The Impala comes to life, although remains as a car. Are her feelings the same as Dean's are for her? How uncomfortable is Sam going to be made to feel? prompter: dizzojay

Dean dabbed a little more leather cleaner onto his chamois and rubbed it in gentle circles into the passenger seat of the impala. Finally, a day off. It was 10 AM, and so far the world hadn't tried to off itself even once. Sam was sitting contentedly in the Batcave library, his nose in a book. Cas was doing something in the kitchen. He'd insisted he could handle the cooking for the day, so Dean could have the day off. Lunch was going to be interesting, but it was good that Cas was getting up enthusiasm for a human activity that didn't involve trying to fix the whole screwed up universe (because Cas always did that and it never ended well). And Dean, well, Dean wasn't a demon anymore. He hadn't killed anything all week, and he felt fine. So he was in the garage of the bunker, giving his faithful car some of the care she deserved. He had been too busy to give her the time she deserved lately. And sometimes too evil. But mostly too busy. He massaged the leather carefully, smiling in satisfaction as the thin coating of grime came off, leaving the surface shiny and soft.

"There, doesn't that feel better, baby?" He crooned, stroking the seatback, "Much better without Sam's filthy butt-sweat all over you, ain't it."

"Yes, Dean," a low, breathy female voice purred.

Dean froze for a second, then slowly looked around, cursing himself for trusting the safety of the Batcave enough to leave his gun beside his bed. He reached for the knife in his boot before remembering it wasn't there either. Crap. He backed out of the car and scanned the garage. There was no one there.

"Dean?" The voice enquired, "Are you alright, baby?"

Dean turned in a slow circle, searching for the source of the voice. There was definitely nobody else in the garage. Maybe another spirit? But what spirit would be lingering in the bunker? And what spirit would call him baby?

"Mom?" He asked hesitantly.

"That's disgusting, Dean. I hope you wouldn't say things like that to your mother."

OK, that was coming from the Impala. That was definitely his car talking. His car was possessed. Dammit, he'd thought today was going be a normal day. He'd already been up two hours, and nothing weird had happened.

"Hello?" he said. "Who is this?" He had a horrifying thought – what if something had happened while he was a demon that had left remains somewhere on his car. He hadn't exactly given her the best care when he was off on his knight-of-hell spree.

"It's me, Dean. Can you do that thing on my seat again?" The voice said seductively.

Dean watched as the lights on her radio lit up. His mind felt strangely blank. "Is my car talking to me? Is this actually happening?"

"Call me baby, Dean," the Impala said, "Haven't you always wished for this? I know I have. Now we can be together."

"Uh," said Dean, through the fog in his brain, "You're a car."

"Nothing can stop true love," his car breathed, "Why don't you sit in me, baby? I love the way you feel on my leather."

Dean backed towards the door.

The Impala's engine revved into life and she rolled towards him. "Sam! Cas! Help!" He yelled at the top of his lungs.

The Impala stopped. "What's wrong, Dean? Why are you afraid? I would never hurt you. I love you," she told him, in hurt tones, almost sounding like she was about to cry.

"Um," Dean reached out and patted her hood in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, "I'm just not used to you, y'know, moving by yourself. And talking. I'm finding it a bit strange."

"Where are you going? You don't need to go anywhere. I just want to spend some time with you. Is that too much to ask? After all, you haven't been around much lately. This is the first time we've just spent time together for a long time."

Maybe this was a dream. He did dream some strange stuff sometimes, and if this was a dream, it would be one of his better ones. He pinched himself. Nope, not a dream. Crap, he had to think of something to say. Never, in all the times he'd imagined his baby coming to life, had it occurred to him that she would be this clingy. Not that he'd ever daydreamed about this happening. Much.

"I just wanted to get Sam and Cas, so they can meet you too. Because this is so cool and not at all super weird and scary."

"Oh, Dean," she sighed, inching forward until she was almost touching his legs, "You know I like your brother and your friend, but can't it just be us for now? Can't we just talk? What we have is special. They won't understand."

Before Dean could reply, the door of the garage slammed open and Sam and Cas charged in, brandishing what must have been the first weapons that had come to hand. Lucky they weren't actually going to need them, because Cas was holding a whisk and Sam was waving a fountain pen in a threateningly stabby manner.

"Guys," Dean said, "I'd like you to meet the Impala."

Sam let out an exasperated sigh. "Don't do that, Dean! We thought something was after you. You made me lose my place in the Order of the Phoenix!"

"Is that a reference to your car being newly cleaned?" Cas squinted at the car, puzzled.

Dean tapped his car's hood. "Say something, baby."

He was met by a sulky silence.

Sam lowered his pen, bitchface #12 ("Stop interrupting me, Dean!") morphing into the look of concern he got when speaking to senile witnesses, or when he thought Dean was having a deep emotional crisis that needed to be discussed. "Dean? Are you talking to your car?"

Dean laughed awkwardly and patted her again. "Come on, baby. Stop sulking and talk to Sam."

The Impala refused to speak, huffing out a sigh.

"See, did you hear that. She just sighed!"

"That was just the engine settling, Dean." Sam told him gently.

"No, she was really talking," he insisted, without much hope he would be believed, "And then she tried to follow me when I went to get you."

"When I was crazy, she told me she did not appreciate getting bees all over her," Cas contributed. Dean looked at him hopefully, trying to look as truthful as possible. "Of course, that may have been in my head. Would you like some lunch? I've been making mini-quiches."

"Could you just look up how to de-animate something? And bring me some of those mini-quiches when you're done."

For a second, Sam looked like he was about to protest. Then he rolled his eyes, clearly seeing Dean's serious-face. "Fine, give me an hour."

Of course, the second the others were out the door, the Impala spoke again. "Why do you need to know how to de-animate something, Dean? Don't you want to be with me after all? Am I not what you hoped?"

"Oh no, baby. You're everything a guy could dream of," he reassured her. What was his life coming to, that he felt the need to bolster his car's self-esteem? "It's just that this isn't natural. Cars don't develop consciousness in real life. I'm worried that it could damage you, or it might be a trick to get to me. Someone might be using you to hurt me."

"Oh, Dean," the Impala purred, "I would never let someone hurt you." She nudged his legs affectionately, then gasped as he gave an involuntarily hiss of pain. She might not mean to hurt him, but the 1967 Chevrolet Impala was a very heavy model of car. "I'm sorry, baby. I didn't want to hurt you." She paused before continuing sadly, "maybe it's better if you de-animate me. I love you so much, but I'm having trouble controlling my strength. I don't want to injure you."

Dean tried not to sound too relieved as he replied. "That might be for the best. I know you'd never hurt me on purpose, but…"

"But we've got an hour or so, don't we?" His car asked hopefully. "Why don't you finish rubbing my leather? That felt so good."

"Uh…" Dean thought back to the things he had been saying to his car as he cleaned her. He felt his face heat up. Oh, man. That was definitely his sex voice he'd been using. Or at least his seduction voice. Sam was right. He did have an unnatural relationship with his car.

"Dean? Is everything okay? You don't have to give me a massage if you don't want to. Why don't you just sit inside me and we can talk?"

So Dean sat in his car, and tried not to be too freaked out while she told him how much she'd missed him, and offered forgiveness for all those times he'd let her get damaged.

He was reassuring her that even though the Batcave garage offered many cars to choose from, he'd always be faithful to her, when Sam knocked on the window, still wearing the expression he always wore when concerned for someone's sanity.

Sam waited for Dean to open the door before chucking a notebook at him. "I wrote down the ritual for you. Hey, man, are you sure you want to do this? It's gonna mean marking the leather, and if… um, if it's just, y'know, normal old car noises, you're just going to be drawing on the leather for no reason."

Dean took a deep breath and nodded. A strange lump had come to his throat. ""Yeah, thanks Sam. Can you just give us a minute?" His baby said nothing, because she only talked when they were alone.

After Sam had left, still looking at Dean suspiciously, Dean stroked the dashboard one last time. "This is it, baby. It's time."

He removed the cap from the pen he kept in the glove box. Lowering the tip until the ink marked the leather, he murmured, "Good-bye." This was it. The last time he could talk to her. When he finished the symbol and spoke the words Sam had written out for him, she would just be a car again. He began to draw.

The husky voice spoke one last time. "You can always talk to me, Dean, even if I can't talk back. You can tell me anything. Nothing you can say will stop me loving you. Good-bye."

Dean swallowed the lump in his throat and finished the symbol. He looked at the spell Sam had written for him, and read the words out loud.

There was silence. "Baby?" Dean asked, "Are you there?"

There was no reply.

Dean sat in the Impala rubbed leather cleaner into the seats until he was interrupted by a knock on the window.

It was Cas. "I brought you some mini-quiches. They're asparagus and tomato."

Dean capped the leather cleaner and stuffed his chamois into his back pocket before emerging from the car.

He took one of the quiches. "She really did talk to me, you know. I'm not going crazy. I don't know why she wouldn't talk when you guys were in the room."

Cas put his hand on Dean's shoulder. "It is understandable," he said, "After all, the two of you do share a more profound bond."

THE END