A little one shot from the Horseback Universe (if you don't get it check out my still in progress work Like Us But On Horseback, not quiet done but you'll get a big part of the picture.) where Dean gives Celia Northwind a call on the night of her birthday. Just short and sweet. Not really fluffy as Celia (and Dean) are far from fluffy.

Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: All characters and plot lines of "Supernatural" belong to their respective creators. Tuscarora and other major land features are existing parts of Nevada and belong to themselves while all characters and lay outs of such places and so on are completely fabricated by yours truly. Several different "spirits" and "gods" are based on Native American legend and creational stories, though they are also completely fictional.

All spirits, gods, individual characters, horses, dogs, Celia Northwind (Red) are © to Mary C. Tripp (that's me). No stealies!

…CALLED LATE…

"He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

…

October 15; Greer Wounded Heart Ranch; Tuscarora, Nevada

Celia sighed and rubbed her hand across her face. Red strands of hair tangling in her fingers as she hesitated a second before she sighed heavily and stepped back into her work. She pulled on her thick leather gloves and hefted up a bale of hay, tossing it out from the massive stock piled in the barn. She swiftly cut the wire with a knife. She flaked out the hay and tossed it into the last few stalls, listened to the mare, stud or gelding behind the sliding door nicker in gratitude before she shut the stall and slipped the latch into place.

Celia trudged wearily into the tack room, checking to make sure all the saddles and bridles in place and that the medications cabinet was stocked. She turned the light out, shut the door and locked it. Celia looked around the massive barn, her eyes drifting over half feral cats waiting for the lights to turn out digging down in the hay and the visible shoulders and ears of a few horses in their stalls.

She sighed and flipped the light off, pushed the massive door closed and slipped the prong bar into place and hooked the doors together. Celia stalked across the darkened yard, stumbled slightly on the steps up to the wrap around porch and cursed a few times under her breath as she stepped across the wood to the stone and brick work house.

Her blood colored eyes reflected in the moonlight for a second, seeming in human and predatory in the dark. She pulled the screen door open silently and passed into the stone tiled kitchen. She pushed the aged oak wood door closed as the screen swung shut with a bang of wood on wood.

With grunts and rough snorts three dogs climbed to their feet and stepped stiffly out from under that table to meet her. A merle collie named Alamo, and two German Shepherds, a black and tan named Buckshot and an albino named Valentine. They pressed their sides into her legs and whined for attention.

Celia stood just inside the door of the kitchen and braced her hands on the scarred table, ignoring the dogs until they sat back on their haunches, aware that she wasn't in the mood. She shivered, sniffing, disgusted at the layer of caked dust, mud, sweat and animal scent on her clothes and exposed skin. She rubbed her knuckles across the ridges of her horns and brows. She glanced up and smiled gently. Sitting alone on a small ceramic plate was a single cupcake. The white frosting was dusted lightly with coco powder. She leaned forward and sniffed, the smell of freshly baked chocolate and honey touched her nose. She shifted the plate slightly aside and lifted a neat white envelope from under it. She slipped it open, leaving streaks of browned dust on the pristine white paper.

The card was simple, a small drawing of a horseshoe on the front, she flipped it open and read the simple inscription.

'Happy Birthday with lots of love' and signed by Imogene, Elijah and Rosa.

She couldn't help but let a lot of the tension flow out of her shoulders as he noticed that there were three partial paw prints where pressed into the paper. The messy attempt was clearly Imogene's work and much appreciated.

Celia gently stood the card up on the table and lifted the chocolate cupcake. She glanced around for a second, making sure that the kitchen was devoid of other people then made a swift lick across the top, cleaning it of a streak of icing and cocoa powder, then set it inside the refrigerator to be enjoyed at a calmer time. Celia kicked off her boots in the mud room and patted the three dogs.

"Thanks for signin' the card, boys." She mumbled tiredly. The three animals thumped their tails and Alamo woofed weakly before all three slumped back to the floor to sleep.

Celia envied them, wishing that she could just throw herself down on the floor and sleep in the dirt, red clay dust and dried sweat. She turned with a final grateful glance at the card and stumbled up the stairs. As she got closer to her bed room and the shower the more her exhaustion sank into her bones until the last few steps up the stairs had her shivering with effort.

"Goddamn." She muttered quietly, trying desperately to avoid waking the rest of the house and her adoptive family.

Why was it that all her birthdays ended this way? That she was so tired her bones strained in her joints and her skin itched in weakness. It felt more like she had gained a hundred years instead of just one. She felt heavier, slower and her mind dulled by the sheer strain of it. Maybe it was the curse, her demonic possession gaining another link of iron in the chain, getting heavier and harder to bear with each passing year. She felt like she was suffocating under it.

It didn't help that she'd spent the majority of the day working, anyway. Two shifts at the local veterinary office with doctors Strain and Hallandgale for a little extra money to help keep her family comfortable and then the long patrol on the mustang boarders, though the threats of fire and predator had died down to almost nonexistence, they were still her bands, her herds of ponies and needed to be checked up on.

Celia didn't stop just because it was her birthday, taking the day off was far from an option when there was work to be done on the ranch and around the town. She was grateful that the people of Tuscarora stopped when they saw her to wish her a happy day and good luck in the coming year. She's never been much of a person for celebration and was slightly embarrassed when she stepped into her shifts at the vet office and there was a small cake with a few candles and an hour off actual working to eat and chat. Celia herself would have rather started the radiographs and vaccinations of several horses scheduled at that time.

Celia had blushed so red that her normally tawny skin matched her blood colored eyes and russet hair perfectly when the local sheriff and her grandfather by adoption, Amos Greer stopped in with her old high school classmate Justin the Trooper with their two tracker bloodhounds for shots and handed her a copy of Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit and a jar of Nevada desert honey all wrapped in brown paper. This had seemed excessive to her and she had quickly hidden the presents away in her locker and forgotten them until she was halfway out on the range and made a mental note not to forget them tomorrow.

Presents and time off and relaxing all day on your birthday was for youngsters. Once you hit teenage years you where supposed to know better and appreciated a small word of good luck and congratulations on surviving another year of Nevada desert summer heat and freezing cold in the winter, cleaning up mustang and cattle carcasses year round, getting the tar beat out of you every time that you gentled another colt, pushing adoptions at BLM rounds ups, daily chores and extraordinary events that had to be handled like they happened every day and guess what you get a chance to do it all again next year.

But Celia had never much liked gifts and parties and preferred the small more gossamer things. Maybe that was why she was more likely to be working alone on her birthdays, avoiding human contact and suffering through the weight of a new year.

Then there was working in the Greer cattle that night since her elder brother Elijah was on his fifth tour in the Middle East, Afghanistan this time.

She really appreciated the card then, they must have bought it a few months ago to make sure that Elijah could sign it himself before he was shipped out.

Celia turned, having the sudden urge to return to her card and tuck it under her pillow. But she looked down the flight of stairs like it led into the yawning mouth of Hell. She was sure that one step down those stairs and she would stumble and fall right to the bottom. As much as Elijah's signature would have comforted her she was unwilling to kill herself to get it. She felt a small bubble of guilt in her stomach, like she was betraying her elder brother, risking life and limb for his country in a different desert than the one of Nevada he had been born in.

But the stairs roared at her, daring her to try and get down them, she shivered, unnerved by the height and sudden steepness and swore that she would beg Elijah's forgiveness for her sudden cowardice of a set of stairs she'd raced up and down for years if he got back home. When. When he got back home.

Celia silently slipped down the hall, shaking with the now added weight of guilty fear for a set of stairs and stripped her clothes off as she passed through the door of the bathroom. She continued to curse herself as she dumped the filthy clothes into a wicker basket of waiting laundry. The hot water did little to improve her mood and relax her tightly coiled muscles. She probably shed a few pounds in the shower, scrubbing her skin with simple lye soap and her hair with relatively cheep shampoo with a very week smell of honey in it.

She tried to regain her strength and only seemed to shiver more as the water rippled over her spine and ribs.

An hour and her skin started feeling tight and she shut the water off in frustration. She growled.

A low animalistic snarl that was meant more for a mountain lion's throat than a human's.

Celia stepped out of the shower and grabbed a thick towel and roughly dried her skin, hair and horns. She wrapped the dampened cloth around her body and stepped out into the air conditioned hall, shuffling tiredly as her skin prickled in goose bumps and slipped into her room. She resisted the urge to slam her door, as the frustration at nothing seemed to blossom into pure anger.

What the hell was she mad at…

Celia practically stormed around her room, trying to strip the anger and she only felt heavier, weaker and slower. She pulled on a pair of fresh underwear and pajamas, a white tank top and light red cotton flannels. She threw her towel roughly into the hamper and sat down on the edge of her bed. The anger and guilt and frustration boiled in her gut like a rock on fire. She was starting to loose control of herself. She needed someone to talk to, vent to.

But Elijah was overseas, thousands of miles away and she was too cowardly to walk down a set of stairs to gain small comfort from his hand writing.

And Nathaniel, her beloved adoptive father was long in his grave.

The weakness sank into her joints and she found it a task just to move. She looked at her cell phone, sitting alone on her bed, blinking that she had missed a few messages, both vocal and texted. She rarely carried the damn thing. Why did someone need a cell phone when the whole town and every one that could help you could easily be reached on Channel Two on the walkie-talkies and radios?

She glared at it hatefully, pouring all her rage and pain and anger out towards it, wishing it would burst into flames.

She jumped out of her skin when it rang, buzzing to life with a series of tones of a Rascal Flatts song. Celia continued to stare at it, paranoid that the thing was taunting her. She leaned forward and picked up off of her quilt and opened it.

"Red." She rasped into the receiver. Her voice felt like gravel trying to be swallowed.

"Celia. Hi."

Her heart seized she even felt slightly dazed. "Dean?"

"Yeah, hey. Happy birthday." He chuckled quietly on the other end. "I remembered."

"Yeah." Celia was shivering, curling up in on herself. Dean Winchester's voice from somewhere far away was like a balm, calming and cooling her blood and nerves.

"Celia, you okay?" His voice was worn with insomnia and worry.

"I'll be alright." She assured, praying that he would talk more. She didn't care if he spoke all night, she would listen.

"You don't sound like it. What happened?"

"Its been a long day, Dean. Just a long day." She lied, not daring tell the truth about the weakness in her frame, the anger and guilt and the sudden heaviness of her soul.

"Someone gave you a present, didn't they?"

Celia laughed softly into the phone, her heart swelling, softening happily. "Yeah. A book and some honey."

Dean tisked on the other end. "When will they learn."

Celia smiled, she tried to curl up against the phone, as if it would get her closer to Dean or at least his voice.

"Where are ya?"

"Southern Mississippi. Hoodoo job and we just finished up. Sam's alright, he's sleeping but I'm pretty sure he called you earlier."

Celia nodded against the cell as if Dean could see it, glad that the elder Winchester knew what her next, somewhat awkward questions were. "Probably."

There was a slightly awkward silence and Dean cleared his throat.

"Just wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm glad ya called. Even if it is…" she glanced at her alarm clock, "…Twelve thirty at night. And it isn't my birthday anymore."

Dean chuckled, "Sorry I called late, then."

Celia heard the sound of a truck or car passing near by, "Ya ain't drivin' and talkin' on the phone at the same time, are ya?" She asked, somewhat accusing. Another reason she hated cell phones, to many stupid kids and adults driving and talking and killing other people and themselves for a small conversation that could have waited.

"No. I swear the motel is right by a highway." His voice was assuring and promising.

"Alright."

Another slightly awkward silence.

"Celia, I got you something." It was said hurriedly and almost mumbled, as if trying to hide the fact that it was truth at all.

Celia sighed quietly almost gently. "Dean, I don't need anythin' from ya. What ya've done, givin' me a call and lettin' me know ya boys are alright is perfect."

"I know but…I got you something. Well, I sort of…made it."

Celia could feel the slight embarrassment in his voice and kept hers even and gentle. But her heart swelled with affection.

"I didn't really have any money with gas and everything…so I just…"

"Well that's a different story." Celia assured, stopping his rambling and hoping that some of the blush she could hear in his voice would drain from his face. When he spoke next she could feel his relieved smile, her acceptance unconditionally and the well hidden spark of excitement he got when there was a small praise from someone that he cared about.

"I want to tell you about it."

"Why ruin the surprise? Ya can bring it to me next time ya are in Nevada." Celia said.

"I don't know." Dena muttered and Celia's heart tightened, shrinking a little. She heard the hesitation in his voice, the tone that was unsure, shaken. It screamed at her that Dean was uncertain that he and Sam would ever make their way back to Tuscarora, Nevada.

Dean cleared his throat, "I'm just kind of excited about it."

Celia knew from countless hours of babysitting or in the rare occasion that she had to help cover a few of the kindergarten classes at Tuscarora Elementary that Dean wanted to express his pride at the accomplishment of creating something for her. As a youngster Dean rarely had the chance, he usually cut himself off from classes, not bothering to get to involved as he would shortly be ripped out of it and John, for as good a father as he tried to be was far from the ideal person to express pride in small things like drawings, macaroni pictures or learning to do something 'grown up' on your own for the first time. There was no end of praise for Dean the first time he made a perfect bull's eye shot on a target range, but when Dean bounded up to John having for the first time successfully completed a times tables charts the elder Winchester had gotten little more than a grunted good job.

It was almost heart breaking to hear that tone, the pleading and the underlying tone that this was something of a 'Dear Jane' letter. A soldier calling home to let her know that she wouldn't see him again, that he was going up the river to Poughkeepsie with a nurse.

"Go a head then." Celia said quietly, encouraging him and trying desperately to rein in her nervously shifting heart. It was fluxing between breaking with affection and fear of loss.

"Its not very good-"

"Don't be stupid." Celia sniffed and Dean laughed quietly on the other end of the line.

"I carved it…you know what…I think I'm going to sit on it for a little while." Dean sighed slightly. "Why ruin the surprise, right?"

"Sure." Celia assured, brightening a little at the promise in his voice. "Why don't ya come out for a little r and r before the rush at Samhain?"

She could feel Dean's smiled at the offer, the safety of a place that their father had sought refuge in for many years that the brothers had inherited. Their safe haven.

"I'll ask Sammy, see what he thinks."

"Alright, I see ya in a few days then."

Dean laughed low and deep in his throat. "Yeah, in a few days."

"Night, Ahote." Celia hinted gently, though she was far from willing to separate herself from Dean's voice. "Thanks for callin' late."

"Night, M'amin." Dean sighed, touching gently on the name her biological parents had given her.

Celia clicked her phone off and set it on her nightstand before slumping down into her quilt and pillows; she hugged one into her chest and sighed. She didn't feel as weak anymore.

…

Morning Inn, I453 Highway; Southern Mississippi.

Dean snapped his phone shut and continued to pace in a slow, wide circle around the parking lot of the Morning Inn. His long stride was still nervous, as it had been when he'd started several minuets earlier before he'd even dialed the numbers into his phone.

"In a few days." He murmured, stuffing it into his pocket, resisting the urge to call her back.

The fingers of his free hand where still roving over the painstakingly carved piece of bone. He couldn't stop touching it. It was the size of a quarter, cut as simply and artfully as the otter that hugged his own throat, but not as beautifully in Dean's opinion. He rubbed his thumb over the surface.

A crow, little wings out stretched, head arched back and tail feather's fanned out.

God it had to have been the fifth try. Of the crow anyway. He'd tried three times to cut a horse, a miniature appaloosa or a mustang but it had quickly proven to be beyond him. Back arched, hands shaking and sweat rolling down his face in the strain of effort for perfection until his vision was blurry from staring at the bit of bone under his bowie knife. He wasn't as fine pointed as Celia was when it came to this sort of thing. No matter how much he stared at it in the mirror, as he refused to take it off, Dean could find no flaw in the carved bone otter at his throat. The horse was too much. Especially when it looked like he'd had one completed, ready to go and Sam sat on it.

He liked the crow better, anyway. He hoped she would.

"She hates presents." He muttered to himself.

He wondered if the power of the totem was dulled by the fact that it wasn't crow bone. He hoped she wouldn't reject it because all he had to work with was beef bones. He teased the few small glass beads knotted into place on either side of the charm between his fingers, he'd scrounged them every chance he could, mismatched and awkward under Dean's less than gossamer jewelry making abilities. He was somewhat glad that he had come across a few black beads to even out the others. Dark green, white and two deep red ones. It looked like a slightly color blind child's attempt.

"It's fine. Times are tight; she knows what its like." Dean assured himself, his skin was starting to itch.

The carving's stark white color flashed in the light of the highway lamp posts, burning against his palm. Dean closed his hand around the beads and bone, wrapping the leather strands around his fisted hand once or twice.

"Why the hell am I worried about it?" Dean laughed bitterly at himself. "What does it matter if she likes it or not? Fuck her."

Dean ran his hand roughly through his cropped hair, tugging at the strands dark honey colored strands.

"She won't even wear it. She won't wear the crucifix Nathaniel gave her. And that was her dad." Dean accused, his pacing was starting to become feverent. He ground his teeth together, chewing at the inside of his cheek.

"Its just a stupid necklace…" Dean growled.

Dean paced, stalking across the parking lot stopping a few feet short of the exit out to the highway then turning back and stalking back towards the Impala, brushing his free hand across the trunk for a brief second before turning and stalking back towards the highway again. The only sound added to the highway was the sound of his boots crunching loudly in the gravel of the parking lot.

He could feel the totem he'd made her slipping in his palm, slick with his own sweat, he almost threw it in frustration. His other hand flew to the otter charm around his throat.

He pounded his fist against the trunk of the Impala and nearly had a seizure when he noticed it was the fist tightly curled around the fragile carved bone and glass beads. He carefully opened his palm and sagged in relief to see that the charm was safe, intact and the beads undamaged. He stepped around the sleek black Chevrolet and leaned against her side. He slid down to the earth and pressed himself against the tire.

"That I carved…" Dean rasped out, almost painfully as the words passed over his tightened throat. He cradled the crow necklace against his stomach and left his eyes go unfocused and stare out at the highway. Watching the odd gasoline powered machine roll by and disappearing into the dark.

He slumped closer to the tire and fender, crossed his arms tightly across his chest and stomach, pulling his knees up to his chest. He turned the totem over and over in his hand trying to calm himself.

He listened to highway traffic go by and the cracked voice of some female singer quietly humming the Beatles' Blackbird over the motel's out door stereo system.

"Goddamn…I called late." He muttered.

I played on that whole 'Dean gets all flustered and uncertain with certain girls and his skin starts itching kind of thing'. And if you think its out of character then you go back and watch Route 666 from season one and tell me he's not twitchy when he's around Cassie!!! (Of course why he's uppity about Celia is for different reasons that he is about Cassie but to find out why you have to read 'Like Us But On Horseback').

Fic was written while listening to:

Dixie Chicks: More Love and The Beatles: Blackbird

Read and review all, much love to you.

The Planet Mary and All Her Woes…