Chapter title is from song by Black Mustang.

29

City Blues – Black Mustang

This was not the plan.

She was in the passenger seat of her own damned car, glaring at the back of Dean Winchester's head. Sam Winchester was making mollifying faces at her from where he sat shotgun, trying to make the best of a bad situation.

She should have known this was going to go south with that first sketchy look the brothers had traded when she tried to sweet talk the doctors into releasing her 'against advice'. She should have known it was trouble when Dean unexpectedly backed her move, smiling the smooth smile of a professional hustler, sincerely promising the reluctant docs he would 'take good care of her'. She should have expected it when he turned up driving the Durango instead of the Impala, a declaration of lockdown if there ever was one.

The heat of his breath was hot by her ear when he leaned down to tug her duffel free of her stiff fingers, his barely audible warning a caution against her skin, "Don't."

She set her jaw and gripped her duffel stubbornly while the watching nurse twitched with uncertainty.

Green eyes stared into hers at close range: you want out of here or not?

Reluctantly she let go. She let Sam put a hand under her elbow and help her into the back of the SUV. She let the demon usher Toby in beside her, and she let the demon take the wheel. Her flat of holy water had been moved prudently out of her reach, and Sam stayed watchfully half turned in his seat, his smile rueful and apologetic.

"You said angel."

She gazed at him narrowly. "I did?"

Sam nodded mutely. In the rearview mirror Dean watched her, his attention divided between her and the road. Her hand tightened warningly over Toby's beside her when Toby opened his mouth. She didn't know what was going on, but she wanted out of it. She didn't want Toby caught up in it. She focused on the hard eyes still staring at her in the rearview mirror.

"Obviously, he wasn't interested in me."

A speaking look went left to right from Dean to Sam, like that was not obvious at all.

"Obviously." Dean scowled dryly.

"I was right there." She pointed out. The angel, if that had been an angel, hadn't wanted her. What it wanted was the demon Knight of Hell in front of her, deceptively human eyes raking over her face, before looking back to the road again.

"Look, sister. If they've got wind that the two of you are in with us…" He broke off unhappily and shot an irritated look sideways at Sam, as if he were the wronged party here. "It might be best if we hang out for a while. Just to be on the safe side."

"What? No!" The words spilled out before she could catch them. They were not in with anyone. She glared at the short hairs on the back of his neck, her temper spiking. There were rules. The job was over. You moved on. She was grateful that they had stayed to look after Toby. She was grateful for the long hours she had felt Dean's hand over hers, a solid anchor to reality in the haze of nightmares and pain, his thumb stroking patiently over her wrist, if only to keep her from pulling out her iv. But there were rules for a reason. She met those clear green eyes in the rearview mirror, and glared harder. This was where they parted company, adios, sayonara, fare thee well.

She took a short, calming breath and tried for politeness. "I mean, thank you. Both. For everything. But." She met Dean's eyes in the rearview straight on. "We'll manage. On our own."

Her hand tightened over Toby's when Toby twitched again, speaking volumes at her with his eyes. He wanted them to stay. He looked towards Dean then back at her again, a bad case of hero worship in the making, and it was all the more reason to split. Toby squinted fiercely at her when she silently signaled her no, reluctantly subsiding with a pout.

Dean's smile was thin and unamused. More importantly, it was unmoved.

Her eyes narrowed. So. That's how this was going to go.

Dinner was a tense affair.

He took Toby with him to get the pizzas, leaving Sam to babysit the ninja, and from the glinty look she shot him, she knew exactly what he was doing. Divide and conquer, only not so much conquer as insurance. Even as banged up as she was, he wasn't sure she couldn't slip Sam, but he was sure she wouldn't leave the kid. The kid didn't seem as sure of that, though, because Toby made a beeline for her the second Sam got the door open, eyes fixed on her like she was going to disappear if he didn't have her in his sights.

"We got soup and we got pie. Dean said you would want soup and I said you would want pie." Toby waved the two paper bags up at her, one in each hand. "So here's soup and here's pie."

Her face softened when she looked at the kid. He felt it like a blow to his stomach, because he remembered that expression, and he wanted it for himself in a way he shouldn't. He kicked the door closed with his foot, and juggled the pizza onto the table while Sam took the beers from him.

She smiled at the kid. The expression was faint, rusty, like she wasn't used to it.

"I'll take the soup. You have the pie."

Toby beamed. The kid was a pie fiend, but he would have given it up if she'd wanted it. Toby held the soup out expectantly, and beamed up at her expectantly some more, as if he expected her to drink the whole thing, like right now.

Dean set a paper plate out for the kid on the motel's square table, crowded with the pizza box and Sam's laptop and research hogging a whole side of it.

"C'mon tiger, before it gets cold."

Toby turned and flashed him and the pizza on the table a glance. One minute, Toby said, without actually saying the words. He caught the way Zee tracked the silent conversation with a narrowing of her eyes. It wasn't anything new, because Toby had been doing something like it for the last four days, but it was more obvious here, without the noise and bustle of the hospital humming around them as a distraction. She didn't like it, the way Toby was taking to the uncertain rhythm of the life like a duck to water. It was better than what the kid had before, being a zombie captive monster bait, but still.

"Go on, go eat." She took the soup from Toby with a nod towards the table. Dean looked down into the grocery bag, fishing around for Sam's salad. She had a point. It was too comfortable, the way the kid looked to him, not doubting that he'd take care of things, when he was the last person, the last monster, that the kid should trust.

He thrust the salad out at Sam to find Sam watching him over the laptop screen, a speculative gleam in Sammy's eyes. He ignored that studiously.

"Anything?" He nodded towards the laptop as Toby settled himself into his seat.

Sam huffed a frustrated breath before reaching over to rummage in the grocery bags for a fork. "There's too much. It could be a spell. Remember the Thule? Or it could be something like Samhain. Or even Death himself. But raising the dead is usually a Hell-related thing. There's nothing in the lore about Heaven doing anything like it."

He twitched at Sam's obvious omission. Cas' handprint was still on his shoulder. Sam darted him a guilty look and hastily added, "Or at least, angels don't usually bring the dead back as zombies."

He pursed his lips and set Toby's carton of milk down in front of him.

"What about these new guys, the Fallen?"

Sam speared a lettuce leaf and thumbed through his notes absently, not paying any attention to the way Toby was craning his head around to look at the laptop screen.

"The last time the Fallen were on earth, it seemed like all they wanted to do was have a good time and play at being demi-gods. The one we ran into, Arkas? He was one of their leaders. There isn't much lore on them, seeing how they've been in Heaven's Guantanamo pretty much near forever."

"What's a Fallen?" Toby interrupted, eyes bright with too much curiosity.

"Um." Sam looked sideways at him for help. He raised a silent eyebrow, and left it up to Sam, who randomly came up with, "A Transformer?"

Dean refrained from rolling his eyes. Sam deserved the narrow look Toby fixed on him.

"Autobots aren't real. Even I know that."

Sam threw a panicked sideways glance at him as a kid not even half his size stared him down. Dean kept his mouth shut, because he'd been on the receiving end of Toby's earnest stare, and he knew it was damned hard to pull off a good lie when the kid did that.

"It's an angel. A fallen angel." The ninja supplied from across the room, in a voice as cool as ice water.

"Oh." Toby said, abruptly glancing down at his half eaten slice of pizza, the kid's expression closing up in a way he must have picked up from the ninja. The kid swallowed convulsively, and he couldn't even imagine the things the kid must have seen.

"Hey." He said, reaching out. "It's going to be okay. We won't let them get you again."

Toby looked up at him suddenly, the kid's stare as direct as ever.

"That angel's bad. Don't let him catch you."

His breath stuck in his throat at the protective fierceness in the kid's voice. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the ninja tense up, because it was the wrong decision, siding with a demon over an angel. It wasn't a good idea, the faith in Toby's eyes, looking at him the way Ben had looked at him once, as if he could hold back the monsters and save the world. And look where that had gotten him.

Abruptly he pushed back from the table. The pint of soup lay untouched on the nightstand next to the ninja, because she knew better. Don't take candy from strangers. Don't ever trust a demon. She wasn't ever going to ease up and rest with him in the room, and she was right about that too. Even though Sam had barely started in on his salad he signaled for Sam to wrap things up, get his gear packed up. He stared blankly at the six-pack of beer by his hand, wishing he could feel the bite of numbness that a drink would bring. He forced himself to muster up a semi-reassuring smile for Toby.

"I'll be careful." He reached out and ruffled Toby's hair when Toby's face turned worried, watching Sam gathering their gear. "Hey. Hey, we're not leaving. We're going to be right next door, alright? Now, you know how to lay down a salt line?"

Toby nodded.

"Okay. I want you to put one down after we're out the door. It'll keep out any …"

"Ghosts and demons." Toby finished for him. "But…"

"Don't worry. I'm going to keep an ear out on you guys, alright? And Sam can break the line if we need to, right, Sammy?" He didn't look across the room at Soulless when he said this. It was a compromise. Because Sam was still human, and she could trust Sam.

Toby, however, gave Sam another look, a searching once over that didn't at all belong in the eyes of an eight year old, too skeptical and too keen. Toby darted a look over his shoulder at Zee, waiting for her faint nod before he turned back to them.

"Yeah. Okay. I guess."