"Grief is never something you get over. You don't wake up one morning and say, 'I've conquered that; now I'm moving on.' It's something that walks beside you every day. And if you can learn how to manage it and honour the person that you miss, you can take something that is incredibly sad and have some form of positivity."
-Terri Irwin
Danny sat on Jack's bed with him as he stared at his computer. Danny paid equal attention to the nephilim, Star Wars, and her phone simultaneously, her eyes shifting to each every few minutes. She was immersed, however, in a riveting conversation with Ion about how much of a bitch Demetria Grimaldi was.
Danny caught Jack glancing her way slightly confused, but before she could address the nephilim and his inevitable question Sam knocked on the door.
"Jack?" Without waiting for approval, he entered. "Hey, Clone Wars."
"The computer said I'd like it and Danny agreed with the computer. I like Ahsoka, kinda hate Anakin."
"Uh, that's probably for the best. Nevermind, uhm... hey, you remember when I told you what we do? O-our day job?"
"You kill monsters because you're the good guys."
"Right. Right, and we've got a case, so I thought you might wanna come along."
"No." Jack replied, eyes glued to the screen.
"Jack, I really think that this would be good for you. Y'know, maybe a change of scenery might-"
"Get my powers working again?" Jack finished.
"Yeah, maybe." Without missing a beat Jack looked Sam dead in the eyes.
"So I can be your inter-dimensional can opener?" Sam was only taken aback for a moment before switching to a nonplussed expression. "You're using me." Sam began to explain himself. Danny gave the two of them the room and strolled toward her own. She packed an overnight bag with some toiletries, weapons, King Sprinkles, and clothes, and removed herself from her sweatshirt and joggers. She opted instead for some ripped jeans, a white crop top, and tied a red flannel around her waist before throwing on her jacket and boots. Reaching for the doorknob she felt a slight pull backwards, not like the usual pain in her stomach, it wasn't painful at all, just a light amount of pressure tugging her to her desk. Once she stepped in front of the desk she was immediately tugged down by gravity. In her squat state her eyes connected with the plastic eyes of her frog backpack. Cautiously, she grasped the backpack and unzipped it. Leafing through its buried memories her fingers brushed multiple leather bound notebooks. As she brought them out and onto her lap the pressure ceased. Standing up and shoving them into her bag, just in case, she then marched out the door.
Adjusting her ponytail she entered the garage with her bag over her shoulder. Danny spoke not a word to Dean and only responded when questions were asked by either Sam or Jack. She felt remorse for hurting her brothers, she felt it gouging at her soul, but she did not regret her words. Those emotions had been bottled up within her for far too long. Something new was arising in Dianaimh, some newfound freedom, a feeling she had almost forgotten about. It was not anger, or sorrow, or even power. She couldn't place it. It was new and it was strong. Her heart thrummed steadily and sturdily, her pace of breathe calm and mellowed, her movements fluid, her reflexes effortless, and, aside from the guilt, exposing her emotions had flooded her with relief. If she had ever felt it before she would almost say it was... peace. Peace. She hadn't felt peace since... she couldn't even remember. Even with her mother she had always been restless, always searching and exploring and learning, ever the adventurer. The adventurer was there still, but there was less emptiness to fill. It was as if she was working on a puzzle for almost eighteen years and somewhere near the beginning she had misplaced some very important pieces. Now the puzzle was nearly done and there was a sense of accomplishment that made its place in her heart. Then she could start a new puzzle. The thought brought a smile to her eyes as she gazed out of the window at the endless plains of Kansas. Her grin grew as she realized she didn't remember entering the impala.
Ten hours wasn't too far a drive and Dean always managed to get where they needed to be about two hours faster, so it was really only eight hours. Once in Madison Dean started to get ravenous, so he pulled into a diner and the pack of famished hunters climbed the ramp into the establishment. The aroma of grease invaded Danny's senses and her stomach roared. They were seated in a corner booth by a nice latina woman maybe forty years older than Danny. Their very attractive server arrived and Dean immediately started flirting with her and she flirted back. Both Winchesters rolled their eyes at their brother's typical behavior. She took their drink orders, two waters, a coffee, and a beer, and sauntered over to another table in her section. The boys looked at the menu to decide what to eat, but Danny didn't have to. She never did. She got the same thing each time. Grilled cheese with french fries, pickle chips on the side to give to Dean. Sometimes she would switch it up and get chicken tenders, but usually it was grilled cheese. Jack seemed confused as to why she wasn't reading the menu.
"I already know what I want." He nodded and let it go. Their server returned with their beverages and asked for their orders. Dean ordered the biggest burger they had, Sam a chicken caesar salad, and Danny her grilled cheese. Jack, however, had no clue what he wanted. This caused an issue.
"I'm not sure..."
"You've been staring at that thing for twenty minutes and you're not sure?" Dean asked angrily. Jack flinched, prompting Danny to lay a hand on his arm. He glanced at Danny for some assistance.
"You want a chicken sandwich?" Jack agreed, sighing in relief. The waitress smiled flirtatiously at Jack.
"You want anything on the side?" she questioned, obviously alluding to something else. Her name tag read 'Delaney'. Danny stored that information for later and glared at the waitress with such ferocity that she actually stepped back a bit.
Dean, mildly disgusted, answered, "Nope." Sam seemed amused when the pretty server scurried away to place the order. Jack was still perplexed and a little bummed he didn't get any fries.
"Don't worry. I'll split mine with you. I won't eat them all anyway." she fibbed. She could eat three times as many fries as what the meal came with in less than five seconds with her hands tied behind her back. It did bring Jack's mood up though, and that was good enough for her. Sam and Dean both looked at their sister in disbelief. Danny Winchester... sharing food? A rare blessing to be bestowed upon anybody other than her brothers. Their food arrived quickly and Delaney seemed much more cheerful and peppy. Dean tore into his meal and Jack followed. Their waitress bounced away and the fake smile fell off in relief. Sam calmly took another sip of his coffee. Squirting some ketchup on her plate Danny dunked one triangle of sandwich into the crimson condiment as Jack snatched up a fry.
"Oh, that is still so gross. You're ruining the sandwich." Dean commented.
"That's nice."
"What?"
"How you thought I cared." Sam chuckled at his sister as he also stole a french fry. Dean guffawed.
"So you think you're funny, now, huh?"
"I've always found myself quite hilarious, Dean. I'm sorry you feel differently." Danny didn't look at him once and not a shred of emotion left her throat to invade her voice. A grin crept up on Jack's face as he chewed his morsel of food.
"What are you smiling at?" Dean scolded and the nephilim's happy expression vanished. Danny handed him a fry, which brought his mood back up as he looked at her gratefully.
At the motel the group went their separate ways. Sam and Dean in one room, Jack and Danny a couple doors to the right. The ginger teen put on some television to entertain Jack for a minute whilst she changed into her nightgown. The word nightgown was a strong one for her pajamas. It was, in reality, a triple-extra-large t-shirt she got on a trip to The Met when she was four. She had wanted an accurately sized one, but her mother wanted her to be able to get more use out of it. When she was little it was more of a blanket, but at seventeen it draped over her body as a dress. The hem ended at just above her kneecaps, a difference she found an improvement. Finishing up in the bathroom she heard Jack's voice through the door. It sounded as if he was having a conversation with someone. Danny pushed the door open tentatively to reveal Jack with her phone in his hand. Jack appeared to be having a pleasant chat with the mobile device.
"Uhh, Jack?"
"Oh, Danny! You're phone was moving, so I picked it up and pressed the green button like you said to do to call people, and now I can see people in your phone!" Jack seemed so pleased with himself that Danny burst into a fit of giggles. She decided that the nephilim was too adorable for her to handle.
"Who's on the phone with you?" Danny inquired sitting next to Jack on his designated bed.
"The phone said 'Phil'."
"Hi, Danny!" her friend's bubbly voice called through the phone. Her gorgeous visage popped up on the screen.
"Yellow, Madame Curie. How's it hanging?"
"Excellent! We were just getting to know Jack." Jack didn't know enough to understand that Phil's tone was teasing and Danny was extremely grateful for the nephilim's ignorance.
"We?"
"Sup, DD!"
"Hey, Dan." Zumi's lovely face appeared next to Phil's and a bunch of camera shaking meant Ion was attempting to come into view. "Am I in frame?" Phil tugged his head down in order for their friend in Wisconsin to see him.
"Now you are." Phil answered.
"Thanks."
"What are you guys doing? It's like eleven at night in New York." Danny laughed.
"Impromptu sleep-over." Zumi answered rather casually.
"And it's not an impromptu sleep-over without our favorite ginger." the excited girl added.
"Why are you acting like it's so late for us? We're only and hour later than you." Zumi questioned. Danny acknowledged him with a roll of her eyes. A sudden thought back to that morning had the redhead almost jumping on the bed in anxious curiosity.
"Oh, oh, oh! Did you do it?"
"Did who do what?" asked Jack, bewildered, yet jubilant by his friend's altered mood.
"I wanna know if Ion asked Florentine to Prom."
"What?" both Phil and Zumi screeched.
"You were gonna do that today?" Phil asked in awe of her friend's crush.
"I was gonna do it a week ago, but I chickened out."
"What's Prom?" inquired Jack, oblivious as to why the strange word was a big deal.
"It's this huge party for kids in their last year of high school. It's kinda like a rite of passage." Danny explained.
"And our sweet, sweet Ion has had the biggest crush on Florentine Sneijder since fifth grade." Zumi said pinching his cheek.
"He's been literally dying to ask her to Prom." Jack seemed alarmed at Phil's exaggeration and Danny quickly alleviated his panic.
"So you have to be asked to Prom?"
"Not exactly." Danny answered vaguely. Phil then spent twenty minutes explaining the mechanisms of teenage social systems to Jack.
"To sum up, shit's crazy." she concluded.
"Well said." complimented Danny. Jack looked a bit overwhelmed, but he definitely caught on quite quick.
"So, Ion wants to go with this Florentine person to Prom, because he has romantic feelings for her, and hopes that by her agreeing to go with him she returns those feelings?"
"That's the jist."
"And you've had these feelings for a long time?"
"An agonizingly long time." Zumi complained.
"Why didn't you just tell her how you felt when it started?"
"Nerves mostly."
"Nerves?"
"I was scared."
"Of the girl you have feelings for?"
"More like her reaction to my feelings. You see, Flo was my friend before I started to fall for her, so if she said she returned my feelings it would be incredible. Then there's the opposite reaction. If she doesn't feel the same way it could ruin our friendship. We'll never be able to have what we had before. Plus the pain of heartbreak is supposedly unbearable, so I'm also afraid of getting hurt emotionally."
"She would hurt you?"
"It wouldn't really be her fault. When it comes to romance people can't help how they feel." Jack nodded at Ion, an action he could not see. "When you give your heart to someone else, when you trust them enough to be close with you, when you would do anything for them... they hold so much power over you. When you don't make them aware of the power they have, they may hurt you unintentionally. Bottling up your emotions, keeping them inside, is a recipe for disaster. Then, most of the time, it's not just you getting hurt." Ion's companions were astonished by the amount of depth his feelings had. He had never let them know how far into him his feelings for Florentine had seeped. This was beyond some elementary school crush.
"So, what'd she say?" Jack inquired shyly. The three other teens eagerly waited in anticipation as their blind friend kept them in suspense to torture them. After five minutes Ion finally replied.
"She said yes." he announced with a grin. Everyone cheered gleefully. Phil tackled the boy, dropping her phone, which Zumi caught. After celebrating Ion's victory in romance, Danny posed another question.
"What about you two?"
"What?" Phil and Zumi each lost about ten shades of color.
"What about you two?" she repeated.
"We um, uhh, we're going alone." Zumi sweated.
"Alone?"
"Yes! Alone, Danny! It's perfectly normal to go to Prom alone!" Phil snapped.
"Okay?"
"Anyways, we gotta go. Don't wanna keep you from your hunter-ing stuff, so... night, night! Love you, bye!" She hung up immediately, not leaving room for any other's farewell. Danny chuckled at Phil's inability to lie. She knew what her other two companions were up to, but she wanted them to be ready to tell her about it first. Jack turned to Danny and smiled.
"They were nice!"
"Yeah, they usually are."
"Were they the ones in that picture? The one by your bed?"
"Yup. Mrs. Mishra took it the last week of kindergarten and we had decided to make friendship bracelets. She took the whole class on a field trip to Silverwood Gardens. It was mid-June and piping hot, so we decided it would be a great idea to splash through Scairdeán Dóchas. We each got separate time outs, and we didn't ever wanna be separated again, so we made friendship bracelets to signify our bond. It's like a promise that no matter where we go or what we do we'll always be there for each other." Danny sounded more nonchalant than she felt.
"Can we make friendship bracelets?"
"One day. When we have time." Jack seemed deep in thought for a moment.
"So you've all known each other a long time?"
"As far back as I can remember."
"How do you know them?"
"Their parents were all friends with my mom, so we've practically been there for each other since birth. That's not to say I don't have good friends that I've made after, but the four of us have always been different, like we were made to be friends."
"Are we like that?"
"What?" Danny glanced up from toying with her bracelets to see Jack staring at her, blue eyes filled with hope.
"Do we have that bond? Were we made for each other?" Danny smiled at the sweet nephilim beside her. She reminisced on the past couple of weeks with him; how Jack made her smile, how he would always ask her for assistance, how he actually wanted to know her, his childlike wonder, her fierceness in protecting him, the lump in her throat when he was in danger, the panging despair in her heart when he was upset, how proud she was of him for just existing. She didn't even have to think before answering.
"Yes." She checked her phone. "It's almost midnight. We ought to get to bed." She noticed the hint of a smile on Jack's face as she tugged King Sprinkles from her bag and nudged herself under the covers. "Sweet dreams, Sunshine." she yawned and soon after drifted off to sleep, plush frog trapped between her arms.
Danny's eyes shot open as she rocketed out of bed. Another nightmare had plagued her once more. The television flickered to life all of a sudden and the lights turned on. Then the alarm clock blared, waking a sleeping Jack who had previously been tranquilly snoozing in his bed. The coffee pot started brewing and Danny heard the faucets turn on in the bathroom. In her confusion and fear she failed to feel the stabbing pain in her stomach and sides. Her phone started going off, but she couldn't hear it through the ringing in her ears. Now focused on the ringing she doubled over in pain. Jack gazed around the room in wonder at the strange happenings, until he noticed Danny convulsing on her knees in between their beds. He immediately dropped to the floor in panic. She couldn't hear his urgent cries, but she felt his hands on her arms and looked up at him, eyes wide, glowing, purple, filled with terror, and bleeding steadily. She could only barely get a clear view of his face as her vision started blurring. Neither had realized the small storm cloud forming just above their heads until a bolt of violet, violent lightning shattered the tv and exploded through the circuitry of the room, blasting everything out of commission. The sparks flew and just as quickly as it came Danny's condition subsided.
"Um, what just happened?" Jack asked in shock.
"I think... I happened." Jack's confused expression only became more intense and concerned. "I've been going through some stuff recently. I'm trying to fix it, but I'm not really sure how."
"Maybe Sam and Dean could help."
"Maybe, but this isn't really their area of expertise, besides they don't react well to things like me. It's better for everyone if they don't know." Jack nodded in comprehension. The horror in his eyes hadn't faded yet, and Danny was overwhelmed with guilt. "I'm sorry for scaring you."
"It's okay. It wasn't your fault."
"It's just... it hasn't been this bad. It's only happened like twice, but neither of those were anything like this."
"In the library, when you guys were arguing, was that-"
"Yeah. Yeah, it was. I just don't know what to do about it."
"Can I help? Is there anything I can do?"
"Jack, that's very sweet, but I don't think there is. I think this is something for me to figure out." Danny checked her phone, which she had thankfully unplugged at three in the morning when she woke up the first time. Danny usually woke up multiple times a night. Her sister suggested that it was due to her 'Hunter Paranoia'. She was probably right. She had thought about drinking some chamomile tea before bed like Nan Nan had suggested, but chamomile tea had a tendency to knock her out and keep her that way, so if her brothers were ever in danger she would have no way of knowing. It was around six in the morning, meaning it was about noon in Chelmsford and Shannon. She thought about calling her sister, but seeing how it was a school day, maybe calling her sister in the middle of class was a bad idea. Her aunt, Féthnaid, might be operating on a patient today and her uncle, Faolán, didn't go on lunch break for another hour, so calling either of them was out of the question. Her grandmother, however, owned a small candle shop in Shannon, Ireland, near the sea. It wasn't usually terribly busy, most customers were elderly or tourists. Her grandmother was where every Quirke child inherited their red hair and she only looked a youthful forty years. In actuality she was about as old as Ireland itself, but Quirke women had a bad habit of not aging. Her aunt was only about three hundred and her mother died somewhere between seven or eight hundred, so Danny's general life expectancy was longer than she had originally planned. Up until a few weeks prior she had always assumed she was human like her sister, and because they were human they would live relatively shorter lives than their magical ancestors. Now that Danny was a witch it meant she would likely outlive all three of her siblings, a thought that only just occurred to her. She knew what her mother had gone through in her seven hundred years of life and understood how lonely it could get. She couldn't imagine feeling that way for multiple decades, let alone centuries. That and the fact that it was highly unusual for witches to have magically inclined children, especially with humans, which is part of the reason Danny had never considered being a witch, but the more she contemplated it the more sense it made. Her father had the blood of Cain and her mother was one of, if not the, most powerful witch of all time. She was practically a perfect storm of a magical conduit. That's what witches were supposed to be, anyway, a path for the universe to maneuver its energy. Naturally inclined witches are sworn from birth to maintain the balance of nature, and failure to do so typically ends bloody.
In the end she decided to FaceTime her grandmother. Jack seemed curious as to what she was doing and scooted next to her to view the screen. Her grandmother answered and beamed in delight at her granddaughter.
"I was wondering when you would call. Your sister told us what happened, but I figured you'd already started asking Philomena. There's blood on your face, Lovely. You might want to clean that up before your brothers see."
"Will do. Um, Nan Nan?"
"Yes, Darling?" she smiled, restocking a shelf.
"Did you know?" Her grin faded slightly.
"Not until your mother died, and even then it was only a hunch, but nevertheless I should have warned you. I didn't think your abilities would spring up so suddenly, or really ever. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. According to Phil they never would've returned if the demon that bound them hadn't died. You couldn't have known."
"But we should have been prepared. That is on me. I'm your grandmother my job is to prepare you for things like this. I assume you're fully powered?"
"Actually, no. Apparently, Mom bound me just before the demon did, as a failsafe." Her grandmother's deep blue eyes widened.
"She what? For the love of Mac Lir, Ríoghnach was always one for experimental magic, but to risk that with her own daughter? I know I raised her better than that!" She placed the last candle on the shelf and threw her hands up in exasperation, a gesture that always earned a giggle from Danny. "Fan, is é sin an fáth go raibh tú ag fuiliú? An bhfuil do draíocht imithe mícheart? Wait, that is why you were bleeding? Has your magic gone wrong?" Sometimes her grandmother would switch to Gaelige when she was worried.
"Beagán, ach táim ceart go sábháilte. Tá súil agam go mbeidh sé ag dul chun pas a fháil. Slightly, but I'm safe. I hope it's going to pass."
"Tá súil againn. We hope." Danny's arm was nudged slightly and she turned to Jack. She was so comfortable with him at that point she had forgotten he was there.
"What are you guys saying?" the nephilim asked curiously. His voice hade grabbed her grandmother's attention.
"Agus cé hé an fear óg fíneáil seo? And who is this fine young man?" Danny rolled her eyes at her grandmother's teasing, yet impressed tone.
"Is é seo mo chara Jack. Is mac Lucifer é. This is my friend Jack. He's Lucifer's son." This only seemed to further impress her grandmother which made Danny laugh. Jack pouted at the two ginger women speaking their native tongue. "Sorry, Jack. We were just talking about some family stuff." Jack nodded.
"Dia dhuit, Jack!"
"Jia hwit?" Jack attempted to repeat.
"Hello, Jack, it means hello." Danny explained.
"Oh, jia hwit..."
"Sionann. My name is Sionann, but most people call me Nan. Except for my grand-babies who call me Nan Nan. Tá sé fíor taibhseach, Dianaimh. Ba mhaith liom ceann. He's absolutely gorgeous, Dianaimh. I want one." Her grandmother stared at Jack dreamily, "Ó, in am eile, in am eile... An bhféadfá pósadh? Le do thoil? Ba mhaith liom a chuid fola a bheith inár dteaghlach. Táim tromchúiseach, Dianaimh. Bíodh a chuid páistí. Oh, in another time, in another time... Could you marry? Please? I want to have his blood in our family. I'm serious, Dianaimh. Have his children." Her grandmother begged ignoring Danny's mortified expression. She was immensely grateful that Jack couldn't understand them.
"Nan Nan! Tá sé thar a bheith míchuí. Seachas, tá mé ach seacht mbliana déag! Tá mé ró-óg chun aon cheann de sin a dhéanamh! It is extremely improper. Other than, I'm only seventeen! I'm too young to do any of that!" she cried.
"Bhí mé trí bliana déag nuair a bhí leanbh agam ar dtús! Bhí mé pósta ag deich mbliana! I was thirteen when I first had a baby! I was married at ten years!" her grandmother argued.
"Nan Nan, níl sé 7000 B.C. D'athraigh rudaí go mór ó bhí deich mbliana agat. Nan Nan, it's not 7000 B.C. Things changed considerably since you were ten years." Danny laughed in disbelief at her grandmother.
"Maith go leor, ceart go leor. Ní dhéanfaidh mé é a lua arís. Okay, okay. I will not mention it again."
"Go raibh maith agat. Thank you." she sighed.
"Are you absolutely sure?"
"Love you! Bye, Nan Nan!" Danny hung up promptly. Jack sat next to her eagerly awaiting a translation. "Just some boring family drama. Nothing you'd be interested in. We should probably get ready to scope out the crime scene."
The impala pulled up to a beige house in a nice neighborhood, with a door crossed with police tape.
"Agent Bonham, Agent Seager, Special Agent Anderson? These are you?" Jack questioned as he sifted through the fake FBI credentials.
"Yeah, sometimes." Sam sighed, scoping out the house of the victim.
"I thought lying was wrong." Jack stated innocently.
"Most of the time it is." Danny replied.
"Alright, here we go." Dean ignored them, "Victim: Wes Bailey, his wife Erica died six months ago. Heart thing. Out of the blue. Uh, question is why'd she come back from the dead and knife his ass?"
"People come back?" Jack asked. Danny made a fifty-fifty motion with her hand.
"When a person dies and their soul can't move on-"
"They're called ghosts," Dean answered, cutting Sam off, "And hanging around makes them go looney tunes. They go crazy." he clarified.
"Yeah. Question is, since when do ghosts kill somebody and walk out the front door?"
"So, maybe it's a revenant."
"Wait, what's a revenant?"
"A revenant's more like a, uh, zombie."
"Hey," Dean alerted, "There's our witness."
"Jack, Danny," Sam called as he opened the door, "We're gonna talk to the witness, check out the crime scene." Danny went to open her door so she and Jack could go with them, but Dean immediately closed it.
"You two stay. Sit." Dean walked away from the teens in the car and went to interview the witness with Sam. Danny, frustrated by her brother's command, had other plans. Once she made sure her brothers weren't looking she tapped Jack's shoulder.
"Jack, open the door. We're gonna check out the crime scene."
"But Dean said-"
"I know what Dean said, but he can't just leave us here like luggage. Let's go." She ushered him out as he opened the door. They rushed inside the house after Danny picked the lock, Jack forgetting to close the door. The duo made their way through the hall and into an open kitchen/living area. Jack made his way to the semi-dried pool of blood on the carpet. "Yup, that's blood." Danny announced, pulling out her EMF meter, but became baffled when she heard no beeping.
"What's that?" Jack inquired as Danny began to move about the room attempting to get a reading.
"It's a-"
"Hey! I told you to wait in the car. What the Hell are you doing?" Dean interrupted.
"We're trying to help."
"That and we're not useless morons that'll do whatever you say, Dean."
"How is this helping out? And I never said you-"
"Hey, hey, Dean." Sam interjected, "Thank you, guys. Did you find anything?"
"Just this." Jack gestured to the stained carpet.
"Oh." Dean dismissed.
"It's what we didn't find that's more telling." Danny replied. Her brothers and the nephilim gazed at her curiously as she completed her walk around the perimeter of the room.
"What do you mean?" asked Sam. Danny held up the instrument to show her brothers.
"No EMF."
"What's EMF?" Jack questioned.
"Spirits, ghosts, they put out electro-magnetic interference. If one is here the EMF meter would tell us." Sam replied as he gestured to the device in Danny's grasp.
"So what's it saying?" The silence echoed as the boys listened for an indication.
"It's saying it's a revenant. We gotta check her grave." Dean resolved.
"Come on." Sam nodded, following Dean to the car with the teens shortly behind him.
The moon was full over the cemetery where the hunters had flocked. Not one person was around to witness them and the eventual unearthing and hopefully burning of the corpse. The four of them gathered round Erica Bailey's grave.
"Alright. Well, you said you wanted to help, so, uh," Dean tossed both Jack and Danny a shovel, "Dig." he ordered. Danny was tempted to throw the shovel at his head like a javelin, but knew how long and taxing exhuming bodies manually was and decided not to waste time. She plunged the shovel as deep as she could and hammered it in the rest of the way with her foot before removing the dirt from the earth surrounding it. Jack immediately followed her lead as Sam and Dean headed toward the impala. He was far more efficient than she was and a couple minutes later they were almost a foot into the ground, then Sam decided to lend a hand and they were really cooking with gas. Sooner than anticipated, they hit hollow wood. Danny and Jack stood in the newly made ditch and pulled open the top door of the coffin to reveal Erica Bailey's dead body. "Alright, I guess we're back to ghost."
"Yeah," agreed Sam. "So, a body rules out revenant." he explained to Jack. "Alright, I don't get it. I mean, a ghost that won't show up on EMF? Doesn't make any sense." he claimed, assisting Jack and Danny out of the pit.
"Yeah? Well, what does these days?" Dean asked, pouring the salt over the cadaver, "Y'know? I mean we've got portals to apocalyptic worlds, we've got, uh, shapeshifting demons. We're dealing with a whole new set of tiddlywinks. I say we just do what we do." He unscrewed the gasoline.
"My mother," Jack turned to Sam, "Could she be a ghost?" Sam swallowed.
"No. We, uhm, w-we burned the body."
"That's right," Dean concurred finishing off the gasoline, "What gets burned stays dead." He lit the pack of matches and tossed them on the corpse. As the flames engulfed the body Danny brushed her hand against Jack's for him to take, which he did. All four hunters stared into the fire as until nothing was left, before burying it once more.
Once Jack and Danny entered their motel room Danny removed her boots first thing. Letting her hair down she noticed Jack staring at her.
"What?" she chuckled, flustered.
"It's just still so pretty." He seemed almost mesmerized by the tangled, red locks.
"Thank you. You can shower first. I have to do some schoolwork." She gestured to the bathroom as she pulled her phone from her pocket and began to revise her Art History essay. Jack nodded and disappeared from view into the bathroom. About ten minutes later she had sent her essay to Mr. Ververs and Jack emerged from the bathroom. In one of his hands were his dirty clothes. His other hand was securing the towel around his waist as he dripped water onto the floor. He tossed his clothes into his bag and began to search for pajamas. Danny, however, was too busy trailing a few droplets with her eyes as they dripped from his shoulders to his biceps to hear him calling her name.
"Danny!" Her blue eyes snapped to his as her face turned a rich scarlet. "I said you can get in the shower now."
"Right. I'll go do that now." She awkwardly pointed to the door as she set her phone down on the table. She tripped on the bedpost as she practically sprinted toward the bathroom to escape her own embarrassment. Jack was instantly by her side with a concerned expression, attempting to help her up. She accepted instinctively, but then panicked and pushed him away. A move she immediately regretted because the pain of rejection entered his eyes. "You're clean!" she yelled trying to come up with an excuse for her odd behavior, "You just showered! I don't want to get you dirty again!" she screamed, not breaking eye contact with the nephilim.
"Why are you yelling?"
"I'm not sure." she lied.
"Are you okay? Is that thing happening again?"
"No, you're fine. I mean I'm fine! We're both fine! I need to shower!" She booked it to the bathroom, slammed the door shut, and locked it behind her. She pressed her back up against the wood and banged the back of her head against it. Sliding down to the floor, Danny finally exhaled. "I dtigh diabhail, Nan Nan. Seo do locht. Mé an milleán ort. Damn it, Nan Nan. This is your fault. I blame you." After calming herself a bit she began to undress and argue with herself.
'Why are you being such a freak, Danny?'
'He was naked, Danny!'
'He had a towel on, you weirdo.'
'He was naked underneath the towel!'
'He's always naked under fabric. Newsflash, so is everybody else!'
'He was naked and wet, Danny!'
'And?'
'And it was stupid fucking hot, okay?'
'You are aware we've seen him naked before, yes? Why were you being such a creep this time?'
'It's different now!'
'How?'
'We know him now! Last time the guy didn't own any clothes and now he's got them and is not wearing them!'
'He just got out of the shower, dumbass.'
'I'm ridiculously aware, Danny!'
'You're being immature.'
''You're being immature.' How are you so calm about this?'
'Because Jack probably has no idea we were checking him out in the first place, let alone what checking him out means. He just thinks we're being strange for no reason.'
'It still doesn't change the fact that we were checking our friend out!'
'Jack is an incredibly attractive individual. Multiple women have confirmed this. We are a teenage girl with hormones. It was a completely natural reaction.'
'Well, nature better shut the fuck up because I don't like feeling weird about our friends. Who's next? Phil? Zumi? Ion? I will not stand for this.'
'Relax, will you? It just means we need to get laid.'
Danny didn't know how, but during that squabble in her head she had managed to actually bathe herself. She toweled her hair for a bit before moving to dry the rest of her body. She turned to the toilet seat, where she usually put her pajamas. She connected her palm to her forehead as she realized that in her panic she had not grabbed a change of clothing. Wanting to jump out the window, she wrapped the towel around her body, making sure all of her important parts were securely hidden. Gathering her previous garments in one hand, she used the other to turn the doorknob. Upon entering the room she instantly drew Jack's attention away from the television. He grinned to welcome her, but his smile soon went slack as he examined her state. She was too busy with her eyes glued to the floor as she moved toward her bag to notice the change in his features.
"Sorry, I forgot my jams." Jack didn't hear her. He was far too concerned with how gorgeous she looked. Her hair was gathered all to one side of her neck, her eyes were wide and focused, and her smooth, speckled, porcelain skin was only enhanced by the droplets roaming across it. Jack could barely tear his eyes away, that was until Danny gathered the courage to look at him. He then snapped his gaze back to the television, all too aware of Danny's presence. When he was sure she wasn't looking his eyes reattached themselves to her form as she closed the door to the bathroom. Danny sighed in relief, glad that Jack hadn't noticed how nervous she was, and continued to get ready for bed. Neither teen slept very well that night.
The next morning passed relatively awkwardly in silence. Jack and Danny glanced each other's way multiple times, Jack usually being caught, Danny rarely. They couldn't look each other in the eye. Sam and Dean had noticed their strange behavior, the former seemed mildly concerned by the silence, the latter grateful his sister was no longer so chummy with Lucifer's son. However grateful, Dean had automatically assumed Jack had done something wrong to cause Danny to ignore him, thus making the hunter increasingly hostile toward the nephilim. Danny was, for lack of a more accurate depiction, an absolute nervous wreck. She was bouncing her leg and rapping her nails on the door, both habits that drove Dean insane and even irked Sam bit, but at least she'd grown out of chewing on her clothes. Her vision glued to everything that passed outside her window, trying to focus on anything besides Jack.
Soon the impala rolled to a stop. Danny, assuming she would be assisting on the case as usual, opened the door in hopes to escape tension. She always focused better on the job, but Sam had other ideas and blocked the door before she could open it. This action earned him a questioning look from both of his siblings.
"Sit tight."
"What? Why?"
"You've got a different task at hand and you're distracted." Sam answered his sister's offended tone. She pouted and glared at her brother. Both Jack and Dean still seemed confused by what he meant, but Danny understood perfectly and slammed herself back into the seat with a 'hurumph' as her brothers made their way under the yellow tape. A few moments passed and a nervous breath escaped Jack.
"Danny?" She only nodded in reply. "Why are you mad at me?" His question shocked her a bit. She glanced over to find him blatantly staring at her. The ginger girl gazed at her feet and exhaled.
"I'm not mad, Jack, and especially not at you." she staggered.
"Then why were you ignoring me?" he whimpered.
"I was just lost in thought, deeply disturbed by the inner-mechanisms of my own twisted mind."
"Is this about last night?" he asked, seeing straight through her.
"It's about my Nan Nan and her ridiculous influence over me. Why? What happened last night?" she asked nonchalantly.
"Nothing!" he yelled quickly, "I just, uh, didn't want you to be mad at me." This made Danny giggle and sigh.
"I could never be mad at you." Jack blushed and smiled a bit dreamily at her which, unfortunately, was noticed by her eldest brother as the duo made their way back to the car. Sam smirked and let out a chuckle at the smile on Jack's face.
About an hour or so later the youngest Winchesters emerged from the police station with both case files in hand.
"Where's Jack?" Sam asked Dean who was leaning against the impala on his phone.
"Across the street. Food run." he stated curtly, gesturing to the hot dog truck across the road. Both of his siblings frowned at him in disappointment and exasperation. Next in line, Jack stared at the Winchesters waiting patiently to retrieve their food.
"Dean, he's not our intern. I asked you to keep an eye on him." Sam scolded. Sometimes Danny questioned which brother was older.
"I can see him. He keeps staring at me." Dean complained.
"Yes, he wants you to like him." Both brothers sighed at each other. "Alright, whatever. Here, take a look." Sam showed him the files.
"What's this? Her diary?"
"It's a grief journal. Cops found one at the first crime scene also. Wes and Gloria were both seeing the same grief counselor, Mia Vallens, and apparently... she gives homework."
"Hmph, shrinks, snake oil for the mind."
"Or, how healthy people deal."
"Yeah? Well, let's see how good old, uh, Gloria was dealing. Here you go, '... and now that I have achieved catharsis I can truly see the program works.' The program? C'mon, man. She's one kool-aid away from Jonestown. What'd Wes's journal say?"
"More of the same. Um, he was really into the whole catharsis thing." Danny noticed Jack crossing the street toward them.
"Yeah, sure. Who wouldn't be? It's like another word for happy ending."
"Hey, Jack." Sam greeted jovially.
"Hi, Jack. I'll take that off of your hands." Danny took the food tray from him and started assigning hot dogs.
"What took you so long?" Dean asked.
"The man in front of me wanted more kraut, but the hot dog man didn't have any. He was really angry."
"That's a cool story." Dean scoffed, scarfing down his hot dog like it was his last meal. "So, let's say that Hannibal chick is ,um, a medium, right? She's talking to spirits, she's pissing them off somehow, ghost shows up, notches a kill, and takes off."
"Yeah, but then, what? Once it's gone, no EMF?" Sam seemed to accept Dean's medium theory, but Danny wasn't so confident. It just wasn't settling right with her.
"This woman can talk to ghosts?" Jack asked.
"If she's the real deal, mediums can do all kinds of freaky crap."
"Alright, say your right. Can't go in as FBI, not with doctor/patient confidentiality."
"Alright, so we have to go in as something else." Dean reasoned.
Twenty minutes later, the impala parked outside a yellow, homely-looking building. The sign out front read Vallens Family Therapy. The gaggle of hunters made their way up the steps. "This is a dumb idea."
"Just follow my lead." Sam assured his brother.
"Yeah, doctor's gonna eat our liver with some fava beans and a bottle of Chianti." Danny, however, was much more nervous than either of them. She hadn't ever been to counseling, but she had thought about the option. A lot. She had her shoulder bag at her side. It held mostly weapons, but also her phone and her journals. She figured this was the reason she needed them. She could barely remember what she had written, it had been almost nine years. Jack must've been able to sense her nerves, because he laced her fingers with his and nodded at her.
Another patient exited the building and greeted them with a, "Hello." The Winchesters ignored his salutation, but Jack turned as he passed them, still holding Danny's hand, and waved with the other.
"Hello." He smiled brightly and the man nodded at him politely.
Sam opened the door and the others followed.
"Hello?" he called.
"Can I help you?" the receptionist questioned, mildly annoyed.
"Yeah, we're, uh... hoping to see the doctor."
"Oh, I'm sorry. You caught us right at the end of our day. Maybe tomorrow." he informed.
"No, today's good, like right now." Dean suggested, threateningly.
"He, uh. We just need a moment of her time." A voice arose from behind them.
"You've lost someone recently?" On the stairs behind them stood a black woman, a similar age to the older two Winchesters, wearing a green dress. Danny tensed when she saw her, for a flash reminiscent of a nictitating membrane swept across the woman's brown eyes. It took all of Danny's strength not to immediately open fire. Her brothers and Jack had noticed her behavior and she subtly gave them a did-you-guys-see-that look. Her brothers' gazes returned to the woman Danny assumed was the therapist, signifying they saw nothing too unusual. For a moment Danny thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, but she had seen that flash in Zumi's eyes too many times not to immediately recognize it. She didn't know why or how, but somehow she could see this woman was a shapeshifter. This discovery matched all too well with the attacks. Not wanting to alarm the human in the room, she kept her cool. Lost in her thoughts, she hadn't realized the others had been talking until she was being ushered toward a nearby door by Jack. Dean turned before they could pass through.
"Listen, Mr. Spock," he grabbed Jack's shoulder, "you speak when I tell you to speak, okay?"
"Yes."
"Good. And you, Miss Thing, are gonna behave. Do you understand me?"
"Tá brón orm, ní labhraíonn mé leathcheann. Sorry, I don't speak idiot." Dean sighed at his sister's usual usage of her native tongue to avoid actually speaking to him.
"Your mother, she passed suddenly?" Ms. Vallens inquired.
"Uh, yeah." Sam answered modestly.
"Mm. Most of the people I see are in the same boat." She made her way across the wood floor to a white chair facing the door. Sam and Dean sat on the sofa to her left and Jack and Danny sat in separate chairs on her right. "No warning, no goodbye, no closure."
"Right, yeah. Pretty much the same for us. Um... so how does this usually work? You know, with your patients?"
"Usually, they just start talking about the person they've lost." She replied kindly. Danny thought she seemed to actually care, but shifters could do that, manipulate the senses.
"Alright, well, Mom was great, now she's dead. What's the deal with catharsis?" Dean's tone was anything but subtle.
"I'm sorry?"
"Uh, we-we were wondering what that is. Um, a patient of yours, Gloria Simon, she referred us. She's a family friend." Sam recovered. Danny signed him a swift and discreet, 'Nice save.'
"I don't talk about my patients, and Gloria wasn't supposed to talk about me."
"Sure, um, got it. But your process-"
"My program is a range of things. Talk therapy, meditation. You ever journal?" Sam seemed taken aback.
"Our dad did." he chuckled.
"I did." Danny piped up. Ms. Vallens gaze fell on her with a gentle, encouraging smile.
"About what?" Danny dug through her bag and pulled out her first journal.
"About losing my mom, moving away from home, meeting Dad, being on the road with him, meeting Sam and Dean, basically just everything I was thinking. Everything I couldn't say out loud." Ms. Vallens eyed her in confusion. "I was mute after my mom died. I just couldn't speak, nothing I could have said would have done anything anyway." Danny handed her the book. "You can look through it if you want." She took it and skimmed through the first three entries.
"These are dated July 2005."
"We have different moms."
"I see. Have you ever received counseling for the trauma of witnessing your mother's death?"
"No, Ma'am."
"I'm so sorry." She turned to the brothers opposite the teens. "Why did your sister not get any treatment for such a traumatic experience?" Her brothers seemed intrigued by the new topic. Dean sat up straight in his seat.
"That wasn't really how Dad did things and we weren't aware of any details." Sam explained.
"I never told anybody anything about it," Danny defended, "But I've been thinking about it recently, so..." she gestured to her book as an answer.
"Well, thank you for sharing." She handed the leather bound book back to her. "How about you, Dean? You journal?" His guard came immediately up once more.
"Ever since I was a little girl." Danny threw her book at him.
"You think this shrink stuff is a load of crap. Am I right?"
"How'd you guess?"
"Then why are you here?"
"Because, uh, we all agreed we'd give it a shot, right?" Jack played along with Sam's lie and nodded. Danny nodded sincerely as well. When Dean didn't respond Sam grew impatient. "Right?" Dean threw on a fake grin. "Our brother, he's not, uh, he's not processing his grief." Danny knew as soon as the words left Sam's mouth Dean would have something to say.
"Really? No, I'm..." he chuckled, "No, I'm good, actually. With death, closure, whole freakin' bottle of Jack."
"Are you?"
"Yeah. Because I know that Mom's dead, and I know that she's not coming back."
"Okay, I hear what you're saying. I just wish that..."
"You wish he'd be more open to therapy?" Ms. Vallens suggested.
"Sure. Exactly."
"All right, this is a safe place, right, Doc?" Ms. Vallens spread her arms and bowed her head in a go-ahead motion.
"Okay. My brother's delusional."
"Dean." his siblings warned.
"You said you wanted to give this a shot, right? Here we go. He won't even admit that Mom's dead. Won't even admit it."
"Stop."
"Dean."
"Because if he admits it then it's real. If it's real, then he has to deal with it, and he can't handle that."
"Dean." Danny repeated.
"Right, because this is so easy for you, huh?"
"No, it's not easy." Dean replied indignantly.
"Yeah, but at least you had a relationship with Mom. I mean, who would she always call? Who did she look to for everything?"
"Okay." Dean dismissed his brother's claims with a scoff.
"You had something with her I never had, and now I'm just supposed to accept that I never will have it?" Sam rose to his feet and stormed out of the room. A moment of tense silence passed as Dean took a swig of his flask.
Noticing the counselor's calculating gaze he inquired, "Problem?"
"You just upset your brother so much he had to leave the room." The sneer on Dean's face displayed his discontentment with her analysis. "And Jack? Look at him. He's terrified of you."
"Nah. No, we're simpatico. Right, Kid?"
"We're simpatico." Jack's voice was monotonous as his head turned to Ms. Vallens. Dean gestured as if to say, 'See?'
"Convincing. Look at your sister." Danny had been glaring at the floor. She couldn't meet Dean's eyes. She was afraid she would fly across the room and punch his lights out. She tried to quell the bubbling cauldron of rage in her gut. "She can't even look at you." Ms. Vallens sighed, "You're angry, Dean."
"And?"
"And if you don't wanna do anything about it, that's your business. But you're aiming it at everyone in your life." The door burst open and in came Sam pointing his gun at Ms. Vallens.
"She's a shapeshifter!" Sam announced.
"No, no." Ms. Vallens gasped jumping out of her chair, hands raised before her in defense as Jack and Dean also got up. Danny remained seated calmly.
"I found hair and... teeth." he explained as Dean cocked his gun. "You must've shed your skin, what, couple hours ago?" Something clicked in Danny's mind. A memory of her mother.
"And here, I thought she was just annoying."
"How long do your sessions usually last?" She implored. The rest of her present company eyed her as if she'd grown an extra appendage.
"Danny, what're you do-"
"Shh, Sammy, big girls are talking." She waited for her to answer.
Finally she replied, "About two hours. Why?"
"That guy who was leaving, he was a patient of yours, right?" The shifter nodded. "That's your thing. How you cope, this is how you do it. This is your catharsis."
"What's going on?" Jack seemed more perplexed than ever.
"Doc's a monster." stated Dean as if it was law. Danny hated that word. Where she came from it was a racist slur. She had asked her brothers to delete it from their vocabulary, which would work for a day or two, but after that it was just more of the same. "She killed her patients."
"No! No. No."
"She's not and she didn't." Her brothers' gaped at her incredulously. "She's a shapeshifter, sure, but that doesn't make her a monster, nor does it mean she killed her patients."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Think about it, Dean. Most shifters don't need to kill humans to survive. When they do it's out of necessity. She took the time to set up a practice. She got to know her patients. She has a stable job with hours that she gets to control. She's able to utilize the abilities she had been given at birth in a secure and controlled environment where she isn't judged for being who she is. In fact, her patients probably thank her for using her abilities. She has an assistant for fuck's sake. Why take the risk and lose her safe lifestyle? She has no motive."
"What do you mean by utilize her abilities?" Sam asked.
"I'm helping people. My patients. I shift into the person that they've lost, so that they could see them one last time, so that they can say goodbye."
"Well, Wes Bailey... Gloria Simon... they're both dead."
"What?"
"Gloria was killed by her son, or at least someone who looked like him." Ms. Vallens's face appeared stressed.
"Three nights ago," Sam continued, "Wes was killed by somebody who looked like his dead wife." She grew even more distressed.
"So you wanna tell us how you're innocent again?"
"Hm, hm, no motive, ah hagh." Danny coughed.
"Okay, I, um... I have an alibi for Wes. I volunteer at the women's shelter downtown. I was there that night. You can call them. I know you guys are Hunters. But please, I'm telling you the truth." Dean left the room to confirm her alibi.
"So," Danny started, "women's shelter, huh?" Ms. Vallens only stared at her nervously. "Y'know, studies show that shifters are 40% more likely to fall into abusive relationships than humans."
"There are studies for that?" Ms. Vallens asked.
"There are studies for everything."
"Where'd you find them?"
"Experience."
"So you made it up?"
"I made an educated deduction based upon almost a lifetime of experience, and everything is made up."
Dean's voice signaled his re-entry, "Alright. Alibi checks out."
"What?" Ms. Vallens let out a shaky breathe.
"Yeah, I'm surprised too."
"Did I go mute again this past year?" Danny complained.
"Okay. Well, if you're not doing this, then who is?"
"Oh, God, I think I know." Ms. Vallens hurried to a drawer behind her. Sam and Dean lifted their guns slightly.
"Hey." Sam warned. She removed a small, white box from the drawer and opened it to reveal a photograph of a man. Danny stood to get a better view.
"His name's Buddy. When we got together I was young and stupid. He's a shifter, like me. The only one I'd ever met other than my mother. But he liked hurting people."
"Did he hurt you?" Jack asked. She nodded.
"I left. Changed my face, my name. Buddy wouldn't just kill people. He'd ruin their lives. He said he liked to see the look on their face when they realized they had nothing left. What I'm doing here... I know I can't make up for what... what he... what we did, but I'm trying."
"If Buddy is doing this, he's targeting your patients. So who else has access to this office, your notes, your appointments?"
"Patients and staff are in here all day."
"If you had to pick one." Dean suggested, trying to narrow it down.
"Uh... Tom, my assistant."
"I'll check it out." Dean volunteered.
"I'll come with." Jack chimed in.
"Uh..." Dean and Danny voiced in unison, which was cut off with a stern clearing of Sam's throat. "Fine. Whatever."
Once Dean and Jack had left, the younger Winchesters and Ms. Vallens were left to themselves. Sam had asked if he could take a look at the security camera footage. Whilst Sam and Ms. Vallens were doing that Danny went downstairs to be on look out duty. A few minutes later and Sam all but flew out the door yelling a, "Be right back," got into Ms. Vallens's car, and drove off. Danny stood in the open door with her arms raised in confusion. Once she processed that her brother probably found the shifter she slammed the door and groaned in irritation. She hated that he went to find him alone, but someone needed to hold down the fort. A few seconds later Ms. Vallens descended down the stairs.
"Sorry to bother you, I just didn't want to be..."
"Alone and dreading for your life?" Ms. Vallens smiled at her understanding.
"Yeah." It was quiet for about a minute before Ms. Vallens broke the silence. "You didn't try to kill me."
"I'm aware." Danny crossed her arms and chuckled.
"Why? Your brothers, the minute they figured out what I was they jumped to their feet and had guns pointed at my chest. Why didn't you?"
"I knew you were a shifter when I saw you. I've been going through some stuff lately and it's enhancing my senses. I flinched when I saw, did you notice? I didn't feel any dread though, I couldn't sense any danger. I've always trusted my gut, and I tried to sense your intentions, but they felt sincere. That and I have a soft spot for shifters." Ms. Vallens raised an eyebrow. "One of my best friends is a shifter. We grew up together with my other best friends, a witch and a selkie."
"How did you- That's an incredible coincidence."
"It's not a coincidence. Most people where I grew up aren't human."
"Where did you grow up?"
"Gentlenesse, Schuyler County, New York. Right by Watkins Glen. My mom she- she was a witch, thus granting her everlasting youth. She came to America a few years before the revolution. She saw how the supernatural were being treated and hoped to make a difference by giving them a safe place, somewhere no one would hunt them, somewhere they could settle down, learn to integrate into human society if they so choose. Most stay, some don't. That's really up to them. She bought up the land with her inheritance and began to recruit the supernatural and humans alike. Then vóila, Gentlenesse was born."
"Why haven't I heard of it before?"
"Recruitment teams are sent out twice a month. Once a prospect is identified and has had a secrecy serum they're taken to the border of the barrier. They are sworn in as a citizen with permission from a higher ranking recruiter and then they can enter. A note from a recruiter works too. The barrier won't allow entry if the recruiter is insincere or the note is forged. It can tell. The people who leave, once outside the barrier the serum reactivates, so even if they try they can't tell anyone about it."
"Why can you talk about it?"
"I'm considered a high ranking recruiter and being the founder's daughter has way too many perks." she shrugged. "If you'd like, I can write you a document of admission now. When this is over you'll have somewhere safe to go. I'm pretty sure there's a squad of five or six in Ohio right now. Call this number when this is over." Danny handed her an elegant business card.
Danny took out some stationary and a pen and began to write a document of admission.
She handed Ms. Vallens the note. "My handwriting is atrocious, but Sam says it's how he can tell it's me writing."
"Thank you." The woman was close to tears as she pulled Danny into a tight embrace. "Thank you so much."
"Thank me after this fiasco is over."
"I will." She paused for a moment, "Do your brothers know about this place?" Danny's shoulders slumped in moderate shame.
"No. I love them and I want to tell them, but... they're a liability. They-they wouldn't understand. All they see when they look at us is monsters. They'd feel so betrayed. They'd hate me. They're too much of a risk to bring to Gentlenesse, I'd be endangering the lives of thousands by even mentioning it to them. Especially Dean."
"Us?"
"I'm a witch, but I can't control my abilities." A soft smile graced her features, "I want to take Jack there. I think it would benefit him. I've been feeling pretty homesick, plus I think I need help from a witch with experience."
"Do what you need to do, but I'd tell your brothers about your feelings and Gentlenesse. It's better if you tell them before the universe forces it from you."
"Thank you." A knock came from the door sounding at least one of the boys' return. Ms. Vallens opened the door.
"Hey," greeted Dean.
"Hi."
"Where's Sam?" he asked while entering the room. Jack was right behind him, but made his way over to Danny's chair.
"Buddy's posing as one of my patients. Sam traced his phone. I let him take my car. He left about ten minutes ago."
"He didn't call me."
"Well, can you blame him?"
"You let him go on his own?" the oldest Winchester asked his sister.
"He's a big boy, Dean. I couldn't have stopped him even if I tried." Dean started dialing their brother's number.
"Mia?" Jack spoke, a pensive look on his face, "Could I talk to you?"
"Yes, of course. This way." Jack was about to follow Ms. Vallens into the room when Danny grabbed his hand. She worried about him after his little excursion with her brother. She just wanted to know if everything was okay. He nodded in reassurance and followed Ms. Vallens. Danny turned to Dean as they passed through the door.
"C'mon, Sam, pick up the phone." Dean hung up the phone in irritation.
"Dean," his head swiveled in her direction as he stared at her with curious, green eyes, "There's something-something I need to say-"
"Wait," he interrupted, "Before you say anything, I'm sorry."
"What?"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for leaving you out, for making you feel like you're alone. Sam and I, we-we never ever wanted you to feel that way. You're right. We do tend to ignore your input and treat you like a kid, which is usually dumb because most of the time you're right. You're not some little girl hiding behind my legs anymore, you're growing up into a strong, independent, young woman who can and has held her own on many occasions. You'd think with the amount of times you've run away at least one of us would've realized that by now."
"Bobby did. He always had a way of contacting me when I went AWOL." Dean chuckled at his sister's memory.
"And he always knew how to bring you back home. You're our baby sister, Punkin' Pie, it's kinda our job to protect you. It's just hard letting go, admitting that you're not our baby sister anymore." Dean's eyes glossed over with repressed tears, causing his sister to sniffle.
"I'm always gonna be your sister, you moron. I'm just," She exhaled deeply, "not a baby anymore. I haven't been a baby for awhile. I'm still me, just slightly taller and with more issues. I'm sorry I snapped the other day and I'm sorry I hurt you and Sammy, but I don't regret what I said. I couldn't take it anymore." Dean knelt down to her eye level and held her shoulders.
"No more. No more hiding how you're feeling, no more bottling it up. From now on whenever you feel like that you tell me, or Sam, or Jody, or even Claire. Tell somebody. Okay?" Danny nodded and allowed her brother to pull her into a hug.
"M'kay." She pulled away. "I'm gonna-I'm gonna check on Jack and Ms. Vallens." Dean bobbed his head with a soft smile.
"I'll be here."
Danny approached the door with caution, careful to knock. Jack opened the door with a grin, grabbed her hand, and tugged her inside with vigor.
"Danny!" Her arms were pinned awkwardly to her side as Jack embraced her heartily.
"Uhhh, not that I'm not enjoying the affection, Jack, but why are we hugging?"
"Oh, sorry." His dejected tone broke her heart. As he attempted to release her she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest in a proper hug. He, in turn, placed his arms round her shoulders. They reveled in each other's warmth for a moment. "I was just happy."
"Happy is good." She looked up to face him. He beamed as Danny stared into his eyes. Every time she looked at them they were a different shade of blue. Jack reached down to move some ginger strands from her face just as Ms. Vallens entered the room.
"I'm sorry, am I interrupting?" she smirked in Danny's direction. Jack set Danny free and made his way over to Ms. Vallens. As they embraced Ms. Vallens sent a wink Danny's way.
"Not really. Thank you." He pulled back. "Thank you." The doors slammed open and Dean charged in. One look and Danny could tell that this was not her brother, but her gun was in the adjacent room. She jutted her arm in front of Jack protectively. The imposter grabbed a poker from beside the fireplace. Danny forced her other two companions to fall back. "Dean?" The shifter, Buddy/Dean, swiftly swung toward Jack, an action the ginger instinctively prevented by catching the poker and stopping its momentum. It was happening again. Her torso felt as if it was on fire and every one of her vital organs was being ripped apart. Steady streaks of blood began to slip down her cheeks, and out of her nose. Her eyes were bright and violet. In a sudden flash of light his jacket sleeve caught fire. The fire startled them both for a moment, causing Danny's grip on the poker to relax and the flame extinguished itself. Buddy, looking between Danny and his sleeve, used her hesitation as an opportunity and smacked her in the cranium with the metal rod. The world went dark for Danny Winchester.
Danny was severely annoyed with her powers at this point. Her eyes flitted open to find Dean handcuffed to the grate on the fireplace and Jack unconscious next him. Dean was already awake and Buddy stood at Ms. Vallens's side in what she assumed was his preferred form. The bruised teen noticed she was duct-taped to a chair. She only caught the tail-end of what he was saying.
"-my girl."
"I am not your girl." Ms. Vallens stated.
"You always did think you were too good for me, even though I gave you everything."
"She is." Danny sneered.
"What was that, Hot Stuff?"
"You used me!" Ms. Vallens distracted as she stepped closer to Buddy.
"Yeah, well, welcome to the world, Sweetheart. Everybody uses everybody." Danny glanced over to check on the boys. Dean was whispering something to a slightly stirring Jack, but Danny couldn't make out what he was saying. Her head was throbbing and her vision was a bit blurry. "And when I found this place, when I saw all that warm, fuzzy good you were doing, I couldn't let you have that. So I took it all away, and it was fun."
"Wow, you're really sad." Danny antagonized.
"Excuse me?"
"You needed to make someone who genuinely cared for you feel like shit to feed your sorry, little ego. Then, when she developed some self-respect, got fed up with your bull, and ditched you to become a better person, you and your pathetic attitude problem decided to wreak vengeance upon her by ruining her life." Buddy stalked closer to Danny attempting to threaten her, "Because that's how you get your rocks off, isn't it? You ruin people's lives because you can never have one, not a real one anyway." He reached her and gripped the chair, leaning her back to face him. "She's better than you, deserves better than you, and that's what really gets under your skin. You're jealous, not only because you want her back, but because she and her life are unattainable to you." He growled at Danny's analysis. In return she spit in his eyes.
"You skank-bitch!" he howled, stumbling backwards and rubbing his eyes.
"You're... you're a..." Ms. Vallens exhaled.
"A what?" Buddy spun to face his ex, eyes wide and crawling with insanity, "A monster? Well, so are you. And it's about time you embraced that. So I'm not gonna kill these hunters." He pointed around the room. "You are, including your little hero over there. You end them, or you die, courtesy of Tweedledee's silver bullets. So what's it gonna be, Princess?" He pulled out Dean's gun and aimed it at her chest. Ms. Vallens glanced down at it for a moment before glaring into the other shifter's eyes and spreading her arms.
"Shoot me. Shoot me!" Buddy didn't even have time to process the thought when the sound of a car door shutting cut through the air. Behind Danny's head the computer monitor displayed San parked out front and heading to the front porch. Buddy laughed maniacally.
"Look. Baby brother." he announced and strolled toward the double doors. Danny's pulse quickened and her breathing sharpened as she struggled in her confines, desperate to warn her brother.
"No. No! Stop!" Ms. Vallens cried.
"Like shooting Hunters in a barrel."
"Sam, no!" Dean hollered. Buddy swiftly punched him unconscious.
"Dean? Danny?" Sam's voice echoed from downstairs.
"Sam!" Buddy barked, impersonating the oldest Winchester sibling, "We're in here!"
"Stop." sobbed Ms. Vallens. He encircled his arm around her neck and enclosed her mouth with his palm to muffle her screams. The shifter cocked the pistol and aimed it at the doors once more. Danny inhaled.
"Trap! Sam! Trap!" Her brother just missed her warning when he opened the door.
"Noooooo!" Jack, now semi-conscious, bellowed with gold eyes. Time slowed as the nephilim lifted his arm and focused his power on Buddy as Ms. Vallens jumped out of the way. His power lifted the shifter off of his feet, yet he still got a shot off. Jack turned his head to follow the bullet, his abilities redirecting it. It hit the doorframe next to the tall Winchester, forcing a grunt and Buddy, simultaneously, went flying backwards over the ginger girl and into a chair. Jack momentarily lost consciousness once again. Buddy groaned and attempted to rise to his feet, but Sam was a quicker draw with his handgun and killed him as his limp body fired a shot grazing Danny's bicep which earns a minuscule yelp. Jack's eyes fluttered as he panted, obviously exhausted and concussed.
Sam had released the others and tended to his sister's wound as they waited for Dean to awaken. Once he had Danny dressed some of his more concerning injuries as Sam gathered their things and prepared for their departure.
"You sure about this?" Dean asked, checking in with Ms. Vallens.
"What Buddy did was my fault." She stared down at his corpse. "I should've... You guys can go. I'll take care of him." She stood and trudged toward them. "You know, I just-I just wanted to help people."
"You did." claimed Jack.
"You will." encouraged Danny. Ms. Vallens smiled, unsure of herself and what was to come.
Back at the bunker Danny sat across from Sam, fresh bandages on her arm and forehead, and a rubber-ducky patterned ice-pack practically glued to her skull. She played with one of her knives, etching little runes into the wooden table until Dean strode in. The younger siblings drew their gazes to their brother as he leaned against the table, sliding Danny a water bottle and Sam a beer whilst leisurely sipping his own.
"Listen, guys, back at, uh, Mia's," he started, "I was out of line. I'm sorry for being a... a dick lately."
"Thanks." Sam accepted.
"And maybe you're right, about the kid. I mean, he tries. I'll give him that. And he tapped his powers, saved our ass, so that's a win." Danny beamed at her brother, proud of his growth.
"Yeah. I guess." Sam sighed as he forcefully pressed the book that was in his lap to the table.
"What's up?" Sam thought pensively for a second, looking ever so tortured.
"What if you're right?" He sat up in his chair, "About Mom. What if she is dead, and I'm just in denial?"
"Don't say that." Danny's features softened, realizing her brother's pain.
"What? You've been wanting me to admit that since it happened."
"I know I have, but don't say that. I need you to keep the faith, both of you, for all of us. 'Cause right now, I... Right now, I don't believe in a damn thing." Sam's expression fell into concern, whereas their sister's inkling of a suspicion had been confirmed. She stared at the rune on she had carved.
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A/N: Um, hi guys, long time no see. It's me, the author, you can call me A.J.🧜🏻♀️💁🏻♀️👩🏻🎤I'm so so so so so so so so sorry vfor the three month late, 12,420 word chapter. I've been p busy between a broken phone, no computer, work, and making senior year my bitch. Thank you for taking the time out of your human construct to read my story🙇🏻♀️. I hope you guys enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. XOXO whoosh gossip girl~
I'll go home✌🏻Thx! 💙💜💛💗💓💝