I cover Sam's hand when he unzips his duffel, "As eager as I am to spend a couple of days crammed into the back seat of Dean's car with a teenager and an overdressed angel, tell me that when you said the four of us it was just an oversight. You really meant to say five, because you weren't thinking you were going to leave me here, while taking a 17-year-old boy with along…"

Sam's face goes through a kaleidoscope of emotions. Clearly, he's trying to ask the girlfriend to stay behind and yet still be politically correct, not to mention trying to keep from pissing me off.

"B you're right I'm sorry but it is going to be uncomfortable, and I wouldn't be taking Kevin if it wasn't his mother. I'm not sure we can convince her to come with us without him."

"I'm not arguing that Kevin shouldn't go. Of course, you need him there both for his spell work and yes to put his mother at ease. That doesn't justify leaving me behind!" God help me I can't stop myself from stamping my foot for emphasis. I glare at him daring him to say anything else.

He swallows, wipes his hand over his face, thins his lips, takes a deep breath and nods. "Bringing Kevin has nothing to do with leaving you behind. You don't need to come along, so why put yourself in unnecessary danger?"

"We want to do this quickly; doesn't another person help with that?"

"Sure, but you've only got the bare minimum of training!"

"And who killed a demon the first day of our roadtrip to find this place?" I throw my arms out to indicate the bunker.

"Sam! B! What the hell is this shit!?" Dean pounds into the room carrying his duffel, his expression thunderous, utterly ignoring our argument.

"It appears to be your duffel bag." Sam says through gritted teeth.

"No, no, no, no, no. This is A duffel bag; this isn't MY duffel bag. My bag has a worn corner and a mended strap. THIS bag is some brand new shit and it's not even the right color!"

For just a moment I want to strangle Dean Winchester more than I have ever wanted anything in my entire life. "You interrupt our argument about leaving me out of the fight to whine about the color of your luggage? Who died and made you queen?"

"I get sucked into monsterland after saving the world again and you take the opportunity to add a 'feminine touch' to one of my only pieces of personal property and my objection is whining? Screw you!" He tosses the bag at my feet and turns to leave, but then turns back. "And of course, you're not going! On what planet does a month of light sparing with your boyfriend in any way qualify you to fight demons?"

The slap I hit him with rocks his head back and makes my arm go numb, but I don't regret it a bit. "Fuck you Dean! I bought you a new bag because your old one smelled like unwashed gym socks from ancient Egypt! We tried to clean it both with a washer and spell-work. We left it outside filled with cinnamon and pinecones, and still it smelled like you'd been carrying around a corpse in it for YEARS. Sam went through it and found all your hidden pockets – including one or two you'd probably forgotten about. And still, we waited to burn it until after I'd found this replacement." I hold up the new duffel. "This one is lighter weight, yet stronger, nearly the same color, bigger, I sewed in the new hidden pockets, and we warded it every way we could think of. I insisted you were alive, and Sam was determined to get you back, so we wanted you to be even more prepared when you went on your first hunt!" I shove the bag into his hands, and storm out, turning back in the doorway. "Instead of trusting us, you just assume that I'd thoughtlessly throw away your stinky bag and Sam would let me!" The angry tears are close…I run before they break free.

It's Castiel who finds me in one of the dozens of hidden storerooms the bunker contains. This one seems to be office supplies but contains a comfy chair in one corner. I try not to think about the bunker being aware enough to provide me with the perfect place to pout. The angel sits beside me and pulls an enormous handkerchief out of the pocket of his trench coat.

"I looked up Columbo after you called me that. I thought you meant St. Columbo, but that didn't make sense. You were in fact, comparing me to the fictitious television detective, were you not?"

"Yeah, sorry. I wasn't trying to make fun of you."

"On the contrary. The character seems foolish and forgetful, but is intelligent, inciteful, and catches killers on a regular basis. It's less insulting and closer to who I am than what Meg called me."

"What did Meg call you?"

"Clarence."

"Clar-oh right! It's a Wonderful Life. Cute. I'm guessing you're pretty worried about her."

"We were in Purgatory for six weeks, and we've been back for three. She is quite resilient, but it still means that Crowley has been torturing her for more than two months. And what he wants from her…she either doesn't know what he wants or will tell him and cause more trouble."

"And she took good care of you while you couldn't take care of yourself. Plus, she got captured helping save the world."

"Yes." He takes my hand. "Not only should you stay behind on this mission because you are inexperienced, if Crowley finds out about your existence, you will never be safe again, not to mention your child."

My other hand goes to my stomach. "You could tell that I'm pregnant just from a touch?"

"That and your smell changes." He puts two fingers to my forehead, "The child was conceived approximately 24 hours after you and Sam rescued Dean and me. She is just barely more than a spinal cord, but she is healthy."

She. At once I'm both relieved and terrified. "Please don't tell the guys. I wasn't even sure until you said something. I don't want either of them distracted."

Castiel nods, "That is wise. Only you can decide when or if to tell Sam."

I put 'when or if' into a box in my brain and lock it away. "I shouldn't have slapped Dean. With his low self-esteem it's easy to see why he'd think I could just throw his stuff away. I'm a self-centered bitch sometimes."

"Your body is flooded with hormones, and we've all been distracted. Honestly, even if you'd gift-wrapped the bag Dean would have been upset that the old one was replaced without his consent."

"I know. It really was awful though. I'm pretty sure that something in there decomposed to dust and mold."

Castiel stands from his precarious perch on the edge of the table. "I do not doubt you. Let's go talk to them. Dean feels terrible for yelling at you, and Kevin is trying not to show how anxious he is at the delay."

"Poor kid. Yeah, let's hurry and clear the damn air."

I spend the next 5 days researching the trials with an angel. He's the perfect research assistant. He's focused, doesn't make assumptions, never underestimates me, and if we need a reference he vanishes, and returns with whatever I've asked for.

Which sadly, is often necessary. The men of letters didn't seem all that interested in actually doing things to help humanity; they just collected information.

"They knew the tablets existed, summarized what they contained, even had some idea where they were located, but did nothing with that information." I look up at Castiel, "Why bother if you're not going to do anything with it?"

"As a member of Earth's garrison, I spent several thousand years watching humans, nothing more."

I stare at him in shock. "Are…are you shitting me!?"

"I-I do not, uh…I do not perform that bodily function." He looks a little bit ill. "If you are asking if I am making a joke, no, I am not."

"Wow. I don't know which of those statements is more surprising. You really sort of stood around for a few millennia?"

"No, we did fight a few battles, and we moved to different countries to observe people and events." He sighs, "You must understand. Angels are not mortal. We do not require constant stimulation, nor are we concerned about what will happen to us when we die. We were created to follow orders, do as we were told, nothing more." He stands and paces for a bit. "I knew that Lilith was breaking the seals to free the devil. I knew that for some reason those in charge in Heaven were not doing all they could to stop her. When I realized that they were working behind the scenes to release the devil…I could no longer follow their directives." He resumes his seat. "So, I can understand why the Men of Letters would simply gather information and quietly philosophize about it rather than acting on it, and I can see what it would have taken to move them to action. Regrettably, nothing ever happened to galvanize them into action the way Dean did for me."

Four days later Castiel falls silent mid-sentence, then vanishes in a woosh of wings. Thirty nerve-racking minutes later he reappears with Kevin under one arm and a petite Asian woman under the other. I hurry forward to steady her while the veteran, Kevin wobbles before righting himself.

"The guys?" I ask Castiel.

"They're fine. Sam will call you in a few hours after they dispose of the bodies."

"Bodies plural? How many?"

"Three outside, one inside." Kevin says, putting one hand on the table. He keeps his eyes closed while taking several deep breaths.

His mother (I assume), made of sterner stuff, blinks several times, sighs, and straightens.

"I still don't agree that Eunice needed to be killed. "

"Mom, I told you the demon possessing her would have told Crowley about us. It would have told him that Dean and Castiel here are back from purgatory and helping out. That would have been a disaster. Sam and Dean completing the trials is the only way I get free of being a prophet and getting our lives back."

"And you're sure there wasn't a way to kill the demon, but save Eunice?"

Before Kevin can answer, Castiel speaks up, "No. Your friend was already dead. The demon killed her when it possessed her."

"You're certain of that?" She narrows her eyes, but I can hear reluctant hope in her voice.

"Yes. It is rare for a person to survive demon possession. The demon must be old and experienced at possession, and there must be some purpose to the host surviving. In this case, none of those things were true."

I nod. "He's right, all my research bears that out."

She narrows her eyes at me, "And you're the local demon expert; not just one of their girlfriends?"

"Mom!" Kevin jumps in, "This is B Crawford. She's an assistant director at the Smithsonian! We did an analysis of a paper she wrote for AP History last year."

Mrs. Tran looks at me in confusion, "Then what are you doing here?"

"Oh, well, as a matter of fact, I'm also Sam's girlfriend." I smile even as I feel my face grow hot.

"Naturally. With an angel, a prophet, two giant ghostbusters, there just had to be a historian/demon expert/girlfriend in residence to round things out."

By the time Sam and Dean get back, Kevin has translated the first trial and is well on his way to figuring out the second one.

Dean starts to drop his duffle in a chair but pauses and looks at me with a scowl that morphs into a smile and a nod. It gives me a stupid thrill, but I run over and hug him anyway. He kisses my temple, releases me, and heads for the kitchen.

Sam gathers me in. "God, I missed you!"

"Same here. Although Castiel is an excellent research assistant."

"You didn't miss me for my research skills!?" He raises an eyebrow.

"Uh, no, I did miss discussing things with you, but mostly it was your talented tongue and your enormous cock." My God, did I just say that out loud?

He throws back his head and laughs, then bends to kiss me. Before we get in more than a press of lips, Dean yells from the kitchen, "Sam, B! Get in here, we got shit to go over! You have the rest of the night for the reunion!"

Sam shrugs and tows me with him into the kitchen. Dean, who is already half-way through a beer, hands one to Sam. He turns to Kevin, "Ok, so, what are we talking about?"

The kid looks back and forth between Sam and Dean, eyes big with trepidation, before blurting, "You have to kill a hellhound and bathe in its blood."

Dean pivots and spits beer into the sink while Sam chokes on his. He swallows and coughs while I pound him on the back. "Kevin, honestly, you couldn't have waited until AFTER they'd swallowed?"

"So, nothing too difficult." Dean leans against the sink and takes another casual drink.

Sam sits at the table. "Right, no big deal. They're invisible and only come to Earth to drag someone to hell when their deal comes due, should be a milk run."

"Actually, I found a way to be able to see them listed on the tablet." Kevin manages to look pleased with himself, and guilty at the same time.

"Oh good, we'll be able to see the thing before it rips our guts out, awesome." Dean goes back to his casual posture.

"Hey, I didn't decide what the trials would be, I just translated the tablet."

Sam puts a hand on Kevin's arm to urge him back into his seat. "We know buddy, and we appreciate it, we just…neither of us want to face a hellhound again."

"Again!?" Linda demands.