Why wishes can't come true

CHAPTER ONE:

Michalena watched as the beast thundered towards her with every step it took. She stumbled backwards until she hit a wall. She knew that she was cornered. It towered over her, its green, reptilian skin crawling as if it, too, was alive. Its growls vibrated her being. She watched, stunned, as it lifted its clawed paw to strike her, but just as she expected to feel the claw rip into her, she suddenly felt herself being tackled out of harm's way. She stumbled to the ground, along with someone else. Her breath was knocked from her lungs, and she could hear her rescuer struggling for air, too. She looked up, but all she could see was a man, dressed in a weathered leather jacket and jeans, with dark blonde hair, a flash of what she thought were green eyes. He rose up immediately, not taking any time to recover from the fall. He told her to stay down and she happily complied. He had a sword in his hand, one that she recognized by the engravings as the only weapon that could kill the beast. The man raised it up and plunged it deep into the beast's chest. It roared with anger and pain, but had enough strength to swipe at the man, sending him hurtling through the air across the room. She gasped with concern, but feared moving and being captured. She cursed her cowardice knowing the man had probably saved her life at the expense of his own. The beast roared again, but finally disintegrated into a thin mist. A hush filled the room until a soft moan broke the silence. The man who had rescued her was back on his feet and was walking towards her. When he reached her, he helped her up, grimacing while doing it.

"Are you all right?" He asked.

"Yes, yes, I am, but I think I should be asking you that."

Her rescuer looked down at his wound then suddenly started to waver. She grabbed at him to keep him from falling, but his legs started to give way.

"Damn it," was the only thing he uttered before he lost consciousness.

oooo

Dean woke up groggily and tried to find out where he was. The last thing he remembered was pushing a woman out of the way of an attacking beast then just before he plunged a sword into it to kill it, he felt it cut into him with its claws. All he remembered after that was feeling stinging pain then blacking out.

He tried to lift himself up from the bed he was on only to find that he couldn't because he had been taped tightly around his mid-section. A soft hand pushed down on his shoulder to lay him back down.

"Try not to move or your wound will start bleeding again," a soft voice said.

Dean turned and saw the woman he had rescued from the beast.

"Where am I?" Dean asked.

"You're in my home," she replied.

"Are you okay?" Dean asked, sincere, if not tired, concern in his voice.

Michalena marveled at how his concern for her prevailed over his own injuries.

"I'm fine. Thanks to you," she said.

Dean nodded then laid back, feeling bone-deep tired.

"You'll need to rest. The beast cut into you deeply. You lost a lot of blood."

Dean nodded again in agreement.

"Can I ask you your name?" She asked.

"Dean."

"I'm Michalena," she said. "Thank you for saving me."

Dean dismissed the gratitude with a quick nod.

"Why was it after you anyway?" Dean asked.

"It was sent to kill me," she said sadly.

"What? Why?"

"I'm an outcast in my culture. A half-breed."

"Why should that be a problem?"

She smiled at his innocence, at least from the perspective of her world.

"I'm half-empath, half-genie."

"What? You mean the Barbara Eden kind of genie or…" Dean trailed off, his eyes widening. "Or are you a djinn?"

"I'm not a djinn. I don't feed on humans. I promise you you're not in danger."

Dean looked at her skeptically, but rationalized that if she had been a djinn, he would have been in some kind of fantasyland.

"Doesn't seem like a very good reason to kill someone. And why a beast hit-man?"

She smiled at Dean's casual, humorous questioning.

"Because I'm an empath, I feel emotions like pain and fear. I couldn't subject anyone to the kind of fantasy torture that full-blooded djinns do, plus I don't feed on blood. I'm more human that way. They need to keep the line pure. I'm tainted in their view," she explained. "The beast was just doing a job it was sent to do. I guess you could say, it's their way of killing me without getting their hands dirty."

Dean nodded in understanding. Suddenly, his eyes went wide when he remembered that he had forgotten about Sam. He tried to rise again, but pain assaulted him and he had to lie back down.

"What? What is it?" she asked, worried by his reaction.

"Sam. I need to tell him where I am, that I'm okay."

"Your brother?"

"Yeh, how'd you know?"

"I felt your strong emotion for him just now and it told me who he was."

"My emotions told you that?" Dean scoffed.

"Yes, I'm not a mind reader, but when emotions are very strong, they communicate to me and tell me things. I felt your concern, your protectiveness, your love for him."

Dean looked away, a bit embarrassed at having revealed so much to her.

"Don't be embarrassed. You weren't betraying anything. It's who I am. It's what I do. I can't help it anymore than you can help wanting to save people," Michalena said and smiled.

Dean then looked at her.

"Yeh, well…" Dean evaded. "I need to get a hold of Sam. Do you have a phone?"

Michalena walked over to a small table and took Dean's cell from it. She handed it to him then helped him to a sitting position.

"I'll leave you so you can have some privacy."

Dean nodded, "Thanks."

Michalena smiled then left, closing the door behind her. Dean found Sam in his speed dial and punched the call in. Sam answered immediately which told Dean how worried Sam had been.

"Dean? Are you okay? Where are you?" Sam asked, panic in his voice. "I've been trying to get a hold of you."

"Relax, Sammy, I'm okay. I found the beast. It was after the woman like we figured. I killed it, but it got a swipe in."

"God, are you all right?"

"Yeh, I'm okay. The woman, Michalena, patched me up, but I'm gonna have to stay put for now. She's got me so bandaged I feel like a mummy.")."

"Okay, are you at the house?"

"Yeh."

"Good, I'll be there in about a hour," Sam said. "I'm glad you're okay. I was –"

"Scared?" Dean teased.

"Worried," Sam insisted.

"Well, don't fret, you girl, I'm okay."

"Yeh, yeh. I'll see you soon, you freak," Sam said and hung up.

Dean hung up too, but allowed his thoughts to stray as he stared at his phone. He was startled from his daydreaming by Michalena who had come in with two cups in her hands.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to…I just thought you might like to have some coffee."

"Read that in my emotions too, did you?" Dean teased as he took one of the cups from her. "Bless you."

Michalena smiled and handed the cup over to him.

"You're worried about your brother," she said as she sat in a nearby chair.

Dean smiled as he took a sip.

"I was born worried about him," Dean joked.

"You're worried about leaving him," she continued.

Dean's face was lined with pain and sadness when she had read his feelings.

"You know, you're going to have to cut that out. It's really starting to creep me out," he joked.

"Sorry, like I said, I can't help it, but I can help not being so nosy so I'll stop," she smiled nervously.

Dean felt guilty for teasing her. He knew that she wasn't trying to be nosy.

"No, no, it's okay. I'm just not used to being read so easily," Dean smiled shakily as he took another sip of coffee.

"Is Sam coming to get you?" she asked, feeling a change of subject was in order.

Dean nodded, "In about an hour."

He looked at her as she drank from her cup, curiosity written on his face.

"Yes, I'm that kind of genie, but I can't claim Barbara Eden's belly button," she teased.

Dean's face then blushed a bit at having been read again.

"You're wondering if I can really grant wishes," she paused. "Yes, I can. I'm not a djinn. I don't create fantasies. I can truly grant you anything you want and yes, I owe you that for saving my life."

Michalena was enjoying befuddling Dean. Despite his hardened exterior, she sensed a gentle and deeply burdened soul. Something was giving him pain and even though she didn't like to pry, she felt a deep need to help him.

"Wow…" Dean said in awe. "Gotta say, you're good."

"Do you have a wish?" She asked.

Dean's face quickly hardened as he stared into his cup, "No, no I don't."

"A wish for someone else then? For your brother?"

She watched as Dean's face crumbled under the mask he was trying to hold up then looked at her.

"Can you do that? I mean, can I really wish for him instead of for myself?"

"Yes, but is there nothing you desire?"

Dean laughed, "Plenty, but I'm trying to keep it rated G here."

Michalena couldn't help, but giggle at his joke.

He then became serious again.

"No, I don't want anything."

"You really mean you feel you can't have anything," Michalena corrected. "But why?"

Dean cleared his throat.

"I've already gone through this once before with a djinn and though I know it was just a fantasy and as much as I wanted to stay in it…I can't change my past. People would die because I wasn't there to help them. I couldn't live with that. Having what I want can't cost someone else's life."

Michalena listened intently and was impressed at how for all of the wishes she had granted in her life, no one had ever considered how their wish would impact others. It was all about what they wanted. She never cast blame or judged them for that. It was only human to desire, but Dean was different.

"But Dean, you'd have no memory of your life as a hunter, you'd never know –"

"I'd know," Dean insisted.

His reaction surprised her. The insistence in his voice, the certainty in it, she found herself believing him.

"What do you wish for your brother?"

Dean's face then changed to one of regret.

"To be happy. To have what he should've had if –" Dean stumbled.

"What makes you think he isn't happy now, that being with you –"

"No, you don't understand. Sam deserved to have a real family. He deserved to have a mother who loved him, a father who didn't think of him as a soldier. He deserved to go to college, become a geek lawyer and have the love of his life by his side. Not this. Not this life with me. "

"Don't you deserve those things too?" she asked.

"I did have that life. Oh, not the college or the girl, but I had a mother who loved me, a father who only cared about putting me to bed, a brother I kissed good night…I had those things. Sam should have had those things too," Dean sighed.

He rubbed his hands together nervously, squeezing them as if they were arthritic and painful.

"Instead, he's blaming himself for what'll happen to me. It isn't his fault, but that won't matter," Dean took in a breath. "He's trying to so hard to save me. He stays up nights researching. He worries whenever we go on a hunt that something will happen to me and…"

Dean put his interlaced hands up to his lips.

"I'm scared to death of what will happen to him after I'm gone. He'll be alone and…I'm afraid he'll…"

Dean tried standing up again, his bottled emotions spilling out in a need to move, but he moved too quickly again and pain flared in his chest. He sat back down on the bed with Michalena's help.

After taking a few breaths, Dean stared imploringly at her.

"Can you really fulfill a wish for Sam?"

She was moved by his unselfishness and said in a hushed whisper, "Yes."

Dean nodded as if making a decision then turned to her again.

"Can I ask for one selfish thing?"

Michalena looked at him slightly astonished and disbelieving. How could anything he could ask of her be selfish?

"I can't believe you're capable of being selfish, not from what I'm feeling, but of course, please ask."

"I don't want to forget the Sam I know. I want to remember the six month old Sam that Dad put into my arms to carry out of the fire, the Sam who was by my side through everything, who watched my back…" Dean swallowed thickly. "Can you change the past and still leave me…I don't know…intact, I guess?"

"Of course. I can also alter the past so that you never made that deal with the demon to save Sam."

Now, it was Dean's turn to be taken aback.

"How did you –"

"I just do," Michalena smiled, lightly throwing back the same certainty in her voice as he had in his.

Dean had to think for a moment. Did that matter now?

"Yes, it matters. It matters a great deal. You'd be saved from Hell. You have to let me give that to you."

Michalena was surprised by the insistence in her voice. Dean smiled widely.

"Well, far be it from me to deny a woman."

She laughed aloud and felt joy there. Dean allowed himself a small snicker as well.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked.

"Just close your eyes," she said.

"And what? Tap my heels and say, 'there's no place like home'?" Dean joked, closing his eyes.

Michalena smiled then asked, "Are you sure?"

Dean just nodded.

oooo

TBC

Thanks to Tiffany for her exemplary beta-ing of this story. It's always appreciated!! Enjoy reading everyone. Hope you like it!