Ketch Me as I Fall

*Alex POV*

"You want to what?" I asked Jack a few hours after he and Elly had returned from their hunt.

Jack sighed. "No one has seen God in almost six years. The last time he was seen, was to take out his sister. And then they disappeared together." Jack restated again, "There has been no one to lead Heaven since then. Gabe and Lucifer are the only archangels left, and neither wants to be in charge. And as a Nephilim, who is half archangel, I feel I have to take up the charge." His grey eyes shifted over to Ally, who now stood behind her mother. "And two is generally better than one."

"So you want her to…rule…"

"Rule Heaven with me, yes." Jack huffed as he interrupted me. "How many times do I need to say it?"

"Until we can all understand your line of thinking," Elly said. "Why do you want this? Do you think you can change anything?"

"Yes." He was matter-of-fact about it. "I think I would make a very good god."

"I'm going to need to sit down," I said, searching for a chair.

It had been a long few days. From being buried alive, to thinking I'm getting too big too fast, to suddenly having a Nephilim who wants to become God. I wasn't sure where anything was going to go anymore. Everything felt like it was coming to a head far too quickly. And I had no idea what ending we were barreling towards.

I sighed and leaned back into the chair, closing my eyes. "Do we have time to think about this?"

"I would imagine as much time as it takes the baby to grow," Jack said as if everyone knew.

I snapped up, staring at the young-looking man. "How did you…"

"It's not hard to tell. You're starting to look like my mom did." He smiled softly.

"I…don't want to imagine how you know what she looked like pregnant with you." I sighed and slouched in the chair. "Can you tell how long that might be?"

Jack hummed softly, staring at me. "Maybe another month? The child seems to be growing at an accelerated rate. As I did."

"Great. That explains why I already look so far along even though it wasn't that long ago." I focused on him again. "What do you mean 'as much time as it takes to grow'?"

"Well, I Imagine as much as all of Heaven and Hell were alerted to my birth," Jack blinked, "It will be even more so for a being that has not existed in thousands of years. Cambions are much rarer than Nephilims."

"Right. Great. You're a homing beacon for trouble." Elly groaned.

"Because I chose for this to happen." I shot back at her. 

I guess technically I had. But that was something only Crowley and I needed to know for now. I wished for a perfect family with the man I loved, and here we were. On the edge of another apocalypse and then some. There were only a few monsters left in the states. We could clear them out by the end of the year. But would we have time with everything else that threatened to bring us down now? No, I wouldn't let anything stop me now. Not when I was so close.

I sighed. "We can discuss this later then. When we've had time to think it through."

"What do you mean 'we'?" Ally piped up. "You're not the one he wants to 'rule Heaven' with. I should be the only one who has a say in this."

"Of course, you have a say." I looked over the young girl. And she was, still so young and innocent.

"Then I don't want to stay here." She turned to Jack. "I want to go home."

"You can't do that," Jack said defiantly. "You're help will still be needed here long after every monster is gone."

"And you just get to decide that for me?" Ally almost growled the words. "You get to be the only one who knows what's good for me?"

"Maybe I should be." Jack stood tall. "Maybe then you wouldn't act like such an entitled brat."

Ally was across the room, her fist held in Jack's hand before any of us could blink. Their powers wavered thick in the room, Jack's pure gold eyes meeting Ally's copper and bloodstone. There was little Elly or I could do to stop them when Ally's other fist connected with his gut and sent Jack into the far wall. The force of the blow was nauseating as it reverberated around us, keeping us planted. 

Jack pushed himself free of the now crumbling wall and flexed his shoulders. He had so much more experience with his power than Ally did, but she was something wild and untethered. It was clear when he flew at her, and she simply sidestepped him. Easily caught Jack's arm instead and threw him to the ground in a move that would have killed any mortal man. But Jack only gasped for air as his back broke the concrete floor. She stood with her boot pressed into his chest then.

"You do not own me." She breathed the words as cool fire from her lungs. "No one but me, myself, and I do. And I am not staying here to play 'King of the Hill' with you."

"What the fuck is…" It was like fresh air had been brought into the room as Lucifer walked in. "Ally…" His tone changed as he saw what was going on, no doubt called here in the first place by the amount of energy they were giving off. "Let Jack go. I'm sure whatever he did, it's not worth killing him over."

"As long as he agrees to keep his idea to himself." She hissed, her heel grounding into Jack's sternum. 

And for all his worth, Jack did not wince or look away from her. He stared down the angel of death as she stood above him as if this was nothing more than your normal sibling fight. And maybe for them, it would be. But god save the world if it was. Their fights left unchecked might easily destroy the world as we knew it.

"I'm sure he will." Lucifer continued as if he was talking a lion down from eating its prey. "Let's just relax a little. Would you like ot get out for a little bit? Go see a movie?"

Ally rolled her shoulders. "I want to hear him say it."

I could feel the air shift as we all looked at Jack.

"I will keep them to myself." He huffed, still not taking his eyes off of his sister.

"Good." The weight of the room dropped away as Ally lifted her foot. "Keep me out of them too."

Ally and I sucked in a breath as the crushing weight of power left as quickly as it had come in. I hadn't realized just how crushing it was until I could feel every ache and pain in my protesting body.

"Fucking hell." I groaned. "Use that in your next sparring lesson."

Ally's blue eyes shifted to me and softened. "Oh god! I'm sorry Alex." 

"You're fine kid. No reason to apologize for standing up for yourself." I smiled at her. "Go out with your dad. We'll talk about everything later."

She smiled softly at me, then turned to Lucifer. "What movie are we gonna see?"

"You're hunting a what?" I asked through the phone.

"We think it's a Shtriga," Sam said on the other end, voice distant as Baby roared in the background. "But honestly we have no idea."

"What's it doing?" I shifted the phone against my ear as I poured myself a cup of coffee. 

"Not exactly sure. There have been multiple attacks of young women," Sam's voice shifted a little further away as Dean took a harder turn. "Will you slow down? Anyway. A few of them were pregnant but most just seemed to be younger women who were out at night alone."

"Could it be just a normal vamp?" I took a gentle sip of coffee. I had heard Rowena talk about Shtriga before, they were vampiric-like creatures who usually went after infants themselves rather than adults.

"I don't think so. The women are mostly fine after the attacks, it's the babies that end up drained of blood." Sam stated. "But the women who weren't pregnant all became sick and died within a few days of the attack."

"Well, that's…disgusting." I sat down at the small table in the kitchen.

"You're telling me!" I heard Dean say from the driver's seat.

I smiled softly. "Well, what do you need from me?"

"We want you to meet us here and…"

"Right. It's going after women." The smile fell as I interrupted Sam. "You want bait?"

"Only because we know you won't let it touch you." Sam hastened to try and make it sound better. But bait was still bait.

I sighed. "Where is this at?"

"It's happening in Santa Ana, California." Sam said, "The sixth body just dropped this morning."

"You gonna wait for me to drive out before you start looking for it?" I smiled again as Ketch walked in. 

"Naturally." I could hear the casual smirk in Sam's voice. The one he wore whenever he knew I'd given in, even if I hadn't directly said it.

"Fine. I'll see you guys in about a day then." I said before hanging up.

"Where are you off to?" Ketch asked, sitting down across from me.

"The boys found a hunt in Santa Ana and want a little help." I took another sip of coffee, enjoying the taste as it flowed over my tongue. "Figured I would help out while I'm still able to."

"Just be careful, love." His smile was gentle and warm. "What is it they're hunting?"

"Sam said he thought it was a Shtriga." I picked up my phone as a text came in from Dean. An address to the motel they'd be staying in.

"A Shtriga?" Ketch sounded a little alarmed. And when I looked up at him again, his gray eyes were clouded with worry. "Do you know what those are?"

"Ya. They're kinda like vampires mixed with witches." I shrugged.

"They're much more than that, love. They…"

"I know what they go after, Ketch." I interrupted him gently. "They go after infants. After they've already been born. I'll be in no danger."

"And what if it does go after you still?" He reached for my hand, holding it firmly. "I can not lose you again."

I smiled softly. "You're not going to lose me." My thumb traced over the back of his hand. "I'll be safer with Dean and Sam than any other hunt I go out on alone."

"What about the book? We still need to find it." Ketch' eyes were pleading. "Stay here and go through more research with me."

"And find another surefire way for you to get hurt?" I shook my head. "I may be losing a little power, but I am still more durable than you are. And I'm not just going to sit idly by when I can be doing something real. I need this, Ketch. Give me at least this last one."

Those dove-gray eyes stared back at me, searching for something else to say. Something else to keep me here at his side, even if he knew there wasn't. Then his eyes closed and he sighed. Defeated.

"You're sure you'll be able to take it?" A last-ditch effort.

"I've taken on a small hoard of werewolves with a broken collarbone and a few gunshot wounds." I laughed a little. "I'm sure I can handle this thing."

His eyes traced over me one last time before he nodded and stood. "Then you should get going." He kept his hand in mine as he helped me to my feet, then kissed my forehead. "Santa Ana is a long drive."

And it was a long drive. Filled with nothing more than stale radio music, snacks, and more pitstops to fucking pee than I wanted there to be. Whatever this thing was growing inside of me was starting to be annoying. It had only been a few weeks since Crowley had said I'd looked about two months along, but I already felt twice that size now. I was still surprised that the boys hadn't noticed or figured it out yet. But they were gone most of the time right now, finishing up hunts left and right as the light began to shine at the end of the tunnel. But after this hunt, when I stopped hunting until after this thing was born…surely they would notice or at least ask why I wasn't hunting anymore.

I sighed, cracking my stiff neck as I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the no-star motel my brothers had picked out to stay in while they hunted this Shtriga. I sighed again as I pushed myself from my car and stretched, my hips and lower back popping a little. 

"They couldn't have picked a more comfortable-looking place?" I mumbled to myself as I walked up to their room and knocked.

Sam was the one who answered. "You're finally here!" He pulled me into a gentle hug. "I was starting to think you'd ditched us."

"I don't always like to drive as fast as Dean does, Sam." I smiled. He was so warm and smelled like home.

Sam stepped back and looked over at me. "I feel like it's been a while since I saw you last."

I laughed. "You saw me three days ago, Sam."

"And that was too long," Dean said as he pushed past Sam enough to hug both of us.

I laughed more as Dean squeezed us both harder, almost lifting us off the ground. This was it. This was the home I needed so badly. This was the family I had died for and would do so again if I needed to. This would be what I always fought for. 

"You're going to crush me, Dean." I finally said through the laughter from us all now.

Dean rolled his emerald eyes playfully, but let Sam and I go. Sam ruffled my hair playfully before stepping away from me and allowing me into the room. 

"Do you mind if I take a shower before we get into anything?" I asked as I closed the door. "I feel like I smell like sweat and the car."

"I can remember a time when that wasn't a bad thing." Dean snickered.

"Until you tried to murder Sam for getting the back seat 'messy' with that redhead." I shot back at him, leaving my backpack in a chair.

"Not my fault he got…"

"I do not need to hear that story again!" I interrupted him on my way to the small bathroom in the back of the room.

It was twenty minutes of the warm water hitting my skin before I felt good enough to join them again. But while showering I noticed I had definitely gotten bigger. I now looked four, maybe even five months along. I hadn't even thought of a name for the thing yet. Maybe I would name it after one of the boys. I wondered if they would like that as I walked back into the main area, clean and dressed, to find Sam by himself at the table. His laptop was open and he seemed lost in thought.

"Where'd Dean run off to?" I asked.

"He went to go get dinner," Sam responded. "I asked him to grab a burger for you too."

My stomach growled at the thought. "Thank you."

"Were you planning on telling us soon, or not until after?" The question caught me off guard as I sat on the edge of one bed.

"What do you mean?" I asked as if I didn't already have a sinking feeling I knew what he meant.

"You're pregnant, right? When were you planning on telling us?" Of course, he knew. Sam wasn't dumb, and he had always known me better than Dean had.

I sighed deeply. "I'm not sure Sam. I didn't really want anyone to find out this way. I barely wanted to find out and it's my body." My face fell into my hands. "I knew I couldn't exactly hide it from you guys, but I also wasn't sure how either of you would react to the news since…"

"I've told you before, I'm not going to judge who you choose to love," Sam said. "Even if he was a psychopathic, brainwashed, morally grey, British assassin who tried to not only murder you but our…"

"Ya ya, 'Our entire family.' I got it, Sam." I said, laughing just a little bit. 

Sam's sudden hands on mine made me jump, and I looked up into his hazel eyes to find deep concern. "He didn't force this on you, right? He's not abusing you?"

I pulled back from him a bit. "God no. You think I would stay with him if he was?"

"I just wanted to ask. He brainwashed you once, he could do it again." Sam shrugged.

"He's a changed man, Sam. And a good one who's proven it over and over again at that." I tried to smile convincingly at my younger brother, but there was a part of me that couldn't. Ketch may have changed for the most part but there were still things he did that weren't…great.

Sam looked up at me, "I will believe that when I see it. How far along are you?"

I fell back onto the bed, groaning. "I'm not sure. It shouldn't be more than a month, but Jack pointed out that celestial and demonic beings like this tend to grow quicker." I looked down at myself. "And I'm pretty sure he's right. I feel like I'm five months at the least."

"You look it," Sam commented. "You're just barely starting to show. It was one of the biggest giveaways."

"I take it the suddenly eating again was another one?" I draped my arm over my eyes.

"That and how quickly you stopped drinking so much." Sam clicked away on his keyboard. "You know I won't tell Dean, right?"

I nodded and we sat in silence for a moment. "This will be my last hunt for a while." 

"I figured as much. It would start to become dangerous after a while." Sam chuckled a little. "I knew being pregnant probably changed how hunters did the job, but I never figured we'd have to deal with something like that."

"Me either." I laughed out with him.

We sat in comfortable silence after that. A few moments into it, I sat up again and walked over behind Sam, leaned against him until I was resting my chin on his head, and followed along with what he was researching about Shtriga. It was interesting to see more than just what the one or two books we had at home had to say about them. 

Vampiric witch-like creatures of Albanian myth that went after infants rather than grown humans. They would enter homes in the middle of the night and drain the infant of blood before turning it into some sort of flying insect. The Shtriga would usually then capture the insect child in a jar and take it back to its lair where it would remove the curse and keep the child alive to continue to snack on it. If the Shtriga was interrupted before it could capture the child and take it with her, the child would usually die of infection or a disease that could not be cured. It was often believed that someone who believed in god could not be infected but that didn't seem to apply to the thing now. Or at least not in this case.

I pointed at one of the images Sam had pulled up from the case. "That doesn't line up with the myth. She was attacked at the midsection. And the child hadn't been born yet."

Sam shrugged. "The myths aren't always one hundred percent correct. And I've never heard of anything else that drains blood from just the infants like this."

I hummed. "Fair enough. But then what about the part where they should take the child with them to keep feeding off it? They can't do that if it's still a fetus."

Sam nodded, jostling my head as he did. "That's a good point. Maybe I'll give Cas a call and see what he knows."

"That might be a good call. We don't need to walk into something we're not prepared for." I said as the door to the motel room opened, and Dean walked in with a few boxes of takeout.

"Not prepared for what?" He asked, eyeing Sam and I as he put the containers on the table.

"Alex doesn't think this is a Shtriga," Sam said.

I smacked his shoulder lightly. "I didn't say that. I just think we should look into other things like it. We might be missing something and I'd rather not go in guns blazing against a thing that may need a knife to take down."

Dean nodded. "Fair enough. So do we have anything else this could be?"

"Nope." Sam and I said together.

Sam smiled. "I was hoping to give Cas a call after we ate."

"Good enough for me!" Dean said before flopping down onto one of the beds and popping open one of the styrofoam containers.

We all laughed a little at that.

It turned out, Cas also had no idea what this thing could be. His best guess was maybe it was a crossbreed or just a young Shtriga who didn't know how things worked yet. But that was good enough for Sam and Dean to be confident that it wasn't anything we couldn't just shoot in the face.

"Didn't we hunt one of these before?" I asked as we got ready to stalk out its dump site after another day of research. It was a currently under-construction wing of the children's hospital in Santa Ana.

"Yup," Dean said.

"Back in two thousand and six. I think it was somewhere in Wisconsin." Sam specified.

"Oh right. There was the creepy hand print on the window sill." I remarked. "And Sam almost died."

"I didn't almost die." Sam scoffed. "It just had its hands on my face and tried to steal my life essence."

"Because that's not exactly what dying is." I rolled my eyes.

"Regardless." Dean's voice was serious, though there was a smile on his face. "We need to gank this thing before it upgrades to actual children."

"Agreed," Sam said, cocking the shotgun in his hands.

It was a relatively short drive to the location. We had made sure it was nearly midnight before leaving too, so it was dark enough that no one noticed three unknown adults sneaking under the temporary plastic wall. Once inside, it wasn't hard to find the taped-off area where the most recent woman had been found. The concrete was still stained in blood.

"This one lived?" I asked as I crouched down to examine the spot.

"She did. She was only about a month or two along when she was attacked." Sam stated as he showed a flashlight around the area. "The baby, of course, is unfortunately dead. But the woman is expected to make a full recovery after the surgery to remove the unborn…"

"I got it, Sammy," I said, staring at him.

He nodded in the dim light, understanding on his face. "When we were here earlier yesterday, we found some odd tracks and followed them to a set of double doors over…"

"Here," Dean said, disappearing down an unfinished hallway.

I just looked at Sam and shrugged before following our older brother down the hallway and then through a set of heavy-looking black doors. It was eerily silent and dark behind them as if the light had not touched this area in a while. Even our flashlights seemed dim. There didn't seem to be any windows or any indication of what this room was meant to become. But it seemed large, easily making the small motel room seem half the size it was. And it smelled. There was something about it that I couldn't quite pinpoint. Like something had been cleaned so thoroughly there wasn't a smell to be left over, but yet, there was one. 

"The tracks keep going," Dean said as he pointed his flashlight along the ground.

"They look like drag marks, not like the handprint or rot we saw before," I remarked.

"Ya. That's…"

Something unearthly screeched from somewhere in the room. Our lights swung in wide circles as we tried to find the source, all of us coming up empty and something's wings flapped. 

"Sam…" I started.

"Ya…Shtriga don't have wings…" He finished.

Dean caught the monster in his light then, or at least half of the thing as it flew with bat-like wings around the ceiling. It looked disgusting as if a vampire had rotted away or been cursed to look like a zombie. Its eyes were large white orbs that still seemed bloodshot. The thing had a skinny black speckled tongue, long enough that it stuck out of its mouth in the short moments it took to close it. Its hands ended in deep black, decaying claws. There seemed to be a long, fleshy cord coming from its abdomen, and following it revealed a set of legs that matched the top half. Bits of jagged flesh along the torso and hips of the creature almost looked as if they'd align if it decided to puzzle piece itself back together again. It screamed in a deep fury as the light graced its flesh.

"What the fuck is that!" I yelled.

"Who the fuck knows!" Dean yelled back. "But it's going to die!"

With that, Dean affixed the light to his belt and aimed his shotgun at the creature's flying half. He pulled the trigger, sending consecrated iron into its flesh. The thing screeched again but didn't seem to slow down at all, its flesh merely filled with small holes now. It flew fast, away from the light, but toward me, as if its dead eyes knew exactly where and what I was. I barely had time to jump out of the way of the flying torso before it crashed into the concrete floor where I had been. 

"Fuck!" I shouted as I fell hard onto my arm.

"Alex!" Dean shouted, his light shifting to find me as mine scattered across the floor.

"I'm fine! Get it!" I scrambled back again as the thing dove for me.

The sickening creature's tongue lashed out for me as I dived from its grasp. I smacked into a forgotten set of metal tables, sending them clattering to the floor as I tried to stand again. The monster crawled across the ground after me, its tongue lashing back and forth as if sniffing for me.

"Do we have any idea what will kill this thing?!" I asked into the room.

I kept my eyes on it as I staggered back further and further until I was met with a wall. I tried to dodge to the side, but its tongue coiled around my ankle and pulled me to the ground again. I cried out as my head hit the cement, sending dark circles across my vision. I kicked at its head, shoving my free foot as hard as I could into its jaw. But that barely seemed to slow the thing down. 

It cooed and hummed now as it got closer to me, its tongue inching up my leg the further it got. I kicked again, aiming for its shoulder now and trying to pry it away from me. But it only pulled closer, grabbing my ankle in one of its disgusting hands now.

"Any time now!" I said into the dark.

It was dark. Their lights had left. There was no telling where my brothers were now, and with my pounding heartbeat, I couldn't even tell if they were still in the room. Had they left me? Called it quits and left me to be sacrificed to this thing? No…of course they wouldn't but…

'You're a demon now. Why would they want to save you?'

No, they're just searching for ideas.

'Are you sure? You're nothing to them anymore.'

They still love me. They have to! They'll save me! 

'What if they don't this time? Don't you want to see him again?'

Images of Ketch and the ideal family I wanted flashed in front of my eyes as this creature before me slithered further up my legs. Its tongue was hovering near my waist now, stroking my belly as if it knew what was there beneath the skin. Of course, I wanted to see him again. I love him.

'Then give in to me, child. Let me show you what true power is.'

I won't do that. This voice was nothing more than the monster in front of me, it had to be. There was no other explanation for it. Whatever this fucking thing was had to have some sort of ability to creep into my mind once it had touched me. That was it.

'You can think that all you want child. Ask Crowley when you're ready for the…'

The voice cut off as the monster screeched harshly into my ears. Then I noticed it, the bright light of a fire coming from the other side of the room. Dean and Sam stood in the light of it, flanking the creature's hips as they burned. It let go of me, leaping at them, but the boys were ready for it. They both held up cans of something and lighters, igniting whatever was in the cans and spraying the creature down with the flames. It screeched again, this time in agony as it fell to the ground, burning alive.

I breathed heavily as I watched it die. The thing struggled and wailed until its very last breath. Its body fell to the ground in a pile of ash then, leaving nothing but the black soot as evidence of its existence here.

"When in doubt." Dean started, a dumb smile on his face as he came to my aid. "Torch it."

He stuck his hand out and I took it. He raised me gently to my feet, then slung his arm around my waist to support me.

"I'm fine, Dean." I chuckled softly.

"I'll believe that when we can get you checked out." He scoffed. "Quick healing or not."

I smiled softly in the darkness. "So do we have any idea what the fuck that was?" I asked as we left the dark room, Sam joining us after collecting my fallen flashlight.

"I'm not sure. I don't think I've read about anything like that before." Sam shrugged. "But it's dead now, so we can be confident that no one else will die here."

"At least not from whatever that was." Dean joked.

I elbowed him playfully, earning a laugh from him and Sam. I smiled, ready to give my own small laugh when a strike of pain went through my abdomen and I doubled over in Dean's arms. I winced as another quickly struck through me. What the fuck was happening?

"Alex. Are you ok?" Dean questioned.

"Ya…I'll be…" I screamed as another pain ripped through my gut. It was unlike anything I had felt before.

This pain continued to come, continued to tear through me as if it were a blade through a deer hide. I hit the ground, falling out of Dean's hands as a fourth and fifth threatened to end me.

"Oh fuck…" Dean whispered.

"Alex…" Sam started. "You're bleeding…"