Last installment of Dean and Katie. Hope you all have enjoyed!

Never Enough Whiskey

The hunt had been more difficult than Katie was expecting but she was a true hunter. She stepped into the small bathroom to clean off the blood she had gotten on her hands and stared at herself in the mirror for a moment. She refused to focus on her eyes knowing the lack of life she would see there instead choosing to focus on her appearance. She was worn down at best and wondered how long she could keep going before her body gave out on her.

Katie finished washing her hands when a thick, black smoke forced itself down her throat. She gasped for air but it was no use as she blinked and her eyes filled with an evil blackness.

"What do you say, Katie," the demon spoke to her, the words only more taunting come from her own voice. "Let's go visit that favorite Winchester of yours."

She was now just a passenger in her own body no matter how hard she fought and as if someone flipped a switch everything had gone dark. She studied her hand, flexing her fingers a few times before a smile pulled at the corner of her lips. This had to have been her best idea yet and she couldn't wait for it to play out.

X-X-X

"I'm telling you, Sammy, this is small time."

Dean took another bite out of his burger and Sam made a face, choosing not to comment and clicked through the open page on his laptop. "We've looked into less. Give it twenty four hours and if there's nothing then we'll head out."

"Kind of seems trivial now after angels and leviathans to be working a good old salt and burn. We need to be working on a way to take down Dick…" Dean trailed off as images flashed through his mind of every way he wanted to torture that man. The man who was not only the so called leader of the leviathans but had taken away the closest thing he ever had to a father. He would never admit it to Sam but Bobby's death hit him harder than John's. Bobby was there for him. Bobby was the one who told him everything was going to be okay. John had sold his soul to save his son but in the end all Dean felt was guilt. There wasn't the pain that came along with a loss that significant only anger for the burden his father left on his shoulders. He would bear it thought, he always did.

"And we will but right now we have no leads," Sam was gearing up to give Dean the whole spiel. "We can't just ignore a job."

Dean snorted, ready to come back with a witty comment when he spotted Katie across the room. He nodded in her direction to get Sam's attention and wiped his hands on his pants as he stood. She was at the bar and had just finished her drink as she turned to him as if she knew he was coming to see her. "Well, Dean, it's been awhile."

"Yeah. It has," He almost couldn't keep the smile off his face. Dean hadn't seen her in years and only heard Sam's side of the conversation when he called to tell her about Bobby's death. He had meant to pick up the phone about a million times but there was always something more important at the moment. "You in town for the case?"

"Something like that," she kept her answer vague but he didn't think anything of it.

Katie was a mystery he had been trying to solve for some time and he nodded to the empty glass. "Still drink nothing but whiskey I see."

"Stick to the poison that we love," she shrugged. Her hand came up to his face and her thumb ran over the short stubble along his jaw line. "You're getting old, Winchester." He made a face and went to say something when her eyes caught his. "What do you say? Give a girl a few minutes of your time?" She looked over his shoulder to Sam before returning her attention to him. "Alone?"

Lust filled his eyes as a smirk pulled at the corner of his lips, "Absolutely."

X-X-X

Dean offered to go back to the house him and Sam were squatting in but she directed him to her motel room. He stole side glances at her every few seconds almost expecting it to all be a dream. They were supposed to love each other from afar. It was the only way they would both survive but he wouldn't be able to deny her time if he tried. He kept wondering if she had gotten herself into some kind of trouble that she needed help with. The woman who could normally hold easy conversation stared out the window only speaking to tell him to turn.

She led him into her room and he shut the door behind them. His eyes automatically scanned the room on instinct and noticed that she didn't have any luggage with her. She had no candles set up around the room or even that ratty old notebook she insisted on taking with her. Katie let her leather jacket slip from her shoulders as she turned to face Dean. "Why do we have to be the heroes?"

His face scrunched in confusion and his chest filled with worry, "What do you mean?"

"Heroes, Dean, the ones that get the world spinning again when it threatens to stop with none of the recognition."

"What's going on with you?"

A smile that was unlike one he had ever seen on her before spread across her face. "I missed you." She moved closer to him, her hands running over his chest as they locked eyes. She knew she was distracting him with her meat suit when she was able to grab the angel blade before he could think to stop her. "You know, you really should live life like you're giving up because you certainly act like you are."

"Katie?" He was more confused now than ever as she twirled the blade around in her hand, the metal catching the soft light in the room.

She chuckled and blinked her eyes to show him the demon that was inside. "Sorry, kiddo. Your sweet little Katie isn't home right now."

An all consuming rage filled Dean to the point his blood was on fire, "You let her go right now you son of a bitch." All he wanted to see was Katie's topaz eyes staring back of him instead of the black that was there now. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spririus omnis satanica…"

"Ah, ah, ah," she stopped him. "Do that and your precious little girlfriend is dead. I mean I had to take out insurance."

"What do you want?" He barked out, a clip in his voice that would have even knocked the devil back a step.

"You, of course." She flipped the blade around and circled him, looking for the right moment to strike.

"I'm sorry," he whispered as he closed his eyes for a brief moment before finishing the exorcism. The thick black smoke poured out of Katie's mouth and her body slumped forward but he was there to catch her.

You didn't become a hunter by choice. It wasn't a decision that was made lightly or on a whim. Everyone had their story of how they got into the life; most lost someone close to them and was driven by revenge while the real lucky few actually grew up in it. Being a Wiccan didn't play into Katie's need to hunt down the supernatural. After seeing her father torn to pieces before her very eyes the decision was made for her. She knew there were true evils in this world and while she didn't see herself as a soldier in a never ending war she hoped that she was making a difference. Because that is what it's all about in the end, isn't it? Leaving a mark on the world and hoping that during your time here that you succeeded in saving someone even if it wasn't yourself.

Endings were hard though. There would always be someone wishing it had ended differently. There could be tears or smiles, heartache or happiness, and on the rarest of occasions- the really special stories- you got both.

Katie couldn't say that she was ever truly ready to die but dying at the hands of Dean Winchester somehow made it okay. She went limp in his arms and he lowered the both of them to the floor, cradling her body to him as if his arms could keep her with him just a second longer.

"Katie," her name fell from his lips like a plea, needing to see those beautiful eyes just one more time. "Katie!"

Dean had been dead inside for what seemed like years now. He thought after all the loss he had suffered that he would get numb to it. He would just have another notch on the list of people that had been killed because of him. He was wrong. The pain he felt as he held Katie in his arms was indescribable and his eyes rimmed with tears. He was the kind of man who already looked in the mirror and hated what he saw but from this day forward he wouldn't even bother to look. He had failed in everyway a person could fail. Dean thought back to the first time he had ever met her and the broken look in her eyes as she begged for him to fix her. She had looked at him like he held every answer to every question she ever had. He was supposed to be the one to chase her nightmares away but instead became one she wouldn't be able to escape.

He carefully laid her body on the bed and sat next to her with a bottle of liquor in his hands. There would never be enough whiskey to drown the pain Dean was feeling at the moment. He unscrewed the cap from the bottle and brought it to his mouth but stopped before the liquid could grace his lips. He tossed it as hard as he could across the room, the glass shattering as it hit the floor. He didn't deserve to numb the pain. He didn't deserve the time Katie gave him in the first place.

Dean's phone started ringing again and he glanced down to the screen to see it was Sam. He should have answered, he should have put that wall back up and press on like he had every other time, but he let the call ring through. He let everyone he had ever known down and it was only a matter of time before something took his brother too.