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I've Been Waiting for This Part

She’s My Rider - Chapter II

(I know this is a switch, but hell it’s been a year and writers find new ways at going about things so … this is all in third person. Too many personas to balance and I thought Gabriel’s part came out best in the original anyway. Sorry this took so long. I hope it was worth the wait.)

Word Count: 4401

Read Chapter I and Chapter III

THEN

To say the last year had been a pivotal one in the book of Winchester would be an understatement, but also somewhat disrespectful to everything that had come before it.

When Gabriel woke Baby up, Dean had just put an end to Death and the Darkness had been unleashed on the world. Looking back now, the brothers are almost certain, Gabriel didn’t expect any of them to survive another year. They’d spent countless hours on back highways discussing that night … the angel’s shifty movements and cryptic messages about keys and kingdoms.

It was Sam that suggested it first. “I think he thought we were all gonna die.”

“And what?” Dean glanced across the cab at him. “She was our parting gift?”

“He did always have a soft spot for you two,” Castiel said. When Dean cut his eyes at him the angel glanced back out the window. “Or so it seemed.”

“Or she was our last ditch effort,” Sam shrugged. “He said she had power.”

Dean’s eyes had flickered to Baby in the rear view mirror, oblivious to their conversation. He’d bought her an iPod and a set of headphones and the girl could disappear for hours into her music. She was staring out her own window, hair half-pulled back in a clip, looking perfectly normal.

And that was just the problem.

For all intents and purposes, aside from a head full of years and memories she looked too young for and a bloodhound’s nose for danger, Baby was a normal, human woman. If she got hit, she fell down. If she got cut, she bled. She’d never thrown any furniture across the room with her mind or scared a demon out of its stolen skin. Sometimes she knew things, like knowledge had simply been instilled in her upon creation, but it wasn’t anything to write home about.

The year rolled on. The Darkness became Amara who became God’s sister who turned out to be Chuck. Dean still couldn’t make himself call him God. It was both too big for the strange little man and too intimate at the same time.

Chuck had taken one look at Baby and said, “Oh! You’re here,” with a quirky grin. “I’ve been waiting for this part.”

Then the siblings of creation and destruction had disappeared leaving behind another Winchester in their wake and new questions to ask and, more importantly, a new normal to find.

NOW

Chicago, Illinois

It was after hours at the Field Museum and Bill Cunningham was making his first rounds of the night. He always swept the building of trash first before he went back the other direction with the cart loaded full of cleaning supplies to give the place a thorough scrub.

The janitor didn’t notice as he rolled his cart down the hallway, long oblivious to the obnoxious squeak of one of the wheels, that something moved inside one of the exhibits. He didn’t notice the strange smell that wafted in the air, a bi-product of too many chemicals stinging at his nose for years while he cleaned.

It was only when he walked past the exhibit of two lions prowling dangerously over a rock that he thought he saw something twitch. One of their tails, maybe. Bill turned and stared at the lions, but their dead coats lay dusty and still. He chuckled at his own foolishness and even waved the big cats away as he turned back to his cart.

Then a low, menacing growl stalled him in his tracks. The sound rolled over itself like a giant rattle in a deep, tumbling box. Bill Cunningham turned back to find one of the lions had stepped forward … right up to the fucking glass.

The lion met the janitor’s eyes and when he looked back, he saw a depth of evil that turned his blood to ice water in his veins. A fear like he’d never known swallowed him almost completely, numbing every nerve in his body so that only his eyes were wide in stark, ghastly terror. The lion’s lips drew back and it let loose an unearthly roar just before his brother leapt over his back and straight through the glass, cutting short Bill Cunningham’s screams with his massive jaws.

Blood splattered across the sign that hung to the right of the exhibit, engraved with four words in brass: The Tsavo Man-Eaters

Sam was frowning at the story of the janitor’s mysterious death in Chicago when he saw Baby appear in the kitchen doorway over the top of the laptop screen. She was wearing one of his t-shirts, which swallowed her like a baggy dress and the neck was so wide it hung off her shoulder. She’d stolen several of them to sleep in. The girl yawned and shuffled in her slippers towards the coffee pot.

Sam chuckled, wondering if she’d even noticed he was there. “Morning, B.”

“Morning Sammy,” she said groggily.

Dean was the only one who called her Baby anymore. Sam had been right, of course. A girl that looked like her in a public place with three grown men calling her “Baby” came off a little weird. The looks irritated Dean and made him want to punch people. Sam found them embarrassing. Cas was oblivious to the whole thing. So, they’d taken to calling her “B.”

Sam clicked to the next article, looking for something a little more concrete. Dean plodded into the kitchen and went straight for the coffee pot, too. He didn’t think twice anymore when Dean kissed the side of B’s head and they mumbled mornings to each other while they made their coffee. It was just understood that the bond Dean and Baby had was something sacred.

If Sam had been a betting man, he’d have been certain his brother would have tried to get her into bed by now. He was much more affectionate towards her than he’d ever seen Dean be towards anyone, but there was nothing selfish about the way he touched her either. He wasn’t looking for anything. He’d never tried to kiss her or even cop a feel that Sam had noticed, though he did stare at her sometimes. But then again, it wasn’t that normal covetous stare he turned on other women.

In the end, Sam had decided it was very simple. They loved each other. There was nothing complicated about it. He loved her, too. Even Castiel had come to see her as one of their own. Their mother was still a little weirded out by her, but Mary hadn’t been around much so it hadn’t been much of an issue.

When Dean and B made it to the table, Sam turned his laptop around. “Think I’ve got a case.”

Dean grunted.

She reached out to drag the laptop closer so she could read.

“You remember that movie, Ghost in the Darkness? About the lions that killed all those men?”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Dean motioned with his coffee cup. “Kirk Douglas played Remington.” He looked at Baby and did his best Douglas impression. “Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit.”

She smirked.

Sam chuckled and kept going, “Right, well, it was actually based on a true story. Two lions really did kill all these people when the British government was trying to build a bridge through Tsavo. They eventually killed the lions and had them stuffed and they’ve been on display at-”

“The Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois,” B read from the laptop, finishing his sentence.

Dean was actually reading now. “Wow. They found the guy torn to pieces.”

“Hinky,” she muttered.

Sam lifted a finger. “Gets hinkier. The lions? The actual lions from the display?” He lifted his chin a bit for effect. “No one can find them.”

He watched Dean and Baby exchange a look and then his brother shrugged. “Okay. So let’s go lion hunting.”

—–

One twelve hour drive and three hours of sleep later, the 65 Mustang they’d taken to driving since Baby showed up pulled into the parking lot of the museum. Sam was continually surprised by the fact that Dean never lamented the absence of the Impala. The only time he ever brought the car up was to make note of how much better she handled than whatever else he was behind the wheel of.

They met a short, gray-haired man at the door, still taped off with caution tape, who introduced himself as Detective Schrader.

“I’m Agent Kristofferson,” Dean flashed his fake badge and motioned at Sam and Baby. “This is Nelson, and Joplin.”

Then, with a bright grin, “We hear you have a stray cat problem.”

The crime scene had been cleaned, and obvious construction had already been made to the metal frame in preparation of a new plate of glass for the display. The very empty display.

“So-” Sam frowned. “Let me get this straight. He was lying here, right?” He motioned at the floor and quirked his head down the corridor at the display case where Dean was bent down over one of the fake rocks and B was watching with her hands on her hips.

“What was left of him,” Detective Schrader said.

“Hm.” Sam muttered.

“What?” Schrader asked.

“Just … not really lion behavior,” Sam said. “They kill and they eat. They don’t play with their food.”

“You telling me you think this was actually done by lions?” Detective Schrader cast him a pitiful look, like he almost felt sorry for him.

Sam looked up curiously. “You don’t? The autopsy seemed pretty conclusive.”

“So did my last prostate exam,” Shrader huffed. “Still got cancer. Look, are we done here? I don’t really see what you expect to find around here, anyway. Like I said, you can read everything we found in the report.”

“Yeah,” Sam forced an irritated smile and slipped his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t fond of law enforcement that treated a person’s death like another day that ended in Y. “We’re done.”

Dean and Baby wandered over while Detective Schrader let himself out. Dean rubbed his fingers together, gave them a sniff and jumped his brows at Sam. “Sulfur.”

Sam looked confused. “Really? Demons?”

“That surprises you?” Baby asked.

“No. I mean …” Sam looked past them at the empty display. “Kind of. I was betting money on some kind of Hoodoo thing.”

“Why?” Dean asked, thumbing over his shoulder. “Cause Africa?” His brows lowered in sarcastic accusation. “That’s racist, Sam.”

Sam’s face dropped, annoyed. “No. Because it tends to be used to bring things back to life, Dean.”

“Uh huh.” Dean smirked. “Racial profiling then.”

“Whatever.” Sam rolled his eyes up then back to B. “Any of those spidey senses tingling?”

Baby frowned, her heels clicking against the floor as she circled around to the other side of Sam, staring at the spot where Bill Cunningham’s body had been found. “Not really,” she said. “But I think you’re right. This isn’t a normal demon thing.”

“Well.” Crowley’s voice lifted up behind them from out of nowhere. “You’re not wrong.”

Sam and Dean pivoted on their respective heels in an instant, the youngest Winchester tugging Baby behind him.

“Relax,” Crowley rolled his eyes. “I haven’t tried to kill you for months now.”

The brothers exchanged a look. Did he know about Baby? Had he seen her?

“Then what do you want?” Dean quipped.

The lapels of Crowley’s peacoat flashed outwards with a shrug of his hands from inside his pockets. “To be of humble service.”

“Right,” Dean said. “Cause you’re always so helpful.”

“Helped with Lucifer, didn’t I?”

“Yeah?” Dean chuffed. “Where were you when they tossed us in a hole and threw away the key?”

“Like I told Wings, I didn’t know where you were. Still working on getting a demon into the oval office,” Crowley sneered. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Fine,” Sam said. “Then why are you here?”

“To let you know you’re in way over your heads on this one,” Crowley said. “The Cwn Annwn? They’re Lucifer’s personal lapdogs.”

Dean arched an impatient brow. “The coonan-what?”

“Kun,” Crowley emphasized the phonetics. “An-wynn. It’s Welsh.”

“Okay fine, whatever,” Dean said. “Explain the coon hounds.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know why I even bother.”

Dean growled Crowley’s name, signalling his loss of patience.

The demon king sighed like a long suffering, and very bored girlfriend. “Fine. The Cwn Annwn aren’t lions. They’re the original hounds of hell. The first breeding pair. The two that came for you?” Crowley quirked his brow at Dean. “Those were puppies in comparison.”

Real fear flashed across the eldest Winchester’s face in a single split second, but Crowley caught it and smiled. “These two were made specifically for hunters.”

When the boys exchanged another look that managed to hold an entire conversation, Crowley spotted a slender hand slip out from behind Moose’s hulking figure and catch the side of Dean’s jacket. He watched Dean’s head snap to the side like he’d suddenly remembered she was hiding there and shake his head at whoever was back there. He watched him grab the delicate hand curled around the army-green corduroy and push it back down in an attempt to conceal it.

It didn’t work.

“Well well,” Crowley mused, rounding out a step to try to get a look behind Moose. “Who’s this?”

Sam flexed his jaw at Crowley and side-stepped to obstruct his view. It only served to deepen the demon’s curiosity. Sam shut his eyes against the inward scolding he gave himself for his mistake and cursed under his breath.

It was futile anyway.

They couldn’t hide her from him forever.

Baby peeked out around Sam’s arm from between the two boys and Crowley’s eyes went wide … could he really be seeing what he thought he was seeing? The beautiful brunette stepped into full view, Sam stepping aside with a relenting sigh.

The Winchesters watched Crowley like hawks while his face went slack and his jaw dropped open. “Oh … my,” he shook his head in, what looked to Dean, like a certain flavor of awe. “I haven’t seen you in a very long time.”

“Wait-” Dean started, and Sam joined him when he said, “What?”

“You know her?”

Baby was staring at Crowley the way a little girl might stare at a massive gorilla at the zoo … with that look when it dawns on a kid that what they’re seeing is just a little too scary and yet, a little too much like them to be okay with it.

Crowley’s voice was almost reverent. “Of course I know her,” his eyes ticked up to meet Dean’s. “Do you?”

Dean’s eyes narrowed at Crowley like he was assessing which punch to throw to break the man’s nose. Then, after a few seconds, his entire body abruptly kicked into gear. “Alright, Sammy, let’s go.”

The boys split to move past him, Dean yanking Baby tightly into his side, trying to unsee the wonder in Crowley’s face when he watched her go by. He could practically feel the demon thinking about how he could use her.

“… Don’t you want to know about the lions?”

Dean dropped Baby’s hand in time to pivot back and charge like he meant to beat the ever loving shit out of the King of Hell, but somehow managed to reign himself in before he got within swinging distance. “Crowley, you have thirty seconds!”

The demon managed to pull his eyes away from Baby, a little too slowly for Dean’s liking and smirked. “Matilda of the Night,” he said. “She controls them. It’s her punishment.”

Worry clouded Sam’s features. “… Punishment for what?”

“Well,” Crowley shrugged. “The woman once said if there was no hunting in heaven she’d rather not go. That might have had something to do with it.”

“So she’s a hunter,” Sam said.

“One of the oldest,” Crowley said. “She was a viking once upon a time, and very nearly brought down Lucifer himself. He created the hellhounds to return the favor and when he finally caught her, he granted her wish. She would hunt with her hounds for all eternity … hunt people like you.”

The more he spoke, the colder the room seemed to get. It was Sam’s turn to reach for Baby and pull her back, swallowing a tight dread that had formed in the back of his throat. He wasn’t necessarily worried about himself or his brother, but she was still learning how to fight.

“They say she cries out in misery when she has to kill them,” Crowley added with a hint of whimsy. The demon king cast one last, lingering look at Baby. “I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you again, sweetheart.”

Then his form blinked out in a split-second you could never see with human eyes and he was gone.

Sam, Dean and Baby trotted quickly down the stairs of the museum and made for their car.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Sam looked across the hood at his brother who was opening the back door for B.

“About Matilda?” He slammed the back door and jerked open his. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he turned the engine to life. “I think I actually read about her in dad’s journal a while back. He called her the traitor.”

“From the sound of things, it wasn’t her fault what she turned into,” Baby said, slouching down in the back seat.

Dean caught her eyes in the rearview before he turned back onto the feeder road. “Maybe not. Doesn’t matter. If those things are Lucifer’s pups and she’s got the leash …”

“Yeah, but how do we find her?” Sam asked.

“Far as Luci’s concerned we’re the big bads,” Dean shifted gears a little harder than he needed to. “I’m betting she finds us.”

They didn’t stay in Chicago. “It was too damn crowded,” Dean said. And anyway, it was best to keep to back roads and small towns, especially now that half the government had it in for the boys. Instead, they shot down I-57 to a town called Champaign and stopped at a rundown Super 8 for 41 bucks a night.

An hour later, Sam was propped up on one of the beds with his legs stretched out and his laptop in his lap while Dean sparred with Baby in the space that the small kitchenette jutted out to provide. He glanced up just in time to see B duck a swing but miss Dean’s opposite fist when it came in at her ribs. His older brother had an uncanny ability to bring a punch mostly to a stop before it hit her too hard.

“Keep your fists up,” Sam offered. “Block him with your forearm.”

The girl lifted her fists, concentrating, determined to get better. Dean darted down to pat the back of her leg, “Weight on the ball of your foot,” before he came back up to throw the same combination without warning.

This time, Baby blocked the sucker punch.

“There ya go,” Dean nodded, bobbing out of the way of her next swing before smacking her upside the head. Not hard, but it got her attention. “Fists up.”

“Hey,” Sam said, sitting up. “Hey, I think I got something.”

“What?” Dean said, crossing the room to look over his brother’s shoulder.

“They moved quick,” Sam said. “An entire campsite just got wiped out next state over. I bet it’s on the news.”

Baby snatched the remote up off the end of the bed and flipped through the channels until she found a 24-hour news channel. They caught the tail end of a story about the President getting out of the hospital and exchanged nervous looks at the reminder.

Oh yeah. There was still that to deal with.

A few seconds later, the screen jumped to flashing lights in the darkness and a view of police walking through picnic tables in the background. One bent down and looked inside a body bag.

“Park Rangers have verified this was some kind of animal attack, but there’s still no official word on what kind of animal it may have been. What we do know now is there are multiple dead and, as of yet, there are no survivors. From Ft. Wayne, Indiana, I’m Sarah Smith.”

“Shit,” Dean turned from the TV and pushed a hand back through his hair.

“We need help,” Baby said. “Where’s Cas?”

“With mom on a werewolf hunt in Mississippi,” Dean huffed.

“We could use them both,” Sam said.

“No,” Dean said. “She needs to work some stuff out. Let her do it.”

Most people, even Sam, had assumed Dean took after John. He didn’t. He was much more like Mary on an emotional level.

“You realize that leaves Rowena and Crowley,” Sam said.

“Uh uh,” Dean shook his head sharply. “Nope. He’s not getting within a ten miles of Baby again.”

“Dean-”

Dean motioned at Baby, looking half pissed and half horrified. “He was looking at her like she was food. No, Sam!”

“Does Baby get a vote?”

The boys both looked at her, Sam with an open mind, Dean immediately irritated.

“Yes,” Sam said, at the same time Dean barked, “No!”

She lifted her hands to her hips and looked pointedly at Dean. “Call Rowena.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Not Crowley …”

“For now,” she said. The man had entirely creeped her out but she wasn’t about to tell either one of them that. “If she thinks we need him, then we need him.”

Dean stared at her for a beat, forced himself to take a deep breath, and admitted defeat. “Okay,” he rolled his eyes, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “But I’m not calling Crowley. You can bat your lashes at me all you want. No.”

“We need Fergus,” Rowena said, leaning back in her bar stool and casting a disgusted look over at a table full of rednecks laughing about their exploits. “Honestly, this was the best place you could find to rendezvous?”

“Yeah. Cause, whiskey,” Dean said, immediately downing the rest of his glass.

“Why,” Sam interrupted, “do we need Crowley?”

“Because,” Rowena’s brows lifted at him as if it were simple. “He’s the King of Hell. He’s the only one aside from Lucifer who can see to it that the hounds are locked back in their kennels. I can’t imagine how Lucifer woke them up in the first place, truth be told, given his state. It’s quite difficult to conjure that level of magic without a proper vessel.”

Dean pointed a finger at Baby the second her mouth opened. “No.”

“Dean, you’re being ridiculous,” she said.

“She’s right,” Sam shook his head at his brother. “We’ve gotta send these things back to hell and if there’s only one way to do it …”

Rowena sat back watching in utter amusement, with a smile that said she knew something they didn’t. Neither of them noticed. But Baby did.

“Fine,” Dean shrugged and sat back, locking his eyes on B’s. “Then you’re not coming.”

Her amber eyes flashed at him. Sam didn’t think he’d ever seen her look at Dean like that … let alone yell at him. “Like hell I’m not!”

“The stitches just came out of that shot to your shoulder last week!” He snapped back at her.

“Ya know what, Dean?” The legs of her chair scraped against the wooden floor, scooting away when she lept to her feet. “Maybe it’s time you remember that I’m the one who’s protected you for the last 39 years. Not the other way around.”

Baby turned on her heel and headed for the door, finally putting Dean on his feet. “I’m 38!”

The girl whipped back with clinched fists at her sides, “Fine! 38 years and nine months!”

The door slammed behind her, leaving several patrons staring at the Winchesters’ table curiously and looking at Dean sympathetically because they assumed he’d just had a fight with his girlfriend. Sam was staring at his big brother wondering if he had.

“Oh, I like her.” Rowena’s Scottish brogue crooned, eyes floating up at Dean. “She certainly knows how to put you in your place, doesn’t she.”

Sam shook his head, completely disappointed, and pushed to his feet. “That was great, Dean. Real classy.”

The guilt of yelling at Baby finally seemed to make its way through Dean’s features after Sam turned away, watching his brother head for the door to go calm her down. It occurred to him that if he were the one headed out there, he’d have no idea how to calm her down because he’d never seen her that angry. And that was his fault.

“Shit,” Dean muttered and dropped his ass back into his chair, reaching for Sam’s leftover whiskey.

Rowena was watching him with her chin propped atop her fingers. “Do you even know what the poor lass is?”

Dean shot a look at Rowena, warning her he wasn’t in the mood for games.

The woman simply stared at him. Like he was an idiot. “She’s the burning bush, Dean. The dove with the olive branch. She’s the very breath of God, himself.”

The glass was halfway to his lips but it stopped on route. “She’s … what does that even mean?” In the back of his mind he was scolding himself for humoring her, but .. she sounded like she knew what she was talking about.

“It means, dearie, that she’s as powerful as they come,” Rowena smiled that sweet, yet twisted little smile she had, put her palm against the table and pushed to her feet. “If she wants to be. That really all depends on you.”

Dean’s brows twitched trying to put that together and when he couldn’t, he looked back up at her. “So … what am I supposed to do?”

“That’s between you and her.” Rowena tipped her eyes up as if an answer had suddenly come to her from the ether before dropping them back to Dean with a wave of her hand. “Try sex. It worked for the pagans.”

Dean’s eyes widened and his face dropped blank, staring at her while his brain tried to catch up. It made Rowena toss her head back with her laugh. “Dean Winchester, proper scared … Now that was worth stepping out for.” The overly sensual witch turned and sauntered out the door, leaving Dean thinking about things he shouldn’t be.

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