Seven

Sam, Dean, and Anna appeared a week after Brooke's conversation with Castiel. Just in time for Bobby to leave on a job in the Dominican. She was on her own in the house less than twenty-four hours, and even that was enough time to freak her out. She'd heard nothing from Castiel since their strange interaction the week before, but she would have killed to have him there with, even standing like a stalker behind the couch, while she tried to sleep. Nightmares plagued her for hours, until, eventually, she gave up sleep altogether and sat by the fire for the rest of the night.

In the morning, when she heard the purr of a car pulling up outside she grabbed the nearest gun and then went to the window and peered through the blinds. It was the Impala. Breathing a sigh of relief, she put the gun down and opened the door. There were Sam and Dean, a redheaded woman that she didn't recognize, and—

Brooke screamed and backed up into the house to grab the gun. She made it back to the front door just as Sam charged forward, blocking her aim with his body. "Sam, move, there's a demon!"

"I know!" Sam shouted, holding her wrist above her head. He looked at her, his eyes wide and convincing. "She's a good guy."

Brooke stared up at him. "She what?"

"Just—just trust me." Sam slowly let go of her wrist and put his hands up in a surrendering fashion. "Don't shoot her. Her name is Ruby. She's helping us."

Brooke peeked around Sam's body at Ruby, and swallowed the bile rising in her throat at the woman's true face, twisted and tortured. Ruby gave her a half-smile.

Brooke could only remember that night tied to a chair in a warehouse. All those faces staring down at her. Feeling unsteady, she put the gun down and walked into the house, going into the living room and standing beside the cold fireplace.

"Has Cass come here?" Dean asked, somewhere behind her.

"No, not for a week," she replied.

"Good."

Brooke's eyebrows drew together in confusion and she turned to face him. "Good?" she repeated.

"He wants to kill this woman." Dean pointed to the red-haired woman who was standing awkwardly nearby, looking around herself as if she'd never seen a house before. "Anna."

Brooke stared. There was too much information coming at her too quickly. First a demon was on the good guy's team, and now Castiel wanted to kill an innocent woman. Brooke studied Anna, but nothing about the woman jumped out at her.

"Why does Castiel want to kill her?"

"We don't know," Dean said.

Brooke wanted to follow up with something like, Surely Castiel has a good reason for wanting to kill her, but she knew how crazy that would make her sound, so she said nothing. She turned to face the empty fireplace again, shivering less with cold and more with apprehension. Sam, Dean, Anna, and the demon, Ruby, all went down into Bobby's panic room. Brooke stayed where she was, unable to think clearly.

Castiel was good. He would never hurt an innocent woman, so Anna had to have done something wrong. Castiel was an angel of the Lord, following God's Will.

Castiel, a week before, had doubted God's Will. He'd admitted it to her himself. And then he'd teleported away because he'd been too afraid to face his own doubt.

Brooke looked down into the ashes in the fireplace. Castiel might do something stupid, in a state of doubt. But would he really kill an innocent human? She shook her head. Someone was wrong here; she just didn't know who it was. In the meantime, she decided to cut off prayer to Castiel, until she figured out who Anna was, and who was in the right or wrong. The thought that Castiel could be so cruel cut Brooke to the quick, but she knew she had to face that fact. Castiel was a warrior, a soldier, following orders. If God had commanded him to kill Anna, he would kill Anna.

Brooke put her head in her hands and breathed.

###

Since finding out that Anna was an angel, all Brooke could do was stare at her. Like, really stare. Stare the way she stared at Castiel—or the way he stared at her. She was looking for something, some sign, some way to tell that Anna was an angel and not this mundane, albeit pretty, woman who stood before her. The others in the room talked around her, but Brooke only heard endless droning. She stared so hard at Anna that Anna eventually turned to give her a look.

Brooke looked away quickly, turning her back on the woman. She closed her eyes and tried to reach out for Anna the way she could reach out to Castiel. But there was no response; there nothing there to respond to her. Anna must have really been human, because Brooke had tested her in every way she knew how and had come up empty-handed each time. That either meant that Anna was lying—doubtful, in a Hunter's line of work—or that Brooke was able only to sense an angels' Grace, and nothing else about them. From what Anna had said about Grace, Brooke assumed it was something like an angel's soul, but it also gave them their powers. Her head spun, trying to keep everything straight.

###

Brooke hadn't slept in two days, afraid that if she fell asleep, Castiel would come to her in dreams. And she didn't know if she could lie straight to his face. She hadn't told anyone, yet, that he could read her thoughts, and she his, even if she didn't understand most of his thoughts.

Ruby, the demon, had created some kind of hex bag, or something like it, to prevent the angels from being able to see Anna. So far, that had kept the angels off their trail, though Brooke didn't know why Castiel hadn't checked in with her to see if she knew where Anna was. Perhaps he thought hiding Anna at Bobby's house would be too obvious.

After returning from the oak tree that contained none of Anna's grace, Brooke had spent most of her time sitting on the couch, somewhere between awake and asleep. They left her sitting there, moved and talked around her. She tried to fight it but she could feel herself slipping.

Eventually, she was more asleep than awake.

Brooke…

He was there, somewhere in her mind.

Where is Anna?

She jerked awake, startled by the closeness of his voice. It had sounded like he was right by her ear, but no one was there when she opened her eyes. She scrubbed at her face with her hands.

"Brooke."

She jerked again, startled, and stared up at Sam, who had come over to her. "Come on, we're leaving. We're going to the barn."

"The barn," she murmured. "Right." She stumbled up off the couch.

###

Brooke stood, swaying on her feet, in. the barn with the others. The only one missing was the demon. Ruby. Surely two days wasn't that long in terms of sleep deprivation. The adrenaline should have been keeping her more awake than this, but she swayed nonetheless. She swayed as they all spoke around her. She swayed as she felt the Grace of two angels pinpointing their location.

She dropped to her knees and screamed in agony as two angels, both unshielded from her mind, burst through the barn doors. It was too much, even if one of them was Castiel. His Grace was recognizable to her. She knew him. She knew what he felt like. But his light was nearly blinding to her even with whatever gift allowed her to see his true form without having her eyes burned out of her skull. But two at once—two fully-powered angels in the same place at the same time, so close to her… It was too much. She covered her head with her hands, squeezed her eyes shut, rocked back and forth on her knees, and screamed.

The other angel probed her mind the way Castiel had that first night. He was all needle pricks and daggers, curiosity coursing through him and into her. But his curiosity was cold and medical. "GET OUT!" she screamed, both in her mind and aloud. Her whole being was in agony, the light of both angels washing over so completely that she felt like she was really on fire. She felt one of them, though she did not know which one, reach for her. She tried to pull away from his hand, but he gripped her shoulder tightly and then they were gone, out of the barn, somewhere far away.

She knew, then, that the angel who had grabbed her was Castiel. She could not even open her eyes to look at him. She remained on on the ground, her arms over her head, sobbing. The memory of the pure agony she had just experienced was too fresh.

"Brooke," he said, and his voice cracked on her name. She felt his despair, his regret, wash over her, followed quickly by a cold resolve, and then she was alone.

###

Sam and Dean found her on the road leading back to Bobby's house as they were heading in the opposite direction. out of town. It had taken her hours just to get this far, and she was grateful for the respite that their arrival provided her, even if Dean was pissed at her for… something.

"Brooke, what the hell?" he demanded as he got out of the car, slamming the door behind him.

She stared at him, too tired to pull some kind of witty retort from somewhere. "What the hell what?"

"What do you mean what? We were all in the barn and then two angels show up and you start screaming bloody murder!"

Sam came around from the passenger side of the car and put his hands up between them placatingly, but his face betrayed his own curiosity about what had happened back in the barn.

She knew, then, that she had to tell them the whole truth about her connection to angels and demons. She stared at Dean for a long time without speaking, then sighed deeply and asked, "Do you have any water in the car? I've been out here for hours."

Dean looked like he wanted to argue that she needed to tell them something first, but Sam opened one of the backseat doors and pulled a water bottle out of a cooler. She took it and downed the whole bottle in seconds. Then she leaned against the car and told them everything. Told them the full story of the night Castiel had rescued her. Told them about what being around angels was like for her—angels and demons. Told them she could read their thoughts, although she couldn't understand a lot of them. Told them why she had screamed bloody murder in the barn.

"I guess being around more than one at a time is too much, even for me," she admitted. "They're too… everything. Too bright, too loud, too big. I thought my head would explode. If Castiel hadn't taken me out of the barn, it might have literally exploded."

"So, you being able to read angels is less like a superpower and more like a curse," Sam mused.

Brooke looked at him, eyebrows raised, annoyed that he would say something so negative. "Aren't you supposed to be the positive one?" she asked.

He chuckled. "Sorry."

"You can't be around us," Dean said, suddenly. "You know that, right? Now that we know the angels are the bad guys, you're kind of a liability."

"Dean," Sam snapped.

"No, he's right," Brooke said. It hurt that Dean had said it, but she knew it was true. "I need to leave. I need to get away from you two and Bobby, and anyone you're connected with, or they'll be able to use me to find you."

There was an awkward pause.

"What happened to Anna?" she asked, after a moment.

They told her about how Anna had taken her Grace back and vanished in a burst of light.

Brooke nodded slowly. "That's good. She's got her powers back. Maybe she'll be able to fight them off now." She took a breath. "Listen, I hate to be even more of a burden, but if I'm gonna make it very far and be able to keep my distance from you, I'm gonna need some stuff. You got any stolen credit cards with unisex names I could use? Or some cash, for now?"

Dean looked at her like he wanted to argue, a muscle in his jaw working, but he eventually nodded. Whether he was doing it out of kindness or just to get her away from him was beyond her, but either way, she was grateful. They left her standing by the road as they drove away. She watched them go, and then continued on her way up to Bobby's. He was still gone, so she wouldn't be putting him in danger by going back up his house. She just needed one of his cars and maybe an extra gallon of gas for the trunk.

She left him a note for when he returned, thanking him for all that he had done for her, told him not to worry about her, and then she took a car, a few extra weapons and ammo, some food for the road, and left.