When Katherine opens her eyes, she's looking down on the cemetery. Light. Floating. Foggy.

She sees her bloody body in Dean's lap, his hand still pressed hard into her wounded chest, knees curling to draw her closer to him. Sam is knelt in the mud by a tombstone. Bobby and Ellen are holding each other...and John Winchester's spirit is hovering behind Sam.

Just out of eyesight, like he always has been.

There's something pulling at her belly button...a gentle pressure, like someone has tied a string to her middle and is tugging. There's one on the other side, too...up. Towards a brilliant white light.

It's just white. Blinding. A break in the storm.

Something iridescent is hovering above her, and she wonders if that breeze she feels is real.

You can come, if you wish.

The voice is inside her mind. Not a voice at all, though...a thought. Difficult to discern, but she'd been hearing it long enough that she knows it isn't in her own tone. She stares at that glistening edge of the rainbow, trying hard to make the figure out. A wing?

But our work here is not done. Your work is not done.

Work...what work?

Katherine looks down at her body. Raindrops are passing right through her, landing on her skin below. Dean's sobs carry over the rolling thunder. A bloodied hand cradles her head. He's whispering...almost to her...but how? Her body is down there...

"I can't," he whispers. She feels pressure on the back of her head, watches his fingers tighten on her hair. "I love you...please, I can't."

She drifts down some. Love?

Oh...but she's so tired.

I'll have to do this for the rest of my life, won't I? Katherine turns her gaze up to the bright light again. Heaven, she supposes.

The winged creature nods once. Katherine looks past it.

There's nobody waiting for her there. Not like everyone says they would be. Hope sparks in her chest, and she remembers what Yellow Eyes said.

They're still alive.

I have to find them.

She almost sees an iridescent hand extend towards the land beneath them. Then go. Do what is just. We'll meet again.

It's like waking up from a deep sleep. The paralysis hasn't worn off yet, and her eyes won't open. But she can hear things through those shell-shocked, numbed ears. She feels that pressure on the back of her head, the grip on her back. She feels something slick on her cheek, and her face feels smushed, arms crushed. Breathe.

Warmth creeps along her body, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Gentle, welcome.

Katherine's eyes open so, so slowly. It's all blurry first, but she realizes Dean has crushed her to his chest, and she's looking over his shoulder. She opened her eyes just in time to see John Winchester vanish, and that light overhead dissipated into the rest of the bleak, rainy sky.

Thunder cracks, splitting her ears.

Sam sees her blink and thinks he may have imagined it. He's seeing things through his own angry tears and the rain.

Katherine breathes again, deep, wishing that warmth would come back into her body. Dean stiffens. Her fingers straighten, her wrist twists, and she touches the collar of his jacket.

"You're gonna ruin the leather if you stay out here," she whispers.

He pulls away from her, red-eyed, red-nosed, slack-jawed. For a moment, his features contort into rage, thinking it was just one big show...but then he remembers how he felt her heart stop, and he couldn't hear her breathe.

His features soften; eyebrows tilt up, lip quivers. Then he crushes her to his chest again and continues to sob.

"She's alive!" He cries. "She's alive!" Katherine's eyes feel heavy again, and she lets herself blink. Her mind is going foggy. She registers the sound of boots squelching in the mud. "No, no, no—give her some space, giver her some space." Dean pushes a soaked tendril of hair back from her face, forcing a smile. "Hey. Hey, you're good. You're good."

"What the hell happened?" She croaks.

Dean's heart drops into the pit of his stomach. "We can talk about it later. Let's get you in the car, huh? Warmed up." Sam hauls Dean up underneath the armpits, and Dean keeps his hold on Katherine. He carries her all the way to the Impala...to be fair, she doesn't know quite how far away it is. Just that it certainly felt like a long time to be in Dean's arms.

Sam rifled through the Snack Pack to find her seomthing to gnaw on. They threw her wet jacket to the back, wrapped a blanket around her, and turned the heat on blast. While she nibbled at a granola bar, the rain subsided, and everyone was talking about their next move.

All Katherine wanted to do was remember.

She remembers feeling Yellow Eyes yanking on her...pulling the curtain around again, dragging her by the ankle into whatever Hell he wanted to create for her that day. Most days, she was left alone.

Maybe that's why it felt so maddening. Not remembering how she got one place, who she spoke to...who he spoke to...what he did...

Dean, though he's supposed to be talking with everyone else, hasn't taken his eyes off of Katherine. She's very still, boots firmly planted on the wet ground, clutching the blanket around her. Steel blue eyes stare at a mud puddle before her. She's entirely too still, and he wonders what she's thinking about.

"The yellow-eyed demon might be dead, but a hell of a lot more got through that gate," Ellen says.

Katherine's steely eyes snap up at that. "Gate," she says. Everyeone turns to look at her. "A devil's gate?" They nod. She swallows.

"How much do you know?" Dean asks.

Katherine chews her lip for a moment. He can see the wheels in her brain turning again. "Bits and pieces." She shrugs one shoulder. "He was good at keeping things from me."

"Know anything about a devil's trap Samuel Colt built?" Sam inquires.

"Samuel..." Her brows furrow. "What, in Wyoming? Is that where we are?"

"Yeah," Ellen answers.

"How many demons do you think got out?" Dean asks no one in particular. It's Sam who answers.

"Hundred, maybe two. It's an army. He's unleashed an army." The last sentence was a bit like confirmation, more to himself than anyone. He wonders how long he can stave off the dread.

"An army without a leader," Katherine points out in a quiet voice. "It's gonna be anarchy."

"Hope to Hell you're ready," Bobby says, glancing between the three young hunters.

Katherine surprises them all by laughing once, short and cold. "Are you kiddin'? Welcome to my territory." Dean grins at her. Katherine laughs again.

"Glad to know you're so optimistic," he says, leaning against the tree nearest to him. He can't help the unrest that still churns there, the burn in his throat from his screaming.

"Oh, come on," she scoffs, leaning onto her knees. "It's gonna be a shit show, but at least I know what I'm doing." Then she shrugs. "Who knows? Maybe I'll see some old friends." Dean shakes his head with a chuckle. "Hell yes!"

"Looks like we've got some work to do."

After a moment, Katherine nods, lips pressed together. "Can we start tomorrow?"

She's back. She is.

And man, does that feel good.

Sam decides to hold off on his questioning. Katherine is here, and as far as anby of them know, her heart could give out any second again. So he'll take it easy for a minute.

He decides to laugh it up a little. Dance in the rain, weather the storm, all that bull shit.

"So did you actually die, or were you just pulling our leg?"

"I shit you not, Sam Winchester," Katherine says. Her eyes go distant. "It was like...well, I don't know. Like waking up from sleep, I guess. I don't...I don't know what happened...after I shook Yellow Eyes off, I..." She touches her chest. "I don't remember anything. I just know I couldn't fight that bastard any more." Dean glances over at her as she drops her head. Her lower lip is quivering, brow wrinkled.

"Kat?" He quietly murmurs.

"He, um...he said my family is still alive."

Sam sits forward, frowning. It's not so much a saddened frown, but concerned. "Your family," he repeats.

Katherine nods. "Olivia, Dylan..." She takes a deep breath, filling her chest. There isn't any pain with it. Perhaps that's the most miraculous thing of all. There's no aftershocks. No pain, gunshot wound. It's just blood dried onto her skin. Though, she does look like she went ten rounds with a block of cement. "He didn't say anything about my mom or dad, but he said they were alive. He wouldn't tell me where they were until he was finished with me...after that gate was open, I guess." She rubs her hand on the thigh of her jeans. "There's something else." Dean halts his breathing, placing a hand over his belly. he might throw up.

"I, um...I have another brother, Mitch. He's a year younger than I am. And when I was eight, Dad took me and Mitch for a hunt down in Naples. It's on the Floridian west coast. We were supposed to be watching. Learning. I was. I didn't take my eyes off it. Couldn't, y'know? And Mitch hated it. Hated everything about it. When we got back home, he turned up missing the next morning, left a note on his bed that said he wasn't taken, that he left on his own. He didn't want to be part of it." Katherine shakes her head. "At seven years old, he knew he didn't want that. I haven't seen him since, but Yellow Eyes told me he's alive."

"We can do a tracking spell," Sam suggests.

Katherine shakes her head. "They're Donovans. They're up to their eyeballs in warding. If Dad taught us anything, it's how to hide." She rests back in her seat with hard eyes. "I don't know about Olivia and Dylan, though...they were so little..."

They check into a three-star not far from the South Dakota border. Bobby and Ellen get their own rooms, and the younger hunters grab the connecting just down the hall.

The master bedroom is nice, spacious. It has one bed, hidden away behind the bathroom, beside the living room. The connecting room has two beds and it's own bathroom. The upholstery is cream; Katherine is careful to not get dirt or blood on the duvet. She drops her bag to the ground, a bit out of breath—who knew dying took so much out of a girl?

She waits for the shower to get nice and hot before she steps onto the flat stone surface. She uses the hotel body wash to scrub her dried blood away from her skin in coconut-scented pink-tinged bubbles.

And then the events of the past however many days or weeks hit her like a jet engine, all at once, and she begins to cry. Flashbacks of when he would pull back the curtain, let her get a look at life on the outside...the feeling of dread when she knew he was coming to talk to her.

She's seen things even she couldn't explain. Done horrible things. She could've sworn Sam died in Cold Oak.

Katherine has her suspicions. Her wonders, anyway.

Dean reaches into the shower and moves to turn the water off, but Katherine hasn't done a very good job of cleaning herself. In the middle of a breakdown, it's difficult to pay attention to the big picture. You put your attention to the small details, like where the paintbrush didn't quite get in this crevice, or this stone is just a bit crooked. Dean picks up the red-flecked washcloth, wrings it out, and starts on her left shoulder.

"I'm perfectly capable of cleaning myself," she quietly murmurs.

"I know," Dean hums. His hand slips up her tanned arm and he scrubs with the washcloth. Katherine watches the sleeves of his gray 3/4 shirt turn dark, almost black, with water. Part of her wants to object, to remind them both of Charlie. Dean has no business seing her like this.

Charlie. It's like a bolt of white-hot lightning through her. But...

Her eyes slowly move up the woven fabric of it, over his arm and shoulder, up to his neck and taut jaw, to the wet brown hair on his head. Hazel-flecked green eyes dart to her own, back to her skin. "You were a while. Came in here to check on you."

"See if Katherine 2.0 needed to stay in Beta?" A soft smile tugs at Dean's lips. But he doesn't answer. "You know...dying's not all that it's cracked up to be. Not what the movies make it out to be."

"You know," Dean quietly hums. "I was thinking the same thing."

"You're getting all wet," Katherine whispers.

"S'all right."

Katherine lets out a heavy sigh and reaches up to turn the water off. She's been scrubbed clean of dead skin, blood and mud. Dean pulls her towel around her shoulders, fingertips kneading the terry cloth into her wet scalp.

"How long was I gone?" She quietly asks, turning her chin to focus her eyes.

Dean's brow furrows a bit. "A week." After a moment, Katherine nods. "You remember anything?"

"From that night?" He nods, and she shrugs before continuing in a low, hollow voice. "Just...walking down to the gym. The door shut behind me, all of the light went, and when I turned around, I saw these two yellow eyes staring at me. Next thing I know, I'm sitting across a table with...me...with the demon, I guess. He always knew how to piss me off." She pulls herself to her feet, wrapping her towel around her like a blanket. Dean sighs, resting his hands on her shoulders. The weight of his gaze is too much. She wants to cry. Throw herself onto the floor and cry, just like a toddler would.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Katherine whispers, shifting her weight a bit. Dean shakes his head.

"I just like looking at you," he says. "C'mon. Let's get you some clothes."