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Chapter title is from song by Metallica.
45
The Unforgiven II - Metallica
This wasn't what she had been expecting when they crossed into South Dakota. What had she been expecting? Sturgis, maybe. Deadwood. Any number of rollicking old Wild West towns, wooden storefronts and gunslinger's hideouts, but maybe right about now she'd given up on Dean Winchester doing the predictable thing.
They took the long way around, through the alien landscape of the Badlands, bare red rock protruding from the earth in eerie spires. Their pit stops were brief, because Dean got twitchy, eyeing the landscape as if it reminded him of something he didn't want to remember. They skipped Mount Rushmore and kept going, until they came to the Black Hills, the wide valleys touched with the first hints of spring. Under a seemingly endless sky they kept driving, from two-lane highway onto a small back road, turning on to a gravel lane.
Finally they came to a stop at a pullout along the road by a rushing creek. She didn't know who was more surprised, her, or Sam, when Dean reached into the Impala's trunk and started unloading fishing gear with familiar motions.
Sam recovered first.
"Fishing?"
"Yeah, Sam. It's a thing. People do it."
"But." Sam wrinkled his forehead. "What are you going to do with fish, Dean?"
Dean shrugged. "Put 'em back, I suppose."
"Then what's the point of fishing?"
"What's the point of camping, Sam? Or whatever it is you do."
Sam had nothing to say to that.
They trooped along the bank of the creek until they came to a small meadow. Water tumbled crisp and clean over the rocks, ice cold from the snowmelt higher up. She left the boys to it, watching with bemusement as Dean coached Toby through the finicky process of casting a fly lure for trout. The flat rock she sat on was sun warmed and the air was still, a little nip to it still, the smell of grass and trees piney and sharp. A white butterfly cavorted from buttercup to daisy and back again, drifting a little with the light breeze.
The boys fell silent as their lures bobbed in the water. Toby's eyelids were starting to droop from sitting in the warm sun with nothing going on. Maybe that was the point. The kid tipped to one side, leaning against Dean sleepily. Dean stayed rock still, seeming to watch nothing but the flashing bits of sunlight bright on the water. Further down the bank Sam sat with his elbows on his knees, the expression on his face a thousand miles away, dreaming of another time and another grassy idyll, perhaps.
She took another deep breath and leaned back, letting the sun warm her face, listening to the tumbling run of the creek, the wind rustle in the leaves and the bird chirps trilling through the air.
Bird chirps.
There weren't any.
She didn't so much sit up as she slid off the rock onto her feet, fully alert, at pretty much the same time she heard Dean's low growl, "Sam."
Sam was on his feet, Beretta out, one hand reaching out for Toby as Dean got the boy to his feet.
"What? Where?"
Dean's reply was terse.
"Shifter."
"After us?" Was Sam's sharp tight query.
Dean didn't answer. The meadow was quiet, quiet and empty except the shadows that shifted with the wind in the stand of river birch downstream. She watched the pattern of shade on the ground, sunlight and leaves and nothing else moving, a fraction of her attention on the boys handing Toby off between them, Dean drawing the First Blade out of thin air, the grim tightening of Sam's hand on Toby's shoulder as his brother did that,
and movement up ahead.
She didn't think.
As the dagger left her hand, Dean teleported. He reappeared behind where the shifter had been with a lethal swing of the First Blade, thwacked the weapon into an innocent tree, trembling the leaves overhead. Shock crossed his face at the hard impact of his weapon against wood instead of flesh, shock transforming into outrage as the shifter landed with a thud by his feet, her silver dagger protruding from the shifter's chest.
Across the distance of yards he spun to face her and bellowed.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?"
Green eyes. Green eyes and not black. To her left she could hear the long sigh of Sam's relieved breath. Temper narrowed her eyes and quickened her steps as she crossed the meadow. She glanced down at the dead shifter, at the shifter's skin where the silver had met flesh, sizzling and oozing and melting ugly still. She bent down and retrieved her dagger from the sagging chest, wiping it against the shifter's shirt to clean off the viscous translucent goo before she answered.
"What was what?"
There was an uncharacteristic snap to her voice. She tried to dial it back.
Dean glared at the body by his boots, then poked at it with the donkey's jawbone.
"What if I was wrong?"
Since the odds of demon senses mistaking a shifter for a human were basically nil, she didn't even blink when she answered.
"You weren't."
He glared at her again.
"I had it."
"I'm sure you did."
"Then why did you…"
Because of what happened each time he used the First Blade. Because he was an idiot. Because blowing up angels with the power of your mind was a power no human should have.
She wasn't bloody well going to say all that, though, so she said the first other thing that came to mind.
"Throwing's faster than teleporting."
His eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"And just how would you know that?"
Unconsciously her hand moved to go over the flame-and-pentagram pattern burned into her upper arm. She clamped down on the little telltale twitch and went for her iciest voice.
"Because it's true."
She prodded the shifter's corpse with one booted foot. She'd just demonstrated that, and she was stating the painfully obvious.
Green eyes raked her from head to toe. She didn't look up, didn't elaborate, and her expression stayed shuttered.
His scrutiny was interrupted by Toby running up to them, Sam two steps behind him. Toby's eyes were wide on the dead shifter and its grotesquely dissolving skin. Toby's attention fastened with laser like focus on the dagger in her hand.
"Teach me how to do that."
She compressed her lips together, biting down before she answered curtly.
"No."
"Why not?"
"You're not old enough."
"When am I going to be old enough?"
To avoid answering, she narrowed her eyes quellingly. It had never worked on Toby's particular brand of stubborn, and it didn't work now. Toby stared at her, eyes too sharp and searching, before he blurted accusingly.
"You're not coming to see me again."
Her lips pulled taut. He read her too well.
"It's not a good idea."
The kid's chin wobbled before Toby sucked down a breath. Relenting, she knelt down to meet him at eye level.
"Xavier and Kim will look after you. Xavier'll teach you. That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"
The reassurance came out pale and weak, and she knew it, but it was the best thing for him. Stability, behind the shield of Xavier's wards and Toby's very own angel proofing, there would be enough breathing room to find his footing, and given enough time, without her, for the nightmares to fade, a chance to someday opt out of the life if he wanted to.
Toby's lower lip disappeared as he bit down on it. His hands fisted by his sides, looking at her, a fine tremble starting in his shoulders. He gulped one breath, then another, lower lip pushing into upper, his face setting with a look of stubborn determination.
"I want to stay with you."
She held still. These last few days—she swallowed tightly. It was tempting. Tempting to think they could make a go of it, just keep driving, stay one step ahead of disaster, holding on to a few shining moments snatched from the breath of chaos.
There was a gurgling noise as what was left of the dead shifter's dissolving chest caved in.
She closed her eyes briefly, reminded of what was real. Her voice was as flat and unemotional as she could make it when she spoke again.
"No."
Blue eyes widened like she had struck him. She held on tightly to her semblance of composure.
Tears slipped from the corners of Toby's eyes. He scrubbed at one eye roughly with the back of his hand, gulped, then had to scrub at his other eye, holding her gaze defiantly. They stared at each other like gunfighters at high noon, locked in a contest of wills, until with a shuddering gulp Toby spun around and bolted off in the opposite direction, past Sam, headlong down to the bank of the creek.
Numbly she moved to follow, not really knowing what she could say. She had taken one step, blindly, when she felt Sam's hand on her shoulder. She hadn't even seen him move.
"Hey."
She looked up at Sam, at the silent sympathy on Sam's face.
Sam gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and glanced behind her at his brother.
"You guys stay. I'll go talk to him."
They remained silent, watching Sam's departing back.
"You sure that's your play?"
His voice came out too rough. He had no right to ask, and Dean knew it, but the words came out before he could hold them back.
Her glance up was like the cut of a laser.
"It's the best move."
With that, she turned and headed for the Durango. He fell in step beside her. He knew he should let it go, but he just couldn't.
"Just to leave him alone like that?"
She inhaled and held it, which was as much as she was going to let show. He would have perfected that unfeeling stoniness himself, except he had Sam to bug him, Sam to pester him, Sam's one thousand and one questions to drive him nuts.
He went around a different way.
"This Xavier character we're taking him to, he's some kind of sword Yoda?"
"A swordsmith."
"Hunter?"
"Retired."
He didn't know there was such a thing, but it was something. He was getting as bad as Sam, because he kept pressing.
"Ever think about quitting?"
Her step stuttered before she answered shortly.
"No."
"We could get you angel-proofed. Call in a favor—one of Cas' buddies, maybe."
At that, she stopped and turned on her heel to face him, high temper in the sharpness of her glare.
"And what good would that do?"
It was on the tip of his tongue to say, so you can keep the kid with you, stay safe at this hideout in Cody, maybe teach him what he needs to know. Bring him up like we were brought up, which wasn't much, but at least we had each other. He needed that, needed the both of them safely tucked away at this sanctuary place, until she blew it all to smithereens when she narrowed her eyes and repeated more vehemently with a gesture at the sky above and the world at large.
"Exactly what good is that going to do?"
Monsters and zombies and another lunatic archangel, bent on reshaping the world to some new order, razing the landscape as they knew it. Better than anyone they knew the dangers coming, and no place was really safe.
"It's not your fight."
She looked at him disbelievingly, and scoffed exactly like Sam. Without bothering to say anything else, she headed for the SUV again. He caught up to her as she opened the hatch and reached in for her shovel.
"We'll take care of it. Sam and me and Cas."
She went still, one hand wrapped around her shovel's wooden handle. With an invisible sigh she closed her eyes and said very quietly, "How do you know you won't be part of the problem?"
It shouldn't have stopped him dead, but it did. It was nothing but the truth. It was just these last few days—he clamped his lips together and turned away, taking the few steps towards the Impala, where they had their own shovel in the trunk.
Had it been Sam, Sam would have come after him, put a hand on his arm. Sam would have said something to take the edge off, found some upside silver lining or some way out, because that was Sam. But it wasn't her. She had neither Sam's faith nor Sam's folly. She had an angel blade stashed in her jacket, and standing there just now, as she had been, six inches from his chest, she could have easily turned and jammed it straight in between his ribs. He didn't doubt, if she thought she needed to do it, she would have.
She hadn't. Opportunity time and again she hadn't taken, but it didn't mean she didn't stay aware of the threat.
Mechanically he rummaged around in the Impala's trunk until his hand found the shovel.
She was right.
They had to bury what was left of the shifter.