Chapter 1 - Not a Cloud in the Sky

Sam and Dean seemed to keep having the same argument over and over again lately. Kat understood why, but it often left her just as she was tonight, stuck listening in the backseat of the Impala while they drove to another case with her older brothers biting each others' heads off in the front.

"I won't let you die for me!" Sam yelled.

"You have to, Sam," Dean countered more calmly.

"No, I don't accept that. I'll figure out how to get you out of this!"

Dean shouted this time, "Don't you dare! If you try to break this deal, you die!"

"But…!"

"Enough, Sam!" Dean cut him off. A few minutes later, Dean reached back out, "Tell me again about the case."

Sam didn't reply.

"Sam, come on," Dean pushed.

Sam sighed, "Three workers were attacked at a construction site a couple nights ago. The only survivor described the attacker as invisible and lightning fast."

"Alright," Dean said. "Let's go check out the construction site, and then the next stop, hospital."

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Though she didn't look old enough to be a cop or FBI agent, and likely still wouldn't for at least a couple more years, Kat had found a way to get herself into most of the situations where Sam and Dean had to pose as the law. In the hospital setting, it was easy. She would lift a badge of an unsuspecting nurse, CNA, or medical assistant and use it to scan into a locker room and borrow a set of scrubs from the clean laundry. This practice was what allowed her to be here now as Sam and Dean talked to Kyle, the survivor of the construction site's invisible killer. She had swiped a clipboard and pen from the nurses' station and stood to the side by Kyle's monitor, pretending to note his vitals and med levels.

She became distracted when Kyle tearfully asked Sam and Dean how they would feel if their brother was dead. Dean replied knowingly, and Kat caught Sam directing a haunted look at Dean's back.

It struck her then, and she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it before. She knew how to save her half-brothers. How to save both of them: Dean from Hell, and Sam from Hell on Earth without his brother. Her mind whirred. She knew the ingredients, and she knew there were a few left in the Impala from when they had been on the cases of the demon at Lloyd's. She remembered that there had been a crossroads at the construction site where two dirt roads around the site met to allow easy access.

This could work. Or it could not. There was no guarantee the demon would take her soul as a trade, but she had to try. An even trade or an attempt at one wasn't trying to break the deal, just make a new one. So Sam shouldn't drop dead when she tried. She could do this. This could work.

She was terrified.

She couldn't do this.

She didn't want to die.

She didn't want her soul condemned to Hell for all eternity.

This was crazy.

"Everything good, nurse?" Kat was torn out of her thoughts by Dean, who was giving her a pointed look that meant they were ready to leave.

"Yes," Kat made one more false note on the clipboard. "I'm finished here, everything's in great shape. Why don't I walk you out, agents?"

Dean nodded, and he walked out, Sam and Kat following close behind. Kat trailed a little as they neared the nurses' station, sliding the clipboard back onto the counter with the stolen badge on top. As she walked to catch back up with Sam, her breath hitched at the agony etched across his face. It wouldn't be long before Sam did something stupid to try and save Dean, and it would likely get him killed.

She could do this.