[Note: Not mine…well just Ella and Astrid]

----Chapter 16----

The next morning Astrid stumbled down the stairs unable to sleep with all the racket coming from the house. She was wearing her favorite sleeping clothes- a pair of orange pajama pants with white power T's on them and a white Victoria secret spaghetti strap shirt and a gray hoodie with the University of Tennessee written on the sleeve. Her feet were covered with bright pink fuzzy socks. She was pretty sure she looked like she felt. All she managed to do after her shower was pull her hair into a really sloppy bun-pony tail, throw on her PJ's and crash in a bed. This morning her hair was in even more disarray. Broken arms were such a pain.

She poked her head around the stairs and followed the noise to the kitchen. There she found Sam and Dean arguing about how to fix the back door. Ella and Bobby were nowhere to be seen. An old cassette radio was playing AC/DC loudly. She stood in the kitchen doorway and looked, well, pathetic. She was hoping noise in the kitchen equaled food, but instead it equaled two bickering men and loud music.

"No food?" she whined loudly catching the attention of Dean and Sam. She moved to the rickety table, flopped in a chair, and frowned sadly.

"Well, if isn't Sleeping Beauty," Dean said with a grin.

"Have you even seen Sleeping Beauty?" Sam asked.

"Well, there was this really bad porno once," Dean replied.

"Did you just compare me to bad porn?" Astrid asked with raised eyebrows.

Sam chuckled.

"Because I know I rate awesome porn," Astrid finished with a mischievous grin at the older Winchester.

"Porn, Astrid, really?" Ella's voice came from the kitchen doorway.

"I leave you, idjits, alone with a woman for a few hours and you've already corrupted her," Bobby said as he followed Ella in. Sam turned the radio down.

"Dean compared me to a bad porno," Astrid said reflexively. "I was just informing him that I deserve nothing less than awesome porn."

"Because you look like such a porn star," Ella said as she dropped a load of bags on the counter pulled out a box and tossed it at Astrid.

"Hey, watch it, Clemens. I've got a broke arm you know," Astrid yelled as she ducked the box, which slid across the table.

"Poptarts for the bottomless pit," Ella said with a grin.

Astrid smiled, but then said, "No pie?"

"Are you sure you aren't related to Dean?" Bobby asked.

The older Winchester said, "Pie is a perfectly good breakfast food. Apple pie has fruit in it."

"When you say things like that, I forget why I don't like you, Dean-y Weany," Astrid said as she opened the Poptart box with one hand. She plucked out a package, opened it with her teeth, and began eating one. "Well, if there is no pie, I suppose I will have to make do with Poptarts."

"I'm really beginning to dislike these pet names, dumpling," Dean said.

"Did you just call me fat?"

A burst of laughter and an "idjit" filled the kitchen.

-

Astrid disappeared upstairs to put on some clothes, and Ella was flipping through some of Bobby's books in his study. Sam, Dean, and Bobby were working on the backdoor. The music was turned up loud to cover their conversation. Bobby had told the brothers about his strange conversation with Annabel Kane. They'd all agreed it was time to find out exactly who Astrid and Gabriella were.

"I made some calls to see what I could find out about Annabel Kane. No one remembers a Kane, but a couple of older hunters said about twenty-seven years ago Annabel Darcy helped them out on few cases. Said she was real young, but had a talent for spotting things that disguised themselves as human- shapeshifters, possessions, and the like. Description was pretty vague, but sounds a little like Ella. She up and disappeared after a case in Rushville, Illinois, but would call from to time when she stumbled across a case. None of them saw her over the years."

"So Ella's mother was a hunter?" Dean asked. He wondered what it all meant- Astrid being sealed by God, Ella being an empath, and her mother being a former hunter. What game are you playing up there?

"Sounds like it," Bobby agreed.

"If she's empathic like Ella, it might explain why she was good at spotting things that weren't human," Sam commented as he soaked in what Bobby had told them.

"What happened in Rushville?" Dean asked. Every hunter instinct he had said that something had happened their that they needed to know.

"The hunter who worked the case got killed a few years back, but one of the hunters who remembered Annabel said it was sometime in August or September of 1983. Apparently, after Annabel disappeared, the case hit a dead end and the hunter never figured out what had happened. Sam, you up for some research?"

"When is geek boy not up for research?" Dean asked dodging a punch from his brother.

-

"I think they did something to my car," Astrid said as she looked out the window of the bedroom she was using later that day.

Ella was flopped on the bed playing Tetris on her cell phone. "They've been really sneaky all day long. Sam disappeared with his computer and Bobby's phone keeps ringing. Dean has been out there with the Impala working on it. Besides are you really sad that they did something to your car. You wanted to get that 1969 Camaro, but Momma refused to buy it for you after you wrecked those two other cars and the motorcycle."

"No, I don't care that they did something to my car. I'm just saying I think they are trying to keep us here for some reason," Astrid said grimacing as she shifted her arm in the sling.

"When I mentioned that we would probably leave in the morning, because I've got to get back to work- Thank God for year round scheduling and a two week spring break- Bobby was really shifty," Ella said never looking up from her cell phone. "Anyway, you aren't getting any of your divine revelations."

Astrid turned to her friend a faraway look in her eyes.. "Not really…I think I have to do something with Sam and Dean or maybe for them….but I think they are going somewhere. I heard them talking about it. Ross, no, russ, no…Rushville, Illinois. Although they shut up as soon as they realized I was close. "

"That's sounds really familiar. Where have I heard that before? Do we know someone who lives there?" Ella asked sitting up and feeling like there was something she was missing.

"Not that I know of…" Astrid said.

-

"We're going to have to go to Rushville if we want to find out what happened," Sam told his brother later that night. "The local newspaper doesn't have any digital copies of the back issues past 2000. Everything before that is archived at the local public library."

"Let's go. We can probably make it by morning," Dean said.

"What about Astrid and Ella?" Sam asked.

"I pulled the distributor cap off of their car," Dean replied with a grin. "They aren't going anywhere at least for a few days. We'll be back before they can get a new one. Bobby can give them the run around if we need more time."

The brothers threw their things in the car and told Bobby where they were headed.

"Keep your eyes open," Bobby said. "The hunter never solved what was going on in Rushville."

They got in the Impala and left.

-

Astrid watched the Impala leave from her bedroom window. God, please keep them safe from all harm. I don't know where they are going or what they are doing, but you are with us always and nothing is beyond your power.

Her heart urged her to go with them. She knew they hadn't told her everything that was going with the Apoclypse. Lucifere wanted Dean Winchester dead and Sam alive. Ella said that they were going through the motions, but on the inside Dean felt defeated already.

"Are we going to go after them?" Ella whispered from behind her. Astrid jumped guiltily.

She gave a sheepish smile at being caught staring after the car. "No, not yet. I have things I need to do here first," Astrid said softly. "Did you figure out what they did to the car?"

"Yeah," Ella held up something. "Distributor cap. I found it in the Impala. They almost caught me out there when they were coming out. I had to sneak around back."

A silence filled up the room as Astrid and Ella contemplated their next move. Ella sat down on the bed. She didn't like letting the brothers go off on their own. She didn't hear God the way Astrid did, but something was going to happen to them in Rushville. She knew it down in her bones. "So what next?"

Astrid joined her on the bed and said softly feeling the certainty her words, "You are going to go to Rushville, because I can't. At least not yet. And I am going to change the world or at least one town." She said the last with a silly grin.

----Reviews are writer's food,----

[A/N: Sorry for the major delay. My husband's grandmother died and grad school happened. But I dropped one of my classes, and after the funeral hopefully things will de-stress a little. I've kind of written myself in a corner with Astrid's protection thing so she's going to be split from the group for a while so that the next episode can happen.]