January 22nd, 2004 York, Pennsylvania

Dean woke at six a.m., bleary-eyed and exhausted. Momentarily, he contemplated flopping over onto his other side and falling back asleep. But then he heard it; the shower was running again. Excellent. He had a minute to investigate.

The hunter sat up – eyes wide open now. He canvassed the room quickly, taking note of key details. The unmade bed opposite his. The half-empty pack of cigarettes on top of the television. Across the River, open on the desk, accompanied by Faith's spiral notebook and an abandoned pen. Prompted by intuition, Dean reached across the space between the two queens and checked. Sure enough, his suspicions had been accurate: the bed was stone cold.

As the running water trickled to a halt, its absence revealed another sound, too quiet to have been heard previously. It was Faith. At first, he thought she was just talking to herself – which, honestly, wouldn't surprise him much at this point. But then he realized she was singing. Huh. Vampire Slayers sang in the shower. Who knew?

"I'm standing on a bridge . . . waiting in the dark. I thought that you'd be here by now. There's nothing but the rain, no footsteps on the ground. I'm listening but there's no sound. Isn't anyone trying to find me? . . . Won't somebody come take me home?"

He didn't recognize the song, which made sense. It sounded poppy. Dean only listened to pop music under duress. Weirdly enough, this whole thing was making him feel awkward. Although he had not technically done anything, Dean felt that he was invading her privacy just by listening. He should probably do something. Trip over a chair or knock a book to the floor or turn on the television. Something to let her know that she had an audience. But . . .

"It's a damn cold night. Trying to figure out this life. Won't you take me by the hand? Take me somewhere new. I don't know who you are, but I . . . I'm with you."

The bathroom door opened, and a towel turbaned head emerged. "Oi, voyeur. Want to go pick up breakfast from the diner? I'll have my hair dry by the time you get back."

"Uh…"

"I'll take an omelette. Gotta start prepping for fancy American waitressing. Omelettes are fancy, aren't they?"

"Uh… You sound excited this morning?" Dean hazarded, climbing out of bed and picking up his jeans. He did not want to have another door slammed in his face or be locked out of the bathroom again.

Faith grinned, her gaze lingering on the man's bare chest. Some people had to pay money for views like this. "While someone was snoring, I was reading that brick over there. And guess what?"

"What?"

"I know where the body's buried." Still grinning, she stepped fully into the room. With one tug, the turban came free, and her wet hair tumbled down. "Isn't that important?" she asked teasingly, toweling it dry. "In case it's not actually a serial killer?"

Dean's fingers froze, halfway through buttoning up his shirt. "I could kiss you."

The Slayer glanced up from drying her hair. "Mmm. If I've got this right, doesn't it go kill the monsters, save the day, then kiss the girl?"

"I don't think the order really matters that much."

"Mmm." Another long once-over. "You have a point. Probably should hold off on that until we do solve this thing, though."

Wondering – and not for the last time – how Faith compared to the other Slayers, Dean wedged his way past this particular Slayer into the bathroom. Faith moved automatically out of his way. He unplugged the hotel's cheap hairdryer from the outlet and handed it to her. "Here."

"Huh?"

"My turn. And then we're both going to go to the diner."

Faith waited until the door was closed before voicing her next comment. "Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah?" came the muffled response.

"You should sleep shirtless more often."

"Hey, Faith?"

"Yeah?"

"You first."


As a general rule, the second day of any investigation got pretty boring. Dean was aware of this. In fact, he had expected it. On Day One, you usually started out with a thousand questions and very little idea of what you were up against. By Day Two, however, you had better have a working hypothesis and a list of questions to get answered and people to talk to. Unless you got any sudden breakthroughs, it was mostly crossing things off a list. Make sure you interviewed all the right people, read all the right local legends, and prepared for trouble.

Dean had worked hundreds of jobs, with his dad or Sammy or Bobby or another of John Winchester's hunting buddies. He was well-acquainted with the traditional formula, with the dullness and exhaustion that was Day Two. You couldn't really hope for things to pick up on Day Two. You had to put in the people time and do the research. No self-respecting monster attacked on Day Two.

Working with Faith made things different. Faith, he could tell, wasn't aware of the formula. To his surprise, she had bluntly refused to impersonate a law enforcement officer – from any agency. The hunter was so used to doing things the way John Winchester did them – you stay sharp, you stay on top, you follow orders. The only other way of doing things he had any experience with was Sammy's – and given the amount of yelling, arguments, and hissy fits that followed, he didn't think that was worth much.

But Faith, Faith didn't do orders. She talked. She talked, she flirted, she questioned. She was somewhere in the middle – not his commanding officer, not his constantly complaining little brother. And it was nice. To open a text message and have it be a joke about a suspect's hair rather than an angry demand. To have someone wondering what he wanted for lunch and asking him questions about ghosts – and, what's more, actually listening to the answers.

This time, Day Two seemed to be flying by. His interviews – checking out a couple more things with the local police, paying Mike O'Malley a call to ask about the Coyle murder – were less awkward than usual. He didn't even mind going back to the library a second time to fact check some lore about hauntings. If this was a ghost attack, why had the ghost just started murdering people a decade ago when he had been dead for over a century?

The people at the Accomac Inn were giving Faith a half hour for lunch, so he drove himself over there a little after two. She snuck out of the restaurant, and they leaned against the side of the Impala. Dean chowed down on a pulled pork sandwich (courtesy of the Inn) while Faith lit up.

"It's just one of those days," she explained, exhaling a slow stream of smoke. "Too slow and then too fast. The food comes too late, or its too cold, or someone spills their wine glass all over themselves. Can you believe it? I'm working at a place where people have wine for lunch."

"You got anything for me?" he asked between bites.

"I don't know . . . maybe." Faith frowned slightly, and a thin vertical line appeared between her eyebrows. "Not sure. I'm getting a vibe – my spidey senses are tingling – but I don't know what yet. Maybe I'll be able to tell you tonight, maybe not until tomorrow . . . they want me to work another double."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "They must love you."

"Eh. What's not to love?" The winter wind gusted up, blowing out Faith's smoke. She stared at the extinguished cigarette regretfully and then tapped it so that the ash landed on Dean's boots.

"Hey. Watch it."

The Slayer sighed. "I'd better go in. Pick me up at eleven again?"

"Sure thing. How're you holding up?"

She considered the question momentarily. "Whatcha mean?"

"Day two of a hunt. It's always more boring than Day one. Usually, anyways," he added at her skeptical glance.

Dropping her cigarette butt onto the asphalt, Faith squashed it with the heel of her boot. "Dean Winchester, you are a marvel." She patted the hunter's arm absently. Then, without so much as a glance over her shoulder, she returned to the restaurant.


January 23rd 2004, York, Pennsylvania 3:00 a.m.

It was the whimpering that woke him. Sounded like someone was beating a puppy. He blinked slowly, glancing around the darkness for the source of the noise. After searching the room, his gaze lit on Faith on the other bed closer to the door. The Slayer was rolling from side to side, twitching and muttering. Dean was disappointed but not shocked. If his guesses about her behavior that morning had been right, this was the third night in a row that her nightmares had woken one of them up.

Until this point, Dean had just left it alone. Faith's vault of secrets was off-limits. But now this was just getting to be too much.

"Faith," he called, his voice just above a whisper. No response, except for more tossing and turning and a panicked, "No. Stop."

"Faith," Dean repeated, somewhat louder. "Faith. Wake up. You're dreaming."

Suddenly, the Slayer startled upright. She was out of the bed and across the room in half a second. She leaned against the opposite wall, brandishing a serrated Bowie knife, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the dark. Chest heaving with each breath, the Slayer stared at him in utter incomprehension.

"Faith." Moving slowly, Dean pulled his covers back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He lifted his hands in a gesture of peace. "Easy, Faith. It's Dean. We're in Pennsylvania. The Coyle murder, remember?"

She blinked. Something clicked in that sleep-muzzled head, and the knife dropped to her side. "Dammit." Faith turned her back on Dean and pressed her forehead into the wall. Her question was muted by the wallpaper. "What time is it?"

"Three a.m."

After swearing a second time, the Slayer asked in an emotionless voice, "I guess it's too early to pick back up on the hunt again?"

Lowering his hands, Dean tried to relieve the tension. "Kinda need my five hours' beauty sleep. This handsome face has to have some down time."

"Sh-t."

"Faith, you need to sleep, too."

This time, she looked at him. "Can't sleep. Not if this keeps happening."

The hunter sighed. "Are we going to talk about it?"

"What?" Faith shook her head violently. "No. We're not going to talk about it."

"Okay. It's just that, this is the third night you've done this, Faith – you got the shakes on the drive down," he explained. "And we've only been on this hunt for four days. I'm kind of starting to think this is a chronic thing of yours. So, I gotta wonder, how long has this been going on?"

"How long has what been going on?" she hedged.

"The nightmares."

She didn't answer, simply looked at him, her eyes still wide and rolling like a horse's. Dean waited, counting on her to break the awkward silence first.

After sixty seconds or so, she did. "I told you about the love bite on my neck."

"Mmm."

"Well, right before the vampire bit me, he, uh, he threatened to turn me." Faith ran her fingers along the edge of the Bowie knife, hard enough to feel something but gentle enough to not cut herself. "We had a history, I guess you could say. Sometimes," she paused, "sometimes I dream that he went through with it. It's, um, not pleasant."

"Can't imagine that it would be."

Faith snorted. "Yeah. Anyway, the dreams didn't show up until a good few months after … Guess I was too busy saving the world to worry about my own crap. Used to just get 'em every other week or so. Now it's nearly every night." She kept her voice casual as her fingers stroked the knife. "Lately, I've just been avoiding sleep." Her gaze became a direct challenge. "So what's your big solution, Sleeping Beauty?"

Dean sighed again. "Come here." He swung his legs back into the bed and scooted over to the side, sitting up against the headboard. When Faith remained still at the wall, he repeated, "Come here."

Normally, Faith would have told Hunter Ken exactly where he could stick his crap and run out. But it was three a.m. in the frakking morning, and she hadn't gotten above four hours of sleep a night for the last three weeks. She dragged her feet as she went, but still the Slayer approached. Faith eyed the foot of space on the mattress that Dean had just vacated for a long moment before sitting. She kept her back to him as she lay down.

"I don't do this kind of thing," Faith announced to the empty air. She closed her eyes. The bed was warm, and she could hear the man's breathing. She listened intently to the inhales and exhales, focusing on the sound. Relaxing slightly, Faith rolled to her other side.

He was right there. Closer than she would like. Closer than she ever let people get with their clothes on. Through her eyelids, Faith could feel the man's gaze. One of her knees bumped into his ankle. "How is this supposed to help?"

Dean forced some humor into his voice to conceal his own worry. Faith's strange behavior had him unsettled. "Here's what might work. Permission to touch?"

"Permission granted," the Slayer acceded reluctantly.

"Open your eyes and come here."

First, one eyelid lifted, and then the second. Hesitantly, Faith raised her eyes to meet his. Dean was sitting watching her, a cool, measuring look on his face.

"Come here," Dean said a final time, voice deep and resonant.

She sat up and shifted over, sliding along the cotton poly-blend sheets until her right hip met his side and her chin brushed his shoulder. Dean took over from there. One arm wrapped around Faith and held her close. The other hand began tracing the barbed wire wire tattoo on her right arm. Faith turned her face into his chest and shut her eyes again. The darkness was safer, somehow.

Thankfully, Dean didn't say anything for a long moment. He just breathed, slow and steady, in and out, in and out, and doodled on her arm. After a minute or two, Faith found her breathing matching his. No one had held her like this since she was a small child, not even Angel. That was an oddly painful thought, so she pushed it away.

Clearing his throat, the hunter said quietly, "When my brother Sam was about eight, he found out about hunting, and he started having nightmares. He didn't want anyone to know, but we were always sharing a bed in a motel, so he couldn't hide them from me. I remembered this working on him when he was little, so, one night when he was having a bad dream, I just pulled him up against my shoulder and sang to him until he fell back asleep."

Faith found herself relaxing, almost against her will. "How cute. Are you going to sing to me?" she asked Dean's shoulder.

With a chuckle, he shook his head. "Only if you beg me to." A brief silence followed, and then, "Faith, when was the last time somebody took care of you?"

"Well, Giles and the rest of the Watcher's Council are currently footing this motel room bill, if that's what you mean."

Her attempt at flippancy didn't get past him. "No. When was the last time somebody actually took care of you?"

"Maybe . . . when I was six. That was about when my dad took off and my mom lost it . . . I don't exactly inspire that 'taking care of' instinct in people, I guess."

The hunter frowned. "Why are you always kicking yourself when you're down?"

"I dunno. Works faster than waiting for someone else to kick me."

"Why would anyone want to kick you?" The Slayer didn't respond. "Never mind. Secrets, right?"

"Right," Faith whispered.

Lifting his hand from her shoulder, Dean asked, "Can I try something?"

"What?"

He let the back of two fingers rest against the left carotid pulse near the base of her neck. "It freaks you out when anyone touches the bite, doesn't it? Even though it's pretty much invisible now?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Can you hold still for me? I'm gonna try something."

Faith stiffened, and her eyes snapped open. "Dean, not a good idea. I'm still trying to deal with whatever the hell it is you're doing here. I don't do non-platonic cuddling, remember? Much less platonic cuddling."

Ignoring her, Dean brushed his knuckles along the path of the vampire bite. Faith bit her lip. Just the thought of people touching her vampire scars was usually enough to send her into the land of the deeply uncomfortable. This was almost more than she could handle. "Dean."

Still, he did not retreat. "As long as you're afraid of the bite itself, that vampire is winning. That vampire is beating you. Do you want him to keep winning, Faith?"

"No," she croaked, eyes burning. One tear, then two, and then a torrent of them were dripping down her face onto Dean's t-shirt. Faith let the tears fall without remorse. It was three a.m. in the frakking morning, and she hadn't slept properly in a week. "No, okay? I don't want him to win."

Finally, Dean dropped his hand. "Okay. Then what are you going to do about it?"

She shoved him away, checking her strength so that she only pushed him across the bed and not the room. Wiping at her streaming eyes, Faith glared balefully. "I think I'll find some redneck hunter Barbie to give me a lovely hickey right on top of the scar. That'll fix it, don't you think? Or maybe I could get the vampire himself to do it. That should settle the nightmares right proper."

"Why are you talking British?"

The Slayer pulled a few very colorful and anatomically impossible commands from her vast collection of profanity and hurled them vehemently at the hunter. In Faith's book, it was always easier (and better) to be angry than to deal with emotion. "You don't get to do this, Dean. You don't get to pretend to be my friend and then frakking touch me when I tell you not to. That's not okay. You ever do that again, and I will personally put you in the ground. Six foot deep. You piss me off enough, and I'll put you down there alive."

He opened his mouth to say something, but Faith cut him off with a savage gesture.

"Not finished yet. I'm not your little brother. I'm not some weepy two-bit whore you can bat your pretty green eyes at. I am Faith the Vampire Slayer. And I don't need your effing help to deal with anything. Not nightmares, not vampire bites, not anything."

With a short pause for breath, Faith finished in a voice of deadly calm. "You'd best remember, Dean Winchester. All those monsters of yours? All those things that go bump in the night? They're scared of me."

Dean sat on the far edge of the bed, watching her warily. He reached one hand beneath his pillow, fingers outstretched wide. They closed around the grip of his Colt. Just in case.

"The way I see it, we've got a few choices here," the Slayer continued after a minute's quiet, when the extent of her bravado had sunk in and she found herself once again exhausted.

"Option one, you try to shoot me with that pretty pistol you've got hidden away, and I break your arm. Option two, you actually shoot me, I still break your arm, and then you get to report to the Watcher's Council how you killed their Slayer. Plus, you spend the rest of your life dealing with the guilt of killing a girl."

"And the other options?"

"Option three, we screw each other's brains out and pretend this never happened. Option four, you apologize for being a dick, I apologize for overreacting, and we put this behind us. So. Which one will it be?"

Once again, Dean attempted to deflect with humor. "Is there somewhere in between three and four?" At Faith's stony gaze, he hurried to retract his previous words. "I'm sorry. I . . . got carried away."

"Hand off the gun?"

Somewhat reluctantly, the hunter released the pistol and set his empty hands in his lap. "See? No gun."

"Good. That's . . . good." Faith swallowed. She collapsed back onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling. "G-d, we're messed up."

Silence.

"I . . . I guess I should apologize for freaking out." She took a couple of deep, ragged breaths. "I don't do helpless. I don't do emotions. I don't do anything deep."

"Must be hard on your friends," Dean commented.

There was more than a tinge of bitterness in the laughter this occasioned. "Friends? Dean, I don't have friends. Every relationship I touch, I destroy. Like just now. G-d, I haven't lost control like that in . . . ages."

"Permission to approach?" Humor seemed to be a better defense than an actual weapon.

"Frak you." On second thought, perhaps not.

"Mmm. I thought we decided to skip option three?"

Faith lurched up off the bed and to her feet. "I gotta go," she said, brushing at her eyes with the back of her wrist, avoiding looking in Dean's direction. "This whole hunting thing was a bad idea. I gotta . . . go." She stumbled across the room and grabbed her backpack. "I'll . . . see you around," she said with a broken smile, her hand on the doorknob.

"Wait." The Slayer hesitated, her fingers curling around the bronze-colored metal. "Faith, I'm sorry. I crossed a line, and I'm sorry. Don't . . . don't run. Or at least wait until morning. You still want to go when the sun comes up, I'll take you to a bus station. I promise."

Shoulders slumping, Faith dropped her bag to the floor and took a few hesitant steps back toward Dean. She sat on the very edge of the bed, her feet planted on the floor, braced for takeoff. "I . . . I guess I'm not much good at people."

"Can I ask you something?"

"That's what gets you in trouble, Dean, remember?" The laugh was more of a sob.

"You don't want to talk to me, I get that. That's okay. And I went about trying to get you to talk all the wrong way."

Faith shook her head at this, remembering how different it had felt for someone to give a damn, just for ten minutes. She could still feel the ghost traces of his hand on her skin, reminding her of what her mom used to do, forever and a day ago..

"But who do you talk to? There's gotta be somebody, Faith. I don't have a clue about a quarter of the things in that dark head of yours, but what I have seen is kind of scary. Hot, but scary. You can't deal with all that crap by yourself."

"Says who?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Probably every shrink ever."

A sigh. "I don't trust people. The one person I could talk to is kind of in the middle of all this stuff, so . . . kinda rules that one out."

"You could talk to me." He paused as she whipped her head around to look at him with those burning brown eyes. "If you wanted."

"After that little Bedlam episode? You still want to hear me talk?"

"Sure." Dean didn't elucidate on his other reasons: he wanted to find out how dangerous she actually was, and he felt guilty for winding her up. The hunt had been going so well up until then.

She stared him down, that wild-horse gaze of hers that always promised to be five seconds away from bolting. "You first," she said at last. "Secret for secret. You tell me what happened to your little brother, and I'll tell you about Angel."