Chapter 7

Sam

I hated when Serra and Dean fought, but I knew it was because they were both so stubborn. They moved on nicely, we finished our meal and while Dean and Grace were upstairs with Libby, Serra and I finalized our plans for Corpus Christi.

"What time do you want to leave tomorrow?" Serra asked over a mouthful of steak.

I shrugged. The sooner the better, in my mind, but I knew Serra would want to sleep in. Her vacation started tomorrow and she was eager to use the morning for sleeping, not packing the car and driving. "When you wake up," I answered democratically.

She leaned into me and kissed me, smiling. "Good answer," she said. She finished up her plate, stood to clear both hers and mine and dumped them in the sink. Glancing at the clock, she said, "I'm gonna go feed Johnny." She wiped her hands off and gestured to the sink, "Will you start these and I'll come back to help you?"

I stood, taking the final drink of my beer and nodded. "Yeah, sure."

She filled Johnny's bowl with food and walked out into the snow filled yard. I began filling the sink with hot water and got lost in thought.

"You're together, now, huh?" Dean's voice came out of the silence as I studied for a midterm at the kitchen table. "Since when?"

I glanced up, staring at him, confused. "How did you find out?" I asked, completely at a loss.

"Grace," was his simple reply. He grinned. "You got no secrets anymore, Sammy. It's about damn time too." He pushed himself onto the countertop and I smiled ironically. Serra and I had been there, right at that exact spot not four hours ago.

"I wasn't keeping it a secret, Dean," I said, rubbing the studying out of my eyes. "We just kinda…fell into each other."

"Yeah," Dean said, taking a drink, "I'll bet."

I stared at my brother and for the first time, realized how happy he really was. I hadn't seen him this happy since we were kids…the smile on his face was genuine, the bags under his eyes were gone and for the first time in my life, he looked like he had nothing to hide. A thought occurred to me for the first time: Dean had never been in love before. I mean, he had Lisa and Ben, but I'm still convinced that he was never in love with Lisa…she had just been a band-aid for something that he had no idea how to deal with. After he thought I was dead, he was broken and had nowhere else to go. Lisa had been there to put him back together again, and it was unfortunate, because I really think she had been in love with him.

Now, though, with Grace, my brother was a different person. He had something to live for and it was authentically a first for Dean. All our lives, we had been about survival; making sure that I survived had been Dean's only purpose in life. Now, he had so much more. This woman connected with him in a way I could never understand and it had been amazing to see his transformation. It was like Dean was a completely new man.

"How are you and Grace?" I asked him, still watching him from the table.

A wide smile crept across his face. He looked younger, more alive than I had ever seen him. I wondered momentarily if my physical appearance had changed since being with Serra. "We're awesome," he said. "I take back everything I ever said about relationships."

That statement alone was enough to know that Dean had changed. For years, he was convinced that relationships were just another way for you to feel pain. It's the reason he never understood me and Jessica, or me and Amelia…he just couldn't comprehend sharing a part of someone else's life.

"So you're serious?" I asked, "You think this is going somewhere?"

Dean rubbed the back of his neck, almost embarrassed. "Man," he started quietly, "I'm hooked."

I stared at my brother, open mouthed with shock. "You want to marry her." It wasn't a question.

He didn't look me in the eye for a few seconds, then, pulling something out of his pocket, he glanced down at his hand and opened it to show me. "I've been carrying this around for three days now."

I leaned over to look at what he held in his palm. It was a tiny band with tiny diamonds in a row on the top. It looked antique, but I had no idea about stuff like that. "What is that, Dean?" He stayed silent, still holding his hand out, breathing slowly: calm. "Is that an engagement ring?"

"I think technically it's a wedding band, but I can't afford anything else. She'll like it, right?"

I stared at Dean, completely blown away. "You're proposing." Again, it wasn't a question.

He nodded, looking back down at the ring in his hand. "It's gonna be a bitch keeping this from her. Damn psychic."

I couldn't come up with anything to say. My brother was in love with a girl and he bought a ring to propose. I suddenly stood from the table, walked over to Dean and pulled him into a hug. "I'm so happy for you, man."

Dean slid forward from the counter and hugged me back, slapping my back for effect. "I know. Me too, man."

The water from the sink was close to overflowing and coming out of my thoughts, I shut off the water, smiling at my memories. That had been almost three years ago, before the stalker attacked the girls, before we found out about Grace being a nephilim, before Libby and before we got married…so much had happened in such a short amount of time. I knew why, though. We were making up for lost time. Most people don't hunt things for a living and instead spend their lives in high school and college making friends and forming relationships. Dean and I had skipped all that and we were thrown into the lives we led now almost by accident. Of course, Grace would argue that it wasn't accidental, that it was all Fate, and really, who am I to argue with a half-angel?

The storm door slammed behind Serra and she dusted the snow off her shoulders and out of her hair. "I cannot WAIT for this snow to melt. Seems like we haven't had a snowfall year in so long." I turned to look at her stomping off her boots. "I hope Johnny will be warm enough."

"Should we just bring him in from the barn?"

Serra nodded, "After he eats, we'll put him in the garage. It's just so cold."

Setting the plates and silverware into the sink, Serra pushed me out of the way with her hip. I smiled down at her…she was too tiny to budge me with such little effort. I grinned at her.

"Lug," she said, pushing me with her arms this time. "You're a terrible washer. You dry. I'll wash."

I laughed as I abided and scooted over. We talked quietly about our plans in Corpus Christi and how little we planned on doing. There was a beach house, right on the water that we had rented out for the week. It would be nothing but sand and sun for the next six days. I turned and watched my wife scrub a plate with the sponge. Her shirt was low cut enough that my attention wandered and suddenly I was grateful that she wasn't a psychic too.

Sun, sand and something else, I thought, smiling, as I went back to drying.