Prologue

It was the damn truck-driving bastard's fault. I'm not one to blame others , I 've got no problems owning up to my faults and taking blame where I deserve it, and I usually do, but the pain in my back was totally on that ass hat. It'd be an all sunshine and roses kinda day when the idiot had braked like a stone wall in front of me, and my baby had impaled the front of her sacred bumper on his heavy duty pulling hitch. Straight through the radiator. Damn. I'd had to call Bobby to come with the tow truck to pull her back to the shop. The guy'd been an apologetic jerk who didn't have a problem taking my insurance information and phone number, since I had clearly rear-ended HIM. My self-control…surprised even me, because I was so ready to smash that simpering slim balls face in, but Bobby had showed up in the nick of time. I handled loading my battered impala and casting the curses while Bobby managed the actual talking.

Satan's hitch damage had been easy enough to fix when all the parts finally arrived, but it's like the goddamn thing set of a chain reaction in my baby. She started falling apart and everything went straight to the crapper. During the repair, I discovered rust on her under carriage. Fan-freaking-tastic. A few days after I'd gotten her on the road again a tire blew. And shortly after that the battery died while I was sitting at a stop light.

"How could you do this to me?" I grunted, hefting the old battery out from its place under her hood. I was drenched in sweat and breathing hard from pushing her metal ass into the shop after bringing her back with the tow truck. But my day was about to get even better. God, I hate Thursdays because as I stepped back with the 50 pound + battery in my arms, my heel slipped in a grease spot. Down I went, or I would've, if I hadn't shot my other leg out as fast as I did. I didn't hear a pop or feel a tear, but pain spiked in my back like I'd been stabbed. Gasping like a marathoning fat man, I tottered over and dumped the battery on the work bench and collapsed into a wobbly folding chair.

Ok, granted, I'd had back trouble on and off from working like a boss in the mechanic's shop Bobby and I owned, but I wouldn't have completely destroyed it if Satan's hitch hadn't cursed my baby to hell and turned her against me. The sitting wasn't helping. A solid bar of pain originating from the right side crossed the entire lower part of my back and any movement turned the pain's power up.

I patted down my pockets, looking for the cell phone Sammy, the little bitch, had forced me to get. But of course I didn't have it on me. In fact, I wasn't exactly sure where it was. But that didn't matter. There was a phone in the office, the office that was all the way on the opposite side of the shop, dude, was this my lucky day or what?

I dropped my head back. But that somehow put pressure on my back and shot more pain down my legs. So I just sat there, unmoving and trying to breathe my way through the pain. Eventually it subsided and I used the tool wrack beside the bench to pull myself up. God, I was not used to this. Is this how Bobby feels? Please, someone shoot me before I get old. Hobbling and bent over, I made my way to the office and called Sam. Time to call in some big brother favors. He owed me anyways.

Over the next few days I got X-rayed, palpated and prodded by Sammy's medical buddies. I'd refused to go to the emergency room. I wasn't freaking bleeding out; there was no way in HELL I'd be wheeled in there. So Sam had called a few of his med school colleagues and gotten three of them to unofficially take a look at me. Apparently, I had a slipped disk, or maybe a torn muscle, or perhaps a 'very bad' strain. Basically, they didn't know what the hell was wrong with me but they all definitively said my back wasn't broken. Wow, way to really restore my faith in the medical system. Two Winchester middle fingers WAY up. I was advised to wrap it, apply ice, or maybe heat, to try not to move, but to not be too static. At this point I didn't bother listening, it wasn't broken so that meant time and manning up. I would get over this.

Time did pass, and a few days later I could start to move, but the pain was a constant monster on my back. That damn hitch. I swear, if that guy ever came in to our shop, I'd show him how to really use a screwdriver. I popped pills like tick-tacks. It helped but I couldn't live like this for the rest of my life. At 27 I was a broken man, wearing braces like a goddamn ballerina.

Sam and Bobby weren't helping me win any congeniality crowns either. I didn't want to see anyone who'd butter me up and massage my flesh like tenderized meat. But they both kept pestering me about this girl they'd been to who'd really helped them. They'd started seeing her when Bobby'd wrecked his knees a couple years back for what seemed like the millionth time. He'd shown up at work on crutches and wacked anyone who commented over the head with one. The wonder Hospital had advised knee surgery, and we'd given that a swift kick in the ass and agreed that was the worst idea of the century. Sammy, always the one to try to fix things, had gone on the hunt and called around to see if anyone knew someone who could help. Pretty quickly, he'd been given the name of a young therapist who'd just started a practice in town. She'd come highly recommended and Sam persuaded Bobby to give it a go. I'd not been in on this much, the shop had just begun to really take off and get busy. I was happy when Bobby got off his crutches and back to work but didn't really think much about the fact that now, after 2 or 3 years since the incident, he was moving better than he had in, well, ever. And Sammy, the psycho health nut, was back to playing racket ball with his longtime girlfriend, Gwen, after the therapist worked over the shoulder he'd injured in a car wreck. Still, I wasn't about to go crying to a therapist for help. There was nothing that could be done about my back anyway.

Chapter 1

"Dean, seriously, It hurts me to watch you." Sam said, wincing as he watched me slowly sink into the booth. We met almost every week at a little café/dinner that served crappy sweet tea and mediocre food but had the best pie this side of heaven. So who needed food?

"Alright, then don't look." I said, flipping open the menu even though I knew what I wanted.

"Yeah Dean, you look like crap." Bobby growled.

"Well you're not really my type anyway, Bobby." I winked at the older man. He didn't look amused at all.

"Dean, for real, you're going to see Elaine." Sam said.

"Yeah, um, who is that?" I knew who they must mean, I just liked to see Sam's bitch face.

"She's the MFR therapist, Dean, and Sam got you an appointment for tomorrow. You're going." Bobby thumped his fist on the table like a judge delivering a lifetime sentence. And I was the prisoner.

I eyed him and Sam. "You made me an appointment? What is this, an intervention?"

"She's usually got a waiting list but since I told her it's an emergency, she's made special time for you." Sam looked pleased. It annoyed me.

"I am not an emergency, you liar."

"If I have to work one more day around your shit head attitude, I'll shoot you and then it will be an emergency." Bobby said, and I didn't doubt him.

"Thanks for the effort, guys, really but I'm not letting some stranger touch me."

"She'd not a stranger, you've met her before." Sam said.

I was taken aback. "What, when?"

"Do you remember when we moved into that house on Leon St.? The one with the blue door and big backyard?"

"Yes Sam, but that the hell does that have to do with this chick I'm supposed to know?"

"Let me finish, jerk."'

"Well hurry up, bitch."

Sam scowled but continued. "So remember that family that lived in the house directly behind ours?" he paused, I didn't really but I nodded. "with the two older boys and a younger girl?"

"God Sam, yes, I remember." And I was beginning to, vaguely.

"The girl was my age and we played together a lot. You know, the one with the wild hair who sang all the time?"

I had a mental image suddenly of an eight year old Sammy dashing around after a girl with a massive plume of flying hair. And I remembered all the mud and sticky fingers and laughter of that summer.

"They moved out the year after we moved in. But Elaine and I still went to the same middle school and hung out all the time."

"You mean that girl is the therapist you're trying to get me to see?"

"She's hardly a girl anymore, Dean, she's my age and a really well respected MFR therapist."

"She's quite a looker now too." Bobby interjected.

Sam and I both stared at him.

"Bobby, no just…no. And now I'm really not going. I'm not having some kid poke around at me, she'll probably make it worse."

"Oh my God, Dean, she's been doing this for 5 years, and yeah, she's young, but the youngest to complete all the required training, even the senior MFR therapist in San Antonio drives all the way out here to receive treatment from her." Sam was serious now. "She owns and runs her own clinic and I'm dragging your sorry ass there tomorrow."

"Yeah, boy, he is. You're too young to be moving like a dead man."

I could see I wasn't going to get out of this, not with both of them chewing on me

Sighing, I sat back in the booth "Fine, you jack asses, I'll go. Now where's my pie."