Love Bleeds

A/N: This story overlaps with Two Out of Three Ain't Bad, a more detailed look at Dean's year with Lisa and Ben in Cicero, Indiana and set in the same universe as the Ramble On series. It's not essential to read it first, although some of Dean's decisions and thoughts are given in more detail there. The timeline includes Dean's year with Lisa and Ben as a real year, which contradicts the show's timeline. Within the series, Ellie and Dean remain apart for two years. The stories Dead of the Night and Roses in December are set within this two year period.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

February, 2010

Alive.

Dean didn't think that was possible, but he couldn't think of any reason for Cas to lie to him either.

Not coming back.

Until Heaven stopped hunting him, the angel'd said. Sounded pretty damned final to him, considering that the archangels would only stop hunting him when he agreed to be Michael's vessel, or if they somehow managed to kill Lucifer, both options having a low chance of success combined with high odds of dying in the process. He'd argued with Cas, and pleaded with him, and finally the angel had left, agitated but adamant that he couldn't do anything.

She wasn't dead. He'd start with that, he thought tiredly. The past forty-eight hours had been unbelievable. In fact, the previous week had been pretty fucking unbelievable. Famine and Sam's addiction. Then Ellie coming back, when he needed her. Forgiveness and being with her. Telling her what he'd done and the impossible revelation that she loved him, in spite of it. And Raphael. And running, again.

He forced his attention back on the road, rubbing a hand along his jaw absently. Sam had found a case in Sioux Falls. They could swing by and see Bobby. Maybe he'd know how to contact her.

He understood that the angels could see her, could find her and that Cas couldn't tag her the way he'd tagged Sam and him. He understood that it meant taking a risk, but pretty much everything was a risk. Their whole lives had been bucking the odds. And having found her again, he wasn't going to just let her go. He needed her. She gave him a perspective he couldn't find on his own.

March 6, 2010

The Impala ate up the miles as she always did, low and growly, sweet-sounding in his ears. He'd chosen a back way, a narrow two lane blacktop with woods and fields and streams to either side, twisting and winding through the low hills and around small towns. He wanted to drive, not just sit there and steer. He needed to drive.

She'd been wrong. The thought crept into his mind like a thief. Wrong about God. He wasn't offering strength and hope. He had thrown the mess in their laps and turned away, AWOL in the biggest crisis since … he didn't know. Now he had nothing.

Come back and tell me this is God's fucking plan, Ellie! He lifted his hand, rubbing it over his face. Just come back.

It was just him and Sam again. Just their hides in between the world and Armageddon. Plan A … hand themselves over to their respective archangels, do battle on the field and one of them dies. There was no Plan B. What was the point of free will if there was no choice? They could run and hide, he supposed. That was a choice. And Lucifer would gain ground, and with Death on a leash, destroy the world and people it with demonkind. Or not. Either way, billions would die. And that would be their responsibility too. Damned if they did, damned if they didn't. Same old.

Sam had told him a little of what had happened in the months they'd spent apart last year. He'd told him about Steve and Reggie, and Tim Janklow, the hunters who'd found out about the demon blood and the Apocalypse. It was a strange feeling to realise that aside from Bobby and Cas, there was literally no one else in their corner. Whatever they did, they would be doing alone. They'd be dying alone, he thought sourly.

He glanced to his right, seeing his oversized brother crunched uncomfortably into the corner between seat and door, asleep. Why did everything depend on them? He was sick of the talk of destiny and fate. They were ordinary, they weren't heroes and they sure as hell weren't martyrs. They hadn't volunteered and they weren't getting paid. Would they be in this if their father had sucked up his grief and carried on living a normal life? Pretended that he hadn't seen the hand of the demon in the death of his wife and the fire in the nursery and just gotten on with things? Somewhere, deep inside, he knew the choice hadn't been like that, his father hadn't given his life to revenge for Mary, but to protect Sam. And everything they'd learned, over the last few years, bore that out. There had been no choice, not really, not for any of them.

But blaming John Winchester was more satisfying, more concrete, than trying to pin the blame on the lines of destiny and an absent God and angels and demons all throwing their hats in the ring for a shot at the title.

Ellie. If God had sent her to help him, why had she been taken from him again? Or was that free will too – her free will? To tell him she loved him, give him hope that he wasn't as broken as everyone kept telling him, and then disappear and leave him to fight the world on his own? She wouldn't do that to you, a part of his mind argued against it. She's trying to protect you, and Sam.

His fingers tightened on the wheel slightly. Or, the thought flicked through his mind, she'd lied to him, for whatever unfathomable reasons she might have had, and his all-too brief moments of feeling like things could change had been a lie too. He didn't know.

March 28, 2010. Cicero, Indiana.

He lay on the motel bed, thinking. They'd explored every possible avenue, they'd tried to find any other solution, but maybe Michael had been right. It would always come down to this, to surrendering themselves to the destiny that had been woven for them since the beginning of time.

Reaching out for the bottle that sat on the nightstand, Dean sat up, lifting the bottle, the dark liquid gurgling down his throat, leaving a trail of lingering fire and hitting his stomach with warmth. It was the only warmth he could muster these days. Despair came and went in waves, big ocean rollers of pain and defeat he had no idea how to counteract, how to deal with. He squeezed his eyes shut as his chest constricted, looking for some anger to give him the impetus to get up, get on with what he needed to do.

He couldn't stop thinking about her, couldn't stop himself remembering how it had been to lie in her arms, feeling his life had turned a corner and he could be whole again. Couldn't forget or push away or bury the feelings she'd stirred in him, or the memories of the way she looked and felt and tasted. He couldn't forget how it'd felt, a peace in his soul, like reaching an oasis after years in the desert. And fuck, he ached for her, through the nights and the mornings and through the day when little disjointed memories flashed into his mind and his body remembered everything.

His thoughts went the other way too. He'd thought his despair had gone, when he'd been with her, but it was back. He couldn't think clearly of solutions, the problems were too big, there were too many of them and that strange clarity he'd felt whenever she'd been around had gone.

He couldn't find her. He'd tried everything he could think of but it was like she'd vanished completely. He couldn't get Cas to see reason. The angel told him that she was alive, staying away, her choice to keep them safe. What the fuck was safe? He had no choice but the one right in front of him; there was no way of killing the devil but by the means that Heaven kept shoving down their throats. So why the concern that she might endanger them now?

Unless it wasn't a concern, just an excuse. And that train of thought, coming more and more often now, brought more despair and a sharpening anger. He could have sworn that she was telling him the truth when she'd said she loved him. But maybe, she'd changed her mind. Maybe it wasn't the truth anymore. Maybe she'd thought about it, about what he'd told her about himself and decided that he was too broken for her.

He got up abruptly, and picked up the cardboard box from the floor. He was done with this shit. Not knowing what to do. Not knowing what to feel. Running. Hiding. He was done with it all. He began to pack the box, the bottle close by.

He could impose some conditions on the archangel in return for services rendered, he thought. He could protect some people. Anger tightened like a screw inside him. He would make sure Lisa and Ben and Bobby were safe, and kept out it. And Ellie … he didn't know.

May 6, 2010. Chicago, Illinois.

Dean looked across the table at the ancient being that sat opposite him, the instructions for the key still reverberating in his head. He drew in a deep breath. There was one more thing he needed to ask.

"Uh, can you tell if a person, a mortal, is still alive and where they are?"

Death looked up at him, dark eyes boring into his own. "You have a slightly more important task at hand, don't you think?"

"Yeah." He looked down at the table, knowing it was a bad idea to keep pushing but unable to help himself.

"Yes, Dean. She's alive, in Montana at this precise moment." Death's mouth twitched slightly as Dean let his breath out.

"Thanks. Uh, thank you."

"We have a deal, you and I. Don't forget it."

May 8, 2010. Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Bobby's couch was usually pretty comfortable. Tonight he couldn't find a spot that didn't feel too soft or too hard or just the wrong shape.

Are you afraid of losing? Or losing your brother?

The old man's words kept looping in his head. Both, of course. His whole life had been about protecting Sam. There wasn't a day when he hadn't been automatically geared to that end. Now he had the choice of protecting his brother or protecting the world. He rolled over again, the thought raising the usual amount of frustration in him.

If they succeeded, following Sam's plan, it would mean losing his brother forever. That thought bit into him like a knife, searing through nerve and muscle, into blood and bone. He'd already lost almost everyone else. He wouldn't survive losing Sam as well. He knew it. He'd be adrift without his purpose and without his family and he knew himself well enough to know that would probably kill him.

But he couldn't think how to get around it. They had one shot at Lucifer, and it would depend on Sam. Sam being strong enough to hold the devil with his mind, being strong enough to jump when the Cage opened. If he wasn't strong enough, then all they would have accomplished would be to set the stage for the fight of the millennium. Michael had Adam, he wasn't going to back down and call it evens.

Dean, it's not up to you to shoulder the responsibility for everything and everyone. It's bad enough that you are still taking responsibility for Sam – he's a grown man, entitled to make his own choices, whether you like them or not. Your business is backing him in whatever choice it is that he does make.

Ellie's voice, Ellie's words. The memory hurt. All his memories of her hurt now. But maybe she was right about this. Sam was a man, and his choices were his own. His job was to back him up, make sure that he could do what he wanted to do. It went against everything he was, against his deepest thoughts and feelings about his brother to let him make such a choice, to sacrifice himself so that the world could continue. But … it was Sam's choice. Not his. Not anyone else's.

He sat up. He wanted a drink but there wasn't enough alcohol in the whole world to block out the pain now. He tried to let it wash through him, just accept it and not fight so hard against it. If he lost everyone, who would he be? The thought slid insidiously into his mind. And he didn't know the answer.

When Sam had died, in Cold Oak, the answer had been clear to him. He wouldn't be anything. His idea of himself had been locked tightly around the role of his brother's protector. And without that, he hadn't known what to do. Making the deal had been his only choice because he couldn't envisage his life, any life, without his brother. He didn't feel that way now, not in the same way. He still had that purpose, but things had happened, things had changed. And he knew more about himself now, than he had then.

He wanted what he'd lost. In the moment when he'd registered what she'd said, had really heard it, he'd known. He hadn't admitted it then, hadn't been able to but hearing it had unwound something in him, down deep, where he lived, something he'd kept tightly locked away. He wanted to love someone and be loved by someone. He shook his head slightly. Not someone, not just anyone. Except that he didn't know if that was real now.

He wanted a real life. A home. A family. He wasn't sure if that were possible but the yearning for it was fierce and consistent in the innermost parts of his heart, the places he'd let no one into, afraid it would be seen as a weakness.

He wanted this fight to be over, one way or the other. He was so tired. How the hell could he be so fucking tired at thirty-one?

May 14, 2010

The car rolled along, the music pumping through the stereo, the strong beat of drums and bass resonating in his blood and bones. He kept blanking out, missing big chunks of the journey, as grief and anger throbbed and waited to come out.

Another two hundred miles to Bobby's, he thought distantly, the sign telling him so a mile back already. He'd made a promise to Sam. To go and live a normal life. He couldn't remember what that was anymore, why it had seemed so desirable before. His brother was in the Cage. Trapped. Forever.

He looked at the signs flashing past and blinked. A hundred and fifty miles to Bobby's. The hell had happened to the fifty miles he'd just driven? He didn't remember seeing anything.

Should have let me die, Cas, he thought as pain trembled close to his mind. There was nothing for him now. The angel couldn't even find Ellie, couldn't see her. There had been two angels sitting guard on her, watching her every move for the last six months, he'd said. Now he couldn't see them, couldn't see her. He didn't know what that meant.

You got what you asked for, Dean. No Paradise. No Hell. Just more of the same. I mean it, Dean. What would you rather have? Peace or freedom?

Cas' words echoed still. He didn't want peace or freedom, he'd discovered. He wanted his brother back. He wanted the woman who'd told him she loved him back. He wanted to find a way to have both, now, before he fucking well spontaneously exploded with the anguish and desolation he could feel building up behind his walls.

He needed to find a way to get Sam out of the Cage. His brother had told him not to try. Not to poke and prod at the locks that held him, and the devil, safely down below. As if he was going to honour that.

The promise held him. A normal life. A life with a family, with Lisa and Ben. He shook his head. A life of lies and empty coldness filling him? Why would he want to bring that onto them?

Fifty miles to Bobby's. He took his foot off the accelerator, staring at the sign as he shot past it. Fuck, he was losing it.

May 30, 2010. Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Bobby looked from Dean to Castiel, his brow furrowed with worry. "So, this angel, he was assigned to watch Ellie. If he's dead, what does that mean?"

Dean was sitting at the table, staring sightlessly at the floor in front of him. Castiel lifted his gaze from the man beside him to Bobby. "I don't know. Something is preventing me from seeing them."

"It doesn't matter." Dean looked up at Castiel, his face expressionless. "The angels, they would have known, right? The moment Michael and Lucifer went into the Cage? They would have known it?"

Castiel nodded uncertainly. "Yes, we all felt it."

"She could have come back, the minute it happened. She had to have known it was okay then." He stood up slowly, not looking at either Bobby or Castiel. "I made a promise to Sam. It's time I went."

"Dean, she might not have –" Bobby started to say. Dean cut him off.

"You take care, Bobby." He picked up his bag. "You too, Cas."

He walked out of the room, out of the house, one foot in front of the other, down the porch steps to the car. Not feeling. Not yet. Bobby followed him out and grabbed him, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tightly.

He was still numb, mostly. It was bleeding in around the edges but he could still function, mostly.

She hadn't come back. He pulled in a deep breath as he felt that sit in his mind, turning it over, looking at it from different angles. The angels would've left and she would've known why, known that Sam had jumped, and he'd been left alone, known that Michael was gone and she could've called Cas and been at Bobby's or wherever he was but she didn't. The only conclusion he could come to was that she hadn't wanted to. Anger slid around the barriers that held back the other emotions. It had all been a lie. Everything.

The small, still rational part of his mind began to protest and he shut it out. He had nothing left. He was broken. Too broken for anyone to love him, to want him. That was the deal. And you played the deal you got, no matter how crap it was.

He didn't see the towns or the fields or the forests or the lakes he passed. Just the long grey concrete ribbons he drove along. He kept his thoughts tightly under lock and key, because once he let that grief in, it would take a long time for it to settle.

If Lisa took him in, he'd have a family, he thought vaguely. He could have a part of his dreams for himself, at least. He didn't love her, wasn't sure what that even was, but he cared about her and maybe he could learn to love. He would search for ways to get Sam out of the Cage and he would find the answer.

June, 2010. Cicero, Indiana.

It was dark again when he pulled up in front of the house. He sat for a moment in the car, hearing the hot metal tick softly in the quiet of the suburban street. What was he doing here? Did he really think she'd look at him and not see the pieces that were missing and just accept him? Could he be with her and pretend that most of him wasn't gone?

One step at a time, he thought. Get out of the car.

October 2010. Cicero, Indiana.

He came out of the nightmare shaking and sweating, his heart hammering and his breath whistling in his throat. They didn't come so often now, but when they did they were worse, more vivid, scaring him more deeply. He sat up, wiping the sweat from his face, and thought longingly of the bottle downstairs. He wanted that smooth amnesia.

Beside him, Lisa slept, her breathing quiet and even. If he woke her, she'd hold him, he knew. She tried her best to comfort him, to help him. The only problem was she didn't understand, and he didn't think he could make her understand. Some things you had to live to understand, you couldn't just explain them.

He lay back and pulled the pillow around, his arm wrapped around it, cheek resting against it where it sat over his shoulder. He wanted someone else. He only ever let himself think of her in the deeps of the night, when Lisa was sleeping and he was awake, when the pain got too bad, and the whiskey hadn't kicked in yet and blunted the edges. He was afraid he'd never stop missing her.

In the daytime, if his thoughts strayed to her he let anger wash them away. She was alive, he knew. The last time he'd seen Cas, the angel had confirmed that she was alive. It seemed to bear out his feelings that she hadn't come to him, had left him alone because she'd wanted it that way. Because what she'd told him – what he'd wanted – was a lie. That betrayal continued to cut, a bit deeper each time he thought of it. There was nothing in the way to stop her from coming now, no angels, no demons, no destiny or prophecies. But she didn't.

November 2010. Cicero, Indiana.

He stared at the screen, thinking. The long shot had been too long and he'd kind of known that from the moment had occurred to him. Still, he'd tried. The day had been long and with all the people in the house, exhausting in its own way.

He frowned as he remembered the moment earlier in the day again. When he and Lisa had gone to the door to see Beth and Steve out, he'd felt as if … he wasn't sure … as if someone had been watching him. He didn't think it had been Cas. The angel hadn't been answering for a while now.

He usually got a feeling if something was wrong, and it hadn't been that. He leaned back in the chair and sighed. Could have been the kid from up the road with his telescope, he supposed. He'd looked around, checking the parked cars along the road, letting his gaze travel slowly over the houses opposite theirs. There'd been nothing, nothing that had snagged his attention.

Thanksgiving. Another milestone. Another month gone. He clamped down on his thoughts, knowing where they were leading and got up, walking into the living room. Lisa had gone to bed. He was tired, he should go as well. He wandered to the windows, where the curtains hadn't been quite closed tightly and reached up to draw them together. He felt it again. That sensation of being watched. Then it was gone. He pulled the curtains closed and looked around the room. He'd have a look around at dawn.

In the grey light, the street was quiet, the streetlights still shining. He came out the front door silently, closing it behind him, his breath misting up in front of him as he looked around. The cars parked along the side of the road were frosted over, the grass and branches and shrubs and fences as well. He walked along the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets, checking each of the cars as he went.

He'd gone about twenty yards when he heard the engine start up, and looked up the otherwise empty street. On the other side, a few houses up, a white pickup reversed slowly down the drive, backing into the street and turning, the windows either frosted or fogged on the inside. He couldn't see the driver, and didn't know who lived in the house. The truck didn't seem to be in a hurry, chugging slowly over the rise and vanishing past it. Early starter, he thought, and turned back to the cars he'd been checking.

He finished the sweep a half-hour later. There was nothing out of the ordinary. No one lurking in the parked cars, no curtains twitching as he passed by, and no sense now that anyone was interested in him. He glanced curiously at the house that the pickup had come from and slowed down as he took in the For Sale sign on the lawn. The windows of the home were bare. He frowned, wondering if the pickup driver had stayed in the empty house. He could think of a few rational reasons why someone might be living in an empty house. After a moment, he turned away, walking back down the street. If the pickup driver was the one watching him, they'd been very relaxed, very smooth about it.

January 2011. Cicero, Indiana.

He understood Lisa's anger, he did. But he couldn't help compare the two times someone had told him they'd loved him. When Ellie had said it, all he'd felt was that love, flowing over him and asking absolutely nothing from him in return. It had been a revelation, especially given what he'd just told her. It'd been a gift that he hadn't known he'd needed until she gave it. With Lisa, he'd felt the expectation in her, the need to hear him say it back. He shook his head slightly. He had no doubt that she'd meant it, but he could still feel the way it'd hit him, that he was supposed to say it as well.

He looked into his glass, the deep gold and amber liquid in it. Why were they different? Why had one felt like a benediction and the other a … demand? Why did he believe that Lisa meant it, but Ellie had lied?

She hadn't lied, he thought. He didn't know why she hadn't returned after the Cage had closed, but she hadn't lied to him. He could see that much now.

He couldn't lie to Lisa either. Not about this. He couldn't say something he didn't feel, didn't think he'd ever feel, at least not in the same way that she did. If he did, he'd destroy what they had. And he couldn't do that. This life was all that he had now. He needed it, needed to find out if it could be his. Maybe it wasn't what he thought it would be, maybe his dreams were just that … dreams of something that could never be truly his, but it was better than the alternative, he thought. The cold, empty alternative.

April, 2011. Cicero, Indiana.

Dean set his tools back in the lockbox, closing the padlock and rubbing the back of his hand over his brow, the fine sawdust that he seemed covered in every day itching a little against his skin.

The relationship with Lisa had changed again overnight. She was relaxed with him, as if what he'd told her about himself had given her another anchor point with him. Maybe it had. Maybe all the things they shared were ties to each other, part of the weave and weft of knowing someone well enough to love them.

Getting into the truck, he wondered about that. He'd told two other people about his time in Hell, both of them the full story – well, with Sam it hadn't been the full story, but more than enough to get the point across. Ellie, he'd told everything. The strange thing was, that when he'd told Sam, he'd felt that it made them weaker, not stronger. His brother had tried to understand, had tried to help him, but after the siren had poisoned him, poisoned them both, he'd realised that whatever the dynamics were between them, every time he told Sam something like that, it would be used as a weapon against him. He wasn't sure why, but it hadn't been the first time, and he didn't think it would be the last.

When he'd told Ellie, he'd just been sure that she would go. When she hadn't, he'd felt that her knowing those things about him had somehow deepened a bond that had grown between them. Those were his worst memories, the things that he cringed from, the things that made him wish his feelings had been cauterised while he'd been in the pit so that he couldn't feel anything, at all, ever again.

Ellie hadn't turned away and she hadn't cringed. She'd kissed him. She'd told him that she loved him. And when he thought about her, when he thought about them, it was knowing that she'd seen his flaws, seen his mistakes, seen the things that had scared him, and scarred him, the most … and it hadn't changed anything for her. He could tell her anything, he realised slowly, and he knew that it wouldn't change how she felt. Because she knew him. Down to the core. Maybe better than he knew himself.

Would he get there with Lisa? He didn't know. There was a lot of stuff that Lisa didn't know. He thought that there was a lot of stuff that Lisa would never know. That he couldn't share with her or tell her about because she had no frame of reference for those things. There was no common point between them.

He leaned against the wheel of the truck for a moment. What did that mean? That the relationship he had with her and Ben was never going to be what he wanted?

April 2011. Cicero, Indiana.

He waited until he could hear Lisa shifting into a deeper sleep then slid out of the bed, walking silently out of the room and down the stairs. He picked up the whiskey and poured an inch into a glass, tossing it back and pouring another.

Calling out Jo's name, he thought, feeling the shiver run down his back. Relatively speaking, Jo was easy to explain. What would he say to Lisa if he started calling out Ellie's name, when those nightmares came to him? What would he say when she was woken by the dreams where he'd watched Ellie outlined in the argentine light of an archangel's power, dreams where he'd wake shaking, his face wet with tears? Was he going to lie about that?

He would lie, he knew. He wouldn't tell Lisa about Ellie. He couldn't. She was a part of his life that he didn't go into with Lisa, and she was the most private part of that life.

How was he supposed to build this relationship when he couldn't be truthful about half the things in his life? The things that meant the most to him?

The question was the answer. It wouldn't help Lisa to know about any of those things. He wasn't ever going to be able to be himself here, in this house.

May 2011. Cicero, Indiana.

Dean walked out of the house, turning automatically for the garage then stopping and about-facing to the gate. The Impala was under wraps and taking her out, even for an aimless drive somewhere felt like a worse betrayal of the people he'd committed himself to. Walking out onto the street, he turned left, heading for the park, boot heels clocking on the warm asphalt as he tried to get his head around what the hell he was doing.

He hated lying to Lisa. It made a mockery of the relationship that was very slowly building between them. But he was doing it more and more and he realised that he couldn't tell her everything and that it was going to be an inevitable part of this life. He'd come reluctantly to realise too that it effectively meant that the relationship, no matter how comfortable or mutually satisfying, would never be more than what it was now. She knew more about him than most people did, or ever would. The things she didn't know, however, were the vital pieces. The pieces that made sense of all the rest. The pieces he cared about.

The woman who did know those pieces, who knew him through and through, who stirred emotions in him that Lisa never touched, was gone, completely lost to him. He had to find a way of letting go, of burying those feelings and the memories and pretending somehow that she never existed, because every time he thought of her, or remembered her, he was eroding what he had right here, this life he'd promised to live.

He'd buried a lot of things over the years. He knew how to do that. Knew how to short circuit thoughts and feelings so that they became stunted and rarely emerged. When he thought of what he'd have to do, he felt himself dying, inside. Killing those feelings and memories of Sam, of Ellie, would be killing himself, as well. It was the same as turning his back on the life, pretending he wasn't a hunter, pretending he didn't know what saving people felt like or meant.

He didn't have a choice in the matter. At the moment he was only half alive, torn between his longing for the past, as painful and tormenting as that had been, and the only future he could see clearly, a future that gave him some hope, at least of not dying alone.

May, 2011. Cicero, Indiana.

A damn year? You couldn't put me out of my misery?

Look, I get it wasn't easy. But that's life! And it's as close to happiness as I've ever seen a hunter get. It ain't like I wanted to lie to you, son. But you were out, Dean.

Do I look out to you?

Sam'd been alive, almost the entire time. He couldn't get that out of his head. That's life? Close to happiness? His hands curled into fists, held tight against his thighs. Bobby would never know how close he'd come to having his nose broken for the fourth time.

"Huh, I love this one. Yours or, uh, your wife's?" Gwen Campbell stood by the sofa, holding up a womens' magazine with a gleeful expression.

Dean turned away without answering in time to see Mark pick up a framed photograph. "Hey, do me a favour, don't touch that."

The hunter shrugged and put it down, the frame clattering on the side table as he walked away. Watching him, Dean found himself struggling with the desire to say something, anything, to these people to make it clear why he'd been living here, like this. He repressed the impulse.

The water splashed out from the kitchen tap and he doused himself with it, looking back over his shoulder as he heard his grandfather walking into the room.

"Nice house," Samuel remarked, looking around.

"Oh, yeah. Go ahead, say it – call me a soccer mom. Whatever," Dean growled, picking up the handtowel and drying his hands.

Samuel's brows rose a little. "'Soccer mom', huh? Well, I'll have to look that up on the 'intranet.' You know, believe it or not, I get it, Dean," he said, leaning against the end of the counter. "You were at our house, when that demon came. That was a nice place too. I raised a family there. Your mom, Deanna and me, we had a good life." He looked back over his shoulder. "Your cousins, they were a part of that life. They grew up like Mary. In their homes, with their families around them."

Dean looked at him suspiciously, and his grandfather shrugged. "Your mom didn't want the life, I know that," he continued, looking down at the fruit bowl on the counter. "She wanted normal. Like you. You remind me of her, actually. The attitude, for one thing."

"You gotta point?"

"Your daddy should've come to us," Samuel said. "It would've been different; he would've had backup, knowledge. Support. And you boys could've been with your family."

"Yeah, well, he didn't." Would it have made a difference, he wondered restlessly? To have grown up with other hunters, with family? Sharing the load? He shook his head.

"We looked for mom's family, you know," he said to Samuel. "After Dad – we looked for anyone. Didn't find anything but a trail of dead bodies."

"Damned demon just about wiped us out," Samuel agreed heavily. "But you don't know what you're part of, Dean. You know, you had ancestors hacking the heads off vamps on the Mayflower? We're hard to kill."

He looked around the brightly lit kitchen. "You didn't get what you wanted here, did you?"

Ducking his head, Dean didn't answer and he heard Samuel's deep sigh.

"Don't regret what you had here, Dean," his grandfather said. "It might not've been what you thought it would be, but it was a taste, son. Something you can work on."

Something to work on, Dean thought bitterly? Lying and trying to fit in? He looked up at Samuel's soft chuckle.

"Hunters belong with hunters," Samuel said in explanation. "Your grandmother was the best shot in five counties. She and I hunted together for four years 'fore we got married, and another five before we had Mary. Even after, it was Dee who taught Mary, more'n I did."

He waved a hand around the room. "Civilians, they don't know, and most of the time, they never can know, even if they've seen it for themselves. There's just no other way for it to work."

Dean looked at the floor. He knew that, he wanted to tell the older man. He hadn't had a choice in the matter. He still didn't have a choice.

"Your brother tell you what we been dealing with the past few months?"

The house was mostly unlit, the Campbells gone. Sam leaned on the kitchen counter, looking at the noticeboard with its plethora of reminders, bills, photos and business cards. He stared at the snapshots of his brother, with Lisa and Ben, seeing Dean's grin in most of them.

"You look happy here, man," he said.

By the window, Dean tensed a little, half-turning to look over at his brother.

Sam glanced at him, gesturing at the photos. "Wasn't all bad, right?"

"No," Dean agreed. "It wasn't all bad."

"Bobby told me Ellie didn't come back."

Flicking a sideways look at him, Dean shrugged. "Guess she had a chance to think it through."

"Dean –"

"Do you remember it?"

"What?"

"The cage."

Sam turned away. "Yeah."

"You want to –"

"No."

July, 2011. Easter, Pennsylvania.

How had he forgotten how uncomfortable it was to sleep in the damned car? He got out and stretched, feeling stiff and sore. More gravedigging, less TV he thought.

He thought about the dream. It was reassuring that at least it had been about Lisa. The last couple of months had been frantic, with moving and trying to get them settled in, realising that anything could come after them, he was still a target whether he wanted to have a normal life or not. He should have known that the choice wasn't his. The stress and tensions had brought a lot of things up from his subconscious, things he'd been trying to bury deep.

He couldn't believe he had his brother back. He'd already made Sam uncomfortable a few times, staring at him, unable to take his eyes away, looking for the signs that under that calm exterior the memories of Hell were churning and poisoning him.

"Cut it out, man." Sam's gaze cut sideways to his brother. Dean blinked, looking away.

"What?"

"I'm fine." There was an edge along Sam's voice. "Stop looking at me."

He'd had to grin, Sam sounded almost like himself. He'd tried. Tried to look at other things, tried to listen to the details of the case his brother had found, tried to focus his attention. The trouble was, he'd been there. And compared to what Sam had been through, his had been the vanilla version. He didn't believe Sam's airy assertions, anymore than Sam had believed his. Against those worries, even hearing the edge, hearing Sam's temper start to flare, was good. He was back. His twice-damned brother was back.

He and Lisa were making their unorthodox arrangement work out. He was excited when he went to see them; whatever it was he and Sam had hunted pushed down and away, out of sight, letting him be when he was with them.

And if, on the nights when he was alone, he still dreamed about someone else, they were just dreams; he wasn't being unfaithful, he wasn't looking at anyone else, he couldn't control what he dreamed about, could he?

October, 2011. Battle Creek, Michigan.

Dean heard their hearts all the way back to the car.

Light pierced his eyes, making them narrow to slits as he ran under the streetlights. He could hear voices in the homes around him, talking, singing, shouting, a cacophony of sound yet he knew without a doubt that if he chose to single out a particular voice, a particular sound he would be able to do so, single it out and track it to its source. He didn't try.

His stomach was cramping, violently, hunger rending it with vicious claws and spreading out along the blood vessels in his body until it filled him. The imperative to feed was shocking in its mindlessness, a thought of Famine flitted through his mind and he almost laughed. Oh, he was hungry now, yes indeedy.

He wrenched open the door and got in, twisting the key hard, his feet finding the pedals and stamping on them as he pulled out with a squeal of rubber. He had to get away from here, had to get far away, he couldn't risk them, couldn't risk taking them or turning them.

The smell of blood filled the night air of the town, that sweet, coppery tang, rich with minerals, thick in his nose and throat, the thought of it filling his mouth with saliva, and making him swallow convulsively. The car flew along the road, redlining the whole way, his reactions were preternaturally fast and he drove without lights, the car a black shadow through the night.

Springfield, Illinois

The car doors slammed shut and Dean turned the key, listening to the rumble of the engine and pulling out of the courtyard.

There had been nothing in Sam's eyes. Nothing. It wasn't a mistake, it wasn't an overload on his part. Whatever was sitting next to him, it wasn't his brother.

His fingers tightened a little on the wheel and he looked at them, forcing himself to relax his muscles, ease back. He took long, slow, deep breaths until he felt his chest and shoulders loosen slightly.

He felt like something four days' dead. The cure had been almost worse than the condition; his body forced to reject the vampire's blood, drag it from his veins back into his stomach and eject it along with the bile already there. His eyes and ears ached and for the first few hours he felt as if he was blind and deaf, imprisoned in the normal range of his senses. He felt slow and clumsy, trying to remember how he'd moved naturally before becoming super-charged.

Lisa wasn't taking his calls. That, at least, was no surprise. It hurt, though maybe it shouldn't have. This was exactly why their relationship had gone so far and couldn't get any further, he thought. He didn't want to tell her about his work, and she didn't understand the things that happened to him. He thought that maybe she couldn't understand them. Or didn't want to … he wasn't sure which.

Of course, he should never have gone back there. He thought he'd been going to die, and he'd wanted to see them again, just look, nothing else. It had worked out about as well as everything thing else did.

Another thought rose and he cut it off, jammed it down and felt for the tape deck, slamming whatever was in there and turning up the volume. The old Sam would have bitched about it. The new, not-improved-and-damned-creepy Sam sighed and looked out the window.

Calumet City, Illinois.

Dean looked at his pocket at the ringing, grimacing as he pulled out his phone and saw the number. "Hey."

"So ... I saw you called," Lisa's voice came through clearly and he bit his lip, wondering if there was the slightest snowball's chance he could call her back – in a week – without making her madder than she already was.

"Yeah, it's been crazy," he hedged.

"Ben won't even talk about it," Lisa said bluntly, and he closed his eyes.

"Lisa, I'm sorry, but this is actually the ..." he hesitated, knowing how bad it was going to sound. "… worst time in the universe to talk. C-can we do this later?"

He heard her voice harden, even over the airwaves. "You shoved my kid, Dean. How about we do this now?"

"It wasn't like that."

"Then how was it?"

"I can't really explain," he said, slumping back against the seat.

"You want to know the truth?" she asked.

Hell, no. Nope, he thought, definitely not. "Probably not."

"You've got so much buried in there, and you push it down, and you push it down," she told him, ignoring the comment. "Do you honestly think that you can go through life like that and not freak out? Just, what? Drink half a fifth a night and you're good?"

"You knew what you signed up for," he answered. It was the best year of my life, she'd said to him on the stairs at Bobby's. Maybe that hadn't been the whole truth either.

"Yeah. But I didn't expect Sam to come back," she said. "And I'm glad he's okay. I am. But the minute he walked through that door, I knew. It was over. You two have the most unhealthy, tangled-up, crazy thing I've ever seen. And as long as he's in your life, you're never gonna be happy."

There was a moment's silence on the line, then she added, her voice a lot softer, "That came out so much harsher than I meant."

That's the truth for you, Dean thought tiredly. And maybe he needed to hear it. He had been happy. He'd been happy when he'd had what he'd wanted. It wasn't fair to Lisa or Ben that when he'd gone to them, he'd lost it all and nothing they could do had come close.

"It's not your fault," he told her.

"I'm not saying don't be close to Sam. I'm close to my sister," she continued. "But if she got killed, I wouldn't bring her back from the dead!"

And there it was, he realised, feeling the words like a blow. He'd told her what he'd done, told her how it was. She'd seemed to understand, at the time, had seemed to understand that he'd had no choice in the matter, that his whole life then had been about keeping his brother safe. But she hadn't. Hadn't understood. Hadn't even seen what it'd meant to him, telling her about it.

It was the only choice for you. Right or wrong, that's irrelevant. You did what is in you to do, because that's who you are.

Ellie's voice spoke in his memories and he flinched back a little, pain wrapping around him. She'd understood it. Had known that about him before she'd even known him. His fingers tightened around the cell and he pulled in a deep breath.

"Okay, Lise ... I'm not gonna lie. Okay? Me and Sam, we ... we've got issues. No doubt. But you and Ben –"

"Me and Ben can't be in this with you. I'm sorry."

The call ended and he looked at the phone blankly for a moment, then turned it off and put it back in his pocket. Maybe that was for the best, he considered, getting out of the car and looking around absently. Maybe he'd needed to learn that he couldn't trust in anyone anymore. He leaned on the hood, head bowed. Hope was an overrated feeling, he thought. He'd be better off without it.

January 2012. Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Dean looked down at his hands. They were shaking. He tucked them under his arms. He had no idea if he was doing the right thing, none at all. He only knew that he couldn't look into the nothingness of his brother's eyes anymore, no matter how hard Sam tried or didn't try not to be creepy, he was. He needed his brother back, properly back, conscience and morals and ethics and all the bitchfaces he could come up with.

What if it kills him? A small voice whispered in his mind. Then at least he'll die with his soul, the way he's supposed to, he snapped back. He'll die whole and himself.

Bobby was against it. Cas was against it. Everyone thought he was nuts. Maybe he was. He was afraid, afraid that he was playing God with his brother and that it would work out like all the rest of the things he'd done, a massive cluster-fuck with his brother paying the price. But not doing anything, that was worse. Not trying meant giving up on Sammy for good. And that was just fucking impossible.

Death had tried to teach him a lesson about the natural order of things. The way things were supposed to be. He thought this came into that category. Undoing the mistakes and trying to make it right. He wouldn't be able to save everyone. He knew that now, no matter how much his soul railed against it. But he could try to save the people he loved, and hope that was enough.

February, 2012. Battle Creek, Michigan.

What do I want from them?

It was a good question. One that he'd wondered about before and hadn't yet come up with a single adequate answer. He sat in the car and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, a headache pounding in his temples. When she'd asked him, he hadn't been able to say a thing.

He'd told Lisa that he cared, that he'd dropped everything to come when he'd thought she'd needed him. Even as he'd said it, he'd known it wasn't the whole truth. He cared. But he couldn't be himself with her. Her view of him wasn't real, it wasn't who he was. He didn't love her.

He wanted … life to be different, he guessed. Maybe he just wanted himself to be different? He didn't know. These questions didn't come up until he was faced with them; Lisa, clear in her head, but aching for something she knew she could never have. And Ben, confused as hell and not understanding in the least why it was so impossible for him to give up the crappy, dangerous, painful life he led and be with them like a normal person. Not even understanding that he wasn't a normal person, hadn't been a normal person since he was four.

That was the sane part of him, he thought, wanting to be someone else. The rest was pissed that what and who he was wasn't good enough. Couldn't be accepted, flaws and crap and all.

He sighed. That wasn't fair, he decided. If he really wanted to be with them, he'd either sacrifice that part of himself and go with the sane part, or he'd drag them into his life, explain it to them in detail so that they knew just what they were dealing with and more than likely, turn into his father somewhere along the way.

He leaned back, closing his eyes. Maybe that was the problem … they were civilians. He was outside of his boundaries with them. His skin crawled imagining Ben learning to shoot, to hunt monsters. Or Lisa having to stitch him back together after some run-in with a werewolf or wendigo or pretty much anything out there with claws. They were strong, both of them, but they didn't deserve that. And he knew, he really did know, that eventually they would hate him for bringing it into their lives.

He had to stay away. Give Lisa a chance to make a new life with someone else. Give Ben a chance to grow up a bit more and realise that nothing is easy and loving someone the least of all.

It was that simple. Just had to give up those last few dreams he'd had for himself and walk away.

May, 2012. Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Dean felt the shells in his pocket. He had a bad feeling about confronting the Mother of All with only five shots up their collective sleeves.

When you hunt alone, you can't rely on force and strength, you have to be sneaky.

Ellie's voice. Waiting for the demons in the empty South Side warehouse, his shoulder sore but no longer on fire. Her clothes soaked in blood, but no longer bleeding. He'd asked her how she'd survived, years of hunting alone, no one to watch her back.

You just learn to think about all the possibilities, all the ways around a problem. It's liberating because sometimes a solution is a lot simpler and easier than what you might have expected.

His fingers closed around one of the shells and tightened. Yeah, he could think of a solution that was sneaky, and neat and would be the best backup plan they could hope for. He turned to the desk and picked up the whiskey bottle, wandering into the kitchen for a glass. Cas and Sam would be back soon, he thought, and then they'd be on their way.

He stood at the sink and picked up a knife, cutting through the shell. Mixer or chaser? He looked at the ash. Mixer with chaser. He tipped the contents of the shell into the whiskey and stirred it slightly, then tossed it back. The ash floated mostly, but still coated the inside of his mouth and tongue and throat. He poured another two inches into the glass and tossed that down as well. Better. Gone. Into his stomach and hopefully into his bloodstream, an invisible weapon that no one but him knew about.

He stared out the window. It was the first time since she'd gone that he'd thought of her without anger, without pain. He wondered bleakly if he was healing. Or if he was finally giving up.

July 2012. Junction City, Iowa.

Dean looked at his brother, testing the strength of the rope that bound his wrists behind him. There was a little stretch, not much, but some. He let one eyelid drop as he turned his head away.

The bell at the front of the store rang with a cheerful jingle and he tensed his arms, twisting his wrists around and feeling the bite of the cordage as it dug into his skin. Ruby's knife and an angel's sword sat on the table in the centre of the room, maybe five or six feet behind them. All he had to do was get to them.

The case had seemed unlikely, at first. A few townspeople, maybe settling long-time grudges. Settling those grudges had turned into murder. And murder had turned into madness. Sam'd found a string of aliases for the shop's owner. Stretching back a remarkably long way. A long, long, long, way.

"Hunters."

The voice of Gaunt came from behind him, a slow Mid-western drawl in a deep, somehow irritating timbre. He listened to the tap-tap of the man's leather soles on the wooden floor, tracking his position as Gaunt walked around the big table in the centre of the basement room and appeared in his periphery.

"Haven't seen a hunter for – oh, a good many years now," the demon continued as he walked around to face them. Tall and thin, dressed in a sharply pressed three piece suit, as immaculately uncreased at the tail end of the day as it'd been first thing in the morning, his face was mild and harmless-looking, seamed with age, long jaw, high forehead and long nose, slightly crooked midway. It was his eyes that gave him away, Dean thought, looking up at him. They were murky, something between hazel and brown, muddy-looking and filled with an amusement at whoever he looked at.

"Most of your kind have been wiped out, you know," Gaunt said. "The boss had a Hell of a time while he was out."

"But you're not really working for anyone, are you, Gaunt?" Sam speculated as he stared at him. "Kind of off the payroll."

"Oh, my souls go down, same as all the others," Gaunt replied, shaking his head. "I just prefer the old-fashioned way."

"Inciting murder instead of making a deal?" Dean asked, keeping his face coldly expressionless as he forced the thumb joint under the loop of rope behind him.

The demon smiled. "I didn't push them, no sir, not one bit, Mr Winchester," he said. "Just happened to have what they wanted, right here, at a very reasonable price."

"How'd you know us?" Sam asked, his voice sharp.

Gaunt lifted an eyebrow at him. "Dean Winchester? And his damned brother, Samuel? How many demons you think don't know who you are, boy?"

He turned back to Dean. "Vessels for Armageddon. Keys to the seals of the ninth level. Bloodlines back to the beginning. All so exciting and entertaining destinies."

"Didn't quite work out that way," Dean pointed out, feeling the rope loosen as one loop slid free.

"For Lucifer?" Gaunt grinned at him. "No, it was, I would imagine, quite a shock. But for the rest of us? They say a change is as good as a vacation, don't they?"

Dean watched him, keeping his shoulders still as he worked his right hand out of the bonds.

"And there have been some changes." Gaunt turned away, walking to a shelf on one side of the room. "Heaven in chaos, the angels running every which way. Humans breaking into Hell. The lines cut or so tangled that they'll never be unravelled now."

He picked up a small box from the shelf, and turned back to them.

"An angel making a deal with a demon –"

"Your information's old," Sam said, sweat beading his forehead as he tried to keep the demon's attention. "Raphael –"

Gaunt threw his head back and laughed, the sound rolling around the basement room. "Raphael? Oh, no. Not Raphael."

"What?" Sam stared at him. "Who?"

"Much lesser ranked than an arch," Gaunt told him, lifting the lid of the box and pulling out a several sheets of paper and a framed photograph. "I've heard he's working against old Rafe, out to take command."

Dean froze for a moment. Cas? "Where'd you hear that?"

"Sooner or later, I hear everything." Gaunt's gaze shifted from the papers to the hunter. "Everything worth hearing, that is."

"For instance," Gaunt continued, walking slowly to Dean. "I've heard that you lost something, something you never thought you'd find."

"Yeah?" Dean looked at him. "What would that be?"

"See for yourself." The demon stopped next to him, holding out the photograph and papers.

Dean's gaze dropped to them involuntarily and he stared at the image. No one had ever taken that photo, he knew, on some level. The demon's power was to have the one thing – real or illusory – that everyone wanted the most.

Gaunt smiled. "The letter came from a dumpster in Paris, can you believe it?"

His gaze shifted unwillingly to the thin sheaf of papers in Gaunt's hand. He could read the first few lines. The backward slanting handwriting was familiar. Too familiar. Dean, I know the choice I made wasn't right or fair, not to you, not to either of us. It was the only way I could –

"I'll bet you'd like to know what the rest says," Gaunt said, pulling his hand away. "Don't try to lie, not to me, I can see the answer clearly in your mind."

The twisted loops dropped free as he forced his left hand through, ignoring the sting of the air hitting the torn-up skin and the ache in both thumb joints. He was on his feet, lifting the chair up, throwing it at the demon and turning for the big table in a single, fluid motion.

As he turned back, Gaunt's face elongated and blackened, his chin stretching down and his brows reaching up, the murky hazel eyes flaring a brilliant red. The demon cracked through the vessel he wore, skin and clothing splitting apart, burning as the flame that flowed out licked free of the constraints of the body.

It wasn't a knife made for throwing, too heavy at the hilt end, the blade thick and clumsy. Dean reversed it, fingertips catching it mid-way and flicked his wrist, the sharp, underhand throw barely visible, a gleam in the air.

The demon exploded as the tip entered it, held untethered in the midst of the fire for a long moment, then dropping to the floor with a clatter as the flames expanded outward and an almost silent concussive wave boomed through the room and dissipated.

"Fuck."

"You ever seen one do that?" Sam asked, his brow wrinkling up painfully, eyebrows singed.

"Never seen a demon like that one, period," Dean told him, picking up the angel sword and walking to the back of the chair to slice the ropes holding his brother through. As they fell away, he walked to where the demon had stood and looked down.

Next to Ruby's knife, several blank sheets of paper lay next to a photograph of a blonde woman, laughing into the camera with her daughter. He'd seen that image, unconsciously, every time he'd gone into one of the chain stores. It was the print that came with a new frame.

He reached down and picked up the knife, wiping the smears of ash from the blade.

Sam walked over and looked down. "So, nothing he had was real. Just illusions?"

"Looks like," Dean said, turning abruptly away and heading for the door.

State Highway 34 W, Iowa

"You want me to drive for a while?" Sam asked.

Dean slid a sideways glance at him and shook his head. "I'm fine."

He wasn't, he acknowledged a second later, hearing his brother's frustration in the long exhale beside him and knowing Sam knew it too. It'd just been a – a shock – that was all. He'd done his best to put all those memories, all those emotions out of his head, bury them and leave them in the dark. He didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to think about how much he'd wanted that photograph. Or how much he'd felt the need to read that letter.

Just a fucking demon illusion anyway, he told himself, unclenching his hands from the wheel. Wasn't real. Wasn't true.

It'd felt true. The handwriting, the syntax, the inherent apology … all of it had felt true.

It didn't matter. Gone was gone. Heaven had stopped hunting for them the day the cage had closed and Cas'd said that all the angels had felt it. She'd never returned. There was just one conclusion he could draw from that.

They had a job to do, he reminded himself. A goddamn big job. He couldn't afford distractions.

June, 2012. Oakview Memorial Hospital.

He stood in the stairwell, hunched against the wall. It was over now, completely. He could never go back to them, no matter how much he thought he wanted or needed to. He didn't know if they would be safe. He hoped so.

Closing his eyes, he straightened and put his back against the wall. Once upon a time … he felt his chest compress, his throat close. He swallowed and rubbed his eyes. He was going to fall apart if he thought any more about this, or about Cas and the betrayal that was still tearing him into little pieces.

He still had Sam, he reminded himself. Sam and Bobby. He'd get through this because he always got through shit. He found a way to forget and bury it, and if he drank a little more each day, if his temper was a bit harder to control, then that was the price, wasn't it? He couldn't sleep, not more than a couple of hours at a stretch now. There were no quiet places left in him where he could retreat and recover.

He needed … god, he had no fucking idea of what he needed. He knew what he wanted but that was nothing but a list of impossible things. He hadn't asked for help in a long time now. He couldn't bring himself to do it. Not after she'd gone.

Sliding down the wall, Dean sat on the step, resting his head against his hand and feeling the tension spiking from his shoulders up his neck and into the back of his head. Too much grief. Too much fear. Too much worry. He couldn't even take a fucking Valium to ice off the edges because he needed to be sharper than ever. Crowley and Cas were a major league team. He had no idea how he and Sam and Bobby were going to take them down before they opened Purgatory.

He wasn't any good at strategizing long term. He was the go-get-'em guy. He remembered Ruby suddenly, standing in the room, hands on her hips and her voice chilly.

Do you know how to run a battle? You strike fast and you don't leave any survivors. So no one can go running to tell the boss. So next time … we go with my plan.

She'd been right. He wouldn't do it any differently today, but he knew she'd been right. They didn't know how to run a battle. They knew how to hunt monsters. That was it.

Ruby knew how to run battles. Ellie knew how to strategize. How to figure out the enemy's weaknesses and take advantage of them. How to utilise their own strengths until the odds were even. What was it about the women in their lives?

He stood up slowly. Sam was waiting, down at the car. He walked down the stairs and out into the car park, seeing his brother. Back to Bobby's, he guessed. A couple of days driving and then they'd better get their shit together and figure out what to do next.

August, 2012. Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Lying under the car, Dean frowned at the metal plate and started hitting it, angling the hammer this way and that as the dents came out one by one. When the surface looked reasonably flat again he stopped and tilted his head, trying to see obliquely over the surface for any weaknesses.

"Dean?"

The voice was muffled a little by the metal between them. Female, he thought, although he didn't recognise it.

"Uh … hang on." He put the hammer down beside him and grabbed the frame, half-swinging, half-pushing himself out from under the car, the trolley rolling reluctantly over the rumpled rubber matting. The sunlight hit him in the face as he cleared the chassis. He looked up.

Bright copper hair, surrounding an oval face whose features were etched in his mind. A loose, white tee shirt was tucked into faded jeans, the leather backpack slung casually over her shoulder.

Ellie.

His chest was burning, his breath held and he released it. He hadn't felt the moment he'd stopped breathing.

He'd given up on her, had buried the feelings and his memories and hadn't looked at them since. But they were rising, he could feel them pushing at him as he looked into her eyes, his own narrowed tightly against the light behind her, his stomach twisting into knots.

"Hey." She smiled at him. He could see the nervousness behind it, the way her eyes cut away from him, looking over the car instead.

"Hey." He sat up and lifted his hand, shading his eyes. She looked … beautiful, he thought, and he felt something expand inside, something he'd held onto tightly and relentlessly for a long time, finally softening, releasing him from bonds he hadn't known had held him.

Love bites. Love bleeds. It's bringin' me to my knees

Love lives. Love dies. It's no surprise

Love begs … love pleads ... it's what I need

~ Def Leppard

END