Watching Sam bumble sightlessly around the motel room was enough to break Kate's heart. After he smashed his shins into the formica end table, he adopted a slow, shuffling gate, his long arms held slightly away from his body. Dean hauled his stuff into the room and dropped Sam's stuff on the left bed as usual.
Then Dean went into caretaking mode, and suddenly Kate could picture it all- Dean feeding baby Sam the last of the supplies when John was gone on a long hunt; toddler Sam crawling into Dean's bed after a nightmare; elementary school Sam asking Dean to sign his permission slip- the teacher said that a parent or guardian had to sign, and Sam couldn't think of anyone more guarding than his big brother. Kate could see it all, because when Sam was hurt and scared this giant of a man turned to his brother for help and comfort, and Dean had love to spare.
Dean ducked into the bathroom with a handful of Sam's things. He came back out a few seconds later when the water was running in the shower and led Sam to the doorway. "Johns straight ahead, shower to the left, sink to the right. Towels are over the toilet, your clothes are on the right side of the sink, your toothbrush on the left. Shampoo is in the left corner of the tub."
He stepped out and shut the door before Sam's embarrassment and despair could grow any higher. Dean and Kate sat in silence while the pipes rattled and squealed in the hideously wallpapered walls, trying to accept the implications of Sam's blindness. There was no way they could risk taking Sam anywhere in this condition- protecting him alone would probably result in them all getting killed. That had to be the witch's plan- draw out Dean Winchester, kill him, and then find and kill Sam.
They only had one thing going for them- as far as she knew, the witch had no idea Kate was hunting with the Winchesters. Kate knew she was no Sam, but having the element of surprise shouldn't be taken lightly.
Kate mulled this over until Sam go out of the shower and it was her turn in the bathroom. Sam walked out, his clothes in a ball against his chest, his toes bare and shuffling along the stained carpet. Kate brushed past him, knowing that Dean had the situation well in hand.
When she came back out into the main room, Sam was sitting on his bed and Dean was at the rickety table. Kate knew she'd walked into the middle of some discussion, but she headed for her bag anyway. "What's the plan?" she finally asked, breaking the silence. She plopped down on the foot of Dean's bed.
"I'm stuck here, useless," said Sam. He turned his face away from Kate.
Dean's jaw was set, his eyes determined, his entire demeanor resolute. "We ward this place with everything we've got and then Kate and I will go get this bitch. Tonight."
"What? No!" said Sam, turning to face his brother.
Dean was sure. "We gotta leave you Sammy, and I guarantee the witch knows we're here since you tripped her little warning system. By tomorrow she'll be ready for a battle. We have to go now."
Kate and Dean went to grab supplies out of the trunk. Dean spray-painted every sigil he knew on the walls, ceiling, windows, and floor. Kate set out hex bags, salted the room, made sure one of the first aid kits was easily accessible, and turned to look at Sam sitting on his bed, his shoulders slumped, his head cocked just slightly as he listened to Kate and Dean move around the room.
Grabbing up his duffel, Dean walked towards his brother and dropped an old sawed-off in his lap with a handful of shells. "You point and shoot unless it's me and Kate," he said. Sam nodded, running his thumb over the butt of the old gun. The motel door clicked shut behind Kate, and she and Dean walked to the Impala, piling supplies back into the trunk before slamming it shut.
The old black car rolled smoothly onto the road, a warhorse off to battle once more, a loyal steed in the age-long battle between the Winchester family and the rest of the world. Kate shifted uncomfortably in the front passenger seat, Sam's seat.
"Do you have a plan, Dean?" she finally asked quietly.
"Find her and give her hell." He paused for a moment before flicking his eyes away from the road and towards Kate. In that glance of piercing green, Kate saw all that she needed to know- Dean didn't think he was coming out of this one, and he didn't mind that as long as Sam survived. Dean continued, "When we find her, shit is gonna hit the fan, Kate. You need to promise me to run. When you can't do anymore, when the stakes get too high, you take the car and make it back to Sammy. Leave her to me."
Kate shook her head, eyes closed, wordlessly denying his demand. "I'm not leaving you Dean." A muscle in his jaw jerked, and he didn't say anything about it until he pulled the car to a stop along the sidewalk of Conti Street a few hundred feet past where Sam's blindness had begun. There were two buildings to potentially hide the witch; they both were mystic and voodoo shops with small apartments over top.
Standing over the open trunk of the Impala, Dean wordlessly dropped the keys into Kate's jacket pocket. They felt much heavier than they actually wanted; the keys weighted with the fact that for Dean, this was a suicide mission. Kate pushed that out her head.
"She doesn't know about me, and we can use that to our advantage," Kate said quietly, hoping to blend into the light but steady stream of foot traffic along the sidewalk. "But that will only work if we go into the right house off the bat- the wrong one will just call the cops."
Dean responded by stuffing a Beretta into the back waistband of her jeans and pulling her jacket over it. He passed her a series of knives, which Kate dutifully stashed on her person.
"We'll snoop around a bit before going in." he said. "You good enough to pick the lock on the back door while I have her distracted?"
"Yeah, I think so," said Kate, checking to make sure her picks were still in her pocket. Her knuckles brushed Dean's keys, reminding her of their purpose tonight. She grimaced a little.
"Now, witches are humans still, they just have powers. You can kill them like anybody else, but they make it damn hard to get close enough to do it."
"Right," said Kate. "Hence the sneak approach."
Kate and Dean strolled along, slowing when they reached the first of the two shops in question. Dean scanned the displays and signs, but didn't see anything alarming. They meandered along, occasionally peeking in other front windows to keep up the tourist pretense. When they arrived at the other shop under suspicion, Dean took everything in. Leaning close to Kate, he pointed to two small brass flower pots standing on either side of the threshold. "I think this is it," he murmured. "These have powerful wards on them.
They just looked like some vaguely Celtic pattern to Kate, but she nodded. "Okay. I'll go around back. What will you do?"
Dean's nostrils flared, his eyes cold. "I'll keep her plenty busy, don't you worry."
Kate skirted around the back of the building through the narrow alley. Hunching down, her hood pulled over her face, she inserted the silvery picks in the old storm door and fiddled with the tumblers. When she hears a crash from inside, she had to take a deep breath and remind herself that her purpose was to be a surprise, and for that she needed to be quiet.
Finally, after long tense moments, the lock gave with an almost inaudible snick. Kate eased inside the doorway and let it close quietly behind her as her eyes adjusted. She could hear shouting from upstairs, mostly Dean. She sneaked up to the apartment quietly, listening outside the door, only able to see in through the thin crack between the frame and door.
Dean had his weapon out and pointed at a smirking… man. Turned out the witch was a dude all along. Huh.
"You can't shoot me," he drawled, looking far too satisfied with himself. "You and I both know that it would kill your little brother." The witch took the knife he was holding and held it against the crook of his arm. "Do you need reminding?" he asked sassily.
Dean lowered his gun to point at the floor. "Why don't you tell me what this is about?" asked Dean, his eyes never flicking to the door.
Shit. Kate crouched in the shadows trying to come up with another plan. She'd completely forgotten about this aspect of the curse in the face of Sam's blindness, and she hated herself for it. She needed to find whatever it was that allowed him to put all of his injuries on Sam.
She slunk back down the stairs and looked up at the second floor windows. She knew the two on this wall went into the room where Dean and the witch were having it out. She didn't think the witch would keep something so powerful in the shop, so it was probably somewhere in the bedroom. Running around the building, she looked at the façade and sighed. Her only hope to get in there was to stand on top of the shop sign. Considering that she didn't have the upper body strength of say, oh, Sam Winchester, that was a dead end.
Back inside and back up the stairs she went. Kate's newest mission: incapacitate the witch so they could search. Peeking in the slit, she saw that the witch had tied Dean to a chair and was standing over him tauntingly. Sliding her knife out of its holster, she slammed the door opened and tackled the witch.
Sitting in the hotel room, Sam was trying to stay calm while listening to an audiobook he had on his beat up old ipod. It had been a bitch to find the right playlist without his sight, but after enough failed attempts to drive him mad he had finally succeeded. "Ow!" he yelped suddenly, his left shoulder and hip aching like he'd hit something. "What was- oh. Fuck." In that moment Sam realized the implications for this- that Kate and Sam had found the witch and that things were getting physical. Shakily he dragged the first aid kit onto the bed, just-in-case, before laying back on the pillows and bracing himself for more.
Kate slammed into the witch, pushing him towards Dean, who headbutted him. As the witch went wheeling back, Kate pounced on him, tossing her knife towards Dean. The witch hit the floor and rolled; Kate's weight wasn't enough to keep him pinned down for long. Dean's chair smashed, but Kate couldn't look to see what was going on.
In seconds, Dean was helping Kate wrestle the witch flat and used the scraps of his bindings to tie the witch's wrists and feet. Dean tugged off his belt with a whir of leather over denim and used it to strap the witch's arms to his sides.
"Very nice," said Dean, crouching by the witch's head. "I like things much better this way." He glanced at Kate, who was standing a few feet away, scanning the room. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said absently. "Just looking for whatever it is that tethers him to Sam."
Dean faced the witch once more. "Where is it?" he asked calmly. The witch rolled his eyes. Dean just settled back on his heels, his demeanor unreadable. "Contrary to popular opinion, I am a patient man. You hear about my trip to hell? Yea? Then you'd best give me what I want."
Kate came out of the bedroom. "I don't see anything obvious," she called. Hurrying to the bookshelf in the corner of the room, she beginning tugging books off the shelves, flipping through them, and dropping them unceremoniously on the floor. "He had to have instructions to do this, that'll at least tell us what he used."
The witch's eyes widened minutely, but just enough for Dean Winchester- hell-trained, pool hustler, life-long liar- to notice. "Yeah, there's a book over there," he called.
The witch began speaking a stream of what may have been Latin, but sounded a bit more guttural. Dean clamped his hand over the man's mouth as flames began licking up the side of the room. Perfect.
"Okay, pressure's on!" barked Dean.
Kate grabbed a thick book off the top shelf. It was wrapped in the dust jacket for "Salem's Lot" by Stephen King.
"Really?" she asked sarcastically. Flipping through the book, she groaned. "This is in Latin!" The man had the thing annotated like a cookbook, which turned out to be his final mistake. One of the bookmarked pages had the words blood, full moon Feb. 13, and the initials SW scribbled in the margin.
The fire was up the whole side wall and growing quickly. Kate sprinted to Dean's side and shoved the book in his face. "Read this!"
"I barely know Latin! That's Sam's thing!" Dean's lips moved as he scanned over the pages. "All I got from this is that he has to keep something on him at all times," he yelled over the crackle of the flames. He tossed the witch over his shoulder and jogged down the stairs. They ran back towards the car, shoving through the crowd gathering to watch the blaze.
"He's kidnapping Daniel!" some woman screamed. Dean poured on the steam, shoving the witch into the backseat and diving in after him.
Kate jerked the keys from her pocket and slid into the driver's seat. Shoving the key into the ignition, she set the car rolling before Dean had even had a chance to close the back door.
They tore down the street, flames and flashing blue lights reflected in the chrome of the bumper. "They'll be looking for us now," said Dean as he climbed over the seat to sit beside Kate. "We need to pick up Sam and get out of here. We'll deal with him," he jerked his thumb towards the backseat, "later."
The drive was fairly short, but Dean still tensed each time Kate braked or clutched. She rolled her eyes and ignored it. Back at the motel, Dean ran through the door to check on his brother and grab their stuff. Kate slid into the center of the front bench seat, loathe to sit next to that filthy thing passing for a human in the back. He started to mumble something, and she whacked him on the head.
"Hey!" Sam yelled, shuffling out of the motel.
"Oh, right," Kate responded. "This is weird. Sorry."
Once Dean had guided his brother to the door he came around the car to the driver's side, running his hands lovingly over the dash. "I only drove for forty minutes," Kate snapped. Sam just shook his head, easily imagining how his possessive brother handled that.
The drove for several hours, Kate sandwiched between the brothers. Dean would send angry glances into the back every so often, but it was otherwise an uneventful trip. He pulled into a state park near the Texas border. The Impala bounced down a trail, the headlights the only source of illumination around.
After a few minutes Dean pulled to the side and left the engine idling. He grabbed the witch out of the backseat and tossed him down a few yards in front of the Impala. Kate helped Sam sit down on the hood of the car between the headlights and went to stand by Dean. Methodically she began searching though his pockets while Dean took rings and necklaces off of him. They played rock paper scissors to see who would have to reach in his jeans pockets- Kate lost. They sat back after a few moments, a small pile of loose change, a lighter, and pocket lint mixed in with crumpled receipts between them.
Dean surveyed the witch again, who was now gagged and writhing angrily. "If I have to put gloves on to find this thing, we are all going to regret it," he said. Sam turned a little green and Kate covered her eyes in embarrassment.
"Did you take his shoes off?" asked Sam from his perch.
"Nope," said Dean, clearly frustrated with himself. He crouched down to tug off the man's boots. A small metal object fell out of the left shoe; Dean picked up and held it in the light. It was about the size of a coin, and dull silver in the yellow light of the car. One side had some sort of symbol on it."
"How do we turn the juju off?" Dean asked, standing. "Salt and burn?" He moved to the back of the Impala.
"What about holy fire?" asked Sam. "That stuff will destroy anything, including archangels."
"Good idea, man," said Dean, rummaging. He returned to the front of the car with an old clay vial. Pouring a few drops of liquid on the ground, he dropped a match. Blue and orange flames crackled to life. Dean dropped in the token and stood back. The witch started to shudder and twitch, his muffled cries audible through the gag. Dean nodded to himself and then turned to Sam, watching him intently.
All Kate could think was that she was watching some Indiana Jones shit going down- it looked like the witch was just dissolving- Kate guessed it was all his stolen years and injuries catching up with him.
Sam saw a few spots in his vision, and blinked, hardly daring to hope- and there was Dean, his eyes in shadows from the headlights, backlit by the millions of stars visible in the sky. "Dean!" he exclaimed, looking around. There was Kate grinning widely at him, her hair a mess- they were out in the woods somewhere, giant live oaks and pines all around him. He hugged Dean tightly, thumping him on the back.
"Oh god, it's good to see you guys again," he said, his dimples deep in his happy face.
"I'm happy you're seeing us, too," said Kate, coming up to get her hug.
The three of them piled into the Impala, everything back to the way it should be- Sam was whole and healthy, Dean was still alive and kicking, and Kate had somewhere to belong. Dean turned the car onto the interstate, shoving a Van Halen tape into the slot. Kate and Sam just smiled and sang along, whooping wildly, the windows down. They were all alive and together; for this brief moment in time they were just themselves- there wasn't a hunt, they weren't the vessels of the apocalypse, they weren't fighting impossible odds. They were just family on the road together, their laughter and the roar of the engine a kind of music all on its own.