Chapter Four: Bloodlines

Sam knows when they pull up to the suburban home and see Cas sitting on the front porch, it is not going to be good news.

"Ten bucks she split," Dean says as he gets out of the car.

Jael grimaces. "You better hope she hasn't."

Sam really doesn't like the sound of that. "Why not?"

"One of the perks of being an angel anchor," Jael explains. "She's immune to angelic power. Smiting, healing, teleporting, all of it won't affect her. I never should have let her out of my sight."

"That explains why I couldn't track her." Cas' frown grows deeper. "She took Gadreel with her."

"Perfect," Dean opens the unlocked front door. "That's just perfect."

Sam follows him into the house. "How do we know she took him and it's not the other way around?"

Cas holds up the empty angel cuffs with the key. "They were both sitting on the chair downstairs. Only Addison had the key."

Jael crosses her arms. "And you let them alone together?"

"No," Cas sounds offended. "I put him downstairs in the basement and she went upstairs to shower and be alone. I never saw her come back downstairs. I just went up to check on her and found the door to her room locked and the shower running but she was gone."

Sam goes through the kitchen and into the living room where there's a large deck off the back of the house. He opens the sliding glass door and steps outside to get a look at the side of the home. It's just what he expected.

"Trellis?" Dean asks.

Sam nods. "Trellis. Looks like she dropped some bags into the bushes by the basement window too."

"She went prepared then." Dean turns to Jael. "You've been tailing her since she woke up. Any ideas where she would go?"

Jael shakes her head. "She has no more family to go to. Her fiancé is married to her best friend who ironically where having a baby shower the day she woke up. She has no one to latch on to right now."

"Explains why she dialed in to Gadreel." Sam notices there are a lot of places in the living room where family pictures used to be. "How long as she been awake?"

"About two and half weeks."

That isn't nearly enough time for her to grieve the loss of her family. Removing pictures of her lost loved ones wasn't the sign of a healthy mindset. "We need to find her and fast."

Dean is busy going through a desk that was in a den area of the living room. "Seems to me, she made her choice and isn't our problem anymore."

"Actually," Cas speaks up, "she is the angel's problem."

Sam frowns. "But if she's an anchor for dead angels, wouldn't the angels want to protect her?"

Cas shakes his head. "As you know the majority of angels aren't that fond of humanity. Having a human anchor will be seen as an insult at the least, an abomination at the worst."

"Being ejected from Heaven should change some of their minds though," Jael countered. "I think there will be more angels willing to protect her then destroy her."

"Are you sure of that?" Cas asks.

Jael looks doubtful and that makes Sam's mind up. "So we find her then and we protect her. How did you choose her to be the anchor?"

"The same way angels choose vessels," Jael answers. "I picked a strong bloodline."

"Bingo," Dean holds up a stack of papers. "Credit card and bank account numbers. She has to eat and sleep and with these, we can track her."

Sam raises his eyebrows. "So much for not being our problem."

"I'm more interested in kicking the ass of her road trip buddy. The angels can worry about Thelma, I want Louise."

"I agree with Dean," Cas says. "Gadreel was sent to kill her and he may have by now. The sooner we find him, the greater chance we have of saving the anchor and finding where Metatron is."

"Alright," Sam starts for the front door, "I'll grab my computer and see if they've withdrawn any funds yet."

He has to admit as he walks down the front front steps of the house and looks around the upper class neighborhood, he feels the urgency to find Addison more than Gadreel at this point. From what little he can tell from the house and its location, she had lived a nice life until now. Family, friends, enough money to at least be comfortable. Now she is alone, hurt and tangled up in the affairs of angels.

Situations like this never ended well.

He also needs to make sure to find out more about the Weaver bloodline from Jael. Perhaps there is still family out there for Addison.

Billings, Montana isn't a sprawling city but Gadreel hopes it's large enough to hide them for the night. He pulls on some of the knowledge and experiences he had when Sam was his vessel which lands them in a seedy bar with an equally seedy motel behind it for the night. His concern for Addison, who hasn't said a word since they left Denver, is starting to change into exasperation.

It's either her silence or the constant ringing of his phone that is the cause of his emotional spike. He pulls out the vibrating phone, sees it is Metatron calling again for an update and he silences it once more. Four missed phone calls. Metatron is starting to get suspicious. Addison eyes the phone that he set down on the table with suspicion of her own.

"Is that the guy who wants me dead?"

The time of lying is over. He's so tired of the deceit and the subterfuge. He had been a good and honorable angel and he intends to be that again. The first step is to stop the lying. "Yes, it is."

"You not answering is going to raise some alarm."

"I'm afraid it already has."

Addison shifts in her chair and narrows her eyes. "You're really not going to kill me, are you? You're not even going to hand me over to this guy."

"I told you I would protect you and I will."

"Why? And don't hand me the 'you're the anchor' excuse."

Hiding and deflecting has become second nature to him that he has to stop himself before he answers with a rote reason. Honesty, that is what she is looking for, what she needs from him right now. "I will tell you my story but not here, not out in the open."

"You're running too, aren't you?"

Her tone confuses him. Instead of being accusatory, she sounds almost sad. "I am."

"Fair enough. You tell me your story when you're ready." She finishes off her beer and starts to stand up. "I was wondering if maybe you could help me figure out a little mystery."

"Of course." It's an olive branch and he grasps it as soon as it's offered.

"But first," she points to the phone, "you have to get rid of that. I don't know how tech savvy this guy is but he might be able to track that phone with a GPS locator."

Gadreel hasn't thought about that. Technology still confounds him at times. "What do you suggest I do with it?"

She glances around the bar before picking up the phone and dropping it into a half empty water glass on another table that hasn't been cleared yet. "The water will short out the circuitry and hopefully disable the GPS."

"I will remember that for the future."

He hopes it works and that Metatron won't be able to find them for the night. He stays close to Addison as they walk through the dark parking lot. He doesn't see any angels lurking about that doesn't mean they're not there. As soon as they're in the room, he draws sigils on the door, curtains and walls of the room.

"I'm glad we paid for the room in cash."

Gadreel smiles as he caps the marker. "I can make them disappear before we leave and no one will know."

Addison retrieves the old canvas duffle bag and puts it on the bed. She has been protective of the bag ever since she uncuffed him in the basement early that morning. Only she carries it, opens it and peers inside. He's left it alone completely, never even offering to carrying it for her despite the weight of it. It's Addison's and he leaves it at that. The fact that she trusts him enough to open it and show him the contents causes his chest to constrict uncomfortably.

"This was my Aunt Jen's. She left it to my mother who in turn, left it to me. I don't know what it means and I thought maybe you might."

She pauses slightly before unzipping the bag. She trusts him but not completely, he can see that in the corner of her mouth and her downcast eyes. It strikes him how similar they are, scared and alone, tossed out into a world they don't understand. He doesn't know who to trust and neither does she so they will have to trust each other. He stands back, giving her a wide open space as she starts to pull a variety of objects out of the bag and lays them out on the bed in neat rows.

The fact that the majority of them are familiar to him makes his palms itch. Salt, lighters, knives, a couple machetes, bullets and a couple guns. "Your aunt was a hunter."

Addison frowns as she drops a stack of books on the bed, emptying out the bag. "No, I don't think she hunted a day in her life. My Dad did though."

He searches the memories of his vessel for another meaning of hunter and understands what Addison is saying. "Not hunting game. Hunting things of a supernatural nature."

She laughs nervously. "What, like ghosts and goblins?"

"Yes." He remembers how Sam would have a list in his mind that he would set on repeat whenever he and Dean when on a hunt. The monster was listed first, followed by the method of destruction. He steps up to the bed and points to the various the weapons, recalling that list to his own mind now.

"Ghost, salt and burn. Werewolf, silver bullet. Vampire, decapitation. Shape shifter, silver knife." She trusted him with these things and it was time to match that trust. He pulls his own weapon from inside his coat and lays it on the bed with the other things. "Angel blade. It'll kill both angels and demons."

"My aunt was a hunter." Addison pulls out one of the chairs at the table by the window and sits down heavily. "Is that what Dean and Sam are, hunters?"

He sits down across from her. "Yes, they are."

She opens up one of the leather bound journals and starts to flip through the pages. "You're right. These are instructions she wrote down on how to get rid of these…things. Dates, places, monsters…every page of it."

"Your Aunt was a brave woman then."

"Or crazy."

"Says the woman who is an angel anchor on the run with a fugitive angel."

A brief smile tugs at the corner at her mouth. "True." But the smile quickly disappears when she pulls out a loose, folded up piece of paper and opens it. "What did you say Dean and Sam's last name was?"

Suddenly he's afraid to answer. Her eyes are glassy, her hands trembling. He can't see what the paper says in front of her but it is something that is causing her distress. The truth, though, he must answer with the truth. "Winchester."

"That's what I thought." She smoothes the paper out and slides it across the table to him. "Please tell me this is a coincidence."

He reads the top heading of the paper, "Birth Certificate." The name of the child born is Addison Jean Palmer. The mother was Jennifer Palmer, the father John Winchester. Once again, he shuffled through Sam's memories that lingered in his mind and confirmed John Winchester was indeed Dean and Sam's father.

"It's not a coincidence, is it? They're my half brothers, aren't they?"

The truth is going to shatter her illusion of her family. If he confirmed her suspicions, she would lose her mother, father and brother all over again. Her parents weren't her parents. Her twin brother wasn't her second half. The aunt she never had a chance to know was now a mother she could never know and her father was a complete stranger. He picked the wrong day to start telling the truth.

"Yes, they are."

She looks at the birth certificate again and folds it once more, tucking it back into the journal. "Is that why you wanted me to stay with them?"

"I did not know of your relation at the time. I just knew they are good and honorable men."

Addison nods slowly before standing up and putting things back into the bag. "I think that's enough crazy for tonight."

As much as it pains him to throw away his chance at redeeming himself, he has to do the right thing. "If you wish to go back, I will take you back to them."

She shakes her head solemnly. "Blood doesn't make you family. It just makes you related."

He wants to ask her to explain the statement but refrains. She's distressed and rightfully so. He stays silent and helps her repack the canvas bag.