They won big in Atlantic City. As promised, Dean saved part of it as a wedding gift to Katherine and Charlie. Drill it into his head. He even wrote "HAPPY WEDDING" on the envelope like an idiot. Katherine laughed and insisted no one said "happy wedding," but "congratulations" could've been for anything. 

They're finding small jobs down the coast as the wedding date nears. It's next week.

"One more hunt before the big day won't hurt," Sam said.

Katherine has been quiet the whole drive. There was her usual quiet...then this. Even Sam can tell there's something heavily weighing on her, but he isn't sure what to ask, how to ask, because he thinks he knows what it is. Are you having second thoughts?

Katherine and Dean were weird. Right person, wrong time? Right person, right time? Is...whatever they were...all they were meant to be?

Sam isn't sure what he believes about soul mates anymore. He used to think there was just that one special person out there for you...but then Jessica died. It wasn't immediately following her death that he started wondering...it was mostly "what the fuck am I going to do without her?" As the months dragged by, as his dreams of her became less frequent, he began to think that maybe there are lots of soulmates for lots of different reasons. 

Then he's broody, too, and Dean doesn't know what the fuck to do about it besides talk about work.

"KD," he says. She's laying down in the back seat, whatever is hanging off the side supported by a bag she dragged out from the trunk. Looking in the rearview mirror, he can barely discern the legging-clad knee from the black mirror. She's staring up at the black ceiling, trying to count the flecks of lint in the fabric to distract her. So far, no luck. Her mind is like a feedback loop. Dean is going to die, make a deal to save him, you take his place, you die, you abandon Charlie and break all sorts of promises you made him. But no Dean.

"Tell me about those people in Pisgah again," Dean prompts. She doesn't say antyhing. "C'mon, Kat. I forgot."

He can tell by the way the articles ruffle she's frenzied and all shades of pissed off. Anger even colors her unsteady voice as she reads off her notes. I came back for this? "Four people have been admitted to Mission Hospital in Asheville after hiking in the Pisgah National Forest. No visible injuries or conditions, aside from the fact they're decades younger than they were going in."

"Witch," Dean mutters. "What do we know about witches?"

Katherine scratches the tip of her nose. "Not much."

"Aren't you one?"

Sam had long accepted that. Witches did, like, mean shit. Like...hexes and shit. Katherine didn't do that. She's got a couple of mean bones in her body, but they were mostly dormant...so was she a witch, really?

Katherine sits up and rests her chin on the top of the seat, between the brothers. "Technically, sure, but...our blood is so watered down, my magic is bound to be weaker than those who came before me...even if I am a Natural. My grandmother stopped practicing when she was a few years younger than I was. She never taught my father, and if he doesn't know, there's no way in hell I'm learning anything."

"How come if your family aren't practicing witches, they're so pissed off about an old grimoire?" Sam asks.

"We're still the protectors of it," she sighs. "Steve Rogers is still Captain America when he takes the costume off, right?"

"It's not a costume," Dean grumbles, holding a finger up.

"What did you mean by 'a Natural'?" Sam asks, turning to look at Katherine. She doesn't meet his gaze. Instead, hers is fixed on the road ahead...watching for deer.

"There are three types of witches," she says. "Borrowers, Naturals, and Students. Borrowers usually make deals to get their power. Naturals get it in their blood. The Students are usually self-taught, whether it be from books and the internet or other witches. Less common than Borrowers, more common than Naturals. Three times out of ten."

"And the other six?"

"Five are Borrowers. The sixth is a Natural. And just because a witch has the power doesn't mean they can execute without performance issues. One wrong word and you go from ordering a pizza to releasing the bubonic plague."

"Releasing?" Sam asks, his eyes growing to the size of quarters.

Katherine nods, leaning back into her seat, and crosses her arms. "My ancestors caged it. 'S hidden in a box somewhere, all sorts of mojo on it...it would take a long time to find it." She finally looks up at Sam, blue eyes frosty. "That's why Bela stealing that book is so bad. Whoever has it now can find...anything. Can do anything."

Heavy silence settles over the hunters like a blanket. Katherine manages to drift off to sleep, but it isn't peaceful. She can still hear her surroundings...the hum of the engine, Sam and Dean quietly chatting to one another. In between it all, she has nightmares. What's going to happen to Dean...wedding gone wrong...magic...

They stop for the night at a motel by the creek in Barnardsville, which backs up right to the forest. Sam took a quick shower and turned right back around to find a bar. Uncharacteristic of him. He must need it.

Katherine almost wanted to join him. She missed Sam. She missed his humor and like-mindedness...and just his company. Besides, maybe they can come up with something better than what she's got.

If she made a deal to take Dean's place...a whole lot of people would kill her before her demon did. 

"What if it's the fountain of youth?" Dean asks, shoving his bag to the foot of his bed. He's idly watching...he doesn't even know. It's whatever channel the last tennants left the television on.

"Florida," Katherine hums, tying her hair up as she moves for one of the beds. Dean frowns at her. The pajamas, the clean face, the billow of vanilla-scented steam following her. The stupid ass diamond on her finger. She rolls onto her belly and kicks her feet up into the air. A gold chain sits at her ankle. 

"You're going to sleep?"

She glances at him. For the first time today, they make eye contact. It zaps. "Might as well."

"It's four o'clock." Katherine shrugs. 

"I'm tired."

"Well...I was gonna go get us some food. Movie night?" Katherine doesn't answer. Dean sighs, dropping his jacket onto the chair, and moves towards her bed. He rests his palms on the mattress, and her shoulder dips toward him slightly from the weight. "Hey."

"Hmm."

"What's wrong?" He asks. Then he grimaces. "You're not, uh...cramping, are you?"

Katherine mirrors his expression. "What? No." 

"What do you want to eat? Huh? Whatever you want."

She shrugs. "Surprise me."

Dean pushes himself up from the bed and collects his jacket. 

"I'll be back in a few." Katherine nods, watching him leave, but quickly lowers her eyes to her computer.

To the email waiting for her, from Charlie, from three hours ago. It wasn't anything urgent, just that all the details of next week have been finalized, and he's very excited for their honeymoon in the mountains, and yes they will be home on Christmas Eve, and yes of course Sam and Dean can stay for Christmas.

Dean was actually gone for around forty-five minutes. He needed to get Katherine's smell out of his nose, get the jealousy out of his blood, and come to terms with the rest of his life.

When he came back to the room, he found her on her side, asleep in one of Charlie's hoodies, her personal copy of the bible clutched in her hand. Slowly, he reaches for the page her thumb it stucked into and removes the blue highlighter dangling limply from the fingers of her right hand. He looks at the page she was holding and stares at the blue section.

My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.

She shouldn't be sad. She's engaged. She's going to marry her dream guy. Have the life she always wanted, the life she wanted to share with Dean, but he didn't want to share with her until he got a ticket for the chopping block.

Good for her. For finding someone who wanted to give it to her without the threat of death looming.

Dean shuts the bible and caps the marker before carefully tucking the objects back into her bag.

And then he stares at her. He watches her shoulder rise and fall with every breath. 

He wonders if she still has nightmares.

Maybe she noticed his staring in her sleep...some kind of witchy sense she hasn't told him about...but she turns over and frowns at him. Dean is unpacking the bags of breakfast food.

"Hungry?" He asks, trying real hard not to look at her.

"I could eat," Katherine hums after a moment. After another pause, she yawns and sits up, gazing around the room with hooded lids. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Well," he sighs. "I was gone for about an hour, so...not that long." He sets her food container on one side of the table. "Strawberries and cream pancakes, sausage links, hashbrowns, and eggs sunny side up." She takes the fork from his grasp a bit tiredly, flipping the lid open.

"Breakfast for dinner?" She chirps. Dean hums. "Thanks."

"Yeah...Yeah, sure."

When Sam returns around midnight, Katherine and Dean are still awake, watching Breakfast at Tiffany's from their respective beds, but both sets of eyes locked on the screen just as intently as the other's as Holly Golightly climbs through Paul Varjack's window. 

"Have fun?" Katherine asks, not taking her eyes off of the film.

"No," Sam grunts, shrugging out of his jacket. "I didn't find out anything new about the case either." He flops back onto the second bed with a long breath. "This sucks."

"Sam, we just got into town," Katherine says, turning onto her side as she rests on her pillows. "We have a while."

The morning comes far too swiftly. It's thirty-three degrees outside, with little hope of warming much. Katherine stuffs her weapons into her backpack and smoothes her hair back into two long Dutch braids. She layers a flannel and Carhartt over a henley and her jeans, and shoves her thickly-socked feet into her boots.

Everyone gasps and totters as they sit in the Impala and wait for it to warm up. The heavy metal frame and genuine leather seats provide zero insulation against the elements. Katherine isn't sure if she'd rather have her ass freeze or burn upon contact.

"This our last one before the wedding, huh?" Dean sighs.

"Yes," Katherine mutters. "Can't look ugly for the pictures, Dean, they're forever."

Her tall, athletic build is good for hiking. Long legs to cover distance, limber enough to climb over thick, fallen trunks, muscled enough for the endurance.

"It could really be anything," Katherine muses, gloved hands stuffed into her jacket pockets as she turns around a thick trunk. "A trickster, a...witch, a demon." She shrugs. "Could even be something we've never seen before."

"What haven't we seen?" Dean scoffs.His nose is numb, and he's pissed off they even decided to come here. In the dead of winter. Fuck. What if one of them falls into a river or something? They're dead. Katherine can't die, Charlie will kill me!

"A satyr," she hums, the corners of her mouth tipped down in pondering as her blue eyes scan the trail ahead.

"Be realistic."

"What? If demons and ghosts and freaking shape shifters exist, why not satyrs?"

"That's like saying angels are real."

Katherine frowns, stopping in her tracks to look at the eldest Winchester. "If demons exist, why wouldn't angels?" She doesn't give much time for Dean to answer, instead continuing deeper into the forest.

What she didn't see was the little shimmer in the air just around the bend. Glowing a bit, ice blue. It looked the same on the other side of the portal, except the fact that there is now a cabin in front of her. It's small, very Little House on the Prairie with the logs and stones and the chimney.

And it's all green. Green meadow, bright sun, instant sickening heat.

Katherine looks behind her and sees nothing but green wilderness. Her own boot tracks.

"Shit," she mutters, pulling her gun from her hip. Somewhere nearby, perhaps by the creek, she places someone's cutting wood. She hears the periodical chuck of the axe, splitting logs. There's a man there, his back to her, wearing a long sleeve white shirt with suspenders shrugged off of his shoulders, hanging around his knees. He turns around, tossing the wood to the side, and catches sight of the young woman in the distance.

He's wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, stained with sweat and dirt. Gray trousers soiled with mud and grass, boots in similar condition. What the...Who wears this shit to do yard work? In the heat? Why is it hot—

"Why miss—!"

She raises the pistol, creeping closer. "Who are you?" He holds his hands up, axe still in one.

"Miss—"

"Where am I?!"

He seems confused. She points her pistol harder, exaggerating her stance, and he answers frantically. "Walker Creek!"

"What year is it?" Katherine presses. He can't seem to focus on her. "What year?!"

"1863!"

After a moment, she laughs. "You're kidding, right?" The older man says nothing. He's got a short, white beard and a balding head. He's probably as tall as Katherine.

"Young Lady, where are your clothes?" Katherine glances down to her winter attire and glares back up at him, deciding not to answer. "If you come on inside, I can get you some. It ain't right for a lady to be alone in these woods...dressed like that."

"I can take care of myself," Katherine cautiously says. Any second now, Sam and Dean will show up.

But they don't.