I got three calls in succession, maybe five days after arriving at the Bunker. The first was from Cas; we called each other every day, at least once, to check in. This time…

We hadn't talked yet, and I was about to dial his number when I stopped, feeling sudden pain. It was in my abdomen, my chest, my hands, everywhere all at once. I had doubled over in pain, coughing and sputtering and…

There was blood.

I was coughing up blood.

When I puked, there was blood in it, too. "Oh God." I muttered, realizing what this meant, what it had to mean. "No, Cas, CAS!" I closed my eyes, trying to focus on him, focus on sending him more.

Take whatever you need, please, however much will save you, I willed in my head. Take it all, if you need to. Just stay alive, please. Please stay alive.

I fell to the ground, barely keeping myself on my hands and feet. I felt awful, absolutely awful. The pain was worst in my heart, like it was ripping and tearing and bludgeoning different pieces out. I grasped at it, just almost keeping myself from falling face-first to the floor. I punched myself in the heart, once, as hard as I could.

"Come on, DAMMIT!" I shouted to the air. "Just LIVE! Take everything from me, please, but just LIVE DAMMIT! STAY ALIVE!"

I screamed as white-hot pain engulfed me, and suddenly… Suddenly I wasn't there anymore. I wasn't in the Bunker.

I was in a gas station, somewhere. There was this woman, another angel… She was beating the crap out of me. Off to the side, I could barely see Hannah. Why was Hannah here? She was hurt, injured, not moving.

I could feel blood on my face, on my body. The woman, the one beating the crap out of me, she was shouting and saying something and I was going to die.

This was it.

I was going to die, and I wouldn't get to say goodbye.

I'm sorry, Kylie. The thought wasn't my own, and came to me unbidden.

"Kill me." The voice wasn't mine, but it was familiar.

It was Castiel's.

I heard Hannah, suddenly awake next to me, crying out for the angel to stop. "'Stop,' 'kill me,'" the random angel smiled and shook her head. She looked like she was enjoying vengeance. "I mean, so many suggestions, I don't know what to do. I know!" Her face lit up with an awful glee. "I will kill you, Castiel." That wasn't a threat. That was a promise. "But very, very slowly so that your… your new honeybunch can watch." She motioned to Hannah. "Great step up from the human, by the way. All of us were happy when you stopped being a cordziz hoath." She sighed. "Too bad you won't live long enough to enjoy the upgrade."

She kicked me in the chest, through a glass door, and I landed on the grass outside. I felt worse, absolutely worse. More bloody and bruised and broken somewhere and… And I was coughing up blood again. When I looked up, I saw a pair of black dress shoes walking on the grass towards me.

Black dress shoes connected to black slacks, a black coat, and… And a demon.

Crowley.

"Hey champ, look at you." He commented, offering a pitiful smile. "Talk about roadkill."

He walked away, disappearing in to what I figured was the gas station. He walked back out not long later, with a vial of…

Was that angel grace?

Why was a demon giving me angel grace?

I shied away from it, and felt another thought that wasn't mine. No. Not again. I can't do that again.

"Don't be an idiot." Crowley told me. "Yes, it's hers, but she was killing your mistress. Your hands are clean. As much as it pains me to say this … You're useless to me, and your actual girlfriend, dead."

She wouldn't want me to die. I felt my mouth open after that thought, and the new stolen grace entered as easily as though it actually belonged, though with a slightly… off taste to it.

I heard Crowley's voice, stating that I owed him, before I was flung back in to my own body with a burst of white light.

And I was back in the Bunker, on the floor, in immense amounts of absolute pain. The scar on my hand was bright red, pulsating with… A mixture of white in it as the area absolutely burned.

Then literally burned. I watched the scar catch on fire, my head spinning and mouth dry and I was certain I was hallucinating until I smelled skin burning.

And actually felt the new pain from fire.

On stumbling feet, I ran in to different objects as I tried to get to the kitchen, to a sink, to anything with running water.

There was a can of soda on the table. I grabbed it and threw it on my hand, quickly, but the fire on my hand was out the second it hit the flames.

All that was left then was a blackened mark, almost like a tattoo, in place of the scar.

That was when I got a call from Cas, my phone ringing as loud as it could and I could barely hear it. I fumbled with my cell, grasping a chair to sit in that I instead used to lower me to the ground. "Cas?" I asked, my voice shaky.

"Kylie," his voice was strong, relieved, and immeasurably less frail than it had been even yesterday. "I am sorry. I am very sorry."

And then he told me about how he'd been out with Hannah, trying to help figure out angel problems. He was on his way back to the Bunker to help Sam with Cas, and wanted to surprise me. He was with Hannah. She'd called him to help, and he'd gone even though he'd been sick.

He'd inhaled angel grace.

He wasn't dying, at least not now.

"Did…" I did my best to clear my head, to not stutter. "Did Crowley get you the grace?"

"How did you know?" He asked. I took a breath.

"Call it a hunch." I answered. "I'll… I'll explain when you get here."

"Alright, but Kylie," he sounded so much more relieved and, well… alive. "I love you. I'm sorry for not telling you sooner that I had left, but I love you, and I'm alive, and I'm going to be there soon, alright?" I smiled, trying my best to not fall asleep at the table. "I love you, and I'm sorry."

"It's alright, Cas." I told him. "You… You don't have to apologize for anything. I…" I took a deep breath. "I've got something to tell you, when you get here. It… It's important."

"Are you alright?" He asked, concern coloring his voice.

"Are you alright?" I asked in response.

"Yes." He told me. "And I will be even better when I am at the Bunker with you."

"Then I'm alright too." I agreed. "And I'll be better when you're here and I can stop…" My voice trailed off, and I searched for the right words.

"I'll be there soon." He promised, and I could hear the understanding in his voice.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

And the line went dead.

The last call happened maybe two minutes after that, though, from a number I didn't recognize.

"Kai's sea shack, no relation to Joe's crab shack, this is Kai." I said automatically.

"Ah, charming as ever." A very British voice said on the other end. I woke up a little bit more.

"How in the hell did you get my number?" I asked.

"I'm Crowley, my dear." He reminded me. "The King of Hell always has connections."

"Whatever it is you want, I'm hanging up either way."

"The message was for you." He stated, and I decided to not hang up.

"What message?"

"You owe me." He answered. I felt my blood go cold. "Funny thing about siphon spells, whenever the person siphoning off you is about to die, and you're about to die," Crowley paused, and I was damn certain it was only for a dramatic effect. "You see through the eyes of the person you're connected to."

"What's your point?"

"My mother was a witch, darling." He told me. "I know when there's more than one person watching me, and I know what that scar on his hand was for. Tell me," I took a glance at the scar on my own hand. "How did it feel when that angel grace shoved you right out of him and back in your own body?"

I didn't answer, and he kept talking.

"So I saved your boyfriend, which I do believe deserves a thank you, and I kept your little secret, because I doubt he would've hesitated if he knew."

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Keep tabs on Dean for me and how he… changes." He requested.

"Is that all?"

"For now." His response made my blood run cold. "You're interesting now, Kylie. Keep up the work with your magic."

"And if I refuse?"

"Who said the bond between you and Cas was broken?" He asked.

"You wouldn't dare."

"I'm the King of Hell, child," he stated. "I'm the daringest devil you'll ever meet."