Dean

When Bella had announced she was engaged, Dean had felt his heart stutter and falter, the air in his lungs turning to stabbing icicles.

"Bella—" he'd pleaded, needing an answer like he always needed a giant steaming slice of apple pie, but so, so terrified of her response.

"Dean—" she'd started, but then the door of the coffee shop burst open, revealing a gigantic shape silhouetted in the doorway. It was Sam. Dean sighed, the icicles melting and settling into his stomach, where they bubbled with all the seething frustration of curdled milk.

"Dean!" Sam bellowed. "We have to go!"

Dean shot a frantic glance at the ethereal goddess sitting across from him, drying coffee staining her sleeve. "Bella," he rumbled, "wait here. I'll be right back." His eyes held a promise that he could only pray she understood.

He stalked away from the table towards his annoying little brother like a panther in the jungle.

"Well," he snapped. "What is it?"

"The angels are coming," Sam gasped. "Cas just told me. We have to get out of here!"

Angels? Here? "How did they find us?"

"I don't know, but if they catch up with us, we're screwed."

"But, if we go now—" He glances back at the table, at the woman, at Bella, waiting for him. "The people we leave here will be in danger."

"And if you say yes to Michael, everyone will be in danger," Sam sniped.

"What?" Dean stared at his brother, comprehension creeping across his face. "You're scared."

"What? No! Dude, we just need to get out of here!"

"You don't trust yourself to not say yes to Lucifer!"

Sam sighed hugely. "Look, I'm leaving, okay? Trust me, you're not doing anyone any favors by staying." He faced his older and more diminutive brother squarely. "Are you coming, or are you going to wait around here for Zachariah to show up?"

Dean knew it would be a decision that would change him for the rest of his life, however short that might be, but he knew the answer, and he could tell in his heart that he was making the choice that would be the best—not only for him, but for Bella.

"I have to protect Bella," he pronounced, and Sam's eyebrows shot up underneath his shaggy hair. "I'll catch up with you once I know she's safe."

Sam opened his mouth, but no words came out. Something dark and sinister burned in his eyes, like the last remnants of a glowing ember smoldering in the darkness of ancient moldering dungeons.

"Fine," he snapped through gritted teeth. "I'll see you later." He turned on his heel, and loped out of the coffee house, casting a long dark shadow in the dimly wavering sunlight.

Dean watched him go, feeling knotted regret coiling in his stomach. He knew where his heart truly lay though, and he couldn't deny it any longer. He walked back to the table and rejoined Bella.

"So," he said cockily, his cheerfulness a fake veneer covering the apprehension and grief his conversation with his brother had inspired. "Where were we?"

Bella was weeping silently, her tears tracing snail-trail-like tracks down her perfect cheeks. "I can't be with you Dean," she murmurs, "not in the way you want—that I want."

Dean's tangled emotions coalesced into a single heavy ball of lead that weighed heavily somewhere in his midsection. "What?" he stammered. "Why?"

"Because I'm not just getting married," she gasped. "I'm getting married to a vampire!"