Kylee was in the shower when Dean told Sam how thankful he was that Kylee was taking hunting so well, and how thankful he was that Sam had called her and explained hunting to her.
"Bobby helped explain, too," Sam told him. "You know how Bobby can have a calming effect on people. I think his presence helped."
"She's still here," Dean sounded like he couldn't really believe it.
"She's an amazing lady," Sam said. "She trusts you. Don't ever screw that up, Dean, because you'll never get it back."
"How would I screw it up?"
"Letting other ladies get your attention would be detrimental to your relationship."
"I know that, Sam."
"Just reminding you. Even Bobby thought she was quite remarkable."
"He what?"
"He thought she was quite remarkable and good for you. He said something like that rarely comes around more than once."
"Whew. For a minute there, I thought I was going to have to deck Bobby to defend my girl's honor."
Sam just smiled. He tried to remember the last time Dean had fought for a girl's honor. That probably would have been when Sam was in middle school. One of Sam's friends that just happened to be a girl was getting tormented by some boys. Dean had been waiting outside the school for Sam, so he stepped in and kicked their asses. He also warned them that he'd do it again if he heard they'd given her the tiniest bit of trouble. They never bothered her again.
SNSNSN
The four of them sat around the tiny motel table after Dean had shown that he was able to move his right hand and movement in his right arm only seemed to be restricted by pain. With Dean's health on the mend, it was time to tackle the next issue--helping Kylee understand what hunting was.
"How did you start hunting?" she asked.
Sam and Dean were surprised when Bobby started to answer the question. They had never asked Bobby why he was a hunter, even though they had wondered from time to time. Now since Kylee had posed the question, they were about to find out.
"My dad was a hunter," Bobby's voice had its usual gruffness in the silence of the room. "It was a tradition passed down from generation to generation. It had all started after an ancestor who had been in the woods hunting deer saw a creature that he couldn't identify. He shot it and it didn't die. He knew it was a good shot, and he was able to hit it a couple more times before it ran out of sight. He was puzzled about what he saw, so he asked around and started the extensive collection of books that I now have."
"Where did he even start?" Sam asked in wonder.
"With other men in the community who hunted the known animals like him," Bobby went on. "They weren't sure they could believe his story, some of them thought his eyes were playing games on him. Others whispered that he might have been a hard drinker or lost his mind from all the time he spent on his own in the woods. The more bold people confronted him directly about drinking or being insane. He had to move his family, he and his wife had a couple of boys, because of all the talk. When they were packing up the rest of their belongings, his one remaining friend came over to say goodbye. The friend had never understood what he had seen, but he also hadn't believed what the others were saying. He passed on a name of another hunter who had seen a strange creature in the woods a few towns over. He'd been scared to tell him before, thinking that he'd be run out of town, too."
"Was he able to find the man he was told about?" Kylee spoke up.
"He had a starting point, and that's when he learned to track," Bobby told them. "He found him, eventually, and that's when he was introduced to the kind of hunting we're talking about. We always had to lie about what our family did. Sometimes they held a regular job for awhile and hunted on the side when they could. It would go in cycles. It was our big family secret. I was so happy when I met John, Dean and Sam's father. All the knowledge our family had learned and passed on was a resource to him. I was able to help him find his way, and I got to meet the boys. Hell, they became frequent visitors to my home, and ended up family. I was the only one left in my family. I'd never married. I had no one to pass my wealth of knowledge on to. Now, I have these two boys to keep me busy. They sure do make like interesting." Bobby chuckled.
"I bet we do," Dean replied. "Why didn't you tell us this before, Bobby?"
"Didn't know you wondered," Bobby answered. "I told your Dad, and I didn't know that he hadn't told you guys somewhere along the way. Why didn't you just ask me? I would have told you. It wasn't a secret."
"We didn't know if your reason for hunting was as desperate as our father's," Sam said. "How we were thrown into it, we just didn't want to bring up bad memories for you."
"You guys think I'm that delicate? I thought you knew me."
They laughed.
"So can I ask how your father got started?" Kylee's voice was soft.
"I was four," Dean started after a pause. "I remember my dad yelling, the heat of the fire, and carrying Sammy outside. The rest I know only because Dad told us."
"Is that the fire how your mom died?"
Dean nodded.
"And something supernatural caused it?"
"The Yellow-Eyed Demon," Sam answered Kylee.
"That's who --or what--your dad started out hunting?"
Dean saw that it was starting to make sense, no matter how vague, to Kylee by the questions she was asking. He started to feel that there was hope that she would one day understand. Kylee had said they would figure it out together, and that had sounded like untangling a web to Dean. Understanding would be so much more than he had dared hope for.
