"Come On Dean!" Katie begged to her oldest brother, who was too worried about his little sister to listen to reason. "Please, Dean."
He turned around, "No, it's too soon."
"Dean, she's been trapped inside this house for almost too weeks. She's not a baby anymore." Sam tried to put in reasonably.
"Oh, so you want her to get hurt again!" Dean shouted irrationally at Sam.
"You know I don't but she's almost 18 she can come with us if she wants too." Sam said angrily.
"Dean, Please." Katie looked at him tragically with her blue eyes. He studied at her for a long time before looking and away and walking down the hall.
"Get your stuff." He said to her.
"Thank you Dean!" She called after him. She looked at Sam with a goofy grin on her face and he couldn't help but laugh.
"Go pack." He said to her and she turned and ran into her room. She gathered her things as quickly as she could so she would be ready before Dean decided to leave without her. She came out into the hall with her bags packed and found Sam and Dean waiting in the kitchen.
"Ready." She sang with a smile on her face.
Dean gave her a pained look, "Let's go before I change my mind, I'm already regretting it." He walked past her and into the hall picking up her bags on the way. Sam put his arm around her shoulders and they walked outside.
Dean sat in the drivers seat and placed his hands on the wheel. "Where to Sammy?"
"Michigan." sam answered putting on his seat belt. Katie just sat in the back seat quietly a grin on her face.
After they had been driving for while Dean turned his head to look at her, "You're going to be 18 day after tomorrow kid, I don't like it."
Sam laughed, "I don't either. You need to be 5 years old again."
"No thanks" She replied in a amused tone.
The next night they pulled into a motel in Northern Michigan after getting rid of a nasty spirit that hour before. They hadn't decided where to go next so they were planning on staying the next day to research then leave for their next hunt the day after.
Inside the room Katie dove onto the bed and mumbled, "Ugh.. So tired."
Sam and Dean chuckled and got out some of their things placing them on the table and the beds.
"Shower." Katie groaned heading into the bath room with her bag. When she was finished she sat herself cross legged on the bed and watched her brothers chatter about mysterious deaths.
"Come on guys, go to bed. We can find a case tomorrow." Kate said with a smile. They both looked up at her and then Sam got up.
"You're right." Dean said lightly.
Katie jolted awake. She turned her head to the side and the alarm clock next to the bed read 12:00 am. Then she noticed something watching her. She slid her hand slowly under her pillow, her fingers brushing the cold hard metal of her gun. She pulled it out swiftly and looked to the table. A man was watching her emotionlessly. He was wearing a suit in tie covered with a tan trench coat.
"Who the Hell are you?" She breathed aiming the gun at the intruder and trying to shake Dean awake with her other hand.
"They aren't going to wake up." The man said nodded at her attempts to rouse her brother from sleep, "Not yet."
"Who are you?" She asked again.
"Castiel." The man replied.
She breathed out sharply in irritation, "Let me rephrase, what are you?"
He stood up from his seat at the table and looked at her evenly. "I am an angel of the Lord."
She laughed, a short bark of a sound, "Yeah right."
Lighting flashed and two black wings rose as shadows on the walls behind him. Katie stared her mouth wide open in shock.
"Let's pretend I believe you, why are you here?"She asked her gun never leaving it's position aimed at his head.
"I'm here to show you your gift." he said.
"What are you talking about?" She asked her voice wavering.
The man studied her determined expression before answering. "You have angel blood."
Her mind immediately flashed back to the day Yellow Eyes possessed her. Calling her the little angel girl. Was she finally going to get some answers?
"But, why me?" She asked the so called angel.
Castiel looked at her evenly, "God has big plans for you and your brothers."
She scoffed angrily, "Yeah, sure. Just tell me what you want."
"I'm just here to tell you that you're a Shadowhunter." Castiel sighed.
"A What?" Katie asked with a blatantly confused expression.
"Shadowhunter. You have mostly Angel blood in your veins, my blood. Properly trained you will have powers unlike anything you've ever seen." Castiel walked closer and Katie backed up on the bed until she was sitting against the headboard.
"Stay away from me" She warned. Castiel didn't listen to her. She fired the gun and the bullet had no effect on the angel.
He turned her left hand and turned over her wrist. He looked into her eyes and touched two fingers to her wrist with a burning pressure. Her eyes grew heavy and she fell back to sleep.
She blinked open her eyes to sunlight streaming into the room. She gasped as the events from last night cam flooding back to her. She bolted up to a sitting position breathing heavy. She looked in awe at her left wrist where a gold circle was branded into her skin. Runes in different shades of gold floated around the circle shifting constantly. She instinctively knew what each one meant. There was one for remembrance, speed, strength, stealth and others.
"What's wrong?" Dean asked in concern swiftly coming to her side when she jolted upright.
She didn't even answer him she just kept staring at her wrist. He grabbed it and stared at it. "What the hell is this?" Dean he whispered.
Sam chose that moment to come out of the bathroom. he saw Katie and Dean staring at each other and paused. "What's going on?"
Katie blinked and looked over at him in confusion. Dean lifted her wrist and showed it to Sam. "What is that?" he asked her.
"We need to go see Bobby." She whispered. After explaining to them what she remembered from her encounter with Castiel Sam and Dean had agreed to go back to Tennessee to see Bobby.
"Hey Bobby, it's Sam." Sam said into his cell phone. He listened to Bobby's reply for a moment. "Yeah, we're fine. Are you home?"
Bobby said something on the other end and Sam answered, "Good, we should be by in about an hour. We need some answers."
"Alright see you Bobby." Sam snapped his phone shut and nodded at Dean.
Katie sat frustrated in the back seat her arms crossed staring out the window.
Sam sighed, "Tell me again what did Castiel say."
Katie let out her breath in an angry hiss, "I don't know Sam, He said God had big plans for the three of us."
"Did he tell you why?" Dean asked with a scowl.
"No, he didn't." Katie's tone was final.
They walked inside Bobby's house an hour later. "Bobby!" Dean called hanging his jacket on the hook.
"In here!" Bobby yelled from inside his office.
They found Bobby sitting at his desk, his head in a book. He looked up when they walked in and smiled. "There's my girl." He cam around the desk to give her a hug.
"So what do you Winchester's need?" he asked leaned against his desk and crossing his arms.
"information." Katie said and held out her hand. she pulled up her sleeve to show Bobby the swirling mark on her wrist. he stared at it in amazement for a moment.
"I've seen something like that before." Bobby said turning to one of the bookshelves. He scanned the covers until he found the one he was looking for He opened it on the desk and scanned the pages before he paused and put his finger on one. "Here."
The Winchester's looked over his shoulder, "Angels who fall from Heaven in the desire for humanity are born half angel half human. These children are called Shadowhunters. When the child reaches eighteen years of age their angel parent will visit them and mark them will a rune unique to each individual." Bobby read out loud to the siblings.
"So you're saying our sister is half angel?" Dean said angrily.
"Looks like it." Bobby said studying Katie intently. "Hasn't been a Shadowhunter for almost a thousand years. The last one was Robin Hood back in 1192."
"You are joking right?" Sam said with a nervous laugh. Dean was staring at Kate in concern as she sat shakily in one of Bobby's chairs.
"Can't say I am." Bobby laughed. "once she learns how to use her angel gifts she'll be powerful."
"Hang on." KAtie said with a frown. "I remember this book I read once, it was about Shadowhunters."
"Yeah it was a book series." Sam and Dean looked to her in surprise. "Fiction." She added.
"They used all these angel weapons they would make to kill demons." She was talking almost to herself.
Bobby nodded approvingly. "Shadowhunters can kill demons in a lot of different ways one of them happens to be using enchanted weapons."
"Enchanted weapons?" Dean echoed skeptically.
"There's a process they can take a knife and draw some runes on it say some words and presto demon killing knife." Bobby explained.
"In the book the knife were called seraph blades. And they used these things called steles to draw the runes." Katie added helpfully. "But it was just a story."
"Hardly anything is just a story." Sam said grimly. He was right after everything she and her brothers had seen they knew that hardly any of the horror stories weren't based in fact. Monsters were everywhere and there would always be something to go bump in the night. So what did that make her? Did that make her good all of the sudden.
"So what do we do?" Dean asked to no one in particular.
"I need some air." Katie said pushing past her brothers. They heard bobby's back door shut and they sighed.
"Let her think, it's a lot to digest." Bobby said softly.
"What's going o happen to her?" Sam asked quietly. Sam and Dean both looked at Bobby with Paternal concern in their eyes.
"She should be fine. She's a fighter, hell all you Winchesters are fighters. But when she does die she will get her grace back." Bobby looked at them evenly. "She'll become an angel again."
"So the angel that came to her, he'd her real father?" Sam asked.
"She has two families." Bobby said sternly. "You Winchesters are still her family she has Winchester blood, she just has angel blood too."
Katie had climbed up on one of the car stacks and was laying back watching the stars when Dean found her. He climbed up next to her. He didn't say anything he just waited for her to say something.
"What am I Dean?" She whispered shifting over to curl up against his side. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her tight.
"You're my baby sister." He said softly in her ear. "nothing will ever change that."
After they had been silent for awhile Kate spoke again, "Maybe, if I learn to use it, maybe I can save you."
He tensed and sighed, "Don't talk about it Kid."
She pushed herself up so that she was looking at him. "Don't do that Dean." She said in a firm tone. "Don't shut me out."
He closed his eyes, "I can't talk about it."
"Why not?" She asked softly.
"Because if we start talking about it, that makes it real. If we talk about it, it makes me think about how scared I am." Dean said to her looking at her with pleading eyes.
Dean didn't like to talk about how he was feeling he always focused on Sam and Katie and tried to push the focus off of himself.
"I'm sorry." She said thickly. Tears started to fall down her face and she buried it in his shoulder. He held her while she cried. He didn't say anything because he knew nothing would help. She just needed to cry it out. Dean felt her pain and his in that moment and he was close to sobbing with her. A lone tear slid down his face.
When her eyes slowly began to run dry she fell asleep. The mental and physical exhaustion that had plagued her that day had come to an end. The brothers drove home in silence that night their little sister asleep in the backseat.