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Karen was still a little nervous around Kang, and quiet, even after spending a couple of days with him, and he couldn't really blame her. At least she wasn't terrified of him anymore, and she wasn't all that difficult to watch over. He'd even managed to find a few things to help keep her entertained in Possessions (the Fairplay memories were definitely coming in handy in this case; he wouldn't have known what type of things human children typically liked to do otherwise).

He had duties at the tavern, though, and decided to bring her along with him. She'd offered to help him out, but there really wasn't anything a child as young as her could do, so he'd handed her some paper and crayons and set her up at a table next to the bar, asking her to draw some pictures for the tavern. That way, she was occupied and out of the way, and still felt that she was doing something to help.

He made sure to keep an eye on her as he went about his usual business, checking up on her every now and then to make sure she wasn't bored.

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Sam's mouth set in a grim line. "Actually, Dean, I think it can be. I got flashes and..." He shook his head. "The Ohm we call Leviathans are psychic, did you know that? And we fought three or four of them. I know I was knocked out when they were killed.

"Ru..." He cut that thought off. Dean didn't know that she absolutely couldn't be trusted, but he didn't want to think about her. "The powers were dormant. I'm thinking something in the death throes may have knocked it loose again."

Kang frowned, "That doesn't sound good. Is there any way to make them more... tolerable?"

He took a drink of his ale, glancing over at Karen. "I'm going to have to find someone else to watch over Karen during this, aren't I? She's met Eva, and I think she'll be willing to take her in. She'll probably be happier staying with someone else anyways; she's still nervous around me."

"Aw crap, you think they whammied you?" Dean looked uneasy at that.

He sighed, and remarked, "Sorry, Kang. Hate to bring this down on you, and yeah, either Eva or staying wherever Tom will be."

Sam nodded to Dean. "Right now, it seems like it's keyed into whatever's causing this. But I'm not getting a lot of lead time." Which meant that when Dean switched, Sam was going to be vulnerable for a few moments. So it was probably a very good idea to have Kang around.

He looked over at Karen. "I'm sure Tom would be glad to have her with him. She does know us, but I don't know how comfortable she is with us yet." He liked her and felt protective, but it depended on what Karen waned, too.

"Dean, you said it before yourself: family. It'd be a pretty shitty thing of me to do to not help you when you needed it," Kang pointed out. "I'll talk to Aibghalien about any artifacts in the Tower, and make arrangements for Karen. I'll need to let the other councilors know that I'll only be available via omnicomm for the next few days, too."

Dean gave Kang a grateful smile at that. He just wasn't good on asking for things for himself. He briefly looked toward Karen, and his expression fell a little. Hoped for more time to get to know the kid, but that would have to wait now. He knew he had to avoid people for a while. Depending on how long this lasted, and it was a shitload of years to cover.

Sam grimaced. "I'm going to have to contact the general, too." Because if he wasn't going to be able to make it to flight practice, he was going to be in trouble. "We'll get it figured out." That was directed to Dean as much as Kang.

"I can help make sure Trudy isn't too hard on you," Kang smiled slightly, and nodded. "And yes, we will get this figured out."

Dean just nodded, because they always do figure it out. But in the meantime, he was staying quiet and trying to hide how much going back to the Pit at least mentally freaked him out.

Pretty much the same way Sam was trying to hide it on his end. He knew what had happened to Dean. Had seen the aftermath in a dozen ways. Had been there with him through the fallout from Punishment.

Now he was going to see it first hand and it frightened and sickened him. But there was no way that Sam would turn his back on him. At least he could be there, this time.

"Any help I can get with Trudy would be awesome," Sam admitted with a shaky smile. "Though you'd think that after that damned fight with the Ohm, we'd have earned a little downtime."

Kang snorted, "Sam, you should know by now that's not how things work. How'd that fight go, anyways? I haven't heard many details yet."

Sam rubbed his face. "It was a clusterfuck," he said after a moment. "Our info said that it was just Shrikes, and not that many of them at all. Should have been easy enough to handle.

"Instead," he went on, dropping his hands to the table, "we had a fuck ton of Shrikes, Firebugs and Leviathans. We got lucky."

"It's very rarely not a clusterfuck, when it comes to Stacy's missions," Kang said dryly. "I would have heard if there were any casualties, and I'm assuming no serious injuries?"

Sam shook his head. "There were several serious injuries, actually. A lot of the ships have taken one hell of a beating, too." He waved his hand at his head. "I got lucky. Just knocked unconscious right at the end."

"...odd that I haven't heard anything about them. Do you know who all got injured?" Kang asked.

Dean gave Sam another look, "Think that was from that psychic wave that whammied you?"

That made him close his eyes, considering for a moment. "One of the giant robot guys looked like he was in really bad shape. The Rangers were all looking pretty rough, too."

He glanced to Dean and nodded. "Yeah, I'm pretty positive it was. I'm already more sensitive than most people when it comes to this psychic shit."

Kang frowned, "I'm going to have to stop by the med bay."

Dean gave Sam another concerned look at that.

"Yeah but we thought that crap was done."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. "I think the 'special kids' were chosen for various reasons, including the fact that some of us were already predisposed. I've always had a knack for knowing then something supernatural was happening. That never actually changed." Which meant there was still something going on underneath it all. "Ruby said that my powers were just dormant. I guess you can't entirely turn something like that off when it's been turned on."