Chapter 25

Dean wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but he suddenly found himself somewhere else, although it was incredibly familiar.

Mae was skinny, hovering on that edge between scrawny. He supposed on some level, she was pretty; red hair cut into a bob that she typically wore messy and big eyes, almost cartoonish in their setting with her pale, petite features. He didn't like her. Dean recalled that clearly as he found himself reliving a long-buried memory.

The girl was a brat, only no one else seemed to see it. How could they not? She had a despicable habit of kicking him in the shin, moments before Dad or Uncle Bobby would come in the room, moments before he would try to get back at her and he'd get yelled at for picking on Mae. The rest of the time she was shy.

At first, she wouldn't even talk to him or Dad. She would whisper things in her uncle's ear and she would play with Sammy, evidently judging him no threat. But she regarded the older two Winchesters with a skepticism that seemed out of place on the face of a 6-year-old. She gave Dean and John the same hostile look, only she did it covertly to the patriarch and openly to Dean.

It was clear the girl wasn't used to strangers and was certainly dissatisfied to have them in her home. He'd only met Bobby once before and he seemed like a nice enough guy. Dad told them they could trust him, but Dean decided would be the judge of that. However, of all the things he assumed about the guy, having that little six-year-old redhead clinging to his leg wasn't one of them.

Dean shook his head. He knew it was a memory however it had felt far more realistic than he could have anticipated. He knew it wasn't real but damned if he had been able to recall their first meeting with that sort of sharp clarity of detail. The moment hadn't lasted long but it unnerved him more than he would admit.

In the few seconds, he'd spent indulging the vivid traces of the past, Mae started coming around. At least she didn't feel dizzy any longer. Of course, she felt the sharp pounding of what could be a concussion and the compliant of her body over the rough treatment. The air held the distinct scent of something burning. For the life of her, she had no idea what had just happened. At least not what stopped the spirit demon from taking her. After a brief self-assessment, she turned her attention to Dean who was oddly still as he covered her body with his.

"Dean?" Mae had to clear her throat, her voice holding far too much alarm when she said his name.

He had felt better and was certain he wouldn't feel worse anytime soon. It felt as if he had been electrocuted or something. Every muscle in his being was fighting him on this one. His first attempt at getting up went poorly as his body seemed unwilling to comply with his demands. He paused his efforts, gathering himself to try again. "You okay?" He asked against her shoulder.

"Yeah, I think so. What happened?"

Pushing up on his elbows, he felt stubborn resistance in his body so stopped there, taking only some of his body weight off the woman. "That bitch dropped me as soon as it got her hands on you. I put a match to the spell and grabbed you."

"Oh."

The room grew increasingly quiet. Oddly, they could hear the world outside from the gaping hole left where the window had been, and it was calm as if nothing had happened. In fact, it seemed like outside of that room nothing more had happened. Dean's focus moved from the yawning hole to his friend.

Mae's eyes were closed again as she took measured breaths. The absolute wrong feeling came over him for a moment and he found himself thinking how beautiful she was, how much he had missed being this close to her. She might have been a pain in the ass, now and then but he was undeniably drawn to her. Unthinkingly, he brushed her messy hair out of her pale, angular face. "You sure you okay? You've taken some pretty hard knocks, Red."

She felt the shift in his thoughts. It wasn't a psychic connection or anything, but his voice was softer, sweeter. Dean's gestures were always revealing. Not ready to accept the first thought she had, that knowing what he was thinking was part of the spell, her eyes shot open. As uncomfortable as she was with his concern, she had no plans on letting his feeling move passed that.

"Macho son of a—" She gasped then tried to look neutral again. Even if she had managed to hide the wide-eyed shock or the gasp, she would have had little success. The look on her face told him that the stinging on the side of his face might have been worse than in felt. "Dean."

The explosion of glass had left both with superficial scrapes and they would likely show bruises later. However, the small shards of glass and splinters of wood had embedded themselves along the side of his face and neck. It looked pretty bad, not life threatening but certainly annoying and could become a larger problem later.

"Maybe… maybe we should get back to the car."

His hand moved up to assess the condition of his face but hers gripped firmly at his wrist.

"Don't." She ordered with just as much firmness.

"It's nothing."

"You have part of a house stuck in your face. We're going outside, and I'll take care of you."

She pushed at his shoulders gently and they eased to their feet together. "If I had a nickel for every time a beautiful woman told me that-"

She rolled her eyes, tugging him into line with her. "You'd have 5 cents. Now, please?" She asked it like a question, but he knew there was no room for argument.

"Mae…"

"There's a first aid kit in the car, right?"

"Yeah but-"

"You look a mess. You can't really go around town in broad daylight looking this way."

"Are you sure you should do this right here?"

She gave a cursory glance around. They might have looked a bit out of place, but the street was virtually deserted. It appeared to be as good a place as any and they could probably come up with a good enough excuse where they caught.

"Don't argue with me on this Dean. Let me clean you up."

He hesitated but acquiesced without further argument. While Mae wasn't feeling herself yet, she led him down the stairs out of the house and to the car.

"Sit." Again, she ordered as she opened the car door and guided him into the back seat. Her strength didn't surprise him but the warmth that was tangled in it did. However, this was the Mae he remembered, a gentle and neutering woman. When she wasn't being a brat, Dean thought, smirking to himself.

"This might hurt." She said, returning from the trunk of the car with the bag containing the necessary first aid supplies they all too often needed.

"It's fine." He looked at her with a soft desire and she sighed as she crouched in front of him.

"Your cuts will get infected if you don't clean them."

"I'm aware."

"Shush. I'm distracting you. Don't talk back."

Her voice was gentle now and he could only make out a slight twinge of discomfort in her touch. Slender fingers touched the edge of his jaw, angling his face towards her as she examined him. His eyes drifted shut at the surprising comfort from the delicate touch. He could admit he felt a twinge of jealousy when Mae had looked after his brother and now it seemed justified.

Her hands were warm against his face. How could he not remember her frame from the night before when this left his senses unexpectedly alive? Those hazel green eyes sprang open when she shifted, breaking contact. He almost protested until he realized she was just getting the tweezers. Dean was amazed that even disheveled; he still found her beautiful and knew he always would.

Before she began removing the debris, he stopped her. Sliding across the bench seat a little more Dean pulled her inside the car. He pulled her close enough, so their thighs pressed against each other. She turned, and her hand came to cup his chin, pushing his head into a better position.

Mae had control over him in ways he could never tell her, but she had to know from the easy with which his head angled for her. He didn't complain about the efficient but none too pleasant way she removed the glass and wood splinters from the worst of the lacerations on his neck. The car was oddly quiet as she took the small shards out of the wound, the pieces making a soft click as she placed them in the upturned lid of the first aid kit she'd put in his lap.

Dean couldn't help but wince when she would pull out material buried a little too deep in his flesh although something about her hand on his face, her nearness made him forget about the pain. It would have only pissed her off, he though, if he told her that this was how he preferred to remember her, as a caregiver. He would have watched her if he could have kept his eyes open.

"What is it about you boys getting cut up on this job?" She mused mostly to herself.

Regret once again flooded his system, although not as overwhelming as some of the other emotions that had been encircling them recently. "Mae…"

"Shhh, don't talk."

"I just—ow!"

"I told you not to talk. Can you just stay still for five more minutes?" He obeyed waiting until she cleaned him up before he turned to her. The redhead knew better than to do much more than make sure scattering of cuts wouldn't get infected as she dabbed the rubbing alcohol wipe along the wounds. He would hardly keep any bandages on if she used any. It wasn't so bad, now that the debris was out, the bleeding stemmed, and his face cleaned up a bit.

"There, that's better. Now people will just have to get to know you more to find out that the crazy is on the inside." She poked his forehead playfully.

"Yeah well, now I'll do you."

Her brow furrowed. "What?"

"Your face is bleeding too Maes. Unless that's the ways girls are wearing it these days."

Dean had shielded her from most of the flying bits, but she did recall the stinging bites of something against her face in that room. "Fine," She huffed, taking the box off his lap, setting it in hers and letting him take over wiping the blood off her face.

She had fared better than he had in terms of what had embedded into her face. She had only received a minimal number of shallow cuts. Dean might have lingered longer than necessary as her eyes were closed and he could study her face without getting caught staring at her. She was far prettier than he thought when they first met. Now that they were both adults, he thought she was downright beautiful.

He cleared his throat. "Mae, I'm sorry."

Her eyes fluttered open, heavily skeptic. "For what?"

He would have laughed if it weren't so hopelessly unfunny. "You really have to ask?"

Pretending to not know what he was talking about would have been a waste of her energy. "Didn't we just go over this?"

"I don't mean last night. I get that whatever it was, we're on the same page. Although, I'm sorry that it was like that. I really can do better."

She gave him a snort of a laugh. "I'd hate for your ego to take the hit."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it."

"So, are you going to tell me what you're sorry for or can I just say I accept your apology and we leave the heavy emotional stuff to daytime TV?"

Now however, he could see that she was trying to back away, but he took hold of her wrists, holding her lightly. She could have pulled away easily, but he hoped she wouldn't. "I'm sorry for all the...shitty things I said to and about you, you know, after I thought you and dad...I mean, if it was anything like that..."

Mae pressed her lips together. She'd told him some, not all of what had happened. She always been a bit skeptical that he would believe that any of what happened had happened. It was certainly a lot to take in. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Now was neither the time nor place to tell him the rest but God, when he looked at her with those kind green eyes, she had a hard time remembering why.

"I mean, it wasn't exactly like that, with him. It was..." she cleared her throat and Dean found the pink tinging her cheeks adorable, "...if things were different, between us, it's not like I wouldn't have considered-not like that mind you... it's-all I'm saying is sleeping with you wasn't something that was totally out of the realm of possibility, in the absence of spells and demons, which I can't really say is true with your dad. So, this was...different. But you know to be honest, I don't really remember what happened. I know it did, I just couldn't tell you more"

She almost forgot he was still holding her wrists and she slid them from his hands, feeling suddenly very aware of how close he was. This wasn't any kind of spell work; it was simple nerves and awkwardness. there was a think kind of intimacy between the pair that surprised them.

Dean shifted away from her a bit. "Me either, which is weird."

"What about this isn't weird Dean?"

"You're not wrong there. You know, this is what I thought things would be like, between us?"

"You thought I'd be pulling glass out of your face while you annoyed me with the number of times you apologized to me?"

"No, I mean...getting a long, things feeling...nice."

"Oh, yeah, well... me too. I mean...yeah. I wasn't expecting... anything to be between us at all. I kind of thought...all those bridges were burned."

"If you asked me if that was true two months ago, yeah."

"Yeah, well...I'm sorry I couldn't tell you the truth a lot sooner."

"Well...we can't change things. So, we're okay?"

The redhead shrugged. "As okay as we've ever been."

There was more than enough reluctance in her voice, but he knew without a doubt that that if he let whatever moment they had just had escape, he might not find it again. "I was hoping for something a little better than that."

"Well, you know everything is so screwed up between us anyway."

"I was hoping to unscrew them."

It was difficult to tell him no, to push him away, particularly after everything that had happened. She knew her self-preservation instinct ran high, sometimes more than needed but this was all wrong. "Hard to unscrew what's already been screwed."

"Mae…I want things to be different. I mean while things feel normal, I need you to know… that I can't get over you."

"Please don't. Please don't make...this is not a good time to go down that road. I don't think...don't you ever sort of think that it's just not meant to be?"

"What's not meant to be?"

"You and me, having a... relationship like that."

"That's a grim assessment."

"I don't mean to be grim, I just… so many things keep coming up."

"That's life Mae."

The man was impossibly stubborn. Surely, he knew that being with anyone and being a hunter only caused more heartache, no matter how you felt about them. "In this life, we don't need extra. Besides, I don't think that we have a great track record here."

"We can… we can change."

Mae couldn't argue with him any longer. He had this damned optimism somehow. Perhaps it wasn't even optimism so much as his protectionist nature. On some level, he needed to take responsibility for fixing things between them. She didn't know if he could fix what was wrong but didn't have the heart to tell him that.

"Dean have you been… seeing things, people?"

The sudden shift in topic wasn't unexpected but it was confusing. "What do you mean?"

"Something… weird happened to me in the kitchen. I thought I saw this old woman and then… well then I don't know what happened next, but she disappeared."

"You're not having weirdo psychic visions too, are you?"

That lone eyebrow quirked in her 'are you kidding me' expression, making the older hunter smirk just a bit. "I don't know. My dreams aren't coming true or anything." She sighed before she continued. "It's not the first time and I was just thinking that maybe you were seeing her too since we've been on the same track lately, you know crazy behavior wise."

"No, I haven't. Well..."

"What?"

"I did have this weird thing back in the house. It was...more like a vivid memory. But nothing to do with this job."

"Of what then?"

"I... when we met."

"This morning?"

"No dummy, when we were kids."

"Huh. That's weird. Mine was our first kiss. I don't get... why that?"

"Beats me. Why didn't you say anything earlier?"

"Well the memory thing was just in the house too. The...if I really am seeing an old woman or something, I don't know. I'm still not sure that I saw anything. It could be nothing. Besides, when would have been a good time to even suggest something was wrong? When I wanted to rip your head off or when I wanted to rip your clothes off?"

"Fair enough. Well, I'm not quite that crazy yet. Do me a favor though, talk to me okay? I don't care what you think we are to each other but right now, we're working together and-"

"We need to be able to trust each other, I know. I just… well you know how I am."

"Stubborn as a mule."

The little smile that turned her lips was encouraging. He let his eyes rove over her angular features, pale but tinted with hints of crimson now. "Mae, don't misconstrue this as part of the spell."

Moving in to cup her jaw as she had done to him, he kissed her.