[h3] Dean [/h3]

Dean smiled a bit brighter when Lexi mused at the idea of killing a demon. He wanted to see it. He wanted her to get that high, of being able to stop what they had thought their entire lives were unstoppable. But he still had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, letting her hunt with them at all. He knew that part of it was trauma from losing Mika…twice. He had lost Anna…twice. He had watched everyone he had ever loved die in some horrific way, and the fear of dragging new people that he was attached to into his business scared the hell out of him, hunter or not. 

As she stepped away from him, Dean grabbed a few more of the angel blades from their rack and pulled a duffel bag, tossing it on the counter. He shoved the angel blades inside, and then thought about something that Cason had said. The demon could have never given Anya her voice, even if it wanted to. She was basically born without it. It wasn’t some sort of deal that caused it, as far as they knew, which meant that the demons, outside of the crossroads, couldn’t interfere. Only angels and crossroads demons had that kind of juice. 

Her voice brought him out of his thoughts and he glanced up, pointing to the shelf that held literally hundreds of gallons of holy water, a dispenser on the bottle at the top. That was Sam’s idea, “Yeah. We kinda keep it on tap. I don’t know why we never thought about it before we had the bunker, but it comes in handy. We can grab some bottles and flasks and at least make sure everyone has plenty with them.”

With a smile, Dean pointed toward the older clay bottles above the water, “And that is Holy Oil. Good for trapping angels. Like I said, we’ve learned a lot…gathered a lot. It’s why we win.”, he said with pride, opening a drawer in front of him. He pulled a few empty metal flasks and then dipped back in for some salt canisters, placing them into the duffel. Cason’s words were still bugging him, and he decided to bring them up, since it was only himself and Lexi in the room.

“Cason mentioned something about demons not having the juice to give Anya her voice back. We don’t think that she believes it’s going to happen when we get there, do we? I mean, from the way she talked, she’s never had a voice. It’s not something she made a deal with…” Dean explained his concerns, hoping that they weren’t going to bring Anya out of this broken and disappointed.

[h3] Anna [/h3]

Anna almost scoffed at Sam’s apology, expecting it to remain so simple, two words that she had wanted to hear since the day he left. But now? The words felt hollow. They felt useless. There was just too much hurt for her to accept an apology from him, but she needed it. Once again, her emotions were tearing her mind apart, and she growled softly, covering her eyes with both hands as she stood in front of him, just trying to process. But as he continued, Anna thought back to how he looked while he was undergoing the trials. A tug of sympathy hit her chest, rumbling up in a bit of anger, as if he was attacking her for being upset…playing on her emotions.

But he was right. During the trials, he was so sick he was seeing things, at times. She was there…the whole time, until he left her. She could still see, in slow motion, his body collapse in front of her when his fever got to the point that it took him out. If Dean hadn’t showed up and helped her drag him into that bathtub of ice, he would have died…visions or no visions.

She nodded absentmindedly, and dropped her hands from her face, staring off toward the foot of the bed with a whispered, “I know…”

As Sam stood from the bed, Anna took a step back and she held out her hand, as if she was fighting him off from touching her. But like always, when he said the words ‘look at me’, she turned her sad blue eyes up to his and she let out a soft sob. She could still see parts of his smile behind his eyes, even though they were full of tears. She could still hear him talking, back when his voice was softer and less broken. The memories just made it harder to look at him, as he began to ramble through all of the ways she could hurt him back, get some sort of revenge.

She shook her head softly. She didn’t want any of those things. She didn’t want any more hurt. She wanted to come home. But was this home, anymore? It felt like home. It smelled like home. Dean’s cheap beer reminded her…of home. She glanced down from his eyes as he picked up her hand and let out a small huff of sad amusement at how perfectly their fingers seemed to intertwine, even after all the time apart. Their heartbeats synced immediately, and Anna shook her head again.

“I don’t know that there’s anything that can make it better.” She whimpered honestly, stepping closer to Sam as she looked up into his eyes. She took a deep breath, and brought her other hand up to place it against his chest, just feeling his identical heartbeat thumping beneath her fingers, “M-maybe one day we can. I can come back, and things can just…work themselves out. A different world…”

After a moment of just letting the proposition linger, Anna stood on her tiptoes and she pressed a feather light kiss against Sam’s lips, falling into the old habits, like clockwork. In a different world, this would be as natural as breathing. For the moment? Falling back into each other’s arms would have to be closure enough…

[h3] Anya [/h3]

Anya was rather happy with the way her conversation with Natalia was going. Nat seemed an open book with those that she trusted, and she seemed to be gaining a bit of Nat’s trust with every bit of conversation. When Nat moved the conversation forward, Anya shrugged at the correction of her assumptions, and she took the knife from Nat, holding it tight in her hand. She simply held it, pointing it at nothing for a moment.

Nat’s explanation on how to hold the knife properly caused Anya to raise her eyebrows, and she adjusted her hand around the knife, mimicking what Nat was teaching. She already felt more confident, just holding a knife properly in a way that would allow her to stab any demon or human that came at her. She almost wished she had learned this earlier, well before meeting the Winchesters.

As Nat offered for Anya to come at her, Anya shook her head at first. She didn’t want to risk hurting Nat, but at the same time, she had to assume that Nat was at least just as fast as her brothers. From what she had gathered from Dean, he was very confident around knives…and guns…and all of it. So, she squared her shoulders with a small nod, changing her mind.

She turned toward Nat, and glanced over Nat’s chest and torso, thinking about her first move. She decided to aim for the center of her chest and she lunged forward, stopping the knife just before it could poke Nat’s shirt or make any contact with her skin. Surely, the path to the heart was right through the center of the chest.