pistol. I sensed Sam sneak a look at me, checking over my routine to make sure I was doing it right (even though he knew I was). He considered my face a moment before furrowing his brow and returning to his gun. He evaded the urge to speak up, though it was so painstakingly obvious that something was gnawing at him.

Finally discarding the cleaning rod after a finished job, Sam passed it to me. I took it and slid the brush-tipped end into my semiautomatic, ever still guarded with a mask of indifference despite the poison-tipped sea urchin of circumstance puncturing and tearing me inside-out.

The time was approximately one a.m.—I failed to recall the time I arrived a year ago—and I couldn't bother with myself to hit the pillow. None of us did. We were too rigid. Our nerves, all seven trillion of them, were alert and far too sensitive for the bruising they would soon sponge up.

None of us would be likely to admit it but what set us in this rubik cube of tension and premeditated sorrow was the fact that we were silently preparing for goodbye. Could words be attributable to a suitable farewell?

Dean checked his watch and then dropped his weapon on the table, making a stunted knock on the wood; no doubt adding another notch into the grain. Then he stood up and went into the bathroom at the back of the motel room. Dean pulled the door closed, eyes and jaw set in a dangerous niche. The lock clicked in place.

Sam leaned back, throwing an arm across the top of the couch. He looked far away when he cleared his throat, toying with the reassembled pistol in his hand, bouncing it lightly in his palm. Sam regarded the gun blankly for a span of time before I followed his gaze down the side of the pistol and landed on my duffel bag on the floor next to the bed. He looked through it like an x-ray and then glanced at me. Sam gave me a smile.

It was grievous and mourning, straight through me—as if I had already been taken. As if I was no longer there.

Finally giving into the ache grounded in my bones, I leaned forward and curled myself up to Sammy, tucking my legs under me and resting my head on his shoulder. I sat like this, staring quietly at the red fluffy rug covering the breadth of the room.

Only five minutes later, the sound of flapping wings met the room. Normally I'd be elated to hear that sound, because it meant Castiel was to immediately follow. Now it was a pang to my chest. It was the executioner coming down from the gallows to collect their next decorative tassel.

Sam stood up, a little wind-up toy with a compressed spring and ready to march and bash his cymbals together. He placed himself unconsciously in front of me, shielding me from Cas. "Cas," he breathed, realizing how unprepared he really was for this moment.

"Sam," Castiel nodded slightly, "It's time."

I swallowed, getting to my feet. I rubbed the sides of my thighs in my endeavor to distract me from the air rattling in my lungs and the knots strangling my heart.

"Hi Cas," I said, the words passing in tune with my exhale. I stood next to Sam now.

Blue eyes tied on me, he nodded again, his whole body tipping forward with his head. His coat swayed as he stepped forward.

Sam instinctively advanced to match Cas' movements and keep the angel away from me—a brother protecting his loved one.

"Wait." I put a hand out.

Castiel met my eyes. Sam kept his gaze locked on him, poised to safeguard.

"Let me say goodbye to all of you first," I said, knowing if I didn't say something quick, Sam would act.

When Castiel obliged, "Very well." Sam relaxed only an ounce, taking half a step backward.

The bathroom door opened. "Cas."

We all turn to see Dean in the doorway, holding the knob of the door close to his side.

Suddenly, Cas' face contorted, his eyes wild. Caught by surprise, he threw an arm over his head to defend himself, an indiscernible shout stifled from his shock. At the same time, Dean threw open the door all the way and slammed his hand on the angel banishing sigil.

The room was instantaneously bombarded with the brightest, purest light—I ducked and closed my eyes, knowing Sam to do the same as he shielded me with his body.

As soon as the angel was here, the angel was gone again. The room settled back into its previous lamp lit state.

No longer devoured by the savage explosion of light, Sam folded off me and we both stood straight to meet Dean's expectant gaze.

His left hand had a diagonal gash through his palm. It separate his hand in two like a canal filled with incarnadine fluid and went from the bottom of his first finger to the bone on the far side of his wrist. All of his hand was smeared over in a bloody glove—the result of the impeccable angel banishing symbol painted on the door.

Dean looked at his hand. To him, the wound was nothing but a scratch; a flesh wound. He kept his head bent but his eyes darted up to me, showcasing his last actions as the main point of interest. "You're family. You aren't going anywhere," Dean said sincerely. It was just one of those things you could not make any grander than it was. It was the solemn truth and needed no such aggrandizations.

He then turned back into the bathroom to cleanse and dress his injury. "Grab your bags," he told us, "We gotta get the hell outta dodge."

It was as if I was hit by an invisible fly swatter. I confronted Sam, "You two have been planning this for a while, haven't you?"

"Of course we have," Sammy answered, "It's like Dean said. You're family." He grinned at me, seeing my eyes well-up with tears. Then he jutted his chin out, motioning for me to get going.

And just like that, all the hushed mumbles, the pressing, suffocating silent rides through to another dawn…they all made sense. Sam and Dean never planned to hand me over willingly. It just was not in the cards, not in them, to go down without a fight. And by 'go down', I mean we all knew we would be paying for our actions (well, Sam and Dean's) because Castiel would not take kindly to our rough departure. Needless to say, I was too important to the Winchester brothers now. Family meant risks had to be taken and, hell, this lifestyle was chockfull of them already. We were conditioned.

Swiftly and surely, we packed the trunk and buckled ourselves into the car. Dean revved the engine and faster than you can say 'adios', we were out of there.

"How long before you think Cas will catch up with us?" Sam inquired, flipping through the pages of a time-honored journal (topic: avoiding angels). He moved to the wall where I stood and showed me an image on the open page.

I nodded and proceeded my bloody finger painting, pressing my thumb against the cut I made in my arm. More of the syrupy excretion dribbled out of my cut and I swiped it into my other hand, glancing at the book in Sam's hands before adding more jagged, arrow-tipped symbols to the wall.

Dean was behind me, drawing similar markings on the square windows with his blood. "Maybe two days. Four tops," he answered, his fingers squeaking across the glass. "That's why we have to make these sigils everywhere we go. We'll stay under Cas' radar that way."

Sam turned away, walking up to the remaining wall to be defaced and mutilated into an 'Angels-Be-Gone' repellent. He flipped out a pocket knife and snapped the edge of the blade into his arm, trailing it across his skin and ruby red blood inking from the slit. Coating his fingers in the substance, he then began creating a new variety of sigils on the bare wall.

"We won't be able to hide from him forever. He will find us one way or another, or we'll mess up and—" I was interrupted by an intervening Sam.

He said, "We'll do what we can," his hand went high on the wall and swooped down in a wide arc—the subtle intricacies of this motion would make the impregnable shield against Castiel.

A lesser part of me felt, in doing this reinforcement in opposition to Cas, that we were betraying him in a way. Therefore, we were making him the sworn enemy. To me, it wasn't like that at all. I loved him too, not just Sam and Dean. So I suppose the question is not 'How long can we keep him off our tails?' it is 'How long could I endure to run?' Could we carry on with me weighing us down?

"Yeah," I felt myself drifting off to someplace else. I didn't know if I could bear all my weight on my own fallibility.

"Eve?"

Sam's brow was wrinkled, sensing my dissociation. Fear socked him in the face in the next instant, "You're bleeding."

"Huh?" I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. There was a fresh streak of blood on my hand. "So I am."

"Well, are you okay?" Dean asked, his interest piqued.

"I feel fine," I insisted. I didn't feel amiss. I had all my parts.

Sam and Dean exchanged a worried look.

"It's just a nose bleed," I said.

"Hex bag?" Sam guessed, glancing again at Dean. They seemed to communicate telepathically.

Dean shrugged one of his shoulders casually, "We just got here. And Bobby said we were up against vamps for sure."

Sam pursed his lips, not convinced no matter how much he wanted to be.

I surveyed the room a moment. We were in some town not even marked on the map, outside of Jasper, Indiana. We got here only about an hour earlier and as soon as Dean stepped foot into this motel room, he set to vandalizing the walls.

"Guys, I'm fine. I swear. Hand in the Bible or whatever," I did some flailing hand gestures before me.

"Yeah, alright," Dean said. Moving to the bathroom, he told us, "I'm going to go into town. Grab us some grub. You two stay and hold down the fort here."

"Yep," Sam had no problem with that order.

The sound of Dean scrubbing his hands under the running tap carried into the room. Finishing my wall, I helped Sam complete his.

Dean came back in the room, drying his hands on a green hand towel. "You want your usual?" he plucked his keys off the kitchen counter by the door and tossed the towel in their place.

"Yeah," Sam and I said together.

Dean slipped on his jacket, adjusting the collar and such before leaving.

"Want to watch the game?" Sam asked me, after all the walls were covered in sigils and we washed our hands.

"Yeah sure."

There was nothing else we could do. So we plopped ourselves on the sofa, Sam switched the TV on and after a delayed black screen, a low electrical hum emanated from the box and the TV came to life. The picture wasn't HD and a wave of gray dots passed over the screen every ten minutes, but hey, one of the perks of motel living.

The radio was mute as Dean drove. He had turned it off after he started Baby up. Because the whole situation with Eve and her bloody nose had him bothered—like an invisible itch on his knee. It was just enough for him to pay attention to it and he wondered if she really was okay.

Something didn't feel right.

Jaw tensing, Dean shook his head and silently cursed himself. "Look," he said to no one, eyes fixed ahead, "I know you probably want to kick me where the sun don't shine right now and that's fine. But first I need some answers. Something's wrong with Eve and I know you know somethin' you aren't spilling. Cas, please, just five minutes."

"I'd suggest you make it quick, before I go back to the motel to collect her," Castiel sat stiff-backed in the passenger seat.

Dean's face blew over with confusion. "You know where she is? How? We did the place up like Picasso!"

"I do now," Cas swiveled his head to face Dean.

Dean closed his eyes, wincing as if pained. "Damn it," he sputtered. Cas narrowed his eyes. "Dean, she is leaving with me. You can not stop it."

"I can sure as hell try."

"You will fail."

"You sound awfully sure of yourself there, Cas."

Whatever the angel was going to say next, he held on the tip of his tongue. It was visible, his want to retort sternly, disdainfully. He hesitated and instead said, "You wanted to know where she will go. I can't tell you."

"Wherever it is, Sam and I will find her and bring her home," Dean retorted sourly. His voice was as abrasive as sandpaper.

"Do you really think I would be taking her if you could? I wish it was that easy."

"Where is she going? Why won't you tell me?"

"Because I can't."

"Why not!" Dean hit the steering wheel. "Why does she have to go?"

Cas rubbed his hands, thumbs sliding over his knuckles. "I need your word that you won't utter any of this to Eve, or to Sam."

Dean's head went back, unprepared for this type of request. It wasn't even a request. It was more of a prohibition.

"Wh—" he began.

"Your word," Castiel goaded.

Dean clamped his mouth shut, exhaling through his nose. "Take my right arm if ya want. Hell, I'll throw in a leg, too."

"Do you wish to know or not?" Cas huffed begrudgingly.

Dean propped his elbow up on the ledge of the car door, setting his head in his hand and rubbing his temple. "Yes." The word also held a tone of apology.

"You were right. Something is wrong with Evangeline," Cas watched the town approach them and said nothing when Dean drove through said town without any signs of stopping.

"The nose bleed was just the beginning. Trust me when I say she will get worse."

Dean had a problem. He had to eradicate that threat looming over his head. And quick. "Worse? Define worse."

"If she does not return with me, Dean," Cas said it slowly, as if to spell it out, "she will die."

Like Castiel expected, Dean pulled off to the side of the road. Keys left in the ignition, Dean's arms sank into his lap.

"How much time does she have?" Dean fought the pain. He fought the lump growing in his throat, though no matter how hard he swallowed, the obstruction refused to wash away.

"An hour."

"She will want to say goodbye to you too."

"I'll come back after you have appropriately said your goodbyes," Cas promised.

"Hey Cas?" Dean sat forward, the upholstery of the seat creaking with his shifting. "You can take her, but that won't stop us from trying to get her back."

"I'm afraid you cannot do that without my help," the angel stated. It was not in a pretentious way at all. He was just saying the truth. As his friend, Cas felt Dean deserved as much.

"I'm a Winchester. I'll hunt your feathery ass down," Dean answered promptly.

Cas' mouth drew in a thin, rather dubious and disappointed line. He bent his head. Cas expected this from Dean and yet he couldn't help but feel he'd let him down. He failed Dean again as his friend.

Castiel would give anything to tell Dean that he hated this situation just as much as he did. Cas never intended for it to happen in the beginning, but he grew attached to Evangeline just as Dean and Sam had. And it tormented him to be the one to have to break apart this family they had all so obviously become.

"Dean," he tried to express himself, but the Winchester would have none of it.

"I—uh, I better get back. So—" Dean gripped the wheel, purposefully abstaining from the rest of that sentence. He hoped Castiel would get the message.

Castiel, though inept at many humanly behaviorisms, was not entirely in the dark. Feeling much like a shunned child, he vanished into thin air…leaving Dean to break in thirty, all alone.

The game was ten minutes to being over and the score was twenty-seven to thirteen with the New York Mets about to take it home.

When the commercial break came on, Eve got up for a restroom break. It was then when Sam's pocket buzzed. He pulled his cellphone from his pocket and looked at the screen. It was a text from Dean.

Come outside. I'll be there in 5 mins.

Sam gave the digital message an inquisitorial look. He deleted the message and slipped the device back in his jeans pocket while glancing at the bathroom door. Sam was out the front door when the toilet flushed.

Hands dug into his pockets, Sam walked up to the motel office building at the front of the complex. There was an awful churning in his gut and Sam hoped it was just him being ridiculous. He felt ridiculous. Everything was fine. But then, he saw the Impala roaring down the road towards him.

Sam waited until his older brother parked the gas guzzler in the parking space in front of him, the bumper inches from his legs. Dean had that look again. Dean had that look again and it always meant something devastating.

Dean got out of the car. He stalled his movements, standing with the door open and his hand gripping the top of the window as if he didn't know what actions to take from there. Dean looked around the lot—to the other cars and the two cottony clouds skirting across the clear blue sky. His other hand flew up to rub his mouth, eyes glistening like icy glass. He rubbed his mouth and chin, putting everything he had into choking his tears down.

Sam's eyebrows drew together and he took his hands out of his pockets. "Dean, what is it?"

Dean dropped the hand from his face. A tender laugh shorter than his breath just then came forth with a sharp, trembling swiftness that knocked Sam physically in the chest. "Eve's got to go," Dean told him.

"Wh—wh—?" Sam stumbled over his own tongue, breath quickening as he tried to make sense of what his brother was saying.

Dean's head bobbed up and down, his hand going back to brush over his face as he finally shut Baby's door. "It's Cas. He's coming to get her. And Eve—sh—" Something in Dean's throat snagged and he had to gulp it down, "she's not okay."

"What?" Sam felt like an exposed wound. He was a vulnerable little kid with scraped knees and elbows. "What happened to keeping our heads down and keep swinging like you said?"

"It's not that easy, Sam." There was a quiver in Dean's lip and he sniffed.

"Well whatever it is, we'll find another solution, another way out. Just like we always do."

"There's no time."

Sam's nose crinkled, enraged. "What do you mean? What did Cas say to you? Dean what did he say?" The questions spewed out of his mouth, leaving no time for Dean to respond, "Is she going to get hurt? Is she going to die?"

When his older brother did not answer, Sam felt winded. Not only that, he also felt like crumpling in on himself. "No," he said at a whisper, still in disbelief. "No," he said a bit louder, stepping back in his heartache.

"Dean? Sam?" Eve rounded the corner, about to call out for them another time. "Oh hey. I was just looking for you. I know I'm not supposed to be outside the room like you said Dean, and I'm sorry but—hey, why are we—?" Eve held their eyes, unsure and afraid. When she read their faces, she shook her head violently, tears flying out of her eyes and cries in her throat. "No," she gave a pathetic cry, "no."

She really was a heart shattering mess when she cried.

Sam bit his lip, refusing tears, but they came anyway.

Eve ran into Sam, squeezing him into an embrace. She buried her face into his shirt, her tears moistening the fabric. "I don't want to go."

Sam held onto her, his own tears landing on the crown of her head. "I know you don't," his voice was shaky and it took every ounce of his being not to concave under his despondency. "But you have to. I'm so, so sorry."

She rejected the apology by pressing harder into his chest with her head and shaking it, sobbing some more. Then she broke away from Sam and flung herself at Dean.

Dean's face twisted in pain when she touched him. He wrapped her in his arms. A piece of him wished they'd never met. That this whole year hadn't even happened because he'd always hated the goodbyes. "Hey," he gripped onto her a moment more, a tear rocketing down his face. He closed his eyes, accepting the enveloping despair.

Dean took her by her arms and plied her off him. He looked her dead in the eyes, his strength recuperating for her sake. "If you remember all the stuff we taught you, you'll be fine. And don't you take anyone's crap, got it? Someone gives you trouble, Eve, deck 'em in the face."

She nodded, wiping tear streaks away from her cheeks.

Dean pulled her back into him, locking her in his arms and said, "You'll be fine, Evie."

A moment later he let her go and Eve soon realized it was because Cas was here. The angel stood next to Sam, waiting.

She stepped up to the angel, Dean beside her.

"It's not your fault," Eve told Cas gently. "Please don't fight after I'm gone." She hugged Castiel, feeling another piece of her heart rip apart.

He hugged her back, familiar to her embrace; lowering his head next to hers to hide his heavy heart. When Cas let go of her, all three of the others could see the water droplets falling silently down the angel's face. He never cried. They didn't even know angels had the ability.

"You watch over the Winchesters, okay Cas?" Eve said. "Keep them out of trouble."

"I will," Castiel promised and Sam and Dean passed him a look.

Eve nodded, at a loss for what else to say. Then it all came to her ten-fold, "I'll miss you guys. You're my family and you always will be. Tell Bobby and Ellen, Jo and Ash, I'll miss them too, for me," her eyes went to each of her loved ones around her, "I love you. I owe you so much."

Her lip trembled and she gave them each another hug.

Eve turned to Sam and Dean one last time, "Sic' it to the vamps. Show them who the Winchesters are."

Sam rubbed his nose, nodding and sniffing.

Dean tilted his head, managing a small smile. "You got it. We'll postcard you when we skip town."

"Sure you will," she said. Eve turned to Castiel, and took a deep breath, silently letting him know it was okay. It would be okay. "Goodbye Cas."

He set his hand on her shoulder. And just like turning off a light, Cas and Eve were no more. Except Castiel would be the only one returning.

A shuddering breath escaped Dean's mouth and he bent over, hands on his hips, trying to cage his emotion. He felt like punching a wall. He felt like hitting the ground with his body and staying there. This rage and this ruinous loss infused in a brew too much for him to withstand. He was supposed to be the strong one, but he felt like he was falling apart. He couldn't keep himself together and it made him want to yell and smash something.

"God," he said, his voice degenerating into silence.

Sam stayed rooted to the sidewalk where he was. He could not bring himself to move. He felt separated. The world was moving around him, and he couldn't bring himself to say anything, to move. There had to be a way to get her back. There just had to be—he could not live with himself if he couldn't even try.

Dean whirled around and pounded his fist on the roof of the Impala. Leaving his hand on the metal, he bent over, slinking against the machine. "Damn it!"

Sam watched his brother, feeling ten years old again and watching Dean at fourteen get upset over their dad leaving them while he went off on his next job. More tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes and he rubbed them away with his hand.

"She is safe."

Dean craned his head, seeing Castiel standing next to Sam. He saw Sam ball his fists, realizing Cas' presence at the same time he did.

Dean left the side of his car, gradually making his way to stand in front of Castiel and his brother. For a moment he halted, making sure Cas knew how he felt with the heated and broken glare of his gaze. Then he tried to walk past Cas, brushing his shoulder, to leave. Dean does not want to be open or vulnerable. He doesn't want to talk or figure things out. He'd prefer to claw his eyes out of his skull.

Sam glanced at Cas, seeing him sigh sadly through his nose. Cas' eyes stuck to the ground and his mouth didn't seem to want to move. However, he opened his mouth to speak, scrounging for the right words.

At long last, Cas said, "She loved you and Dean and…me," he appeared to regret saying, believing, being, that last word, "Perhaps more than God originally intended."

Sam nodded, knowing it to be the true. He honestly felt like punching Castiel, although he knew it would get him nowhere in terms of inconveniencing the angel. Also because Eve had wanted them not to fight.

"That's just it," Sam's voice was completely level, "That's her problem. She loves to deeply. Anyone who gives her the slightest recognition she immediately puts before herself. Even when she's bleeding, dying, no one can stop her from caring once that one person showed her even a little bit of kindness."

With those words, he left Castiel standing by himself.