Katherine and Russell were out on the property for most of the morning, taking turns speaking ugly truths and fond memories as the sun burned off the mist. In those hours, in those exhanges of confessions small and large, he felt like he knew her. Gleaned the young woman she was before the ugliness of this summer. It made him happy, to hear her speak so much, so freely, to have her hands on him with no restraint. Though her smiles were few and far between...it felt like a step in the right direction.

But he'd thought about her horrible reaction in their hotel room in Jackson, after the wendigo...to him...how afraid she was...hateful.

He realized it was just a projection of how she felt about herself, which was a heartbreak in itself.  She was beautiful. Her character, her merits, her mind...the way she lit up talking about her old life.

But it still stung. Like an acid on the tongue, dimmed his smile.

Somehow, he'd slipped into her mind, or she let him in like when she slept...and he just knew Charlie. Felt Charlie's soul. Knew his voice and his laugh, the kindness in his eyes, and the love he gave her so freely, without rules or stipulations. No...he wasn't a jealous man at all. Just so very happy to have her. Mornings in rocking chairs and blankets, cups of coffee, staring out over the lake. Peaceful.

Russell said that's how he felt, too...that he was just happy to see her every day. She shut down a little bit at that...but he kept pushing. Reaching for her. Tell me, tell me, he'd thought. Prayed.

So she did. She talked and talked until her jaw ached, her tongue grew heavy. They talked on the walk back, horses practically shoulder to shoulder. Talked as they groomed the animals, locked the stall doors, walked back to the house.

He'd never been more glad to hear someone talk so much. It was a complete character switch from the course of the summer.

Then her hand started to shake, and he knew by the look in her eye that it was withdrawal, and it was a wet blanket over their morning of openness.

Not good, he'd heard in his mind. Her own voice. A feeling...

They worked on that all afternoon. Opening a mental channel between themselves. It was particularly difficult for Louise, coaching them through whatever roadblocks they were facing. No one in the house had bonded a familiar before, and it seemed this was a learning curve for everyone.

"Can a witch impose its own feelings, its own will, on its familiar?" Katherine asked, and Russell's spine turned to ice. His chest tightened. Everything that happened this morning, nullified by trembling fingers and fear of the past repeating. On insisting she wasn't good enough, deserving of him.

"Of course," Louise answered. "Though, that doesn't mean the familiar would...adapt... uh...accept it. It would be taken as a strong suggestion...according to the texts." Her eyes flitted between the two, sensing some kind of conflict. "It would take a very powerful witch to overcome the mind and will of a sentient being. Very powerful, potentially very dark, magic."

"But it's been done before," Katherine said, chin high. Stubborn as a mule.

Louise considered her before leaning toward the middle of the kitchen table. "Did your father ever tell you about the Stynes?"

Cold swept through Russell. Ice cold...dread. A sense of knowing he hadn't felt in his life before. It felt old, otherwordly.

But Katherine didn't look...anything. Indifferent. "Yes. The Battle of the Book for All Time." She rubbed her brow. "What about them?"

"They use very powerful, very dark magic. It's why we've tried to keep it from them for so long. You are not like them. Your magic is in your blood, granted by those who came before you, and the scales of the world itself. It's pure.Their magic came from demons, passed through and corrupted generations."

Katherine and Louise didn't speak on the Stynes again, but Russell was left with more questions than he started the afternoon with. They went back to reaching mental fingers towards each other, pushing minds together, until he heard a light voice in his mind that he knew in his bones was hers. It...sounded like her. Like her soul.

Thisisstupidand it's not working and I'm never gonna find the bastards who did it and—

Hello?

Katherine nearly jumped out of her skin, clutching the table as her eyes flew open, and she seemingly glared at Russell. "Hello?" She asked. "That's what you picked?"

Russell shrugged. "It seemed appropriate."

Louise just grinned and put her hands over her heart, and sunk back into her chair.

Katherine is staring up at the ceiling that night. Silent, rubbing her fingers over her skin. Russell could hear it, though he forced his eyelids to stay shut. For a time.

"What's wrong?" He finally asks.

"Nothing's wrong."

"Bull." He turns onto his belly and angles his head towards her.

She swallows, staring up at the ceiling too.

Part of me is thinking it was the Stynes who were behind it. Charlie.

She turns her head towards him, eyes glinting in the sliver of moonlight over her face. Russell quickly pushes himself up onto his hands.

"You did it," he says. "You spoke a sentence!" It had been the most vexing part of their afternoon. Overcoming the initial shock of somehow tunneling into the other's mind, establishing a foothold...speaking. Telepathically, of course. An effort that is actually quite sweat-inducing.

"ShHHH!" Katherine hisses, pulling him back down to the bed. "It's one in the morning. Shh."

Russell tries hard, hard, to push a thought towards her. Like writing it in the air and pushing it with a mental hand. Like Alice in Wonderland.

We can't do anything until we have a grip on this.

Katherine reared back, blinking in surprise, her grip on him loosening. He leant forward to plant a kiss on her forehead, then dropped to the bed. Strong, calloused hands pulled her towards him.

"Have you—"

"Shh."

Katherine pulls her head back to glare at him. "Don't tell me to shh," she mutters. Russell opens one eye to peer at her, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Or what?" She shifts in his arms, crossing her own. "Have I what?" He quietly asks.

"Felt the, uh...dog."

He shakes his head. "You'd know the moment I did." Katherine heaves a sigh through her nose. "You're so impatient. We accomplished a lot today. You turned on the tap. We'll crank the knob tomorrow."

"How do you have metaphors for everything?" She grumbles.

"How aren't you tired? I'm exhausted."

A moment of silence lapses, and guilt, cold and heavy, pools in his stomach.

Katherine's.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "You can probably hear everything, huh?"

"I didn't mean it like that," Russell mumbles, his thumb lightly running along her back. "And I don't hear everything...It's just like my head is noisy...full. I guess I gotta learn how to tune you out." She scoffs and shoves his shoulder. Russell answers it with a grin.

This is pretty scary though, huh? It's a soft question...soft voice, like a child's. She's rubbing her thumb over her hand, every move a light touch on his abdomen. But her voice...it's safety. A warm blanket, buttery sunlight. He could bask in it all the time, revel in the shiver that crept up his spine.

What is?

Her fingers settle on his ribs, a light, welcome pressure. It sends delicious tingles to his back.

All of it. His thumb moves to run along her cheek, just underneath her eye. The softest of touches. The moonlight washes away her seemingly-perpetual frown...there's a thin veil of vulnerability there now. The imploring in her eyes, the light touch on his skin.

Maybe a little. Her eyes close, lashes brushing over his thumb, and he feels a weight on his mind...leaning into him. Like a purring cat.

Two trains of thought, heading for each other at the speed of light. Crashing into each other, over and over again.

Fear of everything, and fear of nothing. Fear of being other, fear of...Katherine in that hotel room. That panic he felt, so deep in his chest, so overwhelming...the rejection of it.

But fear of this?...No.

It was a resounding feeling. No. Solid, unwavering, and true.

"Do you really mean all of that?" Katherine whispers.

Russell offers her a sheepish half-smile. "You heard that, huh?"

She presses a kiss to his palm, fingers winding around his wrist. "Afraid of nothing and everything all at once." She scoots closer to him, tucking her head to his chest.

There's nothing else to be said. A mutual understanding between the two, holding the hearts and souls of the other, promising to handle with care.

A comforting weight is against his mind again, a presence of warmth. It doesn't feel crowded at all, even with the quiet hum that whispers in on a citrus-scented breeze.

But that euphoric lightness is short-lived. He has horrible dreams that night. People screaming...so many people...and it's so cold, dark...sharp instruments...begging, pleading, wailing. Please stop, please stop! One set of bloody, shaking hands weilding knives of all shapes and sizes.

And despair.

Russell flies up as Katherine screams in agony, fury. It flashed in his mind, red hot anger, a roar of  pain...Charlie limp on the floor.

She's sitting in the plush chair by the window, limbs folded into a cocoon underneath the blanket around her shoulders. Pale pink light washes over her skin, and she's staring blankly out the window. She didn't scream...out loud, at least.

He doesn't have to ask if she's okay.

I saw horrible things, he hears in his mind. Her voice...golden and light, and terribly sad. I'd never seen these things before.

A new kind of nightmare. Absolute hell. He sees pictures in his mind. People suspended from the ceiling with hooks in their skin. Agonized wails, wet flesh, dripping blood.

Seals...something about seals, like wax over an envelope. Words are swirling in his head, voices overlapping, each louder than the last until they're shouting at each other. People at a table. Not people...

Angels and trumpets.

Blood rain.

Slain, but standing.

It keeps rattling in his mind, over and over. Slain, but standing. Slain, but standing.

A man on a white horse, carrying a bow...

"It's all biblical," Katherine murmurs, shaking her head.

He doesn't think Katherine meant to push it to him, but she did. What must've disturbed her so greatly.

She's chained to a metal grate, arms spread and feet close together. Thick, iron nails driven through either of her ankles, her palms. Sweat and blood drip from her skin, pool on the cold floor beneath her.

And Dean is standing in front of her, a snarl twisting at his face, as he slides a knife just underneath her skin...peeling it from her body. There's no remorse in his eyes. Just...fiery hatred. Disgust.

And there's a baby on the table over his shoulder...maybe a year old. Sitting up, watching the entire thing.

"Jesus, Kat," Russell croaks, and pushes up from the bed. She shakes her head as he approaches, but her face is stony, void of any emotion as he wraps his arms around her.

She's quiet at breakfast. There's no hum in Russell's mind that he's so quickly become expectant to hear. Like she's pulled the partition between them closed.

Betrayal, sadness, is a tang on the back of his tongue as she twists her fork on her plate.

She looms at the door with crossed arms, watching as Mitch shrugs his backpack on. Though everyone has said their goodbyes already, she can't help but linger.

He's headed back to Athens. Her throat is tight with the thought. She just got him back...and here he is leaving again.

"I don't know how you fit everything you need in there," Katherine grumbles.

Mitch smiles. "Travel light. It's not that hard." She eyes his riding jacket and his pants, the helmet on the ground. Mitch clicks his tongue, watching her steely blue eyes hit the floor, looking more tearful than they usually did this week. "Guess I'm gonna have to come see you over fall break, huh?"

Katherine nods. "Maybe before then wouldn't be bad."

"I think you'd like Athens," Mitch says with a smile. "Maybe I can convince you to move there, after a while." Katherine rolls her head back to look up at her brother.

All she sees is the little boy she saw for the last time. How jarring it is, to go from spending every moment of every day with someone, having them as your built-in best friend...and they're just gone. And almost fifteen years later, you're together again...and you're angry.

How do you pick up from there?

Mitch's crooked grin is so familiar to her...and so unknown.

"You have all of my phone numbers," Katherine says. "Feel free to abuse them." Mitch's smile is pressed into a thin line, and he leans forward to wrap her into a hug.

"For what it's worth," he mumbles. "I thought about you every day." Her arms tighten around his neck, and stinging blue eyes bore into the stairs.

She used to think about him every day, too...and then the world became too much, and she thought about too little. Her world existed within the frame of a '67 Impala...and then it shattered.

But she can't tell him that.

Katherine pulls away from him and sighs, looking down at his helmet. "Please be careful."

"I always am." He stoops to pick it up, offers her a half-smile, and slugs her lightly in the shoulder before moving for the front door.

"Bye, honey!" Louise calls from the kitchen. Again. She'd hugged him three times already.

"Bye!" Mitch hollers back, and closes the door.

Panic rose in Katherine's chest, clawing at her throat...don't let him go, don't let him go. Some involuntary response to protect, protect, protect.

She had to remind herself that she'd see him again. That he got out of hunting, just like he wanted to, and he was at least powerful enough to ward himself from the big and nasties that seemed to be attracted to her very essence.

Russell is waiting in the study for her, already reading through what he's deemed "familiar manuals," but really don't have any kind of explanation on shifting. Just...personal accounts of familiars. Histories of their witches chronicled in a way that witch couldn't, a perspective they'd never understand. One of limitless servitude, ironclad trust and faith.

Fear of nothing and everything, all at once. The words he couldn't think of himself, right on that page, describing this exact feeling. Utter devotion.

"Mitch gone?" He asks. Katherine nods, and plops down a few chairs from him. "I'm sorry. I feel like there wasn't a lot of time for you two to reconnect."

She grumbles a little, propping her socked feet up onto the chairs between them. "Part of it was my head up my own ass," she admits in a sigh. "But now that we're all in touch...it should be easier." Frosty blue eyes meet his, and he offers her a small smile. "How's the reading going?"

Russell rolls his eyes and rubs his forehead. "I think a lot of these journals are written so formally, I'm spending more of my brainpower trying to figure out what the hell they were trying to say."

Louise enters a time later, as she always did, and sat on the other side, between the two of them.  To offer her advice, or a very specific piece of writing from a witch or familiar.

Russell can tell Katherine is trying to focus on the words Louise is saying...but they just aren't sticking.

"Did you have nightmares when you first came into your power?" She asks. Louise frowns a little as she thinks, then shakes her head. "Can magic make you...abnormally strong?" He pretends not to notice the way Katherine's eyes flicker to his arm...their last morning in Winchester, when she squeezed his arms so hard he thought they might break. The bruises are mostly gone, now, though some spots are still faintly yellow. But she's remembering time after time...things she shouldn't have been able to do, no matter how muscled, how strong in her own right.

"I suppose there are spells that can do that," Louise answers. "Why?"

"Really...weird things are happening to me this summer," Katherine admits. "And a lot of it is attributed to...other things...but I can't help but think they're a little related. The magic and the weird things."

"Weird how?"

"Levitating," Katherine blurts. "And...I used to be really strong, but...now I'm not, so much."

"From not hunting," Louise guesses. Katherine shrugs. "Sometimes magic can have that effect on its user, but...have you tasted something funny, when these episodes happen?" She wonders, brows furrowed. Katherine thinks on it for a moment, then shakes her head. "Some witches, they can almost taste magic. It's written in several of our ancestors' journals. Katherine Donovan, namely. She could feel wards before she came upon them, sense other witches...most are able to do that, though. Uh..." Louise looks at the table as she thinks.

"What about...seeing a demon's true face?"

Louise looks to her in alarm. "I haven't heard of that," she admits. "You can do that?"

"It was just once," Katherine says. "When..." She looses a heavy breath. "I thought I made a deal, several months ago, to save someone from the end of his. He was able to see demons, hellhounds...and I was, too. I thought it was because my deal went through..."

Something claws at her brain. You will know you failed.

"No," Louise says. "No, I've never heard of that." She swallows. "Speaking of hounds." Louise looks to Russell. "Have you been able to trigger the shift?"

Russell sighs. "No," he mutters. "I don't know how. The only time I've ever done it was with that damn wendigo." He limply gestures to Katherine. "I don't feel an invisible tail on my ass, I don't have to scratch my ears, I have no inclination to drink from toilet bowls."

Katherine snorts, picking at her nails. "Positively un-lupine." Russell nods in agreement.

"Shit, I can't even bark," he continues.

"Was the trigger fear, then?" Louise asks.

"Yeah," Russell sighs. "I thought Katherine was gonna die." Silence settles over the table for a moment. Deafening.

"Any other feelings?" Louise prods.

"Nope." He taps the table with fingertips of both hands.

"They've gotta stop forcing it." Katherine nearly falls from her chair from jumping so hard. Her head whips to her left, where Glen sits two chairs away. Leant back, hands tucked into pockets of an olive-colored Carhartt. Blue eyes land on her, almost judging. "Real subtle."

"Kit?" Russell asks. Her face is drained of color, fingertips gripping the chair beside her, and she's staring towards the left corner of the room.

Glen nods his head at Russell, but his eyes don't leave her face. "He's talkin' to you."

Katherine blinks, turning her attention to Russell. Concern furrows his forehead, softens his dark brown eyes.

"It's like tryin' to shit when you're constipated," Glen continues. Katherine looks at him again, lips parted, brows furrowed. "Sorry."

Louise watches her carefully. Katherine's blue eyes moving wildly in a contained area. White knuckles, pale face. "It's an ancestor, isn't it?"

"What?" Russell asks.

"Sometimes...sometimes, our ancestors can speak to us, just like you and me right now."

His eyebrows shoot up. "Louise, that's called a ghost."

"Yes, but it's...different." She shakes her head. "It's the willow tree. When a witch in our family dies, we make a cut deep in its bark to let it heal over with the ashes of that witch."

"That's...freaky." He clears his throat. "And teeters on 'vengeful spirit.' Definitely witchy."

Glen is looking Russell up and down, eyes snaking over what he can see above the table. Silent judgement. It flares something in Katherine, a protective flame. "He needs to go to the tree," Glen says. "Have a spiritual journey of his own, meet the familiars of the family."

"How are you here right now?" Katherine asks. Louise and Russell look to her.

Glen's brow puckers. "Weren't you listening to your aunt?"

"Sorry, I was a little distracted by my...you...just popping in." She scowls. "Do I need to burn something?"

"I'm not a vengeful spirit," Glen sighs, sitting up taller. "I'm here 'cause of the tree. Any inkling of revenge went away a long time ago."

The lid on her jar of questions hisses open. She grits her teeth and looks to Russell. "Glen says you need to go to the tree, too."

Louise sits up tall. "He's here?" Katherine nods. "Glen?"

"Tell her not to get all emotional," he sighs. "She always did that."

"Why can't she see you?" Katherine asks.

"Because she doesn't need me."

It almost bristled Katherine...almost. Her set mouth softened, and she tore her eyes from him.

Glen sighs. "But she did leave my journal on the table, and she should put it back where she found it."

"Glen says you need to put his journal back," Katherine quietly relays.

Louise scoffs. "Fine."

"I'm not playing messenger," Katherine warns Glen. "So if you wanna talk to someone...pick up a pen or somethin', start scribbling." She watches Russell push himself up from his chair. "Where are you going?"

"To the tree," he replies, pulling his ballcap over his head.

Glen barks after him, and Katherine cuts him a glare. But in half a second, it melts away, melts all the way into sadness. He would've been a good dad.

He turns to Katherine, smiling broadly. "Oh, I can't wait to talk to him," he says, jamming his hands further into his pockets.

"How can you talk to him?"

"I'll figure it out."

"He can talk to Russell?" Louise asks.

"Not yet," Katherine says. "He strikes me as the kind of person who usually gets what he wants."

"Hell or high water," Glen chirps.

"It was always his way or the highway," Louise sighs, crossing her arms. Katherine can see questions pulling at her mouth, in the shiftiness of her dark eyes. "How does he look?"

Does he look how he did when he died? Is what she wanted to ask.

Katherine looks over to him. He's running a hand through his hair. "Tell her like an Italian model."

"I'm not telling her that," Katherine grumbles.

"Come on, it'll be funny." He props his boots up in a chair beside him. "Tell her I have bolts in my head, like Frankenstein."

She frowns. "Frankenstein was the doctor."

Glen frowns, too. "He was?"

"Victor Frankenstein," Katherine says, eyebrows raised high.

Glen grumbles. "Well then what was the creature's name?"

"Creature, probably."

He shakes his head. "No, that was The Addams Family."

"That was Thing," Katherine corrects.

Glen stares at her with a stony expression, but she can see the playfulness in his eyes. "You are just like your mother," he pronounces.

Katherine heaves a heavy sigh, then looks to Louise. "He looks fine. Like all the pictures." Relief seems to wash over her. "He's a lot."

Glen pointedly clears his throat. "He can hear you."

Louise nods. "Yes. But I guess that's all brothers."

Glen smiles a little, only somewhat crinkling his eyes. "I miss you too, Lula."

"He says he misses you, too," Katherine relays. "And he called you Lula." Louise smiles broadly, and tears well in her eyes. Before she can get too emotional, Katherine pushes herself up from the table. "I'm gonna go to Russell," she says to both of them. She shoots Glen a look, and he smiles wider, feigning innocence. "You can come if you're going to be helpful. No barking."

"Ah, come on. It would be kind of funny."

"He's barking?" Louise chuckles, wiping at her eyes.

"When Russell left. He's a taunter, huh?" Louise nods, smiling widely.

Glen falls into step with Katherine as she moves through the hall. "Lois isn't around much, for being here all the time," she grumbles.

"I didn't think you'd want to see her," Glen admits.

"I don't think I do. I just...feel bad, kind of." Katherine frowns at him. "Do you think she's avoiding me?"

"She's absolutely avoiding you." Katherine stops, boots squeaking on the hardwood, and she stares up at Glen. "She feels bad." Glen shrugs. "She wasn't able to find you after the fire. She was worried. More guilt. But it'll take her a long time to apologize, so don't hold your breath."

"Apologize for what?"

"Not taking you, too. I've...watched and listened to her beat herself up." Glen lamely shrugs.

Katherine swallows, glancing to the back door on the kitchen, then at Glen again. "Can I only talk to you here? At the house, I mean."

Glen tilts his head as he thinks, gaze moving to the willow tree. "How about you cut out a chunk of bark were I tell you to before you leave? That way we don't have to find out the hard way that we can't."