So, we're back here again. For those of you who don't know who Arthur Ketch is, I have to warn you that you're moving in dangerously spoilerfull waters. As I wrote a couple of chapters ago, I'm moving around in the storyline of season 12/13, where Ketch is introduced.

He is an altogether unpleasant assassin who reminds me of a male Natasha Romanoff, only with tea and crumpets and 0% loyalty to anyone other than himself. I find him to be an absolutely delightful piece of shit.

...

"Hermione" the assassin breathed. "You - you're alive?" He stood slack jawed, staring at Hermione.

Hermione's lips thinned, but her only response was a nod. "Why didn't you – why didn't you come to find me? Why didn't you tell me?" Ketch continued with a broken expression. The most emotion Sam had ever seen from the man.

Hermione swallowed "I-" But she didn't get any further before Dean's inevitable explosion.

"What the hell?! Now you two know each other?!" he drew his gun from his bag with lightning speed.

Sam didn't know what to think or feel other than betrayal. Had she been a spy all this time? But why did Ketch think she was dead then?

"Can someone please explain?" Sam requested. He could feel his jaw tensing – that was going to give him a headache later.

Hermione tried to start but was interrupted again. "What – is it a British thing? Do all of you know each other?" Dean snarked.

Hermione took a deep breath but didn't seem able to find her words.

Ketch sighed deeply. "Let me, darling. There are unfortunately parts of the equation you also aren't privy to yet." he gently requested after seeing her struggle.

Hermione frowned at the man but sat down next to Gabriel in the chairs they had previously occupied.

Ketch stood for a while, with everyone looking at him expectantly.

"First, I'm going to ask everyone to please refrain from killing me. Many of these things, I didn't learn until very recently. When the field office was set up here in the US, there were some vulnerabilities in the system. I managed to pull information from the databases even beyond my clearance level. I haven't managed to decrypt everything yet, but I've been searching intentionally for information about you." He looked intently at Hermione who nodded slowly.

Dean looked as if he were about to protest, but Sam put his hand on the gun, lowering it. "Let's just hear it, Dean."

Ketch sighed heavily. "I suppose it's easier to start at the beginning. For your benefit as well, Hermione. I swear to you, I had no idea."

Hermione frowned.

"I'll start with Henry Winchester."

"Winchester?" Hermione looked at him puzzled.

Dean quirked an eyebrow. "What, our granddad?"

"Yes. I believe you are both aware that he was part of the Men of Letters here in America before the chapter went down. Even though the Men of Letters here were defunct, his son, John was still a legacy. And the Men of Letters keep track of legacies." Ketch looked at both Sam and Dean in turn. "Which means that the Men of Letters also kept an eye on John's children. All of them." He pursed his lips.

"So, me, Dean and Adam." Sam offered as he sat down across from Hermione.

Ketch took a deep breath. "As I said, the Men of Letters had been keeping an eye on John Winchester. First, he sired Dean and Sam with Mary Campbell before Azazel decided to kill her." Ketch took a deep breath and continued "Years later Adam Milligan came along and a year after that, child number four entered the world."

"Wait what? Number four? Why didn't we know about this?" Sam asked, but a pit started forming in his stomach.

Ketch started pacing. "John Winchester was a complicated man. You know that more than anyone. But he was especially known for his hatred of all parts of the supernatural. For this reason, when the fourth child at an incredibly young age, started displaying certain abilities, it was decided that an extraction was needed in order to protect said child." Ketch regarded Dean and Sam carefully, as if he were afraid that they would take it as an insult to their father, but facts were facts. Their dad wasn't the most tolerant person.

"What, he had powers like Sammy? And what do you mean, 'extraction'?" Dean inquired, finally laying the gun on the table, leaning against it.

"Not quite. When she was not even two years old, she started showing signs of magic. Things that she wanted would levitate towards her. If she were dissatisfied with something, it would be undone in the blink of an eye. With John Winchester's habit of shooting first and asking questions later, the Elders at the Men of Letters decided to dispatch a team to take the child back to England where she would become a ward of the Men of Letters. She was the youngest in history to be enrolled at Kendricks Academy." Ketch looked at Hermione significantly

"What?" Hermione whispered "I'm – I had – I had a family? Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered wetly at Ketch with a look of deep betrayal on her face.

Ketch looked at her apologetically and stopped pacing. "I honestly didn't know, Hermione. I only acquired access to your file a few weeks ago." He looked at her in sympathy. "Every time I rose in the ranks, every time I reached a new clearance level, the first thing I would do was to look up information about you to try to find out what happened to you."

Sam's gasped and felt his jaw slacken when he pieced the things together. Dean was looking at Hermione with a frown until he too realised the implications, his eyes widening comically.

"She's our sis- she's my sister?! God, I think I'm gonna hurl" he exclaimed in horror, sitting down heavily, leaning forwards.

"Dean!" Sam admonished.

"No, you don't understand, Sammy. I thought that... you know. I mean. I figured maybe if those guys weren't... maybe I was going to -" he interrupted himself, burying his head in his hands, taking deep breaths.

"You were going to what?" Gabriel growled, scowling at Dean.

Hermione blushed. "I don't think it matters anymore, Gabe."

"And it's not like it even mattered in the first place. You guys are very much together, and everyone knows and respects that." Sam placated. "Hell, if Luke and Leia could get over it, so can you. And nothing ever happened between you two, right?"

"No!" Hermione and Dean vehemently denied in unison, equally scandalised.

Sam shrugged "There you go. So, um - you're like part of the Men of Letters?" He guessed uncomfortably, having absolutely no trust in the organisation.

"Absolutely not!" She sneered, with more hatred than he had ever seen her express.

"But Ketch just said you'd been to Kendricks Academy." Sam pointed out.

Hermione sighed heavily; her hatred ran out fast and gave way to something else. Something tired and fragile that Sam didn't feel entirely comfortable with. The time he had known her she had been a force to be reckoned with. Even when things were at their bleakest, she seemed to be an unstoppable force.

"I need a cup of tea." She mumbled and got up. Gabriel stood to follow her, but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a gently smile. "You should stay, Gabe." She told the angel. "You need to hear this, but I don't think I can tell it. I just need a cup of tea to calm down and I'll be back. Arthur will fill you in." She sniffled and padded towards the kitchen.

Sam, Dean and Gabriel all looked to Ketch who stood, gripping the backrest of a chair so hard that his knuckles were turning white. He was staring at the table, his mouth set in a grim line. When Hermione was out of hearing range, he continued.

"Hermione was taken by the Men of Letters and once in Britain, she was placed with a foster family with one of the members of the organisation."

"But what about her mom?" Dean inquired with a frown.

"Her mother didn't make it. She died during the extraction." Ketch told them grimly and they all knew that odds were that her mother was never meant to survive.

"The first couple of years she was given an almost normal childhood. That changed drastically when one of the Men of Letters contacts at Downing Street reported having overheard a strange late-night conversation at the night of the election of the new Prime Minister. A conversation between the Prime Minister and a man claiming to be the Minister for Magic. It became clear that not only was Hermione not the only one with this type of power – there was an entire secret community hiding in plain sight, with its own governmental structure, tied to ours. They posed an immense supernatural threat, but they wouldn't be easily disposed of. The first problem being the sheer number of them and the second being their high level of organisation. The Elders decided that the best course of action would be to learn as much about this newly exposed threat as possible and in order to do so, they took Hermione from her foster family to use her as an asset."

Sam noticed Ketch's jaw clench and unclench. Gabriel was sitting in his chair looking at Ketch with a crestfallen expression as if he knew what the direction the story of the woman he loved would take.

Dean looked grim. He imagined his own expression mirrored his brother's. Whatever had happened, wouldn't be pretty.

"They... experimented on her." Ketch told them with a voice, quivering with anger. "She was four years old when the experiments started, and they went on for years." He whispered quietly.

Sam's heart broke and it got even more painful when he saw the otherwise carefree Gabriel with tears streaming down his cheeks. Dean for his part looked empty.

Ketch ran a hand down is face, looking tired.

He finally sat down on the chair that he had been clutching.

"When I finished the academy and I received my first assignment I was incensed. I was 25, at the top of my game, and what do they present me with? A tiny slip of a 6-year-old girl." He sighed. "They wanted me to train her." He sneered

"Train her?" Sam scoffed. "What can you even train a 6-year-old girl for?"

Ketch pinched the bridge of his nose. "Were you not trained from a young age, Samuel? The Men of Letters wanted to prepare her as a spy of sorts and a weapon. They were still conducting experiments to try to understand her power and its limitations, but they wanted me to train her to fight. They wanted me to turn her into a killer. Like me. Someone who upheld the code and followed orders without question" He confessed bitterly.

"Why the hell didn't you just take that kid and run?" Dean demanded roughly.

"And run where, exactly? Where would I run with a 6-year-old child? I don't think you comprehend the stakes. At that time, she was one of the most important assets to the Men of Letters. You saw the resources we brought here to what was considered a small low-priority project. Imagine that times a million and you might have an inkling of understanding of the Men of Letters in Britain and that's not even counting the political influence. I wouldn't have been able to even think about running before I would be apprehended and beheaded. And then where would she be? Who would protect her? Don't presume for a second you know what it was like for us there" Ketch hissed at Dean with a threatening scowl.

"I did everything I could with what little power I had, which at the time was negligible at best. I convinced them that she needed longer time between experiments so she could recover lest her exhaustion interfered with their results. I convinced them to let her out of isolation so she could learn to interact with others, I convinced them to move her rooms next to mine so I could help her at night when she woke from the nightmares. I patched her up and I comforted her." He continued forcefully. "She was like a daughter to me. Or at the very least a younger sister. She was the only family I ever had." His voice shook with a mixture of anger, sadness and guilt.

"It wasn't his fault." Hermione contributed sadly as she returned with a freshly brewed cup of tea and sat down next to Gabriel. "It was a hard life, but we made do with what we had. And he did get me out eventually. " she told them in a small voice, the trauma painted clearly on her face as if it had happened yesterday and Sam's heart clenched. She had been through a war, where she fought fearlessly, was captured and tortured, but it was clearly her early childhood that had been the worst. He knew that his had been shitty, but he had never looked like that when talking about it. She looked like Dean had when he first came out of hell.

"I was overjoyed when she received her letter – that she was supposed to start her magical schooling. Because it was a boarding school. That way she would be out. They wouldn't get to have an influence on her in at least some of her formative years."

He smiled wryly and Hermione looked away. "And what does the little twit do? She befriends the boy with the biggest target on his back" Ketch huffed in exasperation.

"Harry was nice to me! He still is!" Hermione defended.

"Maybe so, but he put you in danger." He pointed out.

"Well, someone had to look out for him." She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, looking every bit like an obstinate teenager, arguing with her dad.

Sam smiled slightly. It was a much better look on her than the defeated mouse from previously.

Ketch huffed "And who was looking out for you, I ask you?"

"We looked out for each other. Even Ron." Hermione smiled fondly.

"I never liked that boy." Ketch grumbled, making Sam want to laugh out loud with how bizarre it all was.

"Me neither." Gabriel contributed.

"Don't get me started on you! Don't think I haven't seen the way you look at her, Gabriel" Ketch practically growled at the angel. "I know your reputation. If you hurt her, I will end you, archangel or not." he ground out, looking straight at Gabriel who sat wide-eyed, never having had the talk before. Hermione blushed and hid her face in her hands in mortification.

Sam felt himself smiling slightly and Dean, for some reason, glowered at Gabriel harder than he ever had before, which was saying something.

"Then what happened?" Sam asked, feeling the need to diffuse the situation.

Hermione sighed and filled them in on the first few years of her magical schooling. How she had helped preventing an evil spirit gain immortality. How she had been petrified by a basilisk and how she had been taught by a werewolf for an entire year and thereby gaining sympathy for the creatures.

"This was where things started to go wrong." Ketch took over. "The Men of Letters had noticed that Hermione had grown more and more independent with spending the majority of her time in the wizarding world. She was 'going native' so to speak and when she returned from her third year, speaking about rights for werewolves and other magical creatures, it was determined that she had become a liability rather than an asset. The Elders feared that she would reveal the existence of the Men of Letters to members of the wizarding world and decided that it would be better to terminate her before she returned to school." Ketch tiredly ran a hand down his face. "In order to prove my loyalty, I was put in charge of killing her. I shot her and threw her over a bridge. That's the last I ever saw of her." He pursed his lips and looked pointedly at Hermione, who cut off the incredulous protests from the other men who looked ready to slaughter Ketch for his confession.

"What Arthur in his usual overdramatic way is neglecting to say is that he had me contact my old teacher. The one who was a werewolf. He was waiting underneath the bridge on his broom, ready to catch me. I believe he got the idea from Peter Pan." Hermione smirked.

Ketch huffed and crossed his arms defensively.

"After that, we didn't hear much at the Men of Letters. We had to rely on the information we received from Downing Street which was limited. We didn't hear anything until two years later, when the Prime Minister was informed of the wizarding war. After that there was radio silence for another two years where the only message was that the war was over. When I didn't hear anything from you... I thought you would have found me or given me some kind of signal telling me you were alive after an ordeal like that. When I heard nothing, I had to assume the worst." Ketch looked at her accusingly.

Hermione looked away. "I did find you. I came to find you almost immediately after the final battle" she sighed heavily. "When you brought me with you on hunts when I was younger, we always agreed that even monsters deserved some sort of respect. They had to be put down, but it had to happen as fast and painlessly as possible."

Dean looked at Ketch in surprise.

"When I found you, you had been hunting a vampire. She didn't look much older than me. When I found you, you stood, covered in blood. You had cut her open and had your arm buried up to the elbow inside her chest cavity. She was still alive." Her breathing hitched. "The worst thing was that you were enjoying it. You were alone, so there was no one to put on an act for. You did it because you wanted to. You weren't Arthur anymore. You were just Mr. Ketch." She looked at him sadly.

Ketch looked crestfallen. He seemed to struggle to find words, but in the end, he just nodded slightly to himself, staring into the table. "You're right." He said monotonously. "You're right, I lost myself. I'm not going to lie to you, Hermione. I've done terrible things. Absolutely horrendous things. But I will try to do what ever I possibly can, to redeem myself." He nodded again and looked at Hermione stoically. Hermione looked back at him and only nodded once. That seemed to be that. Stiff upper lip, indeed.

"Now, if you will excuse me – please do not leave without me, Dean. I would like to do a little show and tell to prove some of the things that have come to light." Ketch turned and walked back to his room.

Everyone left in the library sat, trying to come to terms with the revelations in their own way.

Hermione got up and Sam stood. In three steps, he reached her and pulled her in to a crushing hug.

She stiffened slightly in shock, but she slowly melted into him, sobbing. He felt rather than saw Dean come up next to them, hugging both of them awkwardly. Sam opened one eye to see Gabriel still sitting in his chair, watching them with a soft smile, letting the three siblings share the moment alone.

After a few moments, Ketch returned with a folder which he laid on the table. It was very slim and when he opened it, Sam saw it only contained a single piece of paper and a USB-pen.

The paper was a birth certificate, and while they had just discussed it, seeing the evidence was strange.

Hermione Winchester

Mother: Susanna Walsh

Father: John Winchester

Sam picked it up, with shaking hands, studying it. It was the original and sure enough, it was their father's signature.

Ketch put a hand on Hermione's shoulder and put the USB-pen in her hand. "This is everything I have found so far, but there's still a lot data that hasn't been decrypted yet, so there might be more. I take it you're still rubbish with computers?" He asked rhetorically. Hermione smiled sheepishly and he turned to Sam. "The data, all that I stole, I had downloaded into a black box of sorts. It survived the explosion You'll find it here." He gave Sam a slip of paper with an address. "Find what you can and give it to her." He gestured at Hermione who had gone into Gabriel's embrace, making Ketch frown.

Sam's mouth twitched. "They've been together for years, you know."

Ketch's only response was a raised eyebrow and a snort.

"They're good for each other is all I'm saying." Sam smiled as they watched Gabriel whisper something in Hermione's ear, making her blush and slap his chest.

"I suppose." Ketch smiled ruefully "I've missed a lot, but I have only myself to blame."

"So" Dean interrupted. "Are we going?"

Ketch nodded. "Yes. Just a single moment." He went over to Hermione, standing awkwardly next to her.

"I – err…" In response to his eloquence, Hermione hugged him.

"We'll be alright, Arthur." She sniffed.

"I hope so. I've missed you, button." Ketch kissed the top of her hair and squeezed her a bit tighter. "Have you kept up with your training." He asked her, pulling back a little to look at her. Upon seeing her sheepish expression, he huffed in disappointment.

"You better hope I'm injured when I return. If not, I'm going to knock you on your arse." He warned her and turned to Dean. They finished the ritual to open the rift and went through.

They only had 24 hours to find Mary and Jack in a postapocalyptic world, ruled by an angelic dictatorship. The rest of the occupants of the bunker could only sit and wait.

...

Please leave a review. I'm as always insanely curious about your opinions.