𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐍

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐃

Whore.

It burns in her mind more than before. Positive.

Whore, whore, whore.

"The hell were you doing in the hospital, KD?" Dean asks, putting the Impala into drive.

"Gimme some water, man, I'm dyin'," she croaks from the back seat. Sam hands a bottle over the seat, and she chugs half of it. Takes a few seconds to breathe. Her throat is so raw.

"What the hell happened?" Sam asks, taking her in. The tangled hair, the lack of— "What happened to your clothes?"

Katherine looks down at her long sleeve and sighs. "The demon I had got away," she rasps. "The roof buckled, snow melted over the trap I guess...anyway, it ran off and I chased it and I didn't see a creek in front of me, so I fell and I hit my head, and when I woke up I was in there." She jabs her thumb over her shoulder, in the direction of the fading hospital. "They put me under and stuck a vent in me for a couple hours, then when I warmed up again they woke me up and took the vent out. I said I wanted to go home." Blue eyes blink at Sam, then shift to Dean, then back to Sam. "Any more questions?"

"Yeah," Dean grunts. "Who brought you there?"

"Some guy." She shrugs. "I think he was chasing his dog."

She watches his eyebrows knit together in the rearview mirror. "Why do you think that?"

"I dunno, but I think that's how he found me." Katherine chews on the inside of her cheek, flexing her fingers. The left feels a little stiff. She takes another swig of water, the pit in her stomach growing with each passing second. "Can we get some food?" She asks. "I'm starving."

"I could eat," Dean sighs. "Sam?"

"We've got to get back to work," he says with a frown.

Katheirne mirrors his expression. "Sam, it's three thirty in the morning."

"Then we can drop you at a motel," he says. "Dean has two months left. That's not a lot of time. We need to figure out who's holding his contract, then find them."

"Sam, she's right," Dean murmurs. "We need to get some rest, man. We can head to Bobby's after a few hours of shut eye." Sam presses his lips together and sighs. "Give her a day to recoup." Sam glances to Katherine out of the corner of his eye, then nods.

"Please," she mutters, leaning back in her seat, and closes her eyes. "Don't stop hunting demons on my behalf." She tightly crosses her arms over her chest. "How'd you guys go?"

"Two of the four sorry sons 'a bitches were dead," Dean says. "Other than...falling into a creek and going all hypothermic on us...how'd you go?"

"One of three dead," Katherine murmurs.

"They really ride those poor bastards hard, huh?"

"Just for kicks," Katherine agrees. "Hey, drive up to the 296, all my shit is in that car I jacked."

Dean's eyes focus back on the road.

She's been a weird kind of normal since the Morton house. Since they slept together. She's sharing a room with them...she isn't avoiding Dean...she isn't pushing him away, but she isn't going out of her way to have side conversations. She and Sam have plenty of their own little giggles, though. Sam does face masks with her. Willingly.

And friggin Dean...he's obsessing over all of this like it fucking matters. Like he won't be dead in two months.

Is this...platonic friendship?