Warnings: Swearing, mention of killing


Chapter 9: Reborn

After each concert, the same throbbing pain came back into Charlie's shoulder where the strap of the bass notched her neck and weighed too heavily on her collarbone. She refused to take painkillers and always spent a long time in the shower to relieve her tense muscles, playing along with her hands under the warm water to ease the tension. Gradually the water relaxed her and its sound soothed the hissing in her ears. Despite ear protectors, some nights, her eardrums suffered from the music and their whistle accompanied her as she fell asleep. Dorothy was waiting her, sitting on the bed and Charlie curled up in her arms with relief. She had removed her make-up hastily and probably looked like a panda's carcass. Dorothy smelled like amber and sandalwood, an odor that Charlie, after a year, associated with calm and peace. Not that having an almost secret relationship with the young woman has anything of calm or peaceful.

The shower had left her strangely languid and she closed her eyes lazily while Dorothy sat behind her to massage her sore shoulder. The very first time they had touched each other, it had been through this intermediary. Dorothy's warm hands on her skin cut a little by her instrument. Everything had been really fast thereafter, neither had seen any profit in flirting around for months when they could find each other right away. Things had been clear from the start: they wouldn't talk about it, would hide if it became necessary and would keep it for themselves. No one needed to know what Charlie was doing behind closed doors and she didn't want anyone to feel allowed to give their opinion on the subject. Dean had agreed when she had told him. He himself took great care to preserve Castiel in a secret corner of his life, a place where his status as a rocker wouldn't come to disturb the young man and it was exactly what Charlie had intended to do with Dorothy. They wouldn't appear in public together, wouldn't make a spectacle of themselves and their relationship would only belong to them. It was easy on tour, when they shared the same room and the same bus for months. Perhaps things would change once returned to Los Angeles, but the bassist preferred not to think about it. It was a problem she would handle when she would be confronted to it, not before.

Dorothy crooned while massaging her, in a low, guttural voice, in a language that Charlie didn't understand.

"A healing song?" She asked, almost amused. She felt the young woman's long hair brushing her back when she nodded.

"My grandmother was Cherokee. She taught me some incantations." She said.

"You've been talking about her for a year now." Charlie said, softly lying on her stomach to let her partner the time to adjust to her new position. "Would you introduce us next time we're in Oklahoma?"

Dorothy did not stop her massage, simply leaned over Charlie to lay a kiss on her cheek despite the odd angle their necks.

"If she agrees to." She said before standing up.

"You're not staying?" The bassist asked, seeing her put on her jacket. Dorothy shook her head and leaned back on her for a kiss, on her lips this time.

"I'll return in the night, for now, I have something to do. Rest up, I'll wake you when I'm back." She promised. Charlie rested her head on the pillow with a sigh.

"You always do that, you know."

"What then?" Dorothy asked, pulling a jacket on, a hand already on the door handle. Charlie was beginning to fall asleep and it's with a voice muffled by the pillow that she replied.

"Leaving unexpectedly, promising to return. You always do that."

"I always come back."

"Huhum."

Dorothy smiled, seeing her falling asleep suddenly like an exhausted child. She turned out the light and closed the door softly behind her to not wake the bassist.

She wondered why she was doing that. What was driving her to meddle like that in the life of someone else than herself? What right had she to want to teach something to Dean? She didn't know, but when handing him a borrowed helmet, late in the night she had a strong sense of doing the right thing.

He hadn't really protested when she had offered a night trip by motorbike, just gave off a whistle of admiration on seeing the black Triumph she had borrowed from a friend.

"If I had a baby like that I wouldn't lend it to anyone!"

"My friends trust me to take care of their babies." She replied by buckling her helmet. "You entrust me your life for a ride?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really."

Dean smiled and slipped on his helmet, struggling with the closure system before straddling the bike to sit behind Dorothy.

"Where are we going Chief?"

"No idea."

Dorothy had learned to drive motorcycles shortly before the cars. She remembered her grandfather explaining her the different pieces until she knew them by heart before letting her press the starter. She remembered the wrinkles that crinkled his eyes as he smiled, a hand stabilizing the machine while she cautiously moved forward into the driveway under the worried look of her grandmother. The road had become synonymous with freedom. The wind that slapped her face was waking her up as if every moment spent locked, away from the engine's vibrations was like being buried alive. She was smiling under his helmet, feeling the road under the tires, the weight of the bike between her legs, the firmness of the handle between her gloved hands and slowly twisted the handle, enjoying the slight drop of thrust each time she engaged a higher speed. She was going too fast, as the speedometer indicated her and as did the car headlights she overtook by zigzagging. It was a heady sensation, but still not enough. She quickened again, squinting, bending over the handlebars for a better control of the bike. Dean gripped her hips and leaned toward her reflexively, shouting something that her helmet deadened and that she didn't even try to understand. The road unrolled its ribbon of asphalt stitched white lines swallowed by the tires at breakneck speed and Dorothy smiled while pushing the engine as much as she could. The bike was screaming like the horns around them and she tightened her hands a little harder on the handlebars. She could almost hear her grandmother yelling at her to slow down and to be careful with this thing!

She noticed a sign, half a second before it disappears behind her, and violently turned off on the left without putting on her turn signal. A car slammed on the brakes and she heard both the screams of the driver and Dean's invectives who gave her a blow on the helmet to get her attention. She pulled over in the parking lot of a diner and put her feet on the ground, barely realizing that the tank on which she laid her hands was boiling from their race. She removed her helmet with a small delighted "Woow". "She's gutsy!" She commented, absent-mindedly stroking the tank between her knees.

"You're fucking crazy!" Dean shouted while getting down from the bike, legs trembling. "You know how many times you've nearly killed us?"

"A lot I hope." She replied by taking in hand the handlebar to steer the front wheel while with her heel she dislodged the kickstand from its notch. She wedged the bike, turned off the ignition and took off her helmet.

"You're going to tell me what all of that means?" He grouched, pushing the door of the diner with his elbow. There was no way he touches the greasy handle with bare hands, this thing was probably more full of germs than the old jars full of God knew what that lied for months in the small fridge in the tourbus and he had risked his life well enough for the week.

"Yes, but not right now, I think you still need one or two elements to understand what I have to say." She laughed. She dragged him to a table and gestured to the tired waitress. They were served burgers, fries and coffee that Dean accompanied with about his weight in water. His hands had stopped shaking and from this side of the hellish ride, it didn't seem so terrible.

"Better?" Dorothy asked by picking in her fries while he emptied the rest of his drink. He nodded.

"Almost better than sex." He said in a voice that he was surprised to find so clear considering the condition in which he was less than an hour ago. Dorothy smiled and held him his helmet.

"Ready for the ride back cowboy?"

"Don't ever call me like that again." He mumbled by following her outside of the fast food.

"As you wish Cowboy."

He rolled his eyes and clung to her hips as she started the Triumph. She brought them safely to the hotel at a little more reasonable speed this time, but only because he hit on her helmet each time she pretended to exceed the speed limit. Just before he slips the magnetic card into the door reader, she put a hand on his shoulder.

"How are you feeling?"

She had deep eyes and at that time, full of what could the most look like empathy in her. But with such black eyes it was hard to really read anything in it and Dean shrugged.

"Good. Curiously good considering you failed to kill me twice in the last three hours." He said.

"This is how Castiel feels. Whenever he sees you."

Dean looked up at her with surprised eyes, the card still above the optical scanning, his jacket in one hand, his borrowed helmet to the arm.

"This feeling of having escaped death. Gratefulness and relief, the feeling that the world belongs to you again now that you're not scared anymore? That's what he feels when he sees you, when he thinks about you, when he's with you."

Dean shook his head. "He's wrong. I'm not some kind of panacea. I'm just a guy who can't even be bothered to do anything else than songs."

Dorothy shrugged. "He doesn't care. He loves you."

"He loves me more than I deserve." Dean sighed. He shook his head to clear the vision of Castiel in his hospital bed.

"Obviously."

He frowned at her harsh tone. She had crossed her arms and had leaned against the wall. "But apparently he doesn't care. I hope you're grateful to him."

Dean smiled and finally opened the door. "Very, and I intend to prove it to him when I'll see him next time."

"Do I really want to hear that?" She asked, frowning.

"Oh certainly!" Dean laughed. "But that'll stay between him and I." He handed her the helmet with a smirk. "Is that what you wanted to tell me? That he feels that whenever he sees me?"

"All the time. He feels that all the time actually." Dorothy corrected by lazily detaching herself from the wall.

Dean smiled, the corners of his mouth a little heavy with fatigue. "How can you tell?"

She smiled. "I can recognize people who love each other. You just have to watch."

She returned to her room, ears still ringing of the bike's roar after wishing a good end of night to Dean. She didn't turn on the light, just put the two helmets on a chair and removed her jacket and shoes before sneaking between the sheets next to Charlie. The young woman opened her tired eyes and leaned back on her pillow, her shoulder and hip touching Dorothy's.

"You did everything you needed to?" She asked at mid-voice.

"I think so."

"Wanna go to the beach tomorrow?"

"There's no beach in this State, Charlie."

"Oh."

And with this simple observation, the young woman curled up against her and plunged into a sleep she hadn't really left. Dorothy had more trouble falling asleep, behind her closed eyelids she saw Dean's thoughtful face. "How can you tell?"

She had not answer the exact truth. Of course, one look to Castiel was sufficient to realize how much he loved Dean. But what she saw in the young man was more than that. It was a sense of security in terrified eyes that she had seen only once before. In the mirror.

She curled around Charlie, one arm around the bare shoulders of the girl who still smelled massage oil, one leg slid between her partner's and waited for her regular breath to bring her sleep.

##

Something was happening and Sam couldn't determine how or why. It was one of those rare times when they had three consecutive days off. Dean had left early to catch a plane to California and Sam and Kevin had hung around during half of the morning in the hotel lobby without seeing any traces of Charlie nor Dorothy.

They had gone back in their room, had played video games (was this console still really belonging to Charlie? Kevin seemed to have the exclusive use) until the late hour obliges them to almost follow one another in the shower and dress properly (this notion was a very random variable depending on whether one was talking about the drummer or the cellist).

When Sam came out of the shower looking for a clean shirt, Kevin was on the phone and he was stammering. Kevin never stammered. He was a kid who had been to Princeton, who read dead and unknown authors to calm down before the concerts, who had an incredible ability to be loved by almost everyone. Sam stopped in the middle of the room and began to silently dripping on the carpet, listening to him. The young man hadn't seen him.

"In two weeks." Kevin was saying in the handset. "Of course. If you still live in the same place, I'll send you invitations for you and your boyfriend."

Kevin smiled a half-second later. "For you and Sarah then." He said, nodding for himself. Sam smiled and raised his thumb in the air, Kevin finally saw him and gave him a wink while Sam murmured a "Well played kiddo."

The young man didn't see his friend leave, busy listening Channing chirping him everything he had missed since his last visit in Michigan. Her familiar voice was something comforting and Kevin laid down on his bed, closing his eyes when he realized he hadn't been aware so far that he needed to be comforted. Even after months, talking with Channing was simple and obvious, like slipping into an attic where you'd have spent your childhood, nose in the dirt playing to be scared.

He smiled.

"You don't say anything." Channing said.

"I'm listening to you."

"I talk too much, sorry." She apologized. Even after so long, he remembered her mannerisms, the way her cheeks darkened when she blushed, looking down, hiding behind her squared cut straight hair.

"No." He said without dropping his smile. "No that's perfect, please continue. Mom doesn't tell me things as well as you do."

Sam had closed the door behind him after making sure to have slipped his magnetic card in his pocket which was a significant progress for him. Charlie and Dorothy were God knew where and obviously the rest of the roadies had taken advantage of their day off to vanish into thin air. The weather was pleasantly mild and Sam decided it was the perfect day to indulge in his favorite activity. One thing he used to do with Jess and that the death of the girl hadn't ruined for him. He had headphones on him but didn't turn on the MP3 player he had in his pocket. The headphones would prevent him from being interrupted, but he wanted to hear the sound of the city. Each place where he had been during that last year had its own sound, its own source of inspiration and this one was no exception to the rule. The muffled sound of conversations of the people who brushed in passing, traffic noise and barking dogs formed a strange cortege while his steps lose him a little more in the unfamiliar streets. He eventually pushed the door of a cafe and sat on a seat near the window. From there he could look at the passerby and imagine a life to them. He had spent hours playing it with Jess. It wasn't that funny to do it alone and had gradually converted Kevin (the kid was very good to this exercise) and Charlie. Dean and Dorothy remained firmly impervious to it.

Sam loved the smell of coffee and ongoing customer conversations, the clatter of glasses arranged hastily, waiters who sometimes shouting orders. It was an ideal back sound to concentrate. Dean had taken the leather notebook to LA and when Sam would want to write he knew he would have to do it on the sheets folded in four in the back pocket of his jeans. He ordered a coffee with cream and too much sugar and leaned more comfortably in the seat, elbows on the table, legs stretched out before him to watch people walk down the street. A blonde girl doing jogging, almost dragged by a big golden retriever she held in leash. A group of young executives, leather satchel in hand, askew tie walking with an important look that made him think of Castiel when he came home from work. Without really thinking, he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Dean's number while taking his first sip of coffee.

"Hey, your flight went well?"

"As well as possible considering I've just spent hours in a scrap thing weighing several tons perched in the air maintained by strictly zilch!" Dean grumbled from California where Sam imagined him clutching his phone and frowning in a sign of discomfort. The drummer muffled a laughter.

"How's Cas?"

"Better. Tired and says that anything's better than the hospital food, and I'm pretty sure he prepares a plot to get me to eat sushi."

"Sushi are very good."

"That's raw fish Sam!"

Sam smiled. "Doesn't mean it's gross, the Japanese eat them for centuries!"

"Yeah well I'm not Japanese!"

This time Sam laughed frankly of bad faith of his brother. They talked for a few minutes until Dean cut him short in the middle of a sentence.

"Sam, I'm gonna hang up."

"Why? Did I say something wrong?"

"No, but there's a guy who just entered the room and who seems to come straight out of a very good porn and I don't think you're ready to hear what follows Sammy."

Sam laughed at the other end of the line while Dean made a gesture to invite Castiel to approach the sofa on which he was sitting.

"Have fun, dirty old man." The youngest said just before hanging up. Dean threw the phone on the coffee table before moving his arms around Castiel's hips and lifting his shirt to lay a kiss on the still damp skin of his stomach.

"That, is not yours." He said by running a finger in the ring that adorned the large leather wristbands that his lover was wearing on each wrist. "Does Sam knows you pinch his stuff?"

"I borrowed them."

"Oh yeah?" Dean's smile had something predatory as he stood. "Maybe I should use them. You know, tie you to the bed, make of you whatever I want."

Castiel smiled and wrapped his arms around the shoulders of his lover. "It is more decorative than for real bondage you know."

"It's not like you were going to struggle anyway."

"Are you going to kiss me or not?" The young man grumbled, rolling his eyes.

"Maybe, if you're good."

Castiel's smile widened even more. "If the wristbands have this effect on you, I can't wait to see what will happen when you'll discover what I have planned for tonight."

Suddenly, fatigue and stress of the trip were a distant memory and Dean made a mental note to buy new wristbands to Sam. Because there was no chance that they leave Castiel's arms until about ten or twelve years. He was even willing to endure sushi for what he had planned this evening. "Don't be in such a hurry!" Dean groaned trying to catch his lover's face in his hands to kiss him.

"I'm not in a hurry." Retorted the other by rapidly freeing himself to push him up to the bed. Dean rolled his eyes and let him literally tear his pants, taking his underwear in the same movement. "I'm just not very patient." Castiel continued, crawling on him to join their lips, his whole body pressed against Dean's, pinning him against the mattress with all his weight.

"Understatement." The singer said while unbuckling the belt of his lover, the friction of the denim against his crotch quickly becoming unbearable. "The whole world is more patient than you." He teased.

Castiel sat up, a knee on either side of the bare hips of his lover, and looked at him for a moment with these fixed eyes that wouldn't blink as long as he wouldn't have decided and made Dean feel uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable and excited. Because what was in Castiel's eyes had nothing to do with impatience or a simple desire. Dean had taken years to put the word 'love' in it and even now he avoided to think too hard about it. For now there was still restraint Castiel's gestures, a tenderness that was struggling to flush under the pressing need he had to possess his lover and that would quickly disappear. But during the few seconds that Castiel took to look at him, lying between the pillows, in his eyes there was a kind of happy and blissful veneration of which Dean would have made a symphony if he'd been able to.

"The whole world doesn't have you under them. Naked moreover."

Dean smiled, his ability to sarcasm would soon end up reduced to not much, and he'd enjoy it as long he still could. "I hope for the whole world they doesn't have someone desperately dressed above them. Because it's frustrating." Castiel chuckled and leaned over to kiss him again, move his arms under the back of the singer and gently turn him on the stomach. He leaned over him until his lips brush his ear.

"For what I intend to do, I don't need to remove my clothes."

Dean groaned a disagreement smothered by the pillows which Castiel didn't take into account. The young man began to trace with his fingertips the line of Dean's shoulders, touching the lily tattooed on one of them. He wondered every time what would be the tattoo that would extend the flames on his shoulder blade? Then he laid a line of kisses along his spine, enjoying the smooth texture of the skin under his lips, and finally put his hands in small of the back of his lover. Where two revolvers crisscrossed on a bed of roses. The gesture had the knack of making Dean being thrilled and Castiel was convinced that he had unintentionally been tattooed on an erogenous zone (so far nothing had disabused him). He followed of the tip of the nail the outline of the Beretta and the one of the Colt's grip, then drew random shapes on his hips. He could hear Dean's sighs, see the shivers that ran through his body and were starting to make him tremble.

"You're imagining an extension?" The singer asked, his face buried between his arms crossed.

"I've been thinking about it for years." Castiel said softly, drawing symbols on his skin with his fingertips, just strong enough to leave a red mark for a few seconds.

"What's the result?"

"Nothing good for now." The young man replied, leaning again to lay a kiss on the tattoo. He avoided saying it because he knew its meaning, but the words "Ask" and "Tell" artistically stamped on the barrels of the guns were what he preferred all over the body of Dean Winchester. For one reason or another, it was that which had the most profound resonance for him. And that was why he always, always started by touching him at this place, as if he feared that the connection between them wouldn't be if he didn't give in to his own ritual. "Meanwhile..." He said by abandoning the tattoo in favor of the rest of the back of the singer. "I intend to make you say and ask a lot of things."

Dean gave a satisfied groan. Neither of them had planned to get out of bed for the next two days. They had the time. For once.

##

Madison's room wasn't closed when Sam went back to the hotel later in the day, he could hear her sing from the corridor. Amused, he pushed the door with the tips of fingers, ready to leave quickly if he was facing a show that he wasn't supposed to see. She was dancing while packing her suitcase. Actually she was dancing much more than she was folding her clothes and Sam leaned against the doorframe, smiling, and arms crossed waiting for her to realize his presence. It could take a while because she had headphones on and was dancing with eyes closed.

"It crawled under my skin

Broke my bones

Crushed them with my sins

And let me buried in the ground."

Sam frowned. He knew the song, Dean had written it and they had recorded it for a demo a few years ago. It didn't appear on any of their albums and as far as he knew, no one else than them and Bobby knew the song. But obviously, Madison had already heard it numerous times because she was perfectly in time with the music that Sam remembered only vaguely.

"Wasn't I dead yesterday?

Your voice, louder than thunder

Found me, tracked me like a hunter

Wasn't I dead yesterday?"

Madison had her hands on the headphones, a concentrated look, and inspired as Sam hadn't seen her for a long time. It would have been very funny if he hadn't had the nagging feeling that there was something important in this scene. He remembered the lyrics, he remembered the moment when Dean's pen had landed on a blank page of the leather book and had begun to trace the words one after the other. He had had the same concentrated look as Madison at that moment as she raised her fists in the air, and resumed her dancing to her suitcase, a t-shirt in her free hand.

"This is me now

This is a new beginning

Standing, rising, fighting

Just tell me how?"

He knew what the song meant for him, for Dean, and for Castiel who had participated in the writing even if he denied it. He didn't know what Madison saw in it. He basically didn't know what anyone saw in their music. They did their best but he'd have had to be much more pretentious than he was to imagine that they were particularly good. And they only talked about their lives, their emotions. How, why so many people identified with it was a mystery to him that he wasn't seeking to elucidate.

Madison eventually saw him and started violently, stifling a cry of surprise.

"You could knock!" She yelled, removing her headphones that she squeezed against herself.

"I could have taken the door off without you to hear me!"

She winced and put everything she had in her hands on the bed. "What brings you here?". He shrugged.

"I heard a noise. How do you know this song?"

Madison seemed embarrassed for a moment and looked down. "Castiel passed it to me before leaving. I must have listened to it about two hundred times in two weeks."

Sam smiled. "Did I just discover your favorite song?"

"Of Free Will, yes. But it's not my favorite among all."

"What'd be your favorite?"

She shook her head. "You're going to make fun of me so I won't tell you."

Sam chuckled softly. "I'll end up knowing you know."

"No."

"Yes."

"You're unbearable."

He helped her packing her suitcase and as usual their discussion led them much later than they would have thought. When they realized the time, night had fallen and Madison was hungry but had no desire to leave her room.

"You have an entire city to explore in three days and you just wasted your first day!" Sam said.

"I didn't take this job to explore the cities, I've lived all my life in LA and I still get lost over there!" She grumbled, crossing her arms. They were both sprawled on the small couch in the hotel room she shared with another roadie. Sam could have occupy all the space alone and she regularly pushed with her foot to keep her place. He said nothing for a moment and then "Pizza?"

She nodded. "And a very bad movie to pass the time."

"If you want me to watch a bad movie I need beer!"

She pointed the built-in fridge with her thumb. "Two packs here."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What did you expect? We're roadies, beer is sacred!" She commented, rising to get drinks and glasses for good measure while he searched on his phone how to get delivered pizzas in this town. The operation took him enough time for Madison have found the video on demand.

"This one!" Sam said, pointing to the screen on which was displayed the trailer of a film. She raised her eyebrows but said nothing while he placed his order.

"Seriously, "The Bridges of Madison County"? You didn't find anything lousier as a joke?" She grumbled.

"Hey! My joke is lousy but the movie's good! The pizza will be there in half an hour."

She handed him her beer for him to open it. Weeks stacking boxes of equipment had built her, but she'd probably be part her whole life of the people unable to uncap a bottle with bare hands.

When the pizza arrived, they had finished their first beer and Robert Redford was installing his photographic equipment near a river.

"Cas takes photos." Sam said before starting his first slice. They hadn't use the glasses and Madison hadn't bothered to pick up plates knowing that they would eat directly from the box. After all, eating a pizza with anything else than the fingers fell under sacrilege. "Dean gave him a camera last year."

"How are his photos?"

"No idea, he refuses to show them to me and I'm not even sure he shows them to my brother."

Three beers, two pizzas and almost a movie later, they were both fists clenched on their knees begging Meryl Streep to get off the car to follow the love of her life. As if they hadn't already seen the movie a dozen times between them, and as if their pleas could have any effect on the end. Naturally that didn't work out. They fell on the couch while the credits began and remained silent until the end. Sam was jingling his fingernails against the glass of his bottle.

"You know" Madison said thoughtfully. "I was expecting something else by slogging with a rock band."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, sex, drugs, more scandal, more paparazzi, a little less rides and repetition I guess."

Sam smiled. "You didn't think we were really working in the music world, admit it."

She shook her head wallowing on the couch. Alcohol was pleasantly relaxing her. "Guilty. And ultimately I end up with people whose motto is "Don't do anything illegal"... How did it come to you?"

Sam also wallowed on the sofa, arms crossed, legs outstretched on the chair he had pulled in front of him. "Long story." He said with a sudden gloomy look. "Not one of the happiest either."

"Is it also about Jess?"

"Everything doesn't revolve around her."

Madison looked at him both sarcastic and sad, head lazily resting on the back of the couch. "With you, it seems so."

Sam shook his head, sobered by Madison's questions. "No, it's not about her. Well, not directly. But she was one of the few people who knew."

"Who knew what?"

He looked at Madison, really looked at her, as if he didn't know her. He saw like for the first time her cheekbones made pink because of the alcohol and the heat of the room. Lean shoulders hidden by a shirt with long sleeves, hair tied low on her neck, jeans that seemed to have been worn for one week (it was also probably the case, Madison loved her practical, comfortable clothes and nothing was more comfortable than too worn jeans). She had developed her muscles from carrying crates of equipment, and the shadows under her eyes were dug, her eyes seemed blacker. He didn't know why the review seemed so important at that moment, but he was surprised to find that she wasn't shying away from it, she didn't move aside from the regular lifting of her chest when she breathed. She waited for him to consider her trustworthy, as if she was facing a wounded animal, and she dared not move for fear of frightening him.

"That I killed someone."

He had expected the jolt, her skin growing pale, her straightening all of a sudden and moving aside from him. Jessica had had the same reaction. And curiously, he had to know her enough to have also expected her second reaction, because he wasn't surprised when she leaned over the coffee table to catch her half-empty beer and asked simply "What happened?"

He straightened too, it wasn't a discussion that he could have if he didn't hold himself upright a little. He had a lump in his throat, he knew that before the end he would have trouble talking. And yet he wanted to tell her as he had felt like, no, needed to tell her about Apple and Jessica. When he began his story, they both knew that something had changed between them. Madison was entering the excessively closed circle of people Sam entrusted. He didn't realize that she had turned the TV off, but he realized that she had slipped her hand in his.

He closed his eyes and began to tell.