We headed back downstairs, Sam was just walking back in from the guest room. "She'll meet us there tomorrow afternoon around three. I figured we'd have everything cleaned up and be on the road later today so that should give us time to get settled in before they show up."

"Sounds good," I said. "Let's do this then."

The wolf stood up when he saw Coyote, his tail was wagging at full speed. She looked at me, "Huh, never really envisioned you wagging your tail when you see me."

"If I had one, I would be."

"O-kay, this just got weird," Sam said.

"In the general scheme of things we've dealt with, it's not all that weird."

"Maybe not to you, since the wolf is you, but yeah, picturing you with a tail and wagging it just...uggh."

I followed his thought process for a second, "Hmm, okay yeah, weird." I sat down next to the wolf, then it actually did get weird. He licked my face, which meant I tasted my cheek while feeling the stubble on my tongue at the same time I felt his tongue on my cheek. I was now officially confused and kind of creeped out. "Uh, calm down buddy." I guess he was happy Coyote and I weren't fighting. "We're taking off soon so you've got to go back."

He actually seemed kind of sad about that, which didn't make a lot of sense. Maybe he just liked to get out every now and again. He leaned into me and Coyote started the process to send him back but instead of jumping back in like last time he just sort of faded into me. It felt good, there was no pressure or heat, I just felt more together, more content I guess is the best way to say it. "Is that supposed to happen? Him fading like that?"

She had this wistful, pleased look on her face, "It's a good sign. You are more connected to your Warrior Spirit then you used to be."

"How can I not be connected to it?"

"Maybe the term I should use is more aware of it. You're paying more attention to what you're feeling than before."

"Well, can't argue with that."

Sam was taking all that in with a pretty analytical look on his face. I had a feeling all this was going to be brought up in a late night Bunker conversation at some point. "Let's do this." Was all he said for now.

It didn't take too long to take all the decorations down, take the left over food to some neighbor's houses since we didn't know how long we'd be gone and start packing. Coyote was bringing a lot of herbs and stones with her, she'd need them to try to get Jacob talking. I'd been thinking a lot about what Sam had said about setting limits on what he and Roy would risk while we did all that. At first it'd seemed like a pretty cowardly way to hunt, picking easy things to take out but the fact was that easy things still do a lot of damage and I couldn't argue with the fact that it seemed safer, that's for damn sure. As far as I could tell neither he or Roy had barely gotten scratched over the last year. What I hadn't really noticed or thought about until he'd brought it up was that he was the oldest now, that he was the one who had to take on the responsibility for someone else. To me, he'd always be my little brother, plain and simple, but now Roy was his for all intents and purposes. Once I started looking at things that way I was kind of shocked at how different he handled that than I had over the years. My way tended to involve throwing myself at anything that even looked funny at him, taking it down any way I could no matter what it cost. Of course it's not like we chose to be vessels, but Apocalypse aside, even in everyday hunts I just bull rushed my way through them. He didn't, his way of keeping Roy safe was a lot more proactive than mine had ever been. It'd give me something to think about on the drive that's for sure.

"I assume we're taking Baby?" Coyote asked as we finished packing.

"No." I hadn't really planned to say that and at first I was kind of surprised I had.

Coyote must have been too because she stopped folding her clothes. "Really?"

"Yeah, really. She just got home, no need to take her out for this. I'll help Sam move the weapons over to his car and we can take yours. If that's all right with you."

She recovered pretty fast, "Sure. Doesn't matter to me."

We finished packing and rejoined Sam in the living room. "Hey let's get the weapons out of Baby and into your car then hit the road."

"We can do that when we get to the Bunker."

"Not taking Baby, let's do it now."

Sam just about fell over, "What?"

"I told her she was getting a rest. We'll follow you in Coyote's car. Come on, back yours up to the garage once I get the door open."

I don't think he actually started moving until after I got out to the garage. I opened the door and guided him to within inches of Baby's trunk. He got out and stared at me.

"You're seriously not taking her?"

"I think I said that already," I pointed out as I opened her trunk.

"Why?"

"I'm not hunting, just helping a kid. No need to take her to do that."

He watched me start unloading weapons, I'd forgotten just how many there were. I think he'd added a few too. "Dean, I know we're kind of riding you about being careful but, it's Baby man."

"Sam, Coyote's worried about this whole thing, she's got some decent reasons to be. I've screwed up a lot of things in my life, hurt a hell of a lot of people because I refused to listen to what they had to say. I'm not screwing this up. If this last year has taught me anything it's that it wasn't just the monsters and the demons that ruined a lot of things for me, it was how I chose to handle things. I'm not taking any chances this time. I love Baby, always will, but making sure I don't somehow go dark again or lose Coyote is more important to me. Now grab some gear. We've got a long drive."

"Uh, all right." He finally got into gear and we sorted everything out between the trunk box and the one I had put under the back seat. He'd end up tinkering with the final layout over the next few months I'm sure but we got everything loaded. Coyote sent an email out to the tribe that she was heading out of town for week or two and told them who to contact if something came up, I told Rabbit that my Baby was in the garage and keep an eye on the place and we headed out.

I did however take the first leg of the drive, since Sam had a new toy to play with I decided to have some fun. "Hold on sweetheart."

"Shit," was all she said as I pulled into the lane next to him and looked over. Technically I was driving on the wrong side of the road, but there was no cops on the Reservation and even less traffic.

He shook his head first, then I stomped on the gas and he gave in. Coyote's car isn't a slouch when it comes to speed and I was actually kind of curious which car would pull ahead. Turns out it was pretty tight, I edged him out but it was close. After two miles I slowed down and pulled in behind him. All three of us had some pretty big grins on our faces. All in all not a bad way to start a trip.

Seven or so hours later we pulled up to the Bunker. Coyote had never seen it although I'd told her all about it. "Interesting looking place, would never guess there was a supernatural library inside."

"That was pretty much the point." I had a lot of mixed emotions about the place running through me. It was the first place I ever called home as an adult, first place I had my own room, the place I tried to kill Sam and where Sam killed Kevin because of my lies. For only being here three or so years there was a crap ton of memories that Sam and I had built here.

"Babe? You okay?"

"I guess. Let's grab our stuff and get inside." This was going to be a lot more complicated than I'd thought, her and Sam had been right to try to stop me from coming back. It wasn't going to help me at all. We got in, walked down the stairs and it hit me. Outside of the one time I'd come to get my clothes I hadn't been back here since we'd removed the Mark. Somehow everything felt darker, colder. Sam turned on the lights and I saw he'd changed a few things around. He'd added a TV of all things, which we're were going to talk about later, but that wasn't what drew my attention the most. He'd put pictures up, pictures of us, pictures of he, Roy and Thea out somewhere, they were laughing. It looked like he was printing out cell phone pictures and framing them. He'd blown up some of the pictures of Mom, Dad and I from way back when and had them on the walls.

"Wow Sam, you've really gotten into decorating."

"Well, it's just me here now and the place needed some livening up."

"Looks good. You got any beer in the fridge?"

"Yeah..wait...shit."

I'd already stepped into the kitchen when he said shit, "Out of be -" On the wall over the coffee pot there was a picture. "Sam? What's this?" It was of Dad and us as adults all standing around Baby, we all had smiles on our faces and we were looking at each other.

"Felicity knows a pretty kick ass graphic artist. I sent her pics of all of us and Baby and this is what she did. I was going to give you a copy for your birthday. You don't have any photos of us at Coyote's place and I thought since you'd officially retired you could use one."

"It's, wow. If I didn't know this never happened I would think it was an actual picture of us."

Coyote walked up behind me, "It's beautiful Sam. I know just the place for it too."

"Happy early birthday I guess." He gave me this awkward smile.

"Thanks. I'll forget I saw it so I can act all surprised when you give it to me. Sound good?"

"Sure."