Miriana awoke early in the morning, not feeling refreshed at all after a restless nights' sleep. In fact, she felt even worse than the night before. The migraine hadn't gone away, and had intensified to the point that even double strength pain killers did nothing to alleviate the chronic, stabbing pain. She showered and dressed for the day in faded grey jeans and a fitted top, even applied her usual smoky eyeliner, but found she couldn't even get out of the door. She lay back down on the bed and curled up in a foetal position, drawing her knees up to her chest and staring blankly at the floral wallpaper on the opposite wall. She couldn't understand what was wrong with her.

She heard Sam knocking at the door and calling out for her quietly after an hour of lying almost comatose on the bed. But she ignored it, pretended to still be asleep. He knocked once more and rung her twice, but stopped after that. She stayed slumped on her bed all morning, until eventually she felt well enough to stand up. She needed to get out of the room; it felt as if the walls were closing in on her, as if the air she was breathing choked her.

She ended up wandering around the suburbs aimlessly, when she ended up in the same park she had met Castiel in the previous day, when she saw a familiar leather jacket-clad figure on the same park bench Castiel had been sat on. She wasn't in the mood to speak to him in the mood she was in, so she turned and started striding towards the entrance to the park, hoping he hadn't seen her.

"Miriana!" Goddamit! No such luck. She ignored him and continued walking.

"Come on Miriana, don't cold shoulder me!" he pleaded.

She stopped, inhaling deeply then turned to face him. He was still sprawled across the bench, watching her closely with his green eyes.

"I'm sorry I snapped, okay? I was just, in a bad headspace, me and Sammy-"

"Had a fight, I know," she cut across him. She walked over slowly and slumped on the bench next to him. "He told me."

Dean sighed, "I'm guessing you know what he did with Sam Hain, then?"

"Yes of course," she said, running a hand through her hair, "And before you say anything Dean, I don't like it any more than you do, but...what can we do?"

"We can stop him," Dean stated.

"He's not a kid anymore Dean, you can't tell him what to do. He has to make his own mistakes," Miriana said quietly. Dean shook his head.

"Of course I can tell him what to do!" he said indignantly, "You and I both know what will happen if these powers get out of control," he leaned forwards, gazing intently at the ground.

"I can't let that happen to Sammy," he said quietly.

Miriana put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, "I know how you feel about these powers. I feel exactly the same. But he had to use them. Sam Hain would have killed you and everybody else in this town."

"But he promised he wouldn't use them!" Dean said, exasperated, "He promised."

"Some promises you have to break, Dean," she said softly.

Silence fell between them, and Miriana listened to the sounds of the birds in the autumnal trees and the shouts and laughter of the children in the playground.

"So the seal was broken, I'm guessing," Miriana said, although she didn't need the answer.

"Yeah, but we stopped him. That's enough."

They stopped talking yet again for a few minutes, then Dean said,

"Cas dropped in," he said nonchalantly.

"I see," Miriana said in a level voice. Dean glanced across at her.

"Has he fluttered in to see you recently?" he asked in a far too casual voice.

"I saw him yesterday," Miriana fought to keep any emotion out of her voice, "But I just sort of...stumbled across him."

"So what do you make of him?"

Miriana sighed. Did they really have to have this conversation? "I don't really know. He's...interesting, I guess."

"Hmmm."

Miriana whirled to face him, "What?" she demanded.

"Nothin'", Dean muttered, but she could swear she saw the slightest smirk around his lips. Dean turned to look at her fully in the face, and the smirk dropped from his face. She saw sparks of concern in his eyes.

"Are you alright? You look terrible!" he exclaimed. She hadn't really looked in the mirror this morning.

"Cheers, Dean," he grumbled, folding her arms across her chest.

But there was no laughter in his voice, "No seriously. You look ill."

Miriana shrugged her shoulders, surprised by how heavy they felt, as if she were carrying a great weight on them. "Maybe I should see a doctor," she said.

"C'mere," Dean said quietly, throwing his arm across Miriana's shoulders and pulling her into him. She leaned her head against his broad shoulder, breathing in that familiar scent of his aftershave mixed with the smell of his soft leather jacket, feeling the roughness of his plaid shirt under her cheek.

"You look sick, Miriana," Dean said in a quietly strained voice.

Glad that he couldn't see her face, Miriana simply said, "I'm fine. Really I'm always pale."

"You don't have to tell me," he said softly, "But if you do, I'm there. As long as there's a beer involved."

She almost felt guilty for her anger at him before, for forgetting how much he cared for her and how much she cared for him. Dean was the one dependent, reliable constant in her life, besides what was left of her family. She listened to the deep rhythmic sound of his breathing and the strong beat of his heart, feeling a little better than she had done before.

"Sam's worried about you, you know," Dean said, his voice rumbling in his chest, "He constantly worrying about you; it's driving me mad."

"Why?"

"He thinks you're ill. And now I guess I can agree with him."

"What can I do Dean? I can't imagine a doctor could give me anything."

"Maybe I should ask Cas to lay his hands on you. You know, angel of the lord and everything. I bet he could heal you."

Miriana blushed, once again glad Dean could not see her face.

"I don't think he could help," she said, flustered.

"I'm gonna ask him," Dean said decisively.

"Don't," Miriana barked, pulling away from his chest and holding out a stern finger.

"Alright, I won't," he held up his hand in a gesture of defence. "God, I've never seen anyone get so testy," he muttered under his breath as she leaned back against his chest. She lightly punched him the stomach, and he scrubbed his knuckles against her head, mussing her hair.

At that moment, the sharp ringtone of Deans' mobile cut through the quiet air, making both of them jump. Dean dug around in his leather jacket and flipped the phone open.

"Yeah?" she gathered from the curt way he answered the phone that it was Sam on the other end. Miriana watched his face carefully, noting the tense lines around his eyes.

"Right. Whatever. I'll be there in a minute." He shut the phone with a snap and stood up with a sigh.

"Sam wants to get going," Dean muttered, "He wants to find a new case to work on."

"No worries," Miriana said, "I'm thinking of taking a job myself. A suspected werewolf up in Minnesota. It'll do me good to hunt."

"Yeah," Dean said, "seems we both need to take our minds of things." He rolled his borad shoulders. "Keep in touch."

He ruffled Miriana's hair, then turned and strode off across the park towards the Impala, gleaming in the dappled sunlight. She leaned back heavily against the bench so the wood creaked in protest, and cast her eyes up at the sky, watching the few weak, wispy clouds scudding across the pale blue sky. Now she was alone again, the migraine began to make itself known, so that each time her eyes passed close to the sun, her head throbbed in protest. Needing something to take her mind off the pain, she flipped her phone open and scrolled through her contact list until she found the name of the hunter who had tipped her off about the werewolf. She pressed the phone to her ear, and after a few rings the phone was answered with a sharp, "What?"

"Hello Rufus, its Miriana. About that werewolf..."

***

The weeks passed slowly for Miriana. Tracking down the werewolf had proved far more difficult than expected, so much of her time was spent trawling round the city looking for leads, posing as various different people with various different fake ID's, until she finally found the person she was looking for. He had escaped on the first night of the full moon, his side barely grazed by one of Miriana's silver bullets. The second night, however, she had been much better prepared, and had shot him straight in the chest at point blank range after he had turned and tried to claw open her torso. It had taken her just under a full month for her to complete the job, unusual for somebody as efficient as Miriana. Her headaches were definitely starting to affect her.

She had spoken to Nate and her aunt a few times, and to the Winchesters, but she had spent the last few weeks completely alone, with very little human contact. Miriana was used to being alone, and had always been a solitary person, but it was times like these that she really missed her hunting partner. She and Cristian had always been inseparable, always been there to fight alongside each other and patch up each other's wounds afterwards. She didn't dwell on the sometimes crippling loneliness, but at times it was hard to ignore the nagging feeling.. Even when she was hunting with Sam and Dean, she still felt somewhat alienated, like a bystander watching everything through a frosted window, unable to see everything that was happening. Cristian had been perfect for her, handsome, intelligent, caring and perhaps most important, able to put up with tempestuousness and strange habits. She used to be able to, in her naivety, see marriage and children with him, the possibility for a safer, better life. But much like Sam, this future had been shattered, leaving a dark, uncertain, path in front of her.

She suspected the lack of conversation or real contact with anyone around her was starting to make her a bit crazy. She found that she was talking to herself more than ever and constantly taking out the contents of her bags and rearranging them, obsessively cleaning her weapons. When she slept, she slept fitfully, waking often from disturbing dreams of fire and shadows, Sam laughing with eyes like sickly yellow flames, Dean screaming in hell and angels with their wings burnt to cinders. She woke often covered in sticky, cold sweat.

After yet another night spent in the smoky, dull confines of the local bar nursing a glass of vodka, she wandered back to her motel room, her head the slightest bit fuzzy from the alcohol she had drunk. She was not one for drinking herself into a stupor like Dean was prone to doing, but she had found herself drinking far more than usual. She trudged slowly up to the motel and slid the key into the lock with slightly more difficulty than usual and opened the door into the darkness. She flipped the light on to find a figure a stood in her room.