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Chapter Warnings : Victoria further deals with the emotional trauma resulting from being used and kidnapped by Lucifer

Chapter 24

Women are Strong as Hell

"You're taking her to Jody's?" Sam looked at his brother who was on his third cup of coffee.

"Yeah. I think it'll do her good. Be around some women who have been through some crap."

"Not that I don't think it's a good idea, I do, but I can take her, Dean."

Dean's elbows were on the table, he licked his bottom lip and scratched the side of his nose with his thumb. They talked about this last night, what to tell Sam. "She's having really involved dreams about Lucifer, Sammy." They were gonna tell him that part, but just let him assume it was Nick's vessel.

Sam scoffed, nostrils flaring, he closed his eyes, nodded, and swallowed the emotion. With a slight clearing of his throat he once more addressed his older brother, "Like mine, Dean?"

"No." Dean scratched the back of his head. "Uh, Tor's are strictly dreams. She says they're like two versions of reality, and she goes back and forth between them."

"He did that with me."

"He was with you constantly, Sam. Tor's are only when she's asleep. It's not like how yours were, she's gonna be fine. She's just got to work through it. He hasn't touched her soul. Okay?"

Sam nodded. "Why wouldn't she tell me?"

"Dude, we have been through this so many times. She loves you, and uh, this hurts you, so…" Dean took another drink of his coffee.

"Are you coming back?"

"I don't know yet. I'll stay at Jody's a couple days at least, see how Tor settles in, see if Claire wants to find a hunt. With me and Tor. Jody says she's got the itch again, and since it'd be better to go with us, then, we'll see."

Sam sighed, "You think we'll ever to get to stay all together? Or is it just gonna be like this the rest of our lives?"

"Honestly, man, I don't know. But this here, will get better. And then we'll move on to the next Big Bad."

"Yeah." Sam nodded and smiled sadly.

Damn, Dean hated that look on his brother; he'd seen it too damn much.

"You have to leave again?"

Victoria bit her bottom lip and felt tears pang her eyes as she labeled Jack's schoolwork for the next two weeks. "I don't want to, Jack."

"But, it's your job, to save people. All of our jobs." The boy was so earnest, so bright, so trusting.

"Yes, I suppose it is." She smiled sadly at him. She wondered if two weeks' worth was going to be enough for him. She didn't fully understand Dean's plan. He wanted her to bond with some women, but she had no idea how that was supposed to get Lucifer out of her head. Not only that, Victoria Doyle didn't 'bond'.

"Okay, so there is enough here for you to learn for the next two weeks, and Castiel will provide your lore training."

Jack looked as if he wanted to ask a question but was hesitant. Victoria smiled. "Yes, Jack?"

"So, if Uncle Sam and Dad get a case, can I go with them?"

Victoria knew this was the rottenest parent card to play, but the woman had only been a parent for a short while, and well, she truly did mean it. "If your father and Uncle Sam are okay with that, then yes, I will agree to your going on a hunt."

The kid's smile brightened, and he hugged her quickly.

Victoria hoped the hunter and the Angel wouldn't be too miffed at her.

"Hey."

Victoria snorted out a smile as she heard Sam enter her room. She finished zipping her bag, put it on the floor, then sat down on the bed, he came to sit by her.

Sam pursed his lips, attempted to smile, swallowed, sighed, then looked at the ground. "Dean, he uh, told me what the dreams were about."

"Yeah, they are not enjoyable." She attempted to smile.

"I've been through it, Tor, and knowing that he got you too, it's just..." Sam snorted, and made eye contact.

"What I am experiencing is in no way the caliber of what you went through. Sam, I have Castiel's memories, and I don't look through them purposely anymore but sometimes they just enter the forefront of my mind. And I saw parts of what you went through, and this is in no way that." She also felt what Castiel experienced, the mere memory of which made her slightly shiver.

"But he's making you question what's real."

Victoria sighed and took Sam's hands in her own. "Yes, but that's the trauma. I suppose what happened to me was more influential than I care to admit."

Sam's eyes filled with pain.

Victoria placed one of her hands on his cheek. "But you, oh my God, you are the one person I will always fight to be with."

"This never would have happened if…"

"If what? We hadn't met? No. My sister, that's how he knew me. The only difference? I would've died that day. Without Ezekiel in Heaven. With no one. Just books, and a chem lab, according to my Guardian. I know you and Dean both take on some of the guilt for what happened to me, and I know that is just how you two are, Castiel even, but there is absolutely no way any one of the three of you individually or combined could have possibly prevented this. This is going to sound so corny, and so chick flicky…"

Sam snorted a laugh.

"But, I would do it all, all over again, to be with you."

"That is definitely corny." Sam smiled. "And a little messed up." The smile quickly faded, leaving a broken facsimile in its stead.

"Oh, it is definitely messed up. But, would I fit in if I wasn't on the codependent wagon?"

Sam nodded in exasperated agreement.

Victoria licked her lips. "I am going to try and be more open and honest with you Sam. I should have told you about the dreams. But I didn't want to hurt you."

"No, I get it. But you can't protect me from everything."

"You don't need protection. You're Sam frickin' Winchester." They both chuckled. "You need me to be here for you. And part of that is my desire to cause you the least amount of pain possible. And I attempted to get over it on my own, work through it. Which did not work. And as per my usual custom, I cried into your brother's flannel."

Victoria released Sam's hand and cheek and flopped back on the bed.

Sam laid next to her, smirk forming. "Should I be jealous of that?"

Victoria returned the smirk and turned to prop the upper half of her body onto his chest, looking him in the eyes, which she was elated to see had a bit of a twinkle.

"I can make arrangements to cry into your flannel next time."

Sam laughed. "It's here whenever you need it."

Victoria laid her head on his chest, soaking in the last few minutes of his heartbeat before they would have to leave. "Sam?" Barely a whisper.

"Hum?" He was stroking her hair, trying not to feel inadequate or scared or unworthy.

"I meant it, what I said, about doing it all over again."

He closed his eyes, "I know, Tor."

Dean looked over at his passenger and cleared his throat, fingers drumming on the steering wheel of his Baby. "You tell Sam about the…" He motioned to his chest.

Victoria lowered her gaze and raised her eyebrows. "Of course not."

Dean nodded, not surprised, but slightly disappointed. "Right."

"Did you expect me to? I attempted to cut out archangel grace with an archangel blade and nicked my heart. I am only alive courtesy of Angels, literally."

Dean cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, attempting to alleviate some of the tension. "You two gotta work this out, Tor, this whole keeping secrets thing. It don't turn out good."

She tilted her head. "So, he's keeping secrets from me too?"

Damn it. "No, not what I said." Dean could've chosen better words, but damn it, this whole feelings thing was not his strong suit. "I just mean that you've got a lot going on, and Sam is gonna find out at some point."

"I don't see why he should."

"They always come out."

Victoria softened, she knew where the eldest Winchester was coming from. She knew and understood the pain secrets had caused them. "I don't mind telling him about the dreams, Dean, not now. But I cannot…" she paused and picked at a fingernail, "I cannot tell him that Lucifer is using his body. And that is the aspect that is causing me the most turmoil."

Dean chanced a glance at her before sniffing harshly and turning his attention back to the road.

"I have studied his eyes, and the inflection of his voice, his smell, all so that the next time I dream I can differentiate between them. Because having Lucifer force me to kiss him in Sam's body with the taste of demon blood lingering on his lips is almost enough to make me insane. Or wish I was."

Son of a Bitch. Frickin' Dream Devil man. Absolute bag of dicks. Dean sniffed again. "You'll get through this Tor."

"Yeah."

The Chosen One put her head against the glass of the Impala. She knew Dean wouldn't want to stop for awhile and she hoped the last cup of coffee was enough to keep her awake until the next one.

The table was comically long, like those tables seen in old English films where the whole entire county comes to dine. The amount of food for such a long table was also comical, considering there was hardly any of it. There was a small roasted hen, a compilation of roasted vegetables, and an individual sized pie. All the food was in front of Victoria. She looked across from her to see Lucifer holding a bottle for her baby. The sight distressed her, and she rose to claim her child.

"You should eat wifey, now that your soul's uncovered, you need food." He looked somewhat repulsed by the thought.

"I can feed her."

Lucifer raised Sam's eyebrows. "This isn't the first time I've fed our daughter, Victoria. Nor will it be the last. Sit. Eat."

Victoria marveled at how her dream teetered between the Lucifer of one liners and the Lucifer of Castiel's remembrance, in various vessels. She focused on the bottle and its contents, why did it look odd?

"So, what were you doing this time?"

Victoria's eyebrows knitted in puzzlement. She realized what he wanted and sat up straighter and jutted her chin. "You mean in my life?"

He rolled Sam's eyes. "In your dream, but yeah. Were you and Cas bonding over Netflix?"

Victoria scowled. "Actually, we are working on a plan to get rid of you."

"Let me know what you come up with. Eat."

Victoria inspected the food that appeared normal enough. And she was hungry, which was just really strange. She was hungry in a dream. She began to cut the chicken, attempting to see if it was, in fact, chicken. It seemed to be. She smelled it next.

"Do you really think I would poison the mother of my child and bride?"

"Yes."

"Ouch. That hurts. Kinda need you kiddo."

"Yeah, why is that? And do not ever call me kiddo. Considering our whatever this is, it's creepy. Even by your creep standards."

"Don't you get it? We are it. In this world, this time, the three of us? We've won."

"Won what?"

"The world."

"So, it's just us?"

"Father, no! How awful would that be. Boring. No, we keep the right amount of everything, just not too much everything, nothing that could ever overpower us."

"Then why do you need me?"

"You are power."

"So are other chosen ones. Why me?"

"Yeah, there's others like you. But not you. It's in your bloodline to be a vessel as well as a chosen one. Pretty rare. Even by chosen one standards. Also, you met the boys, trained with the boys, kinda made you stronger than you were ever supposed to be."

"So, I'm just your extra set of batteries?"

Lucifer bobbled Sam's head back and forth between his shoulders and clicked his tongue. "Kinda? But no? It's more than that. You, me, the kid? We're kinda a well, triangle."

Victoria raised her eyebrow, "So, we'd be powerless apart from one another, is that what you're saying?"

"What, no! We'd be less powerful individually than we are individually together. Besides, I like you."

"Oh, you've formed an attachment."

"I liked you since I watched you rip that guy's throat out in Colorado."

Victoria paled, her heartbeat increasing. "Not my finest moment."

"You kidding? You saved yourself Doyle. No boys needed. And you did a fine job. I mean, yeah, I lost you, but I got you back."

"Right." Her attention was once again drawn to the bottle. "What are you feeding her?"

"This?" Lucifer took the bottle from the baby and held it up. "Human formula with a bit of Grace and Demon blood."

Victoria awoke in the Impala, Dean's grip strong on her arm.

"Tor, what happened?"

"Can you pull over? I need some air."

Victoria got out of the car and began pacing on the side of the road. Dean leaned over the driver's side door, staring at her, arm's crossed on top of his baby's hood. "What line is he feeding you, huh?"

"Same old, just…" Victoria mimicked Dean's position except over the passenger door. "Dean, he is feeding my baby grace and demon blood."

Victoria ripped apart a gummy worm between her teeth. Dean didn't ask any questions the whole ride to the gas station, which Victoria was grateful for.

"You didn't tell me your kid was in the dreams."

She knew it was too good to last. "Yes. From the beginning."

Dean gripped the wheel tighter. "And he's feeding, her, it's a her, right?"

"Yes, a girl." Victoria felt herself smile, in spite of everything else bad in those dreams, that little girl was the good.

"Okay, so he's feeding her grace?"

"That is not the part that bothers me."

Dean knew it wasn't. It wasn't the part that bothered him either. "I know, Tor. But it's not real. None of it's real."

"It is easy to say that here. Because here, I feel the leather, I smell the leather, and remnants of cologne, I feel your warmth, I taste these gummy worms, can lick the sour crystals off my lips. Feel my tears, feel the warmth of coffee. Here, it is easy to say that isn't real."

"And there?"

"There? I can taste sulfur and metal after Lucifer uses Sam's lips to kiss me. I can feel the warmth of my baby against my chest, feel her breath on my cheek. There it is easy to say here isn't real."

"Bag of dicks!"

Victoria ignored his outburst as Dean had often called Dream Devil a bag of dicks, among other things. She started to notice her surroundings. "I bought my Mustang up near here."

Dean stared at her. "What?"

"Yeah, umm, a long time ago, after my first paying case. A salvage yard, uh…"

Dean bowed his head, a sad smile playing at one corner of his mouth. "Singer Salvage?"

"That's it. Gruff owner, worried about selling me a bad car." Victoria paused, memories from Castiel flowing into her mind, she quickly tried to block them, they became personal and ended with Cas wearing an institutional white outfit sitting on some stairs watching Sam and Dean burn Bobby's flask, the flask that ended Bobby's life as a ghost and his connection to the boys. Bobby, also the man from the creepy gray world Jack opened the rift to. She briefly wondered why the memories hadn't surfaced there, even with Castiel saying the man's name. She wrote that off to the shock of Apocalypse world. Okay, so Victoria was in no way going to mention all the information she just accidentally learned. "He uh, actually looked like the man I met in apocalypse world, who had all the angel ammo."

Dean snorted a smile and pinched the edge of his nose with his right hand. "Yeah, uh, Bobby. He was like a father to me and Sam."

She knew.

"Well, he sold me a good car."

"Hell yeah he did."

Victoria pretended to not notice when Dean blinked several times and sniffed loudly.

Jody Mills met Dean Winchester and Victoria Doyle on her front stoop.

"Come here, you." Dean dropped his bag and gave Jody a hug.

Victoria figured she was next, and she was right. "Hey, Tor, Dean told me a lot about you. I'm glad you could come."

Manners. And Jody was 'good people' as Dean called her, so manners were important. "Thank you for having me, us, on such short notice."

"Always. Dean just invites himself up whenever he wants to anyway." She slapped him on the back good-naturedly.

"Come on in. I'll introduce you to the girls and show you your room."

Alex and Claire were sitting on the couch both reading. Alex was reading a textbook for biology and Claire had out the encyclopedia of monsters Victoria was only on "C" with. Claire was a lot further along.

"Alex, Claire, this is Victoria, she's going to be staying with us for a few days."

"Hey." Alex nodded and smiled.

Claire was leerier. She studied Victoria before saying a word, a trait which the older woman admired. "You hunt too?"

"Boy, does she ever." Dean patted her on the back and followed Jody up some stairs, leaving Victoria with the two girls.

"What does he mean?" Claire tried not to look interested, but she was, very much so.

Victoria sat in an available chair. "Umm, I do hunt, yes."

Claire's face was asking for a continuation.

"I am a Chosen One."

"A what?"

"I was born to kill monsters. Like with abilities."

"What can you do?"

Alex chimed in. "Claire give her like a minute, she had to ride all the way from Kansas with Dean. She's probably tired."

"Hey kid, I take offense to that." Dean came back into the living room and plopped himself into a seat.

"Girls, you want to help set the table?"

Dean rubbed his hands together, "Dinner."

"So, what brings you to Jody's home for wayward girls?" Claire speared a piece of broccoli and lazily put it in her mouth.

"Excuse me?" Victoria Doyle asked, thoroughly confused.

"Usually when Dean sends a girl here it's because she's been traumatized. Although you're older than the typical age."

"Claire!" Jody's voice was reprimanding, but Victoria was not sure why.

"I am older than them, Jody. It's fine."

Dean just kept eating.

"Is this part of it, sharing at the dinner table?"

"Part of what?" Jody inquired, looking puzzled.

Victoria looked to Dean who had to swallow a large piece of roast beef before he answered. "Uh, I told Tor that some strong women who had been through some crap lived here and might help her with her problem."

Jody nodded. "Okay, uh yeah, we can share. Well, I lost my son, then he came back," Jody swallowed, "But he wasn't himself, he was uh, infected. Part of some apocalypse crap. He ended up killing my husband, and Sam had to," she paused, looking at her plate, "Sam had to shoot him." She took a long drink of her wine.

"I was kidnapped when I was eight and used for bait for a vampire nest, who became my family. I stabbed mama with dead man's blood when she was going to kill Jody. Then some other vamp came after me, turned my boyfriend, and I almost watched two people I care about get murdered because of me." Alex smiled sadly at Jody and Claire. Jody grabbed her hand.

"My father was used as a vessel by an Angel, my mom went off looking for him. She got captured by some old-ass prototype angel who fed on her soul. She died protecting me, and my father, or what was left of him, was killed by Lucifer or Raphael, I really never knew which. But Castiel still has his vessel." Claire looked around, not really focusing on anything in particular.

Victoria looked at Dean, wondering how she could have missed those blue eyes before.

"I became a runaway going from home to home. Got caught up with a bad crowd." She looked at Dean, who avoided her gaze for a moment. "Got out of that, ended up with Jody."

Okay, that was a lot, and definitely not what Victoria was expecting. She swallowed and decided to just go for it. Maybe it would help. "I was kidnapped while at a farmer's market with my nephew. Drugged, a lot, beaten, I'm pretty sure, and there was a doctor who apparently extracted some of my reproductive material in order to create Lucifer's offspring. Which was a successful endeavor as there is a currently a pregnant surrogate, who is incredibly sweet. Lucifer was behind the whole kidnapping, He injected some evil into my veins, which cloaked my soul and caused me to be cruel. Drank holy water, lost the evil, became super weak. Lucifer dropped by, tried to steal Jack's grace, cut my throat instead, which killed me. Jack then killed him. Crowley bottled the grace leftover from the killing and made me drink it. Which brought me back to life, but now I have itchy archangel grace inside me. Umm, then I started having very realistic dreams where Lucifer is alive and tells me this is the dream. So, that bothered me, and I tried to cut the grace out with an archangel blade, nicked my heart, got healed, then Dean said we should come here."

The table was silent, making Victoria anxious. Maybe, this was too much, even for them.

Jody finished her glass of wine in one gulp. "Okay. So, yeah, badass bitches."

Victoria smiled, and relief washed over her as the other three did the same. Dean, of course, was still eating.

"So, what can a Chosen One do?"

Victoria put down her iPad to pay her full attention to the blue-eyed young woman with blonde hair. "Well, I can heal to some extent, I can smite various creatures, not all though, I am pretty strong physically."

"Awesome."

Victoria huffed out a laugh. "It's uh, it comes in handy. I saw your book when I came in, do you want to be a hunter?"

"Eventually. I kinda realized I need some training first."

"It helps."

"Who trained you?"

"Oh. Well, I have a Guardian who is, or was, he's still alive, or back alive, but he taught me most of what I am able to do."

"Can we train, while you're here?"

Victoria had no idea why she was in so many parent situations now. And she was about to be in more. "Well, if that is acceptable with your, with Jody, I see no reason, why we could not…"

"Really, Tor? Spit it out."

Victoria glared as the eldest Winchester as he and Jody walked into the room.

"It's fine with me Victoria. Claire and I have an agreement." She inclined her head toward the blonde, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Claire nodded, "Yeah, classes, homework, then training."

Victoria smiled slightly, "That was also my arrangement with my Guardian."

"Yeah, except you're a total dork, like Sam, and probably made those rules yourself." Dean plopped onto the couch next to Claire, smiling at her apparent distaste (which Victoria read as feigned distaste) of the gesture. He really was going to be an amazing uncle.

"You would be lost without Sam's dorkiness."

Dean scrunched up his face in a you're-not-wrong expression.

"So, nights are usually either movie, tv binging, or monster nights." Jody elaborated at the two sets of quizzical eyebrows, "We go over how to kill stuff. And since we have you two, and since you totally crashed my house, I'm thinking, monster night?"

Claire smiled hopefully. Victoria sat on the floor in front of the coffee table and opened the encyclopedia of monsters, "How far have y'all gotten?"