"Dean!" Grace rushed over to give him a hug. He and Sam had been gone for days, and the last time they'd called, they had tracked down both Chuck and the Darkness and were preparing for the confrontation of the millennium. She looked him over, making sure he wasn't limping or bleeding or in a new cast. "What happened?"
"Hey," Dean smiled at her attentiveness, leaning in to give her a kiss. "I'm fine, don't worry. You're not going to believe this, but we managed to get rid of the Darkness. Kind of. Anyway, there's someone I want you to meet. I told her all about you in the car, but -"
He was interrupted by a blonde woman coming through the door, looking around the war room in amazement. "You boys really do have quite the setup here. Oh, hello. Dean, dear, is this…"
He nodded, pivoting so he could put an arm around Grace. "This is Grace," he beamed, looking between the two of them. "Grace, this is my mom."
"How?" She looked to Dean first, instinctually apprehensive of anyone brought back from the dead. If he trusted her, she was a lot less skeptical, but it made no sense. "Wait, where's Sam? He hasn't been answering my calls or anything. Hold on, first, how… It's nice to meet you, Mary, but how are you alive?"
"I'm going to give Sam a call. We got separated, but long story short, the Darkness brought Mom back." Dean stepped outside, dialing Sam and leaving Mary and Grace together.
Grace shook her hand, leading her further into the bunker. "It's nice to meet you. Dean's told me everything he can remember about you. He… he loves you so much. He always has. She brought you back? I don't know how to even begin processing that, but if you want some coffee, I've got some on."
"He loves you too. In the car, he was filling me in on what I'd missed over the years and he wouldn't stop talking about you, about how you met, about how John hauled them away every few years and yet you ended up together anyway. 'Like it was meant to be', I think is how he described it."
Smiling to herself, Grace poured her a cup of coffee, saying, "I'll get a room set up for you. Whatever you want for your first meal back, just let me know. We can order out or I can have Dean cook something up. He's become quite the chef." She turned to see Dean coming back, shaking his head. Her smile fell as he came back into the room looking like he had bad news. "Sam's not answering?"
"Sam's not answering," he confirmed, reaching for his own coffee mug. "Lucifer's out of the Cage, I might have to fight the British Men of Letters, and Sam's not answering his damn phone."
"We might have to fight the British Men of Letters," Grace corrected. "Come here." She pulled him into a hug, saying, "I'm glad you're back, at least. We'll figure it out, we always do. Have some coffee, sit down, catch up with your mom. I'm going to get a room ready for her, and then we can work on something for dinner. Be back in a bit."
"Okay. Thank you, Gracie." Dean gave her a kiss. He watched her go, Grace stopping in the hall when she heard Mary mention her name.
She backpedaled, listening in but only catching part of their conversation. "She seems sweet. After everything you've told me about her, she does live up to the hype. I bet she's wicked smart, too. Dean Michael Winchester, you better marry that girl."
"I want to, Mom." Grace smiled to herself as she went off to find extra pillows and blankets. Her smile faded as she thought of Sam though, still missing after all of the chaos they'd experienced over the last few days. He could be anywhere, held hostage by anyone, and they were here, celebrating having Mary back. Sure, it was only right to celebrate, but they needed Sam back too.
The three of them spent the evening together, Mary alternately telling Grace stories from Dean's childhood and Dean and Grace filling her in on the decades she'd missed. Dean and Grace recounted how they'd met, all of the hunting trips they'd taken together when they were younger, and how they'd managed to find each other again. Heaven, Hell, the angels, the demons, they relayed it all. They'd even started to explain the Internet and cell phones before they went to bed.
"The Darkness gave you your mom back," Grace marveled as she and Dean got ready for bed. "As a thank you? And now she's off enjoying the world, enjoying her freedom, while Chuck is working on his next novel? I never would've guessed that one, but I'll take it. We are going to start hunting down Sam in the morning, though."
"Mhm," Dean answered through a mouth full of toothpaste. "Gracie?"
"Hmm?"
"She asked me what I wanted the most, and… there were two things. One of them she couldn't give me, because I had to ask you." He emerged from the bathroom to find her standing there in her pajamas, looking at him suspiciously. He walked over to the door, grabbing something from the pocket of one of his jackets. "Gracie, it has been a... hell of a life. Even when I was surrounded by so much bad, you were one of the things that kept me sane. I'd dreamed about marrying you ten years ago. A lot's gone down since then. But you've always been there, and I'm so grateful for it. There have been a lot of other women. And some men, and some angels," he admitted, "but it's always been you. You've always found your way back into my life somehow, even when it seemed impossible."
"Dean it's okay -"
"Let me monologue, Gracie," Dean smiled as he reached for her hand. "You've saved me more times than you know. We're gonna find a way - I'm gonna find a way - to let you live a normal life, to give you everything you deserve. I've wanted to do that since we were young. The summer before you went off to school, it was ridiculous the amount of times Dad and I fought. I wanted to… he told me I had to leave you, that I was only hurting you by staying." He bit his lip, confessing, "That was the only time I ever hit back."
Grace reached out for him, her heart sinking as she thought of the horrible abuses John had hurled at both of his boys. "Dean -"
"I know I can't give you a normal life right now, not with Sam missing and the Darkness and Chuck and the demons and all of it, but… I'd been waiting for a while. But when she asked me what I wanted the most… until I can give you that life, if you want, well, how'd you like to be Grace Winchester?" He held up a sparkling ring. Silver. Perfect for hunting.
"Say it," she requested, watching Dean raise an eyebrow.
It dawned on him a second later. "Will you marry me?"
"Yes." He slipped the ring on her finger, Grace pulling him into a kiss. "I love you, Dean Winchester."
"I love you too. And I wanted you to know it before the next apocalypse starts."
"I've always known." She put her hands on his shoulders, the sparkling on her finger catching her eye again. "Dean, I know it's been a long day, but we've waited months. We've taken a lot of things slow, and we've sped up a lot of things. I moved in with you guys a week after you came back. But it's been almost a year and we haven't… do you want to -"
"Yes." He leaned in to kiss her, needier, more desperate this time, as if he needed her to be a part of him, something he'd been missing for a while. "Just uh, don't let Mom hear."
"You're not a sixteen year-old hiding it from his parents," Grace laughed. "Now how about untying that bathrobe?"
Dean and Mary had been gone for a few days, tracking Sam down, when Grace first noticed the rift. She'd gone outside to get some fresh air, only to find a crater on the fence line of the power station that concealed the bunker. Sending a picture of it to Dean, she thought nothing of it. That was, until she went back outside at night to find it glowing red.
It looked like a normal fissure in the ground, something caused by a lightning strike, but hadn't stormed for a while. The light coming from it was almost pulsating, drawing her in out of curiosity. She kicked a rock into it, the stone tumbling down into the Earth before disappearing in a flash of fire. "Hey." Wheeling around to find a man standing behind her, Grace didn't have time to reach for her gun. He raised his hand, the weapon flying out of her reach. "That little thing wouldn't work on me anyway. You recognize my voice yet?"
It was one she had heard long ago, in the depths of Hell. It had been chained, locked away, but she still heard it echoing through the halls. "Lucifer. What do you want?"
"I was just adventuring around, thought I'd stop in for a chat with my best friend's perfect vessel. She wasn't too happy to get sent back to Hell, but no one is." He paced around the fissure, telling her to, "Jump in the hole."
"Why?'
"Well, I'm working on a little project. I'm collecting the brightest witches of the age. I've already got your friend Rowena. I need you too."
She crossed her arms, still defiant in the face of evil. "What's in it for me?"
"I don't snap your pretty little fiance's neck." Grace bit her lip, realizing she had no way of knowing if Lucifer had gotten to Dean and Mary already. "You know what? Too late. Let's go." He pushed her towards the fissure, jumping in after her.
It felt like she was falling forever, but she finally landed in the throne room of Hell, just where she'd landed before. Rowena gave her a comforting smile, Grace noticing that she had a large iron collar around her neck. "Witchcatcher," she explained as Grace felt something being tightened around her own neck.
Lucifer stood in front of both of them, saying, "I've got some errands to run, but you ladies have fun down here. You're going to figure out how to make this glorious vessel stronger, or I'm going to start breaking bones." He looked to Grace, adding, "Maybe yours, maybe Dean's, we'll see what I'm feeling." He disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving Rowena and Grace to talk.
"Long time, no see, darling," Rowena began. "Last time i saw you, we were still translating the Book of the Damned. Ooh, is that what I think it is? Did your pretty little boy finally ask you to marry him? I saw him show Sam that ring when they came to check up on the translation."
"Yeah, he did. It's good to see you, even if we're stuck like this," Grace gestured to their matching necklaces. "What are these things?"
"They bind us to him. The last ones were used in the Inquisition, but he's Lucifer. He can find things like this. Now I have a plan. It'll either end up with the Devil at the bottom of the ocean, or with our heads on spikes. Are you in?"
"Of course."