“ | I run. But sometimes they catch me. | ” |
Kaia Nieves was a dreamwalker orphaned as a result of a supernatural tragedy. Although apparently killed by her alternate counterpart, Kaia survived and was trapped in the Bad Place for over two years. As the Bad Place was destroyed by God, she was rescued by the Winchesters and Dark Kaia and departed with Jody Mills for a new life in Sioux Falls.
History
Background
Kaia lost her family at a young age. By the time she reached adulthood, she was on her own, completely disconnected from her roots, as she tried to understand a burgeoning gift: In her dreams, Kaia walks between worlds — a rare and terrifying power she experiences only as a curse... a power she doesn't understand and can't yet control.
Because of her powers, she was connected to her counterpart and often saw The Bad Place. Dark Kaia later explained that they were born at the exact same time in two separate worlds with their powers connecting their minds and memories.
Season 13
Kaia was seen in the drug treatment facility and was arguing with the doctor who told her to open up to the other clients. She defended her addiction and walked out and she met Jack who claims to be cocaine addict, much to her confusion. Jack eventually admits that he needs Kaia's help and offers to help Kaia escape in exchange. Subduing a doctor, Jack is able to help Kaia escape through a triple-locked door. However, Kaia refuses to help Jack and runs off after hitting him while he was distracted by the Winchesters catching up to him.
Free again, Kaia wandered the streets and accepted a ride from a man and woman who offered her help. Upon getting in, she was knocked out by the woman as they drove off.
While being held captive, Kaia asked why they took her and learned that she was to be bait for Jack who was the son of Lucifer. Kaia was very surprised by this news though she doubted he would come for her. Dean and Sam soon barge in along with Jack and Kaia was left in awe at his powers as he subdued one of her abductors and killed the other. After this, she is very surprised to learn that Jack is truly Lucifer's son as well as Dean and Sam hunting monsters and that her kidnappers were angels. She attempted to walk away from the unbelievable things she heard. Jack tried to stop her but failed. Dean then held her at gunpoint and ordered her into the car.
Along the drive, Kaia was annoyed by her situation and ignored Jack's attempts to apologize and understand her situation. Jack offered to show her other worlds besides the horrible one she has seen and she accepts. She was greatly amazed by the beauty of the other worlds as Jack says she could see more if she helps which she agrees to. While the angels use their powers to try and destroy the warding spells, Kaia attempts to concentrate on the Apocalypse World, the universe where Mary Winchester is in, but she keeps flashing back to the Bad Place that has haunted Kaia all of her life.
Kaia inadvertently sends herself, Jack, Dean and Sam to different places. The glow she and Jack emit as they open the portal together causes the nearby angels to disintegrate into dust. While Kaia is left unconscious on the side of the road, Jack alone is transported to Mary while Kaia's flashing to the Bad Place results in the Winchesters being sent there instead.
A few days later, the still-unconscious Kaia was found by a man who called an ambulance for her. Kaia was taken to Sioux Falls General Hospital where she was treated for a mild concussion and dehydration. At the same time, Claire Novak was looking for her with the help of Alex who worked as a nursing assistant at the hospital. Alex found Kaia logged into the system as a Jane Doe and directed Claire to Kaia's room. Claire found Kaia as she prepared to bolt and attempted to convince Kaia to help without success. Outside, Kaia was confronted by one of the Cloaked Figures from the Bad Place to her shock, but Claire and Jody Mills killed it.
As Jody, Alex and Patience Turner performed an examination of the creature's body, Kaia sat outside with Claire. Kaia explained to Claire how she saw the creatures in her dreams and they gave her scars. Kaia warned that the creatures ran in packs and once they got someone's scent, they would never stop coming after a person. Kaia and Claire compared scars before Kaia explained about the Bad Place, the creatures and her work with the Winchesters to Jody's group. After Claire realized that the rift to the Bad Place must still be open, Kaia warned that if they went to the Bad Place, they would die.
A short time later, the group was forced to flee the house after Patience predicted that the Cloaked Figures were about to attack. Along with Claire, Kaia watched the attack on the house from Claire's phone in horror. After stopping to meet up with Donna Hanscum, Kaia told the group what she knew of where the rift was, allowing them to identify it as the Larsen Bros. Shipyard. Kaia remained behind with Alex, Claire and Patience as Jody and Donna went to search for the rift. As they waited, Kaia comforted Claire over Patience's vision and urged Claire to go after the Winchesters, promising to go with Claire if she did.
After the girls rescue Jody and Donna, Claire and Kaia find the rift which is closing. With more Cloaked Figures coming after them, Claire goes through the rift to the Bad Place accompanied by a scared Kaia. Kaia was able to lead Claire to the Winchesters and the two rescued them, with Kaia informing the Winchesters that she thought Jack was in Apocalypse World with their mother. Upon their return to the rift, a hooded figure appears that threw a spear at Claire. Kaia shoved Claire out of the way and took the spear in the side herself. Dying, Kaia reached out to Claire and held her hand as she died. With a Giant after them, Claire and the Winchesters were forced to retreat through the rift which closed behind them, leaving Kaia's body in the Bad Place.
After Claire and the Winchesters return, Jody comforted Claire over Kaia's death while Patience realized that her vision had actually been of Kaia dying and Jody comforting Claire. The devastated Claire swore revenge on Kaia's killer who managed to make it through to the Main Universe and was revealed to be the alternate reality version of Kaia herself.
Season 14
In The Scar, Sam and Dean recognize the figure that attacked and injured Michael with her spear as Kaia's killer and call in Jody for help in tracking her. Jody doesn't tell Claire as Kaia is still a sore subject for her, being Claire's first love.
The Winchesters and Jody are shocked to learn that Kaia's killer is in fact the alternate reality Kaia. The alternate Kaia explains that Kaia's death was an accident as she was aiming for Claire, not Kaia. The alternate Kaia reveals that she also experienced flashes of Kaia's life, including Dean threatening Kaia with a gun to make her comply. After the alternate Kaia tells him that she and Kaia shared visions their whole lives, Sam realizes that both Kaia's are dreamwalkers who were connected by their powers.
After the other Kaia leaves, Jody is left to figure out how to explain what happened to Claire along with the grief of losing Kaia all over again and the pressure of raising three hunters.
In The Spear, the alternate Kaia asks for help returning to her own world. As the magic opened the rift for her doesn't work in the Main Universe, she remembers Jack and Kaia opening the rift together and asks Dean to have Jack do the same for her to go home.
Season 15
In Galaxy Brain, Dark Kaia reveals to Dean, Sam and Jody Mills that Kaia was not killed by the spear blow. Dark Kaia treated Kaia's wound before leaving the Bad Place and left Kaia the tools she needed to survive. Kaia was able to survive the next two years on her own, trapped in the Bad Place and still connected to her counterpart who saw the Bad Place through her eyes. However, Dark Kaia learned from their connection that the Bad Place is ending and so she must return home. The Winchesters and Jody are horrified to learn that Kaia survived and was left trapped for two years in another world. After seeing a scared Kaia singing through Dark Kaia, Jack agrees to help rescue Kaia from the Bad Place.
With the help of Merle, the Winchesters and Castiel power up the bunker's warding enough to temporarily prevent God from sensing Jack using his powers. Jack opens a rift to the Bad Place where Dark Kaia leads the Winchesters to her former home where Kaia has been living. Surprised to see Sam and Dean again, Kaia hugs Dean before spotting her counterpart. Sam reassures the angry Kaia that Dark Kaia had helped them find her and they begin heading back to the rift. However, Dark Kaia chooses to stay and die with her world rather than leave with them again. Dark Kaia tells Kaia that Kaia belongs in her world, not Dark Kaia and urges them to flee as the Bad Place is destroyed.
After crossing back through the rift, Kaia is reunited with Jody who is waiting on the other side. The two embrace before Kaia gets changed from the clothes she has worn for over two years into some of Jack's. Jack questions how Kaia managed to survive for so long on her own and she simply states that it was Miss Mary Mack the nursery rhyme which her mother had used to sing to her. Kaia declines to explain further and Jody offers to take Kaia home with her if she wants which Kaia accepts. Kaia asks after Claire and Jody promises that Claire will be there too soon. Kaia thanks the Winchesters, Castiel and Jack before leaving with Jody.
In Inherit the Earth, Kaia appears in the flashback sequence at the end.
Powers and Abilities
Kaia was a very powerful dreamwalker.
- Dream Walking - While in a state of dreaming, Kaia could see into other worlds. She was mainly focused on the world she called The Bad Place but could change the worlds she looked into. However, she would always flash back to the bad place if she lost concentration. Unlike other dreamwalkers, Kaia's visions of the Bad Place left her with physical scars. This is because she was connected through her powers to the alternate reality Kaia who was also a dreamwalker, resulting in them sharing visions of each others lives throughout their respective lives.
- Molecular Combustion (combined with Jack) - While combining powers with Jack to open a rift into an alternate reality, Kaia's screams caused the rift Jack was opening to emit a yellow glow that disintegrated six nearby angels. Whether this was an intended effect or an unexpected effect of her enhanced ability is not clear.
- Portal Creation (combined with Jack) - While combining powers with Jack, the two displaced themselves and the Winchesters. Due to Kaia flashing between the Bad Place and Apocalypse World, Jack ended up in Apocalypse World, the Winchesters in the Bad Place and Kaia on the side of the road with a rift opening for a few days to the Bad Place, instead of opening to Apocalypse World for all of them as intended.
Personality
“ | I hate doing this to myself, putting that junk in my body but it's the only thing that keeps me awake, it's the only thing that keeps me from... From the Bad Place. | ” |
Flinty, sarcastic, and profoundly haunted, Kaia is nevertheless strong and willful as hell — she's had to be to survive this long on her own.
She can be easily shocked by the supernatural, as seen when learning Jack's heritage, seeing what Jack is capable of and that monsters were real and Sam and Dean hunt them. Kaia found courage in facing these things with help from Jack and Claire Novak.
Due to having a fear of the Bad Place, which was shown when she was revealed to reluctantly take amphetamine to avoid dream walking to it and while sympathetic to Sam and Dean upon learning that they need her to use her powers to help them save their mother who is trapped in another world, Kaia initially refused to help them save her out of fear of going to the Bad Place. However, she was willing to risk going on two occasions with the first being when she, Jack and the Winchesters were trapped on a ship under siege from a group of angels who aimed to capture Jack, she offered to dream walk despite her fears in order to escape and stop the angels from killing her and the Winchesters and abducting Jack. Later, when Claire, who aimed to go to the Bad Place to save Sam and Dean, was scared to go alone upon hearing Patience Turner had a vision of Claire dying in it, she offered to go with her to the Bad Place to save them. Though she was visibly scared when she and Claire were about to go through the rift to the Bad Place and hesitated to go through with it, she was able to muster up the courage to do it when Claire promised to protect her.
Kaia also proved to be very fearful of her counterpart, as when Dark Kaia dashed across Kaia's dream walking vision, Kaia screamed multiple times when she saw her face to face. While this hinted that she and her counterpart had some bad history within the Bad Place, Dark Kaia showed to not be as uncaring as it appeared as she showed some level of disgust at Dean for forcing her to help him and Sam at gunpoint leaving it uncertain why Kaia was so scared of her. It's possible that her fear came from a lack of understanding of what she was seeing as Dark Kaia wore a dark hooded cloak and everything in the Bad Place was scary to Kaia. While Kaia only knew the Bad Place as a place of terror that she for some reason saw her whole life, Dark Kaia understood the nature of their connection and even envied Kaia's life and world as she revealed to Jack. Despite Kaia's fear of her counterpart, Dark Kaia never meant her any harm, treating Kaia's injury after nearly killing her and being angry on Kaia's behalf over her ordeal.
It was revealed that Claire was in love with her but it is unknown if Kaia felt the same. Notably however, following her rescue, Kaia asked if Claire would be home before accepting Jody's invitation to go with her.
Despite her fears of the Bad Place, Kaia proved herself to be resourceful enough to survive there on her own for two years and didn't seem much changed by her ordeal, retaining much of the same personality. After seeing Dark Kaia in person for the first time while conscious and in the same world, Kaia could only glare at her counterpart, obviously blaming Dark Kaia for what happened to her, but calmed down when Sam explained that Dark Kaia had helped to rescue her. Though somewhat frightful at first, not speaking until after they returned to the Main Universe, Kaia was pleased to see her friends and appeared to hold no grudge against them for abandoning her in the Bad Place, greeting Dean, who had initially forced her to help at gunpoint, immediately with a hug and even sharing a friendly conversation with Jack who, as Dark Kaia pointed out, was the one who talked Kaia into helping open the rift in the first place.
Appearances
- Season 13
- The Bad Place
- Wayward Sisters
- Breakdown (mentioned only)
- Season 14
- Season 15
- Galaxy Brain
- Inherit the Earth (flashback only)
Trivia
- She is the first character to combine powers with an immensely powerful entity on screen.[1]
- She is also the first human character to kill multiple angels at the same time albeit when combining powers with a powerful being.
- She is the second known dreamwalker in the series.
- She is the second character introduced for the spin-off Supernatural: Wayward Sisters, the first being Patience Turner.
- According to Jody Mills, she is Claire Novak's first love.