Part 3 – 2006 – One Week after "In My Time of Dying"

(November 10, 2006)

"How are you doing?" Sam asked as he helped rebuild the car at Bobby's Garage. It was mostly another car with some sentimental things saved from the old car but whatever made Dean feel better… not that anything seemed to appease Dean these days; especially not his little brother's proficiency with tools, which were coming along slower than molasses in winter.

"What? Did you grow ovaries while I was dying? I said 'I'm fine.' So, I'm fine." Dean griped as he locked the pin in to hold the door in place. Struggling with the weight on his own, he continued to lash out at his baby brother. "If you ask me again if I'm fine or if I'm doing okay, I'll kick your ass back into that hospital."

"You haven't been yourself. You've been unusually focused on the car, man." He was only trying to help. Trying to make Dean see that it was okay to talk about it but his brother was not having it. Everyone was worried about Dean. Marty and Bobby because they knew Dad and they remembered the way Dean used to be… and this Dean wasn't him. Grieving Dean was a pain in the ass even more so than good ol' Dean of days past.

"And you've been unusually focused on me. How about we stop yapping and finish the fucking car, Sam? I just want to get on the road again and kill some demons, okay?" Dean tossed the tools aside and yanked his wallet out of his pocket. It seemed like an afterthought but Sam just watched as his brother made a show of rifling through it. "I'm going to the bar. My wallet's light."

"I'll just hunt up some leads then…" Sam shrugged and ducked back under the hood of the car. There wasn't much to do with it until the parts came in but he was tired of being the focus of Dean's anger. He just hoped Dean hadn't noticed he was messing with his precious engine.

"Yeah, you do that."

"Do me a favor, though?" Sam called out, aware that ears were listening but it wasn't like it was a great secret. It seemed like half the town had been there to witness the original event. Dean only tilted his head and waited for the request. "Don't hit on Lillian. Just leave her alone. For once."

"Dude, whatever." Dean stormed out of the garage and across the road to the bar. He'd been there every night since he'd gotten out of the hospital. Every night since they had given Dad a proper funeral by way of a salted pyre. He was very nearly the only daily regular. Locals came in on payday. Hunters didn't keep schedules but they all stopped at Marty's when they drove through. He shoved open the door and examined the contents of the bar as he made his way over for a drink. A couple of laughing waitresses on one end waiting for drinks to deliver to tables of drunken truckers and local color. No hunters this week to express how good a hunter Dad was or how they hadn't been on speaking terms with Dad for a long while. Dad had that effect on other hunters. "Marie!"

"It's Mary… but I'll let it slide on account of you being so cute." The blonde turned to look him over with a smile. "You look like road kill. I'll bring your usual. You going to hustle the pool table again?"

"Any fresh blood?" He shoved his hands into his pockets, brows furrowed deeply though he was trying to relax. Bantering with the waitresses took his mind off things but only for a few moments.

"Some. Be careful." She brushed passed him with a tray of drinks for the other side of the bar.

"I love you." The dark haired bartender leaned over the bar to kiss the dark haired waitress.

"I love you, more." She drew him back for a second kiss.

"I'd love some wings, Lilly." Dean gagged at the display but hid the expression when they broke apart. She pinned him with the same glare she'd first greeted him with a week earlier when he'd walked in, leered at her and then promptly propositioned her. She hadn't even let him get out another slick come on before she told him to forget about it.

"Lillian. Not Lilly." She rolled her eyes but hopped off the stool she knelt on to go tack the order up on the turnstile.

Dean stood there for a minute watching her and realized that he shouldn't have been when the bartender crossed his arms and started boring holes into Dean's skull with his eyes. "So, Nathan… how long you been seeing Lillian?"

"A long time." Came the nod and grin. The guy was so far gone, it didn't take much to wipe that frown off his face.

"Has she always been this big a bitch?" Dean hadn't even had a drink yet and he was already pissing Nathan off. He'd have to watch that.

Nathan stiffened, the grin gone. "Lillian's a good judge of character. If she doesn't like you, then neither do I."

"Seriously." Dean backed away at the look in Nathan's eyes. Still, he just couldn't stop talking. "She has a bug up her ass and she's going to ruin my game again."

"Maybe hustling isn't for you. Marty lets you do what you want for whatever reason but you drag my wife into this and things could get ugly."

"Your wife?"

"Yeah, my wife. Lillian." Nathan clarified before picking up a rag to clean some glasses. Mary set the bottle of beer in front of Dean without a word and Dean made his way out to his spot near the pool table. A couple of guys were playing for fun but they motioned to each other when Dean took his seat. It would be easy money.

--

Sam walked into the bar and found his brother in the same spot he'd found him the night before, leaning on the pool table with his third beer of the evening. He set the laptop down next to Dean's empty basket of wings and watched his brother stare at the waitresses dancing while it was slow. "Every night, you come in here to hustle, then you stick around to stare at a woman I'm pretty sure is claimed by the bartender."

Dean's eyes followed the luscious ass as she swayed with Mary on the far side of the bar. "An ass like that has no business being married." He nodded to his brother's disbelieving face at the revelation. "It's against the law of man. She's what… 20?" He took a long pull on his beer to finish it and waved it at the first of the two girls to glance over, Lillian, who did not seem pleased to be called upon.

"Man…" Sam sighed and glanced at Marty exchanging words with the bar staff. "Marty lets you hustle his customers out of love for Dad. Don't start trouble. Hit on Mary or Amanda… please hit on Amanda if you have to hit on someone."

"Amanda." Dean glanced at his brother and tapped his wrist at Lillian who was taking forever to bring him his beer. "So you do have a pulse. Amanda is hot but she leaves me cold."

He shook his head and glanced around for the statuesque beauty. She must have had the night off. "She just looks sad."

"Yeah. Sad means clingy. Mary's a talker… and the guy who isn't her boyfriend, scares me more than a demon." He gestured to the back of the bar, where Gary was returning to the grill. "Seriously, I want to look him up in Dad's journal. He just might be in there… Hair Demon. What do you think?"

"Nathan scares me." Sam muttered, more worried about Dean's taste in women getting them both in trouble while they were stranded.

"Nathan's a puppy dog." Dean scoffed and motioned to the man who was leaning over the bar whispering to his wife. "She has him wrapped around her little finger. He is undeserving of a hot little thing like Lillian."

"He'll kill you. I don't know how many more miracles you're going to get." The second it was out of his mouth, Sam wished he hadn't used that word.

"Miracles?!" Dean roared at his baby brother. He slammed his empty beer bottle on the table with the other empties, attracting more attention than either needed. "Cause Dad dying and me living was a miracle? Because that guy getting murdered by a Reaper was a miracle? Why am I even on this planet when everyone seems to think I'd be better off dead, Sam?! I'm living on borrowed time. You don't know what that's like."

Sam watched his brother storm out of the bar, ripping the beer out of Lillian's hand on the way and nearly bowling her over in the process. Tears filled his eyes but he didn't let them fall. He glanced at Marty behind the bar, who nodded to him that he'd keep an eye out. Lillian gripped the table for balance. "I'm sorry for Dean. He's…"

"No… Um… he looked upset." Lillian shook her head as if trying to clear it.

"I want you to know that whatever trouble he gives you, he's not normally like this." Sam explained as he tucked his laptop into his bag to leave. "We were in a horrible… accident last week. Our dad died and Dean lived, he was dad's favorite. He's taking it really hard." He managed a tight smile at Lillian's sympathetic face. "What's Dean's tab?"

"Oh um… Marty said he'll take care of it." She pointed to the man who was leaning on the bar, watching Dean kick around the parking lot.

"Okay. I'll pay Marty later. Seriously. I know he's annoying but don't let him get to you and… tell Nathan I'm controlling him."

"Nathan isn't worried by Dean." Lillian gave Sam a brilliant smile. "And when he does get worried, I set things right."

"That's good to hear." Sam laughed at the mischievous way Lillian grinned. "I'd like to keep my brother a while."

"Anyway. I'm nicer to you than I am your brother… Nathan takes issue with you." Lillian smiled broadly and bounded off to flirt with her husband over the bar. Sam just shook his head and laughed.

The next night…

(November 11, 2006)

Maria glanced over at Liz, who was studying a newspaper article on some scientific breakthrough on something or other. It was dead as per the usual and, thusly, she was bored. "Lillian… why are you so hard on the hotties?"

"Huh?" Liz murmured, her focus still on the stem cell media circus.

"You don't think he's hot?" At her friend's blank face, Maria sighed. "Tall guy, dreamy green eyes, likes to proposition you over his dinner? Hot brother with gorgeous hair and serious brown eyes?"

"Oh… yeah. Dean and Sam. I guess they're good looking. Mary, I'm married. I'm not looking at the scenery." Liz tried to get back to her paper.

"That Dean guy takes a shine to you and you know he'd tip better if you were nicer." She took a moment to consider her words. "Or you know… at all."

"I don't want to be nicer to him. He doesn't even pay his own tab. Tipping would be like… ironic for him or something." Liz waved her off. "He really rubs me the wrong way. I like to limit my contact."

"I get that he's interested but it's harmless." Maria glanced back at where Max and Michael were cutting up in the kitchen since the night was so slow. Michael couldn't give a flip about her these days. Not that she had been encouraging when he had. "He knows you're with… Nathan."

"Could you stop pausing before you say our names, if someone were from a certain place, they would catch on right away that your name isn't really Mary, which by the way, is a lousy cover." The brown orbs caught her friend's green eyes. "What?"

"You've been really grumpy for the past week for someone, who, I know, is getting seriously laid every night." She playfully nudged her friend. "The walls… like rice paper."

Liz bit her lip as she recalled just that morning when she had pounced on Max after breakfast. They'd had to start playing a game of muffling each other's noises to prevent a slip of their real names.

Maria leaned on the bar, propping a foot up on a stool in a rather unladylike manner. "If Gary wasn't always breathing down my neck, I might chat up one or both of those boys."

"They're grieving right now, Mary. It wouldn't last." Liz warned, the tingling in the back of her brain acting up again.

"Did you… feel something?" Maria stressed the last word, tossing in a small hand gesture.

It took Liz a long moment to put the pieces of Maria's unspoken riddle together. "No. Last night, Sam told me his dad died last week. They both took it pretty hard."

"Marty says their dad was this hot-shot bounty hunter or something." Maria gave a tight smile. "I uh… asked."

"Really?" Liz turned to look at the brothers who were arguing outside the bar, once again. "Maybe we shouldn't get too close to them. Bounty hunters take all sorts of jobs. They work on pay, not on subject."

"Meaning?"

"I wouldn't put it past our friends in the black suits to put out a subtle bulletin just to get rid of one or more of us. Bounty hunters are beyond scruples." Liz whispered almost to herself. "For the right amount of money, those hotties would put a bullet in us to collect."

--

Sam held out his hands. He'd had enough of going round and round the same old subjects with no progress. "Okay. Drink yourself into a stupor. What good are you going to do if we have to run on the fly? You'll crash us into the nearest telephone pole and nothing is going to matter much after that. Not me, not you, not the demon and not anyone the demon will kill after us."

That sobered Dean up a bit as he caught a whiff of some local's cologne. That smell mixed with sweat brought up the memories he kept with him to survive. The smell of smoke, burning hair, baby powder, ashes, Stetson, sweat, wet wool as if he were back in that day. The smell brought the memory of other smells, of sounds… The baby crying, Dad muttering curses, shouts, rushing water. Warmth from the arms around him, from Sammy in his arms… heat from the fire. Dean stilled and looked up into his baby brother's eyes. "Just be glad you can't remember that night, Sammy. I know that you lived it again with Jess but that night in Lawrence changed us all. It changed everything."

Sam just nodded for a moment. There was nothing he could say to that. He didn't remember that night in Lawrence. He was six months old when their mother had died. That night in Palo Alto was still with him. He was older though. Dean had been young when it had happened. Three or four years old. "Okay. But I hate having to drag you out of there every night. Marty puts up with it but it's going to get tired and when we go hunting… we can't make mistakes."

"We're not hunting right now, Sam. We're rebuilding a car. You want to be normal? A day of rebuilding a car ends with a beer or six. Okay?" Dean turned around and gripped the handle on the door. "I'm gonna grab some dinner. I'll be back later."

TBC