Dealia tapped her foot against the tiled waiting room. Sandra, George's receptionist, was typing away on her computer, more than likely answering emails or whatever else she did for the director.

Dealia was seated in one of the four chairs. They were standard white leather waiting-room chairs, cornered around a dark stained oak table, the top of which was covered in magazines and a few small novellas. Dealia wrinkled her nose at the titles; they'd been the exact editions since she'd been hired almost nine years ago. She wondered if either Sandra or George had realized.

The longer she sat there, the more restless she became. She'd been forced to bring the twins to work with her today after the nanny had a family emergency. Usually, she'd have worked from home, but she had far too much that needed to be done before her Christmas Vacation, one she was hoping to start early if this meeting went well.

"Are the twins excited about the new baby?" Sandra's voice almost started Dealia: she'd been too deep in her thoughts, her hand absentmindedly rubbing her stomach as the current tenant did what felt like jumping jacks on Dealia's bladder.

"Um…" Dealia grimaced, the remnants of Ember's initial tantrum still fresh in her mind. "Ember isn't…she's not happy about it, but I don't think Oliver cares. I'm sure he'll be more upset when my attention is shifted, but I'm hoping the adjustment won't be too rough on the lot of us." Sandra chuckled.

"Have you introduced them to…"

"Derek?" Dealia questioned, and the women nodded. "Yes." Her lips automatically curled into a smile as she thought back to a few nights before. Derek had been playing with the twins in Ember's room while she'd been getting dinner ready, something he did without her asking. She'd come up to check on them, only to find Derek seated at Ember's little pink table, his knees up to his chest with a tiny teacup in his hand; his eyes had widened in an almost 'help me' look when his eyes landed on Dealia, only for Ember to recapture his attention, "Pinky up!" The toddler had reminded him.

"What about Seth?" Sandra's question brought her out of the memory.

"Yes." Dealia sighed. "He met Derek at Weston's before Derek and I started talking…." Dealia wasn't sure how to describe Seth's feelings towards the newer man or if she wanted to get that personal with Sandra; she decided she didn't.

"It must be hard for him; I mean, with everything that happened with your ex…." Dealia forced her smile to remain as the older woman returned it, though Sandra's smile was sympathetic.

"Yeah." Dealia echoed her sentiment. "He likes Derek; he just doesn't like me with…anyone, I don't think it would matter who I brought home. He seems to be the most excited about the new baby." She said, still surprised by how quickly Seth came around to being a big brother again.

"And you're 19 weeks?"

Dealia corrected her, "Going on 21, actually." It felt like she was much further along than that, though that probably had more to do with how quickly she and Derek were moving.

Sandra opened her mouth to respond, but the opening of the office door cut her off. "You know the drill; an Agent Dealia didn't recognize said as George held the door open for him. "Just bring some flowers and take her to a nice dinner; you'll be right as rain." The man swept his arm out in front of himself as if he were setting a clean slate.

George chuckled before responding. "I don't know, and it might cost me a bit more than just a dinner this time around." George's chuckle faded quickly when he made eye contact with her across the waiting room. Dealia stood slowly, the file in her hands neatly resting in front of the ever-obviously growing bump. "Are they sure there's only one in there?" was the greeting George chose.

Her response left her lips immediately, "Oh, I made them double check." a phrase she's recycled several times over. Dealia found most people unoriginal, and the director wasn't any exception. He nodded for her to go inside, and he finished his goodbyes after she moved past him.

"I apologize for the wait." The door shut quietly behind her, and he quickly took his place at the desk across from her. The man's hair was a good 50/50 split of salt and pepper, though his face showed his actual age—the lines and folds around his eyes, the creases in his forehead. Most of which he claimed were caused by Dealia herself.

"I'm in no rush," Dealia assured, leaning forward to place the file on the desk before leaning back and cupping her hands on her stomach.

"What is this?" He asked, reaching for the folder. "Hopefully, it is the budget reports I've been asking for." As he said it, his eyes leveled with hers, and Dealia smiled sweetly at the older man.

"I thought the budget wasn't due until the 1st?"

He scoffed at the tone of her voice. "Mmhmm, is there any specific reason for the delay this year? Or are you trying to go on vacation before I see the total?" Dealia shrugged, her face stoic.

"No, no, Agent Griffin is just cross-checking everything to make sure I didn't miss anything." She said quickly, seeing the opportunity for a subject change. "But speaking about vacation…." Her smile widened, and she sat up a little straighter. "I was wondering if I could start mine a little early."

"How early is early?"

"Today….?" She drew the word out, watching his face closely as the request hit him. "I know it's late notice…but Derek mentioned maybe trying to go away for the weekend." Dealia saw the amusement in his eyes before it could blossom across his face, but it quickly faded.

"Where?"

"Tennessee," She watched his reaction before continuing, "…he's got a friend who rents out a cabin in the mountains. I guess the family who rented it out this year had to cancel last minute…."

"Are the kids going? Which team would you be taking with you?" Dealia blinked at him for a moment as his questions sunk in.

"No kids…that's why we're going the weekend before Christmas…and I wasn't going to take a team." He was already shaking his head before she finished, setting the file back down on his desk.

"I don't like that; I don't like that at all." He pursed his lips. "I would feel more comfortable if a team accompanied you." Dealia hadn't expected this to be the hang-up, though she should have guessed.

"I think taking a team would be overkill." She argued, "and to be perfectly honest, the last thing I want is an entire team watching my every move while I'm trying to…you know…." She gestured at the air, "trying to relax."

George took a deep breath while he looked Dealia over like he was trying to figure out how to phrase something. "It's been a while since you've left the state." He said after a few moments of silence. "I don't think this is something we've had to deal with."

"Not since before I got pregnant with the twins." She confirmed. "And every time before that, I was working."

He nodded, "right, you were working with a team." She once again fought the urge to groan. "I understand it's frustrating, but your safety is my top concern, and it should be yours as well."

"There hasn't been anything to suggest a current threat, not in over two years!"

"It doesn't matter how long it's been. You're pregnant. " He insisted. "Have you at least looked into the area? Is there…anything?" He sighed, his hand waffling back and forth quickly, "You know I don't understand how your tracking system works."

Dealia swallowed her urge to be offended at the insinuation that she wouldn't have looked; her hormones had been rearing their ugly heads since the line showed up on the stick. "Complete silence."

"How many locals do you have in Tennessee?"

"Six." She said.

His eyebrows folded together, "why so many? I…isn't your average about two or three per state?" She bit the inside of her cheek; she'd hoped he would have left that question alone.

"Alex's vacation home is there." She admitted, doing her best to keep her voice natural, but his eyes narrowed.

"How close is this vacation home to where you'll be staying? And tell me, when does he tend to vacation?"

"About an hour or so. But surely, your not about to tell me that Alex has called dibs on the entire state of Tennessee.." She didn't even bother answering the other question; if he weren't there it would have been the first point she drove home. He knew the answer.

His frown deepened at her use of the word dibs, but he continued. "I wouldn't say it like that, no. That's just a little close, wouldn't you think?"

"Well, I've been working in the same building as the other one for several years at this point; I don't see how sleeping an hour away for one weekend will hurt."

George gave her a pointed look, "You and I both know those are very different situations."

"Are they, though? The only difference being the number of safety measures put into place." She said. "Six hunters will be more than enough backup. On the off chance, I need them."

He thought about it for a long moment before taking a deep breath. He sighed, "okay…. You can go…if you take a team with you."

"Here," she said, relaxing her shoulders, and again, she turned her smile towards him. Her shift in demeanor made him instantly mistrustful. "I'll compromise." He snorted before he could stop himself. "What if I take two agents with me, with the six locals that will give me eight sets of hands."

"Only if I get to pick." Dealia found her eyes rolling to the back of her head though it was more in a joking manner than a disrespectful one, her way of showing him he'd won the argument. "Also, before I forget. Did I hear correctly? You currently have the twins downstairs?"

0000 Later on that night 0000

"Daddy!" Cassie's voice echoed through the SUV. "Daddy!" She repeated, her voice morphing into almost a whine until her father glanced at her through the rearview mirror. While she might have been his baby, no love in the world would hide the evident agitation in his eyes.

"What," Alex asked her. His wife Melody was sleeping in the passenger seat, leaning against the window. At eight years old, his eldest daughter Madison was preoccupied with her phone, her ears also taken up by her air pods. Her Sister Grace, like her mother, was also asleep, slumped back into her chair, a nice thick trail of droll escaping the 6-year-old's mouth. It was only a matter of time before it dropped onto Madison's hand, which Grace used as a pillow. Alex thought about warning his daughter but decided it would be funnier to let her figure it out alone.

His youngest, at 4, was kicking her feet in the middle row between Alex and the two older girls. "I need to pee!" She said, once again her voice nearing a whining pitch. Alex glanced at his wife to see if their child's insistent bladder had waked her up.

"We're almost to the cabin, baby." He said, his eyes attempting to meet hers in the rearview mirror. "Do you think you can hold it?" He asked. His eyes continued to flick between his daughters through the glass and then back to the road, his attention rotating every few seconds.

"No! I need to pee!" She drew the last word out like a threat; Alex noticed his wife beginning to stir next to him, momentarily stealing his attention. "Please!" The little girl pleaded. Alex went to look back at her, skipping the road's turn in the rotation only for a quick flash of movement in his peripheral, grabbing his eyes fast enough for him to slam on his breaks.

"Alex!" Melody's voice gasped next to him, the seatbelt locking up, causing the wind to be knocked from her chest. Madison's phone flew to the front of the car, and Grace's head smacked into her sister's arm. Alex forced himself to look over each family member quickly before his eyes focused on the person standing in the middle of the road.

The headlights lit up a good portion of the road, but the canopy of trees caused the shadows to loom around them. The person, Alex, couldn't tell if they were a man or a woman. Their hair looked long, dark, and almost matted. Their long skinny frame was covered by the remains of a pair of shredded jeans and an oversized filthy knit sweater. They didn't make a move toward the car; in fact, they just stared into the headlights. Alex's eyes squinted as he tried making out some facial features. A long sharp nose and dark, almost hollow-looking eyes peering out between the breaks in their overgrown bangs. Not that it mattered what they looked like.

"Alex," Melody said, her voice quiet; he was surprised he could hear her over the unsettling noises coming from the girls in the back. "Girls, be very quiet." She told them before turning back to her husband. "Do not get out of the car." She said to him, knowing how her husband's hero brain tended to lack common sense.

"You outta your god damned mind, of course; I'm not getting out of the car," Alex said, giving his wife a sideways look. His eyebrows deepened as he checked the rest of his rearview mirrors, ensuring no one was sneaking up on them before he put the car in reverse and backed up enough to drive around the person. They didn't move their body, but their head turned to follow the vehicle as they passed.

"Daddy…?" Grace asked from the back, hoping she was allowed to talk again.

"Wait till we get to the cabin, sweetie." He said, his eyes watching the trees around them as he drove, "everything is going to be okay." He assured all of them even though every hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. One look at his wife said she felt it too.

He saw the movement through his side mirror before he felt it and heard the sound of something slamming into the side of the SUV. The girls screamed while Alex forced himself to regain control of his car that was fishtailing across the road. He spammed the lock button on the doors as a precaution.

"What the hell was that?" Melody asked, no longer trying to keep the girls from hearing what she said. Getting out of this alive was more important than trying to keep their children in the dark.

"I don't know." He said honestly. He hadn't seen a monster in over ten years. Since he left his siblings in Rufus's cabin, Alex felt confident that he could if he needed to take on something. He just had no idea what this even was. Maybe it wasn't even a monster, just a crazy person. He was a district attorney, and he had a host of people who were angry with him, more so that he was more worried about humans than he was about Monsters. The only reason he was so quick to assume the supernatural was where they were and what was going on.

"What do we do? It's not like we have many weapons in the car." Melody said, her chest rapidly rising and falling as she tried keeping her cool, so her daughters didn't freak out in the backseat.

"There are weapons in the cabin." He said. "We're less than five minutes. We'll be fine." Not being fine wasn't an option. He knew something like this was always possible; you never truly left the life, only took extended vacations. He felt the engine rumbling through the steering wheel as his foot pressed the accelerator into the floor. Melody went to work on trying to calm the girls as Alex focused on driving. '

He counted down the streets in his head as he flew through the dark winding roads. South Fishtail Loop, North Hunter's Ridge trail, North Pine Street. With each passing sign, the anxiety in his chest grew and expanded until it felt like every square inch of his lungs, ribs, and stomach all felt like they would burst if someone poked their finger in his chest. Two more to go, He thought the words to himself, but his foot switched from the gas to the break before he even realized it was two men running from the woods into the middle of the street; they seemed just as caught off guard by the headlights as Alex was to see them.

The tires screeched to a stop, and Alex couldn't take his eyes off the men. Even under all the filth, all the unfamiliar facial hair, and the rags of deeply stained clothes that clung to them, Alex recognized them immediately. "Is that…" Melody was leaning forward in her seat, trying to see, but she'd only seen them in photos and never like this. Alex didn't acknowledge his wife's words; he unbuckled his seatbelt, his wife's head snapping in his direction at the sound. "Alex!" She said harshly, but it was almost like he couldn't hear her as he opened the door and jumped out.

"Dad?" The door to the SUV stood between the men on the road and Alex. "Uncle Sam…" Both men looked at one another, it was then that Alex noticed the barbaric-looking weapons in their hands, and he instantly regretted getting out of the car, especially with what they saw less than three miles back.

"Alex?" Dean's voice was raspy like he hadn't had something to drink in days. Alex's heart nearly fell into his stomach at the sound of his voice. It was like the last ten years didn't happen; his mind went back to the night before everything happened like his father and uncle never died, like he and his siblings never split up. "Alex….?" Dean repeated when Alex never answered.

"Dad…" He went to step around the door, but his wife's voice snapped him out of his little trance.

"Alexander Winchester, if you don't get your ass back into this car, I will leave you here." There was so much fear and anger in the woman's voice that he automatically stepped into the vehicle. He looked at his wife, the anger in her eyes clear as day. "You're dad and uncle have been dead for a decade now; we need to get our kids out of here." She whispered heatedly. He swallowed, glancing back to his father and uncle, or at least the people/things that looked like them.

"They've come back to life before." He said, slamming the door and once again looking at them through the windshield. Dean went to move around the car, and Alex found himself cracking the window and yelling, "stay in the headlights! And no talking!" Dean held his hands up, barbaric bone knife as well, up in surrender and stepped back to where he'd been previously. The larger man followed suit. "Drop the…knife things."

"I'd rather not." Dean rasped back. "Too many monsters." He added. Alex shared a look with his wife.

"Alex, we need to go."

"What if it's them? We have silver and the main shit in the car. We can test them." He was almost pleading with her. He glanced back at his daughters, watching him with wide eyes.

"Even if it is them, you saw what happened back there. We need to get somewhere with weapons, real weapons."

"Daddy…?" Cassie's voice wavered as she clutched onto her little brown bear that Alex had won her at the fair last year.

"Everything's okay, sweetie." He turned back to look at the men in the lights. "There's a knife in the glove box, a flask of holy water, and one of salt."

"What about Iron?" She asked, opening the glovebox and retrieving the items he wanted. She wanted to leave and get to the cabin, but she knew it would be faster to do it this way instead of arguing. She knew he wouldn't let anything happen to the girls; she trusted his gut. She was hoping she didn't regret trusting his gut now.

"I have an iron pocketknife. Grab the gun too." He said, and she couldn't argue. She handed the things to her husband. "I'm going to toss an iron and silver knife towards you as well as a flask of Holy water and one of salt…. You should know the drill." He said to the men, tossing it all one by one. Alex tried making sure not actually to hit them with all of it. The flasks were the last things to hit the asphalt. Before picking everything up off the floor, the men waited until all the items were before them.

Alex watched them intently, the gun resting against his leg pointed at the floorboard, watching and waiting for them to move down the list. Alex felt his heart quicken as they passed each test, passing the items back and forth between them until they both finished.

"Oh my god," Melody said. Alex didn't know what to do. He wanted to do nothing more than jump out of the car and go to his father and uncle; it was them! But he didn't want to open the door again, and he didn't want them in the car with his girls until he…knew more. Ten years is a long time, and they looked like they had just crawled out of hell rather than falling from the clouds.

"Uh…." Alex started, "Our cabin is two streets up." He said, "But I can't let you in the car." He watched all his mirrors as he spoke, not liking how quiet everything around them was. He glanced at his wife, who nodded in approval.

"We'll jog behind," Dean said. "Let's try and be quick; the woods are infested." Alex didn't like how his father was in complete soldier mode. He felt like he was 16 again, waiting for the next order and hoping everything went to plan.

"What the hell, Alex?" Melody whispered to Alex, turning the music a little so the girls wouldn't hear. They were surprisingly quiet, probably because they were too scared to speak. "Do you have any idea how crazy this is? I mean, I grew up hunting, too but holy shit."

"I…I don't know." Alex said after a long moment of silence. He was trying to keep them in his rearview mirrors, but it was difficult with how dark it was and the only light coming from his taillights. "But…when we get there, take the girls upstairs, and I'll come to get you all when I know it's safe. It's not a coincidence they happened to touch down right here, and we just happened to run into them, and we don't know what else is running around out here."

"Okay." She said, nodding her head as she said it, almost reassuring herself.

"We're going to be okay." He said, pulling her hand into his. It wasn't long before their street came into view, and they turned. "Son of a bitch." Alex mumbled under his breath once he saw the lights inside the cabin. Generally, the power is cut off when they aren't there. "Never mind about taking them upstairs." He pulled over to the side of the road and unbuckled.

"Alex, please don't get out of the car."

"I'll be okay. Stay in the car and lock the door behind me." He opened the door; the gun still gripped in his hand; he glanced back and noticed his father and uncle catching up.

"Your turn," Dean said instantly as soon as the door was shut with Alex's back to him. Once Alex turned around and the brothers caught sight of his face, both froze. Alex saw the distrust blossom across their expressions; it took him a second to realize he probably looked a lot older than he did the last time he saw them.

"It's been a long time." He said, reaching his hand out for the knives and flasks. There was still a significant amount of hesitation in both of their eyes as he also passed the drill. Sam was watching the area intently while Dean kept his attention on Alex.

"How old are you?" Dean asked. Alex noticed he was looking between him and the car as well.

"26," he said after a few moments. He couldn't tell how that made Dean, or Sam, feel. "But uh, catch-up time later; there's not supposed to be power here." He said, nodding to the cabin, "I turn it off when we're not here."

"You have any weapons other than that?" Sam asked, nodding to the two small knives and the gun.

"In the cabin." He said sheepishly, not surprised by the look his father gave him. Not having weapons in the vehicle was against the Winchester 10 commandments." I haven't hunted in a decade." He said defensively. "This is fucking weird." He said, rubbing the back of his neck

"You're telling me." Dean said, "you went from 16 to 26." His eyes kept going back to the car. Alex could tell he wanted to know who was inside; he must have heard Melody yell at him once he got out of the car the first time, but had he heard Cassie? Alex figured he'd do introductions once they were safely inside. "Get back in the car, lock the doors, and if shit gets hairy, drive." Dean nodded towards the driver's side door.

"What? And let y'all go in on your own?"

"You haven't hunted in 10 years. Get your ass back in the car. We'll clear it." Dean looked at his brother as he spoke, and Sam nodded. Alex wanted to argue, but simultaneously, the thought of leaving his daughters, even in the locked car with his wife, who could hold her own, was devastating. So, he didn't argue; he just reluctantly knocked on the window so his wife would let him in.

Once the door locked, Alex rolled the window down and passed his father the key. Dean took that moment to look inside the car, his eyes scanning over the woman in the passenger seat. Her brown hair was braided down one side, then his attention moved to the back seat, where he saw each of the girls. One of them held their mother's brown hair, but the other two seemed to have hair closer to Dealia's. The thought of his daughter made his chest hurt. They'd heard several different things about his children in purgatory; some monsters claimed they were all dead. Some said just his sons were dead. That one wasn't true since Alex was in front of him. He assumed Dealia was still alive since she was the one they had heard the most about.

"I'll wave you over when it's clear," Dean said. Alex nodded and rolled the window back up. He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the headrest.

0000

"10 years." The amount of anger in his voice was unmatched as he and his brother moved toward the cabin. "10 fucking years we've been gone."

"Were those kids in the car?" Sam asked him, not having any issue keeping up with Dean as he marched.

"Three of 'em," Dean answered.

"I don't like this, Dean," Sam said as they came up to the house.

"I know. A hole in purgatory just happened to open up right around my son's house. Sounds about right." He scanned the windows and the yard, looking for any sign of movement.

Sam's attention was zeroed in on the tree line around him. "They always find a way to top themselves." He couldn't believe it's been ten years. "Time must move differently inside." He said as he thought about it. "That's how we didn't age. Why didn't you ask him about Spencer or Dealia?"

"Seemed like time stands pretty fucking still to me." Dean wasn't in the mood to try and figure it all out. He took thought about the question for a moment. "Because I'm not ready for the bad news." He didn't even try and sneak around the house. He climbed up on the front porch, the front door key in his hand.

Sam whispered his brother's name harshly. "Dean! What the hell are you doing?" Dean didn't answer him; he pressed his ear up against the door, he could hear two men speaking through the wood, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. He could barely tell if they were even men or not. He gently slid the key into the lock, turning it slowly, listing for a break in the voices to see if they heard the movement; they didn't.

Dean pulled the key from the lock and gently turned the knob. He could practically feel the daggers from Sam's eyes as he pushed the door inside. Dean popped his head inside as soon as there was enough room to do so, arms slowing in an attempt to not just swing the door open.

The door opened between the living room and Kitchen, a staircase sitting in the corner of the living room. The furniture was covered, and Dean could smell the dust in the home, more than likely a thin layer covering the wooden floors and the other surfaces in the house. Dean's eyes were drawn to the walls, each of them lined with photos and different décor, cheesy signs like live, laugh, love stared at him as he looked for the owners of the voices, voices he could no longer hear.

"I know you're in here, just come on out and uh….maybe we can talk it out," Dean called out. If they were monsters, which they probably were, there would be a confrontation, and Dean had enough anger to take on a small army.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Sam whispered harshly as he followed his brother inside.

"Dean?" A voice called out from the stairs. "Dean, is that you?" Dean felt his blood run cold, and he snapped his head toward the voice and then at his brother. Dean saw his own shock in Sam's eyes as he recognized the voice. Dean's instant thought was a shapeshifter; they'd encountered plenty of them while being in purgatory. He gripped the blade tighter as he stepped into the home, Sam close behind him.

Neither brother answered as they moved inside, shutting the door behind them. There weren't many places to hide, the cabin being smaller. The Kitchen had a small pantry off to the side, Dean could almost make out a washer and dryer, but the light in that room was turned off. Dean looked back towards the stairs, slowly inching his way closer while Sam moved off in the other direction, the only other place to hide being in the pantry/laundry room. Dean approached the staircase slowly, his eyes watching where his line of the site ended; with every step he took, he could see farther and farther upstairs. Once he reached the first step, he tried peaking up around the landing, but his eyes were met with the cold steal barrel of a classic pump-style shotgun being cocked back in his face.

0000

"Let me get this straight…." Dean said as he wiped the blood off his arm from his second self-inflicted cut of the day as he moved through the living room towards the front door. "You'll just woke up here?" Dean asked the older men, still having a hard time wrapping his head around all the different reunions he's had thus far.

Once he opened the door, he glanced around the yard. Once satisfied with the area's lack of movement, he waved his son's car over. He remained on the porch as the headlights lit up the road and the car pulled into the driveway. He debated warning Alex before he went into the house, but he didn't even know how to explain it.

Dean wasn't sure how he felt as he watched Alex unload all the children from the car. The woman grabbed the youngest girl while Alex scooped the middle one up from the back seat and the oldest one walked in between the parents as they hurried up onto the porch. "They're friends," Dean said as he ushered his son past him into the house.

"What the hell?" Alex's voice was quiet as he asked, looking over both of his grandfathers. They were both sitting on the couch that faced the front door. It looked like they had broken into the stash of whiskey he kept in the pantry. "Are they?" Alex looked at his father and uncle. His wife was standing off to the side of the room, two daughters pulled against her, the other one still in Alex's arm.

"Real as the two of us," Dean said, gesturing to Sam. Alex sputtered for a moment as he tried to think of something to say and what to do. Even trying to understand what was going on was really difficult; they looked just as shocked to see him as he was to see them. He wanted to hug them, but he couldn't set his daughter down to do so, not until he realized that he didn't want them down here for the conversation that was about to happen. Honestly, he felt like an idiot for even trusting that this version of his father and uncle were the same ones he lost ten years ago. Who's to say this isn't just some big trap.

"Mel…take the girls upstairs."

Grace fought her father as he attempted to set her on the ground, her fingers turning white as she locked her arms around his neck. "But, dad-"

"Gracie, I'll be up there in a few, okay? I just have to figure out what's going on."

"Before ya'll head up there, uh…." Bobby said, causing Melody and Alex to freeze, giving Grace a moment to relax as her father had taken a moment from trying to set her down. Dean and Sam also gave Bobby a side look, waiting for him to finish. "Do you know if Dealia had a daughter?" The question was directed to Alex, Dean, and Sam, having confessed to escaping purgatory rather quickly once they cleared Bobby and John.

Alex glanced at his father almost immediately, and Dean could read the guilt on his face clear as day. "I uh…" He started, looking at his wife like she had an answer for him, but she didn't. "I haven't talked to her in a while." He said, "I wouldn't know."

"How long is a while?" Sam asked, watching his nephew, "What about Spencer?" The guilt on the man's face deepened at the mention of his brother. Dean took a deep breath before Bobby's question really sunk in.

"Why do you want to know?" Dean asked Bobby.

"We weren't the only ones who woke up here." John stepped into the conversation. "A little girl is hiding in the master bedroom closet."

"How old?" Dean asked.

"She looks to be about five," John said.

"She said Dealia's her mom, but she hid before I could get any information out of her," Bobby added.

"We thought we'd let her hide until she realized we weren't going to hurt her." John shrugged, "I remember how Dealia liked to hide when she was that age." Memories of Dealia jumping out and scaring him from the most bizarre places bled into Dean's head. Hiding and watching had been her favorite hobby, a skill that Dean was happy to let her master but also rather annoyed when it would be used against him.

"Do you know her name?" Sam asked.

Bobby raised the glass of whisky to his lips before he answered. "No, she wouldn't tell me."

"Dealia's probably started the stranger danger brainwashing in utero," Alex said, almost trying to lighten the mood. The look his father shot him said he'd done the opposite.

"We know she's alive," Melody spoke up for the first time, drawing the room's attention to herself. "The girl's Christmas presents just came in before we left for here; they'd been shipped overnight." Dean felt his chest loosen slightly. So far, he has had one kid confirmed alive. Another had a reasonable possibility of being alive but still nothing on the third, and Spencer had been the one he was most worried about.

"So, your sister knows enough about you to send your kids gifts, but you don't even know if she has kids?" Dean asked, "Just for some clarification." He was finding it harder and harder to keep the anger out of his voice.

"I left them together," Alex said, not knowing what else to say. Before he'd had children, he'd probably defended himself. Because back then, he felt he needed to take care of himself as bad as it sounded. Based on their family history, he knew they were probably all better off without one another. But now, as a father… "Spencer and Dealia, I mean."

"When and where did you leave them?" Dean asked, doing his best not to yell at his son in front of his own children.

"Dean! Why don't we get the little girl upstairs figured out? That way, all the little ears don't have to hear the adults talking." Bobby said. Dean took a deep breath but moved, so he was leaning against the armrest of the couch.

"How do you think we should do that?" Dean asked, an edge to his tone.

Sam cleared his throat and looked toward Melody. "Um, Mel? Is that your name?" He asked.

"Melody," Alex answered for her.

"Melody." Sam corrected himself, though that was not what Alex had intended. "Maybe she'd be the most forthcoming to you." He offered. "I don't think the rest of us would really do must besides scare her more than she probably already is." And he was right; just Sam and Dean alone looked like they had been living hell, while John and Bobby were just…themselves. Melody looked to Alex, waiting for his input before she spoke.

"Uncle Sam's probably right….This is so weird."

"I'll try," Dean said. He wanted to be the one to do it.

"You're going to scare her," John interjected. "You look like a godamned caveman." Dean frowned. Not liking the protest, he was receiving. "Just let her do it." He nodded in Melody's direction. Melody watched Dean's reaction as she went to set Cassie on the floor. She had to unlatch the girl from herself, but she wasn't putting up as much of a fight as Grace had.

"Why not this," Alex said. "Melody takes the girls into their room, so the other little girl has some more time to herself; maybe she'll hear them and come out." The men looked at one another before agreeing that sounded like the best idea.