A.N.: This chapter is where I start pulling things from the new episodes that started airing in October of 2020. Just wanted to warn you in case you're trying to stay away from spoilers. From here on out, I'm going to be writing along with them, so if you want to avoid spoilers until you get a chance to watch them, this is a safe place to stop. I'm currently proofreading some of these chapters as we have two more episodes left. It's been a wild ride, but thank you all for the constant support!


"Hey, I think the hot water's out," Grace said, Dean waking up with a start. "Oh, sorry. I didn't realize you'd dozed off again."

He blinked, trying to process the image of her standing before him wrapped in a towel. "I'll, uh, take a look at it. I don't think we're going to be able to call a real plumber out here, so I might need your help."

"I don't know much about fixing the water heater with magic," she smiled, heading for their closet. "I don't want to end up flooding the bunker."

"I've got it covered, but I'm gonna need someone to hold the flashlight." The two of them would spend much of the morning trying to fix the water heater, Sam eventually joining them in the basement.

The air conditioning went out a little while after lunch. It seemed like one thing after another, Grace emerging from her office to find another lightbulb for her lamp when she noticed how hot the war room had gotten. "We're already on it," Sam told her, leafing through a binder of information on the bunker's systems. The Men of Letters had detailed many of the inner workings of the bunker, but the three of them had also discovered a lot that hadn't been written down over the years.

Grace frowned, staring into one of the supply closets. "I think I'm going to have to run out to get more lightbulbs. Should I pick up new air filters while I'm out?"

"Sure. I don't think we've changed them in ages," Sam nodded, still glued to the binder. "I think I know how to permanently fix the water too. What we rigged up isn't going to last for long. Have you seen Dean?"

Before she could answer, Dean jogged in from the kitchen, still wearing an apron. "The pilot light's out. Woah, it's hot in here too? I thought it was just the kitchen."

While the boys went to figure out how to fix the clearly-aging bunker, Grace left for the store, thinking she would get some groceries while she was out. And maybe the name of a competent plumber who they could bribe to stay quiet about the bunker. That was the one problem with living in the bunker - there was no way they could let anyone in on it, so if something broke, it was up to them to fix it. But if she could wipe someone's memory or bribe them to keep quiet, maybe they wouldn't have to spend their time patching things up as they inevitably broke down.

It was a relatively uneventful trip into town, Grace making it back with armfuls of groceries pretty quickly. When she got back, the air conditioning was on full blast, but as she closed the door behind her, she picked up on an unfamiliar voice in the war room. "Oh, hello dear. You must be the new helper around here." A rather stuffily-dressed woman stood in front of the table, holding a feather duster. "It's good to see the boys found some new help while I was away."

"While you were away? I'm sorry, who are you?" she asked, coming down the stairs to meet them all.

"I'm Mrs. Butters," the woman smiled, shaking her hand. "I'm a wood nymph. I live here. I take care of the Men of Letters like they're my family. It's good to see they found you to help them out while I was away. What are you, my dear?"

Grace looked over to Sam and Dean before answering. "I'm not sure I understand… you live here? Where?"

"We tried to reset the power and she just appeared," Sam explained. Weirder things had happened, but this was something new.

"The bunker was in standby mode, but they reactivated it," Mrs. Butters said, looking her over. "You're rather - well, you don't look like the type they would hire."

"I'm sorry, I still don't quite get it. You were in standby mode? Like frozen? Where were - wait, they didn't hire me. I'm a hunter."

"A hunter?" Mrs. Butters exclaimed. She looked Grace over once again, glancing to the boys in disbelief. "They let a woman in? As a hunter? It really has been an age, then! The 1960s must be a whole new era!"

Dean was the first to speak. "Mrs. Butters," he told her gently, "it's 2020."

The wood nymph looked between the three of them in stunned silence. "I… oh my. That means… that must mean they never came home. I waited for them for such a long time, and when they didn't come back, I placed the bunker - and myself - in standby mode. What happened to them?"

"The Men of Letters were killed by a demon named Abaddon," Sam told her. "All of them. We found this place, and we took over where they left off. We're the only ones left."

"Mrs. Butters, could you give us a moment?" Grace asked, pulling the boys aside while the wood nymph dried her tears. "We can't throw her out of here. She's got no one, and she clearly has no clue what the world's like today. This is her home, after all. Why don't we make her comfortable and then figure something out?" Dean gave her a skeptical look, but Grace continued, "She's a wood nymph. There are three of us - four of us, if we count Jack. That's more than enough to… sort out anything that might go wrong."

The boys agreed, turning back to fill Mrs. Butters in on what had happened since the last of the Men of Letters had left the bunker. Meanwhile, Grace went to put groceries away, thinking that she'd change the air filters later. She still had to fix the lamp in her office, and then get to work on first figuring out what could control a wood nymph if she ever became a problem, and then on figuring out how the Men of Letters hadn't kept any record of her. Back when she'd first started cataloguing every scrap of knowledge in the bunker, Grace had found a box of personnel files detailing the "current" Men of Letters, at least the ones who had been there when Abaddon had wiped them all out. There was no mention of Mrs. Butters, and she hadn't appeared in any of their photographs. Maybe she had been the one to take all of them. It still struck her as odd, though. Grace had been going through their records, trying to build a history of the Men of Letters when she had time. But there had been no mention of a wood nymph at all.

When she got back to the war room, Mrs. Butters was saying that if the boys, "are anything like the others, it's been an age since you've had a home-cooked meal or celebrated the holidays. You must be too busy with your hunting, especially if there are only the two of you."

"That's uh, something Grace usually does," Dean said, smiling at her as she leaned on the table beside him. "Hey."

"Of course. That's why you have her here."

"No," Dean said patiently, winding an arm around Grace's waist. "She's my wife, and she's kind enough to do all of that between hunts. Sure, we might celebrate our birthdays a few days late if we're out on the road, but she tries to make sure we still get to do stuff like that. Sam and I were never really holiday people. At least not until Gracie." He kissed the top of her head for emphasis.

Mrs. Butters looked at both of them, putting the pieces together. "They let married men in now… the boys all used to be bachelors, not really the family type at all. And to think you go hunting, Grace! What a new world 2020 must be!"

They were interrupted by a blaring alarm, Mrs. Butters simply shrugging and telling them that the monster radar was going off again. "Monster radar?" Sam asked, looking at the blinking light on the war room table. "That's never lit up before."

"Yes, it's a feature the Men of Letters installed ages ago. By the looks of it, it's a vampire nest, and it's fairly close by."

The brothers looked at each other, Grace telling them to, "Go. I'll stay here and make sure Mrs. Butters gets settled in. And that Jack's taken care of."

They didn't need to be told twice. Dean kissed her goodbye, racing to grab some supplies before taking off with Sam. "So you really go hunting?" Mrs. Butters asked Grace once they had left, still amazed that she went with the boys at times. "I've only ever met - well, all of the female hunters I knew stopped after the war. There were one or two left, but they never went after anything terribly dangerous. The Men of Letters mostly kept them around to infiltrate places that they couldn't."

"I do. There are a lot more of us nowadays, just not a lot who live near here. Our friend Jody, and Donna, and Charlie... we have plenty of incredible women in this business, women who are a lot stronger than a lot of the men who go hunting. Do you want to see something incredible?" Grace left her in the war room, coming back with her laptop moments later and beginning to explain the massive monster database she had been building. Just like the Men of Letters' old filing system, but better. There was a lot Mrs. Butters needed to catch up on in the modern world, and Grace figured the Internet would be a good place to start.

Eventually, Grace left to lock herself in her office, getting to work on trying to figure out the story behind the wood nymph who apparently lived in the bunker. Hours passed that way, but she came up with almost nothing. When she finally emerged, she walked out into what looked like an explosion of Christmas decorations. "Mrs. Butters, what -"

She was interrupted by the boys coming home, the two of them stopping dead at the top of the stairs. "Merry Christmas!" Mrs. Butters exclaimed, offering Grace a piece of gingerbread. Grace glazed up at the boys, shrugging before accepting gratefully.