172, 174, 176. This had to be it. Grace got out of the car, stopping to stretch before she marched up to the door. She'd given up on praying, instead trying to find someone who could help her hunt down Chuck. If there was one person she knew who could do the job, this was it. She knocked, waiting a moment. Just as she was about to peer into the window, the door opened, a tired-looking woman asking her what she wanted. "Car trouble? My husband's out with the kids, but I can call someone for you if -"

"Becky?"

"How do you know my name?" She was suddenly defensive, starting to close the door.

"My name's Grace. Do you mind if I come inside? I need your help."

Becky was apprehensive at first, but then she noticed the car in the driveway. It was one she'd seen dozens of times, at conventions, on the covers of the Supernatural books, in her dreams. "Wait..." Her eyes widened as she figured out who was standing in front of her. Forgetting she was still holding her coffee mug, she nearly spilled her drink as she enthusiastically shook Grace's hand. "Grace from Chapter Twelve of Supernatural? Like the first book? Oh my god…"

"Uh, yeah, sure," Grace agreed, never having read the books herself. The boys had a shelf of them in the library, but she'd lived some of the stories, and Dean had told her about the rest. There was no need to read them. Or so she thought. "Do you mind if I come inside?"

Becky ushered her in, gushing that, "I loved you in the first book. And the mentions of you in the later ones… they broke my heart. You know, I'm a Sam girl, but poor Dean, lying in that old motel bed, not being able to tell Sam how much he misses you," she sighed, leading Grace into her kitchen. "Do you want something to drink? They never mentioned your drink of choice, but I've got a lot of stuff."

"Coffee's fine. I drink a lot of coffee."

"I told Chuck he needed to write more of you, but when he stopped writing… well, I kind of kept your story going. I've got a couple of fics that I'm working on, but I thought you were such a badass in that one flashback where you saved the boys from that banshee, I wanted to explore your story more. Chuck could've done better with it. It's like he wrote you for Dean. You had so much potential that he just never explored. So I fixed it. I'm up to 221 chapters. I would've gotten further, but life got in the way. Cream and sugar?"

"Please. Becky, I can tell you what really happened. At least up until now. I've got plenty of pictures, too. It might help you steer your story in whatever direction you're going." Grace thanked her for the coffee, adding, "I just need your help finding Chuck."

"Why? He's a prophet, sure, but he hasn't published anything in ages. He disappeared. C'mon, we can sit in the living room."

Grace took a seat on the couch, waiting for her drink to cool off a bit. "It's a long story, but we really need him. Dean's in trouble, and we think Chuck might be - Chuck is - the only person who can help. So I need your help finding Chuck."

"He's out of my life," Becky answered matter-of-factly. "He stopped writing, he stopped calling, I think he dropped off of the face of the Earth."

Leaning back in her seat, Grace sighed. "He dropped out of contact on our side too. He won't answer calls, or emails, or prayers, or anything. I can't even get a tracking spell to fix on him."

"I knew you were a witch! Wait, if you're looking for Chuck… Dean really did come back for you!" She grabbed Grace's hand, gaping at the ring on her finger. "And you got married! I called it in Chapter 112! Okay, look, I told you about Chuck. Now you've got to tell me about you."

So Grace spent the next few hours giving her a shortened version of the last few years. She told her about how she and Dean had come back into each other's lives, the possessions, the highlights of their greatest cases, the Darkness, the British Men of Letters, the Apocalypse World, the kids, Jack, Michael, Lucifer, all of it. Becky sat there, enraptured, until Grace ended her stories with, "That's why we need Chuck. He can help us with Michael. He's our only hope, really. But we need him. Becky?"

"Sorry, I just… it's you. The you from Chuck's stories, and the you from my stories… Okay, Chuck wrote a lot more accurate stuff, but everything and everyone he wrote about is real. Sorry I read so much about your sex life. And wrote about it," she grimaced.

Grace rolled her eyes, making a mental note to take it up with Chuck if she ever found him. "Chuck uh, put everything in his books, didn't he?"

"He did. Like, really did. You should read them, though. Sam and Dean said it's creepy how accurate they are. Do you want to read some of my stuff?" She sprang up, grabbing a binder from the shelf behind her and flipping through it. "Here, this part's about you. No major spoilers, but I kind of gave you guys a happy life. For a while, at least." She shoved the binder into Grace's hands, giving her no option but to read through it.

Dean and Grace sat on the sofa, the only surface available in their apartment. They were surrounded by boxes, grocery bags, and odds and ends, once crammed in the back of the impala but now taking up their living room. They'd carried everything in, Grace starting to clean the entire place as Dean went back for the last of their things. But they'd made it. They'd left their old life behind, and managed to scrounge up enough money to get their own place, far away from the monsters of this world and the next.

Even though both of them were covered in the sweat, dirt, and dust of moving, neither quite wanted to move. "We made it," Grace smiled, taking in the mess that sat before them. "I can't believe we're done. Done hunting, done running, done with sketchy motels and truck stops on the way to another middle-of-nowhere town. It's all over, and we can start a real life now."

"How does that song go? 'I know I would rather be together alone in a big top circus in a world we can call our own'?" Dean asked, leaning in to kiss her.

"I think it's 'circle', but close enough. What do you want to do about dinner?"

"Whatever you want. We drove past a couple of places on our way in. I think I want a shower first, though."

"Dean Winchester, not hungry? Wow."

"Y'know," he suggested, standing up and stretching, "we could break the new place in after dinner."

"Only if you put the bed frame together first," Grace laughed, watching him navigate his way through the maze of boxes. "No mattresses on the floor, and the back seat of your car is absolutely filthy now that we hauled our entire lives in there."

"We have a couch. Besides, the only thing my hands know better than you is the engine of the Impala, since I've rebuilt her so many times. I don't think I'll get lost," he winked.

"You're disgusting, mister," Grace shook her head, thinking of starting to sort out the kitchen. "Go take a shower. And don't use up all the hot water."

"That was, ah, good. I see you went in a far less Supernatural direction," Grace nodded, handing the printout back to Becky. "I'd love to read the whole thing, but -"

"I'll email it to you," she answered enthusiastically, sitting down at her laptop. "Give me a sec. I know it's all a bit AU, but Chuck only mentioned your character here and there throughout the books. He let me read a few drafts of ones he didn't publish, and," Becky sighed as she typed, audibly disagreeing with Chuck's choices, "honestly? The whole Lisa storyline? You would've made so much more sense. I mean, Dean was thinking about you a lot of the time he was with her. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is. I'm really glad you two ended up together. It's like you were made for each other."

Grace smiled to herself, but she had to agree. "Yeah, it's crazy how we kept finding our way back into each other's lives. Some things are just meant to be, you know?"

"Well, I sent you the link to that fic. Let me know what you think. I'm sure it's nothing like your life now, but I gave you guys the sweet moments you deserve."

"Uh, thanks. I should get going, but thank you for helping us."

"Any time," Becky smiled, walking her to the door. "Be careful out there. And bring the boys by for a visit when you get the chance."

Grace sat in the car, not entirely sure what to do from there. If Becky had no idea where Chuck was, there was no way of finding him. No spell could work if he didn't want it to. He'd refused to answer their calls, texts, emails, and prayers. So they had waited. But with Michael wrestling for control now more than ever, they were running out of time.

"Okay, listen," she said aloud, turning the radio down. "I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of shouting into the void and not having you listen at all. You got us into this. You wrote it all, you made the boys the perfect vessels for Michael and Lucifer for a reason. But that's all over, and we're kind of stuck here. You can't leave the story sitting there. No good author does that. You've got to handle Michael. Sure, it's a good cliffhanger, but you can't just leave us hanging. You're our only way out of this. Maybe Amara could help, but... you're our only surefire way of curing Dean. All you have to do is tell Michael to get out. That's it. You don't even have to be there. You can just tell him to leave. Chuck, please."

She opened her eyes, suddenly parked near a cliff. Slowly getting out of the car, Grace took stock of her surroundings. It was the same cliffside she'd found Chuck on years before, this time complete with a little cottage. The door to the cottage swung open, Chuck waving at her. "You've been here this whole time? I've prayed and prayed and -"

"I've been writing," he explained as he held the door open for her. Sure enough, an old wooden desk sat in the middle of the cottage, stacks of paper all over it. "I still haven't gotten things quite right."

Grace crossed her arms, telling him that, "We've been afraid every day. Dean's got control of Michael now, but we have no idea if or when he'll come back. We can't keep living like this. I don't want to tell him, because I know he's afraid too, but I worry about him constantly. What if Michael goes after the kids? What if... Why haven't you been answering us?"

"Like I said, I've been writing. You know how it is, you get in the zone and then bam! Four months have gone by. I think I solved your Michael problem, though. Even though that's, well, kind of complicated. You guys'll have no problem. I think."

"What do you mean you solved the Michael problem?" Grace asked as Chuck sat down at his desk.

Chuck reached for a notepad, reading, "'Jack smites Michael, restoring balance to the universe. But part of Lucifer lives on in him, and combined with the power of Michael, he becomes a dangerous loose end for the Winchesters to tie up. Their happy life takes an abrupt turn, with cosmic costs.' What do you think?"

"Cosmic costs? What kind of cosmic costs?"

"Spoilers. You're about to get a phone call."

Sure enough, Grace's phone rang. Dean. "Gracie, wherever you are, I need you. Now." His voice cracked, Grace looking to Chuck. He nodded, snapping her and the Impala back to the bunker. Slipping her phone into her pocket, she ran for the door.