"Mark, go wash up for dinner please." Jamie moved her hair back behind ear with one hand as she shooed her boy out of the kitchen with the other. The six year old groaned and rolled his eyes even as he slumped out of the room, towards the bathroom. "Emmy, time to eat, put your toys away."
The four year old got to her feet and began to telekinetically move her blocks into the toy box across the room. Jamie looked up, seeing what she was doing and frowned lightly, though she said nothing. She quietly set the table and brought dinner out. By then Mark had returned and helping Emmy into her chair. "Which angel are we praying to tonight, Mommy?" He asked, getting into his own seat.
"You pick, baby." Jamie replied, trying to smile.
"Sancte Michael archangele…" Mark began, his Latin almost perfect. Emmy chimed in, stumbling over the majority of the words, but keeping in time with her brother. They both uttered Amen and began to eat. The young hunteress remained silent, her eyes on her children but her mind elsewhere.
After she put them to bed that night she sat down a very familiar leather book. It wasn't her father's, but she had copied out several of his entries, and added some of her own. She ran her fingers slowly down the pages, tracing the graphite and ink with soft carcass. A picture of her parents graced one page, and one of Dean holding her and Sam another. There were photos of her and Dean and Sam as children. A few of her as a moody teenager in her school uniform, her hair in braids and her expression grim. A particularly loving photo of her and AJ, done up in their undercover gothic-vampire attire, his arms around her from behind, his chin on her shoulder. One of her, and Dean, and Sam with their father just after a hunt, the last they had together. She had a copy of the picture of Bobby, Dean, and Sam, mostly because she had taken it. There was a photo of her and Dean and Sam with Adam, sitting on the table, all four of them looking unsure and distant: Adam staring over at Dean, Dean looking emotionless at the camera, she was holding a bag of chips of all things and leaning slightly on Dean's shoulder, Sam turned towards her, his nails digging into his leg. An entry on Adam followed the page, short but including his untimely fate and the line "I will never forget what you did for us." She stopped on a picture of Dean with Mark, taken when he was only an hour old. Entries on the Leviathans overshadowed the picture, just as writing on the demon tablet graced the page that held the picture of her and Dean and Mark with just-born Emmy. She smiled at that picture, though. Remembering when Sam had taken it.
"What am I doing, Dad?" She asked the lifeless pages. "The last few years have been one nightmare after another. I hid from the Leviathan because Mark was a newborn, but after Dean went to Purgatory I picked up hunting just fine. And then Emmy was born and things just…I tried to hunt but I was stashing the kids here and there, like you used to. I hated that. I pretended to be dead for months, I thought I'd finally be able to pick back up where I left off. I got so strong in those months. My powers were finally coming back to me. I had aim, I had control. I could feel again. But then Dean…and it was over for me. Just like that, it was over."
She got up and put the book back on the shelf. "I realized as much as we wanted it, Dean was never going to be Mark and Emmy's father. He was never going to help Mark with his homework, or take him to soccer practice or play tea party with Emmy. And if we tried, if I lived at the bunker with the kids…it would be double barrel shotguns and blood transfusions and stitches and knife practice. Don't get me wrong, I am training my kids to be hunters, Dad, but its weekend training. We go to gun ranges and take Judo. I read them lore and teach them Latin, but our lives are stable here."
She moved her hair away from her face, moving over to the window and leaning against it, looking out into the dark night. "But it's all for nothing, isn't it. Our day is coming. I can feel it. We will be moving back into the bunker. Mark and Emmy will grow up within it's walls: hunters, Men of Letters, true to the Winchester name. But it won't be with Dean and Sam." She crossed her arms, thinking of her brothers. "They're going to die. Both of them. They have to. Evil will follow Sam to the ends of the Earth. The boy king. The demon blood junkie. Lucifer's vessel. It will never stop for him. But Dean…Dean who has taken on everything. Gone to hell, become a demon, and yet is still the Righteous Man. His life is Sam. And there is no Dean without Sam."
"And my kids. Mark, who bares Adam's soul reborn. Dean's son, though not born of his body. The Word made Flesh. And Emmy. Sweet Emmy, daughter of my body but conceived outside of me, stripped and washed clean in Purgatory and returned to Earth as a prophetess. They are Dean and Sam's legacy. My legacy. And for now I must live, because there is no one else to pass down the wisdom of our bloodline to them. Dad…just please…please…let Dean live long enough to give them what you gave to me, to Dean, to Sam. Let them know their dad, not just their father."
There was a sharp knock on the door, and Jamie gasped, startled. She moved away from the wall and stared at the door. The knock came again and she went over. Carefully opening it. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard you praying." Castiel said softly. "Can I come in?"
Jamie opened the door a little wider. "Normally you just zap in."
"You have angel wards on the door frame."
"Oh, right. Wait…you have your grace back." She stared at him for a moment, impressed. "Wow. I didn't…interesting."
Castiel exhaled forcefully. They stood there, awkwardly for a moment, before Jamie gestured to the living room and Cas followed. They sat down on the couch, visibly distant and Cas cleared his throat. "What you said…about Dean and Sam…"
"Stop. I don't want to know. I can still feel the Mark on Dean. I don't know if it's because I'm a prophetess or if I'm still bound to him, but I can feel it. And I know the darkness that overshadows his soul. I saw him through Hell, through Purgatory, but I cannot see him through this. It may kill me."
"Is that why you left? After Dean…you knew?"
"Of course I knew. My soul was pierced when he turned." She stressed the word, her hands flying to her chest. "That kind of pain." There was a flashback threatening in her eyes. Castiel knew it. Before he had followed Michael's orders to lay siege to hell to rescue the righteous man, he had watched Michael's charge with interest. The one glowing soul of the Prophetess to be had dulled to a flicker. She was pale, gaut, and almost…broken. "It was like he was on the rack in hell again." She shivered. Fire, though now gone, was a gift she had been given at the birth of her son, she didn't fear it, but its flames had licked her soul when her brother had laid bound and tortured.
"So why didn't you help us? Help Sam." He finally asked.
"I'm afraid, Cas." She moved her hair away from her face, looking at the angel. "Sam and I haven't been able to work together since… Dean holds us together, and without him, we're almost strangers. I love my brother, but some scars are too deep."
"You don't trust him?"
"I don't trust anyone. Except Dean." She got up, and he frowned. "All these years together, don't ask me to explain, Castiel."
"Whatever happened, between you and me?"
She scoffed softly, turning to look at the angel. "You and I were never "you and me." I am the Voice crying out in the desert, and you were my guardian. You taught me how to use my powers. How to clear my mind and deal with the pain. We were friends, if only because of our circumstance, and our love for my brother."
He scoffed softly, knowing she was right. "I never meant to hurt you."
She turned away, shaking her head. "You didn't. You gave me the baby I couldn't have. You saved all three of my brothers. I'll always be grateful for that."
"I should have loved you."
"How could you? How could I? We're both in love with someone else, and we used each other to…to be the one we couldn't have."
Cas finally turned away. "You mean AJ?"
She turned to face him, even though he wasn't looking at her. "No. Good bye Castiel. Take care of Dean. And if we never see each other again…just promise me you'll always love my brother. He deserves someone who can. Someone who won't leave him."
Cas gave her a faint smile before slipping past her and out the door. She shuddered a little at the sound of it closing. Another door slammed shut in her heart.