Rowena arrives for her latest paycheck- that is, for her latest consulting job and finds herself rather unprepared for what's waiting for her down in the halls of that once abandoned bunker.
The flight into Kansas proving every inch as dull and tiresome as she'd expected, Rowena treated herself to an in-flight nap followed by several minutes of flipping through the selection of movies they had available to play out the back of the seat in front of her. Eventually stopping on and selecting an old favorite from a bygone era, the rather risqué She Done Him Wrong.
With a sigh, the older-than-she-looked Scott let herself stare at the dreamy black and white face of one of the kings of Hollywood past, remembering how badly she'd wanted to kiss those supple, smiling lips and feel those big, strong arms hold her close while she drank in the intoxicating aroma of his top shelf cologne. Back when talkies were all the rage and Cary Grant was the talk of every town with a renovated cinema.
As it was, she'd had to make due with watching him over and over again on the big screen, playing the lead in hit after hit as the world got drunk off his charisma and humble charm.
And now here she was, nearly a century later, flying across state lines in a great metal bird, and the man's fetching baritone still set her imagination ablaze.
"Why don't you come up sometime and see me?" Rowena quoted along with the fabulous Mae West, feeling exactly as the leading lady must have as she gazed out her window at the man of both their affections.
She switched off the blast from the past when a voice rang over the intercom, telling the passengers that the plane would soon be landing.
After that it was a short trundle to disembark, a brisk walk through the airport to secure a taxi, and she was on her way to Lebanon and the underground fortress her hunter acquaintances called home.
Having already gotten in a good walk, Rowena guided her cabby right up to the bunker's front door, content in the knowledge that the man wouldn't remember a thing about this particular fare, courtesy the sneaky little short-term memory spell she'd hit him with before he'd had a chance to get a good look at her very memorable face.
Waiting until the taxi was well out of sight, the witch turned to knock on the imposing door and was impressed when it opened before she'd so much as touched it. Castiel standing inside, giving her a look that positively screamed 'I know what you did'.
"Ooh, I'm starting to like the service around here," she said as she stepped through the open port. Easily ignoring the tired look that followed her. "I trust my accommodations are prepared to my very high standards?" She asked as she watched the angel shut and lock the fortified entrance.
"Silver serving tray with a crystal glass and bottle of forty year brandy on the nightstand? Yes. Your very high standards are indeed reflected in your accommodations," assured the heavenly greeting committee.
"Good. Now, be a dear and take these," she instructed as she pushed her luggage into the angel's otherwise unoccupied hands. "The big one by the foot of my bed and the small one on the-"
"Rowena," Castiel interjected, "there are far more important things to discuss than where you'd like your bags."
"You're absolutely right," Rowena allowed, turning to take the stairs down and into the bowels of one of the world's most heavily warded havens. "I'll also be needing freshly laundered linens and towels, seeing as you clearly think this job too big for one day and, let's face it, the bed was a tad musty the last time I stayed over."
"Rowena," the bellhop said again, this time with a hint of urgency.
"Yes, dear?" She asked as she reached the foyer, turning to watch her helper take the last few stairs himself.
"Please, please take this seriously. The Winchesters have been through enough as it is."
"Oh my, speak for yourself, Castiel," the witch said as she got her first good and proper look at the angel.
"I'm fine," he said quite plainly.
"No, no you're not fine: hair is fine; you're a right mess," she said with conviction, having seen it for herself. Forgiving her eyes the extra blink they'd needed to adjust, considering they were not often afforded the opportunity to read the auras of such heavenly beings.
The target of her concern opened his mouth, reply on the tip of his tongue, when the tromping of a set of boots drew all attentions to the hunter emerging from the hall and making quick work of his approach.
"Rowena, thanks for coming," the man said, more relief behind it than made the witch comfortable.
"Samuel, you look as though you've not slept in weeks," Rowena chastised, pulling the downtrodden boy into a reflexive hug when he came close. "Is it that bad?" She asked as he reciprocated. Reassured by the touch that he was at least in good physical health.
"Uh, thanks. You look perfect, as usual," the hunter chided, getting himself a sporting cuff about the arm for his lip.
He'd sobered though by the time they pulled apart. "You have to see them for yourself. But... yeah. It's that bad."
"In that case, what are we waiting for? Lead the way."
And with a hurried gesture Samuel was off, glancing back every few ground eating strides to check he hadn't lost his magical consultant.
He led the way down and around until they arrived at the infirmary, pausing only to let the witch catch up before showing her to a cubicle constructed purely of medical privacy screens. What must have been red paint soaked through from the inside every few feet, making the thing look as if some sort of massacre had taken place within.
Bracing for what she might find, Rowena ducked through the opening and... and had to double take at the scene that greeted her.
A woman sat in a small chair to one side of an occupied medical bed, a lamp set on a small side table emitting a warm, almost soothing glow just bright enough for reading by. Which the woman had obviously been doing. Aloud. Before she'd jumped from her chair and reached for the knife at the back of her waistband.
"Don't mind little old me," Rowena chirped in her least condescending coo, "I won't bite."
"Sam?" The woman- hunter by the look of her, asked of the man slipping himself into the now rather crowded tent.
"Apologies, I meant to alert you but the warding blocks all long-distance communication," said Castiel as he too shouldered his way into their little impromptu meeting space.
"You're Rowena?" Asked the hunter by the bed, posture relaxing as she did.
"Charmed, I'm sure. Now," the witch said as she waved away any more impending questions, "let me have a look at what all this fuss is about."
The hunters took the hint and shuffled themselves as out of the way as possible, the witch giving them an approving nod when they all lined up by the entrance. Looking almost like tin soldiers with their stiff backs and wooden expressions.
Setting her gaze instead upon the figure sleeping soundly in the bed, a sigil marked blanket cozied up to his chin, Rowena blinked once, twice, three times. Straining ever so slightly when she realized there were wardings against magic splashed upon the walls, mixed in with the numerous meant for the suppression of miracles in all their myriad forms.
One more concerted blink and an angelic aura began to disentangle itself from the fog of weighty, forceful suppressions. As it came into focus, Rowena was given the distinct impression of a set of wings, crippled in their own right and bound nonetheless. Twitching feverishly as the one they belonged to hibernated in an attempt to conserve what energy he still had.
"Oh, my word," Rowena declared, having to stop and take a breath before looking any closer. Balking ever so slightly when her eyes finally broke through the last layers of magic muffling and a second aura revealed itself. Coddled safe and shockingly small at the center of those hulking, quivering, broken wings.
She couldn't look any longer.
"This is utterly appalling," she said, voice tight as she turned to the soldiers at her back. "I can see now that you weren't exaggerating, Samuel: it is that bad."
"I-is there anything you could do? To make them more comfortable or-or help speed up the healing process?" The tallest of them asked, making a small, pathetic gesture as he did.
"Well, I'll have to give these walls a good looking over, and give some thought to how best to adjust the wardings' inhibiting elements, but I don't see why not," Rowena said, giving a decisive nod before swinging around to start at one corner of the overfilled space and work her way round.
Perhaps not wanting to break her concentration, her audience fell and remained silent as the witch moved her attention from warding to warding, giving the fabric walls a thorough perusal. Understanding as she did why the lines were, in places, so slipshod as to make their sigils nigh unreadable. Seeing as the pair in one would, impossibly, have been in worse condition when they'd moved them in there.
"I take it you've been healing them yourself, dear?" Rowena asked with but a flick of her head spared the angel behind her, busy scrutinizing an Enochian sigil she recognized as possessing anti-miracle agents.
"Yes. Though the first couple of times we had the walls farther back. We moved them close because we cannot risk an escape," Castiel answered with a hapless sort of look about him. As per the usual.
"Well," the witch began as she dusted her hands, having come to the end of her assessment, "considering the state of affairs, I'm surprised that you've managed it this far on your own. But, no matter, Rowena the great and powerful is here now and... she has decided to take the job," the Winchester's best chance at success informed with a dainty sniff, hoping to catch a whiff of the residual grace hanging in the stagnant space. To better understand the condition of both the divine beings who'd been spending hard time in there.
"You mean, you hadn't decided before you took the trip all the way out here?" Quipped the one Rowena had taken but a cursory notice of upon arrival. She being smaller by a head than Samuel and of unremarkable stature aside.
Rowena turned to take a proper look at the blonde and was struck first by the aura that met her, more vivid than she'd expected, and second by the strings of fate all wrung in webs around the woman.
This hunter was far more than the glorified babysitter the Scott had initially thought her. Far more willful, and far more interesting.
"Hm, I often get called in on hard cases by these boys, but I never know until I've seen the details for myself whether I've interest in staying on." When the blonde did nothing to hide a full faced sneer at her words, the witch decided that she was going to like her. It was also then, with the flashing of that oh-so familiar expression, one she'd seen countless times on the face of a certain currently indisposed hunter, that she gleaned exactly who it was she was talking to.
"Charmed, Ms. Winchester. You've yourself a couple of bang-up sons."
"...Thanks," the hunter said, stepping forward and accepting the proffered handshake. At length.
"Oh, right, uh, Rowena, this is Mary, my- uh, our- that is, Dean's and my mom. Mom, this is Rowena, a semi-longtime magical ally of ours," the overly tall boy belatedly introduced in his ever fumbling way.
"Right, deary, I think we've figured that bit out on our own, but I'll thank you for the effort anyway," Rowena allowed, graciously.
"Uh, you're welcome?"
"Yes, quite, deary. Now," Rowena said, clapping her hands together to gather the group's scattering attentions, "Castiel, I believe you had some plans you wanted my unparalleled guiding wisdom set upon?"
"Yes, I have my most recent attempt right here," the angel said, pulling a ridiculous piece of creased parchment from one rumpled coat pocket. "I am continually lost in the calculations," he admitted as he handed the paper to the professional in the ward. "There are so many variables and I've no way to reliably test any of it. I also fear that, if we do all that I feel is necessary, Michael will not know a single day of comfort in his new vessel."
Rowena glanced around at the flinch the sentiment seemed to draw from the crowd. Thinking with a quirk of her exceptionally groomed brow, that apparently this archangel had managed to ingratiate his way into their soft, soft hearts.
Interesting.
"We want him to have his own body, a-and we definitely want Dean to have his back, but we don't want Michael to have to suffer for it," Samuel added in his ever querulous baritone, confirming exactly what Rowena had just begun to suspect.
"Don't worry, Samuel, I'm on the case, so there's not a chance in heaven nor hell of failure," the witch assured, offering a tender touch to the tall, tall man's arm.
"Now this I have to see," said the Winchester reminding Rowena more and more of the bedridden boy she hadn't yet taken more than the initial peek at. Too shocked by the battered double aura with the chaotic tangling of life lines to muster a longer look just yet.
"Well, you're in luck, Ms. Winchester, everyone here's just won front row tickets to watch a master spellsmith at work," the witch assured, enjoying the roll of the eyes that got her from the minuscule hunter. Then, with an amused smirk, she moved to address the entire group.
"I think I'll start things off by brewing up an utterly divine pot of tea, then the humans can go off to catch up on some well needed beauty rest while the angel and I straighten out this vexing puzzle," Rowena suggested, giving the conundrum in her hand a flourish before turning for the exit. Knowing without a backward glance that she'd have three disciples following close behind, all the way to their ghastly little kitchen and the promise of her culinary mastery.
Who knew Rowena could be compassionate when she put her mind to it? I'm pretty sure Sam did! XD
In case anyone was wondering what the heck a 'talkie' is:
'Movie' is a shortening of the term Moving Picture Show (other variants were also used) and 'Talkie' was a popular deviation for a while as the newest technology made possible the syncing of audio to the visual, allowing the release of 'Talking Motion Pictures' by about the end of the 1920's.
Pretty neat, huh? :D