Katherine would feel Dean's eyes on her even if he wasn't three feet away from her and his eyes weren't practically laser-beaming her skull.

She lifts her eyes from her shotgun case, catching his, and raises her eyebrows in silent questioning. 

"Maybe you shouldn't come," he murmurs, eyes of swirling green and brown finally leaving her skin. Looking down almost in shame.

Katherine's own shift back to her salt round. "I don't think so, either," she admits after a moment. "I'm no good to anyone with a useless left arm." 

And...she's afraid. It's a little seed deep within her mind that—for the time being—she's not even acknowledged it aloud. It's a feeling in the recesses of her mind, in her subconscious. It's been wired for fear. If she had half an asscheek back in the saddle, the wendigo in Jackson knocked her right out of it. Ass is fully in the dirt.

Russell can feel it, a low flare of adrenaline at the thought of running into trouble, even from his position upstairs. He mentally tunes in to check on her, to see if there's something that managed to slip by him and that sixth sense he'd enhanced these weeks past.

But he can see Dean in her mind's eye, their hands busy with filling salt rounds. So he retreats back to his book.

"Right. Not-not that I'm anticipating anything," Dean quickly amends, sitting up a little straighter. "But if something does happen."

Katherine nods, meeting his eyes again. It sparks in her chest, her throat. His eyes on her again, after three months. What felt like an eternity of void. "I know, Dean." Her voice is soft.

She doesn't know when she started to feel so reserved around him, so soft, but it had to be since he came back. While there's no reason of explanation she can locate within herself, the smallest of whispers antagonizes her when she lays her head down at night.

He won't be there when you wake up.

An open wound. Dashed hope. Fear.

"What's goin' on?" Dean quietly asks, stuffing the brass head back into his shotgun shell.

Katherine lamely shrugs a shoulder. The answer is swirling in her head, but she can't will her mouth to open. Something won't let her. Fear. Inability to be vulnerable. Fear of being vulnerable. 

It won't be so bad if you just say it, she tries convincing herself. But then Russell's face floats into her thoughts, and guilt weighs her down. Because admitting anything...that she's happy Dean is back, that his presence raises more questions than she has answers for...would be a betrayal, wouldn't it? To him.

To the man who had never hurt her. Could never. Physically incapable. He's good.

He once said it was his own selfishness that would keep him near her. Katherine doesn't think Russell has a selfish bone in his body.

She forces herself to say it anyway, because it would be a betrayal to herself to not. A travesty for Dean to think he didn't deserve salvation, if that's what this really was...that he didn't deserve any of her regard.

"I'm just afraid I'll wake up and you won't be here," she softly admits, keeping the fingers of her left hand busy. "That it was all just a dream. And if I let myself hope, then...then it'll all be taken from me again. And it was really hard to say that, just now." Her heart is thumping, and her throat is stuck together. Why was it so hard?

"I'm afraid of that, too," Dean admits. "I think about it all the time."

He wants to tell her everything. Everything he saw, everything he heard and smelled...everything Alastair did to him, and everything he did to other people. And how he saw her there once. How anytime he asked, no one would answer. They'd laugh. Every woman he heard scream from that moment on, he feared it was her. They'd torment him with that sound...

But she's here. She'd been here the whole time. 

And he missed so much.

"Can we...talk...some time?" Dean delicately asks. "I feel like we've been around each other a lot, but...haven't been able to speak."

A soft smile warms Katherine's face as she nods. "I'd like that."

But to tell her everything would mean to admit that he remembers everything...and he doesn't know if he'll ever be ready to admit that to anyone. And he's already told Sam that he doesn't remember. He'd like to not. Would massively prefer it.

But she would understand, right? That he didn't want to do those things, and he didn't want those things done to him. That although there are no physical marks, spare the one Castiel left on his shoulder, he can point out every wound he had inside and out. 

That he feels like he's going crazy. That being there felt like an inescapable mental prison, a repeat of the same thing every day for years. 

That he's overwhelmed with fear about what this means. What him coming back means, what's to come.

He didn't realize Katherine had moved, let alone come to sit on the coffee table before him, until her right limb of skinny fingers and baby blue fiberglass rests over his wrist. She wipes underneath his eye with her left hand, brushes it on his pants, and leans over to smile at him, blue eyes glistening with unshed tears. 

"A lot has happened," she whispers. Dean nods. You have no idea. "I don't know what happened to you while you were gone...if you remember anything...but if you do, and you never want to talk about it, I'd understand that. And I also understand that...in part, you were down there for me. To save me. From Yellow Eyes, from where he took Sam. I'm never going to forget that."

It was a 'thank you' in the words she could manage. For a moment, Dean feels naked, so...vulnerable. Before this, she hadn't so much as indicated that she thinks he might remember something, or moved to ask about it. And yet, here she is, seeing right through him, like she always managed to do, knowingly or not.

People were never really good at that when it came to Dean. Either that, or they just weren't looking hard enough. She always seemed to.

Dean reaches up to hold her hand...and they just stare at each other for a few moments. Happy to feel the skin of the other, to feel the warmth underneath it. 

Her eyes lift to a space over his head for a moment, tracking the movement of a black Impala stirring up the dirt driveway. "Sam's back," she murmurs, blue eyes meeting his again. He almost sighs in contentment. Like basking in the sun. Dean lightly squeezes her fingers. "I can come for the ride...if you want me to."

After a moment of just staring at her, studying her golden tan face, Dean shakes his head. "Naw. Naw, I'll be okay. 'Sides...It'll be good to have some Sam time." He releases her hand, instantly yearning for the warmth of it again, and stands up. She remains sitting, and he's left to stare down at her. "I'm sorry he left you."

Katherine looks up at him with a soft smile, index fingers hooked together. "That's not your apology to give," she murmurs, then stands up. "I guess I'll...get crackin' on the books Bobby had. I can't remember the last time I opened a Bible, actually."

Dean moves to hug her first. Arms around her shoulders, nose in her hair, chests flush. He feels the thump of her heart through his own. Her rhythm becomes his. 

"I love you."

It shouldn't have felt so risky or bold, but it did. Because he does, and it's scary. She did get taken away from him, twice. The first time wasn't for very long at all, but he felt it just the same, still thinks about it just the same. 

But she needs to know. Deserves to know. 

"I love you, too," she whispers. It felt like relief. Like he could breathe. Safe. He's always been safe with her...but he doesn't know if he could ever make her feel the same way, because of who he is, what he's already done to her.

For a few agonizing moments, he thinks back to the picture in the living room of the cabin he found her in. Her, Russell, his friend. 

Does Russell make her feel that way? The man who saved her life. Took her in.

She hadn't spoken about Russell much since he first came back, but it would be naive of Dean to believe neither party has feelings. Even with everything that's happened this summer.

"Be safe," Katherine murmurs. "Call me if you get bored."

He chuckles, then presses a kiss to her hair. "Call me if you get bored."

Katherine laughs herself. "I'll take you up on that." 

She supposes she should wish Sam and Bobby well, too. What an awkward position to be in—sending the boys off on a hunt. She hadn't had to do it very much, and certainly not with stakes perceived as high as they are now. But maybe that's growing up, realizing every time you walk out the door could be your last. Not even realizing it, but comprehending it. Knowing it. 

Or maybe that's just what happens when you try to kill yourself...over and over again.

She waves to them as they leave the driveway, a trail of red dust in the wind behind them.

Russell, human, is lounged on the bed with his respective book opened. Golden sunlight warms his skin, bare from the waist up. He looks up at her and offers a smile. Perfectly simple and warm. Kind. Sunshine.

"It's for the best, isn't it?" She asks. "Not going."

Russell nods. "I think so." He opens one arm towards her, and immediately, she moves towards him. The cast makes lounging like this so difficult. She can't find a good place to put it, so settles for a weird angle off to the side of his body as she rests her head on the junction of his chest and shoulder. 

"I just don't think I'm ready yet."

He noses her hair, closing his eyes, fingers curling themselves around the top of her arm. "That's okay," he murmurs.

"I wasn't ready to summon Castiel, but it had to be done, so there was this override."

"Yeah."

"But I didn't have to do this."

"No, you didn't."

He feels her eyelashes sweep over his skin as she blinks. Waits, thinks. "So it's fine?"

Russell nods. "It's fine. If something happens and you're afraid, you're gonna get hurt. It's like playing baseball. You play scared, you get hurt." Katherine nods, too. "That's big to admit, though. I'm proud of you."

"Thanks." It's a sheepish mumble into his chest. "Were you, uh...listening?"

Russell shrugs, mindlessly rubbing his hand down her back. "I heard some parts. Only the parts you really thought about. I did check in on you once, though—I felt you start to panic, when you thought about the things that could happen." Katherine hums, nodding. Her eyes follow her finger around his chest, sunlight catching on fine hairs, some of them raising in the wake of her path. 

I like being close to you, she admits. Touching you.

I like that, too. Prefer it, actually. 

Katherine breathes a laugh across his skin, and he smiles against her hair.

"You keep doing it, though, I won't be able to concentrate on my pocket bible." 

She laughs this time, shaking her head as she looks at the tiny print. "I don't know how you can even read that. The words are so small."

"It takes a little squinting," he admits. "Lots of re-reading. I forgot it was so...wordy."

"You might look in Revelation," Katherine says. "Angels are spoken of like...like instruments of judgement. Or Psalm. Servants of God."

Russell shakes his head. "How do you know that off the top of your head?"

Katherine shrugs her left shoulder. "Fear of fire and brimstone seared into my brain, courtesy of the Catholic Church." She sighs. "Guess that's one thing my father did pass on from...his family." 

Russell purses his lips, weighing the silence that followed her turn in tone. "You haven't talked about it," he whispers. 

"I don't know what to say," she admits, just as quiet.

She didn't often dream of that night, when she walked into the house made of all different species of wood that Louise adored so much...stepped over her blood that stained the ash wood floors...Lois' blood stained it all the same, just a few rooms over. And then, later...her father's. The man who raised her. She didn't know how to think of him anymore. 

Maybe she didn't dream about that night because she didn't feel bad about it, deep down—killing him.

And maybe that's the worst part of it all.

A million other horrible things swirl around her head. Not cohesive thoughts, more singular words or pictures. Charlie is a recurring one. The day he proposed, the not-penny, the missed calls and unreturned text messages—all the ways she made him suffer when he didn't need to. If she wasn't unfaithful to him, he could still be alive today.

If she never let him in her house, he could still be alive today. 

Her thoughts quickly move to Russell. It's against her better judgment, letting him stay. It would break her heart to make him leave, to push him away, but if it would keep him alive—

"Don't even think about it," he scolds. 

She stares at the ceiling, mute for a moment, spare the guilt and shame burning through her body. Her train of thought takes her back to the night she betrayed Charlie. How there was no regard for him in her thought process, assuming she even had one.

He wound up dead because she did bad things.

"That wasn't punishment," Russell murmurs.

"Then what would you call it?" She quietly challenges. "Adultery is a sin, Russell."

"So are a lot of other things," he retorts. "Lying, for one, which we do quite often. Nothin's happened."

"Yet."

He hefts an open-mouthed sigh, annoyance growing by the moment. Not necessarily at her, but with her way of thinking. "I find it very hard to believe God would choose to punish you in such a horrible way. Killing someone else to teach you a lesson doesn't sound very..." He flounders for the word. "Merciful. Fatherly." Katherine sits away from him with a sour look. Russell holds his hand up in surrender. "I know. Sorry. Your dad isn't exactly a role model, though." Katherine scoots back against the headboard and crosses her legs. "I wish I knew all the great things to say to get you to think of yourself in ways that aren't horrible."

"People are defined by decisions actions," she murmurs. "And mine have been questionable at best."

"Then make a better decision right now," Russell says. "Don't push away a good man because you think sleeping with him is going to get him killed."

The corners of her mouth turn down as her eyebrows raise, giving him a point. "I didn't realize I was thinking about it that way."

"I saw the mental connection. Everyone you've slept with has died. Except me." Katherine gives him an incredulous look.

"Why would you even tempt fate, Russell?"

He sighs and knocks twice on the wall behind him. "This conversation isn't funny, and I don't appreciate you trying to make it into one."

"Well, talking about my horrible decisions and subsequent judgement doesn't exactly make me comfortable."

"Can you just do me a favor?" Russell asks, gently. "Just don't...do something thinking you're protecting me. I can't bear it."

She can see he means it. The turmoil it causes, the unrest that settles over him. Every time she's even remotely thought it, he's had a visceral reaction, and he's showing it to her. Thinking about it. Being vulnerable.

Katherine nods. "Okay," she whispers. "I'm sorry."

Every night they've been at Bobby's house, Katherine has locked the door, barricaded it, and Russell has slept at her side in his human form. It was almost a luxury, being able to move all fingers and toes independent of one another, to have opposable thumbs. 

It was an unfair sacrifice that ultimately made afternoons like this, with Russell able to speak to her, to hold her, a luxury. Which is why that in the ten minutes that have lapsed since her apology, her pledge to not make decisions for him, neither of them have picked up their book, and their fingers—the ones of Katherine's that are available, anyway—are preoccupied with the other's, and vacant stares across the room take them to various places in their subconscious.

Like Russell's...condition.

"Should we tell them soon?" Russell quietly wonders.

"I think so," she murmurs. "I mean, if Dean wasn't really Dean, we'd know about it by now. Sam is weird, but...Sam's always been a little weird. And Bobby is Bobby. None of them would hurt me. Or...you, by extension."

Russell shrugs. "I mean, they might hurt me. I'm a freak."

"Yeah, but you're a freak because I'm a freak," Katherine mumbles. "Familiars are chosen for their witches, remember?"

Russell sighs, looking up to the ceiling. "So God must know you're a witch." She looks at him with a scrunched, curious face. "I mean, obviously, everything made in His image. But then, like, he would've had to...hand-select me to be...this. Right?" He turns his head, eyebrows furrowed as he gazes at her. "Do you know what I'm saying?"

"I'm tracking," Katherine nods. "I mean...if we're saying God is real because angels are real, and if God makes everything in His image, then...yes. He mutated your genes to be able to change your physical expression. Shape-shifter-eqsue." Katherine tilts her head to the side. "What a thing to think."

"I know. It's kind of melting my brain."

The idea that God would be paying special attention to any specific human is bizarre for Katherine, let alone her. He made someone specifically for her...and somehow, her father—Glen—had a hand in it? Well, that couldn't be, because Russell is older, and Glen didn't die until after Russell was born, so how did it happen really?

"Your train of thought is turning my brain into a pretzel," Russell sighs.

"I thought it melted."

He nods. "Into a dough. And then you just—" he moves his hands— "knotted it."

"I mean, isn't it raising questions for you?"

He grimaces. "Yeah. That's why I'd like to stop wondering. I have no desire to understand."

Katherine smiles a little. "Lie."

"Nu-uh. I want someone to tell me what's what. Explain it to me like I'm five, ya know?"

She nods. "That would be nice. Hey, maybe we can ask Castiel. Think he's friends with God?"

Russell scoffs. "I don't see Castiel having very many friends."

"That's kind of sad to think about."

"Is it?"

Katherine shrugs a shoulder. "If he saved someone from Hellfire, I don't see them being that bad of a person."

Russell points a finger at her. "He's not a person."

Katherine holds her casted hand up in surrender. "Angel. Sorry. Important distinction."