We went through every inch of the compound, and I cast out my consciousness to scour it myself, but Ketch wasn't there. Ketch wasn't FUCKING THERE. We left, and I couldn't help but be angry as hell. Ketch was supposed to be here. Ketch was mine. I was gonna fucking destroy him.
But he wasn't here.
He wasn't…
I turned to Sam, panicking suddenly. "Where's Dean?"
"Back at Jody's with mom." Sam had explained what went down with their mom on their end as we went. It was… It was insane. But if they had her, then I could take the time to figure out a plan and try something that wouldn't absolutely destroy her mind.
"We need to go, NOW." I said. "Ketch isn't here."
"He's not here?" Sam's eyes widened when he realized the gravity of what I was talking about. "Let's go."
I followed behind him in my car, wanting to just teleport there but at the same time I hadn't been to Jody's before, I couldn't teleport.
We made good time getting there, but when we got to Jody's house… It was empty. No Dean. No Mary. No Lady Bevell. No bloodstains, even.
And no Impala. I looked over at Sam, concerned. There was only one place left for them to be. "The Bunker." I said.
"That's at least seven or eight hours."
"Not with me." I grabbed Sam's arm, focusing hard. I couldn't get us directly to the Bunker, but I could get us close. Someone had put a magic dampener on the inside of the place, and it was affecting the wardings. I could get us right outside the door.
Dean's impala was in front, as was another car that neither of us recognized. It had to have been Ketch's. "No." I muttered, stalking towards the door. It was unlocked, and opened with ease. "No. NO no no." Sam ran in front of me, and I followed, fearing the worst. We made our way through quietly, weapons drawn. We found one body under a white sheet. I checked it out, fearing the worst, while Sam kept watch. It was Lady Bevell. Her throat had been slit.
"Rest in peace, bitch." I muttered, lowering the cover over her. I shook my head at Sam, and motioned for us to keep moving. I followed his lead until we heard voices.
Good voices.
"I was trying to make things right. Just from a distance, because... being here with you was too hard. Seeing what I'd done to you and to Sam, I..." Mary's voice. Her normal voice. Sam and I sped up our pace. She was talking about someone and Sam. There was only one other person she could be talking about, much less to.
"Mom, what you did, the deal...everything that's happened since has made us who we are." Dean's voice. We sped up even more, still silent but almost running now. They could be alive. They could be fine. "And who we are? We kick ass. We save the world!"
"I'm scared." We heard Mary admit. We were almost with them, now; almost to the room we could hear their voices coming from. "What... What if he can't forgive me?"
Sam rounded the corner before I did, and stopped in his tracks. I followed suit, standing behind him as I saw…
Dean.
Dean and Mary.
And another white sheet on the ground, covering a body. I didn't bother to check. I had a feeling I knew who it was.
Sam walked in to the room first, his steps finally making noise. "Mom," Mary turned automatically, and I could see Dean's attention had been caught as well. Sam sounded… like he was about to cry.
I didn't think I'd ever heard that kind of tone in his voice before.
"You don't have to be scared of me." He assured her. In a second, he rushed towards Mary, wrapping his arms around her in an embrace. Dean limped over as well, and I could see a basic splint set up on his leg. I could fix that. I could do that for him. Dean clapped a hand on Sam's shoulder, smiling happily at his brother.
"Glad you're back, man." He commented. I hung back, deciding to not to intrude. This was a family moment for them. Mine…
I pushed that thought away. They were alive. That was what mattered. They were all alive.
"Kylie?" Sam broke away for a second, and I looked up in to his eyes. Everyone else was looking at me too. "What're you doing over there?"
"I… I… Umm…" Dean motioned for me to join them, looking at me as though I was an idiot. "I…"
"Get over here." Mary encouraged. "You're a part of this family too."
I paused for maybe a second before I joined them, holding back every tear I could. It felt… God, I can't even describe it. I… I'd thought that I wasn't their family anymore. I'd thought for so long that they didn't want me in their family because of… because of the witchy thing.
But here they were, arms outstretched and around me as tightly as any other family, when they knew everything. They knew what I could do. They knew what… knew who I was.
And I was a part of their family, to them.
I held on tight in that hug, and a thought hit me. This was the first time that… That they'd actually called me family. This was the first time in a long, long time.
Once we all pulled away, I took a second to wipe my eyes quietly. Nobody said anything about it. I wasn't quite the only one that had some tears. "So, what'd you do to your leg?" I asked, getting my voice under control as quickly as I could as I motioned to Dean's splint.
"Grenade launcher in one of the back rooms." He explained.
"You… You…" I shook my head. "Nope. Nope nope nope, I am drawing the line. Too much shit to deal with, so I am just gonna draw the line right there." I reached over to put my hand on his shoulder, and pushed just a little bit with my power. It was harder with the dampener up, but not so hard as to make it impossible.
In a matter of seconds, his leg was healed. I smiled, shrugging a little. "Sorry I wasn't here to help you with that sooner."
"Don't worry, we… We didn't think you would be around for it in the first place."
"Yeah, Sam told me." I nodded. "They told me the same thing for you guys, more or less." I looked around. "I'm gonna need to take down this dampener later, by the way. I don't like how it feels."
"Yeah, yeah, by all means." Sam encouraged. "Mind if we swap stories first? There's things we need to tell you, and I think… I think there are some things you need to tell us too."
"Yeah, I got you." I nodded. "You guys wanna sit down. I know I've got a long story, and I think you all do too."
So we sat around the BAMT, and talked about the end of the world and the mess that the Men of Letters created and Castiel being gone. So many good Hunters that could've been useful in this fight were gone. Lucifer was free and walking the Earth. Crowley was gone. And Cas…
Cas was with Kelly? Cas was… protecting Kelly? Helping her have the child? On one hand, I wanted to smile. He listened. He remembered. He cared. But at the same time, he was gone. Dean and Sam's plan wasn't a bad one, it would've worked. But why not let them go through with it?
I was worried, but I reached for the rock again. He was alive. I knew he was alive. And that was comforting.
"So…" Dean took a sip of his beer when it was all said and done. "Okay, let me just get this straight. We beat the Brits, we kicked their psycho, tea-swilling asses, and instead of popping champagne and heading to Vegas, we get Lucifer."
"And you're sure it's him?"
"Yeah." I shuddered a little. "He… You don't forget that energy when it's there. You don't forget how it feels to have it put to use against you. There's just… There's no mistaking him."
"That's his old vessel, too." Sam added. "The one he wore when all of this originally went down."
"How is that even possible?" Mary asked.
"It was a spell." I explained. "One that preserved his old vessel very, very well. Crowley did it."
"And now he's dead." Mary concluded. I nodded.
"More than likely. It…" I could still see everything. "I can't imagine a scenario where he made it out of there alive, and I've tried."
"Yeah, well, I'll believe he's gone when I see the body and burn it." Dean replied. I shook my head.
"Dean… He protected me, OK?" I pointed out.
"He shacked up with Hess and the rest of those damned assholes." He said.
"He didn't tell them I was there. He could've sold me out at any point and didn't."
"He still kept Lucifer on the board." Dean argued. "He made that choice on his own. He was just stupid enough to do that, and just smart enough to keep you alive."
"Putting that all aside," Sam tried. "Do we even need Crowley? We have you," he motioned to me. "And we have Rowena."
"She won't fight." I stated.
"What do you mean, she won't fight?" Dean asked.
"Where do you think I went after Lucifer made his escape?" I asked. "Rowena was the best option. She helped me get set up but in terms of actually fighting this fight…" I shook my head. "She's done. She's tired."
"But she can slam Lucifer back in the cage." Sam said. "We've got to at least try and call. Where is she?"
"Reno." Sam was already dialing her number as I answered. "She won't go for it." I repeated. "She's done. She's out. She doesn't want to fight anymore."
Sam kept the phone to his ear, and listened for a few seconds before he went completely still.
"What?" Dean asked, seeing the same change I was. "What is it?" Sam put the phone on speaker, holding it for all of us to hear.
"Oh, if you're looking for Rowena, she is presently indisposed." I stopped, taking a gulping breath. Rowena… She was gone. Lucifer was there. He was on the phone. He… "Which is a delicate way of saying, I stomped on her face till the white meat showed, and then set her on fire, just in case. Ah. Gingers. It was messy and... screamy, but it had to be done, Sam." He sounded so nonchalant as he explained everything. I wanted to teleport there, to check on her, but I knew who I'd really be seeing. "I'm about to be a dad. Can't raise the little nipper from a jail cell now, can I? Speaking of... you know where your little pal Castiel is?"
"You leave him alone, you bastard!" I shouted, gritting my teeth with it.
"Kylie?" He sounded curious. "Is that you? What's happening? Glad to hear you're not off in a hole somewhere, hiding from the rest of the world like you always do."
"Go to hell." I spat.
"Ooh! Good one. Witty. I'll use that in the future." I furrowed my brows, absolutely furious right now. "All right, well, I'd love to chat with ya, but, uh, why waste my time, right? It's not like you matter. I don't need to put on the old Sam suit anymore, much less the Cas one, do I?"
"You know, if you think we're just gonna let you walk," Dean tried to speak, but Lucifer cut him off.
"Oh, hey, Dean!" He sounded just as curious and cheery as when I'd spoke. "I know you fellas are gonna try, you know, whatever. But you can't kill me. You've never been able to kill me. And with, uh, one witch bitch gone, only one other left that I'm pretty certain can't put me back in the Cage," Sam cast a glance over at me, and I didn't say a word. I would need time to actually look at the Cage wardings and the magic surrounding it. Without that time… I couldn't do it. I couldn't just throw him in the pit like Rowena could. "So like I said... you all don't matter. Okay? Buh-bye. Buh-bye."
The line went dead, and I could feel my nails digging in to my palms. "I really hate him." I muttered. "If he doesn't think he can die he's got another thing coming. I still kind of remember what Amara did to lock him up. I bet if I put a little effort in to it, I could give him a new cage."
"And how long would that take?" Dean asked. I felt a little of the fire go out of me at that.
"Time." I replied. "Time that we probably don't have."
"Then Lucifer is right." He said. "We can't kill him and we can't slam his ass back in to the cage."
"But Kylie can do something." Sam said. "You just need time, right?"
"Time and him." I replied. "But, yes."
"So maybe we play for time." Sam offered. "Find Cas and Kelly, keep them moving. If Lucifer can't find them, he can't hurt them."
"You think Castiel is gonna go along with that?" Mary asked.
"You think we'll give him a choice?" Dean replied.
"He will." I assured them. "I know he will. He… He's not stupid. Once he knows, he'll do it."
"And the baby?" Mary asked.
"Hopefully, we can still siphon off its grace. If not, uh... we'll figure something else out." Sam said.
"We better." Dean agreed.
"Let me do some research." I offered. "I might be able to find a few things out that we could use, both against Lucifer and for Kelly's kid."
"All right, then." Mary smiled a little, oddly enough. "Kind of always wanted to punch the Devil in the face." I smiled with her. The image she was painting was a fun one. "So how d we find them?"
"Cas isn't answer his phone." I said. "I… I tried. I can do some tracking, perhaps. Make an attempt. It'll depend on how well they're warded."
"Well,we know Kelly's gonna have that kid soon. Like, really soon." Sam pointed out. "And according to the lore, whenever a nephilim is born, there are signs. Uh, storms, outbreaks of disease, uh, plague of locusts."
"Blood rivers?" I asked.
"Probably." Sam nodded.
"Things get Biblical." Dean concluded.
"Exactly. That much power into the world, whenever and wherever it happens, things get weird." Even as Sam said it, though, the explanation felt a little loose, and I could tell Mary was thinking the same thing.
"So we're looking for something...weird." She stated.
"Yeah. Story of our lives." Dean commented. I scrubbed my face with my hands. This was looking like a huge mountain again, and I couldn't let that be a thing.
"One thing at a time." I said, raising my hands. "Let me take down that dampener, and I can start running spells to try and find Cas or Lucifer and just do stuff, in general."
"We'll start running research on what kinds of weird are showing up." Sam added.
"Great. I'll help you with the dampener." Dean told me. I offered him a curious look for a moment, but I didn't say no. Dean followed me upstairs and through a maintenance side door. I kept a hand up and out, focusing on where the dampener was coming from. Had to be the maintenance route.
Along the way, I saw some debris from what looked like an explosion. Dean looked at it all proudly.
"That was me." He said, nodding happily. I just shook my head.
"I'll fix that when the dampener is gone." I decided, and kept moving forwards.
"So," Dean thought for a minute. "Are you OK?'
"What do you mean?"
"I think it's safe to say that you've been through some serious shit. We all have. The only difference is that you… you found a home within it, and you just had to literally burn it all to the ground. I just wanted to touch base with you, make sure you're doing alright."
"I'm not the same girl I was, what… Five years ago?"
"Almost." Dean smiled a little at that, and we came to a warding that was glowing a strange orange color. I put a hand to it, getting a feel for what was up. "You're really not the same person at all, are you?" He asked. I smiled. All I had to do was break the seal and it would be no worries.
"You got a knife?" I asked. He handed me one without a second's thought, and I got to work at chipping the paint away in a few different sections. "No, I don't think so." I answered. "I think too much has happened for that to really be an option." I didn't know which question I was answering though; whether or not I was OK or whether or not I was the same person. I figured the answer applied to both questions, though.
"So… What are you going to do?" We started moving again, continuing forwards. There were more wardings, at least two. I could feel them.
"Probably finish taking down the dampeners, do my research, look for Cas and Kelly…" I did my best to make it sound nonchalant about it. "Hopefully figure out a way to stop Lucifer. Didn't we literally just talk about all of this?"
"That's not what I mean." He said. "What are you going to do after everything?"
"Is there even going to be an after?" I asked. We came up to the second warding quickly, and I got to work. "I mean, think about it. This is Lucifer. We got rid of the American chapter of the Men of Letters, sure. I doubt they'll be coming back, I won't let them. But this guy… Our attempt to throw him back in the cage was a mix of luck and Men of Letters tech, but after Crowley…" I didn't even say the rest of the words. I just shook my head a little and kept scratching away. "And anything I can do would take a lot of time that I don't think we have, in all honesty." I finished, and looked over at him. "If there's an after, it's either one that's gonna kill us or make us wish we were dead."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do." I said. "And you do too. You're just putting on a brave face because you still see me as the girl you first met that needed everything to be OK, and needed to know that things would work out in the end. Thank you for that, I honestly can't thank you enough for trying, but…" I looked over at him, uncertain of what else exactly to say. "What's left?"
"So are you going to give up?"
"No." I shook my head. "Hell no."
"Why keep trying if you think that there isn't a future?"
"Because I can't stop." I replied. "If I stop, then… Then I think I'll forget how to start again." I kept going, looking for the final warding. After a second, Dean followed.
"So you keep going." He concluded. I nodded.
"I keep going." And that was exactly what I did. Dean and I moved forwards quietly, his questions gone as we searched for the final warding. They hadn't been spaced too far apart, this must've been a rushed job. Well done rush, but still a rush.
He didn't say anything again until we came to the final warding, and I got to work at scratching away different parts.
"Hey Kylie?"
"Yeah, Dean?"
"For what it's worth, even though we've all put you through a bigger mountain of hell than you ever deserved… I'm still glad you're a part of our family." I stopped then, turning to look over at him. "One of my biggest regrets is making you feel like you weren't, but I'm glad you're here with us, and I'm proud to call you family."
"Thank you." I nodded, uncertain of what else to do, and finished chipping off the wardings. "I… I'm glad you're my family too. I don't think that I could keep going like I am without you guys here."
"We're all in this together, kiddo." He assured me. I finished scratching it all off, and could physically feel the dampener disappear. I smiled a little, rolling my shoulders.
"That feels a lot better." I commented, looking over at him. "Can you feel it?"
"No." He shook his head.
"Fair enough." We made our way back to the door we came in from, neither of us particularly feeling good or bad. It was one problem out of the way, definitely, but the others…
We just had to keep going, keep moving, and not stop.
