EPILOGUE

In the immediate aftermath, Bobby hired a large trailer to live in while the salvage of Singer Salvage was underway. They combed through the wreckage, salvaging what they could, and leaving the rest to be cleared by the wrecking contractors. Tiem and Zan, the gargoyles who sat atop the gates, had taken off when the house went up, as per the instructions Bobby gave them to get to safety if anything ever happened. They returned, and were most helpful in identifying things from the air, and in retrieving things that had been blown aloft and become lodged in trees, including some of Bobby's hats, Octo-Rabbit the much-loved squeaky dog toy and the box containing the rest of the antique tea set.

Castiel offered to restore Singer Salvage, but Bobby pointed out that a lot of people had heard the detonation and seen the aftermath and would be dreadfully suspicious if the establishment suddenly reappeared overnight. "Besides," Bobby gruffed at the angel, "You got bigger things to worry about settin' right, Feathers. So go on, git." With a small almost-smile, Castiel returned to Heaven to begin his quest to restore some sort of order, and rally the remaining Host, in order to get his Father's realm working as well as possible against the day The Almighty chose to return. He did, however, drop in on them occasionally to check Dean for signs of relapsing nervous shock.

Castiel stuck to his promise not to intervene in the rebuilidng. Bobby was a little suspicious when the insurance claim went through very quickly after the assessor's visit, and even more so when the water company was keen to settle the matter rapidly rather than risk the terrible publicity that would be associated with a lonely ageing widower having his home destroyed by their negligence (although the letter of demand prepared by Sam made it sound so traumatic that Dean told him he should've gone into tabloid journalism or professional extortion). However, when a bespectacled solicitor arrived the day after the bulldozer departed and announced that he was terribly sorry to have to bring him the sad news that his great-aunt Eulalia Uppington-Singer, very elderly, very eccentric and very rich widow, had passed away, leaving to him her houses, her money, and her cats, although her live-in housekeeper had become very fond of the cats over the years, and under the circumstances it would be an act of kindness to let the old dear retain custody of the feline companions, Bobby shook his head, glanced skyward, and muttered "Idjit".

He took to banning Dean and Sam from the yard entirely when the architect came to consult, on account of the arguments that arose and the way they hectored the poor woman about wanting everything from a climate controlled garage or a diving board into the bath to a humidity regulated library or a solar-powered hydroponics house for propagation of organic vegetables. Chateau Singer Mk II would be a bit bigger, and a bit better, and have some features that might strike a non-Hunter as a bit odd (but since Bobby could now lay claim to a reasonably tidy sum of money, that made him eccentric rather than barking mad), but there would certainly be no mirrored jacuzzi room, fully automated wifi digital office or indoor toboggan run from the Winchesters' room to the breakfast table.

The one time Castiel did drop in during the design phase, Bobby had sent the Winchesters to choose a paint scheme for their room, a task he was pretty sure would keep them busy for a couple of hours without agreeing on anything (he'd already decided for them anyway, but it got them out from under his feet). He was browsing through lists of bathroom fittings, and was weighing up the pros and cons of having a bidet installed in the main upstairs restroom, when a flap of wings and trench coat drew his attention.

Castiel was staring at the plans when he turned around.

"Aha, I was wonderin' when you'd show yourself," he chuckled. "How's Heaven? Lookin' after dear old Great-Aunt Eulalia, I hope, what with her bein' so convenient in her passing."

"You did in fact meet her, once," Castiel informed him.

Bobby's eyebrows shot up. "I'm pretty sure if I'd met anyone named Uppington-Singer I'd remember it," he said, "She got more syllables in her name than most of my family would've been able to count."

"She started life as Ellie Singer, who ran away to go into show business, and whilst employed as an exotic danseuse by the Sugar Babies Boom Boom Burlesque troop, caught the eye of a middle-aged businessman, married him, and thoroughly enjoyed spending his money and living in a style to which she had yearned to become accustomed." The angel cocked his head. "She was most taken with you. You were four years old, and you used your older brother's pellet pistol to shoot her mink stole because you were convinced it was still alive and trying to eat her. Your marksmanship and determination to save her from the 'rabid weasel' made quite an impression. As did your excited and somewhat graphic description of watching the house cow have her calf."

Bobby peered hard at Castiel. "Look, I know you're keen to make amends for what's happened, but you didn't, you know, give Great-Aunt Eulalia a bit of a push off the perch, did you? A little nudge?"

"She was 102, and was ill with a combination of cirrhosis, heart disease and kidney malfunction," Castiel assured him. "It was the fall from the coffee table on which she was dancing that killed her."

Bobby's eyes bugged. "She was 102 and she was dancin' on the coffee table?"

Castiel nodded. "She gave up dancing on the dining table in her late nineties, when climbing atop it became too difficult. She was, apparently, giving one of her gentleman callers a demonstration of the 'Eulalia Flip', a move she perfected as a young woman, which involved flicking her underwear across the room with her toes during a high kick to land in the lap of a lucky member of the audience..."

"I'm not sure I want to know any more," Bobby told him hastily, "And don't you dare go tellin' Dean about Great-Aunt Eulalia's... gentleman callers, or... talents. I'll never hear the end of it."

"I will not." Castiel peered at the plans Bobby had been perusing. "You probably should not rebuild this shed," he suggested, pointing to the paper. "That area will be needed for the kennels and pens."

"Huh?" Bobby looked at the angel as if he'd gone even madder. "I don't need kennels and pens, I got two dogs, and they have a kennel that they hardly ever use, the idjit animals like that old truck better than their kennel..."

"Not yet," Castiel offered a small smile, "But Jimi Senior's descendants will. Dean will need space to house the breeding bitches, and separate them from their litters when they are weaning. Hunters' dogs descended from 'Winchester Ladies' Man' will be highly sought after. The bloodline will rival Wildhunt and Jaegerhund."

Bobby just stared at him as Castiel continued. "Also, you may want to consider enlarging the downstairs guest room. It may be a better choice for bedroom for you when you are... no longer able to dance on the dining room table." The angel frowned. "This staircase should also be modified, to allow later retro-fitting of a stair lift. You will be too proud to use it, most of the time, but you will use it, especially since the Winchester twins will get such enjoyment from you taking them for rides on it..."

Bobby's jaw dropped. "Are you sayin'... a breeding kennel? And do you mean..."

"Of course, the future is never fixed until it happens," Castiel actually smiled, "As Dean and Sam have proved before now. But you are a Man of Knowledge, Bobby, and I trust you to keep such... sensitive information to yourself." He looked down at the plans. "I am merely making suggestions to assist you in rebuilding Singer Salvage as... efficiently as possible."

At that moment, the rumble of the Impala announced the return of the Winchesters. They had clearly been doing as Bobby instructed, if the continuing argument was anything to go by.

"No, Dean!" Sam was adamant, "Just no! Nobody paints their bedroom black, except fourteen year olds who are trying to annoy their parents!"

"It's practical!" argued Dean. "Black goes with everything!"

"I'm not sleeping in a room with all the ambiance of a crypt," snapped Sam.

"Well, I'm not sleeping in a room with a ceiling done in, what was, Pansy White?" Dean asserted.

"Lilac White," corrected Sam, "And it's not actually lilac, it's a very slight blue tint that's cooling, and very good for ceilings, it opens up a room and makes it look more spacious..."

"Did you swallow one of those stupid brochures?" demanded Dean. "You collected enough of 'em. Black is practical, it doesn't show the dirt, and there's no such colour as Pansy Black."

"Actually, there is," Sam smirked in petty triumph, unfolding a paint chart and waving it at Dean. "See? Right there. Under Midnight Meeting, next to Dating Darkness. Pansy Black. 'a glossy black sheen with a hint of purple iridescence'. Very 'Twilight', bro, very masculine. You want a poster of Edward on the door too?"

"Shut up! It'd be better than your suggestion of Whiny Bitch Blue!" Dean shot back.

"It wasn't called that!" Sam yelled. "Lime Wash Blue is a very subtle tint, and it would make the room look a lot more welcoming than Immature Jerk Matt Black! Do you really want to go to sleep and wake up in a room that looks like the inside of a casket?"

"Well, we don't leave it blank black walls, duh," Dean rolled his eyes, "It'll look really cool once we put up the posters..."

"Oh, yeah, your Twilight posters," nodded Sam, "I forgot about them. You want one of Jacob too? Maybe we get you one of the sparkly vampire and the near-naked werewolf photoshopped to be getting it off with each other, yeah, I'm sure you'd love that, Pansy Black man, oh, oh, I know, let's get one of those life-sized cardboard cut-outs of Edward for you! And a matching quilt cover and pillow case!"

"Hey, hey, we are having matching AC-DC quilt sets on the beds," Dean said firmly, "I have decided, so suck it up, Martha Stewart!" He flung a handful of paint chips at Sam.

"Immature colour-blind jerk!" Sam shouted, swatting at Dean with his handful of brochures.

"Whiny Blue bitch!" Dean returned fire, flinging more paint chips then rolling up the paint chart Sam had shoved at him and attempting to whack his brother with it.

"When you ladies are quite done smackin' each other with your fans," sighed Bobby, "Do feel free to join us."

"Hello Dean," said Castiel. "Hello Sam."

"Oh, er, yeah, hi Cas," Dean dropped his chart.

"Hi Cas," echoed Sam, spitting out a sample of Bedroom Tango (it was actually a lurid shade of orange, but Dean had liked the name so much he'd grabbed the swatch). "How's things, uh, Upstairs?"

"We are making progress," the angel informed him, "I just dropped by to check on progress with the redesign and reconstruction." He looked thoughtful. "I think that Bobby's choices of Night White for the ceiling and Cloudy Skies will be an adequate compromise for your room," he added. "You are going to have your own separate en suite."

"No way will I agree to those glass shower screens," scowled Sam, "Those totally transparent full length shower screens, it's creepy..."

"You go anywhere near the plumbing with your low-fat, high-fibre, dolphin-friendly let's-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya-and-save-the-plant water-saving miserable-trickle-at-full-blast shower head, and I will end you," threatened Dean.

"I've been wonderin' if their own separate bungalow, waaaaaay over there, might be worth considerin'," grumbled Bobby, waving a hand across the yard.

"You can't put us all the way over there!" protested Sam.

"Not unless we can have a flying fox zip line directly into the kitchen," added Dean.

"Yeah, I guess I'd rather have you where I can see you," sighed Bobby in a resigned tone, "In the tent pissin' out, as it were."

Dean looked down at the plans. "So, have you had any more thoughts about the toboggan run?"

"Yep," answered Bobby, "And the answer is still no."

"Well, how about you put the garage under the house," Dean suggested, "And then we can have a fireman's pole down straight into..."

"Hate to break it to you, son," Bobby chuckled, "But you aint actually Batman."

"What about the pneumatic pod delivery system?" Dean pressed. "It would be great, we could send stuff to each other around the house! Sam could send you stuff from the library, and you could send me bacon and eggs in bed in the morning..."

"You might be onto somethin', there," nodded Bobby, "So when I lock you two bickering idjits in the underground Time Out cellar, I won't even have to listen to your bitchin' to feed and water you occasionally."

Both Winchesters looked horrified.

"You wouldn't!" gasped Sam.

"You can't do that!" squeaked Dean.

"He'll annoy me to death!" protested Sam.

"He'll gas me to death!" yelped Dean.

"Then you'll stop your whinin', you'll get what you're given, and you'll be grateful," Bobby's tone indicated that the discussion was at an end.

"Yes, Bobby," they chorused.

"Okay, then," Bobby nodded, "So, Sam, you were goin' to get on with sortin' out the books, estimatin' shelf space, and Dean, you were goin' to try to bring some sort of order to the garage shed for the moment, right? Right? Well, lay down your colourfully pigmented weapons, and have at it." He glared at them. "Today, gentlemen, any time today."

With a half-hearted exchange of "Bitch" and "Jerk", Sam headed into the trailer to put on coffee, while Dean gathered up fallen paint chips.

"I should leave also," Castiel told him, "I still have much to do."

"Well, it's good to hear that you're makin' progress," smiled Bobby. He watched Dean head for one of the less damaged sheds. "Are you certain I aint gonna kill 'em any time soon, before, you know, because I can't make any promises..."

"I am... quietly confident," answered Castiel. "Although I am certain that the future holds at least a dozen slaps to the side of the head." With a flap of trench coat, he was gone.

It was a clear afternoon. Bobby took his coffee, his brochures and the plans outside, and resumed debating with himself over the merits of an air-assisted flush cistern compared to a low-pressure electric booster pump.

It was almost an hour before the strains of argument drifted to his ears.

"Dean, take those and put them with all the broken junk to be thrown out!"

"Come on, Sam, these are irreplaceable reading material!"

"No! I refuse to deal with that garbage!"

"Garbage? These are irreplaceable, Sam, these are historical!"

"Look, this is an opportunity to take a full inventory of Bobby's library, and come up with a proper catalogue and filing system. If I can just convince him to go with the bar-coding system..."

"Yeah, and these need to be catalogued! Catalogued, and filed away carefully for future reference!"

"Future...? Are you nuts? It's gonna be weeks, months of work, just to deal with the really important stuff!"

"This is really important stuff! Really, really important!"

"No it's not! Get rid of them!"

"They have to be saved, Sam!"

"Dean, for the last time, I am NOT inventorying, cataloguing and archiving a crate full of thirty year old 'Busty Asian Beauties' back issues..."

Bobby rolled his eyes, and they fell on the plans. Castiel was right; he'd leave the space to build kennels at some time in the future.

If nothing else, it might give him a place to separate those two idjits before they drove him mad.

...-... THE END ...-...

Ta-dah! Bunny #3 gets stomped! *small furry squelchy sound*. Although I suppose the Denizens will want a certain van to make an appearance. They are depraved, after all. I'll just have to go and tally up the reviews and see who's rostered on this week...

At least now I'll hopefully get a bit of peace for a little while, until another one comes along. I know it's you lot, by the way, breeding them, fitting them with flotation outriggers and GPS navigation and sending them Down Here. It's amazing how many get past our Immigration Control patrols.

Anyway, I will be... what? *peers in despair into tea mug* Aaaaaaargh! Who left this plot bunny here? Shut up! Shut up! Shut up, you rambling rodent, you loony lagomorph, you... what? 'Grumpy Old Winchesters'? 'Even Grumpier Old Bobby'? 'Dean trying to chat up his doctor'? 'Coming out of retirement to tackle a job'? 'Posing as retirement home clients'? 'Dean trying to hit on nurses'? 'Female residents hitting on Sam'? Yes, yes, that's all very well, but do you actually have a plot? What do you mean, no? You idiot! Go away until you have something resembling an actual storyline. I'm supposed to be doing the one with Jimi's puppies next! *stuffs bunny into a disused teapot* Stupid creatures. I hate it when they have a very vague idea, but no details. Curse them! Curse them! We hates uncooperative plot bunnies! We hates them! We hates them forevaaaaaaah!

Ahem. Right. Sorry.

Reviews are the Winchester Of Your Choice Joining You In a) The Carefully Catalogued Barcoded Library b) The Black Bedroom or c) The Mirrored Jacuzzi Room Of Life!

Reviews also make the little bastar... sorry, the little bunnies whisper more loudly.