The only lights on in the house were those absolutely necessary. It was silent except for the odd creak or groan of an old house settling in its foundations. In the study, the desk lamp shed a pool of light over the piles of books stacked in front of Bobby.

He leaned back with a sigh, reaching up to rub his tired eyes. His watch told him it was long past midnight and he'd been working since dinner. Rolling the kinks out of his neck, Bobby looked around the small room. In the far corner, curled up in an oversized armchair, Mallory snored faintly on each inhale. One hand rested on the book in her lap, fingers spread over the open page. She'd been poring over the Braille book ever since Castiel had brought it back for her two weeks ago, and she was finally starting to get the hang of it, just like she was getting in the hang of everything else.

She could navigate the whole house now by touch and memory, and Bobby was careful not to move anything lest he mess her mental map up. Just this afternoon she had proudly made them both sandwiches, albeit with slightly too much mayonnaise, but Bobby wasn't going to say anything.

He scratched at his beard as he watched her sleep. They made a right pair: the cripple and the blind girl. Castiel had told him what had happened in the bathroom that night, but ever since Mallory had been getting better. He'd been thinking about getting her a seeing-eye dog. Maybe that'd cheer her up a bit more. It'd certainly let her move around outside the house on her own.

The Winchester boys did everything they could when they came through on their way somewhere to stop the Apocalypse. They'd been the ones to bring her the cane that was propped against the side of her chair. It was made of pure iron and the hollow interior stored enough salt to make a panic circle. Mallory, of course, loved it.

She sighed abruptly and shifted, the book tumbling from her lap. Bobby smiled faintly when she curled up tighter into a ball, her head thumping down onto the arm of the chair. He wondered what she was dreaming about.

XxxXxxX

The images came so fast she didn't have time to recognize them all. Sometimes it was fire and blood and darkness. Sometimes it was light and glory and songs. And the voices. Some terrible, some wonderful. Hundreds of languages, always babbling in her ears.

And then, one softly-spoken question, only five words long.

"Will you let me in?"

Mallory smiled in her sleep.

Yes.