29.
"Emma?"
Nothing. She continues to stare straight out the front window, eyes glacial.
"Come on," Dean tries again. "You can't sit there sulking all night."
Emma is unmoved. If anything, the shoulder she's giving him from the other end of the Impala's front seat gets colder.
"Or maybe you can," he mutters. "Look, I said I was sorry. But, y'know, it really was a stressful timeā¦"
"I don't doubt that it was," she says, finally turning to glower at him. "But that doesn't change the fact that you threw away a god-finding amulet."
Dean grumbles and focuses on driving. After a while he mutters, "It was more than that."
Emma sighs heavily, the stiffness falling from her shoulders. "I know," she says softly. "And I'm sorry I'm being such a bitch. But I gave up everything to get here. I left my life behind on the strength of a miracle and a bunch of weird dreams. I should be on the other side of the world, angsting in my apartment and waiting for my exam results."
Dean turns to look at her, briefly taking his eyes from the road. "What miracle?"
"My best friend had polycystic ovaries. She couldn't have kids and IVF hadn't worked. Then she got pregnant by accident. When she had her first ultrasound they said all the wounds the cysts caused were gone.
"I flew out of Melbourne two days later."
She turns to meet his gaze, eyes hollow. "If this all falls through, and we fail, I've given up my future for nothing."
Dean fights for something to say. He and Sam gave up their lives for this war a long time ago, and despite the disasters in River Pass and Blue Earth, he's at a loss as to how to comfort someone who's so very new to all this.
So, he tells her the truth.
"You're not alone in this, Emma, you know that right?"
"Yeah," she murmurs back. "But I'm not brave like you and Sam and your friends." She bit her lip. "We'll need to stop somewhere; I need to contact Amitiel and tell her what's happened."
"And how're you gonna do that? You got some kind of two-way Angel Radio deal going?"
She shakes her head. "No, I just need to sleep."
Dean casts her a quick look. "You need to dream. That's how you talk to her, right?"
"Yeah. Its how we first met. I dreamt of a lake where my family used to go on holidays and she was there with me."
The mention of family sends a shiver of guilt through Dean's bones.
"We'll stop soon. You're not the only one who's gotta make a call."
