Chapter 1 Life Among the Dead

Heaven, October 1, 2013

"They are still hiding, somewhere in the Forbidden City," Gabriel said tiredly to his brother, leaning back against the alabaster pillar behind him. "We can't see in and the place is ringed with traps."

"What about those who were marching from Europe?" Michael asked.

"Their army was destroyed when Winchester closed the gates." Gabriel shrugged slightly. "We could see them as far east as Istanbul."

"Camael will not give up on the tablet now."

"No." Castiel agreed, walking into the marble hall, the leather soles of his vessel's shoes clicking on the hard floor. "And the Grigori will not giving up on returning home."

"We need the tablet," Gabriel said, looking at the angel with a lifted brow. "And from your empty hands, I'm going to take a wild guess that Dean declined to acquiesce to your request for help."

"Yes," Cas said tersely. "Strangely, he thought that Heaven should clean up its own messes, instead of leaving it for them all the time," he added, looking between the archs.

"There was nothing more I could do!" Michael said, getting to his feet. "We were fighting here too!"

Cas looked away and Gabriel hid a smirk at the angel's lack of contrition. Things had changed in ways that Michael couldn't keep up with, he thought.

"What does he want?" Michael asked, brows drawing together as he noticed Gabriel's averted gaze.

"To be left alone, for some time, at least," Cas said heavily. "Without the horde, the Grigori have no armies, other than their spells for animating the dead. That has severe limitations."

"You think we should leave them to their own devices?" Gabriel asked, his voice rising in disbelief. "Knowing that they will not give up?"

"It will take them time to find the dead, time to get across the countries that lie between them and the tablet," Cas reasoned. "And Camael is – should be – our highest priority. What do we have in the library?"

"The library, thanks to our brother, is encased in a semi-solid substance that we are still looking for ways to remove," Michael told him. "And we have not seen the scribe since he vanished from the Grigori base in Utah. He is completely shielded now–"

"He must have carved the sigils into his construct, or found a new vessel," Gabriel interjected.

"–and we have no means of locating him," Michael finished with a sour look at his brother.

Any more than they'd had for locating Metatron when he'd disappeared, Castiel thought irritably as he looked around the enormous chamber. More than five hundred million years they had been the guardians and watchers of this small planet, among all the others their Father had created, and they had raised themselves above those they had been created to serve, and had fallen further than the lowliest of them.

"The first children of the creators are still free on the planet," he said abruptly, turning back to them. "We should be helping deal with those dangers to humanity. Helping to find the other tablets."

Michael shook his head. "Camael, although treacherous enough, is not the mind behind what has happened here, Castiel, and you know that to be true," he said, one wing lifting. "I will not leave here until we have routed out every traitor and the architect of this rebellion."

"That could take years!" Cas burst out, looking from Michael to Gabriel. "We didn't even know about the conspiracy until after Lucifer was free!"

"Quieten yourself, little brother," Gabriel said softly. "Even these walls have ears."

"Only an arch has the power to have achieved what has been done here," Cas hissed at him. "Are you confessing, Gabriel?"

The archangel's face darkened for a moment, the feathers of his wings shimmering from grey to black. Cas felt his heart stutter in his chest and took a step backward.

"Gabriel." Michael's deep baritone cut through the thickening silence. "Camael was the only archangel involved, Castiel," he said to the seraphim. "We all walked the Path of Truth when we found out."

"It doesn't take power to manipulate minds, little brother," Gabriel said coldly. "Only fine words. And there are plenty capable of those in the upper hierarchy, arch or not."

"Are you going to sit up here and wait for them to show themselves forever?" Cas asked.

"No." Michael shook his head decisively. "No, we will lay a trap, we will spread rumours of the tablet and wait to see who emerges."

"This has been a plan forty thousand years in the making, Michael," Cas said, staring at him. "Do you think that will work with those who have managed to hide themselves for so long?"

Michael smiled humourlessly. "It will be a trap within a trap, Castiel. It will not be seen and it will not be smelled. Have faith."

Cas turned away as the archangels disappeared, leaving the sound of beating wings and the smell of flowers and feathers behind him. Among the many ranks of the seraph, there were only few who could have plotted this long and this deeply, he thought. He hoped that Michael and Gabriel were aware that no matter how well laid their traps were, it was possible they'd already been seen laying them out.

He walked slowly down the length of the long room, chin tucked into his chest as he thought of what he might be able to do to help his friends to deal with the problems that had been left-over after the last war.

Those first-born of the dark goddess were as invisible to him as the Grigori or Camael. He couldn't help the Winchesters without the aid of the seers and those had their priorities straight from the commander of the Host.

He had attempted to heal Alex, to restore her memories, thinking it was the least he could for Dean. But whatever had happened to her in the four months that she'd been held by the Grigori, it had built walls of steel around her mind, and protected by her soul, he'd been powerless to break through. The notes of Grigori on their infernal machines and spells to create the living clones had been fragments only, and even the oldest scholars in the mountains dividing France from Spain had only learned that the procedure was extremely painful, an invasion of the nervous system and blood vessels, musculature and skeleton, not what it had actually entailed.

Sighing deeply, he turned automatically right as he reached the doors at the end of the chamber, heading for the library. If they could remove the gelatinous muck that Camael had drowned it in, there might something in there that he could take back to Kansas, something that would further the studies of the order, if nothing else.

Maine, 3 October, 2013

Dean watched the greenish light as it bounced across the marsh, its erratic movements seemingly alive and deliberate. It wasn't, he knew, just the odd, electrical discharges in the shallow ponds and soaks. Marsh-feys, Bobby had called them, the first time they'd stayed with him and he'd taken them out one night in late summer when the activity had been particularly strong. Sam had fallen for the story hook, line and sinker, and he'd believed it until he'd stepped off the trail and into a bog and had been zapped by the small charge, his leg tingling for minutes afterward.

They had no fire, not wanting to wreck their vision. On the other side of the narrow, reasonably solid trail, his brother was sitting cross-legged, watching the trailing lights and listening to the pops and gurgles of the water-soaked land surrounding them. In the very dim starlight, he could just make out the outline of Sam's hair, one edge of a cheekbone.

"Tilly said this was the right place?" Sam's voice ghosted from the darkness and Dean let out an exhale. This was the longest period of silence his brother had managed, a bit over an hour.

"Yeah, this is it," he said, pushing himself into a sitting position and waiting.

"What time she'd say the attack was?"

"Just after midnight," Dean answered shortly.

Silence filled the marsh again, broken by the soft noises of the water and saturated soil and Dean thought he might have been spared round eleven, but no, he heard the inhale from Sam's direction and rubbed a hand over his eyes, waiting for it.

"What you're doing is gutless, Dean."

A new tactic, he thought, ignoring the spurt of annoyance that rose with the words, with his brother's pushing, with his own inability to move in any direction at all.

"Make sure you tell me what you really think, Sam," he said, injecting a note of derision into his voice. "Don't hold back."

"I understand you're scared, but this isn't the way to deal with it," Sam pressed on and Dean saw his head turn toward him. "It's really her and those are your kids –"

"Sam, shut it."

Sam hesitated at the change in his brother's tone and voice, then shook his head. "No. She needs you. They need you."

Dean made a noise at the back of his throat. "She doesn't need me. She doesn't know me."

"Think that'll improve by what you're doing?"

"Conversation's over," Dean said succinctly, turning away.

"No, it's not." Sam looked at his back frustratedly. "I lost Jess and don't you think I would have given anything to have a second chance at–"

"She died once!" Dean snapped, shoulders hunching in his jacket. "Don't tell me you know what's going on with me – you don't!"

"How can I?" Sam asked caustically. "You don't tell anyone–"

"With good fucking reason," Dean growled, getting to his feet. "I'm gonna check the other side, use the flare if you see it."

"Dean, don't be more of an ass –"

"Fuck, what do you want from me?" Dean swung around and stared down at him. "How much do you think I've got left?"

"I know," Sam said quickly, raising his hands. "I know. That's exactly why – you were different then, Dean, you found something that you –"

"Leave me the fuck alone, Sam," he snapped, turning away again, walking fast along the sodden ground with his boots squelching in the thick mud. None of this was helping, none of it.

It should have been a happy ending, he thought, alive and in one piece, both of them, but no, it was a Winchester story and when had any of them ever gotten a happy ending? Every time he saw her, he was suffocated by what he wanted, by the memories of what he'd had, and when she'd looked at him, her gaze polite and not knowing him at all, it was all wiped away, as completely and thoroughly as if it'd never existed. It had torn him down and he couldn't do it again.

The faint splash to his left dragged his attention back to the marsh and he stopped, hand going to the long, silver knife in his belt as another splash, a little closer, sent ripples through the dark water to the shallow bank at his feet.

Two of them, he thought, facing the direction of the splash, but aware through some other sense, that prickled along the back of his neck, of the stealthy movement behind him. He swung around, the blade drawn and slicing in a short arc that stopped with a thud and a piercing shriek. Dropping, he felt the creature's arm and the tip of the point of the spike that protruded from its wrist brush across his hair and staggered forward into it, one boot stuck in the vacuum suction of the thick mud as he tried to rise, his arm whipping around the long, thin neck and dragging it back against the point of his knife.

Long, bony fingers dug into his scalp, and Dean struggled to free the stuck foot as he felt his balance pulled backwards. Yanking the knife free of the first wraith, he swung it awkwardly behind him, hearing a low chuckle and a much bigger splash of the water in the pond, then he was under it, his boot finally breaking free of the bog as hands pressed over his face and chest and drove him down to the bottom.

His arm moved sluggishly through the water, driving toward the creature above him, his lungs aching with the little air in them as he tried to see through the murk for his target. Not getting drowned in two feet of water by some lightweight swamp monster, he thought desperately, the ache gradually morphing into a burn as his muscles used up more of the oxygen in them, his movements becoming jerky and out of his control. Not going to fucking well happen, he told himself, reaching for anger, for rage to counteract the growing darkness that was limiting his vision.

The hands and weight were gone suddenly, and he twisted himself slowly over, pushing down against the thick, slimy mud at the bottom and barely breaking the surface before he'd opened his mouth to suck down the chilled night air.

"Dean!"

His brother's voice, and Sam splashing toward him, a big hand grabbing a handful of wet clothing and dragging him right out.

"Dean, you there?"

He nodded, getting his feet under him and stumbling out of the pond with Sam's arm wrapped around his ribs. Wincing, he felt a cut just below and behind his ear, and he lifted his fingers to touch it, looking at the dark liquid that came away on them.

"Thanks," he muttered as they reached the semi-firm bank. "Close."

"Too close," Sam snapped, ducking slightly to get Dean's arm over his shoulders and straightening again to take more of his weight. "You were under the water for minutes."

It hadn't felt like minutes, Dean thought, but then he hadn't felt the spike either. He sucked in a deep lungful of air and felt it fill him, flushing out the build-up of poisons from the lack of it.

"I'm okay," he told Sam, slowing and inhaling and exhaling again. He realised he didn't have his knife and looked behind them. "Fuck."

"What?"

"Dropped my knife," he said, half-turning to go back to look for it. Sam's arm tightened around his wrist, stopping him.

"No, leave it," he said sharply, pulling his brother toward the edge of the marsh and the truck they'd come in. "Maybe it'll poison the water enough to keep any others from here."

"I can walk," Dean said mildly, pivoting around and moving with him.

"Yeah, well, consider this your hug for the year," Sam said shortly. "What the hell happened?"

Dean flicked a glance at him. "There were two of them."

"So?" Sam grunted. "You've taken on more than that before and come out without nearly drowning."

"Where the hell were you anyway?" Dean asked, not interested in examining why two had been able to take him down.

"I was dealing with the two others who came out of the water," his brother told him.

"Didn't think they hunted in groups."

For a moment, he thought Sam was going to ask him again what had happened, but he didn't, just pulled in a deep breath and kept walking.

Lebanon, Kansas

The truck slowed as they approached the high walls that surrounded what had once been a small town and now was a fortified keep.

"You want to stay at the order tonight?" Sam asked.

Dean looked at the walls and shook his head. "No, drop me off at Ghost Valley, I'll stay at the farmhouse tonight, get a car and go to the keep tomorrow."

He saw Sam's mouth thin out by the light of the dash and looked away as his brother shifted down and made the left hand turn along the outer wall.

"It's not like you to run," Sam said as the truck bounced along the gravelled road and headed down into the valley.

He was right about that, Dean thought tiredly, not bothering to respond. It wasn't like him to try to ignore the responsibility he felt pounding with his pulse every time he was in the keep either.

Sam drove up to the tall, iron gates that led to the farmhouse and waited for the night-guards to open them, both men unwinding their windows and sticking arms out for the usual battery of tests. Holy water was still on the list.

"Staying here tonight, Dean?" Gerry asked, screwing the cap back onto the bottle.

"Yeah, I wanted to catch Riley," Dean nodded. "You got any spare rides here?"

"Three, down past the harvesters," Gerry confirmed, nodding in the direction.

"Won't need to come get me," Dean said to Sam as he pulled out and headed for the farmyard.

"What time you going to be at the order?"

"I don't know." Dean opened the door as the truck stopped. "I need to talk to Jackson as well. Chuck had any more visions?"

Sam shook his head. "No, he's still working on the tablet but it's mostly histories now."

"Good."

He rapped twice on the door with his knuckles and turned away, not looking back as he crossed to the wide porch steps and climbed them. The truck turned in a circle, the engine's low chug bouncing a little from the buildings that surrounded the dirt yard then fading as Dean opened the front door.

"Thought that might be you," Riley said, standing in the doorway to the living room. "Did you get the critters?"

"Yeah, okay if I crash here tonight?"

"Sure." The lanky farmer's eyes narrowed a little. "You eaten?"

Dean shook his head, pulling off the dark blue jacket that still reeked faintly of mud.

"'Becca's still in the kitchen if you want something."

"Thanks," he said, walking down the hall to the kitchen and laundry. He could get it all washed here, he thought. "When do you plant the winter crops?"

"This week or next, we'll see how the weather's doing," Riley said over his shoulder, turning back into the living room. "Got out of that last year, don't think I'm going to look the other way again."

The comment lifted one side of Dean's mouth as he kept walking and turned into the big, square kitchen at the end of the hall.

By the stove, Rebecca turned to look at him. "You hungry?"

"Yeah," he said, stopping as she walked over to him. He stepped back a little defensively as her nose wrinkled up when she was a couple of feet away. "Guess I should probably wash these first."

She gave him a rueful smile. "There're spare clothes down in the bathroom. Leave those on the floor and I'll put them through tonight."

He nodded and walked through the kitchen to the door at the rear. The laundry was another big room, with a smaller bath off one side, and as promised, several pairs of clean jeans and shirts were stacked on a chair in the corner. He pulled off his clothes and dumped them on the floor, reaching into the shower to turn on the taps.

Pressure was good. Heat was good. He didn't smell quite like the creature from the black lagoon anymore. Underneath the acknowledgement of the purely physical, he was aware that what his brother had said was still agitating under his conscious thoughts, despite his best efforts to bury it all. Getting out, he dried himself and pulled on the clean clothes.

In the kitchen, a plate of roasted meat and vegetables sat on the table, along with a half a loaf of bread and a pot of butter. He sat down and ate hungrily, barely noticing the woman who moved quietly around the kitchen.

"You staying tonight?" Rebecca asked, picking up his plate as he finished and setting a beer down beside him.

He looked up in surprise, half-getting up to take the dish to the sink himself, and subsiding as she waved a hand impatiently at him.

"Yeah, uh. Thanks, you didn't have to hang around," he said awkwardly.

"Riley said you and Sam took care of something in South Dakota?" She put the dishes in the sink and ran water over them, turning to lean back against the bench and wiping her hands on the plain apron that covered her dress.

Something, he thought disparagingly, tipping up the bottle and swallowing a mouthful. "Yep."

She smiled at him and gestured around the room. "Consider this a thank you for looking out for us, then."

He ducked his head at the words, staring down at the table. Five years ago, the sentiment – and the food, and the company – would've been gratefully received. Five years ago, he'd been someone else entirely.

"How come you're still here?" he asked, glancing up at her as he finished the beer. "You were a teacher, weren't you?"

She nodded, untying the apron and hanging it on the hook by the door.

"I'd've thought – uh, I'd've thought someone would've had you teaching long before now," he said, getting up and tossing the bottle in the trash.

Turning back to him, Rebecca shrugged. "A lot's been going on, I thought I'd be more useful here for awhile." She walked across the room to him.

Closing the cupboard that hid the trash can, he turned and found her right in front of him, looking up at him with a small smile playing around her mouth. He squashed the irritation he felt rising as he recognised the intention behind the expression.

"If you wanted some company tonight, I'd be happy to oblige," she said softly, taking a step closer.

Dean forced a smile and stepped back. "Thanks, for the food, and the, uh, offer, but no."

A slight frown drew her brows together. "You're not –"

"'Bec, you doin' that laundry tonight or is Pat?" Riley said from the doorway and Dean felt a sneaking trickle of relief that the conversation had been diverted. He'd attempted to find a straight physical release just once in the last six months. It'd been a failure of epic proportions, not so much in the execution as in the result. He'd had more satisfaction and less disappointment in taking care of himself. He took another step back and turned.

"That's mine, I'll do it," he said quickly, heading for the door.

"No. I'll do it," Rebecca said sharply, staring at Riley.

"Good, 'cause I need to talk to you," Riley said to Dean, eyes crinkling a little as they followed Rebecca's stiff-backed progress out of the kitchen.

Dean stepped back as Rebecca walked past him to the door and followed Riley down the hall to the living room.

"Better lock your door tonight," the lean farmer said, picking up the bottle of whiskey and pouring an inch into each of the two glasses on the sideboard. "With some people, no doesn't always mean no."

Dean looked at the thumb lock on the door of the bedroom for a moment then shrugged inwardly and turned it. Didn't need any more hassles today, he decided as he walked toward the bed.

He hadn't had a home since he'd gotten back from Colorado. Most of his personal belongings were still in the apartment. He'd grabbed a couple of bags of clothes after seeing her and they were still sitting in the trunk of the old Nova he'd borrowed from Bobby six weeks ago, parked at the keep. He'd been sleeping wherever he'd ended up for the day, or wherever he needed to be the following morning, on the move, going out looking for survivors, for supplies, training those who'd lived through the experience of being possessed by demons and sent into war by the Grigori, bending his brain along with everyone at the order to figure out the location of the monster tablet, because the first born monsters were still out there and they wouldn't be sitting still.

Running, he thought abruptly, pulling the soft feather-filled quilt over him. That was the short version of what he'd been doing.

I don't quit and I'm not running. I'm not like you.

The words, his words, came back to him and he rolled over, eyes squeezing shut as he tried to get away from that memory. After he'd found out what had happened to her, he'd thought she'd had a damned good reason for running.

I understand you're scared, Sam had said. But he hadn't understood. He wasn't scared it wasn't her. He was scared that it was, he admitted to himself. He couldn't rid himself of the memories and what those discrete seconds of time had done.

For a few minutes he lay on his side, breathing silently, unaware of what he was doing. Then the knowledge seeped into him and he curled up, fists clenched and muscles contracted, his jaw tight with trying to hold back the pain.

If she'd known him, he thought he might've been able to get past those memories, overlaid them with new ones, taken away their power with what he wanted to see in her eyes when she looked at him. And did she? Still?

No. She didn't.

She didn't know him. That was gone and it would've been bearable, he could've handled it if he could've just let go. But he could no more do that than he could stop listening, for the sound he was sure would be there, for that soft whisper of breath beside him.

Litteris Hominae safehold, Kansas

Sam stopped the truck in front of the huge oak tree in the middle of the forest and let out a deep breath. Felix had found the safehold's blueprints, and Franklin's apprentices, Tony and Milo, had rebuilt the door. All of them had worked on replacing and adding to the illusions and wards and guards, to deflect the eyes of mortal and immortal. The thick forest and the oak and the fear spells that were making his nerves jitter uncontrollably and his muscles twitch in alarm. Back to normal.

He got out of the truck and walked to the oak, and the illusions fell aside as the locking rings clunked and thunked inside the rock wall and the door opened. The rush of air past him from the interior held the scents of the open fire, burning some sweet wood, food, paper, more faintly herbs and gun oil and solvent. Mitch looked up at him.

"How'd you do?"

"Four of them, in the ponds," Sam commented as he walked inside, shifting the gear bag from one hand to the other. "How's Chuck?"

"Sleeping at the moment," Mitch told him, closing the door behind the tall hunter, the locks sliding into place and the rings turning on their own. "We've got about fifty years of work getting all of it into a single repository, Jerome says."

"Keep you busy." Sam walked down the iron staircase.

At the bottom of the stairs, in the situation room, Jerome glanced over his shoulder, nodding at Sam, the computer screens behind him lighting half his face brightly. Sam glanced at the lit-up table as he passed. The markers for the tablets were still flashing. They had the general vicinity of each one but zooming in closer produced a much fuzzier location and pinpointing the locations to within a square mile was impossible. They'd discovered the location of the Arctic tablet, though, at least to a much smaller search zone.

"Any word from Michel or the Qaddiysh?" he asked Jerome.

The legacy shook his head. "Michel has been trying to separate the frequencies from the background noise but so far, nada," he said, leaning back in the wheelchair. "And Jordan has been completely silent."

"Rethinking helping us?"

"I don't know," Jerome said, glancing up at him as he stopped beside the long curving desktop. "Penemue insisted that they would help."

"Maybe it's not up to him." Sam looked up into the library.

"Maybe," Jerome agreed, smiling as he saw the direction of the hunter's gaze. "Marla's upstairs."

Sam looked at him, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly as he acknowledged the man's percipience. "Thanks."

"Bobby and Rufus called a meeting at the keep," Jerome added as Sam started up the shallow steps to the library. "They asked for you and Dean and the other hunters."

"Know what it's about?" Sam paused at the top of the steps, looking back.

"No." The legacy turned back to the screens and Sam walked into the library, breathing in the old book smell deeply, feeling in it a peculiar sense of home.

The tables were empty, the fire crackling in the big stone hearth and Katherine, Felix and Jasper looked up from their curled positions in the armchairs surrounding the fire, nodding at him as he passed by, piles of books surrounding them.

He continued on to the door at the end of the long, high room, turning left to the hallway that led to the stairs. He was hungry, but food could wait, he thought, climbing to the floor above, unconsciously moving a little faster as he neared the bedroom next to the top of the stairs.

Opening the heavy timber door, he saw Marla sitting in the armchair beside the small fire, her son cradled against her, head tipped back and eyes closed. He closed the door and she looked up, and her small smile sent a shaft of contentment through him, dissolving the difficulties and memories of the last three days completely as he crossed the room and dumped the gear bag, leaning on the arm of the chair to kiss her.

"You look tired," she said softly, lifting a hand to push the fall of hair from his forehead as he crouched next to the chair.

"Sitting in a bog for hours on end, not as much fun as it used to be," he remarked dryly, looking down at the baby in her arms. "Everything been okay here?"

"Yes," she said, following his gaze, her face softening. "He's full and dry and ready for a long sleep."

He rose as she did, watching her go to the small, unadorned cot and settle the infant inside it.

When he'd returned to the keep, she'd been in labour. The baby was Oliver's, the result of a single night when Ninhursag had walked along the border between Kansas and Missouri, not to be repeated and aside from deepening the friendly affection between the two of them, apparently having no other long-lasting effects. Oliver, she'd told him carefully, wasn't interested in women as a general rule. Sam had confirmed that with the man a few days later.

"You have to try everything once, right?" the young apothecary specialist had said with a shrug. "And it wasn't like there was a choice, that night, but no, not really cut out for it myself." He'd looked up at Sam. "She's a good lady, Sam. And I think she's been waiting for you for awhile."

He'd been a little afraid to approach her afterward, but she'd smiled and kissed him, had held him as he'd told her about his life and the contract. She had read the Winchesters and Campbell histories. He'd given them to her before he'd left for the third trial, after he'd added his own story to the chronicles. Handing them over, he'd watched her face, seeing his fear of her reaction to that knowledge reflected there. He'd done too much he'd been ashamed of and he'd known it was a risk. But he'd clung to a hope that whatever it was between them, was strong enough to understand, strong enough to handle the truth. That was all he wanted now.

He would need to update them again, detailing the trials and all that had changed him over their course, he thought, moving his bag to the small bathroom. In some ways, it would finalise everything. At least, he hoped it would.

The blood was gone. He was just a normal man now.

Drawing the curtain around the cot, Marla looked over her shoulder at him.

"Come and eat," she said quietly. "Did you get through to Dean?"

He made a face, shaking his head. "No. When do I ever?" he said, looking down at his stiff clothes and catching the unlovely smell of marsh water from them. "I need to get cleaned up. I'll meet you down there."

A moment later, standing under the hot water, he wondered how long it was going to take him to get over the novelty of being close to someone who knew all about him. They hadn't extended the emotional closeness to a physical one yet, the aftermath of giving birth and the chaos of the army's return and everything else precluding that effectively. But, he thought, a shiver running through him, that would change soon.

West Keep, Kansas

Rufus walked down the curving stone and concrete staircase, feeling his knees creak and pop. Getting too old for this shit, he thought wryly. The mornings were icy in what was basically a castle, central heating notwithstanding, and it took a little longer to get everything warmed up and working the way it was supposed to as the year turned and the days got shorter and colder.

It wasn't just the cold that was making him feel old, he knew, turning as he reached the second floor and walking down the hall toward the back stairs that led down to the hunter's offices. They'd lost too many friends over the last four years, too many good people and there were times when he walked through the keep, or down to the courtyards, the expectation of seeing Franklin or Tim, Maggie or Emmett with Max dogging the man's heels … even Father Michael or Pastor Gideon, and being surprised again when he remembered that they weren't there, weren't coming back. The keep had its ghosts and although they were benign, living among the dead was an unsettling experience and one that made him feel every one of his years.

He slowed as he heard voices ahead, stopping by the stairs when he saw the tall, dark-haired man talking to Alex in the hall. Drew was leaning close to the still too-thin woman, and Rufus frowned as he saw her look up and smile at the ex-cop, gesturing lightly with one hand, the other arm curled around the child in her arms.

Alex back from the dead was almost as unsettling as the ever-present ghosts of those who had died, he realised, leaning back against the wall beside him as he watched the distant interaction. The initial relief that she'd lived had been swamped by the difficult recognition that to all intents and purposes the woman he'd known was not there, was still dead. He wasn't the only one feeling the impossibility of the situation.

Turning away from them, he kept walking to the stairs, wondering what the hell would happen if Alex just made a new life with someone else.

"We lost eleven hundred men in Colorado, and we've picked up –" Bobby turned to look at Maria, who stood stiffly near the desk.

"Thirteen hundred and ninety-eight men and women," she answered, checking the figures in the notepad she held.

"Thirteen hundred and ninety-eight from the remains of the army and over the past four weeks," he continued, looking around the packed room. "We're still a little short on accommodation but that's your problem, Jackson," he added, nodding at the farmer who sat to one side of him. "Ours is that we need to get people trained up, need to get out there 'cause the head vamp is out there now, and probably one or two other alpha monsters who're looking just as hard for anyone who's made it through the last few years as we are."

Dean leaned back against the shelves, looking absently around the room. His brows drew together slightly as he registered the numbers of new faces there, and belatedly noted all the ones he'd expected to see but couldn't. Boze was in Tawas, recovering still and Sean was there as well, had taken over the camp in the interim. Jo and Ty sat on the sofa, representing both Michigan camps since Tim was gone. Ellen was looking after her infants and granddaughters, at Lightning Oak, not nearly as annoyed by the exclusion as he'd thought she'd be. Franklin's second, Tony, was there, instead of the short, sour-faced ex-soldier. He recognised the trainees, now regarded more as juniors than raw recruits, grouped together at the back. The frown deepened as his gaze passed over Maria and Freddie. Jackson had said something about the two of them that morning, taking over the day-to-day organisation and communications for all of the keeps in Kansas. It was another reminder of what he spent a considerable amount of time trying not to think about.

"For right now, we got two priorities," Bobby was saying and Dean dragged his thoughts back to the old man. They'd already gone over this earlier, this was the briefing for the troops, but he figured it didn't look too good for him to be sitting there vaguing out through Bobby's speech.

"We're sending a joint team to the Arctic – us and the French chapter – to find what we're pretty sure is the monster tablet," Bobby said. "Kelly, Jack, Billy and Danielle, you'll be meeting up with Marc in what used to be Arkhangelsk, on the White Sea."

The hunters nodded. The signal they'd had for the tablet had finally been correlated with a known geological event, and it had narrowed the search area to within a half mile square. They would be battling across Canada in the middle of winter, but hoped to reach the Arctic island in the spring.

"Second priority is training," Bobby kept going, glancing at Rufus. "We need teams going out until the weather shuts us down, need stuff we can't make, need to find any survivors we can. Jo, we'll be sending a bunch of folks over with you."

Dean saw her exchange a glance with Ty then nod to Bobby. She was definitely no longer a kid, he thought. Life had etched its lines into her face, and her eyes were cool and appraising now.

Jackson cleared his throat. "We also need a lot of people training for the essential work here in the keeps and we're gonna have to double up on the defensive soldiering for the keeps while most of the hunters are out looking for people. Anyone not involved in the teams gets a schedule to start folk in weaponry, handling the artillery we got here, the legends and lore of whatever we might expect to see looking to get more recruits and whatever the hell else you can think of."

Looking around at the tense and apprehensive expressions, Dean felt a fleeting flash of pity for them. Many of them had woken on a battlefield, after being ridden by a demon for several weeks, and none of them had the look of a good night's sleep yet.

"Maria, Freddie, Tony and Deidre have the lists for the teams that are going out," Bobby said into the silence. "See 'em and get yourselves organised."

"Well, scared the crap out of them," Dean said when the room had cleared and Bobby, Elias, Rufus, Sam and him were all that were left.

Bobby looked at him from under the brim of his cap. "Didn't even tell them the good stuff."

"Thrill me."

"Elias?" Bobby flicked a look at the auburn-haired hunter and reached for the bottle.

"Brought back twenty four people yesterday," Elias said, looking at Dean. "There would've been more but there were three vamps feeding off them when we got there, and we lost ten before we got them."

"Where?" Dean asked.

"Clarksdale, Mississippi."

"What were you doing there?" Sam asked, brow furrowing as he tried to remember the area.

"Looking for people," Elias said, taking the glass Bobby offered him. "Thought some of the people who made it out of Atlanta might've headed south, weather being bad in the winters north lately."

Dean felt his brother's gaze on him. "We could take a couple of trucks, go have a look around."

"You think the alpha's gonna be there?" Rufus looked at him. "Can you still feel it?"

Dean shook his head. "No, but from what those women said, about the cell the fallen were holding him in, sounded like he preferred the heat to the cold, didn't it?"

Jane had told them everything about the prison under the Grigori base, and the others had verified it. The fallen had freed the firstborn vampire a few months before Nintu had gotten to the mountains.

"We need to go back to that base," Sam said abruptly. "Need to look for what they were doing."

"Yeah," Dean agreed immediately, the idea coalescing a number of possible benefits. "There's probably a helluva lot of information that the angel and the Qaddiysh didn't think to look for."

"Who do you want to take?" Rufus asked, leaning back in the chair and looking at him over the rim of his glass. "I could use a break from all the paperwork."

"What about Usiku?" Bobby looked from Rufus to Dean questioningly. "If he's south, you're going in the wrong direction."

"We still think that taking down the firstborn will be a matter of getting their blood?" Sam asked him. "Like the werewolf?"

"No," Dean said, not sure why he felt certain of that. "I think each of them has a different vulnerability. We didn't need the blood of the skinwalker to kill it," he added, looking at Rufus and rubbing his side reflexively. Rufus scowled at him.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe it's a question of strength. Skinwalkers don't rate next to werewolves. They hunt in packs for a reason."

"Maybe." Dean swallowed the contents of his glass and put it on the table. "Utah first," he decided. "Rufus, Sam and me. We'll be back as soon as we can."

Bobby nodded. "I'll let Jackson know."

Alex sat in the armchair, looking at Dr Malley. "It's not like memories, it's just a feeling of familiarity."

"There's no visible damage to the lobes, temporal or frontal, no sign of aphasia, agnosia, apraxia or dysarthria," Meredith confirmed, leaning forward as she looked at Bob.

"We found trace amounts of several unknown chemical compounds in the hair and skin cell samples," Merrin added, glancing back at Alex. "I can't identify them, but it's possible that the combination of the drugs and trauma might have caused a seizure. That, on its own, could have effectively wiped a conscious connection."

"We don't have a means of checking the deeper areas of the brain, Bob," Meredith said to the worried-looking doctor. "If the trauma affected the limbic system, we couldn't tell and it might explain what seems to be a complete wipe-out of memories."

Bob nodded, looking at Alex again. "What can you remember, in detail?"

"I remember waking up in a stone room," she said, eyes half-closing as she looked backward. "I was hungry and cold. I remember being chained with the other women and walking with them past the cells in the basement, getting blood drawn." She opened her eyes and looked at the floor. "I remember going into the caves and hiding. Not much after that until I woke up here, and nothing before it at all."

"No childhood memories? Nothing from before the virus took over?"

"What virus?" she asked, turning to Merrin questioningly.

"One of many things that have turned the world upside down and inside out in the last few years," Merrin said quietly.

"Is this permanent?" Alex asked, looking back to Bob.

"I don't know," he told her, shoulders lifting in a helpless shrug as he glanced at Meredith. "Memory is sometimes permanently destroyed by physical damage, but we can't find any sign of that, at least not with what we have available."

"So I could stay like this, or it could all come back, just like that?"

"Alex, there are some things we can try to help you," Meredith said. "Going back to places that have meaning to you, talking to people you knew well once, we can try hypnotherapy – don't give up on it just yet."

Alex's mouth quirked at one corner humourlessly. "I'm not giving up," she said. "I just don't know what else to do."

"The sense of familiarity you do get with some people, some places," Bob asked. "Do they seem related to anything else? An emotion?"

She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "No, I don't think so. There's no feeling that accompanies them, just a sense that perhaps I've seen or known whatever it is before. It's not any stronger than that."

"I'd like you come back to Tawas with me in a couple of days, Alex," Meredith said. "You have friends there, and from all accounts you were there longer than here? Things may come back more easily there."

"Okay," Alex said uncertainly as she looked from the tall, carrot-haired doctor to Bob. "Look, I appreciate all the help you're giving me, I truly do, but what we're talking about here is that there might not be anything that will help and at the moment, I'm stuck in a place where there's just nothing."

"You tell me that I used to handle the organisation for this place," she continued, turning to Merrin and gesturing vaguely toward the door. "But I have no idea of how to do that, and the other things … I don't see how I can put any of it back together now." Drawing in a deep breath, she looked down at the floor. "I'm living in a medical ward with two infants, and I have nothing more than whatever clothes you can scrounge up for me since no one can find who cleaned out the apartment where I used to live. I can't sit around waiting or hoping for my memories to miraculously come back. I need to do something to feel like this is my life again."

Bob glanced at Merrin uneasily. "Alex, I understand that this feels like you're waiting for something that might not happen, but you need to give it some time –"

"How much time?" she asked him sharply. "Weeks? Months? How much time are we talking about?"

"I can't give you an exact figure –"

"No," she said, nodding. "I know that. And I know why you want me to wait, but let's be honest here, it's been eight weeks and nothing's changed."

The man they'd all told her was the father of her children, who had loved her, had not come to see her or them once in that time. Whatever had gone on for him, it seemed clear to her that he wasn't going to try to overcome it. The one sight she'd had of him, walking fast from the room when she'd entered it, hadn't triggered so much as a flicker of memory. He'd watched her die twice, Merrin had said. Shot in front of him by the enemy he'd been fighting. She could understand that wasn't an easy thing to get past, and it wasn't as if she could help him with it, but she couldn't stay in this limbo of waiting either.

She looked at Meredith. "How do we get to Michigan?"

"One of the hunters will take us," Meredith said. "We can go the day after tomorrow, if you'd prefer?"

"The sooner the better," Alex agreed.

Ignacio, Colorado

Mariana ducked her head as she came into the cavern, a pair of rabbits in one hand, her small bow and quiver of arrows in the other. She hesitated for a moment past the entrance, seeing the old man bending over the flat crystal as her eyes adjusted to the gloomy interior of the cave, then moved silently over the rough stone floor to the small fire.

Mattie, he'd told her to call him, and she did, from time to time. He was helpless here without her, unable to hunt or fish, or even find the right wood for the cooking fire, always getting the dried sticks that burned too quickly; spending his time either staring into the peculiar depths of the crystal or scratching over the coarse paper of his books or reading, the books angled to the firelight, his eyes screwed up and watering as he tried to make out the words. She couldn't help him with that, she'd been learning to read when the world had gone mad, but the words in his books weren't the same as the ones she'd seen at the little school down in the valley where the town had been.

Feeling his gaze, she looked over at him and held up one rabbit. "Got two," she said.

He nodded, mouth pursed as he stared at the dead animal. "We will eat it all tonight, Mariana, tomorrow we must go."

"Go where?" she asked him curiously, turning back to skin the rabbit. "Winter is coming."

"Yes, yes," he muttered as he got to his feet and looked around the cavern. "It is coming fast and hard and we must be there before the big storms begin." He stopped in the centre of the cavern and looked at her. "Kansas, Mariana. We need to get to Kansas."

"Why?"

"They need what I can tell them," he answered vaguely, picking up the capacious woven bag from the floor by his bed and beginning to fill it with the hand-stitched and bound books he'd laboured over.

"What can you tell them, Mattie?" the girl asked, her voice unconsciously patronising.

He snorted softly at the question and the tone, pushing down the irritation that seemed to be coming more quickly lately.

"I can tell them many things, little girl," he answered haughtily, turning his back to her as he kept packing the bag. "Things you have no idea about."

She heard the annoyance in his voice and kept silent. He was a helpless old man, most of the time, but sometimes there would be fire in his eyes and thunder in his voice and at those times, he frightened her. They would not be going anywhere if the storms came before they could get out of the mountains.

Lightning Oak Keep, Kansas

Watching Bobby wrestling with the bulky cloth diaper under the baby on the table, Rufus hid his grin behind a glass of whiskey. On the other side of the table, Ellen had changed William and was holding him as she watched Bobby's face get redder, heard another muttered curse as the pin jabbed into his finger instead of through the cloth.

"It's a diaper, Singer, not a greased pig," she said acerbically as he dropped the safety pin for the third time. "Take your son and let me do it."

Bobby gave up on getting the three corners to meet and pin them one-handed with alacrity, taking William from Ellen and watching as she refolded the cloth and pinned the corners together quickly, refastening Elizabeth's clothing and picking her up. She glanced at Rufus, catching the grin.

"Laugh it up, Rufus, at least you had practice," she said tartly.

He nodded in agreement. "And thankfully I was a long way from Tawas when the love bug came through," he told her smugly.

She turned away and headed for the hall, Bobby trailing behind her as he shifted William from one arm to another.

How the mighty had fallen, Rufus thought with a soft chuckle. Not that Bobby gave two figs for what anyone else thought. He'd seen the old man's face soften whenever he held his children, his life-weathered mug almost unrecognisable without the slightly sour look.

Dom had had twins, two girls. He pushed the thought aside impatiently. He hadn't been there and someone else had and it didn't matter anyway, they'd had a lot of good times but there'd been nothing more to hold them any closer than that. The faint stab somewhere in the region of his chest countered the dry pragmatism of that thought but he ignored it. Done was done. Like everything else that had happened in the last year, it wasn't reversible.

He looked up when Bobby came into the room a few minutes later. "Doesn't look like you're getting the hang of it, Bobby."

The slightly-sour look reappeared. "Bite me, Turner."

"Just sayin'."

"Old dog, new tricks, blah blah," Bobby said as he poured himself a glass of whiskey. "I'll get there."

He sat down and stretched his legs out in front of the fire, sighing contentedly.

"That sounded peaceful," the hunter commented.

"Was," Bobby agreed readily, his eyes closing.

They listened to Ellen's footsteps come down the hall and Rufus turned to look at her as she came in.

"I thought Dean was coming with you tonight?"

"Last minute decision to stay at West Keep," Rufus said expressionlessly.

"That's a step in the right direction."

"I thought you two were quit of your meddling in his life," Bobby growled from the chair. "You never helped a situation yet, Ellen."

"I just want to see him happy, you know that," she told him, sitting on the sofa and looking at the fire. "If he can get around what's happened, he's got a chance."

"Wouldn't hold your breath for that," Rufus said sourly.

"Why?" Ellen stared at him narrowly.

Rufus frowned as he shook his head. "Nothing. Yet." He sighed and looked at her. "Alex might not wait as long as Dean needs."

"What?"

He told her briefly of what he'd seen in the morning, ignoring the huffs of impatience.

"No, well, we'll have to tell her she's going to have to –"

"What, Ellen?" Bobby cut her off, brows drawn together as he looked at her. "Tell her that he'll come around eventually? We don't know he will. Tell her that she has to give up whatever chance she has of finding someone else, since she can't remember what was between them and he won't go near her? C'mon," he growled. "We ain't doing anything about this. It'll sort itself out."

Rufus watched her face harden in the firelight as she looked at Bobby, then she let out her breath, shoulders slumping a little.

"He had what he wanted, Bobby," she said quietly.

"I know." Bobby looked at the fire. "An' it got screwed. But if that's gone, that's his decision, Ellen. Not yours, not ours." He looked at her, mouth twisting slightly. "You can't make him look for that again. And you can't make her wait for it."

Rufus watched the log on the hearth fall apart in a shower of sparks, the crackle the only noise in the room.

West Keep, Kansas

Dean looked around the apartment distractedly, noting the thin coating of dust over everything, the protection symbols that hadn't helped at all, intact and inviolate on the floors and doors and windows.

He hadn't returned here because he'd thought she would move back in. But it appeared that she hadn't. He didn't know where her clothes or personal stuff had gone, but everything that remained, except for the books that filled the shelving on either side of the hearth, was his.

There was no way he could stay here, he thought impatiently, picking up the duffle and carrying it down the hall to the bedroom. He needed to get out of here, get on the road. Needed his goddamned car back was what he needed. They'd left it at Sioux Falls and he hadn't given it a thought until a week ago. He could go looking after they'd checked out Utah.

The bedroom was as dusty and unused as the rest of the apartment and he tossed the bags on the end of the bed and pulled open the closet door, grabbing handfuls of clothes and pitching them onto the bags without looking. The silence in the rooms and the sterile smell brought their own set of memories and he didn't want those in his head either.

She's alive, just three floors down. The thought snuck in and he slowed, fingers curling around the clothing tightly.

Three floors. Alive, yes. But she didn't, now.

Didn't love him, didn't have the faintest idea of who the hell he was, he reminded himself again, pulling out the shirts and tossing them onto the bed with the rest.

Your children are down there too.

That was a harder thought to fight. A son and a daughter and no father. Not dead, not missing. Just …

His stomach turned over. Fucked if he did, fucked if he didn't, he thought savagely.

Well, boo hoo, I am so sorry your feelings are hurt, princess! Bobby's voice boomed caustically in his mind. Are you under the impression that family's supposed to make you feel good? They're supposed to make you miserable! That's why they're family!

That'd been Sam, he wanted to argue. It didn't make a lick of difference. And what if taking that chance could make a difference? What if it made her remember?

What if it didn't?

He dragged the rest of the clothing from the closet and shoved it into the bags, zipping them up and leaving the rest in the drawers.

Not a fucking lick of difference, he thought as he closed the apartment door behind him. Even if she never remembered and he had to live with that, he couldn't leave his kids fatherless.

Slowing down as he came around the last bend in the staircase, he wondered what the hell he was going to say to her, after the weeks of avoiding her, avoiding it all. The thought disappeared when he saw Alex walking down the hall in front of him, a tall, dark-haired man walking beside her and carrying a baby in his arms. Carrying one his kids? He stood in the shadow of the corner and watched them turn into the room, the door closing behind them.

It felt like an hour but it was only a few minutes when the door opened again. He recognised Drew as he stepped out into the hall, turned back to her.

"Anytime you need help, just say, okay?" the ex-cop said through the open doorway.

"Thank you," Dean heard her say, her voice just the same, a little low, warm with her feelings. "I'll do that, goodnight."

"'Night," Drew said, stepping back.

The door closed and Dean leaned back against the wall behind the corner, listening to the man's footsteps get closer. He stepped out just before Drew reached the corner.

"Dean," Drew said, stopping abruptly. He threw a glance over his shoulder at the doorway behind him and Dean felt a flush of anger ripple through him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. They were the same height, similar builds, similar colouring even, Dean realised. Alex had a type. Their eye level was even.

Drew's mouth curled up on one side. "Guess you saw that. Just helping out, that's all."

"Helping out?" Dean repeated slowly. "Alex ask you for help?"

"Yeah, she did," Drew said. "You weren't around."

Dean stared at him silently and he exhaled, gesturing at the door.

"If you're stepping up, I'm glad," he added, looking at him steadily. "I wasn't trying to get in the way, I offered because she needed someone to help."

Dean looked away, his anger leaking out at the blunt statement. "Alright. But they don't need your help anymore."

"Fair enough."

Drew stepped past him and turned down the stairs, and Dean stood in the hall, listening to his footsteps receding.

She didn't, anymore. That was the bottom line, wasn't it? And if she wanted to be with someone else, wanted to raise his children with someone else, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He looked at the door and walked slowly toward it. What was he supposed to say?

Stopping when he reached the door, he stood there for five minutes, one hand half-lifted as he stared at the solid wood. Then he turned away and walked back to the stairs, picking up the bags and carrying them down to the office.