Chapter 14

"Thank you for finding Sam"

Dean was sincerely grateful. This hunt might have gone down differently if it were just him and his brother working it. While there would have been a more concentrated effort on focusing on the job, rather than their interpersonal issues, this was still a more complex job than any of them had anticipated. In all likelihood though, it would have been more difficult with less than three people and he might not have found his brother at all.

"I was just doing my job."

Dean Winchester knew that game by heart, played it far too often. There were times he wanted her to be a little colder and detached but now wasn't one of them. "You can't even take a complement, a thank you?"

"I don't need one. I would have done the same for anyone else."

"So, because it was me, my brother, what, you had to go to extra effort? Damn, Mae. Do you really hate me that much?"

The man couldn't let it be. She was trying to disengage. In a few hours, she could put this behind her. Whatever it had been, there were only uncomfortable emotions tied to this family for her now. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yeah. Great."

As if he needed more reason to hate camping. Their détente seemed to have passed. He didn't know what he had expected. Of course, it was over. But now, it felt closer to done. It was good he supposed; he had always had questions as to how she felt. She gave him some answers, not real ones but she was stubbornly refusing to look at the situation. Mae was cold now, distant and indifferent. It was understandable after these many years, doing this job that she would have become a different woman. Why the hell did any of that matter to him? It was obvious that she had stopped loving him a long time ago; he was just too dumb to realize it.

"I don't hate you Dean." Anywhere other than the silence of forest, he might not have heard her. He didn't have more to say but he looked from the fire to the redhead. "I've never been able to hate you. Wouldn't things have been easier if I truly did hate you?"

Regarding her in the yellowy light, he knew that he couldn't bring himself to give up. She could walk all over him time and time again. He only hoped now that he was wise enough to not let her. "Yeah, I tried pretty hard too."

She gave a slightly self-depreciating laugh next. "To hate me or you?"

"You. I wanted to. I wanted to hate dad too... but I... couldn't." Dean sighed. He knew this was his last chance. She would take off and next time the need to reconnect came up, he knew she would ignore it. He could get the answers to the most important questions and risk nothing by being honest with her. Maybe she would see the same. "Mae… what went wrong?"

"Well, we got our asses handed to us by...basically possessed mud in dumb hats… of all the part of the lore that were true, I didn't think that would have been one of them."

"I meant with us."

"Oh… yeah well… lots." Her eyes went back to the fire and even from her profile, he could see the wheels turning in her mind. "That's an understatement."

They fell into silence again. Mae had thought a great deal about what had gone wrong since she'd picked up that call from John. She wondered if some of her drive to let Sam and Dean know she had been following them was a strange sort of penance.

A lot had gone wrong, too much, she though. For her, a lot of the things than had gone wrong started long before the breaking point for Dean. A long time before she had hurt him. While she had told him, he didn't really know or understand what had happened that night, she wasn't certain what John had told him. He had the barest of details, but it seemed no one had bothered to give him any measure of truth.

Did he need to know? Did he want to know? There was at least a decade of incidents, seemingly happenstance or bad fortune that Dean took as such. Mae knew differently. One thing that had become quite clear is that he was in the dark on a great many details of hunting.

Maybe he deserved to learn more, perhaps understand more. Dean wasn't going to forgive her. She didn't need his forgiveness, but it seemed that there was a part of him that did want to find some morsel, some fact that made it possible for him. The guilt she felt wasn't fully related to Dean. She didn't feel guilt over the sex. It wasn't the sort of sex or betrayal Dean thought it was. She felt guilt and a great deal of it when it came to everything that happened following that night.

Despite her claims to the contrary, she knew Dean loved her and perhaps still loved her. And she had loved him, with all her heart. She was only slightly hesitant to acknowledge that she still loved him. There had been others but never quite like Dean. Mae turned her head to look at him. His eyes were closed but he wasn't asleep. She didn't expect him to sleep.

Watching him, she marveled at how calm he could look sometimes, even when he was rather tense. He was quite handsome, always had been. His boyishness hadn't completely melted away. Mae allowed herself a small smile. He looked rather rugged with his two-day-old stubble, shadows and light from the fire playing against his features. His ragged appearance did not detract from the package. Hell, he played perfectly into that long-standing fantasy of a knight in shining armor. Only her knight didn't ride a white horse or act particularly courtly. He was a good guy with a bad boy patina.

She was not supposed to still feel this way about him. At this point in her life, he shouldn't have had any effect on her. Then again, it was clear they had a mutual effect on each other. Mae could see Dean's confusion. For her, the buildup had been gradual, little things that had changed her in the time they spent apart. Dean had no way of knowing exactly what had happened to her, she'd hesitated ever saying it, for fear that it would drive them further apart.

They had never gotten the chance to know each other as adults. Things might have been different if they had taken the opportunity but that was another thing they couldn't change. There were not any questions on what had driven that final wedge between them. She tried to forget about the whole thing, it was layer and layer of hurt and pain. But ignoring it didn't solve anything with the situation she found herself in with Dean.

There wasn't anything she could do to fix it either. How did you come back from that soap opera situation? How could she explain what had happened? There had to be an upper limit on what he would realistically believe.

His eyes opened then and seemed to pin her, which sank like a stone in her stomach. If he could tell what was running around in her mind, she didn't get an indication of it. "You should get some sleep. Take the other sleeping bag. It's yours, after all." His voice was a little rough and it made her smile.

"Could you sleep out here?" A little laugh and slight smile were his response before he got up and moved closer to her.

She didn't bother hiding the surprised expression but made no point of it when he sat next to her. "I thought you liked camping." Dean could make nice, he wanted to, he reminded himself.

"I used to. When it was me and Bobby and you, your dad and Sam… it used to be fun. Like, when it didn't feel like training. Now the only time I go out into the woods is to hunt. And things become much less fun when something's trying to kill you back."

"You got me there."

"I always thought you would like camping. I never got why you didn't." Exhaustion colored her words, as did the cautious openness. It was hard to carry so much around especially when he seemed able to say or do just the right thing to set her off.

"It's cold, your bed is rocky and there is a distinct lack of attractive women out here, present company excluded. No thanks sweetheart, I'll take a motel any night."

She chuckled. "Well… I wish I had more small talk. I rarely have to make it."

"Me either. Can I ask you something serious?" He gauged her reaction to the simple inquiry; she was tense and on edge.

"Serious?" Mae let out a long sigh. "I don't know Dean, I'm not too big on serious either."

"I mean it."

There wasn't any question what it was about and hell, at least out here they could yell as loud as they wanted, and they weren't likely to be attacked. The woman relented since there wasn't a point in fighting. "Fine, go ahead."

"What's that tattoo on your back?"

She almost laughed at that. "The tattoo? It's a tattoo, Dean."

"I can see that. What's it mean?" Mae let herself snicker now.

"It means I got tattooed once." Evasiveness suited her somehow but that didn't mean he liked it. Damned if he wasn't once again torn between affection and annoyance with her all over again. But it was only a few moments before she sighed. "I spent some time in Thailand and Cambodia, a bit ago."

Dean offered her an expression between disbelief and amazement. Mae had gotten herself a little life, not normal perhaps but a life. He had been thinking about that more now that Sam was back hunting. He could see just how happy his brother had been having a real life. Was Mae? Had she been pulled out of that life she used to have too? So many questions came to mind with that one little fact. "You spent some time in Cambodia?"

"That's what I just said isn't it?" Even though Mae didn't succeed in keeping the sharpness out of her voice Dean didn't notice. He appeared downright entranced with her now.

"Yeah but… you act like it was just so casual, like everyone spends some time in Cambodia." Mavis shrugged.

"It's not like... it's possible to be a hunter and have a life."

"For you that was Cambodia?" It occurred to him that this was something he should have known about her. He didn't even know that she had wanted to travel. Sure, their families had been all over the U.S. except Hawaii. Dean knew Mae liked the open road like he did but he hadn't thought about going anywhere you couldn't drive. Cambodia had been a draw for her, why on earth was that?

"And Thailand."

"So, you flew like…thousands of miles to get some ink?"

Mae shifted against the tree trunk, letting her eyes pass from Dean, to the fire, and to Sam for a moment. Surely, they could be discussing something else. This felt too personal. "It's call a yant and it's not just a tattoo. Yantra is… spiritual, okay? I worked hard to get this."

"Tell me about it."

"You'll just make fun of me."

"No, I won't."

"That's all you do."

"I can do other things Mae."

"Whatever." They argued like children sometimes. Bickering always seemed to crop up between the two even when they were getting along. It wasn't even an argument, but she knew they couldn't have a normal conversation. Even an abnormal conversation wasn't easy to come by.

"Mae you know…" He wasn't sure what exactly he was going to say to her. Was there even anything to say? He could charm a woman, but he wasn't trying to charm Mae right then. He could talk to people on a case, but he didn't have an innate gift for gab, and he wasn't the sort to have deeply soulful conversations. With Mae, one of those could end bloody. Still, he wasn't able to find anything to say that didn't end up annoying one or the other of them. He wanted, for a reason he couldn't put his finger on, to be friends with her again.

"What?" She finally asked, pausing as if she didn't want to know.

"Nothing."

"Then why did you say something?" It was asked under her breath for the most part but loud enough for Dean to hear.

"I just thought that maybe we could try and get along. We used to get along."

She softened a bit. When they were on the same page, there was no one she had a better connection with. "To get along, we have to be able to have a conversation that doesn't lead to us shouting, or throwing punches, or storming out."

"In all fairness, you're the hit-ier one of us."

Mae smirked a bit. "Well maybe you need to get your ass kicked by a girl from time to time, to keep you humble."

"You could at least pull your punches."

"Maybe next time. You know, we've both said and done things that we can't change."

"So that's it? You're fine with things like this?"

After a hesitant pause, she answered. "No. I'm not."

"Then maybe we should… try and work it out." Dean tried to think up the number of things he could tell her that would merit the 'you're crazy' look from the young woman as that statement had. It was an incredibly short list.

"You wanna talk? To me? About the past?" More emphasis rested on each statement as she said them, plumbing the darkness for the reason Dean was being so chatty.

He shrugged it off like it was no big deal even though his stomach was doing somersaults at the prospect of a genuine conversation with the woman. "Yeah, that such a bad thing?"

"Well, I've seen stranger things but not by much."

Dean knew it went against his 'no chick flick moments' rule but it was just the two of them now and he needed to know. "Funny. So…" He trailed off, not sure how to start.

There wasn't anything more that could be done to avoid the conversation and fighting about it was pointless. All she could do would be honest and as genuine as she could. Mae knew that the issues were different for both of them. He cared about a different side of this and she would address that first. "What are you looking for Dean? What is it that you want me to say about… everything?"

"I don't know. Just tell me why?" It should have mattered. Even if Mae didn't care about him, or their relationship she should have cared that his dad was almost like her Dad. John Winchester had treated the girl just as he did his own kids. Except for the sex part.

"Dean… I don't have a why."

"So, you just…screwed Dad because you could?" Dean actively tried to avoid thinking about the act. He hadn't walked in on them together but… it was good enough. They were both half-dressed and he knew that 'I made a big mistake' look that came with hasty sex. All the same, there was a reason they both did it and even a painful answer would have been better than nothing.

"No. Have you ever… c'mon, Dean you know sometimes things just fly out of control and one moment you're doing one thing and the next…"

"You're fucking your boyfriend's dad?"

Dean was blunter than most, but the words still hurt. "It wasn't like that. You and I were not together. And it wasn't even about sex. The sex was just-"

"I really don't wanna hear about what screwing my dad was like for you."

"I wasn't about to tell you. You asked why. It's not a simple answer. It wasn't because I wanted John. It wasn't because I wanted to hurt you. I didn't want either of those things, particularly hurting you."

He wanted to believe that. Hell, if he could have, he would have believed it didn't happen. If she could just tell him it was all in his mind, that it was a spell, or he was drunk… anything. "Well…"

"Dean, I don't expect you to forgive me okay? I know… I know whatever happens, your family comes first so-" Mae wanted to reach out for him, not because she needed him to tell her it was okay but because she wanted him to know it wasn't him. It's not you, it's me was simply too trite to attempt to tell him even if it were true for her.

"You're an idiot Mae." She looked at him, annoyed. As she opened her mouth to retort the statement, Dean continued. "You were family sweetheart. I loved you."

She looked down at her hands and replied quietly. "I know."

"You knew?"

Her brow was raised in an irrefutable way. "Because I'm not an idiot. I knew you loved me, I loved you too but… don't you see Dean, we never could have had anything real."

"What?" Was that what this was about? Dean had reached that place a long time ago even when he was still with her. They weren't white picket people and maybe he never would have married her, but he would have loved her. That was as tangible as anything else was.

There was more than a little venom in her tone. "What, you think we would have lived happily ever after?" Perhaps not happily ever after but damned if he didn't know that she was closer to him than almost anyone ever had been. "No… but maybe happy then."

"You're wrong, we wouldn't have been." Mae sounded just as certain about that as he was about his perspective. They would have been happy, he knew in his soul. What had messed her up, he wondered. "You're so sure?"

"Yeah."

"So, to make certain, you slept with my dad?"

It was an unfair jab. He wanted to strike back just a little because he knew he could have been there for her. They could have had, if not a fairy tale life, a decent life.

Mae's face contorted and she tried to compose herself. "No!"

Her explanation sounded strained. As Sam had put the question in his mind, he needed to know now. "Dad didn't… force you, did he?"

"What? No. Not like that."

Her startled response was a comfort. The idea that his father would force any woman, let alone Mae was something he didn't know if he could deal with. Still he didn't like the other half of her statement. "Not like that? What does that mean? So, it was sort of like that?"

"It means that while I wasn't angling to get down with your old man, I didn't stop him."

"Did you want him to stop?" Her breath came out sharp, but she didn't speak right away.

"I-yes. But I couldn't. It's not like it lasted hours. It happened and it was like neither of us were in control. But I did know that you...would act and feel the exact way you did. I didn't expect what happened to happen but once it had, once you had decided you knew what happened, I took advantage of it. I... that's what I wanted"

The woman had changed. Something cold and dark was a part of her now and it brought up a feeling of compassion he hadn't anticipated. "You could have found someone else."

She shook her head. "I wasn't looking to end it that way. You've got this all wrong. I didn't want sex. I just wanted… I wanted out."

Dean frowned, scooting a little closer. She had to be out of her mind because this wasn't exactly making sense to him. "Out? You came back to get out?"

She sighed but was on guard now, predicting the fight that wasn't coming. "Your dad didn't tell you anything about any of this?

He shook his head. "I don't get your story whole...I mean half the time you act like you wanted to sleep with my dad and the rest of the time, it's like you were forced. I don't know but it doesn't make sense."

She pressed her lips together. "It's not that simple. But at the end of the day, when it comes to me having sex with your dad, I-why should I justify my sex life to someone I'm not sleeping with?"

"Because we used to sleep together and... I mean, you picked a hell of person to have a one-night stand with."

Mae was quiet for a few moments longer. So long that he wondered if she had shut down again. "Dean, if you had walked in on me with someone else, would you feel the same way? Would you have stayed mad at me for 3 years?"

"No. I-I don't know. Probably not. I wouldn't have enjoyed it but...I would have gotten over it, I guess."

"And um, if you'd walked in on your dad with some chick who wasn't me? Would you have been pissed off at her for 3 years?"

"No. But-you both were sneaking around that whole day. I was sent off on some fake case, don't think I didn't figure that one out. You and Dad spun a hell of a lie around that and then that. What am I supposed to think?"

She nodded. "I-I guess I didn't know you had figured that out."

"I'm not a fucking idiot Mae! I might not have figured out exactly what was going on but I sure as hell can figure out if a werewolf is there or not."

"Yeah, that...We... I suppose I do owe you an apology for keeping what we were up to from you. But it wasn't some secret sex romp, okay? It was...we were hunting down a demon or so we thought. Your dad just wanted to keep you out of the field on this one. But um, it was a trap. One neither of us saw coming. You know, I... your dad is really driven."

He snorted. "You think?"

"I mean, more than...you know, normal. I think he wanted to find something more on that job."

"Meaning."

"Your dad has secrets. Good, bad, indifferent, I'm not judging," she added at his disbelieving expression. "I don't entirely know what he was doing, what he's doing now but..."

"But what?"

"I could be off, okay? But I think he's committed to an end goal that you're not fully aware of."

His eyes narrowed. "And you know this because of a day or so you spent with him years ago?"

"Some, yeah. We didn't... looking back, if he wasn't convinced that he found what he was looking for, he wouldn't have gone in so...recklessly. I know he realizes that's what happened."

"You don't know that."

"Dean, I promise you I'm not attacking him or trying to lay the blame for what happened. If it happened today, believe me I would have pushed back more against what he thought he'd found. He just wanted it to be true so much. And I know he's more careful because of what happened."

"Please tell me what happened. I know there's more than...I mean, at the very least I'm getting the idea that I didn't walk in on... my dad banging you. So... what exactly did I walk in on?"

She sighed. What did she have to lose. Either this would provide some closure or, well, it wouldn't be that hard to walk back to her car if he just left her in the middle of the wood. "You're not totally wrong. Sex happened. It... like I said, it was a trap. Something like a hex or spell or...I don't know curse. We both got caught up in it and... it was like being possessed, like someone or something else was driving me and it was this...urgent need. I couldn't stop myself from...I tried to stop myself, but I had no control and until it happened, I didn't regain my sense, my control."

"And dad just...went with it?"

Mae shook her head. "He was under it too. I think the same thing happened to him. It was primal, uncontrollable, and unwanted. We weren't...we absolutely weren't interested in sleeping with each other. If it makes you feel any better, it was hands down the worst sex I've ever had but at least it was quick."

"That doesn't help. Maybe a little. You coulda told me this three years ago."

"I told you, I didn't want to. You weren't the one I was concerned about most in that moment."

"Why didn't you just tell me you didn't love me anymore? Why let me make a fool of myself with you and... believe that maybe we'd...be together."

"What exactly did I do to indicate to you that I was interested in you or that I'd sleep with you?"

"Well... I just assumed-"

She cut him off. "But did I ever tell you that I was interested in any of it that day?"

"I-no. You seemed distinctly not into it."

"That's because I wasn't."

"I wish you'd just told me you didn't love me anymore."

"I... that wasn't the issue."

"Wait, you're telling me you still loved me?"

"It's not like you didn't still love me."

"Then why... why weren't you interested? It's not like...we haven't always had an attraction to each other."

"Yeah, we...I loved the boy I fell in love with when I was...13. It was almost 10 years later. And a huge chunk of that, we weren't even together."

"That doesn't matter if you still loved me. I was still in love with you."

Mae closed her eyes. There was an almost an innocence about his perspective on love and sex. Even now and she felt as if she were somehow betraying that spirit of her first love all over again by not feeling the same way. "I don't think love was ever our problem, you know? But I also don't think that..." She sighed, as tears welled a bit more. She was grateful for the darkness, having this conversation without having to look directly at him. "Dean, I didn't want to rehash all of this, with you of all people because...because you were always going to make it about your ego, about you. And none of this was about you. What happened that night wasn't about you. I was the one who that happened to, I was the one who got...I was hurt, I lost the most."

"Mae-"

"No, you wanted know so bad, so here it is. I was used, I was set up, and you know when I left to go home, I-took off on a whim to find...I don't know what. But I left a life, I left someone I loved at home on this...whim, this job. And the whole time, I thought the worst thing that might happen was that I'd end up in bed with you. Because no matter how much I loved my... well there was you. So, the fact that I ended up cheating on him despite trying to avoid you as much as I was... it... it was a huge mistake."

"I-I didn't know that."

"I'm aware. But you being mad at me helped keep you away, you know? And after I got home, well I was grateful for that because-well, like I said, I was set up and that demon was waiting for me at home. It... traded off, back and forth possessing us until...until," she didn't want to cry out loud, but the tears were flowing, and she had to pause to keep it together, "He died because of me. I... I was aware what was happening for a lot of it so he must have been. He had to know that I... hurt him, killed him. And I know it was because of that demon but I still can't forgive myself for what I did."

Dean frowned. He hadn't ever assumed that anything close to this had gone down. He thought maybe she and his dad were both drunk, or something that might more easily explain hooking up like that. No one had even come close to giving him the idea that any of this had been happening to her. "I-okay, I get what you mean now. I'm...I didn't mean to hound you the way I did and if I'd known-"

"You weren't even supposed to be there. You were supposed to be off on your own. And if I had known that you dad had given you the Impala, I would have avoided you. Maybe you wouldn't have even known I was there."

"Well, fuck."

"But you should know, I am sorry for hurting you. I-if it had just been the sex, I probably would have...tried to explain more to you."

"I'm sorry I've been kind of a dick to you."

"Well...here we are. I guess."

The silence that filled the area was nowhere near as tense as it had been. It was almost calm, the air filled with the soft crackling of the fire and the occasional sound that could have been nocturnal wildlife. Hopefully that's what it was. Neither of them had the energy for a physical or emotional fight at that point.

Dean broke the silence. "Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if you don't want."

"Okay."

"You still love me?"

"Yeah, I'm not answering that."

He could hear a hint of a smile in her answer.

"So that's a yes?"

"I... we've been fighting non-stop and the last three years between us have been shit. I mean, do you still love me?"

"I-a little, I think. I don't hate you. I even like you some of the time."

"That's fair and I could say likewise.

"You know," he started, "I would have gone anywhere you wanted. Back then. After you got hurt. I could have gotten a regular people job. You could have done whatever. Or we could have hunted together. It didn't have to be like it was."

Mae laughed a bit. "Dean." There was something so sweet about the young man under all the gruffness. No amount of bravado could hide it and she knew it would break that young man's heart all over again. "I..." She also didn't think that was entirely true. He wanted it to be true, she knew. "I didn't want that. After I got hurt, you know, I really did think I shouldn't be hunting, and I needed to make a life. I couldn't very well do that with a hunter. Reformed or otherwise. And you had just as much right to live your own life too. We needed to go our separate ways."

He sighed, wanting her to know just what they had lost. Not what he had lost, or even what she had lost but what they had lost. "I've never felt the way I felt about you again." The words came pouring out next, despite his desire to be uncompromising. "I've missed you Mae, okay?"

"Okay. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say."

"I guess...you didn't miss me?"

"You know that couldn't be true. You were my first...pretty much everything. Of course, I missed you. I just had... a lot going on."

"Yeah."

"This...we should get some sleep. Otherwise Sam'll have to carry both of us outta here."

"That sounds fair to me." He joked.

"You're the one who went for a swim today. I can't imagine you've warmed up entirely so why don't you take the sleeping bag?"

"That's...we'll share it, okay?"

"Dean..."

"Shared body heat. We'll be warmer, like soldiers, right?"

She narrowed her eyes a bit, trying to determine if it was a terrible idea but the idea of being warm that night won out and they shared the rather night accommodations of the sleeping bag for the night.

A/N- We're almost at the end of this story. This story had been posted in 2008 and a few years ago, I took it down to revise it but that took far longer than I anticipated. So, not that I've achieved this one goal, should I keep going with the rest of the series? I won't remove the stories in their entirety but would just replace chapter by chapter. Let me know if you want a revised series or if I can just put it all to bed!