She came back with a couple of thin cloths that were folded up, a bowl that was nested into a stack of bowls that was filled with steaming water that had some tea bag tags handing out of, some ace bandages and hydrogen peroxide. She also had a roll of paper towels. I could smell some of the herbs that she had used. I'd come to really like the smell of the mint we grew and sandalwood incense. She'd burn sandalwood a lot at night or when she was doing some sort of ritual and I'd started associating that smell with her, the mint she used in her tea. She'd slowly gotten me into the habit of drinking some here and there, it had this effect of helping me relax while clearing my head at the same time.

"Let's get started on this." She set a towel on the table and set my right hand on top of it. "I'll get the splinters out first, then clean them and wrap them, all right?"

"Sure." Fortunately I hadn't hit any studs so didn't need stitches.

She started picking out the splinters. I had so much scar tissue on my knuckles from years of bashing faces, blocking weapons and who knows what else in that I barely felt it. That took her about ten minutes to get both hands splinter free, then she set both my hands in one of the empty bowls and poured a bunch of hydrogen peroxide over them. That stung. Once the bubbling and hissing of the peroxide stopped she gently patted my knuckles dry. They were starting to swell and looking kind of purple. I'd really let the wall have it.

The next thing she did was pour a bunch of the tea over my hands. I recognized the smell, it was chamomile. That stuff cures just about everything I'd found out after moving in with her. It was a disinfectant among other things. She let that dry, poured another round or two of it over my hands then set that aside. The liquid in the bowl was an odd mix of yellow and red. I wasn't gushing blood but there was enough getting washed away to turn the tea a dark, red iron, rust color. Once that was done she moved my hands out of the bowl and set them on the towel.

She picked up one of the folded up cloths and set it on top of the knuckles of my right hand, it was damp. She must have soaked it before coming out, "Hold that."

I did as she asked and she lightly wrapped the poultice with the ace bandage so it wouldn't slip off, we repeated the process on the left hand.

"There. Should make the swelling go away faster and make the cuts heal faster. I'll take it off in about three hours or so."

"That felt a hell of a lot better than dumping cheap whiskey on my knuckles." The stinging was already settling down and the warmth was making the aching subside a bit.

She laughed, leaned back and put her arm around my shoulders. "Well that always works in a pinch."

She was drained, so was I but I didn't want to move. The sun had risen on the drive here, it was getting close to seven or so in the morning. I didn't really want to get my days and nights turned around but staying awake was starting to feel impossible, and it shouldn't be. I should still be paranoid to go back to sleep. "What'd you do?"

That got an mock innocent look out of her, "Nothing."

"I'm half asleep, that's not normal after a dream like that."

"So? Don't fight it. Get comfy." She pulled out the recliner part of the couch she was on, pushed it back so she was almost horizontal and lightly pulled my head towards her lap. "Rest. You need it. Don't worry about dreaming. I've got that covered."

"Only if you crash too."

She smiled and closed her eyes, "Sure. Now close your eyes and relax."

I have no idea how she pulled it off but all the tension left me and I felt like I was floating. I took a couple of deep breaths and passed out cold.

Something was vibrating in my pocket, "Stupid phone," I mumbled. I managed to get my eyes open and noticed a few things right off, it was a hell of a lot brighter than when I'd fallen asleep, I was starving and there was a pillow under my head, not Coyote's leg. I blinked a few times to clear the blurriness out of my eyes. "Coyote?" Nothing, "Hey, you here?" Still nothing, then I heard water running, she must be in the shower. I looked at my phone, it was one in the afternoon. "Holy crap! I slept that long?"

The poultices were off my hands but they were still lightly wrapped with the ace bandages. They weren't all that swollen either. Whatever was in those things worked wonders. I pulled off the bandages, the wounds had already started to scab over but my knuckles were an interesting shade of purple. I'd have to be careful not to reopen all the scrapes for a few days while they healed up. The phone vibrated again, I'd gotten two emails from Sam. The first one's subject said, "Don't open this until you're more calm." The second one said, "I'm not trying to get you back hunting, but you need to know."

Neither of those sounded good. It didn't say urgent, read now so I decided to ignore them until I had food, coffee and a shower. I started the coffee, grabbed some canned chicken noodle soup, poured it into a bowl and shoved it into the microwave.

Coyote came up behind me and gave me a hug, "Morning-ish."

"Hey there, want food?" I turned around and saw she was in sweats and a t-shirt. Her hair was still damp and hanging loose.

"Nope, ate already. Been up for a couple of hours catching up on emails."

"Oh, okay."

She grabbed a mug for coffee, "How you feeling?"

The microwave beeped, I pulled the bowl out, which was hot as hell but the soup was still lukewarm. Most annoying thing ever but I wasn't all that picky at the moment."Functional. Not freaking out."

"Good. I'm going to get some more work done. You?"

"Shower, then look at some not so positive sounding emails Sam just sent."

It was pretty obvious she didn't approve of that course of action, "Not sure that's such a great idea."

"I can't sleep all day, and should probably give the knuckles a day or so before I start patching walls and tuning up Baby."

"Watch a movie, decompress some more. Read a book, there's plenty of options here."

Since my brain was back to functioning in non panic mode it'd been tossing around what Kate had said, "Someone's hunting hunters. Which means both you and I are very possibly on the list. If nothing else we need to know what's going on to stay safe. I wasn't kidding about what I told Sam. I don't want to go back. Not if one hunt fucks me up that much, but we can't afford to be in the dark. Plenty of hunters know where we live which means someone could find out."

She frowned, "I can't really argue with that."

"Yeah, I know. I hate when I'm actually right about something. Let me get some food in me, you go work. I'll check the emails later."

"All right."

I downed the soup, pounded the coffee and took a quick shower. Once I dried off and got into some comfy clothes I settled onto the bed with my phone and opened the emails. They were both short and the second one had pictures attached. I started with the first one.

"Dean,

The rest of the hunters split up between different hotels like we said. Gerald dropped by the houses, grabbed the cameras we set and decided to see if anyone was on our tail. He put two in the lobby of the hotel we were at and one in his room and left. About three hours after we all left people came asking questions and someone broke into his room. I attached screen shots of their faces. I don't recognize them, Felicity is working on it. They're tracking us, all of us, somehow. Once we saw that footage I told them to leave town, hide their usual rides and steal new ones. Whoever is doing this knows hunters and how we work. They have to. Will update you later.

Sam"

That was seriously not good, I looked at the pics but didn't recognize anyone.

I opened the next one up.

"Dean,

Got the pics they took before we all left town. We have a problem, a big one. Any ideas on how he could be walking the earth again?"

There were two pics, I opened them. "Mother fucking son of a bitch! How?" It was Gordon, the Gordon that Sam had beheaded with razor wire. "How the fuck did you get out of Purgatory?" My mind went a million directions all at once. There was no fucking way, right?

I looked at the pics again, they were a bit grainy since it was dark but he was flanked by the white and grey business suit chicks that we'd seen at HQ house. They were walking into some sort of warehouse, it was hard to tell with two shots but it seemed like they were deferring to him. Not good.

I called Sam, he picked up on the second ring. "Can't be him, he's in fucking Purgatory!" Even though I knew the chances of it being a shifter or something else were microscopic I just wasn't willing to believe it.

"Um, so were you, I, Benny and Cas. Apparently he found a way out."

"Any chance it could be.."

"A shifter? Yeah, not likely since it would have had to have contact with him. He's been gone for years."

"This is so not good."

"Explains a lot though."

"Damn it!"

"Tell you what, you cuss and rant some more, then call me back when you're ready to plan," he snapped. Which wasn't like him.

"What's eating you?"

"You seriously can't be that dumb. He was after me, almost took me out. You think a few years in Purgatory has made him stop thinking I'm the source of all evil? I sent him there after all."

"Yeah, I remember. Sorry. Shit. Let me process this."

"Sure."

I stopped cussing and started thinking. It wasn't really relevant how he got out, he obviously found a way, maybe a Reaper he bullied into taking him out or...oh no. Kate had said that things were okay tell they showed up. I got into Purgatory because I was standing next to Dick when we killed him, sending he and all of his kind back to Purgatory. What if I hadn't been the only person that was collateral damage. I'd never seen another human in the year I was there but it was a huge place and I'd had my mind on other things. What if other human souls had gotten sucked into Purgatory and some of the more knowledgeable monsters knew how to get out. Benny had known the spell to get him out, I sure as hell didn't. If he knew, maybe others did.

"Sam...we may have an even bigger problem than Gordon."

"How?"

"Think about how I got to Purgatory, think about how many Leviathans there were, then think about how many other humans may have gotten sucked into that world when I shafted Dick."

"Once again, your phrasing leaves a lot to be desired."

"Screw that, put it together."

A few seconds passed. "I see your point." His voice was almost emotionless, not good.

"Gordon may have come back with friends."

"Yeah, but Benny couldn't handle being topside again."

"Benny was trying to not be a monster. Let's say these ones learned from their mistakes and not get killed again, then let's say they have a former hunter with a grudge willing to teach them all the ways to stay off our radars. Then, for fun, let's say said former hunter wants to take us all out to prove a point."

"I'd just like to state that I really hate it when you come up with theories like this."

"Why?"

He sighed, "Because they're usually right. How the hell do we handle this?"

"Not go off half cocked. I know, shocking coming from me. Get confirmation, find Gordon. Then we figure it out."

"All right, I'll work on that. You stay home, stay safe. Take it easy. I'll handle this."

"Can't do much anyway, busted my knuckles all to hell on the wall. Favor?"

"Yeah?"

"Load all of Magnus's research onto the site. He had monsters in a zoo. He had to know how to trap them or test for them. I'll delve through it while my knuckles heal."

"Sure. Dean, seriously, let me handle this."

I was researching, that was a step away from hunting, which I didn't want to do. "I will. Just researching to make the house safer and maybe give you guys an edge."

"All right. Talk soon."

"Yeah."

We hung up, Gordon Walker, the bastard that tried to kill Sam was back above ground, hunting hunters. Which meant hunting us. First things first, I had to tell Coyote. "Coyote!" I yelled, "Need to talk, come up for a second."

She walked in a few seconds later. "What's up?

"Problems, big ones. You might want to sit for this." She arched an eyebrow at me and sat next to me on the bed. "A long, and I mean long, time ago we came across a hunter who thought that Sam was the root of all evil because he'd found out about the Apocalypse." I figured that was a good lead in to the rest. I covered getting Gordon chucked into prison, who he was, why he hunted, the trap he'd set for Sam and how Sam had killed him.

"Sounds like a seriously disturbed guy," she said when I finished, "And what's the completely fucked up reason you're bringing him up now?'

"This is," I showed her the pictures. To her credit she didn't ask how he'd gotten out of Purgatory.

She skipped all that and went straight to the main issue, "Your theory is he's running things with the monsters now?'

"As of right now, only theory that makes sense."

She looked away from the picture and I felt like we'd gone back in time, back to when we used to meet in motels and hunt together. "He's coming after you and Sam."

"Well, us along with every other hunter out there probably."

"No," she shook her head, "That may be the excuse he used to get the rest of them to help him, but he's coming after you."

"If that's the case, I'm at least easy to find. Tons of hunters know where I am. If he's all that intent on it he'd shouldn't have that hard of time tracking me down."

"You're thinking he wants a clean kill, like before. He became a vampire Dean, spent who knows how long in Purgatory. You somehow think he's not after something a lot more drawn out and painful for you both? If he's the one in charge of this he's not just wiping out hunters for fun. There's a reason behind it, his sister dying got him into hunting, then he became what he hated but was still intent on killing you. He went for clean then, still had some humanity left. Now? If he's still that obsessed with you two this is all revolving around that."

That sent chills down my spine, I hadn't jumped that far ahead yet. I'd come back for Sam and I had Cas and Benny to help keep my eyes on the ball, if I hadn't had those two. Benny hadn't been lying about Purgatory feeling pure and simple. You're world was reduced to mere survival, for most of them. But there'd been others who'd relished making others suffer, even Benny feared them. It wasn't just the Leviathans that lived down there either, it was other monsters who'd been there way too long. Gordon could have easily become one of those.

"I'm getting Sam to post all of Magnus's writings to that server. Exiled Men of Letters who was a genius when it came to wards and all that. I'm going to seal this place up, hunker down. Hopefully find something that can help the guys sense when a monster is near them." I had to keep us safe.

She stood up, "Fine you do that, I'll tell Cougar to take over for me and leave tomorrow."

My heart went straight to my throat, "You what? Leave? Where?"

Her eyes were hard like agates, that's when I remembered I wasn't the only over protective person in the room, "To put this bastard back in the ground. Asshole thinks he can come after you and Sam? Fuck that!"

I was stopping that, like right now. I started clapping, "Oh, pulling a Dean Winchester huh? Running off half cocked, with no real leads, no information, straight into a superior force all by your damn self and hoping for the best. Sure, why not? That's always worked so well for that guy right? No possible chance that could backfire and hurt anyone else."

She fought with it, I knew every bit of that fight intimately. That urge to save others battling with logic. I just hoped logic won. She looked away, her chest rose and fell with a few deep breaths and her fists opened up. "Sorry."

"No worries, at least you know how to back down. I never did."

She sat back down, my heart stopped pounding, "All right, plan? Do we have one?"

My phone rang, it was Sam again.

"Yeah?"

"Gerald's been hit."

Scratch the heart slowing back down, "Hang on, putting you on speaker. There, go."

"Hi Coyote, to repeat, Gerald's been hit. He's fine but he got targeted. He had to dump his car, steal a police car, then dump that and hitch a ride with a trucker. He spotted some people that he'd got pics of back at the houses. They'd tracked him somehow to a new job he went on. He bailed, and fast. We need some direction here. If they're showing up at possible hunts..."

That kicked my brain into gear, "Cancel all hunts, email everyone to hunker the fuck down for now. Send copies of those pics to every hunter on your list and tell them to spread them around. If anyone happens to see them, send back when and where and have them watch them, but don't go hunting for them, not yet. Whether or not Gordon is running this he knows what to look for, how we think. Spread that pic of Gordon around as well."

"What? Everyone thinks he's dead."

"We hunt ghosts Sam, they can handle it. If they start asking questions, play dumb. For now we have no idea how people can get out of Purgatory and that's not really the issue at hand. Right now, no hunts, no driving around. Go to hidey holes and stay off the grid. Got it?"

"Okay, then what?"

"We need people no one knows. I'm calling Oliver. You call Roy, he's been hunting with you for awhile so someone may have seen his car at some point or other. Tell him to hide it for now. Any word back from Felicity?"

"No, she's still running facial recognition on the pics."

"All right. We all just need to step back and think."

"Yeah, got it. I'll get the Magnus stuff uploaded as soon as I'm done with that."

"Good."

"Call you later," he hung up.

Coyote and I looked at each other for a few seconds. "Why Oliver?" She asked.

"Because his group doesn't think like hunters and if we're going to make it through this we can't either."

I dialed Oliver's number, never thought I'd be calling the Arrow for help killing monsters.