"Sam, is something burning?" Grace stepped out of her office, wondering what the acidic smell was that hung in the air.

"Everything's fine!" he shouted back from the kitchen as a plate clattered to the ground. She shook her head, going back to her research. He usually had things handled in the kitchen. It was his turn to make dinner, anyway. He would be fine.

As she put her headphones back in, a powerful sneeze echoed from the kitchen. Grace sighed, not wanting to get involved in whatever chaos was going on. Instead she balanced a book on her lap, condensing a couple of paragraphs on reaper lore. As she finally found her way back into her flow of work, her phone buzzed.

Do WE Have painkillLlers?

Grace frowned, knowing that his misspellings meant he was texting her while he was on the road.

What did you do? You were literally just going to get groceries...

Toothache. And my credit card isn't working. And a parking ticket.

When Dean got home, he came to find her, explaining all of the chaos that he'd fallen into on what was supposed to be a simple grocery run. "Something feels off," he said, following her to their bathroom. She dug a bottle of painkillers out of the medicine cabinet, frowning as he took four. "It's a bitch of a toothache," he offered. "Has today felt kind of weird to you?"

"Not really. We got up, made breakfast, you went to work out, I went to pick up more salt from the pool supply store, I locked myself in my office so I could get work done," she thought aloud. "I had a pair of headphones die on me. Left my coffee in the kitchen after lunch, so I had to go back. Sam forgot to defrost something for dinner, so I took something out, but I think he's burning the place down… it's not that abnormal of a day. Why?"

"I don't know. Something just feels weird."

Leaning against the sink, she looked him up and down. "Well, you look fine. Cas is in Heaven trying to see if the angels know where Chuck went or if they can help us track him down when the time comes, so I know he hasn't set off anything. He texted earlier. No luck yet, but he's going to keep trying. Maybe you just need to go to the dentist."

"Hmm." They were interrupted by another incredibly loud sneeze from across the bunker.

"Is Sam getting sick?"

"He thinks so," Dean shrugged, his phone starting to ring. "Hey, Garth, what's up?"

Grace hadn't heard from Garth in a little while. She'd checked in every few months, seeing how his family was doing. She'd gone to visit them once or twice when she was in the neighborhood, but they'd both been busy lately. When Dean hung up, she had to ask, "Is something wrong? You've got that 'something's wrong' face on."

"His wife's cousin - I think - he says they're thinking he got attacked by a wraith."

"But wraiths hardly ever attack werewolves."

"Which is why it's our kind of weird. It really is just one big, weird day, isn't it?" he wondered as they walked back towards the war room. "We'll swing by and see what's up. While we're on the road, can you get us some lore on monsters attacking other monsters? Sammy! Let's go!"

The two of them stopped, staring into the kitchen as the smoke detector started to go off. Sam came out waving a kitchen towel, dashing into the control room to turn the alarm off. "It's all good," he coughed. "Everything's fine. Dinner's a little - we might just want to call for pizza."

"We'll get dinner on the road," Dean told him. "We've got a job to do."

The boys took off for Garth's, Grace volunteering to sort out the mess Sam had left behind before she got to work. After thoroughly cleaning the kitchen, picking up the broken plates and mopping up spilled spaghetti sauce, she called for a pizza, giving them the address of the house that now stood above the bunker. It was so much easier getting deliveries sent or shipped there when there was a house and not an imposing and abandoned power plant. She left all of the fans on in the kitchen, hoping that most of the smoke would clear out soon.

Dean called as she was eating. "Hey, I haven't found much yet, but it took a while to get everything cleaned up in the kitchen."

"Don't worry, we've got time. We're walking."

"Walking?" Grace got up, pacing around the war room like she usually did when she was on the phone. "What happened to the car?"

"It died. Like I told you, something's off about today."

"That is kind of weird," she frowned. "You're having some decently bad luck today, I guess. I'll tell you what I've got so far, if that'll help."

"Shoot."

"Wraiths don't normally attack other monsters. They keep their distance, since some monsters can get the drop on them really easily. There was a case where a wraith attacked a pack of werewolves because she got cornered. Joliet, Illinois, 1942. It wasn't pretty. I found another couple of deaths out of Indiana in the 1930s where a wraith killed a werewolf and a couple of vamps in an underground boxing club kind of scenario. They were big back then, but the Men of Letters only - shit." The power had suddenly died, Grace instinctively thinking some sort of malevolent entity had appeared outside. But nothing was wrong. No alarms were going off, and she couldn't sense anything out of the ordinary.

"Everything okay?" Dean asked, fear creeping up in his voice.

"Yeah, the power just went out. It never does that. Hey, do me a favor and stay on the phone with me until I get it back up, just in case."

Dean filled her in on their drive as she felt her way along the wall, finally ending up in the control room, where she was able to flip a couple of switches and turn everything back on. Nothing too difficult, just annoying that it had happened right then, when she was trying to work and get research done for the boys.

"We're probably just going to have a big storm," Grace reasoned. "It's almost summer in Kansas. Not too unusual, right?"

"No, but you be careful. Just in case," Dean instructed. She could hear Sam sneezing beside him as the two of them trudged along, finding their way to Garth's. "I should get going. Save my phone battery in case something else happens while we're out here. I love you, Gracie."

"Love you too. I'll see you soon."

While Sam and Dean made slow progress on the road to Garth's house, Grace went back to work. She had a backlog of emails and a couple of phone calls to make, aside from the ones that came in at all hours of the day, asking for help and asking for her to pose as the supervisory agent of whatever agency a hunter needed her to be from. It was a lot of work, but the Bobby that had come back from the Apocalypse World hadn't turned out like the real Bobby. Sure, he was still a great hunter, but he spent his days over there leading a rogue band of survivors, not researching and making sure other hunters' cases went smoothly. He spent his days investigating and tracking down leads now, not behind a pile of books or an old computer. So Grace had taken over, doing her best to keep up with everything and address the whole Chuck situation.

She was still reading about wraiths when Dean called back, telling her that they were investigating a monster-fighting ring. "We're walking into this - Chuck downgraded us, or that's what Garth thinks, at least."

"Why does your voice sound weird?"

"I've got gauze in my mouth. Not important. Garth thinks we're just normal people now. You know, not the heroes of the story. Chuck can't kill us, but he can make our lives miserable," Dean explained, "and that means I get parking tickets and Sam burns dinner and you get stuck in a blackout. We've all been demoted. So we're going in here with a little less ammo than usual, but we've still got it. We're still hunters."

Yawning, Grace had to tell him to, "Be careful. If you're going in there a little thrown off - even if you just think you're thrown off - you've got to be more careful than usual."

"Of course. I'm thinking we're going to need to work on the car before we go, so we should be home tomorrow night."

"Okay." She got up, stretching as they said their goodbyes. As Sam and Dean went to bust an entire gang of monsters, she got ready for bed. Even though she was up at all hours at times, she tried to go to bed somewhat early when she could, even if 'early' still meant around midnight.

There were a couple of texts from Dean waiting for her when she woke up the next morning, detailing what had happened the night before. From what it sounded like, it had been quite the show.

2:37 am: Found the place. Too quiet.

5:07 am: Garth just blew up the entire thing. C-4. Pretty sweet. *one photo attachment*

6:00 am: Getting some sleep before I take a look at the car.

6:01 am: Do we have almond milk at home? I'll explain later.

6:02 am: Going to sleep. Love you.

Grace made her way into the kitchen, pulling a carton of eggs out of the fridge. They did have almond milk, since she and Sam had been drinking it for ages. Shaking her head, she started to make breakfast, wondering what Dean could have meant. As she flipped her omelette, her phone rang. Another hunter needing their identity verified for a local police department. Clearing her throat, Grace put on her professional voice and assured the police chief that yes, the hunter worked for her, and yes, they needed access to autopsy records and police files, unless they wanted the entire FBI to take over the precinct.

The boys got home around nine that night, after a couple of failed attempts to leave Garth's, which all resulted in the car stalling in the driveway. Dean went straight to the shower, leaving Sam to explain how they had busted the monster-fighting club and how things were still just as strange as they had left them. Personally, he told her, he thought Garth was right. He could only hope that if Chuck had demoted them to secondary characters, he had also given up on forcing them to follow his plan. Only time would tell.

Sam went off to shower and change, Grace closing her laptop and heading to her room. Dean had just gotten out of the shower and looked absolutely exhausted. "Hey, you." He smiled a weary smile, the hunt having clearly taken a toll on him. "How do I run on four hours of sleep?"

"You don't. You do when you're hunting, but when you're home, you sleep until noon. And you drink a lot of coffee when you're on the road."

Dean sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I've lost it. Sam and I both have. The Winchester mojo. Hell, I think I'm lactose intolerant now. Whatever Chuck did, I hate it."

A sly smile played at the corner of her mouth as Grace draped her arms around his neck. "Hmm, I think you've got plenty of Winchester mojo."

"Oh really?" Dean caught on quickly, leaning in to kiss her.

"Mhm," she smiled, her fingers playing at the towel wrapped around his waist. "Why don't you show me, just to make sure?"