Miracle raced into their room, jumping onto the bed. "Hi there, buddy," Dean smiled, giving the dog a hug as Grace sat up. "Good morning. Good morning! How are you? Did Sam take you out already?"

"What time is it?" Grace sat up, smiling at her husband and their dog.

"Almost nine." He turned back to the dog, adding, "Almost time for breakfast, huh? C'mon, let's get you a treat." He got up, Grace yawning and watching them head for the kitchen.

They were slowly trying to figure out normal life. Though they still lived in the bunker, they had all been looking at houses in the area. Eventually they planned on using the bunker like an office, their real lives unfolding outside of "work". Dean had come back with the dog one day, Grace and Sam immediately agreeing that adopting a dog was a good idea. It was a small step towards a normal life. One small step at a time, she figured. Dean had been applying for jobs, and Grace had been working on getting them the documents they needed to blend in. They could survive off the grid like they had been, but it was no way to live a real life.

Miracle followed Dean around, only staying behind when Grace sent the boys out on their own. When they were out on hunts, she was busy house hunting and sorting their lives out. They could get real jobs, flexible enough to allow for hunting, but real jobs nonetheless. They would need backstories and plausible resumes and identification that showed that they hadn't died multiple times. Difficult, but possible. They knew plenty of people who could make it happen.

Grace would go hunting with them at times, the three of them slowly falling into a pattern. When they were home, she would stop working after dinner unless she was in the middle of something pressing, spending her time with the boys instead. If the three of them (and Miracle, of course) were out on a hunt, they made time to stop and see the sights that they had missed. Years before, Dean and Grace would stop at national parks and all sorts of other roadside attractions on their drives, but as their work got more involved, as Heaven and Hell came into play, they spent much of their time crisscrossing the country on back-to-back cases and didn't have time to stop.

When Sam would go out with Eileen, Dean insisted on going on competing dates. Or they would stay in and watch TV like a normal couple, forgetting everything they had left behind them, even if it was just for a couple of hours. It was nice to have some sort of normalcy in their lives again, even if their normal would have terrified the average person.


The stakeout had gone nowhere, every lead fizzling out faster than the last. When they went to interview the sheriff who Bobby claimed had called him, they found out nothing new. It sounded like an open-and-shut animal attack, something totally normal. But Bobby was sure of it. He'd insisted that they stay in Rufus' cabin, telling them to make themselves at home because it could be a long hunt. This thing would go dormant and then attack again without warning. There would be two more attacks that summer, and they had to be there to catch it.

Since this thing only seemed to attack on the full moon or new moon, the two of them had plenty of time for research. They would spend their days in the local library or interviewing the residents of the lakeside town, but half of their time was spent kayaking around or swimming in the lake that was just a few steps from their back door.

"There's nothing here, is there?" Grace asked, stretching the phone cord as far into the kitchen as it could stretch.

"No," Bobby admitted. "Even you kids have got to be thinking a bear attack is a lot more likely. I made it fit a pattern."

"Why send us on a hunt if it's just a bear?" She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder, chopping a tomato as she talked. Something dawned on her as she reached for another tomato. "Why did you want us out of the house for a while?"

"Is Dean around?"

"No. He went for groceries a little while ago."

"Good. Don't tell him, but this is kind of a break from his dad. He and John were fighting something fierce before he came to visit, and I figure John wouldn't ask too many questions if I told him I sent you two on one of the strangest hunts I'd run across in a while. He's out in Arizona right now, nowhere close. I'm keeping him updated as a way of keeping track of him. I'm just gonna tell him it was a rabid werewolf."

Grace looked up as the door unlocked. "I've go to get going. But thank you, Bobby. We need this. He needs this." She hung up just as Dean made it inside, boasting that he'd brought everything in in one trip. "Well, look at you," she smiled, washing her hands before coming over to give him a kiss. "Did you get charcoal for the grill? It's gonna be a beautiful evening. It would be a shame to just cook inside."

"Yeah, I took it around to the porch." He paused, looking over to her as she started sorting through the plastic bags. He smiled to himself, realizing how lucky he was to catch even a bit of a break during a hunt. Most of the time it was nonstop running and research. But this, this was different. This was blending in like locals, living in a real house for more than a couple of days. It was nice.

The two of them got to watch the sunset over the lake, the stars just coming out as night began to fall. "Hey Gracie?" Dean asked, thanking her for the beer she'd brought over. "I don't know what we're after, but I'm glad it's giving us a break."

"Me too." She moved her chair right next to his before settling in. "It's kind of nice having a real house, just the two of us living like real people live. No weird motel beds, no continental breakfasts, no washing blood off of our suits in bathtubs."

"Would you want a normal life like this?" he ventured.

"One day. With you," she clarified. "Just us, with a house on a lake, not having to worry about dropping everything to drive across the country. We could be boring, average people. If you want."

Dean reached out for her hand, giving it a squeeze. "That would be nice."


The two of them had fallen asleep watching an old movie, Miracle sprinting in to remind Dean that it was time for breakfast. Grace followed them into the kitchen, where Sam was already up frying eggs. "Morning. There's bacon if you want it."

Grace was on the phone when Dean came to find her. He mouthed something before disappearing into the hall, but he returned a few minutes later, as if she was supposed to have followed. As soon as she hung up, he told her to grab her laptop and start packing. He'd found one of the most interesting cases they'd ever stumbled across, but they had to drive fast.

After fifteen hours in the car, they pulled up to the Akron pie festival. Grace had to laugh, but their fun didn't last for long. They rushed to change into the suits that they kept in the trunk, heading to a crime scene instead of the three o'clock pie eating contest.

"Some kind of cannibal crap," the lead detective was saying as Grace emerged from beneath the police line.

"The kids were taken?" Grace asked her, holding a notepad.

"Both of them. I'll send you the APBs."

"No need, I took a picture of the family photos. You said one of the parents was drained of blood? And the other was missing their tongue?" Grace took detailed notes even though a couple of ideas had already sprung to mind.

She shook her head, looking back to the house. "Some sicko. Hopefully just passing through. I don't need any more of them around here."

"You had one just like this twenty years ago, didn't you?" Dean asked, crossing his arms. "We've heard stories about it back at the field office."

"We'd rather not think they're related, at least for now."

As he walked away to talk to Sam, Grace stepped in, offering a conciliatory, "Sorry about Agent Bonham, he's pretty new. He, uh, didn't make CIA. It upset the whole family legacy thing, and he's still trying to walk that one off."

But Dean was right. His dad had worked a string of kidnappings along the 77, where all of the kids had been taken, the adults either drained of blood or missing their tongues. Vamps. "If the pattern holds, Canton's next," he determined, flipping through his Dad's journal as Sam spread a map on the hood of the Impala.

Grace reappeared, back in her normal hunting clothes. "What are we looking for?"

"A family living outside town with a couple of kids between about five and ten. Think you can start narrowing them down while we drive?"

"I'm on it."

Canton was only half an hour away, but Grace was able to make a list of a handful of families. She ruled one out because they were on vacation, eliminating another because the kids were away at summer camp. That just left one, the Langfords. A family with two kids, a five year-old and a seven year-old. They lived on the outskirts of town, and had just gotten home from soccer practice when they pulled up in the Impala.

Camping out in front of the house reminded Grace of the old stakeouts they used to go on, when two or three of them would sit in the car for hours, watching a house or a building for any signs of trouble. It felt like another lifetime.

Around nine o'clock, a dark van pulled up, two masked men jumping out and heading for the house. The Winchesters were ready for them. Dean beheaded one before he could turn around, Sam shooting the other and loading him into the trunk of the Impala with Grace's help.

He came to as they pulled him out of the trunk in a wooded clearing. "What the hell was that?" the vampire asked, glaring at Sam as he took off his mask.

"Bullets soaked in dead man's blood. Now where are the kids?"

The vampire chuckled, asking, "What's in it for me? You gonna let me go if I tell you?"

"No. But I could kill you with this. One quick decapitation and it's over," Dean flipped a machete in his hand, "or he could do it with a pocketknife. Hours and hours of sawing, every muscle and tendon getting in the way. And if he gets tired, well, Grace, how do you feel about taking over?"

"Hmm, I think I'd prefer to use a rusty spoon," she shrugged, crossing her arms. "Start talking, or we start sawing."

The vampire swallowed nervously. "Fine. The kids are with the nest. We take a harvest and raise them to bleed until we can't anymore."

"And where's the nest?"


They drove out to a farm, exactly the "kind of place that feels like walking into a horror movie. What kind of weapon do you want?" Dean asked, popping the trunk open. "Machete? Throwing stars?"

The barn was empty when they walked inside, Sam opening a horse stall door to find the two kids. "This is too easy," Grace whispered as she checked the kids over, making sure they hadn't been bitten. "There's someone else here, I can feel it." The three of them turned to see four vampires lined up in front of the door, blocking their escape.

"Grace, get them to the car. Run," Dean whispered before he and Sam ran forward, charging the vampires.

She didn't need to be told twice. She grabbed the older boy's hand, telling him to get his brother. They sprinted for the back door of the barn, one of the vampires landing in front of them. Without hesitation, she decapitated him, pulling the kids along behind her.

No one followed them to the car. She sat them in the back seat with Miracle, dropping to her knees so she could look them in the eyes. "Stay here, okay? Don't let anyone into the car unless it's one of us. Look out for each other. We're going to get you home safe," she promised. The boys nodded, holding onto each other in fear as Miracle sniffed at them.

She stood, locking the car before jogging back to the barn. The remaining vampires lay on the floor, blood pooling around them. A typical vampire hunt, all of them decapitated in seconds. Vamps had been Dean's specialty, even when they first started hunting together. But as she stepped into the barn, something in the pit of her stomach told her that this was no typical vampire hunt.

"Gracie." Dean's voice was weak even as he and Sam stood together, their weapons abandoned at their feet. Sam looked petrified, Grace trying to read what had happened. "Gracie, come here. I need you."