"Hey, darlin'."

Katherine leans into the feather light touch. "Hi," she whispers. She feels so warm. So light. It smells like him. Like leather and bourbon, but not in the way that makes her stomach turn. It's comforting. It makes her eyes water.

"Aww." Dean clicks his tongue, fingers ghosting across her cheek as she rests her head in his lap. "Don't cry, pretty girl." She wraps her arm around his hip and leans into his belly. "Don't cry. You're all right."

"I just miss you," Katherine sobs. His fingers lightly run across her scalp, comb through her hair. He starts humming. Then he bounces his knee. "C'mon, KT, you know this one. I got you, babe. Da-da-da-daa-daaa. I guess that's true, we don't have a lot, but at least I'm sure of all the things we've got." His fingers wind into hers. The sun is warm on the side of her face, and it all feels fine. She even starts singing with him. She can hear the smile in his voice as he encourages her. "I knew you knew it, baby."

She looks up at him, one hand shielding the sun as it beats down on the two of them. But it's not Dean smiling down at her. It's Charlie, and he's unrecognizable. His face is swollen and disfigured.

"Why didn't you just give them what they wanted?" He asks.

The smile vanishes from Katherine's face.

"You could've saved me," Charlie whispers. Katherine pushes away from him, his bloody body. He follows her, falling out of his chair and onto the floor, slick with blood. Katherine's hands slip as she crawls away from him.

"No!"

His hand reaches for her, fingers wrap around her ankle.

"Now I'm going to drag you to Hell."

"No!" She pushes herself up and starts to run. Right into the wall in her motel room.

Katherine opens her eyes, fist curled and ready to swing. The room is spinning. She's falling. She hits her head on the bedside table.

Her phone is ringing. Her mouth is dry, her head is spinning. She feels phantom fingers wrap around her ankle, and she screams, pulling her legs to her chest, and sits up on her elbows.

No one is in the room with her. No mangled Charlie, no Dean. No Hellhound.

Katherine fumbles for her phone on the table and answers it without looking at the caller I.D. "Hello?" She croaks.

Someone on the other end hesitates. "Katherine?"

She wants to throw up. "Hi, Mom," she whispers.

Grace sighs. "You sound horrible, sweetie."

"'m sorry," Katherine mumbles, tears springing to her eyes. "I just woke up." In the silence, Katherine knows she's looking at a clock, so Katherine tries to find one, too. The one with the angry red numbers on the table says it's just past twelve PM.

"Baby, we want you to come home," Grace says. "You shouldn't be by yourself."

Katherine clears her throat and shakes her head. "'m not, I...I'm with Sam. I told you I was going to find Sam."

"Those...those monsters aren't worth it," Grace whispers. "We haven't heard from you in weeks, Kit. Just...just come home, baby."

Katherine looks down at her hands, still bloody from...from... "You know I can't do that," she rasps.

"Getting yourself killed isn't going to help anybody," Grace says. "That's your goal, isn't it? Because it's just too dark without him? Without them?"

Katherine takes a deep breath through her nose. "It's not..." She shakes her head. "It's not the same thing for you and me," she forcefully says. "I watched it happen, Grace. I watched it! Twice!" She shakes her head, a sob bursting between her lips. "I watched them both die, and I couldn't fucking save them. I couldn't save them, I couldn't save them—"

She doesn't know at what point during her psychotic break Grace hung up. Maybe her phone just died, and she hyperventilated herself unconscious.

Katherine peels herself from the floor with a grunt. Her face is numb, imprinted with the carpet's texture.

Her head throbs.

Katherine wets her mouth before she stumbles for the shower.

✕

Katherine sighs, rolling her head back onto the top of her booth seat with her eyes closed. She only rolled out of bed to get breakfast. Which this place is somehow still serving.

Some fuzzy part of her brain recognizes people in the diner are whispering. She watched them all from behind her sunglasses watch her as she rolled into the joint looking for something to quell her unsettled stomach.

She's meeting with Tribal Council Elders tonight, or whatever the hell they're called.

They called in an old favor last week. Oh yeah. Wyoming.

For a minute, she forgot where she was.

Katherine flexes her busted knuckles, trying hard to remember how she got them this time. Oh yeah. The trashy bartender at that dive last night.