Tabitha sat outside their ground-floor motel room on a rusty, 50’s style metal lawn chair. Her feet were propped up on railing that held up the overhang from the floor above. A cold rain fell at a steady pace, the dampness not touching Tabitha as it fell in heavy sheets from the overhang and splattered across the parking lot. It would have been the perfect weather for sleeping, and she was sure the rain would have lulled most people to sleep. But not Tabitha. Not tonight.
Instead, she burrowed deeper into her old, insulated denim coat—worn and frayed at the edges from years of wear, use, and hunting—simply sitting back and watching the falling rain. She had too many other things on her mind.
“There a reason you’re sitting out here in the rain?” Dean asked.
Tabitha looked over her shoulder to see her older brother standing in the open doorway of their motel room.
“I’m not in the rain,” she said, tossing her head out towards the night. “I’m under the overhang.”
Dean stepped outside, shutting the door behind him, and moving to sit in the other old metal lawn chair on the other side of the door. “I meant, what are you doing out here and not inside sleeping. The couch really that uncomfortable? You want the bed?”
She shrugged in return. It had been her turn to sleep on the couch in their room, but that hadn’t been the problem. “I slept most of the day while you drove. Just wasn’t tired.”
Other things had been on her mind. Other worries.
He nodded almost absently, bringing a bottle of beer to his lips from a six-pack she hadn’t seen him holding. Catching her look, he held the bottle out to her.
She shook her head and brought her other hand to her lips, taking another inhale from the cigarette nearly forgotten in her hand.
“When’d you start smoking again?” Dean asked, an edge to his voice.
Tabitha waved her other hand at her brother. “I’ve given up chocolate and now drinking. Let me have this one last vice right now.”
Dean grunted in return and took another swig from his bottle. The pair continued to stare out into the night.
“So what the hell is going on that you’ve given up drinking now, too, and are smoking again? You’ve been acting funny ever since Halloween and that hunt to take out Samhain. What’s going on? It started that night you came back from having a few too many. Something happen with that old guy?”
“Nope,” Tabitha answered simply. Not willing to elaborate. But it wasn’t thoughts of that sheriff and his drunken behavior that brought her outside in the middle of the night. But rather, her own drunken behavior.
Dean gave an exasperated sigh as he leaned back against his lawn chair. “Then what? ‘Cause something sure happened that night. You’ve been acting all quiet and squirrely ever since.”
Tabitha lowered the cigarette from her lips, turning to her brother slightly as she narrowed her eyes and demanded, “How was Hell, Dean? Since you seem to want to talk.”
Her older brother cursed under his breath and downed the last of his beer, staring down at the empty bottle in his hands as he said, “Jesus. Now you, too? First Sammy starts riding my ass about Hell just because of some comment by that douchebag angel, and now, you, too? I already told you both, I do remember Hell, but that doesn’t mean I’m talking about it.”
Tabitha sighed guiltily and flicked her cigarette butt out into the rainy night, softly telling her brother, “Then respect that there are things I’m not talking about, either.”
“This is different,” Dean told her. “Whatever is going on in that head of yours is distracting you and keeping you from sleeping. You didn’t sleep all that long on the drive here, either.”
“Yeah, well, you were driving all day and didn’t sleep. And now, you’re still not sleeping. And don’t tell me that it isn’t memories from Hell keeping you awake. So we’re still at the same impasse. You have things you don’t want to talk about, and so do I.”
But deep down, Tabitha knew she wasn’t pushing her brother to talk about Hell because it would open her up to having to answer Dean’s questions as well. She wanted him to tell her more about what had happened. But there were just too many things she wasn’t ready to talk to him about.
The siblings sat in silence again.
But Dean finally broke it. “There’s no sense burdening you with that crap, Tabby. It won’t help anything.”
“Then at least tell Sam if you don’t think your delicate little sister can handle it,” Tabitha retorted.
“I’m not telling him anymore than I’m telling you. Kid blames himself enough for me selling my soul and going to Hell to save his life. Not that I’d have done anything different. He just doesn’t need any more burden.”
Tabitha sighed and wrapped her arms around herself. “Promise me that you’ll at least consider talking to Sam or me about it if it starts to get really bad, Dean. I mean, more than nightmares and not being able to sleep like’s been going on.”
Dean finally jerked his head in a single nod. “Long as you promise me that you’ll do the same. That you’ll tell me what’s going on before this gets worse.”
“Sure thing, Dean.”
But truth was, she didn’t want or need to talk to Dean about what was going on. She needed to talk to Castiel—wanted to try to clear things up with him. But the angel hadn’t shown up since his warning during Halloween to find that witch. He’d shown up to Dean after they’d failed and let Samhain rise—and then Sam had done his freaky demon exorcising crap to send him back down—but Tabitha hadn’t seen the angel herself.
She had grown used to seeing him on a regular basis. Usually on nights like this when she couldn’t sleep and was sitting alone outside waiting for morning to come. Or during the day if she wasn’t with her brothers but was by herself researching or doing something else. Anytime she was alone really, that was usually when the angel would show up to talk for a few minutes. Or even sit in silence for a while.
But not since Halloween and her stupid drunken mistake. She had apologized to the angel for that, and she was damned if she was going to apologize again for the silly mistake she’d made. But she did want to apologize to the angel for her thinking the worst that day and thinking he actually did want to wipe out that town. Dean had explained to her and Sam that the angels’ orders had actually been to follow Dean’s orders, and that Castiel had said he had prayed they would save those people.
And they had, but at the cost of the seal.
She’d even tried praying for and calling out to Castiel one night on their last hunt, but the angel hadn’t answered. And the angel hadn’t come.
And Tabitha was starting to realize just how much she missed his strange friendship. His awkward silences and his general confusion about humans.
“What’s that?” Dean asked, seeing his sister fiddling with something on her wrist.
She pulled back her coat sleeve to show him the charm bracelet.
“Wasn’t that Mom’s? You used to wear it all the time, but I haven’t seen you wear it since you came back to hunt with us again,” he told her, leaning across the space between them to look at her wrist when she held it out between them.
Tabitha pulled her arm back into her lap, fingering the charms on the bracelet. “Yeah, I never used to take it off, but then when I started working for the FBI, I quit wearing it. People were always asking what all the charms meant, and except for the couple I got myself, I only knew what two of them were. The cross and the anti-possession charm. So it was easier to just quit wearing it and not have to come up with explanations for it. But I found it in my bag a couple of days after Halloween and decided to start wearing it again.”
“The anniversary of the day Mom died, you mean?”
“Yeah. When I found the bracelet, it just seemed like a good idea to start wearing it again,” Tabitha shrugged.
Dean glanced at the bracelet once more. “I saw Mom wearing that when Castiel sent me to the past. You know, when I found out Mom and her family were hunters. Makes you wonder about what all those symbols on that bracelet really mean, don’t it?”
Tabitha fingered the cross in particular on the bracelet. It was an artistic looking cross, the ends of the points wider than where it intersected. It was silver but inlaid with onyx colored stones. “It does put things in a different light knowing more about Mom now. She told me to always wear it and that it would protect me. And the funny thing is, I always assumed the anti-possession charm was from Dad, but I can always remember it being on the bracelet. And besides, Dad gave me a necklace with an anti-possession charm on it when we started hunting with him. And I wore that even when I was in the FBI. It was easier to hide.”
“Huh. I guess I always remember it being on your bracelet, too. Didn’t seem weird until Mom was trying to kick my ass and I saw it on her wrist way back then.”
Tabitha giggled almost girlishly. “I would have paid good money to see her kick your ass.”
“Hey! I said trying. She was trying,” Dean said with mock indignation.
“Sure, Dean.”
She continued to spin the bracelet on her arm as they sat in silence, wondering at all the different charms on it and what they could mean. She’d gotten the little diploma charm herself when she had gotten her GED early and started taking online college courses. The boys had gotten her the little ghost charm during a hunt somewhere as a means of appeasing her when she’d been mad at them for some annoying thing or another they’d done. And the little revolver silver charm had come from another friend. But the rest she’d never known or understood. They all looked like strange symbols and even strange letters she wasn’t familiar with. And she couldn’t help but feel like she was protected by it. Even if it was only in her mind.
Beside her, Dean crossed his arms over his chest, trying to ward off the cold air, rubbing his hands up and down arms only covered by a long-sleeve shirt he hadn’t bothered to button up.
“You really think we can take the word of this demon?” Dean suddenly asked her.
Tabitha gave a dark chuckle as her mind pulled away from the angel and focused instead on the demon that had sent them on their latest hunt. “I don’t know. Instinct says ‘no,’ but… Sam thinks we can. And he knows her better than we do. He trusts her. So maybe we have to. For now, anyway. At the very least, we can check out this girl she put us onto and find out in the process just how much we can trust Ruby. Besides, if demons are after this girl, we have to at least check it out, regardless of the trust issues you and I have with demons in general. Besides, we already drove three days to check it out. We might as well actually look into it after driving that far.”
Dean grunted, but didn’t respond.
“There’s more going on between Ruby and Sam than he’s copping to so far, Dean. And until he’s willing to tell that story, I think we need to tread carefully where she’s concerned.”
Turning towards her with narrowed eyes, Dean asked, “What do you know about the two of them?”
“Sam hasn’t told me the story, yet,” Tabitha hastened to explain. Though she left out that between things he’d let slip and things she’d questioned Sam about, she was fairly certain their little brother had been sleeping with the demon. But that wasn’t for her to tell Dean. Sam had let that slip to her during their argument a while back, and she wouldn’t tell Dean unless she absolutely had to. Besides, she’d slept with a demon herself—though she hadn’t known it at the time like Sam had.
“I don’t like the idea of trusting a demon.”
Tabitha chuckled in response. “You think I do? I’d like to see them all sent back to Hell. For good.” Particularly whatever demon it was that was after her and had sent other demons to possess and kill so many of her friends and coworkers.
Tabitha reached into her coat and started to take out another cigarette to light.
“Jesus, Tab. You’re gonna kill yourself with those things. If you want to narrow down to only one vice, I’d rather you keep drinking than smoking. That stuff stinks,” Dean complained.
Tabitha shoved the pack back into her pocket and held her hand out to Dean for a bottle of beer. Besides, it wasn’t as though she was likely to get drunk and try to kiss an angel again, especially since he seemed to be so determined to avoid her.
Dean grinned and slapped a bottle into her waiting hand.
As she twisted the top off, she laughed and told him, “Yeah, ’cause drinking is a whole lot better for your health than smoking.”
“Better than getting lung cancer.”
“Ha! Like any of us is worried about living long enough to get any kind of cancer. And like liver cancer is so much slower to onset than lung cancer.”
Dean opened another bottle as he tipped the metal chair backwards, resting the back of the chair against the side of the motel. “True enough,” he told her, “besides, with the apocalypse coming, it’s not like it matters either way.”
Tabitha could see the weight in Dean’s eyes before he wearily closed them. Hoping to ease him somewhat, she reminded him, “You’re not alone, Dean. We’ll find a way to stop it. We will.”
He didn’t open his eyes as he grimly said, “Yeah, like we stopped Samhain from rising? We really screwed up on that seal. Who’s to say we’ll stop any of them?”
“Well, we didn’t stop Samhain from rising, but we did manage to change a giant, alcoholic, porn-loving, needs-an-antidepressant, living teddy bear, back into just a regular old teddy bear. Not to mention putting the rest of that town back to rights from all their crazy wishes. If that had been a seal, we would have kicked its ass.”
Dean finally gave a real laugh at that, letting his chair drop back down to the concrete as he opened his eyes and grinned at her. “Yeah, if the rest of the seals all involved porn-loving teddy bears, I think we’d be well qualified in handling it.”
“Yeah, that would be right up your alley.”
The siblings sat in silence drinking the rest of their beers as they chuckled over memories of their last case. Neither willing to voice the fear they both had. That the rest of the seals were likely to be harder than even the Raising of Samhain had been.
The Winchesters were busy dressing in their usual suits the next morning.
“So what do you guys think?” Sam asked, shuffling through his stack of IDs. “FBI yet again, or something else this time?”
Tabitha was busy twisting her hair into a French twist, shoving bobby pins into it to hold it in place as she stepped out of the bathroom and looked at her brothers. “Definitely FBI. We’ve been going with FBI a lot, I know, but they’d be the ones to look into missing-persons cases other than the local LEOs.”
“Leo?” Dean asked as he spit out toothpaste in the sink.
“Sorry, cop lingo,” she apologized. “LEO means law enforcement officers.”
“You cop types and your acronyms,” Dean complained as he wiped his mouth. “Frickin’ love to break out the alphabet.”
Tabitha laughed as she smoothed her slacks and stepped into a pair of flat shoes. “What can I say? We Feds are a lazy bunch. We talk in acronyms and police code. Keeps most civilians from knowing what’s going on though. You guys could brush up on your police code to be a little more convincing, too, you know.”
Dean grinned as he stepped away from the sink, pulling his suit jacket on as he said, “10-4. Hey, look at that, I know that one at least.”
“Tabitha’s probably right, Dean, we should know some of that jargon better,” Sam added.
“That’s what we’ve got Tabby for. Why do I have to know that, too?”
Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Glad I’m good for something. Come on guys. Let’s get this over with. I hate being at mental institutions.”
She followed her brothers out to the Impala, once more climbing in the back as Dean got into the driver’s seat.
“Why’s that?” Dean asked over his shoulder. “I’d think you’d have been around them enough as a Fed.”
“Well, yeah, but every time I’m at one, I can’t help but think just how easily someone could try to stick you guys in there,” she told them, grinning as she added, “and probably rightfully so. You guys would fit right in.”
Her brothers chuckled as they made the drive to the facility Ruby had told them about. As they got out, they stared up at the building for a minute.
“Kind of makes you wonder just how many people are in there because they really did see something real, but nobody believes them,” Sam wondered out loud.
It was sobering to think there might not be as many crazy people in the world as most people would suppose.
“Come on,” Dean said. “Let’s get this over with. I’m creeped out already.”
As they walked through the building, being lead to the office of their girl’s psychologist, Sam paused to look down at his older sister.
“Not that I’m complaining, Tabby,” he began in a whisper, “but aren’t you the one who generally says showing a little leg gets ya answers quicker when we’re on a hunt?”
Tabitha snorted and quickly covered her mouth in an attempt to fake a cough when the young intern guiding them paused to look back at her.
Shaking her head, she turned to look up at Sam. “Yeah, when working with other Feds, or cops of some kind that I’m trying to get to underestimate me or trying to get them to bend over backwards to help the ‘poor helpless little woman,'” she explained in low tones. “But you learn pretty quickly when you’re in the FBI to dress sedately when you’re in a mental health facility. Nothing good comes from calling undue attention to yourself in places like this.”
Truthfully, she found herself wearing more skirts and heels when she was impersonating a Federal agent than when she had actually been one, just to help grease the wheels and facilitate their cover.
She paused as they reached their destination, gesturing inside the open door with a jerk of her head as she whispered to her brother in even lower tones, “Besides, I looked on the missing-persons report and saw her shrink was a woman, so showing a little leg isn’t going to get me anywhere unless she plays for the other team.”
Sam chuckled as they entered the office, and Tabitha even saw Dean biting back a smile out of the corner of her eye.
A woman in her mid-forties with chin length, curly blonde hair stood from behind her desk and stepped forward with her hand held out. “You must be the FBI agents my secretary said was coming? I’m Doctor Walsh.”
Dean stepped forward and shook the psychologist’s hand, Sam and Tabitha following suit.
After a few minutes of introduction, Dean asked if they could see Anna’s room.
“Of course,” Dr. Walsh told them, leading them down white covered hallways. “I want to help in whatever way I can.”
As they stepped into the room, Sam immediately began questioning the doctor. “Now, the orderly has no recollections of Anna’s escape?”
“Apparently, she knocked him unconscious. The blow caused some amnesia. He doesn’t even remember coming into her room,” the doctor explained as Tabitha and Dean looked around the tidy room. Like every other mental institution Tabitha had been in, everything in the room was either white, beige, cream, or maybe even the ever-exciting eggshell. The very blandness of the room gave Tabitha the creeps. Like the life had been sucked out of it and not just the color.
“That’s a hell of a right hook to knock out a guy that’s got 80 pounds on her,” Dean interjected, coming to join the conversation after finding nothing odd or out of place in her room.
The doctor nodded in agreement. “We think she may have planned this, waited behind the door.”
“Right,” Sam said, seeming unconvinced. “Uh, you mentioned Anna’s illness was recent.”
“Two months ago she was happy,” Dr. Walsh told them, stepping back into the hallway as she continued, “well-adjusted, journalism major, lots of friends—bright future.”
“So, what happened—she just… flipped?”
“Well, that’s the tragedy of schizophrenia,” the doctor continued with a sympathetic look. “Within weeks, Anna was overtaken by delusions.”
“Weeks?” Tabitha questioned. “That seems like a very rapid onset. It’s extremely rare for schizophrenia to progress so quickly. It generally takes months even though the signs can be easily dismissed. Are you certain there weren’t other signs her friends and family weren’t recognizing at the time? Or are you even absolutely certain of the diagnosis? Schizophrenia can be easily diagnosed when it’s in fact something else.”
The doctor bristled slightly, standing slightly taller as she told Tabitha. “We take our work very seriously here, Ms.…”
Tabitha gave a tight smile. “Doctor actually. Doctor Norma Mortenson. I’m a psychiatrist with the FBI; they thought my knowledge might be useful in helping to find Ms. Milton.”
Doctor Walsh looked away as she realized psychiatrist outranked psychologist, clearing her throat uncomfortably as she admitted, “Well, I suppose it’s always possible that Anna suffered from some other delusion based illness, but I think the more pressing concern here is that the girl is missing, not what her diagnosis was.”
Tabitha gestured to the large folder in the doctor’s arms. “What about physiological causes? Have those been thoroughly pursued? Have you done CAT scans and MRIs of the girl? Knowing for sure what caused Ms. Milton’s delusions could go a long way in helping to understand her and therefore in more easily locating the girl.”
“Of course we’ve done all the standard tests and scans. And even a few more,” the doctor defended, flipping through the folder and pulling out several scans to hand to Tabitha. “We also did standard blood work to look for various genetic abnormalities and hormonal imbalances.”
“What kind of delusions did she suffer from?” Sam asked while Tabitha looked through the scans and paperwork.
“She thought demons were everywhere,” Dr. Walsh explained, handing over a large artist’s notebook.
The three siblings paused to look up simultaneously at her explanation.
“Huh,” Sam grunted as he took the notebook.
“Interesting,” Dean agreed.
“It’s not uncommon for our patients to believe that monsters are real.”
Dean shifted almost uncomfortably as he looked at the drawings Sam was flipping through. “Well, that—that’s just batty.”
But true, Tabitha thought to herself as she paused in looking at the scans to look at the drawings as well. Most of them seemed to be drawn in chalk, but were beautiful renditions of what looked like stained-glass windows in a church.
Suddenly, Sam flipped to a page with the words, “Raising of the Witnesses,” messily scrawled across the page in black chalk, but what held Tabitha’s eyes was the symbol in the center. The very symbol that had been marked on all the ghosts that had attacked them.
She stopped looking at the scans as Sam continued flipping through pages; the next was clearly their failure in letting Samhain rise.
Tabitha shuffled the scans back together in her hands. The girl didn’t have any kind of tumor pressing on her brain or abnormalities, no hormonal imbalances, and she certainly wasn’t schizophrenic. But she clearly knew things she shouldn’t have.
The siblings exchanged a worried look that said they were all on the same page where Anna was concerned.
“That’s Revelations,” Dean reminded them as Sam paused on the paper emboldened with their failure in the Rising of Samhain. Tabitha and Sam silently nodded in agreement.
“Since when does the Book of Revelations have jack-o’-lanterns?” the doctor scoffed.
Dean chuckled in response to cover the truth, “It’s a, uh, it’s a little-known translation.”
“Ah,” the doctor replied, clearly unconvinced. “Well, Anna’s father was a church deacon. When she became ill, her paranoia took on religious overtones. She was convinced the devil was about to rise up and end the world.” Tabitha swallowed dryly at that, praying the girl wasn’t prophesying something that was destined to happen. “I hope you find her,” the doctor continued. “It’s dangerous for her to be out there alone right now.”
The siblings grimly nodded.
“We’ll do our best to find her,” Sam assured the woman.
The three were silent as they rode from the institution to Anna’s parent’s house. Not breaking the silence until they were walking up the pathway to the quaint, middle-class looking brown house in the very suburban looking neighborhood.
“I think that girl’s got to be psychic or something,” Tabitha told her brothers, wondering to herself at how much her life had changed in the past months that she now readily believed in psychics. Until Pamela, she’d thought that was all a bunch of garbage. “She definitely wasn’t schizophrenic, the symptoms didn’t match up that well unless she was extremely rare case, despite what that shrink back there said. And her brain scans, MRIs, and blood work were all perfectly clean. Plus there’s the whole thing with her knowing about the apocalypse and all the seals.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Does seem pretty likely that this girl is more than your average human. We need to find her.”
“I know,” Dean huffed, stepping up to the house to knock on the door. He looked back at his sister as they waited. “How’d you know all that stuff anyway, or even how to read CAT scans and MRIs? I thought you were in the business of busting criminals, not analyzing them.”
Tabitha smiled wearily. “Can’t do one without the other. Besides, agents really have to know that stuff pretty well for testifying in court anyway. Half the guys we catch for committing heinous crimes try to have their lawyers get them off by claiming they were crazy or diminished capacity or something. And hell, the other half we arrest really are crazy. So, either way, I have to know that stuff to effectively counter any of their claims and arguments when I testify and to know how to best handle dangerous and unstable criminals.” Her face fell slightly as she realized she wasn’t really an FBI agent anymore. “I guess I should say that I used to have to know that stuff. Don’t really have to anymore.”
Dean uncharacteristically reached out and wrapped his arm over her shoulder, bending down to kiss her affectionately on the forehead as he apologized, “I’m sorry for what happened, Tabby. I’d change it if I could. But you knowing that stuff really does come in handy for us.”
“I know,” she replied, forcing a smile as she wrapped an arm around her older brother’s back in return. “I just forget sometimes that I’m not actually still with the FBI. But I wouldn’t change being here with you guys again. You two aren’t even as annoying as before when I hunted with you guys. I mean, you at least throw your filthy clothes in the general direction of your bags now, and you don’t snore as badly as you used to, and Sam isn’t atomically gassy like he used to be.”
Dean pushed her away as her brothers’ voices rose in defense of themselves.
Tabitha stepped away from the door while they complained, peeking through the shades to look inside the house, and wondering to herself if Anna’s parents were even home.
“Maybe they’re not home,” Dean voiced in echo of his sister’s thoughts as he looked around.
Sam glanced back over his shoulder. “Both cars in the driveway.”
Dean tried the door, and it opened easily under his hand.
The Winchesters shared a look of caution, and then Dean carefully led the way into the house. “Mr. and Mrs. Milton?” he called out.
“We’re from the sheriff’s department,” Sam added. “Just wanted to ask you a couple of questions.” As he spoke, the three siblings split up into different parts of the house to investigate.
Everything seemed neat and tidy until Tabitha stepped into the living room, finding what she presumed to be Anna Milton’s parents, throats slit and bled out on the floor.
“Dean! Sam!” she called out. “Found them!” She uneasily pulled her Glock from the holster at her waist as she bent closer over the bodies. Seeing some yellow dust on the floor, she touched her fingertips to it and took a cautious wiff, immediately jerking her hand away as she glanced over her shoulder at her brothers. “Sulfur,” she confirmed.
Sam sighed. “Demons beat us here. Whatever the deal is with this Anna girl—”
“Yeah, they want her,” Dean cut in. “They’re not screwing around.”
Dean paced around the living room as Tabitha stood up and looked around as well.
“All right,” Dean began. “So, I’m ‘Girl, Interrupted,’ and I know the score of the apocalypse, just busted out of the nut-box, possibly using superpowers by the way. Where do I go?”
Dean and Tabitha began thumbing through mail on an end table by the sofa as Sam stepped over to the mantle, grabbing a picture from the narrow shelf.
“Hey, one of you guys got those sketches from Anna’s notebook?” Sam asked as he held up a picture frame.
“Yeah,” Dean confirmed, reaching into his jacket.
“Let me see ’em.” Sam grabbed the folded papers and held one up beside the picture frame in his hand. “Check this out.”
“She was drawing the window of her church,” Tabitha observed. “Smart place to go if you believe demons are real, I guess.”
“She did draw ’em over and over,” Sam confirmed.
“Let’s go,” Dean said.
The siblings quickly ran out to the Impala, diving for their bags to change out of their suits and into more practical clothing for demon hunting. The brothers had no compunction about changing clothes out on the sidewalk by the car, but Tabitha grabbed her bag and darted back into the Milton house. Throwing on jeans, boots, a long-sleeve shirt, and her worn, black leather jacket.
She was still buckling her leather belt as she ran out of the house, her jeans caught up in her boots from her haste as she hustled down the sidewalk with her bag in hand.
“Hurry up, Tabitha!” Dean shouted, slapping the roof of the Impala to punctuate his order.
She dove through the back door Sam held open for her, throwing her bag down on the floor as she set about straightening her clothes. “The two of you have no appreciation for how much longer it takes a woman to change clothes. We kinda have more articles to change than you two bozos do,” she grumbled under her breath as she pulled her jeans over her heavy biker boots and then pulling her Glock back out of her bag while she was bent over.
Dean chuckled as he pealed out down the street. “I’ve never had much interest in how long it takes a woman to put clothes on,” he laughed, “Just in how long it takes her to get them off.”
“Jesus, Dean. I don’t need that image of you in my head. Especially not on our way to go hunt demons,” Tabitha fired back, but was unable to help the smile that came to her face. At times like this, it almost seemed like they had the old Dean back, and that there was still hope he would be just fine.
“No kidding,” Sam agreed from the passenger seat as he checked his own gun and replaced it beneath his heavy tan Carhartt coat. “I’ve seen enough over the years. Don’t need to hear more.”
Laughing as he drove, Dean told them, “Don’t know what your guys’ problem is. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Soon, they had pulled up in front of the little church that were from Anna’s drawings and where her father had been a deacon.
With their guns drawn and ready, and the demon knife in Dean’s hand, the siblings quietly entered the church, clearing the main levels of pews and the pulpit, and continuing on to the second floor where the stained glass was that Anna had drawn the most frequently.
As they entered a small room, they spotted someone moving behind another piece of decorated stained glass near the outer window.
“Dean,” Sam whispered, gesturing towards the movement.
The figure looked slight, and from the heavy breathing, seemed scared. Tabitha replaced her pistol in its holster and motioned her brothers to do the same.
Thinking the girl might respond to another female better, Tabitha gently called out, “Anna?” They moved a little closer when there was no answer. “We’re not here to hurt you, Anna Milton. We’re here to help you. My name is Tabitha, and these are my brothers, Sam and Dean.”
“Tabitha? Not Tabitha Winchester? And Sam—Sam Winchester?”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam cautiously answered.
The redheaded girl they’d seen in pictures stepped out from hiding at last, looking at the siblings with something close to awe and fear intermingled. “And you’re Dean,” she continued. “The Dean?”
“Well, yeah. The Dean, I guess,” the oldest Winchester grinned, clearly pleased with the distinction.
Sam rolled his eyes at their brother.
“It’s really you,” Anna continued in awe, some of the fear slipping away. “Oh, my god. The angels talk about you,” she gushed. “You were in Hell, but Castiel pulled you out. And some of them think you can help save us.” She paused as her eyes shifted to Tabitha, “And you’re supposed to be protected because you’re important to the angels.” Her gaze shifted to Sam then as she quietly admitted, “And some of them don’t like you at all.”
Tabitha cleared her throat uncomfortably at the girl’s words, not liking them even though she had heard most of it already, but feeling uncomfortable by the girl’s excitement over her and her brothers.
But Anna continued on oblivious to the discomfort of all three of the Winchester siblings. “They talk about you all the time lately. I feel like I know you.”
“So, you talk to angels?” Dean asked.
“Oh, no. No, no way,” Anna hastily clarified, seeming abashed as she looked down. “Um, they probably don’t even know I exist. I just kind of… overhear them.”
“You overhear them?” Sam inquired in disbelief.
“Yeah, they talk, and sometimes I just… hear them in my head.”
“Like… right now?” Dean asked, looking around the room as if an angel might pop out at any moment.
Tabitha stared at the girl in shock. Hardly able to believe that there was someone else who could hear angels’ voices in their head, but wondering how it was that the girl had heard everything that she obviously had based on her drawings. Tabitha had only heard Castiel a few times, and Uriel the one time during Halloween.
As Tabitha looked the girl over suspiciously, she wondered if the girl knew that she could hear angels, too. The girl seemed to know something about her, or at least that the angels had protected her in the past. But as the girl stared back at the siblings, her gaze was open and waiting, and Tabitha saw no sign that she knew anything about what Tabitha could do.
“Not right this second,” Anna went on in answer to Dean. “But a lot. And I can’t shut them out, there are so many of them.”
Definitely not quite like me then, Tabitha thought to herself. Or at least, whatever it was that made the two of them hear angels was on steroids with Anna if she heard them that often.
Dean sighed as he said, “So, they lock you up with a case of the crazies when really you were just… tuning in to angel radio?”
Anna suddenly looked relieved. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Anna, when did the voices start?” Tabitha asked. “Do you remember?”
The girl got excited. “I can tell you exactly—September 18th.”
The Winchesters shared a knowing look.
“The day I got out of Hell,” Dean whispered to them.
“First words I heard, clear as a bell—’Dean Winchester is saved.'”
“What do you guys think?” Dean asked his siblings.
Sam scoffed and shook his head. “It’s above my pay grade, man.”
“Well, at least now we know why the demons want you so bad. They get a hold of you, they can hear everything the other side’s cooking. You’re 1-900-ANGEL.”
Tabitha forced a laugh to hide her reeling thoughts. Wondering to herself if that was why the demons had wanted her so badly, too. Did they know she could hear the angels? Did they think she could hear them all the time like Anna could? Would they ever stop looking for her?
“Hey, um, do you know—” Anna began, “Are my parents okay? I—I didn’t go home. I was afraid.”
Before they could answer the girl, the door behind them whipped open. The Winchesters turned to see Ruby rush into the room.
“You got the girl? Good, let’s go.”
“Oh! Her face!” Anna cried out in fear as Ruby came closer.
“It’s okay,” Sam tried to reassure her as Anna fearfully backed away. “She’s here to help.”
“Yeah, don’t be so sure,” Dean replied under his breath.
Tabitha wasn’t so sure, either, so she stepped away from her brothers to comfort Anna.
“It’s okay,” she whispered to the girl, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer. “We won’t let anything happen to you.” Including Ruby, she thought to herself.
“We have to hurry,” Ruby told them, unconcerned by Dean’s comment or Tabitha’s attempt to put herself between the girl and the demon.
“Why?” Dean demanded, not moving from his place.
“Because a demon’s coming—big-timer. We can fight later, Dean.”
“Well, that’s pretty convenient—showing up right when we find the girl with some bigwig on your tail?”
“Are you sure we can trust her?” Anna whispered fearfully to Tabitha as the demon continued to argue with her oldest brother.
Tabitha shrugged. “My little brother trusts her, and I trust my brother. That’s enough for now,” she assured the girl.
There was suddenly silence, and Tabitha looked up to see what her brothers were staring at—a marble statue of the Virgin Mother, trails of blood falling from her eyes.
“It’s too late,” Ruby whispered. “He’s here.”
Sam looked back at where Tabitha stood with the girl. “Go, hide her,” he commanded. “And stay with her until it’s clear.”
“Bullshit,” she replied, not moving from her place. “I’m not tucking tail and hiding while you guys stay and fight.”
“Tabitha! Do as Sam’s asking. Please!” Dean said, his voice harsh but pleading. “If that demon gets past us you need to protect the girl. She’s not gonna be able to fight it. If something happens, get that girl outta here. Get to Bobby’s.”
Tabitha stared at them for a moment, but then jerked her head in a nod and began shepherding the girl towards the back corner of the room, finding a small broom closet and pushing the girl inside as she waited in front of the door.
She drew her gun, but knew it wouldn’t do any good against a demon, so pulled a flask out of her inner jacket pocket with Holy Water in it, and prayed that the demon coming wasn’t strong enough to find Holy Water only an annoyance.
She could hear Ruby telling Sam he had to use his mind to pull the demon, and prayed he wouldn’t, fearing what was becoming of her brother in using such powers.
The girl whimpered in the closet behind her.
“It’s all right, Anna. I won’t let them get to you,” she promised as they began hearing commotion in the main part of the room.
Ruby suddenly appeared around the corner. “We’ve gotta go,” the demon hurriedly told her. “This is going bad, quick.”
Tabitha grabbed the demon as Ruby yanked the closet door open. “You’re not taking that girl anywhere,” she growled, jerking on the demon’s shoulder as Ruby grabbed Anna by the arm.
Suddenly, Tabitha felt her insides jerk, and then they were no longer standing in the church.
She and Anna both grasped at the poorly constructed wooden walls to steady themselves, but Tabitha quickly righted herself, throwing a quick look around the sparse cabin they were suddenly standing in before grabbing the demon by the throat and shoving her against the wall, her Glock tucked underneath the demon’s chin.
“Where the hell are my brothers?” she asked in a vicious whisper.
Ruby held still with her hands raised in the air. “Chill. They’re big boys. I’m sure they got out of there just fine when things started going south.”
“Where… are… they?” Tabitha continued in a lower voice, pressing the gun harder under the demon’s chin.
“Like that’s gonna do you any good. It’s not the Colt, and it’s not the knife, so it won’t hurt me.”
“It’ll sure as hell entertain me to aerate your head, though.”
“Fine. Just put the gun away. I like this meat suit. And it took me a long time to find one that was unoccupied just to appease your brother’s delicate sensibilities,” Ruby flippantly replied.
Tabitha pulled back slightly, unexpectedly relieved to know that her brother had insisted Ruby find a body without a person stuck inside it with her, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know how the demon had achieved that.
“Where are they?” she repeated.
“Like I said, I’m sure they’re fine. They’ve been doing this a while, you know. After we’ve waited a while to make sure they’ve made a clean break from the demon, I’ll go find them and tell them where we are.”
Tabitha stepped away from the demon. “And just where is that?”
“Somewhere safe.”
Tabitha dug into her jacket pocket, taking out her cellphone.
Before she could dial the number, Ruby had swiped it from her hand and thrown it at the wall, the phone shattering into hundreds of pieces of now useless technology.
Staring at the demon and itching to shoot her, Tabitha slowly and carefully asked, “What the hell was that for? You’re not off to a good start if you don’t want me adding additional holes to your meat suit.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “You can’t go calling them right now. They’re probably still making sure they’re getting rid of that demon and we can’t risk you calling them and having that demon or his minions overhear something that could give away our location.”
Stepping over to the shattered phone, Tabitha looked down at the pieces, but with a resigned sigh, turned away, and left the broken parts. “You know, talking works, too,” she huffed at the demon, wildly gesturing between the two of them. “If you really don’t think calling them right now is a good idea, then fine. But you didn’t have to smash my phone. I liked that phone. Besides, Dean and Sam are gonna have a conniption when they realize me and the girl are gone and they can’t get a hold of me.”
Tabitha glanced over at the object of their conversation to find Anna still standing with a hand on the wall, her head twisting back and forth between them in a wonderful imitation of a tennis match spectator. Wanting to calm the girl, Tabitha stepped back beside her as Ruby lit a fire in the fireplace.
“I don’t know about Dean, but Sam will know I took the girl someplace safe. He won’t be worried. He knows I wouldn’t hurt the girl. Or you for that matter,” Ruby said over her shoulder from her crouched position at the fireplace.
“It’s okay, Anna,” Tabitha assured the girl, reaching out to run a soothing hand up and down the girl’s arm.
“Where are we?” Anna finally asked in a small voice. “And how did we get here?”
Tabitha tugged the girl along, getting her to take a seat at the little wooden table that served as part of the kitchen, dining room, and living room near the fire.
“That’s a good question,” she kindly told the girl before returning her attention to the demon. “I’ve seen some powerful demons disappear like that before and take their meat suit with ’em, but I’ve never seen one take other people with them, too. How’d you do that?” she asked Ruby as she moved to stand down the wall from the fireplace, leaning sideways as she watched Ruby work.
The demon glanced up at her from her work. “It takes a lot of concentration and power. And it takes some years to develop the skill. But still, it’s hard enough taking our own meat suit with us, dragging two others along is much harder. And kinda draining.” She stood up from the burgeoning fire. “Why else do you think I didn’t kick your ass just now?” she asked with a raised brow.
“Aww,” Tabitha drawled sarcastically, “I figured it was because you liked me.”
“Whatever,” Ruby offhandedly responded. “I’m gonna go outside and check the perimeter of the place. Just to make sure we weren’t followed. Watch the girl.”
Tabitha warily watched the demon step outside into the dying sunlight before going to join Anna at the table. “You all right, Anna?”
The girl slowly nodded. “Yeah. I think so. It’s just… a lot’s happened, you know, and it’s hard to take it all in.”
Anna was nervously playing with her hands on the table, and Tabitha reached out to calmingly lay her hand over the girl’s. “I know what you mean, Anna. But you’re handling this extremely well.”
She smiled shyly in return. “I’m just glad to be out of that mental institution. I hated that they kept telling me I was crazy. I knew what I was hearing.”
The pair sat in silence for several minutes as Tabitha considered how best to ask what she wanted to know.
Finally, she carefully questioned, “Anna? You said you knew about my brothers and me. Knew what the angels were saying about us. What did they say about me? Do you know why I’m important? Other than having brothers tangled up in this mess, that is.”
She almost had herself convinced that was the only reason for the angels’ interest when Anna adamantly shook her head. “Oh no, it’s more than that. They said that you had to be protected. That you were important.”
“Yeah, you said that much back at the church. But do you know why? Do you know what they want with me?”
Anna’s head tilted slightly as her face scrunched together in thought. “I think one of them said that they had to protect you because they might need you in case Lucifer rose. But another one said you wouldn’t be needed then, that they’d handle it.”
Tabitha sat back as she stared at Anna. “So they were arguing about whether or not I was even really needed for whatever they think they need me for.” She sighed at the circular logic and then continued, “In the event Lucifer does rise that is.”
Anna thought for a moment, and then slowly nodded. “Yeah. But then the one said they had to have you in case things didn’t go the way they wanted or the way they were supposed to. I don’t remember, but they both agreed that you had to be watched and protected as closely as Dean.”
“Huh.” Tabitha tried to work through what she had learned from Anna, but try as she might, she couldn’t figure out just what the angels could possibly need her for. The information that Anna had was just too vague.
“So, Anna,” Tabitha continued again, “you hear the angels say a lot of stuff.”
“Yeah,” Anna sheepishly admitted. “I doubt they know how much I hear.”
“And you just hear it whenever. You don’t like, try to listen for what they say?”
Anna quickly shook her head. “No. No way. I tried to ignore what I heard before they locked me up so I could try to be normal. But it was just too hard.”
Tabitha cleared her throat as she leaned slightly over the table to look Anna closely in the eye as she asked, “Have you heard the angels talk about anyone else like you? Have you heard them talk about other people who can hear the angels?”
“No. I wish. It would be nice to know I’m not the only one, to talk to someone else who can do what I do.”
Tabitha absently nodded as she patted Anna’s hand. She could sometimes hear angel’s voices, but it still wasn’t quite what Anna could do. But regardless, she wasn’t ready to talk about it even with Anna.
Turning back to the girl, she gestured over to the small bed at the back of the cabin. “Why don’t you try and get some sleep, Anna. I’m sure you’ve had a long day.”
The girl bit her lip as she looked longingly back at the bed, seemingly torn between her need to sleep, and the need to stay awake and now what was going on.
“Go on,” Tabitha encouraged the girl. “I’ll wake you up the minute anything happens.”
Nodding, the girl left and climbed into the bed, her breathing quickly evening out in sleep.
Scrounging in the kitchen, Tabitha found a bottle of Jack in one of the cabinets and procured one of the cleaner looking glasses as she sat back down at the table, hoping to pass the time and ease her mind and nerves while she waited.
She was sipping her second glass when Ruby walked back into the cabin, carrying an armful of wood that she set down by the fireplace.
Without saying a word to Tabitha, she glanced at the sleeping girl and stepped into the kitchen.
“I see you’ve helped yourself to the cabinet, but did you even think of offering the girl something to eat or drink? I’m guessing she’s had a pretty trying day in her normal little life,” Ruby said as she maneuvered around the kitchen, not bothering to turn around to face Tabitha as she quietly addressed her.
“No, I didn’t think to,” Tabitha admitted contritely. She wasn’t used to looking after people who lived normal lives. And she wasn’t used to the fact that not everyone was used to skipping several meals at a time or drinking theirs as a substitute.
Ruby quickly heated a can of soup on the stove, taking the bowl over to Anna and carefully waking the girl, telling her to eat her soup and go back to sleep.
Tabitha watched the demon’s interactions with the girl from the table. Still half-poised to intercede if she thought the demon would harm the girl, but curious to watch her surprisingly gentle actions with the girl.
When Anna had eaten her soup and gone back to sleep, Ruby dropped the dirty bowl in the sink and sat down in the chair opposite of Tabitha.
“Satisfied that I didn’t kill or eat the girl?” she snipped.
“Yeah,” Tabitha simply answered.
They sat in silence for a while before Tabitha broke it. “Why does my little brother trust you so much? You seem so absolutely sure that he would trust you to look after the girl and trust you with me. Why is that? What exactly happened between the two of you to make him trust you so much?”
Ruby looked around the room, seeming reluctant to answer the questions.
Tabitha held her glass of whiskey in her hand and leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs as she gestured around the room. “Just us girls here, and Anna’s not even awake. Talk. Make me understand why Sam trusts you so much and why I should, too.”
“It should be Sam’s story to tell if he wants to.”
Tabitha set her glass back down on the table as she leaned over its surface to bring herself closer to the demon. “I already know that the two of you have been sleeping together. A sister knows more about what’s going on in her brothers’ lives than they usually realize. What I’m asking for is how this happened, and why him sleeping with you means he trusts you. ‘Cause it’s more than the fact that he slept with you. We’re both big girls here; we both know that just because a man sleeps with you doesn’t mean he’s ready to trust you with his life. It takes something a whole lot bigger and more important than sex happening for a man to trust someone to that extent. I’m just asking for what it was that made him trust you.”
Ruby leaned back and pursed her lips as she considered Tabitha’s words.
“I looked out for him,” she finally said.
“Bullshit,” Tabitha replied. “It’s more than that.”
The demon narrowed her eyes and leaned over her folded arms on the table. “I was there for him when no one else was. I was there for him when his brother was gone and you were nowhere around.”
Tabitha jerked back like she’d been slapped, but quickly leaned forward again to point out, “I was at Bobby’s, I tried to get him to stay there, to stay with Bobby, or at least stay with me. I told him I’d go hunting with him, go anywhere he wanted to go.”
“Yeah, but you let him walk away when he was hurting. You just let him go. He went after I don’t know how many crossroads demons, trying to make another deal to trade places with Dean. Killed a hell of a lot of them, too. And then just started picking fights with demons trying to get himself killed. He almost did, too—the night I finally found him. Would have if I hadn’t saved his sloppy-drunk ass. And then, all he could talk about was trying to find Lilith. Trying to kill Lilith. But when we actually went after her, I finally realized that all he really wanted was for her to kill him. I barely got him out of there. And all along, where were you? You weren’t there to pick up the pieces he’d been left in. I did. I did everything and anything I could think of to keep him safe. To keep him alive.”
With shaky hands, Tabitha took a long gulp of whiskey. “I would have done anything to protect him, too. But I couldn’t find him. He didn’t want to be found.”
“Bullshit,” Ruby threw back, leaning further over the table as she jabbed a finger at Tabitha. “You could have found him if you really wanted to. You sure as hell did when Dean finally came back. The truth is you were waiting for him to fix himself on his own and then come back to you when he was all better. Or waiting to let someone else fix him.” Ruby sat back in her chair as she glared across at Tabitha. “I did my best. You may not like how I did it, or what my methods were to get his attentions focused on something else besides getting himself killed, but I did what I could to keep him alive.”
Hands still shaking and glass clanking against glass, Tabitha poured herself more whiskey and moved to stand in front of the fireplace, gazing down into the dancing orange glow.
“You’re right,” she finally admitted, her voice barely a croak. “I let him leave, and I let him stay away. I felt so guilty over not being there when Dean died that I just couldn’t stand seeing Sam in that kind of wild grief. But I should have been there for him. It was cowardly of me to just let him go off like that.” And she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to forgive herself for not being there for either of her brothers.
“Thank you,” she whispered after several silent minutes had passed. Turning around, she forced herself to meet Ruby’s eyes, determined not to be a coward and look away now. “Thank you for taking care of and looking out for my little brother when I didn’t.”
Ruby nodded and looked away, clearly uncomfortable with the moment.
With a bitter laugh, Tabitha replied. “Don’t worry, no chick-flick moment of hugging needed. I may be more indebted to you for taking care of Sam than I realized, but you’re still a demon.”
The demon snorted as she looked back. “Oh good, I was worried we were actually going to have a moment there.”
“I’ll do my best to refrain.”
The demon stood and moved to sit on the floor by the wall. Tabitha looked at her curiously when the demon lay down on her back.
“I’ll be back,” Ruby told her. “Time to go pass a message to your brothers.”
And then, the demon threw back her head as black smoke expelled from her body and swirled through the air and up and out the chimney.
Tabitha walked closer and toed the body on the floor, watching as it lay limp and unresponsive to her nudge.
She walked back to the table and her bottle of Jack Daniels. “That’s just creepy,” she whispered to herself.
Ruby and Tabitha heard the boys coming before Anna did, and both stood from the table to go wait at the door as they entered the cabin.
Tabitha briefly hugged both of her brothers. But Dean held her shoulders as he looked her over.
“You all right? Why didn’t you answer your cellphone?” he demanded.
With a brief glance at Ruby, Tabitha shrugged her shoulders and said, “It got damaged in our escape. I guess I’ll need to get a new one. But yeah, I’m fine.”
“Glad you could make it,” Ruby told the boys, gesturing them further into the cabin.
“Yeah, thanks,” Sam answered, looking around for Anna no doubt.
Sam spotted her on the couch and quickly went over to her, asking, “Anna, are you okay?”
The girl nodded. “Yeah. I think so. Ruby’s not like other demons. She and Tabitha saved my life.”
“Yeah, I hear she does that,” Dean said with an uncomfortable look towards said demon. “I guess I…” Dean cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You know,” he uneasily finished.
“What?” Ruby asked, her arms crossing over her chest.
“I guess I owe you for… Sam,” he said, indicating to their brother. “And I just want to… you know?”
“Don’t strain yourself.”
“Okay, then. Is the moment over?” Dean asked, fidgeting uncomfortably though he tried to hide it. “Good. ‘Cause that was awkward.”
Ruby snorted. “Try it from my side,” she sneered. “You Winchesters and your emotional moments. Enough to make even a demon hurl.”
Dean turned to Tabitha and saw her raised brow. Jerking his thumb towards Sam, he explained, “We, ah… had a discussion about Ruby. I just wanted to thank her for looking after him while I was gone.”
Sam looked down at the floor uncomfortably as he told his sister. “You already know some, but I’ll tell you the rest later. I guess it’s only fair that you know, too.”
Tabitha waited until her younger brother looked up and met her eyes, shrugging and admitting, “No need. I already made Ruby tell me the rest.” Seeing his surprise, she shrugged again. “What? I’m your big sister. You think I wasn’t going to make her tell me what was going on?”
Sam turned away and looked back towards Anna still patiently waiting on the couch. She immediately asked him, “Hey, Sam, you think it’d be safe to make a quick call, just to tell my parents I’m okay? They must be completely freaked.”
The brothers turned accusing eyes on Tabitha, silently demanding to know why she hadn’t told the girl yet.
Tabitha cringed and turned to the girl. She’d known the moment was coming, but Anna had just woken up, and Tabitha hadn’t wanted to break her heart just yet. But now that she was asking, Tabitha has no choice. She moved to sit down beside the girl and took one of her hands in hers.
“Anna, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but they didn’t make it. Demons had found them before we could get to them. I’m so sorry.”
“No!” Anna gasped, turning to look up at Sam and Dean, silently pleading with them to say Tabitha was wrong.
“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered.
Anna ripped her hand away as she leaned over her knees, rocking back and forth as she cried. “Why is this happening to me?!” she demanded.
Tabitha soothingly ran her hand up and down the girl’s back as she rocked. “I don’t know, Anna. We have no answers for you.”
Suddenly, Anna sat up straight and gasped. “They’re coming!”
They all looked up as the electricity flickered, and Tabitha felt the swelling of power she’d only experienced when Castiel made a grand entrance.
Sam and Dean hustled the girl quickly to the back of the cabin, but Tabitha stayed rooted where she was as Ruby locked the door and her brothers came back into the room with shotguns. Dean handed one to her as Ruby bent to look through their bag.
“Where’s the knife?” she demanded.
“Ugh, about that—” Dean started sheepishly.
“You’re kidding me,” Ruby exclaimed.
“Hey, don’t look at me,” Dean denied, pointedly looking at Sam.
“Thanks a lot,” Sam angrily fired back at Dean.
“Great. Just peachy. Impeccable timing, guys, really,” Ruby complained.
Tabitha finally shook herself from her stupor, looking down at the shotgun she held loosely in her hands as Ruby came to stand beside her and her brothers on the demon’s other side. “It’s not demons, guys. It’s Castiel,” she whispered.
A/N: Since I really don’t know for sure how some demons appear and disappear sometimes, I kinda had to wing it here with Ruby. I also wasn’t 100% sure if she had grabbed Anna and teleported or whatever with her, but since it’s not really clear, I decided to make up things as I go. (Not that I don’t all the time!) I could be way off with things, but it’s fanfiction, so I get to make some things up.
As always, thanks so much for reading guys! Sorry no Castiel this chapter, but he’ll be back in the next!
And be sure to leave some review love!
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