11-4-23 (All You Wanted – Michelle Branch)

During the seventh autumn that I spent with Grace, I realized something…

I can't believe I'd never noticed it before – hell I was the one doing it, you'd think something would click but I guess not – but it took having a conversation we'd put off for years before it dawned on me.

I was falling again, harder this time.

It's not that I didn't know I loved her, or that she loved me. We'd told each other as much several times since the first year, but she told all of her friends that at one point or another. She was affectionate with all of us in equal measure too; Grace and Rowena even got on good terms after a while and I pitied to no end whatever poor bastard tried to take them on alone after that.

One particular poor bastard was Gabriel the first time he referred to them and Mary Winchester – not a witch, but they still hung out with her sometimes – as the Sanderson Sisters. The next one was me when I bought them matching Hocus Pocus t-shirts. Totally worth it.

But as the years went by she started to look different, being around her felt different. Of course she got older as humans do and we grew more comfortable around each other the longer I stayed with her…but it was almost like I didn't notice her until here lately. How could I not have though?

I wasn't blind, for one. Grace held the same kind of wild beauty I remembered from Eden, like a flower descended from its long-forgotten gardens. For the first few years I thought of her as a mischievous sprite, a cute little sunflower type. Her bright warmth was impossible to miss. As she grew up – she rolls her eyes every time I tell her she's aged "gracefully" – she became more like the roses that bloomed below her collarbone and along the edge of the porch, petal-soft and elegant. Many times I had to catch myself staring after her before she did.

I adored Grace much more than I probably should have, but she was the first person to give me a chance; I owed her some kind of devotion at least. She was the first to care about me beyond – in spite of, I should say – what my powers could do. She didn't need me, but she wanted me here.

I wanted her too, but I didn't know how to tell her. Truth be told, I was scared to. What if confessing to her tore our whole friendship up by the roots, and I lost her for good this time? Death was easily fixed, but awkwardness was irreparable. Having the conflicting thoughts constantly warring in my head was the only fate worse than either of the options. Lucky for me she's not a telepath…

Still, it had to come out sooner or later.

She had just finished unloading Cloud from our trip to a nearby orchard and we were both stowing things in the spice cabinet and pantry, dodging and weaving around each other as if our movements were planned down to the second. Not once did we bump into the other; our steps were so in-sync either of us could've been alone in that kitchen and had the same mobility. She's never complained about me being underfoot though, even when she was well within her rights to shoo me out of the room. We were that used to being two steps apart most of the time…

So used to it, in fact, we couldn't hear the whispers of the town over what we told ourselves.

Given that her "medicine woman" business was run out of her house, which required her clients to come directly to her most of the time, I had two options when it came to company that didn't include a Winchester coming over. Option A left me lurking in the rafters like a loose parrot or stuck wandering outside until they left, but I was none too fond of hiding from people in what was, for all intents and purposes, my house. Grace didn't like it either because she had to lie every time some nosy old biddy asked her if she "had a man around the house" yet.

She did, unbeknownst to them, but not exactly in the sense they were referring to.

Option B meant the opposite; at some point she would have to introduce me to her patrons, and by extension the rest of the town too. And she wouldn't lie about that either. Really, she couldn't, not with the memory of her disappearance still lingering with unanswered questions. No one had been satisfied by her "conveniently spontaneous vacation after a 'meteor' landed in her front yard" story, but it was all they could get out of her for a while. Fear for our safety kept her tongue-tied as long as she could stand it, but the sheriff finally got the whole story when she dragged me to the fall festival, and a tiny town in the Bible Belt had to come to terms with the Devil living in their midst completely undetected for three years.

Four more years passed before the terror faded from voices and gazes that met us on the streets. Our one solace during that time was that she never lost business over me; she might've actually gained a few just from pure morbid curiosity. I distinctly remember she told the pastor's wife during her first visit that, "The cat's housetrained. I'm still working on the archangel, so you'll have to take up complaints with his dad." And then she gestured to the ceiling.

That being said, I wasn't actually there with her when she explained to Sheriff Willard who I was. He caught her the next day in town and demanded a better explanation to assuage any "unsavory rumors" that might spring up. The exact words and details are lost to me, and for the most part I was okay with that. All that mattered was not having to tiptoe around anymore, but curiosity started eating at me when we got back from picking apples today.

One of the previously-mentioned prying biddies appeared in the market portion of the orchard at the same time as us; for the life of me I can't remember her name, but I do recall that she says "honey" after everyone else's when she talks to them, even me. I was busy perusing the jams while the two of them inspected the apples and spoke about some remedy Grace had given her for arthritis the week before. The words "miraculous" and "incredible" carried over the noise of the crowd, and so did Grace's laugh, but the second I turned around to wave at them, they got awfully quiet. The other woman said something to her that made her head spin back around, and I had a feeling the pink that bloomed across her cheeks wasn't from the brisk November wind.

We left soon after that, and the gossip I missed out on got filed under, "Just the usual interrogation about my non-existent love-life, Luce."

I didn't try to argue about it until we got home. Something in that question had turned the underside of her freckles red and I was determined to find out what it was, with or without her cooperation, "Okay, well then what'd you look at me for when she asked you if you were spoken for, hmm? You weren't praying for me to rescue you, so don't even go there."

"Wasn't planning on it." She closed the pantry doors and checked the counters for anything she'd missed; all that was left were the apples, one of which I held toward her as a sort of peace offering. Everyone's inquiries into her marital status wore on her nerves at times, and I didn't want to contribute to a bad mood. She rolled her eyes at me for a different reason though, and she smiled while she did, "Didn't the last girl you gave one of those get in trouble?"

"When has that ever stopped you?"

"Very funny." Grace took the apple, shined it on her blouse, then took a bite that puffed out one of her cheeks like a chipmunk, "If you must know, and I doubt that you really want to…"

"Graaaace…"

"She asked if we were together. If that was why I wasn't dating anyone else."

Any and all witty retorts or snide comments died before the breath formed to make them, but my mouth hung open of its own accord. Her crooked grin never dropped, implying that she thought it all in good fun, just some neighborly teasing. What could anyone outside this house know for them to think that about us? We didn't act like a couple out in public, y'know, since we aren't one…yeah we live together but that can't be so strange and these people can't be that archaic…

"What…I uh…what did you tell her?"

Another bite of the apple snapped off between her teeth as she reached past me for the rest of them. I found it ironic and entirely unfair that I was the one called the Tempter when she turned to look at me over her shoulder the way she did, with that blush accompanied by a shy grin coloring her skin again. Grace was far from bashful, so my suspicions immediately spiked, for good reason as it turns out, "I told her she'd have to ask you."

"…you didn't."

"I did." She beamed back at me, nibbling the apple mischievously and letting her hip lean against the counter. A beat of heavy silence followed during which I had ample time to try and decipher how the rest of my day was about to go; either she was joking just to get a rise out of me and hadn't been asked about "us", or she had and was trying to gauge my reaction without giving hers away first, "So what're you gonna tell her?"

Taking a breath that felt too shallow and shaky, I crossed my arms and met her eyes quick enough to catch a tiny glimmer of what looked like hope escaping them. The half-eaten apple bruised brown beneath her fingertips the longer I hesitated, "What do you want me to tell her?"

"Well…" Grace folded her hands behind her back, "am I spoken for?"

"Do you…want to be?"

She smiled, tilting her head coyly, "I wouldn't mind that…"