Under a blood red sky

Christmas was coming. Molly could feel it in the little warning throbs of pain in her head. They weren't bad yet, but with every carol that she heard, every decorated tree in a window, every fat flake of snow that drifted on the wind around her added a thump to the inside of her skull. The bad days would come the closer they got to the holiday. She was preparing for the worst.

She tried to hide it from Harry and Murphy whenever she was around them. It was easier at Harry's since she had whatever project or puzzle her mentor would give her. Her studies were distracting from the things that upset her. They helped. Back at the apartment was a different story. She didn't have as many distractions. Murphy would talk to her, make sure she ate and tried to sleep, but it wasn't the same as trying to decipher runes, Old English or Sanskrit.

Then there was this evening. It was still early but the sun had gone down thanks to the approaching solstice. It wasn't full dark, but dark enough to border on creepy in places. Molly had wanted some Christmas cookies so took a detour on her way home from Harry's to grab something at the grocery store. She ended up with eggnog and milk along with a couple of boxes of different cookies, learning the eternal lesson of shoppers everywhere who intend on going in for just one thing and ending up with a whole mag of stuff. Goody.

Stepping out into the cold she hitched her coat higher on her shoulders and bundled it as much as she could in the front. Something throbbed inside her head and she cringed with a grimace. That had been different than the usual headaches and it made her glance around herself. All she saw, however, was a little old man ringing his little bell beside a Salvation Army bucket. She glowered but he wasn't looking at her and she didn't get anything from him...until he turned a smile to her.

"Merry Christmas!" His smile didn't change but to Molly it seemed a bit more menacing and each ding-a-ling of his bell seemed to resound inside her head. She frowned a bit more and started off away from the store at a faster walk than she had originally intended.

It'd been over a month.

At first, Dean figured she just needed a little bit of space. It wasn't like being Molly was stress-free, or like the walking dead taking over the town on Halloween night was a barrel of laughs. And then Sam came back. Dean forgot to worry, he was so glad. But once that settled down, Dean tried to track her. He tried checking the GPS in her phone, and looking for her via credit card receipts, and checking motels in an area in York and around.

Jo didn't want to be found.

Cas seemed busy again, too.

So Dean went to Harry.

It was just before noon when he knocked on the door to Harry's house. He didn't want to deal with Phaedra, even if she might be able to help. He was pretty sure her boyfriend was a little bit of a tall glass of crazy, and right now, all he could think about was getting answers about Jo. Maybe she'd checked in with Harry. But if not, he WAS the wizard.

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