Sacred Vessel

By Evergreen

A/N: This story is very dark and with somewhat adult themes with some strong language. Please keep a mind to the rating (think at least PG-13). Takes place after the events of the premiere of the second season. Warning: contains spoilers for season 2.

He adjusted the rear view mirror so he could steal a glance at the figure curled into a ball in the backseat of his Impala. He turned his head to check on his brother, also asleep, but leaned up against the cold glass of the passenger-side window. He rubbed at his eyes distractedly and squinted through the pounding rain on his windshield. The glare from oncoming headlights made it very difficult to see the lines of the road. He prayed silently to make it back to the motel in one piece.

He was way past exhaustion now. He was awake and functioning only on adrenaline and caffeine, the hunter's best friends. His head buzzed like a swarm of bees and he swallowed noisily and hoped that would be enough to keep the contents of his stomach down. He sighed in relief as he saw the blinking neon sign through the dark and sheeting rain. He pulled the car into the parking lot and fished around for the room key in his pocket.

He shook the figure slumped over next to him a little roughly, "C'mon, Sammy, get up, we're here."

"Hmm?" Sam opened his eyes and stared at his brother in confusion. "Where?"

"C'mon, we're back at the motel. Let's get her inside." Dean slid out of the car and into the rain, pushed forward his seat to slide in next to the smaller figure in the back seat. "Get the door, Sam. I have her." He pulled her arm around his shoulders and hefted her out of the car. She barely stirred at the movement. Dean carried the woman into the warmer hotel room and placed her as gently as he could on the bed closer to the door. "Sam, pull the blanket off the other bed and bring it here." Sam dragged off the stubborn comforter and gave the edge of it to Dean. Dean stood up and placed the blanket over her sleeping form, almost reverently.

"How is she?" Sam asked quietly, a little stunned to see his brother be so gentle.

"Don't know, we'll see when she wakes up." Dean sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands, hoping to wake himself up a little more. "You go to sleep, I'll take first watch."

"Dean…"

"Don't Dean me. For once, do what you're told. I'll wake you up in a couple hours." Dean slumped unceremoniously into a chair near the door and placed his feet on the bed where the girl was asleep. He held a large hunting knife in his hands and had the shotgun in his weapons bag within reach. "I'm fine, go to sleep," he ground out.

Sam knew not to argue when he was like this, in protective mode. He kept his mouth shut as he peeled off his filthy and soaked clothes. It had been a rough couple of weeks, but every week was rough since the Demon and Dad. And Dean's second brush with death. He often wondered if having two NDE's would catch up to Dean sometime. Dean was barely acknowledging their father's death, let alone dealing with it. It had been four weeks after Dad's death and four weeks since Dean had come back from the brink of death. Dean had healed fairly well, only catching himself sometimes doing a little too much. Sam knew he was trying really hard not to let his injuries show.

He and Dean had followed the trail across the Midwest of a particularly nasty devil-worshipping cult that was attempting to raise a demon. In order to do that, they needed sacrifices. One each night for the past thirty nights. They had managed to stop the final ceremony and rescue the victim, the woman currently asleep on the other bed. She had been captive with the cult for over a month, she was the only one to survive. The surviving members of the cult were currently in custody for the atrocities they had committed. They had to pretend to be FBI agents to get out of being arrested themselves, while law enforcement worked out the details. They managed to leave the scene during the chaos, with the express mission to get the woman back to her family, wherever they were. Sam swallowed against the bile rising in his throat at the thought of all the bodies they had seen at the warehouse. The carnage and the absolute disregard for human life those people had. He glanced quickly at Dean. His brother's eyes were sunken and his face drawn with exhaustion very evident as he watched her. After his shower, Sam almost sighed in pleasure at putting on dry clothes, but he bit his tongue. He and Dean seemed to always be cold and wet since they started this. Wet and cold were not Sam's favorite combination to experience.

"Dean, you will wake me in three hours." Sam stated as more of a warning to Dean not to continue his pattern of self-sacrifice.

"Dude, what did I say?" Dean's voice had an edge of warning, too. Don't push me.

"Okay, okay." He slid under the covers of the other bed, closed his eyes and was blissfully unconscious within minutes.

Dean had to pinch the skin between his pointer finger and thumb really hard to keep awake. His head felt very fuzzy and extraordinarily heavy as he fought the constant battle with fatigue. He glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand and almost growled in frustration as he realized the he still had hours to go until morning. His thoughts wandered in disturbingly weird directions, as he hovered around the edge of sleep. He wasn't going to wake Sam up. He never had any intention of it. One of them had to be sharp in the morning and it sure as hell wasn't going to be him. He began running through the events of the past week to see if there had been anything he could've done to save those people. Those helpless women who must've been scared shitless, powerlesss to stop the abject horror they were to face. If only he had figured out what was going on sooner. Then they would've had people to return to their families, not bodies. He had called in the FBI when it was evident that the scope was well beyond what he and Sam were equipped to handle. He and Sam had bluffed their way into FBI investigations before and he knew that they could do it again.

He watched her as she slept, probably for the first time in a long time when she didn't fear for her life. She turned on her back, the lines of her body evident in the watery light from the parking lot floodlights. She was heavily pregnant, as all of the captives had been. The sacrifices were their unborn children, cut from them as they were left to bleed to death, watching the horror of the events. Dean blinked again as he felt his eyelids begin to drop and his eyesight fade into the milky darkness. No, he couldn't sleep. He promised her that she would be safe. He never broke a promise. Sam moaned lightly in his sleep, his brain probably rehashing the events of the past month. Dean held his breath and listened very closely. Something wasn't right.

Dean's thoughts churned around the horror he had seen when they found her. He tried to put it in a mental box and file it away, never to be contemplated again, but he was having trouble forgetting. His eyes darted back to the lump under the covers on the far bed and chewed his lip unconsciously. He never wanted this for Sam. He should've let him stay in college. He could've found Dad on his own. Could've, should've, just excuses. He could only imagine what effect this horror would have on Sam; he was always the sensitive one. Dean thought himself well-shielded from this shit, the shit he and his Dad had dealt with every day that Sam was away. Dean felt filthy, like he was drowning in blood and body parts. Like he could never be clean again. Stop. He closed his mind off; at least putting up a flimsy partition between his sanity and the events of last night. He couldn't keep looking at it.

The woman he and Sam had brought back was named Maxine, Max for short. From what little discussion they had, Dean knew she was single, on her own. She was from somewhere out West and didn't have much intention on going back there. She said that she was seven months pregnant and from what he gathered, hadn't been to a doctor in awhile. He blinked again. She had hardly moved in the hours since they got back to the motel. Pure exhaustion and crashing off a huge adrenaline high would do that to you. He glanced at the light beginning to crawl in under the door, illuminating the line of salt he'd carefully laid the night before. He rambled off a protection charm under his breath and made a sign in the air with his fingertips. Just a precaution, he told himself. He couldn't quite shake this bad feeling off. He didn't remember falling asleep. He lived with this hinky feeling all the time now, ever since he woke up in the hospital after the car accident. He thought it felt like an echo of something supernatural, not nearly as strong as Sam could, but it was there. He wouldn't ever let Sam know, though. He needed to be the rock for Sam, no more surprises for a while. All of this current stuff smacked of demon, but he didn't know which one specifically or how to prevent an attack if it chose to go after them now.

He awoke in a start and looked at two empty beds. He was up like a shot and yelled for Sam with panic in his voice.

"Dean, it's okay. I'm right here." Sam came out from the sink alcove outside the bathroom. "Max's taking a shower, we're both fine." He said gently, knowing that Dean was disoriented from just waking up and not finding them.

"What time is it?" Dean sat down hard on the end of Sam's bed, his heart still thumping in his chest. He glanced at the beds and noticed that both were made.

"About six. You've been asleep for awhile. I thought you needed some rest."

"Thanks, I guess. Are you guys hungry? I could grab us some breakfast, I'm starving…" He trailed off when Sam gave him a funny look.

"Dean, it's 6 pm. You've been asleep for fourteen hours."

"What?! Why the hell didn't you wake me up? You were unprotected for hours! Goddamnit!"

"You were supposed to wake me up, remember?" Sam stared right back in response to Dean's tirade.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Dean backed down a little bit and pointed his finger towards the bathroom just as they heard the shower turn off. "How's she doing?"

"As well as could be expected, I guess. She hasn't talked much, she's probably still in shock." Sam finished shoving his clothes into a duffle bag on his bed. He and Max barely made eye contact let alone said anything to each other when she woke up. He could tell that she was trying to decide if she could trust them or this was just another elaborate trap.

"Well, you keep an eye on her and I'm going to grab some dinner. We'll hit the road after I get back. I want to get as far away from this place as possible as soon as possible. Make sure we're all packed up." Dean needed to get some air before he said something he would regret. He hated when Sam downplayed the danger they were in. Like Dean was being unreasonable or something. They both had seen everything that was out there; it was amazing that either one of them could ever sleep again. He pulled out his emergency pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and shook one out. He slipped it into his mouth and lit it with his lighter. It was delicious. He pulled in a long drag and started towards to the fast food restaurant down the street.

Sam knew that Dean was pissed. He knew that Dean never had any intention of waking him up and he knew that Dean would be already on his third cigarette before he would come back. He had started again during the hunt for this cult. He figured that everything was just catching up to Dean and he needed some sort of release. Dean didn't know Sam knew about his little habit and Sam meant to keep it that way. He sort of understood that Dean never thought he'd live long enough to get cancer or anything. Seemed kind of anticlimactic to die from smoking after they would've survived everything else they had stood up against. He rubbed his face hard, trying to get himself to wake up. He still felt groggy from the night before. It would take about ten years before he would be rested enough again. Not that Dean didn't feel it worse because he looked like hell when he dragged his ass back into the room.

"Man, Dean, you alright? You look like shit." Sam said, actually meaning it in a concerned way. He hefted his bag onto his shoulder and walked over to pick up the weapons bag on the floor closer to the door.

"Yeah, Sammy, I'll be alright. Max done yet?" Dean shoved the rest of his stuff into his black duffle bag.

"She hasn't come out yet and I didn't want to bother her."

"What do you mean? She's been in there, like," he glanced at his watch, "an hour." Dean ran over to the bathroom door and started pounding on it. "Max? You okay? Open up." He tried to control the overwhelming panic that was rising up in his chest, threatening to cut off his air.

The door opened slowly and Max slid out slowly, eyes to the floor. She had her hair wrapped up in one of the hotel's scratchy white towels and was wearing a t-shirt that was too big and sweat pants. "You okay?" Dean asked again, quieter this time.

She looked at him with red-rimmed eyes and nodded. "M'fine." Dean slid an arm around her shoulders and guided her towards the door.

"We're getting the hell out of here." Dean told the air, but everyone in the room agreed.

Dean felt better after everyone and everything was packed up in the car and they were pulling out of the parking lot. He had grabbed one of the blankets off the bed before they left and covered Max in the back seat. She was curled up like a cat and just stared out the window. He and Sam looked at each other one more time, silently acknowledging their need to keep her safe. Dean reached for the radio's tape deck and turned on his Metallica before pulling onto the freeway and heading west.

He let his mind wander as the miles of road stretched out before him.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?" He looked up from reading the newspaper at the kitchen table. Cassie had just padded into the room on her bare feet with a look of distress on her face. John had been off on some search or another and had left Dean alone for two months. Dean decided to visit Cassie and hadn't left.

"I'm late."

"What?" His eyes shot over to the clock above the sink. "It's only 7:30."

"Not that kind of late, late, late." She gave him a determined look.

"That kind of late? Are you sure?" Dean had just about spilled his coffee in his lap at her admission.

"Not really, but I'm never late."

"C'mere." Dean grabbed her and sat her on his lap. "Okay, well, if this means there will be a little Dean or Deannette running around, I think I could live with that." He kissed her neck. "Let's go get one of those tests and find out for sure."

He wasn't sure where that had bubbled up from, except that Max's pregnancy had stirred up some memories that he thought he had long since buried. He had been so happy that day; happy thinking that he could have some shot at being normal. He knew that he would never subject his children to what John had. They didn't need to know everything that was out there. He would protect them. He had a little picture in his head that he would bring out any time that he couldn't believe that things would ever be normal again of a little girl with Cassie's face and his own green eyes. He smiled to himself as the road stretched out again. That was one of those things that he kept to himself. Neither his father nor Sam would ever know.

Sam stirred again and ended up smacking his head on the passenger side window. He blinked and looked around. Dean was staring at the road mouthing the words to the Stones on the radio. Sam stretched his arms over his head and cracked his neck.

"How long have I been out?"

"About three hours, we're outside Tulsa. We can stop soon, you know, for dinner and stuff." He nodded towards the back seat. Max was still asleep in the same position she was in when they started, wrapped in a ball.

"Okay. How's she doing?" Sam asked quietly.

"I guess okay. Not a peep this whole time out of either one of you." Sam noticed that Dean seemed a little less wound up as he'd been over the last few days. Maybe because they were now at least 200 miles away from that place.

"Dude, you should let me drive a bit. You haven't had a chance to rest since…" Sam sat up straighter in the seat, knowing full well that Dean would refuse.

"I just slept for 14 hours, I'm fine. We're almost there anyway. Just relax." Dean blew him off. Sam huffed to himself but did not respond. He knew there was really no point.

Dean pulled into a diner parking lot with a blinking sign "Mel's Diner". Dean shook his head at the reference. He hoped at least the food was hot. He would eat his shoe if they heated it up for him. Sam's stomach must be eating itself by now, too. Sam's metabolism was even faster than his own. Sam unfolded himself from the car as Dean pulled open the back door as quietly as he could.

"Max? You awake?" Dean was afraid to touch her as he thought she would jump out of her skin based on her recent experiences. He let out a sigh of relief as she started to stir.

"Hmm?"

"We're here. C'mon, we gonna have some dinner." He made sure that she saw that he was reaching towards her and helped her out of the car. She had sort of a disheveled, wild-eyed look that Dean hoped would fade as she woke up a little more.

"I'll grab us a booth." Sam strode into the diner, while Dean and Max walked slowly towards the door.

"You okay, Max?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Hungry, tired, you know." Her eyes always stayed focused on the ground.

Dean nodded and they walked in silence the rest of the way to the diner's doors.

Ten minutes later, Dean had a cup of steaming coffee gripped in his hands, hoping that the shivers he'd had since they found Max would finally go away. He glanced at Sam, who was doing his best impression of small talk with Max to keep her interest as they waited for their food.

Dean's mind drifted off again as he stared out the window into the rapidly darkening parking lot.

"The doctor will see you now." Dean followed Cassie and the nurse into an aseptic-smelling exam room. He mentally shuddered, if he never smelled that unique scent again, it would be too soon. It reminded him of all the times he and his family waited to be "fixed up" after a botched job.

He sat on a hard chair in the corner as the doctor performed the standard exam on Cassie, knees up, whole nine yards. He had found an interesting spot on the floor and studied it until the doctor stood up and told Cassie that she could get dressed.

"Well, from what I can determine, you're about 6 weeks along. Pretty early still. I'm going to prescribe some prenatal vitamins for you to help keep up your health. Most likely, you'll deliver around December 15th. Congratulations. You can get dressed and see the receptionist on your way out to make another appointment and to get your prescription." He peeled off his plastic gloves and nodded in Dean's direction. "Take good care of her."

"I will."

"You will what?" Sam was in the middle of biting off a piece of the BLT sandwich he held in his hands.

"Nothing, I was just thinking. How's your sandwich?" Dean answered, not really interested, but wanting to change the subject. He didn't mean to say that out loud. To tell the truth, he never really saw himself as a father. It was simpler to be alone, more mobile, less tied down to anything or anyone. He scanned the clientele of the diner, satisfied that no one seemed out of place or too interested in them. He bit into his hamburger and tried to focus only on the juice dibbling down his chin, not the feeling that he had forgotten to do something very important.

Sam noticed that both of his companions seemed to be in their own worlds and his small talk was going to waste. He decided to be quiet for a few minutes to see if anyone noticed. Five minutes passed, no one said anything. Sam sighed and finished his sandwich. He wondered what Max and Dean were thinking about. About twenty minutes later, Dean seemed to snap out of his brooding and looked up at Sam. "You done?"

"Yeah." Sam said simply, he'd been done for almost fifteen minutes.

"Max?" Dean looked over at the woman next to him.

"I guess." She answered quietly. Dean looked at her plate and noticed that she hadn't eaten much. He refrained from scolding her. He'd have to make sure that she ate better soon. He needed to get her a doctor's appointment as well and that would be another challenge in itself.

"Let's go. Sam, I'll get the bill. I'll meet you at the car," Sam raised his hand to catch the keys that were sailing close to his head and lead Max towards the front door. Dean stuffed the bill in his pocket and headed to the bathroom. He pushed open the door and was relieved to see no one else was in there. He just needed a few minutes to himself. He turned on the faucet and splashed some water on his face. He raised his head until he was looking at himself in the cracked mirror. He still looked like death warmed over. After everything that had happened, he wasn't really surprised or anything, but still. The waitress hadn't even given him a second glance and that smarted a little bit. After they got Max all squared away, he and Sam would go…go where? They didn't have any more family, no friends. He would find them somewhere to crash and Sam needed to recharge and to grieve. They both needed a little time and space to do that. Damn, he wanted a cigarette. They would smell it on him if he smoked one before getting in the car. He'd wait until they got a hotel room and he'd sneak out. He took a deep breath and pulled open the door back to the restaurant. A creepy feeling stole up his spine and he knew what it meant now. Something was around. Know what? He didn't have to kill everything, not tonight anyway. He decided to let whatever it was hang around. Live and let live and all that. Well, as close to it as those things can get anyway. He forced his hands to stop shaking as he paid the bill. "Motel?" He asked the cashier.

"Down the street on the right. Not fancy, but clean."

"Perfect."

After midnight, he found himself sitting on the curb outside of the motel room they had, sucking on his third cigarette, second to last in the pack. Sam and Max had instantly crashed, and Dean had really tried to, but couldn't, turn his mind off. He slowly blew the smoke out and thought about that night.

He remembered the look on Cassie's face when she had realized something wasn't right. He had come back from a job with his dad, when Cassie was in her fourth month, just beginning to show, around mid-August. She had been pissed when he had to go away for a few weeks. His father had a line on a nest of vampires terrorizing a town in the Midwest. Would take a while. He tried not to let the thought of impending fatherhood distract him from the task at hand, but it was more difficult with every passing day. His father had leaned into him pretty hard about not being on top of his game after he had gotten the wind knocked out of him by a girl vampire. He had mentally kicked himself pretty hard about that one, but he wanted to get back to Cassie really badly. He wanted to tell his dad about the situation, but he couldn't seem to find the right words or the right time. He knew that his father would berate him for being irresponsible and all that shit, and he wanted to avoid that as long as possible. He dropped his father off at Father Jim's to work on some project and Dean told him that he'd be available by phone, if needed. That he had his own project to take care of. His father didn't ask and Dean didn't tell. He'd tell his old man when he was good and ready.

Things were really good for a few days when he got back to Cassie's. She seemed a little miffed at him when he first came back, but warmed up by the end of the first day. They discussed the future and names and all that stuff that they thought they should talk about. Neither one had a lot of recent experience with kids. Dean had really only taken care of Sam, but Sam was in college now. Dean and Cassie were wrapped up in each other, sleeping, at 3 am on the third day. Dean stirred first, not really sure why he had woken up. Cassie seemed to be hitching her breath, but she was still sleeping. Then, not one minute later, she sat bolt upright, grasping her midsection.

"What's wrong?" Dean asked, his stomach falling around his feet.

"I don't know, my stomach really hurts. Cramps, really. Wait a little bit to see what it is, okay?" She lay back down and snuggled up next to him. He wrapped his arms around her and waited, his heart pounding a staccato against his chest. He could feel her stiffening up every few minutes as they were both praying that it would go away.

After a half an hour of listening to Cassie try not to make any noise, he decided they had to do something. "C'mon, we're going to Emergency. If it's nothing, then we'll have a little laugh over it. If it's something, then we'll be in the right place to get help, okay?" He wasn't really asking as he got out of bed and began pulling on a pair of jeans.

Sam woke up disoriented and a little panicked before he remembered where he was. He glanced at the clock and it told him that it was just after 3 am. Max was asleep in the bed next to his, but Dean was nowhere to be found. Sam got up and walked over to the window and pulled aside the crusty curtain. Illuminated by a lone street lamp, Dean was sitting on the curb outside, taking a drag on his cigarette and staring out into the parking lot. Sam quietly opened the door as Dean's head whipped around.

"Oh hey, you got me. I wasn't about to grind out my last smoke. You okay?" Dean asked quietly and he blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah, fine. I just wondered where you were." Sam sat down next to Dean and a silence descended between the two. Dean pulled one last drag out of his cigarette and rubbed it out on the concrete curb next to him.

"You sure? 'Cause you don't look fine."

"Well, you don't look like Miss America either. It's going to take awhile before we're back to…"

"To what? Normal?" Dean laughed silently and looked back at the ground.

"Normal for us, anyway. What are we going to do with Max? Any plan?" Sam asked with a more serious tone.

"I thought we'd just wander around dragging a very pregnant woman around with us and see if she wanted to stop anywhere." Dean paused. "No, I'm not really sure. I want to leave it up to her. She can stay with use for a while or she can go anywhere she wants to. I want to give her some measure of control of her own life for once."

"Projecting much?" Sam asked, not quite sure if he was kidding with Dean.

Dean didn't answer, but stood up. "I'm gonna get another pack of smokes. I'm all out. Will you be okay for a little bit?"

"Yeah, I'll keep an eye on her. I'll call you if anything happens." Dean nodded and headed off towards the 24-hour convenience store down the street. Sam stood up and padded back into the dark room, pulling the door closed as quietly as he could. He had to bite his tongue and not lecture Dean on the evils of smoking.

"Dean?" A small voice came from the darkness.

"No, Max. It's Sam. Dean went to the store. He'll be back really soon." He didn't know why, but he was a little disappointed that it was Dean she had asked for. He crawled back into his rapidly cooling bed and listened for Max to fall back to sleep. He waited until he heard the door open and Dean lay down before succumbing to sleep himself.

Dean felt like his head was in a fog. He knew that he kept up with this schedule of not sleeping and eating, he wasn't going to be able to keep on top of his game. He lay down next to Sam on top of the covers, not bothering to change out of his clothes, knowing full well that he wasn't going to sleep more than a few hours. God, he was so tired.

"Mr. Winchester, you can come in now." His head shot up as a nurse walked towards him in the waiting area of the emergency room.

"Is she okay?" He asked, searching the nurse's face for any idea of what happened.

"She'll be fine. Why don't you go in and talk with her?" She smiled, patted him on the shoulder, and strode off down the hall.

Dean swallowed hard and pushed open the door to her room. She looked exhausted and somehow small against the starched white of the hospital bed.

Her eyes opened and searched his face, swimming with tears. "Dean, I lost the baby."

With those words, his world became very small and included only the two of them. He sat down next to her and pulled her into him. She sobbed until she was drained and he gently laid her head back on her pillow. Her eyes fluttered closed. He gently pulled her hand out of his and he backed out of the room as quietly as he could. She didn't stir as he closed the door behind him.

A million thoughts swam around his head. He didn't know what to do with all of this. He made his way out of the hospital and towards his car. He climbed in and slammed the door closed. It was impossibly quiet. The parking lot was still dark and the street lamps shone on the mist that swirled around. His head roared with emotions, but he had nowhere to go and no one to tell. He leaned across the front seat and pushed open the glove box. He fished around until his hand hit on what he was looking for- a slightly crushed, probably really stale pack of Marlboros. It may have been Father Jim that had left them or someone else, he didn't care. He ripped off the plastic and rhythmically pounded the box into his hand. He pulled one out and stuck it in his lips. He grabbed the lighter from his jacket pocket and lit it. He pulled in a long drag and stopped thinking about everything for a while.

He hadn't had a smoke again until they started hunting this cult and hadn't stopped since. He didn't rwally know why he had started up again. He knew that Sam was worried about him. But hell, he wasn't supposed to be here anyway, so who cared if he died from lung cancer? He must've fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, Sam was shaking him awake.

"Dean. Wake up. It's 9 am, we should go." His eyes met Sam's worried ones.

Dean dragged himself to a sitting position and looked at Sam again. "Everything okay? Why do you look so worried? Is Max okay?" He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and waited for Sam's answer.

"It's okay. Max's fine, she's just getting dressed in the bathroom. I had a hard time waking you up, that's all. You don't usually sleep so deeply." Sam seemed to be humming with concern. Dean could practically see him vibrating.

"Yeah, well, I guess I was tired. I'm awake now, so you can stop with the Mother Hen routine." He tried to shake off Sam's concern, but it swirled around in his brain a little longer than he wanted. "Any coffee?" Dean pulled the tee-shirt that he was wearing off over his head and fished a new one out of his bag. He didn't feel quite right, but he wasn't going to share that little tidbit with Sam.

If in doubt, change the subject. Pure Dean. "There's a large coffee on the table for you. I hope it's not cold, I got it a little while ago." Sam stuffed his belongings into a duffle bag, not caring that he was wrinkling every last piece of clothing that he had. Sam fervently hoped that Dean would eventually break himself out of this funk; it was getting old really fast. He sighed and zipped up his bag. He looked over at Dean who was practically gulping down the coffee.

"Hey, Max, you almost done?" Dean turned and knocked lightly on the bathroom door.

"Yeah, I'll be out in a minute." She almost sounded normal there. He looked over at Sam who was in turn, staring at him.

"Dude, what?" Dean asked with more than a little edge of annoyance in his voice. Man, he felt crabby, like he hadn't slept in days. He definitely wasn't in the mood for one of Sam's interrogations about his feelings or some other shit like that.

"Are you okay? You seem off." Sam cocked his head slightly as he spoke. Dean didn't like that affectation. It meant that Sam was confused about something, usually about something that Dean had said or did.

"Just tired, I'm fine. I'll be better once this caffeine kicks in." He held up his coffee cup in demonstration, purposely answering in a softer tone. "We can go as soon as I'm finished. Okay?" He deflected Sam's concern again. Truth was he did feel a little off. Like something was just tickling the edge of his consciousness, like he was trying to remember a dream he had forgotten as soon as he had woken up. He was used to that. It seemed to be happening more often than not since Dad's death. He didn't remember anything from the time he spent in the hospital after the accident and before he woke up. Sam had been unusually quiet about what had happened. Sam had mentioned something about a reaper, but again, it was all really fuzzy. His Dad's dying was really clear. He remembered the medical staff trying to get his Dad back, but Dean had known deep down that he wasn't coming back. Dean usually had no trouble getting Sam to open up about his experiences, even if it took a little bit of manipulation to get it.

Max came out and walked over to the bed and sat down, all without any eye contact with the brothers. "Uh, Sam? Why don't you get this stuff in the car?" Dean nodded his head towards Sam and Sam nodded back.

"Okay, Dean. I'll be outside if you need me." Sam hefted several bags onto his shoulders and made a concerted effort to seem focused on leaving the room.

"Whew, I thought he'd never leave." Dean said quietly to himself. He looked over to Max, trying to catch her eye.

After a few minutes, Dean was getting a little impatient. "Max?"

She looked up. "Max, I think we need to talk." He watched as she walked slowly over to him and sat down on the bed across from him.

"I guess you're right." She paused and sighed. "I've been avoiding the two of you for days, trying to figure out what to do." She turned her blue eyes upwards until they met his green. "First, Dean, before you say anything else, I want to make sure that you and Sam know how much I appreciate everything you've done for me. You saved my life and my baby. I can never repay that. I didn't mean to appear ungrateful. That being said, I also want you to know that you aren't obligated in any way, shape or form, to continue to look after me. You can get rid of me anytime you want." As she started to stand up, Dean raised his arm and gently guided her back to the bed.

"That's not what I wanted to say. I wanted to say that we know what kind of hell you went through and we weren't expecting you to gush, or even want to talk for awhile. That kind of horror puts you in a different place, one that's very hard to come back from." He looked down. "Um, well, I just wanted to ask if you needed medical attention or anything. You know, for the baby. We just want to get you safe, that's all." He looked up as she took his hand.

"Thanks for your concern, Dean. I actually would feel a little bit better if I could see a doctor. Just to make sure everything's okay. That's a good idea." A small smile appeared on her face. Warmth spread through his chest at the sight of it.

Dean smiled back. Somehow she had become the comforter instead of the person who was being comforted. That was such a girl thing. It was something that Cassie did and until just then, he didn't realize how much he missed it. "Well, okay. Let's get finished up here and we'll find ourselves a baby doctor." He flashed her one of his patented smiles again and helped her with her small bag.

"Uh, Max?"

"Yeah, Dean?"

"Was there anywhere in particular you wanted to go after this? Any family we can bring you to? What about the baby's father?

"I have some family in Colorado, I guess. We're not that close, but I think they'd give me someplace to stay while I got things settled. I'm not really sure where the baby's father is, he was shipped out to Iraq a few months ago. He doesn't even know about the baby. He's in some covert group and I don't even know if the letters I sent ever got to him." Her head dropped. "I really wanted to tell him in person, you know. Or even on the phone or something. It's not like we were all that serious or anything, we were just really good friends. I hope he's okay."

"I hope so, too. Well, maybe we can figure out where your family is and we can go talk to them. See if they can help you." He put his hand on her shoulder.

She covered his hand with her own. "Thanks, Dean."

They drove west for hours. Dean actually let Sam drive because he didn't fell quite right yet. Usually that wouldn't prevent him from driving, but Max made him feel a little more protective. Dean's head fell against the headrest and he let his eyes close and his mind wander.

He found himself in the middle of a fire fight, but not the kind that he was used to. He was holding an M-16 and his arm was covered by a brown and tan camouflage jacket. He was crouched behind a burned out car and had been intermittently firing in the direction of a destroyed building. His heart was racing so fast, he was sure that he was headed for a heart attack. Max's smiling and laughing face flashed into his mind. Members of a similarly-dressed group were firing at the same building and were yelling at him to follow them. Heat and smoke made it hard for him to see and hear what they were saying. He broke from his cover and ran after the last of group, hoping like hell that the shots being fired from the building would miss him. He looked up at the sky at the unmistakable sound of a missile winding its way to his position. "Watson!" he heard someone yell as the projectile weapon found its mark. He didn't even have time to scream.

He jerked awake and smacked his head against the window. "What the hell?"

"You okay, Dean? You were moaning in your sleep. I was about to wake you." Sam turned his head slightly without taking his eyes off the road.

"Yeah, yeah, fine. Just a bad dream. Are we in Texas yet? There's a good hospital in Amarillo. Max should see a doctor." Dean rubbed his head and sat up straighter in his seat. He swore he could still smell charred flesh. He hated that smell. He cracked open the window and stared out of it, determined not to think about anything anymore.