Song Remains the Same

by R. W. Winters

For Alex Winchester, normal has never been in the equation. Mute since the nursery fire, she grew up on the road chasing ghosts with her brothers and father. When her voice is inexplicably restored and the angel Castiel appears claiming to be her guardian, both of their lives change forever in ways that Heaven and Earth never expected. Castiel/OFC. Sisfic - S4-9 - Alternate Ending.

74. Keeping Up Appearances

Song Remains the Same

Chapter 74 / Keeping Up Appearances

"I've been hurt and I've been scarred, but at least I know I'm alive."
- Lifehouse

---

Outside of Bobby's house in bright midday, Sam held a hand out from where he was seated on a junked car, stopping his sister with a very pointed, grave look on his face. "I'm serious—only like a centimeter."

Alex huffed and stood back, scissors hovering in a hand beside her. "You've already told me ten thousand times, Rapunzel," she said at his continued reminders. "I got it—now are you gonna let me do this or not?" She gave her brother a very impatient look and Sam relented grudgingly. "Such a baby," Alex muttered, leaning in to start. "Gonna start charging you for this if you keep being a diva about it." The scissors whispered snip snip as she carefully trimmed the back of his hair with little point-cuts like they'd all learned so long ago.

Because they were on the road so much of their childhood, Dad used to cut their hair—it was clippers for the boys and two artlessly lopped-off inches from Alex's hair when it started to get hay-like on the ends. When Sam started complaining about the haircuts (he wanted to have a bowl cut like all the boys at school), Dad threw his hands up and said if they were so unhappy with the haircuts he provided, they could figure it out on their own. So, they had. One afternoon at the library and a hunt for books on DIY hair cutting later and they could all now cut hair decently. Funny enough, Dean's was the hardest to cut. The twins kept their hair more long and nondescript but Dean preferred shorter on the sides and longer on top. As such, he had learned to cut his own hair with clippers after the twins botched his hair one too many times back in the late eighties.

Sam started anxiously bouncing his knee up and down mid-snip and Alex knocked him in the side of the head with her hand. "Hold still unless you wanna lose an ear."

His knee ceased to move. He had always, always hated haircuts but every couple of months it would get uneven and start to look shaggy. Today, Alex had haircut duty while Dean worked on fixing the busted window to Bobby's study.

Twenty-four hours ago they'd been stuck in an alternate dimension. It was good to be home, to say the least, and it hadn't been for nothing either. It had gotten Cas access to those heavenly weapons he needed and it had also resulted in the deaths of two of Raphael's most important soldiers. The same as every time she thought of angels and Heaven, her mind inevitably drifted to Cas—thoughts of him were warm arms cocooning her, gentle husky whispers in her ear, tender kisses on skin and lips…

"Hey—you paying attention?" Sam's voice snapped her out of her daydreams. Because she was standing in front of him to cut his hair, her twin brother had caught sight of that la-la-land look on her face. Alex made herself focus.

"Yup. Definitely." She returned to her work.

The alternate universe hadn't just gotten Cas his weapons and two less enemies. It had gotten Alex a jump drive full of hilarious Wincest and Destiel pictures for pranking… so that wasn't so bad, right? Well… Dean and Sam were still a little pissed about Cas using them as bait but Alex thought no one could be as upset about it as Cas had been. He apologized again and again about it after lovemaking and Alex forgave and gently explained to him why it wasn't okay, even though she was pretty sure he'd known it wasn't okay all along. He gave another vague, depressed speech about how he had to do things he hated to save the things worth saving. That was when Alex made a quick decision and ruled out any more war talk that night.

Cas had stayed the whole night with her then left early in the morning very reluctantly. Already, she missed him.

"I wish I could stay here with you. I wish so many things."

"Me too, Cas. Me too. Not much longer."

'Not much longer' was currently her inner mantra, the thing she hung onto to get her through the separation.

Before Cas took his leave that morning, he said that he might be gone awhile—he said it was time to finish the war and press Raphael's stumble.

Naturally, Alex was worried, but maybe more than usual. After all, the closer a fight got to the end, the more risk was involved. Stressed in the back of her mind about Cas and other things too, she was jumping on anything and everything she could do to preoccupy herself. Like cutting Sammy's hair and helping Bobby with whatever he needed and maybe later today she'd go sort through one of his numerous tool boxes (they hadn't been organized in, well, probably ever). Anything to distract from the scarier parts of real life, please.

"Sure you don't need help with that, Dean?" Sam called suddenly, making Alex turn to look.

Dean was wearing work gloves and had his flannel shirt tied around his waist. Wearing an old t-shirt and a focused, tense expression, he was working up a sweat as he replaced the entire window that they'd busted last night, frame and all. At Sam's question, he glanced at them briefly. "It's a damn window, what would I need help with?"

"So no then," Sam said, loud enough for only Alex to hear.

She studied Dean carefully for a second more before resuming Sam's haircut. "You think he's okay?"

They both knew what she was talking about. A week or so ago, while on a hunt, Ben had called Dean and claimed Lisa was in trouble. Dean had dropped the hunt and left the twins to manage it while he went to go 'rescue' Lisa. Turned out Lisa was seeing someone new, it was getting serious, and Ben hadn't wanted that. So, the Lisa wound had been ripped open all over again. Dean wasn't saying much about it, but it was pretty easy to see he was upset by it either way.

Sam contemplated Dean, too. "Do I think he's okay? I mean, after the rest of the crap he's been through, what could a breakup do to him?"

"I dunno." Alex paused to look at Dean again. "We all have our shatter points."

Sam hesitated, seeming to deflate slightly. "True."

Snip snip.

Alex paused again. "…He talked to you about it?"

"Psh." Sam scoffed, glanced at her like she was nuts. "If he was gonna talk to anyone about it, it'd be you."

Dean hadn't. And probably wouldn't. "I guess," she muttered. For some reason, the Lisa and Ben thing seemed to be an entirely closed subject. Turning her attention back to Sam, she held his face straight in her hands and squinted at both sides of his hair for comparison. He waited patiently, resigned to his fate of an awful haircut, it seemed. But he had nothing to worry about. She had gotten good at this over the years, and a tiny trim hadn't ever ruined anyone's hair yet. She set to work trimming the left side a little more, looking at Sam's face now and again, wondering if he was okay. "How're you doing, Sam?"

His eyes darted up to hers. She didn't have to specify what she meant… he already knew, and as a result, guilt became visible. "I'm… I dunno." Long silence. "I wanna know what I did, but back in Bristol, finding out all the stuff I did, those people I killed… I dunno. Maybe I don't. What if I did stuff worse than what I did there?"

There was a huge possibility of that. Sam had collapsed and had a seizure after they wrapped up the job a few weeks back—he had remembered bits and pieces from his year of being soulless and it had put him through the ringer—and after that, Alex wasn't really keen on trying to go find answers. Not if it was going to render Sam into an seizing heap on the floor. That had been terrifying to say the least. "Can't change the past," she said, understanding that fact too well herself.

"Yeah." Sam frowned off into the salvage yard. "That's what keeps me up at night."

Somber because he was, she was quiet for a minute and the only sound was of some birds, the breeze, and then an exclamation from across the yard. The twins turned to look. "Alex, what the hell?!" Dean was striding over, cell phone in hand.

Realizing it was showtime, Alex made innocent, wide eyes. "What's wrong?"

He shoved his phone at her, showing her the background of the screen. "This."

"… Is that you and Cas?" Sam asked, craning his neck to see the somewhat erotic photo manipulation of Cas and Dean wrapped in each other's arms and about to kiss.

Alex managed to keep a straight face—she had snuck that picture onto his phone a couple hours ago. She pretended to be taken aback at the image. "Dean!" she pretended to be hurt. "How could you?"

"Yeah very funny," he was the definition of disgruntled. "I know you did this." He shook the phone in frustration. "How do I change this? Sam, how do I change this?"

There was an amused little patronizing smile and chuckle from Sam. "Dean, you really need to learn how to do this stuff yourself."

"Do I look like I have time to learn this technology mumbo jumbo?!" Dean demanded, incensed. "Get it off of here!"

Sam sighed and held his hand out. "Here, gimme." In about ten seconds, he handed the phone back. "Better?"

Dean stared at his phone's wallpaper and then gave Sam a deeply exasperated look. "A pink flower? Really?"

"You didn't say what to change it to," Sam reasoned innocently, his prankster side showing.

Dean mumbled like an old man as he stalked off. "Hate you both so much."

"Maybe that was overkill," Alex said, looking at the back of Dean and feeling slightly bad (even as she hid a grin). He hadn't thought it was as funny as she'd predicted.

Sam was still grinning about it unashamedly. "Nah. That was a good one," he said, making her feel better because of his clear amusement. "Guessing you got that picture from TV land?"

"Mmm-hmm. And Sammy, I have so many more it's not even funny," she said calmly, then stood back, deciding she was finished. "Okay! Hair's done. Can you do mine? The ends feel like metal wires." She took some hair between her fingers and looked at the ends for effect.

Sam reached for the scissors. "Hand 'em here."

An hour later, as Alex washed some dishes and Dean put away the chips and bread from lunch, Sam opened up his laptop at the kitchen table then jumped in surprise when the screen lit up. Promptly, he gave his sister a look. "Alex." He turned the laptop around, a bitchy little expression on his face. The laptop wallpaper was a truly deplorably done photoshop job of the brothers embracing while very low-res, cloned orange flames circled the entire photo. She couldn't keep a straight face about it—she cracked up at the lunacy of it and Sam got even bitchier. "How old are you, twelve?"

"You two make a lovely couple," she managed through a throat choked by laughter.

Dean rubbed his forehead in ruefulness. "Someone seriously needs to take away her technology privileges."

"Guys. I would never change your backgrounds to erotic incestual images!" Alex said, feigning an overly dramatic and earnest delivery to the very not-believable claim. "That doesn't sound like me at all." She snickered, turned around, and returned to rinsing dishes.

At that moment, Bobby called for them from the study. "Hey, you three chuckleheads wanna get in here? Think I might have a line on mommy dearest."

That sobered Alex immediately—just as fast as she'd been laughing and ribbing her brothers (and maybe exacting revenge for pranks in the past), she was serious and focused, heading into the study.

Sam and Dean glanced at each other as she flicked her wet hands off and went to Bobby… they were both thinking the same thing: they owed their sister a prank and were in silent agreement to make good on the debt soon.

Dean was the last one into the study. His mind was in a weird place lately. What with everything that happened last week…

---

A Week Ago
Battle Creek, Michigan

He had dropped everything to respond to the worried call he got from Ben. Something's wrong with Mom, she won't get out of bed, she stays locked in her room, Ben said. Alarmed, Dean had told his brother and sister about the call—it had come in the middle of a hunt. The twins insisted he go and see what was the matter, said they could handle the job. So, Dean hightailed it to Battle Creek and found that Ben had straight-up lied to him. In fact, Dean had gotten to the Braeden residence just in time to find his ex-girlfriend dressed up and about to leave for a date.

That moment was pretty awkward when they realized what Ben had done. Lisa invited Dean in regardless, uncomfortable and obviously upset with her son. She gave Dean a beer he didn't feel like drinking and she shrugged on a sweater over her pretty little dress to cover her bare arms. Arms that used to hug and hold onto Dean tightly. Nothing lasted forever, he reflected. He should have known it wouldn't last with her, either. And he shouldn't have felt so let down to learn she was going on dates, either. He hadn't been with anyone since her. Maybe he'd been hoping… hoping for something that obviously wasn't worth hoping for.

When Lisa handed him the beer, Dean sat at one of the kitchen bar stools casually, facing her where she stood near the nearby couch. He was upset, but hid it. "You wanna sit down?" It felt weird with her just standing around all cross-armed like that.

She threw him a brief, guarded glance. "Not so much."

Dean looked at the woman whose home he'd lived in, whose bed he'd shared, whose kid he'd loved as his own. She was more dressed up than she ever had for Dean—little black dress with a low neckline, expensive looking dangly earrings he hadn't seen before, hair in some kind of fancy updo with soft curls framing the sides of her face. He could have been wrong, but it looked like she'd had some kind of work done—lips were plumper than he remembered. All in all, she looked like she was really into this guy she was supposed to go on a date with.

It had only been a few months, hadn't it, since they broke up? No more than like half a year—how was she already moving on? It hurt. But he stowed that because he'd be damned if she knew he was in pain over this. "So, who's the guy?" he asked casually, wondering how far they'd been and how into him she was (a lot, it looked like) and if he was good with Ben.

"'Who's the guy?'" she repeated, her attitude slightly sour. She shrugged, attempting to be offhand. She wasn't as good at hiding her true feelings as Dean was. "His name is Matt. He's a doctor."

"Oh, Dr. Matt. How respectable." He said it before he thought. He said it because he immediately felt inferior, like he'd been replaced by a better, newer edition. Like, what'd she even need him for to begin with? He was a lowly day laborer high-school dropout with nothing to his name—just some degenerate freak of nature. He was pathetic and couldn't give Lisa the things she wanted—it suddenly felt like she'd been humoring him, and Dean was pissed at himself, at her, at everything. A rich doctor guy explained the nice dress and fancy earrings.

Her face clouded up when he made the comment. "Really? That's how this is gonna be?"

Dean regretted the stupid remark and his gaze fell to the unconsumed bottle of beer in his hands. He didn't know how to talk about this or what to say, but he suddenly wanted her back, maybe just as proof to himself that he was lovable in some small way. "Look, I-I—"

Lisa cut him off. "If you're here to argue and make rude comments about my personal life, I don't want you here at all."

Her sharp voice hit him hard, confused him, then quickly made him gruff. "Lees, Ben called me and said you were in trouble. I dropped everything and ran."

There was a hidden, faint scoff. "Nice to know you still care." Her cool tone shocked him even further.

"I do!" he replied defensively, because world be damned to hell if he wasn't invested in Lisa and Ben—he loved them both and she was acting like that year together meant nothing. He gave everything here, sacrificing up his entire existence and investing every last thing he had into trying with Lisa—which hadn't been fucking easy all the time either. His earnest proclamation got him no reply. No glimmer of understanding or acceptance passed over her face whatsoever. They hadn't parted on the best terms, but her cold attitude wasn't what he'd expected—did she really hate him so much now? Stung, Dean looked at her in confusion. She gave him a look like he was her enemy. "What do you want from me?" he asked in a softened, hurt voice, really wanting to know the answer.

Her eyebrows rose. "What do I want from you? Don't get it backwards, Dean. You're the one who showed up on my doorstep tonight. I don't want anything from you. I'm not asking for anything."

He replied without a thought, deeply upset. "Well then ask for something!"

"Um…" came a new voice.

Lisa and Dean turned in unison to see Ben watching with a mildly traumatized, worried expression. "Go to your room!" they said in unison, not meaning to. Silently, skittishly, Ben took a couple steps back then did as he was told. His footsteps faded away on the stairs as he obeyed.

Dean set his beer down onto the kitchen bar counter behind him. He had no taste for food or drink. Lisa crossed her arms and came over slowly, her expression rocky. She sat down beside him slowly and took a couple moments to calm herself. "Listen. I wasn't prepared to see you today." She stared straight ahead, didn't look at him. "I can't 'ask for something.' It's not… we're not together anymore, Dean." She looked at him sidelong, and to be so close to her, this woman who'd been the first real, lasting romantic relationship he'd had—to hear her rejecting him all over again reminded him why he never did this crap in the first place. It always ended with the goodbye, and it always hurt like a son of a bitch in the end when he tried. Lisa softened a little and he saw her sadness then. "We're not together and we can't be. Not how you live." Her vulnerable, honest answer made his stomach clench. "My phone rings sometimes and I think tiny chance it's you, bigger chance it's Sam or Alex calling to tell me you're dead."

"Lees…"

"No, don't." She was hardening again. "It's just... it's just I get to this place where I'm okay, and then you show up at our door. You keep doing that every time I think I'm never gonna see you again, then I see you again. I can't have this keep happening, understand? I'm trying to get over you. What are you trying to do? What do you want from us, Dean?"

Everything she said was like a sledgehammer beating him down into the ground. "Trying to get over me, huh?" he asked, a wry, dead smile on his face as he looked away. "You make it look so easy."

"Dean…"

"What happened?" he asked, letting himself be vulnerable for the slightest moment. "I thought… I thought maybe this could work." He had wanted it to work, too. Maybe based on principle, but he had thought… well, he had thought a lot of stuff.

She took in a deep breath, shook her head, and shrugged. She'd given up, and Dean saw it. He was the one that still had feelings. "It was a dream. We're not from the same worlds, Dean," she said, hurting him all over again. "It took me awhile to realize, but… you don't belong here. You don't. I saw you fighting it every day. The urge to go out there, find your sister, go hunt things and save the world again. Honestly, I kind of wonder what took you so long to leave us now."

"Don't you say it like that, like I wasn't happy here," Dean said defensively, getting angry and throwing that feeling into words that didn't do his emotions justice. "Like I didn't put my damn everything into this."

She looked at him sadly, like she felt sorry for him. "I know you did. And it was good while it lasted… for the most part." Yeah. Dean agreed. There had been some nights when they had fought, when Lisa had accused him of things, when Dean had drank too much and let loose some pretty devastating verbal swings. "But it doesn't matter. It can't matter. We're over." She was firm and businesslike, shooting down any hope he'd buried for reconciliation. "I know Ben doesn't like it, but he's just gonna have to accept it." Lisa looked at him meaningfully. "I need you to stop coming around. I need this to be over. I'm moving on, Dean. Because I have to."

He looked down at his hands, which were clasped and wringing between his knees. He should never have let himself love her at all and he should never have believed he of all people could be a man worth loving. "What happened to 'come when you can'?" he asked, broken inside.

Lisa's jaw tightened as she clearly, inwardly regretted that little deal they had tried before ultimately breaking up. "Ben needs a father," she said, crushing him again, making him feel his failure all over again. "Someone who isn't gonna come and go like you do. I wish things could be different."

No she didn't. Silence rang in Dean's ears and he stared at the floor seeing nothing. He'd known it was over before. So why did this suck so bad all over again? He briefly, cynically thought of a song by Def Leppard. Joe Elliott, you were right dude. Love bites.

Lisa touched his shoulder unexpectedly with a soft hand. "You'll find someone else, Dean."

The gentle touch set him off. He stood up to pull roughly away from her touch. That was the last thing he needed, someone feeling sorry for him. "No, I won't," he said accusingly, insulted at the thought, offended at the way she could so easily tell him everything was going to be okay. "'Cause the life I live is hell, and the people in it always die and the only people who tolerate me are my family. And you know what? They only do that half of the time. So don't tell me that fucking bull." He turned away, ran a hand down over his mouth in an attempt to calm himself.

Lisa stood too. "Dean—"

He turned around sharply, chopping a hand out in an angry gesture. "You know what, don't patronize me, Lisa!" Dean was brusque, cutting her off before she could say anything else that would leave him to despair inside. He was bitter, harsh, and rude. "I don't need you to say one more damn word to me." A million things were on the tip of his tongue, words that would hurt her and make her cry and make her feel just as low and shitty as him. But he refrained from saying any of it. Instead, he was curt. "I'm gonna go talk to Ben. Let him know how it is. Then I'll do what you want and you won't ever see me again, all right?" He couldn't resist one final, cynical jab: "I hope you and your doctor friend are real happy." Hurt showed in those big brown eyes of hers and Dean forced himself not to respond—he remained cold and stony because he was wounded too. Wordlessly he went upstairs where he talked to Ben and tried to explain it to the kid. It didn't go so well, but Dean tried. And then he then left the house without another word to Lisa.

And that was that.

Only, it wasn't. Dean would carry the pain and confusion with him for a while to come, he would feel more deeply aware of that hole in his chest. The hopes he'd suppressed about maybe reconciling with Lisa had proved to be useless and stupid and as a result Dean felt useless and stupid. He decided that day that love was for chumps and he was never going to mess around with it again.

Ben's accusations rang in his mind: you're leaving your family.

That's what tore him apart. As Dean drove away that night, thinking of Lisa and how much he'd cared about her, how much he still cared even though he didn't want to, he told himself that he worked best as a solo flyer. He should have known Lisa and Ben were a bust idea to begin with—come on, what did he think, he could actually have a family? Be a good boyfriend and dad? He should have known it would end this way. His fault for being optimistic. He should have known. No woman in her right mind would stick around in this life Dean was resigned to—no woman in her right mind would want Dean for more than just a night or two of the only good thing he was able to offer. And that was okay. I'm fine with casual sex here and there whenever I want it. I don't need anything else. I'm fine with that. I'm fine.

Dean gripped the steering wheel tighter as shameful tears built up in his eyes and the quietest voice whispered no you're not. You're a curse and a disease. No one wants you for keeps. And no one ever will.

---

Present Day
Sandusky, Ohio

Two days after the haircuts, the pranks, and finding out that this 'Mother of All' character might be involved in a series of strange possession-like deaths, the Winchesters and Bobby Singer had caravanned over to Ohio hoping to pick up her trail. What they found were two men who had both worked at a cannery plant and both committed random acts of murder against friends, family, and co-workers after shifts at the cannery. Basically, none of it was good news and this 'Mother of All' who'd been mentioned in that book the Winchesters swiped off the dragons seemed to be making a splash. Although they had nothing to really go on with how to gank her, they were at the cannery anyway to see what they could find out. Anyway, it was probably going to turn out to be demons or ghosts behind the killings. That seemed more likely than anything else.

Parked inconspicuously around the back end of the large facility, the Impala glinted under dim moonlight. Dean hoisted his bag up and rounded the car to where Sam and Alex were getting their gear out and double checking their weapons bags. In a few minutes, Bobby and Rufus would be arriving. Apparently Rufus had caught wind of the same stuff the Winchesters had—Bobby'd run into him earlier in the day and was bringing him along for the fun.

Dean glanced at Sam and Alex as he reached the back of the car. "Got everything?" he asked super casual, eyeing his sister sidelong and exchanging a furtive little knowing glance with Sam.

She didn't notice the glance because she was so focused on rummaging through her bag and audibly calling out the contents as she touched each one. "EMF, pistols, ammo, zip ties, first aid, machete, salt, holy water—oh my shit!" she shrieked like she'd been stung and rapidly propelled back by a few steps, throwing the huge fake rubber spider that had been stuck in the bottom of the duffel. Their mission a success, Dean and Sam cracked up, high-fived, and subsequently got the most pissed off look from their sister imaginable. "Seriously?! Really?" She looked absolutely baleful and when she saw they were clearly co-conspirators, she got even more cantankerous. "Oh, you were both in on this? Ha ha, very funny." She looked foreboding, mad as a bull. "You're both gonna regret this so hard."

Dean threw his hands up and wiggled his fingers. "Ooh, I'm so scared."

"I know where you live," she threatened vaguely then pointed at Sam for effect as she gave him a pointed look that said he wasn't any safer than Dean was.

Her twin was stooping to grab the baseball-sized spider off the ground and he showed it to her under the guise of helpfulness—but it was pretty obvious that he was just goading her, waving it in her face like that and shoving it at her with a barely concealed smile on his face. "Look, it's not real."

Traumatized, Alex scrunched her face up, held her hands out and backed up. "Get it away from me!" Her reaction was beginning to strike Dean as un-funny.

Sam chuckled, backing off his irritated sister and he tossed the rubber spider up into the air to catch it again playfully. Dean then snatched it from him, annoyed at Alex's too-serious reaction. "God, Al, you are the biggest baby about this crap," he muttered. He drew back and launched the spider with a hard throw that sent it sailing far away. He then looked at her sullenly, implying that she'd spoiled his fun. "Better?"

"You both suck," she said, disgruntled completely and turning a little red from embarrassment. She stalked back to the trunk and returned to checking her bag—just very, very cautiously this time and with lots of huffy frowns directed at her brothers.

Sam and Dean exchanged another glance and Sam shrugged faintly, Dean made a slight face. Revenge was supposed to be fun, dammit. He knew he should be happy—Sam had a soul and they were all alive—but life was a bucketload of crap these days and he woke up surly or depressed most days. He swallowed the more negative feelings to focus on the task at hand. Thank god for hunting. It took the edge off.

Headlights swept across them and the Winchesters turned. "Ah, finally," Dean said, pulling out his trademark easygoing, good-humored sarcasm. "The old men are here." He started off toward the parking car where he could see Bobby and Rufus vaguely in the dark. "Let's get this party started." Behind him, Sam and Alex fell into step.

Dean heard Alex shove Sam sideways. "Gonna cut your hair off in your sleep," she told him in a grouchy voice. He just chuckled.

Rufus and Bobby were exiting the car ahead at the same time and Rufus, ever the sarcastic one, was throwing a casual insult Bobby's way as the Winchesters approached. "I don't even know why they let you have a driver's license," he said, his rich voice following the cadence of a relaxed southern drawl.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Dean said as they walked up, greeting the hunter fondly. It had been awhile and he didn't have to force a smile. "The man, the myth, the legend."

"Damn straight, ace," Rufus said with a roguish grin, reaching in for a firm handshake as he looked the three of them over. "How you kids doin' these days?"

Alex stuck her hand out for a shake, and you wouldn't have known she'd just been pranked a minute ago from her collected, playful demeanor. "Alive so far, you?"

Rufus clasped her hand firmly. "Oh, I do my best."

Sam had a broad smile on his face as he reached out for his turn to shake Rufus's hand. "It really is good to see you, Rufus."

"I can believe it!" Rufus made a face at Bobby as he shook Sam's hand. "It must get old dealing with this miserable cuss here all by yourself."

"Is it that obvious?" Sam asked, playing along.

Alex gave Sam and Rufus quick, lecturing looks. "Come on you two… easy on the old man, huh?" she smirked at Bobby, who was rolling his eyes.

"All right, we all pack a snack?" Dean nodded toward the building, ready to get a move on.

"And a sippy cup," Alex retorted, giving Dean a slightly pious look.

Oh, he was gonna pay for that spider prank. He could tell now. In response, he gave her a wan little smile that suggested she didn't have it in her. Maybe not the best idea to escalate, but Dean liked to have the last word. As such, he gave her that challenging look then turned and headed for the nearest door, ready to get a move on with the job. "Let's see what we can see."

The group of five broke in an employee entrance easily and cut the surveillance system wire just to be on the safe side. Once inside, they pulled out flashlights—the interior of the cannery was pitch black in the lower levels without the lights on. They found the lift and rode it up to the main level where moonlight lit the spooky, shadowy, too-quiet interior. Huge canning machinery was monster-like and ominous in the dark, its huge metal spokes and arms catching the light from the five separate flashlight beams. Their booted footsteps were the only sound besides the odd drip of water.

"Anybody see any demon dust anywhere?" Dean asked quietly as they moved through a larger, echoing portion of the place. He saw nothing out of the ordinary so far.

"Bupkis," Bobby replied, his leathery voice echoing slightly in the open space.

"Nada," Rufus put in.

"Me either," Sam said, then turned to his sister. "Any EMF?"

"Nope." She switched off the little whining device and stuck it back into her jacket pocket, screwing her little tactical flashlight onto her pistol. Sam had his out too, but Dean wasn't convinced weapons were necessary yet. His was still in his holster. This place was a dead end so far. But that didn't mean they wouldn't find something somewhere else.

"This way," Dean said, leading them down a hallway toward the employee break room, where the latest murder spree incident had transpired.

As they approached, they heard something metal fall over with a loud clang from inside the very room they were headed for. Immediately, five guns came up as the hunters took the defensive and peered ahead, crouching slightly. Through a set of metal-grate covered double doors, a slight figure came out and abruptly flailed back at all the flashlights and guns in her face.

"…Gwen?" Dean asked, shock making his voice soft when he recognized the girl at the doors as their distant cousin, Gwen Campbell. His gun lowered.

Just as surprised as everyone else, Gwen lowered her half-raised shotgun, gaping around at everyone in turn briefly. "Dean? What are you—"

Behind Gwen, distorted slightly by the metal grate doors, a tall, bald man came into view then stopped short when he saw them. The sight of Samuel Campbell made Dean's blood run cold—making him remember his promise of 'next time I see you, I'll be there to kill you.' Without hesitation, he strode forward past Gwen and shoved the door open, barreling down on his grandfather and raising his gun as Samuel reacted by stepping back as his hand went to his holster. "Welcome to next ti—"

So focused on the object of his hatred, Dean didn't see the attacker who rushed him from the side—he only got cut off mid-way through saying the word 'time' by a fist to the face. He heard someone shout at him to "get back!" even as he reeled from the walloping impact that had just smashed into his jaw.

"Hey hey hey!" Sam was shouting, restraining Dean's attacker even as Gwen raised a gun to cover Dean, and Alex raised a gun to cover Gwen. Samuel stood there, frozen, hands half out in self-protection.

Dean grabbed his jaw and shut his eyes in an attempt to control the pain. "Son of a…" he trailed off when he opened his eyes and saw who'd hit him. Fighting Sam's grip on her upper arms, looking nearly unrecognizable… "Jamie!?"

She abruptly stopped struggling, a puzzled look coming over her face. "…Who?" Her icy blue eyes had nothing but wild confusion in them. "What did you just call me?" She looked underfed, exhausted, and pale. Her eyes were dull and her skin looked mildly gray, her blonde hair was limp and unbrushed. She had no weapon or holster on her person to be seen and her expression seemed vacant and paranoid, lacking the intensely intelligent, sharp quality that was usually there.

Beside Dean, Alex stood and stared at her friend as she kept her pistol trained on Gwen, who was staunchly confused with her shotgun still aimed at Dean. "W-what's happened to you?" Alex asked, shell-shocked at Jamie's deteriorated appearance.

Dean looked at Samuel, who was the last person who'd seen Jamie, who claimed she'd disappeared out of the hospital without a trace… and Dean immediately knew it had all been fucking lies. "What did you do, you bastard?!" he demanded, lunging forward and grabbing his grandfather by the jacket with one hand as he hit Samuel across the face with the end of his pistol mercilessly.

It was chaos, what happened next:

"Hey hey!" Gwen shouted, cocking her gun.

Alex's expression was deadly as she stared Gwen down, moving closer fast and sharp with her gun ready to fire, finger jumping to the trigger. "Don't." The distant cousins glowered at each other hard, neither backing off.

Bobby and Rufus rushed in even as the girls remained locked in a standoff—they pulled Samuel and Dean apart with great effort—Samuel had a bloody lip and jaw thanks to Dean. He was holding his hands out in a staying gesture as he panted and Rufus held him back. "It's not what it looks like, just calm down, everyone!"

"Okay, will someone tell me what's going on here?!" Gwen demanded, eyes wild with apprehensive confusion. "Samuel?"

"Okay, why don't we all just calm down and not shoot anyone, okay?" Rufus asked, looking at Gwen with the shotgun and Alex with the pistol. "You wanna lower that thing, sweetheart?" He looked at Gwen meaningfully. She was reluctant, but with Alex's pistol aimed at her head and Rufus's warning glare, she did as she was told. "Dean?" Rufus asked, looking at the seething Winchester. "You wanna explain? Who is this guy?"

Dean glared at Samuel with every ounce of hatred he had stored up for the bastard. Bobby was holding him tight by the arms, keeping him from killing Samuel Campbell right then and there. "Our two-bit no good grandfather, that's who!" He yanked out of Bobby's grip with a surly proclamation of, "get off me!"

Still being held by Sam, Jamie's face began to change—where there had been glazed over nothingness, there was dawning realization, followed by sharpness and perceptiveness—she blinked rapidly, looking shocked, dazed, then quickly angry. She abruptly began to struggle anew at Sam's hold as she glared at Samuel with hateful fire. "Oh you son of a bitch—what did you do to me?!" she was furious. "What did you do!?"

"Look, it wasn't my fault—you lost your memory!" Samuel shouted. "I was taking care of you!"

"Bullshit!" Jamie spat, giving Sam a run for his money as he attempted to hold her back. "Locking me in a shed and making me heal your any and every wound is taking care of me?! Keeping me half-starved and brain-dead is taking care of me? You're a fucking liar!"

At the shocked, angered stares he got from basically everyone but especially Dean and Alex, Samuel became calm. Too calm. "Listen to me, she's still not well," he said, discounting the pretty huge accusations Jamie had just hurled. "She doesn't know who she is. Woke up and thought she was one of us. I'm telling the truth."

Jamie looked terrified they'd believe him and began to fight even harder. "He's lying, he's lying!"

Dean was cold as ice as he glared at Samuel. He didn't buy the crap his grandfather was attempting to peddle for one second. He was noticing how Samuel looked younger—stronger than before, and Dean put two and two together. He knew that whenever Jamie did magic, she would get ill or weaken and so her feeble appearance now suddenly made sense. Son of a bitch. Dean and Samuel's stares were waging war with each other. "Oh don't you worry, sweetheart, I know he is," Dean growled, and Jamie's terror abated a little when she knew someone in the room believed her. "This is the guy who sold his own grandkids up the river to the king of Hell, after all," he spat, wondering where Samuel got off.

"What?" Gwen was beginning to look sick and full of dread. "Samuel, what the hell is going on?"

Samuel wet his lips, no doubt thinking up another lie. Dean looked at Gwen with a brusque glower. "Don't listen to a word this psychotic asshole says, Gwen, you hear me?" He turned to his brother. Jamie had stopped struggling. She looked sickly and exhausted—and broken in ways beyond physical. "Sam, let her go."

Sam's brows creased in confusion. "But—"

"I said let her go!" Dean thundered. Sam hesitated then complied and released Jamie.

Alex immediately helped her stand by putting an arm under Jamie's and standing beside her. Dean gestured at Samuel with his gun, making everyone in the room flinch back in anticipation of a shot that didn't come. But it would. The man was as good as dead. "I'm gonna find out what exactly you did," Dean said in a hard, low voice, pointing with the gun at the floor for effect, "then you're gonna pay up for all the shit you've pulled on me, my family, and her." Dean looked at Bobby in no uncertain terms. "He tries to leave, one of you put a bullet in his head, you hear me?"

Bobby nodded. He knew all about Samuel's treachery and did as Dean said. "Yeah." Under Bobby's gun with Rufus right behind him, Samuel was silent and his dark eyes glinted with malevolent intent. Jamie looked back at him as Alex and Dean escorted her out of the room and down the hall, out of earshot.

A grayish hand pressed to her own forehead, Jamie had trouble walking. "Jesus—" she mumbled. When they got to the end of the hallway where a larger room began, Alex had her sit on a metallic storage bin.

"Just take a couple seconds, just breathe," Alex coached, looking the hunter over thoroughly. Dean stood back a little, blood pressure about to give him a heart attack. What the hell did Samuel do to this girl? She looked anemic, starved, woozy, near death's door. And for what, to make Samuel's big boy boo boo's better? What a bastard. Dean was tempted to go back into that break room and blow his grandfather's brains out on principle currently. Instead, he dragged a hand down over his mouth and tried to control his boiling blood.

"God, Jamie…" Alex looked stricken by her friend's appearance. "What happened?"

The blonde shook her head shallowly as she frowned at the floor. "I'm… trying to remember. It's all jumbled."

Alex straightened and stared down the hallway where they'd just come from. "Dean, I'm gonna kill him," she said in a dark, angry voice, "I'm gonna bash his brains in."

"Not if I don't beat you to it," Dean muttered. Alex walked off a few steps then paced the same four feet over and over again in an attempt to get herself under control. Dean approached Jamie like he might have a child. Got down on her level and looked up at her tense, pale face. She looked like she'd been through hell and he felt so, so bad for her that he almost couldn't ask. But he had to know. "James, it's important." He paused. She stared down at her own knees, expression sick. "What do you remember? What'd he do? I'm gonna go in there and give him what's coming, but you gotta tell me what he did to you."

Jamie glanced up at him briefly—her striking, arctic eyes were the only part of her that Samuel hadn't fully drained or conquered, it seemed—then she looked down again. She seemed confused, muddled, and very frustrated about being both of those things. "I remember… the, the vampire stuff. Right?" Dean silently nodded, telling her yeah that was right. She nodded, thinking more. "Yeah, and then… waking up at Samuel's place. He… tried to talk me into hunting with them, I think? I was still weak, really weak." She sighed tiredly, glossing over the fact that she'd saved Alex's life, that she'd somehow cured Alex of the vampire gene and fucked herself up royally in the process. Jamie seemed to recall something disturbing. "He was drugging my food… I remember finding that and…" she trailed off blankly. "Then what?" she asked that almost to herself, began muttering. "Dark room, him making me heal him all the time. Sometimes taking me out on hunts now, like this one. And…" she trailed off, caught herself, a look of shock and horror on her face before she swallowed whatever she was about to confess, shut her mouth, and looked away. Her arms went around herself slightly and she pulled away from Dean, even though he wasn't even that close.

Dean stared, stomach dropped to the ground. Did she mean…? Surely no. Jamie had a deeply traumatized, confounded look on her face as she stared into far distance. "He… called me Marie. Why would he call me that?"

Dean's blood went utterly cold with incomparable fury and he didn't need to know any more—he was already feeling murderous, but what she'd just said had him seeing blinding, raging red. "I'll kill him. I'll kill him!" He whipped out his gun so fast the air made a whoosh sound. He strode to the hallway, then stopped completely and turned on a dime, his expression calm and strange, calculating—chilling. Alex, a few steps off, stopped pacing and looked at him curiously. Her eyes went wide as his gun raised to aim at her chest. "But first… I'll kill you two."

A crack of gunfire rang out; the bullet pinged off metal as Alex dodged being shot just barely by leaping sideways—Dean's gun followed her, already taking aim again to kill. He was abruptly attacked by Jamie, who bear-hugged him and yanked him down to the ground with her as she gave a feeble grunt. Already twisting out of her grip and pistol whipping her across the face, Dean sat up, straddling her as she laid stunned under him on cold hard concrete. His gun moved to shoot her in the head and the hammer cocked loudly.

Another shot rung out a millisecond after Dean went flying sideways thanks to a football tackle from his sister, who sent him tumbling into the concrete ground. His gun went clattering away into the darkness. "Dean what are you doing?!" Alex demanded in a high, crazed voice even as he grabbed her, socked her in the jaw hard, and threw her off of himself. Running footsteps could be heard coming from down the hall. Dean, wild-eyed and clearly not himself, took two steps back and then fled, turning to run into the dark. He left his stunned sister to push herself halfway up, staring with a split lip and a traumatized expression. Her lip was numb, throbbing, and pain was beginning to pulse—the inside of her lip had cut on a tooth and he'd hit her so hard she felt around to see if teeth were cracked or missing.

On the floor there was a groan, and approaching fast was the sound of running feet. Alex remembered Jamie and her stunned state faded away. She shifted and crawled over to her friend. Blood blossomed out of the witch's shoulder and the wound looked terrible—immediately, Alex applied pressure, panicking. What had happened to Dean? Why did he attack like that? She tasted blood in her mouth and the smell of Jamie's blood was acrid in her nostrils.

"Unghhhh…" Jamie moaned, blinking and staring at the ceiling with a strained, tight expression on her face. "Your idiot brother shot me!" she hissed through clenched teeth, writhing in pain as she shut her eyes hard and let out a pained protest and muttered some choice curse words.

Sam, breathless and shocked as he ran up, dropped down beside Alex. "What happened, what happened?!" With Sam were Rufus, Bobby, Gwen, and Samuel.

"Dean pulled his piece on us, no warning, n—no nothing." Alex said, shoving down hard on the seeping wound with both hands as Jamie made nonsensical little anguished sounds. "Like he was possessed, but—how could he be?!"

"D-did you see black eyes?!" Sam asked breathlessly.

"No—he's got the demon ward!"

Sam breathed in deep through his nose and looked around for Dean, who was nowhere in sight. "Where?" he asked in a hard, urgent voice, and Alex nodded in the direction Dean had gone. Sam immediately took off that way, the beam of his flashlight disappearing around a corner as he ran.

Bobby crouched down beside Alex, trying to get a look at the wound. The blood pooling underneath Jamie told him enough. "She's losin' blood, fast."

"Needs a hospital," Rufus said, crouching too as Gwen stood around nervously holding her gun.

Samuel rounded Jamie and stood over her, looking down with an unreadable, almost warning expression. Jamie's somewhat-clouded eyes caught sight of him and brief intensity came to life in the icy depths. It happened so fast it could have been two seconds: Jamie bared her teeth against the pain and snatched Alex's gun, point-blank rapid-fire shooting Samuel in the chest three times, her aim precise despite a shaking hand. Even as the bald man stumbled back with his mouth agape from utter shock a single, harsh word shook out of Jamie's mouth in a terrified, enraged scream: "Retrorsum!" Samuel blasted backward supernaturally, gagging on his own blood even as he hit the ground with a crack. Gwen was already running to assist her grandfather even as Bobby grabbed Jamie's wrist and the gun clattered away.

"Hold her down, she's possessed too!" Rufus commanded as he grabbed her wrists and smashed them to the ground to keep her from fighting her way up.

There seemed no need for that. The witch gave no fight whatsoever. "I'm not possessed," she said in a small, defeated voice. "Just... killing another monster." Her head fell back onto the ground and she let out a weak, tired sound as blood ran out of her nose and her eyes grew woozy—the magic use made her near dead by the looks of it. She coughed wetly, and it sounded like she had pneumonia.

"H-he's dead," Gwen said in quiet shock as she stood back from her grandfather's still form.

The sound of running footsteps caused everyone to look and raise their guns. It was Sam. "What happened?! I heard shots!" He came up short, seeing Samuel's body. Still applying hard pressure to the bleeding wound in Jamie's shoulder, Alex looked at her twin and shook her head no. Ask later.

"You see Dean?" Bobby asked.

There was a grim shake of the head. "No. Whatever got into those guys must have gotten into Dean. And maybe her, too." Sam nodded toward Jamie, obviously putting two and two together as he looked between the blonde hunter and Samuel's corpse.

"Guys, she needs the hospital!" Alex protested.

"And what if she decides to shoot more people?" Bobby asked, sounding very unsure about letting Jamie leave the premises at all.

Alex tried to control her temper. "She won't."

"You don't know that," Bobby replied evenly, giving her a reasoning calm down look.

"Bob, zip tie," Rufus commanded. Bobby pulled one of from the weapons bag he had slung over his body and tossed it over.

"Hey, hey, you don't need to do that," Alex protested even as Rufus squashed Jamie's wrists together and zip tied them tightly. Jamie seemed to be unaware of everything happening—she just laid there with a look of suffering on her face as she took deep, unsteady, labored breaths.

"You don't know that, birdy," Rufus said gruffly, repeating what Bobby had said with a great level of warning—telling Alex to use her head, not her emotions. He raised his voice and looked at everyone authoritatively as he stood up. "No one leaves until we know if we're possessed or under the influence of whatever trigger-happy big bad's working this cannery, you got that?"

"Rufus!" Alex protested, stuck on the ground as she applied pressure to stop the bleeding. "This is my friend—she's been shot and she's already in bad shape!"

"Look, I don't like it either, but thank god it's just a shoulder hit," Rufus said. "Plug the hole, stay in the break room, keep a gun on her. If she's possessed, we can't risk you leaving. We gotta find Dean and figure out what the hell's going on before we do anything."

"He's right," Sam said, obviously regretting the fact.

Outnumbered and flabbergasted, Alex stared around and saw no one else was taking her side.

"I'll stay with you," Bobby said to Alex. "Anyway, I got the first aid." He looked up at Sam, Rufus, and Gwen. She was staring at Samuel's dead body with a strange look on her face. "You three go find Dean, figure out what the hell happened here," Bobby said. Gwen didn't appear to hear him at all and Bobby prompted her. "Gwen?"

She jolted back from her daze then swallowed her personal feelings of confusion, sadness, and uncertainty. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."

"Sorry about your grandfather," Bobby said, ever the considerate one.

She shook her head once. "I'm just sorry I apparently didn't know what he was capable of," Gwen said, face hard and stony. She glanced at Jamie inscrutably.

"Locked and loaded?" Sam asked, indicating everyone get their weapons out. "Don't shoot my brother unless you literally have no other choice," he warned with deadly seriousness. Rufus and Gwen both nodded understanding.

"Sam be careful," Alex said, sick at the thought of Dean out there and possessed by some sort of vengeful spirit or whatever. Her mouth hurt from where he'd slugged her and she still couldn't believe he'd done that.

"You too," Sam said grimly, then led the way off into the shadows of the cannery.

---

Bobby pulled back and examined his work. "All right, whatcha think?"

Jamie glanced down at the makeshift wound dressing Bobby had crafted out of paper towels and duct tape. "I'll live." Her voice was tight and strained as she fought a lot of pain. Her pale, desaturated skin was clammy with sweat. And she gave a grunt of pain as she shut her eyes and visibly fought agony.

She sat on the solid wooden lunch table that was shoved against the far wall of the break room. Leaned heavily against the wall with her legs splayed onto the table awkwardly, she looked broken and beaten, pained, feeble. Bobby pulled out a flask and offered it her way. "This might help a little." A look of cautious, mistrustful surprise passed over Jamie's face as she looked from the flask to Bobby questioningly. "Never hurts to have the good stuff on hand if you ask me," he said, shrugging modestly and holding it out further.

Jamie accepted cautiously, cradling the flask with her zip-tied hands, eyes on him like she thought he was tricking her. But he wasn't, and when she realized as much, she took a deep, long pull then hissed, nodding and letting her head fall back against the wall as she squeezed her eyes shut against the burn. A long, heavy exhale followed. "Thanks," she murmured once she'd swallowed it down, a mild note of relief in her voice. After a second, she looked at him with guarded, careful eyes as she handed the flask back. "Bobby, right?"

"Right." Bobby stood up, screwed the cap onto his flask, and set to work putting away the supplies. "I knew your uncle, you know that?"

Jamie looked up at Bobby with startled, vulnerable eyes. "What?" Her voice fell to a whisper—her pain around the subject was obvious. "No... I... I didn't."

"Good man," Bobby said, putting the duct tape roll back into his weapons bag. "May he rest in peace."

Jamie looked down, nodding her very morose agreement. Her eyes dodged away, glittering with telltale tears for all she'd been through, and she worked hard to put the proverbial mask of indifference back on.

Alex was pacing near the doors cagily and peering out every few seconds to see if anyone was returning. It had been about ten minutes and she'd been like that the whole time. On edge and highly riled up, she looked back at Bobby in agitation. "I mean, should we go move Samuel's body, or…?"

Bobby stopped what he was doing to give her a pointed look. "No, we're gonna stay right here. Not like he's goin' somewhere." Alex raked a hand through her hair and took in a deep, tense breath, on the verge of combusting. She was just like Dean, unable to hold still when she got really upset. "Hey, you wanna take it easy on the blood pressure over there, kiddo?" Bobby asked. "Too young for a heart attack."

"Sam and Dean are out there and Dean tried to shoot me! He hit me!" Alex exclaimed in a highly incensed tone. She wildly gestured to Jamie. "And he shot Jamie! What if he shoots Sam, too?"

Bobby set down the supplies he'd been gathering and approached her calmly, coaxing her away from the door then holding her by both upper arms. She deflated a little in ruefulness when he touched her. "Now, you listen. They'll find him," he said slowly, certainly, kindly. "Don't you lose your head, sweetheart. Stay calm for me, all right?" He patted her arm reassuringly and she took in a deep breath, letting it puff out of her as she nodded despite her misgivings. "Everything's gonna be just fine," Bobby said, then the ghost of an almost teasing smile played under his mustache. "You wanna wear my hat?"

That question made her glance up and forget everything for a minute.

When she'd been a girl, she'd used to steal his cap right off his head when he napped or when he was sitting down. She'd just snatch it off by the brim and plunk it onto her own head and revel in the fun of it. Kids—so weird. She didn't really know why she had been so obsessed with it, but she had. And Bobby, of course, had always humored her and let her wear it awhile every time she took it. Grinning a little despite herself, cheered up by that memory just like Bobby had intended, Alex shook her head through a soft chuckle. Chuckling back, Bobby patted her on the side of the face, his eyes soft and fond.

The sound of metal creaking dismissed the moment and they both turned—the doors were swinging open. In came Sam, Gwen, and Rufus and… "Dean?!"

He wasn't in restraints and he was very obviously himself again.

Dean saw his sister's split lip and wide-eyed expression and he stopped in his tracks. "Shit." He looked mildly sick and hesitated a few feet away from her as Gwen and Rufus walked past him. He swallowed, staring at her bloody lip for a long minute before looking into her eyes in disbelief. "T-they said I tried to shoot you?"

Alex cracked a forgiving smile in the face of Dean's horrified tone and expression. "Good thing you're a terrible shot, huh?" He wasn't a bad shot though—she was a fast mover.

"I'm so sorry, Al," he said miserably, and she shook her head. "Fuck, I hit you." He looked torn up over it and she knew he was hating himself for it.

"Yeah well you hit like a little bitch," she said jokingly, getting a surprised smile from him at the playfully insulting comment. She hugged him wordlessly and he hugged her back tightly. When they pulled back, Alex looked to him for explanation, and Sam too, who stood nearby watchfully. "What happened?"

Dean looked uncomfortable. "The herpe from hell."

Alex made a face. "Huh, the what?"

Rufus held out a huge brown sack. "Alex, Bobby—weapons in here."

Her hazel eyes darted to Rufus in mild suspicion. "What for?"

"Do it," Dean said with a heavy nod, letting her know it was okay. She hesitated, then trusted his judgment and unholstered her pistol and put it into the bag.

"The creature or whatever behind the murders," Sam explained when his brother was silent. "Apparently it's a worm. Crawls in the ear, controls the mind, has total control over the host."

Alex frowned deeply. That sounded gross. "Wait, like the Khan worm?"

Dean gestured to her emphatically as if he were thinking yes! Exactly! "Dude, that's what I said!" he exclaimed, looking at Sam like he was thinking see? Sam wasn't really into Trek like Dean and Alex had been.

"It was in Dean," Sam said, stating the kind-of-obvious and ignoring the look from his brother..

"Was…" Alex repeated, looking at Dean, who was scratching his ear with an uncomfortable expression on his face. "…so if it's not in you anymore, where is it now?" She glanced around nervously.

"Question of the hour," Rufus said, waiting on Bobby to surrender his gun too.

"And the reason you want our weapons," Bobby reasoned, sticking his revolver in the bag grudgingly. He shook his head in tense thought, then pulled his cell phone out. "I'll make a few calls, see if anyone else's heard of anything like this before."

"Me too," Rufus said, sticking the bag of weapons into a locker and using a padlock to keep the guns safely removed from the situation. "I got a few trees I can shake."

Gwen exited the room in some kind of huff that came out of nowhere as Bobby and Rufus began making calls.

Alex watched their cousin leave, perplexed. She looked at Sam and then Dean. "Should we…?"

Sam sighed in mild annoyance, turning to follow Gwen. "I'll get her."

"I'm coming with," Alex said firmly, and the twins went after their cousin. Dean almost followed but then changed his mind and drifted over towards the back of the room after a couple seconds of hesitation.

Silent, watchful, and wary, Jamie was sitting on a table against the wall with her legs on the table. Her jacket was off and he could see how Bobby had done what he could to patch the poor girl up. Blood splatters decorated her errantly, and guilt grew. Dean had zero memory of shooting her or attacking her (or Alex for that matter) but he could definitely see the evidence. Shame filled him just like it had when he'd seen his sister's split lip a minute ago. He'd almost killed them both—a terrifying thought. Thank god he'd only shot James in the shoulder.

At his approach, her veiled eyes glanced his way. Her color was terrible, her skin was sweaty, her body language was decrepit. She was obviously drained but somehow hanging in there and keeping her wits about her. "Hey," Dean greeted carefully. He wasn't sure what to say. Sorry I shot you? Too bad I tried to kill you, are we cool? He settled on a half-joking question: "You uh, you think you'll survive?"

Mistrustful things contemplated him in confusion. "What, you care about what happens to a 'goddamn witch'?" she challenged, and maybe it had been meant to be an acidic question, but it honestly just came off as wounded.

And with surprise, Dean realized she was holding onto his reaction from the day when he'd first realized what she was. But despite all his shit about witches and how much he hated them... he couldn't deny it and hadn't been able to since The Black Rose. She wasn't like the other ones Dean had encountered. He still didn't know how he felt about it per say, but he did know that this woman had saved Alex's life sacrificially and that she'd saved his life too when he was fanged up—she'd chosen mercy on him. And he still thought about that a lot. Thanks to her willingness to help the Winchesters out—which he had a suspicion came out of a kind heart underneath all the tough girl shtick—she'd been through some really unforgivable and horrific shit. Dean felt at fault, and witch or not—he couldn't deny it. He cared. And if that made him a fool, he guessed he was a fool.

"I had no idea he had you," he said, wetting his lips anxiously, wishing he'd had some kind of clue. "None. If I had—" her expression was killing him and he had to take a second to make sure he could speak evenly. "That bastard would've died a long time ago."

She tried to disguise the emotion on her face but couldn't. She was touched. And near tears. Her eyes fell away to vapidly stare at her hands. She thought for a long beat. The answered softly. "Guess we both have pretty fucked up family members, huh."

Dean had to concede her point, quiet and forlorn as his mind went where hers was. "Sure do, James." He wanted to know how to make this right. He felt guilty by association but... how did you even begin to make amends in a situation like this? One thing was for damn sure: he understood, maybe, where her head had been at when she found out what Glen had done. And whatever blame Dean had put on her then, he didn't anymore. He had a lot of regrets. And he figured this was the least he could do. "I'm sorry," he said with earnest gruffness, and pulled his switchblade out, cutting her restraints off roughly without explanation.

Surprised, her eyes shot to his again as she instinctively pulled her hands to her chest and rubbed at her red-mark lined wrists. Neither said anything about the impromptu zip tie removal, and Dean was glad. Somehow Jamie managed to sidestep all the painful wreckage she was in the middle of and adopted a joking demeanor as she sat there shot, dehydrated, malnourished, and in pain. "Just, don't shoot me again, 'kay?" she teased darkly. "Puts a cramp in my whole day."

Taken aback pleasantly and feeling a little guilty for enjoying the humor of it, Dean wasn't sure how to respond. "Yeah, I'll uh, I'll try not to." She didn't want to talk about the heavy stuff—he got that. Neither did he, but... he couldn't stop thinking about how he left this woman alone at that hospital with Samuel. But how could he have known? He never would have suspected Samuel of working for Crowley, selling out his own grandkids, and using a witch to level himself up and cheat death. Dean shook his head, unable to keep on joking when he thought about it. He sat down on the bench attached to the table, facing away from her as he leaned over his knees. "One thing's for sure, I think I at least owe you a damn drink or two after all this," he said, rubbing his forehead as he bowed his shaking head.

Jamie sounded wistful. "A glass of Merlot does sound nice…"

Dean whipped his head sideways to look at her. "Merlot?" He scoffed in amusement at her drink of choice. "You're so uppity, you know that?"

For a second, despite everything, she grinned and chuckled, maybe because that had been his go-to insult when they were teenagers. 'Uppity.' She'd been so triggered every time he called her that back then—now she just thought it was amusing and nostalgic, he guessed. But the smile on her face—making her look younger and even more beautiful—made him smile a little too. She had a fighter's spirit. She'd be alright.

The doors abruptly shot open and Gwen burst in, breathless. "Guys? Samuel's body is gone."

"Gone?" Dean echoed, standing up fast. "What do you mean, gone?"

"I mean gone!" Gwen said. Behind her, Sam and Alex appeared, too.

"It's true," Sam confirmed, his expression drawn and worried—Alex was heading for the lockers.

"So, what, you guys think the Khan worm's got him?" Bobby asked, hanging up mid-call. "Or that he survived all those bullets to the chest?"

"I'm going with the worm theory," Alex said, swinging a crowbar at the locker and breaking the lock keeping their weapons out of hand. "Guns, anyone?" She brought the bag over to the table and dumped everything out there. Everyone picked through and got their pieces back, double checking the mechanisms quickly.

"Maybe you have to shoot the host in the head," Dean ventured, checking his slide and smashing it back into place with a solid metal click. "I know I wouldn't mind putting a bullet or two into that bastard, myself." He glanced at Jamie, who was silent and difficult to read, holding a hand against her wound dressing as she sat slack against the wall still.

"He's probably gonna try and leave the cannery," Sam said. "We gotta stop him."

"Yeah," Dean said, then pointed at Alex as they prepared to head out. "You stay here with James."

"Dean—" she protested, getting exasperated and ready to argue with him.

"No arguing!" Dean told her in a voice that said he was done with the conversation and not in the mood to waste time debating her. He was already heading out, and Sam was following closely as Rufus and Bobby took up the rear. Gwen, being the slowest to check her weapon, was jogging to catch up.

Irritated, Alex did what Dean said but with a bad attitude. The door shut behind the hunters and Alex and Jamie were left in silence. Alex gritted her jaw tightly, stewing about being left behind and bossed around—Gwen, who was obviously the slowest and least experienced, should have been left to do the babysitting, not Alex.

Behind her, Jamie sounded full of chagrin. "You really don't need to watch me—I'll be okay. You should be out there, not in here babysitting."

Alex turned, realizing her reaction was sort of rude. Feeling regretful, she forced a wan little grimacing smile. "It's fine. Gotta make sure you don't bleed out on the floor, after all." Jamie made a semi-amused face and Alex holstered her gun, looked at her friend, then decided it was time to make the best of the circumstances. "If you didn't have to go and get shot we might be out there and part of the fun, huh?"

Jamie played right back with a soldiering little smile, despite her lackluster appearance and visible pain. "My bad."

Alex's lightheartedness faltered. She got serious as she thought about it. "Thanks for that," she said in increasing sobriety, looking over her clammy, pale friend who was obviously in a lot of distress. "You saved my life. Again." Truth be told, Alex owed her life several times over to this woman.

"Ah, you saved mine a few times," Jamie replied, uncomfortable at the praise. "Figured I owed you."

That's when Alex fully realized that Jamie's wrists, still hanging in a slouch across her knees, weren't tied together. She faltered. "What happened to the zip ties?"

Jamie's eyes cut to Alex's. "Dean."

Alex's eyebrows rose faintly in surprise. "Dean?"

"I was surprised too," Jamie admitted in a tone that struck Alex as coming from a very real place. Maybe that's why the witch covered over with a joke afterward: "Probably felt bad for shooting me. Least he could do, you know?" She re-positioned herself slightly with a harsh grimace and a muffled groan of pain.

Alex watched the blonde sadly. It needed to be said. "I'm so sorry, Jamie." Jamie's eyes slunk to Alex's. Guilt, pain, and shame was etched onto her pretty features. Knowing Jamie and having hunted together as long as they did, Alex knew enough to understand that Jamie felt things really deeply—despite the very careful guard and defense mechanisms, it was obvious. Alex had always gotten the impression that the witch was someone who felt guilty for existing, and forever trying to make amends for the things in her past that haunted her. Either way, Alex was devastated, because she was the one who ought to feel guilty—she was the one who needed to make amends somehow. It was her fault, by way of association, that this had happened to Jamie. "I should have tried harder to find you," she admitted in a thick voice. It was easy to blame herself, because all this time she'd decided Jamie had just disappeared, she'd been suffering at Samuel Campbell's sick and twisted hand. "I'm... just glad you're alive. And I'm really, really sorry."

Jamie listened, faint hopeful confusion showing. "You tried to find me?" she asked, as if that were not what she'd expected.

Alex nodded emphatically, frowning. "Of course." After what they'd been through together hunting all that time, forging friendship and partnership, why wouldn't she?

The witch nodded, touched and pained, forcing a little smile. "That means a lot," she said softly. Still, that guilty quality lingered.

Alex tried to figure it out. Did Jamie regret her choice to shoot Samuel? Did she think Alex was gonna hold that against her? Well, either way, she decided to be real about things. "Look, just so we're clear..." she ventured. "I would have shot him too." Unreadable ice blue eyes snapped to look into hazel ones. "I don't know who he was, exactly. But I know he wasn't good. And he was gonna die today either way for the crap he pulled on my family. So… no hard feelings."

Jamie softened. "Thanks, Al."

Smiling to herself because the witch had taken to using the same nickname Dean did, Alex contemplated the other woman thoughtfully.

And then Jamie suddenly gasped, shooting off the table in panic. "Look out!" No sooner had she said that then an empty barrel of some kind hit her, knocking her out.

Alex whirled and immediately took a step back in shock at what she saw. Bullets riddling his chest, Samuel bore down on her robotic and fast. Knife already in hand, Alex made a wild slash at him—a button from his jacket flew off and pinged against a nearby wall even as he grabbed her wrist, stabbing the blade into his torso for her. Shocked, stuck in place with a grip like titanium on her wrist, Alex stared fearfully into the lifeless eyes of her grandfather as he taunted her.

"You can't kill me," Samuel's voice said, deeper and somehow growling. "She wants you to know… you're all going to die." His lips curled upward ominously and he seized her, throwing her sideways into the metal lockers hard.

---

"Hey, hey, wake up," a familiar tenor voice was saying, and there was a patting hand against the side of her face.

Samuel—Khan worm—!

Alex sat up, wide-eyed and panicking as she regained consciousness. She looked around in terror, but the room was quiet, everyone was there, and Samuel's motionless body was sitting slumped against a concrete column a few feet away.

"Hey hey hey, it's okay," Sam said, the one who was crouched with her. He tried to get her to calm down. "You're okay. You got knocked out."

She remembered being thrown against the lockers and realized one side of her face hurt bad from where she'd fallen. Her shoulders fell as she groaned in pain and squinted in confusion, a hand against her pounding head. "What happened?"

"Samuel came back from the dead thanks to that worm thing," Dean said—he and Bobby and Gwen had just sealed the door with duct tape.

"Other one's coming around," Rufus announced, crouched over Jamie's crumpled body which had been thrown to the other end of the room. Alex tried to figure out what happened and how long she'd been out… and also how Samuel was dead—again.

"And what, Samuel's double dead now?" she asked, staring at her lifeless grandfather's body in a suspicious daze. She started to stand up and Sam helped.

"Bobby threw him against that breaker box," Sam explained, indicating a nearby smashed electrical outlet. "I guess it was a live wire. It shorted, he went ape. Then that thing crawled out of his ear."

Alex froze, disliking that idea. "…and went where?"

Dean hesitated. "Uh…" he shrugged somewhat ruefully. "We don't know."

Alex was chagrined. "Guys."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Well, either it bailed or it's in one of us."

In one of us? There were seven people in the room—Bobby, Gwen, Rufus, Sam, Dean, Alex, and Jamie. That was a lot of possible hosts. Geez.

Rufus helped a woozy Jamie sit down on the bench. She looked absolutely done with the day she was having so far. "One way to find out which one our little friend's cozyin' up to," he said as he straightened. "Everyone check your hearers." He promptly stuck his fingers into his own ears.

Alex stared, not understanding. "What? Why?"

"Left black goo when it ditched outta me before," Dean explained, sticking his fingers in his ears, too. Everyone else followed suit.

"It might just be gone," Bobby suggested when a bunch of clean index fingers came out.

"No," Dean said, skeptical and thinking hard, looking over the room with high suspicion. "It might've wised up and covered its trail."

Sam was shrewd and deep in calculation. "All right, let's settle this… one hundred percent."

"How?" Dean asked.

Sam spotted something and with purpose, strode over to the little kitchenette. He unplugged the coffee maker from the wall and used his knife to slice the power cord near the back of the machine. He then stripped about two inches of the cable off the wire, leaving metal exposed. "If electricity made this worm thing bail before, chances are it will again," Sam said, plugging the now live wire into the wall. He touched the end of it to a metal chair and sparks flew and popped as electricity crackled. "Okay, we're live."

"I don't like where this is going," Alex muttered, looking at the cable with a very disgruntled expression.

"All right, who wants to go first?" Sam asked, holding up the live wire and looking around between everyone.

"Ladies first?" Jamie asked from where she slumped in a chair like an old woman.

Dean immediately made a face that suggested she was absurd. "Oh no no no, the bullet wound victim goes last— I'm going first." He pulled his jacket off fast and yanked his sleeve up. "Hurry up before I change—" Sam touched the end of the wire to Dean's arm for three long seconds in which Dean went rigid and a high sound of pain came out. When Sam pulled the wire away after shocking his brother with electrical currents, there was a red burn mark left on Dean's forearm. "Son of a…" he wheezed, shaking his head and recovering. "Whew. Awesome." He reached out for the wire from Sam. "Here, you want me to—"

Sam held the cable against his own arm, sending electricity through himself for a good few seconds—then he yanked it away with a noisy gasp, taking a couple seconds to recompose himself as he recovered from the jolt. So, two down.

Alex held out her arm, bracing herself, resigned. If a worm crawled out of her ear she'd seriously puke. "Hit me." Sam did—the feeling of being buzzed all over with horrifying electric impulses burned her blood, her hair stood on end, and she thought she felt her heart stop. Then it was over and she doubled forward, face crunched in pain as she tried to find normal again. "Holy fucking—owwie." She groaned.

"'Owwie'?" Dean asked, mildly amused.

"Yes," she said, giving him a deadly glare. "Owwie."

"Your turn," Dean said, approaching his silent, reserved cousin.

After Dean had shocked her too, Gwen grabbed her own arm hard. "Aah! Haaa… damn."

"Okay, five down, two to go," Dean said, looking between Rufus and Bobby. Rufus, closer to him, got the luck of the draw. "All right Rufus, Let's go."

The older hunter suddenly didn't seem cooperative and held his hands out and backed up a little, smiling nervously. "Uh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." He made a time-out symbol with his hands. "Uh, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I—"

"No passes, Rufus," Dean said loudly, giving Rufus a slightly warning look. "Come on."

Rufus still protested. "I got a damn pacemaker."

"Well you better hope it's a good one," Dean retorted.

"Since when do you got a pacemaker?" Bobby asked dubiously, looking at his friend with a frown.

Rufus seemed indignant at the question. "Since Bush Junior, term one. I'm down three toes, too, FYI. All right, come on. Just make it quick." Dean did, and when it was over, Rufus writhed, stomping a foot down a few times. "God! Damn it! Damn it!" he rasped.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

"No, I'm not okay!" Rufus retorted with annoyed anger. "Give me that!" He grabbed the cable from Dean and looked at Bobby—the last one left.

"Okay. All right, my turn." Bobby smiled even as he backed up a step. "Well, it ain't inside me, so go right ahead."

"All right, then just stand still, Bobby."

"Okay, sure," Bobby said, slinking back another step.

Rufus paused, narrowed his eyes. "I'll make this quick."

"No problem," Bobby said evenly.

"All right?" Rufus approached him again as Bobby sidled away. "Let's do this."

"Okay, uh, just a second, Rufus." Bobby held a hand up.

"Just a second nothing, whatever you are."

Bobby's face showed shock. "I'm Bobby!"

"Bobby my ass," Rufus said, staring hard.

Without warning, Bobby suddenly whipped his hunting knife out and lunged forward, stabbing Rufus in the heart.

"Bobby!" Sam shouted in horror even as Rufus fell back, dead.

"Pulso!" Jamie shouted with surprising ferocity, hand outstretched with rigid fingers at Bobby before Rufus could even hit the floor. And even as Khan-worm possessed Bobby went down unconsciously, Jamie weakly pitched sideways, her eyes abruptly clouded over.

Roughly, Dean caught her mid-fall, an expression of incredulous disbelief on his face. "Will you stop that?!" he demanded in a sort of high-pitched, aghast tone—because she was going to kill herself at this rate. She shrugged faintly, groggily. Dean helped her sit on the nearby table again, complaining in a mutter the entire time.

---

Ten minutes later, Bobby stirred. They had duct taped him to a chair and zip-tied his hands behind him and his feet to the chair legs. In short, he wasn't going anywhere.

As Bobby lifted his head, Dean stared the man who was like a father in the eye and didn't show emotion—he reminded himself who he was talking to. "Well, hey, there, you little herpe," he greeted, standing and taking the live wire with him, touching it to Bobby's neck. The man trembled and seized from pain, some black goo came out of his nose to streak through his mustache, and Dean pulled the wire away, staring the enemy in the eyes. Eyes that belonged to Bobby.

"Why do you keep talking about herpes?" Sam asked, pulling a suspicious, amused face.

"Something you need to share with the class?" Jamie added in from her seat, earning a brief evil eye from Dean—even if she was exhausted, she still had the damn jokes. Gwen was standing off the furthest with arms crossed as Alex stood near Dean and held herself apprehensively.

Dean looked between Sam and Jamie both with a face that said he had no idea how to react to what he'd just been asked. "I don't keep talking about… and no." He was flustered and disgruntled and glared at nothing. "Just shut up. Shut up." Dean bent and put his face in Bobby's. "Now, don't you even think about shagging ass out of here, 'cause we got every crack in this room sealed, plus a witch over there, so get comfy."

"I am comfy," Bobby's voice said—only it was lower, gruffer, and somehow demonic sounding. His face was his own but the way he held his eyes wide and ominous was strange, unsettling. He let his head wobble around slowly as he spoke, a creepy effect. "Your witch seems kinda screwy, I wouldn't boast." He smirked as Jamie's only perceptible reaction was a slight clenching of her jaw. "And anyway, it's nice in here. And you love this guy, don'tcha? You really wanna kill me and take him with me? Haven't you lost enough pals today?"

"We'll do what we have to do," Dean said, playing the part of hard and uncaring hunter. "And we got some questions for you, so you can either play ball, or we could fry up a little shrimp on the barbie." He held up the wire threateningly.

"Ask." There was a small, creepy smile. "Been waiting for you to ask."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Sam asked.

"It means I got nothing to hide," was the slow, smug reply.

Sam was cold, his eyes were narrowed. "What are you?"

"You haven't got a name for me yet," the worm said coyly using Bobby's voice as his own. "I'm new around here. Eve—the Mother of All—she cooked me up herself." Dean held the cable to Bobby's neck again—for a long time, almost too long, causing Sam to tense as if he were about to stand, making Alex almost beg Dean to stop. At the last second, as Bobby's face turned red, Dean yanked the wire away.

"Who is she, this Eve bitch?" Dean demanded in a rising, angry voice.

"The Mother of all of us, and the end of all of you," Bobby growled. "By the time she's done, there'll be more creatures than humans. You'll live in pens. We'll serve up your young and call it veal."

"And what's your part in all of this?" Sam asked darkly. "How's jumping a few truckers gonna help?"

"You think I'm here to mess with a couple of cannery workers?" There was a smirk. "We led you here."

"Why?" Alex asked in a hard voice.

Bobby's eyes came to stare straight into hers, but there was no Bobby to be seen in them whatsoever. "She has a message for you."

"Well don't leave us hanging," Alex said flatly. "What's the message?"

"You're all gonna die…" there was a soft, foreboding smile. "She's pissed. She's here. And it's gonna be nothing but pain for you from here on in."

"Yeah like we haven't heard that one before," Alex muttered under her breath, exchanging a brief, disturbed glance with Sam.

Dean gave a cold, lifeless little smile. "Well, here's my response." He put the cable to Bobby's neck again and Bobby made sounds of pain, his face contorting—and Dean didn't stop.

"Dean." Sam stood, no longer able to just watch. "Dean!"

The oldest Winchester yanked the wire away from Bobby. Sam stood close to Dean, worried. "How much more do you think he can take?" he asked in a near-whisper. Standing very close, Alex was silent, but she stood like a rod and her face was frozen in an expression of terror at the sight of her uncle like that.

"You can't kill me," Bobby taunted, "not without taking him with me."

Sam and Dean exchanged a silent glance, communicating something without words. Sam nodded, then went and picked up the duct tape. "Well… we'll just have to do what Bobby would want us to do," Dean said, and that statement made his sister look at him with an expression that showed nothing but dread.

"Dean—" she protested softly.

He turned his head toward her, clenching his jaw. "Don't watch if you can't handle it. We gotta do this." Sam was already wrapping Bobby's mouth and ears shut with duct tape despite Bobby's protests.

"No way out now, slug-o!" Dean said, then at Sam's nod, he moved forward with the wire. "Bobby, hang on in there." He put the wire to Bobby's neck, and Sam couldn't watch, he turned away with an agonized expression and Alex did the same not even two seconds later. If they had been looking, they would have seen that Dean shut his eyes too as he held that wire to Bobby's neck and waited, letting the man quake and buzz with current after current of dangerous electricity. The tape over his mouth muffled screams of pain. And then Bobby slumped forward and went still. Dean yanked the wire back, staring with wide eyes.

"…Bobby?" Dean asked. No response.

The twins were turning back around, dread filling their faces. Gwen and Jamie, silently watching with dread, were frozen.

"I-Is he…?" Sam asked, darting forward to Bobby and peeling off the tape. He recoiled as out of one of Bobby's ears came a black parasitic worm. It fell out into a lifeless curl on the floor—and it didn't move. The worm was the least of their concerns. All three Winchesters were trying to get Bobby to respond.

"He's not breathing," Sam said anxiously, then shook the man hard, "Bobby!"

Nothing.

They stood back, horror settling over them as they looked at Bobby in disbelief and growing realization. And just when they thought it was over, their uncle suddenly opened his eyes wide, took in a loud gasp of air, and looked around with wild eyes. "Holy Moses… you kids tryin' to fry me sunny side up or what?" he asked, looking at them like he'd just been traumatized for life.

"Bobby." Alex hugged him tight around the neck—maybe too tight.

"Easy, easy!" Bobby said, wheezing. She loosened her grip and he managed a little humor. "I'd hug you back but I'm a little tied up at the moment." He looked around, noticing the missing person. "Hey, where's Rufus?"

The room grew quiet.

Dean was the one who told him.

---

Later

Thunder grumbled in the distance as the four hunters stood at the fresh grave.

"I gotta say, I never figured Rufus for the religious type," Dean said. What with the proper burial and all. He stood next to Bobby—on the other side of Bobby, Sam stood silent and pensive. Beside Dean, hands in her jacket pockets, Alex's expression was very similar to Sam's.

"Well, he didn't exactly keep kosher," Bobby said in sad fondness. "He always used to pull the old 'can't work on the Sabbath' card whenever we had to bury a body." He chuckled, bittersweet. "You know, I-I was just Joe mechanic. Then my wife got possessed… went nuts on me, tried to kill me. I stabbed her, and that didn't stop her. Next thing I knew, this guy comes busting in, soaks her with holy water, and sends that demon straight to hell so fast…" he sighed. "I'd have gone away for killing her. But... Rufus cleaned up everything. Taught me a thing or two about what's really out there. Pretty soon, we were ridin' together. Worked like that for years. Me, him, the road…" he sounded reminiscent but deeply sorrowful.

"So what happened?" Sam asked cautiously.

"We fell out bad." Bobby shook his head slightly, guilty. "It was Omaha. It was my fault. And he never let it go."

"Well, he should've," Dean replied immediately.

Bobby looked at him in deep sadness, like he thought that was a nice but unrealistic idea. "You don't know what I did, Dean."

Dean's features pinched and he shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

Bobby looked beside himself with grief. "What do you mean, it doesn't—"

"I mean at the end of the day, you three are family," Dean said, but he was speaking in a gruff, unhappy tone. "Life's short, and ours are shorter than most. We gonna spend it wringing our hands?" He shrugged slightly, looking them all over thoroughly and grimly. "Something's gonna get us eventually, and when my guts get ripped out, just so you three know, we're good. Blanket apology for all the crap that anybody's done all the way around."

"Why you talking like that?" Alex asked, clearly disliking the morbid subject matter.

"'Cause today was a reminder that this life ends, and it ends fast for chumps like us," Dean said, almost angry about it. He stared ahead, didn't look at her or anything else.

Sam was giving his brother a highly skeptical look. "Some of us pulled a lot of crap, Dean—you think a blanket apology is good enough?"

"Yeah," Dean said, difficult to read as he looked at the grave with hard eyes. "Clean slate."

Sam's face worked as he tried to understand and digest what his brother had just said. He didn't seem convinced at all but nodded to appease Dean's bad mood. "Okay."

Bobby pulled the top off of the Johnny Walker Blue he had with him and poured some onto Rufus' grave, a last tribute. Dean watched a minute then took a step back and walked off. Sam took a second then followed him, leaving Bobby and Alex graveside.

"What is it, Dean?" Sam asked, making Dean stop halfway back to where the cars were parked. A lazy, misty rain was beginning and making the air cold, cloying.

Dean looked frustrated, sick, and at the end of some mental capacity. He threw out an errant hand in their sister's direction. "What am I doing, Sam? Like, risking her day in and day out, letting her just walk right into danger with us…? It's stupid and it's going to get her killed."

Sam was reasonable and demanded his brother's gaze. "Dean, she does what she wants. Like it or not, she's a hunter. She was raised that way, in vast majority by you. You can't just... un-hunter her. It's who she is. It's who we all are. And, I mean, face it. We're stuck. Once you're in, you're all in. No escaping, even if you want to." At the look of sheer dismay on Dean's face, Sam gave a wan little smile. "Come on, Dean. She's got us. And she's got Cas. Her boyfriend can freaking raise people from the dead. I don't think you have as much to worry about as you think."

Dean shook his head, jaw clenched tight. "Doesn't matter. I'll worry about you two until the day I die, Sammy. And I just got this feeling… like… I dunno." He looked toward their sister for another long moment then shook his head. "Just forget it." On edge, he turned and marched back towards the Impala with his hands jammed into his pockets.

Leaned against the Impala as she gave them respectful distance, Jamie waited patiently with her arm in a sling. Her color was still pale and she had the look of someone with a terminal illness, but her bullet wound wasn't gonna kill her anyway.

Sam looked at her skeptically—he only remembered meeting her when she was a scrawny teenager, and he had no real impressions of her from then except she'd been smart and awkward and high-strung and insecure. He knew he'd met her this past year while soulless but couldn't remember that. The only thing he could think about was that she was the sister of the guy who had… messed with Alex. As such, Sam didn't know if he liked her. True, he didn't know her beyond the past twenty-four hours. But that didn't matter. Sam stood by himself there in the graveyard and fell into thoughts by himself. Samuel, dead. Rufus, dead. Gwen taken off, saying she was going to go find the New York Campbells. She had ditched just as soon as she could—because she was shaken up and said she just had to go.

Sam wished he had gotten to talk to her and Samuel more—ask them about the past year and what he'd done and been like when soulless. But Gwen wouldn't talk to him, and Samuel… well, he was dead.

---

Back at the graveside, Bobby took a long pull of the liquor he'd just poured onto Rufus' grave. Alex put a hesitant hand onto Bobby's back as he stared at the grave with that guilty, torn look on his face. "He chose this life," she said after a long moment of trying to figure out what to say. "He knew the risks. This isn't on you."

"Wish I could say I felt like it wasn't," Bobby said, shaking his head grimly. "But if it's not on me, then who?"

Alex said nothing. She rubbed his back a little, then looped her arm through his, standing beside him silently. After a minute, Bobby looked up from the dirt below and moved his arm to put it around her. He squeezed a little, not looking at her. "You're alright, gal."

She had a little smile on her face as she glanced at his grizzled profile. "Not so bad yourself." Awkwardly, she leaned her head to his shoulder in something like a hug. "Glad you're okay, Bobby," she said softly, trying not to get too upset about it. "Thought we lost you for a second there."

"Ah you'd be fine without lil ole me," Bobby said in a thick voice, looking off into middle distance. His hand patted her and squeezed.

Alex shook her head just a little. "False." She was trying to joke around but her real feelings popped out of her before she could hold them in. "I already lost one dad. I don't wanna lose another."

Bobby wasn't one to get emotional or talk feelings. When she said that, his face worked a little, his hand squeezed her shoulder a little firmer, and he nodded, letting his eyes glance at hers briefly as a soft, touched smile hid behind his beard. "I'll try and stay alive then, how's that sound?" He asked it in a joking tone, but his voice was thick with unspoken emotion.

"Pretty good," she said, her voice tight too as she tried to smile away the lump in her throat and the sting in her eyes. She didn't like to think about losing him—losing anyone she loved. She motioned for him to hand her the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and she drank some after raising the bottle in salute to Rufus' grave.

After swallowing the burning mouthful, she handed the bottle back and put her hands into her jacket pockets. The misty rain that could hardly be called rain was making her skin damp and chilled—the overcast gray skies fit the mood.

Bobby was frowning and peering past her toward the Impala. "Hey, you recognize that fella over there in the trench coat?"

Huh? Alex quickly followed his gaze and saw a sight that, predictably, made her heart leap ten feet. Castiel was there with Dean and Jamie, and at the same moment, Dean was pointing Alex out to Cas, who looked her way. Her heart jumped again, her stomach flipped, and Alex immediately headed that way in a quick stride. She passed Sam, who was standing around by himself near some headstones in what looked like reflection and thought. He stayed there, oblivious to everything.

Cas walked a couple of steps to meet Alex as she neared. She was overtaken by a rush of elation to see him. "Cas! What are you—oh." She saw how Jamie looked completely better—healthy, rosy-cheeked, strong again—and Alex stopped short, looking at her brother as she understood why Cas was there. "Dean, you called Cas?" she asked, impressed and sort of touched.

"Yeah," Dean said neutrally, shrugging, glancing at Jamie sidelong. "Figured he could help out a little. I figured right." Jamie appeared humbled at the attention, contrite even.

Cas was studying her beat up face with deep concern. "Alex—your face—what's happened to you?" he asked, putting a hand to her cheek and letting a thumb graze the bruise where she'd hit the lockers.

Alex didn't say it was Dean who had done most of the damage Cas was so vexed over currently. Instead she just shrugged. "Day in the life." He'd healed her already with that single touch and Alex glanced at their audience—Jamie and Dean—then cleared her throat, took him by the hand, and led him away a safe distance to underneath a large oak tree.

Underneath the old tree they spoke quietly and Cas took Alex's hands in both of his, holding them between himself and Alex at torso level like some old-fashioned weirdo. Dean watched vaguely, then looked away with an eye-rolling scoff when his sister grabbed the guy by the lapels and kissed him.

"Cute couple," Jamie commented, watching Cas and Alex with the slightest little smile. Dean sent her a skeptical look. "What? His coat's cool." Jamie wiggled her fixed shoulder experimentally, not seeming to believe it, then held out and looked at a healthy, pink hand with a still-entranced expression. "Also his magical healing powers..."

She fell silent and slowly pulled off the sling that she didn't need anymore. Dean watched sidelong. "You feeling ship-shape again, then?" he asked, hoping.

Even she seemed surprised as she nodded yes. "Like new." Her guarded, curious eyes studied him, clearly wondering why he was being nice to her.

"Good." Dean offered a thin, glad smile, a little uncomfortable at the intensity of her eyes. Least he could do. What Samuel had done to her plus the vampire-healing thing she'd done for Alex had done more-than-likely irreversible damage to her… but Cas, as usual, had been able to fix the irreparable. Dean didn't feel quite so bad now—James would live. And he had to hand it to Cas, who was pretty useful to have around. The guy wasn't so bad really.

Jamie contemplated the graveyard unseeingly for a moment, deliberating. Finally, she spoke, and he'd never heard her use such a soft, vulnerable tone before. "Thanks Dean."

Dean glanced at her and shrugged, crossing his arms and leaning his back against the car a few feet off from her. "I meant what I said. I kinda owe you and then some. More than a couple beers. Or, sorry, Merlots."

Jamie grinned at the Merlot jab, and joined him in leaning against the Impala with arms folded loosely. Stealing a glance, Dean examined her again briefly. She looked herself again. Healthy, sharp, vibrant—and yes, annoyingly pretty. She'd looked pretty when she was sick too, somehow. He rolled his eyes at himself. Jamie remained unaware of his thoughts, in thought as she looked across the graveyard with an expression of fierce contemplation. For a minute, neither said anything.

Then Jamie broke the silence. "You really wanna help?" she asked cautiously, sounding like she was being careful not to sound too hopeful. Dean looked at her sidelong, waiting and curious. "Illinois's maybe six hours from here. That's where my car was when…" her face darkened slightly, "everything happened. All my stuff's in it. Or was." She wet her lips and shrugged, obviously loathe to ask for help. "I… could use a little money if you can spare it. I just need enough to ride a bus or something. I'll pay you back when I have access to my money again."

Money? He could do that. But he wasn't gonna stick her on a bus. Not after she'd saved his sister twice, him once, and put her own life on the line multiple times for them. Dean contemplated her for a minute and wondered how she was gonna keep on doing this hunting thing on her own—she didn't have any family left that he knew of. He wanted to ask, but it wasn't his business. Even though she hadn't said it, he felt it: she was a loner, but she didn't want be. And he couldn't imagine what that felt like. He had Sam and Alex. Who did James have? "I'll do you one better," he told her, deciding right then and there. "We'll take you there and help you round up all your stuff. No reason you gotta track it all down by yourself."

Jamie blinked twice in surprise, then immediately began to reject the idea. "Wh—no, you don't have to do all that."

He replied with conviction. "Yeah. I do." Dean was serious and meaningful. "You saved my sister's life. My bastard grandfather messed you up. Hell, I asked you to kill me and you spared my sorry ass. And then as thanks, I fucking shoot you—the hell is that?" The two shared the tiniest smile over that before Dean sobered. "So yeah. This is the least we can do to help you out." She opened her mouth to protest and Dean held out a warning finger, cutting her off with the first juvenile insult that came to mind. "Don't argue James—you look real ugly when you argue."

She shut her mouth and studied him with an amused yet perplexed expression. Like she was vaguely onto him. "Hm. Charmer."

He couldn't help it. "Oh yeah?" he asked, teasing her and sending a playful, coy smile her way despite himself, because he knew it would get under her skin. It did.

"Stop." She scoffed at his attempt to be cute and hid her annoyed but entertained smile, trying really hard not to find him amusing. She rolled her eyes, folded her arms anew and looked off into the graveyard. Spirits relieved a little bit, Dean relaxed and joined her in watching the graveyard. Under the oak tree, Cas and Alex were still close and speaking, but Alex's expression was no longer happy. She looked like she was having to say goodbye. Bobby was still at Rufus' grave, and Sam was hanging back, seeing how everyone was in moments of their own.

Jamie abruptly spoke up with a very sober, sad, guilty voice. "Dean. About what my brother did…"

Dean bristled internally. "Your brother's not you," he said gruffly, staring hard into far distance. "He's dead now. And we don't ever have to talk about him again." It was as much a comment as it was a command. "In fact, let's not."

Jamie nodded once, conflicted about it but going with his stance on it either way. "Ten four."

Alex approached alone, mildly deflated. The angel was gone. "Cas have to leave?" Dean asked as she got close.

She nodded once, pretending to be fine about it. "As usual."

"Well, we gotta hit the road anyway," Dean said. "Illinois or bust."

Alex frowned slightly. "What's in Illinois?"

Dean looked at Jamie to answer, putting her on the spot.

"All my stuff," the witch said, slightly abashed.

Alex paused and got this funny look on her face as she looked at Jamie, then Dean, then Jamie again. "Oh… ah. Well, I, uh—I was actually gonna ride back with Bobby," she said, jerking her thumb back at Bobby's Chevelle. She turned to Sam, who had just walked up to stand beside her. "Sam, you were gonna ride back with Bobby too, weren't you?" She nudged him slightly in the arm, giving him a meaningful look.

Sam hesitated, a faintly confused expression on his face. He looked at Dean, who was giving his sister a weird look like he was wondering what are you doing? Sam looked at his twin again. "Uh… yeah," he said, slowly, looking at her with questioning eyes. "Yeah I was." He gave a falsely confident smile, even as he was obviously trying to figure out what was going on.

Dean narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his sister, who thumped him on the shoulder enthusiastically, playfully. "No more shooting Jamie, got it?"

"Har har," Dean grumbled. He was probably never gonna live it down.

A few minutes later, the Impala rumbled off. Sam and Alex stood there beside Bobby's Chevelle with their bags as they watched Dean drive Jamie away. Sam looked at his sister with an expression of amusement. "What are you, a matchmaker?" he asked, having figured it out.

Alex shrugged. "I think he likes her."

Sam scoffed. "Dean likes pretty much any cute face and pair of legs he sees."

"No, I mean I think he likes her," Alex said meaningfully. "And she might like him too, maybe. So… why not? Maybe they hit it off. Maybe she helps him get over the whole Lisa thing." She contemplated a little more seriously, realizing in fullness how, actually, it might be a better match than she'd considered previously. "And I mean, think about it. She knows the life. They're from the same world."

Sam looked like he wasn't so fond of that idea. "Eh, I dunno."

"Oh ye of little faith." Alex patted him and cracked a little proud grin as she nodded toward the Chevelle. "Shotgun!"

---

Bootbock, Kansas

Cas left Alex at the graveyard and answered the summons he received. He found himself in a place he didn't recognize. It appeared to be an old laboratory of some kind—no—not a lab—he spotted the metal gurney meant for humans and saw the blood spatters. An experiment facility, perhaps? Or a medical compound? Behind him, he heard a low, familiar chuckle.

"Ah, Castiel. My favorite liar. It's been awhile. How's the wife? The brothers-in-law? I trust all's well with you?"

Castiel turned around to see a familiar, hated face smirking at him and in annoyance, he looked away. Instead, he let his stern gaze wander around the dilapidated surroundings. Crowley followed his gaze, an expression of fondness turning his lips upward. "Ah yes. My newest evil lair. Like it? Used to be a maximum security crazy house for the deeply mentally disturbed." He looked at Cas directly, playful. "I feel right at home."

His jovial lightheartedness made Castiel angry. Or, maybe what made him angry was the reminder of how deep in he was with the lies and deception. "What do you want, Crowley?"

"To have tea and biscuits, of course," the demon said casually, then took a few steps forward as faint annoyance began to play on his strong features. "What do you think, you cheap suit wearing nancy?" He looked at Cas expectantly. "I've heard Mommy's back." Castiel couldn't conceal his reaction and Crowley smiled with wicked pleasure. "Ah. I see you have too. Well. Then the reason I called you should be obvious."

Castiel said nothing, only able to think of how abominable this was to be meeting with Crowley in secret. The demon took his silence for ignorance.

"Are you really that thick, choir boy, or do you just enjoy making me explain the painfully obvious?" Crowley asked sarcastically. He spoke in a hard, pointed voice. "We need Eve—she's got the four-one-one on how to find and open Purgatory—really, Cas, you make profound stupidity look so attainable."

More and more, Cas wanted nothing to do with the seedy nature of these dealings and as such, found it difficult to want to cooperate with Crowley in the least. He was curt and hostile. "I'm fighting a war in Heaven. I don't have any resources at my disposal right now, Crowley, you'll have to find her."

Crowley exploded in a fit of indignant, red-faced rage. "Oh yank it out of your arse, halo!" The demon let the words echo and then composed himself, giving a cold smile as he looked at Cas with baleful, warning eyes. His slithering, silk voice grated on Castiel's every last nerve. "Do you recall, darling, the fifty thousand souls I loaned you way back when?" He exploded again into a booming shout. "I bought dinner, now pay up and put out!" Coming closer to put himself toe-to-toe with the angel, Crowley stared Cas down testily. "Find Eve, bring her to me—think you can you handle that, pew-warmer? And don't worry, I'll take care of the torture, you don't need to worry about soiling your precious little princess hands. We get the bitch, I carve the location out of her, we crack open monster-land—you get your souls, I get mine, you kick Raphael out, I'm cemented as King of Hell, and 'they all live happily ever' after or some tripe like that." Crowley's dark eyes glinted as Castiel stared into them, seething with utter hatred. "Do we understand each other?"

Castiel asserted dominance by stepping forward slightly and using his taller height over the demon. "Do not assume to command me like some foot soldier."

The triumphant smirk on Crowley's face was back. "Whatever you say, fluffers."

Angered, upset, deeply bitter about the choices he had made, Castiel ported himself away from that place. There had to be another way. Surely there was some solution to this problem of war that he could find. Castiel looked around and realized where he had taken himself to—the park. Their picnic table. The one where a lifetime ago they had thought the world was ending and he had asked her to give the rest of her days to him.

For the briefest moment as his eyes took in that picnic table and his mind went over the memories, he thought about going to his Alex and confessing everything to her, begging her forgiveness, begging her understanding, begging her for help and advice and support. But then he thought of how he had made his choices and now he couldn't undo what had been done. And certainly, more than anything else, he couldn't put the crushing weight he lived with onto Alex's shoulders—not even fractionally. She was innocent of this.

He put his hand into his trench coat pocket and found the familiar silver circle in the bottom of the pocket. The touch of cool metal reminded him of trusting hazel eyes and arms that held onto him tightly. His heart sank, his stomach turned with ill feelings.

He couldn't work for the King of Hell. He just couldn't.

Backed into a corner, the rebel angel began to contemplate ways to escape what he had done and take matters into his own hands, ways to win the war without resorting to partnering with demons in the darkness.

---

Three Days Later

He found the angel he was looking for at some sort of social club. In a back room on a plush red couch, two giggling, scantily clad women crawled all over a man who was chuckling in low pleasure as he groped every curve and swell he could find.

Cas announced his presence as he always did: stoically. "Hello Balthazar."

The two women gasped and sat back as Balthazar blinked in surprise and quickly deflated. He managed a weary smile, either way. "Cas. You look…" he waved a hand at Cas a few times, trying to find the right word. "Constipated."

Castiel stared at his friend somberly as muffled music thumped from nearby. "I have a dilemma."

"So do I!" Balthazar said, indicating the women on either side of him. "You, interrupting." When Cas said nothing, only frowned slightly, the playboy angel sighed reluctantly, stood up, and straightened himself. "Ladies, could you give us a moment?" He smiled charmingly and winked at one of them as they obliged while sending flirty smiles over their shoulders. The door closed behind the girls, leaving the two angels in the small lounge room alone.

"All right Cas." Balthazar said, resigning himself and crossing his arms as he prepared to hear his brother out. "What's so important, hm?"

Cas was grim. "I need you to do something for me."

"Sure, anything, Cas," Balthazar agreed readily, then edited himself playfully. "As long as I can have a few hours to pleasure the locals, of course." He smiled suggestively, but Cas didn't really react—unless mild annoyance counted.

"To beat Raphael, I need to take drastic action," Castiel said gravely as he paced a couple steps over. "I need more power."

A frown crossed the other angel's face. "But the weapons we just got—"

"Are useful." Cas stopped, drew a deep breath, and let it out tensely as he held his jaw tight then shook his head just once. "But he's an archangel, I'm just a seraph."

Balthazar smiled ruefully. "I wouldn't say just."

Cas glanced at him briefly. "The point is, even with the weapons it's too big of a risk to go against Raphael. He's afraid right now and retreating since we came into possession of the weapons, but it won't last for long. He'll regroup."

Balthazar acknowledged the facts with a nod but then reminded Cas of something else. "Might be hard for him to do minus his two right-hand howler monkeys." He smiled solicitously. "I must say, that pretty little lady friend of yours is quite impressive—what with killing two of our biggest enemies in one day and all. Perhaps we should employ her, hm?" At the immediate look of severe disagreement on Castiel's face, Balthazar rolled his eyes. "I'm joking, Cas. Sorry, by the way. About the whole Raphael-almost-getting-her thing. I didn't expect the Scooby Doo gang to find each other with five thousand miles between them in that little alternate dimension. Suppose I underestimated their tenacity. Hindsight, eh?"

Cas's face was tired and drawn and he seemed apathetic. "It's forgiven."

Confused, Balthazar frowned. "Really."

"I don't have time to hold grudges right now," Castiel said, mildly frustrated.

"All right, well, I'm glad." Balthazar studied his brother carefully. "Now what is it you need me to do?"

There was no reply for a long, somber moment—Cas looked reluctant to say. "I need souls. Lots of them."

Balthazar stood a little straighter, thinking quickly, a bit surprised at himself. "Ah, yes, yes… why didn't I think of it before? The more souls, the more power." He mulled it over, then turned impish. "So what do you suggest…? I go on a little soul snatching mission? Genocide's a good option, I could sink Australia, perhaps?"

Castiel reacted with a sharp, angry look. "No, no. We need a way to get souls that doesn't involve the needless deaths of human beings."

"Well you can't have your cake and eat it too," Balthazar retorted, unsure how Cas thought he could come into possession of souls otherwise. An annoyed side glance came his way.

"I don't want cake, Balthazar, please focus on the subject at hand." Cas paused, his stern features making his face look rigid and aged. "I've been thinking about this for some time now. If we could find a way to generate new souls—perhaps by changing a major disaster in recent history—we could use the new souls for the war efforts."

Balthazar took a moment to try and understand what his brother was saying. "So you're saying save a bunch of mouth-breathers somewhere in earth history and use their souls once they die and reach good ole paradise?"

"Exactly."

"And, what?" Balthazar questioned impertinently. "You just want to sit around and kick dirt while all these new humans who otherwise wouldn't have existed grow old and die? Last I checked we were a bit crunched on time. We need the souls now, correct?"

"We won't have to wait long." Castiel's eyebrows shrugged up briefly in an expression akin to self-loathing. "Fate will be upset by the change in cemented history and she'll begin to do the work for us."

Balthazar's eyebrows slowly rose. "…You mean by killing all the new souls that we generate and sending them upstairs. Well, that's one way not to get your hands dirty." He was mildly taken aback at the idea and how crafty and underhanded it was. "Cas, I have to say—I am surprised. This doesn't seem like you."

Cas didn't seem to think so either. He was touching a velvet tassel on the curtains draped against the walls and his features were like a rock. "The alternative is exponentially worse."

"And what's the alternative?" Balthazar asked, noticing how Cas almost seemed to be hiding something.

Castiel's eyes slunk to Balthazar's slowly. "Losing to Raphael, of course."

"Ah." Balthazar contemplated his brother a moment longer and decided not to ask any more questions—Cas seemed on the unstable side lately and anyway, the idea was a decent one. No need to push his luck. "Yes, of course. Well. No worries, Cas. We'll kick Raffy's ass yet, you mark my words. Now, about your soul-minting, I already have an idea of where, precisely, to get them. Should generate, oh, say fifty thousand souls or so for us for starters." A small smile played on his lips. "Does the phrase 'I'm king of the world' mean anything to you?"

Cas reacted with confusion. "…Should it?"

Cas never had been one for keeping up with popular culture. "Never mind," Balthazar sighed, then clapped Cas on the shoulder with confidence and fondness. "Just leave it to me, Cas. You'll have your new souls faster than you can say 'draw me like one of your French girls.'"

Cas hesitated, brows moving in towards each other. "…I don't think I would ever say that."

Balthazar suppressed the urge to give a fed up groan. Why did he even try? "Right. Well." He straightened his blazer with a smart snap and gave a roguish little smile. "I'm off to go unsink the Titanic."