Alright. Let's get into it.

I've been gone for a while. I lost someone very important to me and I really couldn't find the motivation to write anything for a long time after that. Slowly I've been working my way back to this, because I think of everything I've written (fic, anyway) this is the one I most want to see through.

I want you to know I've seen your reviews, and your follows, and I really appreciate that this old neglected thing still has pulling power despite not being updated for years. Your kind words have not gone unnoticed. It means the world to me that you're still here. I hope this is worth your wait.

*.*.*

The Bunker

Now

*.*.*

Ellie woke up in a cold sweat. Again. Sighing shakily, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and rubbed her eyes wearily.

She'd killed him again, in her dreams. It was happening a lot now and she didn't like the feeling all too much. It left her scattered and unsettled all day. And she knew Dean wasn't fooled by her sudden great love for coffee when she used to get along pretty well without it.

It was enough to make her want to go get drunk, just so she'd pass out for a night, but if that didn't work she didn't know what she'd do next. And then she'd be back where she started. Which was messy and tired.

She'd taken to exercise again, trying to get back the feeling of zen it had once given her. Trying to focus on busy hands instead of her busy mind. She didn't have a punching bag here, not yet anyway, but she could still do drills and some strength training.

Ellie pulled herself outta bed and got to it, trudging to a bigger room that she could move around in more. Today she'd focus on her breathing. Inner stillness. Reaching a calm state instead of just working herself to exhaustion again.

So really, the same thing she tried to do every time and ended up failing at.

She was breathing hard and covered in sweat when a low whistle made her head snap up to the door. Dean leaned against the frame.

"You trying to get that bikini body for summer?" He said wryly, looking unimpressed at the state of her.

"Real funny," she muttered, pushing back on her haunches and rising from the floor. She grabbed the towel she'd tossed on a desk and used it to wipe her face and neck.

"Seriously," Dean said, "Is this something I should be worried about?"

Ellie glanced at him, taking in the genuine concern in the lines of his face. She felt a pang, for a moment, that they couldn't seem to get back to the easy way they used to be.

"No," she said, probably sharper than she meant to. She was a little wired from lack of sleep and the yet-to-quit anxious glittering of her heart. "I'm fine."

"Kid-"

"Dean," she interrupted, a little exasperated, "Just leave it. It's just a few bad dreams, alright? Nothin' worth writin' home about."

He looked down, nodding a little, his jaw tight. "Fine," he said finally. "Have it your way. But don't you start falling apart too."

She felt guilty at that, because she knew how worried he already was about Sammy. She shifted uncomfortably. "Dean, it ain't like that, I'm fine."

"You're fine," he repeated, slightly incredulous. "You don't eat, and you're working out like you're about to play Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, but you're fine."

She tried not to wince as she nodded. His eyes drifted to her shoulder and she was suddenly conscious of her hand rubbing just above her heart again. She dropped her hand and rolled her shoulder, trying to pass it off as a result of the workout.

She didn't need both of 'em on her case about her new habit.

"Dean," she said, redoing her ponytail for something to do with her hands, "I'm here. I'm trying. What else do you want?"

He looked down, but not before she saw something in his face drop.

"Yeah, can't ask for more than that I guess," he muttered. "Well, if you're good, then it's time to saddle up. We've got shit to do."

Ellie blinked. "We've got what now?"

He looked up and he was back to his usual self, smirking at her. "What, you think freaks take time off just because we're busy? There's some spooky crap happening in Ramona."

"Ramona?" She wrinkled her nose. "Where in the Goddamn world is Ramona?"

"Not far," he said cheerfully, which didn't give her any confidence. He always said that.

She sighed. "Lemme guess. Small place, real quaint, has a little old lady with a dark secret and an open minded cop we befriend and put to work?"

"Population of 179, can't speak for the cop, and how did you know about the little old lady?"

"There's always a damn little old lady," she muttered darkly. "Alright, fine. But I'm only goin' so you don't start botherin' Sam. He needs all the rest he can get."

"Why do you think I came to you first, little miss priss?"

Ellie narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm gonna choose not to touch that, but you're gonna owe me later."

They were rolling twenty minutes later, both of them mutually determined to get out of the house before Sam could wake up and demand to come along. No one needed to deal with his bitch face.

They got to Tampa - Kansas, thank God - just before 10, easing up to the gas station first. Ramona didn't have one, and you never knew when you'd have to hightail it outta town. Folks weren't always understanding of the destruction of property or death of supposedly good citizens that came along with hunting.

"How is it," Ellie said, lolling her head out the window while Dean filled the tank, "That there're towns small enough that they don't have a gas station, but they still have paranormal freaks?"

He snorted. "City slicker. Small towns are always where the weirdest crap happens."

She slid her sunglasses down her nose to peer at him. "You ain't a country boy, don't act like you are. At least I had an uncle with a farm."

"Bobby had a farm."

"Bobby lived outta town and had a salvage yard," she corrected. "That ain't a farm."

"Yeah, well, how many times did you get up and milk the damn cows on your uncle's farm?"

She shuddered. "More times than I'd ever want. They shit when you milk them, you know that?"

He raised his eyebrows. "I did not know that."

"All over your arm, if you're standin' in the wrong place," she said glumly. "Not that Uncle Ned ever told me where the wrong place was, until I learnt the hard way…"

Dean laughed, and she thought maybe telling him about cows shitting on her was worth it to see his face light up a little. He looked younger. Freer.

For about two seconds, anyway.

"So," she said, pushing her glasses back up. "What's the play here? Ain't a diner in Ramona either, so are we just gonna hang around here and hope for something to point us in the right direction?"

"We're going to visit the Stephenses. Their kid went missing to whatever this is a week ago." He clunked the fuel nozzle back into the pump and dusted his hands off on his worn jeans. "We're PIs investigating a link to a similar case for a confidential client."

"Are we heavily implying it's to do with the Adams kid?"

"You betcha."

She hummed, flicking through the report for Dion Adams. Poor kid was the only victim who'd been found, out of the five people who'd gone missing in the county over the past year. Judging by the husk they identified as his body, they were tracking something that liked to keep 'em around and feed for a while. Ghouls, maybe, or djinn - but surely there wasn't anywhere for djinn to hide around here. Not many ruins in a little place like Ramona.

Certainly weren't enough woodlands for a wendigo to lurk in, thank Christ.

When she flipped past the crime scene, to the Stephens section, she saw a seventeen year old boy smiling at the camera. He looked like he had the whole world at his feet with that grin - somewhat cocky, in the way that teenage boys were.

She hated cases with kids. They were always hard.

Dean swung back into the driver's seat, noticing her staring at the picture.

She flipped it shut brusquely, shoving it in the glovebox. "Fuckin' hate this part."

"You know the drill," he said, turning the key. "You get the wife alone, try a little girl talk, see what you can find."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Dean, her son just went missing. We ain't gabbing about our nails."

"Whatever works." The car purred under them as they pulled out onto the road again, cruising over cracked tarmac to Ramona and the Stephens house.

*.*.*

The Stephens family house was old. It could have done with a lick of paint about twenty years ago. But it was tidy - the gardens were immaculate rows of greens and other vegetables, and the old weatherboards were relatively free of the dirt that blew around easily.

They were shown in easily enough. Small towns didn't like strangers typically, but these people were scared and desperate enough to grasp at any chance of getting their boy back. Dean sat doing some kind of macho man chat while Ellie trailed after Mrs Stephens into the kitchen when she murmured something about making coffee.

She found the older woman staring out the window, the sink running before her and an empty kettle in her slack hands.

"Ma'am, let me," Ellie said gently, taking the kettle and sticking it under the stream of now-steaming water to fill it. She set it aside and shooed Mrs Stephens to a stool behind the kitchen counter.

"Mrs Stephens," she said, once she'd set the kettle up on the stove, "I know this must be real hard for you. Not knowin' where he is."

"I just don't know where he'd go," Mrs Stephens told her, her hands gripping a tea towel she'd started to twist so tightly her knuckles were white. "He's just a kid."

The police were saying Kalim was a runaway. Not related at all to the grisly Adams case.

Where a boy would run away to in a town as small and out in the sticks as Ramona, she had no idea.

"His car's still here," Mrs Stephens added tearfully. "It's not like there's a bus that goes through."

"I can't comment on what the police've decided," Ellie said quietly. "They're runnin' the official case. But I don't think your boy's a runaway."

Mrs Stephens looked at her. "Then where do you think he is?"

"That's what we're gonna find out," Ellie promised, hoping like Hell it wouldn't be too late when they found the poor kid. "I know you'll already've gone over this with the police, but you notice anythin' weird in his room? Sulphur, strange symbols?"

Mrs Stephens frowned. "No. Why? Is there a… a cult somewhere nearby?"

"The internet opens up a lotta weird possibilities, especially with teenagers," Ellie said. "We just wanna make sure he was behavin' the same as always. Not actin' different, gettin' new hobbies."

The other woman's lip wobbled. "He was normal," she said thickly, "He was his perfect self. And now he's gone, and no one can tell us where or why."

"We'll work it out. We always do." She went to grab the coffee canister from by Mrs Stephens' elbow when the older woman reached out and gripped her arm.

"You don't really think he's gonna end up like Dion, do you?" she asked Ellie pleadingly. "When that happened… God, no one wants that to happen to their child."

"I don't know," Ellie said honestly, setting her hand on top of Mrs Stephens' where it clutched at her. "I hope not. I'm gonna do my best to get him home to you safely."

When the coffee was done, she deposited Mrs Stephens beside her husband and summoned Dean with a jerk of her head to go check out Dion's room.

"Find anythin' out?" she muttered to him as they walked down the narrow hall.

He shrugged. "Kid seems clean." He held the door open for her, and she ducked inside to see a neat room. No posters - parents didn't wanna damage the aging wallpaper, she'd guess.

She sniffed. "No sulphur."

"Least we can check that off." Dean squatted to go through the small bookshelf, opening a few books at random and flipping through them. "Kid's a nerd. Look at this stuff - who reads non fiction when they're in highschool?"

She glanced over from inspecting the closet. "What kinda stuff is it?"

"Nothing interesting," her brother grumbled. "You got anything?"

"Nothin' too exciting," she said, wrinkling her nose as she bent to examine the bottom part and was hit by the smell of sweaty teen shoes. "Jesus. He needs foot powder or somethin'."

Dean was rifling through papers on the desk when she turned around. She moved around him and tapped some keys on the laptop to wake it up. Unsurprisingly, it was password protected.

"I don't think he had anythin' to do with whatever took him," she said, looking to Dean again.

"I'm getting that feeling too," he admitted, pushing off from the desk to slowly circle and survey the room one last time. "This is too normal."

"Alright. Agreed, then." She dusted off her palms and rocked back on her heels. "I got a question. Why's it only pickin' off kids? Shouldn't we be seein' more… variety?"

"Maybe it has a taste," he said.

She shuddered. "That's horrible."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't be such a girl."

"Shut up," she muttered, elbowing him good on the way back down the hallway. He groaned and took a second to catch up.

They left the Stephenses with little fanfare. The fragile hope in their eyes made Ellie's gut churn guiltily. They were either delivering what remained of a body, or a heavily traumatised teen at the end of this mess. Kalim Stephens wasn't gonna be the same if he came back alive.

At least he'd be there, in that best case scenario.

They did the rounds on the other parents. It was much the same. Nothing outta the ordinary, nothing that couldn't be written off as teenage boy shit.

"What if it's a human?" Ellie asked quietly, voicing the cloud that had sat over them since discovering how normal everything was.

"Then it's still a monster," Dean said grimly, "But we hand it over."

*.*.*

Evening found them back at the nearest diner, scarfing down greasy food. Or rather, Dean was eating enthusiastically and Ellie was trying to hide that she still wasn't all that hungry. She got mostly through the chicken and started picking at her fries.

"So," she said, to distract Dean when he started eyeing her plate critically, "Sam's dyin', Kevin's presumed dead, and Castiel's somehow both back and not crazy. Anythin' else I missed?"

Dean scowled at her. "Sammy's not dying."

She held up her hands peaceably. "Alright. He's not."

Dean relaxed a little. "I think you hit the highlights. You wanna catch me up on anything?"

"Not really."

He swallowed and gestured vaguely at her. "C'mon. You're all twitchy. What's up with you? Is it the…" He wiggled his fingers, signalling what he called her Angel Vision.

At the time Sam had, unhelpfully, piped up and offered Gracer Tracer as an alternative.

It was her turn to scowl. "No. I try not to use that much anymore. More trouble'n it's worth."

"Fair." He chewed, still watching her thoughtfully. "Something's up. You know I'm gonna figure it out."

She snorted. "When've you ever figured somethin' about me out?"

"Well, I figured you're not sleeping with Cas this time-"

"No," Ellie said curtly.

"Right." He looked down to cut more of his meal, his long eyelashes resting against his cheek.

How come he got the pretty lashes, she wondered for the umpteenth time.

He wasn't done, though. "So you left, found a little trouble, shot a guy… and now you won't eat or sleep, and I actually had to twist your arm to get you on a hunt. What, you fall in love or something?"

She snorted, unable to stop herself. "No. Nil for two. What're you gonna go with for door number three?"

He shrugged. "Haven't decided yet. I'll get back to you."

"Joy of joys," she said dryly. "You ever thought maybe I'm just more fucked up by all this than you realised?"

"Naw," he said, sitting back and reaching for his beer. "We're pretty good at denial, I doubt you're crumbling under that."

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, honey." She caught sight of something on the old TV in the corner and froze. "Oh my Lord."

"What?" Dean turned to look. "Son of a bitch."

On the screen - obviously some local news station - the faces of the missing boys were popping up as a news bulletin ran on a ribbon beneath them.

They'd been found.

*.*.*

Then

*.*.*

It all went sideways so quickly once they stormed the Leviathan stronghold.

Ellie got separated from her boys, from Castiel, from Meg even, in a matter of blurry minutes it seemed. She knew the plan, so she just kept creeping through silent hallways in search of the man himself.

She didn't come across anyone. It giving her the creeps, 'cause there was no way in Hell the Leviathans were this lax on security. Her heart was thundering, muscles tense and waiting on the slightest noise to swing her machete.

She found Dick Roman in a lab. It was wrong and too easy and this whole thing was giving her the heebie jeebies, but she'd come too far to back out now. She moved.

Things happened real quick after that.

She didn't even get her machete up before she was grabbed from behind, someone clamping onto her arms so she couldn't move them with inhuman strength. She yelped and tried to plant her feet, tried going slack, tried everything her frantic mind could thing of-

Dick Roman turned to face her, smiling. "Eleanor. You made it. I knew you wouldn't be far behind your brothers."

"Go to Hell, Dick," she snarled, stilling. She'd have to wait for her opportunity. The Leviathans were cocky - she could use that to get away from the one holding her, once he'd relaxed a smidge.

Roman tutted at her. "After all we've been through? You used to be much nicer. Is it the body? I could try to look more like what you're used to. I have to ask…" he walked closer, his gaze predatory, gleeful even. "Did you like being my good girl?"

Her stomach rolled at the implication that he'd been aware while she was with Castiel. She tried not to let it get to her, forcing it down to someplace deep and distant.

She looked him square in his beady eyes. "What do you want, Dick? Why'm I alive right now?"

He laughed, delighted. "You really have no idea, do you?"

"Not a clue," she said, her brow furrowing. "What're you so happy about?"

"This-" he gestured to the creamer around them. "This is how I'm going to control the human world. And you, Eleanor…" His eyes grew darker, his smile less human. "You're going to be how I control Heaven."

She glared at him. "Stop talkin' in riddles. Why me?"

He leaned forward like he was about to whisper some secret to her. "You don't even remember," he breathed. "All that power, and he just… took it from you. We did, really."

She jerked against her captor, wanting nothing more than to smack his smug face. Maybe whack his head off with the machete that was now on the floor.

"You don't just see them, Eleanor," Dick Roman confided in her, "You can hurt them. Control them."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she growled, heart pounding in her ears.

"Would you like to?" The question hung in the sterile lab air.

You can hurt them.

He had to be lying. If she could do something like that, she would've been able to protect herself - from Castiel, from any angel.

His demented grin grew impossibly wider. "You're curious, aren't you? I can show you how. I've seen you do it for your little boyfriend."

He's lying, he has to be lying. There's no way.

"Got you to do his dirty work," the Leviathan goaded, "then he wiped it. Don't you want to know why? What you're capable of?"

Control them.

She swallowed.

*.*.*

Double cliffhanger… oops.

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