𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐍

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑

A few hours outside Chicago, somewhere in northern Indiana, Dean pulls into a motel; two connected rooms for the three hunters.

Katherine can walk now, but her legs feel like Jell-O. Her blood is still laced with panic and dread, wondering what it is that Dean's thinking that's got them both so wound up.

Nobody spoke as they unpacked the car. Rather, the brothers said nothing. Dean immediately hauled Katherine to the other room and the Winchesters unpacked the car—weapons bags, one bag of clothes for each hunter.

She carefully shrugs out of her bloodied flannel before she holds it up, examining the shredded blood-soaked fabric. Then she tosses it into the trash. She turns around and stares at her back in the vanity mirror. The straps of her tank top and bra have been snipped from the claws of the daeva, so support isn't likely. The only salvageable article of clothing she wears is her jeans. She peels her bra out from underneath her semi-functional top, and someone knocks against the wall.

"Need some help?" Dean asks. Katherine anxiously glances at him. He's leant against the doorway, holding a couple of rags in his hand, some water. He's decent. Not bloody, like she saw him just ten minutes ago. Katherine has managed to clean her face, bandaged it appropriately. Her neck isn't as bad as everyone thought. Superficial scratches, nothing too gory.

After a moment, she nods.

Katherine turns around and pulls the back of her top over her head, pressing her lips together the whole way to keep from making noise. She leans her palms against the sink, and Dean starts over to her. Even when he thinks of her, now, he can only think of the heartbreak. He knows she can sense it, too.

The faint olive expanse of her back is decorated with moles and three long claw marks, stretching from her shoulder to the middle of her back. "That happen in the hotel?" He asks her, setting the glass of water to the side. He glances to her face in the mirror, then back to her marred back.

"Warehouse," Katherine corrects, shaking her head. "You know how to clean it up?"

Dean gazes at the supplies in the first aid kit on the countertop. "Yeah." He picks up the saline solution and flips the cap. "This is gonna sting."

She chuckles. "You forget you're talking to a seasoned hunter," she says. "I'll be fine." Dean soaks a patch of gauze in the stuff and carefully cleans around the wounds first, noticing the way her muscles contract periodically, as if it would somehow help block the pain out. "I, um...salted the doors and the windows."

Dean nods. "I saw. Sam sealed up the front door."

"Is he all right?"

"Yeah. I envy how easy it is for him to fall asleep." Katherine chuckles, then winces as Dean starts in on her wound with a fresh patch of gauze.

"We need to lay low for a few days," she says, fingertips curled around the edge of the cheap countertop. "Heal and all that."

Dean nods. "I was thinking the same thing."

"Can you tell me what else you're thinking?" She softly requests. Dean watches her fingertips tap against the sink. "Why your dad left, maybe?"

"Because it wasn't safe for any of us," he tells her, grabbing a new patch of gauze. She winces as the cool saline touches right over her wound. "We're all vulnerable when we're around each other."

Tears prick at her eyes, but not from the pain. That's mostly subsided, all that's left now is the superficial sting of the cleaning agent. Her wounds themselves aren't deep. No muscle injury. She doesn't want to ask the question that's eating away at her brain. It's tearing her up inside. But if she mentions it, would the whole thing come crashing down on her far earlier than any of them expected?