Late at night or early in the morning, Grace would head down to the gym. Originally she'd tried learning krav maga, a blended style of street fighting, but now she would bring a couple of spell books down there and practice magic in the one of the safest places she could think of. There was no one there that she could hurt, and if anything backfired, nothing major could get broken. Other than a completely empty room, it was the best place for it.
It was getting late as Grace left the gym, headed back upstairs. She was wide awake, though, so she decided to start working in Dean's room. She'd slowly been revamping the bunker while the boys were tracking down the Darkness with Chuck's hesitant help, repainting and redecorating to modernize things a bit. And to clean up the inevitable messes that the boys would leave lying around - stacks of books, broken weapons, half-finished projects that they'd intended to work on but never got around to. Dean's room wasn't bad, but it was clearly decorated by a man who had never had a real home and didn't have much of an eye for interior design. Everything at least needed a fresh coat of paint. So she moved his bed to the center of the room, starting to stack things on top of it so she could throw a sheet over it all and start painting in the morning.
As she pulled boxes out from underneath the bed, something caught her eye. Wrapped together with a piece of twine, a stack of DVDs had been placed on top of one of the boxes. The first one had her name on it. Of course, Grace had to investigate. She went into the library, putting the disc in the DVD player there.
An image of Dean sprang to life, sitting in front of a blank wall. From the lighting, she could tell that it was probably his bedroom, recorded sometime late at night. It looked like he'd recorded it a while ago, when he was struggling with his literal inner demon. He was quiet for a moment, making sure it was recording before he started to talk. "My name is Dean Winchester. Sam is my brother. Mary Winchester is my mom, and John is my dad. Cas, Cas is my best friend. And Grace, well, I haven't told her in a while, but Grace is the love of my life. Please give this one to her."
He paused, taking a deep breath and avoiding eye contact with the camera. Grace grabbed a blanket from a nearby chair, wrapping herself up as he talked. "This is probably gonna take a few tries, so I'm sorry if it's choppy, but Gracie, if you're watching this, something bad's happened. Really bad, like I'm dean and not coming back kind of bad. Or you went through my stuff. Odds are I went out on a hunting trip and I never came back. I'm sorry. I wanted to be there for you, to protect you for the rest of your life, and I clearly failed. I'm sorry. Something might've gotten the drop on me, it might've been a car accident, maybe the end of the world. But I'm not around any more, and there's some stuff I want you to know."
Grace held her breath, watching intently. The angle changed a bit, Dean clearly splicing footage together. "Practical stuff, uh, whatever you want of mine, you can take it. If Sam's still around, let him have the car. I know we've uh, got some memories in there, but he should have it. Take the photos, take whatever you want, but get out of here. Retire. Get out of the bunker. Go somewhere you've always wanted to live. Don't live your life coming after the thing that got me. Don't turn into my dad. Not that you would, but the revenge isn't worth it. I want you to go, have a life. Be happy. If Sammy's still around, take care of him. He'll need you, and you'll need him. But he'll also watch out for you. You're his sister, you're one of his best friends. Make sure he doesn't get hell-bent on revenge either. Be careful out there."
"Gracie, you," he dropped his head into his hands for a moment before looking back to the camera, "you're the love of my life. I tried to forget about you all those years that Dad and I, and then Sam and I, were out hunting, but I couldn't. I fell for other people. And… not people. But you've been there since we were kids. You were Sam's annoying little friend, and then we all grew up. I was terrified of what it meant when I came back and saw you working at that diner and saw how beautiful you were, and… I knew you were going places, so I tried not to think about it, but you and your friends kept coming to pick Sam up or hang out or whatever and… I almost threw up when I asked you if you wanted to get dinner. Would've ruined my car, but," he laughed, trailing off.
"Throughout everything, all of the bad stuff Dad and Sam and I tackled, it helped if I thought that somewhere there was this wonderful woman, living her life, not unaware of it, but unaware of how bad it really was. It was never about saving the world. It was about saving the people I care about, it was about making sure nothing got to them. And if I could believe you were safe in your apartment at school, or safe working somewhere, and you didn't know about all of the bad things that were going on, it made it a lot easier to deal with. You got me through Hell, Gracie."
Grace could see his eyes turning red as he tried to keep his voice level. In that moment, she and the TV screen were the only two things in the world. "Then you came back. Or I came back? The universe brought us together again. I'm so incredibly lucky that you're back. You know, I have a lot of nightmares, but whenever I wake up, you're right there. Well, you were, and then you figured out how to quiet them. Thank you for that. I know we don't have normal lives, but having you right there, it makes me feel a little more normal. I wish I could've given you a normal life. It is what it is, you know? I'm glad I had you for as long as I did. I didn't get to say goodbye, but it's never really goodbye. I know I haven't told you in years, but I love you, Gracie. You are the best thing -"
A door opened above her, the real Dean calling out into the library as he dropped his bag by the door. "We're home!"
She switched the video off as quickly as she could, but Dean came downstairs, stopping in front of her. The smile on his face died as he realized what she had been watching. "You found it. I should've known, since you've been redecorating. Gracie, I -"
"I love you." Grace wrapped her arms around him, just thankful that he had made it home safely.
"How much of my stuff did you go through?"
"I've just been moving boxes so I can repaint."
"I guess we're sleeping in your room tonight, then," Dean smiled, kissing the top of her head. "I need a shower and a drink first. I've got to go fight the Scribe of God tomorrow, and I'm not quite looking forward to it."