Sioux Falls, South of Dakota. At Bobby Singer's.

"Bobby!" Kate shouted as her eyes were glued to the book she was reading. She was sitting Indian style on the couch of the hunter's living room, her . The doorbell rang for a second time followed by a few knocks and Kate threw her head back as she shouted Bobby's name louder.

"What the hell?! Why are you screaming like that?!" Bobby shouted at her as he appeared in the hallway leading to the staircase, a few rooms downstairs and the front door.

"There's someone at the frontdoor," she replied in a little voice as her gaze met his, her finger pointing at the direction of the frontdoor. "...You told me not to open it on my own." Bobby rolled his eyes and groaned as he made his way to the frontdoor while Kate put her head back in the book. She heard him shout a few things at whoever was at the frontdoor but didn't focus on what was said nor who replied.

"Hey Katie," Sam's gentle voice said making her look up.

She smiled at him and he smiled back as he put down his duffle bag. She stood up and within a few seconds was right in front of him, her arms opening and Sam understood quickly what she was doing. He leaned down as he hugged her gently and she hugged him back. It was a quick hug but that made Sam understand that she was definitely a hugger. When they pulled apart Sam did a little grimace as his eyes fell immediately on her face.

"Yeah, I look terrible, you can say it," she told him as his eyes analysed the large bruise on one of her cheeks, the cut on her bottom lip and then the large band-aid on her forearm without counting the few tiny cuts here and there on her face. He also noticed the band-aid on her throat when she spoke up bringing his attention back to her eyes. "But you should have seen its face when I was done with him."

"I bet it was terrible" Sam played along.

"I like to make myself believe so," she joked with a little amused smile which made Sam laugh lightly.

"Kate, can you move your things from the coffee table?" Bobby asked as he came back in the room with a big boxe. She nodded and quickly went to put her things away.

"What is it?" She asked as she looked down at the boxe.

"Homework," Dean said making Kate turn around and look at him as he walked in with another boxe. Dean pulled his jacket off and sighed as he sat down on a chair. He looked up at Kate who was staring at him and frowned. "You-"

"Yeah, I know I look terrible," she cut him off as her eyes fell down to stare at the floor.

"I was gonna say you're wearing the same clothes than I am," he told her and she looked down at her clothes. A pair of old jeans and a black t-shirt underneath her dark green button-up that was opened, and then looked back at Dean. He was right, they were wearing the exact same kind of clothes except for the fact that she was barefoot and he was wearing boots. He stood up and walked towards the kitchen. "And yeah, you look terrible too," he said as he passed by her.

She looked up at Sam whose eyes were following his brother before he looked down at her and shrugged.

"I'm gonna unpack," he announced as he went upstairs when Bobby came back.

"Okay, I have to give Rufus a call," he said as he grabbed a notebook and a book and left the living room. She turned her head to Dean who was walking back in the living room with two beers in his hands.

"Hum I'm- I'm gonna-" Kate started, trying to find an excuse to leave the room aswell when Dean cut her off.

"Stay," he only told her before he looked up at her "I need your help with those things," she hesitated as she stared into his green eyes. His eyes were truly beautiful but it seemed like they held something else that Kate couldn't point a finger at. "Please," he told her as he held up one of the beers. Kate let out a breath that she didn't even know she was holding until now, and she was sure Dean had noticed too. She walked to him, took the beer from his hand, avoiding any possible touching with their hands. She sat down on the other end of the couch, as far away from him as possible without falling off the couch. "I don't bite, you know?"

"I know," she replied without looking up at him in a little voice "It's just... Last time..."

"About last time," Dean said after sighing. He stopped and turned to face her on the couch. Her gaze was glued to the beer in her hands as his own gaze looked her up and down taking in all of her visible injuries but also taking in everything that she was showing about herself. He could say she had a strong personality and after what Bobby had told her about what happened to her and Pamela, he could say that she was braver than any other person would ever be. "I'm sorry," he blurted out as he stared at her face. She looked up and met his green eyes. "I know it was wrong... And mess up but the truth is I'm messed up, Kaitlin. I've done things that broke me... Damn, I was already very messed up but today? Now? I'm just... So messed up that it..." He let out a nervous chuckle mixed with a sort of scoff as he shook his head. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

"You're trying to make me understand you," Kate replied in a soft whisper. He let out a little exhalation as he looked away "And it actually works." He looked back at her.

"Does it? Because if someone told me this, I'd think it was just an easy excuse."

"It could be," she told him as she nodded and got closer to him on the couch. "But even if that sounds really cheesy," she said as her face was now a few inches away from his "Your eyes; they tell me differently." She looked deeply into his eyes and saw them moving their focus down quickly at her lips. Nevertheless, her eyes never looked away from his.

"Balls!" Bobby's voice exclaimed loudly making both Kate and Dean turn their heads to the man who walked in the living room grumbling before he threw his phone on his desk. Kate turned her head to Dean and realized now how dangerously close they were sitting. She coughed and backed away a little bit before she turned her whole body to face to coffee table. Dean did the same before he spoke up.

"Something's wrong, Bobby?"

"Just Rufus," Bobby replied grumbling "Always Rufus when it's not one of you Winchesters!"

The old man walked to the coffee table, dragging a chair with him and sat down. He explained to Kate that the boxes were filled with books that he had Sam and Dean pick up from another hunter. While Sam was unpacking and taking a shower upstairs, Bobby told Kate that those books were mostly to help them with their two main problems in hands : prevent the Apocalypse and send her back to her dimension.

"But the Cleaner... He-It said that the doors were locked so why even bother with my problem?" Kate asked and Bobby and Dean stared at her.

"Are you serious when you say that?" Bobby asked her as he stared at her the same way her father used to stare at her when she'd suggest a too risky idea or even something stupid.

"Kaitlin, you can't give up like that because one son of a bitch told you it was over," Dean told her and she sighed.

"I know," she replied as she put a strand of her hair that was out of her messy ponytail behind her ear "But we've got to be realistic here. Angels don't know how I came here. And this creature that is according to Pamela a very high level creature that gets rid of the still wandering-but-shouldn't-be-wandering-souls in the in-between world, tells me that I can't go back to my dimension. I...I'm just pointing out the obvious... I mean I don't want you to waste your time trying to send me back there instead of putting your full energy to a way bigger problem like the Apocalypse."

"Are you that stubbornly stupid that you'd give up the chance to get back to your normal world and escape the Apocalypse in the same time or you're just suicidal?!" Bobby asked shouting at her. She bit on her bottom lip as she looked down at her lap, trying to not talk back to the man who gave off a ressemblance of her passed away father. "The whole world can say that you're stuck, I don't fucking care! And you shouldn't either! Don't you want to see your family again? Your friends? Ain't there anything you miss from there?"

"I don't even know!" She burst out and the two men stared at her surprised. "I don't know..." She whispered. "I... My mother has been hating me for years, I didn't have friends back in Paris and the few friends I made when I came back to my hometown are not really my friends... They're just colleagues. I mean the one real friend I had was screwing with my boyfriend on my back... So no. I don't miss anything from there, except maybe the... The safety," she said her voice calm. She looked up at Bobby and saw the kindness and understanding in his eyes. "I just... I don't miss home... Honestly, I just miss the simplicity and safety of it."

"So, you'd rather stay here, in a world full of monsters and demons, and which the ending is coming soon?" Dean asked and she licked her lips as she looked down before she turned her head to look at him.

"I'd rather help you prevent this coming soon ending," she stared at him before she turned to look at Sam standing in the doorway. His hair was wet and he was wearing new clothes.

"On one condition," he told her from the doorway. "You don't stop researching on your problem completely. You keep digging on your problem as much as you do for our problem."

"Sammy-" Dean started.

"It's a deal," Kate interrupted as she looked at Sam with determination. Bobby grumbled as he shook his head and Dean stared at Kate trying to figure out if all of this was really a good idea.

;;;;;;;;;;;

8:28 pm.

"Alright, I think my brain is gonna explode if I don't stop now," Kate said as she put down the book she was reading and taking notes from.

"Same here," Dean said before he took his bottle of whisky and poured himself a whole glass as he stood up from the couch. Kate who was sitting on the floor, her back against the couch watched him walk to the kitchen.

"Maybe we could make some dinner?" Dean said leaning against the doorway as he looked directly at Kate and fixed her.

"If you think I'm gonna cook anything, you're delusional," she told him as Sam looked down at her from his seat behind Bobby's desk while the old man was downstairs in his panic room, looking for something.

"Oh come on," Dean told her "You've bought a lot of stuff, you could make us something good for dinner." She shook her head "We put you up, you could at least make some dinner for us."

"I'm quite sure Bobby is the one putting me up since it's his house," she replied as she put a finger up "Besides, I'm not very good at cooking. I know just a thing or two."

"Maybe we could cook together, Katie?" Sam suggested to her as he stood up and walked to the middle of the room. She bit on her bottom lip and looked up at him. "We almost never have a good homemade meal with our lifes. So it'd be cool to have one." He was making a cute puppy dog face and Kate could never resist those kind of expressions.

"Alright," she gave up as she stood up and followed the younger Winchester in the kitchen.

Dean turned around and sat down around the kitchen table as he looked at them. He felt a very slight feeling of jealousy deep inside of him but couldn't explain why so he shrugged it off quickly. And his mind turned its attention to other things, darker things... Dark memories.

Blood. Screams. Running blades. Pieces of flesh. Louder screams. Piercing cries. More blood.

"Dean?!" Sam's voice brought him back to reality. Dean looked up at his brother and the brunette standing just two steps away from him. They were staring back at him with worried expressions on their faces. "You're okay, Dean?" His little brother asked him.

"Yeah," Dean said in a broken voice before coughing as he straightened his back. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know... You were kinda off. I mean I called you a few times and you didn't react but your hands were shaking," Sam replied making Dean look down at his hands that were still slightly shaking.

"I'm okay, I'm fine," he told him fisting his hands as he looked up "I just need my refill in food."

"You're sure it's not something else?" Sam asked him sending him a knowing look.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Dean replied as he stood up "You know what? Why don't you two cook that dinner while I take a shower?" He left the room without waiting for an answer.

Kate turned her head to look at Sam as he was staring at the direction his brother left to. Sam's face was filled with sadness, concern and fear. She had always been the kind of person that could empathize very deeply with someone but those past few days made her realize that she had never empathize that much before. Sam hadn't told her a lot back at the dinner the other day but he had told her enough for her to know that their life wasn't an easy ride at all. And she could tell by Dean's actions and even reactions, that the older brother was struggling as much as his little brother; if not more. Kate knew that sometimes some people needed some time on their own and she wouldn't be surprised if Sam didn't want to do anything after the weird and concerning moment with his brother a second ago.

"If you want I can cook on my own?" She told him gently.

"No, it's fine," Sam replied as he turned to look at her "It's just..."

"What happened?" Kate asked in a whisper all of sudden. "You told me when we went shopping a few days ago, that he had come back like that... Where did he come back from that makes him act like that?"

"It's complicated," Sam replied as he walked to the fridge and opened it.

"Saying it's complicated to make me drop the subject isn't a good tactics, because I'm the kind of person who gets more motivated when it's harder," she told him as he put a few vegetables out of the fridge. "At least tell me it's personal and I'll shut up." Sam looked at her for a moment as if he was trying to figure out if he could open up about that to her.

"It's complicated because even I am not sure," he decided to tell her.

"What is that even supposed to mean?" Kate asked him, her eyebrows frowned together in confusion.

"It means I'm not sure what happened to him... Uriel, the angel we met that Bobby told you about after I called him and he told us what happened to Pam and you, he... Well, he told me something about what might have happened but... I'm not sure and I hope I'm wrong. I really hope he lied to me."

"Why would you hope that an angel lied to you?" She asked him softly. Sam swallowed his saliva as he looked down at the floor before looking up at her face.

"There's a lot of things that you don't know about us, Kate," he told her in a little but sort of stern voice. "Things you don't wanna know about us," she stared at him in silence before her soft gaze turned into an almost glare. She crossed her arms on her chest and his eyebrows rose as he looked at her not understanding why she was glaring at him like that.

"If you're trying to scare the crap out of me with those kind of sentences, I'll have you know that I've had worse when I was bullied and it only made me more stubborn to stand even more taller after every fall," she told him.

Sam stared at her very impressed by her reaction and he couldn't help the little smile that grew on his lips.

"Does it still work if I tell you it's personal?" He tried to joke and she just stared at him. "I just don't want to scare you, you know?"

"I've been swallowed by a dark hole in my car and threw in the middle of another dimension where all the monsters of a child's nightmares are real. And I got to fight a creature with horns in the in-between world not twenty-four hours ago before spending my whole afternoon researching information on how preventing the Apocalypse, Sam," she said to him. "You don't want to scare me? Scared has been a part of me for days now."

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

When Dean came back downstairs, Sam and Kate were almost done setting the table. And it wasn't hard for him to notice the odd silence between his brother and the brunette. He had thought they would be more talkative and maybe even laughing and joking around just like what they seemed to do a bit together ever since they met. But it was the complete opposite and it confused Dean more than just a little bit.

"Dinner's ready?" He asked making Kate look up at him and almost drop the plate that was in her hands. She put it down on the table and glanced at Sam before mumbling something along the lines of 'going to the bathroom' before leaving the room completely. Dean turned to Sam. "What's wrong with her?"

"Sam thought it was a good idea to tell her the whole Winchester tale," Bobby said sarcastically as he walked by Dean before taking a seat with a book in his hands.

"You what?" Dean exclaimed as he stared at his brother.

"I had to," Sam replied as he looked at his brother with an intense gaze. "She deserves to know after all. I mean she's staying in a house with three men and can't go back to where she comes from, she's scared not only of what's happening to her but of us too," Sam noticed Dean's expression change as if his words had touched a sensitive nerve. "We have to protect her until we can find a way to send her back home because even she says she's not eager to go back there, I'm sure she's more eager to go back there than stay here."

"And telling her everything was going to help her how?" Dean asked him.

"Well, I had already told her a bit... I just decided to tell her a bit more."

"You told her everything, didn't you?" Dean asked him. Sam licked his lips and tightened his jaw making Dean sigh as he took this as a yes. " You think she feels safer now that she knows our life story is full of monsters and death and that people around us tend to die more?"

"At least, she knows we're not lying to her... Unlike some people," Sam replied and Dean's eyes narrowed as he stared at his brother.

"Are you implying something?"

"I don't know. You tell me," Sam told him, his face hard as he stared at his brother. Bobby looked up at Sam and then at Dean.

"I've got nothing to tell you," Dean told him.

"You're sure about that? Because according to what Uriel told me, you've got a lot," Sam snapped.

"Oh really? Because I'm sure you've got a lot too and you ain't telling me nada," Dean snapped back.

"Okay enough!" Bobby said as he stood up. He looked to his left at Sam and then to his right at Dean. The brothers were glaring at each other. "I feel like I'm in the middle of a bickering couple and I ain't tolering any more of this crap under my roof!" Bobby sighed. "You really think this is how you're gonna solve what's eating both of you?" Bobby looked at the two silent men before Sam shook his head.

"I'm going out," he announced as he put down the cutlery and walked out of the room.

When Kate came downstairs she saw the frontdoor slamming. She had heard the argument between the two men and felt very guilty. She heard the sound of a car starting and then leaving, and understood that Sam was gone, for the night at least. She took a deep breath as she walked slowly back to the kitchen where Bobby was sort of trying to lecture Dean but the latter one was only blaming his little brother to have started it all. She stopped at the doorway and the two hunters stopped to look at her.

"It's not his fault, Dean," she said "I was the one who insisted on him telling me...I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have-"

"No, it was your right to know," Bobby cut her off. Dean didn't say anything as he walked away, grabbing his jacket on the way before the front door slammed for the second time this night.

The young woman felt horrible as she looked down at the table and then glanced at the counter a few feet away with the good food ready to be settled on the table. She heard the frontdoor slam for the second time and decided to run to Dean before he drove away from here too. Bobby called after her but she ignored him.

When she got out of the house, she was hit by the sudden fresh almost too cold breeze of the night as it was now past nine in the night. She saw the classic black car that Sam had told her was an Impala Chevrolet of the 1967 year. He had also told her that it was Dean's only true love, his Baby. She walked towards it, and looked down at her feet as she realized that she was not wearing any shoes nor socks. It was cold and dark outside, but she could still see a little bit through the darkness of the night. Hearing a noise on her left, she turned her head and walked to there quickly. She stopped when she saw Dean kicking on an old car. He turned around as he sensed her presence.

"What are you doing here, Kaitlin?" He asked her, his tone showing a bit of annoyance.

"I... I came to stop you from driving away too," she said and frowned slightly "And I realize now how stupid it is from me."

"Because you came here barefeet," he told her nodding at her foot.

"Yeah, and also the fact that you're not actually driving away and that even if you were I doubt you would have listened to me if I told you not to," she replied.

"Good point," he told her. A silence fell between them and Kate licked her lips before biting her bottom lip, something that didn't escape Dean's eyes. He couldn't explain but he felt very intrigued by her and the way she acted. He had already noted a few gestures and mimickings that she did a lot. He had never stopped analyzing her ever since she appeared in their lifes and he reasonned that as being his hunter side showing off more just in case.

"I'm sorry I insisted for Sam to tell me," she told him and he looked up to meet her eyes. He could say she was genuinely sorry.

"Why did you even want to know?" He asked her as he put his hands in his pants pockets.

"I just wanted to understand you more," she replied in a little voice "but I have this curse that turns everything I do and everything around me into a big drama scene." Dean stared at her in silence for a couple of seconds before he shook his head.

"You know, if you want to survive in this world, you shouldn't be that curious," he told her.

"Really? Because Bobby and Pamela told me that only being good at fighting was the best way to survive in this world," she told him and he let out a little chuckle before another silence fell between them.

"So I guess my brother told you everything, from when we were kids to today, huh?" He said looking away.

"Actually, he stopped to when this Yellow-eyes demon got him with other people who were also in the chosen one list of the... Well, the demon," she said in reply before she bit her lips together and crossed her arms over her chest, trying to keep herself warm.

"Why did he stop?"

"I don't know... I thought it was because Bobby was glaring at him, but I think it was because it was even harder than what he had told me before," she replied looking at him as he nodded slowly taking in her words. "I'm not going to ask you what happened, Dean. Because I know that between that night with those other kids and Yellow-eyes, and tonight, something happened that made you leave your brother... I don't know where to nor why, but I know it hurt both of you and Bobby, so I'm just gonna stop being curious. I'm not gonna ask anymore questions. I promise," she told him.

He didn't look at her nor move so Kate decided to leave him alone. She stared at him softly and turned around to walk back into the house. After only a couple of steps made barefeet, Kate was stopped by the sudden rough and almost broken voice of Dean.

The four words that reached her ears had frozen her on spot for a few seconds before she turned around slowly and looked at the man who was looking right back at her. Shock was not a strong word for what had hit her right after he had said the final word of his sentence.

"I was in Hell."

Author's note :

Happy Halloween everybody !

I wanted to post this chapter earlier but a lot of things happened and delayed this update... Anyway, here you go with a kind of really dramatic chapter but what can I say? I'm a drama sucker!

Thank you very much for the reviews, they are so encouraging and they really keep me motivated to write more! I hope this chapter update will make you as happy as your reviews make me :)

I would really love to read what you thought about this chapter? And how do you like the building of the relationship each character has with Kate? Do you like it so far? So please, review! It doesn't take that long to let me know what you thought of this chapter (Or at least not as long as it takes for me or any other author to write those stories...) so please leave a little review once you're finished reading.

Once again sorry for the many mistakes and thank you very much for reading my story!

Love,

A.