"Shit," Lizzy can hear Dean swear from the living room.
"What's wrong?" she asks him, hearing the worry in his voice from across the hall as she puts on the necklace that goes perfectly with her red top.
"My picture's gone."
Scrunching up her face as she knows she's caught, Lizzy says a quick 'fuck' under her breath.
"What picture?" she tries to sound unknowing as she rushes to finish getting dressed.
"Fuck," Dean now panics a bit and Lizzy knows she has to go into damage control pretty fast now. She grabs her purse and heels and runs to him in the living room.
"Baby, what's going on?"
He has his wallet in his hand, opened up as he dumps the few items in it out onto the coffee table.
"My picture," he tells her, rifling through the few papers that had been inside the wallet. "I don't know what happened but it's gone."
"Yeah…" Lizzy nods and fesses up as she doesn't have the heart to let him freak out like this. "I know."
"What!?" he looks up at her confused.
"You're talking about the picture of you and your mother you keep in there."
"You knew about that?" Dean questions with surprise. No one knew he had that. Only Sam knew.
"I didn't…. until recently," she admits. "I was going to steal that note I wrote you when we first met and do something with it for Valentine's Day. Like frame it or something. I know, kinda corny…"
"Ok…" he wonders where she's going with this.
Lizzy then reaches down the side of the couch and pulls out a red paper wrapped rectangular package she had hidden there. "But instead I found something better."
Dean watches as she holds out the gift to him, Mary's charm bracelet jangling a bit from her wrist as she does.
He takes the package and looks at her funny.
"I wasn't gonna give it to you until later but I also didn't expect you to notice the picture was missing before now," she explains before smiling wide. "Happy Valentine's Day, baby."
Curiously, Dean rips open the paper. Inside he finds a framed copy of the picture that's always with him. It looks new though, no wrinkles, rips along the edges, and the color is no longer faded out. It looks perfect.
"I restored it for you," she tells him, taking the original out of the purse in her hand and giving it back over. "It's seen better days and even though I think you should still keep it in your wallet… I wanted you to have a good copy here, in our home."
Speechless. She's the only one who can get him here but he's speechless. "That's…" he sighs with a smile, looking at the image of his mother, the woman he misses so much every damn day of his life. He runs his finger over the glass, above her beautiful face, with painful longing. "L… that's like… the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."
She smiles wide. "Family is everything. We can't let ourselves lose anything of the people we've loved and lost. And I already know where to put it."
She pulls his arm to the wall in their living room that she's previous hung framed pictures of her family. She had the childhood picture of her and Lou waiting for the school bus on the first day of school that she once gave Sam there, along with the picture of her parents Dean stole in their trip to her past, a picture of Jo and Ellen she took out front of the Roadhouse, one of her and Bobby from her training days, one of front-toothless Lizzy sitting in her grandmother Shirley's lap, one of John sitting on the hood of the Impala with an eight year old Dean by his side and a four year old Sammy in his lap that she found in John's journal, and the one of Dean and Sam laughing on the hood of the Impala that she gave him for Christmas.
Taking the frame from him she hangs it on the lone nail in the middle of them all that she put up when he was at work earlier, completing the collage of frames. She steps back to stand next to Dean and he brings an arm around her shoulders.
"Perfect," Lizzy grins as she looks at her handy work.
"It is," Dean agrees, not able to take his eyes off of the picture. His mother looks young, bright, and just perfect in that image. She's exactly the image he remembers of her and it's the one he has burned in his mind. "She always looks happy in that picture."
"She was happy," Lizzy tells him with certainty as she brings her arms around his middle and stands by his side looking up at him. "She was with you."
And the face Dean makes at that is almost bordering heartbroken.
"And look at that little face. You were so cute," Lizzy points out. The young, three year old boy in the picture also looks absolutely pain free, like life was just too easy and filled with happiness. His bleach blond hair is on the long side, something Lizzy's never really seen from him, and his big eyes are lit right up with his smile. Lizzy grabs Dean's chin and shakes. "What the hell happened?"
Dean huffs a laugh. "Life happened. And I got punched in it too many times since then."
Lizzy laughs at that. "Nah, you're still cute. And you're even cuter when you're taking me to dinner." She presses up and kisses him on the cheek.
Dean looks down at her, ducking his head once to kiss her on the lips. "Thank you."
"You're very welcome."
"And now I feel like an ass," he says to her, backing away. "Because I didn't get you anything."
"You didn't have to get me anything," she assures.
"I know," Dean answers, knowing it's true. "But I just wish I had known that you got me such an awesome gift."
"That's not what it's about," Lizzy shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest. "It's not about being forced to do something nice. I just had this idea and I wanted to do it because I love you. That's it. Plus, we aren't exactly the gift giving types usually anyways."
Dean nods and walks into the bedroom while saying to her, "I'm glad you see it that way."
"Now can we get going?" Lizzy asks while following him. "I'm fucking starving."
"Sure," Dean nods as he reaches under their bed. When he stands up he's holding a red box with a pink bow on it. He walks into the hallway where she's waiting for him. "After you open this."
When Lizzy sees it a slow smile creeps across her face. "Thought you didn't get me anything."
"Eh, I lied," he says with a grin and walks over to her. He holds out the box for her to take.
Her big toothy grin stares up at him while she takes the box. "Shit, you're like most husbands now, huh? Guilted into buying me things for fake holidays?"
"We're already doing dinner like regular jackasses so I figured whatever," Dean nearly grumbles, almost hating how normal they're being right now… almost.
Lizzy puts her purse and heels on the floor and opens the box. Getting past the pink colored tissue paper she has to laugh when she sees the gift.
"This isn't for me, you jerk!" she laughs loudly when she sees the skimpy, red lace lingerie inside. "This is for you!"
"No way," he jokes along with her. "That's for you. Once you put that on, trust me… what I do to you after that will be the gift."
"Oh really?" she smiles with excitement, placing the box on a small table in the hall and bringing her arms around his neck.
"Definitely," he says, kissing her with promise. "Believe me when I say this gift is for you."
"And you too, be honest."
"Ok, a little bit me too," Dean admits, kissing her once again. "You know, we could just stay here. I can have you for dinner instead."
She grins and kisses him one more time. "Nice try," she winks and backs away. "But I need to eat. Fuel up for a long night."
"Well I can't argue with that one, can I?"
"Nope," Lizzy grins wide. "Come on, Casanova! Let's go!"
And forgetting that her dog's original name is Casanova, he comes running to her instantly, tail wagging with excitement.
"Shit," she complains with a grin, petting Cass on the head. "I so said the wrong thing."
"Yeah you did," Dean glees with her mistake. "Now you have walk him."
"Nothing like a dog walk in heels, right?" she laughs a bit, heading down the stairs and grabbing his leash and her coat. "I'll be back."
"Nah, I'll come with you," Dean offers, following her down the stairs and putting his leather jacket on.
"You don't have to."
"I want to," he smiles, grabbing the leash from her.
The little family heads out on their Valentine's Day walk.