The drive back to Black Rock provided ample time for reflection. 

Katherine reflected on how just two years ago, Dean was so freaked about the fire at Sam's place, he accused her of doing something. Whatever that meant. They got together, they broke up, they fought, they've reconciled. Obviously. She told him the other Big Secret. The Donovan Big Secret.

She didn't even think about the Sam incident. She just...told him. No hesitation.

Katherine closes the door to the Impala with a small smile. Dean rounds the front of the car, jingling his keys, and glances up at her. He frowns and looks at her again.

"Why are you smirking?" He asks.

It turns into a grin. "You just might be my best friend, Dean."

He doesn't know what to say to that. Well, he does. He'd like to say a lot of things. You're my best friend, too. I love you. I always have. I'm just an idiot and don't know how to say it. I hope you've forgiven me. If you haven't, I may deserve my spot in Hell anyway.

He blinks a few times, letting his body warm at the sight of her dopey grin. "You just might still be drunk," he says, and moves for their motel room. The blinds are still drawn, but the door is cracked open. Dean doesn't slow his pace, doesn't say anything to Katherine, just pulls his gun out, and she does the same. With a soft bend in her knee, she slinks forward behind Dean. He leans forward to listen.

"It's God, Creedie," a man's voice says on the other side of the door. "He led us here to do His work. This is destiny."

"Nope," Dean chirps, tapping the door open. Katherine slides into the motel room behind him, setting her sights on the blond man who holds a gun to Sam's head. Bloody, beated, duct taped Sam. 

But still in the chair they left him in.

"Just a rabbit's foot," Dean says.

The blond man smiles a little. "Put the guns down, kiddies."

"You're outnumbered, old man," Katherine scoffs. "You put the gun down."

"You don't seem to be noticing my accomplice."

"Oh, I'm noticing. I'm noticing a lack of a weapon. I'm noticing he has his hands up."

"Put the gun down," the blond man says again. "Or you'll be scraping this one's brains off the floor."

Katherine's mouth opens to reply, but Dean finds his voice before she does. "Oh, this thing?" He holds his gun up.

"Yeah."

Dean grins. "O-kay." He sets it down on the nightstand, nice and slow. "But there's one thing you should know about me."

"Oh, yeah?" The man turns to them with a grin. He aims his gun at Katherine. Her shoulders are tight, unsure of Dean's plan. She hated when jobs went sideways like this. "What would that be?"

"Today's my lucky day."

He tosses a pen from the nightstand towards the other man, and it lodges perfectly in the barrel. Katherine is so shocked she drpos her arms and stares hard at it, balking, before looking to Dean. 

"Oh my God!" Dean laughs. "Did ya see that shot?!"

The brunet man lunges for Dean. Katherine, halfway curious, decides to watch, but has her sights on him the whole time. He swings, and all Dean has to do is lean out of the way, and the other guy goes flying into the wall.

"Jesus."

"I'm amazing," Dean laughs, turning to her with pure joy lighting his eyes. The blond man dislodges the pen from his gun and aims at Dean. Dean picks the remote control up and throws it at Sam's attacker. 

And knocks him out cold. Katherine slowly turns her gaze to Dean.

"I'm Batman," Dean pronounces. 

Sam gives his brother a skeptical look. "Yeah," he drawls. "You're Batman."

Katherine shifts her weight and glances between the two. "So who's Robin?" Sam looks at her. Dean looks to her. Dean looks to Sam. Sam looks to Dean. Katherine puts her finger on her nose.

"Aw, come on!" Sam cries. "No fair!"

She laughs evilly and prances over to him. "Come on, Robin. We've got a graveyard ritual to perform."

It's ten minutes to the nearest graveyard. Bone ash, cayanne pepper, a little bit of graveyard dust over hot coals. 

"That should do it." 

Katherine sighs and rolls to her feet before dusting her hands off. "Dean."

"Yeah, one second." The rabbit's foot is clutched in his right hand as he scratches a square of four scratch cards.

"Dude," Sam sighs. 

"Hey! Back off, Jinx! I'm bringin' home the bacon."

Katherine smirks and looks to Sam. "It would be nice to stay in a hotel. With no stains. And non-smoking rooms that are actually non-smoking rooms."

Sam rolls his eyes. "You two are unbelievable."

"I'm just saying—"

Sam points an accusatory finger at her. "You're an enabler."

Katherine's eyes blow wide. "Whoa! Enabler?!"

"Chill out," Dean groans as he tucks the scratch offs into his jacket pocket. Katherine takes a few steps his way to look at the earnings. 

"Jesus," she mutters. Dean is standing so close behind her that she can feel the heat radiating from his skin. He chuckles, looking over her shoulder. 

"How bout it, huh?" He muses. Katherine takes two and wiggles them at him.

"This is going into my savings account."

The humor from Dean's eyes drains a little.

Savings account. For when he's gone.

Katherine's brows knit together, and almost like she's a mind reader, she quickly shakes her head. "Dean, that's not what I meant—"

"It's okay, sweetheart," he hums. Then he holds up his fist and opens it; the rabbit's foot dangles from its chain wrapped around his middle finger. "Time to say goodbye to Wascawy Wabbit."

He offers her a little smile. The one she returns is just as sad. 

The hammer of a pistol is drawn back behind them, and they whirl around.

Bela Talbot stands ten yards away, moving out from behind a tree with her stupid little gun pointed in their vicinity. Katherine takes a few steps backwards to shield Sam.

He came close to death not even two hours ago. She wasn't going to let it end here, not when they were so close to burning the damn thing. 

"I think you'll find that belongs to me," Bela chirps. "Or, you know...whatever."

"I thought you handcuffed her?" Dean asks.

"I did," Katherine sharply retorts. 

"Put the foot down, honey," Bela says, tone as sharp as the edge of a knife.

Dean squares at his shoulders at her and frowns. "No. You're not gonna shoot anybody." Bela quirks a brow at him. "See, I happen to be able to read people—" is he stealing Katherine's Grossman line? "Okay, you're a thief. Fine. But you're—" Bela shifts her sights ever so slightly and gets Katherine right in the shoulder. 

"Kat—!" 

"Sam, get down!" Katherine shouts, and yanks him by the jacket to the ground.

Dean whirls, gawking, and takes one step towards Bela. "You bitch!"

"Back off, tiger," Bela snarls. "Back off."

Dean moves to stand in front of Sam and Katherine. She doesn't even want to move from her position on the ground. 

"Make one more move and I'll pull the trigger." Dean glances behind him. "You've got the luck, Dean. You I can't hit, but them I can't miss."

"Guess that means your aim has improved since the last time I saw you," Katherine pants with a curled lip.

Bela tilts her head with a little smirk. "Put the rabbit's foot on the ground. Now."

"All right!" Dean snaps. Katherine hangs her head. "All right. Take it easy." He glances to Katherine as he leans forward, slowly lowering the rabbit's foot to the grass. Then he looks to Bela. "Think fast." He flips the foot towards Bela, and to Dean's luck, she catches it.

The last break he'll get.

Dean grins and puts his hands on his hips, the definition of smug. "Now," he sighs. "What do you say we destroy that ugly ass piece of dead thing?"

Katherine rolls her eyes. You have such a way with words, Dean Winchester.

It didn't take Bela a whole lot of convincing. She dropped the foot into the fire with a more-sour-than-usual expression.

"Thanks very much," Bela sighs, leaning against the headstone with Dean's jacket. Katherine doens't like that she's near it. The jacket. It's Dean's. "I'm out one and a half million, and on the bad side of a very powerful, fairly psychotic buyer."

"Ya know," Katherine chirps. "None of us feel bad about that."

"Not even a little," Dean drawls glancing to Katherine's bleeding shoulder. She isn't favoring it. She isn't moving it. Her face is stone-cold and hard. 

Bela sighs and pushes herself away from the headstone. "Have a nice night, boys."

"Go away," Katherine snaps at her. "Before I kill you."

Bela slinks off into the night. The Winchesters get to work buring the foot in its shallow grave.

Katherine fights the urge to run after Bela, put a bullet through her skull like she promised she would two and a half years ago. Her hands shake, her legs twitch. 

She's antsy. Dean can tell as he pulls his jacket on.

"You okay, kid?" He asks. Katherine glances up at him and nods. He pulls a bandana from his jacket and gingerly presses it into her shoulder. Her face twists into a grimace, and she turns her head from him. "You ain't gotta hide it. Doesn't make you tough." He gently pushes a few wisps of blonde hair from the puffy stitches on her forehead. 

"I'll live," she quietly replies. "Let's just go find a motel and we can dig this thing out of my shoulder. Hope I don't have any nerve damage." She flexes the fingers of her left hand and sighs through her nose.

"Guess we're back to normal now," Sam says as he comes up behind the two. "No good luck, no bad luck." He huffs and slings their bag over his shoulder, and the three start for the Impala. 

"Oh!" Dean squawks. "I forgot!" He starts patting his jacket down with an eager smile. It quickly fades as he's unable to find whatever he's looking for.

Katherine's face turns to stone. "The scratch-offs."

Dean slowly turns to look at the two. Pale. "SON OF A BITCH!"

"Dean," Katherine quietly begins. "How much...how much were the tickets?"

"Forty-six thousand," he answers in kind. 

Sam hangs his head. "I was looking forward to the Intercontinental in Miami."

Katherine swallows and reaches into her back pocket for the tickets she snagged from the stack. She holds them up to Dean and presses them into his chest. "I'm going to kill her," she pronounces.

She's quiet as Dean performs minor surgery on her shoulder once they find a place. Not too far, for the sake of Katherine's shoulder. Besides—Sam's assailants wouldn't expect him to still be in town.

They're safe for now. For the night.

Sam is on standby, typing away on his computer, waiting for something to go amiss. Aside from the clacks of his keys and Bob Seger playing over the radio, it's quiet between the hunters. 

Until.

"We'll stop by Charlie's on the way to Miami," Dean says.

Katherine doesn't know if it's an apology for getting her shot or a concession. Was he letting her go? Was it what she said earlier?

Dean sees the questions burning in her deep blue eyes, now rimmed with tears. He offers her a little smile. A peace offering. 

A concession, of sorts. 

There's a knock on the door. Sam sets his lapotp on the table, gathers the folded cash, and heads for the door. He trades the delivrey driver cash for the pizza and walks back into the main part of Katherine's room. 

"Oh, that smells like heaven," she whispers. 

"Exctra garlicky crust, just for the princess," Sam touts. He throws a smirk over his shoulder, and she smiles a little. How many slices, Kat?"

"Two please."

There's something about this dynamic that warms her chest. Sam sitting at the table reading off things to do in Miami, suggesting Sam and Chris and Charlie can come. Dean with his headlamp digging the slug out of Katherine's shoulder. Katherine holding up his slice of pizza and him taking a bite as he works. 

She's always wanted a family. This could be the one she was looking for...maybe not in the way she imagined it her whole life, but...something similiar.

Maybe even something better.