Dean is gunning it, getting the hell out of Dodge while the getting is good. Sam is sitting shotgun and Soran is sprawled in the backseat. Danix is flying somewhere high above them, invisible to Dean's eye, but Sam had said, "I know where she is," and hadn't been able to explain to Dean exactly how he knows.

"Souls aren't supposed to be external," Soran is saying. "We're vulnerable, I guess, because we're separated from you. So our presence attracts� things."

"What kinds of 'things?'" Dean asks, looking in the review mirror at the she-wolf.

Soran shakes her head slowly She rubs at an ear with one paw. "I don't know. Things that want souls."

"That explains the zombie, then," says Sam. "They're soulless."

"So are vampires," Dean says. He doesn't like where this conversation is going. "And demons are always in the market for a tasty soul or two."

"Souls aren't usually out in the open like this, without a body. It's like the filter has been removed, and everyone can see us." Soran circles around as much as the space in the backseat allows, clearly troubled.

Sam rolls down his window. "Like moths to a flame, huh?"

"Are you kidding me? Like we don't attract enough shit already." Dean runs a hand through his hair unsteadily. He snaps at Sam, "Shut the friggin' window, it's freezing."

"Hold on," says Sam, and then a blue-gray ball of feathers tumbles inside and lands in a heap on the dashboard. Sam rolls the window back up.

"That was graceful," says Soran, amused, from the backseat.

Danix straightens herself and says calmly, "Shut up."

"What's up?" Dean asks. He merges onto the freeway, pointing them south, towards Arkansas.

"Not any zombies around that I can see," says Danix. She adds, almost offhandedly, "But there are three vampires."

"What?" Sam says, whipping his head around as if they're right behind them. "Where?"

"About five miles back. They're following us in a blue BMW." Danix bends her head and runs her beak through her wing, smoothing down a few feathers.

"How can they be following us if they can't even see us?" Dean demands.

"Soran is practically broadcasting from your backseat. Everyone can feel it. I draw attention, too, but it's harder to feel me because I fly too far up." Danix waves a wing at the window. "Let me out. I'll keep a lookout and I'll tell you if they get close. I don't like being cooped up anyway."

Sam opens the window again and Danix is off like a rocket.

"What do we do?" Soran asks.

"Just hold tight, sweetheart," Dean says grimly. He presses even harder down on the gas pedal, and he hears the engine whine, but he knows his baby can do it � she's done it before. "We're riding out into the sunrise."

* * *

Dean doesn't stop driving until it is well into mid-morning, with the sun blazing away in the blue sky. He isn't about to risk running into those vampires anytime soon. He's on edge, knowing that something's following them but unable to do anything about it, for fear of putting the rest of their motley crew in danger.

Normally, Dean lives with a constant low hum of alertness, an undercurrent to his entire existence. And today it's even worse than usual, because now, not only does he have himself and Sam to look after, but two others as well. It doesn't help that the "two others" are essentially him and Sam, as well.

"Double the pleasure, double the fun," Dean mumbles to himself, turning into a gas station and cutting the engine.

"Come again?" Sam asks, raising an eyebrow.

Waving his hand at his brother, Dean doesn't answer. They're both irritated from lack of sleep, running too long on adrenaline and nerves, and if he opens his mouth right now, nothing good is going to come out of it.

"Fine, whatever," says Sam. He puts his hands up, washing himself off the whole issue. "I'm gonna take a leak." He pops open his door and gets out, putting his arms over his head and stretching for a moment before walking off.

Dean turns around. "You hungry?" he asks Soran, who has been dozing in the backseat.

At the sound of Dean's voice, Soran's ears perk up and she opens her golden eyes. "I don't need to eat," she replies.

"You sure about that?" Dean says. "I don't want you passing out on me."

Soran's ears twitch and she wrinkles her nose, as if she's thinking. "I'm not really an animal," she says finally. "I'm� a representation. I mean, I'm real, but I'm not exactly�"

Dean holds up a hand. "Too tired for existentialism right now," he says. "No food; got it. Keep an eye on the car for a second, will ya?"

Inside the gas station mini-mart, Dean buys a newspaper, coffee, a few danishes, and twenty bucks worth of gas. The redhead behind the counter smiles at him as she bags his items.

Grinning back, Dean says, "Nice morning." He's never too tired to talk to a pretty girl.

"Sure is," she says. "Is that your car out there?" She nods out the window at the Impala. "It's a sweet ride."

Damn, a girl after his own heart. Dean wonders how long he can convince Sam to stay in this nowhere town. At least for the afternoon, right? Dean is about to ask the redhead for her name when he feels something furry and warm brush by his legs.

"Soran!" Dean jumps. "I thought I told you to stay in the car." It isn't until he has already said the words that it occurs to him to not talk to animals where other people can see and can call the mental institution to lock him up.

But the redhead doesn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. She comes out from behind the counter to take a look. "Cute dog. You know, it sort of looks like a wolf."

"Half-breed," Dean says, grinning like a maniac and hoping that the grin will cover up for the fact that he's currently panicking and praying that Soran doesn't start talking.

The redhead reaches out, about to pet Soran on the head, but Soran ducks out of the way, avoiding her touch. The girl tries again, which may have been a mistake, because then Soran snarls and snaps her jaws. The redhead jumps back, alarmed, and Dean barks, "Soran!"

Chastised, Soran circles Dean and heels behind him, peering around Dean's legs like a five-year-old kid.

"She's shy," says Dean, not knowing if Soran really is or not, but it's as good an explanation as any. "And a little nuts."

Soran nips at Dean's calf through his jeans, and Dean sucks in a hiss of pain.

"Um. Yeah." The redhead looks uncertain, and she hands Dean his grocery bag. "Have a good day, all right?"

Irritated, Dean marches out of the mini-mart, Soran at his heels. The damn thing is worse than a twelve-year-old Sam.

"What was that about?" he demands when they're out of range of anyone who might overhear. "You can't go all Wolverine on people. If you want to follow me around, act like a normal dog."

"Other people aren't supposed to touch me," says Soran, almost sulkily. She bows her head down, sniffing the ground as she walks. "Ask Danix. It's the same with her. It's just� wrong."

Dean's anger dissipates as quickly as it had come. He sighs. "Sorry. I didn't know." He pauses. "But why do you let Sam touch you then?" Hell, it's almost as if you like Sam better than me, which makes no sense.

Soran lifts her head. Her yellow eyes shine in the sunlight, and really, how could that girl mistake Soran for a dog? She's pure wolf. "You know why," she says.

Not quite managing to hold her gaze, Dean looks away. He guesses he does.

* * *

Dean is standing outside the motel room, smoking and watching the cloudy night sky. They're in Kentucky, almost in Arkansas, but they still have at least half a day of driving left to go. They haven't seen Danix in quite some time. Even though Sam hadn't seemed too worried about it, Dean hasn't survived for as long as he has by looking on the bright side.

It's about one in the morning, and Dean feels restless.

A dark shape floats slowly down towards him � at first, Dean thinks it's just a trick of his eye � but as it flies closer, the shape becomes more defined, and it's Danix.

Landing on Dean's shoulder, Danix says, "You shouldn't smoke."

"I don't," Dean says, but he takes another drag anyway. "Only when I can't sleep. Watch the jacket. I can't afford to get it repaired."

Danix goes to perch on a nearby car's hood ornament, and says, "Did you know they used to put canaries in mines because they'd fall over and die first if there was a gas leak? The canaries were more sensitive to bad air. If a bird died, the miners knew that they had to get out."

Scowling, Dean throws his cigarette away, scuffing out the end with the toe of his boot. "You know, you're almost as good at the guilt trips as he is."

"Thanks," says Danix, sounding pleased. She asks, "Where are Sam and Soran?"

"Sleeping." Dean declines to mention that Soran is currently curled up against Sam, and Sam has one arm wrapped around the wolf like she's a giant teddy bear.

And Dean might be a little disturbed by what it all means � "Other people aren't supposed to touch me" � but they had both looked so goddamn peaceful that even Dean didn't really have the heart to separate them.

"Anything new?" Dean asks. He leans back against the door of the room. He doesn't like the look of the moon. It's a perfect half moon, split down the middle, and despite all the mythology about the full moon, half moons are dangerous, too. Balanced between darkness and light.

"I've been keeping a lookout for the vampires, but I haven't seen anything. Actually, I don't know if I should even be stopping to talk now, because they could be on the move."

Dean reaches out a hand and feels something of a thrill when Danix doesn't move away. He strokes his fingers down her back, over the glossy soft feathers. They feel nice. "Take a break. You've been at it all day." He adds, "And if they find us, whatever. I hate this running away crap anyway."

"Just one more check," says Danix. "I'll be fine. I'll be back in half an hour."

The hawk stretches her wings and Dean watches her take off. He briefly wonders what it'd be like to fly like that, but the thought makes him a little airsick. Still feeling restless, he goes to take inventory of the weapons in the trunk.

* * *

When Dean barges into the motel room and starts digging through their bags, looking for his crossbow and some stakes, Sam and Soran both wake up. Soran bounds over to Dean, sniffing at the crossbow inquisitively.

"What's wrong?" Sam asks, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"Danix isn't back. She said half an hour. It's been two hours." Dean knows this feeling � this unfocused, angry helplessness � but he's unused to having the cause of it being anyone else but Sam. Well, Danix sort of is Sam, too, so it almost makes sense.

Soran swivels her head, this way and that, ears twitching. "What's that?" she growls.

"What?" Sam asks. He's pulling on his shoes.

Dean hears it now, too. "Fuck. Gunshots. We have to�"

But Soran is already out the door and running away into the night. Dean sprints after her, readying his crossbow and hating the dread that sits in his stomach like a heavy stone. He doesn't look to see if Sam is following.

When he finally catches up to Soran, about a mile down the road, she's mauling a vampire. Blood is splattering everywhere, and she's snarling like a wild thing, shaking her head this way and that, dragging the vampire's lifeless body all over. Two other vampires, a boy and a girl, skin glowing white in the moonlight, are clawing at Soran, trying to pry her off of their friend.

It takes Dean a second to put together the pieces and figure out what had happened.

A shotgun is lying on the shoulder of the road, next to the BMW.

An unmoving bundle of blue-gray feathers is partially hidden in the grass.

Dean had never realized that "seeing red" actually means what it says. But now he feels it, a red mist seeping into the corners of his vision. He shoots one vampire, reloads, and shoots the other without pausing for breath. They turn to dust, and Dean wishes they hadn't, just so he could shoot the motherfuckers until they were filled with more wood than a fucking forest.

Pounding footsteps come up behind him, and Dean barely registers Sam pulling Soran off of the vampire. The corpse collapses into gray dust as soon as Soran lets go. Sam crouches down, running his hands over Soran's back and murmuring reassurances.

It doesn't matter to Dean. His ears are ringing. Because. Because�

Dean kneels down on the grass and carefully picks up Danix, trying to examine the damage. He nearly drops her when her red-gold eyes blink open. "Hey," she says, "don't frown like that. It's not a good look on you."

"You're okay." Dean can't hide his amazement, his relief. The rage fades away, and his vision seems to clear.

"Danix?" Sam comes over, followed by Soran. Her mouth is stained a bloody red.

"My left wing," says Danix. "Nothing vital."

Dean stretches out her wing carefully, and curses when he sees the pellets studded in there, splattered all over her wing. But she's alive. Oh Christ, she's alive. What would've happened if the shot hadn't missed?

"Okay, no more recon work for you," Dean says hoarsely, relief filling his throat with a strange foreign lump. He swallows around it.

"I'm okay. It'll be okay. You shouldn't worry so much," says Danix before closing her eyes again.

"Easy for you to say," Soran growls, and Dean couldn't have put it better himself.

* * *

"You don't have any urges to torture small animals or anything?" Dean asks.

"Dean, for the hundred millionth time, I feel fine," Sam says, exasperated.

"If you say so, tightass." This whole situation really doesn't make any sense to Dean, because if these guys are their souls, what happens when souls get injured? Some sort of permanent karmic damage? Soran had no answers for them, either.

"Wait. Stop here," says Sam suddenly. "That one. 3428."

"Uh-huh," Dean says, not really listening, just following Sam's pointing finger. He can't remember the last time he's been this tired. He parks in front of a red brick house with a huge front porch.

They had spent the remainder of the night picking the pellets out of Danix's wing, bandaging her up. Then they packed up and got moving. Dean had driven without pause, straight into Arkansas, while Sam cradled a sleeping Danix in his arms. Soran had paced back and forth in the backseat the entire way, somehow mirroring Dean's own agitation.

"Let's hope this woman has some answers," Dean says, getting out of the car. He opens the door for Soran, who leaps out and onto the sidewalk. "I'm not in the mood for any feel-good meditation crap."

"You've looked better," Sam agrees, getting out of the car with Danix in his arms. He kicks his door closed, having no hands available.

"Shut up. And don't kick my car." Dean climbs up the steps and onto the porch, Soran at his heels.

A woman in a blue dress, with pure white hair that falls down her back, is sitting in a rocking chair. She doesn't turn around at Sam and Dean's approach.

"You shouldn't be out here in the cold, ma'am," Dean says, and he's startled when the woman turns around, because she's not old at all. In fact, she's around Sam's age. She's striking � clear gray eyes and a full-lipped mouth. She is holding a book open in her lap.

"Don't call me ma'am," she says by way of greeting. She places a piece of string in the book to mark her place before putting it down on the ground and rising to her feet.

"Sorry, just�" Dean gestures at her head of white hair.

The young woman doesn't smile. "Premature."

"Susan Fields?" Sam ventures.

Susan nods curtly at each of them. "Sam Winchester. Dean Winchester." She glances at the hawk in Sam's arms. "I can help her."

When she steps closer to Sam, hand outstretched, Soran begins to growl deep in her throat, and Danix lets out a little screech and attempts to struggle away. "Whoa!" Sam says, trying to keep a hold on her. "C'mon girl."

"Hold on," Susan murmurs, soothing, "I'm not going to touch you. It's all right." She claps her hands together, rubbing her palms briskly, and then holds her hands over Danix's wing. But, true to her word, Susan doesn't touch her. After a moment, she removes her hands. "Unwrap it."

Adjusting his grip on Danix, Sam unwinds the bandage one-handed.

Danix stretches out her injured wing experimentally, and then flies up into the air, circling around their heads.

"Dude, she totally pulled a Mr. Miagi," Dean whispers to his brother.

Sam grins. "I thought you said you didn't like those movies?"

"I don't. That kid was a wimp."

Susan raises an eyebrow at Dean, winding a strand of her white hair around a finger. "I really don't appreciate being compared to a small Japanese man," she says. She opens her front door and goes in, saying over her shoulder, "Come on in. Missouri told me all about it. I've got the circle ready."

* * *

Inside Susan's house, she leads them down to her basement. It's unfinished, and in the middle of all the broken furniture and storage boxes, she had cleared a space and had chalked a complicated circle on the bare floor. Herbs and candles accent the circle at certain points along its circumference.

"A summoning circle?" Sam asks.

"Sort of� the opposite of that," says Susan. She purses her mouth in a half-smile. "I guess if you want to put a name on it, it's like a closing circle."

"How'd you know how to make one?" Dean asks.

"Just call me Glinda," is all Susan says. "You want to go first, Sam?"

"Sure," says Sam slowly. He glances at Dean, and Dean nods minutely.

Danix circles around Soran's head, and she says, "See you around?"

"On the flip side," says Soran, baring her teeth in a grin. Her gold eyes glint with humor and she stretches a paw up to swipe at Danix playfully.

"Between you and her," says Danix, fluttering over to Dean, "it's a miracle I understand a word you're saying."

Dean grins and holds his arm out so Danix can land on his forearm.

"Hey, you take care of yourself," says Danix quietly, red-gold eyes focusing on Dean like lasers.

It's almost like Danix can see into Dean's mind. Every shitty and broke-down thought he's ever had for himself. It takes a lot for Dean to hold Danix's sharp gaze, and he feels his face heat up under the scrutiny.

"Don't have to tell me twice, babe," says Dean finally, offering a smile. Danix stretches one wing out and strokes Dean's arm with it � it's weird, but it feels like the avian equivalent of a hug.

Danix flies over and lands on Sam's shoulder. She murmurs something in Sam's ear, low and secret, and Dean doesn't catch any of it. Sam nods in response, mouth compressed in a hard line for a moment. But then he smiles, stroking Danix's breast, and steps inside the chalk line.

From the outside looking in, Dean doesn't see anything immediately change. Sam is standing in the center of the circle, Danix on his shoulder, and nothing happens.

"What's going on?" Dean asks Susan.

Susan shrugs. "It's done," she says. "Come on out, Sam."

"What do you mean, it's done? She's still right�" Dean stops talking because as soon as Sam walks completely out of the circle, it's as if Danix turns invisible. She was right there on Sam's shoulder, and� now she isn't. It's like one of those optical illusions with the penny floating in the middle of nothing.

Dean goes up to Sam and waves a hand around in the empty space next to Sam's ear. "Huh."

"That was weird," Sam says. He glances at his own shoulder. "I feel like she should still be right there."

"She's here," says Susan, coming up and pressing a hand to Sam's chest. "Don't you feel the difference?"

Sam pauses. "I guess I do."

Susan beckons Dean and Soran to the chalk circle. "Come on, you two. I don't have all day."

Dean and Soran glance at each other. Soran's tail sways slowly, and she doesn�t speak.

"I'm going to miss having you around," Dean says. He doesn't know why this is choking him up as much as it is � hell, Soran is a part of him, right? � but this is almost like that time he had to say good-bye to�

"Except for the attracting-the-soulless-and-the-demonic-to-you part," Soran amends, grinning. Her sharp teeth gleam brightly.

Dean is surprised into a laugh. "Yeah. Except that part."

Soran pads over to Sam, who crouches down and folds his arms around Soran's neck in a hug. Soran almost shies away, startled, but then she relaxes into Sam's embrace. It shocks the hell out of Dean, that's for sure.

"Ready?" Dean asks, after a moment.

Soran comes to stand by Dean's feet. She looks up at him, eyes glimmering. "Always. You know that."

And Dean does.

They walk into the circle together.

* * *

Dean and Sam say good-bye to Susan, who waves aside their thanks, and says, "Don't worry, you'll be repaying me soon," and refuses to explain what that's supposed to mean.

When they exit the house, the sky is overcast with thick heavy clouds. "Looks like snow," Dean remarks as they get inside the car.

Sam glances at Dean as he closes the passenger door. "Is this going to turn into one of those things we never talk about again for the rest of our lives?"

Dean starts up the engine. "Pretty much, yeah," and he grins when Sam rolls his eyes.

"Talking about stuff doesn't automatically emasculate you, you know," says Sam.

"Ooh. Pulling out the Scrabble words, college boy?" Dean pulls out into the street. He glances in the rearview mirror, and, for a second, he thinks he sees Susan's profile in one of the windows of her house. But when he looks again, she's gone.

"You're such a dick," Sam is saying.

"You know it," says Dean, and when he reaches over to mess up Sam's hair, Sam scowls but he doesn't pull away.

The End