-1"I. Love. You."

Dean couldn't get it off his mind no matter how hard he tried. This woman he woke up next to. He felt something for her, as if he were supposed to love her but those words were meant for Emma and now Emma wasn't part of his life. As he sat next to her on the bed he came to that realization. She looked at him as though he were crazy when all Dean wanted to do was scream how much he loved her. It scared him how much she meant to him. Everything was perfect here though. Almost everything. His mother was alive. Dean couldn't even begin to explain how good it felt to hug her, to feel her soft fingers against his face. It was a touch he had longed for since he was four years old. Dean never wanted it to end. It wasn't all perfect though. Yes, Jessica was alive and Sam was finally happy, but he didn't talk to Dean. They hated each other, or at least that's how it seemed. It killed Dean to think that Sammy couldn't talk to him. Then there was Emma. She was locked up for something she didn't do. Dean knew the world of the rational though. They would never believe, a demon killed Bobby. Emma had been a part of Dean's life for almost four years now, no matter how distant it was. From the moment Dean met Emma they clicked. She understood him better than anyone he had ever met. Everything was different now, in this place. This wasn't his Emma. This girl was sitting on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest and on the verge of tears. It wasn't Emma. What had this place done to her? Dean didn't even notice when he wrapped an arm around her.

The look on Sam's face when he would look at Jessica was something that Dean never wanted to give up. The feel of his mother's touch, her scent, her voice, that damn sandwich she made him. He didn't want to give it up, but deep down he knew something wasn't right. He looked at Emma, who should be giving birth to his child in a matter of months and he saw this completely different woman, yet she was still just as fiery. There was something different about her, something broken that hurt Dean down to his very soul to see. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs that he loved her but she'd just think he was crazy. Everything was perfect and awful at the same time. Dean was torn between a desire for two different worlds. Here his mother was alive and Dean spent his whole life thinking that was what he always wanted. Now he looked at Emma and realized how hard it was to live without her, without Sammy and he wondered if it was worth it. His mother would have wanted him to be happy right? Was he really happy here, in this illusion. Every time he thought he wasn't he'd hear his mother's voice, smell the perfume in the air and realize that he was happy.

"Dean," Emma's perfect, soft, angelic voice thrust Dean out of his thoughts. He glanced over at her and noticed his arm around her. Dean quickly stood and ran a hand through his hair. He glance back at Emma who just sat staring at him.

"You think I'm crazy don't you," Dean asked with a sigh.

"I never said that," she answered. The young woman, the love of Dean Winchester's life, in some other reality the mother of his child, stood and took two steps forward, closing the gap between them. "Tell me about what we were like," she whispered. "Anything's got to be better than locked up in this place with the image of your father getting ripped to pieces," she whispered as a single tear fell down her cheek. "Remembering that there was nothing you could do to stop it. I can still hear him scream." Emma's eyes were distant but remained locked with Dean's as though she were looking through him. "Tell me about what we were like."

Dean looked down into her eyes, truly captivated by them for the first time since he had met Emma. She was begging, pleading with him for an escape. Dean didn't realize it but the look she had in her eyes was the same one he had in his the night Madison died. Dean didn't bother to stop himself as he ran his fingers through her blonde hair. "My dad," he began but his throat closed up for a moment. "My dad was a hunter. After… After my mom died when I was a kid, after she was killed by a demon, my dad went looking for answers. He took me and my brother Sam with him. We… we grew up on the road. A little over four years ago my dad met Bobby, I was with him. That's when I met you. We had kind of a fling I guess," he said turning a little red at the thought. "You stole my car and nearly drove it off a bridge."

"Sorry," Emma said with a faint smile.

"I… I didn't really talk to you or Bobby much after my dad and I left, mostly because Bobby threatened to shoot him, probably because of my behavior with you."

"That sounds like my dad."

"Cocked the shotgun and everything." Dean smiled at her, glad to see her smiling. "A few months ago you were hunting something in Wyoming and Sam found you in a cabin up there. You didn't know it at the time but Sammy was possessed. He left you there to die, tied up to the fireplace. Bobby called me when you hadn't checked in for a few days. By that point Sammy was himself again," Dean whispered as he sat down on the edge of the bed again, watching Emma turn to face him. "He asked us to find you. We did and you decided you wanted to stay on the road with us. We got really close, all of us. You and Sam were," he paused and laughed. "We did this hunt, a werewolf, in California. We thought it might be targeting this woman named Madison. Sammy stayed with her. Sam's a compassionate person you know. He really cares about people. Ever since his girlfriend died, killed by the same demon because she got in the way the demon's 'plans' for Sam… anyway, he hasn't really let anyone close to him. He fell for this girl and it turned out that she was the werewolf. She didn't even realize it." Dean looked down, remembering the look in Sammy's eyes as he took the gun from Dean's hand. "Sam killed her. I spent my whole life keeping Sam from being a killer, it's the one thing that demon wants him to become. I spent my whole life protecting him from that kind of pain and…" Dean looked up when he felt the bed shift a bit as Emma sat down next to him. "That night, you and I, we snuck into the hotel room next door to ours and… I needed an escape. I needed to forget that look in Sammy's eyes, the pain he had. I didn't think it would end how it did."

"How did it end?"

"Six weeks later you told me you were pregnant."

Emma nodded slowly and looked away. She stood for a moment and walked over to the barred window overlooking the parking lot. "That yours," she asked pointing to the black car. Only seeing the top of it she could identify it as an Impala. Dean stood and walked over, he looked out the window and nodded. "Dean," she asked looking up at him. "Was… Was I in love with you?"

Dean stared at her for a moment. He couldn't answer that. Dean had told her that he loved her, tried to explain it but Emma had never once said it back. Part of Dean knew that she was but she was just too afraid to admit it. Dean himself, was surprised he had even said it in the first place. "I… I don't know, but," he paused and looked down at her again. "I was in love with you."

It was silent for a long time, it seemed like an eternity to Dean Winchester as he stood staring at Emma who was looking out the window. There was a longing in her eyes unlike he had ever seen before. This place was suffocating her. Dean could see it in her empty eyes. She had this façade of being tough, this image that nothing could hurt her, but Dean could see straight through it. Dean was an expert on hiding his emotions. She was still hurting because of her father's death. She was still haunted by it. Dean understood. He knew how it felt. He didn't exactly what his father get torn to pieces but he knew how it felt to have your father ripped away from you and know that you couldn't do a thing. Dean had the added guilt of knowing that it was his fault. John did it for him. Dean knew what she was going through. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him for the first time. It felt so good to hold her so close, feel her body against his.

Emma couldn't even begin to explain how his embrace felt. It was something she had never experienced before. It was the all encompassing feeling of safety. She felt as if no matter what happened, Dean would be able to protect her from it. Emma closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest.

Dean looked down at her when he felt her hands rest on his chest. He sighed softly and kissed the top of her head. He held her close and listened to her cry. Dean hated hearing Emma cry more than anything. Each tear that fell down her face killed a piece of Dean. He wanted to take her away from all of this, to make it all better, to save her. He hadn't realized how much he missed being close to her until she was out of his life. The older Winchester couldn't even imagine his life without the fiery hunter. Emma was part of Dean's strength. She made everything all right. She made it all right for Dean to show the slightest hint of emotion. When he couldn't in front of Sam, he could in front of Emma. She understood him on a level he didn't quite understand. It was like she could read his mind, like they were created to be a balance for one another. Dean loved how he felt when he was so close to Emma. This wasn't his Emma though. This was a broken girl and seeing her like this destroyed Dean. He felt so helpless, unable to do anything to ease the pain she was going through. He knew the fact that no one believed her had to make things that much harder for her to cope. She had no one to talk to about it. How could she cope? Dean wanted to tell her that everything would be all right, that the pain would go away, but he knew that would be a lie. The pain would never really go away. It would ease off just enough that you could put it to the back of your mind but it would always be there. The knowledge that she would never see her father again would always be there. Eventually it would stop haunting her though. Eventually she would stop thinking about it every second of every day, but the pain would never go away. The only way Dean could take that pain away was to make it not real. The only way to do that was to find the djinn. "Emma," he whispered. "If I get you out of here will you help me find this djinn so I can set things straight and get my life back?"

Emma looked up at him and took a step back. "Get me out? How do you plan on doing that Dean? What's the point anyway, my father's dead."

"No," Dean said quickly. "No not really. I mean… I mean in my world, Bobby, Bobby's still alive. He nearly killed me when we told him about the baby, but he's still alive. Please, Emma I'm begging you to help me."

Emma studied him for a moment, letting the decision go through her mind. "How do you plan on breaking me out of this place?"