Brown Mountain Lights

Hackers, Makeouts, and Men Who Finally Get the Message

Three days later, the bruises on my ass had healed enough that I could sit down without wincing. Dean had washed the window marker off the Impala, and I found my mixtape sitting on my night table one morning when I woke up. Castiel was still MIA, but the brothers shrugged and brushed it off as "angel crap, he'll be back if we need him." Dean had bought me three pints of Chocolate Therapy as a silent apology, despite the brothers' policy on ice cream purchases, but I was still avoiding him. I wasn't angry, per se, but I was definitely upset. I was also having a really hard time looking at him without flashing back to being held over his knees and incredibly turned on.

Sam had to know something was wrong, since I was producing baked goods at a rate that would shame a professional pastry chef, but he didn't say anything to me about it since I still seemed to be feeling the effects of what Cas had done. I giggled, I made jokes, I researched much faster, I slept a lot less, I was more physically affectionate (something Sam was slowly adjusting to), but I would literally hide in another room when Dean passed by.

I was in the library one day about a week after the Incident, as I was calling it, when I heard Sam start yelling for Dean from the War Table. This wasn't unusual, but what caught my attention was the frantic tone. Footsteps clattered down the stairs and I heard Sam say, "Dude, look at this."

Then Dean: "Son of a bitch. Do you think it's really her?"

Sam: "Only one way to find out."

He rushed into the library, planted both hands on the table, and said, "I need everything you can find me on resurrection. Don't bother with angels, demons, or necromancy, we know that stuff."

I blinked at him and said, "That's kind of broad, Sam."

"Yeah, I know," he said, "but can you pull something together in two hours?"

My mind began to race, pulling up references and connections as I absently agreed and turned to the stacks. There were a couple of Native American myths, some Celtic legends, and a few Hindu things that I could remember immediately. If I cross-referenced those with some of the spellbooks...

Exactly two hours later, Sam set his duffel down at the door to the library and said, "Do you have anything?" I silently handed him fifteen pages of quickly scribbled notes on resurrection myths around the world, magic spells that were supposed to be able to raise the dead, and an odd reference to Dorothy of Oz I'd found in one of the Men of Letters' records. He paged through them quickly and said, "Great. Perfect. We're heading to Topeka for a few days. We'll call if anything changes." He flew out the door and up to the garage before I could say anything.

I sat back in my chair. What had them so excited?

I got my answer two days later, when the brothers arrived back at the bunker with a vivacious redhead in tow. They were excitedly chattering and laughing, but stopped dead when I stepped shyly out of the library. The girl looked at me, then turned and punched Sam in the shoulder. "You didn't tell me your researcher was a cute girl!"

Sam rubbed his shoulder and said, "Ow! Sorry, Charlie, we were too busy trying to figure out WHY YOU WEREN'T DEAD."

Charlie rolled her eyes and responded, "I told you! Dorothy had some kind of copy of my soul in a box in Oz, and when she found out I was dead, she sent it back here. It went to the hospital where I was born, regrew my body -" she turned to me and added "minus clothes, awkward" before continuing with "- and here I am. I was trying to figure out where I was when you two showed up. It's the same thing they did to her when she died in Oz."

Sam started, "But Charlie -" then subsided when it became clear she was no longer at all interested in him.

"So," she said flirtatiously, walking towards me, "who are you, gorgeous?"