AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, first of all, I LOVED last Friday's episode! Very awesome! In fact, my brain is already working on spinning the episode into this storyline.

I'd also like to give a shout-out to author Faye Dartmouth and her story 'Just For Kicks' which inspired a small part of this chapter.

Chapter 3

Death Takes A Holiday

There was something about the current case that had Fiona on edge from the beginning.

As both a hunter and a Marine, she was no stranger to death. She'd seen her fellow Marines shot and blown up and had known hunters who'd had their guts ripped out by monsters.

It had started as people simply not dying.

But even with some digging, Dean, Sam, and Fi could find no signs of anything out of the ordinary except for the fact that for the past 10 days, no one had dropped dead in the small town of Greybull, Wyoming.

After doing the preliminary investigations, Fi decided to stay at the motel while Dean and Sam tried to summon the spirit of Cole Griffith, a kid who was apparently the last person to die in town.

Sam's theory was the local reaper was absent for one reason or another, therefore putting a hiatus on people dying.

Hearing her cell phone ring, Fi answered it, hearing Bobby's voice on the other end of the line.

"You want the good news or the bad?" Bobby asked, sounding tired.

"Just tell me what you got, Bobby," Fiona replied, wearily.

"Looks like your local reaper might have been kidnapped," Bobby reported. There was a sound like he was rifling through some papers and then he went on. "There's something in Revelations. basically, you kill a reaper under the solstice moon, you got yourself a broken seal."

"Crap," Fiona grumbled. Broken seals meant Lilith was probably nearby and she and the Winchesters weren't ready for a showdown yet. Although Fiona suddenly wondered if they would ever be ready.

"You said it, kid," Bobby threw in. "Call me if you need help."

"You got it," Fi assured him before hanging up just as the motel door burst open and Sam came in half carrying Dean who looked only semiconscious. "What the hell happened?" she exclaimed, helping Sam get Dean lying down before grabbing an icepack from the small fridge in the room.

"Demons," Sam explained, succinctly, frowning slightly as he watched Fiona take care of Dean. "Alastair showed up. Looks like he's the one behind the reapers taking off."

"It's more like kidnapping," Fiona corrected. Seeing that she had the brothers' attention, she went on. "Bobby called. Looks like the death of a reaper breaks another seal."

"Wonderful," Dean groaned as he sat up. "How long do we have to stop this one, hmm? Couple hours?"

"That's the good news," Fiona said with a derisive smile. "Solstice moon is tomorrow night."

"Great," Sam said with a sarcastic scoff. "So what do we do now? I mean, the only ones who can see reapers are the dead and the dying."

"Well, if ghosts are the only ones who can see them," Dean said, sounding surprisingly casual. "—then we become ghosts."

Crossing her arms and sitting down on the other bed, Fiona was certain that this was the craziest plan they'd ever come up with. But at the same time, there didn't really seem to be much of a choice. "Okay, let's pretend for one millisecond that this isn't the most mental plan in the world." Fixing Dean with a look, she asked, "How exactly are you going to pull this harebrained scheme off?"

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While Dean once again went to retrieve Pamela Barnes to help out, Sam noticed that Fiona was seriously anxious as she paced the motel room.

"You alright?" Sam asked, when Fiona stopped pacing long enough to get a coffee refill.

"No, I'm not alright!" Fi snapped, setting her coffee cup down and turning to glare at Sam. "One, we've got almost no time to stop this seal from breaking. Two, you and Dean are about to do something heavy-crazy. And three… I don't want to die again."

"Again?" Sam asked, frowning slightly. "You mean when we went after those ghosts in Sioux Falls?"

"No, that was just respiratory distress," Fiona replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. Seeing that Sam wanted to know what she was talking about, Fi sat down on the bed with a heavy sigh. "It was a couple years ago in Iraq. I was in Baghdad shooting hoops with some of the men in my unit and I got hit in the chest with the ball."

"And that almost killed you?" Sam asked, astonished. "How?"

Fi shrugged, trying to think of the best way to explain the event. "It was like… the biggest fluke in the world. The ball hit right over my heart right in between beats and it sent me into cardiac arrest. I was technically dead for almost 4 minutes."

Sam couldn't believe that he'd never heard about this before. Fi could have died and instead of dying in the field or in a fight with something supernatural it would have been because of a damn accident during a basketball game! "Okay…" he said, thinking. "Then Dean and I will do it and you can keep Pamela company. No problem."

Fi didn't say anything but she just nodded a silent 'thanks'.

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When Pamela and Dean arrived a few hours later, the blind psychic looked absolutely incredulous as she entered the room. "I can't even begin to tell you how crazy you guys are," Pamela said, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Wow, Pamela," Sam said, trying to be sociable. "You're a sight for sore eyes."

Pamela let out a derisive laugh as she turned in the direction of Sam's voice and lowered her shades, exposing the white, artificial eyes. "Aww, that's sweet, Grumpy. What do you say to deaf people?"

Behind the brothers, Fiona reached up and smacked Sam and Dean hard on the back of the head. "That's for making that remark," Fi explained as Sam turned to her. When she saw Dean rubbing his head and glaring at her, she added, "That was for laughing at Sam."

"Thanks, Fi," Pamela replied, sincerely. It was good to know that at least someone was keeping the boys in line. "So which of you brainiacs came up with astral projection?" she asked, even though she had a sneaking suspicion.

"Yo," Dean said, simply, raising his hand.

"Of course," Pamela muttered. "So let's be clear," she went on, running through the plan. "You want to rip your souls out of your bodies and take a little stroll through the spirit world?" Hearing Dean's confirmation, she asked, "Do you have any idea how heavy-duty insane that is?"

"Maybe," Dean argued. "But that's where the reaper is."

"So it's nuts," Pamela stated, firmly.

"Not if you know what you're doing," Dean insisted.

"You don't know what you're doing," Pamela reiterated. The boys'd had some crazy ideas before, but damn if this didn't completely take the cake.

"Yeah, but you do," Dean replied in a would-be flattering tone.

But Pamela wasn't in the mood for flattery. Hadn't she said last time that the only the thing Winchesters would get from her was a heartfelt 'bite me'? "Yeah, I do," she snapped, angrily. "And you know what? I'm getting tired of being pulled back into your angel-demon-soc-greaser crap!"

"Hey, I'd love to be kicking back with a cold one watching Food Network, too," Dean replied, ignoring the looks from Sam and Fi.

"Nice," Pamela muttered. "More blind jokes?"

"Look, Pamela, I don't want to be in the middle of this, either," Fi threw in. "But we're talking the end of the world here. The end of everything and everyone we care about. We need your help, okay?"

Pamela hated this. She didn't want to be in the middle of this again. This stuff was way over her head and if the Winchesters actually had half a brain, they'd just run for the hills. But they needed her help and against her better judgment, she was involved… again. "Fine," she acquiesced.

x

While Sam, Dean, and Fiona got everything together, Pamela thought of something and said, "Tell me something, geniuses—Even if you break into the veil and find the reaper, how are you going to save it?"

But as much as Dean wanted to rattle off an easy answer to the question, the truth was that he hadn't given it much if any thought. Shrugging, he just said, "With style and class."

But Pamela knew a lack of a real plan when she saw one and she laughed. "You're going to be three walking pieces of fog. Can't touch or move anything. You're going to be defenseless, hotshot."

"The boys are going to be defenseless," Fiona corrected. "I'm sitting this one out."

"Really?" Dean asked, not having heard anything about this.

"Yeah," Sam insisted, his tone and the look on his face making it clear that it wasn't up for discussion. "Really."

After a few more minutes, Pamela had sent Sam and Dean on their way to the spirit world. Going to Sam's bed, she bent down and whispered something in his ear. Standing up, she asked Fiona, "So how come you're the only one with a brain on this?"

Fi shrugged as she sat down next to Sam, unable to keep naughty thoughts out of her mind. "Just… don't feel comfortable being amongst the walking not-quite-dead," she said, vaguely as she felt something in Sam's left jeans pocket. Shifting her position, she sighed and explained, "I had a near-death experience a couple years ago. Cardiac arrest. My unit and I were in Iraq and during some down time, we started a pick-up basketball game."

"Game got that rough?" Pamela asked as she sat down on Dean's bed.

Fi shook her head. "Caught a shot to the chest. Just the right spot at just the right time. Thought I was dead."

Pamela sighed and after a moment, she said, "Look, no offense, Fiona, but what are you doing here? You could leave all this angels-demons-apocalypse behind and have a normal life."

But Fi shook her head. "No, I can't. I'd get dragged back into it one way or another."

"Starting to feel the same way," Pamela muttered, making her way to the miniscule kitchenette. When her foot bumped the cooler on the floor, she asked, "Want a beer?"

"Sure," Fi replied with a nod. After Pamela handed her the bottle, she asked, "So if you don't want any part of this, then what are you doing here?"

"Someone's got to save your asses," the other woman said with a shrug. While the two women sipped their beers, Pamela wondered what Sam and Dean were up to know. Had they found the reaper yet? Maybe this would all be over sooner rather than later. After a while, another question popped into her mind and she asked, "So how did you get into all this, anyway?"

Fiona shrugged as she stood, pacing the room as she checked the salt lines around the room. "I don't know, exactly, to be honest. Mom died in a car crash when I was a kid. Couple years later, one of Dad's Marine buddies got snuffed by a werewolf. For a while, it was just Dad and me. Then John Winchester joined up with us and it just went from there. Now Sam and Dean are as much my family as Dad was."

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This case was getting more and more complicated by the minute, Dean decided as he stood alone in the hallway of Cole Griffith's house with Tessa, a reaper who had come to try and catch up on the recent non-deaths, while Sam was upstairs trying to talk to the kid, Cole.

"You're not the first hunter to get away from me, you know," Tessa said, watching Dean. "I almost took your friend, Fiona, too. It was a month or two after you got away."

Dean stiffened a bit at the news that Tessa had almost reaped Fi, but saving that issue for later, he asked, "Can I tell you something, between you and me?"

"Who am I going to tell?" Tessa replied, wondering what possible secrets Dean would entrust to her alone?

"After our little experience… For that whole year, I felt like I had this hole in my gut," Dean said, wanted to get it off his chest. "Like I was missing something. I didn't know what. But you know what it was? It was you."

Tessa had heard a lot of things from the souls she'd collected, but that was a first for her.

Dean didn't care what Tessa made of his confession as he went on. "The pain of losing my father and Sammy… I just… I wish I had gone with you for good."

Tessa thought about that for a moment and then asked, "What about Fiona?"

Narrowing his eyes at the reaper, Dean asked, "What about her?"

Tessa's smile was sly as she went on. "You can't tell me you haven't been just a little happy about being with her again."

Dean thought about that for a while and finally shook his head. "No," he admitted. "No, I can't say that." Thinking about Fi, he added, "It's just… when I'm around her, part of me feels like I'm her big brother, too. But also…" He felt just a little embarrassed admitting it. "It's like she's the older sibling and when I'm with her I know that she's going to help make everything okay again."

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When night started to fall, Fi made a quick run to a local pizza place to pick up dinner, making sure the salt line at the door was still in place when she got back. "How're the boys?" Fiona asked Pamela who was now sitting on Sam's bed.

"Still out," Pamela reported with a shrug. "It's all quiet here."

Grabbing another couple of beers from the cooler, Fiona asked, "So… What about you? The whole psychic thing… how'd that happen?"

Pamela didn't respond for a moment, but finally, she said, "Just something I had a gift for."

"Yeah, but—" Fiona was cut off when she was suddenly flung across the room, crashing into the dresser along the wall. "Pamela!" Fi shouted in warning as she crumpled to the ground.

Pamela could feel the demon's presence and she could smell the stink of sulfur on him. Quickly, she started to chant the incantation in Sam's ear to bring him back but was interrupted when the demon grabbed her and threw her onto the counter by the sink. Shouting the rest of the incantation, she managed to sit up just as the demon plunged a knife into her gut.

"Pamela!" Sam said, panicked. With a swift wave of his hand, he flung the demon against the wall and without another thought, quickly exorcised the demon before going to Pamela.

"Get her on the bed," Fiona groaned as she managed to get to her feet.

"Don't sweat it," Pamela said with a derisive laugh. "I can't die. Not in this town."

"Yeah, well, let's keep it that way," Fiona said, grabbing the medical kit. Looking at Sam who had just gotten Pamela lying down, she said, "Whiskey."

"Right," Sam confirmed, grabbing the bottle from Dean's bag.

Fiona went to work, quickly, giving Pamela a couple of painkillers and a hefty shot of the whiskey before working on repairing the knife wound.

"How's it looking?" Pamela groaned.

Fiona shrugged, finishing up stitches. "Wake Dean up, then we're getting you to the hospital."

"Better go warm up the car then," Pamela said, sitting up with Sam's help. "Go on. Give me a minute alone with Grumpy, here," she added, trying to sound casual.

Fiona nodded and headed out of the room while Pamela brought Dean back. But before Fi could get to the Impala, she suddenly doubled over in pain, gasping for breath. Her vision swam as she fell to the ground, unconsciousness claiming her as her head it the ground.

x

While Dean supported Pamela as they headed out of the motel, Sam hurried behind them, his mind whirling with what Pamela had whispered in his ear just moments before. "If you think you have good intentions, think again." Pamela knew about Sam's abilities and he was willing to bet that Fiona had seen as well.

"FI!"

Dean's panicked voice quickly brought Sam out of his thoughts and after they had gotten Pamela into the backseat of the car, Dean scoped Fiona up and got her in as well, barely waiting for Sam to get into the passenger seat before tearing out of the parking lot and blasting down the road towards the hospital.

x

Once at the emergency room, Pamela lost consciousness as well and Dean carried her in while Sam got Fiona. Looking at the nearest doctor, Sam said, "We need some help here!"

Dr. Bianca Sheldon hurried over, calling for two gurneys as she asked, "What happened?"

"Our cousin and our friend were mugged," Dean said, quickly, making a mental note to come up with a full cover story as soon as possible.

Once the two women were on gurneys and headed towards the trauma unit, Dean looked at Sam and asked, "What the hell happened, Sammy?"

"I don't know, Dean," Sam replied, honestly. "I woke up and Pamela had been stabbed and Fi was lying on the ground. Demon smoked out and Pamela brought you back after Fi tried to stitch her up."

Dean nodded, rubbing his face with one hand as he paced the waiting room.

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After answering the hospital's questions, filling out forms, and sitting around waiting for a few hours, Sam decided to go back to the motel to pack up their stuff.

Sitting alone in the waiting room, Dean felt the weight of the past day pressing down on him. God, was this jacked. He spent so much time in hospitals and he wasn't sure what was worse: being a patient, or waiting on hearing about his friends and family who had been hurt.

x

It was some hours later when Dr. Sheldon came back up to the brothers, looking a little weary but satisfied. "Your cousin, Pamela, is in recovery right now," she reported. "Your friend, Fiona, probably saved her life."

"And Fi?" Dean asked as he stood, hoping it wasn't bad news.

"Fiona is still in surgery," Sheldon replied, sadly. "Her injuries were much more severe than your cousin's—There's extensive internal bleeding but the surgeons are working on her."

"Will she be okay?" Dean asked again.

Dr. Sheldon could see the anguished look in Dean's eyes and she asked, "The two of you are close?"

"She's like a sister to me," Dean admitted, not even sure of why he was saying this. "But she and my brother, Sam…"

"I've been there before," Bianca Sheldon admitted with an understanding smile. "We're doing everything we can and Fiona's strong, healthy… Her chances are good." Putting a hand on Dean's upper arm, the doctor asked, "Is there anything I can get for you? Coffee?"

Even though he couldn't remember when he'd last taken the time to eat anything, Dean shook his head. "Just let me know when Pamela's awake."

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When Sam got back to the hospital bearing coffee and doughnuts from a nearby bakery the following morning, he found Dean upstairs in the ICU, sitting next to Fiona's bed. "How is she?" Sam asked, handing his brother a cup of black coffee.

"Stable," Dean muttered, wearily. "The docs fixed the internal bleeding but she cracked her head on the pavement in the motel parking lot."

Even though he was dreading the answer, Sam asked, "What about Pamela?"

Dean gave Sam a look and sighed, heavily. "She said, and I quote, "Tell that bastard Bobby Singer to go to Hell for ever introducing me to the two of you in the first place.'"

"Wow," Sam said as he sat on the edge of Fiona's bed. "So what now?"

"I don't know, Sammy," Dean admitted, looking from his brother to Fiona. "I just don't know anymore."

A/N: Next chapter, Ellen and Bobby stay with Fiona while Dean tortures Alastair and Sam and Ruby team up once again.