Manon's chest tightened at the sight of Dean leaning up against the Impala with a beer dangling from his lips. He certainly appeared like he had the right to grow into his overflowing confidence that once annoyed the hell out of her. He was different, but at the same time he was exactly the same as he was ten years ago.

"Did you –" Manon blanched and tried her best to somehow sink back into the seat. "Did you know he was going to be here?"

"There's something about Dean you just gotta know, Manon. He's had a brush in with hell and you –" Bobby cranked the gear to park and tried to speak as quickly as he possibly could before Dean sauntered up to the driver's side of the truck, curiously looking at the vaguely familiar women in the passenger's seat.

When Bobby rolled his window down, Dean spoke, eyes still glued to Manon. "How's it going, Bobby? Who you got there?"

Manon averted her eyes from Dean's gaze. He was trying something new, clearly. His attention was so intensely focused on her and his head was tilted to the side slightly. All the heat from her face burned the color into her ears and she felt every uncomfortable second of it.

"Wait a minute," a coy grin splayed across the oldest Winchester's brazen face. "Manon?"

An awkward smile must have graced across her face, because within moments Dean was laughing and calling out into the house for Sammy to "hurry up and see the present Bobby brought." Dean threw the passenger's door open and grinned down at her.

And time stood still.

Manon couldn't do anything but stare back. She couldn't smile. She couldn't move an inch. All she could do was stare. She didn't care reach out and touch him because it'd feel like she was struck by lightning. She was scared to start feeling what all humans should be able to feel…the warmth of his skin, the surge of electricity that coiled up her spine and exploded in the pit of her stomach.

The wide smile on Dean's face didn't falter at the sight of her frazzled expression and offered her the beer in his hand with a boyish light brightening his eyes.

"Thanks," Manon took it from him, careful not to brush her fingers against his, and slowly stepped out of the truck.

Dean pointed at her as his brother approached. "Look who it is."

"Hey, Manon," Sam cried. "It's been so long! How have you been doing? Where've you been all these years?"

Manon gratefully allowed herself to be swallowed into Sam's embrace, breathing out in relief when she didn't feel a thing. "I've been good. Just doing some freelancing all over the west coast."

Sam continued barreling questions toward her. "You ever get to go to college? I remember that you were always talking about wanting to."

She shook her head no.

"Oh, that's too bad. You weren't missing much, trust me."

"You two are trying to sandwich her, aren't you?" Bobby broke the circle the two Winchester's had formed around Manon and pulled her toward the house impatiently. "You boys bring her stuff in."

Sam and Dean shared a curious look at each other then back to where Bobby and Manon disappeared into the house. Sam peered into the bed of the truck and grabbed two of the five duffels.

"She must be staying a while," he said to his older brother.

"Ha! Good."

Sam rolled his eyes. "You were pathetic to watch back there. You were ogling her the entire time. I'm surprised she didn't clock you in the jaw like she did back when we were kids."

"So?" Dean snorted and made a lazy face, hauling the rest of Manon's things over the side of the truck. "What I'm trying to figure out is why the hell she hugged you and not me."

Sam shrugged as they walked toward Bobby's faded house. "She's probably still mad at you for putting a giant snake in her car that one summer."

"Dude, it was just a garter snake. It wasn't venomous. You know how much time and effort I put into wrangling it? I nearly broke my arm."

"How is she not throwing herself at you?" Sam sarcastically asked before going in through the back door to where Bobby and Manon stood in the kitchen. "Where do you want us to put her bags?"

"In the spare room next to where Dean usually sleeps," was Bobby's quick response.

Manon followed Sam in through the sitting room and toward the stairs, losing a futile battle not to turn back to Dean. "I can take one of those bags."

"Nah," he smoothly replied like it was no big deal that he was carrying three heavy duffels at one time. "I've got it."

"You sure?" It was clear to see that Dean was struggling to haul it all up the stairs but Manon didn't stop him. She just bit back a little smile and followed the brothers upstairs. "Do you guys come by here often?"

"Yeah," Dean was the first to answer. "We try and stop by when we're close by. What about you?"

"I stop in a couple of times a year and stay for a few weeks. It's funny that this is the first time we've been here at the same since I started hunting." She dragged her fingers across the banister at the top of the stairs, following behind Dean as he struggled his way to the room she would occupy.

"Hey, you're next to me," he looked over his shoulder to grin back at her before shooting Sam an I-told-you-so look. "Ain't that lucky, huh, Sammy?"

Sam put the two bags in his hands to one side of the room, moving toward the dresser to drag his pointer finger over the surface. From the corner of his eye he could see Dean drooling like a lovesick idiot. Sam knew better than anyone else that Dean's childish crush on their childhood friend had just been reawaken when he had seen her after all these years. And as much as Sam wanted his brother to be happy during his last few months, he couldn't find it in himself to enable Dean to pursue her.

"So, Manon," Sam cut into Dean's sentence, "you still got that thing? The idiopathic neuropathy?"

Dean glared in Sam's direction, shooting daggers with his eyes. "Dude, I was just asking her that."

"It's fine." Manon mustered enough courage to smile at Dean Winchester. "Yeah, Sam. I still got the thing. Believe it or not, it really comes in handy. Just the other night, while I was up in Washington, I got shit-faced. Like, I started smelling colors – I was so tripped up on shrooms. But the guy I was with decides that he wants to climb up to the roof of the local TJ Maxx and set off fireworks.

So he sets the fireworks off and I have to grab his belt so the idiot doesn't clear the roof and eat shit on the concrete. And it turns out there was a police officer in his squad car parked thirty feet away in the parking lot that got blasted with one of the flying rockets. So, I'm trying to get this guy down the ladder at the back of the store and he's just got bricks for feet because he took like three shots of some sissy drink. I think it was called the Buttery Nipple. It was butter-cream scotch and Irish crème. Anyway, he slips and passes out in a puddle of his own vomit. But I'm just sprinting as fast as I can across the loading docks trying to shake off this cop and I just plow through this wooden fence. I just punched that fence with my face and black out. I woke up the next morning in a prison cell and didn't feel a thing."

"Wow." The thought of how the other guy must have felt the following morning made Sam cringe.

Dean hung to Manon's every word, trying to edge closer and closer to her while she was distracted with the story. But Manon seemed to instantaneously shift away from him every time he migrated inch by inch towards her. Halfway through the story, Sam had noticed and tried his best to use his eyes to stop Dean but to no avail.

"You must be the best person to grab a bar-stool with." Dean crossed his arms against his chest, kicking one leg out expectantly.

Before Manon could respond with yes or no, Bobby called up the stairs for Dean to come down to move the Impala out of the way. Dean look one last look at her before begrudgingly pounding down the stairs and out the door leaving Sam and Manon standing in the empty, dust-filled room.
Manon began first, advancing a few steps toward Sam. "Uhm, can I ask you something? It's about Dean."

"Yeah, sorry about him," Sam chuckled. "He still has a giant crush on you and doesn't know how to act since you're practically family."

Manon fought the delighted grin that spread across the hairpin curves of her lips and absently tucked her hair behind her ear. "I actually want to ask you about something else. While you and Dean were getting my stuff Bobby told me that Dean only has a couple of more months to live – that he made a crossroads deal and he's got a one way ticket to hell. Is that true?"

Sam bit the side of his cheek hard because it was hard enough for him to accept himself. "Yeah, it's true."