"Sammy?"
"Hey." Grace watched as he pieced together one of the old hand guns,
"How long have you been up?"
"I don't know." She frowned, stepping further into the small room. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Are you sure? You haven't left the bunker in a few days…" Sam sighed, he sounded annoyed,
"I'm fine, Grace." She frowned,
"Well, Dean thinks he might have found a case…the mans name is Harold Miller, 65. A resident of Oak park, an old folks' home, was found yesterday in his room with his head bashed in. but apparently, the doors were locks and there was no sign of a break in." Sam seemed to ignore her and she sighed.
"I figure it's worth a look…what do you think? Oak Park is only 15 minutes away." He put the gun down, finally, and turned to look at her.
"And what about the darkness? What about Cas? We haven't heard from them." Grace frowned. "First of all, we have nothing on Amara. And Cas—Cas will be fine. He always is."
"All the parks in the world and I pick the one with the angel in it."
"I saw you. Couldn't believe my eyes."
"Well, believe them. It's beautiful out here, isn't it? It's funny. The things you think you're not gonna miss at all, you end up missing the very, very most."
"enjoy it while you can."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I come in peace, brother."
"I am not you brother, Lucifer." Lucifer just smiled, finally facing the other angel, "Well, I'm not looking for a fight. In fact. I'm your only hope at beating the darkness. I heard you, uh…heard you kids had your big shot at the title, and you missed it." He placed a hand on the offending angels shoulder, "You don't need to be afraid, brother. I am out of that awful, awful cage. And I'm here to save you all." He turned and walked away, back towards the large, Douglas fir, he had been admiring moments before.
"Lucifer ex Machina."
"It cannot be destroyed. But you can be!" Lucifer, in a clearly annoyed state, snapped his fingers and the angel exploded in a rather large splash of blood. Reaching up he non-chalantly rubbed some blood off his face and frowned. "That's the problem with you rank-and-file angels—no vision." He then licked the blood off his fingers and walked back towards the park.
The three pulled up to the retirement home, Dean parked the car and they climbed out.
"Seriously? This place is an old folks home?"
"Looks awesome." Grace just grinned "Maybe you and Dean can apply here, I mean he is pushing 40, another 20 years and it should feel like home. I bet they even have chocolate pudding." This earned a laugh from Sam, and a disgruntled growl from Dean.
"What about Sam?"
"Nah, Sam actually takes care of himself, though he could stand to ease up on the 5 mile runs, nasty knee arthritis, and all that. Everything in moderation."
"Well, what about you?" Grace quirked her eyebrow, "What about me?"
"Dean, I'm pretty sure she's not going to age anymore." As soon as the words left Sam's mouth that realization dawned on her, she'd stay young while she watched them age, watch them die. Would she stay on earth until that happened? Or would she go back to heaven where she was supposed to be?
"….A reservation." She snapped out of her thoughts as Dean pointed out some early bird special.
"Yeah, we should be so lucky to live long enough." Dean noticed her hesitation, "Hey, you all right?"
"You two go in without me, I think I'm gonna take a walk, clear my head." She smiled, but her eyes would be what betrayed her, if anyone was looking that them.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, Dean. I'm fine, I promise." He just shrugged as he and Sam walked inside.
Grace walked all the way back to the bunker, her mind felt heavy, she didn't want to watch her brothers grow old, didn't want to see them become senile, forget who she was, she certainly didn't want to watch them die.
"What do I do…it's not like I can talk to him…" pushing open the door she sighed, walking through one of the many corridors towards the kitchen, it wasn't more than an hour or so before Sam and Dean returned. However in that period of time Grace had consumed 12 bottles of beer, 2 bottles of whiskey, and 1 and a half bottles of Jose Cuervo, and she felt like she was flying high.
"Hey, we're back—How?!" Dean noticed all the empty booze bottles and looked at his sister with concern.
"Hey we wondered where you—" Sam trailed off as he came into the briefing room, "Are you okay?" Grace sat with a stupid grin on her face.
"Maybe we should call Cas?"
"Nooooo." She whined, her words were slurred and she looked reminiscent of a five year old, "No Cas."
"All right, no cas." Dean new better now than to force help on Grace, especially with whatever supernatural power-up it was she had gotten when she'd crashed back to earth.
"What the hell happened to you?" Sam had the strangest sense of Déjà vu, as if this had happened before, but he couldn't quite remember when or where.
"You two happened." Her expression was serious now and the brothers shared a look.
"What did we do?" Sam looked confused as he questioned his sister.
"You age." A look of realization dawned on both of their faces as that information sank in.
"Oh…" she frowned. "Dean said something about making a reservation at the nursing home…"
"Grace, that's still years away."
"You don't know that!" Deans eyes widened in shock, "I'm stuck like this for eternity now, I can't die, but you two…you two will continue to age and how long until one of you fucks up and gets killed on a hunt…or by some rogue angel or demon?" with that sad she shoved past the two of them and towards her room.
Grace heard the door open and close, assuming it was either Sam or Dean she kept herself quiet, Cas had suddenly popped into the bunker out of nowhere and instructed her to stay silent. She could hear her brothers footsteps drawing closer. As the door was kicked in she jumped at the sudden noise.
"Hey! Cas? What the hell are you doing, man?" His eyes trailed to Grace who just shrugged.
"Said he was looking for something."
"Hello, Dean." Something was still off, it seemed like he was Cas, but she wasn't sure, maybe she was just stressed and her mind was playing tricks on her.
"Right, Yeah. We don't hear from you for days, that one get's loaded—" Dean indicated to the blonde sitting in the corner, "then you show up, you start wrecking the joint." Castiel sighed, pulling himself from the chair.
"I'm sorry."
"Okay. W-What are you doing?" Castiel turned to face the siblings. "Well, I'm…looking for a spell, something to draw Amara out, but there's…there's nothing." Dean looked entirely put out now as he closed the drawers that had been torn through.
"I had her in my sights. She was hurt. I should have ended it."
"Like that would have worked…"
"Wait, what?" Dean looked between Grace and Castiel now. "How?"
"Well, I don't know. But there has to be something. And how many more chances are we gonna get?" Cas set the folders back on the work desk.
"Yeah, I know. Saying you're gonna kill is one thing, but…actually doing it's something totally different." Cas looked confused, but Grace smiled, it seemed it had finally sunk in that killing wasn't always the answer.
"What do you mean?"
"I've had two shots at Amara. I struck out both times." Cas shifted and Grace finally set her book down.
"What are you talking about?" He stepped towards Dean, but his posture was off…and Grace couldn't seem to figure out why.
"I don't even know where to start."
"Dean…Tell me everything."
"I tried to kill her."
"Well, the two of you are connected somehow by the mark." Grace watched as Dean pulled a box of weapons off one of the shelves, moving to set it on a nearby table.
"Yeah, no, it's, uh…it's more than that."
"Attraction?" the angel subtly winked at Grace who in turn raised her book a bit higher. When the eldest of the Winchester siblings said nothing Cas frowned.
"Oh, Dean."
"I know. I know. okay? Whatever it is, A…attraction, connection…I gotta tell you, man, it scares me. I don't know that I can stop it. I don't know that I can resist it." Suddenly something hit him square in the head, Grace had thrown her book at him.
"Ow!" she was out of her chair now, a disgusted look on her face.
"You better learn, Dean. We can't always be there to pull your ass out of the fire." Cas looked surprised and inside of the angel's head, Lucifer could see why the rebel angel had taken such a liking to this girl. She had a fiery spirit, one he could really get behind.
"Hey, it scares me, too. But we will find out what this is, I promise. In the end, it may help draw her out. This could be a good thing." Grace smacked the angel upside the head now.
"Don't encourage his bad behavior, I expect stupid crap from him, but don't go encouraging it." Castiel looked bewildered.
"Sorry."
"Fucking right you're sorry." It was that moment Dean's cell began to ring.
"Sam?"
" Dean, look up Edward Durbin II."
"Wait, what?"
"In the Men of Letters files." Dean left the room, Grace and Castiel followed, the former in suspicion.
"Oh, son of a bitch. She ain't lying. According to Men of Letters' records, Edward Durbin II was inducted in 1939, part of a small delegation that was sent to Europe."
"Wow. Yeah, her father had just lost his job. He had a nervous breakdown."
"So he was vulnerable?"
"Right. And her mom only knew some basic spells. She used one to banish the banshee, saved Eileen's life. Dean, the Banshee we're hunting is the same one that killed Eileen's parents."
"Awesome. All right. What's the plan?"
"Well, we're gonna use the same Celtic spell Eileen used to trap me. When the Banshee comes for Mildred tonight, we trap it."
"And we hit it with gold." Grace kept an eye on Castiel, she still couldn't put her finger on what seemed off about him.
"Right."
"I don't like using Mildred as bait."
"Are you worried about her? So does this mean she has a shot?"
"Well, I did always have a thig for Blanche on "Golden Girls.""
"Seriously?"
"That's disgusting…but to each their own I suppose." Dean shoo's her away.
"Hey, don't judge what you don't understand, Sammy."
"Who needs to understand that"
"Shut up, Grace."
"No, I'm—I'm not judging I-I just always had a thing for Sophia."
"Yeah, I could see that."
"Look, I don't like using anyone as bait. But this is all we got."
"I'm on my way." Dean hung up the phone and turned, "I gotta get back to Sam, you two okay here?" Grace nodded, "By the way. Listen, about what we talked about, let's just keep that between the three of us…till we know more, okay?"
"Dean, that's not—"
"Cas, just…trust me." The angel sighed, he knew dragging this out would only be a hassle. "All right, but the next time you face Amara, you won't be alone."
"Thanks, Cas." E turned and started to walk away but then stopped, "I'm leaving her here with you, just—don't do anything I wouldn't do." Grace frowned but tried to hide a blush that was spreading over her face. With that Dean took the gold blade and left the bunker.
"Oh, this is going to be so much…fun." Castiel turned, a twisted grin on his face.
"Cas?"
"Cas isn't really here, Ava."
"Lucifer…"
"Surprise." He grabbed her by the wrist and then they were gone.
Sam and Dean got back to the bunker to see the briefing room trashed, the Banshee was gone and the Nursing home was safe for the residents once again.
"Grace?" there was no reply, he motioned for Sam to go one way, and Dean took the other, Dean checked her room, nothing was out of order, and she wasn't in the library.
"Same checked the garage, she sometimes went down there to think but there was no sign of her. When the brother reconvened in the Briefing room there was evidence of fear in their eyes.
"Maybe she just popped out?"
"And left the room like this? Dean, I don't think that she went with whoever took her, willingly."
"I left her with Cas, but he wouldn't hurt her. That nerdy little weirdo loves Grace."
"You don't think…?"
"What? You're gonna have to be a bit more specific, Sammy."
"We never found out if the spell worked, if Lucifer was put back in his cage."
"Well, there haven't been any weird angel things happening, so my bets on that the spell worked. Though, there was something a little off about him."
"Something always seems a little bit off about Cas." No room to argue there, everyone had always said Cas had come off the assembly line with a crack in him.
"Yeah, you know, being so close to Lucifer probably wasn't easy for him, either. We'll just keep an eye on him. You were right, by the way. Getting back on the job, it…it helped."
"Wait, say that again? The—that part about me being right."
"You're an idiot." The two looked around the trashed room once more, "Dean…when Grace and I were with lucifer, he, um…he showed us things. It was like a highlight reel of my biggest failures…but he said something about her."
"He was messing with you that's what he does."
"No, Dean…he said something about her, he defended her. His exact words were, "She was never meant to be a weapon." That she was supposed to be kept safe."
"So, what are you getting at, Sammy? You think he's found a way to drag her to the cage? A way to keep her safe in there?"
"No, but maybe one of the other angels? He also said if he had it his way she'd be safe right now, away from us, away from Cas."
"Well, he didn't get it his way, but my vote is on another angel, and I'd bet Cas is out there kicking ass to get her back. So I wouldn't worry."
"Ah, pretty little Ava. I've missed you the most." Blue eyes stared out in terror at her captor, this was no longer Castiel.
"I hope you're comfortable, because you'll be here for quite a while. As my own personal play thing." Her hands and feet were shackled to the cage she was now locked in, a cloth gag prevented her from doing much else but screaming.
"I really have missed you, and now we can spend all of our free time catching up." The last thing she saw was Castiel's vessel's sinister smile as the lights were turned off and she was left alone in the dark.
Sorry this chapter is so short, my brain is fried with finals coming up in 2 ½ weeks, but I'm trying. I really am! So please continue to bare with me. I'm also dealing with con Plague (AKA Con sickness.) I had far too much fun, and am already planning for next year.
But enough of my rambling, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I hope you review, tell me things you liked, things you didn't like, what should I do more, or less of. Let me know!