It was the light that bothered him the most. Grace was made of light, a brilliant, golden light that meant she was about to dissolve into nothingness. "Dean, you were supposed to protect me. You were supposed to protect our family." Her voice echoed in his ears as he looked around, seeing that Jack had destroyed everyone he loved. "You were supposed to protect us."

"Gracie, no, please -"

"C'mon, wake up." Grace shook his shoulder, Dean jolting out of the strange dream he'd been stuck in. He nearly fell off the couch as she woke him, surprised that she was still there, still a solid human being.

He looked around, realizing that the TV was still on. He'd fallen asleep in the DeanCave, trying to avoid thinking about the last few days. They'd gone by in a blur, other hunters calling them to express their sympathy and assure them that they would keep an eye out for Jack. Gen had made them all dinner, coming over when she could. The rest of the time they lived off of leftovers or takeout, though none of them ever really felt like eating. Grace made sure Dean didn't drink his way through an entire liquor store. "Sorry," he mumbled, switching the TV off and rubbing his eyes. "I should go to bed."

"Wait." She reached for his arm, pulling him back as he tried to get up. "Can we talk for a second?"

"About?"

"Jack. We," she took a deep breath, "we need to take care of him. Whatever this power's doing, he's not Jack anymore. Not our Jack. I hate to say it, but we need to go after him. I've been thinking about it for a bit now, and that's really our only option."

Dean nodded, knowing that there was only one way this could all end. Jack had grown on him, but now things were different. If the power corroded any more of his conscience, he would be as dangerous and unstoppable as the Darkness had once been. "Tomorrow. I - we - can start tomorrow. For now I think we both need sleep. If you could try that spell again, the dream one…"

"Of course." They stood up together, Dean taking her hand as they made their way down the hall. Sam and Cas's voices floated in from the kitchen as they walked. Dean had hardly acknowledged them. He'd hardly acknowledged anyone but Grace since the funeral. He made sure she was eating, and she made sure he wasn't drinking all day. They spent most of their time just existing with each other, not sure what to do or where to go. Sam made them go for a walk with him every day after dinner to be sure they got out of the house. Grace made sure he was eating more than once a day. Cas would stop in as often as he could, just to be there for them. But none of them quite knew how to keep going.

They would all stay up late, Grace and Dean settling down in front of the TV and not saying a word to each other. For all of the time they spent together, they hardly spoke. Instead, Dean would wrap his arm around her, kissing the top of her head as she settled in beside him. Sometimes they would walk up to each other without a word, pulling the other into a hug. Sam would find them standing there like that, and he would often join in. No one would talk at dinner unless it was to tell the others that they needed to eat more than a few bites. Even Dean's ravenous appetite had disappeared.

The walls would fall down in the middle of the night, when one of them would wake up from a nightmare. Most of the time it was Grace, since she could always put Dean into a magical, dreamless sleep, but casting the spell on herself was far too dangerous. Dean would wake her up, telling her that she'd been crying again. Or she'd find him dozing off on the couch, lashing out at something in his dream. Or she'd stand around, talking to Sam for a bit, and then find him drinking again. His eyes would be red, whether it was from holding back tears or just from the alcohol.

Grace had been putting something together for a bit, tying points of information to each other in her mind. She didn't want to say anything to Dean just yet, but she had her suspicions that this was all being thrown at them as part of something bigger. Ever since she'd met with Chuck, she felt like they were being thrown into one of his novels. He was behind on writing, though. Or so she thought. Maybe this was her way of dealing with it all. Maybe she was onto something. Either way, this would be the plot twist he was looking for. It was only when Chuck showed up in her living room that Grace fully realized what was going on.

The boys had been trying to come up with a way to kill Jack. It was their only opinion now, but things weren't looking good. She stationed herself in her office, buried in lore on archangels and their abilities. There was nothing on what would happen if their powers had been combined and concentrated in one vessel. So she turned to magic, looking for a way to trap him first. If they couldn't kill him, they could at least try to disable his powers and buy themselves more time. When she heard the familiar voice, she emerged from behind her computer screen, coming to see Chuck sitting there, mildly worried.

Stepping into the room, Grace sensed that she'd just walked into the middle of an argument. "You."

"Hi there, Gracie," he smiled, putting his feet up on the table.

"Dean's the only one who can call me that," she told him flatly, moving to stand next to her husband. Dean still looked incredibly worn out, tired of the chaos that surrounded them. "You finally came to help us? It's not like we've been praying for you to handle Jack for ages now."

"Wasn't in the plotline," he shrugged, "but now he's getting a bit out of control. He practically shut things down this morning. You were busy researching, but he's a bit of a handful. Though he has been an excellent character to write."

Grace tensed, Dean reaching for her hand as she received the final proof of what she'd been stewing over for a while now. "You did this to us. All of it. You're the writer, aren't you? Brilliant metaphor, but a bit too on-the-nose."

"Yeah, the boys were just on that."

"You wrote all of this for us. You… you've tortured them for so long. You wrote in the horrible things, all of the - their mom dying, their father, Dean going to Hell, Sam and Lucifer, all of it. Michael, the apocalypses, everything. I bet you even knew about Amara, about the Apocalypse World - that one was a bit of a reach, I've got to say - you were the one who killed my children… who killed off everyone we love."

Dean squeezed her hand, reminding her who she was talking to. "Gracie -"

"No, Dean. He's meddled in our lives from the beginning. You go missing whenever you think it's convenient, whenever you want the Winchesters to figure all of this shit out for ourselves," she ranted, Chuck folding his arms. "You… you had this set up before we were all born. The perfect vessels for Michael and Lucifer. You've taken such a hands-off approach to everything in this universe, everything but our lives."

"You were one of my favorite secondary characters," Chuck mused. "You were great to write. One of my indulgences whenever the boys spent too much time in blood and guts. I'd throw in a few lines about you, give Dean a passing thought, a memory, something that would make my readers smile -"

"We lost everything because of you," Dean growled. The only thing that kept him from launching himself over the table at Chuck was the thought that he could dissolve them all with a snap of his fingers. And Grace, Grace kept him grounded enough not to do anything too drastic.

"Hey, I did some good stuff for you guys. I gave you your mom back for a while. I gave you Jessica, Sam. I even gave you her," he nodded to Grace. "Oh, come on. Your song said it. 'I Was Made for Lovin' You'? Kind of a dead giveaway. Did you ever wonder why it was on the radio every time something important happened? I mean - the first time you told her you loved her, the first time you -"

"That's enough," Grace said, letting go of Dean's hand. She leaned on the table, bringing herself almost eye-to-eye with Chuck. "That's the only reason I'm around, isn't it? Dean needs someone at home, someone to find when he's lonely, someone he can confide in who isn't burdened with all of the things that you've thrown on Sam and Cas. Someone safe, someone to come home to. Is that all I am? You made vampires go after my family while I'm off at school, you let me fall for a demon, you killed everyone I ever cared about so I can find my way back to these boys -" She cut herself off, turning to Sam and Dean. "I wouldn't trade you two for anything. You're my family, and I love you. But my entire existence shouldn't be centered around Chuck's favorite characters. I'm here because I'm a plot point, aren't I?" She wheeled back around to glare at Chuck. "If they never had any free will, if they only thought they did - does he really love me? If he never had any choice, does he actually love me?!"

Dean had to stop her. "Grace, I promise I -"

"It doesn't matter, Dean. If you never had any other option because he wrote it this way, how do you even know -"

"Because I'd choose you anyway."

"How do you know?" The frustration in her voice was palpable as she tried her best not to start crying, the remnants of her world crashing down around her. "How do you know any of this is real? If he wrote all of it, every thought, every feeling, everything we went through, everything we did together - if he wrote all of it, how do we know any of it was - how do I know anything I've ever felt is real?"

Chuck sat back in his chair, watching her unravel. "I bet this was a fun scene to write," Dean told him, coming over to wrap his arms around Grace. "Throw in those seeds of doubt, tear us all apart, let us think we're all alone. Gracie, I love you. I don't care if it's all just Chuck, if he wrote all of this. I'd choose you anyway. I know I would. In whatever universe, in whatever - I'd find you, and I'd choose to love you anyway. It may have all been written down for us, but that means nothing's really real. But I felt it, I still feel it. When Chuck's been writing and when he's been away. I've felt it. I wake up every morning thankful that you're there. I pass by you in the library and I smile and wonder how I got this lucky. Even if he wrote all of it for us, it doesn't mean this isn't real."

"We're only good for each other because he wrote us like that."

"So what?" Dean whispered, kissing her cheek as they both stared Chuck down. "We've got a job to do. We need to take care of Jack before he comes back here. And if that means allying with Chuck, then we do it. We can yell at him all we want later. But we've got a job to do."