Author: pamela
Title: Making Apple Pie
Rating: PG-13/ mild language, situation, drama.
Fandom: Supernatural
Disclaimer: No disrespect intended. No money made.
Summary: Lisa takes action
Pairing: Lisa and Dean
Warning: Emotional stress
Feedback: Feedback would be lovely, thank you.
Archive: VX and FF
Note: As of 24 September 2010 this will be UA in the Supernatural Universe. At the end of season 5 Supernatural closed with Dean going to see Lisa. We were left with the idea that Dean would settle down and have a "normal life". This is my idea for what came next.
My thanks as always for Bitten's work sorting the mess. Some day I hope to learn the proper placement of commas, periods, and semi-colons.
Lisa watched him sink; it was going to be a slow process but she knew in the end he would drown.
Those first couple of days had been bad. Bad for her. Dean had cried so hard. The things that had come out of his mouth; the secrets, the pain. It had almost been like listening to one of Ben's nightmares but this was Dean and he knew those nightmares were real. She knew those nightmares were real.
After a couple of weeks he'd seemed to relax but she'd known; somehow she'd known. The intense interest in the news, any news, always looking for specifics. Even locally. Any thing that happened was checked; witnesses, histories, even rumors and gossip was collected. Soon he knew more about the town, and the people in it, than she did and she'd lived there most of her life.
The Apocalypse had been avoided, this was a good thing, but Dean cataloged the damage and drank. All the death, the destruction, pulled him down a little more. It didn't matter that he didn't know them. It didn't matter that he'd never been to some of the places destroyed. It mattered that he'd been a part of it.
It mattered because of who and what he was.
As the months passed and the damage of the almost-apocalypse faded from the headlines, Lisa thought that Dean was starting to heal. She'd hoped. He went out more, took Ben to practice, he even got a job at a garage. But the prowling didn't stop.
Every night, since that first night she'd let him in, he'd prowled the house and yard. He woke so easily. Any noise would pull at him and he would check the house; two or three times a night. He even wandered the neighborhood, checking all the houses, if he 'felt off'.
Her neighbors had been a little spooked at first but after they understood that Dean had been a soldier and was still a little shocky they relaxed.
Lisa looked at the salt canister in the corner by the door and sighed; she'd known then, when she'd noticed the salt that Dean wouldn't "heal". He couldn't. Fighting demons and monsters and all the nightmares that were real was what Dean Winchester was. Fighting was the only thing he knew, the only thing he understood.
Except protecting Sam.
Lisa's eyes fell on the whiskey bottle tucked in behind her wine. Dean was good about not getting drunk in front of Ben but her son wasn't stupid. Ben knew that, when Dean went into the shed out back, not to follow. Ben understood that Dean was hurting. He also knew that Dean loved him and Lisa had to smile at that because Dean did love him.
It was almost bittersweet sometimes to watch them together and see that sad smile on Dean's face when he looked at Ben. He'd slipped once while showing Ben how to check the oil in her car; he'd called him Sammy. Lisa hadn't been there but Ben had told her later.
It was like quicksand. The news, the salt, the nightmares. God, the nightmares. He slept on the couch more often now, afraid he'd hurt her. If he slept at all. It was the strange pentagram under the rug in the front hall that had sent her out to the shed last week.
It wasn't the den of empty bottles and drunken stupor she'd feared; it was wall to wall maps and graphs and lists. The Apocalypse might have been avoided but the damage wasn't, and Dean Winchester was a hunter.
It had been a lot to take in, and she hadn't been able to understand it all, but she had understood why he was sinking. Every new indication, every sign, meant some monster was doing something; hurting someone.
And he was here with her and Ben.
He'd told her once, when he'd saved Ben's life, that this wasn't his life. He'd told her when he'd come to her after 'it' was over that Sam had made him promise to have an apple pie life. Well, this was what he thought was an apple pie life; a house and a yard, a kid and a mortgage, baseball games and county fairs. But this wasn't his life.
Lisa stared around her kitchen and wanted to cry. She loved the man and didn't want to lose him, but she was going to, one way or the other; she knew that. Hunting was a dangerous business, but so was trying to be something you weren't.
Sitting at the table she stared out the window.
