"Bad news, Kitty Kat. Gordon's out of jail."

Katherine frowns, turning to look at Charlie. Her phone is pinned between her left shoulder and ear, knife in her right as they prepare dinner. "Gordon Ramsey went to jail?"

He frowns back at her. "He did?"

Katherine looks away from him. "How did he wind up in jail?"

Dean sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Gordon Walker, Katherine."

"Oh." She chuckles a little, then her smile fades. "Oh...shit."

"Yeah, thank you."

"Shit." She sets the knife down and stare at the counter. "Well what the hell, man? How?"

"Don't know, don't care. I'm gonna freakin' fry his ass. And you know what? Bela Talbot told him where to find us, so she's goin' with him."

"How the hell did she know where to find you?" Silence. "Dean."

"She called me to thank me for saving her ass."

Katherine scoffs. "You're such an idiot."

"I know, thank you."

"A gullibile...idiot."

"Thank you, Katherine."

"This doesn't mean you get dibs on, uh...you know." Katherine glances to Charlie. "That's still my thing."

"I thought you told her it's whatever karma decided it was going to be?"

"Yeah, well...don't go out of your way to find her, all right? Especially if I'm not there. I wanna be there." She sighs, clenching her fist. "What are you gonna do about Gordon? Where are you?"

"Too far from you. Don't worry about it...we're gonna figure it out."

"Well, you have to kill him, Dean." Charlie's head snaps in her direction. 

"I know."

Katherine holds a finger up and walks into their bedroom. "He isn't gonna stop until Sam—"

"I know," Dean repeats. He mutters obsceneties under his breath. "The bitch is calling me back."

"Wha—Dean—" The line goes dead. "Son of a—" She slams her phone onto the bed.

Charlie leans against the doorway. "The hell was that?" He asks. 

"Remember that bitch Bela?"

"Mhm."

"There's this guy who has a hit out on Sam and she led the guy right to him. God I should've killed her!" Katherine runs her fingers through her hair and starts to pace. "He's gonna kill Sam."

"Why is he going to kill Sam?"

"Because of that whole situation in Wyoming I told you about," she reminds him. "The Devil's Gate." After a moment, Charlie nods. She sighs, moving towards him, and wraps her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, this...I shouldn't have told you about this."

"Yes, you should've," he disagrees, wrapping his arms around her middle. "Do you...frequently kill people?"

"No," she says into his skin.

"Have you?"

"No."

Charlie sighs, lifting his chin from her head, and pats her back. "C'mon. Can't do anything from here, Kit. Let's finish cooking and we'll wait for him to call back."

"Yeah." Katherine nods, reaching for her phone. She taps it against her palm before following  Charlie into the kitchen.

The call comes hours later. Charlie has long been asleep, but Katherine is sitting on the porch outside of their bedroom, wrapped up in a blanket and listening to the nighttime around her. Charlie found her out here on several instances when he would wake up for work. Seemed like the only place she could sleep, for a while. Or at least, the only place that quieted her mind enough. Sometimes noises fill it with the most silence.

She's about to drift off when her phone buzzes. Her eyes peel open and she stares at the trees for a few moments, gathering her senses, before looking down at her phone. She can't read it, even if she squints. 

"Hello?" She croaks.

Dean's voice is gentle. "Hey."

"Hey," Katherine murmurs back. "I was worried."

"Aw, shucks," he chuckles. "No reason to be, you know that."

"I know that when I'm there," she retorts. "You...Sam can't keep you in check." He grunts in agreement. 

"Yeah...we had to get rid of our phones, so...new number."

"How come?"

"Gordon had the numbers. Could've used them to find us."

"Hmm. So what was the deal?"

"Gordon's dead," Dean sighs. "Sam...Sam killed him. He got turned into a vamp."

Katherine's blood runs cold. "Sam is a vampire?" She whispers. 

"No!" Dean laughs. "No, Sam is okay. Aside from the additonal therapy he'll need. Gordon was a vamp. The case we were working...the nest got to him."

Katherine rubs her mouth and sighs. "What about his butt buddy? Uh...Kubrik?"

"Dead."

"Hmm." Katherine puts her forehead in her hand. "How's Sam doing?"

"In the shower." There's a brief pause. "Not the first man he's killed, KD."

"Doesn't mean it gets any easier."

Silence lulls between the two for a few moments. Then Dean chuckles. "Guess it's KT now, huh?" Then he laughs again. "Gonna start calling you Katie."

"I'm gonna kill you if you do that, I swear," she promises, chuckling with him. "My dad tried calling me Katie when I was younger."

"I remember," Dean hums. "You bitched to Sam about it at Bobby's house, said you weren't a Katie."

"I'm not," she insists. 

"The man of the hour," Dean sighs. "Sam just came out. Wanna talk to him?"

"Sure, yeah." She waits a few moments, listening to the brothers quietly converse amongst themselves with her name thrown in there.

"Hey," Sam breathes.

"Hi." She pulls a loose thread from her blanket. "Rough night?"

He laughs humorlessly. "You wouldn't believe," Sam sighs. "It's gotta be two AM over there...why are you still awake?"

Katherine hums. "Can't sleep. Worried about you two clowns." 

"A lot of good that's doing."

"Yeah," she grunts. "Have a drink for me before you go to bed. Call me."

"Will do. I'm...pretty beat, so...I doubt I'll need much."

"All right, Sammy. Catcha later."

"Bye."

She closes her phone and rests her head against her chair. Far off, she can hear the infrequent passing of cars, but mostly, in this small slice of bliss...it's bliss. She can hear the world.

Something squeezes her shoulder, and her eyes fly open. 

She fell asleep in her chair again. The sky is purple, pink in the horizon through the trees. And she's cold. 

"You're freezing," Charlie mutters. "If you're gonna sleep out here, at least take more blankets." He moves into their bedroom and comes out with another blanket from the linen chest. Charlie throws it over her and tucks the corners before sitting in his chair with a his coffee cup and a sigh. Katherine's fingers wiggle out from underneath the blanket and weave between his. He smiles and lifts her hand to his lips before kissing her wedding band. "Wife," he mutters. Katherine giggles quietly. "Anything from Dean?"

"They're both okay," Katherine groggily replies, sitting up straighter. She puts her feet in his lap and sighs, tightly crossing her arms. His hand comes to rest on her ankles underneath the blankets. "Buncha vampires."

"What about that guy?" Charlie asks.

Katherine lets out a heavy breath. "Did I ever tell you...that you ask too many questions for your own good?"

He offers her a smile, lifting his coffee cup to his lips. "Maybe once or twice."

"Do you have to go back to work today?" Katherine asks with a frown. "I never know what to do when you're not here."

"Go...shopping."

Katherine gives him a flat look. "I hate shopping."

"No." Charlie holds a finger up and shakes his head. "No, I've figured this one out."

"Oh?"

"Mhm. You hate driving into town, and you hate going into the fitting room, but you love shopping."

Katherine bites on her lip and looks away from him. "You...sssshut your mouth when you're talking to me," she grumbles, and Charlie laughs. 

"I don't blame you," he says. "The gas mileage on your car is ass, dude."

"Don't talk about him that way!"

Charlie rolls his head back with a groan. "You actually named your car."

She closes her eyes. "I don't know why you say that like it hasn't been his name since I met you."

"No, no, it was a her when we met. I distinctly remember you referring to your car as 'her.'"

"Yeah, well..." Katherine clears her throat. "Now my car is 'he.' His name is Cash. First car was named Claudia."

"You have a thing for C's."

"Easy names."

"How do you feel about G's?"

Katherine's brow wrinkles. "Gina. Greg. Geoff..." She shrugs. "'Juh' and 'Guh' aren't exactly my favorite sounds. Why?"

"Just thinking about kids," he hums. Charlie's dark eyes flit to her face. "Not...not that we have to have any anytime soon. I know we have an agreement."

"Hmm." Katherine looks to the sky again without lifting her head. The thought makes her want to go back to sleep.

Charlie told her that after the New Year, she can spend the rest of Dean's contract with the brothers. Either be there when he died or find a solution before. His only condition is to see each other in person once a month. He could live with phone calls and Skype until then. 

Sometimes, it was hard to not question Charlie. What motive he had, why he was so generous. She rarely asked those questions aloud, though. She didn't want to give him a reason to doubt her, to even have a seed of it in his mind. 

So she graciously accepted his terms, and dreaded what was to come.

"I'm excited about the possibility," Katherine hums, looking to the sunrise. The sky is lightening still. "What our lives could look like in a few years."

"We're gonna be the family everyone hates 'cause we're so damn perfect." Katherine laughs. "Hiking, traveling...a freaking dog. A cat, if we're feelin' crazy." She laughs again. "Are you going to go back to Rick's practice?"

Katherine gnaws on her lower lip for a few moments. "I'm not sure," she murmurs. "It's hard to think about that now...you know? But...it'll be hard, going back to it. Getting out of this."

"Who says you have to?"

Katherine chuckles. "Charlie...I'm good, but I'm not perfect. Realistically, there is no guarantee that I'd survive any hunt I go on. If it was just me, that's a different story...but you throw in a family?" She shakes her head. "I don't want my kids knowing anything about this life. I don't want them wondering if I'm going to walk through the door again...I don't want them to lose their mom the way I lost mine." Katherine sighs and rubs her eyes. "So I'm gonna ward the shit out of the house and come May, bury my head in the sand." 

"I know how much it means to you."

"Yeah, well, you mean more." She looks at his coffee cup with a frown. "I don't want us to become my parents."

"We won't."

"That's what everyone says."

"We won't." Charlie nods once at her. "I promise." He downs the rest of his coffee and sighs. "I need to get ready."

"If i have to cling to you like a koala so you won't leave, then I will," Katherine threatens. Charlie leans over her chair with a smile.

"Promise?" He asks, and ducks a kiss onto her mouth. He moves to pull away, and lightning quick, her arms are around her neck and her legs are around his hips. Charlie gathers the blankets and holds them with her before retrieving his mug. "We have dinner with my grandma tonight."

"You say that like it's a chore," Katherine hums into his neck. "Genevieve is a delight."

"Genevieve adores you. It's because she adores you that I'm subject to hours of embarrassment."

"Aw, Chip," she hums, giving him a pouty lip as she squeezes his cheek. The hand that supports her rear comes up to smack her hand away, and she giggles. "I've seen just about every embarassing thing from your childhood."

"There's one I think she was saving for after we got married," he chuckles. 

"What is it?" Katherine asks. He launches her onto the bed, and she sits right back up, watching him head for the bathroom. "Charlie, what is it?" He closes the door behind him. "Charlie!"