The Family Business

Missing Bolt

"Alright, storytime," Dean said as he cracked the top off his beer bottle. He took his seat at the table where they all gathered for pizza. He motioned between his mom and Jack with the bottle, "You two first."

"Well," Mary began. "Once Jack rescued me from Michael's contraption. We needed to find a way out of the dungeon. There was a weak point in the warding."

"I blew up a wall," injected Jack.

"We're so proud," Ben snarked quietly with a mouth full of pizza.

"Knock it off," Krissy hissed when she smacked his shoulder.

"It took some time, but we managed to get away from Michael's guards," Mary continued. "Then Jack opened a portal and here we are."

"You opened a portal... on your own?" Sam asked. "I thought you needed assistance for that."

Jack shrugged his shoulders, "I needed the dream walker's assistance to get to the other world because I had never been there before. I've been here."

"So, could you go back?" Sam asked.

"Why would he want to go back?" Asked Dean.

"I just mean if we needed something from there..." Sam began but was interrupted by Dean. "What the hell would we need from that world that we don't have here?"

"Bobby."

The kitchen held an eerie silence before Dean stood from his seat and tossed his empty beer bottle in the trash.

"That wasn't Bobby," he said quietly as he left the room.

He shook his head as he headed back to his bedroom. Why Sam would even suggest going back to that place was beyond him. Even if there was a version of Bobby there it didn't matter. He wasn't their Bobby. The last thing he wanted was a watered-down version. There was no replacing the man he looked up to as a father.

As he rounded the corner, he stopped short almost colliding with Castiel. The angel looked frazzled and annoyed.

"What's eating you?" he asked.

Castiel glared at Dean and shook some tension out of his shoulders then responded, "the witch."

"Rowena," Dean said. "She's got your feathers all up in a bunch?"

"She speaks the truth of Lucifer," Castiel continued. "I fear he may be closer than we anticipate. We must be ready for when he comes for her."

"Did she say why he was after her?"

"Lucifer believes she's the key to reopening the other world," Castiel explains. "He intends to return to find Jack."

"So, we have an advantage then?" asked Dean. "He doesn't know Jack is here with us."
"It appears that way, yes."

"So, we use the witch as bait," came Ben's voice from behind them. "Lure him here and defeat him, have an ambush waiting."

Dean and Castiel turned to Ben both shaking their heads.

"It's not that easy," Dean said. "We've been trying for years to get rid of him. Lock him up, kill him, toss him into an abyss. We've tried it all."

"You said the kid is powerful," Ben said with a shrug. "Why not use him. I'm pretty sure he's got a few daddy issues too that will work to our advantage."

"Jack is not a weapon," said Castiel.

"You know one of these days you guys are going to stop coddling him."

Dean gave Ben a hard look that mirrored Castiel's. He watched as his son rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Fine," Ben said then pushed past them and slid into the open door of his room. He came back out brandishing a golden blade that twisted to a point. "Then we'll use this."

"Where did you get that?" Castiel demanded and thrust his hand out to demand the object.

"What the hell is that?" Dean asked at the same time.

Ben shrugged his shoulders and handed it over to the angel. "Fellow named Gabriel caught up with us a few years ago. Was really cryptic and told me I would know when the time was right to use it," he explained. "He was really serious about me remembering his name too. It was weird."

"Cas," Dean said.

Castiel twisted the blade between his fingers as he examined it. "I can't believe it," he mumbled.

"Cas!" Dean said more forcefully.

"This is the blade of the Archangels," Castiel explained.

"What does that mean?" Dean asked.

"It means we have exactly what we need to end Lucifer, once and for all."
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Krissy sat up straight with a gasp as she awoke from a dream that left a cold sweat upon her brow. With the line of business she was in, nightmares didn't usually scare her. This one felt different. She closed her eyes to replay the images she had just seen. Aiden and Josephine's mangled bodies, a river of blood, Ben walking away from her.

She didn't believe in dreams being premonitions, but the dream left her feeling like something was wrong.

Krissy shook her head and mumbled, "It was just a stupid dream."

When she turned to lay back down and cuddle up next to Ben, but he wasn't in bed. She was so caught up in her nightmare that she didn't even notice. It wasn't odd for her though. On nights when he couldn't sleep Ben would take a walk outside to clear his mind.

She sighed and laid back against the pillows and waited for his return. When forty-five minutes went by, she began to worry. Krissy crawled out of bed and slipped out of their room. 

She stopped by the library, checked the "war room", and the equipment room. As she made her way to the kitchen her stomach began to knot.

The odd feeling of something being wrong crept over her again. It grew worse when she found the kitchen empty. Her feet pounded along the hallway as she ran to the garage, "he's just working on the car" she thought.

Cami sat in her parking spot gleaming under the garage lights. No sign of Ben anywhere.

Krissy snatched a flashlight off of a workbench and slam her body against the door that leads outside. She scoped the area to see if he just decided to stay out longer than usual. The walk around the compound didn't take long, she came up empty in her search and knew it was time to sound the alarm.

She ran back to their room just to make sure she hadn't missed him then headed to Dean's when it was empty. The pounding on Dean's door awoke Sam down the hall. His door wrenched open at the same time as Dean's both of them brandishing their guns.

"What!" Dean snapped as he lowered his weapon. She ignored his tone because she knew he was just pissed about being woken up so suddenly, Ben was the same way.

"Ben's missing."