Chapter 8

I used to read a lot of romances, back when I was young and naïve about the ways of the world. One phrase had always leapt out at me in them, usually at the point that the hero and the heroine were staring at each other, each realising that for all the conflict and the denial they were putting themselves through, they did, in fact, have feelings for each other. It was about time – time slowing down, to be more specific. In real life, I'd never found that time did anything other than speed up when I'd been in the throes of a good crush, or falling in love, or whatever you wanted to call it.

But, at this moment, I had the feeling that time had indeed slowed right down, because it seemed to take hours between pulling in a breath, and letting it out again.

That over-stretched moment, where I could feel his heartbeat and just make out a slight tremble in his eyelashes where they were silhouetted against the light behind us, ended abruptly when he stepped back, tucking the gun under his coat, and looking down at the floor.

"Come on," he said, turning away without looking back at me, long legs striding down the hall and I ran after him, awkwardly and not with the full control of either my senses or my body, wondering what the hell had just happened, or if anything had at all.

The station wagon was still parked outside, but I grabbed his jacket sleeve as he leaned over to open the door, the idea popping into my head full-blown and in Technicolour when I saw the big truck sitting a few yards away.

"Look," I said, gesturing down the block. He straightened, turning to look and a slow grin spread over his face as he caught on without needing another word.

Both big Terminator fans, I guess.

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

"Seatbelt on?" Dean asked me, putting his foot down on the accelerator and revving the crap out of the engine. I nodded and pressed back in the seat as he dropped the clutch and the truck lurched forward, heading straight for the brick front of the police station, the headlights showing the empty waiting room and counter through the plate glass windows, even in the afternoon sunshine.

If you've never been in a car accident, it's hard to describe what it feels like, especially one that's deliberate and involves driving head on into a building. It was loud. And hard on the body. Despite the fact that we were both ready for the impact, and the weight of the truck did most of the damage to the front of the building, Dean taking the nose through the glass doors, not the actual brick wall, I was thrown around like a rag-doll when we broke through and the whiplash was something awful.

"You alright?" he asked, flinging his door open as soon as we'd stopped, the smashed remains of the station's counter around the nose of the truck.

I nodded gingerly, undoing my seatbelt and forcing open the door, grabbing the strap of my leather bag as it I slid out of the cab and hit the floor with shaking knees. I wasn't sure my knees were going to be the same after today. They'd been shaken and stirred from both internal shocks and external ones for the last ten hours.

Dean was already over the pile of timber, formica and broken glass, heading for the now decidedly unlocked interior access door which was hanging in the doorway by one hinge when I clambered around the front of the truck and picked my way cautiously after him.

"Fire in the hole!" I heard his voice roar, and there was a blast in the corridor, smoke and dust pouring out of the broken doorway, followed by the loud retorts of the Colt handgun, several shots fired in quick succession.

"You alright?" I heard him say as I climbed through the doorway and saw the corridor behind it, pieces missing from the walls and three bodies lying in the mess, blood oozing from their chests.

In the cells at the end of the hall, Sam, Bobby and Cas were standing in a loose circle, Bobby shaking his head as he looked up and saw me. I saw his eyes widen suddenly, and with the experience of thousands of hours of watching tv and movies, I dropped to the floor like a pro, Dean spinning around and firing over my head.

"Dean! Wait!" Sam yelled, and I turned my head to see the Sheriff standing behind me, then a small black hole appearing in his stomach as Dean must have shifted his aim.

"Better have a good reason for that," he growled, striding up the corridor as I picked myself up from the floor and slamming the barrel of the gun against the Sheriff's temple.

"Need intel," Bobby said, gesturing to a more-or-less intact door between them. "Sheriff here seems like he might know what's going on."

Forcing the man – monster – along the hall, Dean shoved him into the interrogation room and pushed him down into a chair, handcuffing his hands behind the chair back.

"Well, I'll say this, you're the healthiest looking specimen I've seen all day," Bobby said as he came into the room.

"I take my vitamins," the Sheriff shot back.

"You wanna tell us what's going on here? You boys are, uh, Eve's cleaning crew, is that it?" He walked around the chair, his tone conversational. "You, uh - you come around to clean up the bodies? Make sure the word doesn't get out, huh? Is that why you snatched up the doctor?"

The Sheriff let out a long breath. "You're so wasting your time. Nothing more'n cattle in a feedlot."

Down the hall, there was the sound of something falling, and I stepped back as Sam and Dean both turned sharply toward it, their guns back in their hands, safeties off and hammers cocked in unison.

"Stay here," Dean said, a bit unnecessarily, I thought, since I wasn't armed and wouldn't have walked down there to see what was going on if you'd paid me. Cas didn't even take his eyes off the Sheriff.

Dean came back up the hall a minute later. "Go down, help Sam," he said brusquely, striding past me and dropping to his knees next to a dead deputy.

I walked slowly down the hall, hearing Sam's voice as I turned the corner.

"Look, we're not gonna hurt you. My name is Sam," he was saying and I walked up beside him, looking past him into the cell. Two boys sat there, one older, maybe nine or ten, the other one three or four years younger. They were handcuffed and gagged. On the floor, a bucket lay on its side. The source of the noise, I realised.

"This is Terry, she's with us," Sam continued, glancing over his shoulder as Dean came back, the deputy's keys unlocking the cell door.

"That's my brother, Dean," Sam kept talking, his voice low, reassuring. It never failed to amaze me how he could go from being the most trustworthy and nice guy ever, to being one of the most frightening men I'd ever seen, and back to Mr Nice Guy.

Dean pulled the gags from their mouths, his face stony but his hands gentle with them.

"Those cops, they're not coming back – ever," Sam told them, taking the gags and throwing them into the corner. "What are your names?"

"Joe," the oldest one said softly, looking down at his brother. "This is Ryan."

"Hey Ryan, how you doing?" Dean asked him quietly, sitting on the bunk beside him.

The boy looked down at his feet, moving a little closer to his brother.

"He won't talk, not since they came for us," Joe said, and the worry in his voice made all of us wince a little. Dean looked from Ryan back to Joe.

"Alright, listen Joe. We're gonna get you out of those handcuffs. Um, but you understand what's going on around here, don't you?"

Joe nodded, his eyes widening.

"Right," Dean continued. "So, first we've gotta make sure you're you."

"How can you do that?" he asked, and I got the feeling that the two of them had been living in a nightmare where no one had been themselves all day.

"Well there's a few, uh, dozen tests," Dean hedged as he stood up. "Okay, let's get started."

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

I'm going to blame the fuzziness that had been afflicting my brain function all day, plus the rollercoaster that had occurred just since we'd arrived in Grants Pass for the chronic error of forgetting a vital bit of information that I should've remembered from the minute I laid eyes on the boys.

It's not much of an excuse, but it's all I got. The thing was – is, I guess – that we'd been going on adrenalin for nearly four hours, and the boys looked so normal, and it was such a relief to find survivors that I don't think any of us thought much about it. But of course, it was why Cas had insisted that I come along.

We got to the interrogation room and Dean knocked against the open doorframe, looking at Bobby. "Got a couple of hungry human boys here."

Bobby looked at them for a moment, then nodded, turning back to the Sheriff.

"So you two never heard 'em talk... about a mother, or someone named Eve?" Sam was asking Joe as we walked along the corridor, picking our way through the demolition remains.

"It was just me and Ryan in there," Joe said, shaking his head.

"And your folks?" Dean asked over his shoulder, slowing as he came to the broken door.

"Cops said we were next," Joe told him, swallowing and looking down at the floor. "He said we were food."

The brothers exchanged expressionless looks. "You have any other family?"

"An uncle, in Merritt," Joe said. He started to shake a little and I pulled off my coat, putting it around his shoulders. Sam threw me a grateful look.

"Merritt, what's that, like fifteen miles outside of town?" Dean asked the boy and Joe nodded. "Okay. We'll get you there."

"Dean, can I have a word?" Castiel asked, reaching out to touch a sleeve. Dean stopped, looking at the angel. "We need to find Eve now."

"Yeah. Go. Me and Sam just gotta make a milk run," Dean said, and that's was a line I remembered reading.

"What?" Sam asked me, his forehead wrinkling up. "You remember something?"

"We need your help here," Cas said to Dean, his voice getting deeper and a little louder.

"Hold your water. We'll be back in a few," Dean told him, shrugging him off.

"Dean," Cas tried again, and he looked down the corridor at me. "Dean! Millions of lives are at stakes here, not just two. Stay focussed."

"Are you kidding?" Dean stopped on the other side of the doorway, holding the askew door aside for the boys to go under.

"There's a greater purpose here."

"You know what, I-I'm getting a little sick and tired of the greater purposes, okay? I think what I'd like to do now is save a couple of kids," Dean said coldly, jerking his head at Sam and I. "If you don't mind. We'll catch up."

At that, Cas looked at me and the memory popped back into my head. I don't know if he did it, or something in his face triggered it, but my stomach dropped and my throat closed up and I remembered.

"Dean."

He let out an impatient exhale as he looked at me. "What?"

"He's right," I said, wishing I didn't have to. I got the attention of both brothers. "Those boys, they're not human."

"They passed the tests!" Dean snapped at me. "You saw it."

I nodded. "But because Eve designed a trap," I told him, undoing the buckle on my bag, pulling out the folder. "I think, I'm pretty sure Joe's alright, but the little one …"

"Ryan!" Joe shouted from the other side of the wall and Dean swung around.

"What? What happened?"

"I don't know," Joe said plaintively. "He just took off."

"Crap!" Dean grabbed his shoulder, pushing him back inside the doorway at me. "Sam! C'mon. You stay here with him," he directed the last comment at me and I nodded, bundling the folder back into the bag as I put an arm around Joe. Cas looked at me and then at the bag, his face thoughtful.

"What's that?" he asked.

I looked up at him, wondering what the hell was going on. "You knew I'd know about them. How?"

"You know a lot of things you probably shouldn't know," he said, the dark blue eyes narrowing slightly. "But you're not a seer, nor a prophet."

"Of course not, I'm a script girl!" I told him bitterly, pushing Joe past him and up the hall to the next room.

"A script girl?"

The gunshot was very loud and not far and I pulled Joe close, wrapping my arms around him as he realised what it had meant.

"No, not Ryan?"

He looked over my shoulder as Sam and Dean came back through the doorway, seeing their faces, shuddering deeply.

"Sam, can you hotwire a car for me?" I asked Sam, turning slightly to look at him over Joe's head.

"Why?" Dean snapped at me, his temper threadbare. He'd been the one who'd pulled the trigger, I guessed.

"I can take Joe to his uncle's," I said, feeling a patch of wetness against my shoulder as Joe's tears started to leak out. "You can get on with taking her down."

Sam nodded. "Okay, come on."

He turned back and I followed him, walking past the angel. Dean's hand flicked out to grab my arm as I passed him.

"No stops, just straight there and straight back," he said, his voice hard. He pulled a handgun from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. "It's loaded with silver. Don't blow your head off."

It wasn't his Colt, but I'd seen it on the show a few times, a black Beretta 9mm, smaller and lighter than the big automatic he and Sam carried. I put it in my bag and nodded, walking past him. I had no idea of how to fire a gun. I hoped I wouldn't be tested with it today.

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

I found Bobby and Cas watching the diner forty minutes later. Joe hadn't turned on me, his uncle and aunt in Merritt had been shocked by what we'd told them, but relieved that Joe was alright, and I'd stopped for gas on the way out of town, thinking that running out would be about the last straw so far as I was concerned today.

I pulled over next to them and let the engine die, getting out and looking at Bobby.

"What's happening?"

"Boys went in five minutes ago," Bobby growled, his gaze glued to the light-edged closed blinds of the diner's windows. "We don't know more'n that."

The streetlights went out pretty much as he finished speaking and I could hear the pounding of boots on the pavement a second later.

"Down!" Bobby yelled and the shotgun went off, booming shot after shot, interspersed with the mechanical clank of the slide. I was flat on the sidewalk, staring at the weird strobing images of monsters flying backwards, more coming, lit up in seconds of the firing and fading to black again.

"Drop them and we won't hurt you," a voice shouted from the darkness. "Our orders are to take you in unharmed."

"Pig's eye, your orders," Bobby yelled, jerking the slide again and rewarded only by an empty click. "Balls!"

"Get up." I felt a hand close around my arm and I was yanked unceremoniously onto my feet and pushed toward the kerb, catching a glimpse of Bobby and Cas following, flanked to either side by more of the townsfolk who'd been turned. Or poisoned. Or infected. I couldn't work out what to call it really.

The man holding me pushed the door open and the bell jingled cheerfully above it. I squinted in the bright light, looking around. Sam and Dean were sitting at the counter, and I admit that my breath caught in my throat as I recognised Mary Winchester standing next to them. Eve, I thought. What a bitch to use Mary's face and body. The place was full, dead-eyed, slack-faced monsters now, sitting in the booths and standing along the counter, covering every exit. I heard Bobby's soft mutter beside me.

"Well, so much for your plan B," Eve said to the Winchesters, then turned to Cas. "And you, wondering why so flaccid? I'm older than you, Castiel. I know what makes angels tick. Long as I'm around, consider yourself unplugged."

She looked back at Dean, mouth curving up in a smile. "Work for me. It's a good deal. Bonus, I won't kill your friends."

Dean was leaning on the counter, and he turned his head to look at her, his expression pure enough-with-the-bullcrap, a bit impatient as if he'd enough of monsters for one night. "Alright, look. The last few months we've been working for an evil dick. We're not about to sign up for an evil bitch. We don't work with demons. We don't work with monsters. And if that means you gotta kill us, then kill us!"

"Or, I turn you. And you do what I want anyway," Eve said softly, walking closer to him. I could see Sam's shoulders tightening as he prepared to move fast. I thought Bobby was tensing up beside me as well.

Dean looked away from her, staring at the board behind the counter. "Beat me with a wire hanger, answer's still no."

I froze. Next to Dean, Sam got to his feet, and the two monsters behind him gripped his arms and held him back.

This was it, I thought suddenly. It wasn't written down in the script but someone back home had seen it, seen it play out like this. Eve moved behind Dean, putting her hands on his shoulders and leaning against him, her cheek along his neck.

"Don't test me," she said quietly against his ear.

"Bite me."

And she did. Her hand pulled at the collar of his coat and shirt, and long fangs dropped in her mouth as she bit deeply into the side of his neck.

"No!" Sam shouted, struggling to get free.

"Dean!" Castiel called out at the same time, the monsters behind him dragging him back.

Eve released him, her eyes a bit unfocussed as she staggered back, coughing.

"Phoenix ash," Dean said in explanation, half-turning on the seat, his expression unsmiling but still satisfied as hell, his hand pressed hard against the wound in his neck

Something dark and liquid dripped from her mouth as she stared at him, then I could see her ribs, lit up from inside as a light burned, stronger and stronger. Dean backed into Sam and the monsters holding his brother and watched her.

"One shell, one ounce of whisky. Down the hatch. Little musty on the afterburn," he said, smiling now, except in his eyes. They were cold. And hard.

"Call you later, Mom."

Mary bent over double, holding her stomach and then she disappeared and the waitress who might once have been called Angela was there instead. I couldn't help but wonder how the heck the special effects people were going to manage this, her veins were black, lifting against the skin of her face and chest and arms and she coughed again, black liquid spilling out of her mouth and nose. I couldn't see Dean's face, but I saw him hunch down, as if in pain, and I thought of the monsters in the bar, with fangs and spikes and the mottled skin of ghouls. He was being turned by the poison she'd given him, even as she'd drunk the poison he'd had inside.

Eve fell to the floor, her eyes open and staring at nothing, the greenish-black liquid covering her face and the light inside her still burning. Cas wrenched free of the arms holding him, looking from Bobby to Dean.

"Shut your eyes!" he shouted and I shut mine, screwing them up tight and dropping to my knees as a blast of light brighter than the sun filled the diner.

When my eyelids went dark again, I opened one eye and looked around. Every monster in the place was dead. Sam, Bobby and Cas were standing, looking at them. I opened the other eye and got to my feet.

"We got to take you on more monster hunts," Bobby said.

"Hey Cas, um, Dean's bleeding pretty good," Sam said to the angel, gesturing at his brother who was leaning against the counter, his face scrunched up with pain.

"Yeah, I think she turned me into one of Terry's hybrid monsters," he said, half-smiling at the thought. "Could you clear that up too?"

Castiel walked past Eve and touched him lightly and he lowered the bandana he'd been holding against the hole in his neck, looking at it. There was no hole. No blood, not even on the cloth or on his hand.

"Alright, we're good."

Bobby looked at me. "Some goddamned back up plan."

Dean's gaze rested on me for a second, then he grinned at Bobby. "Hey, it worked, didn't it?"

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

Bobby's living room never looked so good as it did in the moment that Cas deposited us back there. I walked to the sofa and just collapsed on it, looking around with a sense of peace that I don't think I'd ever felt for a place. I didn't look too closely at the word that sprang into my mind, but I felt it.

"So what do you think?" Sam said, looking at Dean. "You think she was telling the truth?"

Dean licked his lips, looking away. "Hard to believe."

"The truth about what?" Cas looked from Sam to Dean, frowning. "Did I miss something else?"

"Eve said that Crowley's still kicking," Dean said, rubbing a hand along his jaw and down the side of the neck, as if he could still feel the bite.

Cas looked at him in bewilderment. "But - I burned his bones, how c-? Was she certain?"

"Sounded pretty sure," he said, glancing at his brother. "According to her, Crowley's still waterboarding her kids, somewhere."

"I don't understand."

I kept my gaze firmly locked on the bag on my lap, willing no one there to notice me. This was it too, I thought. This was where Dean was going to have to face the things he really didn't want to.

"Well, he is a crafty son of a bitch," he said, shrugging slightly.

"I'm an angel. I'll look into it immediately," Cas said, his expression becoming determined. There was the faint sound of beating wings and he was gone.

Dean looked over at me. "Don't pretend you didn't hear that, Dorothy, he sounded like he had no idea of what we were talking about."

I looked at him, hoping my face was expressionless. Everything else had happened, the way the scripts had said. Well, mostly.

"Fact is, Dean, he's an angel. And angels don't make mistakes like that, unless…" Bobby let the words trail away.

"Unless what?" Dean asked him tightly.

"Unless they want to," Sam said. "You just killed Eve, the Mother of All, because Terry had the solution in that folder, in those scripts. You're not telling me that you think this is off, now?"

Dean looked at me again, and I looked down at the leather folder on my lap.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked, getting up and going to the door. I nodded, getting up, still holding onto the folder.

"Don't need that," he said shortly, his eyes on the folder. "Just want to ask you about something."

"Dean," Sam said, his voice soft and questioning.

"Not in the mood for sharing, Sammy," Dean said brightly, standing back as I walked past him. "Kind of a private matter," he added, his mouth curling up on one side.

He turned around and gestured to the stairs, and I walked up them in front of them, wondering if he wanted to ask about another event in his life. To be honest, I didn't mind recounting the events I'd seen on the show, but I was nervous about his reactions, because sooner or later he was going to ask about something really painful, and I wasn't sure I could watch that.

"Your room," he said, and I kept walking down the hall, opening the door and going in.

"What?" I stopped by the bed and turned around.

"Did Cas want you along because you knew about those kids?" he asked, and that took me by surprise.

"I think so," I told him, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"How'd he know that you'd back him up on that?" He walked past me to lean against the chest of drawers.

"I don't know," I said. "I honestly don't. I asked him about it, but then I had to take Joe to his family and there was no time when I got back."

"Was he alright? The kid?"

"No," I said, exhaling sharply. "His family were nice. They'll look after him."

"How come you didn't remember about the boys?" Dean asked, his eyes shadowed.

I gestured helplessly. "The painkillers I took last night knocked me around most of the day," I said, looking down at my hands which were folded together in my lap. "I wasn't functioning at my best. I'm sorry, I know that sounds like the world's lamest excuse but I - I just didn't remember until it was happening."

I looked up then, seeing him watching me, his face stony. He nodded after a moment and rubbed his hand along the dark line of his jaw.

"But you're a hundred percent sure Cas is doing business with Crowley?"

"Yes," I said, looking back up at him. "That I'm a hundred percent sure about."

He slouched back a bit more against the chest, arms folded over his chest as he looked down at the floor.

"When Sam started having visions," he said, slowly, not looking up. "He saw our old house, in Lawrence."

I nodded, wondering what part of that episode he was going to ask about. I loved it, and I'd watched it a lot of times. It was the first time Dean really showed his vulnerability. And it was very reminiscent of Poltergeist, with Missouri's matter-of-fact psychic explanations.

"We stopped at a gas station, on the way," he continued, and his head lifted to look at me. "Do you know what I did there?"

"You told Sam you were going to the bathroom and you called your father," I answered promptly. "He didn't pick up and you had to leave a message."

He exhaled heavily, looking down again, the slump of his shoulders telling me he'd really hoped I wouldn't know that.

"I'm…sorry I know this stuff about you," I said tentatively, not sure of why I was apologising, exactly. I'd thought it was just fiction when I'd watched it. Absorbing, addictive, heart-aching fiction.

He looked up and then away, shrugging. "Not your fault, you didn't know it was real."

"I didn't know what the hell I was doing, back then," he said quietly. "Still don't. Doesn't seem to matter what we do – or don't do – we get forced into these corners and everything goes to hell, people die."

I wasn't sure of what I could say to that.

"Uh, Terry," he said, and I looked at him, a bit surprised by the ill-ease I could see in his expression.

"What?"

"About, uh, what happened, before," he said, his shoulders hunching up a bit now. "Sam, um, Sam's still got…uh…well, Cas didn't remove any of his memories from when you and he were, uh, you know, and…um…"

I had even less idea of what I could say in answer to the rambling he was doing. My pulse had accelerated at the thought that he'd felt – if not the same thing – then something, at least – in that moment in the back hallway of the bar. It'd gotten even faster at the thought that he was trying to…what?...apologise?...explain?...for why he wasn't going to do anything further about it? I didn't know and I didn't want to know, to be honest. Like I said, it would've been a good day to have not left the comfort and safety of my bed.

"Sure," I said quickly, trying to stop him from saying anything else. "Right. Of course."

I didn't really know what I was saying, or even what he was trying to say but it seemed to satisfy him. More-or-less. He opened his mouth to say something else and closed it again, and I felt a wave of pure relief wash through me.

"Well, I guess we should see what Bobby's rustled up for dinner," he said instead, pushing himself off my bureau and heading for the door, slowing as he realised I was still sitting there. "You coming?"

"Uh, I'm not really that hungry," I said. "I'll just crash early tonight."

"Okay," he said, going out and closing the door behind him.

I was starving, but I couldn't go downstairs and act normal now. Focus on what's important, I told myself firmly. Eve might be dead but Crowley was still looking for a way into Purgatory. I realised I'd left the folder down in the living room and grimaced. I wasn't that tired either, but my whole body was a mass of aches and pains, from the top of my head to the back of my heels and going through the next script would've helped a bit with taking my mind off that.

Hot bath, I thought. It would take up time, get rid of a lot of the aches and maybe I could sneak downstairs later and grab the folder. I got up and went to the bathroom, turning on the taps and running the hot water.

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

The bath had helped and the three men were sitting in the dining room, talking, when I snuck down the stairs just after midnight to get the folder. It was still sitting on the sofa where I'd left it, and I managed to get it and my bag and get back up the stairs without any of them being the wiser.

The Man Who Would Be King was the title of the next episode, and it was a mostly Cas viewpoint episode. The prologue had been written out, pretty much in full, detailing Cas' time as invisible watcher over humanity from before life had crawled out of the sea to the present day – or at least till he'd been ordered to save the soul of Dean Winchester from Hell.

Dean had read it through, and I had a feeling that on a second reading, he'd be more inclined to believe the angel's memories of leaving him in Cicero and making a deal with Crowley instead of asking for help. It was still going to hurt like heck.

The script's detail stopped after the prologue. Dean, Sam and Bobby are trying to find Crowley's headquarters without alerting Cas and they're hunting demons who are possessing hunters. And Cas is spying on them while they do it. What might help were the Enochian warding symbols. I tried to remember if Cas had shown them how to hide from angel view in the episodes or seasons before and I slapped my forehead when I realised that they should've been completely warded – unless Cas' healing of Dean and his retrieval of Sam's body from Hell had wiped the markings from their ribs. But there was a record of it anyway.

I pushed the covers aside and pulled my robe over my pajamas, stuffing the notes and scripts back into the folder and tucking it under my arm. If he'd kept the x-rays, I thought, opening the door and hurrying out into the hall, we'd have the ideal way to keep the angel from spying.

The house was dark, but there was a golden glow from the living room as I came to the top of the stairs and I hurried down, hand sliding down the banister rail to keep myself from tripping on the edge of the robe. It'd been a really long day and I didn't want to wake anyone who was sleeping.

It was Sam who was up, and he looked at me as I came into the room, forehead creasing up in that all-too familiar quizzical look.

"Dean said you went to bed hours ago," he said, as I came into the room.

"I did," I told him, sitting on the sofa and dumping the folder there. "I just couldn't sleep."

"What's going on?"

"In season–uh, last year, when Bobby was in the hospital and Cas lost his power, Dean had x-rays of the markings Cas put on your ribs," I said. He nodded, remembering it, his mouth curving up a bit at the fact that I did too. "Do you know where they are? Did he keep them?"

"I think they're in the car," Sam said, frowning as he tried to remember. "Pretty sure they're in the car."

"Do you have the keys?"

He snorted. "Are you kidding? No, he's got 'em."

Of course. "Never mind, it'll be okay in the morning," I said, half to myself.

"Why do you want them?" he asked.

"Those markings are wards against angels being able to see you," I reminded him and his eyes widened as he followed that train of thought to its conclusion.

"We can protect ourselves," he said softly, smiling. "Nice job."

I looked down, shrugging modestly. "I was reading over the next script. Cas is definitely spying on you from here on in," I said. "Most of the time, you'll probably have to live with that, but I thought, maybe if we could make the wards like he did, you could protected for part of the time, without arousing his suspicion."

"You know us pretty well," he said, looking at me intently. "Pretty damned well."

"I sometimes wish I didn't," I told him honestly. "It feels like I've been spying on you."

"That wasn't your fault," he said, his voice softening. "It's not like you put video cameras in our house."

I shrugged. "It might as well have been like that." I pulled in a deep breath.

"You saw me with Ruby, didn't you?" he asked, his gaze dropping to the desk he sat behind. "Saw me drinking the blood, killing that nurse...killing Lilith?"

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~