Life in the bunker followed a pretty normal pattern. They took it easy over the weekends, Dean often going to work on his car as Sam and Grace got some extra work in, took care of things around the bunker, or cleaned up from a recent hunt. Monday was movie night - anything but horror movies, since they lived them far too often. Tuesday was Dean's turn to cook, always a culinary adventure. Grace would help him a lot, and they'd warmed up to each other remarkably in just a few weeks. Wednesday they all worked late, finding possible cases all over the country. Thursday was usually another research day, but Friday was date night, if the boys were in town. Dean and Grace would go to dinner or a movie or find some trouble to get into.

If they were out on a hunt, Grace would spend her days compiling her massive research database, slowly reading through every book in the Men of Letters' library. She would sit up at night watching TV and answering emails, waiting for Dean to call her. Hunters across the country had started to consult her, but she made time every night to give Dean a call. He was perfect about it - every night, he'd either call or text if they were on a stakeout. He'd update her on what was going on, letting her know that he and Sam were safe. He hadn't missed a day yet, and Grace was grateful for it.

While the boys were out, Grace had started to redecorate and modernize the bunker. The things she could do with a stack of fake credit cards were amazing. She got rid of the old computers and brought new ones in, revamping their technology and indexing systems. She fixed the lighting in parts of the bunker, making it less industrial and as natural as she could. The devil's traps and sigils were all repainted, and she found creative ways of making permanent salt lines at the doors and all of the air vents that led outside. Every time they came home, something had changed. When she wasn't working on the bunker, she was working on a secure network that she could bank all of their information in, accessible to her and the boys. Any other hunter could request access, but they had a limited ability to alter things. Progress was slow, but she was well on her way to creating a massive database.

It was late, way too late for Grace to be in her office, but there she was anyway, answering emails and researching the varkolak, a creature similar to a vampire that had been spotted in a small town in New York. A hunter had called it in, asking for help since Grace was slowly gaining a reputation in the hunter community as one of the experts to call when things weren't quite adding up. She would never be on Bobby's level, but she was trying her best to modernize and streamline information, and that came with all of the fun and exciting questions hunters would throw her way. He had left her all of his research and his books to sort through. Her first project was entering all of that information, and then slowly merging his work with her own. Then it would be on to reading every book in the bunker.

When her eyes had sufficiently glazed over, she closed her laptop, intent on getting a few hours of sleep before it was early enough for anyone else to call. She'd pretended to be multiple supervisory agents, a CDC consultant, and the president of a major pharmaceutical company in the last eight hours. Now that Bobby was gone, she'd taken over a lot of his contacts, so whenever someone needed an authoritative voice on the other end of the phone, it was up to Grace. Her little office had turned into a command center, right off of the war room and the library. But it was nice to be able to close the door and get some peace.

She turned the lights out, shutting the door behind her. The piles of paper stacked on her desk could wait until morning. The list of phone calls she had to make could be put off. Every cell in her body craved sleep.

As she made her way down the hall, she heard a noise, something she couldn't quite place. It sounded like a wounded animal, like the dog she and Dean had found stuck in a fence when they were much younger. They'd cleaned the poor thing up and taken it into town, where its grateful family had been looking all day. But the boys didn't own any pets. Grace was tempted to chalk it up to the old building and the weird things hidden inside, but she tracked it down the hall, coming to a stop outside of Dean's door.

Silently pushing the door open, she found him entangled in his sheets, lashing out at something in his sleep. "Hey." She sat down on the bed next to him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. Dean bolted up in bed, only relaxing when he realized it was her. "Shh, it's fine. I could hear you from the hallway."

"Sorry, I, uh -"

"There's nothing to be sorry about," she told him, Dean sitting up gingerly. "What was it?"

"I think it's the Mark. I haven't been able to sleep right since I got it. This time it was Hell. I dream about it a lot, but…" He trailed off rubbing his eyes. "It's fine. I'll be fine. You should go get some sleep. I know you've been really pushing yourself to get up to speed on everything Bobby left. And I've seen you up late doing research on something, stealing spices from the kitchen… whatever it is, it's burning you out."

"Do you want me to make the dreams stop?"

"What?" In the haze of being halfway awake, Dean wasn't fully processing what she had said. "How?"

"I've been reading up on magic, and some of it, well, it's worked. That's why we're missing all the sage and rosemary and stuff," she explained. "I've been trying a couple of basic spells, and… My great-something grandmother, she was one of the Salem witches. I don't think I inherited much of her powers, but I figured this was the safest place in the world to try things out."

"What does that have to do with dreams?" he yawned, still a little confused.

Grace smiled, moving so she could sit next to him. "I can't take the memories away completely. They're too intertwined with the good stuff, so if I tried… it would be like trying to do complex brain surgery when the most I've ever dissected was a frog back in seventh grade. But I can dull them and keep them from popping up while you sleep. You'll dream of something good, something neutral, at least, or you won't dream about anything. Depends on what you want."

"Would be nice," he nodded as she settled in beside him. "No more worrying about the Mark, at least when I'm asleep. Or a thousand other things."

"The only catch is that I have to do it every night. I can't make the spell stick longer than twelve hours, or it could mess with your memory permanently."

"Can you try it?" Grace sat up, putting her fingers to his temples. Dean watched as she mumbled a few words under her breath. "I don't feel any different."

"You've got to go to sleep, silly," she smiled. "Hey, umm, why don't I stay here for tonight, just to make sure it works?" Dean raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. "I'm just sleeping next to you. We agreed to take this whole thing slow."

"I know," he answered, pulling her to lay down next to him. "I really do mean for you to just… stay." Grace smiled, snapping her fingers to turn off the light as Dean wound an arm around her. "Thank you."

"You don't even know if it's working yet."

"I meant for being here. Not just for walking down the hall and stopping, for choosing to follow us into the shitshow that is our lives."

Dean woke up the next morning to find Grace still peacefully asleep beside him. She was right. The spell had worked. He'd dreamt of a lazy summer day they'd spent together years before, the awkward glances at each other while they were hanging out with Sam before their senior year of high school. John had left him in charge while he was out on a hunt in Wyoming, and Grace had stopped by to visit but ended up staying late into the night. He'd driven her home, the two of them saying little in the Impala, even though Sam was back at home. A lot of their drives had gone like that, something unspoken between them.

It was Halloween when they had first broken the space between them. Dean had picked her and Sam up from a party, dropping Sam off at home before taking Grace back to her house. They'd pulled into her driveway and both of them turned to each other, Dean still a bit buzzed from an evening of sitting up and drinking while handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. Grace and Sam had gone to a friend's party, downing a bunch of spiked punch and snacks in someone's living room while their parents were out of town. Turning to thank him for driving, Grace's voice caught in her throat. Dean smiled at the glitter shining on her cheeks, the Halloween makeup still glimmering in the faded lights that her parents had left on for her. Both of them leaned in, exchanging a mutual kiss before Grace came to her senses, saying a rushed, "I… I should get going. Thank you." She hopped out of the Impala, heading into her house without looking back.

As she took off her makeup, she smiled to herself, wondering what would come next. The next day at school no one would know. There was no way he'd say anything to Sam. But still, she wondered if this would get out. Meanwhile, Dean drove home, turning the moment over in his head. His brother's best friend was also one of his only friends, one of his favorite people to be around. But she was also his brother's best friend.

As he walked back into the house, he found Sam brushing his teeth, grinning like an idiot. "Dude, what happened to you?"

"Huh?"

"You're covered in glitter," Sam told him through a mouth full of toothpaste.

Dean shrugged. "It gets everywhere. I'm never giving your friends rides home from Halloween parties again. I'm going to be finding glitter in my car forever."

The look Sam gave him would stick with Dean for years. He knew that look, the "I know you're lying, but I'm letting you get away with it for now." It was the same look Sam gave him when he and Grace walked into the bunker's kitchen together. It had been a few weeks since Grace had started to head to Dean's room when she called it a day from her research. Sam hadn't questioned it, but he'd commented on how well-rested Dean looked, and how he'd sworn he'd seen Grace coming from his room one morning.

The rest wouldn't last for long, though. Grace was busy at work one afternoon when the lights in the bunker began to flicker. It was an old bunker, things like that happened all of the time. Or so Grace thought. When the clattering noise began, she stood, clutching her phone and wondering if there was a tornado going by above her. The lights flashed, every light in the bunker suddenly surging on before most of them died out. The noise was getting louder, and in the low light, all Grace could do was open her laptop, trying to find the schematics of the bunker. Odds were that she would be safe, since much of it was underground, but there had to be some sort of panic room.

There was no time. A massive crack of lightning echoed through the bunker as a blinding flash of blue light hit her before everything went silent. The wind was no longer howling. All that was left was the low hum of the lights. And a man, standing in the middle of the bunker. He turned, looking a little lost but certainly less afraid than she was.

Grace looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing nearby. Two strides and he was standing an arm's length away. Demon? They can't get in. He's got to be more powerful than that. "I am Castiel, an angel of the Lord and a friend of the Winchesters. Do not be afraid."