AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Just a note that I'm sure the episode with Bobby's dead wife will change some things in here, but, I'm doing my own thing mostly as far as that is concerned.
Hope you guys don't mind that.
WARNINGS: Language, Controversial Topics, Dark Themes, Sex, Violence, Blood
ENJOY!
****
"We definitely have to go to the morgue." Sam announced as he looked at his laptop, nodding and then looking at Grace.
Grace groaned and put her head on the table, her fingers in her hair. "I don't see how this is even fair."
"Don't worry—you can just stand watch." Dean assured her, nodding.
Sam looked at Dean because he was completely confused as to why Grace didn't do this whole 'morgue' thing, but if Dean wasn't going to make her, then fine. She had gone out and brought them all coffee in the morning and now they had to head out and do what Hunters did best—pretend to be someone they weren't. So Grace got herself composed and changed her clothes, briefly glancing over at Dean.
He couldn't deny that he'd checked her out a couple times as she smoothed down her suit skirt, and then he held his breath a moment when she walked up to him. Her hair was down, but Dean had a feeling that she'd pull it up because that was what she tended to do to keep it out of her face. At first Dean didn't know what she was doing, but when she motioned to him he completely understood.
"Your tie is a little messed up…may I?" She asked him.
Dean nodded at her. "Be my guest."
Grace smiled at that and undid his tie, doing it again and glancing up into his eyes momentarily, blushing a little at his eyes on her. He hadn't intended on staring at her but he couldn't help himself since she was right there. Besides, she was a beautiful young woman and she was trying to be his friend and what other thing should Dean have been focusing on? Grace was easier on the eyes—that was for sure.
"All done." Grace told him, backing away and running her fingers through her hair, pulling her hair back.
Dean chuckled as Sam came out of the bathroom in his suit. "You know, I think its kind of a waist of a good get-up when you're not going to get down and dirty."
"That's why I'm going to sweet-talk our way in." Grace replied with a wink.
"Touché." Dean replied and nodded at her.
The two of them shared a smile that Sam caught between them, and then they headed to the morgue and Dean shook his head. He couldn't understand how everything could come so easily to her—it was almost like she wasn't even human. Still, he and Sam went in to do their thing and Grace stood watch and ran her fingers through her ponytail.
"I kind of like her." Sam told Dean, shrugging his shoulders.
Dean shrugged too. "She's good company, I suppose."
"I can hear you." Grace told them, smiling and shaking her head.
"You know, most people in your position would keep their mouths closed to hear the whole conversation, but not you—you had to open up your yap." Dean said, and he smiled when she laughed softly—Dean was really growing accustomed to her delightful laugh, and he didn't know why.
Sam nodded at Dean as he looked the wound on the dead body over, glad to see that such little things were making Dean a little happier. They hadn't even talked about the demon blood incident, but he knew that the moment they did, all of this 'calm' was over and done with and Sam liked the false sense of brother-ship between him and Dean. It was nice for Sam that Dean had someone to talk to—even if she didn't completely get all of what was going on.
"This was definitely down by a Brachen." Sam said pulling off his bloody glove and pushing the metal slab with the body back into the wall and closing the door. "Body's gone Grace."
Grace turned around, her hand covering her eyes. "Promise?"
"He promises." Dean chuckled softly, shaking his head at her as she slowly put her hand down, only one eye open until she could see it was true and then she walked over to them. "I think it would be best if—"
"—we need to split up to find the thing." Grace finished for him nodding. "We need to shoot it with silver, and it has to be burned, got it?"
Dean ran his hand down his face. "Something tells me you want to go after it alone and then pair Sam and I up together."
"It would be best if one of us teamed up with you, Grace—the other one can man the phone and make sure all the burial stuff is set in motion." Sam explained to her.
"All right." Grace agreed nodding. "Since Sam seems to be the best at the spells and all, I say he mans the phone."
Sam just laughed and nodded, Dean agreeing too so it made the planning out rather easy with no arguments. They all headed back to the motel and then they got ready to go, Sam setting up for the ceremony to banish the demon to Hell, and Dean and Grace headed out to the warehouse. Dean glanced at Grace as she picked a gun out of the trunk and then she took a deep breath and looked up at him, their eyes meeting and she just smiled…and swallowed down her fear.
**
Bobby took a deep breath and looked at his phone for what felt like the hundredth time since he had thought about calling Grace. He didn't want to smother her, but she was brought back into his life and he felt like he had to protect her no matter what happened. He didn't know why Grace had come back to him either, besides the apocalypse—she had no reason to come back to him.
Honestly Bobby was still a little fuzzy on why Grace would want to come back into the fold and be with him of all people. There were other hunters that Grace could have gone to, but she had decided to find her father...why? Bobby had genuinely believed that there was nothing in the world that would bring Grace back to him…not after everything that he had done.
"Gracie? Honey?" Bobby asked, rapping his knuckles on the door.
There had been so much blood on his hands and he just didn't know how he was going to get through this. It just seemed like it was the only way that it could happen and now he was dealing with the aftermath and how could he do this? He knew what Grace had seen, and he knew that nothing he could say could make it better.
"Go away!" Grace cried, tears streaming down her face and she held her pillow to her and cried, trying to get the images out of her head. "I hate you!"
Bobby bit his trembling lip. "Gracie, honey, don't say that. You don't understand."
"You killed Mommy!" Grace cried back through the door, trying to swallow down the pain in her throat. "I hate you! I hate you!"
"Gracie, honey, I had to!" Bobby pleaded through the door. "Just let me in, honey."
Grace shook her head violently as she cried some more. "Go away! I don't ever want to see you again! I hate you! You killed her!"
Bobby just nodded as he swallowed down his pain and his guilt, and he looked at his hands. He'd washed them so many times and yet he just couldn't seem to get them to be clean again. Tears started to roll down his cheeks and he thought about his young daughter, sad and alone and he thought about his wife—his beautiful wife—how could things have gotten messed up this badly? How could he deal with the feeling that maybe he'd been too rash in his decision?
Bobby ran a hand down his face and he adjusted his baseball cap, calling Grace because he needed her. He needed to know that she was all right, and he needed to make sure that he wasn't going to lose her too. The second hardest moment of his life had been giving Grace over to her aunt, and he knew he was never going to stop regretting his decision…he knew he could never take all of Grace's pain back.
"Hey, Dad." Grace answered, Dean nodding and walking around the Impala to give her some space. "What's up?"
Bobby smiled sadly. "I was just checking in on you…that's okay, isn't it?"
"Yeah, that's fine." Grace replied, smiling sadly herself. "I'm actually kind of glad that you did…we need a fresh start, and this is it."
"Kid, we'll never really have a fresh start, but…I'm glad you want to try." Bobby admitted, feeling like he was going to lose it and he couldn't. "You sure you're okay?"
Grace nodded, some tears coming to her eyes. "Yeah…I just, uh…you know if you let me live with you when this little hunt is over…we can get to know each other."
Bobby didn't know why the words had made a couple tears escape, but they had and he just chuckled a little, glad to hear her laugh even though he knew she was crying a little too. Their relationship was hard, and it was complicated, and their past was going to be hard to get past, but they wanted to get past it—and that was the most important part. So Bobby composed himself and just nodded, knowing he had to vocalize how he felt because he was on the phone.
"I'd like that Grace." Bobby told her.
She nodded and smiled. "Me too, and Dad?"
"Yeah, Gracie?" Bobby asked her.
"I don't hate you." Grace replied, crying a little. "I'll talk to you soon—Dean and I have a warehouse to go into."
Bobby nodded, smiling at her words. "All right, call me when it's done."
"No problem—bye, Dad." Grace told him, nodding as she looked at her phone.
Jeremy looked at Grace and shook his head, but no matter how many times he shook his head, he knew Grace was stubborn. She had made up her mind about what she wanted to do and she was going to do it whether she had his blessing or not. Grace blotted her wet eyes with the back of her hand as she avoided eye contact with the casket her aunt was in and she just shrugged her shoulders.
"I have to find him, Jeremy." She told him, looking directly at him. "He's my father, and I understand what he did now. I couldn't understand it before because I was too little. He didn't have a choice then…he didn't know what he knows now and this is big."
Jeremy sighed and closed his eyes, hugging her. "I just worry about you, Grace."
"It's okay…I can take care of myself." Grace said, trying to smile. "Besides…I have angels watching over me."
Bobby set his phone next to the giant book he was looking at and he wiped the tears off of his face, promising to be stronger in the future. His daughter needed him, and he needed her, and this was their new beginning, even though he knew that deep down they'd always have the problems of the past. He had killed her mother, and there was no way that she just going to get over it…but at least she wanted to try.
**
"Grace!" Dean cried out.
Grace let out a soft cry as she felt the demon's claw scratch her side, and then she pointed the gun at it and it was knocked away from her. The one thing Grace had forgotten to mention was that close combat was kind of a weakness for her—she hadn't been in too much practice with it. She was more of a hands off, far away destroying kind of hunter…at least she had been most of her hunting career. There were times that her job demanded hands on, but it had been awhile.
"Son of a bitch!" Grace cursed, ducking when the demon swiped at her, kicking it away from her hard.
As Grace went for her knocked away gun, Dean shot the demon a couple of times and then looked surprised when the demon's head was blown off. He turned to see Grace standing there strongly for a moment with the gun smoking, and then she faltered and went to clutch her bleeding side. Dean wanted to hurry for her but she was waving her hands and he knew what his position was supposed to be here and he hacked off some of the demon's other body parts, gathering him up in a couple bags and hauling him out.
The two got the demon to the motel and though Sam rushed to Grace's side, her starting to look a little pale, he grabbed the bags from Dean. He performed the cleansing ritual and then they burned the parts, burying the demon out back, making sure to put salt in the grave. Afterwards they went back into the motel room and Dean went for the first aid things, handing Grace a bottle of scotch.
She looked at it and laughed a little. "I'd rather you pour this on the wound."
"We're going to need some more gauze." Dean said absent-mindedly, only smiling a little at Grace's joke, but more worried about getting Grace back to her father mauled up.
"I'm on it." Sam said, hurrying out of the room as Grace opened up the scotch and then started to take off her shirt.
Dean was a little surprised. "Whoa, what are you doing?"
"You need to fix me up, Doofus—you need to see the wound." Grace told him, revealing her cotton bra and lifting her arm a little for Dean to see her wound. "How bad is it? Be brutally honest please, because it hurts like a mother."
Dean swallowed down his embarrassment and slowly looked at her wound, making Grace feel like she was blushing all over. He had seen half naked women before, and for some reason, he had just never felt this flustered around one—so responsible for making her better. Grace pushed her hair off of her shoulders and glanced at Dean checking her wound over, drinking some scotch when he touched it and it throbbed.
"I'm sorry." Dean whispered when she flinched.
Grace shook her head, trying not to cry because of the pain. "It's okay, you didn't mean to, Dean. Just…this is going to sound crazy, but can you talk about something while you clean it? It really hurts…and I've heard you sing in the car, and that's not going to get my mind off of the pain—it'll only displace the pain for a little while."
"Way to talk to the man fixing you up." Dean told her, but he nodded.
He started to talk to her about a few of the hunts that he and Sam had gone on that gave them a few laughs afterwards, Grace sucking down the scotch only when it hurt a lot. She was pretty good at focusing on Dean's voice, and Sam smiled at them when he walked in and neither of them noticed him. Dean was focused on fixing up Grace, and Grace was focused on Dean, cringing a little and closing her eyes when Dean put the ointment on her. Then Sam helped with the guaze and Grace smiled at Dean, both of them locking eye contact as Sam grabbed Grace another shirt out of her duffle.
"Thank you." Grace told him softly, smiling at him fondly.
Dean nodded, not breaking eye contact. "You're welcome."
Sam nodded and smiled as Grace kissed Dean's cheek, and then got up and took her shirt from Sam, going into the bathroom to change after making a swift trip to her duffle. Dean composed himself and put the bloody things into bags to throw away, avoiding eye contact with Sam. He cleared his throat though and Dean threw a look his way, not wanting to get into it because he was simply helping to patch Grace up—he had made a promise to Bobby to keep Grace safe, and he was going to keep that promise.
"You like her." Sam told Dean. "Honestly? I don't blame you."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Stop reading into things, Sammy."
"Do we have any painkillers?" Grace asked, coming out of the bathroom in a tight t-shirt and pajama pants. "I wanna crash, but it still hurts—sorry to whine about it over and over like a girl."
"Whatever, you are a girl." Dean told her chuckling, tossing her a small bottle of pills. "Only take two, and eat something so they don't hurt your delicate, girly tummy, k?"
Grace laughed, catching Dean's impressed look when she caught the pills with ease. "You are just so incredibly funny I'm laughing for pity."
Dean laughed and rolled his eyes, turning to Sam and pulling a face as Sam laughed and shook his head. He hadn't seen Dean like this in a while, but he knew that if Dean was going to protest like this, he really did have some feelings for her. It didn't matter though, because suddenly they weren't alone in the room—Zachariah was there too.
Note: I hope you all enjoyed that! I am having a little too much fun developing Grace, and adding all the tension. More flashbacks soon! Feedback is always appreciated!