Chapter 14:

Gaia flipped through the paperwork she had laid out on her kitchen table, muffling a yawn with her fist. She picked up the crime scene photo she'd been looking for and looked it over, checking what she was seeing against the report she had before her. With a sigh, she put it down on the table, briefly closing her eyes and attempting to massage away the headache she was developing.

While the buzzing of her ringtone and her cell phone vibrating would have startled anyone else, Gaia blinked a few times at the vague pain behind her eyes and picked it up. "Yea, Moore."

There was a brief pause. "Hey. Ah…I don't really know why I'm calling you."

Gaia blinked. "Who is this?"

"Sorry. Dean. Winchester."

"Dean? Are you on a pay phone?"

"No. Cell. Why?"

"Hang up. Find a pay phone. Then call me back." At that, Gaia hung up the phone, putting it on the table next to her paperwork. She spent another few minutes thumbing through the reports she had before her cell rang again. "Y-ello," she spoke up.

"This is a collect call from…Any particular reason you wan—. Will you accept the charges?"

"Yea," Gaia replied. There was a click on the line. "Yea, Dean, there is a particular reason I wanted you to call me from a pay phone," she said, giving the paper in her hand a final look over before she put it down and sat back in her chair. "They're less traceable than cell phones. FBI agents getting calls from known felons isn't really smiled upon. You and Sam might get new cells every few months or so when it gets stepped on by a werewolf or whatever, but I don't love leaving things to chance. Ever since your national television debut, Sam calls me from pay phones and visa versa."

Dean paused for a moment. "Oh. Ah…fair enough. Didn't think about that before I called you."

"Why are you calling me anyway?" Gaia asked. "Last time I talked to you was like three years ago when you followed me outside in your boxers. By the way, I find it kind of amusing that I've seen you more naked than I've ever seen your brother and I've known him for five years and I knew you for about five minutes," she murmured thoughtfully.

Dean paused again, in slightly stunned silence. "Uh huh."

Gaia stood up, stretching her legs, and walked into her living room, sitting down on her couch and putting her legs up on her coffee table. "So did you plan on talking or did you just like listening to me breathing?"

Dean let out a long breath. "Look…you knew Sam for over three years at college," he began.

"Ya. And you knew him for like eighteen before that. What's your point?"

"You just…. You managed to knock him out of his loop after Jess. It kind of felt like you knew something I didn't."

Gaia sighed. "Yea, and I told you that you were just being stupid," she told him. "He's your brother. I don't know him any better than you do. I'm not his goddamn therapist; I'm just his friend. I call him for support too sometimes." Dean hesitated. "You know he called me the day you came back?"

There was a surprised pause on the other end of the line momentarily. "He did?" Dean murmured.

"Yea. You know how when you're a teenager there are some things you can't talk to your parents about? I think that was kind of like that. I didn't hear from him for those four months you were dead though."

Dean sighed. "Yea, that doesn't really make me feel any better."

"And he called me yesterday. After you were a total dick," she snapped. Dean was silent. "Yea. That's what I thought. So what the Hell's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" Dean exclaimed.

"Wha…? Yea! What's wrong with you?" Gaia asked loudly, standing up, shocked that Dean wasn't expecting the comment. "Listen, me and you both know that Sam isn't Mr. Tough Guy. That's you. He's the one who's open with his feelings, who isn't afraid to cry now and then. But when he cried on my shoulder back in college, it was because he thought he was disappointing his father or…because he was worried that being in California instead of backing you up on a hunt would get you killed. When he was back on the road with you, he called me crying because he missed Jess so much he just wanted to die or…because he had to shoot the girl he'd just slept with in the heart because she was a werewolf and he couldn't save her or…okay, Hell, because his father died. Never once, Dean, never before did he call me because of something you said."

Dean swallowed audibly. "I didn't…."

"You didn't what? You didn't mean to hurt his feelings?" Gaia asked, narrowing her eyes. "What did you expect him to say? He told me what you said, Dean, word for word. If I didn't know you…I would want to hunt you…. Did you really think that was going to go over well? Did you think about what you were saying before it came out of your mouth? He is terrified, Dean. Terrified. Of himself. That's one thing he can't run away from as much as he wants to. Himself. He's stuck. He's stuck with the demon blood in him."

"If he's so freaking terrified, then how could he use it, huh?" Dean yelled. "How could he do that? And not even tell me? He lied right to my face, Gaia, and told me he hadn't used his abilities since I died."

Gaia paused, pursing her lips. "What did he tell you when you asked him? Why did he say he was working with Ruby?"

Dean sighed loudly into the receiver and Gaia heard him bang his fist against something. "He wanted to turn it into something good," he muttered.

"You were gone, Dean," she whispered. "He did everything he could to try to save you and everything he could think of to try to get you back, and he couldn't. Let me ask you something: what did you do?"

Dean hesitated. "What?"

"What did you do when Sam was gone? When he was dead and gone and you were staring at his corpse?" she asked. She blinked back the tears that came as memories of Jake and Will lying in front of her dead flashed in her mind. "How rationally were you thinking when you had no one left? If you couldn't have brought Sam back, how badly do you think you would have spiraled out of control? So really, I wouldn't pin you as the one to be throwing punches at your brother because he made some desperate decisions."

Gaia heard Dean let out a breath that caught slightly in his throat as a sob. "I know," he whispered.

"I'm not blaming you for what you did, Dean. I'm telling you to smack yourself upside the head a few times until you realize that you aren't exactly helping the situation. I mean, shit, telling him he was hunt-worthy?"

"I didn't mean that he was hunt-worthy," Dean snapped quietly. "I just meant that if other hunters found out about him—. I mean you know what happened with Gordon—."

"Yea, I know. But if something like that is what you say when you don't mean to hurt him, I'd hate to hear what you say when you do mean to hurt him. And when did your attitude change on whether your brother is a good person or not?"

"He is a good person!" Dean exclaimed. "I'm just—."

"Scared," Gaia finished. "I know. But you've got to realize that your brother is falling apart here. Without you, he's got no one on his side. Hell, I'm in Virginia. I'm not much help. And if he thinks his own brother isn't holding out hope that he isn't going to go darkside, then what chance can he really think he has?"

Dean swallowed hard again and then let out another long breath. "You're right," he whispered, his voice almost inaudible.

"Duh, I'm right," she muttered. "Look, I told Sam that things aren't going to go back to the way they were before, and I'm going to say the same thing to you. Sam's changed. You've changed. You spent four months apart, him knowing you were rotting in Hell and thinking you were gone forever and you…well I don't even think I can give justice to what you went through. But…shit, Dean, you're still brothers. You spent eighteen years together. The way he talks about you…. I've never heard anyone talk about a sibling like that. He worships you. For him to know you're worried about his demon blood, that's one thing. For you to be saying the shit you said to him yesterday…that's something entirely different."

Gaia paused for a few seconds, waiting for Dean to respond. "You know…for someone who isn't a goddamn therapist, you're a pretty good one."

Gaia snorted. "I'm not a therapist. I just don't mince words. And I offer an outside opinion to your life. That's another reason Sam talks to me. Hell, that's why anyone talks to someone else about crap they have to deal with. It's a lot easier to look at crap and see it for what it is if you aren't in the middle of it."

Dean blew out his cheeks in another sigh. "You know why I called you?"

"Ya. I do," Gaia murmured. "And you were being a massive idiot. Did I manage to get through that thick skull of yours?"

Dean let out a small laugh. "Yea, I think so."

"Good. I'd hate to waste money on a plane ticket to come out there and kick your ass."

"Yea, Sam mentioned the slight proficiency with martial arts," Dean replied.

Gaia snorted. "Slight. Uh huh."

Dean paused. "Look, Gaia—."

"Dean, just…talk to your brother, okay?" she asked. "Don't get offended when he doesn't warm up to you right away after what you said…but talk to him."

Dean nodded to himself. "Alright," he muttered. "Ah…thanks."

"Yea. Feel free to call any time you need a good verbal ass-kicking again," she replied.

Dean smiled slightly. "Will do."