"Everybody okay?"

Agent Henriksen scoffs. "Define 'okay'."

The swarm of demons vanished, and moonlight once again streamed into the police station. The lights came back on, the foundation stopped shaking.

"They left," Nancy states, large dark eyes flitting across the cleared windows.

"They'll be back," Katherine promises. Her blue eyes dart to the bag Dean brought in from the Impala's trunk, and she sets her saw-off down before moving towards it, hands sifting through the bag of weapons with purpose. "Everyone needs to put these on." Dean's eyes catch the little brown leather bag she uprooted from the bottom of the duffle, and one by one, she pulls out anti-possession charms strung by leather cords. "They'll keep you from being possessed." Nancy carefully analyzed the symbol. Katherine notices and stares, extending another necklace by her long fingers to Agent Henriksen. "It's not a pentagram," she says. "I mean, it is, but not the kind all the idiots in the world use for all that dark and twisty shit."

"What about you three?" Amici asks.

Sam and Dean tug down on the collars of their shirts. By the way Nancy blushed and looked away, you would've thought they started unbuckling their belts. Everyone looks to Katherine. She rolls her eyes and pulls her shirt up, exposing the left side of her ribcage, to show off the same anti-possession tattoo the Winchesters have.

"Smart," Henriksen compliments.

"I know," Katherine tuts. "It was my idea."

"How long you had those?"

Dean can see the memories of her possession haunt Katherine's light eyes. "Not long enough," she murmurs, eyes briefly sweeping the floor, before she looks to the Winchesters. "Let's do a damage check, see if any of the salt lines were disturbed."

Dean sidles up beside Katherine, and curiously she glances at him. "You okay?"

She nods. "Yeah, I'm fine." Her eyes sweep across the windows of the jail cells. Dean notes the bruise-like shading underneath her eyes, which seem more gray than blue. He's never seen them that color, and he can't help but think the past nine months drained the life from her. She's almost twenty-two, and her eyes look like she's seen double those. She's tired and world-weary and angry and dark and twisty...and it's all his fault. He should've stayed gone, he should've been more careful, should've known if she got even a whiff that he was checking in on her she'd come snooping around.

"I'm worried about you," Dean murmurs, watching her retreat back into the reception area of the sheriff's station, but she didn't hear him. Then she stops, turns around, and holds her hands behind her back with a smile. A simpering expression, soft and reminiscent of her old self. His brows furrow.

"D'ya wanna make some salt bullets with me?"

Dean chuckles. "Yeah. Yeah, sure." Katherine extends her hand in his direction, wiggling her fingers, and he starts forward. "Just when I thought you were getting too dark and twisty."

Her brows furrow. Still smiling, though. "Dark and twisty?" She asks.

"Yeah, too much like me." He squeezes her fingers and starts back with her.

In the sheriff's office, they sit on the sofa, her feet propped up in his lap, the two of them taking shotgun shells apart and filling them with salt and dropping them back into an ammo box. Henriksen watches them, the two psychos, quietly telling jokes and snorting and smiling and nudging each other and—

"Salt bullets," he says. Katherine looks up to him.

"Fighting off monsters with condiments," she hums, nodding. "Whatever works, right?"

"So...turns out, demons are real," Henriksen says, mostly to himself, as he picks up one of the hunters' shotguns.

"Spoiler alert—ghosts are real, too," Dean informs him.

"And vampires," Katherine chirps, turning back to her bullets. "Werewolves, changelings, wendigos, evil people-eating clowns." Dean glances to her, cheeky curiosity glinting in his eyes. "What?"

He grins. "What do you think about one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eaters?"

She laughs, throwing her head back. "I wouldn't be surprised."

"You two always joke about monsters?" Henriksen asks.

"What else can you do but laugh?" Katherine asks him, entirely rhetorical. "Everyone else grows up thinking the stuff we hunt doesn't exist. And we don't say nothin' 'cause people like you won't believe us and they'll lock us in a padded room in a tight little vest and say it's for the greater good." Blue eyes pierce his skull like lasers.

"How many demons are out there?"

The hunters stare at him for a moment. "LIke right now or...in general?" Katherine asks. Henriksen blinks. "There's no way to tell," Katherine quietly says, turning back to her bullets.

"Katherine's a bit of a specialist," Dean says.

"Major in medicine, minor in demonology," she dryly taunts.

Henriksen, however, doesn't pick up on the humor. "Seriously?"

Katherine's eyebrows furrow. "Dude. No."

"She is a doctor, though," Dean says.

"Was," she corrects.

"Still can be," he hums. Katherine gives him a dangerous look. Not right now, please.

"You wanna know what my job is?" Henriksen asks.

"You mean besides locking up the good guys?" Dean retorts with a raised brow.

"My job is boring," the FBI agent says, and Katherine looks up at him. "It's frustrating. You work three years for one break, and then maybe you can save...a few people. Maybe. That's the payoff. I've been busting my ass for fifteen years trying to nail a bunch of guys...and all the while, there was something off in the corner so big..." The man shakes his head and turns away from them.

"Don't beat yourself up," Katherine murmurs setting her gun down in her lap.. "Lots of people don't believe. Or they see it and turn a blind eye." She swings her legs off of Dean's lap with a sigh, fingers rolling a shell between them.

A brief silence falls over the three. Chatter of Sam and Nancy can be softly heard echoing through the corridors. The sounds of it, no words. The scrape of a chair. It didn't occur to anyone that the chair could've been dragged through a devil's trap located by the window in the small room with the vending machine. It certainly didn't occur to Amici, the very one who broke that trap. And the one who broke the salt line.

"What's out there?" Henriksen asks after taking a small breath.

Katherine rolls to her feet with Dean, and they start loading the shotguns on the table.

"Can you guys beat it?" The two hunters' eyes slowly make their way to each others'. "Can you win?"

"We're not exactly optimists," Katherine hums. Henriksen raises a brow, prompting her to continue. "The world's gonna end messy no matter how you try to dice it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight. We still have choices. We choose to go down swingin'." She smiles crookedly, lips pressed together. She looks a little softer like that, cheeks full and eyes bright.

"What about your baby?"

"Don't worry about him," Katherine murmurs. Henriksen's eyes move to the young woman's belly.

"You already know?"

"No. Stop talking about it," she quickly says. He stares curiously at her. She doesn't have to look up to know. "What?"

He shakes his head. "I'm just trying to figure this out."

"Figure me out, you mean," she sighs. "Demons are my specialty, remember? I hate them, they hate me a little more...my family used to be exclusively demon hunters. Then we found out about all the other stuff that goes bump in the night. But for hundreds of years, that's all we did. Exorcised demons...think about that. Hundreds of years, getting sent back to Hell." She smiles. "They don't like me very much. And if they found out something that might make me vulnerable...well, it wouldn't take long for all of them to know." Her eyes darken a bit, turn a little more sullen than before.

"How long you two been married?" Katherine laughs, and Dean chokes on his own spit. She sobers up, rolling her lips into her mouth. "Touchy subject?"

"Kind of," she giggles. "Uh, we're not married. We dated for a little while."

"So you do have something to go back home to," Henriksen hums. "Not just...this vigilante."

"Yeah," Katherine murmurs. "But Dean's a good man." She clears her throat. "What about you?You rockin' the white picket fence."

"Hmm-mm," Henriksen says, shaking his head. "Empty apartment, string of angry ex-wives."

"An empty apartment is better than half-star motel rooms with mystery stains," Katherine says. "Trust me."

"So why'd you give up a cozy doctor's lifestyle?"

Katherine shrugs. "I can save lives in more than one way."

Somewhere, glass shatters, and there's a pretty solid thud that follows, a metallic clatter. Katherine cocks her gun and moves first, and Dean quickly advances ahead of her. Soon, there's a Winchester in front of and behind her, and Henriksen is following them.

A black-eyed, fair-skinned blonde lady, all cut up from the window up top, stands in front of them. "How do we kill her?" Henriksen asks.

"We don't," Sam says. Katherine's upper lip curls as she drops her gun.

"She's a demon," Henriksen states.

"She's here to help us," Sam retorts. Katherine scoffs.

"Fat chance," she snarls, almost through bared teeth.

Ruby sighs, staring at the huntress as she shakes the glass from her clothes. "Are you gonna let me out?" She asks, looking to Sam, and he glances down at the devil's trap. Katherine rolls her eyes as Sam scrapes up part of the orange spray paint keeping Ruby contained. "And they say chivalry's dead."

"Can you keep the talking to a minimum, please?" Katherine asks.

"Does anyone have a breath mint?" Ruby continues, sashaying out of the room. "I got some gut in my mouth while I was killing my way in here."

Katherine calls, "Yeah, check the toilet bowl of the third cell on the right. I dropped a few in there in the middle of a scuffle, just—just put your whole face in there and ignore the burn." She turns her glare to Sam and wordlessly points her index to the altered devil's trap before starting out of the room.

Sam sticks his tongue out at her.

"How many are out there?" Dean asks Ruby.

"Thirty, at least."

"Oh, good," Katherine chirps. "Thirty hit men, all gunning for us." She sits on the edge of the desk with a heavy sigh. Her shoulder is starting to ache.

Ruby smirks at Katherine. "Is Katherine Donovan afraid of a little challenge?"

"I'm too tired to argue with you. Give us facts and shut your mouth, please and thank you."

Ruby sighs, rolling her head to the side and turning her gaze to Dean. He shrugs. "At least she's saying "please" and "thank you,"" he points out.

"Who sent them?" Katherine asks.

Ruby's gaze moves to Sam, approaching from the vending room. "You didn't tell them?" She asks. Katherine's eyes narrow while Dean's eyebrows raise, both of them looking to Sam. "I'm surprised."

"Tell us what?"

"There's a new up-and-comer," Ruby hums. "A real pied piper." Sam sighs, leaning against the doorframe.

"Who?" Katherine prompts.

"Her name is Lilith."

"Lilith," Dean repeats.

"Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?" Ruby hums. "She really, really wants Sam's intestines on a stick. Guess she sees him as competition."

"You knew about this?" Dean asks, looking to his younger brother, who says nothing in response. Dean throws his arms up and Katherine pinches the bridge of her nose. "Well gee Sam, is there anything else we should know about?"

"How about the three of you talk about this later?" Ruby suggests. "We'll need the Colt."

After a moment, Katherine lets out a tired, ironic laugh, raising her hands to her face and pushing her hair back, ruffling her bangs so they stand at awkward angles.

"Where's the Colt?" Ruby asks, sitting up straighter.

"It got stolen," Sam answers.

Ruby doesn't wait a second. "I'm sorry, I must have blood in my ear. I thought I just heard you say you were stupid enough to get grabbed out of your thick, clumsy, idiotic hands." Ruby pushes herself up and starts to pace. "Fantastic. This is just peachy."

"We don't have enough bullets for thirty demons anyway, all right Barbie? Sit down and shut up," Katherine groans.

"Fine," Ruby says, crossing her arms, and Katherine perks up. "Since I don't see there's any other option—" Katherine deflates "—there's one other way I know how you get you out of here alive."

Silence.

Katherine sighs. "Can we stop pausing for dramatic effect? There's no time. Non tempus, spiritus immundus."

"You're speaking Latin again," Dean quietly informs her.

"I know a spell," Ruby says. "It'll vaporize every demon in a one mile radius."

"Including you?" Katherine asks.

"Yes," Ruby snarls. "So you let the Colt out of your sight and I have to die."

Katherine's lower lip sticks out. "The world is so unfair."

"Easy, Tiger," Dean hums, patting Katherine's knee, and turns his gaze to a murderous Ruby. "What do we need to do?"

"Aww," Ruby chuckles. "You can't do anything." Dean's brows furrow. "This spell is very specific. It calls for a person of virtue."

"I got virtue," Dean says with a shrug.

"Nice try—you're not a virgin."

Dean lets out a laugh. "Nobody's a virgin."

"Not this one," Ruby sighs, eyes moving towards Katherine. The huntress lunges, but Dean grabs her by her bad shoulder—on purpose.

"Ouch!" Katherine thrusts her fists into his stomach and points at his face. "Dick move."

"You can't claw her eyes out yet," Dean mutters through gritted teeth, turning back to Ruby, only to find she's looking at—Nancy? "Wait—no. Nooo, you—you never—"

"It's a choice, moron, not a freaking rite of passage," Katherine snaps.

"W-so you-you've never—" Katherine pushes her hand into his face and turns his head the other way. "Not even once?" He asks through smushed lips.

"That's what a virgin is, Dean."

"Wow," he says, almost impressed, and Katherine drops her hand, rolling her eyes.

"So, this spell," Nancy says. "What can I do?"

"Wait, you're not doing anything," Katherine says, brows knitted together, and everyone looks to her.

"Why not?" Nancy asks.

"I—why not?" Katherine squawks, eyes blowing wide as she rises to her feet. "Every spell in the book that requires a virgin—every spell—gets said virgin killed! Have you people read anything on the occult? Holy shit, I mean really guys—"

"Katherine," Dean hisses. She presses her fingertips to her temples, closing her eyes.

"You're all gonna die," Ruby warns. "Look, this is the only way—"

"We're not killing someone!" Katherine cries, exploding to her feet.

Ruby crosses her arms. "Oh, so what are you gonna do when the demons get in?"

And then a small, unheard voice: "Excuse me?"

"Protect her!"

Katherine's face screws up. "Oh, how noble—"

"Uh...excuse me?"

"I swear I've had it with you just popping up—"

"Would everybody please shut up?!" All eyes turn to Nancy. She lets out a breath, sinking back onto her heels. "All the people out there...would it save them?"

"It'll blow the demons out of their bodies," Ruby says. "So if their bodies are okay...yeah."

Nancy nods once/ "Then I'll do it."

"No," Katherine scoffs.

Henriksen shakes his head. "No, no, no—"

"Hell no!" Dean spits.

"Absolutely not—"

"Nancy—"

"All my friends are out there," Nancy says, silencing the simultaneous protests.

"We don't sacrifice people," Henriksen states. "We do that, we're no better than they are." Katherine points to him in agreement.

"We don't have a choice," Ruby argues.

"Yeah, well your "choice" is not a choice," Dean snaps.

Ruby looks to Sam, the only one who might listen to her. "Sam, you know I'm right."

"Stop running to Sam, all right?" Katherine quips. "We're not killing any virgins, end of story!"

"You should watch your blood pressure, doc," Ruby hums, then slowly moves her eyes down to Katherine's belly. "It's not good for the baby," she whispers. Katherine's eyes widen and she lunges once more.

"Okay, Katherine—" Dean catches her arms.

"I am gonna kill her—!"

"Ruby's right," Sam says, and Dean and Katherine go a bit limp.

"What?" They chorus, and at the same time, Nancy says, "It's my decision."

"Damn straight, cherry pie," Ruby hums.

"Oh mygODSTOP!" Katherine almost whispers, raising her hands again. "Stop it, just stop!" Her hands are flying every which way as she speaks. "Nobody kill any virgins!" She huffs and turns her steely gaze to Sam, who's been silent the whole time. "We need to talk," she says, starting for him, and pulls both Winchesters down the hall.

"First of all, thank you for that little bundle of joy, it's really spreading like wildfire," she snarls, turning on her toes, and puts a hand on Sam's chest to stop him. Then she looks up at him with soft, tearful blue eyes. "Please tell me you're not actually considering this."

"We're talking about holding down a girl and cutting her heart out," Dean adds.

"And we're also talking about thirty people out there, guys, thirty innocent people, who are all gonna die along with everyone in here," Sam argues.

"It doesn't mean we throw away the rule book and stop acting like humans!" Dean seethes. "If I let that demon kill that nice, sweet, innocent girl who hasn'r even been laid."

"That is so not the point," Katherine hisses. "The point is, all that demon shit we've waded through, all the demon shit that I've waded through, and all those people we saved, it's gonna be for nothing. But you know what, if this is the road you wanna go down, then I'm not going to have any part of it. You do this, I will pack my shit and you will never see me again. I can promise you that, Sam."

"Then what do you want me to do, Katherine?" Sam asks, throwing his arms out. "What do we do?"

"We fight like hell," Katherine answers, her voice quiet, cold, and resolute. "We open the doors, let them in, and we fight like hell. We do anything, Sam, because anything beats killing a freaking virgin—at the hands of a demon nonetheless. I mean, she could call on the damn devil for all we know!"

Katherine's eyes are like the cool water of a spring, fluid and bright. Pleading, desperate, and burning with rage and drive.

Sam looks to the toes of his boots and swallows. "So what's your plan?"

Katherine had a tape recorder in her bag...in the Impala. Dean gave her the keys and let her run out there and come back with everything she needed.

"Did you get it to work?" Dean asks, bombarding Katherine as soon as she comes out of the electronics room. Sam has just helped Amici and Nancy up on the roof.

"Yeah," she murmurs, brushing past him. Ruby rolls her eyes.

"This isn't going to work," she says, getting up from her seat on the desk. "So long, idiots."

Sam raises his eyebrows. "So you're just gonna leave?" He asks.

"Hey!" Ruby snaps, whirling around on her heel. "I was gonna kill myself to help you win. I'm not gonna stand here and watch you lose." Her eyes harden as she stares at Sam. "And I'm disappointed because I tried. I really did...but clearly I bet on the wrong horse. So do you mind letting me out?"

"Do we even fix it up?" Dean sighs, staring at the broken devil's trap and salt line at the exit, just after Ruby's gone outside.

"No," Katherine mutters. "Just get ready."

There are four exits in the small sheriff's station. Front door, impound lot, two emergency exits.

"All set?!" Dean shouts from the holding tank.

Sam hollers back in the affirmative from the front door. Henriksen is at the impound lot.

"Haaaa my god," Katherine murmurs, clearing the road salt with her shoe, scuffs the devil's trap with her knife. "This is so stupid, this is so fucking stupid." She kicks the door open and hops back a few paces, waiting. The silence is eerie, rings in her ears. She takes a deep, calming breath though her nose. She's no good to anybody amped up.

Dean hides half of his body behind an upturned mattress in the holding cells, staring out into the orange lamplight by the emergency exit.

Someone's shotgun sets it all in motion. Chaos, screaming, war cries. The fronts collapsed quickly, and Dean and Agent Henriksen converged in the lobby. "Go, go, go!" Dean shouts. Katherine is exchanging blows as she's pinned up on the wall, shotgun nowhere near her reach. Dean fires a salt round at the demon, and she drops to her feet to collect her gun.

Holy water flies everywhere, salt rounds are fired at random. The hunters are pegged, demons are pegged...everyone is going to be tired and bruised tomorrow, assuming they live long enough to see it.

"Henriksen!" Katherine shouts, fighting clawing fingers. "Now!"

Wihtin thirty seconds, her voice plays over the intercom—the recording of the exorcism.

And they all freak. Their grips on the hunters loosen, and her Latin is almost drowed out by their screams and wails of agony.

None of them can leave the station. Nancy and Amici did it, they sealed the whole place up. The stench of sulfur quickly fills the station, and Katherine holds a hand over her nose and mouth to keep from smelling it, from vomiting. Fire explodes across the black cloud and scorches the ceiling, but it's gone as soon as it came.

Exorcised.

"Add that to your stats, huh?" Dean pants, plopping down on the floor beside Katherine. Her chest heaves in response, and she wipes the blood from her split lip.

Within fifteen seconds, the power comes back on. Katherine and Dean pull each other up, and Sam and Agent Henriksen emerge from the corner.

Those possessed start to wake up, and Katherine begins a clinic of bumps and bruises and bandaids.

"I better call in," Henriksen says. "Hell of a story I won't be telling." His eyes flit to Katherine, who manages a small smile.

"So what are you gonna tell 'em?"

He stares blankly at the desk, shaking his head with pursed lips. "The least ridiculous thing I can come up with in the next five minutes."

Katherine nods. "Good luck with that." She shoves her shotgun into the weapons bag. "And, uh...not to pressure you or anything, but what are you planning on doing about us?"

There's a veiled threat somewhere in her question, in the coolness of her eyes, the shift in posture.

"You look like you've already got an idea," he says.

"There's a helicopter out there," she immediately replies. "Throw some bodies in there, burn it beyond any identifying means, call it a day."

His dark gaze sweeps over her. "You're terrifying, you know that?" She grins, splitting her lip all over again. "A regular Wednesday Addams."

"Agent Henriksen," she mockingly purrs.

"What are you gonna do when you're legally dead?" He asks. "You're not gonna be able to do anything. Buy a car, buy a house..."

"There's no reason for me to do either of those things," she mutters.

"What about when your kid's born?" He asks.

Katherine's shoes squeak against the tile as she stops. She stares at the weapons bag. "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."

Henriksen nods. "I'll..see what I can do to make it easy for you. I don't know about the other two, though. They'll...they'll just have to be dead. The whole nation already thinks they're heinous criminals."

"We'll figure it out," Katherine says. "And, uh...thank you."

Henriksen nods once at her. "Get out of here," he says. "Protect that baby."

Katherine sighs inwardly and nods. "Don't have to tell us twice." She looks across the room as Sam and Dean come back from the bathroom, and she nods her head at the door.

"Need some help with that shoulder?" Henriksen asks.

"I'm a doctor," Katherine says. "Think I can handle it."

She dug the slug out of her shoulder on her own, untrusting of Sam and Dean's unsteady, un-professionally-trained hands. She stitched herself up and throw a sling on and called it a day.

Katherine fell asleep sitting up. She's not a snorer, but she breathes a bit heavier than usual. Dean watches her from the table in the kitchenette. She's at peace when she sleeps, less angry in the face. Her face is soft and her cheeks are flushed, lips parted just the slightest bit.

There's a knock on the door just as Sam emerges from the bathroom, running a towel over his hair.

"Turn on the news," Ruby says, stalking into the motel room.

Dean reaches for the remote, and Sam shakes Katherine's foot. Her eyes fly open, reddened and tired, as she pushes herself up on her good arm.

"What?" Katherine croaks, eyes immediately training on Ruby. The demon nods to the television, and Katherine rubs at her eyes and listens.

"The community is reeling from the tragedy that occured just a few hours ago. Authorities believe a gas main ruptured, triggering the massive explosion that ripped the police station apart, and claimed the lives of everyone inside." Katherine stares at the picture behind the live news anchor. The sun beaming over the scorched wreckage of the station they left just a little while ago. "Among the deceased, at least six police officers and staff, including Sheriff Melvin Dodd, Deputy Phil Amici, and secretary Nancy Fitzgerald, as well as three FBI agents identified as Steven Groves, Calvin Reidy, and Victor Henriksen. Two fugitives in custody were also killed."

Uneasy silence settles in the room like a stench. No way to know which two they thought were dead. Ruby turns the television off.

"That must've happened right after we left," Sam murmurs.

"Considering the size of the blast, smart money's on Lilith," Ruby says. She flings a small brown satchel at each hunter.

"What's in these?" Dean skeptically inquires.

"Something that'll protect you. Throw Lilith off your trail...for the timebeing, at least." Ruby crosses her arms in a sigh.

"Thanks," Sam murmurs.

Ruby turns her hard gaze to him. "Don't thank me. Lilith vaporized everyone, including your precious little virgin, and half a dozen other people."

"Thanks for the subtle reminder," Katherine says, gesturing to the TV. "Got it."

"And you, with your little speech about humanity and war, turns out you plan was the one with the most bloodshed!" Ruby seethes.

Katherine's glare is cold enough to freeze Hell over. Sam even feels a chill creep up his spine.

"Next time," Ruby continues. "We go with my plan. No surivors, so no one can go running to tell the boss."

She storms out of the motel room, leaving the three hunters to stew.