A/Ns: Hi guys, welcome back! Going forward, I'm going to try to be more aggressive about Chapter References for you all. We had a lot of people who (very helpfully!) admitted they forgot Persephone was in the story or didn't remember much about who she was. Thank you for being honest about that, guys. It is definitely something I need to keep in mind. This is a beast of a story and you all only get to read it a little bit at a time. Some characters or sub-plots don't come up for ten or so chapters, which is the equivalent of about four months for you guys (Oi vey!) So no worries, there. I will try to be better about putting things-to-remember at the start of each chapter.

Please continue to flag things you don't remember reading about or feel I should mention at the start of a chapter :)

Chapter Reference – Human Toe Mushrooms: For those who might not remember what is inside Castiel's hex bags, see Chapter 58: Season 2: Chapter 25 for a refresher! The important thing to recall are the Japanese Mushrooms that look like human toes ;)

Chapter References – Bleeding Heart/Azazel's Girl: For those who don't remember waaaay, way long ago when we introduced Persephone, Sam mentioned she had been angry in his vision about the loss of life in Gomorrah. At the time, Dean wondered why Azazel would go dig up 'some bleeding heart.' See Chapter 53: Season 2: Chapter 20 for a refresher. Last Dean and Sam heard/knew of Persephone, she had phoned Bobby under false pretenses to get the boys to go to Rivergrove, Oregon. Dean recognized the trap, and he and Sam realized Azazel had an unidentified girl leading them around. (Sa also recalled bumping into her in the bar). See Chapter 73: Season 2: Chapter 40 for a refresher.

Chapter Warnings: The boys give Bobby a long overdue call about their no-longer-missing Jedi, Bobby's being awesome as always (because of course he is; he's Bobby), the Winchesters are in for a surprise when they head to the hospital (Dean is piiiiiiissed), and Andy's finally waking up to face some facts he'd rather keep right on not facing.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (This Time Around)

Season 2: Chapter 51

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

"'Bout time you boys called. Ya idjits.'

Sam leaned his head back against the headboard, the cheap thing thudding into the motel wall with his weight. It wasn't secured all that well. Definitely could use some screws tightened. The younger Winchester closed his eyes, both drinking and breathing in the irritated, tough love of their surrogate father figure, coming through the speaker of Dean's phone. It was a balm, really. Sort of telling of their childhood, that Bobby's gruff voice was at the top of Sam's comfort zone.

He'd barely gotten a full four hours of incredibly restless, nightmare-filled sleep before their alarm clock went off. Dean was already upright on the other bed, bare feet flat on the ugly carpet, phone in his hand and that hand on his knee. Given his wet hair and the damp towel around his neck – already showered and half-dressed less than five hours since they'd first gotten to the cheap motel – Sam doubted his brother had slept any better.

"Yeah, yeah," Dean groused back, running one end of the towel over his freshly washed hair, sending a spray of little droplets onto the mussed sheets. "We've been kinda busy here, Bobby."

There was a pause down the line, one both Winchesters could practically envision, before Bobby asked, voice a tad gentler, "How's the kid doing?"

Green eyes met hazel, but Sam let his brother do the talking. The younger Winchester was exhausted, in a bone-deep, buzzing sort of way that didn't speak of good things to come.

"He's a mess," Dean answered honestly. "Throat's all hacked up. He's never gonna talk again."

All information that Bobby already knew. They'd kept him updated as possible through a series of texts stretched over the hours, at least until the older hunter had called it a night, keeping his phone on him for emergencies. Seven hours away with his own hospital patient to keep half an eye on and having been woken in the middle of the night the previous day by the same rag-tag group, Bobby wasn't gonna have a lot of help to offer from afar. Fresh eyes in the morning would do them more than a grumpy, tired old man in the middle of the night. Reasoning the Winchester hadn't rightly been able to argue with.

"Yeah, well, he's tough. He'll pull through."

Bobby had only met Andy twice in the three months he'd been puppy-dogging the pair of brothers. The first was in the middle of a hunt, neither Sam nor Dean available to talk to the older man as he walked them through how to kill the freak of the week. So the phone had been hastily tossed to Andy, who relayed Bobby's instruction from the sidelines as Dean fought a Daeva (yelling, all the while, about how the hell one fought a friggin' shadow) and Sam built a magnesium flare from the absolutely-not-flare-intended components they had lying around.

"Well…cool talking to you, dude. Thanks for saving our skins." Andy had grinned into the phone after the light finally burst into existence, bright and sudden enough to banish the shadow creature. Now they had time to put together the spell to eradicate the beast completely. At least, that's what Sam had said the moment they realized – belatedly and with wide, dread-filled eyes – just what it was they were dealing with. Up until the damn thing had pinned them down in the corner of an abandoned warehouse down by the docks, the Winchesters had thought they were dealing with a spirit. Salt rounds didn't do shit to a Daeva. "You, uh, you know the ritual to kill it next, too, right?"

Bobby just huffed down the line and called him an idjit. A doubting idjit, at that.

The second had been face to face, on a routine check-in as the Winchesters drove close enough to South Dakota to warrant a stop at the Singer Salvage Yard. Andy tromped right on up to the gruff old hunter and gave him a hug, the words, 'I hear you're awesome, Bobby,' spoken with such confidence that they might as well have been laid down in law. Bobby just stood there blinking, slightly red, and definitely flustered with that I'm-a-grumpy-old-scary-man-I-have-no-emotions-you-will-not-make-me-feel-no-eew-get-away expression all hunters owned. It was practically a requirement to get into the job in the first place.

Needless to say, the kid had earned a place in Bobby's teddy-bear heart, reluctant as it may have first been given.

"Yeah, he'll be alright," Dean answered Bobby's firm claim that Andy would pull through, spirit and all. He didn't doubt it, but he also wouldn't blame the kid if it wasn't that easy. Andy had an indomitable spirit, an attitude that never wavered, but Dean couldn't help but think, maybe this. Maybe this one would be enough. Maybe this would be the time.

Losing his girl had done its best, but Andy hadn't laid down and died. Dean had no doubt that Tracy's death at his brother's hands had been chipping away at the kid, bit by bit. The temptation of a Crossroads demon in Mississippi was proof of that. But it hadn't conquered the kid. Azazel haunting his dreams, monsters and demons and things that went bump in the night, and near death experiences so near they might as well have been a Winchester Stamp of Approval death experience (those usually required actual dying, but for Andy, they both agreed he'd come close enough).

None of it had stopped their Jedi yet.

But losing his powers and his ability to communicate, all in one blow, all because he'd decided to associate with the Winchesters…

Dean wanted to think this spitfire kid would pull through despite all that, but he didn't want to put that on Andy's shoulders, either. Especially not when the Winchesters weren't going to stick around help to him through it. Not indefinitely, at least. They'd talked about it last night, on their way to the motel and before they'd both collapsed, dead tired, onto the uncomfortable motel mattresses.

Andy was obviously done. Both Winchesters had seen it in his eyes before Rivergrove, and Sam had only been further convinced during their desperate flee from the medical center with Andy's combined injury and possible infection. The kid wanted to be done.

Even if he did protest that, if he insisted he could go on, there was no way Andy could keep hunting with his current injuries, at least not for some time. After they healed up, he might have an argument for it, but they'd still have to find a way to work around his new communication limits. Not that it couldn't be done, just that it would be…a lot. A lot on top of everything that had already happened to him.

A moot point, Dean was already sure. Sam was too. Andy was obviously done.

Speaking off…

"So, Bobby," Dean began a little warily, starting off slow. "With Andy laid up, we need to find him a safe place to hole up, at least 'till we can get him back on his feet."

"You gonna beat that bush a little harder, boy, or you gonna come out and ask me to house the kid?"

Sam cracked open an eye from the other bed, head still tilted back against the headboard, and gave his brother the 'I told you so' eyebrow. He had told him so. Several times the previous night, when he mentioned Bobby as an option. Dean had hedged, because he didn't know how the old hunter would feel about them bringing him more strays to take care of. They already put a lot on Bobby, and put Bobby through a lot, too. Maybe Dean was more aware of it after ten additional years of crap they'd expected and needed from the old man than Sam might be. (Okay, fine, seven years, but in this new world it was going to be ten, Dean would make sure of it). But that didn't change the fact that they were about as bad at expecting unappreciated aide from the hunter as they were from Cas.

"He's not your responsibility, Bobby," Dean said quietly, voice in the rare spectrum of guilt and confession, all in one. The voice that said Andy was his responsibility. Not Bobby's. Not even his and Sam's. Just Dean's.

A notion Sam frankly found ridiculous. He was pretty damn confident what Bobby would have to say about that, too.

"Horse shit."

Sam snorted, both eyes open now and head picked up. There was amusement in his second 'told you so' expression, and Dean wanted to roll his eyes at it.

"Bobby-"

"Responsibility's got nothing to do with it, ya idjit." Bobby's gruff lessened, just a little, on his token, loving insult. Down the line, he blew out a sigh. "I'm already playing nurse maid to one invalid, Dean. Might as well make it official with two."

Dean closed his eyes to avoid the telling blur of his vision. It had just been a really long couple of days, was all. He was tired, in more ways than one (Dean had to fight down the urge to rub at his chest), and that's why something as simple as Bobby being awesome and a damn decent human being was bringing him to damn near tears. That was totally the only reason it would happen.

"You're a good man, Bobby," Dean said, voice totally betraying what he'd been able to hide behind closed eyes. Aw, shit.

The older hunter just guffawed, uncomfortable all his own, too. Peas of a pod, this family. "Your girl's doing just fine, by the way. I'll see you whenever you boys get back."

"Thanks, Bobby," Sam called from the other bed before the line went dead. Dean tossed the phone onto the comforter beside him.

"Don't say it."

Sam didn't have to. The look was still written all over his face. But, because he was tired, and tired of being tired, he decided to say it anyway. Because it made him feel all that much better.

"I did tell you so."

Dean threw a pillow at him, which Sam caught easily, and then the two got up. Sam got dressed while Dean packed up. They had a Jedi in the hospital to get back to.

-o-o-o-

Sam was the first out of the motel room door, and Dean promptly crashed right into his gigantor of a brother's back when the younger Winchester stopped dead less than a foot out the doorway.

"What the hell, dude," Dean groused, rubbing his dented nose with a hand weighed down by the straps of his duffle bag. But Sam wasn't moving, and the older Winchester knew that was, in no way, a good sign. He leaned around Sam's larger frame and stopped dead himself at the sight of the Impala.

Their last hex bag, the one he had hidden well inside the driver's side vent, was spread out on the hood. The bag had been unfolded into a square stretch of fabric, spread out across the gleaming, black metal of the car. Each ingredient and spell component it had once held was laid out all nice and neat on top of the bag. Even the twine they'd tied it shut with was coiled up in six perfect little rings, sitting on the cloth beside the dried-out toe mushrooms. Like an A-to-Z manual of making a hex bag.

All across the hood of his car.

"What the hell?" Dean repeated, for entirely new reasons now. He dropped his bag and drew his knife (because his gun was in his duffle, damnit. They were supposed to be safe and just on the way to the hospital). He glanced around the parking lot, then up and down the narrow sidewalk that lined the motel doors to their left and right, but there was no one around. It was earlier than most of the occupants of this type of fine establishment got moving, and the main road didn't host much pedestrian traffic this time of day either.

Sam set down his own bag as well before moving slowly towards the Impala. In the center of the dismantled hex bag was a single small strip of paper, flapping in the light breeze of a late fall morning. Sam lifted the rock that had been placed atop it – not a component from the hex bag, but none of the other ingredients would have been heavy enough to weigh the paper down – and picked the note up.

"Careful," his brother muttered, sliding his knife back into its sheath but keeping his hand on the hilt, eyes still wary of the potential threats around them.

"'Be more careful'," Sam read aloud, trepidation in his voice but an ironic eyebrow sent his brother's way as he looked at him over his shoulder. Dean came up behind him, still alternating between monitoring the parking lot, closed motel doors, and the freaky-as-hell hex bag laid out on his Baby's hood. Sam offered Dean the note. "Crowley maybe?"

While the message was clear – someone had obviously gotten to them and anyone could again – it didn't seem particularly nefarious. At least, not yet.

Dean growled low in his throat. He hadn't seen much of Crowley's handwriting over the years. There wasn't often an occasion for the King of the Crossroads or the King of Hell to be giving them written instructions. But he had seen it once or twice before, and this carefully scripted hand, damn near perfect type like it had come from a computer rather than a person, wasn't anything like the crossroad demon's usual scrawl.

"I don't know," is what the man from the future said, because he honestly didn't. He curled his hand into a fist, crushing the paper into an angry ball. "But whoever did this…. I find them, they're dead."

Sam gave his brother a look that didn't dare argue, but carried a lot more with it than just agreement. "We should get out of here. Switch motels tonight. And make sure Andy's still safe in the hospital."

The younger Winchester was already pulling out his phone to text the kid, who'd sent them quite a few back-and-forths that morning. He didn't really think Andy was in danger, not given the nature of the note and how its author had very specifically targeted the Winchesters. Still, if whoever had done this could get inside the Impala, they could get inside Andy's hospital room too.

Dean angrily swiped the hex bag components off the hood. That was the last of their ingredients and, while they could reactivate the spell with them, Dean was sure as hell going to go through every inch of them and make sure nothing had been tampered with before they did. Honestly, he'd rather throw the whole damn thing away – no telling what kind of damage someone could do by tweaking a hex bag – but they couldn't afford to. Not until Bobby got back to them with another way to ward themselves, or they got Cas back. So he'd make sure nothing had been altered before he tied the bag back up and reactivated the spell.

Dean's anger friggin' tripled – no, quadrupled – no, higher, but Dean didn't know the word for more 'pled's than four – when he rounded the car and saw the state of the driver's side door. The handle was intact and the door latched closed with no obvious damage, but he knew immediately when he grabbed the handle that someone had forced the lock.

Someone with superhuman strength.

"God damnit!" he seethed, throwing the door open and tossing the dismantled hex bag and his duffle into the backseat a lot harder than was needed. He pounded a fist on the roof of the car, silently apologizing to his baby for the mistreatment, both by his own hand and whatever asshole dared touch – let alone damage – his car. Sam raised his eyebrows from across the roof, asking an unvoiced question. Dean growled low in his throat. "They busted the door."

The younger Winchester, wisely, didn't say anything. There was nothing to say when it came to Dean and his Baby. They could fix it up once they got to Bobby's. Until then… Sam frowned, going to open his own door but it was still locked. Dean had to hit the button on his door for him.

"If whoever this was took the hex bag from inside the car, than it couldn't have been a demon," Sam reasoned as he tossed his own go-bag into the backseat, careful not to land on any of the hex bag ingredients, which had spilled across the seat in his brother's fury. The younger Winchester glanced at the roof of the car even as he straightened back up. There was a devil's trap under the headliner, put there during her remodel. Dean had assured him, more than once, that no demon was getting into (or out of) the Impala, and Sam believed him.

"Could have been an angel," Dean said through teeth gritted hard enough to hurt his jaw. He hadn't been able to fully angel-proof the car because he hadn't yet figured out a way to do that without locking Cas out, too. It was on his growing list of things to talk about with the angel when they got her back. Dean slid into the front seat, slamming the door closed with a loud bang that made his brother wince as he climbed into the car beside him.

"What I want to know, though, is how the hell they knew where to look. I hid that thing well, Sammy." Dean's fingers curled around Baby's wheel, and the hunter shook his head. Sam raised an eyebrow his way – not questioning him, just…empathetic to his frustration and worry. "I get someone searching the car, but that kind of thing takes time, even more when you don't want to leave evidence of the search."

Tearing apart a car for all the possible nooks and crannies – the real nooks and crannies and not just the under-the-seat and glove-compartment places moms and dads hid their stuff in their minivans – was messy. They hadn't been in that motel room long enough for someone to make that kind of search and put the car back together. No, this stank of someone knowing exactly what they were looking for, where to find it, and going right after it.

Which stank of angels, damnit.

"We're going to have to be more careful what we say or do," Dean said through teeth clenched so tightly they squeaked against one another. "If we're being watched…"

"Right," Sam answered, nodding his head. "Okay, so…no talking about future- uh…top secret stuff outside of the car – once we get the hex bag back up – or a warded motel room."

"And we're going to have to figure out how to ward against angels, even if it means locking Cas out until we can figure out another way."

Dean didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit, especially with the angel AWOL and no idea when – or where – she might come back. But they couldn't risk Heaven spying on them and there was no way they'd be able to police themselves a hundred percent. Dean knew that from experience.

"What angel would leave that message?" Sam asked quietly as they got on the road, voicing a question Dean had been avoiding asking himself. Because Angels spying on them? Totally in character. Angels removing a hex bag blocking the Winchesters from their radar? Sounded just like 'em. But leaving an only-semi-ominous but blatant warning that they weren't being careful enough with their warding? That was hardly Heaven's style.

Gabriel's, maybe, but Dean doubted that runaway (who wanted nothing more than to throw Sam and Dean to the wolves instead of facing his own family) really had anything to do with this. Gabriel would have burned the damn hex bag and let Heaven and Hell find them.

Or unwrapped it, breaking the magic on the damn thing in the process, then re-packaged it up and hid it back in the vent so Sam and Dean continued thinking they were perfectly protected when all they were doing was hauling around a deactivated and useless hex bag full of human toe mushrooms.

That was Gabriel's style.

Which, unfortunately, still left the question of who the hell belonged to this particular style (who wasn't also a demon, otherwise Crowley would be pretty spot on.)

"Ruby." Dean blinked at the realization that hit him like a lightning bolt. "This is exactly Ruby's style."

Except Ruby was a demon, which was the first thing Sam pointed out in reply. Given that the first thing they had both done upon climbing into the Impala was check the roof to make sure the devil's trap carved into the frame beneath the upholstery was still intact, it couldn't have been a demon that left them some OCD wet dream of a paint-by-numbers hex bag deconstruction. While Dean couldn't see the trap physically to be a hundred percent sure, there weren't any cuts, markings, or changes to the headliner, which meant it was unlikely anyone had managed to disarm the trap.

If they hadn't had time for a full car search, they definitely hadn't had time to reupholster the roof.

Maybe Ruby had a human helping her out. He wouldn't put it past the bitch. Though, that didn't explain how she knew right where to find the hex bag. There didn't seem to be just one answer to this riddle, and that made Dean nervous. He knew everything that was supposed to happen over the next ten years (and was pointedly ignoring the fact that most of it kept changing). This was new, and new was bad. New was very, very bad.

Dean almost hoped it was Ruby. While it might be exceedingly irritating that that nightmare of a demon could be on the playing field early, it also wasn't the worst thing Time could throw at them, either. Ruby had spent a good year, year and a half, pretending to help them out. At least half those times, she actually had helped them out in order to keep her cover. And now they knew her schtick. They could keep her on the end of a dangling string for quite a while with that. They'd probably have half a year at least until she caught on, Dean figured.

Still, he didn't like it.

If it was Ruby, then Dean was killing the bitch extra dead with her own demon-killing knife before she had a chance to dig her claws into Sam this time (regardless of that dangling string). But before that, he was definitely stealing the damn knife.

-o-o-o-

"Could it be Azazel's girl?"

Dean glanced to his brother just as they pulled into the hospital parking lot. Sam's brow was furled in concentration and he'd been quiet most of the ride from the motel.

"The bleeding heart telemarketer?" Dean countered, eyebrow up with incredulity. They didn't know much about whatever new creature Azazel had dug up, other than she had a soft spot for kids apparently, was probably pagan, had glowing green eyes, and liked to screw with them in bars and on the phone. Dean wasn't a fan.

"I don't think a 'bleeding heart' would have done that." Sam gestured with his thumb to the dismantled hex bag in the backseat. They'd have to get it fixed soon. They were on the radar of just about everything at the moment.

"Don't know, Sammy." Dean shrugged one shoulder, playing the devil's advocate role he usually slipped into whenever Sam got lawyer-y. The older Winchester wasn't even aware he did it, or how much it had honed Sam's debate skills over the years before he'd gotten into Stanford. Dean would never have called their family discussions 'practice', but they'd been half the catalyst for Sam wanting to become a lawyer in the first place. "She didn't take the bag. She could've taken it."

Or did the Gabriel thing and re-stashed it, utterly useless to them without their knowhow. Who knew, maybe she didn't have enough knowledge of witchcraft to know to do that in the first place. But something was telling Dean otherwise. First, pagan. Those guys were always all up in their different rituals, spells, and dark crafts (witchy or otherwise). Besides, you didn't go looking (or touching) hex bags if you didn't know how to handle them. Even the least knowledgeable of the supernatural knew that was just asking for trouble.

"No, you're right, she didn't take it," Sam agreed, but with a look. The lawyer look. Not quite a bitchface, just…lawyer face. "She just left us the message that she could have taken it if she wanted to."

"Yeah…alright," Dean agreed, pulling into a parking spot right in front of the hospital entrance. The lot was largely empty, for the most part. "That doesn't sound like a bleeding heart."

Guess they'd be adding pagan warding to the Impala's next upgrade.

-o-o-o-

Andy was bored out of his mind. He'd woken up around nine in the morning, confused and instantly panicking. It might have gotten ugly if not for the heavy dose of morphine running through his system – way stronger than what the Winchesters had chanced giving him – which kept him on the more acceptable side of calm. The cell phone in his hand was the second thing he noticed after 'hospital?', and the nurse coming into his room in response to his spiked heart rate was the third.

Her comforting smile and brief explanation of his location, injuries, and safety did nothing to calm Andy down until he spotted the note, Sam's familiar handwriting guaranteeing in not-so-many-words that the room was warded and this woman couldn't possibly be a demon. Then, and only then, was Andy able to relax enough that the doctor, when he came in, didn't feel the need to re-sedate him. As soon as the two of them left with the guarantee that his fellow 'agents' would be in by eleven to see him, Andy pulled up the phone and got to texting.

Dean's response was immediate. That alone, even more than Dean's message that they would be there as soon as visitor hours opened (ten thirty, Dean insisted, though Andy was really sure the nurse had told him eleven, not that he was gonna argue with a Winchester on a mission), made him feel a million times better.

As for the rest, well, the morphine was taking care of that for now. Until he had to do otherwise, Andy was taking a page out of Dean Winchester's book and not thinking about it.

-o-o-o-

Okay, so the not-thinking-about-it thing had been a lie. Not an intentional lie, but Andy didn't know how Dean did it. How was one supposed to not think about shit? Especially shit this bad?

Andy tried several very hesitant, slow test swallows. His throat hurt only in the way where his body told him it was hurting but his brain didn't actually register any pain. Morphine was fascinating. But there was a tightness and a pull across his skin deep within his throat that clued him in. It was going to be ugly when they weaned him off the drug.

He didn't like the thought, but Andy hoped that wouldn't be anytime soon.

The painkiller made him both sleepy and fuzzy, which in term made it much harder to control his thoughts. Which meant the inevitable, 'I'm never going to talk again, am I?' slipped out before he ever had a chance of wrangling it back in. It also meant, though, that the six follow-up thoughts (ranging from panic to regret to something like resignation, only more, hm, floaty) sort of fizzled off into the cosmos even as he thought them. Because his drugged up brain lacked any sort of attention span, too.

So, you know, could be worse.

Andy texted Sam and Dean no less than fifty times in the hour and a half it took them to head his way (both parties had agreed after Dean offered to be there in ten minutes, regardless of visiting hours, not to rush over. Andy knew he was safe in a room the brothers had personally warded, and harassing hospital staff so early on in an undetermined-length of stay wouldn't win them any bonus points). The brothers had both showered and dressed (well, Dean had already showered before Andy's first text came through, dressing while he juggled phone and clothes, letting Sam sleep for as long as he could) while Andy snarked back and forth with them, complaining about being bored (Sam's response to that one had been an apology for not thinking to leave him a coloring book and crayons in the middle of the night after they'd rushed him to a hospital to be treated for a serious trauma wound. The jerk), about the lack of hot nurses (he could practically hear Dean's snort of agreement before a response very similar to just that had come through), and definitely complaining about the catheter ('You let them CATH me?! How could you I thought we were friends!' and Sam's answer of, 'Friends don't let other friends wet the bed, Andy.')

Andy was right in the middle of composing a truly spectacular reply to Dean's last remark (which he was actually fairly certain was Sam's, since Dean would most definitely be driving the Impala. Though how much was Sam dictating his brother's response and how much was the younger Winchester's own added opinion was hard to tell) when the door to his room swung open and Dean loudly announced that whatever Andy had to say, he could say it to their faces.

It was ten twenty-nine on the dot.

The nurse who had opened the door for them, still standing in the doorway beside Dean, arm outstretched on the knob, did not look happy at either their presence or volume, but she also had the resigned kind of laughter in her eyes that told Andy she'd already lost any argument she'd had against the older Winchester. He wasn't surprised. She left with a prolonged glare to each of them (longer in Dean's case, and more of a second thought for Sam), as well as a warning that her patient needed rest and if she had to come back in here because they riled him up or upset him, they would not like the consequences.

Dean turned back to Andy with exaggeratedly wide eyes and raised brows as Nurse Ratchet shut the door behind them. "I see why you're whining if you've been dealing with that all morning."

Andy beamed, and it was only, like, half driven by the morphine. Honestly, Nurse Ratchet, or Charlotte as she'd introduced herself that morning ('Lotte for short, though you better not be trying to say either of 'em right now with that throat injury of yours, hon'), was pretty wonderful. Stern as all get-out and took no back-talk (not that Andy was capable, though you'd be surprised what a single look could tell a person, apparently), but she was also kind and comforting. Without the Winchesters immediately around, Charlotte had been pretty awesome backup. She kind of reminded the kid of Bobby Singer, actually.

Just…slightly better looking.

Andy's smile only grew as Dean crossed over to the bed, dropping a duffle bag from his shoulder and nudging it under the raised hospital bed with his foot. It had a change of clothes for the kid, among other things, for whenever they got him out of here. Sam would be in charge of that talk with the Doc later today. Sam joined him as well, pulling something out of his bag and handing it over to the kid.

Andy snorted so hard at the coloring book and little pack of crayons that he actually did feel some pain through the morphine. He ended up wincing, reaching for his bandaged neck and ultimately aborting the move.

"Shit, sorry," Sam hissed, hands raising in apology, but Andy waved him off. This was the best he'd felt in, like, a week (morphine aside, because that was definitely helping), and he wasn't gonna regret a little pain to see Sam and Dean again. Alive, mostly in one piece, teasing him. Not a dream or a hallucination caused by the last firing neurons in his dying, deoxygenated, and blood-starved brain.

All was back to being right in the world.

Well, mostly. Sort of. Okay, really, barely at all.

Andy's grin faltered as those pesky thoughts slipped back through his mind, but he chased them away. There'd be time later, when he wasn't drugged and in enough pain to actually need the drugs, to think depressing things about his future. About a softball player from Berkley or an emo kid who no longer had one.

The smile came back with wavering force behind it. Sam seemed to understand. He took the book and box back, setting them on the table beside the bed. "It's going to be okay, Andy. Did the doctors talk about your condition?"

Sam waved his hand in an 'all of this' sort of motion, mostly aimed at Andy's throat, but really, encompassing pretty much all of him, if they were being honest. Andy raised his hand and made a wishy-washy motion back. Both the doc who'd been in to see him (a different doctor than the one that had performed the surgery last night, apparently, but familiar with his case) and the three different nurses he'd seen throughout the morning had avoided discussing the extent of his injuries completely. Andy guessed from their lack of directness that the prognosis was most definitely worse than the best-case-scenario. They were probably waiting to tell him until he was more stable, less druggy, and also maybe bolstered mentally by the presence of his 'colleagues'.

It was from all that that Andy easily reasoned he'd never talk again. People didn't get all hedgey with you unless there were consequences they knew you wouldn't want to hear. Andy couldn't blame them, and, honestly he didn't really wanna hear that truth yet, either. So he hadn't pushed.

Now, of course, facing Sam's big brown eyes of sorrow and sympathy, Andy internally sighed. There was no getting away from Sam Winchester when he switched those babies to puppy mode. He'd not met a single person capable of resisting that look. According to Dean, the older Winchester had yet to either. So Andy braced himself for the news he knew he didn't want to hear but would have to face eventually.

Might as well face it with the Winchesters by his side, he supposed.

-o-o-o-

Agent Henriksen landed at the Ellsworth Air Force Base at twelve forty nine pm, Mountain Standard Time, go-bag and jacket in hand. A captain greeted him, a car already waiting for him, and he directed his driver to take him to the U.S. Forest Service office in Custer, where he would meet with the District Ranger in charge and the lead homicide detectives on the case from both Custer and Rapid City.

From there, they would take him to Cold Oak, an abandoned mining town that was the scene of their triple homicide. And, Victor hoped, the first real break in the Winchester case.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A/Ns: Aaaaand it took an entire chapter just to get Henriksen in there. Gaaaaaaaah! I was totally like, "I'll bring him into the middle of this chapter and then keep track of his movements throughout the chapter!" Nope. Took an entire chapter just to get to noon *deeeeep breath in* *deeeep sigh out*

Acronyms: For anyone who might not recognize North American acronyms or are reading this via an internet translator, AWOL is Away Without Leave. It's a military term for someone who has gone missing without permission.

(I will also be trying to add more of these descriptors after chapters for our non-English or ESL readers. Feel free to flag anything I miss and I'll add it)

Up Next: Andy contemplates a new existence without voice or powers, Sam has some ideas, Dean's contemplating Cas and gay porn (not in the same sentence or even context, and, I promise, still totally in character (I will win you to my side on this promise, just you wait!) ;), and Henriksen is on the move!