Arriving in the city of Bountiful, Utah, Ana began to notice that the strange sensation she had felt when reading the city's name at the bus station in Ridgecrest hadn't gone away, but had only grown stronger. Maybe she was meant to be here, maybe she was just slowly losing her mind while trying to simultaneously deal with extreme grief and the anxiety of being out on her own in a world filled with monsters. Which wasn't actually that big of a deal, the monsters that her family hunted didn't really scare Ana, but now that she had sworn of using almost all of her magic, fighting off anything was going to be a lot more difficult than she was used to. It was late in the night when she left the bus station and began to walk toward the nearest motel, she needed to figure out what she was going to do now, since moving from city to city didn't seem that appealing, but neither did settling down in some random place and assuming a fake life. She needed a good plan.
Looking up into the night sky she noticed that the moon was waning, at least she wouldn't have to worry about werewolves for a while and that simple thought made her walk through the dark streets feel a little less daunting. It didn't take long to reach a motel, the bus station in the city was pretty centralized and it made the walk quick. After getting a room and making her way to it, she dropped her duffle to the ground before falling back on the bed. This place wasn't nearly as bad as most of the motels that her dad and uncle were used to frequenting, but she also didn't want to stay there long. Though she had slept most of the bus ride, part of her was still exhausted and all she was ready to actually do at that point was shower and get into bed. Her planning could wait until morning.
The morning after the day Dean had discovered that Ana left, Sam noticed a large shift in the people he lived with. It was most noticeable in Dean and Connor, both men seeming completely lost between their worry for Ana and the pain they were all still trying to push through. Maybe it made him a little heartless that it wasn't as hard for him to push away the thought of the lost baby to focus on keeping an eye out for signs of Ana or what was going to happen next with the rise of Michael and Lucifer. Walking into the library, he hadn't been expecting to see anyone awake, no one was ever awake before he was, which was how he knew that neither Connor or Dean had gone to their rooms the night before. "What are you two doing?" he questioned, taking in Dean's red eyes as they stared at the screen of Sam's laptop. Connor sat in the chair across from him with a book Sam was pretty sure contained old spells.
"What the hell does it look like?" Dean grumbled, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes. His worry for his daughter had become all consuming and all he could think about was getting her back before Gadreel or one of his followers got his hands on her.
Sam drew in a long, deep breath before forcing it out quickly, this was all going to becoming annoying really fast. "It looks like you're not taking Charlie's advice. Guys, Ana is more than capable of taking care of herself, if she gets into trouble I have no doubt that she will reach out to us if she can't handle it on her own." Noticing that his words were doing little to deter the men at the table, Sam stormed over to the them, slamming his laptop closed and pulling Connor's book away in one swift movement. "It's only been a day and you two are acting like Ana's died! She's a grown woman, she made the decision to take some time, get some space, and figure out her crap. Maybe you two should do the same!" He snapped, wondering if either of them saw how capable Ana was of taking care of herself. "We have bigger things to deal with right now. Ana will be fine, we know she's alive and unharmed because of her connection with Connor. What we don't know is what Gadreel's next plan is with raising Michael and Lucifer. We don't know what we can do once they are risen, because at this point it's a matter of when and not if. And we don't know what actually happened to your daughter, Connor!"
"Don't talk about her." Connor basically growled the words, the last thing he wanted to think about in the moment was how he wasn't able to protect his daughter and now he won't be able to protect his soulmate.
"Why? Because it hurts? It should hurt! Three witches did something to your child and instead of trying to figure out what exactly they did, you're too worried about a fully capable witch out on her own than trying to find a reason for her to come home!" Sam was beyond done with the moping, there was too much on their plate for them to stop and cry every time something went wrong. This was a time when they all needed to step up and be as strong as they could every moment until it was all over.
Dean shoved himself out of his chair, body filling with rage at his brother's words. "She's dead, Sam! That's what happened to the baby. She's dead! That's why Ana left and that's why neither of us can think about anything but bringing her home!"
"If all they wanted was for the baby to be dead, do you think they would have removed all evidence of the pregnancy in the first place? It makes no sense." Sam spoke, forcing himself to calm down, yelling was not going to help anything. "If Ana and Connor were meant to have this baby, which we know they were because there's a prophecy about it, then there's no way it could just end like this. So much was put into place so that you and I would be born, to be Lucifer and Michael's vessels, to start the apocalypse. Do you think that the same kind of work wouldn't be put into this?"
Connor stood up from his chair suddenly, looking at the brothers with a stoic expression, this was all becoming too much to handle. First his daughter, then his soulmate and now Sam was spurting crazy ideas that he wasn't sure were possible. "I can't do this." he spoke the words softly, but by the looks of shock on both of the men's faces he knew that they'd heard him. Without giving it another thought Connor teleported out of the room.
"That's on you." Dean pointed an accusing finger at his brother. "I know you're the raging optimist out of the two of us, but what you just suggested is pushing it, Sam. He just lost his daughter, the last thing you should be trying to do is getting his hopes up when you don't even know if what you're saying is possible!"
Sam scoffed, "Think about it, Dean. Why would Chuck purposefully make sure that Ana got pregnant and then just let the baby be taken the way it was? It doesn't make sense!"
"When has any of this ever made sense? Like anything we've ever come across in our lives has a logical explanation for it." Dean let out a heavy sigh, "Our entire lives, from the moment mom died, nothing has ever been normal or by the book. Why would it all of the sudden start with my daughter?"
"Look, I know you've never really had faith in God, but now that we personally know him, I have to believe that there's more to this than we think." Sam looked at his brother with a steady expression, standing his ground on his assumptions. "We've both been dead and brought back so many times, all by his hand, obviously there's something about us that he cares for. Ana had to have something special about her to hold Gabriel's grace, which I also think Chuck had a hand in, so I don't think he's abandoned us. We've never received any hand out by him and I don't think this time is any different. There's something we're missing, but we have to figure it out ourselves."
Dean's face twisted in disbelief of the words coming out of his brother's mouth. "So tell me, oh wise one, if the baby isn't dead, where is she?"
Sam's eyes dropped, "I honestly don't know. Magic is something I still have little understanding of. Maybe they were able to, I don't know, speed up the aging process? Put her in some sort of incubator? This is so far out of our league." He shook his head and sat down in the nearest chair, "I have to believe that the world isn't cruel enough to take this happiness away from a Ana, from us."
The instant Garth had gotten the call from Dean he'd gone to work calling every hunter he knew. Even with his status as a werewolf, which very few of the hunters he was in contact with knew about, he had pretty much became this generation's Bobby. Now, he would never claim to be as good as the older man had been with running everything, but he did the best he could. With this task he pushed himself further. Sam and Dean were family, which made Ana family, and he was not okay with the girl being completely MIA. He'd gotten through to almost all of the hunters he was in contact with, having left messages for the others call him back.
It had been a day since Dean's call and Garth wished there was more he could do, but he'd do just as Dean asked and get the word out. A full description to every hunter he called and a quick warning that she wasn't as small or weak as she seemed. Not that he thought Ana would attack any of them, but the last thing he wanted was for some poor schmuck to get in her way if she were in danger. The girl could handle herself. His phone ringing brought him out of his thoughts and he glanced at the caller ID. "Logan." Garth answered the call, glad that the young hunter had called him back.
"Your message said it was important. What's going on?" The voice on the other end of the line spoke.
"You heard of Ana Winchester, right?" Garth knew that even though they didn't want it to, word had gotten out pretty fast now that there was a third Winchester.
There was a pause from the other man, "Uh, yeah. One of the brothers' daughter, right?"
Garth nodded slowly, "Dean's. She's gone off grid, we're getting word out and hoping that someone spots her."
Logan scoffed and it made Garth frown, "This isn't the first time a hunter has gone off grid, Garth. Why is this one so important?"
"She's got some pretty big things ahead of her and if she's not around to stop them the world is pretty much going to become Hell." Garth explained, growing impatient.
"Great." Logan grumbled, "What's up with these damn Winchesters? Always one big thing or another. Fine, I'll keep an eye out. What's she look like?"
Garth smiled, happy to have another set of eyes out looking for Ana. "Long red hair, bright green eyes, and she has an attitude just like her father. She's pretty short too, but don't let that fool you, she's trained with the best of them and can kick some serious ass."
"Red head with a smart mouth and a temper. Got it." Logan thought for a moment that she sounded like his kind of woman, but from what'd he'd heard of the Winchesters the last thing he wanted to do was get caught up in their crazy. "I'll call you if I hear or see anything. Got any cases that need to be taken care of? Just wrapped up a shifter case and haven't found any new leads."
Garth turned his chair so that he could look at the map he had placed up on the wall next to his desk, he had tacks placed all over it, black showing where suspicious activity had been noticed and blue to show that he'd already sent a hunter to deal with it. Giving a quick sweep of it, he tapped a pin that he'd placed just to the west of the Texas/New Mexico border. "Carlsbad, New Mexico. There's some weird stuff going down and though I'm not entirely sure it's our kind of thing, it's worth looking into."
Logan grunted in agreement, "I'll make my way there, see what I can figure out. If I see the Winchester girl, I'll give you a call."
As the line went dead, Garth grabbed a blue tack and placed it next to the black one he'd just been touching. Logan was a smart hunter, even if he was younger than most of the ones Garth dealt with, he would figure out what was going on there. Now if only they could find a location on Ana.
Three days had passed since Ana had arrived in Utah and though she'd never considered it before hand, the state wasn't half bad. Other than passing through she'd never stopped for any reason, but now that she was here she decided that it could stay in her list of not terrible places to be. She sat on a hill overlooking the city as these thoughts ran through her head, her mind trying to focus on anything other than the things she had run from. It turns out that when you spend almost two years straight hunting or being hunted by something that you pretty much completely forget how to function any other way. It had been so long since she had an abundance of free time on her hands that she had zero idea what to do with herself. So she had explored, checked out the city and surrounding area, purposefully wearing herself out by walking everywhere so that by the time she returned to her hotel room there was little to do but fall into bed.
One of the things that Ana had always thought to be true was that when everything was bad, when the world seemed to turn against you, that you could always right things by clearing your head with some fresh air and a nice view of the Rocky Mountains. Though she knew part of the mountain range came through Utah, Ana wasn't necessarily sure that the mountains she was looking at were part of the Rockies. Either way, they were beautiful and they did exactly what the mountains back home had always done, brought her back down to Earth. Grounding her body and mind with the here and now, which was something she was far from ready for. She had just lost her child, the little thing barely two months through it's development inside of her, and though they had succeeded in stripping the rogues who stood against them of their power it would never be enough to balance out her loss.
It was there, surrounded by nature that the young witch let the floodgates open. There was no longer any blame being tossed around inside of her head, no inner voice screaming at her for not being strong enough to protect her child, and no sense of dread that the family surrounding her was blaming her for what happened. No, with only the wind and the mountains to hear her Ana wailed purely for the loss of the life she had created and had lost too soon.
It had been a whole week. Dean had been counting down the days, praying that Ana would come walking through the front door any moment. Nothing ever happened though. Sam continued to search for an answer about the spell that the rogue witches had used on Ana. Charlie had designated herself in charge of tracking demon omens or signs of Gadreel. Kellen had taken Ana's car and started driving back to Montana the day before, thinking that it would be a good idea for him to go keep everyone there calm while keeping an eye open as well. Connor barely left his room, sometimes only coming out long enough to grab more spell supplies. Dean had no doubt that the witch was trying every spell and ritual he could think of to either force Ana to return or just to even get a way to track her.
In the time that passed Dean had done little but watch those around him or keep his stare locked on his phone and the screen of his laptop which were set up to wait for a sign that Ana had used something they could trace her with. It had already been too long, part of him was convinced that she was hurt or dead, but the other knew better than that. He had trained her well, Connor had trained her well, and she was smart. Plus he hoped that if anything had happened to her that she would have the sense to call Cas or Gabe for help. Then there was her connection with Connor, if she was in sort of duress the other witch would know.
As if on cue, Connor came running into the room with tears in his eyes, "She's finally lost it." the words were rushed out of his mouth.
"What?" Dean stood up from his chair and crossed the room so that he was standing in front of Connor.
"Ana." The witch answered, as if the others didn't already know who he was talking about. "Everything that she's been holding in since what happened with the rogues, something happened and now it's all coming out. She's literally lost in her grief, I can feel it."
Sam stood up from the table as well and moved to stand with Connor and Dean, "Maybe that's a good thing?" he offered, as Dean had pointed out earlier, he was ever the optimist. "Maybe she just needed some time to let all of this out and now that she's finally letting herself feel the extent of her grief she'll be ready to come home soon."
Connor tried to keep himself composed, but the wave of emotion he was getting from Ana made it really hard. Covering his mouth a moment, he took a breath before trying to speak again, "I honestly don't know, but she shouldn't be going through this alone."
Dean and Sam shared a look, neither man knowing what they could do with this information other than hope that it would help Ana clear her head enough to realize that she needed to come home, to be surrounded by people who loved her.
"I-I knew you'd want to know. I'm going t-to go back to my r-room." Connor shook with the force of everything he was feeling. Not only were Ana's emotions rolling through him like a hurricane, but because of it his own emotions were brought to the forefront of his mind. It was too much to handle. Turning around he left the library, knowing he wouldn't be able to keep it together much longer and he really didn't want to lose it in front of the brothers.
"You know, some really crappy things have happened to those boys and you just keep letting them get worse." A gruff voice growled in anger as the man who bared it pushed himself up from the old recliner he had been sitting in.
Chuck sighed, not even bothering to turn to look at the man who was now standing next to him, glaring as if his eyes alone could cause God to burst into flames. "Struggle makes people stronger and they're going to need all of the strength they can to deal with my two oldest."
"You damn bastard!" The old man moved himself into Chuck's line of sight, "You come waltzing into my Heaven, do something to my damn TV so I'm getting a play by play of my boys' life and all it has to show is that you're letting them get royally screwed over! That poor girl lost her mother before she even opened her eyes for the first time, got tortured as a child, grew up without a father, and then got thrown into a world full of things other people would piss themselves over. And what do you let happen the moment she finds some semblance of happiness? Of joy? You let those damn witches take away her baby!"
"Bobby, calm down." Chuck fixed him with a blank expression, "Dean's been to Hell and back. So did Sam and Ana has now too, though not in the sense the other two did. Do you really think I would let that child, the one who has the potential to protect the world from an even greater evil, be murdered by a bunch of misguided, power hungry witches?"
The old hunter blanched, "Well if she's not dead, where in the hell is she?"
"She's alive and growing. At this point that's all that matters." Chuck assured Bobby before disappearing from the living room of Bobby's house, or the replica of it.
"Damn meddling dick." Bobby grumbled to himself as he moved back to the chair he'd been sitting in. The old TV in front of him still playing a live feed of Sam and Dean, plus the other boy who he had figured out was basically Dean's son-in-law. Things were rough for his boys down on Earth and he hoped that Chuck would pull his head out of his ass long enough to fix it or at least deal with his sons on his own.
Laying in bed staring at the ceiling of her hotel room Ana now knew what her next move was going to be. It had been a week since her break down in the wilderness just outside of the city and things had been a little better. She didn't feel as on edge, she was still filled with pain, but it was manageable. The entire week the bond she shared with Connor was being filled with love and worry, he was basically pushing it at her, like a call to run into his protective arms so that they could begin to heal together. That wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
Her night had been pretty peaceful, considering that after her meltdown all she had was nightmares of being attacked by the rogue witches, but that peacefulness had been shattered by a vision. One showing her what needed to be done, what she needed to start. Grabbing her phone, she glanced at the calendar on it. One week since the break down, a week and a half in Utah, two weeks away from her family. There was no denying fate at this point in her life, but part of her still liked to think that the majority of the things in her life were up to her to decide, to figure out. This, though, all of it; the running away, going to that specific city in Utah, and beginning the long path that would lead her to healing, none of it seemed like chance. All of these things needed to happen, just like what she was about to do next was needed.
Quickly getting out of bed she packed everything in her bag but a clean set of clothes and her shower stuff. The trip to her destination would probably be a long one and it would be a while before she would get the chance to shower again. Once clean, dressed in clean clothes, and double checking that she had gotten everything back into her duffel, Ana was hurrying out of her room and toward the front desk to check out.
With one last thank you to the person working the desk, Ana was back on the sidewalks that she had become pretty familiar with. The vision still fresh in her mind, all she could think about was what the near future held for her and the rest of the world. Stopping to grab a to go cup of coffee from the small coffee shop just around the block from the bus station, she basically jogged the rest of the way there, itching for time to move a little faster. Unsurprisingly there was no one in the station and she was able to talk immediately with the woman at the ticket counter, "I need your next ticket out of here that will get me to Nebraska."
A/N: Helllloooooo everybody! So I apologize for all the jumping around time wise, there's only a little of it left until we are at where we're supposed to be. What do you think of the small Bobby cameo and the conversation between him and Chuck? What about the argument between Sam and Dean? Or Ana's meltdown? I would love to know! The BIG question here is- What in the Hell is Ana going to do in Nebraska? Do any of you know what's in Nebraska? If not, you'll find out soon!
Also, big shout out to new favs and follows. I love getting those emails. I'm just still pretty awe struck that this story has picked up the following it has and I love you all so much!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter! There is much more to come :)
