A/N: Hey there! So not much of a lead up into this one, just normal blabber. Since there's a holiday this coming week I may be posting a chapter really fast after this, or I may be posting multiple chapters, or I may only wiggle out one at some point. We'll see how things go, but I'm hoping to start posting more, I have a plot point that I really want to get to, but it's going to be a while so I may binge write so I get there faster. Anywho, I'm just rambling at this point. Thanks for continuing to follow the story guys, I really hope you're enjoying it! As always, eldaearien, your review is much appreciated and I am eternally grateful for the continued support from you :).

After some persuasion and a little threatening, Ana had the moonstone in her possession and she was going to head back to the bunker with it before going after the next item on her list. If something happened to that stone it wouldn't be nearly as easy to find another one to replace it. Once back in the bunker, she placed the stone on the table, thankful that it wasn't as large as it could have been, only taking up a corner of the table rather than half of it. She felt Connor appear across the table from her, causing her to look up and watch as he placed the two small glass bottles of oil along with a small satchel on the table. "What do we have left on our list?" Ana questioned, wondering what all he got from Gregory.

Connor picked the book back up to double check their list, "We have everything except for the dragon's blood, boneset, rowan bark, enough hematite to surround our circle, and apples." he raised an eyebrow at the last thing on their list, "Whoever wrote this was going with the classics. Apples? Really?"

"Oh, come on, apples are the easiest protection ingredient to come by." Ana walked over to him with a smile and grabbed the book, "This one was written by my extremely great cousin Lilia. In her time witches still believed that the stars the seeds formed on the inside meant that there was extra protection."

"Ah, the things we've learned through the generations." He commented with a fond smile at the memory of his lessons of past witches, "And if we want to ensure that there will be more generations to learn from our mistakes, we should get the rest of our items."

Ana kissed his cheek, "We'll figure this out, can't have any children if we're dead." she assured him. "Why don't you go after the boneset and hematite, I'll get the apples and the bark. Dad and Sam are getting more dragon's blood on their run."

Connor felt her turn to move away from him, but he reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back so that she was close to him, "You're not mad about the cemetery?" Ever since he had felt her drop the barrier, she had done nothing but send comforting feelings across their bond and it was beginning to confuse him.

"I'm not mad. You could have handled telling me better, but we were both upset and I wouldn't leave it alone." She placed a gentle hand on his cheek and gave him a soft smile, "I'll explain later why your worries are for nothing, but now we have-" Ana's words were cut off as she felt something tug inside of her, at the core of her power and as she watched a look cross Connor's face it clicked in her head.

"The barrier." The spoke together, each moving without saying another word to quickly gather the essentials they would need to fight off whatever attack was being waged on their magic.

As Ana grabbed her pistol to make sure it was loaded with devil's trap rounds, she realized that they needed to get word to the rest of their group. "Gabriel, I'm assuming you can hear me. Something's attacking our barrier at the devil's gate. We're going to hold them off, but we need you guys to hurry up on those ingredients."

There was a soft flutter of wings and Gabriel was suddenly in front of her, "What's left?" he questioned, watching as the young witch hurried around him to head toward the bags that Sam and Dean had left against a wall.

"Rowan bark, at least nine hematite stones, boneset and fresh picked apples. Let my dad and uncle know what's going on. Once you have everything, meet us at the cemetery, we'll do what we can to keep them at bay, but work fast. There's no telling how many we'll be up against." Ana told him, the words spilling over her lips rapidly as she dug two angel blades out of the bag and tossed one to Connor. Another, stronger tug pulled at her core and she winced at the uncomfortable feeling, "We need to go before they get through."

"We'll be there as soon as we can." Gabriel assured the witches.

Ana winced at the sharp pain that flashed through her head and then sucked in a deep breath as she was thrown into a vision. Though it was over quickly, it was a powerful one and it had her visibly shaken. "Jade. She's going to be there. This is their attempt at letting out Lucifer and Michael."

"Then you can't go alone. They're going to have a large force behind them if they're trying to open the cage." Gabriel took a step toward the female witch, "Cas and I will get the rest of what we need and then we can all go."

Ana's eyes met Connor's as another tug was pulled through her magic, "There's no time. We'll go and fight them off, move fast, Gabriel." she moved over to Connor and grabbed his hand tightly in her own, using it to steel herself for the battle they were about to pop into. "We'll see you soon." she instructed the archangel and before he could argue the witches teleported out of the bunker.

-A-

"Where the hell are we supposed to get dragon's blood? Aren't they all dead?" Dean questioned Sam as they stepped out of the Impala that he had parked just outside the small shop Sam said carried what they needed.

The younger brother rolled his eyes, "Dragon's blood is a resin. They don't mean actual blood, Dean." he explained before turning to lead his brother into the shop he had quickly become familiar with. It was the closest place to the bunker that carried some of the weirder items they needed for their job.

"Of course it is, how silly of me." Dean grumbled as he followed his brother through the door, frowning at the brass bell that was attached at the top and jingled anytime the door moved. "You know where all of this stuff is at?" he asked, holding the list out toward Sam.

Plucking the list out of Dean's hand, Sam gave it a quick once over before nodding, "Yeah, everything is labeled pretty clearly, why don't you start over there with the hematite, it's a stone," he quickly explained, wondering if his older brother even knew what half of the items on the list were, "and the dragon's blood should be over there in a small plastic bag hanging on the wall, it'll look like red powder." After watching Dean head off in the direction he instructed, Sam moved toward the other side of the store to grab the rest of the things on the list, having been to the store enough times to know these items would be in the same area. It didn't take long for him to find the few things he needed and when he turned around to meet Dean at the cash register, he was surprised to see Gabriel at his brother's side, both men walking his direction and if Dean's expression was anything to go by, something was wrong.

"We need to get this and get back to the cemetery. Now." Dean told him as he placed a hand on Sam's shoulder and turning him toward the register so they could pay and leave.

"What's going on?" Sam asked, looking back and forth between Dean and Gabriel.

Dean grabbed the things Sam had out of his hands and placed them on the counter so the woman behind the counter could ring them up, "Jade is at the gate. Connor and Ana went to hold them off, but we need to hurry." Gabriel explained as Dean quickly paid for their stuff, grabbing the bag the worker offered him and then directing the other men outside so they could get to the cemetery to aid his daughter.

Once they were outside, Dean directed them to the trunk of the Impala and he quickly opened it. "How long ago did they leave?" he questioned as he opened the trunk and began to grab weapons, handing a few off to Sam as he dug around.

"About ten minutes, I grabbed the things they sent me for and then came to get you. Cas is finishing up his list and will be shortly behind us." Gabriel answered, a tense look on his face, "We have no idea what we're going to find when we get there." His focused seemed to go somewhere else for a moment before a flash of worry took over his eyes, "We need to leave, are you ready?"

Dean slammed the trunk and turned to give Gabriel a sharp nod, not thrilled by the expression on the other man's face. "What is it?"

"Cas made it there, it's not pretty." Gabriel answered, grabbing on to the brothers and quickly flying them to the cemetery, not even caring if someone was around to see them disappear. Making sure they arrived just in front of the devil's gate so they had something at their backs, the scene before them took a moment for each man to process. The archangel could sense that the barrier around the gate was just barely holding on and by the looks of it, the demons were determined to break through and were protecting a witch much older than either of the witches that had constructed the barrier. While only a portion of the demons were protecting the witch, there were at least twenty more spread out through the cemetery, fighting against Connor, Ana, and Castiel.

Dean's focus quickly flittered across the field, eyes searching for the familiar streak of red hair and when he found it in the fray of battle, his stomach dropped. There were small cuts on her face and a wound on her stomach big enough to let loose enough blood to soak through her shirt. When he went to move, Gabriel threw an arm up in front of him, and the look Dean gave him in return promised death if the angel didn't let him move.

"We need to take out the witch working against the barrier." Gabriel told him, "Jade isn't here and she probably won't show until the barrier is down."

Sam's attention transitioned quickly through Castiel, who was being surrounded by enemies, Connor, who was doing his best to keep the three demons against him at bay, and Ana, who had five surrounding her and though her magic was keeping up, it was clear that her body wasn't because of bloodloss. "Dean, go help Ana. Gabriel, you and I can take out the witch."

Not waiting a minute longer, Dean rushed toward Ana, an angel blade gripped so tightly in his hand that his knuckles were turning white. A female demon stepped in his path, but he was in no mood to mess around and he quickly took care of her, shoving the blade deep into her body. Moving even faster toward his daughter, he took down any demon that stepped in his path, mentally swearing at the fact that they were slowing down his progress. When he was finally close enough to her to see the fight, it was clear that it was slowly beginning to turn against her favor. "Ana!" He moved quickly to close the small space between them, taking down two of the demons that had been in the small group attacking her. In the time it took him to kill those two, she had taken down two of the others and was just about to kill the other when he struck out at her with his powers, causing her to fall to her knees and the wound on her abdomen to bleed more.

"You cannot win this, little witch, our master will rise again." The demon spoke, a malicious grin on his face as he stepped closer to her.

Ana grunted, "Why are you all so damn full of yourself." she grumbled before lashing out with her own magic, forcing the demon to fall before her and holding him to the ground, "Dad, finish him." she instructed, having lost her angel blade during the fight.

Dean didn't waste time stalking toward the demon and stabbing his blade through it's back. Once he was sure the enemy was dead, he moved to catch Ana, who was beginning to slump to the ground. "Hey, hang in there, kid. We'll get someone to come heal you."

The girl shook her head, "Get me to Connor, we need to get rid of them and finish this before it's too late."

"Ana, you're bleeding out. We need to heal you before we do anything else." Dean instructed, moving her around carefully so he could pick her up.

As Dean stood up with her in his arms, Ana caught sight of two demons heading their way. Frowning, she created a protective barrier around them and looked up at her dad, "Get me to Connor." she pleaded with him, knowing that she was losing way too much blood and if they didn't do anything about it, she would fall unconscious and possibly die, but if they wasted time healing her they could completely miss their chance to stop Jade and her plan.

With a nod, he carried his daughter through the fray, watching as any demon that came their way could only get so close before they were stopped by whatever spell Ana was using to protect them. "Connor!" Dean yelled the name as they came closer to the area he was in and when the young witch turned to see them, the look of pure terror on his face made Dean worry further for his daughter.

"Get her by the gate!" Connor yelled, turning his attention back to the demons that were trying to attack him, though his barrier was keeping them away. With a quick chant, he had each demon pinned to the ground, unable to move. Turning to look back at Dean and Ana, he saw that Dean had just reached the inside of their barely standing barrier. With little thought Connor teleported to the other man's side and looked at the girl in her father's arms, carefully lifting her shirt to look at the deep gash that started just above her pant line on her right side and went straight up over her ribcage. "It will take too long for me to heal this, we need Cas or Gabe." Connor explained to Dean.

Ana grunted as Connor lifted her shirt, the feeling of the fabric being pulled from the open wound was something she could have gone without. "There's no time. They can heal me after, we need to get rid of these demons and get rid of this damn gate."

"You could bleed out." Connor argued, looking down at her with a worried expression. Of course she would be more worried about the task at hand than saving her own life, but with her having lost so much blood already he wasn't willing to risk it.

"Damn it, Connor, let's just get this done." Ana snapped, giving the man in front of her a slight glare. "If you're so worried about me losing all of my blood, I can take care of that." she added, placing a hand above the wound and speaking a short incantation. When the spell went into effect, she couldn't suppress the whimper that fought through her gritted teeth. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she patted her father on the shoulder and signaled that she wanted him to put her down.

Dean frowned at her, "What did you just do?" he questioned, knowing that whatever it had been could have caused her more pain than it was worth.

Grabbing the bottom of her shirt, Ana slowly lifted it up, showing the now cauterized wound down her side. "I'm not losing any more blood this way and we can take down the gate without worrying about me dieing." she explained, aiming the last part at Connor. "We need to finish this before Jade shows up."

"Fine." Connor shook his head at her before turning to look at the battle still raging around them, "We need to get rid of these demons and that witch before we can effectively do anything." He slowly turned to look at Ana and offered her his hand, knowing that their shared power could easily wipe out the enemies around them. When her warm hand slipped into his, he glanced back down at her, for a moment before looking to Dean, "We're going to need you to get all of the ingredients together that we'll need for the spell."

-A-

While fighting off demons one after another, Sam heard the sound of his brother's voice ringing over the sounds of battle and it pulled his attention from his own fight to watch Dean run across the cemetery with Ana cradled against his chest. "Gabe! Cas!" Sam called their attention to the father and daughter, continuing to fight the demons in front of him while hoping that one of them could get to his niece and heal her before she got worse.

Though both angels could see the declining physical state of the young witch, neither of them could get to her to heal her wound at the moment, they were both surrounded by the enemy and each hoped that she would survive long enough for one of them to aid her. It was quickly becoming clear that they were being overwhelmed, more demons seemed to be appearing out of nowhere and with the current ones still in decent enough state to continue to fight, their numbers were slowly growing.

Sam was sure that any moment he was going to be seriously injured, the fight had quickly turned against him as the number of demons he was facing grew larger and right when he was sure he was done for, a bright white light covered the surrounding area and the demons screamed out in pain before each fell to the ground. As the light faded he was able to look around and see that Connor and Ana had been the source of the power, he was relieved to see that his niece was at least standing.

"We need to do the ritual, now!" Ana called to them, needing them all to move toward the devil's gate so they could get started. Hopefully while her and Connor were working on that the rest of the group could take care of any demons that continued to show up, because she knew that this battle was far from over. She watched as the three men who were still in battle moments before rushed over to them, "Connor, grab a couple of bowls." she instructed, not trusting herself to move much from where she stood, she needed to save the little energy she had left to participate in the ritual. "There will be more coming, Jade will be among them. Connor and I will work as fast as we can, we need you guys to hold them off as long as possible."

Gabriel stepped forward, handing the things he had been directed to retrieve to Connor before looking at Ana, "You should let me heal you before you start this, you've lost a lot of blood."

The witch shook her head, "There isn't enough time, I know the extent of the damages and it would take too long for you to heal everything. Once this is taken care of and the demons are gone you can, but not until then."

"Ana, just let the angel heal you." Dean snapped, wondering why she was refusing when it wouldn't take very long at all for either angel to heal her.

"I'm not losing anymore blood and everything else is minor." Ana's voice was stern, "I've seen what happens if we waste time and I'm not willing to let anything happen to the rest of you. We'll bind the gate to the portal to Hell and then blow it up. If it doesn't work and the portal is left open, we'll take care of that. It won't take long and we're wasting time arguing." she turned from her father and grabbed the bowl Connor held in his hands. "I'll finish this one if you'll prepare the other, might as well have it ready in case we need it." She walked slowly toward the side of the gate, looking down at the small pile of supplies that Connor had left for easy access. Bending down to grab what she needed was going to be uncomfortable, walking was pretty bad itself, sighing Ana lifted a hand and used her powers to pull the things off of the ground that she needed.

Dean shook his head, "You can't even bend down, Ana, and you want to continue on like this?" he crossed his arms over his chest, upset that she was being so stubborn.

Choosing to ignore her father's words, she didn't lift her gaze from the bowl as she began to finish mixing the ingredients that would need to spread around the circle she and Connor would place around the gate. "There will be more demons soon, you should prepare yourselves." she warned, quickly finishing her mixture before looking up at Connor. "Are you almost ready?"

"Yeah, couple more things to add and then I'm set. Do you have the hematite?" Connor didn't raise his eyes from his bowl, making very certain that he was measuring everything right.

"Enough for the circle. We'll start at the north, you go east, I'll go west and then we'll meet at the south point. We'll bind the gate with the portal and then use our power to destroy it." Ana went over their plan once more, making sure they were still working off of that one. "Let's do this before we get overwhelmed by demons." she turned her head to look at the rest of the men in her makeshift family. "Do what you can to keep any that show up away from us, we'll do the rest."

Dean nodded and spun around, walking away from his daughter and finding a place to stand among the gravestones where he still had a direct line of sight to what was going on at the gate. He watched as Cas and Gabe each moved to take place around the gate so that all directions were covered, when he saw Sam pause to speak to Ana before moving toward an unguarded area he wondered what his brother had said to his daughter to cause the already tense expression on her face to harden further. There was little time to speculate before demons began to reappear throughout the cemetery and as Dean engaged the demon nearest to him he silently prayed that the witches would work fast.

-A-

"Let's get this started." Ana looked at Connor, pushing her uncle's words to the back of her mind. "The faster we get this over the better." she added before teleporting to the north point on the other side of the gate, not wanting to waste time and energy in walking all the way around.

Connor shook his head, placing his bowl within grabbing distance of where they would be doing to first ritual, wanting to be able to quickly grab it in the case that they would need it. After a fast once over of what was going on, he caught sight of the first demons to come and he teleported to Ana's side, "They're here. You ready?" he questioned, watching her pour half of her mixture from the large bowl in her right hand to the slightly smaller one in her left hand. He was sure she'd only had the large bowl when she'd teleported away and he wanted to smile at the fact that her powers were growing to the point where she could summon things that weren't in her line of sight, but he was too worried about their current predicament to even try to grin.

"As ready as I can be." She answered, holding the larger bowl out to him. With a quick glance up, she saw Castiel off to her right side fighting against a small group of demons. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the hematite stones she had placed there and handed Connor half, "Let's go." Turning toward the west, Ana began to walk in a half circle, making sure it was wide enough to contain a large area in the case that their explosion plan didn't work and they would need to close the portal manually. As she walked, she slowly spilled the contents of her bowl on the ground, dropping a stone every few feet, and quietly repeating the chant that would bind the portal and the gate together while also encircling the gate so the explosion wouldn't get too out of hand. By the time her bowl was empty and she was met by Connor at the southern point of their circle, the sound of the fight around them had grown louder and she knew that they needed to continue to move quickly.

Connor dropped his bowl to the ground and offered his hand to Ana, their physical connection making their magical one stronger. When her green eyes met his and they were sad, he was about to question why, but was stopped by her hand slipping into his own. They both turned their attention toward the gate, each raising their open hand out to it as they focused their shared power. While most magic was done with spells and incantations, a lot of them weren't necessarily needed by the more powerful witches, such as Ana and Connor, but they helped focus the energy of whatever they were trying to accomplish. With something like blowing a stone gate to pieces, they didn't need to focus the energy so much as they needed to direct it. The connection between their powers made it easy for Connor to follow Ana's lead and she began to pull on their combined strength, forcing it to grow and vibrate within them before it reached a point when they both knew that they needed to let it go.

-A-

When the demons first started to appear in the cemetery after Connor and Ana had taken out the first batch, it was manageable. With each angel and hunter holding their own in their own area, they were keeping the numbers controlled and though they each received their share of minor wounds, no one was terribly injured. Gabriel had just fought off two more and was looking around to take in how Cas and Dean were doing since they were the only ones in his line of sight and that was when he caught sight of a woman with long blonde hair, deep brown eyes, and the air of a demon who had an ego the size of a football field. The archangel watched a moment as the demon walked between the spaces that he and Dean were covering, her focus most likely on Ana and Connor as they worked their magic. He knew that if she got anywhere near them that they wouldn't be able to finish their spell and he swore before flying right in front of the woman, stopping her progress toward the witches.

"I've heard about the archangel who had become the witch's pet, but I wasn't quite sure I believed it." Jade spoke, a sly grin pulling at the corner of her lips.

Gabriel scoffed, "Oh, that one hurt." the dry sarcasm and the deadpan look on his face something he hadn't used often since having basically come back from the dead.

The blonde raised an eyebrow at the angel, "It's not you I came for Gabriel, though I'm sure your brothers would be ecstatic to see you once I let them out. So why don't you get out of my way so I can take care of that damn witch and we can have ourselves a little family reunion?"

"Or you and I can have a little cat fight, I'll kill you, my witch pals over there will finish their spell and everyone leaves a happy camper." Gabriel offered, twirling his angel blade in his hand while flashing a cocky grin.

"You angels are so damn annoying." Jade grumbled, lashing out at Gabriel with her power to distract him while she swung a fist at his face. Though when her fist made contact with the angel in front of him, it didn't feel right and he quickly vanished. "Trickster!" she swore, having almost forgotten Gabriel's stint as Loki.

"What can I say?" Gabriel asked from behind the demon, "The classics always work." he finished with a grin as the demon turned to look at him and he swung his angel blade at her, which she barely dodged.

The fight between the angel and demon continued with mostly physical combat, each giving and receiving almost equal amounts of bodily harm. It was clear to Gabriel that Jade had a little more practice with this than most demons and he was sure that the fight he was in would last longer than he had originally thought. That thought was quickly changed with the loud sound of shattering rock and the bright light of power that came from the direction of the devil's gate and their fight ceased as both turned their attention to the rubble lying on the ground that had once been an entrance to Hell.

"No!" Jade screamed in frustration, ready to move toward the witches and rip both of their hearts out, but she was suddenly grabbed from behind.

"Looks like your plan failed." Gabriel smirked, aiming his angel blade at her back, but before he made contact, the demon in his grasp was suddenly gone.

-A-

The wave of pure energy that surged out of their two bodies and toward the gate would have knocked Ana off of her feet had Connor not been holding on to her. She had expected it to be powerful, it had to be for their plan to work, but she hadn't planned on her body being so weak. With the force that their power hit the gate, the light and subtle shake of the Earth beneath them, the gate began to crumble toward the ground, showing no sign that the portal itself was still open. The wave of relief that surged through her made her grin and she was ready to throw her arms around Connor in a hug when the world around her began to shift, her vision tunneling to black as her body slumped toward the ground.

Connor felt Ana tug at his hand and he assumed that she was excited to see that their plan had worked, but when he turned toward her to respond with the same excitement he barely caught the movement of her body collapsing. Moving quickly, he tightened the grip around her hand that he held in his own and then reached out for her arm with his free hand, helping her descent to the ground slow down. Once she was laying down he began to check her body over for the sign of a wound, but there was nothing visible that he could see and he began to panic.

-A-

Dean and Sam had caught the sight of the gate falling, but quickly turned back to the demons they were fighting off. Though one minute they were close to being surrounded and the next each demon seemed to notice that their leader was gone and followed after her. Sucking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Dean turned to look at Sam, who was just across the cemetery, and they shared a small, relieved smile. Though their moment was quickly shattered by the worried shout that filled the silence that had fallen around them.

"GABRIEL!" Connor yelled for the archangel, knowing that he would be able to figure out what was wrong with Ana and heal her faster than the witch could.

All attention quickly turned toward the witches and when Dean found that his daughter was laying on the ground, head resting in Connor's lap, looking paler than she should have and her eyes closed, panic filled the elder Winchester's body. "ANA!" Dean yelled for his daughter as he sprinted toward her, being able to hear his brother's foot falls shortly behind him, he worried that she hadn't healed herself enough. Though his vision was distorted by the fact that he was running, he was almost positive that her chest wasn't moving up or down at all, that she wasn't breathing.