Epilogue

Piper had never dealt with a ghost like this before. Granted, the ghosts that she had experience with tended to be friendly, and the hostile ones few and far between. She was willing in this case to bow to the expert.

Her stomach still itched from where she had been forced to tolerate the stitches until a doctor could pull them out, in order to avoid any more red flags, but she insisted on taking her turn with the shovel. Dean made a few cursory protests by way of chivalry that fooled nobody; Piper thought that he was glad to turn it over. They all took their turns unearthing Christy's body, even Wyatt. Even, to Piper's surprise, Victor. Christy might have been buried as a Jane Doe, but a locator spell was an easy thing to perform now that she had her magic again.

"Is that all?" Piper asked as she watched the flames lick upwards. Somewhere far away, she thought that she heard Christy screaming in impotent rage. It was gone too soon for her to be sure.

"That's all," Dean said as he gathered up the supplies so that he could take them back to his trunk. He was wearing his leather jacket, even though the day was sweltering. Piper thought that he was more interested in the armor. "Did you watch what I was doing?" he asked, giving her a sideways glance, as if he was not sure how his question was going to be received.

"I did," Piper confirmed. "But I'm not going to need it. Not for my sisters, anyway."

Dean looked dubious until Piper said the word 'sisters'. "I'm sure that you'll find a use for it somewhere," he said, and flashed her that cocky grin again. Either he had become a much better liar over the past few weeks, or he even meant that one. "Since you're coming out of retirement and all."

That issue was still so large and looming that Piper was not sure that she could face it head-on quite yet. "When are you leaving?" she asked instead.

"As soon as this dies down." Dean nodded towards Christy's merrily burning grave. Chris and Wyatt were running around, collecting leaves that they could throw into the flames. Theirs was a strange family. "I have the mistaken identity situation to sort out, jobs waiting for me, that kind of thing."

"Oh." Piper had not expected that he would stay, but she felt oddly deflated to hear it from Dean's own lips. She considered for a moment before she gathered her nerve, raised herself onto her toes, and kissed Dean, very softly, on the mouth. His eyes alone when she pulled away made it worth it. "Feel free to come around any time," she said.

"I'll do that," Dean replied. She could feel him watching her as she walked away.

Victor had both of her boys by the hands. Chris and Wyatt were wearing guilty expressions, and Wyatt was sucking on a singed thumb. He gave Piper a big, sunny grin when he realized that he was caught. "Thought I would take the boys for the rest of the afternoon," Victor said, "in case you wanted to be alone."

"Thank you," Piper told him, smiling. She would not precisely be alone.

---

Dean heard his cellular phone beginning to ring in his jacket pocket almost as soon as Piper turned her back. He pulled it out and could not contain the roll of his eyes or the slight smile on the corners of his mouth as he saw who it was. "Yes?" he asked after he had flipped the phone open and raised it to his ear.

"Boy, don't you go getting that kind of attitude with me," a familiar voice said. "You were the one thinking about calling me, not the other way around."

"It's done," Dean told her.

"You all right?" Missouri asked him, her voice softer and more concerned than Dean thought he had ever heard before, even on the day that he had showed up on her doorstep as a newly made orphan.

"Yeah." Dean cleared his throat to get rid of the lump in it before he could continue. "Yeah. I'll be okay. I just wanted to know if you could, uh, tell me about Dad. Not for a job or anything, just…" He trailed off for a moment as the lump back and refused to be ignored. "What he was like, you know, when he was first starting out."

"Sure thing, sugar," Missouri said. She waited a beat for him to get himself together, and then she began to speak.

---

A few hours later, Piper climbed down into the basement of her family home, sitting in the center of the floor and feeling the sun as it warmed her face and hair. She had begun to look at architects over the past few weeks, so that they could begin to rebuild. It would not be exactly like it was before-it could not be-but it could still be something good.

Piper had watched carefully while Dean had sent Christy on to the afterlife that she so desperately deserved. She knew that she would have to do the same for her own siblings, eventually, so that they could rest. Not today, though. For now, it was very good to drag her new Book of Shadows into her lap, write down all that she had seen, and feel her sisters' presences in the air around her.

End