They spent the end of the afternoon working on it. Or rather, Ben and Claire read through a whole library while Jesse looked at pretty – or ugly – pictures. Toward 10pm, just when they'd started to come up with something that looked like a plan, Ben got a call from Sam.

"He wants us to wait for them," Ben said after hanging up, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose.

"For them? You mean Dean and him?" Jesse said. "How long are we supposed to wait?"

"Until tomorrow. I think Sam said them because Dean was within hearing, but he probably meant just him."

"Hopping on one leg to wrestle with the mare? Seriously, what kind of help is that?"

Ben cut through the objection with a harsh gesture. "Why does it have to be tonight? Can't we take the same precautions as Julia did and keep the mare at bay for one night?"

Claire had said nothing during the whole exchange, keeping her eyes on the notes she'd taken, but Ben called out for her, "What do you think, Claire? Don't you think it's better to wait than jump into this half-cocked?"

She raised her eyes from her notes. "I think we have enough elements to do this on our own."

"We have nothing but old tales!"

"This is what hunting is, Ben. To go on half-remembered lore and pray for the best."

"Ben," Jesse said, feeling bolder with Claire on his side. "I can't stand this, okay? I want this thing to be over with. I don't want to spend one more night wondering if the mare is going to somehow get into my mind again and use me to kill or hurt people. I thought you wanted to be a hunter. This is it."

Jesse knew he'd struck a chord when Ben blew out a breath. "Yeah. A hunter. I'd just feel better if it wasn't your life on the line."

"I need this." Jesse stepped into Ben's space and cupped his shoulders. "I'm asking you for your help. If you don't help me I'll just face it alone."

"Can we introduce a no-blackmail rule?" Ben groaned. "But okay. We'll do this tonight. If we all die I'll just keep my told-you-so for the afterlife."

"I think the mare's more likely to run away than try to kill us on sight," Claire said, which was probably her version of a comforting pep talk.

"Thanks for that, darlin'," Ben groaned. He pressed his lips tight enough that his mouth formed a thin line, and his jaw was working.

Claire asked, "Need your painkillers?"

"I took a couple already. I'm just waiting for it to kick in now. Don't worry, I'm not a masochist."

"Are you going to be okay?" Jesse asked, suddenly feeling guilty, and reminded of Ben lying bleeding on the floor. "Maybe you should sit this one out."

Ben snorted, and bumped a fist against his shoulder. "Don't be stupid."

They went to bed around 11, after making sure everything was ready for their plan, and lay there for a long while, stiff as wooden planks lined up for construction work. The seconds, minutes, trickled down slowly and when Jesse checked his phone on the nightstand, certain that at least one hour had passed, it was only 11:23.

"You need to fall asleep," Ben whispered, even though there was no risk of them disturbing anyone with their conversation. "The mare won't come if you're not sleeping."

"Easier said than done."

"Okay, let's try something. C'mere in the middle."

Jesse doubted it would help him sleep, since he'd always disliked the middle spot, but he complied anyway and they exchanged positions in a rustle of sheets and tangle of limbs until Jesse found himself nestled between Ben and Claire, with Ben's hand in his hair and Claire's on his chest.

"Close your eyes," Claire said into his ear. "Relax."

Her hand was rubbing on his chest in a spiraling motion that progressively moved down, until she was stroking his stomach. It felt good, relaxing, but then it became a little too good and when Jesse felt a stir in his dick he groaned, "Careful where you put your hands – you're trying to get me to sleep, not to get me hard."

Ben chuckled, low and deep. "Might not be a bad idea, actually: nothing like an orgasm to get you nicely spent and relaxed."

Something about the way he said spent sent a hot spike of arousal through Jesse's lower belly. He kept his eyes closed and angled his face so Ben and he could kiss, which they did, slow and lazy, with Ben's fingers pressed against the angle of his jaw. Claire's hand played with the trail of hair leading inside his underwear, tickling the sensitive skin just above the elastic. He could feel her braless breasts against his arm, the nipples getting harder as she moved against him, separated from his skin only by a thin layer of cotton.

He didn't want to open his eyes but he used his hands to feel them – he stroked over Ben's shoulder, felt the bandage there and moved to his chest, the plane of his stomach, stopped short of his dick because Ben had already taken a hold of himself and was jerking off as he kissed Jesse, which made it all even hotter; his other hand caressed Claire's curves, the rise and dive of her hip and waist, teased the corner of her hipbone. Claire finally dipped a hand into his underwear and took his cock in hand, stroked him without hurry, and it was a nice, slow burn, a trip to completion without urgency. Wanting them to get there with him, he joined Ben's hand on his dick with his clumsy right hand, teasing the wet tip with his thumb, moving lower to cup his balls, and with his left, more assured hand he found his way between Claire's legs. He played with her clit, dipped between her folds, until he could hear her make little gasping sounds, sucking in air in that almost out of control way that he found so desperately hot.

"Come for me, baby," he teased, knowing she hated being called 'baby'. "Come on my fingers."

Ben came at that moment with a muffled cry, his face pressed against Jesse's shoulder, spilling himself over Jesse's fingers. While Ben licked his right hand clean, Jesse felt Claire clench on his fingers with her own orgasm, small teeth digging into his shoulder.

He came soon after that without even opening his eyes, for once warm and comfortable between two people, loose enough to let go and surrender himself to sleep. Images flashed in front of his eyes in place of dreams, blurred colors, bits and pieces of childhood memories. One of the memories settled down and he watched himself from afar, his eight-year old self, playing with Lizzie in her mother's garden. They were holding hands, arms stretched to their limit, and they were spinning as fast as they could, round and round and round, until Jesse wasn't a distant observer anymore and he was eight again, and the sky was moving and he couldn't tell up from down anymore. He laughed until his ribs hurt, until he couldn't breathe anymore. The world around him had blurred, but it was no fun now because he couldn't draw any air, not even to cry out for help, for Lizzie's mom, for his own mom and dad. Help! Help me, I'm dying! Mommy! The weight on his chest was pinning him down to the ground and Lizzie's hands were cold and bony, holding him by the wrists in a vicious grip, like metal handcuffs shut too tight.

You're dreaming. His eyes flew open and for a moment it was too dark to make out anything, but he could feel hot, rancid breath on his face. It's here, he thought, stupidly, because of course it was here, it was fucking smothering him! He tried to move, but he couldn't, was completely paralyzed.

"Get off me!" he rasped.

The mare stilled at his words. He could see her now, her eyes like two round marbles shining in the semi-darkness. Her greasy hair fell on his face, sticking to it.

"You're mine," she said, crooked fingers digging into his shoulders. "I know what you did, how you tried to protect that incubator of yours, but it doesn't matter. You," and she was now completely draped over him, and if it was just a matter of weight and physical strength he should have been able to shake her off, "oh, you. With you in my power, I don't think I'll ever need anyone else. My boy."

His vision was blurring and his chest burned. "You– fucking–"

The mare cackled. "You and I, boy, we're going to make a great team."

"Yeah, I don't think so," said Claire's calm voice. The room suddenly went completely dark, and there was a gunshot, and a pained yelp from the mare, a screeching sound like a fork scraping the bottom of a saucepan. Her weight on Jesse vanished and he straightened up, taking deep grateful breaths, and saw the darker figure of Claire standing by the bed, shotgun in hand.

"Is it gone?" he asked breathlessly.

"I don't think so." Ben's voice this time, surprisingly close, coming from the bed next to Jesse. "I shut the blinds and locked the door – if we're right about this, closing the room's openings should have trapped it."

"So it's still here." Jesse's eyes had started to get used to obscurity, and he scrutinized every darker shadows: in the corners, inside the fireplace, behind the furniture. Under the bed. Jesse moved fast to look under the bed but he could only catch the tail of something shifting in the dark, bolting out from under the bed to take refuge somewhere else.

"Right. You're the monster under the bed," Jesse said, making his voice drip with derision. "The stuff of our nightmares."

He slid off the bed and walked around the room, an eye out for movement. There was a faint noise, although it was impossible to pinpoint where it came from, a sort of scratching sound, like the quiet gnawing of a mouse. The only other sounds were from Ben and Claire breathing and the pounding of Jesse's own heart.

"Don't move," he told them. "You're the terror of the night, the very fabric of darkness," he continued at the intention of the mare. He moved the armchairs, looked under them. "You know what I think? I think you're laughable. You want me to take you seriously?" A sound from somewhere behind him, a quiet shuffle, like the creeping of a cat. "Then stop–" He kneeled in front of the fireplace. "– hiding like a scaredy cat." The darkness there was inscrutable, a black pit, but there was something alive in it, a breathing that made no sound.

Jesse smirked. "Gotcha." He reached inside and pulled, met resistance and fell backward.

He couldn't really see what he was holding, it looked like a piece of shadow more than anything else, but it was fighting him like a wild cat, twisting in his arm, scratching at his face and bare arms, each scratch burning hot before the pain faded quickly. It sent blows to his torso, legs and crotch with sharp elbows and knees.

"Will you hold still," Jesse ground through his teeth. The thing did that terrible screeching sound again, right into Jesse's ear, and Jesse felt stabbing pain flare like the cry had burst his eardrums. He found himself momentarily unable to hear anything but a shrill hissing sound.

"Now!" he yelled to Ben and Claire before he even recovered his hearing.

He wrestled the mare to the floor – he wasn't much of a fighter but the thing was subdued, probably feeling the heat of Jesse's command even through whatever hold it had on him – and tried to pin her – no, it – down with his weight. The mare started to struggle again, harder than before, and it felt like holding on for dear life on top of an untamed horse, like a wild impromptu rodeo.

"De man o' meicht, he rod a' nicht." Ben's clear voice, riding confidently on the unfamiliar syllables, reached Jesse's ears. "We nedder swird, nor faerd nor leicht–"

The mare whined, the fight seeming to seep out of it, and Jesse felt the power of the words, a burning, almost living thing, and the words were circling the mare, binding it even as its body convulsed against them. Jesse had finally the time to regain his breath, and used it to call for Claire.

"Here," she said, sounding closer than he'd thought she was. Jesse risked letting go from the mare with one hand and he felt Claire's own hand mold to his, find his fingers and place between them the thin, barely there end of one hair from her blond head.

"Got it, thanks," he said. "I'll–"

It happened at once: "He band da mare wi' his ain hair– um, shit," Ben faltered, and under Jesse the mare surged upward like a wale emerging from the ocean and Jesse was sent flying. He hit the corner of the chimney mantle with a muffled groan, his back hurt like hell and he didn't manage to get back on his feet on first try. Lights were dancing in front of his eyes so he closed them, then heard a scuffle, a strangled cry.

"Guys?"

When he opened his eyes he could see an indistinct mass of shadows, moving and wriggling like one monstrous multi-headed beast, with the mare as a darker core in the middle. Just when he was about to jump into the fight, the shadows came to a stand, and with his vision clearing, Jesse could now make out Claire and Ben clinging to each side of the mare.

"Take one of my hair," Claire ordered Jesse, while Ben breathlessly resumed his chanting.

Jesse hurried back on his feet, unwilling to give the mare time to shove off Ben and Claire. He plucked a hair from Claire's head, the longest he could find, took one end and fumbled to give Claire the other, then hesitated. This was the part they were uncertain about: the charm Ben was saying talked about binding the mare with it, but how could you bind a human-sized creature with a hair, even one as long as Claire's? Nevertheless Jesse tugged on his end of the hair, moving around the mare like he was trying to tie it up with it. Confidence came to him as he did it, a little voice from very deep inside him telling him that all he had to do was to go through the motions: this was make-believe, and at this game nothing in the world could beat him.

The mare's head snapped to him and the creature's lips curled, revealing rows of askew teeth. "You can try to chase me, but you cannot run away from yourself."

Jesse ignored it, listening to Ben instead: "He fand da mare, he band da mare wi' his ain hair." The hair in Jesse and Claire's hands should have been pulled taut and breaking under the strain, but whether because of the charm or of Jesse's own brand of power, it still felt slack even after Jesse completed one full loop around the mare. Fascinated, Jesse looked as Claire's golden hair started to shine faintly, enough to be visible in the dark.

The mare was squirming in its binding, and when it wheezed, "You can't escape me, I'm inside your head. Your fear is so delicious. See what I already did with it," Jesse heard a hint of desperation.

"An' made her swear by midder's meicht, dat shö wad never bide a neicht what he had rod, dat man o' meicht."

Jesse finished his third loop just as Ben finished saying the charm, and with Claire's help he bound the two ends of the hair in a knot, feeling as he did that the hair had become as strong as wire. He faced the mare, looked it in its goggly eyes, with Ben breathing hard on one side of him, and Claire's slender hand in the crook of his elbow on his other side.

"What are you going to do now?" the mare said. Its mouth smelled like something had died in it; the mouth of a scavenger. "I'm in your mind. You can't get rid–"

"Shut up," Jesse said nonchalantly, and it did. He felt at his most powerful, standing at the top of the world. "I can't run away from myself, but you bet I can run you away. Get lost, bitch. And for good, you hear me?"

The mare… flickered, there was no other word, like an image on a faulty monitor, and Jesse felt an intense vibration, something that was not quite sound but made his ears ring anyway. When it became almost unbearable the mare seemed to sort of implode, crumpling on itself until there was nothing left of it. The hair-rope fell to the floor, shimmering one last time before losing its brilliance and unnatural size as it reached the floor.

"What the hell was that?" Ben breathed, and Jesse wondered too: what had he done? The thought that he'd maybe erased something out of existence left him faint-headed. The fantastic feeling from before had gone and he now felt empty, like a torn wrapping floating to the wind.

Light abruptly filled the room and he had to blink away colored spots. Claire had switched on the overhead lighting, and Jesse could now see that her cheek was scratched and that Ben had a bruise on his jaw, but neither of them looked badly hurt. Ben kneeled down and picked Claire's blond hair up from the floor, back to looking like a normal hair. He smiled and wound it around his finger, then instead of getting back to his feet he rocked on his heels and sat down on the floor with a thump.

"Hey," he said, looking up Claire and Jesse, beaming. "We're alive. We did it!" He took Claire's hand and drew her down to him, then did the same with Jesse, who didn't resist, his legs feeling too weak to hold him up. "You're safe," Ben murmured, pulling Jesse into a half-hug, wincing at the strain to his injured arm.

"Your arm–"

"It's fine," Ben dismissed, not letting go. He smelled like sweat and his damp hair stuck to Jesse's cheek. "You're going to be fine. You're safe."

"Yeah." Jesse exhaled and leaned into Ben's warmth, groped blindly for Claire's hand, closing their circle of three. She squeezed back so fiercely it hurt. Relief and exhaustion, indistinguishable feelings, fell over his shoulders like a heavy cloak.

"Thank you," he muttered. Words were coming to him with difficulty, his mouth feeling numb and his mind befuddled.

Love you, he thought helplessly, feeling himself start to shake and unable to control it. But he didn't say anything.

ooo

The next morning, Jesse slept in. He woke up around noon, bleary-eyed, to go to the bathroom and take a piss. Ben and Claire were awake, dressed and showered, and full of concern for him. They exchanged a few words, which Jesse didn't remember later on, and he went back to bed for another five hours.

Next time he woke up only Ben was there, reading curled up in one of the armchairs. He looked up from his book just as Jesse sat in the bed.

"Hey," he said. "Claire went out to get us some dinner. Or breakfast in your case, I guess. Are you hungry?"

"Uh." Jesse mentally probed himself and found that he was. "I could go for some food."

He jumped into his clothes as soon as he left the bed, feeling that he'd lazed around long enough and ready to act like a person again. Ben silently watched him get dressed, a finger tucked in his book to mark his page. Jesse smiled at him, trying to project good mental health so he wouldn't worry. It was nice that they cared – more than nice: invaluable – but he'd never done well when put on the spot for too long. He finished buttoning his jeans, stole another glance at Ben, who'd crossed his legs and put the book down in his lap, and wondered for the first time if Ben would like a casual good morning kiss, like people in normal relationships did – or so he figured. But he wondered for too long and feared it wouldn't seem natural if he did it now, so instead he went to sit on the arm to Ben's chair and snatched the book from his hands.

"What're you reading?" he asked, even as he was looking right at the title.

"Stuff for school. 'Medieval Europe: A Short History'."

"Any good?"

"It's fine. I've plowed through more boring books for the sake of education." He rolled his lip, looking like he was pondering saying something else. Jesse lifted an expectant eyebrow. "I probably haven't been completely honest with you," Ben eventually said.

"About what?"

Ben had a crooked smile. "About my attraction to guys. I've never… before you, it's true. But I've crushed plenty, I think. I've looked at other boys and wanted… I never really fully faced what I wanted." He chuckled. "And maybe I wouldn't have with you either, if you hadn't, uh, gotten on your knees and sucked my dick right in my living room. Then the fact that I had liked it became kinda hard to ignore."

"I'm a fan of the direct approach. It has served me well."

"I'm sorry."

"What do you have to be sorry for?"

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you all this earlier. Because it led you to think that… that you'd somehow influenced me into feeling something for you."

"It's fine," Jesse said, punching him lightly in the arm, bro-style. "That was my crazy speaking, you don't have to–"

"No, let me finish." There was a faraway look in Ben's eyes. "Being with Claire… God, sometimes I still can't believe what a lucky bastard I am. She's everything I ever dreamed of, even if, well. You know Claire. Bumpy road and all that – but that's part of the package. You, on the other hand." Ben smiled and raised his arm to cup the back of Jesse's head, brushing over the shell of his ear with his thumb. "You're everything I never even knew to wish for. And sometimes I'm afraid that you're going to vanish, just like a dream, and that it'd be like you've never been there at all."

Jesse had been so sure in his madness that he'd made Ben and Claire fall into that tangle of knots that was their relationship. But this was silly, because the truth was, when he'd met them and even as he'd started to feel the pull, he had never imagined that they could try for something like this. If anything, Ben had been the one with the vision, the one who wanted it so much that he'd made it happen.

"Is that what you think, that I– Because I wouldn't do that. I did it with my parents and look what happened – in the end it didn't change anything and I lost years with them I'll never get back. So I would never just disappear on you. "

"Yeah. On some level, I know that. Can't help being scared, though, 'cause. Well."

Because Dean fucking Winchester, right. No need to be a shrink to get where that particular fear sprang from. Claire came in at that moment, brown paper bags in her hands that she deposited on the table. There must have been something on both their faces, because her eyes went from one to the other and she cocked her head. "Deep conversation?"

"We're talking about our feelings," Ben said wryly.

"I can come back later."

"Don't be silly, no, come here. I wanted to tell you…" There was something thoughtful about the purse of his mouth. "I just… I wonder if I've made you – both of you – move too fast into this. We probably haven't discussed this as much as we should, and… Like, Jesse, if you didn't want to keep living with me, I would understand perfectly." He looked utterly miserable.

"What? Where's this coming from? Is it again about the things I said? Because you know I was being mind-fucked at the time, right?"

"I just don't want to force you into anything. You're not the only one with that fear." He looked to Claire, who'd quietly come closer as they talked. "What about you, Claire?"

"You're not making me do anything." She crossed her arms, giving Ben a look, like challenging him to make her do anything. The three long scratches on her cheek made it look like her face was painted for the warpath. "But…" Her expression softened. "I'm fine with things as they are now. By which I mean– Ben, I know that you'd liked for all three of us to live together." Ben had never said anything of the sort, at least not to Jesse, but he wasn't surprised to hear it – Ben wore his emotions on his sleeve, and he wished for simple things. "I'm not ready for that. Just the few days we spent here, sharing this room… This is exhausting for me."

Ben nodded, then shook his head, like he was a little unclear on what was asked of him. "Yeah, no, I get that. I knew what I was signing up for. You're not ready, okay. Maybe you won't ever be." She didn't try to deny it. "It's all fine with me. As long as you're not unhappy. Does it bother you that Jesse and I live together?"

"No," Claire said. Jesse thought he could feel in that simple syllable that it was a little more complicated than that, but he didn't know how to ask her to elaborate.

They dropped that line of conversation, unpacked the sandwiches Claire had brought back with her and sat down to eat. They didn't speak for a while but the silence was comfortable, felt lived in, and with everything that had happened lately it was almost disturbing how domestic the moment was.

"Jesse, I was thinking," Claire said, her hand politely covering her mouth as she ate; it was funny to Jesse, who'd more or less raised himself after a point, to see her inability to drop her manners even when it was just the three of them. "Do you want to wait for your parents' funeral before we leave?"

Leave. It felt like they'd been here for years, and their life together in California was a mere dream.

"When–" He swallowed his food wrong, coughed, and wiped his mouth. "How long will we have to wait for it?"

"I asked Sam and Dean," Ben said. "And they said that it could be a while. As long as the investigation is ongoing."

They shared a long look: the police would never know what had really happened to Jesse's parents, so they would either arrest someone innocent or drop the case. In any case, it might take a long time, and Jesse wasn't sure he could stomach staying in Alliance much longer. The city tasted too much like grief, and longing, and madness. What would he get from the funeral anyway? Closure? Or the confirmation that he didn't belong in his childhood town anymore? Standing there, invisible to the people he'd once known, watching like an outsider. He didn't want to have to do that anymore.

"No," he said, chasing breadcrumbs with his thumb. "I don't want to stay here longer than necessary." He realized he sounded almost begging and tried to school himself into looking composed. He didn't know if Ben might want to wait until Dean was better, and then if they drove back it was going to take them a while…

"Alright," Ben said. "Then whenever you're ready you can take us back."

"You… Are you sure? I know you hate the jump."

"Jesse, I may not like it, but I've done it plenty of times when it was necessary and it didn't kill me or anything. I want to go home as bad as you do. And," there his tone lightened, "Blake's been messaging me, asking me if he should sell my stuff on eBay. If we don't want to come back to an empty apartment, we shouldn't take too much time."

"Aww, he misses you. That's adorable as a basket full of kittens."

"Shut up. Claire, what are your thoughts on jumping back home?"

"I don't mind it," she said evenly. "Will you want to go to your parents' house? Maybe you could take some things back with you."

It hadn't occurred to Jesse, but now that he was presented with it the idea appealed to him. If he didn't go to his parents' funeral, then this was his chance to say goodbye. They finished eating, and after some tergiversations, decided to jump there because they didn't want to be seen entering the house. They materialized in the living room and Ben gave Jesse a thumb up. "You know what, I think I'm getting used to this," he said, looking like he was about to throw up.

"Yeah," Jesse said, clapping him on the shoulder. "You're hardcore, mate."

He looked around him: daytime was merciless, shedding pale light on the destruction. The floor was strewn with broken glass and rubbles, scattered books and broken vases, the remnants of the red devil's trap barely visible under the mess. Claire looked up to the holes in the ceiling. "What's up there?"

"My room."

Jesse's room was where they went first. It was painfully identical to the day he'd left, save for the holes in the floor: his bed was made, the bedspread without a single crease, and his schoolbooks were piled on his desk, like his parents had thought he would come back at any moment and need to catch up with school. His poster of Australia's blue waves, as well as his many surfing pictures, were still pinned above his bed.

"Oh, man," Ben said, looking at the wall.

"I don't think I want anything in here," Jesse said. "It's not like any of the clothes would fit me." He smiled crookedly. "And I've actually been to Australia now."

He went to his parents' room next, but Ben and Claire didn't follow him, going back downstairs instead. The room hadn't changed a lot either, and contrary to the destroyed living room, it still looked lived in. His father's robe was lying across the bed; clothes were thrown over the back of a chair; the door to the cupboard was half-open. He entered the room and took a walk around, brushing the wooden furniture with his fingers – the chest of drawers, the bed, the nightstands, all part of his mother's inheritance at her father's death. He almost stumbled over a pile of magazines on the floor and kneeled down to sort them through: here was Food Network Magazine – his mother's – Birds and Blooms – his father's – and Art of the West, something they probably both read. There was already a thin layer of dust over the top magazine.

Jesse stood up, paused in the middle of the room and watched specks of dust dance inside the sunbeams coming from the window. For a second he let himself imagine that his parents were downstairs, puttering about the house. Taking a breath in, he thought he could smell his mother's perfume float in the air, violet, rose and sandalwood. His vision blurred with tears and he had to leave the room before he got overwhelmed.

He found Ben and Claire in the living room looking at some open book – no, this was a photo album. They jumped guiltily when they heard him approach.

"We found it on the floor," Ben said, waving at the books that had fallen from the bookcase. "Sorry."

Jesse smiled. "It's fine."

"We're looking for baby pictures of you. Oooh, look at this one!" Ben pointed to a picture: Jesse must have been about two in it, sitting on a blanket laid down on the grass, both of his hands buried into the fur of a big dog – he couldn't remember the name, the dog had died a couple of years later. Jesse's golden baby hair shone in the sun. "Aww, you were a blond baby. Aw, man. How cute. Don't you think he's cute, Claire?"

Jesse didn't think Claire to be the type to 'ooh' and 'aah' at baby pictures, but she smiled in a way Jesse had never seen her do before and her eyes crinkled. "Yes, he's adorable," she agreed, brushing Jesse's baby face with the tip of her finger.

"Okay, that's it you two. You've had your fun, now put down the album."

"No, no." Ben held the photo album out of Jesse's reach. "I want to see."

They looked through the entire album, stopping at each picture of Jesse like tourists at an attraction. Jesse at four, at six, at ten years old, hair progressively getting darker in shade with each passing years. Pictures of him and Lizzie as children playing around, dressing up – one memorable picture of Jesse with one of Lizzie's skirts on his head – of them grinning widely as only children could. Jesse didn't know what Ben and Claire got out of this foray into his childhood, and he was soon bored with looking at pictures of himself, so he wandered around the house, trying to think of what he could take with him and only finding a couple of family pictures worth bringing back. Idly, he glanced out of the kitchen window: through the branches from the bushes planted below the window, he could see a figure standing on the side of the road, looking at the house. The person's vividly colored hair stood out like a beacon against the green of the fields.

"I'm going outside for a smoke," Jesse said absentmindedly to Ben and Claire.

Indeed, as he stepped down the few steps of the front porch, he got a cigarette from his pocket and lit it up. Blowing out smoke, he crossed the unkempt front lawn, and stopped a few steps away from Lizzie, waiting to see if she was going to bolt away. But she stood still as a statue, her hands buried in the front pockets of her purple hoodie. Her hair and her skirt blowing in the wind were the only moving things about her.

"Hey," he said after a moment. "How you doing?"

"You speak differently," she said.

So she'd figured it out, huh. Or maybe she'd learned it from the demon. "I spent some time in Australia."

"It's really you, then. After all these years. I always thought you'd been kidnapped, you know."

"No, I ran away. Thought it was the only thing to do at the time. I wanted to protect my parents." He looked back to the house and the yellow tape on the door. "For all the good it did them. If it's any consolation to you, you were right in thinking that their death was related to me."

"How do you know… Oh. The people who questioned my mother – I bet they're with you. They must be your friends. They were there that night, weren't they? The night when I– When that thing… You know."

"Yeah." He took a drag from his cigarette. Lizzie's image blurred through the cloud of smoke he exhaled. He felt he had to clarify, "They're my lovers, actually." The more he said it, he noticed, the more real it felt.

There, a flash of surprise, the first identifiable emotion he could see on her face. "Both of them? So you… You're…"

"I swing both ways, yeah."

"I never would've thought… I know you liked me." So confident about it; not saying if she'd ever liked him back, not that it mattered now. "Although I guess this doesn't contradict you being bi, does it?"

"I did like you. But, Lizzie," he said softly, "is the past really what you want to talk about?"

Her face was so pale, clashing with her hair. She'd never been very tanned, a true red head, but now her skin was chalky white and there were dark bags under her eyes. For one moment, even though they looked nothing like each other, Jesse thought he could see Julia, the devastating shadow of demonic possession, taking away bits of your soul with it.

"What was that thing?"

"It was a demon. You were possessed."

"A demon? A real demon? Like…" Her eyes opened so wide that they looked huge, not like she was surprised, but like she was forcing herself to look horror in the face.

"Like a demon from Hell, yeah. Freshly escaped from the fires of damnation."

"It wanted. It wanted you. I could hear… It was so obsessed with you. You…"

She drew a breath, and her mouth opened and closed on what she wanted to say next. On what, he understood, she was truly afraid to ask.

"You can say it, Liz. I won't be offended."

"What are you?"

"Half-demon. The Turners adopted me, but I… Let's say I was the result of freaky experimentation and leave it at that."

She blinked at him. Her eyes were what Jesse recognized the best from the little girl he had known; they hadn't changed at all, bright and frighteningly intelligent, always assessing, looking for all the ways they could make you look silly. But at that instant, she looked like she wasn't even sure she recognized the language Jesse spoke as English.

"Is it – the d-demon – is it going to come back?"

"No. I chased it. But…" He hesitated; he didn't want to freak her out, but it was important she be prepared. "Other things might come. There are ways you can ward yourself though, you can…"

Although she wasn't running away, she also wasn't coming closer, and they were speaking as though they were standing at the opposite ends of a bridge. Jesse explained all he knew about demons and other monsters, and the ways one could be protected against them. She listened to him with the same serious expression he remembered so well from their childhood, and when he was finished, there was a long silence that lasted until Jesse started to think of a way to excuse himself.

"Are you leaving?" she asked. It surprised him; he'd thought she was past caring about him.

"Yeah. Probably tomorrow."

"To Australia?"

"No, not to Australia. I live in California now."

She nodded, thanked him and bade him goodbye like they were mere acquaintances who'd met by chance in the street. He watched her walk away, the sway of her hips, the way she kept her elbows pressed to her body. He watched her the whole way back to her house.

ooo

They packed the next day. Before they left they went to say goodbye to Julia, who was getting ready to go back home too. They exchanged phone numbers, and while doing so Jesse realized that Julia was the only person left he could call family; at that thought, he felt like he was standing at the edge of a bottomless precipice and only just measuring its depth.

Their next stop was at the hospital to see the Winchesters. Dean was about to be discharged, or so he said, and he was wide awake but grumpy, and kept fiddling with the bandage around his head until his brother snapped at him to leave it alone.

"Congratulations," Dean said to Ben. At Ben's puzzled look, he explained: "You got the first notch on your belt – first hunt."

"Oh, that." Ben flushed like an embarrassed schoolgirl. "I couldn't have done it without Claire and Jesse."

"Well, that's what partners are for."

"And, uh. You're not mad that we didn't wait for Sam?"

The brothers shared a look and Dean pinched his lips. "What's done is done."

They talked for a few more minutes, and it seemed to do Dean a world of good, because by the end he was smiling and much more relaxed. He looked at Ben with such fondness that Jesse wondered again how he could have cut himself from his life the way he had. Not that it was any of his business, of course.

Jesse was the last to leave the room, and before he closed the door behind him Sam called him back.

"You didn't kill anyone," he said. They hadn't talked about that at all, so it was disturbing to think that apparently Sam Winchester could read his mind.

"I know," Jesse said, one hand on the doorframe. Ben and Claire had advanced into the hallway, not realizing yet that he wasn't following. "I didn't kill them – and yet I did, you know? I guess I just don't know what to do with that."

"It takes time," Dean said. He'd leaned back against his pillow and had closed his eyes. He looked weary to the bone.

Sam nodded, and his expression was understanding. The brothers both looked like they got it, and it probably wasn't surprising, come to think of it. The Winchesters were hunters. What was that quote again? About fighting monsters and becoming monsters, looking into the abyss and having it look back. Of course they had their share of darkness. But when you were born to the abyss, it was probably a different ballgame.

"Thanks," Jesse said.

He caught up to Ben and Claire, and they took the elevator, waited before they were alone and in-between floors before Jesse took their hands and said, "Ready?"

Ben grumbled, his palm sweaty in Jesse's hand, "Just do it."

Jesse smirked, looked at Claire's quietly expectant face, and had an idea. "Close your eyes," he said.

"I've tried it before and it didn't – Oh, holy fucking shit! Oh my god!"

The enclosed space of the elevator had opened up on a wide sky, unmarred with clouds, of a blue as deep as the ocean. Jesse felt Ben grip his arm with both hands, yelping as the strap from his bag started to slide down his shoulder and he must have realized that they were standing at the top of a high sandstone pillar and that the ground was a far, far away green tapestry of trees.

"What the fuck–"

"This is amazing," Claire breathed.

Jesse looked at her face, her sparkling eyes and her cheeks red from the wind whipping at them, then at the landscape unraveling before their eyes: the forest of pillars, displaying their rich palette of beiges and ochers under daylight, of various forms and sizes, some looking like wobbly piles of coins, others shaped like sugarloaves, others again more like several pillars had merged together to form a ruined piece of rampart.

"Happy birthday, princess." He laughed at her startled look. "You thought I wouldn't remember? I'm sorry, I'm shit at finding presents."

"No, no, this is gorgeous. Where are we?"

"Australia, Northern Territory. This is called the "Lost Cities," it's… I used to come up here to be alone. I thought you might like it."

"Show off," mumbled Ben, but he too was drinking in the amazed look on Claire's face. "You know, while we're sharing fun facts about ourselves, this might be a good moment to tell you that I'm not too fond of heights." His voice was tight and he wasn't looking around him, focusing on them instead, and was now clutching Jesse's t-shirt with a death grip.

"Relax," Jesse said. "I won't let you fall."

"I know, yeah, I know. It's not that I don't trust you, I just, I can't help it – I really, really don't like it."

"Ben," Claire said, "you should look. It's splendid." Boldly, she peeled herself away from Jesse's side, although her hold on his hand was firm.

"Well, I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you."

"Ben." Jesse carefully raised his arm to circle Ben's waist and secure him firmly against him. He could feel the vibrations of Ben's pounding heart, reverberating into his own ribcage. "Hey, mate, I got you. You can look."

Ben shot him a baleful look but reluctantly turned his head, offering his face to the wind, which filled his eyes with tears. He blinked them away and his eyes widened as he took in the ruins-like expanses of sandy pillars. Jesse could feel him unclench slowly, starting to relax minutely.

Claire and Ben watched the timeless beauty of the Lost Cities while Jesse looked at them, feeling like his heart was too big for his chest and was pressing painfully against his ribs. Ben clinging to him, Claire edging away like a bird about to fly off, but still firmly anchored to his hand: wasn't that a perfect reflection of their relationship? He felt like he was holding something fragile and precious in his hands, and had to be careful that he did not crush it in his clumsy hold.

"Okay, this is pretty nice," Ben admitted, with such reluctance in his voice that Jesse had to laugh.

This was peace. He gave himself a moment to savor it.